from_name: viajero at quilombo.nl

body:
Hi all,

In recent weeks, I have contributed to several discussions on the Problem
user page and I now have come to the conclusion that it is a thoroughly
unsuitable mechanism for resolving issues between users. Whatever its
original purpose was (dealing with vandalism I guess), it is now (also)
used for airing complex grievances with other users about lack of
neutrality, breaches of Wikiquette and so on. Repeatedly, I've seen
heated, sometimes acrimonious discussions take place, cooler heads try to
prevail, some kind of ad hoc truce settles, and *nothing is solved*. Last
night, a veteran sysop announced he was "arbitrarily" removing a
discussion involving a user who repeatedly got involved in edit-wars over
ever-contentious Mother Teresa. I disagreed with this action, but at the
same time, I also realized that leaving the discussion on the page
likewise served no purpose at all. Hence, I have come to the conclusion
that participating in discussions on that page is a complete waste of time
and have removed it from my Watchlist. For the time being, if I have a
problem with another user, I will leave a note on the talk page of someone
I trust and ask them to help out.

The fact remains: Wikipedia has evolved reasonably effective mechanisms
and procedures for dealing with vandalism, but it is sorely lacking in a
process for resolving serious problems between "real" users regarding
things like neutrality and Wikiquette. I realize that this will be
difficult and take much time to establish. As a first step, I would argue
for immediately banishing the unhealthy spirit of Problem users by
renaming it New arrivals or Temporary disturbances or something and
dedicating it exclusively to dealing with vandalism and mischief. Then, we
*urgently* need to establish some kind of procedure where mediation or
arbitration can be arranged to deal with substantial conflicts, in a
similar way to which Brian is now trying to settle the conflicts
surrounding the "2003 Guajarat violence" article.

I realize that this issue of conflict resolution has been discussed here
earlier, but I didn't read every message in the thread and I don't know
what it led to.

V.


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Adolph Hitler

body:
Adam [name omitted for privacy reasons] wrote:

> The spelling "Adolph" is used in reference to Adolf Hitler -- it is
> not at all hard to find websites, movies, books, and encyclopedias
> which include this spelling, some use it exclusively. Is there any
> reason that the Adolf Hitler article shouldn't note that Adolph is used?

For those just coming to this debate, note that there is a very lengthy
discussion and vote with 10-20 participants on the [[Adolf Hitler]] talk
page on this issue.  It's probably better to continue discussion there
rather than on this list.

-Mark


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Erik Zachte

subject: [Wikitech-l] odd database dumps

body:
Several database dumps are strange.

E.g. fr: and nL: measure a few Kb, hence odd stats as well.

Erik Zachte
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from_name: kosebamse at gmx.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Khranus

body:
In response to Ed's, Pakaran's, and Theresa's posts about Khranus, I would
like to provide some more evidence of his behavior (in part part taken from
the problem users page). This is not a comprehensive list, just some random
examples (and perhaps not the most egregious ones, given the amount of his
writing).

Khranus has added rantings that do not contribute anything useful to
articles or dicussion and IMO qualify as exemplary cases of
trolling:
http://en2.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Robert_Mugabe&diff=1717415&oldid=1717414

Khranus has expressed his contempt for Wikipedia as such, NPOV, and his
fellow users, whom he likes tho call "larval humans":
http://en2.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User:Khranus&oldid=1667796

Khranus has insulted
users:
http://en2.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Someone_else&diff=1686425&oldid=1686319

and when asked to refrain from such behavior, has either replied in vague
evasiveness or personal
attacks:
http://en2.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Khranus&diff=1694340&oldid=1690329
http://en2.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Khranus&diff=1686443&oldid=1686432

Khranus likes to spam Wikipedia with conspiracy theories:
http://en2.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Ordo_Templi_Orientis&diff=1711542&oldid=1711389
http://en2.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Cold_fusion&oldid=1714596

Khranus has added massive amounts of information that I (and others) would
characterise as total bogus:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Reptilian_humanoid&oldid=1685584

and when asked to discuss his
claims:
http://en2.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Dolphin_brain&diff=1711411&oldid=1711402
http://en2.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Dolphin_brain&diff=1709352&oldid=1709344
http://en2.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Dolphin_brain&diff=1715897&oldid=1715676

he has replied with hostility and/or evasive
blahblah:
http://en2.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Dolphin_brain&diff=1711482&oldid=1711477
http://en2.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Dolphin_brain&diff=1711197&oldid=1709352
http://en2.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Dolphin_brain&diff=1716014&oldid=1715983

and has not responded to further attempts at
discussion:
http://en2.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Dolphin_brain&diff=1712100&oldid=1711629

To summarize, Khranus has given plenty of evidence, that, despite the
pompous proclamations on his userpage, he does not understand Wikipedia, NPOV,
Wikiquette, or even the most basic standards of civilised behavior, and that he
is unwilling to accept advice. Another and final warning (perhaps from on
high) might be in order, but given our experience with him I am not optimistic.
It looks like talking to him is a complete waste of time.

Kosebamse

--
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Fotoalbum, File Sharing, MMS, Multimedia-Gru?, GMX FotoService

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from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Adolph Hitler

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>>   The spelling "Adolph" is used in reference to Adolf Hitler -- it is
>>not at  all hard to find websites, movies, books, and encyclopedias which
>>include this  spelling, some use it exclusively. Is there any reason that
>>the Adolf Hitler  article shouldn't note that Adolph is used?
>>
>
>No
>
I agree with this, and it's not just about Hitler, but also about others
who have a name that is commonly misspelled.  If it's a question of "f"
vs. "ph" we should go with the original form.  AFAIK only Portuguese
forms interchange the two freely.

I do get over 70,000 for "Adolph Hitler", but that doesn't make them
right.  Having a redirect is a good thing, but in most cases a reference
to a misspelling only encourages its use.

Ec


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Adolph Hitler

body:
>    The spelling "Adolph" is used in reference to Adolf Hitler -- it is
>not at  all hard to find websites, movies, books, and encyclopedias which
>include this  spelling, some use it exclusively. Is there any reason that
>the Adolf Hitler  article shouldn't note that Adolph is used?

No


subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Khranus

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

> I'm listening to all of this.  Could Khranus be invited to email me?

I'm pretty uninvolved in all this, not having run across Khranus
personally in any articles I've edited, so am just passing along his
response for those (Jimbo, perhaps) who don't follow all the talk pages
and such.  This is from [[User talk:Khranus]].

---snip---
In response to Kosebamse's complaint about "ramblings, contempt,
insults, hostility", etc. -- the owner of this website [[user:Jimbo
Wales]], asks that you contact him via e-mail.

See his letter about this matter
[http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-November/008376.html
here]. --Uncle Ed 15:55, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)

So now there's a wikipedia gestapo? I don't think I have to reply to any
of this non-sense. If you have some sort of a problem with the memes I
distribute, you can go ahead and distribute yours--but please, don't
decrease the overall amount of information being transmitted. Khranus
---snip---

So I suppose he declines the invitation.

-Mark


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Khranus banned

body:
Well, Khranus made it easy for me.

>From his User_talk page:
>In response to Kosebamse's complaint about "ramblings, contempt,
>insults, hostility", etc. -- the owner of this website user:Jimbo
>Wales, asks that you contact him via e-mail.
>
>See his letter about this matter here. --Uncle Ed 15:55, 12 Nov 2003
>(UTC)
>
>So now there's a wikipedia gestapo? I don't think I have to reply to
>any of this non-sense. If you have some sort of a problem with the
>memes I distribute, you can go ahead and distribute yours--but please,
>don't decrease the overall amount of information being
>transmitted. Khranus

His refusal, above, to email me about this, coupled with his accusing
me (or Ed?) of being a "gestapo" conveniently eliminates the need for
a long drawn out process of discussion and attempts at reformation.
If he isn't willing to talk about it, we can just end this right here.

I just banned him.  As usual, my offer that he can email me to discuss
our behavioral and editorial standards remains open, and who knows,
maybe reform is possible.

But I see no reason to subject the rest of you to this nonsense in the
meantime, so for now he's history.

This applies across all languages and meta, but does not apply to the
mailing list, as he's welcome to come here and state his case.  It
applies to ip's and any followup username he may want to try to use.

--Jimbo


from_name: Adam [name omitted for privacy reasons]

subject: [WikiEN-l] Adolph Hitler

body:
The spelling "Adolph" is used in reference to Adolf Hitler -- it is not at all hard to find websites, movies, books, and encyclopedias which include this spelling, some use it exclusively. Is there any reason that the Adolf Hitler article shouldn't note that Adolph is used?
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from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Interwiki Markup

body:
On Nov 12, 2003, at 08:03, Gabriel O'Brien wrote:
> I'm trying to get Interwiki markup working on my Wikimedia install.
> It doesn't
> appear to be working "out of the box" and I'm trying to go through the
> code to
> see where this is implemented so I can figure it out.  The only thing
> I see is
> Interwiki.php, but all it contains is:
>
> /* This file is obsolete... 2003-08-21 */
>
> Any pointers as to where I should be looking?

maintenance/interwiki.sql

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: yann at forget-me.net

subject: [WikiFR-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] precisions in translation

body:
Hi,

> Perhaps it is not a question of setting up a new organization,
> but merely registering Wikimedia in France as a foreign
> corporation so that someone in France or some other EU
> jurisdiction can act for Wikimedia (i.e. basically be the
> local agent for Wikimedia)? This would be a Wikimedia
> "branch". Isn't "branch" an accurate translation of "filiale"?

In French law, there is not such think as a non profit "foreign
organisation".

> Perhaps someone can review the French law and find out what is
> necessary to make such a registration in France.

Just set up a French non profit organisation according to the law of July
1901, called in French "association loi de 1901", and add in the status
the required articles. The law of July 1901 is very broad. You can make
any kind of non profit organisation within this law (sport, cultural,
social, humanitarian, etc., at any level: local, national and
international). There is no other law regarding non profit organisation.

For example, the "Fondation de France", the biggest foundation in France
is set up under this law. Same for "M?decins sans Fronti?res" (French
Doctors).

> NB Wikimedia Foundation Inc. is not an "association" but a
> company or corporation under the definitions commonly used
> in most jurisdictions.
>
> Alex756

Yann


from_name: Daniel Ehrenberg

subject: [Wikipedia-l] precisions in translation

body:
Alex said:
> Perhaps there can also be a Wikimedia International
> that becomes an umbrella organization for all local
> Wikimedia
> Foundations?  I have seen this done by more than a
> few
> international organizations, they have a local
> branch such
> as Oxfam GB, Oxfam USA, Oxfam France,  and then
> there is
> also a Oxfam International. They all have the same
> principles
> in their charters but local trustees (directors) to
> supervise
> the activities of the charity in the local
> jurisdiction including
> making payments to help support the international
> entity.
>
> Alex756

That's probably possible, but is it necessary? Even if
we did that, the seperate branches for different
countries would be, for the most part, symbolic, since
there have been no physical gatherings of wikipedians
(except for a small esperanto one, possibly a few
others, but nothing of note). IMHO, it wouldn't be
worth the effort (and the capital for setting it up)
just for the tax deduction. AFAICT, it is perfectly
legal to give to unrecognized non-profits. Are there
some other benefits besides tax decuctions that come
with legally recognized non-profits?
LDan

__________________________________
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Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard
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from_name: Dufrenoy, Alexis

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia statisitcs

body:
Is something wrong with the statistic pages
(http://www.wikipedia.org/wikistats/FR/Sitemap.htm and
http://www.wikipedia.org/wikistats/FR/TablesRecentTrends.htm) ? The english
version has no info for november, and the french version has completly
disappeared.

Traroth


from_name: Sascha Noyes

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Khranus' talk page edits

body:
I'm at whits end with the edits that Khranus makes to talk pages. He added
this comment to the Robert Mugabe talk page
(http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Robert_Mugabe).:

----
Mugabe is an asshole, and should be hanged for having deceived the people of
Zimbabwe into believing that he was going to help 'liberate' them.

Kofi Annan is another example of a corrupt, authoritarian motherfucker. The UN
in general has made liberating mid-Africa near-impossible--they have only
served to further enslave a people who have for the past couple hundred years
taken more crap than any other region on Earth. Khranus
----

I reverted it a couple of times but gave up after another user posted a
response to the effect that such rants are not allowed on talk page.

My lingering concern is the possibility of libel action against wikipedia.
notice that allmost all other discussion sites have a notice to the effect
that the comments represent the view not of the site but only of the author,
blah, legalese, blah.

With an implied death threat such as the above, we are probably better off
adding such a disclaimer talk pages. Also, I think Khranus should be banned.

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


from_name: Nathan Russell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Giving up on Problem users page

body:
--On Wednesday, November 12, 2003 10:43 PM +0100 Mirko Thiessen <mt at mirko-thiessen.de> wrote:

>
> Viajero wrote:
>
>> In recent weeks, I have contributed to several discussions on the Problem
>> user page and I now have come to the conclusion that it is a thoroughly
>> unsuitable mechanism for resolving issues between users. Whatever its
>> original purpose was (dealing with vandalism I guess), it is now (also)
>> used for airing complex grievances with other users about lack of
>> neutrality, breaches of Wikiquette and so on.
>
>
> The problem user page should be removed. It is totally out of control. There are
> obviously some contributors who like to list fellow wikipedians as problem
> users because of minor disagreement, revenge or dislike. Take for
> example Szopen, who was listed there only because he listed someone
> else before (the person who listed him afterwards). Of course Szopen
> does not deserve to be listed as a problem user. The page contributes
> to further poisoning of the atmosphere on the english Wikipedia. Some
> users listed there are really hurt by the fact, that they appear in
> that list. (And I don't know how I would have felt, if I was listed as
> a problem user for many days.)
>
> On the other hand there *are* some actually problematic users. But
> every discussion about these users on the problem user page is
> useless, since it seldom (virtually never) leads to any action. So
> another way to deal with annoying users should be found. I don't know
> how this way should be. If I would suggest to apply to the mailing
> list instead of listing users on a problem user page, many people
> around here would vigorously object. In some way I can
> understand that, because there is the danger, that every minor quarrel
> is brought up on the mailing list.

I agree there.  However, I think the problem users page tends to be used impulsively e.g. the recent listing "many users who hate Catholics", which is NOT a "problem user" in the general sense of the word, unless Wikipedia DID have a group or cabal of folks prejudiced against Catholics, which I doubt...

I see nothing wrong with the problem users page as such - just that it should NOT be used over personality conflicts or minor disagreements (e.g. Gdansk vs Danzig type issues should not result in sides listing each other).

Pakaran


subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Khranus

body:
--On Wednesday, November 12, 2003 8:22 AM -0800 Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
> I wouldn't say that he doesn't understand NPOV and Wikiquette.  He has made it quite clear in several posts that he has no interest in it.
>
> RickK

Or possibly he feels that his POV IS the NPOV, and anyone who disagrees is obviously unable to find the moral courage to challenge the conspiracy?

Pakaran


subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Khranus

body:
--On Wednesday, November 12, 2003 5:33 AM -0800 Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:

> I'm listening to all of this.  Could Khranus be invited to email me?
>

I would leave a note on his talk page, but I'm emotionally involved at this point and a very new user myself.

Could someone else?

Wording could be along the lines of "Wikipedia project leader [[Jimbo Wales]] is in the process of evaluating concerns about you that have been raised on the [[Wikien-l|wikipedia:mailing lists]] list about your behavior on Wikipedia, and requests that you email him at jwales AT boomis PERIOD com."

I've leave the note myself, but again I'm emotionally involved, especially as one of (as I later discovered) two people to raise the issue on the list.

Pakaran


subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Khranus

body:
--On Wednesday, November 12, 2003 2:29 PM -0800 Delirium <delirium at rufus.d2g.com> wrote:

> Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
>
>> I'm listening to all of this.  Could Khranus be invited to email me?
>
> I'm pretty uninvolved in all this, not having run across Khranus personally in any articles I've edited, so am just passing along his response for those (Jimbo, perhaps) who don't follow all the talk pages and such.  This is from [[User talk:Khranus]].

Looks like Jimbo just blocked him - check Jimbo's contribs.  I'm going to mention this on problem users in a second.

Pakaran


subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Khranus

body:
--On Wednesday, November 12, 2003 5:39 PM -0500 Nathan Russell <nrussell at buffalo.edu> wrote:

>
>
> --On Wednesday, November 12, 2003 2:29 PM -0800 Delirium <delirium at rufus.d2g.com> wrote:
>
>> Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I'm listening to all of this.  Could Khranus be invited to email me?
>>
>> I'm pretty uninvolved in all this, not having run across Khranus personally in any articles I've edited, so am just passing along his response for those (Jimbo, perhaps) who don't follow all the talk pages and such.  This is from [[User talk:Khranus]].
>
> Looks like Jimbo just blocked him - check Jimbo's contribs.  I'm going to mention this on problem users in a second.

Never mind, looks like you beat me there.

Pakaran


from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Wikipedia statisitcs

body:
On Wed, 12 Nov 2003 16:59:23 +0100, Dufrenoy, Alexis wrote:

> Is something wrong with the statistic pages
> (http://www.wikipedia.org/wikistats/FR/Sitemap.htm and
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wikistats/FR/TablesRecentTrends.htm) ? The english
> version has no info for november, and the french version has completly
> disappeared.
>
> Traroth

Hello,

Read mails from Erik and Brion a few hours before you posted ! Looks like
the database haven't been backed up successfully hence bad statistics.

--
Ashar Voultoiz
http://fr.wikipedia.org/Utilisateur:Hashar


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Adolph Hitler

body:
Adam [name omitted for privacy reasons] wrote:

>Nobody is suggesting the page be moved to "Adolph"; merely that the alternate spelling be noted. This is a discussion for the mailing list; because, nobody is disputing that the spelling "Adolph" is used -- it is simply a question of whether the wiki will include such alternate spellings.
>
In general, I prefer to note alternate spellings, along with notes about
validity, frequency, etc; not only is it good Google-whoring :-) , but it's
often important confusion-clearing-up information that is only available at
Wikipedia. Adolph vs Adolf is simple compared to, say, Oswiu of Northumbria,
who has a half-dozen different spellings, each used by one or more of the
most unimpeachable authorities.

Stan


subject: AW: [Wikitech-l] Server non-update

body:
Just say them there are thousands of Wikipedia contributors waiting for the
stuff... ;-)

Traroth

-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Jimmy Wales [mailto:jwales at bomis.com]
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 12. November 2003 20:26
An: wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
Betreff: [Wikitech-l] Server non-update

No news today, at least not yet.  The person I talked to on the phone
today is going to talk to the technician who is building the machine
and will get back to me with a full report by email.  I sensed that
this would be within the next couple of hours.  If I find anything
helpful out, I'll let everyone know.

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


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] What are we going to do about Wik and Lir?

body:
Wik and Lir are engaged in several edit wars in such such articles as [[Joseph Goebbels]], [[Anton Chekhov]], [[Adolf Hitler]], God knows how many more.  Every time one reverts something, the other one turns around and re-reverts it.  It's as if we're going to have to Protect every page that either one of them works on, because as soon as one of them works on a page, the other will go right in behind them and revert it.  This is getting ridiculous.  It has to come to a stop

RickK

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Adolph Hitler

body:
Nobody is suggesting the page be moved to "Adolph"; merely that the alternate spelling be noted. This is a discussion for the mailing list; because, nobody is disputing that the spelling "Adolph" is used -- it is simply a question of whether the wiki will include such alternate spellings.
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Gdansk

body:
Could someone take a look at [[Gdansk]]?  [[User:Caius2ga]] has made massive changes to the article, wome of which look shaky, history-wise.  The article now reads as if Gdansk (not Danzig, which Caius2ga doesn't like to use) was never really a part of Germany.  I wouldn't be so suspicious of this, if the user hadn't been going around renaming German names of cities to Polish names.  In addition, the coat of arms takes up almost the entire page, squeezing text into a tiny corner of the screen.

RickK

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from_name: Mirko Thiessen

body:
Viajero wrote:

> In recent weeks, I have contributed to several discussions on the Problem
> user page and I now have come to the conclusion that it is a thoroughly
> unsuitable mechanism for resolving issues between users. Whatever its
> original purpose was (dealing with vandalism I guess), it is now (also)
> used for airing complex grievances with other users about lack of
> neutrality, breaches of Wikiquette and so on.

The problem user page should be removed. It is totally out of control. There are
obviously some contributors who like to list fellow wikipedians as problem
users because of minor disagreement, revenge or dislike. Take for
example Szopen, who was listed there only because he listed someone
else before (the person who listed him afterwards). Of course Szopen
does not deserve to be listed as a problem user. The page contributes
to further poisoning of the atmosphere on the english Wikipedia. Some
users listed there are really hurt by the fact, that they appear in
that list. (And I don't know how I would have felt, if I was listed as
a problem user for many days.)

On the other hand there *are* some actually problematic users. But
every discussion about these users on the problem user page is
useless, since it seldom (virtually never) leads to any action. So
another way to deal with annoying users should be found. I don't know
how this way should be. If I would suggest to apply to the mailing
list instead of listing users on a problem user page, many people
around here would vigorously object. In some way I can
understand that, because there is the danger, that every minor quarrel
is brought up on the mailing list.

I would strongly recommend to replace the problem user page with a
simple message: "The possibility to list users as problem users is not
here anymore. Please try to settle your disagreement on the user's
talk page. If that does not help, contact an admin in order to ask for
mediation. In severe cases of abusive behaviour you may bring the case
up on the mailing list." Something like this.

Mirko (who made a partial retreat from his retreat, because he still
loves this project)


body:
Adam Bishop wrote:

> Also Impressionism and Dostoevsky. So far these have all been
> protected, but they seem to find completely random articles to use as
> each one is protected.  I don't really know much about either of them,
> so I don't know how much of an option banning them completely would be
> (and I'm glad I don't have that power...)
>
>> From: Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com>
>>
>> Wik and Lir are engaged in several edit wars in such such articles as
>> [[Joseph Goebbels]], [[Anton Chekhov]], [[Adolf Hitler]], God knows
>> how many more.  Every time one reverts something, the other one turns
>> around and re-reverts it.  It's as if we're going to have to Protect
>> every page that either one of them works on, because as soon as one
>> of them works on a page, the other will go right in behind them and
>> revert it.  This is getting ridiculous.  It has to come to a stop
>
Most of these seem to be rather trivial edit woars over alternative name
spellings.  Protecting the articles is pointless.  If they want to keep
beating each other over the head over this they should feel free to do so.

Ec


from_name: Andrew Alder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Straw man as Whipping Boy

body:
Martin and the List

Love it!

Andrew Alder

At 12:34 AM 12/11/03 +0000, Martin Harper wrote:

>To further Ed's point, people who argue about the risks of deleting certain
>articles, or of keeping certain articles, are often arguing emotionally, from
>their gut. And that's good - it's important that people express their
>emotions
>and instincts, because that helps us make good decisions.. Trying to shut
>that down by pointing out that they aren't conclusive logical statements is
>kind of missing the point.
>
>We seem to have an excess of monitor-evaluators on the list...
>
>WikiLove,
>-Martin "MyRedDice" Harper
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>---
>Incoming mail is certified Virus Free.
>Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
>Version: 6.0.532 / Virus Database: 326 - Release Date: 27/10/03

****
andrewa @ alder . ws
http://www.zeta.org.au/~andrewa
Phone 9441 4476
Mobile 04 2525 4476
****

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from_name: Adam Bishop

body:
Also Impressionism and Dostoevsky. So far these have all been protected, but
they seem to find completely random articles to use as each one is
protected.  I don't really know much about either of them, so I don't know
how much of an option banning them completely would be (and I'm glad I don't
have that power...)

>From: Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com>
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] What are we going to do about Wik and Lir?
>Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2003 21:09:44 -0800 (PST)
>
>
>Wik and Lir are engaged in several edit wars in such such articles as
>[[Joseph Goebbels]], [[Anton Chekhov]], [[Adolf Hitler]], God knows how
>many more.  Every time one reverts something, the other one turns around
>and re-reverts it.  It's as if we're going to have to Protect every page
>that either one of them works on, because as soon as one of them works on a
>page, the other will go right in behind them and revert it.  This is
>getting ridiculous.  It has to come to a stop
>
>RickK
>
>
>
>---------------------------------
>Do you Yahoo!?
>Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE*
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] information leaflet

body:
I think this is an excellent project. Keep me posted, I have several local
libraries (municipal and two University) where I am a regular visitor and
think it would be useful to deliver such a brochure.

What would be even cooler (and cheaper for me to reproduce well locally)
would be a credit card CD that either contained or linked to a Wikipedia
tutorial.

Andrew Alder

At 08:03 AM 9/11/03 -0800, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:

>--- Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> > On Nov 8, 2003, at 21:30, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
> > > I just started on a direct translation of the
> > > Esperanto brochure, but I'd like to point out that
> > the
> > > existing one is very out of date.
> >
> > I updated it a bit in July for the IJK, but the
> > numbers are a little
> > behind, and of course it's aimed specifically at the
> > Esperanto-speaking
> > audience. A literal translation would sound rather
> > weird. :)
> >
> > Feel free to use it as a basis, of course.
> >
> > -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>Yeah, now that I've started, I'm changing several
>sections completely that relate only to the Esperanto
>wikipedia.
>LDan
>
>__________________________________
>Do you Yahoo!?
>Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard
>http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree
>_______________________________________________
>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
>---
>Incoming mail is certified Virus Free.
>Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
>Version: 6.0.532 / Virus Database: 326 - Release Date: 27/10/03

****
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http://www.zeta.org.au/~andrewa
Phone 9441 4476
Mobile 04 2525 4476
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from_name: libertarian

body:
> Wik and Lir are engaged in several edit wars in such such
> articles as ...

Wik was one of the persons who used to revert the articles I
contributed to.

An interesting point I noted is that Wik ALWAYS made sure that
his/her contributions remained at the top. So even if someone posted
something s/he agreed with, s/he would add a punctuation mark or
make some word bold.

Wik seems to be misusing a feature given for convenience.

-libertarian

_______________________________________________
No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding.
Introducing My Way - http://www.myway.com


from_name: rose.parks at att.net

subject: [Wikipedia-l] New Mention of Wikipedia

body:
Dear Members,

     In a weekly newsletter called Site Point Tech Times there is a long
article about Wikis. It mentions Wikipedia a number of times, and all remarks
are favorable. I have attached the newsletter (I hope).

                     As Ever,

                          Ruth Ifcher

--

----------------------  Forwarded Message:  ---------------------
From:    "Kevin Yank" <techtimes at sitepoint.com>
To:      <rose.parks at att.net>
Subject: SitePoint Tech Times #77 - Multiple IE Versions / XAML and Sparkle
Date:    Wed, 12 Nov 2003 14:23:54 -0800

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from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Adolph Hitler

body:
The question is, whether it is an alternative spelling or simply a
misspelling of a name, and is google the place to determine whether something is an
alternative spelling. For instance, there are sites that refer to William
Shakespear, even though the contemporary conventional form is Shakespeare.

As for Adolf/Adolf Hitler, there are two reason that it would be spelled with
ph--1) the person spelling it is using the English, rather than the German,
version of the name, though I can't really see a justification for this: we
write Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, not John Wolfgang, and Konrad Adenauer, not
Conrad (although admittedly, there are some instances where the English variant
of a name is commonplace, i.e., William Tell); 2) the more likely, that the
person either didn't know or made a mistake. I don't think we need to record
misspellings, otherwise we can get stuck up with every variant typo, incl. Jospeh
Goebbels.

Danny
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from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Krhanus

body:
KNOTT, T wrote:
> and although there has been much mumbo jumbo I didn't spot any
> personal insults (I am thick skinned however perhaps I didn't spot
> them).Anyway what I wanted to do was pre-empt any talk of a ban,
> which I don't believe is appropriate at this time

A few gems you may have overlooked, these particular examples
from User_talk:Someone_else
>I strongly suggest you stop mutilating the Skull and Bones article. If
>you are a member of the [[Black Lodge]], you can fuck off, and if you
>are, even worse, just an uninformed idiot propogating his dogma, you
>can shut your fucking mouth.
>
>I strongly suggest you stop mutilating the Skull and Bones article. If
>you are a member of the [[Black Lodge]], you can fuck off, and if you
>are, even worse, just an uninformed idiot propogating his dogma, you
>can shut your fucking mouth.

It's that sort of comment, coupled with his refusal to discuss these
issues, which led to his ban.

He has now emailed me, and we'll talk.  It seems unlikely that he's
willing to give up on the personal attacks, though.

And I have to wonder to what extent his extremely "mumbo jumbo"
theories are going to make it impossible for him to accept NPOV
anyway.

--Jimbo


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Re: Setting a new server in France for french
	wikipedia

references:
<1068523052.60346e20user_Jamesday@myrealbox.com>
	<boqdqd$a52$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<20031111135227.GL28961@joey.bomis.com>
	<8y7dfl1ospus.snlpr42u36qy$.dlg@40tude.net>

body:
Antoine wrote:
> Is wikipedia name registered as a trademark worldwide ? That might lead to
> a wikipedia.tm.fr for france :0)

We are currently working on the trademark application for a US
trademark, and although I know very little about it, I think that
through treaties or whatever, that'd be all we need to have a
worldwide trademark in most countries, including the EU countries.

But, I know very little about it.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Adolph Hitler

body:
Arwel Parry wrote:
> Correcting you just to be pedantic, but in English the Adolf/Adolph
> distinction seems to be a transatlantic thing. I have never seen
> "Adolph" used in any document originating in the UK.

I find quite a few, actually:

http://www.olympicwomen.co.uk/Berline.htm
for example.

You can find a lot more here:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&safe=off&edition=us&q=Adolph+Hitler+site%3A.uk&btnG=Google+Search

>From looking at this, it seems that OSS spelled it 'Adolph' in some
official document(s) way back when, and so I don't think we can treat
this as just a simple misspelling by random Internet idiots, but
rather a variant spelling.  It'd be interesting to have solid
information on the variant spelling.

Also, a search on Amazon reveals some books with the title spelled
'Adolph', as well, see for example:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393056821/qid=1068731574

(published by W. W. Norton, so it's an actual book).

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Adolph Hitler

body:
J. Noel Chiappa wrote:
> No, if a mis-spelling gets 70,000 hits it deserves a *redirect*. A name
> variant only deserves a mention in the article if it's one that people
> actually consciously use (e.g. Rameses/Ramesses).

But I'm not so sure that 'mis-spelling' is what this is, given that
both variants have been used in the titles of books by reputable
publishers.  I absolutely agree that a redirect is in order -- we
don't need two articles here.  But I also think that a line or two in
the body of the article covering the variant spelling is warranted,
since it's something that a reader is likely to wonder about.

--Jimbo


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Adolph Hitler

body:
>   The question is, whether it is an alternative spelling or simply a
>misspelling of a name, and is google the place to determine whether
>something is an alternative spelling. For instance, there are sites that
>refer to William Shakespear, even though the contemporary conventional
>form is Shakespeare.    As for Adolf/Adolf Hitler, there are two reason
>that it would be spelled with ph--1) the person spelling it is using the
>English, rather than the German, version of the name, though I can't
>really see a justification for this: we write Johann Wolfgang von
>Goethe, not John Wolfgang, and Konrad Adenauer, not Conrad (although
>admittedly, there are some instances where the English variant of a name
>is commonplace, i.e., William Tell); 2) the more likely, that the person
>either didn't know or made a mistake. I don't think we need to
>record misspellings, otherwise we can get stuck up with every variant
>typo, incl. Jospeh Goebbels.
>Danny _______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

If a misspelling gets 70,000 hits on Google it deserves a brief mention.

Fred


subject: [WikiEN-l] NPOV is not "objectivity"

body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> Some Wikipedians have been using the terms NPOV and POV as synonyms for
> "objective" and "biased", respectively. This is an error, if I may say
> so.

Yes.  When I made up the term "Neutral Point of View" I specifically
chose to avoid the term "objective", in part to clarify that this is a
term of art, a social concept designed to maximize the possibility of
harmonious work, rather than a purely epistemological concept like
'true' or 'objective'.

I think that, in a sense, NPOV writing is a _subset_ of objective
writing, i.e. it is writing so that a very wide variety of people can
give assent.

> Some contributors, possibly Khranus among them, want articles to reflect
> REALITY and OBJECTIVE TRUTH. That is all well and good, for the 99% of
> topics which are uncontroversial.
>
> It is when contributors disagree about what is real and objectively
> true, that we need to write from the Neutral Point of View. We must say,
> for example, that some people believe dolphins are smarter than human
> beings, while other people consider their intelligence to be much less
> than that of humans.
>
> We cannot and must not try to ANSWER the question, "Are dolphins
> smarter?" with a yes or no answer. We can only describe the various
> Points of View (POV) of researchers in the field, as well as science
> fiction writers, drama writers, historical legends or anything else
> which relates to the question.
>
> Please, please understand that NPOV is not "objective truth".

I think this was all very well said.

NPOV is not abhorrent to the objective truth, nor opposed to it.  It's
just narrower, more cautious, more inclusive.

--Jimbo


from_name: Peter Cooper

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: pornsites to be blocked

body:
"Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
> Another possibility is that some corporate firewall(s) somewhere
> redirect people to wikipedia when they try to look at naughty content.

Another possibility is a buggy model in certain browsers (notably IE5,
AFAIR) which incorrectly places the current page you're looking at as the
referer to ANY page you go to next, even if you typed it in, clicked on a
bookmark, etc.

Even on my personal site, I can use my referrers list, look at most of the
'ones and twos', and can see exactly where my visitors have been surfing
just before they typed in my site. This much is obvious, because I've often
turned up at forum posts where one of my visitors has also been commenting
:-)

Pete


from_name: J. Noel Chiappa

subject: [WikiEN-l] Adolph Hitler

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

     >> I don't think we need to record misspellings, otherwise we can get
     >> stuck up with every variant typo, incl. Jospeh Goebbels.

     > If a misspelling gets 70,000 hits on Google it deserves a brief mention.

No, if a mis-spelling gets 70,000 hits it deserves a *redirect*. A name
variant only deserves a mention in the article if it's one that people
actually consciously use (e.g. Rameses/Ramesses).

	Noel


from_name: Catherine Munro

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia listed in Sitepoint article

body:
I receive the Sitepoint newsletter, along with several thousand other
people.  One of their featured articles is this:

<http://www.sitepoint.com/article/1241>What is a Wiki?
By Nathan Matias

If this is a question you've asked yourself, you're not alone! Nate clears
up the confusion with this in-depth look at the wiki. Starting at the very
beginning, he explores wiki history, functionality, software, and more.

It includes several links to the English Wikipedia (including one to
JTDirl's contribution list!).

--Catherine

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body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

>> Wik and Lir are engaged in several edit wars in such such articles as
>> [[Joseph Goebbels]], [[Anton Chekhov]], [[Adolf Hitler]], God knows how
>> many more.  Every time one reverts something, the other one turns
>> around and re-reverts it.  It's as if we're going to have to Protect
>> every page that either one of them works on, because as soon as one of
>> them works on a page, the other will go right in behind them and revert
>> it.  This is getting ridiculous.  It has to come to a stop

> Most of these seem to be rather trivial edit woars
> over alternative name spellings.  Protecting the articles
> is pointless.  If they want to keep beating each other
> over the head over this they should feel free to do so.

No they should not. This is a quite annoying behaviour. Just have a look
at [[Wikipedia:Protected_page]]. Whenever a new page is listed there, it
is because of Monsieur Wik involved in a new edit war. Instead of giving
him a free hand he should receive a warning from some person of authority,
that such behaviour is not appropriate. It is not only Lir. Wik is
permanently in a state of edit war with someone on Wikipedia.

Mirko.


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] NPOV is not "objectivity"

body:
Some Wikipedians have been using the terms NPOV and POV as synonyms for
"objective" and "biased", respectively. This is an error, if I may say
so.

Jimbo and Larry established the "Neutral Point of View" as the official
standard for Wikipedia. This means that when facts are in dispute, we
write ABOUT that dispute, rather than trying to settle it. Thus we say X
said Y about Z rather than "Y is true".

Some contributors, possibly Khranus among them, want articles to reflect
REALITY and OBJECTIVE TRUTH. That is all well and good, for the 99% of
topics which are uncontroversial.

It is when contributors disagree about what is real and objectively
true, that we need to write from the Neutral Point of View. We must say,
for example, that some people believe dolphins are smarter than human
beings, while other people consider their intelligence to be much less
than that of humans.

We cannot and must not try to ANSWER the question, "Are dolphins
smarter?" with a yes or no answer. We can only describe the various
Points of View (POV) of researchers in the field, as well as science
fiction writers, drama writers, historical legends or anything else
which relates to the question.

Please, please understand that NPOV is not "objective truth".

Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed


from_name: viajero at quilombo.nl

body:
On 11/12/03  at 11:18 PM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> said:

> Most of these seem to be rather trivial edit woars over alternative name
> spellings.  Protecting the articles is pointless.  If they want to keep
> beating each other over the head over this they should feel free to do
> so.

This behaviour interferes with other users. The article Richard Neustadt
remained protected for several days when the subject was timely but the
article still needed work. It was listed on the Main page for several
hours (Neustadt had just died) but a sysop took it off because of the edit
war.

V.


from_name: Arwel Parry

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Adolph Hitler

body:
In message <1e2.134dae0d.2ce49f32 at aol.com>,
daniwo59-YDxpq3io04c at public.gmane.org writes
>As for Adolf/Adolf Hitler, there are two reason that it would be spelled with
>ph--1) the person spelling it is using the English, rather than the German,
>version of the name,
  [...]

Correcting you just to be pedantic, but in English the Adolf/Adolph
distinction seems to be a transatlantic thing. I have never seen
"Adolph" used in any document originating in the UK.

That said, I'd certainly have no objection to the variant spelling being
noted.

--
Arwel Parry
http://www.cartref.demon.co.uk/


from_name: Gustav Foseid

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Setting a new server in France for
	french	wikipedia

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

> We are currently working on the trademark application for a US
> trademark, and although I know very little about it, I think that
> through treaties or whatever, that'd be all we need to have a
> worldwide trademark in most countries, including the EU countries.

IANAL and so on, but...

No, there is no such thing as a worldwide or global trademark
protection. You still need to apply for trademark registration in all
countries. The date you register your US trademark may have something
to say if others apply for a trademark for "Wikipedia" in any other
country than the US after you apply for the US trademark but before a
given date (some months after your US trademark) and you apply for a
trademark in the same country before the same date.

I am unsure if the EU is "one trademark contry", but I don't think so.

--
Gustav Foseid, Initio IT-l?sninger AS
http://www.initio.no/


list: textbook-l

from_name: Karl Wick

subject: [Textbook-l] textbook standards

body:
When I do a search on Google for "textbook standards" this
is the very first link that comes up:

www.wikibook.org/wiki/Wikibooks:_Textbook_Standards

The only problem is that the page is blank. I thought I had
created a page like that a long time ago .. is there any
chance that it got deleted along the way ? Just weird that
it is first on google and does not even exist.

Anyway recent emails with Sanford are reminding me of the
importance of writing books, that adhere to CA standards so
he can use it to promote the open content model over there
and get some props for our site. We just need one good
example to start.

The CA standards link: http://www.cde.ca.gov/standards/

Sanford has also spent extensive time investigating grant
opportunities for the site but has not turned up any donors
yet as the site is so different than the way we have been
traditionally viewed education and educational materials.
When we have a poster-child book that adheres to the
standards it may be able to get us some funding.

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


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Please remove the "support" message from en.wikipedia
	page headers

body:
This message:
  Find out how you can help support Wikipedia's phenomenal growth.

should only be displayed when we are having a fundraising drive. Since we
received the money for the new database server before such a drive even
started, and since we are going to delay distribution of our next press
release until we hit 500,000, I see no need to keep this message at this
time.

A couple weeks before we distribute the next press release (sometime early
next year) the message can be re-enabled in order to give the page cache time
to update. Keeping the message up all the time will result in people tuning
it out and not paying attention to it when we having a fundraising drive.

But having it gone and then brought back will get people's attention.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


from_name: Thomas Luft

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Good news: www.wikipedia.de is back

body:
Hi,

thanks to the efforts of Armin Klempert (akl) wikipedia.de is registered
to Kurt again. Armin contacted the domain grabber and persuaded him to
hand wikipedia.de back to us. Great work!
The changes will take some time but you can see the first signs of the
switch using the whois interface of http://www.denic.de/
Regards

Thomas (aka Urbanus)


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Please remove the "support" message from
	en.wikipedia	page headers

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>This message:
>  Find out how you can help support Wikipedia's phenomenal growth.
>
>should only be displayed when we are having a fundraising drive. Since we
>received the money for the new database server before such a drive even
>started, and since we are going to delay distribution of our next press
>release until we hit 500,000, I see no need to keep this message at this
>time.
>
This sounds like a sensible idea.

Ec


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Multilingual?

body:
Charles Matthews wrote:

>Because the lowest common denominator of English-speaking users is to know
>nothing about other cultures, this argument in effect can always be used to
>lower standards of cultural sensitivity. The worry is that we then get a
>tabloid version, not something compatible with scholarly practice.
>
>Therefore I say this is an intrusion of journalistic thinking, into an
>encyclopedia; where it is inappropriate.
>
>
I'm not sure I entirely agree with this view.  An encyclopedia _should_,
I think, have something in common with journalistic practice, and not be
entirely a scholarly work.  If someone wants a scholarly work on a
particular subject, there are already plenty available; the only value
an encyclopedia adds is having a convenient summary of various things in
a manner understandable by the majority of people (including those who
are not experts in the field being discussed).  Part of this is simply
using language as it is used by people, not using jargon specific to a
scholarly field that is not in widespread usage.  To take your example,
"chess" is a well-understood term by the vast majority of English
speakers, used to refer to the game known as, well, "chess".  A "chess
variant", again in standard usage, would be anything other than standard
chess (Fischer random chess, for example).  Using other terminology
would be rather confusing.

This is fairly standard encyclopedia practice: when you open Britannica,
for example, you find things for the most part described in plain
English, using words with their commonly accepted meanings.  I'm not
sure how this gets us a "tabloid version", and think that grossly
underestimates the quality of many of our articles.  At the very least,
we're "as bad as" the New York Times, not the National Enquirer.

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Multilingual?

body:
Charles Matthews wrote:

>It is being argued that xiangqi (Chinese chess) is appropriately labelled
>'chess variant', when it predates chess and can't be a variant of it. So
>it's like saying soccer is a 'gridiron variant'.
>
>
>
Hmm.  In that case, can't we call it "similar to chess" or something of
that sort, that allows us to both orient the reader who may be familiar
with chess and unfamiliar with xiangqi, without making claims about what
is a variant of what (especially wrong claims)?

-Mark


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Please remove the "support" message from
	en.wikipedia 	page headers

body:
>This message:
>  Find out how you can help support Wikipedia's phenomenal growth.
>
>should only be displayed when we are having a fundraising drive. Since we
>received the money for the new database server before such a drive even
>started, and since we are going to delay distribution of our next press
>release until we hit 500,000, I see no need to keep this message at this
>time.
>
>A couple weeks before we distribute the next press release (sometime early
>next year) the message can be re-enabled in order to give the page cache time
>to update. Keeping the message up all the time will result in people tuning
>it out and not paying attention to it when we having a fundraising drive.
>
>But having it gone and then brought back will get people's attention.
>
>-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

I think it should stay, but perhaps at the bottom of the page ordiinarily,
but moved to the top during fundraising drives.

Fred


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Please remove the "support" message from
	en.wikipedia page headers

body:
This is really not a wikitech-l type of question, is it?  I don't
personally have a firm opinion about it.

1.  On the one hand, we're always having a fundraising drive in a
sense.  We have enough funds right now, or nearly so, to buy a 4th
machine to either be used exclusively as our mail server, or to be
used exclusively as our load balancer, or to be used as our 3rd
webserver.  Even after the new db server is installed, all three of
those will be legitimate needs.  (We might combine some of those
functions at first, of course.  But there are good arguments for
separating them all as soon as we can afford it.)

2.  On the other hand, Mav's argument is (perhaps) that we can
maximize revenue by not having the request up there all the time,
and I think there's something to that.

--Jimbo


body:
Fred Bauder wrote:
> I think it should stay, but perhaps at the bottom of the page
> ordiinarily, but moved to the top during fundraising drives.

I think this, or some variant of it, makes the most sense.  If someone
wants to donate, we shouldn't make it difficult for them to find, but
it probably is better in the long run if we reserve that top slot for
times when we really really need to shake the money tree.  :-)

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Adolph

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:
> Apparently your writ does not run as far as that article.

No, of course not.  :-) I don't want to get into the business of
trying to dictate the answers to content disputes, outside of the very
abstract policies that guide the process.

For example...
> A vote on the matter has come up about evenly divided. Several
> attempts have been made to put some language in about the
> matter. All such attempts have been reverted, usually by Wik.

Voting on the content of articles is not something that I think is
generally helpful, since it tends to lead to a lot of carping about
what the result of the vote actually means.

Rather than voting one way or the other, a better approach is for all
sides to work towards creatively accomodating the other people working
on the article.

In general, let's say the vote goes 80%/20% on some specific content
issue?  To me, that says that the 20% side has conclusively
demonstrated that the article is _not_ NPOV.  NPOV requires (near)
unanimity.

I wish, too, that people would generally refrain from reverting,
except in cases of actual simple vandalism.  Reverting doesn't say "I
don't fully agree with your changes, but I'm willing to work with you
to try to improve the article."  Reverting says "I refuse to
co-operate with you by pretending that what you're doing is in any way
worthwhile."

Hey, sometimes the second is actually true, and we actually should
refuse to co-operate.  If someone puts in utter and complete nonsense,
a very good thing to do is just clean it up, revert it, quickly and
with as little effort as possible.

But in this case, Adolph/Adolf, I don't see how it's appropriate to
just revert.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Adolph

body:
>J. Noel Chiappa wrote:
>> No, if a mis-spelling gets 70,000 hits it deserves a *redirect*. A name
>> variant only deserves a mention in the article if it's one that people
>> actually consciously use (e.g. Rameses/Ramesses).
>
>But I'm not so sure that 'mis-spelling' is what this is, given that
>both variants have been used in the titles of books by reputable
>publishers.  I absolutely agree that a redirect is in order -- we
>don't need two articles here.  But I also think that a line or two in
>the body of the article covering the variant spelling is warranted,
>since it's something that a reader is likely to wonder about.
>
>--Jimbo

Apparently your writ does not run as far as that article. A vote on the
matter has come up about evenly divided. Several attempts have been made to
put some language in about the matter. All such attempts have been
reverted, usually by Wik.

Just an aside, but Adolph is an accepted English spelling, just look at any
Coors or bottle. A google search for either name will bring up coors.com.

Fred


from_name: Charles Matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Multilingual?

body:
One of the first things on the Main Page: "Wikipedia is a multilingual
project".

I'm becoming a bit concerned about arguments in a few areas that cut across
this - to the effect that the English version should stick to received
usages, so as not to conflict with a supposed 'Anglo' culture.  For example,
Adam Carr, on order in Japanese names, says 'this' (presumably his horizon
is the English language version)  is _not_ a multilingual project.  I've
just come across another such issue, namely whether games of the chess
family should be called 'chess variants'.

Because the lowest common denominator of English-speaking users is to know
nothing about other cultures, this argument in effect can always be used to
lower standards of cultural sensitivity. The worry is that we then get a
tabloid version, not something compatible with scholarly practice.

Therefore I say this is an intrusion of journalistic thinking, into an
encyclopedia; where it is inappropriate.

Charles

http://www.speakingasaparent.com/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Multilingual?

body:
Charles,

I think you might be confusing two ideas:

1. We want to present information in a way that's easy for the reader to
find and understand.

2. We want to tell the truth in all articles, as much as possible.

Now, Chinese Chess and Korean Chess (both played on a 9 x 10 grid of
dots) certainly LOOK LIKE the game known in the West as "chess" (played
on an 8 x 8 grid of squares). You win, if your opponent can't stop you
from capturing his king. You have some soldiers who only go forward;
there's a 'horse' and a 'castle'. (I helped write the Korean Chess
article, by the way.)

To satisfy idea #1, the easiest and quickest thing to do is to call
these 'chess variants'. This is using "variation" in the sense of
"something similar, something that does the same thing but in a
different way".

To satisfy idea #2, we MUST DISCUSS the issue of how old the various
types of chess games are. Now last I heard, their origins were lost in
antiquity, and no one individual is credited as inventing any of these
games in a particular year. It's not even clear how Europe got its 8 x 8
board (from India, I guess).

But please don't misunderstand: calling the Chinese and Korean chess
games "variants" says NOTHING about which came first, nor does it make a
claim that one came first and gave rise to the other. It's just a quick
way of saying, "If you like Western Chess, try these games, too!" :-)

Ed Poor
Master of the Neutral Point of View


subject: [WikiEN-l] Multilingual?

body:
Charles said:

> It is being argued that xiangqi (Chinese chess)
> is appropriately labelled 'chess variant', when
> it predates chess and can't be a variant of it.
> So it's like saying soccer is a 'gridiron variant'.

We had a big dust-up over our Football article last year, which I helped
mediate. It was finally agreed that "football" refers equally to
American-rules football and to "soccer". In the US, 'football' nearly
always means the American-rules game (pointy-ended ball, forward passes,
lots of tackling) while "soccer" involves kicking a round ball into a
net. Outside the US, where by the way most English-speaking people live,
the word "football" almost always refers to round-ball game (also called
affectionately "footie").

It took us several weeks to finally get this straight, but it was done
with goodwill, intercultural sensitivity and a healthy dose of humor.

I hope we can try a similar approach to the issues you are raising.

Ed Poor
Culturally Sensitive American


subject: [WikiEN-l] Multilingual?

body:
 "Delirium" wrote

> Charles Matthews wrote:
>
> >Because the lowest common denominator of English-speaking users is to
know
> >nothing about other cultures, this argument in effect can always be used
to
> >lower standards of cultural sensitivity. The worry is that we then get a
> >tabloid version, not something compatible with scholarly practice.
> >
> >Therefore I say this is an intrusion of journalistic thinking, into an
> >encyclopedia; where it is inappropriate.
> >
> >
> I'm not sure I entirely agree with this view.  An encyclopedia _should_,
> I think, have something in common with journalistic practice, and not be
> entirely a scholarly work.

Something: it should be well written.  Something else: when there is plenty
of time to check facts, fact-checking should apply.

>If someone wants a scholarly work on a
> particular subject, there are already plenty available; the only value
> an encyclopedia adds is having a convenient summary of various things in
> a manner understandable by the majority of people (including those who
> are not experts in the field being discussed).

Synthesis adds hugely to value.

> Part of this is simply
> using language as it is used by people, not using jargon specific to a
> scholarly field that is not in widespread usage.  To take your example,
> "chess" is a well-understood term by the vast majority of English
> speakers, used to refer to the game known as, well, "chess".  A "chess
> variant", again in standard usage, would be anything other than standard
> chess (Fischer random chess, for example).  Using other terminology
> would be rather confusing.

It is being argued that xiangqi (Chinese chess) is appropriately labelled
'chess variant', when it predates chess and can't be a variant of it. So
it's like saying soccer is a 'gridiron variant'.

> This is fairly standard encyclopedia practice: when you open Britannica,
> for example, you find things for the most part described in plain
> English, using words with their commonly accepted meanings.  I'm not
> sure how this gets us a "tabloid version", and think that grossly
> underestimates the quality of many of our articles.  At the very least,
> we're "as bad as" the New York Times, not the National Enquirer.

Tabloid journalism isn't bad journalism, necessarily, and is a stricter
discipline on the writer.  That's not the issue, here.

It's the argument here that readers shouldn't mind soccer, rugby, Australian
Rules and so on being called 'gridiron variant', in the teeth of history and
cultural senstivities, because it is easier to talk to a mass readership in
those terms.

It troubles me, because it shouldn't be a case simply of counting heads in
the readership.  In particular it goes against internationalism in the
project.

Charles


subject: [Textbook-l] pdf files

body:
That site works pretty well, does a respectable job at
maintaining formatting even if it doenst do colors or table
frames or some special characters. It did do intra-file
links from the table of contents though. Looks like its
released under some sort of free licence.

Thanks Theresa !

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body:
Jimbo wrote:
>This is really not a wikitech-l type of question, is it?

Well removing it is a technical issue... I didn't think its removal would be
contentious. Silly me, /everything/ is potentially contentious around here.

>I think this, or some variant of it, makes the most sense.
>If someone wants to donate, we shouldn't make it difficult
>for them to find, but it probably is better in the long run if
>we reserve that top slot for times when we really really
>need to shake the money tree.  :-)

That is why there has been, and always will be, a "Donations" link in every
sidebar and also under "About the Project" on at least the English Main Page
(not to mention the link in the contributing FAQ).  That is more than enough
for people who are spontaneously motivated to donate; a minimal amount of
looking will result in them finding a link to the Wikimedia fundraising page.
But hitting everybody over the head with it everytime they view a page would
tend, IMO, to dull the blow and result in less overall money generated than
if we only showed it during fundraising drives. It is also a bit annoying and
gives the impression that we are desperate for cash (thus we should be
judicious in such a prominant use).

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Multilingual?

body:
Delirium wrote

> Charles Matthews wrote:

> >It is being argued that xiangqi (Chinese chess) is appropriately labelled
> >'chess variant', when it predates chess and can't be a variant of it. So
> >it's like saying soccer is a 'gridiron variant'.

> Hmm.  In that case, can't we call it "similar to chess" or something of
> that sort, that allows us to both orient the reader who may be familiar
> with chess and unfamiliar with xiangqi, without making claims about what
> is a variant of what (especially wrong claims)?

http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_variant isn't a page that specially
bothers me; which is why I think it's an example to look at for some
principles.  The talk page debate airs the issues.  It was the final comment

"For better or worse, it is now set in the English language- the prevalent
language of the internet. There is nothing left to debate."

that got me.  The page is not good on xiangqi (the game of the Chinese
diaspora, by the way) and shogi, and doesn't even mention the Korean and
Thai versions.  Well, it's insensitive to make 'chess variant' include all
of those.

I hope it's clear why I find the progression

English language > majority vote > minority voices don't count > brusque
approach to cultural factors > dismissive tone to other cultures

objectionable.  Especially when the assumption (Internet is Anglo) is
spelled out.

Charles


subject: [WikiEN-l] Adolph

body:
Andre Engels wrote:
> So what would YOU advise those that are of the opinion that
>mentioning a misspelling is not a good idea to do? Just give up
>because there are some that think differently?

Giving up, or else forcing the other side to give in, should almost
never be necessary as long as everyone is reasonable.  In the case in
question, I'd point out that Adolph/Adolf isn't so much a question of
misspelling, but of spelling variants, and that it's actually
interesting and valuable to know about it.

> > But in this case, Adolph/Adolf, I don't see how it's appropriate to
> > just revert.

> Which basically means that you DO choose side in this
>debate. Because one side can do nothing but revert, while the other
>can choose a different wording every time.

Is that really all that the other side can do?  There's *no
possibility* of compromise?  No concession that they could offer at
all?  The only reasonable way for the article to exist is to
completely and totally avoid the question altogether?

Really?  That's reasonable?

--Jimbo


from_name: Christopher Mahan

body:
--- Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> >This message:
> >  Find out how you can help support Wikipedia's phenomenal growth.
> >
> >should only be displayed when we are having a fundraising drive.
> >-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
>
> I think it should stay, but perhaps at the bottom of the page
> ordiinarily,
> but moved to the top during fundraising drives.
> Fred

I agree with Fred. I think it's important for people to realize right
away that they can help the project financially. It also answers the
question I get when I show the W to aquaintances: "Where's the catch,
they can't be doing this for free."
Then I usually start talking about Open Source and Free Beer and
people-helping-people, and their eyes glaze over.

This way, I say: "here, they are a non-profit, Send a buck."

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

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subject: [Wikitech-l] xml-rpc access to W

body:
Anybody given thought to making a xml-rpc interface to the W?

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

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Multilingual?

body:
Charles Matthews wrote:

>Delirium wrote
>
>>Charles Matthews wrote:
>>
>>>It is being argued that xiangqi (Chinese chess) is appropriately labelled
>>>'chess variant', when it predates chess and can't be a variant of it. So
>>>it's like saying soccer is a 'gridiron variant'.
>>>
>>Hmm.  In that case, can't we call it "similar to chess" or something of
>>that sort, that allows us to both orient the reader who may be familiar
>>with chess and unfamiliar with xiangqi, without making claims about what
>>is a variant of what (especially wrong claims)?
>>
>
>http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_variant isn't a page that specially
>bothers me; which is why I think it's an example to look at for some
>principles.  The talk page debate airs the issues.  It was the final comment
>
>"For better or worse, it is now set in the English language- the prevalent
>language of the internet. There is nothing left to debate."
>
>that got me.
>
Although I agree with what is included in the broad category of chess
variants,. (I was active in the debate in April 2002.) I do not endorse
the kind of "shut-up" statement that you find objectionable.
 Nevertheless, it is only a talk page comment, and the latitude for what
people say on the talk pages is much wider than in the articles
themselves.  I also note the absence of any proposals from you to solve
the problem on that page.  This is a clear case of a discussion that
should be happening on that talk page.

>The page is not good on xiangqi (the game of the Chinese
>diaspora, by the way) and shogi, and doesn't even mention the Korean and
>Thai versions.  Well, it's insensitive to make 'chess variant' include all
>of those.
>
Nobody's stopping you from adding the Korean and Thai versions, and I
doubt that they will meet with any serious objections.  The argument
that you raise is about accepting these as variants at all, and not
about what belongs in the list of "variants" of this class.  As to
whether the page is "good on xiangqi", there is no need for wide
elaboration on the page.  As long as there is a link to the proper page,
it suffices to identify it as a game which had parallel development in
China.

I tend to take a broad interpretation of the word "variant".  For me it
is not limited to derivatives of FIDE chess, but includes games with a
parallel development in other parts of the world.  They may very well be
polyphyletic, rather than descended from some single "proto-chess"

>I hope it's clear why I find the progression
>
>English language > majority vote > minority voices don't count > brusque
>approach to cultural factors > dismissive tone to other cultures
>
>objectionable.  Especially when the assumption (Internet is Anglo) is
>spelled out.
>
I believe your approach is hyper-sensitive.  You are objecting to one
person's opinion away from that talk page, before anyone has responded
to it there.  Perhaps no-one will, which in turn may indicate that the
comment isn't worth a response.

So, when speaking of cultural insensitivities, my impression is that a
large segment of Wikipedians do make a serious effort to speak in a
culturally sensitive manner.  Some don't.  That which you complain about
on the [[Chess variants]] page is very mild in comparison to other
things that I have read.  In other places calling certain behaviour
"culturally insensitive" would be the epitome of euphemism.

Ec


from_name: Fantasy at joachim.net

subject: [Wikitech-l] Image database

body:
Hi all,

I would like to go on with the "Central Image Database" for all
Wikipedias.
Could you please comment the example I tried to set up at this page:
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiImages.org#Examples_(to_understand_the_proposal)
to see if we are on the right way?

Thanks for your comments,
Fantasy :-)


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Adolph Hitler

body:
J. Noel Chiappa wrote:

>     > From: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
>
>     >> I don't think we need to record misspellings, otherwise we can get
>     >> stuck up with every variant typo, incl. Jospeh Goebbels.
>
>     > If a misspelling gets 70,000 hits on Google it deserves a brief
> mention.
>
> No, if a mis-spelling gets 70,000 hits it deserves a *redirect*. A name
> variant only deserves a mention in the article if it's one that people
> actually consciously use (e.g. Rameses/Ramesses).

70,000 hits + multiple appearances in print authorities should get a mention
in the article ("commonly seen as Adolph, although technically incorrect").
Wikipedia should address frequent errors, not try to pretend they don't
happen.  That doesn't mean all errors need this treatment - for instance,
"Adlof Hitler" gets 310 hits, but I'll be so bold as to say there is not
a single
person in the world that would consider this to be anything but a typo;
indeed, even Google's software automatically offers me to search on the
corrected name.

Stan


subject: [WikiEN-l] Adolph

body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>>From: Poor, Edmund W
>>
>>
>>Cunctator,
>>
>>I hope you are not referring to "NPOV" as a "poorly defined term of
>>art", because Jimbo and Larry have defined it with precision and
>>clarity. And I just gave a short and "excellent" summary of it earlier
>>this week :-)
>>
>
>You may think it was defined with precision and clarity, but I think
>that the definition a horrific, self-contradictory mess. And I've said
>so for a long time now.
>
Shoot, that must mean it's not unanimous. :-) Is there a place I should go
to see a summary of your critiques, keeping in mind that I've only been here
10 months and have no direct experience of the older battles?

Stan


body:
Christopher Mahan wrote:
>I agree with Fred. I think it's important for people
>to realize right away that they can help the project
>financially. It also answers the question I get when
>I show the W to aquaintances: "Where's the catch,
>they can't be doing this for free."

That is why there is a donations link in the sidebar.
It is prominent yet it isn't obtrusive (the 'support'
message is under the article title and is thus part of
the article - that's obtrusive). We can afford to be
obtrusive only when we are having an official
fundraising drive. Otherwise we, at worst, annoy
people and, at best they start to ignore the message
(try saying the same word over and over and over again
- after a while you can't remember what the word
means).

Fundraising drives are supposed to be a bit annoying
and attention getting, but that's fine because they
are only held a handful of times a year. Last time I
checked we were not in such dire straights to require
a constant fundraising drive. Do you want us to give
the impression that we are desperate for cash?

Another way people can get to the donation page is
through a link to the foundation's homepage under the
logo of every project. It would say "A [Wikimedia]
project". [Wikimedia] would be a link to
http://wikimediafoundation.org (which in turn has
prominent statement asking people to consider donating
and a "Donate Now" link in the sidebar). Then there
would be an indirect link to the donation page at the
top of every sidebar and a direct one at the bottom of
every sidebar.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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body:
--- Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> That is why there is a donations link in the sidebar.
> It is prominent yet it isn't obtrusive (the 'support'
> message is under the article title and is thus part of
> the article - that's obtrusive).
[snipped a lot /]
> -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

I agree. The article section should be for the article.

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

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from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Adolph

body:
Andre,

I can understand this makes no sense to a German speaker, I spoke to one
last night and asked them if they could guess two ways to spell Adolf
Hitler and they couldn't.  But in English it is simply an alternative
spelling.

Fred (Frederick, Fredrich)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Downloading Wikipedia (was: please help me)

body:
Axel Boldt wrote:

> Our customer here was only interested in math articles, and a download
> of the whole Wikipedia probably wouldn't even have been attractive
> for him. So a web site with a static version of Wikipedia that is open
> to programs like Webstripper would also be a good thing.
>
> Actually, I'm sure that once we offer ready-made HTML trees for
> download, someone somewhere will set up such a site.

This brings back the issue of classification and categorization schemes
(which I think Magnus was working on).  Of course, I get gunshy when
people turn that into a debate about censorship.  Certainly the tool
that such schemes give us can also be used to effect censorship.
 Similarly those who oppose gun control will say that guns have more
uses than just shooting people.

I very much support a broadly inclusionist Wikipedia with as few rules
as possible for what it allows.  At the same time I support multiple
classification schemes, and am not troubled at all by the notion that
someone might develop a highly censored subset of Wikipedia.  If someone
wants to set up a subset that would exclude all articles that have the
word "and" it would seem goofy, who am I to complain as long as it does
not compromise the inclusionist nature of the overall project?

In the past I've tended to support one classification scheme, but really
there's no reason not to have multiple classification schemes.  All we
would need is a way to distinguish which scheme is being used.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] [[Moon]] and [[Impressionism]]

body:
>    Please tell me how I can get my emails to post properly in the mailing
>list. It appears that they are not using wordwrap.    ----   Could
>somebody explain Wik's reversions to me, he continues to refuse to
>explain his edits in any manner which makes sense to me. I am trying to
>avoid  edit wars; but, the flipside is that the community needs to become
>more active.  I personally believe he is reverting things solely because I
>entered  them, and I would like this to be addressed. Even if he does
>think of a reason  to revert, I think he is coming up with the reason
>after reverting -- his  primary motive, imo, is to revert.
>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Moon&diff=0&oldid=1736025
>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Impressionism&diff=1724861&oldid=1724
>827   While my edits are not perfect, and they should be edited, I don't
>feel  such edits should be reverted. I believe that both the above are
>excellent  examples of what I do here on the wiki -- the vast majority of
>my edits are of  this caliber -- so please, either criticize me or Wik;
>somebody is in the wrong  here.

I suggest you avoid editing anything Wik edits until something gives. Pass
this on to others for awhile. You are not the little Dutch boy;

Fred


body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>>Could somebody explain Wik's reversions to me, he continues to refuse to
>>explain his edits in any manner which makes sense to me. I am trying to
>>avoid  edit wars; but, the flipside is that the community needs to become
>>more active.  I personally believe he is reverting things solely because I
>>entered  them, and I would like this to be addressed. Even if he does
>>think of a reason  to revert, I think he is coming up with the reason
>>after reverting -- his  primary motive, imo, is to revert.
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Moon&diff=0&oldid=1736025
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Impressionism&diff=1724861&oldid=1724827   While my edits are not perfect, and they should be edited, I don't feel  such edits should be reverted. I believe that both the above are
>>excellent  examples of what I do here on the wiki -- the vast majority of
>>my edits are of  this caliber -- so please, either criticize me or Wik;
>>somebody is in the wrong  here.
>>
>
>I suggest you avoid editing anything Wik edits until something gives. Pass
>this on to others for awhile. You are not the little Dutch boy;
>
Sound advice in this case, and Adam is right that there should be more
community involvement on this.  I think that Adam/Lir has made genuine
efforts to live down his past reputation.

Wik seems to be carrying on like the "friend" that keeps offering drinks
to the reformed alcoholic.

Ec

>


from_name: Adam [name omitted for privacy reasons]

body:
Please tell me how I can get my emails to post properly in the mailing list. It appears that they are not using wordwrap.

----

Could somebody explain Wik's reversions to me, he continues to refuse to explain his edits in any manner which makes sense to me. I am trying to avoid edit wars; but, the flipside is that the community needs to become more active. I personally believe he is reverting things solely because I entered them, and I would like this to be addressed. Even if he does think of a reason to revert, I think he is coming up with the reason after reverting -- his primary motive, imo, is to revert.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Moon&diff=0&oldid=1736025
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Impressionism&diff=1724861&oldid=1724827

While my edits are not perfect, and they should be edited, I don't feel such edits should be reverted. I believe that both the above are excellent examples of what I do here on the wiki -- the vast majority of my edits are of this caliber -- so please, either criticize me or Wik; somebody is in the wrong here.
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 4, Issue 49

body:
John Merrall wrote:

>>70,000 hits + multiple appearances in print authorities should get a
>>
>mention
>
>>in the article ("commonly seen as Adolph, although technically
>>
>incorrect").
>
>??? This seems like a problem of transliteration.
>
Not really.  That would be the case if we were talking about Russian or
Greek.  The last time I looked German and English used the same
alphabet.  (...or is it alfabet?) :-)

>I know I'd be annoyed if I went to all the
>trouble of suspending democracy, starting war, killing 20 million people
>and wrecking Europe, and some German Encyclopedia 60 years later went and
>bolluxed my name up as "Hans". :-)
>
You'd think that after suspending press freedoms, the newspapers would
finally be able to get this right. :-)

>This Wikipedia thing is starting to look like it has the same problems as
>rec.org.mensa. I hope it's just a few people who would rather hear the
>sound of their own voice than try and agree on anything.
>
I have to accept that one thing we have in common with them is a lot of
precocious genius. :-)


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] Adolph

body:
> From: Andre Engels
> "Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com> schrieb:
>
> > Voting on the content of articles is not something that I think is
> > generally helpful, since it tends to lead to a lot of carping about
> > what the result of the vote actually means.
> >
> > Rather than voting one way or the other, a better approach is for
all
> > sides to work towards creatively accomodating the other people
working
> > on the article.
>
> Which is a method that also doesn't work. People just talk and talk
and
> talk until one side decides they're tired of the whole thing and gives
up.
>
> > In general, let's say the vote goes 80%/20% on some specific content
> > issue?  To me, that says that the 20% side has conclusively
> > demonstrated that the article is _not_ NPOV.  NPOV requires (near)
> > unanimity.
>
> I think that's a ridiculous assumption. There can easily be near-
> infinitely many versions that are _all_ NPOV. And some prefer one,
others
> the other. There's more differences in opinion than just NPOV.
>
Ah, the problems with the use of a poorly defined term of art to guide
policy.

Andre, you forget that Jimbo defined what "NPOV" means, so if he says
that NPOV requires (near) unanimity, it must be so.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Adolph

body:
Cunctator,

I hope you are not referring to "NPOV" as a "poorly defined term of
art", because Jimbo and Larry have defined it with precision and
clarity. And I just gave a short and "excellent" summary of it earlier
this week :-)

Ed Poor


subject: [WikiEN-l] Blocked user: HeadCase

body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>>From: Poor, Edmund W
>>
>>Well, if you say so, I'll unblock him.
>>
>I just want to make it clear I have no idea whether or not HeadCase
>should be blocked or not. It's just that from how Ed described the
>situation, Ed should not have been the one to take such an action.
>
One thing to be said about Ed is that he has the courage to act quickly
in uncertain circumstances, but equally quick to acknowledge when he has
been in error, and to undo the damage that his error may have caused.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Adolph

body:
> From: Poor, Edmund W

> Cunctator,
>
> I hope you are not referring to "NPOV" as a "poorly defined term of
> art", because Jimbo and Larry have defined it with precision and
> clarity. And I just gave a short and "excellent" summary of it earlier
> this week :-)

You may think it was defined with precision and clarity, but I think
that the definition a horrific, self-contradictory mess. And I've said
so for a long time now.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Clarity and non-clarity of NPOV (was: Adolph)

body:
Well, clearly the NPOV is regarded by its creator and some of its
supporters as a model of clarity which shines a beacon of hope and
harmony over this dark and contentious world - while others regard it
with much less awe, e.g., "a horrific, self-contradictory mess".

Forgive me for using NPOV to defend NPOV :-)

Ed Poor


body:
> From: Poor, Edmund W
>
> Well, clearly the NPOV is regarded by its creator and some of its
> supporters as a model of clarity which shines a beacon of hope and
> harmony over this dark and contentious world - while others regard it
> with much less awe, e.g., "a horrific, self-contradictory mess".
>
> Forgive me for using NPOV to defend NPOV :-)
>
This exactly demonstrates how useless and unhelpful the definition of
"NPOV" is--for your above statement tells interested third parties
*absolutely nothing* about what NPOV is.

And I believe that the purpose of the NPOV policy is to guide people to
writing clear, informative and unbiased prose. As you've demonstrated,
it fails miserably to do so. It may result in superficially unbiased
prose, but it does not do a good job of encouraging clarity or conveying
information.


subject: [WikiEN-l] NPOV

body:
> From: Stan Shebs
>
> The Cunctator wrote:
> >
> >You may think it was defined with precision and clarity, but I think
> >that the definition a horrific, self-contradictory mess. And I've
said
> >so for a long time now.
> >
> Shoot, that must mean it's not unanimous. :-) Is there a place I
should go
> to see a summary of your critiques, keeping in mind that I've only
been
> here
> 10 months and have no direct experience of the older battles?

A brief summary of what I'd like to see as the policy:
1. The ultimate goal of Wikipedia is to be neutral and authoritative.
2. All claims made in Wikipedia should be confirmable by outside
sources.
3. For contentious issues, provide the reasoning behind the antagonists'
contentions.
4. Recognize that neutrality is impossible to achieve without
omniscience.
5. Eliminate ambiguity. (Make as strong claims as possible.)
6. Celebrate terseness. (If another entry says the same thing, link to
it. Don't say it twice if possible.)

So: When given the choice of two equivalently confirmable statements,
one which is "X says A is true and Y says B is true" and the other which
is "X and Y agree C is true; they contend on D", choose the latter. Then
rewrite that as "C is true; X and Y contend on D and this is why".

Since it's just about impossible to search the mailing list archives, I
can't easily point to comments I've made there, which critique the "X
said A and Y said B" way of solving any problem with bias.

But the following links contain some older critiques of the policy,
mainly of the LMS version.

From
http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk%3ANeutral_point_of_view

I love the implicit meta-debate going on here, which is whether or not
it's possible to avoid bias. That it isn't is the cornerstone of
postmodern philosophy. LMS's position is based on the presumption that
it's possible to be unbiased. However, I understand what he means. He's
really talking about the avoidance of certain forms of bias. The
"neutral point of view" is something of a better approach. That said, I
too encourage "unbiased" articles. But one thing that does is encourage
overuse of words like "usually" and "most", etc. etc. If entries have
such vague qualifiers, then they should either be rewritten in a way to
eliminate the ambiguity, or the ambiguity shouldn't have been added in
the first place. Wiki, like other encyclopedias, does have an inherent
bias: that of authoritativity. Which I think is good. People should be
unable to argue with the content of entries, but because they're
authoritative, not because they're wishy-washy.

That said, I largely agree with LMS, though I think biased material has
a place in Wikipedia, sometimes under Wikipedia commentary. For an
example of another approach, see the OS Advocacy page.

http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPOV_is_an_ideal

http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_commentary/Responses_to_How_to_B
uild_Wikipedia%2C_Understand_Bias


from_name: John Merrall

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: <wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org>
To: <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2003 3:12 PM
Subject: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 4, Issue 49

> I tend to take a broad interpretation of the word "variant".  For me it
> is not limited to derivatives of FIDE chess, but includes games with a
> parallel development in other parts of the world.  They may very well be
> polyphyletic, rather than descended from some single "proto-chess"

So, as one person suggested, why not start the "Chess" article by
mentioning that there are several different types of Chess, played all
throughout the world, that they have certain similarities, and that
there's no agreement as to whether there may or may not be a single
proto-chess; and then make the main "Chess" article a jumping off point
with links to Chess (Western) (or whatever its name is) and the other
types of Chess, so each type has its own article?

> 70,000 hits + multiple appearances in print authorities should get a
mention
> in the article ("commonly seen as Adolph, although technically
incorrect").

??? This seems like a problem of transliteration. Is it spelled Adolf in
German? Then why not make "Adolf Hitler" the article, with a automatic
redirect from "Adolph Hitler"? I know I'd be annoyed if I went to all the
trouble of suspending democracy, starting war, killing 20 million people
and wrecking Europe, and some German Encyclopedia 60 years later went and
bolluxed my name up as "Hans". :-)

> Well, clearly the NPOV is regarded by its creator and some of its
> supporters as a model of clarity which shines a beacon of hope and
> harmony over this dark and contentious world - while others regard it
> with much less awe, e.g., "a horrific, self-contradictory mess".

I've only just stumbled into the Wikipedia world, so maybe I'm ignorant of
everything - but shouldn't simple reporting of recorded historical fact
fix most of the battles going on? Propagandizing does seem to be a problem
on your website (e.g. the Danzig and Silesia messes), but isn't it easier
to avoid by simply leaving out all value-judgments and strictly reporting
things that really exist?

This Wikipedia thing is starting to look like it has the same problems as
rec.org.mensa. I hope it's just a few people who would rather hear the
sound of their own voice than try and agree on anything.


subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: NPOV

body:
> From: John Merrall
>
> I've only just stumbled into the Wikipedia world, so maybe I'm
ignorant of
> everything - but shouldn't simple reporting of recorded historical
fact
> fix most of the battles going on? Propagandizing does seem to be a
problem
> on your website (e.g. the Danzig and Silesia messes), but isn't it
easier
> to avoid by simply leaving out all value-judgments and strictly
reporting
> things that really exist?

Yes. Fortunately we can rely on the pool of perfectly accurate,
non-propagandizing, value-judgmentless historical references to do so.

Oops, they don't exist.

I think it's fair to have as a general principle that Wikipedia by and
large reflect the consensus truth of what is historical fact rather than
aggressively choose what it considers right, but that doesn't mean that
the consensus truth is necessarily accurate.

And discounting "wacko" disputes, most of the problem articles are on
topics in which there is currently huge dispute, such as the
Israel/Palestinian situation.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Blocked user: HeadCase

body:
Nathan Russell wrote:

> To quote Sesame Street, everyone makes mistakes.  Personally, I see
> Uncle Ed as a mentor.

Oh!?  Now we need somebody to teach us how to make mistakes? :-P

Ec


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Blocked user: HeadCase

body:
I blocked user:HeadCase for blanking my talk page and using profanity.

Coincidentally (?) this was just after Pakaran speculated that
user:Illuminati is a reincarnation of Khranus.

Anyway, I'm probably going to go off-line in the next half hour and take
my usual weekend off from Wikipedia.

Let me know if I'm still a sysop on Monday...

Your un-Entish friend,
Ed Poor