body:
On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 10:44:37 -0500, Fennec Foxen <fennec at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 20:43:35 +1100, Rebecca <misfitgirl at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Ram-Man's proposal wasn't unreasonable, and due to the number of
> > people it needed to reach (i.e. far more than the usual 100 people that
> > vote on most polls), it wasn't necessarily a bad idea to choose talk
> > pages over a post on the Village Pump or equivalent.
>
> Indeed, but we must consider what messages should be designated
> "reasonable", and the community must be involved in making this
> decision, not just the bot.
>
> > I say let this one pass, but subject any further mass messaging to a
> > similar rigorous examination.
> How about further mass-messaging be approved *beforehand* rather than
> ex post facto? This is the crux of the matter: not that "mass
> messaging is evil" or "mass messaging via bots is evil" or "bots are
> evil" or "mass messaging about licensing is evil" or anything like
> that. It's just that *any operation of a bot needs to be approved
> beforehand*. A reminder from Wikipedia:Bots --
>
> Before running a bot, you must get approval on Wikipedia talk:Bots.
> State there precisely what the bot will do. Get a rough consensus on
> the talk page that it is a good idea. Wait a week to see if there are
> any objections ... <snip>
>    1. Sysops should block bots, without hesitation, if they are
> unapproved, ***doing something the operator didn't say they would
> do***, messing up articles or editing too rapidly.
>
> At no point in time did Ram-Man say on Wikipedia_talk:Bots that he
> would be using the bot to send solicit thousands of users via their
> talk pages. Wikipedia:Bots just says that Rambot "scans and modifys
> all existing county and city articles to implement miscellaneous
> changes and updates. As time permits, the bot also functions as a
> generic SpellBot with human interaction." A note on the talk page from
> Nov 8 also indicates that Rambot will resume its *normal* operation,
> citing "requests for changes that are months and months overdue". He
> linked to Rambot's user page at that time, where there was no mention
> of a mass messaging project:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User:Rambot&oldid=7257037
>
> This is clearly not something Ram-Man said the bot would do.
>
> In this case, perhaps the consensus to run the bot would have been
> achieved, allowing the bot to operate, but in general I do not think
> that the "implicit consent" measure employed by Ram-Man ("I already
> have explicit and implicit permission from hundreds of users to
> perform this action") based upon nonnegative replies to his
> solicitation should be considered a valid measure of community
> consensus in these matters. Indeed, Ram-Man states "After all, I have
> a track record of not asking for permission" and complains of the lack
> of attention to the WIkipedia_talk:Bots page, using these as excuses
> not to file for permission.
>  I think that this is already deemed unacceptable by standing bot policy.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

While it is a bit rich to claim retro-active consensus for the bot, I
for one wouldn't be pushed about making a big deal out of this
specific abuse of a bot (I mean, it admittedly doesn't look like the
guidelines have been followed).

Perhaps others too agree.

Once again, I re-iterate that I consider that this doesn't need to set
any kind of precedent. If there is a "next time", simply visit it
again as we are doing now, and hey, if it's a different issue where
everyone is baying for blood, take serious action. There's no specific
reason not to treat things on a case by case basis. And it's not
"unfair", because if the "next time" is worse, then it deserves to be
treated differently.

There's no call to make a big fuss over this bot messaging out of fear
of future (more serious/widespread?) abuses.

Well. That's all my two eurocent anyways. I may be out of touch with
reality (again!)

Zoney

--
~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Jonathan Fors

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikidoc

body:
Erik Moeller skrev:

>Jonathan-
>>/ Now, the last week, some of our contributors have told us that they feel
>/>/ like duplicating the Wikipedia project, something that I cannot fully
>/>/ agree to. Wikipedia is encyclopedic and documentation isn't, meaning
>/>/ that it not really fits there. I know about Wikibooks, but the whole
>/>/ concept of a "single place for GNU/Linux and Free Software
>/>/ documentation" would be a little far off.
>/
>I'm not sure I can follow you here. I initiated openfacts.berlios.de for
>this purpose a while ago, but it never really took off, and I did not put
>much further effort into it. Today I think that this kind of work should
>take place on Wikibooks. You can create a portal page specifically for
>open source documentation, and we'd be glad to set up some convenient
>redirect there like opensource.wikibooks.org.
>
>
Sounds great to me, could I get any help or advice on doing this,
please? I think that this quite well addresses the needs that a free
software wiki has.

>Of course there are drawbacks: Recent changes will include changes to all
>books; linking specifically within the context of the open source section
>will require specifying some kind of namespace or pseudo-namespace, etc.
>But I believe that the right answer to these problems is to gradually
>improve the software to better deal with these issues, e.g. by filtering
>recent changes by namespace, and making certain namespaces "closed", so
>that any link you create within them points to pages in the same
>namespace.
>
>
That is a good point, and does not seem too hard to achieve.

>In other words, I'd rather you outline the needs you think must be met
>before Wikibooks can become a useful open source portal, than starting a
>separate project.
>
>
The wiki is of course supposed to be quite easily navigated, both for
newbies and more advanced users. Also, the documentation is supposed to
be on-topic and focused, just like any howto you would find on tldp.
Unix manuals are also a little special, we have solved that on our wiki
by using a separate namespace (would that even be possible on wikibooks?).
Internationalization is also important, and is also one of the reasons
we started our wiki in the first place. There is a lot of Linux
documentation on the net, but most of it is in english. The need for
high-quality documentation in other languages is the driving factor here.

    Jonathan


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikidoc


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Mark Williamson

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

body:
Apparently, there were a couple of separate issues.

The first: Turktelkom tried to censor Top/World/Kurdish - see
http://www.kurdmedia.com/news.asp?id=3341 (from a Kurdish POV)

The second: H. Ertas, an ethnic Turk, editor of the Turkish-language
category Top/World/T?rk?e/Toplum/Sorunlar/Ter?rizm/Ter?r_?rg?tleri/PKK_-_KADEK
who subsequently became interested in Kurdish affairs and did his own
research on the subject, was arrested and sentenced to 10 months in
Turkish prison and a small fine simply for editing the category - see
http://kurdmedia.com/news.asp?id=5840 (from a Kurdish POV)

Mark

On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 22:45:49 +0100, Mathias Schindler <neubau at presroi.de> wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> > HOWEVER, and that is a big "however", editing ku.wikipedia while in
> > Turkey is still a possible risk: recently, a man was sent to prison
> > just for editing the Kurdish DMOZ (Open Directory Project).
>
> Last time I heard it, he didn't just edited with the kurdish dmoz but
> rather he edited the PKK-directory in dmoz.
>
> I don't support legal action against link list editors but I don't find
> it so much surprising that a country isn't so relaxed with a local group
> that has not the best attitude towards the state. I wonder if a bask
> editor in spain who maintains an ETA link list will be threated nicely.
>
> I can't find the URL right now, so please threat this email as hearsay
> regarding the dmoz case.
>
> Mathias
>
>


list: wikien-l

from_name: Ray Saintonge

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

body:
Jens Ropers wrote:

> On 15 Dec 2004, at 21:12, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> I have a pet linguistic peeve in this debate.  Please don't mix up
>> the words "systemic" and "systematic".  Something is "systemic" if it
>> has become built into a system.  Something is "systematic"  if it is
>> done in a structured and organized way.
>
> YAY for linguistic nitpicking! ;-)
> The enormousness of the enormity of using ''enormity'' to mean
> ''enormous''...
> ;-D
>
> Seriously now, I am SO with you! :-)
>
> -- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]]
>     www.ropersonline.com
>
> PS:
>
> And then there was this incident--as Dave Barry would say, I am not
> making this up--where some US employee was actually FIRED--ie, he had
> to go to court to get his job and good reputation back--purely because
> he had said that doing such-and-such would be niggardly. Apparently
> the colleague had never ever heard of the words "niggard", "niggardly"
> or "niggardliness" and REFUSED to listen to an explanation, so your
> man had to go to the courts to get his colleague--who was totally
> convinced of having heard a racial slur--to actually ''have a look in
> the dictionary'' and duly discover that the term had more to do with
> Scrooge McDuck than with skin colo(u)r.
> Meh. Words fail.

Ladies who work to maintain the morale of our armies deserve medals for
their meretricious servic.

Ec


from_name: Shane King

subject: [WikiEN-l] Misunderstanding NPOV

body:
Charles Matthews wrote:
> See [[appeal to authority]].  It's not always a fallacy.  I see that the
> "Five conditions for a legitimate argument from authority" now number _six_.

And interestingly enough, that very point refutes this as a legitimate
appeal to authority: "The argument must be valid in its own right i.e.
without needing to appeal to authority at all."

Since this whole discussion started because wikipedia doesn't evaluate
whether arguments are valid, it's entirely reliant on an appeal to
authority in the logical fallacy sense.

PS: I'm trying not to think of appealing to the authority of the
wikipedia definition of appeal to authority to prove wikipedia is based
on an appeal to authority fallacy. The circular and contradictory nature
of doing so threatens to make my head explode.

Shane.


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

body:
> Mark Williamson a ?crit:
> > Hello Anthere,
> >
> > It has already been resolved that most likely censorship of the
> > Kurdish Wikipedia has been by individual netcafes, and not by the
> > government.
>
>
> Do you have facts to assert this ?
> I did not see anything else than hearsay.

We have the statement of a ku.wikipedia contributor who confirms he
can access ku.wikipedia from his university, but not from a particular
netcafe. Also, such actions to censor minority language websites are
common in Turkish netcafes.

> > Because it isn't the government but rather individual businesses, this
> > can be dealt with a little bit less cautiously perhaps because their
> > power is much less, although cordial relations should of course be
> > maintained.
> >
> > My recommendation is to write a formal letter (in Turkish) to the
> > netcafes where it has been reported and ask them if they have blocked
> > the Kurdish Wikipedia, and if so to please unblock it as it is not
> > harmful and in fact would be beneficial to their business.
> >
> > HOWEVER, and that is a big "however", editing ku.wikipedia while in
> > Turkey is still a possible risk: recently, a man was sent to prison
> > just for editing the Kurdish DMOZ (Open Directory Project).
> >
> > The AI involvement I recommended was not related to Wikipedia or any
> > sort of basic censorship, which is in my opinion a restriction on
> > freedom of information but not a violation of basic human rights.
> >
> > Instead, it was related to this arrest of a man for editing the
> > Kurdish ODP, which is a severe violation of basic human rights.
> >
> > For Turkey to take such an action right now, when the eye of the world
> > is on them to improve human rights (for EU membership), the
> > imprisonment of a man for editing the Kurdish ODP is certainly
> > something that warrants attention.
> >
> > However I think I should make it very clear that I think any such
> > involvement should be independent of Wikipedia or ODP officially, even
> > if some editors are involved.
> >
> > Mark
>

> Independant ? Hmmmm, somehow, I think that any letter send with as a
> signature the name of an editor and the link to his user page, is not
> exactly what I would call independant.

Right, so if I sent a letter to the government of Turkey requesting
the release of H. Ertas, who was jailed just for editing a
Turkish-language Kurdish culture category (not as I said earlier a
category on terrorist groups)  on DMOZ, there is some sort of
requirement that, as a Wikipedian, I sign it "Mark Williamson
(Wikipedia user Node_ue)"? There is life outside of Wikipedia, and
there is activism independent of Wikipedia. I do not sign letters with
my username and the fact that I am a Wikipedian unless it's relevant
to the letter itself.

> Give it time.

Is this what you tell H. Ertas, who is going to spend the next ten
months in prison just for editing a culture category on DMOZ? "Give it
time, you will get out of prison eventually"?

Mark

> Anthere
>
>
> > On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 01:21:58 -0800 (PST), Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >>Hi Erdal,
> >>
> >>Before anything, I would like to recommand you to very very well check your facts. But I see that you are trying to do this. Have some feedback from all turkish editors. Ask some friends in Turkye to check as well. Perhaps Erik Zachte could help you on checking statistics ? Or another developer might ? (Hashar, can you help on this ?)
> >>
> >>The second point is that I would recommand low profile *as much as* possible.
> >>I think making major reports to inform anyone on the planet that Turkish government is doing censorship or that there are multiple individual moves in that direction is a *very bad* idea. Same for starting an email campaign and call for help from Amnesty International. Please, do not do this. Avoid threatening the government as well, as you are NOT sure it is the government who might be responsible of it (you are not even sure there is censorship, doubly less for knowing who is the instigator).
> >>
> >>Generally, we are not here to say what is good and what is not good, or how authorities should manage their countries. We try to demonstrate that freedom of information is better in the long run, but we are not an advocacy group supporting human rights.
> >>
> >>If you "attack" the government, and it is responsible of the current situation, you do not let room for it to politely claim it was all a mistake, apology and restore full access. You do not let room to keep face, you contribute to escalating a conflict.
> >>If you "attack" the government and it is not responsible of the current situation, you will upset it toward us, and this will not have good consequences in the long run.
> >>Whatever the government, we do not want to be expressely seen as an advocacy group saying what they do is bad, we should rather stay low profile, and remind that we have a strong neutrality policy and are not taking sides.
> >>
> >>If you really feel you have to make it known what is going on, I think you should advertise it just as you would in a wikipedia article. Just report facts (decrease of access as shown in recent statistics; report from xxx wikipedians that they cant access the site anymore. Cite your sources if you can (people is tough, but stats do not fear anything). Stick to facts, and do not draw any public conclusion. Do not make a long rant on how horrendous it is that censorship exist, that human rights are not respected. Just let the reader make its own opinion on why access is impaired and where it could come from. You might indeed mention in the article that it might be a temporary technical problem.
> >>
> >>In short, let a back door so that the situation can resolve without getting in a war necessarily and upsetting people.
> >>
> >>Anthere
> >>Wikimedia Foundation
> >>
> >>
> >>---------------------------------
> >>Do you Yahoo!?
> >> Yahoo! Mail - now with 250MB free storage. Learn more.
> >>_______________________________________________
> >>Wikipedia-l mailing list
> >>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> >>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >>
> >
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Bandwidth theft

body:
Rich Holton wrote:

> So, my question is, do we need such a statement
> forbidding/discouraging/allowing/encouraging
> band-width stealing?

I see no need for it. It is commen sence that this is not done. It is
impolite.

> Perhaps more important, is it
> safe to assume that such sites should be blocked?

When the do not have a special permission of wikimedia the should be
blocked. The can have the info for free and put ads on it. The can pay
for there bandwidth.

> Do
> we need some process to make sure it happens when
> appropriate?

We need that action is taken when this abuse is reported.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Non-compliant_site_coordination#Action_needed
# I believe rapid action is needed - Mark Dingemanse 22:32, 31 Oct 2004
(UTC)
# I have send a request to Wikitech-l to block those ***holes Walter
17:34, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The are still stealing bandwith.
http://www.objectssearch.com/pedia/index.jsp

> Finally, is this the right place to bring this up?

There are wurst places.

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


body:
> Mark Williamson a ?crit:
> >>Mark Williamson a ?crit:
> >>
> >>>Hello Anthere,
> >>>
> >>>It has already been resolved that most likely censorship of the
> >>>Kurdish Wikipedia has been by individual netcafes, and not by the
> >>>government.
>
> >>Do you have facts to assert this ?
> >>I did not see anything else than hearsay.
> >
> >
> > We have the statement of a ku.wikipedia contributor who confirms he
> > can access ku.wikipedia from his university, but not from a particular
> > netcafe.
>
>
> Right....
> Well, this is a fact (though no name is provided).
>
> Now, this is also a collection of hasty generalization

Right...

> Do not claim something is true when you do not cite evidence
> Do not claim something is true over just one sample person experience
> Do not draw conclusion of censorship when information is missing to draw
> such a conclusion.

Quote: "Adding new languages is certainly a strain on developers. It
certainly will be that this project will grow slowly (it would be
wiser perhaps to work mostly on wiktionary rather than wikipedia to
start with), but I do not think we should on purpose limit the
existence of small projects on the motive there will be few editors to
work on." (Anthere)

You claim something is true (strain on developers) without citing
evidence, you claim it is true from your own experience presumably,
and you claim it as a fact when in fact the next message was a message
from TimStarling contradicting what you said: "It's not that much of a
strain. I actually added this to the language list as soon as I saw
the post, thinking that since it has an ISO 639-2 code, it would be
uncontroversial."

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

> Also, such actions to censor minority language websites are
> > common in Turkish netcafes.
>
> Do not generalized without citing facts.
> Do not make appeal to pity by using the word minority out of context.

I think the passage I quoted above is a generalisation without a
citation of fact on your part.

Apparently, you need to look at the Ethnologue because Kurdish,
Ladino, and all other non-Turkish languages of Turkey are minority
languages - that is, they are spoken by less than 50% of the
population. I fail to see how this is out of context, as it is an
undeniable fact that, in the present boundaries of the nation of
"Turkey", the majority language is Turkish, and thus all other
languages are "minority languages" within the boundaries of that
state.

> >>>However I think I should make it very clear that I think any such
> >>>involvement should be independent of Wikipedia or ODP officially, even
> >>>if some editors are involved.
> >>>
> >>>Mark
> >>
> >
> >>Independant ? Hmmmm, somehow, I think that any letter send with as a
> >>signature the name of an editor and the link to his user page, is not
> >>exactly what I would call independant.
> >
> >
> > Right, so if I sent a letter to the government of Turkey requesting
> > the release of H. Ertas, who was jailed just for editing a
> > Turkish-language Kurdish culture category (not as I said earlier a
> > category on terrorist groups)  on DMOZ, there is some sort of
> > requirement that, as a Wikipedian, I sign it "Mark Williamson
> > (Wikipedia user Node_ue)"? There is life outside of Wikipedia, and
> > there is activism independent of Wikipedia. I do not sign letters with
> > my username and the fact that I am a Wikipedian unless it's relevant
> > to the letter itself.
>
> Do not change topics. We are talking of Wikipedia access only, not of
> the DMOZ issue.

Perhaps you did not read the letter which started this thread, written
by Erdal Ronahi, in which he mentions the DMOZ issue? This is a
mailinglist, and I will change topics whenever I want, regardless of
what you say.

> If you want to be an activist out of Wikipedia, please be so, but do not
> try to involve us in your advocacy.

When did I try to involve "you" in "my advocacy"? I never said
"Antheres of the world, I call upon you to support me in my
advocacy!".

> >>Give it time.
> >
> >
> > Is this what you tell H. Ertas, who is going to spend the next ten
> > months in prison just for editing a culture category on DMOZ? "Give it
> > time, you will get out of prison eventually"?
>
>
> And above all, avoid sneaky personal attacks.

You said "give it time" in direct response to what I said. If you
propose to give it time, this means to me the same as if you said
"Give it time, you will get out of prison eventually" to Mr H Ertas.
That is not a sneaky personal attack.

And I have this to say as well: above all, avoid assuming a hostile
tone in messages unless you feel you will later be able to explain
your tone, especially when the previous message is not hostile in
tone.

Mark


from_name: Rebecca

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rambot the User_talk: Spambot

body:
Equally, there isn't any consensus against this. I received his
message; I didn't mind at all.

If it does become a problem, then it may be wise to act then - but I
don't think there is one at the moment. Ram-Man's proposal wasn't
unreasonable, and due to the number of people it needed to reach (i.e.
far more than the usual 100 people that vote on most polls), it wasn't
necessarily a bad idea to choose talk pages over a post on the Village
Pump or equivalent.

Frankly, unless this sort of thing becomes a regular occurrence, I
don't see any need for action at all.

-- ambi

On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 01:20:49 -0500, Fennec Foxen <fennec at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello. I'd just like to draw attention to
>    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Ram-Man#Spambot
> a discussion about whether Ram-Man should be permitted to use rambot
> to send unsolicited bulk messages (soliciting participation in a
> "dual-licensing drive") to thousands of user-talk pages. The bot is
> currently blocked indefinitely, pending the resolution of this issue.
>
> Ram-Man seems to believe that an implicit community consens exists and
> approves of his use of the bot in this fashion. Currently, he claims
> to have "over 70% support" of users who responded to the message,
> although I believe this figure to be skewed by the "users who
> responded" part. I therefore would appreciate it if otherwise
> uninterested individuals provide Ram-Man with a more concrete measure
> of the level of community support which exists regarding this message.
>
> Others have expressed concerns regarding the precedent which this sets
> for distribution of unsolicited user-talk messages, and suggest that a
> more concrete policy be formed to deal with this form of userpage
> spam.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Publishing pornography/original research?

body:
Can anyone help with this?  An editor has added to the article on
former British hostage in Iraq [[Kenneth Bigley]] links to the video
showing his murder.  I have deleted the link, but the other editor has
replaced it again, saying a consensus was reached over the [[Nick
Berg]] beheading that Wikipedia would provide a link to these videos.

Does Wikipedia have a policy about publishing links to what is
effectively a snuff movie?  Personally, I find this highly
objectionable and unencylopedic.

Would this video count as primary source material and therefore
"original research"?

The other reason I object is that one of the links is to a
particularly nasty website featuring bestiality among other things.

Any advice would be much appreciated, either here or on [[Talk:Kenneth Bigley]].

Slim


from_name: Jens Ropers

body:
On 15 Dec 2004, at 21:12, Ray Saintonge wrote:

> I have a pet linguistic peeve in this debate.  Please don't mix up the
> words "systemic" and "systematic".  Something is "systemic" if it has
> become built into a system.  Something is "systematic"  if it is done
> in a structured and organized way.

YAY for linguistic nitpicking! ;-)
The enormousness of the enormity of using ''enormity'' to mean
''enormous''...
;-D

Seriously now, I am SO with you! :-)

-- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]]
     www.ropersonline.com

PS:

And then there was this incident--as Dave Barry would say, I am not
making this up--where some US employee was actually FIRED--ie, he had
to go to court to get his job and good reputation back--purely because
he had said that doing such-and-such would be niggardly. Apparently the
colleague had never ever heard of the words "niggard", "niggardly" or
"niggardliness" and REFUSED to listen to an explanation, so your man
had to go to the courts to get his colleague--who was totally convinced
of having heard a racial slur--to actually ''have a look in the
dictionary'' and duly discover that the term had more to do with
Scrooge McDuck than with skin colo(u)r.
Meh. Words fail.


from_name: Mathias Schindler

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

> HOWEVER, and that is a big "however", editing ku.wikipedia while in
> Turkey is still a possible risk: recently, a man was sent to prison
> just for editing the Kurdish DMOZ (Open Directory Project).

Last time I heard it, he didn't just edited with the kurdish dmoz but
rather he edited the PKK-directory in dmoz.

I don't support legal action against link list editors but I don't find
it so much surprising that a country isn't so relaxed with a local group
that has not the best attitude towards the state. I wonder if a bask
editor in spain who maintains an ETA link list will be threated nicely.

I can't find the URL right now, so please threat this email as hearsay
regarding the dmoz case.

Mathias


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Rambot the User_talk: Spambot

body:
Charles Matthews wrote:

> It would be annoying.  And undermine the sense of community.  Spam me not.
>
> Charles

I think it would show that the reform of the village pump into various
moribund sections was a failure - previously the VP was a place that got
a lot of eyeballs, recently not so much.

Pete


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wrongful Block

body:
Jack Lynch wrote:

> I have been reviewing
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Revert
>
> and
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Three_revert_rule
>
> and I can't see how they in anyway relkate to my blocking, discussed here
> [etc]

Back in the day I wrote [[Wikipedia:How to create policy]]. The 3RR
flies in the face of those guidelines because it so game-able. Which is
why I dislike 3RR.

Thanks for proving my point, Jack.

Pete


from_name: Anthere

body:
Mark Williamson a ?crit:
> Hello Anthere,
>
> It has already been resolved that most likely censorship of the
> Kurdish Wikipedia has been by individual netcafes, and not by the
> government.

Do you have facts to assert this ?
I did not see anything else than hearsay.

> Because it isn't the government but rather individual businesses, this
> can be dealt with a little bit less cautiously perhaps because their
> power is much less, although cordial relations should of course be
> maintained.
>
> My recommendation is to write a formal letter (in Turkish) to the
> netcafes where it has been reported and ask them if they have blocked
> the Kurdish Wikipedia, and if so to please unblock it as it is not
> harmful and in fact would be beneficial to their business.
>
> HOWEVER, and that is a big "however", editing ku.wikipedia while in
> Turkey is still a possible risk: recently, a man was sent to prison
> just for editing the Kurdish DMOZ (Open Directory Project).
>
> The AI involvement I recommended was not related to Wikipedia or any
> sort of basic censorship, which is in my opinion a restriction on
> freedom of information but not a violation of basic human rights.
>
> Instead, it was related to this arrest of a man for editing the
> Kurdish ODP, which is a severe violation of basic human rights.
>
> For Turkey to take such an action right now, when the eye of the world
> is on them to improve human rights (for EU membership), the
> imprisonment of a man for editing the Kurdish ODP is certainly
> something that warrants attention.
>
> However I think I should make it very clear that I think any such
> involvement should be independent of Wikipedia or ODP officially, even
> if some editors are involved.
>
> Mark

Independant ? Hmmmm, somehow, I think that any letter send with as a
signature the name of an editor and the link to his user page, is not
exactly what I would call independant.

Give it time.

Anthere

> On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 01:21:58 -0800 (PST), Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>Hi Erdal,
>>
>>Before anything, I would like to recommand you to very very well check your facts. But I see that you are trying to do this. Have some feedback from all turkish editors. Ask some friends in Turkye to check as well. Perhaps Erik Zachte could help you on checking statistics ? Or another developer might ? (Hashar, can you help on this ?)
>>
>>The second point is that I would recommand low profile *as much as* possible.
>>I think making major reports to inform anyone on the planet that Turkish government is doing censorship or that there are multiple individual moves in that direction is a *very bad* idea. Same for starting an email campaign and call for help from Amnesty International. Please, do not do this. Avoid threatening the government as well, as you are NOT sure it is the government who might be responsible of it (you are not even sure there is censorship, doubly less for knowing who is the instigator).
>>
>>Generally, we are not here to say what is good and what is not good, or how authorities should manage their countries. We try to demonstrate that freedom of information is better in the long run, but we are not an advocacy group supporting human rights.
>>
>>If you "attack" the government, and it is responsible of the current situation, you do not let room for it to politely claim it was all a mistake, apology and restore full access. You do not let room to keep face, you contribute to escalating a conflict.
>>If you "attack" the government and it is not responsible of the current situation, you will upset it toward us, and this will not have good consequences in the long run.
>>Whatever the government, we do not want to be expressely seen as an advocacy group saying what they do is bad, we should rather stay low profile, and remind that we have a strong neutrality policy and are not taking sides.
>>
>>If you really feel you have to make it known what is going on, I think you should advertise it just as you would in a wikipedia article. Just report facts (decrease of access as shown in recent statistics; report from xxx wikipedians that they cant access the site anymore. Cite your sources if you can (people is tough, but stats do not fear anything). Stick to facts, and do not draw any public conclusion. Do not make a long rant on how horrendous it is that censorship exist, that human rights are not respected. Just let the reader make its own opinion on why access is impaired and where it could come from. You might indeed mention in the article that it might be a temporary technical problem.
>>
>>In short, let a back door so that the situation can resolve without getting in a war necessarily and upsetting people.
>>
>>Anthere
>>Wikimedia Foundation
>>
>>
>>---------------------------------
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>> Yahoo! Mail - now with 250MB free storage. Learn more.
>>_______________________________________________
>>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>>
>


body:
Shane King wrote:

> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> I have a pet linguistic peeve in this debate.  Please don't mix up
>> the words "systemic" and "systematic".  Something is "systemic" if it
>> has become built into a system.  Something is "systematic"  if it is
>> done in a structured and organized way.
>
> systematic, adj: relating to or consisting of a system.
> systemic, adj: of, relating to, or common to a system.
>
> (From http://www.m-w.com/)
>
> Seems to me that systematic and systemic can indeed be used
> interchangably in many cases.

"Consisting of" and "common to are clearly different.  Your citation for
"systematic" in particular is out of context..

Ec


from_name: Erdal Ronahi

body:
Hi there,

>> Hello Anthere,
>>
>> It has already been resolved that most likely censorship of the
>> Kurdish Wikipedia has been by individual netcafes, and not by the
>> government.
>
>
>
> Do you have facts to assert this ?
> I did not see anything else than hearsay.

I am astonished how imprecise people are with facts here. After all, we
are all working in an encylopedia, aren't we? Let me explain some things.

1. The aim of my posting was to contact a developer to make sure whether
there IS or IS NOT a fall in the access rate from Turkey to the Kurdish
Wikipedia. I did not call anyone for action and did not propose any
campaings, although of cours I am also thinking about possible measures
once we get the facts straight.

2. I have the statement of a contributer who says he can use wikipedia
from the university, but that a lot of Kurdish websites are blocked in
internet cafes in his town, including the wikipedia. He thinks that
sites are blocked just on a basis of language (containing Kurdish
words), not necessarily intentionally against Wikipedia. I have no
further information about the mechanism used.

3. In his words, this kind of censorship is "common" in internet cafes
in Turkey. Most contributers to ku: who write from Turkey (not so many,
anyway) do not write from internet cafes.

4. concerning the dmoz case: the slashdot news was badly translated and
full of mistakes. The guy did NOT edit the Kurdish, but the Turkish
DMOZ, in the category: society / ethnical groups / kurds. In that group
there is no group concerning the PKK, all entries he edited were about
Kurdish culture. And, yes, he was sentenced to 10 months in prison.

Best wishes,
Erdal


from_name: Fredrik Johansson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: New policy proposal

body:
Regarding the references tab, I coincidentally posted a similar idea
to WP:VP a few days ago. My idea differs slightly, in that I think it
would be better if the reference page was not automatically generated
from inline footnotes. Here's the text I posted on WP:VP:

----

I think that in addition to a Talk: page for each article, there
should be a References: page. With the current talk of referencing
every fact in Wikipedia (which is a great idea), this seems like the
only solution to me. Adding notes and inline links everywhere in
articles only adds clutter, especially if the information about a
reference is to include more than just a link.

My idea for the References: page is that it could mirror the section
structure of the main article. The references page could then include
prose, such as for example, "The fact that X is Y given in the first
paragraph of this section is based on Foo (1990), pages 800-803, and
supported by Bar (1992), page 456."

This way references can be provided in a way that is easier to
interpret for the reader, more information about the references can be
provided (since there's no cluttering of the articles), and editing
becomes easier than with footnotes.

The link to the "References" page should be next to the "Article" and
"Discussion" links. This would probably be easy to implement in the
software.

By the way, another argument for this is that in-article references
IMO break the excellent philosphy employed by Wikipedia that article
content should be separated from discussion about articles. Though not
discussion, references like discussion is not information about the
subject but meta-information. ("further reading" bibliography
sections, just like external links, should however still be provided
in the main article.)

Another thing is that users could be allowed to sign with their names
on the references page. That way, when a published reference work is
not available, a user could sign to assert the validity of
information. That way, information can be judged based on the
credentials of that user. This is not different from looking up who
added a piece of information using the page history, but more
convenient since many articles have several pages of revision history
listing, and users could then add more justification than there is
room for in edit summaries.

Just to clarify, this does not mean that discussion of sources should
be removed from articles entirely. Discussion of sources in the case
where facts are disputed (outside of Wikipedia, that is) is of course
relevant. But for undisputed facts, we already write "the Earth is
round", not "according to NASA, the Earth is round".

--
Fredrik Johansson


subject: [Wikipedia-l] semi-private rant with Node.

body:
Mark Williamson a ?crit:

>> Do not claim something is true when you do not cite
evidence
>> Do not claim something is true over just one sample
person experience
>> Do not draw conclusion of censorship when
information is missing to draw
>> such a conclusion.

>Quote: "Adding new languages is certainly a strain on
>developers. It
>certainly will be that this project will grow slowly
>(it would be
>wiser perhaps to work mostly on wiktionary rather than
>wikipedia to
>start with), but I do not think we should on purpose
>limit the
>existence of small projects on the motive there will
>be few editors to
>work on." (Anthere)

>You claim something is true (strain on developers)
>without citing
>evidence, you claim it is true from your own
>experience presumably,
>and you claim it as a fact when in fact the next
>message was a message
>from TimStarling contradicting what you said: "It's
>not that much of a
>strain. I actually added this to the language list as
>soon as I saw
>the post, thinking that since it has an ISO 639-2
>code, it would be
>uncontroversial."

I am not entirely sure you can compare
* the opinion of an anonymous person, as a representative, relevant and accurate sample of possibly one million people (reported by you)
* versus the opinion of one of our top developers, known by our whole community, as a sample of a team of perhaps 20 guys (reported by I)

But I suppose this is debatable indeed....

I noticed Tim comment. I remember I felt that though he was being gentle, it was probably a mistake for him to say this. Your comment just proved me right.

Setting a new wikipedia is one thing, maintenance is another. I think Tim mentionned several times how heavy this can be and I do not think he was making it up. You may choose to focus on one gentle comment he made once and forget all the times he complained, but I do not think this is how the rest of the community understood the situation. If you understood that setting up and maintaining a small wikipedia is no problem and easy at all, I beg that you remember we are all volunteers and reconsider your view on the situation.

>>> Also, such actions to censor minority language
websites are common in Turkish netcafes.

>> Do not generalized without citing facts.
>>Do not make appeal to pity by using the word minority out of context.

>Apparently, you need to look at the Ethnologue because Kurdish,
>Ladino, and all other non-Turkish languages of Turkey
>are minority languages - that is, they are spoken by less than 50%
>of the population. I fail to see how this is out of context, as it is an
>undeniable fact that, in the present boundaries of the nation of
>"Turkey", the majority language is Turkish, and thus
>all other languages are "minority languages" within the
>boundaries of that state.

Are you saying that connection to Wikipedia is impossible to Ladino or other non turkish-speaking people, while Wikipedia is available to turkish-speaking people ?

I do not think so.

We are talking of restriction of access to Wikipedia in internet cafes.

Not of minority languages being censored. Nor of minority languages people having their access to information restricted.

So, do not mix issues please. The issue *right now* is access to Wikipedia, not minorities rights not being respected.

> > >Right, so if I sent a letter to the government of Turkey requesting
> > >the release of H. Ertas, who was jailed just for editing a
> > >Turkish-language Kurdish culture category (not as I said earlier a
> > >category on terrorist groups)  on DMOZ, there is some sort of
> > >requirement that, as a Wikipedian, I sign it "Mark Williamson
> > >(Wikipedia user Node_ue)"? There is life outside of Wikipedia, and
> > >there is activism independent of Wikipedia. I do not sign letters with
> > >my username and the fact that I am a Wikipedian unless it's relevant
> > >to the letter itself.

>> Do not change topics. We are talking of Wikipedia access only, not of
>> the DMOZ issue.

>Perhaps you did not read the letter which started this
>thread, written by Erdal Ronahi, in which he mentions the DMOZ issue?
>This is a mailinglist, and I will change topics whenever I want,
>regardless of what you say.

This is a mailing list about Wikipedia. There is a sort of expectation that we discuss about Wikipedia generally.
Not about languages minorities rights. Nor about DMOZ issues. Not about your political activity outside of Wikipedia.
Still, you may change topics if you wish and discuss whatever topic pleases you indeed, but do not expect necessarily that people follow you ;-)

Currently, I was trying to talk with you about Wikipedia access in Turkey. It seems very hard to focus on this specific topic.

>> If you want to be an activist out of Wikipedia, please be so, but do not
>> try to involve us in your advocacy.

>When did I try to involve "you" in "my advocacy"? I never said
>"Antheres of the world, I call upon you to support me in my advocacy!".

Sweetie, if you make a huge noise on media channels, explaining how outrageous it is that Turkey is so irrespectful of human rights, and sign it under your real name, it is just fine by me.
If you try to do make it appear that we, the wikipedia community, supports this as well, you involve us in your advocacy.
Consequently, any such bold move should only be done with support of your peers here.

I am pleased to know you would do this under your real name.

>> >>Give it time.

>> > Is this what you tell H. Ertas, who is going to spend the next ten
>> > months in prison just for editing a culture category on DMOZ? "Give it
>> > time, you will get out of prison eventually"?

>> And above all, avoid sneaky personal attacks.

>You said "give it time" in direct response to what I
>said. If you propose to give it time, this means to me the same as
>if you said "Give it time, you will get out of prison eventually"
>to Mr H Ertas.

All wikipedians have topics for which they care. For you, it is probably minorities and preservation of minority languages.
However, this is NOT Wikipedia goal, even if Wikipedia can help.

When I say "give it time", I talk about Wikipedia, not about your own fights.

"Give it time" means "do not jump on the Turkish government or on internet caffees owner immediately. Check if there is really censorship before. And even if there is, go slowly and allow them for keeping face. Don't call for help all human rights activist organizations. Do not scream hell in media".

"Give it time" does not mean "Just let the jerk shrivel in prison for the rest of his life. Who cares ?"

My "give it time" is related to Wikipedia, not to human rights issues in Turkey.
This is a mailing list about Wikipedia, not human rights in Turkey. Unless specified, my comments are about Wikipedia issues.

>That is not a sneaky personal attack.

>And I have this to say as well: above all, avoid
>assuming a hostile tone in messages unless you feel you will later be
>able to explain your tone, especially when the previous message is not
>hostile in tone.

>Mark

Implying that I just do not care at all for the guy in prison is hostile in tone.

Do not bother answering to this mail
At least, I will not comment any more :-)

---------------------------------
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 Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search. Learn more.


body:
Mark Williamson a ?crit:
>>Mark Williamson a ?crit:
>>
>>>Hello Anthere,
>>>
>>>It has already been resolved that most likely censorship of the
>>>Kurdish Wikipedia has been by individual netcafes, and not by the
>>>government.

>>Do you have facts to assert this ?
>>I did not see anything else than hearsay.
>
>
> We have the statement of a ku.wikipedia contributor who confirms he
> can access ku.wikipedia from his university, but not from a particular
> netcafe.

Right....
Well, this is a fact (though no name is provided).

Now, this is also a collection of hasty generalization

Do not claim something is true when you do not cite evidence
Do not claim something is true over just one sample person experience
Do not draw conclusion of censorship when information is missing to draw
such a conclusion.

Also, such actions to censor minority language websites are
> common in Turkish netcafes.

Do not generalized without citing facts.
Do not make appeal to pity by using the word minority out of context.

>>>However I think I should make it very clear that I think any such
>>>involvement should be independent of Wikipedia or ODP officially, even
>>>if some editors are involved.
>>>
>>>Mark
>>
>
>>Independant ? Hmmmm, somehow, I think that any letter send with as a
>>signature the name of an editor and the link to his user page, is not
>>exactly what I would call independant.
>
>
> Right, so if I sent a letter to the government of Turkey requesting
> the release of H. Ertas, who was jailed just for editing a
> Turkish-language Kurdish culture category (not as I said earlier a
> category on terrorist groups)  on DMOZ, there is some sort of
> requirement that, as a Wikipedian, I sign it "Mark Williamson
> (Wikipedia user Node_ue)"? There is life outside of Wikipedia, and
> there is activism independent of Wikipedia. I do not sign letters with
> my username and the fact that I am a Wikipedian unless it's relevant
> to the letter itself.

Do not change topics. We are talking of Wikipedia access only, not of
the DMOZ issue.

If you want to be an activist out of Wikipedia, please be so, but do not
try to involve us in your advocacy.

>>Give it time.
>
>
> Is this what you tell H. Ertas, who is going to spend the next ten
> months in prison just for editing a culture category on DMOZ? "Give it
> time, you will get out of prison eventually"?

And above all, avoid sneaky personal attacks.


from_name: Charles Matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Misunderstanding NPOV

body:
Shane King wrote

> Charles Matthews wrote:
> > Hah!  You are trying to win an argument by appealing to the authority of
> > Wikipedia, with something inserted a few days ago which doesn't look
very
> > reliable to me (author can't do "its" and "it's", bad sign, as well as
this
> > being point six out of five).  I hope at least it wasn't inserted by
you.

> a) I'm not trying to "win" an argument, I'm trying to further my
> understanding of this policy. Frankly I'd be very happy to "lose" and be
>   shown NPOV actually says what people seem to think it says.

Well, I think your take on NPOV is all wrong (from what I can tell by your
postings here). Ideal NPOV is about not being to 'reverse engineer' the POV
held by the author.  It is not the same as a notion of 'balance', 'equal
time', any of those things.

> b) I noted the irony of it already
>
> c) Accusations of sock puppetry are pretty serious, and you have
> absolutely no reason to believe whoever added that info is me. Since
> you've obviously already checked the edit history (where my name is not
> present), I can only take this as such an accusation. I request you
> withdraw your accusation and [[Wikipedia:Assume good faith]] in the
future.

No, I _don't_ believe you _were_ User:Layman adding 'point six out of five'
there.

I'd have thought that the edits of someone who (a) can't count and (b) has
problems with basic English grammar would count as prima facie not very
authoritative.  It just happened that the edit of 9 December was making a
point somewhat similar to some of the things you were saying here.  I
thought it was a good illustration of the discussion.

Charles


from_name: Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales

body:
This is a difficult issue, and I think extreme positions should be
avoided in the interest of coming up with a tasteful and informative
compromise.

Some general principles that may be helpful:

1.  Placing a link which requires the end user to cut and paste helps
to ensure that users never accidentally see something graphic against
their desires.  That is to say: don't link, just tell the url.

2.  Any such url information should be accompanied with a firm
disclaimer.

3.  Whenever there are sites with substantially the same graphic
content, we should choose tastefully.  Ogrish, for example, is an
extremely tasteless site which should be avoided whenever the content
can be found somewhere more tasteful.

4.  As with all information in all articles, the usefulness of the
information and the historical importance should be a factor as to the
matter of inclusion.  The Abu Ghraib photos, for example, are of
extreme historical interest.  Other cases will be less clear.  But
again, taking an extreme position here is unlikely to get us to a good
consensus.

--Jimbo

slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:

> Can anyone help with this?  An editor has added to the article on
> former British hostage in Iraq [[Kenneth Bigley]] links to the video
> showing his murder.  I have deleted the link, but the other editor has
> replaced it again, saying a consensus was reached over the [[Nick
> Berg]] beheading that Wikipedia would provide a link to these videos.
>
> Does Wikipedia have a policy about publishing links to what is
> effectively a snuff movie?  Personally, I find this highly
> objectionable and unencylopedic.
>
> Would this video count as primary source material and therefore
> "original research"?
>
> The other reason I object is that one of the links is to a
> particularly nasty website featuring bestiality among other things.
>
> Any advice would be much appreciated, either here or on [[Talk:Kenneth Bigley]].
>
> Slim
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
"La n?fle est un fruit." - first words of 50,000th article on fr.wikipedia.org


list: textbook-l

from_name: Karl Wick

subject: [Textbook-l] COSTP World History Project - protected pages?

body:
Dear Wikibooks Community,

We potentially have some very talented and professional
experts who might be interested in donating their time to
develop the book started at World History Project, which I
have renamed the COSTP World History Project and am moving
to a new space on Wikibooks so it can be dedicated to the
California standards only, and the person who has been
making modifications to the original World History Project
can continue to do so without my interference.

I propose that we allow these experts the option of having
sysop status and to be able to protect the pages that they
work on while the book is in development. They were
bothered by the change in standards from the CA standards
to the AP standards, a change implemented by a member of
the community. These guys were so ticked off that at the
moment they are not willing to continue (that is, start)
but I think that if we offer them the concession of
riskless non-editable pages that they might be willing to
still consider the project.

This would be a special situation and concession for these
guys to encourage them to be the guinea pigs for other
professionals who will later be willing to donate their
time to develop professional-level textbooks. Maybe the
next people will be willing to do the development in the
full open wiki, but I see this as a baby step in that
direction, and better to have them working with this
special concession than run off the first organized,
professional volunteers.

Thank you,
Karl

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

body:
I agree with Mav's recommendations and concerns.

I think the priority is going to be getting us set up with a merchant
account to be able to accept Visa and Mastercard and JCB.  We also
need to try to find out how to get a European bank account so that method
of payment can be done.

Daniel Mayer wrote:

> --- Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > A proposal follows that is commercial in nature. I am posting it to this
> > list per the instructions of one of the Wikimedia Foundation Board members.
> > *****************
> > I would like to encourage the Wikimedia Foundation to:
> >
> >     * Accept e-gold www.e-gold.com donations,
> >     * Post a prominent link to the e-gold site, using syntax that would
> >       enable the Foundation to capture referral incentives.
> >
> >
> > ....
> >
> > Not knowing e-gold and aware of the imperfection of the paypal system, I read
> > with interest all comments offered on the matter before making my opinion.
> >
> > Since he is in charge of the matter, I think Mav opinion on the topic will be
> > of primary impact.
>
> I've looked into it a bit, but am still very confused on how this would work
> and whether the pool of people using e-gold is large enough to warrant our
> attention yet. I'm also very hesitant to add yet another third party handling
> our donations (presenting too many choices to people turns them away and having
> yet-another-account makes things more difficult for me to keep track of things
> - PayPal is very good at making this easy).
>
> What we need is a way by which the great majority of likely donors can donate
> easily. IMO, the PayPal/Moneybookers/mail donation set-up allows for that
> already. But I'm willing to listen and learn.
>
> -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search.
> http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
"La n?fle est un fruit." - first words of 50,000th article on fr.wikipedia.org


subject: [Foundation-l] e-gold proposal


body:
I support this.  I think that they should be encouraged not to protect
the pages unless absolutely necessary.  One possibility: suppose you
let them know that you'll be willing to "mentor" and defend the work
(as you have already done), with my full support.

I haven't looked into this, so I'm not commenting on the situation as
it exists.  But speaking generally, I would say that when we are
working on a standards-based work, the standard must not be changed
mid-stream and the standard takes on a role as a non-negotiable
organizing principle similar to "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia".

In order to finish something like a book of "World History" you need a
shared understanding of what it will be.  And to complete something
that will be of practical use, we need to work to standards.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Misunderstanding NPOV

body:
Charles Matthews wrote:
> Hah!  You are trying to win an argument by appealing to the authority of
> Wikipedia, with something inserted a few days ago which doesn't look very
> reliable to me (author can't do "its" and "it's", bad sign, as well as this
> being point six out of five).  I hope at least it wasn't inserted by you.

a) I'm not trying to "win" an argument, I'm trying to further my
understanding of this policy. Frankly I'd be very happy to "lose" and be
  shown NPOV actually says what people seem to think it says.

b) I noted the irony of it already

c) Accusations of sock puppetry are pretty serious, and you have
absolutely no reason to believe whoever added that info is me. Since
you've obviously already checked the edit history (where my name is not
present), I can only take this as such an accusation. I request you
withdraw your accusation and [[Wikipedia:Assume good faith]] in the future.

Shane.


from_name: Robin Shannon

subject: [WikiEN-l] Still RamBot and licensing again

body:
I dont think anyone is suggesting what you saying. The dual licensing
drive is in no way official! Anyone can contribute to any article so
long as thier contributions are gfdl. It doesnt matter if everyone
before that edit has dual licensed it under CC. The CC version of the
article will be that untill the first non-CC edit, and that (legaly)
will be the point that wikitravel will have to copy from. Not that
that has or will stop wikitravel copying straight gfdled content, but
at least this might make the number of times that they break the gfdl
slightly less.

Now dual licensing isnt going to help us in (legaly) copying from
wikitravel, but if we are interested in creating a FREE encyclopedia,
it does help.

paz y amor.
[[User:The bellman]]

On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 07:31:41 -0800 (PST), Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> hmmm, I see many scenarios potentially problematic, but let me give you an example of where we'll get in trouble.
>
> RamMan goal is that the us cities articles become compatible with wikitravel license so that they can be used in wikitravel (for example). Right ?
> So, he would like that all contributors of those articles agree to release their contributions through dual license. We can forget minor contributions for now (considered public domain likely) and forget the little issue of deciding what is minor and what is not minor.
> Suppose all contributors release it dual. Then the content can be reused.
> What happen if just one contributor refuses ? I read some suggested that his contribution be reworked in such a way that it would not matter (understand here : the contribution is likely to be removed, but modifying it should not make it change license)
> What happen if one contributor refusing dual happens to work on the article after it was considered dual ? Is he allowed to contribute or should he agree to dual necessarily to participate on it ?
> What happen if some gfdl only content of other wikipedias is translated and added to the dual article ? Normally, it should again switch to a non reusable content. Or will the content be refused so as to preserve the dual license ? What happens if the user insists on adding gfdl content only ?
> How do you manage the fact wikitravel will accept en.wikipedia content, but not ja.wikipedia content ? How do you make that clear to editors ?
> How do you plan to explain journalists and website makers that they should use this page content in this way, but this other in another way and expect them not to find us totally crazy ?
>
> I agree that the gfdl is problematic, but I am just not convinced of the procedure used. I would just like that someone answers me clearly on the points I mentionned above. I have been asking them for several days now, and the only answer I get is basically "well, some people are not happy with the current license, you do not want a fork, don't you ?".
>
> Well, I love when people give me explanations. It is nice to take informed decisions.
> It is not so pleasant to make a decision because of a threat.
> I just apology in advance if I really do not understand much of licensing issues. I fear that this might be the case of many editors though.
>
> Don't you think ?
>
> -------
>
> Perhaps I understand little of what RamMan is trying to do. I should go on holidays... ;-)

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

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


body:
G'day y'all

On IRC we have been discussing the probs of trying to announce
important messages (like for example 'vote in the arbcom elections' or
'consider dual licensing your contributions' etc.). Now one road is
spam which is great fun (*cough*) Now i came up with two other
possible solutions which i have already floated on IRC.

One) A template that could be put on any user/user talk page (since
most users -i think- visit one or the other reasonably frequently)
which would have a list of important votes, polls, requests, etc.
perhaps three at a time, with no more than two line discriptions, and
no more than one new one added per day? or whatever....

Two) a spam catogry (again on a user talk page), that says that you
will accept spam (obviuosly not commercial spam, just relevant spam).

These two could even be combined by having two different identicle
announcement templates one of which adds the spam catogary and one
which doesnt.

Now the reason that i think this is necessary is that there are A LOT
of people who never go on IRC, or read this list, and only very rarely
visit the VP.

So what do people think, yay or nay... (oh, and another thing, i have
no friggin' idea how to make a template... so if the answer is yay
could someone umm.... lend me a hand or two, thanks.)

paz y amor,
[[User:The bellman]]

> On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 20:43:35 +1100, Rebecca <misfitgirl at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Ram-Man's proposal wasn't unreasonable, and due to the number of
> > people it needed to reach (i.e. far more than the usual 100 people that
> > vote on most polls), it wasn't necessarily a bad idea to choose talk
> > pages over a post on the Village Pump or equivalent.

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

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


from_name: Robert

subject: [WikiEN-l] NPOV and alleged phenomenon

body:
Ec wrote:
> There are probably ways in which this whole class of
> articles can be approached more civilly.  A short opening
> paragraph can define the subject.  There is no need to
> say that anything is "alleged" there unless you are
> disputing the definition itself.  A definition is not
> a  falsifiable statements.

This is incorrect. Sometimes a definition *is* a
falsifiable statement.  For example, someone could write
"ESP is the method by which a human can do such-and-such."
The very definition presumes that ESP exists, which itself
is controversial.  No one has ever shown that any such
phenomenon exists.  The same is true for telepathy,
telekinesis, pyrokinesis, and dozens of other alleged
phenomenon.

One is obligated by our NPOV policy to say something like
"ESP is alleged to be the method by which..."  because no
one can even show that ESP (or any of these other
phenomenon.)

We can of course say that "Believers in ESP believe that
ESP has been proven to exist."

> One well known contributor with a reputation for a
> confrontational style

Ec, stop with the ad homenin remarks.  It is unprofessional
to belittle my argument by attacking my reputation. It is
also unprofessional to refuse to use my name.  No one
mistreats you in this fashion; do not do this to others.

Ec then claims:
> sought to confound ESP with alien abduction, by
> suggesting that an abductee might claim that the aliens
> would use ESP to communicate with him.  One thing to
> remember is that it is quite normal for people to
> believe in one but not the other.  In that case a
> believer in one would  find it insulting to be associated
> with a belief in the other.

Ex, you are making a strawhorse argument.  You are trying
to deligitimize my basic argument by focusing on one
example sentence that doesn't even exist in any article!

In any case, many studies have proven that believers in UFO
abductions also generally believe in ESP. This is not an
"insult".  Perhaps it makes you uncomfortable to ackowledge
the relationship between these beliefs, but the
relationship is firmly established, even if you find it
embarassing.

Robert (RK)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Dress up your holiday email, Hollywood style. Learn more.
http://celebrity.mail.yahoo.com


body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> I have a pet linguistic peeve in this debate.  Please don't mix up the
> words "systemic" and "systematic".  Something is "systemic" if it has
> become built into a system.  Something is "systematic"  if it is done in
> a structured and organized way.

systematic, adj: relating to or consisting of a system.
systemic, adj: of, relating to, or common to a system.

(From http://www.m-w.com/)

Seems to me that systematic and systemic can indeed be used
interchangably in many cases.

Shane.


body:
Shane King wrote:
> But that IS about who is more popular. We don't take each individual
> scientist, evaluate how good they are, and decide to rank their views
> according to that. Instead we shotgun it and say nearly everyone
> believes Albert not Gertie, so we'll declare him the winner.

*We* don't evaluate how good they are -- this is the job of their PhD
programs.

> At a more abstract level, I don't see why you think we can even
> evaluate credibility. You point out how we can't evaluate theories
> well because we're notnecessarily qualified to do so, and I agree
> with that. But if we can't evaluate those theories, how can we
> evaluate how well the people who do evaluate those theories are
> doing? That's what makes someone credible: they get things
> right. But if we can't work out what's right, how can we tell if
> they're getting it right?

Do you find this argument compelling?  I don't.

I know next to nothing about physics personally.  And yet, I'm very
much qualified and confident to say that the views of faculty members
at Harvard and MIT are _credible_, whereas the views of Achimedes
Plutonium are not.

So, I can't evaluate theories of physics, and yet I am able to
evaluate how well the people who do evaluate those theories are doing.
Is this in any way astonishing?

> Popularity. It's a popularity contest.

Popularity has nearly nothing to do with it.  I have no idea what the
general public thinks about physics, nor do I imagine it is very
sensible or credible to worry much about it.

--Jimbo


body:
JAY JG wrote:
> Shane King wrote:
>
> >There is no size limit to Wikipedia.
>
> Perhaps in theory.  In practice Wikipedia is straining under the existing
> load.  Loading small articles can take up to a minute.  Simple edits on
> articles can take 20 minutes, requiring multiple re-tries.

There is virtually no relationship between the size of the database
itself and the performance of the wikimedia cluster.  This doesn't
imply that radical inclusionism is right, but it does imply that
"server load" is really not a reason to delete anything.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Original research

body:
Shane King wrote:
> We never take into account that there might only be one dissenter, but
> that might be the best physicist in the world, and maybe he/she's right.
> How can we tell though? We don't evaluate who's the best physicist when
> making these decisions. Instead we just use the crude approximation of
> how many support the idea. I don't know about anyone else, but I still
> call that a measure based on popularity.

O.k., but since it seems to be a very odd and confusing use of the
word "popularity", I recommend you find another way of describing it.

We evaluate credibility by a lot of different methods, hopefully in a
thoughtful way, and hopefully in a way that is relevant to the
particular context at hand.  Trying to boil all that down into a
single metric and calling it "popularity" seems a bit confusing to me
(at best).

In general, if that one dissenter has a sufficient reputation in the
scientific community, we will report on their views while at the same
time noting that it is a minority position within the scientific
community.  That's perfectly legitimate, right?

In general, if some theory has wide popular support but none (or
nearly none) in the scientific community, we will report on that, too.
That's perfectly legitimate, right?

What would be illegitimate is in no way suggested or sanctioned by the
NPOV policy: to take a look at popular opinion polls and then claim
that the result is the truth.  NPOV does not imply popularity is a
valid means of judging the truth.

And, contrary to your assertions, I think the way things *actually
work in practice* is *not* often a popularity context.  Voting does go
on, and more than I like, but more often, a minority view -- if
presented by a reasonable person -- is something that we bend over
backwards to report on faithfully and fairly.

We aren't perfect, of course, but we do this pretty well.

--Jimbo


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Academic,
	peer-reviewed sources (was NPOV and credibility)

body:
uninvited at nerstrand.net wrote:
> The difficulty is political.  The people who care deeply about
> [[surrealism]], and [[cult]], and ESP are willing to expend
> considerable effort and political capital to get their way, while for
> me, each is merely one of many interests.

I acknowledge this as a difficult with our current practices.

There was recently a vote (which didn't get anywhere and for good
reasons I think) to stop anons from being able to edit.  But anon
edits are generally not the problem -- it's dedicated POV pushers.

But dealing with dedicated POV pushers is quite difficult to reconcile
with fairness and neutrality.  If we get into a mode of kicking people
out for pushing a POV, we run the risk of kicking people out who
contradict *our* POV.

There is therefore no magic bullet solution to the problem.  But,
there being no magic bullet is not the same as saying that there is no
solution possible.

I just don't have any magical answers, and I don't think any of us do.
But we shouldn't just give up on quality in these areas.

--Jimbo


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Availability Wiktionary

body:
Hoi,]
I am happy to say that wiktionary is available on the internet again.
Thanks,
  GerardM


subject: [WikiEN-l] New policy proposal

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

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

Oh, I don't even know where to begin, really.

But if we tried really really hard, we might be able to find a user
who was given a short term block from Wikipedia and who responded with
a bizarre claim to the mailing list that the admin who did the block
was corrupt and violating Federal law.

We might even find that this same user has a long history of calling
people Nazi, and accusing people of being "racist against the English"
for the flimsiest of reasons and so on.

And then, wonder of wonders, we find that this person is *still
editing Wikipedia daily* and in fact *posting to our policy discussion
mailing list*.  This is what I mean by taking advantage of our
boundless goood will.

--Jimbo

p.s.  Yes, I know, I know... "Don't feed..." but it was too fun to
pass up.


from_name: James Rosenzweig

subject: [WikiEN-l] Questions about recusal

body:
I just wanted to note here that I have raised a couple
of serious questions at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_policy#Reasons
for recusal

I have two key questions for the community, the
arbitrators, and Jimbo if he would like to comment --
what do we feel are legitimate grounds for recusal as
an arbitrator, and what may a user legitimately demand
to know about an arbitrator when the user is
considering asking them to recuse?  While they stem
from an actual comment made recently at WP:RfAr, I'm
interested in the more general principles we're
operating under.  Please do leave comments at the page
I've indicated rather than the maiilng list (I don't
want to add more conversations than I have to), and
forgive me if it was unwise to announce here a
conversation which is perhaps unimportant to most of
you.

My best wishes to you all this holiday season (and to
those of you celebrating them, my warmest Chanukah and
Christmas greetings),

James R.
en:User:Jwrosenzweig

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - 250MB free storage. Do more. Manage less.
http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250


from_name: Kai Kumpf

subject: [Wikipedia-l] visual navigation, II try

body:
hi
here is an extract from a short talk i had on irc lately:

 >kakau    does anyone present remember this posting concerning a
wikipedia visual navigator?  my very humble suggestion (about 2 mths
ago) was then bluntly rejected for no clearcut reasons or let's put it
the other way: did anyone of you once come across
http://www.visualthesaurus.com/online/ or touchgraphs wikibrowser
http://www.touchgraph.com/TGWB_101_SS.html ???
 >hashar    I did I dont think we can use that on wikipedia servers, it
will generate too many queries for the DB servers
kakau and exactly *this* is *not* true.  all you'd need to make that
work would be a wiki "action" that only listed either the hyperlinks or
the categories or both of one article at a time... look at
tgwikibrowser. it's fairly straigthforward. while you are in "visual"
mode, the load would be even less than for a full text query result
 >hashar    that s still one more query made additional queries to build
the tree
 >kakau    you won't have one person do both at the same time: either
people navigate through "bubbles" or through text. this argument is
nil... 8) some people, just to insist a bit more, do in fact like
http://www.kartoo.com/ which is not so far from my suggestion, either i
just cannot imagine that the outside world is really busy and keen on
visual navigation just for laughs i'd rather think that the idea holds
some "extra value"... for the "customer"

as an aside: i think i posted an idea about a "semantic wikipedia" over
one year ago. the idea, sadly enough, was turned down too. now we see
categorization in full bloom. whom exactly  should i address to make my
visual navigation proposal be heard?
8)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] categorization support

body:
it just occured to me that there could be a very nifty way to *help* all
good men... to help categorize wikipedia articles.
please, whoever it may concern, too.
try considering a new feature: a dropdown menu for inserting/deleting
categories into/from articles is definitely what the wikipedia world needs!
i am not suggesting offering *all* categories under the sun but only
universally agree on top-level categories in immutable form
i guess wikipedia could really benefit from categorization work already
done by

    * dmoz.org
    * openCyc
    * universal decimal classification (UDC)
    * etc. ...

think.
8)


subject: [Foundation-l] e-gold proposal

body:
On 16 Dec 2004, at 18:12, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:

> We also need to try to find out how to get a European bank account so
> that method
> of payment can be done.

Due to me having lived in various EU countries during the past few
years, I am a customer with an Irish, a British and a German bank, all
of whom offer online banking as part of the package. I also regularly
do these newfangled ''EU transactions'', ie. IBAN+BIC transactions,
which per EU law must not cost more than national transactions inside
the bank's country, so they'd be a boon in terms of accepting donations
from inside the EU, especially as eg. Germans commonly don't have
credit cards (for some weird reason they're regarded as snobbish and
elitist in Germany).

Should I make preliminary enquiries and ask them what's required/what's
on offer? Presumably you want a current account in the name of not an
individual person but rather the foundation (if that's possible)?

-- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]]
     www.ropersonline.com


subject: [Foundation-l] e-gold proposal


from_name: Jean-Christophe Chazalette

subject: [Foundation-l] e-gold proposal

body:
If you've signed the representation agreement Jimbo, Foundation has an
official agent in France : Wikim?dia France. As soon as you've signed and
returned the bylaws, the association will be registered. It will be then
extremely simple for Wikim?dia France to open a Euro bank account in the
name of Foundation.
villy

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" <jwales at wikia.com>
To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2004 6:12 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] e-gold proposal

|I agree with Mav's recommendations and concerns.
|
| I think the priority is going to be getting us set up with a merchant
| account to be able to accept Visa and Mastercard and JCB.  We also
| need to try to find out how to get a European bank account so that method
| of payment can be done.
|
|
| Daniel Mayer wrote:
|
| > --- Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
| > > A proposal follows that is commercial in nature. I am posting it to
this
| > > list per the instructions of one of the Wikimedia Foundation Board
members.
| > > *****************
| > > I would like to encourage the Wikimedia Foundation to:
| > >
| > >     * Accept e-gold www.e-gold.com donations,
| > >     * Post a prominent link to the e-gold site, using syntax that
would
| > >       enable the Foundation to capture referral incentives.
| > >
| > >
| > > ....
| > >
| > > Not knowing e-gold and aware of the imperfection of the paypal system,
I read
| > > with interest all comments offered on the matter before making my
opinion.
| > >
| > > Since he is in charge of the matter, I think Mav opinion on the topic
will be
| > > of primary impact.
| >
| > I've looked into it a bit, but am still very confused on how this would
work
| > and whether the pool of people using e-gold is large enough to warrant
our
| > attention yet. I'm also very hesitant to add yet another third party
handling
| > our donations (presenting too many choices to people turns them away and
having
| > yet-another-account makes things more difficult for me to keep track of
things
| > - PayPal is very good at making this easy).
| >
| > What we need is a way by which the great majority of likely donors can
donate
| > easily. IMO, the PayPal/Moneybookers/mail donation set-up allows for
that
| > already. But I'm willing to listen and learn.
| >
| > -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
| >
| >
| >
| > __________________________________
| > Do you Yahoo!?
| > Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search.
| > http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250
| > _______________________________________________
| > foundation-l mailing list
| > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
| > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
| >
|
| --
| "La n?fle est un fruit." - first words of 50,000th article on
fr.wikipedia.org
| _______________________________________________
| foundation-l mailing list
| foundation-l at wikimedia.org
| http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
|


subject: [Foundation-l] e-gold proposal


from_name: Peter Gervai

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] FW: [Ticket#: 105515] Wikipedia - Concept and Mind
	Maps

body:
On Sat, Dec 04, 2004 at 03:44:21AM -0500, Sj wrote:
> Cecil, great idea!   There aren't many graphical-interface designers
> around here, and it would take a bit of cleverness to work out how to
> fit a map's worth of content onto a screen.  Perhaps there is some
> offline mindmapping software which could be open-sourced and adapted
> to the purpose?  Let us know if you are aware of such software.

That's what you mean?

http://freemind.sourceforge.net/

Is the wiki familiar? ;-)

cya,
grin


from_name: speck912 at comcast.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] citing for wikipedia

body: Hi, I'm doing a paper for my math class strangely enough and I was wondering how you cite in a paper for the Wikipedia Encyclopedia.  I don't want to plagiarize and I didn't know how to cite online encyclopedias.  If you could contact me back ASAP that would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks.


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Notice of error

body:
Here's a weird one. Any idea where this could be happening? Something
substituting words in his browser?

- d.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: BEST1FORTHEJOB at aol.com <BEST1FORTHEJOB at aol.com>
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 19:20:35 EST
Subject: Notice of error
To: wikien-l-owner at wikipedia.org
Cc: BEST1FORTHEJOB at aol.com

Hello.  I am new to Wikipeida and discovered an error that I attempted
to edit twice to no avail.  I was researching the Russian Orthodox
Church and reading about the physical church buildings and spires and
such and came across the Gospel of John which is appearing as "mcgd".
I edited this twice, changing "mcgd" to "John" and though it was saved
I later reached that page and saw that "mcgd" is back.

Can you help?  I noticed the letter combination of "mcgd" on other
websites where the discussion was pertaining to God or spiritual
things.  Once this appeared on a website of a newspaper in South
Florida and again on a website of a newspaper in Washington, D.C.

I didn't think it was a coincidence, but some kind of computer glitch
or even computer code.  I would like to know your thoughts on this and
would ask that you edit the portion of the Wikipedia (English) that I
attempted to fix.

I thank you.

Bunny

Four Evangelists

>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The four followers of Jesus whose writings form the four Gospels of
the New Testament. They are Matthew, Mark, Luke and mcgd.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] NPOV and alleged phenomenon

body:
Robert wrote:

>Ec wrote:
>
>
>>There are probably ways in which this whole class of
>>articles can be approached more civilly.  A short opening
>>paragraph can define the subject.  There is no need to
>>say that anything is "alleged" there unless you are
>>disputing the definition itself.  A definition is not
>>a  falsifiable statements.
>>
>>
>This is incorrect. Sometimes a definition *is* a
>falsifiable statement.  For example, someone could write
>"ESP is the method by which a human can do such-and-such."
>The very definition presumes that ESP exists, which itself
>is controversial.  No one has ever shown that any such
>phenomenon exists.  The same is true for telepathy,
>telekinesis, pyrokinesis, and dozens of other alleged
>phenomenon.
>
Definitions are tautologies; they are always true, even the reidiculous
ones or the ones contrary to the way that the term is defined by
others.  Of course if I choos to define something in an unusual manner
it will make conversation very difficult.  A definition makes no
prsumption whatsoever about the existence of the object defined.

>One is obligated by our NPOV policy to say something like
>"ESP is alleged to be the method by which..."  because no
>one can even show that ESP (or any of these other
>phenomenon.)
>
>We can of course say that "Believers in ESP believe that
>ESP has been proven to exist."
>
The obligation is to follow NPOV policy, not your perverted
misinterpretation of the policy.  One could as easily say "Some
scientists believe that ESP has not been proven to exist", or "Some
scientists allege that ESP does not exist."

>>One well known contributor with a reputation for a
>>confrontational style
>>
>>
>
>Ec, stop with the ad homenin remarks.  It is unprofessional
>to belittle my argument by attacking my reputation. It is
>also unprofessional to refuse to use my name.  No one
>mistreats you in this fashion; do not do this to others.
>
Not using the name was a matter of politeness.  I apologize for being so
polite.

By avoiding the use of the name I was not making an ad hominem
statement; I was merely adding emphasis to the illogicality of the
statement in question.  Now that you acknowledge your reputation, there
is not much that I can say to soften the blow.

>Ec then claims:
>
>
>>sought to confound ESP with alien abduction, by
>>suggesting that an abductee might claim that the aliens
>>would use ESP to communicate with him.  One thing to
>>remember is that it is quite normal for people to
>>believe in one but not the other.  In that case a
>>believer in one would  find it insulting to be associated
>>with a belief in the other.
>>
>>
>Ex, you are making a strawhorse argument.  You are trying
>to deligitimize my basic argument by focusing on one
>example sentence that doesn't even exist in any article!
>
I was not the one to introduce the concept of alien abduction.  For my
part I might go so far as to allege that there is no such thing as alien
abduction.  I must nevertheless accept that the subject may be more
important to you.  Since I do not believe in alien abduction it seemed
clear that they were introduced as strawaliens for the sole purpose of
making another practice (i.e. ESP) appear less credible.than it really
is.  That being said, I guess that a "strawhorse" argument is one that
that seeks to give the strawmen a ride away from the scene.

>In any case, many studies have proven that believers in UFO
>abductions also generally believe in ESP. This is not an
>"insult".  Perhaps it makes you uncomfortable to ackowledge
>the relationship between these beliefs, but the
>relationship is firmly established, even if you find it
>embarassing.
>
>
Sometimes it's difficult to distinguish between an insult and
ignorance.  Now that you are introducing UFOs into the discussion it's
hard to know where they will take you.   The ad hominem concepts of my
discomfort or embarassment have no relevance to the existence of ESP,
aliens or UFOs.  It is simply illogical to generalize by saying that
because some people hold two specified beliefs, therefore all people
holding one of those beliefs must believe in the other.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] NPOV and alleged phenomenon

body:
Robin Shannon wrote:

>On Thu, 16 Dec 2004 10:54:51 -0800 (PST), Robert <rkscience100 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>This is incorrect. Sometimes a definition *is* a
>>falsifiable statement.  For example, someone could write
>>"ESP is the method by which a human can do such-and-such."
>>The very definition presumes that ESP exists, which itself
>>is controversial.  No one has ever shown that any such
>>phenomenon exists.  The same is true for telepathy,
>>telekinesis, pyrokinesis, and dozens of other alleged
>>phenomenon.
>>
>No its not. ESP (Extra-sensual perception) is the perseption of
>extra-sensual stuff (or what ever the frig ESP is). That, ESP (in my,
>and your, and Tony Blair's POV) is a load of baloney is irrelevent,
>because whether ESP exists or not, does not change the fact that any
>Extra-sensual perception ''''''IS'''''' ESP. Me and you and Tony Blair
>don't believe that Extra-sensual perception exists, but we cant argue
>with what it is, (even though what it is, is impossible.). We should
>however note in the first paragragh that by far the majority of ppl
>think that it is a load of baloney. (that was more rambling that i was
>planning, but i hope you got my point.)
>
Yes.  The point is that we need to be able to come to an understanding
about the meaning of the language we use without necessarily agreeing
about the phenomena that it describes.

Incidentally, the abbreviation, ESP normally stands for "Extra-Sensory
Perception" instead of "Extre-Sensual Perception"  Extra-sensual
perception seems to have overtones of an improved sex life. :-)

>>Ex, you are making a strawhorse argument.  You are trying
>>to deligitimize my basic argument by focusing on one
>>example sentence that doesn't even exist in any article!
>>
>>
>Is the word strawman/strawhorse argument a purely wikimedia thing,
>because i had never heard the phrase before i subscribed to these
>lists?
>
"Straw man" is a commonly used term in logic and critical thinking.  It
may be written as one or two words.  We have a whole article on it at
[[Straw man]]

Ec


from_name: Dori

subject: [Foundation-l] e-gold proposal

body:
> The bottom line, though is the insightful comment by Mav. It is true
> that simply adding e-gold with the intent of garnering donations from
> existing e-gold users wouldn't lead to much additional income for the
> Foundation any time soon. The only way it might ignite something
> phenomenal would be if combined with actual soft promotion, on the order
> of an endorsement and some explanation/interpretation. My theory is that
> many of the people who find the various Wiki resources compelling and
> valuable are the same type of people who are intrigued by the
> possibility of a privately issued alternative global currency. My guess,
> and I have no data to support this (since Mozilla and EFF barely expose
> their e-gold option, let alone help to explain it), is that some subset
> of them would be grateful to the foundation for bringing e-gold to their
> attention in a favorable light and would go out of their way to assure
> that the Foundation was the beneficiary of their incentive-related
> revenues, similar to affinity card programs.

The Foundation has yet to endorse anything commercial. If it did,
there are probably plenty of more lucrative deals out there, but it
would lose a lot of faith in its users. Sorry, but the measly
*profits* would not be worth the loss of the community IMO. Although
you're could expand/create the e-gold article as long as you keep it
NPOV and factual.

--
[[en:User:Dori]]


subject: [Foundation-l] e-gold proposal


from_name: Douglas Jackson

subject: [Foundation-l] e-gold proposal

body:
Several of these subsequent posts, in my biased opinion of course, have
made the case quite eloquently for offering an alternative payment
mechanism for those benighted souls worldwide that lack plastic.

One comment was to the effect that people without credit cards probably
lack Internet access or the wherewithal to make charitable donations.
The German sub-thread is an interesting counter-argument.  Do Germans
use e-gold? Sample data for one week (admittedly our best recorded
week), in terms of number of visits broken down by country of origin:

top 20 (out of 165 countries total that visited the e-gold site that week):

United States     243,408
China     63,390
Canada     34,565
Australia     31,826
Indonesia     27,994
Netherlands     20,272
United Kingdom     19,022
Germany     17,595
Poland     17,496
Hong Kong     16,308
Russia     15,531
India     9,005
Sweden     5,633
Japan     4,853
Singapore     4,753
Taiwan     4,508
Italy     4,249
Uruguay     3,877
Ukraine     3,287
France     3,235

In most Asian countries, and to a lesser extent Africa and South
America, there are many more Internet users than credit cards. The stats
for China, for example are 87 million Internet users, vs. perhaps as
many as 52 million cards (not credit card users - the typical user has
several and uses them rarely - they are more of an urban status symbol).

Are people external to the formal economy all lacking in wealth? Not
according to Hernando de Soto, who estimates the composite wealth of
this majority of humankind to exceed $9 trillion.

The bottom line, though is the insightful comment by Mav. It is true
that simply adding e-gold with the intent of garnering donations from
existing e-gold users wouldn't lead to much additional income for the
Foundation any time soon. The only way it might ignite something
phenomenal would be if combined with actual soft promotion, on the order
of an endorsement and some explanation/interpretation. My theory is that
many of the people who find the various Wiki resources compelling and
valuable are the same type of people who are intrigued by the
possibility of a privately issued alternative global currency. My guess,
and I have no data to support this (since Mozilla and EFF barely expose
their e-gold option, let alone help to explain it), is that some subset
of them would be grateful to the foundation for bringing e-gold to their
attention in a favorable light and would go out of their way to assure
that the Foundation was the beneficiary of their incentive-related
revenues, similar to affinity card programs.

It is quite possible that the Wiki community is more of an OECD country
demographic and you simply don't have many users from third world
countries. I guess I'm just having trouble seeing the downside of
offering this non-correlated alternative. It doesn't cost anything. Its
instant. Its the only payment option that is truly global and does not
require the payer to be credit-worthy. In less time than it takes to
discuss, the e-gold interface could have been implemented and tested
(literally in  minutes - you can paste a button for instance that does
the whole shebang in simplified form).

Andre Engels wrote:

>On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 12:28:00 +0100, Jens Ropers <ropers at ropersonline.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>>And worst of all, German banks treat requests for credit cards as
>>if you were asking for a complimentary limo ride. They are really
>>selective about who gets a credit card, because even they suffer
>>from the above delusion (all the worse for their business) and try
>>to let you feel that to be granted a credit card is a massive
>>privilege which should inspire your perpetual loyalty.
>>
>>
>
>Well, I think that's logical. Granting you a credit card means giving
>you a credit. I don't know about American and British banks, but
>European banks tend to give credit only to those who are expected to
>be able to pay it back.
>
>Andre Engels
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] e-gold proposal


subject: [WikiEN-l] Questions about recusal

body:
Has everyone voted?  If you've still not voted, please consider doing
so today. :-)

James Rosenzweig wrote:
> what do we feel are legitimate grounds for recusal as
> an arbitrator, and what may a user legitimately demand
> to know about an arbitrator when the user is
> considering asking them to recuse?

I would say that if you've been involved personally in a dispute with
someone, you should recuse from the case.  Add to that I guess any
case where you personally feel that either your own neutrality would
be too difficult to sustain, or where there could be a significant
appearance of impropriety.

I would suggest pretty strongly of course that ArbCom members try to
be exemplars of kindness and thoughtfulness in day to day actions, so
as to reduce any perception that you've got a vendetta or whatever.
You in particular are *very very* good about this in my opinion. :-)

I think a very good example we can look to is that of James F, who has
in his own words become "increasingly Wikignomic" in his editing over
the past year.  What this means is explained here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_gnome

What this means, in my opinion, because he's never said such a thing,
is that he's better able to function as an arbitrator because he's
basically been steering clear of the sort of edits that can land you
in combat with the trolls and POV pushers.  A wise way for an arbitrator.

Has everyone voted?

--Jimbo


subject: [Foundation-l] e-gold proposal

body:
What e-gold article?

Dori wrote:

>>The bottom line, though is the insightful comment by Mav. It is true
>>that simply adding e-gold with the intent of garnering donations from
>>existing e-gold users wouldn't lead to much additional income for the
>>Foundation any time soon. The only way it might ignite something
>>phenomenal would be if combined with actual soft promotion, on the order
>>of an endorsement and some explanation/interpretation. My theory is that
>>many of the people who find the various Wiki resources compelling and
>>valuable are the same type of people who are intrigued by the
>>possibility of a privately issued alternative global currency. My guess,
>>and I have no data to support this (since Mozilla and EFF barely expose
>>their e-gold option, let alone help to explain it), is that some subset
>>of them would be grateful to the foundation for bringing e-gold to their
>>attention in a favorable light and would go out of their way to assure
>>that the Foundation was the beneficiary of their incentive-related
>>revenues, similar to affinity card programs.
>>
>>
>
>The Foundation has yet to endorse anything commercial. If it did,
>there are probably plenty of more lucrative deals out there, but it
>would lose a lot of faith in its users. Sorry, but the measly
>*profits* would not be worth the loss of the community IMO. Although
>you're could expand/create the e-gold article as long as you keep it
>NPOV and factual.
>
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] e-gold proposal


from_name: JAY JG

subject: [WikiEN-l] NPOV and alleged phenomenon

body:
> > Ex, you are making a strawhorse argument.  You are trying
> > to deligitimize my basic argument by focusing on one
> > example sentence that doesn't even exist in any article!
>
>Is the word strawman/strawhorse argument a purely wikimedia thing,
>because i had never heard the phrase before i subscribed to these
>lists?

Strawman argument is commonly used outside of Wikipedia.  I've never heard
of a strawhorse argument before.