from_name: Abe Sokolov

body:
Admittedly, I would have jumped on the bandwagon for his banning when I had
my first RK experience.
RK has called me a few choice things in the past, but I been discovering
that RK is an essential part of the Wiki community since his edit wars
consistently yield the kind of synthesis that we want: quality, neutrality,
and a unique perspective that highlights what Wiki can offer that other
sourcebooks cannot.

We should disregard the mountain of grievances we have against him, and
accept him as an eloquent, forceful representative of a significant share of
hard-liners on the pro-Israel side, although I would certainly favor banning
if there were no counterweight. Since these are mass-based struggles, there
might be a substantive benefit to allowing partisans to engage in struggle
and yield syntheses, in that we might be better able to deal with the role
of public opinion, and political mobilization.

Actually, I?ve been noticing that Wikipedia?s have been doing a better job
of conveying how the two sides see this conflict than the academic
literature and media articles (Reuters, NY Times, BBC, AP usually) that I
usually read.

All academic journals, sourcebooks, and media outlets have their strengths
and weaknesses when weighed against each other. And Wiki offers a unique
perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute made possible by the dynamics
of RK and his enemies.  Nothing else available online is going to be
synthesis of material written by- and also edited by - such a diverse group
of perspectives (the online medium makes it possible ? there might be
violence if this group were in the same room!). The articles convey all
facets of reality, being products themselves of an actually
Israeli-Palestinian proxy battle.

As a disclaimer, as the son of Holocaust survivors I?ll state my solidarity
with RK?s passions for a strong, secure state of Israel. However, my views
on his conception of Arab culture are closer to the late Edward Said than
Daniel Pipes. As a historian, I find myself cringing, and often gasping with
disbelief, when reading RK?s tracts on the Palestinians, Arabs, or Islam.

Perhaps I can relate to RK?s mentality better than most, but I?ve wedded a
strong rebuke of RK?s paranoia, obnoxiousness, and bully tactics to a
defense of the end result.

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list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [WikiEN-l] Posting old message - formatted this time!

body:
I thank Ray Saintonge for reading - and rereading - my lengthy comments,
despite the lack of copyediting for typos, and the formatting problems that
I can't seem to figure out (I've only been having trouble with the margins
on the Wiki mailing list). Although he understood all my points, the
assumptions of his counter-arguments are unrealistic.

His comments, however, highlight my need to further explain why there's no
way that removing RK would do anything to bring the Israel-related articles
under the influence of the idealized set of contributors whom Stan had
described.

First, consider the central cause of all flame wars. It's important to note
that by and large, the more controversial an article gets on Wikipedia, the
more partisan the core group of contributors becomes (e.g., the Roman
Catholic sex abuse scandal, abortion, and Communism - just to name some
recent and never ending flame wars). This is an iron-clad relationship that
few who contribute even scantly to Wiki articles on history and politics can
deny. I acknowledge that other flame wars are far less prolonged and
vicious. While patterns of more manageable disputes over parallel the ones
over Israeli-Palestinian neutrality, the others are less prone to zero-sum
games (see the Wiki article on game theory if this term?s unfamiliar ? btw,
sorry for habitual jargon of the social sciences). They usually far less
emotionally charged, and/or the structure of the antagonists is not
polarized.

I acknowledge that polarized factions is not unique to the Israel-related
articles. There is polarizing left-versus-right political squabbling all the
time on many articles, but the stakes are not as great personally to users.
Disputes are channeled toward something narrowed (such as a particular
policy), rather than an 'us versus them' struggle. For example, consider the
recent disputes over privatization, which I?ve been mediating. Lir and
Daniel Quinlan hold irreconcilable views on the subject: one brings in an
anti-government dogma, the other an anti-capitalist one. But there was no
personal animosity expressed on the talk page (they didn?t even cross paths
? just channeling their mixed feeling though me on the talk page).

Jews worldwide, however, are haunted by the past and ever-vigilant when
criticism of Israel might be imbued with anti-Semitism. Conversely,
Palestinians have suffered declining living standards in the context of
Israeli heavy-handedness, displacement, and marginalization in their
homeland and in any setting of any refugee camp. These two collective
identities are not ?irrational? or ?insane? when individual channel those
frustrations toward hating the enemy; and we should expert their champions
outside the Middle East to quarrel in every forum in which they are both
present at the same time.

On other controversial articles, emotionalism can run high too, but the
structure of the disputes is rarely so polarizing. For example, there is
often conflict over a minority view that challenges an analysis, the
balance, and/or the tone of a Wiki article. However, you don?t inherently
attract two equally-large group with fixed identities pitted against each
other.

Among the conflict-prone articles on Wikipedia, perhaps only abortion
attracts the same level of polarization and bitterness as the Israel-related
articles. But this is largely a single article, along with a handful of
others that go along with it, not close to receiving the level of attention
garnered by the hundreds of articles related to the Israeli-Palestinian
disputes.

Within the freedom of Wikipedia (which opens the doors to partisans), the
fanacticism and polarization of the two sides on the Palestinian question,
the partisans can gravitate toward the zero-sum conflict demanded by their
fanatical ? and often quite understandable considering where they are both
coming from - worldviews. Thus, we'd have almost daily Mid East flame wars
regardless of whether or not RK's around.

Yes, theoretically RK would be less "effective in presenting [his] view[s]
than a large number of moderates." But the ?moderates? are always going to
be marginalized - with or without RK: the large share of extremists on both
sides will always make more noise than the "silent majority" (not that I
like to borrow Richard Nixon's '68 campaign slogans). A new RK can arrive
any day. Even worse, since the majority of the core contributors are also
partisans, RK's absence would just shatter the workable balance of power
between the opposing forces. Yes, we would like to have a scholarly,
congenial lot rather than what we have, but we?re to going to get it. And
yes, Stan and Ray are correct that the flame wars have driven off a number
of users; but this was the only likely outcome anyway.

In that regard, I do admit that Ray has good reasons to express concerns
over my "[endorsement] of bully tactics and intimidation." I firmly agree as
much as anyone with Ray that "failing to confront these people does not make
the world better or safer." RK must always be prodded to ensure that he?s
reasonably acing in line, but not so constrained that RK can?t be RK. That's
been the status quo for over a year, and it's been working.

However, we should consider lax enforcement policy in light of this context
- with the caveat that RK is reprimanded promptly each time (and with so
many enemies, he?s under enough scrutiny). The Israeli-Palestinian articles
should be regarded as an exception, calling for a measured enforcement of
Wiki policy (and every institution doesn?t enforce all laws and guidelines
to the letter ? just consider all the arcane, non-enforced laws on the books
right now everywhere). There should be a tacit, unstated understanding that
the habits and customs among their core group of Israel-related contributors
are going to be more a function of the emotionalism and fervency of the
real-world Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and not the conventions of
Wikipedia as a whole. However, I?m not saying that RK deserves preferential
treatment. Just don?t ban him, and let?s to more to acknowledge that he?s a
indispensable pillar of the Wiki community.

I'd also point out in closing that the ideals of the Wikipedia project would
favor my laissez-faire, less elitist, and more freedom-oriented approach to
this matter. Little heavy handed intervention from the top (by developers
such as Erik), combined with the free-for-all squabbling from below, has
been working. Impartial experts need not dominate the Israeli-Palestinian
articles (which would be Stan?s elitist ideal) because the struggle and
fervency among all the partisans winds up forging good, neutral articles
after a lot of noise has been made. The problem with little expertise and a
lot of opinion is rectified, not caused, by stalemated edit wars among the
partisans - right now we have a lot of horrible articles that could use some
antagonism to whip them into shape. RK and his edit wars are part of the
solution, not the problem.

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from_name: Stevertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] "Benefits" of badness (for Abe and LD)

body:
> --- Abe Sokolov <abesokolov at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >RK is an essential part of the Wiki community
> > since his edit wars
> > consistently yield the kind of synthesis that we
> > want: quality, neutrality,
> > and a unique perspective that highlights what Wiki

At what cost?  Consider the costs that some here have
mentioned-- lost time, work, and human beings, all
just to maintain an "RK" on WP.  It's absurd that such
artificial supports should exist in the Wikipedia,
just because they exist in the international political
world.

> > We should disregard the mountain of grievances we
> > have against him, and
> > accept him as an eloquent, forceful representative
> > of a significant share of
> > hard-liners on the pro-Israel side, although I
> would
> > certainly favor banning
> > if there were no counterweight.

There is no counterweight. I am not here to be RK's
counterweight -- I am staunchly moderate.  That there
are few or no rabid Islamists on Wikipedia is not my
doing.
I remember even calling one a "Philistine" before I
booted him-- admittedly to also illustrate the point
that there *is* a very old bias in Western society
against Palestinians.

>>Since these are
> > mass-based struggles, there
> > might be a substantive benefit to allowing
> partisans
> > to engage in struggle
> > and yield syntheses, in that we might be better
> >able to deal with the role
> > of public opinion, and political mobilization.

These are not struggles on issues of "mass" or
numbers. They are moral issues, and there is no need
to consider the "roles" of public opinion-- we merely
have to reflect it and its moral degrees accurately.
If we want to be silly, we can even use the Ten
Commandments as a baseline-- being common Law to all
relevant parties-- and assess each political position
and its fidelity to these core principles.  It is more
NPOV if we can be equal opportunity "offensive"
(stating the facts) rather than pretend to be
ignorant.

> > Actually, I???ve been noticing that Wikipedia???s
have
> > been doing a better job
> > of conveying how the two sides see this conflict
> > than the academic
> > literature and media articles (Reuters, NY Times,
> > BBC, AP usually) that I
> > usually read.

Thats progress at least, but I'd like to see some
examples of what you think qualifies, Abe.

Daniel Ehrenberg <littledanehren at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I don't usually have that experience of the two
> sides banancing.

You dont exactly live in a politically neutral or
balanced environment anyway, LDan ;-) So thats not
saying anything.

>I usually find that many of the articles
> about Israel are either violently for Israel (by RK)
> or violently against (by Stevertigo).

This is uncalled for.  How am I "violent"?  'Rude',
'sharp of tongue', and sometimes 'inconsiderate'
maybe-- but not "violent."  ( Now I know how Ed Said
felt when people accused him of an "act of violence"
when all he was doing was throwing a rock or two. )
Your adjective is inappropriate-- if I were RK, I
would have called it
"anti-{{insertMyTribeWhateverThatIs}}" and slanderous.

Lets get one thing clear: "RK" used his ethnicity
(which coincidentally is that of others here ) as a
cloak to hide his *personal *insecurity.  Whether this
insecurity is understandable or relatable or not, by
his fellow Jews is irrelevant.  That "feeling" of
insecurity that resulted in his "violence" ( ill will
toward others ) is *not to be confused with NPOV/POV
issues, and certainly is *not to be an excuse for his
behaviour, which even Vicki ought to admit was over
the line.

~S~

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from_name: Vancouverguy

body:
I would also like to be a member.
-Vancouverguy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alex R." <alex756 at nyc.rr.com>
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>; "Jimmy Wales"
<jwales at bomis.com>
Sent: Friday, October 03, 2003 4:52 PM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Committe volunteers requested

> From: "Stevertigo" <utilitymuffinresearch2 at yahoo.com>
>
> > --- Jimmy Wales <jwales at joey.bomis.com> wrote:
> >
> > > That is, your email should say something like:
> > > "I only want to volunteer for the mediation
> > > committee."
> > > or
> > > "I prefer mediation, but I'd also do arbitration if
> > > you asked."
> > > or
> > > "Either mediation or arbitration is better for me."
> >
> > I prefer mediation, but I'd also do arbitration if you
> > asked.
> >
> > ~S~
>
> I would be happy to volunteer to be a member of the
> group (I don't know what is meant by the word
> committee) of volunteers who will try to advocate
> for someone who is accused of violating the
> standards. I would take that role _very_ seriously and
> try to present their activity and contributions in
> the best possible light to any structure the the
> brothers and sisters of the cenacle decide. Anyone
> can contact me via the email on my link and then
> I will help them prepare their case (of course I
> reserve the right not to advocate unreasonable
> positions and I can't guarantee that I will take on
> every case but if I have the time I want to make sure
> that any one who feels that have been wrongly
> accused and who face banning when they sincerely
> want to continue to contribute to Wikipedia will
> get help from me.  I promise that I will advocate
> for them as zealously as I can under the circumstances
> as long as they cooperate with me and do not
> ask me to state any falsehoods or misrepresentations
> on their behalf.
>
> Alex756
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] No benefit from violence

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

> But I don't think Wikipedia can work like that.
> Balance can't come
> without stability.

I agree. In other words, we demand civility in the
treatment of other people, regardless of their views.

> A stable article is one which any side in a
> controversy can look at and
> say, yes, this article describes my side accurately
> and does not give an unfair advantage to the other
side.

This is absolutely correct and about the best
definition I have heard of what we should aim for.

> Sometimes I want to propose a rule that, when
> someone goes on a POV crusade, they should be told
not to edit any more until they can "state the other
side's case to >the satisfaction of the other side"
(to paraphrase famous >success coach Steven Covey).

This would be a very good *rule.*  When Magnus gets
his Annotations hack working for test/wikisource-- we
should use it on Wikipedia talk pages to give some
threaded depth to the back and forth multidirectional
discourse--otherwise these discussions will be
continue to be as incoherent as they are now.

~S~

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subject: [WikiEN-l] The Times They are a'Changin'

body:
Jimbo's "double edge sword" comment was very well put. Both users function
best on the Israeli-Palestinian articles when they have each other by the
throat.

Btw, Sv's Bob Dylan allusion should be leaving us with more than the tune to
"The Times They are a'Changin'" in our heads. Made with such decidedly bad
taste, it started to prove me right sooner than I had expected.
Israeli-Palestinian neutrality was little more than an equilibrium of RK and
Sv. Without RK, Sv's side's going to have a far greater say over all the
articles than ever - which will encourage new RK-types to invade the site in
droves.

Those favoring a ban on RK are way off if they think that the outcome is
going to be NPOV (or maybe they don't care - maybe their reasons are solely
personal and ideological). I can understand that - I'd much rather work with
the more reasonable Sv (whose worldview is by and large is far closer to
mine than RK's is)- but that's not in Wikipedia's interests as a whole.

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subject:
[WikiEN-l] Response to Ray Saintonge - more in favor of the status
	quo for the Israel-relat

body:
Axle:

I couldn?t agree more with your message: ?Now, it's important to realize
that *we* set the boundaries of that sandbox.?

If RK?s coming back (and hopefully he will), he?s going to need close
supervision.

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from_name: Daniel Ehrenberg

subject: [WikiEN-l] About "RK"s return.

body:
> I would support this, if "RK" is not his username.
> Let user RK stay in the record of his bad personae,
> and let his new one, maybe "RobKai" or whatever, be
> a
> chance for him to start fresh.
>
> ~S~

That doesn't make sense. What would changing his
username do? We can just give him a fresh start
anyway. (But actually, I think that he should be under
supervision)
LDan

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Disinfopedia articles for WP

body:
--- Steve Vertigo
<utilitymuffinresearch2 at yahoo.com>wrote:
> >Ive looked at some of the material on Disinfopedia,
> >and think most of it too valuable to leave to it
> >alone.  I would encourage at some point an
> integration
> >of those date to Wikipedia-- as much of it is
> >encyclopedic. The only failing of Disinfo that I
can see so far (besides the fact that "Disinfo" doesnt
bring up DisP
on a Google search) is its disconnection from
Wikipedia, and the division of energy that it
represents.

---Sheldon Rampton <sheldon.rampton at verizon.net>
wrote:
> Sorry for not answering this sooner. I'm rather busy
> these days, so I
> haven't been reading all my email. I'm not opposed
> in principle to
> merging the Disinfopedia into Wikipedia, but I'd
> like to see what
> other Wikipedians think of the idea.

Well weve been busy here (as you probably can tell ;)
and nobodys had time to comment. Since I asked you on
your forum (under the name "Farben" --I forgot my DIP
pass) about a DB download for DIP-- I know what you
said there, that your'e currently looking into it.
Concievably, we could mass upload all those articles
(with a "from Disifopedia notice" and a link back to
the DIP article)-- and clue WP people into the fact
that many of these need a look over for NPOV-- in
certain cases like Topic articles (Weapons of Mass
Deception, etc. ) there would need to be a namechange,
and maybe a article split/salvage operation type use
of good material.

In all, aside from the occasional crass comment, from
what Ive seen on DIP-- very little of it can be called
outright POV-- ( Which is disturbing considering the
stuff you guys tackle ;)

~S~

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subject: [WikiEN-l] About "RK"s return.

body:
--- Daniel Ehrenberg <littledanehren at yahoo.com> wrote:

> That doesn't make sense. What would changing his
> username do?  We can just give him a fresh start
> anyway. (But actually, I think that he should be
> under
> supervision)

The term "supervision" means nothing in itself.  In
fact it makes no sense-- so what do you mean by it?

The point of forcing a change of name for "RK" (if he
does want to come back) is to 1:Force him to admit his
*wrongdoing by making a clean break in his own mind
between his previous behaviour and his future
behaviour. . And 2: To keep it clear to all of *us*
which edits are *Roberts*, and which *were* "RK's".

This difference between "RK" and Robert is an
important distinction here that I would like people to
recognize. Especially Robert, if he wants to return.

~S~

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from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] No benefit from violence

body:
Little Dan observed,

> I don't usually have that experience of the two sides
> balancing. I usually find that many of the articles about
> Israel are either violently for Israel (by RK) or violently
> against (by Stevertigo).

I agree, although others do not.

Some people think that 2 opposing sides can battle it out, and let the
best man win. A sort of zero-sum game.

But I don't think Wikipedia can work like that. Balance can't come
without stability.

A stable article is one which any side in a controversy can look at and
say, yes, this article describes my side accurately and does not give an
unfair advantage to the other side.

Sometimes I want to propose a rule that, when someone goes on a POV
crusade, they should be told not to edit any more until they can "state
the other side's case to the satisfaction of the other side" (to
paraphrase famous success coach Steven Covey).

Ed Poor


from_name: Gareth Owen

body:
"Abe Sokolov" <abesokolov at hotmail.com> writes:

> Both users function best on the Israeli-Palestinian articles when they have
> each other by the throat.

Thats an inherently dysfunctional way of functioning.

If the way we want to create articles is to allow a pair of intransigent,
biased contributors to butt heads repeatedly and then let a mediator piece an
article together out of the fallout, then we're letting ourselves in for the
tyranny of the obstreperous, in which meeker contributors (or those with less
copious free time) will lose out in the endless edit wars.

And they'll leave, too.  Its not as if this hasn't happened already.

What we need is not to ban these people, but say
"Look, RK/Stevertigo" (or whoever, I don't mean to single people out in this),
"you're a worthwhile, active contributor, but you're too close and/or feel too
 strongly about issues of Israel/Palestine/Iraq/US politics to be NPOV, even
 when you try to be.  Your opinions and biases are just too entrenched.

 Now, you must have other interests, about which you are able to talk, write
 and generally behave in a more calm and rational manner. How about directing
 your commendable efforts writing about them?"

Everyone has things with which they are deeply involved, about which they feel
passionately, and its reasonable that people will want to write about them

Its just a shame that those are too often the things that they *shouldn't*
write nominally NPOV articles about, for precisely those reasons.
--
Gareth Owen
"I love the wikipedia, but sometimes I get the impression that certain people
 on this list are very bored, and so argue about something when there's really
 bugger all to argue about. Edit some articles, for god's sake." -- LP


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee"

body:
--- cprompt <cprompt at tmbg.org> wrote:

> Not to say, of course, that there's any foreseeable
> reason to ban Jimbo.

ROFL.   But of course, every good starship needs a
self-destruct sequence. It only makes sense. :-D

~S~

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list: wikitech-l

from_name: Allan Crossman

subject: [Wikitech-l] 503 Service Unavailable

body:
Hi. While stopping people from retrieving a lot of pages in a short space of
time might seem like a good idea, the people this really hits are the folk
(like me) who spend a fair amount of time checking anon. edits for vandalism.
I've twice in the past 10 minutes been (temporarily) unable to revert vandalism
because of this wretched 503 error....

Evercat (English Wikipedia)
--
Allan Crossman - http://dogma.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
PGP keys - 0x06C4BCCA (new) || 0xCEC9FAE1 (compatible)


from_name: Alex R.

subject: [WikiEN-l] Committe volunteers requested

body:
From: "Stevertigo" <utilitymuffinresearch2 at yahoo.com>

> --- Jimmy Wales <jwales at joey.bomis.com> wrote:
>
> > That is, your email should say something like:
> > "I only want to volunteer for the mediation
> > committee."
> > or
> > "I prefer mediation, but I'd also do arbitration if
> > you asked."
> > or
> > "Either mediation or arbitration is better for me."
>
> I prefer mediation, but I'd also do arbitration if you
> asked.
>
> ~S~

I would be happy to volunteer to be a member of the
group (I don't know what is meant by the word
committee) of volunteers who will try to advocate
for someone who is accused of violating the
standards. I would take that role _very_ seriously and
try to present their activity and contributions in
the best possible light to any structure the the
brothers and sisters of the cenacle decide. Anyone
can contact me via the email on my link and then
I will help them prepare their case (of course I
reserve the right not to advocate unreasonable
positions and I can't guarantee that I will take on
every case but if I have the time I want to make sure
that any one who feels that have been wrongly
accused and who face banning when they sincerely
want to continue to contribute to Wikipedia will
get help from me.  I promise that I will advocate
for them as zealously as I can under the circumstances
as long as they cooperate with me and do not
ask me to state any falsehoods or misrepresentations
on their behalf.

Alex756


subject: [WikiEN-l] Uploads disabled

body:
Why have file uploads been disabled?
-Vancouverguy


subject: [Wikitech-l] Page Protection

body:
Brion,

I know you're busy, but...

Is there any way to automate the listing of "protected pages"? Something
like the blocked IP/username page would be nice.

A newly signed-up user just now noted (complained?) that "you all"
(meaning sysops) can protect a page anonymously. I replied that we CAN
but SHOULDN't.

Automating the process would make sure we don't "forget".

Thanks.

Ed Poor


from_name: cprompt

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee"

body:
On Fri, 2003-10-03 at 22:50, Vancouverguy wrote:
> You're right- it does say it should be able to ban Jimbo. Not likely to
> happen.

The Wikipedia's licensing allows us to ban Jimbo. If for some reason,
Jimbo needs to be banned, we can do it. If Jimbo pulls the plug, we can
use the GPL'd database and the GPL'd software and start our own fork.
That's hardly ideal. There are some very difficult problems to deal
with, such as domain ownership, which will hopefully be resolved as
power is transferred to a group, rather than a single person.

Not to say, of course, that there's any foreseeable reason to ban Jimbo.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: tarquin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Is a press release now a good idea?

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>Jimbo wrote:
>
>
>It may just be me, but I think at this point we should just wait
>a couple to a few weeks for the more inclusive and exciting-sounding  "one
>third of a million" milestone. The number of non-English articles should also
>outnumber the English ones by then, so we could also announce that.
>
Good idea.

>
>
>What do others think? This could be something we allow each Wikipedia version
>to decide on its own
>
The press release was worked on as a cross-language thing -- I think it
should stay as such.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Page Protection

body:
Your approach sounds promising. Which tables should I look at?

I'd like to submit a SQL script periodically to review some of the
deletions, bannings, protections (and their un's). Then I could manually
check (with a Mark One eyeball) that the lists like
[[Wikipedia:protected page]] is reasonably complete or not.

No trouble for me, and less work for you.

(It also might be nice to keep a permanent record of Which Sysop
protected a page. Especially now that there are more than you can shake
a stick at, er, more than one person can reasonably be expected to
maintain a working relationship with.)

BTW, when are we going to put you on salary? ;-)

Gratefully,

Ed Poor


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Sometimes, there is every reason to be amazed

body:
>Pour la premi?re
>fois depuis le commencement du projet en janvier 2001,
>Wikip?dia comporte plus d'articles dans les langues non
>anglophones qu'en anglais.

Huh, that's not right yet; there still are more English articles than all
other languages combined. It's close though. Please fix your press release.

-- mav


from_name: Amala Singh

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Starting Tamil WikiPedia

body:
Hello,

I would like to start Tamil Wikipedia. But I have no
I idea to whom to contact and how to go ahead with
this.

Can anybody help me regarding this?

Amala Singh.

________________________________________________________________________
Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your partner online.
Go to http://yahoo.shaadi.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] No benefit from Abe's case against Civility

body:
--- Abe Sokolov <abesokolov at hotmail.com> wrote:

> We want STALEMATED zero sum games, like a stalemate
in chess or the outcome of the Iraq-Iran War!

The one where the US gave munitions/technology to both
sides, killing a million people, and causing Saddam
Hussein to shut off ties to the US when he learned
they were playing both sides? Is that the war you are
talking about Abe???

>This only happens when the
> power, luck, and strategy
> of both sides balances out!

>I don?t favor ?Wiki
> Darwinism!?

I said Wiki "Social Darwinism" (if I didnt let me
restate it) its exactly what you are advocating, and
its mere gamesmanship--treating people like pieces on
a board. Its stupid beyond belief.

>I only say  that it?s acceptable in this context for
a number of reasons stated in the
> earlier postings:
Yes, you say this because you happen to have some
ethnic sympathies-- That is understandable. I
encourage you to consult your Faith, instead of
consult the history of US-Middle East foreign policy,
if your looking for metaphorical solutions.

>it yields a unique perspective, it
> yields NPOV by
> stalemate,

And if RK leaves 'there be any NPOV' and nobody will
be left to take issue with the points I and others
might make?
Utter nonsense. I enjoy talking about and debating
those issues with several people on this list, most of
whom are Jewish, and none of whom ever were so
insecure as to feel they had to resort to RK's tactics
of disrespect, obfuscation, deception, and even
slander (as Brion pointed out.)

>and we cannot expect anything else (BTW,
> I provided an analysis
> in an earlier posting illuminating why flame wars
> are unavoidable for these
> sets of articles).

If our goal is NPOV, we might also agree that

Again, your attempt to compare me to RK as his polar
opposite is insulting to the extreme.  Im rude and
crude-- I never resorted to his tactics. The fact that
you wish to defend you friend, or ethnic relation is
understandable, but you cannot seriously advocate that
we need "Bull in China shop" type personalities to get
neutrality. Thats like "bombing for peace" or "fucking
for virginity."

> Yes, there are some articles that are not the
> product of conflict,
> stalemate, and synthesis, but this cannot be
> avoided.

> An article on, for
> instance, lists of Palestinian villages destroyed,
> is inherently a
> pro-Palestinian,

How is it pro-Palestinian? Does it simply say things
that are true that a particular POV would like to see
censored? Does it use racial epithets-- Remove them-
dont pretend that good people can't tell POV from
neutrality.

> and an article on, for instance,
> anti-Semitic statements
> attributed to Palestinian figures, inherently the
> domain of RK.  However,
> their tensions will check for accuracy, but not
> change the orientation of
> the article.

Bullshit -- these tensions make people ill-- and they
are not equal and balanced!  Ive take far more heat
offlist and from more sides than RK ever had.  The
only reason I'm still here ( "to offset the other
side"-- what a crapload ) is because 1: Im a tough son
of a bitch.  2. 'G-d' is on the side of those who
*keep* his word--doesnt he? 3: I know where the *line*
is and it is *respect.*  Do you understand?

The *truth* is that you want RK around exactly for the
reason that he is disrespectful and uncivil, dont you
Abe?
It perhaps allows you to maintain your pretense of
"moderation."

~S~

31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, If
you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.
32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will
set you free.
33 They answered him, We are Abraham's descendants and
have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that
we shall be set free?
34 Jesus replied, I tell you the truth, everyone who
sins is a slave to sin.

--Ancient "anti-Semitic" text

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Correction (last post)

body:
--- Stevertigo <utilitymuffinresearch2 at yahoo.com>
wrote:
> tactics of disrespect, obfuscation, deception, and
even
> slander (as Brion pointed out.)

CORRECTION -- I meant to type Brian not Brion.

Enough Bullfighting for tonight. Goodnight.
~S~

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia timing out

body:
On Fri, 2003-10-03 at 20:39, James Duffy wrote:
> Wiki is getting increasingly frustrating to use. I have gone through three
> browsers and each in turn has had to be abandoned because wiki is so slow
> any attempt at contact times out. Since the new logo was introduced the
> situation has become impossible. Is it a co-incidence already existing
> problems have become even worse since our new large logo was introduced?

Hmm, let me think -- is it a miniscule increase in bandwidth usage?

Or is it more likely to be related to a complete rebuild of the system
with new parts which haven't been thoroughly tested and some of which
don't fit right and are temporary until new bits can be bought?

It's *gotta* be the logo. Yeah. Must be it.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Larousse crashed

body:
Seems to have crashed or something at some point in the last couple of
hours. Didn't come up after Jason's reboot attempt. :(

Have switched the IP to pliny for the moment.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee"

body:
Alex T. wrote:

>From: "Ray Saintonge" <saintonge at telus.net>
>
>>The mediation panel should be able to recommend a ban to Jimbo or a
>>delegated person.  That recommendation could also include a length of
>>time for the ban.  If they become involved directly in the ban
>>themselves it could compromise their objectivity.
>>
>I for one would not go to a mediation panel if they were going
>to recommend banning to anyone. What kind of mediation would
>that be? Mediation should be independent of Jimbo (except maybe
>Jimbo can be the filter for now to decide who might make a good
>mediator). Also the accused user should be able to pick between
>a few mediators, so they pick someone comfortable. Also at the
>mediation stage having an advocate for one's position may not
>be necessary, but appointing someone to represent the community's
>gripe about the accused user would make the mediation manageable
>so that the accused is not facing a whole bunch of accusers,
>but one who takes all the complaints against that user and presents
>them to the user for hiers feedback.
>
>The point of mediation is to try and resolve the problem amicably.
>With the consent of all involved (granted the representative of
>the community has some power there, but it is power to resolve
>differences and stop a ban, not the power to agree to a ban,
>unless the accused user also agrees and in that case, fine the
>person does not want to be on Wikipedia any longer).
>
I have no problem with this.  What you quoted from me above was written
before your post making the distinction between mediation and
arbitration.  Having someone who is representative of the accusers makes
sense, but there is a potential can of worms when the accusers start
arguing among themselves about who best represents their POV. :-)
Identifying the accused should seldom be a problem.

>My proposal is  that only when mediation fails that arbitration
>kicks in and only in the context of arbitration can a ban be
>recommended.
>
>As far as the arbitration panel (the panel is the particular three
>mediators that are chosen for a particular arbitration, the rest
>of the committee would have nothing to do with that arbitration)
>is concerned I was suggesting that they do make a recommendation
>that is reviewable by Jimbo. It would not take effect (except for
>the temporary "status quo" ban to insure someone does not cause
>damage to Wikipedia in the interim period where mediation and
>arbitration occur).
>
One possibility is that the accuser and accused would each choose one of
the arbitrators from the list of those available.  The first two could
chose the third one together, or he could be named by Jimbo.  . . . or
is that too cumbersome?  A mediator would be disqualified from being an
arbitrator in the same case.

In many of these situations we will probably need some basic rules of
evidence and procedure.  Thus, when a person makes an accusation he
should carry a certain burden of proof.  It is his obligation to cite
the pages where the offences have taken place.  No mediator or
arbitrator should be required to look at anything other than the stated
sites to help establish the accuser's case.

>We could decide to give Jimbo "de novo" review or just have
>him be like an appeal court that either upholds or overturns
>a ban decision. It would then be implemented by the powers
>that be. He could always retain the pardon power, i.e. on his
>last day in office he could pardon the 140 banned contributors
>who gave Wikimedia a lot of money [illusion to Bill Clinton ;-)]
>
Illusion?  Had this come from a person with poor language skills I would
dismiss it as a typo.  From Alex I can't be sure if the ambiguity was
intended.

I'm confident that Jimbo would use his royal prerogative wisely and
parsimoniously.  To do otherwise would undermine the process that we are
discussing.

>I hope that is clear, but I think it is really important to get this
>distinction between mediation and arbitration straight. That
>is the way that the process can be made most effective and
>the transaction cost to Wikipedia volunteers kept to a minimum.
>This is a fairly standard process I try to put a mediation and
>an arbitration clause in most contracts I draft as it makes sense
>from a practical point of view (some lawyers who like to drag
>their clients into litigation are very much against such clauses).
>
Lawyers dragging their clients into litigation here would not find it
cost effective.  The pockets here are not just not deep; they're sewn shut.

>So now I am writing shorter emails, but more of them! I guess I
>thought putting it all in one email would make it clear, but it
>is too much information for someone who is not involved in these
>kinds of issues on a daily basis (a lot of being a lawyer is about
>mediation or arbitration, it is much more common than litigation).
>
Good point about the shorter emails!

Ec


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Where can I find a WikiBot?

body:
"Gutza" <gutza at moongate.ro> wrote in message
news:3F7CC333.7000804 at moongate.ro...
> Hello,
>
> Sorry for bothering you with something I'll probably get bashed about
> for bringing up, but where can I find a bot for /editing/ Wikipedia
> articles? Some user has started creating articles with the wrong format
> on the Romanian Wikipedia, I don't have the proper permissions to
> perform SQL queries on it, and due to the lack of regexp replace
> functions in MySQL, even that would be pretty much useless in the end.
> What I really need is a PHP bot I can program to get the current content
> of some articles, perform some preg_replace's in them and post them
> back. Can anyone suggest a basis for such a bot?
>
> Thanks,
> Gutza

I have sent a copy of my bot ("Timbot") to Gutza via email.

-- Tim Starling.


body:
Gareth Owen wrote:

>"Abe Sokolov" <abesokolov at hotmail.com> writes:
>
>>Both users function best on the Israeli-Palestinian articles when they have
>>each other by the throat.
>>
>
>Thats an inherently dysfunctional way of functioning.
>
In the cold war era when both sides were ponting nuclear missiles at the
other it was MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) :-)

Ec


from_name: Delirium

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia timing out

body:
Regarding timeouts, they seem to have entirely disappeared (at least on
en, browsing/editing as a logged-in user) within the past hour, and in
fact it's now as fast as I ever remember it being.

-Mark


from_name: Andrew Lih

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee"

body:
>
> Perhaps within #3 there could be a 24-hour ban, then a 7-day
> ban, then a 30-day ban...gives lots of opportunity for the
> user to reform...seems better than constant 24-hour bans or
> leaping too quickly to long-term ban.

Exponential backoff ... Sounds like a good idea.

Fuzheado


from_name: Brian Corr

body:
In response to various comments that RK has chased away a lot of people, I
want to let people know that I came very -- *very* -- close to being one of
those people.

I don't think anyone should underestimate the power he has had to drive
people away -- or at the very least make them feel they are not welcome to
"edit this page." Whatever the outcomes of this situation with are, I hope
people will take my story into consideration as you decide.

A bit of history on me: I'm still pretty new to Wikipedia: I made my first
edits without registering in June
<http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=63.186.64.79>,
and didn't get back to Wikipedia for a few months.

Then I was looking for some stuff on Google about Quebecois French, found
it (and a bad link), registered, made a few edits, wrote my first article
<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereignty_association> and was feeling
good. My first significant edits to an existing article came ten days later
and were to <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence>, which
was listed on Pages needing attention. So I dived in, did my best to add a
bit of context about the nature of race without taking out what others had
said and making a few minor edits, e.g. ''Nazis" to "racists". I felt that
the article was pretty well coming from the POV that race was a "real"
difference between people and defined innate abilities, etc. So I did my
best to make it more balanced and really NPOV.

Well, almost immediately (2hrs) the bulk of my additions were reverted for
being POV by RK with these comments: "Removing a POV essay that is
polemical, and non-scientific. Removing incorrect intro. Race is NOT a new
topic or idea." (Here's the page history:
<http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Race_and_intelligence&action=history>.

I am stubborn enough (just ask Hephaestos about me and the Horace
Donisthorpe pages) and sure enough of myself that I was right that I did go
right back to the article and make changes to one sentence: I changed "In
recent years there have been a few theories as to why Ashkenazi Jews seem
to have higher intelligence and success than people in many other ethnic
groups." to "In recent years there have been a few theories as to why
Ashkenazi Jews have higher intelligence scores on standardized tests and
more economic and professional success in society than people in many other
ethnic groups." In large part, I think that single edit survived because I
had gone to RK's User page to see who this person was who trashed me
actually was, and I threw him a bone about Ashkenazi Jews in the comment to
my edit: "clarified statement on intelligence and success of Ashkenazim"

I still hadn't gone back to do work on this article -- which I feel it
desperately needs, since it reads like an apologia for the book *The Bell
Curve* -- because I didn't want to clash with this guy anymore. And I
hadn't  looked back at the history until I started constructing this
message -- because I'm still pissed about what he did. The lesson I learned
was not to edit "against" RK -- and it did feel like he was against me.
This article wasn't about Israel or Palestine, but it seems that for RK it
was about his race and why they did better, and he wasn't interested in
changing that. Also, if you look at the first edits he made --
<http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Race_and_intelligence&diff=1118114&oldid=1117288>
-- he was the first to add in phrases about African Americans scoring lower
on IQ tests. He also was very invested in the idea that race *is* not
rejected by most scientists, which I would argue is just incorrect.

So, why all this detail?  I was confronted by RK's rudeness and
unwillingness to try to edit what I had written, and when I looked at the
page history, I discovered that RK was actually the one who had added in
much of the material that I felt was most biased and was focused on
promoting the idea that race is a biological -- rather than a social --
reality. I know that that can be argued with, but that's exactly the point
-- it's an *opinion*, and RK was unwilling to look at it as such.

My sense is that I'm the exception rather than the rule -- I would guess
from what I've seen over the last month that it's not that common for
someone as new as me to start posting to the mailing list, VfD, etc.  I've
stuck it out, written a couple of articles I like (Black_Bottom,
United_Auto_Workers, and Urban_renewal) and empowered myself to join into
Wikipedia's administrative functions as if I belonged here.

And by the way, I'm an African American, and none of my interactions with
RK left me with the feeling that I and my ideas were very welcome in the
project, but I don't expect that people will defer to me on issues of race
because of that -- I think I have to make my case stand on its own merits
-- and I don't assume that RK is a racist because I think some of his views
on race are biased in my opinion. So I bit my lip and kept going. Again, I
think I'm most likely the exception in this.

As a new person, I don't feel like I have any standing to vote for or
against banning RK, but I will say that I will be far more likely to
contribute to articles on race and politics if I don't think that RK might
(will) revert my edits and deride my writing -- and me. And I think there
are probably many more people like me (if perhaps less outspoken) who
contribute to Wikipedia.

I also want to say since that brush with RK (as I've persevered) I've
gotten a good deal of positive feedback and constructive criticism on a
number of things from many of you on this list -- I wouldn't still be here
without that.

Thanks,
Brian (Bcorr)
At 05:26 PM 10/3/03 +0000, you wrote:
>Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 16:48:11 +0000
>From: "Abe Sokolov" <abesokolov at hotmail.com>
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] More benefits of RK's bad behaivor
>To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
>Message-ID: <BAY7-F109joGK64u7lr00006861 at hotmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
>
>Admittedly, I would have jumped on the bandwagon for his banning when I had
>my first RK experience.
>RK has called me a few choice things in the past, but I been discovering
>that RK is an essential part of the Wiki community since his edit wars
>consistently yield the kind of synthesis that we want: quality, neutrality,
>and a unique perspective that highlights what Wiki can offer that other
>sourcebooks cannot.
>
>We should disregard the mountain of grievances we have against him, and
>accept him as an eloquent, forceful representative of a significant share of
>hard-liners on the pro-Israel side, although I would certainly favor banning
>if there were no counterweight. Since these are mass-based struggles, there
>might be a substantive benefit to allowing partisans to engage in struggle
>and yield syntheses, in that we might be better able to deal with the role
>of public opinion, and political mobilization.
>
>Actually, I?ve been noticing that Wikipedia?s have been doing a better job
>of conveying how the two sides see this conflict than the academic
>literature and media articles (Reuters, NY Times, BBC, AP usually) that I
>usually read.
>
>All academic journals, sourcebooks, and media outlets have their strengths
>and weaknesses when weighed against each other. And Wiki offers a unique
>perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute made possible by the dynamics
>of RK and his enemies.  Nothing else available online is going to be
>synthesis of material written by- and also edited by - such a diverse group
>of perspectives (the online medium makes it possible ? there might be
>violence if this group were in the same room!). The articles convey all
>facets of reality, being products themselves of an actually
>Israeli-Palestinian proxy battle.
>
>As a disclaimer, as the son of Holocaust survivors I?ll state my solidarity
>with RK?s passions for a strong, secure state of Israel. However, my views
>on his conception of Arab culture are closer to the late Edward Said than
>Daniel Pipes. As a historian, I find myself cringing, and often gasping with
>disbelief, when reading RK?s tracts on the Palestinians, Arabs, or Islam.
>
>Perhaps I can relate to RK?s mentality better than most, but I?ve wedded a
>strong rebuke of RK?s paranoia, obnoxiousness, and bully tactics to a
>defense of the end result.


body:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:

>--- Abe Sokolov <abesokolov at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Those favoring a ban on RK are way off if they think
>>that the outcome is
>>going to be NPOV (or maybe they don't care - maybe
>>their reasons are solely
>>personal and ideological). I can understand that -
>>I'd much rather work with
>>the more reasonable Sv (whose worldview is by and
>>large is far closer to
>>mine than RK's is)- but that's not in Wikipedia's
>>interests as a whole.
>>
>
>So you don't agree that we should ban trolls? Maybe
>I'm misusing the term, but I though we said that
>trolls can be banned (but with discussion).
>
That's not what he said; you're generalizing..  He didn't mention trolls
at all, so the suggestion that RK is a troll is entirely yours.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] err...

body:
And on a separate note, looking at the talk page of the user who started
this new skirmish on Jerusalem and Tel Aviv --
<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:12.144.5.2> -- it seems to be
someone who's ready to step into part of the role that RK filled -- and not
necessarily in the best ways.

Thanks,
Brian

At 12:09 AM 10/4/03 +0000, you wrote:
>Message: 3
>Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 14:46:12 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Anthere <anthere6 at yahoo.com>
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] err...
>To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
>Message-ID: <20031003214612.44445.qmail at web41701.mail.yahoo.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
>Are they doing it on purpose on the Tel Aviv,
>Jerusalem and other pages, just to give credit to 172
>thesis ?
>
>Anthere


subject: [WikiEN-l] About "RK"s return.

body:
Stevertigo wrote:

>--- Abe Sokolov <abesokolov at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>I couldnt agree more with your message: Now, it's
>>important to realize
>>that *we* set the boundaries of that sandbox.
>>
>>If RKs coming back (and hopefully he will), hes
>>going to need close
>>supervision.
>>
>
>I would support this, if "RK" is not his username.
>Let user RK stay in the record of his bad personae,
>and let his new one, maybe "RobKai" or whatever, be a
>chance for him to start fresh.
>
Would you also suggest that Susan Mason and Vera Cruz take note of this?

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee" (for Ray)

body:
Stevertigo wrote:

>--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>>Compared to some of your previous legal
>>explanations, this one was
>>remarkably succinct. :-)
>>
>
>But ironically, you copied the entire thing, making
>your response longer than the comment. ;)
>
Mea maxima culpa!

Ec


subject:
[WikiEN-l] No benefit from violence (Ed,
	you misunderstood my points!)

body:
I don't think stability can come about through the stalemate of equal
force. As soon as one of the forces wavers, the whole thing will come
apart like a house of cards.

There has to be give and take. Each side has to feel understood by the
other. And they have to AGREE to disagree - or to share - or whatever.

No agreement, no stability.

Ed Poor


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee"

body:
Vancouverguy wrote:

>You're right- it does say it should be able to ban Jimbo. Not likely to
>happen.
>
May I suggest "Hooked on Phonics"?  Recommending a ban to Jimbo is not
the same as recommending to ban Jimbo.  Perhaps switching those two
little words could indicate a dyslexia problem.  At least Steve
humourously recognized that he had misread the "to" as "on".

Ec

>
>From: "Stevertigo"
>
>>At first read, I thought it said,  "The mediation
>>panel should be able to recommend a ban on Jimbo."
>>
>>That might be wishful thinking, but at least we can
>>set this as one of the finite limits-- "No bans on the
>>guy who owns the servers and the domain names."
>>~S~
>>
>>--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>>
>>>blairr wrote:
>>>
>>>>That's good for vandals, but what about problem
>>>>
>>>users.
>>>
>>>>For things like strange edits (eg Nuuk/Godthab),
>>>>
>>>and users that have made
>>>
>>>>POV changes, as well as other things.
>>>>
>>>>I like the idea of mediation by a select group of
>>>>
>>>users, as well as
>>>
>>>>empowering these users, if the user-in-question
>>>>
>>>does not change their
>>>
>>>>behavior, to orchestrate bans.
>>>>
>>>Simply making strange edits is not an offence.  Even
>>>POV changes are not
>>>in theselves offences.  How a person goes about
>>>doing these things is
>>>much more important.
>>>
>>>The mediation panel should be able to recommend a
>>>ban to Jimbo or a
>>>delegated person.  That recommendation could also
>>>include a length of
>>>time for the ban.  If they become involved directly
>>>in the ban
>>>themselves it could compromise their objectivity.
>>>
>>>Ec
>>>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Page Protection

body:
On Fri, 3 Oct 2003, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> Brion,
>
> I know you're busy, but...
>
> Is there any way to automate the listing of "protected pages"? Something
> like the blocked IP/username page would be nice.

The approach I've recommended but haven't yet had a chance to take is to
replace the deletion log page with an admin_log table, which can be listed
via a nice clean special page (or two or three).

This could include:
* deletions
* undeletions
* bannings, including automated "block spreading"
* unbannings, including automated timeouts
* protections
* unprotections

Unlike the current deletion log, which grows insanely long and gets
manually trimmed from time to time, an admin log table should be able to
fairly cleanly handle the ever-increasing number of items by only showing
the most recent X number of them.

It would also be possible to include these notifications in the
recentchanges table, which is less permanent.

Another question is how to notify people watching pages about a protection
change (or a deletion!) through the watchlist.

A quick easy thing to do would be to add protection/unprotection into
recentchanges without linking it to a more permanent log or watchlist.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>>Pour la premie
>>fois depuis le commencement du projet en janvier 2001,
>>Wikipia comporte plus d'articles dans les langues non
>>anglophones qu'en anglais.
>>
>
>Huh, that's not right yet; there still are more English articles than all
>other languages combined. It's close though. Please fix your press release.
>
The article links to back to the French version of the press release on
Meta, where it does say that.  It isn't a question of "her" press
release, but of what she turned up by Googling.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] About "RK"s return.

body:
On Sat, 2003-10-04 at 00:26, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:

> That doesn't make sense. What would changing his
> username do? We can just give him a fresh start
> anyway. (But actually, I think that he should be under
> supervision)
> LDan

What kind of supervision is everyone talking about? Every Wikipedian is
under supervision by every other Wikipedian. Are we talking about
something like a parole officer?


from_name: Gutza

body:
Anthere wrote:

>I was looking for which sites were already using as a
>ressource (eh, that is definitly beginning), but
>typind random "double words" on google, such as
>"biosph?re wikip?dia "(yup, we are useful)
>"?cologie wikip?dia" (yup as well)
>"?cologie politique wikip?dia" (yup again)
>
>And as I typed "canicule wikipedia", I found a link,
>followed it...
>
>
>And found this
>
>http://webgeneraction.levillage.org/breve.php3?id_breve=110
>
>Notice, I have no idea who sent it (not me), but I am
>quite surprised by the date, 29th of august !
>
>
>
Yeah, well, they're French, of course they'll gloat over the "English
defeat" as soon as they get word of that! :)

Gutza

(yes, I know you're French as well, I'm kidding)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee"

body:
From: "Ray Saintonge" <saintonge at telus.net>

> Alex T. wrote:
>
> >From: "Ray Saintonge" <saintonge at telus.net>
...
> >
> I have no problem with this.  What you quoted from me above was written
> before your post making the distinction between mediation and
> arbitration.  Having someone who is representative of the accusers makes
> sense, but there is a potential can of worms when the accusers start
> arguing among themselves about who best represents their POV. :-)
> Identifying the accused should seldom be a problem.

My proposal always intended the two procedures to be distinct, perhaps
that is clear to me in my verbosity because I know the difference
and know that they are basically very distinct approaches.

I think that the accusations can be presented to someone who
is chosen ( this person could be chosen by Jimbo), it should
not be people arguing over who is making the complaint,
there should be someone who decides if there is a complaint and
then they can go forward or reject it as a minor transgression,
otherwise everyone will be fighting about making allegations
and taking things to arbitration. That is not a method to calm
things down it we result in a lot of cross complaints of members
pointing the finger at each other IMO. A somewhat unconcerned
user will just review the complaints of users and then at a certain
point decide to go forward. I do not think we should have a system
of private prosecutions. There should be some investigative role
that is played and some discretion not to bring a complaint if the
users are not complaining enough about someone. Of course there
should be some guidelines about this, but I trust that serious cases
will get through to mediation and possibly arbitration.
...
> >
> One possibility is that the accuser and accused would each choose one of
> the arbitrators from the list of those available.  The first two could
> chose the third one together, or he could be named by Jimbo.  . . . or
> is that too cumbersome?  A mediator would be disqualified from being an
> arbitrator in the same case.
>
The idea of the third arbitrator being chosen by the first two is
to give the third one some impartiality. The arbitrator chosen by
the accused may be pro accused, and the arbitrator
chosen by the accuser may be pro banning, the idea is that
as arbitrators they will have to agree on someone that they
both believe they can convince. Having the third arbitrator
chosen by Jimbo would reduce that appearance of legitimacy
of the arbitration panel. I would either say Jimbo picks the
first one and if the accused thinks that person is fair they
go with one arbitrator (it is easier for one person to reach
a decision usually than three) but otherwise the accused
gets to pick the second one and the two arbitrators pick
a third. This is well recognized in the writings about
arbitration as a well established procedure for chosing
an arbitration panel and it is used in practically all arbitration
procedural rules. I agree that mediator and arbitrator must
be distinct in a case, a mediator should never arbitrate the
same case as the mediator may have information that
was disclosed in the mediation session that could compromise
the impartiality of the process.
...
> In many of these situations we will probably need some basic rules of
> evidence and procedure.

True for arbitration but entirely inapplicable to mediation. It can be
extremely informal because it is private. People can say whatever
and be as irrational as they want. Sometimes venting like this serves
a purpose in mediation (remember it is private) in arbitration the
process or result is public (everyone knows the outcome).

Regarding the arbitration my proposal in short form is that
the petition is drafted by one group who is authorized to present
such petitions (or it can be a group of people who accept complaints
from all members). Of course it would have to be specific citing
specific pages, etc. There is no need for rules of evidence, everything
here on Wikipedia is evidence. I cannot imagine that anything outside
of Wikipedia has any relevance. There may be an issue of what
constitutes vandalism on talk pages for instance or abuse of
user talk pages but generally speaking the only evidence we have
is the wiki and its file history. That is what makes this such a
straightforward process. I cannot imagine what other documents
would ever have any merit (except if the problem leaks into
the talk pages but will that happen often, and even then the
talk pages are also archived so it is also in writing, there is
little case for these archives to be "fixed" unless some developer
goes crazy or starts accepting bribes -- such a scenario is
highly unlikely if technically impossible.

The procedure should be simple stuff like deadline dates and
text limits, i.e. your response cannot be any longer than X
characters. The decision must be rendered in Y days. We
could adapt it from the adr.org rules for international
arbitration or something similar (the Quebec Code of Civil
Procedure  has a very handy set of rules on arbitration.)
There are many examples that could easily be adapted.
Once some consensus about the structure of the process
is achieved a few of us can refactor it and draft the necessary
pages.

Also I would suggest that arbitration decisions not be based upon
other arbitration decisions (there may be exceptions and there
may develop a body of jurisprudence of arbitration decisions),
but that definitely there should be no binding precedent. The
arbitrators can but are not required to explain their decision, i.e,
the decision can be we decide not to ban user:ABC. It can
also be reasoned (probably better if they want a ban to
be upheld by Jimbo) i.e., we decide to ban user:EFG for
the following three reasons: a) b) c).

> should carry a certain burden of proof.  It is his obligation to cite
> the pages where the offences have taken place.  No mediator or
> arbitrator should be required to look at anything other than the stated
> sites to help establish the accuser's case.

That is what an accusation is, and if the accusation is not sufficient
the arbitrators can just dismiss the complaint and in that case
I would argue that it should not be appealable by Jimbo
(this gives Jimbo some distance and it means that the decision
to keep a member can be made by members without any fear
that the power above us will take away our compassion towards
each other).
...
> Illusion?  Had this come from a person with poor language skills I would
> dismiss it as a typo.  From Alex I can't be sure if the ambiguity was
> intended.

...Lawyer's love ambiguity, it is our stock in trade...

>
> I'm confident that Jimbo would use his royal prerogative wisely and
> parsimoniously.  To do otherwise would undermine the process that we are
> discussing.

I have no doubt that Jimbo has the best interests of Wikipedia
at heart. Long live Jimbo!

Alex756


from_name: Abe Sokolov

body:
Ed,
This is the very thing that I?m arguing against:

?Some people think that 2 opposing sides can battle it out, and let the
best man win. A sort of zero-sum game.?

We want STALEMATED zero sum games, like a stalemate in chess or the outcome
of the Iraq-Iran War! This only happens when the power, luck, and strategy
of both sides balances out! I?m saying that RK?s absence would weaken his
side to the extent that the pattern of stalemates would shift to a pattern
of best man winning (i.e. Sv). I don?t favor ?Wiki Darwinism!? I only say
that it?s acceptable in this context for a number of reasons stated in the
earlier postings: it yields a unique perspective, it yields NPOV by
stalemate, and we cannot expect anything else (BTW, I provided an analysis
in an earlier posting illuminating why flame wars are unavoidable for these
sets of articles).

Yes, there are some articles that are not the product of conflict,
stalemate, and synthesis, but this cannot be avoided. An article on, for
instance, lists of Palestinian villages destroyed, is inherently a
pro-Palestinian, and an article on, for instance, anti-Semitic statements
attributed to Palestinian figures, inherently the domain of RK. However,
their tensions will check for accuracy, but not change the orientation of
the article. I'm referring to the pivotal articles (e.g., Israel, History of
Israel, PLO, Hamas, Arafat, Sharon, etc.). That's where the tension (and the
equal strength of the opposing forces) is needed.

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from_name: James Duffy

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia timing out

body:
Wiki is getting increasingly frustrating to use. I have gone through three
browsers and each in turn has had to be abandoned because wiki is so slow
any attempt at contact times out. Since the new logo was introduced the
situation has become impossible. Is it a co-incidence already existing
problems have become even worse since our new large logo was introduced? If
it is the problem, then please bin the damn thing. There is no point having
a snazzy new logo if it so slows up the process of downloading as to make
wiki on occasions uncontactable.

I am thoroughly fed up with the mess at this stage.

JT

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from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee"

body:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
> "Status quo" ban? Discussion needs to come before any
> sort of banning.

I think that Alex was talking about emergency bans for simple
vandalism.  There's some controversy in the current RK case as to
whether what he was doing constituted an emergency or not, and I think
that reasonable people can differ about that.  (I think I would have
judged that it wasn't, but as I've said, I'm not going to bother with
second-guessing Erik on this, because like yourself and many others,
he's proven himself to be good in so many ways.)

The best example to illustrate the need for the power of sysops to
temporarily impose emergency bans is the case of the infamous MIT
Vandal who kept switching ip numbers and logging in to go on a real
old-fashioned vandalism spree, blanking articles and writing curse
words in their place, and so on.

If the MIT Vandal had not logged in, the sysops could have banned him
easily enough.  But because he was logging in over and over, the
sysops were rendered powerless, so that only developers could do
anything.  Since no developers were online at first, this meant that
hours were spent battling him.  It wasted a lot of time for a lot of
people!

People didn't join our noble project to gift humanity with a treasure
of knowledge in order to combat drunken Bosnian misogynists at 5AM!

Where I do agree with you is this: unilateral banning decisions by
sysops should always be *emergency* and *temporary* unless quickly
ratified by the official process, which *right now* is just me, but
which will soon be formalized into something else more scalable.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee" (Alex)

body:
Stevertigo wrote:
> I for one would not like to see him (you Jim) as an individual to be
> the target of a libel lawsuit for sanctioning a ban on someone,
> under the premise of 'defamation of character'

Despite our openness, this is a private club entry to which is subject
to my personal whims.  There is nothing about a ban in and of itself
which should be interpreted by anyone as a statement about anyone's
character.  There is no legal right of any kind for anyone to edit the
website of the Wikimedia Foundation's Wikipedia, it's a privilege and
shall always remain so.

> Maybe you guys can talk about formeruser Isis as a case precedent,
> if youre not doing so already, and explain to us some of your
> thinking on the matter when you're ready.

Isis was not banned, Isis chose to leave after coming to what she saw
as irreconcilable differences with another user.  Isis did threaten to
sue that user, but nothing came of it.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee"

body:
Two quick points:

1.  My own thinking is that the mediation and arbitration committees
should be given the prerogative to organize their own work according
to the results of an internal vote, subject to my review especially at
first.  And I can tell you that the primary goal of my review of
whatever process is chosen will be to push for simplicity and
transparency without an excess of a priori agonizing over weird
problems that might not happen.

2.  I also think that at first, each committee will consist of 11-15
people and that rather than appointing specific people to mediate or
arbitrate specific cases, we can just be more free-flowing than that.
With arbitration, where actual votes on judicial outcomes will be
likely, is strikes me that 'en banc' hearings are going to be best at
first, with '3 judge panels' being appointed later on if the caseload
actually demands it.

My thinking is that we will have a quorum requirement (to account for
the fact that people go on vacation or have periods of inattention) on
votes, but that all arbitrators will vote on all cases when possible.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee"

body:
Well, I no longer own either of those things, the foundation does,
which means that I have a legal responsibility to the goals of the
organization.  But, in any case, in the spirit of the rule of law,
I do authorize a temporary emergency ban of me if I start posting
goatse.cx images on the homepage.  :-)

Stevertigo wrote:

> At first read, I thought it said,  "The mediation
> panel should be able to recommend a ban on Jimbo."
>
> That might be wishful thinking, but at least we can
> set this as one of the finite limits-- "No bans on the
> guy who owns the servers and the domain names."
> ~S~
>
> --- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> > blairr wrote:
> >
> > >That's good for vandals, but what about problem
> > users.
> > >For things like strange edits (eg Nuuk/Godthab),
> > and users that have made
> > >POV changes, as well as other things.
> > >
> > >I like the idea of mediation by a select group of
> > users, as well as
> > >empowering these users, if the user-in-question
> > does not change their
> > >behavior, to orchestrate bans.
> > >
> > Simply making strange edits is not an offence.  Even
> > POV changes are not
> > in theselves offences.  How a person goes about
> > doing these things is
> > much more important.
> >
> > The mediation panel should be able to recommend a
> > ban to Jimbo or a
> > delegated person.  That recommendation could also
> > include a length of
> > time for the ban.  If they become involved directly
> > in the ban
> > themselves it could compromise their objectivity.
> >
> > Ec
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
> __________________________________
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> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject:
[WikiEN-l] WORKABLE solutions for the RK matter: lessons in
	etiquette and accepting de-cent

body:
The etiquette lessons are a good idea. For starters, if RK?s coming back,
there ought to be a gentlemen?s agreement that the Nazi comparisons be
tossed aside. This pertains to RK in particular.

It is entirely ridiculous for either side to equate the other to Nazism.

Nazism was a product of the contradictions of German society, within the
context of Germany?s political culture, German traditions, the peculiarities
of the various actors, and the capacity of Germany?s material development.
It was not the product of a mutual, mass-based conflict between Jews and
gentiles in Germany, whereas the Israeli-Palestinian matter is an ?us versus
them? conflict, which escalated in such a way that bred hatred. If one were
provide similes, the suicide bombings and targeted assassinations would be
analogous to a couple of old, bitter enemies finally having enough, and
lashing out violently against each other. The ?final solution,? on the other
hand, would be analogous to a serial killer, such as John Wayne Gacy, Ted
Bundy, or Jeffrey Dahmer, acting out his frustrations and arbitrarily
picking out certain types of people in a killing spree.

At this point, we can still set some informal agreements to avoid having
peoples? feelings hurt. We could firmly set limits on the more outlandish
hyperbole, such as the historically groundless use of the Nazi tag as a
means of rhetoric.

Now, let me address the issue of mass-based conflicts (not the Holocaust ?
which was no mutual conflict, but sheep being led to the slaughter house)
played out on Wikipedia flame wars. In general, among the parties involved
in an escalated conflict, the conceptions of reality (vis-?-vis the other
party) start taking on ideas that have little basis in reality. Conflict is
never primordial, but when they take on a mass-based element, and escalate
ideologically to a certain level, easy settlements (e.g., carrot and stick,
incorporation, concessions, separation, or coalition) become extremely
difficult. Attrition, more conflict, or total defeat of one group, are the
only realistic outcomes.

Thus, it?s no coincidence ? although other factors are certainly involved ?
that the total wars of the past century coincided with the modern age of
mass culture, nationalism, and mass society. While cleavages breeding mass
hatreds certainly predate modern times, the capacity for mass hatred between
peoples was certainly facilitated by advancements in communication and
transportation, the rise of the nation-state, and new social contradictions.
As an aside, Israel?s leaders were not skillful enough to handle the
Palestinian matter before generations were born and reared in refugee camps.

For good or for ill, a free online medium like Wikipedia will inevitably
become a form for anyone with internet access who has found the site to play
out these strong tensions. And any attempts to avoid this, so long as we can
stop anyone from SUCCESSFULLY using the site to promote an agenda, will be
futile. Anyone can log in; and if we start banning people in droves, and
developing committees to keep the RK-types and proxy wars out, then we no
longer have a free encyclopedia. Furthermore, with Wikipedia more popular
than Britannica, oversight committees and planning becomes impossible.

Let me use another analogy. Rationalized planning worked well in the Soviet
Union until a point: achieving the fastest rate of industrial development
ever, fastest rate of social mobility ever, and incredible advancements in
living standards (between the period in which the Soviets started reaping
the benefits of industrialization and the onset of stagnation in the 1970s),
but it eventually exhausted its capacity. Eventually, it was the victim of
its own success, creating complexity (e.g., technological development, an
intricate division of labor, so much diversification, such a high degree of
occupational specialization) that the planners couldn?t handle. It worked
when for the Soviets when they had a lot of peasants and a lot of
hard-to-extract resources (not a humane combination?) in the beginning; and
regulating things to avoid partisan flame wars on Wikipedia might work for
us in the beginning. But this site is growing so fast that ability for all
these conflicts to be managed by a tight community will be exhausted. It?s
time to accept that we?re going to have to deal with a more de-centralized
approach. RK?s rivals will do a better job managing him than committees,
mailing lists, and developers.

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from_name: Erik Zachte

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Another milestone

body:
Yet another milestone reached:

Google knows more than a million pages containing 'wikipedia'.
(Oct 4: 1,010,000)

Wikimedia returns a modest 1,110 pages and Google asks helfully
"did you mean: wikipedia" :)

Erik Zachte


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] More benefits of RK's bad behavior

body:
Message: 7
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 22:49:11 -0400
From: Brian Corr <BCorr at NEAction.org>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] More benefits of RK's bad
behaivor

>I don't think anyone should underestimate the power
he has had to drive people away -- or at the very
least make them feel they are not welcome to "edit
this page." Whatever the outcomes of this situation
with are, I hope people will take my story into
consideration as you decide.

>A bit of history on me: I'm still pretty new to
Wikipedia: I made my first edits without registering
in June

I think your experience is very interesting.
There might be something that escape some of the old
contributors around, so I would like to add something
to your comment.

When I had my issues with RK, issues for which I think
we both were right and wrong at the same time, I did
not know him. Sure enough, I was not new, but taking
care of my own business. I saw him writing a couple of
times on ML, but on topics which did not interest me
somehow, so I did not read them. Hence I knew not his
personality at all. Somehow, I was a newbie in dealing
with him.

Should it happen today, I know I would do things
differently. I was not white myself, and can only
thank Wapcaplet, 168 and Slrubenstein for helping both
of us to come to an agreement.

I look with interest at the comments from some here,
supporting RK, and I don't remember them having help
in any way to resolve dispute. I think that no one
should support RK staying without agreeing to help
others to deal with him.

It is a bit like when one save someone from drowning,
one hold responsibility of him thereafter.

I spent precious hours trying to argue with RK, trying
to prove he was just throwing falsities to my face,
turning my sentences up and around, to conclude I was
lying on things I had never said. And sure enough, not
knowing he was used to this kind of action, I spend a
lot of energy, trying to clean myself of dishonnest
accusations. When all there was to do really, was to
solve the issue about the articles.

I know this *now* and I know most here are aware of
this behavior, so I care little. And by default, all
his accusations against some one else, I consider
falsities. That is a bit of a generalization perhaps,
but most of time, it is right.

But, if I and other old hands know that, and perhaps
some of us think we can live with it, newbies don't.
Old hands should place themselves in the skin of a
newcomer, placed alone in front of amazing RK.

Not every newbie is an old usenet guy. Not every
newbie can "guess" it is just a pecularity of RK to
say to others they are vandals, should be banned, are
mentally disturbed, sick-minded, should seek external
help, are liers, nazis, and so one. Mind you, some
editors may be very interesting for the project, bring
wonderful stuff, but not be prepared to face such an
amount of hard comments.

And for these reasons, those supported RK among us,
should engage themselves
* to help thin skin people
* to explain to them how RK is, and reassure them on
their sanity and fitness to the project
* manage edit war crisis
* assume mediation with RK and the ones attacked

One can't support RK, have him welcome back, and then
just quietly go away.

>And by the way, I'm an African American, and none of
my interactions with RK left me with the feeling that
I and my ideas were very welcome in the project, but I
don't expect that people will defer to me on issues of

race because of that -- I think I have to make my case
stand on its own merits -- and I don't assume that RK
is a racist because I think some of his views on race
are biased in my opinion. So I bit my lip and kept
going.

That is good. I am glad you feel that way.

I am not so good at that and do not work on en much
any more.

I am perhaps also an exception among all those who had
a disagreement with RK : he never said I was an
anti-semite or a nazi ! ;-)

>As a new person, I don't feel like I have any
standing to vote for or against banning RK, but I will
say that I will be far more likely to contribute to
articles on race and politics if I don't think that RK
might
(will) revert my edits and deride my writing -- and
me.

Everyone has a right to stand for or against a vote as
long as they know RK imho.

A last point : I feel very troubled that part of the
argument against RK exclusion is that he is a
counterweight to Steve. Thus leading to accusations
against Steve. That is really dishonestly shifting the
discussion away from RK, to move the issue toward
another person.

We all are pov sometimes. RK just as others. I don't
think his ponctual povs are reason for exclusion. His
behavior is. And Steve is sometimes a bit "the word
escape me here", but never had RK behavior. Afaik.

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subject: [WikiEN-l] WORKABLE solutions for the RK matter: lessons in

body:
From: "Abe Sokolov" <abesokolov at hotmail.com>

>Nazism was a product of the contradictions of German
society, within  the context of Germany?s political
culture, German traditions, the peculiarities
of the various actors, and the capacity of Germany?s
material development.
It was not the product of a mutual, mass-based
conflict between Jews and gentiles in Germany, whereas
the Israeli-Palestinian matter is an ?us versus them?
conflict, which escalated in such a way that bred
hatred.

Or perhaps a "them versus us" conflict ?

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Sometimes, there is every reason to be

body:
From: Gutza <gutza at moongate.ro>

>http://webgeneraction.levillage.org/breve.php3?id_breve=110
>
>Notice, I have no idea who sent it (not me), but I am
>quite surprised by the date, 29th of august !
>

>Yeah, well, they're French, of course they'll gloat
over the "English  defeat" as soon as they get word of
that! :)

Certainly :-)

>Gutza

Btw, many romanian people speak french, don't they ?

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

>Pour la premi?re
>fois depuis le commencement du projet en janvier
2001,
>Wikip?dia comporte plus d'articles dans les langues
non
>anglophones qu'en anglais.

Huh, that's not right yet; there still are more
English articles than all other languages combined.
It's close though. Please fix your press release.

-- mav

%=$?^"@&#

Could english people please *stop* creating new
articles for a couple of days ?

What about 2/3 days when all of you make an effort,
and head to your second favorite language wikipedia,
and create a few ones for the press release to be
correct ?

How many do we need ?

We could also quickly sweep through votes for deletion
to help ?

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l flooding the site in droves

body:
>just wait until your buried under the avalanche that
you wanted to create.
>The minute the balance, tone, evidence, and analysis
of the articles sees a minor, ostensibly trivial
shift, just wait for the irate new RKs to flood the
site in droves, lambasting Wikipedia for a lack of
neutrality.
>They?ll start attacking you from every direction and
at once, and making your job even harder. And you?ll
then realize that it would?ve been far better to deal
with the devil you knew, rather than the new ones you
don?t.

French thought : and if law authorize euthanasia as a
human gesture for desperated cases, we can expect
hospitals and retirement houses to be flooded by crazy
nurses, sentencing to death any old person who had the
poor idea to catch a cold.

humpf :-)

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from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
I am perhaps also an exception among all those who had
a disagreement with RK : he never said I was an
anti-semite or a nazi ! ;-)

He never got me either on that score although he certainly called me a
"VANDAL" and "DISHONEST". But in all my time here I have make one edit to
[[Zionism]], adding one sentence, 'Zionists see the movement as built on
deep-rooted ideals of justice and ethics from Jewish tradition leading
toward fulfillment of the [[prophecy]] that "Israel" would be a "light unto
nations".' Presumably he would not have been too upset about that. At least
he didn't start an edit war over it.

Oh, and I did a pathetic stub on [[Gaza]], (Gaza City) which apparently
fell below his radar.

So mostly I just haven't edited in that area, mostly because I really don't
know much and the subject depresses me.

At times we actually came close to working together, but essentially our
only relationship was revert and restore.

Fred


body:
Sv:

Your message expressed some legitimate differences of opinion, which I will
address shortly. In the mean time, since I?m occupied at the moment with
some other matters, I suggest rereading ?Posting old message - formatted
this time!? at
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-October/006966.html, which
explains why we shouldn?t realistically expect much civility on this issue,
which clarifies my points to all the concerns you raised.

However, right now I need to deal with the claim that?s flat out false.

You state:

?Yes, you say this because you happen to have some
ethnic sympathies-- That is understandable.?

First, don?t conflate this often-ambiguous collective identity with an
ethnic one. It is not an ethnic or racial identity, and only a nationality
within the context of Israeli citizenship. If one were forced to use an
ethnic identity, you could note that most Jews (although there are converts)
have Semitic lineage.

Second, you state:

?I encourage you to consult your Faith??

However, I?m of no faith and this is a rude remark when directed toward
anyone in general.

Third, you state that I suggest that I ?consult my faith? rather than
?consult[ing]? the history of US-Middle East foreign policy? if [I
am]looking for metaphorical solutions.?

If you think that I view the RK matter, or for that matter foreign policy in
the Middle East, because of a ?faith? that I don?t have, and this ?Jewish
ethnicity? (which is utterly meaningless- use a dictionary and find out why
this is a contradiction of terms), you are sadly mistaken; this goes against
my entire approach to history. Earlier, a number of users were accusing me
of inserting pro-Saddam biases in articles; now Sv?s accusing me of opposing
a ban on RK I share his views on US-Middle East foreign policy!

I admit, my normative views of the Israel-Palestinian matter are more
agnostic, and I refrain from the formulae of criticism and effecting change
(a role of the social scientists and history first heralded by Marx ? and
one that I admire), and opting for the less provocative one of understanding
and comparison. It's not that I don't believe that a Marxist revisionist
framework for interpreting things wouldn't work here- I think that it can to
an extent, when other matters are considered. But I'm not going to speak as
a partisan of either side. Nor would I be qualified; I?m not a Mid East
specialist.

In short, I support RK?s role; I don?t stand by his often-sketchy work.

And if you don?t want RK at your throat on the Middle East articles, just
wait until your buried under the avalanche that you wanted to create. The
minute the balance, tone, evidence, and analysis of the articles sees a
minor, ostensibly trivial shift, just wait for the irate new RKs to flood
the site in droves, lambasting Wikipedia for a lack of neutrality. They?ll
start attacking you from every direction and at once, and making your job
even harder. And you?ll then realize that it would?ve been far better to
deal with the devil you knew, rather than the new ones you don?t.

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body:
Ray wrote:

?In the cold war era when both sides were ponting nuclear missiles at the
other it was MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) :-)?

Yes, and didn?t it work? Was there a nuclear war?

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body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Stevertigo wrote:
>
>>I for one would not like to see him (you Jim) as an individual to be
>>the target of a libel lawsuit for sanctioning a ban on someone,
>>under the premise of 'defamation of character'
>>
>Despite our openness, this is a private club entry to which is subject
>to my personal whims.  There is nothing about a ban in and of itself
>which should be interpreted by anyone as a statement about anyone's
>character.
>
Sometimes the fear of lawsuits is completely out of proportion to the
circumstances.  There is nothing defamatory about saying that you can't
get along with somebody.  With many of these people the archives would
also show the defamatory claims that they had made against other
Wikipedians.  Seeking equity in the courts often depends on entering
with clean hands.  That sword too has two edges.

It's lamentable that many people avoid doing things because of their
often erroneous perception of the law.  Perhaps guided by a paranoia
about even having to appear in court they quickly interpret the law to
their own disadvantage.  I also believe that for a large part of the
population the term "law" is equivalent to what the more sophisticated
would call "criminal law".  It focuses on punishment and the fear of
punishment.

>>Maybe you guys can talk about formeruser Isis as a case precedent,
>>if youre not doing so already, and explain to us some of your
>>thinking on the matter when you're ready.
>>
>Isis was not banned, Isis chose to leave after coming to what she saw
>as irreconcilable differences with another user.  Isis did threaten to
>sue that user, but nothing came of it.
>
Isis was probably more aware of legal issues than most Wikipedians.  All
she had to do was sleep on it before realizing that such a suit would be
a dumb idea.

Ec


from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Another milestone

body:
"Erik Zachte" <e.p.zachte at chello.nl> wrote in
news:000001c38a2b$a5fffdf0$ed608418 at xm01ez:

> Yet another milestone reached:
>
> Google knows more than a million pages containing 'wikipedia'.
> (Oct 4: 1,010,000)

Strange; oct 4, 10:37 UTC
Google finds "1,610,000 pages containing 'wikipedia'
And whit google.be i have sometimes 1,730,000 hits

And "pages in dutch containing 'wikipedia' 15,700

Mayby a idea to make new stats?

--
Contact: walter AT wikipedia.be
Ook een artikeltje schrijven? WikipediaNL, de vrije GNU/FDL encyclopedie
http://www.wikipedia.be


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee"

body:
Jimbo wrote:
>People didn't join our noble project to gift humanity
>with a treasure of knowledge in order to combat
>drunken Bosnian misogynists at 5AM!

Amen to that!

--mav


from_name: Christopher Mahan

body:
--- Abe Sokolov <abesokolov at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Ray wrote:
>
> ?In the cold war era when both sides were ponting nuclear missiles
> at the
> other it was MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) :-)?
>
> Yes, and didn?t it work? Was there a nuclear war?

One of them had economic, political, and military collapse. It's not
as bad as a nuke war, but it's still pretty bad. Now Russia is a
bankrupt country with mafia-like thugs dictating life for hundreds of millions.

=====
Christopher Mahan
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
818.943.1850 cell
http://www.christophermahan.com/

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subject: [WikiEN-l] [cynjus@earthlink.net: Copyrighted material on Wikipedia]

body:
This should be studied and addressed ASAP.  There's a kind offer here
to let us use the material with attribution, but that's not something
we can do under the GNU FDL and our policies on such things.

----- Forwarded message from Cyndi & Justin Broderick <cynjus at earthlink.net> -----

From: "Cyndi & Justin Broderick" <cynjus at earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2003 10:38:28 -0600
To: <jwales at bomis.com>
Subject: Copyrighted material  on Wikipedia

Dear sir,

Some material that I hold copyright on has been copied in large pieces and
included on the page http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_rank .

This was originally written in 1998 and is on the web at
http://users.sisna.com/justinb/cop.html .

I do not want the page to be removed, but would ask my credit, by name only,
to be associated with the article.

Sincerely,

Justin T. Broderick
Salt Lake City, Utah

----- End forwarded message -----


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
>Dear sir,
>
>Some material that I hold copyright on has been copied
>in large pieces and included on the page
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_rank .
>
>This was originally written in 1998 and is on the web at
>http://users.sisna.com/justinb/cop.html .
>
>I do not want the page to be removed, but would ask my credit,
>by name only, to be associated with the article.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Justin T. Broderick
>Salt Lake City, Utah

I'm very sorry for that - we try to find and fix copyright violations as they
are created.

Thank you for giving us permission to use your text on our website, but your
message was unclear as to whether or not we could relicense your work under
terms of our license. See http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights

What that basically means is that anyone will be able to copy and modify the
text at http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_(rank) and distribute it in
any way they see fit - including commercially - so long as they pass those
same rights onto their downstream users and give credit to the top five
authors of the text (which would include you).

I've also included this reference in the article:

Reference
*Originally based on text by Justin T. Broderick, Salt Lake City, Utah. [1]
Used with permission. [2]

[1] is a link to your website and [2] is a link to Jimbo Wales' first email on
this issue.

Please edit the reference as you see fit here:
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Commodore_(rank)&action=edit

Is all this OK? If not please say so and we will delete the article from our
database and replace it with a minimal "stub" article.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


body:
--- elian <elian at djini.de> wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
> > I am perhaps also an exception among all those who had
> > a disagreement with RK : he never said I was an
> > anti-semite or a nazi ! ;-)
>
> No, you are not an exception. Astonishingly, although I was working
> a lot
> on the hot topics (Israeli/Palestinian and Jewish/Muslim issues),
> RK never
> called me an ant-semite neither. only the usual "troll", "vandal",
> "bald
> faced liar"...

Well, I was called neither of those things, but in november of last
year, RK did state on my userpage that my parents and my wife were
incestuous.

So I'll pass on the RK, thank you very much.

=====
Christopher Mahan
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
818.943.1850 cell
http://www.christophermahan.com/

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