subject: [WikiEN-l] Label it as Marxist terminology

body:
On Thu, 12 Feb 2004, Poor, Edmund W wrote:

> Fred complained that:
>
> > We don't present all main views or even the predominant
> > view. We censor views we feel are incorrect and substitute
> > euphemisms; so East Germany becomes a "socialist country",
> > not a totalitarian Marxist-Leninist government imposed by
> > fiat on the Soviet Zone of occupied Germany.
>
> One way to solve this problem is to identify the term "socialist" as
> Marxist terminology. I finally managed to wedge into the [[Communist
> state]] article the FACT that Marxists classify societies by their
> economic system, while the West generally classify societies by the
> political system.
>
> So Marxists call various nations "Capitalist countries" or "Socialist
> countries" (that's their main division, anyway).
>
> Meanwhile, people like Fred and me call various nations "Democratic
> countries" or "dictatorships" or "Totalitarian countries".
>
> Note that the categories overlap but do not entirely coincide!
>
> There are two crucially different spectrums being used as classification
> schemes here.
>
> So, an article can say that:
>
> * Marxists called East Germany a "socialist country", because its
> economic system was blah blah blah.
> * Prof. John Doe of XYZ University (or PDQ Thinktank) called East
> Germany a "totalitarian country" because its political system was yadda
> yadda yadda.
>
I think you miss the point here, Ed. From what I know of East Germany,
the citizens *believed* (whether or not correctly) that they lived in
a socialist country. I'm basing this on a couple of data:

*Back in 1997, I happened to be in Berlin, where I had the chance to
visit many of the museums. (The Pergamon Museum is definitely not to be
missed.) At a museum on Under den Linden Strasse (the name escapes me,
& I can't find my notes) there was an exhibit on the iconography used
in the propaganda of the former DDR. One aspect that still stays with me
from that exhibit concerned the commentary on the various items of the
exhibit: the English text was clearly not a complete translation of the
German text! Intregued, & although my German at the time was still
rusty, I compared the two versions from display to display to find out
what was omitted -- & perhaps why.

The upshot of my comparisons was that the German text spent far more
time wrestling with the problem that a centrally planned economy did not
work.  And when discussing the major crisis of the history of the DDR --
a Five Year Plan in the late 1950s that caused massive damage to the
economy, famine, & led to massive emigration to the West & the Berlin
Wall -- the German text blamed Soviet interference with the German economy.
Evidently, the German people expect their government not only to
be efficient, but paternal in its functions. (A conclusion I hold
only unless corrected by my fellow Wikipedians from Germany.)

*In 1976, when I was a camp counselor for the YMCA, there was an exchange
student from Yugoslavia, who sincerely believed that Communism was the best
form of government. Whether he still holds this belief now is another
matter.

It must needs be noted that even socialists still debate whether or not
the Soviet Union, China, et alia, are or were truly socialist economies;
as a frined of mine who is far more versed in this political theory once
told me, when I asked him whether the Open Source development model was
an example of "socialism that works" -- "There's no truly commonly
accepted definition of what socialism actually is. Socialism is whatever
someone says it is."

Geoff


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Poor, Edmund W

body:
Fred complained that:

> We don't present all main views or even the predominant
> view. We censor views we feel are incorrect and substitute
> euphemisms; so East Germany becomes a "socialist country",
> not a totalitarian Marxist-Leninist government imposed by
> fiat on the Soviet Zone of occupied Germany.

One way to solve this problem is to identify the term "socialist" as
Marxist terminology. I finally managed to wedge into the [[Communist
state]] article the FACT that Marxists classify societies by their
economic system, while the West generally classify societies by the
political system.

So Marxists call various nations "Capitalist countries" or "Socialist
countries" (that's their main division, anyway).

Meanwhile, people like Fred and me call various nations "Democratic
countries" or "dictatorships" or "Totalitarian countries".

Note that the categories overlap but do not entirely coincide!

There are two crucially different spectrums being used as classification
schemes here.

So, an article can say that:

* Marxists called East Germany a "socialist country", because its
economic system was blah blah blah.
* Prof. John Doe of XYZ University (or PDQ Thinktank) called East
Germany a "totalitarian country" because its political system was yadda
yadda yadda.

Fred, will this satisfy you?

Ed Poor
Professional Peacemaker


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] The integrity of Wikipedia

body:
Gareth Owen wrote:

>"Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> writes:
>
>>I'm saying that it's /especially/ because of examples like this, where
>>one person is so sure of the 'truth' that he asserts only a "delusional"
>>person could disagree, that we /must/ adhere to the NPOV when writing
>>Wikipedia articles.
>>
>I know.
>I was trying to ridicule the previous writer by
>stating *my* opinions as if they were fact.
>
Impugning someone's sanity if they don't believe is a common bully tactic.

>Moral relativism is a fact.  Moral standards change, and have changed over time.
>
>For example : Suppose a US politician said this in a debate --
>
>"There is a physical difference between the races which I believe will forever
> forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality"
>
>I can add that to his page in two ways : I can write
>
>"In debate, he stated that he believed
>     `There is a physical difference between the races ...'"
>
>or
>
>"He held a number of racist and racial separatist views, stating that
>        `There is a physical difference between the races ...'"
>
There are three ways.  You have given an indirect quotation and a
characterization, with the latter being a clearly inferior option.
 Direct quotation is also a viable option, and is preferable if the
statement is at all controversial.  Thus "On this date and at that place
he said 'There is ...'"  The reader would have the opportunity to
relatively easily check the facts.

>Now, by Fred's "logic", and calling a spade a spade, I'm going to call this
>politician on his racism, as only someone delusional could believe those were
>the opinions of a man who wasn't a racist.
>
>But the rest of us, who know who moral standards differ between
>places and eras, are going to think that looks pretty odd in the
>middle of [[Abraham Lincoln]].
>
The presumption that heroes can say nothing wrong, and that villains can
say nothing right is often very strong.

Ec

>


list: wikitech-l

subject: [Wikitech-l] FW: [WikiEN-l] sock puppets

body:
-----Original Message-----
From: KNOTT, T [mailto:TKNOTT at qcl.org.uk]
Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2004 12:08 PM
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: [WikiEN-l] sock puppets

I am reasonably certain that [[User:R Gunther]] is Mr Natty health
trying to avoid his ban. Should I just ban him now or should a request a
developer to look at is IP ?


from_name: Sascha Noyes

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The integrity of Wikipedia

body:
On Thursday 12 February 2004 09:13 am, Fred Bauder wrote:
>> I see. And where is this world where issues are black and white and values
>> absolute???
> In the heart of any honorable person.

Just a friendly reminder that extremists (Nazis, suicide bombers, etc.) are
extremely fond of your idea of there being absolute black and white values.
Of course _they_ are always the ones that hold the "white" ones and the
others hold the "black" ones.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Relativism and PC (was: The integrity of Wikipedia)

body:
>>The doctrine that there is no absolute truth is usually called
"relativism". Bloom estimated that over 90% of incoming freshman at
America's best colleges subscribed to this doctrine. So it's an
important issue to consider at Wikipedia.

>Really?  Did he give figures on how many had thought better of it by
the end of the 'best colleges'?  Does this tell one much about anything,
except that teenagers might still have a little to learn?  (Design of
questionnaire to test this: 'Is relativism correct?  Answer (a) Yes (b)
No (c) Whatever.)

LOL. His "Closing of the American Mind" didn't provide statistics.

It was almost entirely a plea that relativism should not take over the
academy, lest openness be used as a dodge to fetter us all. Then the
poor bloke died. :-(

Anyway, the PC article could use a little work. It needs a balance
between liberal and conservative views of PC-ness. Liberals mostly deny
that PC even exists, so it might be tricky. I guess the best strategy is
to quote conservatives a lot, then wait for other contributors to
provide the liberal rebuttal. But I don't relish wading into that swamp.

Ed


from_name: John C. Penta

subject: [WikiEN-l] The integrity of Wikipedia

body:
What people seem to forget:

NPOV is not a suicide pact.

NPOV is great, normally, but call a spade a spade.

Except for the delusional, Osama Bin Laden *is* a terrorist.

Except for the delusional, Mugabe, Mobutu, Qaddafi, Stalin, Lenin, and Pol Pot...ARE dictators.

Frankly, when it comes to representing reality or keeping to NPOV...I choose reality, thanks. I refuse to follow in the footsteps of Walter Durant.

John
Content-type: multipart/alternative;
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I agree 100% with Fred.  172 is in the process of whitewashing the bio of every dictator who has ever lived.  Robert Mugabe is being portrayed as a victim of colonial oppression, he's never done anything bad in his life, apparently.  The only person on Wikipedia who seems to have ever done anything wrong in Hitler, and I'm surprised we haven't let Nazis come in and make him out to be a hero.  After all, saying that he's responsible for the deaths of millions of people is POV.

RickK

Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
In our efforts to be politically correct we are unable to describe al-Qaeda
as a terrorist organization or East Germany as a totalitarian regime. Thus
we distort reality and drift off into a fantastic world where there is no
black and white, no values and ultimately a rather poor encyclopedia that
can't be trusted.

Fred

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online

--Boundary_(ID_zltMsOJiopaSMN2cNKO3Uw)
Content-type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
Content-comments: Conversion error: %NONAME-W-NOMSG, Message number 00000000

I agree 100% with Fred.  172 is in the process of whitewashing the bio of every dictator who has ever lived.  Robert Mugabe is being portrayed as a victim of colonial oppression, he's never done anything bad in his life, apparently.  The only person on Wikipedia who seems to have ever done anything wrong in Hitler, and I'm surprised we haven't let Nazis come in and make him out to be a hero.  After all, saying that he's responsible for the deaths of millions of people is POV.

RickK

Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:

In our efforts to be politically correct we are unable to describe al-Qaeda
as a terrorist organization or East Germany as a totalitarian regime. Thus
we distort reality and drift off into a fantastic world where there is no
black and white, no values and ultimately a rather poor encyclopedia that
can't be trusted.

Fred

Do you Yahoo!?

Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online

--Boundary_(ID_zltMsOJiopaSMN2cNKO3Uw)--
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body:
Comparing a debater with a murderer is not helpful...

I do believe Sascha has caused Godwin's Law to be invoked...

----- Original Message -----
From: Sascha Noyes <sascha at pantropy.net>
Date: Thursday, February 12, 2004 12:32 pm
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: The integrity of Wikipedia

> On Thursday 12 February 2004 09:13 am, Fred Bauder wrote:
> >> I see. And where is this world where issues are black and white
> and values
> >> absolute???
> > In the heart of any honorable person.
>
> Just a friendly reminder that extremists (Nazis, suicide bombers,
> etc.) are
> extremely fond of your idea of there being absolute black and
> white values.
> Of course _they_ are always the ones that hold the "white" ones
> and the
> others hold the "black" ones.
>
> Best,
> Sascha Noyes
> --
> Please encrypt all email. Public key available from
> www.pantropy.net/snoyes.asc
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] The integrity of Wikipedia

body:
On Thursday 12 February 2004 11:41 am, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> There is a significant difference between NPOV and "moral relativism",

Actually there isn't.

> Moral relativism says that there are no values.

No it doesn't. Moral relativism says that there are no _absolute_ values.
Merely that different (and often broadly overlapping) sets of values are held
by different groups/in different times. Another important aspect of moral
relativism is the origin of the values in groups. Moral relativist posit that
the values of a group are significantly influenced by factors such as
tradition, power-structure.

> NPOV does not say this,
> but as a practical matter insists that no article be used to take a
> stand endorsing or opposing any values.

Not endorsing or opposing any values, because they are not absolute, is the
fundamentalist moral relativist position.

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


from_name: Viajero

subject:
[WikiEN-l] "militant": dishonest euphemism? (was: Re: The word
	'terrorist')

body:
On 02/11/04  at 02:57 PM, Delirium <delirium at rufus.d2g.com> said:

> Consider:
> * A group of Al-Qaeda terrorists crashed a plane into the World Trade
> center, murdering 3500 civilians.
> * Members of the Islamic militant group Al-Qaeda crashed a plane into
> the World Trade center, killing 3500 civilians.

> They contain the same information, but the second one is much more
> neutral, IMO, without being at all conciliatory.

As I've indicated in earlier discussions on this topic, I agree of course
with Delirium. Alas, it appears however that there is far from concensus
on the matter within the community at large. An ongoing revert war has
been taking place over in the first line of the article on Bin Laden:

  [...] is the leader and head of al-Qaeda, widely regarded as the most
  extensive terrorist organization in the world

Adam Carr, for example, insists on "terrorist" while others replaces it
with "militant". Adam wrote on the Talk page:

  However, I don't mind the deletion of the word from the opening
  paragraph, provided it is not replaced with the dishonest euphemism
  "militant." Adam 06:29, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)

It is a pity that Adam Carr isn't here on the list to defend this
argument.

V.


subject: [WikiEN-l] The integrity of Wikipedia

body:
-----Original Message-----
From: Sascha Noyes [mailto:sascha at pantropy.net]
Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2004 12:51 PM
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The integrity of Wikipedia

On Thursday 12 February 2004 11:41 am, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> There is a significant difference between NPOV and "moral relativism",

Actually there isn't.

> Moral relativism says that there are no values.

No it doesn't. Moral relativism says that there are no _absolute_
values.
Merely that different (and often broadly overlapping) sets of values are
held
by different groups/in different times. Another important aspect of
moral
relativism is the origin of the values in groups. Moral relativist posit
that
the values of a group are significantly influenced by factors such as
tradition, power-structure.

> NPOV does not say this,
> but as a practical matter insists that no article be used to take a
> stand endorsing or opposing any values.

Not endorsing or opposing any values, because they are not absolute, is
the
fundamentalist moral relativist position.

Best,
Sascha Noyes
--
Please encrypt all email. Public key available from
www.pantropy.net/snoyes.asc
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body:
On Thursday 12 February 2004 12:40 pm, John C. Penta wrote:
> Comparing a debater with a murderer is not helpful...
>
> I do believe Sascha has caused Godwin's Law to be invoked...

Read what I wrote again. I did not compare a debater with a murderer. This is
a strawman attack, and you know it.

Here is the core to which you are objecting:

>"extremists (Nazis, suicide bombers, etc.) are extremely fond of your idea of
>there being absolute black and white values."

Do you thin that this statement is untrue, or do you simply have no arguments
against it?

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] NPOV vs. moral relativism

body:
First, sorry for hitting the send button accidentally; I re-transmitted
Sascha's entire post needlessly.

Second, I just did a Google search for "moral relativism" and the first
hit was www.moralrelativism.com which says:

<< Moral Relativism is the theory that morality, or standards of right
and wrong, are culturally based and therefore become a matter of
individual choice. You decide what's right for you, and I'll decide
what's right for me. Moral relativism says, "It's true for me, if I
believe it."

Moral Relativism has gradually become the prevailing moral philosophy of
western society, a culture once governed largely by the Judeo-Christian
concept of morality. While those early standards continue to form the
basis for civil law, people by and large are embracing the notion that
right and wrong are not absolute values, but are to be decided by the
individual and can change from one situation or circumstance to the
next. Essentially, moral relativism says that anything goes, because
life is ultimately without meaning. >>

Note:
* "Moral Relativism has gradually become the prevailing moral philosophy
of western society"
* "...right and wrong are not absolute values, but are to be decided by
the individual"

Jimbo and Larry's NPOV policy does not say that right and wrong are to
be decided by the individual. It says (and this is a crucial
distinction) that when matters of fact are in dispute, the Wikipedia
won't endorse one side as correct. It also says that Wikipedia won't
endorse one philosophical or religious viewpoint as correct. Same with
moral or ethical judgments.

Wikipedia doesn't say whether there is or is not an absolute standard.
It is even neutral on that! The NPOV is not an endorsement of moral
relativism, nor a condemnation of it. It's a policy decision not to
/assert/ any conclusions, but it never says that such conclusions are
impossible to draw.

Ed Poor


subject: [WikiEN-l] NPOV vs. moral relativism

body:
On Thursday 12 February 2004 01:07 pm, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> Jimbo and Larry's NPOV policy does not say that right and wrong are to
> be decided by the individual. It says (and this is a crucial
> distinction) that when matters of fact are in dispute, the Wikipedia
> won't endorse one side as correct. It also says that Wikipedia won't
> endorse one philosophical or religious viewpoint as correct. Same with
> moral or ethical judgments.

In the first sentence, do you use "right" and "wrong" in the context of
morality, or in the context of truth? If the former, then I disagree with
that sentence - If the latter, then I agree with it.

(I'd also be more interested to hear your take on the arguments I made against
your position, and not those of some website) :)

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


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] possible solution to definition of "document"

body:
Just read a rather clever idea on the German mailing list for settling the
dispute over whether the whole of wikipedia or each article is a separate
document. They have simply amended the bottom boilerplate license notice to
state that "Jeder Artikel wird einzeln unter der GNU FDL lizenziert." -
"Every article is individually licensed under the GNU FDL."

Is this a possible solution to our uncertainty?

Best,
Sascha Noyes

Copy of message:

------------

From:
Ulrich Fuchs <mail@****>

To:
"Mailingliste der deutschsprachigen Wikipedia" <wikide-l at Wikipedia.org>

Date:
Today 03:51:19 am

Tach,
aus aktuellem Anlass (siehe Wiki-Int) habe ich jetzt nochmal den Textbaustein
MediaWiki:Gnunote angepasst. Der begann fr?her mit "Diese Seite ist unter..",
elian hat vor ein paar Tagen in "Alle Texte...." ge?ndert, Ich hab das jetzt
nochmal ge?ndert in "Alle Artikel.... " und einen Satz drangeklebt:

"Jeder Artikel wird einzeln unter der GNU FDL lizenziert."

Die Seit Jahren insbesondere bei en: im Raum stehende Frage ist, ob die WP als
ganzes oder einelne Artikel unter Copyright stehen stehen und nach der GNU
FDL lizenziertz werden. Der gewichtige Unterschied ist, dass im ersteren Fall
die Nennung von f?nf Wikipedia-Autoren ausreichen w?rde, um die ganze(!) WP
zu kopieren und unter eigenem Namen weiter zu vertreiben.

Das l?uft meines Erachtens dem Geist der GNU FDL zuwider, die die "Credits" an
die Autoren ja bewusst drin hat (gem?? dem Motto: Wenn ich schon umsonst
schreibe, soll sich wenigstens kein anderer mit meinen Lorbeeren schm?cken).

Bei uns kommt noch das deutsche Urheberrecht ins Spiel, das IMHO kein "joint
copyright" kennt. Weiterhin implezieren eigentlich all unsere F?hrungstexte
auf den Eingabeseiten, die einzelne Historie je Artikel usw., dass der Text
eine einzelne Einheit darstellt. Au?erdem ist wohl gerade f?r's Kopieren
(bspw. als Arbeitsblatt f?r eine Schule) der einzelne Text interessant, nicht
die komplette WP. Wer den Aufwand treibt, die komplette WP kopieren zu
wollen, kann auch die komplette Historie mit ?bernehmen.

Nachdem der Text "MediaWiki:Gnunote" ziemlich entscheidend f?r die
Lizenzauslegung ist (ganz sauber sind wir da immer noch nicht, eigentlich
m?sste der Autor einen Hinweis *in* den Text setzen), und fr?her auch immer
"Diese Seite...." hie?, habe ich mir die Pr?zisierung heute erlaubt - ich
glaube, damit auch die allgemeine Grundeinstellung der Teilnehmer hier
getroffen zu haben, wenn nicht, korrigiert mich bitte!

Uli
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------------

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from_name: Charles Matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] The integrity of Wikipedia

body:
Fred Bauder wrote

> In our efforts to be politically correct we are unable to describe
al-Qaeda
> as a terrorist organization or East Germany as a totalitarian regime. Thus
> we distort reality and drift off into a fantastic world where there is no
> black and white, no values and ultimately a rather poor encyclopedia that
> can't be trusted.
>
> Fred

The Wikipedia I edit is rather different.  It is not 'safe for
professionals' in many respects, but its attempts to outline the overall
structure of fields and knowledge are rather creditable.  It shows an
idealism rooted in the wiki concept, and a romanticism that goes back two
centuries, too.

I see my dictionary defines 'militant' as 'engaged in warfare'.  A euphemism
only if one regards 'warfare' as a euphemism for killing people - which is
arguable.

Charles


subject: [WikiEN-l] Primer on PC (for Ed) (was: Re: Relativism and PC)

body:
Sean Barrett wrote:

>>if you don't, it implies you would prefer to refer to Blacks
>>as "negroes" or "colored people" again.
>>
>Only a deluded person would prefer the horrifically evil phrase
>"colored people" to the beatifically enlightened "people of color."
>Oh!  Excuse me, I meant "person of delusions."
>
Of course "colored people" had a different meaning in the U.S. and in
apartheid South Africa.  The term "people of color" tends to be used of
practically anybody that is not of waspish hue.

Ec


body:
John C. Penta wrote:

>As a minor side note, that situation has created (near as I can tell from my involvement) something of a small backlash among the disabled...Myself among them.
>
>To put it simply, the next time I see the words "physically challenged", "visually challenged", (especially) "differently abled" (or "exceptional" in some circumstances), I'm going to kill someone. Slowly, painfully, and methodically.
>
>There's something to be said for being direct. Call it as you see it; Disabled, crippled, blind, retarded, handicapped...whatever. Anyone old enough to be using the net with disabilities has, in our time, probably gotten used to their situation, and WP shouldn't try to dance around the issue.
>
It's not all that minor.  This only proves the point that trying to
stuff political correctnes into the left/right spectrum doesn't work.
 Locally one of the groups that  helps the (I believe) mentally
handicapped calls itself the "Association for Community Living".  Such a
name strikes me as pompous, and I would be convinced that it was not the
mentally handicapped who conceived the term.

Although I'm decidedly on the left end of the spectrum it doesn't stop
me from complaining about terminology that obscures reality.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] The integrity of Wikipedia

body:
Gareth,

It's precisely because reasonable people disagree on matters of fact as
well as on matters of interpretation, that the Wikipedia does not take
sides.

The first example you cite implied that the Supreme Court acted
"undemocratically" in settling the Florida recount dispute. A Wikipedia
article would have to call that a point of view (POV) and attribute it
to an advocate, such as the DNC boss (McAuliffe or something). Other
people had different interpretations, notably Al Gore ;-)

I'm not saying you're right or wrong. I'm not saying I agree with you or
not. I'm not saying I'm happy or unhappy with the decision -- or its
outcome.

I'm saying that it's /especially/ because of examples like this, where
one person is so sure of the 'truth' that he asserts only a "delusional"
person could disagree, that we /must/ adhere to the NPOV when writing
Wikipedia articles.

BTW, only a madman could deny that sinners go to hell.

Ha, ha, gotcha going there for a moment, didn't I? (wink wink)

Uncle Ed


from_name: KNOTT, T

body:
I can't disagree with you more Fred. Shades of grey are what the world
is about. Every story has multiple sides. Every person has their own
version of "truth". We should try to present all the main views.

Theresa

-----Original Message-----
From: Fred Bauder [mailto:fredbaud at ctelco.net]
Sent: 12 February 2004 14:14
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: The integrity of Wikipedia

In the heart of any honorable person.

Fred

> From: Viajero <viajero at quilombo.nl>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 14:49:47 +0100
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The integrity of Wikipedia
>
> I see. And where is this world where issues are black and white and
values
> absolute???

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


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Time-out for Wik

body:
How did this person, SecretLondon get to be a sysop? POV all the way! Shame
on whoever did that.

Fred

> From: Caroline Ford <caroline at secretlondon.me.uk>
> Reply-To: caroline at secretlondon.me.uk, English Wikipedia
> <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 21:09:09 +0000
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Time-out for Wik
>
> Poor, Edmund W wrote:
>
>> Wik has been begging for a time-out. I gave him one.
>>
>> See this diff:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Pila&curid=386801&diff=0&oldi
>> d=2372622
>>
>> And this edit summary:
>>
>> 15:20, 12 Feb 2004 Pila (to prevent clutter the next revert of this page
>> will take place in an hour)
>>
>> Okay, you can de-op me now for by-passing the committee, if you want.
>>
>> Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>>
>>
> And I undid. There was no discussion beforehand - this unilateral
> blocking/banning needs to stop.
>
> Secretlondon
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Sean Barrett

in_reply_to:
<E1ArNip-0004Zy-00@post-21.mail.nl.demon.net> (message from
	Viajero on Thu, 12 Feb 2004 21:15:23 +0100)

body:
> if you don't, it implies you would prefer to refer to Blacks
> as "negroes" or "colored people" again.

Only a deluded person would prefer the horrifically evil phrase
"colored people" to the beatifically enlightened "people of color."
Oh!  Excuse me, I meant "person of delusions."


from_name: Dan Carlson

subject: [Wikilegal-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] An FDL test case: McFly

body:
On Feb 12, 2004, at 3:22 AM, Alex R. wrote:

> If you open the page of a book is there a copyright notice on that
> page?
> No you go to the title page. If he thinks it is an encyclopedia then
> he will
> go to the main page and see the link on the main page. Some people on
> Wikipedia think that the use of all those copyright and disclaimer
> links on
> every page is overkill. Most major sites have one copyright link, and
> that
> suffices for the whole site. Isn't that a reasonable interpretation of
> how
> book publishing is adapted to the web? It is not just one article, it
> is a
> collection of articles and the copyright notice is only one link away
> as it
> can always be found on the main page.
>
> Just being a devil's advocate, not necessarily agreeing with what he is
> doing, but there are always three sides to every dispute, the two
> disputants and the truth.

(Okay, I understand you're being Devil's Advocate here...  I just want
to refute the argument as I see it.)

However, this argument assumes that a Web page can be treated in the
same way as a paper Encyclopedia.  I think it's been very clearly
established that this is not the case.  A book is clearly a single work
-- you don't tear pages out of it to share around at all.  And if, for
example, a professor shares an article from the encyclopedia, every
professor I've ever had has always included a photocopy of the title
page along with it, so that the attributions and copyright are
included.

However, that is clearly not likely to happen in the case of the World
Wide Web.  Every individual page is treated as a work in its own right.
  A collection of pages like Wikipedia, creating a distinct "site", is
certainly analogous to a book in a way.  But if you print out a single
Web page, the browser (should) always include the date/time/URL of that
page along with the information.  Each Web page, though part of a
greater whole, is also a unique entity in its own right in a way that a
single page out of a book really cannot.

Therefore, it's essential to provide attributions and copyright
information on every page.

(Is this logical enough?  I'm not a legal expert, of course, but I'd
like to think that my philosophy/logic classes are up to the task. ;-))

Dan Carlson, Administrator
Memory Alpha: A Star Trek WikiWiki
http://memoryalpha.st-minutiae.com/


body:
On 02/12/04  at 06:15 AM, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> said:

> Thus we distort reality and drift off into a fantastic world where
> there is no black and white, no values [...]

I see. And where is this world where issues are black and white and values
absolute???

V.


from_name: A

from_email: A

subject: [WikiEN-l] Mediation with 168

body:
At [[nucleic acid]] you can find the result of the
mediation attempt with 168.

Are you willing to interact with Lir on this page? --
[[User:Cyan|Cyan]] 02:16, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Good point. No.[[User:168...|168...]] 03:02, 18 Jan
2004 (UTC)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online.
http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html


body:
On Feb 12, 2004, at 3:27 AM, Jake Nelson wrote:

> Erg, looks like it didn't go to the list last time I sent this, let's
> try
> that again...
>
> My thought is to set up a page, say on meta, where people can list
> themselves if they wish to object to his use of articles to which
> they've
> contributed. With just a few major contributors, that'll encompass a
> large
> portion of the article space. Coordinated action can be quite
> effective.

Again, I'm no lawyer, but wouldn't it be possible (even appropriate)
for a section to be added to the Copyrights page, specifying the
owner(s) of the copyright for Wikipedia to be the Wikipedian community
as a group, with certain people (probably Jimmy Wales, for example,
among others) as the designated representative(s)?  This would grant
certain people the "authority" to speak for a larger number of members
in cases like this.

Of course, the GFDL doesn't really allow for group ownership like that,
does it?  And adding something that involves such a big change might
not be legally feasible considering Wikipedia's already lengthy
history.

(Aside: Would this be a good idea for other communities, like the "Star
Trek" wiki that I've helped get off the ground in recent months?)

Dan Carlson, Administrator
Memory Alpha: A Star Trek WikiWiki
http://memoryalpha.st-minutiae.com/


from_name: Gareth Owen

body:
Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> writes:
> > I see. And where is this world where issues are black and white and values
> > absolute???
>
> In the heart of any honorable person.

And every in single one of them,
the definition as to what is black and what is white is different.

Which is somewhat problematic.

If we followed these lines, I'd end up writing Gazipedia, you'd write
Fredipedia, there'd be Cuncipedia, Mavipedia each reflecting our own inate
biases.
--
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: Thomas R. Koll

subject: [Wikitech-l] table bug!

body:
Hi,

Andre Engels has already reported it at SF: 895666

That table bug is a very serious problem for me because on de: almost
every table is affected (I though it would be cool to let table2wiki.py
do some readable output...)

ciao, tom
--
http://www.tomk32.de - just a geek trying to change the world
   -.-       http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:TomK32
   /|>	           http://tomk32.bookcrossing.com
   / \                 http://tinyurl.com/u6de


body:
Mark must have been delirious when he wrote:

> One view that people hold is that East Germany is a country in
> which the rights of the proletariat were protected against
exploitation
> by the imperialistic expansionism of the United States and its
cronies,
> as opposed to West Germany, where exploitation by the owners of the
> means of production was allowed to run rampant.

Sometimes people become mentally unbalanced when in severe pain, or
drugged up (or both :-)

East Germans' rights were so well protected that there was a wall in
Berlin with armed guards and booby-traps to prevent people from leaving
town and exposing themselves to Capitalist exploitation in the West.

Okay, okay, I get yer point, Delirium. The arguments would never end if
this encyclopedia tried to "get to the real truth" of the matter. Which,
of course, is why Larry & Jimbo insisted we write each article from a
Neutral Point of View.

Ed Poor
Champion of Human Rights
Shameless Promoter of Free Markets
Brainwashed Zombie Cult Victim
Etc. ;-)


from_name: Bill

subject: [WikiEN-l] NPOV vs. moral relativism

body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:

> Second, I just did a Google search for "moral relativism" and the first
> hit was www.moralrelativism.com which says:
>
> << Moral Relativism is the theory that morality, or standards of right
> and wrong, are culturally based and therefore become a matter of
> individual choice. You decide what's right for you, and I'll decide
> what's right for me. Moral relativism says, "It's true for me, if I
> believe it."

The correct URL is: http://www.moral-relativism.com and its "About us"
page says, "We are evangelical Christians...".  So we should rely on
evangelical christians to define moral relativism?  We don't think they
might be POV?

Cheers,

Bill


from_name: Delirium

body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:

>East Germans' rights were so well protected that there was a wall in
>Berlin with armed guards and booby-traps to prevent people from leaving
>town and exposing themselves to Capitalist exploitation in the West.
>
>
See, I think we can convey that notion just through neutral description.

If we say that East Germany built a wall between East and West Berlin to
keep in people were trying to cross over into West Berlin, I think our
readers are smart enough to draw their own conclusions.  We don't need
to say "Also, this shows that East Germany was Bad."

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Time-out for Wik

body:
Wik has been begging for a time-out. I gave him one.

See this diff:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Pila&curid=386801&diff=0&oldi
d=2372622

And this edit summary:

15:20, 12 Feb 2004 Pila (to prevent clutter the next revert of this page
will take place in an hour)

Okay, you can de-op me now for by-passing the committee, if you want.

Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed


subject: [WikiEN-l] Primer on PC (for Ed)

body:
Caroline Ford wrote:

> It's not used in the UK. We use "black". People are officially
> described as Black Caribbean or Black African. (or Black British).

The official term in the US is "black and/or African-American", at least
according to the census.

There seems to be disagreement in the black community over which term to
use.  Supporters of "African-American" argue that term is better because
it puts more emphasis on the culture rather than just the skin color,
while supporters of "black" argue that "African-American" implies that
blacks are not real Americans and really are  properly considered
"Africans", even if they've lived here for hundreds of years.  There's a
number of other arguments on both sides.  I'd say the term "black" is
used more often these days, though "African-American" was more common 10
years ago.

There's also the occasional use of other terms, mostly due to historical
reasons.  For example, the biggest advocacy organization is the NAACP,
the "National Association for the Advancement of Colored People", though
the term "colored people" is not itself used anymore.

Just FYI. =]

-Mark


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] DNS updates

body:
Jason, could you update the DNS entries for the various *.wikipedia.org
web servers to point at the new cache servers?

Ideally we should have two records so it'll hit both squids round-robin:
207.142.131.235
207.142.131.236

These are virtual addresses aliased by browne and coronelli. For
testing or failover one can take on both addresses.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Primer on PC (for Ed)

body:
Viajero,

You are right about the sensitive labels. I was wrong to ignore that
aspect of "political correctness".

I was thinking of the other side of the swamp, the "you can't express
this idea because it hurts this favored group's feelings" side.

I don't want to go back to the days when rednecks made fun of cripples
and niggers with impunity. Because:

"Yo soy un hombre sincero" even if I /do/ suffer from melanin
deficiency! :-)

Your redneck friend,
Uncle Ed

-----Original Message-----
From: Viajero [mailto:viajero at quilombo.nl]
Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2004 3:15 PM
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Primer on PC (for Ed) (was: Re: Relativism and PC)

On 02/12/04  at 12:33 PM, "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> said:

>  Liberals mostly deny that PC even exists, so it might be tricky

Whoa, let's get a few things straight. "Political correctness" evolved
in the 1960s among progressive-minded people who sought culturally more
sensitive labels for people, ie "Afro-Americans" instead of "negroes",
"Native Americans" instead of "Indians", "disabled" instead of
"crippled" or "handicapped", and a bunch more.

No sensible person can argue that this a bad idea. In civilized circles,
this thought of as PROGRESS.

Now in the 1980s and 90s, when the Left splintered into identity
politics, US conservatives complained "political correctness" went too
far; they claimed that leftists had become obsessed with creating
euphemisms for avoiding uncomfortable realities. Maybe conservatives
have/had a point, maybe not. Whether or not you agree with "political
correctness" is up to you. However, if you don't, it implies you would
prefer to refer to Blacks as "negroes" or "colored people" again.

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


from_name: Tim Starling

subject:
[Wikitech-l] History compression (was Re: Reverse diff version
	control)

body:
Ashar Voultoiz wrote:
> On Mon, 09 Feb 2004 09:19:04 +0000, Timwi wrote:
>
>>Evan Prodromou wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Some (most?) version control systems use a reverse diff storage
>>>system to keep storage requirements down to a minimum, at the expense
>>>of retrieval time for old versions.
>>
>>Do we really have to do that? I always thought storage space is
>>incredibly cheap (at least that's what LiveJournal always say ;-) ). I'm
>>finding it somewhat irritating that you want to slow down Wikipedia even
>>more, just to save some disk space.
>>
>>Timwi
>
>
> Hello,
>
> Maybe the data will be accessed faster if the database take less space ? I
> still can't believe that the mediawiki software store the whole article
> each time a modification is made. When the interwiki bot modify something
> like 10 000 pages it generates a lot of almost useless datas :(  Same for
> edit wars that finally get reverted.
>
>

It's true that it's cheap to store 30 GB, but it's expensive to move it
around. The advantages of history compression come not only from reduced
seek rate, but also from an improved ability to cache data in RAM.

The method of history compression I'm leaning towards is to concatenate
a number of adjacent revisions together (say 10) and then compress them
using an LZW-like algorithm. The compression algorithm will take
advantage of the similarities between adjacent revisions to produce a
very high rate of compression. Unlike diffs, this kind of compression
works very well with edit wars. In an edit war repeatedly reverting
between two revisions, a diff must store the changes from every edit,
whereas loosely speaking an LZW algorithm must only store each revision
once.

My experiments in history compression can be found at:

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

Bzip2 produces much better compression than gzip, but the CPU time
required probably defeats the purpose. Gzip on the other hand seems to
be fast enough for on-the-fly generation, and has acceptable compression
ratios.

A major advantage diff methods have over LZW methods is that they could
potentially be used to generate a human-readable diff for comparing
revisions. Note, however, that most diff algorithms compare
line-by-line, whereas our human-readable diffs compare word-by-word. I'm
not sure if an algorithm can be found which is both useful to humans,
and is fast and has compact output.

The current word-by-word algorithm is not particularly robust --
occasionally a large, well-distributed change is made and the thread
trying to generate the diff hits its 30 second time-limit.

It may be that a diff method can be found which competes with gzip in
terms of CPU time and ratio. The tests have yet to be done.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Time-out for Wik

body:
Caroline,

I agree that I was wrong to apply a unilateral ban. But what else can we
do with someone who censors articles, and refuses to explain himself?

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Suicide_bombing&action=histor
y

I don't think that "rv for already stated reasons" is a sufficient
explanation, so I protected the article.

Ed Poor


subject: [WikiEN-l] The integrity of Wikipedia

body:
Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> writes:

> I agree 100% with Fred.  172 is in the process of whitewashing the bio of
> every dictator who has ever lived.  Robert Mugabe is being portrayed as a
> victim of colonial oppression, he's never done anything bad in his life,
> apparently.

The Mugabe article mentions that Desmond Tutu calls him a dictator,
Amnesty International condemns him for human rights abuses, GWB imposed
sanctions for "undermining good governance", that Mugabe is banned from the EU
and that Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth.

How much extra moral authority do you think *your* opinion is going to provide?
--
Gareth Owen


subject: [WikiEN-l] The integrity of Wikipedia

body:
Rick wrote

> Robert Mugabe is being portrayed as a victim of colonial oppression, he's
never done anything bad in his life, apparently.

Come on - when it says ''systematic murder of civilians''.  Can't take this
seriously.  And the sky is falling on our heads, too.

Charles


subject: [WikiEN-l] The integrity of Wikipedia

body:
Gareth beat me to it, as I was about to say the same thing. As a further example the east germany article states " German workers demonstrated in East Berlin and other industrial centers demanding free elections. Later that day, Soviet troops and tanks suppressed the demonstrations with the loss of a few hundred lives."

I think this clearly demonstrates that the east german people wanted their own government but were suppressed by the soviets.

Let us not underestimate the intelligence of our readers. It is not necessary to say "Mr So and So was really bad man" We can simple tell them "Mr So and So did this this and this" and let them make their own minds up.

Theresa

-----Original Message-----
From: Gareth Owen [mailto:wiki at gwowen.freeserve.co.uk]
Sent: 12 February 2004 16:34
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The integrity of Wikipedia

Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> writes:

> I agree 100% with Fred.  172 is in the process of whitewashing the bio of
> every dictator who has ever lived.  Robert Mugabe is being portrayed as a
> victim of colonial oppression, he's never done anything bad in his life,
> apparently.

The Mugabe article mentions that Desmond Tutu calls him a dictator,
Amnesty International condemns him for human rights abuses, GWB imposed
sanctions for "undermining good governance", that Mugabe is banned from the EU
and that Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth.

How much extra moral authority do you think *your* opinion is going to provide?
--
Gareth Owen

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


body:
You don't think that people let preconceived ideas influence how they remember things? Or how the interpret things? Or how they report things ?

-----Original Message-----
From: Ruimu [mailto:ruimu at uestc.edu.cn]
Sent: 12 February 2004 16:33
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: The integrity of Wikipedia

Theresa : Every person has their own version of "truth".

    Well, I don't know what exactly is "truth", I don't know if it covers
much more than "2+2=4", but I'm sure that it's not helping much to say it
would be different for each person. By definition, it's supposed to be
shared by everybody. Am I mistaking?

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Ticked off at Wik

body:
James wrote (on a talk page):

> auto-reverting a page every hour isn't really an end to the edit
war....it's just a way of trying to keep it stealthy and unnoticed on RC

That's what ticked me off: the idea of someone conducting an edit war
with automatic weapons.

Ed Poor  <-- not in a patient mood today


subject: [WikiEN-l] Time-out for Wik

body:
Fred exclaimed:

> How did this person, SecretLondon get to be a
> sysop? POV all the way! Shame on whoever did that.

No, no, no. Caroline is a good admin. I still support her having sysop
rights.

I made a bad call, and Caroline set me straight. I over-reacted, and I
by-passed the procedures. (Hm, didn't I say a few days ago that people
who do that shouldn't be on any of the committees? Oops!)

Sheepishly,

Ed Poor


subject: [WikiEN-l] sock puppets

body: I am reasonably certain that [[User:R Gunther]] is Mr Natty health trying to avoid his ban. Should I just ban him now or should a request a developer to look at is IP ?


body:
Ed Poor wrote

>The doctrine that there is no absolute truth is usually called
"relativism". Bloom estimated that over 90% of incoming freshman at
America's best colleges subscribed to this doctrine. So it's an
important issue to consider at Wikipedia.

Really?  Did he give figures on how many had thought better of it by the end
of the 'best colleges'?  Does this tell one much about anything, except that
teenagers might still have a little to learn?  (Design of questionnaire to
test this: 'Is relativism correct?  Answer (a) Yes (b) No (c) Whatever.)

Actually, since the American academic system dominates the world academic
system (fact), and there has been this perceived turmoil recently, which
observers outside the USA may see rather differently, it is a disappointment
to me that no one has even started a [[culture wars]] article (I do see the
[[Culture Wars]] article).

The [[political correctness]] article seems quite interesting, but with
obvious flaws.  Trying to tie PC solely to Old Left attitudes seen through
New Left spectacles isn't going to work, since there is also the basic fact
that almost all traditional societies operate respect systems.

Well, none of us can actually fight on as many fronts simultaneously as we'd
like.  Sunir is probably right that a bit more supportive talk might reduce
the stated impressions that the fate of WP is to get stretched too thin.

Charles


body:
----- Original Message -----
From: Viajero <viajero at quilombo.nl>
Date: Thursday, February 12, 2004 3:15 pm
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Primer on PC (for Ed) (was: Re: Relativism and PC)

> On 02/12/04  at 12:33 PM, "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
> said:
> >  Liberals mostly deny that PC even exists, so it might be tricky
>
> Whoa, let's get a few things straight. "Political correctness"
> evolved in
> the 1960s among progressive-minded people who sought culturally more
> sensitive labels for people, ie "Afro-Americans" instead of "negroes",
> "Native Americans" instead of "Indians", "disabled" instead of
> "crippled"or "handicapped", and a bunch more.
>
> No sensible person can argue that this a bad idea. In civilized
> circles,this thought of as PROGRESS.
>
> Now in the 1980s and 90s, when the Left splintered into identity
> politics,US conservatives complained "political correctness" went
> too far; they
> claimed that leftists had become obsessed with creating euphemisms for
> avoiding uncomfortable realities. Maybe conservatives have/had a
> point,maybe not. Whether or not you agree with "political
> correctness" is up to
> you. However, if you don't, it implies you would prefer to refer
> to Blacks
> as "negroes" or "colored people" again.

As a minor side note, that situation has created (near as I can tell from my involvement) something of a small backlash among the disabled...Myself among them.

To put it simply, the next time I see the words "physically challenged", "visually challenged", (especially) "differently abled" (or "exceptional" in some circumstances), I'm going to kill someone. Slowly, painfully, and methodically.

There's something to be said for being direct. Call it as you see it; Disabled, crippled, blind, retarded, handicapped...whatever. Anyone old enough to be using the net with disabilities has, in our time, probably gotten used to their situation, and WP shouldn't try to dance around the issue.

John


subject: [WikiEN-l] The integrity of Wikipedia

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
Date: Thursday, February 12, 2004 2:48 pm
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The integrity of Wikipedia

> John C. Penta wrote:
>
> >Except for the delusional, Mugabe, Mobutu, Qaddafi, Stalin,
> Lenin, and Pol Pot...ARE dictators.
> >
> Ergo it is delusional to believe that only two members of that
> list are
> still alive. :-)
>
> Ec

Well, OK...I got my tenses mixed up...


subject: [WikiEN-l] Primer on PC (for Ed)

body:
> use.  Supporters of "African-American" argue that term is better because
> it puts more emphasis on the culture rather than just the skin color,

Except that neither of my friends who were born in Africa and are now
naturalized citizens of the United States (America) can call
themselves African-American.  You see, one was born in Cairo and the
other in Johannesburg.  "African-American" most emphatically does not
mean "American from Africa" -- it is nothing more nor less than a
seven-syllable synonym for "Negro," "black," and "descendant of
natives of central Africa."


from_name: Tomos at Wikipedia

body:
(I am not a lawyer.)

I tend to find Delirium's interpretation most straightforward, probably in
no small part because it is rather faithful to the letter of the license.

But then, I assume that in the U.S. context, there is a tendency that courts
allow some (unspecified) degree of liberty to follow only spirit of the
license and not the letter. And I think it is not easy to argue one practice
(say Wikipedians) is okay in light of the spirit and the other (say, Mcfly
users and Anthony) is not. One such sign is that we do not agree if linking
back to the original article would satisfy the requirement to preserve
history section. We do not agree if five authors should be listed, either.

But that aside, I wonder if there is a chance Anthony's practice is indeed
rather literally faithful to the license. (I admit that I didn't experience
what some of you guys did with him who is allegedly a disturbing troll, but
I am hoping you can regard the following another devil's advocate).

Regarding the "warranty disclaimer" part:
It may be interpreted as saying that some articles and images are wholly or
in part non-GFDL materials such as fully copyrighted materials under fair
use, simple copyvio that is not detected yet, etc. The notice implies that
he did not check those things, and the users should.

Regarding the absense of GFDL notice on each page:
The GFDL section 6 allows anyone to combine documents. If he is doing that,
then it is okay that he replace the multiple license notices into just one.
That's why there is only one notice for the whole site.

Regarding authors' names:
it seems that Wikipedia does not have copyright notice.

The two possible places that a copyright notice could be located are at the
bottom of the page, and at Wikipedia:Copyright, but neither contains any
information who the authors are. In that case, it is not very unreasonable
not to preserve any copyright notice.

So I cannot really be sure if he is violating the license by not preserving
any copyright notice from Wikipedia contents.

Regarding history:
Wikipedia's page history subunit is also said to be not necessarily History
section as in the sense of GFDL. (See, for example, Wkipedia:verbatim
copying).

Of course, I am not a lawyer, and I could be wrong.

Regards,

Tomos

_________________________________________________________________
Find great local high-speed Internet access value at the MSN High-Speed
Marketplace. http://click.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200360ave/direct/01/


subject: [WikiEN-l] The integrity of Wikipedia

body:
"John C. Penta" <pentaj2 at UofS.edu> writes:

> What people seem to forget:
>
> NPOV is not a suicide pact.
>
> NPOV is great, normally, but call a spade a spade.
>
> Except for the delusional, Osama Bin Laden *is* a terrorist.
>
> Except for the delusional, Mugabe, Mobutu, Qaddafi, Stalin, Lenin, and Pol
> Pot...ARE dictators.

Except for the delusional, the Supreme Courts decision to halt the Florida
Presidential election count was undemocratic.

Except for the delusional, the US-Mexican War (1846--1848), the Spanish
American War, the establishment of Panama (and the Canal Zone) and the
annexation of the Philippines were acts of US expansionist aggresion.

Except for the delusional, Woodrow Wilson was an unashamed
racist who segretated federal buildings.

And yet, weirdly, no-one demands that we call "a spade a spade" in these articles.

--
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: Rick

body:
Right now, HectorRodgriguez is taking the word "terrorist" out of every article about September 11.  You tell me that Wikipedia doesn't say there is no such thing as terrorism.  Calling the people who killed over 3000 innocent people "militants", and refusing to allow them to be labeled as "terrorists" is a POV.

RIckK

"Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
If someone was convicted of a crime, we can say so. "The district court of (blank) found Mr. X guilty of murder in the first degree. He was executed on (this date)."

The Wikipedia doesn't say there is no such thing as terrorism. Rather, it acknowledges that different sides have conflicting ideas about what constitutes terrorism. Some people use the word to mean "unjustifiable violence". Naturally, in a war or similar conflict there will be sharp disagreements on what is justified or unjustified.

Ed Poor

---------------------------------
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body:
Rick wrote:

> Right now, HectorRodgriguez is taking the word "terrorist" out of
> every article about September 11.  You tell me that Wikipedia doesn't
> say there is no such thing as terrorism.  Calling the people who
> killed over 3000 innocent people "militants", and refusing to allow
> them to be labeled as "terrorists" is a POV.

I guess I don't see what's necessary about that.  If you describe
someone as "hijacking a commercial airliner and flying it into a
building, killing over 3000 civilians," doesn't that give the reader all
they need to know?  Not very many people would conclude from that
description that the action was okay.

-Mark


body:
On Feb 12, 2004, at 3:22 AM, Alex R. wrote:

> If you open the page of a book is there a copyright notice on that
> page?
> No you go to the title page. If he thinks it is an encyclopedia then
> he will
> go to the main page and see the link on the main page. Some people on
> Wikipedia think that the use of all those copyright and disclaimer
> links on
> every page is overkill. Most major sites have one copyright link, and
> that
> suffices for the whole site. Isn't that a reasonable interpretation of
> how
> book publishing is adapted to the web? It is not just one article, it
> is a
> collection of articles and the copyright notice is only one link away
> as it
> can always be found on the main page.
>
> Just being a devil's advocate, not necessarily agreeing with what he is
> doing, but there are always three sides to every dispute, the two
> disputants and the truth.

(Okay, I understand you're being Devil's Advocate here...  I just want
to refute the argument as I see it.)

However, this argument assumes that a Web page can be treated in the
same way as a paper Encyclopedia.  I think it's been very clearly
established that this is not the case.  A book is clearly a single work
-- you don't tear pages out of it to share around at all.  And if, for
example, a professor shares an article from the encyclopedia, every
professor I've ever had has always included a photocopy of the title
page along with it, so that the attributions and copyright are
included.

However, that is clearly not likely to happen in the case of the World
Wide Web.  Every individual page is treated as a work in its own right.
  A collection of pages like Wikipedia, creating a distinct "site", is
certainly analogous to a book in a way.  But if you print out a single
Web page, the browser (should) always include the date/time/URL of that
page along with the information.  Each Web page, though part of a
greater whole, is also a unique entity in its own right in a way that a
single page out of a book really cannot.

Therefore, it's essential to provide attributions and copyright
information on every page.

(Is this logical enough?  I'm not a legal expert, of course, but I'd
like to think that my philosophy/logic classes are up to the task. ;-))

Dan Carlson, Administrator
Memory Alpha: A Star Trek WikiWiki
http://memoryalpha.st-minutiae.com/


subject: [WikiEN-l] The integrity of Wikipedia

body:
"Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> writes:

> I'm saying that it's /especially/ because of examples like this, where
> one person is so sure of the 'truth' that he asserts only a "delusional"
> person could disagree, that we /must/ adhere to the NPOV when writing
> Wikipedia articles.

I know.
I was trying to ridicule the previous writer by
stating *my* opinions as if they were fact.

My recommended changes should *not* be made *for exactly the same

(Actually, that Wilson segregated Federal buildings is a fact and *should* be
 in the article.  As Theresa said, what we needn't do is add state whether this
 made him a bad person.)

Moral relativism is a fact.  Moral standards change, and have changed over time.

For example : Suppose a US politician said this in a debate --

"There is a physical difference between the races which I believe will forever
 forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality"

I can add that to his page in two ways : I can write

"In debate, he stated that he believed
     `There is a physical difference between the races ...'"

or

"He held a number of racist and racial separatist views, stating that
        `There is a physical difference between the races ...'"

Now, by Fred's "logic", and calling a spade a spade, I'm going to call this
politician on his racism, as only someone delusional could believe those were
the opinions of a man who wasn't a racist.

But the rest of us, who know who moral standards differ between
places and eras, are going to think that looks pretty odd in the
middle of [[Abraham Lincoln]].
--
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: Sascha Noyes

subject: [WikiEN-l] Time-out for Wik

body:
On Thursday 12 February 2004 04:42 pm, Fred Bauder wrote:
> How did this person, SecretLondon get to be a sysop? POV all the way! Shame
> on whoever did that.

Secretlondon happens to be a highly valued contributor to wikipedia. She went
through the same nomination/request process as all (or nearly all) other
sysops go through. I think the specific person who "pushes the button" to
make someone a sysop is Tim Starling. Another highly valued contributor.

You are way out of line for attacking both of them because of Secretlondon's
decision to unban wik after he had been unilaterally banned without any
official discussion. Do I need to remind you of the email that Jimbo sent the
list a couple of days ago about how these unilateral bans had to stop?

The accusation that this has anything to do with "POV" is wholly unfounded,
unless you mean hear point of view that wikipedia policy should be followed.

I am seriously pissed off at this nonsense. Unless of course it was meant as a
joke, in which case I didn't "get it"

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


from_name: Daniel Herding

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Webwasher User-Agent should be allowed

body:
brion wrote:
>I can access pages on de.wikipedia.org using the above user-agent
>string, but don't have WebWasher to test with.

I'm using WebWasher and haven't had any problems with it yet. Maybe
the user misconfigured his custom WebWasher filter rules, but this
wouldn't give a "Forbidden" message, but something like
"WebWasher is configured to block the requested page
'http://de.wikipedia.org/'".

Daniel


body:
Pedro Fortuny <pfortuny at sdf-eu.org> writes:

> Your statement is true but saying that Hitler was a Bayern Munich supporter
> does not imply that Bayern Munich is a bad team or that nobody should ever
> support it.

Quite right.

We all share some opinions with Nazis.
I believe physical exercise is important for children, for example.

I also happen to disagree with them on many issues:
expansionist war, racial supremacy and genocide, for example.

That doesn't automatically invalidate the exercise thing.
--
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] Time-out for Wik

body:
Tim Starling has now banned both Wik and Anthony DiPierro for getting into a revert war on the Votes for Deletion page, which cause the page to be protected and unusable.

RickK

"Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
Caroline,

I agree that I was wrong to apply a unilateral ban. But what else can we
do with someone who censors articles, and refuses to explain himself?

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Suicide_bombing&action=histor
y

I don't think that "rv for already stated reasons" is a sufficient
explanation, so I protected the article.

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

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from_name: John C. Penta

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
Date: Thursday, February 12, 2004 4:53 pm
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Primer on PC (for Ed) (was: Re: Relativism and PC)

> Locally one of the groups that  helps the (I believe) mentally
> handicapped calls itself the "Association for Community Living".
> Such a
> name strikes me as pompous, and I would be convinced that it was
> not the
> mentally handicapped who conceived the term.

It never is.


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: An FDL test case: McFly

body:
Why all the outrage? The primary purpose of the GFDL is to free the
content so that people can copy and modify it, specifically by
preventing downstream content-modifiers from enforcing restrictions
based on copyright law. It's not like Anthony is trying to prevent
people from copying the stuff on McFly. On McFly, he has said he
considers himself in compliance with our GFDL-related requirements. Even
if he arguably doesn't follow every detail in the GFDL, in court he
could certainly try to claim McFly satisfies a doctrine of substantial
compliance. And anyway, where's the harm? Maybe if he were trying to
pass himself off as the real thing, it would be worth pursuing more
aggressive legal measures (I still think Wikipedia trademark
registration is a more pressing issue to deal with than copyright).

Bottom line: McFly is a fork, and a pretty poor one. I know the thought
of a fork gets some people's competitive juices going, but I don't think
McFly is capable of seriously affecting Wikipedia's mind share. So far,
it hasn't even really done much to articulate a justification for
forking, it just went ahead and did it. Wikinfo/Internet-Encyclopedia at
least has a raison d'etre. And neither of them comes close to Wikipedia
in quality. So far, our history suggests that individual languages
breaking away is a more serious concern for the project.

The GFDL is not so much a weapon for us to use against people who copy
us--it's a defense for us to use if their stuff is good enough that we
want to copy it back.

--Michael Snow


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 02/12/04 17:33, Poor, Edmund W wrote:

> Anyway, the PC article could use a little work. It needs a balance
> between liberal and conservative views of PC-ness. Liberals mostly deny
> that PC even exists, so it might be tricky. I guess the best strategy is
> to quote conservatives a lot, then wait for other contributors to
> provide the liberal rebuttal. But I don't relish wading into that swamp.

And US and non-US views. Are you sure you've picked the right dichotomy?

(Speaking as a wet lefty Economist^WGuardian-reading It's Grim Up North
London social democrat, I remember when the term was invented, and don't
understand this assertion that "Liberals mostly deny that PC even exists,"
since if it's false in my existence you must be deluded. Perhaps it's the
case in some weirdarse country I have never been to.)

- d.


from_name: Pedro Fortuny

body:
* Sascha Noyes <sascha at pantropy.net> [2004-02-12]:
> On Thursday 12 February 2004 12:40 pm, John C. Penta wrote:
> > Comparing a debater with a murderer is not helpful...
> >
> > I do believe Sascha has caused Godwin's Law to be invoked...
>
> Read what I wrote again. I did not compare a debater with a murderer. This is
> a strawman attack, and you know it.
>
> Here is the core to which you are objecting:
>
> >"extremists (Nazis, suicide bombers, etc.) are extremely fond of your idea of
> >there being absolute black and white values."
>
> Do you thin that this statement is untrue, or do you simply have no arguments
> against it?

Non-extremists states, like the US (although this is debatable), are the
only ones having dropped an atom bomb over civilians during a war.

Does this mean that non-extremism is bad?

Just to know if agreeing on
your statement means agreeing on "having black and white values is a bad
thing".

Your statement is true but saying that Hitler was a Bayern Munich
supporter does not imply that Bayern Munich is a bad team or that nobody
should ever support it. History is not an argument in any discussion.

Just after getting annoyed.

Pedro.

--
Pedro Fortuny Ayuso: http://pfortuny.sdf-eu.org
Colegio Mayor Pe?afiel, Universidad de Valladolid
C/ Estudios 6, 47005 Valladolid, Spain -->        www.cmpenafiel.org
pfortuny at sdf-eu.org                         Tfn. Nr. 34  983  298277


from_name: Caroline Ford

subject: [WikiEN-l] Time-out for Wik

body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:

>Wik has been begging for a time-out. I gave him one.
>
>See this diff:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Pila&curid=386801&diff=0&oldi
>d=2372622
>
>And this edit summary:
>
>15:20, 12 Feb 2004 Pila (to prevent clutter the next revert of this page
>will take place in an hour)
>
>Okay, you can de-op me now for by-passing the committee, if you want.
>
>Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed
>
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>
And I undid. There was no discussion beforehand - this unilateral
blocking/banning needs to stop.

Secretlondon


from_name: Viajero

body:
On 02/12/04  at 12:33 PM, "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> said:

>  Liberals mostly deny that PC even exists, so it might be tricky

Whoa, let's get a few things straight. "Political correctness" evolved in
the 1960s among progressive-minded people who sought culturally more
sensitive labels for people, ie "Afro-Americans" instead of "negroes",
"Native Americans" instead of "Indians", "disabled" instead of "crippled"
or "handicapped", and a bunch more.

No sensible person can argue that this a bad idea. In civilized circles,
this thought of as PROGRESS.

Now in the 1980s and 90s, when the Left splintered into identity politics,
US conservatives complained "political correctness" went too far; they
claimed that leftists had become obsessed with creating euphemisms for
avoiding uncomfortable realities. Maybe conservatives have/had a point,
maybe not. Whether or not you agree with "political correctness" is up to
you. However, if you don't, it implies you would prefer to refer to Blacks
as "negroes" or "colored people" again.

V.


from_name: Daniel P.B.Smith

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: And -- every -- single -- one -- of -- them -- is --
	right!

body:
> From: Gareth Owen <wiki at gwowen.freeserve.co.uk>
> Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> writes:
>>> I see. And where is this world where issues are black and white and
>>> values
>>> absolute???
>>
>> In the heart of any honorable person.
>
> And every in single one of them,
> the definition as to what is black and what is white is different.

      Still the world is wondrous large, -- seven seas from marge to
marge, --
       And it holds a vast of various kinds of man;
      And the wildest dreams of Kew are the facts of Khatmandhu,
       And the crimes of Clapham chaste in Martaban.

      Here's my wisdom for your use, as I learned it when the moose
       And the reindeer roared where Paris roars to-night: --
      There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,
       And -- every -- single -- one -- of -- them -- is -- right!

        --Rudyard Kipling, "In the Neolithic Age"

--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at world.std.com alternate:
dpbsmith at alum.mit.edu
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/


subject: [WikiEN-l] 168 must be desysoped

body:
A [name omitted for privacy reasons] wrote:

>168 has again violated the rules of sysophood. He has
>now reverted [[nucleic acid]], despite the page's
>protected status.
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Nucleic_acid&diff=0&oldid=2366605
>
>
168... is now in an edit war with mav on [[Wikipedia:Requests for
comment/168]].  168... is attempting to remove evidence of his
revert-wars from the page, arguing that since it has not been discussed
with him, it cannot be discussed with the community yet.  After several
reverts, he protected the page, a protection which I have undone as it
was improper.

Presented with no specific recommendations, but you can probably draw
your own conclusions.

-Mark


from_name: Jake Nelson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Primer on PC (for Ed)

body:
Sean Barrett wrote:
> > use.  Supporters of "African-American" argue that term is better because
> > it puts more emphasis on the culture rather than just the skin color,
>
> Except that neither of my friends who were born in Africa and are now
> naturalized citizens of the United States (America) can call
> themselves African-American.  You see, one was born in Cairo and the
> other in Johannesburg.  "African-American" most emphatically does not
> mean "American from Africa" -- it is nothing more nor less than a
> seven-syllable synonym for "Negro," "black," and "descendant of
> natives of central Africa."

It also really irritates people that most would call black, but aren't of
African descent, as well. (many Indonesians and those in neighboring areas
fall into this category.)

-- Jake


subject: [WikiEN-l] Time-out for Wik

body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:

>Fred exclaimed:
>
>
>
>>How did this person, SecretLondon get to be a
>>sysop? POV all the way! Shame on whoever did that.
>>
>>
>
>No, no, no. Caroline is a good admin. I still support her having sysop
>rights.
>
>I made a bad call, and Caroline set me straight. I over-reacted, and I
>by-passed the procedures. (Hm, didn't I say a few days ago that people
>who do that shouldn't be on any of the committees? Oops!)
>
>Sheepishly,
>
>Ed Poor
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>
I over-reacted too. I find the US right difficult and have an instinct
to protect anyone who stands up to them. We have nothing close to them here.

I feel some people act out of instinct, and edit because they know that
something "just is", or that "everyone knows that". Of course these kind
of edits are entirely based on cultural references and infuriate me.

I'm a passionate supporter of Wikipedia and hope my work helps
internationalise the project.

I know I shouldn't let people wind me up though.

Secretlondon


subject: [WikiEN-l] Primer on PC (for Ed)

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Sean Barrett wrote:
>
>>> if you don't, it implies you would prefer to refer to Blacks
>>> as "negroes" or "colored people" again.
>>>
>> Only a deluded person would prefer the horrifically evil phrase
>> "colored people" to the beatifically enlightened "people of color."
>> Oh!  Excuse me, I meant "person of delusions."
>>
> Of course "colored people" had a different meaning in the U.S. and in
> apartheid South Africa.  The term "people of color" tends to be used
> of practically anybody that is not of waspish hue.
>
> Ec
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
It's not used in the UK. We use "black". People are officially described
as Black Caribbean or Black African. (or Black British).

HTH
Secretlondon


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] 168 must be desysoped

body:
Delirium wrote:
>168... is now in an edit war with mav on [[Wikipedia:Requests
>for comment/168]].  168... is attempting to remove evidence
>of his revert-wars from the page, arguing that since it has not
>been discussed with him, it cannot be discussed with the
>community yet.  After several reverts, he protected the page,
>a protection which I have undone as it was improper.

Actually I've mostly just been updating that page. I only reverted 168... once
on that page tonight IIRC. All the other edits I made to that page were
additions to the summary of 168's actions. Of course in order to add I need to
add to the longer summary version - which is what 168 keeps reverting.

I've already used up my 3 reverts for [[DNA]] so I'm not reverting that page
anymore but others have reverted that page back to the version that was agreed
to at by a very strong and unambiguous majority at [[Talk:DNA]] (168 is
ignoring that vote and using the rollback feature as a tool to revert).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:DNA#Voting_on_February_5_Version

I encourage everybody to view the summary here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/168

If all you see is one paragraph then that means that 168 has reverted the page
again. So go here instead:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/168&oldid=2376767

Also tonight I have requested mediation for 168 and myself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_mediation#168..._and_maveric149

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online.
http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html


from_name: Andrew Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wik and Anthony DiPierro

body:
Hi All,

I would like to request the temporary banning of both Wik and Anthony DiPierro. They have spent the last half an hour reverting the Votes for Deletion page, a page which should not be protected dur to its high use. They have filled the edit histories of many pages with their junk today and have done so on many previous days. Sometimes one is in the right, sometimes the other, but they are both acting in a totally unacceptable way. I believe banning them both for a period of 24-48 hours would reinforce to them the fact that they can't just log on to Wikipedia and do whatever the hell they like (which is what they currently seem to favour) and would give everyon a break from their incessant niggling. In my opinion the Wikipedia would be a better, calmer place without them.

Please consider making a community-backed concensus on this as they are getting beyond tolerable.

Andrew (Ams80)
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from_name: Ruimu

body:
Theresa : Every person has their own version of "truth".

    Well, I don't know what exactly is "truth", I don't know if it covers
much more than "2+2=4", but I'm sure that it's not helping much to say it
would be different for each person. By definition, it's supposed to be
shared by everybody. Am I mistaking?


from_name: Axel Boldt

body:
>> Furthermore I know that any request without a User Agent is refused.
>
> That hasn't been true for a week or so.

Ok, the solution of this riddle seems to be that the user had
(mis-)configured his webwasher to send no user-agent. I read his message
  several days ago, so at the time we were probably still refusing
access to browsers without user-agent.

Axel


from_name: Gabriel Wicke

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: State of the servers

body:
On Thu, 12 Feb 2004 06:08:21 -0800, Brion Vibber wrote:

> * browne and coronelli have test squid installations that Gabriel is
> setting up, testing failover systems etc.

These two systems are configured as siblings, they share their storage and
ram as one big cache without duplicating information.

We've done some load balancing tests to find the optimal configuration,
particularly in case of an imbalance between the Apaches. Dynamic load
balancing that takes the individual load of each Apache into account isn't
set up yet, given the high numbers of requests this might not be
necessary anyway as the differences between the requests tend to even out.
In case one Apache is overloaded or down the requests are passed on to
other machines, so fail-over is automatic and transparent to the users.

Heartbeat is installed on both machines, but not yet configured. This
could be done together with an update to Linux 2.6 which should have
better performance on the Squids than 2.4.
--
Gabriel Wicke


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikitech-l] What I support for wiktionary.org

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Wiktionary has been cranking along happily in a state of technical
>neglect for quite some time.
>
It's also a more friendly environment.  A lot of the fractiousnous over
NPOV just doesn't happen there.

>There are currently 32,246 entries.  That's enough that we must
>preserve the work that's already done.  It also precludes any change
>of license, whether that's fortunate or unfortunate I don't know.
>
Probably so.  With a dictionary it's often difficult to know what is or
what even can be copyrightable.  Certainly the overall presentation
would be copyright, but a lot of the small entries are often subject to
the limited number of ways that a word can be defined.

The possibility of a different approach to licensing has, however, been
raised at Wikisource -- and that project still has a small number of
articles, and public domain material is more important there.

>There is an active community there, with a lot of overlap to the
>broader wikipedia community.  The need to be consulted on any changes
>that we implement.
>
I presume the "The need" should read "They need" :-)   For the most part
the Wiktionarians have not been too critical of the software, and have
adapted to it quite well.  If there is any one recurring complaint it
might be with the enforced capitalization of the first letter.  This
creates an awkwardness when words can differ by whether the first letter
is a capital or minuscule letter.  The problem does occasionaly occur in
Wikipedia (Communism vs. communism), but it happens far more frequently
in Wiktionary.  Most words are normally written to begin with a lower
case letter.

>They have an existing schema whereby they are doing in freeform text
>just what we ought to try to help them formalize with actual database
>functionality.  One can only assume that their scheme is sometimes
>followed inconsistently because human editing is inevitably
>inconsistent.  However, there appears to me to be enough consistency
>that a semi-automated conversion process should be possible.
>
There is indeed this sort of inconsistency, but it has not been a big
problem.  There are many words with complicated and multiple etymologies
that would not fit well with a rigid structure.  If the technical
improvements are only *semi*-automated it should allow for an easy
override of the structure.

>Anything that we do should favor the needs of editors over abstract a
>priori desires for the end product.  That is to say, if some fancy and
>clever thing requires a lot of work from editors, we just skip it.
>The editors are primary, or any wiki community will be destroyed.
>
I strongly agree.  We are still a very far distance from any kind of end
product.  That would require some level of comprehensiveness, and I find
from the work that I have done adapting the 1913 Webster with its more
than 109,000 entries is a slow and tedious process.  Reformatting it and
expanding abbreviations to be distinctively Wiktionarian is only a part
of it.  One of the features of the 1913 Webster is the large number of
examples of usage that are given from various writers; better
identifying some of these passages gives value added to Wiktionary's
entries.  For Shakespeare quotes this means identifying the play from
which the passage comes.

>At the same time, we should design a "structured wiki" with one eye on
>campatibility with re-use.  If there are existing XML schemas that
>have prominence in the wider community, we should look to them as a
>part of our design, even if we deliberately choose not to implement
>every possible aspect in order to favor ease-of-use for editors.
>
I'll wait to hear from the tech people before commenting much on this,
but I think that the ability to opt out of features is good.

>Consider this for an example:
>http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Vision
>
>As a rank amateur database designer, I see several immediate
>possibilities which would make an instant and easy improvement.  Even
>if we had a simple and less-than-ideal design, we could lay the
>groundwork now for something better in the future.
>
It would be interesting to see you expand on this.

>I'm a huge fan of incremental change in cases like this.  We'd like to
>improve the software for the wiktionarians in a way that conforms to
>how they like to edit, while laying the groundwork for further
>revisions down the line.
>
>--------
>
>Consider a really bad database design, a 'flat file' design, or nearly
>so.
>
>word
>AHD pronunciation
>IPA pronunciation
>SAMPA pronunciation
>definition
>synonym list
>related terms list
>translation list
>
>This is a horrible design, with multi-valued fields, etc.  It can be
>improved in just a few minutes of work.  But even this horrible design
>would be better than freeform text.
>
I guess we've just become too accustomed to freeform. :-)   At the same
time I think that we have been creative in making use of various
headings and indents.

>Developer time and energy is at a premium (at least, until some clever
>developer really takes this up as a cause!) and so simplicity is a
>huge virtue.  A little bit of fixing done soon, is better than an
>imaging hypothetical perfect system that's too intimidating and never
>gets off the ground.
>
Agreed.  Still it's often difficult for us non-techies to know just what
is easy for developers.

There are two major functions in such a dictionary.  The first is in
presenting the language to itself; the second is in making it available
to speakers of other languages including being able to recognize what
language a word might be from.  More automated indexing could be helpful
to achieving that end.  As long as it needs to be done manually our
contributors will be very inconsistent in remembering to put a word on
each of the half-dozen languages that they may have added at a given
point.  We currently have many indexes, but many of the words that have
been added to Wiktionary are not there.

I would also like to see some effort on the part of others in starting
the Wiktionaries for other languages which could focus on presenting
this materials to speakers of that language.  It is impossible to create
interwiktionary links before that happens.

Ec

>


body:
Gareth Owen wrote:

>Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> writes:
>
>>Calling the people who killed over 3000 innocent people "militants", and
>>refusing to allow them to be labeled as "terrorists"
>>
>So terrorism = "taking thousands of innocent lives"
>
>What about the pilot of the Enola Gay?
>or the RAF bombers who levelled Dresden.
>
>Should we call them terrorists, too?
>
Of course!  Truman's stated intention with bombing Hiroshima was to
bring the war to a quicker end by demonstrating to the Jaoanese just
what he was capable of.  The threat that Tokyo would be next was always
there.  Thus he terrorized them into submission.  Through some chain of
command the pilot of the Enola Gay was following Truman's orders, just
as the hijackers were following bin Laden's.

Ec


from_name: Bjorn Lindqvist

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Time-out for Wik

body:
> Wik has been begging for a time-out. I gave him one.
>
> Okay, you can de-op me now for by-passing the committee, if you want.
>
> Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed

Sure, but I don't now how. Maybe you can give me a hand?

BL


from_name: Jason Richey

subject: [Wikitech-l] DNS updates

body:
Okay.  I made the changes at Register.com for wikipedia.org and
wikipedia.com.  The Register.com interface doesn't allow for multiple
ip addresses assigned to a single name, so I split *.wiki{p,m}edia
from "www" and "en".

I also got the zone files ready on Zwinger (in /var/named) and a basic
bind setup.  I haven't set up Bomis' nameserver to do the secondary,
and I still need to wrestle with it a little before it all works, but
that should be running soon, so we can easily do some more advanced
DNS management at that point.

Jason

Brion Vibber wrote:

> Jason, could you update the DNS entries for the various *.wikipedia.org
> web servers to point at the new cache servers?
>
> Ideally we should have two records so it'll hit both squids round-robin:
> 207.142.131.235
> 207.142.131.236
>
> These are virtual addresses aliased by browne and coronelli. For
> testing or failover one can take on both addresses.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Friday

body:
I'm heading to San Diego Tomorrow (Friday the 13th) to remove the
servers that are now out of use (most notably Gunther and Geoffrin).
I imagine I'll be in contact with Brion before I pullthe machines, but
feel free to pipe up if you have concerns...

--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
We could say that in war sometimes the tactic of terrorizing the civilian
population or governmental authorities is used. See [[Shock and awe]] which
is, I guess, intended to terrorize military forces. It would seem by this
operational definition that the 911 attack had that intent, at least the
Trade Center Towers portion with respect to the American population. One can
say further that the purpose was partially effected with some small part of
the population now willing to give the terrorists free rein.

Fred

> From: Gareth Owen <wiki at gwowen.freeserve.co.uk>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: 13 Feb 2004 10:45:14 +0000
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: The integrity of Wikipedia
>
> Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> writes:
>
>> Calling the people who killed over 3000 innocent people "militants", and
>> refusing to allow them to be labeled as "terrorists"
>
> So terrorism = "taking thousands of innocent lives"
>
> What about the pilot of the Enola Gay?
> or the RAF bombers who levelled Dresden.
>
> Should we call them terrorists, too?
> --
> Gareth Owen
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


body:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Sent: Friday, February 13, 2004 12:49 AM
Subject: RE: [WikiEN-l] Re: The integrity of Wikipedia

Ruimi replied to Theresa:

> Well, I don't know what exactly is "truth", I don't know if it
> covers much more than "2+2=4", but I'm sure that it's not
> helping much to say it would be different for each person. By
> definition, it's supposed to be shared by everybody. Am I
> mistaking?

The doctrine that there is no absolute truth is usually called
"relativism". Bloom estimated that over 90% of incoming freshman at
America's best colleges subscribed to this doctrine. So it's an
important issue to consider at Wikipedia.

=> Yes, but there are at least three "relativism". Aesthetic, moral or
knowledge relativisms. First one is best candidate. Others are more dificult
to defend. In China, it is also bad to rape and kill a young girl, and
2 plus 2 are also 4. Even the rudest moral relativist wouldn't say that he
feels "morally" allowed to kill someone for no reasons.

We need to be clear on the distinction between NPOV and relativism. (See
my post of 5 minutes ago.)

=> Read and agreed. For me NPOV is not moral relativism because NPOV doesn't
apply to a person, but to an encyclopedia. I would hate a NPOV person (with
never any personal opinions), I like some books expressing opinions but I
wouldn't trust nor read an encyclopedia that is not (trying to be) neutral.


from_name: zero 0000

subject: [WikiEN-l] OneVoice

body:
Something really has to be done about OneVoice.  The guy is an
absolute curse on Wikipedia.  Look at [[Thomas Hurndall]].
OneVoice put in a totally false report from an illegal radio
station whose operators were recently sentenced to prison terms
in Israel for perjury, then he keeps reverting to it even though
the correct version of the story now carries citations to all of
these:

BBC
Jerusalem Post
Haaretz
Maariv
The Guardian
Agence Fran?aise de Presse
Associated Press
New York Times

It isn't that he doesn't know he is wrong by now.  It's just that
he's OneVoice and that's how OneVoice behaves.  This is not an
isolated example but perfectly representative of his behaviour
ever since he came to Wikipedia.  People who don't deal with his
edits directly are fooled by his politeness and apparent willingness
to cooperate, which is entirely phoney.  Yes, I'm angry.  Yes, I
should calm down.

Zero

__________________________________
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subject: [WikiEN-l] terrorism

body:
Another problem with the word "terrorism" is that the number
of cases that are really clear-cut and unarguable is not so
great. The extreme cases that most people here are giving as
examples are not really representative.

I guess most of us will agree that deliberately blowing up a
bus full of schoolkids is terrorism.  What about a bus full of
uniformed soldiers? (I heard some of you ask "ours or theirs?";
shame on you :-) What about a bus full of uniformed soldiers
except for one schoolkid?  Or a bus full of schoolkids except
for one armed soldier (who isn't there just to protect the
schoolkids)?  What about a 50-50 mix?

Does anyone here have a mathematical formula describing where
the border between terrorism or not lies?  This is not a
concocted example.  Anyone who rides busses in Israel knows
that there are often uniformed (and even armed) soldiers taking
the bus from one place to another.  Or, from the other side,
Israeli assassinations done from the air kill on average about
the same number of bystanders as intended victims.

Why can't we just say "blew up a bus with 20 civilians and
5 soldiers"?  What information are we hiding if we leave
out the "t" word?  Aren't we actually insulting our readers
when we don't allow them to choose their own moral responses?

Zero.

__________________________________
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Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online.
http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html


from_name: Karl Eichwalder

subject: [Wikitech-l] Someone working on improving HTML?

body:
Once again I kindly liek to ask whether someone is working on HTML
improvement?  One improvement would removing tricks.

After "== title ==" always start a proper block element even if there is
not an empty line in between the title and the paragraph start:

    ==  title ==
    paragraph

    paragraph

and

    ==  title ==

    paragraph

    paragraph

should result in exactly this code (modulo white space):

title

paragraph

paragraph

Deprecated are results as follows:

title

    paragraph

paragraph

title

paragraph

paragraph

title

    paragraph

paragraph

--
                                                         |      ,__o
                                                         |    _-\_<,
http://www.gnu.franken.de/ke/                            |   (*)/'(*)


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] Time-out for Wik

body:
Now THAT is cruel and unusual punishment!

RickK

"Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
I hereby sentence myself to watching "Anger Management" as penance :-)

--Uncle Ed

---------------------------------
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Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online
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