subject: [WikiEN-l] (no subject)

body:
From: "Eileen" <EileenE at gmx.net>

> Fred Bauder suggested I just jump in and edit liberally but this, I have
> absolutely no doubt, would simply lead to a pissing contest between those
who
> want the propaganda retained and those interested in factual information.
I
> have neither the time nor the inclination to engage in such an exchange.

I agree that partial birth abortion is a loaded term.
Why are you just rejecting Wikipedia because you
are not interested in discussing how to do this so
that all points of view are presented? It seems to
me that your off handed rejection of Wikipedia only
shows that you are not serious in trying to get
neutral information out to as many people as possible.

It seems that you want to present a point of view
that is valid and part of the debate about PBA. OK. Using
variations of terms is very common in encyclopedias.
Sometimes someone looking up an entry only has one
term, if they start reading one article the beauty of
Wikipedia is that it will lead them to related articles
or different terminologies.

> It is for these reasons that I will retain the answers I have recived to
> this query as background and support of my position and will simply refuse
in
> the future to accept any citition from Wikipedia as a reference to a
legitimate
> authority but will put it in the same class as a letter to the editor in a
> small local newspaper.

No one is preventing you from putting such
information on Wikipedia. If you do state that
is what happened to you, you may in fact be
libeling the good name of Wikipedia. Why would
you want to do that I do not know. Perhaps your
motives are not so neutral as you suggest and
you have your own hidden agenda?

Alex756


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: The Cunctator

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Science, politics, point of view,
	encyclopedic style...

body:
The debate over the handling of abortion language largely boils down to
the postmodern dispute over the nature of bias in scientific language
and thought. That is: the practice of science includes only that which
is (potentially) confirmable or repeatable, rather than that which is
inherently subjective or unconfirmable.

Medical terminology falls under the scientific rubric in that the terms
have a precise practical meaning. The terminology excludes moral and
personal weightings.

"Uterus", for example, is a more precise term than "womb", in that
"uterus" only refers to the female organ, whereas "womb" is regularly
used metonymically.

One can argue that using medical terminology to discuss medical
practices is biased, because the terminology avoids the moral questions.
That is the argument used by those who say that we need to describe
abortion issues using words such as "birth canal" or "partial-birth
abortion", and who say that when we discuss medical practice the moral
issues must be admixed.

Delirium wrote: " Using strictly medical terms is considered biased by
the anti-abortion community, as they see it as an attempt to cast a
moral issue as a strictly sanitized medical issue; using non-medical
terms is seen as similarly biased by the pro-abortion community."

>From that he concludes that we need to somehow intermix the terminology
in order to construct a neutral article.

But that conclusion is fallacious, as the "moralist" and "medicalist"
arguments are not equivalent ones that cancel each other out, leaving
perfect neutrality. Medical terms have specific, objective meaning, but
non-medical terms do not.

Considering both Wikipedia's mission and Wikipedia's methods, having a
bias towards scientific (objective, confirmable, empirical, etc.)
language and methods in constructing articles is right and (I believe)
necessary.

If we do not use specific, empirical language, we cannot express
confirmable statements. We will instead use sentences that muddle
meaning and issues. This fails Wikipedia's mission and leads to a
breakdown in Wikipedia's methods, as the hammerings of multiple authors
will not lead inexorably to one result.

Another way of putting the same idea: Wikipedia needs to be biased
towards language based on consensual thought, such as scientific
language, because Wikipedia is a consensual product.

A specific recommendation for the article at hand: the discussion of the
medical procedures and the political debate about the medical procedures
need to be mde distinct.

One thing this means is that the language of anti-abortion proponents
can't be used to describe the medical procedures, as that language
expressly disallows such a distinction.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Science, politics, point of view, encyclopedic style...

body:
> From: Delirium
>
> The Cunctator wrote:
>
> >Considering both Wikipedia's mission and Wikipedia's methods, having
a
> >bias towards scientific (objective, confirmable, empirical, etc.)
> >language and methods in constructing articles is right and (I
believe)
> >necessary.
> >
> >If we do not use specific, empirical language, we cannot express
> >confirmable statements. We will instead use sentences that muddle
> >meaning and issues. This fails Wikipedia's mission and leads to a
> >breakdown in Wikipedia's methods, as the hammerings of multiple
authors
> >will not lead inexorably to one result.
> >
> >Another way of putting the same idea: Wikipedia needs to be biased
> >towards language based on consensual thought, such as scientific
> >language, because Wikipedia is a consensual product.
> >
> I don't in general agree with this: there is very good reason Ethics
> journals do not use scientific terminology exclusively when discussion
> the abortion issue, because such terminology, while well-suited to
> discussing specific medical procedures, is ill-suited to discussing
> ethical issues.  I think when discussing ethical issues we should make
> current accepted practice in the field of Ethics our model, not
current
> accepted practice in the largely unrelated scientific fields.  I've
> suggested the Journal of Applied Ethics as a good model, but I'm open
to
> other suggestions as well.

I'm including the social sciences in my definition of scientific
language.
I would argue that ethics journals *do* use scientific terminology
exclusively when discussing the abortion issue. They do not use
*medical* terminology exclusively.

That is to say, I agree with your recommendations. We just haven't found
exactly the right language to establish our concordance. ("Scientific
language" is not necessarily the best term to express my point.)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Our credibility is questioned

body:
> From: Jimmy Wales

<snip>
>
> 1.  Abortion is an important political issue because some believe in a
> woman's right to choose abortion, while others believe that it is
> tantamount to murder.

[[Politics of abortion]]
... with subsections/subentries on specific political threads, such as
Roe v. Wade, "partial-birth", legalization of RU-486, etc.

> 2.  Abortion is a medical procedure, the facts of which are easily
> describable in medical terms, and an understanding of various methods
> is important to an understanding of the debate.

[[Abortion methods]]
... with subsections/subentries on surgical, drug-based,

> 3.  We need to have clear fact-based articles about not only the
> medical facts, but also about the personal, social, and human
and legal
> implications of the subject.

[[Legality of abortion]] (separate from politics--legality explains
*what* the laws are, politics explains *why*).

I would add

4. The discussions on the medical facts, the personal, social, and human
(and religious) implications of the subject need to be made as distinct
entries/sections.


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject:
[WikiEN-l] An expansion of Ed's proposal on "partial-birth
	abortion"

body:
Mark (Delirium) wrote:

> The basic tension is between opponents of
> legalized abortion, who want the descriptions
> to be as gruesome and detailed as possible,
> and between supporters of legalized abortion,
> who want the descriptions to be as detached,
> clinical, and jargon-filled as possible.
> Hopefully we can avoid doing either.

You hit the nail on the head. The debate over abortion has definitely
been polarized around loaded terminology.

I bet we Wikipedians will be able to reach a consensus on describing
abortion procedures using medical terminology - even at the cost of
using "detached" jargon.

I have fainter hopes that we'll be able to reach consensus on the
neutrality of any article exploring the moral aspects of abortion.
Extremists from both "pro-life" and "pro-choice" camps may very well
insist that nothing short of fully embracing their POV is "neutral".

Which is why I've avoided the issue like the plague (to use a clinical
and gruesome metaphor). Not to mention that it will take dozens of hours
of my time...

Uncle Ed


body:
Louis warned:

> We can't win, because each point of view
> defines the baseline assumptions of the
> other as being unworthy of consideration
> or discussion.  Therefore, any article
> that merely includes terminology and
> ideas from each POV is inherently wrong
> according to the other.

On the contrary, we can use your penetrating analysis to *label* those
assumptions as the POV of the activists in question.

On one side, there's this:
* It's my body, I'll do whatever the hell I want with it. Get out, you
damned cancerous growth!

On the other, there's:
* Oh, what a cute baby! Surely you wouldn't murder your own son?

Note that both views take a human rights perspective. "You can't make me
harbor this monster" and "You dare not murder another human being".

If we can pull this off, it will be the PR coup of the century!

Uncle Ed


body:
> From: Poor, Edmund W
>
> On the contrary, we can use your penetrating analysis to *label* those
> assumptions as the POV of the activists in question.
>
> On one side, there's this:
> * It's my body, I'll do whatever the hell I want with it. Get out, you
> damned cancerous growth!
>
> On the other, there's:
> * Oh, what a cute baby! Surely you wouldn't murder your own son?
>
> Note that both views take a human rights perspective. "You can't make
me
> harbor this monster" and "You dare not murder another human being".
>
> If we can pull this off, it will be the PR coup of the century!

If you're trying to be helpful here, you're not doing a great job.


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Following up -

body:
Eileen wrote:

>I entered this fray because I thought the Wikipedia concept had merit.
>However without a responsible editor or editorial board which will make clear
>what will NOT be accepted there is no chance of producing the reliable source of
>accurate information I would like to see used.
>
Since you purport to have some scientific understanding, I think you'll
agree
that it's not valid to draw sweeping conclusions about a 300,000+ article
encyclopedia from a sample size of one or two. In fact, there are a
number of
experts working here as editors, and there are many articles with material
of higher quality than is now available anywhere else, on- or offline,
so your
claim is simply wrong. Wikipedia has been in existence for only three
years, and
there has simply not been enough people and enough time to write all of the
material you would like to see, and unfortunately some of that time has been
taken up in defending ourselves from the people who have been throwing rocks
rather than helping.

I don't know if you're aware of GNU and Linux; when I started working
on the compiler in 1989, the project had already been in existence for six
years, but very few people thought it would go much of anywhere. Now, on its
20th anniversary, the process, software, and people have been thoroughly
vindicated; they have been adopted by the largest computer companies
in the world (IBM etc), and the most powerful software company (Microsoft)
is on the defensive. Best of all, my dubious friends have had to admit
I was right to believe. :-)

Like GNU/Linux, WP has repeatedly surpassed the limits set on it by
the naysayers, and I believe it will continue to do so.

Stan


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Money, money...

body:
Paul Ebermann wrote:
>Do you think of professors in US colleges, which
>teach the language in question (to students
>having English as native language), or of professors
>in a country of the given language itself (so the
>language will be native to most students).

That is a loaded question because you specifically mentioned "US colleges."

I don't care what nation or language is the main one for the professor and
his/her students so long as the professor teaches his/her students the
language we want articles in.

I have a personal slight preference for a 'foreign language' situation since
art, culture and history are often mixed-in with learning a foreign language
(at least in my part of the world). However I have no objection to a 'native
language' set-up if the result is the same.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


from_name: Peter Gervai

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] NPOV disputes in Polish-German
	articles

body:
On Wed, Oct 29, 2003 at 07:50:45AM -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Karl Eichwalder wrote:
> > There the German name haters already won ;-( At times, the German
> > "Recent changes" list looks funny: many a lot names completely unknown
> > to me.  The strange thing is that they don't step forward renaming also
> > "Stra?burg" (Strasbourg), "Mailand" (Milano), "Rom" (Roma), "Venedig"
> > (Venezia), "Kopenhagen" (Kopenhavn), etc.
>
> Well, that's very strange to me.  It's not really my place, exactly,
> to comment much on what the wiki-consensus should be in German
> language, but if I was German, I'd probably want to work on fixing
> that.  But perhaps there are subtleties that I don't understand, so
> I'll just refrain from comment.

Should be intlwiki-l but anyway; for me it was natural to form the policy on
Hungarian as "we should use names which Hungarian people would naturally
use, and which is the most used, and make others redirect to them".

grin


from_name: Guillaume Blanchard

subject: [Wikipedia-l] External pictures

body:
I fully agree the fact we must not use external pictures in articles, but
why don't allow them in meta/user/talk pages ? I had a pictures of my baby
on my user page, I can't see it any more :o(
More seriously, I'm afraid prohibit external link will make people copy more
non encyclopedic pictures on the server and will make harder to select right
pictures when we will make a static version.

Aoineko


list: wikitech-l

subject: [Wikitech-l] shell account

body:
Greetings,

I'm hereby asking for a shell account on the servers ("developer
status"?). My primary reason for the request is to satisfy my own urge
to start looking for possible causes when the wiki decides to hang
(especially since there has been a number of occasions when the swedish
wikipedia has been unresponsive while others has worked fine). At least
it will give me something to do while I'm waiting for it to save my
edits. I'm not promising anything besides doing no harm, although I do
have some experience in this area.

I'm an administrator on swedish wikipedia, and I seem to have the trust
from the other admins. I put out a question[1] about it, and got 4
supportive replys and none vehemently against.

Yours,
E23, user page at [2].

1.http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Beg%E4ran_om_administrat%F6rsskap
2.http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anv%E4ndare:E23


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] Elizabeth Smart

body:
I don't understand how you can possibly imagine that she was not the victim of a kidnapping.  Please explain your thinking?

RickK

Jens Frank <JeLuF at gmx.de> wrote:
On Tue, Oct 28, 2003 at 09:38:50PM -0800, Andrew wrote:
> I agree with keeping it at [[Elizabeth Smart (kidnap victim)]], if that
> means anything.
>
Reading the article, I get the impression that "kidnap victim" might not
be NPOV. I don't want to say that she was not kidnapped, but some points
of the story indicate the possibility of a different explanation.

I'd prefer disambiguating by her middle name or by year of birth.

Regards,

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

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Elizabeth Smart

body:
I moved her from (kidnap victim) to [[Elizabeth Ann Smart]]. If anyone
wants to move her back, fine.

Ed Poor


subject: [WikiEN-l] Our credibility is questioned

body:
It seems that she came into the process with a particular outlook and is upset that Wikipedia does not support her position.

RickK

"Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
What are everyone's thoughts on Eileen's
evaluation of our editorial policy on articles
relating to abortion?

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Elizabeth Smart

body:
This is perfectly acceptable to me.  Anything is acceptable to me except media sensation.

RickK

"Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
I moved her from (kidnap victim) to [[Elizabeth Ann Smart]]. If anyone
wants to move her back, fine.

Ed Poor

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from_name: Karl Eichwalder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] NPOV disputes in Polish-German articles

body:
Peter Gervai <grin at tolna.net> writes:

> On Wed, Oct 29, 2003 at 07:50:45AM -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:

>> Well, that's very strange to me.  It's not really my place, exactly,
>> to comment much on what the wiki-consensus should be in German
>> language, but if I was German, I'd probably want to work on fixing
>> that.  But perhaps there are subtleties that I don't understand, so
>> I'll just refrain from comment.

I guess the reason why is pretty simple.  In the past, in the times of
the German Democratic Republic all the antifascists used the "foreign"
names to show how PC they are (me included).  Some of the prolong this
way of life in our current times.  And then there are some German
writers who are quite advanced in Middle and Eastern European languages:
using foreign spellings they can show how clever they are ;-)

> Should be intlwiki-l but anyway;

No, I'm not going to subscribe to jet another list ;)

> for me it was natural to form the policy on Hungarian as "we should
> use names which Hungarian people would naturally use, and which is the
> most used, and make others redirect to them".

Sure, that's the natural way to solve this "problem" -- maybe I'll start
another try to get things right.  Unfortunately, often there is more
important work to do.

--
                                                         |      ,__o
                                                         |    _-\_<,
http://www.gnu.franken.de/ke/                            |   (*)/'(*)


from_name: Delirium

subject:
addressing some of the "partial-birth" concerns (Re: [WikiEN-l]
	Following up -)

body:
First of all, I'd like to apologize for my somewhat confrontational tone
initially.  Secondly, please understand that I'm only speaking for
myself (much as you're speaking for yourself), not in any official
capacity as a representative of Wikipedia; others may agree or disagree
with what I say.

>The current entry in Wikipedia under the heading "Intact dilation and
>extraction" does not treat the subject as a medical abortion procedure - which it
>is - but rather as something open to multiple interpretations and with moral
>implications, which is not a part of any clinical medical procedure.  While
>almost any medical/surgical procedure can be said to have a moral component,
>the actual procedure is in fact somewhat mechanical and devoid of morality.
>
>
>
This I agree is a problem; you're free to begin making changes to it
yourself if you have the time and inclination, or else hopefully some of
us will find the time to do so.  So far from discussion on this mailing
list it appears there is somewhat of a consensus towards separating the
medical procedure and the surrounding issue into separate articles, but
this has not yet been done, so there's a little of both in both
articles.  So it seems in principle we all agree that the article titled
"Intact dilation and extraction" should be a strictly medical article,
with nothing but a pointer to other articles discussing social or
ethical issues.  Then an article under "partial birth abortion" can
discuss those, as well as disagreement over the term itself.

However, this all takes work, so the separation and rewriting hasn't
actually taken place--we'd like if possible to move the information from
"Intact dilation and extraction" to another article rather than simply
deleting it (except for the factually incorrect information, of course).

>Let me refer you to a couple of politically loaded statements in the current
>article.
>It suggests that the name of the procedure may be replaced by Late Term
>Abortion - which is a synonym -  when in fact D&X (ID&X) is *clearly a mid
>trimester proceudre*, which under very very rare circumstances might be possible to
>use late term.  To present LTA as a synonym for this procedure therefore is
>just plain incorrect.
>
>
>
This I agree is the case.  In some some quick research it appears some
anti-abortion groups are attempting to label anything after the first
trimester "late-term", which I agree is a distortion and not in keeping
with the generally understood definition of "late-term" when it comes to
pregnancies.  I will look through your draft and attempt to integrate
some corrections as soon as I get some free time to do so (or perhaps
someone else will first; or you're welcome to make the changes directly
yourself).

>In associating the term D&X with the unequivocally undefined political term
>"Partial Birth Abortion" once more the implication, clearly, is that the
>procedure is performed close to a normal birth, or perhaps even during a birth,
>when in fact it can be stated without any equivocation that the majority of
>such fetuses, if the pregnancy were not deliberately terminated by an induced
>abortion at the point D&Xs are performed, but by a medical mishap which caused
>the woman's body to prematurely expel them in a spontaneous abortion, would
>be considered miscarriages.
>
>
>
Would you object to the association if it had more of a disclaimer, as
in "This procedure has been called a type of 'partial birth abortion' by
some of its critics, who hope to have it banned." or similar?  Then the
phrase 'partial birth abortion' could link to the article with that
title, which would discuss the surrounding political issues (including
the fact that it is not clearly defined).

>Re: Delerium/Mark's suggestion concerning the use of "Partial dilation and
>extraction".  It is a term I am totally unfamiliar with and believe me, if it
>were a part of the usual, and possibly even unusual, abortion nomenclature I
>would be familiar with it.
>
>
>
I misspoke here; I meant "Intact dilation and extraction".

>With respect to the Wikipedia project:
>This was a new phenomenon to me but I was indirectly introduced to it
>through a reference in an essay I was asked to evaluate.  Naturally I am suspicious
>of any appeal to authority, which after all is what a dictionary or
>encyclopedia reference is, and thought to check the reliability of the source. I was
>totally amazed at the lack of real scholarship displayed in that particular
>entry.
>
>
>
I have mixed feelings on that myself; there is no guarantee that at any
given point any Wikipedia article has useful or correct information, so
I'd be wary of citing it in a paper.  There are plans to work on a more
stable and reviewed "release version" of Wikipedia 1.0, which will (we
hope) be much more reliable and worthy of academic citation.  That said,
I think Wikipedia is quite useful as a reference even now as long as it
is never your *sole* reference--if you look around a bit, I do think
there are quite a few very good articles on Wikipedia, and some are even
the best of their class, superior to those found in Britannica and other
"professional" encyclopedias.  In particular, Wikipedia covers
mathematical and computer science topics with much greater depth and
precision than most encyclopedias, and in political disputes does not
defend mainstream dogma quite as much as others do (you'll find very
little of the controversy over Henry Kissinger in the Britannica article
on Kissinger, for example, which presents a much more whitewashed view).

>I was further dismayed to discover that your attempt at a democratic,
>co-operative project lends itself to a tyranny of the loudest voice; or the fastest
>editorial pen; or the most persistent objecter. Also disappointing is the
>fact that under the guise of a neutral viewpoint political jargon is being
>passed of as reliable and accurate information.
>
>
>
This is a continuing problem with disputed issues (Israel/Palestine is
another that frequently causes problems), but I don't think it's solely
a tyranny of the loudest voice.  On topics with enough interest,
eventually things will tend to get ironed out in a way that is fairly
neutral and factually accurate.  In the meantime there may be conflict
over what should go in an article, but in the long run someone
attempting to insert biased viewpoints into an article will not succeed
in keeping them there.  On particularly controversial issues, a neutral
(or as neutral as possible) person will attempt to mediate (this has
happened a bit recently with disputes over Serb and Croat articles
between partisans of either side).

In short, I agree there's some problems with the current system, and
we're always open to suggestions for improvement, but so far it seems to
be the best one.  The only alternatives seem to involve some sort of
authoritarian power structure, wherein we appoint "experts" to edit or
review certain articles, and that's the sort of thing we're trying to
avoid (especially since there's no guarantee any given "expert" is him
or herself unbiased).

>When an essay/paper uses a dictionary or encyclopedia as an information
>reference source I recognize the danger in this but expect at least some form of
>editorial responsibility will ameliorate the gross distortions found in some
>less notable journalistic outlets.  Your "free for all" approach does not
>appear to lend itself to editorial responsibility and overview, however. There
>has to be a point where the buck ends and somebody (or perhaps group) takes
>responsibility for obviously false content by refusing to permit it to be
>printed.  This will, of course, require a good deal of intestinal fortitude on the
>part of such a person but without such responsibility to readers the result
>is an unreliable and unpalatable goulash.
>
>
>
>I entered this fray because I thought the Wikipedia concept had merit.
>However without a responsible editor or editorial board which will make clear
>what will NOT be accepted there is no chance of producing the reliable source of
>accurate information I would like to see used.
>
>
>
There is currently no formal editorial board, but that does not mean
that *anything* can be printed.  Instead of seeing it that way, I think
a more accurate way would be to think of it as "this article is a work
in progress"--the work in progress may be unfit to be printed, but that
doesn't mean it can't be fixed.  (When a Wikipedia 1.0 is finally
released, then the argument that we're printing rubbish will be more
problematic.)  Something unfit to be printed will be dealt with when
it's brought to someone's attention (the only rubbish that stays up
indefinitely is really obscure stuff nobody notices--which is
unfortunate, but not really what the current discussion is about).

There is an informal review board of sorts of the most active
Wikipedians, most of whom strive to be as neutral as possible; when
issues (such as this one) become a major controversy, people not
normally involved in the field will step in and try to resolve the
situation.  Rather than giving up immediately, I'd ask that either you
start editing yourself to implement your desired changes (there's no
guarantee they'll all be kept intact, but it's at least a start, and
faster than waiting for us to implement them for you), or give us some
time to sort these issues out and see if the articles on this subject a
few weeks from now are more satisfactory.  Our goal is to come up with
an article that both abortion choice supporters and abortion opponents
can read and say "well, I might've phrased that a little differently,
but this is an accurate summary of the facts and surrounding debate."
It's clear it's not at that point yet, but I don't think it's an
impossible goal.

-Mark


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] NPOV disputes in
	Polish-German	articles

body:
Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:

>You have wrong idea about the problem. The disputed area wasn't exclusively
>Polish or exclusively German at that time. Usually, it's hard to even decide who was
>the "majority", as we don't have detailed data from the epoch, and it's known
>to differ from town to town. It's also not possible to tell what was the official
>language - the concept of "official language" is a recent one - then some mix of
>Latin and local languages was used, depending on context. Also, the name of a city
>could be the same in both German and Polish at that time, only to diverge later
>with phonological changes. "Torun'" is example of a name which isn't originally Polish
>nor originally German. According to modern etymology it was Polish name equivalent to
>"Tarno'w", later to be imported to German language during times of the Teutonic Order,
>then to be reimported to Polish in significantly changed version. "Warta Boleslawiecka"
>is another such example, except that reimporting happened after the Second World War.
>
>The only sensible policy is to consequently use contemporary names, with possibly
>versions in the other languages parenthesized.
>
>
This makes sense for some of the names, but I don't think for all.  For
example, "Danzig" was until 1945 the generally accepted English name for
that city, so I think speaking of someone like Arthur Schopenhauer (a
German born in 1780) being "born in Gdansk" is a little bit
anachronistic, and speaking of him being "born in Danzig (modern-day
[[Gdansk]], [[Poland]])" is more accurate.  I think we should generally
use the name that would've been used by the person if it's clear, and
otherwise prefer the modern name.  So, Constantinople (not Istanbul) for
the Byzantines; Danzig (not Gdansk) and Koenigsberg (not Kaliningrad)
for 18th-century Germans, but Warsaw for everyone in all time periods, etc.

The main impetus behind this suggestion is that it seems odd to say
someone was born in a city that they wouldn't have called by that
name--if Schopenhauer thought he was born in Danzig, and in fact
mentioned Danzig in his writings, then that's what we should call his
birthplace.

However, I do think your argument has convinced me to use the modern
names when discussing the general history, if former names are unclear,
which I think is how it currently is: [[Gdansk]] refers to the city by
that name throughout the history section, including the
16th/17th/18th/19th centuries.  That seems fine to me.  It's be wrong to
refer to 16th-century [[Kaliningrad]] though.

So perhaps unfortunately we need to do it on a case-by-case basis?

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Major Correction

body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>There can't be a law on 'partial-birth abortion' because it doesn't
>really exist except as a political construct.
>
>That's one of the points Eileen has been trying to make.
>
>
Given that a law entitled Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act has been passed
the US Congress recently, there's clearly some segment of the US
population (a majority even) who think that such a thing does exist.  It
may not be precisely defined, but neither is "hate crime", and that
doesn't mean that we shouldn't have an article on [[hate crime]].  To
claim the concept is vague and there's disagreement over what it covers
is one thing; to claim that it doesn't exist at all is quite another.

I of course don't object at all to a discussion of why the term is vague
and disagreements over what exactly it might cover.

-Mark


body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>
>Boy, it's sure easy for people to attack her, when her criticism of the
>articles as poorly muddling medical with moral issues is entirely valid.
>
If the criticism was directed at the one article, then no problem, but she's
going from there to a blanket condemnation of the entire encyclopedia
and the
people working hard on it. It's insulting to dedicated contributors to
suggest that their content is worthless without an anointed editorial board
to bless it, and it betrays massive ignorance and an unwillingness to learn.
Given that, I'd recommend extra leeriness and doublechecking of all of her
assertions - she sounds to me more like a faux expert trying to snow us
with haughty attitude and big words. Beware!

Stan


from_name: Matthew J. Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Major Correction

body:
On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, The Cunctator wrote:

> There can't be a law on 'partial-birth abortion' because it doesn't
> really exist except as a political construct.

That something doesn't exist doesn't mean there can't be a law about it
...

-Matt


from_name: Alex R.

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee"

body:
From: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com>

> > Having an ironclad arbitration scheme and an licencing scheme
> > that deals with issues that are not covered by the GFDL will
> > protect Wikipedia more, not less.
>
> Well, I agree with that!  I think we should do whatever we need to do,
> with legalistic formalism and all the bells and whistles to make sure
> that if some crank does try to take us to court to get us to let them
> edit the site willy-nilly that we can just point to Exhibit A
> (whatever that might be) and the Judge will say "Oh, o.k., well this
> whole thing is frivolous, good day!"
>
> > Leaving it to the hope that
> > some judge will just say, "you can do whatever you want" rather
> > than getting people to acknowledge that from the moment they
> > log on does not seem like a really swift way to solve the issue.
>
> Well, I totally agree with that.

Here are my proposals to change the edit page announcement add
warranty disclaimers to the copyright page and create a submission
standards page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Annotated_edit_page_announcement_(proposal)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights_and_Warranty_Disclaimers_(proposal)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights_and_Warranty_Disclaimers_(proposal)

These three texts need to be read together, they are meant to function
together.

It should be noted that I wrote the section on arbitration prior to
the topic being introduced about the Wikiquette committee. It
can be changed to be more internal or to reflect subsequent discussions.
I have just been too busy to deal with it in the last month.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Submission_Standards_(proposal)#Choice_of_law_and_Arbitration_Agreement

Most contracts that include arbitration use the AAA, there
is no reason not to make it internal and limit it to banning. That can
be clarified. Any other comments (and some suggestion that this
should either be abandoned or adopted) would be appreciated on
the relevant talk pages (or on the Wikilegal-l discussion list if that
is more appropriate) .

Alex T. Roshuk (user:Alex756)


from_name: Eileen

subject: [WikiEN-l] (no subject)

body:
I wish to take the time to thank those who responded to my attempt at a
neutral replacement page for the current one dealing with the D&X abortion
procedure.  The responses have made the methods and purpose of Wikipedia much
clearer to me.

I was laboring under the false impression that the purpose of Wikipedia was
to present factual information in an encyclopedic form.  The answer I
received from Delerium/Mark makes it abundantly clear that I was mistaken in this
evaluation.  These two paragraphs sum up his point succintly.

>>In both these cases, the problem is that there is no entirely neutral
terminology.  Using strictly medical terms is considered biased by the
anti-abortion community, as they see it as an attempt to cast a moral issue as a
strictly sanitized medical issue; using non-medical terms is seen as similarly
biased by the pro-abortion community.  My preferred solution would be to use both
sets of terms interchangeably--both "womb" and "uterus" and both "birth
canal" and "vagina/cervix/vulva").  In particular I don't really see anything
wrong with "birth canal", and have seen it used in pro-abortion literature as
well as anti-abortion literature.

As for the term "Partial Birth Abortion" itself, there's no good solution to
that either that I can see.  Certainly there some be some discussion about
the controversy over terminology, but simply adopting an alternate term would
be biased as well.  The only other term in reasonably widespread use is "late
term abortion", but as you pointed out some of these procedures do not
actually occur in the last trimester, so can't really fall under that heading.  So
I'd say keeping the term PBA with the qualification that some abortion
supporters object to the term is the best solution.<<

The medical terms I suggested (which were also linked) **ARE** neutral and
are well understood by both the lay person and the medical professional.  Your
preferred choices are in fact **NOT** neutral terms but deliberately loaded
terms intended to subtly present a particular POV.

Furthermore the propaganda term "Partial Birth Abortion" is not a medical
term and ** HAS NO DEFINITION ** according to the rulings of a number of State
Supreme Courts, the US Supreme Court, the ACOG who are most qualified to
discuss abortion procedures, and the AMA representing in excess of 35,000 members
of the US medical profession (Dec. 2002).  It is neither a medical procedure
NOR a lay term for any abortion procedure because it has no unequivocal
description even in the current S3 bill.

So it has become obvious to me very quickly that the "edit" function on your
articles in Wikipedia is open to exactly the same type of "stacking the
deck" abuse that online internet polls are and thus the entries in Wilipedia are
less than useless if the purpose is to find reliable information.

Fred Bauder suggested I just jump in and edit liberally but this, I have
absolutely no doubt, would simply lead to a pissing contest between those who
want the propaganda retained and those interested in factual information. I
have neither the time nor the inclination to engage in such an exchange.

It is for these reasons that I will retain the answers I have recived to
this query as background and support of my position and will simply refuse in
the future to accept any citition from Wikipedia as a reference to a legitimate
authority but will put it in the same class as a letter to the editor in a
small local newspaper.

I appreciate the thought put into the responses by Jimmy Wales and Daniel
Mayer also.

Thank you all for your responses,

Eileen.

Cada ni?o un ni?o querido.
Chaque enfant un enfant voulu.
Jedes Kind ein gew?nschtes Kind.
Cada crian?a uma crian?a querida
Ogni bambino un bambino desiderato.
Every child a wanted child.

http://www.eileene.cjb.net

PS - If anybody is interested in viewing the suggested D&X entry as I
revised it I will leave it temporarily at
http://eileen.undonet.com/Main/Wikipedia_Intact_dilation_and_extraction.html

--
NEU F?R ALLE - GMX MediaCenter - f?r Fotos, Musik, Dateien...
Fotoalbum, File Sharing, MMS, Multimedia-Gru?, GMX FotoService

Jetzt kostenlos anmelden unter http://www.gmx.net

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 3, Issue 131

body:
Matt wrote:
>Well, it's not the only issue. There's also the fact that
>Canadians, whom the Wikipedia also serves, in general
>say Inuit; and also the fact that those Inuit who speak
>English use the term Inuit. I would prefer that it remain at
>Inuit.

Yeah and the article about the people would remain at [[Inuit]] while an
article about the /term/ "Eskimo" would be at [[Eskimo]]. But only if there
is enough text to transfer to [[Eskimo]].

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


from_name: Luc Van Oostenryck

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia-l ext pict

body:
Guillaume Blanchard wrote:
> From: "Anthere" <anthere6 at yahoo.com>
>
>>From: "Guillaume Blanchard" <gblanchard at arcsy.co.jp>
>>why don't allow them in meta/user/talk pages ? I had a
>>pictures of my
>>baby
>>on my user page, I can't see it any more :o(
>>
>>If you upload the baby picture on fr, I promise you we
>>won't delete it :-)
>>
>>(but put a newer one)
>
>
> It exacly what I want to denounce. People will put non-encyclopedic pictures
> on the server !
> What is the reason to ban external pictures from meta/user/talk pages ?
>
> Aoineko

Aoi, the proposition to disallow external pics was on the Bistro (fr's Village pump)
for several weeks.
Why do you react only now?

-- Looxix


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia-l ext pict

body:
From: "Anthere" <anthere6 at yahoo.com>
> From: "Guillaume Blanchard" <gblanchard at arcsy.co.jp>
> why don't allow them in meta/user/talk pages ? I had a
> pictures of my
> baby
> on my user page, I can't see it any more :o(
>
> If you upload the baby picture on fr, I promise you we
> won't delete it :-)
>
> (but put a newer one)

It exacly what I want to denounce. People will put non-encyclopedic pictures
on the server !
What is the reason to ban external pictures from meta/user/talk pages ?

Aoineko


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia-l ext pict (Aoi)

body:
> From: "Guillaume Blanchard" <gblanchard at arcsy.co.jp>
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia-l ext pict

> > why don't allow them in meta/user/talk pages ? I
> had a
> > pictures of my
> > baby
> > on my user page, I can't see it any more :o(
> >
> > If you upload the baby picture on fr, I promise
> you we
> > won't delete it :-)
> >
> > (but put a newer one)
>
> It exacly what I want to denounce. People will put
> non-encyclopedic pictures
> on the server !
> What is the reason to ban external pictures from
> meta/user/talk pages ?
>
> Aoineko

Parce que nous voulons fournir ? l'utilisateur final
une information pr?cise (d?taill?e) et exacte afin que
celui ci puisse juger pouvoir utiliser l'image ou non.
Cette information est fourni par l'interm?diaire de la
page de description de l'image. Sans la page de
description, l'utilisateur final ne peut savoir si
l'image est libre de droit ou sous copyright...

Quand tu upload une image sous m?ta, que tu fais un
lien externe vers m?ta, l'utilisateur final n'a pas
acc?s ? la page de description.

Et m?ta n'est pas non plus un lieu de stockage.

Ce qu'il faut, c'est un syst?me central ou nous
pouvons partager des images, et dont les pages de
description par langage apparaitrait dans chaque
wikipedia. Meta n'est qu'un pis aller. Le stockage des
photos perso a le meme impact qu'il soit fait sur meta
ou ailleurs.

[[en:]] pictures on meta do not provide description
pages on wikipedia. Meta is not the right place to
pile up pictures. What we need is a common image
project.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears
http://launch.yahoo.com/promos/britneyspears/


body:
> From: Rick
>
> It seems that she came into the process with a particular outlook and
is upset that Wikipedia does not\
> support her position.

Boy, it's sure easy for people to attack her, when her criticism of the
articles as poorly muddling medical with moral issues is entirely valid.

You all might try taking the criticism better. For example, pretend that
someone whose opinion you respect said

" This is obviously a subject which has been subjected to a great deal
of controversy and dare I say propaganda and this has led to a great
deal of erroneous information disseminated as fact.

There are a number of major errors in the Wikipedia entry describing the
D&X abortion procedure.  The most glaring error is the statement that
this is a late term abortion.  While it might be described as a late
abortion, performed around the middle of the pregnancy, it is certainly
almost never performed "Late Term" which is the last third of the
pregnancy or to be technically correctly after 26.6 weeks.  This
procedure would usually be impossible to perform that late in the
pregnancy.

I also note the use of "birth canal" to describe the vagina as if a
woman had an exit chute on her baby factory; and the use of "womb" in
place of 'uterus'. Both these terms, and the misstatement of the time
the procedure is performed, lead me to believe the article was mainly
written by somebody opposed to abortion who was more interested in
getting a subtle message out then actually providing honest information.
Since we are describing a medical procedure appropriate
medical/biological terminology which is well understood by the general
population is the appropriate vocabulary.

May I suggest reading this article before using the term "PBA" as
loosely as it is used in your current entry.
http://womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/499/"


subject: [WikiEN-l] Major Correction

body:
> From: Poor, Edmund W
>
> > Both these terms, and the misstatement of
> > the time the procedure is performed, lead
> > me to believe the article was mainly written
> > by somebody opposed to abortion who was
> > more interested in getting a subtle message
> > out than actually providing honest information.
>
> Thank you for spotting this error. I hope to make all Wikipedia
articles
> on abortion "neutral", in the sense of NOT getting out subtle messages
> promoting or opposing any point of view.
>
> Since I myself have no position whatsoever on abortion, I might be
able
> to work with you on these articles.
>
> I'd like to see some clarification on:
> * just what happens (medically speaking) during various types of
> abortion
> * what the law is (or soon will be) on 'partial-birth abortion'

There can't be a law on 'partial-birth abortion' because it doesn't
really exist except as a political construct.

That's one of the points Eileen has been trying to make.


from_name: Matt M.

body:
> Yeah, why not? The only issue right now is that there is not enough extent
> Wikipedia text about the term "Eskimo" to move from [[Inuit]] to
[[Eskimo]].

Well, it's not the only issue. There's also the fact that Canadians, whom
the Wikipedia also serves, in general say Inuit; and also the fact that
those Inuit who speak English use the term Inuit. I would prefer that it
remain at Inuit.

Matt


from_name: Adam Bishop

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] NPOV disputes inPolish-German
	articles

body:
Constantinople was officially the name of the city far past the Byzantine
period, I think...the Ottomans always called it that, and according to the
Istanbul article it was not officially changed to that name until March 28,
1930 (and interesting, Istanbul comes from Greek "stan poli", not Turkish).

(I know that's not really the point, but I thought I might clear up this
particular example :))

>From: Delirium <delirium at rufus.d2g.com>
>Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] NPOV disputes
>inPolish-German	articles
>Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 19:03:56 -0800
>
>Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
>
>>You have wrong idea about the problem. The disputed area wasn't
>>exclusively
>>Polish or exclusively German at that time. Usually, it's hard to even
>>decide who was
>>the "majority", as we don't have detailed data from the epoch, and it's
>>known
>>to differ from town to town. It's also not possible to tell what was the
>>official
>>language - the concept of "official language" is a recent one - then some
>>mix of
>>Latin and local languages was used, depending on context. Also, the name
>>of a city
>>could be the same in both German and Polish at that time, only to diverge
>>later
>>with phonological changes. "Torun'" is example of a name which isn't
>>originally Polish
>>nor originally German. According to modern etymology it was Polish name
>>equivalent to
>>"Tarno'w", later to be imported to German language during times of the
>>Teutonic Order,
>>then to be reimported to Polish in significantly changed version. "Warta
>>Boleslawiecka"
>>is another such example, except that reimporting happened after the Second
>>World War.
>>
>>The only sensible policy is to consequently use contemporary names, with
>>possibly
>>versions in the other languages parenthesized.
>>
>>
>This makes sense for some of the names, but I don't think for all.  For
>example, "Danzig" was until 1945 the generally accepted English name for
>that city, so I think speaking of someone like Arthur Schopenhauer (a
>German born in 1780) being "born in Gdansk" is a little bit anachronistic,
>and speaking of him being "born in Danzig (modern-day [[Gdansk]],
>[[Poland]])" is more accurate.  I think we should generally use the name
>that would've been used by the person if it's clear, and otherwise prefer
>the modern name.  So, Constantinople (not Istanbul) for the Byzantines;
>Danzig (not Gdansk) and Koenigsberg (not Kaliningrad) for 18th-century
>Germans, but Warsaw for everyone in all time periods, etc.
>
>The main impetus behind this suggestion is that it seems odd to say someone
>was born in a city that they wouldn't have called by that name--if
>Schopenhauer thought he was born in Danzig, and in fact mentioned Danzig in
>his writings, then that's what we should call his birthplace.
>
>However, I do think your argument has convinced me to use the modern names
>when discussing the general history, if former names are unclear, which I
>think is how it currently is: [[Gdansk]] refers to the city by that name
>throughout the history section, including the 16th/17th/18th/19th
>centuries.  That seems fine to me.  It's be wrong to refer to 16th-century
>[[Kaliningrad]] though.
>
>So perhaps unfortunately we need to do it on a case-by-case basis?
>
>-Mark
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

_________________________________________________________________
Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online
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from_name: Paul Ebermann

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Money, money...

body:
"Daniel Mayer" skribis:

> But what I am mainly interested in is the hiring of college professors who
> teach a particular language to do what Larry did for the English Wikipedia
> (except in a part time capacity). Why such a specific criteria? Because we
> could suggest to the instructor (or require him/her) to give his or her
> students a choice to obtain part of their grade (and extra credit) by
> translating Wikipedia articles or even create new ones from scratch. This
> would potentially add dozens of Wikipedians contributing to a small Wikipedia
> overnight.

Do you think of professors in US colleges, which teach
the language in question (to students having English
as native language), or of professors in a country
of the given language itself (so the language will
be native to most students).

Which of these alternatives you would prefer?
Why?

Paul


from_name: Wouter Vanden Hove

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Public Library of Science GFDL Compatible

body:
I didn't see it mentioned anywhere, so I post it anyway.

Last week the Public Library of Science (www.plos.org) launched their
first Open Acces Journal under the Creative Commons Attribution License
http://www.plosbiology.org

This means (at least in theory) all of this can be reused in the
Wikipedia, including images.

Wouter Vanden Hove
www.opencursus.be
www.open-education.org

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from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Following up -

body:
>The current entry in Wikipedia under the heading "Intact dilation and
>extraction" does not treat the subject as a medical abortion procedure -
>which it
>is - but rather as something open to multiple interpretations and with moral
>implications, which is not a part of any clinical medical procedure.  While
>almost any medical/surgical procedure can be said to have a moral component,
>the actual procedure is in fact somewhat mechanical and devoid of morality.

Nothing is devoid of morality. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia not a manual of
surgical procedure. Nihilism is an extreme point of view which seldom if
ever carries the day on Wikipedia.

Fred


from_name: The Cunctator

body:
> From: Stan Shebs
> Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2003 10:14 PM
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Our credibility is questioned
>
> The Cunctator wrote:
>
> >
> >Boy, it's sure easy for people to attack her, when her criticism of
the
> >articles as poorly muddling medical with moral issues is entirely
valid.
> >
> If the criticism was directed at the one article, then no problem, but
> she's
> going from there to a blanket condemnation of the entire encyclopedia
> and the
> people working hard on it. It's insulting to dedicated contributors to
> suggest that their content is worthless without an anointed editorial
> board
> to bless it, and it betrays massive ignorance and an unwillingness to
> learn.
> Given that, I'd recommend extra leeriness and doublechecking of all of
her
> assertions - she sounds to me more like a faux expert trying to snow
us
> with haughty attitude and big words. Beware!

The defensiveness and the personal attacks are guaranteed not to help
anybody.

Guaranteed not to help.

Try again.


body:
>Wouter Vanden Hove wrote:
>
>>I didn't see it mentioned anywhere, so I post it anyway.
>>
>>Last week the Public Library of Science (www.plos.org) launched their
>>first Open Acces Journal under the Creative Commons Attribution License
>>http://www.plosbiology.org
>>
>>This means (at least in theory) all of this can be reused in the
>>Wikipedia, including images.
>>
>>
>This is something I'd like a lawyer, or at least someone familiar with
>copyright law (perhaps Alex?) to clear up: are attribution-style
>licenses compatible with the GFDL as used by Wikipedia?  My
>understanding is that there might be a technical problem, because
>attribution-style licenses require attribution of the original author,
>while the GFDL only requires attribution of five principal authors.  If
>there are more than 5 principal authors, the GFDL would permit you to
>omit some of them; you could then choose to omit the original author (if
>perhaps the original author's relative contribution is now not the major
>part of the article), but this would be a violation of the original
>attribution license.  So it would seem that in some cases at least
>attribution-type licenses impose additional requirements above those
>imposed by the GFDL, which could be a problem.  Not a *major* problem
>really, but a technical one that I'm not sure how to solve.
>
>Comments from someone with more knowlege of copyright law?  This is
>important to resolve, because it's come up several times before (on the
>village pump, for example), and there are quite a few attribution-type
>licenses that all are fairly similar to each other.
>
>-Mark

The website under discussion uses the least restrictive of the Creative
Commons licenses which requires only attribution to the original author and
a link to a copy of the license. Provided those two requirements are met it
could be used on Wikipedia, however much it had been subsequently modified
under the GFDL. You could never omit the orignal author or the link to the
license unless all the original material had been replaced, rather
unlikely. I believe a simple note at the bottom of the article would
suffice but it would be best if it could be protected so it is not
inadvertently lost by editing.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/

Fred


subject: [WikiEN-l] Following up -

body:
The current entry in Wikipedia under the heading "Intact dilation and
extraction" does not treat the subject as a medical abortion procedure - which it
is - but rather as something open to multiple interpretations and with moral
implications, which is not a part of any clinical medical procedure.  While
almost any medical/surgical procedure can be said to have a moral component,
the actual procedure is in fact somewhat mechanical and devoid of morality.

The issue of the ethics of abortion use, or any other medical procedure for
that matter, in other words the issue of whether a particular medical
protocol should be a part of the approved regimen for public practice of medicine,
is an issue for the medical ethics boards and society as a whole to decide.
When these two components - medical ethics, and the mechanics of a medical
procedure - are attempted to be intermixed, you wind up with an article that is
neither fish nor fowel and is too imprecise from either viewpoint to be of
any value.

Let me refer you to a couple of politically loaded statements in the current
article.
It suggests that the name of the procedure may be replaced by Late Term
Abortion - which is a synonym -  when in fact D&X (ID&X) is *clearly a mid
trimester proceudre*, which under very very rare circumstances might be possible to
use late term.  To present LTA as a synonym for this procedure therefore is
just plain incorrect.

In associating the term D&X with the unequivocally undefined political term
"Partial Birth Abortion" once more the implication, clearly, is that the
procedure is performed close to a normal birth, or perhaps even during a birth,
when in fact it can be stated without any equivocation that the majority of
such fetuses, if the pregnancy were not deliberately terminated by an induced
abortion at the point D&Xs are performed, but by a medical mishap which caused
the woman's body to prematurely expel them in a spontaneous abortion, would
be considered miscarriages.

Re: Delerium/Mark's suggestion concerning the use of "Partial dilation and
extraction".  It is a term I am totally unfamiliar with and believe me, if it
were a part of the usual, and possibly even unusual, abortion nomenclature I
would be familiar with it.

With respect to the Wikipedia project:
This was a new phenomenon to me but I was indirectly introduced to it
through a reference in an essay I was asked to evaluate.  Naturally I am suspicious
of any appeal to authority, which after all is what a dictionary or
encyclopedia reference is, and thought to check the reliability of the source. I was
totally amazed at the lack of real scholarship displayed in that particular
entry.

I was further dismayed to discover that your attempt at a democratic,
co-operative project lends itself to a tyranny of the loudest voice; or the fastest
editorial pen; or the most persistent objecter. Also disappointing is the
fact that under the guise of a neutral viewpoint political jargon is being
passed of as reliable and accurate information.

When an essay/paper uses a dictionary or encyclopedia as an information
reference source I recognize the danger in this but expect at least some form of
editorial responsibility will ameliorate the gross distortions found in some
less notable journalistic outlets.  Your "free for all" approach does not
appear to lend itself to editorial responsibility and overview, however. There
has to be a point where the buck ends and somebody (or perhaps group) takes
responsibility for obviously false content by refusing to permit it to be
printed.  This will, of course, require a good deal of intestinal fortitude on the
part of such a person but without such responsibility to readers the result
is an unreliable and unpalatable goulash.

I entered this fray because I thought the Wikipedia concept had merit.
However without a responsible editor or editorial board which will make clear
what will NOT be accepted there is no chance of producing the reliable source of
accurate information I would like to see used.

It has been implied here that I have a "hidden agenda".  I make no secret,
both in my web page and with the tag on my letters, that I am an abortion
choice supporter (I prefer the neutral terms "choice supporter" and "abortion
opponent" BTW). However my objective here was to achieve some form of accurate
entry(ies) in this subject area.  Under the heading 'Abortion' for instance is
the information "Very late abortions can be brought about by the
controversial intact dilation and extraction (D & X)... " Refer to my statement above
for the inaccuracy of this statement. The same article refers in the
information concerning 'depression and abortion' to a study by David Reardon, a
nototrious anti abortion zealot from the Elliott Institute, who, along with the
co-author of the paper Cougle, preface their paper making unwarranted claims they
attribute to an article by Major et al. The article they reference, in fact,
makes conclusions directly opposite to their own - in fact Major et al
clearly conclude that women experiencing negative psychological responses or
regret after abortion are those with prior episodes of depression. Furthermore the
claim of "Post Abortion Stress", claimed by the likes of Reardon et al, has
never been demonstrated to exist by the American Psychological Association.
None of the APA information is referenced here.

Unfortunately it does not appear that the presentation and preservation of
accurate innformation would be possible under your present editorial policies.

Thank you for indulging me,

Eileen

Cada ni?o un ni?o querido.
Chaque enfant un enfant voulu.
Jedes Kind ein gew?nschtes Kind.
Cada crian?a uma crian?a querida
Ogni bambino un bambino desiderato.
Every child a wanted child.

http://www.eileene.cjb.net

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body:
Andre Engels wrote:

>I'd love it if someone proved me wrong, and either showed that there is a
>loophole (intended or unintended) that can be used and/or could get the
>"those licenses require basically the same things but in different wording,
>so no harm is done by cross-licensing" argument into something that would
>be juridically valid.
>
>
Well, if they require the exact same things, then it should be valid,
because if you fulfill the terms of one license, you fulfill the terms
of them both.  Thus, if you fulfill the terms of the GFDL, and they're
the same terms, nobody can sue you for copyright infringement, because
you can't help but have fulfilled the terms of the CC license as well.
This is what allows people to take BSD-licensed code, add additional
restrictions to it, and use it in GPL code: if you follow the GPL,
you're of necessity following all the BSD's requirements, so you're not
violating it.

In this case though it seems perhaps there might be a technical
violation relating to the requirement to link to the text of the CC
license, which the GFDL obviously doesn't require.

-Mark


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] Following up -

body:
Eileen  wrote:
> I was further dismayed to discover that your attempt at a
> democratic, co-operative project lends itself to a tyranny of the
> loudest voice; or the fastest editorial pen; or the most persistent
> objecter. Also disappointing is the fact that under the guise of a
> neutral viewpoint political jargon is being passed of as reliable
> and accurate information.

In general, this description of the outcome of articles is
surprisingly _not true_.  What wins over time is reasonableness and
broad acceptability, not the loudest voice, fastest pen, or most
persistent objector.

>  Your "free for all" approach does not appear to lend itself to
> editorial responsibility and overview, however.  There has to be a
> point where the buck ends and somebody (or perhaps group) takes
> responsibility for obviously false content by refusing to permit it
> to be printed.  This will, of course, require a good deal of
> intestinal fortitude on the part of such a person but without such
> responsibility to readers the result is an unreliable and
> unpalatable goulash.

And without a central planning board, there will be no shoes or bread!

> Unfortunately it does not appear that the presentation and
> preservation of accurate innformation would be possible under your
> present editorial policies.

Really?  I don't think that's true at all.  It's disappointing to see
you jump to false conclusions and give up so rapidly.

The most important thing you can do is *edit the page*.  And work on
the talk page to defend your edits _from the point of view of
neutrality_.  Be prepared to learn, be prepared to work to accomodate,
and you'll be just fine.

--Jimbo


body:
I have put one of the articles up on Internet-Encyclopedia. I made the
original one article, protected it then created a second article that is
editable.

Upside: lots of interesting potential links

Downside: some difficult formatting problems with images

The article is at

http://www.internet-encyclopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=What_Controls_Variation_in
_Human_Skin_Color

Comments?

Fred


body:
(I'm moving this to wikilegal.)

Andre Engels wrote:
> As far as I know, this is not true. Creative Commons only allows
> spreading under the same license, not with more or less
> rights. Since the GNU/FDL is not the same license, it is not allowed
> to go from CC to GNU/FDL - or vice versa.

I agree completely.  By and large, the CC licenses are incompatible
with GNU FDL.  This is a big problem, but that's the current state of
affairs as I see it.

I should point out that no less personage than Larry Lessig himself
told me that he thinks otherwise, for the by/1.0 license:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/1.0/legalcode

I never understood why he thought so, though.  He may have explained
it to me in a way that I ought to have understood, nevertheless I didn't
and still don't.

Read in particular 4(a) at the link I give above.

--Jimbo


body:
>I have put one of the articles up on Internet-Encyclopedia. I made the
>original one article, protected it then created a second article that is
>editable.
>
>Upside: lots of interesting potential links
>
>Downside: some difficult formatting problems with images
>
>The article is at
>
>http://www.internet-encyclopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=What_Controls_Variation_i
>n
>_Human_Skin_Color
>
>Comments?
>
>Fred

Like Wikipedia images are problematical. Part of Figure 2, Image A, comes from

http://anthro.palomar.edu/vary/  Modern Human Variation which has the
following restrictions which limit commercial use

http://anthro.palomar.edu/tutorials/terms_and_conditions.htmwhich

So it turns out that this image is incompatable with the GNU Free
Documentation License as we interpret it. Also just where any image in a
Public Library of Science journal comes from is hardly transparent although
they give at least a general source for them. For example for Figure 1 the
following statement: "This diagram is based on one published by Sturm et
al. (1998) and summarizes data from Szabo et al. (1969), Toda et al.
(1972), and Konrad and Wolff (1973)" These references are included but due
diligence might require you look at the diagram in Strum et al.

Fred


body:
>Like Wikipedia images are problematical. Part of Figure 2, Image A, comes from
>
>http://anthro.palomar.edu/vary/  Modern Human Variation which has the
>following restrictions which limit commercial use
>
>http://anthro.palomar.edu/tutorials/terms_and_conditions.htmwhich
>
>So it turns out that this image is incompatable with the GNU Free
>Documentation License as we interpret it. Also just where any image in a
>Public Library of Science journal comes from is hardly transparent although
>they give at least a general source for them. For example for Figure 1 the
>following statement: "This diagram is based on one published by Sturm et
>al. (1998) and summarizes data from Szabo et al. (1969), Toda et al.
>(1972), and Konrad and Wolff (1973)" These references are included but due
>diligence might require you look at the diagram in Strum et al.
>
>Fred

But dig a little deeper under the link Illustration credits and one finds:

" 2. 	Map of human skin color distribution ca. 1500 A.D.
produced by Dennis O'Neil from "Distribuzione della Varia Intensit? del
Colore della Pelle" in Renato Biasutti, Le Razze e i Popoli della Terra:
Volume Primo--Razze, Popoli e Culture (1959) (see note)

http://anthro.palomar.edu/vary/note.htm

So as usual it all ends in a fog of uncertainty.

Fred


subject: [WikiEN-l] Following up -

body:
Because nobody is an "abortion supporter" except those setting up straw men to attack the pro-choice position.

RickK

Nikola Smolenski <smolensk at eunet.yu> wrote:
On Thursday 30 October 2003 01:34, Eileen wrote:
> choice supporter (I prefer the neutral terms "choice supporter" and
> "abortion opponent" BTW). However my objective here was to achieve some

And why not "choice supporter" and "choice opponent" or "abortion supporter"
and "abortion opponent"? Even your neutral terms are not neutral.
_______________________________________________
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WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Elizabeth Smart

body:
No, let's not.  Just because it's a topic that doesn't interest you doesn't make it unworthy of discussion.  I have no interest in the over-my-head mathematics subjects, but I don't suggest THEY be deleted.

RickK

tarquin <tarquin at planetunreal.com> wrote:
let's just get a grip and wipe the article.
take the long-term view -- will anyone remember this in twenty years' time?

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from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Elizabeth Smart

body:
--- tarquin <tarquin at planetunreal.com> wrote:
>
>
> Daniel Mayer wrote:
>
> >therefore acceptable ([[George W. Bush]]/[[George
> H. W. Bush]]).  [[Elizabeth
> >Smart (kidnap victim)]] would be my second choice.
> The 'media sensation' one
> >has got to go, though.
> >
> >I see the article is at [[Elizabeth Smart (kidnap
> victim)]] right now, so I'm
> >happy with that.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> let's just get a grip and wipe the article.
> take the long-term view -- will anyone remember this
> in twenty years' time?

Maybe not outside of the US, but probably within it. I
still vividly remember when Jessica McClure ("Baby
Jessica") fell down that well in Texas in 1987. She
should have an article too.

--mav

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list: textbook-l

subject: [Textbook-l] history texts

body:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
> but for
> things like Israeli history (I'm not sure if Alex was
> reffering to page history or actual history, I haven't
> read his message yet), there is widespread
> disagreement about basic underlying facts, not to
> mention people's motives, both of which are essential
> to creating a good textbook. To represent both of
> these views in a single textbook could be confusing to
> many kids below the college level (not all of them,
> but a significant amount). At the elementary school
> level, simplification to a DPOV is absolutely
> necessary so that all of the kids in the class can
> follow it.

Well, I don't agree with this at all.  But until we actually face a
concrete example where NPOV is impossible or too burdensome, we should
proceed under the assumption that it's our policy and we're sticking
to it.

> Textbooks for young children need to be clear and
> simple, something which NPOV has a deficiency in.

I don't agree that there's any _necessary_ tension at all between
neutrality and clarity and simplicity.  The argument that "we have to
be biased, because bias is the only thing simple enough for kids to
understand" strikes me as completely spurious.

> possible POVs on the topic. We could also write a
> little about other POVs, but within actual textbooks,
> we can't give them equal time.

This is where I don't think you really understand NPOV.  NPOV does not
require 'equal time'.  It's perfectly NPOV to limit the scope of a
particular book or chapter or article to a specific topic, and to
write about that topic in a neutral manner.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] Maybe we should try to reach a consensus

body:
Nick Reinking wrote:
> And Debian is somewhat more freer than Redhat, so it fits with the
> spirit of Wikipedia.  Plus, it really makes life easy for
> administrators.

Let's consider the leading alternatives: SuSE, Debian, and Redhat:

1.  SuSE - Well, the server is being built by the Penguins at
PenguinComputing now.  It will come pre-installed with SuSE Enterprise
Server 8 for AMD Opteron:
http://www.suse.com/us/business/products/server/sles/amd64_landing.html

This sounds state-of-the-art to me, in terms of being 64-bit ready.

An additional plus for SuSe is that it's turn-key, since it's
pre-installed.  When Jason gets the machine delivered, he can run some
quick tests to see that it's functional and then drive down the very
next day to install it for us.

2.  Debian - I like the idea of using Debian, however...

According to this:
http://www.debian.org/ports/
and this:
http://www.debian.org/ports/amd64/
and this:
http://personal.bgsu.edu/~inathan/amd64/Debian-amd64-FAQ.html

It sounds to me like Debian for AMD64 is not quite ready for prime
time.

3. RedHat - according to their website, Redhat Enterprise Linux AS and
Redhat Enterprise Linux WS both support AMD64.  WS is cheap, AS costs
a fortune.  Looking at the feature set, I'm not sure why, but anyhow
WS seems fine for us.  (It looks like AS has support for >2
processors, and more free stuff with it, but hey, free stuff is
*free*, right, so why pay more?)

I'm not sure what the advantages of going with RedHat versus SuSe
would be, since both are RPM based, and both have everything that we
would need.  Since both SuSE and Redhat respect the LSB stuff, I think
they are so similar that in practical use we'd hardly even notice the
difference.

(I had one slackware server, and it drove me nuts because everything
was different and just wrong.)

---------------------------------

MY CONCLUSION: Debian is not ready yet, and there's so little
difference for our purposes between RedHat and SuSE that we should
just go with the pre-install.

But... what's your opinion?

--Jimbo


subject: [Textbook-l] high textbook prices article

body:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
> I think I'm a bit unclear about Wikibooks' goals. Are
> we going to eventually send this to a publisher, or
> will this always be online?

I think we'll just create the content and leave those kinds of
decisions for the future.  However, I think that all textbooks created
should be created with paper distribution firmly in mind.  We're a
long way from a world in which schools don't use paper books.

>If we do send it to a publisher, how will that all work? Will we
>self-publish? How will distribution work? Will we just let someone
>else print Wikibooks?

All of these things can be left open for the future.  If there's a
market for it, and we're in a position to do it, we could do it
ourselves, I personally think that would be great.  But if not, then
we can let other parties "play RedHat" and put this stuff together for
print.

Sanford wants the State of California to actually publish the books
itself.  I oppose that profoundly, but after we argued about it for a
long time, we came to the conclusion that it doesn't matter at all for
what we're doing here.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Eternal Ephemeral

body:
>> let's just get a grip and wipe the article.
>> take the long-term view -- will anyone remember this
>> in twenty years' time?
>
>Maybe not outside of the US, but probably within it. I
>still vividly remember when Jessica McClure ("Baby
>Jessica") fell down that well in Texas in 1987. She
>should have an article too.

Yes and there was another child in the 1950s, and the chicken that lived
after his head was cut off, again from the fifties, and Bridey Murphey, etc.

See:

http://www.miketheheadlesschicken.org/story.htm

Fred


subject:
[Wikilegal-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Public Library of Science
	GFDL 	Compatible

body:
>Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 09:37:01 -0700
>To: Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com>
>From: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
>Subject: Re: [Wikilegal-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Public Library of Science
>GFDL 	Compatible
>Cc:
>Bcc:
>X-Attachments:
>
>
>>http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/1.0/legalcode
>>
>>I never understood why he thought so, though.  He may have explained
>>it to me in a way that I ought to have understood, nevertheless I didn't
>>and still don't.
>>
>>Read in particular 4(a) at the link I give above.
>>
>>--Jimbo
>
>I find this language particularly interesting:
>
>"If You create a Collective Work, upon notice from any Licensor You must,
>to the extent practicable, remove from the Collective Work any reference
>to such Licensor or the Original Author, as requested. If You create a
>Derivative Work, upon notice from any Licensor You must, to the extent
>practicable, remove from the Derivative Work any reference to such
>Licensor or the Original Author, as requested."
>
>We, of course, are both a collective and derivative work.
>
>Fred
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Eternal Ephemeral

body:
Fred wrote:
>Yes and there was another child in the 1950s, and the

>chicken that lived after his head was cut off, again
>from the fifties, and Bridey Murphey, etc.
>
>See:
>
>http://www.miketheheadlesschicken.org/story.htm

Mike the chicken definetly needs his own article!

"[Mike was] a fine specimen of a chicken except for
not having a head."

-- mav

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Eskimo and Inuit

body:
> Yeah and the article about the people would remain at [[Inuit]] while an
> article about the /term/ "Eskimo" would be at [[Eskimo]]. But only if
there
> is enough text to transfer to [[Eskimo]].

Oh, I see. I don't think there would be any problem with that. I think what
we've got at present (brief description of "Eskimo" under [[Inuit]], with
[[Eskimo]] as a redirect) is fine too.

Matt


from_name: Chuck Smith

subject: [Wikipedia-l] testing

body:
I haven't received a message from Wikipedia-L in some
time, so I'm testing to make sure it still works...

Chuck

=====
Learn a cool language for free!
http://www.lernu.net/

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from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Wikitech-l] Where is LanguageFy.php?

body:
When I go to the CVS web interface, or when I try to upload CVS at home,
I do not get the LanguageFy.php file. However, at my work, from which I
originally uploaded it, I do get to download it. Is it perhaps in a wrong
directory or with wrong permissions?

Andre Engels


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Eternal Ephemeral

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>>>let's just get a grip and wipe the article.
>>>take the long-term view -- will anyone remember this
>>>in twenty years' time?
>>>
>>Maybe not outside of the US, but probably within it. I
>>still vividly remember when Jessica McClure ("Baby
>>Jessica") fell down that well in Texas in 1987. She
>>should have an article too.
>>
>Yes and there was another child in the 1950s, and the chicken that lived
>after his head was cut off, again from the fifties, and Bridey Murphey, etc.
>
>See:
>
>http://www.miketheheadlesschicken.org/story.htm
>
I certainly think that there is a place in an encyclopedia for the
offbeat and ephemeral.  They can be a source of endless fascination to
the reader who discovers them and proceeds to introduce them at a
dinner-table conversation with the words "Did you know that....?"
 Articles about Jessica McClure, Bridey Murphey and [[Mike (headless
chicken)]]  are all perfectly appropriate.

In science and technology there are any number of attempts that might
have worked but were superceded by a more practical idea that
wasdiscovered before the old plan could be put into operation.  Thus the
Collins International Telegraph Company scheme to lay a telegraph wire
from New York to London via Alaska and Siberia, quashed by the undersea
cable laid by the "Great Eastern".  Also the 1920s plan to put a series
of floating airports as refueling stops across the Atlantic, which
quickly lost its appeal after Lindbergh's famous flight.

Ec


from_name: Nick Reinking

body:
> MY CONCLUSION: Debian is not ready yet, and there's so little
> difference for our purposes between RedHat and SuSE that we should
> just go with the pre-install.
>
> But... what's your opinion?

Well, given the choice, I'd say SuSE, for two reasons:

1) SuSE for AMD64 has been around quite a bit longer, so there are
probably less bugs in it.

2) YaST rocks.

--
Nick Reinking -- eschewing obfuscation since 1981 -- Minneapolis, MN


from_name: Peter Gervai

body:
On Fri, Oct 31, 2003 at 07:48:30AM +0100, Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 29, 2003 at 07:03:56PM -0800, Delirium wrote:

> didnt't all suddenly turn German. And it's completely idiotic
> to use name "Danzig" before it existed.

Hmm, I accept your national pride, but this might have been a bit strong for
a friendly attitude. Call it as the local population of the given wikipedia
would call today, and redirect the others. It's simple in the case of German
and Polski 'pedia, isn't it?

In english, I believe either you have one which is used in
_English_speaking_ countries (eg. dictionaries, encyclopedias, other
references), or if there are more, first come first serve, others can
redirect at their own pleasure.

I'd probably use "danzig" to describe the darned place and "history of
gdansk" when talking about its heroic past. And I wouldn't forget to mention
all possible names in every article's first sentence anyway.

> But Kaliningrad is completely different matter - it wasn't a Russian city before
> after the Second World War. But it had a Polish name of "Kro'lewiec" too.

I'd look for "kaliningrad" if I would look for the city. I may look for
Koenigsbers (or whatever) if I wanna check a historical reference, and maybe
krolewiec" for other sources. I expect all of them working....

Well one possible reason could be to use newset names because it's unlikely
that they going to change unless we happen to enjoy a new world war. Other
possible reason could be to use the name which longest suited the place in
the past, since the past not expected to change. I personally couldn't care
less if "Budapest" would be called "Buda-Pest" or whatever they called it in
the past as long as "Budapest" pops up the article...

But it's a nice thing to debate, I agree.

[[user:grin]]

ps: let's find the city with the most owners and names. gdansk only have 2,
it's boring. some on the austrian/slovakian/hungarian border have at least
three! I FIGHT FOR THEM! ;->


body:
On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Wouter Vanden Hove wrote:

> I didn't see it mentioned anywhere, so I post it anyway.
>
> Last week the Public Library of Science (www.plos.org) launched their
> first Open Acces Journal under the Creative Commons Attribution License
> http://www.plosbiology.org
>
> This means (at least in theory) all of this can be reused in the
> Wikipedia, including images.

As far as I know, this is not true. Creative Commons only allows spreading
under the same license, not with more or less rights. Since the GNU/FDL is
not the same license, it is not allowed to go from CC to GNU/FDL - or vice
versa.

I'd love it if someone proved me wrong, and either showed that there is a
loophole (intended or unintended) that can be used and/or could get the
"those licenses require basically the same things but in different wording,
so no harm is done by cross-licensing" argument into something that would
be juridically valid.

Andre Engels


from_name: Matthew J. Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Eternal Ephemeral

body:
On Thu, 30 Oct 2003, tarquin wrote:

> So what happens when readers from other countries write up articles on
> every single kidnap victim?
> Do any UK writers wish to create articles on [[Milly Downling]], or the
> [[Soham girls]]? Both those cases got plenty of media coverage here.

If someone wants to write about them, go right ahead.  Wiki is not paper,
and all that.  I can't see as such articles detract from Wikipedia.

-Matt


subject: [WikiEN-l] Elizabeth Smart

body:
On Thu, 30 Oct 2003, tarquin wrote:

> They are both ephemeral.
> Children are abducted all over the world.
> Just because the US media gave it so much coverage does not make it
> worthy of inclusion in an encyclopedia which should be taking the
> long-term view.

Then when nobody knows who the hell these people were any more, we can
remove it.  Meanwhile, these are things that people might want to find.

I suspect that a dislike of media sensationalism is as much behind a drive
to remove articles like this as anything else.  Media sensationalism,
though, is a fact, and it DOES change peoples' perceptions including what
is considered important.

Not all media sensations are ephemeral.  People still obsess about Jack
the Ripper, for example.  I submit that trying to determine NOW what will
be still worthy of note in fifty or a hundred years' time is impossible.

-Matt


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Names for positions on abortion

body:
There are no "neutral" names for advocates for or against various
policies on abortion. I'm fairly sure our Wikipedia articles on
[[abortion]] make this clear.

I have chosen therefore to use the terminology the two main camps have
chosen for themselves, when referring to them:

* pro-choice
* pro-life

The "pro-choice" camp generally favors loosening of restrictions on
abortion.

The "pro-life" camp generally favors tightening of restrictions on
abortion.

If the above info is not already in the Wikipedia, it should be put
there.

Ed Poor
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Elizabeth Smart

body:
Tarquin wrote:
>Children are abducted all over the world.

Very true. That's why an article on [[children
abduction]] is a very valid topic.

>Just because the US media gave it so much coverage
>does not make it worthy of inclusion in an
>encyclopedia which should be taking the long-term
>view.

Eh? Tens of millions of people were captivated by the
story. /That/ story is thus something we should have
in Wikipedia. Should we also not have articles on
popular movies and books? In the long run what is
popular today and in the media will be obscure in
decades hence. Wikipedia is not paper so let's distill
knowledge about these things. If anything it would be
a way to gauge what was important in days past.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

__________________________________
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from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Eternal Ephemeral

body:
tarquin wrote:

>
>
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> Articles about Jessica McClure, Bridey Murphey and [[Mike (headless
>> chicken)]]  are all perfectly appropriate.
>
>
>
> So what happens when readers from other countries write up articles on
> every single kidnap victim?
> Do any UK writers wish to create articles on [[Milly Downling]], or
> the [[Soham girls]]? Both those cases got plenty of media coverage here.

You mean they haven't been written?? Pretty regularly I see articles with
mystifying titles in recent changes, click on them out of curiousity, and
voila, sensational kidnap or murder victim in the UK.

More than a little of the ancient history that we know has been
painstakingly
reconstructed from reports of sensational but ephemeral events; those
reports
often give us bits of cultural insight that the ancient scholars didn't
understand well enough to describe in their encyclopedias and histories.

Stan


from_name: Jake Nelson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Major Correction

body:
Matthew J. Brown wrote:
> On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, The Cunctator wrote:
>
> > There can't be a law on 'partial-birth abortion' because it doesn't
> > really exist except as a political construct.
>
> That something doesn't exist doesn't mean there can't be a law about it
> ...

More accurately, I'd say that political constructs are the only things that
have laws on them. The courts are what determine whether an act meets the
defiition of that political construct.
But maybe I'm quibbling.

-- Jake


subject: [WikiEN-l] Eternal Ephemeral

body:
tarquin wrote:
> Do any UK writers wish to create articles on [[Milly Downling]], or the
> [[Soham girls]]? Both those cases got plenty of media coverage here.

I, for one, would be fascinated to read such an article.

Perhaps it's very uncool to not look down my nose at media sensations,
but I found the Elizabeth Smart case to be fascinating from many
perspectives, and followed it quite avidly at the time.  Learning more
about similar cases in other countries (even if the similarity is
primarily in the media sensationalism) would be valuable to me.

> >In science and technology there are any number of attempts that might
> >have worked but were superceded by a more practical idea that
> >wasdiscovered before the old plan could be put into operation.  Thus
> >the Collins International Telegraph Company scheme to lay a telegraph
> >wire from New York to London via Alaska and Siberia, quashed by the
> >undersea cable laid by the "Great Eastern".  Also the 1920s plan to
> >put a series of floating airports as refueling stops across the
> >Atlantic, which quickly lost its appeal after Lindbergh's famous
> >flight.
> >
> Now *that* I would find interesting!

Eh, I guess.

My point is that lots and lots of things are interesting to only a
small number of people.  Wikipedia need not avoid those things, so
long as there is confirmability.

Now, later on, when there's a formal 'drive to 1.0', some of those
things may need to be left out, assuming that there are space
constraints on 1.0 (for print).

--Jimbo


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Following up -

body:
Rick wrote:

> Because nobody is an "abortion supporter" except those setting up
> straw men to attack the pro-choice position.

The phrasing of it as "choice" is a bit odd too though, because whether
it's a choice or not isn't the real issue; whether it's morally
permissible is the issue.  Thus in my quick perusal of the Journal of
Applied Ethics, the terms people who think abortion should be legal seem
to self-apply include things like "supporter of legalized abortion" or
"defender of the moral permissibility of abortion".  So articles are
entitled "A Defense of Abortion" (a particularly famous one), not the
more newspeak-sounding "A Defense of a Woman's Right to Choose Abortion".

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Eternal Ephemeral

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> I certainly think that there is a place in an encyclopedia for the
> offbeat and ephemeral.  They can be a source of endless fascination to
> the reader who discovers them and proceeds to introduce them at a
> dinner-table conversation with the words "Did you know that....?"
>  Articles about Jessica McClure, Bridey Murphey and [[Mike (headless
> chicken)]]  are all perfectly appropriate.
>
> In science and technology there are any number of attempts that might
> have worked but were superceded by a more practical idea that
> wasdiscovered before the old plan could be put into operation.  Thus the
> Collins International Telegraph Company scheme to lay a telegraph wire
> from New York to London via Alaska and Siberia, quashed by the undersea
> cable laid by the "Great Eastern".  Also the 1920s plan to put a series
> of floating airports as refueling stops across the Atlantic, which
> quickly lost its appeal after Lindbergh's famous flight.

Truly, it has been said: "Some of the best parts of history never really
happened."

I'm an avid observer of the obscure, the unusual, etc. Failed WWII
technologies (mile-wide zeppelins!) alone are many many books' worth. It's
definitely not the sort of thing to overlook... and sometimes they end up
influencing 'important' events in subtle ways.

-- Jake


subject: [WikiEN-l] Major Correction

body:
--- Andre Engels <engelsAG at t-online.de> wrote:
> "Daniel Mayer" <maveric149 at yahoo.com> schrieb:
> > Jimbo wrote:
> > >Presumably, though, we should have an article
> "Eskimo"
> > >about the word, linking to "Inuit" the people?
> >
> > Yeah, why not? The only issue right now is that
> there is not enough extent
> > Wikipedia text about the term "Eskimo" to move
> from [[Inuit]] to [[Eskimo]].
> > When that changes then [[Eskimo]] can be changed
> from a redirect to an
> > article. This will require, however, some degree
> of future maintenance to
> > make sure references in other articles meaning to
> link to an article about
> > the people are changed accordingly.
>
> I disagree. In general, if we want to remain the
> idea that Wikipedia is not
> a dictionary, we should be having articles about
> 'subjects' rather than
> 'words', in my opinion.
>
> Andre Engels

[[Eskimo]] would be about the /use/ of the word and
the controversy surrounding its use (not really about
the word itself). Similar to our article [[fuck]].

--mav

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Eternal Ephemeral

body:
So what happens when readers from other countries write up articles on
every single kidnap victim?
Do any UK writers wish to create articles on [[Milly Downling]], or the
[[Soham girls]]? Both those cases got plenty of media coverage here.

No problem. It's like the Elephant Man....Might make a move someday.

Fred


from_name: tarquin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Elizabeth Smart

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>therefore acceptable ([[George W. Bush]]/[[George H. W. Bush]]).  [[Elizabeth
>Smart (kidnap victim)]] would be my second choice. The 'media sensation' one
>has got to go, though.
>
>I see the article is at [[Elizabeth Smart (kidnap victim)]] right now, so I'm
>happy with that.
>
>
>
>
let's just get a grip and wipe the article.
take the long-term view -- will anyone remember this in twenty years' time?


from_name: Nikola Smolenski

subject: [WikiEN-l] Following up -

body:
On Thursday 30 October 2003 01:34, Eileen  wrote:
> choice supporter (I prefer the neutral terms "choice supporter" and
> "abortion opponent" BTW). However my objective here was to achieve some

And why not "choice supporter" and "choice opponent" or "abortion supporter"
and "abortion opponent"? Even your neutral terms are not neutral.


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Eternal Ephemeral

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> I certainly think that there is a place in an encyclopedia for the
> offbeat and ephemeral.  ...
> In science and technology there are any number of attempts that might
> have worked but were superceded by a more practical idea ...  the
> Collins International Telegraph Company scheme ... the 1920s plan to put a series
> of floating airports as refueling stops across the Atlantic....

Hear, hear!  And don't forget the ideas that were superceded by a less
practical but more politically expedient ones, such as the Nicaragua Canal.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikipedia-l] CNN video disappeared

body:
On Thursday, Oct 30, 2003, at 12:56 US/Pacific, Chuck Smith wrote:
> Hey, I just noticed that
>
> http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2002/kristie.lustout/video/
> wikipedia.wmv
>
> is no longer there.  No big surprise.  Does anyone
> have a local copy of it who could upload it to
> Wikipedia and then indicate the address to me?

We don't have the legal right to redistribute it, of course, without
CNN's permission.

You can probably order a copy of the program on videotape, which will
be higher quality anyway:
https://orion.fdch.com/forms/orcnn.html

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: [Intlwiki-l] Re: fy.wikipedia.com   and vikipedio

body:
On Thursday, Oct 30, 2003, at 14:26 US/Pacific, Walter Vermeir wrote:
>
> www.vikipedio.org does not work also

Okay, will everybody who's created a non-*.wikipedia.org domain and
pointed it at our servers please list it here right now?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)