body:
At 05:08 AM 8/14/02 -0700, you wrote:
>Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>> At 03:44 PM 8/13/02 -0700, Jimbo wrote:
>> >Tom Parmenter wrote:
>> >> Spanish speakers wouldn't like it to be called a Wikipedia because
>> >> they really don't even like saying or hearing the "Wiki" part, both
>> >> the "w" and the "k" sound being foreign and unpleasant.
>> >
>> >For the Esperanto people, I registered vikipedio.com/net/org
>> >
>> >I could do the same for Spanish people, if there is an acceptable
analogue.
>> >
>> >I'm very much opposed to closing any of our language wikipedias.
>>
>> How about a link to both of them?
>
>A link to both of which?

Both Spanish language wikipedias

Fred


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Jens Frank

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Collaborative, up-to-the-minute construction of

body:
On Tue, Aug 13, 2002 at 09:31:55AM -0400, Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
>
> The problem is, we're still in the middle of this, which makes it hard to
> know
> whether the "event" is going to be "after months of leaks and propaganda,
> the US attacks Iraq" or "Bush administration fails to gain support for an
> attack on Iraq, and does nothing." The latter might be worth a mention in an
> article on George W. Bush, but isn't an event of 2002.

In Germany we're going to have national elections in about 2 months.
The question whether to support the US/UN in a possible attack on
Iraq is part of the election campaigns of the major opponents Schroeder
(who says no since there are already many soldiers in other foreign
missions) and Stoiber (who is not so definitive in stating his opinion
but seems to be rather for supporting UN-forces).

So, for Germany this "non-event" most probably will have an influence on the
election result. Therefor I vote to include it as event and to refactor it
in a few months.

Regards,

	JeLuF


list: wikitech-l

subject: [Wikitech-l] Static HTML tree: search function?

body:
On Tue, Aug 13, 2002 at 10:43:37PM +0200, Axel Boldt wrote:
> I was thinking about creating a static HTML tree from the database
> dump. The only thing I can't figure out is how to provide a decent
> search function. Are there any ready-made solutions for this problem?
>
> The possibilities I see are
>
> * ship a minimal web server, and use some sort of htdig cgi search script.
> * hack together some javascript code which doesn't need a server.
>   (Something like this exists already at
>   http://www.javascript.freeuk.com/oldindex.html, but they recommend
>   it only for "up to 50 pages")
> * Use some format other than HTML which provides search capabilities,
>   such as MS help files or pdf.
>
> I don't like either option.

There is a Java-Module (or component or whatever java-people call it)
named Lucene. It provides a general indexing and search engine. It is
normaly used server-side, but it should be possible to make a small
java applet loading the index from CDROM.

	Regards,

		JeLuF


from_name: Gareth Owen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] US invasion of Afghanistan

body:
Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> writes:

> I agree that "attack" is not inherently POV but... I'm more familiar with
> the word "attack" being used to describe the campaign. If this is also true
> with a majority of other English speakers then the word "attack" should be
> used regardless of the fact that the operation is more appropriately called
> an invasion.

Well at the beginning, it wasn't an invasion, it was largely aerial bombing.
Since "attack" covers both these, it seems a not-unreasonable word to use.
--
Gareth Owen
"Wikipedia does rock.  By the count on the "brilliant prose" page, there
 are 14 not-bad articles so far" -- Larry Sanger (12 Jan 2001)


from_name: The Cunctator

body:
On 8/14/02 5:18 AM, "Gareth Owen" <wiki at gwowen.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:

> Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> writes:
>
>> I agree that "attack" is not inherently POV but... I'm more familiar with
>> the word "attack" being used to describe the campaign. If this is also true
>> with a majority of other English speakers then the word "attack" should be
>> used regardless of the fact that the operation is more appropriately called
>> an invasion.
>
> Well at the beginning, it wasn't an invasion, it was largely aerial bombing.
> Since "attack" covers both these, it seems a not-unreasonable word to use.

This is a discussion hat should be on the Talk page, not on the list.


from_name: Brion VIBBER

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Junking Spanish Wikipedia?

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:
> Do we know who maintains their software? If they would agree to use
> Phase III software, it wouldn't matter at all where their server is
> located; everything would still have the same "look and feel" (apart
> from all the nice functions, of course). The software is GPL, so the Big
> Bad Bomis american capitalist globalist company wouldn't harass them ;-)

Creo que el maintainador (?) es Juan Antonio Ruiz Rivas:
http://enciclopedia.us.es/wiki.phtml?title=Usuario:Juanan

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Julie Hofmann Kemp

subject: [Wikipedia-l] German wikipedia articles by HJ

body:
Small addition to my last.  In the  Copernicus article in German, Helga
has gone to some effort to point out that there were more Germans in
Krakow and at the university there than there were Poles.  I don't know
if this is true, and I don't really care.  As I (and others) have said
many times, Helga's understanding of what makes up nationality is purely
post- von Herder.  Her understanding of what people thought in the 15th
century is weak at best.  That said, no, she doesn't write neutrally
there either.    From my POV, that kind of bizarre detail just doesn't
belong, because it isn't really relevant -- or if it is, there's nothing
that explains why it is.  Moreover, it's like Ark's more outrageous
statements (or the ones that Tom is so nicely handling in that odd
Germanic isn't Indo-European article) -- it just makes intelligent
people want to ask "where did you get that"?

Jules

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: MetaTree

body:
On 8/14/02 11:28 AM, "Gareth Owen" <wiki at gwowen.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:

> tarquin <tarquin at planetunreal.com> writes:
>
>> I think that browsing a link "pitch" in an article on music and discovering
>> other types of pitch in completely different areas of knowledge is
>> interesting.
>
> I think its a pain in the ass.  If I'm reading about music and click on
> "pitch" I do *not* want to be told about tar-like substances and places where
> sport is played.  It distracts me from the matter at hand.
>
> If I want to read about other types or meanings of "pitch", I'm fully capable
> of using the search function (or even editing the URL by hand).
>
Both of you are right. I think an everything2-like associated links
functionality would strengthen the project. Might be more appropriate for a
derivative site, though.


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Ark (an Old Testament concept)

body:
I admit to being prejudiced in favor of user:Ark because his name sounds so cool. I'll try not to let that sway me, though, because I believe "plays well with others" also just as important as having a cool name. Maveric is pretty cool, too. Makes me think of detective shows or Westerns...

I've pretty much said all I have to say on the subjects I know about. I was surprised and dismayed to find out how quickly the fountain of my inexhaustible knowledge was drained dry. Being unable to write, I now edit (grin).

I do seem to have a knack for making peace. I'd better, since the Unification Church changed its name to the "Family Federation for World Peace" a few years ago. How to reconicile warring parties is high on the agenda. It starts with reconciling brothers.

Pray for me.

Ed Poor


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Parsing TeX

body:
On Mon, Aug 12, 2002 at 12:18:59PM +0200, Jan Hidders wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 12, 2002 at 01:11:14AM -0700, Toby Bartels wrote:
> > Jan Hidders wrote:
> >
> > >Toby Bartels wrote:
> >
> > >>Jan Hidders wrote:
> >
> > You intend to render [$...$] by calling LaTeX (possibly using a script to
> > render simple things in other ways, but still ultimately to make LaTeX the
> > arbiter of meaning), right?
>
> Exactly. And these other ways could also be MathML, for example.
>
> > But now should I understand that you won't normally use it in an
> > expression like [$x^2y = z_1$]; you'd write [$x^2$][$y$] = [$z_1$], and
> > save the full power of LaTeX for the fancy stuff? That would keep people
> > from trying [$x% = x/100$], mostly.
>
> Ah, isn't communication wonderful if it works. :-) Actually I would even
> expect people to write  [$x$]2[$y$]. However, if I'm honest I
> have to admit that my fingers would be itching to change that to [$x^2y =
> z_1$].

Hi,

regarding "%": I think we don't need TeX-comments in our formulas. We could
just replace % by \percent{} before passing the input over to TeX.

regarding "simple style vs. complex formulas": I changed the parser of my
proof-of-concept-code to first check  whether the formula is "simple", that
is only contains: digits, letters (small+capital), +-*/=(), ^, _, {}
and blanks. If this is the case, the formula will be set as HTML using
 and .

An example can be seen at http://jeluf.mine.nu/jf/newcodebase/wiki.phtml?title=Triangle

I still use [[math: ... ]]-syntax, the code is prepared to also support [$ $], too.
Before implementing this I wanted to wait for Lee's proposal for the future
Wiki Markup Language.

Regards,

JeLuF


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] My apologies

in_reply_to: <200208142034.g7EKYfC23604@chakotay.uni-koblenz.de>; from engels@uni-koblenz.de on Wed, Aug 14, 2002 at 10:34:41PM +0200

body:
Andre Engels wrote:
> I'm an idiot, and you don't need idiots. Sorry again.

Hey, I'm an idiot too, so I hope we need idiots or I'll get tossed
away with last night's beer cans.  :-)

I didn't see what happened, but Andre's o.k. with me.

--Jimbo


from_name: lcrocker at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] My apologies

body:
> My apologies to maveric and you all. Like everywhere, I seem
> to break more than I heal. Please remove my moderator access,
> and block my site for 7 days while I think about whether it
> has any use that I am helping you.

I see no reason to do either; you're a useful contributor, and
I don't see any real damage done.  You just gave us a scare.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] My apologies

body:
> I don't know which Bible articles Andre deleted and can't be
> recovered, but I would be more than happy to work on
> reconstructing them with him and perhaps even giving them a
> more contemporary perspective. What do you say, Andre?

Deleted articles are in an archive table, so they're all
recoverable.  But I'm not sure there's any really worth
recovering.  Andre's judgment might have been a little more
harsh than that of some others here, but it wasn't that bad.


from_name: Axel Boldt

body:
> We above all else must respect those that still contribute to our
> Spanish wiki.

There doesn't seem to be many (any?) permanent contributors though.
The material on es.wikipedia.com could easily be merged with that on
enciclopedia.us.es, thus avoiding any disrespect to the authors.

> Besides as someone already said, we can port the EL
> stuff to our wiki since they use the same license

...with proper attribution of course.

Frankly, I find this game of "our encyclopedia should be bigger than
theirs" and not providing any links from es.wikipedia to EL or from EL to
es.wikipedia quite ridiculous and counter productive. Since both projects
have precisely identical goals, it just amounts to a duplication of
efforts.

Axel


from_name: Tom Parmenter

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re:Junking Spanish Wikipedia?

body:
Again, perhaps prolific contributor on Spanish topics, Perique des
Palottes, could help.

|From: Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se>
|Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 20:44:36 +0200 (CEST)
|
|Daniel Mayer wrote:
|> I now agree completely. I vote for keeping es.wikipedia.com, load the new
|> software and then run the two projects side-by-side for at least a few
|> months. If activity doesn't  improve much /then/ and only then should we even
|> consider closing the Spanish Wikipedia.
|>
|> We above all else must respect those that still contribute to our Spanish
|> wiki. Besides as someone already said, we can port the EL stuff to our wiki
|> since they use the same license (<hint> I will help with this myself as soon
|> as Lee's excellent new software gets installed </hint> --- but please don't
|> ask me to help with the translations; its been so long since I've used it
|> that my written Spanish is down-right embarrassing).
|
|It is my opinion that the fork was due to a misunderstanding, which
|still seems to prevail.  It might in part be explained by the fact
|that the Sevilla people aren't quite fluent in English.  Given their
|current misconceptions about Bomis and Wikipedia, any attempt to copy
|their articles to the Spanish Wikipedia without first talking to them,
|would probably only strengthen their opinion about these arrogant
|American imperialists.  Is that what you're proposing?
|
|I'm no part of this.  But I suggest Jimmy get on speaking terms with
|Juan "Junanan" Antonio Ruiz Rivas, who runs the Sevilla server.  Hire
|an interpreter if necessary.
|
|
|--
|  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
|  tel +46-70-7891609
|  http://aronsson.se/ http://elektrosmog.nu/ http://susning.nu/
|


from_name: Michael R. Irwin

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
>

> This especially seems true for the English Wikipedia where there is/are (and
> I roughly quote); article censorship and fear of censorship, where
> administrators harass contributors and delete pages (stated in a way that
> suggests this is a form of excessive censorship), and where those same
> administrators block pages from being edited (again suggesting that this is
> some kind of unfair censorship).

Is there any indication of how they handle editing content to avoid
this impression with new contributors?

>
> They also seem to not like the fact that a "American for-profit .com company
> that wants to establish a presence in the educational market* controls
> Wikipedia (the .com part may be a directed toward wikipedia's URL and not
> Bomis - my Spanish is rusty and the fish ain't much help).

Perhaps the impending trickle influx of Marxist.org content will
improve their opinion of our project?

>
> All I can say is that they sure have a twisted sense of how things really
> are.

This seems to occur occasionally/frequently with newcomers.  I wonder if
we can improve the initial impression received somehow without
compromising
our long term goal.

regards,
mirwin


from_name: Magnus Manske

body:
Do we know who maintains their software? If they would agree to use
Phase III software, it wouldn't matter at all where their server is
located; everything would still have the same "look and feel" (apart
from all the nice functions, of course). The software is GPL, so the Big
Bad Bomis american capitalist globalist company wouldn't harass them ;-)

Magnus


body:
>> They also seem to not like the fact that a "American for-
>> profit .com company that wants to establish a presence in the
>> educational market* controls Wikipedia (the .com part may be a
>> directed toward wikipedia's URL and not Bomis - my Spanish is
>> rusty and the fish ain't much help).

Getting our 501(c)3 status will help, and I doubt anything short
of that will, so I hope that gets moved up on Jimbo's priority
list a bit.


body:
The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> writes:

> This is a discussion hat should be on the Talk page, not on the list.

Actually, its a non-discussion, that needn't be taking place at all.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Inflammatory rhetoric (Ark)

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
>
> On Tuesday 13 August 2002 08:24 pm, Ed wrote:
> > I looked some of Ark's comments on Talk:Infanticide, and he sure seems
> > upset about something. I'm going to see if I can engage him in dialogue,
> > and see if I can figure out why he feels he must use language like the
> > following snippets:
> >
> > * my lazy opponents ... you lazy bums ...
> > * I don't accept the judgement of idiots. ... I am dealing with morons ...
> > living in denial * I'll say what conclusions can be supported from the
> > evidence (which I don't feel the least need to spell out ...)
> >
> > Perhaps he (she?) doesn't realize how hurtful such words can be, to other
> > contributors.

Perhaps.  I think it is morely likely Ark has experienced how hurtful
such attitudes can be and feels turnabout is fair play.   How can we,
the Wikipedia community, ask he/she to forgive and forget past
transgressions
and focus on the friendly assertive dialogue so necessary to building a
correct
consensus view regarding article content and phrasing; if we are
incapable of ignoring current trangressions or heated hurtful rhetoric?

> >
> > Ed Poor
>
> Ed please try, but be advised that I have already spent /many/ hours trying
> to do the exact same thing (although you do seem better at this type of thing
> than me).
>
> I have asked nice; that didn't work

In an anarchy he/she is as sovereign as we are.

>
> I have pleaded; that didn't work

See above.

>
> I have suggested that his rhetoric is harming the project; that didn't work

Perhaps his/her personal assessement is different.

>
> I have stated that his rhetoric is a violation of our etiquette policy; that
> didn't work either

This is incorrect.

We have suggested guidelines, not enforceable policies.
The single exception to date (that I am aware of) is the posting of
material
perceived by others as physical threats.  If Ark has read the guidelines
then your statement merely diminishes your credibility or the Wikipedia
community's.   Either you do not know what you are talking about or the
community has failed to accurately articulate the governing guidelines.

Hmmm ... that sounds a bit like 24's early wild allegations, before
moving on to productive personal attacks, flame wars, and ultimately
temporary banning .... erroneously mutating into a long term ban.

The guidelines explicitly state do as you please, serene in the prospect
of others editing your work to suit themselves and eventually the
community at large.

The sole remedy laid out by the existing guidelines to poor material
is editing.  Banning is not mentioned for the heinous crime of being in
flagrant disagreement with others.

>
> I have even stated that if he did not play nice and continued to sap the
> energy of other contributors that his actions will have to be reviewed by the
> mailing list and he may be blocked from editing;

Exlicitly threatening he/she with the nonexistent cabal.

>
> That warning obviously hasn't been headed.

Implying that you have authority to issue such a warning.

>
> I personally give up and say we should issue one final warning and then test
> the block user function if that warning is also ignored. This person is not
> at all worth loosing any valued and long time contributor over. Wasn't the
> fact that we tolerate stuff like this (the amature and persistant POV stuff
> Ark does, not the rhetoric) the reason why Michael Tinkler left the project?

Retaining long time contributors is a poor reason to block other
contributors.
This approach guarantees built in bias and makes a mockery of the NPOV
guidelines we currently embrace.  How can we present all views,
appropriately
tagged and merged into an overall NPOV presentation, if only material
from
the current majority view is available?

>
> If it means loosing somebody like Ark to keep somebody like Michael, then I
> say we should have some, but limited tolerance for the Ark's of the world.

If it means losing newcomers to keep long time contributors, then I say
we
should tolerate some stodgy appeal to long time authority and seniority,
but
stop far short of a closed union shop.   After all, we already have some
contributions from the long time regulars.  Better to get some fresh
thought
and blood into the project occasionally.

Best of all would be to improve our methods such that strange esoteric
(to long time regulars) views or incorrect materials are not so
threatening
to the perceived quality of the Wikipedia and the reputation of
Wikipedians
associated with the project.

regards,
Mike Irwin
aka mirwin


body:
> In an anarchy he/she is as sovereign as we are.

Wikipedia isn't, never was, and never will be an anarchy.

>> I have stated that his rhetoric is a violation of our etiquette
>> policy; that didn't work either

> This is incorrect.
> We have suggested guidelines, not enforceable policies.

We have very few, but they are real and enforcible: no copyright
violations, no outright vandalism, NPOV (yes, that is an enforced
policy, not a guideline--in fact, when we get around to non-profit
status it will be legally enforced because you can't qualify as a
non-profit if you advocate any political point of view), and a
basic minimum of civilized behavior.

All that being said, I'm personally in favor of being quite lax
on violations of mere etiquette.  People have strong feelings, and
are sometimes rude; that's just a fact of life.  If they are rude
and write well, I say we learn to live with it and just go about
our business of writing an encyclopedia.  It's only when their
actions escalate to real damage to the encyclopedia, or to the
user community as a whole, that we should consider action.


from_name: tarquin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: MetaTree

body:
Just found I'd sent this to one person instead of the whole list.
oops!

lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:

 >>>Then just add links.
 >>>
 >>>
 >
 >
 >
 >>One word: spaghetti. Just because it's a web, it doesn't mean it
 >>can't be a cleanly organized web.
 >>
 >>
 >
 >Sometimes--in fact frquently--spaghetti is /better/ than structure,
 >because the subject being described really is spaghetti-like. I
 >have no problem with organization per se; I reorganized the policy
 >pages to make things easier to find.  But I /don't/ think we should
 >impose structure for its own sake unless there's a real problem.
 >
Yes, that's true.
So --
why do we insist on putting pipes in links so readers short-cut past
disambiguation pages?
I think that browsing a link "pitch" in an article on music and
discovering other types of pitch in completely different areas of
knowledge is interesting.
It adds breadth to the experience of browsing Wikipedia, which I would
miss if the link in the article on music was "pitch (music)|pitch".
I don't think that an extra page to load is a great price to pay for
that. (and I'm on a modem, so I do appreciate the time taken)

As far as the meat-tree goes, I appreciate that it seems like too much
structure to people. I do still think we're going to need something like
it in the future -- perhaps the presence of my proposal on Meta will
inspire better ideas.

I've just discovered
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Wikipedia%3AManual_of_Style , so I'll make
pages from there if I feel the need to open any forums to debate points
of style & presentation.

tarquin


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: MetaTree

body:
tarquin <tarquin at planetunreal.com> writes:

> I think that browsing a link "pitch" in an article on music and discovering
> other types of pitch in completely different areas of knowledge is
> interesting.

I think its a pain in the ass.  If I'm reading about music and click on
"pitch" I do *not* want to be told about tar-like substances and places where
sport is played.  It distracts me from the matter at hand.

If I want to read about other types or meanings of "pitch", I'm fully capable
of using the search function (or even editing the URL by hand).


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Request to block user:Andre Engels

body:
Someone, please block Andre Engels. He is deleting pages right and left. Mav and I both tried to talk with him, but he won't answer. I suggest a 16-hour block.

Ed Poor


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: MetaTree

body:
Gareth Owen wrote:

>tarquin <tarquin at planetunreal.com> writes:
>
>
>
>>I think that browsing a link "pitch" in an article on music and discovering
>>other types of pitch in completely different areas of knowledge is
>>interesting.
>>
>>
>
>I think its a pain in the ass.  If I'm reading about music and click on
>"pitch" I do *not* want to be told about tar-like substances and places where
>sport is played.  It distracts me from the matter at hand.
>
gareth, are you saying that when you look for something in a paper
encyclopedia you *never* stop off and read about something else that has
caught your eye?
That's the huge joy of reference works!


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] My apologies

body:
I don't know which Bible articles Andre deleted and can't be recovered, but I
would be more than happy to work on reconstructing them with him and perhaps
even giving them a more contemporary perspective. What do you say, Andre?

Danny


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: MetaTree

references:
<200208091732.g79HW5F24780@ross.bomis.com>
	<3D5A75D5.3070304@planetunreal.com>
	<r5ik7mtmpdj.fsf@gill.maths.keele.ac.uk>
	<3D5A7AB4.4030305@planetunreal.com>

body:
tarquin <tarquin at planetunreal.com> writes:

> encyclopedia you *never* stop off and read about something else that has
> caught your eye?

No.  Sometimes I do exactly.

But I don't want it forced upon me.
I do *not* want to use a work that gives cross references like
"See also: something on page 187 or 188, but we're not saying which"

Its not as if we don't have "Random Page" feature for browsing.

> That's the huge joy of reference works!

Is *a* huge joy of reference works.
Accurate and efficient cross-referencing is also a huge joy of well organised
reference works.
--
Gareth Owen


from_name: Jan Hidders

body:
On Tue, Aug 13, 2002 at 03:44:22PM -0700, Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
> I'm very much opposed to closing any of our language wikipedias.

Very understandable, but on the other hand, their site has the greatest
momentum and that is what counts. If I would be Spanish-speaking and
wondered about which site I would contribute to, the choice wouldn't be
hard; you go where the action is.

If you want a Spanish Wikipedia then the only realistic option I see is
trying to get them back into the Wikipedia family by establishing more and
closer contact. Asking them if there could be translation links back and
forth would then probably be a good first step. The next step could then be
to get all the Wikipedias in sync with the software updates and do
everything to keep them that way. Perhaps their user base might then start
to wonder if this separation is really worthwhile.

[ bad pun about a big fish trying to eat a little fish deleted ]

-- Jan Hidders


from_name: Stephen Gilbert

body:
--- Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> This especially seems true for the English Wikipedia
> where there is/are (and
> I roughly quote); article censorship and fear of
> censorship, where
> administrators harass contributors and delete pages
> (stated in a way that
> suggests this is a form of excessive censorship),
> and where those same
> administrators block pages from being edited (again
> suggesting that this is
> some kind of unfair censorship).

It looks like the accusations of censorship are based
on a page thrown up by Simon J Kissane
(http://www.geocities.com/sj_kissane/). There was a
messy incident a while ago which prompted him to
create this page. They seem to be taking it as an
example of an ongoing policy of censorship,
unfortunately.

I want to see the two Spanish projects merge once
again. I think working to set up the non-profit
organization would be a big step in the right
direction.

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
HotJobs - Search Thousands of New Jobs
http://www.hotjobs.com


body:
--- Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I personally give up and say we should issue one
> final warning and then test
> the block user function if that warning is also
> ignored.

I strongly object. Using stupid rhetoric on talk pages
is not grounds for locking someone out. Ark has made a
lot of good contributions relating to computer
security, and it's unfortunate that he doesn't play
nice with others. He also has an agenda to push. But
let's not get too ban-happy. Read on for my
alternative solution.

> This person is not
> at all worth loosing any valued and long time
> contributor over. Wasn't the
> fact that we tolerate stuff like this (the amature
> and persistant POV stuff
> Ark does, not the rhetoric) the reason why Michael
> Tinkler left the project?

Rather than banning the person in question, a better
option would be for many different Wikipedians to
ruthlessly edit the problem articles. There's not need
to engage the person in empty and insulting rhetoric;
simply make the changes that are necessary and
document why on the talk page. Ignore any
name-calling.

> If it means loosing somebody like Ark to keep
> somebody like Michael, then I
> say we should have some, but limited tolerance for
> the Ark's of the world.

I agree. However, the ban should be an absolute last
resort. Banning people simply adds more fuel to
certain fires, namely the idea that the Wikipedia
project engages in censorship when people piss off the
almighty sysops.

It seems that Julie is the only person right now who
is trying to balance the Infanticide article. Let's
all do a little research and give her a hand. That
way, one knowledgable person isn't left to twist in
the wind by herself, and the article can't be hijacked
to push a single point of view.

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
HotJobs - Search Thousands of New Jobs
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: MetaTree

body:
--- tarquin <tarquin at planetunreal.com> wrote:
> Just found I'd sent this to one person instead of
> the whole list.
> oops!
>
>
> lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:

Lee, that's happened to me too when I've hit reply to
your mailing list posts. Is it your email client setup
that's causing it?

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
HotJobs - Search Thousands of New Jobs
http://www.hotjobs.com


body:
--- Jan Hidders <hidders at uia.ua.ac.be> wrote:

> If you want a Spanish Wikipedia then the only
> realistic option I see is
> trying to get them back into the Wikipedia family by
> establishing more and
> closer contact. Asking them if there could be
> translation links back and
> forth would then probably be a good first step.

There seems to be some interest in this already at the
EL. They've been discussing interlanguage links with
Wikipedia on their Metapedia site:
http://turismundo.sav.us.es/metapedia/wiki.phtml?title=Enlaces+a+Wikipedia

Do we have any Spanish speakers on this list who could
act as ambassadors and translators? Language is
certainly one of the problems we're having.

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
HotJobs - Search Thousands of New Jobs
http://www.hotjobs.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] My apologies

body:
Andre, it sounds like you made an honest mistake. So,
take a few deep breaths and relax. No one is out to
lynch you.

Besides, this is just more evidence for the case that
the absolute delete function does more harm than good.
:)

Stephen G.

--- Andre Engels <engels at uni-koblenz.de> wrote:
> Please disregard my last message. I was overreacting
> and doing things I
> already regret. My deletions were an error, and I
> ask you to forgive me
> and try to understand that I did what I thought was
> best. I am still too
> tensed at the moment, but I will be back tomorrow or
> in a few days, doing
> normal things with Wikipedia.
>
> I still think that the majority of the deletions
> were a good thing, but I
> also think that I was wrong in doing them without
> checking whether they
> were supported. Apparently the common opinion on
> this point is different,
> and I not only should bow to that, I want to do it.
>
> My apologies for any inconvenience caused,
>
> Hoping that I have been able to write coherently in
> my current state,
>
> Andre Engels
>
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go
> here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

__________________________________________________
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body:
--- "Michael R. Irwin" <mri_icboise at surfbest.net>
wrote:

> Perhaps.  I think it is morely likely Ark has
> experienced how hurtful
> such attitudes can be and feels turnabout is fair
> play.   How can we,
> the Wikipedia community, ask he/she to forgive and
> forget past
> transgressions
> and focus on the friendly assertive dialogue so
> necessary to building a
> correct
> consensus view regarding article content and
> phrasing; if we are
> incapable of ignoring current trangressions or
> heated hurtful rhetoric?

I'm afraid you'll have to give some examples of where
the person in question has been provoked and/or
verbally abused before anyone takes those suggestions
seriously.

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
HotJobs - Search Thousands of New Jobs
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] My apologies

body:
> I recall once suggesting as a feature some sort of "trash bin"
> where deleted articles could go, residing there for a while
> before becoming _really_ deleted...

...and I recall implementing exactly that.  There's no interface
to it, but deletions are indeed saved.  And even before that, there
were database backups.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: MetaTree

body:
>--- tarquin <tarquin at planetunreal.com> wrote:
>> Just found I'd sent this to one person instead of
>> the whole list.

>Lee, that's happened to me too when I've hit reply to
>your mailing list posts. Is it your email client setup
>that's causing it?

I read Nupedia mail with the web interface--I only use a
normal mail client for personal mail (I use Mutt, and
I can assure you that it is set up correctly).


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] My apologies

body:
At 01:53 PM 14/08/02 -0700, lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> > My apologies to maveric and you all. Like everywhere, I seem
> > to break more than I heal. Please remove my moderator access,
> > and block my site for 7 days while I think about whether it
> > has any use that I am helping you.
>
>I see no reason to do either; you're a useful contributor, and
>I don't see any real damage done.  You just gave us a scare.

I recall once suggesting as a feature some sort of "trash bin" where
deleted articles could go, residing there for a while before becoming
_really_ deleted. That way, even an administrative delete can be reverted
if it's noticed in a timely manner, in case some admin has an accident or
goes bonkers.

And I would certainly feel more comfortable bearing the responsibility of
the delete key with something like this in place, too. :)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: MetaTree

body:
--- lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> >--- tarquin <tarquin at planetunreal.com> wrote:
> >> Just found I'd sent this to one person instead of
> >> the whole list.
>
> >Lee, that's happened to me too when I've hit reply
> to
> >your mailing list posts. Is it your email client
> setup
> >that's causing it?
>
> I read Nupedia mail with the web interface--I only
> use a
> normal mail client for personal mail (I use Mutt,
> and
> I can assure you that it is set up correctly).

Heh. So we can put the blame on Jimmy, then. ;-)

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
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HotJobs - Search Thousands of New Jobs
http://www.hotjobs.com


from_name: Lars Aronsson

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> I now agree completely. I vote for keeping es.wikipedia.com, load the new
> software and then run the two projects side-by-side for at least a few
> months. If activity doesn't  improve much /then/ and only then should we even
> consider closing the Spanish Wikipedia.
>
> We above all else must respect those that still contribute to our Spanish
> wiki. Besides as someone already said, we can port the EL stuff to our wiki
> since they use the same license (<hint> I will help with this myself as soon
> as Lee's excellent new software gets installed </hint> --- but please don't
> ask me to help with the translations; its been so long since I've used it
> that my written Spanish is down-right embarrassing).

It is my opinion that the fork was due to a misunderstanding, which
still seems to prevail.  It might in part be explained by the fact
that the Sevilla people aren't quite fluent in English.  Given their
current misconceptions about Bomis and Wikipedia, any attempt to copy
their articles to the Spanish Wikipedia without first talking to them,
would probably only strengthen their opinion about these arrogant
American imperialists.  Is that what you're proposing?

I'm no part of this.  But I suggest Jimmy get on speaking terms with
Juan "Junanan" Antonio Ruiz Rivas, who runs the Sevilla server.  Hire
an interpreter if necessary.

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


body:
Stephen Gilbert wrote:
>
> --- "Michael R. Irwin" <mri_icboise at surfbest.net>
> wrote:
>
> > Perhaps.  I think it is morely likely Ark has
> > experienced how hurtful
> > such attitudes can be and feels turnabout is fair
> > play.   How can we,
> > the Wikipedia community, ask he/she to forgive and
> > forget past
> > transgressions
> > and focus on the friendly assertive dialogue so
> > necessary to building a
> > correct
> > consensus view regarding article content and
> > phrasing; if we are
> > incapable of ignoring current trangressions or
> > heated hurtful rhetoric?
>
> I'm afraid you'll have to give some examples of where
> the person in question has been provoked and/or
> verbally abused before anyone takes those suggestions
> seriously.
>
> Stephen G.

How unfortunate.  I do not intend to scour an
everchanging medium for examples of past transgressions.
Particularly since people often perceive things differently
and I might not recognize something that appeared provocative
or abusive to Ark anyway.  If I did find something that
appeared so to me, it is very possible that it would be
merely dismissed as vaporous by the original provocateur
anyway.   I have participated in professional seminars where
pychologists and communications specialists demonstrated to
the class through lab exercises that most people perceive
themselves differently than others do.

I have been impressed by the quality of overall participation
here at Wikipedia and doubt that most Wikipedians would
intentionally give offense over trivia.  Of course, most
regulars do not consider editing content trivial.  We also have
many random dropins from newcomers who are not always easily
distinguishable from regulars.  Also, mistakes will happen
occasionally even with the best of intentions and feathers
will get ruffled.

I suggest we be careful in implementing your suggestion
of mercilessly gang editing Ark's material in question,
lest Ark see hordes from the mailing list descending upon
his/her work as "provocation" to further uncivil behavior.

Some participants here on the mailing list have noted that
Ark has contributed productively, if a bit abrasively, in the
past.  They might take it a bit personally should Ark use
the opportunity provided to get banned.

It might also lead them to suspect our processes can be
improved a bit.  24's banning certainly raised my
suspicions in that direction quite a bit.

I volunteer to try to help Ark find some substantiating data,
opinion, suspicions, etc. for the controversial material
while also attempting to discredit Ms. Hoffman's and others
sources and materials .... not note, Ms. Hoffman.

Fun stuff!  It is not often one acquires an opportunity
to attack academia's material in one last desperate attempt
to help truth triumph over the weight of historical
neglect, outright revision or wishful thinking.

regards,
Mike Irwin, aka mirwin


body:
Stephen Gilbert wrote:
>
> --- Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > This especially seems true for the English Wikipedia
> > where there is/are (and
> > I roughly quote); article censorship and fear of
> > censorship, where
> > administrators harass contributors and delete pages
> > (stated in a way that
> > suggests this is a form of excessive censorship),
> > and where those same
> > administrators block pages from being edited (again
> > suggesting that this is
> > some kind of unfair censorship).
>
> It looks like the accusations of censorship are based
> on a page thrown up by Simon J Kissane
> (http://www.geocities.com/sj_kissane/). There was a
> messy incident a while ago which prompted him to
> create this page. They seem to be taking it as an
> example of an ongoing policy of censorship,
> unfortunately.

I looked over this site and traced all the links.
It is very unfortunate that all of acknowledgment
of Simon's contributions appear to have been wiped
out by script transfer of content between software
phases.  For someone not familar with the GPL issues
Wikipedia has been grappling with and the loss of
accreditation information across the board this
could easily look like selective censorship.

>
> I want to see the two Spanish projects merge once
> again. I think working to set up the non-profit
> organization would be a big step in the right
> direction.
>
> Stephen G.

It might also help to document in detail the effort
necessary and sufficient to successfully install and
setup a mirror server or fork.   That way they would
know that if the merge did not work out well they
could easily reestablish the separate project with
an enhanced database.

I have a spare system that I could use to attempt
this and document the process in detail.  This would
be viable for me only if the software developers deem
it worthy of some serious coaching.  My familarity with Linux
is sketchy and with CVS/SQL close to nil.

regards,
Mike Irwin


from_name: Karl Juhnke

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Feature request/Information request

body:
My apologies for posting this to the mailing list.  I tried to submit a
feature request at SourceForge, but I didn't see it appear on the list,
so I assume I don't know how to do it correctly.

My problem is this: I have several pages in my watch list that have
become redirects since I started watching them.  I want those pages off
my watch list.  The only way I know how to get a page off my watch list
is to go to that page and click the "Stop Watching" link.  But when I
try to go to a redirect page, I get redirected before I have a chance
to stop watching.  So what should I do?

Incidentally, this makes wonder too what to do if I decide that a
redirect page should in fact be the main page and I therefore want to
edit it away from being a redirect.  Is that possible?

Thanks in advance, and my apologies if I have chosen the wrong forum to
ask.

Peace,
-Fritzlein

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
HotJobs - Search Thousands of New Jobs
http://www.hotjobs.com


body:
> My problem is this: I have several pages in my watch list that
> have become redirects since I started watching them. I want
> those pages off my watch list.  The only way I know how to get
> a page off my watch list is to go to that page and click the
> "Stop Watching" link.  But when I try to go to a redirect page,
> I get redirected before I have a chance to stop watching.  So
> what should I do?

Yes, working with redirects is less than obvious.  When you are
redirected by one, the page you see will have a line right beneath
the title saying "(Redirected from Xxx...)", which is a link to
the redirect page itself.  Click that, and you'll be able to edit
the redirect, unwatch it, whatever.  You can also manually add
"&redirect=no" to the URL of a page.


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] My apologies

body:
My apologies to maveric and you all. Like everywhere, I seem to break more
than I heal. Please remove my moderator access, and block my site for 7 days
while I think about whether it has any use that I am helping you.

I'm an idiot, and you don't need idiots. Sorry again.

Andre Engels


subject: [Wikipedia-l] My apologies

in_reply_to:
<200208142034.g7EKYfC23604@chakotay.uni-koblenz.de> from Andre Engels
 at "Aug 14, 2002 10:34:41 pm"

body:
Please disregard my last message. I was overreacting and doing things I
already regret. My deletions were an error, and I ask you to forgive me
and try to understand that I did what I thought was best. I am still too
tensed at the moment, but I will be back tomorrow or in a few days, doing
normal things with Wikipedia.

I still think that the majority of the deletions were a good thing, but I
also think that I was wrong in doing them without checking whether they
were supported. Apparently the common opinion on this point is different,
and I not only should bow to that, I want to do it.

My apologies for any inconvenience caused,

Hoping that I have been able to write coherently in my current state,

Andre Engels


from_name: Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] My apologies

body:
On Wed, 14 Aug 2002 daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:

> I don't know which Bible articles Andre deleted and can't be recovered, but I
> would be more than happy to work on reconstructing them with him and perhaps
> even giving them a more contemporary perspective. What do you say, Andre?

Doesn't the wikipedia server have backups? Big IDE drives are extremely cheap
these days. An 80Gb disk can keep at least 6 generations of compressed
wikipedia databases.

Rotate the use of the generations in a sawtoothed sawtoothed sawtooth pattern,
and you will always have today's version, yesterday's one that is about a week
old, one that is about a month old.

Or something.

-- Daniel


in_reply_to:
<20020815023630.90115.qmail@web21105.mail.yahoo.com> (message
	from Stephen Gilbert on Wed, 14 Aug 2002 19:36:30 -0700 (PDT))

body:
|From: Stephen Gilbert <canuck_in_korea2002 at yahoo.com>
|Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 19:36:30 -0700 (PDT)
|
|
|--- Jan Hidders <hidders at uia.ua.ac.be> wrote:
|
|> If you want a Spanish Wikipedia then the only
|> realistic option I see is
|> trying to get them back into the Wikipedia family by
|> establishing more and
|> closer contact. Asking them if there could be
|> translation links back and
|> forth would then probably be a good first step.
|
|There seems to be some interest in this already at the
|EL. They've been discussing interlanguage links with
|Wikipedia on their Metapedia site:
|http://turismundo.sav.us.es/metapedia/wiki.phtml?title=Enlaces+a+Wikipedia

They all seem to be for it.

|
|Do we have any Spanish speakers on this list who could
|act as ambassadors and translators? Language is
|certainly one of the problems we're having.

I have some confidence in my ability to translate from Spanish, less
confidence in my ability to translate to Spanish.

|
|Stephen G.
|
|__________________________________________________
|Do You Yahoo!?
|HotJobs - Search Thousands of New Jobs
|http://www.hotjobs.com
|[Wikipedia-l]
|To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
|http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
|


subject: [Wikipedia-l] My apologies

body:
> Andre Engels wrote:
> > I'm an idiot, and you don't need idiots. Sorry again.
>
> Hey, I'm an idiot too, so I hope we need idiots or I'll get tossed
> away with last night's beer cans.  :-)
>
> I didn't see what happened, but Andre's o.k. with me.

What happened was that I deleted a whole lot of pages, giving as the reason
that they were at the same time:
  1. orphans
  2. stubs or dictionary-style entries

I will not apologize, not because I'm not sorry, but because I already did.

Regarding the offer to help undoing things: Although my deletions may have
been better not made, they also as someone said "did not do much damage".
Undoing them will undoubtedly be more trouble than it's worth. Writing some
good, or even mediocre, Wikipedia article on random subjects will probably
do more good to Wikipedia with less work.

Andre Engels


from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Deletion training.

body:
A new sysop (not Andre) has been deleting redirect pages
simply because nothing links to them anymore.
For example, [[Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints]].
(The correct spelling is "Latter-day".)
This violates a deletion guideline that I think is a good idea.

I'll take this up on the deleters [[User talk:]] page.
But for the mailing list, do old sysops need to give
new sysops pointers on how to delete pages and what to delete?
It seems that new sysops always make the same mistakes,
even though admittedly nobody shocked as as much as Andre.

(Or alternatively, are the deletion guidelines wrong,
and these aren't mistakes?)

-- Toby Bartels
   <toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Collaborative, up-to-the-minute construction of current and ongoing events of historical significance

body:
I think that the consensus on this list and on [[Talk:Main Page]]
was that links to background articles like [[Stock market]]
are preferred to links to "up-to-the-minute" articles like
[[Stock market downturn of 2002]].  Accordingly, I'm going to
change the [[Main Page]] back to [[Stock market]].
But the [[Main Page]] is the last place that I want to get into
an edit war with The Cuntator, so I will to the list's consensus.
Please watch.

-- Toby Bartels
   <toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Parsing TeX

body:
JeLuF wrote for the most part:

>regarding "%": I think we don't need TeX-comments in our formulas. We could
>just replace % by \percent{} before passing the input over to TeX.

Sure, but that's just one example.  We can't get by without braces.

>regarding "simple style vs. complex formulas": I changed the parser of my
>proof-of-concept-code to first check  whether the formula is "simple", that
>is only contains: digits, letters (small+capital), +-*/=(), ^, _, {}
>and blanks. If this is the case, the formula will be set as HTML using
><sub> and <sup>.

And what do the braces represent?  TeX { and } or TeX \{ and \}?
Consistency demands the latter, but this will confuse newbies.

>I still use [[math: ... ]]-syntax, the code is prepared to also support [$ $], too.
>Before implementing this I wanted to wait for Lee's proposal for the future
>Wiki Markup Language.

I do think that having LaTeX abilities can be a great blessing.
But I think that when we use it, it needs to be clear that it's special,
something that (like tables, probably, no matter how we end up doing that)
people will want to read about on [[Wikipedia:How does one edit a page]]
before attempting to do them.  And that means that it just shouldn't be used
for simple expressions, which must be easily editable.

I still think that an inline/display division is the best solution.
This often corresponds to simple/complex,
and it has a clear visual cue that people can spot and grow used to.
But I'm waiting for Jan's reply to my last post;
he can often improve an idea ^_^.

-- Toby Bartels
   <toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu>


body:
--- Karl Juhnke <yangfuli at yahoo.com> wrote:
> My problem is this: I have several pages in my watch
> list that have
> become redirects since I started watching them.  I
> want those pages off
> my watch list.  The only way I know how to get a
> page off my watch list
> is to go to that page and click the "Stop Watching"
> link.  But when I
> try to go to a redirect page, I get redirected
> before I have a chance
> to stop watching.  So what should I do?
>
> Incidentally, this makes wonder too what to do if I
> decide that a
> redirect page should in fact be the main page and I
> therefore want to
> edit it away from being a redirect.  Is that
> possible?

The answer to both questions: when you are redirected,
you should see a notice under the title of your final
destination that says, "Redirected from [[redirect
page title]]" If you click on that link, you will be
able to edit the redirect page, and remove it from
your watch list.

> Thanks in advance, and my apologies if I have chosen
> the wrong forum to
> ask.

That's what the list is here for!

Stephen G.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
HotJobs - Search Thousands of New Jobs
http://www.hotjobs.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: MetaTree

body:
Stephen Gilbert wrote:
> Heh. So we can put the blame on Jimmy, then. ;-)

Yeah!

--Jimbo


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Re:Junking Spanish Wikipedia?

body:
On Wednesday 14 August 2002 05:10 pm, LDC wrote:
> Getting our 501(c)3 status will help, and I doubt anything short
> of that will, so I hope that gets moved up on Jimbo's priority
> list a bit.

I agree. I think it will otherwise be completely useless even to start
talking with them until after we become a non-profit (switching from .com to
.org would also be nice).

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
>
>
>>They also seem to not like the fact that a "American for-profit .com company
>>that wants to establish a presence in the educational market* controls
>>Wikipedia (the .com part may be a directed toward wikipedia's URL and not
>>Bomis - my Spanish is rusty and the fish ain't much help).
>>
>Perhaps the impending trickle influx of Marxist.org content will
>improve their opinion of our project?
>
I don't think that the philosophical inclinations of marxist.org will
have as much bearing here as their experience in trying to maintain
multi-language operations.  I haven't looked at their Spanish version,
but that may be worth investigating.  Their internal debate over a
Chinese language version may have a parallel with what's happening here.

Eclecticology


body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:

>>>They also seem to not like the fact that a "American for-
>>>profit .com company that wants to establish a presence in the
>>>educational market* controls Wikipedia (the .com part may be a
>>>directed toward wikipedia's URL and not Bomis - my Spanish is
>>>rusty and the fish ain't much help).
>>>
>Getting our 501(c)3 status will help, and I doubt anything short
>of that will, so I hope that gets moved up on Jimbo's priority
>list a bit.
>
For the benefit of non-Americans unfamiliar with the Internal Revenue
Code governing U.S. tax law I would point out that 501(c)(3) refers to
organizations that are tax-exempt because they are non-profit and doing
things for the public good.  Wikipedia would likely qualify because of
the educational work that it does.

As much as it may be a beneficial move, I don't know if a move from a
".com" to a ".org" would do the trick since these are both seen as
American even if such designations are available world-wide.  The
uncommon use of ".us" domains probably adds to the perception that they
imply an American organization.  These issues have become even more
sensitive since President George III has been fanning the flames of
anti-Americanism.  This makes the ".es" domain more attractive.

There may also be another international sensitivity at play in this
issue that does not involve Americans. What proportion of the
participants in Spanish Wikipedia and Enciclopedia Libre are from Spain
rather than from its former colonial empire.  I suspect that many latin
americans may be just as resentful of ".es" domains as they are of
".com".  It is important to look at Spanish Wikipedia as Spanish
language rather than Spanish nation.
Eclecticology


from_name: Julie Hofmann Kemp

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Inflammatory language (Ark)

body:
Mirwin writes:

I volunteer to try to help Ark find some substantiating data, opinion,
suspicions, etc. for the controversial material while also attempting to
discredit Ms. Hoffman's and others sources and materials .... not note,
Ms. Hoffman.

Fun stuff!  It is not often one acquires an opportunity
to attack academia's material in one last desperate attempt
to help truth triumph over the weight of historical
neglect, outright revision or wishful thinking

Jules (whose middle name, not last name is Hofmann with one F, two Ns)
says:

First, Steven Gilbert's suggestion is the tried and true one for dealing
with rabid, one-sided, and inflammatory editors.  At the moment, Ark is
just acting irrationally and unpleasantly.  Frankly, I think he's enough
of an ass that he bothers me personally very little.

Second, and more importantly, Mirwin suggests "discrediting" sources and
materials.  Since when did this become a place to put primary research?
Attacking the mainstream is definitely POV, Mirwin -- and in no way
acceptable.  Perhaps you meant you wanted to help Ark find sources that
supported the outrageous claims he's been posting as truth.  This is
something we'd ALL like to see, I'm sure, since then we could have an
article that said something along the lines of "Case X has long been
accepted as the norm for this subject; however, many researchers now
believe Case Y, based on sources 1,2,3."    That type of article which
resolves controversy not by taking sides, but by explaining the
arguments and leaving the judgement to the reader, is what we've pretty
much always done.

Jules


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

body:
Maveric and Stephen wrote:

|> I personally give up and say we should issue one
|> final warning and then test
|> the block user function if that warning is also
|> ignored.
|
|I strongly object. Using stupid rhetoric on talk pages
|is not grounds for locking someone out. Ark has made a
|lot of good contributions relating to computer
|security, and it's unfortunate that he doesn't play
|nice with others. He also has an agenda to push. But
|let's not get too ban-happy.
|. . . a better option would be for many different
|Wikipedians to ruthlessly edit the problem articles.

I wrote the following to Ark on a talk page:

=>Hi, Ark. Welcome back. Your contribution to this
=>subject has the potential to be very valuable. Also,
=>bear in mind that how you present yourself in the
=>talk pages makes a strong impression on others. We
=>are impressed with solid scholarship, but we also
=>enjoy a cordial atmosphere.
=>
=>You may not be aware that phrases like "you can't
=>accept" or "you can't dismiss" are taken personally.
=>Now, if you and I were talking on the phone (or
=>better, in person), it would be easy for me to
=>perceive the gentle spirit behind the words. But,
=>alas, we get only the bare text here.
=>
=>I myself am very much against infanticide and child
=>abuse, so anything you can do to expose these crimes
=>in the article pages would be welcome to me. Let's
=>discuss what we can each do to help each other make
=>excellent articles on such worthy topics. Ed Poor
=>12:01 Aug 13, 2002 (PDT)

He neither replied nor made further contributions since then. Perhaps he is thinking over what I wrote.

Ed Poor


body:
Julie Hofmann Kemp wrote:
>
> Mirwin writes:
>
> I volunteer to try to help Ark find some substantiating data, opinion,
> suspicions, etc. for the controversial material while also attempting to
> discredit Ms. Hoffman's and others sources and materials .... not note,
> Ms. Hoffman.
>
> Fun stuff!  It is not often one acquires an opportunity
> to attack academia's material in one last desperate attempt
> to help truth triumph over the weight of historical
> neglect, outright revision or wishful thinking
>
> Jules (whose middle name, not last name is Hofmann with one F, two Ns)
> says:

Sorry about that.  I spotted the errors after it was posted.

>
> First, Steven Gilbert's suggestion is the tried and true one for dealing
> with rabid, one-sided, and inflammatory editors.

Tried and true for running them off perhaps.   We will get
much less bad press with potential readers and contributors if:
1.  We document what our actual guidelines actually are
so people who wish to comply with them upfront can do
so easily and people who honestly do not accept them can move on
without a flame/edit war.
2.  Modify our procedures such that only approved materials
are accepted for the front page, if that is what we are enforcing
via mailing list mob deletion of unacceptable material.

<snip>
> Second, and more importantly, Mirwin suggests "discrediting" sources and
> materials.  Since when did this become a place to put primary research?

What primary research?  I found Demause online.  His stuff seems
to draw from a wide variety of contemporary, presumably reputable,
sources.  You informed Ark, Demause's scholarship is poor and
cannot be used to substantiate strong claims made in material in
the current page article.

I recall encountering infanticide in middle school studies of
Mythology so this hardly seems radical new material.  It follows
naturally that if strong claims of infanticide are supportable
from reputable sources then sources claiming it cannot be proven
are guilty of poor scholarship and their arguments are susceptible
to debunking, impeachment, or whatever the proper term is for
proving to an audiences their sources are poor and therefore
arguments based upon them weak.

How else do you propose that we establish which claims are more
creditable between Ark's that infanticide was common and prevalent
or yours that insufficient evidence exists to make strong claims?

Are we merely to edit according to your opinion rather than Ark's
and Demause's?

> Attacking the mainstream is definitely POV, Mirwin -- and in no way
> acceptable.

It is certainly acceptable as an identified minority view.  There
is very little absolute certainty in Science, history, or any other
field of human endeaver.

Perhaps you meant you wanted to help Ark find sources that
> supported the outrageous claims he's been posting as truth.

Sure.  This as well.  Clearly it is also well within the bounds of
scholastic rigor to attempt to debunk the mainstream view sources
just as you have dismissed Demause.

This is
> something we'd ALL like to see, I'm sure, since then we could have an
> article that said something along the lines of "Case X has long been
> accepted as the norm for this subject; however, many researchers now
> believe Case Y, based on sources 1,2,3."    That type of article which
> resolves controversy not by taking sides, but by explaining the
> arguments and leaving the judgement to the reader, is what we've pretty
> much always done.
>
> Jules

Excellent.  I have not yet worked through the history versions in
detail but there seems to be a lot of material that has been
merely deleted rather than explaining the arguments for and against
the POV for the reader to decide.

regards,
Mike Irwin


from_name: Karen AKA Kajikit

subject: [Wikipedia-l] My apologies

body:
Andre Engels wrote:

> What happened was that I deleted a whole lot of pages, giving as the reason
> that they were at the same time:
>   1. orphans
>   2. stubs or dictionary-style entries
>
> I will not apologize, not because I'm not sorry, but because I already did.
>
> Regarding the offer to help undoing things: Although my deletions may have
> been better not made, they also as someone said "did not do much damage".
> Undoing them will undoubtedly be more trouble than it's worth. Writing some
> good, or even mediocre, Wikipedia article on random subjects will probably
> do more good to Wikipedia with less work.

Andre,

I seem to delete more pages than just about anyone else... and a whole
bunch of them are ones that you recommended for removal previously.
Anyway, a couple of people got annoyed with me not because I was
deleting too much stuff but because I wasn't attributing them thorougly
enough for their liking. I don't know what you've been removing because
it was the middle of the night here and I was asleep, but if they were
only orphan stubs then I really don't see what the fuss is all about...

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

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

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

Love and huggles to all!


subject: [Wikipedia-l] My apologies

body:
further to that... looking at the deletion log I don't see anything
'wrong' with anything you deleted. I think people were just alarmed at
the sudden large volume of removals.

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

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

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

Love and huggles to all!


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] wikipedia.org

body:
I'm 100% in favor of a switch.

--Jimbo


from_name: Brion VIBBER

subject: [Wikipedia-l] wikipedia.org

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> I'm 100% in favor of a switch.

www.wikipedia.org seem to work if used manually, so if there's no
objection, I'll change the code to output .org URLs by default.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Parsing TeX

in_reply_to: <20020813011147.GA5972@math-lw-n02.ucr.edu>; from toby+wikipedia-l@math.ucr.edu on Mon, Aug 12, 2002 at 06:11:47PM -0700

body:
First let me apologize for the late reply. My internet connection thought for
some reason that it had to simulate a stack exchange (up, down, down, up,
down, down, down), but an electrician has now convinced it to stay up.

On Mon, Aug 12, 2002 at 06:11:47PM -0700, Toby Bartels wrote:
>
> OTOH, if you change it to [$x^2y = z_1$], then people that copy you
> will be likely to write [$x% = x/100$], even without reading
> [[Wikipedia:How does one edit a math page]] or whatever.

They will quickly notice that the end result is not what they expected and
then either go and read the manual anyway, or simply write ''x''% =
''x''/100 or [$x$]% = [$x$]/100.

> Perhaps it would be more profitable just to have a system that handles
> scripts and not the rest of LaTeX, for ordinary use (that is, use without
> the \sum s and \mapsto s of this world). This thought is expanded upon
> below.

Your suggestion to replace .. with _{..} and .. with
^{..} will have my vote anyway. However, I would still plead for having also
LaTeX in-line formula. One of Axel's motivation for LaTeX is that we should
be able to fairly easy exchange articles with planetmath.org. I agree with
that and that would mean that you want to be able to do LaTeX in sentences.
It is also one of the reasons why we should have a markup similar to $..$
because that would make the conversion (by hand) simpeler.

> (You can continue to try to convince me to use '' and '''
> in every situation instead of  and , while this is going on.)

I will leave that to your own conscience. :-) There's no chance to get rid
of  as long as the system supports it and many users prefer it as their
notation.

-- Jan Hidders


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Parsing TeX

body:
On Wed, Aug 14, 2002 at 12:16:59PM +0200, Jens Frank wrote:
>
> regarding "%": I think we don't need TeX-comments in our formulas. We could
> just replace % by \percent{} before passing the input over to TeX.

There are probably other symbols that are also a problem, and I'm not so
sure whether we really don't need %. For complex stuff such as for example
commuting diagrams it would probably nice for the future editor to have some
comments that explain what is going on. Moreover, it would also mean an
(admittedly small) incompatability with planetmath.org.

> regarding "simple style vs. complex formulas": I changed the parser of my
> proof-of-concept-code to first check  whether the formula is "simple", that
> is only contains: digits, letters (small+capital), +-*/=(), ^, _, {}
> and blanks. If this is the case, the formula will be set as HTML using
> <sub> and <sup>.

Interesting. I'f I'm honest I have to admit that it looks a bit odd that one
formula a^2 + b^2 = c^2 looks different from c^2 = a^2 + b^a - 2ab
cos(\gamma). Perhaps we should only do this for the in-line formula.

> Before implementing this I wanted to wait for Lee's proposal for the future
> Wiki Markup Language.

Yes, agreed, and I'm very curious what it will be. :-)

-- Jan Hidders


from_name: lcrocker at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] New "Recent Changes" format

body:
Please go look at

http://www.piclab.com/newwiki/wiki.phtml

and give me feedback on the way it does "Recent changes".  There's
still a bit of work to do on things like user settings for it,
doing the same thing to the watchlist, and so on, but the page
itself should be done and I'd like to get some reactions.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] wikipedia.org

body:
Jaap van Ganswijk wrote:
> At 2002-08-15 13:24 -0700, Jimmy Wales wrote:
>>I'm 100% in favor of a switch.
>
> Me too.
>
> (But keep the .com URL also...)

Done. Note that if you've got it set to save your password, you'll have
to relogin manually the first time you come back, since your login
cookie from www.wikipedia.com doesn't transfer automatically to
www.wikipedia.org.

(Note that the other-language wikis are still on *.wikipedia.com; I
recommend transferring their URLs to .org along with the software.
Which, I am reminded, we should start doing real soon now. I'll finish
up tweaking those translation files...)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:

>Please go look at
>
>http://www.piclab.com/newwiki/wiki.phtml
>
>and give me feedback on the way it does "Recent changes".  There's
>still a bit of work to do on things like user settings for it,
>doing the same thing to the watchlist, and so on, but the page
>itself should be done and I'd like to get some reactions.
>
A clear improvement!

Eclecticology


body:
Jan Hidders wrote:
> I miss a line that says that I am currently looking the last 50 or the ones
> in the last 3 days.
>
> It took me a minute or so to realize what the articles with the name '"'
> were. So I'm not sure if that is really so intuitive. :-) Is that on purpose
> or was it just easier to program? Perhaps an unlinked "idem" in italics?

Or perhaps "(previous edit)" or some such, linking conveniently to that
edit?

It might also make sense to take the (diff) and (hist) links away on the
sub-items. If the diff links were specific they might be nice, but it
certainly makes no sense to a bunch of links to the exact same history
list... but mainly, it would set things off distinctively if you could
indent them instead.

Also, the list keeps getting interrupted with huge date headers whenever
it comes across an old edit from a previous day or vice-versa.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] wikipedia.org

body:
Brion VIBBER wrote:

>
> Done. Note that if you've got it set to save your password, you'll
> have to relogin manually the first time you come back, since your
> login cookie from www.wikipedia.com doesn't transfer automatically to
> www.wikipedia.org.

I'm glad to hear that that's all the problem; I was beginning to worry
that someone had somehow blocked me :-)


body:
Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:

> What do the double quotes (") mean?
>
> Example:
>
> (diff) (hist)  18:37 . .   " . . Lee Daniel Crocker (Summary)

They are "ditto marks" used to indicate an item in the previous line
that is being repeated.

Eclecticology


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Search page

body:
There is one feature that I miss from the Search page.  It seems to have
gotten lost with the software changeover.

When I search for something, and the results are more than the 50 that I
have set in my preferences, I would like to have an idea of just how
many items contain the search term.  That lets me know whether it's
worthwhile to look at any more pages for the term.

Eclecticology


body:
Giskart wrote:
> lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
>> Please go look at
>>
>> http://www.piclab.com/newwiki/wiki.phtml
>>
>> and give me feedback on the way it does "Recent changes".  There's
>
> I think i would be more logical to use for the server time UTC instead
> of UTC -7 as the default. If the server time is UTC then it is much more
> simple to find out the local time.

Agreed. Is there any reason we can't just set the internal clock on the
  machine to UTC? (I personally can't, as I don't have root access to
the server.)

I suppose we might want to automagically add 7 (or 8?) hours to the
timezone settings of anyone who's set it, of course, so they still end
up correct.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: The Cunctator

body:
On 8/15/02 7:49 PM, "lcrocker at nupedia.com" <lcrocker at nupedia.com> wrote:

> Please go look at
>
> http://www.piclab.com/newwiki/wiki.phtml
>
> and give me feedback on the way it does "Recent changes".  There's
> still a bit of work to do on things like user settings for it,
> doing the same thing to the watchlist, and so on, but the page
> itself should be done and I'd like to get some reactions.
>
One thing: please add a bold R for pages that are redirects. There needs to
be a page explaining minor edits, multiple edits, non-articles.

I don't really like the "non-articles" designation. Not entirely sure what a
better one would be, though. Maybe meta-pages. Or "secondary namespaces".
Would like the option to see recent changes more than 3 days.

I'd like to be able to see only new pages. That could be a separate page,
using the same Recent Changes engine.

For the User Contributions, I'd like to be able to see pages created by the
user.

-tc


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

body:
At 04:49 PM 8/15/02 -0700, Larry Crocker wrote:
>Please go look at
>
>http://www.piclab.com/newwiki/wiki.phtml
>
>and give me feedback on the way it does "Recent changes".  There's
>still a bit of work to do on things like user settings for it,
>doing the same thing to the watchlist, and so on, but the page
>itself should be done and I'd like to get some reactions.

What do the double quotes (") mean?

Example:

(diff) (hist)  18:37 . .   " . . Lee Daniel Crocker (Summary)

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: wikipedia.org / FAQ needs editing

body:
Someone needs to bring the Wikipedia:FAQ up to date.  I quote:

-----
Why is wikipedia.org redirected to wikipedia.com and not the other way
around?

It was a matter of honesty. Bomis, the company owned by Wikipedia
patron Jimbo Wales, hoped to make Wikipedia profitable, or at least
cover the costs of operation. At one point, Jimbo was planning on
placing unobtrustive advertisements on Wikipedia, but that plan has
since been abandoned. There is now serious talk about forming a
non-profit organization for the Wikipedia project.

Also, it may simply be for convienence. If one domain was the first one
purchased, and the second domain was added later, it makes sense to
create the second domain as a pointer, instead of switching the new
domain to be the primary domain. There is no implication, restriction
or enforcement of the .org, .com and .net top level domains.
-----

-Karl

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
HotJobs - Search Thousands of New Jobs
http://www.hotjobs.com


body:
On Thu, 15 Aug 2002, Ray Saintonge wrote:

> As much as it may be a beneficial move, I don't know if a move from a
> ".com" to a ".org" would do the trick since these are both seen as
> American even if such designations are available world-wide.  The

My experience (from outside the US) is that .com and .org aren't seen as
particularly American, but belonging to "the net in general" rather than to a
particular country.

And I really think .org would help. It is quickly and easily recognizable as
non-commercial, and so sparsely used (compared to .com) that it's a statement
in itself.

IMHO.

-- Daniel


body:
Karl Juhnke wrote:
> Someone needs to bring the Wikipedia:FAQ up to date.  I quote:

(edit edit bug report edit) Better now?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Where'd the non-English tarballs go?

body:
http://www.wikipedia.org/tarballs/ now contains only intermittent
backups of the English wiki, I can't find any trace non-English tarballs
on the new server, and the "old.wikipedia.com" get-at-the-old-server
trick no longer seems to work.

It's a little worrying.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Jaap van Ganswijk

subject: [Wikipedia-l] wikipedia.org

body:
At 2002-08-15 13:24 -0700, Jimmy Wales wrote:
>I'm 100% in favor of a switch.

Me too.

(But keep the .com URL also...)

Jaap van Ganswijk

Greetings,
Jaap

-- Chip Directory
-- http://www.chipdir.org/
-- http://www.chipdir.nl/
-- http://www.embeddedlogic.com/chipdir/ - New in the USA
-- And about 30 other mirror sites world-wide.
--
-- To subscribe to a free 'chip issues, questions and answers'
-- mailing list send a message to listguru at fatcity.com with
-- in the body 'subscribe chipdir-L'. About 500 experts are
-- willing to think with you about electronics problems etc.


from_name: Jan Hidders

in_reply_to: <200208152349.g7FNnFh14346@ross.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Thu, Aug 15, 2002 at 04:49:15PM -0700

body:
On Thu, Aug 15, 2002 at 04:49:15PM -0700, lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> Please go look at
>
> http://www.piclab.com/newwiki/wiki.phtml
>
> and give me feedback on the way it does "Recent changes".  There's
> still a bit of work to do on things like user settings for it,
> doing the same thing to the watchlist, and so on, but the page
> itself should be done and I'd like to get some reactions.

I miss a line that says that I am currently looking the last 50 or the ones
in the last 3 days.

It took me a minute or so to realize what the articles with the name '"'
were. So I'm not sure if that is really so intuitive. :-) Is that on purpose
or was it just easier to program? Perhaps an unlinked "idem" in italics?

-- Jan Hidders


body:
> It might also make sense to take the (diff) and (hist) links
> away on the sub-items. If the diff links were specific they
> might be nice, but it certainly makes no sense to a bunch of
> links to the exact same history list...

With the new implementation they can actually be valid; i.e.,
diffs of that specific version just like the history list.  I
just hadn't gotten around to that yet.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Parsing TeX

body:
I wrote in small part:

>And what do the braces represent?  TeX { and } or TeX \{ and \}?
>Consistency demands the latter, but this will confuse newbies.

Of course, I meant to write "former" instead of "latter".

-- Toby Bartels
   <toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Parsing TeX

body:
Jan Hidders wrote for the most part:

>First let me apologize for the late reply. My internet connection thought for
>some reason that it had to simulate a stack exchange (up, down, down, up,
>down, down, down), but an electrician has now convinced it to stay up.

No problem.
I myself will probably not reply to your next reply until Tuesday.
The Internet makes us used to nearly instantaneous communication,
but that just can't always happen.

>>OTOH, if you change it to [$x^2y = z_1$], then people that copy you
>>will be likely to write [$x% = x/100$], even without reading
>>[[Wikipedia:How does one edit a math page]] or whatever.

They will quickly notice that the end result is not what they expected and
then either go and read the manual anyway, or simply write ''x''% =
''x''/100 or [$x$]% = [$x$]/100.

I think that the version with the ''...'' is most likely --
they know how to use it, and [$...$] will get a reputation as Weird.
This will inspire them to use ''...'' all the time, to avoid trouble.
Then what do we have?  Essentially my system,
with one syntax for simple expressions and and another for complex.
You deplore this, and for reasonable reasons.
But I want to hammer out a standard for deciding between them.
The reason is that I predict such a dichotomy to be inevitable,
not because I *like* it.

>One of Axel's motivation for LaTeX is that we should
>be able to fairly easy exchange articles with planetmath.org. I agree with
>that and that would mean that you want to be able to do LaTeX in sentences.
>It is also one of the reasons why we should have a markup similar to $..$
>because that would make the conversion (by hand) simpler.

I don't know; ?do I want to make mass cutting and pasting easier? ^_^.
I'd actually like to hear from Axel; he's returned, but still silent.

-- Toby Bartels
   <toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu>


body:
I'm not enamoured with the ditto notation in the first place,
but 'Same as above' would be a lot clearer than '"'.
As Magnus remarked, above vs below may not be obvious.

-- Toby Bartels
   <toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Away until Tuesday.

body:
I'm signing off now and won't return until Monday night,
or quite possibly until sometime Tuesday (US time).

-- Toby Bartels
   <toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu>


from_name: Giskart

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> Please go look at
>
> http://www.piclab.com/newwiki/wiki.phtml
>
> and give me feedback on the way it does "Recent changes".  There's

I think i would be more logical to use for the server time UTC instead
of UTC -7 as the default. If the server time is UTC then it is much more
simple to find out the local time.

Giskart, Wikipedia NL


subject: [Wikipedia-l] wikipedia.org

body:
At the same time of a possibel switch and the creation of the non-proffit organisation it is a good time for considering to use the domain www.wikipedia.org as the website for this non-proffit organisation en general information and promotion for all the Wikipedia's.
The English Wikipedia can use en.wikipedia.org

Giskart


subject: [Wikipedia-l] More on marxists.org

body:
I have done a good deal more reading on their site, and I find that
virtually none of their material even comes close to NPOV.  It's
filled throughout with standard Marxist jargon -- which is very out of
the mainstream and treated (properly!) by most economists in the same
way that astrology is treated by psychiatrists.

Take this section for example, from "Market Socialism":

>Should the working class succeed in taking political power, capital
>would be abolished but there could be no question of simply
>'abolishing' the market. This would take time. However, the market
>inevitably generates inequality and the accumulation of capital, and
>even more seriously, commodity production and the day-to-day activity
>entailed in buying and selling oneself on the market is the very
>ground on which bourgeois ideology grows.

There are several unstated assumptions here that are central to
Marxist dogma but which have no place in an NPOV presentation.  For
example, it assumes that "should the working class succeed in taking
political power" the market *could* be abolished, but not "simply" --
it "would take time".  That's dogma on the same scientific level as
phrenology.

I suppose we could try to work with this stuff by prefacing everything
with "Marxists claim..." and ending it with "but virtually all
economists regard these Marxists as cranks."  But that doesn't make
for a very useful article about "market socialism".

--Jimbo


from_name: Magnus Manske

body:
Nice! A few minor points:
* The " thing made me stop for a moment, though; does it 'copy' the line
above (in the future) or the line below (in the past)?
* On "hide multiple edits", "changes" used to link to the history page.
Maybe the leading "(hist)" link could not be displayed in this mode, and
the "changes" could link to the history instead?
* Do we get all these nice settings in the user preferences as well?
* There should be a "list new changed only" link, with encoded date in
the link. Shouldn't be much work to hack.

Good work!

Magnus


subject: [Wikipedia-l] More on marxists.org

in_reply_to: <r5iu1luafus.fsf@gill.maths.keele.ac.uk>; from wiki@gwowen.freeserve.co.uk on Fri, Aug 16, 2002 at 06:11:23PM +0100

body:
Gareth Owen wrote:
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Marxists say the market inevitably generates inequality and the accumulation
> of capital, and even more seriously, commodity production and the day-to-day
> activity entailed in buying and selling oneself on the market is the very
> ground on which bourgeois ideology grows.[1]
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> and
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Followers of the Unification Church[2] believe Reverend Moon is the messiah,
> and that all the historical founders of all other religions have recently, in
> Heaven, proclaimed Moon's messiahship.
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

If the subject of the article was "Marxism" it would be just fine.
Even if the subject of the article was "Marxist views on market
socialism" it would be just fine.  But if the subject of the article
was "Market Socialism", it would be difficult to sort it out, and
probably not worth the trouble.

> Both camps sincerely hold those beliefs, and I don't know (or care) enough to
> naysay either of them, but, as I understand it, few outside their movements
> would give them much creedence.  I wouldn't dream of removing the latter, so I
> couldn't bring myself to remove the former, either.

Well, let's say that the UC sentence you quoted above was in an
article called "Beliefs about Messiahs" or "Messianic Ideas".  Then it
could be fit in with other things.

But if it was in an article about Christianity, for example, it would be
inappropriate.

--Jimbo


from_name: Andre Engels

in_reply_to:
<200208152349.g7FNnFh14346@ross.bomis.com> from "lcrocker@nupedia.com"
 at "Aug 15, 2002 04:49:15 pm"

body:
> Please go look at
>
> http://www.piclab.com/newwiki/wiki.phtml
>
> and give me feedback on the way it does "Recent changes".  There's
> still a bit of work to do on things like user settings for it,
> doing the same thing to the watchlist, and so on, but the page
> itself should be done and I'd like to get some reactions.

* The usage of " does not gain anything and would be confusing to those
  who see it for the first time; better remove it.

* Hiding multiple edits automatically hides minor edits, I don't think that
  this behaviour is intended

Andre Engels


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Searching with common words

body:
Andre Engels wrote:

>Could the search feature be changed such that common words, rather than
>blocking the whole search, are removed from it (provided that there are
>also non-common words in the search)? What I mean is having the search
>"kermit the frog" get out the same effect as "kermit frog" rather than
>none at all.
>
Don't you need to make a distinction here to allow for exact searches.
 In many engines "kermit the frog" with quotation marks would get you
exactly that phrase.  Without quotation marks it would behave as you
suggest.

Eclecticology


body:
I don't know whether this is the right forum to do this, but...

Could the search feature be changed such that common words, rather than
blocking the whole search, are removed from it (provided that there are
also non-common words in the search)? What I mean is having the search
"kermit the frog" get out the same effect as "kermit frog" rather than
none at all.

Andre Engels


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] More on marxists.org

body:
Jimbo wrote:

>I have done a good deal more reading on their site, and I find that
>virtually none of their material even comes close to NPOV.  It's
>filled throughout with standard Marxist jargon -- which is very out of
>the mainstream and treated (properly!) by most economists in the same
>way that astrology is treated by psychiatrists

It isn't even standard Marxist jargon, it's Trotskyist jargon. That said
though it's no worse than Ayn Rand stuff.

However, having observed people, in all innocence, reinvent Stalinism from
time to time, knowledge of Marxist theory belongs somewhere even if not as
the main theme of an article of economics.

Fred


from_name: Michael R. Irwin

body:
>
> lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> > Please go look at
> >
> > http://www.piclab.com/newwiki/wiki.phtml
> >
> > and give me feedback on the way it does "Recent changes".  There's

I like the toggle behavior of the in sentence view
preference commands. Rather slick implementation of
a local submenu and enough explanation to keep its
use obvious after a couple of clicks.

regards,
Mike Irwin


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia searching

body:
>> Could the search feature be changed such that common words,
>> rather than blocking the whole search, are removed from it
>> (provided that there are also non-common words in the search)?
>> What I mean is having the search "kermit the frog" get out the
>> same effect as "kermit frog" rather than none at all.

> I would like that, too.

I'm sure everyone would, which is why it has been an open feature
request in Sourceforge since the day the software was installed.
I initially resisted because it would require copying all of MySQL's
stoplist into the PHP code, but I suppose with the cache that it might
not be much of a performance hit, so I'll do it and see.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] More on marxists.org

in_reply_to: <3D5D6FEC.25AE14E6@surfbest.net>; from mri_icboise@surfbest.net on Fri, Aug 16, 2002 at 02:34:36PM -0700

body:
Michael R. Irwin wrote:
> Jimbo, you beg the question by ignoring that most economists
> treat each others views and models (properly in my view) the
> way most scientists treat astrology.

I don't think so.  There are academic journals and scholarly jousting
back and forth, to be sure.  But serious economists don't treat
each other that badly.

>  Why should Marxist economics dogma be held to a higher standard
> than Keynesian derived models and predictions that do not work well,
> if at all, prior to NPOV'ing for inclusion in Wikipedia?  8)

Well, as you may have seen, I have no objection to including
information about Marxism in the wikipedia.  None at all.  Or
information about Keynesian models, rational expectations, game
theory, and so on.

What I would object to is a generic article called "freedom" which
says "Freedom for the vast majority necessarily means restriction of
the freedom of a small minority to exploit the labour of others".

And "Positive freedom has been built up almost exclusively as a result
of the struggle of the working class: initially the legislation
limiting hours of work, child labour and so on, later the creation of
free compulsory education, public health systems, right to form trade
unions, and so forth, freedoms which explicitly limit the freedom of
the capitalists to exploit workers, but give worker the opportunity to
develop as human beings."

See the entire entry here:
http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/f/r.htm#freedom

Now, my objection is not just that these things are wrong, nor that
they are the noble foundation of the great riproaring genocides of the
past century.

My objection is that these articles are extremely and irreparably
NPOV.

> For example:  Military logistics as practiced by the U.S. might
> have some bearing on whether moneyless information can efficiently
> drive distribution.

No, I don't think so.  But my views on economics, and yours, are not
really the issue here.

> I have been told that Arrow did some extremely interesting
> Nobel Award level work on information augmenting money in market
> distribution. This could be just the opportunity to engage in a
> critical reading and dialogue with people carrying different
> implicit assumptions in their world view.  Assuming of course
> that they are as reasonable as most hard core Capitalists.

The role of information in the price system is a hot topic in
contemporary economics, but I don't think the wikipedia is an
appropriate forum for hashing out such a debate.

> I think we can do better than this but it will take some
> time and serious interest.   Perhaps, as the Marxists trickle
> in, we could send an engraved invitation to the John Birch
> society that their participation would be welcome?

John Birch society?

This objection suggests to me that you don't really get the point I'm
trying to make here.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Parsing TeX

body:
On Fri, Aug 16, 2002 at 03:20:05AM -0700, Toby Bartels wrote:
> Jan Hidders wrote for the most part:
> >
> > They will quickly notice that the end result is not what they expected
> > and then either go and read the manual anyway, or simply write ''x''% =
> > ''x''/100 or [$x$]% = [$x$]/100.
>
> I think that the version with the ''...'' is most likely --
> they know how to use it, and [$...$] will get a reputation as Weird.
> This will inspire them to use ''...'' all the time, to avoid trouble.
> Then what do we have?  Essentially my system,
> with one syntax for simple expressions and and another for complex.

More or less, but you would actually have a trichotomy because you would
have (1) ''..'', (2) $$..$$ and (3) [$..$]. The problem with (1) is of
course that we won't recognize it as math and do something special with it.
As usual I'm wondering if that is enough of a problem to warrant an extra
notation.

> >One of Axel's motivation for LaTeX is that we should be able to fairly
> >easy exchange articles with planetmath.org. [...] It is also one of the
> >reasons why we should have a markup similar to $..$ because that would
> >make the conversion (by hand) simpler.
>
> I don't know; ?do I want to make mass cutting and pasting easier? ^_^.

I said "by hand" didn't I? They have high quality stuff there and it fits
well in Wikpedia. Some copies have already been made, and I expect more in
the future.

> I'd actually like to hear from Axel; he's returned, but still silent.

I suspect he's been busy at Planetmath and, off the record, that's actually
also a reason why I would like to have LaTeX in Wikipedia as soon as
possible; I'm affraid we might otherwise completely lose Axel to Planetmath.
:-) That would be a big loss for the Wikipedia mathematics department.

-- Jan Hidders


subject: [Wikipedia-l] More on marxists.org

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
> I have done a good deal more reading on their site, and I find that
> virtually none of their material even comes close to NPOV.  It's
> filled throughout with standard Marxist jargon -- which is very out of
> the mainstream and treated (properly!) by most economists in the same
> way that astrology is treated by psychiatrists.

Jimbo, you beg the question by ignoring that most economists
treat each others views and models (properly in my view) the
way most scientists treat astrology.  Why should Marxist
economics dogma be held to a higher standard than Keynesian
derived models and predictions that do not work well, if at
all, prior to NPOV'ing for inclusion in Wikipedia?  8)

Remember trickle down Reagonomics?  That debate will be
interesting when, or if, sufficient people interested show up.

Now that data is available for arithmetic evaluation
of claims will any partisans abandon their dogma?

Now that no political gain is impending will any
partisans come forward to defend or attempt to
assist with presenting the dogma in a NPOV fashion?

>
> Take this section for example, from "Market Socialism":
>
> >Should the working class succeed in taking political power, capital
> >would be abolished but there could be no question of simply
> >'abolishing' the market. This would take time. However, the market
> >inevitably generates inequality and the accumulation of capital, and
> >even more seriously, commodity production and the day-to-day activity
> >entailed in buying and selling oneself on the market is the very
> >ground on which bourgeois ideology grows.
>
> There are several unstated assumptions here that are central to
> Marxist dogma but which have no place in an NPOV presentation.  For
> example, it assumes that "should the working class succeed in taking
> political power" the market *could* be abolished, but not "simply" --
> it "would take time".  That's dogma on the same scientific level as
> phrenology.

Not quite that bad.  The debate to attempt to NPOV the information
by identifying who has used what assumptions and what assertions have
working analogues in the real world should be quite interesting and
informative.   The results, if integrated well, could turn into a
highly informative article.

For example:  Military logistics as practiced by the U.S. might
have some bearing on whether moneyless information can efficiently
drive distribution.

I have been told that Arrow did some extremely interesting
Nobel Award level work on information augmenting money in market
distribution. This could be just the opportunity to engage in a
critical reading and dialogue with people carrying different
implicit assumptions in their world view.  Assuming of course
that they are as reasonable as most hard core Capitalists.

>
> I suppose we could try to work with this stuff by prefacing everything
> with "Marxists claim..." and ending it with "but virtually all
> economists regard these Marxists as cranks."  But that doesn't make
> for a very useful article about "market socialism".

I think we can do better than this but it will take some
time and serious interest.   Perhaps, as the Marxists trickle
in, we could send an engraved invitation to the John Birch
society that their participation would be welcome?  They
should have a few Trickle Down and anti Trickle Down adherents
hanging around somewhere, both camps confident that their
assumptions and models are better than Marxist equivalents.

The Marxists can help us sort out the Trickle Down jargon
while the capitalists help identify implicit Marxist
assumptions.

We could also request participation from unaffiliated critics
and adherents to new big ideas unproven in the wild.

If all else fails, perhaps we could interest some grade
school math and science students in helping us with the
actual arithmetic based upon actual economic data.

regards,
Mike Irwin


from_name: Pierre Abbat

subject: [Wikitech-l] Edit conflict when making redirect causes wrong page to be replaced

body:
I just saw a page [[Ethymology]], which resulted from a misspelled link on
[[Science]]. I edited it, replaced it with a redirect to [[Etymology]], and
got an edit conflict on [[Ethymology]] in which the left side was the
redirect and the right side the original text. I then erased the original
text, pasted the redirect, and hit submit. This resulted in replacing
[[Etymology]] with a redirect to itself. Can anyone figure out how this
happened?

phma