from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Foundation-l] Day 1 Fund Drive report

body:
The equivalent of $9,551.60 was donated on the first day of the fund drive. Thanks to Brion
Vibber, our Chief Technical Officer, we have a near real time donation tracking page at:
http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/2005q4/

The Detail page for each day of the drive has individual entries for anybody who donates through
PayPal. You can see the amount donated, their name (if they gave permission for that) and a
comment. I encourage everybody to read those comments.

Here are some examples that caught my eye:
From: http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/2005q4/index.php/2005-12-16/detail/

"Knowledge is Freedom" by anonymous
"merci pour cette banque de ressources" by Axel de nazelle
"This is what the internet was intended for." by Ned Miles
"Much better for you than Gates!" by percy westwood
"Thanks wikipedia you rock!" by Oliver Stirling
"Thank you for a good project!" by Akifumi Kato
"I need Wikipedia" by Yohei Takiguchi
"Thank you for your dedication and scholarship." by John Clayton
"Macht weiter so" by anonymous
"Wikipedia has saved my academic career so many times! Thank You!" by anonymous
"Wikipedia is an exceptional and very unique resource. Worth every dime ;-]" by Daniel Ushman
"Continuem este belo projeto" by anonymous
"Wikipedia is a revolution so large it is difficult to comprehend" by Louis Mackall
"Wikipedia I love you!!!" by Jonathan Takahashi
"Tamasoma Jyotirgamaya ( Lead me from Darkenss to light)" by anonymous
"wikipedia makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside" by Edward Scott
"Danke f?r die Hilfe bei etlichen Dokus und Referaten =)" by Jan Stuhlmann
"The shape of things to come..." by James Wonder

And my personal favorite:
"I call you my husband's mistress because you get his attention much of the time..." by anonymous
"^_^" by anonymous

Daniel Mayer

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Foundation-l] Day 1 Fund Drive report


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Day 1 Fund Drive report


list: wikien-l

from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Unwanted bio - editorial help needed

body:
David Gerard wrote:

> Mr Palmer has blanked the article *again* from his IP (216.53.175.8) so
> I've had to block him for 24 hours. I did put a note on the IP talk page
> to please instead list disputed statements and references on the article
> talk page, and also to please look at [[WP:SCN]] as helping there would
> be a much more productive use of his knowledge and time.

Actually, I've unblocked, on the honey-rather-than-vinegar principle.
Let's see what happens.

- d.


from_name: l'Omnivore Sobriquet

subject:
[WikiEN-l] My complaint about being blocked. Now you can
	compare...

body:
hello, quick amendments:

"It made no contributions elsewhere, even to the Talk: page of the article
in question"
    This has been well explained in the following of my message, it is a
fine wiki-ethical usage all along. This is a truncation you're reading, rely
on full version instead. (posted here 40 minutes before Jay's, your time)

"and certainly appeared to be a revert sockpuppet"
    It wasn't, and didn't appear as such then, as I explained in my message.
 Please don't  resort to "it's our experience that..." kind of argument;
we're not meant to guess. The number of possible logical cases of behavours
identical to mine while not being a internet sockpuppet is so high that in
25000 years time one still wouldn't have digested it. That you are 'not used
to forsee' such or such is of no importance, concerning the veracity of
being a such said sockpuppet. It may change a bit for the explanation of
Jay's behaviour yes, reacting to some 'well known pattern', well known by a
particuliar 'Wikipedia' staff and time etc., but changes stricly nothing on
whether it is actual sockpupetting, created solely for the... etc.

"Moreover, the subject of this article (Israel Shamir) has been consistently
vandalizing it"
    Not at all. See talk, see history; Shamir just intervened some three or
five times if memory serves, weeks or months ago, civil and compliant at
that. In fact we have one, possibly multiple, swift reverts from Jayjg
and/or this Denis Diderot fame-seeker (shame-finder) without one word of an
explanation, I repeat, without one word of explanation.

"He also appealed for friends of his to come and revert the article for him
on a Yahoo group called Shamir readers:"
    It makes no mention of reverts.

"Even if this editor is not a sockpuppet, I'm quite skeptical that this
userid was created with Wikipedia's goals and policies in mind. > Jay."
    Black magic again.

I'm not wild-eyed by this all comrades, and Jay is not the devil incarnate.
But I'm hurt and there should not be such a quasi-fetichist way for a
wiki-reaction.
So I'm waiting for good outcome, so I'm patient.
l'Omnivore Sobriquet

----- Original Message -----
From: "JAY JG" <jayjg at hotmail.com>
To: <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Sent: Friday, December 16, 2005 7:22 PM
Subject: RE: [WikiEN-l] My complaint about being blocked.

>
>
>>From: "l'Omnivore Sobriquet" <omnivore.sobriquet at wanadoo.fr>
>>My complaint about being blocked.
>>
>>Friday, 16 December 05
>>
>>                 Messieurs,
>>
>>I would like to register here my full disagreement about being blocked
>>from Wikipedia. This is unfair, and as I appreciate it, unjustified.
>>
>>My IP address is 83.205.136.21.
>>
>>My user name is "L'Omnivore Sobriquet", and on Wednesday 14th of Dec I got
>>blocked at 22:03 (Wiki time), with the message :
>>
>>  "Your user name or IP address has been blocked by Jayjg.
>>The reason given is:
>>revert sockpuppet"
>>
>>Moderator Jayjg replied to my call for justifications with the single line
>>:
>>
>>  "You appear to be a userid created solely for the purpose of reverting
>> articles; that is what your edits consist of.
>>
>>Jay. "
>
> The userid made exactly two edits, both of them reverts of the same page,
> Israel Shamir.  It made no contributions elsewhere, even to the Talk: page
> of the article in question, and certainly appeared to be a revert
> sockpuppet.  Moreover, the subject of this article (Israel Shamir) has
> been consistently vandalizing it, in ways with which we have become all
> too familiar.  He also appealed for friends of his to come and revert the
> article for him on a Yahoo group called Shamir readers:
>
> From: Israel Shamir <ishamir at ...>
> Date: Sat Nov 26, 2005 12:12 pm
> Subject: Wiki ish314
>
> Dear friend, if you have time, you may help to fight a small internet war
> over Wikipedia, a popular website with many links. Obviously it is as
> dominated by philosemites as any other media, and they consistently
> demonise me in the entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Shamir When
> I, or some friends correct their most blatant lies, they change it back in
> no time at all. Afterwards, they refer to their own lies as if it is an
> objective source. Everybody can add, remove and edit any entry in the
> Wiki. I call those who has available time to make an effort and to
> re-conquer the site from philosemites. Shamir
>
> Even if this editor is not a sockpuppet, I'm quite skeptical that this
> userid was created with Wikipedia's goals and policies in mind.
>
> Jay.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>


list: foundation-l

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] Bangkok bid

body:
Walter van Kalken wrote:

> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> Walter van Kalken wrote:
>>
>>> SJ wrote:
>>>
>>>> And I suppose Wikimania 2011 will end up being at McMurdo Station.  It
>>>> will take some working up to.  [Then 2012 : in orbit?  There was
>>>> something about a sub-orbital bid.  And depending on what the next
>>>> World Age brings -- Revelation...  Apokemon... Xists -- 2013 may be
>>>> something completely different.]
>>>>
>>>> -- sj
>>>
>>> What on earth did I deserve such an answer for.
>>
>> Shouldn't you mean "What NOT on earth ..." :-)
>>
>> Ec
>
> No in response to a suggestion by you to make Africa the predestined
> continent I already put up a bid for bangkok. I treated you with
> respect I like to be treated back with respect it could be my lack of
> sleep but I am pretty pissed at SJ's answer especially in the light of
> him being at the current wikimania organising committee I find him
> ridiculing someone else's idea totally inappropriate and uncalled for.

In making a reference to Africa, I was certainly not aware that you had
already put in a bid for Bangkok.  But even if I had known it would not
have prevented me from saying that in this very preliminary stage.  Even
when I first raised such a possibility in Frankfort I had already
conceived of the possibility of an East Asian or Australian bid for
2007.  Bangkok did not come to mind, but I have no objection to going
there in 2007.

I took SJ's comments in jest, and responded accordingly.  No disrespect
was intended.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Bangkok bid


subject: [WikiEN-l] Character Assassination

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> On 12/16/05, Hemanshu Desai <hemanshu.desai at gmail.com> wrote:

>>I propose that the task of ensuring that people do not use the ability to
>>edit biographies in particular to launch attempts at character assassination
>>should be coordinated. A taskforce of people interested could be created
>>which would focus on this particular aspect.
>>This is how we handle any problems on Wikipedia, don't we?

> Biography patrol?

Sounds good. What's the daily load of new bios?

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Boston Globe editorial about Wikipedia

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> On 12/16/05, BCorr at neaction.org <BCorr at neaction.org> wrote:

>>open-source research tool, Wikipedia. ''I still believe in free expression,"
>>Seigenthaler said. ''What I want is accountability."

> He wants accountability, but he doesn't want Chase to be held
> accountable.  I must be missing something.

>>One step in the right direction is Wikipedia's decision to require all of its
>>contributors to register with the site. Another would be to give better play to
>>''editors" who are willing to sign their work.

> If Chase was logged in, his identity would have probably never been discovered.

Stop confusing the issue with "facts"!

- d.


from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
In 12/16/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> I'm still not at all convinced this is a problem, except in the view of
> those who don't like a label that accurately and concisely describes
> what they're doing.
>
> (and, per the A is part of B therefore B is part of A fallacy, I now
> expect someone to follow up with a marvellous strawman example of some
> unrelated grossly POV description)

I'm still not certain why "concepts described as pseudoscience"
wouldn't do.  It is NPOV and still conveys the same message.  It is a
little unwieldy, but it would work fine in prose and probably also as
a category title.

--
Sam


subject: [WikiEN-l] more Kennedy assassination fun

body:
Abigail Brady wrote:

> Someone has made this article
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_People_suggested_to_have_been_involved_in_the_Kennedy_Assassination
> Some choice quotes from this :
> "The two persons at the top of the list of suspects have always been
> Fidel Castro and President Lyndon B. Johnson. " and "There are even a
> few people who believe that Lee Harvey Oswald had something to do with
> it."
> It then gives a big list of names, including J. Edgar Hoover,

Oh boy!

> I think the article should be speedily deleted, and the author banned
> for being clearly insane.  However, I'm not sure whether present
> policy would allow me to unilaterally do that - and I'm pretty sure
> I'd get a lot of hassle out of doing that.  So I'm bringing this to
> your attention.

It's probably an encyclopedic *topic*, even if the present article is
shite. Mind you, it'd need referencing on the level of the Worst Movies
Ever list.

> We need to be able to summarily ban crazies.

We come close. Act too batshit for the wiki and watch the summary block
come down, and no-one move a finger to lift it. [[Wikipedia is not]]
therapy; in particular, Wikipedia is not [[chlorpromazine]].

- d.


body:
On 12/16/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> [[Wikipedia is not]]
> therapy; in particular, Wikipedia is not [[chlorpromazine]].

I respectfully disagree.

--
Sam


subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
Sam Korn wrote:
> In 12/16/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:

>>I'm still not at all convinced this is a problem, except in the view of
>>those who don't like a label that accurately and concisely describes
>>what they're doing.
>>(and, per the A is part of B therefore B is part of A fallacy, I now
>>expect someone to follow up with a marvellous strawman example of some
>>unrelated grossly POV description)

> I'm still not certain why "concepts described as pseudoscience"
> wouldn't do.

[[Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words]]

>  It is NPOV and still conveys the same message.  It is a
> little unwieldy, but it would work fine in prose and probably also as
> a category title.

I disagree. It's horribly clunky.

- d.


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Neil Harris

subject:
[Wikitech-l] why doesn't the internal editor break lines at column
	72

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Uwe Brauer wrote:
>
>> Hello
>>
>> Wouldn't it be possible that the internal editor would break lines say
>> at column 72 as do most mail applications.
>>
>
> Forced line wrapping is a huge difficulty when you do something like resize your
> window. This isn't the 1970s anymore; we don't work on fixed-size teletypes.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>

Mind you, I hear the new IBM 129 card punches now have a nifty
line-editing mode...

-- Neil


subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
On 12/16/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> > I'm still not certain why "concepts described as pseudoscience"
> > wouldn't do.
>
>
> [[Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words]]

But not at the expense of [[Wikipedia:Neutral point of view]].

> >  It is NPOV and still conveys the same message.  It is a
> > little unwieldy, but it would work fine in prose and probably also as
> > a category title.
>
>
> I disagree. It's horribly clunky.

Yes, but entirely accurate and undeniable.

--
Sam


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
On 12/16/05, Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger at whoi.edu> wrote:
> The issue is whether the practitioners are in fact *doing science* ...
> whether they're coming up with their claims by studying the world and
> participating in processes such as peer review and repeating of
> experiments and observations ... or whether they're just pulling their
> claims out of wishful thinking or their religious text or whatever, and
> just _call_ them "science" for political or economic benefit.
>
> Pseudoscience isn't about the subject matter -- it's about the method,
> and the difference between what the practitioners *say* about the
> method, and what they actually *do*.

I think you entirely missed my earlier point.

1. The question is not about what "pseudoscience" is supposed to
*mean*. The definition is clear.
2. The quesiton is about how we decide who falls under it or not. In
practice this is difficult, because many forms of things which are
considered "legitimate" science do not meet all of the "requirements",
and many things which are not considered legitimate science do meet
some of them.

FF


body:
Sam Korn wrote:
> On 12/16/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:

>>[[Wikipedia is not]]
>>therapy; in particular, Wikipedia is not [[chlorpromazine]].

> I respectfully disagree.

How so? It's pretty well established that editors who think they're here
to write an encyclopedia but are clearly far too batshit insane to work
with others on the task will be shown the door in short order, e.g.
Plautus Satire.

When I say WIN therapy, I mean in the sense that WIN is not an
experiment in Internet democracy; it can be, but that's not its purpose
and if it conflicts with writing an encyclopedia, then writing an
encyclopedia wins every time.

(Or did you mean it is in fact Thorazine?)

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Parascience subst. pseudoscience

body:
stevertigo wrote:
>On 12/16/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>

>>wrote:
>>Parascience is often used...

> Thats it:
>   'Parascience' shall be the NPOV term that replaces
> the SPOV
>   term 'pseudoscience' in most cases.

If it describes what pseudoscience describes, and it ever reaches common
English usage rather than being a Wikipedia neologism, I predict those
so labeled will object to it in just the same way.

(Trivia: the word "Scientology" was first used in 1910 or so to mean
what we now call "pseudoscience".)

- d.


body:
On 12/16/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> Sam Korn wrote:
> > On 12/16/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
>
> >>[[Wikipedia is not]]
> >>therapy; in particular, Wikipedia is not [[chlorpromazine]].
>
> > I respectfully disagree.
>
>
> How so? It's pretty well established that editors who think they're here
> to write an encyclopedia but are clearly far too batshit insane to work
> with others on the task will be shown the door in short order, e.g.
> Plautus Satire.
>
> When I say WIN therapy, I mean in the sense that WIN is not an
> experiment in Internet democracy; it can be, but that's not its purpose
> and if it conflicts with writing an encyclopedia, then writing an
> encyclopedia wins every time.
>
> (Or did you mean it is in fact Thorazine?)

I was more meaning that those with too much time on their hands can
find an instant cure.

--
Sam


subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
On 12/16/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> I'm still not at all convinced this is a problem, except in the view of
> those who don't like a label that accurately and concisely describes
> what they're doing.

Here's the crux of the problem: How do you know whether [[Cold
fusion]] belongs in the pseudoscience category or not? Some people
argue it is pseudoscience. Some argue it is protoscience. Some argue
it is none of the above. "Some" can include scientists, philosophers,
historians, and the practitioners.

Whose analysis do you go with? Do you try and offer up your *own*
analysis? Do you try to debate it on the wiki? Considering that a
hundred years of debate have not produced a well-accepted model of
what "normal scientific practice" or even "the scientific method" is,
do we expect to resolve this on Wikipedia? What happens when our
private conclusions vary from those of the mainstream opinion?

The article text, of course, can handle such uncertainty. We can state
all POVs and concerns and arguments and well attribute them. But we
haven't found a way to do it with this category definition.

FF


from_name: Nathan Russell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Empty passwords

body:
On 12/16/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/15/05, Neil Harris <usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
> > It would probably make sense to check for zero-length passwords at
> > account creation time,
> > and to scan for zero length and other trivial passwords on existing
> > accounts, if possible, and issue a warning that they will be locked if
> > the user does not change their password after (say) a month.
>
> Due to the way they are stored in the database this may not be posible.
>
>
> --
> geni

There's only one null string.  For a given account's salt, you could
easily try hashing the null string with that salt.

Nathan


from_name: Gordon Joly

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: BBC News Online Story.

body:
At 09:47 -0600 15/12/05, <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
>On 12/15/05, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
>>  ... apparently the checkers weren't even told that what
>>  they were checking came from Wikipedia so as to avoid bias :-)
>
>I'm afraid it would have been obvious from the writing which articles
>were from Wikipedia. The EB is able to provide the facade of accuracy
>because the writing is so smooth, so you don't expect to find factual
>errors. In Wikipedia articles, you do, because the writing is often
>very poor, so the other problems tend to jump off the page.
>
>Sarah

An example of a publication that is not open to open edit "The
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography".

http://www.oup.com/oxforddnb/info/order/print/

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

Priced at 7,500 UK pounds, it may contain errors.

"...but in the months following publication there was occasional
criticism of the dictionary in some British newspapers and
periodicals for reported factual inaccuracies."

I regard this statement a rather tame....

--
Gordo (aka LoopZilla)
gordon.joly at pobox.com
http://pobox.com/~gordo/
http://www.loopzilla.org/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: BBC News Online Story.

body:
At 00:46 +0100 16/12/05, Heinz wrote:
>Gordon Joly schrieb:
>
>>  The free online resource Wikipedia is about as accurate on science as
>>  the Encyclopedia Britannica, a study shows.
>
>There is one mistake in that sentence. It's not THE wikipedia. It's
>(?) only the en.wikipedia according to that test.
>
>Heinz
>

Did I "schrieb" that?

Did I write that?

No, I did not. I was quoting BBC News Online.

Sorry for the confusion!

--
Gordo (aka LoopZilla)
gordon.joly at pobox.com
http://pobox.com/~gordo/
http://www.loopzilla.org/


body:
stevertigo wrote:

> After reading a couple on this thread, I went to the
> 'Kennedy assassination theories' article and found
> that Fred had just AFD it, claiming it was a nest for
> "vandals and kooks."
> Hardly a good reason to delete a page. Both JFK and
> his assassination are reasonably encyclopedic topics
> about one of the more prominent politicians in the
> last century and how he died. Stemming from that are
> the various theories about how it came about, and its
> not original research to point out what the various
> points of view.

As I said, it's an arguably encyclopedic topic. The question is then
whether this version is less bad than an empty edit box, and if anyone
can make it so before the AFD is up ...

- d.


from_name: Abigail Brady

body:
On 16/12/05, stevertigo <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
> After reading a couple on this thread, I went to the
> 'Kennedy assassination theories' article and found
> that Fred had just AFD it, claiming it was a nest for
> "vandals and kooks."
>
> Here is my response:
>
> Hardly a good reason to delete a page. Both JFK and
> his assassination are reasonably encyclopedic topics
> about one of the more prominent politicians in the
> last century and how he died. Stemming from that are
> the various theories about how it came about, and its
> not original research to point out what the various
> points of view.
>
> Because the 'official version' does not have very
> broad support, NPOV requires that the various other
> theories be explained, albeit in a general and
> condensed way. Are these theories "conspiratorial"
> theories? Of course, and this should be explained,
> albeit in a way which does not rely on a pejorative
> interpretation of the term "conspiracy."
>
> I do agree however that 'vandals and kooks' would feel
> more at home on some Wikipedia fork. ;)

I was only complaining about the (now-redirected) list.

However, the article its been redirect to is actually pretty awful and
should be wiped and started again, but only allowing non-crazy
people to edit.  I don't know that it should be deleted from history
though.

The phenomenon of Kennedy conspiracy theories is interesting,
so if we were writing about it we'd want to date the outlandish
claims of conspiracy theorists and trace when books were published,
when movies were made, and suchforth.  But the article there now
is junk and doesn't try to do this at all, it just presents point/counterpoints,
with very little sourcing.

--
Abi


from_name: Christopher Larberg

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Penny Arcade sends up Wikipedia

body:
Now we've /really/ hit the big time. </sarcasm> Anyway, the popular
gaming-centric webcomic Penny Arcade pokes fun at Wikipedia with its
latest comic, available at http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic.
Interestingly, the comic seems to be inspired by a bad experience Tycho,
one of the comic's creators, had with Wikipedia, and his
"rant" (http://www.penny-arcade.com/) seems rather critical. Also, the
comic sparked some discussion on the forums:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=208105.
--
Christopher Larberg <christopherlarberg at gmail.com>
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from_name: David Harvey

subject: [Wikitech-l] dumps for ja?

body:
The dumps for ja seem a bit old. The latest pages_current is from
beginning of november.

(http://download.wikipedia.org/wikipedia/ja/)

Am I looking in the wrong place?

Thanks

David Harvey


body:
Abigail Brady wrote:

> However, the article its been redirect to is actually pretty awful and
> should be wiped and started again, but only allowing non-crazy
> people to edit.  I don't know that it should be deleted from history
> though.
> The phenomenon of Kennedy conspiracy theories is interesting,
> so if we were writing about it we'd want to date the outlandish
> claims of conspiracy theorists and trace when books were published,
> when movies were made, and suchforth.  But the article there now
> is junk and doesn't try to do this at all, it just presents point/counterpoints,
> with very little sourcing.

Yep. My non-vote on the AFD:

* Neutral, with a side-order of "ew, this sucks" - it's arguably an
encyclopaedic topic, but this version of the article is *batshit* and is
arguably not in any way an improvement on a blank edit box. It will need
some SERIOUS NPOVing and absolutely hard-arsed referencing to make a
good article on this topic at this title. If we know any non-insane JFK
assassination experts on the wiki, please get them on the case - if they
can at least reasonably commit to making it a good article and keeping
the nutters out, that'll make it worth not shooting in disgust - David
Gerard 23:25, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Kennedy_assassination_theories

- d.


body:
Delirium wrote:
> Fred Bauder wrote:

>> Listed.

> (In reference to [[Kennedy assassination theories]].)
> Are you going to list [[9/11 conspiracy theories]] while you're at it?
> If not, why should we have a page on that set of conspiracy theories and
> not on this set?

Because this one's presently so bad it's not an improvement on a blank
edit box ... which is editorial rather than topic, but ew.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Improve quality by reviewing all new articles

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>You're right in theory, but in practice I don't think new articles are
>coming in fast enough that there are some that no one looks at at all.
> Someone *did* look at the Seigenthaler article, it's just that the
>mistakes were subtle enough to not be obvious.  I don't know if it
>contained any references or not, but it certainly could have, just not
>references for every single fact.
>
Saying that the allegations were dropped shortly after they were made
could leave the impression that the issue was not as serious as would
first appear.

>Say you defined "trusted user" as a user who has at least 500 edits.
>It would be no problem to present a list of articles that haven't been
>edited by such a "trusted user".
>
Having a trusted users among the editors may not be enough  His edit may
be as a part of a search and destroy mission for a particular common
spelling mistake.  He would make just that change without bothering to
read the rest of the article..  Another possibility is that he may be
making link fixes that arose from edits he was making elsewhere.

Ec


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Empty passwords

body:
On 12/15/05, Neil Harris <usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
> It would probably make sense to check for zero-length passwords at
> account creation time,
> and to scan for zero length and other trivial passwords on existing
> accounts, if possible, and issue a warning that they will be locked if
> the user does not change their password after (say) a month.

Due to the way they are stored in the database this may not be posible.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] The George W. Bush article: is this still a wiki?

body:
On 12/15/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/15/05, Brian <brian0918 at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> The article badly needs sorting out.  It's grown approximately 50% in
> the past six months, but at the same time it's been hemorrhaging
> useful information and good writing.
>

No major edit is likely to acepted striahgt off. Thus you would have
to set up a temp page anyway.

--
geni


from_name: admin Yellowikis

subject: [Wikitech-l] UIDs

body:
Do articles get allocated a unique, stable identity number (UID) along
with their name when they are created in the database?

Paul

--
Yellowikis is to Yellow Pages, as Wikipedia is to The Encyclopedia Britannica


from_name: Rowan Collins

subject: [Wikitech-l] UIDs

body:
On 17/12/05, admin Yellowikis <yellowikis at gmail.com> wrote:
> Do articles get allocated a unique, stable identity number (UID) along
> with their name when they are created in the database?

Yes; since v1.5, each article has a stable page_id, and each revision
has a stable rev_id.  See maintenance/tables.sql in the source for the
annotated database schema definitions.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


body:
On 16/12/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:
>
> >Because this one's presently so bad it's not an improvement on a blank
> >edit box ... which is editorial rather than topic, but ew.
> >
> >
> In those cases, one approach is to bypass AfD and just replace the
> article with a stub, insisting that any of the removed claims be
> referenced before being readded.

But then the crazies would just revert.  And then it just becomes a
content dispute, with 3RR and all.

--
Abi


subject: [Wikitech-l] UIDs

body:
Just what I was looking for - thanks a lot.

Paul

On 12/17/05, Rowan Collins <rowan.collins at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 17/12/05, admin Yellowikis <yellowikis at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Do articles get allocated a unique, stable identity number (UID) along
> > with their name when they are created in the database?
>
> Yes; since v1.5, each article has a stable page_id, and each revision
> has a stable rev_id.  See maintenance/tables.sql in the source for the
> annotated database schema definitions.
>
> --
> Rowan Collins BSc
> [IMSoP]
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
Yellowikis is to Yellow Pages, as Wikipedia is to The Encyclopedia Britannica


from_name: G L

subject:
[Foundation-l] Closer look at Nature's results: Average article
	size for Wikipedia: 6.80 KB;
	Britannica: 2.60 KB. Number of errors per 2KB for Wikipedia: 1;
	Britannica: 6.5

body:
2005/12/15, Brian <brian0918 at gmail.com>:
>
> Nature has a special report at
> http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051212/full/438900a.html ,  detailing
> the results of an accuracy comparison between WP and EB. While the
> Wikipedia articles often contained more inaccuracies than Britannica's,
> they don't look at the article sizes in each case.

In fact, it seems they did look at the size. If you look carefully at the
top of the list of articles reviewed by Nature, you will find the following
sentence :

All entries were chosen to be approximately the same length in both
encyclopaedias.

It could even be argued that this bias in the selection actually improved
Wikipedia's performance by screening out a number of poorer articles.

GL


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Closer look at Nature's results:
	Average article size for Wikipedia: 6.80 KB;
	Britannica: 2.60 KB. Number of errors per 2KB for Wikipedia: 1;
	Britannica: 6.5


body:
David Gerard wrote:

>Chris Owen wrote:
>
>
>>I suggest that we tackle this by putting all new
>>articles into an approval queue - they shouldn't
>>appear on Wikipedia unless they meet basic quality
>>standards. If a reviewing editor judges that the
>>article meets an objective set of criteria, it should
>>be "published". If not, the submitted new article
>>should either be deleted or sorted into a "needs
>>improvement" category outside the main namespace.
>>
>>
>Probably the simplest way to do this would to tag the article with an
>appropriate template that contains a category.
>
>Mind you, cleanup is already so big and growing so fast I can't see us
>getting through it in a reasonable time ...
>
I still think that adding the unsourced tag is the only practical first
step.  Then we need to recruit people who are willing to be fact
checkers and documenters.  This can't be done at the same time as vandal
patrol, because it's detailed painstaking work which could take a long
time.  Most things should be fact-checked, including those that already
have references.

I would love to see synchronized side-by-side edit boxes which could be
used for this, as well as other uses.

Ec


from_name: Rob

body:
Interesting you should mention biology, as there are
few things on the planet Earth I know less about than
that.  But I'm sure most of us could, with a modest
amount of effort, compose a plausible article in our
own subject specialties that would pass a cursory new
pages patrol check.

The JFK assassination is one of my specialties, and I
do my best to make the many, many, many WP articles on
that topic a little more sane. If the Seigenthaler
article had shown up in Category:JFK assassination or
even been linked to [[JFK assassination]], I most
likely would have spotted it and saved us a lot of
grief.  And yes, I try to RC patrol as much as
possible, but I can only be on WP about 18 hours a
day. ;)

But I honesty don't believe that you need any
specialized knowledge of US history or the JFK
assassination to spot a whopper like the one in the
Seigenthaler article. This isn't an article carefully
crafted by an expert to slip under the radar, it's a
prank that a UPS guy tossed off on his coffee break.
Are we really so easily fooled?  All that we need to
spot things like that is a critical, skeptical eye.

Stan Shebs shebs at apple.com wrote:

Heh, I guarantee you that I could create a
ichthyological whopper,
pun intended, with pictures and citations from some of
the rarer
books in my personal library, and it will slip right
by you, plus
everyone else who doesn't happen to have those books
to check. I bet
I could even get it into the day's DYK!

But if you don't know enough to evaluate, say, the
plausibility of
an article about the popular home aquarium fish
Melanocetus, I'm
not going to take that as evidence you should not be
editing the
encyclopedia; it just means that no one person can
know enough to
be able to make accurate quick judgments on each new
article. We
need better teamwork, not just individual prowess.

Come to think of it, why didn't *you* personally catch
the bogus
Seigenthaler article? Seems like it should be right in
one of
your areas of special knowledge, right? And don't you
RC patrol?

Stan

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


body:
David Gerard fun at thingy.apana.org.au:

If we know any non-insane JFK assassination experts on
the wiki, please get them on the case

Yeah, I guess that's me.

There are 102 articles in [[Category:JFK
assassination]], almost all of which I have
watchlisted, and I've tried to remove the worst of the
insanity from most of them and made significant
rewrites to the most important ones.  Some days it's
all I can do (with significant help from JimWae) to
keep the main assassination article and [[Lee Harvey
Oswald]] free of utter nonsense and conspiracy
speculation, and I find myself getting into bizarre
talk page arguments about Oswald's childhood TV
viewing habits and whether or not he was molested as a
teenager by his supposed CIA contact.  (Yes, those
arguments really happened.)  [[Kennedy assassination
theories]] is one that I've largely avoided, apart
from removing the more bizarre theories involving
aliens and so forth.  Mark's probably got the best
solution - "replace the
article with a stub, insisting that any of the removed
claims be
referenced before being readded."  It's probably best
to start from scratch.

I've thought about starting a WikiProject on this
topic to police   and improve these articles, but I
never got around to it, mostly because I didn't really
think anyone would be interested besides myself.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Bangkok bid

body:
>And fourth, you forgot Poland! We also are preparing a bid, you know.
>At least we plan to, since we have the facilities, and the people
>interested in organizing a conference.
>
>--
>Pozdrawiam,
>
Ouch Poland tough competition great country I think and in Europe. May
the best bid win Datrio :)

Waerth/Walter


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Bangkok bid


body:
Stan Shebs wrote:

> Rob wrote:
>
>> I'm sorry, but if you don't think that the assertion
>> that someone was involved in both the JFK and the RFK
>> assassination is not some sort of lunatic fringe claim
>> that at least deserves some sort of cursory
>> verification, then I don't think the suggestion that
>> you should not be editing an encyclopedia is all that
>> outrageous.
>
> Heh, I guarantee you that I could create a ichthyological whopper,
> pun intended, with pictures and citations from some of the rarer
> books in my personal library, and it will slip right by you, plus
> everyone else who doesn't happen to have those books to check. I bet
> I could even get it into the day's DYK!

Never underestimate the power of a bibliomaniac with a point to prove. :-)

Ec


body:
Abigail Brady wrote:

>Someone has made this article
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_People_suggested_to_have_been_involved_in_the_Kennedy_Assassination
>
>Some choice quotes from this :
>
>"The two persons at the top of the list of suspects have always been
>Fidel Castro and President Lyndon B. Johnson. " and "There are even a
>few people who believe that Lee Harvey Oswald had something to do with
>it."
>
>It then gives a big list of names, including J. Edgar Hoover,
>
>I think the article should be speedily deleted, and the author banned
>for being clearly insane.  However, I'm not sure whether present
>policy would allow me to unilaterally do that - and I'm pretty sure
>I'd get a lot of hassle out of doing that.  So I'm bringing this to
>your attention.
>
>We need to be able to summarily ban crazies.
>
If this only named one or two people I would agree, but this lists such
an incrdible array of people thast it ends up illustrating how silly
conspiracy theories can get.

Ec


from_name: David Gerard

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Closer look at Nature's results: Average article size
	for Wikipedia: 6.80 KB;
	Britannica: 2.60 KB. Number of errors per 2KB for
	Wikipedia: 1;	Britannica: 6.5

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> On 12/15/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>>On 12/15/05, Brian <brian0918 at gmail.com> wrote:

>>>Result: Average article size for Wikipedia: 6.80 KB; Britannica: 2.60
>>>KB.

>>We badly need to tighten up our writing.

> Blame this on the ability to edit by section and the strong
> merge/agglomeration camp. Merging two small articles into one bigger
> article inevitably leads to ungainly, uneditable articles over time.

Hence the Fix Crappy Prose challenge for those who think they can in
fact write.

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Bangkok bid

body:
SJ wrote:

>On 12/16/05, Delphine M?nard <notafishz at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>>And Sj, for any lunar interventions, remember that
>>some of us live on this earth and speak another tongue ;-)
>>
>>
>
>Ahh, this could be a problem.  But in a few years, perhaps the
>Googlefish translation engine will handle even alien languages...
>didn't they start a moon base recently?
>
>
>
>>PS. This said. Bangkok? WOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO !!! :DDDD
>>
>>
>
>Some sentiments need no translation.  (-:
>
>++SJ
>______________________________
>
I am sorry SJ for misunderstanding your text. I was and still am very
tired as I ahev barely slept since last week. Angela can confirm that
she knows how tired I was when I met her .... haven't had mucht sleep
since. I clearly misunderstood your post sorry ......

Need sleep ....
Waerth/Walter


subject: [Foundation-l] Bangkok bid


body:
Karl A. Krueger wrote:

>On Fri, Dec 16, 2005 at 10:35:11PM +0000, David Gerard wrote:
>
>
>>stevertigo wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Thats it:
>>>  'Parascience' shall be the NPOV term that replaces
>>>the SPOV
>>>  term 'pseudoscience' in most cases.
>>>
>>>
>>If it describes what pseudoscience describes, and it ever reaches common
>>English usage rather than being a Wikipedia neologism, I predict those
>>so labeled will object to it in just the same way.
>>
>>
>Yup.  See also [[euphemism treadmill]].  Creating a politically-correct
>neologism won't change the situation:  People who are misleading the
>public (by pretending to scientific research they aren't doing) don't
>like having the fact pointed out.
>
20,000 Google hits is not a characteristic of a neologism.

The difference is that "parascience" assumes good faith;
"pseudoscioence" does not.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Editorial judgement is important.  Google is really a mixed blessing on
> this.  Simply saying that something gets some number of Google hits is
> not enough.  One needs to make a critical evaluation of those linked
> sites.  One needs to distinguish between an academic study and
> somebody's blog..

We can write guidelines and guidelines and guidelines, and no-one will
care except the writers or someone looking for a stick to beat their
opponent on the wiki with - because you can't Taylorise clue.

(When was the last time you read the Manual of Style through? Me neither.)

- d.


from_name: Bryan Derksen

body:
Christopher Larberg wrote:

>Now we've /really/ hit the big time. </sarcasm> Anyway, the popular
>gaming-centric webcomic Penny Arcade pokes fun at Wikipedia with its
>latest comic, available at http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic.
>Interestingly, the comic seems to be inspired by a bad experience Tycho,
>one of the comic's creators, had with Wikipedia, and his
>"rant" (http://www.penny-arcade.com/) seems rather critical. Also, the
>comic sparked some discussion on the forums:
>http://www.penny-arcade.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=208105.
>
>
The irony is that Skeletor's legions of anonymous sock puppets are
completely failing to make any vandalism stick on that article in real
life. Typical, really. None of Skeletor's evil schemes ever remains in
effect by the time the episode is over.

Anyone know what, specifically, Tycho's upset about? The rant indicates
it's something that he posted got deleted. A friend of mine who reads
Penny Arcade gave me a vague description of it that suggests to me that
it _should_ have been deleted, but extra eyes never hurts.


from_name: fallout at lexx.eu.org

subject: [Foundation-l] Closer look at Nature's results: Average article

body:
> Brockhaus is pretty much the German equivalent of Britannica in quality
> and respectability. They don't seem to be panicking at Wikipedia's
> popularity and de:'s market-ready level of quality.

Same with PWN in Poland. They made very positive comments about Wikipedia
this year

Ausir


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>Karl A. Krueger wrote:
>>
>>
>>>    * Homeopathic preparations made according to Hahnemann's method
>>>      contain none of the "potentized" substance.
>>>
>>>
>>Hahnemann needs to be viewed in the context of his own time.  He didn't
>>know about bacteria and virusus because they weren't discovered yet, but
>>unwittingly his thinking foreshadows the discovery of vaccines.
>>
>>
>I think that's far too generous, akin to claiming that the thinking of
>alchemists who wanted to turn lead into gold unwittingly foreshadowed
>the work of [[Ernest Rutherford]].
>
Which particular alchemist were you thinking of?  Or are you just
drawing on stereotypes about what alchemists did.

>> Your
>>comment is still phrased negatively.  Burdens of proof remain with the
>>person making the claim; requiring proof that something does not exist
>>can be an impossible task.  If it doesn't exist you won't find it; if it
>>does exist you may not find it.
>>
>>
>The burden of proof is on the pseudoscientist asserting the
>respectability of "science" to show this apparent non-science works for
>any verifiable definition of "works" - theirs is the outrageous claim.
>
I don't know what the "respectability" of science has to do with
anything; no-one is arguing that science is not respectable.

When you begin from the premise that the person making is a
pseudoscientist you prejudice the argument.  Why not just say,  "the
person asserting..."?  The burden of proof for a theory or process is
certainly upon the person asserting it.

Similarly the burden of proof for the assertion that the person is a
pseudoscientist is upon the person making that assertion.  Otherwise
there's no difference between that and the libel in the Seigenthaler case.

>>The astrological example is a question of definition.  Astrologers will
>>say that the sun is in a sign rather than a constellation.  These signs
>>are predetermined 30 degree segments which need not correspond with the
>>constellations of the same name.  The real issues in astrology are quite
>>different, and have more to do about the relationship of planetary
>>positions to what happens here on earth.
>>
>>
>I have yet to see an advocate of astrology asked for some
>[[falsifiable]] prediction even understand the question.
>
No definition is falsifiable.  If he doesn't understand your question,
that says nothing for or against the validity of the theories he
supports.  But I wouldn't expect the local drafter of charts to
understand that question anymore than the local lab technician.  Both
are more likely to understand it as an accusation of cooking the
results, or deviating from what their respective textbooks tell them to do.

>>>Consider also the related case of the law, which -- like science -- has
>>>some kind of standards of evidence.  We start the article on [[Ted
>>>Bundy]] with the claim that he _was_ a serial killer and rapist ... not
>>>merely that the court _claimed_ that he was a serial killer and rapist.
>>>We don't apply this standard uncritically; there are certainly courts
>>>whose opinions we would not take in evidence.  But where we do, we are
>>>generally not wrong to do so.
>>>
>>>
>>I essentially agree, but there will still be a problem with deciding
>>which court decisions can be used as valid evidence.  We can doubt the
>>validity of Trotsky's conviction by Stalin's show trials, but even
>>countries with suspect governments will need to deal with common criminals.
>>
>>
>This is really not relevant to the issue of the word "pseudoscience".
>
But I wasn't the one to mention Ted Bundy, or make an analogy with law.

>>>I certainly agree that we need to refrain from epithets.  I'm not sure
>>>where the term "pseudoscience" falls, though.  I personally would use it
>>>very narrowly, to refer to fields whose practitioners make a point of
>>>calling the field scientific, but where nothing like scientific practice
>>>is being done ... or, perhaps by extension, where there are not actually
>>>any data upon which to do scientfic study.
>>>
>>>
>>I too prefer a narrow usage, tending to not at all.  "Nothing like" and
>>"not any data" both depend on negative findings.
>>
>>
>"Where's the science?" is a reasonable question that pseudoscience fails.
>
That's an empty generality.  Science is in the process, not the results.

>>>In short, you can't be doing pseudoscience if you don't claim to be
>>>doing science, or more generally try to adopt the mantle of science.  If
>>>you teach dance and tell your students that it's good for their souls,
>>>this isn't a claim to science -- so it can't be pseudoscientific.
>>>
>>>
>>Some people in the dance community might dispute your findings.  I sit
>>as a parent member on a stakeholders' committee of our local school
>>board, and we heard a recent presentation on learning and the arts.
>>Their point was that dance activity can help to improve student
>>achievement iover a range of more traditional subjects.
>>
>>
>Did they have numbers? Did you examine the methodology?
>
They did refer to studies on the effect of the arts on student
achievement done education faculties of universities.

>>>I'm not so sure this makes sense.  There are lots of labels that we are
>>>willing to apply to people who do not themselves accept the labels.  The
>>>most obvious are those drawn from fields such as science and law, which
>>>have reasonably credible standards of verifiability.
>>>
>>>
>>When it comes to naming issues I tend to favour proponents rather than
>>opponents.  In our situation there is no dispute about the naming of
>>most individual fields, only about what we call them collectively.  It's
>>important that the term which we choose carry no implication about the
>>truth or falsity of the contents, or carry in anyway that something is
>>personally wrong with the practitioners.  To me "alternat[iv]e" only
>>suggests that it's different.
>>
>>
>The thing is that it isn't just "different", it's qualitatively
>defective as the thing it's pretending to be.
>
And how would that statement be verifiable.

>I'm coming across as much more strident in this thread than I mean to
>be. But the point is that pseudoscience is in fact *bullshit*, not
>science, and there's going to be no label that doesn't puff up the
>subjects with false respectability that won't soon carry the same
>connotations. Because it is in fact bullshit.
>
Pseudoscience can very well be characterized as bullshit.  However, the
process whereby certain studies and practices are classified as
pseudoscience is also bullshit.

Ec


from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

subject: [Wikitech-l] Obstetrician needed for 7 new Wikipedias

body:
On 12/15/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> While ISO/DIS 639-3 is still provisional, in all reasonable likelyhood
> there will be no major changes to existing codes.

That still doesn't avoid the problem of

1. Us allocating a site under a SIL code or some draft ISO spec
2. ISO allocating a code that equals the SIL code for a different
language or the ISO changing its mind in the final revision of its
standard
3. Us having to deal with the mess

Which is why I think it would be a good idea to put languages that
don't have *official* ISO codes or only have SIL codes under some name
that defenetly won't conflict with future ISO allocations.


subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
Sam Korn wrote:

>On 12/16/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
>
>
>>>I'm still not certain why "concepts described as pseudoscience"
>>>wouldn't do.
>>>
>>>
>>[[Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words]]
>>
>>
>But not at the expense of [[Wikipedia:Neutral point of view]].
>
And using "pseudoscience" alone would be at the expense of NPOV

>>> It is NPOV and still conveys the same message.  It is a
>>>little unwieldy, but it would work fine in prose and probably also as
>>>a category title.
>>>
>>>
>>I disagree. It's horribly clunky.
>>
>>
>Yes, but entirely accurate and undeniable.
>
Clunky terms never have a long shelf life.  People tend not to like the
discipline of repeating the clunky term whenever the term is needed.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>Editorial judgement is important.  Google is really a mixed blessing on
>>this.  Simply saying that something gets some number of Google hits is
>>not enough.  One needs to make a critical evaluation of those linked
>>sites.  One needs to distinguish between an academic study and
>>somebody's blog..
>>
>>
>We can write guidelines and guidelines and guidelines, and no-one will
>care except the writers or someone looking for a stick to beat their
>opponent on the wiki with - because you can't Taylorise clue.
>
>(When was the last time you read the Manual of Style through? Me neither.)
>
One could begin with Taylorizing the Taylorizations.

The Manual of Style is great for those interested in an encyclopedia of
guidelines.

Ec


from_name: Karl A. Krueger

subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
On Fri, Dec 16, 2005 at 10:29:59PM -0500, Fastfission wrote:
> I think you entirely missed my earlier point.
> 1. The question is not about what "pseudoscience" is supposed to
> *mean*. The definition is clear.

OK.  I'm not so sure it was, considering the discussion about
falsifiability.

> 2. The quesiton is about how we decide who falls under it or not. In
> practice this is difficult, because many forms of things which are
> considered "legitimate" science do not meet all of the "requirements",
> and many things which are not considered legitimate science do meet
> some of them.

I'm not sure I see a wide variety of "requirements" here.  I'm not
suggesting any complicated philosophy-of-science laundry list of what
makes Good Science, or Normal Science, or whatever.  I'm just saying
that we're safe calling it "pseudoscience" when someone parades around
under the banner of "SCIENCE" but isn't actually doing anything
resembling it.

--
Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger at whoi.edu>


from_name: Kaveh D.

subject: [Wikitech-l] fa subdomain for Wikisource

body:
Hi,

Can someone with access to Wikimedia servers set up the Persian subdomian
for Wikisource (fa.wikisource.org)? More info:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Angela#fa.wikisource.org
http://wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Language_domain_requests#fa.wikisource.org_.28Persian.29
http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4087

Regards


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Parascience subst. pseudoscience

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> The difference is that "parascience" assumes good faith;
> "pseudoscioence" does not.

Assume good faith is a policy about interaction between contributors,
not content. A neutral point of view assumes neither good faith nor bad.

--Michael Snow


from_name: steven l. rubenstein

subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote,

>David Gerard wrote:
>
>
> >Steve Bennett wrote:
> >
> >
> >>There really should be different sourcing guidelines for different
> >>fields in Wikipedia - popular culture is just "different" to history,
> >>science or geography.
> >>
> >>
> >Some sort of referencing should be possible. For TV or movie synopses,
> >the text itself as an implicit reference is obvious and sufficient, for
> >example.
> >
>To some extent we can make use of "standard" references.  The Internet
>Movie Data Base is a good example for movies, but that won't work for
>everything.  Many subjects, however, are more controversial and the
>standards there need to be more stringent .

I agree that in certain areas we can make good use of "standard"
references.  However, this leads me to an issue that has concerned me for
some time: the use of dictionaries and encyclopedias as sources.

I believe that dictionaries are authorities on the spelling and
pronunciation of words.  I also think they can be drawn on to account for
how a word is "commonly" or "popularly" understood.  But I am very strongly
opposed to relying on them actually to define a term in Wikipedia -- at
least, in areas of scholarly and professional concern.  For example, OED
may or may not have a good definition of "evolution."  Regardless, I think
the definition of "Evolution" in the "evolution" article should reflect
the  mainstream understanding of evolutionary scientists (I do NOT want to
go into SPOV vs. NPOV; if it makes things easier, I have no problem with
(1) specifying that this is how evolutionary scientists define it, and (2)
mention that non-evolutionary scientists have other definitions).  OED may
or may not have a good definition of "imperialism."  Regardless, I think
the definition of "imperialism" in the "imperialism" article should reflect
the  mainstream understanding of political scientists and historians (and
perhaps even politicians (again, I have no problem with (1) specifying that
this is how scholars and professionals define it, and (2) mention that
non-scholars scientists have other definitions).  According to our
"Wikipedia is not a dictionary" policy, we state that it is good to start
articles with a definition.  I think relying on dictionary definitions is
(a) lazy (we are letting whoever wrote researched the dictionary do our
research for us.  This is not a problem when it comes to relying on books
by scholars in writing an article, but dictionary definitions are the
ultimate product of abstracting from various sources.  This is precisely
what our job should be), (b) redundant (anyone who has access to Wikipedia
has access to OED online or Answers.com and can get a definition that way,
and (c) may very well conflict with the body of the article, if we are
drawing on sources written by scholars and professionals.  I believe that
the "Wikipedia is not a dictionary" and the "Cite Sources" pages should be
revised to address this.

Other encyclopedias are great ways to begin research, since they give us an
idea of what an article on a topic could cover, and sometimes provides
references we can turn to.  I also think it is a useful exercise to compare
our articles to those in other encyclopedias, just to get a sense as to
whether we have missed something important.  But I object to using articles
from other encyclopedias as sources for our articles.  It seems so patently
absurd to me, it is hard to explain why -- except I know others do this
regularly, so I have to.  So okay, it comes down to similar reasons for my
rejecting dictionaries as sources (at least, in areas of scholarly and
professional concern).  First, encyclopedia articles are the ultimate
product of abstracting from various sources.  This is precisely what our
job should be.  To rely on the research of others to me seems to devalue
our own role as researchers.  Second, since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia,
it seems terribly derivative to base our articles on the articles of other
encyclopedias.  Moreover, Wikipedia is an experiment in a new way of
producing an encyclopedia; to rely on conventional encyclopedias seems to
undermine our own integrity, what defines us as unique and special.  I
grant that there may be occasions in which other encyclopedias can (like
the IMDB Ec mentions) be useful resources, but I think these cases should
be the exceptions, not the rule.  And I think we need to revise our
policies to make this clear.

Steve

Steven L. Rubenstein
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701


from_name: Brian C

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [Fwd: Getting Unblocked at Wikipedia]

body:
Hi,

Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Brian, I'm forwarding your email to the wikien-l group, and someone will
> be able to help you promptly.

Charles tried to assist me nearly a month ago. Still didn't work. Here's
our latest correspondence. If someone who has "a bit more technical
savvy" as Charles puts it, would contact me privately, I'll send along
the problem IP.

 > I am still blocked from editing from this IP, even if I log in.
However, when I search for my IP in the block list, I cannot find it.
 >
 > Brian

That is correct - the IP number should not be blocked.

You really need to talk to some admin who has a bit more technical savvy
about this.

Charles

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Getting Unblocked at Wikipedia
> Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 14:22:09 -0800
> From: Brian C <brianwc at ocf.berkeley.edu>
> Reply-To: or-talk at freehaven.net
> To: or-talk at freehaven.net
>
> Hi,
>
> I like to occasionally contribute to the Wikipedia. I also run a tor
> server. I do not want a Wikipedia username, and so I always just
> contribute anonymously.
>
> During the recent fracas about tor and Wikipedia, my static IP address
> from which I run my tor server was blocked for an "infinite" time
> period. I have since decided that until I get more than one static IP, I
> will only run my tor server in "middle-man" mode, so it is not presently
> possible that defacement of Wikipedia (or Slashdot, or the Gentoo
> Forums, etc.) is exiting from my IP address.
>
> I was able to email Slashdot and can login there again, and I don't
> presently contribute to the Gentoo Forums often enough to worry about
> it. However, I am finding it impossible to correct the Wikipedia block,
> because without a username the only way to contact an admin is to edit
> their "talk" page, but I am forbidden from editing any page because of
> the block. A vicious cycle.
>
> Does anyone have any experience with this such that they could direct me
> to an actual email address of a Wikipedia admin who could remove the
> block or otherwise advise me on how to proceed? Thanks.
>
> Brian
>
>
>


from_name: SJ

body:
Has there been contact with PWN since then?    sj

On 12/16/05, fallout at lexx.eu.org <fallout at lexx.eu.org> wrote:
> > Brockhaus is pretty much the German equivalent of Britannica in quality
> > and respectability. They don't seem to be panicking at Wikipedia's
> > popularity and de:'s market-ready level of quality.
>
> Same with PWN in Poland. They made very positive comments about Wikipedia
> this year
>
> Ausir
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
++SJ


from_name: Dori

subject: [Foundation-l] irc.freenode.net -> chat.freenode.net and patience

body:
On 12/17/05, Florence Devouard <anthere at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Hi
>
> If you are of the same type than I, you may have had troubles to connect
> to any of freenode channels for the past 15 hours or so.
> It seems some irc clients mention the problem, others do not do anything
> except for endlessly looking for the channel and not finding it (that
> was my case).
>
> It seems to be a spambot attack on freenode. You may try the channel
> chat.freenode.net. It works.

Sometimes it helps to try a different server, here's the list:
http://freenode.net/irc_servers.shtml

Dori


subject: [WikiEN-l] BBC News Online Story.

body:
On 12/15/05, Neil Harris <neil at tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
> Sherool wrote:
> > Neat, one nit pick though, where to they keep pulling these numbers of
> > the number of contributors from? 13,000 contributors?
> > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics> says there are
> > 686,624 users. Now granted not ALL of those have contributed (not
> > constructively anyway), but still...
> >
> They may be talking about those who made 5 or more edits in the last
> month. of which there were 13174 in September 2005, according to
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wikistats/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm

The volunteer army deserves more credit.  Even by
accounts-with-5-edits-a-month standards, it should be 15,000 in
English [and 30,000 in all languages].

I would peg the # of volunteers 25% higher, since there are slow,
steady, excellent contributors, and many active anons.  One often
finds anons monitoring and maintaining specific pages; I recently put
a face to this phenomenon in meeting two professionals, one a
businessman and another employed at an international charity, who edit
and keep their eye on at least one article in which they are armchair
experts.  (But "of course" anonymously.  Bad enough when someone peeks
into your office and sees -- is that a Wikipedia edit page? -- worse
yet if you are logged in and it might be construed as a pasttime.)

++SJ


from_name: stevertigo

body:
Um, I speedy de-AFD the Kennedy assassination theories
article (it had no delete votes, 13 keep, and 3
neutrals) and Fred wiped most of the page.

Is Fred pulling an Ed? (or a Steve?). Is frustration
getting the best of some of us?

Stevertigo

--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

> Abigail Brady wrote:
>
> >Someone has made this article
> >
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_People_suggested_to_have_been_involved_in_the_Kennedy_Assassination
> >
> >Some choice quotes from this :
> >
> >"The two persons at the top of the list of suspects
> have always been
> >Fidel Castro and President Lyndon B. Johnson. " and
> "There are even a
> >few people who believe that Lee Harvey Oswald had
> something to do with
> >it."
> >
> >It then gives a big list of names, including J.
> Edgar Hoover,
> >
> >I think the article should be speedily deleted, and
> the author banned
> >for being clearly insane.  However, I'm not sure
> whether present
> >policy would allow me to unilaterally do that - and
> I'm pretty sure
> >I'd get a lot of hassle out of doing that.  So I'm
> bringing this to
> >your attention.
> >
> >We need to be able to summarily ban crazies.
> >
> If this only named one or two people I would agree,
> but this lists such
> an incrdible array of people thast it ends up
> illustrating how silly
> conspiracy theories can get.
>
> Ec
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


from_name: YamiTakashi2 at aol.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
can anyone help me figure out ho to get a guy who blocked me for no reason
to unblock me? the thing said subscribe to this list and stuff i'm still new to
 Wikipedia


from_name: Delirium

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>And by the way, "pseudoscience" does not imply bad faith; it implies
>incompetence. The pseudoscientist frequently takes the label as a
>personal attack because they literally do not understand why what they
>do is not science at all, even though they sincerely believe in what
>they are doing.
>
>
Well, it really is a personal attack; it means something akin to what
"quack" means in medicine.  It occasionally gets slung around among
scientists, especially when getting into flamewars about the relative
merits of various of the "soft sciences", and is rarely considered
anything but an attack.  For example, if I were to say, "although it
uses many statistics, sociology is more of a pseudoscience than a proper
science", it's pretty clearly an overt attack on sociology.

-Mark


body:
you lost me there. I just want to know why i was blocked and called
Anti-Semetic. I'm a new user still and don't know much about editing or how  Wikipedia
works. I just wanted ot add to a Page that seems ot be a one sided  thing.
I'm still new to Wiki pedia and it's hard figuring out editing. looked up  a
show called Reboot. and sumited a picture of a character that was said not to
have ever been seen on the show but only heard saying "What" well i added a
screenshot i took and i added it to the page and then added it to the discussion
area under a thign about a character named mouse since that seemed like a
good  place for it also.


body:
What are you talkign aobut again? I just want to know why i was blocked i
feel i was blocked unjustly. I'm stillknew to Wikipedia and don't know the terms
 I just put in a open minded ideal. and I feel a closed minded person
attacked me  by blocking me.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Why was i blocked that's all i ask

body:
What are you tlaking about? I just want to know why i was blocked stop
trying to go over my head with some good faith tlak please just give me a clear
answer.


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
On 12/17/05, Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger at whoi.edu> wrote:
> OK.  I'm not so sure it was, considering the discussion about
> falsifiability.

Well, let me be more specific: the meaning, in a general sense, is
clear. Something which claims to be science but is not science. The
specifics of how one defines "science" in this sense is not clear, not
only not on Wikipedia but not even in the larger academic context in
general, and so things like falsifiability get bandied around as
possible approaches to this.

> I'm not sure I see a wide variety of "requirements" here.  I'm not
> suggesting any complicated philosophy-of-science laundry list of what
> makes Good Science, or Normal Science, or whatever.  I'm just saying
> that we're safe calling it "pseudoscience" when someone parades around
> under the banner of "SCIENCE" but isn't actually doing anything
> resembling it.

Again, you're begging the question, which is entirely how one tells
when one is "resembling it". Science looks like many things, and
whether something resembles it depends on whether you stress the
similarities or the differences.

FF


from_name: Geoff Burling

body:
On Fri, 16 Dec 2005, Stan Shebs wrote:

> Heh, I guarantee you that I could create a ichthyological whopper,
> pun intended, with pictures and citations from some of the rarer
> books in my personal library, and it will slip right by you, plus
> everyone else who doesn't happen to have those books to check. I bet
> I could even get it into the day's DYK!
>
> But if you don't know enough to evaluate, say, the plausibility of
> an article about the popular home aquarium fish Melanocetus, I'm
> not going to take that as evidence you should not be editing the
> encyclopedia; it just means that no one person can know enough to
> be able to make accurate quick judgments on each new article. We
> need better teamwork, not just individual prowess.
>
One tool that I'm a little surprised that isn't used more often is
to check whether any links exist to a supicious article. While this
property is not entirely foolproof (a prankster can insert links
either before or immediately after creating the article), this lack
of reference to relevant articles will convince me to at least flag
the article until I can find a way to conclusively prove its
validity -- or arguable importance.

Of course, this leads to the question if an article cannot be found
by a casual reader then why should we care. Or maybe the Seigenthaler
incident has already answered that.

Geoff


body:
On Sat, 17 Dec 2005, Rob wrote:

>
> I've thought about starting a WikiProject on this
> topic to police   and improve these articles, but I
> never got around to it, mostly because I didn't really
> think anyone would be interested besides myself.
>
Never underestimate the amount of interest in apparent
trivia Wikipedia brings out of otherwise unremarkable
people.

Somewhat OT: has anyone ever read David Lodge's novel,
_Changing Places_? In it he describes a parlor game called
"Humility" where each player tries to think of a book he
has not read -- but everyone else has, & thus scores a point
for each person. Some variant on this idea might be
worth a BoF at the next Wikimania.

Geoff


body:
stevertigo wrote:

>Um, I speedy de-AFD the Kennedy assassination theories
>article (it had no delete votes, 13 keep, and 3
>neutrals) and Fred wiped most of the page.
>
>Is Fred pulling an Ed? (or a Steve?). Is frustration
>getting the best of some of us?
>
>
A lot of the votes in this particular case were of the form "we should
have an article on this subject, so don't delete, but the text we
currently have there is in pretty dire shape so it'll need a heavy
reworking." My own was along those lines too. The stub that Fred reduced
it to was a little too small, IMO there's a bit more salvageable
material in the current article than that, but not really out of line.


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
I know it seems drastic, but there was not one source cited.
Basically it was just the sort of chatting we used to do in the Navy.
We called it scuddlebutt.

Fred

On Dec 17, 2005, at 1:35 PM, Bryan Derksen wrote:

> stevertigo wrote:
>
>
>> Um, I speedy de-AFD the Kennedy assassination theories
>> article (it had no delete votes, 13 keep, and 3
>> neutrals) and Fred wiped most of the page.
>>
>> Is Fred pulling an Ed? (or a Steve?). Is frustration
>> getting the best of some of us?
>>
>>
> A lot of the votes in this particular case were of the form "we
> should have an article on this subject, so don't delete, but the
> text we currently have there is in pretty dire shape so it'll need
> a heavy reworking." My own was along those lines too. The stub that
> Fred reduced it to was a little too small, IMO there's a bit more
> salvageable material in the current article than that, but not
> really out of line.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
Even speculation and conspiracy theories have sources.

Fred

On Dec 17, 2005, at 11:59 AM, stevertigo wrote:

> Um, I speedy de-AFD the Kennedy assassination theories
> article (it had no delete votes, 13 keep, and 3
> neutrals) and Fred wiped most of the page.
>
> Is Fred pulling an Ed? (or a Steve?). Is frustration
> getting the best of some of us?
>
> Stevertigo
>
> --- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>> Abigail Brady wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Someone has made this article
>>>
>>>
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
>> List_of_People_suggested_to_have_been_involved_in_the_Kennedy_Assassi
>> nation
>>
>>>
>>> Some choice quotes from this :
>>>
>>> "The two persons at the top of the list of suspects
>>>
>> have always been
>>
>>> Fidel Castro and President Lyndon B. Johnson. " and
>>>
>> "There are even a
>>
>>> few people who believe that Lee Harvey Oswald had
>>>
>> something to do with
>>
>>> it."
>>>
>>> It then gives a big list of names, including J.
>>>
>> Edgar Hoover,
>>
>>>
>>> I think the article should be speedily deleted, and
>>>
>> the author banned
>>
>>> for being clearly insane.  However, I'm not sure
>>>
>> whether present
>>
>>> policy would allow me to unilaterally do that - and
>>>
>> I'm pretty sure
>>
>>> I'd get a lot of hassle out of doing that.  So I'm
>>>
>> bringing this to
>>
>>> your attention.
>>>
>>> We need to be able to summarily ban crazies.
>>>
>>>
>> If this only named one or two people I would agree,
>> but this lists such
>> an incrdible array of people thast it ends up
>> illustrating how silly
>> conspiracy theories can get.
>>
>> Ec
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>>
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Florence Devouard

body:
Hi

If you are of the same type than I, you may have had troubles to connect
to any of freenode channels for the past 15 hours or so.
It seems some irc clients mention the problem, others do not do anything
except for endlessly looking for the channel and not finding it (that
was my case).

It seems to be a spambot attack on freenode. You may try the channel
chat.freenode.net. It works.

Nevertheless, discussions are difficult to keep up with, due to users
endlessly automatically quitting and joining. Private channels are at
least working :-)

I only post this here to avoid being confused with a spammer, so please
have the information circulate as needed :-)

ant


from_name: Anthere

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: irc.freenode.net -> chat.freenode.net and
	patience

body:
Florence Devouard wrote:
> Hi
>
> If you are of the same type than I, you may have had troubles to connect
> to any of freenode channels for the past 15 hours or so.
> It seems some irc clients mention the problem, others do not do anything
> except for endlessly looking for the channel and not finding it (that
> was my case).
>
> It seems to be a spambot attack on freenode. You may try the channel
> chat.freenode.net. It works.
>
> Nevertheless, discussions are difficult to keep up with, due to users
> endlessly automatically quitting and joining. Private channels are at
> least working :-)
>
> I only post this here to avoid being confused with a spammer, so please
> have the information circulate as needed :-)
>
>
> ant

[12:59] 	<lilo>	Anthere: I believe we have the problems taken care of now
[12:59] 	<lilo>	Anthere: major clonebot attack
[13:00] 	<lilo>	Anthere: the freenode website contained a news article,
and several major pages had information
[13:00] 	<Anthere>	link ?
[13:00] 	*	lilo hopes people will look on the website if there's a
connectivity problem, as it may save them worry and help them get
reconnected sooner
[13:00] 	<lilo>	http://freenode.net/
[13:00] 	<Anthere>	k
[13:01] 	<Anthere>	thanks
[13:01] 	<lilo>	there's also http://freenode.net/news.shtml
[13:01] 	<lilo>	but if you just go to the main page there's enough
information
[13:01] 	<lilo>	Anthere: luckily, in the process of replacing the main
rotation we were able to sniff out an approach to attacking the spambots
[13:02] 	<lilo>	Anthere: and we're just implementing that now
[13:02] 	<Anthere>	I'll post that information, so that people do not
believe *their* computer is the problem :-)
[13:02] 	<lilo>	Anthere: it's not guaranteed to work forever though; I
think we'll be slowly phasing in the new hostname as a way to be a
little less high profile for conventional spambot attacks
[13:03] 	<lilo>	Anthere: we do have a new approach to try to find
distinguishing characteristics for the clonebots, but there's no
guarantee it will work every time
[13:03] 	<Anthere>	there was another attack pretty recently, was not it ?
[13:03] 	<Ryo_>	lilo: thanks for the work on the servers
[13:03] 	<lilo>	Anthere: there's been a spambot infestation for months;
the spambots were tweaked on Friday and ended up on different channels

That should summarize the issue....

Anthere


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: why doesn't the internal editor break lines
	at	column 72

references:
<878xukopd3.fsf@mat.ucm.es> <43A3236F.3040602@pobox.com>
	<877ja3sbvm.fsf@mat.ucm.es>

body:
Uwe Brauer wrote:
> Well all the mail clients do it without a problem, right?

Not really.

Generally you write your text in a text editor widget with soft line wrapping
(line breaks are inserted in the display, not in the text, during editing), the
final newlines are added when you save or send the message, fixing the line length.

But on the wiki, you don't just edit once: you edit many times over, adding and
removing text. The position of line breaks will change constantly from edit to
edit due to text changes even if the window size were consistent (which it isn't).

In email generally you're not editing other peoples' existing text. You're
writing *new* text. Other peoples' text is quoted, and usually no wrapping is
done on that text (this requires a special-purpose text editor widget) or else
you end up with lots of extra broken lines with a word or two from the end of a
quoted line at the start of the next line. I've seen this, you've probably seen
it, it's ugly!

If you've ever tried copy-and-pasting text that's a little bit too long for the
mailer's line-wrapping setting, you should know what a pain in the ass this can
be. Code, tables, etc can be irretrievably corrupted by a braindead mail
composition widget that insists on wrapping every line that's not quoted from
the previous message (Thunderbird, I'm talking to you!)

Consider again that the size of the window varies much more for web forms;
e-mail is traditionally fixed to something like 72 columns due to its 1970s
terminal heritage -- which is not shared by the web, which was born in the 1990s
on NeXT workstations with a high-resolution GUI.

When you mix a constantly-changing stream of window sizes and editor widths,
forced wrapping would be absolutely horrible for something that other people are
going to come in and edit over and over and over again.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
On 12/17/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> > And using "pseudoscience" alone would be at the expense of NPOV
> You still appear to be trying to "prove" this by assertion.

Actually if you'd look over the discussion you'd see there is somewhat
more than just assertion, and that you have been the one doing the
most blunt asserting. If you can't see why labeling a form of inquiry
as "pretend science" might be a POV problem, I'm not sure how much you
are going to bring to the discussion.

I agree that most things labeled pseudoscience are "crap" or worst.
But I'm willing to recognize where that POV I happen to hold comes
from, and that there are valid and actually quite common alternatives
to it.

As an aside, did anybody notice in last month's _Wired_ they made fun
of Wikipedia for having decided that Scientology was a pseudoscience?
I don't know enough about Scientology to know whether it was a good
idea or not (I suspect it is bonkers, but that's different from being
pseudoscience), but the fact that _Wired_ would find that amusing
enough to comment on is a bit suspicious and really gets at the heart
of some of what I have been saying.

Labeling something as "pretend science" is a POV statement, as I have
tried to demonstrate at length (and have not yet seen any compelling
arguments against it), and if we are to be applying such a label, we
should come up with standards so that it is not "Wikipedia" who is
responsible for the POV.

The biggest difficulty, in my mind, is figuring out a better category
name which expresses something along the lines of "Considered
'pseudoscience' by the scientific community". Which would be both a
useful tag (labels the nonsense for those who are fans of real
science) and a neutral one (properly attributes POV, is not WP who is
making the decision), as well as a set of verifiable critieria (it is
not hard to determine whether or not something is considered
pseudoscience in an indisputed way amongst most mainstream scientists;
keyword searches of _Nature_ and _Science_ make that pretty easy).

FF


subject: [WikiEN-l] Now we're a cult ...

body:
If people arguing on the internet means they have been inducted into a
cult, then I'd better be off to get the Kool-Aid ready...

FF

On 12/17/05, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> Charles Arthur (The Independent, London) this Thursday:
>
> http://technology.guardian.co.uk/opinion/story/0,16541,1667346,00.html .
>
> Charles
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
The way to get around POV problems is not to create new terms, but to
properly attribute the POV.

Instead of saying "X is Y", you write, "X is considered Y by Z". NPOV,
no problem. Changing it to "X is Q" changes nothing and misses the
point.

FF

On 12/16/05, stevertigo <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > On 12/16/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
> > wrote:
> > Parascience is often used...
>
> Thats it:
>   'Parascience' shall be the NPOV term that replaces
> the SPOV
>   term 'pseudoscience' in most cases.
>
> Stevertigo
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
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> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
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>


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
> >care except the writers or someone looking for a stick to beat their
> >opponent on the wiki with - because you can't Taylorise clue.
> >
> >(When was the last time you read the Manual of Style through? Me
> >neither.)
> >
> One could begin with Taylorizing the Taylorizations.

[[Taylorize]] redirected to [[Frederick Winslow Taylor]], and google
wasn't much help either.  What is "Taylorization"?

Steve


from_name: Guettarda

subject: [WikiEN-l] Now we're a cult ...

body: This isn't news - my wife has been calling this a cult member for months :)


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
On 12/17/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> Heh. I have started in a slow way tightening up some of our ridiculously
> bloated, opaquely-written and special-case-riddled guideline and policy
> pages; I look forward to the time to really go the hack on the MoS. I
> think it could be one-third the length without losing a single useful
> detail. Heck, someone might even want to read it for reasons other than
> querulousness.

I believe way too much of our policy and guidelines is made up of
rules devised for problematic cases.  "Bad cases make bad law," it is
said, and our rules are made up that way a bit more than I like.

-Matt


from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia, Britannica, and CBC

body:
kelvSYC wrote:

> Here's another story comparing Wikipedia and Britannica on [[Canadian
> Broadcasting Corporation|CBC]] to add to our collection:
>
> http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2005/12/15/Wikipedia-
> review051215.html
> _______________________________________________

All this positive news came just in time for the funddrive ....

Waerth/Walter


body:
Hi,

> Big yellow and black stripes!

Yes, preferably with "under construction" signs. No, seriously - if a
user goes out of their way to view text which is "not fit for public
viewing", they deserve any spammy banners they see.  Of course, one
problem is what is then implied by the absence of such spammy banners on
'published' pages, as has been discussed.

Steve


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason wrote:
> On 12/15/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> While ISO/DIS 639-3 is still provisional, in all reasonable likelyhood
>> there will be no major changes to existing codes.
>>
>
> That still doesn't avoid the problem of
>
> 1. Us allocating a site under a SIL code or some draft ISO spec
> 2. ISO allocating a code that equals the SIL code for a different
> language or the ISO changing its mind in the final revision of its
> standard
> 3. Us having to deal with the mess
>
> Which is why I think it would be a good idea to put languages that
> don't have *official* ISO codes or only have SIL codes under some name
> that defenetly won't conflict with future ISO allocations.
>
Hoi,
The ISO 639-3 codes are more less fixed. They will not change. In
ISO-639-4 there will be a cleanup. The SIL codes are now superseded by
the latest version of the ISO-639-3 codes. I will make sure that we will
get the latest version of the ISO-639 codes. The SIL codes are all
capitalised the ISO-639 codes are not. Therefore capitalisation is a
sure method of preventing conflicts. If our software does not take this
capitalisation into account, it is our code that is at fault.

Thanks,
   GerardM


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] more Kennedy assassination fun

body:
Rob wrote:
> David Gerard fun at thingy.apana.org.au:

>> If we know any non-insane JFK assassination experts on
>> the wiki, please get them on the case

> Yeah, I guess that's me.

Eeeexxcellent!

> [[Kennedy assassination
> theories]] is one that I've largely avoided, apart
> from removing the more bizarre theories involving
> aliens and so forth.  Mark's probably got the best
> solution - "replace the
> article with a stub, insisting that any of the removed
> claims be
> referenced before being readded."  It's probably best
> to start from scratch.

Indeed.

> I've thought about starting a WikiProject on this
> topic to police   and improve these articles, but I
> never got around to it, mostly because I didn't really
> think anyone would be interested besides myself.

And a bundle of lunatics, of course!

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Parascience subst. pseudoscience

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> 20,000 Google hits is not a characteristic of a neologism.
> The difference is that "parascience" assumes good faith;
> "pseudoscioence" does not.

The other difference is that, as you'll see if you look through the
search results, "parascience" has a different meaning entirely: the
paranormal and [[anomalous phenomena]].

- d.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Penny Arcade sends up Wikipedia

body:
Bryan Derksen wrote:
> Christopher Larberg wrote:

> Anyone know what, specifically, Tycho's upset about? The rant indicates
> it's something that he posted got deleted. A friend of mine who reads
> Penny Arcade gave me a vague description of it that suggests to me that
> it _should_ have been deleted, but extra eyes never hurts.

I assumed it was general webcomic community pissed-offness.

    http://ubersoft.net/kpanic/d/20051123.html
    http://ubersoft.net/kpanic/d/20051208.html

Well done AFD, you've soured an entire community with a wide readership
who specialise in spreading memes.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:

>> I'm coming across as much more strident in this thread than I mean to
>> be. But the point is that pseudoscience is in fact *bullshit*, not
>> science, and there's going to be no label that doesn't puff up the
>> subjects with false respectability that won't soon carry the same
>> connotations. Because it is in fact bullshit.

> Pseudoscience can very well be characterized as bullshit.  However, the
> process whereby certain studies and practices are classified as
> pseudoscience is also bullshit.

And what's that process, as you understand it?

- d.


body:
Domas Mituzas wrote:
> > Therefore capitalisation is a sure method of preventing conflicts.
> If our software does not take this capitalisation into account, it is
> our code that is at fault.
>
> Was this... a... joke? :)
>
> Since when domain names are case sensitive?
>
> Domas
Hoi,
It is not a joke. When we use SIL codes and intermingle them with
ISO-639 codes, it is our responsibility that we ensure the right
distinction. You cannot mix two standards and expect them to be correct
blindly. It is our software that implements standards and consequently
when yet another standard makes that we cannot do it implicitly we have
to do it explicitly.
Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: charles matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Now we're a cult ...

body:
Charles Arthur (The Independent, London) this Thursday:

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/opinion/story/0,16541,1667346,00.html .

Charles


subject: [WikiEN-l] Now we're a cult ...

body:
I wrote

> Charles Arthur (The Independent, London) this Thursday:

When I write 'The Independent', I sometimes mean 'The Guardian'.

Charles


subject: [WikiEN-l] Now we're a cult ...

body:
charles matthews wrote:

> Charles Arthur (The Independent, London) this Thursday:
> http://technology.guardian.co.uk/opinion/story/0,16541,1667346,00.html .

Oh good, I can use all this knowledge of Sc*nt*l*gy for something after all!

(goes to reread [[Bare-faced Messiah]])

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Sam Korn wrote:
>> On 12/16/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:

>>> [[Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words]]

>> But not at the expense of [[Wikipedia:Neutral point of view]].

> And using "pseudoscience" alone would be at the expense of NPOV

You still appear to be trying to "prove" this by assertion.

- d.


body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> The difference is that "parascience" assumes good faith;
> "pseudoscioence" does not.

And by the way, "pseudoscience" does not imply bad faith; it implies
incompetence. The pseudoscientist frequently takes the label as a
personal attack because they literally do not understand why what they
do is not science at all, even though they sincerely believe in what
they are doing.

    http://www.csicop.org/si/2004-05/new-age.html

- an article on why so many New Age advocates exhibit the reasoning
skills of cheese. And feel so put-upon when people who know what science
is point and say "pseudoscience": they literally don't understand what's
pseudo- about it.

- d.


body:
As an aside -- are they going to tell us what they thought the errors
were at any point? I bring this up not only as a point related to
improvement, but it would be nice to see what exactly the, err, nature
of the errors were. They chose a number of history of science related
articles as well, and it would not surprise me if some of our "errors"
were matters of interpretation at time, rather than specifically wrong
points.

It would be ideal, of course, if we could do a thorough fact-check on
each of the so-labeled articles. It would be to our benefit to show
that we could ferret out mistakes quickly despite not having a
full-time or even professional staff. (I've started going over a few
of the biographies in this fashion personally, since they are the
easiest for me to check)

FF

On 12/16/05, G L <glwiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2005/12/15, Brian <brian0918 at gmail.com>:
> >
> > Nature has a special report at
> > http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051212/full/438900a.html ,  detailing
> > the results of an accuracy comparison between WP and EB. While the
> > Wikipedia articles often contained more inaccuracies than Britannica's,
> > they don't look at the article sizes in each case.
>
>
> In fact, it seems they did look at the size. If you look carefully at the
> top of the list of articles reviewed by Nature, you will find the following
> sentence :
>
> All entries were chosen to be approximately the same length in both
> encyclopaedias.
>
> It could even be argued that this bias in the selection actually improved
> Wikipedia's performance by screening out a number of poorer articles.
>
> GL
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Domas Mituzas

body:
 > Therefore capitalisation is a sure method of preventing conflicts.
If our software does not take this capitalisation into account, it is
our code that is at fault.

Was this... a... joke? :)

Since when domain names are case sensitive?

Domas


subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
David Gerard wrote:

> And for the answer to your question, I'm going to say: editorial
> judgement. We can't Taylorise everything.

[[Taylorise]] now redirects to [[Scientific management]].

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:

>> We can write guidelines and guidelines and guidelines, and no-one will
>> care except the writers or someone looking for a stick to beat their
>> opponent on the wiki with - because you can't Taylorise clue.
>> (When was the last time you read the Manual of Style through? Me
>> neither.)

> One could begin with Taylorizing the Taylorizations.

Heh. I have started in a slow way tightening up some of our ridiculously
bloated, opaquely-written and special-case-riddled guideline and policy
pages; I look forward to the time to really go the hack on the MoS. I
think it could be one-third the length without losing a single useful
detail. Heck, someone might even want to read it for reasons other than
querulousness.

> The Manual of Style is great for those interested in an encyclopedia of
> guidelines.

LOL!

- d.


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Esquire article has been published

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>http://www.smartmoney.com/esquire/index.cfm?Story=20051215wikipedia
>
>Presumably the print version is available soon or now.
>
>
The print version has been available on newsstands for over a month. The
Signpost reported on this, including our failure to correct the number
of Encyclop?dia Britannica articles, several weeks ago.

Speaking of Britannica, our article about them needs some serious work.
I pointed out some serious problems with the history narrative on the
talk page recently, but nobody has yet done the research to tackle the
problem. The article also suffers from serious pro-Wikipedia bias in
spots. Dealing with the recent Nature study, for example, is it more
neutral to throw in out of the blue that "Wikipedia is almost as
accurate as Britannica" or would something along the lines of
"Britannica remains more accurate than Wikipedia" be better?

--Michael Snow


body:
Delirium wrote:

> Well, it really is a personal attack; it means something akin to what
> "quack" means in medicine.  It occasionally gets slung around among
> scientists, especially when getting into flamewars about the relative
> merits of various of the "soft sciences", and is rarely considered
> anything but an attack.  For example, if I were to say, "although it
> uses many statistics, sociology is more of a pseudoscience than a proper
> science", it's pretty clearly an overt attack on sociology.

My point remains: it's an attack on its *competence*, not its *good
faith*. Saying it's an assumption of bad faith is simply incorrect.

- d.


from_name: Dariusz Siedlecki

body:
2005/12/17, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com>:
> Has there been contact with PWN since then?    sj

AFAIK, TOR (president of Wikimedia Poland) and some members of our
community thanked them for the compliments. We even tried cooperation
with them (our article list for their article list), but we didn't
succeed in that, since they wanted their list to stay private.

Well, we could work out something, but from what I know, no one tried.

--
Pozdrawiam,
Dariusz "Datrio" Siedlecki