body:
 From: "Ray Saintonge" <saintonge at telus.net>
 > Alex R. wrote:
>
> >From: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com>
> >
> >> Make a specific
> >>complaint against a specific person with a specific set of edits to
> >>back it up.
> >>
> >This is the essence of what any mediation or arbitration complaint
> >should be.
> >
> Well, let's not try to read too much into that.  Mediation and
> arbitration should apply to the bad behaviour of some contributors.  It
> should never be used to support one POV over another.

Isn't that what making a complaint will show? This is the problem
with the current system. If you are going to make allegations back
them up with specifics. If the specifics show that it is really about
POV then maybe some mediation will work, but the Arbitration
Committee will have to listen to the arguments of the accused that
the complaint should be dismissed because POV is no reason for
a ban.

It is my opinion that most of these alleged users will be exonerated
once the complaint is out in the open. I see arbitration and mediation
as a way to weed out these kind of things, not to create some kind
of cowboy/cowgirl justice system that is there that will allow Jimbo
to put his imprimur onto any crazy suggestion that a bunch of people
who are pro banning want to implement.

At least half the members of any artibration committee should be
people who are anti-banning so that they keep the other half of
the committee honest. I think that allowing people just to volunteer
who are just pro-banning is a bad idea for this reason (there has also
been some discussion on talk pages about this that I agree with).

Some people seem to think that suggesting an arbitration system
that is organized is an attempt to ban a lot of people, au contraire,
it is to prevent banning except in the most outrageous behavior
and not to allow it to excalate and pollute the collaborative
environment in which we all work. Giving it rules and structure
will help to make it more difficult, and will give the accused user
a chance to convince the pro-banners that  the anti-banners have
some merit in their arguments. That is the only dynamic that makes
sense, just having a committee that bans anyone who brings a
complaint is crazy, if someone brings a complaint alleging unwiki
behaviour the committee will help to clarify what such behaviour
is and isn't. My bet is that a lot of disputes will be resolved amicably
and that people who might be banned won't be either because
those bringing the complaint will see that banning is not really
warranted or those who engage in activity that might lead to
a ban will be warned and will decide to tone down their behaviour
and try to focus on contributing in a collaborative way.

We are talking about transformative justice here (that is the
civil version of restorative justice) not retributive justice.
I personally do not beleive in retribution. Justice is a process
that should enlighten and help people live together, it is not
intended to punish except in the most severe cases where
no other redistribution is useful and even then such punative
action is not preferred if there is another solution.

Alex756


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: donation page does not work

references:
<blv85h$pf5$1@sea.gmane.org>	<1065561901.15901.251.camel@frank.vibber.org>	<blvcau$lrb$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<1065564375.15898.284.camel@frank.vibber.org>

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

> On Tue, 2003-10-07 at 14:48, Walter Vermeir wrote:
>
>>Strange. I can only say what i see. It does not work.
>>At work; Windows NT IE 6.0
>>And at home WinME IE 5.5
>>
>>Only the menu, not the text. It is blank.
>
>
> Don't know if it'll help, but give it another try. I changed the left
> stripe from a fixed div to a background image, and moved the right
> stripe to the end of the markup.
>
> This makes the left stripe appear properly in IE6 on my machines, and
> removes the slight extra margin at the top.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Yes, it works now!

Walter


list: wikien-l

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Anti-scientific bias has me hopping mad!

body:
Louis Kyu Won Ryu wrote:

> Ed Poor wrote-
>
>> I can't stop three dozen other contributors from injecting bias into the
>> scientific articles relating to the environment. Not by myself -- not by
>> slowly and patiently undoing each mistake and explaining it. I'm
>> outnumbered and outgunned.
>
> You have hit upon the number one reason why good, evenhanded
> contributors leave the Wiki, and why many of those who stay become
> frustrated and limit their edits to mechanical changes and work on a
> few pet subject areas.  It is also the reason why most credentialled
> people have left the project.

That's a sweeping generalization.  I would hardly call the reverends of
scientism evenhanded.  Limiting oneself to a few pet subject areas is
usually a reasonable even without the frustration; it usually means that
the contributor is not wandering into things that he does not know
anything about.

It is no doubt true that the reason cited has led to the departure of
many credentialled people, but I do not accept "most" without
questioning the source of the statistic on which that statement is
based.  Also, I do not attach as much weight as you do on being
credentialled.  On the positive side it shows that one has a long
standing acquaintance, but on the negative side it suggests that the
person has accepted the biases of the profession as though they were
truths.

> ''Inclusivity bias'' is my term for the pattern of putting the
> [[burden of proof]] on editors making content changes in broad areas.
> The trouble is that the Wikipedia culture is deletion-adverse and
> reversion-adverse.  Wikipedia culture is to include things until they
> are proven unmeritous.  If you cut paragraphs, revert bad edits to an
> article, or try to have an article deleted--unless you have proof, you
> get NO support from the community.

I consider inclusivity to be one of the key attractions of Wikipedia.
 Why should an editor have any less a burden of proof than the person
whom he is editing?  The statement at the end of the paragraph is quite
valid, unproven POVs shouldn't get the support of the community.  An
initial contribution very often expresses a particular POV; that's OK at
that stage because the opponents to that view have yet to come to bat in
the bottom of the first inning.  Perhaps you are right that Wikipedia
culture is deletion- and reversion-averse, but that's a good thing too.
It suggests that there is a high degree of respect for each other.
 Including material that has not yet been proven to have no merit is
perfectly acceptable, as is mentioning the fact that there is
significant contrary opinion; censoring it out because it does not
accord with the world view of scientism should not be acceptable.

Far too many of scientism's preachers too readily seek to censor what
they oppose.  When they start using pejorative terms like
"pseudo-science", it tends to be without foundation in fact, or it
depends on a clearly inappropriate applicationn of the topic which they
turn into a straw-man to discredit an entire area of study, or it is
based on the topic's failure to meet extraordinarily high standards that
they would never put upon the gods of their beliefs.  Scientism, like
any other religion, is based on fear and insecurity.  In a world where
the old gods have lost credibility these new believers cannot aford to
have their new gods questioned. To quote Martin Luther: "Reason is the
greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual
things, but - more frequently than not - struggles against the divine
Word, treating with contemptall that emanates from God."

In all probability, many of these criticized studies are indeed invalid.
 I don't know which ones, and I suspect that many more will contain only
a mere grain of truth, but I would not arrogate to myself the authority
to decide where the truth lies; for true scientists to do so would be
anti-scientific hypocrisy.

Inclusivity respects all opinions.  It requires enduring patience.  In
our context it also requires accepting that no article will ever be in
final form.  Articles in uncontroversial subjects will remain stable for
long periods of time, but could still be changed at any time.  If you
succeed in editing an article to the point where it meets your standards
after having beaten off all who seek to make reference to alternative
opinion, and have removed all references to these alternatives then
perhaps six months later when somebody reintroduces the point the same
argument will start again from square one.  Then there will be no point
in refering to the old arguments, because they have been removed, and
why should our newcomer not have the same opportunity to participate in
the debate as those who previously participated.  Don't insult the
newcomer by telling him that the point was settled six months ago.

The internet is affecting human communications more profoundly than
anything since Guttenberg.  Revolutions in the means of communications
can have very broad effects.  The inclusivity that modern communications
can now allow was impossible in the past. The people of science and
other dwellers of the ivory tower will need new techniques for
communicating with the populace without consescension.  Those who
previously had no access to the tree of knowledge are clamoring to climb it.

> And you need that community support, because you are up against people
> with strong feelings, who want to paint subjects a certain way.  You
> mention environmentalism, but that's just one of the many areas where
> this is a problem.  The Isreal/Palestine issues, articles on different
> religions, articles on cults, politics, and world trade all have the
> same problem.

I think that this is written by someone who fails to recognize that his
position is guided by strong feelings just as much as those whom he
opposes..

> I think the culture has to change.  I don't know how to do it.  I've
> tried, and it is *excruciatingly* hard to walk into an article that
> has bias, that clearly has a problem with facts and with neutrality,
> and accomplish anything good.  The usual outcome is outpouring of
> anger, edit wars, and hard feelings all around, and the well-meaning
> editor just ends up making enemies.  What *should* happen, is that the
> community should rise up and *support* people who are trying to help
> out in these situations.

Maybe the community does not see your efforts as help.  You could start
by respecting those who have a contrary POV to yours.

> What kind of support?  Well, people should be rushing to your side to
> reinstate your edits when some POV writer keeps reverting you.  Other
> people should be coming to the discussion, and not just adding and
> refactoring ad nauseum, but actually trying to push the process
> towards a decision.  What we need more of are editors who are willing
> to approach a controversial topic that they don't feel strongly about,
> and staying there with tenacity, requiring sources for questionable
> edits, flat-out reverting inappropriate garbage, and doing their own
> cross-checking.

Tenacity about something that you don't feel strongly about may be
self-contradictory.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Anti-scientific bias has me hopping mad!

body:
Rick wrote:

> I VOCIFEROUSLY object to Ed Poor's taking these POV matters into his
> own hands.  Banning people is a last resort, not something to do
> because he disagrees with their edits.  If he tries to ban them, I
> will immediately unban them unless he can prove that they deserve to
> be banned.  Do we really want to start a banning war?
>
It's hard to imagine that Ed would not have forseen the can of worms
that he was opening with his comments. :-(

Ec


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Luc Van Oostenryck

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Header donation : translation

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> On Tue, 2003-10-07 at 02:11, Andre Engels wrote:
>
>>>From an international perspective, could "Donations" be put in the
>>Language.php please, so that it can be translated?
>
>
> Certainly; if people can provide some translations, that's easy enough
> to do.
>
> It'll appear as the key string "sitesupport" just under "bugreports".
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Is it possible to also make the "http://wikimediafoundation.org/fundraising" language specific?
Because a poor guy on the french wikipedia have translated the text in french.

Thanks

-- Looxix


from_name: Sascha Noyes

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Please change the embarrassing donations message

body:
On Wednesday 08 October 2003 01:33 am, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> Either way, the message should not be on the printable version of pages.

Hmm, still makes it onto the printable version for me.

Best,
Sascha Noyes
(in wikiland: snoyes)


from_name: Kurt Jansson

subject: [Wikitech-l] info@wikipedia.de error

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

> Please confirm that it seems to be in order...

It's working again. Thanks Brion!

Kurt


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
James-
> Wiki's phenomenal growth requires constant upgrading of technology to give
> you the best service possible. Giving that service requires funding. You now
> can donate money to help your wikipedia remain the fastest growing
> encyclop?dia on the internet. For more information, see [[Wikipedia
> donations]].

I don't particularly care either way, but I will point out that I think
that direct, honest, personal messages -- "We have a server problem, she's
not gonna take much more, Cap'n!" -- are part of Wikipedia's charm. A
polished PR message that glosses over our well known performance and
reliability problems creates distance between the different layers of
Wikipedia, and that kind of distance may actually make people less likely
to donate. I consider it a problematic approach to apply classical PR
strategies to online communities, because the social interaction creates
completely new requirements of communication.

As a matter of fact, I believe the best course of action would be to make
the message editable at least by sysops, which is something that should be
possible soon with all MediaWiki texts if I understood Tim Starling
correctly.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Delirium

body:
tarquin wrote:

> Sheldon Rampton wrote:
>
>> (3) In a number of cases, Ed has inserted claims that are clearly
>> false and misleading, such as his statement awhile back that
>> "Environmentalists and atmospheric scientists are at odds over the
>> global warming hypothesis." This statement (which has since been
>> removed in the usual self-correcting wiki way) deceptively suggested
>> that the debate over global warming is between "environmentalists"
>> vs. "scientists," when in fact the debate is between "proponents of
>> the global warming hypothesis" (a group that includes most
>> environmentalists and most atmospheric scientists) vs. "global
>> warming skeptics" (a group that includes mostly non-scientists such
>> as Ed himself).
>
>
> it seems to me that most global warming skeptics are from the US.
> For example, all the major political parties in the UK support Kyoto.

This is getting off-topic, but one should be careful not to
automatically link treaties like the Kyoto protocol and the scientific
debate over global warming.  The consensus that global warming occurs is
fairly strong, but the consensus that the Kyoto protocol is the right
thing to do about it is significantly less strong--that is, there are
people who think global warming exists who nonetheless think that the
Kyoto protocol is not the right way to fix it.  This is, notably, the
official US position on the issue ("we need to do something about global
warming, but this isn't that something"), mostly due to concerns that
Kyoto gives developing countries a free ride, and so just encourages
moving polluting factories out of 1st-world countries, resulting in no
net benefit to the global ecosystem.

(Note that I'm ambivalent on the issue myself, just noting that this
distinction does exist.  Perhaps Bush is a bad example to pick since you
may or may not believe the sincerity of his views on this issue, but
there are more legitimate scientists who hold similar viewpoints.)

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Ed's POV != NPOV

body:
Dante-
> Oh for goodness sake...
> Everyone calm down, Ed's just venting, he hasn't gone insane... right Ed?

No, he hasn't gone insane, he just sometimes does things like that out of
frustration. Please remember that Ed is a member of a cult group called
the Unification Church, led by convicted tax criminal Sun Myung Moon. His
opinions are mostly identical to the positions of his Church, this
includes
- the belief that scientific theories which attribute global warming to
industry emissions are "junk science" at best and environmentalist naivete
at worst
- the belief that acting upon homosexual urges is highly immoral
- the belief that deceased major religious and cultural leaders, including
Jesus, Confucius, Buddha, Muhammad, Lenin, Stalin and lots of other folks
met in heaven in 2002 to declare Sun Myung Moon the Messiah (see [[Clouds
of Witnesses]]). In case people weren't convinced yet, God himself added a
letter to the same effect.

I'm not writing this to attack Ed. Let's just be clear that even though he
normally is the friendly, helpful "Uncle Ed", he has strong beliefs on
various subjects. Most of us do. For a religious fundamentalist, the
secular notion that there is no soul, no God, no afterlife, no
supernatural seems equally ridiculous as theological discussions about the
conception of "Virgin" Mary seem to an atheist reader. I am not a
relativist -- I believe there are fundamental differences between these
beliefs and their origins -- but for the purpose of this discussion, they
are equivalent.

There is no such thing as a "neutral opinion". If it is neutral, it is not
an opinion. And it will often be the most knowledgeable people who have
the strongest feelings associated with their opinions -- they spent more
time developing them, and they had a strong motivation to do so in the
first place. I object to excluding these people from working on articles
about these subjects as long as they follow Wikiquette and NPOV.

But because of these very obvious facts, mediation and arbitration are
best done by people without a direct stake in the matter, and by groups
and not by individuals. I would be appalled if Ed used his sysop or
developer privileges to enforce his views on global warming. I am a
principled person, so I would be similarly appalled if a secular humanist
did the same with his (and my) point of view on, say, church/state
separation. This is, obviously, no way to build an encyclopedia, and it is
not going to happen. Ed knows that, and I hope that after some brooding,
he will come back calm and reasonable (which he was in the cases where I
worked with him).

While I agree with everything Sheldon wrote, this takes us in the
direction of a flamewar between Ed and Sheldon. Let's try to avoid that
and strive for peaceful cooperation instead. We can all agree that this
matter is really one for the respective talk pages, to be resolved in the
usual wiki process without any use of authority except by unconcerned
third parties as an emergency measure in case of edit "wars".

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Björn Lindqvist

body:
> I'm getting awfully tired of watching environmentalists inject their
> junk science POV into articles. They palm off their own prejudices as
> scientific fact far too glibly for me to remain patient any longer.
>
> We need to start cracking down on contributors who do this.
>
> I'm talking about the dozens of places in which environmentalist
> contributors keep inserting their unattributed claim that there is a
> CONSENSUS that supports their POV. I'm talking about PhD scientists like
> William Connolley who insert statemnts like "Singer is wrong" into
> articles instead of NAMING the scientists who disagree with Singer and
> saying WHY they disagree.
>
> I've tried being cordial affable. I've tried patiently explaining NPOV.
> Nothing works. These advocates keep injecting their POV back into the
> articles, even using smear tactics against scientists who report
> findings which disagree with environmentalist POV.

I know the feeling. Other areas of WP is like that too. But one way I've
found to be effective to battle "people like these" (not saying that
those people Ed has a dispute with are, but people who act in a way that
he describe) is to "write around them". Meaning, that instead of trying
to resolve the dispute on the highest level, in this case the Global
warming article I guess, you write about the smaller sub-subjects to the
subjects. Because on WP it generally tends to be much, much harder to
insert ones POV the smaller and more detailed the subject is. You tie a
net around your opponents so to say.

I know nothing about global warming but as an example; say the article
contains the statement: "The Kyoto Protocol found that the accelerating
greenhouse effect was a fact". So you write an article called "The Kyoto
Protocol Conference" and research everything related to that conference.
   When all is done and you have done your research your article "The
Kyoto Protocol Conference" contains the statement "Although most
countries voted in favour of saying that 'the accelerating greenhouse
effect was a fact' 75% of them were promised foreign aid from France,
Germany and Italy if they did so". Then you have inhouse evidence to
change the line "The Kyoto Protocol found that the accelerating
greenhouse effect was a fact" to something closer to the truth and you
have succeeded!

Sorry for the stupid example, but it actually works. And maybe it is the
only way to resolve POV disputes indefinitely. The
Tel-Aviv-Jerusalem-capital dispute could have been solved in the same
way a long time ago if someone had taken the time to write proper
article about it ("The capital of Israel dispute" for example) and
included all the information about when the different cities were
considered capitals and when those considerations changed. Instead of
just reverting "this is something very unique .. bla bla". (Indeed, it
is very unique, but it's also unique that israel isn't the target of an
international UN-approved boycott at the moment. :-))

BL


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Anti-scientific bias

body:
From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>

Rick wrote:

>> I VOCIFEROUSLY object to Ed Poor's taking these POV
>matters into his
>> own hands.  Banning people is a last resort, not
>something to do
>> because he disagrees with their edits.  If he tries
>to ban them, I
>> will immediately unban them unless he can prove
that >they deserve to
>> be banned.  Do we really want to start a banning
war?

>It's hard to imagine that Ed would not have forseen
>the can of worms
>that he was opening with his comments. :-(

And why did he opened it ?

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re : anti-scientific biais

body:
From: Delirium <delirium at rufus.d2g.com>

tarquin wrote:

> Sheldon Rampton wrote:
>
>> (3) In a number of cases, Ed has inserted claims
that are clearly
>> false and misleading, such as his statement awhile
back that
>> "Environmentalists and atmospheric scientists are
at odds over the
>> global warming hypothesis." This statement (which
has since been
>> removed in the usual self-correcting wiki way)
deceptively suggested
>> that the debate over global warming is between
"environmentalists"
>> vs. "scientists," when in fact the debate is
between "proponents of
>> the global warming hypothesis" (a group that
includes most
>> environmentalists and most atmospheric scientists)
vs. "global
>> warming skeptics" (a group that includes mostly
non-scientists such
>> as Ed himself).
>

Tarquin

>> it seems to me that most global warming skeptics
are from the US.
>> For example, all the major political parties in the
UK support Kyoto.

Delirium
>This is getting off-topic, but one should be careful
>not to automatically link treaties like the Kyoto
>protocol and the scientific debate over global
>warming.  The consensus that global warming occurs is
>fairly strong, but the consensus that the Kyoto
>protocol is the right thing to do about it is
>significantly less strong--that is, there are people
>who think global warming exists who nonetheless think
>that the Kyoto protocol is not the right way to fix
>it.  This is, notably, the official US position on
the >issue ("we need to do something about global
warming, >but this isn't that something"), mostly due
to >concerns that Kyoto gives developing countries a
free >ride, and so just encourages moving polluting
>factories out of 1st-world countries, resulting in no

>net benefit to the global ecosystem.

>(Note that I'm ambivalent on the issue myself, just
>noting that this distinction does exist.  Perhaps
Bush >is a bad example to pick since you may or may
not >believe the sincerity of his views on this issue,
but
>there are more legitimate scientists who hold similar
>viewpoints.)

Yes ? Is it an affirmation or is it an assumption you
are making ?

Do you have names of legitimate scientists who hold
the viewpoint that Kyoto is not a good solution to
provide ?

In particular, do you have names of non-american
"legitimate" scientists who hold that point of view ?

Then, if there are many (?) american scientifics who
hold that point of view, but none non-american, how do
you define "consensus" ? Compared to say, many indian
scientifics who hold while no american do ?

The above argument you provide against Kyoto is
political. Where are the scientific arguments

When you write "The consensus that global warming
occurs is fairly strong, but the consensus that the
Kyoto protocol is the right thing to do about it is
significantly less strong", are you talking about a
poorly significant consensus among politicians, or are
you talking of a poorly significant consensus among
scientists ?

"that is, there are people who think global warming
exists who nonetheless think that the Kyoto protocol
is not the right way to fix it."

Yup. There are people...
people...

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
Alex R. wrote:
> At least half the members of any artibration committee should be
> people who are anti-banning so that they keep the other half of
> the committee honest. I think that allowing people just to volunteer
> who are just pro-banning is a bad idea for this reason (there has also
> been some discussion on talk pages about this that I agree with).

I'm a little confused by what you're saying here.  I have said that I
am going to try to appoint people who are anti-banning and people who
are pro-banning.  I expect them _not_ to just 'vote the party line',
of course, but to consider the merits of each case, but it's also
reasonable to assume that some people are much less likely to approve
of a ban than others.

So, to be clear, I too am opposed to "allowing people just to
volunteer who are just pro-banning".

> We are talking about transformative justice here (that is the
> civil version of restorative justice) not retributive justice.
> I personally do not beleive in retribution. Justice is a process
> that should enlighten and help people live together, it is not
> intended to punish except in the most severe cases where
> no other redistribution is useful and even then such punative
> action is not preferred if there is another solution.

Very well said.

One of the problems that we've had is that mediation and arbitration
and executive clemency have all been wrapped up together.  I see the
mediation->arbitration process as being partly about getting me out of
the business of having to deal with every single problem that comes up
(which is a bottleneck and also risks a loss of legitimacy if I'm not
perceived as cautious, wise, fair, etc.) AND also about separating
mediation from arbitration.

The mediators will not have the power to ban, will not be in the
business of recommending bans, but will instead be in the business of
trying to work helpfully with people, without a direct threat, to try
to resolve conflict.  I think that's going to be very good.

I think, obviously, that my own banning decisions have been very very
good.  So I want the committee to accurately reflect the internal
struggle that I feel about banning.  Sometimes I feel like going
through with a chainsaw.  Other times I feel like not banning anyone
ever for anything.  The right policy is somewhere in the middle, to
ban only reluctantly and as a last sad resort.

--Jimbo


body:
Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
> I haven't been following this list closely in the last few days--I'd
> rather work on an encyclopedia--so someone please let me know if
> there is *any* reason/rule in the current structure of the Wikipedia
> by which Ed can make such threats *on a subject he has been actively
> editing on*, and if so, whether that same rule would allow some
> other sysop to ban Ed instead.

No, there is no rule under which Ed could ban anyone who is logged in
for anything other than an emergency and/or simple vandalism.
"Emergency" is defined here primarily with reference to the MIT
vandal, who was taking advantage of the fact that sysops had no
ability in the software to ban logged-in users to do a lot of damage
early one morning.  Erik also used the "emergency" clause to
temporarily ban RK recently, but that is generally agreed to be a
controversial move.

Unless these contributors are actively vandalizing in a manner that
could be reasonably construed as an emergency, or simple vandalism, Ed
should not ban them.

If he started banning them, then yes, I would say that *that* would
constitute an emergency.  But I think he was just making a political
point here on the list, which is perfectly legitimate to do.  I doubt
if Ed would go against my wishes on these matters and cause a huge
uproar.  Heck, just _saying_ it caused uproar enough.  :-)

--Jimbo


body:
Sheldon Rampton wrote:
> I call on Jimbo to make sure that Ed doesn't abuse his powers to
> inject his own minority point of view into an article about which he
> clearly feels very passionate while lacking sufficient knowledge or
> perspective to serve as any kind of arbiter of what constitutes
> fairness and balance.

Well, sure, but keep in mind that I'm essentially sympathetic to what
Ed is saying.  I think that there is a lot of politically driven junk
science in this area, unskeptically reported by people who like the
political implications, and that a skeptical voice about that is
healthy.

But content is not my job, procedure is.

And of course, as I've said, it would be inappropriate to ban people
without due process, and I tend to suspect that this case if studied
carefully would reveal the healthy debate that gives rise to NPOV
rather than any actual bannable offenses.

--Jimbo


from_name: Alexandre Dulaunoy

subject: donation via FSF ? Re: [Wikipedia-l] donations

body:
On Tue, 7 Oct 2003, Anthere wrote:

> I confirm that two french people tried in various ways
> to  donate and met impossibility. Yann donated through
> paypal system with a french card last june.

>From  Belgium, I  have various  issue with  Paypal. Can  we  imagine a
donation via  (for example)  the FSF and  after you make  an agreement
with them ?

--
-- 	  	     Alexandre Dulaunoy (adulau) -- http://www.foo.be/
-- 	   http://pgp.ael.be:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x44E6CBCD
-- 	   "Knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance
-- 				  that we can solve them" Isaac Asimov


body:
Gareth Owen wrote:
> Certainly, a skeptical voice is healthy, but lets remember that oil
> companies have agendas too.

Of course.  Any discussion of content should move to talk pages, and
my own thoughts about the content should be pointedly ignored by
everyone.  :-) I only care to address policy and process, and trust
the users to work out the content over time.

What we can all agree on, of course, is the process and the desire for
NPOV, which means: a presentation of the topic that people on all
sides of the debate can agree with.

We achieve that most of the time, but sometimes we don't.  I was just
reading the article on Hugo Chavez of Venezuela yesterday, and I don't
think it lives up to our standards -- it is almost pure hagiography,
and it omits or glosses over much that Chavez opponents would consider
essential.  EVEN SO, it was the most even-handed presentation of the
issue that I could find.  Nearly everything else was transparent
advocacy one way or the other.

So, if I were to edit, I would have edited that article.  But I find
it best for me to not edit, because I am currently judge, jury, and
executioner, a job that I don't particularly enjoy.  After we move to
a committee system, perhaps I will sometimes be able to edit without
people fearing that my edits are an expression of policy, rather than
just one more person trying to help out.

--Jimbo


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] Jeezis needs a name change

body:
Jebus is also making POV edits that need to be watched, especially in the homosexuality-related articles.

RickK

Stevertigo <utilitymuffinresearch2 at yahoo.com> wrote:
Jesus is Lord! needs a name change-- the WP:NOU policy
was designed for User:THROBBING MONSTER.. and really
should be renamed as something like no controversial
usernames, or no inflammatory usernames.

The use of Jesus in a name is designed to be
inflammatory.

~S~

---------------------------------
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] The donation text

body:
I'd like to make a quick proclamation here, so we can quit talking
about this.  The donation text should say whatever Alex thinks it
should say.  I'll defer to his judgment.

I paid for our latest hardware upgrades.  I gave half the money ($500)
for Brion's new laptop.  I've put $2500 in to start the bank account
for the Wikimedia Foundation.  I'm temporarily tapped-out, but my own
wikipedia addiction is manifested in a compulsion to spend money on
it, so have no fear for the future.  ;-)

I've pledged that all the donations that we receive in the short run
will be applied to buying the big-bad-Opteron server that we believe
will really boost our capacity.

It is my belief that the *next* thing that I/we should do,
financially, is to pick and choose and work my way through all 50
states getting us setup so that we can legally solicit donations
everywhere.  And possibly in other countries as well, although my
legal obligations there are much less compelling.  Getting myself in
trouble for violating Japanese charitable solicitation law is probably
not something I should worry too much about in the short run.

Now, *ahem*, if it were legal for me to do so, I'd ask you all to dig
deep to help with these foundational issues that will multiply our
effectiveness substantially in the long run.  But, uh, I can't do that
unless you happen to live in Florida.  :-) So, if you're in Florida, I
implore you to donate money.  If you live elsewhere, please just read
our list of needs as an academic exercise and do as you will...

I wonder if there is a service out there that could assist, for a
reasonable fee, in actually complying with these absurd regulations.
If I could just spend $2500 and wave my hand to make it happen, that'd
be great.

--Jimbo


from_name: Alex R.

subject:
Brian's notebook fund,
	is it part of Wikimedia? was: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Interstate charitable
	solicitations

body:
===================================
NOTICE TO INDIVIDUALS NOT INTERESTED
IN TAX LAW DISCUSSION

Sorry this is long, but charitable tax law, trusts
and such stuff is complex. That is not my fault,
I have tried to be as brief as possible without omiting
any part of my argumentation so that someone
who is interested can follow my points as
completely as possible. If you are not interested,
just delete it without reading it.
Thank you.

Alex756
=================================
From: "Ray Saintonge" <saintonge at telus.net>
> Alex T. wrote:
> >From: "Ray Saintonge" <saintonge at telus.net>
> >>Brion Vibber wrote:
> >>>On Mon, 6 Oct 2003, Delirium wrote:
...<snip>...
> This is a damn long-winded way of agreeing to what I said in one sentence.

This is not true, I was not agreeing. . I was stating that the fund
may be part of Wikimedia. Ec is only stating that Brian is
receiving a personal no strings  attached gift.
I am stating something quite different.

I could be wrong, but I think Ec has not understood
what I was talking about.

> >If someone gives you a gift it they may also have to pay a gift tax:
> >http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=108139,00.html
> >
> At the risk of seeming insensitive, that would be the donor's problem.
>  Did the gift really exceed $11,000?  If it didn't then gift tax is not
> an issue.

How does one know how many gifts a donor may give? This statement
that  gift tax is not an issue is misleading, such a tax is a potential
problem for the donors, anyone receiving gifts should keep this in
mind before soliciting gifts, especially if it can make requests through
a charity when there is a charitable purpose. It would make better sense
to allow the gift to be given to the charity making it a donation, if such
can be legally achieved.

It is definitely an issue as it is part of the transaction cost of making
a gift. If the same person gives the money to Wikimedia
then instead of paying gift tax they would be obtaining a deduction
(a tax benefit) not being taxed (a tax liability) or receiving no
benefit (if the aggregate amount donated to one donee is
less than $11,000 per year). This is an important thing
not only for benefactor but for recepient to keep in mind;
giving the benefactor an additional  benefit encourages giving.

<...snip..>

> Brion should be happy that Alex is not his tax advisor!

This statement does not warrant a response, it appears to be
a personal attack. However perhaps Ec just didn't understand
what I was talking about.

Clearly I was  not stating that I am anyone's tax advisor, nor
am I giving any tax advice, what I am stating is that we do not
have all the facts and we are not in the position to determine the
facts of Brian's life and his personal tax liability which may
be based upon his status as a sole proprietor of a business
and the legal determination that  the money he receives is
part of his business income. He certainly seems to believe
that the money might be personal income. Perhaps he
has a good reason to think that it is income?

I was stating the issue of tax status of "donations"  through
concrete factual investigation,  not just conjecture.

Other internet promoted developers have stated to me that
they accept "donations" for their activities that include distribution
of "free software" and they consider the money they receive
as "income". I did not advise these individuals of that,
they stated that to me.  It is their opinion and action, not mine.
I am merely stating that it is an approach that is followed
by other internet sites that accept donations as income as
there is a benefit. Of course most of these businesses
have operating expenses, thus the income they receive can be
offset by their expenses. This is not possible if what they are
receiving are "gifts". If they are accepting gifts they cannot
deduct their expenses, from these gifts. You cannot be
operating an business if you have no income or
expectation of income;  the IRS will disallow that
and classify your activity as a hobby. You can obtain
a much greater benefit if you are operating a business
and are receiving legitimate income; then all
your legitimate expenses may be deducted from income.
(not just the depreciation on the notebook). A "free"
software developer may be a business, clearly if
they receive funds for their services (maybe not
for copyright licenses).

...<snip>...

> The cash gift and the computer are two different issues.  Although it
> would discreditable behaviour for Brion to use the money for anything
> other than the stated purpose it would not be illegal.

Criminal? Probably not. Illegal? Perhaps it would be.
It may be a breach of contract,  or there may be an estoppel
or detrimental reliance issue.  If the money is collected for
a Wikipedia tool but then used for something else that is
not "cy-pres"  (a related purpose) is that not a misrepresentation
of a material fact?

The donors were led to believe that the money was to be used
to purchase a computer; and it would be used to improve the
Wikimedia software through Brian's efforts.

If the use (or similar use)  is not carried out the donors
could and possibly might demand their donations back.
It also is not equitable to say you are asking for money
for one thing and then just spend it on something else
that is unrelated. Brian did not say, just give me money
because I am a great guy and I deserve to get money from
whomever wants to give it to me. He stated he needed
a notebook to help Wikipedia projects as he is a
developer of the project. He may not receive
cash, but he does receive publicity (goodwill) and
is associated as an expert on Wikimedia software.

Donations can definitely have strings attached to them and they
can result in binding contracts. Many philanthropies give donations
with strings attached, I have done it myself and the charities I gave
it to have been bound by my conditions; they know that they
are bound as the donation with a condition creates a binding obligation.
As everything here is done in writing there is no Statute of Frauds
problem.

I make a donation to my deteriment and I rely upon the statements
of  the benefactor. That is a good substitute for consideration. It
creates a binding obligation. It may or may not be a "contract"
strictly speaking, but it can still be binding even if it is not a contract
"at law".

> If after buying the computer he chose to stop providing the assistance
that he has been
> giving, the only real effect might be a very severe case of bad
> wiki-karma.  The donors would be left witing it off as a bad experience.

Once again I cannot agree that there may not be an implied contract or
even an unjust enrichment argument there. This hypothetical sounds
like those charities that say, "Give us money for the sick children"
and then they pocket the money. This is exactly why the AGs
intervene in these kinds of things --  to protect donors.
Sometimes they do recover the money absonded by
fake charities, sometimes they arrest the individuals who basically
have misrpresented themselves to the public and converted the charitable
funds to something that they use for their own benefit. How easy it
would be for their lawyers if they could use the gift argument proposed
here to get out of any liability for fraud, misrepresentation and other
sundry "illegal" acts. Also, the donors could start a civil action against
those who took the money (and don't give me that it is too expensive, it
only
costs a few dollars to file a lawsuit in small claims and in federal court
someone might do it under diversity jurisdiction for $150).

>  Fortunately, in our atmosphere of trust, we don't need to give serious
> consideration to these worst-case scenarios.  The lack of legal
> obligation is an important element in determining whether something was
> a gift.

But there is an obligation. How can one say there is no obligation?
I cannot agree with this statement that there is no legal obligation.
Just by saying that it is an "atmosphere of trust" does not move the
whole activity out of the sphere of legal institutions; isn't this wishful
thinking? We are all bound by laws even if we attempt to contract
out of them and no one has attempted to contract out of law on
Wikipedia. Brian solicited money to buy a computer to use it
for Wikipedia, that is very clear. He is not just asking for people
to give him a gift. There is no statement to that effect anywhere.
It even states on Wikimedia's fundraising page:

"You can also donate to the Brion Vibber notebook computer fund."

This makes it sound like the notebook computer fund is part of
Wikimedia, no?

<..snip>...

> Exploring the possibility of reversionary interests just gets us even
> further from keeping it simple.  My impression is that there was more
> than one donor.  Are you suggesting that every one of them should have a
> reversionary interest? Gimme a break!

I said nothing of the sort -- this is a misreading and it seems to me
to be a very unreasonable misreading. Once again Ec seems
not to have understood the central point of my statements, i.e.
that the Notebook Computer Fund might be considered
part of Wikimedia, otherwise if not then maybe Brian
legitimately declares the income as part of his business and he
can deduct expenses (and may even be able to post a loss
and it may come to essentially the same tax liability, i.e. nothing
to Brian). This is all very simple, what is complex is the
law underlying it and what that means (and might mean in the
future since Wikimedia Foundation must comply with all
the laws relating to charitable organizations).

Regarding Wikimedia what I am saying is that hypothetically
Wikimedia  is authorizing Brian to accept donations for Wikimedia and
purchase a computer for it that Brian has possession of. Brian
may be putting the money in his own bank account, but he got
it through his association with WIkimedia.

Donors, generally speaking can't give a partial interest as their donation
unless the property is given in the form of a trust:
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p561.pdf (at page 7) so obviously
anyone with a smattering of tax law knowledge would know what
I am talking about (sorry, tax law is complex, that is not my fault).

Thus, if Ec's interpretation was correct he is suggesting that
the donation would be a partial interest in property
which is generally not deductible in any case, obviously
that is not what I was talking about at all to anyone
who seems to know about taxation law.

While there is no statement in my post that the property is
being given to Brian in trust, however it might be reasonable
to assume that it was a  trust  (maybe just implied with no
 formalities, nothing could be simpler, the use of the word "Fund"
may be construed as making the money Brian receives a part
of Wikimedia's assets).

Then, the only possible interpretation of it being under a trust
is that it is a charitable trust, and Wikimedia would be the beneficiary
of the corpus of the trust. There would be some kind of
charitable purpose that would be carried out. Then there might
be some way to make the plan deductible from income for
the donors (it is interesting to note that the charitable condition
on the funds and the trust idea may come to the same essential conclusion).
I cannot see anyway a simple trust (one that is not charitable)
could allow for a deduction for the donors.

It is essentially the same as stating that Brian is authorized to accept
the funds on behalf of Wikimedia, buy the notebook, use it and
then give it to Wikimedia if and when he is either finished with
helping Wikimedia or does not need it anymore for that purpose.
If he sold it at fair market value the proceeds would go to
Wikimedia. Certainly some occasional use of it for
other purposes would not be a violation of any law (just like
working on Wikipedia at work for a few minutes is probably
not going to make your employer fire you). At some point
Wikimedia will have depreciated the full value of the equipment
and it may write it off its books. It could then be sold at fair
market value to Brian (which would be minimal after a number
of years). My feeling is that this would not run affoul of
the [[intermediate sanctions]] provisions of the tax code.
I would be interested in seeing if anyone disagrees with that.
I cannot see how Brian could be an "disqualified person,"
under Section 4958 of the Code but I could be wrong.
In any case if he uses it for Wikimedia's exempt purpose
then he is not obtaining any benefit and 4958 appear not
to even apply it might only apply if there was a transfer of
title.

The whole point of the charitable domain is that once property
enters into it the benefit does not acrue to an individual, the
individual uses the property to help the charitable cause (Wikimedia).
The property in that case would belong to Wikimedia, Wikimedia
would have the reversionary interest as a charitable remainder under
the trust scenario (and with a constructive trust it can be imposed
after the fact or may be recognized as an implied or resulting trust).

If it were recognized as part of Wikimedia those who contributed
could possibly receive a charitable deduction rather than nothing
(a gift is not deductible from income) Brian could keep
the computer as long as he continues to volunteer (hopefully for
years). Is there anything wrong or illegal in that?  Brian did
announce this all on Wikipedia some time ago and it has been
at least implicitly allowed by Wikipedia and Wikimedia so it could
be considered a Wikimedia "fund" (of course if Brian gets more
money than the costs associated with the laptop he would have
to turn that over to Wikimedia or use it for Wikimedia somehow
with the approval or ratification of Wikimedia). In that case
there is no issue of the donations being any kind of income
or gift to Brian.

Alex756


body:
Gareth Owen wrote:

>In my personal experience of attending large Earth Science meetings, I have
>gained the impression that:
>   The vast majority of working earth scientists, believe that global
>   warming is a fact, and that present global warming is, at least in part,
>   anthropomorphic in source.
>
Anthropogenic perhaps!  Anthropomorphic conjures up visions of the movie
"Godzilla Meets the Smog Monster". :-)   I know that's it's not polite
to criticize on the basis of language or grammar, but some misuses are
really funny.

Ec


from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [WikiEN-l] Jeezis needs a name change

body:
[Sent both to wikiEN-l and directly to mav.]

Maveric149 wrote:

>SV wrote:

>>Jesus is Lord! needs a name change--

>I agree. User names are not supposed to express any sort of religious or
>political message. "Jesus is Lord!" is offensive to non-Christians and
>atheists.

Does this mean that [[User:GayCommunist]] is offensive as well?
Or is it because [[User:Jesus is Lord!]] makes a direct claim,
so that [[User:Subject of Lord Jesus]] would be fine?

I am both a non-Christian and an atheist,
and this username does not offend me in the slightest.
But changing it to [[User:Subject of Lord Jesus]], if preferable to you,
might still be a wise move on this user's part for the sake of good relations
(in accordance with Paul's excellent ideas in Romans 14).

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] Jeezis needs a name change

body:
Toby Bartels wrote:

>Maveric149 wrote:
>
>>SV wrote:
>>
>>>Jesus is Lord! needs a name change--
>>>
>>I agree. User names are not supposed to express any sort of religious or
>>political message. "Jesus is Lord!" is offensive to non-Christians and
>>atheists.
>>
>Does this mean that [[User:GayCommunist]] is offensive as well?
>Or is it because [[User:Jesus is Lord!]] makes a direct claim,
>so that [[User:Subject of Lord Jesus]] would be fine?
>
>I am both a non-Christian and an atheist,
>and this username does not offend me in the slightest.
>But changing it to [[User:Subject of Lord Jesus]], if preferable to you,
>might still be a wise move on this user's part for the sake of good relations
>(in accordance with Paul's excellent ideas in Romans 14).
>
I have a high level of tolerance for the names that people choose.  For
these Jesus-related names let's hope that that individual realizes that
people who see that name attached to an edit will presume that he is
injecting some kind of Christian bias, and scrutinize his contributions
more carefully.

Ec


subject: [Wikipedia-l] The donation text

body:
I will look up and report exact figures later today.

Sascha Noyes wrote:

> On Wednesday 08 October 2003 11:15 am, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> > I paid for our latest hardware upgrades.  I gave half the money ($500)
> > for Brion's new laptop.  I've put $2500 in to start the bank account
> > for the Wikimedia Foundation.  I'm temporarily tapped-out, but my own
> > wikipedia addiction is manifested in a compulsion to spend money on
> > it, so have no fear for the future.  ;-)
> >
> > I've pledged that all the donations that we receive in the short run
> > will be applied to buying the big-bad-Opteron server that we believe
> > will really boost our capacity.
> >
>
> Roughly how much do we need?
>
> Best,
> Sascha Noyes
> (in wikiland: snoyes)
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
Eclecticology wrote in part:

>Also, I do not attach as much weight as you do on being
>credentialled.  On the positive side it shows that one has a long
>standing acquaintance, but on the negative side it suggests that the
>person has accepted the biases of the profession as though they were
>truths.

I know that I try to be doubtful of the received philosophical truths
in mathematics -- not that there is much controversy in that field,
but when there is, I'm usually at least sympathetic to the minority.
OTOH, I find that uncredentialed dissenters (both in mathematics
as well as in the more controversial theoretical physics)
often don't understand even the most basic ideas that they're criticising.
This can make argument and NPOV quite difficult to deal with --
one reason that I have stayed away from physics articles on Wikipedia.
However, replacing "uncredentialed" with "uneducated" above
makes the correlation even stronger -- I am uncredentialed in physics
(since my only degree is in mathematics), but I am well educated in it
(since I studied a great deal of it on the way to that degree,
and would have gotten a degree in it under only mildly different conditions).
So I would not speak about credentials at all, but only about education.
If a dissenter does not understand what they are criticising,
then they have little credibility; but if they understand the standard view,
then their criticisms mean a lot more, regardless of any credentials.

>An
>initial contribution very often expresses a particular POV; that's OK at
>that stage because the opponents to that view have yet to come to bat in
>the bottom of the first inning.

That's OK /if/ it was an honest mistake due to the first writer's ignorance,
or /if/ the initial version explicitly stated that it was incomplete.
NPOV is not a competition like baseball; every contributor has the duty
to leave the article in as NPOV a state as they can reasonably manage.

-- Toby


from_name: tarquin

body:
Sheldon Rampton wrote:

>
> (3) In a number of cases, Ed has inserted claims that are clearly
> false and misleading, such as his statement awhile back that
> "Environmentalists and atmospheric scientists are at odds over the
> global warming hypothesis." This statement (which has since been
> removed in the usual self-correcting wiki way) deceptively suggested
> that the debate over global warming is between "environmentalists" vs.
> "scientists," when in fact the debate is between "proponents of the
> global warming hypothesis" (a group that includes most
> environmentalists and most atmospheric scientists) vs. "global warming
> skeptics" (a group that includes mostly non-scientists such as Ed
> himself).

it seems to me that most global warming skeptics are from the US.
For example, all the major political parties in the UK support Kyoto.

http://www.planetunreal.com/titanium


references:
<blvcsn$mu0$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<20031008000324.97498.qmail@web41802.mail.yahoo.com>
	<bm1dk5$ctd$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Louis Kyu Won Ryu wrote:
>  So the editor who's trying to delete something has to do, say, 100
> times the work of the person who added it.

I don't think that's true.  If it is, then we should engage in a
concerted effort to be conscious of it and make it not so.  Basically,
I think we should have a general attitude against _mere_ deleting, in
favor of _correcting_ and _improving_.  But that alone doesn't put any
additional burden on the revisor that wasn't on the originator.

> the sciences.  It's fairly easy to check the atomic weight of silver,
> but much harder to refute an assertion that Count Leonard III was a
> pivotal figure in British tactics used in the 100 years war.  He's not,
> I just made that up, now what do you suppose it would take to refute
> that?

But you don't have to refute it.  It isn't necessary to prove a
negative in order to remove something.  All that you have to do is say
something like, in your own delightful wording, "moving unsourced
material to talk pages".  And then put a note on the talk page saying
something like "This is interesting about Count Leonard III, however I
was unable to confirm it.  Can someone post a source before we put it
back in the article?"

I'm sure that would carry plenty of weight.

> Perhaps I'm not making myself clear.  I support NPOV, and don't think
> that it's the encyclopedia's job to take sides.  But having an NPOV
> policy does not prevent conflict, as we've seen.  NPOV is not a
> pallative for disagreements about articles.

Well, it is true that NPOV policy doesn't prevent _all_ conflict, but
it's designed to help prevent _most_ conflict, and more importantly,
to ensure that there is at least the _possibility_ of a resolution.

> With an NPOV policy, there are still problems in three areas:
>
> 1.  There are disagreements about the facts.
>
> There are, for example, people who believe that Roundup (the herbicide)
> is carcinogenic.  It isn't, but based on a single irresponsibly written
> study (Ericson & Hardell), this belief persists.  Some people might
> consider statements like, "Roundup, a known carcinogen, has seen
> increasingly widespread use on fruit and vegetable crops each year
> since 1995."  Someone might try to compromise by replacing "known
> carcinogen" with "suspected carcinogen," but even that view is fringe
> enough that it doesn't belong in an article about vegetable crops.

One issue here is whether or not it belongs in the article, and that's
a tough one to treat.  I suspect an article about Roundup could more
easily cover that controversy, and that the throwaway statement on the
vegetable crops article is likely best just left out completely.

For example, it would likely be best to avoid "Roundup, generally
considered safe, has seen increasingly..." too.  If there's ongoing
genuine controversy, then perhaps it's necessary for even the
vegetable crops article to say something like "Roundup has seen
increasingly widespread use on fruit and vegetable crops each year
since 1995.  There has been some resulting controversy, which is
covered in more detail in the article on [[Roundup]]."

(Stylistically, that's a bit odd, because we usually write each
article as self-contained and without mentioning other articles.)

> 2.  There are disagreements about what is important and what is not,
> and hence, the relative amounts of emphasis something should be given.
>
> This is a problem particularly outside the sciences.

This is certainly true, and the usual solution, which works fairly
often anyway, is to break the article down into component parts, so
that the issue just vanishes.  I concede that this is not always
possible.

> 3.  Closely related to #2, there is difficulty coming up with summary
> statements for difficult, involved problems.
>
> Often such statements can be crafted, with careful participation of
> several writers over time.  When someone new to the article comes in,
> they may (inadvertently or deliberately) destroy a fragile consensus.

That's true, but that's also the essence of the NPOV process.  So it
isn't really a problem for the process, it _is_ the process.  If you
see what I mean...

> I think it's great to have articles on UFOs, the "Reciprocal System of
> Theory," and how G.W. Bush stole the presidency from the
> rightfully-elected Al Gore.

Hmmm, I think I agree with you, but would have phrased this ever so
slightly differently.  I think it's great to have articles on UFOs,
the "Reciprocal System of Theory," and how some people think that Al
Gore tried to steal the presidency from the rightfully-elected
G. W. Bush.  O.k., I am just having fun by reversing it, but my real
point is that having an article about what some people think is fine,
but an article titled "How George Bush stole the election" isn't fine.

But I'm pretty sure that's what you meant anyway.

> But none of these should pervade the article space.  We wouldn't want a
> UFO enthusiast to get a bot and edit all the city articles and add a
> list of UFO sightings for each city.  And we wouldn't want every
> article that has a reference to Al Gore to refer to him as "Al Gore,
> rightfully elected president of the United States."

That's right.

> I don't think that banning users solves anything, and did not suggest
> it in my post.

Do you think it never solves anything?  I agree completely that
banning has an uneven track record.  Sometimes it works!  Other times,
it just generates monsters from people who would have otherwise merely
been annoyances.

One of the things that my strong 'libertarian' political views tell me
is that "there ought to be a law" is a constant temptation, but often
a siren's song.  People misbehaving on the Wikipedia?  Ban 'em!

But sometimes this just drives the undesirable activity onto the
'black market' or whatever.

--Jimbo


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Not hopping, but still mightily annoyed

body:
Sheldon claimed:

<< Ed on the
other hand has thrown in simplistic generalizations and numerous
factual errors that others have had to correct. If anyone doubts that
this is the case and wants me to prove it, I can list some of those
errors here. To give just one example, Ed falsely claimed (on the
global warming talk page) that the National Association of Science
predicted a looming ice age in 1975. I corrected him, and to his
credit he backed off of his error. One again, however, it illustrates
his pattern of factual sloppiness mixed with disdain for leading
scientific voices and organizations. (The NAS is the most prestigious
scientific body in the U.S. and arguably the world). >>

Sorry about my "false claim", Sheldon. Perhaps I was wrong to believe
Lowell Ponte, who attributed the "ice age" prediction to the NAS:

> In "The Cooling: Has the next ice age already begun? Can we
> survive it?", published in 1975 by Prentice--Hall, its author
> Lowell Ponte captures the then prevailing mood: "The NAS report
> was shocking, for it represented a warning from some of the
> world's most conservative scientists that an Ice Age beginning in
> the near future . . . was not impossible." Contending that we may
> be "on the brink of a [10,000 year] period of colder climate," the
> NAS urged an immediate near- quadrupling of funds for research.
> "We simply cannot afford to be unprepared for either a natural or
> man-made climatic catastrophe [of global cooling]."

=> Quoted at http://www.sepp.org/glwarm/sciaddheat.html

Or maybe I was wrong to believe that S. Fred Singer was quoting Ponte
correctly.

Or maybe I just misunderstood the quote. You're an expert on
disinformation, and you probably have Ponte's book on your shelf.

On the other hand, if Singer correctly quoted Ponte, and if he in turn
correctly characterized the views of the NAS, then maybe my mistake lay
in knuckling under to pressure from a biased, axe-grinding
environmentalist.

If the shoe fits, wear it. If it doesn't fit, stop beating me over the
head with it!

Ed Poor


subject: [WikiEN-l] Jeezis needs a name change

body:
What's our exact policy on this?  I'd be happy to issue a ruling, but
I'd prefer to stick with exact precedent.  But I don't remember what
that is.

--Jimbo


from_name: Louis Kyu Won Ryu

body:
<<I-E Fork/sympathetic POV>>

I have seen some of their articles and don't believe that the slight
change in perspective makes the core problems go away.  If they had the
size and diversity of user community we have here, they would have the
same problems.

<<Reasons people leave the project>>

 > No, people leave the project because of people like
 > RK, who claim they're doing something equivalent to
 > inclusivity bias

I agree that many of RK's edits were unhelpful, and the RK and people
like him drive good editors away from the project.

But it was RK's vitriolic putdowns, allegations, and attempts to confuse
the discussion by deleting portions of talk pages that made him so hard
to accept.  To be sure, many of his edits were POV, but some of the crap
he reverted out of hand, deserved to be reverted out of hand.  Had he
done so in a caring, loving way, with an edit comment like "moving
unsourced material to talk page," and then made a genuine attempt to
work with the other contributor to get the article fixed, he would have
accomplished great things here.

<<what's wrong with putting the burden of proof on the editor>>
> [...] Don't you have some kind of
> reason to delete content? If you don't think (and
> prove, if someone asks) that the content is
> inaccurate, why should you delete it?

Well, we have to decide on the bias.

Presently, if someone adds something to an article, they generally
aren't expected to provide sources, though it is encouraged.

If another editor wants to delete something, they *are* expected to
provide sources, at least if challenged.  Now, it is difficult and time
consuming to try to refute facts one at a time.  So the editor who's
trying to delete something has to do, say, 100 times the work of the
person who added it.

That imbalance does not make for good articles,  It also makes people
frustrated who would otherwise try to work through articles, removing
the junk, and making them more NPOV.  That is especially true outside
the sciences.  It's fairly easy to check the atomic weight of silver,
but much harder to refute an assertion that Count Leonard III was a
pivotal figure in British tactics used in the 100 years war.  He's not,
I just made that up, now what do you suppose it would take to refute that?

>>And you need that community support, because you are
>>up against people
>>with strong feelings, who want to paint subjects a
>>certain way.  You
>>mention environmentalism, but that's just one of the
>>many areas where
>>this is a problem.  The Israel/Palestine issues,
>>articles on different
>>religions, articles on cults, politics, and world
>>trade all have the
>>same problem.
>
>
> You're just going against NPOV. You just think that
> everything should be "right". Well, who's to say who's
> right? You? Someone from the other side? The concept
> of NPOV is to show all sides and let the reader
> decide.

Perhaps I'm not making myself clear.  I support NPOV, and don't think
that it's the encyclopedia's job to take sides.  But having an NPOV
policy does not prevent conflict, as we've seen.  NPOV is not a
pallative for disagreements about articles.

With an NPOV policy, there are still problems in three areas:

1.  There are disagreements about the facts.

There are, for example, people who believe that Roundup (the herbicide)
is carcinogenic.  It isn't, but based on a single irresponsibly written
study (Ericson & Hardell), this belief persists.  Some people might
consider statements like, "Roundup, a known carcinogen, has seen
increasingly widespread use on fruit and vegetable crops each year since
1995."  Someone might try to compromise by replacing "known carcinogen"
with "suspected carcinogen," but even that view is fringe enough that it
doesn't belong in an article about vegetable crops.

2.  There are disagreements about what is important and what is not, and
hence, the relative amounts of emphasis something should be given.

This is a problem particularly outside the sciences.

3.  Closely related to #2, there is difficulty coming up with summary
statements for difficult, involved problems.

Often such statements can be crafted, with careful participation of
several writers over time.  When someone new to the article comes in,
they may (inadvertently or deliberately) destroy a fragile consensus.

> What's your definition of neutrality? Is including
> other points of view that are "wrong" not neutral?

Having all points of view represented in the encyclopedia is great.
Having points of view present that are not supported by facts ("wrong"),
are great to have in context.

I think it's great to have articles on UFOs, the "Reciprocal System of
Theory," and how G.W. Bush stole the presidency from the
rightfully-elected Al Gore.

But none of these should pervade the article space.  We wouldn't want a
UFO enthusiast to get a bot and edit all the city articles and add a
list of UFO sightings for each city.  And we wouldn't want every article
that has a reference to Al Gore to refer to him as "Al Gore, rightfully
elected president of the United States."

>  But banning
> when you're in an edit war with someone for including
> their POVs is  going too far.

I don't think that banning users solves anything, and did not suggest it
in my post.

Louis


from_name: Andrew Lih

body:
Mav wrote:
>For God's sake James, that is WAY too long and your use of "Wiki" is
like a
>bad piece of bad chalk on the blackboard. It is either Wikipedia or
>Wikimedia. There are more than one wiki if you haven't noticed yet.

Mav, to be fair, James did say "trimmed down and tightened as
necessary."  You have to agree with his suggestion -- we're not a
sinking ship, we're dealing with our success.

Possible short text:
"Help support Wikipedia's phenomenal growth by making a
[http://wikimediafoundation.org/fundraising donation]."

-Fuzheado

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Daniel Mayer
Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2003 11:03 AM
To: wikipedia-l at Wikipedia.org
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Please change the embarrassing donations message

JT wrote:
>Wiki's phenomenal growth requires constant upgrading
>of technology to give you the best service possible. Giving
>that service requires funding. You now can donate money to
>help your wikipedia remain the fastest growing encyclop?dia
>on the internet. For more information, see [[Wikipedia donations]].

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


body:
> Can you give supportive evidence of your claim that "most credentialled people
> have left the project"? The only 'credentialled' person I have personally met
> on wikipedia is Michael Hardy, and he is editing as I speak.
>
> Best,
> Sascha Noyes
> (aka: snoyes)

JHK is probably the best example, particularly given the extent of her
commitment to the project while she was here.


body:
>>"Help support Wikipedia's phenomenal growth
>>by making a donation."

>Still sounds like a solicitation.

Mission accomplished, then.

Isn't this what it's *supposed* to be, a solicitation?! :)

-fuzheado


subject: [Wikipedia-l] The donation text

body:
On Wednesday 08 October 2003 11:15 am, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> I paid for our latest hardware upgrades.  I gave half the money ($500)
> for Brion's new laptop.  I've put $2500 in to start the bank account
> for the Wikimedia Foundation.  I'm temporarily tapped-out, but my own
> wikipedia addiction is manifested in a compulsion to spend money on
> it, so have no fear for the future.  ;-)
>
> I've pledged that all the donations that we receive in the short run
> will be applied to buying the big-bad-Opteron server that we believe
> will really boost our capacity.
>

Roughly how much do we need?

Best,
Sascha Noyes
(in wikiland: snoyes)


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Jeezis needs a name change

body:
--- Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu> wrote:
> [Sent both to wikiEN-l and directly to mav.]
>
> Does this mean that [[User:GayCommunist]] is
> offensive as well?

Not to me. Although user:GayCommunist was neither gay
nor a communist if I recall... He did it more or less
for shock value, which may form cause for a name
change.

> Or is it because [[User:Jesus is Lord!]] makes a
> direct claim, so that [[User:Subject of Lord Jesus]]

> would be fine?

Bingo! It is a bad idea to allow bumper sticker
messages as user names.

--mav

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Please change the embarrassing donations message

body:
--- James Duffy <jtdire at hotmail.com> wrote:
>...
>Please re-read what I wrote and stop
> mis-interpreting it.

I read it again. And yep, it still annoyingly uses the
word "Wiki" as if it were the proper name of
Wikipedia. I know you don't intend it this way, but
that is insulting to the other wikis in the Wikimedia
family, not to mention all the other wikis on the
Internet.

I did not believe for a moment that your exact wording
or length of your message would be used, and in fact
agree with your overall message and have helped
address your concerns. The improper use of the "Wiki",
however, is just a major pet peeve of mine (hence my
statement about bad chalk on a blackboard - it is
oftentimes painful to read your messages because of
this).

-- mav

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body:
Mav wrote:
> No - we are providing them a link to a page where they can learn about

> donating. We /cannot/ legally solicit donations to anybody outside of
> Florida! Haven't you'all been paying attention?

Mea culpa.  Honestly, I've been deleting 80% of the posts recently
because of all the arbitration, mediation, nonprofit, court documents,
IRS, and legal talk has simply overwhelmed me.  I was starting to think
I was subscribed to WikiLegal-l.  (I hope I'm the only one overwhelmed.)

That said, let's at least keep the note positive, rather than "She can't
take any more of this Cap'n!"

Something along the lines of:
"Find out how you can help support Wikipedia's phenomenal growth."

-Fuzheado


from_name: Daniel Ehrenberg

subject: [WikiEN-l] Jeezis needs a name change

body:
--- Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu>
> wrote:
> > [Sent both to wikiEN-l and directly to mav.]
> >
> > Does this mean that [[User:GayCommunist]] is
> > offensive as well?
>
> Not to me. Although user:GayCommunist was neither
> gay
> nor a communist if I recall... He did it more or
> less
> for shock value, which may form cause for a name
> change.
>
> > Or is it because [[User:Jesus is Lord!]] makes a
> > direct claim, so that [[User:Subject of Lord
> Jesus]]
>
> > would be fine?
>
> Bingo! It is a bad idea to allow bumper sticker
> messages as user names.
>
> --mav

That sounds completely arbitrary. I think all
usernames should be allowed. How do usernames affect
our development as an encyclopedia?
LDan

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body:
Gareth Owen wrote in part:

>   The vast majority of working earth scientists, believe that global
>   warming is a fact, and that present global warming is, at least in part,
>   anthropomorphic in source.
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

You mean "anthropic", right?
Or are you blaming this on the [[furry|furries]]?
^_^ ^_^ ^_^

("anthropic" = "human", "anthropomorphic" = "human-shaped".)

-- Toby


body:
~S~ wrote:
>Spank me and call me Shirley, but if my eyes havent
>been messing with me the last three days,  "We are
>trying to make Wikipedia faster and more responsive.
>You can help by making a donation." is a solicitation.

My view as well.  Shouldn't this mean we should rip down the current
text immediately or risk legal problems?  Why is it still up there if
it's so blatantly improper?

-Fuzheado


subject: [WikiEN-l] Jeezis needs a name change

body:
LDan wrote:
>That sounds completely arbitrary. I think all
>usernames should be allowed. How do usernames affect
>our development as an encyclopedia?

Because it makes a POV statement. Remember that pesky
thing called NPOV we have to follow? Having a user
name like that doesn't help the process since it
states, rather up-front, what a user's POV is. That's
not what user names are for.

It also looks bad in page histories and on Recent
Changes since it appears as if we are composed of a
group of POV partisans creating POV text; downstream
users will be more weary of any edits made by such a
user name. /That/ doesn't bode well for the widespread
adoption of our text.

--mav

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body:
> > the sciences.  It's fairly easy to check the
> atomic weight of silver,
> > but much harder to refute an assertion that Count
> Leonard III was a
> > pivotal figure in British tactics used in the 100
> years war.  He's not,
> > I just made that up, now what do you suppose it
> would take to refute
> > that?
>
> But you don't have to refute it.  It isn't necessary
> to prove a
> negative in order to remove something.  All that you
> have to do is say
> something like, in your own delightful wording,
> "moving unsourced
> material to talk pages".  And then put a note on the
> talk page saying
> something like "This is interesting about Count
> Leonard III, however I
> was unable to confirm it.  Can someone post a source
> before we put it
> back in the article?"
>
> I'm sure that would carry plenty of weight.
> -- Jimbo

That would carry a lot of weight? That's the most
baseless argument I've heard so far, that it's
unsourced. Almost all of Wikipedia is unsourced! If
you have a question about the source, just ask whoever
wrote it. That way, they will be a lot quicker to
respond. I almost never watch articles I write, and if
someone took off some of my content because it's
"unsourced", there's little chance I'd go back and
find it and write the source. If we say that all of
wikipedia must be sourced, it would be very
detrimental to the project. A Google search will
almost always find some reference supporting any fact
in Wikipedia, so long as it isn't made up (if they're
"wrong" or it's a minority view or something, then it
should still be preserved). The only time this doesn't
work is for obscure historical or local stuff.
LDan

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from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Please change the embarrassing donations message

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> James-
>
>>Wiki's phenomenal growth requires constant upgrading of technology to give
>>you the best service possible. Giving that service requires funding. You now
>>can donate money to help your wikipedia remain the fastest growing
>>encyclop?dia on the internet. For more information, see [[Wikipedia
>>donations]].
>
>
> I don't particularly care either way, but I will point out that I think
> that direct, honest, personal messages -- "We have a server problem, she's
> not gonna take much more, Cap'n!" -- are part of Wikipedia's charm. A
> polished PR message that glosses over our well known performance and
> reliability problems creates distance between the different layers of
> Wikipedia, and that kind of distance may actually make people less likely
> to donate. I consider it a problematic approach to apply classical PR
> strategies to online communities, because the social interaction creates
> completely new requirements of communication.
>
> As a matter of fact, I believe the best course of action would be to make
> the message editable at least by sysops, which is something that should be
> possible soon with all MediaWiki texts if I understood Tim Starling
> correctly.

Yes, all messages accessible with wfMsg() will be editable. I'm not sure
how soon it will be -- the entire development branch needs to be tested
extensively, including profiling runs with memcached enabled.

The only messages which are not effectively editable are database error
messages and a few similar things, where infinite recursion would result
if database access was attempted.

Regarding the donations header: does JT have a specific proposal which
will fit on one line?

-- Tim Starling


subject: [WikiEN-l] User names

body:
Well, as long as Tim Starling has his user-name-changebot warmed up and
ready to go to work, there's no sense in stopping with our friend Mr.
Jesus_Is_Lord!.  Why, there are any number of user names that someone
might find just as offensive.

-----

Hephaestos - Some Hedonists might take offense at someone claiming the
name of the greek God of the forge.  Clearly this user's name is no more
appropriate than a name like Jesus, Budda, God, or Allah.

DanKeshet - Obviously we're making fun of people whose pronunciation of
German is poor.

Mydogategodshat - Two readings here, my/dog/ate/gods/hat and
my/dog/ate/god/shat.  Both unacceptable.

Christian - Yes it's the fellow's name, but it says in the policy, "No
one has a right to any particular user name. While colorful,
interesting, or expressive names may add to the pleasure of Wikipedia,
they are not essential. This might include legitimate names..."  So,
he'll have to think of something else.

Jesus Saves! - a recent arrival deserving the dustbin.

Evil saltine - Offensive because it's, well, evil.  And defamatory to
cracker makers.

Cimon avaro - Let's capitalize properly, now, shall we?

----

Look, folks, the policy was put in place because of TMC.  Neither
JesusIsLord nor any of the rest rise to that level.  Can we give that
writer some space, rather than being so heavy-handed?  Are those
non-Christians among us so insecure in their beliefs that they would
fight this benign expression of religious sentiment?

I suggest that someone remove the vote presently taking place.  Let's
forget about this, and odds are that whoever is using the JesusIsLord
username for homophobic alter ego will lose interest in it and move on.

Louis


from_name: Stan Shebs

body:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:

> [...]
>
> Almost all of Wikipedia is unsourced! If
>you have a question about the source, just ask whoever
>wrote it. That way, they will be a lot quicker to
>respond. I almost never watch articles I write, and if
>someone took off some of my content because it's
>"unsourced", there's little chance I'd go back and
>find it and write the source. If we say that all of
>wikipedia must be sourced, it would be very
>detrimental to the project.
>
For pop culture and trivia, sources don't matter that much, but a
an article without a list of references cannot be taken seriously.
Check out the fine print at the end of Britannica articles, they
are usually quite thorough; Wikipedia should be aspiring to the
same level of quality.

>A Google search will
>almost always find some reference supporting any fact
>in Wikipedia, so long as it isn't made up (if they're
>"wrong" or it's a minority view or something, then it
>should still be preserved). The only time this doesn't
>work is for obscure historical or local stuff.
>
Don't be too trusting of Google - it can only tell you about the
info that somebody went to the trouble of putting into a web page.
I've been comparing Google results with books from the library lately,
and there is a lot of encyclopedic information that is simply not
online, or not being indexed. For instance, most US Navy ships
are well-documented online because the US govt wrote them all
up and made the info PD, so it's been cloned on web pages all
over, while there is little online info for the once-enormous
fleets of Great Britain and France, even though there is plenty
of raw data in the respective governments' archives.

Stan


body:
James Duffy wrote:

>> >"We are trying to make
>> > Wikipedia faster and more responsive. You can help by making a
>> donation."
>> > I hope this satisfies your concerns.
>>
> Please please reword the donation line on the pages. It is disastrous in
> terms of PR. We know we have a problem on wiki right now, but the
> current wording highlights the flaws in a way that is never done in PR.
> Rule number 1: NEVER EVER EVER draw attention to your failings.

James,

Thank you for your post.  It captures my own feelings perfectly.

The project as a whole needs a greater degree of PR sensitivity.

Louis

(And rule number 2? Never stop your competitor while he is in the
process of making a fool of himself)


from_name: Stevertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] Jeezis needs a name change

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

> Because it makes a POV statement. Remember that
> pesky
> thing called NPOV we have to follow? Having a user
> name like that doesn't help the process since it
> states, rather up-front, what a user's POV is.
> That's
> not what user names are for.

This is exactly correct.  Still-- whethere a name
should be changed or not (whether its offensive,
inflammatory, inciteful, provokative) is a subjective
question-- it always needs to be voted on (there are
some exceptions with extremely offensive names --
where the offensive name choice more often coincides
with a vandalist intent) This is the basic way I
framed the rewrite of the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NIU   policy. If it
meets with some disagreement, say so.

Jesus is lord's name has been voted on since last
night and has had 17 votes -- 13 of which favor
changing the name. Consensus in action-- and less than
15 hours since voting started.
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jesus_is_Lord%21/namechange

If JIL wants to vote on a namechange for "Evil
saltine" or "Stevertigo" as well, we can do so.  I
doubt these qualify.

~S~
I'll know it when I see it.

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body:
LDan wrote:
>Almost all of Wikipedia is unsourced!

Yeah, so? And the great, great majority of that
information is easily confirmed. We are talking about
the stuff that cannot be easily confirmed /when
somebody checks/.

>If you have a question about the source, just ask
>whoever wrote it.

That isn't always so easy. Besides the question has to
do with the article, so the best place for that is the
talk page. You are operating on the assumption that
the person who wrote the material is really the only
person who could answer the question - not so. If the
material is in fact legit, then any number of people
who visit that article's talk page can respond.

>That way, they will be a lot quicker to respond.

If the removal is more than a smallish paragraph, then
it would make sense to also inform the user directly.
But, only when this info is easily obtained without
having to sort through dozens of diffs.

>I almost never watch articles I write,

That is your choice.

>and if someone took off some of my content because
>it's"unsourced", there's little chance I'd go back
and
>find it and write the source.

If you care about that, then hit 'Watch this page'
more often.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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from_name: Gareth Owen

body:
Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> writes:

> Well, sure, but keep in mind that I'm essentially sympathetic to what Ed is
> saying.  I think that there is a lot of politically driven junk science in
> this area, unskeptically reported by people who like the political
> implications, and that a skeptical voice about that is healthy.

Well, I hate to speak out on something of which I'm personally knowledgeable
and involved, because its only a recipe for trouble.

But .. as a working environmental scientist (funded by the UK equivalent of
the NSF) I don't think thats really fair.

There is *some* politically motivated junk science being done, certainly.  And
most of it is not funded by environmental groups (don't have a lot of cash to
throw around) but by oil companies (who do).

What there is, however, is a fairly well developed environmental spin-machine
who take moderate, cautious, *good* science, and spin it in their favour, and
an equally out-of-control Blomberg inspired crowd (libertarians mainly) who
are convinced -- almost to the point of religious princple -- that global
warming is a giant left-wing conspiracy and that Kyoto was an anti-american
plot (amongst whom, sadly, I number Ed Poor).

In my personal experience of attending large Earth Science meetings, I have
gained the impression that:
   The vast majority of working earth scientists, believe that global
   warming is a fact, and that present global warming is, at least in part,
   anthropomorphic in source.

(There is a peculiar myth grown up that we're all in some big conspiracy to
 talk up global warming to protect our funding; if this is the case, I wasn't
 invited to the planning meetings.  And besides:
 i, the anti-Kyoto lobby pay better
ii, all the real money is in short- and medium-term weather forecasting, which
    the military just *love*)

Now, given that the stated role of science-wiki is to reflect present
consensus thinking, I feel that it is Ed who is seriously breaching this
policy, in continually removing edits that -- without prejudice as to whether
they're right or not -- does reflect that which might accurately describe the
present state of scientific thought.

Certainly, a skeptical voice is healthy, but lets remember that oil companies
have agendas too.
--
Gareth Owen
"And Cunct, please stop being such a prick."
                        -- wikipedia-l gains a new mantra (Wed Nov  6 2002)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Return of the Troll

body:
RK writes on User talk:Jtdrl

I find what you have been writing about me frightly
hateful and dishonest. The main problems, however,
remain. You and your friends still are allowing a
proven pro-Nazi viewpoint to be pushed on Wikipedia
from Stevertigo and his friend Martin; the
documentation came from his own edits, and has been
analyzed by experts on the subject. Yet the Nazis are
the heros here? That's isn't NPOV, that is
anti-Semitism. Your refusal to admit this tells me
things about you that I would rather not have learned.
RK 00:51, 8 Oct 2003 (UTC)

>>"Experts", eh? Doesnt it "take one to know one"?

Also, I see that you still pretend to be confused
about the issue. Two people kept harassing me on my
own User Talkpage. I excercised my right to remove
their comments from my Talk User page. All Wikipedia
users have always had that right. Yet then other
Wikipedians such as Angela began harassing me;
shockingly, they reverted my edits to my own page, and
restored the harassment. When I reported this non-stop
harassment to the Wiki list, no one helped, and in
fact people slandered me. You yourseld didn't do a
damn thing to stop this harassment and vandalism; you
never asked for them to be banned. So you left me no
other option, literally. I thus was forced to
temporarilly do the same thing to them that they did
to me. However, I also mentioned this action to the
WikiEn list...I was making a very simple point: If it
is wrong for someone to do this to you, then it is
also wrong for you to do this to someone else. Yet you
allowed their harassment of me, and simultaneously
pretended that they could not understand this point.
You topped it off by falsely accusing me of vanalism.
Well, that is just pathetic. RK 00:51, 8 Oct 2003
(UTC)

>>Still doesnt get it.

I wonder how much harassment I can put on someone
else's page (perhaps yours?) until I see someone
(perhaps you?) remove it? Then I can do this again and
again until you take action...and then you would be
banned? Does this sound reasonable to you? Frankly, to
me this course of action sounds like harassment, and
its totally insane. Why you think that it was Ok for
others to do to me, but not for this to be done to
anyone else? Please do not continue with such
harassment. RK 00:51, 8 Oct 2003 (UTC)

>>Still tries to equate comments on Talk with
Vandalism/harrassment.

~S~

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body:
"Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> writes:

> => Quoted at http://www.sepp.org/glwarm/sciaddheat.html
>
> Or maybe I was wrong to believe that S. Fred Singer was quoting Ponte
> correctly.

Lets quote from other sections of "The Cooling"

"There are very few pages that, as a scientist, I could accept without
 questions of accuracy, of precision, or of balance..."

Thats from the preface.  Sadly, you're not a scientist Ed, and so not quite as
discriminating.

Ponte massively misrepresented the NAS report, in order to (wait, here comes
the shocker SELL MORE BOOKS [see Lomberg, Bjorn])  Here is the conclusion of
that NAS report :

"The climates of the earth have always been changing, and they will doubtless
 continue to do so in the future. How large these future changes will be, and
 where and how rapidly they will occur, we do not know"

The final recommendations of the report, were that climate change was
possible, and that further research would be advisable.
Pretty shocking stuff.

Basing a scientific article on Ponte's "The Cooling" is akin to writing a
balanced report on the US media using only quotes from Ann Coulter and Michael
Moore, or quoting Paul Ehrlich on the Black-Scholes equations...

Further Reading :
http://www.wmc.care4free.net/sci/iceage/nas-1975.html
http://www.wmc.care4free.net/sci/iceage/ponte.html
The last six months JPO, GRL or any other creditabel Earth Science journal)

(PS : Lowell Ponte's future scientific works were published in Reader's Digest)
--
Gareth Owen
"And Cunct, please stop being such a prick."
                        -- wikipedia-l gains a new mantra (Wed Nov  6 2002)


from_name: Dante Alighieri

subject: [WikiEN-l] User names

body:
At 02:53 PM 10/8/2003, sannse wrote:
>Louis wrote (in part):
>
> > Mydogategodshat - Two readings here, my/dog/ate/gods/hat and
> > my/dog/ate/god/shat.  Both unacceptable.
>
>I /do/ feel this one is unacceptable, and said so when it was first
>discussed in May.  If feel it is directly comparable with our old friend the
>radioactive chicken.

OK, this is the old argument from the Request for Adminship page...

Can someone PLEASE explain to me what is offensive about that username? My
Dog Ate God's Hat. It makes ABSOLUTELY no sense, sure, but offensive?
Please...

And don't complain about how some people could interpret it the other
way... that other way also makes no sense and is grammatically shaky to boot.

Should we force JT not to use his nickname because some people might think
the "fear" part of "fear?IREANN" was the imperative mood of the verb "fear"
and an instruction that they should fear him? Please....

-----
Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
    -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321


subject: [WikiEN-l] Jeezis needs a name change

body:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
> That sounds completely arbitrary. I think all
> usernames should be allowed. How do usernames affect
> our development as an encyclopedia?

Usernames give an impression of our community to outsiders.  and
usernames can affect how we perceive and treat each other.

We strive to be inclusive and neutral.  We strive for an atmosphere of
helpfulness towards each other, an atmosphere where good deeds and
respect are the norm.  We strive for an atmosphere of intellectual
seriousness and fun.

Without referencing any of the specific examples that have been given
thus far, I think it is fairly clear that some names can undermine
those goals.  Names that are hateful, or that are designed to shock
others, or that are overtly ideological can be obstacles to
understanding each other, and to recruiting others to our grand
mission.

The rule, though, cannot just be "if this name could conceivably
offend someone".  That rule has been adequately lampooned here by a
number of people.  The truth is, for any name, it is possible to
envision _someone_ who would be offended by it.

There are easy cases that we can all agree are wrong, I think.
Usernames that are purely and simply expressions of racial slurs would
fall into that category.

And there are harder cases.  JesusIsLove is overtly ideological,
overtly religious.  But it isn't something that's _offensive_ really,
even to people who don't agree with it.  Still, I think such names
should be discouraged as ideological.

But the difficulty of the issue doesn't mean that we have to accept
either of (a) let everything go OR (b) have a regime of hypersensitive
tyrannical policing of every little thing that people do.

A policy of kindness, benevolence, common sense, etc. can do a lot.

--Jimbo


body:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
> That would carry a lot of weight? That's the most
> baseless argument I've heard so far, that it's
> unsourced. Almost all of Wikipedia is unsourced!

And almost all of Wikipedia is uncontested, too.  One benefit of our
NPOV process is that at any given point in time, 99%+ of what is
written is something that everyone who isn't bonkers could agree with.

But when something _is_ contested, then saying that it's unsourced is
a perfectly valid response.  In the specific example we're discussing,
the fact in question, about "Leonard III" was made up whole cloth.

> If we say that all of wikipedia must be sourced, it would be very
> detrimental to the project. A Google search will almost always find
> some reference supporting any fact in Wikipedia, so long as it isn't
> made up (if they're "wrong" or it's a minority view or something,
> then it should still be preserved).

Right, well, in this case, the fact was made up.  That was the context
of the example.

I'm not saying that everything in wikipedia has to be sourced.  That
would be burdensome.  But I am saying that one way to prevent an
excessive anti-deletionism is for someone who objects to something to
request a source before the item in question goes back into the
article.

Perhaps my phrasing could be improved.  "I did a quick search in
google and found no evidence that anyone named Leonard III ever
existed, much less that he was a brilliant tactician in the 100 Years
War.  I've removed it for now, and unless someone has a source, I
think it should stay out."

I think that's a totally valid way to remove things from articles that
shouldn't be there.

--Jimbo