from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Delphine M?nard wrote:

>On 12/15/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>I think that the "Nature" article was largely sympathetic.  Our best
>>response would be to review the articles surveyed to make whatever
>>corrections are needed, or even to make corrections that they failed to
>>notice as well.
>>
>>
>Agreed.
>
>
>>Once this is done it could be brought to the attention
>>of the "Nature" staff and a challenge issued to see how long it takes EB
>>to make its corrections. 8-)
>>
>>
>But why, why why go into this competition thing? :(
>
Touch?!  I had in mind the ability to correct things quickly, which is
not there in a paper encyclopedia, but you're right, it does seem
competitive in retrospect.  My remarks were perhaps insensitive.

>I believe Britannica and Wikipedia are pursuing the same goals, with
>different means. Although I find it excellent that we take Britannica
>as an example and as a goal, I believe we have much to learn from
>them, and they from us. Can't we work hand in hand to achieve that
>goal? Competition should be an incentive to get better, for them and
>for us, not because we want to be the best, not because of stupid
>numbers, but because we are looking to achieve this:
>
>"Le but d'une encyclop?die est de rassembler les connaissances ?parses
>sur la surface de la terre ; d'en exposer le syst?me g?n?ral aux
>hommes avec qui nous vivons, et de les transmettre aux hommes qui
>viendront apr?s nous"
>--Denis Diderot
>
>(bad translation)
>"the goal of an encyclopaedia is to gather knowledge scattered all
>over the Earth's surface; to expose its general system to the men with
>whom we live, and to pass it along to those who will come after us "
>--Denis Diderot
>
>Tell you what, what I hope is that in 2 years from now, Nature will do
>the same study, and find 0 mistake. Neither in Britannica, nor in
>Wikipedia.
>
>
Sentiment makes me agree with you, and this noble idea.  I wonder if
Britannica can even survive.  That's sad for an institution that's been
around for 250 years.  They were built on the model of a bulky
multi-volume set of books.  Who's going to buy that if one can find so
much more information at no cost?  At present Wikipedia is well ahead of
Britannica in quantity, and almost equal in quality.  Recent events have
forced us to look at quality, and there is certainly incentive to do
something about it.  Where does that leave them when the only asset they
have left is an established name?

If one can depend on Alexa ratings they show that we are at that part of
the pyramid where the air is thin.  How we managed to get there has
probably left most of us puzzled.  When you're that big it's hard to
roll over in bed without crushing the one beside you.  What are the
ethical implications of being where we are?  Maybe as a group we need to
address some of these issues in Boston.

Can I start pushing the POV that Wikimania 2007 should be in Africa?

Ec


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject:
[Foundation-l] Closer look at Nature's results: Average article
	size for Wikipedia: 6.80 KB;
	Britannica: 2.60 KB. Number of errors per 2KB
	for Wikipedia: 1;	Britannica: 6.5


list: wikien-l

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: BBC News Online Story.

body:
Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:

>You're saying run the test through google translator into japanese,
>then italian, then back to english? That'll produce pretty
>style-neutral text :D
>
Will it have any style at all?

Ec


from_name: Sam Fentress (Asbestos)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: BBC News Online Story.

body:
On 12/15/05, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Yes, this makes it rather hard to design a good blinded study.
> Feeding all text through a dialect-simulator, or better yet an editor
> that unifies paragraph-length and word choice without altering any
> facts or much clarity, might help.  The design of a decent
> reference-work comparison study might merit a paper in itself.
>
> SJ

A program that can edit an article to remove all the verbage and keep the
facts is pretty far away, from an AI stand-point... If they had had the time
and money, though, I guess they could have had their students read through
the articles and simply list each "fact". Then you could get the number of
errors per 100 facts. Not quite as easy, though.

Sam

--
Asbestos
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Asbestos


subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>Chris Jenkinson wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Your request is illogical.  It asks for something right  when it is
>>>>wrong by definition.  If I see something as "right" I would not call
>>>>it pseudoscience.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Exactly - so how is it POV to demonstrate in an article why a
>>>pseudoscience is wrong?
>>>
>>>
>>Because you had to characterize it as pseudoscience in the first place.
>>
>>
>This resembles a circular argument.
>
>Is there any word or phrase in *common usage* (i.e., we can't coin a
>Wikipedia-only neologism) that covers what is meant by "pseudoscience"?
>
>
"Alternate science" is such a term which does not carrry the same
negative baggage as "pseudoscience".

Ec


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] OfficialWire: Founded On Porn,
	Wikipedia Shapes The Way You Think

body:
On 12/15/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> > Link is of questionable work-safeness.
> > http://news.baou.com/main.php?action=recent&rid=20683
> > Not sure if OfficialWire is a news source to care about or not, but it
> > is in Google News Alerts.
>
> Did you spot the link at the top to [[QuakeAID]]? I'm wondering if he
> hasn't been feeding perverted-justice.com as well.

Perveted-justice claimed that the their smear text came from some
other group whos existence I was unable to confirm with a quick google
search. I would not at all be surprised if it turned out that they
were just being used by one of the Wikipedia hate groups, however, the
responsibility for the libel towards our editors rests squarely on the
perverted justice folks wh refuse to remove the obviously untrue
information.


from_name: John Lee

subject: [WikiEN-l] Improve AFD - require rationales (2-step process)

body:
Mark Gallagher wrote:

>
> G'day Ryan,
>
>> David Gerard wrote:
>>
>>> It's explicitly Not A Vote, so it's hard to see how to get around
>>> this one.
>>>
>>> I am tempted to summarily remove all tally boxes as blatant invitations
>>> to abuse of AFD as a straight vote.
>>
>>
>> Have you been in AFD recently? It is a vote. It always has been.
>> "Consensus" is determined, in EVERY afd, by counting the number of
>> delete votes versus the number of keep votes. Period. I recognize that
>> the policy says it's not a vote, but the policy might as well say the
>> moon is made of cheese.
>
>
> In EVERY AfD?  I've closed a few dozen now, and I've only rarely had
> to resort to counting votes --- and when I have, it's almost always
> ended up "no consensus keep", unless the count produced an
> overwhelming result.
>
> So y'can reconsider the absolutes.  Of course, in *principle* you may
> be correct, I'm not sure yet.  If so, well, I look forward to your
> comments on my RfC in approximately two weeks' time.
>
>
> Cheers,
>
I've closed a lot more than a few dozen, and I've only resorted to
counting votes once or twice. (This was after VfD was renamed AfD;
somehow before that I think I counted votes a bit more often.) Usually
once I notice I'm counting I start biting myself in the ass, though. I
try to weigh the arguments instead of basing the decision purely on
votecounting. Consensus is determined by both *limited* votecounting and
weighing the value of the arguments put forth. (Let's face it, there has
to be a bloody good case for someone to delete an article where there
are 20 keep votes.)

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


list: foundation-l

from_name: Phoebe Ayers

subject:
[Foundation-l] Closer look at Nature's results: Average article
	size for Wikipedia: 6.80 KB;
	Britannica: 2.60 KB. Number of errors per 2KB for Wikipedia: 1;
	Britannica: 6.5

body:
NPR picked up the Wikipedia/Britannica story today:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5055388


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Closer look at Nature's results: Average article size
	for Wikipedia: 6.80 KB;
	Britannica: 2.60 KB. Number of errors per 2KB for
	Wikipedia: 1;	Britannica: 6.5

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:

>Please let us know the links to the slashdot stories.
>Nature stated the articles were of similar length. Are you suggesting
>they were wrong?
>
>
At least one person at [[Wikipedia:External peer review]] who has access
to Britannica has found it impossible to find revisions of certain
articles that are similar in size to their Britannica counterparts
without going way back - like to 2002.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


from_name: Mark Gallagher

body:
G'day Ryan,
> David Gerard wrote:
>
>>It's explicitly Not A Vote, so it's hard to see how to get around
>>this one.
>>
>>I am tempted to summarily remove all tally boxes as blatant invitations
>>to abuse of AFD as a straight vote.
>
> Have you been in AFD recently? It is a vote. It always has been.
> "Consensus" is determined, in EVERY afd, by counting the number of
> delete votes versus the number of keep votes. Period. I recognize that
> the policy says it's not a vote, but the policy might as well say the
> moon is made of cheese.

In EVERY AfD?  I've closed a few dozen now, and I've only rarely had to
resort to counting votes --- and when I have, it's almost always ended
up "no consensus keep", unless the count produced an overwhelming result.

So y'can reconsider the absolutes.  Of course, in *principle* you may be
correct, I'm not sure yet.  If so, well, I look forward to your comments
on my RfC in approximately two weeks' time.

Cheers,

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.13.13/200 - Release Date: 14/12/2005


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
Well, there is a good reason I don't read most of your posts. This
nonsense is a good illustration of why. Of course the POV fakers are
always asking for a reference. When it is provided, they delete it
anyway with some lame excuse. Your point, I suppose, is that we
should not attempt to reference the information  in articles or ask
for sources because the situation might be gamed by those who are
editing in bad faith.

My suggestion, which is Wikipedia policy, is that references should
be provided for the information you add to articles and that same
standard ought to be gently applied to the editing of others.

Fred

On Dec 15, 2005, at 7:57 AM, geni wrote:

> On 12/15/05, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>
>> A better approach is for all of us in our regular editing start
>> gradually asking more often for a reference and do more deleting when
>> it is not provided.
>>
>
> Heh. "Do you have a reference for that?" has always been the warcry of
> our more skilled edit warriours.
>
> --
> geni
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: JAY JG

subject: [WikiEN-l] The George W. Bush article: is this still a wiki?

body:
>Tony Sidaway wrote:
>
>>On 12/15/05, Brian <brian0918 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I think this problem has been thoroughly discussed on the article's talk
>>>page, and the evidence clearly shows that this variable drastically cuts
>>>down on the number of random vandalisms.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>And, no doubt, the number of edits!

At last check, the article had been edited 25889 times - it is, quite
possibly, the most edited article on Wikipedia.

Jay.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
I quite agree, see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Wilkes
%2C_Wyss_and_Onefortyone/Proposed_decision#Sources_for_popular_culture

There are different ways of working, I follow your way too. But I
don't argue when someone who has done research contradicts me.

Fred

On Dec 15, 2005, at 8:05 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:

>> When I do serious editing I am usually working from a book or
>> newspaper article and I have the reference at hand. It would
>> often be
>> very hard for someone else to find that passage just going from
>> whatever I put into a Wikipedia article. So it is easy to put in
>> exact references.
>>
>
> I, by contrast, almost never do such editing, and often work with
> articles of low quality (eg, in the fields of skiing, snowboarding,
> rock
> climbing, computer games...).  There is often a lot that can be
> done to
> improve the article by restructing, rewriting, removing POV or adding
> snippets of general information - even with limited or no knowledge of
> the subject.  People like me would probably throw their hands in
> the air
> and stop working overnight if required to find references for
> everything.
>
> The thing is, for many people, editing is *fun*. I actually honestly
> gain pleasure from taking an unstructured 1000 word article and
> turning
> it into a 500 word structured one. Finding references is *work*. If
> you
> know something to be true, to find a reputable refernce to back you up
> is simply hard work in many cases.  "no original research" says
> that if
> something is true, it should be easy to find a reputable reference -
> well, it isn't always.
>
> There really should be different sourcing guidelines for different
> fields in Wikipedia - popular culture is just "different" to history,
> science or geography.
>
> I also suspect that a guideline could say somewhere that if it's
> possible to verify something on google, then that may be good
> enough in
> some circumstances.  As opposed to making a claim that cannot be
> verified even by someone searching the entire internet.
>
> Steve
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
Yes, the hand work involved in responding to complaints, takes a lot
of resources too. To say nothing of damage to our reputation and
possible litigation.

Fred

On Dec 15, 2005, at 8:59 AM, <slimvirgin at gmail.com>
<slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 12/15/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 12/13/05, Jon <thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>>   Is there any reason why we don't introduce immediately a rule
>>> that says all new information added to an article must be sourced
>>> or referenced or the edit will automatically be reverted? And any
>>> new articles must be sourced or referenced within two hours, say,
>>> of their creation, or will be speedily deleted?
>>>
>>>
>> We don't have the rescources to police this.
>>
>>
> We could make a start by introducing such a rule for biographies of
> living people. We have to provide a source when we upload an image or
> risk that it be deleted in short order. And yet there's so such
> requirement when adding a claim about a living person that could
> potentially damage them. That discrepancy suggests we have our
> priorities upside down.
>
> Sarah
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] (no subject)

body:
You said,

"Point of view
In the MSbP: clues that indicate Muchausen Syndrome, it keeps on
saying her child or herself. I think someone should go in the and
change all those the one's or oneself. I won't right now until we
ghet some disscussion going on this but i'll put up a POV thing above
it for right now.schyler 04:10, 14 December 2005 (UTC)"

I would just change it.  As it sits, there is false emphasis on
gender as opposed to the behavior.

Fred

On Dec 15, 2005, at 11:57 AM, Shyler Raadt wrote:

> I put up a "POV is disputed" thing on the page for munchausen syndrome
> because it keeps saying her child and herself. Nobody has responded
> to what
> I had to say on it's talk page for a couple of days. Should I just
> go and
> change it myself since no one else seems to care?
>
>
>
> Schyler
>
> (my user name too)
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: BBC News Online Story.

body:
You're saying run the test through google translator into japanese,
then italian, then back to english? That'll produce pretty
style-neutral text :D

On 12/15/05, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes, this makes it rather hard to design a good blinded study.
> Feeding all text through a dialect-simulator, or better yet an editor
> that unifies paragraph-length and word choice without altering any
> facts or much clarity, might help.  The design of a decent
> reference-work comparison study might merit a paper in itself.
>
> SJ
>
> On 12/15/05, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 12/15/05, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > ... apparently the checkers weren't even told that what
> > > they were checking came from Wikipedia so as to avoid bias :-)
> >
> > I'm afraid it would have been obvious from the writing which articles
> > were from Wikipedia. The EB is able to provide the facade of accuracy
> > because the writing is so smooth, so you don't expect to find factual
> > errors. In Wikipedia articles, you do, because the writing is often
> > very poor, so the other problems tend to jump off the page.
> >
> > Sarah
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
>
> --
> ++SJ
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Karl A. Krueger

subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
On Wed, Dec 14, 2005 at 11:55:08AM -0800, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> "Parascience" or "alternate science" are often used, and do not carry
> the same emotional baggage as pseudoscience.  I have also seen
> "traditional science" in relation to subjects like astrology or alchemy
> that predate the development of the modern scientific method.

We should probably avoid coining new terms or encouraging the use of
terms which are very likely to be misunderstood.  To me, "traditional
science" sounds like the opposite of "alternative science", whereas the
above suggests that they would include many of the same fields -- for
instance, current practitioners of "scientific astrology".

There's one overarching reason, it seems to me, that Wikipedia aligns
itself more strongly with science than with faith or other "systems of
knowledge": one of our principles is _verifiability_, which is also a
principle of scientific research.  When a scientist propounds results
that are not verifiable -- such as Pons & Fleischmann's cold fusion --
the resulting smackdown from the rest of the scientific field is
*exactly* the sort of thing we want for unverifiable wild claims on
Wikipedia, too.

Proposed systems of knowledge which do not include verifiability as
a criterion will necessarily, it seems to me, do worse on Wikipedia than
science does.  That doesn't exempt us from reporting their claims
accurately when relevant; but it -does- mean that we're less likely to
accept their standards of evidence for describing the world.

It's tricky.  I think we really do want to describe the Earth as a
roughly spherical planet in orbit around a yellow-white star.  It isn't
enough to say that most scientists and astronomers believe this, while
various other people think it's a flat plane or a hollow sphere:  we
really do want to accept the scientific standard of evidence here rather
than just treating it as a "Scientific Point of View".

The thing is, the same set of standards likewise lead us to say that:

	* Homeopathic preparations made according to Hahnemann's method
	  contain none of the "potentized" substance.

	* Dogs, bears, apes, and humans descended from a common
	  ancestral population of small furry creatures resembling
	  shrews, which lived around the same time as the dinosaurs.

	* The Sun is in the constellation of Ophiuchus, not Sagittarius
	  or Scorpio, for the first half of December.

People who believe in homeopathy, creationism, or astrology are likely
to denounce these claims as belonging to a "Scientific Point of View" or
something similar.  Nonetheless they are based on the same standards of
evidence that entail that we may describe Earth as a planet rather than
a plane, disc, hollow ball, or carrot-shape.

We need to take those standards seriously, though.  We should be sure
not to embrace a claim simply because it is made by a scientist or other
professional, for instance.  Likewise we need to make sure that claims
of doubt or disproof are *also* verifiable:  when someone goes to list
something in a "criticisms" section (be it on [[Homeopathy]] or on
[[Evolution]]) we need to be sure that the so-called criticism actually
addresses the subject at hand.

Consider also the related case of the law, which -- like science -- has
some kind of standards of evidence.  We start the article on [[Ted
Bundy]] with the claim that he _was_ a serial killer and rapist ... not
merely that the court _claimed_ that he was a serial killer and rapist.
We don't apply this standard uncritically; there are certainly courts
whose opinions we would not take in evidence.  But where we do, we are
generally not wrong to do so.

> When you look at the abortion debate there seems to be somewhat of a
> truce in that the primary name for the two sides are "pro-life" and
> "pro-choice".  Each of these is a term that the respective sides feel as
> acceptably representing what they stand for.  If the pro-life people
> start by calling the other side "baby killers" there is no room for
> dialogue.

I certainly agree that we need to refrain from epithets.  I'm not sure
where the term "pseudoscience" falls, though.  I personally would use it
very narrowly, to refer to fields whose practitioners make a point of
calling the field scientific, but where nothing like scientific practice
is being done ... or, perhaps by extension, where there are not actually
any data upon which to do scientfic study.

In short, you can't be doing pseudoscience if you don't claim to be
doing science, or more generally try to adopt the mantle of science.  If
you teach dance and tell your students that it's good for their souls,
this isn't a claim to science -- so it can't be pseudoscientific.

I recognize that some "skeptics" like to call various practices "pseudo-
science" even when they don't aspire to science.  I don't think we
should accept that usage in Wikipedia.  We should use the term narrowly
to refer to specific cases where claims of science are made without the
actual scientific practice to back them up.

> Whatever term we choose for what saome call "pseudoscience" must be
> acceptable to both sides, but especially to the side so named.

I'm not so sure this makes sense.  There are lots of labels that we are
willing to apply to people who do not themselves accept the labels.  The
most obvious are those drawn from fields such as science and law, which
have reasonably credible standards of verifiability.

> "Fraud" would be worse because of the implications of criminality.  The
> profit motive is often totally absent in the minds of most believers in
> a "pseudoscience".  The people who develop these ideas are usually doing
> so in good faith, and they were effectively applying GFDL long before it
> was invented.  They, no more than Wikipedia, could not control
> commercial applications by downstream users..

I'd limit "fraud" the same way as "murder" -- it's basically a legal
claim that needs reference to some sort of juridical decision.  But
there are other terms, such as "quackery" in the practice of medicine,
which refer to deceptive claims more specifically.  It's perfectly
reasonable to refer for instance to the [[Violet Wand]] as a quack
medical device that gained popularity as a fetish toy.

--
Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger at whoi.edu>


from_name: Conrad Dunkerson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: More Seigenthaler fallout

body:
Phil Boswell wrote:

> Would it maybe be possible to fix it so that "deleted edits" show up in user
> contributions, labelled in some way, with restricted access?

A way of simultaneously viewing 'contributions', 'deleted edits', and
'log' entries such as image uploads and page moves would be exceedingly
useful. The more clever vandals perform page move vandalism or replace
pictures used in articles with vandalism images... and if you are just
checking 'contributions' you would never see these things.


from_name: Delphine Ménard

body:
On 12/15/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

> I think that the "Nature" article was largely sympathetic.  Our best
> response would be to review the articles surveyed to make whatever
> corrections are needed, or even to make corrections that they failed to
> notice as well.

Agreed.

> Once this is done it could be brought to the attention
> of the "Nature" staff and a challenge issued to see how long it takes EB
> to make its corrections. 8-)

But why, why why go into this competition thing? :(
I believe Britannica and Wikipedia are pursuing the same goals, with
different means. Although I find it excellent that we take Britannica
as an example and as a goal, I believe we have much to learn from
them, and they from us. Can't we work hand in hand to achieve that
goal? Competition should be an incentive to get better, for them and
for us, not because we want to be the best, not because of stupid
numbers, but because we are looking to achieve this:

"Le but d'une encyclop?die est de rassembler les connaissances ?parses
sur la surface de la terre ; d'en exposer le syst?me g?n?ral aux
hommes avec qui nous vivons, et de les transmettre aux hommes qui
viendront apr?s nous"
--Denis Diderot

(bad translation)
"the goal of an encyclopaedia is to gather knowledge scattered all
over the Earth's surface; to expose its general system to the men with
whom we live, and to pass it along to those who will come after us "
--Denis Diderot

Tell you what, what I hope is that in 2 years from now, Nature will do
the same study, and find 0 mistake. Neither in Britannica, nor in
Wikipedia.

(a hopeful) Delphine
--
~notafish


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] The a7 speedy

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:

> They don't HAVE to be on allmusic.

You wouldn't think so from the nominations!

>But we do need some verifiable
> evidence they meet the guidelines set out in [[WP:NMG]] in some way.
> If Australian indie bands are at all worth listing, surely they have
> toured Australia, have a video out on national TV or at least some
> reasonably popular CDs out, right?

Or be otherwise significant. When I spot one on AFD I can usually bring
the article up to scratch, e.g. [[Exserts]]. Original version:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Exserts&oldid=11642117
Version after I saw it on AFD: current.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Chris Jenkinson wrote:
>> Ray Saintonge wrote:

>>> Your request is illogical.  It asks for something right  when it is
>>> wrong by definition.  If I see something as "right" I would not call
>>> it pseudoscience.

>> Exactly - so how is it POV to demonstrate in an article why a
>> pseudoscience is wrong?

> Because you had to characterize it as pseudoscience in the first place.

This resembles a circular argument.

Is there any word or phrase in *common usage* (i.e., we can't coin a
Wikipedia-only neologism) that covers what is meant by "pseudoscience"?

- d.


from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject:
[Foundation-l] comparison between Encyclopaedia Britannica and
	Wikipedia (Radiointerview)

body:
Dutch radio1 just called me about the nature article and I gave a short
interview in which I tried to give both a positive view and negative
view about it. I hope it worked ..........

Waerth/Walter


subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] comparison between Encyclopaedia
 Britannica and Wikipedia (German)

body:
Sabine Cretella wrote:

> http://www.golem.de/0512/42221.html
> well ... this is why page creation by anonymous users is not so bad ...
> And why it is impossible that Encyclopedia britannica needs to proof and
> reproof each single word it writes
> http://www.golem.de/0512/42221.html
> "both" encyclopeadias - this means even that one that according to our
> infos needs to proof every single word - has the same amout of critical
> errors in the same articles only in different places ... - hmmmmm .....
> (sorry I don't have time to translate this article - maybe there's an
> English one around as well???)

I don't know German, so I'm leaving the URLs there for someone who does!

> Well I suppose it is time to go "back to ordinary" functioning of
> Wikipedia (anonymous users can create articles - this is even easier to
> check to my opinion - just switch off all registered users and have
> special regard to anonymous page creations).

I would very much like to see anon page creations go back on but with a
prefilled new article template, something like
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-December/034414.html

- d.


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] comparison between Encyclopaedia Britannica and
	Wikipedia (German)


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: A new script to add to the maintanace directory

body:
Amilcar do Carmo Lucas wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I've converted the delete-idle-wiki-users.pl script to PHP, corrected some
> errors, updated it to 1.5.3 and here it is, please accept it.

Hello,

The mailing list strip attachment. Can you send it as a bug report on
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/ with the keywords: patch, need-review .

Or put it somewhere on a webhost and send us the link :p

cheers,

--
Ashar Voultoiz


subject: [WikiEN-l] A suggestion for more easily gaining agreement on AfD

body:
Jake Waskett wrote:

>There's a problem with AfD (actually, there are many, not least of which
>is people ignoring policy, but let me focus on this one). It's very hard
>to achieve consensus. We're currently in the bizarre situation in which
>opinion is divided over whether to delete or merge, and as a result
>neither is done, and an appalling article remains.
>
><snip>
>
>Jakew
>
>
Huh? That defaults to keep? Not in my book. Whenever I come across such
a debate, I tend to merge whatever salvageable content I can and
redirect the article. You don't need consensus on AfD to merge or keep.
Only to delete.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Next experiment: switch off AFD for a month. (was
	Guardian in defense of Wikipedia)

body:
I find it hard to believe that you read anything that I actually said.
 You've completely misrepresented my points in two substantial ways.
1) You talk about "non-referenced facts", while I am talking about
non-referenced articles.  Not just facts that don't have sources,
entire articles without a single reference to anything outside the
encyclopedia.  2) You talk about how it's impossible for us to fix
"every unreferenced article" within 24 hours.  But I am not talking
about *old* unreferenced articles, I'm talking about *new ones*.
Fixing all the unreferenced articles we currently have will be hard,
and it will take a long time.  But we'll never get finished if we keep
creating new ones.

This isn't a quick fix.  It's the first step in a long process.

Anthony

On 12/15/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
> >On 12/15/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>The crux of the problem is in what the endgame should be for an
> >>unreferenced article.  Is it deletion or improvement?  I would easily
> >>support improvement.  If an article is unreferenced that does not imply
> >>that it is wrong; we just don't know if it's right.
> >>
> >>
> >There's no question over the endgame.  The question is over what to do
> >in the meantime.  If we don't know whether or not something is right,
> >it shouldn't be in an article.  Doesn't mean it can't be in user
> >space, or on a talk page, or in the edit history, or in the deleted
> >articles history.  That's my interpretation of
> >[[Wikipedia:Verifiability]], anyway.
> >
> We can begin with some kind of "unreferenced" tag, maybe even a flashing
> red "CAUTION" sign. :-)
> Beyond that, we need to remember that most of our non-referenced facts
> aren't controversial at all.  Look at how long it has taken to put
> category tags on all articles.  That's a much simpler task than
> referencing.  Of your four suggestions only putting material on the
> article's talk page will even give a sporting chance for review.  If you
> outright delete an unreferenced article there will not even be a link to
> Xxxx's talk page so that the material can be reviewed and documented.
> Have fun finding it!
>
> Assuming good faith needs to be extended to the articles themselves.  It
> recognizes that a contributor who was himself deceived by the
> information was probably acting in good faith.  Fact checking an article
> is a tedious process that needs to apply to every statement in an
> article.  It may be easy enogu to have a bot tag every unreferenced
> article with a notice that if it is not referenced in 24 hours it will
> be deleted.  If ALL of us were to devote ourselves to that task for that
> 24 hours without sleeping there would still not be enough of us for the
> job.  So when your second bot comes along and clears out the still
> referenced articles what would we have left?  We need common sense, not
> impatience.
>
> >>Actions based on a deletion endgame consistently attract bitter disputes
> >>and needless stress.  In planning new strategies this should be
> >>considered from the beginning. in the hope of avoiding the stress.
> >>Without that this will be no different from AfD.
> >>
> >>Ec
> >>
> >>
> >The endgame in either case is a well referenced article.  The question
> >is how do we get there.
> >
> Of course, but we can't depend on any kind of quick fix.
>
> Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Improve quality by reviewing all new articles

body:
On 12/15/05, Chris Owen <ronthewarhero at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> 1) New articles should go somewhere outside the main
> namespace until reviewed and passed. They should *not*
> immediately enter the main namespace.
>
I never understood the purpose of having a queue.  It takes just as
much time to delete something from the queue as it does to delete an
article.  Move the articles with problems (that aren't speedy deletes)
*into* the queue(s).  Keep the ones that don't have problems right
where they are.

Anthony


body:
Delphine M?nard wrote:

> But why, why why go into this competition thing? :(
> I believe Britannica and Wikipedia are pursuing the same goals, with
> different means. Although I find it excellent that we take Britannica
> as an example and as a goal, I believe we have much to learn from
> them, and they from us. Can't we work hand in hand to achieve that
> goal? Competition should be an incentive to get better, for them and
> for us, not because we want to be the best, not because of stupid
> numbers, but because we are looking to achieve this:

It's good to see that Brockhaus is trying to work out how to work with
the upstart newcomer (de:). If Britannica can do so, that will be
fantastic for both us and them.

(The Encyclopaedia Britannica is one of the greatest non-fiction books
of Anglophone culture, up there with the Oxford English Dictionary. I
really, really hope they can get the business side profitable once more!)

> Tell you what, what I hope is that in 2 years from now, Nature will do
> the same study, and find 0 mistake. Neither in Britannica, nor in
> Wikipedia.

That would be nice to see :-)

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
geni wrote:
> On 12/15/05, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:

>>A better approach is for all of us in our regular editing start
>>gradually asking more often for a reference and do more deleting when
>>it is not provided.

> Heh. "Do you have a reference for that?" has always been the warcry of
> our more skilled edit warriours.

Although it can be taken to a querulous extent (I remember how User:AI
did this on Scientology-related articles), I can't say they're really
*wrong* to do so and to encourage this. Ideally, a good editor should
not add a new thing to an article without being able to say exactly
where it came from.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

> The thing is, for many people, editing is *fun*. I actually honestly
> gain pleasure from taking an unstructured 1000 word article and turning
> it into a 500 word structured one. Finding references is *work*. If you
> know something to be true, to find a reputable refernce to back you up
> is simply hard work in many cases.  "no original research" says that if
> something is true, it should be easy to find a reputable reference -
> well, it isn't always.

I sometimes write something off the top of my head then Google for any
tolerable reference that'll do for the moment ;-)

> There really should be different sourcing guidelines for different
> fields in Wikipedia - popular culture is just "different" to history,
> science or geography.

Some sort of referencing should be possible. For TV or movie synopses,
the text itself as an implicit reference is obvious and sufficient, for
example.

> I also suspect that a guideline could say somewhere that if it's
> possible to verify something on google, then that may be good enough in
> some circumstances.  As opposed to making a claim that cannot be
> verified even by someone searching the entire internet.

If there's nothing else, that's fine again IMO. Any usable reference is
better than none.

(Though that's not to say that really crappy references will do just
because they're on the net somewhere. One has to use that thing called
"editorial judgement.")

- d.


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
Is this still a wiki, or do we have a policy of hindering edits on
certain articles?

The George W. Bush article is rather large, about 95 kilobytes, but
fortunately like most of our larger articles it's divided into many
smaller sections which can be edited individually.

Except they can't.  Someone has *deliberately* inserted a
"noeditsection" directive into this article, and all suggestions that
this hinders editing are resisted, on the grounds that, as well as
hindering legitimate edits, it hinders vandalism.

I'm in a bit of a spitting fury over this.  It seems to be the
silliest situation.  If I want to correct a spelling error, I should
not be hindered in doing so by the action of some well-meaning idiot.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
steven l. rubenstein wrote:

> I believe that Verifiability and No original research are two policies
> essential to the future of the project, which is to produce a
> high-quality encyclopedia.  If other encyclopedias are not rigorous on
> these matters, it is because their articles are generally written by
> PhD.s or graduate students, and are peer-reviewed.  I do not want our
> articles to have to be written by PhD.s or go through mandated and
> rigorous peer-review.  Therefore, I think these two policies are
> necessary.  And hand-in-hand with them, our Cite sources guideline is
> just as important.

It's particularly important for Wikipedia because the articles may have
hundreds of authors. Since all the reader has is the text, having
references right there is *really* important for us.

> Specifically, it is our articles that must comply with these standards.
> This I think is important for one simple reason that gets at the heart
> of our project: it is a collaborative work in process.
> If Wikipedia is as I believe it is and ought to be a collaborative work
> in process, then our policies are ideals to which we expect our articles
> to aspire, but no one editor can bear the full responsibility of
> achieving this.

Precisely.

> That said, I also insist on the corollary: our collaborative process
> should be dedicated to producing articles based on verifiable sources.
> A collective process requires a collective commitment.

Yep. It's hard to enforce this with policy; we need to make it a
cultural expectation.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Fred Bauder wrote:

>> A better approach is for all of us in our regular editing start
>> gradually asking more often for a reference and do more deleting when
>> it is not provided.
>> When I do serious editing I am usually working from a book or
>> newspaper article and I have the reference at hand. It would often be
>> very hard for someone else to find that passage just going from
>> whatever I put into a Wikipedia article. So it is easy to put in
>> exact references.

>> That does not end the matter, but it is a start.

> In other words, a good first step is for the experienced editors to be
> an example.

Yep. It can only be encouraged by making it into a cultural expectation.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
On Thu, Dec 15, 2005 at 04:58:51PM -0800, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:
> >Ray Saintonge wrote:
> >>Because you had to characterize it as pseudoscience in the first place.
> >>
> >This resembles a circular argument.
> >
> >Is there any word or phrase in *common usage* (i.e., we can't coin a
> >Wikipedia-only neologism) that covers what is meant by "pseudoscience"?
> >
> "Alternate science" is such a term which does not carrry the same
> negative baggage as "pseudoscience".

"Alternate science" suggests that a type of science is being done, which
is (a) not always the case, and (b) adopts the practitioner's POV.

Regarding (a), see e.g. the NYT article of December 7 regarding the
Templeton Foundation's attempts to fund "Intelligent Design" research.
The foundation, which funds work to reconcile science and religion, went
to ID advocates -- including the Discovery Institute -- and tried to get
research proposals.  They got ... nothing.  The ID "scientists" don't
want to _do_ science, even for a sympathetic audience like Templeton.

Science is not just a field of knowledge -- it's a field of endeavor; a
range of organized human behavior.  It isn't ideas or subject matter
that constitute science, but rather scientific _practice_ -- research,
experimentation, observation.  If there isn't any science _practice_
being done, then the field isn't scientific.

You don't get to be a scientist by having opinions about the same sort
of matters that scientists study.  You have to actually do the work and
participate in the process.  Science isn't something scientists believe
in, it's something scientists _do_.

"Alternate science" suggests that there's science being done, but that
it simply comes to different conclusions than mainstream science.  But
in this case (and many others) there isn't actually any science there;
there's only the *assertion* of science.  That's what makes ID not an
"alternate science" but rather a pseudoscience.

--
Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger at whoi.edu>


subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR Unenforceable

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:
>> Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>>> I can remember the state of affairs.  There were more reverts,
>>> bringing more attention to the articles, and forcing things to be
>>> resolved more quickly.

>> Yeah, that worked well on Mr-Natural-Health, while the AC case oozed
>> through. Oh, wait.

> There was more to that case than newbie exuberance.

Having the 3RR is worth it for being able to deal with antisocial users
as damaging as Mr-Natural-Health was.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR Unenforceable

body:
Ryan Delaney wrote:

> You're right, of course. Part of the job of being in administration is
> that you have to deal with unreasonable people, and this is certainly
> no less true on Wikipedia.  It's probably best to just sigh and move
> on rather than take the trollish actions personally.

That's true for being a Wikipedia editor at all. Being able to work
productively with people you think are being complete idiots is pretty
much a requirement!

> Besides,
> revoking 3RR because some people use it as an excuse for citations of
> "administrator abuse" by "rouge admins" isn't going to be a solution,
> because those people will complain no matter what. 3RR is just the
> excuse they use.

Attest to cognition ;-)

- d.


body:
On 12/15/05, Brian <brian0918 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think this problem has been thoroughly discussed on the article's talk
> page, and the evidence clearly shows that this variable drastically cuts
> down on the number of random vandalisms.

And, no doubt, the number of edits!

> Please leave your complaints on
> the talk page rather than fishing for support on the mailing list.

I'll do both.  This is ludicrous.  It's a wiki.

> Oh,
> and I am that idiot. :)
>
Quite.


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] [Fwd: Africa WikiProjects]

body:
Hoi,
Sometimes something good comes out of unfortunate affairs. Have a read
of this e-mail that I forward to you with permission.
Thanks,
   GerardM

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Africa WikiProjects
Date: 	Tue, 13 Dec 2005 12:40:00 -0500
From: 	Martin Benjamin, Editor <swahili at yale.edu>
To: 	Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>
References: 	<43940170.8050504 at gmail.com>

Hi Gerard,

There is a discussion right now on an academic Africa list about how and
why to use Wiki in class and scholarship.  I'm copying the discussion clips
below.  What comments do you have that I can pass along to the
list?  Particularly, how would you (or your colleagues) advise a professor
to approach a Wikipedia class project?  What tools are available to make
the job easier?  Are there links that offer particularly helpful guidance?

Many of the people who might be inspired to join the project have very
limited computer expertise - think email, web clicking, and the ability to
use Word.  How can such people be eased into the world of Wiki?

Here are the comments to this point:

________________

Pursuant to a discussion on H-Luso-Africa on the topic of Wikipedia, an
internet encyclopedia much in the news in a rather negative way lately, I
decided that rather than gripe about the misinformation there, I would add
something myself.  To that end I have completely modified the article that
relates to the Kingdom of Kongo and have added a kinglist to the somewhat
inaccurate one that is found on  one of its links.  Both my article and
the kinglist are as up to date and accurate as I can make them given the
limitations of space and the format of an encyclopedia article.  Indeed
elements of both are based on unpublished manuscript and archival sources,
though the format does not allow footnoting.

I am hoping that the article may spin off and help to create more accurate
information in cyberspace about Kongo, given that Wikipedia is growing in
popularity and more and more widely used in spite of our serious and well
placed misgivings.

I would love any feedback that others might give me on the utility of
doing this, either on line or off.

_______________

I think it is extremely important for the Africanist community to edit
and create articles for Wikipedia and other popular sources of
information about Africa. Wikipedia articles are often the most widely
consulted source of info about the history of an African country and the
information contained in Wikipedia articles is copied and freely used
(syndicated) during the creation of thousands of multiplying websites. It
is unfortunate that universities have often not yet come to appreciate
the information revolution which is taking place and thus have not come
to terms with the need to encourage scholars to actively participate in
this revolution since it is part of our vocation, I would argue, to
provide easily accessible information and analysis based on our research
to the general public and not just scholarly articles for our colleagues.
In any case, even scholarly articles are increasing being made available
on websites for the general public as well as for fellow scholars, and so
the distinction between scholarly articles for colleagues and informative
articles for the general public is not as sharp as it used to be. I
recently checked a Wikipedia article on a country I study and found much
of the information very outdated. For those who argue that this is one
indication of the unreliability of Wikipedia articles, I would remind
them that such information often comes from books on African history
which are still widely consulted but very dated. For example, Pierre
Kalck's books on the Central African Republic are still very much
consulted by people wanting to find out about or write a short synopsis
of the history of the country, and while the sections in his books on the
colonial and post-colonial period are still very useful, his chaptes on
precolonial history are now full of misinformation which is unfortunately
used by people constructing websites. The revisionist literature about
precolonial Central African history is not as accessible because it
exists in books and articles which most people cannot easily get their
hands on. So one of our tasks, I would argue, is to share our knowledge
of the most recent revisionist literature on topics with a wider public
by editing and updating Wikipedia articles. For those that argue that
conspiracy theorists and others often include false or dubious
information in Wikipedia articles or other websites, I can only remind
them that books are published every year which are full of dubious and
inaccurate information on every topic under the sun. We need to do what
we can to help improve the quality of what is available on the internet
instead of only complaining about it or discouraging our students from
using internet sources.

______________

Thanks to John Thornton and Richard Bradshaw for bringing up the subject
of Wikipedia and articulating the reasons why African studies should
treat
it as a serious resource.

I would add three quick thoughts:
1) Adding and improving content relating to Africa on the Wikipedia might
be framed in terms of outreach.

2) It might be possible to work with students in the context of courses
on Africa to add to the Wikipedia. For instance an assignment to critique
and if necessary update/correct/complete Wikipedia entries. One imagines
this
could have some interesting spinoff effects, such as motivation (not just
writing an assignment for a grade, but disseminating something for others
to use), and initiation into a kind of scholarly publication (I know that
sounds
stretched, but for undergrads and beginning grad students it would likely
be the first time they "publish" anything serious on the web or anywhere
else). Sure there's a risk of introducing less than ideal material into
the system, but in theory at least, if enough people are doing this, poor
quality content will be improved - and the quantity of information
available on Africa will also increase.

3) Although the vast majority of Wikipedia's content is in English, it
is expressedly a multilingual resource with currently a small amount of
content in some African languages. So another area for contribution might
be entries in these and other still-unrepresented languages of the
continent. In
addition to contributions by African and Africanist scholars, advanced
students of African languages might also be a source of additional content
(under guidance of their instructors, and perhaps as part of what they are
graded on in their language courses).

________________

Let me step out of editor mode for a second here, and say that the more I

think about Donald Osborn's suggestion regarding having students in
African
Studies courses update the Wikipedia, the more I like it.  Such a plan
provides students with an opportunity to dabble their toes in the
production of knowledge, but does so with at least a modicum of academic
oversight.

Perhaps we should dub this the "Osborn Initiative"?

___________________

In a course on the history of the Central African Republic this term, I
specifically encouraged my students to write such good research papers
that they could use them as a basis for a Wikipedia article and attach
their full paper to the site as a link. For example, one student conducted
research on the history of the exploitation of diamonds in the CAR and the
Kimberley Process, and I have encouraged him to write a Wikipedia article
on diamons in the CAR and to attach his research paper as a link. Another
student wrote about Protestant missions in the CAR. Same thing. Another on
the role that NGOs are playing in the CAR. Ditto. I did not make it a
requirement of the course this time, but I plan to do so in the future. I
must say that the students were generally very dubious about their ability
to write a paper which would be good enough to be attached to a Wikipedia
article, but some seem interested in trying it.

One real advantage of Wikipedia articles is the links that can be attached
to it to lead the reader with a click to more detailed information on the
topic. For example, an article on the history of the Grace Brethren
mission in the CAR might include a link to triune baptism,
dispensationalism and other topics which would help the reader under-stand
what distinguishes the Grace Brethren from other Brethren groups, what is
taught in their seminaries in the CAR, etc. The main article is just a
take-off point for links which let the reader go anywhere she or he needs
to in order to gain a deeper knowledge of the topic. When I was studying
the Brethren I found the Wikipedia articles on dispensationalism very
helpful since I am not a theologian and was only vaguely familiar with the
difference between Covenantalism and Dispensationalism. Since
Dispensationalists usually have a very pro-Israel orientation, one has to
wonder how Brethren teachings in the CAR has, or will eventually shape,
the views of Central African church leaders toward the Arab-Israeli
conflict (or whatever one chooses to call it). Thus, the difference
between Covenantal and Dispensationalism may be of interest to historians
who examine the conceptual framework within which Central African
Christians view Southwest Asian affairs. Well, enough said for now.


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] OfficialWire: Founded On Porn,	Wikipedia Shapes
	The Way You Think

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

> Link is of questionable work-safeness.
> http://news.baou.com/main.php?action=recent&rid=20683
> Not sure if OfficialWire is a news source to care about or not, but it
> is in Google News Alerts.

Did you spot the link at the top to [[QuakeAID]]? I'm wondering if he
hasn't been feeding perverted-justice.com as well.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] (no subject)

body:
Shyler Raadt wrote:

> I put up a "POV is disputed" thing on the page for munchausen syndrome
> because it keeps saying her child and herself. Nobody has responded to what
> I had to say on it's talk page for a couple of days. Should I just go and
> change it myself since no one else seems to care?

I don't see why not. Just note what you've done on the article talk
page, and perhaps ask the editor who put it in there on their talk page.

- d.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] dv sd ug ks arc languages are now RTL

body:
Hello,

I closed bugzilla bug 4267 [1], languages dv sd ug ks and arc are now
right to left.

Please open new bugs if there is any trouble.

  [1] http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4267

--
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
http://www.livejournal.com/community/wikitech/
IM: hashar at jabber.org  ICQ: 15325080


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] The a7 speedy

body:
Bands usually have the same problem a lot of vanity biographies have.
They fail to assert the notability of the band. If there's no
information to check the guidelines against it's usually a good
indication it should be deleted.

Unfortunately, "usually" is the operative word. There's exceptions.
The only way you can help is make sure those assertions are made when
the article is written, or before it's deleted.

That's why sources are so bloody important. You can't expect other
Wikipedians to guess what the source was.

Mgm

On 12/15/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
>
> > They don't HAVE to be on allmusic.
>
>
> You wouldn't think so from the nominations!
>
>
> >But we do need some verifiable
> > evidence they meet the guidelines set out in [[WP:NMG]] in some way.
> > If Australian indie bands are at all worth listing, surely they have
> > toured Australia, have a video out on national TV or at least some
> > reasonably popular CDs out, right?
>
>
> Or be otherwise significant. When I spot one on AFD I can usually bring
> the article up to scratch, e.g. [[Exserts]]. Original version:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Exserts&oldid=11642117
> Version after I saw it on AFD: current.
>
>
> - d.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] comparison between Encyclopaedia
	Britannica and Wikipedia (German)

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:
>>Sabine Cretella wrote:

>>>Well I suppose it is time to go "back to ordinary" functioning of
>>>Wikipedia (anonymous users can create articles - this is even easier to
>>>check to my opinion - just switch off all registered users and have
>>>special regard to anonymous page creations).

>>I would very much like to see anon page creations go back on but with a
>>prefilled new article template, something like
>>http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-December/034414.html

> Or <plug type='shameless'>with an automatic "Check me" task from my
> Tasks feature</plug> :-)

Certainly!

Could you please put the prefill into Mediawiki as well (presumably as a
Mediawiki: message) so we don't have to mess around with monobook.js? :-)

- d.


from_name: Magnus Manske

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> Sabine Cretella wrote:
>
>> Well I suppose it is time to go "back to ordinary" functioning of
>> Wikipedia (anonymous users can create articles - this is even easier to
>> check to my opinion - just switch off all registered users and have
>> special regard to anonymous page creations).
>>
>
>
> I would very much like to see anon page creations go back on but with a
> prefilled new article template, something like
> http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-December/034414.html
>
Or <plug type='shameless'>with an automatic "Check me" task from my
Tasks feature</plug> :-)

Magnus


subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Fastfission wrote:

>> Because it assumes standards of evidence and even standards of what
>> "science" is, how to define it, and whether or not all of what is
>> generally
>> considered "science" fits into these normalized molds (they don't).

> It is too easy to forget the influence of Plato and Aristotle in the
> development of modern science.  If these men had viewed things just a
> little differently the impact on today's science could have been
> staggering.

This is coming across as creationist^Wintelligent design arguments that
SJ Gould disagrees with Darwin therefore evolution is dubious - making
out that minor disagreements destroy the entire concept. See [[Thomas
Kuhn]].

What was your substitute word for "pseudoscience" that is actually in
current English usage (i.e. is not a Wikipedia-invented neologism) that
would communicate this important concept without whatever offense it is
you take toward it?

>> There are good reasons, though, for leaning towards the "scientific"
>> point
>> of view *when leaning is required*

> Those who lean too much in one direction tend to fall over.

That's not even close to being an argument.

- d.


from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [WikiEN-l] Empty passwords

body:
By mistake, I seem to have logged in as another user. I was typing my
username, when my finger slipped and I logged in before I had either
finished typing my complete username, or any password whatsoever.

It seems that the user I accidently logged in as has an empty password.

* is this really possible, or have I made a mistake?
* if this really is so, this is a moderate-sized security hole, because
this has the same dangers as accounts with publicly accessible
passwords, which are generally held to be a case for block-on-sight.

It would probably make sense to check for zero-length passwords at
account creation time,
and to scan for zero length and other trivial passwords on existing
accounts, if possible, and issue a warning that they will be locked if
the user does not change their password after (say) a month.

It would also make sense to try to enforce a simple password-checking
routine, to make sure that users from now on can only set passwords that
are at least slightly stronger than a single dictionary word (two short
words are a surprisingly effective measure in terms of bang-per-character).

-- Neil


subject: [Wikitech-l] Empty passwords


subject: [WikiEN-l] More Seigenthaler fallout

body:
G'day Cunctator,

> On 12/14/05, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On 12/14/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>We don't have enough active admins. Roveing the ones we do have on any
>>>reasonable scale is not an option.
>>
>>It is better to have too few good admins than too many bad admins.
>
> Nope, it's worse.

It depends how you define "bad".  An admin who uses rollback instead of
saying "rv - not an improvement" is probably doing less damage than an
admin who edit wars, unblocks himself, wheel wars, or uses his
privileges to advance his side in debates.

The situation is sufficiently desperate that I'd say we need the former,
but I don't think we *ever* need the latter.

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

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subject: [WikiEN-l] More Seigenthaler fallout

body:
G'day John,

> No big deal, remember? Deopping should be as easy as opping, IMO.
> Anyway, I think a lot of admins (including myself) have misused rollback
> at one time or another, or just misclicked (due to impulse?). I support
> hitting people who misuse rollback on the head with a cluestick, but
> unless the admin refuses to heed the advice, I'm not sure deopping would
> be the right thing. (Though it's always up to the community.) This is

If nothing else, if 'twere easier to deop then it would be easier to op,
and perhaps adminship would return to "no big deal" status (an ancient
creature that I'm assured has indeed existed in years gone past ...
looking at old RfAs, it's probably right: "I'd like to be an admin,
please" "sure thing" etc.).

As one who has misclicked rollback more than once, I sympathise with "I
didn't mean to rv!".  However, accidental rollbacks tend to be easy to
recognise and fix by the offending admin, I think, so he should be doing
that rather than making excuses.

> also why I think removing rolled back edits from the page history is a
> *bad thing*. Just because it's no longer in the article doesn't make a
> particular edit bad. In addition, as others have noted, we'll lose
> history of vandalism and disputes. (Although it would be funny to see a
> user talk littered with {{test5}}s but nothing in
> [[Special:Contributions]].)

I have seen it (well, near enough): a user continually creating hoax
articles or attack pages that were speedied gets a couple thousand
warnings, is eventually indef blocked (or whatever), I check the
contribs ... it's blank ...

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

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from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] Bangkok bid

body:
SJ wrote:

>And I suppose Wikimania 2011 will end up being at McMurdo Station.  It
>will take some working up to.  [Then 2012 : in orbit?
>
That's out of this world!

>There was
>something about a sub-orbital bid.  And depending on what the next
>World Age brings -- Revelation...  Apokemon... Xists -- 2013 may be
>something completely different.]
>
Could we book early for someone like Eric Idle or John Cleese to be a
guest speaker? :-)

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Bangkok bid


from_name: Mark Gallagher

body:
G'day Ray,

<snip />
>> I also believe we should cite primary, secondary or tertiary sources,
>> whichever is available.  In the case of primary sources, of course,
>> these should only be readily available ones.  Ideally, an encyclopedia
>> is a tertiary source - a summing-up of knowledgable opinion - but I
>> would not exclude primary or tertiary sources unless better are
>> available.
>>
> I absolutely agree.  Once you start imposing serious limitations on the
> acceptability of sources you set up the basis for many future arguments
> of the "my source is better than yours" variety.  We need to encourage
> people to use what they have, without worrying about strict criteria.

That depends on what you mean by "limitations".  "You can't use the
subject's autobiography, wait until you can get a two-page treatment
from a textbook" is kinda silly and limiting.  However, there already
are very significant limitations: we aren't allowed to rely on the
ravings of madmen to build a case.  Translated into NPOV, this means
that the followers of Lyndon LaRouche are no longer allowed to use wacko
LaRouchite propaganda to claim he's more important than he really is.

I support this (well, nobody's asked me, but ...), and I imagine you do
too if you've any knowledge about LaRouche, his movement and its
followers, and the sort of material he prints.

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

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subject: [Foundation-l] Bangkok bid

body:
Walter van Kalken wrote:

> SJ wrote:
>
>> And I suppose Wikimania 2011 will end up being at McMurdo Station.  It
>> will take some working up to.  [Then 2012 : in orbit?  There was
>> something about a sub-orbital bid.  And depending on what the next
>> World Age brings -- Revelation...  Apokemon... Xists -- 2013 may be
>> something completely different.]
>>
>> -- sj
>
> What on earth did I deserve such an answer for.

Shouldn't you mean "What NOT on earth ..." :-)

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Bangkok bid


from_name: Hyunsung

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Obstetrician needed for 7 new Wikipedias

body:
?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason <avarab at ...> writes:

>
> Note: Some of these proposals propose using the three letter sil codes
> for the projects in question, this is higly unadvisable because there
> might be an ISO code issued that equals that code in the future.
>

Hi, ?var!

The codes used in the current edition of Ethnologue are a subset of ISO 639-3
(other subsets being for extinct and constructed languages, and for
macro-languages), and they have already been completely harmonised with ISO
639-2. I'm not sure how many individual code changes they made, except that they
changed all their codes from upper to lower case.

And the SIL page on ISO 639-3 claims that it is "official site of the ISO 639-3
Registration Authority and thus is the only one authorized by ISO", so there is
no chance of any future code conflicts.

There is a complete list of codes on the site, which also includes the ISO 639-1
and ISO 639-2 codes for comparison.

Hyunsung


subject: [WikiEN-l] The a7 speedy

body:
G'day Mgm,

> They don't HAVE to be on allmusic. But we do need some verifiable
> evidence they meet the guidelines set out in [[WP:NMG]] in some way.
> If Australian indie bands are at all worth listing, surely they have
> toured Australia, have a video out on national TV or at least some
> reasonably popular CDs out, right?

WP:MUSIC isn't the be-all and end-all.  A band may be included because
it's very unusual, or culturally significant, or any number of reasons
I'm too tired to think of right now.

For instance, I believe we have an article on a Melbourne twee pop
outfit called Clag.  Now, Clag only released one album ... but for a
time there they were *very* popular in Melbourne's indie music scene.
Their music is also extremely unusual: about as twee as twee pop can get
without becoming nursery rhymes.  Also, it's really good.  But that's
neither here nor there.

I'd oppose deletion of this band's article (I will be most hurt if
anyone takes the opposite view solely because of WP:BEANS).  However,
there are thousands of bands out there with the same or less of a
profile who are, and should be, deleted.  WP:MUSIC is *generally* a good
guideline.

There was a new user on AfD recently who opposed deletion of every band
iff WP:MUSIC was mentioned by the nominator or a voter (if a nominator
attempts to argue for deletion without mentiong WP:MUSIC, by the way,
there's often something wrong).  I am not nearly so extreme.  But just
because a band fails to meet the "notability guidelines" doesn't mean we
should delete it.  It's not a bad argument for doing so, admittedly.

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

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from_name: Nolan mccollum

subject: [WikiEN-l] whats up with my block?

body:
I wont to know whats up with my block it was supposed to end today but im
still blocked so if theres some thing going on here that i need to know
about let me know.

_________________________________________________________________
FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar ? get it now!
http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/


subject: [Wikitech-l] Obstetrician needed for 7 new Wikipedias

body:
Hoi,
I was at a conference in Berlin this week. I had the honour to speak
with some of the authors of the ISO-639 code. The work on ISO-639-3 has
finished. They are now working on three new flavours of the code.
ISO-639-4, ISO639-5 and ISO-639-6. The last will be to indicate
dialects. There is nothing available to the public at this time.
Thanks,
    GerardM

Mark Williamson wrote:
> ?var, as far as I know, they're equal to the ISO/DIS 639-3 codes. Most
> ISO/DIS 639-3 codes are taken directly from SIL, unless there is a
> conflict with existing ISO standards.
>
> While ISO/DIS 639-3 is still provisional, in all reasonable likelyhood
> there will be no major changes to existing codes.
>
> Mark
>
> On 15/12/05, ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason <avarab at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Note: Some of these proposals propose using the three letter sil codes
>> for the projects in question, this is higly unadvisable because there
>> might be an ISO code issued that equals that code in the future
>>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Empty passwords

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
>
>> It would probably make sense to check for zero-length passwords at
>> account creation time,
>>
>
> On your own site, set the minimum password length. See DefaultSettings.php for
> all available configuration settings.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>
The site in question is the en: Wikipedia...

-- Neil


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
On 12/15/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> This resembles a circular argument.
>
> Is there any word or phrase in *common usage* (i.e., we can't coin a
> Wikipedia-only neologism) that covers what is meant by "pseudoscience"?

"Not considered science by the mainstream scientific community though
it presents itself in scientific terms." I don't know if any simple
way to do it, though.

FF


from_name: charles matthews

subject: Biographical implications, was Re: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
<slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote

>I'm in touch with one man who feels he was defamed in an article. The
information was removed after he contacted Jimbo, but he writes that
he has to check every day to make sure it hasn't been added again.  In
other words, we've changed this man's life, and yet he's not
particularly notable, the people who keep adding the information are
mischief-making, and the claims that were made about him weren't in
any sense newsworthy.

What are the actual implications of this?

Note firstly that if one wants to do random defamation on the Internet,
there are 30000 newsgroups to choose from - and once sent, a newsgroup
cannot be then removed from the Google archive (OK, technically perhaps it
can - but not in the easy way our articles are editable).

WP matters in this only to the extent that WP has got itself a high
profile - which recent though the result of some millions of hours of
volunteer time.  We have climbed a small mountain, at least.  Perhaps the
view now shows us things we happily did not see before.

Certainly, currently, if someone started arguing that WP is media, rather
than a sort of repository of half-finished research, then that makes sense
in terms of the kind of reactions we have recently seen.

In this case, can your correspondent really not request admin help, periods
of page protection, blocking of the malicious editors?

>We need to sort out our publishing philosophy when it comes to the
biographies of living people, or claims about living people in other
articles. Errors in other kinds of articles are annoying, but errors
about living people are potentially cruel and very damaging, even if
they don't reach the level of an actionable libel. We need to start
thinking not only in terms of accuracy and verifiability, but also in
terms of *fairness*.

It is certainly true that if the letter of the law is NPOV and
verifiability, it should not be the spirit of the law here.  It would be
just another aspect of the excessively legalistic tone we get, as a reward
for defining policies better, that people do argue that anything verifiable
should be in the page.  Obviously it should in some sense be germane.  I
have had to cut out details of a kidnapped child recently, which was not
relevant, even though the information was already in the public domain.  And
yet - we should not admit arguments on content on the basis of who is making
them.  That really should be ruled out of court.

Charles


body:
On 12/15/05, Brian <brian0918 at gmail.com> wrote:
>  Thanks for picking out one single sentence to attack.

Are you unused to rational argument.  I addressed that claim because
it's so obviously, blitheringly false.

You also falsely claim that your actions are universally supported.  I
am here to tell you, as a longtime editor of that article, that your
claim is absolutely false.

Look at the opener of the article.  It's an absolute mess.

"George Walker Bush (born 6 July 1946) is the 43rd and current
President of the United States since 2001.

"From 1995 to 2000, Bush served as Governor of the State of Texas. A
lifelong member of the Republican Party, Bush was a businessman before
entering politics. He helped found the failed Arbusto Energy and later
became a managing partner in the Texas Rangers baseball team. Bush was
elected the 46th Governor of Texas in 1994 and was re-elected in 1998.
He won the Republican nomination in the 2000 presidential election and
was elected President amid much controversy. He was reelected to a
second term in the 2004 presidential election, which began January 20,
2005."

Six months ago, the opener read as follows:

"George Walker Bush (born 6 July 1946) is an American politician and
the 43rd (current) president of the United States. Bush, a member of
the Republican Party, is part of the prominent Bush family, which
includes his grandfather (former U.S. Senator Prescott Bush), his
father (former President George H. W. Bush), and his brother (Jeb
Bush, the current Florida governor)."

"Before becoming president, he was a businessman, involved in the oil
industry and professional sports. He was elected the 46th Governor of
Texas, and won the nomination of the Republican Party in the 2000
presidential election. Bush became President, defeating Vice President
Al Gore of the Democratic Party in a particularly controversial and
close election. Bush was re-elected in 2004, defeating Senator John
Kerry of Massachusetts."

The article badly needs sorting out.  It's grown approximately 50% in
the past six months, but at the same time it's been hemorrhaging
useful information and good writing.

So now this is being made much, much harder by your action in
preventing the article's sections being edited.

I do think this deliberate act of making editing more difficult should
be classed as vandalism.  You are unapologetic in admitting that you
intend to make it more difficult for this article to be edited.


from_name: Steve Block

subject: [WikiEN-l] UK libel law and reusers

body:
Anthony wrote:
> On 12/13/05, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
>> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>> > On 12/13/05, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:

> Wikipedia does not and should not give legal advice.  If you'd like to
> do research on what the laws are your contribution to the encyclopedia
> would be greatly appreciated.  But the foundation can't and shouldn't
> force anyone to do that research.
>

I did quite a bit of research.  However, since Wikipedia apparently
should not offer legal advice, I removed all such research since it
constitutes offering legal advice.  The only people who can really
contribute on understanding of the laws would be judges and lawyers.  I
cannot affrord to pay a lawyer for his opinion and since, as with all
areas of information, it is best to engage an expert, it appears this
recourse is blocked.

>
> If you can come up with a way to be in better compliance with the laws
> of a particular jurisdiction without removing useful information from
> the encyclopedia, then I think we should definitely consider it.

Based on what you've already stated, I would say it is impossible to be
able to offer such a suggestion, since if no guidance is offered on what
may contravene laws in certain jurisdictions, it is impossible to think
of a way to comply with such laws.

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body:
"Tony Sidaway" wrote

>Are you unused to rational argument.

Tony, sounds to me like you're getting too used to it.

Charles


from_name: Scott Keir

subject: [Foundation-l] Closer look at Nature's results

body:
On Thursday, December 15, 2005, at 08:03  pm,
foundation-l-request at wikimedia.org wrote:
> I think that the "Nature" article was largely sympathetic.  Our best
> response would be to review the articles surveyed to make whatever
> corrections are needed, or even to make corrections that they failed to
> notice as well.

The Nature article is very sympathetic - and there's an editorial in
the current issue of Nature encouraging scientists to contribute to
Wikipedia.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7070/index.html#Editorial
"Wiki's wild world p890
Researchers should read Wikipedia cautiously and amend it
enthusiastically.
doi:10.1038/438890a"

(apologies if this has been discussed already - I just get the digest,
so may be a bit behind)

Scott

___________________________________________________________
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from_name: Wikimedia Foundation

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: [Ticket#2005121310003968] Prediction Markets
	Summit -- New York

body:
Yours sincerely,

Brad Patrick

--
Wikimedia Foundation
http://wikimediafoundation.org/
---- Forwarded message from "Colabria" <Colabria at mail.vresp.com> ---

From: "Colabria" <Colabria at mail.vresp.com>
To: board at wikimedia.org
ReplyTo: "Colabria" <reply-3d1fe78033-board=wikimedia.org at o.vresp.com>
Subject: Prediction Markets Summit -- New York
Date: 2005-12-13 17:21:15

> Invitation :: Prediction Markets Summit :: Feb 3, 2005 :: New York City ::
> Registration Open :: :
> http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/df14727d13/464838/4041b7327b/8153554
>
> Smart mobs, swarms, information markets, crowd wisdom, social networks,
> communities, idea exchanges and knowledge markets -- all are getting a lot
> of popular attention today. Why? Because they are effective... See:
>
> http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/cb3043f7f2/464838/4041b7327b/8153554
>
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> school professors, think tanks, KM visionaries and prediction market tool
> providers are converging for an important, one-day Prediction Markets
> Summit in New York City on the future of Prediction Markets.
>
> Knowledge and prediction markets are becoming routine in the smartest
> firms. For example, top firms using prediction markets are Google, Yahoo!,
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> Economic Forum in Davos knowledge markets will be applied. Of course
> prediction markets have been used for decades to forecast, with uncanny
> accuracy, the outcome of popular elections.
>
> "There is some amazing evidence to support markets as predictors of future
> events." ? (Professor Vernon Smith - 2002 winner of the Nobel Prize in
> Economics)
>
> Join the prediction markets community for a one-day, conversational
> deep-dive of prediction markets.
> http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/2e479e6d57/464838/4041b7327b/8153554. All are
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>
> Noted author James Surowiecki will be your keynote. See: The Wisdom of
> Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom
> Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations.
>
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> http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/c49be66104/464838/4041b7327b/8153554 and
> NewsFutures
> http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/61995b6444/464838/4041b7327b/8153554.
>
> Agenda: http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/6e1c2c935e/464838/4041b7327b/8153554
>
> Secure, online registration is open. Tuition includes all materials,
> books, meals, registration, refreshments and reception. Note: Because of
> the low-cost, there are no press passes or student discounts available.
>
> Registration:
> http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/bee806aaaa/464838/4041b7327b/8153554
> Registration in advance required. No on-site registration. This event
> will reach capacity quickly. Register early.
>
> Prediction Markets are a critical business frontier. Why? Brush-up here
> with Colabria Briefings.
>
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>
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>
> For future updates and announcements on prediction markets simply
> syndicate http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/31f3e089a7/464838/4041b7327b/8153554
> or http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/5ef842e9de/464838/4041b7327b/8153554.
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
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body:
Yours sincerely,

Brad Patrick

--
Wikimedia Foundation
http://wikimediafoundation.org/
---- Forwarded message from "Colabria" <Colabria at mail.vresp.com> ---

From: "Colabria" <Colabria at mail.vresp.com>
To: board at wikimedia.org
ReplyTo: "Colabria" <reply-3d1fe78033-board=wikimedia.org at o.vresp.com>
Subject: Prediction Markets Summit -- New York
Date: 2005-12-13 17:21:15

> Invitation :: Prediction Markets Summit :: Feb 3, 2005 :: New York City ::
> Registration Open :: :
> http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/df14727d13/464838/4041b7327b/8153554
>
> Smart mobs, swarms, information markets, crowd wisdom, social networks,
> communities, idea exchanges and knowledge markets -- all are getting a lot
> of popular attention today. Why? Because they are effective... See:
>
> http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/cb3043f7f2/464838/4041b7327b/8153554
>
> Top knowledge scientists, information market practitioners, business
> school professors, think tanks, KM visionaries and prediction market tool
> providers are converging for an important, one-day Prediction Markets
> Summit in New York City on the future of Prediction Markets.
>
> Knowledge and prediction markets are becoming routine in the smartest
> firms. For example, top firms using prediction markets are Google, Yahoo!,
> Microsoft, Eli Lilly, Abbott Laboratories, Intel and Siemens. At the World
> Economic Forum in Davos knowledge markets will be applied. Of course
> prediction markets have been used for decades to forecast, with uncanny
> accuracy, the outcome of popular elections.
>
> "There is some amazing evidence to support markets as predictors of future
> events." ? (Professor Vernon Smith - 2002 winner of the Nobel Prize in
> Economics)
>
> Join the prediction markets community for a one-day, conversational
> deep-dive of prediction markets.
> http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/2e479e6d57/464838/4041b7327b/8153554. All are
> welcome.
>
> Noted author James Surowiecki will be your keynote. See: The Wisdom of
> Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom
> Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations.
>
> Sponsored, in part, by CommerceNet
> http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/c49be66104/464838/4041b7327b/8153554 and
> NewsFutures
> http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/61995b6444/464838/4041b7327b/8153554.
>
> Agenda: http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/6e1c2c935e/464838/4041b7327b/8153554
>
> Secure, online registration is open. Tuition includes all materials,
> books, meals, registration, refreshments and reception. Note: Because of
> the low-cost, there are no press passes or student discounts available.
>
> Registration:
> http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/bee806aaaa/464838/4041b7327b/8153554
> Registration in advance required. No on-site registration. This event
> will reach capacity quickly. Register early.
>
> Prediction Markets are a critical business frontier. Why? Brush-up here
> with Colabria Briefings.
>
> http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/9f37f34ed3/464838/4041b7327b/8153554
>
> You are welcome to share this invitation in your professional orbit.
>
> For future updates and announcements on prediction markets simply
> syndicate http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/31f3e089a7/464838/4041b7327b/8153554
> or http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/5ef842e9de/464838/4041b7327b/8153554.
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> If you no longer wish to receive these emails, please reply to this
> message with "Unsubscribe" in the subject line or simply click on the
> following link:
> http://unsub.vresp.com/u.html?3d1fe78033/4041b7327b/8153554
>
>
>
> _____________________________________________________________________
> Click below to Forward this message to a Friend:
> http://oi.vresp.com/f2af/v4/send_to_friend.html?ch=3d1fe78033&ldh=4041b7327b
>
> _____________________________________________________________________
> This message was sent by Colabria using
> VerticalResponse's iBuilder (TM)
>
> Colabria
> 1329 Taylor Street
> San Francisco, California  94108
>
> Read the VerticalResponse marketing policy:
> http://www.verticalresponse.com/content/pm_policy.html
>
>
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body:
Yours sincerely,

Brad Patrick

--
Wikimedia Foundation
http://wikimediafoundation.org/
---- Forwarded message from "Colabria" <Colabria at mail.vresp.com> ---

From: "Colabria" <Colabria at mail.vresp.com>
To: board at wikimedia.org
ReplyTo: "Colabria" <reply-3d1fe78033-board=wikimedia.org at o.vresp.com>
Subject: Prediction Markets Summit -- New York
Date: 2005-12-13 17:21:15

> Invitation :: Prediction Markets Summit :: Feb 3, 2005 :: New York City ::
> Registration Open :: :
> http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/df14727d13/464838/4041b7327b/8153554
>
> Smart mobs, swarms, information markets, crowd wisdom, social networks,
> communities, idea exchanges and knowledge markets -- all are getting a lot
> of popular attention today. Why? Because they are effective... See:
>
> http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/cb3043f7f2/464838/4041b7327b/8153554
>
> Top knowledge scientists, information market practitioners, business
> school professors, think tanks, KM visionaries and prediction market tool
> providers are converging for an important, one-day Prediction Markets
> Summit in New York City on the future of Prediction Markets.
>
> Knowledge and prediction markets are becoming routine in the smartest
> firms. For example, top firms using prediction markets are Google, Yahoo!,
> Microsoft, Eli Lilly, Abbott Laboratories, Intel and Siemens. At the World
> Economic Forum in Davos knowledge markets will be applied. Of course
> prediction markets have been used for decades to forecast, with uncanny
> accuracy, the outcome of popular elections.
>
> "There is some amazing evidence to support markets as predictors of future
> events." ? (Professor Vernon Smith - 2002 winner of the Nobel Prize in
> Economics)
>
> Join the prediction markets community for a one-day, conversational
> deep-dive of prediction markets.
> http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/2e479e6d57/464838/4041b7327b/8153554. All are
> welcome.
>
> Noted author James Surowiecki will be your keynote. See: The Wisdom of
> Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom
> Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations.
>
> Sponsored, in part, by CommerceNet
> http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/c49be66104/464838/4041b7327b/8153554 and
> NewsFutures
> http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/61995b6444/464838/4041b7327b/8153554.
>
> Agenda: http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/6e1c2c935e/464838/4041b7327b/8153554
>
> Secure, online registration is open. Tuition includes all materials,
> books, meals, registration, refreshments and reception. Note: Because of
> the low-cost, there are no press passes or student discounts available.
>
> Registration:
> http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/bee806aaaa/464838/4041b7327b/8153554
> Registration in advance required. No on-site registration. This event
> will reach capacity quickly. Register early.
>
> Prediction Markets are a critical business frontier. Why? Brush-up here
> with Colabria Briefings.
>
> http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/9f37f34ed3/464838/4041b7327b/8153554
>
> You are welcome to share this invitation in your professional orbit.
>
> For future updates and announcements on prediction markets simply
> syndicate http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/31f3e089a7/464838/4041b7327b/8153554
> or http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/5ef842e9de/464838/4041b7327b/8153554.
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> If you no longer wish to receive these emails, please reply to this
> message with "Unsubscribe" in the subject line or simply click on the
> following link:
> http://unsub.vresp.com/u.html?3d1fe78033/4041b7327b/8153554
>
>
>
> _____________________________________________________________________
> Click below to Forward this message to a Friend:
> http://oi.vresp.com/f2af/v4/send_to_friend.html?ch=3d1fe78033&ldh=4041b7327b
>
> _____________________________________________________________________
> This message was sent by Colabria using
> VerticalResponse's iBuilder (TM)
>
> Colabria
> 1329 Taylor Street
> San Francisco, California  94108
>
> Read the VerticalResponse marketing policy:
> http://www.verticalresponse.com/content/pm_policy.html
>
>
---- End forwarded message ---

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body:
Yours sincerely,

Brad Patrick

--
Wikimedia Foundation
http://wikimediafoundation.org/
---- Forwarded message from "Colabria" <Colabria at mail.vresp.com> ---

From: "Colabria" <Colabria at mail.vresp.com>
To: board at wikimedia.org
ReplyTo: "Colabria" <reply-3d1fe78033-board=wikimedia.org at o.vresp.com>
Subject: Prediction Markets Summit -- New York
Date: 2005-12-13 17:21:15

> Invitation :: Prediction Markets Summit :: Feb 3, 2005 :: New York City ::
> Registration Open :: :
> http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/df14727d13/464838/4041b7327b/8153554
>
> Smart mobs, swarms, information markets, crowd wisdom, social networks,
> communities, idea exchanges and knowledge markets -- all are getting a lot
> of popular attention today. Why? Because they are effective... See:
>
> http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/cb3043f7f2/464838/4041b7327b/8153554
>
> Top knowledge scientists, information market practitioners, business
> school professors, think tanks, KM visionaries and prediction market tool
> providers are converging for an important, one-day Prediction Markets
> Summit in New York City on the future of Prediction Markets.
>
> Knowledge and prediction markets are becoming routine in the smartest
> firms. For example, top firms using prediction markets are Google, Yahoo!,
> Microsoft, Eli Lilly, Abbott Laboratories, Intel and Siemens. At the World
> Economic Forum in Davos knowledge markets will be applied. Of course
> prediction markets have been used for decades to forecast, with uncanny
> accuracy, the outcome of popular elections.
>
> "There is some amazing evidence to support markets as predictors of future
> events." ? (Professor Vernon Smith - 2002 winner of the Nobel Prize in
> Economics)
>
> Join the prediction markets community for a one-day, conversational
> deep-dive of prediction markets.
> http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/2e479e6d57/464838/4041b7327b/8153554. All are
> welcome.
>
> Noted author James Surowiecki will be your keynote. See: The Wisdom of
> Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom
> Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations.
>
> Sponsored, in part, by CommerceNet
> http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/c49be66104/464838/4041b7327b/8153554 and
> NewsFutures
> http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/61995b6444/464838/4041b7327b/8153554.
>
> Agenda: http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/6e1c2c935e/464838/4041b7327b/8153554
>
> Secure, online registration is open. Tuition includes all materials,
> books, meals, registration, refreshments and reception. Note: Because of
> the low-cost, there are no press passes or student discounts available.
>
> Registration:
> http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/bee806aaaa/464838/4041b7327b/8153554
> Registration in advance required. No on-site registration. This event
> will reach capacity quickly. Register early.
>
> Prediction Markets are a critical business frontier. Why? Brush-up here
> with Colabria Briefings.
>
> http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/9f37f34ed3/464838/4041b7327b/8153554
>
> You are welcome to share this invitation in your professional orbit.
>
> For future updates and announcements on prediction markets simply
> syndicate http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/31f3e089a7/464838/4041b7327b/8153554
> or http://r.vresp.com/?KMCluster/5ef842e9de/464838/4041b7327b/8153554.
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> If you no longer wish to receive these emails, please reply to this
> message with "Unsubscribe" in the subject line or simply click on the
> following link:
> http://unsub.vresp.com/u.html?3d1fe78033/4041b7327b/8153554
>
>
>
> _____________________________________________________________________
> Click below to Forward this message to a Friend:
> http://oi.vresp.com/f2af/v4/send_to_friend.html?ch=3d1fe78033&ldh=4041b7327b
>
> _____________________________________________________________________
> This message was sent by Colabria using
> VerticalResponse's iBuilder (TM)
>
> Colabria
> 1329 Taylor Street
> San Francisco, California  94108
>
> Read the VerticalResponse marketing policy:
> http://www.verticalresponse.com/content/pm_policy.html
>
>
---- End forwarded message ---

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subject: [WikiEN-l] The George W. Bush article: is this still a wiki?

body:
On 12/15/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> At last check, the article had been edited 25889 times - it is, quite
> possibly, the most edited article on Wikipedia.
>

Yes, the article has been edited approximately 5,000 times since late
October.  The difference now is that if you want to edit a single
section of the article you have to load the whole thing.  I'm asked to
believe that this deters vandalism.  I don't. but I am very aware of
the difficulty of editing the piece.  This in itself is tantamount to
an act of vandalism, and profoundly anti-wiki.

The article is being treated as if it were a finished work.  It isn't.
I've edited that article when vandalism was something that happened
almost constantly, and it had very little effect on the process of
editing because editing doesn't require a whole article to be free of
vandalism at all times (a pipe dream with the Bush article) but only
that it should be stable while one is editing it--which is easy enough
to assure.

If Wikipedia continues to be fetishized as a finished work, it can
only damage the activity of producing an encyclopedia.