subject: [WikiEN-l] Stan Shebs

body:
shebs at apple.com wrote:

"I've spent hour after frustrating hour on talk pages with 172 actually;
when one resolves not to get into edit wars with somebody who has a
habit of reverting (VV is just one of many who 172 has reverted), talk
pages are one's only option. You should review them for yourself before
you start talking about foibles and projection."

Since a lot of users buy into your distortions of the truth (users with whom
I'd like to work cooperatively), I've enclosed in this e-mail excepts from
our two longest running interactions of the year. Despite your claims, I'm
sure that fair-minded users will see once and for all that I have struggled
to be as fair and helpful to you as possible. I think that they'll find that
in the end I should've really been the one guilty of all the things of which
you accuse me.

Due to size constraints, I'll have to spit this message into two parts. The
first is a discussion from [[Talk:History of the United States
(1980-1988)]]. The other major discussion we've had this year is taken from
[[Talk:Cold War/temp]]. I will add that to separate e-mail.

-172

-------

Taken from
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:History_of_the_United_States_%281980-1988%29&action=edit

==18 Feb 2004 [2]==

As long as somebody is sufficiently unsatisfied to put the notice up, it is
simply dishonest to remove it without their agreement; you have to get
positive agreement, not just declare that you think the arguments are
without merit.
:I simply stated that there were no arguments made against the current
version of the article. Now that you have cited some in this posting, a
justification for the neutrality dispute has been made. [[User:172|172]]
09:01, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I have asked repeatedly for you to add references to the scholarly works
upon which the various claims are based, still haven't seen anything.
:And I stated repeatedly that the endnotes would be inserted along with a
new section outlining the historiography. However, I now finally have some
concrete inquiries from you. I'll start you off with the following; ask if
you want more. I also took the time to find you some free access articles
online if you want quick (and free) overviews. [[User:172|172]] 09:01, 21
Feb 2004 (UTC)

The Sunbelt stuff is full of sweeping illogicalities; if the West is
conservative, then how is it that California is not? I live in Nevada, and
it's actually become '''more''' liberal in the past couple decades, because
of people moving in from elsewhere - it's certainly not a solid base for the
Repuglicans.
:''Reread'' the section on the Sunbelt and the New Right. These exceptions
are addressed. In other words, the increasingly Democratic voting patterns
in California in more recent years are briefly mentioned later in the
section. For a discussion of changing voting patterns in the Sunbelt in more
recent years, see Paul Starr, "An Emerging Democratic Majority" in Stanley
Greenberg and Theda Skocpol, eds., ''The New Majority'' (Yale University
Press, 1997) for . Starr's article was adapted and reprinted in
[http://www.prospect.org/print/V8/35/starr-p.html ''The American Prospect''
no. 35 (November-December 1997)]. On gentrification, the Sunbelt, and
cities, see Daphn Spain (1992) "A Gentrification Research Agenda for the
1990s." ''Journal of Urban Affairs'' 14:125-134 for a good general overview.
For the other side of the coin, see Douglas Glasgow's ''The Black
Underclass'' (1980), which studies the plight of African Americans in the
inner cities. For a more recent journal article see W.J. Wilson's "Studying
Inner-City Social Dislocations: The Challenge of Public Agenda Research."
''American Sociological Review'' 56:1-14. Going back a generation, the
political implications of the rise of the Sunbelt were heralded by
Kirkpatrick Sale ''Power Shift'' (1975). More recently, you have Lisa McGirr
''Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right'' (2001) I found
you a site with reviews and excepts from at the Princeton University Press
website if you want to take a look:
http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/titles/7031.html. For more on the rise of
conservative sentiments in the late '70s early '80s, see ''The Politics of
Social Policy in the United States'', eds Margaret Weir, Ann Shola Orloff
and Theda Skocpol. For your convenience once again, here are
[http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/titles/4196.html more reviews]. Abramson,
Paul R., John H. Aldrich, and David W. Rohde. Change and Continuity in the
1980 Elections. Rev. ed. Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1983 comes to mind for
the elections of 1980 as a major political realignment. [[User:172|172]]
09:01, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Supply-side economics is still being described as if "everybody knows" it's
bad, but I'll bet it has lots of respected defenders today who would take
exception to the description here; so it needs to be described neutrally,
not negatively.
:This shot seems to be coming from nowhere. Where is the article attacking
supply-side economics? The debate is over whether to blame either tax cuts
or runaway government spending for the deficit. However, this is merely a
side note in an article that provides a very general overview.
[[User:172|172]] 09:01, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC) Thomas Byrne Edsall's ''The
Political Economy of Inequality'' and Sidney Weintraub and Marvin Goodstein,
eds., ''Reaganomics in the Stagflation Economy'' (1983), discuss the Reagan
administration's economic policies. George Gildner's ''Wealth and Poverty''
(1981), deals with the economic ideology of the Reagan revolution. See also
Robert Heilbroner et al. ''The Debt and the Deficit'' (1989). On the
presidency, Ronnie Dugger, ''On Reagan'' (1983), is a hostile account.
Ackerman, Frank. Reaganomics: ''Rhetoric vs. Reality''. (1982) is another
hostile account. Roland Evans and Robert Novak ''The Reagan Revolution''
(1981) is an admiring chronicle. Laurence I. Barrett, ''Gambling with
History'' (1984) is another good source on Reagan in the White House.
[[User:172|172]] 09:01, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

And of course there's the extreme irony of casual references to "rightwing
military dictatorships in Latin America" by the same person who steadfastly
resists characterizing certain socialist leaders ([[Josef Stalin]]) as
dictators. I'm not quoting everything that I think is slanted, just an
assortment, because once again I've wasted my WP editing time trying to
convey the scope of the problem.
:First, the next time I hear this bullshit about me being a Stalinist, I am
taking it up to the mailing list. BTW, this paragraph was removed. To go on,
LaFeber's ''Inevitable Revolutions'' (1983) is still the seminal work on the
US in Central America. I found you a site citing reviews
[http://www.usd.edu/~amorriso/lafeber.htm here]. The articles cited don't
come with free access. Raymond Bonner's ''Weakness and Deceit: US Policy and
El Salvador'' is also a leading work on this subject, though starting off
with LaFeber would probably be best. [[User:172|172]] 09:01, 21 Feb 2004
(UTC)

::You said "Stalinist", not me, and the sentence "The Reagan administration
supplied funds and weapons to rightwing military dictatorships in Latin
America." is still there as I write, so that's a pretty definite use of the
D-word, plus the sentence after that says "Somoza family dictatorship". I
have no problem with the D-word, but it's certainly biased to accept it for
the rightwingers and not the leftwingers. Maybe just a word, but given your
energy to remove it from certain articles, I assume that you agree it's an
important word. [[User:Stan Shebs|Stan]] 14:12, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I know that this article is not representative of professionally-written US
history, because it's not at all like the books I've read - in fact most of
this I remember reading in nakedly-biased and poorly-researched articles in
leftie newspapers of the period.
:Well, what do you expect for a general overview on the past twenty years of
recent US history? And what books were those, BTW? For a general outline,
however, it isn't at all unorthodox. Do a search for course syllabi on yahoo
and google, for example, and you'll see similar outline sketches. If this is
too much to ask from you, I'll send you some more links. [[User:172|172]]
09:01, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

::I'm going to have a pretty high expectation from someone who claims to be
a professional, reverts changes by others for being "emotional", and has a
habit of telling people not to give the "Fox News version". I haven't read
any book purporting to be a "general history of the US since 1980", I was
comparing to US history in general. I don't think course syllabi from the
net are authoritative; there are a lot of, shall we say, "less-abled"
professors. WP can only be as good as its sources, so we need to rely on the
leading authorities, not the assistant prof from Podunk U. [[User:Stan
Shebs|Stan]] 14:12, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

That's why it's important to know what books are to used as authorities -
I'll buy/checkout copies and compare content. [[User:Stan Shebs|Stan]]
06:25, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

:Thanks for the refs - LaFeber was already on my list, am visiting the
library this weekend.  I note that your Reagan-era books are from
'''during''' his presidency, which isn't really adequate for perspective -
has nobody written anything in the 15 years since? [[User:Stan Shebs|Stan]]
14:12, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

---------
---------
==18 Feb 2004 [2]==

As long as somebody is sufficiently unsatisfied to put the notice up, it is
simply dishonest to remove it without their agreement; you have to get
positive agreement, not just declare that you think the arguments are
without merit.
:I simply stated that there were no arguments made against the current
version of the article. Now that you have cited some in this posting, a
justification for the neutrality dispute has been made. [[User:172|172]]
09:01, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I have asked repeatedly for you to add references to the scholarly works
upon which the various claims are based, still haven't seen anything.
:And I stated repeatedly that the endnotes would be inserted along with a
new section outlining the historiography. However, I now finally have some
concrete inquiries from you. I'll start you off with the following; ask if
you want more. I also took the time to find you some free access articles
online if you want quick (and free) overviews. [[User:172|172]] 09:01, 21
Feb 2004 (UTC)

The Sunbelt stuff is full of sweeping illogicalities; if the West is
conservative, then how is it that California is not? I live in Nevada, and
it's actually become '''more''' liberal in the past couple decades, because
of people moving in from elsewhere - it's certainly not a solid base for the
Repuglicans.
:''Reread'' the section on the Sunbelt and the New Right. These exceptions
are addressed. In other words, the increasingly Democratic voting patterns
in California in more recent years are briefly mentioned later in the
section. For a discussion of changing voting patterns in the Sunbelt in more
recent years, see Paul Starr, "An Emerging Democratic Majority" in Stanley
Greenberg and Theda Skocpol, eds., ''The New Majority'' (Yale University
Press, 1997) for . Starr's article was adapted and reprinted in
[http://www.prospect.org/print/V8/35/starr-p.html ''The American Prospect''
no. 35 (November-December 1997)]. On gentrification, the Sunbelt, and
cities, see Daphn Spain (1992) "A Gentrification Research Agenda for the
1990s." ''Journal of Urban Affairs'' 14:125-134 for a good general overview.
For the other side of the coin, see Douglas Glasgow's ''The Black
Underclass'' (1980), which studies the plight of African Americans in the
inner cities. For a more recent journal article see W.J. Wilson's "Studying
Inner-City Social Dislocations: The Challenge of Public Agenda Research."
''American Sociological Review'' 56:1-14. Going back a generation, the
political implications of the rise of the Sunbelt were heralded by
Kirkpatrick Sale ''Power Shift'' (1975). More recently, you have Lisa McGirr
''Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right'' (2001) I found
you a site with reviews and excepts from at the Princeton University Press
website if you want to take a look:
http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/titles/7031.html. For more on the rise of
conservative sentiments in the late '70s early '80s, see ''The Politics of
Social Policy in the United States'', eds Margaret Weir, Ann Shola Orloff
and Theda Skocpol. For your convenience once again, here are
[http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/titles/4196.html more reviews]. Abramson,
Paul R., John H. Aldrich, and David W. Rohde. Change and Continuity in the
1980 Elections. Rev. ed. Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1983 comes to mind for
the elections of 1980 as a major political realignment. [[User:172|172]]
09:01, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
::Heh, there's no lack of stupid stuff - but which of these are
authoritative? As someone who was personally in the Democratic caucus last
week that was so large that it had to move out onto the football field (got
to shake Kerry's hand, my wife practically mauled him :-) ), I'll say that
people who characterize Nevada as a conservative state don't know what
they're talking about. Dem/Rep split in Nevada is very nearly 50/50, and if
Bush hadn't come and told baldfaced lies about Yucca Mountain, Nevada would
have gone Demo and Gore would be in the White House today. [[User:Stan
Shebs|Stan]] 06:14, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)
:::They're all "authoritative." They may be writing from one of competing
schools of thought or approaches, but if you can recognize this, it's no
problem. I can give you more, but this should be enough to give you steer
you in the direction of finding other works on the subject matter. BTW,
Who's describing Nevada as solidly conservative? No one's denying that there
aren't exceptions in "the Sunbelt." Nevada has Las Vegas and the gaming
industry. Often forgotten, Democrats can be competitive in Montana as well,
given the legacy of a strong union activity in the Western mining region of
the state. [[User:172|172]] 07:18, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Supply-side economics is still being described as if "everybody knows" it's
bad, but I'll bet it has lots of respected defenders today who would take
exception to the description here; so it needs to be described neutrally,
not negatively.
:This shot seems to be coming from nowhere. Where is the article attacking
supply-side economics? The debate is over whether to blame either tax cuts
or runaway government spending for the deficit. However, this is merely a
side note in an article that provides a very general overview.
[[User:172|172]] 09:01, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC) Thomas Byrne Edsall's ''The
Political Economy of Inequality'' and Sidney Weintraub and Marvin Goodstein,
eds., ''Reaganomics in the Stagflation Economy'' (1983), discuss the Reagan
administration's economic policies. George Gildner's ''Wealth and Poverty''
(1981), deals with the economic ideology of the Reagan revolution. See also
Robert Heilbroner et al. ''The Debt and the Deficit'' (1989). On the
presidency, Ronnie Dugger, ''On Reagan'' (1983), is a hostile account.
Ackerman, Frank. Reaganomics: ''Rhetoric vs. Reality''. (1982) is another
hostile account. Roland Evans and Robert Novak ''The Reagan Revolution''
(1981) is an admiring chronicle. Laurence I. Barrett, ''Gambling with
History'' (1984) is another good source on Reagan in the White House.
[[User:172|172]] 09:01, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

And of course there's the extreme irony of casual references to "rightwing
military dictatorships in Latin America" by the same person who steadfastly
resists characterizing certain socialist leaders ([[Josef Stalin]]) as
dictators. I'm not quoting everything that I think is slanted, just an
assortment, because once again I've wasted my WP editing time trying to
convey the scope of the problem.
:First, the next time I hear this bullshit about me being a Stalinist, I am
taking it up to the mailing list. BTW, this paragraph was removed. To go on,
LaFeber's ''Inevitable Revolutions'' (1983) is still the seminal work on the
US in Central America. I found you a site citing reviews
[http://www.usd.edu/~amorriso/lafeber.htm here]. The articles cited don't
come with free access. Raymond Bonner's ''Weakness and Deceit: US Policy and
El Salvador'' is also a leading work on this subject, though starting off
with LaFeber would probably be best. [[User:172|172]] 09:01, 21 Feb 2004
(UTC)

::You said "Stalinist", not me, and the sentence "The Reagan administration
supplied funds and weapons to rightwing military dictatorships in Latin
America." is still there as I write, so that's a pretty definite use of the
D-word, plus the sentence after that says "Somoza family dictatorship". I
have no problem with the D-word, but it's certainly biased to accept it for
the rightwingers and not the leftwingers. Maybe just a word, but given your
energy to remove it from certain articles, I assume that you agree it's an
important word. [[User:Stan Shebs|Stan]] 14:12, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
::::Just luck-of-the-draw about Stalin - Mugabe and Jong-il also came to
mind, I chose randomly. [[User:Stan Shebs|Stan]] 06:14, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)
:::::I don't use the "D-word" ''arbitrarily''. But I am sorry about using
the using it ''inconsistently''. However, the biases affecting my usage of
"the D-word" go back to Max Weber, not Karl Marx. Let me elaborate. Going
back to Weber's concept of "sultanism," comparativists point out regimes
resting on patrimonial leadership, rather than rationalized modern
bureaucracies with generalized norms and procedures. Consider the Somozas,
the Trujillos, Saddam and his sons, Assad and his sons, Papa Doc and Baby
Doc, Batista, Ceausescu, the Kims, Macros, Idi Amin, Iran under the Shah,
and "Turkmenbashi." Since the defining feature of leadership here is low
institutionalization, this concept is not applied to all authoritarian
regimes. Among Communist regimes, I've only seen Romania and North Korea
classified as personalistic. BTW, for the benchmark work on this concept,
see Juan Linz and Alfred Stephan's ''Problems of Democratic Transition and
Consolidation'' (1996). Similarly, Michael Bratton and Nicolas van de Walle
use the concept of "neopatrimonialism" in their account, which is the most
comprehensive work on the subject for Afica. To illustrate my point with an
example, I would avoid the "D-word" vis-?-vis China today, while using it
more loosely vis-?-vis the Somoza dynasty. Although this isn't the
ideological bias that you made it out to be, your post clearly highlighted
the confusion generated by the term's usage. Thanks for alterting me to
this. I'll try to avoid it all together on Wiki. And sorry for the "massive
verbiage." [[User:172|172]] 07:13, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I know that this article is not representative of professionally-written US
history, because it's not at all like the books I've read - in fact most of
this I remember reading in nakedly-biased and poorly-researched articles in
leftie newspapers of the period.
:Well, what do you expect for a general overview on the past twenty years of
recent US history? And what books were those, BTW? For a general outline,
however, it isn't at all unorthodox. Do a search for course syllabi on yahoo
and google, for example, and you'll see similar outline sketches. If this is
too much to ask from you, I'll send you some more links. [[User:172|172]]
09:01, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

::I'm going to have a pretty high expectation from someone who claims to be
a professional, reverts changes by others for being "emotional", and has a
habit of telling people not to give the "Fox News version". I haven't read
any book purporting to be a "general history of the US since 1980", I was
comparing to US history in general.
:::I wasn't referring to solely covering 1980-present. Survey US history
texts, however, will give you a brief overview in a single chapter. The more
general the better. Keep in mind, e.g., that we're often trying to sum up in
a single sentence what's being presented in any several of some of the
sources that I provided. In effect, writing such a general overview is a
process of summarizing and outlining. [[User:172|172]] 07:13, 22 Feb 2004
(UTC)
I don't think course syllabi from the net are authoritative; there are a lot
of, shall we say, "less-abled" professors. WP can only be as good as its
sources, so we need to rely on the leading authorities, not the assistant
prof from Podunk U. [[User:Stan Shebs|Stan]] 14:12, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
:::You're still confusing my point. The point is to compare course syllabi.
Perhaps I should've been more clear. Downloading about a dozen would enable
you to compare the syllabi, giving you a good idea of what's widely
published. Moreover, I wasn't saying that my standards are low for this
article. The Stalin crack left me a bit irritated, so perhaps I was getting
a bit snappy at the expense of clarity. Anyway, let me clarify my point.
Given such restrictive space constraints, the article can merely provide an
outline sketch of the Reagan years. It cannot be on par with the academic
literature; the historiography merely helps you sort out what belongs in
such a brief outline sketch.

That's why it's important to know what books are to used as authorities -
I'll buy/checkout copies and compare content. [[User:Stan Shebs|Stan]]
06:25, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

:Thanks for the refs - LaFeber was already on my list, am visiting the
library this weekend.  I note that your Reagan-era books are from
'''during''' his presidency, which isn't really adequate for perspective -
has nobody written anything in the 15 years since? [[User:Stan Shebs|Stan]]
14:12, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
::Not all of them are from the eighties. Maybe I forgot to note which texts
had new editions. I'll add some more recent stuff, but I'm running short of
time now. [[User:172|172]] 02:08, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

----
[[User:172|172]], six weeks ago you agreed that it was POV to call rightwing
regimes "dictatorships" but not their leftwing counterparts, and yet after
all that time your only effort on this article has been to '''remove''' the
NPOV dispute notice. Since I'm not the sort to revert other people's changes
without prior discussion, I'll wait one day to see some changes in content
before re-adding the dispute notice. [[User:Stan Shebs|Stan]] 21:01, 6 Apr
2004 (UTC)
:Don't misrepresent me. I said that I tend to use the term more freely when
referring to personalistic regimes, irrespective of whether they're dubbed
"rightwing" or "leftwing" by some. If you have a problem with some of the
diction in the article, change it. That'll work out better than expecting me
to read your mind. [[User:172|172]] 10:25, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
::I'm not going to bother touching the text unless you promise to improve on
my edit and not just revert the whole change without discussing it first.
I'm simply '''not''' going to get into an edit war on content here, which
means that if you revert me, my effort will have been completely wasted -
there are 200K+ articles that I could have been working on instead.
[[User:Stan Shebs|Stan]] 15:56, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
:::You're getting really jumpy. Please, just calm down. This isn't a big
deal. Make your changes, and I will compare the versions line by line.
[[User:172|172]] 23:09, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
::::"Jumpy"? Not hardly - I'm leaning back in properly bad posture, full of
Cherry Garcia and a little drowsy... So, does the "compare the versions line
by line" amount to a promise that you will critique on the talk page first
rather than mass-revert? You may not think reverting is a big deal, but let
me clue you in - the people you revert really really hate it. [[User:Stan
Shebs|Stan]] 05:04, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)
:::::If you insert something like "MUHA PINHEADS YOU ALL R WIERD U WIERDING
WIERD WIERDOS," a winner that I found off the deletion log, you'll get
reverted. Not having any idea about what you want to do, I cannot say how
I'll react to your changes. Really, I don't know what you want for me as of
this point. [[User:172|172]] 05:26, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Ya know, I've cleared out far more vandalism than you have, turned more junk
stubs into useful articles, am #44 among the most active editors on WP as a
whole, developed some of the standards by which other people write their
articles, and despite all this activity, have been involved in maybe 2 or 3
edit wars at most; it says a lot about you, that you think there's even the
remotest chance that I would vandalize this article. What I want is simple;
a promise not to revert my entire edit without discussing it here first. Is
that really so hard an undertaking? [[User:Stan Shebs|Stan]] 17:48, 8 Apr
2004 (UTC)
:All a correlation implies causation fallacy! You seem to be suggesting that
you're characteristically civil and reasonable, whereas I'm not, as
evidenced by your observations that (a) you're a more active user than I am
(b) but get into fewer edit wars. Ironically, such assertions ''really''
cause arguments to turn personal, accomplishing nothing while generating
personal feuds on a daily basis on WP. While I try to brush off these lines
of attack more often than not, this time I'll defend myself for the hell of
it.

:Yes, I get into more edit wars. But the reason I'm more likely to get into
edit wars has more to do with the particular articles on my watchlist, and
my corresponding practices as a user, than personality, hasty reverts, a
lack of civility, or wherever you're pointing fingers.  Given my background,
I focus on the history and politics articles, which spark the lion's share
of edit wars. Although you work in these fields as well, consider your role
in, say, the [[Stamps and postal history of New South Wales]] article (great
job, BTW), and then juxtapose it with, say, the role of Slrubenstein, John
Kenney, and me on [[Fascism]] for the past couple of weeks. The article on
Fascism (a controversial and widely familiar topic), attracts trolls and
partisans, extreme POV rants, and scores of arbitrary, poorly written,
asinine edits for, say, several weeks running. But the page history of
Stamps and postal history of New South Wales is - how should I put it? -
very stable. And BTW, notice that I avoid edit wars when working on a
relatively obscure subject on WP, say, [[Li Ruihuan]], rather than, say,
[[Karl Marx]].

:Maintaining encyclopedic standards is an uphill battle when partisans enter
the fold in [[Fascism]], [[Catholicism]], [[East Germany]], [[Red Scare]],
etc. Since I grapple with this more often, I get into more edit wars.
Consequently, you're completing many articles in the time that I spend
struggling to ''remove'' a paragraph or two, a sentence or two, and even a
word or two from a single article. But this is worthwhile, as these are the
articles in my fields that generate the largest volume of hits.

:Also, I tend to spend a far smaller share of my time on WP proofreading
articles for grammar, clarity, and style. Unlike me, you've made thousands
of minor edits fixing grammatical and spelling errors. However, I'm simply
not the best when it comes to proofreading content ''online''. I need
stronger glasses, skim text too fast for my own good, and lack experience
using computers. So, we're both doing different things on WP, and hence
picking up different habits as users. [[User:172|172]] 09:08, 9 Apr 2004
(UTC)

:All true, although as someone versed in the ways of politics it seems like
it  ought to be easy for you to negotiate with the people on the various
sides, and to find out more about people before dissing them (for instance,
in addition to insinuating vandalistic tendencies, you lumped Stan the big
Democratic donor and convention delegate in with the Fox News crowd -
oops!). Anyway, getting back to the point, I'm still waiting for a promise
not to mass-revert without prior discussion. Without it, I won't edit,
except to add the POV dispute notice back, which I'll do tomorrow if we've
made no progress. [[User:Stan Shebs|Stan]] 15:10, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)
::If you're enticing me to sign a contract before reading it (i.e. promise
to get your permission before I make another change), you must think that
I'm a real dupe! You've worked in some pretty damn competitive fields, so
I'm probably no match to you. But I'm not that bad! Anyway, if you're
worried about an ''arbitrary'' "mass-revert" (whatever that is), don't
worry. Unless it's an accident, I don't make changes arbitrarily.

::BTW, if you want to know why you've been having trouble dealing with me,
it's the result of attacking my credibility for months. Often, you do this
before I have a scant idea about how you specifically want to change an
article. This is read as a bullying tactic, i.e. an attempt to seize a
rhetorical high ground. One can either fight back or give into bullying.
''Because'' I take you seriously, I'm often left having to respond to your
attacks on my credibility rather than your concerns with content. I can
dismiss the antics of trolls, vandals, and the "Fox News crowd," but it's
harder to dismiss you. But I can work with you if I'm given specifics,
facts, and sources instead, I can follow the rational give-and-take.
[[User:172|172]] 10:56, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
:::I just asked for discussion, not permission - as you say, it would be
foolish to agree to something unseen in advance. I'd be more trusting except
that I have seen you mass-revert good faith changes by other people without
discussion. But I think you generally understand me, and that's good enough.
[[User:Stan Shebs|Stan]] 14:07, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
::::Why do we keep going in circles with this? Just make your changes
already. I have no idea what you're up to. [[User:172|172]] 23:27, 10 Apr
2004 (UTC)

----
Bleah, first pass done, but what a pain - nothing like going through
line-by-line to see the flaws. There is still a lot of redundant material -
for instance 1980 election results are more accurately covered in [[U.S.
presidential election, 1980]], and this article links to that one. The basic
percentages and electoral numbers are more than enough. There is still some
leftover junk from the subdivision process - 1991 is not between 1980 and
1988, and this article needs just a sentence to presage 1991 and link to the
appropriate article. It's also sort of funny to have a history of the 1980s
that doesn't mention the introduction of the IBM PC... one of the reasons to
prune ruthlessly is so we can hear about the doings of more US citizens than
just the one with the initials RR. [[User:Stan Shebs|Stan]] 05:18, 11 Apr
2004 (UTC)
:Nice job. And that wasn't a big deal. In fact, you could've used the minor
change feature. You're changes gave the article a much needed round of
copyediting.  [[User:172|172]] 23:07, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)

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list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Abe Sokolov

subject: [WikiEN-l] Stan Shebs (part two)

body:
I wrote earlier:

"Due to size constraints, I'll have to spit this message into two parts. The
first is a discussion from [[Talk:History of the United States
(1980-1988)]]. The other major discussion we've had this year is taken from
[[Talk:Cold War/temp]]. I will add that to separate e-mail."

Well, here's the second part.

[[Talk:Cold War/temp]]
Taken
from:http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Cold_War/temp&action=edit

I added a couple example sentences that I think are plausible "lead
sentences" for their respective sections. Also, as a way of forestalling
partisan edits, I had the idea of addressing partisanship issues at the top,
right after the normal lead content, and linking to a historiography
article. I suspect a lot of people who have strong opinions on the Cold War
don't know that all of the issues have already been debated intensely, many
years ago in some cases, and so by putting historiography up close to the
top we let them know that there is a body of scholarship that they ought to
know about before scribbling on the article.

Another thing that I think we'll want to do is to address the distinction
between objective facts (which tend not to be in dispute) and their presumed
motives and causes, over which the historians call each other bad names. :-)
A size limit of 20K or so will mean that the main article will have to stick
mostly to facts and offer opinions on motivation less often, and the
connected subarticles would then get the more in-depth analysis about cause
and effect - they can also cite the more specialized books and literature
for the benefit of the truly fascinated. [[User:Stan Shebs|Stan]] 04:46, 15
Apr 2004 (UTC)

I like it and think it would be a great improvement. The one thing I do not
like are the many purely date headings with some though I think most of them
can be made into names like D?tente or the [[Vietnam War]], or descriptions
like "Interventions in the Third World" or "Renewed Tensions." A danger with
articles like this is that they become nothing more than timelines and leave
out the crucial links and interconnections between events. -
[[User:SimonP|SimonP]] 05:17, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)

I also think we should eventually have a great number of topical spin-offs.
Both because they are important topics that would not be adequately covered
in 4000 words, and because we have much of the content already written. e.g:
*[[Historiography of the Cold War]] (your suggestion)
*[[Space Race]] (already exists)
*[[Cold War in the Third World]] (and perhaps [[Cold War in the Middle
East]], [[Cold War in Latin America]], [[Cold War in South Asia]])
*[[Nuclear arms race]] (currently a poor redirect)
*[[Intelligence services in the Cold War]]
*[[American Cold War foreign policy]]
-[[User:SimonP|SimonP]] 05:17, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)

Right now, I lean in favor Stan's proposal. Organizing the article by region
is a bad idea. I'm not aware of any survey text that does this either. I
favor a roughly chronological organization, but with topics in the headings
instead of dates. Below is my ''very rough'' (and unfinished) draft.
[[User:172|172]] 10:42, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

* Origins
** Britain and the expansion of Tsarist Russia
** The U.S., Russia, and the development of Manchuria
** The Bolshevik Revolution and Allied intervention
** The First Red Scare in the U.S.
** Soviet-U.S. trade in the interwar years
** The Munich Conference and the Non-Aggression Pact
** Wartime mistrust
** Atlantic Charter
** Yalta
** The end of the Great Depression and international trade
** Potsdam
** Germany
** Atomic control
** United Nations
** Postwar reconstruction in Central and Eastern Europe
** The Iranian and Turkish crises of 1946

* Kennan and Containment
** George Kennan, Kennan's 'long telegram', and the "X" article in ''Foreign
Affairs''
** The crisis in Greece
** The Truman Doctrine
** The Marshall Plan and the Molotov Plan

* Truman and NSC-68
** Chinese Revolution
** The Soviet atomic bomb
** NSC-68
** Korea
** McCarthyism

* Eishenhower-Dulles Cold War
** Rise of Khrushchev
** Eisenhower-Dulles "new look"
** Francis Gary Power's U2 mission and the Paris Summit
** Sputnik
** H-Bomb
** De-colonization
** Defense pacts in the Third World
** Covert action in the Third World
** Mossadegh
** The CIA in Latin America
** The Suez Crisis and rifts within the Western alliance
** Indochina (The Eisenhower administration, Dienbienphu, and the Geneva
Conference)

*Cold War of Kennedy-Johnson
**Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis
**Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
**Vietnam and "flexible response"
**Vietnam War...

* Rise and fall of D?tente
** Threats within both blocs
** Oil shock of 1973
** Vietnam spending and "Vietnamization"
** Arms control
** Islamic Revolution
** Afghanistan

* End of the Cold War
** Reagan administration
** "Low intensity conflicts"
** Summits
** Perestrokia and Eastern Europe
** Collapse of the USSR
** Legacies

Cool, I'll merge all these in later today or tomorrow and we can see what it
looks like then. A great many of these subjects have their own articles
already, although they are, uh, "variable" :-) in their depth and quality...
[[User:Stan Shebs|Stan]] 17:26, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)
:Great! Our goals seem to be one-in-the-same. But perhaps we need a little
more time before we start merging things. I sketched the above outline
pretty hastily, so we'll probably need to play around with the arrangements
a bit. Also, just to make sure, we're creating a NI-style series with
daughter articles, right? If that's the case, the existing content in the
series, for the most part, runs parallel to the above outline. So writing
the summary on the main page will require the most work. [[User:172|172]]
18:10, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)
::BTW, I'm making some changes the outline draft above in this posting.
[[User:172|172]] 18:41, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I've now merged the bits, tinkered with some section titles. Still need to
get in list of 3rd world involvements by name. Interesting that some of the
key terms apparently have no article... [[User:Stan Shebs|Stan]] 06:09, 17
Apr 2004 (UTC)

Jonah speaking, I don't know where a McCarthyism link fits in to your
template, but I noticed it wasn't in the current Cold War section either. I
guess someone was bound to bring it up eventually, but I'm just giving my
two cents. 04 May 2004

==Kingturtle, Stan, 172 (moved here from Talk:Cold War (1947-1953) and its
origins)==

This article is called ''Cold War (1947-1953) and its origins''. But the
first 3/4s of the article deal with events before 1947. I think this article
should be split up into ''Cold War origins'' and ''Cold War (1947-1953)''. I
am going to take this bold step Friday night if no one objects.
[[User:Kingturtle|Kingturtle]] 03:15, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
:I agree. Stan and I are working on a possible reorganization. I'm still
drafting my proposals on MS Word at home. My idea is the following split:
Origins of the Cold War (to 1941), Origins of the Cold War (1941-1947), Cold
War (1947-1953), Cold War (1953-1957), Cold War (1957-1962), Cold War
(1962-1973), and Cold War (since 1973). Before this is done, we need to
expand on some aspects of the current content.

:And this article - [[Cold War (1947-1953) and its origins]] - is hardest to
split out of the three articles that exist right now. The three articles
that I'm proposing (Origins of the Cold War (to 1941), Origins of the Cold
War (1941-1947), Cold War (1947-1953)) will need to expand a great deal on
content already posted here.

:I'd favor different organization as opposed to the one in place right now.
For example, here's my idea for the organization of the to 1941 origins
article:
*Origins of the Cold War (to 1941)
**Tsarist Russia and the 'New' Imperialism (to the 1890s)
**Manchuria
**The Russo-Japanese War and the West
**Wartime alliance
**Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War
**The First Red Scare
**"Socialism in One Country"
**U.S. recognition of the Soviet Union (1933)
**The Munich Pact and the Non-Aggression Pact

:For the next article in the series...

*Origins of the Cold War (1941-1947)
**Lend-lease payments and the second front
**The Atlantic Conference
**Breton Woods
**Yalta
**Potsdam
**Hiroshima and Nagasaki
**The Iran Crisis
**Germany and the Oder-Neisse boundary
*Reparations payments and the Berlin blockade
**Greece
**Domestic pressures on Soviet foreign policy
**Domestic pressures on U.S. foreign policy
**The Truman Doctrine, the National Security Act, and the proposal of the
Marshall Plan

Just to reassure you, this is all very tentative. I appreciate advice while
I'm drafting my proposals. [[User:172|172]] 06:00, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
*Ok, glad to hear this is already in the works. I won't make any bold moves.
And I am happy to help figure things out. [[User:Kingturtle|Kingturtle]]
06:04, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

*Not to be too negative, but we '''really''' don't want to do series - a
series is just chapters in a book, and here we're supposed to be doing
articles, not book chapters. So for instance to pick on the 1941-1947
segment, there are thirteen topics. In a single-article design, each will
get 1-2 sentences saying what it was and how it connects to the others. All
in-depth stuff would go to the topics, for instance [[Yalta Conference]],
which at present seems OK in terms of basic facts, but is sorely lacking the
explanation of why anybody might think it was the beginning of the Cold War.
Yalta's significance ''could'' be put in the main Cold War article, but
that's how the main narrative becomes bloated. It also does the reader a
disservice when they link to [[Yalta Conference]] from somewhere else, then
can't learn about its significance without trudging through a long narrative
about other things. To make the single-article goal, we have to be very
disciplined. [[User:Stan Shebs|Stan]] 00:57, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

::We have to have place for weaving it all together in contexts that can be
more specified than in a single article/summary page. Everything that I'm
outlining could be a daughter article of an executive summary page, like on
[[New Imperialism]]. Just to reassure you, I'm certain that the vast
majority of the content in all the articles I'm proposing will come from the
three existing articles.

::BTW, perhaps you're misunderstanding what I'm proposing in those outlines.
I'm including, say "Yalta" and "Potsdam" in the headings, but the way
everything's organized makes it a more or less chronological arrangement;
really you can read the subheadings as milestones acting as stand-ins
signifying place and time. Thus, we wouldn't be ''just'' giving an overview
of Yalta under the "Yalta" heading - to use this as an example again - in
the text of the daughter article I'm proposing, but rather staying focused
on developments in the spring of '45 and how they relate to the course of
the emerging Cold War. [[User:172|172]] 02:11, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

:::I think we have a misunderstanding here. My goal is to have a single 20K
article that covers everything. An article entitled "Cold War (1947-1953)"
is completely wrong for an encyclopedia, whether as an "article in a series"
or as a "daughter article". The point is not to write more and more into a
single narrative, but to be succinct. The "weaving it all together" happens
in the single main article. Specific events have text that connects back to
the main article and to related events - that's how most of Wikipedia is
written, there's no reason for this to be different. I want to be clear on
this, because it seems  like you generally have the urge to write single
long narratives, to the point of duplicating material that is already
present in existing articles. My whole point here is '''not''' to do the
ever-expanding narrative; the single main article should be complete at 20K,
and further expansion will occur in topical articles like [[Yalta
Conference]], not in "Cold War (15 April 1950 - 23 May 1950)". [[User:Stan
Shebs|Stan]] 05:30, 8 May 2004 (UTC)
::::Well, these articles don't even exist yet, and we might as well agree to
disagree until then. I'll help you out with the 20K summary page, but
there's no harm having additional daughter articles, which will be able to
draw the vast majority of their content from the existing pages.
[[User:172|172]] 11:41, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

== End of participation ==

I'm no longer going to work on this, it's going to be way too frustrating.
Use, delete, whatever. [[User:Stan Shebs|Stan]] 16:47, 19 May 2004 (UTC)
:Okay, I'm not going to delete it - you had a number of good ideas that I'd
like to adopt at some point. I hope that this isn't an overreaction to one
disagreement on Vietnam War. I think that you are being a bit cranky about
that article, but that doesn't taint my opinion of your contributions to
other articles, the vast majority of which are supurb, IMHO.
[[User:172|172]] 16:54, 19 May 2004 (UTC)
::This is an overall reaction to all your reverting and arguing on various
articles; just looking at it makes me want to quit working on WP altogether,
so I'm cutting loose instead, will spend time in areas where I find the
people more enjoyable to work with. [[User:Stan Shebs|Stan]] 17:32, 21 May
2004 (UTC)
:::Do you have disagreements of substance with any of my recent changes to
other articles, aside from Vietnam War? Or are you just coming here to mouth
off and insult me? [[User:172|172]] 17:43, 21 May 2004 (UTC)
::::I have a whole host of disagreements with your edits, but it would give
me an ulcer to deal with all of them, and WP doesn't pay me enough for that.
Your reference to "insult" here is a perfect example; I just gave you the
straight facts about how I felt, anything else is in your own mind.
[[User:Stan Shebs|Stan]] 12:11, 22 May 2004 (UTC)
:::::I have a whole host of disagreements with your edits as well, but you
don't see me taking it personally and negative character judgments against
you. Lighten up. [[User:172|172]] 21:49, 22 May 2004 (UTC)
::::::Now that we have that [[Vietnam War]] disagreement behind us, do you
want to start work on this article again? [[User:172|172]] 04:46, 24 May
2004 (UTC)

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subject: [WikiEN-l] 172

body:
daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:

"In this case, 172 was bullied
off by people who have yet to respond to the content of his arguments beyond
some rhetorical ranting about things which are barely relevant to the
content at
hand. It was done with personal attacks, using terms such as Stalinist,
revisionist, totalitarian, etc. It was also done (sorry, Ed, but I have to
point
this out) by having the title "Can we ban 172 now" appear countless times as
an
email header."

I think that Ed Poor got what he'd wanted all along. Right after I announced
that I'd be leaving Wikipedia, Ed Poor unprotected [[Augusto Pinochet]]
writing, "after recent discussions on the mailing list, I hope we can work
together now." See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Protection_log

Then, also without discussing his intentions, he unilaterally removed the
reference to U.S. backing from the Pinochet article
(http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Augusto_Pinochet&diff=3940359&oldid=3939010)

And I'm the one who should be banned, right?

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from_name: sada asda

subject: [WikiEN-l] I have been banned HOW CAN I APPEAL

body:
I have been banned unfairly three times. I was first banned because I allegedly violated a "3 revert rule" of which I was never warned about; regardless of whether I did break it, I was banned by a sysop (Guarnaco) involved in an edit war on the page -- this is a gross violation of sysop rules!

I then went to the IRC channel to appeal my case, where I was harrassed by users such as Snowspinner and Fennec -- whose sole intent was to "rub salt in my wounds" if you will. I started telling them, "Please do not talk to me. You are rude and inconsiderate" each time did so. Then I was banned, solely for asking them not to talk to me! If anyone should have been banned, it should be them for being so rude to another contributor!

After I was unbanned by a more reasonably sysop, I was then immediately re-banned by RickK -- even though I had not edited any articles!!!!!!!! This second ban appears to be permanent, YET I HAVE NOT VIOLATED ANY RULES!

It is completely fallacious, RickKs claim that I am another user -- that I am a "sockpuppet". And even if I were, is it a crime? Am I double-voting? Am I agreeing with my other accounts, and creating false consensus? The answer to those questions are NO, this is NOT A SOCKPUPPET ACCOUNT.

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list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] I have been banned HOW CAN I APPEAL

body:
I have been banned unfairly three times. I was first banned because I allegedly violated a "3 revert rule" of which I was never warned about; regardless of whether I did break it, I was banned by a sysop (Guarnaco) involved in an edit war on the page -- this is a gross violation of sysop rules!

I then went to the IRC channel to appeal my case, where I was harrassed by users such as Snowspinner and Fennec -- whose sole intent was to "rub salt in my wounds" if you will. I started telling them, "Please do not talk to me. You are rude and inconsiderate" each time did so. Then I was banned, solely for asking them not to talk to me! If anyone should have been banned, it should be them for being so rude to another contributor!

After I was unbanned by a more reasonably sysop, I was then immediately re-banned by RickK -- even though I had not edited any articles!!!!!!!! This second ban appears to be permanent, YET I HAVE NOT VIOLATED ANY RULES!

It is completely fallacious, RickKs claim that I am another user -- that I am a "sockpuppet". And even if I were, is it a crime? Am I double-voting? Am I agreeing with my other accounts, and creating false consensus? The answer to those questions are NO, this is NOT A SOCKPUPPET ACCOUNT.

---------------------------------
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from_name: Isam Bayazidi

subject: [Wikipedia-l] I have been banned unfairly

body:
Ralesk Ne'vennoyx wrote:

> Interesting.
>
> I have only heard it as /I'ra:k/ from Anglophone people (and here I
> don't know what kind of r to be put there in SAMPA, so forgive me
> that).  Hungarians write the country name as "Irak" and pronounce it
> /'irAk/.
>
> I have never heard it as /ai'rak/, /ai'r{k/ or anything similar.

I am not sure if it counts, but Iraq in Arabic is pronouced closer to
/ai'rak/ .. The First letter in Iraq is ayn (check [[Arabic alphabet]])..
Anyhow, I don't think that it is insulting to call [[Saddam]] in his
first name, after all, many of the monements in Iraq that was build in
his ira was called Saddam something, Like Saddam City (now called Sadr
City) and others. So, if he accept that he is refered to as Saddam, then
that is enough.

Sorry, I know this is not the article talk page :)

Yours
Isam Bayazidi


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] { and function code

body:
Ashar Voultoiz wrote:
> I am willing to know which formatting method we should use in code for
> function declarations. Actually I see two shemes:
>
> 1)
> function foobarone() {
>    code here
> }

I've always tried to use this style. It doesn't really matter, but I do
prefer it that way and as Tim noted it's in the majority in our codebase
so if you change anything, probably best change to it in this direction.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Daniel P.B.Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia:Your first article

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Your_first_article is a proposed
article that newcomers should read before they submit their first
article. '''Please do''' edit it and discuss it in its Talk page (NOT
here). The intent is that a link to this article will replace the link
to "What Wikipedia is not" in the portion of the new article text which
currently reads:

"Please do not create an encyclopedia article about yourself, or an
article whose main purpose is to promote a product or business. See
_What Wikipedia is not_ for more guidance. Articles in serious
violation of Wikipedia's policies may be removed without notice.

The goal is to deflect newcomers from _innocently_ creating the
commonest kinds of articles that end up on VfD. I will only link to it
if there is consensus that it is actually better for than specific
purpose than [[What Wikipedia is not]].

--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net alternate:
dpbsmith at alum.mit.edu
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/

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list: foundation-l

from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] elections

body:
Utilisateur:Med a rapidemment compt? les
participations aux ?lections.

A ce jour :

Les doublons n'ont pas ?t? retir?

491 votes au total

199 enwiki
112 dewiki
11 jawiki
78 frwiki
15 nlwiki
2 eswiki
15 zhwiki
4 fiwiki
1 bg
1 kowiki

etc...

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list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] elections


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Ban policy

body:
--- Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> One issue is time. As you said, AC conclusion is often a very short time
> of banning. When this time is over, the game is on again. May I suggest
> that decisions taken by AC are two steps ones ?

That is why we have started to issue enforcement rulings that place users under
a type of probation after their initial ban. With Wik, it was the possibility
of a month ban if we determined he violated the terms of his probation (some of
which is for an indefinite term).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Wik2/Decided#Enforcement

> Say a case is considered by AC
> After a while, AC admits there is an issue, and that it is worth doing
> something, say banning for 1 week. The AC is important here, because we
> trust they make fair decisions, after they studied the case thoroughly
>
> Could not the AC take 2 decisions at the same time ?
> * first, immediate banning for perhaps 1 week
> * second, additional decision already taken for "repetition of issue".
> After the banning time is over, if the user starts being problematic,
> and is reported by xx contributors (perhaps 5 ?), the AC immediately
> release the second decision (perhaps 1 month banning).
> - Either it is applied on the spot (that means that within ONE day 5
> contributors could report and the user be banned again).
> - Or the second decision (taken by AC perhaps 2 weeks sooner during
> initial arbitration) is voted by contributors (agree, disagree, no
> opinion) during a few days. if there is general agreement, the AC second
> decision is applied.

That is almost exactly what we have done with Wik2, except the month banning is
at the discretion of the AC.

-- mav

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from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] 172

body:
Stan Shebs wrote:

> daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
>
>> It is very unfortunate when a talented contributor leaves the project
>> in disgust, and other people consider doing the same. In this case,
>> 172 was bullied off by people who have yet to respond to the content
>> of his arguments beyond some rhetorical ranting about things which
>> are barely relevant to the content at hand. It was done with personal
>> attacks, using terms such as Stalinist, revisionist, totalitarian, etc.
>
> Just for the record, the sense in which Fred used "revisionist" is a
> well-understood technical term (it's the first of the definitions in
> [[revisionism]]), along with "traditionalist" and "post-revisionist".
> Cold War specialists describe their own positions relative to these
> groupings for instance. It can hardly be construed as a personal
> attack by anybody who understands the meaning of the term.

The fact remains that the term "revisionist" is nothing more than
jargon.  It is far less clear than the other two terms on the above
list, "Stalinist" and "totalitarian", and they're debatable enough.
"Traditionalist" and "post-revisionist" may be defined in terms of
"revisionist" and are thus also jargon.  The current Wikipedia article
has no less than eight definitions of "revisionism" several of which
could be applicable.  Since we are criticizing several articles the
assortment of possible definitions could follow from one to the other.
Indeed the indicated "first of the definitions" states

> Among historians, revisionism has traditionally been used in a
> completely neutral sense to describe the work or ideas of a historian
> who has revised a previously accepted view of a particular topic. This
> usage has declined among historians because in recent years the word
> has come to be used in the following sense:

In other words we have an unsubstantiated "traditional" usage which has
declined in favour of one or the other of the remaining seven other
definitions, but we can never be sure which.  The term "well-understood"
is pure sophistry.

Then you would have us believe that the position of "Cold War
specialists" would somehow be relevant.  Most of us have not been
indoctrinated into the brotherhood of "Cold War specialists"; we're not
specialists of any kind.  Why should we be presumed to have accepted the
definition used by a specialist group

The commentary ends with a rhetorical flourish that diminishes the
validity of any understanding that is not based on the understanding
asserted by the commentator.

I looked in the "New Oxford Dictionary of English" for what it had to
say about "revisionism".  It begins by saying that it is "often
derogatory" and adds the meaning "a policy of revision or modification,
especially of Marxism on evolutionary socialist (rather than
revolutionary) or pluralist principles."  It adds as a secondary
meaning: "the theory or practice of revising one's attitude to a
previously accepted situation or point of view."

Not all Wikipedians are members of an ivory tower cabal of historians.
We have not, as it were, paid our dues to historical orthdoxy.  Perhaps
we are their worst nightmare when we ask them to substantiate their
positions without descending into jargon.

Ec


from_name: Tobin Richard

subject: [Wikitech-l] modified Parser.php category goodness.

body:
I've made some changes to Parser.php on my local install to make
category pages a little neater. You can take a look at
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Category_sort_example.png for a
fairly recent screenshot.

Things changed are
* Three column view of sub categories and articles
* List view of subcategories and articles (if there are only a few)
* headings for the first letter of sort keys in article and subcategory
lists
* "Category" doesn't appear before subcategories and
* Display of the number of articles and subcategories.

I have no idea if this code is safe/well thought out/whatever but it
works fine on my local mediawiki installation.

And no picking on my php skills ;-)

Tobin.

My version of the categoryMagic function follows. Just about everything
after "# For all pages that link to this category" is changed.

----
	# This method generates the list of subcategories and pages for a
category
	function categoryMagic ()
	{
		global $wgLang , $wgUser ;
		if ( !$this->mOptions->getUseCategoryMagic() ) return ; # Doesn't use
categories at all

		$cns = Namespace::getCategory() ;
		if ( $this->mTitle->getNamespace() != $cns ) return "" ; # This ain't
a category page

		$r = "
\n";

		$sk =& $wgUser->getSkin() ;

		$articles = array() ;
		$articles_start_char = array();
		$children = array() ;
		$children_start_char = array();
		$data = array () ;
		$id = $this->mTitle->getArticleID() ;

		# FIXME: add limits
		$t = wfStrencode( $this->mTitle->getDBKey() );
		$sql = "SELECT DISTINCT cur_title,cur_namespace,cl_sortkey FROM
cur,categorylinks WHERE cl_to='$t' AND cl_from=cur_id ORDER BY
cl_sortkey" ;
		$res = wfQuery ( $sql, DB_READ ) ;
		while ( $x = wfFetchObject ( $res ) ) $data[] = $x ;

		# For all pages that link to this category
		foreach ( $data AS $x )
		{
			$t = $wgLang->getNsText ( $x->cur_namespace ) ;
			if ( $t != "" ) $t .= ":" ;
			$t .= $x->cur_title ;

			if ( $x->cur_namespace == $cns ) {
				array_push ( $children, $sk->makeKnownLink ( $t, $x->cur_title) ) ;
# Subcategory
				array_push ( $children_start_char, $x->cl_sortkey[0]) ;
			} else {
				array_push ( $articles , $sk->makeLink ( $t ) ) ; # Page in this
category
				array_push ( $articles_start_char, $x->cl_sortkey[0]) ;
			}
		}
		wfFreeResult ( $res ) ;

		# Showing subcategories
		if ( count ( $children ) > 20) {
			$ti = $this->mTitle->getText() ;

			// divide list into three equal chunks
			$chunk = (int) (count ( $children ) / 3);

			// get and display header
			$h =  wfMsg( "subcategories" );
			$r .= "
{$h}
\n" ;
			$r .= "There are ".count( $children )." subcategories to this
category
"		;

			$r .= "

";

			$startChunk = 0;
			$endChunk = $chunk;

			// loop through the chunks
			for($startChunk = 0, $endChunk = $chunk, $chunkIndex = 0;
$chunkIndex < 3; $chunkIndex++, $startChunk = $endChunk, $endChunk +=
$chunk + 1)
			{

				$r .= "";
				$r .= "
";
				// output all subcategories to category
				for ($index = $startChunk ; $index < $endChunk && $index <
count($children); $index++ )
				{
					// check for change of starting letter or begging of chunk
					if ($children_start_char[$index] != $children_start_char[$index -
1] || $index == $startChunk )
					{
						$r .= "
";
						$r .= "
".$children_start_char[$index]."
\n";
						$r .= "
";
					}

					$r .= "
".$children[$index]."
";
				}
				$r .= "
";
				$r .= "	";

			}
			$r .= "

";
		} else {
			// for short lists of subcategories to category.
			$ti = $this->mTitle->getText() ;
			$h =  wfMsg( "subcategories" );
			$r .= "
{$h}
\n" ;
			$r .= "There are ".count( $children )." subcategories to this
category
"		;

			$r .= "
".$children_start_char[0]."
\n";
			$r .= "

".$children[0]."
";
			for ($index = 1; $index < count($children); $index++ )
			{
				if ($children_start_char[$index] != $children_start_char[$index -
1])
				{
					$r .= "
";
					$r .= "
".$children_start_char[$index]."
\n";
					$r .= "
";
				}

				$r .= "
".$children[$index]."
";
			}
			$r .= "
";
		}

		# Showing articles in this category
		if ( count ( $articles ) > 20) {
			$ti = $this->mTitle->getText() ;

			// divide list into three equal chunks
			$chunk = (int) (count ( $articles ) / 3);

			// get and display header
			$h =  wfMsg( "category_header", $ti );
			$r .= "
{$h}
\n" ;
			$r .= "There are ".count( $articles )." articles in this
category
";

			$r .= "

";

			// loop through the chunks
			for($startChunk = 0, $endChunk = $chunk, $chunkIndex = 0;
$chunkIndex < 3; $chunkIndex++, $startChunk = $endChunk, $endChunk +=
$chunk + 1)
			{

				$r .= "";
				$r .= "
";

				// output all articles in category
				for ($index = $startChunk ; $index < $endChunk && $index <
count($articles); $index++ )
				{
					// check for change of starting letter or begging of chunk
					if ($articles_start_char[$index] != $articles_start_char[$index -
1] || $index == $startChunk )
					{
						$r .= "
";
						$r .= "
".$articles_start_char[$index]."
\n";
						$r .= "
";
					}

					$r .= "
".$articles[$index]."
";
				}
				$r .= "
";
				$r .= "	";

			}
			$r .= "

";
		} else {
			// for short lists of articles in categories.
			$ti = $this->mTitle->getText() ;
			$h =  wfMsg( "category_header", $ti );
			$r .= "
{$h}
\n" ;
			$r .= "There are ".count( $articles )." articles in this
category
"		;

			$r .= "
".$articles_start_char[0]."
\n";
			$r .= "

".$articles[0]."
";
			for ($index = 1; $index < count($articles); $index++ )
			{
				if ($articles_start_char[$index] != $articles_start_char[$index -
1])
				{
					$r .= "
";
					$r .= "
".$articles_start_char[$index]."
\n";
					$r .= "
";
				}

				$r .= "
".$articles[$index]."
";
			}
			$r .= "
";
		}

		return $r ;
	}


subject: [WikiEN-l] Ban policy

body:
--- John Robinson <john at freeq.com> wrote:
> >in the last 6 months the AC has issued more user bans than Jimbo did two
> years
> >before that
>
> Indeed. Most of them for a symbolic 24 hours.

Wrong again:

Decided on 11th Februry 2004 that Mr-Natural-Health would be banned from
editing for 30 days (i.e., until 12 Mar 2004).

Decided on 11th March 2004 that Plautus satire is to be banned for one year, up
to and including March 11, 2005.

Decided on 15th March 2004 that Wik would have a three month probation during
which he may be temp-banned in certain circumstances.

Decided on 31st March 2004 that Irismeister would be banned from editing all
pages for ten days, and banned from editing Iridology indefinitely.

Decided on 25th April 2004 to instruct Anthony with regards to his VfD edits,
and refer other issues to mediation.

/Paul Vogel - Decided on 10 May 2004 to ban Vogel for one year.

Decided at /Wik2/Decided on 21 May 2004 that Wik shall be banned for one week
and be subject to a month ban after he returns if he fails to abide by the AC's
conduct rulings. Cantus and Nico shall be banned for one day for using
sockpuppets.

Maybe you are using some oddball form of math to reach your "most cases"
statement, but I see only two users who received anything that could be called
"symbolic 24 hour" bans.

> This is fine for regular contributors who occasionally go off the deep end,
> but that's not what most of the cases have involved.

You obviously have either not read those cases, and/or are confusing the AC
with the quickpoll process. Again, do your homework before you criticize.

> Wik's ban is over now, the only reason he's still
> gone is because he left on his own.

And as soon as he comes back the AC will decide whether or not his breaking of
the terms of his week ban is enough to warrent the imposition of the month ban
we already provided for in the enforcement section. I for one will vote to
impose the month ban.

It is fairly obvious to me that you have not even read the ruling.

> Meanwhile Gohde and "Irismeister" are still up to their old tricks, exactly
> as before arbitration.

I do think that the AC made a mistake in not placing MrNH and Irismeister on
long term probations. But those were two early cases.

> >Are you volunteering to be a member of the AC?
>
> No, I am saying that the concept of an AC has been tried, and does not work.

That is because you are mistakingly thinking of the AC as a police force. We
are not and do not have the ability to control the immediate actions of others
- we can only provide punishments for past actions and also say what to do if
users break the terms of their probations.

Cases against users take time to develop and take time to decide. Granted some
cases are taking too long, but we need more committee members (one of our
members has never voted in a single case and another left).

> I don't consider this to be the fault of the AC or any of the members of it,
> rather a problem with overall structure, confusion with regard to the amount
> of authority it holds, etc.

Our current situation is this: We have judges but no policeman. The judicial
process is supposed to be a bit slow, while police can use probable cause to
arrest people on the spot. While we have the former, we do not have the latter
(except in cases of obvious vandalism). So the system is only half built and
should not be expected to work right yet.

> >3 non-AC member admins to do such a block
>
> This is a good idea, we've had five already in Trollkien's case, for example.
> As with all good ideas, though, it never seems to get implemented (didn't we
> first see this proposal months ago?).

I believe either one of the developers (Tim maybe?) or I proposed it a while
ago. IIRC some experimental code was created for it but the idea didn't seem to
resonate and was dropped. If you think that idea is a good one, then support
it. Hopefully others will also think it is a good idea and also support it.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

__________________________________________________
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Working together well

body:
--- "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
>...
> What an irony that even someone devoted to avoiding bias can least
> detect bias in their own writing. I mean, I wish I could see it
> before I click "submit". But, frankly, I can't. I rely on the help
> of other Wikipedians to set me straight. It's crucial, because I
> have a blind spot when it comes to my own writing.

That is why I try to avoid making anything more than minor edits to articles on
some subjects where I hold a strong POV. But I'm lucky since I can write on
many other subjects where I can be objective. Some people can only write on
subjects where they have a strong POV. The reasonable ones need to be
periodically brought back to reality, while the less reasonable ones become a
problem.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

__________________________________
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] China goverment maybe blocked wikipedia today

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>--- Jiong Sheng <sheng.jiong at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>It has been confirmed, as of 8AM GMT, June 4, that Wikipedians in
>>Beijing were banned from accessing. But Wikipedia is still accessible
>>from other parts of China.
>>
>>
>
>Hm - a press release may be in order then. If we make a large enough fuss about
>this, then maybe the PRC will be shamed into lifting their petty ban.
>
>
The fact that this was only applicable for Beijing suggests that this
was a short term event based on their understandable paranoia about
commemoration of the Tien An Men events.  It is very likely that other
sites received the same treatment.

Some have wondered about the general permission of the zh-wikipedia to
continue to be accessible in the PRC being something close to miraculous.

There are times for making a fuss, but I suspect that doing so at this
stage would be counterproductive if the ban in question was for anything
more than a limited time.  Our Chinese colleagues are best served by
having an ongoing access, and I'm afraid that at this stage a fuss might
only encourage China's bureaucrats to take more permanent action.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] 172

body:
I have no reason to doubt that the indicated book used these terms in a
specialized way.  (The book appears to be anti-Marxist, and a
pro-Marxist book would likely use it in a different way.)  Neither way
advances anybody's cause in these debates.  It's the "specialized way"
that gives the problem, and turns the term into jargon.  If there is no
definition of a term which the participants in a debate can hold in
common, then perhaps it would be better to find a more appropriate term.

Ec

Fred Bauder wrote:

>Marxist studies uses the terms "revisionist" and "traditionalist" in a
>specialized way. See page 2 of In Denial, ISBN 1893554724.
>
>Fred
>
>
>
>>From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
>>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>>Date: Sat, 05 Jun 2004 11:10:35 -0700
>>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] 172
>>
>>Stan Shebs wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>It is very unfortunate when a talented contributor leaves the project
>>>>in disgust, and other people consider doing the same. In this case,
>>>>172 was bullied off by people who have yet to respond to the content
>>>>of his arguments beyond some rhetorical ranting about things which
>>>>are barely relevant to the content at hand. It was done with personal
>>>>attacks, using terms such as Stalinist, revisionist, totalitarian, etc.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Just for the record, the sense in which Fred used "revisionist" is a
>>>well-understood technical term (it's the first of the definitions in
>>>[[revisionism]]), along with "traditionalist" and "post-revisionist".
>>>Cold War specialists describe their own positions relative to these
>>>groupings for instance. It can hardly be construed as a personal
>>>attack by anybody who understands the meaning of the term.
>>>
>>>
>>The fact remains that the term "revisionist" is nothing more than
>>jargon.  It is far less clear than the other two terms on the above
>>list, "Stalinist" and "totalitarian", and they're debatable enough.
>>"Traditionalist" and "post-revisionist" may be defined in terms of
>>"revisionist" and are thus also jargon.  The current Wikipedia article
>>has no less than eight definitions of "revisionism" several of which
>>could be applicable.  Since we are criticizing several articles the
>>assortment of possible definitions could follow from one to the other.
>>Indeed the indicated "first of the definitions" states
>>
>>
>>
>>>Among historians, revisionism has traditionally been used in a
>>>completely neutral sense to describe the work or ideas of a historian
>>>who has revised a previously accepted view of a particular topic. This
>>>usage has declined among historians because in recent years the word
>>>has come to be used in the following sense:
>>>
>>>
>>In other words we have an unsubstantiated "traditional" usage which has
>>declined in favour of one or the other of the remaining seven other
>>definitions, but we can never be sure which.  The term "well-understood"
>>is pure sophistry.
>>
>>Then you would have us believe that the position of "Cold War
>>specialists" would somehow be relevant.  Most of us have not been
>>indoctrinated into the brotherhood of "Cold War specialists"; we're not
>>specialists of any kind.  Why should we be presumed to have accepted the
>>definition used by a specialist group
>>
>>The commentary ends with a rhetorical flourish that diminishes the
>>validity of any understanding that is not based on the understanding
>>asserted by the commentator.
>>
>>I looked in the "New Oxford Dictionary of English" for what it had to
>>say about "revisionism".  It begins by saying that it is "often
>>derogatory" and adds the meaning "a policy of revision or modification,
>>especially of Marxism on evolutionary socialist (rather than
>>revolutionary) or pluralist principles."  It adds as a secondary
>>meaning: "the theory or practice of revising one's attitude to a
>>previously accepted situation or point of view."
>>
>>Not all Wikipedians are members of an ivory tower cabal of historians.
>>We have not, as it were, paid our dues to historical orthdoxy.  Perhaps
>>we are their worst nightmare when we ask them to substantiate their
>>positions without descending into jargon.
>>
>>Ec
>>
>>


body:
--- sada asda <unfairlybanned2001 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I have been banned unfairly three times. I was first banned because I
> allegedly violated a "3 revert rule" of which I was never warned about;
> regardless of whether I did break it, I was banned by a sysop (Guarnaco)
> involved in an edit war on the page -- this is a gross violation of sysop
> rules!

While I happen to agree that violating the three revert rule should be a temp
banable offense, I note with dismay that this is not current policy.

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Block_log (oldest first)

05:03, 4 Jun 2004 Guanaco blocked "Editing Saddam Hussein" with an expiry time
of 24 hours (account created for the trolling and violating the three revert
policy - was warned after third revert)

05:03, 4 Jun 2004 Guanaco unblocked "Editing Saddam Hussein" (typo)

05:03, 4 Jun 2004 Guanaco blocked "Editing Saddam Hussein" with an expiry time
of 24 hours (account created for trolling and violating the three revert policy
- was warned after third revert)

22:34, 4 Jun 2004 Guanaco blocked "Sad Ham" with an expiry time of indefinite
(vandalism of [[Saddam Hussein]], illegitimate sockpuppet of Editing Saddam
Hussein)

> After I was unbanned by a more reasonably sysop, I was then immediately
> re-banned by RickK -- even though I had not edited any articles!!!!!!!! This
> second ban appears to be permanent, YET I HAVE NOT VIOLATED ANY RULES!

As 63.230.159.235, Editing Saddam Hussein, and Sam Ham, you kept adding this to
the top of [[Saddam Hussein]]:

''This page refers to Saddam Hussein as "Saddam"; however, doing so may be
inapppropriate. See the section below: '''==Hussein's Name=='''. As a result of
this, the [[NPOV]] of this article is questioned.''

Guanaco and 172 kept removing this message while Everyking and 172 put the
section you wrote about it back into a footnote.

>From the ban log:

16:11, 4 Jun 2004 Jamesday unblocked "Editing Saddam Hussein" (unblock after
discussion in IRC where agreed to discuss rather than edit war.)

17:57, Jun 4, 2004 RickK blocked "Editing Saddam Hussein1" with an expiry time
of indefinite (sock puppet trying to cause trouble)

> It is completely fallacious, RickKs claim that I am another user -- that I am
> a "sockpuppet". And even if I were, is it a crime? Am I double-voting? Am I
> agreeing with my other accounts, and creating false consensus? The answer to
> those questions are NO, this is NOT A SOCKPUPPET ACCOUNT.

For a new user you seem to know a lot about us. That alone sends up red flags
for some people. I will therefore let somebody else unblock you.

-- mav

__________________________________
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body:
--- Jiong Sheng <sheng.jiong at gmail.com> wrote:
> It has been confirmed, as of 8AM GMT, June 4, that Wikipedians in
> Beijing were banned from accessing. But Wikipedia is still accessible
> from other parts of China.

Hm - a press release may be in order then. If we make a large enough fuss about
this, then maybe the PRC will be shamed into lifting their petty ban.

-- mav

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Friends.  Fun.  Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger.
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from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] 172

body:
Marxist studies uses the terms "revisionist" and "traditionalist" in a
specialized way. See page 2 of In Denial, ISBN 1893554724.

Fred

> From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Sat, 05 Jun 2004 11:10:35 -0700
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] 172
>
> Stan Shebs wrote:
>
>> daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
>>
>>> It is very unfortunate when a talented contributor leaves the project
>>> in disgust, and other people consider doing the same. In this case,
>>> 172 was bullied off by people who have yet to respond to the content
>>> of his arguments beyond some rhetorical ranting about things which
>>> are barely relevant to the content at hand. It was done with personal
>>> attacks, using terms such as Stalinist, revisionist, totalitarian, etc.
>>
>> Just for the record, the sense in which Fred used "revisionist" is a
>> well-understood technical term (it's the first of the definitions in
>> [[revisionism]]), along with "traditionalist" and "post-revisionist".
>> Cold War specialists describe their own positions relative to these
>> groupings for instance. It can hardly be construed as a personal
>> attack by anybody who understands the meaning of the term.
>
> The fact remains that the term "revisionist" is nothing more than
> jargon.  It is far less clear than the other two terms on the above
> list, "Stalinist" and "totalitarian", and they're debatable enough.
> "Traditionalist" and "post-revisionist" may be defined in terms of
> "revisionist" and are thus also jargon.  The current Wikipedia article
> has no less than eight definitions of "revisionism" several of which
> could be applicable.  Since we are criticizing several articles the
> assortment of possible definitions could follow from one to the other.
> Indeed the indicated "first of the definitions" states
>
>> Among historians, revisionism has traditionally been used in a
>> completely neutral sense to describe the work or ideas of a historian
>> who has revised a previously accepted view of a particular topic. This
>> usage has declined among historians because in recent years the word
>> has come to be used in the following sense:
>
> In other words we have an unsubstantiated "traditional" usage which has
> declined in favour of one or the other of the remaining seven other
> definitions, but we can never be sure which.  The term "well-understood"
> is pure sophistry.
>
> Then you would have us believe that the position of "Cold War
> specialists" would somehow be relevant.  Most of us have not been
> indoctrinated into the brotherhood of "Cold War specialists"; we're not
> specialists of any kind.  Why should we be presumed to have accepted the
> definition used by a specialist group
>
> The commentary ends with a rhetorical flourish that diminishes the
> validity of any understanding that is not based on the understanding
> asserted by the commentator.
>
> I looked in the "New Oxford Dictionary of English" for what it had to
> say about "revisionism".  It begins by saying that it is "often
> derogatory" and adds the meaning "a policy of revision or modification,
> especially of Marxism on evolutionary socialist (rather than
> revolutionary) or pluralist principles."  It adds as a secondary
> meaning: "the theory or practice of revising one's attitude to a
> previously accepted situation or point of view."
>
> Not all Wikipedians are members of an ivory tower cabal of historians.
> We have not, as it were, paid our dues to historical orthdoxy.  Perhaps
> we are their worst nightmare when we ask them to substantiate their
> positions without descending into jargon.
>
> Ec
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [Wikipedia-l] I am a victim of the cabal and require assistance

body:
> IP address evidence has led some to suggest that you are Lir. General
> conversational evidence *clearly* indicates that you know what you are
> doing. Since you are so familiar with us as to describe the procedures
> which you claim have been violated, you should also know about all the
> guidelines and procedures which YOU have violated. You seem to
> conveniently ignore these and focus instead on causing trouble
> (attempting to get Guanaco desysopped), particularly since it seems
> plausible (if not quite certain) that you were DELIBRATELY attempting
> to get banned in an attempt to get Guanaco in trouble. This behavior
> may be generally described by some as "trolling" and is widely
> considered undesirable.

It's probably best to respond to such trolling by not taking the bait.  Four
reverts are by no means going to destroy wikipedia. A drawn out battle over
whether or not it is appropriate to ban someone over engaging in such
reverts won't either, but it'll certainly waste a lot more time.

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] Copyright issues of wikimedia projects

body:
--- Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu> wrote:
>...
> Keep in mind, you're the one that's proposing a stricter policy.
> So it's no surprise that I'm asking you to justify assumptions
> that go into making that policy!

I'm proposing we stay with what we have had all along: Copyleft. Others want to
do something different. So from my perspective, it is they who need to justify
why they want to do something different.

>....
> So, let me see if I have this straight.  First, you're saying
> that there will be more derivative works with (B) than with (A).
> I have to agree that I find this quite plausible. ^_^
>
> Then, this introduces a new factor, which is dilution of effort;
> presumably lowering the average quality of each fork
> (even ''before'' we consider whether they can be recombined).
> I don't think that I agree with this,
> since more derivative works may be spread more widely,
> causing more people to work on improvement in the first place.

Wikipedia is directly available all around the world already. Thus there is
little need to have derivative works all over the place being worked on
separately. Wikipedia content is also mirrored by many different websites. Thus
extending our reach. The few forks we have are also directly compatible with
Wikipedia. Thus any improvements they make can be reincorporated back into
Wikipedia. We are also not dealing with fiction here: we are writting reference
material. Thus any improvement that is made in one derivative work will likely
also have to be made in every other fork. That is needless duplication of
effort.

> This is particularly likely in the WikiNews example,
> since any hesitation on the part of news organisations
> to redistribute GNU FDL or CC-by-sa stories
> translates directly into a less widespread audience.

The CC-by-sa is already well-suited for WikiNews. We just need to inform
newspapers exactly what they can do with WikiNews content - just as the
Associated Press already informs newspapers what they can do with AP content.
Dual-licensing with the GFDL will make it possible to use WikiNews content in
any other Wikimedia project. Hopefully the compatibility issue will be fixed
soon.

>  ...
> With Wikinews, however, this deadline would arrive even faster.
> As 95 years is an insanely long time to protect an encyclopaedia article,
> so even 14 years would be an insanely long time to protect a news story.
> One day might be enough, and one week would surely suffice;
> so this makes it less significant if the protection dwindles to zero.
> Any proprietary fork would have only a week's worth of useful material.

How would that work if content is under the CC-by? The AP could get Wikinews
content as soon as it is published and add improvements, thus making a
proprietary derivative work right away. Then only the AP could grant
distribution rights to the superior version.

So instead of taming the monster, we would be feeding it.

> ...
> But now you've given more detailed reasoning in another direction,
> so if you agree that the bullet-point argument in insufficient by itself,
> then we can set the above mistaken premise aside.

Agreed.

> ....
> That's certainly a reasonable pragmatic position for Wikipedia;
> there is little point in having encyclopaedia articles mirrored,
> since people only look in an encyclopaedia on special occasions.

Mirrors are fine since they reduce load on our servers and expose our content
to people who might not have read it otherwise. Forks are problematic.

> ...
> But the situation with WikiNews will probably be very different.
> First of all, many people consistently look for news every day,

And hopefully in time many will go to Wikinews as a source for unbiased and
factual news.

> ...
>It should be the Wikimedia Foundation's policy
>that, whatever may come up in the future (like WikiNews),
>our goal shall be to develop content for free use by others.

Not when that freedom is the freedom to restrict use of derivative works.

>But it should not be the Wikimedia Foundation's policy
>that copyleft shall always be the best way to realise that goal.
>We may yet find ourselves in a situation where it isn't.

I still hold that copyleft should always be our default position. If and when
copyleft has proved to be an unreasonable hindrance to a particular project
that is preventing it from becoming viable, then we can re-consider other
options.

>Maybe we should just retain the ambiguous wording
>that Anth?re first asked about???

For the time being that is fine by me since my interpretation of the wording
includes copyleft.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Ban policy

body:
--- Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> but then... does that mean that editors will have to wait again for the
> AC to decide over this ? Or may it be quickly done if necessary ?
>
> Is there a risk there of a bottleneck ?

When power like this is placed into the hands of just a few people, then yes.
If we still had quickpolls then then some of that power would be better
distributed. That said, I think that the AC should decide this question now so
that a decision is ready when Wik comes back. If we answer in the affirmative,
then at that point Wik would be banned for a month.

What we need is a whole system to deal with issues like this. A single
committee is simply not enough on its own.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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from_name: Phil Sandifer

body:
Just to be clear for people, here's what we know about "Editing Saddam
Hussein."

The account was first created on June 4th. It was using the IP
63.230.159.235 prior to logging in as Editing Saddam Hussein. The IP
was used for several of the edits to [[Saddam Hussein]], as well as to
vote against my admin nomination. Subsequently, the attribution for
that vote was changed to Editing Saddam Hussein. This can be seen at
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia:
Requests_for_adminship&diff=3902017&oldid=3900347

As that vote was being cast, in IRC, Comrade Nick informed me that one
of his "comrades" had voted against me. Comrades here refers to members
of Red Faction, his little group that includes Mr. Natural Health,
irismeister, and J.R.R. Trollkien. So we're faced with two
possibilities here. 1) Editing Saddam Hussein showed up on Wikipedia
and immediately joined an obscure group of users, as well as immedately
took a side on the long-standing controversy surrounding 172, and that
this side was detailed enough to identify who 172's "lapdogs" may or
may not be. 2) Editing Saddam Hussein is a sock puppet.

Now, only a few minutes after that vote, Lir nominated Plato/Comrade
Nick for administrator status, in part because of his leadership of Red
Faction. Lir's IP address is known to be a Qwest address out of Iowa.
The IP that Editing Saddam Hussein was using only ten minutes earlier
was also a Qwest address out of Iowa. This, combined with the
connection to Red Faction, nails the sock puppetry accusation beyond,
to my mind, any serious objection.

The next day, Lir/Editing Saddam Hussein showed up in IRC protesting
his 24 hour block. When people disagreed with him, including Fennec and
myself, we were told to "plz stop talking" to him. Since this is a
somewhat silly request in a public IRC channel, neither of us found it
particularly binding. In my case, since I'd been accused of being a
"lapdog" by this user, I was not particularly inclined to let his
absurd and false summaries of events go uncorrected. Eventually, he
began flooding the channel, as the log Fennec posted earlier in this
discussion shows. For this, Tim Starling kickbanned him.

Aggravating all of this is the fact that, when 172 listed Editing
Saddam Hussein/Lir on ViP, an IP address accused Editing of being a
sockpuppet of "the retard otherwise known as Wik". Hadal deleted the
accusation, and it was put back by a username designed to look like
RickK - in fact, it was an impostor account using an i with an accent
mark, and copying Rick's userpage so that it would pass a cursory
inspection. The fake RickK also added his own belief that Editing/Lir
was Wik. Indeed, it did pass cursory inspection, and fooled several
users, including Hadal and, at first, myself. Now, this IP
(219.88.160.45) is not a Qwest one, but one out of New Zealand, so
there's no firm evidence tying it to Editing/Lir, but it should be
noted that the fake RickK account was used to vote for the
aforementioned nomination of Plato/Comrade Nick, suggesting at least
some tie to Red Faction, which, while circumstantial, is suspicious
considering that we already know sockpuppeting was going on here.

Sorry to be long-winded here, but I wanted to make sure no one was led
into believing there was anything resembling an actual issue here. Just
some marginally novel vandalism by the usual suspects.

-Snowspinner

On Jun 5, 2004, at 11:21 AM, sada asda wrote:

> I have been banned unfairly three times. I was first banned because I
> allegedly violated a "3 revert rule" of which I was never warned
> about; regardless of whether I did break it, I was banned by a sysop
> (Guarnaco) involved in an edit war on the page -- this is a gross
> violation of sysop rules!
> ?
> I then went to the IRC channel to appeal my case, where I was
> harrassed by users such as Snowspinner and Fennec -- whose sole intent
> was to "rub salt in my wounds" if you will. I started telling them,
> "Please do not talk to me. You are rude and inconsiderate" each time
> did so. Then I was banned, solely for asking them not to talk to me!
> If anyone should have been banned, it should be them for being so rude
> to another contributor!
> ?
> After I was unbanned by a more reasonably sysop, I was then
> immediately re-banned by RickK -- even though I had not edited any
> articles!!!!!!!! This second ban appears to be permanent, YET I HAVE
> NOT VIOLATED ANY RULES!
>  ?
> It is completely fallacious, RickKs claim that I am another user --
> that I am a "sockpuppet". And even if I were, is it a crime? Am I
> double-voting? Am I agreeing with my other accounts, and creating
> false consensus? The answer to those questions are NO, this is NOT A
> SOCKPUPPET ACCOUNT.
>
>  Do you Yahoo!?
> Friends. Fun. Try the all-new Yahoo!
> Messenger_______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
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subject: [WikiEN-l] 172

body:
Entry into a discussion of Marxist studies requires a willingness to become
familiar with the vocabulary used in the field just as in the case of other
specialized areas. Requiring the construction of complicated new verbal
constructions is unreasonable. (And ultimately uncomprehensible.)

I wrote the original article [[jargon]] but eventually wrote [[technical
terminology]] also.

Fred

> From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Sat, 05 Jun 2004 12:43:23 -0700
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] 172
>
> I have no reason to doubt that the indicated book used these terms in a
> specialized way.  (The book appears to be anti-Marxist, and a
> pro-Marxist book would likely use it in a different way.)  Neither way
> advances anybody's cause in these debates.  It's the "specialized way"
> that gives the problem, and turns the term into jargon.  If there is no
> definition of a term which the participants in a debate can hold in
> common, then perhaps it would be better to find a more appropriate term.
>
> Ec
>
> Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>> Marxist studies uses the terms "revisionist" and "traditionalist" in a
>> specialized way. See page 2 of In Denial, ISBN 1893554724.
>>
>> Fred


from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

subject: [Wikitech-l] { and function code

body:
Hello,

I am willing to know which formatting method we should use in code for
function declarations. Actually I see two shemes:

1)
function foobarone() {
    code here
}

2)
function foobartwo()
{
    code here
}

The reason I am asking for this, is that my code editor (anjuta) add a
little + sign in front of functions and clicking it will remove all of
the code between {} and show an horizontal bar instead. That looks like:

function foobarone() {
-----------------------------------

function foobartwo ()
{
-----------------------------------

So sheme #1 save one line :o)

That's really minor, but before I start changing all functions
declaration to one sheme or the other I would like to get your feedback :)

--
Ashar Voultoiz
[[fr:Utilisateur:Hashar]]


subject: [Wikitech-l] upgrade problem (Wiktionary PL)

body:
Tomasz Sienicki wrote:
>  There was a problem with upgrading pl.wiktionary to 1.3 -- two
>  namespaces (NS_WIKIPEDIA & NS_WIKIPEDIA_TALK) have been overwritten
>  and some parts of the wiktionary are inaccessible now.

I've done some cleanup on LanguagePl.php to remove some of the hardcoded
'Wikipedia' strings and to use the correct project talk names for
'Wikipedia' and 'Wikis?ownik'. Sourceforge's CVS is wonky right now
(upgrades?) so I haven't checked it in just yet.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Gerrit

subject: [Wikipedia-l] A parallel World Wide Web?

body:
Jared schreef:
> On Jun 4, 2004, at 2:56 PM, Ulrich Fuchs wrote:
> >This isn't a valid question - obviously the people on the list weren't
> >discouraged, otherwise they wouldn't be here.
>
> I was discouraged, but I'm still here.  The reason was not due to
> superfluous trivia, but rather an overwhelming set of blurry rules and
> standards that were required to get involved.

My main fear was to do something wrong. My first edit was adding a very
little bit of information: in the German article about Switzerland, it
said that it was named after the canton of Schwyz. I added
(Schweizerdeutsch fur Schweiz) after 'Schwyz', because that is where it
came from. I was happy to hear that I should not be afraid to do
anything wrong.

> >Unfortunately we have no way to
> >ask those who were...
>
> Oh use your imagination. Show another human Wikipedia and ask them what
> they think.  Ask them if they think they will contribute.  If the
> answer is no, ask why.

I have only asked the first part. The answer was: "how do I know whether
the information can be trusted? If anyone can contribute, what I read
may just as well be nonsense. There is no quality check". And he was
somewhat right. Of course, information can be useful, but it is of less
value than in traditional encyclopedia's or in scientific magazines,
because there is no stamp by an authority onside it. That could be a
problem for Wikipedia. I think it's quite fundamental, though.

Gerrit.

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