body:
At 07:03 AM 6/6/2003, Anther? wrote:
>>Oh ! That is very good day then ! I learned a new interesting term. I
>>could just see the relationship with elk, since she was talking of reins.
>>I did not know Zoe played with words. I will read her more carefully then :-)
>>
>>Would the expression "I feel akin with Martin and Camembert" be proper ?

Actually, the expression would be closer to:

"Camembert and MyRedDice and other people like them, who unwisely give
trolls free rein"

Zoe is asserting her DISTASTE for C and M's positions, not an agreement
with them. The word "ilk" is usually used, while not as a pejorative per
se, as a negative term.... as it is here. It is often used in the following
phrase, "you and your ilk" meaning "you and the other unsavory people like
you".

In fairness to Zoe, I would imagine she was using it humorously and in
hyperbole.

-----
Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

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


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] New username validation

body:
Currently, before creating a new user account we do some limited
validation on the given name:

* Trim beginning and trailing whitespace

* Check if it looks like an IP address (four sequences of 1-3 digits with
dots between them), if so reject it.

* Check if there's a slash character, if so reject it [I just added this
check; it was I think supposed to be added when we set up partial subpage
support for userspace, which conflicts with the slash character in names
if remaining problems with the contribs/email sidebar links are fixed.
Unless there's some huge objection... there don't appear to be any valid
usernames on this pattern. Note also that this check applies only to new
names; existing ones which are legitimate would be grandfathered in.]

*Canonicalize the name (run through the title canonicalizer and take the
version without underscores) and check for an exact existing match. If
there is one, reject it.

We may wish to do a case-_in_sensitive check, and/or a
same-except-for-accents check. Or not. Anyway, I think it could use some
tidying up.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikitech-l] New username validation

body:
--- Brion Vibber <vibber at aludra.usc.edu> wrote:
> Currently, before creating a new user account we do
> some limited
> validation on the given name:
>
> * Trim beginning and trailing whitespace
>
> * Check if it looks like an IP address (four
> sequences of 1-3 digits with
> dots between them), if so reject it.
>
> * Check if there's a slash character, if so reject
> it [I just added this
> check; it was I think supposed to be added when we
> set up partial subpage
> support for userspace, which conflicts with the
> slash character in names
> if remaining problems with the contribs/email
> sidebar links are fixed.
> Unless there's some huge objection... there don't
> appear to be any valid
> usernames on this pattern. Note also that this check
> applies only to new
> names; existing ones which are legitimate would be
> grandfathered in.]
>
> *Canonicalize the name (run through the title
> canonicalizer and take the
> version without underscores) and check for an exact
> existing match. If
> there is one, reject it.
>
>
> We may wish to do a case-_in_sensitive check, and/or
> a
> same-except-for-accents check. Or not. Anyway, I
> think it could use some
> tidying up.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

of course, you expect my "what do you mean by a
same-except-for-accent" I hope ? :-)

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


list: wikien-l

subject: [WikiEN-l] We need a way to deal with AOL vandals THIS year

body:
--- Dante Alighieri <dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com>
wrote:
> At 07:03 AM 6/6/2003, Anther? wrote:

(what is that very scandalous accent on my name ???)

> >>Oh ! That is very good day then ! I learned a new
> interesting term. I
> >>could just see the relationship with elk, since
> she was talking of reins.
> >>I did not know Zoe played with words. I will read
> her more carefully then :-)
> >>
> >>Would the expression "I feel akin with Martin and
> Camembert" be proper ?
>
> Actually, the expression would be closer to:
>
> "Camembert and MyRedDice and other people like them,
> who unwisely give
> trolls free rein"

Yes. That is what I understood of what Vicky explained

That is perhaps ...hum..., but, they (we) don't give
free rein.

Giving free rein would be in this case, unbanning a
banned ip for example. That would be actively doing
something which would *help* Michael editing more.

Ok, if I may say, *cough*, giving free rein would be
giving a way for Michael to do more messes.
What has been done a couple of times was more like
picking up the manure, making compost with it, and
using it as fertilizer after maturation.

But, not everyone is likely to appreciate this
approach

> Zoe is asserting her DISTASTE for C and M's
> positions, not an agreement
> with them. The word "ilk" is usually used, while not
> as a pejorative per
> se, as a negative term.... as it is here. It is
> often used in the following
> phrase, "you and your ilk" meaning "you and the
> other unsavory people like
> you".
>
> In fairness to Zoe, I would imagine she was using it
> humorously and in
> hyperbole.

yes...

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


subject: [Wikitech-l] New username validation

body:
--- Tomasz Wegrzanowski <taw at users.sourceforge.net>
wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 06, 2003 at 01:23:40PM -0700, Anthere
> wrote:
> >
> > --- Brion Vibber <vibber at aludra.usc.edu> wrote:
> > > Currently, before creating a new user account we
> do
> > > some limited
> > > validation on the given name:
> > >
> > > * Trim beginning and trailing whitespace
> > >
> > > * Check if it looks like an IP address (four
> > > sequences of 1-3 digits with
> > > dots between them), if so reject it.
> > >
> > > * Check if there's a slash character, if so
> reject
> > > it [I just added this
> > > check; it was I think supposed to be added when
> we
> > > set up partial subpage
> > > support for userspace, which conflicts with the
> > > slash character in names
> > > if remaining problems with the contribs/email
> > > sidebar links are fixed.
> > > Unless there's some huge objection... there
> don't
> > > appear to be any valid
> > > usernames on this pattern. Note also that this
> check
> > > applies only to new
> > > names; existing ones which are legitimate would
> be
> > > grandfathered in.]
> > >
> > > *Canonicalize the name (run through the title
> > > canonicalizer and take the
> > > version without underscores) and check for an
> exact
> > > existing match. If
> > > there is one, reject it.
> > >
> > >
> > > We may wish to do a case-_in_sensitive check,
> and/or
> > > a
> > > same-except-for-accents check. Or not. Anyway, I
> > > think it could use some
> > > tidying up.
> > >
> > > -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
> >
> > of course, you expect my "what do you mean by a
> > same-except-for-accent" I hope ? :-)
>
> a' = a` = a, = a: = a
> e' = e` = e' = e^ = e
> etc.

Ah. yes.

So,

anth?re would be acceptable for another user than me
(well is actually acceptable since that is the case)

but

ant'here would not be acceptable ?

?!?

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


from_name: Robert

subject: [WikiEN-l] No problem.

body:
I have taken a 48 hour break from all Gaia articles, to
avoid a flame war with Anthere. I also note that Anthere
has done the same.  And guess what?  No more problems.
Perhaps I was just a little irritable.

Apparently, Anthere and I can work together, as we haven't
had any conflicts on [[Knowledge]], even in the heat of
disagreeing with each other on [[Gaia]].  (And the
Knowledge article, in theory, could be very contentious!)

How is our cooperation and lack of new flames possible?
After all, all of us here have seen edit-wars and
flame-wars on Wikipedia and on this Wikipedia-En list, that
cover multiple topics, for days at a time.  Yet our dispute
wasn't even about POV, on only one article, and only for 1
1/2 days.  Kind of lame for a fight.  Maybe we will
disagree on one more topic, for one more week, just to make
it worthwhile?  How about [[Cabbage]]?  No one's had a
flame-war on that yet...  ;-)

I guess there really isn't a problem.

Robert (RK)

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


from_name: Dante Alighieri

subject: [WikiEN-l] URGENT: Wikipedia is down?

body:
I think Wikipedia is broken. Edits aren't going through. Someone confirm
and alert the appropriate "authorities".

-----
Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

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


from_name: Julie Kemp

subject: [WikiEN-l] Weird syntax error

body:
Just got this when moving from an edit to "Copernicus and Coin Reform"
to my watchlist:

A database query syntax error has occurred. The last attempted database
query was: "SELECT DISTINCT cur_id,cur_namespace,cur_title,cur_comment,
cur_user,cur_user_text,cur_timestamp,cur_minor_edit,cur_is_new FROM
cur,watchlist WHERE wl_user=29 AND wl_title=cur_title AND
(cur_namespace=wl_namespace OR cur_namespace=wl_namespace+1) ORDER BY
inverse_timestamp LIMIT 50" from within function "wfSpecialWatchlist".
MySQL returned error "1030: Got error 28 from table handler".
When I tried to post this at New Server Madness, I got a page that said
Database Error and printed the code for the New Server Madness Page

Cheers!

Julie
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20030606/9ba7907a/attachment.htm


subject: [WikiEN-l] Filtering, etc.

body:
--- Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu> wrote:
> Michael Becker wrote:
>
> >A vote has already ensued at
>
>http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Content_advisory
> >Someone suggested 3 choices, and we voted.  That is
> how this ended up on
> >the main page.  Feel free to join the discussion.
>
> I had that discussion watched, but I never saw the
> vote.
> After all, it had only been discussed for 2 days!
> (Jun 5, Jun 6).
> In fact, I can't even find a vote on the talk page.
> I'm sure that even Erik would agree that such a vote
> is no good.
>
>
> -- Toby

TC would probably further add that voting is not good :-)

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


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] URGENT: Wikipedia is down?

body:
On Fri, 6 Jun 2003, Dante Alighieri wrote:
> I think Wikipedia is broken. Edits aren't going through. Someone confirm
> and alert the appropriate "authorities".

Confirmed and corrected, we are back online.

I'm afraid the /usr partition on pliny's hard drive filled up with
binary log files and the (way too verbose) mysql error report log.
Normally I clear those out every few days, but it seems I missed 'em this
week, and, well, it hit the edge for a few minutes.

I've cleared them out for now, but a more permanent solution would involve
moving stuff around on the disk to other partitions so it's not in as
much danger of filling up the vital areas with junk logs... And, of
course, automatically deleting the ones we don't need!

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Daniel Ehrenberg

subject: [WikiEN-l] No problem.

body:
I don't know how to say this, but I deleted Larry's
text on the knowledge article when no one was looking
a while ago. So much for that example. sorry. It
provided no real information not listed at the
[[epistimology]] article.

LittleDan

--- Robert <rkscience100 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I have taken a 48 hour break from all Gaia articles,
> to
> avoid a flame war with Anthere. I also note that
> Anthere
> has done the same.  And guess what?  No more
> problems.
> Perhaps I was just a little irritable.
>
> Apparently, Anthere and I can work together, as we
> haven't
> had any conflicts on [[Knowledge]], even in the heat
> of
> disagreeing with each other on [[Gaia]].  (And the
> Knowledge article, in theory, could be very
> contentious!)
>
> How is our cooperation and lack of new flames
> possible?
> After all, all of us here have seen edit-wars and
> flame-wars on Wikipedia and on this Wikipedia-En
> list, that
> cover multiple topics, for days at a time.  Yet our
> dispute
> wasn't even about POV, on only one article, and only
> for 1
> 1/2 days.  Kind of lame for a fight.  Maybe we will
> disagree on one more topic, for one more week, just
> to make
> it worthwhile?  How about [[Cabbage]]?  No one's had
> a
> flame-war on that yet...  ;-)
>
> I guess there really isn't a problem.
>
> Robert (RK)
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to
> Outlook(TM).
> http://calendar.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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


body:
--- Anthere <anthere6 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Zoe is asserting her DISTASTE for C and M's
> > positions, not an agreement
> > with them. The word "ilk" is usually used, while
> not
> > as a pejorative per
> > se, as a negative term.... as it is here. It is
> > often used in the following
> > phrase, "you and your ilk" meaning "you and the
> > other unsavory people like
> > you".
> >
> > In fairness to Zoe, I would imagine she was using
> it
> > humorously and in
> > hyperbole.
>
> yes...

I (and equally my parents) was unaware that 'ilk'
carried any negative connotations. I thought ilk just
meant 'other people like you and possibly group with
you for whatever discussed similarity.
LittleDan

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


from_name: WeißNix

subject: [Wikitech-l] Random Page works a little bit strange

body:
Tim Starling schrieb:

> Taking the SQL query used in Special:Randompage from CVS and modifying
> it very slightly...
>
> SELECT cur_id,cur_title,cur_random
>   FROM cur USE INDEX (cur_random)
>   WHERE cur_namespace=0 AND cur_is_redirect=0
>   AND cur_random>RAND()
>   ORDER BY cur_random
>   LIMIT 20
>

I guess that's why this doesn't work:
MySQL processes the query in the following order:

1. Fetching
2. Ordering
3. Limiting

1. MySQL fetches rows from the table until there ist no more row with
cur_random greater than the recently generated RAND() (it generates a
new RAND() on every fetch). This should return on avarage half of the
rows from the table.
2. MySQL orders the fetched rows by cur_random in ascending order.
3. MySQL returns the 20 rows with the lowest cur_random from the subset.

-- Wei?Nix


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikitech-l] New username validation

body:
Anthere wrote:

>>a' = a` = a, = a: = a
>>e' = e` = e' = e^ = e
>>etc.
>>
>
>Ah. yes.
>
>So,
>
>anth?re would be acceptable for another user than me
>(well is actually acceptable since that is the case)
>
>but
>
>ant'here would not be acceptable ?
>
>?!?
>
You may have noticed that I tend to be one of those people here who
enjoys playing with words. :-)   To say that we do not accept ant'here
is very close to saying "qu'on accepte pas de fourmis ici".

As for RK's difficulty with your gender, on the one hand we have the
fact that "anth?re" is a feminine noun in French to represent the male
part of a plant, as does the corresponding English "anther". No wonder
he's confused!!! :-)

Ec


from_name: cprompt

subject: [WikiEN-l] Michael's talk page and the server

body:
I tried to post on User_talk:Michael a response to Rotem Dan's defense
of Michael. I received an MySQL error, where it quoted the talk page,
and said "error trying to insert into old" something or other. I'm sorry
that I was not able to get the exact error message. I am not currently
able to access Wikipedia. Here is what I intended to say, with Rotem
Dan's quote for context.

* [[User:Rotem Dan|Rotem Dan]] -- ''"Fun Fun Fun in the fluffy chair
Flame up the herb Woof down the beer ..."'', this is really nice and
funny! :) I think Michael is an imaginative and creative person who
likes music a lot, has good writing skills, and needs a medium to
express himself. The only problem is that he seems to have some major
problem with giving attention to details, as in the accuracy of the
articles that he writes. Naturally, that upsets fellow wikipedians. I
bet that his responses and behavior weren't so vulgar and defensive if
people were more at ease with him, and understood his problems. I have
already proposed that he should be allowed to use his own namespace,
that starts with his name, say [[Michael:Crass]], for his article about
[[Crass]] (that would be transferred to the main article after it has
been factually approved), or he could also write in the meta-wikipedia
(but I think it having his own namespace is preferable).

:Rotem Dan, those lyrics are actually by the band the Dead Kennedys, in
the song MTV Get Off The Air. Michael did not write them. Many users
have tried to be compassionate towards Michael. However, his articles
are consistently inaccurate, and he reverts corrections. He is vulgar to
users, and refuses to listen to any advice on the talk page, or follow
the rules. If he is indeed a music-lover with good writing skills,
perhaps he needs another medium, since he refuses to cooperate with this
one. It's a big Internet out there, surely he'll find his niche. Nearly
all of our users follow the rules most of the time, are generally nice
to each other, and try to ensure that the encyclopedia is both complete
and accurate. Why should extra time be spent checking the accuracy of
contributions that are almost always incorrect, using tact on someone
who is consistently vulgar, and who shows no desire to follow rules or
change behavior? He has made death threats on several users. Whatever
problem he has is for he and his psychologist to deal with. We will not
be his catharsis.
:--~~~

--

--cprompt


from_name: Youandme

body:
I see that you techies discussing how to tweak
Random Page behaviour, but Polish Wikipedia suffers a bit: when
Random Page
is pressed the following message appears.
Other main 'pedias do not report any error.
Can you correct that quickly? Thanks
in advance

Regards
Youandme

--------------------------------------------------------

Wyst?pi? b??d sk?adni w zapytaniu do bazy danych. Mog?o to by?
spowodowane przez z?e sformu?owanie zapytania (zobacz Przeszukiwanie
Wikipedii) albo przez b??d w oprogramowaniu. Ostatnie, nieudane
zapytanie to:

    SELECT cur_id,cur_title FROM cur USE INDEX (cur_random) WHERE
cur_namespace=0 AND cur_is_redirect=0 AND cur_random>0,172539821906
ORDER BY cur_random LIMIT 1

wys?ane przez funkcj? "wfSpecialRandompage". MySQL zg?osi? b??d
"1064: You have an error in your SQL syntax. Check the manual that
corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use
near '172539821906 ORDER BY
cur_random LIMIT 1' at line 4".


body:
On 6 Jun 2003 at 11:42, Brion Vibber wrote:

> I've switched from variable interpolation with an implicit float->string
> conversion to using the number_format()  function, where I can explicitly
> set the decimal separator to "." to keep MySQL from choking when set in a
> locale with "," as the decimal separator.
>
> Seems happy so far...

:)
As happy as me and others
Thank you very much
Youandme


from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

subject: [Wikitech-l] New username validation

body:
On Fri, Jun 06, 2003 at 01:07:40PM -0700, Brion Vibber wrote:
> Currently, before creating a new user account we do some limited
> validation on the given name:
>
> * Trim beginning and trailing whitespace
>
> * Check if it looks like an IP address (four sequences of 1-3 digits with
> dots between them), if so reject it.
>
> * Check if there's a slash character, if so reject it [I just added this
> check; it was I think supposed to be added when we set up partial subpage
> support for userspace, which conflicts with the slash character in names
> if remaining problems with the contribs/email sidebar links are fixed.
> Unless there's some huge objection... there don't appear to be any valid
> usernames on this pattern. Note also that this check applies only to new
> names; existing ones which are legitimate would be grandfathered in.]
>
> *Canonicalize the name (run through the title canonicalizer and take the
> version without underscores) and check for an exact existing match. If
> there is one, reject it.
>
>
> We may wish to do a case-_in_sensitive check, and/or a
> same-except-for-accents check. Or not. Anyway, I think it could use some
> tidying up.

For ISO 8859 wikis it sounds right, but we may need stronger checks
for Unicode wikis to protect against people pretending to be someone else.
There are many ways how to make 2 binary different Unicode strings look the same.
Converting to one of normal forms and then checking using allowed range
of characters should do the thing. We may use different allowed sets per-wiki,
so that Asians can use Han characters, Russians can use Cyrillic etc.

But it's not very important right now.


subject: [Wikitech-l] New username validation

body:
On Fri, Jun 06, 2003 at 01:23:40PM -0700, Anthere wrote:
>
> --- Brion Vibber <vibber at aludra.usc.edu> wrote:
> > Currently, before creating a new user account we do
> > some limited
> > validation on the given name:
> >
> > * Trim beginning and trailing whitespace
> >
> > * Check if it looks like an IP address (four
> > sequences of 1-3 digits with
> > dots between them), if so reject it.
> >
> > * Check if there's a slash character, if so reject
> > it [I just added this
> > check; it was I think supposed to be added when we
> > set up partial subpage
> > support for userspace, which conflicts with the
> > slash character in names
> > if remaining problems with the contribs/email
> > sidebar links are fixed.
> > Unless there's some huge objection... there don't
> > appear to be any valid
> > usernames on this pattern. Note also that this check
> > applies only to new
> > names; existing ones which are legitimate would be
> > grandfathered in.]
> >
> > *Canonicalize the name (run through the title
> > canonicalizer and take the
> > version without underscores) and check for an exact
> > existing match. If
> > there is one, reject it.
> >
> >
> > We may wish to do a case-_in_sensitive check, and/or
> > a
> > same-except-for-accents check. Or not. Anyway, I
> > think it could use some
> > tidying up.
> >
> > -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
> of course, you expect my "what do you mean by a
> same-except-for-accent" I hope ? :-)

a' = a` = a, = a: = a
e' = e` = e' = e^ = e
etc.


subject: [Wikitech-l] New username validation

body:
On Fri, Jun 06, 2003 at 02:11:55PM -0700, Anthere wrote:
> > > of course, you expect my "what do you mean by a
> > > same-except-for-accent" I hope ? :-)
> >
> > a' = a` = a, = a: = a
> > e' = e` = e' = e^ = e
> > etc.
>
> Ah. yes.
>
> So,
>
> anth?re would be acceptable for another user than me
> (well is actually acceptable since that is the case)
>
> but
>
> ant'here would not be acceptable ?

the other way around


subject: [Wikitech-l] Error on Editing German wikipedia

body:
Hello,

got this Errormessage on editing an article in the German wikipedia:

    INSERT INTO old
    (old_namespace,old_title,old_text,old_comment,old_user,old_user_text,old_timestamp,old_minor_edit,inverse_timestamp)
    VALUES (0, 'Hannover_96', '[[en:Hannover 96]]Der \'\'\'Hannoversche
    Sportverein von 1896\'\'\' ist ein Sportverein in [[Hannover
    (Stadt)|Hannover]]. Seine [[Fu?ball]]mannschaft spielte traditionell
    meistens in der 1. oder 2. [[Bundesliga]] (z.Zt. 1. Bundesliga).
    Heimatstadion des Fu?ballteams ist die AWD-Arena
    (\'\'\'[[Niedersachsen]]stadion\'\'\'). Traditionell bestehen
    \"Lokalrivalit?ten\" zu den Vereinen [[Eintracht Braunschweig]] und
    [[SV Arminia Hannover]]. Daten: Gr?ndung: [[12. April]] [[1896]]
    Kleidung: Rotes Hemd, rote Hose, schwarze Stutzen oder wei?es Hemd,
    wei?e Hose, wei?e Stutzen Mitgliedszahl: 2.400 Farben: Schwarz -
    Wei? ? Gr?n Mannschaften: *Profimannschaft (1. Bundesliga) *Amateure
    *Frauen *Altliga *Jugendmannschaften ==Link==
    http://www.hannover96.de', 'wikif', 822, 'Wei?Nix',
    '20030411084631', 1, '79969588915368')

aus der Funktion "Article::updateArticle". MySQL meldete den Fehler "3:
Error writing file './pliny-bin.007' (Errcode: 28)".

-- Wei?Nix


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Harry Potter

in_reply_to: <000701c32a7d$eb1498a0$0500000a@mint2k>; from minty@keergill.screaming.net on Wed, Jun 04, 2003 at 10:44:39AM +0100

body:
Ai yi yi.  Postmodernists, ai yi yi.

Eugene Gill wrote:

> Ohhh yes.
>
> Here is a quote from HP on
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Cimon_avaro
>
> As we have noted, some of the people "correcting" these pages have adopted
> blanket reversions on account of a very povie view that fact and fantasy are
> two distinct categories, whereas I experience them as an interpenetrating
> dialectic unity. i.e. we can only comprehend the world through a skein of
> signification which is culturally constructed and which structures
> information. This rejection of hardline Cartesian dualism may also be povie,
> but then so is anyones contribution. It is the interaction of us as human
> beings which creates some sort of consensual reality, so the whole NPOV can
> only happen as a consequence of these interactions. This means we are all
> liable to experience frissance with people coming from cultures different or
> even anti-thetical to our own. OK that's life. Harry Potter.
>
>
> And http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Stan_Shebs
>
> It is not a matter of "challenging the line between fact and fantasy" as
> this would be to assert some sort of legitimacy to such a putative line.
> Rather I am suggesting that such a line is a product of a point of view in
> motion and that different people see it in different ways. .... I find your
> suggestion that I should exclude myself from this project because I do not
> have a naive realist viewpoint hardly helpful. Harry Potter
>
>
>
> Mintguy
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Michael Becker" <wikipedia at jumpingjackweb.com>
> To: <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2003 2:58 AM
> Subject: FW: [WikiEN-l] User:Harry Potter
>
>
> > Has anyone talked to him about the inaccuracies?  This may just be a
> > misunderstanding.  At the least, someone should tell him that he has
> > added inaccuracies to his article, and then put the boiler from
> > [[Wikipedia:Accuracy dispute]] on his contributions.  Tell him why we
> > are doing it, and give him a chance to correct his errors and become a
> > contributor.  This is the process we should go through.
> >
> > --
> > Michael Becker
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org]
> > On Behalf Of Stan Shebs
> > Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 12.43
> > To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] User:Harry Potter
> >
> > I agree.  It sows an atmosphere of distrust, which, going by the
> > pataphysics manifesto, is the goal.  It's a waste of my time to research
> > things and add them to an article if the rest of the article is fiction
> > masquerading as fact; no reader is going to believe any of it.
> > [[Templars in England]] looks plausible for instance, but given Harry
> > Potter's other activities, how am I supposed to know if any of it is
> > true? Better to vaporize it and start over.
> >
> > Stan
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Just to throw this out there...

in_reply_to: <8nCprzUhpVB@erik_moeller>; from erik_moeller@gmx.de on Wed, Jun 04, 2003 at 11:34:00AM +0200

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> Jimmy-
> > But I didn't recommend that we implement a family filter.  Google
> > doesn't filter -- but they do allow end users to configure what sorts
> > of results are presented.
>
> Hmm -- I do not really see the difference? Most filters are optional, at
> least for adults.

Well, I guess this is partly just a terminological difficulty.

I think we're both opposed to a system whereby Wikipedia is by default
"cleansed" according to some ambiguous and amorphous standards.  We
don't want to place silly obstacles in the path of people seeing the
whole encyclopedia, as it is written by the wiki process, even if some
of the content might be considered by some to be inappropriate for
children, or whatever.

At the same time, I think we both agree that it'd be nice if end users
were able to very simply configure their "view" of the encyclopedia to
take out material that they find objectionable.

--Jimbo


from_name: james duffy

subject: [WikiEN-l] American diplomatic listings

body:
>Zoe wrote:
>Does anyone know if the US State Department website
>has a list of all of its ambassadors that we can
>either steal^H^H^H^H^Hborrow or link to?

If someone contacts the press office of the State Department and explain why
we want the information, they will no doubt supply all the info. They may
even agree to email us with any changes as they happen in the future.

Having chased up press offices in everything from Buckingham Palace to the
Vatican and the Quirinal Palace for articles in the past, I will leave this
job to another person. :-) There is only so big I can allow my phonebill to
get on wiki work!!!

JT

_________________________________________________________________
The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail


in_reply_to: <8nCpsK7hpVB@erik_moeller>; from erik_moeller@gmx.de on Wed, Jun 04, 2003 at 11:38:00AM +0200

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> That's fair enough. I will add the appropriate disclaimers to all the
> pages about Christianity, which I consider potentially dangerous to
> children. Of course I will do so in an NPOV way. ;-)

Well, that would be fine, I think.  If there was a meta data content
advisory field, it probably would be best to flag these articles as
being "About Religion; About Christianity".

> Can you see where this is going? Standards for what is and isn't
> appropriate for children or adults vary so greatly that any offensiveness
> disclaimer is bound to be either POV (because we only add it to some
> pages) or useless (because we add it to all pages)

Well, I don't see why that has to be true, if we are thoughtful with
how we implement content advisory meta data.

It's pretty clear to me that some topics, [[felching]] comes to mind,
can be fairly uncontroversially described as 'possibly mature content;
sexuality'.  That's true even though people do differ widely as to
their tolerance for such content.

--Jimbo


in_reply_to: <3EDE4F5C.6020007@telus.net>; from saintonge@telus.net on Wed, Jun 04, 2003 at 12:58:20PM -0700

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
>  In many cases where the parent would use the filter
> the kid is often smarter, and can probably figure out the override long
> before the parent realizes.  I may not always admit it to him, but I
> feel proud when my 13 year old does things better than I do.

At least as long as we implement something like this in the same way
that Google does, there would be no 'figuring out' involved.  If you
want to block something, you click on the link to "Turn on Safe
Search" and if you want to unblock something, you click on the link to
"Turn off or modify Safe Search".

I don't think that wikipedia, per se, should assist at all with how
other people might want to enforce such things.

-------------

Here's another way to look at it.  I'm an adult, and my mother is too.
She's from an earlier generation, and would be shocked to see an
article on felching.  It'd be nice to be able to sit down to wikipedia
*with my own mother* and not worry about such things popping up.  It's
not about filtering or preventing access for another person, it's
about being able to configure the site easily as an end user to
account for such preferences.

If I want to learn about felching on my own, sometime when mom isn't
watching, then I can.  And if she wants to learn about it on her own,
when I'm not there, that's fine too.

--Jimbo


in_reply_to: <20030604131741.GA15344@chiark.greenend.org.uk>; from mattheww+wikipedia@chiark.greenend.org.uk on Wed, Jun 04, 2003 at 02:17:41PM +0100

body:
Matthew Woodcraft wrote:
> Jimmy Wales wrote:
> > Of course we do risk 'flagging wars' -- but that's par for the course
> > -- we risk 'edit wars' and so on all the time.  The best way to
> > minimize such wars is to approach tagging *as NPOV meta-data*.
>
> But one of the main tools we use to come to NPOV -- 'going meta' --
> isn't really available here.

Sure it is.  We may not agree about the appropriateness of
[[felching]], but we can agree that it's controversial, that it's
sexual in nature, and that it would be widely regarded as a mature
topic.  There's probably a lot of other things we could say about it
that would be relevant from a content advisory point of view, but
which are also NPOV.

> > If we were writing disclaimers at the top of some pages, we would
> > require the disclaimer to be NPOV.  We wouldn't say "This page is bad
> > for children."  And we wouldn't say "Anyone who doesn't let children
> > read this is a stick in the mud."  We would say "Some may consider
> > this page inappropriate for children."
>
> 'Going meta' isn't just saying 'some people think this', it's
> describing who thinks it. If we have to decide how many people should
> hold an opinion before a flag is set then I think we really will get
> 'wars' of back-and-forth reversions.

Then we have to think carefully about just what the flags mean, and
just how we might make it possible for them to be NPOV.

Here's a set of flags that I think would work well enough for the
felching article:

sexuality
mature content
slang

I don't see how those are very controversial.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] A short comment on Birds... er, birds, uh... Birds

in_reply_to: <BB03B537.A021%cunctator@kband.com>; from cunctator@kband.com on Wed, Jun 04, 2003 at 02:39:51PM -0400

body:
Cunc wrote:
> Yes. I also am one who believes that Wikipedia policies should
> follow a variant of Occam's Razor--given two reasonable policies,
> choose the one less likely to instigate conflict.

I endorse this general concept fully.  Editing wikipedia should be
relaxing and enjoyable, and we should all cut each other a major
amount of slack.

I'm a little baffled as to why this topic has turned into such a
perennial dispute.  I respect and admire the parties on both sides of
the debate, and I most sincerely hope that they will reach a relaxing
compromise soon.

> For example, instead of asserting that There Exists One Correct
> Capitalization For Bird Names, admit that there is clearly dispute in the
> outside world as to what is preferable, and let people do what they see fit.
> It's the same rule we've followed with American/British spelling, and it
> works fine. I'm driven crazy every time I see the [[humour]] article, but I
> recognize that it actually isn't important.

It is certainly true that we have had virtually no disputes about
American/British spelling.  I'm not sure that this precedent is
assurance of the same thing happening with the Bird/bird issue,
though.

Suppose someone got excited about American/British spelling issues and
started editing dozens and dozens of articles to "fix" it.  Would
everyone else just relax and let them have their way?  Or would we
start to have other people doing what _they_ see fit and reverting
them.

In practice, our social custom is something like "mild deference to
the article as written".  That is, if we come across an
American/British spelling that seems odd to us, we generally just
relax and let it go.  We generally respect the wishes of whoever wrote
the article first, although I suppose a change or two here or there
goes unnoticed and without controversy.

That seems like the best policy here, too.  If people want to write
with capitalization, let them.  If they want to write without
capitalization, let them do that, too.  If there are inconsistencies,
that's a bad thing, but not nearly as bad as having good people at
each other's throats over something so minor.

Today somewhere in the world there is someone who wants to learn about
birds.  That person might someday become a great scientist who will do
something very useful with the knowledge originally obtained from
wikipedia.  We should put every tool in their hands to do that, which
means: more content.  It's sad to think of the hours wasted on
capitalization debates, when there's still so much work to be done.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Tannin, it seems, has changed lots of articles

body:
>Oliver wrote If the majority of experts on fauna call an animal the
>"Aardvark", and the
>majority of non-experts call it the "aardvark", then the majority of our
>potential *readership* call it the "aardvark". So that's what our usual
>naming convention says that *we* should call it, too. We shouldn't make
>special cases just for one particular group of people without a better
>reason than just because that's how they do it themselves.

The thing is, we are an ENCYCLOP?DIA. (BTW, I am not shouting. I just can't
do italics here!!!) As such we should strive as much as possible for
accuracy and that includes accuracy in capitalisation. We can use redirects
to deal with commonly understood names/titles/use of capitalisation, etc.
But we should as an encyclop?dia aim to be an accurate factual source of
information, not aim simply to produce commonly understood but inaccurate
information. For example,  millions of people think Queen Elizabeth II is
'queen of England'. In fact she isn't and couldn't be as England ceased to
exist as a separate kingdom in 1707. So we have a redirect page based on the
wrong but commonly understood title, but the actual page is on the correctly
titled page. So someone coming to the page is able to go away knowing the
'correct' facts, including the correct title, knowing more when they leave
than when they came to it.

That is what an encyclop?dia is, a source of factual information that
educates people looking for information. If the grey-haired longtail buzzard
is correctly called the Grey Haired, Longtail Buzzard of Ohio, then a person
coming to wiki should be able to find that out and know that leaving wiki.
We aren't a tabloid newspaper that can aim for a general low-brow standard.
Encyclop?dias have to aim to produce the highest standard of educational
information. People should come to wiki to get more information than they
possess, not simply to reflect the standard they came with. The very fact
that they are searching for more information means they are not satisfied
they have enough and need more. If wiki gets a reputation for not being
accurate, just being there, what is the point of wiki? Accuracy involves
such basic facts as correct spelling and correct capitalisation. So Tannin
is correct to try to get things as accurate as possible in the area of
capitalisation.

JT

_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus


subject: [WikiEN-l] Filtering, etc.

body:
Christopher wrote:
> In response to Julie,
>
> There are encyclopedias geared especially for children.
>
> An inclusive encyclopedia should not sugar-coat, but should lay facts
> bare.
>
> And if they are unsavory, then so be it.

I don't think anyone is arguing for sugar-coating, particularly not
Julie, who has been pretty clear that she's in agreement that the
nature of the wiki process and the nature of what we're doing argues
for inclusiveness in terms of what is entered.

> This is especially important for children: a LOT of well-meaning
> people lie to their children under the guise of protecting them. I
> would the W be a resource for said children to discover the truth,
> even if it is less than savory.

Sure, and so toward that end, I think we need do no more than what
google does -- make it a one-click easy thing to view the encyclopedia
in this way or that.  If parents want to *enforce* that their children
take a certain view, they can do so in their own way, perhaps in the
same way that they do with google or other big websites.

(I.e. parents can look over the shoulder, keep the computer in the
family room, impose filtering software, whatever they want to do at
home.)

Perhaps a more useful way of thinking about this issue, and I
mentioned this earlier today too, is not in terms of a parent
attempting to dictate what their children can see.  Instead think of
*me* and *my mom* sitting down to look at wikipedia together.

"Look, maw, I got my pitcher in the New Yark Times fer this here
website."  (That's what you're supposed to imagine the Alabama accent
of someone named Jimbo must be like!)

"Lordy, son, look at this article about felching, oh my, that ain't
right."

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] New username validation

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> We may wish to do a case-_in_sensitive check, and/or a
> same-except-for-accents check. Or not. Anyway, I think it could use some
> tidying up.

Unless someone thinks of some interesting objection to this, it sounds
like a good idea.  I know that Anthere had a problem with a
fake-Anthere over on the French wiki, and that just seemed silly and
easy enough to prevent.

--Jmibo


subject: [Wikitech-l] New username validation

body:
--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
>
> >>a' = a` = a, = a: = a
> >>e' = e` = e' = e^ = e
> >>etc.
> >>
> >
> >Ah. yes.
> >
> >So,
> >
> >anth?re would be acceptable for another user than
> me
> >(well is actually acceptable since that is the
> case)
> >
> >but
> >
> >ant'here would not be acceptable ?
> >
> >?!?
> >
> You may have noticed that I tend to be one of those
> people here who
> enjoys playing with words. :-)   To say that we do
> not accept ant'here
> is very close to saying "qu'on accepte pas de
> fourmis ici".

:-))) (might be some more around burial)

Yes; I love your words games. You gave a good laugh
more than once ;-)

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Language note (Was: We need a way to deal with AOL vandals THIS year)

body:
--- Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu> wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
>
> >what does that mean "ilk" ?
>
> Short answer:  It means "type".
>
> Long answer:  That's a good question.
>
> The OED says that every usage of "ilk" is either
> obsolete, Scottish, or erroneous (exactly 1).
> The usage that I know, and that Zoe was using,
> is the one labelled "erroneous" by the OED:
> "that ilk: That family, class, set, or 'lot'.
> Also, by further extension, = kind, sort."
> Apparently, Zoe's usage of "their" instead of "that"
> is too erroneous even to merit inclusion.
> (Which is not a criticism of Zoe, but of the OED.)
>
> Many American dictionaries don't mention this
> meaning at all,
> while others give it as the only meaning;
> "Type or kind" says one; "a kind of person", says
> another.
> Among American dictionaries, only Merriam-Webster
> seems to know about all 3 kinds of usage
> (still only the OED calls the 3rd "erroneous").
>
> None of these dictionaries mention what I think is
> most important
> for understanding Zoe's comment -- it's
> *derogatory*.
> Being of a certain ilk is to be a *bad* kind of
> thing.
>
> I can't find any online English -> French
> translation dictionary
> that's ever heard of the word.
>
>
> -- Toby

I found it in a french english dictionary. It was
translated by "type" (type) or "genre" (kind) with a
strong "pejorative" meaning.

But "genre" ou "type" for us, does not carry the
"really bad" .

I think the nearest proper translation for us would be
"clique", such as when we say "Bush et sa clique",
expression which carry some "bad". (but possibly
english and french do not give the same meaning to the
word clique).

I looked in my American Heritage dictionnary, and
found the ancient meaning refered to "people of the
same place, some territories, or names", mostly
landowners. That sounds very much like the scottish
"clan" to me.

All right. That is an expression I like. Thanks alot Zoe

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] No problem.

body:
--- Robert <rkscience100 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I have taken a 48 hour break from all Gaia articles,
> to
> avoid a flame war with Anthere. I also note that
> Anthere
> has done the same.  And guess what?  No more
> problems.
> Perhaps I was just a little irritable.
>
> Apparently, Anthere and I can work together, as we
> haven't
> had any conflicts on [[Knowledge]], even in the heat
> of
> disagreeing with each other on [[Gaia]].  (And the
> Knowledge article, in theory, could be very
> contentious!)
>
> How is our cooperation and lack of new flames
> possible?
> After all, all of us here have seen edit-wars and
> flame-wars on Wikipedia and on this Wikipedia-En
> list, that
> cover multiple topics, for days at a time.  Yet our
> dispute
> wasn't even about POV, on only one article, and only
> for 1
> 1/2 days.  Kind of lame for a fight.  Maybe we will
> disagree on one more topic, for one more week, just
> to make
> it worthwhile?  How about [[Cabbage]]?  No one's had
> a
> flame-war on that yet...  ;-)
>
> I guess there really isn't a problem.
>
> Robert (RK)

In our personal case, I think it would be kind of you
not to make huge changes only in one save session.
Especially when moving around whole paragraphs as well
as removing some of them.
I know editors prefer that the recent changes are not
cluttered by tiny changes, but half of dozen of edits
instead of a big one might help me feeling more secure
in front of your edits.
You might also consider separating changes likely to
be controversial from others.
Let's also assume good faith both of us, so avoid
inflammatory comments in comments box. This gives very
bad image to the encyclopedia anyway. And I am a quite
susceptible person.
Please also try to focus on science in the "science"
article, and on politics in the "political" article.
Please, also, consider taking your time. I am neither
prolific nor quick to write in english.

Cabbage is unlikely to raise controversies, but who
knows ? We could go on Kergelen realms, where C
vitamins helped maintain the health of sailors, and
perhaps find ourselves heading for Christopher
Colombus.  But I don't thing so.

Other crops, such as soya (GMOs, commercial
dependance...) or palm oil (food security, food
dumping, pseudo-food aid) are more likely to raise
edit wars if you really want one. I do not.

Note that I have an advantage on you. Even if an
pediholic, when tired of one wikipedia, I head to
another

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


list: sifter-l

source: wayback-mbox

from_name: mariam abacha

subject: [Sifter-l] get to me

body:
From:Mrs. Mariam Abacha
Email: mariam2003@anfmail.com

Sir/Madam,

I am MRS. MARIAM ABACHA, the widow of the late GEN.
SANI ABACHA former Nigerian military Head of state who
died mysteriously as a result of Cardiac Arrest.

Since after my husband death' my family has been under
restriction of movement, and that not withstanding,we
are being molested, Policed and our Bank Account both
here and abroad are being frozen by the Nigerian
Civilian Government. The Government later discovered my husband�s
Bank Accounts with these Banks herein, Swiss bank, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribus,
HSBC, Barclays, GoldmanSachs and Citibank. Furthermore, my elder son is now
under interrogation about my husband�s asset and some vital documents.

After all this humiliations by the Nigeria government, I now decided to look for a
 foreigner who will help us receive and invest the sum of US$32 Million
Dollars deposited as Personal belongings by my late husband in custody for us
in a security company unknown to the Government.

I therefore personally, appeal to you seriously and
religiously for urgent assistance to receive and invest this money
into your country on behalf of my family where I believe it will be safe
since I cannot leave the country due to the
restriction of movement imposed on the members of my
family by the Nigerian Government.

However, as soon as you indicate your interest, my Lawyer shall
contact you on the procedure and requirements for this transaction.

Conclusively, we have agreed to offer you 20% of the
total sum 70% is to be held on trust by you until we
can decide on a suitable business investment in your
country and 10% for all incidental expenses
Subsequent to our free movement by the Nigerian
Government.

Please reply urgently and treat with
absolute confidentiality and sincerity through the
above E-mail address. You should note that even if you
are not interested you should not let out this
proposal to anybody whatever.

Best Regards,
HAJIA MARIAM ABACHA (MRS.)

NB:PLEASE DO COPY THIS SITE ON YOUR BROWSER AND YOU
WILL UNDERSTAND BETTER WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT.

1.http://allafrica.com/stories/200203180074.html

_


subject: [Wikitech-l] New username validation

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

>Currently, before creating a new user account we do some limited
>validation on the given name:
>
>* Trim beginning and trailing whitespace
>
Perhaps underscores should also be in this category.

Ec


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: Species capitalization (was Re: [WikiEN-l] A clarificaton for Toby)

body:
Toby wrote:
>It might be useful to give a huge list of mammal
>books with capitalisation, similar to the huge list
>of bird books (the mammal books cited have
>been few).

I too would like to see such a list and am unconvinced that capitalization of
mammal common names is at all correct except outside of very specialized
publications (much more so than with birds).

>For my part, seeing that mav hasn't continued
>any objections on that page is sufficient for me
>to accept that a consensus was reached even
>for mammals, among those that work on these
>articles.

Since when has the lack of objection from me been a sign that everything is
OK? :) I'm just one Wikipedian - the opinions of others also matter. Oh, and
the real reason I haven't responded is two-fold; 1) the initial part of the
debate took a lot out of me (10 hours of writing emails in one day will do
that to a person) and 2) I've been on holiday in Yellowstone and many points
in-between Yellowstone and Northern California (I took over 300 digital
photos!).

To Tannin and Jim;
I would also like to note that just because /I/ agreed to a compromise (on
birds at least) doesn't mean that the issue is settled. Others have to agree
as well and IMO you two have given a very weak argument for capitalization of
mammal common names and I think that all the moving Tannin did for the mammal
articles was not wise at this point.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav - still trying to catch up on all the mailing list
posts)


from_name: koyaanis qatsi

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

body:
Jimmy writes:
> Sure, and so toward that end, I think we need do no
> more than what google does -- make it a one-click
> easy thing to view the encyclopedia in this way or
> that.  If parents want to *enforce* that their
> children take a certain view, they can do so in
> their own way, perhaps in the same way that they do
> with google or other big websites.

Isn't it relevant that we don't know what criteria
google uses to filter things into "safe" and "unsafe"?

I'm guessing that my previous argument was so
fundamentally flawed that it didn't deserve comment.
Since we don't know and won't be borrowing Google's
system, we will have to establish our own.  At the
risk of embarassing myself, let me ask again:

[[felching]]: "safe" or not?
[[oral sex]]: "safe" or not?
[[Bill Clinton]]: "safe" or not?

For what it's worth, one of those three articles
disgusts me, *but* I don't think that my disgust is
relevant to wikipedia *in any way*, nor should it be.
Apparently there's a large enough sector of people
that find it perfectly appealing, and so 1) there was
something worth writing about and 2) someone wrote the
article.

At any rate, if any less than three of those articles
are "unsafe" then we are being biased, i.e. POV, in
our application of the filter, and therein lies the
problem.

Similarly, for Julie's benefit, since this is clearly
not only about sex, though sex provides some vivid
examples:

[[murder]]: "safe" or not?
[[infanticide]]: "safe" or not?
[[matricide]]: "safe" or not?
[[genocide]]: "safe" or not?

Would it be ok for children to know about murder, but
not murder of infants, mothers, or entire ethnicities?
 If so, why?  Isn't that POV?  Why should murder of an
infant be considered "less safe" to know about than
murder of an adult?  Why should murder of a mother be
considered "less safe" to know about than murder of a
stranger?  Why should murder of many be considered
"less safe" to know about than murder of one?  Those
are the kinds of issues that will come up in
categorizing articles and establishing the filters.

Deciding what is "safe" to know about carries strong
and undeniable moral connatations.  Why should
wikipedia establish, codify, and *display,
prominently* a moral value system?  If we filter
*murder*, how is wikipedia of any value whatsoever?
If we don't filter it, but filter other similar
topics, we're exercising moral judgement, which is
incompatible with our goal to be NPOV.

And, while we're on the subject, are we really doing
anyone a service when we forsake our goal of providing
a complete educational resource to implement a system
to allow people to educate themselves only on what
they're already prejudiced towards?  That sounds like
a different project altogether--we could have a
felching-pedia, a drug-abuse-pedia, a
sunshine-and-bubbles-pedia....  If that's what people
want, let them fork.  That's not our project, those
aren't our goals.

kq

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


body:
james duffy wrote:

> The thing is, we are an ENCYCLOP?DIA. (BTW, I am not shouting. I just
> can't do italics here!!!) As such we should strive as much as possible
> for accuracy and that includes accuracy in capitalisation. We can use
> redirects to deal with commonly understood names/titles/use of
> capitalisation, etc. But we should as an encyclop?dia aim to be an
> accurate factual source of information, not aim simply to produce
> commonly understood but inaccurate information. For example,  millions
> of people think Queen Elizabeth II is 'queen of England'. In fact she
> isn't and couldn't be as England ceased to exist as a separate kingdom
> in 1707. So we have a redirect page based on the wrong but commonly
> understood title, but the actual page is on the correctly titled page.
> So someone coming to the page is able to go away knowing the 'correct'
> facts, including the correct title, knowing more when they leave than
> when they came to it.
>
> That is what an encyclop?dia is, a source of factual information that
> educates people looking for information. If the grey-haired longtail
> buzzard is correctly called the Grey Haired, Longtail Buzzard of Ohio,
> then a person coming to wiki should be able to find that out and know
> that leaving wiki. We aren't a tabloid newspaper that can aim for a
> general low-brow standard. Encyclop?dias have to aim to produce the
> highest standard of educational information. People should come to
> wiki to get more information than they possess, not simply to reflect
> the standard they came with. The very fact that they are searching for
> more information means they are not satisfied they have enough and
> need more. If wiki gets a reputation for not being accurate, just
> being there, what is the point of wiki? Accuracy involves such basic
> facts as correct spelling and correct capitalisation. So Tannin is
> correct to try to get things as accurate as possible in the area of
> capitalisation.

These comments start from the very good premise that we should encourage
correct facts, but concludes by promoting a particular POV as being the
correct one in a particular set of circumstances, capitaliZation of the
English names of animal species.  It seems to me that that single word
"correct" (and its synonyms, of course) is one of the most POV words in
the language.  Spelling and capitalization are not a part of the basic
facts about a species; they are incidental facts; the species itself is
blissfully unaware of the debate.  In my most generous NPOV moments I
regard the situation about capitalizing species names as conflicted and
undecided right across the spectrum of people who might be interested in
such things.  When I'm most irritated by the opposite POV I say that
capitals are dead wrong.  This issue would progress far more smoothly if
the capitalizers would disavow themselves of the illusion that their POV
is necessarily correct.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

in_reply_to: <20030607183121.48772.qmail@web14707.mail.yahoo.com>; from obchodnakorze@yahoo.com on Sat, Jun 07, 2003 at 11:31:21AM -0700

body:
I think the main misconception that you have is that a content
advisory system should take a position on whether or not content is
'safe for children' or not.  It should not, and if it does not, then
it can be NPOV.

koyaanis qatsi wrote:
> Isn't it relevant that we don't know what criteria
> google uses to filter things into "safe" and "unsafe"?

Sure, I guess it is.  But I think we can take a guess at what they do.
I am not suggesting that we need to replicate what they are doing
exactly, of course.  Since our universe of documents is so much
smaller, and our purpose so much narrower, our task in this area will
be much less.

> I'm guessing that my previous argument was so
> fundamentally flawed that it didn't deserve comment.

Probably not!  Perhaps it was just overlooked.

> Since we don't know and won't be borrowing Google's
> system, we will have to establish our own.  At the
> risk of embarassing myself, let me ask again:
>
> [[felching]]: "safe" or not?
> [[oral sex]]: "safe" or not?
> [[Bill Clinton]]: "safe" or not?

felching: sexual content
oral sex: sexual content
Bill Clinton: politics

I suppose some wag could come along and suggest that an article on
Bill Clinton is 'sexual content', but if it really is, then there's
something wrong with the article on other grounds, I think.

> For what it's worth, one of those three articles
> disgusts me, *but* I don't think that my disgust is
> relevant to wikipedia *in any way*, nor should it be.

Yeah, I'm no fan of Clinton, either.  ;-)

> At any rate, if any less than three of those articles
> are "unsafe" then we are being biased, i.e. POV,

Really?  I don't see how.  The question is not: "is this unsafe or
not?"  The question is: "is this controversial or not?" or "is this
likely to be considered mature content?"

We often say that such-and-such a person is 'controversial', or that
thus-and-so theory is 'controversial', without taking any position on
whether or not it *should* be controversial.  Sometimes we as a group
agree, sometimes we don't, but anyway, NPOV saves us from having to
decide.

> [[murder]]: "safe" or not?
> [[infanticide]]: "safe" or not?
> [[matricide]]: "safe" or not?
> [[genocide]]: "safe" or not?

I would put all those some content advisory category like 'crime'.

> Would it be ok for children to know about murder, but
> not murder of infants, mothers, or entire ethnicities?
>  If so, why?  Isn't that POV?  Why should murder of an
> infant be considered "less safe" to know about than
> murder of an adult?  Why should murder of a mother be
> considered "less safe" to know about than murder of a
> stranger?  Why should murder of many be considered
> "less safe" to know about than murder of one?  Those
> are the kinds of issues that will come up in
> categorizing articles and establishing the filters.

Under the system I'm advocating, none of those questions have any
relevance at all.

> And, while we're on the subject, are we really doing
> anyone a service when we forsake our goal of providing
> a complete educational resource to implement a system
> to allow people to educate themselves only on what
> they're already prejudiced towards?

That is hardly much of a concern.  We aren't here to cram knowledge
down people's throats.  If people don't want to read about something,
then they won't, no matter what we do.

What's important to recognize is that people *do* have valid concerns
along these lines, concerns which we may not share ourselves, but
which we can nonetheless acknowledge.

To bring it back to LittleDan's original issue: if the existence of
'felching' in the encyclopedia gets it banned from all schools, then
isn't that problematic?

Or: if I can't in good conscience send something with a more delicate
temperament than mine to wikipedia, then isn't that problematic, too?

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

body:
At 12:44 PM 6/7/2003, you wrote:
>To bring it back to LittleDan's original issue: if the existence of
>'felching' in the encyclopedia gets it banned from all schools, then
>isn't that problematic?
>
>Or: if I can't in good conscience send something with a more delicate
>temperament than mine to wikipedia, then isn't that problematic, too?
>
>--Jimbo

Not to be hard-nosed about it or anything....

Yes, if [[felching]] gets us banned from schools, that is a problem... for
the schools. I don't really see it as a problem for us. The schools lose
out on a source of information that, in my opinion, is unparalleled in its
usefulness.

As I see it, it is up to the schools (or, more properly, the parents of the
students in the schools, or the administrators/politicians responsible for
school policy) to fix this problem. The problem, as I see it, is not the
inclusion of felching in the Wikipedia, but that some people are /so/
narrow-minded that they will block access to the whole 'pedia because it's
here.

I'm sorry, but if other people want to censor information from themselves
and children in their charge, that's /their/ problem, not ours. I don't see
why we need to be held hostage to the Puritanical views of a few people out
there who think that it would somehow be a disaster if a child read the
felching article. Why do their work for them? If they want a filter, let
/them/ write it. Let /them/ argue what it should filter. Let's leave
Wikipedia just the way it is.

-----
Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Michael's continued vandalism

body:
Just in case any of you out there think that Michael is "misunderstood" or
reformed or just not getting a fair shake, I'd like to inform you all that
Michael has started his death threats again.

http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=24.130.213.242

What a misunderstood fellow, let's all welcome him back now, OK?

-----
Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

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


from_name: Jimmy O'Regan

body:
james duffy wrote:

>> Oliver wrote If the majority of experts on fauna call an animal the
>> "Aardvark", and the
>> majority of non-experts call it the "aardvark", then the majority of our
>> potential *readership* call it the "aardvark". So that's what our usual
>> naming convention says that *we* should call it, too. We shouldn't make
>> special cases just for one particular group of people without a better
>> reason than just because that's how they do it themselves.
>
>
> The thing is, we are an ENCYCLOP?DIA. (BTW, I am not shouting. I just
> can't do italics here!!!)

Right, the convention goes: /italics/ *bold* _underline_

HTH
Jimmy


from_name: Zoe

subject: [WikiEN-l] Let's get a few things straight, shall we?

body:
--- Tony Wilson <list at redhill.net.au> wrote:
> Let's get a few things straight, shall we?
>
> There was *one* single objector to the compromise we
> hammered out

Not true at all.  I still object, but I was attacked
so fiercely I decided I didn't need the abuse any
more.  I moved on to get it elsewhere.

>an objector
> who practically
> never bothers to contribute anything to the fauna
> articles in any case,
> just talks about them at great length, and wastes
> enormous amounts of
> the time  of the people who *are* doing the work,
> and causes a great
> deal of genuine distress to useful contributors.

I am sick and tired of your continuing
characterization of people who disagree with you as
not participating.  There are many ways to participate
in Wikipedia.

> At the conclusion of the debate, I waited several
> days extra just to
> make sure that there was indeed a consensus before
> going to work on the
> bird and mammal entries.

There is no consensus, you just shut the objectors up
with your continuing personal attacks.

Zoe

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


from_name: Ted Aaron

subject: [Sifter-l] DIANNE At School xirj ammccokpxc


from_name: Christopher Mahan

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

body:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:

> To bring it back to LittleDan's original issue: if the existence of
> 'felching' in the encyclopedia gets it banned from all schools,
> then
> isn't that problematic?

Perhaps not, in fact, because the majority of people in the world
want an unbiased source, and almost everyone knows that education
material is biased. Being banned from schools might actually be to
the project's benefit.

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

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


body:
Tannin wrote:
>What I posted just now was a DEFENCE against the
>personal attack made on me. And you will note that
>despite considerable provocation, at no point did I
>attack the person who attacked me, simply reported
>his actions factually in the most unemotional way I
>could.

Oh? What do you call this:

>... with a non-contributor who's behaviour in this
>matter has been appalling.

"Non-contributor" is not a nice label.

>....the same objector who recently suddenly took
>it upon himself to start a single-handed campaign
>of what can only be described as vandalism

By direct implication you are labling somebody a vandal - again something that
is not in line with the principle of WikiLove.

>... and an objector who practically never bothers
>to contribute anything to the fauna articles in any
>case, just talks about them at great length, and
>wastes enormous amounts of the time  of the people
>who *are* doing the work, and causes a great
>deal of genuine distress to useful contributors.

So by direct implication you are stating that this person (me I guess) is not
a useful contributor?

Pardon me but your statement to Zoe that she is blaming the victim seems
rather disingenuous to me after a read of the above comments by you.

Now instead of more self-righteous indignation how about you list the people
who agreed to the compromise and then offer evidence to support the
capitalization of mammals? I for one quickly dropped my support for extending
the bird capitalization rules to mammals after it was made clear to me that
this is not a standard practice (for some time afterwards I was shell-shocked
from the whole incident - like Zoe - and then I went on vacation).

Do you have logical arguments to back-up this extension or just more
hyperbole?

I guess I have to admit that your scare tactic of threatening to leave the
project over this issue did prompt me to draft the compromise. I won't make
that mistake again.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

body:
KQ writes:
>> Since we don't know and won't be borrowing Google's
>> system, we will have to establish our own.  At the
>> risk of embarassing myself, let me ask again:
>>
>> [[felching]]: "safe" or not?
>> [[oral sex]]: "safe" or not?
>> [[Bill Clinton]]: "safe" or not?

Jimmy responds:
>felching: sexual content
>oral sex: sexual content
>Bill Clinton: politics
>
>I suppose some wag could come along and suggest that
>an article on Bill Clinton is 'sexual content', but
if
>it really is, then there's something wrong with the
>article on other grounds, I think.

I'm not being a wag; I'm being serious when I say that
if Bill Clinton (and other articles) fit into one
category only, then we're recreating subpages.  If
they fit into several categories, then it's just a
matter of time before Bill Clinton and George Michaels
are labeled "sexual content," and argued over,
complete with edit wars, and/or "filtered" as
"unsafe."  That's where the POV comes in.  Electronic
Freedom Foundation: technology or politics?  Filtered
or not?

It's a lose/lose situation, as far as I can see:
re-establish a hierarchy of articles, or risk
"collateral damage" in filtering--and I expect that
collateral damage to include, for different reasons,
[[breast]], [[Michael Jackson]], [[Kurt Cobain]],
[[Khmer Rouge]], and [[Robert Blake]].  At that point,
wikipedia will have drifted so far from its goal of
being educational that I'd rather read a cereal box.
:-\

kq

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


from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [WikiEN-l] Mark up in email (Was: Tannin, it seems, has changed lots of articles)

body:
Jimmy O'Regan wrote:

>JTDirl wrote:

>>The thing is, we are an ENCYCLOP?DIA. (BTW, I am not shouting. I just
>>can't do italics here!!!)

>Right, the convention goes: /italics/ *bold* _underline_

And my conventions are: *italics* _bold_ (underline is not used).
Since we're all Wikipedians, you can also use ''italics'' '''bold'''.
So there are many choices, all ambiguous! ^_^
(Even the convention that caps is shouting is ambiguous.)

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Species capitalization

body:
Mav wrote in part:

>Toby wrote:

>>For my part, seeing that mav hasn't continued any objections on that page
>>is sufficient for me to accept that a consensus was reached even for mammals,
>>among those that work on these articles.

>Since when has the lack of objection from me been a sign that everything is
>OK? :)

Despite the smiley, I should probably clarify.
You're relevant because you seemed to be the only opposition
among the people that were working on the articles in question.
(The capitalisers' argument that they're the people
writing the material is, in my mind, their most persuasive.)
If I've missed anybody, then someone will have to point it out
(although since I remain neutral on the issue anyway,
in the end it's not really necessary that *I* be informed).

>I've been on holiday in Yellowstone and many points
>in-between Yellowstone and Northern California (I took over 300 digital
>photos!).

For Wikipedia?
Hurrah!

-- Toby


body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>Tannin wrote:
>
>>What I posted just now was a DEFENCE against the
>>personal attack made on me. And you will note that
>>despite considerable provocation, at no point did I
>>attack the person who attacked me, simply reported
>>his actions factually in the most unemotional way I
>>could.
>>
>>... and an objector who practically never bothers
>>to contribute anything to the fauna articles in any
>>case, just talks about them at great length, and
>>wastes enormous amounts of the time  of the people
>>who *are* doing the work, and causes a great
>>deal of genuine distress to useful contributors.
>>
>
>So by direct implication you are stating that this person (me I guess) is not
>a useful contributor?
>
I'm flattered that both Mav and Zoe should feel that they are the ones
being attacked by Tannin.  I have no problem admitting that I am the one
who dared to pursue my disagreement.  I also admit that I used the
phrase "a liar's phony allegations" in a response to him 4 days ago, but
let's put that quote in the context of his comments

>> This is an extraordinary thing to say when he is fresh back from -
>> let's not put too fine a point on it here - unilaterial vandalisim on a
>> major scale, even stooping to cut-and-paste page moves.
>
> I will not be intimidated by a liar's phony allegations of vandalism

Although the cut-and-paste approach is sometimes the only technique
available for making a move, and I would not hesiteate to use it when
circumstances warrant, I can affirm that I did not use it in the course
of this edit war.  I was puzzled by Tannin's allegation, that a single
incident of such an action should take on such importance

>Now instead of more self-righteous indignation how about you list the people
>who agreed to the compromise and then offer evidence to support the
>capitalization of mammals? I for one quickly dropped my support for extending
>the bird capitalization rules to mammals after it was made clear to me that
>this is not a standard practice (for some time afterwards I was shell-shocked
>from the whole incident - like Zoe - and then I went on vacation).
>
>Do you have logical arguments to back-up this extension or just more
>hyperbole?
>
I admit that the way I went about things may have been a little hasty,
but when Tannin's more civil supporters suggested alternative approaches
on this mailing list and on talk pages I have gone there, with my most
comprehensive comments at [[Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (fauna)]].
 Tannin had previously contributed there but has added nothing since I
entereded my comments, and now we're back here where he depends solely
on a compromise which he believes to have been made. I had hoped that
the silence was because Tannin was searching for rational support for
his point of view.

Ever since this issue broke out, I've been more than usually conscious
about how others treat the matter.  I can cite two more publications
that use lower case for the English names of fauna: "Scientific
American" and "New Scientist".  The latter, by the way, is a British
publication.

I admit that I have not been recently active in the fauna articles, but
from time to time I have done a few things.  I actively differred with
Mav on the issue of Latin vs. English names in the titles of fauna
articles, and my opinions were expressed when the taxoboxes were bing
developed.  Lately I've been more preoccupied by other areas, but I'm
sure that some day my mental drift will again lead me to the fauna.

Eclecticology


body:
Tannin wrote in small part:

>vandalisim

Well, you didn't shout it in the edit summary,
so I guess that I can still remain neutral.

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] Personal attack?  You are kidding!

body:
Tannin had the gall to write ^_^:

>What I posted just now was a DEFENCE against the personal attack made
>on me. And you will note that despite considerable provocation, at no
>point did I attack the person who attacked me, simply reported his
>actions factually in the most unemotional way I could.

You may want to practice your lack of emotion.
At least my citation of you above is a joke.

-- Toby


body:
Jimmy Wales wrote in part:

>Here's a set of flags that I think would work well enough for the
>felching article:

>sexuality
>mature content
>slang

>I don't see how those are very controversial.

"mature content" will definitely cause problems.
You imply in the rest of what you write (not only in this post)
?what some would consider to be appropriate only for the mature?,
but not only does "mature content" not say this literally,
but also (as somebody else pointed out) that's extremely broad,
and includes [[Christianity]].  So it won't be of much use.

The others, however, are clearly appropriate for [[Felching]],
and they're probably sufficient for your purposes as well.

If I were writing the Wikipedia code, I wouldn't spend my time
on writing support for these flags; that's better done (if at all)
by another project that operates on top of Wikipedia
(in much the way that the Sifter project was meant to do).
But if such code is written, "mature content" will remain a problem.
"sexuality" and "slang" will be fine -- but I also predict an explosion
of a great deal of other, equally factual, classifications,
most of which you and I would never think of.

-- Toby


from_name: Stevertigo

body:
Not to take Zoes side... TW, but it does seem strange that you wrote two
long-winded retorts to her one short statement.

-SM


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

body:
> I'm not being a wag; I'm being serious when I say that
> if Bill Clinton (and other articles) fit into one
> category only, then we're recreating subpages.

I think this is all off the point. We all in good faith understand what
reasonable people could be objecting to - namely articles like teabagging,
buttplugs, creampies, the list goes on...
But its not infinite... I mean concievably someone could go through and stub
a whole bunch of these - sexual related terms. But the point is that
sex-terms are very very limited. Relative to the whole of the WP.  And
besides, the content itself isnt pornographic - its not photos of bukakke or
what have you - its text and text only. Are we going to allow links to porn
sites? Like the Bomis Babe report? Well...

The answer of course is no. Which is unlike (in theory) the ethical
responsibility that Google has - giving easy access to actual links - rather
than info. For a kid to come to an encyclopedia for their sex knowledge - as
bizarre as some of it is... is nothing compared to the porn thats avaliable.
In fact - its for the kids that the WP has a duty to tackle these topics in
an intelligent way. We are not pornographers, in other words - and there is
no way we could be called such. Unless we were to put pornographic material
up - which I dont see a need for. The web is a big sticky place, and WP is
possibly - regardless of any particular articles it has - a dry cave
providing shelter from the drizzle.

On antother note - the AKFD article is still there - as well as the DTK
article which I wrote to make a point about how necessary the AKFD article
is. Its got a link to Sebastian Bach's website, for Gods sake - what the
hell is that about??  I wasnt around when you all finished "voting" on the
general issue of slogans.

WikiLove be upon you,
- S.McG


subject: [WikiEN-l] "ilk" (Was: We need a way to deal with AOL vandals THIS year)

body:
LittleDan wrote:

>I (and equally my parents) was unaware that 'ilk'
>carried any negative connotations. I thought ilk just
>meant 'other people like you and possibly group with
>you for whatever discussed similarity.

The meaning is probably in flux.
Remember that some dictionaries don't carry this meaning at all,
and none of the ones that I saw marked it as negative.
(Although apparently Anth?re's translation dictionary did.)

We should probably save these discussion for future work at Wiktionary.

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] American diplomatic listings

body:
JTDirl wrote:

>Zoe? wrote:

>>Does anyone know if the US State Department website
>>has a list of all of its ambassadors that we can
>>either steal^H^H^H^H^Hborrow or link to?

>If someone contacts the press office of the State Department and explain
>why we want the information, they will no doubt supply all the info. They
>may even agree to email us with any changes as they happen in the future.

>Having chased up press offices in everything from Buckingham Palace to the
>Vatican and the Quirinal Palace for articles in the past, I will leave this
>job to another person. :-) There is only so big I can allow my phonebill to
>get on wiki work!!!

Well, the phone bill would certainly be cheaper from one of us Americans.

But this should give us what we want:
<http://foia.state.gov/MMS/KOH/keyofficers.asp>.
There's nothing here that we can cut and paste,
but checking it should keep us up to date.

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Harry Potter

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Ai yi yi.  Postmodernists, ai yi yi.

Wikipedia does seem to have a consistent bias towards na?ve realism.
As a na?ve realist myself (except on Tuesdays), this doesn't rankle me,
but we should try to keep other ideas in mind for NPOV.

-- Toby


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Mark up in email (Was: Tannin, it seems,
 has changed lots of articles)

body:
Toby Bartels wrote:

>Jimmy O'Regan wrote:
>
>
>
>>JTDirl wrote:
>>
>>
>
>
>
>>>The thing is, we are an ENCYCLOP?DIA. (BTW, I am not shouting. I just
>>>can't do italics here!!!)
>>>
>>>
>
>
>
>>Right, the convention goes: /italics/ *bold* _underline_
>>
>>
>
>And my conventions are: *italics* _bold_ (underline is not used).
>Since we're all Wikipedians, you can also use ''italics'' '''bold'''.
>So there are many choices, all ambiguous! ^_^
>(Even the convention that caps is shouting is ambiguous.)
>
>
>-- Toby
>
The odd thing is, for Jimbo's conventions, Mozilla actually applies the
correct attribute to the text. /italics/ appears in italicized text. I
never knew there was a convention for that kind of thing.

--

--cprompt


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Tannin, it seems, has changed lots of articles

body:
JTDirl wrote in part:

>Oliver wrote:

>>If the majority of experts on fauna call an animal the "Aardvark", and the
>>majority of non-experts call it the "aardvark", then the majority of our
>>potential *readership* call it the "aardvark". So that's what our usual
>>naming convention says that *we* should call it, too. We shouldn't make
>>special cases just for one particular group of people without a better
>>reason than just because that's how they do it themselves.

>The thing is, we are an *encyclop?dia*.
>As such we should strive as much as possible for
>accuracy and that includes accuracy in capitalisation. [...]
>So we have a redirect page based on
>the wrong but commonly understood title, but the actual page is on the
>correctly titled page. So someone coming to the page is able to go away
>knowing the 'correct' facts, including the correct title, knowing more when
>they leave than when they came to it.

It's hardly been established that the downstyle is *wrong*,
and we can always explain in the body of the article
that many authorities prefer to capitalise (and explain who).

But I didn't come here to argue for downstyle,
and I don't claim that these points outweigh JTDirl's.
What I really want to do is point out the similarity of the argument
to the earlier one over the naming of foreign cities and people.
To paraphrase:

Oliver: People expect "Munich", so we should give them that.

JTDirl: But "M?nchen" is correct, and an encyclop?dia should be correct.
        We can always redirect from the common but mistaken spelling.

Me (in the first paragraph above): It's not clear that "Munich" is wrong,
   and the article can always explain that it's "M?nchen" in Germany.

Not that this similarity should convince anybody in either case,
but I hope that Wikipedians with opinions on both issues
take the time to reconcile them in their own minds.

-- Toby


subject: [Wikitech-l] New username validation

body:
Brion Vibber wrote in part:

>We may wish to do a case-_in_sensitive check, and/or a
>same-except-for-accents check. Or not. Anyway, I think it could use some
>tidying up.

We'll probably never think of every way to mimic a previous user.
If there's an easy check to do (and there clearly are some),
then go ahead, but ultimately we'll need to rely on policy:
If somebody creates a username for fraudulent purposes
(as [[Fr:Utilisateur:Anth?re]] was), then it should be removed
(as [[En:User:Throbbing Monster Cock]] was, for other reasons).

-- Toby


from_name: Oliver Pereira

body:
On Sat, 7 Jun 2003, Dante Alighieri wrote:

> Just in case any of you out there think that Michael is "misunderstood"
> or reformed or just not getting a fair shake, I'd like to inform you all
> that Michael has started his death threats again.

Interesting edit summaries he writes! But just as a note of pedantry,
telling someone to die is not a threat, but a command...

But seriously, is this really a productive use of anyone's time:

http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Taang%21_Records&action=history

?

To revert one of Michael's edits when you *know* that he's just going to
revert it straight back again is an exercise in futility. Can anyone put
forward any cogent argument for doing something that you know perfectly
well will be undone as soon as you've done it?

Why not do the following:
1. Leave notes on the developers' talk pages, asking if they could block
whatever user account he is then using;
2. Wait until that has been done;
3. Go to his user contributions page and revert all his edits in one fell
swoop?

That would save a lot of time.

Oliver

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


from_name: Dante Alighieri

body:
At 05:43 PM 6/7/2003, you wrote:
>On Sat, 7 Jun 2003, Dante Alighieri wrote:
>
> > Just in case any of you out there think that Michael is "misunderstood"
> > or reformed or just not getting a fair shake, I'd like to inform you all
> > that Michael has started his death threats again.
>
>Interesting edit summaries he writes! But just as a note of pedantry,
>telling someone to die is not a threat, but a command...

Just picture him shouting "Just die! Alright! Yes! Fucking die! Now! "
while he has his hands around your neck. Now that's pretty threatening.
(and yes, I'm familiar with the imperative mood) ;)

>But seriously, is this really a productive use of anyone's time:
>
>http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Taang%21_Records&action=history
>
>?
>
>To revert one of Michael's edits when you *know* that he's just going to
>revert it straight back again is an exercise in futility. Can anyone put
>forward any cogent argument for doing something that you know perfectly
>well will be undone as soon as you've done it?
>
>Why not do the following:
>1. Leave notes on the developers' talk pages, asking if they could block
>whatever user account he is then using;
>2. Wait until that has been done;
>3. Go to his user contributions page and revert all his edits in one fell
>swoop?
>
>That would save a lot of time.
>
>Oliver

... and then he would create another user account, and another, and another....

This has been discussed COUNTLESS times. The general consensus is that
immediate reversion is the preferred course. Sooner or later he gets tired
and we're Michael-free for a few hours. To paraphrase Curran, the condition
upon which Jimbo hath given liberty to openly edit Wikipedia is eternal
vigilance.

-----
Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l digest, Vol 1 #431 - 16 msgs

body:
KQ writes:
>> I'm not being a wag; I'm being serious when I say
that
>> if Bill Clinton (and other articles) fit into one
>> category only, then we're recreating subpages.

Stevertigo writes:
>I think this is all off the point. We all in good
>faith understand what reasonable people could be
>objecting to - namely articles like teabagging,
>buttplugs, creampies, the list goes on...

Is it really so unclear what I'm saying?  The idea of
what is "sexually explicit" has at various times
included piano legs, women's ankles, and Elvis
Presley's hips.  In quite a few places on the planet,
it still includes women's ankles, and I'm sure it
would include Elvis Presley's hips as well.  For an
example in the opposite direction, Robert Mapplethorpe
considered his work "erotic," yet many (many) people
consider it "pornographic."  Should I point you to the
obscenity trials for James Joyce's _Ulysses_?  Anyway,
tagging articles with commentary of that
sort--"sexually explicit," etc.--is the same as
imposing your cultural POV onto them; in other words,
it is the same as declaring the wikipedia a developed
nation's middle-class anglocentric-pedia.  Exactly how
is that of benefit to us?

kq

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Filtering, etc.

body:
Stevertigo wrote in part:

>articles like teabagging, buttplugs, creampies, the list goes on...
>But its not infinite... I mean concievably someone could go through and stub
>a whole bunch of these - sexual related terms.

Some of them, like the infamous [[Felching]], are quite stubby;
we could combine things into a [[List of unusual sexual practices]] page.
(There's already discussion of this on [[Talk:Felching]], so look there.)

>Are we going to allow links to porn sites? Like the Bomis Babe report? Well...
>The answer of course is no.

The answer is yes; we already have several links to porn sites.
But ...

>For a kid to come to an encyclopedia for their sex knowledge - as
>bizarre as some of it is... is nothing compared to the porn thats avaliable.

... these links don't come from our pages about sexual practice;
they come from our pages about pornography, which is quite different.
So kids interested in porn can learn about it from us,
and find it through us, much as they might find it through Google.
However, kids interested in sexuality can also learn about it from us,
without running into porn sites along the way -- not true of Google!
(Anybody that hasn't searched Google for "felching" is advised to do so.
The results page is informative in several ways!)

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] We're number two, we're number two! (was filtering)

body:
At 03:30 AM 6/8/2003, you wrote:
>(Anybody that hasn't searched Google for "felching" is advised to do so.
>The results page is informative in several ways!)
>
>
>-- Toby

Wikipedia's article on felching is the #2 Google hit when you search for
felching! I've added [[Felching]] to [[Wikipedia:Top 10 Google hits, A-K]].
Think we can hit #1 with a little work? I've never been so proud....

-----
Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Request for help with new article

body:
Howdy all, I just wrote a new article, [[List of ethnic slurs]]. I've put a
redirect at [[List of racial epithets]]. Now, the list also includes terms
for people based on their religion, but I don't think that the article
title is that big a deal. Now, on to my request.

Because I've from the United States, the list is obviously heavily
populated with American English examples. I'm hoping that people from other
countries (especially non-English speaking ones) will stop by to add in
their own terms.

Just to clarify, I'm interested in this as a scholarly pursuit, although it
will probably be used for unsavory purposes by unsavory individuals. If you
could all take the time to go look and make whatever changes you think will
improve the article, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks in advance!

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs

-----
Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

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


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Species names

body:
It is clear to me, give the tone of the debate, that the usual naming
convention should apply for species, to wit, only the first word in a title
should be capialized unless the word is a proper noun, which species names
are not. This is in line with the usual Wikipedia practice, making an
exception in this (or any other case) is only a source of heat and detracts
from the work at hand.

I don't propose any big effort to "correct" articles, but just making plain
that species names are not an exception to the general rule with editing
changes as the opportunity arrises.

Fred


from_name: Tony Wilson

body:
Let's get a few things straight, shall we?

There was *one* single objector to the compromise we hammered out on
bird and mammal names months ago - the same objector who recently
suddenly took it upon himself to start a single-handed campaign of what
can only be described as vandalism - even stooping to the level of cut
and paste page moves at one point - and an objector who practically
never bothers to contribute anything to the fauna articles in any case,
just talks about them at great length, and wastes enormous amounts of
the time  of the people who *are* doing the work, and causes a great
deal of genuine distress to useful contributors.

At the conclusion of the debate, I waited several days extra just to
make sure that there was indeed a consensus before going to work on the
bird and mammal entries.

Since then, this same person has raised the issue on the mailing list
once again, and on getting no response to his increasingly strident
messages, went on his vandalisim spree, and afterwards (astonishingly)
had the gall to refer directly to me with the phrase "a liar's phony
allegations", despite the evidence of his actions being plain for all
to see in recent changes. His credibility on this issue is zero.

I have had an absolute gutful of this bullshit.

Sorry for the frank language, but that's what this is: utter bullshit,
and I'm dammed if I'll stop working on useful articles in order to
engage in yet another massively time-consuming debate, particularly not
with a non-contributor who's behaviour in this matter has been
appalling. I have *real* work to do.

Now, how about some peace and quiet for a change, so that I and the
other people who do the hard yards on fauna can get on with the job?

Tony


body:
Zoe, a personal attack is where you attack the *person*. For example,
by calling them "liars".

It was not *me* who did that.

I wrote about the personal attack that was directed AGAINST ME. You are
blaming the victim in this case - review the history and you will see
this without the slightest shadow of doubt.

What I posted just now was a DEFENCE against the personal attack made
on me. And you will note that despite considerable provocation, at no
point did I attack the person who attacked me, simply reported his
actions factually in the most unemotional way I could.

Tony


from_name: Anthere

body:
--- Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu> wrote:
> LittleDan wrote:
>
> >I (and equally my parents) was unaware that 'ilk'
> >carried any negative connotations. I thought ilk
> just
> >meant 'other people like you and possibly group
> with
> >you for whatever discussed similarity.
>
> The meaning is probably in flux.
> Remember that some dictionaries don't carry this
> meaning at all,
> and none of the ones that I saw marked it as
> negative.
> (Although apparently Anth?re's translation
> dictionary did.)

Harraps New Shorter is usually the best reference for
english-french translation dictionary

> We should probably save these discussion for future
> work at Wiktionary.

Definitly. The word should be included. I would do it
myself right now if Wiktionary was not in Unicode :-(

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