body:
On Feb 23, 2006, at 6:46 PM, Mark Gallagher wrote:

>> Our project's most destructive administrator, Kelly
>> Martin, has now stepped into the realm of voter
>> intimidation, by *blocking* [[User:Grue]] for a support
>> vote on [[User:Djr xi]]'s Request for Adminship. The
>> excuse was "personal attacks", even though the vote in
>> question did not mention anyone by name. This is a
>> blatant attempt to intimidate voters on this request
>> for adminship.
>
> Bullshit.  He wasn't blocked for "a support vote" at all, and
> that's an
> incredibly stupid thing to say.  For shame.
>
> I personally don't believe the block was warranted (there's a
> thread on
> AN/I about it, I'm sure you haven't forgotten how to find it), and I'm
> pleased to see it was overturned almost immediately.  However, Grue's
> comment was unfair and incivil and rather insulting, and Kelly's block
> was made in good faith.
>
> <snip hyperbole />
>
>> I'm more disgusted by all of this than I can possibly
>> express.
>
> The other day you were speechless with rage; now you're unable to
> enunciate your true level of disgust.  I think us rogue admins
> ought to
> take up a collection to buy you a thesaurus and dictionary; it may
> help
> you on such difficult issues as how to express yourself in print.

This has to be the single most civil and productive message I have
ever read on any listserv. Mark, I must applaud you for being the
bigger man and addressing these concerns calmly instead of lashing
out at the person.

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Elisabeth Bauer

subject: [Foundation-l] Myspace group using our logo

body:
- Essjay - schrieb:
> Sorry, that url should have been http://groups.myspace.com/WikiVandals

This is probably what Cunctator had in mind when he wrote that the CVU
is not a good idea.

--elian


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Zafer Yaman

subject: [Wikitech-l] Pages not validating

body:
On 2/22/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Omegatron wrote:
> > I thought the rendered HTML was passed through a validator/cleaner
> > program after rendering?  Maybe this isn't used on things in the
> > Mediawiki: namespace?
>
> Tidy has been disabled for UI message display for performance reasons.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>
>


from_name: The Cunctator

body:
On 2/23/06, Elisabeth Bauer <elian at djini.de> wrote:
> - Essjay - schrieb:
> > Sorry, that url should have been http://groups.myspace.com/WikiVandals
>
> This is probably what Cunctator had in mind when he wrote that the CVU
> is not a good idea.
>
Yup! Let the needless warfare begin!


list: wikien-l

from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] Newest admin abuse on Wikipedia: Voter intimidation

body:
STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA wrote:
> I believe that Jimbo told Kelly to do whatever she
> wants to stop the spreading of userboxes.

No, that isn't true at all.

--
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#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
#######################################################################


subject: [WikiEN-l] note from karmafist on my talk

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:David_Gerard&diff=next&oldid=40733176
>
> Well, you can't say fairer than "let's talk" ;-) Jimbo, if you have a
> spare moment (hollow laugh) you might find opening dialogue useful.

Actually, that note is a direct result of a talk he and I had today.

--
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#######################################################################


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Bryan Derksen wrote:
>
>> Woah, a whole _year_? I'd thought the article was just temporarily
>> deleted while some details got sorted out. _Now_ I've got a serious
>> grounds for objection.
>>
>
> The point here is not the article itself, it is the abuse of process
> that was involved.
>
My understanding of the process involved has changed several times since
I first involved myself in reaction. Initially, I thought you'd
instituted some sort of unique Jimbo decree that the article be put "on
hold" for a year and had used deletion as a way to do that. This was the
source of my vehement initial reaction - deletion is not a way to
"store" stuff. I wasn't aware of any of the many AfD/VfDs that had gone
before since there weren't notices in the talk page.

Then I found out that you'd deleted it "in process" after an AfD delete
result, and I started feeling quite embarrassed that I'd stuck my foot
in my mouth as a result of incomplete information. I may disagree with
the structure of AfD and many of its results but at least it's part of
Wikipedia's functioning that is being debated widely and may be changed.

Then I found out that the AfD delete result had been for a previous
version of the article and that the current version had _survived_ AfD,
suggesting your deletion was a unique "Jimbo thing" after all. I'm back
to being concerned that your intervention has inappropriately
short-circuited the development of what seems to be to be a legitimate
article, but having been burned by misunderstanding before I'm hesitant
to jump back in to the debate. So far I've just tried to ensure that the
Brian Pepper talk page has prominent links to the previous AfD pages to
hopefully keep my original misunderstanding from happening to others.

> As I said in another post, I'm happy to reduce the time period from one
> year, but what I'd really like to see first is for us to all take a
> really serious look at WP:LIVING, and in particular a strengthening of
> the "Presumption in favor of Privacy".
>
Since I'm just an editor in the trenches and don't participate in all
the higher-level helpdesk/committee/Foundation stuff I may have a skewed
perspective on all this, but I worry that this post-Siegenthaler
biography tizzy is turning into a moral panic of some sort. I would
think that the existing verifiability and no original research policies
would be sufficient to deal with almost all of these sorts of cases
already. Going too far in deference to the privacy wishes of the
subjects of articles verges into POV territory.

IMO, of course.


from_name: John Lee

subject: [WikiEN-l] Userboxes: A rational proposal

body:
Steve Summit wrote:

>Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>
>>The question I have is how can we establish a workable procedure to
>>delete destructive user boxes, one that doesn't generate a lot of
>>conflict and wheelwarring. AND make it vary clear that  userboxes
>>which just express opinions are perfectly acceptable...
>>...I like to not have to worry about things going wrong there.
>>
>>
>
>Even before establishing that workable procedure, I think there
>needs to be more consideration of whether we truly want such a
>procedure.  Jimbo's informal wish that people voluntarily remove
>divisive and polemic userboxes doesn't seem to have done much to
>defuse the current situation, but the initial few rounds of
>deletions certainly haven't, either.
>
>At the very least, we need a clearer consensus on what a truly
>"destructive" user box is, so that we don't have people speedily
>deleting, say, the UDUIW one.
>
>
I've already clarified my stance on this on the talk page for [[WP:CSD]]
(yes, I'm the Commienazi who deleted the UDUIW userbox): I couldn't care
less about political userboxes. Whether those go or stay, it matters
little to me. What concerns me is the existence of userboxes and
categories that exist solely for the purpose of factionalism. To me, the
UDUIW stuff fits that definition to a tee, splitting Wikipedians into
"us and them". Ideological userboxes (i.e. "This user trusts Jimbo") are
arguably factionalist, but not blatantly so, as evidenced by the split
in the community over polemical userboxes. However, the only argument
put up for keeping userboxes like UDUIW I have seen is "T1 doesn't apply
in userspace, undelete and kick that fascist Johnleemk in the balls!" If
Jimbo won't make a *clear* and final stand on polemical userboxes
(something I wouldn't blame him for not doing), the least he could do is
make such a stand on blatantly factionalist ones.

John


body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:David_Gerard&diff=next&oldid=40733176
>>
>>Well, you can't say fairer than "let's talk" ;-) Jimbo, if you have a
>>spare moment (hollow laugh) you might find opening dialogue useful.
>
>
> Actually, that note is a direct result of a talk he and I had today.

Let me expand on this...

I had a long talk in IRC with Karmafist today, and I felt that it was
very productive.  I am afraid that there is a great deal of
misinformation floating around about my views of things, and indeed
about the ArbCom's views of things.

One of the core values of Wikipedia has always been WikiLove --
expressed for example in the idea that it is better to be kind to
problem users *above all else* whenver possible.  Because the ArbCom
ends up dealing with difficult users repeatedly after a long history,
and because they have an exceptional amount of experience dealing with
these issues, they *do* often see things differently from the casual
passerby without direct access.

But this does not mean that the ArbCom doesn't routinely worry and fret
over exactly the sort of balancing act that Karmafist supports, with
respect to trying to find the best possible way for people to fit in.

--Jimbo

--
#######################################################################
#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
#######################################################################


from_name: David Gerard

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:David_Gerard&diff=next&oldid=40733176

Well, you can't say fairer than "let's talk" ;-) Jimbo, if you have a
spare moment (hollow laugh) you might find opening dialogue useful.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Travis Mason-Bushman wrote:
 > A compromise was proposed that I - and a few others - could have
lived with
> - a protected redirect to a short paragraph on [[Internet phenomenon]] or
> [[List of YTMND fads]], which simply states he was some guy who got
> convicted of a minor sex crime and had his picture turned into an Internet
> meme.
>
> No, that was not good enough for the article's proponents - we had to have
> his complete life story (such as it is) and picture for all to see. The
> proposal was rejected.
>
> So, now we have nothing for a year.

Well, it still may be appropriate to do whatever would have been done,
had the AfD been respected in the first place.

--
#######################################################################
#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
#######################################################################


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> I see we have still made little progress in deciding why exactly we
> want to have rules on notability, or what notability means in the
> Wikipedia context. I'm not disagreeing with you, but I do note that
> many others seem to have very different views on why certain subjects
> should or should not feature in Wikipedia.
>
> For what it's worth, I feel we should begin by posing ourselves the
> question: How likely is it that someone will come to Wikipedia looking
> for information on this topic. On Peppers, I would say "fairly
> likely".

That is certainly one question we should ask.

Another question is: does human dignity matter at all?

--
#######################################################################
#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
#######################################################################


from_name: Peter Mackay

subject: [WikiEN-l] "Trivia" sections in articles

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Matt R

> As an aside, yesterday someone added the following to the
> "References" section of [[Zanzibar]]:
>
>    The Earth levels on [[Halo 2]] Take place in "New Zanzibar"
>
> This isn't the first time, either. Obviously, places in
> Africa are so exotic that we need to list references to them
> from computer games if they're to have any relevance to real
> people. Grr.

Half the bluddy encyclopaedia is trivia.

But we're not going to change this anytime soon. Most of the editorbase, I
suggest, regard Halo 2 (whatever that might be) as more relevant to them
than Zanzibar the island.

Peter (Skyring)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA wrote:

>Sure it can be expanded, now when Jimbo gave us
>another reply on the subject. ;)
>
>
>
I could have sworn [[WP:V]] says something about not using primary
sources. :p

John


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Bryan Derksen wrote:
> I don't have any particular investment in the article (I think I voted
> in an AfD on it), but what you just wrote here seems to me to be similar
> to saying "there is no legitimate reason for an article on Mr. Peppers
> other than the legitimate reason there's an article on him." It may not
> be _nice_ to make fun of someone based on their appearance, but if it's
> happening enough it becomes a valid subject for an article IMO. As
> someone else pointed out there's an article on Ghyslain Raza as another
> example of fame through mockery making a person notable.

Yes to all that.  But there's a bit of a curious circularity now that
we've become very very big and very very powerful.  *If* something has
become notable enough *outside wikipedia* then yes, we can and should
have an article about it.   But we should be very extreme in our caution
that a Wikipedia entry not be used to *drive* the very notability upon
which the entry is supposed to *depend*.

--
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#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
#######################################################################


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Bryan Derksen wrote:
> Ben Emmel wrote:
>
>>No, I do agree that it's not a open-and-shut decision. But like Jimbo said,
>>if we still care about this article in a year, then we can argue then.
>
> Woah, a whole _year_? I'd thought the article was just temporarily
> deleted while some details got sorted out. _Now_ I've got a serious
> grounds for objection.

The point here is not the article itself, it is the abuse of process
that was involved.

As I said in another post, I'm happy to reduce the time period from one
year, but what I'd really like to see first is for us to all take a
really serious look at WP:LIVING, and in particular a strengthening of
the "Presumption in favor of Privacy".

"In borderline cases, the rule of thumb should be "do no harm."
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a newspaper. It is not our job to be
sensationalist, or be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating
claims about people's lives."

--
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#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
#######################################################################


subject: [WikiEN-l] Welcome to Wikipedia tagline WAS: Wikipedia's destiny

body:
geni wrote:
> Wikipedia's internal politics long ago reached the point where it is
> posible to be a perfectaly good editor and still upset the wrong
> people.

Can you give an example?

--
#######################################################################
#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
#######################################################################


subject: [WikiEN-l] Trivia and popular culture sections

body:
Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:

>>Subject: [WikiEN-l] "Trivia" sections in articles
>>To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
>>Message-ID: <43FD53A3.7050804 at gmail.com>
>>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>
>>They look ugly and unprofessional. Can we get a policy or something to
>>suggest that they be renamed "Miscellaneous information" or merged
>>into
>>the rest of the article?
>>
>>And while we're at it, can we get rid of "{{PAGENAME}} in popular
>>culture" sections?
>>
>>
>
>Much if not all of much of this content is unreferenced. People
>apparently just toss in stuff off the top of their head. Like lists,
>I think they become a game in which people try to think of something,
>anything that isn't there already.
>
>We should be proactive about putting {{unverifiedsect}} tags on these
>sections, {{fact}} tags on the unreferenced items, and removing them
>after a reasonable period of time and in a fair way. That will go a
>long way to solving the problem.
>
>I personally believe these items are valuable and interesting _if
>referenced._ Incidentally insisting on reference is also a reasonable
>filter against subtrivial cruft; if the Statue of Liberty appears _in
>an important way_ in some movie, Ebert or someone is likely to have
>mentioned it somewhere; if it is just a cameo appearance to establish
>that a ship is approaching New York, nobody is likely to comment on
>it outside of a personal blog or forum, and finding a reference will
>be hard.
>
>
IMO, anything in a trivia section (not necessarily "X in popular
culture", which is distinct from plain trivia) that is encyclopedic can
be easily merged into the rest of the article. Anything else is
unencyclopedic and should be chucked. For instance, when [[Hey Jude]]
had a trivia section, most of it was devoted to things like "[[Jude
Law]] was named after the song". Only one item was encyclopedic -- a
mention of [[Wilson Pickett]]'s cover version, which was easily merged
with the rest of the article. The rest was just chucked. Likewise, is
[[The Beatles]] any less comprehensive after I pruned it of cruft like
"Paul bought his house for X pounds"?

John


from_name: Ilya N.

body:
I love these messages.

Wait wait no...I think I can do better

Jimbo is the project's most destructive admin. Look at all the stuff he's
done! He created the whole damn encyclopedia; this whole ordeal must be his
fault.

On 2/23/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
>
> On Feb 23, 2006, at 6:46 PM, Mark Gallagher wrote:
>
> >> Our project's most destructive administrator, Kelly
> >> Martin, has now stepped into the realm of voter
> >> intimidation, by *blocking* [[User:Grue]] for a support
> >> vote on [[User:Djr xi]]'s Request for Adminship. The
> >> excuse was "personal attacks", even though the vote in
> >> question did not mention anyone by name. This is a
> >> blatant attempt to intimidate voters on this request
> >> for adminship.
> >
> > Bullshit.  He wasn't blocked for "a support vote" at all, and
> > that's an
> > incredibly stupid thing to say.  For shame.
> >
> > I personally don't believe the block was warranted (there's a
> > thread on
> > AN/I about it, I'm sure you haven't forgotten how to find it), and I'm
> > pleased to see it was overturned almost immediately.  However, Grue's
> > comment was unfair and incivil and rather insulting, and Kelly's block
> > was made in good faith.
> >
> > <snip hyperbole />
> >
> >> I'm more disgusted by all of this than I can possibly
> >> express.
> >
> > The other day you were speechless with rage; now you're unable to
> > enunciate your true level of disgust.  I think us rogue admins
> > ought to
> > take up a collection to buy you a thesaurus and dictionary; it may
> > help
> > you on such difficult issues as how to express yourself in print.
>
> This has to be the single most civil and productive message I have
> ever read on any listserv. Mark, I must applaud you for being the
> bigger man and addressing these concerns calmly instead of lashing
> out at the person.
>
> --
> Philip L. Welch
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
~Ilya N.
http://w3stuff.com/ilya/ (My website; DarkLordFoxx Media)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ilyanep (on Wikipedia)
http://www.wheresgeorge.com - Track your money's travels.


body:
You have got to be kidding me....

Even if there is such a problem this is entirely the wrong place or
time to bring this up.

On 2/22/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/22/06, Nyenyec N <nyenyec at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Absolutely. Much better than:
> >
> >  "the free encyclopaedia that anyone can edit" *
> >
> > * Offer does not apply to vandals, trolls, people who cannot refrain
> > from personal attacks, people who cannot play by the rules of an
> > online community, blocked users, banned users or people who share an
> > IP with them etc...
> >
> > Except s/author/editor:
> >
> > "Welcome to Wikipedia, where good editors are always welcome".
> >
> > -- nyenyec
>
> Unless they upset the wrong people.
>
>
> --
> 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
>

--
~Ilya N.
http://w3stuff.com/ilya/ (My website; DarkLordFoxx Media)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ilyanep (on Wikipedia)
http://www.wheresgeorge.com - Track your money's travels.


body:
Steve Summit wrote:

>John Lee wrote:
>
>
>>What concerns me is the existence of userboxes and categories that
>>exist solely for the purpose of factionalism. To me, the UDUIW stuff
>>fits that definition to a tee, splitting Wikipedians into "us and them".
>>
>>
>
>I agree up, down, and sideways that factionalism is very, very
>bad for the project.  But given that it has begun to take root,
>and especially when one of the factional splits is between those
>for and against userboxes, it's not at all clear that rampant,
>heavyhanded deletion of userboxes (which are, after all, merely
>a symptom of the real problem) will automatically make things
>any better.
>
>
When those userboxes are expressing factionalism, then yes, there is a
reasonable chance things will be better. It is /not/ good for editors to
get the idea that factionalism is the normal state of things on
Wikipedia and/or is to be encouraged. Attempting to associate me with
rampant or heavyhanded userbox deletors won't wash; I've only deleted
two userboxes in my whole life, both of which fit my rather narrow
definition of T1.

John


from_name: Heinz

subject: [Wikitech-l] messsages

body:
I know this OE-problem too. I remember, that i had this problem with
postings from a few posters here in this list.

Heinz


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of David Gerard

> Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
> >I think I'm going to have to take a serious look at AfD,
> because if it
> >is this far broken, there's something seriously seriously
> worse about
> >it than I thought.
>
>
> Well, uh, yeah, that's what I've been saying for a year ;-)

And not just once or twice, or as a mild aside, neither...

Peter (Skyring)


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>They look ugly and unprofessional.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>Have you forgotten that most of us are not being paid to edit?  That
>>>>makes looking unprofessional quite natural. :-)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>So, you're suggesting we should leave the vandalism *in* because we're
>>>not being paid to remove it?
>>>
>>>
>>Vandalism??  Please review the subject line; it's about trivia.   Your
>>reference to vandalism is a non-sequitur.
>>
>>
>Vandalism is ugly and unprofessional, and we're not being paid to edit,
>but we fix it anyway. Why should "Trivia" sections in articles be any
>different?
>
Because trivia are not vandalism; they are just interesting and curious
bits of data about the subject.  They give a lighter tone to the entire
article.  They are also just as subject to verifiability criteria as any
other data.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Username block (was Admin Abuse)

body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:

>Peter Mackay wrote:
>
>
>>>From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
>>>[mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Ryan Delaney
>>>
>>>
>>>On 2/23/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Which, according to [[Wikipedia:Username]], they shouldn't. Supposedly
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>we're supposed to warn them at least once, and only take
>>>>
>>>>
>>>action (like
>>>
>>>
>>>>changing their name for them) after a reasonable delay.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>I don't see much point in warning them since it's not a
>>>behavior they can stop. An inappropriate username is an
>>>inappropriate username. In this case, warning just seems to
>>>be more work for the administrator when the result is the
>>>same either way.
>>>
>>>
>>Warn them so they can change their username or at least be aware of why they
>>were blocked. Otherwise they come here seeking an explanation for the random
>>brutality.
>>
>>
>How about we change {{usernameblock}} to the effect of:
>
>"This notice was placed at ~~~~~; you have 24 hours to pick a new name,
>at which point your account will be renamed."
>
If during that 24 hours they haven't made any edits, there's a good
chance that they have not even been on line to see the message.

Ec


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of userpages

body:
It's just plain overkill. People misusing or obsessing over userboxes is the
problem. So it us those users and userboxes that need to be addressed.
Killing all userpages is like putting everyone in jail to make sure you got
the bank robbers.

Mgm


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Delirium wrote:

>  Have you
>actually tried searching Google for "Brian Peppers"?  Information on him
>is quite readily available, quite apart from any obscure sex-offender
>registry.  Wikipedia is not even the highest-ranked result (snopes.com
>is), and there are *161,000* hits.
>
I only see 92,000, while "Stan Shebs" gets 115,000. So how is it
that he's notable enough to have an article and I'm not? I even
have actual accomplishments to describe, albeit no bizarre
physical features to snicker at (or at least I haven't noticed
any pointing and giggling :-) ).

Stan


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA wrote:

>I'm not aware of this and I don't understand the
>meaning of not using "primary sources". It sounds
>weird. A source is a source -- if it's legitimate,
>then why forbid the use of it? Link please.
>
>Note: I wasn't the one to add those sources to the
>sub, but I think that whoever did it, did a good job.
>
>
 From [[Wikipedia:Reliable sources]]:

    * A primary source <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_source>
      provides direct evidence for a certain state of affairs. This may
      mean that the source observes a state of affairs directly, or that
      they observe indirect evidence of it. In other words, a primary
      source is a source very close to the original state of affairs you
      are writing about. An example of primary-source material would be
      a photograph of a car accident taken by an eye witness, or a
      report from that eye witness. A trial transcript is also
      primary-source material. Wikipedia articles may rely on primary
      sources /so long as what they say has been published by a credible
      publication/. For example, a trial transcript has been published
      by the court. *We may not use primary sources whose information
      has not been made available by a credible publication.* See
      Wikipedia:No original research
      <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research>.

John


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>That is certainly one question we should ask.
>
>Another question is: does human dignity matter at all?
>
>
That's a bit of a loaded question, and doesn't directly address the
issue actually at hand.

The more specific issue facing us is: To what extent ought we to censor
Wikipedia out of concern for human dignity?

-Mark


body:
I agree that Trivia is ugly and needs to be merged into the article or
deleted.

As far as 'x in Popular Culture' I would keep it if they are notable
references.

On 2/23/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
> > Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Ray Saintonge wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>They look ugly and unprofessional.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>Have you forgotten that most of us are not being paid to edit?  That
> >>>makes looking unprofessional quite natural. :-)
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>So, you're suggesting we should leave the vandalism *in* because we're
> >>not being paid to remove it?
> >>
> >
> > Vandalism??  Please review the subject line; it's about trivia.   Your
> > reference to vandalism is a non-sequitur.
> >
>
> Vandalism is ugly and unprofessional, and we're not being paid to edit,
> but we fix it anyway. Why should "Trivia" sections in articles be any
> different?
>
> --
> Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
> Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
> "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
> Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>
>

--
~Ilya N.
http://w3stuff.com/ilya/ (My website; DarkLordFoxx Media)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ilyanep (on Wikipedia)
http://www.wheresgeorge.com - Track your money's travels.


list: commons-l

from_name: Angela

subject: [Commons-l] Volunteers needed for the Wikimania Program Team

body:
This is a call for volunteers to join the Program Team for Wikimania
2006 <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2006>, the second
international Wikimedia conference, to be held in Boston this August.

The Program Team are responsible for creating the program, inviting
keynote speakers, reviewing proposals for presentations, workshops,
and papers, organizing the speakers when they arrive at the
conference, and related tasks.

A call for papers
<http://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/Call_for_papers> was recently
distributed, so we are looking for people willing to help review these
papers as they arrive in Indico <http://cfp.wikimania.wikimedia.org/>.

Please add yourself to
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2006/Program_Team> if you
can help.

I am sending this to all project lists since I'm especially trying to
find 3 more people for the theme of "Wikimedia projects and content".

Angela.

--
Angela Beesley


subject: [Foundation-l] Volunteers needed for the Wikimania Program Team


list: textbook-l

subject: [Textbook-l] Volunteers needed for the Wikimania Program Team


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Volunteers needed for the Wikimania Program Team


list: wiktionary-l

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Volunteers needed for the Wikimania Program Team


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
On 22 Feb 2006 at 19:13, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:

> Joshua Griisser wrote:
> > I'm almost speechless with rage at Jimbo's unilateral deletion of the
> > encyclopedia article [[Brian Peppers]]
>
> It wasn't unilateral.  It was an in-process deletion of recreated AfD'd
> content.  Read FCYTravis' history of the article on the talk page.

>From the history, I see that, while the first few AfDs were indeed
overwhelmingly in favor of deletion, and from what I hear about the
content of the article at that time, it almost certainly deserved it.
However, later versions became much more balanced and reasonable, and
sentiment in the AfDs was turning more toward keeping.  So, unless
you hold to the view that "AfD is Forever", etched in stone and
unchangeable for all time, there is some cause for rethinking the
deletion at this point.  After all, you yourself reopened the AfD for
[[Jeremy Rosenfeld]] after a "Keep" result you disagreed with, so you
clearly *don't* hold the opinion that AfDs are infallible or
irreversible.

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of userpages

body:
On 2/23/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
> Why can't your notes and links be kept in the project namespace?
>
> Anthony

We'd get thousands of random personal notes in the project space randomly
edited by anyone who comes by. It would be a complete mess. Besides, that
would only cause people to misuse the wikipedia namespace for things they
misused the userspace for before. Tightening the rules on userspaces would
work just as well.

Mgm


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
>
>
>>They look ugly and unprofessional.
>>
>
> Have you forgotten that most of us are not being paid to edit?  That
> makes looking unprofessional quite natural. :-)
>

So, you're suggesting we should leave the vandalism *in* because we're
not being paid to remove it?

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Mark Gallagher wrote:

>I'm a bit concerned that sometimes Wikipedians have a habit of writing
>articles or including information, not because it's the right thing to
>do, but just basically as a way of saying "you can't tell US what to do,
>mate" whenever the subject of an article complains.  In our rush to send
>a big "FUCK YOU" to any censors, real or imagined, we can ignore what's
>editorially or morally appropriate.  As the man who has to deal with the
>angry 'phone calls and possible press issues afterwards, it's quite
>clear why Jimbo might object to that sort of thing.
>
>
That may be why some people support it, but I think it's ascribing too
much bad faith to accuse most of us of supporting publishing information
simply as a way of saying "fuck you".

I, personally, believe correct, verifiable information on a subject
someone might be looking for is nearly always a net positive, and that
withholding such information is almost always a net negative.
Publicly-available information is a cat that can't be put back into a
bag, and refusing to provide it in a neutral, verifiable manner does
nothing but: 1) increase the prominence of misinformation from
alternative sources; and 2) increase inequality in access to information.

Many people object to many things Wikipedia publishes, and make
arguments for why we should make a special rule against publishing a
specific type of information.  Among other cases are:
* Information some organizations consider non-public, such as Mormon
temple rites, Freemason ceremonies, and so on.
* Leaked information alleged to be damaging to the national security of
one or another country (e.g. details on how military training in
specific countries operates).
* Photographs deemed by some cultures to be highly offensive (e.g.
[[en:clitoris]] or the Jyllands-Posten Muhammed cartoons).

In each of those cases, the eventual decision has been to continue
publishing the information, which I think is the correct decision.  I
don't see how we can reasonably begin to limit what we publish for moral
reasons, especially since Wikipedians come from all over the world, with
vast differences in their moral views.  I also don't think it would be
ethical to do so, anyway.

-Mark

P.S. -- Lest the above get misconstrued into an overly radical
inclusionist viewpoint, I should point out that I do support a weak
notability criterion.  If someone is so non-famous that the only people
who might seek information on them are actually connected with the
person somehow (friends, family, employers, potential employers, friends
of friends, and so on), then an encyclopedia is not the proper place for
information on them.  That covers many of the speedy-delete cases
(garage bands, high-school students, and so on).


from_name: Ben Lowe

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
btw, [[Brian Peppers]] got unlocked about 20 minutes ago..... any theories?

On 2/24/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
> Mark Gallagher wrote:
>
> >I'm a bit concerned that sometimes Wikipedians have a habit of writing
> >articles or including information, not because it's the right thing to
> >do, but just basically as a way of saying "you can't tell US what to do,
> >mate" whenever the subject of an article complains.  In our rush to send
> >a big "FUCK YOU" to any censors, real or imagined, we can ignore what's
> >editorially or morally appropriate.  As the man who has to deal with the
> >angry 'phone calls and possible press issues afterwards, it's quite
> >clear why Jimbo might object to that sort of thing.
> >
> >
> That may be why some people support it, but I think it's ascribing too
> much bad faith to accuse most of us of supporting publishing information
> simply as a way of saying "fuck you".
>
> I, personally, believe correct, verifiable information on a subject
> someone might be looking for is nearly always a net positive, and that
> withholding such information is almost always a net negative.
> Publicly-available information is a cat that can't be put back into a
> bag, and refusing to provide it in a neutral, verifiable manner does
> nothing but: 1) increase the prominence of misinformation from
> alternative sources; and 2) increase inequality in access to information.
>
> Many people object to many things Wikipedia publishes, and make
> arguments for why we should make a special rule against publishing a
> specific type of information.  Among other cases are:
> * Information some organizations consider non-public, such as Mormon
> temple rites, Freemason ceremonies, and so on.
> * Leaked information alleged to be damaging to the national security of
> one or another country (e.g. details on how military training in
> specific countries operates).
> * Photographs deemed by some cultures to be highly offensive (e.g.
> [[en:clitoris]] or the Jyllands-Posten Muhammed cartoons).
>
> In each of those cases, the eventual decision has been to continue
> publishing the information, which I think is the correct decision.  I
> don't see how we can reasonably begin to limit what we publish for moral
> reasons, especially since Wikipedians come from all over the world, with
> vast differences in their moral views.  I also don't think it would be
> ethical to do so, anyway.
>
> -Mark
>
> P.S. -- Lest the above get misconstrued into an overly radical
> inclusionist viewpoint, I should point out that I do support a weak
> notability criterion.  If someone is so non-famous that the only people
> who might seek information on them are actually connected with the
> person somehow (friends, family, employers, potential employers, friends
> of friends, and so on), then an encyclopedia is not the proper place for
> information on them.  That covers many of the speedy-delete cases
> (garage bands, high-school students, and so on).
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Violet/Riga

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia:Article assessment

body:
For those of you that haven't yet seen it, [[Wikipedia:Article assessment]]
is now up and running, currently assessing articles about natural disasters
and accepting submissions for next weeks topic: extinct mammals.

~~~~ Violet/Riga


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-02-24

body:
An automated run of parserTests.php showed the following failures:

Running test BUG 361: URL within URL, not bracketed... FAILED!
Running test Bug 2702: Mismatched <i> and <a> tags are invalid... FAILED!
Running test A table with no data.... FAILED!
Running test A table with nothing but a caption... FAILED!
Running test Link containing "#<" and "#>" % as a hex sequences... FAILED!
Running test Template with thumb image (wiht link in description)... FAILED!
A database error has occurred
Query: DELETE FROM `parsertest_job` WHERE job_cmd = 'refreshLinks' AND job_namespace = '10' AND job_title = 'Loop1' AND job_params = ''
Function: Job::insert
Error: 1146 Table 'fiveralpha.parsertest_job' doesn't exist (localhost)

Backtrace:
GlobalFunctions.php line 604 calls wfBacktrace()
Database.php line 463 calls wfDebugDieBacktrace()
Database.php line 413 calls Database::reportQueryError()
Database.php line 1320 calls Database::query()
JobQueue.php line 111 calls Database::delete()
JobQueue.php line 27 calls Job::insert()
LinksUpdate.php line 98 calls Job::queueLinksJobs()
LinksUpdate.php line 66 calls LinksUpdate::doIncrementalUpdate()
Article.php line 2184 calls LinksUpdate::doUpdate()
Article.php line 1200 calls Article::editUpdates()
parserTests.inc line 661 calls Article::insertNewArticle()
parserTests.inc line 143 calls ParserTest::addArticle()
parserTests.php line 55 calls ParserTest::runTestsFromFile()

<!-- Served by leuksman.com in 1140769026.77 secs. -->


from_name: Matt Brown

body:
On 2/23/06, Ben Yates <bluephonic at gmail.com> wrote:
> "[[Jude Law]] was named after the song"
>
> That's a useful bit of information, though: it illustrates how
> incredibly influential the song was, and the sway the Beatles had over
> a british generation.

Very true.  I'm named after the song too, I believe - my middle name is Jude.

-Matt


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Delirium wrote:

>Steve Bennett wrote:
>
>
>
>>>Every vote on the article in question (i.e. not the very early one) has
>>>come out somewhere near a deadlock.  The most I've seen in favor of
>>>deleting is something like 60-65%, which is nowhere near the consensus
>>>to delete typically required on AfD.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>Were these votes on the basis of content or subject?
>>
>>Sorry to keep on harping on, but it's a pretty important question, and
>>most of these arguments seem to completely blur the line.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>Since most people don't explicitly give their reasoning in their votes,
>it's hard to say.  I would assert that most of the original "delete"
>votes were based on content, not subject, which is why once the content
>improved, the percentage of "delete" votes dwindled.
>
>But this, among other reasons, is why we need to get rid of AfD and DRV
>in the first place.  "Non-notability" is often a red herring used by
>people to delete articles with which they have an ideological disagreement.
>
>-Mark
>
>
>
Often? Please. Nobody denies it's abused. But "often"? Even David Gerard
confesses that 95% of the stuff on AfD is crap that needs to go, and
it's difficult (to say the least) to justify deletion of articles (such
as those on garage bands) without appealing to the concept (if not the
phrase) of non-notability.

John


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>John Lee wrote:
>
>
>
>>Often? Please. Nobody denies it's abused. But "often"?
>>
>>
>
>
>My main problem is "Nominate for deletion based on my own ignorance."
>followed by several "I agree, delete based on my own ignorance."
>
>
If people refused to AfD anything they didn't know anything about (who
can really say they know anything about my local garage band?), we would
be deleting a lot less crap, if less good articles. It's all a question
of trading off false positives for false negatives. I have rarely seen
an ignorance-based debate that didn't end up getting closed as a keep,
or being overturned by DRV.

>>Even David Gerard
>>confesses that 95% of the stuff on AfD is crap that needs to go, and
>>it's difficult (to say the least) to justify deletion of articles (such
>>as those on garage bands) without appealing to the concept (if not the
>>phrase) of non-notability.
>>
>>
>
>
>I have nothing against deleting the truly non-notable, and perusing
>the ancient scrolls reveals that Jimbo has said pretty much the same
>thing.
>
>The problem is it's horribly subjective. Check [[WP:WEB]]'s recent
>edit history and the attempts of arbitrary notability bar partisans to
>make it policy by assertion, despite strong opposition.
>
>
Well, these problems have been here forever. They're not about to go
away any time soon.

John


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Peter Mackay wrote:

>Some public information, such as contained in registers of sex offenders or
>sale prices on house transfers, is generally relatively difficult to find
>and search. Sure, it's public info, but it's not readily available.
>
>Having a Wikipedia article - a notorious Wikipedia article - is a different
>thing. For one thing, it will tend to rank high on a Google search, whereas
>that Ohio register doesn't seem to be at all prominent.
>

Are you at all familiar with the subject we're discussing?  Have you
actually tried searching Google for "Brian Peppers"?  Information on him
is quite readily available, quite apart from any obscure sex-offender
registry.  Wikipedia is not even the highest-ranked result (snopes.com
is), and there are *161,000* hits.  It's not as if Wikipedia pulled some
obscure sex offender out of a registry and catapulted him to
notoriety---he was catapulted to notoriety by fark.com,
somethingawful.com, ytmnd.com, and various other high-traffic places on
the internet, and we just reported that fact.

>The reason the subject of the article was in WP is not because of his
>crime(s), but because of his appearance. To my mind, by including the
>article, we are not presenting a professional face to the world.
>
>
Neither of those is the reason.  The subject of the article is in WP for
the same reason [[en:Star Wars kid]] is: because he gained notoriety as
the result of an internet fad.

>And saying that the subject is now notorious and therefore notable is a
>circular argument.
>
>
It's not circular at all.  If Wikipedia had made him notable, that would
be circular.  However, he became notable through no action of our own,
and now we're documenting it, like we document everything people might
look for information on.

-Mark


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of userpages

body:
G'day Steve,

> Well, most people seem to be strongly in favour of keeping their user
> pages for storing work in progress or their favourite links.  My next
> question:
>
> What is the worst possible thing that could happen if no one else
> could see your user page?
>
> Apart from a couple of vague references to babel boxes, no one seems
> to have indicated much that would be lost without a public userpage.

Um!  Over here!  Not drowning, waving!

Both Fred Bauder and Yours Truly have strongly hinted that we find it
*very* useful to view others' userpages, if only to say "oh, that
explains it" at times.

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: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 268.0.0/267 - Release Date: 22/02/2006


from_name: Ben Yates

body:
Wikipedia is not paper -- in a print encyclopedia, there's a limit on
the total information volume, so any trivia would push out something
more important; here, the contraints are easy navigability,
readability, etc.  I'm afraid I'm a bit baffled as to why /additional/
information at the end of an article upsets people so much, as long as
it doesn't make the rest of the article less useful.  If you don't
like trivia sections, don't read them.

On 2/24/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
>
> >Ray Saintonge wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>Ray Saintonge wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>>They look ugly and unprofessional.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>Have you forgotten that most of us are not being paid to edit?  That
> >>>>makes looking unprofessional quite natural. :-)
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>So, you're suggesting we should leave the vandalism *in* because we're
> >>>not being paid to remove it?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>Vandalism??  Please review the subject line; it's about trivia.   Your
> >>reference to vandalism is a non-sequitur.
> >>
> >>
> >Vandalism is ugly and unprofessional, and we're not being paid to edit,
> >but we fix it anyway. Why should "Trivia" sections in articles be any
> >different?
> >
> Because trivia are not vandalism; they are just interesting and curious
> bits of data about the subject.  They give a lighter tone to the entire
> article.  They are also just as subject to verifiability criteria as any
> other data.
>
> Ec
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Ben Yates
Wikipedia blog - http://wikip.blogspot.com


from_name: SJ

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia:Article assessment

body:
And there are so many fine extinct mammals to write about, or review.
Imagine you are drafting your own "I read the entire encyclopedia"
book, going topic by topic rather than letter by letter.  And you get
to rip on the ones you don't like, make jokes about the Uncyclopedia
transplants, and cheer those that enlighten you.

Practicing the way of the dodo,
    SJ

On 2/23/06, Violet/Riga <violetriga at gmail.com> wrote:
> For those of you that haven't yet seen it, [[Wikipedia:Article assessment]]
> is now up and running, currently assessing articles about natural disasters
> and accepting submissions for next weeks topic: extinct mammals.
>
> ~~~~ Violet/Riga
> _______________________________________________
> 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


body:
"[[Jude Law]] was named after the song"

That's a useful bit of information, though: it illustrates how
incredibly influential the song was, and the sway the Beatles had over
a british generation.

On 2/23/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/23/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Good point. IMHO, removing trivia a week or more after it was added is
> > not newbie biting. But yeah, we should probably be careful not to use
> > edit summaries like "removie newbie crud" in this case :)
>
> It would also be helpful to - instead of just deleting - help the
> newbie learn where the information should be placed, if it's wrongly
> placed, or ask for sources and give some help with the process, or
> suchlike.  I know it takes time, but I try to do this.  Not always,
> though; I confess to a 'ZOMG triviacruft! DELETE DELETE!' reaction at
> times, but ...
>
> -Matt
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Ben Yates
Wikipedia blog - http://wikip.blogspot.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Stan Shebs wrote:

>I only see 92,000, while "Stan Shebs" gets 115,000. So how is it
>that he's notable enough to have an article and I'm not? I even
>have actual accomplishments to describe, albeit no bizarre
>physical features to snicker at (or at least I haven't noticed
>any pointing and giggling :-) ).
>
>
In any case, it's in the multiple tens of thousands, so I think we can
agree that the original Wikipedia article writer didn't dig up Brian
Peppers from the obscurity of the Ohio sex offenders registry.

As for why you don't have an article, I would've thought that is fairly
obvious.  Unless you're famous in some area I don't know about, it would
seem not very many people have commented publicly about you.  If they
have, or if you do something that causes a few thousands of people to
write about you, then I should think you ought to have a Wikipedia article.

-Mark


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
On 2/24/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Well, it still may be appropriate to do whatever would have been done,
> had the AfD been respected in the first place.

It was respected.

You see somewhere in the long running battle between the deletionists
and the inclusionists the inclusionists managed to get the idea that
if an article was recreated with substantially different content into
the policy. The version of the article that was kept had substantially
different content.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
On 2/24/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Bryan Derksen wrote:
> > I don't have any particular investment in the article (I think I voted
> > in an AfD on it), but what you just wrote here seems to me to be similar
> > to saying "there is no legitimate reason for an article on Mr. Peppers
> > other than the legitimate reason there's an article on him." It may not
> > be _nice_ to make fun of someone based on their appearance, but if it's
> > happening enough it becomes a valid subject for an article IMO. As
> > someone else pointed out there's an article on Ghyslain Raza as another
> > example of fame through mockery making a person notable.
>
> Yes to all that.  But there's a bit of a curious circularity now that
> we've become very very big and very very powerful.  *If* something has
> become notable enough *outside wikipedia* then yes, we can and should
> have an article about it.   But we should be very extreme in our caution
> that a Wikipedia entry not be used to *drive* the very notability upon
> which the entry is supposed to *depend*.

I think it is safe to say that snopes will do a good enough job of
driving it's notability along with various other less solid reference
works around the web.

--
geni


body:
On 2/24/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> geni wrote:
> > Wikipedia's internal politics long ago reached the point where it is
> > posible to be a perfectaly good editor and still upset the wrong
> > people.
>
> Can you give an example?

Well for an extreme example [[User:SPUI]] is a competent editor.
Unfortunetly people have not learned to ignore the other stuff.

Back in the day deletionist had a very hard time on WP:RFA  although
that does appear to have been replaced by userboxes with certain
voting patterns making people understandably paranoid.

--
geni


body:
On 2/24/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
> What a load of cobblers!  SPUI, nice guy that he is, has a loooong
> history of trolling, incivility, casual use of personal attacks,
> disruption of Wikipedia, refusal to behave appropriately, and extremely
> poor judgement.  One incident that sticks in the mind is when he edit
> warred over a valid AfD he wanted to "speedy keep" within a few hours of
> creation; I *assume* that, in doing so, there was more at stake than
> just "upset[ting] the wrong people".
>

Hey he's still a good editor. Or at least most of his edits to the
article namespace are good. In the last few weeks we have seen admins
edit waring over actal deletions. Editwaring over AFDs is fairly minor
by comparison.

The only people who have a real problem with him are those who haven't
learned to ignore him.

> > Back in the day deletionist had a very hard time on WP:RFA  although
> > that does appear to have been replaced by userboxes with certain
> > voting patterns making people understandably paranoid.
>
> Uh ... ?
>
>

Just look at the history of RFA. Being a known deletionist was a great
way to rack up opose votes. The recent incerdent involveing userboxes
is covered on WP:AN somwehere

_____________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Peter Mackay wrote:

>>As for why you don't have an article, I would've thought that
>>is fairly obvious.  Unless you're famous in some area I don't
>>know about, it would seem not very many people have commented
>>publicly about you.
>>
>>
>
>115 000 hits, Mark. That's more than the chap with the face.
>
>
Did you look at any of them?  Note in my quote I said "not very many
people have commented about you", which empirically appears to be true:
Almost all of those hits are either for other people named Stan Shebs,
or to posts written by our Stan Shebs himself (e.g. on Wikipedia or on
mailing lists).

Are you being deliberately obtuse?

-Mark


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
On 2/24/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
> The more specific issue facing us is: To what extent ought we to censor
> Wikipedia out of concern for human dignity?
>

Quite a lot, I should hope.

We're in the business of education, not titillation.  We should feel
comfortable in drawing the line pretty sharply on the side of
education.  If a private individual, which this man certainly is,
suffers indignity because of our actions, then we should definitely
spend some time reconsidering our actions.

A year seems about right.  if the article really is so necessary to
Wikipedia that we should disregard or set aside such concerns.  Or
five years.  Let's not rush in making such a difficult and possibly
very damaging decision.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Peter Mackay wrote:

>>Did you look at any of them?  Note in my quote I said "not
>>very many people have commented about you", which empirically
>>appears to be true:
>>Almost all of those hits are either for other people named
>>Stan Shebs, or to posts written by our Stan Shebs himself
>>(e.g. on Wikipedia or on mailing lists).
>>
>>
>
>And how many of the tens of thousands of Google hits for "Brian Peppers"
>have you personally checked?
>
>
I checked the first 50 or so results of both, and spot-checked later pages.

Oh, and here's an in-print reference to Brian Peppers as a noteworthy
internet fad:

Lichman, John. "'Teh interweb' -- It offers more than porn." _Washington
Square News_.  February 3, 2006.  (Also available online at
http://www.nyunews.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2006/02/03/43e31129220d1)

-Mark


from_name: SPUI

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Phil Boswell wrote:
> "Delirium" <delirium at hackish.org> wrote in
> message news:43FD78D3.1030306 at hackish.org...
> [snip]
>
>>...  The most I've seen in favor of
>>deleting is something like 60-65%, which is nowhere near the consensus
>>to delete typically required on AfD.
>
>
> ...whereas WP:DRV works on a simple majority system, so if you want an
> article gone and that's the vote you got, you can simply delete it and wait
> for it to pop upon WP:DRV whereupon your deletion is endorsed.
>
> Somebody tell me I'm too cyncial, go on :-)

http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-January/038092.html


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Peter Mackay wrote:

>Do you see why an article is inappropriate?
>
>
No.

I can see that you have a moral opposition to having an article, but
that does not mean it is inappropriate.  Other people have moral
opposition to divulging Freemasonry rituals in [[Freemasonry]], or
including a photograph of a clitoris on [[clitoris]], but that doesn't
make it inappropriate to do any of that.

-Mark


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Actually moral absolutes do have a role. But sending you straight to
hell is not a good option. Next time, if the only notable thing about
a person is that they are pitiful, consider whether that is notable
enough to balance the damage it does to Wikipedia to include it.

Fred

On Feb 24, 2006, at 5:59 AM, Tony Sidaway wrote:

> I don't think moral absolutes have any place in this argument.
> Perhaps thoughtlessly, I rewrote the Brian Peppers article in
> December, because I thought a subject that had been debunked by Snopes
> probably merited one.  I think I probably made a bad decision then,
> and certainly have no problem with the idea that we should all have a
> good, long hard think about articles that may seriously affect the
> privacy of people mentioned in them.
>
> Wikipedia is big and popular, and a Wikipedia article on an individual
> may seriously affect his life.  In my opinion (and I recognise that
> there are other ways of looking at it) taking a risk like that would
> have to be justifiable, and I don't think that the article that I
> wrote was justifiable in that context.   Although I wrote about the
> meme and the debunking of the belief that the photograph was faked, it
> was foreseeable that others would choose to expand the article to
> describe the man in ways that could be damaging.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
I'd argue that for most people, the word trivia is pretty disconnected
from its epitemological roots, and in this case serves as a convenient
placeholder for a more precise descriptor that nobody's thought of yet
(and would probably be long and cumbersome).

On 2/24/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ben Yates wrote:
> > Wikipedia is not paper -- in a print encyclopedia, there's a limit on
> > the total information volume, so any trivia would push out something
> > more important; here, the contraints are easy navigability,
> > readability, etc.  I'm afraid I'm a bit baffled as to why /additional/
> > information at the end of an article upsets people so much, as long as
> > it doesn't make the rest of the article less useful.  If you don't
> > like trivia sections, don't read them.
> >
>
> The problem is not so much the fact that they exist as that the name
> "trivia" is meaningless. I mean, if this information is so "trivial",
> why bother including it? It should be "miscellaneous information".
>
> --
> Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
> Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
> "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
> Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>
>

--
Ben Yates
Wikipedia blog - http://wikip.blogspot.com


from_name: Peter Mackay

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Ryan Delaney

> On 2/23/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Which, according to [[Wikipedia:Username]], they shouldn't.
> Supposedly
> > we're supposed to warn them at least once, and only take
> action (like
> > changing their name for them) after a reasonable delay.
>
>
> I don't see much point in warning them since it's not a
> behavior they can stop. An inappropriate username is an
> inappropriate username. In this case, warning just seems to
> be more work for the administrator when the result is the
> same either way.

Warn them so they can change their username or at least be aware of why they
were blocked. Otherwise they come here seeking an explanation for the random
brutality.

Peter (Skyring)


body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Guettarda

> On 2/23/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Doesn't the autoblocker only kick in when one tries to edit?
>
>
> Yep, my mistake.  But they still won't be able to edit with
> the new username

It also comes up when you click on a redlink.

Peter (Skyring)


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Delirium wrote:

>Peter Mackay wrote:
>
>
>>>As for why you don't have an article, I would've thought that
>>>is fairly obvious.  Unless you're famous in some area I don't
>>>know about, it would seem not very many people have commented
>>>publicly about you.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>115 000 hits, Mark. That's more than the chap with the face.
>>
>>
>Did you look at any of them?  Note in my quote I said "not very many
>people have commented about you", which empirically appears to be true:
>Almost all of those hits are either for other people named Stan Shebs,
>or to posts written by our Stan Shebs himself (e.g. on Wikipedia or on
>mailing lists).
>
As it happens, there's only the one me. In fact, since my last name
is the result of creativity on the part of the authorities when my
grandfather immigrated, all the "Shebs" one finds on the net are my
relatives (save for a handful of uses as a casual form of "Sheba").

As you say, nearly all the hits are not so much about me personally
than about the projects I've been involved in, but you were the one
holding up raw Google hits as a measure of notability. We have lots
of uncontroversial bios for which there is one or two pages with
life story, and every other Google hit is a citation of works or
reference to the person's activities.

In Brian Peppers' case, being ridiculed by a handful of lusers on
the net, who are in turn mirrored by more lusers, just confirms
to me non-notability of that part of the net community, not Brian's
notability. An analogy might be a McDonald's franchise - even a
small one will have thousands of customers annually, but that's
still not enough to make that particular store notable.

(For the record, I'm indifferent as to whether I have an article.
But there's at least a million other articles that would be more
interesting and useful to write first.)

Stan


body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of David Gerard

> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:David_Gera
> rd&diff=next&oldid=40733176
>
> Well, you can't say fairer than "let's talk" ;-) Jimbo, if
> you have a spare moment (hollow laugh) you might find opening
> dialogue useful.

Uh, judging by his recent AfD comments, I don't think he reads your posts,
David.

Pete, who prints them all off on special paper


from_name: - Essjay -

body:
This isn't the fault of the CVU existing, it's a problem with having
derivative logos (an idea which I've changed my mind on, hence why I deleted
so many of the ones I created from Commons, and why I'd like to see an order
from the Foundation to delete the rest of them).

There isn't a problem with a bunch of vandals having a "Wikipedia Vandalism
Unit;" if there was, we would have already gone after Daniel Brandt and the
trolls at Wikipedia Review. What is the problem is the use of our logo,
which should be dealt with quickly.

I'll take this opportunity to remind individuals that the CVU does a lot of
good work that nobody else seems to want to do, and takes a lot of hell for
it with very, *very* little appreciation ever shown. Perhaps this time,
instead of starting up on three choruses of "the CVU is evil," people could
take the time to go drop a note on a CVU member's talk page that says "Hey,
I noticed you hard at work reverting vandals, good work!"

Now,.back to my vacation.

Essjay

On 2/23/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/23/06, Elisabeth Bauer <elian at djini.de> wrote:
> > - Essjay - schrieb:
> > > Sorry, that url should have been http://groups.myspace.com/WikiVandals
> >
> > This is probably what Cunctator had in mind when he wrote that the CVU
> > is not a good idea.
> >
> Yup! Let the needless warfare begin!
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Essjay
-----
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Essjay
Wikipedia:The Free Encyclopedia
http://www.wikipedia.org/


from_name: Heiko Evermann

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] RFC: Principles of mass content adding on small
	Wikipedias

body:
Hi Milos, hi Sabine,

There is one aspect in this project that is totally missing so far: it has to
be checked, whether these small wikipedias really want this mass inclusion.
Please do not add such content without consensus.

Just imagine a small wikipedia with e.g. 2000 articles. If you then add 20000
stubs about geographic places, this will ususally not do the wikipedia a
favour. I just try to imagine 2000 articles following the template
"x is a city in y with 20000 inhabitants.
a% of them speak b
c% of them speak d
x lies in the administrative region of z".

It would just promise an incredibly high article count and once you browse
through the wikipedia 95% of you find is template articles. A small
wikipedia's team will probably not have the resources of turning 20000
geographical stubs into meaningfull articles and even if it had, it would
probably prefer spending their time on other things that are more important
than stubs about every village in other countries than their own.

I am not convinced that this is a service. To me it looks more than a burden.

Kind regards,
Heiko Evermann


from_name: Guettarda

subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of userpages

body:
The problem with keeping your notes in the project namespace is that you
would still need a place to organise your notes and remind you where they
are.  If sandboxes were linked to articles, then you might have a dozen or
so different sandboxes linked to a single article space - several of them
forgotten (because you don't have a user pages to organise your sandboxes).
I have a whole pile of abandoned article ideas in my user space.  That
doesn't mean that they will never be used, just that my attention got
consumed by other (usually less productive) things.  Granted, you could keep
track of these things by looking through all the pages on your
watchlist...but that would be far less productive (given that many people
have watchlists with thousands of items.


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:
> Actually moral absolutes do have a role. But sending you straight to
> hell is not a good option. Next time, if the only notable thing about
> a person is that they are pitiful, consider whether that is notable
> enough to balance the damage it does to Wikipedia to include it.
>
Please, the demonization of people we disagree with in this thread is
getting ridiculous. I don't think a single one of the people who've been
arguing that an article on Peppers is notable enough to have is arguing
that it's just because he "looks funny." He's being said to be notable
because of the _fad_ that's sprung up around his unusual appearance. We
don't have an article about [[Marty Feldman]] just because he looked
funny either.


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of userpages

body:
On 2/23/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/23/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> >
> > Why can't your notes and links be kept in the project namespace?
> >
> > Anthony
>
>
> We'd get thousands of random personal notes in the project space randomly
> edited by anyone who comes by. It would be a complete mess. Besides, that
> would only cause people to misuse the wikipedia namespace for things they
> misused the userspace for before. Tightening the rules on userspaces would
> work just as well.
>
> Mgm

You seem to be saying that the user namespace is not useful, but not
harmful either.  I agree that tightening the rules on the userspaces
would have essentially the same effect as getting rid of them, though.

As for it being a complete mess, I think it'd probably be less of a
mess.  Instead of having similar notes being spread among hundreds of
user pages, it'd be contained to just one project page.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of userpages

body:
In any case, you didn't answer my question.  You said that killing the
user namespace would "instantly kill all the notes I keep on my wiki
projects. And all the links I
keep for easy access so I don't have to search to find stuff."  But
why can't your notes and links be kept in the project namespace?
Surely doing that wouldn't cause thousands of random personal notes in
the project space randomly edited by anyone who comes by.  We're just
talking about your notes.  They aren't random, are they?

Anthony

On 2/23/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/23/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> >
> > Why can't your notes and links be kept in the project namespace?
> >
> > Anthony
>
>
> We'd get thousands of random personal notes in the project space randomly
> edited by anyone who comes by. It would be a complete mess. Besides, that
> would only cause people to misuse the wikipedia namespace for things they
> misused the userspace for before. Tightening the rules on userspaces would
> work just as well.
>
> Mgm
> _______________________________________________
> 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: MHart

subject: [Foundation-l] Fate of "Simple English"

body:
> The argument is that since so much of the world turns to English as a
> second language for information, it would be useful to have an English
> Wikipedia written in simple, easy-to-understand English, but at the same

I recently created a widget where you hold the mouse over an acronym and
press some key combination and the definition of the acronym pops up. It
reads the acronyms from a QuickBase database - almost 800 acronyms in the db
(used at Intuit).

Something like that would be great for English-as-a-second-language folks.
An English-to-whatever dictionary widget. Hmmm... maybe I'll just write it
real quick...

- MHart


subject: [Foundation-l] Fate of "Simple English"


from_name: Steve Summit

body:
Alphax wrote:
> The evidence is overwhelmingly that the community (whoever the hell they
> are) wants a free webhost and "blog buttons" [1] to plaster all over them.

Can you cite that evidence?

I was going to edit WP_NOT to say "Wikipedia is not a blog", but
that page is official policy and I ought to make sure a change
reflects consensus before I make it.  Where's the right place to
seek that consensus?  (And I do mean the right place to seek an
accurate consensus, not necessarily just one that agrees with me.)


body:
It's still useful; you just have to use your head more -- you have to
think about what the odds might be that a 1st-tier celebrity is named
after the song, and how many other people might be named after it
because of that, for example.  It might not be a perfectly
encapsulated summary of the spike in "Jude" names, complete with SVG
charts (and a control group showing no similar spike in "Sharona"
babies in the early '80s) but it'll never grow into that if the
reference is removed off the bat.

On 2/24/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> Ben Yates wrote:
>
> >"[[Jude Law]] was named after the song"
> >
> >That's a useful bit of information, though: it illustrates how
> >incredibly influential the song was, and the sway the Beatles had over
> >a british generation.
> >
> >
> Not if you don't have a source to back up the latter assertion as well
> as the assertion that Law's naming was because of this cultural
> influence (instead of, say, his mother hearing the song on the radio
> just before going into labour).
>
> John
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Ben Yates
Wikipedia blog - http://wikip.blogspot.com


body:
There are still contraints, but they're contraints of readability and
usefulness, not shipping weight.

On 2/24/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> Ben Yates wrote:
>
> >Wikipedia is not paper -- in a print encyclopedia, there's a limit on
> >the total information volume, so any trivia would push out something
> >more important; here, the contraints are easy navigability,
> >readability, etc.  I'm afraid I'm a bit baffled as to why /additional/
> >information at the end of an article upsets people so much, as long as
> >it doesn't make the rest of the article less useful.  If you don't
> >like trivia sections, don't read them.
> >
> >
> >
> Because we're an encyclopedia. This is like saying "I'm a bit baffled as
> to why including the full text of all of [[Abraham Lincoln]]'s speeches
> at the end of his article upsets people so much". (A bit exaggerated of
> course, but nevertheless true.) WP:NOT an indiscriminate collection of
> information.
>
> John
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Ben Yates
Wikipedia blog - http://wikip.blogspot.com


from_name: Milos Rancic

body:
For small wikipedias we thought about something more meaningful:
pseudo-translation of countries, rivers, mountains, islands, movies,
actors etc. from English Wikipedia. Yes, I know that concesus should
be reached for 100.000 new articles, but if people from small
Wikipedias want that, they will localize software. If they don't want,
we wouldn't have even stubs in their language.

On 2/24/06, Heiko Evermann <heiko.evermann at gmx.de> wrote:
> Hi Milos, hi Sabine,
>
> There is one aspect in this project that is totally missing so far: it has to
> be checked, whether these small wikipedias really want this mass inclusion.
> Please do not add such content without consensus.
>
> Just imagine a small wikipedia with e.g. 2000 articles. If you then add 20000
> stubs about geographic places, this will ususally not do the wikipedia a
> favour. I just try to imagine 2000 articles following the template
> "x is a city in y with 20000 inhabitants.
> a% of them speak b
> c% of them speak d
> x lies in the administrative region of z".
>
> It would just promise an incredibly high article count and once you browse
> through the wikipedia 95% of you find is template articles. A small
> wikipedia's team will probably not have the resources of turning 20000
> geographical stubs into meaningfull articles and even if it had, it would
> probably prefer spending their time on other things that are more important
> than stubs about every village in other countries than their own.
>
> I am not convinced that this is a service. To me it looks more than a burden.
>
> Kind regards,
> Heiko Evermann
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] Fate of "Simple English"

body:
Alison Wheeler wrote:

>I've often thought that the 'simple English' was the right product aimed
>at the wrong market.
>
>Instead of targetting it at people how have English as a second language
>(who, quite rightly, want to learn English "properly"; long words and all)
>why not consider it as targetted at that other group who *need* simple
>English ...
>
>Children.
>
>Simple English is, I would have thought, perfect for pre-schoolers and
>under-12s generally as it sets out to explain concepts in simpler language
>and as that means a reduced vocabulary then let us target it at those who
>already daily use that reduced vocabulary.
>
>Alison
>
>
This, in theory, is what Wikijunior currently covers.  Wikijunior is
currently a bunch of Wikiprojects that are organized in a format like a
Wikibook, but include largely a bunch of encyclopedia-like articles.
 The editorial policies for Wikijunior strongly encourage simplification
for our target audience (currently 8-12 year olds in most Wikijunior
projects).

I don't know to what degree the current group of Simple English
participants are also involved in Wikijunior, but my sense of things is
that they are two very different groups of editor/contributors.  Still,
it is an interesting thought that perhaps some collaboration between the
two groups of editors ought to take place and could be beneficial to
both of them.

Wikijunior is also multi-lingual, with the French Wikijunior having been
just started, and some very interesting content on the Chinese
Wikijunior project.  I have not seen any efforts to go multi-lingual
among the Simple English group (aka Simple Spanish or Simple French).

--
Robert Scott Horning


subject: [Foundation-l] Fate of "Simple English"


from_name: Ben Lowe

subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of userpages

body:
Thing is, I'm pretty lazy, so I'd probably just set up shop in one article
space and simply turn that space into my note space for all of my articles.
I'd find a nice, quiet article -- maybe my home town, it'd feel like I was
moving back -- and set up shop there.  (Or maybe I'd use the [[Brian
Peppers]] space; I hear that's not getting a lot of use?.)   You can't
really tell me that anyone would patrol these notes pages to determine
whether they're related *enough* to the article.  Well, you can say it, but
I'll laugh at you.   What then, protocols for deletion of people's notes?
NfD?  "Non-notable notes; they don't relate enough to this article.  Merge
with [[User:Redwolf24]]'s notes."

Fine, then I'd set up shop in non-sensical article space, like "[[The blind
unicyclists of Kenya (video game)]]" and get to work where no one would have
any idea what is and isn't pertinent to the article.   What's that you say?
The article is non-notable?  A probable hoax?  How do you know -- the
article hasn't even been written yet!  Besides, short of contrib-stalking me
(flattering, but a little creepy), there's no way you'd know where I was
keeping my notes anyway.

Maybe I'd even throw in a userbox.  Sorry, article-notesbox.  "These article
notes do not support the United Nations."

There are simply too many ways in which the article space would end up being
abused in order to cobble together some semblance of the functionality of
userspace.

Ben

On 2/24/06, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com > wrote:
>
> The problem with keeping your notes in the project namespace is that you
> would still need a place to organise your notes and remind you where they
> are.  If sandboxes were linked to articles, then you might have a dozen or
> so different sandboxes linked to a single article space - several of them
> forgotten (because you don't have a user pages to organise your
> sandboxes).
> I have a whole pile of abandoned article ideas in my user space.  That
> doesn't mean that they will never be used, just that my attention got
> consumed by other (usually less productive) things.  Granted, you could
> keep
> track of these things by looking through all the pages on your
> watchlist...but that would be far less productive (given that many people
> have watchlists with thousands of items.
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Phil Boswell

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] RFC: Principles of mass content adding on
	smallWikipedias

body:
"Heiko Evermann" <heiko.evermann at gmx.de> wrote in
message news:200602240904.30927.heiko.evermann at gmx.de...
> There is one aspect in this project that is totally missing so far: it has
> to
> be checked, whether these small wikipedias really want this mass
> inclusion.
> Please do not add such content without consensus.
> It would just promise an incredibly high article count and once you browse
> through the wikipedia 95% of you find is template articles. A small
> wikipedia's team will probably not have the resources of turning 20000
> geographical stubs into meaningfull articles and even if it had, it would
> probably prefer spending their time on other things that are more
> important
> than stubs about every village in other countries than their own.

On the other hand, it would provide visitors with excellent opportunities to
edit something relevant to themselves: where they live.

Once they got the editing bug, there would then be plenty of articles they
could go forth and clean-up.

I'm thinking that a Wikipedia chock-full of geographical stubs is a lot
better than one chock-full of pop-culture stubs, which would likely prove
totally irrelevant to almost every Wikipedia other than that for the home
language.

HTH HAND
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of userpages

body:
On 2/24/06, Ben Lowe <ben.lowe at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thing is, I'm pretty lazy, so I'd probably just set up shop in one article
> space and simply turn that space into my note space for all of my articles.
> I'd find a nice, quiet article -- maybe my home town, it'd feel like I was
> moving back -- and set up shop there.  (Or maybe I'd use the [[Brian
> Peppers]] space; I hear that's not getting a lot of use?.)   You can't
> really tell me that anyone would patrol these notes pages to determine
> whether they're related *enough* to the article.  Well, you can say it, but
> I'll laugh at you.   What then, protocols for deletion of people's notes?
> NfD?  "Non-notable notes; they don't relate enough to this article.  Merge
> with [[User:Redwolf24]]'s notes."
>
> Fine, then I'd set up shop in non-sensical article space, like "[[The blind
> unicyclists of Kenya (video game)]]" and get to work where no one would have
> any idea what is and isn't pertinent to the article.   What's that you say?
> The article is non-notable?  A probable hoax?  How do you know -- the
> article hasn't even been written yet!  Besides, short of contrib-stalking me
> (flattering, but a little creepy), there's no way you'd know where I was
> keeping my notes anyway.
>
> Maybe I'd even throw in a userbox.  Sorry, article-notesbox.  "These article
> notes do not support the United Nations."
>
> There are simply too many ways in which the article space would end up being
> abused in order to cobble together some semblance of the functionality of
> userspace.
>
> Ben

I guess I just don't see what the functionality of userspace is in the
first place, if not to be used by the user as an expression of
themselves.

I also think what's more likely to happen, if people *really* insist
on keeping their notes separate from everyone elses, is you'll see
things like [[Wikipedia:Bob's notes]], not notes thrown into the
article space.  Someone doing what you claim you would do would
quickly be banned.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

references:
<43FEB5A1.3020504@hackish.org>	<20060224075755.IDWZ14751.omta05ps.mx.bigpond.com@skyringstudy>
	<2ed171fb0602240036t49e3cb9bybda78fa8b44efb4b@mail.gmail.com>
	<43FF586C.7070704@wikia.com>

body:
Liar, liar

Results 1 - 10 of about 608,000 for "Jimmy wales"

Results 1 - 10 of about 19,300,000 for "bill gates".

Fred

On Feb 24, 2006, at 12:03 PM, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> Andrew Lih wrote:
>
>> Results 1 - 10 of about 161,000 for "brian peppers". (0.05 seconds)
>>
>> Results 1 - 10 of about 154,000 for "Stan Shebs". (0.03 seconds)
>>
>> Let's cut the ridiculousness of this Google testing track.
>>
>
> "jimmy wales" - 36,500,000
> "elvis presley" - 14,400,000
>
> it's pretty silly
>
>
>
>
> --
> ######################################################################
> #
> #    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free
> Knowledge #
> #    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free
> world         #
> ######################################################################
> #
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Brion Vibber

body:
brion at pobox.com wrote:
> Error: 1146 Table 'fiveralpha.parsertest_job' doesn't exist (localhost)

Added it to the list of tables cloned for the parser tests; same pass/fail
results as the previous night.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
I don't think moral absolutes have any place in this argument.
Perhaps thoughtlessly, I rewrote the Brian Peppers article in
December, because I thought a subject that had been debunked by Snopes
probably merited one.  I think I probably made a bad decision then,
and certainly have no problem with the idea that we should all have a
good, long hard think about articles that may seriously affect the
privacy of people mentioned in them.

Wikipedia is big and popular, and a Wikipedia article on an individual
may seriously affect his life.  In my opinion (and I recognise that
there are other ways of looking at it) taking a risk like that would
have to be justifiable, and I don't think that the article that I
wrote was justifiable in that context.   Although I wrote about the
meme and the debunking of the belief that the photograph was faked, it
was foreseeable that others would choose to expand the article to
describe the man in ways that could be damaging.


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:

> Andrew Lih wrote:
> > Results 1 - 10 of about 161,000 for "brian peppers". (0.05 seconds)
> >
> > Results 1 - 10 of about 154,000 for "Stan Shebs". (0.03 seconds)
> >
> > Let's cut the ridiculousness of this Google testing track.
>
> "jimmy wales" - 36,500,000
> "elvis presley" - 14,400,000
>
> it's pretty silly

Interesting. I get

40,300,000 for "Jimmy Wales"
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=%22Jimmy+Wales%22&btnG=Search

and
42,700,000 for "Jesus Christ"
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=%22Jesus+Christ%22&btnG=Search

-- mav

PS - IIRC, the same search a month ago had over 50,000,000 hits for "Jimmy Wales" and about
43,000,000 for "Jesus Christ". So you ain?t more popular than Jesus anymore. :)

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Jimmy Wales

> Steve Bennett wrote:
> > I see we have still made little progress in deciding why exactly we
> > want to have rules on notability, or what notability means in the
> > Wikipedia context. I'm not disagreeing with you, but I do note that
> > many others seem to have very different views on why
> certain subjects
> > should or should not feature in Wikipedia.
> >
> > For what it's worth, I feel we should begin by posing ourselves the
> > question: How likely is it that someone will come to
> Wikipedia looking
> > for information on this topic. On Peppers, I would say "fairly
> > likely".
>
> That is certainly one question we should ask.
>
> Another question is: does human dignity matter at all?

On sober reflection, unless we are publishing articles on ALL lowgrade sex
offenders (and what Peppers is listed as doing seems to rank very low on the
scale of such things) then by having an article on him, we are singling him
out for demonisation and ridicule based on his looks. Sure, he's notable
after a fashion, but the casual reader might conclude that if we have an
article on Peppers, busted for forcing his affection on somebody, and not on
Joe Blow down the street just released after twenty years inside for rude
things with great aunts and fluffy white ducks, then we must know something
they don't. Particularly looking the way he does.

It's no great step to find his address on the Ohio database thing, and
before we know it we have crowds of the Wikicurious lurking outside his
house and dogging his steps when he goes shopping so as to get a photograph
for GFDL uploading. "For the good of the encyclopaedia. We're here to write
an encyclopaedia. Moral behaviour and civic responsibility take second
place."

Do we really want people to be Wikipediaed in much the same way as websites
are routinely Slashdotted?

Peter (Skyring)


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Banned

body:
MGM wrote:

>It's not you Hall Monitor banned, but someone using the same IP address as
>you do and vandalising articles
>(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/24.66.94.140)
>Unfortunately, you get blocked because your ISP issues you the same IP every
>once in awhile. This IP has been blocked for the 12th time  because it keeps
>vandalising articles. The only way you can avoid being banned too is get
>another IP address or contact your ISP abuse address internet.abuse
at sjrb.ca (or
>forward any conversation you had with them to Hall Monitor).

Do the whois - this is a shaw.ca proxy. Shaw Cable route all their
customers' web access through transparent proxies - hence GeekyBroad
seeing a different IP for her PC than for the editing: Wikipedia sees
only the proxy address.

As a wide-ranging ISP proxy, this IP should *never* be blocked for
more than very short times.

- d.


from_name: Mark Gallagher

body:
G'day Josh,

> Our project's most destructive administrator, Kelly
> Martin, has now stepped into the realm of voter
> intimidation, by *blocking* [[User:Grue]] for a support
> vote on [[User:Djr xi]]'s Request for Adminship. The
> excuse was "personal attacks", even though the vote in
> question did not mention anyone by name. This is a
> blatant attempt to intimidate voters on this request
> for adminship.

Bullshit.  He wasn't blocked for "a support vote" at all, and that's an
incredibly stupid thing to say.  For shame.

I personally don't believe the block was warranted (there's a thread on
AN/I about it, I'm sure you haven't forgotten how to find it), and I'm
pleased to see it was overturned almost immediately.  However, Grue's
comment was unfair and incivil and rather insulting, and Kelly's block
was made in good faith.

<snip hyperbole />

> I'm more disgusted by all of this than I can possibly
> express.

The other day you were speechless with rage; now you're unable to
enunciate your true level of disgust.  I think us rogue admins ought to
take up a collection to buy you a thesaurus and dictionary; it may help
you on such difficult issues as how to express yourself in print.

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

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from_name: BJörn Lindqvist

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
> > Whether someone wants an article or not does and should not have any
> > relevant whatsoever.  [[en:Star Wars kid]], another internet fad,
> > doesn't want an article either, but there you have one.  Brian Peppers
> > is a less well-known internet fad, but still certainly at the level
> > where he would warrant inclusion in any more than cursary treatment of
> > the subject.
>
> Just on the notability thing, I wonder if BP will really stack up well
> on the "ten years from now" test. Sure, he's interesting *now*, but in
> 2016?

2016 it will be interesting that Brian Pepper was interesting ten
years earlier.

> On the treatment of deformities as WP articles, see [[Joseph
> Merrick]]. There's someone who didn't seem to achieve anything notable
> that wasn't directly related to his deformity.

Mhm? See [[John Siegenthaler]]. There's someone who didn't seem to
achieve anything notable that wasn't directly related to the Kennedy
assassination.

--
mvh Bj?rn


from_name: Peter Mackay

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Jimmy Wales
> "In borderline cases, the rule of thumb should be "do no harm."
> Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a newspaper. It is not our
> job to be sensationalist, or be the primary vehicle for the
> spread of titillating claims about people's lives."

That's the job of WikiNews...

Pete, cub reporter http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/User:Skyring


body:
G'day geni,

> On 2/24/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
>>geni wrote:
>>
>>>Wikipedia's internal politics long ago reached the point where it is
>>>posible to be a perfectaly good editor and still upset the wrong
>>>people.
>>
>>Can you give an example?
>
> Well for an extreme example [[User:SPUI]] is a competent editor.
> Unfortunetly people have not learned to ignore the other stuff.

What a load of cobblers!  SPUI, nice guy that he is, has a loooong
history of trolling, incivility, casual use of personal attacks,
disruption of Wikipedia, refusal to behave appropriately, and extremely
poor judgement.  One incident that sticks in the mind is when he edit
warred over a valid AfD he wanted to "speedy keep" within a few hours of
creation; I *assume* that, in doing so, there was more at stake than
just "upset[ting] the wrong people".

> Back in the day deletionist had a very hard time on WP:RFA  although
> that does appear to have been replaced by userboxes with certain
> voting patterns making people understandably paranoid.

Uh ... ?

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

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