subject: [WikiEN-l] Please help.  please.

body:
At 04:41 PM 5/30/2003, you wrote:

>Hi all look we all know that I can be more than a little abrasive when
>people I dont know come in out of nowhere and accuse me of not knowing my
>facts, or lying about history.  Its one of my weaknesses.  I hope everyone
>also knows that I generally try to be patient and get people to work
>together (even if its in what Mr. Kemp calls teacher mode), asking
>specific questions, giving specific examples, etc.  I hope that my
>positive contributions over the long haul outweigh the negative ones.  If
>thats not what people think, I really should just take off ;-)
>
>The most recent unpleasantness is really weighing on me.  Llywrch e-mailed
>me and asked me to feed no trolls while he tried to get some cooperation,
>and I pretty much have but in the meantime, if you look at the user
>contributions, you will see that really nasty accusations about me and, to
>a lesser extent, and one who has tried to step in, all over the
>site.  They are almost entirely taken out of context or deliberate
>misunderstandings or misquotes.
>
>I also believe that this person has shown up in at least two other guises
>in the past, and had run-ins with, or left comments about me or my
>contributions in each persona almost all repetitions of the old HJ
>controversies, but with a French nationalist flair.  The person is now
>also accusing me of forcing others in some way to join in a persecution,
>and also claims that I regularly try to get people to leave through
>bullying and intimidation (boredom and wordiness perhaps &).  Oddly
>enough, some of the people he seems to be saying I forced outare the very
>people I think are his other personae.
>
>Not only is there a possibility of the troll-like habit of changing
>identities, but I notice that many of the excuses given to others as to
>why he cant get along is because of a cross-cultural language
>problem.  While it is true that he writes these comments in a quaint and
>stilted manner, his tirades (especially those directed against me) are
>amazingly fluid and use lots of polysyllables (apparently, several of us
>cant be understood because our words are complicated its kind of like that
>old SNL skit about the defrosted cave-man).
>
>Anyway, could someone not currently involved (or who has not yet been
>blasted)  PLEASE take a look?  Theres a frightening amount of commentary,
>but I think this person is not in any way aware of how to work with others
>or really interested in participating in a positive manner.  I am not
>using the bword, but if that is already something this user is under (it
>has been suggested hes DW), then its not a problem.  If its not, perhaps
>someone with a Voice of Authority (and in his eyes, the only authority is
>Jimbo, whose wrath he threatens regularly)  could ask him nicely to quit
>his abuse and play nice?
>
>Thanks!
>
>Julie

Now, I'm not saying that I believe this... I certainly wouldn't want anyone
to take this the wrong way and think that I was accusing anyone of anything
or besmirching anyone's good name, but:

Some people seem to think that T may be one and the same as JD, look at the
similarity of some phrases and attitudes, particularly the use of the odd
"somebody called X" or "somebody who calls themselves X" and other similar
phrases. It has also been suggested that T is the same as the
probably-about-to-be-banned V, and that their "conversation" is either
between comrades or an attempt by one individual to confuse things.

Again, I'm not saying that I believe this, draw your own conclusions.

Oh, for the record, there have been certain users lately, no names of
course, who have been attempting to distort the way that the Clovis issue
has gone down. I trust that everyone who is truly interested is going to
read ALL the articles before they jump to conclusions. I'd hate to see
anyone unfairly characterized as a troll.... almost as much as I'd hate to
see a troll unfairly characterized as a legitimate contributer.

-----

Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
    -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321
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list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Limits to the non-paperiness of Wikipedia?

body:
Oliver-
> I really don't like "== Chap's views on [[Stuff]] ==", though. Links in
> headings look ugly...

Only if you underline them ;-)


from_name: Kurt Jansson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Limits to the non-paperiness of Wikipedia?

body:
Oliver Pereira schrieb:

> I think that the very idea of linking to sections within articles is the
> obvious *wrong* thing to do.

Thanks Oliver, I think you're absolutely right. And I'd like to add, as
I did every time this discussion came up:

We'd need
* a new colour for links to subheadings that don't exist, because the
reader should know that the article exists, but the subheading doesn't.
Readers won't get confused then, and editors know there's something to fix.
* a "what links to this subheading" feature, because you might want to
restructure an article and have to fix all the links accordingly.
* a maintenance page for broken links to subheadings
* subheading redirects
* ...

This is really sick, because it frightens our editors, and they'll think
twice before changing the structure of an article, which is a bad thing.
It makes Wikipedia more static.

What we could do is generate a table of contents at the begining of an
article, which consists of the subheadings and links to them. This would
only make sense for very long articles, which IMO should better be split
up. But others disagree.

Please don't allow linking to subheadings from outside an article!

Kurt


list: wikien-l

from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Please help.  please.

body:
Julie Kemp wrote:

> Anyway, could someone not currently involved (or who has not yet been
> blasted) PLEASE take a look? There?s a frightening amount of
> commentary, but I think this person is not in any way aware of how to
> work with others or really interested in participating in a positive
> manner. I am not using the ?b? word, but if that is already something
> this user is under (it has been suggested he?s DW), then it?s not a
> problem. If it?s not, perhaps someone with a Voice of Authority (and
> in his eyes, the only authority is Jimbo, whose wrath he threatens
> regularly) could ask him nicely to quit his abuse and play nice?
>
I've read most or all of the commentary (I don't know why :-) ),
and I think he/she probably wants to work with others at some
level, but is incapable of actually doing so. At this point I
would just say to fix mistakes in article edits and otherwise
don't pay much attention to him/her.

Triton reminds me a little of a certain type of student that
you may have encountered too - wants to contribute, maybe even
eager, but thick as a plank, unable to follow the discussion,
and eventually becoming resentful and hostile as a result of
repeated failure. It's sad, and we should give people like that
the benefit of the doubt, but ultimately we have to ask ourselves
whether (precious) time spent on the person is just being thrown
down the drain.

Stan


from_name: Dante Alighieri

subject: [WikiEN-l] Please help.  please.

body:
At 05:04 PM 5/30/2003, you wrote:
>My apologies - it was Dante Alighieri who wrote this, not Little Dan
>
>I blundered:
>>At 16:51 30/05/2003 -0700, Little Dan wrote:
>>>Some people seem to think that T may be one and the same as JD,
>>
>>I don't think anybody believes that - if they do, they're off their
>>trolley. You probably mean that some people think Triton is DW.
>>
>>LP (Camembert)

Actually, my source continues to assert that T may be JD incognito, or else
part of some group of people who are working together. Here are some
interesting parallels:

 From JD:
this JHK person

 From JD:
this man or woman going by the user name of J. Hoffman Kemp

 From JD:
someone called J Hoffman Kemp

 From T:
someone who logged in under the user name Ms. J. Hoffman-Kemp

 From T:
the User logged in calling himself Tannin

 From T:
someone calling themselves Slrubenstein

Do we know ANYONE else who writes like that? There may be more examples,
but this is all that my source gave me.

Read the top of Talk:List of Frankish Kings. Rain on your parade? Sounds
like someone very familiar with English idiom, doesn't it?

Also, look at the VERY first entries into Talk:List of French monarchs by
T. VERY different voice than used later, also an excellent understanding of
the English language (some of them are downright erudite)... not to mention
the use of the phrase "Lord knows".... extremely interesting given the
later usage of "the Prophet" all over the place.

Also, note that JD disappears at approximately the same time T appears.
They have similar interests, similar writing styles, similar
controntational styles, similar uses of ad hominem attacks, and they make
the same enemies.

Well, it's a good thing that my source wishes to remain anonymous, as they
are afraid that revealing themselves might make them subject to assaults by
unnamed parties. What a shame... although I must admit my source does sound
a little paranoid and conspiracy theory prone. Oh well, interesting
coincidences all the same, no?

Oh, and one final note: all of the above is relayed by me, to you all, from
an unnamed source. None of the above should be taken as the opinions of
this user, me, Dante Alighieri... I'd hate for anyone to get the wrong idea.

-----

Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
    -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321
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list: wikitech-l

from_name: Lee Daniel Crocker

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
> (Brion Vibber <vibber at aludra.usc.edu>):
>
> I'm all in favor of putting them on a separate server with a separate
> database and *not* embedding those images inline into articles, but
> allowing explicitly external links to those images which users would have
> to follow knowingly.
>
> nonfree.wikipedia.org, anyone?

That's certainly an option to which I wouldn't object if it came to
that. I still think it's a bit paranoid, but at least it would retain
our ability to collect and describe useful information even if it did
hamper its display a bit.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC


from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Viking ban

body:
LittleDan wrote:

>I thought Triton was BW... I'm confused.

I trust that you mean DW.

IIRC, Julie doesn't think that Triton is DW
but does think that he's some other usernames that she's met before.
(Not that Julie automatically knows all user identities,
but she's in a position that makes her more likely to be suspicious.)
Now that I've posted this, Julie will no doubt clarify if I messed up.

In any case, until we're sure that Triton is DW,
then we shouldn't treat him is if he is,
so I think that Dante is right to get his opinion.
(IMO, Viking is certainly not DW *or* Triton.)

-- Toby


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikitech-l] Static html

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> I know several prominent Wikipedians don't seem to care about this, but
> I think staying true to our all-reusable-all-redistributable license is
> a very important aspect of maintaining Wikipedia's credibility and
> fulfilling the project's goals.

I agree completely.  Whenever we have a tough decision between
expedience and redistributability _in the long run_, we should choose
redistributability.

I am of the opinion, though not to the point of pushing strongly for
enforcement just now, that it would be best if we removed a great many
images that are currently in wikipedia.  They are o.k. for us to use,
on account of so-called "fair use", but they are not GNU-free, and
this should trouble us.

--Jimbo


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use (was: Static html)

body:
Axel Boldt wrote:

>Next, once our foundation has
>money, we can try to acquire the copyright of selected important images
>we need and cannot get in any other way.
>
I don't think that that's the way to go.  Once we start paying for
material, the nature of the project would change drastically.

Ec

>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

in_reply_to: <8mtnuQixpVB@erik_moeller>; from erik_moeller@gmx.de on Sat, May 31, 2003 at 02:28:00AM +0200

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> > Great. As an intermediate step, how about we go ahead and add a
> > license-compatibility field or two to the image table and upload form (and
> > at some point go looking through old images to mark the ones known to be
> > PD or GFDL).
>
> I'm for it. The resulting form contents should probably be saved in the
> image description, so they can be edited. I agree with the NOTE: ..., a
> relevant link to [[fair use]] should probably also be added.

This seems like something that all parties to the "fair use" debate
can agree -- to have a license-compatibility field or two in the image
table and upload form, such that we can clearly describe why we think
we can have such-and-such an image on the website, and giving guidance
to re-users.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Michael and hard ban

in_reply_to: <5.2.0.9.2.20030529132135.023a5b58@mail.digitalgrapefruit.com>; from dalighieri@digitalgrapefruit.com on Thu, May 29, 2003 at 01:24:40PM -0700

body:
Dante Alighieri wrote:
> This is an open request, but it is specifically aimed at Jimbo. Can we have
> a clear and definitive answer on Michael and his pseudonyms and his/their
> ban status?

Michael and all his derivatives are banned from Wikipedia.  Sysops and
developers can take whatever steps are necessary to make this
technologically effective.

> Also, can this be posted on the Wikipedia so that it can be
> easily linked to?

I assume this email message, via the archvies, will be sufficient.

> The current situation requires that we direct people to
> Michael's ban talk page and that they then link to the No-Fx page and the
> Weezer pages. I am, as are others, spending too much time defending our
> actions when we delete Michael's garbage. Thanks.

He's banned, and if he wants to be unbanned, he can email me for a
friendly chat, or join the mailing list to state his case.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Advertising for website by anonymous user 24.132.158.131

in_reply_to: <E19Lacg-00025G-00@genovevo.net>; from rednblack@alum.mit.edu on Thu, May 29, 2003 at 11:32:06PM -0400

body:
rednblack at alum.mit.edu wrote:
> This is essentially an effort to advertise for a (mediocre) website. I think
> this is a bad idea, and we should discourage it, and maybe make some formal
> proviso against it.

I agree.  I'm not sure we need a formal proviso, but yeah, advertising
in a bunch of semi-relevant articles is bad form.

> The user has contributed what appears at first glance to be some good content
> ([[Chubby culture]]), but at second glance it's just the [[Bear community]]
> article s///d into an article on chubbies. Dunno what to think of that, but
> anyway..

I have no strong opinion about this, knowing next to nothing about
these subcultures.  :-) If there is an entry on boring
upper-middle-class dads, I'll be the go-to guy.  :-)

--Jimbo


from_name: Marco Krohn

subject: OT: Re: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body: On Friday 30 May 2003 14:38, Erik Moeller wrote:


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>Brion Vibber wrote:

>>>So by analogy "Linus Torvalds style pragmatism" might provide for a
>>>third-party filter program that inserts non-FDL images into Wikipedia
>>>articles on a reader's computer as they're loaded. ;)

>>Like a web browser?

[Brion then gives several objections that seem reasonable.
But I'll comment on the ones that seem least so.]

>* the kernel-module combination is never redistributed
>* the article-image combination is redistributed by local saving,
>  hardcopy, mirroring, or format conversion of the articles unless
>  careful effort is made to avoid including the image (which the article
>  includes programmatic commands to include)

So the article-image combination is never redistributed now
(given that the images aren't included in the downloaded tarball --
I believe that this what began the discussion this time around).
When I say that we need to separate out the fair use pics from the free ones,
I mean precisely to prepare for such redistribution in the future,
where we may (in some cases) have to strip out the nonfree pics.

>Most importantly, the paradigm of separate text and image files is simply
>a technical limitation of the HTML format used. If Wikipedia were
>distributed in PostScript, PDF, MS Word documents, RTF, or the printed
>page, there would be no such separation.

Right, so maybe we'd have to strip them out if it were distributed thus '_`.

>>The problem, it seems to me, isn't that we use the images,
>>but that we pretend that we're using them under the GFDL.

>Either we are, or we're violating the license of every article that
>someone has modified by putting a non-GFDL picture into it.

This I don't agree with at all.  When I submit GFDL text to a page,
and somebody creates a modified version of that with [[Image:Foo]] in it,
then they're definitely not violating the GFDL license of what I wrote.
They just said "[[Image:Foo]]" next to it!
The "technical limitations" are quite relevant here --
they're actually one way that HTML is much better than the printed page!

>>Our fair use images should be treated as *auxiliary*.

>I'm all in favor of putting them on a separate server with a separate
>database and *not* embedding those images inline into articles, but
>allowing explicitly external links to those images which users would have
>to follow knowingly.

All right, maybe that will make everybody happy.
I can live with it, I think.

>>It should ''never'' be vital to an article that we include an image,
>>if we can help it, not only for distribution but also for accessibility.

>Thanks! This removes the sense of urgency that drives some people to add
>non-free images knowing they are not compatible with the project's goals.
>Hopefully they'll stop immediately. :)

That said, sometimes we can't help it.
Consider all the arguments presented in recent debates
for why [[Clitoris]] needs good photographs and drawings.
^_^

-- Toby


subject: OT: Re: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
On Friday 30 May 2003 18:38, Marco Krohn wrote:

> > How do you propose acquiring a free photo of a prominent,
> > recently deceased author or actor? A picture of an important historical
> > event? This is unrealistic -- you won't, and with your attitude, we will
> > simply have no image for that article, while Encarta et al. will sport a
> > nice gallery of them. Unacceptable.
>
> So be it, then we have to image for that.

obiously this should read: "... we have no image for that."

Marco


from_name: Giskart

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: request for a redirect

body:
giskart at gmx.net wrote in
news:20482.1054291377 at www14.gmx.net:

> Can somebody setup a redirect from http://nds.wikipedia.org and
> http://www.nds.wikipedia.org to http://za.wikipedia.com
>
> The Plattd??tsch Wikipedia now is using a old usemod wikipedia whit
> the wrong language code.  Whit the redirect the can spread the good
> url even when the do not have a fase III wiki
>
> Giskart

On the Plattd??tsch Wikipedia is a note that if nds is not possibel the
like pd.wikipedia.org

This is the note;

:This subdomain was originally reserverd for the creation of a Wikipedia in
the Zhuang  language. It is now temporarily in use for the Low Saxon
Wikipedia
sysops: please move these low saxon contents to pd.wikipedia.com (prefered,
since .org is so slowly) or pd.wikipedia.org. Look at Sysop advice]
As soon as three letter codes are supported by software, the domain should
be nds.wikipedia.org since nds is the official ISO 639-2 code since 2000-
05-31

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


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: request for a redirect

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Je Vendredo 30 Majo 2003 12:04, Giskart skribis:
> giskart at gmx.net wrote in
> news:20482.1054291377 at www14.gmx.net:
> > Can somebody setup a redirect from http://nds.wikipedia.org and
> > http://www.nds.wikipedia.org to http://za.wikipedia.com
> >
> > The Plattd??tsch Wikipedia now is using a old usemod wikipedia whit
> > the wrong language code.  Whit the redirect the can spread the good
> > url even when the do not have a fase III wiki

Okay, nds.wikipedia.org redirect is set up; I'll try and get things
converted to sit permanently at the new location at some point, but I'm
real busy these days and haven't had a chance to work on that
conversion script in ages. (Sigh...)

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] InnoDB monitor -- how to turn off?

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Is somebody deliberately turning on the InnoDB monitor, or is some
setting turn it on automatically?

It dumps data to the MySQL error log file every 15 seconds listing a
bunch of status and every transaction that's been done since the last
one, and that comes to several hundred megs of log file after a few
days, which can only be freed from the disk by deleting the log file
and restarting MySQL.

So if anyone knows a way to have it not start up, that would be nice. :)

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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iD8DBQE+2Dt3xVlOmwh1xjgRAn5zAJ4pOiIZB7QCMZkcCBl2pQAJJq83eQCeN6RC
D9tybprG144oSWsj5oIQsvc=
=0Ebu
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from_name: a.crossman at blueyonder.co.uk

subject: [WikiEN-l] Ban on User:Viking?

body:
Hi,

Please see [[User talk:Viking/ban]]

User:Viking has been nominated for a ban by Mbecker, seconded by
Wapcaplet, thirded by me, fourthed by Dante, fifthed by CGS. No
opposition at the time of writing (except from Viking).

Actions include censorship of sex-related pages; totally false claims
that he was a sysop, to intimidate users and make them stop
criticising him; suggesting that the reason someone wanted to know
the identity of his sysop account was so that they could hurt his
children, and so on. General unpleasantness.

So I suppose we now need a ruling from on high. :-)

Thanks,
--
Allan Crossman
a.crossman at blueyonder.co.uk
http://dogma.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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Je Vendredo 30 Majo 2003 17:09, Erik Moeller skribis:
> Brion-
> > How can these be shown to be distinct from claiming "fair use" on
> > copyrighted material that hasn't given us *any* rights (the default
> > being 'all rights reserved')?
>
> See [[fair use]]. There are very narrow limits on the kind of
> materials and the extent to which we can use them.

Yes, but out of the category of images on which one might claim fair
use, what portion of them are *not* in one of these categories:

> >> 1) Copyrighted, no permission (duh)
> >> 2) No permission to redistribute other than for Wikipedia
> >> (prevents forking)
> >> 3) Advertising or prominent copyright notices in images that
> >> cannot be removed
> >> 4) Other restrictive licenses

While not every possible item in those categories could be used by fair
use, it seems to me that anything _not_ in those categories wouldn't
even come up on the fair use radar: it would be either public domain or
freely redistributable and modifiable.

Perhaps I just interpret "restrictive licenses" differently from you...
:)

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
On Fri, May 30, 2003 at 11:49:12AM -0700, Daniel Mayer wrote:
>  Marco wrote:
> > No, you lose much more. You can not easily combine the content of two
> > "free" encyclopedias and get something that is "free". You can not copy
> > images from the English Wikipedia to the German Wikipedia anymore because
> > the "fair use" right works not this way in Germany.
>
> What? Since when has the German Wikipedia moved to a German-based server?
>
> Well, I know for a fact that it hasn't so German law has no bearing on the
> legality of having "fair user" (per US law) images on the German Wikipedia.
>
> However, those people who are subject to German law may be legally barred from
> uploading such images. But there are plenty of German-speaking Wikipedians
> living outside of Germany to do this.

There would be a problem if they wanted to distribute Wikipedia in Germany,
as a mirror, on CDs, printed etc. We really don't want to lose such right
just to have 0.1% more images.


from_name: Lee Pilich

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Viking ban

body:
At 16:15 30/05/2003 -0700, Dante Alighieri wrote:
>In the interest of fairness I wanted to state that it may not be strictly
>true that no one objects to the ban on User:Viking.

Well I object if nobody else. Viking has done some pretty crummy things,
but the user made their first edit not 36 hours ago, and hasn't edited any
article at all in the last ten and a half hours (although judging from the
number of edits to user talk pages in that time, they've had plenty of
chance to do so). They've "vandalised" just two pages ([[fisting]] and
[[anal sex]]) over the course of just two days. I'm surprised this has
generated as much discussion as it has - there's an encyclopaedia to build,
let's send our time doing that instead!

I'm not saying I like the user, but banning should be a last resort, not
the first course of action. I suggest we just ignore them, and if they
delete content again, simply restore it without comment.

LP (Camembert)
Wikikarma: expansion at [[Luciano Berio]]


from_name: Peter Bartlett

subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Harry Potter

body:
Dear list,

Please may I ask for your advice and assistance in pouring oil on
troubled water with respect to [[User:Harry Potter]].

This user has been starting or contributing to articles relating to
pataphysics, which is a movement that parodies things that are
pretentiously highbrow (as I understand it, pataphysics is to science
and the arts, as Mornington Crescent (the game show) was to chess
commentary.) Unfortunately Harry, instead of writing NPOV articles on
the subject has been writing articles about pataphysics in the style of
a pataphysican. this is to say in a deliberately obscure , obtuse and
POV way. Moreover these articles are in fact generally copied from other
websites with no sign of permission being sought. Harry has brushed this
last problem with a claim that pataphysicans are anti-copyright and so
it doesn't matter.

One example is the page
[[Anthony_Hancock_Paintings_and_Sculptures:_A_Retrospective_Exhibition]]
.
NB Anthony Hancock is a character in the film The Rebel played by,
perhaps confusingly, Tony Hancock. Knowing that Anthony Hancock is/was
not a real person makes it easier to understand why this article is
rubbish.

I have tried to engage in a debate with Harry (see Votes For Deletion),
but as a relative newbie, I do not how to handle him and persuade to
conform to our rules if he wants to contribute to the Wikipedia. For the
first time having been on the 'net for years I fear I have been properly
trolled.

Pete
User:Pcb21


subject: [WikiEN-l] Please help.  please.

body:
At 16:51 30/05/2003 -0700, Little Dan wrote:
>Some people seem to think that T may be one and the same as JD,

I don't think anybody believes that - if they do, they're off their
trolley. You probably mean that some people think Triton is DW.

LP (Camembert)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Please help.  please.

body:
My apologies - it was Dante Alighieri who wrote this, not Little Dan

I blundered:
>At 16:51 30/05/2003 -0700, Little Dan wrote:
>>Some people seem to think that T may be one and the same as JD,
>
>I don't think anybody believes that - if they do, they're off their
>trolley. You probably mean that some people think Triton is DW.
>
>LP (Camembert)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
Brion-
> Coupla notes:
> * Said modules are distributed by their copyright owners with the
> supported hardware, not as part of the Linux kernel.
> * The Linux kernel runs just fine without them. The modules provide
> additional support for certain hardware only.
> * Said linking is done at run time on the user's machine; the combined
> result exists only in memory and is never redistributed.

> So by analogy "Linus Torvalds style pragmatism" might provide for a
> third-party filter program that inserts non-FDL images into Wikipedia
> articles on a reader's computer as they're loaded. ;)

Since Wikipedia is a client/server application, you also have to look at
what the server is doing. Image data is actually stored in a separate
table; they have their own namespaces and are transcluded on demand as a
page is fetched, so the analogy is applicable. Keep in mind that the FDL
is primarily intended to cover printed documents, so it may well offer us
a pretty decent loophole here.

The text [[Image:foo.png]] is, of course, under the FDL.

I'm sure if we pay a bunch of lawyers enough money, they can up with
plenty of reasons why using fair use content is perfectly acceptable. We
may need to do so for a reason that has so far been ignored in the
discussion:

Quotes of any length are fair use, too. It is quite clear that we cannot
do without them. We could move them into a separate namespace and
transclude them, though, which would actually be a very Xanadu-esque thing
to do.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] Please help.  please.

body:
At 17:52 30/05/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>At 05:04 PM 5/30/2003, you wrote:
>>My apologies - it was Dante Alighieri who wrote this, not Little Dan
>>
>>I blundered:
>>>At 16:51 30/05/2003 -0700, Little Dan wrote:
>>>>Some people seem to think that T may be one and the same as JD,
>>>
>>>I don't think anybody believes that - if they do, they're off their
>>>trolley. You probably mean that some people think Triton is DW.
>>>
>>>LP (Camembert)
>
>Actually, my source continues to assert that T may be JD incognito, or
>else part of some group of people who are working together. Here are some
>interesting parallels:

<snip>

I'm sorry, my mistake - when you said "JD" I didn't think of Jacques
Delson, but somebody else. My apologies.

I think Triton is Jacques Delson as well, for what it's worth, and I think
both of them are DW.

Sorry if I've wasted your time over this
lp (camembert)


subject: [WikiEN-l] OK, eating humble pie

body:
Hi,

Re: Viking - myself, Wapcaplet and Dante all seem to have decided we
were being too hasty in calling for a ban. Sorry for all the
excitement.

Evercat
--
Allan Crossman
a.crossman at blueyonder.co.uk
http://dogma.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
Axel-

> First, use the extensive public domain archives

Pictures are public domain if they
1) have been created before 1923
2) are produced by the US government.

Obviously that leaves a lot of essential material, especially given that
Wikipedia is not a US-only project, and most other nations don't have an
equivalent public domain rule.

> Next, once our foundation has
> money, we can try to acquire the copyright of selected important images
> we need and cannot get in any other way.

The problem with that approach is that we need an exclusive world-wide
license, since we need to allow unlimited redistribution and modification.
This is *very* expensive for most professional photographs, and impossible
for many.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
Brion-

>> What we should not allow:
>> -------------------------
>> 1) Copyrighted, no permission (duh)
>> 2) No permission to redistribute other than for Wikipedia (prevents
>> forking)
>> 3) Advertising or prominent copyright notices in images that cannot
>> be removed
>> 4) Other restrictive licenses

> How can these be shown to be distinct from claiming "fair use" on
> copyrighted material that hasn't given us *any* rights (the default
> being 'all rights reserved')?

See [[fair use]]. There are very narrow limits on the kind of materials
and the extent to which we can use them.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] Please help.  please.

body:
Julie-
> Not only is there a possibility of the troll-like habit of changing
> identities,

I would like this to be omitted in the discussion until there is solid
evidence. It's not like this cannot be provided: You can ask Brion or
Jason, for example, to compare the server log entries by Triton and
another user and see if they come from the same IP address range. Until
then, in the interest of fairness, let's assume that Triton is a new user.

I do agree that Triton is steering away from trying to find a compromise
in the one discussion which I've taken a look at (French monarchs), and
always returning to the level of personal accusations, which is of course
unhelpful. He is certainly trolling to some extent ("Mr. X, Sir .."), not
sure how much. I do not think we're close to a ban, though, given the
standards on this kind of drastic measure in the past, which often creates
more problems than it solves (because people keep coming back).

Hmz. I'm beginning to sound like Cunctator. Let's see if there are any
vandals to ban ..

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Wikitech-l] 3 new InterWiki prefixes

body:
Toby-

> And what if two different languages translate these the same way?

Find a different name :-)

> OK, that's not very likely with such long terms as these examples,
> but I could imagine that "BackLinks" is the same in [[hr:]] and [[bs:]].
> Generally speaking, I don't think that such differences should be assumed.

They shouldn't. The proper way is to fix the Special namespace. This was
just a quick hack.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
Brion-

> Great. As an intermediate step, how about we go ahead and add a
> license-compatibility field or two to the image table and upload form (and
> at some point go looking through old images to mark the ones known to be
> PD or GFDL).

I'm for it. The resulting form contents should probably be saved in the
image description, so they can be edited. I agree with the NOTE: ..., a
relevant link to [[fair use]] should probably also be added.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
Axel-
> -+- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
>> Tomasz-
>>
>>> No !!!
>>> Just delete all non-free images.
>>
>> It would be silly not to allow the freedoms given to us by the law to
>> the maximum possible extent.

> By law, we could include texts which are exclusively licensed to us.
> Yet we don't do it: the goal isn't to produce a good encyclopedia
> (there are enough already), but a good encyclopedia that's free in as
> many senses as possible.
                ^reasonably

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
On Friday 30 May 2003 20:49, Daniel Mayer wrote:
>  Marco wrote:
> > No, you lose much more. You can not easily combine the content of two
> > "free" encyclopedias and get something that is "free". You can not copy
> > images from the English Wikipedia to the German Wikipedia anymore because
> > the "fair use" right works not this way in Germany.
>
> What? Since when has the German Wikipedia moved to a German-based server?
>
> Well, I know for a fact that it hasn't so German law has no bearing on the
> legality of having "fair user" (per US law) images on the German Wikipedia.
>
> However, those people who are subject to German law may be legally barred
> from uploading such images. But there are plenty of German-speaking
> Wikipedians living outside of Germany to do this.

O.k. you can circumvent this, but I wouldn't even be allowed to tell someone
outside of Germany to do this for me.

But this is not my main point. I say that by allowing "fair use" pictures we
violate the GFDL and our content is not "free" anymore. Citing Axel Boldt:

"Illustrating an article by adding a photo creates a derivative
work, therefore the whole has to be put under GFDL, therefore it cannot
be fair use material (or anything besides public domain or GFDL)."

We are not allowed to derive from "Fair use" images and even the intuitive
rule:

   "free" article + "free" article = "free" article

is not true anymore (because the new free article might contain that many
images that the result is not covered by "Fair use" anymore).

Therefore we are violating the GFDL and/or we give up the important idea of a
"free" encyclopedia. In my humble opinion a few images simply are not worth
this. At least I thought that the "free" in "Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia" is an important and fundamental principal.

best regards,
  Marco

--
Marco Krohn
Theoretical Physics
University of Hannover


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Viking ban

body:
Lee-
> At 16:15 30/05/2003 -0700, Dante Alighieri wrote:
>> In the interest of fairness I wanted to state that it may not be strictly
>> true that no one objects to the ban on User:Viking.

> Well I object if nobody else.

So do I. See [[User talk:Viking/ban]].

Regards,

Erik


body:
Toby-

>> The question is, do we want relevant information on one subject to be
>> grouped together, or do we want to *unnecessarily* use the "hypertext
>> medium" just for kicks? The latter seems like a gimmicky thing to do,

> Well of course it does, because it's a strawman
> (uninentionally on your part, I'm sure).
> Oliver doesn't want to use the medium for *kicks* --
> even the people that worked on [[Gnipper]] (below) weren't doing that.

So far I have not seen any solid arguments for the practice of having many
small, interlinked articles, other than "it's the web". This is why I am
referring to that practice as "just for kicks". That's not a straw man,
but it can be refuted by showing such arguments.

>>> I don't think so. Merging small articles into big ones increases the
>>> number of redirects floating around.

>> Replacing all redirects to FOO with redirects to BAR is a job for a
>> machine. Replacing all links to FOO with links to BAR is a job for a
>> human, because you don't know in which verbal context these links appear.

> I don't understand this comment.
> Can you give an example (possibly hypothetical) of a situation
> where you can contrast the effects of the different designs?

OK, let's say you have [[Characters in Atlas Shrugged]], and for each of
these characters you have a redirect on their page (e.g. [[John Galt]]) to
the [[Characters ..]] page, so that they can be linked to.

Now let's say we move [[Characters in Atlas Shrugged]] to [[Characters of
Atlas Shrugged]]. Whoops, now we have lots of double redirects for each of
the individual characters, and need to change the redirs. But this can be
done using a single DB query:

UPDATE cur SET cur_text="#REDIRECT [[Characters of Atlas Shrugged]]" where
cur_text="#REDIRECT [[Characters in Atlas Shrugged]]";

On the other hand, let's say you have

[[Don Conway]]
[[Eddie Willers]]
[[Ellis Wyatt]]
[[Hank Rearden]]
...

as individual articles, which all point to [[Atlas Shrugged]]. Turns out
that Ayn Rand actually called her book "Worship Me" and "Atlas Shrugged"
was just the working title. So we now need to fix all those links, but
because of the different context they can appear in, this may not be
possible with a DB query.

In general, having lots of small articles requires us to have lots of real
links (not just redirects) to tie them together, which may need to be
updated at some point. And this can get very messy. There's other stuff,
like the redundant intro texts which may need to be changed etc.

> Agh, everybody forget how we *look*.

No. It may not be essential, but it is important. And how we look reflects
on what we are (yeah, very deep, I know). If we consider every Gnipper
relevant enough to get his own article, that says something about our
standards of significance, too.

> But another problem with subpages is still present.
> That problem was that we didn't know if it was best
> to structure things as [[Stuff/Chap's views]] or [[Chap/Views on Stuff]].
> By placing all of Chap's views on Stuff in [[Chap]], you choose the latter.
> By keeping [[Chap's views on Stuff]] separate, Oliver avoids the problem.

As I said, where the situation is ambivalent, I agree that having a
separate page may be a better solution.

> For a published encyclopaedia, which is a finished work,
> I don't think that the ability to grow into a long article
> makes any difference for their purposes one way or another.

> That does have some relevance to us, but not to them.
> Rather, they don't have [[Gnipper]] -- even as a redirect! --
> because they don't consider that character significant enough.

Whether an article can theoretically grow is a somewhat counter-intuitive
way to *determine* significance, even for a non-dynamic encyclopedia. My
policy suggestion could also be phrased as "Insigificant subjects should
not have their own articles but instead be merged into longer ones", but
that's more vague and can perhaps be perceived as condescending ("Gnipper
is no unsigificant! He's the best dog EVER!").

Regards,

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Harry Potter

body:
Peter Bartlett wrote:

>Dear list,
>
>This user has been starting or contributing to articles relating to
>pataphysics, which is a movement that parodies things that are
>pretentiously highbrow (as I understand it, pataphysics is to science
>and the arts, as Mornington Crescent (the game show) was to chess
>commentary.) Unfortunately Harry, instead of writing NPOV articles on
>the subject has been writing articles about pataphysics in the style of
>a pataphysican. this is to say in a deliberately obscure , obtuse and
>POV way. Moreover these articles are in fact generally copied from other
>websites with no sign of permission being sought. Harry has brushed this
>last problem with a claim that pataphysicans are anti-copyright and so
>it doesn't matter.
>
I never heard of Mornington Crescent, so that allusion is obscure to me.
 It would seem hard to define NPOV in an absurdist context where
empirical sense does not have a significant role to start with.  It may
be sufficient to offer a warning to those readers inclined to take the
subject seriously that what follows is parody, and that if they are
seriously looking for medical help they should consult a psychiatrist.

The copyright issue may not matter because of the anti-copyright stand.
 If the pataphysicians (or pataphyphysicists?) have left the impression
that they are releasing their own writings into the public domain, so be
it.  What they really are doing should be carefully checked.

>One example is the page
>[[Anthony_Hancock_Paintings_and_Sculptures:_A_Retrospective_Exhibition]]
>.
>NB Anthony Hancock is a character in the film The Rebel played by,
>perhaps confusingly, Tony Hancock. Knowing that Anthony Hancock is/was
>not a real person makes it easier to understand why this article is
>rubbish.
>
Tony Hancock WAS a real person!!!  His radio comedy ranks right up there
with "The Goon Show" and "Monty Python".  Whether the "The Rebel" or the
retrospective are accurate representations of Hancock, or parodies is
quite another question.  When absurdists think outside the box they also
abandon the safety of keeping the box in view.

>I have tried to engage in a debate with Harry (see Votes For Deletion),
>but as a relative newbie, I do not how to handle him and persuade to
>conform to our rules if he wants to contribute to the Wikipedia. For the
>first time having been on the 'net for years I fear I have been properly
>trolled.
>
[[Votes for Deletion]] may simply be the wrong place for the discussion.
 There is absolutely nothing on the talk page for [[Pataphysics]].


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] JTDirl, was Requesting sysop access - CGS

body:
> From: "Tony Wilson" <list at redhill.net.au>

> Tony
>
> (Tannin)
>
> (By the way, what happened to the nomination for JTDirl? That one seems
> to have fallen through the cracks. It's been ages.)

I continue to object to sysop status for JTDirl. Take a look at the nasty
comment on my talk page:

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Fred_Bauder especially on the last
line:

"lol Fear?IREANN"

I made no mistake in objecting to him.

Fred


body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>>From: "Tony Wilson" <list at redhill.net.au>
>>
>>Tony
>>
>>(Tannin)
>>
>>(By the way, what happened to the nomination for JTDirl? That one seems
>>to have fallen through the cracks. It's been ages.)
>>
>
>I continue to object to sysop status for JTDirl. Take a look at the nasty
>comment on my talk page:
>
>http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Fred_Bauder especially on the last
>line:
>
>"lol Fear?IREANN"
>
>I made no mistake in objecting to him.
>
Without committing myself one way or the other about sysops, I find
Fred's claim of a so-called "nasty comment" to be an egregious
distortion of fact.  The entire end reads as follows:

> I thought I better let you know that this does crop up via the google
> search. Feel free, BTW, to erase this message if you want. For all our
> disagreements, I think it deeply wrong that the above accusation comes
> up against your name on google. lol  Fear?IREANN
> <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jtdirl>

This last paragraph and the much longer posting that precedes it seems
very conciliatory.  The most relevant distortion seems to involve
treating the "Fear" part of the nickname as some kind of imperative.
 Fred may not have noticed that JTDirl lives in Dublin, and his most
abiding contributions have been in matters of Irish interest.  I would
assign Fred the homework of looking up "fear" in a Gaelic dictionary.

May I suggest to JTDirl that an article on Irish Gaelic comparable to
TAW's article on Polish would be most welcome at Wiktionary.

Eclecticology


body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>and "lol" means what?
>
It used to mean "little old lady"

Now I usually take it to mean "Lots of Luck!"

Is there another?

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] On Plagiarism

body:
>From a recent New York Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/31/books/31BOMB.html?tntemail1

'The Naval Academy's history department, in its guidelines on plagiarism,
states that citations "must clearly and explicitly guide the reader to the
sources used" and that writers must indicate "all use of another's words,
even if they constitute only part of a sentence, with quotation marks and
specific citation."

A statement on plagiarism that is posted on the Web site of the American
Historical Association states that a historian "should never simply borrow
and rephrase the findings of other scholars" and that "the clearest abuse is
the use of another's language without quotation marks and citation."'

So what standard should we follow?

Should we be using footnotes in all articles in such instances?

I should confess that I have used considerable "rephrasing" from time to
time in my Wikipedia articles. That avoids copyright violation but not
plagarism as defined above.

Fred


body:
and "lol" means what?

> From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
> Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 06:37:31 -0700
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] JTDirl, was Requesting sysop access - CGS
>
> Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>>> From: "Tony Wilson" <list at redhill.net.au>
>>>
>>> Tony
>>>
>>> (Tannin)
>>>
>>> (By the way, what happened to the nomination for JTDirl? That one seems
>>> to have fallen through the cracks. It's been ages.)
>>>
>>
>> I continue to object to sysop status for JTDirl. Take a look at the nasty
>> comment on my talk page:
>>
>> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Fred_Bauder especially on the last
>> line:
>>
>> "lol Fear?IREANN"
>>
>> I made no mistake in objecting to him.
>>
> Without committing myself one way or the other about sysops, I find
> Fred's claim of a so-called "nasty comment" to be an egregious
> distortion of fact.  The entire end reads as follows:
>
>> I thought I better let you know that this does crop up via the google
>> search. Feel free, BTW, to erase this message if you want. For all our
>> disagreements, I think it deeply wrong that the above accusation comes
>> up against your name on google. lol  Fear?IREANN
>> <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jtdirl>
>
> This last paragraph and the much longer posting that precedes it seems
> very conciliatory.  The most relevant distortion seems to involve
> treating the "Fear" part of the nickname as some kind of imperative.
> Fred may not have noticed that JTDirl lives in Dublin, and his most
> abiding contributions have been in matters of Irish interest.  I would
> assign Fred the homework of looking up "fear" in a Gaelic dictionary.
>
> May I suggest to JTDirl that an article on Irish Gaelic comparable to
> TAW's article on Polish would be most welcome at Wiktionary.
>
> Eclecticology
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] On Plagiarism

body:
Perhaps a Notes page could accompany each article as in these two citations:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/communitarianism/

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/communitarianism/notes.html#05

Fred

>
> From a recent New York Times article:
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/31/books/31BOMB.html?tntemail1
>
> 'The Naval Academy's history department, in its guidelines on plagiarism,
> states that citations "must clearly and explicitly guide the reader to the
> sources used" and that writers must indicate "all use of another's words,
> even if they constitute only part of a sentence, with quotation marks and
> specific citation."
>
> A statement on plagiarism that is posted on the Web site of the American
> Historical Association states that a historian "should never simply borrow
> and rephrase the findings of other scholars" and that "the clearest abuse is
> the use of another's language without quotation marks and citation."'
>
> So what standard should we follow?
>
> Should we be using footnotes in all articles in such instances?
>
> I should confess that I have used considerable "rephrasing" from time to
> time in my Wikipedia articles. That avoids copyright violation but not
> plagarism as defined above.
>
> Fred
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>Just a retorical question, but glad I asked it.
>
>lol means laughing out loud.
>
>roflol
>
>Fred
>
>>From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
>>
>>
>>Fred Bauder wrote:
>>
>>>and "lol" means what?
>>>
>>It used to mean "little old lady"
>>
>>Now I usually take it to mean "Lots of Luck!"
>>
>>Is there another?
>>
>>Ec
>>
All the more reason to avoid these abbreviations!

http://www.astro.umd.edu/%7Emarshall/abbrev.html#L lists all three for lol

http://www.acronymfinder.com/af-query.asp?acronym=lol&String=exact&page=2
lists 37 meanings for the same thing!!


body:
Jimmy O'Regan wrote:

> Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>> and "lol" means what?
>>
>
> In Internet speak, "Laugh out loud", elsewhere, "Lots of love". I've
> seen JTD state elsewhere that he's new to the net.
>
In some Irish contexts it can also mean Loyal Orange Lodge. :-(

Ec


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Please help.  please.

body:
On Fri, 30 May 2003, Stan Shebs wrote:

> Julie Kemp wrote:
>
> > Anyway, could someone not currently involved (or who has not yet been
> > blasted) PLEASE take a look? There's a frightening amount of
> > commentary, but I think this person is not in any way aware of how to
> > work with others or really interested in participating in a positive
> > manner. I am not using the "b" word, but if that is already something
> > this user is under (it has been suggested he's DW), then it's not a
> > problem. If it's not, perhaps someone with a Voice of Authority (and
> > in his eyes, the only authority is Jimbo, whose wrath he threatens
> > regularly) could ask him nicely to quit his abuse and play nice?
> >
> I've read most or all of the commentary (I don't know why :-) ),
> and I think he/she probably wants to work with others at some
> level, but is incapable of actually doing so. At this point I
> would just say to fix mistakes in article edits and otherwise
> don't pay much attention to him/her.
>
> Triton reminds me a little of a certain type of student that
> you may have encountered too - wants to contribute, maybe even
> eager, but thick as a plank, unable to follow the discussion,
> and eventually becoming resentful and hostile as a result of
> repeated failure. It's sad, and we should give people like that
> the benefit of the doubt, but ultimately we have to ask ourselves
> whether (precious) time spent on the person is just being thrown
> down the drain.
>
I'm a little slow in contributing to this thread, but I'd like to
ask for a little patience with T for a while. I'm the ``llywrch"
Julie mentioned [*], & despite his faults I believe T is not
a troll. (Difficult, poor social skills, a tendency to graniloquent
langauge, obsessive over certain points of view, yes -- but I can
be too. Which is probably one reason I want to try to help T.)

I'd like to point to the fact that I entered the Clovis I edit war
a few days ago & managed to find a compromise between T & Julie.
And last time I looked at the article -- yesterday -- there wasn't
anything in it that I would seriously question.

So what I'm asking is that everyone leave T alone for a few days &
let me work with him. At the worst he leaves Julie & some others
alone for a while - & I learn I don't have any mentoring skills;
at the best I help him understand how to contribute to Wikipedia
in a constructive way.

Okay?

Geoff


body:
Just a retorical question, but glad I asked it.

lol means laughing out loud.

roflol

Fred

> From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
> Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 07:03:42 -0700
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] JTDirl, was Requesting sysop access - CGS
>
> Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>> and "lol" means what?
>>
> It used to mean "little old lady"
>
> Now I usually take it to mean "Lots of Luck!"
>
> Is there another?
>
> Ec
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] On Plagiarism

body:
> From: Vicki Rosenzweig <vr at redbird.org>
> Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 10:16:01 -0400
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] On Plagiarism
>
> At 08:00 AM 5/31/03 -0600, you wrote:
>>> From a recent New York Times article:
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/31/books/31BOMB.html?tntemail1
>>
>> 'The Naval Academy's history department, in its guidelines on plagiarism,
>> states that citations "must clearly and explicitly guide the reader to the
>> sources used" and that writers must indicate "all use of another's words,
>> even if they constitute only part of a sentence, with quotation marks and
>> specific citation."
>
> Those are standards for footnoting term papers; interesting, but not what
> we're doing.

The subject addressed in the NYT article is a book. Not what we are doing
either, but the author of the times article seems to advance the principle
in a general sense to include all writing.

>
>> A statement on plagiarism that is posted on the Web site of the American
>> Historical Association states that a historian "should never simply borrow
>> and rephrase the findings of other scholars" and that "the clearest abuse is
>> the use of another's language without quotation marks and citation."'
>
> And we *really* aren't writing academic papers or books that claim to be
> original research. In fact, if it's original research, it doesn't belong in
> the
> Wikipedia.

Right, but some folks here, expecially academics, regularly invoke academic
standards in discussing articles here. Original research does not need to be
footnoted anyway.

Fred


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] An Excellent Short Article was Limits to the
	non-paperiness of Wikipedia?

body:
My example would be [[Baltzar von Platen]], an excellent example of a short
article that stands alone with useful and interesting links.

Fred

>
> My new test case is [[Cyrus Cantrell]], an example less likely to provoke
> distracting emotional responses than the previous one - ignoring the
> genealogical connection. Dr. Cantrell is a not especially well-known
> academic in the field of engineering, who has done research in
> [[photonics]]. Assuming that no-one ever expands his article up to 20,000
> characters (which seems likely), do you propose merging his article into
> another one? Possibly into [[photonics]], or into a new article for the
> research centre he heads? Both of these would require omitting some
> biographical material not directly relevant to his work - we don't
> generally give people's full names, qualifications, and a list of posts
> they hold if we're only mentioning them in the context of a larger
> subject, so information would be lost. What do you propose?
>
> Oliver


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

subject: [WikiEN-l] On Plagiarism

body:
At 08:00 AM 5/31/03 -0600, you wrote:
> >From a recent New York Times article:
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/31/books/31BOMB.html?tntemail1
>
>'The Naval Academy's history department, in its guidelines on plagiarism,
>states that citations "must clearly and explicitly guide the reader to the
>sources used" and that writers must indicate "all use of another's words,
>even if they constitute only part of a sentence, with quotation marks and
>specific citation."

Those are standards for footnoting term papers; interesting, but not what
we're doing.

>A statement on plagiarism that is posted on the Web site of the American
>Historical Association states that a historian "should never simply borrow
>and rephrase the findings of other scholars" and that "the clearest abuse is
>the use of another's language without quotation marks and citation."'

And we *really* aren't writing academic papers or books that claim to be
original research. In fact, if it's original research, it doesn't belong in the
Wikipedia.

Yes, if I were to write an article that was, basically, Historian A's theory
about Event B, I would give credit. But that's not a likely Wikipedia topic.
More likely, an article about Event B might include a paragraph that
began "So-and-so's theory..." or "According to So-and-so", and then
have something in the links section.

>So what standard should we follow?
>
>Should we be using footnotes in all articles in such instances?
>
>I should confess that I have used considerable "rephrasing" from time to
>time in my Wikipedia articles. That avoids copyright violation but not
>plagarism as defined above.

--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


from_name: Ulrich Fuchs

body:
>... but I think that Web-based things should be tailored to the
> medium, and that means that information should be arranged in a web-like
> structure, not artificially forced into a one-dimensional structure like
> traditional writing. It would be good to have a way to save related
> articles together, but what is related depends on the reader, again. A
> reader interested in Chap would want [[Chap]], [[Chap's views on Stuff]],
> and [[Chap's views on Things]] saved together, whereas a reader interested
> in Stuff would want [[Stuff]], [[Chap's views on Stuff]], and [[Guy's
> views on Stuff]] all saved together. I expect a technical solution could
> be thought up to enable readers to group articles for saving together,
> according to their personal preferences. :)
>
> > * We do not require the reader to click around unnecessarily, which can
> > be confusing to many people
>
> I'm not sure I follow this argument. Isn't that what people do on the Web
> all the time?

The issue with many small interlinked articles is noise. You won't be able to
type in "Sauna" and find what you would reasonably expect there (an
etymology, a bit about finnish culture, health issues, literature links),
instead you will have to use a *Search engine*, type in "Sauna" there, and
get an immense number of articles that aren't related to the subject at all,
like the fact that Johan Paulik made a film "Sauna paradiso" and that the MV
Blue Marvin (a ship) also has a sauna. This is the problem which we have with
the WWW today already, and we should do everything to avoid that wikipedia
will be running into the same problem in some years and just shows up as the
same noisy mess the WWW is today. We already have that problem right now: Go
and try to enter "palestine" in the wikipedia search: There are more than 500
matches. The one article named "Palestine" is more or less a link list. What
tells me that? I don't get the information out of Wikipedia, I'll get it out
of Britannica. (Check out this link and you'll understand the difference:
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=115036)

In other words: I do not want to need a google on wikipedia, to filter out
noise, because it probably filters out that part of noise I am interested in.
The only way to deal with that are IMHO *large* articles, structured by good
editors. It is far easier to scroll down a large article with good structure
(headlines) until you reach the part you are interested, than to klick around
and hope to find that piece of information somewhere in some article which is
somehow linked by a chain of three other articles.

Uli


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

body:
Brion-
> While not every possible item in those categories could be used by fair
> use, it seems to me that anything _not_ in those categories wouldn't
> even come up on the fair use radar

Sure. Fair use is a rare exception to the rule that we should not use
copyrighted materials.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Chris Seaton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Requesting sysop access

body:
Can I request sysop access for the English Wikipedia, my user name is CGS.

Chris Seaton


from_name: Christopher Mahan

subject: [WikiEN-l] Please help.  please.

body:
--- Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:

> I've read most or all of the commentary (I don't know why :-) ),
> and I think he/she probably wants to work with others at some
> level, but is incapable of actually doing so. At this point I
> would just say to fix mistakes in article edits and otherwise
> don't pay much attention to him/her.

I tend to look at this the way you do, but I wish to add that the
incapacity is not a lack of capacity, but rather an inflexibility of
cooperativeness in the medium of the W.

> Triton reminds me a little of a certain type of student that
> you may have encountered too - wants to contribute, maybe even
> eager, but thick as a plank, unable to follow the discussion,
> and eventually becoming resentful and hostile as a result of
> repeated failure. It's sad, and we should give people like that
> the benefit of the doubt, but ultimately we have to ask ourselves
> whether (precious) time spent on the person is just being thrown
> down the drain.

Few people want to coach others, because of the perceived time
investment. Perhaps the pros and cons should be weighed.

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

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM).
http://calendar.yahoo.com


from_name: Daniel Ehrenberg

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Viking

body:
Even if Viking was a sysop, anyone could critisize any of his actions. If he wanted to, an anonymous user could critisize every single one of Jimbo's actions, and if the arguments were good enough, Jimbo may even act on it. In Wikipedia, everyone has equal speech rights. Never the right to lie or intimidate, though.
--LittleDan

a.crossman at blueyonder.co.uk wrote:
I've already reversed my position regarding a ban and apologized to
Viking (on [[User talk:Viking]]), so I don't want to get back into
that argument. However, I will answer your question:

>What evidence can you present that Viking's claims of sysop status
>were false?

Not listed on [[Wikipedia:Administrators]]

Said he had some other account that had sysop status. Refused to say
which. Behaved in a very un-sysop like way. And real sysops do not
hide behind second accounts.

Look - the default position if someone claims some sort of authority
must be "prove it". User:Viking absolutely failed to do so. You can't
just come in, say "I'm a sysop, don't criticise my edits unless
you're a sysop."

But I've admitted to an over-reaction on my part. Sorry. It won't
happen again. (well, not until the next time)

--
Allan Crossman
a.crossman at blueyonder.co.uk
http://dogma.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk

_______________________________________________
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Ban on User:Viking?

body:
he didn't present any evidence that he was a sysop. I know what you're going to say:"innocent until proven guilty". If I said I was the president of the US, would you assume that I was until proven otherwise? It's really the same thing.
--LittleDan

Oliver Pereira <omp199 at ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote:
On Fri, 30 May 2003 a.crossman at blueyonder.co.uk wrote:

> Please see [[User talk:Viking/ban]]

This page has just been deleted by [[User:Kils]], who is a sysop. He also
deleted [[User:Viking]] shortly afterwards. His explanations in the
comment box for both deletions were: "project of my children - deleted
after threats".

> User:Viking has been nominated for a ban by Mbecker, seconded by
> Wapcaplet, thirded by me, fourthed by Dante, fifthed by CGS. No
> opposition at the time of writing (except from Viking).

> Actions include censorship of sex-related pages; totally false claims
> that he was a sysop, to intimidate users and make them stop
> criticising him; suggesting that the reason someone wanted to know
> the identity of his sysop account was so that they could hurt his
> children, and so on. General unpleasantness.

What evidence can you present that Viking's claims of sysop status were
false?

Oliver

+-------------------------------------------+
| Oliver Pereira |
| Dept. of Electronics and Computer Science |
| University of Southampton |
| omp199 at ecs.soton.ac.uk |
+-------------------------------------------+

_______________________________________________
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from_name: Dante Alighieri

subject: [WikiEN-l] Requesting sysop access - CGS

body:
I third CGS, he seems interested in improving the Wikipedia, and we always
need more people like that.

Oh, and in context, "lol" DEFINITELY meant "laughing out loud". I take it
you all don't regularly read the [[leet]] article...

-----

Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
    -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321
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subject: [WikiEN-l] On Plagiarism

body:
Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote: From a recent New York Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/31/books/31BOMB.html?tntemail1

'The Naval Academy's history department, in its guidelines on plagiarism,
states that citations "must clearly and explicitly guide the reader to the
sources used" and that writers must indicate "all use of another's words,
even if they constitute only part of a sentence, with quotation marks and
specific citation."

A statement on plagiarism that is posted on the Web site of the American
Historical Association states that a historian "should never simply borrow
and rephrase the findings of other scholars" and that "the clearest abuse is
the use of another's language without quotation marks and citation."'

So what standard should we follow?

Should we be using footnotes in all articles in such instances?

I should confess that I have used considerable "rephrasing" from time to
time in my Wikipedia articles. That avoids copyright violation but not
plagarism as defined above.

Fred

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

Plagerism, defined as any use of information without explicit credit, is prohibited by the vague concept of academinc honesty. Doing what is listed above is pure copywrite violation or copying of PD resources without credit. Wikipedia is already against that. For example, all of the articles that even had parts based on the CIA world factbook at one time have (or are supposed to have) boilerplate text notices on them, despite the fact that the CIA doesn't even request it. Same with the 1911 britannica and FOLDOC. I don't think the policy would be any different for other resources.
?LittleDan

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Kils sysop status temporarily revoked

body:
At 12:08 PM 5/31/2003, you wrote:
>I have temporarily revoked Kils' sysop status on en:, someone with
>developer status on de: may want to do the same. Explanation:

*snip snip*

>In spite of my objections, this should normally go through discussion
>first before the status is revoked, but I am worried that Kils might
>delete more pages, and it seemed like an appropriate safety measure. I
>also wanted to allow others to take a look at his user talk page to have a
>track record, and this was not possible with him being a sysop, because
>then I could not protect the page or stop him from deleting it. If anyone
>feels that Kils must be a sysop again, please post.

Well, here's my take.

I doubt that Kils would delete any other pages. He seems to have been
overly hasty in his deletion of the Viking pages (because a record ought to
be left of the incident), but I believe that his reasoning was semi-sound.
He was accepting responsibility for the actions of (it would appear) his
subordinates. It sounds like Kils was the sysop that Viking claimed was a
member of the Viking group. It also sounds like, while Kils shares the
Viking views regarding the safety of children on the net, that he plans on
advancing his goals in a different manner. Given that, I see no danger in
restoring Kils sysop powers, understanding of course that they should be
revoked if he unilateraly enages in any form of censorship. As Kils stated,
his concern was that the article was a bit more explicit and "handbook"
styled than perhaps was necessary or desirable in an encyclopedia. While I
don't happen to agree, it's certainly a valid point. Given that Kils seems
to have assured us that the Viking group is now commited to not using
User:Viking's tactics, I think Kils status ought to be restored.

-----

Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
    -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321
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body:
At 12:54 PM 5/31/2003, you wrote:
>Dante-
>
>how do you feel about the fact that he deleted his own talk page, thereby
>not even leaving his explanation of the incident?
>
>Regards,
>
>Erik

I don't think it's strictly true to say that he deleted his own talk page.
I will take them at their word that there are a group of people that we are
discussing here, and that the people at User:Viking were members of the
same group as Kils, but are not one and the same person.

As I said, the deletion of the page was a Bad Thing, but it can be undone.
Assuming that Kils understands why that was a mistake, as I assume he will
if we explain it to him, I see no danger in restoring his sysop powers.
After all, the only unreversable action that a sysop can take is the
deletion of pictures which really isn't that big of a deal anyway. If he
begins to abuse his powers, take them away for good. But, as I see it, Kils
hasn't really done anything too terrible. It's probably just been (and
PLEASE forgive me for this one) a cultural misunderstanding.

-----

Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
    -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321
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subject: [WikiEN-l] JTDirl sysop issue

body:
For what it's worth, I support JTDirl as a sysop. I don't think that JTD
was being rude to FB on his page, I think that perhaps FB isn't looking at
it in the same light that it was intended.

On a side note, even if it WAS rude, if ever being rude was a valid reason
to deny someone sysop status, then a WHOLE bunch of sysops are in SERIOUS
trouble. lol (laughing out loud, remember? You DID go read [[leet]], didn't
you?)

-----

Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
    -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321
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body:
Tony-
> (By the way, what happened to the nomination for JTDirl? That one seems
> to have fallen through the cracks. It's been ages.)

Fred objected, and in cases like these, Jimbo usually has the final word.
I've reminded him but he has not said anything yet (he appears to be a bit
swamped at the moment).

Regards,

Erik


body:
At 01:19 PM 5/31/2003, you wrote:
>You misunderstand me. I was not referring to the [[User:Viking]] deletion.
>He deleted the page [[User talk:Kils]] after he responded there to my
>query regarding the Kils/Viking relationship, even before I could read the
>response. I restored the page and revoked his sysop status to prevent him
>from deleting it again, at which point he reverted it to a prior revision.
>I restored the response and protected the page, to have an open track
>record for this discussion. Kils then posted on my page (in German) that
>he did not want his talk page to "link to pornographic pages" and asked
>me, in very formal language, to delete it. Of course there is no link to
>any pornographic page on the talk page, just his response which I posted
>here.
>
>That he may have deleted the Viking experiment without prior discussion, I
>can understand. But normally pages should be listed on [[Wikipedia:Votes
>for deletion]] first, and in this case, he really just used his sysop
>privileges to remove something which, for whatever reason, he did not want
>to be publicly visible.
>
>Regards,
>
>Erik

Oh, oh, OH!!

Yes, I most certainly DID misunderstand you... let me go look at the
deleted Kils talk page. Hmmm... yeah. That is considerably more damning.
Personally I'd still like to give him the benefit of the doubt, given that
he's been a good contributor.... but it certainly doesn't look good. I
support at least a temporary revocation of his sysop status and think that
the best thing Kils can hope for is a message to the list explaining his
actions.

-----

Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
    -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Sysop Request User:Kosebamse

body:
you're a great contributer. I second.
--LittleDan

kosebamse at gmx.net wrote:
Dear wikipedians,

Now that I?ve been around for a while, I?d like to humbly submit my request
for sysop status.

Best regards, Kosebamse

--
+++ GMX - Mail, Messaging & more http://www.gmx.net +++
Bitte l?cheln! Fotogalerie online mit GMX ohne eigene Homepage!

_______________________________________________
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Sysop Request User:Kosebamse

body:
I knew there was something I was forgeting, I third.

At 01:47 PM 5/31/2003, you wrote:
>you're a great contributer. I second.
>--LittleDan
>
>kosebamse at gmx.net wrote:
>Dear wikipedians,
>
>Now that I?ve been around for a while, I?d like to humbly submit my request
>for sysop status.
>
>Best regards, Kosebamse
>
>--
>+++ GMX - Mail, Messaging & more http://www.gmx.net +++
>Bitte l?cheln! Fotogalerie online mit GMX ohne eigene Homepage!
>
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>Do you Yahoo!?
>Free <http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail_us/tag/*http://calendar.yahoo.com>online
>calendar with sync to Outlook(TM).

-----

Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
    -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321
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subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Harry Potter

body:
Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>One example is the page
>[[Anthony_Hancock_Paintings_and_Sculptures:_A_Retrospective_Exhibition]]
>.
>NB Anthony Hancock is a character in the film The Rebel played by,
>perhaps confusingly, Tony Hancock. Knowing that Anthony Hancock is/was
>not a real person makes it easier to understand why this article is
>rubbish.
>
Tony Hancock WAS a real person!!! His radio comedy ranks right up there
with "The Goon Show" and "Monty Python". Whether the "The Rebel" or the
retrospective are accurate representations of Hancock, or parodies is
quite another question. When absurdists think outside the box they also
abandon the safety of keeping the box in view.

No, Pete said Anthony Hancock wasn't real and Tony Hancock was the actor who portrayed him.

?LittleDan

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subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Harry Potter

body:
> I never heard of Mornington Crescent, so that allusion is obscure to
me.

Yes sorry that probably won't help if you are not from the UK. There is
an article about it if you are interested in knowing more.

> It would seem hard to define NPOV in an absurdist context where
>empirical sense does not have a significant role to start with.  It may

>be sufficient to offer a warning to those readers inclined to take the
>subject seriously that what follows is parody, and that if they are
>seriously looking for medical help they should consult a psychiatrist.

Ok, if we can write this in a way so that it conforms to encyclopaedic
standards and so we cover pataphysics on the 'pedia then great. It
doesn't help when Harry Potter keeps reverting back to nonsense all the
time.

>The copyright issue may not matter because of the anti-copyright stand.

> If the pataphysicians (or pataphyphysicists?) have left the impression

>that they are releasing their own writings into the public domain, so
be
>it.  What they really are doing should be carefully checked.

Fine, then the person copying this work should make this clear in the
talk page. They shouldn't just submit work as if it was their own.
Things in the public domain should be credited too.

>>One example is the page
>>[[Anthony_Hancock_Paintings_and_Sculptures:_A_Retrospective_Exhibition
]]
>>.
>>NB Anthony Hancock is a character in the film The Rebel played by,
>>perhaps confusingly, Tony Hancock. Knowing that Anthony Hancock is/was
>>not a real person makes it easier to understand why this article is
>>rubbish.
>>

>Tony Hancock WAS a real person!!!  His radio comedy ranks right up
there
>with "The Goon Show" and "Monty Python".  Whether the "The Rebel" or
the
>retrospective are accurate representations of Hancock, or parodies is
>quite another question.  When absurdists think outside the box they
also
>abandon the safety of keeping the box in view.

Yes I am quite aware that TONY Hancock was a real person and am quite
aware of his pedigree. /HE/ played a character called ANTHONY ALOYSUS
Hancock in the film The Rebel! I wrote this in the paragraph you are
responding to!!! It may be worthwhile to read a film review or two of
The Rebel, or one of the bios TONY Hancock; it helps you to release what
a sorry web HP is weaving on our encyclopedia.

>[[Votes for Deletion]] may simply be the wrong place for the
discussion.
> There is absolutely nothing on the talk page for [[Pataphysics]].

It has already been moved. However HP's trail of destruction lies across
lots of pages, see his User Contributions. I had hoped that VfD would be
a very visible place to so I could get some help in undoing the damage
he is doing.

Pete
Pcb21

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from_name: Jimmy O'Regan

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> May I suggest to JTDirl that an article on Irish Gaelic comparable to
> TAW's article on Polish would be most welcome at Wiktionary.

I'll save him the trouble. Fear ?ireann means Ireland Man, or ?IREman as
one of JTD's previous aliases went. And while I'm at it, ST?D/?IRE is
the same as JTDIrl, with JTD's initials /as gaeilge/

> Eclecticology


body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>and "lol" means what?
>
>
In Internet speak, "Laugh out loud", elsewhere, "Lots of love". I've
seen JTD state elsewhere that he's new to the net.


from_name: kosebamse at gmx.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] Sysop Request User:Kosebamse

body:
Dear wikipedians,

Now that I?ve been around for a while, I?d like to humbly submit my request
for sysop status.

Best regards, Kosebamse

--
+++ GMX - Mail, Messaging & more  http://www.gmx.net +++
Bitte l?cheln! Fotogalerie online mit GMX ohne eigene Homepage!


from_name: Thomas Corell

subject: [Wikitech-l] Bug in Search

body:
If you enter something like this (test in german wikipedia):

"5 AND Dezember" you get:

1064: You have an error in your SQL syntax. Check the manual that
corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near
'AND (MATCH (si_title) AGAINST ('dezember')) ) AND cur_namespace":

SELECT cur_id,cur_namespace,cur_title,cur_text FROM cur,searchindex WHERE
cur_id=si_page AND ( AND (MATCH (si_title) AGAINST ('dezember')) ) AND
cur_namespace IN (0) LIMIT 0, 20

I see two AND's one after the other which means that "this->mTextcond" is
emtpy (in the source code).  It works with every single character as search
term, not only numbers.

Someone good at SearchEngine.php should take a look.
--
Smurf

smurf at AdamAnt.mud.de
-------------------------  Anthill inside! ---------------------------


subject: [WikiEN-l] blanket reverts

body:
I don't think the blanket reverting efforts directed
at Michael are good. I went through the contrabutions
of 24.130.213.24x (those of you reverting know who I'm
talking about) and many, if not most, of his edits
were useful and even factual. I will be un-reverting
all of his useful edits, but only after fact checking.
--LittleDan

__________________________________
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from_name: Oliver Pereira

body:
I had decided to drop this, but I don't think it really ever got to
addressing the point I was interested in, so I'll carry on...

On 31 May 2003, Erik Moeller wrote:

> So far I have not seen any solid arguments for the practice of having
> many small, interlinked articles, other than "it's the web". This is why
> I am referring to that practice as "just for kicks". That's not a straw
> man, but it can be refuted by showing such arguments.

Yes, you have seen such arguments. You even laid out the arguments against
long (20 - 30 Kb) articles in a nice list for us a few days ago:

1. Hard to edit
2. No linkability to individual sections
3. Attention span

You mentioned a possible technical solution for the first one (ability to
edit individual sections), although this missed my point, which was that
it was difficult to *restructure* large articles, rather than to edit
within a pre-existing structure.

You mentioned a possible technical solution to the second one, but then
when I objected to linking to individual sections, you said, "Actually, I
tend to agree with you on that one." :)

You said the third one was "a valid argument", but that it could be solved
by proper structuring of the information. I agreed, but we disagreed on
what that proper structuring was. Except that in some circumstances,
"splitting off specific points, e.g. long criticism discussions, may be
desirable to avoid detracting from the main substance of the article", in
which case we agree.

So all three arguments still stand, to some degree.

> No. It may not be essential, but it is important. And how we look
> reflects on what we are (yeah, very deep, I know). If we consider every
> Gnipper relevant enough to get his own article, that says something
> about our standards of significance, too.

You have brought up these obscure fictional characters quite a few times
in this discussion now. This is a straw man argument if ever I saw one.
No-one on the mailing list has ever stated that they want an article on
[[Gnipper]] and his friends, as far as I can recall.

If you will recall, I brought up the subject of article length in the
context of a 1,400 character article about a person, and I asked if it
really mattered if it was always going to remain under 10,000 bytes.
That's how this thing started. So please stop bringing up those damned
cartoon dogs, and tell me: is there any way of integrating a biographical
article into a larger one, without most of the information either seeming
out of place, or being omitted altogether?

My new test case is [[Cyrus Cantrell]], an example less likely to provoke
distracting emotional responses than the previous one - ignoring the
genealogical connection. Dr. Cantrell is a not especially well-known
academic in the field of engineering, who has done research in
[[photonics]]. Assuming that no-one ever expands his article up to 20,000
characters (which seems likely), do you propose merging his article into
another one? Possibly into [[photonics]], or into a new article for the
research centre he heads? Both of these would require omitting some
biographical material not directly relevant to his work - we don't
generally give people's full names, qualifications, and a list of posts
they hold if we're only mentioning them in the context of a larger
subject, so information would be lost. What do you propose?

Oliver

+-------------------------------------------+
| Oliver Pereira                            |
| Dept. of Electronics and Computer Science |
| University of Southampton                 |
| omp199 at ecs.soton.ac.uk                    |
+-------------------------------------------+


body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Jimmy O'Regan wrote:
>
>> Fred Bauder wrote:
>>
>>> and "lol" means what?
>>>
>>
>>
>> In Internet speak, "Laugh out loud", elsewhere, "Lots of love". I've
>> seen JTD state elsewhere that he's new to the net.
>>
> In some Irish contexts it can also mean Loyal Orange Lodge. :-(
>
> Ec

To be pedantic, people who would use that term would be unlikely to use
it in an "Irish" context. I doubt that was JTD's intent, but as he seems
to be more of a night owl, his explanation may come later on.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Viking

body:
--- jlk7e at juno.com wrote:
>
> Just from reading the discussion here on the mailing
> list (without having looked too closely at the
> situation), I note a couple of things. 1) "Viking"
> deletes pages with sexual content; 2) "Viking"
> claims to be a sysop, under another account; 3) A
> sysop, "Kils" deletes Viking's page without
> consultation, offers a rather bizarre explanation
> for it, and seems to agree with Viking about sexual
> content.  4) Kils then deletes his talk page.
> Hmm....interesting...
>
> And on the presumption of innocence, this is silly.
> What pertains in a criminal trial does not pertain
> in judgments of people on wikipedia.  That phrase
> seems to be interpreted far too broadly in popular
> culture.  And what's the standard of proof here?  I
> would imagine that the lesser civil standard of
> "preponderance of the evidence" would apply here,
> rather than the criminal standard of "beyond a
> reasonable doubt".  I think the preponderance of
> evidence would suggest that either a) Viking was
> lying about being a sysop; or b) Viking was telling
> the truth, in which case what ever account of his is
> a sysop account ought not to be.
>
> John
> (jlk7e)

Preponderance of the evidence?

__________________________________
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Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM).
http://calendar.yahoo.com


body:
--- Dante Alighieri <dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com>
wrote:
> At 12:08 PM 5/31/2003, you wrote:
> >I have temporarily revoked Kils' sysop status on
> en:, someone with
> >developer status on de: may want to do the same.
> Explanation:
>
> *snip snip*
>
> >In spite of my objections, this should normally go
> through discussion
> >first before the status is revoked, but I am
> worried that Kils might
> >delete more pages, and it seemed like an
> appropriate safety measure. I
> >also wanted to allow others to take a look at his
> user talk page to have a
> >track record, and this was not possible with him
> being a sysop, because
> >then I could not protect the page or stop him from
> deleting it. If anyone
> >feels that Kils must be a sysop again, please post.
>
> Well, here's my take.
>
> I doubt that Kils would delete any other pages. He
> seems to have been
> overly hasty in his deletion of the Viking pages
> (because a record ought to
> be left of the incident), but I believe that his
> reasoning was semi-sound.
> He was accepting responsibility for the actions of
> (it would appear) his
> subordinates. It sounds like Kils was the sysop that
> Viking claimed was a
> member of the Viking group. It also sounds like,
> while Kils shares the
> Viking views regarding the safety of children on the
> net, that he plans on
> advancing his goals in a different manner. Given
> that, I see no danger in
> restoring Kils sysop powers, understanding of course
> that they should be
> revoked if he unilateraly enages in any form of
> censorship. As Kils stated,
> his concern was that the article was a bit more
> explicit and "handbook"
> styled than perhaps was necessary or desirable in an
> encyclopedia. While I
> don't happen to agree, it's certainly a valid point.
> Given that Kils seems
> to have assured us that the Viking group is now
> commited to not using
> User:Viking's tactics, I think Kils status ought to
> be restored.

No, if Kils is Viking, then hih sysop status
DEFINATELY shouldn'y be restored. Sysops *really*
shouldn't make pseudonyms or intimidate others. But I
haven't seen enough evidence that Kils is Viking.
--LittleDan

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM).
http://calendar.yahoo.com


from_name: Alex Vinokur

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Searching "C++"

body:
How to search C++ ?

Searching "C++" I have got the following results :

-------------------------------
Search results
For query "C"
For more information about searching Wikipedia, see Searching Wikipedia.
Badly formed search query
We could not process your query. This is probably because you have attempted to search for a word fewer than three letters long,
which is not yet supported. It could also be that you have mistyped the expression, for example "fish and and scales". Please try
another query
-------------------------------

--
   ==========================================
   Alex Vinokur
     mailto:alexvn at connect.to
     http://www.simtel.net/pub/oth/19088.html
     http://sourceforge.net/users/alexvn
   ==========================================


subject: [WikiEN-l] Ban on User:Viking?

body:
On Fri, 30 May 2003 a.crossman at blueyonder.co.uk wrote:

> Please see [[User talk:Viking/ban]]

This page has just been deleted by [[User:Kils]], who is a sysop. He also
deleted [[User:Viking]] shortly afterwards. His explanations in the
comment box for both deletions were: "project of my children - deleted
after threats".

> User:Viking has been nominated for a ban by Mbecker, seconded by
> Wapcaplet, thirded by me, fourthed by Dante, fifthed by CGS. No
> opposition at the time of writing (except from Viking).

> Actions include censorship of sex-related pages; totally false claims
> that he was a sysop, to intimidate users and make them stop
> criticising him; suggesting that the reason someone wanted to know
> the identity of his sysop account was so that they could hurt his
> children, and so on. General unpleasantness.

What evidence can you present that Viking's claims of sysop status were
false?

Oliver

+-------------------------------------------+
| Oliver Pereira                            |
| Dept. of Electronics and Computer Science |
| University of Southampton                 |
| omp199 at ecs.soton.ac.uk                    |
+-------------------------------------------+


from_name: a.crossman at blueyonder.co.uk

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Viking

body:
I've already reversed my position regarding a ban and apologized to
Viking (on [[User talk:Viking]]), so I don't want to get back into
that argument. However, I will answer your question:

>What evidence can you present that Viking's claims of sysop status
>were false?

Not listed on [[Wikipedia:Administrators]]

Said he had some other account that had sysop status. Refused to say
which. Behaved in a very un-sysop like way. And real sysops do not
hide behind second accounts.

Look - the default position if someone claims some sort of authority
must be "prove it". User:Viking absolutely failed to do so. You can't
just come in, say "I'm a sysop, don't criticise my edits unless
you're a sysop."

But I've admitted to an over-reaction on my part. Sorry. It won't
happen again. (well, not until the next time)

--
Allan Crossman
a.crossman at blueyonder.co.uk
http://dogma.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Viking

body:
On Sat, 31 May 2003 a.crossman at blueyonder.co.uk wrote:

> I've already reversed my position regarding a ban and apologized to
> Viking (on [[User talk:Viking]]), so I don't want to get back into that
> argument. However, I will answer your question:

Sorry, my message wasn't meant as an attack on your position. It was meant
as... something else. An alert, to draw people's attention to what was
going on. Perhaps it was unnecessarily hasty, and not very well
thought-out, and for that I apologise.

> Said he had some other account that had sysop status. Refused to say
> which. Behaved in a very un-sysop like way. And real sysops do not hide
> behind second accounts.

Theoretically, it is possible. I think it's best not to make an assumption
either way at this stage.

Oliver

+-------------------------------------------+
| Oliver Pereira                            |
| Dept. of Electronics and Computer Science |
| University of Southampton                 |
| omp199 at ecs.soton.ac.uk                    |
+-------------------------------------------+


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] naming convention for birds

body:
Where was the discussion for the naming convention for animals. A new user is
reverting the Canada goose, and I really don't want to get into that whole
fight again.

Danny
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