from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

body:
At 02:42 PM 4/4/02 -0800, Jimbo wrote:
>I don't think that 24 really understands the NPOV policy.  24 writes:
>"It remains to be see if people here wish to find the actual median of
>global human opinion."  And also: "There are 6100 million potential
>readers of the wikipedia, long term, and views shared near-universally
>by 100-300 million of them just aren't good enough to qualify as
>neutral point of view, if there is serious dispute about them among
>the other 5800-6000 million people."
>
>But NPOV is not about finding the 'median' of human opinion, nor about
>presenting only views that are "shared near-universally" by only
>Western, technologically advanced, American, or whatever other group
>he means.
>
>The examples he gives of things that we wouldn't even want to have in
>the encyclopedia betray his misunderstanding.  Selecting just one of
>them, "hate views of ethnic groups" is certainly something that
>Wikipedia should have an article on.  But the wikipedia should take no
>position "for" or "against" those views, but should instead present
>those views in such a way that both proponents and detractors can
>mutually agree.
>
>Similarly, imagine that 24's hypothetical poll of the entire world
>shows that most beleive that "9/11 was caused by US foreign policy" --
>what should the wikipedia say about that?  Well, nothing less than
>that a poll of the entire world showed that a majority of the world
>believes that "9/11 was caused by US foreign policy".  Hopefully our
>reporting on this fact would be enhanced by an NPOV discussion of the
>reasons why many people believe that, an NPOV discussion of what
>Americans believe, and why, and so on.
>
>His threat to post to indymedia.org to bring an onslaught of
>progressives is interesting and revealing, as well.  Brion Vibber's
>response was correct: please do, go and bring them in.  If lots of
>them come all at once, there will be a period of chaos while they come
>to understand our NPOV policies, but after that, those who can
>tolerate NPOV writing will stick around, and that'll be great.  It'll
>help keep those of us who do not share their viewpoints "in line".

Seconded. Heartily. By possibly the leftmost person on this mailing
list. NPOV is about spreading and sharing information, and about
distinguishing information from opinion. This is a Good Thing, in my own
not-so-humble opinion: oppressors of any stripe want to control information,
ideas, and knowledge.

>But if his indymedia.org friends want to violate the NPOV, then they
>will be just as unwelcome as, say, libertarians who come in and want
>to violate the NPOV.  Even such "stupid" followers of Ayn Rand, as
>your humble host would be held to the fire just as heartily for NPOV
>violations.

Exactly. Which is why this works, why you and I can agree to work on
this project, and improve it and make something valuable. We don't have
to agree on other things--and it's possible that Wikipedia is the only
thing other than the English language that we have in common.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Rosa Williams

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Site becoming a bit disquieting

body:
Allow me to heartily third Vicki Rosenzweig and Koyaanis Qatsi, from another
leftie (European view) or pinko commie bastich (US view -- just kidding,
guys ;) . 24 is not so much left or right as just plain odd... the pattern
seems similar to a number of Internet newsgroup kooks I've run into now and
again. ("I have the One True Way, and you should all bow down in awe!")
There are, as LDC says, occasional flashes of useful insight there, though
rather overwhelmed in the polemicism.  Perhaps the writer may yet grow out
of it... and if not, the collective corrective forces of Wikipedia ough to
be able to keep the diatribes in check.

-- April


from_name: Axel Boldt

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: HOWTO include GFDLed text?

body:
I think it would be best to first contact the author, even if we are
not strictly required to. Maybe he will say "I'm still editing these
pages, could you wait two months before you put it in Wikipedia", and
it would be very impolite to deny that request.

Generally, when adding GFDL material, we have always added a
line at the bottom saying "An earlier version of this article was
based on bla bla by bla bla" and a link back to the original material.
See for instance [[TeX]] (which has improved quite a bit since we
imported it).

Axel


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Suggestion for policy

in_reply_to: <20020405220333.I915@trell.vic.bigpond.net.au>; from rgmerk@mira.net on Fri, Apr 05, 2002 at 10:03:33PM +1000

body:
Robert Graham Merkel wrote:
> Is it time to make it wikipedia policy that you should sign
> your posts on talk pages?

Other than a very tiny handful of things, we run more under social
norms than policies, I think.  I mean, NPOV is policy, in the sense
that I'm willing to defend it by banning people, if it ever came to
that.  (Like, if a large group of ideologically minded people swooped
in on us to put forward their version of the world, at the expense of
NPOV, then I'd be willing to fight it with software, bans, etc.)

But most other things are "merely" social norms.  Like: be bold in
updating encyclopedia articles.  Like: don't edit other people's
signed comments during an ongoing discussion on a talk page.

The only way to enforce the social norm you're proposing is if most
people "sign on" to it.  Larry used to write these things on a page,
and people could "sign on" as agreeing -- a sort of unenforceable but
powerful social commitment.  I guess we'd just ignore people who don't
sign posts?  Or, we could make it "fair game" to just delete comments
that are unsigned?

I see some drawbacks to either.

Maybe the best thing to do is to "sign" the comments _for them_.
I.E., add an identifier to what people have written, primarily to keep
the comments straight.

Anonymity isn't the problem, right?  I mean, anyone can make up any
name and use it.  The problem is more one of _continuity_.  If I'm
/Talk ing with LDC or AxelBoldt, then I know something of their
history, and they of mine, so we can talk more efficiently.

--Jimbo


body:
Lars Aronsson wrote:
> Is this sufficient?  Isn't it also the case that all future
> modifications must be submitted back to the original source?
> I'm asking because I don't know these details of FDL.

No, that's not a condition of the GFDL.

The biggest problem we currently have with incorporating material via
the GFDL is that if it contains invariant sections (for example, an
invariant section which amounts to a link back to the original), our
end users can include that only by putting it bodily into the article,
where some other person, license-unaware, may delete it at some point
in the future.

Perhaps we need a way to add invariant sections for stuff incorporated
from elsewhere, as a separate database field, say, one which can't be
easily removed.

But we want to be careful with this.  I think it would be unfortunate
if individual authors here started adding invariant sections to the
stuff released to the project.

--Jimbo


from_name: Robert Graham Merkel

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Dealing with a crank

body:
It seems to me that 24.150.61.xxx doesn't really understand
the idea of the NPOV.  So far, they have wasted a considerable
amount of my time debating the "Artificial Intelligence" article (an
area in which I do have some actual expertise, having studied extensively
and actually having done a small amount of research in the area),
and it has become increasingly clear that this individual does
not understand the things they are discussing and are pushing
their own idiosyncratic line  - to take a simple example of their
lack of comprehension, they speak of proving the Church-Turing thesis,
which is not a theorem and can therefore never be proved.

If it were just me, I wouldn't be so quick to judge, but it seems
like they are annoying Axel and others just as much.

I believe some of the historians (JHK?) faced a similar problem
and tried just revising the article without bothering to debate
the issues.  Am I recalling correctly, and did it work?

  --
------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Merkel	                           rgmerk at mira.net

Go You Big Red Fire Engine
-- Unknown Audience Member at Adam Hills standup gig
------------------------------------------------------------


from_name: lcrocker at nupedia.com

body:
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20020405/10c6bbaa/attachment.diff


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Cologne Blue HTML Template

body:
At 03:03 PM 4/5/02 +0200, you wrote:
>Folks,
>
>after some exam time-out, here is an HTML version of the template
>currently known as "Cologne Blue".
>
>Please have a look at
>http://www.ds.fh-koeln.de/~marian/wikipedia/template.html and test it with
>all browsers on earth.
>
>I already did with Mozilla on Windows, IE 5.5 on Windows and Lynx. Will
>now switch to Linux in order to test on Konqueror.

Looks okay in Netscape 6.02 (on Windows). A very respectable, even dull
shade of grayish
blue, and a good layout.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Cologne Blue HTML Template

in_reply_to: <200204052024.WAA06459@linde.uni-paderborn.de>; from axel@uni-paderborn.de on Fri, Apr 05, 2002 at 10:24:12PM +0200

body:
Axel Boldt wrote:
> * the "Recently changed pages" shouldn't extend over two lines. Either
>   put it in one line, or go back to "Recent Changes" as Magnus
>   prefers.

I second Magnus's desire.  'Recent Changes' is self-explanatory, and has a long
history with us.  It's also shorter.

> * In the bottom line, you have "Wikipedia Home" and "About Wikipedia".
>   That could be streamlined a bit.

Right, I think 'Home' and 'About' are widely used on the web to such an extent
that people will know what they mean: the home page of *this* site, and 'about'
*this* site.  Saying 'wikipedia' again is redundant, I think.

> * How about a link in the bottom line saying "Edit this page"? Just to
>   drive the point home. Most new arrivals won't click on a boring
>   "About" link, but "Edit this page" sure sounds interesting...

I agree that 'Edit this page' should be prominent.  In the early days,
we made it more prominent by saying "<i>You</i> can edit this page
right now!" or something like that.  This is the most important thing
for newcomers to know, I think.  :-)

> * Similarly, in the side bar, I'd change "Edit page" to "Edit this
>   page", because that's the real surprising part. Not only can you
>   edit *a* page, like you can on many sites, but you can edit *this
>   very* page.

Yes!  That's the astonishing thing about wikipedia.  The people running it
must be crazy.  *I* can edit *this page* right *now*?  No way!  Let me try
that... oh, hey, it works... :-)


from_name: Gareth Owen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Bug report

body:
With "hide minor edits" turned on in preferences, a lot of recent changes show
up  as dated "23:59 December 31 1969" (time = -1 in unix?)

This doesn't seem to happen with minor edits shown.
--
Gareth Owen
"Wikipedia does rock.  By the count on the "brilliant prose" page, there
 are 14 not-bad articles so far" -- Larry Sanger (12 Jan 2001)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Number of articles

body:
On the homepage, we claim to seek to write 100,000 articles.  We have
nearly 30,000.  As '24' pointed out the other day, with 30,000
articles we don't have one on the Amazon Rain Forest.  I also just
noticed that we don't have one on Real Estate Investment Trusts.  And
we don't have one on 'Corgi', which is a breed of dog, nor do we have
articles on many other dog breeds.

The way we arrived at that 100,000 number was extremely unscientific.
Britannica claims to have 66,000 articles.  And we wanted to have
more.  :-)

I would never have thought that someone would interpret the 100,000
figure as the _maximum_, as part of a critique of us that we are
nearly 1/3 of the way "done" and yet don't cover X, Y, and Z.

I wonder how many articles we really should expect to have.  Obviously,
we'll never be "done".  But the largest dictionaries of English list
around 500,000 words.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Number of articles

body:
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20020405/ab53e176/attachment.diff


from_name: Marian Steinbach

body:
Folks,

after some exam time-out, here is an HTML version of the template
currently known as "Cologne Blue".

Please have a look at
http://www.ds.fh-koeln.de/~marian/wikipedia/template.html and test it
with all browsers on earth.

I already did with Mozilla on Windows, IE 5.5 on Windows and Lynx. Will
now switch to Linux in order to test on Konqueror.

(Mozilla users, enjoy the site icon showing up in your location bar ;-))

Comments are of course welcome! (Axel, I think everything was all right
with your critique. I can cope with that :)

Marian


from_name: Lars Aronsson

body:
Axel Boldt wrote:
> Generally, when adding GFDL material, we have always added a
> line at the bottom saying "An earlier version of this article was
> based on bla bla by bla bla" and a link back to the original material.

Is this sufficient?  Isn't it also the case that all future
modifications must be submitted back to the original source?
I'm asking because I don't know these details of FDL.

I see two different cases: Copying from an FDL source to a static
web page is different from copying from an FDL source to a Wiki.
In the latter case, it is so much more natural that any edits stay at
the Wiki (whether this is Wikipedia to which text is copied, or
another Wiki that copies information from Wikipedia, e.g. Sevilla).

(A Wiki works like a "modification magnet" or a "modification black
hole", where modifications are likely to stay and not get out.
Printed paper editions are the opposite: A teflon surface where no
modifications stick.  It is like we are beginning to understand the
forces of attraction and repellation, just like static electricity
200 years ago, but this time we're discovering the natural laws for
what drives people to contribute voluntary intellectual work.  The
Internet plays the role of Volta's battery.)

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik
  Teknikringen 1e, SE-583 30 Linuxk?ping, Sweden
  tel +46-70-7891609
  http://aronsson.se/ http://elektrosmog.nu/ http://susning.nu/


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikitech-l] Voting system, Cologne Blue

body:
I just commited - no, not a crime, but a (very basic) voting system for
articles to the CVS.

This was suggested several times on wikipedia-l. Currently, it only
generates pages similar to "Page titles to be deleted", in a "standard"
format. Please have a look.

I'll look into changing the "Cologne Blue" skin later so it matches Marian's
version at http://www.ds.fh-koeln.de/~marian/wikipedia/template.html

I am very much in favor of making this the "standard" skin. But, the "final"
version should be online first so we can ask wikipedia-l about that. Some
people are quite allergic to changes like that without being asked first...
;)

Magnus


from_name: koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Suggestion for policy

body:
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20020405/cf1a3c83/attachment.diff


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Cologne Blue again

body:
Looks okay in KMeleon, as far as I can tell (I seem to have messed something up
in the install--I can get to pages, but there should be browser menus
somewhere, and
I haven't found them).
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Suggestion for policy

in_reply_to: <200204042159.g34Lxev21975@ross.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Fri, Apr 05, 2002 at 07:59:40 +1000

body:
On Fri, 05 Apr 2002 07:59:40 lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> Yes, he is very annoying--all the more so because he's
> obviously well-educated and therefore hard to dismiss as
> an ordinary crackpot.  He hasn't been too terribly
> destructive.  He just cranks out reams and reams of
> subjectivist rants with quality inversely proportionate
> to their quantity.  But one or two sentences out of every
> page he writes actually has some interesting insight worth
> keeping, and he does put up with my abuse pretty well, so
> I haven't yet been tempted to suggest any action.
>

He's driving me nuts...

> Besides, his anonymity will always serve to minimize his
> credibility, so he'll lose a lot of arguments on those
> grounds alone.  I know I've suggested in the past that
> perhaps only logged-in users should be allowed to edit,
> but I think I'm more inclined to leave things as they are,
> and just have a social norm here that anonymous editors
> should simply suffer the consequences to the credibility
> and lose arguments by default.

I consider it quite rude that whomever it is doesn't do us
the courtesy of registering even a nom de plume and clearly
label his points on the talk pages.  It makes having a discussion
with him/her/it a PITA as you can't immediately distinguish
who is saying what.

Is it time to make it wikipedia policy that you should sign
your posts on talk pages?

--
------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Merkel	                           rgmerk at mira.net

Go You Big Red Fire Engine
-- Unknown Audience Member at Adam Hills standup gig
------------------------------------------------------------


body:
>Please have a look at
>http://www.ds.fh-koeln.de/~marian/wikipedia/template.html and test it
>with all browsers on earth.

It is a beauty indeed. Four little things:

* the "Recently changed pages" shouldn't extend over two lines. Either
  put it in one line, or go back to "Recent Changes" as Magnus
  prefers.

* In the bottom line, you have "Wikipedia Home" and "About Wikipedia".
  That could be streamlined a bit.

* How about a link in the bottom line saying "Edit this page"? Just to
  drive the point home. Most new arrivals won't click on a boring
  "About" link, but "Edit this page" sure sounds interesting...

* Similarly, in the side bar, I'd change "Edit page" to "Edit this
  page", because that's the real surprising part. Not only can you
  edit *a* page, like you can on many sites, but you can edit *this
  very* page.

Axel


body:
One more...

* regarding the modification date at the bottom: either leave out the
  time, or add the timezone. As is, the information content of the
  time is zero.

Axel


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Cologne Blue again

body:
Two more things...

* We have to figure out where to put the link to "This user's
  contributions" that in the current scheme occurs in the upper left
  of user: pages.

* Similarly, the link "Redirected from..." on redirected pages needs
  to find a home.

Axel


from_name: Tony Vignaux

body:
On Saturday, April 6, 2002, at 03:58  AM, wikipedia-l-
request at nupedia.com wrote:
> Please have a look at
> http://www.ds.fh-koeln.de/~marian/wikipedia/template.html and test it
> with
> all browsers on earth.

It looks OK in
1. Microsoft Explorer 5.1  on Mac.
2. Opera 5.0 Mac
3. Netscape 6 Mac

The blue is a bit dull compared with the current "Cologne Blue" which I
was enjoying. In fact, I prefer the current version.

One suggestion: There appears to be no link back from a 'talk:blah' page
to the 'blah' page provided automatically on the current "Cologne Blue"
For example if I am looking at "Talk:Differential equations" how do I
get back to "Differential equations" without doing a search?


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Suggestion for policy

body:
On Sat, 06 Apr 2002 02:05:47 Jimmy Wales wrote:
<snip>
>
> The only way to enforce the social norm you're proposing is if most
> people "sign on" to it.  Larry used to write these things on a page,
> and people could "sign on" as agreeing -- a sort of unenforceable but
> powerful social commitment.  I guess we'd just ignore people who don't
> sign posts?  Or, we could make it "fair game" to just delete comments
> that are unsigned?
>
> I see some drawbacks to either.
>
Yep, however I'm personally getting to the point where I'm considering the
ignorance option.  However, I don't think there's anything like consensus
on that.

> Maybe the best thing to do is to "sign" the comments _for them_.
> I.E., add an identifier to what people have written, primarily to keep
> the comments straight.
>
That sounds like an excellent idea.

> Anonymity isn't the problem, right?  I mean, anyone can make up any
> name and use it.  The problem is more one of _continuity_.  If I'm
> /Talk ing with LDC or AxelBoldt, then I know something of their
> history, and they of mine, so we can talk more efficiently.

Precisely.

--
------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Merkel	                           rgmerk at mira.net

Go You Big Red Fire Engine
-- Unknown Audience Member at Adam Hills standup gig
------------------------------------------------------------


subject: [Wikipedia-l] deletion policy

body:
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20020406/b1c3d59e/attachment.diff


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Number of articles

in_reply_to: <200204052237.g35Mbwr08891@ross.bomis.com>; from lcrocker@nupedia.com on Sat, Apr 06, 2002 at 08:37:58 +1000

body:
On Sat, 06 Apr 2002 08:37:58 lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
>
>
> >I wonder how many articles we really should expect to have.
> >Obviously,
> >we'll never be "done".  But the largest dictionaries of English list
> >around 500,000 words.
>
> I would expect us to still be reasonably incomplete even at that; I
> think we'll have over a million articles easily.  There /should/ be
> far more articles than simple English words, because we'll carry at
> least an article for each sense of each word, and carry far more
> detail than a dictionary.  After all, we also cover events, people,
> things, movements, etc.  Of our present 30,000, for example, there
> are about 10 on "chess", 20 on "poker", and 20 on "The Simpsons".
>

I agree - pick a world atlas.  Ideally, we'd have an article about
just about every named feature in it.

Not to mention biographies of many thousands of people whose lives are
genuinely noteworthy.
--
------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Merkel	                           rgmerk at mira.net

Go You Big Red Fire Engine
-- Unknown Audience Member at Adam Hills standup gig
------------------------------------------------------------


subject: [Wikitech-l] Cologne Blue improvements

body:
Please check the following changes I made to the CB skin:
* "User's contributions" apprears on the last line on user pages
* "Reditected from" appears on the last line
* "Wikipedia Home" was changed to "Main Page"
* "Edit this page" link in the sidebar is now larger than the other links,
making it more prominent
* Last modification date now uses time difference (English format only!)

I think these are about all comments that were made to improve the skin.

Magnus


from_name: Manning Bartlett

subject: [Wikipedia-l] more on Cologne Blue

body:
The Cologne Blue is very nice - but where is the logo? The Cunctator special...

OK - If I'm retreading old ground, I'm sorry. But hey - I've been away for a long time (nice to be back in civilisation).

Manning - firmly back in Sydney.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20020407/1770a864/attachment.htm


subject: [Wikipedia-l] deletion policy

body:
My suggestion:
Pages *can* be deleted if
* they have no valuable contents (blank/"Describe..."/weird text etc.) AND
* if they don't have any valuable contents in their history AND
* if they cannot be easily reditected
If the article history is blank or nonsense, there's no reason to keep it by
waiting for an advanced deletion mechanism anyway.

Magnus

> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
> [mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]On Behalf Of
> koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com
> Sent: Saturday, April 06, 2002 11:56 PM
> To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
> Subject: [Wikipedia-l] deletion policy
>
>
> I'd like clarification on the deletion policy.  I just deleted a
> number of pages which contained nothing but "describe the new page
> here."  That seemed reasonable to me, but on revisiting
> [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia policy on permanent deletion of pages]] I see it
> says "Do not delete anything that might in the future become an
> encyclopedia topic.  Hence, just because someone has written a
> completely worthless article about John Doe, that doesn't mean we
> should permanently delete the topic, [[John Doe]], from the database."
>
> The articles showed absolutely no attempt, even a biased or
> misinformed one, to write an article.  I did keep the one that had a
> talk page.  But perhaps I've acted in haste.
>
> Does the above include pages which say nothing more than "describe the
> new page here"?  Should we leave those or not?
>
> kq
> 0


from_name: Daniel Lee Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] 24 is driving me nuts

body:
<rant>

24's (User:24.150.61.63) activities are beginning to become a real nuisance.
He/she continues to create new entries that really appear to be idiosyncratic
nonsense that Google consistently only can find a handfull of examples of.
The terms that 24 comes up up, and then creates articles about seem to be
used by a very small group of like-minded people.

For example: military fiat (his/her term for military control over a monetary
system) = 160 hits, verbal rape = 136 hits, social rape = 99 hits, Earth rape
= 95 hits, eco-rape = 97 hits. Given the fact that Google tracks literally
billions of webpages, such a small number can easily be explained by chance.

24 also created [[wikipedia:Natural Point of View]] as some type of
replacement of NPOV, makes other articles that are improperly capitalized,
such as [[Green Movement]], after he/she is made aware of naming conventions,
he/she also makes improperly pluralized pages such as [[Eco-villages]]
knowing about that policy etc.,  etc., etc., etc. A partial list of what 24
has been up to is on [[Wikipedia utilities/Pages needing attention]].

Frankly, I am sick of having to be drawn into discussion with this person and
clean of his/her messes. By posting these idiosyncratic articles and ideas on
wikipedia this person is magnifying their exposure and importance beyond what
is warrented by the number (and arguably quality) of people who actually
believe this stuff.

An analogy, would be a news agency that is more concerned with making news
than reporting it. Should wikipedia become a place where crackpots can air
their views and gain unwarranted exposure? Should we be in the business of
legitimizing terms and definitions that Google can only find a small handfull
of examples of? Do we want wikpedia to become a soapbox?

24's activities are similar to what User:QIM has done with his Masculism
article - except 24 is truly prolific in the amount of material that he/she
is submitting (and at least "Masculism" gets about a 1000 hits - mostly
emails and personal pages though). I do believe that 24 is harming the
project - at the very least this person is causing unproductive angst among
longtimes users. The actions of this person is probably also giving visitors
and newbies the wrong idea about the project.

Don't get me wrong, I am not indicating that the merit of a term is not to be
solely based on the number of hits on Google. However, when the content or
title itself is questionable, surprising or really not at all NPOV (that's
neutral point of view, not natural point of view), then Google can be used as
some sort of objective measure of merit.

I think it is time to warn 24 to cease many of the above activities.

</rant>

user:maveric149


from_name: Tobias Hoevekamp

subject: [Wikipedia-l] HOWTO include GFDLed text?

body:
Thanks for your replys to my initial mail (see below).
Kstars handbook http://kstars.sourceforge.net/handbook is availabe
according to the following terms:

   Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
   document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License,
   Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software
   Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts,
   and with no Back-Cover Texts.

I guess, that leaves us with the most freedom desired, right? I'll
import one article of Kstars Astroinfo into Wikipedia, add a line about
where this article originates from and ask John Harris,
the author of Astroinfo, if that's OK with him. I hope, he'll answer
this time...

Bye

Tobias

Quoting Tobias Hoevekamp <tobias.hoevekamp at ilw.agrl.ethz.ch>:

> Hi there!
>
> It's been discussed several times at wikipedia but I am still
> clueless on what actually has to be stated in order to include
> GFDLed third-party texts.
>
> I would like to build into wikipedia some of the information given
> at http://kstars.sourceforge.net/handbook/astroinfo.html which is
> part of Kstars GFDLed handbook and explains various
> astronomical concepts. The author, Jason Harris, didn't reply
> to my inquiry about including it in wikipedia but that is - as
> far as I understand the GFDL correct - not neccessary...
>
> Hmm. How shall I proceed?
>
> Bye,
>
>
>
> Tobias
>
>
>
TOBIAS HOEVEKAMP
mailto:tobias.hoevekamp at ilw.agrl.ethz.ch
http://www.vt.ilw.agrl.ethz.ch/~hoevekam
WORK: ETH Zurich, LFO E21, CH-8092 Zurich, +41 1 632 3304
HOME: Anna Heer-Str. 2,  CH-8057  Zurich,  +41 1 350 5986

-------------------------------------------------
This mail sent through IMP 3.0 at http://email.ethz.ch/horde/imp


from_name: Brion L. VIBBER

subject: [Wikipedia-l] New features questions

body:
On dim, 2002-04-07 at 19:12, Manning Bartlett wrote:
> You'll have to forgive me as I've been off overseas for so long and
>  missed the adjustment period.
>
> 2 questions: are there any new editing features in the new software? I
> dimly remember there being something about a ~~~ trick in the first
> version of meta.
>
> Following on from that - are these features documented anywhere?

There's a basic summary in [[Wikipedia:PHP script new features]] that
should list most everything. (A lot of qualifiers there, eh? :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Number of articles

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> I would never have thought that someone would interpret the 100,000
> figure as the _maximum_, as part of a critique of us that we are
> nearly 1/3 of the way "done" and yet don't cover X, Y, and Z.

One thing that Britannica (or any printed encyclopedia) "has" is a
limitation in space.  This forces them to set a maximum (above 66,000
articles, the printed work might be so expensive to print that its
market starts to diminish), and within this maximum they must
prioritize what to write about.  Wikipedia has totally different cost
structure (neither print costs, nor author costs), so there is no need
to set a maximum.  Even if the article count is half or double that of
some well-known printed encyclopedia, the openness is worth more, and
should be the envy of any encyclopedia publisher.

As a non-native speaker of English and a newcomer to English-language
culture, it strikes me that the most hailed reference works of this
gigantic language group, the Oxford English Dictionary and the
Encyclopedia Britannica, seem rather small.  The Dictionary of the
Swedish Academy (SAOB) is bigger than the OED and the Swedish National
Encyclopedia (NE) is about the size of the Britannica, based on a
language community of less than 10 million.  We envy the Meyers
and Brockhaus Encyclopedias of the ten times bigger German-speaking
crowd, and when I learned about the Spanish "Enciclopedia Universal
Illustrada" (70 volumes) I felt like I came from a little country
village to a big city for the first time.  It is clear, however, that
the Swedish projects would never be completed on a true commercial
basis, but needed (and still need) substantial governmental
sponsoring.

The first major Swedish encyclopedia was "Nordisk familjebok"
published in 18 volumes (1876-1894).  On 14,000 pages with an average
of 7 articles per page, this is an estimated 100,000 articles.  This
Easter I just finished scanning the remaining 5 volumes, so it is now
online, free for all, on http://www.lysator.liu.se/runeberg/nf/
in facsimile, with a short English preface.  Have a look!

The work is free from copyright, so you can use its illustrations.
I already used one for http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Gatling_gun

So, despite the smallness of the Swedish Wikipedia, there are already
100,000 Swedish articles online, just a century old, and hard to edit.
:-)

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik
  Teknikringen 1e, SE-583 30 Linuxk?ping, Sweden
  tel +46-70-7891609
  http://aronsson.se/ http://elektrosmog.nu/ http://susning.nu/


from_name: Ian

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Number of articles

body:
I think the only thing limiting amount of articles is our ablity to
maintain them. I suppose that would scale though, with the exception of
adding information from outside sources which would allow a growth in
content without necesarly a growth in the amount of man power needed to
maintain the content. If there about subjects which need little maintance,
I suppose it won't be too much of a problem.

The Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada handle their 70-volume encyclopedia
by just adding supplements and never updating anything, so its actually up
to 116 volumes now ( http://www.libroantiguo.org/obr/euiea.htm ). This is
not a good tactic. It has become historical in its own right.

The Swedish dictionary is bigger then the OED? A lot of words in the
latter are not used anymore. I like looking through it and picking out odd
sounding words to impress others with my "English" vocabulary even though
whether the words have much to do with the English we all know and love is
negotiable. Its handy if to have if you need to read Old English, I
suppose - probably ditto for the Swedish dictionary. American ditionary's
usually will throw out old words, though our dictionaries are not really
old enough to have any words (or at least so much words) that absolutly
nobody uses anymore like the OED.

Ian Monroe
http://ian.webhop.org

On Sun, 7 Apr 2002, Lars Aronsson lars at aronsson.se XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX wrote:

> Jimmy Wales wrote:
> > I would never have thought that someone would interpret the 100,000
> > figure as the _maximum_, as part of a critique of us that we are
> > nearly 1/3 of the way "done" and yet don't cover X, Y, and Z.
>
> One thing that Britannica (or any printed encyclopedia) "has" is a
> limitation in space.  This forces them to set a maximum (above 66,000
> articles, the printed work might be so expensive to print that its
> market starts to diminish), and within this maximum they must
> prioritize what to write about.  Wikipedia has totally different cost
> structure (neither print costs, nor author costs), so there is no need
> to set a maximum.  Even if the article count is half or double that of
> some well-known printed encyclopedia, the openness is worth more, and
> should be the envy of any encyclopedia publisher.
>
> As a non-native speaker of English and a newcomer to English-language
> culture, it strikes me that the most hailed reference works of this
> gigantic language group, the Oxford English Dictionary and the
> Encyclopedia Britannica, seem rather small.  The Dictionary of the
> Swedish Academy (SAOB) is bigger than the OED and the Swedish National
> Encyclopedia (NE) is about the size of the Britannica, based on a
> language community of less than 10 million.  We envy the Meyers
> and Brockhaus Encyclopedias of the ten times bigger German-speaking
> crowd, and when I learned about the Spanish "Enciclopedia Universal
> Illustrada" (70 volumes) I felt like I came from a little country
> village to a big city for the first time.  It is clear, however, that
> the Swedish projects would never be completed on a true commercial
> basis, but needed (and still need) substantial governmental
> sponsoring.
>
> The first major Swedish encyclopedia was "Nordisk familjebok"
> published in 18 volumes (1876-1894).  On 14,000 pages with an average
> of 7 articles per page, this is an estimated 100,000 articles.  This
> Easter I just finished scanning the remaining 5 volumes, so it is now
> online, free for all, on http://www.lysator.liu.se/runeberg/nf/
> in facsimile, with a short English preface.  Have a look!
>
> The work is free from copyright, so you can use its illustrations.
> I already used one for http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Gatling_gun
>
> So, despite the smallness of the Swedish Wikipedia, there are already
> 100,000 Swedish articles online, just a century old, and hard to edit.
> :-)
>
>
> --
>   Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
>   Aronsson Datateknik
>   Teknikringen 1e, SE-583 30 Linuxk?ping, Sweden
>   tel +46-70-7891609
>   http://aronsson.se/ http://elektrosmog.nu/ http://susning.nu/
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: wojtek pobratyn

subject: [Wikipedia-l] new kuro5hin story

body:
hi all.

there's a new story about the pedia waiting in the kuro5hin.org moderation queue. nothing really new is said
but it helps to spread the word. so if you're a member have look and vote on it.

story title: can an open content encyclopedia thrive?

regards.
wojpob

<wojtek[at]seti23[dot]org>
what burns twice as bright, burns half
as long, and you have burnt so very,
very brightly roy.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Automatic wikification

body:
I checked in a basic version of the long promised "auto-wikification" button
on the edit page.

Features, as of now:
* <b> and </b> are replaced with '''
* <i> and </i> are replaced with ''
* <h2>, <h3> and <h4> are also converted to === style
* It fixes [[broken] links
* It converts [[self-links]] to self-links
* It removes [[talk:pages|talk]] and [[talk:pages]] (only for that page!)
* It simplyfies [[plural|plurals]] to [[plural]]s

Also, it leaves text in <pre> and <nowiki> tags alone.

Please, check it for bugs, and add some features!

Magnus


from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

subject: [Wikitech-l] Automatic wikification

body:
On Sun, Apr 07, 2002 at 11:51:57PM +0200, Magnus Manske wrote:
> I checked in a basic version of the long promised "auto-wikification" button
> on the edit page.
>
> Features, as of now:
> * It simplyfies [[plural|plurals]] to [[plural]]s

I don't think this is good idea.
[[plural|plurals]] is much more readable.


from_name: Kurt Jansson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Word Wide Lexicon

body:
Dear Wikipedians!

Today I read an article in a mailinglist which lead me to a
slashdot discussion about a project called "World Wide Lexicon". There
seem to be some wrong expectations about it so I mailed the author of
WWL to ask him and to point him to Wikipedia. I think it's a very
interresting project, but you can take a look at it yourself:

the project:
www.worldwidelexicon.org
the /. discussion:
http://slashdot.org/articles/02/04/05/1911255.shtml?tid=95

the answers to my emails:

-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Brian McConnell <brianmsf at yahoo.com>
An: Kurt Jansson <kurt at jansson.de>
Gesendet: Sonntag, 7. April 2002 19:55
Betreff: RE: Why "Lexicon"?

Kurt,

Thank you for your email.

I called it the worldwide lexicon because the system can be used to
retrieve
definitions for words as well as translations. For example, if you are
doing
a monolingual search, you can submit several different types of queries
to a
WWL server, including:

- syn : returns synonymous words and phrases
- ant : returns antonymous words and phrases
- def : returns verbose description for a word or phrase
- pcat : returns parent categories that the word, phrase or resource
locator
belongs to
- ccat : returns child categories that are associated with the entry
- vis : returns words that represent visually similar objects

I like Wikipedia, and would like to talk to someone about joining it to
the
WWL system. I think it could be very useful in processing monolingual
queries. All they will need to do is write a PHP script that recognizes
several SOAP simple methods.

I would also like to talk to the wikipedia software developer about the
possibility of modifying the system to be used as a translation
dictionary.
I don't like to reinvent the wheel, and it seems that the system they
have
built can be modified to host a user supported database of language pair
translations.

The benefit of joining Wikipedia is the system will appear as a data
source
along with other web dictionaries, lexicons and semantic network
servers.
The most useful feature of our system is that it will enable client
applications, a browser plug in for example, to locate WWL data sources
on
the fly, and then submit standardized queries to them. Thus, one fairly
simple piece of code can talk to lots of dictionaries throughout the web
(you might use it one day to lookup translations for words in a Spanish
document, and another to look for verbose definitions for words in your
home
language).

The main goal of WWL is to create a GNUtella like system for locating
and
communicating with dictionary and semantic network servers on the web
(there
are many). The problem today is that each system has its own proprietary
front end, so all of this information is fragmented. By creating a
simple
protocol for locating and talking to systems, it is possible to create
what
appears to be a single worldwide dictionary/semantic network that can be
accessed with a few lines of code.

Thanks for writing. Best regards,

Brian Mcconnell

-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Brian McConnell <brianmsf at yahoo.com>
An: Kurt Jansson <kurt at jansson.de>
Gesendet: Sonntag, 7. April 2002 23:53
Betreff: RE: Why "Lexicon"?

Kurt,

Thanks for the quick reply.

Another point... WWL does not do full text translation. It is designed
to
assist word and phrase translation, as well as monolingual dictionary or
encyclopedia searches. As you know, translating full text without human
intervention is a very difficult problem. While I could see translation
systems using WWL to query dictionaries (to expand the scope of their
vocabularies), the WWL specification does not say anything about full
text
translation.

Our primary goal is to create a distributed dictionary/encyclopedia
protocol
that is very easy to implement in client and server software, and that
does
not require dictionary servers to make changes to their systems besides
writing a few scripts to generate SOAP responses instead of HTML. WWL's

purpose is to make it easy to automatically locate and communicate with
WWL-aware dictionary and semantic net servers. I like to describe this
as
GNUtella for dictionaries.

You are welcome to forward this my email to the wikipedia list or
developers. As I mentioned, I think you could do some interesting things
by
making your systems accessible via the WWL SOAP interface.

Thanks again for your email. Best regards.

Brian McConnell


subject: [Wikitech-l] Word Wide Lexicon


subject: [Wikipedia-l] out of town for a week

body:
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20020408/e3a53637/attachment.diff


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] 24 is driving me nuts

in_reply_to: <20020408020253.DOAV15826.rwcrmhc54.attbi.com@there>; from maveric149@yahoo.com on Sun, Apr 07, 2002 at 06:01:13PM -0800

body:
Is 24 aware of the existence of this mailing list?  The mailing list
format is much better for discussing these meta-issues.

Daniel Lee Mayer wrote:
> 24 also created [[wikipedia:Natural Point of View]] as some type of
> replacement of NPOV,

I'll have to read this, but NPOV is non-negotiable.  So long as stuff like this
is on the meta wikipedia, that's fine, though.  He's entitled to his opinions,
and we're entitled to ignore him or learn from him, as may be appropriate.

> makes other articles that are improperly capitalized,
> such as [[Green Movement]], after he/she is made aware of naming conventions,
> he/she also makes improperly pluralized pages such as [[Eco-villages]]
> knowing about that policy etc.,  etc., etc., etc.

Improper capitalization is bad.

> An analogy, would be a news agency that is more concerned with making news
> than reporting it. Should wikipedia become a place where crackpots can air
> their views and gain unwarranted exposure? Should we be in the business of
> legitimizing terms and definitions that Google can only find a small handfull
> of examples of? Do we want wikpedia to become a soapbox?

I would say "no", "yes" and "no".  :-)  Let me explain.

Let's say there is a term -- "military fiat" which is not widely used,
but which does have a fairly consistent usage when it is used.  Then,
our article on it should describe what the term means, and who uses it
that way.

The particular article, [[Military fiat]] is pretty bad currently, but
I don't think that the existence of the article is problematic.  A
quick search of google reveals that "military fiat" is not a common
expression, but when it is used, it does mean "a process whereby a
decision is made and enforced by military means without the
participation of other political elements."

> I do believe that 24 is harming the project - at the very least this
> person is causing unproductive angst among longtimes users. The
> actions of this person is probably also giving visitors and newbies
> the wrong idea about the project.

[...]

> I think it is time to warn 24 to cease many of the above activities.

Well, warn seems to imply an "or else".  Or else what?

Unless his actions rise to the level of vandalism, I don't think we'd
be wise to ban him.  That would be a horrible precedent, I think.
Very un-wiki.

I'd say that the only "or else" that's validly open to us is "or else
we'll continue to edit the hell out of your articles until they are
NPOV".  There's a lot more of everyone else than him.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] I'm the editor in chief

body:
24 wrote:
"The wikipedia article database seems safe from any concerns, but on
March 1, 2002, the wikipedia lost its chief editor?, [Larry Sanger]?,
and has no clear or obvious way to make certain policy decisions
critical to its future."

I am now fulfilling the role formerly held by Larry.  When it comes
down to the wire, I'll be the one making final policy decisions.
Fortunately, though, essentially all policy decisions of major import
have already been made and will not be changing.

NPOV is non-negotiable.  And also, perhaps to the chagrin of longtime
contributors, the policy of not banning people unless they are
absolute vandals, is non-negotiable unless we get such a massive
influx of anti-NPOV authors that the project is starting to degenerate
into something other than what it is intended to be.

I don't think 24 or anyone else should get the idea that since Larry
is gone, we can turn Wikipedia into a humor site, or a Libertarian
rant, or a Green advocacy site, or a "Natural point of view" site.

(I am trying to re-read "Natural Point of View", so that I can
understand 24's perspective, but it is mostly incoherent.  I was
unsure who wrote what, and so went into this history.  Apparently,
even the parts written solely by 24 are incoherent.)

--Jimbo

p.s.  I think 24 vastly overestimates the power of indymedia, and also
overestimates the "threat" of bringing them in.  24 may think they are
all a bunch of anti-NPOV biased policial operatives -- I think they
are just regular people with political leanings far different from my
own, but who can fully buy into our NPOV goals.  I think I'll submit
an article to them myself.


from_name: Julie Hofmann Kemp

subject: [Wikipedia-l] 24 is driving me nuts

body:
From: "Guardian Tor " <guardian-tor at operamail.com>
To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
Date: Mon, 08 Apr 2002 23:09:46 +0900
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Our latest guest
Reply-To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com

Well now, someone seems to be ever-so-slightly pissed at me. ;-)

http://meta.wikipedia.com/wiki.phtml?title=Response_to_Stephen_Gilbert

- Stephen G.

OH MY!!!!  Sorry Stephen, but if 24 weren't clearly on the loony fringe,
this would be funny.   Speaking of which, I really do wonder where it
lives and if it's loony enough to seek out those of us nearby.

JHK

________________________________
Message: 12
Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2002 08:34:56 -0700
From: Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com>
To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] 24 is driving me nuts
Reply-To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com

Is 24 aware of the existence of this mailing list?  The mailing list
format is much better for discussing these meta-issues.

JHK writes:
Perhaps, but it seems to want to preserve its anonymity... And I'd
rather read less of his crap than more.

Daniel Lee Mayer wrote:
> 24 also created [[wikipedia:Natural Point of View]] as some type of
> replacement of NPOV,

I'll have to read this, but NPOV is non-negotiable.  So long as stuff
like this is on the meta wikipedia, that's fine, though.  He's entitled
to his opinions, and we're entitled to ignore him or learn from him, as
may be appropriate.

JHK writes:

Fine in theory, but his Natural POV permeates everything he writes -- of
which there is far too much, IMHO

> makes other articles that are improperly capitalized,
> such as [[Green Movement]], after he/she is made aware of naming
conventions,
> he/she also makes improperly pluralized pages such as [[Eco-villages]]

> knowing about that policy etc.,  etc., etc., etc.

Improper capitalization is bad.

> An analogy, would be a news agency that is more concerned with making
> news
> than reporting it. Should wikipedia become a place where crackpots can
air
> their views and gain unwarranted exposure? Should we be in the
business of
> legitimizing terms and definitions that Google can only find a small
handfull
> of examples of? Do we want wikpedia to become a soapbox?

I would say "no", "yes" and "no".  :-)  Let me explain.

Let's say there is a term -- "military fiat" which is not widely used,
but which does have a fairly consistent usage when it is used.  Then,
our article on it should describe what the term means, and who uses it
that way.

The particular article, [[Military fiat]] is pretty bad currently, but I
don't think that the existence of the article is problematic.  A quick
search of google reveals that "military fiat" is not a common
expression, but when it is used, it does mean "a process whereby a
decision is made and enforced by military means without the
participation of other political elements."

JHK adds:

This is true, and topics that are recognizable should be included as
articles.  BUT -- isn't this an encyclopedia?  The last time I looked,
and encyclopedia was a place where one could find introductory overviews
and summaries of topics, much more than a dictionary, but less than
journal articles and original research.  Never have I seen an
encyclopedia where the purpose was to co-opt old phrases into the sole
(and solely defined by one user and/or his like-minded, one-track mind
associates) purview of a particular group.  Take, for example, military
fiat -- the article should FIRST, describe the most common meaning and
origins of the term, THEN (and only then) describe how that term has
been co-opted by the new group (and given new interpretation).  That's
if this is really an encyclopedic article and not a dictionary
definition!

The problem here is that 24 makes assertions that words mean what IT
says they mean, and often denies that common usage is legitimate.  The
purpose of any encyclopedia should be to let people know what is
GENERALLY meant and agreed-upon, and then other views or
interpretations.

> I do believe that 24 is harming the project - at the very least this
> person is causing unproductive angst among longtimes users. The
> actions of this person is probably also giving visitors and newbies
> the wrong idea about the project.

[...]

JHK says:

Probably true.  It's wasting our time and energy, to say the least, and
I think its antisocial attitudes are off-putting at best

> I think it is time to warn 24 to cease many of the above activities.

Well, warn seems to imply an "or else".  Or else what?

Unless his actions rise to the level of vandalism, I don't think we'd be
wise to ban him.  That would be a horrible precedent, I think. Very
un-wiki.

I'd say that the only "or else" that's validly open to us is "or else
we'll continue to edit the hell out of your articles until they are
NPOV".  There's a lot more of everyone else than him.

--Jimbo

JHK:
I think you're right on one level -- banning is very extreme.  However,
I think we need to consider whether community standards and etiquette
play any part.  There have been lots of situations where peer pressure
has helped to tone down disagreements between Wikipedians -- but even in
cases where there was clear animosity, I've never seen it get so bad
that the disputants wouldn't put common goals first (given encouragement
;-) ).  With 24, we see a person who denies that there is a community,
and therefore has no obligation to work within the standards we've set
for ourselves.  Moreover, one of 24's aims is to change the goals of the
project and tell us what we 'should' (in his twisted world-view) be
writing about.  In my opinion, he IS vandalizing the project by creating
tons of pages that are really indefensible from a NPOV-encyclopedia
standpoint.   Banning him would certainly result in tirades of "those
people/that clique doesn't like what I say, so they're oppressing me",
but this may be the point where we have to make a call on policy.  I'm
all for peer pressure and heavy editing, but I just don't know if it
will be effective against someone who considers us all less than his
peers.

JHK

--__--__--

_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

End of Wikipedia-l Digest

_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com


from_name: lcrocker at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Our latest guest

body:
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20020408/6d85e461/attachment.diff


subject: [Wikipedia-l] 24 is driving me nuts

body:
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20020408/9d9b1430/attachment.diff


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Our latest guest

body:
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20020408/95865163/attachment.diff


subject: [Wikipedia-l] deletion policy

in_reply_to: <200204062155.g36Ltnm19063@ross.bomis.com>; from koyaanisqatsi@nupedia.com on Sat, Apr 06, 2002 at 01:55:49PM -0800

body:
koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:
> I'd like clarification on the deletion policy.  I just deleted a
> number of pages which contained nothing but "describe the new page
> here."  That seemed reasonable to me, but on revisiting
> [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia policy on permanent deletion of pages]] I see it
> says "Do not delete anything that might in the future become an
> encyclopedia topic.  Hence, just because someone has written a
> completely worthless article about John Doe, that doesn't mean we
> should permanently delete the topic, [[John Doe]], from the database."
>
> The articles showed absolutely no attempt, even a biased or
> misinformed one, to write an article.  I did keep the one that had a
> talk page.  But perhaps I've acted in haste.
>
> Does the above include pages which say nothing more than "describe the
> new page here"?  Should we leave those or not?

I think you did the right thing.  I don't see how anyone could object.  It's that
the policy is poorly written on this particular point.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Our latest guest

body:
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20020408/21ee31a2/attachment.diff


subject: [Wikipedia-l] deletion policy

body:
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20020408/293aa9f5/attachment.diff


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Deletions: cleaning up primary namespace

body:
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20020408/14f05165/attachment.diff


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New features questions

body:
You'll have to forgive me as I've been off overseas for so long and missed the adjustment period.

2 questions: are there any new editing features in the new software? I dimly remember there being something about a ~~~ trick in the first version of meta.

Following on from that - are these features documented anywhere?

I went through "How to edit a page" and noticed that it hasn't been updated in a while - it still says "click on the ? mark to create a new page". Obviously I can fix that one myself, but are there other things I should be aware of?

Manning
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20020408/d67f1dc8/attachment.htm


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Number of articles

body:
Ian wrote:
> to 116 volumes now ( http://www.libroantiguo.org/obr/euiea.htm ). This is
> not a good tactic. It has become historical in its own right.

You're right, of course.  But it is still an impressive
endeavour.  Just like the pyramids: you can admire them without
understanding what they are useful for.

> The Swedish dictionary is bigger then the OED? A lot of words in the

The Swedish Academy was founded in 1786, modeled from the French
Academy.  Maybe their most important task today is awarding the Nobel
prize for literature.  But one of their first goals was to establish a
complete dictionary of the Swedish language.  However, they had to
abandon their first plan, which was too unorganized.  The first volume
of the *current* project appeared in 1898, and a century later they
are just finishing letter S - the 32nd volume.  They plan to finish
the alphabet by 2020.  The entire contents is available online, free
of charge, but covered by copyright, http://g3.spraakdata.gu.se/saob/

Of course, this is a pyramid.  You cannot lookup "telefon", because
they haven't done T yet.  The article "automobil" was written in 1903
(http://g3.spraakdata.gu.se/osa/show.phtml?filenr=1/18/4608.html).
Still, this is a good documentation of the historic use of
written Swedish from 1521 (the reformation) until c. 1899.  If you
lookup the word Encyklopedi
(http://g3.spraakdata.gu.se/osa/show.phtml?filenr=1/62/15725.html),
you can see that it was first observed in written Swedish in 1758.

This 32+ volume work is named SAOB.  There is also a 1 volume handbook
called SAOL, which is currently in its 12th edition, and this is the
spelling reference that all Swedish school teachers and newspaper
journalists use.  Then there are a few other Swedish multivolume
dictionaries that are must-haves for any collector or library.  But
SAOB is the king.  There will never again be anything so...eh, great.

> suppose - probably ditto for the Swedish dictionary. American ditionary's
> usually will throw out old words, though our dictionaries are not really

A gardener has to balance between allowing growth and weeding/pruning.
With the Internet and Moore's law, we have a much bigger garden.

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik
  Teknikringen 1e, SE-583 30 Linuxk?ping, Sweden
  tel +46-70-7891609
  http://aronsson.se/ http://elektrosmog.nu/ http://susning.nu/


subject: [Wikipedia-l] 24 is driving me nuts

body:
On lun, 2002-04-08 at 09:56, Gareth Owen wrote:
> "Julie Hofmann Kemp" <juleskemp at yahoo.com> writes:
> > Speaking of which, I really do wonder where it lives and if it's loony
> > enough to seek out those of us nearby.
>
> California, it would appear.
> (The IP address is a cable supplier in Burlington, CA)

Burlington, >>ON,<< CA
Canada, not California.

(As 24 itself says: the NSA knows, why not all of us. :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Karen AKA Kajikit

subject: [Wikipedia-l] testing!

body:
I just signed up to this list and wanted to test that I did it right...

--

Karen AKA Kajikit
Beloved of Jaggath, friend and guardian to Krystal the pocket Dragon
Wingsister to Viri, Hespa and Tanith

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating

Love and huggles to all!


subject: [Wikipedia-l] deletion policy

in_reply_to: <200204081821.g38ILu212862@ross.bomis.com>; from koyaanisqatsi@nupedia.com on Mon, Apr 08, 2002 at 11:21:56AM -0700

body:
Yeah, which url was it again?

koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:

> Would you put something to that effect on the page?  I'd prefer not to
> speak for you.  :-)
>
> kq
>
> >I think you did the right thing.  I don't see how anyone could
> object.  It's that
> >the policy is poorly written on this particular point.
> >
> >--Jimbo
> 0


body:
You can count my vote for moving them, but like you, I'd like to
see a consensus on this first.

lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:

> I think I have a reasonable method of cleaning up many of
> the leftover pages in the main namespace that should be moved
> to wikipedia: or meta (most of which have already been moved,
> but still exist).  But before I do this I want to give the
> group some warning and ask if anyone has concerns.
>
> I think it's important to actually delete these for
> several reasons.  One, they distort our statistics; they
> make it appear as though we have more real articles than
> we do.  They show up in searches.  They also make the
> utilities of the new software like orphan pages less useful.
> Second, their existence is confusing to new users and might
> encourage the creation of more such articles in the wrong
> namespace.  Finally, having the articles in the right
> namespace should make it easier to update and consolidate
> them, as many of them are badly out of date.
>
> I'm looking at things like "Wikipedia commentary/*", most
> of which have been moved to meta but still hang around,
> and things like "Wikipedia Announcements", "Wikipedia FAQ",
> etc.
>
> But before I go about removing these and fixing links to
> them, I want to hear if anyone has reasons to keep some of
> them in the primary namespace, or other concerns.
> 0


body:
On lun, 2002-04-08 at 13:05, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> > I think I have a reasonable method of cleaning up many of
> > the leftover pages in the main namespace that should be moved
> > to wikipedia: or meta [snip]
> > I think it's important to actually delete these for
> > several reasons.  [snip]
>
> You can count my vote for moving them, but like you, I'd like to
> see a consensus on this first.

I'm beginning to think we should have a convenient article renaming
function that will preserve editing histories (and, optionally,
automatically create a redirect page). What think you?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] deletion policy

body:
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20020408/63d54224/attachment.diff


body:
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20020408/07461d45/attachment.diff


body:
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20020408/067b8961/attachment.diff


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Suggestion about the meta-wikipedia

in_reply_to: <3CB225F7.CD8147F2@labyrinth.net.au>; from kaji@labyrinth.net.au on Tue, Apr 09, 2002 at 09:21:27AM +1000

body:
Karen AKA Kajikit wrote:
> I'm a new user and I didn't even know the meta wikipedia was there...

We should make it more prominent, then.

> Anyway, to get to the point, my suggestion is that there should be a
> clear statement on the front page of the Wikipedia directing people to
> the meta-wikipedia for discussions ABOUT the Wikipedia, like the link
> sending people back to the main page from the front page of the meta.

I think you're 100% right.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Another loony flag: 66.219.221.xxx

in_reply_to: <002801c1df57$c54d2280$cc8aadcb@oemcomputer>; from manning@bartlett.net on Tue, Apr 09, 2002 at 09:47:39AM +1000

body:
I've emailed with him, if it's the same guy.  I'm not sure that the
characterization of "character" and "it" are really necessary or
useful.

His main concern, when I met him, was that people from the main Baha'i
faith are trying to suppress information about the splinter group.
This is how he interpreted one edit of his articles.  I assured him
that this was unlikely -- to my knowledge, no one from the Baha'i
faith is even aware of our existence, much less monitors us looking
for his descriptions of the break.

We will face this problem in a much greater way when the
Scientologists find us.

--Jimbo

Manning Bartlett wrote:

> This 66.219.221.xxx  character is another to watch for - I seem to be getting into an edit war with it over its "Orthodox Baha'i Faith" issues. I researched this group a few months back when I was working on the original Baha'i faith article, and my evidence suggested that they are a tiny splinter group (a few hundred members) of a religion with 5 million members.
>
> Anyway, I'd be grateful if you could watch out for this character - I know Brian Vibber has already run into its ideological agenda. I'm leaving for India again in a week or two so I won't be able to watch it closely enough.
>
> Manning


from_name: kband at www.llamacom.com

in_reply_to: <1018199209.3cb07ca9360e9@email.ethz.ch> from "Tobias Hoevekamp" at Apr 07, 2002 07:06:49 PM

body:
>
> Thanks for your replys to my initial mail (see below).
> Kstars handbook http://kstars.sourceforge.net/handbook is availabe
> according to the following terms:
>
>    Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
>    document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License,
>    Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software
>    Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts,
>    and with no Back-Cover Texts.
>
> I guess, that leaves us with the most freedom desired, right? I'll
> import one article of Kstars Astroinfo into Wikipedia, add a line about
> where this article originates from and ask John Harris,
> the author of Astroinfo, if that's OK with him. I hope, he'll answer
> this time...

To be in compliance with the GFDL, Wikipedia is, like the Kstars
handbook, supposed to have the above license notice (1). It should also
have a GFDL:History page, where it should list the "title, year,
authors, and publisher" of Kstars Astroinfo, and a hyperlink to
the downloadable version of Kstars Astroinfo (4.I, 4.J).

-tc


subject: [Wikipedia-l] A language question

in_reply_to: <3CB22E30.ADC7D9A6@labyrinth.net.au>; from kaji@labyrinth.net.au on Tue, Apr 09, 2002 at 09:56:32AM +1000

body:
Karen AKA Kajikit wrote:
> I am Australian, and so I write my articles using Australian English,
> which is pretty much the same as British English... somebody just came
> along and re-edited one of my articles, changing most of the terms over
> to US English and removing the Australianisms.  I know that most
> Americans wouldn't have a clue what a 'milk bar' was, but does that mean
> that I should NOT use the term in any of my writing? Australians use the
> internet too!
>
> What is the policy on language?

These are my thoughts, but don't take this as policy, of course.

There are minor issues of spelling: colour versus color, for example.
These I recommend we ignore, since either is readable enough.  If you
feel like changing them one way or the other, you probably need to
relax a little bit.  :-)

If a term is not easy for any large population (British, Australian,
American, Canadian, etc.) to understand, then it should either be
avoided or explained.  It will often be the case that non-Americans
will not know whether their local slang is known to Americans.  And
vice-versa, except that American slang is in American movies, which
are popular in non-American countries.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] A language question

in_reply_to: <1018311298.4853.0.camel@rdaneel.moisty.org>; from brion@pobox.com on Mon, Apr 08, 2002 at 05:14:58PM -0700

body:
Brion L. VIBBER wrote:
> I'm quite sure there's a discussion on use of US vs British English
> buried in an article that's either been moved or is about to be moved
> into the Wikipedia: space. Or on meta. Either way, I can't find it just
> now... The gist of what I recall finding once is that all grammatical
> English is acceptable, but it seems to be a good idea to keep usage
> consistent in each individual article.

I think that's right.

The Nupedia people had a long boring and pedantic debate about this,
and settled on accepting either, and flagging the articles, with
eventual plans for "translating".  At wikipedia, we aren't so pedantic.
If it's good information, and people can comprehend it, that's fine.

Someday, when we get to a situation where we want to edit the
wikipedia into a big ole paper book, with "approved" articles, we'll
probably wish all the articles were in one form or the other, or else
someone is going to have to translate.

--Jimbo


in_reply_to: <20020409000949.2986.qmail@www.llamacom.com>; from kband@www.llamacom.com on Mon, Apr 08, 2002 at 07:09:49PM -0500

body:
But, meta is supposed to be about the whole project, not just the English project, so
incorporating it as a namespace in English privileges English unwisely.  Or does it?

Anyhow, my thinking has always been that Meta is about the entire project and so it
should be a separate domain name, as it is.

kband at www.llamacom.com wrote:

>
> > Anyway, to get to the point, my suggestion is that there should be a
> > clear statement on the front page of the Wikipedia directing people to
> > the meta-wikipedia for discussions ABOUT the Wikipedia, like the link
> > sending people back to the main page from the front page of the meta.
>
> I'd say it's time to just make a meta: namespace so that meta is better
> integrated back into Wikipedia as well. I tried to make the the Wikipedia
> links a little more obvious.
>
> --tc
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] A language question

body:
On lun, 2002-04-08 at 16:56, Karen AKA Kajikit wrote:
> I am Australian, and so I write my articles using Australian English,
> which is pretty much the same as British English... somebody just came
> along and re-edited one of my articles, changing most of the terms over
> to US English and removing the Australianisms.  I know that most
> Americans wouldn't have a clue what a 'milk bar' was, but does that mean
> that I should NOT use the term in any of my writing?

Well, unless it was in [[Clockwork Orange]], *I* certainly wouldn't have
the slightest idea what you're talking about.

IMHO, if a term's not generally understood internationally, either it
should be explained, or (if the choice of term itself isn't relevant)
more widely known terms should be used in its place. (That goes for
Americanisms that are unclear or ambiguous as well; for instance the
"billion" problem. I'd prefer to simply use "thousand million" or
"million million" and remove all doubt.)

> Australians use the
> internet too!
>
> What is the policy on language?

I'm quite sure there's a discussion on use of US vs British English
buried in an article that's either been moved or is about to be moved
into the Wikipedia: space. Or on meta. Either way, I can't find it just
now... The gist of what I recall finding once is that all grammatical
English is acceptable, but it seems to be a good idea to keep usage
consistent in each individual article.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Some 24 comments and the cabal

in_reply_to: <003d01c1df5c$95776660$cc8aadcb@oemcomputer>; from manning@bartlett.net on Tue, Apr 09, 2002 at 10:22:06AM +1000

body:
Manning Bartlett wrote:
> The solution to 24 is probably the same as with Cunctator - the
>silent ignore and passive editing approach. Maveric has tried to
>reason with 24 repeatedly, but when reason is clearly failing there is
>nothing else to do but protect the project.

I think that what "worked" with Cunc was (a) responding to his
legitimate concerns and (b) reasoning with him to be nicer with his
complaints.

But, yeah, trying to focus multiple people's attention on making sure
he doesn't screw anything up in the meantime is probably a good idea.

> However, entire articles which usurp recognised terms for personal
>dogma are not controversial at all - they have to go, and that's
>that. Collectively it is our responsibility to get rid of them.

Yes.  Or better, to fix them.

--Jimbo


body:
On lun, 2002-04-08 at 16:55, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> I've emailed with him, if it's the same guy.  I'm not sure that the
> characterization of "character" and "it" are really necessary or
> useful.
>
> His main concern, when I met him, was that people from the main Baha'i
> faith are trying to suppress information about the splinter group.

That explains why he's been quietly removing links to the mainstream
[[Baha'i Faith]] in articles that had linked to both [[Baha'i Faith]]
and [[Orthodox Baha'i Faith]]. *cough* *cough*

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Bryan Derksen

body:
On Mon, 8 Apr 2002, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> You can count my vote for moving them, but like you, I'd like to
> see a consensus on this first.

My vote is to move and then delete all pages from the main namespace that
belong under the user: and wikipedia: namespaces. I described my
philosophy in a talk: page which slips my mind right now (I think it was
the talk page for "pages to be deleted"), but to summarize I think it's
appropriate to be able to browse around randomly inside Wikipedia as an
encyclopedia and not come across any "behind the scenes" scaffolding
unless I actively seek it out. Making sure the user and wikipedia pages
are clearly separated from the main content of the encyclopedia will help
give wikipedia a more "professional" and "finished" flavor, even if it
isn't really. :)

(hope this email makes it through, I've been having a heck of a time
getting the right address subscribed to this mailing list...)

--
Bryan Derksen (bderksen at gpu.srv.ualberta.ca)
http://www.ualberta.ca/~bderksen/
Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes


in_reply_to: <20020409005742.8976.qmail@www.llamacom.com>; from kband@www.llamacom.com on Mon, Apr 08, 2002 at 07:57:42PM -0500

body:
kband at www.llamacom.com wrote:
> I want it to be clear I don't particularly care if it's at meta.wikipedia.com
> or wikipedia.com/wiki/meta:. What I do care about is that people can
> easily organize/understand all the various content, to be able to move
> obviously between wikipedia: and meta and mainspace content. Right now
> there's getting to be a lot of unnecessary overlap and balkanization of
> content (through no intentional actions, just imperfect organization)
> in the FAQ, the Policy sections, Meta, the mailing list, etc. It's
> good to have all these separate interfaces to knowledge organization,
> but there need to be the best possible cross-connection tools as well.
>
> Does that make any sense? I'm sure it's unnecessarily verbose.

I think it makes perfect sense.  The verbosity merely reflects the extent of
the problem.  :-)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia-l digest, Vol 1 #350 - 9 msgs

body:
> JHK writes
>
> The problem here is that 24 makes assertions that words mean what IT
> says they mean, and often denies that common usage is legitimate.  The
> purpose of any encyclopedia should be to let people know what is
> GENERALLY meant and agreed-upon, and then other views or
> interpretations.

Couldn't agree more. This person has some VERY idiosyncratic definitions for
obscure terms I have never seen used. Many of his entries seem leftist/Green
and yet I have many friends that are leftist and/or Green and they are not
aware of most of 24's terms. In addition, almost everything he/she writes is
discoherent and at first glance at least, nonsense.

>....
> JHK:
> I think [Jimbo is] right on one level -- banning is very extreme.  However,
> I think we need to consider whether community standards and etiquette
> play any part.  There have been lots of situations where peer pressure
> has helped to tone down disagreements between Wikipedians -- but even in
> cases where there was clear animosity, I've never seen it get so bad
> that the disputants wouldn't put common goals first (given encouragement
> ;-) ).  With 24, we see a person who denies that there is a community,
> and therefore has no obligation to work within the standards we've set
> for ourselves.  Moreover, one of 24's aims is to change the goals of the
> project and tell us what we 'should' (in his twisted world-view) be
> writing about.  In my opinion, he IS vandalizing the project by creating
> tons of pages that are really indefensible from a NPOV-encyclopedia
> standpoint.   Banning him would certainly result in tirades of "those
> people/that clique doesn't like what I say, so they're oppressing me",
> but this may be the point where we have to make a call on policy.  I'm
> all for peer pressure and heavy editing, but I just don't know if it
> will be effective against someone who considers us all less than his
> peers.
>
> JHK
>
Much of my rant was based on the fact that 24 does not follow community
standards and etiquette -- even after being made aware of them. 24 is
willfully defying NPOV, capitalization and pluralization wikipedia standards.
What is worse, is that this person literaly is able to spew out massive
amounts of text in very little time. It is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to keep up with
him/her -- let alone write about what I want to write about.  It wouldn't be
that terrible if this person simply was making new articles and leaving
established ones alone.  But 24 is injecting his/her seemingly idiosyncratic
views into many other articles.

I am a very patient person who allways tries to give people the benefit of
the doubt (and have been doing so with 24 up to this point). I have often
chided other wikipedians for calling a newbie a VANDAL just because they were
doing what newbies do best -- make honest mistakes or do something bad like
delete a single article because they do not understand what wikipedia is.
Almost all of these newbies either begin to understand and learn how to work
on the 'pedia, or they drop out. 24 is very different and continues to do
things the way he/she wants to after being introduced to what wikipedia is,
our NPOV policy, how to best contribute to existing articles and how to best
create new ones.

I really hate to say it, but I think it is time to at least consider voting
24 off the island. Maybe give him/her one more chance to reform.

maveric149


from_name: Gareth Owen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] 24 is driving me nuts

in_reply_to: "Julie Hofmann Kemp"'s message of "Mon, 8 Apr 2002 10:00:31 -0700"

body:
"Julie Hofmann Kemp" <juleskemp at yahoo.com> writes:

> Speaking of which, I really do wonder where it lives and if it's loony
> enough to seek out those of us nearby.

California, it would appear.
(The IP address is a cable supplier in Burlington, CA)
--
Gareth Owen
"Wikipedia does rock.  By the count on the "brilliant prose" page, there
 are 14 not-bad articles so far" -- Larry Sanger (12 Jan 2001)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Deletions: cleaning up primary namespace

body:
lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:

> I think I have a reasonable method of cleaning up many of
> the leftover pages in the main namespace that should be moved
> to wikipedia: or meta (most of which have already been moved,
> but still exist).  But before I do this I want to give the
> group some warning and ask if anyone has concerns.
>
> I think it's important to actually delete these for
> several reasons.  One, they distort our statistics; they
> make it appear as though we have more real articles than
> we do.  They show up in searches.  They also make the
> utilities of the new software like orphan pages less useful.
> Second, their existence is confusing to new users and might
> encourage the creation of more such articles in the wrong
> namespace.  Finally, having the articles in the right
> namespace should make it easier to update and consolidate
> them, as many of them are badly out of date.
>
> I'm looking at things like "Wikipedia commentary/*", most
> of which have been moved to meta but still hang around,
> and things like "Wikipedia Announcements", "Wikipedia FAQ",
> etc.
>
> But before I go about removing these and fixing links to
> them, I want to hear if anyone has reasons to keep some of
> them in the primary namespace, or other concerns.
> 0
> ------------=_1018292717-19285-0--

No, please do not delete such things as [[NPOV]] that is a redirect to
[[wikipedia:Neutral point of view]]. Redirects do not skew our statistics
because they are listed as so on the statistics page. They are also useful in
that MANY links would be broken is they are gone -- besides I personally
don't want to write [[wikipedia:Neutral point of view|NPOV]] each time I want
to link to that article.

However, there is much other material that should either be placed in the
meta or behind a new namespace -- wikipedia commentary: or wikipedia forum:
perhaps?

maveric149


from_name: Robert Graham Merkel

subject: [Wikipedia-l] 24 is driving me nuts

body:
On Mon, 08 Apr 2002 12:01:13 Daniel Lee Mayer wrote:

> 24's activities are similar to what User:QIM has done with his Masculism
> article - except 24 is truly prolific in the amount of material that
> he/she
> is submitting (and at least "Masculism" gets about a 1000 hits - mostly
> emails and personal pages though). I do believe that 24 is harming the
> project - at the very least this person is causing unproductive angst
> among
> longtimes users. The actions of this person is probably also giving
> visitors
> and newbies the wrong idea about the project.
>

He's wasting a lot of people's time.

> Don't get me wrong, I am not indicating that the merit of a term is not
> to be
> solely based on the number of hits on Google. However, when the content
> or
> title itself is questionable, surprising or really not at all NPOV
> (that's
> neutral point of view, not natural point of view), then Google can be
> used as
> some sort of objective measure of merit.
>
> I think it is time to warn 24 to cease many of the above activities.

Yes.

--
------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Merkel	                           rgmerk at mira.net

Go You Big Red Fire Engine
-- Unknown Audience Member at Adam Hills standup gig
------------------------------------------------------------


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Some 24 comments and the cabal

body:
Manning Bartlett wrote:

> I've been following the various commentary about 24 with interest, and =
> maybe I can offer some thoughts for consideration.
>
> We have run into at least one character similar to 24 in the past - =
> Cunctator. (Although 24 seems worse). That is - a person who is clearly =
> quite intelligent, capable of making very worthwhile contributions at =
> times, but frequently unable to distinguish between the encyclopedia =
> agenda and their personal agenda.
>
> The solution to 24 is probably the same as with Cunctator - the silent =
> ignore and passive editing approach. Maveric has tried to reason with 24 =
> repeatedly, but when reason is clearly failing there is nothing else to =
> do but protect the project.

I will try this approach -- however, this person contributes at a phenomenal
rate and I'm not sure if I can just sit by and let this person's personal
agenda mare the project.

> As much as people seem to hate admitting it- there is a "cabal" in =
> operation at the Wikipedia. However, rather than being some secretive =
> and exclusive operation, it is a freely admissive assembly: Live by the =
> rules and you're in.=20

Those who contribute often and really care do form a kind of a group -- at
the very least. I never really understood the total aversion against an
administrating body (especially one that is based on meritocracy).

>
> I know of no occasion where someone who accepted the central editorial =
> guidelines was ever made to feel excluded - one's "respect and =
> authority" is purely a measure of one's level of participation and =
> commitment, not a matter of "who you know" or (especially) "how long =
> you've been here". Jimbo retains ultimate control of the project (by =
> virtue of his paying for the damn thing), but the remainder of us are =
> its true authority structure. The Wikipedia Militia was assembled along =
> these lines - some howled with outrage, but most of us understood its =
> purpose.=20

right on.

>
> So this is a time when the "cabal" or "militia" must rise to the =
> occasion - we must simply edit quietly and remove the detritus to either =
> meta or to oblivion, as is appropriate. 24 is chiefly motivated by his =
> ability to engage us - people such as this live for their ability to =
> command the attention of people, and to eliminate his negative behaviour =
> we must remove this incentive. Two things will result - he/she will =
> either learn to play by the rules, or he/she will go away. Either way, =
> the project is better off.

I really don't think this person will learn -- 24 has most certainely been
told about our policies and refusses to abide by them. The only supprissing
thing is that I have yet really to get into an edit-war with him/her --
maybe he/she does not know how to REVERT an article yet. God help us...

>
> There is no shame is using our "collective authority" - we do not need =
> any special measures. We edit, delete, and watch each other. If Maveric, =
> Vibber, JHK, Jimbo, KQ or someone similarly respected elects to delete =
> content of 24, I'm probably going to be fairly accepting of their =
> judgment. This is motivated by my trust of them as rational beings who =
> understand the purpose of Wikipedia. This trust is not absolute, but =
> certainly substantial (and I mean no disrespect - absolute trust is not =
> possible as we are all fallible)=20

I will remove content, but I will not delete an article made by 24 unless it
is missnamed. I am too emotionally involved now and can't trust myself enough
to do that. That doens't mean I wont place articles in [[wikipedia:page
titles to be deleted]] though.
>
> If the "Militia" were an exclusive operation, then there would be shame =
> to it, but that has never been the case, nor could it ever be (without =
> some seriously fundamental changes to the structure of Wikipedia, which =
> I suspect would never happen.)=20
>
There is no shame to reversing the work of crakpots.

>[.......]
> However, entire articles which usurp recognised terms for personal dogma =
> are not controversial at all - they have to go, and that's that. =
> Collectively it is our responsibility to get rid of them.
>
> Warm regards
> Manning
> Sydney, Australia

The 'pedia will be a much nicer place after you return.

maveric149


body:
On lun, 2002-04-08 at 16:20, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Karen AKA Kajikit wrote:
> > I'm a new user and I didn't even know the meta wikipedia was there...
>
> We should make it more prominent, then.

Okay, crazy idea time:

What if we had the ability to include multiple wikis in the
RecentChanges list? e.g., English AND meta and perhaps French and
Esperanto wikipedias all together in one list? It would make my life
more convenient, anyway.

Yes. Yes, it's madness, I know. Besides, I'd probably be the one who had
to figure out how to make it work cleanly. (ugh)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: A language question

body:
Message: 16
Date: Tue, 09 Apr 2002 09:56:32 +1000
From: Karen AKA Kajikit <kaji at labyrinth.net.au>
Organization: What? Me Organised...
To: wikipedia mailing list <wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] A language question
Reply-To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com

I am Australian, and so I write my articles using Australian English,
which is pretty much the same as British English... somebody just came
along and re-edited one of my articles, changing most of the terms over
to US English and removing the Australianisms.  I know that most
Americans wouldn't have a clue what a 'milk bar' was, but does that mean
that I should NOT use the term in any of my writing? Australians use the
internet too!

What is the policy on language?

IIRC, the policy on language is that anything's correct as long as it's
consistent usage -- it's the English-language wikipedia, not the
American one.  I'm appalled, frankly.  My personal opinion (as an
American) is that, (since we can't reach out and slap someone), a
comment should be put on the "corrector's"  page and also on the
relevant talk page, gently pointing out that this is a breach of good
manners and that the spellings are perfectly correct.  *I* would also go
back and revert it to the original spelling, just because.  But then I'm
a bit sensitive to Amero-centrism , since I have to spend so much time
in class explaining that there's a whole world outside the US ;-)

Cheers!
JHK
--

Karen AKA Kajikit

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating

Love and huggles to all!

--__--__--

_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

End of Wikipedia-l Digest

_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com


in_reply_to: <3CB225F7.CD8147F2@labyrinth.net.au> from "Karen AKA Kajikit" at Apr 09, 2002 09:21:27 AM

body:
> Anyway, to get to the point, my suggestion is that there should be a
> clear statement on the front page of the Wikipedia directing people to
> the meta-wikipedia for discussions ABOUT the Wikipedia, like the link
> sending people back to the main page from the front page of the meta.

I'd say it's time to just make a meta: namespace so that meta is better
integrated back into Wikipedia as well. I tried to make the the Wikipedia
links a little more obvious.

--tc


subject: [Wikipedia-l] A language question

in_reply_to: <3CB22E30.ADC7D9A6@labyrinth.net.au> from "Karen AKA Kajikit" at Apr 09, 2002 09:56:32 AM

body:
>
> I am Australian, and so I write my articles using Australian English,
> which is pretty much the same as British English... somebody just came
> along and re-edited one of my articles, changing most of the terms over
> to US English and removing the Australianisms.  I know that most
> Americans wouldn't have a clue what a 'milk bar' was, but does that mean
> that I should NOT use the term in any of my writing? Australians use the
> internet too!
>
> What is the policy on language?

It's best to deal with things on a case-by-case basis instead of
dealing in generalities where possible. What article was it?

To speak in generalities, the policy on language is pretty much the
policy on everything, which is: as long as what you do a) stays within
the mission of Wikipedia and b) doesn't upset other Wikipedians, it's
totally fine.

So the #1 policy is to not upset other Wikipedians unnecessarily (and
to try not to get upset over minutiae). If someone edited your article
so that it's understandable to a wider audience without eliminating
information, then that was a good thing. If they removed information,
that's not so good.

If as an editor there's something which confuses you, you should use
the "Talk" to ask what's going on before editing.

Re: variants of English--feel free to write with whatever spelling you
prefer. We don't have any policy as to preferred spelling. See
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/wikipedia%3AOther+Frequent+Questions

Q. American English though, I presume, not British English?

A. Why presume that? People are writing in all sorts of English. This
isn't necessarily a bad situation, either. Anyway, of course, the
Americans aren't going to adjust their usage for the Brits, and God
knows the Brits won't adjust theirs for the Americans.

--tc


from_name: Chuck Smith

subject: [Wikitech-l] auto wikification

body:
As far as auto wikification is concerned, what would
be the effects of someone creating an article entitled
"The"?

Chuck

=====
Come to my homepage!  Venu al mia hejmpagxo!
http://amuzulo.babil.komputilo.org/
====
Venu al la senpaga, libera enciklopedio
esperanta reta! http://eo.wikipedia.com/

_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Informaci?n de Estados Unidos y Am?rica Latina, en Yahoo! Noticias.
Vis?tanos en http://noticias.espanol.yahoo.com


from_name: koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l]  Wikipedia-l digest, Vol 1 #350 - 9 msgs

body:
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20020408/ce21f3f2/attachment.diff


body:
>
> But, meta is supposed to be about the whole project, not just the English project, so
> incorporating it as a namespace in English privileges English unwisely.  Or does it?
>
> Anyhow, my thinking has always been that Meta is about the entire project and so it
> should be a separate domain name, as it is.

That certainly makes sense; one caveat would be that's just as true
for nearly everything in the Wikipedia: namespace.

And everything in meta.wikipedia is in English...

I want it to be clear I don't particularly care if it's at meta.wikipedia.com
or wikipedia.com/wiki/meta:. What I do care about is that people can
easily organize/understand all the various content, to be able to move
obviously between wikipedia: and meta and mainspace content. Right now
there's getting to be a lot of unnecessary overlap and balkanization of
content (through no intentional actions, just imperfect organization)
in the FAQ, the Policy sections, Meta, the mailing list, etc. It's
good to have all these separate interfaces to knowledge organization,
but there need to be the best possible cross-connection tools as well.

Does that make any sense? I'm sure it's unnecessarily verbose.

--tc


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

subject: [Wikipedia-l] A language question

body:
At 09:56 AM 4/9/02 +1000, Kakajit wrote:
>I am Australian, and so I write my articles using Australian English,
>which is pretty much the same as British English... somebody just came
>along and re-edited one of my articles, changing most of the terms over
>to US English and removing the Australianisms.  I know that most
>Americans wouldn't have a clue what a 'milk bar' was, but does that mean
>that I should NOT use the term in any of my writing? Australians use the
>internet too!
The policy is, basically, that any standard form of English is cool--US, Oz,
UK, Canada, NZ, India, etc. If all the other person did was replace Australian
usage with American, I'd say you're justified in reverting; if they also added
information or otherwise improved the article, best to leave it, I think. (The
second sentence here is one Wikipedian's opinion, not policy.)

>What is the policy on language?
>
>--
>
>Karen AKA Kajikit
>
>Come and visit my part of the web:
>Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
>Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
>Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating
>
>Love and huggles to all!
>[Wikipedia-l]
>To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
>http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l]  Some 24 comments and the cabal

body:
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20020408/f726ab9f/attachment.diff


subject: [Wikipedia-l]  Deletions: cleaning up primary namespace

body:
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20020408/ceb4babb/attachment.diff


from_name: Matthew Woodcraft

body:
>after some exam time-out, here is an HTML version of the template
>currently known as "Cologne Blue".

>Comments are of course welcome!

I strongly disapprove of explicitly setting the font size for body text
- this is something which people individually configure in their
browsers to their own preference, and there can be no good reason for
overriding this.

I also dislike overriding the viewer's default choice of font face and
link underlining, though I feel less strongly about this. All this for
the main body text only - I've no objection to explicit settings for the
navigation bar.

This version of the site would be effectively unusable with the quickbar
turned off (no edit link, for a start). That's a big minus in my
opinion.

Where will links to other namespaces appear?

-M-


from_name: Guardian Tor

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Our latest guest

body:
Well now, someone seems to be ever-so-slightly pissed at me. ;-)

http://meta.wikipedia.com/wiki.phtml?title=Response_to_Stephen_Gilbert

- Stephen G.
--

________________________________
Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia
   http://www.wikipedia.com

_______________________________________________
Download the free Opera browser at http://www.opera.com/

Powered by Outblaze


subject: [Wikipedia-l] green wiki

body:
Hmmm...

Any chance we could just give 24 his own wiki to play
on?

Chuck

=====
Come to my homepage!  Venu al mia hejmpagxo!
http://amuzulo.babil.komputilo.org/
====
Venu al la senpaga, libera enciklopedio
esperanta reta! http://eo.wikipedia.com/

_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Informaci?n de Estados Unidos y Am?rica Latina, en Yahoo! Noticias.
Vis?tanos en http://noticias.espanol.yahoo.com