subject: [WikiEN-l] Species names

body:
Tannin wrote:

>The Society for the Study of Amphibians
>and Reptiles The American Society of
>Ichthyologists and Herpetologists and
>The Herpetologists League
>.....
>Oh, and they capitalise species names as
>a matter of policy.

I'll take your word for it but a cite or a link would help your case
significantly. None of the above societies, BTW, deal with mammals.

>Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales

One cite that does include mammals (but not specifically). This helps. Any
other general societies out there that are advocating for capitalization? I
have nothing wrong with trying to anticipate where the trends in Biology are
going but I do need to see some evidence for this before we make policy (for
example I helped to successfully advocate for us to move from the 5-Kingdom
system to the more correct 6-Kingdom system even though the 5-Kingdom system
is still more widely taught -- BUT it is obviously beginning to loose out to
the 6-Kingdom system).

>....
>Finally, there is flora. The common names of plants
>are a horrible mess. Within any one geographic area
>they seem to be consistent enough, certainly for the
>larger species (trees, shrubs, wildflowers), but
>*between* areas they often conflict with one another.
>Australian plant common names, for example, do not
>conflict with one another, but *do* conflict with the
>names of other, completely different, plants in Europe
>and America.

I agree - plants are a mess and give me a major headache anytime I try to
properly name a plant article. Cultivars are not nearly as bad but trying to
make a taxbox for a hybrid is an exercise in futility (and should /not/ be
done - the results are gibberish). Plants just don't think it is necessary to
follow our definition of what a species is! So for plants I see no reason to
pretend that common names are anything particularly specific so the downstyle
rules until the botanical societies come together and form international
conventions. We can disambiguate parenthetically for ambiguous names or even
use the botanical names when needed. Of course if a botanical name is in wide
use we should use that over a common name whenever there is an ambiguity. All
that matters is usage and overcoming ambiguity problems in naming so that
people can find what they are looking for. But if somebody else has already
worked out much of the ambiguity problem then we should follow that if and
when it makes sense with the other naming criteria.

>Indeed, I am wondering if, as time goes by and the
>flora sections start to fill up, it might be sensible to
>consider using botanical names for plants more.
>(I'm not convinced that that is the best way to go, but
>it's certainly something that ought to be considered.)

Perhaps - there does seem to be a big enough ambiguity problem to warrent
preemptive disambiguation based on botanical names (which isn't a panacea BTW
- genus and species names /will/ sometimes conflict with the scientific names
of organisms in other kingdoms).

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] article flags

body:
kq wrote:
>....
>Is it really so unclear what I'm saying?
>The idea of what is "sexually explicit" has
>at various times included piano legs,
>women's ankles, and Elvis Presley's hips.
>In quite a few places on the planet, it still
>includes women's ankles, and I'm sure it
>would include Elvis Presley's hips as well.
>For an example in the opposite direction,
>Robert Mapplethorpe considered his work
>"erotic," yet many (many) people consider
>it "pornographic."  Should I point you to the
>obscenity trials for James Joyce's _Ulysses_?
>Anyway, tagging articles with commentary of
>that sort--"sexually explicit," etc.--is the same
>as imposing your cultural POV onto them; in
>other words, it is the same as declaring the
>wikipedia a developed nation's middle-class
>anglocentric-pedia.  Exactly how is that of
>benefit to us?

I tend to agree and think that we shouldn't be the ones doing the flagging but
several to many external "team certification" or "Sifter" projects can do so.

The faint of heart could then access our articles through those separate
projects. At the most we can say in the Wikipedia article that "A previous
version of this article has been certified by X, Y and Z groups."

Let them deal with flagging wars and criteria - we have an NPOV encyclopedia
to write!

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Request for help with new article

body:
--- Dante Alighieri <dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com>
wrote:
> Howdy all, I just wrote a new article, [[List of
> ethnic slurs]]. I've put a
> redirect at [[List of racial epithets]]. Now, the
> list also includes terms
> for people based on their religion, but I don't
> think that the article
> title is that big a deal. Now, on to my request.
>
> Because I've from the United States, the list is
> obviously heavily
> populated with American English examples. I'm hoping
> that people from other
> countries (especially non-English speaking ones)
> will stop by to add in
> their own terms.
>
> Just to clarify, I'm interested in this as a
> scholarly pursuit, although it
> will probably be used for unsavory purposes by
> unsavory individuals. If you
> could all take the time to go look and make whatever
> changes you think will
> improve the article, I'd really appreciate it.
> Thanks in advance!
>
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs

Interesting...Can we really add non-english
terminology here ? Don't you think it will get removed
for being non-english word on the english wiki ?

As a matter of interest, would you accept "Bougnoule"
?

I'm interested - sort of - in it, for "scholarly
pursuit" :-)

It is possible to link it to the an accepted
definition (from a politically correct point of view)
to the french wiki, and to another defintion (rejected
for being racist) from point of view (hidden in the
history).

Anthere

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from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Species names

body:
Tony Wilson wrote:

>
>Now, with that out of the way, I'll move on to add yet more citations
>to those which I have given previously, let's start with this one: [...]
>
This is some great research!  Although not so glamorous as adding
species pages, the establishment of house standards is valuable
infrastructure work, just as valuable an investment as a new hotlink
on the main page.  What would I like now, however, is for it not
to go to waste on the mailing list, but to be added to the naming
conventions talk page; I'll do it if you're agreeable, and create
a naming conventions for flora, since I've got a bunch of photos
waiting for articles to go around them, and have to decide what
the text should look like. :-)

Stan


from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [WikiEN-l] We're number two, we're number two!

body:
Dante Alighieri wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>(Anybody that hasn't searched Google for "felching" is advised to do so.
>>The results page is informative in several ways!)

>Wikipedia's article on felching is the #2 Google hit when you search for
>felching! I've added [[Felching]] to [[Wikipedia:Top 10 Google hits, A-K]].
>Think we can hit #1 with a little work? I've never been so proud....

Indeed ... but what *I* found most interesting was the "sponsored links".

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] Michael's continued vandalism

body:
Dante Alighieri wrote:

>? wrote:

>>Interesting edit summaries he writes! But just as a note of pedantry,
>>telling someone to die is not a threat, but a command...

>Just picture him shouting "Just die! Alright! Yes! Fucking die! Now!"
>while he has his hands around your neck. Now that's pretty threatening.
>(and yes, I'm familiar with the imperative mood) ;)

Yes ... but then simply having his hands around my neck
is rather threatening right there.  We don't have that here.

OTOH, I've seen someone expelled from school
for commanding an administrator over the 'Net to die,
so however *we* decide to respond to this command,
I strongly caution everybody that *others* may not be too generous.
So don't do it! ^_^

-- Toby


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] "ilk" (Was: We need a way to deal with AOL vandals THIS year)

body:
Anthere wrote:

>--- Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu> wrote:
>
>>LittleDan wrote:
>>
>>>I (and equally my parents) was unaware that 'ilk'
>>>carried any negative connotations. I thought ilk
>>>
>>just
>>
>>>meant 'other people like you and possibly group
>>>
>>with
>>
>>>you for whatever discussed similarity.
>>>
>>The meaning is probably in flux.
>>Remember that some dictionaries don't carry this
>>meaning at all,
>>and none of the ones that I saw marked it as
>>negative.
>>(Although apparently Anth?re's translation
>>dictionary did.)
>>
>
>Harraps New Shorter is usually the best reference for
>english-french translation dictionary
>
>
>>We should probably save these discussion for future
>>work at Wiktionary.
>>
>
>Definitly. The word should be included. I would do it
>myself right now if Wiktionary was not in Unicode :-(
>
Message received :-) .  I'll put it on my "to do" list.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Species names

body:
Tannin wrote in part:

>There seems to be an almost 1:1
>relationship between the degree to which species names are capitalised
>in different taxa, and the extent to which species names are formalised
>and standardised.

Which begs the question:
Do the downstyle references (the scientific ones, not the Chicago MoS)
use standardised common species names in the first place?

Regardless of the answer to that ...
An obvious compromise is to place articles on species at standardised names:
a common name (capitalised per the rules that have been quoted before)
if English speaking authorities have agreed upon a standardised one;
or a Latin binomial (italicised and with initial capital) otherwise.
Uncapitalised titles will then become redirects or disambiguation pages,
depending on whether that unstandardised common name is used for
a single species (redirect) or several (disambiguation).

Complications:
An unstandardised common name may be used for a single family or such taxon.
Also, we rarely have plant articles as specific as a single species,
and requiring such would run into NPOV problems too,
given the debate between splitters and lumpers.
So an unstandardised (hence uncapitalised) common name
may well be appropriate for a grouping higher (or possibly higher)
than species, even if the above compromise is adopted for species.

Well, I'm trying to be neutral, so I won't argue strongly for the compromise,
but I'd like to know if any of the debaters are interested in it.

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] A short comment on Birds... er, birds, uh... Birds

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>
>It is certainly true that we have had virtually no disputes about
>American/British spelling.  I'm not sure that this precedent is
>assurance of the same thing happening with the Bird/bird issue,
>though.
>
>
I suspect that everybody who's thought it through for a couple
minutes realizes that that there's no possible authority to
which one can appeal on the issue of American/British spelling.
Envy the French! :-)

For biology the naming situation seems to be in ferment, and in
some cases there are now authorities who've stepped forward and
staked a position.  (Sort of like the British Museum issuing
new guidelines directing the use of American English in all of
its work - there would be rioting in London I'm sure. :-) )

I think there are several changes converging to make this into
an issue:
1. Latin is really becoming a dead language - the Linnaean names
mean something if you learned Latin in school, but are just noises
if you didn't.  Studies have shown that nonsense words are extremely
difficult to memorize, and scientists don't care for the extra work
any more than anybody else does.
2. English dominates scientific discourse more and more every year.
3. Taxonomic churning, as Tannin alluded to, means that the primary
purposes of Linnaean names - clarity and unambiguity - have been
trashed. Taxonomists are doing this all very earnestly, I wonder
if they're aware of the distrust they're generating.  I can see a
future, for instance, where for animals Linnaean names have fallen
out of use entirely, in favor of English common names.

Linnaean names have long-accepted typographic conventions
(capitalize genera, use italics, etc), but the formalized use of
common names is pretty new, and so far the only proposed convention
seems to be to capitalize.  It's not yet authoritative enough for
Wikipedia to set in stone (except for birds), but if the trends
continue, capitalization of common names may come to be an
accepted standard that we enforce as strongly as we do now for
formatting of Linnaean names.

Stan


from_name: Zoe

subject: [WikiEN-l] Species names

body:
--- Tony Wilson <list at redhill.net.au> wrote:
> Anyway, that's not so, STV. Read the posts over: you
> will see that I
> wrote a single post of medium length this moning,
> which Zoe  then
> replied to saying that she had been " attacked so
> fiercely" - which is
> odd, as I don't recall attacking Zoe at all.

http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-April/002795.html
-- "We, the people WHO ACTUALLY WRITE THE ENTRIES have
had a gut full of it. Please stop before the real
contributors in this area get sick of the whole damn
thing"

http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-April/002803.html
-- "Now, please, will the back seat drivers get out of
our hair and let us get on with the job?"

http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-April/002834.html
-- "Bluntly, we, the people who actually WRITE the
fauna entries, are sick and tired of being buggerised
about, for no good reason, by people who do NOT
contribute to them."

http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-April/002838.html
-- "Everyone
working in the area knows perfectly well that species
names are capitalised, and we have all run afoul of
the hit and run edits of the people who (although
undoubtedly sincere and meaning well) are NOT working
in the area, and often have no expertise in it."

There are more, but those are sufficient.

Zoe

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from_name: Matthew Woodcraft

subject: [WikiEN-l] Flagging

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> We may not agree about the appropriateness of [[felching]], but we
> can agree that it's controversial, that it's sexual in nature, and
> that it would be widely regarded as a mature topic.  There's probably
> a lot of other things we could say about it that would be relevant
> from a content advisory point of view, but which are also NPOV.

I don't think the flagging wars will occur at [[felching]]. They'll
occur on more borderline pages.

But there's no need to argue about it now. If someone implements flags,
we'll find out. And if they're more trouble than they're worth, we can
take them out again.

-M-


list: wikitech-l

subject: [Wikitech-l] New username validation

body:
--- Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu> wrote:
> Brion Vibber wrote in part:
>
> >We may wish to do a case-_in_sensitive check,
> and/or a
> >same-except-for-accents check. Or not. Anyway, I
> think it could use some
> >tidying up.
>
> We'll probably never think of every way to mimic a
> previous user.
> If there's an easy check to do (and there clearly
> are some),
> then go ahead, but ultimately we'll need to rely on
> policy:
> If somebody creates a username for fraudulent
> purposes
> (as [[Fr:Utilisateur:Anth?re]] was), then it should
> be removed
> (as [[En:User:Throbbing Monster Cock]] was, for
> other reasons).
>
>
> -- Toby

Hum. Today, on the french wiki, a utilisateur:Fare
appeared.

We also have a utilisateur:Far?, who is the same (I
guess, I am not even entirely sure) than the
user:Far?.

On the en wiki, you also have a user:Fare, who I guess
is the same person than user:Far?.

I am not entirely sure than User:Far? is the same than
Utilisateur:Far? though, for en appear to accept
entirely Far? edits, when these are considered highly
POV on french wiki.

However, in any case, I doubt very much that
utilisateur:Fare is the same than utilisateur:Far?.

You might consider it is not important. But I have 4
user names here. And I don't think I have 1 person. It
does not help human relationships and trust.

Anthere (the most famous one, not the others :-))

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Software updates

body:
--- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> We're now up to the latest Wikipedia software
> version on the English
> Wikipedia. Some changes I and others made in the
> last weeks:
>
> 1) There is a new feature called "oldest articles"
> (colloq. "ancient
> pages"). Currently this inevitably lists first all
> the imported articles
> from the phase I software that have not been edited
> yet ever since.
> Hopefully, as these become updated, this feature
> will allow us to
> systematically go through our old material and make
> sure it is in good
> shape and up to date.
>
> 2) Sysops will note that the page deletion feature
> now auto-pastes the
> content of pages that are smaller than 500 bytes
> into the deletion comment
> (only the first 150 characters). It also does so if
> the current revision
> is blanked and the previous revision contains text
> that can be pasted.
>
> 3) The deletion feature now indicates if you are
> about to delete a page
> that has a history.
>
> 4) The "New pages" list now shows the bytesize of
> each page, making it
> easier to pick nice, long articles for the Main
> Page.
>
> 5) Some minor layout stuff, some by me, some by
> others. Notably, the ugly
> "It was last modified" sentence at the bottom of
> each page has been fixed.
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik

Is it planned to make it available to other wikis as
well ? 2 and 3 in particular

Ant

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from_name: Tony Wilson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Species names

body:
STV wrote: it does seem strange that you wrote two long-winded retorts
to her one short statement. (Sometimes, for reasons that escape me, the
posts come through out of order. Something to do with time zones or
individual system clock settings, I guess.)

Anyway, that's not so, STV. Read the posts over: you will see that I
wrote a single post of medium length this moning, which Zoe  then
replied to saying that she had been " attacked so fiercely" - which is
odd, as I don't recall attacking Zoe at all. I suspect that an
examination of the record will bear this out. She then went on to claim
that I was engaging in "continuing personal attacks". Nonsense.  I have
been forced to make a series of personal DEFENCES, which is a very
different thing. So I posted a brief reply to that, setting the record
straight.

Moving on to the subject of EC's unilaterial edit war and cut & paste
page move, having already called me a liar, EC then wrote: "I can
affirm that I did not use it [cut & paste] in the course of this edit
war".

I invite readers to visit
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Giant_panda&diff=988572&oldi
d=988552 and see the evidence for themselves.

-------

Now, with that out of the way, I'll move on to add yet more citations
to those which I have given previously, let's start with this one:

The Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles
The American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists
and The Herpetologists? League

have a joint commitee on English and scientific names, which is working
to "achieve the goal of making a list of Standard English Names for
North America and the world", adds some comments about the practical
worth of common names in a broader sense that are worthy of further
consideration. The para is lengthy, so I'll edit down a bit. As their
examples, they take  ''Cynocephalus mormon''  and ''Cynocephalus
sphinx'' (the Mandril and the Guinea Baboon).

Since 1904, these names have undergone the following
vagaries:''Cynocephalus mormon'' became ''Papio mormon'', otherwise
''Papio maimon'', which turned to ''Papio sphinx''. This might well
have been confused with ''Cynocephalus'', now become ''Papio sphinx''
,had not the latter meanwhile been turned into ''Papio papio'' .This
danger averted, ''Papio sphinx'' now became ''Mandrillus sphinx'',
while ''Papio papio'' became ''Papio comatus''

Their point, in short, is that if you want to refer to one of these two
species and be sure that the reader knows which one you actually mean,
you really *have* to use the common name!

Oh, and they capitalise species names as a matter of policy.

The Ohio Odonata Society  says: "English names have been determined for
Odonata, (Paulson and Dunkle 1996), and accepted by the Dragonfly
Society of the Americas (DSA) in an effort to bring some control to
common names, thus addressing the demand for common names that has
grown with interest in the order. Common names should be capitalized
when referring to a species, but lower case when speaking in general.
For example, we refer to dragonflies in general but to a King Skimmer
(genus Libellula) or the Common Green Darner, (Anax junius).
Capitalizing species names is desirable because many of them begin with
adjectives or adverbs. It is difficult to determine the name of the
common green darner (where ?common? might be editorial comment) as
opposed to the Common Green Darner."

The Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales (Australia) says:
"Generic and specific scientific names are to be in italics.
Standardized vernacular (common) names for species should be
capitalised and first used in conjunction with the full scientific name
and the scientific name should be used for all subsequent references to
the species.When using the common name in conjunction with the
scientific name, do not put the scientific name in brackets. Both
common names and scientific names may be used in captions to tables,
figures and photos. Common names used in a ?generic? sense (eg: cats,
dogs, foxes, eucalypts) should not be capitalised or italicised."

In the course of looking that stuff up (wasting yet more perfectly good
editing time) I also stumbled across a number of other references,
which serve to confirm the two broad trends that I and others have
remarked on previously:

(a) That decaptialisation is largely an American practice and is much
less common in other English-speaking parts of the world.

(b) More interestingly, that there seems to be an almost 1:1
relationship between the degree to which species names are capitalised
in different taxa, and the extent to which species names are formalised
and standardised.

This makes excellent sense, when you think about it. In the case of
birds, a common name is an exact 1:1 equivalent to the binomial name.
It is, like the name of a type of aircraft or a model of car, a
quasi-proper noun. Bird common names are not duplicated, even between
different continents, and capitalisation of bird common names is
practically universal. With mammals, the story is much the same. From
my reading today, I gather that reptile names are not far behind
either.

However, with fish this process is not as well developed. here are far
more conflicting or ambiguous names, and capitalisation is less broadly
supported - although nevertheless vigorously debated and something of a
50/50 call.

With arthropods (insects and spiders and so on), common names are not
terribly useful as yet (and may never be). According to the American
Arthropod society, more than 50% of the *families* do not have a common
name yet, never mind individual species. Here, clearly, we have a
situation where common names are little if any better than nicknames,
and a strong case for decapitalisation can be mounted.(They themselves
do not capitalise.)

Finally, there is flora. The common names of plants are a horrible
mess. Within any one geographic area they seem to be consistent enough,
certainly for the larger species (trees, shrubs, wildflowers), but
*between* areas they often conflict with one another. Australian plant
common names, for example, do not conflict with one another, but *do*
conflict with the names of other, completely different, plants in
Europe and America. Eventually, one supposes, the botanical authorities
will get their act together as the bird, mammal and reptile people
have, and as the fish people are trying to do. In the meantime, though,
plant common names are not terribly helpful a lot of the time. It is no
doubt this very reason that stands behind the much greater usage of
botanical names by laypeople interested in plants as opposed to very
little usage of binomial names by laypeople interested in animals.
Indeed, I am wondering if, as time goes by and the flora sections start
 to fill up, it might be sensible to consider using botanical names for
plants more. (I'm not convinced that that is the best way to go, but
it's certainly something that ought to be considered.)

Tony


subject: [WikiEN-l] poor writing skills of some non-english speaking wiki contributors

body:
--- james duffy <jtdirl at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> It may not sound politically correct to say this,
> but we do have a problem
> on wiki with the standard of english used in some
> articles by people who do
> not speak english as a first language. While the
> contributors write serious
> and worthwhile articles, their limited knowledge of
> english can produce
> articles that require major rewriting to reach a
> usable standard.

I knew I would read this one day or another

But, to be honest, it took longer than I thought it
would.

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from_name: Geoffrey Thomas

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

body:
(long message - gist in paragraph below hyphens)

Christopher Mahan wrote:
>Perhaps not, in fact, because the majority of people in the world
>want an unbiased source, and almost everyone knows that education
>material is biased. Being banned from schools might actually be to
>the project's benefit.

Mff. I go to a school. I want Wikipedia there.

If educational material is biased, all the more reason for an NPOV
Wikipedia available from schools to independently verify the
story given to us from the textbooks. And [[There is no Cabal]]
of teachers intentionally giving us biased facts. I think I'm
missing your logic somehow - could you explain how it would
help the 'pedia if it were banned from schools?

Dante Alighieri wrote:
>Yes, if [[felching]] gets us banned from schools, that is a
>problem... for the schools. I don't really see it as a problem for
>us. The schools lose out on a source of information that, in my
>opinion, is unparalleled in its usefulness.
...
>I'm sorry, but if other people want to censor information from
>themselves and children in their charge, that's /their/ problem,
>not ours.

Thus I'd lose out on a source of information - and many other student
Wikipedians, I'm sure. Are we the students not considered part of
us the Wikipedians? (That sounds gramatically strange...is it right?)
If there's a sane way to help students - those whose present role
in society is to learn (note that Wikipedia's role is to teach) - we
should try to help the students rather than blame the bureaucrats.

--

Let me propose a content filtering system: a <filterable level=
"low","high">...</filterable> meta-tag. Unregistered users would
have level="high"-surrounded information removed - like an HTML
<!--comment-->. Registered users would see all information,
unless they set a User Prefs level of blocking (their choice).
Registered users at a school, or registered parents, could ask
an admin to block all <filterable>-marked content from their IP
address/range. Level="low", therefore, is only for additional
restrictions - user's own choice or IP range restriction - not
for anonymous users. The name "filterable" is chosen to be NPOV:
none doubt that [[genocide]] is filter/able/, that /some/ people
/might/ filter it. We can later decide to add a why= attribute,
with a few set categories and separate defaults/choices per why.

The reason we need a tag is for articles like [[Bill Clinton]]
and [[breast]] - parents/schools may want parts of those articles
blocked, but it's stupid to block the entire pages. Marking the
(in)appropriate sections with a tag would solve the problem.

If an entire article or significant portion of one is blocked,
we could print a message in place of the content, asking
users to log in/register to view restricted content or (if under
an IP restriction) log in/register and leave a message for
an admin, who will contact the person who originally requested
the block (to verify it should be removed). (Yes, even logged-in
users from a restricted IP address/range still wouldn't see
filterable content - parents won't want their kids creating
accounts to flout the ban.)

We can filter various amounts with this tag: single words
(maybe have an alt="replacement" attribute?), links to other
problematic articles/sites, sections, comments on talk pages,
or, of course, an entire article from top to bottom. Using
a separate database field would only allow the last situation.

I also think this system solves the POV problem by being APOV -
the authorities' point of view - when the 'pedia _must_ take a point
of view. The APOV is, after all, the only thing that matters when
there are authorities with a POV, anyway.

I know some will say there'll be edit wars over what might be
censorable, so we shouldn't implement this plan. By the same
argument one could much more easily say we shouldn't allow
capital letters for there _are_ edit wars on capitalization.
And content filtering seems to me a more important issue than
bird capitalization.

And sorry for the long message.

-Geoffrey Thomas [[User:Geoffrey]]
"The quickest bans in Wikipedia are reserved for those who do not maintain the neutral point of
view in times of great edit wars." ;-)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM).
http://calendar.yahoo.com


from_name: Christian List

subject: [Wikitech-l] LanguageDa.php

body:
Here is the updated LanguageDa.php, please somebody put it in CVS and on the danish Wikipedia.

Some misspellings has been corrected, and the latest strings from Language.php has been translated.

Regards
Christian List
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body:
Stan Shebs wrote:

> Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
>> It is certainly true that we have had virtually no disputes about
>> American/British spelling.  I'm not sure that this precedent is
>> assurance of the same thing happening with the Bird/bird issue,
>> though.
>
> I suspect that everybody who's thought it through for a couple
> minutes realizes that that there's no possible authority to
> which one can appeal on the issue of American/British spelling.
> Envy the French! :-)

Thus we accomodate both.

> For biology the naming situation seems to be in ferment, and in
> some cases there are now authorities who've stepped forward and
> staked a position.  (Sort of like the British Museum issuing
> new guidelines directing the use of American English in all of
> its work - there would be rioting in London I'm sure. :-) )

Imposing English official names for species, would lead to riots in
other capitals.  These other languages have their own common names, and
their own capitalization rules.  Imposing American English on the
British Museum sounds easier.

> I think there are several changes converging to make this into
> an issue:
> 1. Latin is really becoming a dead language - the Linnaean names
> mean something if you learned Latin in school, but are just noises
> if you didn't.  Studies have shown that nonsense words are extremely
> difficult to memorize, and scientists don't care for the extra work
> any more than anybody else does.

The Linnaean names are not nonsense words.  Even if the principle of
English official names could be accepted it would give rise to an
enormous number of bureaucratic committees to study and establish the
"correct" names for every imaginable life form.  That's not exactly a
situation to please those who don't care for extra work.

> 2. English dominates scientific discourse more and more every year.

This sounds like an argument in favour of the Tyranny of the Majority.
 (See de Tocqueville)

> 3. Taxonomic churning, as Tannin alluded to, means that the primary
> purposes of Linnaean names - clarity and unambiguity - have been
> trashed. Taxonomists are doing this all very earnestly, I wonder
> if they're aware of the distrust they're generating.  I can see a
> future, for instance, where for animals Linnaean names have fallen
> out of use entirely, in favor of English common names.

I have not reviewed the facts about ''Cynocephalus'' but I have no
reason to doubt them.  I suspect that this sort of thing will continue
to happen  in whatever language may be chosen.  Using English names as
an official standard is not likely to save us.  I tend to lay the modern
blame on the cladists who have revised taxonomy into a series of
counter-intuitive groupings based on DNA evolutionary research.  The
average birder does not have the means at his disposal to sort them out
that way..  As an example of equal confusion in English names take the
genus ''Anas''; it includes ducks, teals, the gadwall, widigeons, the
mallard, pintails, the garganey, and shovellers.  On top of that there
are 17 other genera in the Anseriformes that include ducks.  Are we any
better off with the English?

> Linnaean names have long-accepted typographic conventions
> (capitalize genera, use italics, etc), but the formalized use of
> common names is pretty new, and so far the only proposed convention
> seems to be to capitalize.  It's not yet authoritative enough for
> Wikipedia to set in stone (except for birds), but if the trends
> continue, capitalization of common names may come to be an
> accepted standard that we enforce as strongly as we do now for
> formatting of Linnaean names.

We also need to take into account the contrary trend among grammar
stylists to downstyle capitalization.  In the course of developing my
position in the present debate I encountered at least one book that
considers completely downstyled titles as perfectly correct with only
the first letter in the title being capitalized; another recognizes it
as perfectly correct to use lower case for pronouns that refer to the
deity.  A new edition of the ''Chicago manual of style" is due to come
out in August; I'm anxious to see what it has to say about its own name.

Eclecticology

>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Species names

body:
Tony Wilson wrote:

>Moving on to the subject of EC's unilaterial edit war and cut & paste
>page move, having already called me a liar, EC then wrote: "I can
>affirm that I did not use it [cut & paste] in the course of this edit
>war".
>
There is no such thing as a "unilateral edit war"

>I invite readers to visit
>http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Giant_panda&diff=988572&oldi
>d=988552 and see the evidence for themselves.
>
Sounds like trying to get a hell of a lot og mileage out of a single
alleged cut-and-paste incident.

>The Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles
>The American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists
>and The Herpetologists' League
>
>have a joint commitee on English and scientific names, which is working
>to "achieve the goal of making a list of Standard English Names for
>North America and the world", adds some comments about the practical
>worth of common names in a broader sense that are worthy of further
>consideration. The para is lengthy, so I'll edit down a bit. As their
>examples, they take  ''Cynocephalus mormon''  and ''Cynocephalus
>sphinx'' (the Mandril and the Guinea Baboon).
>
>Since 1904, these names have undergone the following
>vagaries:''Cynocephalus mormon'' became ''Papio mormon'', otherwise
>''Papio maimon'', which turned to ''Papio sphinx''. This might well
>have been confused with ''Cynocephalus'', now become ''Papio sphinx''
>,had not the latter meanwhile been turned into ''Papio papio'' .This
>danger averted, ''Papio sphinx'' now became ''Mandrillus sphinx'',
>while ''Papio papio'' became ''Papio comatus''
>
>Their point, in short, is that if you want to refer to one of these two
>species and be sure that the reader knows which one you actually mean,
>you really *have* to use the common name!
>
This rationale seems to be about Latin vs. English names rather than
about capitalization.

>Oh, and they capitalise species names as a matter of policy.
>
After a long argument about using English names, we have an offhand
''non-sequitur'' about capitalization.

>The Ohio Odonata Society  says: "English names have been determined for
>Odonata, (Paulson and Dunkle 1996), and accepted by the Dragonfly
>Society of the Americas (DSA) in an effort to bring some control to
>common names, thus addressing the demand for common names that has
>grown with interest in the order. Common names should be capitalized
>when referring to a species, but lower case when speaking in general.
>For example, we refer to dragonflies in general but to a King Skimmer
>(genus Libellula) or the Common Green Darner, (Anax junius).
>Capitalizing species names is desirable because many of them begin with
>adjectives or adverbs. It is difficult to determine the name of the
>common green darner (where 'common' might be editorial comment) as
>opposed to the Common Green Darner."
>
The Odonata are still a relatively small order of insects, but I'm sure
that it still includes many members who do not have an English name at
all, even if all of them in English speaking Ohio do. They are great
fliers. I suppose that having them capitalized would stress their
relation to the rest of the insect world as similar to the one held by
birds among the vertebrates. ;-)

>The Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales (Australia) says:
>"Generic and specific scientific names are to be in italics.
>Standardized vernacular (common) names for species should be
>capitalised and first used in conjunction with the full scientific name
>and the scientific name should be used for all subsequent references to
>the species.When using the common name in conjunction with the
>scientific name, do not put the scientific name in brackets. Both
>common names and scientific names may be used in captions to tables,
>figures and photos. Common names used in a "generic" sense (eg: cats,
>dogs, foxes, eucalypts) should not be capitalised or italicised."
>
This sounds like an argument for using Latin names, with the common name
appearing only when the species is introduced. What constitutes
"standardized"?

>In the course of looking that stuff up (wasting yet more perfectly good
>editing time)
>
It's an interesting attitude that documenting your POV would be a waste
of time.

>I also stumbled across a number of other references,
>which serve to confirm the two broad trends that I and others have
>remarked on previously:
>
>(a) That decaptialisation is largely an American practice and is much
>less common in other English-speaking parts of the world.
>
The ''New Scientist'' is a British publication.

>(b) More interestingly, that there seems to be an almost 1:1
>relationship between the degree to which species names are capitalised
>in different taxa, and the extent to which species names are formalised
>and standardised.
>
OK, but most English names are neither standard of formal.

>This makes excellent sense, when you think about it. In the case of
>birds, a common name is an exact 1:1 equivalent to the binomial name.
>It is, like the name of a type of aircraft or a model of car, a
>quasi-proper noun. Bird common names are not duplicated, even between
>different continents, and capitalisation of bird common names is
>practically universal. With mammals, the story is much the same. From
>my reading today, I gather that reptile names are not far behind
>either.
>
Aircraft and cars are human inventions whose inverntors (or their
corporate sponsors) have certain privileges. No one '''invented''' the
fauna.

>However, with fish this process is not as well developed. here are far
>more conflicting or ambiguous names, and capitalisation is less broadly
>supported - although nevertheless vigorously debated and something of a
>50/50 call.
>
You should thank yourself for being so generous to your POV.

>With arthropods (insects and spiders and so on), common names are not
>terribly useful as yet (and may never be). According to the American
>Arthropod society, more than 50% of the *families* do not have a common
>name yet, never mind individual species. Here, clearly, we have a
>situation where common names are little if any better than nicknames,
>and a strong case for decapitalisation can be mounted.(They themselves
>do not capitalise.)
>
Great! we have nothing to argue about here ... unless you want to start
insisting about the Odonata.

>Finally, there is flora. The common names of plants are a horrible
>mess. Within any one geographic area they seem to be consistent enough,
>certainly for the larger species (trees, shrubs, wildflowers), but
>*between* areas they often conflict with one another. Australian plant
>common names, for example, do not conflict with one another, but *do*
>conflict with the names of other, completely different, plants in
>Europe and America. Eventually, one supposes, the botanical authorities
>will get their act together as the bird, mammal and reptile people
>have, and as the fish people are trying to do. In the meantime, though,
>plant common names are not terribly helpful a lot of the time. It is no
>doubt this very reason that stands behind the much greater usage of
>botanical names by laypeople interested in plants as opposed to very
>little usage of binomial names by laypeople interested in animals.
>Indeed, I am wondering if, as time goes by and the flora sections start
> to fill up, it might be sensible to consider using botanical names for
>plants more. (I'm not convinced that that is the best way to go, but
>it's certainly something that ought to be considered.)
>
Funny thing, I argued the same way a year or so ago, and lost. I quite
openly support Latin names across the board for both flora and fauna,
but I don't have the energy for an edit war on that topic. Let's stay
focused the debate is about capitalization, not about using
pseudo-official English names.

Eclecticology


from_name: Stevertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Harry Potter

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Toby Bartels" <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu>
To: <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
Sent: Sunday, June 08, 2003 1:02 AM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] User:Harry Potter

> Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
> >Ai yi yi.  Postmodernists, ai yi yi.
>
> Wikipedia does seem to have a consistent bias towards na?ve realism.
> As a na?ve realist myself (except on Tuesdays), this doesn't rankle me,
> but we should try to keep other ideas in mind for NPOV.
>
>
> -- Toby
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Species names

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tony Wilson" <list at redhill.net.au>
To: "WikiEN" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
Sent: Sunday, June 08, 2003 1:47 AM
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Species names

> STV wrote: it does seem strange that you wrote two long-winded retorts
> to her one short statement. (Sometimes, for reasons that escape me, the
> posts come through out of order. Something to do with time zones or
> individual system clock settings, I guess.)
>
> Anyway, that's not so, STV. Read the posts over: you will see that I
> wrote a single post of medium length this moning, which Zoe  then
> replied to saying that she had been " attacked so fiercely" - which is
> odd, as I don't recall attacking Zoe at all. I suspect that an
> examination of the record will bear this out. She then went on to claim
> that I was engaging in "continuing personal attacks". Nonsense.  I have
> been forced to make a series of personal DEFENCES, which is a very
> different thing. So I posted a brief reply to that, setting the record
> straight.
>
> Moving on to the subject of EC's unilaterial edit war and cut & paste
> page move, having already called me a liar, EC then wrote: "I can
> affirm that I did not use it [cut & paste] in the course of this edit
> war".
>
> I invite readers to visit
> http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Giant_panda&diff=988572&oldi
> d=988552 and see the evidence for themselves.
>
> -------
>
> Now, with that out of the way, I'll move on to add yet more citations
> to those which I have given previously, let's start with this one:
>
> The Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles
> The American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists
> and The Herpetologists' League
>
> have a joint commitee on English and scientific names, which is working
> to "achieve the goal of making a list of Standard English Names for
> North America and the world", adds some comments about the practical
> worth of common names in a broader sense that are worthy of further
> consideration. The para is lengthy, so I'll edit down a bit. As their
> examples, they take  ''Cynocephalus mormon''  and ''Cynocephalus
> sphinx'' (the Mandril and the Guinea Baboon).
>
> Since 1904, these names have undergone the following
> vagaries:''Cynocephalus mormon'' became ''Papio mormon'', otherwise
> ''Papio maimon'', which turned to ''Papio sphinx''. This might well
> have been confused with ''Cynocephalus'', now become ''Papio sphinx''
> ,had not the latter meanwhile been turned into ''Papio papio'' .This
> danger averted, ''Papio sphinx'' now became ''Mandrillus sphinx'',
> while ''Papio papio'' became ''Papio comatus''
>
> Their point, in short, is that if you want to refer to one of these two
> species and be sure that the reader knows which one you actually mean,
> you really *have* to use the common name!
>
> Oh, and they capitalise species names as a matter of policy.
>
> The Ohio Odonata Society  says: "English names have been determined for
> Odonata, (Paulson and Dunkle 1996), and accepted by the Dragonfly
> Society of the Americas (DSA) in an effort to bring some control to
> common names, thus addressing the demand for common names that has
> grown with interest in the order. Common names should be capitalized
> when referring to a species, but lower case when speaking in general.
> For example, we refer to dragonflies in general but to a King Skimmer
> (genus Libellula) or the Common Green Darner, (Anax junius).
> Capitalizing species names is desirable because many of them begin with
> adjectives or adverbs. It is difficult to determine the name of the
> common green darner (where 'common' might be editorial comment) as
> opposed to the Common Green Darner."
>
> The Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales (Australia) says:
> "Generic and specific scientific names are to be in italics.
> Standardized vernacular (common) names for species should be
> capitalised and first used in conjunction with the full scientific name
> and the scientific name should be used for all subsequent references to
> the species.When using the common name in conjunction with the
> scientific name, do not put the scientific name in brackets. Both
> common names and scientific names may be used in captions to tables,
> figures and photos. Common names used in a "generic" sense (eg: cats,
> dogs, foxes, eucalypts) should not be capitalised or italicised."
>
> In the course of looking that stuff up (wasting yet more perfectly good
> editing time) I also stumbled across a number of other references,
> which serve to confirm the two broad trends that I and others have
> remarked on previously:
>
> (a) That decaptialisation is largely an American practice and is much
> less common in other English-speaking parts of the world.
>
> (b) More interestingly, that there seems to be an almost 1:1
> relationship between the degree to which species names are capitalised
> in different taxa, and the extent to which species names are formalised
> and standardised.
>
> This makes excellent sense, when you think about it. In the case of
> birds, a common name is an exact 1:1 equivalent to the binomial name.
> It is, like the name of a type of aircraft or a model of car, a
> quasi-proper noun. Bird common names are not duplicated, even between
> different continents, and capitalisation of bird common names is
> practically universal. With mammals, the story is much the same. From
> my reading today, I gather that reptile names are not far behind
> either.
>
> However, with fish this process is not as well developed. here are far
> more conflicting or ambiguous names, and capitalisation is less broadly
> supported - although nevertheless vigorously debated and something of a
> 50/50 call.
>
> With arthropods (insects and spiders and so on), common names are not
> terribly useful as yet (and may never be). According to the American
> Arthropod society, more than 50% of the *families* do not have a common
> name yet, never mind individual species. Here, clearly, we have a
> situation where common names are little if any better than nicknames,
> and a strong case for decapitalisation can be mounted.(They themselves
> do not capitalise.)
>
> Finally, there is flora. The common names of plants are a horrible
> mess. Within any one geographic area they seem to be consistent enough,
> certainly for the larger species (trees, shrubs, wildflowers), but
> *between* areas they often conflict with one another. Australian plant
> common names, for example, do not conflict with one another, but *do*
> conflict with the names of other, completely different, plants in
> Europe and America. Eventually, one supposes, the botanical authorities
> will get their act together as the bird, mammal and reptile people
> have, and as the fish people are trying to do. In the meantime, though,
> plant common names are not terribly helpful a lot of the time. It is no
> doubt this very reason that stands behind the much greater usage of
> botanical names by laypeople interested in plants as opposed to very
> little usage of binomial names by laypeople interested in animals.
> Indeed, I am wondering if, as time goes by and the flora sections start
>  to fill up, it might be sensible to consider using botanical names for
> plants more. (I'm not convinced that that is the best way to go, but
> it's certainly something that ought to be considered.)
>
> Tony
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Identity games by Florentin Smarandache

body:
Florentin Smarandache appears to be creating a large number of user
accounts, and using them to support the inclusion of articles related to his
idiosyncratic theories. The case for this is rather thin, but I hope a
developer will see this message and check the IP addresses of the various
users.

What I know is this: Smarandache has a history of inventing multiple
personalities. I have three confirmed fake names, invented by him. The three
personalities are Carol Harlestle, Charles T. Le and George Gregory.

FS = 64.106.24.52 (static line at Gallup)
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Neutrosophy&diff=996825&oldid=989864

CTL = 64.106.24.52
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion&diff=989777&oldid=989735

CTL=CH
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=carol+smarandache&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&selm=8rglbo%2413q%241%40nnrp1.deja.com&rnum=2

GG = 64.106.24.52
http://216.239.33.100/search?q=cache:gzDvOQpAK30J:www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Comments/comments.html+%2264.106.24.52%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
(google cache of
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Comments/comments.html)

Additionally, AxelBoldt has made a case that FS is Dr. Minh Perez, on
[[Florentin Smarandache]].

The user accounts which have been created in the past few days and have been
used to support Smarandache include johnkamla, Lit-sci, Bigtexas,
Arizonaval. I don't know if that's all of them. There have also been
suspicious anonymous edits under the Gallup IP addresses 64.106.24.51 and
64.106.24.53 -- could be different computers in the same lab.

If my theory turns out to be correct, I suggest we threaten FS with banning.
Identity games like this should not be allowed.

-- Tim Starling.

_________________________________________________________________
Get mobile Hotmail. Go to  http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/signup.asp


subject: [WikiEN-l] Whoops

body:
please ignore my last two messages people - axidentaly autosent.

-SM


body:
Toby Bartels wrote:

>Dante Alighieri wrote:
>
>>Toby Bartels wrote:
>>
>>>(Anybody that hasn't searched Google for "felching" is advised to do so.
>>>The results page is informative in several ways!)
>>>
>>Wikipedia's article on felching is the #2 Google hit when you search for
>>felching! I've added [[Felching]] to [[Wikipedia:Top 10 Google hits, A-K]].
>>Think we can hit #1 with a little work? I've never been so proud....
>>
>
>Indeed ... but what *I* found most interesting was the "sponsored links".
>
Hmm! Does that mean that as number *2* we try harder, as we felch the
knowledge that cums from WP? :-P

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Whoops

body:
I meant my last one... now two. Umm...

> please ignore my last two messages people - axidentaly autosent.
>
> -SM
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] We're number two, we're number two! (was filtering)

body:
I have heard funnier things...
but I really cant remember when.

SM

http://www.modernhumorist.com/mh/0205/free/

Toby: Wikipedia's article on felching is the #2 Google hit when you search
for
> felching! I've added [[Felching]] to [[Wikipedia:Top 10 Google hits,
A-K]].
> Think we can hit #1 with a little work? I've never been so proud....


from_name: cprompt

subject:
[WikiEN-l] poor writing skills of some non-english speaking wiki
 contributors

body:
james duffy wrote:

> Pending a rewrite, a tag line could be added (similar to the 'contents
> is disputed' line already used) at the start of the article,
> indicating that this is a first draft and is being updated and edited
> to achieve a comprehendable form of english. That way, someone finding
> the article on a google search would not think its standard is
> reflective of wiki as a whole.

The problem is that what is proper English can be very subjective, and
that pretty much all of the pages on Wikipedia are considered to be
drafts, subject to later revision. Google searches might reveal a
poorly-written article, but it could also reveal one of those "YEAY JOSH
IS GAY" pages. We should just keep our own standards up and hope that
others realize that the nature of Wikipedia is that we'll have some
Brilliant Prose, and some articles that are sub-Brilliant Prose.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l digest, Vol 1 #431 - 16 msgs

body:
No, I agree - I was commenting on the general subject - and its meandering
from the core issue - namely appropriate self-censorship - within the
confines of a percieved need for such self-censorship. I was wrong to single
out one small comment by you (Kq) as an example of too much detail -
forgetting to make a basic, clear argument against this case , which is "the
perception of explicitness (at this time, in our culture)."

This is a very different time in world culture - far removed from sexy piano
legs and Elvis hips.  But every single popular figure since Shakespeare (and
before) has contributed to the same cause - namely, the elevation of the
vulgar (common) to the level of the acceptible. The Victorian era is indeed
dead (The Queen is Dead)
thank goodness, and with it can go some of the pretentions that previous
generations had to live with.

I agree that there should be some standards here - but in a nutshell, I'd
remind people not to trip too much. Once again, apologies for singling you
out Kq for being unclear - my real point was that *everyone was being
unclear.

-SM

> Is it really so unclear what I'm saying?  The idea of
> what is "sexually explicit" has at various times
> included piano legs, women's ankles, and Elvis
> Presley's hips.  In quite a few places on the planet,
> it still includes women's ankles, and I'm sure it
> would include Elvis Presley's hips as well.  For an
> example in the opposite direction, Robert Mapplethorpe
> considered his work "erotic," yet many (many) people
> consider it "pornographic."  Should I point you to the
> obscenity trials for James Joyce's _Ulysses_?  Anyway,
> tagging articles with commentary of that
> sort--"sexually explicit," etc.--is the same as
> imposing your cultural POV onto them; in other words,
> it is the same as declaring the wikipedia a developed
> nation's middle-class anglocentric-pedia.  Exactly how
> is that of benefit to us?
>
> kq


subject: [WikiEN-l] Whoops revisited - Please Ignore my "species names " post

body:
That's some delay there.... I thought I hadnt sent it at all after the next
ones came through...


body:
JTDirl wrote in part:

>It may not sound politically correct to say this, but we do have a problem
>on wiki with the standard of english used in some articles by people who do
>not speak english as a first language. While the contributors write serious
>and worthwhile articles, their limited knowledge of english can produce
>articles that require major rewriting to reach a usable standard.

>My suggested solution: A special page perhaps listed on the Recent Changes
>pages at the top, to which people when they find grammatically and
>linguistically challenged articles can add them. Users when they have the
>time can work through these, rewriting or rewording them. We could even
>leave a message as part of the welcome note to new users telling them that
>we recognise that not everyone who contributes to wiki may speak english as
>a first language and that, if they have any doubts about their own ability
>to write a clear article in english, or if they simply want it
>double-checked, they can add it to that list.

>Pending a rewrite, a tag line could be added (similar to the 'contents is
>disputed' line already used) at the start of the article, indicating that
>this is a first draft and is being updated and edited to achieve a
>comprehendable form of english. That way, someone finding the article on a
>google search would not think its standard is reflective of wiki as a whole.

All of Wikipedia is already a draft that's being worked on,
and not only because of the quality of the grammar and spelling
(that's among the least of our worries!).
Supposedly, this is mentioned on [[Main Page]]
when we describe ourselves as a "project to create" in the present.
If you don't think that that's enough (a reasonable position),
then discussion of that could go on [[Talk:Main Page]]
(or [[Wikipedia talk:Welcome, newcomers]] or wherever).
However, I don't see bad English as an *especial* problem.

That said, you're certainly correct that it'd be nice to have a page
where we can report bad English that needs to be corrected.
I don't see why this needs to be a Specialpage,
much less needs to be linked to from Recentchanges.
Just create it in the [[Wikipedia:]] space, publicise it, and use it.
Better yet, it already exists: [[Wikipedia:Votes for rewrite]]!

The problem with this page is that it's hardly been used since last year,
so it needs to be cleaned out.  Either that won't take long,
or it will give people a good list of needy articles to start on.
In any case, once you start using it, you'll have to publicise it
to get others to both report problem pages and help fix them.
Hopefully, this mailing list thread will start doing just that!

(I used to watch this page, but it fell too low on my list of priorities.
I'll probably have more time for Wikipedia in July, however!)

-- Toby


body:
> >It may not sound politically correct to say this, but we do have a
problem
> >on wiki with the standard of english used in some articles by people who
do
> >not speak english as a first language. While the contributors write
serious
> >and worthwhile articles, their limited knowledge of english can produce
> >articles that require major rewriting to reach a usable standard.
>

I think this is nonsense. Proper English is a product of specialization.
English is not the property of English speakers, but a lingua franca that
everyone owns. Hence, its destined to become simplified - phonetic - scratch
that - fonetic speling iz tha furst thing laikli tu hapen tu English - or it
should. Someday soon.

All that registered - I dislike the tone of enforcing propriety. It smacks
of elitism.
The articles that Ive seen - written in funky English - are generally
intelligible - and If I come across one, Ill usually take time to edit it.

If someone wants to make it their perorgative to take this on as a task -
and to enlist other in it, then so be it. Bat formalaizing som kaind ov
Englo-defensyzm is the most tryvial of persuts. If that was the spirit in
which this was raised.

-S


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] Filtering, etc.

body:
Toby-
> Michael Becker wrote:

>> A vote has already ensued at
>> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Content_advisory
>> Someone suggested 3 choices, and we voted.  That is how this ended up on
>> the main page.  Feel free to join the discussion.

> I had that discussion watched, but I never saw the vote.
> After all, it had only been discussed for 2 days! (Jun 5, Jun 6).
> In fact, I can't even find a vote on the talk page.
> I'm sure that even Erik would agree that such a vote is no good.

Yes, even I agree. ;-)

Regards,

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] Filtering, etc.

body:
Julie-
> But here's where I think that argument falls down.  The wikipedia is
> fortunately unlike almost every print encyclopedia in that one can (or
> will be able to, one day, we hope) find information on virtually
> anything.   I would guess that, when people see "online, open content
> encyclopedia", they think in terms of information available in print
> encyclopedia - I imagine it this way, laugh if you like: "Hey mom, I
> found this really cool site!"  "Really?  What kind of site? (<subtext of
> normal parental concern>)"  "It's an encyclopedia - look at this cool
> picture of an aardvark!" "Gee, honey, that *is* pretty cool!  Useful,
> too!"  And mom, seeing it's an educational tool, goes back to doing
> whatever, only to have her kid come up later and ask about the
> information in the Felching article (and by the way, that looks a lot
> like a dictionary entry to me), which might not be at all intelligible
> to a pre-teen, at least.

Dr. Merkwuerdigliebe says: "Congratulations, Mom, your son is uninhibited
enough to ask about sexual subjects. That means he will probably have less
problems than his peers when dealing with contraception and STD prevention
in later life." I suspect that the kind of moms who would freak out when
their children ask them about sexual subjects have already indoctrinated
them quite well not to do so.

Of course, maybe in the future Mom can enable a filter to keep her
children from being exposed to specific aspects of reality. But I would
support this only when it is generic enough to allow other Moms to choose
other aspects of reality, instead of simply assuming that sex==bad is the
only parenting standard that matters. That would surely not be NPOV.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] Just to throw this out there...

body:
Jimmy-
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>  In many cases where the parent would use the filter
>> the kid is often smarter, and can probably figure out the override long
>> before the parent realizes.  I may not always admit it to him, but I
>> feel proud when my 13 year old does things better than I do.

> At least as long as we implement something like this in the same way
> that Google does, there would be no 'figuring out' involved.  If you
> want to block something, you click on the link to "Turn on Safe
> Search" and if you want to unblock something, you click on the link to
> "Turn off or modify Safe Search".

Please, do not use the SafeSearch analogy. This is a completely different
idea from the customizable filter system we have been discussing.
SafeSearch is a POV family filter with no transparency. It's a Bad Thing.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: koyaanis qatsi

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

body:
Geoff writes:
>I also think this system solves the POV problem
>by being APOV - the authorities' point of view -
>when the 'pedia _must_ take a point of view. The
>APOV is, after all, the only thing that matters
>when there are authorities with a POV, anyway.

Yes, but wikipedia does not strive for APOV; it
strives for NPOV.  The more I hear about this, the
more I'm convinced that it is simply not a project for
wikipedia; that filtering content--or "sifting" it, if
you will--is a project for something else.  Let's call
it "sifter," shall we?

You make some good points otherwise, especiallly about
wanting the 'pedia to be broadly available, but miss
the point that annotating articles with culturally
relative standards of e.g. "explicit" is POV.  And,
just to get away from the sex examples (they're
becoming tedious), in a film I saw recently about
[[throat singing]], the people of a rural community
outside Mongolia killed a sheep by putting their hand
through a hole in the chest to stop its aorta.  I
thought the footage graphic, if not nauseating, but
the people doing the ceremony were unbothered by it
and in fact considered it a great honor.  I fail to
see how my opinion about the action is of any
consequence to wikipedia whatsoever; and I'd oppose
anyone's attempts to label the action according to
their moral or cultural standards--even if I share
them.

kq

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

body:
Stevertigo writes:
>I agree that there should be some standards here
>- but in a nutshell, I'd remind people not to
>trip too much. Once again, apologies for singling
>you out Kq for being unclear - my real point was
>that *everyone was being unclear.

I'm laughing but I wince--this proposed filtering is a
subject I care about a lot, and I've made an effort to
be both clear and concise.  Apparently I need more
effort.  :-)  yet, I think the horse is dead and I
should cease to beat it.  :-)

kq

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Software updates

body:
We're now up to the latest Wikipedia software version on the English
Wikipedia. Some changes I and others made in the last weeks:

1) There is a new feature called "oldest articles" (colloq. "ancient
pages"). Currently this inevitably lists first all the imported articles
from the phase I software that have not been edited yet ever since.
Hopefully, as these become updated, this feature will allow us to
systematically go through our old material and make sure it is in good
shape and up to date.

2) Sysops will note that the page deletion feature now auto-pastes the
content of pages that are smaller than 500 bytes into the deletion comment
(only the first 150 characters). It also does so if the current revision
is blanked and the previous revision contains text that can be pasted.

3) The deletion feature now indicates if you are about to delete a page
that has a history.

4) The "New pages" list now shows the bytesize of each page, making it
easier to pick nice, long articles for the Main Page.

5) Some minor layout stuff, some by me, some by others. Notably, the ugly
"It was last modified" sentence at the bottom of each page has been fixed.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: james duffy

body:
It may not sound politically correct to say this, but we do have a problem
on wiki with the standard of english used in some articles by people who do
not speak english as a first language. While the contributors write serious
and worthwhile articles, their limited knowledge of english can produce
articles that require major rewriting to reach a usable standard.

While that is being done on a case by case basis, some articles can stay on
wiki for ages before anyone notices, or can be found by people who are busy
elsewhere and cannot immediately do a rewrite.

Take this example from [[Chronopia]]:
------------------
The city is the largest city in Ereb Altor. It is said to be ruled by an
great time-mage, but noone has ever seen him. Below the Emperor there is a
huge army of lesser time mages, odinary-but-still-extremly-powerful-mages
and a huge and extremly powerful army of elite-highlanders with necrological
weapons.

it is simply impossible to revolt against the Emperor, but that does not
mean that there is no crimes commited in Chronopia. Despite the ultrahard
goverment with all its time mages and undefeatable, enless legions of elite
warriors there are LOTS of crimes comitted everywhere - The Emperor does not
care for the people that live in his city, all he cares about is time
itself.
------------------

Goatasaur has been doing a lot of work trying to turn this article into
readable english but there are many other articles in a similar vein that
are barely readable. The [[History of China]] has been disastrously written
by one person who continually refuses to accept there is a problem and
reverts attempts to revert the article to a readable version rather than one
littered with dramatically flawed translations of chinese words into
english. Quite a few of our computer programming pages have similar problems
with poor english making it difficult even for the expert, let alone the lay
person, to understand what the article is about.

Most of the contributors to these articles are genuine, sincere and doing
their best, but they are far below acceptable standard in an english
language encyclop?dia and risk damaging wiki's credibility as a reliable
source.

My suggested solution: A special page perhaps listed on the Recent Changes
pages at the top, to which people when they find grammatically and
linguistically challenged articles can add them. Users when they have the
time can work through these, rewriting or rewording them. We could even
leave a message as part of the welcome note to new users telling them that
we recognise that not everyone who contributes to wiki may speak english as
a first language and that, if they have any doubts about their own ability
to write a clear article in english, or if they simply want it
double-checked, they can add it to that list.

Pending a rewrite, a tag line could be added (similar to the 'contents is
disputed' line already used) at the start of the article, indicating that
this is a first draft and is being updated and edited to achieve a
comprehendable form of english. That way, someone finding the article on a
google search would not think its standard is reflective of wiki as a whole.

JT

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body:
>Cprompt wrote
>The problem is that what is proper English can be very subjective,

Starting a sentence with a capital letter isn't. Finishing with a full stop
is sort of seen as obligatory, while people do tend to think that verbs are
a good idea. Yet I was told yesterday of an article found by a contributor
that used commas for full stops, full stops for commas and didn't use a
single capital letter. Oh and wrote an entire history article in the present
tense. Those things aren't "very subjective", they are elementary. The
article, BTW was very good. All it needed was correction. But apparently
because it was on an obscure historical fact it never was looked at and
remained un-proofed for months. The person who found it didn't have time to
fix it, forgot about it then weeks later remembered it. It would have been
handier if, had they no time themselves, they could have simply put it on a
special list where whomever had the time could have fixed it. That way, an
article with good content would have become a good article to read, doing
justice to the good work done by someone who simply was not fluent in
english.

>and that pretty much all of the pages on Wikipedia are considered to be
>drafts, subject to later revision.

We may see them as such, but a user who knows nothing of wikipedia and finds
an article through google will presume it is /the/ final text in an
encyclop?dia, not some draft.

>Google searches might reveal a poorly-written article, but it could also
>reveal one of those "YEAY JOSH IS GAY" pages. We should just keep our own
>standards up and hope that others realize that the nature of Wikipedia is
>that we'll have some Brilliant Prose, and some articles that are
>sub-Brilliant Prose.

I am not criticising sub-Brilliant Prose. I am pointing out that we /do/
have articles that aren't prose at all. There are users who want to
contribute but need more help than most in terms of being able to express
their knowledge. We need a system that can help them express their knowledge
where they themselves lack the linguistic skills to do so. (I know if I was
contributing to French wiki I would be out of my depth linguistically. I
would welcome being able to put my French article onto a special page with
the message - this may need to be proofread because my french may not be
100% accurate.)

JT

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body:
James-

> My suggested solution: A special page perhaps listed on the Recent Changes
> pages at the top, to which people when they find grammatically and
> linguistically challenged articles can add them.

Why not just add the page(s) to [[Wikipedia:Pages needing attention]]?

I do agree that we have some users on en: whose every edit should be
proofread by someone else. To effectively do so, you can simply use the
contributions list for that user. To avoid duplicate work, you could say
something like

        "I copyedit [[User:Engrish]]'s changes"

to your user page and possibly other relevant pages.

Regards,

Erik


body:
Erik-
> To avoid duplicate work, you could say
> something like

>         "I copyedit [[User:Engrish]]'s changes"

> to your user page and possibly other relevant pages.

There must be some cyberspace law about everyone's English ending up
garbled in all discussions that criticize other people's English. This
should of course be "add to", not "say to", since the Wikipedia speech
interface is still in alpha.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

in_reply_to: <5.2.0.9.2.20030607130630.02d59400@digitalgrapefruit.com>; from dalighieri@digitalgrapefruit.com on Sat, Jun 07, 2003 at 01:14:16PM -0700

body:
Dante Alighieri wrote:
> I'm sorry, but if other people want to censor information from themselves
> and children in their charge, that's /their/ problem, not ours. I don't see
> why we need to be held hostage to the Puritanical views of a few people out
> there who think that it would somehow be a disaster if a child read the
> felching article. Why do their work for them? If they want a filter, let
> /them/ write it. Let /them/ argue what it should filter. Let's leave
> Wikipedia just the way it is.

In what we are we held hostage just by including content metadata and
allowing people a simple option for how they want to view the
wikipedia?  I think such dramatic analogies would be appropriate if
our only possible course of actions were to either self-censor or let
it all hang out, but it seems to me that we have several promising
alternatives that pose a useful compromise.

Again, I ask you to think not of schools and their issues, but of me
and my issues.  I'm a modern person offended by almost nothing.  And
yet, I wouldn't like to be showing my mother wikipedia and say, o.k.,
here is how you edit, and over here is where people can see the recent
changes, and OH MY!!, er, well, uh, really, this isn't about porn, ma.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

in_reply_to: <20030608014857.65137.qmail@web14710.mail.yahoo.com>; from obchodnakorze@yahoo.com on Sat, Jun 07, 2003 at 06:48:57PM -0700

body:
koyaanis qatsi wrote:
> I'm not being a wag; I'm being serious when I say that
> if Bill Clinton (and other articles) fit into one
> category only, then we're recreating subpages.

Well, I don't think we should set up a meta-data system so limited
that everything has to fit into one category.

>  Electronic
> Freedom Foundation: technology or politics?  Filtered
> or not?

Both, and the view that end users want to put on the data is up to
them.

> It's a lose/lose situation, as far as I can see:
> re-establish a hierarchy of articles, or risk
> "collateral damage" in filtering--and I expect that
> collateral damage to include, for different reasons,
> [[breast]], [[Michael Jackson]], [[Kurt Cobain]],
> [[Khmer Rouge]], and [[Robert Blake]].

What damage do you envision? Because I'm just not following you at
all.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

body:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
> Dante Alighieri wrote:
> > I'm sorry, but if other people want to censor
> information from themselves
> > and children in their charge, that's /their/
> problem, not ours. I don't see
> > why we need to be held hostage to the Puritanical
> views of a few people out
> > there who think that it would somehow be a
> disaster if a child read the
> > felching article. Why do their work for them? If
> they want a filter, let
> > /them/ write it. Let /them/ argue what it should
> filter. Let's leave
> > Wikipedia just the way it is.
>
> In what we are we held hostage just by including
> content metadata and
> allowing people a simple option for how they want to
> view the
> wikipedia?  I think such dramatic analogies would be
> appropriate if
> our only possible course of actions were to either
> self-censor or let
> it all hang out, but it seems to me that we have
> several promising
> alternatives that pose a useful compromise.
>
> Again, I ask you to think not of schools and their
> issues, but of me
> and my issues.  I'm a modern person offended by
> almost nothing.  And
> yet, I wouldn't like to be showing my mother
> wikipedia and say, o.k.,
> here is how you edit, and over here is where people
> can see the recent
> changes, and OH MY!!, er, well, uh, really, this
> isn't about porn, ma.
>
> --Jimbo

I understand your desire to protect your mother Jimbo,
but I don't see what your mother has to do with this.

I somehow read that here, you are suggesting that
articles flagged as porn along your mother principles,
are not to be seen in recent changes either ? This
will become very complicated then.

I see no "real problem" I guess with setting flags but
I definitly see one in defining which will be under
one flag or not.

The current editors will decide together what is
supposingly ok to most, and what is supposingly not
ok. But, how are these supposed to know what is
offensive in one culture and not offensive in another
? This is different in each culture, and each
situation. So that has to be defined accordingly, not
uniformally for every culture.

I admit some might desire some sort of censorship
might be necessary for full access to knowledge along
certain standards of decency or whatever.

Say, if you want to propose an short-wikipedia to
american schools - such a wikiUSchildrenpedia set for
american education, you need certification teams
coherent with american education standards.

But, a wikiBritishchildrenpedia set for british
education might not require the same censorship
standards. Perhaps the definition of what is porn or
not porn will be different. Maybe some points not
acceptable for american will be acceptable by british
standards and reversely.

Each of these set of people need to define
*themselves* what is ok and what is not ok.

So, we need to provide *everything*, and that is
*their* job to decide to keep or not to keep the
information. Not our job. So we need to provide the
flagging system for an extracted wiki perhaps, but
certainly not to define the nature of the censorship ourselves.

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

body:
Anthere wrote:
> I understand your desire to protect your mother Jimbo,
> but I don't see what your mother has to do with this.
>
> I somehow read that here, you are suggesting that
> articles flagged as porn along your mother principles,
> are not to be seen in recent changes either ? This
> will become very complicated then.

Before this gets into a "you called my mother a what?" kind of
tiff here... (hehe) I must say that Anthere is right to point out that
getting too specific with our analogies (and assuming they are
universal and applicable ). And Jim is right in reasoning out a
case where the WP may be limited by its choices of topics.

I would remind people of something that Johnathan once said here
that he deliberately tried to advance the Wikipedia to his Muslim
friends - and they all ran upon seeing what they percieved as an entreched
anti-Arab bias in its coverage of Is-Pal conflict issues - and the fighting
that would tend to result in challenging it assumed authority. I'm a fucking
expert.
Muslims are perhaps a more important demographic group to cater to - should
we be interested in changing the Wikipedia -  (Dressing it up as it were).
Which I'm not, frankly. Where issues of balance are concerned, there needs
to be respect for voices that have some balance - the puritans and the
heathens be damned.

Still, it would be a nice thing for Jim to someday show his Ma the site -
God knows the Bomis site would be too tacky. "Show me what your spending
your time on, Dear" is a question most of us hear - and cringe at if we cant
explain
it exactly - if it doesnt fit exactly into the mold. "I design porn sites
for Larry Flint Mom" or "Im one of those ladies you see on Sutter and Polk
street on the party nights Mom"  tend to be hard to leave the lips.

Nevertheless, WP is bigger than all of us - thank goodness, and attempts to
change the character and personality of something destined to become the
knowledge base for the next generation, should be damned if it cowtows to
the particular interests of
nuclear-family era mothers everywhere - or our Oedipal-Pavlovian fear of
them.
On the practical side - a color scale of content could be devised. It could
run as a fuzzy logic circuit. http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy_logic .
This could be set with a tag in each page to score a value for each page -
and parents and nannys and teachers and the PMRC and the Bible belt
Christians could all look at WP without trippin too hard.

I remind people that the protection isnt really to provide security - rather
its just there to let people feel like theres some security effort -
absolving the site managers of any wrongdoing. Its a rather cynical view,
I'll admit.

Yes, Momma I'm sending my email now... No, Momma I didnt take out the
trash...
OW, Ma that hurts!...

-SM


from_name: Robert

subject: [WikiEN-l] This is the English Wikipedia

body:
Stevertigo writes:

> I think this is nonsense. Proper English is a product of
> specialization. English is not the property of English
> speakers, but a lingua franca that everyone owns.

Pseudo-academic, pseudo-egalitarian nonsense.  That's the
same kind of talk that has damaged the education of much of
the inner-city youth in America. Only in the last decade
have educators finally had the nerve to attack this point
of view, and to correct the course that our schools were
making.

Frankly, it is also racist in effect. This kind of attitude
has created two generations of poorly educated Hispanic and
Black youth in American cities. I couldn't think of a
better plan for the KKK  to promote if they want to keep
racism alive forever.

> Hence, its destined to become simplified phonetic -
> scratch that - fonetic speling iz tha furst thing laikli
> tu hapen tu English - or it should. Someday soon.

This isn't about ownership, racism or colonialism.  It is
about writing article in English, for people who speak
English.

And frankly, many of our articles are being damaged by
people with good intentions, but who have poor English
reading or writing skills (or both.)

In Stevertigo's bizarre universe, it is egalitarian to
encourage this illiteracy, which in the end would produce
unreadable articles.  In our universe, we are trying to
ecudate an English speaking audience.

It is your choice what kind of encyclopedia we should try
to produce. I know which path I prefer.

Robert (RK)

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body:
sannse wrote:

>Uncle Ed?  Is that you??
>
>>Hmm! Does that mean that as number *2* we try harder, as we felch the
>>knowledge that cums from WP? :-P
>>
>>Ec
>>
No it wasn't.  Although, I was aware of such a practice long before I
heard of Wikipedia, the word "felching" is something that I learned
here.  I think that many educators will support the idea that one of the
best ways to remember a word is to use it in a sentence.  I've done
that. :-)

Eclecticology


body:
Robert
> Pseudo-academic, pseudo-egalitarian nonsense.  That's the
> same kind of talk that has damaged the education of much of
> the inner-city youth in America.

Robert, if noone else will say it - I will. Youre so full of crap.
Thank you very much for listening.

> Frankly, it is also racist in effect. This kind of attitude
> has created two generations of poorly educated Hispanic and
> Black youth in American cities. I couldn't think of a
> better plan for the KKK  to promote if they want to keep
> racism alive forever.

God, what horrible garbage.

> And frankly, many of our articles are being damaged by
> people with good intentions, but who have poor English
> reading or writing skills (or both.)

Oh, God, what a crapload.

> In Stevertigo's bizarre universe, it is egalitarian to
> encourage this illiteracy, which in the end would produce
> unreadable articles.  In our universe, we are trying to
> ecudate an English speaking audience.

Well, cutting through all of Robert's crap - the one VALID point he makes
(underneath all the crap, acrimony, etc...) is that a common language
should'nt go willy nilly in different directions. But it's fucking elitist
as tea-sipping lessons to dictate what is "proper" in most contexts -
because you personally dont own it - whether it be a religion or a language.

Americans and Englishmen are a minority of English speakers. Toby(I think)
made a valid point that there is already a page calling attention to pages
in need of a rewrite - the problem is that people do what they are
interested in.
(And most pages are in need of a "rewrite" - whether its a complete hack
job - or a little comma is missing somewhere.)

If people with little teeny tiny sphincters want to take it upon themselves
to focus like a lynch mob on poor, unsuspecting Bengalis, fine. But dont
bitch when I pull the hoods off your heads. Wanna correct the bad English? -
DO IT. But dont come here talking about instituting ideologies that are
fundamentally elitist.

WikiLove be upon you, Kaiser

- Steven MacGrieves


body:
Robert wrote:

>Stevertigo writes:
>
>>I think this is nonsense. Proper English is a product of
>>specialization. English is not the property of English
>>speakers, but a lingua franca that everyone owns.
>>
>
>Pseudo-academic, pseudo-egalitarian nonsense.  That's the
>same kind of talk that has damaged the education of much of
>the inner-city youth in America.
>
>Frankly, it is also racist in effect. This kind of attitude
>has created two generations of poorly educated Hispanic and
>Black youth in American cities. I couldn't think of a
>better plan for the KKK  to promote if they want to keep
>racism alive forever.
>
>>Hence, its destined to become simplified phonetic -
>>scratch that - fonetic speling iz tha furst thing laikli
>>tu hapen tu English - or it should. Someday soon.
>>
>
>This isn't about ownership, racism or colonialism.  It is
>about writing article in English, for people who speak
>English.
>
>And frankly, many of our articles are being damaged by
>people with good intentions, but who have poor English
>reading or writing skills (or both.)
>
Even though I may often differ with some other Wikipedians about just
what is correct English (notably lately over over-capitalization), I am
strongly in support of using good English.  If people want to persist in
pseudo-phonetic renderings of the language let them do so on the
yet-to-be-created ebonics Wikipedia.  Language is also about a cultural
continuity that includes Mark Twain just as much as Shakespeare.  A
generation that grows up on these fanciful spellings is well on the way
to breaking its link with a cultural continuity.  That's the cost of
such dumbing down.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

body:
> I'm laughing but I wince--this proposed filtering is a
> subject I care about a lot, and I've made an effort to
> be both clear and concise.  Apparently I need more
> effort.  :-)  yet, I think the horse is dead and I
> should cease to beat it.  :-)

Yes, you shouldnt beat it too much there, Kq. ;)

-SM


subject: [WikiEN-l] Request for help with new article (slurs)

body:
Dante Alighieri wrote:

> Howdy all, I just wrote a new article, [[List of ethnic slurs]]. I've
> put a redirect at [[List of racial epithets]]. Now, the list also
> includes terms for people based on their religion, but I don't think
> that the article title is that big a deal. Now, on to my request.
>
> Because I've from the United States, the list is obviously heavily
> populated with American English examples. I'm hoping that people from
> other countries (especially non-English speaking ones) will stop by to
> add in their own terms.
>
> Just to clarify, I'm interested in this as a scholarly pursuit,
> although it will probably be used for unsavory purposes by unsavory
> individuals. If you could all take the time to go look and make
> whatever changes you think will improve the article, I'd really
> appreciate it. Thanks in advance!
>
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs

I would express a concern about the title.  "Ethnic" is certainly more
comprehensive than "racial", so that part is a clear improvement.  On
the other hand I find "slurs" to be more POV than "epithets".  I see a
need to maintain a perspective of time.  What may be a slur to-day may
not always have been so.  When the Doukhobors were given that name it
was intended as a slur by the Tsarists; eventually they assumed the name
themselves and the pejorative nature of the word dropped away.
 Contrariwise, black Americans were once called "colored", and that term
was generally accepted in its time.  It has since evolved away from
acceptability, but it was certainly an improvement over "nigger".

Eclecticology


from_name: Geoffrey Burling

subject:
[WikiEN-l] poor writing skills of some non-english  speaking
 wiki contributors

body:
James Duffy wrote:

> While the contributors write serious
> and worthwhile articles, their limited knowledge of english can produce
> articles that require major rewriting to reach a usable standard.

Once upon a time, when I thought I was going to be the next Great American
Novelist, I took a lot of creative writing classes. One thing every
teacher held was that good writing came from constant re-writing.

Having said that, I expect almost every article on Wikipedia, whether it
was written by a native English speaker or not, could be improved by
rewriting. After all, that is the Wiki way.

[snip]
> The [[History of China]] has been disastrously written
> by one person who continually refuses to accept there is a problem and
> reverts attempts to revert the article to a readable version rather than
> one littered with dramatically flawed translations of chinese words into
> english.

What I see in this instance isn't a case of a non-native English speaker
having a problem expressing her/his ideas, but someone who doesn't want to
play nice on Wikipedia. Maybe someone not closely involved in the
situation could intervene & try to figure out if said person is just being
bull-headed, or actually has a concern that she/he needs help expressing
to the rest of us Wikipedians.

> We could even
> leave a message as part of the welcome note to new users telling them
> that we recognise that not everyone who contributes to wiki may speak english
> as a first language and that, if they have any doubts about their own ability
> to write a clear article in english, or if they simply want it
> double-checked, they can add it to that list.

Regardless of the outcome of this warming discussion, I think this would
be a wonderful idea. I know I would be more likely to help out on the
German & Latin Wikis if I knew someone would be willing to help me with my
command of those languages.

Geoff


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>
>Again, I ask you to think not of schools and their issues, but of me
>and my issues.  I'm a modern person offended by almost nothing.  And
>yet, I wouldn't like to be showing my mother wikipedia and say, o.k.,
>here is how you edit, and over here is where people can see the recent
>changes, and OH MY!!, er, well, uh, really, this isn't about porn, ma.
>
My first reaction on seeing one of the sex articles was "whoa!",
and the second reaction was "OK, this is a serious encyclopedia,
it has *everything*."  Have you actually showed your mother
wikipedia?  If not, her reaction might surprise you.

I'm doubtful about the metadata idea, tags will become lightning
rods for POV dispute or be ignored.  I suspect that a bit of
linkage analysis will show the problematic articles fall into a
self-referencing group, and if so the nice folks implementing
bowdlerpedia.org can use that to filter the "bad" articles and
keep the "good" ones.

Stan


from_name: Dante Alighieri

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

body:
At 06:16 AM 6/9/2003, you wrote:
>Dante Alighieri wrote:
> > I'm sorry, but if other people want to censor information from themselves
> > and children in their charge, that's /their/ problem, not ours. I don't
> see
> > why we need to be held hostage to the Puritanical views of a few people
> out
> > there who think that it would somehow be a disaster if a child read the
> > felching article. Why do their work for them? If they want a filter, let
> > /them/ write it. Let /them/ argue what it should filter. Let's leave
> > Wikipedia just the way it is.
>
>In what we are we held hostage just by including content metadata and
>allowing people a simple option for how they want to view the
>wikipedia?  I think such dramatic analogies would be appropriate if
>our only possible course of actions were to either self-censor or let
>it all hang out, but it seems to me that we have several promising
>alternatives that pose a useful compromise.
>
>Again, I ask you to think not of schools and their issues, but of me
>and my issues.  I'm a modern person offended by almost nothing.  And
>yet, I wouldn't like to be showing my mother wikipedia and say, o.k.,
>here is how you edit, and over here is where people can see the recent
>changes, and OH MY!!, er, well, uh, really, this isn't about porn, ma.

Well, I'm making a straight slippery slope argument. The first step is of
course, reasonable, it's the eighth step that worries me.

-----
Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
    -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321


body:
At 10:01 AM 6/9/2003, you wrote:
>>http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs
>
>I would express a concern about the title.  "Ethnic" is certainly more
>comprehensive than "racial", so that part is a clear improvement.  On the
>other hand I find "slurs" to be more POV than "epithets".  I see a need to
>maintain a perspective of time.  What may be a slur to-day may not always
>have been so.  When the Doukhobors were given that name it was intended as
>a slur by the Tsarists; eventually they assumed the name themselves and
>the pejorative nature of the word dropped away. Contrariwise, black
>Americans were once called "colored", and that term was generally accepted
>in its time.  It has since evolved away from acceptability, but it was
>certainly an improvement over "nigger".
>
>Eclecticology

Well, the problem here is that there are two terms in common usage, ethnic
slur and racial epithet. While I suppose you are correct that ethnic
epithet would be more NPOV than either of the other two, it would be a
contrived phrase that would not show up if someone was doing a search on
the topic (as they will type in racial epithet or ethnic slur). Aside from
that, I think the way to handle your issue in the article (that not all
slurs have always been so, and vice versa) is simply to add a note to those
words for which it is relevant.

-----
Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
    -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321