subject: [WikiEN-l] An observation

body:
Mav wrote
>Do you? We are here to build an encyclopedia. The
>community aspect is a means to an end, not an end in
>itself (and I think that was the underlying message
>that Danny was writing about).

I think so. Because the articles do not appear from no
where. They appear from a human capital that must be
mothered.

>And please consider how
>insulting it appears to put in quotes the word
>"Wikipedian" when referring to another contributor;
>in English this implies that you believe the other
>person is not a real Wikipedian. That isn't nice and
>I hope you will do the right thing and apologize to
>Danny - who /is/ a damn good and very real
Wikipedian.

That was not what I meant, so I apologize. However I
think that in Wikipedia, everyone can be part of the
big picture. And being a good wikipedian is not only
granted by being a *good editor* and a *good vandal
chaser*. If you and Danny think so, I think we
severely disagree upon how a team is working in a
project such as Wikipedia.

**If this is the case, I suggest that we discuss about
it, because that is very important.**

I think building an encyclopedia is not done only by
just creating articles.

participating in the building is also :

* helping setting the rules and recommandations
* building the software
* helping to sooth people in edit war
* balancing powers
* playing devil advocate
* cleaning after others
* welcoming newbies

and so on.

Danny seems to consider the only thing important and
valuable is making articles. I don't think so.
Everyone input is valuable, and people that are little
participating directly in articles are just as
important. Some of the developpers basically do not
write anything. Are they not important to the project
?

If people like Martin, KQ, Brion, The Cunctator, and
others of course, were not around, I would not be
around myself. Because if Brion were not there, no one
would take care of international wikipedias, if Martin
was not there, no one would take care of balancing
things, if The Cunctator was not there, no one would
take care of pointing out to obvious things being
missed because of groupthink.

And I could cite half a dozen people just doing *very*
important things in the project, that I think are even
more important than editing, because that is were
their power and ability rely.

A team (what I think we are, not a random collection
of little penpals), must be made up from very
different people, with different abilities which
complete themselves.

A project just can't work without software,
governance, structure. And yes, Zoe was important too
in her role of chasing vandals. And yes, welcoming
newbies is important too. And yes, Ed role of
insisting on NPOV is very important too.

Not only "creating" articles.

The last point I think the worse in its underlying
meaning is to suggest martin should not be a sysop,
just because he is not writing much articles.

Remind me of what a sysop definition is please,
because I think we must also perhaps redefined what a
sysop must be.

Is it granted by the number of edits you make to an
article ?

Or is it granted by the fact people are confident you
will act in faith ?

Would anyone dare suggest Martin is not acting in good
faith ? Would anyone dare suggest Martin work was more
bad to the project than good, just because he tried to
balance power, endlessly check and improved all the
FAQ and meta articles, endlessly diffusing wikilove
over those in edit wars ?

I think that saying Martin is not a good wikipedian
and should be removed from sysophood just because he
is not creating many articles, is a VERY VERY VERY bad
direction the project is taking. I am sure you can see
that as well Mav.

I also hope very much that Danny will do the right
thing as well, and apologies to Martin who is also a
very good wikipedian.

This is a case of forking we have here if these things
are not agreed upon.

Anthere

--- daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
> Hi!
>
> I am a little annoyed by Martin's recent antics,
> regarding the unblocking of
> vandals, not to mention his defense of the most
> obvious cases of extreme
> vandalism (the Zog incident comes to mind). It is
> very difficult to ban someone on
> Wikipedia--in fact, the number of permanently banned
> users I know of is just
> six (HJ, Ark, Lir, Michael, DW, Zog, some of whom
> had various incarnations).
> The ability to block an IP (and not a user name) is
> used to prevent kids from
> adding grafitti to the site. In most cases, it is
> effective, and those vandals
> disappear once it becomes more challenging to edit.
> It is not some instance of
> eternal damnation. If the person apologizes and
> begins to really contribute,
> they are welcomed back. Even in the serious bans
> above, people have been told
> that if they reform their behaviors they can return
> and continue to contribute.
> Discuss it with Jimbo and they will be welcomed
> back. Most don't because they
> have no interest in coming back.
>
> Wikipedia is a project with a stated
> objective--creating an encyclopedia. Its
> objective is not to create an ideal democratic
> society a la Martin's
> perception of one. Nor is it a dumping ground, where
> anyone can put any crap they want
> in the name of free speech. It is a place that works
> best by consensus and
> compromise--not by making abrupt decisions that this
> must be the policy, come h
> ell or high water. That is why I was opposed to
> making a final decision on the
> date format and spelling policies. Look how much
> time that wasted from the
> overriding goal, when a compromise of allowing
> people to do what they want seemed
> to be working fine for the most part. Unfortunately,
> it was Martin pushing
> that finalizing agenda again.
>
> The end result of all this is that some of the
> serious long term contributors
> have left--Zoe, for one, was one of the most
> prolific Wikipedians and a real
> defender of the project against vandalism. While
> Martin is certainly prolific
> on the Recent Changes, a quick look at his past 500
> changes show that his work
> is over 90 percent focused on users' Talk pages, and
> most of the rest on
> contentious pages, where it is bound to flame the
> fires of dispute.
>
> What I would like to see are some solid
> contributions--an article culled out
> of a Talk page does not count---before wasting our
> time with the Vandal
> Liberation Front. Instead I wonder when he was made
> a sysop whether it was to police
> it over the rest of us or to further the goal of
> creating an encyclopedia.
>
> Danny
>

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list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] A question to a "wikipedian"

body:
--- Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
> >>Danny wrote:
> >>[a long letter about some of his concerns]
> >
> >Have you understood the principles upon which
> >Wikipedia is built ?
>
> Do you? We are here to build an encyclopedia. The
> community aspect is a means to an end, not an end in
> itself (and I think that was the underlying message
> that Danny was writing about). And please consider
> how
> insulting it appears to put in quotes the word
> "Wikipedian" when referring to another contributor;
> in
> English this implies that you believe the other
> person
> is not a real Wikipedian. That isn't nice and I hope
> you will do the right thing and apologize to Danny -
> who /is/ a damn good and very real Wikipedian.
>
> See also:
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
>
> -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

Please note that I also apology to Danino privately.
May I also suggest that he does as well to Martin,
since he also suggested that Martin was not a real
wikipedian ?

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list: wikitech-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Another reason to hate Internet Explorer

body:
On Mon, 30 Jun 2003, Timwi wrote:
> This wouldn't bother me at all, if only there wasn't yet another
> (probably unrelated) bug that causes pages to finish loading later than
> necessary. Often, the connection just hangs even though all the page
> contents have actually been transfered (and Opera displays it all sans
> scrollbar), but it just waits and waits for ages before it finishes up
> the page transfer.

That's not a bug; there are a few operations (updating links and the site
stats table w/ the number of page views, etc) which are postponed until
after the page is rendered and sent down the pipe, precisely so that if
the database is stuck you'll still see the page as soon as possible. The
connection is still open because the script hasn't finished; as far as I
know there's no way in PHP to close the connection without killing the
script.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


list: textbook-l

from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Textbook-l] flash animations

body:
Karl wrote:
>IN a textbook I could see a place for some small
>flash animations, for example to represent some
>organic reactions. I poked around the site but
>found nothing definitive, except a lack of mention
>of flash usage. Could using flash animations
>in some contexts be a viable option?

Heavens no! Macromedia Flash is a proprietary software
program that users would have to install separately
from their browser. In many cases this is difficult or
impossible (thinking of Linux and other
non-MS/non-Apple OSes). Animated GIFs are much better
because they work in nearly every browser without
requiring the user to install a plug-in. But all GIFs
have possible patent issues and are therefore not a
great option either. Hopefully MNG (the animated
version of the open source PNG image format) will be
supported by IE soon (users of IE need to install a
plug-in to see these last time I checked). Heck I say
we should use MNG for the textbooks since by the time
any one textbook gets any type of attention IE will
probably be able to display MNG animations out of the
box.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Over the weekend...  (IP block status?)

body:
On Mon, 30 Jun 2003 a.crossman at blueyonder.co.uk wrote:
> Question: did the proposed blocking of IP addresses occur over the
> weekend,

Yes.

> and has it now been lifted?

No.

> I ask because things seemed quiet over the weekend, but a user in the
> last hour has displayed suspicious DW-like behaviour.

Burn the witches!!!!!!

Er, more information?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Textbook-l] flash animations

body:
Opps! I forgot the link to the Wikipedia article on
MNGs: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/MNG

-- mav

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from_name: Kurt Jansson

subject: [Wikitech-l] "Edit this section", TOC implemented

body:
Erik Moeller schrieb:
> Toby-
>
>>If by "from elsewhere", you mean ?from other articles?,
>>then am I the only one left that considers this a Bad Idea?

No.

> Call it a side effect that was difficult to avoid.

But if it can't be avoided then please don't implement it at all!

Kurt


body:
Erik Moeller schrieb:
> Kurt-
>
>>>3) Anchors for each article section (named after the section title, e.g.
>>>"External links" becomes "External_links"). So you can link to these from
>>>elsewhere.
>
>>Just to be sure, "from elsewhere" means "from elsewhere inside the same
>>article", right?
>
> From wherever you want.

But we have discussed this over and over. Please don't do it.

Kurt


subject: [Textbook-l] flash animations

body:
On Mon, 30 Jun 2003, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> Heavens no! Macromedia Flash is a proprietary software program that
> users would have to install separately from their browser.
[snip]
> Animated GIFs are much better
[snip]
> Hopefully MNG (the animated version of the open source PNG image
> format) will be supported by IE soon (users of IE need to install a
> plug-in to see these last time I checked).

MNG support has been removed from new builds of Mozilla due to maintainer
issues; many Mozilla users will also need a plug-in shortly.

Both MNG and GIF are very limited, though. They're bitmap formats (don't
scale, and filesizes can be prohibitive for a large, attractive image on
dial-up connections), and allow little-to-no interactivity.

As far as Flash; theoretically the _format_ spec is open, and at one point
I regularly used a free software Flash plugin for Netscape on Linux. I
don't know if it's still maintained, since Macromedia started putting out
a binary version of their plugin for (some) Linux/Unix versions a couple
years ago and likely squashed development momentum.

SVG with JavaScript would be open and allow for great possibilities, but
decent SVG support is much harder to find than Flash, and JavaScript
leaves open even more exciting security bugs. (As may Flash...)

Most significantly, though, no animation format is going to be fully
accessible to vision-impaired readers or conversion to the printed page.
This means that any animation we might have needs to have the same
information presented in some alternate, text/print-friendly way.

Which makes the issue somewhat moot. Those who have the appropriate
support in their browsers can make use of pretty animations; those who
don't can make use of other formats. But it' a matter of authorial
discipline to make sure that all information is available, accessible, and
gracefully degrades where support is not available. (Better to think of it
as gracefully _improving_ where extra support is available: the raw text
should be the basis, and anything more is frosting on the cake.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
On Mon, 30 Jun 2003, Kurt Jansson wrote:
[snip]
> To me this sounds frightening, and I'll leave restructuring of articles
> with anchors to others. And I guess I'm not the only one.

While I'm not very enthused about the idea of using volatile header text
as anchor names, I'm not nearly so worried about having anchors as you:

* If an anchor name changes, the link still takes you to the wrong part of
the right page, just as it does now.

* If an anchor-linked section is removed from an article and/or made into
a separate page, any anchor-links to it will fall on the old page, exactly
as they would now without the anchor link.

* Identifying pages which link to some particular anchor is no more
difficult than identifying pages which link to the page intending to point
the reader at some subsection but without being able to do it.
Programmatically it could be made much much easier, if someone cares to
make that additional feature.

Of course, maybe we *shouldn't* have pages so long that people feel
the need to anchor into them. But if we do, *AND WE DO RIGHT NOW*, is it a
crime to simplify the lives of people trying to read those pages at the
cost that, occasionally, a link might break and be no worse than it is
at present?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [WikiEN-l] Let's follow Wikipedia rules for the Gaia articles

body:
I wrote in part:

>However, we do have [[Punctuated equilibrium]].
>That's analogous to [[Evolution (Gould)]] for number of articles.
>It's analogous as far as names are concerned,
>but then those names are strawmen.

Sorry, [[Punct... eq...]] is /not/ analogous as far as names are concerned.
I left out the "not" -- there was supposed to be contrast! ^_^

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] Over the weekend... (IP block status?)

body:
On Mon, 30 Jun 2003 a.crossman at blueyonder.co.uk wrote:
> User:Janet Dayton - continuation of the theme of treating every
> sysop's every word as gospel, and proceeding upon their instructions
> to harmful effect. Also the "I think you are DW" stuff... (to
> Camembert)

Looks like DW's trying to connect from work using an old throwaway
account. How clever!

Blocked.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:

>Axel Boldt wrote:

>>Did I miss the general consensus or vote that allowed your patch in?

>I think that's not the right attitude. Techinal people should
>implement whatever may be useful, even when there are downsides,
>and consensus should be reached about policy of usage of these new features.

You're correct, but I think that some discussion may still be useful.
For example, is it possible to disable [[X#Y]] links on Wikipedia
but enable them on Wikitionary, or would this be horrid to code?
A justification for allowing these links in Wiktionary
is that Wiktionary has highly standardised header names;
they're always "English", "French", "German", "Polish", etc.
But headers in Wikipedia are unstable.

Not that this is the only possible solution,
but a few more days of discussion could help,
as long as people agree that we're working towards compromise.
In the end, I'd suggest erring on the side of too much functionality
and relying on policy to hold this back -- but that's imperfect too,
since it's hard for policy to stop people from doing what they can.
I'll advertise this on <wikipedia-L>.

I also have another technical question for Erik:
How does [[Special:Whatlinkshere]] interact with this?

-- Toby


subject: [Wikitech-l] Interlanguage links to test.wikipedia.org (Was: Another reason to hate Internet Explorer)

body:
Brion Vibber wrote in small part:

>test.wikipedia.org (There is no [[test:]])

I see what you mean.
But wouldn't that be useful, say for talk pages or [[meta:]]?

-- Toby


from_name: steve vertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] an observation

body:
I had email problems, so this wasnt posted earlier -=
like around 9am PST -- but .here it is anyway

Danny wrote
>"Wikipedia is a project with a stated
objective--creating an encyclopedia. Its objective is
not to create an ideal >democratic >society a la
Martin's perception of one. Nor is it a dumping
ground, where anyone can put any crap they want in the
name of free speech. It is a place that works best by
consensus and compromise--not by making abrupt
decisions that this must be the policy, come hell or
high water. That is why I was opposed to making a
final decision on the date format and spelling
policies. ""

>""The end result of all this is that some of the
serious long term contributors have left--Zoe, for
one, was one of the most ?>prolific Wikipedians and a
real defender of the project against vandalism. While
Martin is certainly prolific on the Recent Changes, a
quick look at his past 500 changes show that his work
is over 90 percent focused on users' Talk pages, and
most of the rest on contentious pages, where it is
bound to flame the fires of dispute.""

How does having a democratic and responsive way of
dealing with issues conflict with making an
encyclopedia? -- Do not, Danny, fall victim to the
typical assumptions and presumptions of academics.
That said, your views on the usefulness of
formalization seem to be inline with mine -- in terms
of the nonsense details.  In terms of process,
however, and conducting administrative affairs, it
seems the time is ripe to formalize under sunlight the
way things get voted on, etc.

>""What I would like to see are some solid
contributions--an article culled out of a Talk page
does not count---before >wasting our time with the
Vandal Liberation Front. Instead I wonder when he was
made a sysop whether it was to police it >over the
rest of us or to further the goal of creating an
encyclopedia.""

You are 'free to wonder, Danny, but not aloud.'  Hehe.
 Well... rather, if you make comments like the above,
the rest of us might be inclined to point out that
they are not in character for someone of your caliber,
and that they need not be addressed if they are made
as a slant, rather than as a formal complaint. In any
case, your worthy history entitles you to some
excusing.

As for Zoe (sob!) and others leaving, I might point
out that they by and large left under some stress.
The stress comes from the conflict that their personal
or institutionalized standards are not the absolute
measure here, rather it is consensus that is. If a
disagreement is met, it must be dealt with in ways
(like co-operation and respect) that some academics
seem to avoid learning.  Aside from the fact that
academics need to find non-academic hobbies, anyone
who lets themselves get too stressed on the WP will
soon enough have to face a monster of their own
making, namely that same-said stress.  This stress
comes via various factors: Severed attachment to areas
of concern, a negated sense of accomplishment when
something is changed, personality issues, and so on.

That academics eventually would call for higher
standards, to "cut out the deadwood," and "weed out
the weaklings," reflects only the fact that these
professionals failed to understand what was Wikipedias
founding spirit in the first place. Such people,
despite their vast areas of rote knowledge, tend to
have some fundamental inefficiencies that may make
them in the end, extinct.   Its kind of like the
proverbial health-food junkie who dies if he eats bad
food. Compared to the beefy, eat-anything robustness
of a typically-poor diet, that health nut is an
accident waiting to happen.  (In some situations).
The WP wont be obsolete, because it will be what it
is.  If Jim decided, say, to rename the WP, "Nupedia"
-- saying "this henceforth a peer-reviewed thing," --
it will make no difference. It will still be the
stagnant and dying Nupedia, regardless of how many
articles it got via Wikipedic means.

Zoe, ironically, seemed to be non-academic enough to
qualify as being among the robust, but then she took
it upon herself to be the top-cop, the Ken Starr
chasing Clinton, and of course, like Starr, some of
the methods, words and tactics Zoe chose tended to
make some skeptical of her intent.  And besides, how
do we know she's just not hanging out at the beach
more often?   The WP is nice for stay at home dads and
IT dungeon keepers, but for others the appeal of a
topical argument stands short against the realization
that life in front of a screen is a bad habit at best.

So in short, I take issue with you, Danny, when you
confuse the issues you presented, with the altogether
different phenomenon of the changing guard.

Get well soon, all
-Steve

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body:
| >Toby: (Of course, RK also gave a false vandalism
alert for
| > an edit war,
| > so he automatically loses it by my standards. ^_^)
| > -- Toby

Hehe.

|Anthere: I fear I could be expecting to be a "troll"
again very
| soon :-(
| I was apparently not offered the truce some
suggested.
|  I think the the phrase "Gaia theory" does not refer
| exclusively to a scientific thoery.
| Thank you to those of you morally supporting me :-)

Well, it was nothing. Thank you for keeping your
composure, as it made
it easier for us to discern the smoke from the real
thing. The issue of
whether these articles are properly organized, as I
see it, are far less
important
than the issue of people treating others with distaste
and accusation.

So, regardless of that particular situation, ( I think
Robert had a point)
you should
never feel intimidated or forced into positions that
require you to
compromise your
dignity.  Those who make attempts to cause you feel
that way are to be
looked upon with
some distaste, if not moderated by sanction.

Best.
-Steve

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from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] an observation

body:
steve vertigo wrote:

  "the appeal of a topical argument stands short against the
   realization that life in front of a screen is a bad habit at best."

[[Heresy]]!  [[Execution by burning|Buuurrrnnn]] the unbeliever!

:-)

Stan


from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

subject: [Textbook-l] RE: vandals, signin, linearity

body:
On Mon, Jun 30, 2003 at 08:28:27AM -0700, Karl Wick wrote:
> If the main reason to have a required sign-in for page
> editing is to fight against vandals, is there another
> solution that would have the same benefits without the
> drawbacks ? The idea springs to mind to have a quick
> administrative function to revert to earlier page versions.
> It sounds like currently it is a hassle to revert
> vandalized pages. Is this true ? Would it be possible and
> reasonable to develop a one-click page revert function for
> admins ?

We already have this.


from_name: Richard Grevers

body:
On Sun, 29 Jun 2003 21:30:47 -0700, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> gave
utterance to the following:

> For quite some time, we've been outputting HTML pages with a half-doctype
> declaration, with no DTD specified:
>
> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
>
> Browsers interpret such a doctype as not quite reliable, and render pages
> in so-called "quirks" mode for backwards compatibility with the parsing
> and rendering bugs of earlier versions. It's been occasionally suggested
> that it's superior to include also a URL to the DTD, which will put
> browsers into a stricter, standards-compliant mode:
>
> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
> "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
>
> A couple days ago I slipped this in. All well and good in Mozilla, but in
> Internet Explorer 6.0 (I haven't tried 5.x) this triggers a selection
> bug, such that trying to select text with the mouse selects everything
> from the beginning of the document to the point where you've got the
> mouse, instead of the portion of text you're dragging over. Not very
> helpful.
>
> Since, unfortunately, a lot of people use this dreadful program, and this
> is a _really_ annoying browser bug, I've temporarily taken the DTD
> reference back out, so we're back to quirks mode, where selection works.
>
I don't use MSIE for anything other than checking pages to see how many
hacks I have to work in to make IE behave, but in all of my time reading
HTML groups and forums where the standard advice is to use a fully-
qualified DTD, I have never heard mention of such a bug. Are you sure that
there isn't some other markup error in the Wikipedia pages which is
combining to create the effect in IE?

--
Richard Grevers
Women are like watches: The finer the movement the better the time


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
Toby-
> I suggest disabling intrawiki links of the form [[X#Y]] (but not [[#Y]]),
> for the reasons that may be found in past discussions.

Yes, we can do that. I'd like to have a general consensus on the matter,
though. Heh, just kidding. But we should have a vote first. Several people
have requested this functionality.

Regards,

Erik


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] "Edit this section", TOC implemented

body:
On 6/30/03 5:05 PM, "Erik Moeller" <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:

> Kurt-
>
> maybe that's a silly question, but why don't we define a policy on
> interpage-anchor-linking? There may be a few instances in which it is
> useful (FAQ? link to "External links" section, which is always titled the
> same anyway?) without any drawbacks.
>
This whole discussion REALLY should be taking place on the wikipedia-l list.

Unilateral, unilateral.


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] "Edit this section", TOC
	implemented

body:
On 6/30/03 6:25 PM, "Erik Moeller" <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:

> Cunc-
>>> Kurt-
>>>
>>> maybe that's a silly question, but why don't we define a policy on
>>> interpage-anchor-linking? There may be a few instances in which it is
>>> useful (FAQ? link to "External links" section, which is always titled the
>>> same anyway?) without any drawbacks.
>>>
>> This whole discussion REALLY should be taking place on the wikipedia-l list.
>
> It will, once people can actually try out the feature. Until then, moving
> it there makes little sense. It's not even on test.wikipedia.org yet.
>
> But hey, nothing like stirring up things a little, eh?
>
If the discussion were purely technical, then yes.

But the discussion is not.

This isn't about stirring things up. It's about opening the discussion to
the appropriate forum.


from_name: Robert

subject: [WikiEN-l] Response to Anthere's claims

body:
I need to reply to Anthere's statements. First off, the
issue has never been about how many Gaia titled articles
that Anthere personally created. At least six Gaia articles
already exist, and frankly, I don't care who authored
these.  So please stop acting as if this is an issue.

Anthere writes:
> When Royal We decided all articles should be united
> in one, some merged were done, resulting in three
> articles.

Whoa...Anthere has been refusing to do merging, and has
repeatedly mass reverted many attempts to do merging.
Anthere is even pushing science dicussions (on Gaia theory)
into an article an the Greek goddess Gaia.

Now, if Anthere wishes to defend her refusal to merge
articles, that's her perogative. But to present *my*
position as her own (I am the one who is trying to merge),
and to gloss over the fact that she is preventing such
merging, is quite misleading.

Anthere writes:
> Unlike what Royal We claims, I was *not* the author of
>  these moves, nor of the new names proposed."

Sigh. This is not my point, and she is wasting our time
attacking a position I couldn't care less about.

Anthere writes:
> He is currently suggesting that we move away the
> general article, to replace it with the content of the
> scientific one. This is very wrong. This is wrong
> because there is more to the Gaia theories than just
> *science*.

This is just not so. Look, among English speakers, people
who look up encyclopaedia entries on Gaia theory are
usually looking for information on theories about how life
on Earth may regulate the Earth itself to make it more
hospitable for life.

Most English speakers generally are not using this title to
look for information on pre-1900s mystics (who *never* used
the name Gaia theory), nor are they looking for info on
radical European left-wing political acitivists (i.e. the
Gaiains).  If someone wants to link to articles on those
topics, fine: We already have a working convention for
this.  We can create a disambiguation page, or use "See
also".  This is a convention that all of us have
successfully used in the past; why now are so many people
dead set against it?

Anthere writes:
> And that is no reason to disperse all the
> non-scientific points in other articles to keep just
> the scientific point. I think that here, that is the
> scientism of User Royal We that makes him try to push
> away all non-scientific points away. This is bad.

I do not like it when people make accusations of
"scientism".  It is a perjorative word, used to demean and
insult.  (Anthere's charge, by the way, is false.  I am not
an adherent of "scientism". Frankly, I have never met
*anyone* who is.)

Also, I have never tried to prevent these non-scientific
points of view from being presented.  Ever.  Her claims to
the contrary are bizarre and baseless.  In fact, I have
stated publicly time and again that do *not* have a problem
with Wikipedia presenting these views.  I just wish to
disntinguish them from scientific theories. Ok?
(Sigh...Why do some people seem to believe otherwise? Such
beliefs are certainly not based on anything I have
written.)

Anthere writes:
> For this reason, I think keeping the scientific
> theories *apart* from other perspectives is a best
> choice, to avoid mixing scientific perspectives from
others.

How can she claim this?  After all, this is precisely what
I have been saying all along! I am confused as to how she
could claim otherwise.

Anthere writes:
> The second point : the most famous of all Gaia
> theories is Lovelock Hypothesis. Mind you, this is
> under this name I believe it is most well-known. This
> is not a crazy suggestion of mine to call it that way.
> This is what can be read in articles on the topic, as
> well as in Lovelock book. Suffice it to read a bit
> litterature on the topic to realise that.

I am astonished at seeing so many misleading claims. I have
*never* denied that James Lovelock refers to his idea as
the Gaia hypothesis.  Ever. I have never tried to prevent
this from being stated in Wikipedia articles, ever.

Anthere writes:
> I think that since it is the most famous theory, that
> is in fact the one most readers will look for, when
> searching information on the topic. For this reason, I
> believe it is a good idea to have an article named
> "Gaia Hypothesis". It is likely the name under which
> they know this theory, I would say it would be
> confusing to redirect them in a more general article
> dealing with every aspect of scientific views of the
> Gaia topics. I am just trying to avoid losing them
> here.

Um, twenty years ago, when only one person was writing
about this in science books, that might have been true. But
today that positions is totally misleading!  Many parts of
the Gaia hypothesis (also called the Gaia theory by
scientists) are now accepted (to one degree or another) by
many scientists.  When people do research on this issue,
they usually do _not_ want to find out the views of only
one person, from 20 years ago. They want to learn about the
entire topic.

Consider Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity.
At the time he developed this theory, when people wanted to
learn about it, they read Albert Einstein's papers. Simple,
right?  But today if someone wants to learn about general
relativity, it would be grossly misleading to refer them
*only* to Albert Einstein's work!  Relativity has been
accepted by physicists in general, many other scientists
have contributed greatly to this subject, and others have
created a number of potential extensions to it.

Look, my position is very simple: When people search for
articles on General Relativity, they should find a general
article on this subject.  Specific sub-topics within an
article can and should be split off into their own page.
For instance, we can and should have an article on how
Einstein developed the theory of general relativity; an
article with a detailed mathematical treatement of it; an
article on preposed extensions to it; etc.

I have always agreed with you that there should be a
general article on the topic of the Gaia hypothesis (or
Gaia theory, use what name you like.), and that there can
be other articles with more specialized information.  I
just am confused about your unwillingness to understand
this, and am perterbed by your mispresentation of my views.

Anthere sarcastically writes:
> Yes. You are right. I entirely made up the "Gaia
> Hypothesis"  name. All the 12500 references to that name
> on google..

This is too much. I can't imagine why Anthere is doing
this.  I have never implied that Anthere made up this term.
 I have, on the other hand, pointed out that Anthere's
*useage* of many of this term is confusing, and needs to be
standardized. But why is she repeatedly attacking
statements I have never made?

Attributing false positions to fellow Wikipedians, and then
publicly lambasting them for non-existent view is a serious
violation of our code of ethics, and an impediment to our
working together.  Please stop such behaviour.

Anther writes:
> Here is where you are uncovering you. For the past month,

> Royal We has been trying to remove anything *not* about
science on the topic.

Not true. I have only been trying to distinguish science
from mysticism and politics. Again, please stop attributing
positions to me that I do not have.  You are seriously
confused, if not deliberately insulting.

Robert (RK)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
http://sbc.yahoo.com


references: <3EFFBCF7.9050505@pobox.com> <oprrkf8lmjzs1r4a@localhost> <3EFFD9CF.8030805@pobox.com> <3EFFE1B8.40805@pobox.com>

body:
On Mon, 30 Jun 2003 00:07:36 -0700, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> gave
utterance to the following:

>> Richard Grevers wrote:
>>
>>> I don't use MSIE for anything other than checking pages to see how many
>>> hacks I have to work in to make IE behave, but in all of my time
>>> reading HTML groups and forums where the standard advice is to use a
>>> fully-qualified DTD, I have never heard mention of such a bug. Are you
>>> sure that there isn't some other markup error in the Wikipedia pages
>>> which is combining to create the effect in IE?
>>
> Here's a minimal test case:
>
> http://leuksman.com/misc/with-dtd.html
> http://leuksman.com/misc/without-dtd.html
>
> It's got a single <div> with the style 'position: absolute' applied.
>
Hmm, I get the opposite effect (with the standards-mode DTD it selects
everything between the cursor and the end of the document!)

I've never looked closely at the wikipedia markup - does it have everything
positioned?
What seems to be happening  is that because there is no content in the
general flow of the page, the body ends right at the top. THis can be
illustrated with the standards version of your test file by adding a single
<p> with a line of text following but outside the positioned div. The text
will overlap - don't worry about that for now, but notice that selection is
normal when you are in the first line of the positioned div and problematic
below that (below the end of body).

Layouts where every element is positioned seldom work smoothly, and I'm
sure this can be done more tidily by other means.
I'd be happy to investigate but am in the middle of moving house 700km
away, so it will be a fortnight before I can get to it.

--
Richard Grevers
Women are like watches: The finer the movement the better the time


from_name: a.crossman at blueyonder.co.uk

body:
Question: did the proposed blocking of IP addresses occur over the
weekend, and has it now been lifted?

I ask because things seemed quiet over the weekend, but a user in the
last hour has displayed suspicious DW-like behaviour.

Evercat
--
Allan Crossman
a.crossman at blueyonder.co.uk
http://dogma.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk


from_name: martin at myreddice.freeserve.co.uk

subject: [WikiEN-l] re: An observation

body:
Hi folks.

Firstly, I would like to thank Danny. Despite your annoyance at my actions, and your
concern for the wellbeing of Wikipedia, you were polite and calm in your criticism.
Criticism is often a bitter pill to swallow, but you were a perfect gentleman, and I
genuinely appreciate that.

Secondly, I have been informed that some may feel that I am accusing Jimbo
Wales, or Wikipedians generally, of hypocricy, regarding my comments on whether
these lists are "unmoderated". I did not mean to imply any such thing, and, for the
record I do not think that any of you are hypocritical. I *did* have a point behind my
post, but it is not important, so I am happy to completely retract it. I apologise for the
offence my careless choice of words has caused.

Thirdly, I should note that my sysop powers were the result of a fairly informal
decision by Ed Poor, rather than the general acclamation that has greeted recent
sysops. As such I feel somewhat lacking in democratic accountability! :) While I wish
to retain my deletion and undeletion powers solely for the purpose of merging page
histories or moving page titles, I would like to announce here that I will no longer
take any other sysop-restricted actions, until further notice. I hope you can all trust
me to keep my word on this matter.

Finally, I'm currently discussing this matter privately with Danny and other interested
parties. If you have any feedback, positive or negative (especially negative feedback
that is as polite and well-reasoned as Danny's), then I would be deleted to hear from
any of you. In particular, I would like to hear from Jtdirl, who I have much respect
for, despite our diametrically opposed views. My email adress is
wikipedia at myreddice.co.uk.

-Martin "MyRedDice" Harper


references: <3EFFBCF7.9050505@pobox.com> <oprrkf8lmjzs1r4a@localhost> <3EFFD9CF.8030805@pobox.com> <3EFFE1B8.40805@pobox.com> <oprrkmethrzs1r4a@localhost> <3EFFF857.7080702@pobox.com>

body:
On Mon, 30 Jun 2003 01:44:07 -0700, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> gave
utterance to the following:

> I've gone ahead and made the switch. We've got our doctype & DTD back,
> and with non-absolutely-positioned content, IE's selection bug seems to
> go away.
>
> So hopefully it won't turn out that there was a good reason for the
> absolute positioning that I've just broken. ;)
>
>> What seems to be happening  is that because there is no content in the
>> general flow of the page, the body ends right at the top.
>
> ARRRRGHHHH! That's no excuse not to select text that it's willing to
> show, though... :)
>
>> Layouts where every element is positioned seldom work smoothly, and I'm
>> sure this can be done more tidily by other means.
>
> Yeah, well they *should* work dammit! :)
>
You want to see the fun and games once you introduce draggable, resizable
floating elements via DOM! In some browsers dragging also selects the text
beneath the mouse.

--
Richard Grevers
Women are like watches: The finer the movement the better the time


body:
On Mon, Jun 30, 2003 at 10:57:26AM -0700, Axel Boldt wrote:
> --- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> > Toby-
>
> > > I suggest disabling intrawiki links of the form [[X#Y]] (but not
> > > [[#Y]]), for the reasons that may be found in past discussions.
> >
> > Yes, we can do that. I'd like to have a general consensus on the
> > matter, though. Heh, just kidding. But we should have a vote first.
> > Several people have requested this functionality.
>
> Did I miss the general consensus or vote that allowed your patch in?
>
> I am against inter-article anchor links because they make the rewriting
> and refactoring of long articles much harder, yet that will soon be the
> most important if not most common activity on Wikipedia.

I think that's not the right attitude. Techinal people should
implement whatever may be useful, even when there are downsides,
and consensus should be reached about policy of usage of these new features.
This consensus may be different for different Wikipedias, and almost for sure
it will be different for Wiktionary (where there are standard anchor targets
"X Language" and multipart articles). That way every wiki has what it wants.
Mixing policy issues with technical issues enforces views of majority on
everyone else, even if different projects have drastically different needs.


from_name: Timwi

body:
> A couple days ago I slipped this in. All well and good in Mozilla, but
> in Internet Explorer 6.0 (I haven't tried 5.x) this triggers a
> selection bug, such that trying to select text with the mouse selects
> everything from the beginning of the document to the point where
> you've got the mouse, instead of the portion of text you're dragging
> over.

It might be helpful if I point out that I've always seen this weird
selection behaviour on Opera 6.05 for Windows, but only while the page
is loading. While it's loading, it also does not display scrollbars or
let me scroll with the keyboard.

This wouldn't bother me at all, if only there wasn't yet another
(probably unrelated) bug that causes pages to finish loading later than
necessary. Often, the connection just hangs even though all the page
contents have actually been transfered (and Opera displays it all sans
scrollbar), but it just waits and waits for ages before it finishes up
the page transfer.

(P.S. I'm aware there is a newer version of Opera, but it has even more
bugs and I generally don't like it, so I'll stick with 6.05 for the time
being.)

Greetings,
Timwi


from_name: Paul Ebermann

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Another reason to hate Internet Explorer

body:
"Brion Vibber" skribis:

> > Richard Grevers wrote:
> >
> >> I don't use MSIE for anything other than checking pages to see how
> >> many hacks I have to work in to make IE behave, but in all of my time
> >> reading HTML groups and forums where the standard advice is to use a
> >> fully- qualified DTD, I have never heard mention of such a bug. Are
> >> you sure that there isn't some other markup error in the Wikipedia
> >> pages which is combining to create the effect in IE?
> >
> Here's a minimal test case:
>
> http://leuksman.com/misc/with-dtd.html
> http://leuksman.com/misc/without-dtd.html
>
> It's got a single <div> with the style 'position: absolute' applied.

No problems with IE 5.50.4807.2300IS ...

Paul


body:
Timwi schrieb:

> This wouldn't bother me at all, if only there wasn't yet another
> (probably unrelated) bug that causes pages to finish loading later than
> necessary. Often, the connection just hangs even though all the page
> contents have actually been transfered (and Opera displays it all sans
> scrollbar), but it just waits and waits for ages before it finishes up
> the page transfer.

I also experience this sometimes, but not often. For a few minutes every
new page I open it loaded, but the transfer doesn't stop. (Mozilla/5.0
(Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; de-AT; rv:1.3) Gecko/20030312)

Kurt


body:
Axel-
> Did I miss the general consensus or vote that allowed your patch in?

I have already explained this, but I will gladly explain it again: My
patch did not change the linking behavior. All it did was add automatic
anchors to headlines, not because I wanted to allow interpage-anchor-
linking, but to implement a table of contents that is shown on top of long
articles (more than three headings). This was suggested here before by
precisely the people who *opposed* interpage-anchor-linking. Unfortunately
or not, by having anchors in the page for the TOC, it is now possible to
link to these anchors from other pages as well. The code for doing so was
already there, apparently since the first version of Wikipedia Phase III.
If it is to be taken out, that should be discussed first.

Regards,

Erik


body:
Brion writes:

> Evercat writes:
>
>> Question: did the proposed blocking of IP addresses occur over the
>> weekend,
>
> Yes.
>
>> and has it now been lifted?
>
> No.
>
>> I ask because things seemed quiet over the weekend, but a user in
>> the last hour has displayed suspicious DW-like behaviour.
>
> Er, more information?

User:Janet Dayton - continuation of the theme of treating every
sysop's every word as gospel, and proceeding upon their instructions
to harmful effect. Also the "I think you are DW" stuff... (to
Camembert)

Contributions here:
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&targ
et=Janet_Dayton

--
Allan Crossman
a.crossman at blueyonder.co.uk
http://dogma.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk


body:
--- steve vertigo <utilitymuffinresearch at yahoo.com>
wrote:
> So, regardless of that particular situation, ( I
> think
> Robert had a point)
> you should
> never feel intimidated or forced into positions that
> require you to
> compromise your
> dignity.  Those who make attempts to cause you feel
> that way are to be
> looked upon with
> some distaste, if not moderated by sanction.
>
> Best.
> -Steve

I'll be frank Steve.

RK has the intend to merge all Gaia article into only
one, then to keep only what is scientific in the
article (ie Margulis and Lovelock), and to avoid the
accusation of text destruction, he intends either
* to create again some new articles where he would put
what he considers old and irrelevant stuff (such as
Gaia theories (precedents) - making the claim
unification in one article in the only way, a joke
* to disperse every old and irrelevant stuff to other
articles where frankly they will get lost (such as the
non scientific view of these theories)

I think it is wrong for all the reasons I have
previously mentionned. Gaia theories is not only about
science, and it is not because a theory was set more
than 50 years ago that it is irrelevant.

I notice you mention RK has a point. But which point
do you mean ? Do you think he has a point when
suggesting to delete and redirect the Gaia Hypothesis
article ? Do you think he has a point in removing
everything that it out of scientific acceptance ? That
is a very different point.

I am very strongly against the second. I don't think
either that RK and I will ever solve that disagreement
because RK decided that any real discussion with me
was useless.

I would have appreciated that someone help us decide
what to do and given good arguments that would make
weight. Because all what I offered is just not
listened too. And all what I get in terms of
discussion is bullshit. Sample : the last email RK
sent and
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Gaia_theory&diff=0&oldid=0

Now, since no discussion is humanly possible between
the two of us, and if no one is helping us here, we
will just enter in an ugly cycle of edition/reversion
till one dies or go on holiday (after which point we
can resume).

This is a very sad way to spent time. But so be it.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
http://sbc.yahoo.com


body:
Erik Moeller schrieb:

> The code for doing so was
> already there, apparently since the first version of Wikipedia Phase III.
> If it is to be taken out, that should be discussed first.

But it has been, over and over and also right after LDC implemented it.
He said he wouldn't activate it, but it seem it hast activated itself.
I can't find the old mails through google. Why isn't our archive
searchable? Dammit, let's put an advertisement on /. and k5, "Wp needs
more programers!" or something like that. :-)

Kurt


body:
Just for the record

Since Royal We and I are not able to directly discuss
using words, I proposed that we discuss uniquely
through edition/reversion.

Everything I agree with, I keep. Everything I don't
agree with, I revert. Words are useless, and acts will
speak by themselves. If anyone is interested in the
topic, that might be different. But as long as it is
only he and I, it is not worth and not good to spent
useless time in fruitless discussions. This is an
adaptation for our personality types. :-)

Anthere

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
http://sbc.yahoo.com


body:
Kurt-

maybe that's a silly question, but why don't we define a policy on
interpage-anchor-linking? There may be a few instances in which it is
useful (FAQ? link to "External links" section, which is always titled the
same anyway?) without any drawbacks.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Thomas Corell

body:
Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 30, 2003 at 10:57:26AM -0700, Axel Boldt wrote:
>
> I think that's not the right attitude. Techinal people should
> implement whatever may be useful, even when there are downsides,
> and consensus should be reached about policy of usage of these new features.
> This consensus may be different for different Wikipedias, and almost for sure
> it will be different for Wiktionary (where there are standard anchor targets
> "X Language" and multipart articles). That way every wiki has what it wants.
> Mixing policy issues with technical issues enforces views of majority on
> everyone else, even if different projects have drastically different needs.

Unfortunalty, everytime someone say something like: have a different
default skin, someother say's: not without consens over all wikipedias. Can
you imagine thier reactions on your proposal?

There seems to be no way of 'every wiki get's what it wants' -- theres only
one solution possible for all wikipedias -  unfortunatly.

--
Smurf

smurf at AdamAnt.mud.de
-------------------------  Anthill inside! ---------------------------


body:
Kurt Jansson wrote:

> But it has been, over and over and also right after LDC implemented it.
> He said he wouldn't activate it, but it seem it hast activated itself.
> I can't find the old mails through google. Why isn't our archive
> searchable? Dammit, let's put an advertisement on /. and k5, "Wp needs
> more programers!" or something like that. :-)

More programers to produce more code waiting in the CVS for better days?
Try to think about your suggestion again.

--
Smurf

smurf at AdamAnt.mud.de
-------------------------  Anthill inside! ---------------------------


body:
Richard Grevers schrieb:
>> But we have discussed this over and over. Please don't do it.
>
> Without reaching consensus. It's a feature I very much want. Remember -
> the number of "views" of an article will probably outnumber the number
> of edits by 100 to 1. Isn't a little bit of inconvenience for editors
> outweighed by a lot of convenience for readers who aren't editing?

But we're not talking about "a little bit of inconvenience", but about
* a which-articles-link-to-this-anchor feature (so you know which
articles to change after restructuring)
(* this might be easier by some kind of Redirect for anchors that aren't
used anymore)
* a most-wanted-anchor feature (to keep track of articles that lead to
deleted anchors)

To me this sounds frightening, and I'll leave restructuring of articles
with anchors to others. And I guess I'm not the only one.

Kurt


body:
Erik Moeller schrieb:
> Kurt-
>
> maybe that's a silly question, but why don't we define a policy on
> interpage-anchor-linking? There may be a few instances in which it is
> useful (FAQ? link to "External links" section, which is always titled the
> same anyway?) without any drawbacks.

Or we could handle them like subpages and only allow them in non-article
namespaces.
Either way I'll have to explain to newbies why they can't/shouldn't be
used in articles. But okay, if everybody can agree on this.

Kurt


body:
Brion Vibber schrieb:
> While I'm not very enthused about the idea of using volatile header text
> as anchor names, I'm not nearly so worried about having anchors as you:

Sorry if I seem a bit heated - I'm not :-)

> Of course, maybe we *shouldn't* have pages so long that people feel
> the need to anchor into them. But if we do, *AND WE DO RIGHT NOW*, is it a
> crime to simplify the lives of people trying to read those pages at the
> cost that, occasionally, a link might break and be no worse than it is
> at present?

Okay, I'm still sure that we'll end up in a complete mess (or loose much
time to keep everything tidy, or maybe both), but I won't argue against
it anymore. I'll just bookmark a link to this mail and wait some months
... :-)

Kurt


body:
Toby-
> I also have another technical question for Erik:
> How does [[Special:Whatlinkshere]] interact with this?

It simply shows the links to the page, without the anchor. But the anchors
don't break Special:Whatlinkshere.

Regards,

Erik


body:
Cunc-
>> Kurt-
>>
>> maybe that's a silly question, but why don't we define a policy on
>> interpage-anchor-linking? There may be a few instances in which it is
>> useful (FAQ? link to "External links" section, which is always titled the
>> same anyway?) without any drawbacks.
>>
> This whole discussion REALLY should be taking place on the wikipedia-l list.

It will, once people can actually try out the feature. Until then, moving
it there makes little sense. It's not even on test.wikipedia.org yet.

But hey, nothing like stirring up things a little, eh?

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Textbook-l] flash animations

body:
On Mon, Jun 30, 2003 at 01:24:04PM -0700, Karl Wick wrote:
> IN a textbook I could see a place for some small flash
> animations, for example to represent some organic
> reactions. I poked around the site but found nothing
> difinitive, except a lack of mention of flash usage. Could
> using flash animations in some contexts be a viable option

That's horribly proprietary, and completely unacceptable because of it.
Better make some animated gif.


body:
> You should at least go to 6.06 - security fix (a real rarity for Opera
> to need one!).

Thank you! I didn't know there was one. Downloading now.

Greetings,
Timwi


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] an observation

in_reply_to: <20030630222725.13966.qmail@web11501.mail.yahoo.com>; from utilitymuffinresearch@yahoo.com on Mon, Jun 30, 2003 at 03:27:25PM -0700

body:
steve vertigo wrote:
> How does having a democratic and responsive way of
> dealing with issues conflict with making an
> encyclopedia?

It doesn't, generally, although I think we can all agree that there is
sometimes tension between ideals of openness and ideals of quality in
the encyclopedia.  We have to deal with these friction points
thoughtfully and 'conservatively' in the sense of working to adapt our
policies over time, but cautiously, so as not to follow the fad of the
month.

What will naturally happen is that we will tend to fall at different
points along a spectrum, but as long as we all recognize that
reasonable people can differ, we're already a long way down the road
to finding mutually satisfactory solutions.

Steve isn't the first person to recommend a formalization of the way
some things happen, and I'll be thinking and writing more about that
in the next few weeks.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Anthere's admission she will be engaging in edit wars

body:
Anthere,

I am sad to see Anthere's unilateral declariation of an
edit war. I further saddened to see her unilateral demand
that we MUST refer to her favored mystical and political
views as "gaia theory", despite the fact that English
speakers DO NOT use her odd and unusual terminology. She
has now made clear that we English speakers can go fuck
ourselves, because she doesn't give a damn about truth or
about standard useage.

Her public declaration is tantamount to admitting
vandalism. You have now seen this for yourselves.  Since no
here has commented, am I correct in assuming that you now
believe that her unilateral declarations of edit wars is
appropriate behaviour?  No one here has objected!

I am saddened by the lack of honesty and professionalism I
am seeing on this list.

Robert (RK)

=====
"I prefer a wicked person who knows he is wicked, to a righteous person who knows he is righteous".
The Seer of Lublin [Jacob Isaac Ha-Hozeh Mi-Lublin, 1745-1815]

__________________________________
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Academics (Was: an observation)

body:
steve vertigo wrote in part:

>Do not, Danny, fall victim to the
>typical assumptions and presumptions of academics.

>If a
>disagreement is met, it must be dealt with in ways
>(like co-operation and respect) that some academics
>seem to avoid learning.

>That academics eventually would call for higher
>standards, to "cut out the deadwood," and "weed out
>the weaklings," reflects only the fact that these
>professionals failed to understand what was Wikipedias
>founding spirit in the first place. Such people,
>despite their vast areas of rote knowledge, tend to
>have some fundamental inefficiencies that may make
>them in the end, extinct.

>Zoe, ironically, seemed to be non-academic enough to
>qualify as being among the robust,

I think that it's time for me,
as an academic that has had few conflicts with Stevertigo,
to ask, what in the world are you talking about???

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] Response to Anthere's claims

body:
RK wrote in part:

>Anthere wrote:

>>And that is no reason to disperse all the
>>non-scientific points in other articles to keep just
>>the scientific point. I think that here, that is the
>>scientism of User Royal We that makes him try to push
>>away all non-scientific points away. This is bad.

>I do not like it when people make accusations of
>"scientism".  It is a perjorative word, used to demean and
>insult.  (Anthere's charge, by the way, is false.  I am not
>an adherent of "scientism". Frankly, I have never met
>*anyone* who is.)

Back during the conflicts over [[Knowledge]],
I discussed the controversies there and in the Gaia articles
with a friend of mine (a fellow mathematics student).
What I said gave him a negative impression of RK,
which should be no surprise since I was sympathetic
to his opponents in those cases.
But I discussed only what he said and did,
never what other people had said /about/ him.
I certainly never mentioned scientism.
Yet my friend's first response was
"Sounds like scientism."  (More below.)

>Also, I have never tried to prevent these non-scientific
>points of view from being presented.  Ever.  Her claims to
>the contrary are bizarre and baseless.

Of course, Anth?re above did not say that.
I'd say that you like to make science
(or philosophy in the tradition of Artistotle,
in the case of the [[Knowledge]] debate)
the core of any article that it impinges upon,
reserving other considerations for the fringes.
You also insist that science is the only (or best) judge of truth
and seem to want Wikipedia to reflect this POV.
(I say this despite my own sympathy for that POV.)
This agrees with Anth?re's text above.

Now, this may or may not be what "scientism" means.
It fits with what my friend said, and with what EofT said,
but it doesn't have much to do with what's on [[Scientism]].

-- Toby


body:
Anth?re wrote:

>Just for the record

>Since Royal We and I are not able to directly discuss
>using words, I proposed that we discuss uniquely
>through edition/reversion.

>Everything I agree with, I keep. Everything I don't
>agree with, I revert. Words are useless, and acts will
>speak by themselves. If anyone is interested in the
>topic, that might be different. But as long as it is
>only he and I, it is not worth and not good to spent
>useless time in fruitless discussions. This is an
>adaptation for our personality types. :-)

I don't think that this is a very helpful strategy.
You and RK aren't the only persons working on these pages;
it might be best if both of you stayed away for a while.
Certainly edit wars, alone, are not useful,
and there's a big difference between saying
that you're unable to discuss things with your opponent
and saying that you're no longer going to even try.

You know, Ed Poor could be a big help here.

-- Toby


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Let's follow Wikipedia rules for the Gaia  articles

body:
Vicki Rosenzweig <vr at redbird.org> wrote:
At 11:03 PM 6/30/03 -0700, Anthere wrote:
>Just for the record
>
>Since Royal We and I are not able to directly discuss
>using words, I proposed that we discuss uniquely
>through edition/reversion.

You might do better discussing things if you addressed
people by their actual names. The "royal we" is, in English,
also considered appropriate for use by editors.

Ah ? Then sorry. We probably do not have the same definition of Royal We then. I used it because most of the time Robert is saying "we have been" when only referring to him or "we think" when only expressing his opinion. I shall stop then but will personnaly go on talking to me at the first person. As it should be in english. :-)

>Everything I agree with, I keep. Everything I don't
>agree with, I revert. Words are useless, and acts will
>speak by themselves.

If you believe words are useless, why are you working on
an encyclopedia? This isn't just you and RK: the point, I
hope, is to create something that will be useful for people
who want to read it.

> If anyone is interested in the
>topic, that might be different.

I am interested, as, I assume, are others. What I'm not
interested in is listening to the two of you talk past each
other on this list.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org

but then, what do you suggest that I do?????

Seriously.

Are there people here that would say that I refused to talk to them on talk pages ? That I refused all their propositions and reverted their changes all the time without any explanation ? That I made changes without any consideration to other people opinions ? I am serious here. Are they ? I might be a pain quite often, but I don't think I did such a thing.

Really, what do you suggest me to do when whatever what I say to Robert, he is turning it entirely in a fallacious argument. If you have read his arguments and his emails commenting mines, what do you suggest I do ? Do you really consider he is discussing ? Do you think this is constructive or destructive discussion ? Do you think it is useful that we are spending so much time for that amount of uselessness ? Do you think we are building an interesting encyclopedia while we exchange such nice comments to each other ?

I am ready to listen to suggestions here. Whatever suggestion. I am waiting for your help please. Because in truth, I am damn near leaving the english project, and that is *precisely* what RK is waiting for. So if you feel like helping, I recommand you do, because very soon, there will be no help to provide. Either I leave now, or I will revert so much that you will all decide to ban me. I expressed my opinion, I tried to give arguments, several times. So what ?

I think I am plaguing this mailing list often for you all to be convinced I love talking and discussing. RK on the opposite is on this list only to comment the contributors who annoy him. Nothing else. But I doubt not he also loves discussing. So what about suggesting him to go discussing with somebody else? But this is not the point. A little bit of fallacy using is also fine by me. But there are limits. When a discussion is 100% fallacies, entirely empty shell, I think we are losing our time. At least I am losing mine. And yes, I also think that RK is also losing his, because if he is still around in spite of his agressivity, he is probably considered a very good contributor. etter than me

I am certainly losing my time admiring the empty discussion of RK instead of writing stuff I want to write. Is it acceptable that some contributors are driving away other contributors just by drowning them under tons of meaningless arguments ? Then is it okay that I refuse to go on with meaning less discussion to try to alert people, and then be said *I* am not having the right behavior ? Is it acceptable that Robert refuse to answer my questions and to acknowledge my position, but instead keeps claiming I should not be there if I understand nothing and write poorly ?

Is it acceptable that each time he says "black" and I answer "white", he then claim "I never said I did not agree with white. Of course it is white. Anthere is being false when she is claiming she said white, she said black all along of course" ? Lucky enough when he does not add I am a vandal, a troll, and should be banned.

Discussion ??? Please. This is not discussion. This is just driving people away.

Is it acceptable that most other contributors just look at that, perhaps not caring in the least, perhaps deeply annoyed, perhaps greatly laughing and privately supporting RK, perhaps feeling sorry but not knowing what to do ?

Is this a way to work together ?

So, if *you* and others are interested in the topic, please go, but go to the Gaia theory talk page, and state that either everything not about science has to go away, or state that Gaia is *not* only about science and other pov have room there. In any case, answer to RK since he decided my opinion did not count. What am I supposed to do when he acts as if I was not there ??? And please do participate in the topic. Any of you. Toby said he thought Gaia was *not* only about science, but RK on the talk page claims that nobody made any comment, which means everyone agrees with him. Well, I also said things, and similarly nobody commented them, so that might also say that everyone agrees with me. No ? Steve said RK had a point, but he did not say which point.

Make the effort to say something, whatever, on the topic, not to less us both alone. This is not good to let us alone.

If the *agreement* among *several* people is that the only things to say about Gaia are the scientific proofs, then let it be so.

If references older to 50 years must go away, as too old to be worth, please let us go back to all the old theories and remove them from articles about these topics. Let us keep only neodarwinian evolution, and remove the other theories.

If theories not supported by scientific proofs must go away, please let us go back to all the arguments not yet supported, such as in the physical fields, and lets remove them from wikipedia

If mysticism must go away from this article, please let us remove all articles dealing with reading stars and other paganist articles.

If politics has to go away from this article, please let us remove any reference of politics from all agricultural articles as well.

If everyone agrees that old theories, mysticism born from Gaia theories, political parties and movements born from Gaia theories, and only science pov are welcome in this article, why can't we just keep everything as it is now ?

If all this is removed with several people agreement, I will let it be so. Then I will put a banner at the top saying the neutrality of this page is questionned, because it will be only expressed from a scientific pov as Unique Truth. And I will try to find another place to put *everything* I think really *belong* to an article on Gaia theories. Then, there will be double information.

But if you all tolerate that RK does whatever he plans to do, without any consideration to the only one working on these pages, and decide to call me a vandal because I just try to express my disappointement and despair of what should be and not be "discussion", and try to do whatever I can invent to make you all aware that RK behavior is perhaps wrong, then I will just blank my user page, and go away.

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

You are most welcome to answer to me. I always read what others tell me and try to understand what they say, and usually answer.

---------------------------------
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subject: [Textbook-l] linearity (Was: vandals, signin, linearity)

body:
Karl Wick wrote in part:

>I like the idea of making every textbook compilable into
>one printable document. Would it be feasible to add the
>feature to change the default order of book sections ? In
>my organic chemistry books the total content covered is the
>same but the order in which it is presented is not, and
>some professors and students prefer one order to another.

Given what mav said yesterday about different books using the same modules,
we could have several different OChem books (or courses? sequences?)
that reuse the same OChem (or maybe just Chem) modules in different orders.
You can present various options for a final linear order,
and of course anybody could create their own out of the existing modules,
perhaps using the previously presented options as a guide.

-- Toby


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Intro for readers of this list (Was: "Edit this section", TOC implemented)

body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>This whole discussion REALLY should be taking place on the wikipedia-l list.
>Unilateral, unilateral.

So for people that haven't been reading <wikitech-L>:

You saw an announcement a few days ago
that there's discussion on <wikitech-L>
about implementing a category scheme in Erik's style.
For the most part, that discussion hasn't impacted policy --
you may or may not like /Erik's/ style of categories,
but that's what's being implemented now on that list.

However, one discussion of policy has recently come up.
That's over whether to allow links from article [[Z]]
to section [[#Y]] in article [[X]], through the markup "[[X#Y]]";
or whether to allow links only from the same article [[X]],
through the markup "[[#Y]]".

So if you care about that (and it's generated heat before!),
then go over to <wikitech-L> and read what people have said.
(In particular, understand that the technically simplest coding
will automatically make both sorts of links work.)
Then discuss it wherever you feel is best.

-- Toby


subject: [Wikitech-l] Anchors (Was: "Edit this section", TOC implemented)

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>Toby Bartels:

>>I also have another technical question for Erik:
>>How does [[Special:Whatlinkshere]] interact with this?

>It simply shows the links to the page, without the anchor. But the anchors
>don't break Special:Whatlinkshere.

I'm afraid that I don't understand the response. '_`
I'll ask a more precise question:

If [[Z]] links to [[X#Y]] but not to just plain [[X]],
then will [[Special:Whatlinkshere&target=X]] list [[Z]]?

-- Toby


body:
On Mon, 30 Jun 2003 14:07:17 +0100, Kurt Jansson <jansson at gmx.net> gave
utterance to the following:

> Erik Moeller schrieb:
>> Kurt-
>>
>>>> 3) Anchors for each article section (named after the section title,
>>>> e.g.
>>>> "External links" becomes "External_links"). So you can link to these
>>>> from
>>>> elsewhere.
>>
>>> Just to be sure, "from elsewhere" means "from elsewhere inside the same
>>> article", right?
>>
>> From wherever you want.
>
> But we have discussed this over and over. Please don't do it.

Without reaching consensus. It's a feature I very much want. Remember - the
number of "views" of an article will probably outnumber the number of edits
by 100 to 1. Isn't a little bit of inconvenience for editors outweighed by
a lot of convenience for readers who aren't editing?

--
Richard Grevers
And on the eighth day God said 'OK Murphy you take over'.


body:
On Mon, 30 Jun 2003 21:44:13 +0200, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> gave utterance to
the following:

>
> (P.S. I'm aware there is a newer version of Opera, but it has even more
> bugs and I generally don't like it, so I'll stick with 6.05 for the time
> being.)
>
You should at least go to 6.06 - security fix (a real rarity for Opera to
need one!).
--
Richard Grevers
And on the eighth day God said 'OK Murphy you take over'.


body:
Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu> wrote:
Anth?re wrote:

>Just for the record

>Since Royal We and I are not able to directly discuss
>using words, I proposed that we discuss uniquely
>through edition/reversion.

>Everything I agree with, I keep. Everything I don't
>agree with, I revert. Words are useless, and acts will
>speak by themselves. If anyone is interested in the
>topic, that might be different. But as long as it is
>only he and I, it is not worth and not good to spent
>useless time in fruitless discussions. This is an
>adaptation for our personality types. :-)

I don't think that this is a very helpful strategy.
You and RK aren't the only persons working on these pages;
it might be best if both of you stayed away for a while.
Certainly edit wars, alone, are not useful,
and there's a big difference between saying
that you're unable to discuss things with your opponent
and saying that you're no longer going to even try.

You know, Ed Poor could be a big help here.

I have been staying away from these articles on purpose for a full month. The gaia theory (biology) really need input. I can do that. I did nothing for a full month to avoid pb with RK. What did it changed ? Nothing. RK is going his way. And that is about it.

Why should I wait and he not ? Why should I discuss alone and get empty replies ?

Yes, please, you may call Ed to help on this. I will trust him for helping to reach a good decision

ant

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body:
tarquin <tarquin at planetunreal.com> wrote:

Anthere wrote:

>But if you all tolerate that RK does whatever he plans to do, without any consideration to the only one working on these pages, and decide to call me a vandal because I just try to express my disappointement and despair of what should be and not be "discussion", and try to do whatever I can invent to make you all aware that RK behavior is perhaps wrong, then I will just blank my user page, and go away.
>

Forgive me for coming in to this discussion rather late. I've not been
following the list much recently.

Who is RK?
I'm terrible with names.

tseee

Look at the article on [[Knowledge]], especially the talk page.

The only thing it reminds of is the debate a few months ago on
[[circumcision]] -- there was some intransigent who kept insisting that
any planned legislation against circumcision would be an affront to some
"holy" "god-given" tradition. I ended up concluding this was the sort of
person with whom rational debate is impossible.
it's not that guy is it?

Anthere -- plese don't leave the en: pedia!!!!

-- tarquin

Thanks Tarquin, but right now, I am terribly upset. I think I need holidays. But I'll try to avoid letting you eating your scalp :-))))

---------------------------------
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subject: [WikiEN-l] An observation

body:
On Mon, 30 Jun 2003 06:45:12 EDT, <daniwo59 at aol.com> gave utterance to the
following:

> Hi!
>
> I am a little annoyed by Martin's recent antics, regarding the unblocking
> of vandals.
What has he been doing? Removing IP blocks? In many cases (dynamic IP's)
that has to be done otherwise we end up blocking innocent visitors rather
than the vandal.
--
Richard Grevers
And on the eighth day God said 'OK Murphy you take over'.


from_name: Julie Kemp

subject: [WikiEN-l] Thanks to all

body:
Thanks to everybody who jumped on board and made manual changes from my
old user name to my abbreviated one (which is still not going to be used
- If I come back, it will be in a totally new incarnation).  I jumped on
last night to do some housecleaning, and Hephaestos and KQ were already
there, doing an impressive job.  That was wikilove in its highest form,
IMO - way beyond the call of duty.  Oh - and if you think you see me in
another incarnation, it would not be unwelcome to have my sysop rights
transferred.  ;-)

Julie
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Another academic speaks

body:
I'm not sure Steve's representation of academics who work on the 'pedia
is fair or accurate.  Contributions by what he called "deadwood" are
correctible - which is what lots of us do.  What makes academics leave
is when it becomes clear that popular opinion often outweighs merit, and
that many people see a (false, IMO, but supported by many) dichotomy
between high standards and open content.

Cheers
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Gaia edit wars

body:
Um . FWIW, here's my suggestion.  RK and Anthere both leave the topic
alone for a period of 2 months.  Just leave it.  In the 'Pedia and on
this list.  Get on with something useful.  Neither is a troll, and
neither is displaying the kind of behavior that has heretofore ended in
a ban.  In fact, both are longtime contributors who have helped produce
really good articles (notwithstanding the fact that I seem to remember a
few other nasty edit wars involving one of them, complete with unfounded
accusations of vandalism).

Anyway, just leave the bloody topics alone.  Let other people look at
them for a while.  Maybe let people less personally involved use their
judgement.  Either that, or start buying us all mass quantities of
antacid.

J.
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Gaia edit wars

in_reply_to: <000c01c33feb$068c5370$ad37a8c0@JULIE>; from juleskemp@yahoo.com on Tue, Jul 01, 2003 at 09:08:34AM -0700

body:
Good advice here.  Both are good people.  Can we let this chill
awhile until everyone's in a better mood about it?

Julie Kemp wrote:

> Um . FWIW, here's my suggestion.  RK and Anthere both leave the topic
> alone for a period of 2 months.  Just leave it.  In the 'Pedia and on
> this list.  Get on with something useful.  Neither is a troll, and
> neither is displaying the kind of behavior that has heretofore ended in
> a ban.  In fact, both are longtime contributors who have helped produce
> really good articles (notwithstanding the fact that I seem to remember a
> few other nasty edit wars involving one of them, complete with unfounded
> accusations of vandalism).
>
> Anyway, just leave the bloody topics alone.  Let other people look at
> them for a while.  Maybe let people less personally involved use their
> judgement.  Either that, or start buying us all mass quantities of
> antacid.
>
> J.


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Let's follow Wikipedia rules for the Gaia
  articles

body:
At 11:03 PM 6/30/03 -0700, Anthere wrote:
>Just for the record
>
>Since Royal We and I are not able to directly discuss
>using words, I proposed that we discuss uniquely
>through edition/reversion.

You might do better discussing things if you addressed
people by their actual names. The "royal we" is, in English,
also considered appropriate for use by editors.

>Everything I agree with, I keep. Everything I don't
>agree with, I revert. Words are useless, and acts will
>speak by themselves.

If you believe words are useless, why are you working on
an encyclopedia? This isn't just you and RK: the point, I
hope, is to create something that will be useful for people
who want to read it.

>  If anyone is interested in the
>topic, that might be different.

I am interested, as, I assume, are others. What I'm not
interested in is listening to the two of you talk past each
other on this list.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


from_name: Matthias Jordan

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Really copy logo in update.php?

body:
Hi, folks!

Brion Vibber wrote:

> a) You can set the wiki to use a different file for the logo.
> b) You can put your custom logo in your work source tree.
> c) You don't need to use update.php at all. I don't; I use a script that
> copies individual files into all running wikis' live script directories.

There are surely some workarounds but I doubt that they make any sense.
I mean, if we provide an update script, it should do exactly this:
update the wiki software. It should not update any content. Neither
should it have to be replaced (?) by a custom update script (a good
proof that our script is useless). I think the only usable workaround is
item a) but it still is a workaround. Why should I copy an image that is
not used at all to the installation path?

This issue is probably more philosophical than technical, though, but
it's still an issue. Before I write my own update script I want to check
if other ppl have the same problems. If they do (and it seems so) we
should update the update script to make it more useful.

Bye!
Matthias


subject: [WikiEN-l] First block

body:
Hi all - hope I did nothing wrong here, since I don't think I've ever
blocked anyone before.  Just  blocked 216.135.25.129 because user was
repeatedly vandalizing Karl Marx Article.  Hopefully, the person will
quit once s/he figures out no further harm can be done.

J
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from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Intro for readers of this list (Was: "Edit this
 section", TOC implemented)

body:
Toby Bartels wrote:

>However, one discussion of policy has recently come up.
>That's over whether to allow links from article [[Z]]
>to section [[#Y]] in article [[X]], through the markup "[[X#Y]]";
>or whether to allow links only from the same article [[X]],
>through the markup "[[#Y]]".
>
We have allowed such links since nearly a year ago, but you had to make
an anchor yourself by putting in some HTML tag with an 'id="anchorname"'
attribute.

The discussion is whether to automatically _create_ anchors from
headers, which is needed for Erik's proposed automatic table of contents
generation for pages with more than three headers.

The anchor names would change if the header text is changed, so if a
header is changed, a link specifically to it will end up just going to
the whole article instead of that section specifically.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
Toby Bartels wrote:

>If [[Z]] links to [[X#Y]] but not to just plain [[X]],
>then will [[Special:Whatlinkshere&target=X]] list [[Z]]?
>
Yes.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Gaia edit wars

body:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
> Good advice here.  Both are good people.  Can we let
> this chill
> awhile until everyone's in a better mood about it?
>
> Julie Kemp wrote:
>
> > Um . FWIW, here's my suggestion.  RK and Anthere
> both leave the topic
> > alone for a period of 2 months.  Just leave it.
> In the 'Pedia and on
> > this list.  Get on with something useful.  Neither
> is a troll, and
> > neither is displaying the kind of behavior that
> has heretofore ended in
> > a ban.  In fact, both are longtime contributors
> who have helped produce
> > really good articles (notwithstanding the fact
> that I seem to remember a
> > few other nasty edit wars involving one of them,
> complete with unfounded
> > accusations of vandalism).
> >
> > Anyway, just leave the bloody topics alone.  Let
> other people look at
> > them for a while.  Maybe let people less
> personally involved use their
> > judgement.  Either that, or start buying us all
> mass quantities of
> > antacid.
> >
> > J.

I was ready to say that was ok with me.

Then, I looked at Wikipedia. And saw that this
afternoon, RK made all he has decided unilaterally to
do.

Hence, do I accept to not edit this article during two
months while *he* does ? Otherwise, that would really
admit I am just a nothing, and as such I would go
away.

I hope you will understand that my answer to this very
acceptable solution is

no

However, *I* will make an effort. I will agree to a
common article.

In exchange, I will reinsert everything that RK
deleted this afternoon in his move. And, it will stay
there.

I make an effort, it is RK turn to make one.

If you decide to force us not to edit the page (ie, by
protecting it, I will of course not edit it), I ask
that the page be kept in a state that is decent toward
my own personal acceptance that the page is reunited
against my belief for it to be the best option.

That means, not censored by RK

Please.

Now, notice; I read the first paragraph of RK new page

And the first paragraph is false. That is a good
start. It states the first person who hold the idea
that all organisms on a planet regulate the biosphere
to the benefit of the whole, was Lovelock.

This is just false. It will take hours to correct his
changes. I am plain disgusted.

Chill really !

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from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
brion vibber wrote:
>We have allowed such links since nearly
>a year ago, but you had to make an anchor
>yourself by putting in some HTML tag with
>an 'id="anchorname"' attribute.

Sounds cool. But why not just make another article?

>The discussion is whether to automatically
>_create_ anchors from headers, which is
>needed for Erik's proposed automatic table
>of contents generation for pages with more
>than three headers.

Heavens no! That would be ugly and non-standard and should not be a default
setting (in the same way as the almost as ugly auto header numbering is not
the default).

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Gaia edit wars

body:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
> Good advice here.  Both are good people.  Can we let
> this chill
> awhile until everyone's in a better mood about it?

Since RK is asking that I am banned again, I just
state that what I am currently doing is trying to save
all the paragraph that RK has either "forgetten" in
the articles he transformed in redirect, or quietly
put under badly named articles as a discrete way to
remove every thing that was not science from the
article.

I also would like to state that he falsedly reworked
the introduction to try to pretend the concept did not
existed before Lovelock, which is a way to transfom
reality and to give false information to reader.

That is all. When I am done restoring things, I will
be happy that we freeze the article. But I won't stop
editing it as long as he will revert my attempt to
save information in the process

Thank you for your understanding

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Anthere is still engaging in mass reversions without dialogue

body:
Folks, please re-read my previous posts to this list. The
problem is not about science. The problem is that Anthere
has given up all pretense of honesty, and has repeatedly
lied about my beliefs and about my actions.

Further, she has publicly admitted that words mean nothing,
and that she will continue to engage in non-stop reversions
to force her way of thinking to be represented in our
entries.

Finally, she refuses to follow all of our Standard
Wikipedia conventions, and refuses to accept the validity
of linking to other articles, "See also", and
disambiguation. Every single attempt at compromise has been
rejected with reversions on her part.

Finally, Anthere does NOT speak English properly; she is
demanding that we believe her claims about what the phrase
"Gaia theory" means to English speakers.  Perhaps, though,
I am wrong. She may well speak English just fine, and she
may be deliberately lyin because she enjoys trolling. I
don't know.

But one cannot create facts by repeating lies and reverting
any discussion which mentions things that one finds
inconvenient. For shame.

Finally, Anthere is also lying about my supposed attempt to
remove certain topics from Wikipedia. This simply never
happened, ever.

I am appalled not only at her hateful actions, but at the
way that many Wikipedia contributors are encouraging her
vandalism.  (And non-stop reversions are a form of
vandalism. Stop playing word games; you know what I mean.)

Robert (RK)

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body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>brion vibber wrote:
>
>
>>We have allowed such links since nearly
>>a year ago, but you had to make an anchor
>>yourself by putting in some HTML tag with
>>an 'id="anchorname"' attribute.
>>
>>
>
>Sounds cool. But why not just make another article?
>
A good question. Opposition to having a standard wiki syntax for
creating anchors was and remains driven by opposition to overlong
articles, which are difficult to edit and maintain.

Erik has also created a feature whereby you can edit particular
subsections of a page more easily, so this may be less of a factor.

Of course, there are plenty of times when we do have long pages, which
aren't necessarily articles; among others, the Village Pump and many
popular talk pages become HUUUGE as many discussions bump on through.
It's sometimes useful to point people to specific elements of
discussion. Or, we could be more vigilant about breaking them up -- into
subpages. :)

>>The discussion is whether to automatically
>>_create_ anchors from headers, which is
>>needed for Erik's proposed automatic table
>>of contents generation for pages with more
>>than three headers.
>>
>>
>
>Heavens no! That would be ugly and non-standard and should not be a default
>setting (in the same way as the almost as ugly auto header numbering is not
>the default).
>
Do you not like the anchors (which are invisible), or the table of contents?

I think a tasteful, small, off in the corner table of contents might be
nice, though the present one is hideous. :)  I don't know what
"non-standard" is supposed to mean, but last I checked the W3C
recommended including such links (certainly they have table-of-contents
links on most of their long specs pages).

A live example might be helpful. I'm having trouble getting at the CVS
server right now, but I've copied over my work tree from yesterday,
which is more or less up to date, onto test.wikipedia.org.

Note that this does _not_ include the categories & other stuff Magnus is
working on that isn't in CVS. Magnus, you'll have to merge those back
in; I left the files in a backup directory.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Anthere's admission she will be engaging in edit
	wars

body:
On 7/1/03 9:41 AM, "Robert" <rkscience100 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Anthere,
>
> I am sad to see Anthere's unilateral declariation of an
> edit war. I further saddened to see her unilateral demand
> that we MUST refer to her favored mystical and political
> views as "gaia theory", despite the fact that English
> speakers DO NOT use her odd and unusual terminology. She
> has now made clear that we English speakers can go fuck
> ourselves, because she doesn't give a damn about truth or
> about standard useage.
>
> Her public declaration is tantamount to admitting
> vandalism. You have now seen this for yourselves.  Since no
> here has commented, am I correct in assuming that you now
> believe that her unilateral declarations of edit wars is
> appropriate behaviour?  No one here has objected!
>
> I am saddened by the lack of honesty and professionalism I
> am seeing on this list.
>
>
Hoo boy! That is some kind of comedy! You should run for congress.

You might want to try cutting the slander from your diet. It's making you
look pretty disgusting.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Anthere's problem

body:
Anthere bizarrely claims "If you decide to force us not to
edit the page (ie, by protecting it, I will of course not
edit it), I ask that the page be kept in a state that is
decent toward my own personal acceptance that the page is
reunited against my belief for it to be the best option.
That means, not censored by RK"

I urge list readers to recognize that this is false. It is
no mere difference of opinion. What she claims NEVER
HAPPENED. It is that simple.

No one here is censoring here, or removing content from the
Wikipedia.  All I have done is introduce standard Wikipedia
disambiguation techniques.  However, Anthere still rants as
if disambiguation is a form of censorship or persecution.
(It is not.) We have tried to disabuse her of her notion,
but she becoms more agitated by the day.

Anthere now claims "Please. Now, notice; I read the first
paragraph of RK new page. And the first paragraph is false.
That is a good start. It states the first person who hold
the idea that all organisms on a planet regulate the
biosphere to the benefit of the whole, was Lovelock. This
is just false. It will take hours to correct his changes. I
am plain disgusted."

Of course, what she writes is simply not true. It is easy
for her to continually rake me over the coals, as she
simply makes stuff up, an attacks me for beliefs I do not
have, and positions I do not hold.  I have repeatedly
clarified my positions, and she just ignores the
clarifications.

Folks, if you want to lie about my beliefs, and then attack
me for these non-existent beliefs, go right ahead. But it
really is quite sad.  I would think that this is a bannable
offense.

Robert (RK)

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Protected Gaia Theory

body:
Just protected Gaia Theory.  Don't care if someone wants to unprotect
it.  Won't be offended.  Hope I haven't stepped out of line.  Just
trying to bring things back to a sane level.  Hope RK and Anthere will
respect the protection.  Hope RK will stop extending his personal
attacks against anyone who questions his motivations.  Hope RK will stop
misinterpreting/misrepresenting other people's comments in insulting
ways.  Still don't care about what's in the article.  Haven't read it.
Don't get the arguments.  All actions based purely on the wish to stop
the madness.  End transmission.
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Gaia edit wars

body:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
> Good advice here.  Both are good people.  Can we let
> this chill
> awhile until everyone's in a better mood about it?
>
> Julie Kemp wrote:
>
> > Um . FWIW, here's my suggestion.  RK and Anthere
> both leave the topic
> > alone for a period of 2 months.  Just leave it.
> In the 'Pedia and on
> > this list.  Get on with something useful.  Neither
> is a troll, and
> > neither is displaying the kind of behavior that
> has heretofore ended in
> > a ban.  In fact, both are longtime contributors
> who have helped produce
> > really good articles (notwithstanding the fact
> that I seem to remember a
> > few other nasty edit wars involving one of them,
> complete with unfounded
> > accusations of vandalism).

Right. You could have said my name.
I very very very much regret what I said that time.
But what I most regret is that I brought the attention
of the list on the subject, then many people were
critical of him, and because of this and me, he
decided to leave Wikipedia.

This is just the strongest regret I have of 18 months
being there. Believe me.

And please also believe, that unless I am totally
drunk, I will not repeat the mistake. Ever.

> >
> > Anyway, just leave the bloody topics alone.  Let
> other people look at
> > them for a while.  Maybe let people less
> personally involved use their
> > judgement.  Either that, or start buying us all
> mass quantities of
> > antacid.

I note that his article was saved. Which mean the
uncomplete one, with a wrong and misleading
introduction. I deeply regret that. I regret it,
because readers will see something wrong. And because
other editors will edit an uncomplete article. What I
just did what to put in this place the whole content
we had on the topic. So that other users could judge
whether it belong there or not.

I will be clear

RK and I disagreed on two things

He wanted one article while I wanted 2.

Now there is only one. Point for him. Me out

He wanted to remove non scientific view, politics and
such from the article, when I claim it was important
they be there

Now, only science is left. point fo him. Me out

Since I agreed on the first point, and since the
second problem was a problem of content to keep or to
remove, I think it would have been nice to keep the
problematic content, so that people could jugde. Well,
the content is not there.

RK got all he wanted. I lost on absolutely every
point. He has no reason to complain now, the article
is all what he wanted. Thank you for very much.

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