from_name: Adrenalin

body:
It's a shame for us to see our language written in cyrillic, our
language have a latin provenance and even if USSR/Russia have tried to
taught our latin based language to be written using cyrillic alphabet
after get the independence in 1991 we have switch back to the Latin
alphabet !
And after so many years(14 years i think is enough) we see on the
worlds biggest free encyclopedia what some one thought what moldovian
language are still written ussing cyrillic alphabet ?

If you'll take the ip of the ppl who have doing mo.. you'll see what
no one are from Moldova, they must be from Russian and maybe from the
separatist Transnistria.

And who the hell on the main wikipedia page(http://www.wikipedia.org/)
have written OUR name language using cyrillic ? "????????????" ? I
just can't believe !
Or you on wikipedia don't have any rules ? Anyone can come to you and
write the name of some language in whatever mode he want ?

I'm sure I'm not the last one who will complain about this, you'll
have more and more protests.

Moldovian language are written using latin alphabet. If you want to
create a new language, DON'T USE MO INITIALS ! DON'T USE OUR NAME !
Don't misinform the international community about our language.
(and i don't care who first start mo.wikipedia, if you use mo initials
then respect the language rules, that's all.)

On 12/3/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> Salut Adrenalin,
>
> Wikipedia is not about what is official and what is not. It's about
> what is really happening.
>
> Yes, it's the truth that most Moldovans use the latin alphabet. That's
> why the sitenotice for mo.wiki says "Daka preferatzi sa vizualizatzi
> Wikipedia yn alfabetul latin, alfabetul oficial din riepublika
> maldova, vizitatzi wikipedia yn romyna."
>
> But it is undenyable that some people rather write in Cyrillic.
>
> M.
>
> On 02/12/05, Adrenalin <adrenalinup at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >From ISO-639 to MO code are assigned the Moldovan language.
> > In constitution of Republic of Moldova are written what the official
> > alphabet are latin.
> >
> > http://xiv.parlament.md/en/legalfoundation/constitution/t1/
> > "Article 13
> > The National Language, Use of Other Languages
> >
> > (1) The national language of the Republic of Moldova is Moldovan, and
> > its writing is based on the Latin alphabet."
> >
> > How is that possible what the moldovian language what are officially
> > based on the Latin alphabet, is writted ussing cyrillic alphabet ?
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>
> --
> "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [Foundation-l] Enforcing WP:CITE the Soi case

body:
Ridicule? No. I am simply disappointed that you can even make such a
statement. It shows me that we have very radically different ideas about what an
encyclopedia is. Providing correct information is not something I am willing to
compromise. I had hoped that this sentiment was shared by all of Wikipedia's
editors and contributors.

Danny

In a message dated 12/3/2005 10:46:04 AM Eastern Standard Time,
gerard.meijssen at gmail.com writes:

Hoi,
Why, you ridicule what I have said and I give a deserving  answer. You
replied to a lengthy reply, I gave plenty of arguments. And  this is all
you take out of it? You do not go into the arguments that were  given.
>From my perspective in your previous post you had nothing to  say.
Thanks,
GerardM

daniwo59 at aol.com  wrote:
>
> If that is the attitude, then I really have  nothing more to say here.
>
> Danny
>
>  In a message dated 12/3/2005 10:34:43 AM Eastern Standard Time,
>  gerard.meijssen at gmail.com writes:
>
> Hoi,
> Yes it is.  Other sources can be wrong as well and as I  mentioned before
>  you would kill the goose that lays the golden  eggs.
>  Thanks,
> GerardM
>
>
> daniwo59 at aol.com   wrote:
>
>>
>> Is it too much to  ask that contributions to  Wikipedia be correct? That
is
>> news to   me.
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing  list
foundation-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-


list: wikimedia-l


subject: [Foundation-l] Sources and sourceability

body:
This is certainly a step in the right direction.

In a message dated 12/3/2005 10:55:06 AM Eastern Standard Time,
2.718281828 at gmail.com writes:

A  layered suggestion:

Step 1 : Strongly promote the current  recommended footnote system:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Footnotes

Step 2 : Strongly  encourage the use of proper full cites:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Template_messages/Sources_of_articles/G
eneric_citations

Step  3 : Add software features making each of these easier : add localizable

strings for each field-name for cites and footnotes; then add 'footnote'  and
'cite' buttons to the edit toolbar; provide "footnote" markup that  handles
autonumbering; add a keyboard-shortcut for footnoting; add  footnote- and
citation-aware menu options to WP browser  plugins.

Step 4 : Work on unifying "References"/ "Citations"/  "Sources"/
"Bibliography"/
"External link[s]"/ "Further reading" style at  the end of each article.

Step 5 : Add separate 'references' pages for  every article.  These pages
should
include: the date the article was  created; the date of the last non-minor
edit;
the list of users, ips, and  flagged-bots that have edited the article; a
list
of sources and other  references that had been added at some point to the
article; even a clear  list of metadata about the article
(protection/pov/cleanup/quality-  assessment status).

Step 6 : Add a namespace/project to store the  best-known information about
every source used on any project, including  user comments and trackbacks to
articles referencing each source.   (Optionally: seed this project with
OpenCat
content.)

Step  6.5:  Add a wikitext feature like "{{cite:ISBN 0518274822|pp 12-23}}"
which would subst: in the details of that work in proper citation  format.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wikicite


list: wikipedia-l

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Why MO.wikipedia. - Moldovan,
	are written in cyrillic ?

body:
And if you'll ask why we(moldovian ppl) don't start mo for ourself,
it's because it doesn't make sens, moldovian language is the same as
romanian language, it would be just ridiculous to copy content from
ro.wikipedia.

On 12/3/05, Adrenalin <adrenalinup at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's a shame for us to see our language written in cyrillic, our
> language have a latin provenance and even if USSR/Russia have tried to
> taught our latin based language to be written using cyrillic alphabet
> after get the independence in 1991 we have switch back to the Latin
> alphabet !
> And after so many years(14 years i think is enough) we see on the
> worlds biggest free encyclopedia what some one thought what moldovian
> language are still written ussing cyrillic alphabet ?
>
> If you'll take the ip of the ppl who have doing mo.. you'll see what
> no one are from Moldova, they must be from Russian and maybe from the
> separatist Transnistria.
>
> And who the hell on the main wikipedia page(http://www.wikipedia.org/)
> have written OUR name language using cyrillic ? "????????????" ? I
> just can't believe !
> Or you on wikipedia don't have any rules ? Anyone can come to you and
> write the name of some language in whatever mode he want ?
>
> I'm sure I'm not the last one who will complain about this, you'll
> have more and more protests.
>
> Moldovian language are written using latin alphabet. If you want to
> create a new language, DON'T USE MO INITIALS ! DON'T USE OUR NAME !
> Don't misinform the international community about our language.
> (and i don't care who first start mo.wikipedia, if you use mo initials
> then respect the language rules, that's all.)
>
> On 12/3/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Salut Adrenalin,
> >
> > Wikipedia is not about what is official and what is not. It's about
> > what is really happening.
> >
> > Yes, it's the truth that most Moldovans use the latin alphabet. That's
> > why the sitenotice for mo.wiki says "Daka preferatzi sa vizualizatzi
> > Wikipedia yn alfabetul latin, alfabetul oficial din riepublika
> > maldova, vizitatzi wikipedia yn romyna."
> >
> > But it is undenyable that some people rather write in Cyrillic.
> >
> > M.
> >
> > On 02/12/05, Adrenalin <adrenalinup at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >From ISO-639 to MO code are assigned the Moldovan language.
> > > In constitution of Republic of Moldova are written what the official
> > > alphabet are latin.
> > >
> > > http://xiv.parlament.md/en/legalfoundation/constitution/t1/
> > > "Article 13
> > > The National Language, Use of Other Languages
> > >
> > > (1) The national language of the Republic of Moldova is Moldovan, and
> > > its writing is based on the Latin alphabet."
> > >
> > > How is that possible what the moldovian language what are officially
> > > based on the Latin alphabet, is writted ussing cyrillic alphabet ?
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>


list: wikien-l

from_name: Cormac Lawler

subject: [WikiEN-l] The difficulty of retaining volunteer writers

body:
On 12/3/05, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/2/05, Carbonite <carbonite.wp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 12/2/05, Poor, Edmund W <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
> > > By defending SlimVirgin against what FuelWagon HIMSELF conceded
> > > was an "accusation" (his words), I find myself hauled before the
> > > arbitration committee.
> >
> > For what its worth, FuelWagon has now turned Jayjg's ArbCom candidate
> > question page into his own personal battleground. FuelWagon's
> > "questions" span five sub-sections, have dozens of diffs and are filled with
> > endless rhetorical statements. However, this doesn't even begin to compare
> > with the 16 section response to his RfC a while back: (
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/FuelWagon_2).
> >
> > Ed's right, the system's not working here.
> >
> I want to describe some of what FuelWagon has been doing so that
> people can see how hard it is to deal with this within the existing
> dispute-resolution structure.
>
> FuelWagon has been harassing Ed and myself, and a couple of others to
> a lesser extent, since July. It started because I blocked him for 3RR
> and then because I made a copy edit he didn't like of an article he
> had edited a lot. He responded with a stream of invective and
> talk-page disruptive, which Ed blocked him for, and that made Ed his
> victim too.
>
> I hate to think how many personal comments he has posted about Ed and
> me since then, but it amounts to thousands of words. He filed an RfC
> against me, which was deleted because he failed to show prior efforts
> at dispute resolution. He promptly copied and pasted it into his user
> subspace, so that he can still link to his various claims. He also
> created an "attack page" on me, where he makes a note of anything I do
> that he feels he can use against me. Carbonite opened an RfC against
> him, but he hijacked it and turned it into another attack page. He
> tried to intervene in the arbcom case against Ed, writing to Jimbo to
> have it re-opened when it had closed, then tried to have some kind of
> black mark put on Ed's mediation record.
>
> It has been very upsetting to be on the receiving end of it. I tried
> ignoring him, responding with reason, responding firmly. I stayed away
> from pages he edits, but he stalked me to pages I edit and began to
> revert me, so that I had to either let him have his own way, or get
> into a revert war with him and look as bad as he is.
>
> It changed the whole way I interact with people on Wikipedia. I found
> myself becoming sharper with people than I had previously been,
> because I was on edge all the time. I felt embarassed at having
> someone pursue me with accusations, because most people looking at it
> will think there's no smoke without fire. And yet when I tried to
> correct some of what he was saying, I ended up looking as silly as
> him, so mostly I had to let him get away with it.
>
> Several editors and admins have intervened and tried to persuade him
> to stop, including Ed Poor, Ann Heneghan, El C, Carbonite, Jayjg,
> Bishonen, Willmcw, Marskell, Aaron Brenneman, Mel Etitis, and
> Viriditas.
>
> FuelWagon's response was that he would leave me alone if I did 12
> things that he listed on his talk page
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:FuelWagon&oldid=25272763#ideal
> including that I make, in the "first-person narative [sic] form" an
> unqualified and unconditional apology in relation to the copy edit he
> didn't like, and he listed the various talk pages that the apology had
> to be posted on. He had a similar list of apologies that Ed had to
> make before he'd be satisfied.
>
> He also teamed up with other known trolls like Zephram Stark, Marsden,
> and Vizcarra, so that a gang of people began to pursue his various
> victims.
>
> I've resisted taking this to the arbcom because he will turn it into a
> circus, and also because I couldn't face going through all the diffs
> and having the whole thing repeated yet again. I've been on the verge
> a couple of times of writing to Jimbo for help, but didn't because
> that puts him on the spot. I've also been on the verge of leaving, but
> I don't want to let someone like that drive me away.
>
> Now, because Ed Poor recently blocked FuelWagon for three hours over a
> personal attack on me, FuelWagon has seized his chance and has taken
> Ed to the arbcom, where he will hold court for several weeks, perhaps
> several months, and all the allegations will have to be responded to.
> The only way I can defend Ed now is to present the case that I've not
> been able to face putting together. It's probably going to take me a
> week or more to put all the diffs together in a way that gets the full
> force of his behavior across without being unreadable for the
> arbitrators.
>
> There has to be a better way to deal with users like this. For
> example, we could set up a small committee of experienced editors, a
> subcommittee of the arbcom and subject to the arbcom's jurisdiction,
> whose job it is to identify when a user is trolling, stalking, or
> harassing, and we give that committee the power to deal with it there
> and then, using blocks of increasing length for each instance of it. I
> know this has drawbacks (accusations of cabalism), but I feel the
> benefits would greatly outweigh them.
>
> Sarah

Is a "better way" to deal with this not to allow arbitrators to
proactively take cases, as opposed to waiting for cases to come to
them? If this situation is as you say it is, Sarah (and i feel like
believing you rather than trawling through these evidence pages), then
the damage that has been done will only continue throughout the
process of arbitration. If arbitrators were to take and act on cases
that they can see are being destructive, then they could make and
delegate rulings with the collective force of a group (as opposed to
the actions of one or two admins) in the way they feel appropriate,
without having to have a long, drawn-out process that can be turned
into a "circus". This is a dangerous suggestion, I know, but I felt I
should make it.

Cormac


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Sources and sourceability

body:
Brian wrote:

> Michael Snow wrote:
>
>> SJ wrote:
>>
>>>> When you talk about "cite sources" never ever put it into
>>>> connection to people editing and adding contents - it must be seen
>>>> as something separate - many people are not able to "separate"
>>>> things themselves they will combine and make something different
>>>> out of all this.
>>>
>>> What does this mean?  How can citations be separate from adding
>>> content?
>>> Only the person adding a fact actually knows where it came from;
>>> other people can do nothing but guess.
>>
>> Why does it matter where it came from? Except in cases where you're
>> dealing with a primary source and it's essential to check the
>> original, the choice of sources is just as subject to editing as the
>> content. If I add content and cite a pathetically bad source, the
>> source does not need to stay in the article even if it happens to be
>> right (if it happens to be wrong and represents a significant point
>> of view might be another matter). Other people can find other and
>> often better sources even if they're unable to determine what the
>> initial source was, and if the case involves a primary source then
>> the information inherently points to where you need to look.
>>
>> Many people don't seem to understand this and think there's some kind
>> of rule that once a source has been used in the writing of an
>> article, it must be cited or preserved in a References section for
>> all time. Even normal scholarly practice doesn't require this (else
>> probably most Wikipedia articles would need to cite other Wikipedia
>> articles as references), and we in particular should be able to get
>> past such limited ways of thinking. One of the virtues of our
>> collaborative system is that there is very little need to try and
>> divine the intent of an original author, and we needn't be beholden
>> to that person in terms of choosing sources either.
>
> On the contrary, any published books, such as.... Encyclopaedia
> Britannica, has every single one of the its facts checked against each
> individual source. This is a requirement of the publisher, and of the
> company. They don't make their sources public, so we have to trust
> them, but because they have checked each fact, it is usually alright
> to trust them. We, on the other hand, by default are accepting new
> information without any sources.

Perhaps I wasn't quite clear. I was addressing the separability of
citations from content, but I wasn't suggesting removing source
citations unless you're replacing them with better sources.

--Michael Snow


from_name: Brian

body:
Michael Snow wrote:

> SJ wrote:
>
>>> When you talk about "cite sources" never ever put it into connection
>>> to people editing and adding contents - it must be seen as something
>>> separate - many people are not able to "separate" things themselves
>>> they will combine and make something different out of all this.
>>
>>
>> What does this mean?  How can citations be separate from adding content?
>> Only the person adding a fact actually knows where it came from;
>> other people can do nothing but guess.
>
>
> Why does it matter where it came from? Except in cases where you're
> dealing with a primary source and it's essential to check the
> original, the choice of sources is just as subject to editing as the
> content. If I add content and cite a pathetically bad source, the
> source does not need to stay in the article even if it happens to be
> right (if it happens to be wrong and represents a significant point of
> view might be another matter). Other people can find other and often
> better sources even if they're unable to determine what the initial
> source was, and if the case involves a primary source then the
> information inherently points to where you need to look.
>
> Many people don't seem to understand this and think there's some kind
> of rule that once a source has been used in the writing of an article,
> it must be cited or preserved in a References section for all time.
> Even normal scholarly practice doesn't require this (else probably
> most Wikipedia articles would need to cite other Wikipedia articles as
> references), and we in particular should be able to get past such
> limited ways of thinking. One of the virtues of our collaborative
> system is that there is very little need to try and divine the intent
> of an original author, and we needn't be beholden to that person in
> terms of choosing sources either.

On the contrary, any published books, such as.... Encyclopaedia
Britannica, has every single one of the its facts checked against each
individual source. This is a requirement of the publisher, and of the
company. They don't make their sources public, so we have to trust them,
but because they have checked each fact, it is usually alright to trust
them. We, on the other hand, by default are accepting new information
without any sources.

By listing our sources, we will become more trusted than even
Encyclopaedia Britannica, who, though sourcing all their facts, doesn't
make their sources public.

As for the often-repeated "anyone can fake a source" or "this will put a
false trust in sources".... Please stop and think about how ridiculous
this statement is, for the simple reason that: before you can even check
the validity of a source, you need that source to be listed. You can't
check the validity of unsourced information unless you go out and find
sources for it. Listing sources does that job for you, but the sources
still need to be checked for validity. That is the job of the reader who
wants to know if he can trust our information.

Please, everyone, stop this paranoia. Any scheme that would involve
_visually_ identifying unsourced information would be a SETTING that
users can turn on or off.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
I don't see that as what Gerard's saying at all.  We absolutely do need
to improve the quality and accuracy of information, but not to the point
that it becomes an obsession.  Failing to provide sources can leave the
accuracy of an article in doubt, but it does not imply that it is
necessarily wrong.  We need to develop a culture of accuracy based on
the positive view that providing references makes an article better, and
not the negative view that we need it because of the consequences of
some kind of rule enforcement.

One can look at the wiki as some kind of multilevel mental Mandelbrot
with different aspects being at different levels of development.  The
pattern repeats itself on individual articles, in broad areas, in sister
and other language projects, and in the project as a whole.  If over
some time period 20% of articles will achieve proper referenced status
you can't specify two out of any given ten will be happily improved.  At
the same time new stubs will be born somewhere else.  It's all in the
Zen of wiki growth.

Ec

daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:

>Ridicule? No. I am simply disappointed that you can even make such a
>statement. It shows me that we have very radically different ideas about what an
>encyclopedia is. Providing correct information is not something I am willing to
>compromise. I had hoped that this sentiment was shared by all of Wikipedia's
>editors and contributors.
>
>Danny
>
>In a message dated 12/3/2005 10:46:04 AM Eastern Standard Time,
>gerard.meijssen at gmail.com writes:
>
>Hoi,
>Why, you ridicule what I have said and I give a deserving  answer. You
>replied to a lengthy reply, I gave plenty of arguments. And  this is all
>you take out of it? You do not go into the arguments that were  given.
>>From my perspective in your previous post you had nothing to  say.
>Thanks,
>GerardM
>
>daniwo59 at aol.com  wrote:
>
>
>>If that is the attitude, then I really have  nothing more to say here.
>>
>>Danny
>>
>> In a message dated 12/3/2005 10:34:43 AM Eastern Standard Time,
>> gerard.meijssen at gmail.com writes:
>>
>>Hoi,
>>Yes it is.  Other sources can be wrong as well and as I  mentioned before
>> you would kill the goose that lays the golden  eggs.
>> Thanks,
>>GerardM
>>
>>
>>daniwo59 at aol.com   wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> Is it too much to  ask that contributions to  Wikipedia be correct? That is
>>>
>>>
>>>news to   me.
>>>
>>>


body:
Walter van Kalken wrote:

> daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
>
>>
>> Is it too much to ask that contributions to Wikipedia be correct?
>> That is  news to me.
>>
>> Danny
>>
> There is a difference between an entry being correct and someone
> having to defend every letter of it.

Britannica has to defend every letter of it before they can get
published. The same is true for all other major encyclopedias. Why
wouldn't it be true for us? Aren't we trying to make an encyclopedia here?


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Angela

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: [Foundation-l] about China block

body:
On 12/3/05, shi zhao <shizhao at gmail.com> wrote on foundation-l:
> China users have can used IP in Florida.  only Seoul IP block. But still
> cannot just aceess wikimedia site.
>
> [[zh:user:shizhao]]

Forwarding to Wikitech.

A related post, which might help to explain this is
<http://zh-wikipedia.blogspot.com/2005/12/blog-post.html> (also on the
wiki-zh mailing list, but the archives don't display it properly)

Google translation:
"This blockade, only was blocks locates Korean and USA'S  server IP
Now this kind of situation had the transformation, USA'S server IP
address already may visit, at present only has Korean the server
cannot visit. But the question lay in the now possesses the Asian user
the visit all aims Korea's server, therefore the mainland China user
still could not directly visit wikipedia, still needed only then to be
able to visit through the establishment proxy."

Angela.


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
On 03/12/05, Field Nothing <fieldtheory2 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> To Mark Williamson aka Node_ue,
>
> >>Wikipedia is not about what is official and what is not. It's about
> >>what is really happening.
>
> I'm sorry but what IS happening in Moldova? I've moved to Moldova in 1991
> and I have NEVER seen romanian/moldovan written in cyrillic. And this is not

Where in Moldova? Chisinau? Did you visit, say, Bender/Tighina, or rural areas?

> the same as the usual "don't like it, don't watch it" TV kind of thing. MO
> is the ISO code for the official language in Moldova which is written using
> latin alphabet, therefore mo.wikipedia.org officially represents Moldova on
> wikipedia. Imagine someone visits mo.wiki, what does he see - the HORROR! a

Go to the Moldovan WP mainpage. It's a biscriptal portal.
http://mo.wikipedia.org/ Latin is placed first because it's official

> huge pile of mistakes (both in syntax and grammar), cyrillic alphabet, ugly

Despite the fact that (almost) everything there is copied from the
Romanian Wikipedia? Not our fault. I've fixed some spelling errors
from ro.wiki, but I'm not a grammar wizard by far.

> unfinished interface again in cyrillic, so what impression does one make of
> Moldova ?

It's not the "Moldova Wikipedia". Wikipedias are for LANGUAGES, not countries.

> Basically I see this as one man (yes, Node_ue - you are the only admin)
> running the show and not allowing anyone to edit (the main page is blocked,
> also no way to edit the interface). If you want to do it properly remove the

Go to _any_ WP, and you won't be able to edit the interface. That
privelage is restricted to admins. However, anybody is welcome to
comment on it, or suggest new translations or corrections to existing
ones.

The Main Page is locked because of vandalism, assuming you mean the
front main page (the biscriptal one), it's been locked for a while. If
you mean the Cyrillic mainpage (which is a link deeper), I just locked
it yesterday because over the past two weeks there was a sudden surge
in vandalism. I'd actually just unlocked it a few months prior because
I thought things had cooled down, and I was right. No vandalism until
just a couple of weeks ago, and even then it was sporadic, until the
last few days when it was really often.

> cyrillic pages, write everything in latin. Why don't you understand that you
> do is offending us. You don't know the language, you've never been to

Ahh, now I see what's going on here. You're a Romanian, presuming to
speak for Moldovans. Romanian / Moldovan is my mother tongue, I've
expanded on that at Talk:Main Page on mo.wiki a little, and on
Utilizator:Node ue at ro.wiki. I suggest you read both, or just the
first one, because otherwise you may come out with a wrong impression.
(I'm a guy, I didn't give birth to anybody, anywhere...)

> Moldova, you don't know the situation here, why are you running mo.wiki

Here? Now I'm more confused. Are you Moldovan? You said you went to
Moldova in 1991. Then later you said "offending us", so I assumed you
were Romanian (nobody from any other country would say "us" in that
situation). But now you say "here". So you _are_ in Moldova? Or what?
Please clarify.

> then, just to offend us ? At this point I see the site as making fun of

Again I see "us". The Kurdish Wikipedia has offended many Turks, as
evidenced by vandalism to it. But Kurdish is a real language used by
real people, so that Wikipedia stays. Likewise, SOME people, even
though they're not the majority, use Cyrillic for Moldovan. So that WP
stays.

> Moldova and the people of Moldova, creating the false impression that people
> use cyrillic and are generally illiterate.

It's not a false impression. In Transnistria/"St?nga Nistrului", the
official script for the language, as prescribed by the seperatist
gov't. Now of course you will object that I'm even worse now, because
I support human rights violations by the Transnistrian gov't, I must
be a  Smirnovist ex-KGB agent, etc., etc., I've heard it before. Well
I recognise that many would like to write in Latin. But the fact
remains that the majority of children going to mother tongue schools
in Transnistria, are learning in Cyrillic from bad textbooks. The hope
of mo.wiki is that these children can somehow access neutral and
accurate information in Cyrillic, as opposed to Soviet-style
propaganda. Obviously internet access is low (but not entirely
nonexistant) in Transnistria. But there is certainly the possibility
that a print version of WP could be smuggled in, or that it may even
be allowed by the Smirnov regime.

Beyond Transnistria, anybody who has spent some time in the Moldovan
countryside should know that many peasants know only Cyrillic, and
that some people (especially over 30) are more comfortable with
Cyrillic even if they can read Latin too. If you're a real Moldovan,
you should know that.

> Give us the control of mo.wikipage and please stop vandalizing our language!

I'm vandalising your language? How about, you're vandalising my
language? In the last few days, 3 people have attacked mo.wiki with
vandalism.

> I see romanian is not the only language you are having problems with, it's
> "undeniable" last time I checked my dictionary. That aside, what do you have

Go ahead and nitpick. Everybody makes spelling errors.

> to back up your affirmation, I live here, I see the situation, I haven't
> seen anyone writing anything in cyrillic romanian/moldovan. And an important

You live there? I thought you just visited in 1991? I'm beginning to
doubt the veracity of your story due to contradictory statements.

> note is that we don't have something like "Moldovan language" in schools,
> the course is called "Romanian language/Limba Romana", we don't even have a
> "History of Moldova" it's "History of Romania".

So now you live in Moldova? I thought you said you visited in 1991?
Again, please clarify.

Mark

--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Hoi,
Being expert is not necessarily a bad thing. It is a bad thing when it
makes you think that you are necessarily better. If you think that being
expert is being superior, I think Larry is looking for experts for his
project. If you think that being expert means that you can resolve
problems amicably by finding sources to show some truth/worth in
arguments, then I share the sentiment that it is not a bad thing. The
proposals that I have seen so far are largely a reaction to some nasty
business in a major American newspaper. When your argue for due
diligence and showing sources particularly when it concerns living
people, I am all for it. The current proposals are in my opinion an
overreaction and if adopted will kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Again, consider who we are, where we came from. Again consider that
sources do not tell the whole truth but only a particular point of view.
Using expertise and sources as a weapon it will not help us find a
neutral point of view. It will certainly not find us the truth as in the
whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Thanks.
    GerardM

daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
>
> And is being expert necessarily a bad thing?
> .
>
> In a message dated 12/3/2005 3:14:14 AM Eastern Standard Time,
> gerard.meijssen at gmail.com writes:
>
> And  indeed, we would drive many people . I understand a wish for sources
> but  by putting red boxes and what have you around  what has not been
> sourced  you make us into something what we are not. We would   be as
> expert as what Larry Sanger wants in his new project.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Enforcing WP:CITE the Soi case to Danny

body:
Walter van Kalken wrote:

> daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
>
>>
>> Ridicule? No. I am simply disappointed that you can even make such a
>> statement. It shows me that we have very radically different ideas
>> about what an  encyclopedia is. Providing correct information is not
>> something I am willing to  compromise. I had hoped that this
>> sentiment was shared by all of Wikipedia's  editors and contributors.
>> Danny
>>
>>
> Yes this sentiment is shared Danny. But it is like Sabine said. In
> many cases you just know things. You simply forgot where you heard
> them. Also many things are sourced only in languages other than
> english. I have already seen an article on en.wikipedia deletion list
> which was put on there because it was not considered to have had a
> source. Its source was a German text which was linked! And a Dutch
> wikipedia article. This wasn't considered enough because it was not
> English. So if I put up a Thai source in Thai would it be accepted as
> sourced?
>
> Some things are just common knowledge. I would much rather see a
> wikipedia editor, especially a trusted one as a source in some cases.

Just because you have identified possible exceptions to the rule doesn't
mean the whole thing should be thrown out. There are always exceptions
which are more difficult to work with. The fact that some sources aren't
in English doesn't mean all sources should be thrown out.


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Foundation-l] Translators needed for fund drive

body:
The next Wikimedia fund drive will start on Friday 9 December and will end on Saturday 31
December. There is no specific goal, but we would like to at least cover the budget for the rest
of this year and the first quarter of next year. That means we need at least $500,000.

I therefore encourage all language communities to help make this drive a success by translating
the fund drive documents and placing fund drive notices on their wikis when the drive begins.

The translation coordination page is here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q4_planning/Translations

The General coordinate page is here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q4_planning

Thank you for any help you can offer. :)

Daniel Mayer,
Wikimedia CFO

__________________________________
Start your day with Yahoo! - Make it your home page!
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs


subject: [WikiEN-l] Translators needed for fund drive


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Translators needed for fund drive


body:
Lars Aronsson wrote:

>Brian wrote:
>
>
>
>>On the contrary, any published books, such as.... Encyclopaedia
>>Britannica, has every single one of the its facts checked
>>against each individual source. This is a requirement of the
>>publisher, and of the company.
>>
>>
>
>This is an interesting statement.  What sources do you have for
>your description of how the editors of EB work?  Has this been
>documented in public?
>
Danny originally brought this fact up because he is writing a reference
book as part of a series of books to be published. Every single one of
the statements he made in the book had to have a source. He said it took
several months for every one of his facts to be checked against every
single source. This is how it works in the world of publishing. We have
simply side-stepped this out of laziness, in my opinion.


from_name: SJ

body:
On Sat, 3 Dec 2005, Michael Snow wrote:

> SJ wrote:
>
>>> When you talk about "cite sources" never ever put it into connection to
>>> people editing and adding contents - it must be seen as something separate
>>> - many people are not able to "separate" things themselves they will
>>> combine and make something different out of all this.
>>
>> What does this mean?  How can citations be separate from adding content?
>> Only the person adding a fact actually knows where it came from; other
>> people can do nothing but guess.
>
> Why does it matter where it came from? Except in cases where you're dealing
> with a primary source and it's essential to check the original, the choice of
> sources is just as subject to editing as the content. If I add content and

Don't misunderstand me; I mean that the original author can fairly effortlessly
add a line about his/her source; whereas the next reader to come along will
have to do significantly more work to find a relevant source and cite it.

Of course sources need to change, early sources should be replaced by better
ones, etc.

(On the other hand, if weh ave a separate sources page for each article,
it will be easier to cleanly see the history of sourcing -- which will also be
a good thing)

> to try and divine the intent of an original author, and we needn't be
> beholden to that person in terms of choosing sources either.

Yes, not beholden.  But when adding content, mentioning your source should be
second nature, for all contributors.  We should not try to 'separate' citing
from adding content.

SJ


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: yet another image lost for posterity

body:
On 12/3/05, Tom Cadden <thomcadden at yahoo.ie> wrote:
> This screwing up of articles has been bugging me for weeks, as has deletions without any notifications. I hear all the complaints about how time consuming it is contacting people and how few reply and how time consuming it is cleaning up articles. My response is simple: tough. If you want to delete images, you make sure you don't screw up things in the way you do it.

"Deletions without notifications" is a different thing than "deleting
images which are used by articles". I agree the latter should be
avoided and think it *generally* is.

As for the former, it seems more practical to reply "tough" as a
response as well. If you want a "fair use" image to stick around, make
sure it is used in an article correctly. I'm not sure what other
justification there can be in this respects. Images used in articles
are not generally deleted unless their tagging is as "fair use". "Fair
use" images have no right to exist, legally speaking, outside of
articles. It's really as simple as that.

FF


body:
SJ wrote:

>On 12/2/05, Brian <brian0918 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2005-December/005312.html
>>
>>I especially like the option to include "cited text" and "paraphrase".
>>So, as his sample image shows, we can essentially cite every bit of an
>>article, thus becoming as sourced as any published book or encyclopedia,
>>but better!.. because our sources are public, whereas with Britannica,
>>
>>
>That would be more sourced than most published books or encyclos.
>
>We can also track and show (as mouseover text?) the contributed-date
>and contributing-user for every word/set of words in an article.
>There are a few nuances in getting the attribution right, but we can
>at least offer a first-approximation without much work.  Figuring out
>how to effectively store and render that information, is another
>question...
>
"King Disrupters" do not thrive by shying away from ambitious projects. :-)

I haven't a clue about the technical feasibility of this idea.  Since
this seems like a move from the presentation of the world's knowledge to
the integration of the world's knowledge.  That would certainly
represent a fulfilment of freeing the world's knowledge in the sense
that Jimbo expressed in his Wikimania speech.  Every quantum of
knowledge would be connected with every other quantum of knowledge.

The first reference approximation involves nothing more than adding
broad references in a separate section near the end of an article.
Annotations or "foot"notes whcich relate to discrete segments of a text
are really a second approximation.  The main text must be readable to
the average reader whose interests do not require in depth study; having
unwanted pop-up mouse-overs does not endear the reader to any project.

As Gerard pointed out we also need to keep connected with the average
contributor, to who we already owe much.  He still has a lot to say and
a lot to offer.  We would be delighted if he could provide full
bibliographical support for his own material, but a more realistic
expectation would be a single link.  we don't want to fall into soome
new form of academic elitism.

I can now understand why some material may need to be kept unavailable
to the public through us. If we are going to connect everything that
must include copyright material which can only be caged in inaccesible
archives until it can be set free.

Ec


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikitech-l] J2ME Client for Wikipedia

body:
Carl Witty wrote:
> On Sun, 2005-11-27 at 02:39 -0500, S. Woodside wrote:
>
>> Wikipedia actually displays pretty well in mobile browsers.
>>
>
> Well, some mobile browsers, perhaps...it's quite broken on my Treo 650
>
Just get a MobiPocket static dump, or a TomeRaider one. Fulltext search
included.

Magnus


body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>--- Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Now here is the rub, when you insist that all our articles need to
>>provide sources, you will lose our stubs. You will make the composition
>>of the content different. When you only consider only the English or the
>>German language wikipedia you may be of the opinion that it has enough
>>content. For projects that are in its infancy like the Swahili Wikipedia
>>it would be a killer. It would be a killer because we do not have the
>>vibrant community that we wish for it.
>>
>>
>Smaller language versions of Wikipedia need to emphasize growth over quality, true. But larger
>language version (not projects! Wikipedia itself is a project) do not and would be greatly
>improved by requiring sources.
>
Source citations must eventually apply to all projects.  It's just a
matter of when or at what stage it is introduced.

>>It is indeed great to strive to be better than other encyclopaedias.
>>There biggest achievement is in the relevancy that they had in the past.
>>Encyclopaedias were the embodiment of knowledge. Many people grew up
>>with them and acquired knowledge that way. Wikipedia is young and its
>>relevancy is something that can only be judged in the future.
>>
>>
>And yet many millions of people are using the larger language versions of Wikipedia as reference
>sources RIGHT NOW. We have a responsibility to do what we can to increase the chances of actually
>serving them accurate content. Creating a culture of sourcing material to good references in the
>larger language versions of Wikipedia will help a great deal in that regard.
>
A sourcing culture is good, but it must not become a culture of panic
that requires every little bit to be sourced immediately.

Ec


body:
Brian wrote:

> Walter van Kalken wrote:
>
>> daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
>>
>>> Is it too much to ask that contributions to Wikipedia be correct?
>>> That is  news to me.
>>>
>>> Danny
>>
>> There is a difference between an entry being correct and someone
>> having to defend every letter of it.
>
> Britannica has to defend every letter of it before they can get
> published. The same is true for all other major encyclopedias. Why
> wouldn't it be true for us? Aren't we trying to make an encyclopedia
> here?

No, we're trying to be better. :-P

It's not a question of defence.  It's a question of mindsets and
attitudes.  It's a question of drawing people in and having them want to
belong.  It's not about adversarial structures that alienate people.  We
are on the same side when it comes to identifying the fundamental
problem that we want to solve.

Ec


body:
On 12/2/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I'm sick of the high turnover of good contributors too. We need to fix that if we want to
> encourage a productive work environment. This bullshit has got to stop so we can concentrate on
> creating the world's best encyclopedia. Openness is a means to an end. Nothing more. Crackpots,
> POV pushers, and trolls are not welcome.

And it does get tiring. Perhaps -- and only perhaps -- we have modeled
our "judicial" system too much on systems which are intentionally
meticulous; too much on an ideal society than on an internet
encyclopedia. There are some similarities, but the differences are
fairly broad -- the maximum penalty we can enforce is prohibition from
participation, pretty minor in the scale of life. The overriding goal
is NOT to make sure every dog has their day and that everybody gets a
"fair trial", but smooth moving of the site. I hate to say that it is
our primary goal to keep the trains running on time, but we're talking
about a website here, not Italy. Tilting the balance of "good faith"
in favor of 1. long-standing and valued contributors with good editing
records, and 2. towards a goal of expedited speed in decisions (with
the possibility of appeal, of course) rather than comprehensiveness in
assessment, might be a good thing.

What are the consequences? Both systems have a possibility of failure.
Both could potentially drive away good editors. However the retention
of long-term editors might be more afforded in the latter system, and
that might be a goal worth pursuing in and of itself.

FF


body:
Brian wrote:

> Walter van Kalken wrote:
>
>> daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
>>
>>> Ridicule? No. I am simply disappointed that you can even make such
>>> a  statement. It shows me that we have very radically different
>>> ideas about what an  encyclopedia is. Providing correct information
>>> is not something I am willing to  compromise. I had hoped that this
>>> sentiment was shared by all of Wikipedia's  editors and contributors.
>>> Danny
>>
>> Yes this sentiment is shared Danny. But it is like Sabine said. In
>> many cases you just know things. You simply forgot where you heard
>> them. Also many things are sourced only in languages other than
>> english. I have already seen an article on en.wikipedia deletion list
>> which was put on there because it was not considered to have had a
>> source. Its source was a German text which was linked! And a Dutch
>> wikipedia article. This wasn't considered enough because it was not
>> English. So if I put up a Thai source in Thai would it be accepted as
>> sourced?
>>
>> Some things are just common knowledge. I would much rather see a
>> wikipedia editor, especially a trusted one as a source in some cases.
>
> Just because you have identified possible exceptions to the rule
> doesn't mean the whole thing should be thrown out. There are always
> exceptions which are more difficult to work with. The fact that some
> sources aren't in English doesn't mean all sources should be thrown out.

What language a source is in shouldn't matter at all.  If you absolutely
need one in English then add it rather than treating a foreign language
source as inferior.

Ec


from_name: Sabine Cretella

subject:
[Foundation-l] Wikipedia ... but where are you going ...
 (was:Enforcing WP:CITE ...)

body:
Really today I wanted to write about my presentation in Cracow, the
feedback I got from "not Wikipedians" to the Wikimedia projects ... well
and now I just read a long list of e-mails on how to make Wikipedia an
encyclopaedia with "secure" information.

"Secure" information is a very POV thingie ... what is secure ...
written by people I believe? Written by someone I don't know whose
website or book is quoted? Hmmmm ... we already know that: all
encyclopaedias include errors. All books can contain wrong information.
Now when I presume that Mr Cancellor XYZ only because he is Mr. XYZ says
the truth I quote him and therefore I am "regular". Then there is that
person who read hundreds of books, websites, e-mails and whatsoever and
just "knows" but does not really recall where all the information he/she
has in the grey cells comes from, but knows that there are controversary
points about a theme, knows that what Mr XYZ says is not 100% ok, but
this is then considered as "insecure information" and therefore needs to
be discarded ... well ... ehm ... sorry ...

Then again: since I had to explain the basics about Wikipedia during the
conference I used two articles for reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nupedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia

Now what you are writing in all these mails (well those who are for
"citing") gives very much the expression of Nupedia and not Wikipedia
... where is freedom gone?
Then considering "Wikipedia" as it was wanted to be ... where is it
going? Into some kind of dead-end place for only academics and researchers?

Hmmmm .........

Let's consider translators: we have our specific subjects, but also
translate loads of general texts - this means when working we also learn
... well: we know loads of things, not only words ... so now a colleague
wants to write about a subject he/she knows really well ... but who of
us is able to recall where all the information we have in mind comes
from? I don't. So only because we are not able to remeber every single
source we read during our researches our information is less valid ...
hmmmm .... well .... for me this would mean: we are not going to
contribute anything since it does not make sense - it would be deleted
... or ... wait ... there is one thing that could be done ...

Take a dump of wikipedia, put it on a server and just go ahead editing
... great!!!! what an idea!!! Wikipedia showed how to do this in its
beginnings ... well what Wikipedia did can be done by anyone ... we are
talking about GFDL ...

Fine ... wonderful .... so just go ahead restricting contributors - go
into your dead-end position and you will see that Wikipedia will follow
Nupedia - and that someone considered a bit mad will just take over the
contents and allow people to edit like it was done up to now.

Well ... now you say: but newspapers criticise us ... and here I tell
you: whoever has success is being criticised - in the end: they are
making a huge compliment to Wikipedia - it became so huge and important
that it needs to be criticised ...

Come on: let them talk - let's just go ahead working without listening
to them doing our best. The day is not far and they will need to stop
because Wikipedia will show them that liberty and democracy survives any
attack.

Hmmm .....

Well ... think well about what you are doing to your dearest project and
don't repeat errors done in the past.

The Cracow-Conference follow up will come ... as soon as time permits.

*****
I just read Danny's message: you understand it like this, some other
people understand it like this, but what is going to come out is a huge
mess since the "citing is necessary" thingie will be interpreted in a
very wrong way ... try it out and you will see ... things like these
arleady happen - not for citing but for other "requirements".
*****

Have a great week-end!

Sabine

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


body:
>1. I am NOT saying that every fact in Wikipedia must be sourced or  removed.
>2. I am saying that every fact in Wikipedia should be SOURCEABLE.
>3. I am not saying that everyone must give their sources whenever they  edit.
>4. I am saying that we can encourage people to work on a project to find
>sources for each fact, just like we have encouraged people to fix commas or
>categorize stubs.
>5. I am not saying that people who cannot source should be discouraged from
>editing.
>6. I am saying that we should encourage people to find sources, for their
>own work and for other's work as well.
>7. I am saying that there are many different types of sources, and we  should
>find ways of including them. (BTW, in a previous job I worked extensively
>with oral histories, which are a wonderful source of information, even if they
>must always be verified).
>7. Finally, I am saying that high quality is NOT something we can  compromise.
>
>
Danny, I understand what you mean - I understood that even before - many
of us will understand this, but many others will not ... and the problem
will not be those who understand, but those who do not understand and
who apply "rules" in a different way. Do not misunderstand my mail - it
shall make people reflect on what might happen.

When you talk about "cite sources" never ever put it into connection to
people editing and adding contents - it must be seen as something
separate - many people are not able to "separate" things themselves they
will combine and make something different out of all this.

Ciao, Sabine

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


body:
Hoi,
"the quality of our contributions should be excellent" and "not only
experts should contribute". Your entry level is high. It is too high
because you insist on contributions to be unchallengeable. You wish for
us to be better than others, individually we are not. When we
collaborate we may be better than most. In order to have great content,
we first have to acquire it then some will check it, discuss it and
improve it. It may be annotated with sources we can sprinkle our magic
on it BUT it is an argument that we have had before..

Let me go over the same argument again: our content grows in quality and
quantity. When you look at it, the percentage of stubs is still more or
less the same but there are more of them. The percentage of stellar
articles stays the same and there are more of them. Some of our projects
have grown to the point where quoting sources is a done thing. A
percentage of articles provide their sources this percentage may be
growing but at some point it will stay the same.

Now here is the rub, when you insist that all our articles need to
provide sources, you will lose our stubs. You will make the composition
of the content different. When you only consider only the English or the
German language wikipedia you may be of the opinion that it has enough
content. For projects that are in its infancy like the Swahili Wikipedia
it would be a killer. It would be a killer because we do not have the
vibrant community that we wish for it.

Danny, indeed you are not saying that only experts should contribute but
you do insist that contributions should be excellent. Indeed we are not
a dumping ground nor are we a bulletin board and our history proves that
we are not. Now you cannot have it both ways. Either you accept that we
do our best and quoting sources is only an aspect of it or you insist on
perfection all round. So far we have never been perfect but we have been
striving for perfection. To me it sounds that Wikipedia is the product
of humans and fallible as a consequence. I think this is only to be
expected.

It is indeed great to strive to be better than other encyclopaedias.
There biggest achievement is in the relevancy that they had in the past.
Encyclopaedias were the embodiment of knowledge. Many people grew up
with them and acquired knowledge that way. Wikipedia is young and its
relevancy is something that can only be judged in the future. My opinion
is that the projects where we are best at present may not be the ones
where we will be most relevant. When we are able to develop Wikipedias
in languages like Kannada, Telugu or Bambara we will develop a resource
that may become comparable in relevancy to the encyclopaedias that we
want to improve upon.

Thanks,
    GerardM

daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
>
> Gerard,
>
> No one is saying that only experts should contribute. We are saying that  the
> quality of our contributions should be excellent. They should be
> unchallengable. They should be of the highest possible quality. They should be  better
> than other encyclopedias. After all, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a
> bulletin board or dumping ground. As a collaborative effort, we can achieve  that. X
> can add a fact, Y can provide a source, If there are a lot of sources,  we
> can even create separate source pages, and even have articles about those
> sources, as has been suggested. The sky is the limit. But under no circumstances
> should we compromise on our quality.
>
> Danny
>
> In a message dated 12/3/2005 7:46:13 AM Eastern Standard Time,
> gerard.meijssen at gmail.com writes:
>
> Being  expert is not necessarily a bad thing. It is a bad thing when it
> makes you  think that you
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>


body:
Brian wrote:

> Lars Aronsson wrote:
>
>> Brian wrote:
>>
>>> On the contrary, any published books, such as.... Encyclopaedia
>>> Britannica, has every single one of the its facts checked against
>>> each individual source. This is a requirement of the publisher, and
>>> of the company.
>>
>> This is an interesting statement.  What sources do you have for your
>> description of how the editors of EB work?  Has this been documented
>> in public?
>
> Danny originally brought this fact up because he is writing a
> reference book as part of a series of books to be published. Every
> single one of the statements he made in the book had to have a source.
> He said it took several months for every one of his facts to be
> checked against every single source. This is how it works in the world
> of publishing. We have simply side-stepped this out of laziness, in my
> opinion.

It's great that you trust Danny, but some would think that using another
Wikipedian as a reference source is not a good idea.  Now we just need
to bug Danny about his source for the specific question that was asked.
Good references need to be traceable.

Ec


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Upcoming edit page layout changes

body:
????????? ??????? wrote:
>> 2) A new message, MediaWiki:Edittools, is created which can hold those extended
>> character insertion boxes that some wikis use (currently hacked into the
>> copyright message).
>
> Can you add another message for character insertion boxes and
> javascript tools JUST BELOW textarea.

If you _really_ want it just below the textarea, you can slip it into the
copyright warning message. However that really ought to be short and sweet;
nonessential tools & gadgets should remain out of the way.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
>> When you talk about "cite sources" never ever put it into connection
>> to people editing and adding contents - it must be seen as something
>> separate - many people are not able to "separate" things themselves
>> they will combine and make something different out of all this.
>
>
> What does this mean?  How can citations be separate from adding content?
> Only the person adding a fact actually knows where it came from; other
> people can do nothing but guess.

No: if I can add things I do - but I must not add anything.

For example: I know loads of stuff because of my job, but I cannot give
you a source at once that confirms it - if I must research for that
source to contribute I simply will not contribute, since I have only a
certain amount of time. Someone else who knows a source that confirms it
can add it - otherwise: well you will need to rely on what I learnt
during the past 40 years ...

Whoever believes without asking in something written ... well ... if I
do a research on a certain topic I do not only believe what is written
in one encyclopaedia (take Brockhaus and Treccani - they sometimes
differ a bit), but I have a look at other sources as well ... so what I
learnt comes out of reading many, many books, letters, questions and
answers, e-mails, websites, notes, whitepapers and whatever - all is
somewhat related and confirmed. I know that I can rely on it - certainly
I am not even able to research again all what I learnt only during the
past 10 years (and I am not willing to do it - it would be like saying
to a professor: when you give lessons you need to show me where you
learnt your lessons and where what you say is confirmed).

Ciao, Sabine

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


subject:
[Foundation-l] Wikipedia ... but where are you going
	...	(was:Enforcing WP:CITE ...)

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> --- Sabine Cretella <sabine_cretella at yahoo.it> wrote:
>
>> Fine ... wonderful .... so just go ahead restricting contributors - go
>> into your dead-end position and you will see that Wikipedia will follow
>> Nupedia - and that someone considered a bit mad will just take over the
>> contents and allow people to edit like it was done up to now.
>>
>
> Requiring people to add references does not needlessly restrict them. It improves the content. We
> are here to serve a goal; create the world's largest and best free encyclopedia. Adding references
> helps us toward that goal.
>
> Nupedia was on one end of the spectrum and Wikipedia is on the other. Nupedia died because it was
> too restrictive. Wikipedia needed to be very open in order to encourage growth. That was fine when
> we were small and hardly anybody knew of us or used our content. Now things have changed; millions
> of people use Wikipedia every month and expect it to be accurate. Requiring references helps us
> attain higher quality.
>
When you start *requiring *references, you will move from one side of
the spectrum to the other end of the spectrum. Having a blind belief in
references is as bad as not referencing at all. The references you come
up with are probably English and you cannot truly appreciate sources in
other languages. Your ideas about Wikipedia are about the English
Wikipedia. This is the Foundation mailing list and as a consequence I
take it that you want to have references on all Wikipedia projects.
Again it is a sure way of killing off our less mature projects.
>
>
>> Come on: let them talk - let's just go ahead working without listening
>> to them doing our best. The day is not far and they will need to stop
>> because Wikipedia will show them that liberty and democracy survives any
>> attack.
>>
>
> We are already famous, so bad press is simply bad (esp right before a fund drive). But beyond
> that, this particular incident showed a place where our review system failed and failed badly.
>
> If we required references, then somebody from RC patrol would have tagged the the offending
> article as unsourced and subject to eventual deletion. That tells readers to not at all trust what
> is in that article and encourages editors to check the article and add references. I see nothing
> wrong with that.
>
> Like it or not we are being used as a major reference source. Readers rely on us to be accurate.
> Adding references helps us do that.
>
> -- mav
When we are so famous, why is it that maybe 3% of the Italians know
Wikipedia .. Why do you think we have so few resources where we could
make a difference.. We may be relevant in English but with a similar
resource in Kannada, or Osetian we would be truly relevant. We would be
relevant because we would define a genre.

I am sorry but in my opinion this whole thing is too inward looking. You
do not appreciate the potential fallout of all this.

Thanks,
    GerardM<


body:
Hoi,
Yes it is. Other sources can be wrong as well and as I mentioned before
you would kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.
Thanks,
    GerardM

daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
>
> Is it too much to ask that contributions to Wikipedia be correct? That is
> news to me.
>
> Danny
>
> In a message dated 12/3/2005 10:04:30 AM Eastern Standard Time,
> gerard.meijssen at gmail.com writes:
>
> It is  too high
> because you insist on contributions to be unchallengeable.


body:
>Now things have changed; millions
>of people use Wikipedia every month and expect it to be accurate. Requiring references helps us
>attain higher quality.
>
>
not here ... up to now in a place with 6000 people not one knew
Wikipedia - I am NOT kidding.

>
>
>
>>Come on: let them talk - let's just go ahead working without listening
>>to them doing our best. The day is not far and they will need to stop
>>because Wikipedia will show them that liberty and democracy survives any
>>attack.
>>
>>
>
>We are already famous
>
??? really??? only in a certain part of the world with certain users -
the rest of the world does not even know what a wiki is - nor do they
know what the foundation is.

And I am talking not only about the place where I live (Maiori, Italy)
... I gave a presentation on Wikipedia during a conference in Cracow and
had to start at the very beginning - and found many highly instructed
people asking what that wikipedia was that they find in Google every now
and then on the first place when searching for contents.

>, so bad press is simply bad (esp right before a fund drive). But beyond
>that, this particular incident showed a place where our review system failed and failed badly.
>
>
It is one case ... things have been corrected as soon as the error was
seen ... well, where's the problem? The best answer to such an article
would have been: well if you knew that it was wrong, and you know what
Wikipedia is, why do you make such a huge problem out of this: simply
correct things - you could have done this - so it is not us who are
wrong, but the person who "did not correct" knowing how Wikipedia works
and "officially" believes in equal chances and whatever ... use these
critics in the right way - that's all.

>If we required references, then somebody from RC patrol would have tagged the the offending
>article as unsourced and subject to eventual deletion. That tells readers to not at all trust what
>is in that article and encourages editors to check the article and add references. I see nothing
>wrong with that.
>
>
So now I write about the "Chiesa del Carmine" (Church of the Carmine)
here in Maiori - where there is no official documentation - all I know
is from what people of Maiori told me. It was the place where dead
people after the floods in the 50's were collected ... the first person
who told me this was my mother in law, then I asked some other old
people of the town who confirmed - so this can be believed, but there is
not one ressource that states that it is true. And since this cannot be
proofed to be true with whatever reference it would be deleted. Well,
great ... Wikipedia would have been the first place where to publish
this information - like you request it, it would not be possible - so
first of all I am required to create a book somewhere else ... but this
would then make Wikipedia being not the unique reference for such
information. What about that?

>Like it or not we are being used as a major reference source. Readers rely on us to be accurate.
>Adding references helps us do that.
>
>
Well I like it being used, but it is not used enough - people don't know
Wikipedia. Readers who rely on only one source are not good readers ...
they are blind readers. And what if the references already contain that
error? The reference of the reference?

Hmmm ....

Ciao, Sabine

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


body:
Hoi,
Why, you ridicule what I have said and I give a deserving answer. You
replied to a lengthy reply, I gave plenty of arguments. And this is all
you take out of it? You do not go into the arguments that were given.
 From my perspective in your previous post you had nothing to say.
Thanks,
    GerardM

daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
>
> If that is the attitude, then I really have nothing more to say here.
>
> Danny
>
> In a message dated 12/3/2005 10:34:43 AM Eastern Standard Time,
> gerard.meijssen at gmail.com writes:
>
> Hoi,
> Yes it is. Other sources can be wrong as well and as I  mentioned before
> you would kill the goose that lays the golden  eggs.
> Thanks,
> GerardM
>
>
> daniwo59 at aol.com  wrote:
>
>>
>> Is it too much to ask that contributions to  Wikipedia be correct? That is
>> news to  me.


from_name: Walter van Kalken

body:
SJ wrote:

>On 12/2/05, Brian <brian0918 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2005-December/005312.html
>>
>>I especially like the option to include "cited text" and "paraphrase".
>>So, as his sample image shows, we can essentially cite every bit of an
>>article, thus becoming as sourced as any published book or encyclopedia,
>>but better!.. because our sources are public, whereas with Britannica,
>>
>>
>
>That would be more sourced than most published books or encyclos.
>
>We can also track and show (as mouseover text?) the contributed-date
>and contributing-user for every word/set of words in an article.
>There are a few nuances in getting the attribution right, but we can
>at least offer a first-approximation without much work.  Figuring out
>how to effectively store and render that information, is another
>question...
>
>
>
This idea is way way overdoing it in my opinion and would surely chase
people away. I feel for having citations moved elsewhere. I do not feel
every letter needs to be referenced only the most important facts.

On the "references" for the soi article. I read them, both pages. And
the article on wikitravel is : written by people like ourselves so how
can we use it as a reference? And second the article on wikitravel
definately contains wrong info. So I am going to remove that source.

The other source just shows how the word SOI is written in Thai. I do
not really feel the need that such a thing would need to be referenced.
But I will leave it in the article

Waerth/Walter


subject: [Wikipedia-l] language inheritance

body:
Thanks Ashar!

Mark

On 03/12/05, Ashar Voultoiz <hashar at altern.org> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Mark asked to change some language inheritances. So instead of
> defaulting to english we have:
>
> ab: av: ba: ce: & kv: inherit ru
>
> ii: & za: inherit from Zn_cn
>
>
> Note, avar already did:
>  qu: gn: and ay inherit from es
>  ty from fr
>
> For details:
>   http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3844
>
> cheers,
>
>
> --
> Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
> http://www.livejournal.com/community/wikitech/
> IM: hashar at jabber.org  ICQ: 15325080
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin


body:
You're being sarcastic, right?

Cheers
Mark

On 03/12/05, Arbeo M <arbeo_m at yahoo.de> wrote:
> Adrenalin wrote:
>
> > And who the hell on the main wikipedia page(http://www.wikipedia.org/)
> > have written OUR name language using cyrillic ?
>
> You are right. This is tactless towards the people of Moldova. It should
> be changed as soon as possible.
>
> Arbeo
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Gesendet von Yahoo! Mail - Jetzt mit 1GB kostenlosem Speicher
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin


body:
>>When we are so famous, why is it that maybe 3% of the Italians know
>>Wikipedia ..
>>
>>
>
>And it is OK for the other 97% of Italians to first hear about Wikipedia while reading a very
>negative review of it?
>
>
>
Well ... if you let negative articles do the marketing ... I do not
allow that ... I do talk to people about wikipedia, I print out
articles, I pass them around, I show them where it is useful, I give
articles to some of the kids that come to me get (printed) articles on
the subject they are studying at school, they take it to their teachers,
friends etc.

Anyone of us can do that - that is positive usage, positive marketing
... but if you believe newspapers who are only in search for scoops and
whatever will help us to become known ... well ...

Do you know of a reporter who likes to write about positive news? These
do not make scoop and do not make the reporter rich ... no ... so we are
the ones who need to be be positive reporters.

The 97% of Italians need to hear from us about wikipedia and not from
others ... and this is the way anywhere in the world.

We are the ones in charge - not newspapers, TV or whatever.

>>I am sorry but in my opinion this whole thing is too inward looking. You
>>do not appreciate the potential fallout of all this.
>>
>>
>
>And fallout from hosing libelous and inaccurate content is OK?
>
>
Well if you mean that any content without reference is inaccurate you
can already delete 97% of the articles that are around ... sorry ... and
this is like saying: people who contribute are inaccurate contributors.

I'd say 99% of all contributors do their best - with or without "adding
references".

>Adding references is not a panacea. But it is a very important part of checking the accuracy of
>content.
>
>
Well: so who likes to check things can go and add references - but
requiring it from anyone will have very negative results ... and this
will mean that many of the people I was just getting on becoming
interested in giving their expertise to Wikipedia will not be there ...
months of work for nothing ... these people have years of expertise,
loads of knowledge, but like me: it will be impossible for them to give
sources since it is expertise that comes from many years of translation
work in different fields. They all, if/when they start, will start with
some kind of stub and need someone to take them by the hand ... the wiki
"language" (tags etc.) are not for anyone and often prevent people from
contributing.

Ciao, Sabine

___________________________________
Yahoo! Messenger: chiamate gratuite in tutto il mondo
http://it.messenger.yahoo.com


subject:
[Foundation-l] Wikipedia ... but where are you
	going	...	(was:Enforcing WP:CITE ...)

body:
Sabine Cretella wrote:

> Well ... if you let negative articles do the marketing ... I do not
> allow that ... I do talk to people about wikipedia, I print out
> articles, I pass them around, I show them where it is useful, I give
> articles to some of the kids that come to me get (printed) articles on
> the subject they are studying at school, they take it to their
> teachers, friends etc.
>
> Anyone of us can do that - that is positive usage, positive marketing

I would expect that all of us does do that.

> ... but if you believe newspapers who are only in search for scoops
> and whatever will help us to become known ... well ...

> Do you know of a reporter who likes to write about positive news?
> These do not make scoop and do not make the reporter rich ... no ...
> so we are the ones who need to be be positive reporters.

They know about this in the land that invented the word "paparazzi".

Ec


from_name: steven l. rubenstein

body:
This message was bounced back to me so I am resending it.  I do not know
what went wrong and apologize if I am just duplicating.

I do not want to go into details about FuelWagon's behavior, in part
because the list-serve is not going to make any decisions about how to
handle specific problems, and in part because trolls are tarbabies: good
editors respond in arithmetically increasing increments, and trolls respond
in geometrically increasing increments.  That said, it was enough for me to
look at FW's absurd and absurdly long list of conditions for resolving the
dispute with SlimVirgin to recognize the pattern.  I started going through
FW's list of "reckless" edits by Slim, and as far as I can tell this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Terri_Schiavo&diff=next&oldid=18613021
involved nothing more than adding a pdf identifier.  Why bother going on at
that point?  Yet I did, and saw that Neuroscientist had what seemed to be
several substantive, well-informed, and reasonable criticisms of some of
Slim's edits.  Slim provided what seemed to me to be an appropriate
response to Neuroscientist, and Neuroscientist's response,
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Terri_Schiavo&diff=next&oldid=18728860
was respectful and gracious.  If anything, this exchange between
Neuroscientist and Slimvirgin proves to me that it is possible for editors
with varying degrees of expertise and experience to handle conflicts in a
mutually respectful way.  FuelWagon's actions provide the starkest of
contrasts.

The reason I am writing is because I think the question of good editors
leaving is or should be a matter of central concern to us.  I think the
fundamental problem is this: we are growing at an incredible rate.  This is
on the surface a good thing: more articles covering more topics is a good
thing, and we certainly have come up with a number of articles that I
believe are of publishable quality.  For all I know, we are attracting just
as many new good editors as bad ones.  The problem with growth is this: a
troll, or set of trolls, has a much larger landscape on which to roam and
wreak havoc.  Consequently, it is often very difficult or at least
time-consuming for the victim of a troll to respond.  And it is even more
difficult and time-consuming for anyone else (an administrator, a member of
the ArbCom) to sort out what has been going on.  And it becomes very
tiring.  Eclecticology alluded to the benefits of dedicated administrators
taking a vacation, and of course he is right.  But if there were more
admins who took on the burden of corralling trolls, and more effective ways
of dealing with them, those admins would not need the vacation.  So to me,
the fact that admins even rely on vacations as a palliative means that the
damage trolls accomplish is somewhat greater than the healing or repairing
that administrators can accomplish.  No surprise: it is easier to break
things than to build them.

Ec also points out that sometimes admins are too harsh too hastily.  He is
correct that this does happen; I have done it.  But there are plenty more
times where I have addressed a newbie respectfully and the newbie
reciprocated in kind -- and plenty of times where I have addressed a newbie
with respect only to find myself stuck to the mess of tar trolls trail
wherever they go.

Anyone who has been here long enough knows that Ed Poor and I have had
plenty of heated comments.  But I have always regarded him as
well-intentioned and open to criticism and that enough is to make us all
concerned that he may feel harassed to the point of leaving (yes, Ed has
taken vacations in the past -- but in those cases he was reflecting on his
own faults or overinvestment in Wikipedia, not, to my recollection at
least, because someone was driving him out).  I have even gotten into
conflicts with SlimVirgin, although for the most part I have found it a
real pleasure to work with her.  I do not always agree with one of her
edits, but she is among the most reasonable people I have ever disagreed
with.  That she may feel besieged is more than a shame.  What Ed and Slim
are expressing make manifest a serious issue we should confront head on.

I have two propositions.  The first one is based on a premise some of you
may not share: I believe that experienced administrators can within two or
three days of dealing with someone tell the difference between a troll and
a non-troll (e.g. someone educable, or someone with whom we simply have
legitimate differences of opinion that need to be sorted out).  I have
never sat down to think, concretely, what it is that so clearly signals at
the earliest moment that someone is a troll.  But I think if a few of us
put our heads together, and revamp either the Wikipedia: Etiquette page, or
one of the other pages on personal behavior.  I think we can and ought to
come up with a set of clear diagnostic traits for trolls and have a very
clear policy page.  My intention is for there to be a set of guidelines
that helps us identify trolling at the earliest possible moment so we can
act on it before we end up in a situation where someone has to go through
hundreds of edits to prove a pattern of abuse.  I recognize that this is
not an easy task -- many of us, certainly I, have at times fallen short of
ideal personal behavior.  And, as Ec rightfully reminds us, there are many
Newbies that at first act inappropriately yet turn out to be great
contributors.  Perhaps we can come up with a hierarchy of rules and
guidelines -- one's at the bottom that non-trolls may even frequently fail
to comply with, but that characterize situations that are and have been
easily repaired, and one's at the top that are almost exclusively limited
to trolls.  I am as committed to the quasi-anarchic nature of Wikipedia as
anyone here.  But we already have guidelines about personal behavior: let's
make them clearer and more effective.  I think people who have served on
the ArbCom for starts would be a good group of people to at least develop
proposals.  Also, long-standing and well-regarded editors who have been
victims of harassment and trolling (but who have also gotten into conflicts
that were resolved in a positive way) should be well-suited to develop
proposals.

Second, Mav has stated "Admins need more authority to enforce all our
policies. But, and this is important, they should get other admins to do
the enforcement in cases that will likely be challenged."  I fully
agree.  Here is my proposal: if someone believes they are the victims of
trolling, that is, a pattern of unacceptable abuse by people who have
resisted compromise or dialogue, or who have clearly escalated a conflict,
there should be a specific page on all sysops' watchlists where they can
make a petition (with evidence, but at a much lower standard than the
ArbCom -- say, three examples that reveal a pattern of escalating
abuse).  If two (or, three) admins certify the petition, the harasser is
banned for one week.  If it happens a second time, the harasser is banned
indefinitely.  In both cases the accused harasser must have a means to
appeal the decision (I think to the ArbCom).  But the burden of proof in
these cases would be on the appellant, not on the petitioner.

Mav writes,
>I'm sick of the high turnover of good contributors too. We need to fix
>that if we want to
>encourage a productive work environment. This bullshit has got to stop so
>we can concentrate on
>creating the world's best encyclopedia. Openness is a means to an end.
>Nothing more. Crackpots,
>POV pushers, and trolls are not welcome.

I agree with him 100%.  It is time to act.

Steve

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


body:
The official languages of Transnistria/Transdniester/PMR are Moldovan,
Ukrainian, and Russian.

The sole official script of Transnistria is Cyrillic.

Moldovans and Romanians alike are outraged by this, not necessarily
because Cyrillic is bad in and of itself, but because they feel there
is no freedom of choice, and that Cyrillic is forced on people.

A few years ago, that was certainly 100% true; today it is true but
only to a certain degree.

Schools teaching in the Latin alphabet were closed. However, after
problems with Moldova over the issue and even international human
rights organisations, they allowed one or two of the schools to
reopen, but as private schools rather than governmental institutions.

The main Latin alphabet school in Tiraspol today is overcrowded. There
are not enough desks for all of the students, so some have to sit on
the floor. They are run by donations only because many of the students
could not afford the tuition of a private school.

The school buildings are decrepit and in need of repair, and in
obvious violation of any reasonable fire code.

However, the majority of students educated in Moldovan in Trasnistria
go to public schools where Cyrillic is taught. Many children whose
native language is Moldovan, are sent to Russian schools instead
because their parents feel it will give them an advantage in the
future.

Never for a minute in Transnistria has Latin been the regular alphabet
at any time in the last 70 years.

The.

But it remains that there are questionable happenings related to Latin
script in Transnistria.

Anyhow it's true that some people use Cyrillic. It's easier to be
allowed to read something in Moldovan in Transnistria if it's in
Cyrillic, supposedly, and another generation of children is growing up
with it, just like their parents before them.

Mark

On 03/12/05, ????????? ??????? <alexander.sigachov at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >>But it is undenyable that some people rather write in Cyrillic.
> >
> > I see romanian is not the only language you are having problems with, it's
> > "undeniable" last time I checked my dictionary. That aside, what do you have
> > to back up your affirmation, I live here, I see the situation, I haven't
> > seen anyone writing anything in cyrillic romanian/moldovan. And an important
> > note is that we don't have something like "Moldovan language" in schools,
> > the course is called "Romanian language/Limba Romana", we don't even have a
> > "History of Moldova" it's "History of Romania".
>
> But what about Transdnistria?
> As I know, they use Moldovan language (also Russian and Ukrainian) but
> use Cyrillic script.
>
> --
> [[m:user:ajvol]]
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin


body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> I don't see that as what Gerard's saying at all.  We absolutely do
> need to improve the quality and accuracy of information, but not to
> the point that it becomes an obsession.

This "obsession" is exactly what is required of print encyclopedias. How
are we an encyclopedia if we aren't held to the same standards?


body:
Sabine Cretella wrote:

> It is one case ... things have been corrected as soon as the error was
> seen ... well, where's the problem? The best answer to such an article
> would have been: well if you knew that it was wrong, and you know what
> Wikipedia is, why do you make such a huge problem out of this: simply
> correct things - you could have done this - so it is not us who are
> wrong, but the person who "did not correct" knowing how Wikipedia
> works and "officially" believes in equal chances and whatever ... use
> these critics in the right way - that's all.

The individual in question was not particularly notable.  It's not
surprising that no-one noticed the problems with the article.  The story
is plausible, but who are the people who would read about this guy?

>> Like it or not we are being used as a major reference source. Readers
>> rely on us to be accurate.
>> Adding references helps us do that.
>
> Well I like it being used, but it is not used enough - people don't
> know Wikipedia. Readers who rely on only one source are not good
> readers ... they are blind readers. And what if the references already
> contain that error? The reference of the reference?

To some extent readers have to take responsibility for what they read.
They are not responsible for what is wrong in an article, but they are
responsible for how it affects what they do in their own lives.
Critical thinking is more important now than ever.  When the people who
fail to read critically are in positions of power they can end up
starting wars in distant places.

Ec


body:
Delphine M?nard wrote:

>On 12/3/05, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
>
>
>>>Brian wrote:
>>>Britannica has to defend every letter of it before they can get
>>>published. The same is true for all other major encyclopedias. Why
>>>wouldn't it be true for us? Aren't we trying to make an encyclopedia
>>>here?
>>>
>>>
>
>I'm jumping in the train. There is a limit to what can be sourced, and
>what cannot. Not *every* word can be. But every fact *should* be
>sourced, in an ideal world, yes. I agree.
>
>
>
>>Wikipedia is based on mutual trust. I trust that you put valid info on
>>there. I ask you for the same trust. Now asking me to go and dig up were
>>the hell I learned some things in my 32 years on this planet is a bit to
>>much. If I actually research something especially for wikipedia I put
>>sources on there(which is most of my contributions) If I just happen to
>>know something I do not. You just have to trust my statement. Wikipedia
>>is based on trust! Now if you say you cannot trust me I have to put
>>about a 1000 articles on nl: and about 20 or so on en: on votes for
>>deletion.
>>
>>
>
>Quoting you : "Wikipedia is based on trust"
>
>Yes, and no.
>Yes, there are certain editors I trust, as we do all, and others I
>distrust. I will trust you on the Soi article, because *I* know you
>live there. In that, in my eyes, *you* are a known source. But where I
>trust you, there could (and should) be 20 editors who distrust you.
>Not because of you, because in fact, they don't know you, but because
>then they would go and look for opposing sources, or verifying sources
>to support the facts you put in your articles. And I think that is
>good.
>
>No, Wikipedia *should* not be solely based on trust. I think we,
>editors, are too often forgetting that *we* know to trust some people,
>but that readers, who never ever get to hit the "history" button,
>should not take us for granted,a nd that we should give them every
>possible means to verify that what is stated in an article is indeed
>verifiable.
>
> I remember when I did my first presentation of Wikipedia. The same
>question that comes up all the time came up that time also. "If anyone
>can edit, how can you trust". I was new to the whole thing, so I gave
>what I thought was the best answer at the time "Well, if *you* find a
>mistake, correct it, and there are xxx contributors who look at
>articles and do rc patrolling, etc."
>
>At that point a woman in the assistance got up and said "Well, I have
>an answer to this. I believe that the fact that Wikipedia *can* be
>distrusted is a good thing. In this world where so much information is
>given to us with no background, no distanciation, the fact that
>Wikipedia keeps people wondering is good, because it obliges them to
>go and find other sources, to diversify their views on one subject".
>
>That opened a whole different view on the projects to me.
>
>Mind you, I am not saying that we *should* have mistakes in the
>articles, on the contrary. But sourcing, which in my view is crucial,
>as Danny,Sj and Michael pointed out, should not be seen as having for
>sole role that of making Wikipedia look "better", (ie. we are right,
>that guy said it) but as our due to the readers. See for yourself.
>
>We are striving to write an encyclopedia, but by definition, we don't
>have it all. You, reader,  can trust us, because we can direct you to
>other sources where we got our information, but at the same time, you
>should see for yourself, and here is how you can do it, follow the
>link. And also, please, if you disagree, if we've got something wrong,
>by all means, add your source, and their point of view.
>
>Without sources, we pretend *we* are the source, and I believe that is
>wrong. We should be *one source* not *the source*
>
>Best,
>
>Delphine
>
Thank you for your statements. I agree completely with your reasoning.


body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>--- Sabine Cretella <sabine_cretella at yahoo.it> wrote:
>
>
>>requiring it from anyone will have very negative results ... and this
>>will mean that many of the people I was just getting on becoming
>>interested in giving their expertise to Wikipedia will not be there ...
>>months of work for nothing ...
>>
>>
>Again ; language versions at different stages of development need to follow different policies on
>this type of thing. The great majority of wikis will be better served by encouraging growth more
>than quality, but the ones that are already huge can afford to be a bit more picky. Once the other
>wikis get huge, then they could start to be more picky as well.
>
>
I believe that sourcing should be the norm al all projects, but with
each in its own time and way.

Mav's comments on this topic leave the impression that references do not
matter for many of the rest of us.  To the contrary, the one constant
that has tied the people in this thread together is that they believe
that references and citations are a good thing, and are trying to find a
solution that will accomplish this.  For some of us it is equally
important that we not forget our roots, and that we not allow a blind
obsession with references to obscure the positive features of the
project..  Let's not be too quick to punish people for failing to add
citations.

Ec


from_name: Field Nothing

body:
To Mark Williamson aka Node_ue,

>>Wikipedia is not about what is official and what is not. It's about
>>what is really happening.

I'm sorry but what IS happening in Moldova? I've moved to Moldova in 1991
and I have NEVER seen romanian/moldovan written in cyrillic. And this is not
the same as the usual "don't like it, don't watch it" TV kind of thing. MO
is the ISO code for the official language in Moldova which is written using
latin alphabet, therefore mo.wikipedia.org officially represents Moldova on
wikipedia. Imagine someone visits mo.wiki, what does he see - the HORROR! a
huge pile of mistakes (both in syntax and grammar), cyrillic alphabet, ugly
unfinished interface again in cyrillic, so what impression does one make of
Moldova ?

Basically I see this as one man (yes, Node_ue - you are the only admin)
running the show and not allowing anyone to edit (the main page is blocked,
also no way to edit the interface). If you want to do it properly remove the
cyrillic pages, write everything in latin. Why don't you understand that you
do is offending us. You don't know the language, you've never been to
Moldova, you don't know the situation here, why are you running mo.wiki
then, just to offend us ? At this point I see the site as making fun of
Moldova and the people of Moldova, creating the false impression that people
use cyrillic and are generally illiterate.

Give us the control of mo.wikipage and please stop vandalizing our language!

>>But it is undenyable that some people rather write in Cyrillic.

I see romanian is not the only language you are having problems with, it's
"undeniable" last time I checked my dictionary. That aside, what do you have
to back up your affirmation, I live here, I see the situation, I haven't
seen anyone writing anything in cyrillic romanian/moldovan. And an important
note is that we don't have something like "Moldovan language" in schools,
the course is called "Romanian language/Limba Romana", we don't even have a
"History of Moldova" it's "History of Romania".

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