from_name: Joseph Reagle

body:
On Friday 10 December 2004 16:06, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
> I don't see any difficulty at all here, as long as we abandon the idea
> that neutrality requires epistemological nihilism.

This notion of "credible" reminds me of "confidence" discussed in the 3rd
bullet below in light of global climate change:

http://goatee.net/2003/01.html#_13mo
?03.01.13.mo | The Politics of Science and Vice Versa
...
   I want to understand to what
   degree, if any, something can be commonly known. This is what I've
   learned:
     * An understanding of fact and theory based on Moran/Gould's
       "Evolution is a Fact and a Theory",
          + There are observations of facts about the state of the
            Universe. We know that the sun moves in the sky, rising and
            falling -- regardless of some Biblical interpretations.
            Objects on earth fall. The earth has existed for billions
            of years with varied life forms living upon it. And this
            planet is undergoing substantive climate change.
          + There are theories that explain the relationships between
            observations, posit mechanisms, and predict future events.
            The earth orbits the sun according to gravitational
            principles that also govern the path of the apple falling
            from my hand. Our present continents developed via
            geological processes including plate tectonics. And humans
            have, in part, effected climatic change and its probable
            detrimental effects. And just because something is a theory
            doesn't mean that it is dismissable or that every "theory"
            is equally capable.
          + There is evidence that determines our confidence in both
            facts and theories. One would think the nature of
            ascertaining facts via observation is trivial, but we must
            be wary of hindsight bias, confirmation bias, placebo
            effects, and all manner of other prejudicial phenomena.
            With respect to theory, confidence is determined by the
            nature of its assumptions, testability, the quality of the
            underlying data/observations, and the theory's explanatory
            power. Theories are wrestled with by the scientific
            community, tested, repeated, confirmed, and settled upon by
            scientific consensus and ultimately judged by historical
            hindsight.
            However, the relationship between fact and theory is
            complicated because we often can not perfectly observe the
            state of something, such as the surface air temperatures
            and thickness of the Arctic ice cap. We then must take
            samples and extrapolate, which now, in part, constitutes a
            theory about the validity of the extrapolation until the
            extrapolation is considered so conclusive as to engender a
            fact. For example, only the irrational or obstinate would
            dispute the observation of fact that it is very cold in
            Boston today absent readings from thermometers in every
            square foot of Boston.
          + Anything can, and unfortunately will, be disputed. Some can
            argue that the aliens have placed the image of the falling
            apple in my mind or that God placed fossils in the earth to
            test my faith. However, these pronouncements are useless.

     In science "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that
     it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent." I suppose
     that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility
     does not merit equal time in physics classrooms." - Stephen J.
     Gould, Evolution as Fact and Theory; Discover, May 1981.
            The above reliance upon aliens and gods to explain a
            falling apple as fact is absurd because they defy every
            other assumption necessary to daily life in this world:
            that the majority of humans can trust their most basic
            senses. As a theory, these pronouncements can not be tested
            and they offer us no novel explanations of the past nor
            predictions for the future. Science is the difficult
            process of gaining a useful understanding of our world
            while avoiding an alarming collection of biases,
            self-interested prejudices, and cognitive blind-spots.
            Furthermore, scientists can, should, and do argue about
            particular nuances without necessarily undermining the
            confidence of a larger understanding. For instance,
            scientists might discuss gradualism versus punctuated
            equilibrium without contesting the geological records,
            fossil records, nor natural selection. Or they may come to
            find that an understanding only applies to previously known
            assumptions, but new assumptions (e.g., non-Euclidean
            geometry, relativistic time/space, the quantum scale, etc.)
            require new observations and explanations under the new
            conditions.
     * As I've written before, "We can never know everything." We all
       can't be experts on everything, so we often need to rely upon
       credible authority while remaining critical and skeptical, but
       never dismissive.
     * It's no good being dogmatic. I've found the criticism of the
       IPCC policy summaries (distinct from the actual report) to be
       interesting and the recent debate regarding ice sampling in the
       Arctic worthy of further research.
...


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: John Lee

subject: [WikiEN-l] New policy proposal

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> James Rosenzweig wrote:
>
>> For everyone's information, en:User:OneGuy has posted
>> a proposal here --
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Disabling edits
>> by unregistered users and stricter registration
>> requirement
>>
>> There is already a vote of sorts taking place -- a
>> list of "support" and "oppose" votes is growing
>> slowly.  I am not clear as to why a vote is taking
>> place so early, or whether the vote is intended to
>> have any force.  I also don't know if it was
>> advertised anywhere (I hadn't seen it anywhere but
>> RC), but I thought a proposal (and apparent vote) to
>> disable anonymous editing and add stricter
>> requirements for registering as a user deserved a note
>> on the mailing list.  If it's already been posted
>> here, forgive me (but I don't think it has).  Thanks
>> for your attention to this issue,
>>
> Sorry but that link is not to en existing page.
>
> Ec

Here's the fixed link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Disabling_edits_by_unregistered_users_and_stricter_registration_requirement

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: kelvSYC

subject: [Wikipedia-l] External data

body:
> For whatever reason there is this silly sign that should indicate that
> a link is external.
>
> It is a silly thing for two reasons:
> *It does not show itself in an IE browser
> *When it is used in a language that is left to right like Arabic or
> Hebrew, it insists on being on the right side of the word in effect
> blocking out the first character.
>
> Could we PLEASE get rid of this silly thing. And if someone insists on
> keeping it, could it be fixed so that it behaves properly ...
>

Not knowing too much about CSS compatibility in several browsers, it
seems that the "silly sign", as you put it, is like this for several
reasons:

* IE doesn't support too much of the CSS standard, IIRC.  Correct me if
I'm wrong, but I believe the icons are implemented using CSS2, which IE
doesn't support too well.
* CSS, in theory, can handle bidi correctly, but not in real life

I believe that there is some user CSS that you can apply to hide it,
but it only works on a few browsers.

A bit off topic, but what are the practical consequences of changing
the pseudo-class selectors from one colon to two in CSS3?


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Kurdish Wikipedia censored in Turkey?

body:
Hi Erdal,

This news surprises me very much.

With the ultimate prize of EU membership, I had thought Turkey was
really committed to reform and expanding minority rights a little, but
apparently not.

I think it's very nasty that Turkey can still expect to be admitted to
the EU when it is still doing things like arresting somebody just for
editing the Kurdish section of DMOZ (I don't know the incident, but
most likely the charges against them are "seperatism").

I think you should bring this horrendous behaviour on the part of the
Turkish government to the attention of Amnesty International. This
person was sentenced to 10 months just for writing DMOZ content in
their own language? Turkey doesn't have a very good human rights
level, but I really thought things were changing.

As for the Kurdish Wikipedia being blocked, can you think of any
possible reasons other than the simple fact that it is in Kurdish?

If it is being blocked in individual netcafes, one possible strategy
is to try to mobilise Wikipedians of all nationalities in a letter-
(or e-mail-) writing campaign to request that these companies lift
their illogical block of a totally educational and appropriate site.

I don't know whether or not there has really been a significant drop,
but if ku.wikipedia is being blocked for the single reason that it is
in Kurdish (with probably some stupid charge to cover it up like "we
don't know what it says, it could be erotica" or "it incites political
violence"), regardless of how it effects the numbers, we really should
try to do something.

X?rxuaz?
Mark

On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 02:00:26 +0100, Erdal Ronahi <erdal.ronahi at gmx.net> wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> I get reports from Turkey that Internet Cafes have begun to block
> several Kurdish sites including the Kurdish Wikipedia, which I am admin
> on. While it is known that political sites hosted in Europe are being
> censored in the whole of Turkey, the selective blocking of sites like
> Wikipedia using special software seems to be something new.
>
> After the sentencing of a dmoz editor to 10 months in prison two weeks
> ago this looks like another escalation.
>
> Before all, I want to be sure that there is a significant fall in the
> access rate from Turkey. Unfortunately the Webalizer statistics do not
> work at the moment. Can anybody with a better insight verify if there is
> a notable fall in accesses from Turkey to the Kurdish Wikipedia?
>
> Thanks,
> Erdal
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Charles Matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Largest encyclopedia

body:
Jay JG wrote

> >Surely the fact that revisions per article is rising just as much as the
> >number of articles is hopeful for the article quality.  (Medians rather
> >than
> >just means would be good to know, of course.)
>
> Hopefully it is that, rather than an indication of an increasing frequency
> of edit-warring.

I really can't give any credence to the idea that edit wars could pull up
the numbers much, averaged over the 400000 pages of the English Wikipedia.
Not enough editwarriors to go round.

In fact I would argue the diametrically opposite position.  The general line
of talk that WP is in some way failing/is getting filled with rubbish/is
losing credibility/has a serious IP vandal problem/is not applying adequate
scholarly standards is based, as far as I can see, on very thin anecdotal
evidence.  Except for the last of those gripes, it all seems itself to be
very much open to a counterattack along the lines that it is only marginally
credible, and depends on a highly selective, even panicky, reading of the
quantitative facts.  Putting it another way, no decent Wikipedia article
about WP could contain a sentence like 'in 2004 unregistered vandals were a
serious threat to WP'; that would get shouted down as POV, and probably with
a hidden agenda.

And I think clicking Random Page 100 times supports the  impression that
things improve.  One example is that the category system has come on well,
over the past three months.

Charles


from_name: Erdal Ronahi

body:
Hi there,

I get reports from Turkey that Internet Cafes have begun to block
several Kurdish sites including the Kurdish Wikipedia, which I am admin
on. While it is known that political sites hosted in Europe are being
censored in the whole of Turkey, the selective blocking of sites like
Wikipedia using special software seems to be something new.

After the sentencing of a dmoz editor to 10 months in prison two weeks
ago this looks like another escalation.

Before all, I want to be sure that there is a significant fall in the
access rate from Turkey. Unfortunately the Webalizer statistics do not
work at the moment. Can anybody with a better insight verify if there is
a notable fall in accesses from Turkey to the Kurdish Wikipedia?

Thanks,
Erdal


from_name: Armchair Vexillologist Don

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Canadian Red Ensign and my Banning by AndyL

body:
Hello,

I'm quite upset writting this.
I'm not sure who to write too,... so please excuse my briefness.

AndyL has been making Facist links to the Canadian Ensign page of Wikipedia.

AndyL added this entry,... and my "dispute of it" got me banned from Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Ensign#Canada
In recent years many far-right and neo-Nazi groups in Canada, particularly those affiliated to Paul Fromm, have adopted the Canadian Red Ensign as a symbol of their movement meant to emphasise what they assert is their adherence to traditional Canadian values.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7c/Zundelprotest.jpg

I find myself very angry at AndyL out-of-hand linking the Canadian Red Ensign to "these people", on a basis, that in my opinion is quite "flimpsy" to say the least.  I though Wikipedia was a medium for the exchange of true facts,... not biased propaganda.

I'm not sure how to proceed,... except to say,...

I don't care about getting my Wikipedia ban lifted or my membership back anymore,
It is clear I'm not welcome here,

I just request that AndyL's slander of our past Canadian Red Ensign be considered for "editing", or removal.

Take care, and agian, I'm sorry to bother you,
Don


subject:
[WikiEN-l] The Canadian Red Ensign and my Banning by AndyL (without
	the 32 KB picture attachment)

body:
(Note*: Second Sending, but without the 32 KB picture this time)

Hello,

I'm quite upset writting this.
I'm not sure who to write too,... so please excuse my briefness.

AndyL has been making Facist links to the Canadian Ensign page of Wikipedia.

AndyL added this entry,... and my "dispute of it" got me banned from Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Ensign#Canada
In recent years many far-right and neo-Nazi groups in Canada, particularly those affiliated to Paul Fromm, have adopted the Canadian Red Ensign as a symbol of their movement meant to emphasise what they assert is their adherence to traditional Canadian values.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7c/Zundelprotest.jpg

I find myself very angry at AndyL out-of-hand linking the Canadian Red Ensign to "these people", on a basis, that in my opinion is quite "flimpsy" to say the least.  I though Wikipedia was a medium for the exchange of true facts,... not biased propaganda.

I'm not sure how to proceed,... except to say,...

I don't care about getting my Wikipedia ban lifted or my membership back anymore,
It is clear I'm not welcome here,

I just request that AndyL's slander of our past Canadian Red Ensign be considered for "editing", or removal.

Take care, and agian, I'm sorry to bother you,
Don


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject:
[WikiEN-l] The Canadian Red Ensign and my Banning by AndyL
	(without the 32 KB picture attachment)

body:
The way to proceed is to use the Wikipedia dispute resolution procedure.
Please look at [[Wikipedia:Dispute resolution]]. To address the issue, the
question is not the honor of Canada, but whether or not there are published
reports of the use of the red ensign by fascist groups. If there are,
inclusion of a short paragraph, or even a photo, is acceptable.

Fred

> From: "Armchair Vexillologist Don" <don.dawson1775 at sympatico.ca>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 04:44:56 -0500
> To: <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] The Canadian Red Ensign and my Banning by AndyL (without
> the 32 KB picture attachment)
>
> I'm not sure how to proceed,... except to say,...
>
> I don't care about getting my Wikipedia ban lifted or my membership back
> anymore,
> It is clear I'm not welcome here,
>
> I just request that AndyL's slander of our past Canadian Red Ensign be
> considered for "editing", or removal.


subject: NPOV and credibility (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Original research)

body:
Joseph Reagle wrote

>      * It's no good being dogmatic. I've found the criticism of the
>        IPCC policy summaries (distinct from the actual report) to be
>        interesting and the recent debate regarding ice sampling in the
>        Arctic worthy of further research.

It is no good just being dogmatic, in a science article.  On the other hand
I have been involved in the quantum gravity disputes, for a few months, as a
neutral (hopefully) third party.  One person involved has made (with some
justification) the point that the sheer interest of a sharp debate was being
overstated.  That is, too journalistic to assume always that disagreement is
drama.

As we know, there can be smoke without fire in such cases.  This can
properly be called a 'credibility' issue; if the truth appears to be that
'we just don't know, right now'.

Consider for example how much WP in 1950 should have contained about what
was on the dark side of the Moon.  Inadequate justification for simply
asserting as dogma 'probably just like the side we can see, in general
terms'; but on the other hand most other theories were ridiculous, and there
would have been little reason to mention one speculation over another.

Charles


from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Kurdish Wikipedia censored in Turkey?

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:
<snip>
> I don't know whether or not there has really been a significant drop,
>  but if ku.wikipedia is being blocked for the single reason that it
> is in Kurdish (with probably some stupid charge to cover it up like
> "we don't know what it says, it could be erotica" or "it incites
> political violence"), regardless of how it effects the numbers, we
> really should try to do something.
>
> X?rxuaz? Mark

Hello,

It surprises me a lot.

I believe we can gather some facts and write a press release. I am sure
at least french Medias will be really receptive to it.

cheers,

--
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
Servers in trouble ? noc (at) wikimedia (dot) org
"This signature is a virus. Copy me in yours to spread it."


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: External data

body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> Hoi,
> For whatever reason there is this silly sign that should indicate that a
> link is external.
>
> It is a silly thing for two reasons:
> *It does not show itself in an IE browser
> *When it is used in a language that is left to right like Arabic or
> Hebrew, it insists on being on the right side of the word in effect
> blocking out the first character.
>
> Could we PLEASE get rid of this silly thing. And if someone insists on
> keeping it, could it be fixed so that it behaves properly ...
>
> Thanks,
>     GerardM

Hello,

Better than getting ride of it, we can fix the bug to align the icon on
left side using rtl.css ;o)

As for the IE issue, really people should use a modern browser wich can
handle css 2.0 .

cheers,

--
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
Servers in trouble ? noc (at) wikimedia (dot) org
"This signature is a virus. Copy me in yours to spread it."


body:
Hello Fred, :)

Thank you very much for your kind and prompt reply,
I appreciate it alot.

Here is a picture of the
Aryan Nations with the USA Flag
http://www.nsm88.com/photos/photo_main_page/naziandoldglory.jpg

Will you "pubilsh this Nazi CONNECTION to Old Glory" as well,....?

You see what I'm driving at eh,....?

Take care Fred, and thanks again,
Don

----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred Bauder" <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Sent: Saturday, December 11, 2004 7:15 AM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The Canadian Red Ensign and my Banning by
AndyL(without the 32 KB picture attachment)

> The way to proceed is to use the Wikipedia dispute resolution procedure.
> Please look at [[Wikipedia:Dispute resolution]]. To address the issue, the
> question is not the honor of Canada, but whether or not there are
published
> reports of the use of the red ensign by fascist groups. If there are,
> inclusion of a short paragraph, or even a photo, is acceptable.
>
> Fred
>
> > From: "Armchair Vexillologist Don" <don.dawson1775 at sympatico.ca>
> > Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> > Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 04:44:56 -0500
> > To: <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> > Subject: [WikiEN-l] The Canadian Red Ensign and my Banning by AndyL
(without
> > the 32 KB picture attachment)
> >
> > I'm not sure how to proceed,... except to say,...
> >
> > I don't care about getting my Wikipedia ban lifted or my membership back
> > anymore,
> > It is clear I'm not welcome here,
> >
> > I just request that AndyL's slander of our past Canadian Red Ensign be
> > considered for "editing", or removal.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: textbook-l

from_name: Tomer Chachamu

subject: [Textbook-l] Re: Trading cards and their data

body:
Well, put it this way:

When deciding how to play your cards in a battle (or when playing on the
Game Boy, etc), how will you make your decision? (I didn't join in the
playground craze although I could have, so you'll need to tweak this a
little.) You will probably look at the card the other player has put
down and consider its strengths and weaknesses: a high attack of theirs
will require a good defence of yours. When you've finished these
considerations, is there a large set of good choices?

Are you thinking of individual cards or a group?

This should decide for you. If you've thought of, say, needing an
Electric Pok?mon, make one page to cover all of them. If they're a few
individual cards, give each their own page.

Hope you find this useful,
Best regards,
Tomer

> One of the subprojects in [[b:Pok?mon]] is the guide to the trading
> card game, and I need to solicit opinions on how a list of trading
> cards should be presented.  In particular, what would the Wikipedia
> convention be when dealing with large amounts of raw data?  Here are a
> few ideas I had thought up:
>
> * Each trading card should have its own page.  This will make
> categorization a trivial task, but will result in too many
> substub-quality pages.
> * Each set should have its own page, with each page describing the
> cards within that set.  This will make categorization between sets of
> cards trivial, but categorization along other lines (such as the type
> of the trading card) a pain in the ass.  This goes for giving a page
> to any arbitrary group of cards.  My personal direction (not
> necessarily a good one) is a variation on this theme: the Pok?mon
> cards themselves are described in their corresponding entry in
> [[b:Wikibooks Pok?dex]].
> * Wait until there's a real good Wikidata-like thing before
> implementing such an idea.


from_name: Robert

subject: [WikiEN-l] We must maintain NPOV on controversial articles.

body:
I had written:
>>I totally agree with Jay's point. Wikipedia will
>>immediately lose any credibility it has if it becomes a
>>massive repository of crank views, which it will be if
>>people strictly follow the letter of the NPOV policy as
>>currently written.  Articles on and by cranks will
>>outnumber serious issues a hundred to one (at least).

Ray Saintonge responded:
> Nobody is supporting "a massive repository of crank view"
> Saying that Wikipedia would become so is entirely
> speculative.  There is no evidence for this nor for
> the hypothetical  loss of credibility. ~~~~

For goodness sake, that is a strawman argument.  You know
full well that NO ONE claimed that Wikipedia should be
turned into "a massive repository of crank view". I
certainly made no such claim.

Rather, I was pointing out the well-known fact that many
Wikipedia articles constantly are being altered to include
fringe and singular point-of-views. On an open Wiki-project
such as this, the NPOV policy has been abused by many
people to try and give the views of tiny groups the
appearance of having the same level of acceptance as views
held by much larger groups. Haven't you read Jimbo's posts
on this issue?  In any case, it is a *fact* that this is
one of the many reasons why many people outside of
Wikipedia do not trust us yet. Your dismissal of their
concerns does not make them non-existent.

Ray continues:
> I agree that that article is dreadful.  To begin with it
is
> sprinkled throughout with with words like "supposed" or
> "alleged" which if repeated tend to bias the commentary,
> and certainly detract from the flow of the text.

Sorry, Ray, but NPOV policy demands that all unproven
and/or unfounded claims must be phrased in this way.  We
don't write about unproven phenomenon like ESP and alien
abuductions as facts; we may only write that "Person X
claims that they were abducted by aliens, who them examined
them with ESP. The alleged experience happened in a
cornfield in Iowa in 1977."  We do not write about such
unproven and extraodrinary claims as if they were facts.

For some time now you have been claiming to accept NPOV,
yet at every opportunity you effectively subvert it. Please
recognize this, and desist.

Robert (RK)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Send a seasonal email greeting and help others. Do good.
http://celebrity.mail.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] NPOV and strawman attacks on science

body:
Ray (Ex) writes:
> Expressions  like "ESP's critics, a group that includes
most
> mainstream scientists," is a gratuitous reference to the
> authority of scientists.  I think that it would be closer

> to the truth to say that most scientists have never paid
> any serious attention to ESP, so that the basis which
that
> majority criticizes ESP is its own lack of knowledge.

Actually, that's false. Nearly every scientist that I have
ever worked with and studied with has given quite a bit of
thought to this and related issues. Having spent years in
college and graduate schools, and in "the real world" as
well, I can so that your caricature of scientists is false.
Again, you are creating strawmen to attack.

> That to me is not very reassuring.  Many articles
> would be much better if the science lobby started to
> show some restraint.

Huh? Who the hell are "the science lobby"?  Please stop
your recriminations against "the scientists". You keep
making strawman arguments, with a clear attempt at the
deligitimization of anyone who tries to study controversial
issues in a controlled setting.

There is no "science lobby", and practically every
scientist I have ever discussed this issue with has been
open to accepting _any_ claim, IF there is proof.
Anecdotes, however, do not rise to the level of proof.  You
just seem mad because your side has never been able to
offer any proof that the rest of the world will accept.

If you truly believe in these claims, then spend your time
gathering more proof, and less time making strawman ad
homenim attacks on "the science lobby".  The more you do
this, the less your position is accepted.

> A single well-written paragraph can more than adequately
> represent the views of the detractors.  Trying to debunk
> concepts that have never been proven, with equally
> questionable data only makes for an article full of
sniping.

In other words, dump NPOV.  Because NPOV demands precisely
the format that you want to remove.  In contrast to your
false claims about scientists, a large number of scientists
have studied ESP, telepathy, telekinesis and other similar
alleged phenomenon for well over a century.  Controlled
experiments have been run and repeated hundreds of times.

Articles on these subjects must, according to our NPOV
policy, report both the alleged phenomenon, and on the many
experiments run to study such phenomenon.  Your format
would remove the vast majority of material on this subject,
thus biasing the article in favaor of paranormal claims
made without proof.

> Credible sources for both sides of this argument are
available,

Yet this is precisely what you seem to be annoyed with;
large amounts of controlled scientific studies have been
published in peer-reviewed journals, but you get angry when
they are reported on within our articles.  You keep
advocating that we remove nearly all POV's, and reduce our
articles to a "He said, She said" format. Sorry, but that
is not the way that NPOV works.

Robert (RK)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - Easier than ever with enhanced search. Learn more.
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from_name: Nicholas Knight

body:
Robert wrote:

> If you truly believe in these claims, then spend your time
> gathering more proof, and less time making strawman ad
> homenim attacks on "the science lobby".  The more you do
> this, the less your position is accepted.

I would be most interested to hear where you got the impression that Ray
believes in ESP. Such was neither stated nor implied by his email, and I
have no clue whatsoever of his stance on the issue. I simply saw an
attempt to point out a neutrality problem.

There is also no reason to get piqued over his use of the term "science
lobby". It is a generic label for advocates of mainstream science. He
was not implying some sort of overarching organization or cabal.

If Ray is mistaken about something, by all means offer him corrected
information, but there is no reason to either assume malice on his part
or direct malice at him.


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Original Research

body:
One problem I see with this debate over "original research" is that
we are trying to apply it as a uniform rule to every possible case,
when in application it will take many forms.

Take, for example, David Gerard's example of Indie Australian bands.
>From my reading, most of our articles about music bands mostly set
forth verifiable facts such as when the date the band was formed, who
was in it, & what records it reelased. For matters like these, I have
little to no concern about where these facts came from, because one
could always find a way to verify them.

But when the article goes beyond these dry facts to the matter of
inspiration, the motivation of its members, etc., then I get concerned.
As an example, suppose in the article about fictional band
"Mestruating Men" the following appears: "After the release of the
first album, differences over the band's direction led to personel
changes: according to lead singer Wally, "When Harry said he had been
influenced by 'Men without Hats' & said we ought to try to sound more
like them, we kicked the wanker out of the band & found Bruce to replace
him." Now if the quotation came from a reasonably easy source to verify --
say either the Australian equivalent of Rolling Stone or New Music Review --
I would keep it, whether this was original research or not. However, if
this came from a primary source that was had to verify -- a personal
interview, or a newsletter or publication that is not reasonably
accessible -- then I would raise the question of "original research."

(By "reasonably accessible", I not only mean documents that have been
published, but can also be expected to be accessible thru a public
library; Interlibrary Loan & online databases are tools that every
Wikipedian ought to be familiar with. However, some published materials
are difficult to obtain: a valuable source for the Seattle music scene
for the late 1970s, 1980s & early 1990s -- "The Rocket" -- stopped
publication years ago. Although it was a free monthly newspaper you
could find at record stores in the Northwestern US, I confess I wouldn't
know where someone could find a specific issue of it today -- or if
anyone even thought to save any copies.)

I feel this kind of objection ought to apply both to well-known bands
like "The Rolling Stones" as well as Australian Indie bands.

Moving to another topic where "original research" will likely cause a
problem, let us consider the critical appreciation or investigation as
to motives of famous artists or politicians. Obviously, everyone will
have an opinion in this area, & doubtlessly we could argue for hours
over whether Shakespeare is a greater playwright than Sophocles or
Ibsen, & over the motivations of such public figures like Ivan the
Terrible, Ieyasu or George W. Bush. Here, there is no good reason for
original research in any form: if one knows the secondary literature
to a satisfactory degree, then one can simply quote or paraphrase
what has been written on the subject. And the average user of Wikipedia
will want to know what the published judgement of these people is
more than what some Wikipedian thinks.

(And in cases like these, we should cite more than peer-reviewed journals;
evaluation of public figures is shaped by more than degreed experts.
Poets & actors can potentially tell us more about Shakespeare than any
random tenured professor published by a university press; TV Guide's
account of Bill Clinton playing the Saxophone on the Orsinio Hall show
could tell us more than a Ph.D. working in a political think tank.)

Then there is a third case where we confront original research: in the
search for originality of expression, contributors will inevitably
introduce their own conclusions drawn from verifiable facts. One example
would be from my own contributions, [[Battle of the Catalaunian Plains]]:
when I wrote this about 2 years ago, I was very concerned at the time
over introducing copywritten text, so I based it on published primary
sources, such as _The Gothic History of Jordanes_. Undoubtedly in the
writing of this article, I introduced my own POV & my own conclusions
concerning the material, no matter how hard I tried not to; we all have
conscious or unconscious biasses in the areas we are profess expertise
in. However in this case, I submitted it fully aware of the Wiki philosophy,
that what gets written may be subject to ruthless revisions. And my own
attitude to the article is that if someone can improve on it by citing
the necessary experts to confirm or replace what I wrote there, then
it is a good thing. Here, calling something "original research" &
insisting that the material should be deleted does nothing more than
cause friction on Wikipedia, whereas making changes in a reasonable &
responsible manner solves the problem -- which I assume is what we all
want to do in the first place.

I don't have a clear-cut answer for the issue of "original research" --
except to say that I know it's a problem when I see it. But my point
here was to argue that to address this issue we must also acknowledge
where it poses no problem.

Geoff


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Robert wrote:

>I had written:
>
>
>>>I totally agree with Jay's point. Wikipedia will
>>>immediately lose any credibility it has if it becomes a
>>>massive repository of crank views, which it will be if
>>>people strictly follow the letter of the NPOV policy as
>>>currently written.  Articles on and by cranks will
>>>outnumber serious issues a hundred to one (at least).
>>>
>>>
>Ray Saintonge responded:
>
>
>>Nobody is supporting "a massive repository of crank view"
>>Saying that Wikipedia would become so is entirely
>>speculative.  There is no evidence for this nor for
>>the hypothetical  loss of credibility. ~~~~
>>
>>
>For goodness sake, that is a strawman argument.  You know
>full well that NO ONE claimed that Wikipedia should be
>turned into "a massive repository of crank view". I
>certainly made no such claim.
>
>Rather, I was pointing out the well-known fact that many
>Wikipedia articles constantly are being altered to include
>fringe and singular point-of-views. On an open Wiki-project
>such as this, the NPOV policy has been abused by many
>people to try and give the views of tiny groups the
>appearance of having the same level of acceptance as views
>held by much larger groups. Haven't you read Jimbo's posts
>on this issue?  In any case, it is a *fact* that this is
>one of the many reasons why many people outside of
>Wikipedia do not trust us yet. Your dismissal of their
>concerns does not make them non-existent.
>
If you had intended your argument to be a strawman argument you should
have attached a smiley to it.  Now that you have indicated that you were
not being serious I can apologize for responding as though you were.

The expression "massive repository of crank views" was yours, and it
seemed as though you were lounging in idle speculation.

Knowledge is not democratic and the fact that a point of view is held by
a majority is not in itself enough to make it true.  NPOV policy is just
as often abused by majoritarian storm-troopers who fear being knocked
from their intellectual sinecures.  Nowhere have I argued that cranks
are anything but cranks.  Neither have I ever argued that they should
have unrestrained access to air their views in any and all
circumstances.  The "previous publication" alone is objective enough and
adequate to keep such concepts from spinning out of control.  That rule
can and should be applied without any regard to the nature of the views
expressed.  If the contributor gets past that hurdle, a simple paragraph
expressing the general level of disbelief about the matter is
sufficient.  If you have undermined the fundamental idea being presented
it becomes pointless to argue about every derivative idea; those are all
GIGO arguments which become very tedious and annoying to the reader.
Let the reader be forwarned, and allow him to read for humour without
wading through piles of henpecking troll food.

Yes I have read Jimbo's posts on the matter, and I respectfully disagree
with him; with you I simply disagree.  So what?  In the midst of your
paragraph you ask that question in isolation, and go on with another
comment.  It seems that you intend more by that question than just a
simple "Yes" or "No" answer.

I certainly didn't deny that people have certain concerns, I merely
questioned the basis for those concerns.  You as an alleged scientist
have made certain statements about the lack of trust that outsiders have
in Wikipedia.  A real scientist would give evidence.

>Ray continues:
>
>
>>I agree that that article is dreadful.  To begin with it is
>>
>>
>>sprinkled throughout with with words like "supposed" or
>>"alleged" which if repeated tend to bias the commentary,
>>and certainly detract from the flow of the text.
>>
>>
>Sorry, Ray, but NPOV policy demands that all unproven
>and/or unfounded claims must be phrased in this way.  We
>don't write about unproven phenomenon (sic!) like ESP and alien
>abuductions as facts; we may only write that "Person X
>claims that they were abducted by aliens, who them examined
>them with ESP. The alleged experience happened in a
>cornfield in Iowa in 1977."  We do not write about such
>unproven and extraodrinary claims as if they were facts.
>
So where does it say that these terms need to be repeated ad nauseam?  A
single insertion of "The advocates claim ..." can be applied to whole
paragraphs or multiple paragraphs at the same time.  That makes them far
more readable.

Your concatenation of two sparate subjects is deceitful.  As one who
happens to consider only one of the to be credible, I see that lumping
them together is just another one of your strawman arguments.  Your
preposterous claim is designed to make the more acceptable concept less
credible

>For some time now you have been claiming to accept NPOV,
>yet at every opportunity you effectively subvert it. Please
>recognize this, and desist.
>
Supporting NPOV does not imply bowing to pretend scientists.

Ec


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wiktionary-l] languages

body:
Hoi,
I have problems identifying words in two languages. On the en:wiktionary
these are called Ruanda and Sotho.

Ruanda is not known by a ISO 639 code but it should be known by another
name. Sotho is known but with two names; Southern and Northern Sotho. So
what is it ??

Saturday is the word that brought this problem again to my attention. So
far I just removed these entries and that is not nice so I am asking for
assistence.

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: WikiUser

subject: [WikiEN-l] New policy proposal

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" <jwales at wikia.com>
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Sent: Friday, December 10, 2004 09:22 PM
Subject: [WikiEN-l] New policy proposal

>Our biggest problems within the community are not anons trolling and
vandalizing, but rather egregious trolls and pov pushers who log in
and take advantage of our boundless good will.

Can you give any examples of what you mean by "egregious trolls and pov pushers"? Also of the "boundless good will."? Also, who is meant by "we" and "our"? -WikiUser.

:::www.emails.net:::
Is this Spam? If so, report it!


subject: [Wiktionary-l] languages

body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:

> Hoi,
> I have problems identifying words in two languages. On the
> en:wiktionary these are called Ruanda and Sotho.
>
> Ruanda is not known by a ISO 639 code but it should be known by
> another name. Sotho is known but with two names; Southern and Northern
> Sotho. So what is it ??
>
> Saturday is the word that brought this problem again to my attention.
> So far I just removed these entries and that is not nice so I am
> asking for assistence.
>
> Thanks,
>    GerardM

Hoi,
On IRC is was told by "dannyisme" that Ruanda is /Kinyarwanda/ The ISO
639 code is rw and kin. It is the first word in this language on the
nl:wiktionary. I hope many will follow :)

Thanks,
    GerardM
//


body:
One thing that definitely IS the government's fault is the arrest of a
man, as you mentioned, simply for editing the Kurdish DMOZ. Any such
human rights violations are a bargaining chip that the Kurdish people
have with Turkey - "We will get this to the European press if you
don't undo it, and that means no EU membership"

Mark

On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 22:35:40 +0100, Erdal Ronahi <erdal.ronahi at gmx.net> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> >This would be good to look into. As others in this thread indicated,
> >this is about the LEAST opportune moment for the Turkish government to
> >do this.
> >
> >
> Although I have no sympathy for the present Turkish government, I must
> state that I am NOT talking about a block on a countrywide level. There
> are people I personally know that are contributing from inside Turkey.
> But one contributer stated that he used to work from internet cafes and
> that it is usual that Kurdish sites are being censored there. Just that
> some of the cafes seem to have added Wikipedia to the blacklist is new.
>
> Turkey is not as 100% government controlled as China or Iran may be, it
> may well be a censorship in the initiative of local autorities or
> individual internet cafe owners.
>
> >With the discussion of EU-membership coming up, any negative
> >news about the Turkish human rights situations would be most unwelcome
> >to the Turkish authorities.
> >
> That is true, but last week a 12-year old boy was killed with 13 bullets
> from the gun of a military, so internet censorship is not one of the
> major problems today. The disappointing fact is that Europe does more
> think of itself (muslims, migration etc.) than of the human rights
> situation in Turkey.
>
> >My proposed line of action would be:
> >1. Try to ascertain that there are indeed problems
> >
> That's what I originally intended with my posting. I used to read the
> Webalizer statistics, but they have been unavailable for quite a while now.
>
> >example ask the people from the Turkish Wikipedia to try and have a
> >look.
> >
> >
> Most of them contribute form the USA, but it's worth a try.
>
> Greetings, Erdal
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: External data

body:
Unfortunately, Ashar, what people should use and what they do use are
two different matters.

Mark

On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 08:08:13 +0100, Ashar Voultoiz <hashar at altern.org> wrote:
> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> > Hoi,
> > For whatever reason there is this silly sign that should indicate that a
> > link is external.
> >
> > It is a silly thing for two reasons:
> > *It does not show itself in an IE browser
> > *When it is used in a language that is left to right like Arabic or
> > Hebrew, it insists on being on the right side of the word in effect
> > blocking out the first character.
> >
> > Could we PLEASE get rid of this silly thing. And if someone insists on
> > keeping it, could it be fixed so that it behaves properly ...
> >
> > Thanks,
> >     GerardM
>
> Hello,
>
> Better than getting ride of it, we can fix the bug to align the icon on
> left side using rtl.css ;o)
>
> As for the IE issue, really people should use a modern browser wich can
> handle css 2.0 .
>
> cheers,
>
> --
> Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
> Servers in trouble ? noc (at) wikimedia (dot) org
> "This signature is a virus. Copy me in yours to spread it."
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Marco Krohn

subject: [Wikipedia-l] fundraising for new hardware? Fwd: [Wikide-l] Spendenaktion für Hardware?

body:
Hi,

Christoph Lange asked (posting attached below) on the wikide-l mailing list
wether there will a fundraising drive shortly before Christmas. He argues
that while it is possible to donate money anytime that it would be more fun
to do this within a concentrated fundraising drive and also that people
around Christmas time are in a donation mood :-)

IMHO advertising the possibility to donate money cannot hurt, especially if we
point out that the money is mainly for paying hosting/bandwidth costs and for
new hardware.

best regards,
  Marco

----------  Forwarded Message  ----------

Subject: [Wikide-l] Spendenaktion f?r Hardware?
Date: Friday 10 December 2004 19:16
From: Christoph Lange <langec at web dot de>
To: Mailingliste der deutschsprachigen Wikipedia <wikide-l at wikipedia.org>

Hallo,

   ich finde, die aktuellen Hardware-Probleme bei Wikimedia schreien
wieder nach einer Spendenaktion, ?hnlich wie vor knapp einem Jahr. In
der Weihnachtszeit sitzt der Geldbeutel doch locker, oder? Ich w?re auf
jeden Fall bereit, etwas zu spenden :-) Klar kann ich das auch so, aber
im Rahmen einer Aktion macht es mehr Spa?...

Viele Gr??e,

Christoph


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] PUI v. Copyvios

body:
On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 15:03:18 -0500, Justin . <lifefeed at gmail.com> wrote:
> What's the difference between these pages for images?

"Possibly unfree images" is for images without copyright information
or those put up that aren't in breach of copyright but are under
licenses deemed incompatible with Wikipedia.

"Copyright problems" is for those images thought likely to be in
copyright violation by being on Wikipedia.

The two overlap a little bit, but the focus is different.

-Matt


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Original Research

body:
Geoff Burling wrote:

>One problem I see with this debate over "original research" is that
>we are trying to apply it as a uniform rule to every possible case,
>when in application it will take many forms.
>
>(By "reasonably accessible", I not only mean documents that have been
>published, but can also be expected to be accessible thru a public
>library; Interlibrary Loan & online databases are tools that every
>Wikipedian ought to be familiar with. However, some published materials
>are difficult to obtain: a valuable source for the Seattle music scene
>for the late 1970s, 1980s & early 1990s -- "The Rocket" -- stopped
>publication years ago. Although it was a free monthly newspaper you
>could find at record stores in the Northwestern US, I confess I wouldn't
>know where someone could find a specific issue of it today -- or if
>anyone even thought to save any copies.)
>
Some people think that Google is such a credible authority that it
should be relied upon to the exclusion of all others.  The techniques
that you mention are all important,  That just inspired me to add a
short paragraph to the "Cairngorms" about Queen Victoria climbing what
was then thought to be the highest peak in th UK.  I got that from the
"Strand Magazine" for June 1898.  Out of curiosity, about how quickly I
could find information about something I found this about "The Rocket":
http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=3588  This only
goes to show that it's often easy to find out back-up material about
something even if you're not otherwise interested in the topic.
Sometimes life would go so much more smoothly if our writers could
support what they say a little better.

>Moving to another topic where "original research" will likely cause a
>problem, let us consider the critical appreciation or investigation as
>to motives of famous artists or politicians. Obviously, everyone will
>have an opinion in this area, & doubtlessly we could argue for hours
>over whether Shakespeare is a greater playwright than Sophocles or
>Ibsen, & over the motivations of such public figures like Ivan the
>Terrible, Ieyasu or George W. Bush. Here, there is no good reason for
>original research in any form: if one knows the secondary literature
>to a satisfactory degree, then one can simply quote or paraphrase
>what has been written on the subject. And the average user of Wikipedia
>will want to know what the published judgement of these people is
>more than what some Wikipedian thinks.
>
Imputing motives is always dangerous.  The support is often tenuous.

>(And in cases like these, we should cite more than peer-reviewed journals;
>evaluation of public figures is shaped by more than degreed experts.
>Poets & actors can potentially tell us more about Shakespeare than any
>random tenured professor published by a university press; TV Guide's
>account of Bill Clinton playing the Saxophone on the Orsinio Hall show
>could tell us more than a Ph.D. working in a political think tank.)
>
Stepping onto the academic treadmill strikes me as everything that the
wiki is not.  Peer-reviewed journals represent a certain narrow set of
POV's.  They pretend to be the arbiters of right and wrong, but we don't
need for somebody to tell us that from the pulpit.  The knowledge
revolution will only have succeded when people can think for themselves
without looking for a word or a sign from on high.

>Then there is a third case where we confront original research: in the
>search for originality of expression, contributors will inevitably
>introduce their own conclusions drawn from verifiable facts. One example
>would be from my own contributions, [[Battle of the Catalaunian Plains]]:
>when I wrote this about 2 years ago, I was very concerned at the time
>over introducing copywritten text, so I based it on published primary
>sources, such as _The Gothic History of Jordanes_. Undoubtedly in the
>writing of this article, I introduced my own POV & my own conclusions
>concerning the material, no matter how hard I tried not to; we all have
>conscious or unconscious biasses in the areas we are profess expertise
>in. However in this case, I submitted it fully aware of the Wiki philosophy,
>that what gets written may be subject to ruthless revisions. And my own
>attitude to the article is that if someone can improve on it by citing
>the necessary experts to confirm or replace what I wrote there, then
>it is a good thing. Here, calling something "original research" &
>insisting that the material should be deleted does nothing more than
>cause friction on Wikipedia, whereas making changes in a reasonable &
>responsible manner solves the problem -- which I assume is what we all
>want to do in the first place.
>
In some people's world original research is anything that's not a
copyvio. :-)

>I don't have a clear-cut answer for the issue of "original research" --
>except to say that I know it's a problem when I see it. But my point
>here was to argue that to address this issue we must also acknowledge
>where it poses no problem.
>
>
Yes.  But I'm afraid that that would require people to execise good
judgement and common sense. :-)

Ec


from_name: Andre Engels

body:
This would be good to look into. As others in this thread indicated,
this is about the LEAST opportune moment for the Turkish government to
do this. With the discussion of EU-membership coming up, any negative
news about the Turkish human rights situations would be most unwelcome
to the Turkish authorities. My proposed line of action would be:
1. Try to ascertain that there are indeed problems, we could for
example ask the people from the Turkish Wikipedia to try and have a
look.
2. If so, send a message to Turkish authorities, threatening with
informing European press (of course smoothed down, something like
"Before sending this information to the press, we would like to have
your reaction to ascertain that this is not a temporary technical
problem")

Andre Engels

On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 02:00:26 +0100, Erdal Ronahi <erdal.ronahi at gmx.net> wrote:

> I get reports from Turkey that Internet Cafes have begun to block
> several Kurdish sites including the Kurdish Wikipedia, which I am admin
> on. While it is known that political sites hosted in Europe are being
> censored in the whole of Turkey, the selective blocking of sites like
> Wikipedia using special software seems to be something new.
>
> After the sentencing of a dmoz editor to 10 months in prison two weeks
> ago this looks like another escalation.
>
> Before all, I want to be sure that there is a significant fall in the
> access rate from Turkey. Unfortunately the Webalizer statistics do not
> work at the moment. Can anybody with a better insight verify if there is
> a notable fall in accesses from Turkey to the Kurdish Wikipedia?


from_name: JAY JG

body:
>Hi everyone, this is my first post. I've been reading the archives
>about NPOV and "no original research" with interest, as I feel they're
>the backbone of Wikipedia. It seems to me that, taken together, they
>provide a solid policy base, with no inherent contradiction. NPOV only
>refers to Auntie Gertie's views on relativity if those views have been
>published in a reputable, and for academic subjects this means
>peer-reviewed, journal. The same goes for non-academic subjects. The
>views must have been published in a reputable newspaper or other
>publisher, where articles go through a system comparable to peer
>review by being checked by writers/journalists, editors, lawyers (or,
>at least, they're supposed to be).

The problem I've run into is that partisans on different sides of an issue
will insist that the sources brought by the other side are "biased" or not
reputable.  Is CNN reputable?  Fox?  Al Jazeera? The Jerusalem Post?  How
about Al Ahram (which, though the oldest daily newspaper in the Arab world,
has its controlled by the Egyptian Ministry of Information)?  What about
even less well known sources?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Largest encyclopedia

body:
>"Charles Matthews" wrote
>
>I really can't give any credence to the idea that edit wars could pull up
>the numbers much, averaged over the 400000 pages of the English Wikipedia.
>Not enough editwarriors to go round.

I'm not sure how that's measured; I've discovered edit wars in all sorts of
articles, and as Wikipedia becomes more famous, the number of edit warriors
seems to be growing.  That said, the new enforcement of the 3RR should help.

>In fact I would argue the diametrically opposite position.  The general
>line
>of talk that WP is in some way failing/is getting filled with rubbish/is
>losing credibility/has a serious IP vandal problem/is not applying adequate
>scholarly standards is based, as far as I can see, on very thin anecdotal
>evidence...
>And I think clicking Random Page 100 times supports the  impression that
>things improve.  One example is that the category system has come on well,
>over the past three months.

Well, some might consider that "thin anectodal evidence". ;-)


body:
> > Moreover, there is a limit to the patience of the reader.  If a reader
>has
> > to wade through lengthy sections outlining trivia, conspiracy theories,
> > fringe and crackpot views, etc. while trying to understand what is
> > significant about a particular topic, then that reader will soon either
> > lose interest in the topic, or come away with an entirely distorted
> > understanding of it.
>
>
>That would be a badly-written article in need of better summarisation.

Not easy to do, when proponents of the various fringe theories insist that
their trivia is crucial to understanding the issue.  And they tend to be
much more determined about their obsession, er, area of focus, than the
average editor.  As an example, the [[Bible]] article, intended as an
overview of the Bible, it history, canons, major translations, etc. now has
a large section in it on "The name of God as found in the Bible", simply
because certain sects (Jehova's Witnesses in particular) and people
promoting the views of a fringe author (e.g. G?rard Gertoux) are extremely
focussed on this issue. In fact, it was originally inserted into the
introduction of the article, and repeatedly reverted and defended there.
Pointing out that this is actually a minor topic more appropriate for the
[[Tetragrammaton]] article, if anywhere, eventually managed to get the
section actually expanded, and inserted into Tetragramaton as well, but at
least it is moved down the Bible page a little.  After a while the typical
editor, who doesn't think trivia deserves this kind of undue promotion, but
also doesn't really have a lot invested in this particular topic, (e.g. me)
move on, leaving the nonsense in place.

Jay.


from_name: John Lee

subject: [WikiEN-l] New policy proposal

body:
I'm forwarding this to Wikitech-l and see if the devs can have a go at it.

John Lee
([[en:User:Johnleemk]])

Robin Shannon wrote:

>A comment on said poll page -
>
>I think it's easier if we develop a Bayesian Flitering Edit system.
>The RC patrol can mark edits for a Bayesian filter to show what kind
>of changes are considered as "spamish" or "trollish"... in our case,
>"vandalism."  Then in the RC changes, have a percentage listing how
>much of a chance that the article was vandalised by the edit.  Factors
>would include large amounts of missing text, large amounts of added
>links, and so on, and so forth. --[[User:AllyUnion| AllyUnion]] [[User
>talk:AllyUnion|(talk)]] 09:13, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)
>
>So the questions are, can it be done, and how dificult would it be to do?
>
>
>


from_name: kelvSYC

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: External data

body:
> Unfortunately, Ashar, what people should use and what they do use are
> two different matters.
>

I'd like to add that, IMO, this is because people are largely unaware
of what they can use...


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] New policy proposal

references:
<006a01c4dfd1$3f2e3bd0$9e7c0450@Galasien>
	<E1CdF61-0001QN-0w@peterman.networkeleven.net>
	<006a01c4dfd1$3f2e3bd0$9e7c0450@Galasien>

body:
At 09:48 AM 12/12/2004 +1100, David Gerard wrote:
>What we need is to encourage a culture of including references. I'm trying
>to get myself better at this ... If we can get the reference syntax
>implemented, that would help tremendously. (And I'm dreaming of it doing
>fancy reference-indexing things.)

Once upon a time long long ago I remember putting in a feature request for
a simple "footnote" markup, along the lines of adding [[Note:blah blah
blah]] anywhere in the article and having it turn into a superscripted
number linking to an anchor for the text "blah blah blah" down at the very
bottom of the page. Something like that could be suitable for references
too, though it wouldn't be nice for making multiple references to the same
source scattered throughout an article. Maybe a [[Ref:blah blah blah]]
markup that automatically combines identical "blah blah" text into the same
reference at the bottom?


from_name: Robin Shannon

subject: [WikiEN-l] New policy proposal

body:
A comment on said poll page -

I think it's easier if we develop a Bayesian Flitering Edit system.
The RC patrol can mark edits for a Bayesian filter to show what kind
of changes are considered as "spamish" or "trollish"... in our case,
"vandalism."  Then in the RC changes, have a percentage listing how
much of a chance that the article was vandalised by the edit.  Factors
would include large amounts of missing text, large amounts of added
links, and so on, and so forth. --[[User:AllyUnion| AllyUnion]] [[User
talk:AllyUnion|(talk)]] 09:13, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

So the questions are, can it be done, and how dificult would it be to do?

--
hit me: robin.shannon.id.au
jab me: saudade at jabber.zim.net.au

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons
Recombo Plus License. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/sampling+/1.0/


from_name: Charles Matthews

body:
Nicholas Knight wrote

> There is also no reason to get piqued over his use of the term "science
> lobby". It is a generic label for advocates of mainstream science.

Is that so?  Not familiar to me, so I took the trouble of looking through
the first 100 Google hits.  Not much except in relation to funding; which is
what I expected - the classic work of [[F. M. Cornford]], nearly a century
ago, pointed out that scientists do lobby, for money.

So, it may be 'generic', but not that common.  WP has no article about
[[science lobby]].  More to the point, Disinfopedia has none, though I found
some stuff about pro-GM lobbying.

So, seems to me this is jargon.

Charles


from_name: Yann Forget

subject: [Textbook-l] Activity (was "Trading cards and their data")

body:
Hi,

Le Friday 10 December 2004 22:21, Marius Scurtescu a ?crit :
> Unfortunately this list is not very active and this could be a major
> problem for Wikibooks. I saw some comments that Wikibooks is not
> taking off as expected, the problem could be the fact that there is no
> community to push it.

Yes, there is a maintenance problem on the English Wikibooks (I?don't about
other languages except French which is fine).

Although I?already deleted more 500 pages including content moved, junk,
spams, and newbie tests, there still are hundreds of pages to be deleted,
cleaned, linked or corrected, including nearly 500 orphaned pages, pages
tagged for deletion since ages, etc.

* http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Special:Lonelypages
* http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Votes_for_deletion
* http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Delete
* http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Yann/Talk_orphaned
* http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:VfD
*
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Bereits_nach_de.wikibooks.org_verschoben

BTW, user Attention-tunnel blanked a number of pages.?Is this vandalism or
not ?
http://en.wikibooks.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=Attention-tunnel

> Not sure what could be done, I am very new to Wikibooks and this list.
>
> Any suggestions?
>
> Marius

Regards,
Yann
--
http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclop?die libre
http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux


subject: [WikiEN-l] New policy proposal

body:
WikiUser wrote

> Can you give any examples of what you mean by "egregious trolls and pov
pushers"? Also of the "boundless good will."? Also, who is meant by "we" and
"our"? -WikiUser.

Of course Jimbo can; and of course he isn't going to make pointed personal
remarks.  And if he can't speak of 'we', the community of Wiki-en or
Wikipedia as a whole or Wikimedia as a whole (take your pick), I wonder who
can.

For the record, I think POV pushing is the single problem in relation to WP
to which we don't have a working solution, as of end 2004.  So I'm entirely
behind Jimbo's analysis of the challenge.  We have the eyeballs to
fact-check with, in many areas; we have the eyeballs to see what is too
vague to be checkable, as a practical matter if not as a legalistic
definition.  What we don't have, in practice, and what I feel the lack of,
is the way of defining a 'pattern of POV editing' that would warrant warning
and then sanctions.  This ought to be seen as the current defining issue.
Anyway, this all points back to the ArbCom elections as the real focus of
Wiki-en's public life; which is only right and proper.

Charles


from_name: Erdal Ronahi

body:
Hi,

>This would be good to look into. As others in this thread indicated,
>this is about the LEAST opportune moment for the Turkish government to
>do this.
>
>
Although I have no sympathy for the present Turkish government, I must
state that I am NOT talking about a block on a countrywide level. There
are people I personally know that are contributing from inside Turkey.
But one contributer stated that he used to work from internet cafes and
that it is usual that Kurdish sites are being censored there. Just that
some of the cafes seem to have added Wikipedia to the blacklist is new.

Turkey is not as 100% government controlled as China or Iran may be, it
may well be a censorship in the initiative of local autorities or
individual internet cafe owners.

>With the discussion of EU-membership coming up, any negative
>news about the Turkish human rights situations would be most unwelcome
>to the Turkish authorities.
>
That is true, but last week a 12-year old boy was killed with 13 bullets
from the gun of a military, so internet censorship is not one of the
major problems today. The disappointing fact is that Europe does more
think of itself (muslims, migration etc.) than of the human rights
situation in Turkey.

>My proposed line of action would be:
>1. Try to ascertain that there are indeed problems
>
That's what I originally intended with my posting. I used to read the
Webalizer statistics, but they have been unavailable for quite a while now.

>example ask the people from the Turkish Wikipedia to try and have a
>look.
>
>
Most of them contribute form the USA, but it's worth a try.

Greetings, Erdal


subject: [WikiEN-l] New policy proposal

body:
David Gerard wrote

> What we need is to encourage a culture of including references.

I'm happy if I can get a good book or two referenced, and an external link
or so to corroborate.  I am totally against having to footnote everything.
That is a lame way to have to write - training wheels for Ph.D. students.

Basic point for me, in fact becoming fundamental: WP is not an academic
institution, and can't afford 'guild restrictions'.  Leaving the question of
what it is.

We need to have the word 'para-academic' in mind.  WP can be everyone's
resource of quick access, to extent that they have an Internet connection.
WP can be one of the Seven Wonders of the Web.  WP can make para-academic
sound very good: not the thesis of 300000 words on a humanities subject, but
the executive summary.  Please don't tell me that WP can go head-to-head
with academia.  Of course cranking up the standards would help, generally
speaking; of course making formats for references less slapdash, and having
some editing tools for that, would also be a plus.

Charles


list: foundation-l

from_name: Dori

subject: [Foundation-l] e-gold proposal

body:
Nice pitch, but I still don't get what Wikimedia would have to do.
When you say "Post a prominent link to the e-gold site" do you mean a
link on the wiki pages itself, or do you mean a link on a single page,
specifically http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising (like the
already existing PayPal ones)?

I also don't get the referral system. Would e-gold donate to Wikimedia
besides what the users are donating? Does this effectively mean that
the percentage that e-gold takes from the user donation will be
smaller for Wikimedia?

On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 23:54:17 -0500, Douglas Jackson <djackson at e-gold.com> wrote:
>
> A proposal follows that is commercial in nature. I am posting it to this
> list per the instructions of one of the Wikimedia Foundation Board members.
> *****************
> I would like to encourage the Wikimedia Foundation to:
>
>     * Accept e-gold www.e-gold.com donations,
>     * Post a prominent link to the e-gold site, using syntax that would
>       enable the Foundation to capture referral incentives.
>
> e-gold is an alternative payment system that mobilizes the value of
> gold, as currency, for payments over the Internet. Online since 1996,
> the e-gold system serves over 1.5 million users in 165 countries. In
> 2003 alone, the e-gold system processed 15 million payments, conveying
> an aggregate value of $700 million. The e-gold website receives about
> one million visits per week. There is over $26 million worth of e-gold
> in continuous circulation, backed by 1.88 metric tonnes of physical gold
> in appropriate custodial arrangements. The system is highly robust
> technically and can scale readily.
>
> It costs nothing to create an e-gold account. There is no obligation and
> e-gold never sells/releases customer information (without a court
> order). There is no fee for the payer who makes an e-gold  payment. The
> payment processing fee is deducted from the recipient. It is around 5%
> for tiny micropayments but quickly falls below 1% for larger value
> payments. The maximum fee is 5 centigrams of e-gold, equivalent to about
> 70 cents at current exchange rates.
>
> Every e-gold account can pay or receive payment and there is no merchant
> application process required to use the e-gold automation interfaces.
> The pertinent automation interface is the e-gold Shopping Cart
> Interface. It can be implemented in a simplified form in a few minutes.
> The full spec is at http://sci.e-gold.com
>
> The unique characteristics that would make e-gold advantageous for the
> Wikimedia Foundation include:
>
>     * e-gold is truly global, enabling Wikimedia to receive donations
>       from China or anywhere else as readily as from the US,
>     * e-gold payments settle immediately and are irreversible.
>
> The bits that sometimes confuse people...
>
>     * Since e-gold represents real gold, it is denominated in weight
>       units. This is best understood by thinking of e-gold as if it were
>       a foreign currency. Like any other currency, its exchange value
>       relative to the US dollar will continuously fluctuate. This is a
>       source of exchange rate risk, but can also be a good thing.
>     * People often ask "How do I get e-gold". The rigorously precise
>       answer is "just like you get any other money - you receive a
>       payment from someone who already has some". Practically speaking
>       though, what people generally mean by their question is "where can
>       I exchange dollars to get e-gold?". Well, for purposes of the
>       Foundation accepting e-gold payments, the answer is "Who cares?
>       The Foundation would be receiving donations and it doesn't matter
>       how the people clicking to the Foundation acquired their e-gold.
>       If there was a cost involved, none of that cost is passed through
>       or borne by the Foundation". But the answer you probably think you
>       are looking for is "Go to www.omnipay.com (OmniPay is a company in
>       Melbourne, FL that I'm CEO of) and use the exchange interface.
>       OmniPay has the most competitive spreads for exchanging USD for
>       e-gold and vice versa".
>
> Sorry for such a long post. But one more thing in closing. e-gold is an
> alternative that complements other payment systems. You would continue
> to accept whatever modes of payment you already do. But in adding
> e-gold, depending on the extent to which your website said nice things
> about it and/or emphasized the links, you could benefit pretty
> substantially by introducing your community of users to it. The e-gold
> Referral Incentive Program is detailed at
> http://www.e-gold.com/unsecure/incentive.htm
>
> eff.org and mozilla.org accept e-gold donations too.
>
> sincere regards,
> Dr. Douglas Jackson
> Chairman, e-gold Ltd.
> CEO, OmniPay
> djackson at e-gold.com
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
[[en:User:Dori]]


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] e-gold proposal


from_name: Douglas Jackson

subject: [Foundation-l] e-gold proposal

body:
A proposal follows that is commercial in nature. I am posting it to this
list per the instructions of one of the Wikimedia Foundation Board members.
*****************
I would like to encourage the Wikimedia Foundation to:

    * Accept e-gold www.e-gold.com donations,
    * Post a prominent link to the e-gold site, using syntax that would
      enable the Foundation to capture referral incentives.

e-gold is an alternative payment system that mobilizes the value of
gold, as currency, for payments over the Internet. Online since 1996,
the e-gold system serves over 1.5 million users in 165 countries. In
2003 alone, the e-gold system processed 15 million payments, conveying
an aggregate value of $700 million. The e-gold website receives about
one million visits per week. There is over $26 million worth of e-gold
in continuous circulation, backed by 1.88 metric tonnes of physical gold
in appropriate custodial arrangements. The system is highly robust
technically and can scale readily.

It costs nothing to create an e-gold account. There is no obligation and
e-gold never sells/releases customer information (without a court
order). There is no fee for the payer who makes an e-gold  payment. The
payment processing fee is deducted from the recipient. It is around 5%
for tiny micropayments but quickly falls below 1% for larger value
payments. The maximum fee is 5 centigrams of e-gold, equivalent to about
70 cents at current exchange rates.

Every e-gold account can pay or receive payment and there is no merchant
application process required to use the e-gold automation interfaces.
The pertinent automation interface is the e-gold Shopping Cart
Interface. It can be implemented in a simplified form in a few minutes.
The full spec is at http://sci.e-gold.com

The unique characteristics that would make e-gold advantageous for the
Wikimedia Foundation include:

    * e-gold is truly global, enabling Wikimedia to receive donations
      from China or anywhere else as readily as from the US,
    * e-gold payments settle immediately and are irreversible.

The bits that sometimes confuse people...

    * Since e-gold represents real gold, it is denominated in weight
      units. This is best understood by thinking of e-gold as if it were
      a foreign currency. Like any other currency, its exchange value
      relative to the US dollar will continuously fluctuate. This is a
      source of exchange rate risk, but can also be a good thing.
    * People often ask "How do I get e-gold". The rigorously precise
      answer is "just like you get any other money - you receive a
      payment from someone who already has some". Practically speaking
      though, what people generally mean by their question is "where can
      I exchange dollars to get e-gold?". Well, for purposes of the
      Foundation accepting e-gold payments, the answer is "Who cares?
      The Foundation would be receiving donations and it doesn't matter
      how the people clicking to the Foundation acquired their e-gold.
      If there was a cost involved, none of that cost is passed through
      or borne by the Foundation". But the answer you probably think you
      are looking for is "Go to www.omnipay.com (OmniPay is a company in
      Melbourne, FL that I'm CEO of) and use the exchange interface.
      OmniPay has the most competitive spreads for exchanging USD for
      e-gold and vice versa".

Sorry for such a long post. But one more thing in closing. e-gold is an
alternative that complements other payment systems. You would continue
to accept whatever modes of payment you already do. But in adding
e-gold, depending on the extent to which your website said nice things
about it and/or emphasized the links, you could benefit pretty
substantially by introducing your community of users to it. The e-gold
Referral Incentive Program is detailed at
http://www.e-gold.com/unsecure/incentive.htm

eff.org and mozilla.org accept e-gold donations too.

sincere regards,
Dr. Douglas Jackson
Chairman, e-gold Ltd.
CEO, OmniPay
djackson at e-gold.com


subject: [Foundation-l] e-gold proposal


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikinews Licensing

body:
--- user_Jamesday <user_Jamesday at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> Copyleft effectively kills any chance of it entering the mainstream press.
> It'll be effectively impossible for any mainstream publication to use any of
> the stories if there's a requirement that their work be released under a
> license incompatible with all of their existing licenses.

Not so. The license will only affect whatever article they copy. If the
CC-by-sa is used, then all they need do is add an attribution line at the end
of the article and mention of the license. Extending the same rights to users
of their version as we have given to them is not asking much at all. Pretty
darn cheap price in fact.

More at:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikinews/License_straw_poll

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
All your favorites on one personal page ? Try My Yahoo!
http://my.yahoo.com


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikinews Licensing


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: External data

body:
>>> Unfortunately, Ashar, what people should use and what they do use are
>>> two different matters.
>>>
>>
>> I'd like to add that, IMO, this is because people are largely unaware
>> of what they can use...
>>
> It is all well and good to be in favour of using Firefox and, I use
> Firefox with pleasure HOWEVER, when used with texts in Farsi, and
> Arabic IE is to be preferred, it allows me to upload soundfiles with a
> name consisting of mixed alphabetic and arabic text. When reading a
> Farsi text, the default size of texts is such that you can read the
> characters with IE while they are almost  unreadable because of their
> small size with Firefox. Add to that this, the pesky upload symbol
> that makes the first character unreadable and I must say that the case
> for IE is overwhelming in favour.
>
> Just saying that Firefox is better is plain stupid when the argument
> IS that it does underperform. Saying that this "download figure" can
> be fixed is nice but it does not help the case for Firefox until it is
> fixed. So I am fully aware why there is a such a strong case for IE
> and against Firefox when used with Farsi and propably Urdu, Arabic and
> Hebrew.
>

Well, I learned something new today - never try to be funny on a
mailing list.  Seriously, I was never referring to Firefox or any other
user-agent in particular (I for one regularly use three browsers - none
of which are IE or a Mozilla-brand derivative - for absolutely no
reason, not to mention various other programs that make use of the
internet).  The people that I work with are just like that - they stick
to IE because they do not know of any alternative, and will stand by it
despite whatever flaws it may have.  Of course, you have an equally
valid argument - I haven't have yet worked with a person who used any
language from the Middle East...

One thing I don't like too much about Firefox is its lack of support
for inline-block.


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Firefox vs. other browsers

body:
I think the key here is, when using Windows, what version of Uniscribe
you are using, not the browser (also, it may depend on what font you
are using - some fonts have opentype tables for diacritic positioning,
others don't).

Multiple diacritics display fine for me in Hebrew, I can use the
Nafees Nastaleeq font (for Urdu), bn.wikipedia and ml.wikipedia are
rendered properly (bo.wikipedia renders properly in an edit window,
but not viewing).

One problem is that FireFox doesn't allow the degree of control that
IE does where assigning specific fonts for specific Unicode ranges is
concerned. Instead, it seems it selects automatically whatever the
first font it finds that supports it at all (Arial Unicode MS
"supports" Tibetan, but it doesn't really - it should preferably use
Tibetan Machine Uni or as a secondary choice TibetanUchen). And if a
page has a language header, it will use that and ignore any specific
font tags on the page - try viewing http://zh-min-nan.wikipedia.org/
in FireFox (make sure you have Chinese fonts installed first, or you
won't be able to replicate this) and rather than displaying in a nice
Roman font like Tahoma like it should (and does in IE), it displays in
the default Chinese font. This is annoying, because although it is
readable, it is EXTREMELY ugly and a bit difficult to read fluently.

I would expect with FireFox that I could have even better control,
perhaps even by entering custom unicode ranges and then selecting the
fonts to use for them (IE is limited to a list of Unicode ranges,
which doesn't include all of them).

Mark

PS

Speaking of people simply not knowing, I got my mom using FF, but she
switched back after it gave her problems - her job at the time
required her to log in to the same website with multiple IDs at the
same time. I asked many different people how to do that, I did what
they said, but nothing worked. But in IE, it's very easy. And it
seemed like people were like "Oh, did you try this? Didn't work? Oh
well." which can hardly be a good thing for FireFox.

On Sun, 12 Dec 2004 04:07:19 -0500, Olve Utne <utne at nvg.org> wrote:
> Hello Gerard M.,
> On Sun, 12 Dec 2004 08:52:03 +0100, you wrote:
> >Just saying that Firefox is better is plain stupid when the argument
> >IS  that it does underperform. [...] So I am fully aware why there is a
> >such a strong case for IE and  against Firefox when used with Farsi and
> >propably Urdu, Arabic and Hebrew.
>
> I agree, and I can confirm your suspicions regarding Hebrew. I have tested
> recent versions of Firefox and Mozilla with Hebrew, and neither of them can
> handle complex Hebrew text with combined diacritics and cantillation marks.
> I believe it is a case of varying degrees of support for glyph-substituting
> in complex combinations. Opera is best on this, with IE as a good #2.  A
> problem with Opera in Windows seems to be that it corrupts pictures when
> downloading them from Wikipedia. Therefore, I personally use Opera for most
> things, and IE when needing to download Wikipedia images.
>
> (Another problem with Opera is that it is in some ways less up to it when
> it comes to CSS than IE is. In that respect, Mozilla and Firefox does a bit
> better than Opera, but they are both actually outperformed by IE when it
> comes to scrollbar properties, block-align by css in table cells, etc.)
>
> That does not by any means mean that I am particularly fond of IE...! It is
> just that it is one of the two Windows browsers I know of that can actually
> handle Hebrew properly. Not because I am stupid or uninformed, but because
> I need something that Firefox and Mozilla (and sometimes also Opera) do not
> in fact provide.
>
> -Olve
>
> ___________________
>
> Olve Utne
> http://utne.nvg.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Olve Utne

body:
Hello Gerard M.,
On Sun, 12 Dec 2004 08:52:03 +0100, you wrote:
>Just saying that Firefox is better is plain stupid when the argument
>IS  that it does underperform. [...] So I am fully aware why there is a
>such a strong case for IE and  against Firefox when used with Farsi and
>propably Urdu, Arabic and Hebrew.

I agree, and I can confirm your suspicions regarding Hebrew. I have tested
recent versions of Firefox and Mozilla with Hebrew, and neither of them can
handle complex Hebrew text with combined diacritics and cantillation marks.
I believe it is a case of varying degrees of support for glyph-substituting
in complex combinations. Opera is best on this, with IE as a good #2.  A
problem with Opera in Windows seems to be that it corrupts pictures when
downloading them from Wikipedia. Therefore, I personally use Opera for most
things, and IE when needing to download Wikipedia images.

(Another problem with Opera is that it is in some ways less up to it when
it comes to CSS than IE is. In that respect, Mozilla and Firefox does a bit
better than Opera, but they are both actually outperformed by IE when it
comes to scrollbar properties, block-align by css in table cells, etc.)

That does not by any means mean that I am particularly fond of IE...! It is
just that it is one of the two Windows browsers I know of that can actually
handle Hebrew properly. Not because I am stupid or uninformed, but because
I need something that Firefox and Mozilla (and sometimes also Opera) do not
in fact provide.

-Olve

___________________

Olve Utne
http://utne.nvg.org


from_name: David Gerard

body:
JAY JG (jayjg at hotmail.com) [041211 15:47]:
> Shane King wrote:

> >There is no size limit to Wikipedia.

> Perhaps in theory.  In practice Wikipedia is straining under the existing
> load.  Loading small articles can take up to a minute.  Simple edits on
> articles can take 20 minutes, requiring multiple re-tries.   Users are
> randomly and frequently logged out.   Adding every conceivable fringe
> theory or position to existing articles, not to mention the current
> penchant for adding articles on every high school in North America (and
> similar trivia), will only make that worse.

Er, no - the load comes from the rate of edits, not the number of articles.

> Moreover, there is a limit to the patience of the reader.  If a reader has
> to wade through lengthy sections outlining trivia, conspiracy theories,
> fringe and crackpot views, etc. while trying to understand what is
> significant about a particular topic, then that reader will soon either
> lose interest in the topic, or come away with an entirely distorted
> understanding of it.

That would be a badly-written article in need of better summarisation.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Largest encyclopedia

body:
Jay JG wrote

> >"Charles Matthews" wrote

> >And I think clicking Random Page 100 times supports the  impression that
> >things improve.  One example is that the category system has come on
well,
> >over the past three months.
>
> Well, some might consider that "thin anectodal evidence". ;-)

Not really.  It's a repeatable experiment, and can produce confidence in its
results as it is repeated.  For example noting the number of uncategorised
pages in 100 random ones gives an estimator of the proportion in the whole.
Do it a few times, and the estimated proportion should settle down to the
real figure.  That does assume that Random Page is uniform over all main
space pages (which might be wrong).

Charles


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 17, Issue 16

body:
Robert Graham Merkel wrote

> Notwithstanding this, referencing is *essential*.  How else are we
> supposed to fact-check the Wikipedia?

I'd answer that in several ways:

(i) citing references for things not hard to check independently is not
necessarily important or useful (the Queen Victoria article currently on the
Main Page doesn't need to supply a reference for her dates);
(ii) anyone can use a talk page to ask for references and start a discussion
on sources.

The conclusion from that much is that referencing should be targeted.  It is
best if it goes to the crux of an argument.

(iii) I recently added a [[J. H. Hexter]] page - he it was who got the
historians talking about 'splitters' and 'lumpers' of source material.

Conclusion is that references are not solely about supporting facts or
enabling fact-checking. They are partly to do with how you use your
highlighter pen on the background material.

(iv) I found the [[objectivity (journalism)]] page interesting when I saw it
(a few changes since that), though not necessarily because I entirely
agreed.

It is sometimes suggested that American and European journalism differ on
the place of fact-checking.  (Certainly UK newspapers are quite
free-wheeling, and are not necessarily the worse - at least they aren't
bland, though often bad too.)

Anyway, WP should try to get along with principles like Assume Good Faith
and collegiality, as well as style guides.  Editors of WP pages should be
assumed in the first instance to have reasons for writng as they do, and can
be asked politely to support unclear and contentious points.

Charles


subject: [Foundation-l] e-gold proposal

body:
Dori wrote:

>Nice pitch, but I still don't get what Wikimedia would have to do.
>When you say "Post a prominent link to the e-gold site" do you mean a
>link on the wiki pages itself, or do you mean a link on a single page,
>specifically http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising (like the
>already existing PayPal ones)?
>
The link to the e-gold site isn't essential or required. Its just a way
to capitalize on the likelihood that many members of the Wiki community
never heard of e-gold before. That would be good for you because if they
visit the e-gold site by following a link structured like
http://www.e-gold.com/e-gold.asp?cid={your account number} and end up
eventually creating an e-gold account and using it, a portion of all
e-gold payment processing fees generated by their subsequent usage would
automatically be distributed to the account you designate. It is a
permanent entitlement. Whatever these new e-gold users do over the
years, whether buying stuff online (as more prominent merchants
eventually undertake to accept e-gold), paying bills, or using it for
international remittances, their activity would still be generating
revenue for the Foundation.

>
>I also don't get the referral system. Would e-gold donate to Wikimedia
>besides what the users are donating? Does this effectively mean that
>the percentage that e-gold takes from the user donation will be
>smaller for Wikimedia?
>
Yes, that is, the part about the net transaction fee being even lower
after taking the incentive bit into account. In fact you could game it a
little further by having the Foundation set up an account first that was
only for the purpose of receiving incentive revenue, then making sure
that that account was the "Originator" of the e-gold account you use for
accepting donations. The net effect would be to lower the (already low)
transaction fee 10-20%.

One of our tech people could walk your tech guys through any subtleties
of implementing the e-gold Shopping Cart Interface and optimizing the
logic of referral links.

>
>On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 23:54:17 -0500, Douglas Jackson <djackson at e-gold.com> wrote:
>
>
>>A proposal follows that is commercial in nature. I am posting it to this
>>list per the instructions of one of the Wikimedia Foundation Board members.
>>*****************
>>I would like to encourage the Wikimedia Foundation to:
>>
>>    * Accept e-gold www.e-gold.com donations,
>>    * Post a prominent link to the e-gold site, using syntax that would
>>      enable the Foundation to capture referral incentives.
>>
>>e-gold is an alternative payment system that mobilizes the value of
>>gold, as currency, for payments over the Internet. Online since 1996,
>>the e-gold system serves over 1.5 million users in 165 countries. In
>>2003 alone, the e-gold system processed 15 million payments, conveying
>>an aggregate value of $700 million. The e-gold website receives about
>>one million visits per week. There is over $26 million worth of e-gold
>>in continuous circulation, backed by 1.88 metric tonnes of physical gold
>>in appropriate custodial arrangements. The system is highly robust
>>technically and can scale readily.
>>
>>It costs nothing to create an e-gold account. There is no obligation and
>>e-gold never sells/releases customer information (without a court
>>order). There is no fee for the payer who makes an e-gold  payment. The
>>payment processing fee is deducted from the recipient. It is around 5%
>>for tiny micropayments but quickly falls below 1% for larger value
>>payments. The maximum fee is 5 centigrams of e-gold, equivalent to about
>>70 cents at current exchange rates.
>>
>>Every e-gold account can pay or receive payment and there is no merchant
>>application process required to use the e-gold automation interfaces.
>>The pertinent automation interface is the e-gold Shopping Cart
>>Interface. It can be implemented in a simplified form in a few minutes.
>>The full spec is at http://sci.e-gold.com
>>
>>The unique characteristics that would make e-gold advantageous for the
>>Wikimedia Foundation include:
>>
>>    * e-gold is truly global, enabling Wikimedia to receive donations
>>      from China or anywhere else as readily as from the US,
>>    * e-gold payments settle immediately and are irreversible.
>>
>>The bits that sometimes confuse people...
>>
>>    * Since e-gold represents real gold, it is denominated in weight
>>      units. This is best understood by thinking of e-gold as if it were
>>      a foreign currency. Like any other currency, its exchange value
>>      relative to the US dollar will continuously fluctuate. This is a
>>      source of exchange rate risk, but can also be a good thing.
>>    * People often ask "How do I get e-gold". The rigorously precise
>>      answer is "just like you get any other money - you receive a
>>      payment from someone who already has some". Practically speaking
>>      though, what people generally mean by their question is "where can
>>      I exchange dollars to get e-gold?". Well, for purposes of the
>>      Foundation accepting e-gold payments, the answer is "Who cares?
>>      The Foundation would be receiving donations and it doesn't matter
>>      how the people clicking to the Foundation acquired their e-gold.
>>      If there was a cost involved, none of that cost is passed through
>>      or borne by the Foundation". But the answer you probably think you
>>      are looking for is "Go to www.omnipay.com (OmniPay is a company in
>>      Melbourne, FL that I'm CEO of) and use the exchange interface.
>>      OmniPay has the most competitive spreads for exchanging USD for
>>      e-gold and vice versa".
>>
>>Sorry for such a long post. But one more thing in closing. e-gold is an
>>alternative that complements other payment systems. You would continue
>>to accept whatever modes of payment you already do. But in adding
>>e-gold, depending on the extent to which your website said nice things
>>about it and/or emphasized the links, you could benefit pretty
>>substantially by introducing your community of users to it. The e-gold
>>Referral Incentive Program is detailed at
>>http://www.e-gold.com/unsecure/incentive.htm
>>
>>eff.org and mozilla.org accept e-gold donations too.
>>
>>sincere regards,
>>Dr. Douglas Jackson
>>Chairman, e-gold Ltd.
>>CEO, OmniPay
>>djackson at e-gold.com
>>_______________________________________________
>>foundation-l mailing list
>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] e-gold proposal


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: External data

body:
kelvSYC wrote:

>> Unfortunately, Ashar, what people should use and what they do use are
>> two different matters.
>>
>
> I'd like to add that, IMO, this is because people are largely unaware
> of what they can use...
>
It is all well and good to be in favour of using Firefox and, I use
Firefox with pleasure HOWEVER, when used with texts in Farsi, and Arabic
IE is to be preferred, it allows me to upload soundfiles with a name
consisting of mixed alphabetic and arabic text. When reading a Farsi
text, the default size of texts is such that you can read the characters
with IE while they are almost  unreadable because of their small size
with Firefox. Add to that this, the pesky upload symbol that makes the
first character unreadable and I must say that the case for IE is
overwhelming in favour.

Just saying that Firefox is better is plain stupid when the argument IS
that it does underperform. Saying that this "download figure" can be
fixed is nice but it does not help the case for Firefox until it is
fixed. So I am fully aware why there is a such a strong case for IE and
against Firefox when used with Farsi and propably Urdu, Arabic and Hebrew.

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikinews: State of the Wiki

body:
I have posted a brief summary of the first month of Wikinews operations
and my thoughts on where the project is going:

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/User:Eloquence/State_of_the_Wiki

This summary can also be used for the next WikiQuarto newsletter.

All best,

Erik


subject: Fwd: [Foundation-l] e-gold proposal

body:
On Sun, 12 Dec 2004 07:15:34 -0500, Douglas Jackson <djackson at e-gold.com> wrote:

> The link to the e-gold site isn't essential or required. Its
> just a way to capitalize on the likelihood that many members of the Wiki
> community never heard of e-gold before. That would be good for you because
> if they visit the e-gold site by following a link structured like
> http://www.e-gold.com/e-gold.asp?cid={your account number} and end up
> eventually creating an e-gold account and using it, a portion of all e-gold
> payment processing fees generated by their subsequent usage would
> automatically be distributed to the account you designate. It is a permanent
> entitlement. Whatever these new e-gold users do over the years, whether
> buying stuff online (as more prominent merchants eventually undertake to
> accept e-gold), paying bills, or using it for international remittances,
> their activity would still be generating revenue for the Foundation.

If it's only a link in the donations page, while making sure that the
arrangement is fully explained and that there are no legal problems
with the non-profit status, then it's a matter for the board to decide
I would think. Personally, I seriously doubt there would be that many
people who would make use of it to generate any significant funds.

--
[[en:User:Dori]]


subject: Fwd: [Foundation-l] e-gold proposal