from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] American diplomatic listings

body:
Oliver Pereira wrote:
> [[Ambassadors from the United States]] and [[Ambassadors to the United
> States]] are quite likely the pages you want. The latter doesn't exist
> yet, and both may need renaming, but there is no reason why they could not
> hold the information in question. There is no reason to remove such
> information altogether.

Well, one reason I can think of is simple time constraints.  Yes, it
would be better to move this fast-obsolete and not-very-helpful
information out of the main country articles and into some other
location, but if the people who want to do it don't feel like writing
all new articles on American diplomatic representation, it could still
be better to remove it.

I'm usually a 'completionist' not a 'deletionist' but in some cases, the
work to continue including and updating some information probably isn't
the best use of our time.


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [WikiEN-l] re: Viking ban

in_reply_to: <5.2.0.9.2.20030530160236.011426d8@mail.digitalgrapefruit.com>; from kmoussally@cal.berkeley.edu on Fri, May 30, 2003 at 04:08:28PM -0700

body:
Karim Moussally wrote:
> Take a look now at the new way of humiliating a user. A new file has been
> made called <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Viking/ban>User
> talk:Viking/ban that will keep showing up on the Recent Changes list as
> many times as their attacker(s) wish. When someone not involved sees that,
> what is the impression of UserViking?

I, too, object strongly to this practice of creating '/ban' pages as a
place to complain about people.  It seems likely to escalate a
conflict rather than to resolve it.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Requesting sysop access - CGS

in_reply_to: <8mto1umCpVB@erik_moeller>; from erik_moeller@gmx.de on Sat, May 31, 2003 at 01:23:00PM +0200

body:
It's a go on JTDirl.  Fred will be o.k.

Erik Moeller wrote:

> Tony-
> > (By the way, what happened to the nomination for JTDirl? That one seems
> > to have fallen through the cracks. It's been ages.)
>
> Fred objected, and in cases like these, Jimbo usually has the final word.
> I've reminded him but he has not said anything yet (he appears to be a bit
> swamped at the moment).
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: blanket reverts

body:
I agree with Anthere and Axel on this, and I think they are talking
past each other.  The issue here is rewarding bad behavior
sporadically -- that's a good way -- the best way I can think of -- to
get lots and lots more bad behavior out of someone.

So, it isn't really similar to decisions about candy.

--Jimbo

Anthere wrote:

>
> --- Axel Boldt <axelboldt at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > --- Daniel Ehrenberg <littledanehren at yahoo.com>
> > wrote:
> > > well that doesn't prohibit unrevereting of his
> > good edits, does it?
> >
> > The owner of the site has declared that Michael is
> > not allowed to make
> > edits on Wikipedia, good or bad. Lacking the
> > technical means to enforce
> > this ban, we have decided to try a soft ban. It
> > would be nice if you
> > didn't subvert those efforts.
> >
> > A little analogy: suppose you had a child who keeps
> > screaming for
> > sweets. You have three options: 1) always give in 2)
> > sometimes give in
> > 3) never give in. Option 2 is by far the worst.
> >
> > Axel
>
> I ***strongly*** disagree. I think a kid who keeps
> screaming for sweets is asking for more than sweets.
> The solution is certainly not either to never give or
> to always give.
> A sensible way is to understand why he is screaming,
> to make him understand that things are not received
> always when one scream for them. But *never* indulging
> someone for craving for attention or sweets is
> *really* bad imho.
> Option 1 and 3 are by the worst option.
> Mother point of view.
> My kids are perfectly equilibrated kids, with good
> teeths, and very few tantrums. Indulgement from time
> to time does not spoil. Strict behavior ruin spirit.
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM).
> http://calendar.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] blocking of erased page viking

body:
Toby Bartels wrote:
> Given the Vikings' penchant for appeals to authority,
> I'd like to hear Jimmy's opinion about all of this.
> The Vikings have sometimes implied that their here by special request
> and that their actions have been in "consultation" with important people.

Well, not with me.  There's just no excuse for acting in the way that
Kils/Viking have acted, particularly *as sysop*.  The concern about
this image has been raised on the mailing list, and is under an
ongoing discussion.  LittleDan has been very eloquent in representing
one side of the debate, and others have joined in.

We have a process, it's a long and tedious process, but it does more
or less work, and it's not good for someone to simply call 'sysop'.

Erik's actions were temporary in nature, and he was clear about that.
He was concerned about this spinning out of control while I was not
available (on the weekends, as usual, I try to have family time!).
I support what he did in that context.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Kils sysop status temporarily revoked

in_reply_to: <8n0oVmFhpVB@erik_moeller>; from erik_moeller@gmx.de on Sun, Jun 01, 2003 at 03:25:00PM +0200

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> > I should add that I'm not particularly comfortable with the page in
> > question, [[fisting]], myself.
>
> Any more or less so than any of the other articles in [[List of sexology
> topics]]?

That's a long list, and so let me list some examples of what I am
personally comfortable with.  But let me stress that I'm NOT making
any policy here, I'm just arguing as an ordinary wikipedian, trying to
help explore these issues thoughtfully.

Some of the terms there are scientific terms, others are sociological,
but some are slang terms, generally used primarily for shock value.

[[backdoor entrance]], a slang term I guess, redirects to [[anal
intercourse]].  What purpose does that redirect serve?  Well, it
serves *some* purpose, I suppose, but does that purpose outweigh the
cost?

[[blow job]] is a slang term, but unlike [[backdoor entrance]], it is
a very very *common* term.  To me that commonness adds points towards
inclusion.

[[snowballing]]?

I'm just not sure about some of these things.

Now, please do keep in mind that I'm personally not uncomfortable with
these terms.  If you think that's it, you should probably poke around
Bomis a bit, ha ha.  But I am not so sure that we are currently
handling these things in the best way for Wikipedia.

--Jimbo


list: wikitech-l

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

in_reply_to: <20030601144021.GA5024@tavaiah>; from taw@users.sourceforge.net on Sun, Jun 01, 2003 at 04:40:21PM +0200

body:
Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
> I don't know who put the last 2 categories there, but it has been obviously
> done without general consensus and IT BREAKS THE F***ING LAW -
> if you're putting such image on GFDL-ed article you're breaking copyright
> of authors of the article - they didn't give you permisions to distribute
> non-GFDL derivates of their work.

I don't think it's at all clear that including "fair use" content in a
GFDL article has any material impact on GFDL compliance.

I have yet to see anyone who wants to take that argument to the
logical conclusion, i.e. that no GFDL article can quote even one
sentence from any copyrighted source.  May an article on Tom Clancy
quote a line from one of his books?  May an article on Star Wars
discuss the line "Use the force, Luke?"

Such quoting is normally done under the "fair use" convention.

> We also have to make it legal to distribute Wikipedia in Europe,
> which have different copyright laws, especially when it comes to
> what in USA is called "fair use", and what is usually described
> explicitely by copyright laws.

I do support making it easy for people in most countries to be able to
redistribute Wikipedia, but of course it is not possible nor desirable
to attempt to comply with *every* law of *every* country.

--Jimbo


from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [WikiEN-l] [[/ban]] pages (Was: Viking ban)

body:
Danny wrote:

>Jimmy Walse wrote:

>>I, too, object strongly to this practice of creating '/ban' pages as a
>>place to complain about people.  It seems likely to escalate a
>>conflict rather than to resolve it.

>I want to second that. I do not like these ban pages as a place to complain
>about other users. Remember, bans are only a last resort and one that is taken
>only after careful consideration. This also tends to make the banning process
>more accessible, in my mind.

I like having the [[/ban]] pages as a place to discuss a ban
rather than the mailing list where fewer people see it.
The problem in my mind is that bans get suggested at all far too quickly!
If they were only suggested when appropriate,
then the openness of a [[/ban]] page would be nice.

An idea: Create a page [[Wikipedia:Users suggested for a ban]].
Even now, people rarely discuss more than one user at a time.
It's still not good that banning is suggested so quickly so often,
but at least now we won't have talk pages associated with user names.
The page can be wiped after a discussion is over
(with the discussion still available in th edit history),
so Wikipedia will be largely free of personal acrimony at any one time.

This is suggested as a compromise between those against [[/ban]] pages at all
and those that might insist that they're necessary (and more open).

-- Toby


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen wrote:
> > Our primary concern, however, especially regarding the English Wikipedia,
> > is for US law.
>
> Is this policy? I think it's a problematic policy. I've heared Jimbo extol
> visions about having Wikipedia printed and sent out to the poor and the
> wretched, once we have enough articles and enough funding.

It's not really policy, it's just a fact.  If someone in a foreign
country gets mad at me and wants to use the laws of that country
against me, well, that's just tough for them, because I live in the
United States, and the U.S. will not generally enforce that kind of
claim against me here.

But, yes, it is also true that we want to make sure that what we are
doing is distributable widely, and if we can comply with European
copyright laws too, without too much trouble, we should.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
Marco Krohn wrote:
> We will see what FSF answers to that. I have sent an email to the GNU
> organization and asked them for help on this. As soon as I have their reply
> I'll post it here.

I support you in this.  Richard Stallman knows who I am, and so if he
or his people need to ask more specific questions, please let them
know that I'm available and eager to get this resolved.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Lir has something to say about Jtdirl

body:
Adam von [name omitted for privacy reasons] wrote:

>Jtdirl wrote:

>>Most academics on reading what [Fred Bauder] was writing would have binned it
>>or given it an 'f' grade.

>Jtdirl then wrote:

>>It would be nice for once Fred showed even the slightest willingness to work
>>with me, rather than stooping to personal abuse, slander and defamation.

>This is the sort of hypocrisy that us "troll vandals from hell" are referring
>to when we speak of the cabal and its disinformation and blatant lying.

Yeah, I did think that it was ironic that JTD was a bit rude
in his post complaining about Fred's rudeness.
In fact, that's a rather common irony -- your post was rude too.
Heck, my post is rude.  In fact, it's rude to call somebody rude!
(Isn't that a beautiful rule?)

But you're way off base about the cabal.
After all, Fred is a sysop -- and JTD isn't!
Indeed, this whole discussion occured because
Fred objected to JTD's being made a sysop.
Now it appears that JTD will be a sysop after all --
but Fred will continue to be one as well.

>It is absurd beyond belief that this sort of behavior continues. What next?
>Will Fred be the next vandal troll from hell? Almost certainly he is next on
>their hit list.

People will continue to accuse Fred of vandalism and trollishness,
and his opponents will continue to be accused of the same thing.
That's the nature of grudges -- and even if Fred or JTD leaves,
or if time passes and they start to get along with each other,
still these things will continue to occur with other people.
OTOH, I think that every regular user agreed that you harmed the project,
even including the people (like me) that had some sympathy towards you
and thought that this could change.  So there is a difference!

I still hope that you might be able to come back some day.
But that will require the laying aside of grudges, on both sides.

>Let me say: It would be nice for once if Jtdirl showed even the slightest
>willingness to work with me (or anyone else outside of his tight clique of
>Tannin, mav, zoe, 172, & co), rather than stooping to personal abuse, slander
>and defamation - something which he manages to do in nearly everything he
>writes.

No comment.

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] Note from Adam

body:
In the interest of Sunshine, Adam has asked that I forward this.

He has agreed, by the way, not to make any edits to wikipedia under
any username at all.  He seemed to be indicating to me that he didn't
know that before.  (!)

----- Forwarded message from Adam von [name omitted for privacy reasons] <cddvdlenscleaner at yahoo.com> -----

From: Adam von [name omitted for privacy reasons] <cddvdlenscleaner at yahoo.com>
Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2003 10:25:50 -0700 (PDT)
To: Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com>
Subject: Re: your mail

I think it would only be fair to inform your friends that I have emailed you. That way, they can stop making statements such as, "Lir has only to email Jimbo and then he can be reinstated!"

For example:

Lir and Michael and Helga...).  If any of
these users want to be a valuable contributor, they
have only to email Jimbo and I get the feeling he is
looking for an excuse to reinstate them.

-Tuf-Kat

Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
Juanita von [name omitted for privacy reasons] wrote:
>> Since I do not wish to see any edits by you, under any username, can
>>I have your assurance that I will not see any such edits?

> That is correct.

I'm sure you'll understand my nitpicking here, but are you pledging
not to edit wikipedia until you are reinstated?

If so, then that's the very *first* step towards reconciliation.

--Jimbo

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM).
----- End forwarded message -----


subject: [WikiEN-l] please appologize from kils

in_reply_to: <8b17ac8b3498.8b34988b17ac@icomcast.net>; from kils@comcast.net on Sun, Jun 01, 2003 at 02:42:15PM -0400

body:
Apology accepted.  I encourage you to join us in a discussion of
how to deal with sensitive topics.  It's not an easy question.

uwe kils wrote:

> To all who were concerned: Please accept my appologizes, I did not mean
> to hurt anybody. It was not meant the way many felt. I lost, nobody
> picked up the case. But as a good loser I will keep on cooperating and
> endorsing wikipedia (as on the teacher page of our server
> ecoscope.com). I do not want the sysop status anymore. Good luck with
> your project - Uwe Kils
>
>
>
>
>

Content-Description: Card for uwe kils <kils at comcast.net>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Regarding Advertising on Wikipedia

in_reply_to: <200306011913.h51JDf122579@pliny.wikipedia.org>; from list@redhill.net.au on Mon, Jun 02, 2003 at 05:11:35AM +1000

body:
Just to be clear: I don't think advertising will ever be desirable or
necessary for Wikipedia.  Even so, I didn't buy all of Tony's
arguments against it, and wanted to comment accordingly.

Tony Wilson wrote:
> 1: Because there is absolutely NOTHING you can do to stop a link
> between advertising and influence/control over content establishing
> itself.

Well, the wiki system itself is a pretty big barrier to such a link.

> 2: Because in the post hi-tech stock market crash environment, on-line
> advertising rates often don't even pay for the bandwidth the ads
> consume.

Well, actually, advertising already pays for bandwidth and salaries
and everything else around here.  :-)

> 3: Because the small number of advertisers remaining take advantage of
> the buyers' market to demand (and get) unacceptable types of
> advertising, involving one or more usually all of the folowing
> obnoxious things: pop-ups, data-mining cookies, Shockwave, and Flash

The tide is turning, and strongly.  I think that Shockwave and Flash
are still on the rise, but still not all that common.  Popups are
paying less and less, to the point where we (Bomis) just dropped them
completely.  We have a new ad deal with a major search engine which
does context-relevant text ads -- it works great, and pays a lot more
than the intrusive stuff!

BUT -- the rest of his comments were correct!

--Jimbo


from_name: Daniel Ehrenberg

subject: [WikiEN-l] /ban pages (was re: Viking ban)

body:
Most of those suggestions are good, but I've written
some minor critism

--- martin at myreddice.freeserve.co.uk wrote:
> Jimbo said: "I, too, object strongly to this
> practice of creating '/ban' pages as a
> place to complain about people.  It seems likely to
> escalate a
> conflict rather than to resolve it."
>
> response copied to [[meta:talk:bans and blocks]],
> for those who miss the "edit this
> page" button. I know I do. :-)
>
> Can we, between ourselves, find a better solution
> than /ban pages? Prior to my
> (groundbreaking ;-) creation of the first ever /ban
> page, best practice seemed to edit
> [[wikipedia:annoying users]], [[wikipedia:vandalism
> in progress]], [[user talk:USER
> NAME]], [[wikipedia:village pump]], any and all talk
> pages for articles that the user in
> question had edited, various talk pages of
> interested sysops ("I think it's Fred", "I
> agree - it's Fred", "It's definitely Fred!", etc),
> and also to make long posts to the
> mailing list in which one is either "shocked",
> "appalled", or (ideally) "shocked and
> appalled".
Yes, this problem needs to be solved. On a side note,
I'm sure Fred is very insulted :)
> My desires were:
> * Single place for discussion - if I want to know
> "Why was Fred banned?", I should be
> able to go to *one* Wikipedia page, read it, and be
> enlightened.
> * Avoid/discourage redundant discussions
> * Ability to refactor away redundancy
> * Ability to delete page when a banned user is
> reinstated, or when calls for banning
> subside and the sweet voice of reason prevails
I agree
> Alternatives I can think of immediately:
> * Do it on the user talk page
wouldn't make a difference.
> * Have a different name for the page (eg
> /complaints, /problems, ...)
sounds like doublespeak
> * Do it on a subpage of [[wikipedia:annoying users]]
> (eg [[wikipedia:annoying
> users/Fred]])
makes most sense, moving away from their userpage.
After all, it's *their* page, not ours to conspire
against them on. But "annoying" seems a little too
strong; how about "contraversial users"?
> -Martin "Never met a vandal he didn't like" Harper
> (aka MyRedDice)

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] blanket reverts

body:
Oliver Brown wrote:
> i have come across blanked articles. articles should be deleted, or marked
> for deletion. they should never be blanked.

I disagree. At the heart of Wikipedia is 'you can edit this page right
now'.

Sometimes a page has no useful content at all. The best thing to use
would be history-preserving delete, which should be available to all
users (including anonymous ones). Until that comes, blanking is the
right thing to do.

-M-


subject: [WikiEN-l] Sex articles on wikipedia (was: Kils sysop status temporarily revoked)

body:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
> Erik Moeller wrote:
> > > I should add that I'm not particularly
> comfortable with the page in
> > > question, [[fisting]], myself.
> >
> > Any more or less so than any of the other articles
> in [[List of sexology
> > topics]]?
>
> That's a long list, and so let me list some examples
> of what I am
> personally comfortable with.  But let me stress that
> I'm NOT making
> any policy here, I'm just arguing as an ordinary
> wikipedian, trying to
> help explore these issues thoughtfully.
>
> Some of the terms there are scientific terms, others
> are sociological,
> but some are slang terms, generally used primarily
> for shock value.
>
> [[backdoor entrance]], a slang term I guess,
> redirects to [[anal
> intercourse]].  What purpose does that redirect
> serve?  Well, it
> serves *some* purpose, I suppose, but does that
> purpose outweigh the
> cost?
>
> [[blow job]] is a slang term, but unlike [[backdoor
> entrance]], it is
> a very very *common* term.  To me that commonness
> adds points towards
> inclusion.
>
> [[snowballing]]?
>
> I'm just not sure about some of these things.
>
> Now, please do keep in mind that I'm personally not
> uncomfortable with
> these terms.  If you think that's it, you should
> probably poke around
> Bomis a bit, ha ha.  But I am not so sure that we
> are currently
> handling these things in the best way for Wikipedia.
>
> --Jimbo

I think all of those redirect articles are just
unnecessary. There is already (I think) a policy to
use the technical terms for everything, or atleast the
semi-technical terms, so those slang expressions don't
fit, and the links (as well as the article text
itself) should reflect this. If somebody (for some
reason) searches for 'blow job' and doesn't get any
title results, he can just scroll down a little and
see the article on 'oral sex' (this isn't an issue yet
but I know someone will bring it up). If someone links
to 'blow job' and creates a page, someone should
quickly delete the page and change the link to [[oral
sex]].  This really shouldn't be an issue. Just
imagine a 7-year-old looking for an article on blowing
bubbles, so she searches for "bubble blow" and gets an
article on oral sex in the title search.
--LittleDan

__________________________________
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Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM).
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in_reply_to: <3EDBFC3E.11017.19C9898@localhost>; from martin@myreddice.freeserve.co.uk on Tue, Jun 03, 2003 at 01:39:10AM +0100

body:
martin at myreddice.freeserve.co.uk wrote:
> * Have a different name for the page (eg /complaints, /problems, ...)

How about something like /Peace.  You post on that page with ideas
that you think would make both you and that person happier together.

I'm half-joking, but my point is just this: when we kick off a
discussion of a problem with a page called /ban or /complaints or
/problems, we cause people to go into defensive modes of behavior that
can lead to ego-battles that prevent productive solutions.

Of course there *are* people who can't be reached out to peacefully.
They will lie and cheat and backstab and keep being mean.  If that
happens, then, yeah, the best thing we've come up with so far is to
ask them to leave (and to ban them).

But that's a sad last resort for those few malcontents who won't talk
amiably about what's going on.

--Jimbo


from_name: Julie Kemp

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Kils-Viking thing

body:
First - I don't know anything about the particulars, but thought I'd
give you my take on the messages Kils left for Eloquence.  There seems
to be no question from what Kils said that Viking is a user name that
was made up for a group of students and offspring of Kils to use.  I
gathered from Kils' posting that this was being used for a possible
student project.  In that vein, Viking and Kils were worried that
younger people might wander into the site, practicing editing, web use,
etc, and come across some of our articles not usually found in
encyclopedias and more often found in specialty areas.  Some of those
articles really could be considered inappropriate for non-adults - and I
think that may be something we should consider, an advisory or
something?

Anyway, Kils and co thought that the rampant removal of "pornographic"
materials was necessary and within their rights.  When the "ban Viking"
thing flared up, Kils killed Viking and removed all traces.  One of
Kils' reasons for all this was that he had a reputation to protect and
didn't want it connected to pornography.  Now, he has "kind of"
apologized;  At least, that's how I understand all of this.  Also, From
reading comments on Erik's page,  the Vikings would like to do the same
kind of trace wiping from the German version.  If I've summarized badly,
please correct me - I certainly won't be offended.

My response to this?

First, we should realize that the wikipedia is a site that might be seen
as many (reading the main page) as an educational site.  I don't know if
child safety filters are going to catch it.  I also think there are
articles on the site that are certainly more education than necessary
for kids (Prince Albert Piercing and Fisting come to mind) - and I think
that we should do the socially responsible thing and post that
somewhere.  We certainly don't want an attack by the moral minority, and
as yucky as I find some of those articles, I don't think they should be
removed unless the project is severely redefined.

On Kils specifically, I think his actions show that, although his
intentions may have been honorable, he clearly does not quite "get" the
spirit and the intent of the wikipedia.  Moreover, he used his sysop
powers in a way that we all (I think) find unacceptable. And he has not
guaranteed that that behavior would stop.  So I would say that he should
go back to being a user.  It removes the temptation for misuse, however
well-intentioned, and gives him the power to say to others that he has
no way of changing content except in a wiki way.

My take on it at least FWIW

Jules


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

body:
Search Engines like google deal with this problem all the time.  You
can find any sort of thing in Google, but you can also search with
'safe search' turned on, which presumably helps a bit with that
problem.

Our job is actually a lot easier than google's in this regard, because
they might link to anything out of billions and billions of pages.  We
only have a few hundred thousand.

We could have a flag or marker for 'content advisory'.  As with
Google, it wouldn't actually stop anyone from clicking on anything.
(I don't suppose curious children are much delayed if they want to see
something on google that is filtered.)

I'm not 100% sure this makes sense, but it *is* a solution favored by
a lot of mainstream websites, and it does have some acceptability on
those grounds.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Tuf-Kat's nice gift

body:
Dear Tuf-Kat -

Thanks so much for the lovely gift.  I hope you have fun on your travels
and are able to keep in touch.  Sadly, however, I must allow that,
although I often feel like I look like Charlize Theron, the truth is
somewhat more strong-featured and European-looking.  Oh, and I must say
that Kemp is not my maiden name.  Still, you totally made my day, dude!

Take care, and I hope the others liked their presents, too!

Julie
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from_name: Stevertigo

body:
> M.Becker: Actually, the rule of thumb is to use the most commonly used
name.  So
> Blow Job would be a more than appropriate redirect to Fellatio.

Is there an article on "teabagging" yet? Should'nt someone with some
expertise in that practice write a stub? I heard we had "felching" already.

-SM


from_name: Giskart

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: request for a redirect

body:
Andre Engels <engels at uni-koblenz.de> wrote in
news:Pine.LNX.4.44.0306021230580.21846-100000 at ponnuki.uni-koblenz.de:

> As I understand, the main organizers of this Wikipedia would prefer
> "pd" rather than "nds". Or is "pd" already an in-use language code?
>
> Andre Engels

I am not so sure the like "pd" more. User "Baas" is happy whit the "nds"
redirect. He thanks my and Brion.
http://za.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?HomePage/Talk

Baas has put on the main page
"The current subdomain is http://www.nds.wikipedia.org because nds is the
official ISO 639-2 code since 2000-05-31"

It looks there are only 2 users working on that Wikipedia.

But it can not do anything wrong if there is also a redirect form
pd.wikipedia.org to that Wikipedia.

--
Contact: giskart AT wikipedia.be
Ook een artikeltje schrijven? WikipediaNL, de vrije GNU/FDL encyclopedie
http://www.wikipedia.be


body:
Michael Becker wrote:

>I brought this subject up in most part because of this:
>http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising_on_Wikipedia which is linked
>to from User:Jimbo Wales.  This gave me the impression that it was
>something he was considering in the back of his mind all the time.

I interpreted that page as very old, only historical.

>Reading it also gave me the impression that we may get to the point
>where we have to implement ad's.  Now, on weather or not Jimbo will be
>the deciding factor, you will have to ask him weather or not he will let
>the community choose on closing the wikipedia vs. ad's.

In any case, Jimmy has just posted that he doubts that ads will ever be right.

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] Sex articles on wikipedia

body:
LittleDan wrote:

>I think all of those redirect articles are just
>unnecessary. There is already (I think) a policy to
>use the technical terms for everything, or at least the
>semi-technical terms, so those slang expressions don't
>fit, and the links (as well as the article text
>itself) should reflect this. If somebody (for some
>reason) searches for 'blow job' and doesn't get any
>title results, he can just scroll down a little and
>see the article on 'oral sex' (this isn't an issue yet
>but I know someone will bring it up). If someone links
>to 'blow job' and creates a page, someone should
>quickly delete the page and change the link to [[oral
>sex]].

Wouldn't it be easier to redirect [[Blow job]] to [[Oral sex]]
so that we'll never need to delete such a page?
This is standard Wikipedia practice in other areas;
we shouldn't make exceptions for sex.

>This really shouldn't be an issue. Just
>imagine a 7-year-old looking for an article on blowing
>bubbles, so she searches for "bubble blow" and gets an
>article on oral sex in the title search.

She won't.  Check it out for yourself!
She *will* get it in the article search,
but deleting [[Blow job]] won't change that.

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange user

body:
Looxix wrote:

>Because of certain aggresive attitude concerning the modification
>of some articles, have looked to the contributions of [[User:Tom Peeters]].

Note that it's really [[User:Tom Peters]].

>It is just me that found it rather strange:
>- seems to be an old user [[tompeeters]] active from 24 Oct 2001 to 26 Nov 2001.
>- recently converted to [[User:Tom peeters]].
>- under this new account active from the 30 May 2003
>- he have made several contribs under the IP 194.109.250.130

None of this seems strange.
(Note again that it's really [[User:tompeters]].)

>- make aggresive remarks concerning changes made by others to his toys articles

His arguments with [[User:XJamRastafire]] don't seem very strange either.
They're just arguing about how some pages should be written.

>- on his user page he say to have rewrote some articles
>  for example the article [[Easter]], when looking at the history
>  he made only a small change to it.

It'd be better if it he'd said "Articles I've edited"
instead of "Articles I rewrote".  But overall it's not odd.
Lots of people list all of the articles that they've ever edited.

>- yesterday, after some bad discussion he forked the article
>  [[Hipparcos]] to [[Hipparcus]]. He doesn't seems to be annoyed by
>  the fact that all the articles still link to the ld one,
>  except of course the other ont that he actually changes [[Ptolemy]]

Yeah, this is a silly way to try to resolve things.
He should at least put his ideas on [[Hipparchus/Temp]].
Thus he would separate the substantive disagreements with XJamRastafire
from the relatively minor issue of which is the better name.
(Also note that it's [[Hipparchus]] and [[Hipparchos]].)

Note to those about to get upset about the Anglicisation issue:
Tom has implied that he'll accept [[Hipparchus]] if that's policy;
he didn't think so, but nobody's started discussing policy yet.
[[Hipparchus]] probably is better known in English texts, hence policy,
but I'll bet that Tom will come around to it once this is explained to him.
(Since he was last here in 2001, it may be that policy has changed,
and he's assuming that it hasn't.)

>All in all, I find this user somewhat 'strange' and annoying.
>Anyone else having problems with him?
>Can some of you take a look to him and his behaviour?

I looked at all of his edits as [[User:Tom Peters]]
and [[User:194.109.250.130]].  They don't seem strange.
He and XJamRastafire will have to work out their disagreements,
but they don't seem to be having any trouble talking to each other yet.
(I didn't look at any edits made as [[User:Tompeters]],
since these were all made a long time ago -- in 2001.)

-- Toby


body:
Adam makes a good point, which gets at the central flaw of the "rule by consensus" thing here - which unfortunately means - limited, unannounced consensus building - (wikimoney?? - sorry guys - eughh! )  - and untabulated results that tend to fall to the propreitor for a "last word" - something Captain Jim considers a very mixed bag - children need to take care of themselves after all... Politics, in other words - its not something that people can even conceptualize, let alone deal with well.

But also, the fact that Adam is still around and conducting himself with ( apparently ) increasing degrees of consideration and intelligence - (putting sentences together - coherence, making a point ) which might be a sign that Adam has been benefitting from the WP. What could be better than that?

And best of all, Zoe seems to have learned - (excuse me for saying this)  from her Old archnemesis Adam -( And new one - Michael,) that the role of Stalwart Politico-Policeperson comes with a price of having a whole bunch of threads to deal with - None of which are worth tripping too much on. Unless its pure vandalism - problems are just too subjective to just jump to judgements about. At some point, Zoe was using so few words in her messages, I thought she would stop using English altogether and start using Hangi to write stuff like "Adam bad." - Just two or three pictographs possibly. Quite efficient.

(Not to dig too much on Zo, or to excuse Adam for his documented, historical, lack of having better things to do.)

And all this ultimately reveals the fact that the WP can't possibly be anything that fits into a tidy conceptual mold - as ideo-dogmatism would suggest - and all dogmatists realize, at some point, that "a bigger shovel" (quoth the Clinton)- and the resulting deeper hole - doesnt solve anything.

-SM
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subject: [WikiEN-l] /ban pages

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>How about something like /Peace.  You post on that page with ideas
>that you think would make both you and that person happier together.

This could get really Orwellian
(?We've had problems with this person before --
it's gotten so bad that we created a [[/Peace]] page.?).
If we could count on people to start this
only *after* people start arguing all over the place
but well *before* people start pushing for a ban,
so that the creation of [[/Peace]] indicates
strictly the beginning of efforts at reconciliation,
then it could avoid Orwellia, but otherwise ...!

>I'm half-joking, but my point is just this: when we kick off a
>discussion of a problem with a page called /ban or /complaints or
>/problems, we cause people to go into defensive modes of behavior that
>can lead to ego-battles that prevent productive solutions.

OK, so you're half-joking.  Given that it is (IMO) a bad idea
to put these things in as subpages of a [[User talk:]] page,
perhaps we should create [[Wikipedia:Peace negotiations]] (or such)
as a place to hold discussions at attempts to reconcile
various users that are upset at each other (for whatever reason).
Specific individuals (or better, antagonistic pairs/sides)
can be marked off with headers, or subpages if absolutely necessary.
(But it's best if we can avoid putting usernames in the titles completely.)

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Kils-Viking thing

body:
Julie Kemp wrote in part:

>Some of those
>articles really could be considered inappropriate for non-adults - and I
>think that may be something we should consider, an advisory or
>something?

>First, we should realize that the wikipedia is a site that might be seen
>as many (reading the main page) as an educational site.  I don't know if
>child safety filters are going to catch it.  I also think there are
>articles on the site that are certainly more education than necessary
>for kids (Prince Albert Piercing and Fisting come to mind) - and I think
>that we should do the socially responsible thing and post that
>somewhere.  We certainly don't want an attack by the moral minority, and
>as yucky as I find some of those articles, I don't think they should be
>removed unless the project is severely redefined.

How about this (for [[Main Page]], after == Selected Articles ==):

:'''Warning''': Wikipedia contains material that some may consider offensive,
:such as information about vulgar slang, human sexuality, and other topics.
:This material will be kept to appropriate articles, of course,
:but be aware that it is here, and surf according to your own sensibilities.

I would oppose *any* removal of information on the basis of offensiveness,
but there's nothing wrong with a reasonable warning when offence is likely.

>On Kils specifically, I think his actions show that, although his
>intentions may have been honorable, he clearly does not quite "get" the
>spirit and the intent of the wikipedia.  Moreover, he used his sysop
>powers in a way that we all (I think) find unacceptable.

I'm not sure that this is so clear-cut.
His removal of the traces of [[User:Viking]] was premature,
since people are still talking about the case,
but we may yet delete it to save the Vikings from future embarassment.
After all, once an issue has been resolved, we don't need to harp on it.
Now, claiming that sysop status gives on special authority over content
is indeed an egregious violation, but did Uwe Kils actually do this?
It may just be that an aggressive Viking went too far.
(Kils did even make reference to "warning" the Vikings for misbehaviour.)
It's not clear to me.

>And he has not
>guaranteed that that behavior would stop.  So I would say that he should
>go back to being a user.  It removes the temptation for misuse, however
>well-intentioned, and gives him the power to say to others that he has
>no way of changing content except in a wiki way.

Well, he has agreed to be just a user, so we may not need to discuss it.

-- Toby


from_name: WeißNix

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia is forgetting my e-mail address

body:
>
> BTW, some people on the German Wikipedia are complaining that they are
> getting logged out after a few hours. I remember that there was some
> discussion about this problem some time ago, and I thought someone had
> fixed this. Or is this again a browser problem?

You have to check the 'Mein Passwort merken' checkbox in the login
screen. Maybe this checkbox should be placed near the 'Anmelden' button
and not near the 'Neues Benutzerkonto anlegen' button to be better noticed.

Wei?Nix


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] re: Viking ban

body:
In a message dated 6/2/2003 7:09:51 PM Eastern Standard Time,
jwales at bomis.com writes:

> , too, object strongly to this practice of creating '/ban' pages as a
> place to complain about people.  It seems likely to escalate a
> conflict rather than to resolve it.
>

I want to second that. I do not like these ban pages as a place to complain
about other users. Remember, bans are only a last resort and one that is taken
only after careful consideration. This also tends to make the banning process
more accessible, in my mind.

Danny
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from_name: Michael Becker

body:
I brought this subject up in most part because of this:
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising_on_Wikipedia which is linked
to from User:Jimbo Wales.  This gave me the impression that it was
something he was considering in the back of his mind all the time.
Reading it also gave me the impression that we may get to the point
where we have to implement ad's.  Now, on weather or not Jimbo will be
the deciding factor, you will have to ask him weather or not he will let
the community choose on closing the wikipedia vs. ad's.

--
Michael Becker

-----Original Message-----
From: wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org]
On Behalf Of Toby Bartels
Sent: Monday, June 02, 2003 3.50
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Regarding Advertising on Wikipedia

MBecker wrote in part:

>There is no need to argue about
>weather or not we should have advertisements, b/c when it comes down to

>it, it really isn't our decision.

I can't figure out why you think this.
Do you mean that Jimmy might impose it on us against our wishes? Or that
we'll be forced to do it in order to survive financially? Both of these
scenarios seem rather unlikely to me (but perhaps you have some other
reason in mind).

I think that Ec is right that we should budget first.

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


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] JTDirl sysop issue

body:
Toby Bartels wrote:

>Dante Alighieri wrote in part:
>
>>Well, it seems I have made an error, some people do use it for lots of luck
>>I suppose.
>>
>We all make them from time to time.
>
>We should have a [[List of email initialisms]] or something.
>But I'll leave that to the contributors on Net pop culture.
>
It's perhaps something that we should start over at Wiktionary.

Ec


body:
Actually, the rule of thumb is to use the most commonly used name.  So
Blow Job would be a more than appropriate redirect to Fellatio.

--
Michael Becker

-----Original Message-----
From: wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org]
On Behalf Of Daniel Ehrenberg
Sent: Monday, June 02, 2003 9.32
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Sex articles on wikipedia (was: Kils sysop status
temporarily revoked)

--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
> Erik Moeller wrote:
> > > I should add that I'm not particularly
> comfortable with the page in
> > > question, [[fisting]], myself.
> >
> > Any more or less so than any of the other articles
> in [[List of sexology
> > topics]]?
>
> That's a long list, and so let me list some examples
> of what I am
> personally comfortable with.  But let me stress that
> I'm NOT making
> any policy here, I'm just arguing as an ordinary
> wikipedian, trying to
> help explore these issues thoughtfully.
>
> Some of the terms there are scientific terms, others
> are sociological,
> but some are slang terms, generally used primarily
> for shock value.
>
> [[backdoor entrance]], a slang term I guess,
> redirects to [[anal
> intercourse]].  What purpose does that redirect
> serve?  Well, it
> serves *some* purpose, I suppose, but does that
> purpose outweigh the
> cost?
>
> [[blow job]] is a slang term, but unlike [[backdoor entrance]], it is
> a very very *common* term.  To me that commonness
> adds points towards
> inclusion.
>
> [[snowballing]]?
>
> I'm just not sure about some of these things.
>
> Now, please do keep in mind that I'm personally not uncomfortable with
> these terms.  If you think that's it, you should
> probably poke around
> Bomis a bit, ha ha.  But I am not so sure that we
> are currently
> handling these things in the best way for Wikipedia.
>
> --Jimbo

I think all of those redirect articles are just
unnecessary. There is already (I think) a policy to
use the technical terms for everything, or atleast the semi-technical
terms, so those slang expressions don't fit, and the links (as well as
the article text
itself) should reflect this. If somebody (for some
reason) searches for 'blow job' and doesn't get any
title results, he can just scroll down a little and
see the article on 'oral sex' (this isn't an issue yet
but I know someone will bring it up). If someone links
to 'blow job' and creates a page, someone should
quickly delete the page and change the link to [[oral
sex]].  This really shouldn't be an issue. Just
imagine a 7-year-old looking for an article on blowing
bubbles, so she searches for "bubble blow" and gets an
article on oral sex in the title search.
--LittleDan

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body:
I suggested the same thing a couple of weeks ago on the Village Pump,
here, I'll go find the area:
Darn it!  I can't find the discussion.  Anyhow, I totally 100% support
this.  I don't think it is censoring.  And while it may not keep us from
getting blocked, it is morally responsible of us.

--
Michael Becker

-----Original Message-----
From: wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org]
On Behalf Of Jimmy Wales
Sent: Monday, June 02, 2003 9.48
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Just to throw this out there...

Search Engines like google deal with this problem all the time.  You can
find any sort of thing in Google, but you can also search with 'safe
search' turned on, which presumably helps a bit with that problem.

Our job is actually a lot easier than google's in this regard, because
they might link to anything out of billions and billions of pages.  We
only have a few hundred thousand.

We could have a flag or marker for 'content advisory'.  As with Google,
it wouldn't actually stop anyone from clicking on anything. (I don't
suppose curious children are much delayed if they want to see something
on google that is filtered.)

I'm not 100% sure this makes sense, but it *is* a solution favored by a
lot of mainstream websites, and it does have some acceptability on those
grounds.

--Jimbo
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list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Guillaume Blanchard

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Picture note

body:
Hi all,
No one answer my last mail :o(
I have many picture I want to upload to Wikipedia and I want to know if I
must/can add a copyright notice on the picture (bottom-right corner : "Under
GFDL") ?
Please answer me.

Aoineko


subject: [WikiEN-l] American diplomatic listings

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Oliver Pereira wrote:
>
>>[[Ambassadors from the United States]] and [[Ambassadors to the United
>>States]] are quite likely the pages you want. The latter doesn't exist
>>yet, and both may need renaming, but there is no reason why they could not
>>hold the information in question. There is no reason to remove such
>>information altogether.
>>
>
>I'm usually a 'completionist' not a 'deletionist' but in some cases, the
>work to continue including and updating some information probably isn't
>the best use of our time.
>
I too believe in a completionist philosophy.  More than a very small
number of people on an ambassador list may be enough to move it into a
pathetic little stub of its own.  Sooner or later somebody will find
that stub, have pity on it, and improve it.  Updates will work in a
similar way.

One difference that we have from a paper encyclopedia is we cannot apply
obsolescence as evenly as they do.  Everything on the 1911 EB is now
uniformly 92 years old.  We have and can maintain variable obsolescence.
 We may at some point have a five year old list of US ambasadors, but we
CAN update it when somebody (perhaps some newby) is so inclined.  I
agree that for most of us updating this kind of information is not the
best use of our time, but this is a personal choice.  It may be
absolutely true for you and me, and probably true for most experienced
Wikipedians.  We do have the principle of "always leave something undone".

One suggestion that I would have for people inclined to work on
ambassador lists, is that they should try to show appointment dates
 This will always leave an at-a-glance impression of just how obsolete
an article is.

Ec


body:
martin at myreddice.freeserve.co.uk wrote:

>My desires were:
>* Single place for discussion - if I want to know "Why was Fred banned?", I should be
>able to go to *one* Wikipedia page, read it, and be enlightened.
>* Avoid/discourage redundant discussions
>* Ability to refactor away redundancy
>* Ability to delete page when a banned user is reinstated, or when calls for banning
>subside and the sweet voice of reason prevails
>
>Alternatives I can think of immediately:
>* Do it on the user talk page
>* Have a different name for the page (eg /complaints, /problems, ...)
>* Do it on a subpage of [[wikipedia:annoying users]] (eg [[wikipedia:annoying
>users/Fred]])
>
There is much merit to the underlying concepts here.  Much of what
passes throught the mailing list on these disciplinary issues is tough
to read through to get at the facts.  It is often very difficult to
separate fact from speculative allegations.  Some otherwise valuable
Wikipedians can take offense very easily, and that can lead to heated
debates that may not be based on fact.

I support the idea of a single page somewhere for each of our persistent
problem people where there could be shown
    1. Just what he did that was so bad, completely dated and documented
with links to permit others to view the offense and judge for
themselves.  Undocumented allegations could be removed immediately as if
they never happened.
    2. Defenses, whether by the accused or by others.
    3. Decisions taken on the matters or about the person. If a ban was
appropriate when the ban took place, for how long, and the conditions
for reinstatement.

If the lifting of someone's ban includes probationary conditions,
Documenting any violations of those conditions would insure that these
are not a rehash of what got him banned in the first place.

Ec


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: blanket reverts

body:
Dante-
> In the analogy though, the child is Michael, and our goal is not his
> long-term well-being, but getting him to stop vandalizing the Wikipedia.
> Therefore, I hold that option 3 (never giving him sweets -> always
> reverting everything) is the best way to handle the situation.

Actually, if Michael *responded* to positive feedback and would allow us
to try to get him on the right path, that would be a neat strategy. But as
has been noted already, Michael is very probably a mentally ill person who
is not fully aware of his actions.

The problems we have to address are technical; mainly, we cannot deal well
with vandals who use changing IP addresses. I have proposed a solution
previously: to have automatic expiry on IP blocks. This would allow us to
comfortably ban all the AOL addresses he uses without major harm done. A
ban can last just a few minutes, the vandal will not not know that and
switch the IP address regardless.

The feature freeze has delayed this, and right now I'm a bit busy. It
would be fairly simple to implement, though.

Regards,

Erik


body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>Still, I am not fundamentally opposed to filters on Wikipedia, but I think
>whatever solution is used should be NPOV - i.e. allow filtering by all
>types of content, not just one specific one. So, for example, if I want to
>filter *everything BUT* the sex content, that should also be possible.
>
Another user may want to filter out religious content, and that would be
just fine too.  Is my idea of coding boxes technically feasible?

>At which point I refer you to my pet project, team certification :-)
>
Have you elaborated on that somewhere?

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] naming convention for birds and others

body:
Further to my previous expressions on the subject, i recently added the
following to another user's talk page.

    The Style Manual for Biological Journals as "Prepared by the
    Committee on Form and Style of the Conference of Biological Editors
    of the American Institute of Biological Sciences" states at page 68,
    "Generic names used as vernacular names are neither italicized nor
    capitalized" Since an other authoritative source has indicated that
    capitalization is usually done among ornithologists (though it is
not a rule) I will leave birds alone ... for now.

What exactly does that mean. "Generic names" - doesn't that mean "names
of a genus". So, for instance, if you use the generic name Gorilla as
the common name, "gorilla", you don't have to capitalize it. It seems to
me that while in a normal sentence, the word "gorilla" should not be
capitalized, it ought to be capitalized when it is referring to the
species as a whole. And that your reference doesn't seem to be referring
to what you think it is referring to.

    A rereading of the item that I quoted does give some support for
    your interpretation. The sentence is repeated on the next page with
    the single change of "vernacular" to "common".(I've since won
    another much thicker book about writing style in biology, but it
    might not get to me for another couple weeks.) The Latin species
    name is never capitalized anyway. Capitals and single quotes are
    used, however, for cultivars. This may give support for a similar
    practice for dog breeds, but I'm not yet ready to take a stand on
    that. A little later the book gives examples and particular rules
    relating to insects, plants and bacteria. For birds it refers us to
    the American Ornithologists Union's check-list of North American
    birds, but gives no examples. It is silent about mammals and other
vertebrates.

    The Globe and Mail Style Book directs lower case for all animals,
    including birds, except when what would otherwise be a common name
    is involved. It is more direct than most general style manuals when
    dealing with this, and that gives some weight when we are concerned
with a work of general knowledge such as Wikipedia.

    The other point that favors lower case is the general rule in titles
to lower case all words unless there is a good reason to the contrary.

    The next source is an online one at
    http://www.biology.ualberta.ca/courses.hp/biol335/Lecture8-9.html I
quote

    *  capitalization:
          * unless the common name includes a proper name (e.g., person's name or place name), most common names are not capitalized
                * however, there are exceptions for certain groups of organisms. One obvious exception is that the common names of birds are now usually capitalized
                * e.g. white-tailed deer vs Atlantic salmon vs Richardson's ground squirrel vs Great Horned Owl vs Englemann spruce vs balsam poplar vs Rocky Mountain juniper
          * for vertebrates and probably other groups of organisms, there are international committees that recommend on common names in each language
                * e.g. the sparrow hawk is now the American Kestrel

    Note the word "usually" in regards to birds. The practice follows
    the American Ornithologists Union but is by no means universal. I am
    at least prepared to concede the matter in regards to capitalizing
bird names, in the absence of further evidence.

    There is no such list for mammals, and apparently none for other
vertebrates, but I have not explored these others.

    The Alaska Department of Fish and Game Writer's Guide at
    http://www.cf.adfg.state.ak.us/geninfo/download/adfguide/wrtrguid.pdf
    supports lower case for all species, including birds where it does
note that its view is contrary to that of the Ornithological Union.

     From the publication The Prairie Naturalist at
    http://www.fhsu.edu/biology/pn/pnstylerules.htm we have "Common
    names of organisms are not capitalized except for proper nouns or
    adjectives that are part of the name, e.g., green-winged teal,
American coot, Cooper's hawk."

    The Newsletter of the Baltimore Bird Club at
    http://baltimorebirdclub.org/cn/cn0010.html states,
    "Many birding publications follow an unofficial convention for
    capitalization of bird names. I have chosen to follow this
    convention in Chip Notes because it makes the name stand out and it
    honors the objects of our devotion. If you would follow these
    "rules" in your submissions it would save a lot of time. The "rules"
run something like this:

    * All non-hyphenated parts of a bird's name are capitalized.
    * The hyphenated parts that are a type of bird are also capitalized.
    * The hyphenated parts that are NOT themselves a type of bird, such as "-bellied" or "-tailed," are not capitalized.

A good illustration of all these principles is "Yellow-crowned
Night-Heron."

Based on all of the above I reach the conclusion that all common names
of life forms should be lower cased, with the possible exception of birds.

Eclecticology


from_name: martin at myreddice.freeserve.co.uk

body:
Jimbo said: "I, too, object strongly to this practice of creating '/ban' pages as a
place to complain about people.  It seems likely to escalate a
conflict rather than to resolve it."

response copied to [[meta:talk:bans and blocks]], for those who miss the "edit this
page" button. I know I do. :-)

Can we, between ourselves, find a better solution than /ban pages? Prior to my
(groundbreaking ;-) creation of the first ever /ban page, best practice seemed to edit
[[wikipedia:annoying users]], [[wikipedia:vandalism in progress]], [[user talk:USER
NAME]], [[wikipedia:village pump]], any and all talk pages for articles that the user in
question had edited, various talk pages of interested sysops ("I think it's Fred", "I
agree - it's Fred", "It's definitely Fred!", etc), and also to make long posts to the
mailing list in which one is either "shocked", "appalled", or (ideally) "shocked and
appalled".

My desires were:
* Single place for discussion - if I want to know "Why was Fred banned?", I should be
able to go to *one* Wikipedia page, read it, and be enlightened.
* Avoid/discourage redundant discussions
* Ability to refactor away redundancy
* Ability to delete page when a banned user is reinstated, or when calls for banning
subside and the sweet voice of reason prevails

Alternatives I can think of immediately:
* Do it on the user talk page
* Have a different name for the page (eg /complaints, /problems, ...)
* Do it on a subpage of [[wikipedia:annoying users]] (eg [[wikipedia:annoying
users/Fred]])

-Martin "Never met a vandal he didn't like" Harper (aka MyRedDice)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Picture note

body:
> >Hi all,
> >No one answer my last mail :o(
> >I have many picture I want to upload to Wikipedia and I want to know if I
> >must/can add a copyright notice on the picture (bottom-right corner :
"Under
> >GFDL") ?
> >Please answer me.
> >
> >Aoineko

> If you need to have the copyright information, it's probably better to
> do it in the image's comments area (JPEG supports it, I'm not sure about
> PNG). For Wikipedia, the preferred form is to add the information to the
> image's page.

Ok, thank you very much.
Comment area is a good policy because image's page isn't attached to the
image.
I didn't found way to edit the comment area... I will search more.

Aoineko


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Minor updates

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

I've checked in a few quick tweaks to cvs, just fyi:
* wfCheckLimits() function factors out some of the
$offset/$limit-checking common to a lot of special pages
* some old str_replace("$1"...wfMsg()) sequences replaced with
wfMsg("...","...")
* Preliminary support for mysql4 fulltext boolean mode search (not done
yet: need to split up terms for highlighting and make sure intl
conversion is done)
* Very preliminary patches for adding license fields to the image table.
Not even checked for syntax, and not supported by any code yet.

Just a quick though also: it _would_ be nice to be able to search for eg
"C++" or "C#". Mysql's fulltext search I don't think will preserve
these, but in theory we can armor them the same way we do for utf-8
high characters.

Also: http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/Fulltext_Search.html
scroll down for the boolean mode notes. For people used to google-style
searches (or our current search method), the default behavior being
'or' instead of 'and' may be confusing. We could force adding +s to the
search terms to change the behavior, but this could be tricky to do
right, and we'd probably want a way to undo it.

Also, the phrase search ("foo bar") may be problematic with our handling
of links, where "biz [[foo|bar]] bax" is indexed as "biz foo bar bax"
and "biz [[foo]]bar bax" as "biz foo foobar bax" or some such.

Current cvs running on test.wikipedia.org.

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Luc Van Oostenryck

subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange user

body:
Hi,

Because of certain aggresive attitude concerning the modification
of some articles, have looked to the contributions of [[User:Tom Peeters]].
It is just me that found it rather strange:
- seems to be an old user [[tompeeters]] active from 24 Oct 2001 to 26 Nov 2001.
- recently converted to [[User:Tom peeters]].
- under this new account active from the 30 May 2003
- make aggresive remarks concerning changes made by others to his toys articles
- he have made several contribs under the IP 194.109.250.130
- on his user page he say to have rewrote some articles
  for example the article [[Easter]], when looking at the history
  he made only a small change to it.
- yesterday, after some bad discussion he forked the article
  [[Hipparcos]] to [[Hipparcus]]. He doesn't seems to be annoyed by
  the fact that all the articles still link to the ld one,
  except of course the other ont that he actually changes [[Ptolemy]]

All in all, I find this user somewhat 'strange' and annoying.
Anyone else having problems with him?
Can some of you take a look to him and his behaviour?

See you
--
Luc Van Oostenryck aka [[User:Looxix]]


body:
Jimmy-
> That's a long list, and so let me list some examples of what I am
> personally comfortable with.  But let me stress that I'm NOT making
> any policy here, I'm just arguing as an ordinary wikipedian, trying to
> help explore these issues thoughtfully.

> Some of the terms there are scientific terms, others are sociological,
> but some are slang terms, generally used primarily for shock value.

Hmhm. My take on this:

1) Slang terms - more appropriate for Wiktionary. Redirects can make
searching easier, though, and should IMHO be left in place if the terms
are not made up. In the list of sexology topics they look a little out of
place; perhaps they should be separated from the other article titles
under the heading "Slang terms".

2) Unusual sexual behavior - definitely encyclopedia material. If a
substantial number of people practice it, it should be described in as
much detail as possible. But stuff like "snowballing" may be better
discussed in the context of a larger article, because it seems fairly
uncommon (?).

In general, I think that the "things should not look out of place" notion
is preferable to an arbitary moral standard. Do you expect to read the
word "blowjob" when you read about Bill Clinton in an encyclopedia? Do you
expect it when you browse the articles in the category "sexual behavior
and related jargon"?

Regards,

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] Jtdirl is now a sysop

body:
With Jimbo's approval, Jtdirl (James Duffy) is now a sysop. <bias>I'm sure
he'll be a great addition to the team.</bias>

Regards,

Erik


from_name: JFrost8401 at aol.com

body:
In a message dated 03/06/03 09:14:17 GMT Daylight Time, saintonge at telus.net
writes:

> Further to my previous expressions on the subject, i recently added the
> following to another user's talk page.
>
>     The Style Manual for Biological Journals as "Prepared by the
>     Committee on Form and Style of the Conference of Biological Editors
>     of the American Institute of Biological Sciences" states at page 68,
>     "Generic names used as vernacular names are neither italicized nor
>     capitalized" Since an other authoritative source has indicated that
>     capitalization is usually done among ornithologists (though it is
> not a rule) I will leave birds alone ... for now.
>
> What exactly does that mean. "Generic names" - doesn't that mean "names
> of a genus". So, for instance, if you use the generic name Gorilla as
> the common name, "gorilla", you don't have to capitalize it. It seems to
> me that while in a normal sentence, the word "gorilla" should not be
> capitalized, it ought to be capitalized when it is referring to the
> species as a whole. And that your reference doesn't seem to be referring
> to what you think it is referring to.
>
>     A rereading of the item that I quoted does give some support for
>     your interpretation. The sentence is repeated on the next page with
>     the single change of "vernacular" to "common".(I've since won
>     another much thicker book about writing style in biology, but it
>     might not get to me for another couple weeks.) The Latin species
>     name is never capitalized anyway. Capitals and single quotes are
>     used, however, for cultivars. This may give support for a similar
>     practice for dog breeds, but I'm not yet ready to take a stand on
>     that. A little later the book gives examples and particular rules
>     relating to insects, plants and bacteria. For birds it refers us to
>     the American Ornithologists Union's check-list of North American
>     birds, but gives no examples. It is silent about mammals and other
> vertebrates.
>
>     The Globe and Mail Style Book directs lower case for all animals,
>     including birds, except when what would otherwise be a common name
>     is involved. It is more direct than most general style manuals when
>     dealing with this, and that gives some weight when we are concerned
> with a work of general knowledge such as Wikipedia.
>
>     The other point that favors lower case is the general rule in titles
> to lower case all words unless there is a good reason to the contrary.
>
>     The next source is an online one at
>     http://www.biology.ualberta.ca/courses.hp/biol335/Lecture8-9.html I
> quote
>
>     *  capitalization:
>           * unless the common name includes a proper name (e.g., person's
> name or place name), most common names are not capitalized
>                 * however, there are exceptions for certain groups of
> organisms. One obvious exception is that the common names of birds are now usually
> capitalized
>                 * e.g. white-tailed deer vs Atlantic salmon vs Richardson's
> ground squirrel vs Great Horned Owl vs Englemann spruce vs balsam poplar vs
> Rocky Mountain juniper
>           * for vertebrates and probably other groups of organisms, there
> are international committees that recommend on common names in each language
>                 * e.g. the sparrow hawk is now the American Kestrel
>
>     Note the word "usually" in regards to birds. The practice follows
>     the American Ornithologists Union but is by no means universal. I am
>     at least prepared to concede the matter in regards to capitalizing
> bird names, in the absence of further evidence.
>
>     There is no such list for mammals, and apparently none for other
> vertebrates, but I have not explored these others.
>
>     The Alaska Department of Fish and Game Writer's Guide at
>     http://www.cf.adfg.state.ak.us/geninfo/download/adfguide/wrtrguid.pdf
>     supports lower case for all species, including birds where it does
> note that its view is contrary to that of the Ornithological Union.
>
>      From the publication The Prairie Naturalist at
>     http://www.fhsu.edu/biology/pn/pnstylerules.htm we have "Common
>     names of organisms are not capitalized except for proper nouns or
>     adjectives that are part of the name, e.g., green-winged teal,
> American coot, Cooper's hawk."
>
>     The Newsletter of the Baltimore Bird Club at
>     http://baltimorebirdclub.org/cn/cn0010.html states,
>     "Many birding publications follow an unofficial convention for
>     capitalization of bird names. I have chosen to follow this
>     convention in Chip Notes because it makes the name stand out and it
>     honors the objects of our devotion. If you would follow these
>     "rules" in your submissions it would save a lot of time. The "rules"
> run something like this:
>
>     * All non-hyphenated parts of a bird's name are capitalized.
>     * The hyphenated parts that are a type of bird are also capitalized.
>     * The hyphenated parts that are NOT themselves a type of bird, such as
> "-bellied" or "-tailed," are not capitalized.
>
> A good illustration of all these principles is "Yellow-crowned
> Night-Heron."
>
> Based on all of the above I reach the conclusion that all common names
> of life forms should be lower cased, with the possible exception of birds.
>
> Eclecticology

A further example of the final para's use of capitalisation is Wilson's
Storm-Petrel, where petrel is capitalised because the storm-petrels are a group of
birds, and petrel is is not a part of the bird.

I don't know why we are fighting this battle for the at least the fourth time
since I started contributing in Feb. I thought that a consensus had been
agreed through wide debate on the mailing list and various talk pages. I know that
for the fish, some contributors are happy with lower case, which is fine. You
must have seen the reasons put forth by eg Tannin and myself for the current
capitalisation of bird English names (scientific names I don't think are a
problem). I have within reach four books, three on birds, and one on cetaceans.
All species are capitalised. On my bookshelves I have bird books (too many),
and others on mammals, insects etc. All capitalise species names.

Since there are lower case links to articles, nothing is lost in terms of
searches.

In any case, if we must re-open this discussion again, I don't think
reverting random articles is particularly constructive or open, nor what would be
expected from an experienced contributor.

more in sorrow....
Jim (jimfbleak)

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from_name: Graham Burnett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Conflict (band) discography

body:
>
> We revert Michael's edits, but we don't delete a page
> just because he edited it and his name'll be in the history.
> Quercusrobur should have erased Michael's discography
> when (or better, before, to keep things separated out)
> he put in his own text,

You are right, I should have done. In the event I decided to redo the
discography from scratch rather than check for Michael's accuracy or
otherwise and didn't even refer to it, so subtle are some of his 'mistakes'
and 'mis-information' (I must admit that at first I gave the Michael version
Conflict discography a quick scan through and thought, 'hmmm that looks
about right' and left it without applying the rigour I would have applied to
any alterations to the Crass discography (where I would KNOW of any errors
straight away)).

Lesson learned.

Graham Burnett (Quercus robur)

PS. I've been thinking about applying for sysop editing access purely in
order to be able to delete junk entries without having to put them on 'votes
for deletion' and saving some work and hassle for someone else. But I'm keen
to avoid the 'politics' of sysop-hood, I have enough of those sort of
hassles in real life!


body:
One other point with regard to the everlasting capitalisation debate is that
it  is usually argued that non-specialist encyclopedias use lower case, and
only specialist handooks like HBW, HANZAB and BWP use capitals.

If it is being seriously suggested that Wikien should be the same as a paper
encyclopedia (or on-line version thereof), can I suggest the following to
bring other aspects into line.

1) Standardise spelling and names as American English (this solves the
capitalisation problem too, since you lose the European and Australian contributors
who write 90% of the animal/bird articles at a stroke.

2) Get rid of articles you wouldn't find in a "proper" encyclopedia, such as
lists of people called Fred, album play lists, articles on "fisting" , lists
of famous Hungarians etc. (I'll help on this.)

3) If you do item 1, then you can also revert the many US-centric articles,
which just assume there are no other countries that matter, back to their
original unsullied versions.

Hope this is (sort of) helpful

Jim
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subject: [WikiEN-l] The Kils-Viking thing

body:
Julie-
> I also think there are
> articles on the site that are certainly more education than necessary
> for kids (Prince Albert Piercing and Fisting come to mind) - and I think
> that we should do the socially responsible thing and post that
> somewhere.

We do. The main page clearly notes that we strive to be a "complete and
accurate encyclopedia".

A disclaimer would IMHO send the wrong signal; some people would believe
that we only say this because we have lost control over the content of
Wikipedia (a totally open site after all) and people are posting
pornography all over the place. We do not allow pornographic content, but
we do allow human knowledge that some people might consider offensive -- I
think that goes with the territory.

Regards,

Erik


body:
Jimmy-
> Search Engines like google deal with this problem all the time.  You
> can find any sort of thing in Google, but you can also search with
> 'safe search' turned on, which presumably helps a bit with that
> problem.

Of course, it is nowhere documented what criteria or algorithms are used
to filter the sites which are "unsafe", and we all know that these filters
work terribly -- they either let tons of material go through, or they
censor tons of legitimate content.

On a wiki, we risk "flagging wars", and by defining what "can be
considered offensive" we are leaving NPOV behind. Daniel Ehrenberg
suggested a similar thing a few weeks ago and said that he thought the
goal of getting Wikipedia into all schools would be worth ignoring the
NPOV issue. I do not agree. By implementing a "family filter" we may
convince some parents to use Wikipedia -- and convince others who want
their children to be raised in an open, progressive manner to ignore it.
Let's not pretend that the standards of morality that may be predominant
in the United States are also as common in Sweden or the Netherlands.

Still, I am not fundamentally opposed to filters on Wikipedia, but I think
whatever solution is used should be NPOV - i.e. allow filtering by all
types of content, not just one specific one. So, for example, if I want to
filter *everything BUT* the sex content, that should also be possible.
At which point I refer you to my pet project, team certification :-)

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Stan Shebs

body:
JFrost8401 at aol.com wrote:

>
> I don't know why we are fighting this battle for the at least the
> fourth time since I started contributing in Feb. I thought that a
> consensus had been agreed through wide debate on the mailing list and
> various talk pages.

Apparently not, eh?  I'm mystified as to why we're spending
"millions for edit wars, and not one cent for a naming conventions
page" (to mangle a saying :-) ). There's a lengthy but ancient
talk page "naming conventions (biology)" but it seems mostly
about issues that are long-settled.

> I know that for the fish, some contributors are happy with lower case,
> which is fine. You must have seen the reasons put forth by eg Tannin
> and myself for the current capitalisation of bird English names
> (scientific names I don't think are a problem). I have within reach
> four books, three on birds, and one on cetaceans. All species are
> capitalised. On my bookshelves I have bird books (too many), and
> others on mammals, insects etc. All capitalise species names.

It's not really that simple - my personal library is split 50-50
for instance. What I notice is that field guides tend to capitalize,
perhaps for easier disambiguation at a glance, but workaday books
(encylopedia of plants, organic gardening, obscure tropical ecology
tome) tend not to, not even for birds.  So to me it's clearly a
house style issue, which is fine - we have lots of house style
rules already, and their existence forestalls edit wars every day.
What I don't think is acceptable is to get all angry if someone
doesn't follow a rule that was discussed in various places, but
never officially documented in the MoS.  People sometimes make
ship-related changes that I don't personally care for, but unless
it goes against a rule explicitly written out in the naming
conventions page or the wikiproject page, I don't consider that
I have any valid grounds for criticism.

For instance, in the case of fish, I'm still assessing what is
favored practice.  When I'm satisfied, I'll write it down in
the MoS - people disagreeing with the MoS will have to change
it before I'll go along with them changing articles.

Stan


from_name: jansson at gmx.net

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Reclaim the Public Domain Petition

body:
"jansson at gmx.net" sends you the enclosed page from one of the Artifice web sites:

   http://www.PetitionOnline.com/eldred/petition.html

    **    **    **

Personal comments from "jansson at gmx.net":

Everybody who has ever uploaded a puplic domain image or used the old Britannica should put Wikipedia in the "Something I Created Using Public Domain" field.

Kurt
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subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Harry Potter

body:
Eugene Gill wrote:

>As far as I can tell Harry Potter is using Wikipedia to engage in some form
>of absurdist conceptualist art by adding subtle inaccuracies in articles,
>turning then into nonsense, but doing it in such a way that it is hard to
>pick out the absurdist nonsense from what may be a genuine contribution.
>Whether this equates to pataphysics or not I have no idea. But it is
>essentially corrupting Wikipedia. In my opinion he is every bit as much of a
>vandal as Michael and should be treated similarly with blanket reversions.
>
I agree.  It sows an atmosphere of distrust, which, going by
the pataphysics manifesto, is the goal.  It's a waste of my
time to research things and add them to an article if the rest
of the article is fiction masquerading as fact; no reader is
going to believe any of it.  [[Templars in England]] looks
plausible for instance, but given Harry Potter's other
activities, how am I supposed to know if any of it is true?
Better to vaporize it and start over.

Stan


from_name: uwe kils

subject: [WikiEN-l] Apology accepted kils

body:
Subject:
           Re: [WikiEN-l] please appologize from kils
      Date:
           Mon, 2 Jun 2003 17:57:32 -0700
      From:
           Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com>
  Reply-To:
           wikien-l at wikipedia.org
        To:
           wikien-l at wikipedia.org
References:
           1

Apology accepted.  I encourage you to join us in a discussion of
how to deal with sensitive topics.  It's not an easy question.

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

Dear Jimmy, dear wikipedians,
thank you very much for accepting.

Please allow me to suggest that you please delete our user viking and
vikings from the English, German and Danish and Norwegian and Swedish
sites. We meant it only good and work for education, we took your
inivtations to edit and try the possibilities out serious. We never
thaught seriously that the edit with the "viking fist" from an
anonymous user would survive more than a few seconds. Your system works
and it works very democratic, which I admire, and which I counted on. I
offer also that you please delete also the user kils from the same
sites. After a while I maybe log in again and offer content under a new
username for your editing.

sincerely yours and best wishes

Uwe Kils
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body:
Ray-
> Erik Moeller wrote:

>> Still, I am not fundamentally opposed to filters on Wikipedia, but I think
>> whatever solution is used should be NPOV - i.e. allow filtering by all
>> types of content, not just one specific one. So, for example, if I want to
>> filter *everything BUT* the sex content, that should also be possible.
>>
> Another user may want to filter out religious content, and that would be
> just fine too.  Is my idea of coding boxes technically feasible?

You mean checkboxes for various categories below the edit submission
screen? I'm afraid there'd be too many, and too much controversy around
which ones we need, for that to be workable. Also integration with RC,
diffs etc. would be tricky.

>> At which point I refer you to my pet project, team certification :-)
>>
> Have you elaborated on that somewhere?

Many times in many places ;-). Originally here:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2002-October/001089.html

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Eugene Gill

subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Harry Potter

body:
As far as I can tell Harry Potter is using Wikipedia to engage in some form
of absurdist conceptualist art by adding subtle inaccuracies in articles,
turning then into nonsense, but doing it in such a way that it is hard to
pick out the absurdist nonsense from what may be a genuine contribution.
Whether this equates to pataphysics or not I have no idea. But it is
essentially corrupting Wikipedia. In my opinion he is every bit as much of a
vandal as Michael and should be treated similarly with blanket reversions.

Just to clarify the Tony Hancock thing for anyone not familiar with the film
"The Rebel".  --

The British comedian Tony Hancock used his own name for the character he
protrayed in his Radio and TV broadcasts and also in this particular film.
In the film he portrayed an office worker who aspired to being a great
artist. However he could neither paint nor sculpt with any degree of
artistic skill (at least that is the impression his artwork is intended to
give to the filmgoer). Despite his lack of artistic ability he manages to
become recognized as a great artist by the establishment in Paris. The film
is to some extent a satire on modern art.

The purported "London Institute of Pataphysics" claims to have put on an
exhibition entitled "Anthony Hancock: Paintings and Sculpture: A
Retrospective" http://www.atlaspress.co.uk/theLIP/dora-hancock.html Since it
wasn't the REAL Tony Hancock but the CHARACTER Anthony Aloysius St. John
Hancock who was an artist, such an exhibition is pure fantasy. Yet Harry
Potter has added articles on this and other subjects as if they were real.

Mintguy

----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Bartlett" <pcb21 at btconnect.com>
To: <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
Sent: Saturday, May 31, 2003 12:56 AM
Subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Harry Potter

> Dear list,
>
> Please may I ask for your advice and assistance in pouring oil on
> troubled water with respect to [[User:Harry Potter]].
>
> This user has been starting or contributing to articles relating to
> pataphysics, which is a movement that parodies things that are
> pretentiously highbrow (as I understand it, pataphysics is to science
> and the arts, as Mornington Crescent (the game show) was to chess
> commentary.) Unfortunately Harry, instead of writing NPOV articles on
> the subject has been writing articles about pataphysics in the style of
> a pataphysican. this is to say in a deliberately obscure , obtuse and
> POV way. Moreover these articles are in fact generally copied from other
> websites with no sign of permission being sought. Harry has brushed this
> last problem with a claim that pataphysicans are anti-copyright and so
> it doesn't matter.
>
> One example is the page
> [[Anthony_Hancock_Paintings_and_Sculptures:_A_Retrospective_Exhibition]]
> .
> NB Anthony Hancock is a character in the film The Rebel played by,
> perhaps confusingly, Tony Hancock. Knowing that Anthony Hancock is/was
> not a real person makes it easier to understand why this article is
> rubbish.
>
> I have tried to engage in a debate with Harry (see Votes For Deletion),
> but as a relative newbie, I do not how to handle him and persuade to
> conform to our rules if he wants to contribute to the Wikipedia. For the
> first time having been on the 'net for years I fear I have been properly
> trolled.
>
> Pete
> User:Pcb21
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Jimmy Wales

in_reply_to: <8n8pe0WCpVB@erik_moeller>; from erik_moeller@gmx.de on Tue, Jun 03, 2003 at 09:02:00AM +0200

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> On a wiki, we risk "flagging wars", and by defining what "can be
> considered offensive" we are leaving NPOV behind. Daniel Ehrenberg
> suggested a similar thing a few weeks ago and said that he thought the
> goal of getting Wikipedia into all schools would be worth ignoring the
> NPOV issue.

But he was talking about omitting such content, not just flagging
it.

> I do not agree. By implementing a "family filter" we may
> convince some parents to use Wikipedia -- and convince others who want
> their children to be raised in an open, progressive manner to ignore it.

But I didn't recommend that we implement a family filter.  Google
doesn't filter -- but they do allow end users to configure what sorts
of results are presented.

> Still, I am not fundamentally opposed to filters on Wikipedia, but I think
> whatever solution is used should be NPOV - i.e. allow filtering by all
> types of content, not just one specific one. So, for example, if I want to
> filter *everything BUT* the sex content, that should also be possible.
> At which point I refer you to my pet project, team certification :-)

*nod* Well, sure.  That's why I chose the term 'content advisory', so
as to indicate that we should implement a system that is flexible.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] Random Page works a little bit strange

body:
On Tue, 3 Jun 2003, Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen wrote:
> On Tue, 3 Jun 2003, Thomas Luft wrote:
> The random page on the English one isn't random either. You will regularly get
> the same page again and again if you try a few times.

Grrr.... looks like the random indices are all off again; somehow MySQL's
rand() function is biasing high the way we've been using it, and there are
_very_ few articles set with lower indexes (<0.25), so those few get
pulled up way too often. I've just told it to redo all the random indexes
on the german wiki in a lump; I'll reset them on the English wiki later
tonight when traffic is lower.

I've also gone ahead and replaced the random seed generator in the wiki
and changed Special:Random to use its own random number instead of asking
for one from MySQL. I don't trust MySQL anymore. :)  And I took out the
reset-index-on-load, which was probably trouble.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: koyaanis qatsi

body:
Hi all,

I'm a bit concerned about what I've been reading
lately about proposed filters.  Before I respond,
though, I'd like to make sure I understand.  Jimmy,
what is it you're thinking of exactly?  Michael, what
did you have in mind?

best.

kq

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in_reply_to: <20030603022406.GA9928@math-rs-n01.ucr.edu>; from toby+wikipedia@math.ucr.edu on Mon, Jun 02, 2003 at 07:24:06PM -0700

body:
Toby Bartels wrote:
> I interpreted that page as very old, only historical.

*Very* historical.  I'm now of the opinion that advertising is not
likely to ever be a viable or sensible revenue source for wikipedia.

One frame of reference -- at the time that was written, I was paying
$100k a year for ongoing expenses (programming, editor-in-chiefing,
etc.) for Nupedia.  Wikipedia has no similar expenses.

Bandwidth and hardware are cheap, and so we have no particular need of
money for what we're doing right now.

--Jimbo


from_name: Jay Bowks

subject: [Wikitech-l] http://www.dict.org/file.html

body:
http://www.dict.org/
There's an online resource that
seems to run a bit parallel to the Wiktionary
effort... The DICT.org folks would like to
invite contributions to their database...
Do we know about their efforts and
is anyone on Wikipedia or Wiktionary
helping there as well? Would some
amount of collaboration be beneficial?

It is interestingly called "The Free Online
Lexicon and Encyclopedia"...
Are our databases compatible?
Would their effort help Wiktionary
progress by leaps and bounds?

Here's the FILE main page:
http://www.dict.org/file.html
There are downloadable entries
which don't have definitions yet.
It seems that their idea of server
access is quite free and definitions
are welcomed, but I found it intreguing
that they state if you don't like what
you find then you didn't need to use
our servers... or something of the
sort... anyway, I thought it of interest.
Perhaps some here would also.

Cheers,
Jay B.


from_name: Daniel Ehrenberg

body:
--- Peter Bartlett <pcb21 at btconnect.com> wrote:
>
> Erik wrote:
> >On a wiki, we risk "flagging wars", and by defining
> what "can be
> >considered offensive" we are leaving NPOV behind.
>
> One possibility is that each user has the option to
> give a page a score
> : 1 meaning "Doesn't need filtering" through to 10
> "Nearly everyone
> would want to filter this". Then the overall 'score'
> for a page is the
> average of all scores users have given it. Then
> someone browsing the
> 'pedia could choose to filter at a particular score
> e.g. browse at 0
> (filter everything with an score of more than 0 i.e.
> everything!) to 10
> (= filter articles with average score 10 i.e.
> nothing!). 11 viewing
> configurations available to the user... I believe
> Google only has 3!
>
> Because each person/ip could only cast one score per
> article (though of
> course they could change their score as the article
> changes) "flagging
> wars" would be difficult because it would require
> ip-hopping/multiple-log-in to try to tip the score
> in a particular
> direction.
>
> This idea may be computationally quite feasible...
> we already have to
> store everyone who's watching an article... maybe we
> could store
> everyone who's scoring an article too. (Watchlist
> has a tag saying
> "article changed since you last scored" etc).
>
> Obviously the idea extends to other scores too...
> instead of a "filter
> score" you could have a "quality score" and users
> could browse only
> articles that on average believed to be high
> quality.
>
> Obvious disadvantage : The filter is "1-dimensional"
> i.e. you can't
> filter on sex, religion whatever... only on the
> score... so if religion
> were to get scores of about 5 and sex 7.. to filter
> religion you would
> have to filter sex too.. I don't know if it can be
> made to fit with team
> certification idea.
>
> Anyhow these are only implementational ideas. My
> personal view is that
> any sort of filtering along these lines is going to
> take effort on the
> part of users.. perhaps we should stick to writing
> the encyclopedia for
> now!
>
> Pete

That sounds like a very good idea, but how would
people deal with unrated pages? Let's say all of the
unmodified rambot pages were unrated. Then no one with
any sort of filtering could go there. If someone made
a rating bot to solve this, it would seriously
undermine the system.

A way to (partially) solve this could be to have a
period wherein people can rate pages (and are required
to in each edit) but ratings cannot yet be used for
filtering.

Overall, it's a good idea but not practical.
--LittleDan

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subject: [WikiEN-l] The Kils-Viking thing

in_reply_to: <20030603031023.GG9928@math-rs-n01.ucr.edu>; from toby+wikipedia@math.ucr.edu on Mon, Jun 02, 2003 at 08:10:24PM -0700

body:
Toby Bartels wrote:
> :'''Warning''': Wikipedia contains material that some may consider offensive,
> :such as information about vulgar slang, human sexuality, and other topics.
> :This material will be kept to appropriate articles, of course,
> :but be aware that it is here, and surf according to your own sensibilities.

This is a bit much, I think.  How about just a mode 'SafeSearch On' or
'SafeSearch Off', and perhaps a customizable tool for people who want
to be more specific than that.

> I would oppose *any* removal of information on the basis of offensiveness,
> but there's nothing wrong with a reasonable warning when offence is likely.

I generally agree with this.  Content _advisories_ can be helpful to
some people, but _filtering_ or _removing content_ is going down a
path that will cause us more trouble than good, I think.

I can't even bear to imagine the arguments such a policy would generate!

> After all, once an issue has been resolved, we don't need to harp on it.

Yeah, Kils apologized for all that happened, so we should cut him some
slack.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] The Kils-Viking thing

in_reply_to: <8n8pdl3xpVB@erik_moeller>; from erik_moeller@gmx.de on Tue, Jun 03, 2003 at 08:53:00AM +0200

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> A disclaimer would IMHO send the wrong signal; some people would believe
> that we only say this because we have lost control over the content of
> Wikipedia (a totally open site after all) and people are posting
> pornography all over the place. We do not allow pornographic content, but
> we do allow human knowledge that some people might consider offensive -- I
> think that goes with the territory.

The wrong sort of disclaimer would certainly send the wrong signal,
but I don't think it's impossible to come up with something soft and
tasteful.

--Jimbo


in_reply_to: <20030603214635.25839.qmail@web14704.mail.yahoo.com>; from obchodnakorze@yahoo.com on Tue, Jun 03, 2003 at 02:46:35PM -0700

body:
koyaanis qatsi wrote:
> I'm a bit concerned about what I've been reading
> lately about proposed filters.  Before I respond,
> though, I'd like to make sure I understand.  Jimmy,
> what is it you're thinking of exactly?

I'm thinking that we should have a way for end users to be given
content advisories in some cases.  I do not think that this raises any
issues with respect to NPOV, contrary to what some have said.

Whatever we can do should be at least as easy and soft as what google
does -- safesearch can be turned on and off at google with a single
click.  End users can configure it in a couple of different ways.

--Jimbo


body:
Erik wrote:
>On a wiki, we risk "flagging wars", and by defining what "can be
>considered offensive" we are leaving NPOV behind.

When I first read this, I thought I agreed, but overnight I realized
that I really don't agree.

Of course we do risk 'flagging wars' -- but that's par for the course
-- we risk 'edit wars' and so on all the time.  The best way to
minimize such wars is to approach tagging *as NPOV meta-data*.

No one can say whether or not children should be exposed to an article
about 'felching' without taking the sort of stand that Wikipedia
avoids as a rule.  It is not for wikipedia, the reference work, to
decide such matters.

If we were writing disclaimers at the top of some pages, we would
require the disclaimer to be NPOV.  We wouldn't say "This page is bad
for children."  And we wouldn't say "Anyone who doesn't let children
read this is a stick in the mud."  We would say "Some may consider
this page inappropriate for children."

Similarly, a flag for 'possibly mature content' just means that some
people may think so.

If the *consequences* of that flag were *huge*, then it'd be a
problem.  I.E., if people couldn't view mature content without proof
of age (credit card, fax me a copy of your driver's license, etc.!)
that'd be a very bad thing.

But if the consequences of the flag are mild, i.e. that people can
choose, optionally, to 'Turn on Safe Search' with a click, or to turn
it back off with a click, then there's no need for there to be edit
wars.

--Jimbo