subject: [WikiEN-l] plagiarism

body:
This is a good example of why we need a Wikipedia:Plagiarism page and
policy. Since the 1911 Encyclopedia is in the public domain it may
simply be copied as it is not a copyright violation to do so. But
should I consult the current Britannica  regarding, say Liebnitz, I
may find some important information which is not in the 1911 edition.
For the sake of an example, suppose it is his theory of comedy... If
I then write something in the Wikipedia article about Liebnitz's
theory of comedy I should credit Encyclopaedia Britannica. (Although
more likely I would take the info in Britannica as a clue to do some
independent research, the results of which I would then cite.) Even
with an article using material from the 1911 edition, if it is not
cited as the source, there is plagiarism.  This confabulation of
plagiarism and copyright violation is why we need a page which
clearly explains plagiarism and our policy regarding it.

Fred

On Jul 18, 2005, at 7:21 PM, SCO Estmort wrote:

> About the plagiarism issue, there's nothing wrong with taking
> information
> wholesale if 1) it's not copyvio 2) it's encylopedic and suits the
> encylopedic context. I personally think that if anyone finds their
> text on
> Wikipedia and it was freely licensed or public domain, they
> wouldn't mind
> anyway, as long as it was being used well (that's why they released
> it under
> free license/public domain, no?), the only problem would be quality
> and
> copyediting for language, which can be fixed easily. After all, we
> do take
> things wholesale (with copyediting here and there) from the 1911
> Encylopedia
> Britannica....and no doubt the article will evolve after that. If
> anything,
> it seems all the policies are sufficient. Copyright, manual of style,
> reference to sources, and being encylopedic. There's no need for a
> "plagiarism" guideline. If anything, any problems with plagiarism
> violates
> one these issues. If they don't (ie. like 1911 Britannica), then I
> see no
> problem.
>
> Natalinasmpf
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Plagiarism Policy, was A Missing Policy

body:
Clearly you should list each of the 4-5 online obituaries as sources.

Fred

On Jul 19, 2005, at 4:30 AM, J.F. de Wolff wrote:

>
>
> There are many grey areas when dealing with plagiarism. Personally,
> when I write a biographical article I end up sifting through 4-5
> online obituaries and merging the contents without much
> paraphrasing. Much of the information in those sources is second-
> hand and often equally unreferenced.
>
> Where does one draw the line? When there is only one good-going
> source of material and this is paraphrased extensively, it should
> be referenced. There are many instances, however, where using the
> term "reference" would be a bit of an overstatement.
>
> JFW
>
>
> --
> No virus found in this outgoing message.
> Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
> Version: 7.0.323 / Virus Database: 267.9.0/50 - Release Date:
> 16/07/2005
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Skyring

subject: [WikiEN-l] Plagiarism Policy, was A Missing Policy

body:
On 7/19/05, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> Plagiarism is use of paraphrased or quoted material without
> acknowledgment of the source. We welcome and expect paraphrasing,
> which is simply use of information. As you note, we have failed to
> make an explicit policy regarding plagiarism, which should be done so
> confabulation of plagiarism and copyright violations does not occur.

Sometimes sources of information are limited, or the information
itself is limited and there are only so many ways to paraphrase it.
But plagiarism is easy in this age of cut and paste and we need to
guard against it as WP becomes ever more widely accepted, because the
authors of original material will doubtless turn to WP to see what we
have to say on their specialist topic, and if they see their own words
quoted without attribution, then they are:
A) not going to be happy and
B) dismissive of WP as a whole.

WP isn't a mainstream encyclopaedia and we editors aren't a select
club (except by self-selection), so may I suggest that instead of
cutting and pasting at worst or paraphrasing at best, we make it
policy to ask third-party authors if they would like to contribute to
an article?

My feeling is that if they have gone to the trouble of researching a
subject and writing something that we feel is good enough for
inclusion, then they would be honoured by a request to contribute
directly, and they would make a better contribution on a specialist
topic than anything we "generalists" could do by paraphrasing.

--
Peter in Canberra


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Jeffrey Johnson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] wapipedia

body:
I hadn't heard of this one, but will check it out. I use
www.wapedia.org all the time.

Jeff

On 7/19/05, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Anyone heard of Wapipedia ? www.wapipedia.org ?
>
> Here is the type of results they give after a search : http://www.wapipedia.org/wikipedia/mobiletopic.aspx?cur_title=Agriculture
>
> My problem : the link provided for the wikipedia article is totally broken and seem to lead to random articles. And there is no contact link anywhere on their site.
>
> Ant
>
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: tests need php cli, please help with cli

body:
mm wrote:
> I am trying to rim tests from mediawiki scripts.
> On my fedora core 3 php is CGI.
> No cli PHP binary to download.
> Now I am tired an asking for help if anyone can do this for me.
> Thanks,
> mm

Hello,

Check your distribution help forums and mailing lists for a way to
launch php scripts from the command line.

This place is for wikimedia technical issues, not for linux help.

--
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
http://www.livejournal.com/community/wikitech/
IM: hashar at jabber.org  ICQ: 15325080


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: wapipedia

body:
I've found it great at dinner parties to sneak off to the restroom and
look up that obscure fact that I just cant remember, and then
triumphantly return with the info.

Jeff


from_name: SCO Estmort

subject: [WikiEN-l] plagiarism

body:
About the plagiarism issue, there's nothing wrong with taking information
wholesale if 1) it's not copyvio 2) it's encylopedic and suits the
encylopedic context. I personally think that if anyone finds their text on
Wikipedia and it was freely licensed or public domain, they wouldn't mind
anyway, as long as it was being used well (that's why they released it under
free license/public domain, no?), the only problem would be quality and
copyediting for language, which can be fixed easily. After all, we do take
things wholesale (with copyediting here and there) from the 1911 Encylopedia
Britannica....and no doubt the article will evolve after that. If anything,
it seems all the policies are sufficient. Copyright, manual of style,
reference to sources, and being encylopedic. There's no need for a
"plagiarism" guideline. If anything, any problems with plagiarism violates
one these issues. If they don't (ie. like 1911 Britannica), then I see no
problem.

Natalinasmpf


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Zhuang Wikipedia is not in Zhuang

body:
Yes, this is my point -- Zhuang does not use any diacritics, yet the
text written by Jienji VANG uses many; plus, Zhuang uses letters to
mark tones (z, x, c, t, and h I think), and yet the text by Jienji
VANG does not have these consonants at the end of most syllables (as
in "Bouxcuengh", or "Swicgi", or "Denzyangz").

Mark

On 19/07/05, shizhao <shizhao at gmail.com> wrote:
> Mark Williamson <node.ue at ...> writes:
>
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I'm not sure what language it is in now, but the Zhuang Wikipedia does
> > not appear to be in Zhuang.
> >
> > A week or so ago, the user "Jienji VANG" started adding this
> > apparently fraudulent content.
> >
> > It appears to be unrelated to any of the major languages of the world.
> > My freeware language identifier suggests that it is Afrikaans,
> > Buginese, Kapampangan, or Tagalog although I sincerely doubt this.
> >
> > Mark
> >
>
> In addition, see http://www.kam-
> tai.org/languages/zhuang/commondocs/zhuangwenfangan.htm , zhuang language use
> Latin alphabet 26 letter, without like "?", for example "Puut??".
>
> [[zh:user:shizhao]]
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


from_name: Laura Scudder

body:
I was always taught that if you can find the same fact in three
sources that don't reference a common source then it's "common
knowledge" (you could find that fact so many places it doesn't warrant
referencing).  So in this case if one or two obits had a really unique
fact (one of mine had an anecdote about getting into a brawl outside
Senate chambers and subsequently being politically discredited) then I
would reference it, but if the rest of the bio you write contains
facts that are in all five I wouldn't reference them but pick the good
ones as further reading or external links.

Laura Scudder

On 7/19/05, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> Clearly you should list each of the 4-5 online obituaries as sources.
>
> Fred
>
> On Jul 19, 2005, at 4:30 AM, J.F. de Wolff wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > There are many grey areas when dealing with plagiarism. Personally,
> > when I write a biographical article I end up sifting through 4-5
> > online obituaries and merging the contents without much
> > paraphrasing. Much of the information in those sources is second-
> > hand and often equally unreferenced.
> >
> > Where does one draw the line? When there is only one good-going
> > source of material and this is paraphrased extensively, it should
> > be referenced. There are many instances, however, where using the
> > term "reference" would be a bit of an overstatement.
> >
> > JFW
> >
> >
> > --
> > No virus found in this outgoing message.
> > Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
> > Version: 7.0.323 / Virus Database: 267.9.0/50 - Release Date:
> > 16/07/2005
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [WikiEN-l] MathDaily site

body:
On 7/18/05, Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> I wrote
>
> >  Pleasant enough reading some of my stuff there, but they make no
> > reference I can see to WP or GFDL.
>
> I see that reference to the source is in fact buried in their Terms of Use
> page
>
> http://www.mathdaily.com/copyright.html.
>

Also notice that the notice at the bottom of every page just says
"Copyright 2005 MathDaily.com", without mentioning the GFDL. Obviously
they're entitled to hold copyright over their headers and sidebars,
but are reusers allowed to bury the GFDL notice like that?

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: William M Connolley

subject:
Fwd: [WikiEN-l] William M. Connoley, admin? (was: Running
	theasylum)

body:
On Mon, 18 Jul 2005, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> We must take into account the possibilty of POLITICAL bias on the part
> of journal editors...
>
> The system of publishing results in referreed journals is by and large
> an excellent one, but we would do the entire world a dis-service if we
> were to ENDORSE the process as incapable of error or bias.

The principle cause of publishing bad/wrong papers is not political bias but
simple mistakes, bad reviewing, etc etc.

OTOH, I *do* agree that wiki should not endorse scientific publishing as free of
error or bias - but that has never been in question. This is a strawman.

> "If I say this, the policymakers will choose that." Who can resist such
> a temptation?

Most scientists, who know full well that politicians pick and chose what they
want to hear.

> I think we should stick to our original commitment. Just say that
> "certain scientists" say X about Y. And don't try to endorse any
> particular view on current scientific controversies as "representing a
> consensus" which Wikipedia then is committing to endorsing.

All, this so far is pretty irrelevant to the real controversy, which (for the
climate change wars) has two components:

1) how do we balance "mainstream" and skeptic views

2) how do we describe things (like the degree of scientific consensus) that are
intrinsically not in jounals.

Note that for all of this I'm talking about the *scientific* viewpoint, which
(by and large) the climate wars have been about. We've started an article called
"politics of GW" and that, of course, will not have the same balance.

The questions are related, because it comes down to complying with the NPOV
policy, which is that the mainstream view gets stated first and most
prominently, and dissenting views get stated roughly according to their weight
and importance. Of course, that means you need to know what weight they should
have. This is difficult.

For both of these, its no good waving any individual paper and saying "scientist
X says Y". Nor is it aceptable to stuff an article full of a whole pile of one
sided quotes and references, and defend them by saying "but they are all from
published papers". What you need is an idea of what the weight of the published
literature says. This is very close to impossible for anyone not in the field,
or who doesn't keep up *with the actual journals*. Its no good trying to get
such balance from the popular press or the web.

At the moment, the bulk of literature on climate change simply takes GW as a
given and is trying to work out the details. The number of skeptics challenging
this (in the sci press) is teensy tiny, and their scientific importance is even
less. If anything, the wiki GW articles overweights the skeptics contribution.
This is usually the cue for the more off-base skeptics to cry "conspiracy"...
but that misses the point. Firstly, of course, I don't think there is any such
conspiracy. Secondly, in the unlikely event of all the worlds scientists
conspiring to say X is true, then thats what wiki is supposed to report. Not the
"truth" known by revelation to only a few.

Finally... how do we describe things like the scientific consensus on GW? I
think that Ed is objecting to "there is a scientific consensus that GW is
occurring", or somesuch. The trouble is, that "there is dispute about whether
there is a consensus or not" is also pushing a POV (that there is a dispute) and
is basically wrong. Look at "Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change" which backs
up the first view from quoted sources, just as Ed wanted.

-W.

William M Connolley | wmc at bas.ac.uk | http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/wmc/
Climate Modeller, British Antarctic Survey | (01223) 221479
If I haven't seen further, it's because giants were standing on my shoulders


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote:

>>Clearly you should list each of the 4-5 online obituaries as sources.
>>
>>
>I'd like to take this opportunity to disagree
>slightly with what I see as a fundamentalist view,
>namely that an article should always list as
>references exactly the sources that the editor
>had in front of herself while contributing to it.
>
It is the proper thing to do to cite these as references.

>I think that it's often more helpful for the reader
>to list other works. For example I often use my
>Icelandic books to find information, for example
>about bird species. But it's just not very useful for
>the typical reader of English Wikipedia to see those
>sources. Who is going to check them or use them?
>
The choice of what to mention as a reference should not presume what the
reader will or will not understand or what may or may not be easily
avaiable to him.  That is the beginning of dumbing down.  If you used an
Icelandic book that's fine; say so.  Making things checkable does not
imply easily chackable.  Additional English references can also be
mentioned.

>Don't get me wrong, I often put Icelandic sources
>under the References heading - but I prefer to do
>it only for subjects where there aren't any English
>books with the same information. For subjects like
>bird species where there are plenty of good works
>in English (which I don't have) citing Icelandic
>sources is jarring and not appropriate (except,
>perhaps, for something like [[Fauna of Iceland]]).
>
If the English works have the "same" information, you must have used
them to know that. :-)

>As for a bio-article boiled out of 4-5 online
>obituaries I don't think listing those as references
>will be terribly useful. Typically half of them
>will be inaccessible after a couple of months.
>It doesn't hurt to mention them, though, perhaps
>on the talk page if you feel they won't be useful
>to the reader on the article page.
>
Having things unavailable after a couple of months is typical of life on
the internet.  That's why it's good to add hard copy references.

>And the separation into References and Further reading
>is also somewhat artificial and not always appropriate.
>If these sections on [[Bobby Fischer]] (currently on FAC)
>are to be believed we're using a couple of online articles
>and a book called "Secrets Of Modern Chess Strategy" as
>References - whereas Fischer's actual biographies are
>listed as Further reading.
>
I agree that there is not much point to having the two separate
sections.  The semantic difference between "references" and "further
reading" is not that great.

>If the role of an encyclopedia is to be the starting
>point for further research. We should endeavour to list
>the *best works* in the bibliographies, not just whatever
>we happened to have in front of us while writing.
>
>
"Best works" is a matter of judgement. If you don't have access to them,
how can you even judge if they are the best?  If yoi write a whole new
article what you have in front of you is the best reference you can provide.

Ec


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: wapipedia

body:
Jeffrey Johnson wrote:

>I've found it great at dinner parties to sneak off to the restroom and
>look up that obscure fact that I just cant remember, and then
>triumphantly return with the info.
>
>
Hmmm!  Bringing back the wisdom that's written on the restroom walls? :-)

Ec


from_name: Ros’ Haruo

body:
When I saw this post,

> Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2005 01:19:02 -0700
> From: Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>
> Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Zhuang Wikipedia is not in Zhuang
>
> Hi all,
>
> I'm not sure what language it is in now, but the Zhuang Wikipedia does
> not appear to be in Zhuang.
>
> A week or so ago, the user "Jienji VANG" started adding this
> apparently fraudulent content.
>
> It appears to be unrelated to any of the major languages of the world.
> My freeware language identifier suggests that it is Afrikaans,
> Buginese, Kapampangan, or Tagalog although I sincerely doubt this.
>
> Mark

I went to the Zhuang encyclopedia and looked at it. Now, I know no
Zhuang, but just off the top of my head what I saw looked to me like a
language that stands to Vietnamese in a relation similar to that of
Estonian to Finnish. I looked at two or three of the articles that
appear to be in what is passing as Zhuang (I can definitely state that
they are not in Afrikaans or Tagalog, and I too strongly doubt that
they are Buginese or Kapampangan, in fact a language identifier that
suggests these is probably not worth using) and I checked out their
histories, and I see no striking evidence that the pre-Jienji-VANG
versions were in a language different from the Jienji-VANG editions.

There do appear to be two languages (or at least two widely divergent
dialects with quite different orthographies) going here, though.
"Quaangc? / Gvangjsih" to exemplify the contrast. Are you saying the
former (much of which seems to predate JV's arrival) is not za: and
the latter is? The latter language or variety seems not to use any
diacritics, but apparently marks tone through h's and r's (but the
former variety seems to have some of that, too, in spite of it's
almost vn:-like abundance of accent marks).

See the comments by NGUY?N Xu?n Minh at the bottom of my eo: talk page:
http://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikipediista_diskuto:Haruo
and his rather persuasive multilingual substitution cypher hypothesis.
I must figure out now how to create an index in my user page where
people can add their own entries and I can jump down to them.

Seems like quite an elaborate hoax.

Haruo
--
Meet the Whole World Halfway ? Learn and Use Esperanto!
www.lernu.net
My Website : http://www.scn.org/~lilandbr/


from_name: Zoney

subject: [WikiEN-l] plagiarism

body:
On 7/19/05, SCO Estmort <eudaimonic.leftist at gmail.com> wrote:
> About the plagiarism issue, there's nothing wrong with taking information
> wholesale if 1) it's not copyvio 2) it's encylopedic and suits the
> encylopedic context. I personally think that if anyone finds their text on
> Wikipedia and it was freely licensed or public domain, they wouldn't mind
> anyway, as long as it was being used well (that's why they released it under
> free license/public domain, no?), the only problem would be quality and
> copyediting for language, which can be fixed easily. After all, we do take
> things wholesale (with copyediting here and there) from the 1911 Encylopedia
> Britannica....and no doubt the article will evolve after that. If anything,
> it seems all the policies are sufficient. Copyright, manual of style,
> reference to sources, and being encylopedic. There's no need for a
> "plagiarism" guideline. If anything, any problems with plagiarism violates
> one these issues. If they don't (ie. like 1911 Britannica), then I see no
> problem.
>
> Natalinasmpf

We cite our source (or should) when 1911 EB is used. Similarly, even
if there's no legal problem using stuff wholesale from somewhere, it
may be plagiarism to not attribute the source (as well as not being in
line with the Wikipedia guideline for citing sources).

It's important the distinction of plagiarism is made - even if an
existing policy such as the citing sources one is just amended to have
a more serious and major tone wrt. plagiarism. In fact, at the most
crude, the policy page could be renamed "Wikipedia:Cite your sources,
don't plagiarise".

The weight given to discouraging plagiarism should be increased, as it
does impact on how seriously Wikipedia is taken, how reputable we are,
and the potential for irate people to take legal action (*even* in the
cases where they have no grounds - people can get like that when their
work isn't acknowledged, even if it isn't absolutely copied directly)

Zoney

--
~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...


from_name: Filzstift

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikisign sql queries

body:
Announcement:
the tool http://www.wikisign.org for doing sql queries supports now
several more wikipedias, including the english, japanese, swedish and
several others.

Filzstift

--
www.wikisign.org - SQL-Abfragen durchf?hren


from_name: Dan Grey

subject: [WikiEN-l] Block for 3RR

body:
On 19/07/05, Lapsed Pacifist <lapsedpacifist at campus.ie> wrote:
> Hi, I've been blocked for breaking the 3RR on "The Sword of the Prophet". I freely admit it, though the violation was inadvertent. My problem is that the reason given on the block list includes the rider "has been warned at least once". A cursory glance at my talk page will show this is not true, in fact I was not warned at all, nor invited to revert.

I would think that this edit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Lapsed_Pacifist&diff=18895395&oldid=18807681

is a clear warning. It may not have been about the same article, but
it served to highlight to you the existence of the 3RR, and what to do
instead of continuing to revert war.

Dan


subject: [WikiEN-l] hello

body:
On 18/07/05, Jeannet Sant <jesline_sant at hotmail.com> wrote:
> To  Whom It May Concern,
>                                       I am Jeannette Grealdine Sant from Malta, I wish if it is possible for you to find me the names of the Banks in England because my uncle Spiridione Sant, has died without the will, and we don't know where they are.He has been dead for four years now and he had money in the english banks.Just to see in which bank they are.I appreciate it if you send me an email of the Names of the Banks on this email : jesline_sant at hotmail.com. Thank you .
>                                                                                From:
>                                                                                Jeannette Sant
> ______________________________________

OK, who let this one through?!

Dan


body:
Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote:

>>Hmmm... or is it just more that it might be embarrassing that the
>>actual article sources are not that authoritative? (indeed perhaps
>>just coming from a website!)
>>
>>Wikipedia's detractors aren't making stuff up out of thin air, often
>>merely drawing on, and exaggerating, the cases where we fail.
>>
>>I would suggest that in many cases where sources are not cited, it's
>>because they aren't good sources. And this happens all the time on
>>less scrutinised Wikipedia articles.
>>
>>Doesn't mean it's not plagiarism though to use someone else's work and
>>not accredit it just because it's awkward for you to do so.
>>
>>
>But plagiarism is the founding principle of Wikipedia! ;)
>Okay, not quite. But if there had been strict requirements
>on using good references in the proper way from the
>beginning I wonder if the project would ever have gotten
>off the ground.
>
>Maybe it would have, just a bit more slowly, and be all
>the better for it. I honestly don't know.
>
>
That's speculative but a good point nevertheless.  I suspect that you're
right.  Our first contributors may very well have been individuals who
had a hard time with the confines of academia, but who still had
something to say.  The first point that had to be made was that
absolutely anybody could contribute within the confines of a few very
simple limitations like NPOV.   That idea is totally subversive!  That
subversion has some very far reaching implications for the operation of
the intellectual marketplace.

Once the public was empowered with the idea that everybody could
contribute we had to look at our credibility, and that included looking
at the things that academia did right.  Asking, "Where does that idea
come from?" is a part of what Academia does right.  But we can back into
that question without preconceptions.  The social pressure of
credentialization is no longer there.  Our results do not depend on
positive grades from a professor with the power to dictate that right or
wrong depends on following his pet theories.

I believe in the idea of a Wikiversity, and have believed in the
underlying concept since long before I heard of Wikipedia.  For it to be
succesful requires avoiding two dangers.  On the one hand we need to
avoid the conformist pressures of established systems; on the other hand
we need to protect ourselves from lunatics.

Ec


from_name: J.F. de Wolff

body:
There are many grey areas when dealing with plagiarism. Personally,
when I write a biographical article I end up sifting through 4-5
online obituaries and merging the contents without much paraphrasing.
Much of the information in those sources is second-hand and often
equally unreferenced.

Where does one draw the line? When there is only one good-going
source of material and this is paraphrased extensively, it should be
referenced. There are many instances, however, where using the term
"reference" would be a bit of an overstatement.

JFW

--
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body:
Hi Ros,

For examples of "real" Zhuang, please see:

http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/lang/ccx.htm
http://rauz.net/list.asp?id=2205
http://rauz.net/list.asp?id=1064
http://rauz.net/list.asp?id=2204
http://rauz.net/list.asp?id=2227
http://hongdou.gxnews.com.cn/hongdou/forumcenter/forumview.asp?td=2003&topic_id=198372&pagenum=2
(see the last reply on the page)
http://www.kam-tai.org/languages/zhuang/materials/thestoryofhuasan/lan_09_15.htm
http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=3971 (lyrics of
the song are in zhuang)
http://chinese.pku.edu.cn/yuyanxlwx/71.TXT (the parts in latin letters
are in zhuang)
http://www.geocities.co.jp/NatureLand/3973/zhuangyu_ch09.htm
http://tl.bs165.net/bbs/topic.asp?topic_id=7985 (lyrics of song Cib Bi
are in Zhuang, the rest of the page is in chinese)

So, as you can see, it looks a bit strange, for example the word for
"you" is "mwngz", the word for "to" is "daengz"... some people would
think it's just gibberish, but it's not.

Mark

On 19/07/05, Ros' Haruo <rosharuo at gmail.com> wrote:\
> When I saw this post,
>
> > Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2005 01:19:02 -0700
> > From: Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>
> > Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Zhuang Wikipedia is not in Zhuang
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I'm not sure what language it is in now, but the Zhuang Wikipedia does
> > not appear to be in Zhuang.
> >
> > A week or so ago, the user "Jienji VANG" started adding this
> > apparently fraudulent content.
> >
> > It appears to be unrelated to any of the major languages of the world.
> > My freeware language identifier suggests that it is Afrikaans,
> > Buginese, Kapampangan, or Tagalog although I sincerely doubt this.
> >
> > Mark
>
> I went to the Zhuang encyclopedia and looked at it. Now, I know no
> Zhuang, but just off the top of my head what I saw looked to me like a
> language that stands to Vietnamese in a relation similar to that of
> Estonian to Finnish. I looked at two or three of the articles that
> appear to be in what is passing as Zhuang (I can definitely state that
> they are not in Afrikaans or Tagalog, and I too strongly doubt that
> they are Buginese or Kapampangan, in fact a language identifier that
> suggests these is probably not worth using) and I checked out their
> histories, and I see no striking evidence that the pre-Jienji-VANG
> versions were in a language different from the Jienji-VANG editions.
>
> There do appear to be two languages (or at least two widely divergent
> dialects with quite different orthographies) going here, though.
> "Quaangc? / Gvangjsih" to exemplify the contrast. Are you saying the
> former (much of which seems to predate JV's arrival) is not za: and
> the latter is? The latter language or variety seems not to use any
> diacritics, but apparently marks tone through h's and r's (but the
> former variety seems to have some of that, too, in spite of it's
> almost vn:-like abundance of accent marks).
>
> See the comments by NGUY?N Xu?n Minh at the bottom of my eo: talk page:
> http://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikipediista_diskuto:Haruo
> and his rather persuasive multilingual substitution cypher hypothesis.
> I must figure out now how to create an index in my user page where
> people can add their own entries and I can jump down to them.
>
> Seems like quite an elaborate hoax.
>
> Haruo
> --
> Meet the Whole World Halfway ? Learn and Use Esperanto!
> www.lernu.net
> My Website : http://www.scn.org/~lilandbr/
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


body:
Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote:

>I'd rather not spend much more time
>discussing this. Our differences in
>opinion are somewhat academic anyhow.
>In practice we all agree that Wikipedia's
>articles need more and better references.
>
Absolutely.

>But I personally think that trying to make
>every fact "checkable" through references
>at the bottom of the article is a chimera.
>In practice people don't fact-check articles
>by getting the books at the bottom and
>reading them through. People fact-check
>articles by seeing something that they
>think is wrong and then looking up the
>correct fact in a work of their choosing.
>That's our actual model of arriving at
>the truth and it works well most of the time.
>
If people aren't checking these sources, or alternate sources, at all
that means that I could invent a totally fictitios reference and have it
accepted.  That's scary.

>A fact on a bird species I supply through
>an Icelandic ornithology book is only very
>marginally "more checkable" to 99.9% of
>Wikipedia's editors if I supply the name
>of the book. You're better off looking the
>relevant bird up in a book of your choosing.
>
>To make the example more concrete here's the
>edit I'm thinking off. I was editing out of
>town (watching birds) a month ago and hadn't
>logged in:
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arctic_Tern&diff=16117224&oldid=15596669
>
>As you can see I *did* supply the source in
>the edit history though I didn't find it worthy
>of the article itself. Interestingly no other
>editor has supplied any source at all.
>
Who would ever look in the edit history for a reference?  I think it
would have been an excellent reference to put at the bottom of the
article.  I have too many other things to occupy my time here without
getting distracted by birds, but my inclination for fact-checking was to
reach for Godfrey's "Birds of Canada".  That would give a different
perspective, and I could add that as a further reference.  An American
could give a view about the bird in Alaska; a Russian or Norwegian could
also provide sources in those languages, and we would still have room
for references from the Southern Hemisphere.

>>The choice of what to mention as a reference should not presume what the
>>reader will or will not understand or what may or may not be easily
>>avaiable to him.  That is the beginning of dumbing down.  If you used an
>>Icelandic book that's fine; say so.  Making things checkable does not
>>imply easily chackable.
>>
>>
>I thing that the idea to make everything on Wikipedia
>"checkable" through references is a chimera. To begin
>with - when was the last time you fact-checked an
>article through the references at i
>
In en:wiktionary where I spend most of my time, I frequently check
online references, or look for other listings of the word before I start
arguing with the contributor that it appears to come from his
imagination.  Unfortunately many of these entries are from IPs that we
may never see again.
Making something checkable, even through a rare reference, is the
responsibility of the contributor.  Actually checking it is the
responsibility of the reader.  If the reader does not fulfill his
responsibility it's not your fault.


from_name: Michael Turley

body:
On 7/19/05, Haukur ?orgeirsson <haukurth at hi.is> wrote:
> > Hmmm... or is it just more that it might be embarrassing that the
> > actual article sources are not that authoritative? (indeed perhaps
> > just coming from a website!)
> >
> > Wikipedia's detractors aren't making stuff up out of thin air, often
> > merely drawing on, and exaggerating, the cases where we fail.
> >
> > I would suggest that in many cases where sources are not cited, it's
> > because they aren't good sources. And this happens all the time on
> > less scrutinised Wikipedia articles.
> >
> > Doesn't mean it's not plagiarism though to use someone else's work and
> > not accredit it just because it's awkward for you to do so.
>
> But plagiarism is the founding principle of Wikipedia! ;)
> Okay, not quite. But if there had been strict requirements
> on using good references in the proper way from the
> beginning I wonder if the project would ever have gotten
> off the ground.
>
> Maybe it would have, just a bit more slowly, and be all
> the better for it. I honestly don't know.

I am of the opinion that we should always reference sources if we're
not writing directly from our own knowledge.  If you have sources open
in front of you, we should be open about disclosing that fact, and
what sources those are.  It doesn't matter if something is "common
knowledge".  If it's common enough, you wouldn't need any sources open
in front of you.  Inclusion of references includes foreign language
sources, appropriately labeled, as you cannot assume that no user who
understands Icelandic will ever read the articles.

Full references should be listed at the bottom of every article
(ideally, even below the category listings) where they have very
limited ability to distract the reader.

In an environment where anyone can edit at any time, anyone can make
subtle changes to change the meaning of what is posted.  It is
therefore critical that we "show our work" so that if there is a drift
in meaning over the edit history, someone can later follow back and
find the intended meaning somewhere along the line.

Because we don't have professional, paid editorial boards reviewing
the articles before public release, references are our ONLY source of
authority on any issue.  I, for one, don't trust unreferenced or
poorly referenced articles.  No reference, no authority.  Even small
articles benefit from references.  See [[Zetor]] or [[40 mm grenade]]
for examples.  In fact, I won't make any significant content
contribution to Wikipedia anymore without posting references, too.

Time spent in controversial articles such as [[Wal-Mart]] and
[[FairTax]] watching others insert POV and OR time after time has
convinced me that this is the only proper way to contribute content.
Also, watching VfD, where several unreferenced articles about lesser
known topics received near universal "delete" votes until someone
actually researched the article and posted a reference or two, then
all the votes change to "keep", has show me the correct way to add
data.

Regarding the ever-changing nature of the internet; that is why I
always include a date, such as "retrieved July 19, 2005" on the end of
each of my online citations.  Even if the Internet Wayback Machine
cannot always find the point in history where I got the information,
at least the readers can check to see if the reference material is out
of date or not.

--
Michael Turley
User:Unfocused


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: wapipedia

body:
It would be neat if we had pages like that on Wikipedia.

Text of [[Stoners]]: '''Stoners''' live, Stoners die, [[sexual
intercourse|f**k]] the [[earth|world]], let's all get [[drugs|high]].

Text of [[Girls are Evil]]: '''Girls''' take time, and money. Time
equals money. Thus, girls are equal to money squared. Money is the
root of all evil. Money squared, equals girls, equals all evil. Thus,
girls are evil.

Text of [[Really Hot Girls]]: '''Really Hot Girls''' -- call 502 1022
111 for a good time, her names jenifer

Text of [[Barbera Strisend]]: '''Barbera Strisend''' is really hot.
yeah but i hear she has a dick. see also [[barbara streisand]].

Text of [[Depressed constipate]]: Here I sit, broken hearted, tried to
s**t, but only farted.

Text of [[Funny words]]: poop is a '''funny word''' yes it is

(these are things I've really read on bathroom walls)

Cheers
Mark

On 19/07/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Jeffrey Johnson wrote:
>
> >I've found it great at dinner parties to sneak off to the restroom and
> >look up that obscure fact that I just cant remember, and then
> >triumphantly return with the info.
> >
> >
> Hmmm!  Bringing back the wisdom that's written on the restroom walls? :-)
>
> Ec
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


body:
There is a difference between the references consulted in writing the
article (required to avoid plagiarism) and the nice list of external
resources recommended for further study.

Fred

On Jul 19, 2005, at 8:10 AM, Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote:

>> Clearly you should list each of the 4-5 online obituaries as sources.
>>
>
> I'd like to take this opportunity to disagree
> slightly with what I see as a fundamentalist view,
> namely that an article should always list as
> references exactly the sources that the editor
> had in front of herself while contributing to it.
>
> I think that it's often more helpful for the reader
> to list other works. For example I often use my
> Icelandic books to find information, for example
> about bird species. But it's just not very useful for
> the typical reader of English Wikipedia to see those
> sources. Who is going to check them or use them?
>
> Don't get me wrong, I often put Icelandic sources
> under the References heading - but I prefer to do
> it only for subjects where there aren't any English
> books with the same information. For subjects like
> bird species where there are plenty of good works
> in English (which I don't have) citing Icelandic
> sources is jarring and not appropriate (except,
> perhaps, for something like [[Fauna of Iceland]]).
>
> As for a bio-article boiled out of 4-5 online
> obituaries I don't think listing those as references
> will be terribly useful. Typically half of them
> will be inaccessible after a couple of months.
> It doesn't hurt to mention them, though, perhaps
> on the talk page if you feel they won't be useful
> to the reader on the article page.
>
> And the separation into References and Further reading
> is also somewhat artificial and not always appropriate.
> If these sections on [[Bobby Fischer]] (currently on FAC)
> are to be believed we're using a couple of online articles
> and a book called "Secrets Of Modern Chess Strategy" as
> References - whereas Fischer's actual biographies are
> listed as Further reading.
>
> If the role of an encyclopedia is to be the starting
> point for further research. We should endeavour to list
> the *best works* in the bibliographies, not just whatever
> we happened to have in front of us while writing.
>
> Regards,
> Haukur
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
If not now, when?

Fred

On Jul 19, 2005, at 9:37 AM, Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote:

> But plagiarism is the founding principle of Wikipedia! ;)
> Okay, not quite. But if there had been strict requirements
> on using good references in the proper way from the
> beginning I wonder if the project would ever have gotten
> off the ground.
>
> Maybe it would have, just a bit more slowly, and be all
> the better for it. I honestly don't know.
>
> Regards,
> Haukur
>


from_name: Haukur Þorgeirsson

body:
> Clearly you should list each of the 4-5 online obituaries as sources.

I'd like to take this opportunity to disagree
slightly with what I see as a fundamentalist view,
namely that an article should always list as
references exactly the sources that the editor
had in front of herself while contributing to it.

I think that it's often more helpful for the reader
to list other works. For example I often use my
Icelandic books to find information, for example
about bird species. But it's just not very useful for
the typical reader of English Wikipedia to see those
sources. Who is going to check them or use them?

Don't get me wrong, I often put Icelandic sources
under the References heading - but I prefer to do
it only for subjects where there aren't any English
books with the same information. For subjects like
bird species where there are plenty of good works
in English (which I don't have) citing Icelandic
sources is jarring and not appropriate (except,
perhaps, for something like [[Fauna of Iceland]]).

As for a bio-article boiled out of 4-5 online
obituaries I don't think listing those as references
will be terribly useful. Typically half of them
will be inaccessible after a couple of months.
It doesn't hurt to mention them, though, perhaps
on the talk page if you feel they won't be useful
to the reader on the article page.

And the separation into References and Further reading
is also somewhat artificial and not always appropriate.
If these sections on [[Bobby Fischer]] (currently on FAC)
are to be believed we're using a couple of online articles
and a book called "Secrets Of Modern Chess Strategy" as
References - whereas Fischer's actual biographies are
listed as Further reading.

If the role of an encyclopedia is to be the starting
point for further research. We should endeavour to list
the *best works* in the bibliographies, not just whatever
we happened to have in front of us while writing.

Regards,
Haukur


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] A Missing Policy

body:
On Tue, 19 Jul 2005, David Gerard wrote:

> Geoff Burling (llywrch at agora.rdrop.com) [050719 04:49]:
>
> > It'd be nice to have some kind of Cleanup tag applied to force
> > the contributor to improve the language &/or supply the source
> > for the text -- but articles have languished on Cleanup for
> > months or years without being fixed.
>
>
> {{unreferenced}} ?
>
As tempting as this is, it doesn't address the problem of plagiarism
squarely.

Plagiarism will only become an issue when someone notices that the
text of an article is close enough to the text of an online site to
raise the question of a copyvio; in this case, the person who would
add the tag *knows* the source. And if the language has been altered
enough so that this editor is confident that the article is not a
copyvio, then wouldn't it be far simpler just to add a Reference
section with the URL than one more tag people might ignore?

So does that mean that in the case of plagiarism, our options are either
to delete the article as a copyvio, or provide a link to the source?
Somehow a simple reference isn't enough in my eyes, & I suspect that
few authors of online material would appreciate a statement along the
lines of "This article uses text taken from {{insert URL}}." In this
era of copyright abuse[*], it's a practically a confession that we
stole material.

Geoff

[*] By "abuse", I mean that individuals like the Disney Corporation
are abusing the situation, although I understand they insist it's the
other way round.


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [Wikipedia-l] wapipedia

body:
On 19/07/05, Jeffrey Johnson <ortelius at gmail.com> wrote:
> I hadn't heard of this one, but will check it out. I use
> www.wapedia.org all the time.

I'd never heard of this until now... but it's excellent, thanks for
pointing it out!

(There's something weirdly endearing about being able to use a mobile
phone to read my own writing...)

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


from_name: Lapsed Pacifist

subject: [WikiEN-l] Block for 3RR

body:
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20050719/0095af94/attachment.diff


from_name: Joachim Schroer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Current state of the Wikipedia motivation survey

body:
Dear all,

as many of you know, we have started a survey on the motivation of
contributors to Wikipedia a week ago. So far, more than 150 participants
completed our online survey -- thanks a lot!

The questionnaire will be available until August 3 at:

    http://www.unipark.de/uc/wikipedia/

We would like to invite everybody who is involved in one or more
Wikipedia projects as contributors, sysops or in community discussions
to answer the survey. This will take about 20 minutes. The questionnaire
is in English, but participants from other Wikipedias are of course
invited to take part as well.

We are also glad that a number of people have linked to our survey from
their blogs or set links on prominent Wikipedia pages. We even have a
Wikipedia page ourselves now:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:University_of_W%C3%BCrzburg_survey%2C_2005

To allow for reliable results, we hope that as many contributors as
possible complete the questionnaire. You would especially help us if you
could link to the survey or forward this e-mail to people who don't
regularly read this list.

The original announcement is available here:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-July/026281.html

Our project website is here:
http://www.psychologie.uni-wuerzburg.de/ao/research/wikipedia.php?lang=en

Thank you for your time and input, and best wishes from Wuerzburg,

Joachim Schroer

--
Joachim Schroer, Dipl.-Psych.
University of Wuerzburg
Department of Psychology II, Industrial and Organizational Psychology
Roentgenring 10
97070 Wuerzburg
Germany

Phone:	+49 931 31 6062
Fax:	+49 931 31 6063
http://www.psychologie.uni-wuerzburg.de/ao/staff/schroer.php


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Current state of the Wikipedia motivation survey

body:
Dear all,

as many of you know, we have started a survey on the motivation of
contributors to Wikipedia a week ago. So far, more than 150 participants
from more than 10 countries completed our online survey -- thanks a lot
to everyone!

The questionnaire will be available until August 3 at:

    http://www.unipark.de/uc/wikipedia/

We would like to invite everybody who is involved in one or more
Wikipedia projects as contributors, sysops or in community discussions
to answer the survey. This will take about 20 minutes. The questionnaire
is in English, but participants from other Wikipedias are especially
invited to take part as well.

We are also glad that a number of people have linked to our survey from
their blogs or set links on prominent Wikipedia pages. We even have a
Wikipedia page ourselves now:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:University_of_W%C3%BCrzburg_survey%2C_2005

To allow for reliable results, we hope that as many contributors as
possible complete the questionnaire. You would especially help us if you
could link to the survey from visible Wikipedia pages (e.g., community
pages or recent changes).

We would also be glad if you forward this e-mail to people who don't
regularly read this list.

The original announcement is available here:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-July/026281.html

Our project website is here:
http://www.psychologie.uni-wuerzburg.de/ao/research/wikipedia.php?lang=en

Thank you for your time and input, and best wishes from Wuerzburg,

Joachim Schroer

--
Joachim Schroer, Dipl.-Psych.
University of Wuerzburg
Department of Psychology II, Industrial and Organizational Psychology
Roentgenring 10
97070 Wuerzburg
Germany

Phone:	+49 931 31 6062
Fax:	+49 931 31 6063
http://www.psychologie.uni-wuerzburg.de/ao/staff/schroer.php


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
It's very simple. Wikipedia policy requires you to cite your sources,
see [[Wikipedia:Cite sources]].

Fred

On Jul 19, 2005, at 2:37 PM, Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote:

>> If people aren't checking these sources, or alternate sources, at all
>> that means that I could invent a totally fictitios reference and
>> have it
>> accepted.  That's scary.
>>
>
> Wikipedia is based heavily on trust and
> assuming good faith. I trust other editors
> not to invent references and I don't do it myself.
> But if a sufficiently sophisticated troll were
> to try it I imagine it could go unnoticed for a
> very long time indeed. Eventually an expert on
> the topic would stumble on the nonexisting reference,
> be puzzled and try without success to look it up.
>
> And - to any aspiring trolls out there - *please
> don't try this*. Let's just assume you could, okay?
> I mean, even articles on fictitious topics can stand
> unnoticed on Wikipedia for years. I've found several
> examples in Norse mythology articles - articles on
> gods apparently invented out of whole cloth. I don't
> think that is a troll-driven phenomenon, presumably
> most of these stem from fantasy literature which
> someone has in good faith mistaken for authentic
> mythology.
>
>
>
>> Who would ever look in the edit history for a reference?  I think it
>> would have been an excellent reference to put at the bottom of the
>> article.  I have too many other things to occupy my time here without
>> getting distracted by birds, but my inclination for fact-checking
>> was to
>> reach for Godfrey's "Birds of Canada".  That would give a different
>> perspective, and I could add that as a further reference.  An
>> American
>> could give a view about the bird in Alaska; a Russian or Norwegian
>> could
>> also provide sources in those languages, and we would still have room
>> for references from the Southern Hemisphere.
>>
>
> An important difference is that your bird book
> is in English, like the encyclopedia we're writing.
> In any case, if I thought that the observation on
> the arctic tern which I added from the book was
> somehow unique to Iceland I would have added the
> book as a reference. Since I assume it isn't I didn't.
>
> If I had created a reference section and put my book
> there, alone, it would have been misleading since it
> would imply that the article was written using this
> book as a source - not so, I only added one sentence
> and didn't really fact-check the rest. It would also
> imply that it is for some reason appropriate to cite
> an Icelandic source here. That is not so, in my
> opinion, since good English sources are available.
>
>
>
>> Making something checkable, even through a rare reference, is the
>> responsibility of the contributor.  Actually checking it is the
>> responsibility of the reader.  If the reader does not fulfill his
>> responsibility it's not your fault.
>>
>
> Well, I wouldn't exactly be very helpful by
> supplying a source in a language which the
> typical reader of the article doesn't understand.
>
> And I disagree with the model of references
> as something intended to protect the writer
> from accusations of making things up. I see
> them primarily as an aid to the reader in
> finding more information.
>
> And again I'd like to emphasize that we probably
> agree more than we disagree on this. In most
> reference related situations we'd probably both
> do the same thing. I'm certainly never happy
> with an article until it has good references,
> even if it is short. Look at [[Lofn]] for an
> example.
>
> Regards,
> Haukur
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] A Missing Policy

body:
On Mon, 18 Jul 2005, Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Geoff Burling wrote:
>
> >I just stumbled across a copyvio notice on the article
> >[[1868 Expedition to Abyssinia]] which, after examining the
> >evidence with care, I felt was a case of an editor paraphrasing
> >the text of a source far enough to argue that copyright no longer
> >applied; however, the question whether this was plagiarism
> >remained.
> >
> >While this may appear to some as a case of Wikilawyering or
> >[[instruction creep]], I feel it is a serious omission in our
> >list of policies. I hope I'm not alone in saying that I don't
> >want to find any instances of plagiarism in Wikipedia. However,
> >I don't want to find this sort of thing creeping into Wikipedia
> >under the defense "It's not a copyright violation, it's plagiarism",
> >nor do I want unattributed paraphrases of sources being sent to
> >VfD, either speedy or regular, when a simple acknowledgement of
> >sources might solve the problem. And this is a case clearly
> >different than the "Cite sources" policy currently is, which is
> >intended to handle things like adding controversial material
> >without attributing them to a source.
> >
> The pagiarism defence is a bit like denying a murder because you were
> busy robbing a bank on the other side of town at the time of the
> murder.

Well, the police might accept it, & if the choice is 5-10 years in jail
for felony theft or 20+ for murder, I'm sure it's been attempted. But
then, this is based on what I've learned from television & I've been
told that it does not accurately mirror reality. ;-)

> I don't think that citing sources should be limited to
> controversial subjects.  I don't see much modern controversy in an 1868
> expedition, but readers should still have the opportunity to find more
> information.

It depends on your value of "controversial", & if I've learned anything
from Wikipedia it's that what one person considers a moot topic is
often a heated point of contention for two other people.

I don't expect people to find cites for assertions I consider common
knowledge (e.g., Mongola is a nation located in Asia, the dollar is
the official currency of the US, Buenos Aires is the capital of Argentina,
etc.), but when I find myself in territory where my Bullshit detector
is likely to go off -- or where I don't have enough knowledge for my
Bullshit detector to work -- I try to cite sources, & expect other
people to. And sometimes we both learn that what one assumes is common
knowledge is not so common to others -- but that's how Wikipedia works.

> In some cases you may want to know whether the information
> is real or from the contributor's imagination.  In Wiktionary this often
> takes the form of looking for verification that there really is such a
> word, especially when the word is described as some sort of sexual slang
>
> I think that even fewer people understand the concept of plagiarism than
> understand the concept of copyright infringment.  Notwithstanding the
> numerous arguments that we have on the subject, infringement is far more
> susceptible to being expressed clearly than plagiarism.  Plagiarism is
> often just a matter of poor research habits.
>
The primary problem with plagiarism on Wikipedia is that it inadvertently
puts material under the GPL/Creative Commons license that should not
belong there. And some authors might consider this stealing -- a
situation that reminds me of something from T.S. Eliot that my poetry
teacher in college used to quote at us in class: "Bad poets borrow,
good poets steal." What Eliot's point was that good poets take an idea
from another poet or writer, & change them to such a degree that it
takes a detective to uncover the source of the idea.

In short, if you have to steal material for Wikipedia, don't steal like a
plagiarist; steal like T.S. Eliot. And if you can't steal it, quote it
& provide a source so we know who the words belong to.

Geoff


from_name: shizhao

body:
Mark Williamson <node.ue at ...> writes:

>
> Hi all,
>
> I'm not sure  language it is in now, but the Zhuang Wikipedia does
> not appear to be in Zhuang.
>
> A week or so ago, the user "Jienji VANG" started adding this
> apparently fraudulent content.
>
> It appears to be unrelated to any of the major languages of the world.
> My freeware language identifier suggests that it is Afrikaans,
> Buginese, Kapampangan, or Tagalog although I sincerely doubt this.
>
> Mark
>

see http://za.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puut%C3%B4%C3%B4_/_Bouxcuengh (en:Zhuang
people), thereinto article names part "Bouxcuengh" is "Zhuang people" of
english. see http://www.kam-tai.org/languages/languagesdangan/zhuangwen.htm
(Chinese). But not sure what Puut%C3%B4%C3%B4, and "/" meaning.

[[zh:user:shizhao]]


body:
Mark Williamson <node.ue at ...> writes:

>
> Hi all,
>
> I'm not sure what language it is in now, but the Zhuang Wikipedia does
> not appear to be in Zhuang.
>
> A week or so ago, the user "Jienji VANG" started adding this
> apparently fraudulent content.
>
> It appears to be unrelated to any of the major languages of the world.
> My freeware language identifier suggests that it is Afrikaans,
> Buginese, Kapampangan, or Tagalog although I sincerely doubt this.
>
> Mark
>

In addition, see http://www.kam-
tai.org/languages/zhuang/commondocs/zhuangwenfangan.htm , zhuang language use
Latin alphabet 26 letter, without like "?", for example "Puut??".

[[zh:user:shizhao]]


body:
> Hmmm... or is it just more that it might be embarrassing that the
> actual article sources are not that authoritative? (indeed perhaps
> just coming from a website!)
>
> Wikipedia's detractors aren't making stuff up out of thin air, often
> merely drawing on, and exaggerating, the cases where we fail.
>
> I would suggest that in many cases where sources are not cited, it's
> because they aren't good sources. And this happens all the time on
> less scrutinised Wikipedia articles.
>
> Doesn't mean it's not plagiarism though to use someone else's work and
> not accredit it just because it's awkward for you to do so.

But plagiarism is the founding principle of Wikipedia! ;)
Okay, not quite. But if there had been strict requirements
on using good references in the proper way from the
beginning I wonder if the project would ever have gotten
off the ground.

Maybe it would have, just a bit more slowly, and be all
the better for it. I honestly don't know.

Regards,
Haukur


body:
On 7/19/05, Haukur ?orgeirsson <haukurth at hi.is> wrote:

> As for a bio-article boiled out of 4-5 online
> obituaries I don't think listing those as references
> will be terribly useful. Typically half of them
> will be inaccessible after a couple of months.
> It doesn't hurt to mention them, though, perhaps
> on the talk page if you feel they won't be useful
> to the reader on the article page.

If half of them will be inaccessible after a couple of months, then I
think that is even more reason to include all of them as references.
Otherwise, you run the risk of choosing the "wrong" references and
having none to refer to later.  Until and if Wikipedia ever adds a
"references page" for each article, I believe references are "article
page" items, not "talk page" items.  (Although as I previously
mentioned, I'd rather have them below the categories rather than
above.)

--
Michael Turley
User:Unfocused


body:
On 7/19/05, Haukur ?orgeirsson <haukurth at hi.is> wrote:
> > Clearly you should list each of the 4-5 online obituaries as sources.
>
> I'd like to take this opportunity to disagree
> slightly with what I see as a fundamentalist view,
> namely that an article should always list as
> references exactly the sources that the editor
> had in front of herself while contributing to it.
>
> I think that it's often more helpful for the reader
> to list other works. For example I often use my
> Icelandic books to find information, for example
> about bird species. But it's just not very useful for
> the typical reader of English Wikipedia to see those
> sources. Who is going to check them or use them?
>
> Don't get me wrong, I often put Icelandic sources
> under the References heading - but I prefer to do
> it only for subjects where there aren't any English
> books with the same information. For subjects like
> bird species where there are plenty of good works
> in English (which I don't have) citing Icelandic
> sources is jarring and not appropriate (except,
> perhaps, for something like [[Fauna of Iceland]]).
>
> As for a bio-article boiled out of 4-5 online
> obituaries I don't think listing those as references
> will be terribly useful. Typically half of them
> will be inaccessible after a couple of months.
> It doesn't hurt to mention them, though, perhaps
> on the talk page if you feel they won't be useful
> to the reader on the article page.
>
> And the separation into References and Further reading
> is also somewhat artificial and not always appropriate.
> If these sections on [[Bobby Fischer]] (currently on FAC)
> are to be believed we're using a couple of online articles
> and a book called "Secrets Of Modern Chess Strategy" as
> References - whereas Fischer's actual biographies are
> listed as Further reading.
>
> If the role of an encyclopedia is to be the starting
> point for further research. We should endeavour to list
> the *best works* in the bibliographies, not just whatever
> we happened to have in front of us while writing.
>
> Regards,
> Haukur
>

Hmmm... or is it just more that it might be embarrassing that the
actual article sources are not that authoritative? (indeed perhaps
just coming from a website!)

Wikipedia's detractors aren't making stuff up out of thin air, often
merely drawing on, and exaggerating, the cases where we fail.

I would suggest that in many cases where sources are not cited, it's
because they aren't good sources. And this happens all the time on
less scrutinised Wikipedia articles.

Doesn't mean it's not plagiarism though to use someone else's work and
not accredit it just because it's awkward for you to do so.

Zoney

--
~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...


body:
> I am of the opinion that we should always reference sources if we're
> not writing directly from our own knowledge. If you have sources open
> in front of you, we should be open about disclosing that fact, and
> what sources those are.

Okay, I'll back up a little. I prefer to write on subjects
where I'm something of an expert. That means I'm often
writing from my own knowledge, acquired through the years
from a number of sources. Then maybe I use a google search
to look up a certain date. I come up with a mediocre website.
When I list the references for the article I'd rather not
list the website I looked up this one fact on. Instead I'll
think "what would be a good English source for this?" and
maybe list some book I read a year ago but don't have in
front of me.

In happy cases, which is more often than not, I do have
the book I want to reference right in front of me.

> Inclusion of references includes foreign language
> sources, appropriately labeled, as you cannot assume that no user who
> understands Icelandic will ever read the articles.

Of course someone eventually might but that's not
the point. The reference would be completely irrelevant
information for the vast majority of readers. Worse,
it would be misleading, implying that this Icelandic
ornithology book contains something not found in
numerous works in English. At best it belongs on
the talk page or in the edit summary.

Citing non-English sources is, however, completely
appropriate when corresponding English ones are lacking.
There's nothing wrong with citing works in Hungarian on
relatively obscure aspects of Hungarian history.

> Full references should be listed at the bottom of every article
> (ideally, even below the category listings) where they have very
> limited ability to distract the reader.

I think a good bibliography can be an important part
of the article and should be displayed reasonably
prominently. The best bibliographies tell you a little
bit about the books - look at [[User:Jallan]]'s
bibliography for [[Norse mythology]].

A short overview on the major works on a subject is,
when appropriate, one of the most useful things you
can find in an introductory article.

Regards,
Haukur


body:
I'd rather not spend much more time
discussing this. Our differences in
opinion are somewhat academic anyhow.
In practice we all agree that Wikipedia's
articles need more and better references.

But I personally think that trying to make
every fact "checkable" through references
at the bottom of the article is a chimera.
In practice people don't fact-check articles
by getting the books at the bottom and
reading them through. People fact-check
articles by seeing something that they
think is wrong and then looking up the
correct fact in a work of their choosing.
That's our actual model of arriving at
the truth and it works well most of the time.

A fact on a bird species I supply through
an Icelandic ornithology book is only very
marginally "more checkable" to 99.9% of
Wikipedia's editors if I supply the name
of the book. You're better off looking the
relevant bird up in a book of your choosing.

To make the example more concrete here's the
edit I'm thinking off. I was editing out of
town (watching birds) a month ago and hadn't
logged in:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arctic_Tern&diff=16117224&oldid=15596669

As you can see I *did* supply the source in
the edit history though I didn't find it worthy
of the article itself. Interestingly no other
editor has supplied any source at all.

Regards,
Haukur

> Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote:
>
>>>Clearly you should list each of the 4-5 online obituaries as sources.
>>>
>>>
>>I'd like to take this opportunity to disagree
>>slightly with what I see as a fundamentalist view,
>>namely that an article should always list as
>>references exactly the sources that the editor
>>had in front of herself while contributing to it.
>>
> It is the proper thing to do to cite these as references.
>
>>I think that it's often more helpful for the reader
>>to list other works. For example I often use my
>>Icelandic books to find information, for example
>>about bird species. But it's just not very useful for
>>the typical reader of English Wikipedia to see those
>>sources. Who is going to check them or use them?
>>

> The choice of what to mention as a reference should not presume what the
> reader will or will not understand or what may or may not be easily
> avaiable to him.  That is the beginning of dumbing down.  If you used an
> Icelandic book that's fine; say so.  Making things checkable does not
> imply easily chackable.

I thing that the idea to make everything on Wikipedia
"checkable" through references is a chimera. To begin
with - when was the last time you fact-checked an
article through the references at i

> Additional English references can also be
> mentioned.
>
>>Don't get me wrong, I often put Icelandic sources
>>under the References heading - but I prefer to do
>>it only for subjects where there aren't any English
>>books with the same information. For subjects like
>>bird species where there are plenty of good works
>>in English (which I don't have) citing Icelandic
>>sources is jarring and not appropriate (except,
>>perhaps, for something like [[Fauna of Iceland]]).
>>
> If the English works have the "same" information, you must have used
> them to know that. :-)
>
>>As for a bio-article boiled out of 4-5 online
>>obituaries I don't think listing those as references
>>will be terribly useful. Typically half of them
>>will be inaccessible after a couple of months.
>>It doesn't hurt to mention them, though, perhaps
>>on the talk page if you feel they won't be useful
>>to the reader on the article page.
>>
> Having things unavailable after a couple of months is typical of life on
> the internet.  That's why it's good to add hard copy references.
>
>>And the separation into References and Further reading
>>is also somewhat artificial and not always appropriate.
>>If these sections on [[Bobby Fischer]] (currently on FAC)
>>are to be believed we're using a couple of online articles
>>and a book called "Secrets Of Modern Chess Strategy" as
>>References - whereas Fischer's actual biographies are
>>listed as Further reading.
>>
> I agree that there is not much point to having the two separate
> sections.  The semantic difference between "references" and "further
> reading" is not that great.
>
>>If the role of an encyclopedia is to be the starting
>>point for further research. We should endeavour to list
>>the *best works* in the bibliographies, not just whatever
>>we happened to have in front of us while writing.
>>
>>
> "Best works" is a matter of judgement. If you don't have access to them,
> how can you even judge if they are the best?  If yoi write a whole new
> article what you have in front of you is the best reference you can
> provide.
>
> Ec
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Someone wants the history of an article about himself
	sanitized

body:
The initial edit, by an anonymous editor, seems to be a vicious
"outing", none of it sourced. I see no reason the article and its
history should not be removed and an apology made to Allan Jenkins.

Advising someone to edit an article on themselves is not wise. Nor
would it be wise for him to try.

Fred

On Jul 19, 2005, at 5:14 PM, Kelly Martin wrote:

> The following I received via wiki's "Email a user" function.  I
> vaguely recall this article.  I told him that he could remove any
> statements he feels are false, and that as far as purging the history,
> there's no policy for doing that.
>
> Kelly
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Allan jenkins <allan.jenkins at observer.co.uk>
> Date: Jul 19, 2005 12:49 PM
> Subject: Wikipedia e-mail
> To: Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com>
>
>
>
> Current Folder: Sent Items[allanpjenkins at blueyonder.co.uk]
>
> Message List|Delete|Edit Message as New Previous|Next
> Forward|Forward as Attachment|Reply|Reply All
> Subject:        help please
> From:   allanpjenkins at blueyonder.co.uk
> Date:   Tue, July 19, 2005 6:37 pm
> To:     kmartin at jabber.org(more)
> Cc:     allan.jenkins at observer.co.uk
> Priority:       Normal
> Options:        View Full Header| View Printable Version | Add to
> Addressbook | Block Sender | Add Sender to Allow list
>
> (Removed at Allan's request)
>
> Download this as a file
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Kelly Martin

body:
The following I received via wiki's "Email a user" function.  I
vaguely recall this article.  I told him that he could remove any
statements he feels are false, and that as far as purging the history,
there's no policy for doing that.

Kelly

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Allan jenkins <allan.jenkins at observer.co.uk>
Date: Jul 19, 2005 12:49 PM
Subject: Wikipedia e-mail
To: Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com>

Current Folder: Sent Items[allanpjenkins at blueyonder.co.uk]

Message List|Delete|Edit Message as New Previous|Next
Forward|Forward as Attachment|Reply|Reply All
Subject:        help please
From:   allanpjenkins at blueyonder.co.uk
Date:   Tue, July 19, 2005 6:37 pm
To:     kmartin at jabber.org(more)
Cc:     allan.jenkins at observer.co.uk
Priority:       Normal
Options:        View Full Header| View Printable Version | Add to
Addressbook | Block Sender | Add Sender to Allow list

(Removed at Allan's request)

Download this as a file


from_name: Christopher Larberg

subject: [WikiEN-l] hello

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

On 7/19/05, Skyring <skyring at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Well, I don't know that it is a scam. A quick look through Google Web
> and Groups on keywords and names and there's nothing jumping out at
> me. If it is a scam it's a remarkably subtle one. The only thing that
> looks odd to me is the mis-spelling of "Geraldine".
>
> Usually we're given a lot more information up front, such as the
> amount of money - a fairly hefty amount is the rule - and a "come-on"
> as to how we can help get a part of it for free. Perhaps Jeannette
> only wants to know the names of banks in England so she can write to
> them on behalf of her late uncle.
>
> Having said that, it sounds a bit odd, and heaven knows why she picked
> this list to query.

What, aren't random strangers on the Internet the first people /you/
turn to when you have pressing legal and financial questions? ;)

- --Slowking Man

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Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFC5uywCYNOh7qrRhoRAmNLAJ9L+wKqT4uEzlrHo5YMEOBQL33A7wCghedc
mYhYUKuoELW3py9FdPI5QwY=
=ZDOK
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] MathDaily site

body:
Laura Scudder (laurascudder at gmail.com) [050719 09:49]:

> Take a look at [[Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks]] and
> [[Wikipedia:Copyrights]], which recommends a small notice and link
> back to both the wikipedia article and a copy of the GFDL on every
> article.  I guess the link back satisfies the requirement for author
> attribution.
> [[Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks/GFDL Compliance]] makes it look like no
> one has sent a first letter to MathDaily.

Charles Matthews gets to write the polite request, since he has copyright
over much of the content in question ;-)

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] hello

body:
Dan Grey (dangrey at gmail.com) [050719 19:39]:
> On 18/07/05, Jeannet Sant <jesline_sant at hotmail.com> wrote:

> > To  Whom It May Concern,
> >                                       I am Jeannette Grealdine Sant from Malta, I wish if it is possible for you to find me the names of the Banks in England because my uncle Spiridione Sant, has died without the will, and we don't know where they are.He has been dead for four years now and he had money in the english banks.Just to see in which bank they are.I appreciate it if you send me an email of the Names of the Banks on this email : jesline_sant at hotmail.com. Thank you .

> OK, who let this one through?!

*blush* Sorry, I glanced at it and thought it was an information request!

(I suppose it is. 419 spammers use Wikipedia too, after all ;-)

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] A Missing Policy

body:
Geoff Burling (llywrch at agora.rdrop.com) [050719 04:49]:

> It'd be nice to have some kind of Cleanup tag applied to force
> the contributor to improve the language &/or supply the source
> for the text -- but articles have languished on Cleanup for
> months or years without being fixed.

{{unreferenced}} ?

- d.


list: foundation-l

subject:
[Foundation-l] (fwd) [WikiEN-l] J.Wales-Keynoter for Batten Awards
	for Innovations??

body:
----- Forwarded message from Jan Schaffer <jans at j-lab.org> -----

From: Jan Schaffer <jans at j-lab.org>
Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Cc:
Subject: [WikiEN-l] J.Wales-Keynoter for Batten Awards for Innovations??
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 14:52:26 -0400
X-Mailman-Approved-At: Tue, 19 Jul 2005 09:09:53 +0000
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Hi Folks -

This is a copy of an email I sent Jimmy earlier today. I love it if you
could give me  a read as to whether his schedule would even permit his
accepting this invitation:

Hi Jimmy -

    I enjoyed sitting next to you at the Harvard blogging conference. I'm
circling back to see if I could woo you to be the keynote speaker at this
year's Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism Symposium
(http://www.j-lab.org/batten.html)?

    My Advisory Board just finished meeting and selecting this year's award
winners and you were the favorite recommendation for a  keynoter.

    The date is Monday, Sept. 12.  The event is at the National Press Club
in Washington, DC.  The keynote address is given at a luncheon of about
80-100 people -- many of whom will be D.C. journalists, not always known for
innovation. And probably only distantly aware of wikis.

    With  Wiki launching a news site, the LA Times experimenting on its
editorial page, the robust give-and-take on the Harvard listserv, and your
own experience of having journalism "done" to  you, you'd have a lot of
insights to offer. The winners of this years award's will be announced at
the symposium as well.

    J-Lab could cover your travel and lodging costs -- with a grant from the
Knight Foundation that supports the awards.

    I've admired your work for a long time and I'd love to have you if it
would fit into your schedule.

Best,
Jan

--
Jan Schaffer
Executive Director
J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism
7100 Baltimore Ave., Suite 101
College Park, MD 20740
Ph: 301-985-4020
Fx: 301-985-4021
jans at j-lab.org
Www.J-Lab.org
Www.J-NewVoices.org

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

----- End forwarded message -----


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Skyring

subject: [WikiEN-l] plagiarism

body:
On 7/19/05, Zoney <zoney.ie at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The weight given to discouraging plagiarism should be increased, as it
> does impact on how seriously Wikipedia is taken, how reputable we are,
> and the potential for irate people to take legal action (*even* in the
> cases where they have no grounds - people can get like that when their
> work isn't acknowledged, even if it isn't absolutely copied directly).

Spot on! If we wink at wholesale copying of material without
attribution, we are encouraging lazy editors and disgruntled third
parties. At the very least, we should include the source as a link,
and I think it would be good policy to tell whoever was the original
source of the material that we think it is good enough for WP and we
would be honoured if they would become an editor in their turn.

Why piss people off, when you can get them on side?

--
Peter in Canberra


body:
> If people aren't checking these sources, or alternate sources, at all
> that means that I could invent a totally fictitios reference and have it
> accepted.  That's scary.

Wikipedia is based heavily on trust and
assuming good faith. I trust other editors
not to invent references and I don't do it myself.
But if a sufficiently sophisticated troll were
to try it I imagine it could go unnoticed for a
very long time indeed. Eventually an expert on
the topic would stumble on the nonexisting reference,
be puzzled and try without success to look it up.

And - to any aspiring trolls out there - *please
don't try this*. Let's just assume you could, okay?
I mean, even articles on fictitious topics can stand
unnoticed on Wikipedia for years. I've found several
examples in Norse mythology articles - articles on
gods apparently invented out of whole cloth. I don't
think that is a troll-driven phenomenon, presumably
most of these stem from fantasy literature which
someone has in good faith mistaken for authentic
mythology.

> Who would ever look in the edit history for a reference?  I think it
> would have been an excellent reference to put at the bottom of the
> article.  I have too many other things to occupy my time here without
> getting distracted by birds, but my inclination for fact-checking was to
> reach for Godfrey's "Birds of Canada".  That would give a different
> perspective, and I could add that as a further reference.  An American
> could give a view about the bird in Alaska; a Russian or Norwegian could
> also provide sources in those languages, and we would still have room
> for references from the Southern Hemisphere.

An important difference is that your bird book
is in English, like the encyclopedia we're writing.
In any case, if I thought that the observation on
the arctic tern which I added from the book was
somehow unique to Iceland I would have added the
book as a reference. Since I assume it isn't I didn't.

If I had created a reference section and put my book
there, alone, it would have been misleading since it
would imply that the article was written using this
book as a source - not so, I only added one sentence
and didn't really fact-check the rest. It would also
imply that it is for some reason appropriate to cite
an Icelandic source here. That is not so, in my
opinion, since good English sources are available.

> Making something checkable, even through a rare reference, is the
> responsibility of the contributor.  Actually checking it is the
> responsibility of the reader.  If the reader does not fulfill his
> responsibility it's not your fault.

Well, I wouldn't exactly be very helpful by
supplying a source in a language which the
typical reader of the article doesn't understand.

And I disagree with the model of references
as something intended to protect the writer
from accusations of making things up. I see
them primarily as an aid to the reader in
finding more information.

And again I'd like to emphasize that we probably
agree more than we disagree on this. In most
reference related situations we'd probably both
do the same thing. I'm certainly never happy
with an article until it has good references,
even if it is short. Look at [[Lofn]] for an
example.

Regards,
Haukur


subject: [WikiEN-l] hello

body:
On 7/19/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> Dan Grey (dangrey at gmail.com) [050719 19:39]:
> > On 18/07/05, Jeannet Sant <jesline_sant at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > To  Whom It May Concern,
> > >                                       I am Jeannette Grealdine Sant from Malta, I wish if it is possible for you to find me the names of the Banks in England because my uncle Spiridione Sant, has died without the will, and we don't know where they are.He has been dead for four years now and he had money in the english banks.Just to see in which bank they are.I appreciate it if you send me an email of the Names of the Banks on this email : jesline_sant at hotmail.com. Thank you .
>
> > OK, who let this one through?!
>
>
> *blush* Sorry, I glanced at it and thought it was an information request!
>
> (I suppose it is. 419 spammers use Wikipedia too, after all ;-)

Well, I don't know that it is a scam. A quick look through Google Web
and Groups on keywords and names and there's nothing jumping out at
me. If it is a scam it's a remarkably subtle one. The only thing that
looks odd to me is the mis-spelling of "Geraldine".

Usually we're given a lot more information up front, such as the
amount of money - a fairly hefty amount is the rule - and a "come-on"
as to how we can help get a part of it for free. Perhaps Jeannette
only wants to know the names of banks in England so she can write to
them on behalf of her late uncle.

Having said that, it sounds a bit odd, and heaven knows why she picked
this list to query.

--
Peter in Canberra


from_name: Ben

body:
This is just the way to prevent some more instruction creep: reinforce and
enforce existing policies.

-Ben

On 7/19/05, Skyring <skyring at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 7/20/05, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> > It's very simple. Wikipedia policy requires you to cite your sources,
> > see [[Wikipedia:Cite sources]].
>
> In far too many cases, the source is the editor.
>
> I think the discussion here boils down to two concepts, which overlap
> to some degree.
>
> Avoiding a charge of plagiarism by citing a source, especially where
> that source was used for major or fundamental portions of the article.
>
> Providing useful sources for further reference.
>
> --
> Peter in Canberra
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Bratsche-It means "viola!"


body:
Hello, Fred.

In response to a recent post of mine you wrote:

> If not now, when?
>
> Fred

And in response to another you wrote:

> It's very simple. Wikipedia policy requires you to cite your sources,
> see [[Wikipedia:Cite sources]].
>
> Fred

I fail to understand the relevance of either
of your comments. Everyone in the current
discussion agrees that Wikipedia needs more
and better references and I'm sure everyone
is familiar with the policy page you point out.
We have been discussing nuances of how, when,
where and for what purpose we can best add
which references, not the general principle
of more references being a good thing.

Regards,
Haukur


from_name: Jack Lynch

body:
I just finished the survey. I wish you would have asked race and
political stance / opinions, as well as religion and sexual
orientation, as those are questions I have long been interested in.

Jack (Sam Spade)

On 7/19/05, Joachim Schroer <schroer at psychologie.uni-wuerzburg.de> wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> as many of you know, we have started a survey on the motivation of
> contributors to Wikipedia a week ago. So far, more than 150 participants
> completed our online survey -- thanks a lot!
>
> The questionnaire will be available until August 3 at:
>
>     http://www.unipark.de/uc/wikipedia/
>
> We would like to invite everybody who is involved in one or more
> Wikipedia projects as contributors, sysops or in community discussions
> to answer the survey. This will take about 20 minutes. The questionnaire
> is in English, but participants from other Wikipedias are of course
> invited to take part as well.
>
> We are also glad that a number of people have linked to our survey from
> their blogs or set links on prominent Wikipedia pages. We even have a
> Wikipedia page ourselves now:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:University_of_W%C3%BCrzburg_survey%2C_2005
>
> To allow for reliable results, we hope that as many contributors as
> possible complete the questionnaire. You would especially help us if you
> could link to the survey or forward this e-mail to people who don't
> regularly read this list.
>
> The original announcement is available here:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-July/026281.html
>
> Our project website is here:
> http://www.psychologie.uni-wuerzburg.de/ao/research/wikipedia.php?lang=en
>
> Thank you for your time and input, and best wishes from Wuerzburg,
>
> Joachim Schroer
>
> --
> Joachim Schroer, Dipl.-Psych.
> University of Wuerzburg
> Department of Psychology II, Industrial and Organizational Psychology
> Roentgenring 10
> 97070 Wuerzburg
> Germany
>
> Phone:  +49 931 31 6062
> Fax:    +49 931 31 6063
> http://www.psychologie.uni-wuerzburg.de/ao/staff/schroer.php
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: wapipedia

body:
Anthere wrote:
> Anyone heard of Wapipedia ? www.wapipedia.org ?
>
> Here is the type of results they give after a search :
> http://www.wapipedia.org/wikipedia/mobiletopic.aspx?cur_title=Agriculture
>
>
> My problem : the link provided for the wikipedia article is totally
> broken and seem to lead to random articles. And there is no contact
> link anywhere on their site.

You can get contact details from the whois record. The email address is
pshanks at megalong.com .

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Angela

body:
On 7/20/05, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> The initial edit, by an anonymous editor, seems to be a vicious
> "outing", none of it sourced. I see no reason the article and its
> history should not be removed and an apology made to Allan Jenkins.
>
> Advising someone to edit an article on themselves is not wise. Nor
> would it be wise for him to try.

Normally, I'd suggest selected deleting the problematic versions, but
since the current article is a derivative work of the first
vandalistic edit, that can't be done without violating the GFDL.
Perhaps it would be better to rewrite the article from scratch since
VfD has claimed the person notable enough for an article. Could a new
one just be formed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Jenkins/Temp
and moved to [[Allan Jenkins]] when finished?

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sam_Spade/_-_archive/Juli_2005_2#allan_jenkins
the current article contains inaccuracies since these have been kept
from the first revision even though they have no sources.

If that can't be done, perhaps correcting the article to only contain
sourced information, and telling Allan Jenkins that the history
versions are not Googlable might suffice.

Angela.


subject: [WikiEN-l] 1964 gto

body:
Skyring (skyring at gmail.com) [050718 16:14]:
> On 7/18/05, Daver5959 at aol.com <Daver5959 at aol.com> wrote:

> > i am trying to find information on all the differences between the 64 lemans
> > and gto.  i bought a 64 lemans last year and am saving up money to clone it to
> > a gto and i would like to do it correctly so everything is exactly right.  i
> > know alot of the differences, but do not know them all.  i stumbled across
> > your website and thought some one there might know.  any information would be
> > appreciated.  thanks

> Awwwright, who's the moderator who let this one through?

We get 'request for info' mails every now and then. They get let through.
Basically, mail from humans gets through.

> Then again, knowing this list, there's probably someone who knows all
> the details.

Precisely :-)

- d.


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
--- Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> The initial edit, by an anonymous editor, seems to be a vicious
> "outing", none of it sourced. I see no reason the article and its
> history should not be removed and an apology made to Allan Jenkins.

I completely agree. The article should be deleted and a stub of verified info
left in its place.

-- mav

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


body:
Doesn't matter, the article was nonsense anyway.

Fred

On Jul 20, 2005, at 3:02 AM, Dan Grey wrote:

> Are we 100% sure that e-mail is genuine? Assume good faith etc aside
> for a moment, and call me a cynic, but I'd have expected the editor of
> the Observer to be able to type and capitalize properly.
>
> Has anyone mailed the Observer e-mail address asking for confirmation
> of the original e-mail?
>
>
> Dan
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
Sounds like a good idea.

Fred

On Jul 20, 2005, at 3:54 AM, Dan Grey wrote:

> It appears someone (Fred?) has deleted the offending article and put a
> stub in place. Allan also asked me if the comment he left on Sam
> Spade's talk page could be removed.
>
>
> Dan
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Wikipedia is fun, but credibility varies a lot

body:
Below is an email I sent to the author of an article that was semi-critical of
Wikipedia. I think it illustrates the way many in academia don't get it and how
many of those are polluting the critical thinking skills of students.

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

> Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2005 06:45:27 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Wikipedia is fun, but credibility varies a lot
> To: Susan.Barnes at rit.edu
> CC: maveric149 at yahoo.com
>
> Just a note about this article
>
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050717/BUSINESS0105/507170321/1001/BUSINESS
>
>
> First, the English Wikipedia had about 640,000 articles at the time your
> article was published. Not 444,000. Second, Jimmy Wales started Wikipedia
> under the ownership of Bomis in 2001 - The Wikimedia Foundation was not
> formed until June of 2003.
>
> If your article had been published on Wikinews, then these errors would have
> been very quickly corrected before being marked for publication.
>
> This just goes to show that *all* forms of media have reliability issues.
> This also shows that media published on paper with a PhD as an author is also
> prone to obvious errors. Giving students the impression that they can trust
> that by focusing on the unreliability of web resources like Wikipedia is a
> great disservice to them. All media needs to be scrutinized by students.
>
> It is true that we sometimes discount what an expert says ; the reason is
> that we value getting it right vs blindly accepting what an expert says
> without checking.
>
> Daniel Mayer,
> A Wikipedian
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
>

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


from_name: David Campeau

subject: [Wikitech-l] namespace in new dump scheme

body:
How does one go to know what namespace is an article in the new dump scheme.
xml looks something like this:

<page>
  <title>MediaWiki:Categories</title>
  <id>1085</id>
  <restrictions>sysop</restrictions>
    <revision>
      <id>12375</id>
      <timestamp>2004-10-04T06:34:35Z</timestamp>
      <contributor><username>Transalpin</username><id>41</id></contributor>
      <text xml:space="preserve">Kategorie</text>
    </revision>
</page>

are we supposed to load the *ns0 file to know what article are in ns0? what
about the other namespace?

David Campeau