subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia subset proposal

body:
You can regard this as a follow up to
http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-September/thread.html#start
"Why the free encyclopedia movement needs to be more like the free
software movement."

I want to make a proposal to make a new website that contains just a
subset of Wikipedia articles.  Please, if you want to comment on this
proposal, read it twice or three times; I have the strange effect on
people of seeming to say one thing when really, I said the exact opposite,
or something quite different, anyway.

Wikipedia is open content, so strictly speaking, I don't have to ask
anybody's permission to do this, and in fact (see below), I think the new
website should be entirely independent of Wikipedia.  But I *do* *really*
want the approval of this community.  I want you, or many of you, behind
the idea.  I want to start us all out on the right foot here.

------

In view of the facts that Wikipedia has grown tremendously; that we have
lost several of our most overeducated, overqualified participants due to
disgust with having to deal with a few difficult, uncooperative
participants; and above all, that there is a vast body of *hundreds* of
highly educated and willing free encyclopedia participants waiting idle
due to the dormancy of Nupedia; I propose the following:

(1) We--whether Bomis or someone else--should set up another website.  It
should definitely not live at the Wikipedia.com domain.

(2) The purpose of the new website will be to *select* and *post*
Wikipedia articles that are up to a certain standard.

(3) The only participants in the new website will be those that meet the
Nupedia requirements in their particular fields, or some other similarly
stringent requirements.

(4) Either I, or a small group of trusted people, will be responsible for
approving participants.

(5) The website will be *read only*.  No one will be able to edit it
directly, including its participants.  This means it *won't* be a wiki.

(6) Any participant will have to go to Wikipedia to make any edits to an
article.

(7) Participants will save *particular versions* of articles, not the
current article, whatever it happens to be.  There should be a link to
"the most current version" of a given article on Wikipedia, as well.

(8) Implementing the website should not require *any* changes to
Wikipedia.  I want to leave Wikipedia alone completely.  The only thing
that *might* make sense is to add a link (which should be optional!) to a
corresponding "subset" website article, if it exists.  In particular,
"subset" participants should **not** be regarded as Wikipedia editors with
any particular, special status on Wikipedia.  And "subset" policy,
whatever it might turn out to be, should **not** be regarded as Wikipedia
policy.

(9) Also, I don't think we should host this website on Nupedia.com.  Too
many Nupedians will want to have nothing to do with it.

Caveats:

I realize that I and others have made similar sorts of suggestions in the
past.  That's great.  Now let's do something.

The above is just a proposal.  I might be persuaded to get behind
something quite different.

Another leading approval process idea, one that I have supported in the
past, is the idea that *anyone* could approve *any* articles, and then
users could make list of "approved approvers," i.e., people whose opinions
on articles they trust.  I still think that's an intriguing idea, but I
also don't think it's one that will attract the many Nupedia participants
who want to be working on a free encyclopedia project.  Elitism leaves a
bad taste in my mouth as it does for many, but we *need* a *going* project
that will attract some of the most educated, knowledgable, intelligent,
clearest-thinking people to the overall task of building a free
encyclopedia.  The point is obviously *not* to *be* elitist; it is to make
a project that participants can see there are adequate safeguards that
their time will not be wasted by any yahoo who can just come along and
ruin their work.

There's nothing to stop us from implementing *both* proposals, by the way.
(Someone made this point before, too, I remember.)

But I intend to get behind the proposal articulated in (1)-(7) above.  And
I'd like to get any interested programmers behind it ASAP, and I'll be
only too happy to collaborate on some of the basic policy and mission
statements of the website.

Then we can get Julie and Michael back, perhaps, and put to work people
like G. B. Lane, Gaytha Langlois, Michael Witbrock, Munawar Anees, Ruth
Ifcher (of course!), and all the other smart and wonderful people I worked
with on Nupedia.  Maybe this will be a way to get Nupedia itself
kick-started again.

--Larry


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Pierre Abbat

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Mispeelings

body:
On Sunday 20 October 2002 10:17, Magnus Manske wrote:
> "* anual (annual)" will search for "anual", but display "anual (annual)".

"Anual" is not a typo for "annual". If anything, it's a typo for "Anwal".
Unfortunately trying to use Google stats to figure out which is correct is
confused by the many occurrences of "anual" as a Spanish word, which does
mean "annual" and is not a typo.

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Someone, hold off

body:
I'm getting repeated edit conflicts making scattered edits on the mispeeling
list.


from_name: Alexander Stephen Bradbury

subject: [Wikipedia-l] misspellings: fulfilment

body:
Hello, I like the misspelling page on maintenance generally, but
'fulfilment' is listed as a misspelling. This is just the British spelling
of the word, I personally don't think that words like this should be
listed as misspellings, especially as wikipedia is not supposed to have an
official policy on US\British spelling. I'm not sure if there are other
British spellings that the page picks out, but there may be. Any opinions
on this? Can it be removed?

Alex B.


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Mispeelings

body:
On Sunday 20 October 2002 09:03 am, you wrote:
> "Anual" is not a typo for "annual". If anything,
> it's a typo for "Anwal". Unfortunately trying to use
> Google stats to figure out which is correct is confused
> by the many occurrences of "anual" as a Spanish word,
> which does mean "annual" and is not a typo.
>
> phma

Then go to language tools and only search English:
http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


from_name: Tom Parmenter

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Mispeelings

in_reply_to:
<3DB2C4EF.2050101@telus.net> (message from Ray Saintonge on Sun,
	20 Oct 2002 07:59:59 -0700)

body:
|From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
|X-Accept-Language: en-us
|Sender: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
|Reply-To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
|Date: Sun, 20 Oct 2002 07:59:59 -0700
|
|tarquin wrote:
|
|> If we change all "it's" to either "its" or the more formal "it is",
|> then that list will gradually diminish.
|
|All!!!???  Some how changing the song title to "It is a Long Way to
|Tipperary" doesn't seem right to me :-(
|
|Eclecticology
|

'Tis nonsense.  Are there to be no contractions in Wikipedia?


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Mispeelings

body:
Pierre Abbat wrote:

>The mispeelings page has a bug. "leran" is on the list, presumably for
>"learn", but the only page listed there is a list of French communes
>including L?ran. The accent should not be ignored.
>
I am using the same request as the search engine. A full-text search
takes forever (I tried that first...)

Magnus


from_name: Axel Boldt

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia subset proposal

body:
I like this proposal a lot. It marries the free-wheeling nature of
Wikipedia with a peer review process, and makes sure that the benefits
of peer review flow back into Wikipedia.

The people selecting Wikipedia articles for publication on the peer
reviewed version should be called "reviewers" rather than editors and
should get a link to a page where they can describe their
qualifications.

We certainly need a better name than "Wikipedia subset". I propose
something involving "Peer review", a very positively charged term. How
about "Free Peer-Reviewed Encyclopedia" or "Peer-Reviewed Wikipedia".
Not overly creative, but descriptive and clear.

Axel

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from_name: tarquin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Mispeelings

body:
Cool!

Could this page give the *correct spelling too, in each header?
eg.

      anual (correct: annual)

   1. List of battles 1901-forward
      <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_battles_1901-forward>
      (Edit?
      <http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=List_of_battles_1901-forward&action=edit>)

Magnus Manske wrote:

> koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:
>
>> Maybe we could get those robots from Westworld to correct the typos.
>>
>>
> They just entered the arena: Try
>
> http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Maintenance&subfunction=mispeelings
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Mispeelings

body:
Brion VIBBER wrote:

> tarquin wrote:
>
>> could we add "it's" to the 3-letter words we can search for?
>> That's a *very* common error.
>
>
> There are 1,178 pages in article space containing the word "it's". If
> you _really_ want to wade through them looking for the erroneous ones,
> go to the SQL query page and run:
>
>   SELECT cur_title from cur where cur_namespace=0 and
>   cur_text regexp "[[:<:]]it's[[:>:]]" order by cur_title
>
If we change all "it's" to either "its" or the more formal "it is", then
that list will gradually diminish.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] misspellings: fulfilment

body:
>Alexander Stephen Bradbury wrote:
>
>
>>Hello, I like the misspelling page on maintenance generally, but
>>'fulfilment' is listed as a misspelling.
>>
Fowler has 'fulfilment' as acceptable in Br AND Am, so it's not a
misspelling anywhere.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Mispeelings

body:
tarquin wrote:

> Could this page give the *correct spelling too, in each header?
> eg.
>
>
>      anual (correct: annual)

OK, OK, you got it! Just type anyting you want behind the misspelled
word on the list. Everyting after the first space will be ignored by the
search.

"* anual (annual)" will search for "anual", but display "anual (annual)".

Magnus


from_name: Brion VIBBER

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia subset proposal

body:
Axel Boldt wrote:

> We certainly need a better name than "Wikipedia subset". I propose
> something involving "Peer review", a very positively charged term. How
> about "Free Peer-Reviewed Encyclopedia" or "Peer-Reviewed Wikipedia".
> Not overly creative, but descriptive and clear.

Wikipeerdia?

(runs and hides)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Mispeelings

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> tarquin wrote:
>
>> If we change all "it's" to either "its" or the more formal "it is",
>> then that list will gradually diminish.
>
>
> All!!!???  Some how changing the song title to "It is a Long Way to
> Tipperary" doesn't seem right to me :-(

I wasn't planning on changing *quoted* text. :-)

 > If the error in "anual" were that an extra letter had been put in
rather than a letter omitted, psychological texts could end up talking
about people with annual retentive personalities.

The upshot is that this feature is very useful but careful human
checking is required!


from_name: Edgar Enyedy

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Lir and Christopher Columbus

body:
Larry Sanger wrote:

>On the other hand, I do not think we should ban people who appear to be
>making a good faith effort to contribute, unless we have gone through a
>long public process and ensured that the bar is set very high.
Agreed. Lir isn't a vandal, that's a commonsensical issue.
I may support Lir's POV, nevertheless I public and widely recognize the fact
that Lir's statements are not ruled by the NPOV. I'd strongly encourage Lir
to set apart alternative theories just because misinformation within the
'pedias pages are harmful to the project itself.
We've set up an "Essays Chapter" in EL. Authors are usually smart enough to
tell apart when they are biased on a topic and link the NPOV article to the
Essay, and usually both of them, the article and the Essay are written by
the same contributor.
And I've found that contributors that are biased on a topic, are usually the
ones who own the best knowledge on that topic.

Cheers

Edgar Enyedy
Enciclopedia Libre (Sevilla - Espa?a)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia subset proposal

body:
<snip proposal>
That's what we wanted to do anyway, at least part of it. IMHO a patched
Phase III software would be exactly what you need:
* Replace the "add me as a user" with an "add-a-user" function for sysops
* Enable all logged-in users to edit a page *once*, then have it
protected automatically so it can't be changed
* Disable all not-logged-in edits
* Set up an automatic "language link" to the wikipedia article with the
same name ([[w:xyz]] on [[xyz]] at "Larrypedia")

That could be done in a day, by Lee, Brion, or myself .
You'll just have to find a server ;-)

Magnus


from_name: Stephen Gilbert

body:
Thank you Larry. That sums up my feelings on bans
nicely.

Stephen G.

--- Larry Sanger <lsanger at nupedia.com> wrote:
> I would like to weigh in here to say that I'm just
> slightly disturbed that
> we are getting into the habit of publicly proposing,
> on this list, to use
> the banning power to settle acrimonious edit wars.
> I've noticed this in
> the case of Lir and of DW.  When Jimbo and I were
> the only ones who had
> the authority to ban people, we never used it for
> this purpose, or at
> least, I can't remember a single case.  This is the
> first time I recall
> anyone proposing to ban someone for *one hour* so
> that the person could
> "cool off."  This is the first I've heard of
> "cooling people off" as a
> reason to *ban* them for any length of time.
>
> If I could see immediately that Lir were simply a
> *vandal*, I could
> understand.  But I do not see that Lir is simply a
> vandal, whatever
> his/her merits.
>
> Like everybody, I totally understand :-) the
> frustration involved in
> working with people I regard as unreasonable,
> difficult, and even
> trollish.  But banning them isn't the way that, up
> until just the last
> month or two, we have dealt with them.
>
> Let me be clear here (it's so easy to be
> misunderstood): on the one hand,
> I think there is absolutely nothing wrong with
> outright banning an IP
> number (if it's stable) or perhaps, temporarily, a
> block of IP numbers, if
> it's perfectly clear that the person being banned is
> just a vandal.  On
> the other hand, I do not think we should ban people
> who appear to be
> making a good faith effort to contribute, unless we
> have gone through a
> long public process and ensured that the bar is set
> very high.
>
> In particular, we do not ban people for merely
> failing to follow the
> "rules," even rules like [[netiquette]].  At least
> part of the point of
> making the first rule "ignore all rules," I thought,
> is the notion that we
> all understand that we aren't going to *enforce*
> these rules except in the
> most egregious cases, which Lir and DW aren't, as
> far as I can tell.  For
> non-vandals, the bar has to be set really, really
> high, I think.
>
> --Larry
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go
> here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] How would you deal with this problem?

body:
--- koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:
> Thanks for the link.  I knew I couldn't have been
> the first person to think about the growth of online
> communities.
>
> kq

MeatballWiki is an interesting place. Online
communities is its speciality.

Stephen G.

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body:
--- Larry Sanger <lsanger at nupedia.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 20 Oct 2002, Stephen Gilbert wrote:
>
> > --- Larry Sanger <lsanger at nupedia.com> wrote:
> >
> > <snip to the end...>
> >
> > > Is there *anything* we can do, consistent with
> our
> > > policies of openness,
> > > to make the project more attractive to the
> > > best-qualified people, in the
> > > face of the above problem?
> > >
> > > --Larry
> >
> > I agree with KQ's suggestion. I think it's a
> matter of
> > trying to work together. As an expert, your
> natural
> > inclination is to replace an article that you
> don't
> > think very much of with your own writing. Fred's
> > natural reaction to this is to feel dismissed. The
> > problem escalates from there.
>
> Here's the problem, though.  Again, I think KQ has
> the right approach, but
> it doesn't solve every problem along these lines.
> With all due respect,
> in my opinion, Fred really doesn't know what he's
> talking about on this
> topic, and it requires a great deal of patience to
> go through an article
> from someone who does not understand the subject
> (but thinks he does).

Perhaps Fred doesn't understand the subject; I really
can't say. After reading both versions of the article,
I can say that I found neither particularly helpful to
a philosophical layman, but of course you had just
started the new version, so it's hardly a completed
article.

> Reasonable people do not react in the way that Fred
> has reacted, I think.
> Suppose I were to have written an article on
> something I know a little
> about, but which I am very far from being an
> expert--digital cameras, say.
> Then someone who were more of an expert were to came
> along and said,
> "Look, this article is totally garbage.  You didn't
> get half of the stuff
> right," and then replaced it with something that was
> better-informed, I'd
> like to think that I would totally understand.
> Moreover, if the person
> took the time to go through, line by line, what was
> wrong with my article,
> I would probably be abjectly apologetic.

In general, I think generalists (like me) should defer
to people who have actively studied and specialized in
a certain field. However, it's much easier to see
mistakes in an article on [[digital camera]]s as
opposed to somethig like [[reality]].

>
> > This isn't the same situation as, say, "working"
> on an
> > article with Helga Jonat. Fred (Hi Fred! Are you
> tuned
> > in to this thread?) is a good contributor to the
> > project, and isn't out to push a specific agenda
> all
> > through Wikipedia.
>
> I'm not talking about the whole project.  In this
> article, he certainly
> has been trying to push a specific agenda, though
> it's possible he doesn't
> quite realize that.

If that's what you think, it might be best to assume
the latter.

> > Remember that you both have the same goal: to
> produce
> > a good article on "reality". It seems that there's
> a
> > clash of approaches here. "Reality" is an enormous
> > topic, and a truly good article is not going to
> take
> > shape in only a few weeks.
>
> I appreciate the attention you're giving this,
> Stephen, but this doesn't
> help.  The problem decidedly *isn't* that we haven't
> spent enough time on
> it (the original, awful article was up there for
> many months).

We have lots of awful articles that have been up for
more than a year. "Time" may have been a poor word to
use; I'm thinking more about effort. Wikipedia's
broad, general subjects are of a much lower quality
than more specific ones, and I think this is because
of the time and effort it takes to write a good,
general article. I know I've been working offline on a
Communication article for months, and I just can't
drum up enough enthusiasm for it. It's a major
project.

You may be right that this doesn't touch on the
specific problem you bring up, but I do think it is a
factor in the larger problem of general articles. I'll
move on...

> Wikipedia should not *have to be* about *everyone*
> who wants to
> collaborate on an article gets an equal seat at the
> table on every
> article, with all of their views expressed.

Of course not.

> Sometimes, people can be
> wrong; and they don't know that they're wrong,
> because they just don't
> know enough about the topic.  That's my point.

Well, it comes dow to this: You have studied
philosophy extensively, and you say that the article
on reality is full of errors. Fred, who is interested
in the topic, doesn't see the article as being full of
errors. If neither of you can find common ground to
work on the article, the only solution is to recruit
more people who have studied the topic work on it.

Fred, if you are reading this, I encourage you to work
with Larry, not against him. He's not just pulling
things out of thin air, and taking the time to go
through an article line by line, point out problems,
takes an enormous amount of effort. Don't let that
effort go to waste.

> > We're starting to see the growth of Wikipedia
> > straining the sense of community. Take a look at
> the
> > Wiki Life Cycle
> >
> (http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?WikiLifeCycle).
> > It's a remarkably accurate guide to the rise and
> fall
> > of wiki communities. We are entering stage 17:
> > "Decline Of Civility -- there are more strangers
> than
> > friends, and assum[ing] good faith fails as
> reputation
> > is fleeting." As more and more Wikipedians
> contribute,
> > we have to be careful; it's getting easier to get
> into
> > heated arguments, and these fights will
> de-stabilize a
> > project that bases itself on openness.
>
> Again, while I agree that it's important to be civil
> and I agree with the
> above sentiments, but I am skeptical that it's a new
> or growing problem.
> I mean, we've *always* had trouble of this sort.
> You'd think I'd know how
> to deal with it by now...

I disagree. From my observations, it is a growing
problem in that we have more contributors who don't
really know each other. The Wiki Life Cycle describes
Wikipedia's evolution quite accurately; I'd rather
that changed before we hit the downswing.

Stephen G.

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia subset proposal

body:
Well, why not? It sounds good. But I'm confused: why
make the proposal here? Most of us will have nothing
to do with the project, simply because we're not
qualified.

Do you just want to know how we feel about using
Wikipedia articles in such a project? If so, I like
it. Go for it. Good luck.

Stephen G.

--- Larry Sanger <lsanger at nupedia.com> wrote:
> You can regard this as a follow up to
>
http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-September/thread.html#start
> "Why the free encyclopedia movement needs to be more
> like the free
> software movement."
>
> I want to make a proposal to make a new website that
> contains just a
> subset of Wikipedia articles.  Please, if you want
> to comment on this
> proposal, read it twice or three times; I have the
> strange effect on
> people of seeming to say one thing when really, I
> said the exact opposite,
> or something quite different, anyway.
>
> Wikipedia is open content, so strictly speaking, I
> don't have to ask
> anybody's permission to do this, and in fact (see
> below), I think the new
> website should be entirely independent of Wikipedia.
>  But I *do* *really*
> want the approval of this community.  I want you, or
> many of you, behind
> the idea.  I want to start us all out on the right
> foot here.
>
> ------
>
> In view of the facts that Wikipedia has grown
> tremendously; that we have
> lost several of our most overeducated, overqualified
> participants due to
> disgust with having to deal with a few difficult,
> uncooperative
> participants; and above all, that there is a vast
> body of *hundreds* of
> highly educated and willing free encyclopedia
> participants waiting idle
> due to the dormancy of Nupedia; I propose the
> following:
>
> (1) We--whether Bomis or someone else--should set up
> another website.  It
> should definitely not live at the Wikipedia.com
> domain.
>
> (2) The purpose of the new website will be to
> *select* and *post*
> Wikipedia articles that are up to a certain
> standard.
>
> (3) The only participants in the new website will be
> those that meet the
> Nupedia requirements in their particular fields, or
> some other similarly
> stringent requirements.
>
> (4) Either I, or a small group of trusted people,
> will be responsible for
> approving participants.
>
> (5) The website will be *read only*.  No one will be
> able to edit it
> directly, including its participants.  This means it
> *won't* be a wiki.
>
> (6) Any participant will have to go to Wikipedia to
> make any edits to an
> article.
>
> (7) Participants will save *particular versions* of
> articles, not the
> current article, whatever it happens to be.  There
> should be a link to
> "the most current version" of a given article on
> Wikipedia, as well.
>
> (8) Implementing the website should not require
> *any* changes to
> Wikipedia.  I want to leave Wikipedia alone
> completely.  The only thing
> that *might* make sense is to add a link (which
> should be optional!) to a
> corresponding "subset" website article, if it
> exists.  In particular,
> "subset" participants should **not** be regarded as
> Wikipedia editors with
> any particular, special status on Wikipedia.  And
> "subset" policy,
> whatever it might turn out to be, should **not** be
> regarded as Wikipedia
> policy.
>
> (9) Also, I don't think we should host this website
> on Nupedia.com.  Too
> many Nupedians will want to have nothing to do with
> it.
>
> Caveats:
>
> I realize that I and others have made similar sorts
> of suggestions in the
> past.  That's great.  Now let's do something.
>
> The above is just a proposal.  I might be persuaded
> to get behind
> something quite different.
>
> Another leading approval process idea, one that I
> have supported in the
> past, is the idea that *anyone* could approve *any*
> articles, and then
> users could make list of "approved approvers," i.e.,
> people whose opinions
> on articles they trust.  I still think that's an
> intriguing idea, but I
> also don't think it's one that will attract the many
> Nupedia participants
> who want to be working on a free encyclopedia
> project.  Elitism leaves a
> bad taste in my mouth as it does for many, but we
> *need* a *going* project
> that will attract some of the most educated,
> knowledgable, intelligent,
> clearest-thinking people to the overall task of
> building a free
> encyclopedia.  The point is obviously *not* to *be*
> elitist; it is to make
> a project that participants can see there are
> adequate safeguards that
> their time will not be wasted by any yahoo who can
> just come along and
> ruin their work.
>
> There's nothing to stop us from implementing *both*
> proposals, by the way.
> (Someone made this point before, too, I remember.)
>
> But I intend to get behind the proposal articulated
> in (1)-(7) above.  And
> I'd like to get any interested programmers behind it
> ASAP, and I'll be
> only too happy to collaborate on some of the basic
> policy and mission
> statements of the website.
>
> Then we can get Julie and Michael back, perhaps, and
> put to work people
> like G. B. Lane, Gaytha Langlois, Michael Witbrock,
> Munawar Anees, Ruth
> Ifcher (of course!), and all the other smart and
> wonderful people I worked
> with on Nupedia.  Maybe this will be a way to get
> Nupedia itself
> kick-started again.
>
> --Larry
>
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go
> here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

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from_name: koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com

body:
Larry Wrote:
>I would like to weigh in here to say that I'm just slightly disturbed
that
>we are getting into the habit of publicly proposing, on this list, to use
>the banning power to settle acrimonious edit wars.  I've noticed this in
>the case of Lir and of DW.  When Jimbo and I were the only ones who had
>the authority to ban people, we never used it for this purpose, or at
>least, I can't remember a single case.  This is the first time I recall
>anyone proposing to ban someone for *one hour* so that the person could
>"cool off."  This is the first I've heard of "cooling people off" as a
>reason to *ban* them for any length of time.

Yes, people are becoming a bit quick on the trigger, I'd say.

I disagreed with some of Lir's edits, and doubt she'll win any
congeniality contests, but I think some of the sysops also could use a
cooling down.... Not that they deserve banning, either.

kq


body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Larry Sanger wrote:
>
>> Suppose I were to have written an article on something I know a little
>> about, but which I am very far from being an expert--digital cameras,
>> say.
>> Then someone who were more of an expert were to came along and said,
>> "Look, this article is totally garbage.  You didn't get half of the
>> stuff
>> right," and then replaced it with something that was better-informed,
>> I'd
>> like to think that I would totally understand.  Moreover, if the person
>> took the time to go through, line by line, what was wrong with my
>> article,
>> I would probably be abjectly apologetic.
>>
> This is an interesting example.  In the main it expresses a logical
> approach to a situation, but it gets off the track in two respects.
> The phrase "totally garbage" is unnecesary to the expert's critical
> comments even if he finds little of value in your contributions; there
> are many people whose sensitivities are such that they would see none
> of the posting after that phrase.  The second problem would lie in
> your feeling that you need to be "abjectly apologetic".  When you
> wrote about digital cameras in the first place, you, in good faith,
> produced the best article that you could under the circumstances;
> there's no cause for apology in that.

Larry does have a point.
As a classically-trained musician, I know a lot about music theory. But
Camembert knows more than me. In the past week I've made a couple of
suggestions which s/he has disagreed with, and I've (graciously, I hope)
given way.
Rational, intelligent wikipedians ought to be expected to recognize when
someone has more expertise in a given field than they do.

The problem with the "reality" article is somewhat the same as I found
on something like "key signature" a long time ago.
It's quite a complex subject, everyone thinks they understand it, and
most are mistaken. (in the case of "key sig", because they were shoved
in front of the piano at the tender age of 6 and barked at by wizened
spinster piano teachers... but I digress)


from_name: rose.parks at att.net

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia subset proposal

body:
Dear Larry and members,

     It is hard to form an opinion of this proposal, with just a very bare
outline of it. Nevertheless, the first question that occurred to me when I read
it was, would there be someone in charge of this Wikipedia subset, like an
editor-in-chief or whatever.
     It would seem that we need to have someone in charge of seeing that all
the policy decisions get made, implemented, and documented, and to see the
project through.
     I have a number of questions but the proposal is far from clear to me. I
think more details have to be outlined, before I, for one, feel ready to ask
questions.

                   As Ever,

                        Ruth Ifcher

--


from_name: Karen AKA Kajikit

subject: [Wikipedia-l] misspellings: fulfilment

body:
Alexander Stephen Bradbury wrote:
>
> Hello, I like the misspelling page on maintenance generally, but
> 'fulfilment' is listed as a misspelling. This is just the British spelling
> of the word, I personally don't think that words like this should be
> listed as misspellings, especially as wikipedia is not supposed to have an
> official policy on US\British spelling. I'm not sure if there are other
> British spellings that the page picks out, but there may be. Any opinions
> on this? Can it be removed?

According to the Australian oxford dictionary that's the way it's
supposed to be spelt here too. I had to look it up because it didn't
LOOK wrong to me, but since I'm dyslexic I'm not a great judge. The
misspelling search is a great function to have - it certainly beats
typing them into the search box one at a time... but is there a way to
have the CORRECT spelling for the word appear next to the typoed
version? I'm quite capable of telling when a word's wrong, but not
always able to tell you the right version off the top of my head. I know
that'd be a lot more fiddling, but it would make sure that people (like
me) corrected to the right spelling and not to another mistake.

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

To err is human... to really foul things up add kitten and stir.

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


from_name: Toby Bartels

body:
Sean Barrett wrote:

>Does anyone have a strong objection to banning Lir for an hour or so, to
>let him cool off?

Yes, of course!  That's not what the banning function is for.
At least not yet.

-- Toby


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Mispeelings

body:
tarquin wrote:

>If we change all "it's" to either "its" or the more formal "it is", then
>that list will gradually diminish.

So we're at the point now where it's been suggested
to remove a word ("it's") entirely from Wikipedia
because it's difficult to tell when it's misspelled?
This is far more zealous than we need to be.
Correct them when you find them, but don't go overboard --
they're just mispeelings!

-- Toby


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia subset proposal

body:
Larry Sanger wrote in small part:

>we have
>lost several of our most overeducated, overqualified participants due to
>disgust with having to deal with a few difficult, uncooperative
>participants;

Who besides Michael Tinkler and Julie Kemp?
Two is not several.

Since I've responded to this brief comment,
it's only fair to respond to the main point too:
While I doubt that I would become involved,
I'm happy to bless your potential project.

-- Toby


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Back (at last)

body:
I've not been able to post messages to this list for a few days for some
unknown reason. Just created this account, solely for the purpose of trying
another route.

I have been receiving posts from the list, and have been thinking hard about
reality.

I'm trying as hard as I can to work with Larry and hopping eventually an
article can be written that a person consulting it would find useful.

Fred

_________________________________________________________________
Surf the Web without missing calls! Get MSN Broadband.
http://resourcecenter.msn.com/access/plans/freeactivation.asp


from_name: Lars Aronsson

body:
tarquin wrote:
> As a classically-trained musician, I know a lot about music theory.
> [...]
> Rational, intelligent wikipedians ought to be expected to recognize when
> someone has more expertise in a given field than they do.

The problem here is that we know a lot about a topic, but we don't
necessarily know how to explain or teach the topic to those who know
less, in such a way that makes them realize that they know less.
There is much literature on how to teach in an effective and efficient
way, and how to write useful texts.  But all normal teaching assumes
that the student knows he is the student and doesn't falsely believe
that he is the teacher.  Here we first have to establish who is the
teacher and who is the student. We cannot simply tell them "you know
less about this, so you are the student, and I am the teacher".  That
won't work.  They will (perhaps correctly) believe that we are pompous
and stupid. The blurring of the teacher-student relationship occurs
only at the postgraduate level in our traditional education system.
We cannot expect all Wikipedians to be on that level (age 25 or above
in full academic careers).

> It's quite a complex subject, everyone thinks they understand it, and
> most are mistaken.

So each article needs not only to establish a context, but also to
establish how complex the topic is.

My favorite history book starts by asserting that the "ice age" was
discovered in the late 19th century, i.e. it starts by telling the
history of the history topic (the ice age is more recent than the
telephone!).  Most traditional history books would start (as does
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age) by telling when the glaciation
happened (as if that had always been known).

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  tel +46-70-7891609
  http://aronsson.se/ http://elektrosmog.nu/ http://susning.nu/


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

body:
When I ban an anonymous user's IP, my bannings are upheld. I cannot, however, ban a signed-in contributor.

Only Jimbo or a developer has the physical power to ban a signed-in contributor. They have to change some setting on the server that ordinary sysops can't get to.

The only time I ever threatened to ban someone, all other sysops told me I was wrong to make such a threat. Banning, they reminded me, is for (A) vandals who delete entire articles or litter words like cool "kewl" or "Mike loves Mary" into the text; or (B) contributors who obstinately and perpetually work against the ideals of the project by violating NPOV.

Some better ways to deal with a person who is "too hot to handle" may include:
* I'll just work on something else for an hour (like the spellchecking project)
* I'll take a day or two off from Wikipedia
* I'll try to figure out what's making the person so "hot under the collar"

Some ways to keep working on an topic during an edit war.
* Think hard about ways to phrase an addition to an article that no other contributor will want to revert it (like "Some other advocates, like A and B, said X about Y")
* Create a new article. (Like "Unification Church and anti-Semitism")

Ed Poor


body:
Well, Larry, let me reply from the philosophical perspective of Unification Thought.

The usual rule is that "the lesser shall serve the greater", and you as a man of greater understanding quite correctly claim the right to assume the master's position in the "Reality" article dispute. If not given the authority to assume this position, you will quite naturally leave. Thus, the weakness of using only one rule.

The neglected rule is that the Subject Partner should also love the Object Partner and take care of the Object Partner. In plain English, this means that you as the superior authority must assume a responsible stance towards Fred and incorporate all his ideas into your version of the article.

This means that in several places thoughout your version, you must digress and say something like, "Some people think X because of Y. Mainstream thought, however disagrees with X because of Z."

Although this is a burden and a perhaps distasteful chore, it's a crucial test of your dedication to the project and to the community. If you can pass this test, you will pave the way for Julie Kemp and Michael Tinkler to return.

Ed Poor
Self-appointed Umpire of Neutrality and Mediator of Disputes

-----Original Message-----
From: Larry Sanger [mailto:lsanger at nupedia.com]
Sent: Saturday, October 19, 2002 2:35 PM
To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] How would you deal with this problem?

What is your feeling about the following sort of problem?  This sort
problem is what drove Julie Kemp away, not to mention a number of other
very valuable participants.

[snip]


from_name: lcrocker at nupedia.com

body:
> I would like to weigh in here to say that I'm just
> slightly disturbed that we are getting into the habit
> of publicly proposing, on this list, to use the banning
> power to settle acrimonious edit wars.  I've noticed
> this in the case of Lir and of DW.

I think it should be made clear, though, that these bans
are being proposed not because of the /content/ these
folks produce, but because of their /abuse of the process/.
It is their actions that cause problems, not their words.
Think of it like the court system: even if you're on the
right side of an argument, if don't file the pleadings
correctly, don't make your court dates, disrupt the courtroom
with out-of-order rants, or otherwise refuse to work within
the process, the court can and should rule against you by
default.  That's the only way to keep the process working.

The content of any article will change many times, so it's
not that important what any one person adds, removes, or
changes.  What's important is the process, and Lir and DW
are showing flagrant disrespect for the process.

In the early days of Wikipedia before we had specific
processes and guidelines, it was right and good that we
were a free-for-all; we were in the process of discovering
what works and what doesn't.  But we're in a new phase now.
We have a process, and we know it can work, and we know
what doesn't work.  We should take advantage of that knowledge
and /enforce/ the process we know works.

I do agree that a short-duration "cooling off" ban is silly.
People should either be banned or not, and if they have been
banned, they should have to appeal to a sysop for reinstatement,
showing that they understand and will abide by our standards.

A simple test to think about is this: if the person in question
took exactly the same actions, but was on the other side of the
argument, would his actions be just as disruptive?  I think Lir
and DW pass that test.  If they can't learn to contribute to the
process of Wikipedia as a whole, I think the fact that they may
contribute a useful sentence or two to other articles, or the
fact that they are sincere, are irrelevant to the bigger picture
that they are disruptive of the process, and we would lose nothing
by getting rid of them.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Back (at last)

body:
> I've not been able to post messages to this list for a few days
> for some unknown reason. Just created this account, solely for
> the purpose of trying another route.

You might look to see if your "trash" folder is full.  I've
been having to empty that pretty frequently of late, and the
system will stop taking your mail if you're over quota.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Mispeelings

body:
Tom Parmenter wrote:

> 'Tis nonsense. Are there to be no contractions in Wikipedia?

There ain't supposed to be none.

And we can't have no double negatives neither (this is a triple negative, so it's okay, I guess).

Ed Poor      <---- who hopes to completely ban split infinitives!


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Mispeelings

body:
Thanks for making the maintenance page for misspellings. It took me about 15 minutes to change "althought" to "although" in 22 articles. I took a detour for "Tia and Tamara Mowry" and the "Olsen Twins", which slowed me down. But once I hit my stride, I could fix 2 or 3 articles per minute.

I note that its URL contains a misspelling of its own (mispeelings), but I assume it's homage to the subject line on this e-mail:

   http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Maintenance&subfunction=mispeelings

Ed Pore (oops, another mispeeling!)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] map namespace?

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:

> Would there be interest in/nned for a "map:" namespace which returns a
> map image of given coordinates?
>
> For a country, city, region, river, lake, mountain etc. one would type,
> say, "[[map:1.2.3:4.5.6]]" to get a rectangular map. That would be
> generated by some free map service (there are some, though I don't
> remember any URL).
> That would avoid the copy'n'paste action of current maps on wikipedia,
> and save disk space ;-)
>
> I thought I'd better ask before I try implementing...

Labeled how? In what language? With what borders? Showing how much
detail? Political? Topographic?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] map namespace?

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:
> Brion VIBBER wrote:
>> Labeled how? In what language? With what borders? Showing how much
>> detail? Political? Topographic?
>
> The language would be the one of the wikipedia used, as far as the map
> service aupports that, or English.
> Level of detail probably depends on the map service.
> Political and topographic could be an option, with the default on both.
>
> I think these can be solved one way or another. More important questions
> would be:
> Is there a map service we could use? One that releases the generated
> maps in the PD, or for educational purposes? Shouldn't there be one? :-)

There's whatever Caltrop uses to create maps such as for
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carriacou or
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut

Personally I think they're hideous and very difficult to read.

> If you think it's ("it is"?) a stupid idea, just say so ;-)

I have my doubts that you could get useful and attractive maps out of
such a system. If you can prove me wrong though, I'd be happy as a clam.
(How happy _is_ a clam, exactly?)

> On a sidenote, a question on the German list reminded me: What ever
> happened to that "wiki code unification" (or whatever it was called),
> where external links were like
>    [[http://www.google.com|google]]
> ??

Mmm, I don't think anything ever happened. But it's a good idea.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Zoe

body:
I don't care if Lir is banned or not, I just wish that she would be civil.  I have NEVER said that I would refuse to accept "slave trader" as Columbus's occupation, I only said that I would accept it if Lir would give us some proof, something which she refuses to do.

Zoe
 Stephen Gilbert <canuck_in_korea2002 at yahoo.com> wrote:Thank you Larry. That sums up my feelings on bans
nicely.

Stephen G.

--- Larry Sanger wrote:
> I would like to weigh in here to say that I'm just
> slightly disturbed that
> we are getting into the habit of publicly proposing,
> on this list, to use
> the banning power to settle acrimonious edit wars.
> I've noticed this in
> the case of Lir and of DW. When Jimbo and I were
> the only ones who had
> the authority to ban people, we never used it for
> this purpose, or at
> least, I can't remember a single case. This is the
> first time I recall
> anyone proposing to ban someone for *one hour* so
> that the person could
> "cool off." This is the first I've heard of
> "cooling people off" as a
> reason to *ban* them for any length of time.
>
> If I could see immediately that Lir were simply a
> *vandal*, I could
> understand. But I do not see that Lir is simply a
> vandal, whatever
> his/her merits.
>
> Like everybody, I totally understand :-) the
> frustration involved in
> working with people I regard as unreasonable,
> difficult, and even
> trollish. But banning them isn't the way that, up
> until just the last
> month or two, we have dealt with them.
>
> Let me be clear here (it's so easy to be
> misunderstood): on the one hand,
> I think there is absolutely nothing wrong with
> outright banning an IP
> number (if it's stable) or perhaps, temporarily, a
> block of IP numbers, if
> it's perfectly clear that the person being banned is
> just a vandal. On
> the other hand, I do not think we should ban people
> who appear to be
> making a good faith effort to contribute, unless we
> have gone through a
> long public process and ensured that the bar is set
> very high.
>
> In particular, we do not ban people for merely
> failing to follow the
> "rules," even rules like [[netiquette]]. At least
> part of the point of
> making the first rule "ignore all rules," I thought,
> is the notion that we
> all understand that we aren't going to *enforce*
> these rules except in the
> most egregious cases, which Lir and DW aren't, as
> far as I can tell. For
> non-vandals, the bar has to be set really, really
> high, I think.
>
> --Larry
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go
> here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

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from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: map namespace?

body:
On Monday 21 October 2002 12:01 pm, wikipedia-l-request at nupedia.com wrote:
> Would there be interest in/nned for a "map:" namespace which returns a
> map image of given coordinates?
>
> For a country, city, region, river, lake, mountain etc. one would type,
> say, "[[map:1.2.3:4.5.6]]" to get a rectangular map. That would be
> generated by some free map service (there are some, though I don't
> remember any URL).
> That would avoid the copy'n'paste action of current maps on wikipedia,
> and save disk space ;-)
>
> I thought I'd better ask before I try implementing...
>
> Magnus

This might be interesting -- but disk space is cheap. What would be far
interesting and useful IMO would be to allow image maps.

I've been holding off on creating locator maps for the element articles
because much of the feedback I have received on it indicates that people
automatically click on the locator map and expect to go to the element they
clicked on - not the image description page. It would be nice to make one
image map template with the correct squares mapped to their correct elements
and then go from there.

Prototype with current "odd" image behavior:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: neutral www.wikipedia.org desperately needed

body:
On Monday 21 October 2002 12:01 pm, Chuck Smith wrote:
> I can't say how important, wichtig, importante and
> grava it is that www.wikipedia.org is an opening page
> to the multilingual project.  First of all, it gives
> newcomers a quick introduction to the Wikipedia
> project and current users would just go directly to
> their version.  Showing that we have multiple
> languages immediately should be attractive, not a
> turnoff.

I agree completely - es muy importante.

> A week ago, I went to a bilingual (eo-en) conference
> on human rights in Strasbourg and one of the matters
> we discussed was the issue of language rights.
> Generally the "more powerful" languages don't give
> equality to the minority languages.  This is
> understandable in organizations where more working
> languages bring a greater cost, but in the case of
> Wikipedia, cost is not an issue.

Yup.

> In the Wikipedia project, every language should have
> EQUAL rights and EQUAL opportunity for promotion, etc.
>  This is only possible by moving the English Wikipedia
> to en.wikipedia.org, and making www.wikipedia.org a
> neutral multilingual page.  It is not just a matter of
> politics, it's a matter of language discrimination.

I'm still with you here.  However, one of the most powerful things we now have
on the Main Page is a simple, direct and easy to find link to Recent Changes.
Simply throwing up a multi-lingual welcome page that only really points
people to each of the different languages isn't a good solution at all. Yes,
I know I was advocating moving the English Wikipedia to en.wiki forcibly
before but that was to set-up the possibility for EL/es.wiki reunification.
Now that EL has decided the issue for us there is no longer any urgency for a
move -- so long as we agree that a move should be made.

I am content to wait and do this right instead of being hasty and doing it
wrong. Specifically if/when all languages are in the same database (see my
many emails on this - I don't wish to explain it again) and we can have a
combined Recent Changes at www.wikipedia.org then we can move the English
wiki to a home that follows the same syntax as all the others.

If we did this right now we would still have www.wikipedia.org going to
en.wiki's Main Page. This is putting the cart in front of the horse. We
should first work on making a magnificently useful Front Page for the whole
project before we start changing URLs.

> If there was a neutral language page, I would prefer
> to send people at my Esperanto Wikipedia lectures to
> www.wikipedia.org, so they could also see that there
> is an opportunity to contribute to their native
> language Wikipedia as well.  Please understand the
> feelings of the language minorities.
>
> Thank you,
> Chuck

I agree that a move should be made, but due to the fact /that/
www.wikipedia.org is so important and visible, we should do this the correct
way and not hastily. In the interim the wording on the English Wikipedia Main
Page has been tweaked to obviously indicate that there are Wikipedias in
others languages and it also provides a link to a page that has all the
non-English Wikipedias listed. This isn't the best solution but it will
probably have to do until/if the multilingual Wikipedia Phase IV comes out
that combines the now separate language databases (again, defualts would
ensure everything looks the same as it does now - everybody please read the
previous posts and metapedia to learn how this might work :-).

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

Related links
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughts_on_language_integration
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_to_do_with_www.wikipedia.org
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_international_Wikipedias_as_part_of_the_main_community


from_name: elian

body:
Larry Sanger <lsanger at nupedia.com> writes:

> Here's the problem, though.  Again, I think KQ has the right approach, but
> it doesn't solve every problem along these lines.  With all due respect,
> in my opinion, Fred really doesn't know what he's talking about on this
> topic, and it requires a great deal of patience to go through an article
> from someone who does not understand the subject (but thinks he does).

I doubt if anyone can say for himself that he really understood the
concept of reality. My attitude towards topics like this is always a sort
of humility - many great people have thought about it but didn't arrive at
one generally agreed definition, so why should I? and that would be the
first rule for editing in such a field: if you think you've understood it
wholly you are probably wrong. Maybe you have understood Kant or Plato's
conception - but reality as a whole?

> Reasonable people do not react in the way that Fred has reacted, I think.
> Suppose I were to have written an article on something I know a little
> about, but which I am very far from being an expert--digital cameras, say.
> Then someone who were more of an expert were to came along and said,
> "Look, this article is totally garbage.  You didn't get half of the stuff
> right," and then replaced it with something that was better-informed, I'd
> like to think that I would totally understand.  Moreover, if the person
> took the time to go through, line by line, what was wrong with my article,
> I would probably be abjectly apologetic.

This depends. If I wrote an article and some expert came around, reverting
all I did and writing a new, I can imagine two possible reactions: either
he suceeded to say what I wanted to say but failed. Then I sit back,
admire his work and say: fine :-). or  he says something completely
different which goes against my concepts of the topic. He did better in
his approach than I but I feel there is more to say which he left out and which
was - even inadequately expressed - in my old part he deleted. I think
Fred and you are in situation 2 at the moment.

> I'm not talking about the whole project.  In this article, he certainly
> has been trying to push a specific agenda, though it's possible he doesn't
> quite realize that.

The impression I got was that Fred tried a broader approach to the topic
while you tried to limit the article on philosophical concepts. Both
approaches are IMHO legitim.
Second: while you tried to give an account of the discussions about reality,
Fred tried to give definitions - which in the way he did will IMHO
inevitably fail. Maybe you should seperately discuss these two points:
what should be the content and how should be the form.

greetings,
elian
--
Wenn Gott gewollt haette, dass die Menschen nackt
herumlaufen, wuerden sie nackt zur Welt kommen.
- oscar wilde


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Strange problems

body:
I tried to save an small change about 10 times. Each
time, it said the server had "closed the connection".
But when I went to recent changes, it had been saved.
?

--- Derek Ross <derekross at fisheracre.freeserve.co.uk>
wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jens Frank" <JeLuF at gmx.de>
> To: <wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
> Sent: Monday, October 21, 2002 10:36 PM
> Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Strange problems
>
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > some strange things happening on the wikipedia:
> >
> > - If I try to save an article, I get the error
> > message "Document contains no data" as response.
> > The article is saved correctly.
> >
> > - Some users seem to save an article two times,
> > the second time it is empty. It's unclear whether
> > this is caused by clicking "reload" after the
> > above message or caused by the server itself.
> >
> > Can this be related to Ram-Man's bot? He stopped
> > it already but problems are still occuring.
> >
>
> It's unlikely to be due to Ram-Man's bot since he's
> switched it off and the
> problems are still happening but there's definitely
> something Not Right.
> Maybe it's time to reboot the server again.
>
> Cheers
>
> Derek
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go
> here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Y! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your web site
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/


from_name: Tom Parmenter

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Mispeelings

body:
|From: Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu>
|Content-Disposition: inline
|Sender: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
|Reply-To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
|Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2002 00:02:46 -0700
|
|tarquin wrote:
|
|>If we change all "it's" to either "its" or the more formal "it is", then
|>that list will gradually diminish.
|
|So we're at the point now where it's been suggested
|to remove a word ("it's") entirely from Wikipedia
|because it's difficult to tell when it's misspelled?
|This is far more zealous than we need to be.
|Correct them when you find them, but don't go overboard --
|they're just mispeelings!
|
|
|-- Toby

I guess I'll need to explain this.  There are two words with the
letter sequence I T S.

One is the contraction of "it is" and is marked by an apostrophe ('),
between the T and the S.

The other is a possessive pronoun and has no apostrophe.

Since many forms of the possessive end with an apostrophe and an S,
some people write "it's" for the possessive form when they should have
written "its".  Likewise, although more rarely, some people write
"its" when they should have written "it's".

There is no "mispelling" involved in this error and there is no way in
hell any computer program in SQL can tell the difference between these
two frequently confused forms and correct the error.

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88


subject: [Wikipedia-l] map namespace?

body:
Yes, great idea!

Labels: default = English, but can be specified
Borders: (you can answer this, Brion!)
Detail: figure out a default and a parameter to vary it
Political/topographic: probably should be specified.

Ed Poor


body:
I'll suggest this again.  Banning a contributor forces some authority
figure to decide who is right and wrong.  Why not freeze the topic
instead?  There is no hurry to complete any topic, but edit wars are
fueled by adrenalin and adrenalin doesn't last.  I'd suggest that
[[reality]] could be frozen for a day, week, month, or even  year
without any harm to the ultimate wikipedia and in the meantime all
participants could cool off, write articles distinguishing the various
Three Stooges, defect to slashdot, die, or whatever.  There could be
degrees of this, we could freeze the page only, or freeze the talk
page if things got too hot.  .

And, if totally freezing a topic doesn't float your boat, how about,
for the few hot topics, that exist at any time, appointing a "master
in chancery"  to oversee the contributions and control the flow
until things calm down?

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Lir and Christopher Columbus

body:
On Monday 21 October 2002 03:17 pm, Ortolan88 wrote:
> I'll suggest this again.  Banning a contributor forces some authority
> figure to decide who is right and wrong.  Why not freeze the topic
> instead?

But then which version gets frozen? Choosing one over the other is taking
sides so that shouldn't be a reason why a page gets frozen. Page freezing
should only be done when somebody is trying to hijack a page and therefore
starts an edit war - which IMO is a form of highly-directed vandalism that
saps user recourses. But this should only be uses as a last resort.

>There is no hurry to complete any topic, but edit wars are
> fueled by adrenaline and adrenaline doesn't last.

I agree. We would have to change some wording on the Main Page that would make
us look not as open though....

> ....

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Strange problems

body:
On Tue, 22 Oct 2002, Kurt Jansson wrote:
> > > - If I try to save an article, I get the error
> > > message "Document contains no data" as response.
> > > The article is saved correctly.
>
> I'm having the same problem on the German Wikipedia. Maybe this info
> helps a bit to figure out what's going on.

I cleared all the APC cache files, and I no longer see the error on the
English or German wikis.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikipedia-l] map namespace?

body:
Would there be interest in/nned for a "map:" namespace which returns a
map image of given coordinates?

For a country, city, region, river, lake, mountain etc. one would type,
say, "[[map:1.2.3:4.5.6]]" to get a rectangular map. That would be
generated by some free map service (there are some, though I don't
remember any URL).
That would avoid the copy'n'paste action of current maps on wikipedia,
and save disk space ;-)

I thought I'd better ask before I try implementing...

Magnus


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Strange problems

body:
>> I'm having the same problem on the German Wikipedia. Maybe
>> this info helps a bit to figure out what's going on.

> I cleared all the APC cache files, and I no longer see the
> error on the English or German wikis.

I also installed your patch and upgraded to PHP 4.2.3.  The
process may not have gone as smoothly as I had hoped, but it
seems to be up now.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Mispeelings

body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:

>I note that its URL contains a misspelling of its own (mispeelings), but I assume it's homage to the subject line on this e-mail:
>
>   http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Maintenance&subfunction=mispeelings
>
>
Yes, I'm glad someone appreciates that little pun :-)

Magnus (can't think of a way to misspell my own name right now)


body:
--- Tom Parmenter <tompar at world.std.com> wrote:

> And, if totally freezing a topic doesn't float your
> boat, how about,
> for the few hot topics, that exist at any time,
> appointing a "master
> in chancery"  to oversee the contributions and
> control the flow
> until things calm down?
>
> Tom Parmenter
> Ortolan88

That sounds suspiciously like the beginnings of a
police force. Are you sure that would help things?

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
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Y! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your web site
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Put your text for the new page here

body:
--- tarquin <tarquin at planetunreal.com> wrote:

> (this list really has a problem with short-term
> memory -- we only seem
> to manage 3 or 4 "current" issues, and things get
> dropped off the
> agenda, such as the TeX [[math:]] markup idea.)

The problem is the traffic. I don't have two hours a
day to follow every issue that comes up.

What we need is to encourage the habbit of bringing up
an issue on the mailing list, then taking the detailed
conversation to meta.wikipedia.org or an appropriate
talk page in the pedia. That way, people's inboxs
don't have to explode whenever there's a hot topic.

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Y! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your web site
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] map namespace?

body:
--- Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at epost.de> wrote:
> Would there be interest in/nned for a "map:"
> namespace which returns a
> map image of given coordinates?
>
> For a country, city, region, river, lake, mountain
> etc. one would type,
> say, "[[map:1.2.3:4.5.6]]" to get a rectangular map.
> That would be
> generated by some free map service (there are some,
> though I don't
> remember any URL).
> That would avoid the copy'n'paste action of current
> maps on wikipedia,
> and save disk space ;-)

Would it be generated each time the page was viewed?
You mentioned it would "save disk space".

I don't think it's a good idea to rely on an external
service in that way. It seems just as easy to do the
ol' copy and paste, and then have the map image hosted
by us. Also, I'm wary of adding features in general.
:)

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Y! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your web site
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/


from_name: Sean Barrett

body:
Lir is now at work on the VANDALISM IN PROGRESS page, deleting any
references to herself, while accusing all other editors of the
Christopher Columbus page of being vandals.

But far be it from me to suggest that anything be done about it!  I've
learned my lesson.


from_name: Derek Ross

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Mispeelings

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
To: <wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
Sent: Monday, October 21, 2002 4:27 PM
Subject: RE: [Wikipedia-l] Mispeelings

> Thanks for making the maintenance page for misspellings. It took me about
15 minutes to change "althought" to "although" in 22 articles. I took a
detour for "Tia and Tamara Mowry" and the "Olsen Twins", which slowed me
down. But once I hit my stride, I could fix 2 or 3 articles per minute.
>

I'm not quite that quick.  I've noticed that when you get one misspelling in
an article, it's a good indicator that there are other problems with
spelling or grammar and it takes a while for me to check through a big
article.  But I too think that the spelling page is a great tool.  Much
faster than picking a random page and reading it.

Cheers

Derek


from_name: Pierre Abbat

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Zabon-e-zargari

body:
I heard about this a few years ago from a Persian, so I mentioned it on the
[[language game]] page. I don't find anything else about it in Google. Do any
of you know any Persians, and can you ask them about it?

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] map namespace?

body:
Brion VIBBER wrote:

>
> Labeled how? In what language? With what borders? Showing how much
> detail? Political? Topographic?

The language would be the one of the wikipedia used, as far as the map
service aupports that, or English.
Level of detail probably depends on the map service.
Political and topographic could be an option, with the default on both.

I think these can be solved one way or another. More important questions
would be:
Is there a map service we could use? One that releases the generated
maps in the PD, or for educational purposes? Shouldn't there be one? :-)

If you think it's ("it is"?) a stupid idea, just say so ;-)

On a sidenote, a question on the German list reminded me: What ever
happened to that "wiki code unification" (or whatever it was called),
where external links were like
    [[http://www.google.com|google]]
??

Magnus


body:
>Lir is now at work on the VANDALISM IN PROGRESS page, deleting any
>references to herself, while accusing all other editors of the
>Christopher Columbus page of being vandals.
>
>But far be it from me to suggest that anything be done about it!  I've
>learned my lesson.

That's enough for me.   Anyone who consistently refuses any
rational discussion of his or her actions, disrupts the good
work we're doing here, and personally abuses those who are
doing it despite all efforts at compromise is simply more
trouble than he or she is worth.  Being "well-meaning" is no
excuse (and I'm sure of that anyway).  The /result/ of her
actions is no different from an ordinary vandal: more work
for those of us who actually want this project to succeed.

I have blocked both her IP and her user name.  If Jimbo thinks
I am too rash in this, he is of course welcome to unblock them.
It's his project, and I'll respect that.  But in my opinion the
project is simply better of without Lir, and I see no reason to
keep making excuses for reprehensible behavior.


from_name: Brion VIBBER

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> That's enough for me.   Anyone who consistently refuses any
> rational discussion of his or her actions, disrupts the good
> work we're doing here, and personally abuses those who are
> doing it despite all efforts at compromise is simply more
> trouble than he or she is worth.  Being "well-meaning" is no
> excuse (and I'm sure of that anyway).  The /result/ of her
> actions is no different from an ordinary vandal: more work
> for those of us who actually want this project to succeed.
>
> I have blocked both her IP and her user name.  If Jimbo thinks
> I am too rash in this, he is of course welcome to unblock them.
> It's his project, and I'll respect that.  But in my opinion the
> project is simply better of without Lir, and I see no reason to
> keep making excuses for reprehensible behavior.

I agree 100% and fully support banning this idiot. This is a project
which aims to be productive, and Lir has been overwhelmingly destructive.

That said, a banned user who's still logged in can still move pages!
Oops. I'll fix that.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
Brion VIBBER wrote:
> That said, a banned user who's still logged in can still move pages!
> Oops. I'll fix that.

(fixed)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Could not select database wikidb

body:
I just got this for the second time in less than an hour. What's going wrong?

phma


from_name: The Cunctator

body:
On Mon, 2002-10-21 at 13:25, lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
<snip>
>
> In the early days of Wikipedia before we had specific
> processes and guidelines, it was right and good that we
> were a free-for-all; we were in the process of discovering
> what works and what doesn't.  But we're in a new phase now.
> We have a process, and we know it can work, and we know
> what doesn't work.  We should take advantage of that knowledge
> and /enforce/ the process we know works.

I don't really buy the "we need less freedom because we're wiser"
argument. At least that what this argument seems to be saying.

I'm also really not convinced that "we have a process, and we know it
can work, and we know what doesn't work". Rather, I'd say we're quite
far from a stable process of developing articles. (e.g., right now
there's a big mish-mash of very long subheaded entries on some subjects
and collections of small entries on other subjects--a discrepancy that
needs to be resolved.)

--tc


body:
On Mon, 2002-10-21 at 22:24, Stephen Gilbert wrote:
>
> --- tarquin <tarquin at planetunreal.com> wrote:
>
> > (this list really has a problem with short-term
> > memory -- we only seem
> > to manage 3 or 4 "current" issues, and things get
> > dropped off the
> > agenda, such as the TeX [[math:]] markup idea.)
>
> The problem is the traffic. I don't have two hours a
> day to follow every issue that comes up.
>
> What we need is to encourage the habbit of bringing up
> an issue on the mailing list, then taking the detailed
> conversation to meta.wikipedia.org or an appropriate
> talk page in the pedia. That way, people's inboxs
> don't have to explode whenever there's a hot topic.

What we actually need to do is go to a BBS-style system like Yahoo
Groups (that can also be accessed as a mailing list) that ideally would
be integrated with meta.

Short-term, we can encourage non-technological solutions.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Strange problems

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jens Frank" <JeLuF at gmx.de>
To: <wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
Sent: Monday, October 21, 2002 10:36 PM
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Strange problems

> Hi,
>
> some strange things happening on the wikipedia:
>
> - If I try to save an article, I get the error
> message "Document contains no data" as response.
> The article is saved correctly.
>
> - Some users seem to save an article two times,
> the second time it is empty. It's unclear whether
> this is caused by clicking "reload" after the
> above message or caused by the server itself.
>
> Can this be related to Ram-Man's bot? He stopped
> it already but problems are still occuring.
>

It's unlikely to be due to Ram-Man's bot since he's switched it off and the
problems are still happening but there's definitely something Not Right.
Maybe it's time to reboot the server again.

Cheers

Derek


from_name: Jens Frank

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Strange problems

body:
Hi,

some strange things happening on the wikipedia:

- If I try to save an article, I get the error
message "Document contains no data" as response.
The article is saved correctly.

- Some users seem to save an article two times,
the second time it is empty. It's unclear whether
this is caused by clicking "reload" after the
above message or caused by the server itself.

Can this be related to Ram-Man's bot? He stopped
it already but problems are still occuring.

Regards,

jeluf


from_name: tarquin

body:
(in the terminology of the forum board, *BUMP*!!!)

Paul Ebermann wrote:

>"tarquin" skribis:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>>Could we make the text that appears in a new page form more helpful? eg:
>>
>>"This article does not yet exist in Wikipedia. You can begin writing a
>>new article here, or just close the browser window" etc etc.
>>
>>
>
>IMHO better than "close the browser window" would be
>
>    ... use the back-function of your browser or click
>    on "Cancel".
>

That would be better. My text was just an example to illustrate my idea.

(this list really has a problem with short-term memory -- we only seem
to manage 3 or 4 "current" issues, and things get dropped off the
agenda, such as the TeX [[math:]] markup idea.)


from_name: Kurt Jansson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Strange problems

body:
Hi list!

> > some strange things happening on the wikipedia:
> >
> > - If I try to save an article, I get the error
> > message "Document contains no data" as response.
> > The article is saved correctly.

I'm having the same problem on the German Wikipedia. Maybe this info
helps a bit to figure out what's going on.

Kurt


subject: [Wikipedia-l] map namespace?

body:
Lars Aronsson wrote:
> Magnus Manske wrote:
>>For a country, city, region, river, lake, mountain etc. one would type,
>>say, "[[map:1.2.3:4.5.6]]" to get a rectangular map. That would be
>>generated by some free map service (there are some, though I don't
>>remember any URL).
>
> Please tell me when you remember the URL.

I dug around some more; the software Caltrop has been using is GMT
(Generic Map Tools; http://gmt.soest.hawaii.edu/) via the on-line map
creator at http://www.aquarius.geomar.de/omc/omc_intro.html

With some tweaking, I believe we could get attractive, useful maps (at
least at the national level) using the same software, which we can run
off our own server so as not to be dependent on a third party which may
vanish or cut off service.

 >  MapBlast used to provide
> this service, but they closed it earlier this fall.
>
> The syntax that I use on susning.nu is map:12.45:67.89:20000
> where 12.45 is decimal degrees north, 67.89 is decimal degrees east
> (or negative for south and west) for the center point of the map,
> and 20000 indicates that one meter on the screen is 20000 meters
> in the real world (assuming a standard 100 dpi screen).  That is the
> syntax that MapBlast used to have in their CGI URL interface.

That sounds like a nice syntax for starters. (Ultimately we should be
able to specify size, map projection, national/subnational borders,
marking of major cities.)

For further discussion, I recommend moving to the meta wiki:
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipediatlas where I've tossed up some
incoherent thoughts. Coherize them if you dare!

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
> (this list really has a problem with short-term memory -- we only seem
> to manage 3 or 4 "current" issues, and things get dropped off the
> agenda, such as the TeX [[math:]] markup idea.)

And the easy table markup ... Or did I miss something?

Do we need more programmers? Or is it that the concepts aren't ready for
implementation?

Kurt


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Ben Donley

subject: [Wikitech-l] newbie interested in table of contents

body:
Hi there.

I've got a bright idea (imho) about a user interface for a table of
contents system in the wikipedia.  I'm sure there's been a ton of
discussion of this subject before, I just don't know where.  So please
forgive me if this is a commonly dismissed concept:

Each page could have a list of attributes that describe a location in a
unified hierarchy.  There could be an interface for browsing this
unified hierarchy from the top down.

If these two (work intensive, perhaps) changes were made, the result
would be:

My entry on prince charles would state that it is located in two places
on the hierarchy:
/humans/royalty/european/british/
/humans/facial features/big ears/

My entry on orangutans would state that it is located in one place on
the hierarchy:
/animals/primates/apes/

Does anyone feel like discussion of this set of features is worth
while?  Other methods for achieving a top-down hierarchy of entries
leap to mind.  Feel free to email me privately about this if you do not
feel that it belongs on the list.

  Thanks for your time,
  Ben


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikitech-l] [collin@xs4all.nl: registered www.wikipedia.nl]

body:
Can someone help Branko with this?  We'll just need a quick addition
to the apache conf.

----- Forwarded message from Branko Collin <collin at xs4all.nl> -----

From: "Branko Collin" <collin at xs4all.nl>
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2002 22:39:04 +0200
To: Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com>
Subject: registered www.wikipedia.nl

Hello Jimmy,

Are you the one I should talk to? I just registered www.wikipedia.nl
so that it can point to the Dutch Wikipedia.

I will sit on this domain for two years, then expect somebody else to
take it off my hands. If I understand correctly, the person or
company holding a .nl domain must be based in the Netherlands (see
the rules at <http://www.nic.nl> if you're interested). After this
period I will let the domain run out or transfer it to one of the
other nl.wikipedia.com regulars. (Or before that, if you so request,
and of course at cost price.)

Would it be possible to point this address to nl.wikipedia.com, or
possibly to a page disambiguating between the Dutch and the Frisian
Wikipedia? I can change entries in the zonefile (or make new ones). I
don't know too much about how this works, here's how it looks like
currently:

wikipedia.nl. A 217.115.192.15
mail A 217.115.192.22
* A 217.115.192.15

With kind regards,

--
branko collin
collin at xs4all.nl

----- End forwarded message -----


from_name: Stephen Gilbert

subject: [Wikipedia-l] map namespace?

body:
--- Brion VIBBER <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Lars Aronsson wrote:
> > Magnus Manske wrote:
> >>For a country, city, region, river, lake, mountain
> etc. one would type,
> >>say, "[[map:1.2.3:4.5.6]]" to get a rectangular
> map. That would be
> >>generated by some free map service (there are
> some, though I don't
> >>remember any URL).
> >
> > Please tell me when you remember the URL.
>
> I dug around some more; the software Caltrop has
> been using is GMT
> (Generic Map Tools; http://gmt.soest.hawaii.edu/)
> via the on-line map
> creator at
> http://www.aquarius.geomar.de/omc/omc_intro.html
>
> With some tweaking, I believe we could get
> attractive, useful maps (at
> least at the national level) using the same
> software, which we can run
> off our own server so as not to be dependent on a
> third party which may
> vanish or cut off service.

Beautiful. I officially change my vote to "I love it".

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Y! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your web site
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/


body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Can someone help Branko with this?  We'll just need a quick addition
> to the apache conf.

Okay, I've tweaked the apache config so once the DNS is changed to point
the hostname to our server's IP (130.94.122.197), it should
automatically forward wikipedia.nl and www.wikipedia.nl to
nl.wikipedia.org. (If it doesn't, complain. I'll fix it.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

> ----- Forwarded message from Branko Collin <collin at xs4all.nl> -----
>
> From: "Branko Collin" <collin at xs4all.nl>
> Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2002 22:39:04 +0200
> To: Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com>
> Subject: registered www.wikipedia.nl
>
>
> Hello Jimmy,
>
> Are you the one I should talk to? I just registered www.wikipedia.nl
> so that it can point to the Dutch Wikipedia.
>
> I will sit on this domain for two years, then expect somebody else to
> take it off my hands. If I understand correctly, the person or
> company holding a .nl domain must be based in the Netherlands (see
> the rules at <http://www.nic.nl> if you're interested). After this
> period I will let the domain run out or transfer it to one of the
> other nl.wikipedia.com regulars. (Or before that, if you so request,
> and of course at cost price.)
>
> Would it be possible to point this address to nl.wikipedia.com, or
> possibly to a page disambiguating between the Dutch and the Frisian
> Wikipedia? I can change entries in the zonefile (or make new ones). I
> don't know too much about how this works, here's how it looks like
> currently:
>
> wikipedia.nl. A 217.115.192.15
> mail A 217.115.192.22
> * A 217.115.192.15
>
> With kind regards,


subject: [Wikitech-l] Quick RC filter?

body:
On Tuesday 22 October 2002 07:10, Erik Moeller wrote:
> Hi,
>
> the auto-bot on WP is really messing up the RC file. I think it
> shouldn't be too hard to put a filter interface for admins in there,
> making it easy to filter changes by specific users. (This probably will
> come up again.) I'm ready to write this if there's interest from the
> maintainers. I'm aware of the potential problems (filtered users could
> abuse the system), but this would only be done for trustworthy users,
> and there are remedies (check user contributions etc.).

Sounds good. I think the cutoff frequency should be 1 per minute. I suggest
C=1?F and R=17K.

phma


from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Mispeelings

body:
Tom Parmenter wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>tarquin wrote:

>>>If we change all "it's" to either "its" or the more formal "it is", then
>>>that list will gradually diminish.

>>So we're at the point now where it's been suggested
>>to remove a word ("it's") entirely from Wikipedia
>>because it's difficult to tell when it's misspelled?
>>This is far more zealous than we need to be.
>>Correct them when you find them, but don't go overboard --
>>they're just mispeelings!

>I guess I'll need to explain this.

There is no need to explain anything.
I'm perfectly aware of everything that you say below
(except for the claim that there is no misspelling, which is quite false).
I stand by my comment.

>There are two words with the letter sequence I T S.

>One is the contraction of "it is" and is marked by an apostrophe ('),
>between the T and the S.

>The other is a possessive pronoun and has no apostrophe.

>Since many forms of the possessive end with an apostrophe and an S,
>some people write "it's" for the possessive form when they should have
>written "its".  Likewise, although more rarely, some people write
>"its" when they should have written "it's".

>There is no "mispelling" involved in this error and there is no way in
>hell any computer program in SQL can tell the difference between these
>two frequently confused forms and correct the error.

-- Toby


from_name: Lars Aronsson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] map namespace?

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:

> For a country, city, region, river, lake, mountain etc. one would type,
> say, "[[map:1.2.3:4.5.6]]" to get a rectangular map. That would be
> generated by some free map service (there are some, though I don't
> remember any URL).

Please tell me when you remember the URL.  MapBlast used to provide
this service, but they closed it earlier this fall.

The syntax that I use on susning.nu is map:12.45:67.89:20000
where 12.45 is decimal degrees north, 67.89 is decimal degrees east
(or negative for south and west) for the center point of the map,
and 20000 indicates that one meter on the screen is 20000 meters
in the real world (assuming a standard 100 dpi screen).  That is the
syntax that MapBlast used to have in their CGI URL interface.

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  tel +46-70-7891609
  http://aronsson.se/ http://elektrosmog.nu/ http://susning.nu/


body:
Sean Barrett wrote:
> Does anyone have a strong objection to banning Lir for an hour or so, to
> let him cool off?

I'm a little late to weigh in on this, but my personal mode of conduct
is that instead of banning someone to let them cool off, I should let
them have their way for an hour to let them cool off.  Just come back
to the article tomorrow or the next day and fix it.  Probably he won't
feel as emotional about it then -- and neither will I.

Banning, even for an hour, should be reserved for pure vandalism.
Disagreements about content seldom rise to that level.

--Jimbo


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Ben Donley wrote:

> I've got a bright idea (imho) about a user interface for a table of
> contents system in the wikipedia.  I'm sure there's been a ton of
> discussion of this subject before, I just don't know where.  So please
> forgive me if this is a commonly dismissed concept:
>
> Each page could have a list of attributes that describe a location in
> a unified hierarchy.  There could be an interface for browsing this
> unified hierarchy from the top down.
>
> If these two (work intensive, perhaps) changes were made, the result
> would be:
>
> My entry on prince charles would state that it is located in two
> places on the hierarchy:
> /humans/royalty/european/british/
> /humans/facial features/big ears/
>
> My entry on orangutans would state that it is located in one place on
> the hierarchy:
> /animals/primates/apes/

Some of this exists already.

In the case of the orangutans this would come under [[WikiProject Tree
of Life]] where a structure has been suggested.  A lot of the articles,
however, were written before that project was developed, and they could
stand to be converted.  As you correctly recognize this is all work
intensive, and your contributions would be welcome.

If you put "WikiProject" in your search box you can find a list of
projects that have been started.  Royalty does not appear there, but
there are various lists that have been started which some enterprising
person could turn into a WikiProject.  I would still caution a Newbie to
take the time to become more familiar with what exists on Wikipedia
before taking on a whole new WikiProject.  Otherwise, you could find
yourself duplicating work that already exists, but is expressed in a
slightly different way from what you might propose.

As things stand, only five Wikipedia articles mention physiognomy.  The
prevailing view is to consider it to be a pseudoscience.  Nevertheless,
I could imagine someone making a link between Prince Charles's ears,
Transcendental Maditation and the ability to fly.

Welcome

Eclecticology


in_reply_to: <200210211920.PAA23359@TheWorld.com>; from tompar@world.std.com on Mon, Oct 21, 2002 at 03:20:25PM -0400

body:
Tom Parmenter wrote:
> I'll suggest this again.  Banning a contributor forces some authority
> figure to decide who is right and wrong.  Why not freeze the topic
> instead?  There is no hurry to complete any topic, but edit wars are
> fueled by adrenalin and adrenalin doesn't last.  I'd suggest that
> [[reality]] could be frozen for a day, week, month, or even  year
> without any harm to the ultimate wikipedia and in the meantime all
> participants could cool off, write articles distinguishing the various
> Three Stooges, defect to slashdot, die, or whatever.  There could be
> degrees of this, we could freeze the page only, or freeze the talk
> page if things got too hot.  .

Or, we could just relax and let the article be wrong for awhile.  In a
day, maybe everyone will feel better.

If some particularly vicious argument goes on for weeks at a time,
then we can start thinking about alternative solutions.  But, usually,
people get tired of it.

Was Columbus a slave trader before coming to the New World?  Maybe, I
don't actually know.  But I do know that it's the sort of claim that
needs some documentation.  Maybe the guy who wants to say that can
provide documentation, OR someone who doesn't want to say that can
provide counter-documentation.

In the meantime, edit wars just make us all unhappy.

--Jimbo


in_reply_to: <200210211725.g9LHPpp29408@ross.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Mon, Oct 21, 2002 at 10:25:51AM -0700

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> A simple test to think about is this: if the person in question
> took exactly the same actions, but was on the other side of the
> argument, would his actions be just as disruptive?  I think Lir
> and DW pass that test.

Without agreeing necessarily with everything Lee wrote, I do think
this is a valuable test.  It's important to distinguish between
people's _content_ and their _attitude_.  Both of these two have been
very quick to insult other people in disagreements, and that's not
good.

--Jimbo


body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> But then which version gets frozen? Choosing one over the other is taking
> sides so that shouldn't be a reason why a page gets frozen.

I think that letting the other guy win for today serves the same
benefit (ending the fight for now, allowing time for everyone to cool
off), without introducing coercive mechanisms.

--Jimbo


in_reply_to: <200210220428.g9M4ScC30091@ross.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Mon, Oct 21, 2002 at 09:28:38PM -0700

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> I have blocked both her IP and her user name.  If Jimbo thinks
> I am too rash in this, he is of course welcome to unblock them.
> It's his project, and I'll respect that.

Well, I recommend against it.  But since I wasn't here yesterday, and
didn't unblock it, I'll leave it to others to decide for now.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Quick RC filter?

body:
On Tuesday 22 October 2002 07:48, Pierre Abbat wrote:
> Sounds good. I think the cutoff frequency should be 1 per minute. I suggest
> C=1?F and R=17K.

Oops, got the formula upside down - make that 1 megohm and 60 microfarad.
That would still hide Ram-Man, who just made 9 edits in 6 minutes.

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] It's about its

body:
SELECT cur_title FROM cur WHERE cur_text REGEXP '[[:<:]]it\'s[[:>:]]'
AND cur_namespace=0

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
[mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]On Behalf Of Poor, Edmund W
Sent: Tuesday, October 22, 2002 08:40
To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] It's about its

Most of us can readily apply the following two rules:
* to show possession, it's correct to use: its
* we may change "it is" to its contraction: it's

So, I would like to be able to search for instances of:

   it's

...so I can check whether it's being used as a contraction for "it is"
(correct) or as a possessive (incorrect: change to "its").

But when I tried to use Wikipedia search, entering:

   it\'s

I got a bunch of articles with the following 2 characters highlighted in
red:

   's

...which is a superset of what I want.

What is the correct search string to enter?

Ed Poor
[Wikipedia-l]
To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Mispeelings

body:
tarquin wrote:

>If I were going on a hunt for incorrect uses of "it's", correcting most
>to "its" or "it is" has the advantage of shortening the next list of
>search results.

Except that changing "it's" to "it is" is not a correction.
If I saw a change from "it's" to "it is" that made the article read worse,
then I would want to change it back.

>I certainly wasn't suggesting changing "it's a long way to tipperary".

I assumed as much.

>I can't speak for AmEnglish, but in BrEnglish, a contraction such as
>"it's" is considered a little too informal for a work such as an
>encyclopedia or a dictionary.

Then I won't change "it is" back to "it's" in an article about Britain
(just as I wouldn't use American spelling there --
not that I normally use American spelling, but pretend that I did).

>Perhaps it was UK-centric of me to assume that that holds in AmEng too,
>in which case I apologize (but note that many US wikipedians could do
>with a healthy dose of culture shock to shake a few us-centric attitudes.)

Fair enough.

-- Toby


body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>My personal mode of conduct
>is that instead of banning someone to let them cool off, I should let
>them have their way for an hour to let them cool off.  Just come back
>to the article tomorrow or the next day and fix it.  Probably he won't
>feel as emotional about it then -- and neither will I.

>Banning, even for an hour, should be reserved for pure vandalism.
>Disagreements about content seldom rise to that level.

I think that Jimbo has the right idea here.

-- Toby


from_name: dograt at earthlink.net

body:
On Tue, Oct 22, 2002 8:47 AM, wikipedia-l-request at nupedia.com
<mailto:wikipedia-l-request at nupedia.com> wrote:

>Message: 11
>Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2002 08:08:08 -0700
>From: Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com>
>To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
>Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Lir and Christopher Columbus
>Reply-To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com

>Or, we could just relax and let the article be wrong for awhile.  In a
>day, maybe everyone will feel better.
>
>If some particularly vicious argument goes on for weeks at a time,
>then we can start thinking about alternative solutions.  But, usually,
>people get tired of it.

Lir has been at it for about 3 weeks since the day she joined. Her hallmark
is to edit artcles either using unsubstantiated, outlandish claims, all-
caps exclamations and/or political rants at the top of entries, childish
entries (see Iowa State history, for example: "common pastimes (at Iowa
State) are smoking, tripping, complaining..."),  changing other user's and
her own comments in talk pages, removing references to herself that seem
unflattering or challenge her and accusing other users of being racist if
they don't abide by her ridiculous edits.

>
>Was Columbus a slave trader before coming to the New World?  Maybe, I
>don't actually know.  But I do know that it's the sort of claim that
>needs some documentation.  Maybe the guy who wants to say that can
>provide documentation, OR someone who doesn't want to say that can
>provide counter-documentation.

Maybe, but is the onus on us to provide counter- documentation to
speculative claims? More importantly, would it matter to lir? She quoted a
dean at Iowa state with an outlandish quote. I emailed the dean and he
flatly denied making such a quote. I posted that to the talk page and was
immediately attacked by lir and she promptly ignored my evidence and
reverted her quote.

>
>In the meantime, edit wars just make us all unhappy.
>
>--Jimbo

A lot of people seem very concerned about lir's feelings and her possible
positive contributions down the road. That's kind of wierd considering that
she has already wasted a considerable amount of other user's time and
energy with her combative, irrational tirades; time that could have been
spent making wikipedia better. I, for one, have severly curtailed my
contributions out of disgust and weariness. So, if you think that maybe we
should"just relax and let the article be wrong for awhile", you'll probably
get your wish. People like lir have worn me down and her edits certainly
won't be disturbed by me anymore.

dave


from_name: Mark Christensen

body:
>> In the early days of Wikipedia before we had specific processes and
>> guidelines, it was right and good that we were a free-for-all; we
were
>> in the process of discovering what works and what doesn't.  But we're

>> in a new phase now. We have a process, and we know it can work, and
we
>> know what doesn't work.  We should take advantage of that knowledge
>> and /enforce/ the process we know works.
>
> I don't really buy the "we need less freedom because we're wiser"
> argument. At least that what this argument seems to be saying.

Cunc, the problem I see is that smaller groups can enforce community
standards through informal means, but larger groups can not.

As long as your group consists of less than 30-50 people -- the size of
a small hunter gatherer tribe -- you can maintain relationships with
everybody and that makes creating and enforcing social standards easier.
But large groups just don't work that way.  You can imagine a small
village with no traffic laws, and it would work because people can
fairly easily be aware of where they need to be careful, and the
community will subtly enforce that behavior.  But I can't possibly
imagine a city the size of Detroit working without traffic laws, and
people dedicated to making sure that those laws are followed.

I will agree with you, however, that this could easily be taken too far,
and what we need to do is find an appropriate balance.

--Mark Christensen