from_name: Larry Sanger

subject: [WikiEN-l] What we need

body:
An open letter to Jimbo:

We really need your help.

These messages from Ed and KQ are really disturbing to me:

http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2002-November/000018.html
http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2002-November/000038.html

They and I suspect others are feeling weariness at having to deal on the
list (now wikien-l; see:
http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2002-November/date.html ) and
on the website with a small but tiresomely droning cadre of what can
probably most accurately be described as anarchists.  They've basically
taken over Wikipedia-l and drone on and on, engaging in what I think is
really offensive political posturing and forcing old hands to defend
policies long decided.  At this point, it probably isn't necessary or
helpful to name names, but the people reading this will be able to guess
who I'm talking about.

Jimbo, many of us have put in many hours on the project, and who have
left, want clearly enforceable standards--I think I'd be speaking for
Julie Hoffman Kemp and Michael Tinkler, who are long gone, as well as Isis
and many others who had less patience than they had.  We, and many people
who *haven't* left but who have toyed with the idea, are fed up with
constantly having to deal with vandals, trolls, and idiots, and for that
matter with the anarchists who defend and embolden them.

I know you strive very hard to be fair, to be slow in making potentially
damaging decisions, and you rightly want to keep this project open and
free.  I totally agree that this is an excellent management policy.  I
also know that you're busy with money-making activities.  But you really
could help, I think, if you took a public stand on a few things.

For both of us and for most people reading this, these things should go
without saying; but because they're constantly being hammered away at by
the anarchists and some newbies, those of us who are defending these
policies need your moral support.  It would help if you somehow conveyed
such things as the following:

* We will not tolerate biased content.  The neutral point of view is not
open to vote; it's decided.  If you don't like it, go somewhere else.

* There are certain other policies as well that basically define us as a
community.  We have arrived at them by broad consensus, and they should be
respected.  Wikipedians working in good faith should feel empowered to
enforce those policies.  They shouldn't have to apologize for doing so!

* We will not stop banning vandals.  We should seek out the best ways we
know how to make sure that non-vandals are not lumped in with the vandals,
but please stop talking as if we'll just stop banning them, because it
ain't gonna happen.

* We try to help newcomers who want to contribute but don't quite
understand the body of good habits (and rules) we've built up.  But we
should not and *will* not tolerate forever people who are essentially
attempting to undermine the system.  See below.

* To whatever extent we are or are not, or should be, a democracy, the
following is also true.  We are a benevolent monarchy ruled by a
"constitution" or, anyway, a developing body of common law that is not
open to interpretation, but not vote.  This has been the case from the
beginning, and we aren't going to change that.

Again, you might think these things shouldn't need saying.  You might not
want to say all of them.  But I really think these points need
reiteration, and from *you*.

In addition to this, it would help a LOT for you to solicit draft
statements of policy regarding clear circumstances in which people can be
banned for being really egregiously difficult.  There has to be a
*reasonably* clear line drawn that distinguishes difficult but
on-the-whole useful contributors, on the one hand, from contributors so
egregiously difficult that the project suffers from their continued
presence.  The policy should codify, for example, the reasons why we did
ban 24 and Helga, and the reasons why we might ban Lir.  Let's have a
discussion about this, bearing in mind that one option that is *not* on
the table is that we might decide *not* to ban people for their trollish
behavior at all.  We definitely will, so let's make the policy clearer.
You could start the discussion and make it clear that at some point soon,
we *will* determine a policy.

I don't mean to put words in your mouth of course.  I'm just saying that,
IMO, Wikipedia is really suffering, and even losing people.  You're in a
position to help embolden the most productive members of the project, who
it seems to me are, in at least some cases, getting very discouraged.

Larry

P.S. Folks, if you agree with me, maybe it would help to say so publicly
or privately to Jimbo.
--
"We have now sunk to a depth at which the re-statement of the obvious is
the first duty of intelligent men." --George Orwell


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] vandalism spree

body:
Anthere wrote in part:

>Having far less participants, non-english wikipedias
>do not "work" 'round the clock. There are periods of
>time when nobody is watching, and nobody can react to
>an attack. To speak of the case I know, there is very
>often noone between 2am and 5am, and sometimes noone
>between 9am to 12am on the fr:wiki. Or when somebody
>is around, it's often a newcomer.
>If any vandalism was to occur from an anonymous ip, we
>are only 3 sysops to be able to ban it anyway.

>I support system that could automatically detect a
>potential problem.
>It is very likely that
>- one user/ip saving every minute for more than 10 mn
>is a potential problem
>- any edit replacing more than xxxx characters by x
>characters (except redirect...) is a potential problem
>- any edit replacing more than xxxx characters by an
>image that was downloaded less than tt minutes before
>is a potential problem

>But, then, what good would it do, if an automatic
>system detect a potential problem but has no human to
>warn ?

OK, here's an idea:
We should develop (on [[m:]]) a Bayesian vandal detector.
We'll implement this detector (or versions of it) on every wiki,
and set up a mailing list of militia members to be warned
when the detector suspects vandalism.
The catch is, the mailing list is international.
So if there's vandalism on [[fr:]],
then I can learn about it and respond to it
during the time that I'm online,
even if none of the French speakers are online then.
(Of course, I need to know a little French to do this,
so I can list the languages that I know a little of
when I sign up for the mailing list,
lest I get warnings about vandalism on [[zh:]]
that I can't safely do anything about.)

-- Toby


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Educating newcomers

body:
Christopher Mahan wrote:

>Khendon wrote:

>>Anybody who wants to be in a community of different
>>values can start a new one.

>Unfortunately that is not the case if Wikipedia still clings to the
>notion that it would cover human knowledge. The only requirement for
>that is to be humans. Tigers and whales can set up their "Tigers and
>Whales" encyclopedia.

No, what you should say is: That is not the case if Wikipedia
clings *only* to the notion that it will cover human knowledge.
But it *also* clings to certain other notions, such as NPOV.
POV writers can set up theire POV encyclopaedia.

>To deny access to wikipedia who do not conform to 20th century
>western academic standards would deny, oh, roughly, 90% of the human
>race from participating.

Right, which is why Wikipedia (unlike Nupedia) has no such limits.

>It's sort of like saying: all persons have inalieanble rights yet
>only citizens have access to lawyers free of charge. Pretty silly
>huh?

Yes, pretty silly.  You have my support in national politics.
But that's a situation with no analogy here.

-- Toby


list: wikien-l

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is not a creche

body:
Ed Poor wrote:

>How about reviving the old rule that if you save somebody's life, you're
>responsible for them for ever after?

>Let's assign kq the job of following Lir around and checking up on her :-)

I know that you're joking, but I don't think that this is very helpful.
Everybody that want to keep Lir unbanned shares some responsibility,
including me and you.

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] reply-to

body:
Ed Poor wrote:

>I think I have fixed the reply-to address in "WikiEN-l mailing list
>administration, General Options Section".

Not entirely, at least not the same as the others.
This is automatically replying to both you individually and the list,
whereas the other lists reply automatically only to the list.
(But perhaps your way is better.)

-- Toby


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Educating newcomers

body:
TMC, if you enter my house, you must follow my rules -- or I'll throw you the hell out. Just as you would stop a gang of windshield bashers if they tried to vandalize your car.

The difference is, you don't think you have any "right" to do so -- whereas I think you do!

The problem with being a relativist, as I'm sure you've already found, is that you have no grounds for doing anything. The standard is always your own desires.

Switching to absolutism would be a step up for you, because then you would be confident that whenever you do something beneficial for the sake of another, it would be "good". (I leave the question of "what is beneficial" as an exercise for the student.)

Cute Little Bunny, aka Ed Poor


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: What we need

body:
On Wednesday 20 November 2002 11:31 am, Larry wrote:
>......
> I don't mean to put words in your mouth of course.  I'm just saying that,
> IMO, Wikipedia is really suffering, and even losing people.  You're in a
> position to help embolden the most productive members of the project, who
> it seems to me are, in at least some cases, getting very discouraged.

I for one am getting discouraged and worn-out by all the Wikipedia time I am
wasting trying to defend things like naming conventions that are central to
the inclusive nature of the project and were decided a very long time ago. I
support your proposal Larry but fear that I won't have time to help develop
the documentation you call for.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia is not a creche

body:
On Wednesday 20 November 2002 11:31 am, kq wrote:
> LDC saw the writing on the wall long before I did.  I should have left
> well enough alone.  apologies again for the unbanning; I'm having less
> and less faith that Lir will cease antagonizing.
>
> kq

I just want to say that I don't fault you for unbanning Lir - you only had
good intentions in doing so and couldn't have known just how much of a
persistant pest Lir would be. Sometimes I even think she will change but then
she pulls another anti-social stunt.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


from_name: Christopher Mahan

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Educating newcomers

body:
--- Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu> wrote:

>
> No, what you should say is: That is not the case if Wikipedia
> clings *only* to the notion that it will cover human knowledge.
> But it *also* clings to certain other notions, such as NPOV.
> POV writers can set up theire POV encyclopaedia.

By definition, if it includes all human knowledge, it will be NPOV,
and if it does not, it will be POV.

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

__________________________________________________
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from_name: bderksen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Educating newcomers

body:
>===== Original Message From "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> =====
>The problem with being a relativist, as I'm sure you've already found, is
that you have no grounds for doing anything. The standard is always your own
desires.

Only in some interpretations of relativism. :) A less naiive approach to
relitavism recognizes that other people do exist, and that those other people
do have the ability to influence you - in the case of Wikipedia, by editing
the things that you do. So, although one might full well believe that one
should have the "right" to do anything one wants to on Wikipedia, the fact
remains that community standards _will_ be enforced because the rest of us
have the ability to stop you. I see no fundamental problem with applying this
through mechanisms other than mere editing and reversion, all the way up to
full-blown banning in extreme cases.
So community standards do matter, whether they're "official" or not and
whether they match your own desires or not.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] anglicization is stupid

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

>On Mon, 2002-11-18 at 00:18, Anthere wrote:
>
>>If the latter, would not that make sense from time to time maybe, to actually use the most widely used name for an "object" which is not english, or the most widely used "name" for a non-english person, rather than the name which is most widely known by native-english-people ?
>>
>In general we should use the form that's most widely used in the
>language we're writing in; that's just plain sensible. Where alternate
>forms exist (eg the form in the language(s) native to or used by or in
>or near or with or in conjunction with the person, place or thing
>described), they can and should be noted (and usually are!), and if
>possible available as redirects.
>
The biggest fallacy with this is what we mean by "most widely used".
 Some are fairly obvious.  No-one would reasonably that an article in
English about Rome, Italy should appear under "Roma".  Still, the entire
set of these obvious cases is only a small subset of the entire body of
articles that could have this problem.

When you try to translate everything the very real risk is that you end
up using a form that nobody recognizes.  If a name is not widely known,
we should be favouring the original language form, with standard
transliterations when that is applicable.  With novels and movies we
should be favouring the original language title; there is no way that we
should be attempting the translation of titles that have never been
produced in English translations.  Whether the title of Camus's novel
"L'?tranger" should be the literal "The Stranger" or the metaphorical
"The Outsider" is a matter of literary debate that is well beyond the
scope of this encyclopaedia.  Using the original title for the main
entry avoids that problem completely.

I use the word "favour" carefully since a one rule fits all policy will
never work.  Nobody has ever used the English title for "La Dolce Vita"
while the movie "Wo hu cang long" is only known by its English name.

Eclecticology


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: vandalism spree

body:
On Wednesday 20 November 2002 11:22 am, Anthere wrote:
>.....
> I like the idea of automatic detection. I'd like it to
> be coupled with a system of automatic reaction (not
> banning, rather slowing down save for example).
> But, mostly, it should have an ACTIVE system of
> COMMUNITY warning. Maybe, different levels of warning.
> Maybe automatic emails to a list or to a board. Maybe
> an automatic signal to bilingual people. Something.
>
> Peace

Seems like a good set of ideas to me. Under a multilanguage Phase IV, however,
wouldn't it be a good idea to have sysops be sysops for all languages? If
this were the case I would pop into several different languages periodically
to check for obvious vandalism.

En.wiki has sysops watching it 20-24 hours a day so if en.wiki sysops popped
in to check various other languages periodically (esp. during the no, or slow
edit times you talk about) then that should provide better coverage against
the most blatant goat sex type vandalism and vandal bots.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


from_name: Zoe

subject: [Wikipedia-l] anglicization is stupid

body:
Oh, good, I like that.  Let's change all the rules intermittantly, thus requiring someone to go back to all of the articles that were created under the old rules and have to change all of them.  That makes a lot of sense.
What people of baby Lir's ilk keep trying to ignore is that the rules are being applied to an English-language encyclopedia.  We are writing articles about things as they are in the English language, not as (some of us) wish they were.  Let's call things by what people who speak English expect to find
Zoe
 Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:Magnus Manske wrote:

> Bridget [name omitted for privacy reasons] wrote:
>
>> we should refer to spacecraft from the USSR according to their
>> Russian name-not according to the English name.
>
> But the English wikipedia has agreed on using English names. For the
> title of the article, that is. The "native" name can be prominently
> mentioned in the opening paragraph.

I've only been on Wikipedia since February, but these "rules" were in
place before I got here. Nevertheless I share the concerns which Oliver
and Bridget have raised, but I've not had the energy for a lonely fight
against the forces of anglocentrism. I'll save my comments about this
particular rule for another posting; this one is about the rule making
procedures, with that rule being only one example.

People become comfortable with their rules, even wrong rules. The fact
is that it is likely that a majority of today's Wikipedians were not
around when these rules were established. If today's Wikipedian
perceives that he can have no influence on rules that were established
before he came on board, he will soon develop the impression that there
is a class structure based on seniority.

One highly respected Wikipedian replied to my suggestion of giving
letter codes to each article with a comment to the effect that with
nearly 100,000 articles in our encyclopedia it was too big to effect
those changes. A similar argument can be made about "correct" names; we
have so many articles that changing a rule is impossible. It doesn't
matter if the old rule was seriously flawed, or the new rule would
provide a useful tool for coping with an ever larger corpus of knowledge.

A broadly applicable new or revised rule must deal with transitional
compatibility problems. That is easy to understand. Colour television
was an obvious technical improvement over the old black-and-white
system, but its introduction had to take into account the fact that
there were a lot of black-and-white TVs out there, and that people could
not be expected to throw out their old sets just because they had
suddenly become obsolete.

My conclusion: most of our "rules" should be subject to periodic
review. If an old rule, including a well established rule, can be
improved or no longer seves its original purpose, or fails to cope with
newer needs it should be changed. Of course, in making changes,
compatibility issues must be considered.

Eclecticology

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] anglicization is stupid

body:
We've had this discussion concerning foreign language movies.  Some movies are known in English only in their English name -- "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", for one.  But others are known in both languages -- "Life is Beautiful" vs. "La vita e bella", for example.  And then there's "La Dolce Vita", which is known only in its native language (most commonly).  We need to call these articles by the name that most English speakers expect to find.
Zoe
 Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:Brion Vibber wrote:

I use the word "favour" carefully since a one rule fits all policy will
never work. Nobody has ever used the English title for "La Dolce Vita"
while the movie "Wo hu cang long" is only known by its English name.

Eclecticology

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list: wikitech-l

subject: [Wikitech-l] "Watch this article" and "View article" are not correct

body:
"Watch this article" and "View article" are clearly wrong and need to be
changed. We have a definition for what we consider to be an article and that
doesn't include any namespaced pages and also doesn't include many pages in
the article:namespace. "Watch this page" is correct in all cases and should
be used. "View subject page" is also correct in all cases and should be used.

If this nomenclature we use is internally self-inconsistent then the
definitions we use for things become ambiguous and may become useless.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] reply-to

body:
Extract from a previous exchange with Jason

The option you want to change is the 8th option in
"general options".
Currently, replies go to the "Poster".  The main list
sends them to
"This list".

Jason

Anthere wrote:
> I have another small problem.
> When I do a reply to a message from the main list,
the
> TO field is automatically filled with the adress of
> the list.
> When I do the same on the french list, the TO is by
> defaut only to the original sender of the message. I
> have not figured where to change that ...

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] anglicization is stupid

body:
Toby Bartels wrote:

>Lir wrote:
>
>>we should refer to spacecraft from the USSR according to their Russian name-not
>>according to the English name.
>>
>As it happens, Lir, I agree with you.  English corruptions suck.
>But the Wikipedia standard for a rather long time
>(as long as *I*'ve been here, at any rate)
>has been to use the most common name used in English.
>Now, if you want to change that, then this is the place
>to make your arguments.  But if you just move articles now,
>then you're only going to make people mad at you.
>You *first* have to convince the rest of them to agree with you,
>and *then* you and I (and anybody else that cares about it)
>can start moving articles over to their new names.
>
Count me among the people who care about it.  Even if we get a broad
understanding on this the forces of dumbing down will continue to give
us flak.

>This might, of course, never happen.
>You might never manage to convince the other people.
>If I had to guess, I'd guess that it will never happen,
>although I might be wrong, so you should present your arguments.
>But please don't try to force your opinion on Wikipedia now.
>People will just change it back, and they'll start to hate you,
>and then they'll ban you (some are trying to do this already),
>and then you won't be able to do anything on Wikipedia ever again.
>*I* don't think that that would be a very good outcome.
>We all need to work *together*, and that means compromises sometimes.
>
Regretably, though I have noted Lir's efforts to address some of the
complaints about her eccentric usages, some others are not so forgiving.
 I just find that she has a wicked sense of humour, and that is very
hard on those who take themselves too seriously.  People who take
themselves too seriously often lead campaigns "to preserve our bodily
humors".

>PS:  Have you signed up for the new English mailing list <wikiEN-l>?
>     You can go to <http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l>
>     if you want to subscribe to it; else you might miss some responses.
>
Another mailing list!!!!!!!  I'm already getting 100 e-mails a day.
 Should I want more?

Eclecticology


subject: [WikiEN-l] What we need

body:
Larry Sanger wrote in part:

>They and I suspect others are feeling weariness at having to deal on the
>list and
>on the website with a small but tiresomely droning cadre of what can
>probably most accurately be described as anarchists.  They've basically
>taken over Wikipedia-l and drone on and on, engaging in what I think is
>really offensive political posturing and forcing old hands to defend
>policies long decided.  At this point, it probably isn't necessary or
>helpful to name names, but the people reading this will be able to guess
>who I'm talking about.

That's right, we know that you're talking about us,
so don't think that we're not going to take your insults personally.
"offensive political posturing" my eye!
I care about this project as much as you do,
whether you can believe it or not.

>Jimbo, many of us have put in many hours on the project, and who have
>left, want clearly enforceable standards--I think I'd be speaking for
>Julie Hoffman Kemp and Michael Tinkler, who are long gone, as well as Isis
>and many others who had less patience than they had.

You have their email addresses, right?  Then you don't have to guess.
Probably they'll agree with you, to some extent,
but if you want us to count them as your supporters,
not just your reasons, then ask them.

>* We will not tolerate biased content.  The neutral point of view is not
>open to vote; it's decided.  If you don't like it, go somewhere else.

Other than TMC, we irresponsible anarchists agree.

>* There are certain other policies as well that basically define us as a
>community.  We have arrived at them by broad consensus, and they should be
>respected.  Wikipedians working in good faith should feel empowered to
>enforce those policies.  They shouldn't have to apologize for doing so!

Apologise in the sense of "I'm sorry"?  Certainly not.
Apologise in the sense of justifying the policy?  Certainly.
For example, Lir has no business moving [[Christopher Columbus]]
to [[Crist?bal Col?n]] *now*, but it's her business as a Wikipedian
to discuss changing the policy on the list.

>* We will not stop banning vandals.  We should seek out the best ways we
>know how to make sure that non-vandals are not lumped in with the vandals,
>but please stop talking as if we'll just stop banning them, because it
>ain't gonna happen.

Gee, even KQ (the potential loss of whom is
the immediate motivation of this post)
doesn't want to ban anybody himself anymore.
AFAICT, this is because of the practical problems with our methods,
not because of some ideological desire to never ban anybody.
But Cunc's preference for detecting vandalism better instead of banning people
can be argued for on practical grounds too,
on the idea that any IP banning method is problematic.
(Although he hasn't convinced *me* yet --
so much for my ideological blindness.)

>* We try to help newcomers who want to contribute but don't quite
>understand the body of good habits (and rules) we've built up.  But we
>should not and *will* not tolerate forever people who are essentially
>attempting to undermine the system.  See below.

Considering that it's not standard policy *now*
to ban intolerable users that aren't vandals
(except in special cases with Jimmy's involvement),
I think that you ought to stop this pretense
that you're merely trying to preserve our current system.

>* To whatever extent we are or are not, or should be, a democracy, the
>following is also true.  We are a benevolent monarchy ruled by a
>"constitution" or, anyway, a developing body of common law that is not
>open to interpretation, but not vote.  This has been the case from the
>beginning, and we aren't going to change that.

Wait, you mean that the proposers of *voting* are the *anarchists*?
Do you still think that Erik is an anarchist or some such thing?
Get a clue, man!

>In addition to this, it would help a LOT for you to solicit draft
>statements of policy regarding clear circumstances in which people can be
>banned for being really egregiously difficult.  There has to be a
>*reasonably* clear line drawn that distinguishes difficult but
>on-the-whole useful contributors, on the one hand, from contributors so
>egregiously difficult that the project suffers from their continued
>presence.  The policy should codify, for example, the reasons why we did
>ban 24 and Helga, and the reasons why we might ban Lir.  Let's have a
>discussion about this, bearing in mind that one option that is *not* on
>the table is that we might decide *not* to ban people for their trollish
>behavior at all.  We definitely will, so let's make the policy clearer.
>You could start the discussion and make it clear that at some point soon,
>we *will* determine a policy.

IOW, let's decide before the discussion that we will change policy,
and only leave the discussion open to *how*.
I support a discussion about policy for banning what you call "trolls"
(not that Helga, much less Lir, is *actually* a troll),
but let's not a priori rule out the views of a sizable group.

>I don't mean to put words in your mouth of course.

You just assume that Jimbo will agree with you about everything.
Well, we'll see.

>I'm just saying that,
>IMO, Wikipedia is really suffering, and even losing people.

We're losing people and gaining people, and I don't just mean gaining Lir.
If you think that nobody will or should ever leave Wikipedia
(except people that you don't like and so banned, of course),
then you're terribly na?ve.

>"We have now sunk to a depth at which the re-statement of the obvious is
>the first duty of intelligent men." --George Orwell

Ah, the voice of arrogance.  I mean, isn't Larry always *obviously* right?
Anybody that disagrees with him is either an ideologue or an idiot,
and that's how it'll always be.

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is not a creche

body:
KQ wrote:
> LDC saw the writing on the wall long before I did.  I should have left
> well enough alone.  apologies again for the unbanning; I'm having less
> and less faith that Lir will cease antagonizing.

I should apologize for defending her early on as well.  Yes, LDC was
right.

Larry
--
"We have now sunk to a depth at which the re-statement of the obvious is
the first duty of intelligent men." --George Orwell


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is not a creche

body:
How about reviving the old rule that if you save somebody's life, you're responsible for them for ever after?

Let's assign kq the job of following Lir around and checking up on her :-)

Ed Poor


subject: [Wikipedia-l] anglicization is stupid

body:
Oliver Pereira wrote:

>For the purposes
>of this discussion, let's look at one fairly straightforward example:
>Confucius. *Everyone* agrees that he was never called that in his
>lifteime, and yet that is the version used in the Wikipedia, because it is
>the name most commonly used by English-speaking people.
>
Confucius is not a good example for this debate.  This name has in fact
become very well established in English usage whether I like it or not.
 It is very much an exception among Chinese names.  The derivitive
adjective, "confucian", has also become part of English usage.  Although
I strongly support original language titles, an exception here is warranted.

Eclecticology


subject: [Wikipedia-l] anglicization is stupid

body:
--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> When you try to translate everything the very real
> risk is that you end
> up using a form that nobody recognizes.  If a name
> is not widely known,
> we should be favouring the original language form,
> with standard
> transliterations when that is applicable.  With
> novels and movies we
> should be favouring the original language title;
> there is no way that we
> should be attempting the translation of titles that
> have never been
> produced in English translations.  Whether the title
> of Camus's novel
> "L'??tranger" should be the literal "The Stranger"
> or the metaphorical
> "The Outsider" is a matter of literary debate that
> is well beyond the
> scope of this encyclopaedia.  Using the original
> title for the main
> entry avoids that problem completely.

Beyond the scope of the encyclop?die Eclecticology,
translation of "l'?tranger" in "the stranger" would be
a disastrous one.
Just as, if I ever write an entry for "stranger in a
strange land" (un p?ch? personnel), I will keep the
real english title and not try to translate it. ;-))

__________________________________________________
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subject: [WikiEN-l] reply-to (was: TMC)

body:
Tarquin pleaded:

> Could someone fix this list? Reply-to is not set;
> Ed's last post came to me only.

I think I have fixed the reply-to address in "WikiEN-l mailing list administration, General Options Section".

Ed Poor
List Administrator Pro Tem
Wiki-En mailing list

"We aim to please"


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re:  Request for SysOp status

body:
It will take a while for people to sort out which list is which. It will help when the reply-to line is fixed (I took a whack at it just now).

* Wikien-l is the English 'pedia
* Wikipedia-l is the project as a whole (English-speakers on an equal footing with all other languag.s)

Ed Poor
List Administrator Pro Tem
Wiki-En Mailing List

"We aim to please"


subject: [Wikipedia-l] anglicization is indeed stupid

body:
> When you try to translate everything the very real
> risk is that you end
> up using a form that nobody recognizes.  If a name
> is not widely known,
> we should be favouring the original language form,
> with standard
> transliterations when that is applicable.  With
> novels and movies we
> should be favouring the original language title;
> there is no way that we
> should be attempting the translation of titles that
> have never been
> produced in English translations.  Whether the title
> of Camus's novel
> "L'??tranger" should be the literal "The Stranger"
> or the metaphorical
> "The Outsider" is a matter of literary debate that
> is well beyond the
> scope of this encyclopaedia.  Using the original
> title for the main
> entry avoids that problem completely.

So the title that what decided was [[The Stranger]] in
the end.

Please, let me rephrase your comment then

"The Outsider" is a matter of literary debate that is
well beyond the scope of this encyclopaedia.  Using
the original title for the main entry *could avoid
that problem completely, if it were the option
chosen*.

There are some evenings, I feel very very very tired.

__________________________________________________
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http://webhosting.yahoo.com


from_name: Bridget

from_email: Bridget

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia-l digest, Vol 1 #881 - 9 msgs

body:
There should be an option to make recent changes not show user page changes.

---------------------------------
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] anglicization is stupid

body:
Zoe wrote:

> We've had this discussion concerning foreign language movies.  Some
> movies are known in English only in their English name -- "Crouching
> Tiger, Hidden Dragon", for one.  But others are known in both
> languages -- "Life is Beautiful" vs. "La vita e bella", for example.
> And then there's "La Dolce Vita", which is known only in its native
> language (most commonly).  We need to call these articles by the name
> that most English speakers expect to find.
>
Yes, we did have the discussion in the narrower context of movies, and
agreed to proceed with respect while we waited for the issue to sort
itself out. The problem is in your last sentence.  How can we presume to
know what "most English speakers expect to find"?  Some movies have been
released with different titles in the UK and US.  Which is right?

I think we also need a way to develop for convergence in a multilingual
environment.  Original language is likely to remain constant across
Wikipedias.  A reference to "La vita ? bella" will be the same in the
German or Polish Wikipedia.  The texts may be different, but it will be
clear that we are talking about the same thing.

Eclecticology


subject: [Wikipedia-l] �ngstr�m

body:
Angstrom, being a word not in common usage at all, should be written ?ngstr?m, in honor of Anders Jonas ?ngstr?m, who was smarter than many of you and thus knew how to spell his own name.

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subject: [WikiEN-l] What we need

body:
On Wed, 20 Nov 2002, Toby Bartels wrote:

> Larry Sanger wrote in part:
>
> >They and I suspect others are feeling weariness at having to deal on the
> >list and
> >on the website with a small but tiresomely droning cadre of what can
> >probably most accurately be described as anarchists.  They've basically
> >taken over Wikipedia-l and drone on and on, engaging in what I think is
> >really offensive political posturing and forcing old hands to defend
> >policies long decided.  At this point, it probably isn't necessary or
> >helpful to name names, but the people reading this will be able to guess
> >who I'm talking about.
>
> That's right, we know that you're talking about us,
> so don't think that we're not going to take your insults personally.
> "offensive political posturing" my eye!
> I care about this project as much as you do,
> whether you can believe it or not.

You're trying to *change* the project, Toby.

> >Jimbo, many of us have put in many hours on the project, and who have
> >left, want clearly enforceable standards--I think I'd be speaking for
> >Julie Hoffman Kemp and Michael Tinkler, who are long gone, as well as Isis
> >and many others who had less patience than they had.
>
> You have their email addresses, right?  Then you don't have to guess.
> Probably they'll agree with you, to some extent,
> but if you want us to count them as your supporters,
> not just your reasons, then ask them.

I am not guessing.  I know them; I know they agree with this.

> >* We will not tolerate biased content.  The neutral point of view is not
> >open to vote; it's decided.  If you don't like it, go somewhere else.
>
> Other than TMC, we irresponsible anarchists agree.

Except that it seems that at least some of you don't want it to be
declared as *set policy*.  That was my point, Toby.

> >* There are certain other policies as well that basically define us as a
> >community.  We have arrived at them by broad consensus, and they should be
> >respected.  Wikipedians working in good faith should feel empowered to
> >enforce those policies.  They shouldn't have to apologize for doing so!
>
> Apologise in the sense of "I'm sorry"?  Certainly not.
> Apologise in the sense of justifying the policy?  Certainly.

Certainly *not*.  We should not *constantly* have to defend long-standing
policies against the objections of new people who happen not to like them.

> For example, Lir has no business moving [[Christopher Columbus]]
> to [[Crist?bal Col?n]] *now*, but it's her business as a Wikipedian
> to discuss changing the policy on the list.

It seems to me she's wasting everyone's time.  If she had asked "Gee, why
is this the policy?" she might have learned something.

> >* We will not stop banning vandals.  We should seek out the best ways we
> >know how to make sure that non-vandals are not lumped in with the vandals,
> >but please stop talking as if we'll just stop banning them, because it
> >ain't gonna happen.
>
> Gee, even KQ (the potential loss of whom is
> the immediate motivation of this post)
> doesn't want to ban anybody himself anymore.
> AFAICT, this is because of the practical problems with our methods,
> not because of some ideological desire to never ban anybody.

Let him speak for himself.

> >* We try to help newcomers who want to contribute but don't quite
> >understand the body of good habits (and rules) we've built up.  But we
> >should not and *will* not tolerate forever people who are essentially
> >attempting to undermine the system.  See below.
>
> Considering that it's not standard policy *now*
> to ban intolerable users that aren't vandals
> (except in special cases with Jimmy's involvement),
> I think that you ought to stop this pretense
> that you're merely trying to preserve our current system.

I'm not *just* trying to preserve the current system, indeed.

> >* To whatever extent we are or are not, or should be, a democracy, the
> >following is also true.  We are a benevolent monarchy ruled by a
> >"constitution" or, anyway, a developing body of common law that is not
> >open to interpretation, but not vote.  This has been the case from the
> >beginning, and we aren't going to change that.
>
> Wait, you mean that the proposers of *voting* are the *anarchists*?
> Do you still think that Erik is an anarchist or some such thing?
> Get a clue, man!

Uh, no, Toby, that isn't what I meant.

> >In addition to this, it would help a LOT for you to solicit draft
> >statements of policy regarding clear circumstances in which people can be
> >banned for being really egregiously difficult.  There has to be a
> >*reasonably* clear line drawn that distinguishes difficult but
> >on-the-whole useful contributors, on the one hand, from contributors so
> >egregiously difficult that the project suffers from their continued
> >presence.  The policy should codify, for example, the reasons why we did
> >ban 24 and Helga, and the reasons why we might ban Lir.  Let's have a
> >discussion about this, bearing in mind that one option that is *not* on
> >the table is that we might decide *not* to ban people for their trollish
> >behavior at all.  We definitely will, so let's make the policy clearer.
> >You could start the discussion and make it clear that at some point soon,
> >we *will* determine a policy.
>
> IOW, let's decide before the discussion that we will change policy,
> and only leave the discussion open to *how*.
> I support a discussion about policy for banning what you call "trolls"
> (not that Helga, much less Lir, is *actually* a troll),
> but let's not a priori rule out the views of a sizable group.

Yes, I'm asking Jimbo to take a controversial stand that might offend a
group of anarchists.  What amazing gall I have.

> >I don't mean to put words in your mouth of course.
>
> You just assume that Jimbo will agree with you about everything.
> Well, we'll see.

No, I certainly do not, Toby.  In fact, I'm very worried that he might
disagree on some point that I personally regard as key.

> >I'm just saying that,
> >IMO, Wikipedia is really suffering, and even losing people.
>
> We're losing people and gaining people, and I don't just mean gaining Lir.
> If you think that nobody will or should ever leave Wikipedia
> (except people that you don't like and so banned, of course),
> then you're terribly na?ve.

Toby, please--I founded this project and have watched it from the
beginning.  I know that people leave all the time.  You obviously did not
understand my point in your desire to poke holes in whatever I had to say.
The point is that there are a lot of people who just will not work in an
environment when trolls can wander around and wreak havoc with no public
repercussions.

> >"We have now sunk to a depth at which the re-statement of the obvious is
> >the first duty of intelligent men." --George Orwell
>
> Ah, the voice of arrogance.  I mean, isn't Larry always *obviously* right?
> Anybody that disagrees with him is either an ideologue or an idiot,
> and that's how it'll always be.

Boy, have a look in the mirror, dude.

Larry
--
"We have now sunk to a depth at which the re-statement of the obvious is
the first duty of intelligent men." --George Orwell


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: anglicization is stupid

body:
On Wednesday 20 November 2002 12:59 pm, wikipedia-l-request at wikipedia.org
wrote:
> The biggest fallacy with this is what we mean by "most widely used".
>  Some are fairly obvious.  No-one would reasonably that an article in
> English about Rome, Italy should appear under "Roma".  Still, the entire
> set of these obvious cases is only a small subset of the entire body of
> articles that could have this problem.

Then lets use the obvious cases without argument and focus on the less than
obvious cases. Searching only pages in English on Google is a useful mostly
objective tool that can be used in these situations. BTW, my understanding is
that Lir et al. /are/ arguing for having the article on Rome at [[Roma]].
This is just following their logic.

> When you try to translate everything the very real risk is that you end
> up using a form that nobody recognizes.  If a name is not widely known,
> we should be favouring the original language form, with standard
> transliterations when that is applicable.  With novels and movies we
> should be favouring the original language title; there is no way that we
> should be attempting the translation of titles that have never been
> produced in English translations.  Whether the title of Camus's novel
> "L'??tranger" should be the literal "The Stranger" or the metaphorical
> "The Outsider" is a matter of literary debate that is well beyond the
> scope of this encyclopaedia.  Using the original title for the main
> entry avoids that problem completely.
>
> I use the word "favour" carefully since a one rule fits all policy will
> never work.  Nobody has ever used the English title for "La Dolce Vita"
> while the movie "Wo hu cang long" is only known by its English name.
>
> Eclecticology

Eh? The current Anglicization naming convention does not at all in any way
require translation when the native form is most widely used in English.

It would be totally wrong and stupid to have the article about Les Mis?rables
at [[Poor wretches]] because English speakers would not recognize the
translated title as the book/film title.

So if a native form is the one most widely know and used by English speakers
then by all means lets use the native form. All that matters is what is most
useful to the greatest number of English speaking users.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] �ngstr�m

body:
--- Bridget [name omitted for privacy reasons] <lapollutionestsimauvaise at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Angstrom, being a word not in common usage at all, should be
> written ?ngstr?m, in honor of Anders Jonas ?ngstr?m, who was
> smarter than many of you and thus knew how to spell his own name.
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your site

dang I laughed...

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

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your site
http://webhosting.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] anglicization is stupid

body:
Anthere wrote:

>--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>>Whether the title of Camus's novel
>>"L'?tranger" should be the literal "The Stranger"
>>or the metaphorical
>>"The Outsider" is a matter of literary debate that
>>is well beyond the
>>scope of this encyclopaedia.  Using the original
>>title for the main
>>entry avoids that problem completely.
>>
>Beyond the scope of the encyclop?die Eclecticology,
>translation of "l'?tranger" in "the stranger" would be
>a disastrous one.
>Just as, if I ever write an entry for "stranger in a
>strange land" (un p?ch? personnel), I will keep the
>real english title and not try to translate it. ;-))
>
The fact is that both titles have been used for different translations
of "L'?tranger".

The Heinlein novel has been published in French as "En terre ?trang?re",
but that's wimpy, does not seem to do it justice, and could be
translated back as "In a Foreign Land".  It's certainly different from
"En pays ?trange" :-)   I could have fantastic mischief with your example.

Here in English Canada we have a very popular comedy group, "The Royal
Canadian Air Farce" that at times do skits based on mistranslations.
 Some of these have been hilarious and have depended on really twisted
translations of speeches by politicians.  If I can find an audio clip,
I'd be glad to pass it on.

Eclecticology


subject: [Wikitech-l] MySQL Configuration

body:
Thanks for the tweak.

Ed Poor

-----Original Message-----
From: Brion VIBBER [mailto:brion at pobox.com]
Sent: Friday, September 20, 2002 3:12 PM
To: wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] MySQL Configuration

When I switched the config file, I forgot to add in the max_connections
setting. Apparently the default is a mere 100, and I didn't notice that
it didn't get set in my-large.cnf. I bumped it back to our previous
setting of 250.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposed changes (Trojan War)

body:
Hello Zoltan,

thanks for your detailed feedback regarding the "Penelope" page. I'll
incorporate the changes you suggested. You may or may not have noticed that
Wikipedia is a collaborative project run by volunteers -- it's a whole encyclopedia
built by hundreds of people from all around the world, in many different
languages. It works by allowing everyone to edit any page (a history of all
changes is kept so that bad edits can be reverted). That way, Wikipedia has become
a quickly growing and evolving repository of human knowledge.

I write this to let you know that you, too, can feel free to make any
changes you consider helpful to the Penelope article and any others you are
interested in. This includes the addition of references, quotes, or whatever you
feel is appropriate. You do not need any special "geeky" knowledge to do so,
it's very simple.

Just go to this page:
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Penelope&action=edit

An editing window should pop up which allows you to change the text of the
article. You can write normal text, and if you want to use formatting like
italics, lists etc., there's a page that describes how to do that:

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AHow_does_one_edit_a_page

We'd appreciate it if you would take a look at pages that interest you, and
try to improve them where you can!

Yours sincerely, and thanks again for your mail,

Erik Moeller

Wikipedia contributor

--
+++ GMX - Mail, Messaging & more  http://www.gmx.net +++
NEU: Mit GMX ins Internet. Rund um die Uhr f?r 1 ct/ Min. surfen!


subject: [Wikitech-l] RE: "Watch this article" and "View article" are not correct

body:
OK, here you go Erik,

I wrote:
>> Could somebody change the displayed name for links to subject pages from
>> "View Article" to "View Subject Page" (or something similar). Per our own
>> definition, my user page is not an article and neither are any
>> Wikipedia:namespaced pages.
>
>Hi,
>
>"subject page" is not a good name because it's not really clear what it
>means in any context. It's not a term we use anywhere else. Let's either
>try to come up with something less ambiguous or change the text depending
>on the namespace (e.g. "View user page" from User: pages).
>
>Regards,
>
>Erik

Not clear? The subject is well, the subject of the page that you are
discussing on the talk page. This is very clear to me.

But context-based wording is even better: "View user page", "View Wikipedia
page", "View image page". If I remember, an early version of Phase II had
context-based wording for these links (green links that stated "User",
"Wikipedia" etc)

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


from_name: Steve Rawlinson

subject: [Wikitech-l] MySQL Configuration

body:
On Fri, 20 Sep 2002, Brion VIBBER wrote:
> When I switched the config file, I forgot to add in the max_connections
> setting. Apparently the default is a mere 100, and I didn't notice that
> it didn't get set in my-large.cnf. I bumped it back to our previous
> setting of 250.

Sorry, I missed that custom max_connections setting as well.

Any reports on performance yet?  I'm eager to see if the new settings have
made any difference (for better or worse).  Maybe it's still too early to
tell, but if anyone has anything to report over the next few days I'd
appreciate hearing about it.

Regards,
Steve Rawlinson


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: WikiEL-L

body:
On Wednesday 20 November 2002 12:59 pm, Ray Saintonge  wrote:
> Another mailing list!!!!!!!  I'm already getting 100 e-mails a day.
>  Should I want more?
>
> Eclecticology

It is not about more, it is about logically dividing posts between general
policy for the whole project and policy and issues that only pertain to
en.wiki. Our non-en.wiki Wikipedians don't want to get 100 emails a day
either when over half are about en.wiki business. BTW, I responded to one of
your posts made here to the English mailing list because it concerned en.wiki
only.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Di�n Bi�n Ph�

body:
Di?n Bi?n Ph? was a battle between the French and the Vietnamese and a name which is not in common usage. It is a disgrace for the Americans to think they can rewrite this otherwise. This name must be rendered in either French or Vietnamese, being a Vietnamese sympathizer I vote for Vietnamese, but I am willing to compromise, however this was certainly not an American battle.

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subject: [WikiEN-l] TMC name change

body:
I can confirm that there is no longer any valid user on Wiki-EN whose name starts with "Throbbing".

All T.M.C.'s contributions are now under "TMC". You will see "TMC" under Recent Changes, not "Throbbing".

T.M.C.'s "Throbbing" account has been disabled, but of course he can still log in as "TMC".

Thanks to Jimbo for requesting this, and to whichever developer ran Brion's script.

Ed Poor


subject: Fwd: Re: [WikiEN-l] Proposed changes (Trojan War)

body:
Hi,

I received this mail from Zoltan (see previous message). My reply follows in
a separate mail.

Regards,

Erik

--- Weitergeleitete Nachricht / Forwarded Message ---
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 06:24:20 -0800
From: "zoltan simon" <zasimon at hotmail.com>
To: erik_moeller at gmx.de
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Proposed changes (Trojan War)

> Dear Erik, Mr. Moeller,
>
> Thank you for your prompt answer. I am still dubious about this fantastic
> project. I just simply cannot believe that this could exist in our days. I
>
> would feel the same if I would find an Archaeopteryx alive, sitting on a
> polished diamond in the middle of the trail here in Brazil.
>
> I mean, if anyone can edit any page of this project, a furious or maniac
> person who disagrees with some text may type in some four-letter-words in
> it. Or, simply, type in his/her own absurd theory. (Now one can say if an
> absurd idea is really silly or really revolutionary.) For example, Sir
> Isaac
> Newton dated the pyramids of Cheops and his generations 2000 years later
> than they actually belonged. I think that he was extremely wrong, and
> modern
> scholars are right, at least here.
>
> I have written so many works that had been ignored by ruling authorities
> that I have bacame somehow sceptic: I hardly believe in the progress of
> the
> human sciences. Also, I feel that I cannot force my results onto anyone. I
>
> would prefer to send my non-conformist conclusions to yourself first. It
> would be too strange to revise hundreds of articles arbitrarily, without
> consulting yourself directly first. I mean, my revisions are mainly
> chronographical, and that is the skeleton of history. It is present
> everywhere, in every article.
>
> For example, I have a manuscript of 52 pages, entitled a revised
> chronology
> of the ancient world, entitled "Black box from the past," a revised Greek
> (Athens and Sparta) and Latin-Roman chronology, 24 and 5 pages
> respectively.
> Could I mail those to you? Or, is it possible by e-mail Attachments? (In
> what format? It is in Word Document now.)
>
> Thank you for your kind comments and advise that is extremely important
> for
> the progress/ advancement of the sciences. Perhaps I send you now another
> message about our works and subjects. If you accept my results somehow, I
> would be glad to be your editor in the Hungarian language. (I also speak
> Spanish and "Portugnol," a mixture of Spanish and Portuguese.)
>
> Sincerely yours,
>
> Zoltan
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >From: Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de>
> >To: "zoltan simon" <zasimon at hotmail.com>
> >CC: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Proposed changes (Trojan War)
> >Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 14:48:14 +0100 (MET)
> >
> >Hello Zoltan,
> >
> >thanks for your detailed feedback regarding the "Penelope" page. I'll
> >incorporate the changes you suggested. You may or may not have noticed
> that
> >Wikipedia is a collaborative project run by volunteers -- it's a whole
> >encyclopedia
> >built by hundreds of people from all around the world, in many different
> >languages. It works by allowing everyone to edit any page (a history of
> all
> >changes is kept so that bad edits can be reverted). That way, Wikipedia
> has
> >become
> >a quickly growing and evolving repository of human knowledge.
> >
> >I write this to let you know that you, too, can feel free to make any
> >changes you consider helpful to the Penelope article and any others you
> are
> >interested in. This includes the addition of references, quotes, or
> >whatever you
> >feel is appropriate. You do not need any special "geeky" knowledge to do
> >so,
> >it's very simple.
> >
> >Just go to this page:
> >http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Penelope&action=edit
> >
> >An editing window should pop up which allows you to change the text of
> the
> >article. You can write normal text, and if you want to use formatting
> like
> >italics, lists etc., there's a page that describes how to do that:
> >
> >http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AHow_does_one_edit_a_page
> >
> >We'd appreciate it if you would take a look at pages that interest you,
> and
> >try to improve them where you can!
> >
> >Yours sincerely, and thanks again for your mail,
> >
> >Erik Moeller
> >
> >Wikipedia contributor
> >
> >--
> >+++ GMX - Mail, Messaging & more  http://www.gmx.net +++
> >NEU: Mit GMX ins Internet. Rund um die Uhr f?r 1 ct/ Min. surfen!
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
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body:
This is my reply to Zoltan. Consider it public domain, if you want to re-use
any of my explanations elsewhere.

Regards,

Erik

--- Weitergeleitete Nachricht / Forwarded Message ---
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 16:10:03 +0100 (MET)
From: Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de>
To: "zoltan simon" <zasimon at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Proposed changes (Trojan War)

> Hello Zoltan,
>
> we are well aware of the criticisms that can be brought against an attempt
> such as ours. Quite a while ago some of us have written this page:
>
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AOur_Replies_to_Our_Critics
>
> Briefly, we try to avoid bias and sabotage by several means:
>
> - The "Neutral point of view" policy. If someone adds new information to
> an
> article, it should be attributed. Unattributed information that is
> considered
> controversial is either attributed or deleted.
>
> - The "Recent changes" list. This page displays edits that have recently
> been made to Wikipedia, and many contributors review it when they have
> time. It
> not only allows users to view the changes, it also makes it possible, by
> clicking on the "diff" link, to show the differences between a new page
> and its
> previous version. If someone edits a page and inserts four letter insults
> all
> over the place, we recognize this as vandalism and correct it. If a vandal
> persists, he is banned from the Wikipedia.
>
> - The personal watch lists. Users who work on articles usually add these
> articles to their individual watch lists. If they view this watch list,
> they see
> a list of all changes that have been recently made to these specific
> articles. So a user who has worked on an article that was vandalized or
> changed in a
> bad way and who hasn't noticed that on the Recent Changes page can still
> see
> it weeks later in his Watch List and fix anything that hasn't been fixed
> yet. This works rather well.
>
> - The discussion pages. Each article has a "Talk" page attached to it,
> which
> makes it possible for collaborators to work out conflicts, ask questions
> and
> agree on solutions.
>
> There's more, and it all works amazingly well. Generally speaking,
> articles
> that are viewed a lot are edited a lot and are typically of higher
> quality,
> more balanced, less "crankish" etc. Articles on fringe or exotic subjects
> that
> few people care about can be of lower quality or less balanced. Some of us
> are thinking about implementing an additional certification scheme to
> detect
> high quality articles. Currently, some of our best articles are collected
> on a
> special page:
>
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3ABrilliant_prose
>
> Sorry for being a bit verbose in this explanation, but the Wikipedia
> concept
> is so different from what people are used to that it takes a while to
> explain why it works ;-)
>
> As for incorporating your material, feel free to send me anything you
> have,
> but note that I'm currently quite busy with various stuff (including some
> Wikipedia articles I'm working on, such as Library of Alexandria and
> Hypatia of
> Alexandria), so it may take some time for me to get to evaluating them,
> especially if they are long. I can read DOC files, but only in English and
> German.
>
> But if the only reason you don't want to work on Wikipedia is that you're
> scared you might do something wrong, that's not a very good reason :-) We
> have
> a policy that's called "Be bold in updating pages". If people don't like
> what
> you do, they will tell you how it can be improved, or do it themselves.
> Our
> "Neutral point of view" policy makes it possible for many different views
> on
> a subject to coexist, if they are all attributed properly and without
> bias.
>
> I have noticed myself that much of the research about the ancient world
> and
> the Middle Ages is flawed. What I'm missing the most is critical
> examination
> of sources -- if a text by a Catholic monk says that evil Jews massacred
> good
> Christians, many historians like to take it at face value, without any
> critical perception whatsoever. In Germany we have Karl-Heinz Deschner,
> who has
> done excellent work with his "Criminal History of Christianity", and in
> the
> 19th century, there were many critical historians, but nowadays more
> relativistic interpretations tend to prevail.
>
> Few people have any realistic idea of the greatness of the ancient world
> in
> comparison to what followed it -- ancient Rome at its peak was on a
> technological level comparable in most ways to 19th century Europe. I'm
> very
> interested in developments surrounding the Antikythera device and other
> findings of
> technologically advanced ancient artififacts. The most emotionally
> impressive
> way to view the cultural difference is, in my opinion, to look at the
> development of art from Pompeii and the Fayum portraits to the primitive
> medieval
> paintings that lacked any sense of perspective or beauty and again to the
> art of
> the Renaissance, very similar to the ancient art.
>
> We have a Hungarian Wikipedia, but it doesn't have any contributors (other
> foreign language Wikipedias are quite active: the German one has 7,000
> articles, and the Esperanto Wikipedia has 4,000 -- the English Wikipedia
> has
> 90,000). Note that the English Wikipedia is not even 2 years old, and some
> of the
> non-English ones are much younger!
>
> If you are interested in helping to build a Hungarian Wikipedia from the
> ground up, there's a mailing list here:
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intlwiki-L
> where interested people from the international Wikipedias coordinate their
> development.
>
> Please note that Wikipedia does not have a real power hierarchy, so I
> can't
> speak for the entire project. There are no special "editors", although we
> do
> have sysops who can delete pages and ban users, but they have to follow
> strict rules in doing so. For the most part, Wikipedia is a  democratic
> project
> where everyone can participate.
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik
>
> --
> +++ GMX - Mail, Messaging & more  http://www.gmx.net +++
> NEU: Mit GMX ins Internet. Rund um die Uhr f?r 1 ct/ Min. surfen!
>
>

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] minor changes default

body:
its interesting how upset people have gotten over this minor changes issue without really making any effort to explain it to me

how about an option to have the minor changes box checked on default?

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from_name: Jason Williams

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Educating newcomers

body:
On Wed, Nov 20, 2002 at 08:17:31AM -0800, Throbbing Monster Cock wrote:
> Just because a viewset is shared by the majority, no
> matter how overwhelming that majority, the majority
> has no authority over the dissenting individual.

wikipedia, though, is fundamentally a community based on
certain shared views. Somebody who doesn't share the
most fundamental views of a community can't be a productive
member of that community. (Views that you don't have to
share to be a productive member are, by definition,
not fundamental views. Groups of people that don't
share fundamental views aren't communities)

Anybody who wants to be in a community of different
values can start a new one.

--
jason at jasonandali.org.uk    http://www.jasonandali.org.uk/jason/


from_name: tarquin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is not a creche

body:
Here's another thing WikipediaIsNot: a creche.

Lir's been learning to follow rules, sure: she's applying NPOV to such
entries as Star Wars (maybe the empire isn't evil) and Vampirism (maybe
Anne Rice didn't make that interview up).
Perhaps Ed will succeed in teaching her not to indulge in edit wars, but
she seems to lack the critical faculties required to work on this
encyclopedia -- those can't be taught quickl (if at all).
maybe she would be happier somewhere like Everything2 or H2G2 -- a more
"fun" site.

meanwhile, she is getting up more & more people's noses: see Talk:Battle
of Dien Bien Phu

Poor, Edmund W wrote:

>I think Ram-Man has 2 equally valid reasons for playing chess with Lir on her user page:
>* it has been excellent practice for learning how to set up tables
>* it's a friendly way to engage a new community member
>
>Ed Poor    => moving discussion to wikiEN-l
>
>
>


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Ångström

body:
At 01:31 PM 11/20/02 -0800, Bridget wrote:
>Angstrom, being a word not in common usage at all, should be written
>?ngstr?m, in honor of Anders Jonas ?ngstr?m, who was smarter than many of
>you and thus knew how to spell his own name.

Angstrom is part of my everyday vocabulary, and that of many other people.
As a personal name, it takes a diacritic not available in English; as a term of
art in the metric system, it does not. Being so smart, you know this already.

--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Di�n Bi�n Ph�

body:
The trend in the UK, but less so in the USA, has been to try hard to use the correct foreign spellings of foreign words. Since Wikipedia allows use of full Unicode, since it presumably aims at a world-wide English-speaking audience, it seems unjustifiably Americancentric for Wikipedia to discourage Vietnamese accents.

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from_name: Matt M.

subject: [Wikipedia-l] English names

body:
---
"Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", for one.  But others are known in both languages -- "Life is Beautiful" vs. "La vita e bella", for example.  And then there's "La Dolce Vita", which is known only in its native language (most commonly).
---

To say nothing of "Capital" and "My Struggle".

Matt


subject: [WikiEN-l] TMC

body:
Could someone fix this list? Reply-to is not set; Ed's last post came to
me only.

Please could Jimbo or one of the developers do something about TMC's
username? The joke is old and tired. The guy is clearly taking the piss:

"I neither request nor consent to a database driven name change. If this
is done done without my request or consent, it is analagous to the use
of force against me. TMC"

Big deal. We've lost Isis because of this username -- has everyone
forgotten that?

What's the soft security way here? Cunctator, do you have any bright
ideas how we can softly enforce Community Expectation?


subject: [WikiEN-l] TMC

body:
tarquin wrote:

>
>
> What's the soft security way here? Cunctator, do you have any bright
> ideas how we can softly enforce Community Expectation?
>
Follow up -- I've had a brainwave. I've asked TMC himself to handle the
diplomacy of inviting Isis to return.
it's so twisted it might just work
;-)

>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
    I neither request nor consent to a database driven name change. If
    this is done done without my request or consent, it is analagous to
    the use of force against me. --TMC
<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Throbbing_Monster_Cock>


subject: [WikiEN-l] What's in a name (was: anglicization is stupid)

body:
I think the purpose behind the convention is:
* put things where people can find them
* let people know the "correct" names

To fulfill these 2 principles, we several various naming conventions, as well as the redirect feature and disambiguation pages.

For English speakers (our target audience), Roma means gypsies and Rome is a city in Italy.

Of course English is not the only Wikipedia language. The Italian Wikipedia (when and if we get one) will call the Italian city something else (like 'Roma').

We can't yet write a single article with multiple translations, so we have divided up the work into several related 'pedias. But each 'pedia tries to put things where people can find them, as well as let people know the "correct" names for them.

Ed Poor


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] anglicization is stupid

body:
Zoe wrote (sarcastically):

>Oh, good, I like that.  Let's change all the rules intermittantly, thus
>requiring someone to go back to all of the articles that were created under
>the old rules and have to change all of them.  That makes a lot of sense.

I'd propose that those that were the primary supporters of such a change
be the ones required to go over and change things.  That's only fair.

-- Toby


subject: [Wikipedia-l] anglicization is stupid


list: sifter-l

source: wayback-mbox

from_name: Tucci

subject: [Sifter-l] CareBears

body:
> so I'll be able to return to encyclopedia work.
> I'll get the
> software up on Piclab and make sure Magnus and
> anyone else who
> needs it have accounts there.

I (Tokerboy) would like to help out with this, if
someone who knows nothing about programming can be
helpful.

I don't know if I missed it in the flood of posts, but
has anybody discussed how groups will form?  I see two
main ways this can occur:
*Me, Person A and Person B communicate on talk pages
and the like and we realize we each know a whole hell
of a lot more than anyone should about the CareBears,
so we form a group devoted to reviewing articles about
the CareBears.  Would have groups like: "Bong:
Tokerboy and Friends' Kewl Drugs Articles" or
"ILoveBears:The Royal Wikipedian Society of CareBears
Approved Articles"
*When this new site is set up, reasonably intelligent
people come up with logical groups--Greek mythology,
amphibian biology, James Dean movies or the chemical
composition of foobars or whatever, and new users are
recruited (through some mechanism or another) into the
groups already set up.  Would have groups like
"Recreation and Illegal Drugs" or "The CareBears and
Related Phenomena"

-Tokerboy

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from_name: Tom Parmenter

subject: [Wikipedia-l] anglicization is stupid

in_reply_to:
<3DDC0B66.60905@telus.net> (message from Ray Saintonge on Wed, 20
	Nov 2002 14:23:34 -0800)

body:
Stranger in a Strange Land, is, of course, from the Book of Exodus in
the Old Testament, and should only be rendered in ancient Hebrew.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] RE: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Ångström

body:
Actually, neither "angstrom" nor "nanometer" are in common use. Hardly anyone talks or writes about things small enough to require such terms, except scientists and some engineers.

The term "angstrom" will likely hang around at least for another generation, in the technical community.

But even a rare word, in an English-language encyclopedia, should be rendered according to the naming convention: when used as a unit of measure, the accents are dropped. When referring to the 19th-century Swedish physicist, the accents are retained. Fair enough?

Ed Poor

-----Original Message-----
From: Vicki Rosenzweig [mailto:vr at redbird.org]
Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2002 4:53 PM
To: wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] ?ngstr?m

At 01:31 PM 11/20/02 -0800, Bridget wrote:

Angstrom, being a word not in common usage at all, should be written ?ngstr?m, in honor of Anders Jonas ?ngstr?m, who was smarter than many of you and thus knew how to spell his own name.

Angstrom is part of my everyday vocabulary, and that of many other people.
As a personal name, it takes a diacritic not available in English; as a term of
art in the metric system, it does not. Being so smart, you know this already.

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

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] RE: [Wikipedia-l] Diên Biên Phû

body:
The accents on Di?n Bi?n Ph? are fine, Lir.I've put them back in, just now. Cheers.

Ed Poor

-----Original Message-----
From: Bridget [name omitted for privacy reasons] [mailto:lapollutionestsimauvaise at yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2002 6:45 PM
To: wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Di?n Bi?n Ph?

Di?n Bi?n Ph? was a battle between the French and the Vietnamese and a name which is not in common usage. It is a disgrace for the Americans to think they can rewrite this otherwise. This name must be rendered in either French or Vietnamese, being a Vietnamese sympathizer I vote for Vietnamese, but I am willing to compromise, however this was certainly not an American battle.

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia-l digest, Vol 1 #883 - 11 msgs

body:
> I use the word "favour" carefully since a one rule fits all policy will
> never work.  Nobody has ever used the English title for "La Dolce Vita"
> while the movie "Wo hu cang long" is only known by its English name.
>
> Eclecticology

i would like to note that IMDB, the premier movie database site that i'm
sure almost everyone is familiar with, uses "Wo hu cang long" to identify
what most people know as "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon".

despite that, i feel that we should use the common English names. it's a
matter of common sense to use the terms from everyday English usage. it
opens up far too many silly issues of transliterations and accented
characters, as well as not being clear to the vast majority of people. as
others have said, using regular names facilitates "accidental" linkages to
the name from other articles.

this being said, it is not like names never change (i.e. Peking -> Beijing),
and when they change in common usage, we should change too.

frankly, there has been far too much discussion of this issue.

back to regularly scheduled lurking

Mark (User:Dze27)


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] RE: [Wikipedia-l] Diên Biên Phû

body:
Good, Ed. Now let's fix up Vi?t Nam, and someone will have to check on Ho Chi
Minh City because that certainly isn't the name in Vi?t (the term used by
native language speakers for their language instead of the colonialist
Vietnamese).

Danny
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from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [WikiEN-l] transliteration is stupider

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote in part:

>A Wikipedia that uses the some pedantic, more scholarly "correct" system of
>naming articles gives me the creeps. This is one of the reasons why I have
>moved so many organism articles from the Latin to common English forms.

I don't think that this is analogous.
"mammal" is an English common noun (as is "angstrom"),
while "Munich" is an Anglicisation of a German proper name
(as "M?nchen" is the German proper name in question).
I would treat these different situations differently.
But it's not like there's no analogy whatsoever,
so let's look at your observations:

>Under
>the Latin people have tended to write to a more technical audience but now
>under the common English forms people tend to write in more inclusive
>language.

That's interesting.  So do you think that people would write
for a German-speaking audience if we titled an article [[M?nchen]]?
That doesn't seem likely to me -- the predominant English text
would keep people using that language.

>There have also been more edits (many people were probably put-off
>by the foreign titles).

This datum would carry over better to the present discussion.
If [[Munich]] attracts more editors than [[M?nchen]], then that's important.
Were there jumps in editing frequency when you moved each article,
or is the increase matched by a general increase in editing all of Wikipedia?

>pedantic
>     adj : marked by a narrow focus on or display of learning
>           especially its trivial aspects

I don't see how this applies.
It's not like everybody agrees that "M?nchen" is correct,
but some people want to be lax and use the more common "Munich"
while others are pedantic and insist on "M?nchen".
The disagreement is more basic; you're claiming that
"M?nchen" is *not* correct but "Munich" is.
So both sides are striving for correctness.

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] Educating newcomers

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>What *would* help with decentralising administrators' power
>>is mav's idea of automatic old hand status.

>Decentralising administrators' power? Has that been a problem lately?

I don't think so.  But Erik seems to think that it's important.
I just don't understand why he thinks that voting would do this.

>Voting, for us, is not a way to get rid of the landlords who've been
>suppressing the poor village people. It's a way to canalize the flood of
>opinions so we won't drown in them.

I don't think that we have this problem either.
But at least I agree that this is the direction that voting would go.

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] Larry's proposal

body:
I also want to chime in to support Larry's proposal. These past few weeks, we
have really been dealing with stupidity and forgetting our larger goals as a
result.

Danny
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Educating newcomers

body:
Christopher Mahan wrote:

>By definition, if it includes all human knowledge, it will be NPOV,
>and if it does not, it will be POV.

This is not what the neutral point of view is.

In fact, anything that includes *all* of human knowledge must be POV.
For example, I believe that George W. Bush is an awful US President,
my belief is justified, and it is correct (as it so happens ^_^).
Therefore, I *know* that George W. Bush is an awful US President.
But it wouldn't be NPOV of me to state this in a Wikipedia article
(although I might attribute the opinion to certain people,
explaining their reasons for their belief
and presenting rebuttals from Bush's supporters).
Thus Wikipedia will always lack that bit of human knowledge.

See [[en:Wikipedia:Neutral point of view]] for more.

-- Toby


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Diên Biên Phû

body:
I just wonder how many British newspapers use the Danish spelling of
Copenhagen.

Danny
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body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote (to Lir):

>>Have you signed up for the new English mailing list <wikiEN-l>?
>>You can go to <http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l>
>>if you want to subscribe to it; else you might miss some responses.

>Another mailing list!!!!!!!  I'm already getting 100 e-mails a day.
>Should I want more?

Except for some crossposting while we make the transition,
I don't think that you'll get more email, just email with
a different little blurb in the bracket at the front of the Subject.
>From a purely practical POV, if you're not reading <wikiEN-l>,
then you're not participating fully in the Anglicisation debate.

-- Toby


subject: [Wikipedia-l] anglicization is stupid

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote (to Lir):

>>Have you signed up for the new English mailing list <wikiEN-l>?
>>You can go to <http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l>
>>if you want to subscribe to it; else you might miss some responses.

>Another mailing list!!!!!!!  I'm already getting 100 e-mails a day.
>Should I want more?

Except for some crossposting while we make the transition,
I don't think that you'll get more email, just email with
a different little blurb in the bracket at the front of the Subject.


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Educating newcomers

body:
Toby Bartels wrote:

>What *would* help with decentralising administrators' power
>is mav's idea of automatic old hand status.
>
>
Decentralising administrators' power? Has that been a problem lately? On the contrary, I think. The desire for voting originates not in a strong, central decision-making, but in the lack thereof. We don't get anything done because there *is* no central authority at all saying "OK, let's do that". Because there are too many people giving too many opinions over too long a time, until noone cares about the topic anymore, or knows who wants what for which reasons, and there is never ever a point where a decision is reached.
On the few occasions I remember when some "central authority" made a "final" decision, there was usually few resistance. Everyone said "well, if *Jimbo* says so...", glad that someone made a decision.
Voting, for us, is not a way to get rid of the landlords who've been suppressing the poor village people. It's a way to canalize the flood of opinions so we won't drown in them.

Magnus


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] transliteration is stupider

body:
On Wednesday 20 November 2002 07:29 pm, you wrote:
> Daniel Mayer wrote in part:
> >A Wikipedia that uses the some pedantic, more scholarly "correct" system
> > of naming articles gives me the creeps. This is one of the reasons why I
> > have moved so many organism articles from the Latin to common English
> > forms.
>
> I don't think that this is analogous.
> "mammal" is an English common noun (as is "angstrom"),
> while "Munich" is an Anglicisation of a German proper name
> (as "M?nchen" is the German proper name in question).
> I would treat these different situations differently.
> But it's not like there's no analogy whatsoever,

But Munich /is/ also a common English noun since usage, not a centralized
committee, decides just what is and is not an English noun. The origin or a
word is just that, the origin. Anglicization just happens to be a common  way
new words enter the English language. The reason why words are Anglicized is
due to the fact that over time foreign words mutate to be easier for English
speakers to pronounce and spell and also to make them look similar to other
English words. This is part of the evolution of the English language. Now
instead of inserting our POV that this is wrong, how about we report widest
usage by using what most English speakers use? Under the proposed plan we
would have to delve into linguistic usage wars. How is this useful at all?

BTW, mammal comes from the Latin mammalis (which in turn probably comes from
other languages). Back in the Middle Ages this was mutated via an early form
of Anglicization to mammal. Therefore it is only logical to use mammalis
under the proposed plan. Or is there some cut-off date past which
Anglicization of a term is bad and should not be accepted? You still haven't
addressed my point that the proposed plan in needlessly complicated since it
absolutely requires redirects.

> so let's look at your observations:
> >Under
> >the Latin people have tended to write to a more technical audience but now
> >under the common English forms people tend to write in more inclusive
> >language.
>
> That's interesting.  So do you think that people would write
> for a German-speaking audience if we titled an article [[M?nchen]]?
> That doesn't seem likely to me -- the predominant English text
> would keep people using that language.

Perhaps 'technical writing' part of the organism analogy wasn't the greatest
but is was my understanding that this convention would also effect those
pages (and probably would since many people may not get your distinction).
Wait a minute, this does touch on an important point: What if an animal has
an English name but exists in a non-English country? Should we use the
Swahili for Thompson's Gazelle? And if so, which transliteration? How is this
useful to the reader and the person trying to link to the article? Oh that's
right, the person would also need to make a redirect for the poor lame minded
people expecting to find the article at the English title. There is also
article rankings by Google to take into consideration: Articles that have the
searched-for name in the title are ranked higher. Why should we purposely
reduce article rankings and therefore reduce the reach of our content? Why is
it necessary to make things more difficult than they already are?

> >There have also been more edits (many people were probably put-off
> >by the foreign titles).
>
> This datum would carry over better to the present discussion.
> If [[Munich]] attracts more editors than [[M?nchen]], then that's
> important. Were there jumps in editing frequency when you moved each
> article, or is the increase matched by a general increase in editing all of
> Wikipedia?

See Google argument above. Yes if the article is at [[Munich]] it will get
more hits than if it is at the German.

> >pedantic
> >     adj : marked by a narrow focus on or display of learning
> >           especially its trivial aspects
>
> I don't see how this applies.
> It's not like everybody agrees that "M?nchen" is correct,
> but some people want to be lax and use the more common "Munich"
> while others are pedantic and insist on "M?nchen".
> The disagreement is more basic; you're claiming that
> "M?nchen" is *not* correct but "Munich" is.
> So both sides are striving for correctness.
>
>
> -- Toby

No, I am claiming that in /English/ we use Munich and this the /most/ correct.
Therefore this is what we should use. Choosing to use M?nchen shows a POV
bias for using German in an English encyclopedia. Whereas going with the most
common usage is what is most useful to English speakers and inherently NPOV.

I see you didn't bother to answer several of my points that relate to what is
most useful for readers and users. There is also the fact that the proposed
change absolutely requires the use of a technological fix to work (namely
redirects). Google's language tools can be used as an objective measure of
widest usage whereas the proposed plan depends on subjective choices between
different transliterations and language sets. So again, please explain how
the proposed plan is better the current one? How is it less complicated when
redirects are absolutely required? How is it more NPOV when it shuns widest
English usage for a minority naming scheme? What about the audience: How is
it more useful for them to use words they can't pronounce, spell or are
familiar with? What about the writers: How is it more useful for them to have
articles that they can't link to directly (or at all when redirects are not
made)? Which transliterations should we use? How about native non-English
fonts? How would the proposed system not cause a chilling effect by favoring
titles that most English speakers don't know? Remember: "Otherwise somebody
will come by later and move the article and probably chide the original
author for their Anglo-centric based ignorance." Double burr

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Somebody please block 63.229.80.161

body:
63.229.80.161 has vandalized [[Timeline of medicine and medical technology]] four times now.  I've reverted him four times, but how long am I supposed to keep doing it?

Zoe

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subject: [WikiEN-l] TMC account renamed

body:
Brion, why is your message dated September 20?
Zoe
 Brion VIBBER <brion at pobox.com> wrote:As per Jimbo's request, the user account "Throbbing Monster Cock" on the
English wikipedia has been renamed to "TMC". TMC, you may need to
re-login under the new name.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] anglicization is stupid

body:
So it's "dumbing down" to speak English?  How very European of you.
Zoe
 Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:Toby Bartels wrote:

>Lir wrote:
>
>>we should refer to spacecraft from the USSR according to their Russian name-not
>>according to the English name.
>>
>As it happens, Lir, I agree with you. English corruptions suck.
>But the Wikipedia standard for a rather long time
>(as long as *I*'ve been here, at any rate)
>has been to use the most common name used in English.
>Now, if you want to change that, then this is the place
>to make your arguments. But if you just move articles now,
>then you're only going to make people mad at you.
>You *first* have to convince the rest of them to agree with you,
>and *then* you and I (and anybody else that cares about it)
>can start moving articles over to their new names.
>
Count me among the people who care about it. Even if we get a broad
understanding on this the forces of dumbing down will continue to give
us flak.

>This might, of course, never happen.
>You might never manage to convince the other people.
>If I had to guess, I'd guess that it will never happen,
>although I might be wrong, so you should present your arguments.
>But please don't try to force your opinion on Wikipedia now.
>People will just change it back, and they'll start to hate you,
>and then they'll ban you (some are trying to do this already),
>and then you won't be able to do anything on Wikipedia ever again.
>*I* don't think that that would be a very good outcome.
>We all need to work *together*, and that means compromises sometimes.
>
Regretably, though I have noted Lir's efforts to address some of the
complaints about her eccentric usages, some others are not so forgiving.
I just find that she has a wicked sense of humour, and that is very
hard on those who take themselves too seriously. People who take
themselves too seriously often lead campaigns "to preserve our bodily
humors".

>PS: Have you signed up for the new English mailing list ?
> You can go to
> if you want to subscribe to it; else you might miss some responses.
>
Another mailing list!!!!!!! I'm already getting 100 e-mails a day.
Should I want more?

Eclecticology

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] anglicization is stupid

body:
This is not a multilanguage environment.  This is the English wikipedia.  Call it whatever you want in the French wiki.
Zoe
 Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:Zoe wrote:

> We've had this discussion concerning foreign language movies. Some
> movies are known in English only in their English name -- "Crouching
> Tiger, Hidden Dragon", for one. But others are known in both
> languages -- "Life is Beautiful" vs. "La vita e bella", for example.
> And then there's "La Dolce Vita", which is known only in its native
> language (most commonly). We need to call these articles by the name
> that most English speakers expect to find.
>
Yes, we did have the discussion in the narrower context of movies, and
agreed to proceed with respect while we waited for the issue to sort
itself out. The problem is in your last sentence. How can we presume to
know what "most English speakers expect to find"? Some movies have been
released with different titles in the UK and US. Which is right?

I think we also need a way to develop for convergence in a multilingual
environment. Original language is likely to remain constant across
Wikipedias. A reference to "La vita ? bella" will be the same in the
German or Polish Wikipedia. The texts may be different, but it will be
clear that we are talking about the same thing.

Eclecticology

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body:
We do.  There are separate articles on Byzantium, Constantinople and Istanbul, for example.
Zoe
 mjeaya069 <mjeaya069 at rogers.com> wrote:this being said, it is not like names never change (i.e. Peking -> Beijing),
and when they change in common usage, we should change too.

Mark (User:Dze27)

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subject: [WikiEN-l] What we need

body:
Larry Sanger wrote:

>An open letter to Jimbo:
>
<snip>

>P.S. Folks, if you agree with me, maybe it would help to say so publicly
>or privately to Jimbo.
>
>

Well, I do agree. Wikipedia has grown quite well, because we've been
basically working by these rules. In a small community, that worked even
without repeating these things over and again. With the size we have
reached now, and more people finding their way to us, these things
should be written down somewhere prominently.
IMHO we shoule have a page "wikipedia:Jimbo's Golden Wikipedia Rules"
;-) and have it protected, because it won't be open to debate. This
would not do any harm, as we already enforce NPOV etc., but it would
help a lot if we could point newcomers there.

Magnus