subject: [Foundation-l] Stewards elections

body:
Leaving and coming back because somebody sneezed in the bad direction is part of the communauty fun. If it comes to make stewards without a huge vote, and if you need like 10 people, please count me as a candidate. I  can handle fr and en  but also es, it, pt, de (little), nl (little), zh (bits), ja (bits) and have accounts in these languages. Otherwise, I'll jusy stay in my niche. Cheers,
villy

| RePS : Danny decided to quit Wikipedia (according to
| his page temporarily - well, I hope) because of
| something I told him after he wrote his comment to
| this list. I apology to him since I did not want to
| hurt him in any way.


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Jean-Christophe Chazalette

subject: [Foundation-l] Stewards elections


list: wikien-l

from_name: AndyL

body:
Well if the complainant is acting or has acted badly that should be taken by
the ArbComm as a mitigating factor in favour of the respondant when
considering the complainant's complaint but no more than that. While I could
see an ArbComm suggesting to a respondent (or other participants) that
he/she/they file their own arbitration request against the complainant for
the ArbComm to take that step unilaterally is improper. I think the ArbComm
has rather unilaterally expanded its powers without seeking any sort of
consent from the wikicommunity. Is there a space where we can debate and
vote upon a resolution re the ArbComm's rules and authority?

Andy

on 3/3/05 10:47 PM, Fred Bauder at fredbaud at ctelco.net wrote:

> I think that is generally true, however I think we are right to look at the
> general pattern of the user's behavior. For example if one person is
> complaining about personal attacks we ought to take into consideration
> whether the user is making a lot of personal attacks against a lot of users.
> Another area that I think can be taken into consideration is actions that
> are taken during arbitration either towards the arbitrators or that affect
> the arbitration, deleting evidence or moving it all around.
>
> Fred
>
>> From: AndyL <andyl2004 at sympatico.ca>
>> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>> Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 22:16:38 -0500
>> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'?
>>
>> My feeling is that it is not the place of the Arbcomm to effectively file a
>> countersuit. If the respondent to a complaint, or anyone else, has a
>> grievance against the complainant than let them file their own Request for
>> Arbitration. The "terms of reference" if you like should be set in the RFA,
>> if the arbitrators don't like them then they shouldn't sign on to the
>> arbitration and if not enough arbitrators agree with the terms the
>> arbitration will not get off the ground. It is quite inappropriate, I think,
>> for the arbitrators to unilaterally expand the terms of reference to include
>> issues not brought up in the initial request.
>>
>> on 3/3/05 9:45 PM, Fred Bauder at fredbaud at ctelco.net wrote:
>>
>>> The reason I didn't recuse myself is because I am not prejudiced for or
>>> against you. I may have errored by examining issues that were outside the
>>> scope of the arbitration.
>>>
>>> Fred
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy

body:
David Gerard wrote:

> Rick wrote:
>
>> But that's not what's being proposed here.  What's
>> being proposed is, if anybody coming into the
>> discussion thinks that the reason for the listing
>> isn't acceptable, they can just delete it from the VfD
>> page.  Why not just let it run its course, and vote
>> Keep?  Because radical inclusionists are afraid they'd
>> lose the vote.  ~~~~
>
> No, I'm proposing it (not a strawman "radical inclusionist")
> because there's a shitload of nominations that have had *no
> listed rationale*. They're on the order of "I've never heard
> of it so it's not notable" - measuring the content of
> Wikipedia by their ignorance. They're nominations that, per
> the policy *shouldn't be there at all*, and make VFD
> unfeasibly long.

If this is the problem, it seems to me that a good way to deal with the
problem is to correct only the problem at hand. Somehow this discussion
has morphed into a debate that seems to some people like it's a major
overhaul of VfD practice, which is guaranteed to fire up another round
of the classic inclusionist/deletionist flamewar.

Quite simply, if articles are nominated for deletion with no
justification at all, I think it's fine to remove them with no further
inquiry. If the justification is shoddy, I would recommend asking for
better reasons first, and then removing the listing later if they're not
forthcoming. This shifts the responsibility for justifying deletion back
where it belongs, and gives less appearance of short-circuiting the process.

For people using "not notable" or "not encyclopedic" as bare-bones
justifications, I would suggest that they retrain themselves to
elaborate a little bit more. By themselves, these are meaningless
shorthand for "should be deleted" - we know that already, that's why you
came to the page. Point out that you put in a little bit of effort to be
confident that it doesn't belong. "I've never heard of it and couldn't
find any evidence that anyone else has, either" will go a lot farther
than "I've never heard of it so it must not be notable".

--Michael Snow


from_name: Rhobite

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Nofollow vote results on en.wikipedia

body:
On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 21:58:39 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway
<minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> Tomer Chachamu said:
> > On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 20:27:41 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway
> > <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> >> > Remove "nofollow" -- 61% (85 votes)
> >> > Keep "nofollow"   -- 39% (55 votes)
> >>
> >> This is not a consensus.  There is no need to take any action.
> >
> > Don't be ridiculous. In such a case, where there is a clear majority
> > *and the decision is instantly reversible*, the rel="nofollow" should
> > be removed.
>
> Absolutely not. We do things by consensus of en.wikipedia.  I suggest we
> continue this discussion on wikien-l where it belongs.

How is that fair? Consensus works when one choice is safe or
conservative, such as keeping an article on VfD. This is a simple
yes/no decision, so consensus doesn't apply here. Neither choice
should be unfairly weighted in the voting. The community feels that
external links should not have ref="nofollow". If a higher burden is
required, it should be placed on those who approve of nofollow links,
since it's a recent change. Don't place the burden on people who just
want to go back to the way it's worked for years.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 172 de-sysopped

body:
Has 172 been "resysopped" in the absence of either an arbcomm or some other
community decision to "desyssop" him?

Andy

on 3/1/05 11:59 PM, Anthere at anthere9 at yahoo.com wrote:

>
>
> csherlock at ljh.com.au a ?crit:
>> Poor, Edmund W wrote:
>>
>>> I de-sysoped 172, as he seems to have managed to start Wikipedia's first
>>> Blocking War. The problem is, I haphazardly blocked 3 other admins too,
>>> and one of them's mad at me.
>>>
>>> I wish Snowspinner had e-mailed me or met me in talk first; he's put in
>>> a RFA instead. Well, I can't say I didn't deserve it.
>>> It all has to do with the 3RR, sock-puppets and global warming. Any two
>>> of which is enough to push people's buttons in Our Town.
>>>
>>> Or is it Peyton Place?
>>>
>>> Ed Poor
>>
>>
>> Out of interest, was their an RFC filed on this administrator before
>> this action was carried out? Shouldn't there be a more transparent and
>> formal process in place when it comes to desysoping admins?
>>
>> TBSDY
>
> There is a clear process to desysop people; It is (ahum) on
> *technically* possible to developers and stewards.
>
> Developers can do it in case of urgency.
> But normally it is done by stewards.
> The current stewards are
>
> * Andre Engels (en, nl, de, fr, nds, ...)
> * Angela (en)
> * Anthere (fr, en)
> * ArnoLagrange (fr, eo, en, es, it, de, ...)
> * Daniel Mayer (en, es)
> * Fantasy (en, de, it, fr, es)
> * Karl Wick (en, es)
> * Looxix (fr, en, nl)
>
> Stewards can set or remove status from anyone, on any projects. The
> transparency is ensured through the bureaucrat log on meta. Requests for
> status are also made on meta, publicly :
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_permissions
>
> Stewards are not supposed to desysoped anyone just because they feel
> like it; They do it after community agreement, and there is a sorta rule
> that a steward avoid doing so in his own language project (for example,
> Fantazy avoids desysoping people on german, and Mav would avoids on
> en... when it is a community decision, not a personal request...).
>
> We desysoped a couple of people in the past year. Some on en, a serious
> lot on de, very recently on ja. And a good bunch of tired wikipedians in
> need of a break.
>
> In short, except for urgency, no desysoping should take place on the
> english wikipedia without first arbcom decision.
>
> Ed was able to do it essentially because he still had the developer
> flag. But he was not really supposed to do so.
>
> The flag is now removed - not as a punishment - as it is not me to judge
> whether there was indeed urgency.
> But as a technical clean-up, as Ed is now not a developer any more.
>
> I might add that Uncle Ed had held that role for a long time before
> stewards were elected : running sql queries to make people sysop or
> remove this status. So, I really do not hold grunge against him. All
> this is rather a mistake from us.
>
> Anthere
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Ilya N. Golubev

subject: [Wikitech-l] searching old versions?

body:
History pages do not (obviously) refer to searching in old versions of
article.  There is certainly a way to retrieve article versions one by
one, and one could (theoretically) do that in batch mode and search in
them locally.  And that would be suboptimal wrt both user bandwidth
and wikipedia server load.  Is there a way to search in old versions
of article?

For instance, one knows that there was a version of
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_the_future> that contained a
reference to <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mall>, "twin pines" phrase,
"destroyed" word.  The date of the version is unknown.  How does one
find that version starting from
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Back_to_the_Future&action=history>?


list: foundation-l

from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject: [Foundation-l] stewards elections

body:
I am also requesting for stewardship

Waerth


subject: [Foundation-l] stewards elections


from_name: Matthew Trump

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Nofollow vote results on en.wikipedia

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

> Absolutely not. We do things by consensus of en.wikipedia.

I completely agree with you. Consensus is entirely needed on such
important policy issues. That is exactly why nofollow should be
removed, following the debate and vote that was held. Implementing
nofollow was a big change in how wikipedia interacts with the outside
world and it was implemented in January without any debate
whatsoever, let alone consensus. The debate and vote on en.wikipedia
over this essentially endorsed the status quo prior to the unilateral
change. The vote was the first time the community had been asked
regarding the new implementation.

In the future, such software features "delay action" may be possible,
to allow editors to remove spamlinks. The issue at hand, however, is
how to proceed in the meantime. There was clearly no consensus to
change the policy of wikipedia that had existed for four years prior
to the unilateral change. On the contrary, the implementation of "no
follow" was supported by only a minority of users (39%) who voted.


from_name: Ronny

subject: [Foundation-l] Stewards elections

body:
Hello.

Even there is no lots of sound about me the last weeks - Not meaning I
am inactive, just meaning I am reading what is happening in the
community but don't writing.

I found this mail, it remembered me that I always wanted to do this job
due to the interlingual - side of this task, but also because of the
help - aspect.

I speak fluently (and read, and write of course) Russian, Polish,
French, German, English. Also, pieces of: Italian, Spanish, Interlingua,
Dutch, (Elsass ;-)).

Getting steward, I would of cource concentrate again on this task and
overview as often as needed the Requests for Permissions site.

As far as I am often on the computer, i'd be round the day online if
needed in IRC.

Thank you for your attention
Ronny R.
User: Fire

Jean-Christophe Chazalette schrieb:

>Leaving and coming back because somebody sneezed in the bad direction is part of the communauty fun. If it comes to make stewards without a huge vote, and if you need like 10 people, please count me as a candidate. I  can handle fr and en  but also es, it, pt, de (little), nl (little), zh (bits), ja (bits) and have accounts in these languages. Otherwise, I'll jusy stay in my niche. Cheers,
>villy
>
>
>| RePS : Danny decided to quit Wikipedia (according to
>| his page temporarily - well, I hope) because of
>| something I told him after he wrote his comment to
>| this list. I apology to him since I did not want to
>| hurt him in any way.
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Stewards elections


from_name: notafish

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: A proposal for better communication on
	Foundation issues

body:
> Initially, I had thought of putting it all on the
> current board list. However, Angela noted this
> possible requirement issue about privacy, which indeed
> seems potentially problematic to me. She is rather
> supportive of the two queue idea.
>
> Jimbo is supportive of the idea of delegating, but
> think a two board queue is too complicated, so would
> rather support keeping it all in one queue, the
> current board one. And allowing two people to help for
> now.

> Note that this would in effect help us with the mails,
> but go against the privacy supported by Angela, and
> not  go in the direction of creation of a volunteer
> staff... unless the people allowed on this unique
> board list is much bigger than currently suggested.
>
> I agree a two board queue is more complicated, but on
> the other hand, it allowed any mail to be at least
> once seen by one of us.

> As for the requirement of privacy, it could possibly
> be left out if we are very very clear to say that
> mails will not be "private" (though we would ask
> allowed people on otrs to swear discretion I suppose).
> In this case, private mails to board would be the
> solution.

Imho, if people *really* want privacy, they will probably contact you
three on a personal basis (say, Microsoft for example ;-), rather than
on a "board" list. That's what I would do anyway.

I am happy with either proposition (the two board queues or the one
board queue and people to help), and of course, I am ready to help.

The initiative is, as always, great. thank you Anthere.

Best,

Delphine


from_name: Bryan Derksen

body:
Rick wrote:

>But that's not what this proposal is asking for.  It's
>asking to be allowed to delete the listing if the
>person who deleted it doesn't agree with the reason
>for listing.
>
>
No, it's not. Take a look at the original proposal itself, posted
3/4/2005 10:12 AM:

"Any VFD nomination not listing a reason in Wikipedia:Deletion policy
may be summarily removed from the page."

Only VfD listings that don't provide any reason reason for their
existence would be covered by this, not VfD listings with reasons
provided that someone happens to disagree with. This seems more of a
change in formatting rules than it is a change in how the process of VfD
itself works.


from_name: Skyring

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wired News reporter would like to interview you

body:
On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 23:24:14 -0500, Stacey Greenstein
<stacey.nj at gmail.com> wrote:
> Daniel, Here are my answers. Do you mind if I forward this to the Wiki
> email list?
>
> Stacey

I'll bet he LOVED you. Great responses, and let's hope the article
attracts more editors like you.

--
Pete, wishing that a gold star or something could be awarded.


from_name: Andrew Lih

body:
On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 10:38:18 -0000, Charles Matthews
<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
> No - Daniel Terdiman has written a few web articles on WP already.

Right. Daniel Terdiman is a Wired News reporter, not of Wired Magazine.

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)


from_name: Abe Sokolov

subject: [WikiEN-l] Stange fetishes

body:
Michael Becker wikimb at gmail.com wrote:

"Wikipedia is a wiki community foremost and an encyclopedia second."

I'm certain that Michael has the means mixed up with the ends. Just consider
the role of the person who established Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales. Was his goal
to create a social club? Based on what I know about him, I doubt it. I've
only interacted with him by email a handful of times; but apart from finding
out that he's a nice guy, which has always been my impression, from what
I've been stumbling across in the media, I've also been learning that he's
both a good businessman and a probing scholar. Such an individual, I
suspect, is interested in making an investment in building Wikipedia as an
encyclopedia, not a social club. Note the thousands of dollars he has poured
into the project, and all the time he has invested, which likely translates
into an investment worth many **millions** of dollars, considering the
opportunity costs-- all the profitable ventures that he could have been
engaged in instead of investing so much time and energy in Wikipedia. If
he'd wanted to start a social club, he probably would've made his
investments much more wisely. Instead of starting Wikipedia, he could have
(say) patronized some sort of recreational, musical, or sports group. That
would have required the investment of far fewer resources, and probably
would've paid off far more in terms of building connections and positive
media coverage related to his work in other areas. He probably did not chose
to build a social club because he has another, more lofty end in mind:
revolutionizing the distribution of knowledge online through an open source,
free project.

For those who believe that Wikipedia ought to be a social club first and an
encyclopedia second, perhaps they should find other outlets for
socialization that are actually fun (and good for making connections).
Seeing how young Wikipedia's contributors tend to be
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedians_by_age, perhaps many of them
should join fraternities... Don't take this as condescension, just a
friendly suggestion of something to consider. After all, girls and drinking
would've interested me far more than editing encyclopedia articles when I
was their age. BTW, I don't mean to pigeonhold all young editors. Some are
indeed very well suited for the project, such Ben (Neutrality), Charles
(Mirv), and Jiang (his real name I don't know or recall)-- among the most,
if not the most, extremely knowledgeable and prolific young writers working
for the site. (They are far weightier thinkers than I was at their age; and
they will likely have gone much further than I have when they are my age.)

I urge the readers of the mailing list not to lose sight of the fact that
their goal is to write an encyclopedia, not wining plaudits and status in
the eyes of fellow users for their role in Wikipedia's social hierarchy...
Wikipedia has thousands of important articles left as stubs or left in
disarray. The users who've actually donated countless hours out of their own
time to correct this problem, such as Steve Rubenstein, Jtdirl, and Adam
Carr (all of whom have violated the 3RR at least once) are correcting this
problem. They are far more important to the project than the users who
hardly ever edit the main namespace but rather preach/rant about 3RR
violations on IRC/mailing list or write 'newspaper' articles about arbcom
cases. Like the entrepreneur or the worker in the marketplace, they are the
productive elements of Wikipedia. The productive elements are not
self-proclaimed guardians of the rules, who are as productive as (say)
rent-seeking lords in pre-capitalist Europe or these days rent-seeking
corrupt bureaucrats in governments everywhere. (BTW, this isn't to say that
some users who make policy don't strike a proper balance between editing and
policy discussions. Mav, Ambi, Neutrality, Danny, Raul, Ray, among others,
certainly do. Hence they are the ones capable of making good policies.)

While I no longer have an interest in writing for Wikipedia, I will remain
an active reader with a strong curiosity in following the growth and
development of the project. I sincerely hope that it is a success, hence the
motive behind this plea.

-172

_________________________________________________________________
Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search!
http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [Wikitech-l] Nofollow vote results on en.wikipedia

body:
Matthew Trump said:
>
> Following the advice of the developers, community vote was set up. It
> was open for two weeks and had spirited debate about the use of
> "nofollow". The result of the vote was
>
> Remove "nofollow" -- 61% (85 votes)
> Keep "nofollow"   -- 39% (55 votes)

This is not a consensus.  There is no need to take any action.


from_name: David Gerard

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> Matthew Trump said:

>>Following the advice of the developers, community vote was set up. It
>>was open for two weeks and had spirited debate about the use of
>>"nofollow". The result of the vote was
>>Remove "nofollow" -- 61% (85 votes)
>>Keep "nofollow"   -- 39% (55 votes)

> This is not a consensus.  There is no need to take any action.

Thing was, adding nofollow was a unilateral decision for which there
was no consensus. The vote was whether the change should be permanent -
or whether to undo the previous unilateral action, and make things as
they were. Rather than voting for a change.

- d.


from_name: Rick

body:
--- David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Rick wrote:
> > --- David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>(I still don't see what's so damned hard about
> >>having to give a listed reason with one's
> >>nomination,
> >>JUST LIKE IT SAYS TO DO AT THE TOP AND BOTTOM OF
> >>VFD.
> >>Can you please explain to me why that's even there
> >>if
> >>it's too hard?)
>
> > But that's not what this proposal is asking for.
> It's
> > asking to be allowed to delete the listing if the
> > person who deleted it doesn't agree with the
> reason
> > for listing.
>
>
> OK, that is a possible loophole. How would you
> phrase it?
>
>
> - d.

What's wrong with just leaving things the way they
are?

RickK

__________________________________
Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday!
Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web
http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Aphaia

subject:
Wiktionary introduction on the wmf site (Re: [Wiktionary-l] Word of
	the Day)

body:
Ciao Sabine!
Sorry for not clear wording on my latest mail. I would be better to
change the Subject.

On Sat, 05 Mar 2005 11:35:41 +0100, Sabine Cretella
<sabine_cretella at yahoo.it> wrote:
> Hi Aphaia!

> You mean I should modify the Italian version
> http://it.wiktionary.org/wiki/Pagina_principale
> according to the example you provided? Or translate the page into Italian?

None of them. it would be put on the foundation Wiki as the close
introduction of Wiktionary. The Foundation Wiki is not so popular but
donors visit it. Now there is a short description with all other
project/
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Our_projects

I would like to enrich that description to give our Wikitionary a
separate page. The page for all project still will remain and a link
to "further information" will be added.

> >http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Aphaia/WMF/Our_projects/Wikipedia
> >(and now filled meta:Wikipedia, too).
> >
> >
> And for this one?

So it is a draft for Wikipedia page. I would like to create such a
page for Wiktionary too: mission statement, history, statistics ...

> Do you need translation?

When we finish it, yes, but not now. I love we make another draft for
Wiktionary. And I am sure on this mailinglist the most appropriate
people who do this work are gathering.

--
Aphaea@*.wikipedia.org
email: Aphaia @ gmail (dot) com


body:
--- Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> For people using "not notable" or "not encyclopedic"
> as bare-bones
> justifications, I would suggest that they retrain
> themselves to
> elaborate a little bit more. By themselves, these
> are meaningless
> shorthand for "should be deleted" - we know that
> already, that's why you
> came to the page. Point out that you put in a little
> bit of effort to be
> confident that it doesn't belong. "I've never heard
> of it and couldn't
> find any evidence that anyone else has, either" will
> go a lot farther
> than "I've never heard of it so it must not be
> notable".
>
> --Michael Snow

But "not notable" and "not encyclopedic" is not the
same thing as "I never heard of it".  There are lots
of things on VfD right now which are listed because
they're not notable, or at least the nominator
believes so, which has nothing to do with whether
they're obscure or not.  Things like [[Countries on
two continents]], [[Russian joke]], [[F11]], [[Cities
with same latitude]], [[Axis of weasel]],
[[Hypocoristics for Spanish names]], [[Esuvee]],
[[Vampire lifestyle]], etc., etc., etc.

RickK

__________________________________
Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday!
Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web
http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/


from_name: Lauri Love (nsh)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange fetishes

body:
If I may throw my two fundamental units of an arbitrary currency into
the discussion.

On rules vs. good ideas:

The problem with rules, and hence the resitance of many wikipedian's
to their enaction, is that they are inflexible, absolute, cannot be
written with all circumstances in mind, and very often outgrow their
intended purpose and assume a life of their own. A good idea, however,
can be changed, it can develop and it needn't be applied concretely
regardless of context.

The recognition of this problem in Wiki communities is evident with
the original "Ignore all rules" dictum, and is perhaps best expressed
in Chuck Yeager's aphorism "Rules are made for people who aren't
willing to make up their own". For people to be positive contributors
to the wikipedia, beyond a very small scope, they must be willing and
able to moderate their own behaviour, to understand wikiquette and its
implications, to be able to assess their and others' actions
objectively and rationally, and to put themselves into a neutral
mindset when disputes arise.

Rules erode this responsibility. If there are rules that are used
without contextual interpretation to dictate what behaviour is
acceptable, and what isn't, people will not put so much consideration
into enforcing their own codes and principles of editing. That is not
to say that rules and virtues cannot co-exist, but only that for a
large number of people, the presence of the former seems to invalidate
the need for the latter.

A good wikipedian, whose name I forget, explained to 3RR to me in a
very useful way, explaining that it is best to be seen as a slap in
the face because if one has to resort to reverting the same page
thrice in one day, there is something wrong with one's
editing/dispute-resolution procedures.

So why don't we start viewing the 3RR as a good idea, an inspiration
for finding better ways to overcome dispute and achieve consensus, and
a tool to let people know when they need to introspect. But let us not
view is as a commandment, set in stone, to be applied rigidly.

Anyhow, just bouncing ideas about.

Yours in liberty,
-nsh


subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange fetishes

body:
nsh said:
>
> A good wikipedian, whose name I forget, explained to 3RR to me in a
> very useful way, explaining that it is best to be seen as a slap in the
> face because if one has to resort to reverting the same page
> thrice in one day, there is something wrong with one's
> editing/dispute-resolution procedures.
>
> So why don't we start viewing the 3RR as a good idea, an inspiration
> for finding better ways to overcome dispute and achieve consensus, and
> a tool to let people know when they need to introspect. But let us not
> view is as a commandment, set in stone, to be applied rigidly.

Those two paragraphs seem to be mutually contradictory.  Surely if three
reverts is a sign that there is something wrong (a sentiment with which I
strongly agree) we don't want to just regard 3RR as "a good idea, an
inspiration."  It should be taken as what it is: a sign that we're doing
something seriously wrong.
We shouldn't, therefore, be too surprised if someone comes along and gives
us 24 hours off the task of editing, during which we can reconsider our
editing style.


body:
--- Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> Rick wrote:
>
> >But that's not what this proposal is asking for.
> It's
> >asking to be allowed to delete the listing if the
> >person who deleted it doesn't agree with the reason
> >for listing.
> >
> >
> No, it's not. Take a look at the original proposal
> itself, posted
> 3/4/2005 10:12 AM:
>
> "Any VFD nomination not listing a reason in
> Wikipedia:Deletion policy
> may be summarily removed from the page."

Exactly.  And "not notable" is not one of those
criteria.  And yet it's one of the most commonly used
reasons for listing an article.

RickK

__________________________________
Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday!
Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web
http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Saterlandic Frisian Wikipedia

body:
Mark,
I was born in Zwaag. Zwaag is a small place with city rights and is now
part of Hoorn. Zwaag can be found in Westfriesland. I assume that I have
heard more Westfries spoken than you have. Hoorn, Medemblik and
Enkhuizen, all Westfrisian cities, were some of the most important
cities during the Dutch golden age. Apparently you assume that you know
everything there is to know about all the languages in the word.  Oh, I
forgot, I have an uncle whose name is Tijmstra, a respectable Frisian
name. But then again, what do I know?

Thanks,
    GerardM

Mark Williamson wrote:

>Apparently, you don't realise that there are basically 3 separate
>Frisian languages.
>
>Saterlandic Frisian (East Frisian) speakers most definitely DO NOT use
>Westlauwer Frisian (West Frisian) as their standard language, nor do
>North Frisian speakers use Westlauwer Frisian (West Frisian) as their
>standard language.
>
>I don't know if you realise it, but when you are speaking of
>"Frisian", you seem to be referring only to that "Frisian" spoken in
>the Netherlands (Westlauwer Frisian). There are related varieties
>spoken in Germany, in places called "Ostfriesland" and
>"Nordfriesland", which are not mutually intelligible with the Western
>Frisian of the Netherlands.
>
>Mark
>
>On Sat, 05 Mar 2005 15:06:30 +0100, Gerard Meijssen
><gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Hoi,
>>
>>The term "Westlauwers Fries" is something of an oddity. It is a term
>>that is hardly used it is not commonly used. When it is used at all, it
>>is by people who only talk to themselves. Westfries is not a dialect of
>>Frisian. The term West Frisian may be used by some outside of the
>>Netherlands, but in my opinion it only shows that they do not look
>>further than their noses.
>>
>>Frisian (ISO 639: fy - the language taught in Dutch schools) is a fairly
>>recent standardized version of different types of Frisian. Fries is one
>>of the hot topics in the nl:wikipedia. It is full of people who want to
>>push their POV on this topic. I hope we will use more disambiguation
>>pages because in my opinion it is the way forward.
>>
>>Thanks,
>>    GerardM
>>
>>Mark Williamson wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>I am discussing this, in English, and if I recall correctly, the
>>>English terms "West Frisian" and "East Frisian" correspond to the
>>>Dutch terms "Westlauwers Fries" and "Saterfries".
>>>
>>>I am not talking about Dutch dialects or dialects of Westlauwer
>>>Frisian, but rather about the different varities of Frisian spoken
>>>variously in two nations, the Netherlands (West Frisian) and Germany
>>>(East Frisian, Peninsular North Frisian, Insular North Frisian; the
>>>latter is sometimes even divided into separate languages for each
>>>island).
>>>
>>>I know what I am talking about, I have seen many books in English that
>>>refer to it this way, though I can't speak for Dutch since I haven't
>>>read much of anything in Dutch.
>>>
>>>Mark
>>>
>>>On Sat, 05 Mar 2005 11:05:27 +0100, Gerard Meijssen
>>><gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Mark,
>>>>Westfries is not Frisian, it is not even spoken in Friesland. It is
>>>>spoken in Noord Holland. Some consider this a language some consider it
>>>>a dialect. However Fries is what goes by the code of fy. If you know
>>>>Frisian as much as all these other languages, please use its proper name.
>>>>
>>>>NB the differences between Oostfries and Westfries are massive indeed :)
>>>>
>>>>Thanks,
>>>>   GerardM
>>>>
>>>>Mark Williamson wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>The differences between West Frisian (spoken in the Netherlands) and
>>>>>East Frisian (spoken in Saterland) are massive.
>>>>>
>>>>>It would be rediculous to use the same Wikipedia.
>>>>>
>>>>>It might be different if fy: already had some content in Saterland
>>>>>Frisian, but to the best of my knowledge it is entirely in Western
>>>>>Frisian with the exception of one article which is bilingual in
>>>>>Western Frisian and North Frisian, and bilingual I mean it has two
>>>>>separate versions)
>>>>>
>>>>>Mark
>>>>>
>>>>>On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 15:22:58 -0500, Stephen Forrest
>>>>><stephen.forrest at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 20:42:52 +0100, Wouter Steenbeek
>>>>>><musiqolog at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>I would like to apply for a Wikipedia in Saterlandic (East) Frisian. Further
>>>>>>>details can be read at
>>>>>>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saterlandic_Frisian_language and soon at the
>>>>>>>requests page.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>I believe you mean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saterland_Frisian_language.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>For the purposes of ISO 639 codes, Saterland Frisian is regarded as a
>>>>>>dialect of Frisian.  Can you provide a rationale for why working
>>>>>>within the Frisian Wikipedia is not tenable?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I seem to recall reading that there were different spelling
>>>>>>conventions for the Frisian spoken in Germany and that spoken in the
>>>>>>Netherlands.  I have no idea how significant these differences are.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Steve
>>>>>>


from_name: Zigger

subject: [Wikitech-l] Changing md5 of wikisysop user

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_(cryptography)

-- Zigger

On Sat, 05 Mar 2005 10:44:05 +0100, Thomas Gries wrote:
> Can someone explain shortly, what the purpose of password salting, or
> where I can read about it.
> ...


subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange fetishes

body:
On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 21:22:27 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway
<minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> nsh said:
> >
> > A good wikipedian, whose name I forget, explained to 3RR to me in a
> > very useful way, explaining that it is best to be seen as a slap in the
> > face because if one has to resort to reverting the same page
> > thrice in one day, there is something wrong with one's
> > editing/dispute-resolution procedures.
> >
> > So why don't we start viewing the 3RR as a good idea, an inspiration
> > for finding better ways to overcome dispute and achieve consensus, and
> > a tool to let people know when they need to introspect. But let us not
> > view is as a commandment, set in stone, to be applied rigidly.
>
> Those two paragraphs seem to be mutually contradictory.  Surely if three
> reverts is a sign that there is something wrong (a sentiment with which I
> strongly agree) we don't want to just regard 3RR as "a good idea, an
> inspiration."  It should be taken as what it is: a sign that we're doing
> something seriously wrong.
> We shouldn't, therefore, be too surprised if someone comes along and gives
> us 24 hours off the task of editing, during which we can reconsider our
> editing style.

My phrasing rarely leaves nothing to be desired :-) I do agree that in
many cases a temporary block is necessary to help provoke the
introspection that I mentioned, however this does not mean that it is
always needed, or more importantly that the block achieves anything in
or of itself. It ought always be accompanied with an explaination that
there are better ways to solve disputes, preferably with some pointers
as to how the person in question could go about learning or practising
these improved methods.

My only fear is that all too often those 24 hours will not be spent
trying to improve one's understanding of Wikipedia and the Wiki way,
but in the development of fuming resentment which aids no-one and
nothing. Is this entirely the fault of the person implimenting the
block? No. But neither would it be entriely the fault of the person
who is blocked if they are not afforded an opportunity to understand
why such action has been taken away from them or if such action is
taken prematurely.

Hope this clarifies my nsh-waffle.

Yours, &c
-nsh


from_name: Tomer Chachamu

body:
On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 20:27:41 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway
<minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> > Remove "nofollow" -- 61% (85 votes)
> > Keep "nofollow"   -- 39% (55 votes)
>
> This is not a consensus.  There is no need to take any action.

Don't be ridiculous. In such a case, where there is a clear majority
*and the decision is instantly reversible*, the rel="nofollow" should
be removed.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange fetishes

body:
nsh said:
>
> My phrasing rarely leaves nothing to be desired :-) I do agree that in
> many cases a temporary block is necessary to help provoke the
> introspection that I mentioned, however this does not mean that it is
> always needed, or more importantly that the block achieves anything in
> or of itself. It ought always be accompanied with an explaination that
> there are better ways to solve disputes, preferably with some pointers
> as to how the person in question could go about learning or practising
> these improved methods.

I think we're in agreement, really.

>
> My only fear is that all too often those 24 hours will not be spent
> trying to improve one's understanding of Wikipedia and the Wiki way,
> but in the development of fuming resentment which aids no-one and
> nothing. Is this entirely the fault of the person implimenting the
> block? No. But neither would it be entriely the fault of the person who
> is blocked if they are not afforded an opportunity to understand why
> such action has been taken away from them or if such action is taken
> prematurely.
>

It's the "We need *this* edit war for the good of Wikipedia" syndrome.
It's related to [[Wikipedia:The Wrong Version]].


from_name: dpbsmith at verizon.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] David Gerard's proposal is essentially a "speedy KEEP"

body:
As I understand David Gerard's proposal, an individual sysop (is it
meant to be limited to sysops?) could remove a VfD discussion if he
personally judged that a) the nominator had not stated a reason, or
that b) the nominator's stated reason was not listed in the written,
codified deletion policy, or c) the nominator's stated reason WAS
listed but did not actually apply to the article.

c) is the big one, but it must be implicit in his proposal. Otherwise
every nominator would protect their nomination simply by intoning "No
potential to become encyclopedic."

Thus, his proposal is essentially that sysops be empowered to perform a
"speedy KEEP."

Speedy deletes are acceptable because most Wikipedians feel that the
criteria are well-defined and that sysops can be trusted to execute the
speedy deletion criteria properly.

IF we thought the general deletion policy was equally well defined, we
wouldn't need VfD. We could just empower sysops to execute on the full
deletion policy. Problem solved.

The fact that we _don't_ do this proves that we _don't_ think the
deletion policy is well enough defined to entrust sysops to act on it
as individuals, without soliciting community consensus.

So, turning the process around isn't going to be acceptable either.

If we can't trust individual sysops to speedy-DELETE articles that fall
under "What Wikipedia is not," then we can't trust them to speedy-KEEP
articles that don't.

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


body:
Tomer Chachamu said:
> On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 20:27:41 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway
> <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
>> > Remove "nofollow" -- 61% (85 votes)
>> > Keep "nofollow"   -- 39% (55 votes)
>>
>> This is not a consensus.  There is no need to take any action.
>
> Don't be ridiculous. In such a case, where there is a clear majority
> *and the decision is instantly reversible*, the rel="nofollow" should
> be removed.

Absolutely not. We do things by consensus of en.wikipedia.  I suggest we
continue this discussion on wikien-l where it belongs.


from_name: Christiaan Briggs

subject: [Foundation-l] Orphan Works (copyright)

body:
A website I'm sure you will all be interested in:
http://www.orphanworks.org/

Pass it on, BEFORE the 25th of March!

?Christiaan


subject: [WikiEN-l] Orphan Works (copyright)


subject: [Foundation-l] Orphan Works (copyright)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Orphan Works (copyright)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange fetishes

body:
On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 21:57:04 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway
<minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> It's the "We need *this* edit war for the good of Wikipedia" syndrome.
> It's related to [[Wikipedia:The Wrong Version]].

Indeed. There is so much to be achieved through dialectic and
consensus, and nothing at all to be achieved through violence. And
though it may debase the meaning of violence to apply it digitally, a
revert was _is_ analogous a physical controntation when words have
failed. Let us import knowledge from the real world, not stupidity.
:-)
-nsh


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Nofollow vote results on en.wikipedia

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> Tomer Chachamu said:
>
>>On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 20:27:41 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway
>><minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
>>
>>>>Remove "nofollow" -- 61% (85 votes)
>>>>Keep "nofollow"   -- 39% (55 votes)
>>>
>>>This is not a consensus.  There is no need to take any action.
>>
>>Don't be ridiculous. In such a case, where there is a clear majority
>>*and the decision is instantly reversible*, the rel="nofollow" should
>>be removed.
>
>
> Absolutely not. We do things by consensus of en.wikipedia.  I suggest we
> continue this discussion on wikien-l where it belongs.

140 interested parties is quite a sample of en.wikipedia opinion.

Assuming each alternative has the same "cost" to the losing side, then
surely following the majority, even it can't be called a consensus, is
better than following the minority?

Pete


body:
A consideration of the proposal and my understanding of its (counter-)arguments:

I believe that the idea behind having nominations for deletion specify
what principle of deletion policy they invoke is not that the process
of deletion may become automatic, but rather that all articles are
held to the same standard, regardless of how many people care about
them, their nature, or who gives the most sparkling advocacy.

If nominations were to cite a consensus approved principle for
exclusion, then the standards for Wikipedia inclusion would develop
through the deletion policy in a way that is more visible, more just
(that is, in not favouring the popular over the minority) and more
accepted. It is always best that the people who frequent VfD (and many
no longer do, because of its failings or the tension of its
atmosphere) decide but facts, which can be objectively agreed to,
rather than have them set precidents based on opinions or beliefs as
to what material ought or oughtn't be in Wikipedia.

While perhaps this will only steer the dispute at to what constitutes
encyclopedic to another venue, it will ensure that precident is only
set in a transparent manner and with consensus.

Yours in Liberty,
-nsh


body:
Rhobite said:
> Consensus works when one choice is safe or
> conservative, such as keeping an article on VfD.

As far as I am aware conservativism is not the sole basis on which we
currently make decisions on en.Wikipedia.  All editing decisions are
decided by consensus, for instance, whether to keep or change, where
obviously the most conservative choice would be to change.
I'm swayed by David's argument, however.  Apparently the software was not
always configured in this way, but was recently changed unilaterally by
the developers.  The vote should have been cast as a ratification of this
change, in which case the ratification clearly failed and the change
should be reversed.


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
Hi Wouter,

I don't think there can be much practical opposition to your request
because in practical terms, East Frisian / Saterlandic Frisian and
West Frisian / Westerlauwers Frisian are different languages.

I think you should create a mainpage at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/test-wp/Friisk and you could also
perhaps create some sample content pages.

Mark

On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 23:35:39 -0500, Stephen Forrest
<stephen.forrest at gmail.com> wrote:
> Forwarded to Wikipedia-l as requested by the author, who mistakenly
> sent it only to me...
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Wouter Steenbeek <musiqolog at hotmail.com>
> Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 00:00:13 +0100
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Saterlandic Frisian Wikipedia
> To: stephen.forrest at gmail.com
>
> >I believe you mean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saterland_Frisian_language.
> >
> >For the purposes of ISO 639 codes, Saterland Frisian is regarded as a
> >dialect of Frisian.  Can you provide a rationale for why working
> >within the Frisian Wikipedia is not tenable?
> >
> >I seem to recall reading that there were different spelling
> >conventions for the Frisian spoken in Germany and that spoken in the
> >Netherlands.  I have no idea how significant these differences are.
> >
> >Steve
> >_______________________________________________
> >Wikipedia-l mailing list
> >Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
> You were right: I used the wrong link. Just a matter of mental absence ;).
>
> What is a dialect? There is a seperate Wiki for Aromanian, though it can
> easily be classified as a Romanian dialect. There are Limburgish, Low Saxon
> and Alemannic Wikis, though German and Dutch would do well for all three of
> them. Some tend to classify Czech, Slowakian and even Polish as one
> language, but no-one question the legitimity of the seperate wikis.
> According to many scolars, West Lauwer Frisian and Saterland Frisian are
> dialects of the Frisian language, along with North Frisian. Some do,
> however, consider it a separate language. Let me point out the differences
> and similarities.
>
> Westlauwer Frisian has, like Hollandic Dutch, only two genders: gendered and
> neuter (de man, de frou, it ding). Saterlandic has three (di Mon, ju Fauene,
> d?t Diert). Westlauwer Frisian lost, again along with Dutch, its cases,
> while Saterlandic preserved its dative and accusative cases. Westlauwer
> Frisian has a complex system of diphthong which are the consequences of an
> elaborate breaking process during the early Modern Age; this process has
> left Saterlandic totally untouched; instead it developed other
> mutation(ljibbe - lieuwje; swiet - sw?it; leaf - ljoof). As a result,
> Westlauwer Frisians and Saterland Frisians cannot understand each other,
> unless they studied the other language.
> Another important difference is in the vocabulary: Westlauwer Frisian draws
> on Dutch, Saterland Frisian on German. Finally, Standard Westlauwer Frisian
> has no official or prescriptive status in the Saterland: If Frisian is used
> at all officially (which happens increasingly), Saterfrisian is used.
>
> Maybe I will point this out with some comparative samples in the article on
> Saterlandic.
>
> Wouter
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Altijd in contact met de kleinkinderen: MSN Messenger
> http://messenger.msn.nl/
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
Lauri Love (nsh) wrote:

> While perhaps this will only steer the dispute at to what constitutes
> encyclopedic to another venue, it will ensure that precident is only
> set in a transparent manner and with consensus.

And that would be a marvellous change. It's not like we're about to
run out of paper.

(I should note here that although most of my VFD votes are to keep
stuff, almost all of what ends up there is indeed the rankest and
most deletable rubbish imaginable.)

- d.


from_name: Theresa Knott

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 172 de-sysopped

body:
On Sat, 05 Mar 2005 17:42:09 -0500, AndyL <andyl2004 at sympatico.ca> wrote:
> Has 172 been "resysopped" in the absence of either an arbcomm or some other
> community decision to "desyssop" him?

Yep Ed did it himself.

Theresa


from_name: Till Westermayer

body:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . till we *) . . .

Hi Mark, hi Gerard,

>Apparently, you don't realise that there are basically 3 separate
>Frisian languages.

am I the only one how isn't able to realize what the hot fought
discussion is about? As far as I understood the mails, Mark and Gerard
were saying more or less the same. What is the difference?
 __ .
 / / / /                            ... Till Westermayer - till we *)
. .
  . mailto:till at tillwe.de . www.westermayer.de/till/ . icq 320393072
  . Hirschstra?e 5. 79100 Freiburg . 0761 55697152 . 0160 96619179
  . . . . .


from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: stewards elections

body:
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales schreef:
> I see three candidates for Steward in this thread so far:
> Yann, waerth, Danny.
>
> Why don't I just make them all 3 stewards and we are done with it?
[cut]
>
> Having big public elections for everything is a bad idea.  People will
> not be elected unless they are famous, but the way to get famous is not
> the same thing as the way to be qualified for a technical position.
>
> Imagine if we elected our developers for example...
>
> --Jimbo

I vote for this option ;-)

--
[[w:nl:gebruiker:walter]]


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: stewards elections


subject: [Wikitech-l] searching old versions?

body:
On Sat, 05 Mar 2005 18:21:31 +0300, Ilya N. Golubev <gin at mo.msk.ru> wrote:
> For instance, one knows that there was a version of
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_the_future> that contained a
> reference to <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mall>, "twin pines" phrase,
> "destroyed" word.  The date of the version is unknown.  How does one
> find that version starting from
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Back_to_the_Future&action=history>?

Use http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Export (clearing the
checkbox) and import into a database. Make a fulltext field there and
run your search there. ;)

I already found out just from searching the XML that "Mall" does not
occur anywhere in the article. (:


from_name: Stephen Forrest

subject: Fwd: [Wikipedia-l] Saterlandic Frisian Wikipedia

body:
Forwarded to Wikipedia-l as requested by the author, who mistakenly
sent it only to me...

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Wouter Steenbeek <musiqolog at hotmail.com>
Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 00:00:13 +0100
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Saterlandic Frisian Wikipedia
To: stephen.forrest at gmail.com

>I believe you mean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saterland_Frisian_language.
>
>For the purposes of ISO 639 codes, Saterland Frisian is regarded as a
>dialect of Frisian.  Can you provide a rationale for why working
>within the Frisian Wikipedia is not tenable?
>
>I seem to recall reading that there were different spelling
>conventions for the Frisian spoken in Germany and that spoken in the
>Netherlands.  I have no idea how significant these differences are.
>
>Steve
>_______________________________________________
>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

You were right: I used the wrong link. Just a matter of mental absence ;).

What is a dialect? There is a seperate Wiki for Aromanian, though it can
easily be classified as a Romanian dialect. There are Limburgish, Low Saxon
and Alemannic Wikis, though German and Dutch would do well for all three of
them. Some tend to classify Czech, Slowakian and even Polish as one
language, but no-one question the legitimity of the seperate wikis.
According to many scolars, West Lauwer Frisian and Saterland Frisian are
dialects of the Frisian language, along with North Frisian. Some do,
however, consider it a separate language. Let me point out the differences
and similarities.

Westlauwer Frisian has, like Hollandic Dutch, only two genders: gendered and
neuter (de man, de frou, it ding). Saterlandic has three (di Mon, ju Fauene,
d?t Diert). Westlauwer Frisian lost, again along with Dutch, its cases,
while Saterlandic preserved its dative and accusative cases. Westlauwer
Frisian has a complex system of diphthong which are the consequences of an
elaborate breaking process during the early Modern Age; this process has
left Saterlandic totally untouched; instead it developed other
mutation(ljibbe - lieuwje; swiet - sw?it; leaf - ljoof). As a result,
Westlauwer Frisians and Saterland Frisians cannot understand each other,
unless they studied the other language.
Another important difference is in the vocabulary: Westlauwer Frisian draws
on Dutch, Saterland Frisian on German. Finally, Standard Westlauwer Frisian
has no official or prescriptive status in the Saterland: If Frisian is used
at all officially (which happens increasingly), Saterfrisian is used.

Maybe I will point this out with some comparative samples in the article on
Saterlandic.

Wouter

_________________________________________________________________
Altijd in contact met de kleinkinderen: MSN Messenger
http://messenger.msn.nl/


subject: [Foundation-l] Changing username  (Re: New elections for stewards)

body:
Can stewards also get the power to change usernames?

There are users now already waiting for many, many months but there
requests are not processed.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Changing_username

--
[[w:nl:gebruiker:walter]]


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards

body:
I do think 172 has a point about the dangers of becoming a
rules-bound, process-bound culture.  The complexity of the Wikipedia
process has grown incredibly in the last year or so.

-Matt (User:Morven)


body:
Hoi Till,

Fries, is a hot topic on the nl:wikipedia. We have had our fair share of
skirmishes there. I have complained that what some call West Frisian is
not West Frisian at all. It is Frisian. The history of the Frisians is a
bit more complicated than most people know and many have decided to call
Frisian proper all kind of names, including Westerlauwers Fries and West
Frisian.

Westfries is something seperate. It was spoken in what is now Noord
Holland and practically nobody speaks it anymore. Node is basically
repeating what he reads in books. I live in this area called
Westfriesland, I even have family coming from Friesland proper. Node
decides that I do not know what I am talking about which is fine.
Frisian is not three varieties like Node says. In
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fries_%28taal%29 you may find that it can
be split up even further not even considering Westfries as part of this
all. This Westerlauwers Fries is a concept dreamed up to put many
varieties of Frisian together. You will not have anyone in the
Netherlands call Frisian West Frisian. To me it is stupid, never mind
what fancy book it is in.

Thanks, :)
    GerardM

Till Westermayer wrote:

>. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . till we *) . . .
>
>Hi Mark, hi Gerard,
>
>
>
>>Apparently, you don't realise that there are basically 3 separate
>>Frisian languages.
>>
>>
>
>am I the only one how isn't able to realize what the hot fought
>discussion is about? As far as I understood the mails, Mark and Gerard
>were saying more or less the same. What is the difference?
> __ .
> / / / /                            ... Till Westermayer - till we *)
>. .
>  . mailto:till at tillwe.de . www.westermayer.de/till/ . icq 320393072
>  . Hirschstra?e 5. 79100 Freiburg . 0761 55697152 . 0160 96619179
>  . . . . .
>


body:
On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 15:28:02 -0800 (PST), Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> But that's not what's being proposed here.  What's
> being proposed is, if anybody coming into the
> discussion thinks that the reason for the listing
> isn't acceptable, they can just delete it from the VfD
> page.  Why not just let it run its course, and vote
> Keep?  Because radical inclusionists are afraid they'd
> lose the vote.  ~~~~

I don't think that whether we have an article on a subject or not
should be decided by <s>popularity contest</s>mere majority/plurality
voting. Should there not be visible and comprehensible principles that
decide what is encyclopedic and what isn't? I don't think anyone (at
least with any support) is proposing that people everyone should get a
VfD veto, which is what your post implied, but rather that we don't
let adding to the VfD page be something that can be done on a whim. If
popularity was any measure, we'd have a million articles on celebrity
trivia (_not a bad thing in itself_) and no articles in obscure areas
of mathematics, or history.

-nsh


body:
David Gerard said:
>
> Thing was, adding nofollow was a unilateral decision for which there
> was no consensus. The vote was whether the change should be permanent -
> or whether to undo the previous unilateral action, and make things as
> they were. Rather than voting for a change.

Thanks for the clarification.  This makes sense.


from_name: geni

body:
> I don't think that whether we have an article on a subject or not
> should be decided by <s>popularity contest</s>mere majority/plurality
> voting. Should there not be visible and comprehensible principles that
> decide what is encyclopedic and what isn't? I don't think anyone (at
> least with any support) is proposing that people everyone should get a
> VfD veto, which is what your post implied, but rather that we don't
> let adding to the VfD page be something that can be done on a whim. If
> popularity was any measure, we'd have a million articles on celebrity
> trivia (_not a bad thing in itself_) and no articles in obscure areas
> of mathematics, or history.
>
> -nsh

What do you mean if?

--
geni


subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: Changing username (Re: New elections for
	stewards)

body:
Brion Vibber schreef:
> Walter Vermeir wrote:
>
>> Can stewards also get the power to change usernames?
>
>
> Changing usernames currently requires manual digging in the database,
> which is error-prone and dangerous. It's not something that stewards are
> able to do at present.
>
> Anyway why bother? Just make an account under your new name and you're
> done.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

The situation is that in the past request for changing usersname where
approved. Now there are lists of those request on Meta and also in EN
and maybe also on other Wiki's.

So far I know there is not a policy about this. Some request are form
users who have not made any edits. But there are also request form long
term good users. It happens that a users start using wikipedia whit a
nickname. But later the whould like to use there real name and keep
there history. It whould be good it the could get a rename. The serious
users.

But if changing user names is a service that can not be provided anymore
  at least do the requests on the current lists and then close the
service for new requests.

--
[[w:nl:gebruiker:walter]]


body:
Rick wrote:

> But that's not what's being proposed here.  What's
> being proposed is, if anybody coming into the
> discussion thinks that the reason for the listing
> isn't acceptable, they can just delete it from the VfD
> page.  Why not just let it run its course, and vote
> Keep?  Because radical inclusionists are afraid they'd
> lose the vote.  ~~~~

No, it's because they bored of having to re-establish long, long, long
standing policy over and over and over again because of the way VfD
currently works. Imagine you had to explain yourself everytime you used
the revert button to undo edits against established policy.

Pete


body:
Rick wrote:

> But that's not what's being proposed here.  What's
> being proposed is, if anybody coming into the
> discussion thinks that the reason for the listing
> isn't acceptable, they can just delete it from the VfD
> page.  Why not just let it run its course, and vote
> Keep?  Because radical inclusionists are afraid they'd
> lose the vote.  ~~~~

No, I'm proposing it (not a strawman "radical inclusionist")
because there's a shitload of nominations that have had *no
listed rationale*. They're on the order of "I've never heard
of it so it's not notable" - measuring the content of
Wikipedia by their ignorance. They're nominations that, per
the policy *shouldn't be there at all*, and make VFD
unfeasibly long.

Also, VFD isn't actually "votes" - it's an attempt to establish
consensus.

Pretty obviously, anyone deleting a nomination in the bogus
manner you describe will be reverted in damn short order.
I expect you will likely be the one doing so.

- d.


body:
Rick wrote:

>   This is an end-run by SimonP and the people who
> hold the opinions he holds, to set their, and only
> their, approval on VfD.

I proposed this, and I have no idea who the hell this
SimonP is. If you're going to condemn the proposer of
this, please refer to something I've actually done or
said.

> I believe it was SimonP himself (forgive me if I'm
> wrong) who, in his position as sysop, was making
> personal opinions on whether or not articles which HAD
> consensus to be deleted, should remain in the
> encyclopedia solely because HE did not believe that
> the reason for listing was valid, even though there
> were sufficient votes for removing the article.
> Instead, he was deleting the completed votes without
> deleting the articles in question.

Which is why the nominations that shouldn't have been
there in the first place shouldn't have been run through
the page.

Is the [[Wikipedia:Deletion policy]] actually of any
importance, or is it purely decorative?

- d.


body:
Rick wrote:
> --- David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

>>Pretty obviously, anyone deleting a nomination in
>>the bogus
>>manner you describe will be reverted in damn short
>>order.
>>I expect you will likely be the one doing so.

> Are you saying that I would be the one likely to
> revert somebody who deleted a VfD listing?  Damn
> straight.  And listing the editor on RfC.

Precisely. If I spotted such a removal, I'd be
doing the same thing.

(I still don't see what's so damned hard about
having to give a listed reason with one's nomination,
JUST LIKE IT SAYS TO DO AT THE TOP AND BOTTOM OF VFD.
Can you please explain to me why that's even there if
it's too hard?)

- d.


body:
Hi Pavol,

I agree with you mostly, but we must admit: even in your example
sentences, Czech and Slovak share many many cognates: the only words
which aren't obviously related or even identical are "takt?? i" vs
"aj". If you substitute Czech "?" for Slovak "?", Czech "?" for Slovak
"r", Czech "t" for Slovak "t", and Czech "i" for Slovak "?", the ONLY
differences in those two sentences is as I noted "takt?? i" vs "aj",
and "se k n?m" vs "sa k n?m".

Polish, on the other hand, is obviously more different.

This does not mean they cannot be independent lnguages, I just want to
point out that your example isn't much effective to prove the point.

I think that you could take an article from the Czech Wikipedia, go
through and change some minor things, and have a perfectly valid
Slovak article. It amazes me to no end that these sorts of close
Wikipedias do not engage in wider content-sharing programs: Indonesian
and Malaysian Wikipedias are in a similar situation.

However, even the Czechoslovakian government considered them as two
different languages. The case of the FYRs' (former yugoslav republics)
languages, with the exception of Macedonian and Albanian, is perhaps
more compelling, as until relatively recently there were no such
languages as Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, and Montenegrin.

In fact, Serbian nationalists such as Nikola Smolenski try to assert
that Montenegrin is not a separate language from Serbian, and even
that Bosnian is just "Serbian as spoken in Bosnia". Why not calling
Serbian, "Montenegrin as spoken in Serbia"?

Although these sorts of nationalist politics have no place in
Wikipedia articles, they already appear on [[Montenegrin language]]
and [[Moldovan language]], both of which are not exactly NPOV and play
down the possibility of them being separate languages (neither page
notes that there is no definitive, universally agreed-upon boundary
between language and dialect, but rather paints a picture of
nationalist freaks trying to get what is "obviously" a dialect
considered a separate language). If you think they are not NPOV, you
should see the article on Montenegrin language at the Serbian
wikipedia, and the article on Moldovan language at the Romanian
Wikipedia (thankfully, the Moldovan Wikipedia has a much more neutral
version, noting that it is the official language of Moldova, but that
not everybody recognises it as separate from Romanian).

Generally, languages are considered separate by experts if they meet
one of three criteria: 1. They have less than 80% lexical similarity
in spoken form, 2. A significant portion of the speaker population of
one variety considers them separate, or 3. They are official languages
 of different nations, with different official names or the script
usage varies.

The first one catches languages whose speakers do not nessecarily
consider them separate (although experts might), such as various
Quechua varieties. The second one catches languages that are
borderline (ie, 81% lexical similarity) but that the population
considers separate, or cases where (in the words of the ethnologue)
"separate literature [is] nessecary". The third catches languages that
may be widely considered to be the same, but who use different writing
systems (Dungan vs Sichuan Mandarin, Greenlandic vs Inuktitut, etc)
and languages whose governments declare them separate with no
significant speaker support (no current examples, although it is
concievable that in a violent separation between two linguistically
similar portions of a single country, they would declare their
languages separate without support from the people)

Mark

On Sun, 6 Mar 2005 08:08:02 +0100, Pavol Cupka <pavol.cupka at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I don't have enough information about the Frisian languages, but I
> must react to what was said about Slovak, Czech and Polish language.
> These are (Slovakia, Czech republic and Poland) three different and
> independent countries. They have one common ancestor the Slavic
> language but that is the same as for English and German language
> (Germanic languages). So to wrap it up these languages are different
> languages (with diff. grammar, etc.) and not dialects or even one
> language.
>
> Example:
> PL - Ka?dy mo?e si? do nas przy??czy? - r?wnie? Ty, bez ?adnych
> formalno?ci, mo?esz dodawa? i modyfikowa? artyku?y.
> CZ - Ka?d? se k n?m m??e p?ihl?sit - takt?? i Ty, bez n?jak?ch
> formalit, m??e? p?id?vat a upravovat ?l?nky.
> SK - Ka?d? sa k n?m m??e prihl?si? - aj Ty, bez nejak?ch formal?t,
> m??e? prid?va? a upravova? ?l?nky.
>
> Thank you and good luck with the Frisian languages
>
> [[:sk:User:Palica]]
>
>
> On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 22:55:42 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi Wouter,
> >
> > I don't think there can be much practical opposition to your request
> > because in practical terms, East Frisian / Saterlandic Frisian and
> > West Frisian / Westerlauwers Frisian are different languages.
> >
> > I think you should create a mainpage at
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/test-wp/Friisk and you could also
> > perhaps create some sample content pages.
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 23:35:39 -0500, Stephen Forrest
> > <stephen.forrest at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Forwarded to Wikipedia-l as requested by the author, who mistakenly
> > > sent it only to me...
> > >
> > > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > > From: Wouter Steenbeek <musiqolog at hotmail.com>
> > > Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 00:00:13 +0100
> > > Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Saterlandic Frisian Wikipedia
> > > To: stephen.forrest at gmail.com
> > >
> > > >I believe you mean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saterland_Frisian_language.
> > > >
> > > >For the purposes of ISO 639 codes, Saterland Frisian is regarded as a
> > > >dialect of Frisian.  Can you provide a rationale for why working
> > > >within the Frisian Wikipedia is not tenable?
> > > >
> > > >I seem to recall reading that there were different spelling
> > > >conventions for the Frisian spoken in Germany and that spoken in the
> > > >Netherlands.  I have no idea how significant these differences are.
> > > >
> > > >Steve
> > > >_______________________________________________
> > > >Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > >Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > >
> > > You were right: I used the wrong link. Just a matter of mental absence ;).
> > >
> > > What is a dialect? There is a seperate Wiki for Aromanian, though it can
> > > easily be classified as a Romanian dialect. There are Limburgish, Low Saxon
> > > and Alemannic Wikis, though German and Dutch would do well for all three of
> > > them. Some tend to classify Czech, Slowakian and even Polish as one
> > > language, but no-one question the legitimity of the seperate wikis.
> > > According to many scolars, West Lauwer Frisian and Saterland Frisian are
> > > dialects of the Frisian language, along with North Frisian. Some do,
> > > however, consider it a separate language. Let me point out the differences
> > > and similarities.
> > >
> > > Westlauwer Frisian has, like Hollandic Dutch, only two genders: gendered and
> > > neuter (de man, de frou, it ding). Saterlandic has three (di Mon, ju Fauene,
> > > d?t Diert). Westlauwer Frisian lost, again along with Dutch, its cases,
> > > while Saterlandic preserved its dative and accusative cases. Westlauwer
> > > Frisian has a complex system of diphthong which are the consequences of an
> > > elaborate breaking process during the early Modern Age; this process has
> > > left Saterlandic totally untouched; instead it developed other
> > > mutation(ljibbe - lieuwje; swiet - sw?it; leaf - ljoof). As a result,
> > > Westlauwer Frisians and Saterland Frisians cannot understand each other,
> > > unless they studied the other language.
> > > Another important difference is in the vocabulary: Westlauwer Frisian draws
> > > on Dutch, Saterland Frisian on German. Finally, Standard Westlauwer Frisian
> > > has no official or prescriptive status in the Saterland: If Frisian is used
> > > at all officially (which happens increasingly), Saterfrisian is used.
> > >
> > > Maybe I will point this out with some comparative samples in the article on
> > > Saterlandic.
> > >
> > > Wouter
> > >
> > > _________________________________________________________________
> > > Altijd in contact met de kleinkinderen: MSN Messenger
> > > http://messenger.msn.nl/
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
Rick wrote:
> --- David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

>>(I still don't see what's so damned hard about
>>having to give a listed reason with one's
>>nomination,
>>JUST LIKE IT SAYS TO DO AT THE TOP AND BOTTOM OF
>>VFD.
>>Can you please explain to me why that's even there
>>if
>>it's too hard?)

> But that's not what this proposal is asking for.  It's
> asking to be allowed to delete the listing if the
> person who deleted it doesn't agree with the reason
> for listing.

OK, that is a possible loophole. How would you phrase it?

- d.


from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

body:
On Sun, 06 Mar 2005 02:42:57 +0000, Abe Sokolov <abesokolov at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Wikipedia has a court reprimanding users for breaking the 3RR and making
> personal attacks. But it lacks an authority reprimanding users for
> chronically undermining Wikipedia's progress with original research, POV
> nonsense, and ungrammatical prose. My suggestion on Wikipedia:Forum for
> Encyclopedic Standards was an alternative arbitration committee with public
> credibility, composed of qualified encyclopedists who have the calhones not
> to edit anonymously.

Exactly right, and I can't think of a single reason that anyone would
want to oppose this. It wouldn't prioritize content over process, but
would simply put the two on a par, which is the right approach because
the two are inextricably linked. The content-related policies are
already in place; all we need is a committee able and willing to
enforce them.

Sarah


from_name: Bryan Derksen

body:
Rick wrote:

>--- Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
>
>>"Any VFD nomination not listing a reason in
>>Wikipedia:Deletion policy
>>may be summarily removed from the page."
>>
>>
>Exactly.  And "not notable" is not one of those
>criteria.  And yet it's one of the most commonly used
>reasons for listing an article.
>
>
So why not add non-notability to the deletion policy? If it's one of the
most commonly used reasons for listing an article and yet it isn't
actually listed as a valid reason for deletion in the deletion policy,
it seems there's already a pretty big problem either with the VfD
process or with the deletion policy.


from_name: Abe Sokolov

body:
Michael Snow wikipedia at earthlink.net :
"On the other hand, if 172 wants to deny any significance to the name he has
chosen and give us no personal information, then we have no evidence to back
up his claims to expertise and might as well disregard them."

I agree wholeheartedly. This is case with every other editor who choses to
contribute to Wikipedia anonymously.

In case it wasn't clear earlier, I'd never asked to be afforded any special
status based on my work outside Wikipedia. I made this clear a few months
ago. After I'd initiated the Wikipedia:Forum for Encyclopedic Standards
page, I used that new forum to propose a system for editorial arbitration. I
then declared that as an anonymous editor, I would be unqualified to serve
on such a pannel. (See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Forum_for_Encyclopedic_Standards_%28archive2%29#Editorial_arbitration
Some users, such as Adam Carr, took note of this observation: "I commend
[172's] acknowledgement that he, as an anonymous editor, should not be a
member of such a group.")

I'd like to use the above claification as a chance to illustrate my salient
point concerning expertise. My frustration was never that I'd failed to
receive sufficient deference from 'non-experts'; the root of the problem was
never my treatment. The problem is that there are mechanisms for enforcing
some policies but not others.

Wikipedia has a court reprimanding users for breaking the 3RR and making
personal attacks. But it lacks an authority reprimanding users for
chronically undermining Wikipedia's progress with original research, POV
nonsense, and ungrammatical prose. My suggestion on Wikipedia:Forum for
Encyclopedic Standards was an alternative arbitration committee with public
credibility, composed of qualified encyclopedists who have the calhones not
to edit anonymously. (Such a review board would "kill two birds with one
stone": making Wikipedia more "expert"-friendly and solidifying its public
credibility.) However, other people may have better ideas, and my suggestion
is certainly not the only one on the table warranting attention.

Since the behavior of contributors is influenced by the options afforded to
them by Wikipedia's governance-- as behavior is rooted in process and
structure in every organizations-- a formal organ on Wikipedia delegating a
special role for **non-anonymous** professionals, academics, graduate
students, etc. would have a profound, positve effect on the culture of
Wikipedia. Right now, far more talk is generated when a serious user commits
a faux pax (e.g., violating the 3RR or 'calling a troll a troll') than when
a troll spews crap into an article. Here's the reason: Wikipedia has
mechanisms enforsing rules of PROCESS (e.g., Wikipedia:No personal attacks
and Wikipedia:Three revert rule enforcement) but lacks mechanisms enforsing
rules of PRODUCT (e.g., Wikipedia:Manual of Style, Wikipedia:No original
research, and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view). As a result, when a policy
related to product is broken, the dispute usually stays on talk, handled
only by a handful of serious editors actively watching the page; but when a
policy related to process is broken, it will attract a huge contingent of
users fussing over who reverted whom, how many reverts there were, and what
did or did not constitute a revert. The rules are shaping a culture on
Wikipedia utterly obsessed with process, but incognizant of product.

I'm not arguing that rules of process ought to be discarded. Instead, they
ought to be supplemented by rules emphasizing and ENFORCING quality. I say
"supplemented" because of the likelihood that far fewer good users would act
rashly if already-existing rules mandating encyclopedic standards were
enforced.

In short, I'm not laying out a detailed case for policy changes here. I'm
just pointing to a problem that ought to be addressed. Right now the rules
create a culture on Wikipedia resulting in large amounts of attention to
some policies but a lack of  attention to others. This asymmetry ought to be
addressed, before more users committed to undermining NPOV, no original
research, and stylistic conventions figure out how to accomplish their ends
by exploiting the over-emphasis on other policy guidelines. Others may
disagree with solutions that I am proposing. But that doesn't mean that the
problem does not exist. If my proposals are wrong, please come up with
better ways of handeling the problem.

-172

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


body:
>but when a
> policy related to process is broken, it will attract a huge contingent of
> users fussing over who reverted whom, how many reverts there were, and what
> did or did not constitute a revert. The rules are shaping a culture on
> Wikipedia utterly obsessed with process, but incognizant of product.

Go on name names. When it comes to keeping an eye on the 3RR section
of the admins notice board I would be impressed if you come up with
more than three. That is hardly a huge crowd.

--
geni


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
I remember a number of claims you made in that regard. According to you,
your advocacy of your point of view represented an objective academic point
of view in sharp contrast to other editors who had only published reports of
eye-witness accounts to go on. You claimed to be a political scientist and
that trumped the experience of the people who actually lived under the
systems you advocated.

Fred

> From: "Abe Sokolov" <abesokolov at hotmail.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 02:42:57 +0000
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards
>
> I never asked to be afforded any special
> status based on my work outside Wikipedia.


body:
"POV nonsense" you say. Yet you seem to have engaged with enthusiasm in
systematic POV editing, while covering behind the thin defense that
modification of your carefully crafted apolgetics was McCarthyism.

Fred

> From: "Abe Sokolov" <abesokolov at hotmail.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 02:42:57 +0000
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards
>
> Wikipedia has a court reprimanding users for breaking the 3RR and making
> personal attacks. But it lacks an authority reprimanding users for
> chronically undermining Wikipedia's progress with original research, POV
> nonsense, and ungrammatical prose.


body:
They do have a special role. Provided they edit responsibly and are
respectful to other users. Your experience is only applicable in support of
the proposition that a user who edits aggressively in a point of view way
and is disrespectful to other editors will gradually build strong opposition
against them despite professional credentials.

Fred

> From: "Abe Sokolov" <abesokolov at hotmail.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 02:42:57 +0000
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards
>
> a special role for **non-anonymous** professionals, academics, graduate
> students, etc.


body:
The problem with this is that systemic POV editing in the Wikipedia context
is not QUALITY by definition when NPOV is our policy. Nor is contempt for
other editors who do not share your ideological orientation.

Fred

> From: "Abe Sokolov" <abesokolov at hotmail.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 02:42:57 +0000
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards
>
> they
> ought to be supplemented by rules emphasizing and ENFORCING quality.


body:
Obviously we need to be far more aggressive in identifying and discipling
those users who engage in systemic point of view editing. And not be mislead
by technical expertise or smokesceens alleging persecution.

Fred

> From: "Abe Sokolov" <abesokolov at hotmail.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 02:42:57 +0000
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards
>
> If my proposals are wrong, please come up with
> better ways of handeling the problem.


body:
There is no way the Arbitration Committee can avoid making policy. What we
do is separate the expressed policies of Wikipedia into those which are
regularly enforced and those which either cannot or will not be enforced.
The ways we come up with to enforce or encourage following of policy are in
themselves additions to policy. For example, personal attack parole,
something that was not in the game before the committee began trying to
craft some solution to the personal attack problem. Or revert parole where
POV editors may be restricted to one revert a day to an article.

To follow up though, all these things are fair game for community
discussion, especially on the talk pages of the proposed decisions.

Fred

> From: sannse <sannse at tiscali.co.uk>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 11:18:52 +0000
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'?
>
> There are the talk pages of [[Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee]] and
> [[Wikipedia:Requests for Arbitration]], but I'm a bit concerned that the
> discussion may get lost there.  Perhaps we need a page specifically for
> discussing how the arbitration committee works?  In particular, I'm
> interested in hearing more about the suggestion that we are /making/
> policy - it's important to me that we don't do that, so I'd like to hear
> more about it is people think we are doing so (I don't keep up with this
> list fully - I'd prefer the discussion to be on Wikipedia)
>
> --sannse


body:
The only reason the current Arbitration Committee does not consider content
is because we believe there is a community consensus that we should not. We
do, in effect, consider content when the problem is aggressive POV editing,
but as to deciding the essential nature of gravity we might be out of our
depth. It is ok for Lieutenant Commander Data to throw about talk about
gravitons but there are necessarily limits. However an editor who claims
Scotland in Asia, that we might be able to deal with. As to whether Mongolia
is in Central Asia or East Asia, well the problem is really with the editors
who thinks it's important enough to revert over and over and over and over.

Fred

> From: <slimvirgin at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: slimvirgin at gmail.com, English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 01:27:02 -0700
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards
>
> On Sun, 06 Mar 2005 02:42:57 +0000, Abe Sokolov <abesokolov at hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>> Wikipedia has a court reprimanding users for breaking the 3RR and making
>> personal attacks. But it lacks an authority reprimanding users for
>> chronically undermining Wikipedia's progress with original research, POV
>> nonsense, and ungrammatical prose. My suggestion on Wikipedia:Forum for
>> Encyclopedic Standards was an alternative arbitration committee with public
>> credibility, composed of qualified encyclopedists who have the calhones not
>> to edit anonymously.
>
> Exactly right, and I can't think of a single reason that anyone would
> want to oppose this. It wouldn't prioritize content over process, but
> would simply put the two on a par, which is the right approach because
> the two are inextricably linked. The content-related policies are
> already in place; all we need is a committee able and willing to
> enforce them.
>
> Sarah
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


body:
It was trying to deal with editors like 172 which made it that way. Freedom
to do whatever he wanted made it difficult to edit for many other editors
and resulted in biased articles in important areas.

Fred

> From: Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com>, English Wikipedia
> <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 23:39:27 -0800
> To: geni <geniice at gmail.com>, English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards
>
> I do think 172 has a point about the dangers of becoming a
> rules-bound, process-bound culture.  The complexity of the Wikipedia
> process has grown incredibly in the last year or so.
>
> -Matt (User:Morven)
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


body:
The problem here is that 172, a confirmed revert warrior, got put on revert
parole and was unable to conform to its requirements. He needed to be able
to revert frequently in order to maintain the ideological bias he advocates.
Trapped, he is lashing out.

Fred

> From: geni <geniice at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: geni <geniice at gmail.com>, English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 03:29:18 +0000
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards
>
>> but when a
>> policy related to process is broken, it will attract a huge contingent of
>> users fussing over who reverted whom, how many reverts there were, and what
>> did or did not constitute a revert. The rules are shaping a culture on
>> Wikipedia utterly obsessed with process, but incognizant of product.
>
> Go on name names. When it comes to keeping an eye on the 3RR section
> of the admins notice board I would be impressed if you come up with
> more than three. That is hardly a huge crowd.
>
> --
> geni
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Lauri Love (nsh)

body:
On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 21:23:34 -0800 (PST), Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Exactly.  And "not notable" is not one of those
> criteria.  And yet it's one of the most commonly used
> reasons for listing an article.
>
> RickK

Is this because the deletion policy is inadiquate, or because VfD is
being abused? I know what your answer will be of course, so explain
the notability "criterion" objectively in the policy page so we can
all understand it. I personally think it's disgusting tyrrany of the
majority. But I don't express opinions on wiki ;-)
-nsh


body:
On Sun, 06 Mar 2005 13:47:37 +0800, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> I absolutely agree with Dpbsmith. Policy is meant to change with the
> community, not vice-versa. As much as some of us would like to avoid
> voting using highly subjective grounds like notability (which has
> different meanings from person to person; my idea of notability seems
> highly inclusionistic compared to some of the notability grounds used in
> voting today), the fact remains that a good deal of the community *does*
> use notability as a reason for deletion. If the community wants an
> article to go, we shouldn't disregard their opinion just because it's
> based on something subjective, since the resolution of the issue of
> contention -- should the article be deleted? -- has been agreed upon.
> (taken with a slight modification from [[Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy]])

The difference, my friend, between policy and convention, is that the
former is transparent, is rational, and is decided by consensus,
whereas the latter is transient, opaque, often irrational, and decided
by majority/plurality. A good policy is applied equally to all
articles that fall under its remit, whereas convention follows the
whims of its constituents. I'm sure there are enough people that don't
like any particular article to vote for its deletion. It's only the
choice of sample that decides the outcome. And personally, I do not
hold much faith and the self-selecting sample that is VfD.

> I don't think removing nominations from VfD that are without a reason
> found in the deletion policy is a good idea. If the nomination has no
> specific rationale in itself, that might be acceptable, but non-notable
> is often used as shorthand for not encyclopedic. It's basically an
> editorial judgement - it's like a shorter version of "I don't think this
> topic is sufficiently encyclopedic enough to merit its own article in
> this encyclopedia". A nomination to delete should not be discarded
> wantonly. If it's unreasonable, the community will speak for itself, and
> that's much better than letting someone unilaterally make the decision
> that the nomination is bullshit.

It's hard to know where to begin here. How could a nomination be
valid, without a rationale? This doesn't grok at all for me, and
moreover, troubles me slightly. An editorial judgement it is indeed,
and a consensus of 5-7 (arbitrary guess there) is not qualified, in
this writer's humble opinion, to make editorial decisions for
something that has nearly half a million articles and hundreds of
thousands of users. Those who frequent VfD, as I mentioned earlier, as
not representative of the whole Community, and it's rather audacious
for any size proportially sized group to claim to be. And lastly,
isn't this thread an example of the community saying it is
unreasonable, and speaking for itself.

> I agree something has to be done about VfD's size, though. I just don't
> feel this is the right solution; rather, it more feels like a disguised
> attempt to lead us down the slippery slope of discarding votes simply
> because they just said "Delete. Non-notable." Regardless of the reason
> given, as I stated in the first paragraph, it's still an editorial
> decision that does not need extensive justification: An editor feels the
> topic does not merit an article. That opinion is factored into the
> decision by the community as a whole.
>

I think we're agreed here. It is about geting rid of nominations where
the nominator, in addition to being too lazy to improve the article to
something which can be built upon, is also too lazy to show why it
should be deleted. Shall we just have a voting system for all
articles, as you say, it's just an editorial decision. Let's let the
community decide by voting,... Also, I think we need to vote in a new
lead developer </glib>

> I think what should be done is to get the community more involved in VfD
> by reducing its size and providing more avenues for categorisation of
> articles being nominated for deletion. A professional aviator, for
> example, would be interested in VfD nominations relating to aviation but
> not scuba-diving. And so on. Likewise, a lot of articles are often
> deleted unanimously or nearly unanimously, and end up cluttering VfD,
> making it difficult for editors get to the heavily debated nominations.
> [[Wikipedia:Categorized deletion]] and [[Wikipedia:Preliminary
> deletion]] are both proposals that should be considered and discussed
> more; if people aren't satisfied with them, nothing's stopping them from
> making suggestions.
>

> VfD's problem is not people making unreasonable nominations (those are
> already easily removed because we still have a smattering of editors
> being bold enough to use common sense). VfD's problem is it's too large
> for the community to easily vote. Solve that, and the problem of
> trigger-happy nominations will be easier to handle.
>

I don't think your idea of unreasonable nominations, as shown by this
post, is quite as extensive as some people's. On the ridiculous size
of VfD however, we are fully agreed. The implimentation of this
proposal would in part solve that problem.