body:
Arbitration is not a tool to be used in struggle with other editors. If you
are struggling with other editors rather than complaining in good faith
about violations of Wikipedia policy you are probably violating Wikipedia
policies yourself.

As to comparisons with the common law, arbitration has always been a way to
escape from the rigid and awkward rules of Anglo-Saxon common law with its
emphasis on procedure and rules of evidence which prevent adequate
investigation of what is actually going on. Our procedures take as much from
traditonal equity and from continental civil law as from common law. We need
to be free to investigate, not be bound by whatever the litigants choose or
are able to bring to us.

Fred

> From: AndyL <andyl2004 at sympatico.ca>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 09:13:21 -0500
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'?
>
> on 3/6/05 6:18 AM, sannse at sannse at tiscali.co.uk wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> AndyL wrote:
>>> Well if the complainant is acting or has acted badly that should be taken by
>>> the ArbComm as a mitigating factor in favour of the respondant when
>>> considering the complainant's complaint but no more than that. While I could
>>> see an ArbComm suggesting to a respondent (or other participants) that
>>> he/she/they file their own arbitration request against the complainant for
>>> the ArbComm to take that step unilaterally is improper.
>>
>> The court analogy is flawed, we are not a court of law - we're just a
>> group of users trying to solve disputes in the most practical and fair
>> way for the project.
>
> You haven't expressed why it's flawed, simply that you do not want ArbComm
> be compared to a court because you don't want the comparison. I put to you
> that the ArbComm should attempt to emulate a court process even if it is
> "just a group of users trying to solve disputes" because that is indeed he
> most practical and especially the most fair way to do it.
>
> I don't see that it would be that difficult for the ArbComm to do what I am
> suggesting above, limit itself to terms of reference set out in the original
> complaint, not initiate its own countercomplaints ie be a complaints-driven.
> This is not only standard in courts but in quasi-judicial settings, at least
> in the Anglo-Saxon world, and ArbComm is nothing if it's not quasi-judicial.
>
>>
>> A much better analogy is of a school headmaster sorting out who did what
>> after a playground fight. We want to know who hit first, who hit most,
>> and who chucked in a sly boot from the side-lines.
>
> That's quite an insulting example actually and elevates the ArbComm to
> headmaster while denigrating the rest of us to the status of children.
> School is the closest most of us get to being in a dictatorship - I don't
> think that's really a great model to emulate. The difference between the
> quasi-judicial model and the "headmaster" model is that the former puts
> limits on the ArbComm. While I can see why the ArbComm would prefer to have
> no limits and be able to do what they wish, including initiate
> investigations, I don't think that would be healthy for Wikipedia.
>
>
>>
>> There is no way that I would be content to just look at one side of the
>> argument, because arguments are rarely one-sided.  That's not
>> overstepping our remit - that's part of the fundamental definition of
>> arbitration.
>
> No, what ArbComm is doing is leading itself into oblivion because no one is
> going to want to initiate a complaint if it puts them at risk of punishment.
> "ArbComm chill" if you will. I know that there was a serious hesitation by a
> number of people to initiate a complaint against Herschelkrustofsky for that
> very reason.
>
> Let each complaint be seperate. You have not explained to me what is wrong
> with expecting the respondant or third parties who have issues with the
> complainant to initiate their own seperate complaint. I think once we have
> more than one complaint the issue of whether to deal with them jointly or
> separately can be dealt with but there's no reason why the ArbComm should
> initiate countercomplaints rather than have the impacted parties do it.
>
>
>>
>> If someone /uninvolved/ brought a dispute to the arbitration committee,
>> then I wouldn't see a need to scrutinise their edits.  But if you are
>> part of the dispute, then we certainly should look to see if you are
>> part of the cause of it.
>
> Again, that should mitigate the ArbComm's decision in regard to the
> respondant but should not result in punishment of the complainant unless and
> until a separate complaint is filed.
>
>
>>
>>> I think the ArbComm
>>> has rather unilaterally expanded its powers without seeking any sort of
>>> consent from the wikicommunity. Is there a space where we can debate and
>>> vote upon a resolution re the ArbComm's rules and authority?
>>
>> There are the talk pages of [[Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee]] and
>> [[Wikipedia:Requests for Arbitration]], but I'm a bit concerned that the
>> discussion may get lost there.  Perhaps we need a page specifically for
>> discussing how the arbitration committee works?  In particular, I'm
>> interested in hearing more about the suggestion that we are /making/
>> policy - it's important to me that we don't do that, so I'd like to hear
>> more about it is people think we are doing so (I don't keep up with this
>> list fully - I'd prefer the discussion to be on Wikipedia)
>>
>> --sannse
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Pavol Cupka

body:
Hi,

I don't have enough information about the Frisian languages, but I
must react to what was said about Slovak, Czech and Polish language.
These are (Slovakia, Czech republic and Poland) three different and
independent countries. They have one common ancestor the Slavic
language but that is the same as for English and German language
(Germanic languages). So to wrap it up these languages are different
languages (with diff. grammar, etc.) and not dialects or even one
language.

Example:
PL - Ka?dy mo?e si? do nas przy??czy? - r?wnie? Ty, bez ?adnych
formalno?ci, mo?esz dodawa? i modyfikowa? artyku?y.
CZ - Ka?d? se k n?m m??e p?ihl?sit - takt?? i Ty, bez n?jak?ch
formalit, m??e? p?id?vat a upravovat ?l?nky.
SK - Ka?d? sa k n?m m??e prihl?si? - aj Ty, bez nejak?ch formal?t,
m??e? prid?va? a upravova? ?l?nky.

Thank you and good luck with the Frisian languages

[[:sk:User:Palica]]

On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 22:55:42 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Wouter,
>
> I don't think there can be much practical opposition to your request
> because in practical terms, East Frisian / Saterlandic Frisian and
> West Frisian / Westerlauwers Frisian are different languages.
>
> I think you should create a mainpage at
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/test-wp/Friisk and you could also
> perhaps create some sample content pages.
>
> Mark
>
> On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 23:35:39 -0500, Stephen Forrest
> <stephen.forrest at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Forwarded to Wikipedia-l as requested by the author, who mistakenly
> > sent it only to me...
> >
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: Wouter Steenbeek <musiqolog at hotmail.com>
> > Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 00:00:13 +0100
> > Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Saterlandic Frisian Wikipedia
> > To: stephen.forrest at gmail.com
> >
> > >I believe you mean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saterland_Frisian_language.
> > >
> > >For the purposes of ISO 639 codes, Saterland Frisian is regarded as a
> > >dialect of Frisian.  Can you provide a rationale for why working
> > >within the Frisian Wikipedia is not tenable?
> > >
> > >I seem to recall reading that there were different spelling
> > >conventions for the Frisian spoken in Germany and that spoken in the
> > >Netherlands.  I have no idea how significant these differences are.
> > >
> > >Steve
> > >_______________________________________________
> > >Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > >Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
> > You were right: I used the wrong link. Just a matter of mental absence ;).
> >
> > What is a dialect? There is a seperate Wiki for Aromanian, though it can
> > easily be classified as a Romanian dialect. There are Limburgish, Low Saxon
> > and Alemannic Wikis, though German and Dutch would do well for all three of
> > them. Some tend to classify Czech, Slowakian and even Polish as one
> > language, but no-one question the legitimity of the seperate wikis.
> > According to many scolars, West Lauwer Frisian and Saterland Frisian are
> > dialects of the Frisian language, along with North Frisian. Some do,
> > however, consider it a separate language. Let me point out the differences
> > and similarities.
> >
> > Westlauwer Frisian has, like Hollandic Dutch, only two genders: gendered and
> > neuter (de man, de frou, it ding). Saterlandic has three (di Mon, ju Fauene,
> > d?t Diert). Westlauwer Frisian lost, again along with Dutch, its cases,
> > while Saterlandic preserved its dative and accusative cases. Westlauwer
> > Frisian has a complex system of diphthong which are the consequences of an
> > elaborate breaking process during the early Modern Age; this process has
> > left Saterlandic totally untouched; instead it developed other
> > mutation(ljibbe - lieuwje; swiet - sw?it; leaf - ljoof). As a result,
> > Westlauwer Frisians and Saterland Frisians cannot understand each other,
> > unless they studied the other language.
> > Another important difference is in the vocabulary: Westlauwer Frisian draws
> > on Dutch, Saterland Frisian on German. Finally, Standard Westlauwer Frisian
> > has no official or prescriptive status in the Saterland: If Frisian is used
> > at all officially (which happens increasingly), Saterfrisian is used.
> >
> > Maybe I will point this out with some comparative samples in the article on
> > Saterlandic.
> >
> > Wouter
> >
> > _________________________________________________________________
> > Altijd in contact met de kleinkinderen: MSN Messenger
> > http://messenger.msn.nl/
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


list: wikien-l

from_name: AndyL

subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'?

body:
on 3/6/05 6:18 AM, sannse at sannse at tiscali.co.uk wrote:

>
>
> AndyL wrote:
>> Well if the complainant is acting or has acted badly that should be taken by
>> the ArbComm as a mitigating factor in favour of the respondant when
>> considering the complainant's complaint but no more than that. While I could
>> see an ArbComm suggesting to a respondent (or other participants) that
>> he/she/they file their own arbitration request against the complainant for
>> the ArbComm to take that step unilaterally is improper.
>
> The court analogy is flawed, we are not a court of law - we're just a
> group of users trying to solve disputes in the most practical and fair
> way for the project.

You haven't expressed why it's flawed, simply that you do not want ArbComm
be compared to a court because you don't want the comparison. I put to you
that the ArbComm should attempt to emulate a court process even if it is
"just a group of users trying to solve disputes" because that is indeed he
most practical and especially the most fair way to do it.

I don't see that it would be that difficult for the ArbComm to do what I am
suggesting above, limit itself to terms of reference set out in the original
complaint, not initiate its own countercomplaints ie be a complaints-driven.
This is not only standard in courts but in quasi-judicial settings, at least
in the Anglo-Saxon world, and ArbComm is nothing if it's not quasi-judicial.

>
> A much better analogy is of a school headmaster sorting out who did what
> after a playground fight. We want to know who hit first, who hit most,
> and who chucked in a sly boot from the side-lines.

That's quite an insulting example actually and elevates the ArbComm to
headmaster while denigrating the rest of us to the status of children.
School is the closest most of us get to being in a dictatorship - I don't
think that's really a great model to emulate. The difference between the
quasi-judicial model and the "headmaster" model is that the former puts
limits on the ArbComm. While I can see why the ArbComm would prefer to have
no limits and be able to do what they wish, including initiate
investigations, I don't think that would be healthy for Wikipedia.

>
> There is no way that I would be content to just look at one side of the
> argument, because arguments are rarely one-sided.  That's not
> overstepping our remit - that's part of the fundamental definition of
> arbitration.

No, what ArbComm is doing is leading itself into oblivion because no one is
going to want to initiate a complaint if it puts them at risk of punishment.
"ArbComm chill" if you will. I know that there was a serious hesitation by a
number of people to initiate a complaint against Herschelkrustofsky for that
very reason.

Let each complaint be seperate. You have not explained to me what is wrong
with expecting the respondant or third parties who have issues with the
complainant to initiate their own seperate complaint. I think once we have
more than one complaint the issue of whether to deal with them jointly or
separately can be dealt with but there's no reason why the ArbComm should
initiate countercomplaints rather than have the impacted parties do it.

>
> If someone /uninvolved/ brought a dispute to the arbitration committee,
> then I wouldn't see a need to scrutinise their edits.  But if you are
> part of the dispute, then we certainly should look to see if you are
> part of the cause of it.

Again, that should mitigate the ArbComm's decision in regard to the
respondant but should not result in punishment of the complainant unless and
until a separate complaint is filed.

>
>> I think the ArbComm
>> has rather unilaterally expanded its powers without seeking any sort of
>> consent from the wikicommunity. Is there a space where we can debate and
>> vote upon a resolution re the ArbComm's rules and authority?
>
> There are the talk pages of [[Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee]] and
> [[Wikipedia:Requests for Arbitration]], but I'm a bit concerned that the
> discussion may get lost there.  Perhaps we need a page specifically for
> discussing how the arbitration committee works?  In particular, I'm
> interested in hearing more about the suggestion that we are /making/
> policy - it's important to me that we don't do that, so I'd like to hear
> more about it is people think we are doing so (I don't keep up with this
> list fully - I'd prefer the discussion to be on Wikipedia)
>
> --sannse
>


list: wikitech-l

from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Wikitech-l] Nofollow vote results on en.wikipedia

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

> Matthew Trump said:

>> Following the advice of the developers, community vote was set up. It
>> was open for two weeks and had spirited debate about the use of
>> "nofollow". The result of the vote was
>> Remove "nofollow" -- 61% (85 votes)
>> Keep "nofollow"   -- 39% (55 votes)

> This is not a consensus.  There is no need to take any action.

Not quite. Adding "nofollow" was a unilateral decision, not a consensus
one. The vote to ratify it or not sprang up *immediately*.

The consensus would be required to *keep* this radical change - not
to put things back how they were before it.

- d.


body:
Hi Mark,

I agree that the example wasn't very good as far as to show the
difference between Slovak and Czech language.

This rule would apply:
3. They are official languages of different nations, with different
official names or the script usage varies.

There are many different words between Slovak and Czech language and
although it might seem to be similar they are not so much. The grammar
of these two lang. is different with different rules and although they
are similar as you pointed out now days after 12 years of separate
republics most of the Czech people have problems understanding the
Slovak language (no more Slovak cartoons or News editions).

I'll try to give you some more distinct examples:
EN - to listen CZ - poslouchat SK - po??va?
EN - to write CZ - ps?t SK - p?sa?
EN - to look CZ - d?vat se SK - pozera? sa
EN - donkey CZ - osel SK - som?r
EN - camel CZ - velbloud SK - ?ava
EN - chicken CZ - slepice SK - sliepka
EN - nice CZ - hezk? SK - pekn?

and many others.

Hope this makes for a better example.

Take it easy :)
Pavol

On Sun, 6 Mar 2005 00:50:23 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Pavol,
>
> I agree with you mostly, but we must admit: even in your example
> sentences, Czech and Slovak share many many cognates: the only words
> which aren't obviously related or even identical are "takt?? i" vs
> "aj". If you substitute Czech "?" for Slovak "?", Czech "?" for Slovak
> "r", Czech "t" for Slovak "t", and Czech "i" for Slovak "?", the ONLY
> differences in those two sentences is as I noted "takt?? i" vs "aj",
> and "se k n?m" vs "sa k n?m".
>
> Polish, on the other hand, is obviously more different.
>
> This does not mean they cannot be independent lnguages, I just want to
> point out that your example isn't much effective to prove the point.
>
> I think that you could take an article from the Czech Wikipedia, go
> through and change some minor things, and have a perfectly valid
> Slovak article. It amazes me to no end that these sorts of close
> Wikipedias do not engage in wider content-sharing programs: Indonesian
> and Malaysian Wikipedias are in a similar situation.
>
> However, even the Czechoslovakian government considered them as two
> different languages. The case of the FYRs' (former yugoslav republics)
> languages, with the exception of Macedonian and Albanian, is perhaps
> more compelling, as until relatively recently there were no such
> languages as Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, and Montenegrin.
>
> In fact, Serbian nationalists such as Nikola Smolenski try to assert
> that Montenegrin is not a separate language from Serbian, and even
> that Bosnian is just "Serbian as spoken in Bosnia". Why not calling
> Serbian, "Montenegrin as spoken in Serbia"?
>
> Although these sorts of nationalist politics have no place in
> Wikipedia articles, they already appear on [[Montenegrin language]]
> and [[Moldovan language]], both of which are not exactly NPOV and play
> down the possibility of them being separate languages (neither page
> notes that there is no definitive, universally agreed-upon boundary
> between language and dialect, but rather paints a picture of
> nationalist freaks trying to get what is "obviously" a dialect
> considered a separate language). If you think they are not NPOV, you
> should see the article on Montenegrin language at the Serbian
> wikipedia, and the article on Moldovan language at the Romanian
> Wikipedia (thankfully, the Moldovan Wikipedia has a much more neutral
> version, noting that it is the official language of Moldova, but that
> not everybody recognises it as separate from Romanian).
>
> Generally, languages are considered separate by experts if they meet
> one of three criteria: 1. They have less than 80% lexical similarity
> in spoken form, 2. A significant portion of the speaker population of
> one variety considers them separate, or 3. They are official languages
>  of different nations, with different official names or the script
> usage varies.
>
> The first one catches languages whose speakers do not nessecarily
> consider them separate (although experts might), such as various
> Quechua varieties. The second one catches languages that are
> borderline (ie, 81% lexical similarity) but that the population
> considers separate, or cases where (in the words of the ethnologue)
> "separate literature [is] nessecary". The third catches languages that
> may be widely considered to be the same, but who use different writing
> systems (Dungan vs Sichuan Mandarin, Greenlandic vs Inuktitut, etc)
> and languages whose governments declare them separate with no
> significant speaker support (no current examples, although it is
> concievable that in a violent separation between two linguistically
> similar portions of a single country, they would declare their
> languages separate without support from the people)
>
> Mark
>
> On Sun, 6 Mar 2005 08:08:02 +0100, Pavol Cupka <pavol.cupka at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I don't have enough information about the Frisian languages, but I
> > must react to what was said about Slovak, Czech and Polish language.
> > These are (Slovakia, Czech republic and Poland) three different and
> > independent countries. They have one common ancestor the Slavic
> > language but that is the same as for English and German language
> > (Germanic languages). So to wrap it up these languages are different
> > languages (with diff. grammar, etc.) and not dialects or even one
> > language.
> >
> > Example:
> > PL - Ka?dy mo?e si? do nas przy??czy? - r?wnie? Ty, bez ?adnych
> > formalno?ci, mo?esz dodawa? i modyfikowa? artyku?y.
> > CZ - Ka?d? se k n?m m??e p?ihl?sit - takt?? i Ty, bez n?jak?ch
> > formalit, m??e? p?id?vat a upravovat ?l?nky.
> > SK - Ka?d? sa k n?m m??e prihl?si? - aj Ty, bez nejak?ch formal?t,
> > m??e? prid?va? a upravova? ?l?nky.
> >
> > Thank you and good luck with the Frisian languages
> >
> > [[:sk:User:Palica]]
> >
> >
> > On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 22:55:42 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Hi Wouter,
> > >
> > > I don't think there can be much practical opposition to your request
> > > because in practical terms, East Frisian / Saterlandic Frisian and
> > > West Frisian / Westerlauwers Frisian are different languages.
> > >
> > > I think you should create a mainpage at
> > > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/test-wp/Friisk and you could also
> > > perhaps create some sample content pages.
> > >
> > > Mark
> > >
> > > On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 23:35:39 -0500, Stephen Forrest
> > > <stephen.forrest at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > Forwarded to Wikipedia-l as requested by the author, who mistakenly
> > > > sent it only to me...
> > > >
> > > > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > > > From: Wouter Steenbeek <musiqolog at hotmail.com>
> > > > Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 00:00:13 +0100
> > > > Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Saterlandic Frisian Wikipedia
> > > > To: stephen.forrest at gmail.com
> > > >
> > > > >I believe you mean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saterland_Frisian_language.
> > > > >
> > > > >For the purposes of ISO 639 codes, Saterland Frisian is regarded as a
> > > > >dialect of Frisian.  Can you provide a rationale for why working
> > > > >within the Frisian Wikipedia is not tenable?
> > > > >
> > > > >I seem to recall reading that there were different spelling
> > > > >conventions for the Frisian spoken in Germany and that spoken in the
> > > > >Netherlands.  I have no idea how significant these differences are.
> > > > >
> > > > >Steve
> > > > >_______________________________________________
> > > > >Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > >Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > > >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > >
> > > > You were right: I used the wrong link. Just a matter of mental absence ;).
> > > >
> > > > What is a dialect? There is a seperate Wiki for Aromanian, though it can
> > > > easily be classified as a Romanian dialect. There are Limburgish, Low Saxon
> > > > and Alemannic Wikis, though German and Dutch would do well for all three of
> > > > them. Some tend to classify Czech, Slowakian and even Polish as one
> > > > language, but no-one question the legitimity of the seperate wikis.
> > > > According to many scolars, West Lauwer Frisian and Saterland Frisian are
> > > > dialects of the Frisian language, along with North Frisian. Some do,
> > > > however, consider it a separate language. Let me point out the differences
> > > > and similarities.
> > > >
> > > > Westlauwer Frisian has, like Hollandic Dutch, only two genders: gendered and
> > > > neuter (de man, de frou, it ding). Saterlandic has three (di Mon, ju Fauene,
> > > > d?t Diert). Westlauwer Frisian lost, again along with Dutch, its cases,
> > > > while Saterlandic preserved its dative and accusative cases. Westlauwer
> > > > Frisian has a complex system of diphthong which are the consequences of an
> > > > elaborate breaking process during the early Modern Age; this process has
> > > > left Saterlandic totally untouched; instead it developed other
> > > > mutation(ljibbe - lieuwje; swiet - sw?it; leaf - ljoof). As a result,
> > > > Westlauwer Frisians and Saterland Frisians cannot understand each other,
> > > > unless they studied the other language.
> > > > Another important difference is in the vocabulary: Westlauwer Frisian draws
> > > > on Dutch, Saterland Frisian on German. Finally, Standard Westlauwer Frisian
> > > > has no official or prescriptive status in the Saterland: If Frisian is used
> > > > at all officially (which happens increasingly), Saterfrisian is used.
> > > >
> > > > Maybe I will point this out with some comparative samples in the article on
> > > > Saterlandic.
> > > >
> > > > Wouter
> > > >
> > > > _________________________________________________________________
> > > > Altijd in contact met de kleinkinderen: MSN Messenger
> > > > http://messenger.msn.nl/
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: actionforum at comcast.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Nofollow vote results on en.wikipedia

body:
-------------- Original message --------------
> Tony Sidaway wrote:
> Tomer Chachamu said:
> > On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 20:27:41 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway
> > wrote:
> >> > Remove "nofollow" -- 61% (85 votes)
> >> > Keep "nofollow" -- 39% (55 votes)
> >>
> >> This is not a consensus. There is no need to take any action.
> >
> > Don't be ridiculous. In such a case, where there is a clear majority
> > *and the decision is instantly reversible*, the rel="nofollow" should
> > be removed.
>
> Absolutely not. We do things by consensus of en.wikipedia. I suggest we
> continue this discussion on wikien-l where it belongs.

We don't reach consensus here on wikien-l to the exclusion of the rest of the community, but in the open on the wikipedia site.  What we do here is conduct some business with blocked users who don't otherwise have access.  Any "consensus" we reach here is mere discussion.

                                -- Silverback


subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange fetishes

body:
-------------- Original message --------------
> On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 21:57:04 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway
> wrote:
> > It's the "We need *this* edit war for the good of Wikipedia" syndrome.
> > It's related to [[Wikipedia:The Wrong Version]].
>
> Indeed. There is so much to be achieved through dialectic and
> consensus, and nothing at all to be achieved through violence. And
> though it may debase the meaning of violence to apply it digitally, a
> revert was _is_ analogous a physical controntation when words have
> failed. Let us import knowledge from the real world, not stupidity.
> :-)

That is both debasing to the meaning of violence, and taking the revert all too personally.  Really, it may be no more than a statement, that the edit wasn't obvious, and needs to be justified if you are serious about it.  You also forget that the edit being reverted may be a change or deletion, and so the "edit" may have been every bit as "violent" as a revert.
                           -- Silverback


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Sabine Cretella

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Word of the day - two days after start ...

body:
Just some notes on what happened in two days ... today day three is
starting ...

I created the list when I told you the other day - then I sent out 50
invitations - to date there are 19 subscribers (take of the two of us
who are moderators). Three of these invitations were sent to people
(translators) who contrast the Italian wiktionary (they subscribed -
maybe to have a reason to contrast me even more ;-) ... they are going
to be future editors ... believe me :-) the others are partly
translators and people I just had the e-mail address through various
discussion groups.

So they are mixed.

None of the subscribers are people contributing to wiktionary (up to now).

So these kinds of mailing lists do work to promote our projects.

I would very much appreciate it if some of you started a similar list -
in other languages.

If you do so - or would like to do so: please let me know - I'll help
you with the promotion.

Now I won't promote the group actively for some weeks - just add the
link to my normal footer of the e-mails I send (have a look below) - and
let's see how this works. After that I'll do a further promotion round.

The word of the day for today is going to be "Sunday" (domenica) :-)

Ciao, Sabine

--

Sabine Cretella
Translations IT-DE, EN-DE
s.cretella at wordsandmore.it
Meetingplace for translators
http://www.wesolveitnet.com
*****
Vuoi la parola del giorno nella tua casella di posta?
Invia un'e-mail vuota a:
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy

body:
-------------- Original message --------------
>d. wrote:
> actionforum at comcast.net wrote:
>
> >>I really don't see what's so hard about actually putting a reason bearing
> >>a relationship to policy, particularly when VFD explicitly says to do so.
>
> > What's hard, it that applying policy to to a factual situation is "original
> > research". If we can't apply definitions of words, or count for ourselves,
> > perhaps we get out of the habit of reasoning.
>
> Er, I can make no sense of your response in terms of the discussion. Could
> you please clarify? Where TF does 'original research' come into VFD policy?

I was pointing out the irony, that the "original research" prohibition is taken to extremis in the editing of articles, and yet is relied upon so heavily in the enforcement of and application of policy.

The "original research" prohibition probably has many unintended consequences.  It can, with a petty community of editors, severely limit the use of words with plain meanings, plainly applied to a situation.  If the word hasn't been applied by someone else to the situation it is considered original research.  It also, results in articles that are thought to have language that is not smoothing flowing.  For example, one often cannot point out an "irony", unless it has been pointed out elsewhere.  But one can get two facts contradictory facts into the article in close juxtoposition to each other, and leave the detection of the irony to the reader, but it doesn't quite flow as well as the explicit notation of the irony would.

Application of policy to a factual situation is no different than application Just War theory or the Geneva Convention to a factual situation.  One is required of the community and the other effectly banned, in the articles, at least.  That is why the talk pages are often as useful as the articles themselves.  It is also an advantage that signed articles in conventional encyclopedias have, the allow an authorial voice, reasoning and categorization, resulting in good summarys.
              -- Silverback


body:
Bryan Derksen wrote:

> So why not add non-notability to the deletion policy? If it's one of the
> most commonly used reasons for listing an article and yet it isn't
> actually listed as a valid reason for deletion in the deletion policy,
> it seems there's already a pretty big problem either with the VfD
> process or with the deletion policy.

Mostly because it'll be too damn subjective to fly.

- d.


from_name: sannse

body:
AndyL wrote:
> Well if the complainant is acting or has acted badly that should be taken by
> the ArbComm as a mitigating factor in favour of the respondant when
> considering the complainant's complaint but no more than that. While I could
> see an ArbComm suggesting to a respondent (or other participants) that
> he/she/they file their own arbitration request against the complainant for
> the ArbComm to take that step unilaterally is improper.

The court analogy is flawed, we are not a court of law - we're just a
group of users trying to solve disputes in the most practical and fair
way for the project.

A much better analogy is of a school headmaster sorting out who did what
after a playground fight. We want to know who hit first, who hit most,
and who chucked in a sly boot from the side-lines.

There is no way that I would be content to just look at one side of the
argument, because arguments are rarely one-sided.  That's not
overstepping our remit - that's part of the fundamental definition of
arbitration.

If someone /uninvolved/ brought a dispute to the arbitration committee,
then I wouldn't see a need to scrutinise their edits.  But if you are
part of the dispute, then we certainly should look to see if you are
part of the cause of it.

> I think the ArbComm
> has rather unilaterally expanded its powers without seeking any sort of
> consent from the wikicommunity. Is there a space where we can debate and
> vote upon a resolution re the ArbComm's rules and authority?

There are the talk pages of [[Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee]] and
[[Wikipedia:Requests for Arbitration]], but I'm a bit concerned that the
discussion may get lost there.  Perhaps we need a page specifically for
discussing how the arbitration committee works?  In particular, I'm
interested in hearing more about the suggestion that we are /making/
policy - it's important to me that we don't do that, so I'd like to hear
more about it is people think we are doing so (I don't keep up with this
list fully - I'd prefer the discussion to be on Wikipedia)

--sannse

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 266.6.0 - Release Date: 02/03/05


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Lists to edit online

body:
Hi, before I upload words to wiktionary I normally create tables with
the terms and then with mailmerge I create the pages to upload. In this
way it is quite easy to create glossaries together with wiktionary
contents and we have at least a double use.

Now creating the texts of Wikijunior in Italian (to have it then
translated by one of my pupils into German) I created a short list of
the big cats in English/German/Italian - Gerard already passed me the
terms in Dutch. Now what would be really great is to edit this list
online - so that many people could contribute. Then have the possibility
to export into csv-format (with utf-8 coding).

Is there a software around that already does that? I could install it on
my server for now - and of course any wikipedia project could use the
contents as license would always be GNU FDL.

It would be the fastest way to create contents... can you help me with this?

Thank you for any hint!

Ciao, Sabine

--

Sabine Cretella
s.cretella at wordsandmore.it
Meetingplace for translators
http://www.wesolveitnet.com
*****
Vuoi la parola del giorno nella tua casella di posta?
Invia un'e-mail vuota a:
laparoladelgiorno-subscribe at yahoogroups.com


subject: [Wikitech-l] Lists to edit online


subject: [Wiktionary-l] Lists to edit online


subject: [WikiEN-l] Evidence as to VFD being unusably big

body:
I just saved [[WP:VFD]] as of a few minutes ago. The HTML alone is 1,324,734
bytes. The associated files are 28,964 bytes.

I have a Pentium II 450MHz with 768MB memory running Netscape 7.2. It takes
a minute or two just for the page to render.

So to vote on VFD, you must have a broadband connection - anyone on dialup
is pretty much barred - and preferably be browsing with an Athlon 64. Or
maybe a Cray.

Here's one suggestion: make the main VFD page just links to the day pages,
rather than transcluding every one of them.

- d.


body:
sannse wrote:

> There are the talk pages of [[Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee]] and
> [[Wikipedia:Requests for Arbitration]], but I'm a bit concerned that the
> discussion may get lost there.  Perhaps we need a page specifically for
> discussing how the arbitration committee works?  In particular, I'm
> interested in hearing more about the suggestion that we are /making/
> policy - it's important to me that we don't do that, so I'd like to hear
> more about it is people think we are doing so (I don't keep up with this
> list fully - I'd prefer the discussion to be on Wikipedia)

We do put into words what new stupid thing someone has done when someone
comes up with a new form of stupid. I try to keep a healthy fear of
novelty in the process, though.

- d.


body:
Bryan Derksen wrote:
> Rick wrote:
>
>> --- Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> "Any VFD nomination not listing a reason in
>>> Wikipedia:Deletion policy may be summarily removed from the page."
>>>
>>
>> Exactly.  And "not notable" is not one of those
>> criteria.  And yet it's one of the most commonly used
>> reasons for listing an article.
>>
>>
> So why not add non-notability to the deletion policy? If it's one of the
> most commonly used reasons for listing an article and yet it isn't
> actually listed as a valid reason for deletion in the deletion policy,
> it seems there's already a pretty big problem either with the VfD
> process or with the deletion policy.

A formal proposal to add non-notability as a reason for deletion has
been voted on (with a large number of voters) in the past. It didn't
even get majority support.

The main problem is that notability depends very much on voters' POVs'
[*] whereas verfiability (which enjoys universal support) can be
ascertained in an NPOV way, thus the community has not proved willing to
enshrine non-notability into policy.

Pete

[*] E.g. esoteric topics about individual characters in sub-plots of
Lord of the Rings are kept, whereas as articles about million dollar
turnover manufacturing busineses are deleted, reflecting the (painting
with a broad brush) slant towards the "nerdy student/lefty" make-up of
the Wikipedia population.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Evidence as to VFD being unusably big

body:
David Gerard wrote:

> I just saved [[WP:VFD]] as of a few minutes ago. The HTML alone is
> 1,324,734
> bytes. The associated files are 28,964 bytes.
>
> I have a Pentium II 450MHz with 768MB memory running Netscape 7.2. It takes
> a minute or two just for the page to render.
>
> So to vote on VFD, you must have a broadband connection - anyone on dialup
> is pretty much barred - and preferably be browsing with an Athlon 64. Or
> maybe a Cray.
>
> Here's one suggestion: make the main VFD page just links to the day pages,
> rather than transcluding every one of them.
>
>
> - d.

Has splitting VfD by subject area also been proposed?


from_name: Charles Matthews

body:
Pete/Pcb21 wrote

> [*] E.g. esoteric topics about individual characters in sub-plots of
> Lord of the Rings are kept, whereas as articles about million dollar
> turnover manufacturing busineses are deleted, reflecting the (painting
> with a broad brush) slant towards the "nerdy student/lefty" make-up of
> the Wikipedia population.

Wikipedia will reflect its editors' interests, no question.  I don't really
accept that analysis, though.  A million-dollar turnover manufacturing
business is still family-sized, actually.  What is more, a million dollars
in one bank account looks much like a million dollars in another.  It is the
price of a very ordinary house in London, for example.

Charles


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
David Gerard said:
>
> Here's one suggestion: make the main VFD page just links to the day
> pages, rather than transcluding every one of them.

Of the suggestions made so far, I find this the most sensible.  People
would have just one place to look for recent listings.
I've been maintaining my own links to day listings for a few months now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Tony_Sidaway/Deletion


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Inserting images from commons in wikibooks

body:
Sabine Cretella wrote:
> Hi, I just tried to insert an image from commons into it.wikibooks.org -
> using [[Media:nameofimage.jpg]] and I also tried
> [[Media:nameofimage.jpg|200px]] and inserting the external link of the
> image. But the image just doesn't show up.

[[media: makes links to images, it does not include images inline. Use
[[image: for inline images.

I tested [[media:Pennsylvania_Winter_Sunset.jpg]] and
[[image:Pennsylvania_Winter_Sunset.jpg]] on it.wikibooks.org and both
worked as expected. If you're continuing to have a problem please
provide a URL to the page where you're working.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Lauri Love (nsh)

body:
On Sun, 6 Mar 2005 12:20:04 -0000, Charles Matthews
<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> Pete/Pcb21 wrote
>
> > [*] E.g. esoteric topics about individual characters in sub-plots of
> > Lord of the Rings are kept, whereas as articles about million dollar
> > turnover manufacturing busineses are deleted, reflecting the (painting
> > with a broad brush) slant towards the "nerdy student/lefty" make-up of
> > the Wikipedia population.
>
> Wikipedia will reflect its editors' interests, no question.  I don't really
> accept that analysis, though.  A million-dollar turnover manufacturing
> business is still family-sized, actually.  What is more, a million dollars
> in one bank account looks much like a million dollars in another.  It is the
> price of a very ordinary house in London, for example.
>

I don't think Pete was complaining about our slant towards editors'
interests, in fact, I'm sure we can all agree that Wikipedia only
exists because it allows people to write about what _they_ want, not
what others want them to. However, if every time you try and write
about something you are told that it is not notable or encyclopedic,
you would soon turn away, and another potentially great contributor
would be lost. I don't think that a million-dollar family business
deserves to be in Wikipedia more than a LOTR plot detail. However, I
don't think the converse either. In fact, I don't presume to the
qualified to judge the importance of any information, saving whether
it is neutrally written about, and verifiably true. Let me note, also,
that number ten downing street, is by many standards, a very ordinary
house in London. But that billions people know of it, while only a
thousands know of the [[Russian_Constitution_of_1906]] does not make
one any more suitable for inclusion than the other.


body:
 "Lauri Love (nsh)" wrote

>. Let me note, also,
> that number ten downing street, is by many standards, a very ordinary
> house in London.

Think you'll find that's not true, behind the facade.

>But that billions people know of it, while only a
> thousands know of the [[Russian_Constitution_of_1906]] does not make
> one any more suitable for inclusion than the other.

What gets included in WP seems mostly fine to me.  Details of invented
mythologies can always be ridiculed, individually.  I don't think anyone
actually knows what bits of popular culture will be seen as significant, or
will be alluded to, in the year 2050.

Charles


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
David Gerard wrote:

> Bryan Derksen wrote:
>
>> So why not add non-notability to the deletion policy? If it's one of
>> the most commonly used reasons for listing an article and yet it
>> isn't actually listed as a valid reason for deletion in the deletion
>> policy, it seems there's already a pretty big problem either with the
>> VfD process or with the deletion policy.
>
> Mostly because it'll be too damn subjective to fly.

So the solution is simple.  We simply avoid using it as an excuse for
deleting things until there is a strong consensus about what it means. :-)
Wikipedia is a long term encyclopedia project so if it takes a mere two
years to reach a consensus only the most impatient among us will be upset.

Ec


from_name: Rick

body:
--- Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> Rick wrote:
>
> >--- Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>"Any VFD nomination not listing a reason in
> >>Wikipedia:Deletion policy
> >>may be summarily removed from the page."
> >>
> >>
> >Exactly.  And "not notable" is not one of those
> >criteria.  And yet it's one of the most commonly
> used
> >reasons for listing an article.
> >
> >
> So why not add non-notability to the deletion
> policy? If it's one of the
> most commonly used reasons for listing an article
> and yet it isn't
> actually listed as a valid reason for deletion in
> the deletion policy,
> it seems there's already a pretty big problem either
> with the VfD
> process or with the deletion policy.

Because, in the recent vote for inclusion as a VfD
reason, notability didn't get enough of a consensus as
a reason for deletion.

RickK

__________________________________
Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday!
Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web
http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/


body:
--- David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> I just saved [[WP:VFD]] as of a few minutes ago. The
> HTML alone is 1,324,734
> bytes. The associated files are 28,964 bytes.
>
> I have a Pentium II 450MHz with 768MB memory running
> Netscape 7.2. It takes
> a minute or two just for the page to render.
>
> So to vote on VFD, you must have a broadband
> connection - anyone on dialup
> is pretty much barred - and preferably be browsing
> with an Athlon 64. Or
> maybe a Cray.
>
> Here's one suggestion: make the main VFD page just
> links to the day pages,
> rather than transcluding every one of them.

Nonsense.  I have a dialup connection and have little
problem working with the VfD page.

RickK

__________________________________
Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday!
Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web
http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>The only reason the current Arbitration Committee does not consider content
>is because we believe there is a community consensus that we should not. We
>do, in effect, consider content when the problem is aggressive POV editing,
>but as to deciding the essential nature of gravity we might be out of our
>depth. It is ok for Lieutenant Commander Data to throw about talk about
>gravitons but there are necessarily limits. However an editor who claims
>Scotland in Asia, that we might be able to deal with. As to whether Mongolia
>is in Central Asia or East Asia, well the problem is really with the editors
>who thinks it's important enough to revert over and over and over and over.
>
A natural consequence of allowing the Arbitration Committee seriously
consider contents would be ArbCom elections based on such issues as
where one stands in the Israel/Palestine conflict.  Voting is no way to
arrive at neutrality.  To the extent that the content review is
acceptable as with a discussion of Scotland's place in Asia the members
of the ArbCom need a keen ability to distinguish between gravitons and
levitons.

Ec


from_name: Wouter Steenbeek

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Saterlandic Frisian Wikipedia

body:
Thank you for your support, Mark, and for your suggestion. I will use the
test page meta/...../Fr?isk rather than Friisk, however: "Friisk" refers to
Insular North Frisian, which actually has so many dialects for so few
speakers that it would be a hell of a job to start a wiki in ;-). Anyway, I
am unfamiliar on the area of creating new wikis, so thanks again!

Concerning the West Slavonic languages, I don't support the view that they
form one language; I see them as seperate languages and I (try to) learn
them as seperate languages. I intentionally avoid the perhaps more
convenient example of Serbo-Croatian (Serbian, Croatian, Bosniak,
Macedonian) because I wouldn't venture on such thin ice and risk an e-mail
war.

Wouter

_________________________________________________________________
MSN Webmessenger doet het altijd en overal http://webmessenger.msn.com/


from_name: John Lee

body:
Rick wrote:

>--- Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
>
>>Take a look at the original proposal
>>itself, posted
>>3/4/2005 10:12 AM:
>>
>>"Any VFD nomination not listing a reason in
>>Wikipedia:Deletion policy
>>may be summarily removed from the page."
>>
>>
>
>Exactly.  And "not notable" is not one of those
>criteria.  And yet it's one of the most commonly used
>reasons for listing an article.
>
>RickK
>
>
I absolutely agree with Dpbsmith. Policy is meant to change with the
community, not vice-versa. As much as some of us would like to avoid
voting using highly subjective grounds like notability (which has
different meanings from person to person; my idea of notability seems
highly inclusionistic compared to some of the notability grounds used in
voting today), the fact remains that a good deal of the community *does*
use notability as a reason for deletion. If the community wants an
article to go, we shouldn't disregard their opinion just because it's
based on something subjective, since the resolution of the issue of
contention -- should the article be deleted? -- has been agreed upon.
(taken with a slight modification from [[Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy]])

I don't think removing nominations from VfD that are without a reason
found in the deletion policy is a good idea. If the nomination has no
specific rationale in itself, that might be acceptable, but non-notable
is often used as shorthand for not encyclopedic. It's basically an
editorial judgement - it's like a shorter version of "I don't think this
topic is sufficiently encyclopedic enough to merit its own article in
this encyclopedia". A nomination to delete should not be discarded
wantonly. If it's unreasonable, the community will speak for itself, and
that's much better than letting someone unilaterally make the decision
that the nomination is bullshit.

I agree something has to be done about VfD's size, though. I just don't
feel this is the right solution; rather, it more feels like a disguised
attempt to lead us down the slippery slope of discarding votes simply
because they just said "Delete. Non-notable." Regardless of the reason
given, as I stated in the first paragraph, it's still an editorial
decision that does not need extensive justification: An editor feels the
topic does not merit an article. That opinion is factored into the
decision by the community as a whole.

I think what should be done is to get the community more involved in VfD
by reducing its size and providing more avenues for categorisation of
articles being nominated for deletion. A professional aviator, for
example, would be interested in VfD nominations relating to aviation but
not scuba-diving. And so on. Likewise, a lot of articles are often
deleted unanimously or nearly unanimously, and end up cluttering VfD,
making it difficult for editors get to the heavily debated nominations.
[[Wikipedia:Categorized deletion]] and [[Wikipedia:Preliminary
deletion]] are both proposals that should be considered and discussed
more; if people aren't satisfied with them, nothing's stopping them from
making suggestions.

VfD's problem is not people making unreasonable nominations (those are
already easily removed because we still have a smattering of editors
being bold enough to use common sense). VfD's problem is it's too large
for the community to easily vote. Solve that, and the problem of
trigger-happy nominations will be easier to handle.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


body:
Lauri Love (nsh) wrote:

>On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 21:23:34 -0800 (PST), Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Exactly.  And "not notable" is not one of those
>>criteria.  And yet it's one of the most commonly used
>>reasons for listing an article.
>>
>>RickK
>>
>>
>
>Is this because the deletion policy is inadiquate, or because VfD is
>being abused? I know what your answer will be of course, so explain
>the notability "criterion" objectively in the policy page so we can
>all understand it. I personally think it's disgusting tyrrany of the
>majority. But I don't express opinions on wiki ;-)
>-nsh
>
>
Wikipedia is not meant to protect people from the tyranny of the
majority. It's meant to build a free, NPOV encyclopedia. Fortunately
most of our editors have enough common sense to understand when to be a
benevolent tyranny and when to be ruthless.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


body:
Pete/Pcb21 wrote:

> Charles Matthews wrote:
>
>> Pete/Pcb21 wrote
>>
>>> [*] E.g. esoteric topics about individual characters in sub-plots of
>>> Lord of the Rings are kept, whereas as articles about million dollar
>>> turnover manufacturing busineses are deleted, reflecting the (painting
>>> with a broad brush) slant towards the "nerdy student/lefty" make-up of
>>> the Wikipedia population.
>>
>> Wikipedia will reflect its editors' interests, no question.  I don't
>> really
>> accept that analysis, though.  A million-dollar turnover manufacturing
>> business is still family-sized, actually.  What is more, a million
>> dollars
>> in one bank account looks much like a million dollars in another.  It
>> is the
>> price of a very ordinary house in London, for example.
>
> Sorry yes I guess $1m was sufficiently low to muddy the waters
> unnecessarily. But I think I am making a valid point.

How big $1m really is is a question of perspective.  For some of us it
is still a hyge amount.  Would anybody characterize a $1m donation to
the Wikimedia Foundation as small?

> Trying another example:
> Pop stars and CEOs of large companies are both fine topics for an
> encyclopedia with a wide scope such as ours.
>
> Yes, fine, pop stars will always have greater coverage on WP because
> it is a reflection of its editors' interests. I can certainly live
> with that. However our policies and procedures must work so that when
> someone odd does come along and write about a CEO their article isn't
> strangled to death at VfD by people writing "not important , not
> notable" when they mean "not important, not notable _to me_".

The nerdy student/righty make up of the WP population is bound to
influence what is added but it is not a sufficient excuse for
subtracting what reflects a different POV.

> FWIW, a lot of the stuff that is ultimately deleted as "non-notable"
> actually fails "no original research" or "no nonsense", anyway.

If that's the case deletionists should have no need to rely upon
notability.  They would accomplish a lot by simply doing their homework.

Ec


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Page move vandal - there is a feature that can help with
	it ...

body:
Just had the following conversation with Tim Starling on
#mediawiki. Log quoted with permission.

Basically: there is a feature. Present version is unsubtle
in its restriction (last 10% of created accounts, which is
possibly a bit harsh to get consensus. A timed version
would be nice, but someone interested in it will have to
write the code.

Of course, if that restriction isn't considered too onerous
for the moment, it can just be switched on, and it will stop
Willy On Wheels! in his tracks.

<DavidGerard>	a question on page move vandalism: is there a good technical
reason why e.g. checking a user has been around for a time before doing a
move is infeasible? or is it just that no-one's coded it yet?
<DavidGerard>	(I assume there's a bug on the subject)
<TimStarling>	DavidGerard: yes, we wrote code for that when Wik was running
his vandalbot
<TimStarling>	it's currently switched off
<DavidGerard>	ok - does it need a vote or something to ratify switching it on?
<DavidGerard>	TimStarling: and is the code in question production quality,
of course? I plan to mention it on wikien-l, where it's been asked about,
and then start a discussion and vote page, if it's usable
<TimStarling>	the checkuser code? it's ready for use
<TimStarling>	if there's anything wrong with it, we'll fix it when problems
come up
<DavidGerard>	the page move checker. what time limit does it set, or is that
configurable?
<DavidGerard>	(I'm asking all this because I don't want to present you with
consensus for something not quite possible ;-)
<DavidGerard>	(ideally for somethng that's no more work than switching it on)
<TimStarling>	the current code just denies access to the move page function
for anyone who satisfies the isNewbie() condition
<TimStarling>	which generally meant one of the last 10% of user accounts created
<DavidGerard>	what's that set to?
<DavidGerard>	ah
<DavidGerard>	no particular time limit then
<TimStarling>	of course Wik then created 5000 user accounts on meta, good
for him
<TimStarling>	so we made an account creation throttle as well
<TimStarling>	no particular time limit
<DavidGerard>	how much work to put in a settable time limit? off the top of
your head
<DavidGerard>	(i'm thinking what is likely to be comprehensible and play well)
<TimStarling>	the sign-up date is not recorded
<TimStarling>	it's not in the schema, we were just using the user ID
<DavidGerard>	oh, so how is the 90 days calculated for votes?
<TimStarling>	by finding the first contribution, but that's an expensive query
<DavidGerard>	ew. yes.
<DavidGerard>	i shall mention it on wikien-l that it's possible at least ;-)
<TimStarling>	possible to do it by sign-on date? Yes, it's possible if
someone wants to write the code
<TimStarling>	it just means a schema change
<DavidGerard>	that's what i thought ;-)
<DavidGerard>	mind if I c'n'p this conversation to a wikien-l mail?
<TimStarling>	no I don't mind
<DavidGerard>	cool :-)

- d.


body:
Charles Matthews wrote:
> Pete/Pcb21 wrote
>
>
>>[*] E.g. esoteric topics about individual characters in sub-plots of
>>Lord of the Rings are kept, whereas as articles about million dollar
>>turnover manufacturing busineses are deleted, reflecting the (painting
>>with a broad brush) slant towards the "nerdy student/lefty" make-up of
>>the Wikipedia population.
>
>
> Wikipedia will reflect its editors' interests, no question.  I don't really
> accept that analysis, though.  A million-dollar turnover manufacturing
> business is still family-sized, actually.  What is more, a million dollars
> in one bank account looks much like a million dollars in another.  It is the
> price of a very ordinary house in London, for example.
>
> Charles

Sorry yes I guess $1m was sufficiently low to muddy the waters
unnecessarily. But I think I am making a valid point.

Trying another example:
Pop stars and CEOs of large companies are both fine topics for an
encyclopedia with a wide scope such as ours.

Yes, fine, pop stars will always have greater coverage on WP because it
is a reflection of its editors' interests. I can certainly live with
that. However our policies and procedures must work so that when someone
odd does come along and write about a CEO their article isn't strangled
to death at VfD by people writing "not important , not notable" when
they mean "not important, not notable _to me_".

If notability were to be defined somehow without reference to POVs, then
it would be more acceptable.

FWIW, a lot of the stuff that is ultimately deleted as "non-notable"
actually fails "no original research" or "no nonsense", anyway.

Pete


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Moving to wiktionary and deleting

body:
Olivier Bilodeau stated for the record:
> I would like to start cleaning up [[Category:Move to Wiktionary]]. I
> plan to create entries in Wiktionary, if they don't already exist, or
> remove the template if it is not appropriate. What I'd like to know if
> it possible to speedy delete the item, if it's been moved?

The definition of "move" includes the fact that, once the movee is
''there'', it is no longer ''here''.  (Cf. [[Pauli exclusion
principle]], [[Buckaroo Banzai location principle]].)

If you were to add the articles to Wiktionary and not delete them from
Wikipedia, you would not have ''moved'' them, you would have ''copied''
them.

--
  Sean Barrett     | Four parts ammonia, one part iodine crystals.
  sean at epoptic.com |


body:
Ray Saintonge stated for the record:
> ... the members
> of the ArbCom need a keen ability to distinguish between gravitons and
> levitons.

Which we have, of course: gravitons are what give our decisions their
all-important gravitas, and levitons are planned communities, the first
one of which was constructed in Pennsylvania.

--
  Sean Barrett     | Four parts ammonia, one part iodine crystals.
  sean at epoptic.com |


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
--- "steven l. rubenstein" <rubenste at ohiou.edu> wrote:
> As a number of people have recently made clear, Wikipedia is a project to
> develop a quality encyclopedia first, and a wiki-community second.  It is
> therefore impossible for behavioral guidelines alone, or a
> dispute-resolution process that is blind to matters of content, to suffice.

As much as I'd hate to have to judge content on the ArbCom, I think you are
right. I'm not sure if this will be successful and I'm pretty sure this is
dangerous ground to tread on.

-- mav

__________________________________
Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday!
Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web
http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
> Having said all that, here's my main point. I value your enthusiasm and I am in favour any appropriate means for preserving and promoting endangered minority languages (which are a precious cultural heritage) such as Saterlandic Frisian. However, I think it's just impossible to create a useful online encyclopedia depending on volunteer editors out of a community of barely 2000 native speakers. Please think about it. From looking at your name, I guess you are not a native speaker, are you? Please don't get me wrong. Of course, you can set up a Saterlandic wikipedia technically. But once it is installed would it ever have the slightest chance of becoming a useful, reliable source of information? Could it ever really flourish? If so, great! But given the small number of Saterlandic speakers I really doubt that. And please remember that even for those, say, 1.800 people the language they read and write in is German.

I for one think that a smaller community (even a "microcommunity"
perhaps) is more conducive to the Wiki concept because unlike such
large communities as Dutch or German speakers, it is very conceivable
that /every single speaker/ of Saterlandic Frisian could become
involved in such a Wikipedia.

I once had an idea, that we could set up a Hopi Wikipedia, and then
work on promotion of it on Hopi, get elders and teenagers involved,
try to get middle-aged people involved as well, and eventually hope
for 90% community involvement of Hopi speakers. When such a point is
reached, it is a virtual mirror of the real-life community, except it
is also working towards building an encyclopaedia.

Unfortunately I don't have the time or the resources to begin such a
project, and generally Hopi people are very distrusting of white
people in such matters (and with good reason, too) and although a
medium level of involvement may be reached, it might be hard to get
elders involved in what they see as a possible attempt by whites to
poison or kill Hopi language and culture.

However, in the future I will consider this idea, but I think there
are more ideal communities, for example the community of Havasupai
speakers living at the bottom of the Grand Canyon - there are less of
them, only a few hundred, but unlike Hopi, the entire community speaks
the language. (there are at least 3 monolinguals, although there are
more for Hopi) With the already developing advanced infrastructure of
the community, it is much more conceivable that total community
involvement in a Havasupai-language Wikipedia could be reached,
including everybody from the elders to the schoolchildren, all of whom
speak the language and are isolated by their location (at the bottom
of the Grand Canyon).

> How many editors does a wikipedia need to work (even if only at a very modest level)? E. g. the Dutch wikipedia (with c. 55,000 articles) currently has 9,333 registered editors, out of a language community of maybe 23 million. That equals a ratio of 0.04 % editors - and even if that number might still grow in the future, most wikipedia languages probably won't even reach that percentage. Now try to break that down for Saterlandic! In my opinion the only way for a wikipedia to become a success is to bring together a large number of people to cooperate. As far as Saterlandic is concerned, that is just not possible. That is a pity, of course. But it's the truth.

Why is it not possible? When you have such a small speaker community,
promotion is easier - you could even go door-to-door!

Even at the worst case, I think that 30% community involvement is
there, given promotion effort.

> If you think I am too pessimistic please have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Multilingual_ranking_February_2005, ranks 86 through 161. It's not that those wikipedias have just been established recently. Matter of fact, most of them have existed for quite some time now. Some of them have been around for a couple of years or more. And all of them have been them have been set up with the best of intentions by committed people just like you. And many of those languages have millions of speakers. But nevertheless, those wikipedias just aren't running. I always get kind of sad when I look at them. I surely wouldn't like to see a Saterlandic edition ending up like that.

Most of these Wikipedias were requested by people who had the notion
"I have heard of this language. There is no Wikipedia in it. It should
be created." but were never followed up after their creation.

In addition, even these ill-requested Wikipedias are picking up speed,
one-by-one... look at the flurry of activity on ka:, li:, hy:, etc.
which had previously been inactive for months (li: actually had 0
pages)! ka: and hy:, two important languages of the Caucasus region
(Georgian and Armenian), now have over 100 articles and are quickly
growing more! Unfortunately it seems that such success is limited
almost exclusively to European languages and more recently Indic
languages to a certain degree, although African languages (examples
are Bambara bm:, Wolof wo:, Amharic am:, Lingala ln:) have seen some
unexpected activity recently.

However, it seems to me that Wouter has some connection to this
language (given his intimate knowledge of the specific differences
from West Frisian), and given that he has said he started a test
Wikipedia on Meta, I don't think this is idle talk from a non-speaker.

Mark


body:
AndyL wrote:

>on 3/6/05 6:18 AM, sannse at sannse at tiscali.co.uk wrote:
>
>
>>A much better analogy is of a school headmaster sorting out who did what
>>after a playground fight. We want to know who hit first, who hit most,
>>and who chucked in a sly boot from the side-lines.
>>
>>
>That's quite an insulting example actually and elevates the ArbComm to
>headmaster while denigrating the rest of us to the status of children.
>School is the closest most of us get to being in a dictatorship - I don't
>think that's really a great model to emulate. The difference between the
>quasi-judicial model and the "headmaster" model is that the former puts
>limits on the ArbComm. While I can see why the ArbComm would prefer to have
>no limits and be able to do what they wish, including initiate
>investigations, I don't think that would be healthy for Wikipedia.
>
It also denigrates children, who rarely behave as badly as adults.
(e.g. sports parents shouting obscenities from the stands)  A comparison
to a bar fight might have been closer to reality.

>>There is no way that I would be content to just look at one side of the
>>argument, because arguments are rarely one-sided.  That's not
>>overstepping our remit - that's part of the fundamental definition of
>>arbitration.
>>
>>
>No, what ArbComm is doing is leading itself into oblivion because no one is
>going to want to initiate a complaint if it puts them at risk of punishment.
>"ArbComm chill" if you will. I know that there was a serious hesitation by a
>number of people to initiate a complaint against Herschelkrustofsky for that
>very reason.
>
>Let each complaint be seperate. You have not explained to me what is wrong
>with expecting the respondant or third parties who have issues with the
>complainant to initiate their own seperate complaint. I think once we have
>more than one complaint the issue of whether to deal with them jointly or
>separately can be dealt with but there's no reason why the ArbComm should
>initiate countercomplaints rather than have the impacted parties do it.
>
Countersuits are a normal part of the civil judicial process, but not of
the criminal process.  They provide for the limited right of the
respondent to raise issues against his accuser.  It does not operate to
allow the court to initiate new complaints, nor does it allow for third
party meddling.

Ec


from_name: steven l. rubenstein

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>I remember a number of claims you made in that regard. According to you,
>your advocacy of your point of view represented an objective academic point
>of view in sharp contrast to other editors who had only published reports of
>eye-witness accounts to go on. You claimed to be a political scientist and
>that trumped the experience of the people who actually lived under the
>systems you advocated

I am sorry that Fred Bauder finds it necessary to personalize 172's
comments about the quality of our articles.  For one thing, I am not
entirely sure Fred is being fair to 172 -- my sense from having had to deal
with him in the past (and he and I have gotten into some pretty heated
arguments) is not that he claims to have authority because of some
credential or because of his job, but rather that his academic training and
work have put him in a position where he has done a tremendous amount of
research on both particular topics and the different arguments scholars
have over those topics.

Be that as it may, if Fred has a problem with how 172 has behaved in the
past, he should address that behavior through the appropriate channels in
Wikipedia.  The members of the list-serve have no authority to sanction an
editor, so the list-serve is not the appropriate place to try and judge an
editor's behavior.  My concern is that by personalizing 172's comments and
calling into question his motives, sincerity, or legitimacy, will only
distract and divert us from addressing a serious issue -- an issue that
needs to be addressed no matter who happens to have brought it up.

Fred raises the issue of NPOV, and I do agree with him that our NPOV policy
is one of the most important policies we have to facilitate the writing of
quality articles.  But nothing 172 wrote suggests that we should abandon
the NPOV policy.  172 was simply making the point that we do not have
adequate mechanisms for ensuring the quality of articles, and he is
right.  We do have policies, but however crucial NPOV is, other policies --
No original research, Cite sources, and Verifiability -- are just as
important for achieving quality articles.  I think there is a pretty strong
consensus among veteran editors about what NPOV means and how to police it
(although of course there are exceptions).  I do not think the community
has such shared clarity about these other policies, though.

Finally, although we have a vigorous mechanism for dealing with behavioral
conflicts (from mediation to arbitration), we have no such mechanisms for
dealing with unresolvable problems over content.  It is not the place of
the ArbCom to address the quality of content -- which I think is
reasonable.  But because ArbCom is really the only strong mechanism we have
for dealing with problems, I think that sometimes conflicts that are really
about content end up going to mediation or ArbCom, which are ill-equipped
to deal with them.

As a number of people have recently made clear, Wikipedia is a project to
develop a quality encyclopedia first, and a wiki-community second.  It is
therefore impossible for behavioral guidelines alone, or a
dispute-resolution process that is blind to matters of content, to suffice.

Steve

Steven L. Rubenstein
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701


body:
Abe Sokolov:

>> My suggestion on Wikipedia:Forum for
> > Encyclopedic Standards was an alternative arbitration committee with
public
> > credibility, composed of qualified encyclopedists who have the calhones
not
> > to edit anonymously.

slimvirgin:

> Exactly right, and I can't think of a single reason that anyone would
> want to oppose this. It wouldn't prioritize content over process, but
> would simply put the two on a par, which is the right approach because
> the two are inextricably linked. The content-related policies are
> already in place; all we need is a committee able and willing to
> enforce them.

Hmm. 'What Wikipedia needs more than anything else is a movement of genuine
editors to insist on quality control and the weeding out of
non-encyclopaedic editors.' (From WP:FES.)

If I have had reservations about the thing, that just about sums it up.
It's the old joke about "I supported this until I heard X speak in favour of
the proposal".

I don't doubt that things have moved on, since I first decided to suspend
judgement on this structure.  I chose instead to nail my flag to the
Systemic Bias thing (for all the good it did that or me).

I'm certainly bothered by the idea that someone with access to an academic
library will be able to trump someone without, more-or-less routinely, in a
citation arms race.  That is obviously not what enforcing content-related
policies should be.  I feel 'no original research' is OK as subordinate to
NPOV; 'cite sources' ought really to be used mostly to unblock logjams in
discussion.  There is after all plenty of wrong-headed stuff in the academic
literature.

Enforcement is a tricky area for WP.  Basically we have little of it.  As
far as page content is concerned my past suggestion has been pendulum
arbitration and periods of page protection, in the most vexed cases.

Charles


body:
Hi, I just tried to insert an image from commons into it.wikibooks.org -
using [[Media:nameofimage.jpg]] and I also tried
[[Media:nameofimage.jpg|200px]] and inserting the external link of the
image. But the image just doesn't show up.

I noted that the images used for wikijunior on en.wikibooks.org are
images uploaded on en.wikibooks.org.

Maybe commons does not work for wikibooks? Or is there something wrong
with my links?

Thanks for any hint!

Ciao, Sabine


subject: FW: [WikiEN-l] Moving to wiktionary and deleting

body:
Olivier Bilodeau stated for the record:
> Thanks for the clarification of the words moving and copying. Tonight I
> will go to bed less stupider.

I hope you haven't misunderstood me -- I was attempting to express
support for you, not insult you.

> I'm not an admin, so I can't delete the item. If you'll look closely at
> my original post, an item moved to Wiktionary doesn't qualify as a
> candidate for speedy deletion, which would make its listing and deletion
> against policy. Last I checked, principles of physics weren't a reason
> to nominate an item for speedy deletion either. I appreciate your
> banter, but it's not really helping me.

What I failed to communicate is that I don't think deletion policies
apply.  The articles in question are already listed for moving; I think
that moving them doesn't involve the deletion process, speedy or otherwise.

--
  Sean Barrett     | I don't see you, so don't pretend you're there.
  sean at epoptic.com |


from_name: Neil Harris

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Page move vandal - there is a feature that can help
	with	it ...

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>
> Just had the following conversation with Tim Starling on
> #mediawiki. Log quoted with permission.
>
> Basically: there is a feature. Present version is unsubtle
> in its restriction (last 10% of created accounts, which is
> possibly a bit harsh to get consensus. A timed version
> would be nice, but someone interested in it will have to
> write the code.
>
> Of course, if that restriction isn't considered too onerous
> for the moment, it can just be switched on, and it will stop
> Willy On Wheels! in his tracks.

[snip IRC log]

Block only the last 1% (we currently have over 200,000 users on en:, so
that would be approximately the last 2,000), and turn on the
user-account-creation throttling? At the current growth rate, that would
mean that a user would pass this threshold in about a month from
creating their account, and we'd still have all the sysops, and over
2000 "very active Wikipedians" as well as about 196,000 less active ones
able to move pages on en: for users who cannot yet move pages for
themselves.

-- Neil


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Page move vandal - there is a feature
 that can help with	it ...


body:
> The most respected Mr. Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> > I once had an idea, that we could set up a Hopi Wikipedia, and then
> > work on promotion of it on Hopi, get elders and teenagers involved,
> > try to get middle-aged people involved as well, and eventually hope
> > for 90% community involvement of Hopi speakers. When such a point is
> > reached, it is a virtual mirror of the real-life community, except it
> > is also working towards building an encyclopaedia.
>
> Instead of only reporting on your hopes and dreams, I wish that you
> would, once each month or so, take the time to report on what you have
> indeed accomplished.  Which new language Wikipedias did you succeed to
> get started, and how many articles have been produced there?  So far,
> I get the impression that this number is zero, and that surely must be
> wrong.  So please enlighten me.

It depends on what you mean by "get started". I am reluctant to take
direct credit for anything since there is no successful Wikipedia
where I have contributed most of the articles.

I requested scn.wikipedia, which currently has 489 articles, and was
responsible for recruiting the person who was really responsible for
most of the actual work, Mr Giuseppe DAngelo.

I originally suggested lb.wikipedia to Catherine (Bris?is), currently
with 3476 articles, although beyond that I can take no credit with the
exception of the logo.

I don't feel that I can take much credit for any of my other
contributions, since they were mostly small, but they include things
like adding a translated table-of-contents to a previously vacant or
nearly-vacant Wikipedia, catching new users on inactive Wikipedias
quickly to suggest a course of action (request adminship, translate
interface, make logo) and to correct any mistakes they might make
(signing articles, POV), and watching for vandalism on ALL inactive
Wikipedias on a regular basis (when I'm awake, once every couple
hours).

I am also responsible for the request for fur.wikipedia, which
currently has a few articles (but it is still growing at a constant
rate - it isn't dead), although Klenje is responsible for most of the
content, and I am responsible for nearly everything so far on
nv.wikipedia, including interface translation, content formulation,
the logo, etc.

> > Unfortunately I don't have the time or the resources to begin such a
> > project,
>
> But you certainly have the time to write a lot of messages on this
> list.

Again, I think perception of this is distorted somewhat and largely
based on a set period of time a while ago - when I first joined this
list I posted short posts often thrice in a row, flooding the list
with short annoying messages, however more recently while I still may
be the most or one of the most active, the number of messages per day
is much less.

Also, it doesn't take much time to write an e-mail, at least for me,
although it takes a lot of time to travel from Phoenix to Kykotsmovi
and to meet with officials and to write grant requests and work on
community promotion.

Mark


body:
Lauri Love (nsh) wrote:

>On Sun, 06 Mar 2005 13:47:37 +0800, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
>
>
>>I absolutely agree with Dpbsmith. Policy is meant to change with the
>>community, not vice-versa. As much as some of us would like to avoid
>>voting using highly subjective grounds like notability (which has
>>different meanings from person to person; my idea of notability seems
>>highly inclusionistic compared to some of the notability grounds used in
>>voting today), the fact remains that a good deal of the community *does*
>>use notability as a reason for deletion. If the community wants an
>>article to go, we shouldn't disregard their opinion just because it's
>>based on something subjective, since the resolution of the issue of
>>contention -- should the article be deleted? -- has been agreed upon.
>>(taken with a slight modification from [[Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy]])
>>
>>
>
>The difference, my friend, between policy and convention, is that the
>former is transparent, is rational, and is decided by consensus,
>whereas the latter is transient, opaque, often irrational, and decided
>by majority/plurality. A good policy is applied equally to all
>articles that fall under its remit, whereas convention follows the
>whims of its constituents. I'm sure there are enough people that don't
>like any particular article to vote for its deletion. It's only the
>choice of sample that decides the outcome. And personally, I do not
>hold much faith and the self-selecting sample that is VfD.
>
>
Exactly. However, the solution is not to assume bad faith by discounting
votes/nominations that don't provide a rationale directly from the
deletion policy. The solution is to make VfD more accessible to the
community as a whole instead of some backwater where only those with
enough time and a fast connection can vote. Also note that word *does*
spread if there is strong contention over an article's status. I do not
vote or intently follow VfD (I do survey it occasionally though), but I
can easily point you to the Ashlee Simpson scandal not too long ago
where there was a lot of debating and a lot of votes, coming from every
side. Word *does* get around.

Also, convention should be policy should be loose. Tight policy is a
very bad thing, for two reasons:

   1. [[m:Instruction creep]]. Tightly controlling what people do is a
      bad thing and goes against the wiki spirit that relies on editors
      to [[be bold]].
   2. Gaming of policy. Again, the Ashlee Simpson scandal. Also, the
      case over constant reversion of [[Charles Darwin]] (which happened
      to centre on the bit of trivia regarding that Darwin and Abraham
      Lincoln share the same birthday). In both of these cases, due to
      the rigid policy of the 3RR (which most of us accept as a stop-gap
      measure; a better one would simply say "Reverting non-vandalism is
      generally a bad idea"), two editors got into very deep trouble.

Rigid policy is a bad, bad thing. As Dpbsmith pointed out on [[Wikipedia
talk:Votes for deletion]], what's stopping someone from removing votes
not conforming to the policy in detail (i.e. "Delete. Advertosing",
which clearly means that the article is "advertising", making it
deletable). As it is now, convention on VfD is that we vote using our
heads and not policy.

>
>
>>I don't think removing nominations from VfD that are without a reason
>>found in the deletion policy is a good idea. If the nomination has no
>>specific rationale in itself, that might be acceptable, but non-notable
>>is often used as shorthand for not encyclopedic. It's basically an
>>editorial judgement - it's like a shorter version of "I don't think this
>>topic is sufficiently encyclopedic enough to merit its own article in
>>this encyclopedia". A nomination to delete should not be discarded
>>wantonly. If it's unreasonable, the community will speak for itself, and
>>that's much better than letting someone unilaterally make the decision
>>that the nomination is bullshit.
>>
>>
>
>It's hard to know where to begin here. How could a nomination be
>valid, without a rationale? This doesn't grok at all for me, and
>moreover, troubles me slightly.
>
A nomination isn't valid without a rationale. "Non-notable" is accepted
by editors as a rationale. This rigid interpretation of policy makes it
fair for more gaming of the system by rabid inclusionists.

> An editorial judgement it is indeed,
>and a consensus of 5-7 (arbitrary guess there) is not qualified, in
>this writer's humble opinion, to make editorial decisions for
>something that has nearly half a million articles and hundreds of
>thousands of users.
>
5-7 is not consensus. Nor is 14-7. Something like 30-7 is considered
consensus here. If the community is so divided that no clear decision
can be made (generally consensus is regarded as >80%), then the article
is kept, as no consensus for deleting it has been reached. The reason
the 80% rule isn't in policy is because it's a rule of thumb. Making it
exact would lead to, again, gaming of the system: "Hey! I want this
article undeleted because my tallying indicates only 79.7% of the votes
were for delete!"

> Those who frequent VfD, as I mentioned earlier, as
>not representative of the whole Community, and it's rather audacious
>for any size proportially sized group to claim to be.
>
Exactly, but it works because as soon as someone spots something wrong,
the whole community is alerted.

> And lastly,
>isn't this thread an example of the community saying it is
>unreasonable, and speaking for itself.
>
>
I think there are as many people opposing the proposal as there are
supporting it.

>>I agree something has to be done about VfD's size, though. I just don't
>>feel this is the right solution; rather, it more feels like a disguised
>>attempt to lead us down the slippery slope of discarding votes simply
>>because they just said "Delete. Non-notable." Regardless of the reason
>>given, as I stated in the first paragraph, it's still an editorial
>>decision that does not need extensive justification: An editor feels the
>>topic does not merit an article. That opinion is factored into the
>>decision by the community as a whole.
>>
>I think we're agreed here. It is about geting rid of nominations where
>the nominator, in addition to being too lazy to improve the article to
>something which can be built upon,
>
You try Googling for an obscure topic with an article in poor English (I
once stumbled across an article about an Eastern European actor who had
few hits on Google. Upon listing it on VfD, people soon found out more
about the actor and were able to make it more clearer and give it better
context, so I withdrew the nomination).

Accusing active nominators of being lazy to expand an article seems like
a strawman, especially when you consider the status of article content
is not a valid reason for deletion. Editors don't go and flame the
nominator or remove the nomination from VfD, though. Instead, they
expand/rewrite the article and/or vote to keep it. Or, if it's beyond
all hope, they will vote to delete it. Generally, most voters of VfD do
provide reasons for voting; they may just not be in the policy.

That there is no specific order like "You must vote delete for and only
for one or more of the following reasons" is a good thing, because it
gives editors a free hand in making editorial decisions.

I recall the issue of article size last time when old browsers were a
bit more common; although policy dictated "YOU MUST TRIM THIS ARTICLE
BELOW 32KB!" not many people did. They might embark on trimming the
article and/or pushing it out to subarticles using [[wikipedia:summary
style]], but as long as the article was readable, nobody bothered.
Nobody freaked out when [[Singapore]] began pushing past 40kb (it's been
brought down now to 33kb) or when [[Mozilla Firefox]] was a whopping
65kb (it's also been brought down to a more reasonable size, but it's
still past 32kb).

As a result of this, the policy has recently been changed to reflect
editorial convention. Policy should always follow convention (it's even
documented somewhere on the site in a guide to writing policy).

> is also too lazy to show why it
>should be deleted.
>
People can tell whether the editor made an effort. Most nominations
aren't very long these days, just briefly pointing out the article's a
neologism, advertising, etc. I see no reason why non-notable, a widely
accepted shorthand for "not encyclopedic" should be different.

> Shall we just have a voting system for all
>articles, as you say, it's just an editorial decision. Let's let the
>community decide by voting,... Also, I think we need to vote in a new
>lead developer </glib>
>
>
I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at.

>
>
>>I think what should be done is to get the community more involved in VfD
>>by reducing its size and providing more avenues for categorisation of
>>articles being nominated for deletion. A professional aviator, for
>>example, would be interested in VfD nominations relating to aviation but
>>not scuba-diving. And so on. Likewise, a lot of articles are often
>>deleted unanimously or nearly unanimously, and end up cluttering VfD,
>>making it difficult for editors get to the heavily debated nominations.
>>[[Wikipedia:Categorized deletion]] and [[Wikipedia:Preliminary
>>deletion]] are both proposals that should be considered and discussed
>>more; if people aren't satisfied with them, nothing's stopping them from
>>making suggestions.
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>>VfD's problem is not people making unreasonable nominations (those are
>>already easily removed because we still have a smattering of editors
>>being bold enough to use common sense). VfD's problem is it's too large
>>for the community to easily vote. Solve that, and the problem of
>>trigger-happy nominations will be easier to handle.
>>
>>
>>
>
>I don't think your idea of unreasonable nominations, as shown by this
>post, is quite as extensive as some people's.
>
Can you show me examples of unreasonable nominations? I have already
given three specific examples backing up my argument.

> On the ridiculous size
>of VfD however, we are fully agreed. The implimentation of this
>proposal would in part solve that problem.
>
Not really. It'd just give rabid inclusionists more tools to legally
troll with.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


from_name: Olivier Bilodeau

body:
I would like to start cleaning up [[Category:Move to Wiktionary]]. I
plan to create entries in Wiktionary, if they don't already exist, or
remove the template if it is not appropriate. What I'd like to know if
it possible to speedy delete the item, if it's been moved? Although this
is not a candidate by definition, it has already been established that
Wikipedia is not a dictionary. I understand that some topics have the
potential to become encyclopedic (what doesn't, really), but items that
are moved and deleted can always be recreated if someone truly wishes to
make an article on the subject. I'm also aware that we're not running
out of paper, but I don't think cleaning things up a bit is a bad thing
either. Personally, I get annoyed when I click on a live link, hoping to
find some decent info on a trivial subject, but only getting a
definition. Although each item could be nominated on VfD, that would
quickly overload the page, and make it a lot of work for people who
maintain it, not the mention the additional work involved in creating
the subpage and listing it. I'm aware some entries get greatly expanded
when VfD'ed, but this isn't easy when the article only contains a
dicdef. Therefore, can the deletion policy be amended to include obvious
dictionary definitions?

--jag23


body:
On Mon, 7 Mar 2005 00:26:22 +0100 (CET), Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se> wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
> > > But you certainly have the time to write a lot of messages on this
> > > list.
> >
> > Again, I think perception of this is distorted somewhat and largely
> > based on a set period of time a while ago - when I first joined this
> > list I posted short posts often thrice in a row, flooding the list
>
> I'm sorry to say that this perception is created anew every week, as
> long as this list is dominated by messages from you discussing your
> principal stance ("theory") rather than actual achievements
> ("practice").  Especially the long and tiresome discussion of various
> tongues from China seemed to be of very little practical use.

Whatever.

> > Also, it doesn't take much time to write an e-mail, at least for me,
>
> It still takes a lot of time, at least for me, to read all the
> messages on this list.  I wish there was more substance in them.
>
> I'm also sorry to add to the impression that I'm only complaining.
> So let me end by telling that last month I scanned a public domain
> Finnish encyclopedia of 4 volumes and that more than 100 articles or
> stubs from it have already been imported into the Finnish Wikipedia,
> as shown by the category
> http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luokka:Pienest%C3%A4_tietosanakirjasta_tuodut_artikkelit

So now not only are you complaining, but you're bragging? Great job,
Lars. Great job.

Mark


body:
Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>

>A natural consequence of allowing the Arbitration Committee seriously
>consider contents would be ArbCom elections based on such issues as
>where one stands in the Israel/Palestine conflict.

This is one way to construe 172's suggestions -- but it is not the only
way.  I certainly do not believe that the solution to conflicts over
content can come down to "you are right, you are wrong."  Surely there are
other ways.  here is one: a committee that would specialize in enforcing
policies concerning content, e.g. NPOV, No original research (which is not,
as Charles Matthews suggested, subordinate to NPOV, or it shouldn't
be.  They are equally important; neither one trumps the other).

This is clearly different from ArbCom which as members of ArbCom have made
abundantly clear deals only with conflicts between two or more users, and
matters of behavior, not content.  Although two users can and often do come
into conflict over NPOV or NOR, this is categorically different from the
kinds of conflicts ArbCom deals with.  ArbCom deals with violations of
certain policies (specifically behavioral) caused by a conflict between
users.  What I and I think 172 and SlimVirgin are talking about is
conflicts between users caused by violations of other policies (concerning
content).

Obviously in order to intervene in a conflict over NPOV or No original
research a committee would have to be very attentive to content.  But I am
sure that no matter what one's beliefs about Jesus, Zionism, or fascism,
experienced editors can reach an agreement over what does or doesn't
constitute NPOV or original research.

This might not resolve all of the issues 172 and SlimVirgin raise, but I
think it would go far to address some of them.

Steve

Steven L. Rubenstein
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701


body:
Thanks for the clarification of the words moving and copying. Tonight I
will go to bed less stupider.

I'm not an admin, so I can't delete the item. If you'll look closely at
my original post, an item moved to Wiktionary doesn't qualify as a
candidate for speedy deletion, which would make its listing and deletion
against policy. Last I checked, principles of physics weren't a reason
to nominate an item for speedy deletion either. I appreciate your
banter, but it's not really helping me.

>The definition of "move" includes the fact that, once the movee is
>''there'', it is no longer ''here''.  (Cf. [[Pauli exclusion
>principle]], [[Buckaroo Banzai location principle]].)
>
>If you were to add the articles to Wiktionary and not delete them from
>Wikipedia, you would not have ''moved'' them, you would have ''copied''

>them.
>
>--
>  Sean Barrett     | Four parts ammonia, one part iodine crystals.
>  sean at epoptic.com |
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


body:
I wasn't trying to put you down. Were you trying to put me down? If so, why?

Mark

On Mon, 7 Mar 2005 01:32:47 +0100 (CET), Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se> wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
> > So now not only are you complaining, but you're bragging? Great job,
> > Lars. Great job.
>
> Sorry Mark, if you wanted to put me down, you failed.  You must try a
> lot harder to succeed with that.  I'll be quiet now and watch you
> build your own reputation on this list and elsewhere.
>
>
> --
>   Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
>   Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
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>