from_name: Tom Parmenter

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: 90000 articles

in_reply_to:
<20021113033607.54910.qmail@web21308.mail.yahoo.com> (message
	from Digital Addictions Software on Tue, 12 Nov 2002 19:36:07 -0800
	(PST))

body:
|From: Digital Addictions Software <digitaladdictions at yahoo.com>
|Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 19:36:07 -0800 (PST)
|
|> I think we should implement the greatly-pared-down counting scheme we were
|> discussing on the list earlier.  We don't have 90K articles.  We have
|> about 50K articles and about 40K geographical entries automatically
|> created from a database.
|
|I guess I just take these things personally, but many of those geographical
|entries are more articles than those other 50k non-geographical articles.  They
|have more information.  People are just uncomfortable because they don't like
|the data because it does not interest them or because it was created in a mass
|quantity.  No one complains when others write articles that have two or three
|sentences.  In fact no one complained when I made these articles on a small
|scale, in fact I got a number of people who told me it was a great thing.  I
|think we need to stop separating the geographics articles from everything else.
| They are all articles and should be treated as such.  If you don't like them,
|add to them.
|    Ram-Man
|
You tell 'em, Ram-Man.

Every town and county has a story.  It is up to the contributors to
fill those in.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with providing a
foundation for the Wikipedia of information on every town and county
in the country.  I have added information to at least 15 of these so
far (see my user page) and I'm not the only one who has done it.
Rather than complaining we should be promoting these entries.

Erick, Oklahoma has a population of 1,023.  Erick was home to two of
[[country music]]'s more idiosyncratic performers. [[Sheb Wooley]],
the actor, songwriter, and singer who recorded the saga of the
"one-eyed one-horned flying purple people eater" was born there in
[[1921]].  [[Roger Miller]], country superstar and author of "King of
the Road", "Dang Me", "You Can't Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd", and
many others, was born in [[Fort Worth, Texas]], but raised in Erick
from the age of 3.

Is your town in the Wikipedia?  Check and see.  Maybe you can tell us
something about it.  Who was born there?

Have you looked up your county in the Wikipedia?  What's the county
seat?  Who is it named after?  Is there a cave?  A mondadnock?  The
oldest boy scout camp in the country?

Where was that person born?  Where did that tornado hit?  Where have
you been?  What did you see there?

It's better to light a candle than curse the darkness.  Ram-Man has
lit 40,000 candles and you're cursing him.  Why is that?  Have you
done anything to improve his entries?  It is dead easy.

My hometown, Valdosta, Georgia has the winningest high-school football
team of all time.  Notable natives include Western
dentist-gunfighter-gambler Doc Holliday and James Lord Pierpoint,
composer of "Jingle Bells".

What happened where you live?  Where you lived?  Where your kid sister
moved?

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: 90000 articles

body:
On Tuesday 12 November 2002 08:46 pm, wikipedia-l-request at wikipedia.org wrote:
> I guess I just take these things personally, but many of those geographical
> entries are more articles than those other 50k non-geographical articles.
>  They have more information.  People are just uncomfortable because they
> don't like the data because it does not interest them or because it was
> created in a mass quantity.  No one complains when others write articles
> that have two or three sentences.  In fact no one complained when I made
> these articles on a small scale, in fact I got a number of people who told
> me it was a great thing.  I think we need to stop separating the
> geographics articles from everything else. They are all articles and should
> be treated as such.  If you don't like them, add to them.
>     Ram-Man

I for one really like the Rambot articles /themselves/ but what I, and I
suspect many others, feel uncomfortable about is that they were machine
generated and /not/ individually created by a human being.

One of the /major/ points of having an article count is to measure the
relative progress of our community effort. Therefore it is not surprising
that many people feel that their relative contribution to the project is
somehow lessoned in value when a bot comes around and does in three weeks
what took 2,000 + humans over a year to do.

There is also concern that a critical media reporter might use the fact that
"almost half" of our articles are machine-generated against us. If anything
we should be as conservative as possible in our article counts to avoid
giving our critics easy ways to dismiss our progress.

That is why I support the idea of letting the software not count the rambot
articles as articles until at least one non-minor edit is made (this set-up
relies on rambot only adding new content via minor edits in the future).

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] enough of the foul language please

body:
Karen AKA Kajikit wrote:

>I do not enjoy seeing those words every time I download my email! And I
>don't enjoy the perpetual squabbling that's going on here either. I
>thought this was about making a better wikipedia, not acting like five
>year olds in the playground. If it doesn't improve SOON I'll be leaving
>the list again because I'm sick of this.
>
Although I have a fairly high personal tolerance for this kind of
language, I am sympathetic to your complaints.  But as much as I may
believe in free speech, I find that some users become so carried away
with proclaiming their right to free speech, that they ignore the equaly
valid rights of others not to be unduly exposed to objectionable
language.  They also ignore the fact that when such language is used to
excess it becomes clich? and loses its effectiveness.  In the right
circumstances it can be quite effective as in the following creation of
the contemporary Scots poet, Ivor Cutler.

>"Living creatures, unaware of Man's immortal soul, see
>him only as a vicious, destructive creature with an
>infinite capacity for making a mess, unable to relate to
>the earth & without aesthetics. As a dying butterfly was
>heard to whisper.........'He's a fucking lunatic!' "
>
I too feel distracted by the interminable missives over banning and
other disciplinary matters, but it won't be the issue that drives me
away.  It does mean that I'll ignore a lot of these e-mails, and
probably miss the creative gems that do occasionally appear.

 From time to time I've considered promoting Wikipedia as a teaching aid
to teachers and others who deal with children, but the often
inconsiderate use of language makes me very hesitant about that.

Eclecticology.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: 90000 articles

body:
Digital Addictions Software wrote:

>>I think we should implement the greatly-pared-down counting scheme we were
>>discussing on the list earlier.  We don't have 90K articles.  We have
>>about 50K articles and about 40K geographical entries automatically
>>created from a database.
>>
>I guess I just take these things personally, but many of those geographical
>entries are more articles than those other 50k non-geographical articles.  They
>have more information.  People are just uncomfortable because they don't like
>the data because it does not interest them or because it was created in a mass
>quantity.  No one complains when others write articles that have two or three
>sentences.  In fact no one complained when I made these articles on a small
>scale, in fact I got a number of people who told me it was a great thing.  I
>think we need to stop separating the geographics articles from everything else.
> They are all articles and should be treated as such.  If you don't like them,
>add to them.
>
As one who feels that your additions were appropriate, I fully support
their inclusion as proper articles.

There's a question of anti-robotism involved.  They like having robots
do their drudge work, but they wouldn't want their computer to marry one.
Eclecticology


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Personal categories.

body:
> > Thus if we were to use the Library of Congress
> letter classifications
> > (which has the benefit of being usable without
> reinventing the wheel)
> > all articles concerned with mathematics would
> receive a "QA" code.  A
> > person interested in mathematics could add the
> "QA" code to his
> > preferences, and on request would be able to
> receive a list of the
> > recent changes in articles about mathematics.
> Having several boxes
> > associated with an article, allows for the fact
> that some articles may
> > be relevant to more than one category.  An article
> on mathematical
> > applications in psychology would have both a "QA"
> and a "BF" code.

Hum, this made me think over foul langage again, and
mostly about "some" of the articles, that might be
considered offensive to some (ref eclecticology and
kid use at school).

Offensive articles (or thought to be...) could be part
of the classification (say, classified XX). Then, it
would be possible to disconnect view of these
articles.

* either by default (I definitly don't support that)
* or possible to disconnect them in the prefs

The second option could be used for "educational"
accounts, and relieve educators from the fear to see
an article dealing on "fuck" on the screen.

The offensive articles could disappear from the links
(is that possible ?), but mostly from the search
function (I am sure typing "fuck" in the search box is
among the 10 tries of a kid...)

We could put tmc in the offensive xx category ? :-)))

__________________________________________________
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from_name: Jason Williams

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Locked database

body:
On Tue, Nov 12, 2002 at 02:53:58PM -0800, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> >>Why would I be singled out?  With everything being said about me lately?
> >>Am I just paranoid?
> >>Zoe
> >>
> >
> >Ah yes, I suppose you wouldn't have seen the discussion on
> >[[wikipedia:The Anti-Zoe Conspiracy]], would you?
> >
> It was an "anti-" page, so it was likely deleted as soon as it was seen :-)

Good cover, but she's never going to believe that! :-)

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


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [Wikipedia-l] RE: Offensive usernames

body:
In respect to Karen and other lovers of small, soft, or furry creatures, let us rein in our salty language.

And for the record: yes, it was I who created the F****** A****** user account and vandalized several pages. I was trying to make a point, i.e., that our social contract has loopholes that can and will be exploited.

I apologize to all for using illegitmate means to dramatize my point.

Unlike TMC, I am perfectly willing to be bound by the rules that others make. I am an absolutist -- rather than a relativist -- and I am obligated by my religious beliefs to avoid actions which harm others for my own benefit, and to carry out actions that benefit others (even to the point of self-sacrifice)

Thus I will refrain from offending Karen and from frustrating Uncle Mike's desire to use Wikipedia as a teaching tool for children. I myself long ago decided not to let my children use Wikipedia, for the very reasons Karen and mirwin gave -- and which I dramatized with the F.A. episode.

Please, some developer, erase the F.A. user account which I created.

Penitently,

Ed Poor


from_name: Christopher Mahan

subject: [Wikipedia-l] The poor, tired, windshield police...

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

> So I say censorship software is probably a waste
> of time and undesirable.   A public librarian or
> school board might have a different perspective.
> Likewise other parents and relatives with different
> rearing habits or experiences.

Yeah, I agree. In fact, there are a lot more interesting things to
look at on the internet for a kid than an encyclopedia, no matter how
"racy" it might be.

=====
Christopher Mahan
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

__________________________________________________
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U2 on LAUNCH - Exclusive greatest hits videos
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Censorship and bowdlerization

body:
I like the idea expressed by Anthere and others of finding a way to shield tender eyes from "adult" stuff. A significant minority of users believe that young people of a certain age should not be exposed to certain materials.

This is totally without prejudice to the debate over whether sexuality is "sinful", just a reflection of the desire of many parents and educators to introduce some subjects step by step, keyed to the maturity level of the learner.

Someday, we plan to make the Wikipedia available on CD-ROM for schools and libraries that don't have T-1 lines (or the patience to tolerate the "lag" problem). It would be very useful to allow a parent or educator to filter out a few articles such as [[****-piercing]] or [[fisting]] or whatever.

A rating system would facilitate this.

I myself would like to be able to filter out the following (in no particular order):
* Any mention of TMC's username (as in Recent Changes, his user page and user talk page)
* All articles on bizarre sexuality (BDSM, etc.)

I would like to retain the articles related to homosexuality, since they are so well written (i.e., NPOV rather than pro-gay) -- but I might be biased by pride of workmanship since I put a lot of effort into some of them.

Those who don't want this filtering should be able to bypass it easily.

So it could be a user option, with the default set to NO FILTERING.

Ed Poor
Tolerant Absolutist


body:
Steve Callaway wrote:

>It's much easier just to delete the pages you don't like or which don't suit
>your agenda, though, isn't it Magnus?
>
Before you delete them you have to know that they are there.

 Some terms like "pussy" have both ordinary and ribald meanings.  How
often on "Are You Being Served?" did we here about Mrs. Slocum's pussy?
 From our perspective the filtering would only be used to identify the
articles.  It is then up to the end user to adjust his preferences
accordingly if he wants things filtered.

Eclecticology


body:
--- Steve Callaway <sjc at easynet.co.uk> wrote:
> This is a very dangerous area indeed and a seriously
> slippery slope. I can
> see the arguments for it but the obverse side of
> this coin is that if it's
> possible to introduce sexual censorship in this way
> it is entirely
> conceivable that political censorship could be
> attained by a similar
> mechanism. This is NOT a genie to be let out of the
> bottle. There is enough
> political and social hypocrisy and outright
> political propaganda in the
> corpus of Wikipedia already without introducing
> convenient new mechanisms
> for the thought & ideas police.

Indeed it is very dangerous. For how would we decide
which articles are to be put in the list of "to
filter" or not "to filter"?

But isn't that ''filter'' somehow already on, when
some people complain for some titles/articles and ask
them to be removed because they find them offensive
???

What is better
- that articles are not there at all, because too many
people threaten to leave if they are and fight for
them to be removed.
- that articles are here, but might be put in a
"special" list in case the readers really find reading
them too much to bear
- that articles are here, free and open, but that the
encyclopedia is not used because too offensive.

Well, it was just an idea to support one side. I think
their point of view and sensibility is important to
consider and deserve attention. Cultural differences
on sexual matters can be very high.

On political matters, neutrality can be approached by
stating facts and explaining every point of view.

Neutrality on sexual matters cannot be reached through
showing all point of views ;-)

Maybe is it that giving all the details, the
pictures...somehow is forcing a point of view on
'sensible' (no judgement value here) person : forcing
on them the point of view of those with tough-skin and
'liberal' education toward kids.

Maybe a two-level reading could solve the matter - one
expurged, and one not. With the choice for the
expurged one.

Again, I know this is dangerous in terms of
censorship. I agree. Still, that ought to be adressed.

(My own level of tolerance is pretty high on the
sexual scale - hope there is no misleading hint here)

__________________________________________________
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body:
There is a difference between a true encyclopedia and a book for
children.

Can you imagine a book where attacks against indians were perpetrated
by a detachment of the british army during the french and indian war
under the command or none other than George Washington (he fought
that war, that wasn't a pretty war--none are), and then the next
paragraph exhalts the same man as the Father of our Country?

(I am not stating this is a fact, just saying that if in the future
such example came to light, I would put it in wikipedia)

This would have absolutely nothing to do with porn and sensitivities,
but I bet you there would be 100,000,000 people calling for the FBI,
the CIA, and the Office of Homeland Security (if it ever sees the
light of day) to shut down the server, arrest all involved, and
charge them with sedition. We are at war, remember, and there are
people in US jails who have been denied due process because of the
color of their skin, origin, and/or religion. I wouldn't put it past
the Ashcroft Posse.

So the encyclopedia should have a big fat disclaimer on top: "This is
intended for a mature audience" (let the reader, based on their
culture and jurisdiction decide what mature is to them), and let it
be at that.

The girl holding the pussy and asking the question can go under
"eroticism: the power of suggestion".

=====
Christopher Mahan
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

__________________________________________________
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from_name: Axel Boldt

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: 90000 articles

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

> One of the /major/ points of having an article count is to measure
the
> relative progress of our community effort. Therefore it is not
surprising
> that many people feel that their relative contribution to the project
is
> somehow lessoned in value when a bot comes around and does in three
weeks
> what took 2,000 + humans over a year to do.

> There is also concern that a critical media reporter might use the
fact that
> "almost half" of our articles are machine-generated against us. If
anything
> we should be as conservative as possible in our article counts to
avoid
> giving our critics easy ways to dismiss our progress.

These are good arguments for omitting Ram's articles from the count;
there are equally good arguments for including them: after all most
everyone seems to agree that they are perfectly good articles, and we
wouldn't want to discriminate against machines, no would we?

Any single article number on the main page is bound to be a misleading
simplification. I agree with Toby's suggestion: "We have many thousands
of articles" and make that a link to the statistics page, where we
present, with all the appropriate explanations and caveats, the counts
of human edited articles, all articles, articles longer than 500
characters, 1000 characters, the growth rates, etc. etc.

Besides, I find boasting about the article number rather childish.
100,000 times crap is still crap, just more of it.

Axel

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from_name: Michael R. Irwin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Personal categories.

body:
Anthere wrote:
>

<snip good discussion>

> We could put tmc in the offensive xx category ? :-)))
>

This would presumably censor his home page.

The issue of his signature scattered through
random talk pages, the recent log, other
meta pages and mailing lists would remain.

Regards,
Mike Irwin


body:
Anthere wrote:

>--- Steve Callaway <sjc at easynet.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>This is a very dangerous area indeed and a seriously
>>slippery slope. I can
>>see the arguments for it but the obverse side of
>>this coin is that if it's
>>possible to introduce sexual censorship in this way
>>it is entirely
>>conceivable that political censorship could be
>>attained by a similar
>>mechanism. This is NOT a genie to be let out of the
>>bottle. There is enough
>>political and social hypocrisy and outright
>>political propaganda in the
>>corpus of Wikipedia already without introducing
>>convenient new mechanisms
>>for the thought & ideas police.
>>
>Indeed it is very dangerous. For how would we decide
>which articles are to be put in the list of "to
>filter" or not "to filter"?
>
We can only make whatever filtering mechanism we choose available, and
generally defaulted to "off".  The choice to apply it lies with the user.

>What is better
>1- that articles are not there at all, because too many
>people threaten to leave if they are and fight for
>them to be removed.
>2- that articles are here, but might be put in a
>"special" list in case the readers really find reading
>them too much to bear
>3- that articles are here, free and open, but that the
>encyclopedia is not used because too offensive.
>
I prefer 2, which gives choice to the reader.

>Maybe a two-level reading could solve the matter - one
>expurged, and one not. With the choice for the
>expurged one.
>
Not practical.  We have enough difficulties with NPOV; getting the
contributors to make two versions of articles may not get many writers
out.  On top of that tolerance is not simply an off/on switch.  For
example, some people believe in open sexual discussion, as long as it
doesn't involve "perverted" sex.  The "meaning" of "perverted" then
becomes an open question.

>Again, I know this is dangerous in terms of
>censorship. I agree. Still, that ought to be adressed.
>
Your idea of using the "XX" code as a filter is good.  I would extend
that to saying that any "X" code could be used for articles with some
kind of restriction.  This would allow for a gradation of explicit
articles where the "XX" might be used for the most offensive ones of the
"goatse" variety, and "XS" could refer to something that a relatively
small portion of the readers might find offensive.  One possible use of
other "X" codes could be using "XC" for copyright restricted, when
copyright problems arise.  Access to this category might be restricted
to sysops while the copyright problems are being resolved, and the
restrictions removed when the review is complete.

I"m still waiting for comments from someone about the technical
feasibility of my letter code idea.

>(My own level of tolerance is pretty high on the
>sexual scale - hope there is no misleading hint here)
>
I have no plans to visit France in the forseeable future.  Hypothesis
testing will just have to wait.

Eclecticology


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Strong request for a new edit window boilerplate requested (was Re: Lir)

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

> I make a /strong/ request that some type of user agreement message be
> added to each edit window. It could state something like the
following;
>
>     "By pressing save you indicate that you agree to the
>      rules and conditions of using this website"
>
> 'rules and conditions', as I've stated in previous emails, would be a
> [in a new window] link to a simplified version of the policy page
with just
> the basics; NPOV, 'we are an encyclopedia', no copyright violations
and
> Wikipetiquette.

I think that's a good idea. I would modify the text a bit: the rules
are more about *contributing* rather than *using*, i.e. reading. Maybe

    "By pressing save you indicate that you agree to the rules
     and conditions of contributing to this website"

or even nicer

     "By pressing save you indicate that you agree to the rules
      of our community."

This could replace the current GFDL copyright notice.

In any event, the [[Wikipedia:Wikipetiquette]] document right now is a
joke and can in this form not be made part of the rules. E.g. rule 1:
"Try to say something positive for each complaint you make." ?? If
Wikipetiquette is to be included, than it has to be a minimalistic
version: be polite, no personal attacks.

Axel

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from_name: tarquin

subject:
Offensive usernames (was: Re: [Wikipedia-l] The poor, tired, windshield
 police...)

body:
Christopher Mahan wrote:

> Mike Irwin wrote:
>   Having Fucking Asshole and Throbbing Monster Cock
> in use as accounts names and spread throughout the
> Wikipedia greatly limits the appeal and utility of
> the database and site for a lot of potential users.
>
Agreed. We have already lost Isis because of this. Let's agree on policy
& then a) removed "Fucking Asshole" (it was Ed making a point, wasn't
it?) and b) insist "Throbbing Monster Cock" choose a different name

>
> My reply:
>
> Could pages be rated for maturity and the appropriate rating meta tag
> be inserted into the page header for childproofing software?
>
I don't see a problem in a page like "fuck" -- it discusses the
etymology, history and suitability of a word which a child can find in a
dictionary (and hear on television).
I would much rather a child, on hearing the word, went to look it up on
wikipedia to rather than mindlessly repeat it.

>
>


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Nick Hill

subject: [Wikitech-l] A projection

body:
On Tue, 12 Nov 2002 11:56:31 +0000
Nick Hill <nick at nickhill.co.uk> wrote:

> A scalable solution is to give nearly all responsibility for all wiki
> functionality to mirror servers. Updates are posted directly to the main
> Wiki server which in turn posts the database updates to registered first
> tier mirrors which, in turn, can post database updates to second tier
> mirrors registered with them and so on.

With such a scheme, IP blocking and anti-vandalism features would still be
implemented in much the same way as they are now, on the main server, where
the master database is held. The master server would handle html form puts.

> This way, all mirrors can be kept
> in sync in near real time with a minimum of CPU, memory and network load.
> The main server then need do nothing other than maintain database
> consistency, accept and post updates.

The update system can be achieved by either:
1) the main server creating SQL files to be emailed to mirror servers,
signed with a key pair, sequentially numbered to ensure they are
automatically processed in order 	this way, the server can run
asynchronously with the mirrors which is	better for reliability of the
server. The server will not need to wait	for connection responses from the
mirror and updates will be cached in	the mail system should the mirror
be unavailable. The server will	only need to create one email per update.
The mail system infrastructure	will take care of sending the data to each
mirror. In fact, a system	such as pipermail used on this list would solve the
problem	wonderfully. Mirror admins simply subscribe to the list to get all
	updates sent to their machine and can manually download updates they are
	missing from the list!)

Or
2) by the master server opening a connection directly to the SQL daemon on
each remote machine 	In which case the server will need to track what
the mirrors have and	have not received updates and need to wait for
time-out on	non-operational mirrors)(this system may open exploits on
the server	via the sql interface).


body:
> I have no plans to visit France in the forseeable
> future.  Hypothesis
> testing will just have to wait.

To read XX wikip?dias articles on the same screen
together ???

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from_name: Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Personal categories.

body:
On 12-11-2002, Ray Saintonge wrote thusly :
> Daniel Mayer wrote:
> >Somebody else had the idea of creating different types of /useful/
> >categories such as Wikipedians who have knowledge of certain subjects. I
> >think this a great idea that should be integrated with the Wikipedia:Help
> >Desk page along with the Wikipedians page. These types of categories are
> >useful because they further goals of the project.
Ray Saintonge wrote :
> In conjunction with this, I believe it was Larry who wanted some sort of
> article subject classification.  Tying these two ideas together with the
> recent changes page.  Each article could have a few boxes where the
> writer could enter category codes.  The Wikipedians who are interested
> in that category (i.e. potential editors) could enter themselves on the
> category list for that code, or perhaps enter a list of these codes in
> their preferences.  Recent changes could as a default function as it
> does now,  but could optionally provide a categorized list based on one
> or more of the codes in the person's preferences.
>
> Thus if we were to use the Library of Congress letter classifications
> (which has the benefit of being usable without reinventing the wheel)
> all articles concerned with mathematics would receive a "QA" code.  A
> person interested in mathematics could add the "QA" code to his
> preferences, and on request would be able to receive a list of the
> recent changes in articles about mathematics.  Having several boxes
> associated with an article, allows for the fact that some articles may
> be relevant to more than one category.  An article on mathematical
> applications in psychology would have both a "QA" and a "BF" code.

Good, logical and useful idea. But I think it should not be an in promptu
solution but rather a design solution and implemented early on in the
project's history.

Funny, I remember similar proposals when we had less than 15000 comma
articles.

Regards,
Kpjas.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] unproductive posts

body:
Lars wrote:
> Was this written by the real Ed Poor?  It is so stupid, that I must
> assume that the SMTP header was forged.  I don't want to be on a
> mailing list with people this stupid.  I would suggest that Ed just
> pack up his things and leave the project for ever, or we should make
> an investigation into who really sent that message.

SJC wrote:
> It's much easier just to delete the pages you don't like or which don't
> suit your agenda, though, isn't it Magnus?
>
> Steve Callaway

Stop it you two. Lars, Ed was trying to make a valid point and you repay that
with a stupid, unproductive and unnecessarily combative response. Granted it
wasn't the most productive way to accomplish his ends but Ed is one of our
best, if not the best, community builders and he deserves much more respect
than that. Your, comment, on the other hand, only tends to tear down
community.

SJC, get over it. The wikipedia namespace is not a place for propaganda an POV
divisiveness -- it is a place to describe and work on the /NPOV/
encyclopedia. You have already been told that you can use your user page or
Meta for most of your POV needs. So this is hardly censorship when we offer
you valid forums for this. Then there is also geocities, again free.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [Wikipedia-l] RE: Offensive usernames

body:
On Wed, 2002-11-13 at 10:43, Lars Aronsson wrote:
>
> Somebody with the IP address mail11.disney.com [208.246.35.55] sent
> this message in the name of "Poor, Edmund W":
>
> > And for the record: yes, it was I who created the F****** A******
> > user account and vandalized several pages. I was trying to make a
> > point,
>
> Was this written by the real Ed Poor?  It is so stupid, that I must
> assume that the SMTP header was forged.  I don't want to be on a
> mailing list with people this stupid.  I would suggest that Ed just
> pack up his things and leave the project for ever, or we should make
> an investigation into who really sent that message.
>
Yes, it was him.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Personal categories.

body:
--- "Michael R. Irwin" <mri_icboise at surfbest.net>
wrote:
>
>
> Anthere wrote:
> >
>
> <snip good discussion>
>
> > We could put tmc in the offensive xx category ?
> :-)))
> >
>
> This would presumably censor his home page.
>
> The issue of his signature scattered through
> random talk pages, the recent log, other
> meta pages and mailing lists would remain.

Hello Micha?l

If user names were to be censored, and in particular
tmc one

1) recent changes will only last a couple of days

2) maybe some technical magic can take care of
converting his full name in tmc in talk pages and such
?

3) mailing lists and meta pages may have no reason of
being censored. It seems that most offended by X
issues are concerned by kids looking at the
questionable names. Mailing list and meta are for
building teams, not encyclopedic articles. So, not
supposed to be read by kids.

4) if user can express their political pov on their
user page, their is no reason why they could not
express other type of pov.

Peace

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
U2 on LAUNCH - Exclusive greatest hits videos
http://launch.yahoo.com/u2


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Censorship and bowdlerization

body:
On Wednesday 13 November 2002 09:18 am, wikipedia-l-request at wikipedia.org
wrote:
>......
> But, the three options above might be just perfect for the "stable"
> wikipedia version that Larry proposed. Contents there will be controlled
> and checked anyway, so a little categorization on the side will be
> managable to the reviewers. The readers there would see categories and
> filters, but things like editing, talk, and all the tons of links needed
> for an "editable" encyclopedia will not be there, so there's plenty of
> room. Beside, we wouldn't want to give a CD-ROM with a current wikipedia
> dump to a school anyway. The reviewed version would be perfect for that.
>
> Magnus

I now agree. WIkipedia is not the place to have self-descriptive tags on
articles. Newbies won't know about them and old hands would be swamped with
adding and reviewing tag relevance. There are also /way/ too many articles
now to really even consider this. This idea /may/ have been possible to
implement a year ago but IMO it is too late now. But this idea is perfect for
Larrypedia/sifter.

However, I still think it would be neat to automatically set-up 'communities
of articles' by having some software program dig through all the article
links and see what links where, what links back, how often and then assign
scores to articles - higher scores for a given category would be categorized
in that category. The program can start from the Main Page, dig its way down
into the links and then group links based on the categories we have on the
Main Page.

This of course wouldn't be perfect and the 'categories' would need to be made
into lists that could then be human edited. But then we could use the 'Watch
links' function to have a customized Recent Changes and searches.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] RE: Offensive usernames

body:
Fine. I'm going to leave anyway, if articles like [[pussy]] with the picture of girls holding kittens at waist level and saying "Do you want to see my pussy?" and usernames like Throbbing Monster Cock are permitted.

Ed Poor
212-456-5479 <-- call this number if you don't believe it's me.

-----Original Message-----
From: Lars Aronsson [mailto:lars at aronsson.se]
Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2002 10:44 AM
To: wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] RE: Offensive usernames

Somebody with the IP address mail11.disney.com [208.246.35.55] sent
this message in the name of "Poor, Edmund W":

> And for the record: yes, it was I who created the F****** A******
> user account and vandalized several pages. I was trying to make a
> point,

Was this written by the real Ed Poor?  It is so stupid, that I must
assume that the SMTP header was forged.  I don't want to be on a
mailing list with people this stupid.  I would suggest that Ed just
pack up his things and leave the project for ever, or we should make
an investigation into who really sent that message.

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

_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: Throbbing Monster Cock

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Requesting Sysop Status

body:
I am requesting sysop status on Wikipedia.

Quoting [[Wikipedia:Administrators]]

> Wikipedia policy is to grant this access liberally
> to anyone who has been an active Wikipedia
> contributor for a while and is generally a known and
> active member of the community.

I have been active on Wikipedia since October 15th.

I am a known and active member of the community.

Sample pages I have contributed to:

[[Flag of Germany]]
[[Rainbow Flag]]
[[Flag of Oregon]]
[[Oregon]]
[[Michael Bellesiles]]
[[Sea of Cortez]]

--TMC

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
U2 on LAUNCH - Exclusive greatest hits videos
http://launch.yahoo.com/u2


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Strong request for a new edit window boilerplate

body:
On Wednesday 13 November 2002 11:24 am, wikipedia-l-request at wikipedia.org
wrote:
Axel Boldt wrote:
> I think that's a good idea. I would modify the text a bit: the rules
> are more about *contributing* rather than *using*, i.e. reading. Maybe
>
>     "By pressing save you indicate that you agree to the rules
>      and conditions of contributing to this website"
>
> or even nicer
>
>      "By pressing save you indicate that you agree to the rules
>       of our community."
>
> This could replace the current GFDL copyright notice.
>
> In any event, the [[Wikipedia:Wikipetiquette]] document right now is a
> joke and can in this form not be made part of the rules. E.g. rule 1:
> "Try to say something positive for each complaint you make." ?? If
> Wikipetiquette is to be included, than it has to be a minimalistic
> version: be polite, no personal attacks.
>
> Axel

I really like your rewording and idea to replace the ancient GFDL copyright
notice. But it probably is still a good idea to save the core message of the
GFDL for legal reasons (since authors give up certain rights to control their
work when it is under the GFDL). So how about this;

       "By pressing save you indicate that you agree to the rules
        of our community and also agree to license your own work under terms
        of the GNU Free Documentation License."

'rules of our community' would be a link to a very simplified version of our
core policies, 'license' would be a link to Wikipedia:Copyrights, and 'GNU
Free Documentation License' would be a direct link to our local (and
protected) copy of GNU FDL. All the links should open up in a new window.

My idea might be too link heavy so I'm not too attached to the second or third
links (which would be linked on the simplified policy page anyway).

Somebody already mentioned a 'users bill of rights'. It would be nice to have
that also linked from the simplified policy page.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] RE: Offensive usernames

body:
Lars Aronsson wrote:
>
> Somebody with the IP address mail11.disney.com [208.246.35.55] sent
> this message in the name of "Poor, Edmund W":
>
> > And for the record: yes, it was I who created the F****** A******
> > user account and vandalized several pages. I was trying to make a
> > point,
>
> Was this written by the real Ed Poor?  It is so stupid, that I must
> assume that the SMTP header was forged.  I don't want to be on a
> mailing list with people this stupid.  I would suggest that Ed just
> pack up his things and leave the project for ever, or we should make
> an investigation into who really sent that message.

It did not seem stupid or obnoxiously fatuous to me.

It appeared political and diplomatic.  Further comment
below:

Ed said:

> In respect to Karen and other lovers of small, soft, or furry creatures, let us rein
> in our salty language.

Interesting.  Ed has voluntarily agreed to desist with
behavior that he and others find potentially damaging
to Wikipedia.

A standard which trolling regulars sometimes fail to
meet when having disagreements with others.

IMHO It is not stupid to attempt to get along with others.
Many people consider turnabout fair play.  I do not find
this stupid either, but this may be rather transparently
self serving.

>
> And for the record: yes, it was I who created the F****** A****** user account and
> vandalized several pages. I was trying to make a point, i.e., that our social contract
> has loopholes that can and will be exploited.

The point was effectively made.   I had missed "TMC"s
previous contributions but was aware that we lack any
means of ratifying community policy, applying consistent
education and enforcement efforts, and even vary substantially
in how we inform novices and regulars alike that we think
they are in error relative to currently prevailing
community expectations (which change rapidly with the weather
and the influences of newcomers).

No lasting harm.   I also have currently not invited
minors to participate here as I am not yet satisfied that
an effective, pleasant, educational environment has been
established uniformly for longer than microseconds.

So Ed's actions highlighted an existing problem by making
it a bit worse temporarily.

Stupid?  Perhaps not.  A flu shot lowers your resistance
to the flu temporarily to produce a more robust immune
system.  Timing is everything .... well sometimes it is
something anyway.

>
> I apologize to all for using illegitmate means to dramatize my point.

I contend this is a fallacious and erronius statement
which I now assume was made with good diplomatic intentions.

I mean it is possible I suppose that Ed stupidly made
a mistake .... it is not paranoid to assume he is sneaking
up on us again to make another point if he has already admitted
doing so once ... is it?

There is no legitimate authority on this site beyond
that fact that Mr. Wales through Bomis owns the server,
hard drive, and bandwidth we are using.

Despite Mr. Crockers allegation that I am a liar I
suspect he will confirm the approximate truthfulness of
the above statement if you ask him nicely or else
explain why it is untruthful and provide you with the
complete truth as he sees it.

If there is no legitimate authority or means of establishing
policy or procedures which it is expected legitimate actions
will fall within .... then how can there illegitimate means
of making a point?  We are reduced to expediency and Ed's
actions seem to have provoked some discussion of issues
pertinent to resolving some widely percieved problems.

Personally I think the time for growth serving diplomacy
is past.  We have a substantial community who has bought
into the Wikipedia concept and our current progress is
being stalled by unnecessary strife, discord, and confusion
regarding how to establish a legitimate governing authority
for our community.  With clarity those who agree can contribute
in a better constrained environment and those who do not
agree can move on .... possibly prior to buying in via
uncompensated contributions to the database.  Would any
consider a site designed to receive uncompensated contributions
from non citizens prior to banning them for failing to
respond to the cabal's dictates an abusively exploitive
situation?

Mr. Wales does not own me or GPL'd source code or
the FDL'd database.  Thus there are limits to the influence
which can be brought to bear by appeal to the owner.

Since one of our rules is to disregard the rules nothing
Ed or "TMC" have done can be viewed as "illegitimate".

Does it follow that since we have no rules and people can
always move on that there is no way to abusively exploit
casual drop in users?

I do not find this attempted misstatement of Ed's in
support of diplomacy "stupid".
Merely ineffective at this time in the context of larger
goals implied by our Wikipedia mission.

So .... nobody attempt to use Ed's fallacious admission
of illegitimate means as a means of convincing me that
my methods are illegitimate.  Better simply to allege
troll or liar until sufficient community support has
materialized for a lynching party.

>
> Unlike TMC, I am perfectly willing to be bound by the rules that others make. I am an
> absolutist -- rather than a relativist -- and I am obligated by my religious beliefs
> to avoid actions which harm others for my own benefit, and to carry out actions that
> benefit others (even to the point of self-sacrifice)

I require due process, appropriate symmetry, and the consent
of the governed before I am bound by self discipline by rules
others make.

I have committed to having no rules beyond peer pressure
as per the existing contradictory and confusing policy
statements and repeatedly informed (usually rudely in kind)
Larry in public (and Mr. Wales in private correspondence) that
"Larry says ..." or "Jimmy says ..." is insufficient to
dictate my behavior.

This is apparently not an uncommon situation.  Prior to Larry
leaving the project in his paid capacity he was requesting from
the community the authority to enforce his decisions upon people
who ignored them.  It does not appear to me that he proposed to
establish any legitimate means of deriving authority from the
consent of the governed at large (beyond a few/prevailing majority
amongst the valuable regular contributors on the mailing list and
the owner) or any due process beyond an email complaint to the
owner or the community mailing lists.

I have not yet been banned despite Mr. Wales (and Larry, and
Mr. Crocker, et. al.)  expressed low opinions of me, so clearly we
currently have room for some diversity of views and opinions.
Should Mr. Wales or Bomis sell us (Wikipedia.com or .org) to Larry
at some point in the future this may change abrubtly without notice
depending upon what the P'hds, the Board (of elite P'hds), or Larry
come up with in regard to "troll" allegation and L&L (labeling and
lynching) party policies.

>
> Thus I will refrain from offending Karen and from frustrating Uncle Mike's desire to
> use Wikipedia as a teaching tool for children. I myself long ago decided not to let my
> children use Wikipedia, for the very reasons Karen and mirwin gave -- and which I
> dramatized with the F.A. episode.

Let me clarify a bit:   On the overall scale of things
the occasional tidbit of pornography and foul language in
inappropriate places is less important to me than the overall
tone and approach of the community.

Kids learn by example and I have no desire for the types
of uncivil behavior which routinely erupt at this site
(IMO largely because we have no legitimate means of establishing
what comprises civil behavior and then routinely curtailing or
damping violations) to damage my family and friends kids.

As citizens, we have the responsibility to teach them to be
effective citizens and how to get along in society at large.
It is my opinion that as Wikipedia is currently structured it would
only reinforce bad habits that all children must learn to put away
if they are to be productive, prosperous citizens.   Indeed, it
seems to bring out some of my poorer behavior (ala usenet) and
thus I have been recently self rationing my personal exposure
somewhat.  Actually, usenet might be fairly restful when I am
on sabbatical from Wikipedia .....

In conclusion:  Lars, I do not find Ed's post stupid.
Rather I find it rather ingenious in a myriad of ways
from a diplomatic, political, and pedagogical standpoint.

I find your suggestion that Ed take action to please
you because you are too ignorant or uncreative in your
thought processes to find any merit in his post rather
lacking on your part.  If you disagree then I suggest you either
leave to avoid stupid people like me and Mr. Ed ( poor
humor I know ... I did it again; stupid, stupid, .... this will
crack we stupids ... ahem)  by leaving Wikipedia,
or undertake to educate us at your leisure.

In my stupid (ironically/sarcastically or perhaps stupidly
self alleged should go without saying but in the interests
of clarity I wasted some bandwidth here)
opinion, you may might find the undertaking
educational, even if Ed and I are fast learners.  Of course,
we may need more than shouted unsubstantiated allegations
of "stupid", "troll", etc. to make readily apparent rapid
progress by your possibly exacting self defined standards.

Regards,
Mike Irwin, aka
the lying troll


body:
Steve Callaway wrote:
>
> This is a very dangerous area indeed and a seriously slippery slope. I can
> see the arguments for it but the obverse side of this coin is that if it's
> possible to introduce sexual censorship in this way it is entirely
> conceivable that political censorship could be attained by a similar
> mechanism. This is NOT a genie to be let out of the bottle. There is enough
> political and social hypocrisy and outright political propaganda in the
> corpus of Wikipedia already without introducing convenient new mechanisms
> for the thought & ideas police.

Are you saying that Wikipedia should be designed to make
it difficult for parents or guardians to exercise their
responsibility in the oversight of minors' education?

This seems rather radical and beyond the scope of
an encyclopedia project even if it is intended as
an educational resource.

Most societies that I am aware of implicitly place
at least some responsibility for controlling access
to information for irresponsible persons (a juvenile
is not a responsible adult or citizen in my opinion,
although increasingly U.S. courts attempt to claim
they are at random whim of proscutors) upon their
responsible guardian.

Regards,
Mike Irwin


from_name: Zoe

body:
If we don't do this, we're going to find that Wikipedia is being filtered out by dumb parental control software and the protective filters in place with such search engines as Google.  Then of what use will it be to anyone?
Zoe
 Steve Callaway <sjc at easynet.co.uk> wrote:This is a very dangerous area indeed and a seriously slippery slope. I can
see the arguments for it but the obverse side of this coin is that if it's
possible to introduce sexual censorship in this way it is entirely
conceivable that political censorship could be attained by a similar
mechanism. This is NOT a genie to be let out of the bottle. There is enough
political and social hypocrisy and outright political propaganda in the
corpus of Wikipedia already without introducing convenient new mechanisms
for the thought & ideas police.

rgds

Steve Callaway
----- Original Message -----
From: "Poor, Edmund W"
To:
Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2002 2:47 PM
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Censorship and bowdlerization

> I like the idea expressed by Anthere and others of finding a way to shield
tender eyes from "adult" stuff. A significant minority of users believe that
young people of a certain age should not be exposed to certain materials.
>
> This is totally without prejudice to the debate over whether sexuality is
"sinful", just a reflection of the desire of many parents and educators to
introduce some subjects step by step, keyed to the maturity level of the
learner.
>
> Someday, we plan to make the Wikipedia available on CD-ROM for schools and
libraries that don't have T-1 lines (or the patience to tolerate the "lag"
problem). It would be very useful to allow a parent or educator to filter
out a few articles such as [[****-piercing]] or [[fisting]] or whatever.
>
> A rating system would facilitate this.
>
> I myself would like to be able to filter out the following (in no
particular order):
> * Any mention of TMC's username (as in Recent Changes, his user page and
user talk page)
> * All articles on bizarre sexuality (BDSM, etc.)
>
> I would like to retain the articles related to homosexuality, since they
are so well written (i.e., NPOV rather than pro-gay) -- but I might be
biased by pride of workmanship since I put a lot of effort into some of
them.
>
> Those who don't want this filtering should be able to bypass it easily.
>
> So it could be a user option, with the default set to NO FILTERING.
>
> Ed Poor
> Tolerant Absolutist
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

_______________________________________________
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Requesting Sysop Status

body:
> I am requesting sysop status on Wikipedia.

I see that within minutes of my requesting sysop
status, Maveric149 rushed to the
[[Wikipedia:Administrators]] page to alter the
admission policy.

Specifically, he added the word "trusted" to the
criteria.  This word has not been part of the policy
since August 12th, when it was removed by Lee Daniel
Crocker.

I interpret this action to imply that Maveric149 does
not trust me, and intends to use his post facto
manipulation of the policy to oppose my promotion.

Nonetheless, my request for Sysop status still stands.
 My edits have been useful contributions to Wikipedia.
 I have not been involved in any edit wars, with the
possible exception of the "Hitler's Balls" issue which
was (and is) a difference of opinion regarding the
copyright status of the text in question.

I fit the written guidelines prior to Maveric149's
edits.  Since I can further attest that I consider
myself "trusted", I continue to fit the guidelines
after his edits.

--TMC

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
U2 on LAUNCH - Exclusive greatest hits videos
http://launch.yahoo.com/u2


subject: [Wikipedia-l] RE: Offensive usernames

body:
Well, I hate the name TMC, but I wasn't too wild about your satire
either, Ed.

I agree that the picture in [[pussy]] is ridiculous and inappropriate,
but I have attempted to add some encyclopedic content to the article.
I am of two minds about censorship and filtering.  On the one hand, I
don't care for it (slippery slope, matter of opinion, etc), but on the
other it seems only polite to give people a chance to opt out of
discussions easily identifiable as vulgar.  That's why I A) put the
"one-ball" lyrics in while B) agreeing that they should be on a
separate page.

I, for one, have been intrigued and admiring to watch your evolution
over the past year and the intelligence, care and kindness which you
have come to embody in almost all discussions in which you take part.
On several occasions I have simply gone away when the Wikipedia gets
me down, but I always come back because I think the whole thing is
worth doing.

Good luck to you, either way.

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88

|From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
|Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 11:46:44 -0500
|
|Fine. I'm going to leave anyway, if articles like [[pussy]] with the picture of girls holding kittens at waist level and saying "Do you want to see my pussy?" and usernames like Throbbing Monster Cock are permitted.
|
|Ed Poor
|212-456-5479 <-- call this number if you don't believe it's me.
|
|-----Original Message-----
|From: Lars Aronsson [mailto:lars at aronsson.se]
|Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2002 10:44 AM
|To: wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
|Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] RE: Offensive usernames
|
|
|
|Somebody with the IP address mail11.disney.com [208.246.35.55] sent
|this message in the name of "Poor, Edmund W":
|
|> And for the record: yes, it was I who created the F****** A******
|> user account and vandalized several pages. I was trying to make a
|> point,
|
|Was this written by the real Ed Poor?  It is so stupid, that I must
|assume that the SMTP header was forged.  I don't want to be on a
|mailing list with people this stupid.  I would suggest that Ed just
|pack up his things and leave the project for ever, or we should make
|an investigation into who really sent that message.
|
|
|--
|  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
|  Aronsson Datateknik
|  Teknikringen 1e, SE-583 30 Linuxk?ping, Sweden
|  tel +46-70-7891609
|  http://aronsson.se/ http://elektrosmog.nu/ http://susning.nu/
|
|_______________________________________________
|


from_name: Karen AKA Kajikit

body:
I do not enjoy seeing those words every time I download my email! And I
don't enjoy the perpetual squabbling that's going on here either. I
thought this was about making a better wikipedia, not acting like five
year olds in the playground. If it doesn't improve SOON I'll be leaving
the list again because I'm sick of this.

And as for the actual wikipedia, the timelag on entries seems to be
ridiculously long. What's going on? I waited so long for a simple
blank-page deletion to take place last night that I closed my browser
and gave up.

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

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

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


from_name: Bridget

from_email: Bridget

subject: [Wikipedia-l] POV accusations

body:
Its interesting how POV all these accusations against
me are. Why, apparently Ive been harrassing mav AND
April! Dear me, I can't remember having any
communication with April besides a talk page message
of

"Instead of simply reverting all my changes would you
care to explain what is wrong with them?"

As for mav...Isn't he harrassing me? I'm not the one
that flings around petty insults.

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
U2 on LAUNCH - Exclusive greatest hits videos
http://launch.yahoo.com/u2


subject: [Wikipedia-l] POV accusations

body:
--- Bridget [name omitted for privacy reasons] <lapollutionestsimauvaise at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Its interesting how POV all these accusations against
> me are. Why, apparently Ive been harrassing mav AND
> April! Dear me, I can't remember having any
> communication with April besides a talk page message
> of
>
> "Instead of simply reverting all my changes would you
> care to explain what is wrong with them?"
>
> As for mav...Isn't he harrassing me? I'm not the one
> that flings around petty insults.

Lir,

You've heard the one about not feeding the trolls? it's a funny one.

Also, you know what it means to "operate under the radar"? It's a
military term used by low flying aircraft to achieve their objective
(reaching target and bombing it in general) without alerting enemy
defenses and triggering response. It's also used nowadays by
companies that operate in stealth mode, meaning without publicly
disclosing their activities. It is used to be able to operate without
interference from pesky things like reporters and analysts.

So, don't feed the troll and operate under the radar... It works for
me. I accomplish my goals without interference. :)

=====
Christopher Mahan
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
U2 on LAUNCH - Exclusive greatest hits videos
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body:
elian wrote:
>
> "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> writes:
>
> > Someday, we plan to make the Wikipedia available on CD-ROM for schools
> > and libraries that don't have T-1 lines (or the patience to tolerate the
> > "lag" problem). It would be very useful to allow a parent or educator to
> > filter out a few articles such as [[****-piercing]] or [[fisting]] or
> > whatever.
>
> Wikipedia is open content, the wikipedia software is open source. Any
> Library, university, school or whatever institution which wants a
> filtering system can develop one for itself.

Very true.  They can also create an appropriate
fork if they desire to retain full interactive access
for their students with the medium.

A sifter-L (absent the P'hd requirements and stacked by
any bias the controlling authorities choose to institutionalize)
type activity could initialize their fork project and then
occasionally augment as desirable from the base Wikipedia material.

>
> I consider filtering or censuring articles on Wikipedia itself a blatant
> violation of its NPOV-policy.

How so?  Are we to provide a mandatory reading list and track
what users read to assure that they receive fully balanced
doses of human knowledge in accordance with our mythical
and unclearly defined NPOV policy?

This would clearly be silly.  Sort of like failed liberal
education requirements which require engineers to study
literature but which allow mathmatically (perhaps even
arithmetically?) illiterate P'hd "scholars" to teach
engineering students literature.

Our ideal (according to the NPOV as I understand
its intent) is to provide as closely as possible
all applicable information or knowledge summarized as
neutrally or objectively as possible.

Allowing the reader to move away from our default full
view to a self (or guardian) selected filtered view is
far different from applying an externally (user frame
of reference) imposed censorship filter regardless of
the filtering criteria or purpose.

>
> Besides, entries about sexual "perversions" are found in "normal"
> encyclopedias as well, the parents in question would in logical
> consequence have to deny their children access to britannica, too.

Not necessarily.  Access via paper is by index and
organization.   In principle it should not be hard to
rip out offending sections with an exacto knife.

Note that I do not insist on imposing this method on you,
merely that it is possible for me to use prior to handing
the paper to minors for whom I am temporarily responsible.

In practice, I suspect parents with extreme concerns will
simply purchase or provide access to a children's encyclopedia
with published standards that look appropriate, by
their standards.

How is this different
from allowing a parent to set a filtering mechanism
within their children's account at Wikipedia?

If the child resets the filter criteria without parental permission
inappropriately (or appropriately), that is between them,
their guardian authority, and any involved societal authorities.

>
> I have no other encyclopedia to check at the moment, but I am almost sure
> to find more dangerous and misleading information in it than in wikipedia,
> where the articles in these areas were written by well informed
> and responsible practitioners.

This is a manifestation of incompleteness of Wikipedia
more than any existing merit.   Eventually some knowledgeable
engineers (or crackpots or "terrorists") will show up and explain
in detail how to build ballistic missiles, truck bombs, etc.
out of common household materials or materials and energy found
in any cubic mile of earth with surface access to atmosphere
and sunlight.

Much of this is not explicitly available
in existing paper encyclopedias due to lack of space and editorial
selection. Online Wikipedia has no immediate space constraints and
the person who feels lack of knowledge is not the best way to
constrain societal behavior and choices may show up anytime.

Of course others may routinely delete the detailed information if
they feel it is too dangerous or explicitly simple but a window
of availability will occur occasionally no matter how rigorously
we apply the community consensus to removing inappropriate
material (notice at the moment we have no way to ratify guidelines
regarding "inappropriate" or uniformly apply them, so let the
edit wars begin!).

Does this mean the NPOV is violated if a meta tag is inserted
to allow parents to filter out detailed specific information
and blueprints on bomb building?

I do not think so.  Information does not get any more neutral
or unbiased than hard engineering data and plans.  The bomb
design either works or it does not.  The universe will let
us know when a garage or building blows up accidentally, a stump
is removed, or the police find a failed pipe bomb at the site
of a mass murder suicide)  The Wikipedia site has no way to
determine a priori whether the bomb information is going to
be used well or poorly by our standards.  It may be very
appropriate to give responsible guardians the ability to
slow down juvenile access to materials which a mature farmer
needs to improve his productivity or society.

Notice I am not concerned with adults.  This may change if
the U.S. successfully convicts U.S. citizens for attending
Al Quaeda training camps.  I doubt that members
of TINC, or Wikipedians at large, wish to be stuck in a cell with
me for assisting preadolescent or puberty striken "terrorists" in
learning how to spray offensive graffiti on the Pentagon any more
than I wish to be stuck there with them for complicity in learning
how this could be done or assisting others with learning how this
could be done.  If we are successful then it is merely a matter
of time until some criminal fingers us (Wikipedia) for providing
information he needed to attempt to commit a crime.

Extreme example:
"I learned that a bar of steel can be rubbed on concrete
to create a sharp edge at Wikipedia.  Whereupon I used it
to assault a homeland security officer who wished to search
me.  I say this now freely and voluntarily to the juvenile
court so that my murder conviction can be reduced to 2 weeks
public service and I can be remanded into the custody of
my clearly capable parent/guardian of 12 years and parole
office of 4 years."

More extreme example:
"The jury finds you guilty of accessing information at
Wikipedia, the same site that the Pentagon taggers used
to learn how to assault the Pentagon."

The server currently resides in the U.S. so,
it is clearly in our best interest to put a meta tag
system in place to allow parents to filter out tagging technology
and methods in the D.C. area before the Pentagon gets tagged.
Our defense becomes the technology was available to the parent
or irresponsible adult to avoid the tainting information which
was allegedly responsible for their crime spree.

I contend that the NPOV attempts to state only that we write in
such a way as to not villify the chemical composition used in
attempts to assassinate Hitler or
to glorify the design of the atomic bombs used to incinerate
Japanese non-combatants.  It does not (nor intended?) to
address whether parents (or Wikipedia) have a responsibility
to keep plans for pipe bombs out of the hands of minors until
(in the judgement of the guardian) the juvenile has adequate
judgement to determine when to make a pipe bomb and throw or
plant it and when to not even think about it.

Clearly Wikipedia currently assumes to a great extent that
adult users are responsible for how they use the information
they attain at Wikipedia, not the Wikipedia site or the
providers of the information.

If our target audience does not include minors then
we should acknowledge that and post a warning that this
is an adult only site.   Then someone else can establish
the kiddypedia sifter list and everyone will be happier.

If children are in our target audience then I think the
maturity meta approach has a lot of merit from a functional
requirements standpoint.

The capability might be useful to other sites using the
GPL'd software and FDL'd data even if
Wikipedia chooses not to use it.

For example: A site
setup to deal with potentially hazardous engineering projects
and information might require users to attain a certain
trusted certification prior to providing access to dangerous
data (in the hands of the ill informed, overly optimistic,
or careless) regarding chemical propellants or explosives so useful
in some farming/space flight applications.  No sense letting
interested novices blow themselves up through sheer incompetence.

Regards,
Mike Irwin


body:
Steve Callaway wrote:
>
> It's much easier just to delete the pages you don't like or which don't suit
> your agenda, though, isn't it Magnus?

Often when working with information one wishes
to filter according to varying criteria.

For example:

If designing a curriculum in physics one would
typically start from the simple approximatations and
work towards the more correct complex information.
Material accessed via an maturity level index of
some kind might be very useful in writing lesson plans
and supporting material.

If researching business opportunities one might
wish to start with simple overviews and then start
requesting more complete detailed information or
even raw data for personal analysis.

When you say agenda are you referring to the site's
agenda or the users agenda?

Regards,
Mike Irwin


body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
>

> Instead of complaining about the lack any of this, you can help fix it on
> wikitech-l.
>

Are we at the pointless complaint stage already?  8)

I thought we were discussing the possibilities with a
view towards achieving consensus on what the
policy/technology options are and what the community
thinks should be done.  Meanwhile mixing in the lobbying
or case arguments in favor or against various options
as per private agendas or personal beliefs.

More seriously, we can only develop alternate
technologies on wikitech-l .....  and only after
arduous study and effort.

In some cases, only the benevolent god king (or an
authorized developer) influenced by the Wikipedia-L
can "fix" Wikipedia.org after a technology becomes
available by implementation on the server.

In other cases the community can begin immediate implementation
by deleting offending account names and material.

In some cases I think the censorship has already
begun merely by calling it vandalism or POV and proceeding
forthrightly (or obnoxiously or self righteously) to delete
the offensive material.

regards,
Mike Irwin


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Requesting Sysop Status

body:
--- Throbbing Monster Cock <thromoco at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I am requesting sysop status on Wikipedia.

I'm against it. You obviously try to create conflict in Wikipedia, so I
don't see why we should make it easier for you. I don't care
what the policy says or said at one point, since I ignore all rules.

Axel

__________________________________________________
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Requesting Sysop Status

body:
--- Axel Boldt <axelboldt at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Throbbing Monster Cock <thromoco at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > I am requesting sysop status on Wikipedia.
>
> I'm against it. You obviously try to create conflict in Wikipedia,
> so I
> don't see why we should make it easier for you. I don't care
> what the policy says or said at one point, since I ignore all
> rules.
>
> Axel

Same here. No rules, only common sense.

=====
Christopher Mahan
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
U2 on LAUNCH - Exclusive greatest hits videos
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from_name: Digital Addictions Software

subject: [Wikipedia-l] 40k geographical articles

body:
> One of the /major/ points of having an article count is to measure the
> relative progress of our community effort. Therefore it is not surprising
> that many people feel that their relative contribution to the project is
> somehow lessoned in value when a bot comes around and does in three weeks
> what took 2,000 + humans over a year to do.

> There is also concern that a critical media reporter might use the fact that
> "almost half" of our articles are machine-generated against us. If anything
> we should be as conservative as possible in our article counts to avoid
> giving our critics easy ways to dismiss our progress.

I generated 30,000 articles on cities.  I also created the same style entries
and added about 3,000 county articles by hand.  That took me about two weeks.
Now granted it would probably take me two years to do all 30,000 articles by
hand, the fact of the matter is that the ones that I did by hand and the ones
that a bot added are indistinguishable (even the bot entries have variations!)
This was not just some mindless tool adding raw data with no thought as to its
format.  The bot really just added articles that *I* wrote or would have
eventually wrote.  I maintain that they are just as valid as the ones that were
not added by a bot.  I would estimate somewhere between 500 and 1,000 cities
are already modified.  That is about 2% to 3% of the articles, but still it is
a good number.  Oh, and a media member could probably find hundreds of things
to complain about.  Such is life.
   Ram-Man

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
U2 on LAUNCH - Exclusive greatest hits videos
http://launch.yahoo.com/u2


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Personal categories.

body:
Anthere wrote:
>
> --- "Michael R. Irwin" <mri_icboise at surfbest.net>
> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Anthere wrote:
> > >
> >
> > <snip good discussion>
> >
> > > We could put tmc in the offensive xx category ?
> > :-)))
> > >
> >
> > This would presumably censor his home page.
> >
> > The issue of his signature scattered through
> > random talk pages, the recent log, other
> > meta pages and mailing lists would remain.
>
> Hello Micha?l
>
> If user names were to be censored, and in particular
> tmc one
>
> 1) recent changes will only last a couple of days

I am uncertain what you mean here unless you are saying
tmc would be censored from the recent changes by correctly
selecting the filter criteria.  Excellent!

>
> 2) maybe some technical magic can take care of
> converting his full name in tmc in talk pages and such
> ?

IMO Poor approach.  It creates more work for the
developers than for a random nit wit.  This would
leave us vulnerable to standard Denial of Service
tactics and possibly exhaust our limited developer
resources to the detriment of the project.

>
> 3) mailing lists and meta pages may have no reason of
> being censored. It seems that most offended by X
> issues are concerned by kids looking at the
> questionable names. Mailing list and meta are for
> building teams, not encyclopedic articles. So, not
> supposed to be read by kids.

This presumes that the only value minors can
extract from the Wikipedia site or community is
the NPOV articles.

Personally I see no reason that civilized community
standards can not be achieved such that minors can
participate fully to the extent of their ability.
Participating with adult teams and politely yielding
to superior knowledge or phrasing would be beneficial
(educational for minor, available effort for the team)
and is within the skills of most children if consistently
predominantly presented examples worthy of emulation.

At the moment I suspect minors would tend to diverge
frequently from civilized behavior
along with the rest of us.  Some adults attempting to
pull seniority on misbehaving or impolite minors while
ignoring other adults would probably merely accelerate
the divergence.

As a result, this is probably a discussion for either:

1.  Later.  After a means of establishing, documenting
and fairly enforcing community standards is available
as per Mav and Ed suggestions.

2.  Another site with broader educational goals than
spoon feeding allegedly authoritative NPOV material
to users for non critical consumption or resuse.

I agree that currently minors should probably not
be participating here.

However, full participation of minors would provide an
educational benefit to them (and others) which may out
weigh the value of the actual encyclopedia data ingested
here.  Team building and participation skills are
at an increasing premium in the modern workplace.

Perhaps we are merely a free encyclopedia project and
not an educational process or opportunity.  If this
is the case then I think we are wasting a lot of economic
potential and actually slowing down the improvement of our
processes and our material.

As Axel has pointed out elsewhere, more crap is not
what our quality goals should be about if we are
serious about providing even just a free encyclopedia.

>
> 4) if user can express their political pov on their
> user page, their is no reason why they could not
> express other type of pov.

I agree but I think I am missing your point.  If
you mean that there is no reason that "tmc" should
be deleted as an account name if it can be filtered
I am wishy washy.   I think it is fine for his
personal page.  If someone is offended by his page
they can leave and easily stay away.  Currently the account
name is spread throughout Wikipedia anytime he used
a signature, thus difficult to avoid.  That seems to
me to be a problem.

Moving away from sex for a change:

Does the debate change if someone moves on to
account names such as:

"Einstein was an idiot because e=cm^2"

(factual distortion from e=mc^2 while diverting the
victim with an opinion "Einstein was an idiot")

or

"VANDALISM IN PROGRESS"
(potentially disruptive to other editors if they
stop to go check only to find it was a diversion)

or

"Kill all Lawyers"
(offensive to some, and we need experts in law)

or something similarly disruptive to our purpose
of providing NPOV material, a pleasant educational
environment, an effective review log, etc.?

Regards,
Mike Irwin


body:
Zoe wrote:

> If we don't do this, we're going to find that Wikipedia is being filtered out by dumb parental control software and the protective filters in place with such search engines as Google.  Then of what use will it be to anyone?
> Zoe

It will be useful to anyone who does not install dumb parental
control software or rely on censoring search engines.

Please consider this:

If a minor has not established sufficient trust/respect
with his or her guardian to be trusted online without censorship or
spy software enabled ..... then perhaps it would be better (for
the project and possibly for the child) if they were not participating
at Wikipedia?

This might discreetly eliminate a lot of problem children
which we could do without .... unless part of our purpose is to
help civilize or educate problem children?

That pesky target audience or customer profile thingy again.

Regards,
Mike Irwin


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Database down again? Problem at certain hours of the day?

body:
=====
Christopher Mahan
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
U2 on LAUNCH - Exclusive greatest hits videos
http://launch.yahoo.com/u2


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Requesting Sysop Status

body:
On Wed, 2002-11-13 at 15:13, Throbbing Monster Cock wrote:
> I am requesting sysop status on Wikipedia.
>
> Quoting [[Wikipedia:Administrators]]
>
> > Wikipedia policy is to grant this access liberally
> > to anyone who has been an active Wikipedia
> > contributor for a while and is generally a known and
> > active member of the community.
>
> I have been active on Wikipedia since October 15th.
>
> I am a known and active member of the community.

You also deliberately antagonize other contributors without
justification or apology.

I think that you should get sysop status, but I also think you should
change your username (at least change the one you use most of the time).
Since you seem to discount my opinion on changing your name, I won't be
terribly upset if others discount my opinion on granting you sysop
status.


from_name: Steve Callaway

body:
This is a very dangerous area indeed and a seriously slippery slope. I can
see the arguments for it but the obverse side of this coin is that if it's
possible to introduce sexual censorship in this way it is entirely
conceivable that political censorship could be attained by a similar
mechanism. This is NOT a genie to be let out of the bottle. There is enough
political and social hypocrisy and outright political propaganda in the
corpus of Wikipedia already without introducing convenient new mechanisms
for the thought & ideas police.

rgds

Steve Callaway
----- Original Message -----
From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
To: <wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org>
Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2002 2:47 PM
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Censorship and bowdlerization

> I like the idea expressed by Anthere and others of finding a way to shield
tender eyes from "adult" stuff. A significant minority of users believe that
young people of a certain age should not be exposed to certain materials.
>
> This is totally without prejudice to the debate over whether sexuality is
"sinful", just a reflection of the desire of many parents and educators to
introduce some subjects step by step, keyed to the maturity level of the
learner.
>
> Someday, we plan to make the Wikipedia available on CD-ROM for schools and
libraries that don't have T-1 lines (or the patience to tolerate the "lag"
problem). It would be very useful to allow a parent or educator to filter
out a few articles such as [[****-piercing]] or [[fisting]] or whatever.
>
> A rating system would facilitate this.
>
> I myself would like to be able to filter out the following (in no
particular order):
> * Any mention of TMC's username (as in Recent Changes, his user page and
user talk page)
> * All articles on bizarre sexuality (BDSM, etc.)
>
> I would like to retain the articles related to homosexuality, since they
are so well written (i.e., NPOV rather than pro-gay) -- but I might be
biased by pride of workmanship since I put a lot of effort into some of
them.
>
> Those who don't want this filtering should be able to bypass it easily.
>
> So it could be a user option, with the default set to NO FILTERING.
>
> Ed Poor
> Tolerant Absolutist
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Requesting Sysop Status

body:
Throbbing Monster Cock wrote:
>
> I am requesting sysop status on Wikipedia.
>
> Quoting [[Wikipedia:Administrators]]
>
> > Wikipedia policy is to grant this access liberally
> > to anyone who has been an active Wikipedia
> > contributor for a while and is generally a known and
> > active member of the community.
>
> I have been active on Wikipedia since October 15th.
>
> I am a known and active member of the community.

I think "known" is intended to mean "trusted" or
"capable" in the approximate sense of "thought to have the
judgement, skills, and intent necessary and sufficient to
responsibly exercise the powers of a sysop in the best judgement
of the evaluator most of the time and willing to work with
others to correct any errors which occur and minimize the
resulting damage to the extent possible".

This is just my interpretation and I admit that it
could easily be interpreted as intended to allow active
trolls and alleged trolls sysop status.

Indeed, I am an alleged troll and an alleged liar
and I do not think I ever requested sysop status,
yet I am a sysop.  Clearly some lattitude is possible
in application of the stated policy.

<snip contribution list>

I believe that you are an active contributor
and I suspect that much of your contribution is
very solid and valuable.

I think your choice of an account name (and refusal
to change it per other users request) demonstrates
a lack of understanding of the intent of the Wikipedia
project and of the processes necessary and sufficient
to grow a large, stable, pleasant community that can
attract the large effort and diverse expertise and
perspectives required to complete such a massive
undertaking.

Therefore, I will state that I do not think you
are a good candidate for a sysop at this time.

I hope this does not discourage you from future
participation.  In fact, be of good cheer.  Since
I do not weld much influence around here for historical
reasons, until some type of voting mechanism is deployed,
my opinion or judgement can quite safely be ignored
in policy matters.  If voting becomes a norm, then
once again I might have some influence in controversial
issues.

Thank you for bringing further attention to the loopholes in
our policies and policy making processes.  In view of this
valuable service to the community I am willing to reevaluate
your contributions in detail with a view towards
supporting your bid for sysophood at any time; after
you request deletion or transmutation of your account
name as Ed Poor has with his "Fucking Asshole" non de plume.

Please do not consider this blackmail as I have not
reviewed your article contributions and you have no
guarantee that I will think you ready for sysop status
after doing so.  A lot of people have found the NPOV writeup
and concept confusing in the past and IMO you may need to
hang around a while to absorb the community's current
interpretation of it adequately to wield sys op status
effectively.

Thanks again for your contributions to date, both
in the subject articles and to the policy debates
underway regarding community governance and policy
creation.  I hope you stick around and help us improve
our community, processes, and encyclopedia regardless
of the near term outcome of your request.

Sincerely,
Michael R. Irwin


from_name: Lars Aronsson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] RE: Offensive usernames

body:
Somebody with the IP address mail11.disney.com [208.246.35.55] sent
this message in the name of "Poor, Edmund W":

> And for the record: yes, it was I who created the F****** A******
> user account and vandalized several pages. I was trying to make a
> point,

Was this written by the real Ed Poor?  It is so stupid, that I must
assume that the SMTP header was forged.  I don't want to be on a
mailing list with people this stupid.  I would suggest that Ed just
pack up his things and leave the project for ever, or we should make
an investigation into who really sent that message.

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


body:
It's much easier just to delete the pages you don't like or which don't suit
your agenda, though, isn't it Magnus?

Steve Callaway

----- Original Message -----
From: "Magnus Manske" <magnus.manske at epost.de>
To: <wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org>; "sifter-l" <sifter-l at nupedia.com>
Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2002 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Censorship and bowdlerization

> Poor, Edmund W wrote:
>
> >I like the idea expressed by Anthere and others of finding a way to
shield tender eyes from "adult" stuff. A significant minority of users
believe that young people of a certain age should not be exposed to certain
materials.
> >
> >This is totally without prejudice to the debate over whether sexuality is
"sinful", just a reflection of the desire of many parents and educators to
introduce some subjects step by step, keyed to the maturity level of the
learner.
> >
> >Someday, we plan to make the Wikipedia available on CD-ROM for schools
and libraries that don't have T-1 lines (or the patience to tolerate the
"lag" problem). It would be very useful to allow a parent or educator to
filter out a few articles such as [[****-piercing]] or [[fisting]] or
whatever.
> >
> >
> Basically, I agree that articles might (should?) be tagged as "adult",
> as long as the default access for everyone is "no filter".
> Likewise, as I have suggested long, long ago, and as has been suggested
> again several times, articles might also be tagged with "categories"
> (philosophy, biology, etc.), and by type (biography, city, etc.).
> But, if I look at our current interface, it is already loaded with links
> and information *about* the article, not to mention the article itself.
>
> Adding filters, categories, and types might be just too much for the
> average user who passes through our humble site. The "hard core" of
> users/writers would no doubt manage, though.
>
> But, the three options above might be just perfect for the "stable"
> wikipedia version that Larry proposed. Contents there will be controlled
> and checked anyway, so a little categorization on the side will be
> managable to the reviewers. The readers there would see categories and
> filters, but things like editing, talk, and all the tons of links needed
> for an "editable" encyclopedia will not be there, so there's plenty of
room.
> Beside, we wouldn't want to give a CD-ROM with a current wikipedia dump
> to a school anyway. The reviewed version would be perfect for that.
>
> Magnus
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: elian

body:
"Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> writes:

> Someday, we plan to make the Wikipedia available on CD-ROM for schools
> and libraries that don't have T-1 lines (or the patience to tolerate the
> "lag" problem). It would be very useful to allow a parent or educator to
> filter out a few articles such as [[****-piercing]] or [[fisting]] or
> whatever.

Wikipedia is open content, the wikipedia software is open source. Any
Library, university, school or whatever institution which wants a
filtering system can develop one for itself.

I consider filtering or censuring articles on Wikipedia itself a blatant
violation of its NPOV-policy.

Besides, entries about sexual "perversions" are found in "normal"
encyclopedias as well, the parents in question would in logical
consequence have to deny their children access to britannica, too.

I have no other encyclopedia to check at the moment, but I am almost sure
to find more dangerous and misleading information in it than in wikipedia,
where the articles in these areas were written by well informed
and responsible practitioners.

greetings,
elian
--
Math problems?  Call 1-800-[(10x)(13i)^2]-[sin(xy)/2.362x]


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Strong request for a new edit window boilerplate
 requested (was Re: Lir)

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

> "Anonymous" is really me - I guess kq just didn't attribute my name or nick
> out of respect for me since it was an off-post email. Thank you :-)
>
> Alas, I don't think Lir has learned much at all since you lifted the ban - in
> the last few days she has been pestering at least me, Bryan and April and
> being very childish, stubburn and generally anti-social. In short she is
> reducing our productivity and wearing us down with her petty games.
>
> Because of this and similarly difficult users we have had (and still have), I
> make a /strong/ request that some type of user agreement message be added to
> each edit window. It could state something like the following;
>
>     "By pressing save you indicate that you agree to the
>      rules and conditions of using this website"
>
> 'rules and conditions', as I've stated in previous emails, would be a [in a
> new window] link to a simplified version of the policy page with just the
> basics; NPOV, 'we are an encyclopedia', no copyright violations and
> Wikipetiquette.
>
> Without this, users only imply they agree to follow Wikipedia policy due to
> the fact that they use the server and software (I'm thinking of social
> contract theory here). I don't think the implied agreement/social contract
> set-up works anymore due to the size of our user-base. We need something more
> explicit and dare say binding (in theory at least).
>
> -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
>
> See http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract

I agree Mav! Something like that does not force 'rules' down people's
throats, since they seem to object to the idea of having them, but it
does give us better grounds for control over the morons who consistently
break the peace. Of course I agree to the rules of the wikipedia, and I
have no objection to that little line being inserted on the screen :)

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

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

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


from_name: Jonathan Walther

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] LAG

body:
On Thu, Nov 14, 2002 at 12:19:27AM +0100, Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
>> achieve that goal.  Before we have tried Postgres, let's refrain from
>> claiming that it has "obvious" advantages or drawbacks.  Otherwise we
>> risk getting entrenched in prestigious preferences, and few things can
>> be more destructive.
>
>What about trying other backends of MySQL ?
>It has at least two other than the default one - afair BerkeleyDB and
>InnoDB.

Experience with InnoDB on Kuro5hin.org shows it to be problematic.  And it
still doesn't give you subselects.  Subselects can mean some big savings in
terms of query times.

Jonathan

--
                     Geek House Productions, Ltd.

  Providing Unix & Internet Contracting and Consulting,
  QA Testing, Technical Documentation, Systems Design & Implementation,
  General Programming, E-commerce, Web & Mail Services since 1998

Phone:   604-435-1205
Email:   djw at reactor-core.org
Webpage: http://reactor-core.org
Address: 2459 E 41st Ave, Vancouver, BC  V5R2W2
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subject: [Wikitech-l] please help; Postgres

body:
Brion, can you run the PHP script that makes and initializes a new
Wikipedia database, and then run the "dumpdb" program to dump it
as plain-text SQL?  If I could have that, it would help immensely in the
Postgres porting work.

Jonathan

--
                     Geek House Productions, Ltd.

  Providing Unix & Internet Contracting and Consulting,
  QA Testing, Technical Documentation, Systems Design & Implementation,
  General Programming, E-commerce, Web & Mail Services since 1998

Phone:   604-435-1205
Email:   djw at reactor-core.org
Webpage: http://reactor-core.org
Address: 2459 E 41st Ave, Vancouver, BC  V5R2W2
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from_name: Tom Parmenter

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Requesting Sysop Status

body:
We see too much of that stupid ugly name already.  If sysops are
supposed to be trusted, then that lets you right out, because I don't
trust you.

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88

|From: Axel Boldt <axelboldt at yahoo.com>
|Sender: wikipedia-l-admin at wikipedia.org
|Reply-To: wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
|Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 14:56:47 -0800 (PST)
|
|--- Throbbing Monster Cock <thromoco at yahoo.com> wrote:
|
|> I am requesting sysop status on Wikipedia.
|
|I'm against it. You obviously try to create conflict in Wikipedia, so I
|don't see why we should make it easier for you. I don't care
|what the policy says or said at one point, since I ignore all rules.
|
|Axel
|


from_name: Magnus Manske

body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:

>I like the idea expressed by Anthere and others of finding a way to shield tender eyes from "adult" stuff. A significant minority of users believe that young people of a certain age should not be exposed to certain materials.
>
>This is totally without prejudice to the debate over whether sexuality is "sinful", just a reflection of the desire of many parents and educators to introduce some subjects step by step, keyed to the maturity level of the learner.
>
>Someday, we plan to make the Wikipedia available on CD-ROM for schools and libraries that don't have T-1 lines (or the patience to tolerate the "lag" problem). It would be very useful to allow a parent or educator to filter out a few articles such as [[****-piercing]] or [[fisting]] or whatever.
>
>
Basically, I agree that articles might (should?) be tagged as "adult",
as long as the default access for everyone is "no filter".
Likewise, as I have suggested long, long ago, and as has been suggested
again several times, articles might also be tagged with "categories"
(philosophy, biology, etc.), and by type (biography, city, etc.).
But, if I look at our current interface, it is already loaded with links
and information *about* the article, not to mention the article itself.

Adding filters, categories, and types might be just too much for the
average user who passes through our humble site. The "hard core" of
users/writers would no doubt manage, though.

But, the three options above might be just perfect for the "stable"
wikipedia version that Larry proposed. Contents there will be controlled
and checked anyway, so a little categorization on the side will be
managable to the reviewers. The readers there would see categories and
filters, but things like editing, talk, and all the tons of links needed
for an "editable" encyclopedia will not be there, so there's plenty of room.
Beside, we wouldn't want to give a CD-ROM with a current wikipedia dump
to a school anyway. The reviewed version would be perfect for that.

Magnus


list: sifter-l

source: wayback-mbox

subject: [Sifter-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Censorship and bowdlerization