body:
Delirium wrote:
> Jimmy Wales wrote:
>>Q.  "Should I mass-import 20,000,000 census entries then?"
>>A.  "Mass-importing is a different issue, which short circuits an
>>important safeguard against trivia"
>>
> I disagree with this.  There is absolutely _no_ difference between
> mass-importing thousands of articles and a person sitting down for
> weeks mass-importing thousands of articles.

I don't think you wrote what you meant to write here.  I think that
mass-imports should be held to a higher standard than hand-written
entries.  I think I get the gist of what you were trying to say,
though.

> The only check the latter imposes is "someone has to have too much
> free time to do this", which is not much of a check at all: there's
> all sorts of crazy things people are willing to spend time on that
> are quite trivial.

Tell you what: when someone shows up and starts _hand_ writing
thousands of articles on random topics, we'll deal with it.  If they
refuse to stop doing it, we might even decide to ban them.

But until someone actually does that, I don't even see why we should
talk about it.

You're making the argument that since someday, some lonely person
might have enough freetime to waste typing in thousands and thousands
of entries in the manner of a robot, we have to delete any and every
article that's too trivial today.

I think that are some missing steps in that deduction, so that the
conclusion does not follow from the premises.

--Jimbo


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>On 11/7/03 3:23 AM, "Delirium" <delirium at rufus.d2g.com> wrote:
>
>
>>My main question is that it makes Wikipedia look ridiculous, and makes
>>information harder to find.  If I search for "Michael Jordan" and get
>>4,000 results consisting of every person who has ever been named
>>"Michael Jordan", that's *much* less useful than the current state, and
>>a bit laughable.  Wikipedia is not a geneological database after all.
>>
>>
>>
>This is a straw man argument.
>
>
>
You are incorrect.

-Mark


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Brion Re Bugs

body:
On Nov 7, 2003, at 11:19, Dave Caroline wrote:
> Re windows /php bug this is due to case problems with include_once or
> require_once which are case sensitive and windows is not. From latest
> php manual:
> <?php
>
> include_once("a.php"); // this will include a.php
>
> include_once("A.php"); // this will include a.php again on Windows!

Well, we don't have any files that clash in case, and the primary
environment for MediaWiki is case-sensitive Linux/Unix where such an
attempt would fail entirely and spit out angry file-not-found errors.
So, shouldn't be a problem.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] Partial solution to rampant deletionism

body:
Andre Engels wrote:
> > You're making the argument that since someday, some lonely person
> > might have enough freetime to waste typing in thousands and thousands
> > of entries in the manner of a robot, we have to delete any and every
> > article that's too trivial today.
> >
> > I think that are some missing steps in that deduction, so that the
> > conclusion does not follow from the premises.
>
> I'll add the missing steps:
>
> Either these articles are having a positive effect on Wikipedia, and then
> we should allow this hypothetical person or a bot, not ban them. Or these
> articles are having a negative effect on Wikipedia, and then it's good
> thing to delete them.

Notice that you still haven't gotten to the conclusion.

Let me make my point more clear: arguments about what we ought to if
someone really starts to abuse wikipedia with thousands and thousands
of trivial articles do not prove that we ought to delete any and every
article that's too trivial today.

Put another way: if someone wants to write an article about their high
school, we should relax and accomodate them, even if we wish they
wouldn't do it.  And that's true *even if* we should react differently
if someone comes in and starts mass-adding articles on every high
school in the world.

Let me make this more concrete.  Let's say I start writing an article
about my high school, Randolph School, of Huntsville, Alabama.  I
could write a decent 2 page article about it, citing information that
can easily be verified by anyone who visits their website.

Then I think people should relax and accomodate me.  It isn't hurting
anything.  It'd be a good article, I'm a good contributor, and so
cutting me some slack is a very reasonable thing to do.

That's true *even if* we'd react differently to a ton of one-liners
mass-imported saying nothing more than "Randolph School is a private
school in Huntsville, Alabama, US" and "Indian Springs is a private
school in Birmingham, Alabama, US" and on and on and on, ad nauseum.

The argument "what if someone did this particular thing 100,000 times"
is not a valid argument against letting them do it a few times.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] blocked ip (Brion)

body:
On Nov 7, 2003, at 12:14, Anthere wrote:
> Il semblerait que mon adresse IP "193.251.11.142" soit
> bloqu?e, lorsque j'essaie de me connecter a un wiki (en:,
> fr:...) je tombe a chaque fois sur une page :
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> Forbidden
> You don't have permission to access /<ici le nom de la
> page>
> on this server.

Not blocked in the wiki, but at the web server. IP addresses that send
massive, server-crushing bots to the wiki are routinely blocked this
way. That address is not blocked, however blocks are also in place on
various specific or less specific user-agent strings (identification
which browsers send to the server) for the same reason.

I'll need more information: what browser are they using, do they use a
proxy server, does using a different browser fix the problem...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rambot Census Junk

body:
> From: Ray Saintonge
> Jake Nelson wrote:
>
> >Rick wrote:
> >
> >>I stronly object to that information as junk.  It is extremely
useful,
> and
> >>
> >deserves to be in the Wikipedia, just as much as information about
any
> other
> >location in the world.
> >
> >Indeed, it's an extremely important base to work from. Though I
wouldn't
> >mind an option for Random Page to skip it.
> >
> I suppose that such an option wouldn't hurt anything.
>
> I do support keeping these pages, and I'm clearly not alone in that
> view.  Nevertheless, they are constantly mentioned by some of the
> deletionists as things that should go.  That alone makes us
> inclusionists uncomfortable and suspicious about the other side's
motives.

I've expressed my dissatisfaction with the Rambot pages in the past and
suggested methods of dealing with such auto-added content. Just as
proponents of deletionism aren't monolithic zealots, neither are
proponents of inclusionism.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
> From: Andre Engels
>
> "The Cunctator" <cunctator at kband.com> schrieb:
>
> > I see the inclusion of the type of information you're discussing
being
> > something that eventually happens in the lifetime of Wikipedia, but
not
> in
> > any serious quantity any time soon; there would need to be
improvements
> of
> > the backend software, etc. E.g. when the Wikipedia at some point
becomes
> > self-aware and starts adding entries on its own.
>
> If that's what you see eventually happen in Wikipedia, let me be on
the
> roll for not wanting to see it either now or in the future.

Well, you're going to have to take that up with the self-aware
Wikipedia.

I doubt that will be an issue for a while.

> > For example, one of my relatives is an influential computer
scientist.
> > There's an entry in Wikipedia on him. Nothing exciting there. The
more
> > contentious issue would be that if (when) more information is added
to
> the
> > entry, it would indicate that he was strongly influenced and
inspired by
> an
> > older relative who is less famous. A good entry on that person could
> then be
> > written, discussing his various accomplishments, etc., using
information
> > that is freely available elsewhere.
>
> Could, perhaps. Should, no!

Why not? Wouldn't you want to judge the case on its merits before
averring that it shouldn't be written?

> > I understand that because everyone has parents, it would be
"dangerous"
> to
> > say that a mention of a person in Wikipedia is sufficient to allow
an
> entry.
> >
> > I'm not advocating that.
>
> No, but if someone does advocate it, you go stand behind him. "Look,
he
> created the article. Don't delete it! It's true! He has really been a
> clerk for 40 years and liked to go watch the games of the local
football
> club!" The fact of having been written down doesn't change the fact
that
> there was no reason to do so.

Again, a straw man argument. I explicitly said I don't advocate the
position, and you claim that I would if someone else did.

Moreover, "The fact of having been written down doesn't change the fact
that
there was no reason to do so" is a self-contradictory statement. You
mean to say, I believe, "The fact of having been written down doesn't
change the fact that there was no valid reason to do so, by my judgment
of validity."

> > I am advocating trusting each other to be responsible in their
efforts
> to
> > contribute to Wikipedia, rather than try to erase each other's
> contributions
> > and spin imagined scenarios of the imminent death of Wikipedia.
>
> The question is not whether Wikipedia will die from keeping or
deleting
> articles on people who have done nothing spectacular. The question is
> whether it gets better from it.
>
> Trust is a good thing, but it can never replace judgement.

I'm saying that if A's judgment is to remove information from Wikipedia,
and B's judgment is to include information in Wikipedia, then by and
large A should defer to B.


from_name: Adam [name omitted for privacy reasons]

subject: [WikiEN-l] Ec:Rampant Deletionism

body:
The most useful contributors are busy contributing. Hurrying them to improve an article (or risk deletion)  results in a stressful and counterproductive environment. We should allow editors to work at their own rate; this is a work in progress -- lets not fool ourselves into thinking that this will change anytime soon.

If somebody, who adds a poorly-written article to VfD; instead, took 15 minutes to research and improve...the Wikipedia would greatly benefit.
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from_name: Alex Rosen

body:
"An entry is useful or it is not. It's as simple as that."

Some articles may be useful.

Some articles may be so useless that it's worth our time and energy, as
well as the risk of alienating the article's contributor, and the
inclusionists, to delete them.

On the other hand, some articles may be useless, but not so useless
that the benefit of deleting them outweighs the negatives listed above.

I used to be a deletionist, and in fact I still am, but I've moved my
deletionist stance to the eventual "1.0" version. Let's face it - the
current Wikipedia is great for compiling a large quantity of pretty good
(on average) information. It's lousy at compiling consistently very good
information. So why try? Only a more structured project will ever
accomplish the latter, so it's pointless to be perfectionist about the
current Wikipedia. We should shift our perfectionism to the "1.0"
version.

Here's another way to look at it. Some people think that the perfect
electronic encyclopedia should include every verifiable fact in the
world (let's call them the exhaustivists), while some think that it
should only include notable or important or "encyclopedic" facts (the
filterists). The nice thing about shifting our perfectionist worries
onto the "1.0" version, is that it accomodates both camps when thinking
about the current version of Wikipedia. When someone adds an article on
a non-notable topic, the exhaustivists will of course be happy, but the
filterists (like me) won't mind *too* much, because that article will
get weeded out of the great 1.0 version (we hope).

That's the only way I see out of this debate. Otherwise we'll just
never have peace between the two camps - the gap is just too wide.
(Maybe there'll be two "1.0" versions - an exhaustive version and a
filtered version.)

Alex


from_name: Christopher Mahan

subject: [WikiEN-l] Editing Protected Pages

body:
--- Adam [name omitted for privacy reasons] <[name omitted for privacy reasons]@msn.com> wrote:
> Sysops are editing Richard Neustadt, it should be unprotected if
> they are going to start editing it. >

I want names.

=====
Christopher Mahan
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
818.943.1850 cell
http://www.christophermahan.com/

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard
http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree


subject: [WikiEN-l] Editing Protected Pages

body:
Christopher Mahan wrote:

>--- Adam [name omitted for privacy reasons] <[name omitted for privacy reasons]@msn.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Sysops are editing Richard Neustadt, it should be unprotected if
>>they are going to start editing it. >
>>
>>
>
>I want names.
>
>
According to the edit history, there has been one edit in the past five
days:

# (cur) (last) . . 23:30, Nov 7, 2003 . . Cyan (hopefully uncontentious
point of factual accuracy (page is protected)

Given that:
--He's aware of the delicacies involved
--His edit was a factual correction to Neustadt's place of death
--His edit was unrelated to the portion of the article that sparked the
edit war that caused the page to be protected

I don't think I'd consider this an abuse of sysop status.

The edit war was rather silly as well: a dispute between Lir and Wik
over whether the first mention of a certain president should be
"President Clinton" or "President Bill Clinton", with opposing sides
arguing "the former does not give enough information" and "the latter
sounds awkward".

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Ec:Rampant Deletionism

body:
> From: Andre Engels
>
> Then again if an article is put on VfD for being poorly-written, it
> usually means it is so poorly written that starting a new article and
> improving the existing one are equivalent options. Which means that
> 'risking deletion' is not a risk at all.

Again, the conclusion would be correct if the premise were true. But to
correct the premise some words have to be added:

"Then again if an article is put on VfD for being poorly-written, it
usually means *the person who added it to VfD believes that* it is so
poorly written that starting a new article and improving the existing
one are equivalent options."

Since everyone's judgment on that is not presumptively identical,
conflict and debate ensues (the reason why there needs to be votes for
deletion).

Actually, since we trust people to summarily delete utter nonsense,
people only put pages on Votes for Deletion which they recognize are not
open-and-shut cases.


body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Tell you what: when someone shows up and starts _hand_ writing
>thousands of articles on random topics, we'll deal with it.  If they
>refuse to stop doing it, we might even decide to ban them.
>
>But until someone actually does that, I don't even see why we should
>talk about it.
>
>You're making the argument that since someday, some lonely person
>might have enough freetime to waste typing in thousands and thousands
>of entries in the manner of a robot, we have to delete any and every
>article that's too trivial today.
>
>I think that are some missing steps in that deduction, so that the
>conclusion does not follow from the premises.
>
>
Ah, but it has happened: a group of people have decided to add literally
hundreds of pages on victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.  My worry is that
if we allow this, there is nothing to stop literally millions of other
pages from being eventually added.  There are, for example, quite a few
groups interested in preserving the memories of those who died in the
Holocaust; I don't consider it unlikely that at some point some of them
will discover Wikipedia and begin a concerted effort to add at least
thousands of biographies of people who have nothing particularly notable
except "died in the Holocaust" filled with perhaps paragraphs of detail
of exactly where they were born, place of death, etc.  If we allow this
sort of thing to go on for Sept. 11, we have no good reason to protest
when it starts happening for other tragedies in which lots of people
died--and it _will_ happen, especially as Wikipedia gets more high-profile.

My downplaying of the bot/person distinction is that, in the case of a
group of people concertedly adding articles, it already functions
essentially like a bot in that the rest of us cannot keep up with them
and fix them as they come in.  This is already plainly visible with the
Sept. 11 entries, as [[Antonio Alvarado]], an all-caps eulogy still not
fixed after 18 months, aptly illustrates.  It'd be even more obvious if
there were a group of, say, 100 people adding Holocaust biographies; I
don't think that'd be any better than a bot doing it, and potentially
worse (as the formatting and article quality would be less consistent).

-Mark


from_name: Sascha Noyes

subject: [Wikitech-l] blocked ip (Brion)

body:
On Friday 07 November 2003 15:14, Anthere wrote:

> I do not know if he still has the pb, but he has not
> contributed since the 25. I think he got desperate :-(
>
> Could someone check if he is indeed blocked on fr and
> en ?

193.x.x.x is not blocked on either en or fr.
Chances are that the person has quit wikipedia after being blocked and not
being successfull in reaching anyone.

Best,
Sascha Noyes
--
Please encrypt all email. Public key available from
www.pantropy.net/snoyes.asc


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
> From: Delirium
> The Cunctator wrote:
>
> >On 11/7/03 3:23 AM, "Delirium" <delirium at rufus.d2g.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>My main question is that it makes Wikipedia look ridiculous, and
makes
> >>information harder to find.  If I search for "Michael Jordan" and
get
> >>4,000 results consisting of every person who has ever been named
> >>"Michael Jordan", that's *much* less useful than the current state,
and
> >>a bit laughable.  Wikipedia is not a geneological database after
all.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >This is a straw man argument.
> >
> >
> >
> You are incorrect.
>
Actually, I'm not. Delirium claimed that "it" makes Wikipedia look
ridiculous, without any definition of what "it" is. If he's arguing that
the thousands of articles on Wikipedia about every person who has even
been named Michael Jordan are what makes Wikipedia look ridiculous, then
that argument is a straw man argument, because those thousands of
articles
*do not exist*.

Or to make it briefer: I'm not proposing making Wikipedia into a
geneological database. Noone is. Delirium pointed out how ridiculous it
would be if Wikipedia, under its current technology, were a geneological
database.

That argument is a non sequitur.


body:
> From: Delirium
>
> To pick a relevant example, I'd consider any of the six million people
> who died in the Holocaust more encyclopedia-worthy than the ~3k that
> died in the WTC attacks.  The fact that there are people with enough
> spare time to mass-import the latter doesn't change this fact.
>
Noone ever mass imported any entries on the people who died in the WTC
attacks.


body:
> From: Andre Engels
>
> "Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com> schrieb:
>
> > You're making the argument that since someday, some lonely person
> > might have enough freetime to waste typing in thousands and
thousands
> > of entries in the manner of a robot, we have to delete any and every
> > article that's too trivial today.
> >
> > I think that are some missing steps in that deduction, so that the
> > conclusion does not follow from the premises.
>
> I'll add the missing steps:
>
> Either these articles are having a positive effect on Wikipedia, and
then
> we should allow this hypothetical person or a bot, not ban them. Or
these
> articles are having a negative effect on Wikipedia, and then it's good
> thing to delete them.

I believe you mean to use the conditional tense ("Either these articles
would have a positive effect..."), not the present tense.

Those steps still do not connect the hypothetical thousands of
mass-imported entries to actual "trivial" entries.


body:
> From: Andre Engels
>
> "The Cunctator" <cunctator at kband.com> schrieb:
> > I believe you mean to use the conditional tense ("Either these
articles
> > would have a positive effect..."), not the present tense.
> >
> > Those steps still do not connect the hypothetical thousands of
> > mass-imported entries to actual "trivial" entries.
>
> I think it does. An entry is useful or it is not. It's as simple as
> that. Usefulness does not depend on having been mass-imported or being
> a single page - or if it does, it goes in the other direction because
of
> completeness.
>
That's a completely different argument, one which also has flaws (the
primary one being that it is not true that "an entry is useful or it is
not"--utility is a continuous, relative measure.)


body:
> From: Jimmy Wales
<snip>
> The argument "what if someone did this particular thing 100,000 times"
> is not a valid argument against letting them do it a few times.

Well said. Okay, I'll fill in the missing steps of the argument.

Premises:
1. If someone imports thousands of articles on subjects of limited
interest, the existence of those articles will degrade the quality of
Wikipedia more than it will improve it.
2. We want to prevent actions which degrade the quality of Wikipedia
more than they improve it.
3. If we allow individuals to each write a few articles on subjects of
limited interest, over time, the cumulative result in time will be the
creation of thousands of such articles.
4. The time over which articles are added has no bearing on their
cumulative effect on the quality of Wikipedia.
5. There exist no differences between a mass-imported article and
indiviually entered article on subjects of limited interest in terms of
cumulative effect on the quality of Wikipedia; for example, the nature
of the articles on subjects of limited interest (such as whether the
information is drawn directly from a database or has been crafted
through methods currently unavailable to mechanical processes) has no
bearing.
6. The number of participants in the process of creating articles on
subjects of limited interest has no bearing on the cumulative effect of
such articles.

Conclusion:
Therefore we want to prevent individuals from each writing a few
articles on subjects of limited interest.

Corollary:
Premises:
1. If there already exist articles on subjects of limited interest, but
we have forbidden the creation of any more, Wikipedia de facto is biased
toward the subjects which are covered.
2. Wikipedia should avoid bias.
Conclusion:
Therefore we should delete all current articles on subjects of limited
interest.

I don't buy premises 4-6.


from_name: Andrew Lih

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Fate of VFD: A humble suggestion incorporating
	manyothers.

body:
Two words: too complicated.

- A few weeks on one list, and three months on another?
- Creation of three new classes?  What is what?
- Complex scoring system?

VfD is already quasi-Wiki, this seems to bring the state of affairs even
further non-Wiki.

-Fuzheado

> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of
> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
> Sent: Friday, November 07, 2003 5:30 PM
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Fate of VFD: A humble suggestion
> incorporating manyothers.
>
>
> Delirium <delirium at rufus.d2g.com> wrote in part:
>
> > I propose instead we continue on the current path: list
> stuff that can
> > be cleaned up on Wikipedia:Cleanup, and list stuff that should be
> > deleted on VfD.  Given that only a small minority of users have
> > expressed opposition to "deletionism", this seems like the
> best way to go.
> >
> > -Mark
>
> The current path is not to keep doing what we have been doing
> before, but to continually improve our ways and means. To
> that end, I propose the following plan, which incorporates
> some features of suggestions made by (in alphabetical
> order--apologies to those who this always discriminates
> against): AndrewA, Angela, Jake, JamesDay, Jimbo Wales,
> Stevertigo, TakuyaMurata, Viajero (I know I am missing some folks.)
>
> Core-rules:
> 1. Wikipedia:Cleanup be separated into 7 weekday-specific
> files. 2. Each such file have subheaders indicating which
> week the listings are from. 3. No article be listed on VFD
> *before* it has spent *at least* three weeks on Cleanup. 4.
> No article be listed on Cleanup *longer* than 12 weeks.
> 5. No article be blanked without the content being moved to talk.
>
> Subsidiary recommendations:
> 1.  Articles on Cleanup declared deletable include link to
> [[Wikpedia:threatened]]. 2.  Articles on Cleanup declared
> stubby include link to [[Wikipedia:stub]]. 3.  Articles on
> Cleanup declared otherwise troubled include link to
> [[Wikipedia:attention]].
> 4.  Articles on VFD  include link to
> [[Wikipedia:endangered]]. 5.  Articles on PNA include link to
> [[Wikipedia:difficult]] 6.  Cleanup-Listings have score
> starting at  -4; users can add or decrease the score by 1.
> 7.  Listings also have deletability-score starting at +4;
> users adding or decreasing by 1.
>
> Fair warning, I may reply to my own message to annotate,
> expand etc. the above.
>
> Respectfully (as ever):
>
> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen (aka Cimon Avaro)
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wik> ien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Editing Protected Pages

body:
Sysops are editing Richard Neustadt, it should be unprotected if they are going to start editing it.
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from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Can I buy a vowel?

body:
You're good at rhetoric, my dear Cunctator, but you haven't pricked my
conscience with your latest thrust.

It's really your first premise which troubles me: we don't want articles
of limited interest.

Well, ex-cuse me, but what is an encyclopedia BUT a clinking, clanking,
colossal collection of random articles each of which is of EXTREMELY
LIMITED INTEREST to most people?

We each tolerate the boring articles, because the collection as a whole
is useful to us in that we can easily find those few items of reference
that we're looking for.

Now just stamp QED on my forehead, and I'm through.

(bows modestly)

Ed Poor


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
"The Cunctator" <cunctator at kband.com> schrieb:

> I see the inclusion of the type of information you're discussing being
> something that eventually happens in the lifetime of Wikipedia, but not in
> any serious quantity any time soon; there would need to be improvements of
> the backend software, etc. E.g. when the Wikipedia at some point becomes
> self-aware and starts adding entries on its own.

If that's what you see eventually happen in Wikipedia, let me be on the roll for not wanting to see it either now or in the future.

> I really do go back to the reasonableness criterion. I *trust* you that if
> you reasonably believe that there should be an entry on one of your
> relatives, that you should be able to make it.

Trust is good, but it cannot replace own responsibility. I also trust that when someone writes something in Wikipedia, it is true. But if I read something I think is not true, I will correct or check it. Likewise, if someone makes an article on a subject, I start by trusting that that subject deserves an article. But if, in the article or otherwise, I find better reason to believe that that is not the case, I will be in favor of deletion.

> A big control on all of this is that Wikipedia entries need to be linked
> from other entries.

Hardly any control at all. Creating that link is very easy. Furthermore, there are literally thousands of orphans (going to its page gives the first 125, and goes no further than 'Co' in the alphabet). So apparently not many people seem to think that an unlinked page should just go on votes for deletion.

> For example, one of my relatives is an influential computer scientist.
> There's an entry in Wikipedia on him. Nothing exciting there. The more
> contentious issue would be that if (when) more information is added to the
> entry, it would indicate that he was strongly influenced and inspired by an
> older relative who is less famous. A good entry on that person could then be
> written, discussing his various accomplishments, etc., using information
> that is freely available elsewhere.

Could, perhaps. Should, no!

> I understand that because everyone has parents, it would be "dangerous" to
> say that a mention of a person in Wikipedia is sufficient to allow an entry.
>
> I'm not advocating that.

No, but if someone does advocate it, you go stand behind him. "Look, he created the article. Don't delete it! It's true! He has really been a clerk for 40 years and liked to go watch the games of the local football club!" The fact of having been written down doesn't change the fact that there was no reason to do so.

> I am advocating trusting each other to be responsible in their efforts to
> contribute to Wikipedia, rather than try to erase each other's contributions
> and spin imagined scenarios of the imminent death of Wikipedia.

The question is not whether Wikipedia will die from keeping or deleting articles on people who have done nothing spectacular. The question is whether it gets better from it.

Trust is a good thing, but it can never replace judgement.

Andre Engels


from_name: Dave Caroline

subject: [Wikitech-l] Brion Re Bugs

body:
Yes I am archivist on Sourceforge and on Wikipedia.
Re unset variables yes I do have E_NOTICE etc on. I like to find syntax
bugs the easy way!. It forces one to set variables to a known state.

Re windows /php bug this is due to case problems with include_once or
require_once which are case sensitive and windows is not. From latest php
manual:
<?php

include_once("a.php"); // this will include a.php

include_once("A.php"); // this will include a.php again on Windows!

?>

Fix is just don't include more than once and don't rely on php's _once to
correct things (or don't use windows!).
My test wiki is at www.clockmakers.archivist.info. which is win2000 will
add Linux as well on a different port later.
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_MediaWiki_on_Windows has a kluge to
cure this but I don't know I it breaks anything else.

Dave Caroline


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Blocking

body:
I...please...would like some help/suggestions.

I hereby annonce giving up soft security attempts with
Papotages. I think I have tried to the latest end I
possibly could. And now, to my shame, I decided to
give up. Criticisms toward me trying to do this is is
part of my decision, but today it is also clear that
it is not efficient in the end.

Now, given that : when his user name was blocked, he
created 9 vandal user names and went on.

Given that after his 10 user names were blocked, he
went on with ips, I wonder if it is very valuable to
try the same pattern, and to meet the same problems.

So, I am asking help here, either from someone who
would feel like doing something (in truth, I do not
think any of the french-speaking person is interested
in discussing with him constructively), or from
someone who will find a technical suggestion (going as
far as blocking half of switzerland :-)). Either way.

I am done with it.

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Editing Protected Pages

body:
There's no rule against a sysop editing a
protected page - provided they do so in a
way that others can easily see that they're
not trying to take advantage of their status.

For example, I protected [[Silesia]] (twice,
actually) because Wik and Nico and all them
were at each other's throats and reverting
like crazy. I've made several edits since
then, without a single complaint about
"abusing sysop status". In fact, when I
unprotected the page most of the contributors
begged me to re-protect it.

We're not making much progress there these
days, but there's hardly any bickering going
on there either.

Uncle Ed
Originator of the s-m-o-o-t-h vibe (for licensing, contact Stevertigo)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
I understand your point, and partly I also share it. However, your
proposed solution would work only in a minority of cases. It would work
for sub-stubs or articles that don't really talk about the subject they
claim to talk about. It would not work for the majority of articles on
VfD, though. Because they are put up not for being bad articles, but
because the person putting them up does not believe there should be an
article on the subject involved at all.

15 minutes or half an hour might have been enough for Khym Chanur to
write an article on "THEOS Multi-User Basic programming language",
although from what he wrote, he seems to have thought about it and have
reasons to be against it. But no amount of work would make Joseph
Lovero a person worth an encyclopedia article to Delirium. Nor would
it have helped me finding anything on Abek (since I am still convinced
it does not exist, at least not in anything like the form described in
the article), or enabled Maximus Rex to write a corrected list of
participants of World War IV.

I guess cases like the one you are talking about would better be put
at Cleanup; I would propose to move them to Cleanup when they appear
on VfD, and to delete them rather than put them on VfD if they have
been long on Cleanup with several deletion votes. The longer period
of Cleanup seems useful for these cases.

Andre Engels

"Ray Saintonge" <saintonge at telus.net> schrieb:
> Rick wrote:
>
> > Why can't you just indicate on VfD why you think the article is valid?
> >
> Because it requires us to spend time at VfD when we could be doing
> something useful.  The most useful contributors are busy contributing.
>  Hurrying them to improve the article in question within seven days
> means they have to take time away from what they do best.  If they are
> interested in the subject matter they'll deal with it according to their
> own timetables, and not when some deletionist tells them to.
>
> Some of us like to consider our votes carefully.  If it takes five
> minutes each to consider each of a dozen articles that might appear on
> VfD on a given day that's an hour of time spent just deciding on votes,
> and the article itself is still unchanged.  Even when the result of a
> vote is unquestionably in favour of deletion, and the article is
> deleted, we are no further ahead; we're just back at the point where we
> were before that article was written.
>
> We are all limited in the amount of time that we can contribute.
>  Consider even some of our most severe edit wars, and I would suggest
> that at any given time the number of people directly involved is fairly
> small.
>
> If somebody who is considering an article to be added to VfD instead
> took 15 minutes to half an hour researching and improving that article,
> it would save everybody's time, and Wikipedia would end up with a
> something rather than a nothing.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Ec:Rampant Deletionism

body:
"Adam [name omitted for privacy reasons]" <[name omitted for privacy reasons]@msn.com> schrieb:
> The most useful contributors are busy contributing. Hurrying them to improve an article (or risk deletion)  results in a stressful and counterproductive environment. We should allow editors to work at their own rate; this is a work in progress -- lets not fool ourselves into thinking that this will change anytime soon.
>
> If somebody, who adds a poorly-written article to VfD; instead, took 15 minutes to research and improve...the Wikipedia would greatly benefit.

Then again if an article is put on VfD for being poorly-written, it usually
means it is so poorly written that starting a new article and improving the
existing one are equivalent options. Which means that 'risking deletion' is
not a risk at all.

Andre Engels


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Blocage

body:
I was discussing possible measures against this guy on
the IRC channel.
I came to the conclusion that the best feature to
implement would be a
method for quickly rolling back page creation.
Possibly, sysops could
have a column of checkboxes on RC. They would then be
able to tick all
the Papotages-related edits, and roll them back in one
request.

Perhaps this could be submitted to Sourceforge feature
requests.

-- Tim Starling

that would be an idea.

The problem with the current rollback is that it just
revert to the previous edit. We would rather to revert
to the previous edit before the user.

I did not block him as it is easier to track a user
name than various ips.

However, one disagreement with loggued in people is
that they can move pages. While anyone can revert
edits made by a vandal, only sysops can fix a move
back. That would be the only superior reason to block
a user than I can see.

thanks tim

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from_name: Bjorn Lindqvist

subject: [WikiEN-l] FIX stuff instead of delete?

body:
I fully agree with what some other people have said before me. VfD is overused, abused and the consensus process isn't respected. Articles are given an unreasonable 7-day do or die period which makes it really hard to try and solve any problems.

BL


body:
"Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com> schrieb:

> You're making the argument that since someday, some lonely person
> might have enough freetime to waste typing in thousands and thousands
> of entries in the manner of a robot, we have to delete any and every
> article that's too trivial today.
>
> I think that are some missing steps in that deduction, so that the
> conclusion does not follow from the premises.

I'll add the missing steps:

Either these articles are having a positive effect on Wikipedia, and then
we should allow this hypothetical person or a bot, not ban them. Or these
articles are having a negative effect on Wikipedia, and then it's good
thing to delete them.

Andre Engels


body:
"The Cunctator" <cunctator at kband.com> schrieb:
> I believe you mean to use the conditional tense ("Either these articles
> would have a positive effect..."), not the present tense.
>
> Those steps still do not connect the hypothetical thousands of
> mass-imported entries to actual "trivial" entries.

I think it does. An entry is useful or it is not. It's as simple as
that. Usefulness does not depend on having been mass-imported or being
a single page - or if it does, it goes in the other direction because of
completeness.

Andre Engels


from_name: Peter Bartlett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rambot Census Junk

body:
-----Original Message-----
From: Jake Nelson [mailto:jnelson at soncom.com]

Rick wrote:
>> I stronly object to that information as junk.  It is extremely
useful,
>> and deserves to be in the Wikipedia, just as much as information
about
>> any other location in the world.

>Indeed, it's an extremely important base to work from. Though I
wouldn't
>mind an option for Random Page to skip it.

I went through a stage of whenever I hit random page (indicating that I
was bored) and hit a rambot page of trying to add something to that page
by using web searches. Virtually always possible. Makes random page much
less annoying.

Pete


subject: [WikiEN-l] Can I buy a vowel?

body:
On 11/7/03 6:54 PM, "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:

> You're good at rhetoric, my dear Cunctator, but you haven't pricked my
> conscience with your latest thrust.
>
> It's really your first premise which troubles me: we don't want articles
> of limited interest.
>
> Well, ex-cuse me, but what is an encyclopedia BUT a clinking, clanking,
> colossal collection of random articles each of which is of EXTREMELY
> LIMITED INTEREST to most people?
>
> We each tolerate the boring articles, because the collection as a whole
> is useful to us in that we can easily find those few items of reference
> that we're looking for.
>
> Now just stamp QED on my forehead, and I'm through.

Good. You do realize that I was attempting to make the argument for the side
I don't agree with, right?

In other words, I agree with you.


from_name: Rick

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Proposed: stop all deletes for 6 months,
	then reconsider

body:
Nice.  Ad hominem attack.  The argument of the person who can't defend his position.

RickK

user_Jamesday <user_Jamesday at myrealbox.com> wrote:
>Straw men won't impress anyone here, so those using those techniques are hurting their own view enough already. No need to add to it - they already shot themselves in the foot.

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from_name: libertarian

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fred Bauder's slander [was:India problems]

body:
From: Fred Bauder [mailto: fredbaud at ctelco.net]

> So it seems that LibertarianAnarchist, in fact, is an advocate
> of a Hindu Nationalist Point of View with a decidely fascist
> tinge to his assertions.

This sort of statement is nothing but slander. My own political
leaning is towards a peaceful anarchy. I do not support any
political party.

However, the following are FACTS:

1) India is a democracy.

2) India's ruling coalition has a Hindu Prime Minister, a Christian
Defence Minister and the President is a Muslim who was the ruling
party's candidate.

3) India is a secular state and the issue is not between secularism
and Hindu theocracy. Those who are branded Hindu fascists are those
who question the following laws in India and want to abolish them.

(a) The Shariat is applicable in India and Muslim women are at the
mercy of Mullahs. This is supposedly to protect "Muslim culture."
The courts cannot rule in cases relating to Muslim women and there
was a case where the Mullahs decided to shave the head of a woman
seeking divorce.
(b) Muslims are allowed to run educational institutions and even
get Government funding and so Madrasas are funded. However, Hindus
are not allowed to run educational institutions!
(c) Haj trips to Mecca are subsidised. You know, fascism and all
that, there are people who want to remove this subsidy.
(d) The only Muslim majority state in India gets special rights!
All others are equal, but some are more equal. The special right
in this case is that Kashmiri Muslims can buy property anywhere in
India, while the other indians are banned from buying property in
Kashmir.

4) India was a socialist state and I am surprised that you do not
know this! It modelled itself after USSR complete with a planning
commission and public sector companies and private enterprise was
for all practical purposes banned until recently. You needed to get
a license to run a factory or start a company.

5) The Indian English language media *is* Communist. Search for
N.Ram who is the editor of 'The Hindu.' He called the agitation in
Tiananmen Square a "western inspired revachenist conspiracy by
counterrevolutionaries" and here are links to EDITORIALS which
appeared in Times of India.
I've given these two editorials because they appeared on the
same day! Two pro-Communist editorials on a single day. The
second one fondly desires that the two Communist parties
merge into one.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/xml/uncomp/articleshow?art_id=6009006
"Perhaps this is what Vladimir Lenin meant when he referred to imperialism being the highest stage of capitalism."

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/xml/uncomp/articleshow?art_id=6009181
Comrades All

Here is more stuff from Times of India:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/xml/uncomp/articleshow?art_id=10312332
Capitalism is as flawed as other systems

"Lenin was logically consistent in refusing to allow freedom of choice in either political or material goods."

6) VR Krishna Iyer quoted in the article was a Minister in the
Marxist Govt. This is a FACT. You can deny it for all you want.

7) Sabrang is a Communist organization. This is also a FACT.

8) When the initial firebombing happened, the editorials of the
Communist rags blamed the Hindus. If you are ignorant of this,
what am I supposed to do?

9) The article in question which now uses the words "apparently
Hindus" actually used the words "allegedly Hindus" until not so
long ago, but a few paragraphs below, it makes an ASSERTION that
they were Hindus who created trouble and hence the spontaneous
firebombing happened.
You see, except you and your whiteskinned race, the rest of us
are barbarians.

10) Travel across North India and you will see that not a single
Hindu temple older than 150 years exists which has not been smashed
by Muslim invaders.

11) Islam has been an aggressive religion. This is a FACT. It has
caused damage and misery. This is also a FACT. Hindus have not been
violent despite your best efforts to project Hindus that way. This
is also a FACT. Keep denying all you want. It wasn't the Hindus who
slammed planes into buildings killing thousands of people. You are
a bigoted person to brand Hindus who are one of the most peaceful
people as fascists. Shame on you.

      Let me tell you why you wrote what you did. You are probably a
White skinned American who is brainwashed into believing that only
White Americans are peaceful people while all the rest are barbarians.
No wonder you guys supported Osama bin Laden without batting an
eyelid and consider it a sacred act of defending liberty even though
he was killing people in other countries.

Asking for factual accuracies is Hindu fascism? Since when is that?
Admit it, you didn't know that indian media is communist, that indian
media actually gloated when Hindus were firebombed and you blame
Hindus of whining.

Oh yes, white skins are here to save the world and any attack on
whites is an attack on liberty while evil Hindus will lob nuclear
missiles all over the world and therefore the world is a dangerous
place! After all, it was the evil Hindus who dropped atomic bombs
on Japan even though Japan was on the verge of surrender and the
Generals had said that it wasn't required.

I am sorry to say that such entries which carry propaganda and factual
inaccuracies not only show Wikipedia to be of poor quality but posts
such as Fred Bauder's are nothing short of racist.

If any indian political party of any indian acts against freedom,
trust me, I will be the first to oppose it. Instead, Fred Bauder has
indulged in mudslinging and a racist attack.

I have given references and proven that the media is indeed Marxist.
Why are you against going by verifiable information? I am truly
puzzled.

-a

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subject:
[WikiEN-l] Fate of VFD: A humble suggestion incorporating many
	others.

body:
This is unworkable and can't be maintained.

RickK

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <jheiskan at welho.com> wrote:
3. No article be listed on VFD *before* it has spent *at least* three weeks on
Cleanup.

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body:
I don't understand why it's necessary to attack anyone who disagrees with you by saying that their arguments are straw men.  By doing so, you belittle the other person and make any attempt at conciliation impossible.

These are NOT straw men.  These are items which are currently on VfD, which it has been proposed, should not be deleted, under any circumstances.

RickK

Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
Rick wrote:
>Please tell me how to improve [[Tsesungunille]], an article about a
>place that the original author made up.

This one fails the 'confirmability' test anyway, so it isn't a good
example.

>Or [[Old Granny Sweat Weed ]] ... Or [[Disappearing hoagies]] ... Or
>[[Abek]] ... Or [[The mode of production of free software ]],

As far as I can tell, these all fail the 'confirmability' test, and so
they aren't at issue in the current discussion.

Remember, the debate is primarily between two factions (though of
course there are surely many subtle positions within these two
factions). And neither faction is saying that nothing can ever ever
ever be deleted no matter what.

Confirmability is an important safeguard accepted by most or all
completionists. Hand-entry (as opposed to mass import) is an
important safeguard accepted by most or all completionists.

Straw man examples don't really help us to clarify the discussion.

Q. "Should I mass-import 20,000,000 census entries then?"
A. "Mass-importing is a different issue, which short circuits an important
safeguard against trivia"

Q. "What about things that aren't confirmable at all?"
A. "Delete them. That's not what we're talking about."

Now, I think that *even after* we remove those two categories from the
discussion, we *still* have legitimate arguments on both side. I'm
firmly in the completionist camp rather than deletionist camp, but I
do accept that other views _which don't engage in straw man argument_
have some good points that we should consider.

--Jimbo

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
Except for those who say nothing should be deleted for six months.

RickK

Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
> Unless *just about everyone* disagrees with me, I'm going to continue to
> delete new pages that consist of obvious nonsense--asdfghjkl or the
> equivalent--rude grafitti, and "you should have an article here".

I don't think anyone disagrees with those deletions. I don't, anyway.

--Jimbo
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
STOP CALLING ANY ARGUMENTS THAT YOU DISAGREE WITH STRAW MEN!!!!

RICKK

Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
Rick wrote:
> Well, if people feel that there is a space for Wikipedia in these
>devotionals, and others that there is not, there is no middle ground,
>and therefore what is there to discuss?

Well, for example, the discussion might clarify for you that no one is
advocating that _devotionals_ be included.

> Why shouldn't they be in the encyclopedia? Because they make
>Wikipedia look bad. People look at these articles and say, "How can
>they claim to be a serious encyclopedia when they have articles about
>how someone is beloved by their dog?"

Is this a specific reference, or a straw man?

--Jimbo
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
Again with the "straw man" attack.  This is worthless as an argument, and all it does is to make any discussion worthless.

RickK

The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> wrote:
On 11/7/03 3:23 AM, "Delirium" wrote:

This is a straw man argument.

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subject: [WikiEN-l] India problems

body:
--- On Fri 11/07, Arvind Narayanan < arvindn at meenakshi.cs.iitm.ernet.in > wrote:
From: Arvind Narayanan [mailto: arvindn at meenakshi.cs.iitm.ernet.in]

> The person making the allegations has 3 usernames
> LibertarianAnarchist, Democrate2003 and Conradx. I'll call them LA
> for short. The above articles are the only ones LA has ever edited.

This is rubbish. Any admin can check up the IP address and you
will find that I have nothing to do with Democrate2003 or Conradx.

On the actual points.

You keep deleting the point about Abdul Kalam being a Muslim
candidate of BJP.

You either pretend that VR Krishna Iyer was never a Minister in a
Communist Govt or you are ignorant. Which of the two is it?

You pretend that VR Krishna Iyer was not the Communist Party candidate
for Presidency. This is a FACT.

The story about the tea vendor and the brawl was proven wrong when
journalists phoned up the person mentioned as the witness in the
email that did the rounds. You are clearly lying by pretending that
you do not know that.

On the "alleged" state sponsored genocide. Alleged by whom? By you
and your communist friends? If you have EVIDENCE, feel free to present
it. Once established, I have no objection to it being posted.

The key word is "alleged." You've been going around posting
your "allegations." That is not what an encyclopedia is about.
By the same logic, why did you object to my allegation of the genocide
in Jedwabne? It is a POV, isn't it?

To the admins, if there are 25000 allegations, will all be
represented?
Let us also not pretend that I am using Communist to broadbrush
you. You've deliberately worded it to sound as if Krishna Iyer is
merely "considered" by some people to be a Marxist when in reality,
he was an active participant in the Marxist ministry.

I also suggest you apologize for claiming that I am Democrate2003
and Conradx.

-a

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subject:
[WikiEN-l] No vote needed for obvious nonsense (was: Rampant
	Deletionism)

body:
Unfortunately, this is not true. People like MyRedDice don't trust anyone to delete anything.

RickK

"Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
We trust all our sysops to know what is "obvious nonsense" -
it's one of the key criteria for becoming a sysop: you've been around
long enough to show that you have good judgment.

Ed Poor

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subject: [WikiEN-l] India problems

body:
Fred Bauder [mailto: fredbaud at ctelco.net]

> It is not at all clear that the fire was anything but accident.

In short, if Hindus were roasted alive, everything is in doubt.
If Hindus can be blamed, word it as an ASSERTION. Right!

You just proved my point about intolerance and racism against Indians
and Hindus. If this is what Wikipedia is going to turn into, it is
really sad.

I am open to an honest investigation into what happened by REALLY
neutral people who will look at it in an objective fashion. Even the
original entry which read "2002 Gujarat pogrom" proves my point
because pogrom is a loaded term. You know that very well.

-a

_______________________________________________
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
Are you saying that those of us who think that VfD is useful are not contributing anything useful?  What about people like Lir, who feel that those of us who want to add things to VfD should instead make the article somehow "bedtter" instead of garbage?  Isn't that "taking time away" from what we do best?

I'm sick and tired of being attacked as if what I'm doing on Wikipedia is somehow of lesser quality thatn what you and other people do.  Am I not worth keeping around?  Should I go away?

RickK

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

> Why can't you just indicate on VfD why you think the article is valid?
>
Because it requires us to spend time at VfD when we could be doing
something useful. The most useful contributors are busy contributing.
Hurrying them to improve the article in question within seven days
means they have to take time away from what they do best. If they are
interested in the subject matter they'll deal with it according to their
own timetables, and not when some deletionist tells them to.

Some of us like to consider our votes carefully. If it takes five
minutes each to consider each of a dozen articles that might appear on
VfD on a given day that's an hour of time spent just deciding on votes,
and the article itself is still unchanged. Even when the result of a
vote is unquestionably in favour of deletion, and the article is
deleted, we are no further ahead; we're just back at the point where we
were before that article was written.

We are all limited in the amount of time that we can contribute.
Consider even some of our most severe edit wars, and I would suggest
that at any given time the number of people directly involved is fairly
small.

If somebody who is considering an article to be added to VfD instead
took 15 minutes to half an hour researching and improving that article,
it would save everybody's time, and Wikipedia would end up with a
something rather than a nothing.

Ec

_______________________________________________
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http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Ec:Rampant Deletionism

body:
Not at all.  Those of us who have, in the past, deleted articles that we thought were nonsense, have had to suffer personal attacks by those like MyRedDice who don't think that ANYTHING should be deleted, and therefore have acquiesced to putting things on VfD in order to avoid just the sort of personal attacks that I've been receiving here on the mailing list.

RickK

The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> wrote:
Actually, since we trust people to summarily delete utter nonsense,
people only put pages on Votes for Deletion which they recognize are not
open-and-shut cases.

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body:
Why should we ban them, if they're only adding articles that inclusionists insist should be added?

RickK

Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
Tell you what: when someone shows up and starts _hand_ writing
thousands of articles on random topics, we'll deal with it. If they
refuse to stop doing it, we might even decide to ban them.

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from_name: Jake Nelson

body:
libertarian wrote:
[snip]
> You see, except you and your whiteskinned race, the rest of us
> are barbarians.
>
[snip]
>       Let me tell you why you wrote what you did. You are probably a
> White skinned American who is brainwashed into believing that only
> White Americans are peaceful people while all the rest are barbarians.
> No wonder you guys supported Osama bin Laden without batting an
> eyelid and consider it a sacred act of defending liberty even though
> he was killing people in other countries.
>
[snip]
>
> Oh yes, white skins are here to save the world and any attack on
> whites is an attack on liberty while evil Hindus will lob nuclear
> missiles all over the world and therefore the world is a dangerous
> place! After all, it was the evil Hindus who dropped atomic bombs
> on Japan even though Japan was on the verge of surrender and the
> Generals had said that it wasn't required.
>

I don't want to get into this discussion as a whole, but to these, I say:
your ignorance of the modern US is showing. Do you know what lesson is
repeatedly drilled into children in schools here in history and culture
classes? "Whites are bad. They oppressed everyone, kill people, enslave
people. Basically every white male in history was utterly evil. Everything
that's ever gone wrong is 100% white men's fault. No one else has ever done
anything wrong. All whites are still profiting off what happened long ago,
you should all be so guilty." It's tremendous and pervasive. Now, I'm not
trying to deny that a lot of horrible things have been done, and so on, but
there's this constant portrayal of members of any other race as good and
virtuous and wise and never doing anything bad. And honestly, as for
anti-Hindu attitude, a lot of average Americans forget Hinduism exists, much
of the time. Muslims get portrayed as barbarians rather a lot lately... but
that's about it.

-- Jake, who expects nasty comments for this...


subject: [WikiEN-l] Editing Protected Pages

body:
"Delirium" <delirium at rufus.d2g.com> schrieb:
> Given that:
> --He's aware of the delicacies involved
> --His edit was a factual correction to Neustadt's place of death
> --His edit was unrelated to the portion of the article that sparked the
> edit war that caused the page to be protected

Don't forget:
--He explicitly added a message on the talk page before making the edit,
  saying what he was going to do, that he thought it was not contentious,
  and inviting anyone to asking him or another sysop to revert if he was
  wrong about that.

Andre Engels


from_name: Alex R.

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fred Bauder's opinion [was:India problems]

body:
I do not agree with the assertion that
Fred has slandered anyone in his post.

Slander is verbal; when it is written it is libel,
last I checked all email is written:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation
therefore even technically speaking Fred
has not slandered anyone.

Quite frankly it is Fred's opinion, that is not
defamation. Your reputation is not damaged,
it stands for itself. Fred is entitled to his opinion
about you, and your writing as you are about him
and his writing. He has not damaged your
reputation. What reputation do you have?
As far as I can tell, none.

Wikipedia is an information resource; it is not
a soapbox; if you want to add information about
the links between India and the USSR the place to
do it is not on this discussion list. Do it in a factual
way and cite your primary sources.

You may rant all you want, but I do think you
are reading too much into Fred's comments.
If you are going to write on Wikipedia you had
better be prepared for people to criticize you.

I do not think you can tell Fred's race from his
name. My brother in law is named Alex like me,
and he is a Farsi, my roommate is named Sam
and he is Palestinian. My other brother in law
is named Bob and he is a hindu. I do not think
that you can tell someone's race from their name,
many Americans change there name so that it
is easy to pronounce; that is all, it is not some
white man's conspiracy; in this country we
actually have a form of multiculturalism that
works.

The fact is that people, be they hindus, muslims,
christians, jews, satanists, tree huggers or any
thing else are both good and bad (though I have never
met a tree hugger who was bad). You cannot tell
an individual's worth by their religious affiliation.
Making such generalizations really does not one
any good; it does not advance knowledge or
understanding. It perpetuates ignorance. Fred
was merely stating that your expressed views
seems that your writings had a Indian nationalist
POV with a fascist leading to your assertions.
Is calling Hilter a fascist defamation? No it is
a factually accurate statement. Everyone knows
that the nazi's were very close to many Indian
nationalists during WWII. I don't think that
Fred is stating anything really controversial
if he states that you have a fascist leaning
perspective. In fact some Indians would be
proud of that perspective, so maybe you could
explain how that might be defamation?

I am sorry you have such pain and anger. Perhaps
you should hug a tree, it might do you some good.

alex756

----- Original Message -----
From: "libertarian" <libertarian at myway.com>
To: <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Sent: Friday, November 07, 2003 11:54 PM
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Fred Bauder's slander [was:India problems]

>
> From: Fred Bauder [mailto: fredbaud at ctelco.net]
>
> > So it seems that LibertarianAnarchist, in fact, is an advocate
> > of a Hindu Nationalist Point of View with a decidely fascist
> > tinge to his assertions.
>
> This sort of statement is nothing but slander. My own political
> leaning is towards a peaceful anarchy. I do not support any
> political party.
>
> However, the following are FACTS:
>
> 1) India is a democracy.
>
> 2) India's ruling coalition has a Hindu Prime Minister, a Christian
> Defence Minister and the President is a Muslim who was the ruling
> party's candidate.
>
> 3) India is a secular state and the issue is not between secularism
> and Hindu theocracy. Those who are branded Hindu fascists are those
> who question the following laws in India and want to abolish them.
>
> (a) The Shariat is applicable in India and Muslim women are at the
> mercy of Mullahs. This is supposedly to protect "Muslim culture."
> The courts cannot rule in cases relating to Muslim women and there
> was a case where the Mullahs decided to shave the head of a woman
> seeking divorce.
> (b) Muslims are allowed to run educational institutions and even
> get Government funding and so Madrasas are funded. However, Hindus
> are not allowed to run educational institutions!
> (c) Haj trips to Mecca are subsidised. You know, fascism and all
> that, there are people who want to remove this subsidy.
> (d) The only Muslim majority state in India gets special rights!
> All others are equal, but some are more equal. The special right
> in this case is that Kashmiri Muslims can buy property anywhere in
> India, while the other indians are banned from buying property in
> Kashmir.
>
> 4) India was a socialist state and I am surprised that you do not
> know this! It modelled itself after USSR complete with a planning
> commission and public sector companies and private enterprise was
> for all practical purposes banned until recently. You needed to get
> a license to run a factory or start a company.
>
> 5) The Indian English language media *is* Communist. Search for
> N.Ram who is the editor of 'The Hindu.' He called the agitation in
> Tiananmen Square a "western inspired revachenist conspiracy by
> counterrevolutionaries" and here are links to EDITORIALS which
> appeared in Times of India.
> I've given these two editorials because they appeared on the
> same day! Two pro-Communist editorials on a single day. The
> second one fondly desires that the two Communist parties
> merge into one.
>
>
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/xml/uncomp/articleshow?art_id=6009006
> "Perhaps this is what Vladimir Lenin meant when he referred to imperialism
being the highest stage of capitalism."
>
>
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/xml/uncomp/articleshow?art_id=6009181
> Comrades All
>
> Here is more stuff from Times of India:
>
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/xml/uncomp/articleshow?art_id=10312332
> Capitalism is as flawed as other systems
>
> "Lenin was logically consistent in refusing to allow freedom of choice in
either political or material goods."
>
> 6) VR Krishna Iyer quoted in the article was a Minister in the
> Marxist Govt. This is a FACT. You can deny it for all you want.
>
> 7) Sabrang is a Communist organization. This is also a FACT.
>
> 8) When the initial firebombing happened, the editorials of the
> Communist rags blamed the Hindus. If you are ignorant of this,
> what am I supposed to do?
>
> 9) The article in question which now uses the words "apparently
> Hindus" actually used the words "allegedly Hindus" until not so
> long ago, but a few paragraphs below, it makes an ASSERTION that
> they were Hindus who created trouble and hence the spontaneous
> firebombing happened.
> You see, except you and your whiteskinned race, the rest of us
> are barbarians.
>
> 10) Travel across North India and you will see that not a single
> Hindu temple older than 150 years exists which has not been smashed
> by Muslim invaders.
>
> 11) Islam has been an aggressive religion. This is a FACT. It has
> caused damage and misery. This is also a FACT. Hindus have not been
> violent despite your best efforts to project Hindus that way. This
> is also a FACT. Keep denying all you want. It wasn't the Hindus who
> slammed planes into buildings killing thousands of people. You are
> a bigoted person to brand Hindus who are one of the most peaceful
> people as fascists. Shame on you.
>
>       Let me tell you why you wrote what you did. You are probably a
> White skinned American who is brainwashed into believing that only
> White Americans are peaceful people while all the rest are barbarians.
> No wonder you guys supported Osama bin Laden without batting an
> eyelid and consider it a sacred act of defending liberty even though
> he was killing people in other countries.
>
> Asking for factual accuracies is Hindu fascism? Since when is that?
> Admit it, you didn't know that indian media is communist, that indian
> media actually gloated when Hindus were firebombed and you blame
> Hindus of whining.
>
> Oh yes, white skins are here to save the world and any attack on
> whites is an attack on liberty while evil Hindus will lob nuclear
> missiles all over the world and therefore the world is a dangerous
> place! After all, it was the evil Hindus who dropped atomic bombs
> on Japan even though Japan was on the verge of surrender and the
> Generals had said that it wasn't required.
>
> I am sorry to say that such entries which carry propaganda and factual
> inaccuracies not only show Wikipedia to be of poor quality but posts
> such as Fred Bauder's are nothing short of racist.
>
> If any indian political party of any indian acts against freedom,
> trust me, I will be the first to oppose it. Instead, Fred Bauder has
> indulged in mudslinging and a racist attack.
>
> I have given references and proven that the media is indeed Marxist.
> Why are you against going by verifiable information? I am truly
> puzzled.
>
> -a
>


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] India problems

body:
libertarian wrote:

>Fred Bauder [mailto: fredbaud at ctelco.net]
>
>>It is not at all clear that the fire was anything but accident.
>>
>
>In short, if Hindus were roasted alive, everything is in doubt.
>If Hindus can be blamed, word it as an ASSERTION. Right!
>
>You just proved my point about intolerance and racism against Indians
>and Hindus. If this is what Wikipedia is going to turn into, it is
>really sad.
>
>I am open to an honest investigation into what happened by REALLY
>neutral people who will look at it in an objective fashion. Even the
>original entry which read "2002 Gujarat pogrom" proves my point
>because pogrom is a loaded term. You know that very well.
>
As I read more into this it is clear that the train fire was not an
accident.  Hindus on their way to a disputed religious site were indeed
the victims in that incident.  Although it is widely accepted that
Muslims were responsible for that specific incident, no individuals have
been caught and prosecuted.  It is also apparent that most of the
rioting that followed was instigated by Hindu mobs, but not exclusively
so.  Most of the between 2,000 and 2,500 deaths that resulted were
Muslims.  Gujarat is awash with extremists of all kinds. It shares a
border with Pakistan, and claims of Pakistani involvement in the unrest
have been very common.

The Comunists are not very strong in Gujarat, and the two Communist
parties only had a handful of token candidates in the last state
election.  Nationalist and religious issues are far more significant
inGujarat.  There is no denying Iyer's communist background, and his
participation in an elected state in relatively far away Kerala in 1957
(i.e. 45 years earlier).  His communist background has no relevance to
the incidents in Gujarat

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] India problems

body:
libertarian wrote:

>I am open to an honest investigation into what happened by REALLY
>neutral people who will look at it in an objective fashion. Even the
>original entry which read "2002 Gujarat pogrom" proves my point
>because pogrom is a loaded term. You know that very well.
>
How about
http://www.ploughshares.ca/CONTENT/ACR/ACR00/ACR00-IndiaGujarat.html

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
Rick wrote:

> Are you saying that those of us who think that VfD is useful are not
> contributing anything useful?  What about people like Lir, who feel
> that those of us who want to add things to VfD should instead make the
> article somehow "better" instead of garbage?  Isn't that "taking time
> away" from what we do best?
>
So what you are saying is that adding things to VfD is what you do best?
 .... and a half-hour of your time is worth more than the one hour of
combined time of other people?  Lir is right about this.

>  I'm sick and tired of being attacked as if what I'm doing on
> Wikipedia is somehow of lesser quality thatn what you and other people
> do.  Am I not worth keeping around?  Should I go away?
>
I'll interpret these as rhetorical questions that do not require an answer

>
>
> Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>     Rick wrote:
>
>     > Why can't you just indicate on VfD why you think the article is
>     valid?
>     >
>     Because it requires us to spend time at VfD when we could be doing
>     something useful. The most useful contributors are busy contributing.
>     Hurrying them to improve the article in question within seven days
>     means they have to take time away from what they do best. If they are
>     interested in the subject matter they'll deal with it according to
>     their
>     own timetables, and not when some deletionist tells them to.
>
>     Some of us like to consider our votes carefully. If it takes five
>     minutes each to consider each of a dozen articles that might
>     appear on
>     VfD on a given day that's an hour of time spent just deciding on
>     votes,
>     and the article itself is still unchanged. Even when the result of a
>     vote is unquestionably in favour of deletion, and the article is
>     deleted, we are no further ahead; we're just back at the point
>     where we
>     were before that article was written.
>
>     We are all limited in the amount of time that we can contribute.
>     Consider even some of our most severe edit wars, and I would suggest
>     that at any given time the number of people directly involved is
>     fairly
>     small.
>
>     If somebody who is considering an article to be added to VfD instead
>     took 15 minutes to half an hour researching and improving that
>     article,
>     it would save everybody's time, and Wikipedia would end up with a
>     something rather than a nothing.
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Wikitech-l IP block

body:
>193.x.x.x is not blocked on either en or fr.
>Chances are that the person has quit wikipedia after
>being blocked and not being successfull in reaching
>anyone.

>Best,
>Sascha Noyes

Thanks. But the mail was sent on the 6th of november ?

>I'll need more information: what browser are they
>using, do they use a
>proxy server, does using a different browser fix the
>problem...

>-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

I have dropped him a word and a name to ask him.
Thanks Brion

Ant

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subject: [WikiEN-l] More efficient process suggestions

body:
user_Jamesday wrote:

>Add [[random short pages]] and [[random pages with one editor]] to random pages options.
>
>Add page quality 0-9 checkboxes and [[random tagged as needing attention]] 0-9 choices. Delete [[pages needing attention]]. Also part of the move to working out what 1.0 should include.
>
>Same for cleanup.
>
>Add automatic deletion of pages at quality 0.5 or below for 6 months and [[list of pages at quality 0.5 or lower, oldest to newest]].
>
>Now delete VfD and use disputes over articles instead.
>
>Add [[needs wikification]] and [[needs copyedit]] checkboxes with their searches.
>
>Technical notes. All of the quality types need a score in the article and a table of aricle/ tagType/ rankGiven/ dateGiven values for each contributor. Article score is mean of adjusted scores which count. Scores count for three months only. Scores stored multiplied by 1000 to avoid floats if the database likes that better. Or not stored at all if select sum() where / select count() where is fast enough. Adjust as required for efficiency. Need to fctor in hit counts at some point, so well used pages get kept even if nobody ranks them.
>
I can appreciate what you are trying to do, but I doubt that it's practical.

If software could do this it would be great ... but then someone would
need to write the software, or is it safe to assume that you would be
doing that?

Otherwise, it would need to be done manually, but the required
discipline to do this in a consistent manner may not be available from
our highly paid labour pool. :-)

Ec


body:
Add [[random short pages]] and [[random pages with one editor]] to random pages options.

Add page quality 0-9 checkboxes and [[random tagged as needing attention]] 0-9 choices. Delete [[pages needing attention]]. Also part of the move to working out what 1.0 should include.

Same for cleanup.

Add automatic deletion of pages at quality 0.5 or below for 6 months and [[list of pages at quality 0.5 or lower, oldest to newest]].

Now delete VfD and use disputes over articles instead.

Add [[needs wikification]] and [[needs copyedit]] checkboxes with their searches.

Technical notes. All of the quality types need a score in the article and a table of aricle/ tagType/ rankGiven/ dateGiven values for each contributor. Article score is mean of adjusted scores which count. Scores count for three months only. Scores stored multiplied by 1000 to avoid floats if the database likes that better. Or not stored at all if select sum() where / select count() where is fast enough. Adjust as required for efficiency. Need to fctor in hit counts at some point, so well used pages get kept even if nobody ranks them.


subject: [Wikitech-l] About IRC

body:
Despite of my attempt to install a software to access
IRC, I fail. This is not simple for a non developper.
It would be much better and transparent if discussions
could occur on wikipedia itself or the mailing list.

I can not follow discussions then, and in fact I do
not even know how that works, and if archives of the
discussions are left somewhere, if they can be
consulted somehow; Is it possible or not ? Or is it
possible that someone save all the discussions so
those who do not have IRC know what is going on ?

I must sound very innocent I suppose, but I really do
not know how that works :-)

It is my understanding discussions are occuring over
there (or would occur) about setting a french
association and hosting of a server in France, or so
is what I understand from what is written on
wikipedia; In an association, there must be an annual
gathering to decide of err...rules, amount of money
members must pay, and such. Physical gathering to do
so would be difficult, so someone is suggesting that
this is done by IRC.

Does anyone knows if this is legal on IRC ?

If it is so, could there be a technical way for
wikipedia to help setting a sort of interface between
IRC and Wikipedia, so that this is publicly visible
and available to anyone at anytime ?

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subject: [WikiEN-l] India problems

body:
Arvind Narayanan wrote:

>On Sat, Nov 08, 2003 at 12:06:26AM -0500, libertarian wrote:
>
>>--- On Fri 11/07, Arvind Narayanan < arvindn at meenakshi.cs.iitm.ernet.in > wrote:
>>From: Arvind Narayanan [mailto: arvindn at meenakshi.cs.iitm.ernet.in]
>>
>>>The person making the allegations has 3 usernames
>>>LibertarianAnarchist, Democrate2003 and Conradx. I'll call them LA
>>>for short. The above articles are the only ones LA has ever edited.
>>>
>>This is rubbish. Any admin can check up the IP address and you
>>will find that I have nothing to do with Democrate2003 or Conradx.
>>
>That proves nothing at all. You could be using one username from
>home and one from work etc.
>
As much as I may have serious differences with Libertarian's substantive
points, I don't think that pursuing the multiple identities issue will
be fruitful.  The fact has been denied, and he is now aware that such a
practice is not at all appreciated on Wikipedia.  If his denial is
correct then it's a non-issue.  If his denial is less than honest, he
should be allowed the opportunity to quietly stop using the identities
without further ado.

Ec


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
>From: Fred Bauder [mailto: fredbaud at ctelco.net]
>
>> So it seems that LibertarianAnarchist, in fact, is an advocate
>> of a Hindu Nationalist Point of View with a decidely fascist
>> tinge to his assertions.
>
>This sort of statement is nothing but slander. My own political
>leaning is towards a peaceful anarchy. I do not support any
>political party.
>
>However, the following are FACTS:

I think the most important fact about India relevant to this discussion is
that it is the largest Muslim nation in the world. That is, more muslims
live in India than in any other state. Government policies have been
designed to as much as possible, given the history of Islamic Hindu
interactions, to integrate Muslims into the Indian nation as full citizens.
This is in part, looking into possible futures, to avoid trouble, part
simply respect for fellow Indian citizens.

Fred


subject: [WikiEN-l] India problems

body:
>Fred Bauder [mailto: fredbaud at ctelco.net]
>
>> It is not at all clear that the fire was anything but accident.
>
>In short, if Hindus were roasted alive, everything is in doubt.
>If Hindus can be blamed, word it as an ASSERTION. Right!
>
>You just proved my point about intolerance and racism against Indians
>and Hindus. If this is what Wikipedia is going to turn into, it is
>really sad.
>
>I am open to an honest investigation into what happened by REALLY
>neutral people who will look at it in an objective fashion. Even the
>original entry which read "2002 Gujarat pogrom" proves my point
>because pogrom is a loaded term. You know that very well.
>
>-a

One point. The Muslims in India are Indians.

Another, I am not an expert on this matter, but it seems everyone jumped to
conclusions when the incident was first reported and acted accordingly,
with baleful results. It is good to look back and investigate but the evil
is in the prejudice on both sides which was triggered by whatever happened.
Just what in the hell do you want?, Another  partition?

Fred


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Error on download.wikipedia.org

body:
On Nov 8, 2003, at 04:46, Alfio Puglisi wrote:
> Hello,
> an error popped up on http://download.wikipedia.org
>
> Warning: filesize(): Stat failed for
> archives/en/20031108_old_table.sql.bz2 (errno=75 - Value too large for
> defined data type) in /usr/local/apache/htdocs/download/index.php on
> line
> 133
>
> Are sql dumps getting too big? :-)

Conratulations, Wikipedia, we have broken the 2 gigabyte barrier! :)

I've added a workaround to measure the size without an error, but some
people may have trouble downloading this dump.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikitech-l] IRC (walter)

body:
Anthere wrote:

> Despite of my attempt to install a software to
access
> IRC, I fail. This is not simple for a non
developper.

Go to http://javachat.wikipedia.be

It is the Javachat for #nl.wikipedia

When conected enter;
/leave

(to leave #nl.wikipedia)

and
/join #wikipedia

and (or)
/join #fr.wikipedia

To change your name;
/nick yournewname

--
Thanks Walter, I tried

When I click on the link, in the middle of the page,
there is a broken link saying I need to download the
plugin.

When I click on this link
(http://plugins.netscape.com/plug-in_finder.adp?application/x-java-vm)
I get a message telling me there were no plug in found

What is missing ?

------

Loo gave me that address
http://www.pure-mac.com/irct.html

Alvaro made me download and install AthenaIRC: 2.1.0
for MacOS 9.x the other day.

Apparently one of the few for Mac OS 9 and free ?

As nickname and username I put Anthere
As Quit message : I put nothing (I do not know what I
am supposed to put)

In the connection settings, I put

Serveur : irc.freenode.net (as written on
fr.wikipedia)
Port 6667 (well, that was default)
Password : none (because I know not what I should
write)
At what command to put at login : I put nothing (I
have no idea what to put)
At what to write at logoff : I put nothing (I have no
idea what to put)
At Motd display : I put Display in dialogue (other
options don't post, or post to console)
+i invisible is checked
+w receive operator message is not
+s receive server message is not (these were options
per default)
In autoexecute : I put nothing (I do not know what to
put)

In short, this is all chinese to me.

When I try to connect, I have this message

*** Closing Link: Anthere (Connection Timed Out)
*** Attempting reconnect in 5 seconds
*** Opening IDENT Socket, waiting for connection
*** Connected to irc.freenode.net
*** Ident Connected
*** Looking up your hostname...
*** Ident Request Recieved
*** Found your hostname, welcome back
*** Checking ident
*** Got ident response
*** Some command did not include enough parameters

This is also chinese to me

-------

What do I do ? Ideas for me to be able to join the
wikipedia community discussions ?

err...the name of the missing plugin perhaps ?

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from_name: Karl Eichwalder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Blocking

in_reply_to:
<3FAC787E.7010202@hotmail.com> (Tim Starling's message of "Sat,
	08 Nov 2003 16:00:46 +1100")

body:
Tim Starling <ts4294967296 at hotmail.com> writes:

> I was discussing possible measures against this guy on the IRC
> channel. I came to the conclusion that the best feature to implement
> would be a method for quickly rolling back page creation. Possibly,
> sysops could have a column of checkboxes on RC.

Those power features will do more harm than good.  Using such a feature
would mean that the wiki concept failed.

> Perhaps this could be submitted to Sourceforge feature requests.

It's much easier.  Just do nothing for some days and the offender will
quickly loose interest in his destructive doings.  The real vandals are
those who add (commercial) stuff for optimizing their search engine
results.

--
                                                         |      ,__o
                                                         |    _-\_<,
http://www.gnu.franken.de/ke/                            |   (*)/'(*)


body:
>> I can appreciate what you are trying to do, but I doubt that it's practical. If software could do this it would be great ... but then someone would need to write the software, or is it safe to assume that you would be doing that?

Ec<<

By the time of 1.0 English Wikipedia will be over 200,000 articles. Getting machine help is not avoidable with that many articles. We must have machine help to identify what is suitable for 1.0 and CD and whatever other subsets we produce. Instead of worrying about our different size thresholds, we can try to sort out how we can identify what's important and what tools we can use to help us work more productively.

Think of systems like slashdot.com and how they use thresholds to decide how much detail to show for each topic, with each reader chosing their own and each reader able to vote a post up or down in significance. That's the sort of tool we need here, with every reader able to and asked to help us by rating the articles they read.

When we have that we can use it to let people choose their encyclopedai size, from one volume to 500 volumes. At that point, inclusionism or delitionism just doesn't matter, because everyone gets their own personal ecyclopedia size.

Looking beyond that are editions (and corresponding flags) for censorship levels for child or religious or school curriculum suitability, so we can generate truly custom works for evey group of readers which can use a distinct subset of the work.

Expanding it to images, we end up with filter levels for copyright status, so someone who needs only public domain or only GFDL images can get an edition with only those images in it, while someone who's non-commercial and educational can get a visually richer one with all of the fair use images included.

The puzzle for now is working out just what we need so we can set up a cohesive plan for the developers.

I'm well committed on other open source development(SpamPal) but I enjoy tuning software so I'm following the development mailing list but being quiet most of the time because I know I'm otherwise occupied when it comes to programming. No telling when I'll feel that I can give the development work here the time I'd like to spend on it. My to do list is already way too long.:)


from_name: Alex Rosen

body:
I like this idea a lot!

One problem is, which version are you voting for? If I vote 7 for an
article, and then a few edits happen, what happens to my vote? We could
weight the votes based on what percent of the article has changed since
the vote. I think occasionally the diff tool gets confused and thinks
that a lot more has changed than it really has, but usually it's pretty
accurate, so for the most part that should work OK.

As far as using this to solve the inclusionism/deletionism debate, we'd
need two votes for that - quality and importance. I might want only
quality articles but of any importance, or vice versa.

Adding child-rating votes would require a lot more choices, since
people have very different ideas about what's apprpriate for kids. We'd
have to have ratings for sex, violence, language, etc. Fortunately the
vast majority of articles would be fine for kids, so nobody would need
to bother with those controls most of the time.

Another problem I see is how to deal with vandalism. It's usually easy
to determine if an article edit was made in bad faith, but there's no
way to tell if someone's just being a punk with their vote. I guess we'd
need to restrict voting to non-newbies, which is unfortunate...

What do other people think?

Alex


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Blocking

body:
Tim Starling <ts4294967296 at hotmail.com> writes:
> I was discussing possible measures against this guy on the IRC
> channel. I came to the conclusion that the best feature to implement
> would be a method for quickly rolling back page creation. Possibly,
> sysops could have a column of checkboxes on RC.

I like this idea. IMO, a better implementation idea would be to add rollback
checkboxes to every top edit displayed on their contributions page (maybe
with non-top edits automatically grayed out). At the top there simply would
be a "select all" option. However I still can do 2-3 rollbacks a second when
the server is running fast (gotta love scroll wheels on Linux - press them on
a link and it opens in a new window). So I wouldn't benefit much from such a
feature, but from a few frustrating experiences using rollback on a massive
scale at work (on MS Windows), I know it isn't as easy for many people
(whoever thought it would be a good idea to have 'auto-scroll' enabled when
pressing down on the scroll wheel should be shot!).

What I would love to see is the addition of diffs to user contrib pages. That
would make checking of anon edits go much faster (you can't just assume that
every edit ever made by a vandal's IP is also a vandalism).

Anything that gives us the upper hand against vandals is a good thing; if it
is easier for us to repair damage than it is for vandals to create it, then
that removes much of the incentive for vandals to make a mess of the place
and gives us tools to make cleaning up any mess when it does happen much
easier. It also allows us to keep our doors wide open. All good things.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [WikiEN-l] The deletion "discussion"

body:
I became overly emotional last night, and I apologize for that.  But when I am constantly attacked as not only worthless to the project but damaging to it, and when any attempt at explanation is dismissed out of hand as nothing but a "straw man" argument, I see that there is no point in continuing this so-called discussion.  I am therefore dropping out of any further argument on this subject.

I will continue doing what I have been doing until someone with authority tells me to stop.

RickK

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subject: [WikiEN-l] India problems

body:
Fred Bauder < fredbaud at ctelco.net > wrote:

> It is not at One point. The Muslims in India are Indians.

Correct.

> Another, I am not an expert on this matter, but it seems everyone
> jumped to conclusions when the incident was first reported and
> acted accordingly, with baleful results. It is good to look back
> and investigate but the evil is in the prejudice on both sides
> which was triggered by whatever happened. Just what in the hell do
> you want?, Another partition?

I want to state facts as they are without any Communist Party
propaganda that Arvind Narayanan has fallen for. He seems to be
a sincere person but either a fool or a 20 year old kid who is
carried away by talks of socialist paradise by Communists.

I feel it must be the former because he did not even know
Krishna Iyer's background until I taught him.

As for your jingoistic question on partition, an experiment was
carried out in 1947 to see what would happen if India was split
into two, one piece with a Muslim majority and another with a
Hindu majority. Guess what happened? One ended up into a theocracy
and an exporter of terrorism while the Hindu majority pice ended
up a democracy. It is a FACT that India became a democracy with
full liberties only because the majority of population were Hindus.

libertarian

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