subject: [Wikipedia-l] Simple English Wikipedia - Requesting a rethink

body:
The subject of Simple English Wikipedia has came to the mailing list before,
but after reading talk pages there and seeing the dormancy of Recent Changes
(bar a few persistent users, and the odd anon editor) I feel it is time to
suggest a rethink, or at least look into the direction of Simple English
Wikipedia.

Simple English Wikipedia currently has 4,157 articles, the vast majority of
which fail to extend further than three sentences in length. There are a few
administrators, Netoholic being the most active of them. There is a small
user base, but unlike some language Wikipedias where this results in a small
and persistent community, the small user base at Simple English often have
their priorities understandably set on the main English Wikipedia.

The SE Wikipedia currently has a lack of focus, and a lack of direction.
Indeed, it claims to cater for multiple groups of people, which simply isn't
working:

"It is focused on readers who tend to be quite different people with
different needs: students, children, and translators."

The description there, taken from
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Simple_English_Wikipedia, is too
ambiguous to encourage any regular contributors to the Wikipedia. Whereas
with the main Wikipedias there is a ultimate cause of creator 'the sum of
all human knowledge', Simple English doesn't have a goal, as its not aiming
for anything specifically.

The aims of students, children and translators, to me, is wrong on all
counts. I've read a few articles on Simple English, and the variation and
way of writing is at times so belittiling that I wonder why such a project
exists. This quote from the talk page sums it up perfectly:

"One thing that bothers me about this whole thing is that people act like
this is supposed to writted towards children, talking down to them and such,
when in fact Wikipedia Jr. is there to handle that - this should be aimed at
just reposting English articles in a simplified and standardized version of
English, as opposed to the "baby talk" many of the articles are crammed
with.
Simple: A problem I have with this website is that there is a website like
it that is already here - Wikipedia Junior. I think that this website should
be for people from another country who are learning English, not small
children. This website talks to its people badly."

Simple English Wikipedia is, in reality, never going to be used by babies or
small children - Infact, unleashing such persons onto Wikipedia is dangerous
(as proven by our Recent Changes list :p ). Wikijunior, which is in
development, caters for the young market and has a focus to not talk down to
people. When I read Simple English trying to explain racism, I felt like it
was dumbing me down. Anyone capable of using Wikipedia normally can use
normal Wikipedia, whilst Simple English is not going to be used by 4 or 5
year olds. Children is a bad thing to aim at. Aiming at translators is
similiarly odd, because a translator wouldn't be a translator if their
English wasn't fluent.
Simple English Wikipedia needs to, in my opinion, have a huge rethink. It
should be aimed at persons wanting to practice their English by reading it,
and should be an aid for those learning it as a foreign language. Simple
English should read simply, but not so simply that it puts down the reader.
People contribute to Wikipedias for a reason, and for a goal - Simple
English has no goal, so theres no clear reason for editors to contribute to
it. A look at recent changes shows that.

Without a rethink and a real discussion into the direction, policies and
descriptions of Simple English Wikipedia, it had mayswell be deleted. Simple
English was the second Wikipedia I visited, after main English, and I
believe it will be the same for many others. It doesn't reflect well on
Wikimedia Foundation to have a Wikipedia in such a bad state, and in the
English language - Quality over quantity isn't necessarily always true, but
in the case of having Wikimedia Foundation projects and Wikipedias, it is.
Simple is way too out there to stay as it is; a rethink is needed.

Yours,
David Hedley


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Haukur Þorgeirsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pseudoscience category - GSPOV

body:
>> If you want to make a distinction between alternative medicine
>> and quackery would you object if I moved [[homeopathy]] to the
>> quackery category?

> I would.

> Me too. That's a really hard-to-defend
> category except for proven frauds.

I may well be mistaken. I'm not a native English
speaker and often miss fine distinctions in meaning.
Perhaps "quackery" has more negative connotations
than I was aware of. What I mean by "quack medicine"
is simply "treatments falsely presented as having
curative powers". If the term has more negative
connotations than that it may well be inappropriate
for a Wikipedia category.

I still think that "Alternative medicine" is misleading,
has undeserved positive connotations and does not represent
a NPOV.

I still think the Quackery category and the Alternative
medicine category should be merged. If Quackery is an
unacceptable term then I suggest "Ineffective medicine".
We can debate the inclusion of each item there on its merits.

I would also be happy with Category:Pseudomedicine.

Regards,
Haukur


list: foundation-l

from_name: Dovi Jacobs

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: meta-discussion for new project proposals (was
	Proposal for new project: Faith Wiki)

body:
Some thoughts on the very concept of a "new project":

The Wikimedia concept first came into being based on an analogy to the reference shelf in a library.

The first, most basic and most important tool on a reference shelf is a good encyclopedia.
That gave us Wikipedia, where we began.

Other typical elements on the reference shelf are dictionaries
and other language tools (Wiktionary);
and a book of famous quotations (Wikiquote).

A reference shelf also includes a good atlas,
but this has been pretty well incorporated into Wikipedia.

Then we moved off the reference shelf and into the classroom:
Course textbooks and study guides are in Wikibooks
(and these make up a large part of the realm of non-fiction).
Travel guides are similar, but they were already taken by Wikitravel.

Then we created Wikisource for the entire realm of texts
previously published (but not original contributions).
So we became a full library too, not just a reference shelf.

Then we realized that people learn not from plain texts alone
but from illustrated texts, radio and television:
images, sounds, and video.
Hence Wikimedia Commons.

The entire realm of the news media was still left uncovered
(newspapers, magazines, TV news, radio, etc.),
but then Wikinews began.

So what is left for new projects that cannot be covered within the existing ones?

Not much, really. At least I cannot think of many.

All that seems to be left are certain kinds of original texts:
*Original fiction
*Original non-fiction *besides* study guides (which are already covered by Wikibooks)

I don't even know if we want projects like that or not.

But it does seem that the vast majority of needs are covered by the existing projects.
So I agree with the general sentiment that most of the effort should be going into bettering
the existing projects, though this does not mean there cannot be new projects. We should indeed guide people as to how they can build their ideas within the existing projects.

Dovi

---------------------------------
Yahoo! Sports
 Rekindle the Rivalries. Sign up for Fantasy Football


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Michael Turley

subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Requests for rollback

body:
I think this is an excellent idea.

I am not an admin, and do not want to be an admin at this time.

I would be interested in having the rollback feature available to me,
and I think it would lead to me doing at least a little more
counter-vandalism work.

--
Michael Turley
User:Unfocused

On 6/28/05, Chris Jenkinson <chris at starglade.org> wrote:
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> Hi all,
>
> I didn't realise that MediaWiki 1.5 was so close to being introduced,
> otherwise I wouldn't have come up with my previous proposal, mentoring
> for admins, quite so quickly as I did!
>
> As unfortunately my proposal is not too popular, I have come up with a
> new one titled "Requests for rollback", taking advantage of the
> "privilege separation" available in MediaWiki 1.5.
>
> In a few words, it's a system like RfA but just granting rollback rather
> than all admin powers
>
> This proposal is described as how I imagine it would be implemented at:
>  --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Talrias/Requests_for_rollback
>
> My reasoning behind creating this proposal is principally due to the
> following:
>
>     * Useful for those who do not wish to be nominated on WP:RFA, either
> because they do not desire admin powers or because they would not be
> confident with them.
>     * More people being able to quickly deal with vandalism is by no
> means a bad thing.
>     * It devolves power to the community.
>
> I accept that some might say that is an unnecessary addition to
> Wikipedia, duplicating requests for adminship, but I believe that people
> who want to contribute to Wikipedia but do not wish to become
> full-fledged admins will benefit from the times when rollback can be used.
>
> I'd be interested in hearing other people's thoughts on this.
>
> Chris
>
> - --
> Chris Jenkinson
> chris at starglade.org
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> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Confirmation in bug in ugrade.

body:
> However, is there a way to make the message on the edit
> page FLASH, even though it was highlighted, it took me
> many edits to finally notice it.  You get out of the habit
> of looking at the boilerplate.  I bet others are not noticing
> it either.
>                      -- thanx, silverback

For firefox and netscape users yes. anyone useing it will not however
be very popular.

--
geni


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Middle-Earth Wikipedia

body:
Wouter Steenbeek wrote:

>> I would also be happy to rid Wiktionary of this sort of thing.  The
>> supporters of these languages seem to have only questionable contact
>> with reality.  Tolkien was a learn?d man whose philological studies
>> helped to make his stories more vibrant, but sometimes people need to
>> be reminded tha "Lord of the Rings" was a work of _fiction_.  The
>> languages developed there are also works of fiction with no
>> credibility in the real world, and no basis for development beyond
>> the context of Tolkien's books.  That being said, any attempt at
>> building an encyclopedia in these languages must falter when it needs
>> to develop vocabulary for concepts that are alien to Middle Earth.
>>
>> It is fitting that Wikipedia have an article giving an outline of
>> these languages, and that Wikibooks might even give an outline of the
>> grammar.  Apart from that can we at least try to find some separation
>> between the real and fantasy world?
>>
>> Ec
>
> Please, please, please, don't get personal!
> W.

There's absolutely nothing personal in that.  Try as I might I can only
see generic comments in what I said.  However, if you really think that
there is such a place as Middle Earth I shall be more than happy to
apologize to its residents. :-)

Ec


from_name: Chris Jenkinson

body:
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David 'DJ' Hedley wrote:
> I don't believe that it is necessary. A rollback button is useful, but I
> don't see why it is worth a "Requests for Rollback" to get it. If a user
> does RC patrol and wants the aid of rollback (ie, 'the mop'), then they
> probably would prefer full admin powers in order to be able to block
> vandals, and so on. Being an admin doesn't have many set, 'must do'
> responsibilities - RC patrollers can happily become admins without further
> hassles, if they want to keep out of Wikipolitics.
>
> Most people who want rollback wouldn't mind the other functionality of
> adminship. A Requests for Rollback feature would be unnecessary.

This is a fair point. I however disagree with your statement that being
an admin will keep you out of "wikipolitics". Having the ability to
ban/block/delete is a "power" which many do not have and therefore would
place the person with that power in a position where they will get
involved in wikipolitics, whether they like it or not. Rollback, on the
other hand, is just a shortcut for an action which anyone can take.
Avoiding politics for those who desire to is simply not possible for
someone with more abilities than the general community.

As for your statement that user would prefer full admin powers rather
than just rollback, that is really a subjective view based on your own
experiences, and obviously people feel otherwise as I wouldn't have made
the proposal if that viewpoint was universally held. I know that some
people have scripts to emulate the rollback feature.

Your penultimate sentence sums up why I made this proposal. "Most people
who want rollback wouldn't mind the other functionality of adminship".
What about the other people? That is why I made this proposal.

Chris

- --
Chris Jenkinson
chris at starglade.org
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from_name: Dan Grey

body:
I, quite simply, think this is a really good idea :-)

Dan

On 29/06/05, Chris Jenkinson <chris at starglade.org> wrote:
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> David 'DJ' Hedley wrote:
> > I don't believe that it is necessary. A rollback button is useful, but I
> > don't see why it is worth a "Requests for Rollback" to get it. If a user
> > does RC patrol and wants the aid of rollback (ie, 'the mop'), then they
> > probably would prefer full admin powers in order to be able to block
> > vandals, and so on. Being an admin doesn't have many set, 'must do'
> > responsibilities - RC patrollers can happily become admins without further
> > hassles, if they want to keep out of Wikipolitics.
> >
> > Most people who want rollback wouldn't mind the other functionality of
> > adminship. A Requests for Rollback feature would be unnecessary.
>
> This is a fair point. I however disagree with your statement that being
> an admin will keep you out of "wikipolitics". Having the ability to
> ban/block/delete is a "power" which many do not have and therefore would
> place the person with that power in a position where they will get
> involved in wikipolitics, whether they like it or not. Rollback, on the
> other hand, is just a shortcut for an action which anyone can take.
> Avoiding politics for those who desire to is simply not possible for
> someone with more abilities than the general community.
>
> As for your statement that user would prefer full admin powers rather
> than just rollback, that is really a subjective view based on your own
> experiences, and obviously people feel otherwise as I wouldn't have made
> the proposal if that viewpoint was universally held. I know that some
> people have scripts to emulate the rollback feature.
>
> Your penultimate sentence sums up why I made this proposal. "Most people
> who want rollback wouldn't mind the other functionality of adminship".
> What about the other people? That is why I made this proposal.
>
> Chris
>
> - --
> Chris Jenkinson
> chris at starglade.org
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> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright and Britannica Article List

body:
Andrew Gray wrote:

>On 28/06/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>I can see the EB list being used that way,
>>especially by newbies.  The list just shows what we don't have; it does
>>not suggest that the potential contributor seek out the Britannica
>>article.  If instead it inspires someone to research an otherwise
>>obscure historical personage, then we all benefit.
>>
>>
>The "obscure historical personage" is one of the key things for us; I
>think we're past the stage that we run the risk of failing to include
>a field of academic interest through not knowing about it (Having a
>bad article through no expert knowledge is another matter). But a lot
>of those personages will be in the 1911 Encyclopedia, or the various
>other old encyclopedias we have lists for - I just went to look at the
>project page, and was happily surprised to see that Britannica is just
>one of a set of similar projects being undertaken as comparisons.
>
>Hmm. The original Oxford /Dictionary of National Biography/ was
>originally printed in 1909. It'd be an excellent source for things
>like this; I wonder if an index is available? I note that the
>Australian and Canadian equivalents have had lists set up.
>
Yes there is, and there is a statistical analysis in reprint volume 22.
Each reprint volume (which consolidated 3 original volumes each) has its
own index.  What's more the original body was in alphabetical order anyway.

Ec


from_name: Anthere

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: meta-discussion for new project proposals (was
 Proposal for new project: Faith Wiki)

body:
Though kind of wary of new projects, I totally welcome any efforts
suggested to clarify this page, if this help better studying projects
supported by the community. More organisation on the topic can't be
wrong ;-)

Ant

Robert Scott Horning a ?crit:
> Erik Moeller wrote:
>
>> Sean Turvey:
>>
>>> Please be advised that I have posted a proposal for a new project.
>>> The proposed name is Faith Wiki. The address is
>>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_new_projects#Faith_Wiki
>>
>>
>>
>> What is the justification for a new project?
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Erik
>
>
> I think it is time to have a serious meta-discussion regarding what it
> going to take in order for the Wikimedia Foundation to accept a whole
> new project, and what guidelines should be in place, as well as a
> roadmap for what would have to be accomplished in order for such a
> project to move from a "gee, this would be a cool idea" to "here is the
> server space, let's roll!"  By a meta-discussion, I don't mean on
> meta.wikimedia.org, but a discussion about proposal discussions.
>
> The new project proposal page is getting swamped with ideas of varying
> qualities, and the only criteria that I see for getting culled from that
> page is strictly because it is an old idea... and that a rather
> arbitrary decision as well.  Other than Wikinews recently, I don't see
> much movement (or even desire from the board) to actually grant a
> project a green light to start up and be given a separate co-equal
> project space as a peer to Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikisource, etc.
>
> I guess I'm asking to formalize this process, and to let people trying
> to propose new projects realize just how difficult it can be to get a
> major project started.  Wikinews did just about everything right, IMHO,
> when that project proposal came about, and I would like to see that any
> new project that is started have to go through similar standards before
> it become an official Mediawiki Foundation project.
>
> Steps I would suggest include:
>
> 1) Project description template filled out, including:
> ** More detailed project propsal made on a separate article on meta
> (largely done for most new project proposals now, although of varying
> quality)
> ** Sample "front page" of what the project would look like if it were
> given a green light.
> ** Licensing issues in the disucssion, particularly if not specifically
> the GFDL.
> ** Technical requirements, including what changes to software would have
> to be made to make the project successful.
> ** Funding sources to help with basic startup costs, or who might be
> willing to help sponsor the new project (goes with the earlier
> earmarking discussion on this list).
>
> 2) Sponsorship of proposal by MediaWiki users.  This is mainly to show
> widespread community support for the idea, and that it won't languish in
> lack of use once started.
> ** A "threshhold" value be established before projects can move beyond
> this point.  For example, 10 registered users agreeing to sponsor the
> idea, and > 60% favor vs. oppose (or some other figure... this is just
> an example).
> ** Advertisement of the proposal, on this list as well as in other
> forums and contexts.  Also... spamming discouraged when doing this sort
> of advertisement.  Try to search and find the potential community for
> the project proposal idea.
> ** Respond to comments regarding proposal
>
> 3) Review by "proposal committee".  This is a new step, but I am
> suggesting that a group of "veteran" Wikimedia (from all projects) users
> help review project proposals that get to this stage (having passed the
> earlier threshold requirements).
> **Suggest to the project proposer ways to help improve the proposal
> submission, review technical aspects, and in general help clean up the
> proposal into something that can easily be digested by the board.  Yes,
> I am volunteering.  **It would also be the job of this group to cull out
> and remove languishing proposals on a the new proposal page, subject to
> general concensus.  They should establish formal guidelines for what
> gets removed and potentially what can be reinstated.
> **Establishing a new "accepted project" page to (hopefully) get wider
> review by the Wikimedia community of projects that have passed the new
> requirements.  These would be considered "serious" propsals that are on
> their way to become a new project, and should be put to a higher standard.
> ** The proposal committee would be doing some of the advertising at this
> point, including front-page meta links to the new proposal, and formal
> notification on this list (and other mediawiki lists, as appropriate).
> ** It should be possible for a proposal to die at this stage as well,
> although a good proposal with popular support should survive this stage.
>
> 4) Formal presentation to the Wikimedia board.  While board members can
> (and likely will) be involved in the earlier stages, this is the formal
> stage where the board gives official comment regarding the status of the
> project.  It can be sent back for more discussion, killed outright at
> the discression of the board, or accepted.
>
> 5) The project has been accepted and is a peer to existing MediaWiki
> projects.  Server space is found and content is being added to the new
> project.
>
> ---------
>
> Any other ideas on what process a project should go through to become
> accepted?  What should the criteria be for being removed from the new
> project proposal page?  Do we want to encourage/discourage anybody from
> making these proposals?  What general guidelines should there be for new
> project proposals beyond those already listed on Meta?  How can we keep
> the board from getting flooded with new ideas, but have a chance to
> review really good new ideas?
>


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Upgrade status

body:
monk at zoomcon.com wrote:
>>>But for these months I have still seen "Main page" in left bar.... and
>>>even after upgrade to 1.5 I still see it! :(( why?
>
>>http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Mainpage/be
>
> It is not a question about status of translation of Mainpage. It is
> a question about status of maintaining language file. Why all strings
> that were translated before May are translated on commons, but strings
> which were translated in LanguageBe.php file submitted in May still
> are in English on Commons (with Belarusian language of interface set
> on)?

Because they were for some reason loaded into the wiki (by a bug in an
early 1.4 beta, it looks like), such as this one:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Mainpage/be

and those take precedence over the language files.

Try removing those, the language file should poke back thorugh (or set
it to whatever you like)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pseudoscience category - GSPOV

body:
Haukur ?orgeirsson (haukurth at hi.is) [050628 21:42]:

> As for the "alternative medicine" category then I
> suppose "medicine that has not been proven to work"
> or some such would be more accurate. I for one would
> actually prefer "quack medicine" since "alternative"
> has some undeserved positive connotations and implies
> that quackery is somehow a viable alternative to actual
> medicine.
> So, don't forget to take the Grumpy Scientist Point
> of View into account :)

There was a bit of a revert-war over this last year - [[Alternative
medicine]] had [[Category:Pseudoscience]] on it (for things like
homeopathy, which defies physics and chemistry), and this was getting
removed because some of it is closer to protoscience (e.g. acupuncture, in
which the stated theory may appear to be nonsensical but the stuff may
work, for some values of 'work'). So I solved it by also creating
[[Category:Protoscience]] and adding suitable things to that and putting
both on the article ;-)

There is such a thing as pseudoscience and things that are deserve the
label. It belongs under 'science' because it claims the clothes of science
but isn't, hence the 'pseudo' - religion doesn't do that (except of course
when it does). The objectors are basically stating "I don't like it being
applied to my favourite thing so it must be a violation of NPOV." I see no
reason to indulge this.

- d.


body:
Habj (sweetadelaide at gmail.com) [050628 23:23]:

> I encourage everyone who take part in this debate, to study the
> category tree in and around the category "Pseudoscience". Actually,
> there is one Category "Quackery" and another one called "Alternative
> medicine". Quackery is a sub-category to Alternative medicine, but
> while Quackery is also a sub-category to Pseudoscience Alternative
> medicine is a sub-category to Medicine.

Note that the alternative medicine area in particular was badly fouled up
by [[User:John Gohde]], aka [[User:Mr-Natural-Health]], whose idiosyncratic
and confrontative behaviour currently has him banned for a year. So the
area is generally in really bad need of a cleanup and one should take care
before using it as an example in the present discussion ;-)

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR penalty is a block and not a ban -> problems

body:
JAY JG (jayjg at hotmail.com) [050629 00:22]:
>From: "Tony Sidaway" <minorityreport at bluebottle.com>

> >Nothing good can come from enouraging editors to use socks and proxies to
> >evade blocks.  Where this has happened in the past I've found that
> >escalating blocks on all offending sources tires the miscreant out.

> I agree that nothing good comes of it (encouraging editors to use socks and
> proxies to evade blocks), and that escalating blocks often tire the
> miscreants out.  Also, socks created for the purpose of evading 3RR can be
> immediately blocked indefinitely.  However, the more persistent ones seem
> to have almost limitless energy; blocks combined with page protection is
> often the only way of cooling them off.

Note that trying to outlast the persistent reverter can escalate quite
alarmingly, e.g. (real example) blocking half of Latvia for fifteen minutes
at a time.

- d.


body:
Fred Bauder (fredbaud at ctelco.net) [050629 01:43]:

> Alternative medicine might involve things like strong suggestion and
> placebos, and actually work. Quack medicine involves cleaning out the
> last assets of the victim and their family.

This was what was more or less thrashed out on [[Talk:Alternative
medicine]] - that "alternative medicine" may or may not be rubbish, but is
sincere; but quackery includes knowing deception. FWIW.

- d.


from_name: Angela

body:
On 6/29/05, Chris Jenkinson <chris at starglade.org> wrote:

> Having the ability to
> ban/block/delete is a "power" which many do not have and therefore would
> place the person with that power in a position where they will get
> involved in wikipolitics, whether they like it or not.

It shouldn't be seen as a power, but as a technical feature that is
given to trusted users. There is no requirement for admin to use the
features of blocking or deletion, so I don't understand why being an
admin would force anyone into wikipolitics. If they don't want to be
involved in the politics, they can just choose not to make
controversial blocks, or even no blocks at all.

If someone can be trusted to use rollback, they should be trusted to
use deletion and blocking. Perhaps limiting admins to rollback rather
than the other features could be something the ArbCom decides if an
admin proves they can not be trusted with other features, rather than
needing a separate request page for this.

Angela.


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Wikipedia-l] The elections are on, but I cast a blank ballot!

body:
On 6/29/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> I would discourage this. Unless you really don't have an opinion, why
> not vote for your preferred candidates? If you don't have a preference
> and you don't like any of them, I can understand.

Well, I did write about it at the included URL.
I like the existing board members, and I think the proposed candidates
are great wikipedians and would probably all do okay.  But none of
them have given me much basis to choose between them, nor to choose
against them.  All I could really do is mark which ones I've had more
positive contact with, which isn't a really good metric. What little
validity my decision might have today will be long gone before two
years pass.

Had there been a participant with a pure 'I am the legal mouthpiece of
the community', or had there been one with a substantial story about
copyright, or NOR... I might have been inclined to vote in a way which
showed preference for or against them. Heck, had we even had a troll
or controversial user running I'd think a non null ballot would be
useful.


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

Angela wrote:
> It shouldn't be seen as a power, but as a technical feature that is
> given to trusted users. There is no requirement for admin to use the
> features of blocking or deletion, so I don't understand why being an
> admin would force anyone into wikipolitics. If they don't want to be
> involved in the politics, they can just choose not to make
> controversial blocks, or even no blocks at all.

Just that the feature is there will involve them in Wikipolitics,
regardless of whether they use them. Having a privileged position will
mean they become involved in politics, just by association.

> If someone can be trusted to use rollback, they should be trusted to
> use deletion and blocking. Perhaps limiting admins to rollback rather
> than the other features could be something the ArbCom decides if an
> admin proves they can not be trusted with other features, rather than
> needing a separate request page for this.

I do not agree with your first sentence. Rollback is just a shortcut
function for going through history and saving a previous edit again,
while deleting and blocking are privileged features. Since they are in
clearly different categories I think that the level of trust required
before granting people the different permissions should reflect this.

Chris

- --
Chris Jenkinson
chris at starglade.org
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Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

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body:
> Just that the feature is there will involve them in Wikipolitics,
> regardless of whether they use them. Having a privileged position will
> mean they become involved in politics, just by association.
>

not really. If you go through the lsit of admins you will find only a
small number are really political.

--
geni


body:
Haukur ?orgeirsson (haukurth at hi.is) [050629 02:22]:

> Likewise, how do you know that [[Jomanda]] wasn't
> sincere and acting in good faith? And how can you
> know that practitioners of [[Chelation therapy]]
> aren't sincere? Both are currently in the quackery
> category.

That second example is a Gohde-ism, so it would be impossible to say ;-)

- d.


body:
On 6/29/05, Rebecca <misfitgirl at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/29/05, Michael Turley <michael.turley at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I think this is an excellent idea.
> >
> > I am not an admin, and do not want to be an admin at this time.
> >
> > I would be interested in having the rollback feature available to me,
> > and I think it would lead to me doing at least a little more
> > counter-vandalism work.
>
> I strongly oppose it. Rollback is one of three four technical features
> made accessible to administrators as people that are generally
> trusted. The anti-admin lobby has tried to build adminship up into
> something it wasn't meant to be, isn't, never was and never will be,
> but that doesn't mean we need to accomodate them in this way. If you
> want the tools, then there's a page and a very simple process for you
> to go through to get them - else don't whinge when you don't have
> them.
>
> -- ambi
>

Whinge?  How is saying "I think that's a good idea" complaining or
protesting in an annoying or persistent manner?  (I had to look up
"whinge", as I'd heard it, but never was fully certain what that
meant.)  That seems a little aggressive, and more than a bit rude,
considering I only mentioned my support of a very simple idea.

(Anti-admin lobby?  Do you really think people get together and say
"how can we oppose the admins today"?)

Back to the subject: exactly why are you so strongly opposed to
separating the tools, especially along these lines?  It seems to me
that this tool exerts exactly NO control over other users, while all
the other admin tools that I am aware of do exert a degree of
dominance over other users.  Why shouldn't this be available
individually to those who aren't interested in the powers that include
domination?

--
Michael Turley
User:Unfocused


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Re: The elections are on,
	but I cast a blank ballot!

body:
Why do you have to vote based on what they said?

Of course, it's all political drivel. I voted based on the fact that I
know these people. I voted for the ones I trust most with such a
position.

Mark

On 29/06/05, Craig Franklin <craig at halo-17.net> wrote:
> Scr?obh Mark Williamson:
>
> >I would discourage this. Unless you really don't have an opinion, why
> >not vote for your preferred candidates? If you don't have a preference
> >and you don't like any of them, I can understand.
>
> But I do have an opinion.  The positions of all the candidates seem to be
> essentially identical, "we love Wikipedia and NPOV".  I see no dramatic
> proposals on the topics of copyright, promotion, hardware or managing
> growth.  The candidates all propose to increase community input to the
> board, but don't say exactly how they will do this.  They all talk about
> guiding the board, but offer no suggestions as to what direction they will
> guide it in.  Nobody, in particular, has expressed an opinion on the Chinese
> Wikinews issue.
>
> In summary, I voted blank.
>
> Sl?inte,
> - Craig
>
>
> -------------------
> Craig Franklin
> PO Box 764
> Ashgrove, Q, 4060
> Australia
> http://www.halo-17.net - Australia's Favourite Source of Indie Music, Art,
> and Culture.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Bug in the new software upgrade? Won't stay logged in

body:
JAY JG (jayjg at hotmail.com) [050629 02:38]:

> Hmm. I'm not using a proxy server.

Are you *sure*? Lots of ISPs use transparent proxying and don't bother
telling their customers.

- d.


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Elections 2005 - Report

body:
Everything is now ready technically, I'm just waiting for the word to
switch it on. I've also organised UI text translations for the larger
wikis. Apologies for the lateness and the lack of communication on my
part, I lost my Internet access for most of the local evening, which was
the lead-up to the deadline, and I had an important meeting the next
morning. Conversion problems probably would have delayed the start anyway.

If I'm not around when the election administrators would like to start
the vote, ask a dev to start it by uncommenting the code in
php-1.5/BoardVoteInit.php .

I have the tally key this year. I'll distribute copies to the admins as
soon as they're ready.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: John Platt

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Problems accessing watchlist

body:
Excuse me, but since the upgrade I have been consistently unable to
access my watchlist at all, and have been having problems getting any
computer to acknowledge I am logged in when I move from page to page.

This is especially embarrassing as I just started a Taro Yashima stub
in the English Wikipedia (which perhaps should be a Jun Iwamatsu stub
but perhaps not) and much of the information I was planning to use for
reference has moved or disappeared so I'm trying to do a lot of
revisions.


body:
Karl A. Krueger (kkrueger at whoi.edu) [050629 05:50]:

> (Likewise, it sure seems that Scientologists spend a lot more effort
> hatin' on psychiatry than psychiatrists spend hatin' on Scientology --
> but it's Scientology doctrine that psychiatrists are "Suppressive
> People" engaged in a conspiracy to suppress Scientology.)

Speaking of which, our Featured Article on [[Xenu]] is getting a LOT of
links in the blogosphere, and many news articles on the fine upstanding
movie actor [[Tom Cruise]] have clearly used the Xenu article in their
research. So now we need to get [[Scientology]] up to Featured quality.
Help on this is most welcomed; please work on it with a view to
[[Category:Scientology]] and its many subcats, as most sections should be
summaries of a more extensive article elsewhere. (What's a nice NPOV title
for the discussion of whether or not it is in fact a religion?)

- d.


from_name: john kaczmarowski

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: WikiMedia Error

body:
Tomer Chachamu wrote:
> On 28/06/05, john kaczmarowski <jkacz at completeis.com> wrote:
>
>>Today, I modified (for about the 10th time) the DefaultSettings.php file
>>in the Includes directory so that I could upload a .exe file (yes,
>>trouble, but this is in a relatively secure environment).  Anyway, the
>>exe was a flash demo that I was attaching to a wiki page.
>
>
> You should not edit DefaultSettings.php. When you need to change a
> setting, copy the setting line to LocalSettings.php (the main one) (or
> whatever it's called) and edit it there.
>
> I'm not sure what you can do now.

Thanks for the note, here's the deal:

1. The specific changes were as follows:

$wgFileExtensions = array( 'doc', 'pdf', 'xls', 'mpp', 'vsd', 'pdm',
'png', 'gif', 'jpg', 'jpeg' );

(note I added doc, pdf, xls, mpp, vsd and pdm)  I also added exe, but
since have taken it out.

2. These settings do not exist in LocalSettings, and in fact, this sort
of edit has workd well in the past.

3. I can replace the DefaultSettings file with the originally delivered
default settings file, and I acheive slightly better results.  To wit:

a. Main_Page returns (prior returning DefaultSettings, this page would
yield only a  page just like all the rest.

b. Many pages have returned to pre-crash state while others return only
a  opage.

c. Special Pages, login pages, etc. all return


body:
Delirium (delirium at hackish.org) [050629 06:34]:
> David Gerard wrote:

> >There is such a thing as pseudoscience and things that are deserve the
> >label. It belongs under 'science' because it claims the clothes of science
> >but isn't, hence the 'pseudo' - religion doesn't do that (except of course
> >when it does). The objectors are basically stating "I don't like it being
> >applied to my favourite thing so it must be a violation of NPOV." I see no
> >reason to indulge this.

> I still don't really like that idea, because it's strongly taking one
> side in a dispute.  Should we, for example, have a
> [[Category:Pseudoscientists]] that we apply to [[Linus Pauling]] for his
> wacked-out ideas on nutrition?  (Of course, he could also get
> [[Category:Scientists]] for his more respected work.)

Has this or anything as stupid aS this actually happened? i.e., not
hypothetically.

>  This sort of
> derisive labelling I find troubling, even if it's derisive labelling
> that's widely accepted.  The term "Alternative medicine", by constrast,
> doesn't carry nearly as much ideological baggage, because it can be read
> as either good or bad depending on your perspective, so more accurately
> simply labels a category of stuff without judging it.

There's lots of pseudoscience that isn't alternative medicine. That a group
claims a given label is demeaning doesn't mean it doesn't and shouldn't
apply.

- d.


body:
Ray Saintonge (saintonge at telus.net) [050629 05:01]:

> "Falsely presented" is a point that would need to be proven.  Do you
> have evidence that homeopathic medicines are not curative, or that they
> are just water?

Er, yes. To both. The stuff consistently fails as medicine in double-blind
tests, and it tests as just water.

I do think the sincerity of the practitioners (or difficulty with joined-up
thinking) makes them different to knowing quacks.

(But it still REALLY pisses me off when I see a shelf full of ?4 jars of
water in Boots whose labels imply they have any healing effects
whatsoever. Even if the stuff isn't actually harmful other than to the
wallet.)

>  That may very well be the case, but I would not be
> prepared to jump to that conclusion.  Making definitive statements about
> these practices requires more than parroting the opinions of their
> opponents.

The 10,000-foot view of NPOV shouldn't preclude calling this stuff
pseudoscience.

> >If you want to make a distinction between alternative medicine
> >and quackery would you object if I moved [[homeopathy]] to the
> >quackery category?

> I would.

Me too. That's a really hard-to-defend category except for proven frauds.

- d.


from_name: Aphaia

subject:
[Foundation-l] meta-discussion for new project proposals (was
	Proposal for new project: Faith Wiki)

body:
Hi,
as for new project launching, I support Elian and Yann: it is not the
time for us to start a new large projects. It is the time to care for
existing projects including their new language projects.

On 6/29/05, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:

> I guarentee that ignoring the new project proposals completely is going
> to be a gradual death to Wikimedia and eventually Wikipedia.  Most
> groups are desparate for fresh blood and new ideas, and by killing that
> avenue completely, it will have an overall chilling effect on the rest
> of all Wikimedia projects.

Partly agreed, on that most groups are desperate for fresh blood and
new ideas, but in my observation it seldom comes from the newer and
smaller projects (Babel [you may not confuse it with ex-Babylon or
Meta:Babel]  is one glorious exception; I think also Chinese
Wikipedia's merit system as interesting, but surely most of
Wikimedians - even Wikipedians haven't noticed that). Most of
projects, like English Wikipedia are a sort of intellectus activus -
self-sufficient, or auto-poesis i.e. closed but dynamic system: Or I
might say they are loosely monadic; they but have no window, though
reflect all others, specially as for larger projects.

On the contrary, small wikis, like just launching Wiktionary, need
support from larger communities - same projects in different languages
and larger (mostly Wikipedia) project in the same language. And larger
projects seem to moan by its growing pain currently. They need to help
themselves at first and sometimes not capable to care their sibling
projects. In general a new project can hardly start by only newcomers
- they need experienced people on the other projects, and in the long
term it would be rewarded but currently we need to concentrate clear
and present problems on larger existing projects. Here we should set
our priority to care for those project suffering many problems,
legally, comuniticatively, on governance, etc ... and seek steady and
practical solution, not adventure to launch new projects for the sake
of their potential merits.

--
Aphaea@*.wikipedia.org
email: Aphaia @ gmail (dot) com


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] meta-discussion for new project proposals

body:
Sj wrote:

>Hello Robert,
>
>Responding to your last commetn first
>
>>
>>3) Review by "proposal committee".  This is a new step, but I am
>>suggesting that a group of "veteran" Wikimedia (from all projects) users
>>
>>
>
>This is basically a great idea; though it need not be veterans, just
>users who care about new project development; and it need not be a
>formal committee with elections and terms, just an interest group of
>people who actively care for incoming proposals.
>
That is one of the reasons I put veteran in quotes, although I do think that the people helping out and sending suggestions to project proposals should have at least a little experience with Wikimedia projects in general of some sort.  Probably more important is the ability to have a little patience and be able to explain the interal politics of the Wikimedia community... or even what each separate project is like.  I have noticed a slightly different flavor between each project (Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikinews, etc.) where the editing styles are slightly different, even though there are some who move across all of these project.  This even goes to what is acceptable content vs. unacceptable... and is beyond just the "charter" of each project as well.

I certainly think that people who post a project proposal idea should be contacted early by such helpers, and if possible redirected to other projects that could help them out.

Sabine Cretella wrote:

    One thought on that - or maybe more:

    I am quite sure that what already is online from wikipedia to
    wikisource
    can include everything.

    Of course over time there will be changes in conceiving how information
    should be subdivided and then linked. When I read the message about the
    "believe-wiki" I thought: but this is already there ... in the
    different
    projects

There are some projects, like WikiMusic, just as an example, that offer a very different vision for what could be done, and may even require some slight to substantial programming changes in order for the information to be edited.  Of course, such efforts can be folded back onto existing projects, but on an experimental basis my be justified as totally different site.

Another is WikiData, where database type information can be added to existing articles.  This is a totally new concept, and does deserve its own "team" to get it going, but this is more a software developer project rather than something more along the lines of a typical Wikimedia project.

I mention these two projects as hard examples of new project proposals that simply can't be accomodated by current projects.  They really are very new ideas, and things that would help the community as a whole.  And while both of these proposals will introduce some new legal issues, it is not substantially different than what is currently done.  This is mainly new technical abilities and being able to do things in a slightly different fashion.

Finally I want to point out wikitree.org

This is an example of a new project proposal that has simply been developed indepenedently, and is also another very clear example of something that simply can't be accomodated by existing projects run by Wikimedia.  Indeed it is strongly discouraged on Wikipedia, with even pages deleted because of people not having noteriety.  For those not familiar with this site, it is geneological information that is being linked together using the MediaWiki software, but some substantial modifications.  I mention this because it has been previously proposed as a new project to be run by the Wikimedia foundation, but instead has moved out on its own, partly because there was no way to push the proposal through.  It was on the new project proposal page well before the website turned "live".  It has even been left as a "dead" proposal, not even on the main project proposal page.  There is merit to a project like this, and there are funding sources as well to help pay for a service like this... long term funding at that.  Projects of this kind are also going to bring in some very different people into the community that normally wouldn't be working on things like Wikipedia.  BTW, I have also seen several people from Wikimedia projects over there at wikitree, so I know for them at least this isn't a revelation.  I do wish the people at Wikitree success and at the moment it is being done completely out of the pocket of the original organizers.

Keep in mind that my proposal is only to more formalize the process of becoming a new Wikimedia project, not to accelerate the process and flooding the Wikimedia Foundation with a whole bunch of unsupported projects.  Again, I ask that detractors to this proposal come up with an alterative, and if they simply don't want new projects (with general consensus from the community) state that boldly that simply no new projects will ever be accepted, or will come from channels other than the new project proposal page.  Let them know it is an exercise in futility, and that people like Sean Turvey are wasting their breath to even try (or myself for that matter).

--
Robert Scott Horning


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Protoscience category

body:
Protoscience is anything scientists are still working on, which hasn't
become really established.

The problem is that Science itself has only just begun to tackle the
really difficult problems. In Aristotle's time, they merely thought that
"heavy things fall faster". It wasn't until 1600 or 1620 that it was
definitively proven that heavy, dense objects (think cannonballs!) fall
faster and faster - and that this is NOT related to their weight. That
is, a 10-pound cannonball and a 20-pound cannonball, dropped from a
tower at the same time, will hit the ground at the same time!

It was not until the period 1860 - 1910 (or so) that the Germ Theory of
Disease became well known, and there was considerable resistance among
doctors to even LOOKING at the research results.

Now we have psychology, political science, economics: these fields are
still in their infancy. How can we describe them accurately and without
bias?

And what about climatology? The global warming theory is so
_politically_ controversial (with liberals and conservatives evenly
split on it) that we've been unable to take the NPOV-dispute tag off the
article for the whole 3 years we've been trying to write it. I'm good
friends with William Connolley, but he can't write NPOV for crap (sorry,
Doc!).

Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed


from_name: Thomas Gries

subject: [Wikitech-l] (enotif and econfirm) Translations --> LanguageDe.php

body:
Info message to avoid double work:

Hello all, hallo zusammen.
I am working on the missing translations for certain messages (for the
new email address confirmation, for enoitf) into German.

Will be ready after testing this afternoon, 29.06.2005 23 UTC
T.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Vandalism and quackery

body:
Haukur ?orgeirsson (haukurth at hi.is) [050629 08:51]:

> I would not object to classifying Pauling's ideas on
> nutrition (vast amounts of vitamin C etc.) as pseudo-science.
> The label is no more derisive than the topics under discussion
> deserve. We call vandalism vandalism. We don't call it
> "alternative editing". We call the trolls trolls. We don't
> call them "complementary editors". The labels are only
> derisive insofar as they are accurate. Such is the case
> with pseudoscience and quackery.

Seconded. It's not [[Category:Earthmoving implements commonly held to be of
wood and metal construction]].

- d.


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>On 6/29/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>I would discourage this. Unless you really don't have an opinion, why
>>not vote for your preferred candidates? If you don't have a preference
>>and you don't like any of them, I can understand.
>>
>>
>
>Well, I did write about it at the included URL.
>I like the existing board members, and I think the proposed candidates
>are great wikipedians and would probably all do okay.  But none of
>them have given me much basis to choose between them, nor to choose
>against them.  All I could really do is mark which ones I've had more
>positive contact with, which isn't a really good metric. What little
>validity my decision might have today will be long gone before two
>years pass.
>
>Had there been a participant with a pure 'I am the legal mouthpiece of
>the community', or had there been one with a substantial story about
>copyright, or NOR... I might have been inclined to vote in a way which
>showed preference for or against them. Heck, had we even had a troll
>or controversial user running I'd think a non null ballot would be
>useful.
>
Hoi,
Two of the candidates have a substantial story about where they stand in
our community. A story that speaks louder than words as they have been
doing the job for the last year. You must like politicians if you only
choose on what they say in their manifesto and not judge the track
record of the incumbent. I am quite happy with the current board to the
extend that I did not make myself a candidate. My platform would have
been to help develop the other projects. However, it is possible to work
on other projects just that fine. The amount of support from the board
for the work I have been doing on Wiktionary and Ultimate Wiktionary was
great. They were critical and as long as good arguments were put forward
and as long as it was seen that there was something of a community
behind ideas there was room to do "good".

So for me it is simple who to vote for. As to the other candidates, they
are known. You may know them personally and this should influence you. I
am certain that people around you in your communities know the
candidates, just ask. You can even ask someone you trust who to vote
for. I did that at the last elections and Andre Engels told me that we
need someone non-English and he knew Anthere.. so I voted for Anthere
who I did not know at the time .. I know _sj_ and I know Francis
Schonken. personally and I know people who know the others. So  yes it
is a bit obligatory to write a small voter manifesto but that is not
what should lead you. We know these people.

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Thomas Koll

subject: [Foundation-l] License that cannot be used in advertisements

body:
Am 28.06.2005 um 20:56 schrieb Gerard Meijssen:

>> Is this a matter of copyright or of the law about the Royal
>> Family?  What would be the status of an unofficial picture taken
>> through a papparazo's telephoto lens if he chose to realease that
>> picture under GFDL?
>>
>
> It is against the law in the first place to use pictures of the
> Royal Family in an advertisement. A papparazo makes his foto's for
> the "gossip" press. That is not using it for advertisements.
>

It sounds similar to the limitations for using coats of arms, we had
quite a
long discussion on de: about that and right now we are having a
disclaimer that
there are laws to obey in Germany if one uses these coats of arms.
Maybe a simlare information would be enough.

  > As far as I know you are not allowed to use pictures of people
without their release anyway. The release of these pictures is
however explicit about what it can be used for.

It depends on how popular that person is. since the Caroline-judgment
you can
often see unimportant persons or even familiy members of pictures
blacked out.

ciao, tom
--
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:TomK32
http://www.tomk32.de


from_name: Wouter Steenbeek

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Problems with finding native Seeltersk speakers

body:
>From: Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>
>Since we have so many 15-year-olds already on other Wikipedias, what's
>wrong with recruiting teens to work on a Seeltersk Wikipedia?
>
>Mark
First of all: I don't know how old these children actually are. Second: You
are really unlikely to find adolescent prodigies like you in such a small
community. We're probably talking about /tens/ of children at the moment.

Wouter

_________________________________________________________________
Nieuw: Download nu MSN Messenger 7.0 http://messenger.msn.nl/


from_name: samrushing at charter.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] Please remove me from daily mailings

body:
I dont know why I am being bombarded with e-mail
discussion groups.
Please let me  know how to remove these messages
thanks
    Sam Rushing

sam c


from_name: Sabine Cretella

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: meta-discussion for new project proposals
	(was	Proposal for new project: Faith Wiki)

body:
One thought on that - or maybe more:

I am quite sure that what already is online from wikipedia to wikisource
can include everything.

Of course over time there will be changes in conceiving how information
should be subdivided and then linked. When I read the message about the
"believe-wiki" I thought: but this is already there ... in the different
projects.

On the Italian wiktionary for example there is a special glossary on
christianity - the thing that is lacking now would be a page where only
links to all existing "christianity articles/projects etc." are
collected. Last year, when I created the "Merry Christmas" project I
tried to do this, but that page is available on the Italian wiktionary
only. So the only thing I would create besides the project and inter
project links is one wiki where these links on special themes are
collected - where you go to a "chapter" called maybe "football" and you
find a list of all football related articles on wikipedia, wikinews,
links to glossaries etc. of course structured in a certain way. Maybe
wikidata could help us in this - I am not really sure - such a thingie
needs quite a lot of "thinking about it", but I believe that people
interested in only a specific subject would very much appreciate it if
they would not have to surf from one project to the other searching for
related articles, but finding a pool of grouped information.

I don't say we must do this now - it is as if I feel the time to be a
bit too immature to do this as there are too many changes on the way.
But I'd like to keep this in mind - it could become necessary (maybe in
another form/shape - we'll see).

Ciao, Sabine

___________________________________
Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i messaggi e allegati da 10MB
http://mail.yahoo.it


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Middle-Earth Wikipedia

body:
>From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
>Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Middle-Earth Wikipedia
>Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 00:41:22 -0700
>
>Wouter Steenbeek wrote:
>
>>>I would also be happy to rid Wiktionary of this sort of thing.  The
>>>supporters of these languages seem to have only questionable contact with
>>>reality.  Tolkien was a learn?d man whose philological studies helped to
>>>make his stories more vibrant, but sometimes people need to be reminded
>>>tha "Lord of the Rings" was a work of _fiction_.  The languages developed
>>>there are also works of fiction with no credibility in the real world,
>>>and no basis for development beyond the context of Tolkien's books.  That
>>>being said, any attempt at building an encyclopedia in these languages
>>>must falter when it needs to develop vocabulary for concepts that are
>>>alien to Middle Earth.
>>>
>>>It is fitting that Wikipedia have an article giving an outline of these
>>>languages, and that Wikibooks might even give an outline of the grammar.
>>>Apart from that can we at least try to find some separation between the
>>>real and fantasy world?
>>>
>>>Ec
>>
>>Please, please, please, don't get personal!
>>W.
>
>There's absolutely nothing personal in that.  Try as I might I can only see
>generic comments in what I said.  However, if you really think that there
>is such a place as Middle Earth I shall be more than happy to apologize to
>its residents. :-)
>
>Ec
Huh huh huh. There we go again. Do you see what I mean now? Of course the
Tolkienists know it is fantasy. Why the HELL should anyone learning a
fictional language be pathologically confusing fantasy and reality. there
are perhaps a few who do, but it is really offensive and personal to state
they all do, or the majority of them does. Learning Quenya and Sindarin is
most of all a tribute to Tolkien's great work and the beatiful languages he
created. And note: a language is always an abstracted thing. It either never
exits or already exists when someone invented it, since it dwells in
people's minds and in written records. So while elves, Isengard, dwarves,
Sauron, hobbits, Gandalf, Lothlorien etc. all don't exist, Quenya and
Sindarin surely do.

Btw I speak none of Tolkien's languages (yet).
Wouter

_________________________________________________________________
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from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikipedia-l] switch Võro logo

body:
Sulev Iva wrote:
> Hi,
> Can some developer switch the logo for the V?ro Wikipedia?
> It is uploaded, protected and ready to switch:
> http://fiu-vro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wiki.png

Done.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] little bug on li:

body:
Wouter Steenbeek wrote:
> Hi all, and certainly those of you with technical gifts,
>
> Since yesterday, we recieve most of the interface text in older
> versions. That means that we constantly read Dutch and English words and
> phrases, along with some wrong, now-corrected, Limburgic ones. First, we
> thought it was a co-effect of the software mainenance they anounced on
> en:, but since it seems to endure, I would like to see this solved. I am
> pretty sure that this is not intentional man's work, since we could not
> find anything in the recent changes.

This sometimes happens as a temporary glitch (message cache breaks and
some requests use the defaults for a few minutes; those then may be
cached so they're visible longer).

Can you check if it's still doing it? (Try logging out/in.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Greek wikipedia to 1.5 ?

body:
Gabriel wrote:
> when the greek wikipedia would be convert to 1.5 ?

We'll most likely resume conversions tonight.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Pat Carr

subject: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely?

body:
Here's a synopsis of Kurita77's contributions at
Wikipedia:

1st edit: His first edit was made within minutes of
Enviroknot being blocked for violating the ArbCom
injunction.

2nd edit: Quoted Enviroknot and struck-out many of
BrandonYusufToropov's comments. Kurita77 used also
editing features such as section headings and bold
text.

6th edit: Began lecturing Brandon on "No Personal
Attacks". Again struck-out several of Brandon's
comments.

10th edit: Again lectured about "No Personal Attacks".

16th-18th edits: Uploaded an image of "Eyeshield 21".
Added a disambiguation link to the Eyeshield article.
In an email he sent to me, Kurita77 claimed that this
article brought him here.

20th edits: Posted a message on Brandon's talk page
referencing several Wikipedia policies and instructing
Brandon to "calm down".

22nd edit: Posted a question on AN/3RR.

All of the above happened in less than 3 hours. It's
crystal clear that Kurita == Environknot.

--- Kurita Ryohan <kurita77lineman at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Please. Someone. ANYONE.
>
> We're supposed to be bold when editing but then we
> get indefinitely blocked?
> Why are you doing this to me? Why are you refusing
> to respond? Why am I
> getting nothing but nasty emails accusing me of
> being someone else?
>
> Kurita77
>
> >From: "Kurita Ryohan" <kurita77lineman at hotmail.com>
> >Reply-To: English Wikipedia
> <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> >To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked
> indefinitely?
> >Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 11:54:57 -0500
> >
> >Will someone PLEASE explain to me what is going on?
> I can't understand why
> >you people are acting this way.
> >
> >Kurita77
> >
> >>From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard)
> >>Reply-To: English Wikipedia
> <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> >>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> >>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked
> indefinitely?
> >>Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 02:51:54 +1000
> >>
> >>Fred Bauder (fredbaud at ctelco.net) [050630 02:49]:
> >>
> >> > Seems to be a sockpuppet of Enviroknot, see
> >> > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
> >> > title=Talk:Jihad&diff=17828932&oldid=17827080
> >>
> >>
> >>CheckUser doesn't appear to be switched on for me
> in 1.5 as yet, or I'd go
> >>look. I'll ask for it to be switched back on once
> the devs have the bugs
> >>from the 1.5 beta under control, and I'm back on
> IRC ;-)
> >>
> >>
> >>- d.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>_______________________________________________
> >>WikiEN-l mailing list
> >>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
>_________________________________________________________________
> >Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger!
> Download today - it's FREE!
>
>http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >WikiEN-l mailing list
> >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
_________________________________________________________________
> FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar ? get
> it now!
>
http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Re: The elections are on,	but I cast a blank
	ballot!

body:
Craig Franklin wrote:

>Scr?obh Mark Williamson:
>
>
>>I would discourage this. Unless you really don't have an opinion, why
>>not vote for your preferred candidates? If you don't have a preference
>>and you don't like any of them, I can understand.
>>
>>
>But I do have an opinion.  The positions of all the candidates seem to be
>essentially identical, "we love Wikipedia and NPOV".  I see no dramatic
>proposals on the topics of copyright, promotion, hardware or managing
>growth.  The candidates all propose to increase community input to the
>board, but don't say exactly how they will do this.  They all talk about
>guiding the board, but offer no suggestions as to what direction they will
>guide it in.  Nobody, in particular, has expressed an opinion on the Chinese
>Wikinews issue.
>
>
With such deficient candidates on the ballot, and with a little
patience, maybe you can wait until the next election to declare your
candidacy. :-)

Ec


from_name: monk at zoomcon.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] Upgrade status

body:
Hello Brion,

Tuesday, June 28, 2005, 6:56:10 PM, you wrote:

> monk at zoomcon.com wrote:
>> why there is still a problem with be language file on commons? I just
>> can't understand... What I mean:
>> in previous version of LanguageBe.php there was no translation for
>> "Main page" so when I logon on commons (I have belarusian interface
>> language set) I had "Main page" in left navigation bar along with
>> belarusian strings for other pages. But in May new version of
>> LanguageBe.php (with "Main page" and some other stuff already
>> translated) was submitted to both 1.4 and HEAD branches.
>>
>> But for these months I have still seen "Main page" in left bar.... and
>> even after upgrade to 1.5 I still see it! :(( why?

> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Mainpage/be

It is not a question about status of translation of Mainpage. It is
a question about status of maintaining language file. Why all strings
that were translated before May are translated on commons, but strings
which were translated in LanguageBe.php file submitted in May still
are in English on Commons (with Belarusian language of interface set
on)?

--
Best regards,
 monk                            mailto:monk at zoomcon.com


from_name: Petr Kadlec

subject: [Wikitech-l] Records number in main table

body:
On 6/29/05, Nicolay A. Vasiliev <nvasiliev at whiteriversoft.com> wrote:
> > Could you be so kindly to say: how many records contains the cur table
> > in the last dump?

Isn't that the number in [[Special:Statistics]]? I.e. for w:en:,
currently 1,841,189?

-- [[cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec]]


subject: [Wikitech-l] I modify, but my webpages don't change

body:
thomas Armstrong wrote:
> I'm changing the contents of 'MonoBook.php':
[snip]
> But I refresh my webpages, and HTML doesn't change.

Cache?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
Seems to be a sockpuppet of Enviroknot, see

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=Talk:Jihad&diff=17828932&oldid=17827080

Fred

On Jun 29, 2005, at 10:19 AM, Kurita Ryohan wrote:

> Can someone please tell me what I have done wrong?
>
> So far I have edited only a few articles. I cleaned up a vandal at
> SNES and added a small section to NES. I added an article and image
> for the Eyeshield 21 anime and added a link to the manga's page. I
> read the primer sent to me by Spangineer and the Wikipedia policy
> pages. I became involved in the discussion at Jihad because it
> seems to show up a lot, and I tried to calm it down by removing
> some personal attacks.
>
> I removed personal attacks from the discussion by striking them
> through because policy on Remove Personal Attacks says that we're
> supposed to refactor without removing the context. I thought that
> would be the best way to do it.
>
> I got a bunch of nasty messages back claiming that my removal of
> personal messages was "vandalism" when it's clearly policy to
> remove them. Now an admin named Carbonite has blocked me
> indefinitely claiming I am a sockpuppet of someone named
> Enviroknot. Carbonite isn't responding to my emails. Can someone
> please explain this?
>
> Thanks,
> Kurita77
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today -
> it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/
> direct/01/
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
According to the email headers, Kurita77's IP is
66.69.141.11. Sound familiar? That IP is listed on the
ArbCom case page as one of Enviroknot's IPs. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/KaintheScion_et_al./Proposed_decision#Sockpuppets_2

Carbonite

--- Kurita Ryohan <kurita77lineman at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Why do you keep attacking me?
>
> >1st edit: His first edit was made within minutes of
> >Enviroknot being blocked for violating the ArbCom
> >injunction.
>
> Is it against policy to edit at certain times of
> day? People edit all the
> time from what I understand. I got up this morning,
> signed in, and created
> my account after reading all the stuff on how to
> edit.
>
>
> >2nd edit: Quoted Enviroknot and struck-out many of
> >BrandonYusufToropov's comments. Kurita77 used also
> >editing features such as section headings and bold
> >text.
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Introduction_2
>
> Hello? Policies and Guidelines, Rules, and all the
> editing tools are spelled
> out right here. You obviously wanted people to read
> them so I did. I didn't
> want to make my edits look bad. This is supposed to
> be a
> professional-quality encyclopedia right?
>
>
> >6th edit: Began lecturing Brandon on "No Personal
> >Attacks". Again struck-out several of Brandon's
> >comments.
> That's because Policy says No Personal Attacsk and
> we are supposed to Remove
> Personal Attacks.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_personal_attacks
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Remove_personal_attacks
>
> >10th edit: Again lectured about "No Personal
> Attacks".
> Why is this a bad thing?
>
> >16th-18th edits: Uploaded an image of "Eyeshield
> 21".
> >Added a disambiguation link to the Eyeshield
> article.
> >In an email he sent to me, Kurita77 claimed that
> this
> >article brought him here.
> It did. I was trying things out first. I also
> reverted a vandal who tagged
> his name into the SNES article.
>
> >20th edits: Posted a message on Brandon's talk page
> >referencing several Wikipedia policies and
> instructing
> >Brandon to "calm down".
> I was assuming good faith and giving Brandon a
> friendly message. It was not
> an instruction, it was a friendly suggestion.
>
> >22nd edit: Posted a question on AN/3RR.
> Because I remembered that there's policy like that
> but I couldn't tell if
> I'd violated it, the 3RR policy has a bunch of
> exceptions. I asked before I
> got in trouble.
>
> >All of the above happened in less than 3 hours.
> It's
> >crystal clear that Kurita == Environknot.
> >
> I'm not this guy Enviroknot whoever he is, I'm just
> me. I came in here
> because I was referenced to it.
>
> PLEASE, just give me back my account. This is
> completely unfair of you. I
> don't understand what makes you act this way.
>
> Kurita77
>
>
_________________________________________________________________
> Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer
> virus scan from McAfee?
> Security.
>
http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963
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> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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subject: [Wikitech-l] get text of old database dump

body:
Scorpunit wrote:
> I have a problem to get the real text out of the old_text column.
> In the cur table for example the real text is saved in the database.
> But in the old table the text is hashed.
>
> for example:
> O:15:"historyblobstub":2:
> {s:6:"mOldId";s:5:"48086";s:5:"mHash";s:32:"1ea4d983a8fd0a10c46022035552d597";}
>
> How can I get the real text out of such a hash?

If you're working within the MediaWiki framework (eg a maintenance
script), use Article::getRevisionText( $row ) (where $row is a row in
object format, as retrieved with Database::fetchObject or
mysql_fetch_object; your query must include both old_text and old_flags
fields.)

The field there is a serialized PHP object which refers to another row
which contains multiple revisions compressed together; see
HistoryBlob.php for the classes used.

In the future we'll be making public dumps in a cleaner XML-wrapper
format, the same format provided by Special:Export. You can take text
out of that directly, or let it import to a database (potentially
without all the fancy compression options we use) and take it from there.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Tomer Chachamu

subject: [Wikitech-l] WikiMedia Error

body:
On 28/06/05, john kaczmarowski <jkacz at completeis.com> wrote:
> Today, I modified (for about the 10th time) the DefaultSettings.php file
> in the Includes directory so that I could upload a .exe file (yes,
> trouble, but this is in a relatively secure environment).  Anyway, the
> exe was a flash demo that I was attaching to a wiki page.

You should not edit DefaultSettings.php. When you need to change a
setting, copy the setting line to LocalSettings.php (the main one) (or
whatever it's called) and edit it there.

I'm not sure what you can do now.


from_name: Karl A. Krueger

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pseudoscience category - GSPOV

body:
On Wed, Jun 29, 2005 at 11:47:08AM -0000, Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote:
> Some doctors with education in scientific medicine are quacks. The
> discipline itself, however, isn't quackery. Homeopathy, on the other
> hand, is pseudo-medicine. Everyone who practices homeopathy is a quack
> while she's doing it, in the sense that she is providing medicine that
> doesn't work.

I think we should avoid calling any person a quack.  We can and should
refer to acts of quackery, or to particular disproven treatments as
quack treatments, but it seems unnecessarily inflammatory to label
persons like that.  (Likewise, we should say that Richard Nixon and Bill
Clinton were found to have told lies -- not that they "are liars".  The
former comes across as a flat statement of fact; the latter is a
character smear.)

(A little [[E-Prime]] can go a long way.)

> I keep coming back to homeopathy because it is probably the
> pseudo-medicine discipline with the greatest mainstream popularity. It
> even has some degree of official recognition in some countries. And
> yet it has been shown beyond any reasonable doubt not to work.

The aspect of it that I really find interesting is how water is only
supposed to "remember" the substances the homeopath wishes it to -- even
though all the water in the world could be considered to contain a
homeopathic dilution of dinosaur pee.  :)

> >But if it really doesn't hurt anything if we call it "Alternative
> >medicine", & creates a bit of WikiLove to do so, then shouldn't we
> >accept the term & move on to other things?
>
> I am arguing that the term is misleading for the articles that
> category currently holds (I won't repeat my argument here, see my
> earlier posts). I suggest we replace it with "Pseudo-medicine" and
> will do so myself if objections are not raised.

If we're taking "quackery" (or "pseudo-medicine") to mean remedies that
have been demonstrated to _not_ work, then we still need a place to put
remedies that are unproven either way, and ones which are too broad to
categorize clearly as working or not-working as a whole.

Take herbal medicine, for instance.  It's pretty well established that
some herbs do have pharmacologically active ingredients which are
effective for the purposes those herbs are traditionally recommended.
However, there's also an awful lot of sheer nonsense about herbs.  Large
portions of the practice can't accurately be classed as "pseudoscience"
since practitioners don't imitate science.

Or take massage.  There are certainly pseudoscientific and pseudomedical
claims made about some forms of massage, such as reflexology -- which
holds that massaging specific areas of your feet can cure afflictions of
specific parts of the rest of your body.  But massage is also recognized
as part of physical therapy.  As a whole subject, where does massage
belong w.r.t. medicine?  The category "complementary medicine" seems to
me to fit perfectly.

--
Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger at whoi.edu>


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Yann Forget

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Language counts

body:
Hi,

Le Tuesday 28 June 2005 19:20, Gerard Meijssen a ?crit :
> Andrew Dunbar wrote:
> >The two ways to do it are:
> >1) Parse the database. This is very difficult due to a myriad of article
> > formats and a very large number of articles in which the format is just
> > broken. I did however develop a parser just good enough to count articles
> > and translations by language for the non-broken examples. Sadly the hard
> > drive on which the code lived was destroyed in a grey-out or power surge.
> >
> >2) Use of templates. On Wiktionary there is quite a bit of "anarchy" or
> >"democracy" at present so it's very difficult to introduce new features
> > and also to have such features used for their proposed purpose without
> > being extended. Also people losing interest in their new ideas, and the
> > fact that there are *so many* articles their to go back through and
> > classify after agreeing on a way to do so.
> >
> >I think the best way would be to a) come to an agreement of how to make
> >a language-tracking template. b) Create a new parser that can find
> >language headings in their various variant forms. c) Use the data created
> >by the parser with a bot to tag all the existing articles. d) Make the new
> >tags compulsory.
>
> Hoi,
> When there is a decision that a particular template is to be used, it is
> possible to use a bot to replace one pattern that indicates that a word
> is in a language with this template. Many templates can be changes in
> succession that will help us to implement the chosen template. I do
> suggest that the use of the templates already in use on many of the
> wiktionaries makes sense as it will help foster cooperation between the
> different Wiktionaries as it helps us to share content. Important to
> note is, that the content of these templates is a matter of choise for
> the individual Wiktionary as long as the definition is shared by all.. I
> will be happy to help in implementing one fixed set of templates on the
> English wiktionary. When the known patterns have been replaced by the
> selected templates, it will be possible to create a list with articles
> that do not have the new templates. These have to be changed manually in
> order to identify them as words in a particular language.

This was done on the French Wiktionary when it changed from plain wiki mark up
to template mark up. I did it with the help of a bot.

> Thanks,
> GerardM

Regards,
Yann

--
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from_name: Robert Jones

subject: [Wikitech-l] Image link to a page

body:
This page contains an image that links to a normal page rather than the
"Image:ImageName" page.

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Quarto

How is that done in normal wiki-text? Is it something special to that wiki
or can the same effect be achieved on en.wikipedia.org ?

Many thanks.


from_name: Kurita Ryohan

body:
Can someone please tell me what I have done wrong?

So far I have edited only a few articles. I cleaned up a vandal at SNES and
added a small section to NES. I added an article and image for the Eyeshield
21 anime and added a link to the manga's page. I read the primer sent to me
by Spangineer and the Wikipedia policy pages. I became involved in the
discussion at Jihad because it seems to show up a lot, and I tried to calm
it down by removing some personal attacks.

I removed personal attacks from the discussion by striking them through
because policy on Remove Personal Attacks says that we're supposed to
refactor without removing the context. I thought that would be the best way
to do it.

I got a bunch of nasty messages back claiming that my removal of personal
messages was "vandalism" when it's clearly policy to remove them. Now an
admin named Carbonite has blocked me indefinitely claiming I am a sockpuppet
of someone named Enviroknot. Carbonite isn't responding to my emails. Can
someone please explain this?

Thanks,
Kurita77

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body:
Will someone give me a response? Please? None of the admins I have emailed
have responded.

This is frightening. The way you people act is directly contrary to the
literature Spangineer sent me.

Kurita77

>From: "Kurita Ryohan" <kurita77lineman at hotmail.com>
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely?
>Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 11:19:39 -0500
>
>Can someone please tell me what I have done wrong?
>
>So far I have edited only a few articles. I cleaned up a vandal at SNES and
>added a small section to NES. I added an article and image for the
>Eyeshield 21 anime and added a link to the manga's page. I read the primer
>sent to me by Spangineer and the Wikipedia policy pages. I became involved
>in the discussion at Jihad because it seems to show up a lot, and I tried
>to calm it down by removing some personal attacks.
>
>I removed personal attacks from the discussion by striking them through
>because policy on Remove Personal Attacks says that we're supposed to
>refactor without removing the context. I thought that would be the best way
>to do it.
>
>I got a bunch of nasty messages back claiming that my removal of personal
>messages was "vandalism" when it's clearly policy to remove them. Now an
>admin named Carbonite has blocked me indefinitely claiming I am a
>sockpuppet of someone named Enviroknot. Carbonite isn't responding to my
>emails. Can someone please explain this?
>
>Thanks,
>Kurita77
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE!
>http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
>
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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from_name: Michael Turley

subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Requests for rollback

body:
On 6/29/05, Rebecca <misfitgirl at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/30/05, Rebecca <misfitgirl at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 6/29/05, Chris Jenkinson <chris at starglade.org> wrote:
> > > Let me remind you that I have never voted on requests for adminship
> > > before, and that I have never insulted or in any way had a confrontation
> > > with any Wikipedia admin. Do you have any proof of these accusations?
> > >
> > > The only person to make such ridiculous claims as an 'anti-admin lobby'
> > > and 'me whinging' is you. Maybe you have strong feelings about that -
> > > but that is certainly no reason to attack or insult others in this way.
>
> That was not specifically directed at you; rather, the previous
> poster. I apologise if I worded my point badly. The point is that if
> you want rollback, apply for adminship. Adminship should *not* be seen
> as some form of supreme power structure, as much as some users (and I
> don't count you as one of those) have tried very hard to make it so.
> It's simply a mop and a broom - and if you want that mop and broom,
> apply for it through the normal process rather than getting it by
> another name for no good reason.
>
>  -- ambi
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

ambi

Your claim is still ridiculous, regardless of who you addressed it to.
 (There is no anti-admin cabal.)

Adminship is the granting of the tools necessary and desired to assist
with the mission of Wikipedia and nothing more.

I prefer to leave the tools regarding dominance and control of other
users in other, more experienced hands.  For example, I couldn't begin
to tell you what impact an IP block has, and I don't care to learn.
At this time, I have no interest in protecting a page and would rather
leave that power in the hands of those more experienced in judging
when it is appropriate to do so.

Further, there are admin candidates that, at this time, I'd hate to
see get the ability to block others, yet would still benefit greatly
from the rollback tool.  An example is Weyes.  On this page,
[[User_talk:Ozdusters]], he posted something to the effect of "this is
your final warning, do this one more time and you'll be blocked".
This is a very aggressive, authoritarian thing to post, especially
when he didn't have any ability to back up his threats, and why it'll
be at least another month or two before I would consider supporting
him as an admin.*  However, I think Weyes would be extremely well
served by having the rollback tool available to him.

*(Unless he's made an admin over my objections, in which case I'll
immediately support him as an admin.)

This is an example of why I think separation of the rollback tool is a
great idea.

The fact that I don't covet all of your admin tools shouldn't be used
as an excuse for you to dismiss my ongoing concerns that they are used
properly.

--
Michael Turley
User:Unfocused


from_name: Haukur Þorgeirsson

body:
>On the one hand, "Pseudo-science" embraces more than just fakery that
>is being passed off as medicine. Other examples of subjects that I
>think would be fairly categorized as pseudo-science would include
>Ley lines, the teleological theory of cultural evolution, the theories
>of Immanuel Velekovsky, & as someone mentioned upthread ghosts. I
>guess you could say that it is any hypothesis that cannot be proven
>experimentally, but the least controversial examples are the ones
>that _have_ been disproven -- yet still have their true believers.

I fully agree.

>On the other hand, "quackery" is more properly applied to medicine
>that either does not work, or is harmful.

I fully agree.

>One can graduate from a
>mainstream, accredited medical school, receive a medical degree, &
>even be board-certified -- & yet still be a quack.

I fully agree.

Some doctors with education in scientific
medicine are quacks. The discipline itself,
however, isn't quackery. Homeopathy, on the
other hand, is pseudo-medicine. Everyone who
practices homeopathy is a quack while she's
doing it, in the sense that she is providing
medicine that doesn't work.

I keep coming back to homeopathy because it
is probably the pseudo-medicine discipline
with the greatest mainstream popularity. It
even has some degree of official recognition
in some countries. And yet it has been shown
beyond any reasonable doubt not to work.

>But if it really doesn't hurt anything if we call it "Alternative
>medicine", & creates a bit of WikiLove to do so, then shouldn't we
>accept the term & move on to other things?

I am arguing that the term is misleading
for the articles that category currently
holds (I won't repeat my argument here,
see my earlier posts). I suggest we replace
it with "Pseudo-medicine" and will do so
myself if objections are not raised.

>I see that we have 5
>candidates for the Wikimedia Foundation who are all well qualified,
>but we can only elect two: isn't that problem worth at least as
>many posts as this one?

Certainly. I wish them the best of luck.

If this discussion is overly burdening the
mailing list I suggest we continue it on the
talk page of Category:Alternative medicine.

Regards,
Haukur


body:
I keep seeing that word, what is a sockpuppet? And why are you people so
hostile?

Kurita77

>From: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely?
>Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 10:48:56 -0600
>
>Seems to be a sockpuppet of Enviroknot, see
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
>title=Talk:Jihad&diff=17828932&oldid=17827080
>
>Fred
>
>
>On Jun 29, 2005, at 10:19 AM, Kurita Ryohan wrote:
>
>>Can someone please tell me what I have done wrong?
>>
>>So far I have edited only a few articles. I cleaned up a vandal at  SNES
>>and added a small section to NES. I added an article and image  for the
>>Eyeshield 21 anime and added a link to the manga's page. I  read the
>>primer sent to me by Spangineer and the Wikipedia policy  pages. I became
>>involved in the discussion at Jihad because it  seems to show up a lot,
>>and I tried to calm it down by removing  some personal attacks.
>>
>>I removed personal attacks from the discussion by striking them  through
>>because policy on Remove Personal Attacks says that we're  supposed to
>>refactor without removing the context. I thought that  would be the best
>>way to do it.
>>
>>I got a bunch of nasty messages back claiming that my removal of  personal
>>messages was "vandalism" when it's clearly policy to  remove them. Now an
>>admin named Carbonite has blocked me  indefinitely claiming I am a
>>sockpuppet of someone named  Enviroknot. Carbonite isn't responding to my
>>emails. Can someone  please explain this?
>>
>>Thanks,
>>Kurita77
>>
>>_________________________________________________________________
>>Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today -  it's
>>FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/ direct/01/
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>WikiEN-l mailing list
>>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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body:
Will someone PLEASE explain to me what is going on? I can't understand why
you people are acting this way.

Kurita77

>From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard)
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely?
>Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 02:51:54 +1000
>
>Fred Bauder (fredbaud at ctelco.net) [050630 02:49]:
>
> > Seems to be a sockpuppet of Enviroknot, see
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
> > title=Talk:Jihad&diff=17828932&oldid=17827080
>
>
>CheckUser doesn't appear to be switched on for me in 1.5 as yet, or I'd go
>look. I'll ask for it to be switched back on once the devs have the bugs
>from the 1.5 beta under control, and I'm back on IRC ;-)
>
>
>- d.
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

_________________________________________________________________
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body:
I know I'm risking feeding the trolls, (since it's
already been determined by IP evidence that this is
Enviroknot / ElKabong / KaintheScion) so I'll keep it
short.

What exactly is your problem with me posting *my own*
words into Wikipedia? I didn't feel like retyping my
own words, so I pasted them. Many people don't read
the mailing list. When your Enviroknot account is
unblocked in a few hours, you can respond all you
want.

As for your accusation that I sent the offensive
email, please provide some proof immediately or
apologize. I'm not holding my breath for either.

Carbonite

--- Kurita Ryohan <kurita77lineman at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Now not only are you ignoring my emails, you are
> pasting only your own
> emails into Wikipedia and NOT posting my responses.
>
> To top it off, you blanked my user page after
> denying me the ability to edit
> it myself.
>
> You are acting in horribly bad faith and I want to
> know why you are doing
> this.
>
> Someone, please. Give me back my account. I have
> done nothing wrong.
>
> Kurita77
>
> >From: "Kurita Ryohan" <kurita77lineman at hotmail.com>
> >Reply-To: English Wikipedia
> <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> >To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked
> indefinitely?
> >Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 12:59:11 -0500
> >
> >I told you via email that I didn't have cable modem
> service until this
> >morning. My stupid neighbors are putting in a pool
> and they cut my lines.
> >It was in and out several times.
> >
> >I have no control over what IP I get.
> >
> >I'm now getting very sure that you were the one who
> sent the email I just
> >forwarded to this list.
> >
> >Kurita

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