from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] wikipedia homepage

body:
Looks real good to me. After Mav's comment I expected some gaundy nonsense,
but I like the layout of the Esperanto Wikipedia.

Fred

> From: Daniel Ehrenberg <littledanehren at yahoo.com>
> Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2003 20:07:06 -0700 (PDT)
> To: Wiki Pedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] wikipedia homepage
>
> May I change the layout of the homepage of the English
> Wikipedia to that of the Esperanto Wikipedia? I think
> that layout looks much better. I would ask this on
> [[Talk:Main Page]], but not many people look there
> that often, and this would be a huge change.
>
> Note for non-Esperantists: Aktuale is where the
> current events should go, but someone from the UEA
> (big esperalto association) just wrote about wikipedia
> itself there for some reason. The rest of the things
> there are fairly obvious, but the explanations in
> different languages would be left out.
> -LDan
>
> __________________________________
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> SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
> http://sbc.yahoo.com
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list: textbook-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Textbook-l] Some concept ideas

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:
>....
>One more thing (more like a personal request):
>I would like to limit editing to logged-in people
>only. Now calm down, I don't try to rip the wiki
>principle apart. I just think that since this will be
>a more organized effort than wikipedia, and as
>I'd rather not spent my time cleaning up vandals
>on the textbook wiki all the time as well, I think
>it might be a good idea to prevent bypassing vandals
>from inserting "yo mom's stupid". Everyone would be
>free to get a user account, just like on wikipedia. Just
>an extension: "You can edit this page right now. Just
>get a free user account first". People who'd like to
>invest serious time here will most certainly do that.

I don't know if that is such a good idea, but it still might be worth trying
for the first reason you mentioned (that this is a more organized project).
But me being me (a worry wart) I just think the vandals will get user names
and we will loose valid contributors by forcing them to set-up an account
(probably also provide a valid e-mail address) just to correct a typo. IMO it
would also make it much less obvious that anyone /can/ edit any page just by
logging-in -- all they would see was "Protected page" where the edit button
should be and "Log-in." That doesn't make it obvious we are a wiki, no?

We might, however, allow anon edits but limit them to say 10 a day like
Slashdot. But I do recall getting pretty pissed on Slashdot when trying to
submit my 11th post as Anonymous Coward and getting the message "Hold on
there cowboy!" (the SlashCode and my browser were not cooperating and I
wasn't able to log-in in the first place). We could manage that better
though.

So maybe we can coax people in a nice way to log-in by just reminding them
about logging in after they make their 10th (or whatever) edit by having a
short message in bold text under the edit button. And also maybe have those
IPs show up in bold in Recent Changes.

Yeah, I know, I'm babbling and off-topic. So I'll stop now.

I guess I'm not sleeping tonight - oh well.

BTW, I agreed with all your other concept ideas.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


list: wikien-l

subject: [WikiEN-l] wikipedia homepage

body:
Richard Grevers wrote:
>> See: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page/Temp
>> Which is based on: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
>>
>Why do the section headings "Encyclopedia"
>and "Community" have a line height smaller
>than their font size? Text is really rather difficult
>to read when all the descenders are truncated.

Huh? Line height hasn't been specified in HTML so I don't know why you are
seeing that. If you or anyone reading this knows how to fix that then please
do.

Anyway I went ahead and made some changes to the Temp page (per some asides in
my last post on this topic).

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page/Temp

Please put comments on the talk page (the mailing list isn't good for this
type of thing).

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Main_Page/Temp

--- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

PS I'm leaving on a Yosemite field study in 2 hours and won't return to make
comments until late Sunday/early Monday UTC.


from_name: Stevertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] Joe Canuck, formerly DW now ChuckM

body:
Re James' indictment...

This is a pretty damn good casefile.  It's hard to argue with.

Next time Jim, please leave the comments, suggested course of action,
comparisons to other
users, etc for another email - and just stick to the straight facts. A
counter to a previous personal
attack is not relevant here.

A clean summary with the particularly incontrovertible evidence at the top
is not unreasonable.  We want to reuse these compilations as much as needed
and hence,
some logical extensible structure is in order - this message comes closest
to that ideal.
Comments can go in a separate email, but for a report like this, its degree
of professionalism
(high as it is) is detracted slightly by any personal commentary - I'm sure
others would agree.

Respectfully,
-Stevertigo

====
THE CASE AGAINST USER JOE CANUCK
| Regarding the user formerly known as Joe Canuck, among his identities and
| dates between which edits were made by these 'characters' he played are:
|
| DW  ( 9 Aug 02- 30 Jan 03 BANNED)
| Ron Davis (7 Feb - 28 Feb 03)
| Elliott   (30 August 02 - 20 Dec 02; 03 March - 06 March 03)
| Black Widow    (12 March 03 - 15 April 03 BANNED)
| Olga Bityerkokoff    (15 April 03 - 17 April 03)
| Jacques Delson    (28 April 03 - 26 May 03)
| 64.228.30.125    (05 Jan 03 - 10 June 03)
| ChuckM    (10 June 03)
| Joe Canuck (11 June 03 - 20 June 03 BANNED)
| ChuckM (22 June O3 -  )
|
| There is strong circumstantial evidence to suggest that he has also used
| other identities. A large number of IP numbers show evidence of usage
| patterns strikingly similar to these characters also. In Black Widow's own
| words "97% of the late DW's articles were never logged in".
|
| All the above share the following characteristics:
|
| 1. a unique shared editing style;
| 2. a preoccupation with editing and creating pages of lists, specifically
in
| the areas of sports, history, Canada, etc.;
| 3. personal abuse of other users, specifically including legal threats;
| 4. the downloading of images that in context, shape, colour and style are
| strikingly similar; indeed so similar are all the sports images that the
| suspicion is raised that not only are they the work of the one person but
| were taken possibly from the same source, practically all of them well
after
| 1923, the key copyright year;
| 5. an identical unusual captioning style, namely  - caption -  in which
all
| three elements were bold italicised;
| 6. the downloading of jpegs with distinctive and similar name
constructions;
| names of pictures of a person which always merge the first name and
surname
| together without use of an underscore between them, with the first letter
of
| the surname always distinctively capitalised, eg, JackPickford.jpg by Ron
| Davis on 19th February, BobbyHull.jpg by Joe Canuck on the 14th of June.
| Most of the users in the above list downloaded images, and most were in
the
| 'firstnameSurname.jpg form. It is worth mentioning that /very/ few other
| wiki users used that form when naming jpegs.
| 7. the absolute and frequently rude refusal to state the origins of the
| images;
| 8. the attacking of anyone who dares question the origins of the images;
| 9. a striking similarity in the nature of insults made against other
people,
| including accusations of (i) elites, (ii) vendettas, (iii) implicit or
| explicit claims of legal knowledge; and (iv) defence of Canada from all
| sorts of weird and non-existent imagined slights.
| 10. the pre-occupation of each 'new' user with their predecessor and a
| determination to defend them, in the process showing a surprising degree
of
| knowledge about wiki, how to use it and about other users who had been
| critical of their 'predecessor', to a degree that is almost incompatible
| with their supposed status as a 'new' user. Thus Black Widow defended DW,
| Olga defending Black Widow, ChuckM defended Joe Canuck; if and when ChuckM
| is banned another user will appear, possessing all the standard
| characteristics and defending him.
|
| CANUCK & CHUCKM: EDIT PATTERNS & DATES
|
| ChuckM        10 June
| Joe Canuck   11 June - 20 June
| ChuckM        22 June -
|
| Some of ChuckM's edits
| 19:25 10 Jun 2003 1982 in sports
| 19:16 10 Jun 2003 1982 in sports (added Akiyda )
| 19:08 10 Jun 2003 1982 in sports
| 19:06 10 Jun 2003 1975 in sports
| 19:05 10 Jun 2003 1970 in sports
| 19:03 10 Jun 2003 1972 in sports
| 19:00 10 Jun 2003 1951 in sports (date)
| 18:59 10 Jun 2003 1951 in sports
|
| Some of Joe Canuck's edits
| 15:28 20 Jun 2003 1960 in sports  (top) [rollback]
| 15:27 20 Jun 2003 1960 in sports
| 15:25 20 Jun 2003 1959 in sports  (top) [rollback]
| 15:23 20 Jun 2003 1958 in sports  (top) [rollback]
| 15:22 20 Jun 2003 1957 in sports  (top) [rollback]
| 15:20 20 Jun 2003 1956 in sports  (top) [rollback]
| 15:20 20 Jun 2003 1956 in sports
| 15:16 20 Jun 2003 1955 in sports  (top) [rollback]
| 15:14 20 Jun 2003 1954 in sports  (top) [rollback]
| 15:14 20 Jun 2003 1954 in sports
|
| The degree of overlap between their edit histories is notable. Both focus
| almost exclusively on the year in sports pages. (Obviously DW by that
stage
| had either finished all the historical lists he had previously worked on
or
| lost the book!) In some cases entire pages of sports lists were
contributed
| by the same bunch of people, with Jacques Delson seemlessly picking
| something that Ron Davis had done, then being replaced by one or two
| constantly repeating IPs, then ChuckM for a change, then Canuck. Unlike
most
| wiki pages, in these these pages there were no edit wars, no disputes, no
| reversions, talk pages unused. [[1951 in sports]] has I think 36 edits by
| Jacques Delson. When he left wiki, an IP linked to DW took over, then
ChuckM
| for a day, then Joe Canuck.
|
| Though DW as DW remained on wiki until banned on 30 January 2003, it
appears
| he simultanously used some IP numbers independently. (That BTW was why DW
| never in signed as ~~~ but always typed the letters DW; though with one IP
| number only once did he actually reveal his identity, possibly an
accident,
| forgetting he wa on an IP and not his own page while signing an outburst
on
| a Hemingway talk page.) The practice of using overlapping IPs and
identities
| appears to have continued for all of this year so far. ChuckM and Joe
Canuck
| on the evidence are probably just the latest in the queue.
|
| CANUCK, CHUCKM: PART OF A PATTERN
|
| More often than not, the scale of the their rudeness and their
| pre-occupation with the same things would lead someone (usually Camembert)
| to challenge them about being DW; the response was usually for them to go
| ballistic which was curious because as new members, they should not have
had
| a clue who DW was! When Camembert asked Canuck whether he was DW his
| response was bizzarre in the extreme. He told Cam:
|
| I should not reply to your bigoted comment about Canadians, it only
| encourages people like you. We do not all drink beer and drive our
| snownmobiles while drunk. Your smart-ass remarks making fun of Canadians
is
| out of place here, but it certainly speaks volumes for your intellect,
| whoever or whatever you are. [[User:Joe Canuck|Joe Canuck]] 17:08 15 Jun
| 2003 (UTC) (And very proud of it)
|
| Camembert's /exact/ question was'' I think you are DW. Are you? '
| [User:Camembert|Camembert]]
|
| 2. ABUSE OF USERS
|
| When he 'returned', ChuckM spent ALL his time 'defending' JC, (curious as
| Canuck was on wiki during ChuckM's supposed holiday and gone when he came
| back!) ChuckM left this on Martin's (MyRedDice's) talk page:
| "Your conduct is disrepectful and childish. Grow up and do something
useful
| besides playing games. ChuckM 23:04 22 Jun 2003 (UTC)"
|
| He told Wapcaplet on the talk page on Image Use Policy/Copyright:
|
| "Note above from the list, many others including you, Wapcaplet conduct
| themselves in the same manner as Joe Canuck did and not a word is said. Do
| you have special privlidges here that the rest of us don't? And just so
you
| understand the law: this site is the property of Wikipedia.org."
|
| This comment hits on two classic DWisms: law and of special privlidges
| (sic). For comparisons with other members of the DW family, note:
|
| Law:
|
| ''To User:Zoe Your derogatory comments are inappropriate and libelous. Any
| further comment of this nature by you directed at me stated herein or
| elsewhere will result in my proceding immediately with all legal remedies
| available to me in accordance with the laws of the United States. AND DO
| GOVERN YOURSELF ACCORDINGLY. User:Olga Bityerkokoff''
|
| It is people such as [[User:Maveric149|mav]], who are totally and
completely
| ignorant of the law but take charge of Wikipedia and force their views on
| others, that makes people leave. After being away for months, I regret
| coming back today. -- Elliot.
|
| Special Privileges:
|
| Perhaps you missed my question above. Why does JHK get to deface Jacques
| Delson's page with stereotypical comments about Canadians and not be
accused
| of a breach of Wikiquette? [[User:Jacques Delson|Jacques Delson]]
|
| :Cat's got your tongue, eh? No matter -- your silence speaks volumes. It
| seems Wikiquette only applies to certain people. If you're one of the cool
| kids you can be as obnoxious as you want. And that's why I'm posting
| anonymously. Don't need JHK slagging me off at the length she likes to
| ramble on and having no recourse. [[User:Jacques Delson|Jacques Delson]]
|
| CHUCKM DEFENDING CANUCK
|
| Though the nature of the verbal abuse by Canuck is a matter beyond dispute
| and can be read in all its glory on his talk page (onto which his abusive
| comments were transferred after his banning), ChuckM asserted:
|
| "I read all of User Joe Canuck's staements and this statement by
User:Jtdirl
| appears to be a complete falsehood as I found no such abuse or threats of
| any kind. What I saw was repeated harassment that User:Joe Canuch (sic)
| complained about."
|
| Though no-one suggested he was Canuck (let alone Canuch!), and not a
| solitary person on wikipedia suggested he was anyone else on wiki, he
rather
| bizarrely stated in the debate on that page that:
|
| "no, I am not Joe Canuck or any other person in the history of Wikipedia
and
| he was the only guy interested in doing the big job to include sports
| highlights in Wikipedia. And, in my opinion, something smells. ChuckM
20:06
| 22 Jun 2003 (UTC)"
|
| Curiously, elsewhere ChuckM explained his absence from wiki for a month by
| saying he was on holidays. But given that Canuck appeared after he 'went
on
| holidays' and left two days before he returned from his hols, how come he
| seemed to know so much about Canuck's work in his absence? Yes he could
have
| checked through the user contributions, but how many /new/ users on their
| second day on wiki know enough about how wiki works to check user
| contributions? I know it took me longer than two days to find my way
around,
| let alone to be able to find that a user had been banned and use their
user
| contributions to check on their edit history in detail, then place a
defence
| of them on a variety of pages including the Votes for Deletion page.
|
| Because of the strong suspicion that Canuck was DW (and 64.228.30.125 and
| 64.228.30.174) and so had a long history of trying to circumvent banning,
I
| left a note on the Votes for Deletion page urging that if it was decided
to
| delete the unsourced images the origins of which Canuck had got abusive
over
| (and everyone but ChuckM said the should indeed be deleted) I suggested
| deleting them as soon as the one week waiting period was over (ie, this
| coming Thursday). ChuckM removed the request and buried it in the page
| discussing copyright issues.
|
| In the aftermath of Canuck's banning, JeLuf placed an initial ban notice
on
| Canuck's page. ChuckM left a message in response on JeLuf's page
criticising
| that action and informing him that he would be reverting the page. (In the
| meantime, Martin had added in a stronger note on the ban on the page
| (provoking the response stating '"Your conduct is disrepectful and
childish.
| Grow up and do something useful besides playing games.') Interestingly
| ChuckM did not revert the Canuck page to its pre-ban state. He rewrote it,
| keeping the word 'and' from the ban notice and tagging on the three words
| "proud of it'' the four words that Canuck had constantly put on his first
| page. DId he check back to know the words? If so, why not then revert? Or
| did he already know the wording of Canuck's page for the simple reason
that
| he is Canuck?
|
| In a second add-on, he added:
|
| ''This user was banned by Mr. Jimbo Wales late Friday based on allegations
| by User:Jtdirl who stated that User:Joe Canuck has the right to appeal.
This
| matter, in my opinion, remains unresolved and respect for that right of
| appeal should be shown. ChuckM 22:49 22 Jun 2003 (UTC) '' (Canuck,
| coincidentially has 'followed' ChuckM's advice and appealed.)
|
| Stan Shebs has since reverted to the hard ban notice. To prevent further
| removal of the note I have now protected it and listed it on the required
| page as protected.
|
| WHAT SHOULD WIKI DO?
|
| Compared to the sheer number of 'followers' DW has (and remember I have
not
| included the names of others who have been suspected by some users of DW,
or
| the list of IPs with similar behavioural patterns; according to Black
Widow
| (DW's . . . em . . 'defender' "97% of the late DW's articles were never
| logged in"!) the Adam family (Lir/Vera Cruz/Susan Mason/Dietary
Fiber/Shino
| Baku/Pizza Puzzle et al) looks tiny by comparison. While Adam and Michael
| are annoying tantrum throwers, DW on the evidence seems like something
more
| worrying and dangerous. A review of image downloads by Canuck's
'ancestors'
| showed few if any of those were authenticated as being copyright free.
While
| individual mistakes can be made by anyone, wiki currently has quite a few
| images added onto wiki by DW, almost all of which could cause copyright
| problems at any time. Every DW family member has behaved in the same
abusive
| matter, threatened legal consequences if they don't get their own way, etc
| etc. In the circumstances, the question has to be asked: what should wiki
do
| about ChuckM? And what will it do about the next DW visitor? and the next?
| and the next? Unless wiki deals ruthlessly with this multiple banned user,
| thrice-hardbannedas far as I could count, with many more members leaving
| before they could be banned, its position could be endangered by the
| copyright-questionable downloadings of this individual. And beyond this
user
| as he has already done, could drive away good users in droves through his
| boorish bullying behaviour.
|
| JT
|
| EPILOGUE:  SOME HEART-WARMING DW FAMILY QUOTES
|
| "Perhaps, instead of imposing this small group's ''community norm'' on
| contributors whose work is clearly from someone wishing to see Wikipedia
| succeed, you and other sincere contributors might use your valuable time
| more constructively by improving the content of my articles and fix the
| thousands of other incomplete and very poorly done articles that already
| exist on Wikipedia." User:Ron Davis
|
| ''To User:Zoe Your derogatory comments are inappropriate and libelous. Any
| further comment of this nature by you directed at me stated herein or
| elsewhere will result in my proceding immediately with all legal remedies
| available to me in accordance with the laws of the United States. AND DO
| GOVERN YOURSELF ACCORDINGLY. User:Olga Bityerkokoff''
|
| Please leave and don't come back until you can cooperate and work in the
| spirit of creating something valuable.[[User:Jacques Delson|Jacques
Delson]]
| 22:31 25 May 2003 (UTC) (comment to J. Hoffman Kemp)
|
| Perhaps you missed my question above. Why does JHK get to deface Jacques
| Delson's page with stereotypical comments about Canadians and not be
accused
| of a breach of Wikiquette? [[User:Jacques Delson|Jacques Delson]]
|
| :Cat's got your tongue, eh? No matter -- your silence speaks volumes. It
| seems Wikiquette only applies to certain people. If you're one of the cool
| kids you can be as obnoxious as you want. And that's why I'm posting
| anonymously. Don't need JHK slagging me off at the length she likes to
| ramble on and having no recourse. [[User:Jacques Delson|Jacques Delson]]
|
| Do you have special privlidges here that the rest of us don't? ChuckM to
| Wapcaplet
|
| :I should not reply to your bigoted comment about Canadians, it only
| encourages people like you. We do not all drink beer and drive our
| snownmobiles while drunk. Your smart-ass remarks making fun of Canadians
is
| out of place here, but it certainly speaks volumes for your intellect,
| whoever or whatever you are. [[User:Joe Canuck|Joe Canuck]] 17:08 15 Jun
| 2003 (UTC) (And very proud of it)
|
| I am removing the offensive and threatening statements for the second
time.
| The conduct of the person placing this here and reinstating with the
| addition of the words: ''# of times removed and un-answered: 1''  after I
| have deleted it, contravenes [[User:Jimbo Wales/Statement of principles]],
| and constitutes harassment. Any further harassment will result in this
| matter being e-mailed to the site owner for immediate remedial action.
| [[User:Joe Canuck|Joe Canuck]] 12:18 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)
|
| _________________________________________________________________
| MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*.
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from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Textbook-l] Re: Textbooks

in_reply_to: <20030626075017.GA7873@math-cl-n01.ucr.edu>; from toby+wikipedia@math.ucr.edu on Thu, Jun 26, 2003 at 12:50:17AM -0700

body:
Toby Bartels wrote:
> An important point is the existence (or potential existence)
> of other articles on parts of the discipline of scientific creationism
> (such as the attempts to pin down the dating of the flood
> by cross-referencing Genesis with geological data)
> and similarly, the (potential) existence of a textbook on that topic.
> To be sure, we don't have those articles on Wikipedia
> and probably never will have that textbook -- but we could.

Boy, I think that's right on target.

I would predict that an article like that would be a challenge for us,
since I presume that most of the regulars in the wikipedia community
(including myself) would have little patience with so-called
scientific creationism.

But a highly detailed article about scientific creationism, including
a fair assessment of the types of efforts you're talking about (i.e.
development of alternative theories of dating) that both mainstream
scientists and creationists could agree on, should be possible!

(I should include the disclaimer 'reasonable mainstream scientists'
and 'reasonable creationists' to avoid the notion that every possible
nutcase in the world can always be accomodated.)

> The text in [[en:Wikipedia:Neutral point of view]] of course must be changed,
> since it refers to a comprehensive encyclopaedia on everything.
> But this is /context/, not the /essence/ of NPOV.

I think that's right.

--Jimbo


subject: [Textbook-l] Examples of POV in textbooks

body:
For the purpose of this general discussion of the relationship
between NPOV and textbooks, we should all dig up some texts and
look for examples.

I used to teach freshman economics 101 at the University of Alabama,
and I remember being frustrated at finding bias in the texts that we
were using.  That was some years ago, and perhaps a review of that
text (which I still have at home somewhere) with an eye towards
finding examples of POV that could be made NPOV might be useful.

Samuelson, in particular, was notorious about putting his personal
judgments into the text as if they were consensus science.  Had
he been subjected to the discipline of wiki-editing, his text might
have been much improved.

--Jimbo


subject: [Textbook-l] various POVs, modules

body:
Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
> Have you people seen any humanities textbooks lately ?

I actually haven't.  But your comments don't surprise me.

It sure would be great to have some examples to discuss, because
I think that getting our "heads on straight" about this issue from
the outset will be pretty important.

--Jimbo


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Björn Lindqvist

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Why I don't believe (any more) in NPOV

body:
>>The strongest adherent of the
>>scientific method admits and accepts that no scientific hypothesis is
>>absolutely true.  He does not feel threatened by the emergence of some
>>bizarre theory, and is probably more effective in his refutations by
>>allowing for the possibility of a new and perhaps unlikely hypothesis.
>
>
> In defence of the poor scientist-in-real-life,
> he (or she) may not feel /threatened/ by bizarre theories,
> but he often feels /exhausted/ from constantly refuting them,
> and even /annoyed/ when called upon to refute (IHO) really stupid ones.
> But I think that our NPOV method can still deal with this.
>
> In the cube example, we don't allow anything with no supporters
> (that falls under Wikipedia's ban on original research),
> and we don't feel the need to refute things with no arguments
> (it's enough to state the fact that the position is a fringe one).
> Then once the arguments for the cubical Earth are presented,
> we only have to lay out the counter-arguments once, there in the article.
> If the counter-counter-arguments etc get to be too long,
> then we simply spin things off into [[Cubical Earth]].
> People that don't want to deal with this inane crackpot nonsense
> can rightly point its adherents to that article.
>

I don't either belive in NPOV. Never did and never will. Whatever
happens Wikipedia will get the POV of the masses, a conglomerat of all
authors working on the project. My task is therefore to add my pov on
things to increase the sum of all recorded human knowledge that
wikipedia is (coming to be). Over time most of the articles converge to
something that becomes the POV of the masses - aka NPOV. Some wont, like
the articles on drugs, because there seem to be a lot more potheads that
write those than read them.
Like the cubic earth example, writing "the earth is spherical" wouldnt
be correct because 0,001% know it is cubic. Even worse to say that the
holocaust has happened because 0,1% know it has. Or saying that God's
existance hasn't been proven because 10% know it has.

Bj?rn


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] wikipedia homepage

body:
Daniel-
> May I change the layout of the homepage of the English
> Wikipedia to that of the Esperanto Wikipedia? I think
> that layout looks much better. I would ask this on
> [[Talk:Main Page]], but not many people look there
> that often, and this would be a huge change.

The current layout on en: is the result of long, long discussions and
many, many compromises. It's not made for eternity, of course, but I'd
prefer gradual changes to massive ones. While I like the Esperanto main
page from a purely aesthetic point of view (because it's more colorful,
and uses the aesthetically more pleasing Cologne Blue skin by default), I
prefer the English Main Page layout from a logical point of view, because
it manages to present a very nice mix of information on little space. The
"Selected articles" box on en: is IMHO unmatched by all other Wikipedias.

In any case, please use [[Main Page/Temp]] for working on this, and not
the live Main Page. Otherwise you might provoke a few edit wars.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [WikiEN-l] wikipedia homepage

body:
LittleDan wrote:

>May I change the layout of the homepage of the English
>Wikipedia to that of the Esperanto Wikipedia?

My choices, from best to worst:

# July 25 version of [[Main Page/Temp]]
# Current version of [[Main Page/Temp]] (mav's experiment 1)
# [[fr:Accueil]
# Current [[Main Page]]
# [[eo:Cxefpagxo]]

Note that the default skin is a separate issue,
so be sure to compare things in the same skin (or both).

-- Toby


subject: [Textbook-l] Some concept ideas

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:
>I would like to limit editing to logged-in people
>only. Now calm down, I don't try to rip the wiki
>principle apart.

I wouldn't be extremely opposed to this, but I think we should be very
cautious about moves in this direction.

Particularly since textbooks are, by their nature, not as general as
an encyclopedia, there is a smaller pool of authors *per book*, so
that we need to be very careful about any barriers to participation.

Here's the thing that I want to keep reminding everyone: the whole
idea of wiki is completely insane.  It's obvious to me, based on
everything I know about human nature, that it just can't possibly
work.  But... it does.

So my inclination is to discourage 'a priori problem solving', as
least to a degree.  Nupedia was an exercise in excessive a priori
community design, and it failed miserably.  But trusting people to do
the right thing seems to work remarkably well.

Even so, it's entirely possible that the community dynamic for writing
a textbook is very different from the community dynamic for writing an
encyclopedia.  So experience might teach us that radical-wiki-openness
really can't work here.

Still, isn't that something that we should let experience teach us,
rather than making assumptions beforehand?

--Jimbo


subject: [Textbook-l] Some concept ideas

body:
Maveric149 wrote in part:

>IMO it
>would also make it much less obvious that anyone /can/ edit any page just by
>logging-in -- all they would see was "Protected page" where the edit button
>should be and "Log-in." That doesn't make it obvious we are a wiki, no?

If we require /everybody/ to log in, then it shouldn't say that.
It should say "'''Edit this page'''" with a nice bright link --
that sends them to the log in page (returning to the edit page).

>Yeah, I know, I'm babbling and off-topic. So I'll stop now.

You know what you need?  A trip to Yosemite!  ^_^

-- Toby


subject: [Textbook-l] Wikipedia may provide books made with different perspectives input, whilst others can't

body:
[Replies should go only to <textbook-l at wikipedia.org>.]

Anthere wrote in part:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>In Wikipedia, when we write an article on part of biology,
>>then that article too is restricted to the displine of biology.

>Well. No. That is not always true.

>Writing a textbook about corn, and only sticking to the
>plant biology would be of no interest to a farming student. He will need plant
>science and botany to know the crop, farming information to grow it, animal
>science to understand what it is needed for (hence the quality required), soil
>science to understand the crop requirement versus soil resources, climate
>science and water science to irrigate the crop wisely, chemistry and quality
>management to understand how to best deal with this crop disease and insect
>specificities whilst insuring food quality and safety, environmental issues
>related to that crop, such as benefits and drawbacks associated with a
>particular crop management, a minimum of biotech information to understand
>what a gmo is and what the different trends are on that topic, mechanics for
>the farming equipment, trade, market, economical and political background to
>best sell his product and project himself in the future.

I agree completely.  For a textbook on corn farming.
Which is not the same thing as a textbook on biology!
So I don't see any conflict between your opinion and mine.

>Both are ok, but I am here for the second point. Not the first.

So you would rather work on a textbook on corn farming
than work on a textbook on biology.  That's fine with me!

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [Textbook-l] Wikipedia may provide books made with different perspectives input, whilst others can't


body:
Bj?rn Lindqvist wrote in part:

>I don't either belive in NPOV. Never did and never will. Whatever
>happens Wikipedia will get the POV of the masses, a conglomerat of all
>authors working on the project.

>Like the cubic earth example, writing "the earth is spherical" wouldnt
>be correct because 0,001% know it is cubic. Even worse to say that the
>holocaust has happened because 0,1% know it has. Or saying that God's
>existance hasn't been proven because 10% know it has.

Actually, 90% know that God exists.
Yet our articles on God don't claim that He does.
So much for the POV of the masses!

>My task is therefore to add my pov on
>things to increase the sum of all recorded human knowledge that
>wikipedia is (coming to be).

If you add your POV by explaining who believes it and why,
rather than simply stating that it's true, then you're NPOV.

-- Toby


in_reply_to: <3EFA7420.5080804@telia.com>; from bjrn.lindqvist@telia.com on Thu, Jun 26, 2003 at 06:18:40AM +0200

body:
Bj?rn Lindqvist wrote:
> I don't either belive in NPOV. Never did and never will.

By 'never will' do you mean: no matter what, no matter if good
arguments and explanations are presented for it?  I hope not.  Because
I think that if you reconsider it carefully, you'll find that NPOV is
(by design) something that everyone can agree on.

> Whatever happens Wikipedia will get the POV of the masses, a
> conglomerat of all authors working on the project. My task is
> therefore to add my pov on things to increase the sum of all
> recorded human knowledge that wikipedia is (coming to be).  Over
> time most of the articles converge to something that becomes the POV
> of the masses - aka NPOV. Some wont, like the articles on drugs,
> because there seem to be a lot more potheads that write those than
> read them.

This is what I like to call the "competitive model" of wikipedia,
versus what we really try to encourage, which is the "co-operative
model".

In the competitive model, lots of people try to insert their own point
of view in articles, and the end result of long competition is
something that hopefuly resembles neutrality, but actually is just
"POV of the masses".  This sometimes works, but sometimes won't,
because activists are more inclined to edit that others.

Well, that's why the competitive model is wrong, and is a mindset
that we must avoid as being ultimately incompatible with NPOV.

The co-operative model is that we each try to *avoid* putting our own
POV into articles, and to write everything neutrally in the first
place.  We should always avoid the temptation to polemics, and simply
stick to a presentation that would be considered fair by all sides.

On this model, what you are doing, i.e. "add my pov on things" is
_wrong_, it is something that you should not be doing, because it is a
violation of the NPOV principle.

A valid article on drugs could be written by a pothead or by someone
who thinks that drug use should be punished with extremely harsh
penalties.  It is very likely, of course, that the *best* article
would be written by those parties working, not in a competitive
fashion to try to smuggle in their own viewpoint, but in a
co-operative fashion to try to present the facts about the issue
fairly.

I think it's very rare -- and possibly non-existent -- to have a case
where reasonable people can't work together on something
co-operatively, despite major differences of opinion.

The NRA gun rights organization says one thing.  The Handgun Control,
Inc. people say something else.  But thoughtful and sincere people
from both sides can certainly agree to fairly _characterize the
argument_, summing up the evidence neutrally.

If I may be so bold as to insert my own POV into *this* email, I think
that a big part of the problem is that the schools today teach
(implicitly or explicitly) moral and cultural relativism, combined
with a mild postmodernism that says that all speech is political, that
avoiding bias is impossible, so play it deuces wild and see what you
can get away with.

But I'm old school on things like that.  I think that neutrality is
possible.  I think that conflicts of interest are illusory and that
people who disagree about even very fundamental things can and
*should* work together to accurately summarize the issue.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Stallman on fair use

body:
Axel Boldt wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>Axel Boldt wrote:

>>>How about if we give up our current distinction between
>>>images and text and require a single confirmation whenever people
>>>upload material to Wikipedia:

>>>  By uploading material to Wikipedia, you certify that either
>>>     * the material is in the public domain, or
>>>     * the copyright owner of the material releases it under GFDL, or
>>>     * the material can be used under the [[fair use]] doctrine and
>>>       such fair use will likely extend to all third party users of
>>>       Wikipedia

>>>(maybe even with three [radio buttons].)

>>But in the case of images (along the lines of album cover thumbnails),
>>I don't think that we need to worry about future users of Wikipedia
>>(much less try to guess who's /likely/ to be one of these and who isn't).
>>This is because images can be easily removed by the future user.

>Granted that it's easier to remove fair-use images than fair-use
>quotes, but even the former involves going through the articles that
>link to the removed images and removing the now-broken links.

We should write a utility that will strip them.
That can't be hard, and providing it with our work,
whether or not it's necessary to comply with the text of the FDL,
certainly helps in complying with the spirit.

>Not to
>mention the case-by-case decisions about which fair-use images to keep
>and which to remove. In effect, this necessary work prevents a
>quick-and-dirty third-party $10 Wikipedia CD from ever seeing the light
>of day. And there isn't much room: the Encyclopedia Britannica DVDROM
>sells for $50.

It's easy to produce a /quick-and-dirty/ CD this way;
simply strip out all questionable (3rd option) images.
We do need to save the choice made when it was uploaded, of course;
but I think that everybody agrees on adding such metadata.

>In the end, to get a cheap CD, we would probably have to produce a
>sanitized version of Wikipedia ourselves.

To get a cheap CD with some of the fair use images, yes.
But to decide who the image is fair use for and who not --
that's a difficult decision to make once and for all.
I'm certainly not up to judging whether something is fair use
for all of the /likely/ third-party future users.
How am I to judge that when we argue over an image's status for just us?
If a third-party user has a particular usage in mind,
then they can judge their circumstances better than we can.
I agree that it's nice if we can judge it ahead of time,
but I don't agree that we're capable of it.

>>For quotations, we should be able to ensure that the quotation
>>is fair use for /every/ potential user, so that would be all right.

>Even for quotations you need the word "likely" somewhere: your quoting
>a line of Martin Luther King in an article about him is certainly fair
>use; my selling t-shirts with that quote on it is certainly not.

Fair enough.  But in this case, "likely" is easy to judge.

>>Thus, there is a practical difference between text and images.

>True, but I'd like to maintain the spirit of GNU-free for the whole
>encyclopedia, not just for its text.

I'd also like to do this, but the only pracitcal way
is to not include fair use images in "the whole encyclopedia" at all.
Of course, this is what /you/ want (and is consistent with my practice too),
but the other Wikipedians aren't likely to come around to that.
This leaves us with a difference between text and images --
to with, that we /can/ maintain the spirit for the entire text,
but cannot for all of the images.

-- Toby


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Stallman on fair use

body:
Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:

>Axel Boldt wrote:

>>Even for quotations you need the word "likely" somewhere: your quoting
>>a line of Martin Luther King in an article about him is certainly fair
>>use; my selling t-shirts with that quote on it is certainly not.

>Are you sure about that ?
>In Poland I wouldn't hesitate for a moment before selling such t-shirts.
>Short quotes receive next to zero protection here and I don't know why it
>should be otherwise anywhere else.

In 1979, a US federal court ruled that
Ashleigh Brilliant's "Pot-Shots" are Epigrams,
therefore copyrightable, and he's won a half-dozen lawsuits
(and several other cases that never made it to court).
A "Pot-Shot" has a /maximum/ of 17 (English) words.

To be sure, Brilliant's epigrams are unusual;
because of their small size, they're more like images.
You can't take an Excerpt from a "Pot-Shot".

-- Toby


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] wikipedia homepage

body:
Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
>>May I change the layout of the
>>homepage of the English Wikipedia
>>to that of the Esperanto Wikipedia?
>>I think that layout looks much better.
>>I would ask this on [[Talk:Main Page]],
>>but not many people look there that
>>often, and this would be a huge change.

>IMO that is HMTL madness -- WAY too many spurious colors that mean >nothing and whose only purpose is to look "purty" in the eyes of the designer.

Madness ? spurious ? means nothing ? what does "purty" means ? I don't think it is nice either

Well, some people designed this. And I think enough people like it and inspired themselves from it for these comments to be quite rude.
Colors have meaning to us. We collectively find them pretty and meaningful, more joyful than the restrained english design. More appealing. And areas more defined.

I think I remember that when I advertised our new design about 6 months ago, you gave a positive appreciation of it.

Good then, bad now ? :-)
Good for the french, bad for the english ? :-)
I don't get it.

>We have
>already worked out a more conservative color scheme for the Main Page but
>were waiting for some earth-shattering announcement to make to go with the
>upgrade (such as "The Wikimedia Foundation is open for business and is now
>accepting donations!" - not that we would say that on the Main Page but we
>would have a link to a press release).

who and when ? And why is "conservative" the best choice ?

>See: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page/Temp
>Which is based on: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

I don't like it.

>We really should be very conservative with making big noticeably changes to
>that page because so many people visit it every day. Making a big change is
>going to make people think that something is different and then they will be
>more likely to see the link to the press release (we did this for our last
>press release and it worked very well).

I disagree. This is quite common for websites to change their design from time to time. Google does give life to his homepage as well. People are no stupid. They may recognise the difference between a change of design and a change of content

>Color rational: White is for articles (thus the background for the category
>links is white/unchanged), Yellow is for community (since all our user, talk,
>and wikipedia pages are yellow) and Blue is for hyperlinks. I guess red for
>edit links would also be neat (indicating there is always something else to
>cover) but that would be too many colors and red is also a bit heavy.

Why is yellow associated with community ? why not pink ? why not green ? why not blue ?

Well, perhaps we should do what Oliezekat suggested after all. He suggested that the main page be with css, and that any user could change the colors of the main page in his pref page to suit his needs. And make something like MyWikip?dia

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subject: [WikiEN-l] wikipedia homepage

body:
Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
>>May I change the layout of the
>>homepage of the English Wikipedia
>>to that of the Esperanto Wikipedia?
>>I think that layout looks much better.
>>I would ask this on [[Talk:Main Page]],
>>but not many people look there that
>>often, and this would be a huge change.

>IMO that is HMTL madness -- WAY too many spurious colors that mean >nothing and whose only purpose is to look "purty" in the eyes of the designer.

Madness ? spurious ? means nothing ? what does "purty" means ? I don't think it is nice either

Well, some people designed this. And I think enough people like it and inspired themselves from it for these comments to be quite rude.
Colors have meaning to us. We collectively find them pretty and meaningful, more joyful than the restrained english design. More appealing. And areas more defined.

I think I remember that when I advertised our new design about 6 months ago, you gave a positive appreciation of it.

Good then, bad now ? :-)
Good for the french, bad for the english ? :-)
I don't get it.

>We have
>already worked out a more conservative color scheme for the Main Page but
>were waiting for some earth-shattering announcement to make to go with the
>upgrade (such as "The Wikimedia Foundation is open for business and is now
>accepting donations!" - not that we would say that on the Main Page but we
>would have a link to a press release).

who and when ? And why is "conservative" the best choice ?

>See: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page/Temp
>Which is based on: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

I don't like it.

>We really should be very conservative with making big noticeably changes to
>that page because so many people visit it every day. Making a big change is
>going to make people think that something is different and then they will be
>more likely to see the link to the press release (we did this for our last
>press release and it worked very well).

I disagree. This is quite common for websites to change their design from time to time. Google does give life to his homepage as well. People are no stupid. They may recognise the difference between a change of design and a change of content

>Color rational: White is for articles (thus the background for the category
>links is white/unchanged), Yellow is for community (since all our user, talk,
>and wikipedia pages are yellow) and Blue is for hyperlinks. I guess red for
>edit links would also be neat (indicating there is always something else to
>cover) but that would be too many colors and red is also a bit heavy.

Why is yellow associated with community ? why not pink ? why not green ? why not blue ?

Well, perhaps we should do what Oliezekat suggested after all. He suggested that the main page be with css, and that any user could change the colors of the main page in his pref page to suit his needs. And make something like MyWikip?dia

---------------------------------
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subject: [Textbook-l] Textbooks (response to Jimbo's WikiEN-l post)

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> When there is no real controversy on a topic (in a global sense)
> then facts can be presented as facts.

That's right.  And a lot of science at the level of details does fall
into the category.  For example, reasonable creationists don't claim
that scientists are just *lying* about finding fossils, about genetic
variation, and so on.  All the basic evidence is uncontroversial, at
least generally speaking, although of course there are challenges to
specific details here and there.

> But we don't have room in every article to present every idea on a
> subject - we have to pick and choose. If done right then the major
> arguments are presented in some detail, with more detailed text on
> daughter articles and the minor/crackpot ones get maybe a sentence
> or two or just a "see also" link.

Yes, that's right.  If someone asks "But why didn't you have 3
chapters on reconciling Genesis with the geological evidence?" the
answer is "Because this book isn't about that."

> <Devil's advocate>Ever hear of a "bias of selection?"</Devil's advocate>

Well, that's a very good question, but I *think* I have a very good
answer.

The bias of selection consists in selectively omitting arguments or
evidence in order to give a misleading picture.  Not all selectivity
is bias, sometimes it's just restricting the domain to a manageable
subset of all that is known.

> Good thing you put the qualifier "honest" in there. Otherwise I
> would have listed a few states where creationism is either presented
> as a valid competing theory to evolution or as superior to evolution
> in those state's public school biology textbooks. It makes me sick
> to think about that (also very glad that I didn't grow up in those
> backward states -- no offense intended Jimbo :-).

Well, I always attended private schools, even though my parents were
not and are not rich.  So, you know, I'm very sympathetic to what you
are saying.

But I haven't actually read any of those textbooks, so I wonder how
they really handle it.

> Also, I would prefer us to use the terminology of "module" instead
> of article when talking about textbook pages (both are one wiki page
> but "article" isn't a good word for our use here - neither is "page"
> realy).

That sounds sensible to me.  What about the word 'chapter'?  But
anyhow, I think that 'module' or 'chapter' certainly makes more sense.

One thing about textbooks is that they need to be self-contained and
*ordered* in a way that an encyclopedia is not.  This depends, in
part, on the subject matter, but take math as an example -- the
concepts of trigonometry need to be presented more or less in a
particular order, or the student will be lost.

--Jimbo


list: wikitech-l

from_name: tarquin

subject: [Wikitech-l] LanguageFr.php

body:
Anthere wrote:

>
>just to find oneself totally ridiculous many months
>later discovering that *nothing* has changed and that
>the old system is still the one working.
>
>Ok, back to the old fun of seeing non-grammatically
>correct commas in articles now.
>
>I mean. This is the kind of day I feel very old.
>
>
>
It really boils down to this:

we need more copies of Brion.


subject: [WikiEN-l] wikipedia homepage

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

> Just a note: the current layout used on the Esperanto, Danish, Czech,
> Chinese, Spanish, and Polish Wikipedia homepages was IIRC based on the
> fine work started at the Francophone Wikipedia.
>
The eo: seems to be CSS-based, but the fr: is still table-based.


body:
Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu> wrote:
I agree completely. For a textbook on corn farming.
Which is not the same thing as a textbook on biology!
So I don't see any conflict between your opinion and mine.

There are no conflicts between your opinion and mine :-)

>Both are ok, but I am here for the second point. Not the first.

So you would rather work on a textbook on corn farming
than work on a textbook on biology. That's fine with me!

Quite true Toby.

Except that if the official rule for textbooks defines that these textbooks must be "DPOV" (as a basic rule at the same level than NPOV on Wikipedia, meaning "mandatory"), then there is no room in this project for this book. This virtual book would have to go in another project.

If this rule is not mandatory, or if this rule does not exist at all, then the book can exist there.

See ?
We know the goal, we know the means, let's avoid restrictives rules :-)

cheers

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body:
Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu> wrote:
I agree completely. For a textbook on corn farming.
Which is not the same thing as a textbook on biology!
So I don't see any conflict between your opinion and mine.

There are no conflicts between your opinion and mine :-)

>Both are ok, but I am here for the second point. Not the first.

So you would rather work on a textbook on corn farming
than work on a textbook on biology. That's fine with me!

Quite true Toby.

Except that if the official rule for textbooks defines that these textbooks must be "DPOV" (as a basic rule at the same level than NPOV on Wikipedia, meaning "mandatory"), then there is no room in this project for this book. This virtual book would have to go in another project.

If this rule is not mandatory, or if this rule does not exist at all, then the book can exist there.

See ?
We know the goal, we know the means, let's avoid restrictives rules :-)

cheers

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from_name: Richard Grevers

subject: [WikiEN-l] Unreadable email messages

body:
On Tue, 24 Jun 2003 23:57:28 -0700, Toby Bartels
<toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu> gave utterance to the following:

> Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
>
>> Plain text was good enough for Dante and Shakespeare, and it's good
>> enough
>> for mailing lists.
>
>> _Different people find different things most readable_. Therefore, it
>> makes
>> sense to let the _reader_ decide what colors to display messages in.
>
> So decide, reader.
> Choose to view SV's messages in plain text (that's what I do),
> or tell your HTML interpreter to override his colour settings.

I know of at least two email clients in which the latter is impossible - if
you choose to view html it's all or nothing.

> While I find SV's decision to specify colour unnecessarily provocative,
> the fact is that he isn't forcing anything on any reader.
>
I find Microsoft's decision to release a buggy email client unnecessaily
provocative. As I have said before, I am not so concerned about the effect
on people's reading choice that HTML has, I'm concerned that posting HTML
or multipart to the list can make the digest version and/or any text
archive of the list unreadable. (I'm on so many mailing lists that I forget
which one is on which software, but IIRC we're on GNU Mailman, which is
affected).

--
Richard Grevers
I haven't lost my mind; it's backed up on tape somewhere!


from_name: james duffy

body:
Regarding the following from someone purporting to be called Joe Canuck:

This public communication is filled with prevarications and libelous
statements about me.?I hereby demand that the person claiming to be someone
named james duffy, working on Wikipedia.org using variations of the logged
in User name Jtdirl, immediately retract these statements in a fomal (sic)
public communication on this mailing list.

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

Maybe this will cheer up the user formerly known as Joe Canuck since it has
more on the reality that he has kept hidden from ordinary wikipedians. The
records may suggest that Joe Canuck joined on 11th June 2003, but he had in
fact been a user since at least 2 August 2003. Since then he has been banned
from wikipedia numerous times under at least three identities. Banned as Joe
Canuck, he is now back on wikipedia as [[ChuckM]].

A trawl through the contributions made by him and his 'friends' throws up
some quite interesting facts. So apologies in advance for the length of this
mail. But I think many wikipedians will find what was discovered
thought-provoking. It brings home just how easily wikipedia could be damaged
or worse by a serious vandal.

Regarding the user formerly known as Joe Canuck, among his identities and
dates between which edits were made by these 'characters' he played are:

DW  ( 9 Aug 02- 30 Jan 03 BANNED)
Ron Davis (7 Feb - 28 Feb 03)
Elliott   (30 August 02 - 20 Dec 02; 03 March - 06 March 03)
Black Widow    (12 March 03 - 15 April 03 BANNED)
Olga Bityerkokoff    (15 April 03 - 17 April 03)
Jacques Delson    (28 April 03 - 26 May 03)
64.228.30.125    (05 Jan 03 - 10 June 03)
ChuckM    (10 June 03)
Joe Canuck (11 June 03 - 20 June 03 BANNED)
ChuckM (22 June O3 -  )

There is strong circumstantial evidence to suggest that he has also used
other identities. A large number of IP numbers show evidence of usage
patterns strikingly similar to these characters also. In Black Widow's own
words "97% of the late DW's articles were never logged in".

All the above share the following characteristics:

1. a unique shared editing style;
2. a preoccupation with editing and creating pages of lists, specifically in
the areas of sports, history, Canada, etc.;
3. personal abuse of other users, specifically including legal threats;
4. the downloading of images that in context, shape, colour and style are
strikingly similar; indeed so similar are all the sports images that the
suspicion is raised that not only are they the work of the one person but
were taken possibly from the same source, practically all of them well after
1923, the key copyright year;
5. an identical unusual captioning style, namely  - caption -  in which all
three elements were bold italicised;
6. the downloading of jpegs with distinctive and similar name constructions;
names of pictures of a person which always merge the first name and surname
together without use of an underscore between them, with the first letter of
the surname always distinctively capitalised, eg, JackPickford.jpg by Ron
Davis on 19th February, BobbyHull.jpg by Joe Canuck on the 14th of June.
Most of the users in the above list downloaded images, and most were in the
'firstnameSurname.jpg form. It is worth mentioning that /very/ few other
wiki users used that form when naming jpegs.
7. the absolute and frequently rude refusal to state the origins of the
images;
8. the attacking of anyone who dares question the origins of the images;
9. a striking similarity in the nature of insults made against other people,
including accusations of (i) elites, (ii) vendettas, (iii) implicit or
explicit claims of legal knowledge; and (iv) defence of Canada from all
sorts of weird and non-existent imagined slights.
10. the pre-occupation of each 'new' user with their predecessor and a
determination to defend them, in the process showing a surprising degree of
knowledge about wiki, how to use it and about other users who had been
critical of their 'predecessor', to a degree that is almost incompatible
with their supposed status as a 'new' user. Thus Black Widow defended DW,
Olga defending Black Widow, ChuckM defended Joe Canuck; if and when ChuckM
is banned another user will appear, possessing all the standard
characteristics and defending him.

CANUCK & CHUCKM: EDIT PATTERNS & DATES

ChuckM        10 June
Joe Canuck   11 June - 20 June
ChuckM        22 June -

Some of ChuckM's edits
19:25 10 Jun 2003 1982 in sports
19:16 10 Jun 2003 1982 in sports (added Akiyda )
19:08 10 Jun 2003 1982 in sports
19:06 10 Jun 2003 1975 in sports
19:05 10 Jun 2003 1970 in sports
19:03 10 Jun 2003 1972 in sports
19:00 10 Jun 2003 1951 in sports (date)
18:59 10 Jun 2003 1951 in sports

Some of Joe Canuck's edits
15:28 20 Jun 2003 1960 in sports  (top) [rollback]
15:27 20 Jun 2003 1960 in sports
15:25 20 Jun 2003 1959 in sports  (top) [rollback]
15:23 20 Jun 2003 1958 in sports  (top) [rollback]
15:22 20 Jun 2003 1957 in sports  (top) [rollback]
15:20 20 Jun 2003 1956 in sports  (top) [rollback]
15:20 20 Jun 2003 1956 in sports
15:16 20 Jun 2003 1955 in sports  (top) [rollback]
15:14 20 Jun 2003 1954 in sports  (top) [rollback]
15:14 20 Jun 2003 1954 in sports

The degree of overlap between their edit histories is notable. Both focus
almost exclusively on the year in sports pages. (Obviously DW by that stage
had either finished all the historical lists he had previously worked on or
lost the book!) In some cases entire pages of sports lists were contributed
by the same bunch of people, with Jacques Delson seemlessly picking
something that Ron Davis had done, then being replaced by one or two
constantly repeating IPs, then ChuckM for a change, then Canuck. Unlike most
wiki pages, in these these pages there were no edit wars, no disputes, no
reversions, talk pages unused. [[1951 in sports]] has I think 36 edits by
Jacques Delson. When he left wiki, an IP linked to DW took over, then ChuckM
for a day, then Joe Canuck.

Though DW as DW remained on wiki until banned on 30 January 2003, it appears
he simultanously used some IP numbers independently. (That BTW was why DW
never in signed as ~~~ but always typed the letters DW; though with one IP
number only once did he actually reveal his identity, possibly an accident,
forgetting he wa on an IP and not his own page while signing an outburst on
a Hemingway talk page.) The practice of using overlapping IPs and identities
appears to have continued for all of this year so far. ChuckM and Joe Canuck
on the evidence are probably just the latest in the queue.

CANUCK, CHUCKM: PART OF A PATTERN

More often than not, the scale of the their rudeness and their
pre-occupation with the same things would lead someone (usually Camembert)
to challenge them about being DW; the response was usually for them to go
ballistic which was curious because as new members, they should not have had
a clue who DW was! When Camembert asked Canuck whether he was DW his
response was bizzarre in the extreme. He told Cam:

I should not reply to your bigoted comment about Canadians, it only
encourages people like you. We do not all drink beer and drive our
snownmobiles while drunk. Your smart-ass remarks making fun of Canadians is
out of place here, but it certainly speaks volumes for your intellect,
whoever or whatever you are. [[User:Joe Canuck|Joe Canuck]] 17:08 15 Jun
2003 (UTC) (And very proud of it)

Camembert's /exact/ question was'' I think you are DW. Are you? '
[User:Camembert|Camembert]]

2. ABUSE OF USERS

When he 'returned', ChuckM spent ALL his time 'defending' JC, (curious as
Canuck was on wiki during ChuckM's supposed holiday and gone when he came
back!) ChuckM left this on Martin's (MyRedDice's) talk page:
"Your conduct is disrepectful and childish. Grow up and do something useful
besides playing games. ChuckM 23:04 22 Jun 2003 (UTC)"

He told Wapcaplet on the talk page on Image Use Policy/Copyright:

"Note above from the list, many others including you, Wapcaplet conduct
themselves in the same manner as Joe Canuck did and not a word is said. Do
you have special privlidges here that the rest of us don't? And just so you
understand the law: this site is the property of Wikipedia.org."

This comment hits on two classic DWisms: law and of special privlidges
(sic). For comparisons with other members of the DW family, note:

Law:

''To User:Zoe Your derogatory comments are inappropriate and libelous. Any
further comment of this nature by you directed at me stated herein or
elsewhere will result in my proceding immediately with all legal remedies
available to me in accordance with the laws of the United States. AND DO
GOVERN YOURSELF ACCORDINGLY. User:Olga Bityerkokoff''

It is people such as [[User:Maveric149|mav]], who are totally and completely
ignorant of the law but take charge of Wikipedia and force their views on
others, that makes people leave. After being away for months, I regret
coming back today. -- Elliot.

Special Privileges:

Perhaps you missed my question above. Why does JHK get to deface Jacques
Delson's page with stereotypical comments about Canadians and not be accused
of a breach of Wikiquette? [[User:Jacques Delson|Jacques Delson]]

:Cat's got your tongue, eh? No matter -- your silence speaks volumes. It
seems Wikiquette only applies to certain people. If you're one of the cool
kids you can be as obnoxious as you want. And that's why I'm posting
anonymously. Don't need JHK slagging me off at the length she likes to
ramble on and having no recourse. [[User:Jacques Delson|Jacques Delson]]

CHUCKM DEFENDING CANUCK

Though the nature of the verbal abuse by Canuck is a matter beyond dispute
and can be read in all its glory on his talk page (onto which his abusive
comments were transferred after his banning), ChuckM asserted:

"I read all of User Joe Canuck's staements and this statement by User:Jtdirl
appears to be a complete falsehood as I found no such abuse or threats of
any kind. What I saw was repeated harassment that User:Joe Canuch (sic)
complained about."

Though no-one suggested he was Canuck (let alone Canuch!), and not a
solitary person on wikipedia suggested he was anyone else on wiki, he rather
bizarrely stated in the debate on that page that:

"no, I am not Joe Canuck or any other person in the history of Wikipedia and
he was the only guy interested in doing the big job to include sports
highlights in Wikipedia. And, in my opinion, something smells. ChuckM 20:06
22 Jun 2003 (UTC)"

Curiously, elsewhere ChuckM explained his absence from wiki for a month by
saying he was on holidays. But given that Canuck appeared after he 'went on
holidays' and left two days before he returned from his hols, how come he
seemed to know so much about Canuck's work in his absence? Yes he could have
checked through the user contributions, but how many /new/ users on their
second day on wiki know enough about how wiki works to check user
contributions? I know it took me longer than two days to find my way around,
let alone to be able to find that a user had been banned and use their user
contributions to check on their edit history in detail, then place a defence
of them on a variety of pages including the Votes for Deletion page.

Because of the strong suspicion that Canuck was DW (and 64.228.30.125 and
64.228.30.174) and so had a long history of trying to circumvent banning, I
left a note on the Votes for Deletion page urging that if it was decided to
delete the unsourced images the origins of which Canuck had got abusive over
(and everyone but ChuckM said the should indeed be deleted) I suggested
deleting them as soon as the one week waiting period was over (ie, this
coming Thursday). ChuckM removed the request and buried it in the page
discussing copyright issues.

In the aftermath of Canuck's banning, JeLuf placed an initial ban notice on
Canuck's page. ChuckM left a message in response on JeLuf's page criticising
that action and informing him that he would be reverting the page. (In the
meantime, Martin had added in a stronger note on the ban on the page
(provoking the response stating '"Your conduct is disrepectful and childish.
Grow up and do something useful besides playing games.') Interestingly
ChuckM did not revert the Canuck page to its pre-ban state. He rewrote it,
keeping the word 'and' from the ban notice and tagging on the three words
"proud of it'' the four words that Canuck had constantly put on his first
page. DId he check back to know the words? If so, why not then revert? Or
did he already know the wording of Canuck's page for the simple reason that
he is Canuck?

In a second add-on, he added:

''This user was banned by Mr. Jimbo Wales late Friday based on allegations
by User:Jtdirl who stated that User:Joe Canuck has the right to appeal. This
matter, in my opinion, remains unresolved and respect for that right of
appeal should be shown. ChuckM 22:49 22 Jun 2003 (UTC) '' (Canuck,
coincidentially has 'followed' ChuckM's advice and appealed.)

Stan Shebs has since reverted to the hard ban notice. To prevent further
removal of the note I have now protected it and listed it on the required
page as protected.

WHAT SHOULD WIKI DO?

Compared to the sheer number of 'followers' DW has (and remember I have not
included the names of others who have been suspected by some users of DW, or
the list of IPs with similar behavioural patterns; according to Black Widow
(DW's . . . em . . 'defender' "97% of the late DW's articles were never
logged in"!) the Adam family (Lir/Vera Cruz/Susan Mason/Dietary Fiber/Shino
Baku/Pizza Puzzle et al) looks tiny by comparison. While Adam and Michael
are annoying tantrum throwers, DW on the evidence seems like something more
worrying and dangerous. A review of image downloads by Canuck's 'ancestors'
showed few if any of those were authenticated as being copyright free. While
individual mistakes can be made by anyone, wiki currently has quite a few
images added onto wiki by DW, almost all of which could cause copyright
problems at any time. Every DW family member has behaved in the same abusive
matter, threatened legal consequences if they don't get their own way, etc
etc. In the circumstances, the question has to be asked: what should wiki do
about ChuckM? And what will it do about the next DW visitor? and the next?
and the next? Unless wiki deals ruthlessly with this multiple banned user,
thrice-hardbannedas far as I could count, with many more members leaving
before they could be banned, its position could be endangered by the
copyright-questionable downloadings of this individual. And beyond this user
as he has already done, could drive away good users in droves through his
boorish bullying behaviour.

JT

EPILOGUE:  SOME HEART-WARMING DW FAMILY QUOTES

"Perhaps, instead of imposing this small group's ''community norm'' on
contributors whose work is clearly from someone wishing to see Wikipedia
succeed, you and other sincere contributors might use your valuable time
more constructively by improving the content of my articles and fix the
thousands of other incomplete and very poorly done articles that already
exist on Wikipedia." User:Ron Davis

''To User:Zoe Your derogatory comments are inappropriate and libelous. Any
further comment of this nature by you directed at me stated herein or
elsewhere will result in my proceding immediately with all legal remedies
available to me in accordance with the laws of the United States. AND DO
GOVERN YOURSELF ACCORDINGLY. User:Olga Bityerkokoff''

Please leave and don't come back until you can cooperate and work in the
spirit of creating something valuable.[[User:Jacques Delson|Jacques Delson]]
22:31 25 May 2003 (UTC) (comment to J. Hoffman Kemp)

Perhaps you missed my question above. Why does JHK get to deface Jacques
Delson's page with stereotypical comments about Canadians and not be accused
of a breach of Wikiquette? [[User:Jacques Delson|Jacques Delson]]

:Cat's got your tongue, eh? No matter -- your silence speaks volumes. It
seems Wikiquette only applies to certain people. If you're one of the cool
kids you can be as obnoxious as you want. And that's why I'm posting
anonymously. Don't need JHK slagging me off at the length she likes to
ramble on and having no recourse. [[User:Jacques Delson|Jacques Delson]]

Do you have special privlidges here that the rest of us don't? ChuckM to
Wapcaplet

:I should not reply to your bigoted comment about Canadians, it only
encourages people like you. We do not all drink beer and drive our
snownmobiles while drunk. Your smart-ass remarks making fun of Canadians is
out of place here, but it certainly speaks volumes for your intellect,
whoever or whatever you are. [[User:Joe Canuck|Joe Canuck]] 17:08 15 Jun
2003 (UTC) (And very proud of it)

I am removing the offensive and threatening statements for the second time.
The conduct of the person placing this here and reinstating with the
addition of the words: ''# of times removed and un-answered: 1''  after I
have deleted it, contravenes [[User:Jimbo Wales/Statement of principles]],
and constitutes harassment. Any further harassment will result in this
matter being e-mailed to the site owner for immediate remedial action.
[[User:Joe Canuck|Joe Canuck]] 12:18 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)

_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus


subject: [WikiEN-l] wikipedia homepage

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

>>
>>
> Personally, I find the current English main page to be overly dense;
> my eyes glaze over when I look at it, and I've been here for a year
> and a half. I shudder to think of a newbie's reaction. (Hmm, should we
> conduct usability testing? I'll leave that as an exercise to the reader.)
>
Part of the problem is our overloaded skin. I am currently working on
something better. Stay tuned.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] LanguageFr.php

body:
Anthere wrote:

>Ok, this is an stupid issue, but I find quite curious
>that this topic was initially raised by the french
>wiki, that so many french people expressed their
>dislike of this method, that final conclusion was to
>drop the count system, that we indicated in our talk
>pages that the count system was changed
>
>just to find oneself totally ridiculous many months
>later discovering that *nothing* has changed and that
>the old system is still the one working.
>
Basically here's what happened:
* I saw the silliness, decided to make a change, and announced my plan.
* Some people decided we had to hold a vote first.
* All momentum was destroyed.
* The vote, eventually, turned out pretty much as I had planned to do
anyway.
* The latest working code did end up with the new count system, but was
not at that time installed, having other experimental code.
* Everything was supposed to move to the new server, with the latest code.
* The English wiki got moved to the new server to load test, etc.
* Lee announced we were going to move & upgrade the rest, then vanished
for a few weeks.
* I haven't had time to do it either.

At some point I do want to get everything upgraded at least, but haven't
had a chance to double-check that the CVS version is not currently
broken with experimental code.

(Incidentally, I've been having trouble with my settings for wikitech-l;
I thought I had gotten everything right, but it's still not sending me
mail except for digests. Off to configure again... So, if I haven't
responded to something dreadfully important, please remind me. I may not
have seen it.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Pizza / Hawthorn

body:
I'm stepping ina  bit late on this discussion.

Is PIzza Puzzle the same person as  Lir?
Is Hawthorn the same paerson as Pizza Puzzle?

I'm getting fed up with their bowdlerization of maths articles.


from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

subject: [Textbook-l] various POVs, modules

body:
Have you people seen any humanities textbooks lately ?
Their biggest problem is that they aren't written from neutral point of view.
While science textbooks are usually fine, ones for history, arts etc.
vary from "more or less objective presentation of facts but with very biased comments"
to "pure propaganda". In every country history textbooks refering to
the same events present it in completely different light.
It would be wonderful if they presented more points of view and
avoided unnecessary commentary.
If we're going to make textbooks, why shouldn't we do it right way ?
Free neutral textbooks are exactly what the world needs now.


subject: [Textbook-l] RE: Some concept ideas ( Magnus Manske )

body:
On Wed, Jun 25, 2003 at 08:48:42PM -0700, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Karl Wick wrote:
> > Would it be possible to have the option to have some books
> > and pages edited only by signed-in users and others open to
> > everyone ? And leave the choice open to the person who
> > starts the book or is the administrator or someone else who
> > would have a reason to decide ? I'd imagine that some
> > people would feel a lot better about contributing if they
> > had more control over it that way, and others wouldnt care.
> > Or maybe, in very special cases, modules on the site which
> > are editable only by the original author ...
>
> I would say 'no' to all of these things.  They are very un-wiki,
> and wiki is a proven successful development model.
>
> Later on, if we find some insurmountable difficulties, then we can
> consider these kinds of things.
>
> But believe me, what seems to make sense a priori, i.e. rules and
> controls, doesn't work.  The most insane thing possible -- letting
> everyone edit everything -- is astounding in it's power.

But we don't allow editing of anything !
We allow creating new versions, and newest version is always showed to users.
We could just add more structure to version system, like having stable / devel
versions, so that quick developement is possible, but some stable
version is always available, and "text freezes" from time to time synchronize
them.


in_reply_to: <20030626163035.GA8042@tavaiah>; from taw@users.sourceforge.net on Thu, Jun 26, 2003 at 06:30:35PM +0200

body:
Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
> "reasonable creationist" sounds oxymoron to me.

Try Phillip E. Johnson, a law professor at the University of California
at Berkeley.

http://www.origins.org/articles/johnson_evolutionofacreationist.html
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0830813241/

I think he's wrong about lots of things, certainly wrong about
evolution in general, but I've read his book (years ago, now), and I
was impressed that he's very much not a cultist.

> Could we please stop being US-centric ? There aren't any
> creationists anywhere else in the world, and those in US seems more
> like some kind of cult than something that has anything to do with
> science.

I don't see anything particularly US-centric about this discussion.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] to the mailbomber...

body:
Note: I am sending this to ALL mailing lists and newsgroups on which I am
regularly active. I sincerely hope that no wikipedian would descend to such
depths (and AFAIK I haven't been excessively rude to anyone here).

To the person who is mailbombing dramatic.co.nz
 You can stop your childish games now. All your bombing messages are going
straight to dev/null. Legitimate mail is still being accepted.

--
Richard Grevers
I haven't lost my mind; it's backed up on tape somewhere!


from_name: John R. Owens

body:
On Thu, 2003-06-26 at 04:20, james duffy wrote:
> Regarding the following from someone purporting to be called Joe Canuck:
>
> This public communication is filled with prevarications and libelous
> statements about me.I hereby demand that the person claiming to be someone
> named james duffy, working on Wikipedia.org using variations of the logged
> in User name Jtdirl, immediately retract these statements in a fomal (sic)
> public communication on this mailing list.
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
<snip>
> CHUCKM DEFENDING CANUCK
>
> In the aftermath of Canuck's banning, JeLuf placed an initial ban notice on
> Canuck's page. ChuckM left a message in response on JeLuf's page criticising
> that action and informing him that he would be reverting the page. (In the
> meantime, Martin had added in a stronger note on the ban on the page
> (provoking the response stating '"Your conduct is disrepectful and childish.
> Grow up and do something useful besides playing games.') Interestingly
> ChuckM did not revert the Canuck page to its pre-ban state. He rewrote it,
> keeping the word 'and' from the ban notice and tagging on the three words
> "proud of it'' the four words that Canuck had constantly put on his first
> page. DId he check back to know the words? If so, why not then revert? Or
> did he already know the wording of Canuck's page for the simple reason that
> he is Canuck?

	Just to put the truth where it needs to be (good sigmonster!), that's
just an artifact of how the diff works. If he just reverts it, the diff
generator still recognizes the word "and", matches it to the previously
existing one, and calls it the same word. It's got no way of knowing
exactly how the word got there. Doesn't detract much from the point of
your post, of course.
John R. Owens http://www.ghiapet.homeip.net/ Commander Ivanova: Always
finding good in every situation, Captain? Captain Sheridan: Absolutely.
If I didn't, I might end up like you. Ivanova: Hey, what's that supposed
to mean? Did anyone else hear that?


subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: Notice of Appeal of Ban

body:
Folks, this isn't going to go much further.  David Baltzer apparently
wants to put *me* on trial, and that just isn't a game I'm going to
play.

David Baltzer wrote:
>  J.WALES: Please look at this concise summary:
>
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-June/004729.html
>
> Mr. Wales, this is not an answer.

Yes, it is.

> The statement here is AFTER you issued your ban and is therefore
> immaterial to the actions you stated as the facts that I had
> committed warranting your ban.

The statement is a summary of the reasons why you were banned.  The
facts outlined in that statement are about things that happened before
the ban.

> And, unless you are waiving DMCA protection, you cannot step in to
> ban me but must be requested to do so by a third party. Please
> provide the complete details of the request for my banning.

DMCA has absolutely nothing to do with this at all.

>  J.WALES: 1.  Are you the same person who was formerly logged in as
> 'DW' or 'Black Widow'?  Do you know DW and Black Widow?  Are you
> associated with them in any way?
>
> Joe Canuck: As to me being either
> of the above, in your banning announcement you said "I express no
> opinion on that matter." If it is a non-issue, why the sudden
> reversal once I question your ban?

I never said it was a non-issue, I said that I was expressing no
opinion on that matter.  It is, in fact, an issue, and so I repeat my
questions.

>You did invite me challenge your ban as part of it being a non issue,
>did you not? And, as to do I "know" someone who, as best I can discern
>was previously banned, or am I "associated" with someone who may have
>been previously banned, are you stating that if you ban someone their
>father, mother, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, children, friends,
>employers, priest, accountant, or any other party "associated" with
>them is banned too? As I do not understand, please clarify this
>important question so that I can and will answer all three questions
>fully.

Just answer the question.  I am *not* stating anything of the sort,
I'm just asking questions so that we can, in your words, "deal with
all issues on this matter openly".

The question of whether or not to ban someone, or whether or not to
reverse a ban, involves me analyzing all the pertinent facts in as
much detail as is warranted by the specifics of the case.  Since
you've chosen to challenge the ban, I want you to tell me the whole
truth about everything.

> Joe Canuck: My words are a statement of fact and are in no way rude
>or disrespectful, or threatening whatsoever. Your calling them
>"nonsense" is an opinion being tossed out not accompanied by proofs of
>any kind. Editing is one thing, but unwarranted interference is
>another. Text can be edited, and the reasons for it debated. Photos
>cannot. Therefore one cannot justify the arbitrary removal of a photo
>on any grounds. It is what it is. User?s are required to obey the
>rules set down by Wikipedia.org, not the rules created by others as I
>will demonstrate further on. If I, or any User at Wikipedia, were to
>obey what others on this OPEN site say, then some of us would be dead,
>others would be trying to have sex with themselves and others trying
>to go to hell etc. On your website Mr. Wales, I am not obliged to obey
>the whims of other users.

What I am telling you, point blank, is that those actions -- removing
those photos -- were fully and completely within the stated rules of
wikipedia, and I support those removals completely.  Editors are given
wide discretion to edit the site as they see fit, but ultimately I am
the final judge in all cases of conflict.

> Joe Canuck: When I (or any person) arrives at Wikipedia they are
>granted the right to use this site in accordance with the rules built
>into the software which in turn operates under the licenses under
>which the website is given the right to operate.

But you are the *only* person in the instant controversy who broke the
rules of the site in such a manner that warranted banning.  Period.
As a result of your breaking the rules, you were banned.

Your theory that under the DMCA that I have to be passive is wrong.

> And, if you wish to waive your DMCA protection
>and abandon the passive requirement placed on you, then please do so
>and as an active owner/operator make all the rules you wish and I
>will, as I said I would, obey them.

I'm glad to hear that you are agreeing not to edit the site, under any
username, so long as your ban remains in place.  Having resolved that,
there's likely little reason for further discussion.

You may hate me, and think I'm unfair, discriminatory, whatever.  But
the record stands.

> Joe Canuck: Here, Mr. Wales, I will do as you requested and try to
>be less formal. Your statement that "The question of "fair use" of
>images is a thorny one, and one which we struggle with constantly," is
>purely self-serving bull. Wikipedia.org has no stated goal for its
>future or that of its contents beyond the operational use of this
>website as it exists

This is false.  Our stated goals for the future extend far beyond
the operational ues of the website as it exists.

>  Thank you. I await your reply.

Here's my reply.  I refuse to turn this into a trial of me, or of
other wikipedians.  You're banned, and if this is the best you can
muster as a defense, it's clear to me that you don't understand the
causes very well, and I don't see any reason to revert the ban.

I'll let you have the final word, and if your final word is a simple
apology and pledge to not upload any more images and to behave in a
more friendly and supportive manner with others, I'll *possibly* take
the time to reconsider.

Otherwise, just have your final word, and then I will remove you from
the mailing list, and you'll be banned and free to go tell your story
to the world, if you like.

--Jimbo


from_name: Karl Wick

subject: [Textbook-l] RE: logged in users

body:
Magnus wrote:

>The smaller pool of authors is the very reason I'd prefer
logged-in
edits only, as less "real" authors means shifting the
author:vandal
ratio in favor of the vandals.

The one reason I could see the value in this is as a choice
that an individual author could make in case he didnt trust
the wiki system yet. If we had true wiki-style open edit
books next to sign-in edit books we could see which works
better and maybe win some authors that would not otherwise
contribute. Or maybe we would lose contributers. Jimbo is
the expert here and he thinks its a no-go ...

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
http://sbc.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: Notice of Appeal of Ban

body:
The honorable Mr. Baltzer explained:

"...Wikipedia will be named as was Kazaa in order to obtain the User's true
identity and you can well be forced to be part of lengthy and costly
multiple legal proceedings. I was trying to help your website Mr. Wales, not
harm it."

...

Well... enough said.

-Stevertigo

P.S.  Has anyone taken a look at this site? It's rather keen:
http://www.hugkiss.com/platinum/hugs.shtml


from_name: Dante Alighieri

subject: [WikiEN-l] An open letter

body:
Dear asshole,

You're a real jerk and everyone here knows it. You can pretend that you're
/not/ an asshole, but you're not fooling anyone. The fact that you continue
to troll the 'pedia and vandalize despite being repeatedly banned is just
sad. Is your life /truly/ so pathetic that this is how you derive pleasure?
Take my advice, jump off a bridge. The world will not miss you.

-----
Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
    -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321