subject: [Wikipedia-l] User watch

body:
Jaap van Ganswijk wrote:

>No it doesn't: Jimmy and Bomis may host it, but they don't
>own it. Or they should have made it more clearly when I
>joined it. I am the author of a site about chips and it's
>hosted by about 30 mirror sites. They own not one iota
>of the contents of what they mirror. My 'original site'
>is hosted on the server of a Dutch internet provider and
>it doesn't own any of the copyrights of my site.
>
>If Jimmy thinks he has certain rights I'd really like
>to hear about that.
>
Owning the site and owning the contents are two different things.  If he
really got pissed off he could always pull the server's power cord out
of the wall, and nobody could legally force him to put it back in.  If
it comes to that, and nobody has kept the data independently backed up
at a physically separate site, then that's the end of it.

Jimmy's royal prerogatives are not about dictatorship or being a control
freak, they're about finance.  Until a critical mass of Wikipedians have
shown the capacity to deal with the project's fiscal administration,
it's simply a reality whether we like it or not.  Such a state of
affairs obviously includes possible dangers to the project, but so do
other financing models .

>>Still, this is a little community, and communities generally need some rules and boundaries to keep people from feeling put-upon.  No one has any inalienable rights here, except the right (and perhaps the obligation) to leave if they don't like how things are done.
>>
>Is your real name perhaps: Eva Perron? Or Eva Braun?
>
>It's my oppinion that any matters of importance like
>those of politics, science, economics, philosophy
>should not be dicussed with women.
>
>One should never engage in serious discussions
>with women anyway. They are not genetically
>equiped for it.
>
Eva Peron was loved by her people.  Eva Braun is historically
insignificant.  It's unjust to put the blame for her husband's misdeeds
on her.

Comparing Julie to Eva Peron might even be a compliment.

Julie is a Wikipediholic, and we would love the opportunity to drink
with her without Genral Booth's Dutch minions banging bass drums in out
ears.

>But well, uhm, we guys, we like fighting, testing each other out,
>we will have to go hunt the next day to get the meat
>and we need to be able to rely on each other 100%.
>You women only have to dig up roots etc.
>
I thought that Holland was such a flat country that people didn't live
in caves anymore.


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: rose.parks at att.net

subject: [Wikitech-l] [Stephen.Thornton@mic.ul.ie: Popper Entry]

body:
Jimmy, Jason, and All,

     In case you are questioning the existence of Dr.
Thornton's article on Karl Popper, I can vouch for the
fact that it was published. I was one of the lead copy
editors. I believe that Cindy Seeley was the other.
Further, his member page
says in part:

          Stephen Thornton

Last update: 0000-00-00
Password: XXXXXX
E-mail: stephen.thornton at mic.ul.ie

Author, Lead reviewer, Copy editor info Editor, Peer
reviewer info

Author Karl Raimund Popper philogic

This is not a recent article either. It was published
possibly a year ago.

           As Ever,

            Ruth Ifcher

--

> Any ideas?
>
> ----- Forwarded message from Stephen Thornton <Stephen.Thornton at mic.ul.ie> -----
>
> From: Stephen Thornton <Stephen.Thornton at mic.ul.ie>
> Date: Mon, 9 Sep 2002 12:26:14 +0100
> To: "'comments at nupedia.com'" <comments at nupedia.com>
> Subject: Popper Entry
>
> Hi There,
>
> I'm the author of the Popper entry in Nupedia.com, and I haven't been able
> to access it for some time now.
>
> Can you shed any light on this?
>
>
> Regards,
>
>
> Stephen Thornton
>
> Dr. Stephen Thornton,
> Co-Ordinating Director of Postgraduate Studies in the Arts,
> Department of Philosophy,
> Mary Immaculate College (University of Limerick),
> South Circular Road,
> Limerick,
> Ireland.
>
> http://www.mic.ul.ie/
>
> Tel:  +353 61 204341
> Fax:  +353 61 313632
>
>
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at nupedia.com
> http://nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

subject: [Wikipedia-l] User watch

body:
At 03:08 AM 9/11/02 +0200, Jaap wrote:
>At 2002-09-10 16:54 -0700, Julie Hofmann Kemp wrote:
> >As for all the nasty comments about banning Helga -- well, first, this
> particular playground belongs to Jimbo and BOMIS
>
>
> >Still, this is a little community, and communities generally need some
> rules and boundaries to keep people from feeling put-upon.  No one has
> any inalienable rights here, except the right (and perhaps the
> obligation) to leave if they don't like how things are done.
>
>Is your real name perhaps: Eva Perron? Or Eva Braun?

I believe we have an article on [[Godwin's Law]]. Please read it.

>It's my oppinion that any matters of importance like
>those of politics, science, economics, philosophy
>should not be dicussed with women.
>
>One should never engage in serious discussions
>with women anyway. They are not genetically
>equiped for it.

If I said anything equivalent about men, you and lots of other people would be,
justifiably, up in arms.

If this is really your attitude, you are not mature enough to be working on
this, or
any, project with adults of any sex. If it isn't, I want an apology for the
insult. No,
it isn't funny. And saying you were only joking will not convince anyone of
anything
except that you don't have the guts to admit you said something stupid.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


from_name: Michael R. Irwin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] "genetically unequiped" women

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
>
> On Tuesday 10 September 2002 07:10 pm, Jaap wrote:
> > >It's my oppinion that any matters of importance like
> > >those of politics, science, economics, philosophy
> > >should not be dicussed with women.
> > >
> > >One should never engage in serious discussions
> > >with women anyway. They are not genetically
> > >equiped for it.
>
> On Tuesday 10 September 2002 07:10 pm, Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
> > If this is really your attitude, you are not mature
> > enough to be working on this, or any, project with
> > adults of any sex. If it isn't, I want an apology for the
> > insult. No, it isn't funny. And saying you were only
> > joking will not convince anyone of anything except
> > that you don't have the guts to admit you said something stupid.
>
> I agree. That is the second provocatively stupid thing I've hear Jaap say in
> the last few days - if for no other reason that it detracts from policy
> discussion and leads to unproductive posts (like the one I am making now
> simply to back up Vicki's point -- which wouldn't have been needed if the
> stupid comment wasn't made to begin with).

You are certainly one to critique Jaap.

I have not seen him attempt to initiate lynching
efforts by titling threads such as:

internet kook, etc.

You really think that is helpful when approaching
someone on behalf of the mailing list to ask that
they comply with predefined community customs,
rules, policies, etc.?

If provocatively stupid things are appropriate
then they are appropriate for all, if not
appropriate then they are not appropriate for
all.   Tis the American myth.

"With justice and liberty for all."

or

"With insults and intolerance for all."

Free advice follows, clearly worth nothing
because I am not a popular fellow at the
moment.

Pick your customs carefully.  You may
find yourself subject to them.

Regards,
Mike Irwin


subject: [Wikipedia-l] User watch

body:
At 07:58 PM 9/10/02 -0700, Michael Irwin wrote:

>Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
> >
> > At 03:08 AM 9/11/02 +0200, Jaap wrote:
> > > >As for all the nasty comments about banning Helga -- well, first, this
> > > particular playground belongs to Jimbo and BOMIS
> > >
> > >
> > >One should never engage in serious discussions
> > >with women anyway. They are not genetically
> > >equiped for it.
> >
> > If I said anything equivalent about men, you and lots of other people
> would be,
> > justifiably, up in arms.
> >
> > If this is really your attitude, you are not mature enough to be working on
> > this, or
> > any, project with adults of any sex. If it isn't, I want an apology for the
> > insult. No,
> > it isn't funny. And saying you were only joking will not convince anyone of
> > anything
> > except that you don't have the guts to admit you said something stupid.
>
>Actually, I got quite a laugh out of it.

You aren't the one being insulted.

>Relieved a lot of recent built up tension.  Might be an
>American blue collar trait which shares characteristics
>of the Netherland's history of commercial imperialism.
>OTOH I worked in a plywood plant in Oregon to finance my
>education, so I might just be a redneck.

Not a blue-collar/other distinction, I think, so much as that it's much easier
to find insults funny when you aren't the one being insulted.

--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


from_name: Brion VIBBER

subject: [Wikitech-l] Time zone discrepancy

body:
Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 07, 2002 at 03:22:56PM +0200, Kurt Jansson wrote:
>>Whould it be too Germany-centristic to have the time field set to +2
>>(and +1 in Winter) by default (only in the de.wikipedia of course)? And
>>also for not logged-in users?
>>
>>I guess more than 90% of the German language Wikipedia contributors are
>>from Germany, Austria or Swiss.
>
> Could you also do it for Polish Wikipedia ? (the same timezone)

I don't see why not... is there summer time/daylight savings to deal
with, or is it just a straight UTC+1?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

subject: [Wikitech-l] Automatic subject classification

body:
On Tue, Sep 10, 2002 at 12:24:27PM -0700, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> I looked a little more into this, manualy tracing the path of 10
> randomly chosen articles.  I don't know what it does to the automatic
> path tracing idea but it did lead to a number of observations.
[...]
> Observations:
> 1. In the samples the longest minimum path to the Main Page was only 4
> articles.  Any article linked from a user page would be 3 steps away
> from the user page, but this should not be considered a meaningful path.
>
> 2. Two kinds of effectively orphan pages became evident, but these would
> never appear on the special page listing of orphans.  In the first
> example two pages link to each other but nothing else links to them.  In
> example 6 the only links to the article are on user pages.  Who would
> ever think to look there for a reference to an article?
>
> 3.  [[List of countries]] and  [[United States]] should probably be
> linked from the Main Page.  The numberr of paths through these is enormous.
>
> 4. Many of the links to [[United States]] are excessive.  Many of the
> uses are in passing where more information about the United States is
> unlikely to be needed.  I think we can always assume a very basic level
> of understanding about what is meant by  "United States"  What would
> surprise me most about those who don't have that very basic level of
> understanding is how they managed to find Wikipedia in the first place.

I have done much more complex and almost-automatic topological
analysis (of Polish Wikipedia).

If you can read Polish or think that you can find out what's going on
by just looking at numbers and lists, check:
http://pl.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Taw/Topologia_Wikipedii (stats are a couple days old)

Things that are done before computations:
* all empty, talk and user pages are removed
* all links to redirects are replaced by links to final articles,
  and then redirects are removed

(About 1)
Stats for Polish Wikipedia:
* not accessible  227 ( 4.716393102%)
* main page	    1 ( 0.02077706212%)
* 1 hop		   78 ( 1.620610846%)
* 2 hops	 1199 (24.91169749%)
* 3 hops	 2492 (51.77643881%)
* 4 hops	  614 (12.75711614%)
* 5 hops	  175 ( 3.635985872%)
* 6 hops	   22 ( 0.4570953667%)
* 7 hops	    5 ( 0.1038853106%)

(About 2)
Much more interesting patterns can be found.
Don't forget about articles linked from talk pages and yearbook pages.

(About 3)
One most interesting thing computed "importance of links on main
page". Algoritm is simple - sum of distances from main page to each
non-orphan node is computed, and link is as valuable as much it
improves this number. Both links-to-be-added and links-to-be-removed
are computed. We have now rather more useful main page.

(and ...)
If anybody wants the scripts, tell me,
but expect to do some work to adapt it to other Wikipedia.


from_name: Adam Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Helga banned

body:
On Tue, 2002-09-10 at 18:01, Bryan Derksen wrote:

> I had no idea that this was one of the perks of running Wikipedia. I
> thought you were just in this for the noble ideal of expanding human
> knowledge and freedom and such.
>
> Hm... does it work for people who run mirrors too? I think I can get some
> web space...

I just assumed it was some fiendishly clever world domination plot, and
I could get cut in at the end and get, I dunno, maybe a fiefdom of
Hawaii or something. Please don't tell me i'm wrong!
--
adamw


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Watch this user

body:
On Tue, 2002-09-10 at 20:32, koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:

> That's easy.  If you're in the U.S., on any given day it's the FBI,
> CIA, DEA, ATF, FTC, FCC, NSA, RIAA, MPAA, local police, surveillance
> cameras at any store or bank, and possibly John Ashcroft himself.  Oh,
> and also your neighbor, who believes all the stuff on TV about how
> unsafe it is to walk outside.

And if you're in the UK it's all of the above plus MI5, HM Customs,
Inland Revenue, your local fire brigade and the Food Standards
Agency...=)
--
adamw


from_name: Axel Boldt

body:
I would exclude "Reference tables" and "Historical timeline" from the
list of topic pages (only Astrophysics through Visual Arts), since too
many articles are linked through those and we wouldn't get a
meaningful classification. I would also exclude any path that goes
through any namespace but the main one.

Axel


from_name: lcrocker at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] User watch

body:
> If he really got pissed off he could always pull the server's
> power cord out of the wall, and nobody could legally force him
> to put it back in.  If it comes to that, and nobody has kept
> the data independently backed up at a physically separate site,
> then that's the end of it.

I keep a backups (though not always up-to-date) at my server in
San Antonio, and my home machine in Sacramento.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] User watch

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
>>If he really got pissed off he could always pull the server's
>>power cord out of the wall, and nobody could legally force him
>>to put it back in.  If it comes to that, and nobody has kept
>>the data independently backed up at a physically separate site,
>>then that's the end of it.
>
> I keep a backups (though not always up-to-date) at my server in
> San Antonio, and my home machine in Sacramento.

I also keep (irregularly) periodic backups on my home machine here in
L.A., both of the English and most of the active non-English wikis.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Jaap van Ganswijk

subject: [Wikipedia-l] little earthquakes page - song extract?!

body:
At 2002-09-10 00:32 +0200, Giskart wrote:
>Adam Williamson wrote:
>
>>The page for Little Earthquakes, a Tori Amos album, includes an extract
>>from one of the album's songs. This seems a bit dubious, copyright-wise!
>>I've removed the link for now, to be safe. Does anyone know if the
>>extract is legally OK for inclusion in Wikipedia? Check the history of
>>Tori Amos/Little Earthquakes to see the page with the link (damn
>>subpages).
>>
>There was some talk about this a few weeks ago, somthing about the articel of Simon and Garfunkel (there is also audio there).
>The English Wikipedia calls it "fair use"  and allow it. The Dutch Wikipedia calls it a copyright violation and does not allow it.  Do not know of the others. -- giskart

Correction: We didn't arrive at a consensus on the Dutch Wikipedia.
I think that a small fragment should be fair-use. Also under Dutch
law (which is basically the same as current USA/international law
as I explained here earlier). On the Dutch Wikipedia we decided
to 'disallow' such audio fragments for now because there was little
need for it yet and we didn't want to pursue the matter further
at this stage.

Greetings,
Jaap


body:
At 2002-09-09 15:53 -0700, lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
>> The page for Little Earthquakes, a Tori Amos album, includes an
>> extract from one of the album's songs. This seems a bit dubious,
>> copyright-wise! I've removed the link for now, to be safe. Does
>> anyone know if the extract is legally OK for inclusion in
>> Wikipedia? Check the history of Tori Amos/Little Earthquakes to
>> see the page with the link (damn subpages).
>
>If you are talking about "Ta_crucify.ogg", that's a 17-second
>sample as is noted on the description page for the upload. Short
>samples like these (I've done others on the Simon & Garfunkel and
>Beatles pages as well) should be no problem under US fair use law.
>I cannot comment on the laws of other nations.

USA law is the same as European/international law since about 1990
when the USA adopted the Berne convention rules.

For more info, see:
http://www.chipdir.nl/about/ under 'Legal stuff'

The local authority representing the writers, composers
and artists (BUMA/STEMRA in the Netherlands) may however
have different views on which cases to prosecute and
which not.

Greetings,
Jaap


subject: [Wikitech-l] Moving talk pages across namespaces

body:
I noticed tonight when Jeronimo was moving a bunch of pages from the
article namespace into Wikipedia: namespace that the talk pages weren't
being automatically moved over to Wikipedia talk:, even though he had
been using the check box to automatically move the talk page. (They can
be moved manually, but that defeats the purpose of the checkbox!)

Looking at SpecialMovePage.php I see the comments:
# Move talk page if (1) the checkbox says to, (2) the source
# and target namespaces are identical, (3) the namespaces are not
# themselves talk namespaces, and of course (4) it exists.

which conditions are dutifully followed by the code; number two is the
one that's catching us here.

If there's a good reason behind that, it needs to be documented. If not,
it ought to be changed to handle moving talk pages across namespaces (so
long as neither the source nor destination namespace of the main article
is a talk namespace) to accord with current user expectation.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Helga banned

body:
Some clarifications...

I got two personal reactions and I read all the comments.

At 2002-09-09 22:19 +0200, Jaap van Ganswijk wrote:
>At 2002-09-09 10:19 -0700, Jimmy Wales wrote:
>>After much deliberation, and after due consideration for all of the
>>arguments and discussions here, and taking into account what appears
>>to me to be a general consensus, I have chosen to ban Helga for a
>>period of 3 months.
>
>Banned from what? This list? The English Wikipedia. All Wikipedia?

Jimmy Wales explained to me that she was banned from all
Wikipedia and therefore not from this list.

>What I object most to, it that the subject itself may have
>been disallowed to right to rebuttle.

Perhaps I overreacted a bit, but I was thinking about
cases where people were removed from mailing lists in
days when the mailing list was the medium and the meta
medium or a case of a political debating mailing list
where people objected to a mailing list becoming linked
to a public and archieved newsgroup and someone changing
that after only a very short period in which the people
who were against it didn't have enough time to discuss
it and after the list was made public they didn't want
to/couldn't discuss it in public anymore. There was even
a vote, but it turned out to be handled very badly.

>>After that time, she can reapply to me personally for re-instatement.
>
>Sure, and some sex on the side.

Of course I didn't mean sex literally her, as at least
one other person understood. Most of you Americans are
so tight-assed about sex.

>>I know that not everyone will be happy with this decision, although
>>the vast majority will be.
>
>Not me.

By the way, I'm not against banning Helga if she
causes the trouble that she seems to do. I just
object to aspects of Jimmy's email about it and I
have doubts about the procedure and about the
period of banning. Personally I saw that fact that
Helga joined this mailing list as a very good sign.
And over time I'm sure she will learn how to quote
correctly... ;-)

And she responded very reasonably to various remarks
by others.

I have also looked at some of here articles among one
in German and didn't find much bias in it.

She seems indeed to be in denial of the holocaust
as most Germans and German media were during several
decades after the war (and perhaps still), at least
they didn't report about what actually happened
during the war. We can receive German television here
in the Netherlands and it's amazing how 'closed' the
German media still are in some regards.

By the way, the first time I encountered 'revisionism'
around 1996, I was also puzzled for a while. Was it really
a big lie that our elders had tought us about the war?
As a scientifically trained professional I didn't
immediately believe the new 'evidence' of course,
but what struck me most was that I had never seen
foto's or film's about actual gas chambers. After
focussing on this some more I did find foto's etc.
the fact that there is relatively little material
available is probably due to the fact that most
of the extermination camps were located to the east
of Germany and they were liberated by the Soviets
who didn't have much camera's and film to spare at
that time.

As regards an international jewish organization
declaring war on Germany: The first time I heard
about this was from revisionist sites. I never
heard about this from all the stories told by
older family members, but of course it may have
been true and for the time being I assume it's
true, but it doesn't allow a government to take
the measures against jews as the German government
took.

Of course a government has to be careful. The USA
put all Japanese inhabitants in camps in world war 2
and rightfully so. You don't want to be backstabbed
when trying to win a war. After the terror attack
of september 11'th last year a lot of muslims were
arrested in the USA without proper legal reasons,
but these things are justified by the unclear situation
I think.

>>Such is the nature of consensus.
>
>The nature of consensus is that you achieve it first.

The problem with consensus which isn't properly
measured is that the person 'measuring' the consensus
may have a bias and may interpret what people say
in his own subjective way.

I propose that some sort of voting mechanism is
installed. Just give all people on this list an
opportunity to vote.

One should write a message saying: I propose to
ban person X because .... Person X can then explain
him/herself and votes will be counted durign a week
or so.

>>I can't wait for unanimity, or we will wait forever.
>
>Is there some voting mechanism or did you just ask your
>friends?

This is the hand-on way I tried to express the above
notion of 'subjective'.

>>Even here, on the mailing list, where I invited
>>her to discuss these issues, she prefers to ignore discussions about
>>her posting style
>
>Huh, you expect someone obviously new to the mailing
>list fenomenon to immediately reflect on her own behaviour?

I noticed that Helga didn't quote 'very efficiently'
and that is often a sign that one is new to mailing
lists.

I manage several mailing lists and have also followed
the personal progress of people new to mailing and
noticed that most of them catch-on very quickly, just
by copying what they see others do.

>>In order to contribute to a restoration of the peace, I will be mostly
>>avoiding further public comment, although everyone who likes is more
>>than invited to write to me privately to support or decry this
>>decision.
>
>And since this was done in public, I do this in public.

The problem with taking discussions like these to the
personal level (and I have years of experience) is that
one forgets what one has said in private and what in
public. The same goes for crossposting to several
mailing lists by the way.

>>Helga, in particular, is welcome to write to me to discuss this,
>
>Sure and in exchange for sex perhaps?

Again, I meant that I dislike the notion that she
would have to discuss these things with you personally.
You shouldn't take this as that I suggest that you
were trying to extort sexual favors from Helga.

And no, I don't imagine Helga to be a blonde teutonic
goddess as someone suggested. ;-) If I remember
correctly Helga is already quite old.

Greetings,
Jaap

PS. Would it be possible that people use their real name
on this mailing list and in personal email? Please use
something like I do in my 'from address'. I don't think
it's civil to presend oneself as a movie with Philip Glass
music in it, however good the music is. I have the CD...


subject: [Wikitech-l] A projection

body:
At 2002-09-10 14:09 -0700, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>Using the data set given, and assuming averaged daily growth between given days, Wikipedia has since 2001-03-07 had an average over all daily growth of 0.632%
>
>The average growth rate (r) between two sampling days was calculated using
>
>1+r=(d2/d1)^(1/n)
>
>where d1 and d2 are the sample amounts on the first and second days and n is the number of days between samplings.
>
>The 0.632% amount is a weighted mean of these results over a period of 551 days. Applying the formula:
>
>n=log(100,000/42021)/log(1+r)
>
>gives 138 days when rounded up to the nearest whole number. Thus the formula projects that article number 100,000 will be reached on 2003-01-24 Using the same techniques, growth in the last 30 days has been at the more modest rate of 0.410% per day. Projecting this gives a figure of 212 days or 2003-04-08

And suppose I hadn't wasted 10 years of my life on a
technical university, how would you explain this to me?

What for example is the growth per year?

Greetings,
Jaap


subject: [Wikipedia-l] User watch

body:
At 2002-09-10 16:54 -0700, Julie Hofmann Kemp wrote:
>As for all the nasty comments about banning Helga -- well, first, this particular playground belongs to Jimbo and BOMIS

No it doesn't: Jimmy and Bomis may host it, but they don't
own it. Or they should have made it more clearly when I
joined it. I am the author of a site about chips and it's
hosted by about 30 mirror sites. They own not one iota
of the contents of what they mirror. My 'original site'
is hosted on the server of a Dutch internet provider and
it doesn't own any of the copyrights of my site.

If Jimmy thinks he has certain rights I'd really like
to hear about that.

> -- if Jim wants to make a rule and enforce it, that's his prerogative.

No it's not. He may decide no longer to host the site.
Of course he is also welcome to help run the organization,
but he's not the dictator in a small tropical mini-state.

If he thinks otherwise, I'm interested to hear about ir.

>The fact that he waited so long to take such an action is admirable,

Yes. He has been very tolerant. Perhaps too tolerant. ;-)

>although I think a serious threat at an earlier date might have helped to define the actions worthy of a ban.

Indeed.

>Moreover, the fact that Jim is willing to allow the people who use the playground to help define the rules of participation is generous and encourages wikipedians to feel part of a larger good.

Ah so you believe in this benevolent dictator stuff?

>Still, this is a little community, and communities generally need some rules and boundaries to keep people from feeling put-upon.  No one has any inalienable rights here, except the right (and perhaps the obligation) to leave if they don't like how things are done.

Is your real name perhaps: Eva Perron? Or Eva Braun?

It's my oppinion that any matters of importance like
those of politics, science, economics, philosophy
should not be dicussed with women.

One should never engage in serious discussions
with women anyway. They are not genetically
equiped for it.

>That said, I think that, if bans are to be used, there should be a clear statement of the kinds of things that warrant a ban, as well as a posted escalation process (like  a formal warning that the person is being considered for a ban, request to join the list, etc.).

On this matter I completely agree with you and wished that I had expressed it so NPOV-like...

But well, uhm, we guys, we like fighting, testing each other out,
we will have to go hunt the next day to get the meat
and we need to be able to rely on each other 100%.
You women only have to dig up roots etc.

Greetings,
Jaap

PS. Try not to write in HTML please...


body:
At 2002-09-10 18:05 -0700, Daniel Mayer wrote:
>On Tuesday 10 September 2002 05:28 pm, you wrote:
>> Correction: We didn't arrive at a consensus on the Dutch Wikipedia.
>> I think that a small fragment should be fair-use. Also under Dutch
>> law (which is basically the same as current USA/international law
>> as I explained here earlier). On the Dutch Wikipedia we decided
>> to 'disallow' such audio fragments for now because there was little
>> need for it yet and we didn't want to pursue the matter further
>> at this stage.
>>
>> Greetings,
>> Jaap
>
>Unless I am mistaken, the Dutch Wikipedia is hosted in the United States
>along with the other Wikipedias. Therefore US law is the only one that
>counts.

Nice point!

>But you can make any policies you wish for your own 'pedia so long as
>it doesn't break US law (which I do believe is a lot more permissive in this
>case).

Well your argument at least illustrates that our BUMA/STEMRA would
have a hard case against a site in the USA breaking (perhaps) Dutch
law.

The international consequences of the internet are still quite
debatable anyway.

Like Lee, I wouldn't mind challenging the BUMA/STEMRA on this.
I even proposed sending an email to BUMA/STEMRA asking for
their opinion.

But I agree with 'our leader' Giskard that there is no hurry...

Greetings,
Jaap


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Helga banned

body:
At 2002-09-10 18:09 -0700, koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:
>Jaap wrote:
>>PS. Would it be possible that people use their real name
>>on this mailing list and in personal email? Please use
>>something like I do in my 'from address'. I don't think
>>it's civil to presend oneself as a movie with Philip Glass
>>music in it, however good the music is. I have the CD...
>
>Yes, it would be possible.  It, however, will not be practiced, at least by the person you are directing this part of your message to.  I have very particular reasons to mind my privacy, none of which I'll discuss, thank you, because I won't be convinced otherwise.

This sentence doesn't contain a valid argument.

>I certainly don't expect anyone who's done their homework to believe that koyaanis qatsi is my real name,

That's not the issue.

>however it is as convenient a handle as my real name, which is possibly less believable.

That's no argument.

>If the pseudonym is distasteful to you, perhaps you can suggest one you like better.  Louis Friend is one you may recognize, or if not, perhaps "Mark Twain."  I'm the same person I've been for the last 27 years, at any rate, 1 1/2 of them on wikipedia, and I believe a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Yes, but I try to use the same name since my birth.
Names aren't unique, but it gives others at least a slight
handle on other's person's being. In trade it's quite
essential to know from which person money is due.

And:
Honost people have nothing to hide.

>kq, or lf, or mt

Grow up.


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] User watch

body:
> One should never engage in serious discussions
> with women anyway. They are not genetically
> equiped for it.

Wellllll, that leaves plenty of other fields to
discuss about anyway.

Sex, education, music, history, litterature, games,
sports, cooking, religion

Just these can fill a lifetime of discussions

> But well, uhm, we guys, we like fighting, testing
> each other out,
> we will have to go hunt the next day to get the meat
> and we need to be able to rely on each other 100%.
> You women only have to dig up roots etc.

yeah, and fortunately we, women, also educate the kids
:-)

__________________________________________________
Yahoo! - We Remember
9-11: A tribute to the more than 3,000 lives lost
http://dir.remember.yahoo.com/tribute


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
tarquin wrote:

> I've referred to certain newcomers as "crackpots", not "kooks", based
> solely on what they have written in articles, talk pages & meta.
> Perhaps it's offensive that I've judged them and labelled them as
> such, but it's based on their actions and that alone. If their
> behaviour changes, so will my opinion of them.
>
> Saying "X is a kook" or "X cannot properly engage in serious
> discussion" may be considered harsh and offensive. We should perhaps
> tone that sort of thing down -- however, in the case I'm thinking of,
> myself and others wasted a lot of time wrangling with BDJones about
> relativity. We treated him fairly, responded intelligently, tried to
> see his way of seeing things, and after a time it became clear that he
> is either a) completely impervious to reason or b) running circles
> round us on purpose.
> I propose the words "kook" and "crackpot" be used as a shorthand for
> the above scenario, "crackpot" implying a scientific or
> pseudoscientific slant. Fair enough?
>
> That's all a very, very long way from saying "all people of type X are
> kooks".

I wouldn't even say that these comments are harsh, Just offensive.

These terms don't advance any discussion of whatever is the topic.
 Applying them to the person rather than the ideas means that you're
using ad hominem arguments, and that's offensive.

In discussing science what advantage is there to calling other views
pseudoscientific just because they don't agree with yours or the
majority opinion.  It only shows that scientists are just as petty as
anybody else.  Offhanded dismissiveness does more to promote
pseudoscience than to stop it.

Eclecticology


from_name: Giskart

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>Unless I am mistaken, the Dutch Wikipedia is hosted in the United States
>along with the other Wikipedias. Therefore US law is the only one that
>counts. But you can make any policies you wish for your own 'pedia so long as
>it doesn't break US law (which I do believe is a lot more permissive in this
>case).
>
>
Yes, now the Dutch Wikipedia is hosted in the United States. But it does
not seems to my good policy to include illigal content . I I hope the
Wikipedias can stay  together and hosted by Bomis but you can never be
sure. If we must look for i new host (in Europ) there must not even a
hint  of copyright violation.  It is better to save than sorry like the
say......     -- giskart


from_name: Stephen Gilbert

subject: [Wikipedia-l] My dear Wikipedians...

body:
... please, do not feed the trolls.

This has been a public service announcement by Stephen Gilbert


from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [Wikipedia-l] User watch

body:
Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:

> At 03:08 AM 9/11/02 +0200, Jaap wrote:
>
>> It's my oppinion that any matters of importance like
>> those of politics, science, economics, philosophy
>> should not be dicussed with women.
>>
>> One should never engage in serious discussions
>> with women anyway. They are not genetically
>> equiped for it.
>
>
> If I said anything equivalent about men, you and lots of other people
> would be,
> justifiably, up in arms.
>
> If this is really your attitude, you are not mature enough to be
> working on this, or
> any, project with adults of any sex. If it isn't, I want an apology
> for the insult. No,
> it isn't funny. And saying you were only joking will not convince
> anyone of anything
> except that you don't have the guts to admit you said something stupid.

I agree. Category-based insults such as this are unwarranted and grossly
offensive. An apology would be appropriate.

Neil


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
On Wednesday 11 September 2002 04:24 am, you wrote:
> Yes, now the Dutch Wikipedia is hosted in the United States. But it does
> not seems to my good policy to include illigal content . I I hope the
> Wikipedias can stay ?together and hosted by Bomis but you can never be
> sure. If we must look for i new host (in Europ) there must not even a
> hint ?of copyright violation. ?It is better to save than sorry like the
> say...... ? ? -- giskart

Oh, I see. You are just contingency planning. Now that is something I can
identify with.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka) and a fellow mastermind


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Helga banned

body:
On Wed, 2002-09-11 at 07:17, Adam Williamson wrote:
>
> Shut up. You've now voiced two detestable and ignorant opinions in one
> day, are you going for some kind of record?

Hey now. This isn't Usenet.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Server down? Or just bogged down?

body:
Is the server not accessable due to some maintenance issues or is it just
being overrun by people reading our 9/11 articles? We probably are going to
get a couple hundred more tribute articles in the next few days....

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Server down? Or just bogged down?

body:
> Is the server not accessable due to some maintenance issues
> or is it just being overrun by people reading our 9/11 articles?
> We probably are going to get a couple hundred more tribute
> articles in the next few days....

It's running, it's just really being slammed.  The access
patterns look like several bots are hitting at once, too.
This should be a good capacity test.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Time zone discrepancy

body:
Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
> There is summer and winter time, and that's why server must deal with
> it, as you can1't expect everyone to fix their preferences every few
> months.

And they start and end when?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Julie Hofmann Kemp

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Pseudonyms, etc.

body:
Seeing as how I'm a woman (or am I?  I could have been lying, I
suppose), you all may want to discount this entirely, but here goes --

Jaap (who may have taken on the name because he wants to be like a
certain ex-Man Utd. Central defender) --

Here's a funny thing.  You seem to want people to use their own names on
the site, and resent KQ's using a pseudonym, while I, who have never
used a pseudonym here and even, when asked, provided my credentials,
have been: 1) accused of perhaps not being who I say I am and perhaps
even of falsely stating my credentials, and; 2) told that, if I am upset
that my name is connected with articles I don't find reflect my
professional standards, I should perhaps use a pseudonym.

It's a funny ol'world, ain't it?

As for the rest, I'm not that interested in defending myself against
silly statements.  Make all you want: it only helps to add to the
compendium of knowledge that helps us all consider our sources more
wisely.

Jules (a nickname reflecting my true given name of Julie)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20020911/2486c9c7/attachment.htm


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Pseudonyms, etc.

body:
2) told
> that, if I am upset
> that my name is connected with articles I don't find
> reflect my professional standards, I should perhaps
use a
> pseudonym.
>
> It's a funny ol'world, ain't it?
>
> As for the rest, I'm not that interested in
defending myself > against silly statements.

I'm sorry if you considered my comment a silly advice.
It was not meant to shock you in any sense. It was
just a thought I had when you said you were in fear
you would be mis-considered if it turned out an
article you participated in was inaccurate. I did not
mean anything else, and I apologize if what I said
troubled you. Using a pseudo can be useful in many
many ways. And essential sometimes.

Yeah, it's a funny ol'world where people keep
misunderstanding the others.

__________________________________________________
Yahoo! - We Remember
9-11: A tribute to the more than 3,000 lives lost
http://dir.remember.yahoo.com/tribute


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Helga banned

body:
On Wed, 2002-09-11 at 03:09, Jaap van Ganswijk wrote:
> At 2002-09-10 18:09 -0700, koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:
> >Jaap wrote:
> >>PS. Would it be possible that people use their real name
> >>on this mailing list and in personal email? Please use
> >>something like I do in my 'from address'. I don't think
> >>it's civil to presend oneself as a movie with Philip Glass
> >>music in it, however good the music is. I have the CD...
> >
> >Yes, it would be possible.  It, however, will not be practiced, at least by the person you are directing this part of your message to.  I have very particular reasons to mind my privacy, none of which I'll discuss, thank you, because I won't be convinced otherwise.
>
> This sentence doesn't contain a valid argument.

It doesn't have to. Koyaanis has a perfect right to keep his identity
secret. He doesn't need to support this right by argument. He's simply -
as a courtesy to YOU, since you have no way of making him relinquish it
- stated that he intends to continue exercising it and that he has good
reasons for doing so. You have no right to demand more.

> >If the pseudonym is distasteful to you, perhaps you can suggest one you like better.  Louis Friend is one you may recognize, or if not, perhaps "Mark Twain."  I'm the same person I've been for the last 27 years, at any rate, 1 1/2 of them on wikipedia, and I believe a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
>
> Yes, but I try to use the same name since my birth.
> Names aren't unique, but it gives others at least a slight
> handle on other's person's being. In trade it's quite
> essential to know from which person money is due.

So what? You are not trading with Koyaanis. You are not involved in any
kind of transaction in which knowing his identity would be necessary.
You're simply on the same mailing list. This gives you no leverage and
thus no ability to demand he relinquish his privacy.

> And:
> Honost people have nothing to hide.

This has been proved wrong so many times it's not even worth
considering. Is the person accessing Google from China honest? Is the
person playing Yahoo! chess in Greece honest?

> >kq, or lf, or mt
>
> Grow up.

Shut up. You've now voiced two detestable and ignorant opinions in one
day, are you going for some kind of record?
--
adamw


body:
On Wed, 2002-09-11 at 06:51, Michael R. Irwin wrote:

> You really think that is helpful when approaching
> someone on behalf of the mailing list to ask that
> they comply with predefined community customs,
> rules, policies, etc.?
>
> If provocatively stupid things are appropriate
> then they are appropriate for all, if not
> appropriate then they are not appropriate for
> all.   Tis the American myth.
>
> "With justice and liberty for all."
>
> or
>
> "With insults and intolerance for all."
>
> Free advice follows, clearly worth nothing
> because I am not a popular fellow at the
> moment.
>
> Pick your customs carefully.  You may
> find yourself subject to them.

Think before you post, Mike.

Those who responded to Jaap's post merely exercised their own right to
freedom of expression. None of them denied Jaap's right to hold such an
opinion, or said he should be stopped from expressing it. The freedom to
speak does not include freedom from criticism for that speech.

Now compare to what Jaap said. The implication of his post is that men
should decide "important" issues alone and women should be barred from
any consideration in deciding them. Now that truly IS a restriction of
liberty, wouldn't you say?
--
adamw


from_name: Magnus Manske

body:
That was a complaint on German wikipedia afer the switch to the new
software. I think there's even a bug report, but I'm not sure.

Brion VIBBER wrote:

> I noticed tonight when Jeronimo was moving a bunch of pages from the
> article namespace into Wikipedia: namespace that the talk pages
> weren't being automatically moved over to Wikipedia talk:, even though
> he had been using the check box to automatically move the talk page.
> (They can be moved manually, but that defeats the purpose of the
> checkbox!)
>
> Looking at SpecialMovePage.php I see the comments:
> # Move talk page if (1) the checkbox says to, (2) the source
> # and target namespaces are identical, (3) the namespaces are not
> # themselves talk namespaces, and of course (4) it exists.
>
> which conditions are dutifully followed by the code; number two is the
> one that's catching us here.
>
> If there's a good reason behind that, it needs to be documented. If
> not, it ought to be changed to handle moving talk pages across
> namespaces (so long as neither the source nor destination namespace of
> the main article is a talk namespace) to accord with current user
> expectation.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at nupedia.com
> http://nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Kurt Jansson

body:
bug report:
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=600079&group_id
=34373&atid=411192

(part of) Lee's answer:
> It was not my intention to allow moving talk pages when
> moving from one namespace to another, so the bug is that the
> checkbox appears at all.

But the question remains: why?

BTW, is it possible to make an sql query that looks for talk pages who's
corresponding article is only a redirect, or doesn't exist?

Kurt

> That was a complaint on German wikipedia afer the switch to the new
> software. I think there's even a bug report, but I'm not sure.
>
> Brion VIBBER wrote:
>
> > I noticed tonight when Jeronimo was moving a bunch of pages from the
> > article namespace into Wikipedia: namespace that the talk pages
> > weren't being automatically moved over to Wikipedia talk:, even
though
> > he had been using the check box to automatically move the talk page.
> > (They can be moved manually, but that defeats the purpose of the
> > checkbox!)
> >
> > Looking at SpecialMovePage.php I see the comments:
> > # Move talk page if (1) the checkbox says to, (2) the source
> > # and target namespaces are identical, (3) the namespaces are not
> > # themselves talk namespaces, and of course (4) it exists.
> >
> > which conditions are dutifully followed by the code; number two is
the
> > one that's catching us here.
> >
> > If there's a good reason behind that, it needs to be documented. If
> > not, it ought to be changed to handle moving talk pages across
> > namespaces (so long as neither the source nor destination namespace
of
> > the main article is a talk namespace) to accord with current user
> > expectation.
> >
> > -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Pseudonyms, etc.

body:
I had said:
> As for the rest, I'm not that interested in
defending myself > against silly statements.

Anthere responded:
I'm sorry if you considered my comment a silly advice.
It was not meant to shock you in any sense. It was
just a thought I had when you said you were in fear
you would be mis-considered if it turned out an
article you participated in was inaccurate. I did not
mean anything else, and I apologize if what I said
troubled you. Using a pseudo can be useful in many
many ways. And essential sometimes.

Yeah, it's a funny ol'world where people keep
misunderstanding the others.

I now say:

Anthere, I did not think your advice was one of the silly statements --
that comment was in regards to Jaaps' ill-considered comparisons to the
Evas.  I'm sorry if you took it as a slam against you.  And you are
correct that pseudonyms can be useful.  What bothered me was the idea
that we as wikipedians would consider it ok to allow articles of such
low quality that they *could* be an embarrassment.  One of the things I
think the wikipedia proves on a day to day basis is that very solid
articles can be turned out in a collaborative process by people who are
usually not specialists.  The downside is that there are also a lot of
contributors who aren't with the program and also don't know what makes
a solid article.  When those people don't actually want to take the time
to get to know other wikipedians and perhaps read through some of their
contributions ( for an example that has nothing to do with me, check out
the recent discussions at talk:Law and the village pump between netesq
and others -- perhaps some of the argument would have been more civil
had netesq bothered to find out that one of the other people was an
international lawyer), it does a disservice to the project and to those
fellow wikipedians, IM not so humble O.

Jules


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Helga banned

body:
On Wed, 2002-09-11 at 14:44, The Cunctator wrote:
> On Wed, 2002-09-11 at 07:17, Adam Williamson wrote:
> >
> > Shut up. You've now voiced two detestable and ignorant opinions in one
> > day, are you going for some kind of record?
>
> Hey now. This isn't Usenet.

Please post with context, i.e., also quote the section of the original
post to which this was a reply.
--
adamw


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Helga banned

body:
Jaap van Ganswijk wrote:
> She seems indeed to be in denial of the holocaust
> as most Germans and German media were during several
> decades after the war (and perhaps still), at least
> they didn't report about what actually happened
> during the war. We can receive German television here
> in the Netherlands and it's amazing how 'closed' the
> German media still are in some regards.

What are you talking about?

Yesterday I started translating [[Internet troll]] into German, and
today I see myself replying to this provocative, undifferentiated
nonsense. I'll open Abiword now and copy'n'paste a hundred times: "Don't
feed ..."

Kurt


from_name: tarquin

body:
Michael R. Irwin wrote:

>I have not seen him attempt to initiate lynching
>efforts by titling threads such as:
>
>internet kook, etc.
>
(speaking of Mav, I think -- it gets hard to follow so many indents in
followups)

I've referred to certain newcomers as "crackpots", not "kooks", based
solely on what they have written in articles, talk pages & meta. Perhaps
it's offensive that I've judged them and labelled them as such, but it's
based on their actions and that alone. If their behaviour changes, so
will my opinion of them.

Saying "X is a kook" or "X cannot properly engage in serious discussion"
may be considered harsh and offensive. We should perhaps tone that sort
of thing down -- however, in the case I'm thinking of, myself and others
wasted a lot of time wrangling with BDJones about relativity. We treated
him fairly, responded intelligently, tried to see his way of seeing
things, and after a time it became clear that he is either a) completely
impervious to reason or b) running circles round us on purpose.
I propose the words "kook" and "crackpot" be used as a shorthand for the
above scenario, "crackpot" implying a scientific or pseudoscientific
slant. Fair enough?

That's all a very, very long way from saying "all people of type X are
kooks".

Adam Williamson wrote:

 > Those who responded to Jaap's post merely exercised their own right
to freedom of expression. None of them denied Jaap's right to hold such
an opinion

I do, damn it.

-- tarquin


body:
On Wed, 2002-09-11 at 15:19, tarquin wrote:

> Adam Williamson wrote:
>
>  > Those who responded to Jaap's post merely exercised their own right
> to freedom of expression. None of them denied Jaap's right to hold such
> an opinion
>
> I do, damn it.

Hmm? Really? You're against freedom of thought? That's a dangerous
position to choose, you know...
--
adamw


subject: [Wikitech-l] Time zone discrepancy

body:
On Tue, Sep 10, 2002 at 11:10:53PM -0800, Brion VIBBER wrote:
> Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
> >On Sat, Sep 07, 2002 at 03:22:56PM +0200, Kurt Jansson wrote:
> >>Whould it be too Germany-centristic to have the time field set to +2
> >>(and +1 in Winter) by default (only in the de.wikipedia of course)? And
> >>also for not logged-in users?
> >>
> >>I guess more than 90% of the German language Wikipedia contributors are
> >>from Germany, Austria or Swiss.
> >
> >Could you also do it for Polish Wikipedia ? (the same timezone)
>
> I don't see why not... is there summer time/daylight savings to deal
> with, or is it just a straight UTC+1?

There is summer and winter time, and that's why server must deal with
it, as you can1't expect everyone to fix their preferences every few
months.

Most of Europe is +1/+2, even parts where this doesn't make much
sense (but compatibility is more important).

Afair only Portugal, UK, Ireland (+0/+1) on the West and Finland and former
USSR republics (+2/+3) on the East use different time than that.


subject: [Wikitech-l] A projection

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

>>
> The underlying premise is that growth is exponential.  People more
> commonly encounter this with compound interest calculations.  Thus
> $1,000 invested at 12% for one year will give $1,120 at the end of the
> year.  If it is compounded semi-annually it will give 1.06 * 1.06 *
> 1000 or $1,123.60 at the end of the year.  If it is compounded monthly
> it will give (1.01)^12 * 1000 =  $1,126.83 at the end of the year. The
> calculationsa that I made are similar, although I have not taken into
> account any limitations that may exist upon Wikipedia's growth.
>
> The annual growth rate based on 0.632% per day would be (1.00632)^365
> - 1 = 896.861%
> Based on 0.410% per day it would be 345.239%
> These figures do seem quite high, but for a reality check Wikipedia's
> size on September 9 of this year was 42,021 and on September 9, 2001
> it was 11,208.   42021/11208 is 3.44920, i.e. growth of 274.920%.  but
> this does include some periods when the growth was considerable lower
> than it has been in the last 30 days.
>
> Eclecticology
>

The graph half way down at [[Wikipedia:Size of Wikipedia]]  illustrates
this rather nicely.

It looks exponential to me, with a kink for the Great Slowdown of the
Phase II software.  Recent growth is about 217 articles/day for a size
of about 42000 articles, and that's about 0.5% / day.

Extrapolated to 1 year, that's growth of about 500% (ie a factor of six
size ratio) per year.
The implications of this are huge, ''if'' this sort of growth rate keeps
up. In a year's time, we can expect not 100,000 articles, but over
250,000. Then -- almost unbelievably -- 3 million the next year.

This suggests that  we will definitely need some more scaling features
in the software sooner rather than later.

Neil


subject: [Wikitech-l] A projection

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

 >>
 > The underlying premise is that growth is exponential.  People more
 > commonly encounter this with compound interest calculations.  Thus
 > $1,000 invested at 12% for one year will give $1,120 at the end of the
 > year.  If it is compounded semi-annually it will give 1.06 * 1.06 *
 > 1000 or $1,123.60 at the end of the year.  If it is compounded monthly
 > it will give (1.01)^12 * 1000 =  $1,126.83 at the end of the year. The
 > calculationsa that I made are similar, although I have not taken into
 > account any limitations that may exist upon Wikipedia's growth.
 >
 > The annual growth rate based on 0.632% per day would be (1.00632)^365
 > - 1 = 896.861%
 > Based on 0.410% per day it would be 345.239%
 > These figures do seem quite high, but for a reality check Wikipedia's
 > size on September 9 of this year was 42,021 and on September 9, 2001
 > it was 11,208.   42021/11208 is 3.44920, i.e. growth of 274.920%.  but
 > this does include some periods when the growth was considerable lower
 > than it has been in the last 30 days.
 >
 > Eclecticology
 >

The graph half way down at [[Wikipedia:Size of Wikipedia]]  illustrates
this rather nicely.

It looks exponential to me, with a kink for the Great Slowdown of the
Phase II software.  Recent growth is about 217 articles/day for a size
of about 42000 articles, and that's about 0.5% / day.

Extrapolated to 1 year, that's growth of about 500% (ie a factor of six
size ratio) per year.
The implications of this are huge, ''if'' this sort of growth rate keeps
up. In a year's time, we can expect not 100,000 articles, but over
250,000. Then -- almost unbelievably -- 3 million the next year.

This suggests that  we will definitely need some more scaling features
in the software sooner rather than later.

Neil


subject: [Wikitech-l] A projection

body:
 > Then -- almost unbelievably -- 3 million the next year.

Or, rather, 1.5 million. D'oh!
But it's still amazing.

Neil


body:
On Wed, 2002-09-11 at 15:45, elian wrote:
> Adam Williamson <aw280 at cam.ac.uk> writes:
>
> > On Wed, 2002-09-11 at 15:19, tarquin wrote:
> >
> > > Adam Williamson wrote:
> > >
> > >  > Those who responded to Jaap's post merely exercised their own right
> > > to freedom of expression. None of them denied Jaap's right to hold such
> > > an opinion
> > >
> > > I do, damn it.
> >
> > Hmm? Really? You're against freedom of thought? That's a dangerous
> > position to choose, you know...
>
> Freedom of thought doesn't give someone the right to insult other people
> like Jaap did with his remark about women.

Ah, but you see that's a different point. That's to do with freedom of
*expression*. Tarquin said he opposed Jaap's right to have the opinion
in the first place, not his right to express it.
--
adamw


from_name: elian

body:
Adam Williamson <aw280 at cam.ac.uk> writes:

> On Wed, 2002-09-11 at 15:19, tarquin wrote:
>
> > Adam Williamson wrote:
> >
> >  > Those who responded to Jaap's post merely exercised their own right
> > to freedom of expression. None of them denied Jaap's right to hold such
> > an opinion
> >
> > I do, damn it.
>
> Hmm? Really? You're against freedom of thought? That's a dangerous
> position to choose, you know...

Freedom of thought doesn't give someone the right to insult other people
like Jaap did with his remark about women.

greetings,
elian
--
========= Open Content statt Copyright ==========
http://de.wikipedia.org - Die freie Enzyklopaedie


body:
Adam Williamson wrote:

>Ah, but you see that's a different point. That's to do with freedom of
>*expression*. Tarquin said he opposed Jaap's right to have the opinion
>in the first place, not his right to express it.
>
>
Yes, but I have to right to the *opinion* that Jaap doesn't have the
right to to his opinion...
etc etc etc

Jaap's comment was offensive, he appears to have left the building
without explaining is he really meant it or was just kidding in bad taste.
meanwhile, we're wrapping ourselves in knots.

Can we say case closed? we're wasting good editing time!

tarquin


body:
On Wed, 2002-09-11 at 16:47, tarquin wrote:

> Can we say case closed? we're wasting good editing time!

Nah, i've always strictly separated "pointless email time" and
"productive time". Compartmentalisation, or something like that anyway.
:)
--
adamw


from_name: Lars Aronsson

body:
Michael R. Irwin wrote:
> internet kook, etc.

One small but very useful rule in critique is to criticize *actions*,
not *persons*.

The assumption behind the critique must be that the person can change,
regret his or her earlier actions, maybe even apologize, and improve.
After that we will have to continue to deal with that person.  So we
better start now to act *as if* we were already talking to the new
and improved person, using past tense for the previous wrongdoings.

When Helga was invited to this list, I didn't see anybody holding that
door to the future open.  I got the impression that she drowned in a
flood of messages talking about her (not to her) as being an idiot.
A person who lacks knowledge or insight can learn, but what can an
idiot do?

The questions now is not what Helga did (she's banned, case closed),
but instead: What can *we* learn from this?

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik
  Teknikringen 1e, SE-583 30 Linuxk?ping, Sweden
  tel +46-70-7891609
  http://aronsson.se/ http://elektrosmog.nu/ http://susning.nu/


from_name: Andre Engels

in_reply_to:
<20020911164844.DMVG16673.sccrmhc01.attbi.com@there> from Daniel
 Mayer at "Sep 11, 2002 09:51:34 am"

body:
> Is the server not accessable due to some maintenance issues or is it just
> being overrun by people reading our 9/11 articles? We probably are going to
> get a couple hundred more tribute articles in the next few days....

I think it's the second, since asking a page does not get an error but does
give the page, although awfully slow - as if we're back to phase II.

Andre Engels


from_name: Jeroen Heijmans

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Jaap

body:
With respect to the endless reactions regarding Jaap's mails, I'd like
to quote from meta.wikipedia.com's frontpage:

"please <http://www.firelily.com/support/depression/trolls.html> -- do
<http://members.aol.com/intwg/trolls.htm> -- not
<http://members.tripod.com/%7Ethewebtvguru/trolls/> -- respond
<http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Internet_troll> -- to
<http://www.topfloor.com/pr/communities/ch3.htm> -- trolls
<http://www.lisaviolet.com/cathouse/troll.html> : Links to essays about
trolls, which appear on Wikipedia (and Meta-Wikipedia) from time to time
just as on other open forums on the Internet.  The standard advice
applies: ignore them. They thrive on attention.  Just undo their
changes, if necessary."

Jeronimo


from_name: Michael R. Irwin

body:
Adam Williamson wrote:
>
> On Wed, 2002-09-11 at 06:51, Michael R. Irwin wrote:
>
> > You really think that is helpful when approaching
> > someone on behalf of the mailing list to ask that
> > they comply with predefined community customs,
> > rules, policies, etc.?
> >
> > If provocatively stupid things are appropriate
> > then they are appropriate for all, if not
> > appropriate then they are not appropriate for
> > all.   Tis the American myth.
> >
> > "With justice and liberty for all."
> >
> > or
> >
> > "With insults and intolerance for all."
> >
> > Free advice follows, clearly worth nothing
> > because I am not a popular fellow at the
> > moment.
> >
> > Pick your customs carefully.  You may
> > find yourself subject to them.
>
> Think before you post, Mike.
>
> Those who responded to Jaap's post merely exercised their own right to
> freedom of expression. None of them denied Jaap's right to hold such an
> opinion, or said he should be stopped from expressing it. The freedom to
> speak does not include freedom from criticism for that speech.
>
> Now compare to what Jaap said. The implication of his post is that men
> should decide "important" issues alone and women should be barred from
> any consideration in deciding them. Now that truly IS a restriction of
> liberty, wouldn't you say?
> --
> adamw

What I would say is not necessarily relevant
in all cases.

When some sects of Muslims show up to provide
information shall we tell them they are obviously
offensive and not welcome?

Broad except for some (extreme in our framework
or view, religiously correct in their own) Muslims.

Deep except for grisly (offensive but accurate) details.

What should we tell more liberal Moslem
(or Indian, etc.) women candidate contributors
who show up and provide a  view that is
"incontroversially" incorrect according to our
more "modern" participants?

Finally, if you reread my post you will find
it is not necessarily a criticism of Daniel's
criticism, it could be read as a criticism of his own
past "offensive" behavior on the mailing list.

Paradoxical no doubt, perhaps I am getting the
hang of local paradox theory or double standards.
I might be a "regular" any day now.

Regards,
Mike Irwin


body:
Lars Aronsson wrote:
>
> Michael R. Irwin wrote:
> > internet kook, etc.
>
> One small but very useful rule in critique is to criticize *actions*,
> not *persons*.
>
> The assumption behind the critique must be that the person can change,
> regret his or her earlier actions, maybe even apologize, and improve.
> After that we will have to continue to deal with that person.  So we
> better start now to act *as if* we were already talking to the new
> and improved person, using past tense for the previous wrongdoings.
>
> When Helga was invited to this list, I didn't see anybody holding that
> door to the future open.  I got the impression that she drowned in a
> flood of messages talking about her (not to her) as being an idiot.
> A person who lacks knowledge or insight can learn, but what can an
> idiot do?
>
> The questions now is not what Helga did (she's banned, case closed),
> but instead: What can *we* learn from this?

I think that I have learned that many of our mailing list
suscribers do not embrace many of the etiquette, policies,
rules, orientation materials, etc.

Yet we (some of us) are demanding that erring individuals who
are brought to the list's attention near instantly come into
near perfect compliance or be banned.

I think we should begin a consensus building process or
modification and ratification process to bring the stated
rules and the actual enforcement procedures into some clear
congruence with the majority behavior and actions of
the community.

Regards,
Mike Irwin


subject: [Wikitech-l] Time zone discrepancy

body:
Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:

>There is summer and winter time, and that's why server must deal with
>it, as you can1't expect everyone to fix their preferences every few
>months.
>
>Most of Europe is +1/+2, even parts where this doesn't make much
>sense (but compatibility is more important).
>
>Afair only Portugal, UK, Ireland (+0/+1) on the West and Finland and former
>USSR republics (+2/+3) on the East use different time than that.
>

And there are also locations where  the difference between UTC and local
time is not  clean houres but also 30 minutes.
For  French Polynesia <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Polynesia>
it is UTC - 9:30  Does the software support - 30 minutes ? I have no succes.
Not that i am from "French Polynesia"  but i like to know. -- giskart


from_name: Brion VIBBER

subject: [Wikipedia-l] The meta question

body:
As some of you may have noticed, meta.wikipedia.com is running on a
version of the phase II wiki software from last December or so. It's
kinda buggy, and not being maintained. It probably ought to be moved to
the new server and upgraded to the current software at some point.

Also, it's been suggested that it might be nice to have a way to move
(non-)articles from the Wikipedia (English, or I suppose any language --
I don't see any reason why meta shouldn't be multilingual) to the meta
wiki with edit histories intact.

Is this desireable?

What about redirects from the main wiki(s) to the meta wiki? I've seen
people try to do it occasionally (it doesn't work, you just get a link
following the mysterious and unhelpful "1. REDIRECT").

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] The meta question

body:
--- Brion VIBBER <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> As some of you may have noticed, meta.wikipedia.com
> is running on a
> version of the phase II wiki software from last
> December or so. It's
> kinda buggy, and not being maintained. It probably
> ought to be moved to
> the new server and upgraded to the current software
> at some point.
>
> Also, it's been suggested that it might be nice to
> have a way to move
> (non-)articles from the Wikipedia (English, or I
> suppose any language --
> I don't see any reason why meta shouldn't be
> multilingual) to the meta
> wiki with edit histories intact.
>
> Is this desireable?
>
> What about redirects from the main wiki(s) to the
> meta wiki? I've seen
> people try to do it occasionally (it doesn't work,
> you just get a link
> following the mysterious and unhelpful "1.
> REDIRECT").

I say yes, please, to all of Brion's suggestions.

Stephen Gilbert

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! News - Today's headlines
http://news.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] non-constructive

body:
I would just delete the line and write your article.
Obviously, if you have an article to write, you can
use the term in a constructive way.

Stephen Gilbert

--- Andre Engels <engels at uni-koblenz.de> wrote:
> I would like to write some stub article on the Aryan
> invasion in India
> (ca. 1700 BC). However, when I get to the Wikipedia
> page on 'Aryan', I read
> "[The term Aryan] can no longer be used in any
> constructive way."
>
> So what am I to do now?
> 1. Make up some new word to describe the concept,
> 2. Just delete that text from the page,
> 3. Just write my own piece as if this text is not
> there?
>
> Andre Engels
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go
> here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! News - Today's headlines
http://news.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Who is welcome?

body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:

>
>However, someone who writes _from the Islamic point of view_ will find their contributions mercilessly copy-edited into neutrality, exactly as someone who writes from an atheistic or Democratic or Marxist Republican or Unificationist POV.
>
Persons writing from the Christian or Jewish POV should receive the same
"merciless" treatment

>On the other hand, if an article has too much information from one side, contributors may want to balance it with other information.
>
Adding material to support your POV is far superior to removing material
that supports the opposing POV.

Eclecticology


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Who is welcome?

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:
> >Okay, some novelist did some superficial research, and now he claims that
> >Eisenhower killed 6 million Germans. So what? Just say "Novelist XYZ
> >claims in Book B that blah, blah, blah."
>
> Why? What is the point of including outrageous, obvious false material?

Well, if the novelist is famous, or if his ideas are having impact,
then the fact that he says these things raises them to the level
of encyclopedic interest.

For example, a Frenchman wrote a book, very popular in France, I hear,
claiming that the Sept. 11 attacks were faked, that no plane crashed
into the Pentagon, and so on.  This is outrageous nonsense, of course,
but since the author is famous and the book was popular, it's of
interest.

Difficulty arises when we have to determine whether some person or
group is noteworthy enough, even as a fringe person or group, for us
to take notice.  There are plenty of cranks in the world, some with
voluminous websites, and we needn't treat them all as equivalent to
each other.

> >* "All but a handful of historians dismiss Holocaust Denial as utterly
> >absurd."
>
> A false statement in itself, I know of no historian who accepts holocaust
> denial.

Right, well, Ed acknowledged that his statements could stand some
editing.  His point, though, was that statements can be rendered NPOV.

Some people are holocaust deniers.  They have, in some subcultures,
had some influence.  All of this is worthy of reporting in the
encyclopedia, but none of this justifies treating their ideas as
equally respectable to the broad (unanimous) consensus of real
historians.

> I don't think false information is welcome or people who persist in either
> putting false information into articles or creating a false impression by
> selective presentation of facts.  How it is to be decided when this is
> happening may be difficult but I think it's good policy.

Now here, we agree, and I think Ed agrees too.

--Jimbo


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] non-constructive

body:
Andre Engels wrote:

>I would like to write some stub article on the Aryan invasion in India
>(ca. 1700 BC). However, when I get to the Wikipedia page on 'Aryan', I read
>"[The term Aryan] can no longer be used in any constructive way."
>
>So what am I to do now?
>1. Make up some new word to describe the concept,
>2. Just delete that text from the page,
>3. Just write my own piece as if this text is not there?
>
Nobody should be held linguistically captive to a group that has chosen
to misuse or abuse a term for its own politcal ends.  Allowing that long
after that group has been otherwise defeated gives it a victory of
sorts.  It means that they have been allowed to set the agenda for a
language.

Eclecticology


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Who is welcome?

in_reply_to: <3D80ABA0.5020407@telus.net>; from saintonge@telus.net on Thu, Sep 12, 2002 at 07:58:40AM -0700

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Persons writing from the Christian or Jewish POV should receive the same
> "merciless" treatment

Or anti-religious POV, too.

Remember, Ed is a member of the Unification Church (popularly known as
"Moonies"), so he's well aware of the challenges of working in
wikipedia while coming from a point of view that is not only a
minority, but widely regarded as "cultist".

> Adding material to support your POV is far superior to removing material
> that supports the opposing POV.

I think that's right, although even in the infinity of cyberspace,
individual articles do have some space constraints for the sake of
readability.  Sometimes, some of the inquiry into and presentation of
minority POVs will be best handled in sidebar articles.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Who is welcome?

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>>Persons writing from the Christian or Jewish POV should receive the same
>>"merciless" treatment
>>
>Or anti-religious POV, too.
>
>Remember, Ed is a member of the Unification Church (popularly known as
>"Moonies"), so he's well aware of the challenges of working in
>wikipedia while coming from a point of view that is not only a
>minority, but widely regarded as "cultist".
>
Ed, to his credit did mention atheists and the Unification Church.  The
point was more that holding a popular or majoritarian view would never
imply immunity from criticism.

>>Adding material to support your POV is far superior to removing material
>>that supports the opposing POV.
>>
>I think that's right, although even in the infinity of cyberspace,
>individual articles do have some space constraints for the sake of
>readability.  Sometimes, some of the inquiry into and presentation of
>minority POVs will be best handled in sidebar articles.
>
We can't go on agreeing like this all the time!

Your point may be more a function of language and style than of specific
content.  The problem can as easily arise in non-controversial article
where people have simply never learned to get to the point.

One other frequent contributor to this list, Mirwin, often makes some
valuable points (judged by the fact that I often agree with him :-) ).
 This doesn't stop me from criticizing his contributions as prolix and a
challenge to the attention span..  An interesting exercise can be to
take an opposing POV and reduce it in size without diminishing the
impact of the author's arguments.

Eclecticology


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Who is welcome?

body:
>any information provided _can_ be presented from the NPOV.)
>
>If there is some group claiming that Jews "started" WWII;

 >or "invented" the Holocaust or

>"are a bunch of greedy hypocrites who should be driven into the Sea" or

>(insert favorite anti-Semitic idea here) --

>then we simply write that Group A _believes_ this.

I don't think so.

>Okay, some novelist did some superficial research, and now he claims that
>Eisenhower killed 6 million Germans. So what? Just say "Novelist XYZ
>claims in Book B that blah, blah, blah."

Why? What is the point of including outrageous, obvious false material?

>On the other hand, if an article has too much information from one side,
>contributors may want to balance it with other information.
>
>* "Most scholars regard the article as having no significant effect on
>Hitler's plans."

>* "All but a handful of historians dismiss Holocaust Denial as utterly
>absurd."

A false statement in itself, I know of no historian who accepts holocaust
denial.

>any information is welcome, every person is welcome. We need only _phrase_
>>contributions neutrally and (if needed) _balance_ articles.

I don't think false information is welcome or people who persist in either
putting false information into articles or creating a false impression by
selective presentation of facts.  How it is to be decided when this is
happening may be difficult but I think it's good policy.

Fred replying to:
>
>Ed Poor


from_name: Tom Parmenter

subject: [Wikipedia-l] non-constructive

in_reply_to:
<200209121209.g8CC9iQ05854@chakotay.uni-koblenz.de> (message from
	Andre Engels on Thu, 12 Sep 2002 14:09:44 +0200 (CEST))

body:
If we can handle [[Nigger]], we ought to be able to handle [[Aryan]].
That blanket prohibition, however well-meant politically, seems over
the top to me.  My Cambridge Desk Encyclopedia says the Aryans were a
prehistoric Indo-European people who spoke a now lost language.  Is
that not so?

Besides, it's paradoxical to say

  "[The term Aryan] can no longer be used in any constructive way."

which is somewhere between "This page left intentionally blank" and
"This is not a pipe".

I'd delete the sentence, add an explanation about the
pseudo-historical takeover of the term about the Nazis and forge
ahead.

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88

|From: Andre Engels <engels at uni-koblenz.de>
|Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2002 14:09:44 +0200 (CEST)
|
|I would like to write some stub article on the Aryan invasion in India
|(ca. 1700 BC). However, when I get to the Wikipedia page on 'Aryan', I read
|"[The term Aryan] can no longer be used in any constructive way."
|
|So what am I to do now?
|1. Make up some new word to describe the concept,
|2. Just delete that text from the page,
|3. Just write my own piece as if this text is not there?
|
|Andre Engels
|


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Page moving & redirects

body:
When moving a page, would it be feasible for the system to also update
redirects to point to the new page?
-- or is there possibility of accidental mangling, therefore best left
to human hands?

it wouldn't fix existing double-redirects, but it would rpevent the
creation of new ones.

(I'm still planning on doing some work on the Orders of Magnitude
chains, but I'm dreading the redirects...)

tarquin, resolutely back on-topic ;-)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Conversion script

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:
> Just a sidenote on the conversion of the German wikipedia: The [[/Talk]]
> links, or rather, [[/Diskussion]], were *not* removed from the article
> bodys. We're doing that manually, slowly, but it might be good to check
> this before another language is converted.

That also reminds me -- the image URL conversion had a couple problems
other than copying the files over. First, it garbled links to
post-English-phase3 images (with the hash subdirectories); second, the
conversion (right or wrong) was done silently on both current and old
page versions. When changing the contents of a page, it's probably
better to do so by adding a new version (as the usemod-to-phaseII
conversion does), and definitely NOT touch the history.

Which also also reminds me, Jason copied the pre-conversion Usemod
tarball over to the new server, so I'll get that history import script
ready for the English wiki.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Jim McKeeth

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Who is welcome?

body:
I agree with Jason but I would add it depends on the scope of the
article.  For example in an article about the Holocaust you would not get
into the details of the denial, but you might mention that some deny it and
then link to articles about those groups.  This would hold true for any
false (or generally accepted false) belief or statement believed or made by
a group.

But I think the reverse should be held true for religion.  I have seen a
number of articles in regards to religion and other "unpopular" topics that
have the opposition within the article.  I believe that the article should
solely talk about the subject and only mention the opposition (counter
arguement) and then link to an article that focuses on it.

For example when talking about the Pascal programming language one third of
the article is devoted to criticism by Brian Kernighan, co-creator of the C
programming language.  This may be better suited in the article about Brian
Kernighan and in the Pascal article just mention that Pascal is not Brian
Kernighan favorite programming language with a link to his article.

If we censor or argue against what we believe to be false or just a belief
(and not real) then we are not writing / editing with NPOV.

That is just my $0.02 worth.  BTW, I am new here, my name is Jim and I look
forward to eventually making meaningful contributions to WikiPedia as time
permits while retaining my day job and my family.  ;-)

-Jim McKeeth

At 05:37 PM 09/12/2002 +0100, Jason Williams wrote:
> > >then we simply write that Group A _believes_ this.
> >
> > I don't think so.
>
>Why not? The fact that those beliefs are held is useful information; this
>is a project to collect useful information. There need be no implication
>that the belief is true or valid - otherwise there should be no article
>on any Religion, for instance, since there is no evidence to support *those*
>claims either.


subject: [Wikitech-l] A projection

body:
Jaap van Ganswijk wrote:

>Hi Neil and Ray,
>
>I know what exponential behaviour is, I was just hoping you'd
>give the figures in a clearer way instead of as a formula.
>It's usual to give the growth per year as a percentage and/or
>to give the amount of time in which the amount doubles.
>
I did use an annual growth rate in my previous response, and Neil's
comments seem to have answered the second approach.  I'm sure that some
of ou more mathematically challenged Wikipedians will run the other way
at the sight of any mathematical formula, bu it was only fair for those
who might want to pursue the matter further to know how I arrived at my
view.

>>It looks exponential to me, with a kink for the Great Slowdown of the Phase II software.  Recent growth is about 217 articles/day for a size of about 42000 articles, and that's about 0.5% / day.
>>
>Looks very linear to me.
>
>And I think anyway, that the process will be more linear than exponential.
>
My projection was a hypothesis that is as subject to the constraints of
the scientific method as any other.Choosing another data set could have
given different results.

>- When the number of people contributing stays fixed and
>  they write a fixed number of articles per time unit
>  the growth will be linear.
>
Yes, but is the number of people contributing really staying fixed.
 People who only make a single contribution (including vandals) to
Wikipedia are also contributors.  What is the relationship between the
number of such people in the last thirty days with the number of such
people in the preceeding 30 days.  Any growth there is a function of
finding out that Wikipedia exists.

>- People may get bored or frustrated however and produce
>  less articles. They may also lack the knowledge to write
>  about other than their favorite subjects. Even if they
>  would write about non-favorite subjects it would go
>  slower because they would have to do more research.
>
I suspect that the proportion of people who have a 500 article
exhaustion level will be relatively constant.

>- People will also spend time on improving articles
>  instead of writing new ones and this get worse the
>  more articles there are.
>
Probably another relative constant.  Improving articles includes
splitting off sections into "new" articles when they get too long.

>- However, new people will join the club and therefore
>  super linear behaviour could occur, but I think that the
>  new people will at most counteract the amount that the
>  other start writing less articles.
>
Subject to verification.  See my comments above re one-time contributors.

>- Even when people don't have to write articles themselves
>  but can copy and edit them, the sources that they can
>  easily copy them from may dry out over time.
>
This is one of our limits to growth in the long run, but I don't see it
as a factor in the near future.

>- And a major argument against super linear behaviour of
>  the growth is, that the bigger the data base becomes,
>  the more complicated and time consuming the
>  interrelations will get. Which with a fixed staff would
>  let the growth tend to logarithmic behaviour.
>
>Given all these factors and the current graph, I think that
>the growth is more likely to be linear (and we should be
>happy enough with that).
>
Indeed we should be happy with it.

In the spirit of compromise, perhaps the growth rate is now exponential
but in the long term the rate of growth will be asymptotic to a linear
function.

Eclecticology


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Who is welcome?

body:
Mirwin asked:

>When some sects of Muslims show up to provide
>information shall we tell them they are obviously
>offensive and not welcome?

I would welcome any Muslim who wants to provide information on Islam or any other subject. We should not exclude people on the basis of their having a religious belief, any more than we should exclude people who deny all religious beliefs.

However, someone who writes _from the Islamic point of view_ will find their contributions mercilessly copy-edited into neutrality, exactly as someone who writes from an atheistic or Democratic or Marxist Republican or Unificationist POV.

"People invented God" => "The concept of God predates recorded history."

"The entire hill is a mosque" => "Muslims regard the entire hill as a mosque."

"Clinton was impeached for sex" => "Democrats believe that the impeachment was more about sex than about perjury or obstruction of justice."

"Capitalists steal profit from the workers" => "Marxists regard capitalists as thieves, contributing nothing while stealing the fruits of labor from honest working-class people."

"Rev. Moon is the Messiah" => "Members of the Unification Church consider Rev. Moon to be the Messiah."

(I do not assert that any of the translations above is _perfectly_ neutral and accurate; rather, that any information provided _can_ be presented from the NPOV.)

If there is some group claiming that Jews "started" WWII; or "invented" the Holocaust or "are a bunch of greedy hypocrites who should be driven into the Sea" or (insert favorite anti-Semitic idea here) -- then we simply write that Group A _believes_ this.

Okay, some novelist did some superficial research, and now he claims that Eisenhower killed 6 million Germans. So what? Just say "Novelist XYZ claims in Book B that blah, blah, blah."

On the other hand, if an article has too much information from one side, contributors may want to balance it with other information.

* "Most scholars regard the article as having no significant effect on Hitler's plans."
* "All but a handful of historians dismiss Holocaust Denial as utterly absurd."
* "Jewish groups generally oppose Group A's plan to drive them into the Sea." (hm, this last one may be too mild)
* "Reviewer C charges that XYZ's scholarship as shoddy."

Sorry if this is too long, but what I'm leading up to is this: any information is welcome, every person is welcome. We need only _phrase_ contributions neutrally and (if needed) _balance_ articles.

Ed Poor


subject: [Wikipedia-l] non-constructive

body:
This is one of those occasions where NPOV is prescriptive as well as
descriptive.
We should point out that the term has been abused to a point where many
people are not aware of its original meanings, but that should not stop
us from, using it correctly.
In the same way, the page on Swastika explains the origins of the symbol
as well as its misuse, and does not shirk from showing an image of one.

Andre Engels wrote:

>I would like to write some stub article on the Aryan invasion in India
>(ca. 1700 BC). However, when I get to the Wikipedia page on 'Aryan', I read
>"[The term Aryan] can no longer be used in any constructive way."
>
>So what am I to do now?
>1. Make up some new word to describe the concept,
>2. Just delete that text from the page,
>3. Just write my own piece as if this text is not there?
>
>Andre Engels
>
>[Wikipedia-l]
>To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
>http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] non-constructive

body:
I would like to write some stub article on the Aryan invasion in India
(ca. 1700 BC). However, when I get to the Wikipedia page on 'Aryan', I read
"[The term Aryan] can no longer be used in any constructive way."

So what am I to do now?
1. Make up some new word to describe the concept,
2. Just delete that text from the page,
3. Just write my own piece as if this text is not there?

Andre Engels


from_name: Karen AKA Kajikit

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Helga banned

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
> After much deliberation, and after due consideration for all of the
> arguments and discussions here, and taking into account what appears
> to me to be a general consensus, I have chosen to ban Helga for a
> period of 3 months.

Good, and it was about time, and now can we PLEASE all get back to more
useful topics...

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

And on the seventh day, God said 'What my world needs is a creature
that will truly appreciate it in all its facets' -
and so He made the kitten.

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating
Ample Aussies Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ampleaussies/

Love and huggles to all!


subject: [Wikipedia-l] non-constructive

in_reply_to:
<200209121209.g8CC9iQ05854@chakotay.uni-koblenz.de> from Andre Engels
 at "Sep 12, 2002 02:09:44 pm"

body:
Disregard this one, I think I already solved it.

Andre Engels

I wrote:

> I would like to write some stub article on the Aryan invasion in India
> (ca. 1700 BC). However, when I get to the Wikipedia page on 'Aryan', I read
> "[The term Aryan] can no longer be used in any constructive way."
>
> So what am I to do now?
> 1. Make up some new word to describe the concept,
> 2. Just delete that text from the page,
> 3. Just write my own piece as if this text is not there?


body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
>
> (This is a personal e-mail not sent to the list, but
> feel free to reproduce it anywhere you like--I am not
> trying to hide, I'm only trying not to waste the time
> of other list members with irrelevant nonsense.
>
> > I think that I have learned that many of our mailing list
> > suscribers do not embrace many of the etiquette, policies,
> > rules, orientation materials, etc.
>
> Mike, you are a lying bastard and a troll.  Larry was right;
> it is now quite clear to me that I should not take anything
> you say seriously anymore, and I will no longer waste any
> effort trying to understand or reply to your complete nonsense.
> You are of course free to continue using and contributing to
> Wikipedia if you are so inclined, and free to continue wasting
> the time of other list members, but as far as I'm concerned,
> you now no longer exist, and I will use my time and brain cells
> to more fruitful ends.

Perhaps you should read the Wikiettiquette, policies
and guidelines files again.  Even though you edited
much of it, you do not appear to apply it consistently.

I have cc'd this to the mailing list as I do not
think discussing these community meta issues is
a waste of time.

Have a nice life.

Mike Irwin


subject: [Wikipedia-l] non-constructive

in_reply_to:
<3D808EE8.7060009@planetunreal.com> from tarquin at "Sep 12, 2002
 01:56:08 pm"

body:
> This is one of those occasions where NPOV is prescriptive as well as
> descriptive.
> We should point out that the term has been abused to a point where many
> people are not aware of its original meanings, but that should not stop
> us from, using it correctly.

But how can we use it correctly and at the same time say that "it cannot
be used in a constructive way"?

> In the same way, the page on Swastika explains the origins of the symbol
> as well as its misuse, and does not shirk from showing an image of one.

Yes, but the page does not say something along the line "Since the Nazi time,
there is no good reason any more to show a Swastika".

N.B.: As said, I have already kind of resolved it. I have put my own text
in a separate article, with a reference to the "Aryan" article to say that
it's not really etymologically correct usage of the term. I have removed the
line I had a problem with from the article (something that reasonable people
disagree with is POV, and I assume you and I are reasonable people), added a
link to my article and left the rest as it was.

Andre Engels

> >I would like to write some stub article on the Aryan invasion in India
> >(ca. 1700 BC). However, when I get to the Wikipedia page on 'Aryan', I read
> >"[The term Aryan] can no longer be used in any constructive way."
> >
> >So what am I to do now?
> >1. Make up some new word to describe the concept,
> >2. Just delete that text from the page,
> >3. Just write my own piece as if this text is not there?


subject: Using pseudonyms, was: [Wikipedia-l] Helga banned

body:
Jaap van Ganswijk wrote:

>Hi 'title of a movie',
>
>I think that if Wikipedia is to grow into a serious
>movement, nay institute even, it's essential that
>people adhere more to netiquette.
>
>I don't care which babysteps are made by whomever
>but that things are improved in general. That's
>why I'd like to point out some issues that can
>be improved. If you have considered my arguments
>and decide that you still have a legitimate
>reason to use a pseudonym, so be it. You will
>not be taken as seriously at face value, so
>you'll have to try harder to be respected, but
>if you choose that road, you have my blessing.
>
Our KQ has already proved himself.

Too bad he's already go the name though, the Hopi language term might
have suited Jaap better.


body:
Netiquette, at least as far as I have seen, does not say that everyone has
to use their real names in on-line communities.  In fact it supports the
opposite, that we should respect individuals requests for privacy and treat
them with respect that every individual disserves.  I have been in the
on-line community for many years (before the web and most people knew what
the Internet was I ran in BBS circles) and handles (pseudonyms) have always
been respected where appropriate.  A community like this is a perfect
example of such an appropriate use of handles.

Granted some people do not like to use handles, but that is their
CHOICE.  If they choose a handle or not should not effect our opinion in a
community.  You raise the point of financial transactions, but we are all
volunteers here.  No one is paying anyone money.

In a community setting like this absolute identity is not necessary.  In
fact, in some ways I prefer dealing with people who use an obvious handle /
pseudonym because then I don't wonder if that is really their name or if
they are trying to deceive me.

I have only been here a short time, but most of your posts seem more aimed
at making waves then building an encyclopedia.  But that is just my opinion.

At 10:02 PM 09/12/2002 +0200, Jaap van Ganswijk wrote:
>I think that if Wikipedia is to grow into a serious
>movement, nay institute even, it's essential that
>people adhere more to netiquette.
>
>I don't care which babysteps are made by whomever
>but that things are improved in general. That's
>why I'd like to point out some issues that can
>be improved. If you have considered my arguments
>and decide that you still have a legitimate
>reason to use a pseudonym, so be it. You will
>not be taken as seriously at face value, so
>you'll have to try harder to be respected, but
>if you choose that road, you have my blessing.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Pseudonyms, etc.

body:
Jaap van Ganswijk wrote:
> But luckily Wikipedia is not run by a tyrant...

Oh, but the temptation...

--Jimbo


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

body:
At 10:02 PM 9/12/02 +0200, someone calling himself Jaap van Ganswijk wrote:
>Hi 'title of a movie',
>
>At 2002-09-10 19:19 -0700, koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:
> >You Wrote:
> >>At 2002-09-10 18:09 -0700, koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:
> >>>Jaap wrote:
> >>>Yes, it would be possible.  It, however, will not be practiced, at
> least by the person you are directing this part of your message to.  I
> have very particular reasons to mind my privacy, none of which I'll
> discuss, thank you, because I won't be convinced otherwise.
> >>
> >>This sentence doesn't contain a valid argument.
> >
> >It does.  You don't agree with it.
> >
> >>>I certainly don't expect anyone who's done their homework to believe
> that koyaanis qatsi is my real name,
> >>
> >>That's not the issue.
> >
> >You're right.  The issue is this: 1) you want me to use my real name, or
> a less obvious pseudonym.  2) I don't care.
> >
> >kq
>
>I think that if Wikipedia is to grow into a serious
>movement, nay institute even, it's essential that
>people adhere more to netiquette.

Netiquette doesn't demand real names, in part because it's very hard to tell
which names are real. At one point over on Usenet, someone angrily demanded
that another poster use his "real name". The person of whom the demand was
made was, in fact, using his full legal name. Conversely, I have no way of
knowing, online, whether you're really named Jaap van Ganswijk.

--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


from_name: Jason Williams

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Who is welcome?

body:
On Thu, Sep 12, 2002 at 10:24:30AM -0600, Fred Bauder wrote:
> >If there is some group claiming that Jews "started" WWII;
> >or "invented" the Holocaust or
> >"are a bunch of greedy hypocrites who should be driven into the Sea" or
> >(insert favorite anti-Semitic idea here) --
> >then we simply write that Group A _believes_ this.
>
> I don't think so.

Why not? The fact that those beliefs are held is useful information; this
is a project to collect useful information. There need be no implication
that the belief is true or valid - otherwise there should be no article
on any Religion, for instance, since there is no evidence to support *those*
claims either.

--
jason at jasonandali.org.uk    http://www.jasonandali.org.uk/jason/