from_name: Recycling Troll

body:
--- JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:

> >From: Recycling Troll <recyclingtroll at yahoo.com>
> >
> > > Setting up a userid specifically for the purpose
> of
> > > following someone around
> > > and reviewing their edits, and voting against
> them
> > > on VfDs, may not
> > > technically be "stalking", but it is not
> > > "responsible checking" either.
> > > "Harrassment" seems like a reasonable
> description.
> > >
> > > Jay.
> >
> >Take a moment, if you will, to review the
> situation,
> >and you will see that this is not the case.
>
> I have, and it is.
>
> >I cannot
> >imagine why anyone would want to prevent oversight
> of
> >edits, or restrict others' voice on vfd.
>
> And I cannot imagine why anyone would want to
> present such a blatantly silly
> strawman argument.
>
> Oh wait, yes I can.
>
> Jay.

Erm, you have managed to completely ignore the
question of why I am being blocked for scrutinising
what an admin is doing. Of course, it is taboo to
suggest that admins need any oversight.
Please. Follow policy, common sense, and natural
justice and let users check other's edits and make
subsequent improvements.
The Recycling Troll

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [WikiEN-l] New policy

body:
Some users believe that we should have a new policy of
blocking users if they try to scrutinize the actions
of admins. I would encourage these people to try to
create new policy based on these ideas, rather than
blatantly abusing current rules, which do not support
this notion.
The Recycling Troll

__________________________________
Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday!
Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web
http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/


from_name: steven l. rubenstein

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II

body:
Skyring writes:

>Ummm, that merely gives the definition of republic you've already
>quoted. I wasn't disputing that. What''s your definitive source for
>saying the Queen is the head of state?

Well, as a committed republican I am actually interested in this
debate.  So I put "Australia constitution" in Google, and went to the
Parliament of Australia's web-page, where I found something called
"Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act."  Now I am no expert on
Australia so if this thing -- I mean Parliament or the Act -- have no
official standing, please tell me!

Anyway, I learned that the Act was itself enacted by HRH

>Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with
>the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons,
>in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as
>follows:--

I then went to chapter 1, which is about the legistlative branch, and read
this:

>1. The legislative power of the Commonwealth shall be vested in a Federal
>Parliament, which shall consist of the Queen, a Senate, and a House of
>Representatives, and which is herein-after called "The Parliament," or
>"The Parliament of the Commonwealth. "
>2. A Governor-General appointed by the Queen shall be Her Majesty's
>representative in the Commonwealth, and shall have and may exercise in the
>Commonwealth during the Queen's pleasure, but subject to this
>Constitution, such powers and functions of the Queen as Her Majesty may be
>pleased to assign to him.

I then went to chapter 2 which is about the Executive branch and it starts
like this:

>61. The executive power of the Commonwealth is vested in the Queen and is
>exercisable by the Governor-General as the Queen's representative, and
>extends to the execution and maintenance of this Constitution, and of the
>laws of the Commonwealth.

I also learned that there is a republican movement in Australia (which
suggests to me that at least some Australians do not think they live in a
republic, yet).  Well, this movement has a web-page that has a FAQ
section.  The answer to the question, "Who is Australia's Head of State" is:

>Elizabeth II, the Queen of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, is
>Australia's Head of State because:
>The Constitution of Australia defines the Parliament as "the Queen, a
>Senate, and a House of Representatives" and vests the Federal legislative
>(law-making) power in the Parliament (section 1, Constitution).
>The executive power (the governing and administrative power) of the
>Commonwealth of Australia is vested in the Queen (section 61, Constitution).
>The Queen has the power to disallow any law within one year of it being
>made even after the Governor-General has given his assent (section 59,
>Constitution).
>The Governor-General only holds office "during the Queen's pleasure" which
>means that the he can be dismissed by the Queen at any time (section 2,
>Constitution).
>Lastly, but probably most importantly in a symbolic sense, is the Schedule
>to the Constitution that requires all Federal Parliamentarians to swear an
>oath or declare an affirmation of allegiance to the Queen. This oath of
>allegiance can only be changed by alteration of the Constitution ? unlike
>the Citizenship Oath, which can be changed by an Act of Parliament, or the
>Ministerial Oath which can be changed by Proclamation.

The "Australian Monarchist League" (motto: protecting Australia's
constitution) also seems to think Australia is not a republic.  Their
web-page has an article by Sir David Smith (I'm not exactly sure what "Sir"
means in this context since I happen to live in a republic -- is this "sir"
like "Sir Lancelot?"), which begins:

>Under our Constitution we have two Heads of State - a symbolic Head of
>State in the Sovereign, and a constitutional Head of State in the
>Governor-General.

So look, I am not a constitutional lawyer.  But these few quotes give me
the impression that the Queen has some role in that polity called
Australia.  I am not sure that the Queen is head of state, maybe the
Governor-General is the head of state -- but it seems pretty clear that
s/he derives this status from the Queen.

Soooo ... can someone explain to me why there seems to be some controversy
over this matter?

Curiously yours,
Steve

Steven L. Rubenstein
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701


from_name: Fredrik Johansson

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Page move vandal - there is a feature that can
	help with it ...

body:
David Gerard wrote:

> > How many users have EVER used move?  Why not disable it, and make it a sysop only function.  I don't think its meaning is intuitive, the only time I ever tried to use it was to reverse a vandal that had moved the page, and I think I botched it.
>
> Because newbies will do cut'n'paste moves right now instead of
> going through a nominate for renaming process.

So keep the 'move' button where it is for regular users, but make it a
link to a page that explains how to get a page moved properly.

- Fredrik


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Rowan Collins

subject: [Wikitech-l] Template processing iteratively

body:
On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 13:30:31 -0500, suresh.k.kadirvel at gsk.com

> But the current mediawiki parser wont parse the above template properly
> because it expects complete table syntax not pieces of it.
> I am wondering if there is any workaround or way out to achieve this ?

I don't think this is true. Certainly, viewing the template *by
itself* won't produce anything useful, but I'm pretty sure the
inclusion mechanism just shoves the text together, and that the
"infoboxes" on en.wikipedia use exactly this kind of trick to allow
optional rows etc.

I tested, and after creating a template (let's call it
[[Template:Table row]]) with the 2 lines:
|---
| {{{text}}}

I could create a page with something like this:
{| border="1"
! Heading
{{Table row|text=This is the first row}}
{{Table row|text=This is the second row}}
|}

And it would work fine.

With respect to your extension, note that the text returned by an
extension is treated as *raw output* (i.e. HTML), *not wiki markup*.
So to use the wiki table syntax in an extension, you'll have to call
Parser::parse() on it directly.

According to a quick search of the list archives, Christof Damian
wrote a function like this:
function renderer($input) {
 global $wgTitle,$wgParser,$wgUser;
 $output = $wgParser->parse($cal->getCurrentMonthView(), $wgTitle,
ParserOptions::newFromUser($wgUser));
 return $o->getText();
}

While FxParlant (based on my untested assumptions) got this to work:
global [...] $wgUser,$wgParser,$parserOptions,$wgTitle, $wgOut,$wgLinkCache;
[ ... ]
    $wgLinkCache->suspend();
    $parsed = $wgParser->parse( $mytext, $wgTitle,
$wgOut->mParserOptions, true);
    $output .= $parsed->getText();
     return $output;

It does look like some "quick" way of doing this within extensions
would be nice, but it seems to be doable anyhow.

> Please let me know if this is not the right place to post questions about
> mediawiki.

Well, mediawiki-l is preferred for topics unrelated to core
development or the Wikimedia-family of websites, but I think more or
less the same people read both anyway. I expect someone will complain
they like to have them filtered seperately, but personally I shove
them both in the same GMail 'label'.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Charles Matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is an encyclopedia

body:
Jimbo wrote

> I do not endorse the view, a view held as far as I know only by a very
> tiny minority, that Wikipedia is anti-elitist or anti-expert in any
> way.  If anything, we are *extremely* elitist but anti-credentialist.
> That is, we seek thoughtful intelligent people willing to do the very
> hard work of getting it right, and we don't accept anything less than
> that.  PhDs are valuable evidence of that, and attracting and
> retraining academic specialists is a valid goal.

I think Jimbo perhaps meant 'retaining', though in my case 'retraining'
rings a bell, also.

Certainly 'anti-elitist' would be a gross over-simplification of WP's social
processes - as would most other descriptions.  It is more to the point, I
think, to say that those who might want to argue 'from authority' on a given
issue may have to find some workaround.

Charles


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote

> It would be absurd to
> put a person through the current ArbCom for one set of offences, and
through
> this proposed committee for another.

Yes, double jeopardy is not so good, viewed in the light of natural justice.

If it turns out that expertise in editing behaviour is fairly much a unitary
thing (as seems quite plausible), while expertise in evaluating content is
more decentralised, then some less tidy or hybrid system may have to be the
long-term answer, I suppose.

Charles


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
Stan Shebs said:
[...]
> I wonder how users would like an automated status increase based
> on activity; save one's 300th edit, and get a little note on
> the talk page saying "Congratulations, you are now considered an
> experienced editor, and have received the following new powers:
> unlimited page moving and the ability to vote on deletions."
> Like MMORPGs, always have a little carrot dangling out there.
>

This and the other idea about having the move button go to a page
explaining to a newbie how to get things moved are both neat. However they
probably involve using extension capabilities that the software doesn't
(yet) possess.
We can hope that a later version, if we nudge it a bit, will be as
versatile as this.  Meanwhile our developers are probably busy trying to
make Mediawiki more stable under heavy load when running with mysql.


from_name: Delirium

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

>> Ray - Jay is correct in his description of original research. His
>> point is simply that deduction (that is, drawing a conclusion from a
>> set of premises) should not be used by editors to make a point not
>> already made in a credible publication.
>
> This sounds like an argument for the commandment, "Thou shalt not think."

When it comes to Wikipedia, that's a pretty good commandment.  Original
thinking on matters of content is beyond the scope of the
encyclopedia---we're here just to summarize the thinking that's already
been done.  We're also particularly ill-equipped to judge novel
thinking.  If you make a novel historical argument, citing dozens of
sources in the process, you should submit it to a history journal to be
peer-reviewed, not to us.

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admins and senior admins

body:
Karl A. Krueger said:
> On Tue, Mar 08, 2005 at 01:54:04PM -0500, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
>> I suggest that as a general rule if anyone tries to settle an issue
>> that he is involved in, he should not use sysop, bureacrat or steward
>> power to settle it. Especially when '''his own conduct''' is the
>> issue. We expect higher standards of those who have more power (as
>> Peter Parker said in ''[[Spiderman]]'' :-)
>
> "With great power comes great responsibility."  :)

Anybody can play this game.  "Come over to the dark side, Luke.  I want to
be your daddy."


from_name: Sj

body:
On Mon, 07 Mar 2005 17:27:59 -0700, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> ... the biases of scholars
> who have an extensive body of published work are not that hard to figure
> out. We might require some real names and verification for this. I seem this
> as more a committee of thousands than dozens; but that's looking ahead.

I'm not sure that anything more than good work would be required for
verification.  I suppose if you want 'credit' for work produced
off-wiki, then off-wiki verification is required.  But a group of
thousands would be wonderful.

SJ


from_name: Michael Snow

body:
Jim Cecropia wrote:

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Michael Snow" <wikipedia at earthlink.net>
>To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia
>Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 18:50:31 -0800
>
>
>>JAY JG wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>From: "Charles Matthews" <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>
>>>>
>>>>Jimbo wrote
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>I do not endorse the view, a view held as far as I know only by a very
>>>>>tiny minority, that Wikipedia is anti-elitist or anti-expert in any
>>>>>way.  If anything, we are *extremely* elitist but anti-credentialist.
>>>>>That is, we seek thoughtful intelligent people willing to do the very
>>>>>hard work of getting it right, and we don't accept anything less than
>>>>>that.  PhDs are valuable evidence of that, and attracting and
>>>>>retraining academic specialists is a valid goal.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>I think Jimbo perhaps meant 'retaining', though in my case 'retraining'
>>>>rings a bell, also.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>"Restraining" might also apply. :-O
>>>
>>>
>>Though if they've been properly retrained, meaning they abide by
>>the spirit of Wikipedia's policies, no further restraint should be
>>necessary.
>>
>>
>An amusing comment (though I see no smiley)
>
I don't generally use emoticons. For something like this, I figure if
people don't see the humor without extra cues, they're welcome to take
the statement seriously, because I meant it both ways.

> but I think it goes to the core of the problem. The strength of Wikipedia is that anyone can edit it, and supposedly the forces of right will outlast the forces of wrong (as it were).
>
>
And the weakness is that those on the side of right sometimes lose heart
when caught in one of those places where wrong is momentarily surging.
Having the long view makes it easier to keep going, and gets you less
worked up.

--Michael Snow


list: foundation-l

from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikinews story featured on news.google.com

body:
Wikinews stories are copied regularly by a site called:

    http://www.theworldforum.org/

According to the operator of the site, Drog, his copy of this Wikinews
story has been featured on the frontpage of news.google.com for "most of
the day" and received over 2000 hits:

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/CIA_sending_suspects_overseas_for_%22rendition%22

    Drog's comment: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141759&cid=11878204

Note that Wikinews itself is not yet part of news.google.com due in part
to the somewhat unpredictable nature of wikis. So we are only indexed
indirectly through "snapshot" sites like theworldforum.org. Still, I
think a Wikinews story being listed alongside articles from Reuters and
the BBC is a major accomplishment. Kudos to everyone involved in writing
the article.

All best,

Erik


list: wikimedia-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Exeunt 172

body:
Karl A. Krueger said:
>
> Personal attacks are not permitted on this mailing list.
>
Spoken like a true running dog of the capitalist-imperialist war-mongering
hegemony.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia is an encyclopedia

body:
I get everything you say, but would like a little bit of clarification
on one point.

"in their own language" - does this mean "a language that they can, to
a certain degree, comprehend" or "the language they learned natively
as a child before all others" (or rather than that, at least "that
language which in their mind comes before all others" - there can be
various problems with native language retention given certain
circumstances)?

For example, does creating a Hopi Wikipedia (assuming that we had
already found committed people to build it) when there are only just
over 40 monolingual speakers DIRECTLY further the goal of the project,
or is it a sideline to it since the vast majority of the speakers of
this language are nearly equally served by an English Wikipedia?
(although, at least in Arizona, English fluency in Native American
communities is often exaggerated and when somebody "speaks English",
at least if they're old, it often means that they know a few words as
opposed to none at all)

I think that everybody needs to be clear on this. I haven't seen
resentment from you  for minority language Wikipedias, in fact I have
seen a great deal of support, but from some (Sheng Jiong most recently
from some things he said) I have gotten the clear message that they
believe we should only have Wikipedias in LWCs (languages of wider
communication - french, spanish, japanese, afrikaans, dutch, croatian
as opposed to breton, guarani, ainu, venda, limburgish, zulu). Please
note that I am NOT referring to everybody who disagrees with me -
there are many who do not show this viewpoint but still believe  that
more criteria should be required for new Wikipedias.

If this is not part of our main goal as a project, or if it is, I
believe we (or at least I) could use some clarification.

Mark

On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 11:16:21 -0800, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Wikipedia is first and foremost an effort to create and distribute a
> free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single
> person on the planet in their own language.  Asking whether the
> community comes before or after this goal is really asking the wrong
> question: the entire purpose of the community is precisely this goal.
>
> I don't know of any real case where there is a genuine strong tension
> between these two things, either.  That is to say, the central core of
> the community, the people who are really doing the work, are virtually
> all quite passionate on this point: that we're creating something of
> extremely high quality, not just goofing around with a game of online
> community with no purpose.
>
> The community does not come before our task, the community is
> organized *around* our task.  The difference is simply that decisions
> ought to always be made not on the grounds of social expediency or
> popular majority, but in light of the requirements of the job we have
> set for ourselves.
>
> I do not endorse the view, a view held as far as I know only by a very
> tiny minority, that Wikipedia is anti-elitist or anti-expert in any
> way.  If anything, we are *extremely* elitist but anti-credentialist.
> That is, we seek thoughtful intelligent people willing to do the very
> hard work of getting it right, and we don't accept anything less than
> that.  PhDs are valuable evidence of that, and attracting and
> retraining academic specialists is a valid goal.
>
> There may be some cases of PhDs who think that no one should edit
> their expert articles, but there are many many more cases of
> completely unqualified people who think the same thing.  It doesn't
> matter: if someone can't work in a friendly helpful way in a social
> context, that's a problem for them and for us, and we'll always have
> to make some very complex judgments about what to do about it.
>
> I'm 100% committed to a goal of "Britannica or better" quality for
> Wikipedia, and all of our social rules should revolve around that.
> Openness is indispensible for us, but it is our *radical* means to our
> radical *ends*.
>
> --Jimbo
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] Censorship campaign: Ann Coulter article

body:
Why was this brought here instead of to the Talk page
of the article in question?

RickK

__________________________________
Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday!
Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web
http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/


from_name: Christopher Larberg

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pulling even with NYT, breaking 100

body:
On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 01:02:27 -0500, Sj <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I'm sad to see that the Main Page has been frozen now for such a long time.
> That was not meant to be permanent, and I hope we can unfreeze it again soon.
>

Are you referring to the English Wikipedia Main Page? If so, why would
we unprotect that? So immature kids can put goatse on it?

--Slowking Man


from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll)

body:
You're blocked because you're not scrutinizing. You're harassing. You
know that you're harassing. We know that you're harassing. So let's
call a spade a spade, shall we?

-Snowspinner

On Mar 8, 2005, at 8:56 PM, Recycling Troll wrote:

>
> --- JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> From: Recycling Troll <recyclingtroll at yahoo.com>
>>>
>>>> Setting up a userid specifically for the purpose
>> of
>>>> following someone around
>>>> and reviewing their edits, and voting against
>> them
>>>> on VfDs, may not
>>>> technically be "stalking", but it is not
>>>> "responsible checking" either.
>>>> "Harrassment" seems like a reasonable
>> description.
>>>>
>>>> Jay.
>>>
>>> Take a moment, if you will, to review the
>> situation,
>>> and you will see that this is not the case.
>>
>> I have, and it is.
>>
>>> I cannot
>>> imagine why anyone would want to prevent oversight
>> of
>>> edits, or restrict others' voice on vfd.
>>
>> And I cannot imagine why anyone would want to
>> present such a blatantly silly
>> strawman argument.
>>
>> Oh wait, yes I can.
>>
>> Jay.
>
> Erm, you have managed to completely ignore the
> question of why I am being blocked for scrutinising
> what an admin is doing. Of course, it is taboo to
> suggest that admins need any oversight.
> Please. Follow policy, common sense, and natural
> justice and let users check other's edits and make
> subsequent improvements.
> The Recycling Troll
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Censorship campaign: Ann Coulter article

body:
csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote:

> [snip]
>
>> You fail to take into account the presence of Canadian troops in the
>> International Commission for Supervision and Control (ICCS)
>> alongside those from Poland and Indonesia, from 1954 to 1974.
>>
>> Ec
>
> Shouldn't this be on the talk page?

Probably.  I was just responding to what was on the mailing list.  There
are enough political  topics that get onto the mailing list to irritate
me without my going there and demanding aggrevation for myself. :-)
With a calmer subject I might have.  The existing articles on the ICC
and ICCS are somewhat stubby, but I do not have enough relevant material
at my fingertips, so I decline to contribute my ignorance.

Ed


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Sorry I'm not good at English

body:
If there are "errors and misconceptions in a few
articles," you are encouraged to correct them. That's what the
philosophy of openness espoused by Wikipedia is all about. "Given
enough eyes, all bugs are shallow."

--Slowking Man


body:
Delirium wrote:

> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>>> Ray - Jay is correct in his description of original research. His
>>> point is simply that deduction (that is, drawing a conclusion from a
>>> set of premises) should not be used by editors to make a point not
>>> already made in a credible publication.
>>
>> This sounds like an argument for the commandment, "Thou shalt not
>> think."
>
> When it comes to Wikipedia, that's a pretty good commandment.
> Original thinking on matters of content is beyond the scope of the
> encyclopedia---we're here just to summarize the thinking that's
> already been done.  We're also particularly ill-equipped to judge
> novel thinking.  If you make a novel historical argument, citing
> dozens of sources in the process, you should submit it to a history
> journal to be peer-reviewed, not to us.

Now you open up the question, "What is novel?"  I absolutely agree that
we are ill-equipped to judge novel thinking, Too many look at this from
the distorted extremist lenses.  If the dozens of sources that I use for
a historical argument are all "peer reviewed" sources my argument is no
longer novel.  If we follow the severely restrictive approach to
"original research" that some people are proposing our encyclopedia
would be full of nothing but dumbed-down pap.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II

body:
csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote:

> The controversy has come about because Skyring insists that our head
> of state is not the monarchy, therefore we fall inside the definition
> of what is a republic. This is ORIGINAL RESEARCH. I have read some of
> his sources, and none of them state what he thinks they say.

Before something can be Original research it must first be research.
Please learn the difference between research and wishful thinking.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors

body:
On Wed, 9 Mar 2005 18:51:41 +1100, Skyring <skyring at gmail.com> wrote:
> I've just copped the latest in a long line of personal attacks from
> one particular editor who stands out for his attitude in a community
> where tolerance and restraint is generally the norm. I don't think his
> comments are justified, but even if they were, I would still take
> exception to the language:

*snip*

> To my mind this is no way to conduct any sort of productive debate,
> and as a rather new editor I wonder just how much this sort of thing
> is tolerated.

Have you discussed his behavior with him on his User talk page? If you
have, and you still feel his behavior to be an issue, you may file a
Request for Comment at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment to gauge
others' opinions.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Admins and senior admins

body:
Michael Snow wrote:

> Karl A. Krueger wrote:
>
>> It seems to me it should be _standard procedure_ that if the Arbitration
>> Committee accepts a case in which wrongdoing by an administrator is a
>> central issue, that the administrator step down (accept removal of
>> administrative powers) for the duration of the arbitration.
>
> The logical corollary of this is that it should be standard procedure
> for all editors brought before the Arbitration Committee to cease
> editing for the duration of their case. I think the arbitrators are
> quite capable of discerning in which cases emergency measures are
> necessary and issuing an appropriate temporary injunction.

If Karl's approach were to prevail I could see a cabal of POV pushers
simultaneously and systematically starting actions against each and
every ArbCom member.  Where would that put us?

Ec


from_name: Jim Cecropia

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is an encyclopedia

body:
Yay! Thanks for stating this so succinctly.

--Cecropia

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" <jwales at wikia.com>
To: wikien-l at wikimedia.org, wikipedia-l at wikimedia.org
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is an encyclopedia
Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 11:16:21 -0800

>
> Wikipedia is first and foremost an effort to create and distribute a
> free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single
> person on the planet in their own language.  Asking whether the
> community comes before or after this goal is really asking the wrong
> question: the entire purpose of the community is precisely this goal.
>
> I don't know of any real case where there is a genuine strong tension
> between these two things, either.  That is to say, the central core of
> the community, the people who are really doing the work, are virtually
> all quite passionate on this point: that we're creating something of
> extremely high quality, not just goofing around with a game of online
> community with no purpose.
>
> The community does not come before our task, the community is
> organized *around* our task.  The difference is simply that decisions
> ought to always be made not on the grounds of social expediency or
> popular majority, but in light of the requirements of the job we have
> set for ourselves.
>
> I do not endorse the view, a view held as far as I know only by a very
> tiny minority, that Wikipedia is anti-elitist or anti-expert in any
> way.  If anything, we are *extremely* elitist but anti-credentialist.
> That is, we seek thoughtful intelligent people willing to do the very
> hard work of getting it right, and we don't accept anything less than
> that.  PhDs are valuable evidence of that, and attracting and
> retraining academic specialists is a valid goal.
>
> There may be some cases of PhDs who think that no one should edit
> their expert articles, but there are many many more cases of
> completely unqualified people who think the same thing.  It doesn't
> matter: if someone can't work in a friendly helpful way in a social
> context, that's a problem for them and for us, and we'll always have
> to make some very complex judgments about what to do about it.
>
> I'm 100% committed to a goal of "Britannica or better" quality for
> Wikipedia, and all of our social rules should revolve around that.
> Openness is indispensible for us, but it is our *radical* means to our
> radical *ends*.
>
> --Jimbo
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

--
___________________________________________________________
Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com
http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm


body:
Here is my attempt:

"I am a Japanese student.
Although up until now I had experienced no inconveniences while using
Wikipedia, this time, I found some errors and misconceptions in a few
articles.
You guys seem to think "If lots of people contribute, errors are
naturally revised, imperfect parts will be removed, and bad editors
will be expelled".
Surely this is true if "many reasonable people, very few unreasonable
people and liars" are collected.
However, in the case that "many unreasonable people and liars, very
few reasonable people" are collected, the premise fails.

If many people are interested and there are many active contributors,
surely things won't head in this direction.

...

The rest of his message seems to be criticism and advice on Wikipedia
and the like. If somebody else doesn't get to it first, I'll translate
the rest tomorrow. But it's late here now, and I need some sleep.

Mark

On Wed, 9 Mar 2005 13:18:04 +0900, hiro nakazawa <hiro0411 at valley.ne.jp> wrote:
> I an Japanese. I'm not good at English so I hope someone transport it.
>
> ??????????
> ???Wikipedia??????????????????????????????
> ???????????????????????
> ??????????????????????????????????????
> ????????????????????????????
> ??????????????????????????????????????
> ??????????????????????????????????????
> ?????????
>
> ?????????????????????????????????????
> ??
> ???????????????????????????????????????
> ???????????????????????????????????
>
> ????????????????????????????????
> ??????????????????????????????????????
> ???????????????
>
> ????????????????????????????????????
> ???Wikipedia??????????????????????????????
> ?????????????????????
> ??????Wikipedia???????????????????????????
> ???????????????????????????????????
> ??????????????????????????????????????
> ???????????????????????????????
>
> ??????????????????????????
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Snow" <wikipedia at earthlink.net>
To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia
Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 18:50:31 -0800

>
> JAY JG wrote:
>
> >> From: "Charles Matthews" <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>
> >>
> >> Jimbo wrote
> >>
> >> > I do not endorse the view, a view held as far as I know only by a very
> >> > tiny minority, that Wikipedia is anti-elitist or anti-expert in any
> >> > way.  If anything, we are *extremely* elitist but anti-credentialist.
> >> > That is, we seek thoughtful intelligent people willing to do the very
> >> > hard work of getting it right, and we don't accept anything less than
> >> > that.  PhDs are valuable evidence of that, and attracting and
> >> > retraining academic specialists is a valid goal.
> >>
> >> I think Jimbo perhaps meant 'retaining', though in my case 'retraining'
> >> rings a bell, also.
> >
> > "Restraining" might also apply. :-O
>
> Though if they've been properly retrained, meaning they abide by
> the spirit of Wikipedia's policies, no further restraint should be
> necessary.
>
An amusing comment (though I see no smiley) but I think it goes to the core of the problem. The strength of Wikipedia is that anyone can edit it, and supposedly the forces of right will outlast the forces of wrong (as it were).

As with censorship, when we "restrain" some users, the question is who is to be restrained, who proposes the restraining, who decides on the restraining, and who enforces the restraining.

Do not tell me these rules are applied equally. I don't edit certain articles anymore because I'll research an edit, back it up with sources, and bring the information down to an NPOV minimum. But how many like me realize that hours of work will be relentlessly reversed by the majority bias on the subject? That's the weakness of Wikipedia.

Of course, one will say "that's Cecropia's OPINION that his writing in NPOV." Well yes, and we are too close to our opinions to always catch our own biases. However, most anyone who has ever written more than a church fund-raising recipe for money knows when they are presenting something in a neutral fashion, in an advocacy fashion, in an aggresive fashion, or are writing a puff piece.

--Cecropia
--
___________________________________________________________
Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com
http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia

body:
Jim Cecropia wrote:

>> Though if they've been properly retrained, meaning they abide by
>>
>>the spirit of Wikipedia's policies, no further restraint should be
>>necessary.
>>
>>
>An amusing comment (though I see no smiley) but I think it goes to the core of the problem. The strength of Wikipedia is that anyone can edit it, and supposedly the forces of right will outlast the forces of wrong (as it were).
>
I detect a bit of Miltonian optimism there, perhaps as a form of
mainstream Christian theology.  I would settle for a good karmic balance.

>As with censorship, when we "restrain" some users, the question is who is to be restrained, who proposes the restraining, who decides on the restraining, and who enforces the restraining.
>
The risk of Juvenal delinquency is always there.

>Do not tell me these rules are applied equally. I don't edit certain articles anymore because I'll research an edit, back it up with sources, and bring the information down to an NPOV minimum. But how many like me realize that hours of work will be relentlessly reversed by the majority bias on the subject? That's the weakness of Wikipedia.
>
All editors are equal, but some are more equal than others.

>Of course, one will say "that's Cecropia's OPINION that his writing in NPOV." Well yes, and we are too close to our opinions to always catch our own biases. However, most anyone who has ever written more than a church fund-raising recipe for money knows when they are presenting something in a neutral fashion, in an advocacy fashion, in an aggresive fashion, or are writing a puff piece.
>
This refreshing honesty is hard to drink.  I once had a chat with a
person who had been in West Africa with Doctors Without Borders.  His
project was to provide clean drinking water to rural villages.  The
fresh water was rejected by the inhabitants,  It seems that this water
was not as sweet as the water from their old dung-polluted wells.

Ec


body:
Christopher Larberg wrote:

>On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 01:02:27 -0500, Sj <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>I'm sad to see that the Main Page has been frozen now for such a long time.
>>That was not meant to be permanent, and I hope we can unfreeze it again soon.
>>
>>
>Are you referring to the English Wikipedia Main Page? If so, why would
>we unprotect that? So immature kids can put goatse on it?
>
I tried to keep the en:Wiktionary main page available to everybody for a
long time.  A page move vandal changed my mind.

Ec


from_name: Skyring

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II

body:
On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 08:59:49 -0500, Stephen Forrest
<stephen.forrest at gmail.com> wrote:

> As I said before, I am not aware of any commonly accepted definition
> of 'republic' which includes constitional monarchies.

How about the first two definitions in the Oxford English Dictionary
or the first two in Australia's Macquarie Dictionary?

Australia is a commonwealth, sovereignty resides in the people, the
monarch is a powerless figurehead, the monarch is not the head of
government, the form of government is republican and the executive
power is exercised by an appointed official.

Australia may share the same Queen as the UK, New Zealand and Canada,
but the constitutional arrangements are quite different.
--
Peter in Canberra


body:
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:

>The community does not come before our task, the community is
>organized *around* our task.  The difference is simply that decisions
>ought to always be made not on the grounds of social expediency or
>popular majority, but in light of the requirements of the job we have
>set for ourselves.
>
Similarly, the sister projects too are organized around their own tasks,
though even there they maintain a more distant relationship to the idea
of an encyclopedia.

>I do not endorse the view, a view held as far as I know only by a very
>tiny minority, that Wikipedia is anti-elitist or anti-expert in any
>way.  If anything, we are *extremely* elitist but anti-credentialist.
>That is, we seek thoughtful intelligent people willing to do the very
>hard work of getting it right, and we don't accept anything less than
>that.  PhDs are valuable evidence of that, and attracting and
>retraining academic specialists is a valid goal.
>
I think that where Larry Sanger missed the point is in confounding the
experts with their expertise.  Many of the more stable editors among us
deeply appreciate expertise, while being highly intolerant of experts
who expect their status to give them a free ride. The editors from
academia who lasted understand that, and have learned to live with it.
They understand that the dues that they paid elsewhere are not
recognized as dues here.

>I'm 100% committed to a goal of "Britannica or better" quality for
>Wikipedia, and all of our social rules should revolve around that.
>Openness is indispensible for us, but it is our *radical* means to our
>radical *ends*.
>
>
You're too modest.  Why not simply say, "Better than Britannica"?

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II

body:
On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 14:36:37 +0000, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Skyring wrote:
> > On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 08:59:49 -0500, Stephen Forrest
> > <stephen.forrest at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>As I said before, I am not aware of any commonly accepted definition
> >>of 'republic' which includes constitional monarchies.
>
> > How about the first two definitions in the Oxford English Dictionary
> > or the first two in Australia's Macquarie Dictionary?
> > Australia is a commonwealth, sovereignty resides in the people, the
> > monarch is a powerless figurehead, the monarch is not the head of
> > government, the form of government is republican and the executive
> > power is exercised by an appointed official.
> > Australia may share the same Queen as the UK, New Zealand and Canada,
> > but the constitutional arrangements are quite different.
>
> I notice you have a severe absence of sources to refer to on the point -
> you know, anything other than your own original research that says
> the words "Australia is a republic."

Do tell? Have you actually '''read''' [[Talk:Government of
Australia]]? You'll get more sources there than you can shake a fist
at. Dive in.

--
Peter in Canberra


from_name: Karl A. Krueger

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Admins and senior admins

body:
On Tue, Mar 08, 2005 at 06:47:47PM -0800, Michael Snow wrote:
> Karl A. Krueger wrote:
> >It seems to me it should be _standard procedure_ that if the Arbitration
> >Committee accepts a case in which wrongdoing by an administrator is a
> >central issue, that the administrator step down (accept removal of
> >administrative powers) for the duration of the arbitration.
	[non-sequitur snipped]
> I think the arbitrators are quite capable of discerning in which cases
> emergency measures are necessary and issuing an appropriate temporary
> injunction.

Fair enough.  I just wanted to put it on the table.

Call it a different approach to what it might mean to enjoy the trust of
the community whilst under review for possible betrayal of that trust.

--
Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger at whoi.edu>


from_name: Recycling Troll

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: New policy

body:
I imagine that the users who have blocked me for this,
on multiple occasions think this.
The Recycling Troll

--- "csherlock at ljh.com.au" <csherlock at ljh.com.au>
wrote:
> Allow me be the first to call you on this one: which
> users think this?
> Please point to specific comments.
>
> Thanks.
> TBSDY
>
> Recycling Troll wrote:
> > Some users believe that we should have a new
> policy of
> > blocking users if they try to scrutinize the
> actions
> > of admins. I would encourage these people to try
> to
> > create new policy based on these ideas, rather
> than
> > blatantly abusing current rules, which do not
> support
> > this notion.
> > The Recycling Troll
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________
Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday!
Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web
http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/


body:
Actually no. I am blocked because some admins don't
like the idea of users checking what they are doing.
Blocking people for constructive editing and checking
is harrassment. Let's call that spade a spade.

Admins fullfill a public function. If they can't stand
that function being scrutinised then they shouldn't do
it. It would be like a congressman trying to jail a
constituent for watching how they vote and writing
letters. It's low down and smacks of censorship.

The Recycling Troll

--- Phil Sandifer <sandifer at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> You're blocked because you're not scrutinizing.
> You're harassing. You
> know that you're harassing. We know that you're
> harassing. So let's
> call a spade a spade, shall we?
>
> -Snowspinner
>
> On Mar 8, 2005, at 8:56 PM, Recycling Troll wrote:
>
> >
> > --- JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >>> From: Recycling Troll <recyclingtroll at yahoo.com>
> >>>
> >>>> Setting up a userid specifically for the
> purpose
> >> of
> >>>> following someone around
> >>>> and reviewing their edits, and voting against
> >> them
> >>>> on VfDs, may not
> >>>> technically be "stalking", but it is not
> >>>> "responsible checking" either.
> >>>> "Harrassment" seems like a reasonable
> >> description.
> >>>>
> >>>> Jay.
> >>>
> >>> Take a moment, if you will, to review the
> >> situation,
> >>> and you will see that this is not the case.
> >>
> >> I have, and it is.
> >>
> >>> I cannot
> >>> imagine why anyone would want to prevent
> oversight
> >> of
> >>> edits, or restrict others' voice on vfd.
> >>
> >> And I cannot imagine why anyone would want to
> >> present such a blatantly silly
> >> strawman argument.
> >>
> >> Oh wait, yes I can.
> >>
> >> Jay.
> >
> > Erm, you have managed to completely ignore the
> > question of why I am being blocked for
> scrutinising
> > what an admin is doing. Of course, it is taboo to
> > suggest that admins need any oversight.
> > Please. Follow policy, common sense, and natural
> > justice and let users check other's edits and make
> > subsequent improvements.
> > The Recycling Troll
> >
> > __________________________________________________
> > Do You Yahoo!?
> > Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam
> protection around
> > http://mail.yahoo.com
> > _______________________________________________
> > 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
>

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


body:
On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 22:24:59 -0800, Christopher Larberg
<christopherlarberg at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 01:02:27 -0500, Sj <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I'm sad to see that the Main Page has been frozen now for such a long time.
> > That was not meant to be permanent, and I hope we can unfreeze it again soon.
> >
>
> Are you referring to the English Wikipedia Main Page? If so, why would
> we unprotect that? So immature kids can put goatse on it?

I am at that.  Not so that kids can put goatse on it.  So that
non-admins can refresh the content of In the news, or improve on the
wikification of the featured article blurb, or update the list of
languages.

We should find ways to distract and ward off immature kids that do not
restrict everyone else -- and we will! -- but in the meantime we
should find a compromise that let us stop limiting main page updates
to a group of 400 users.

--
+sj+


body:
Well, the case that you're making seems to be that
admins are never wrong, it is an afront to check their
edits, and the important thing is to have 'friends',
presumably, who protect you from the rules.

If you don't like a peer review process, then a
collaborative encyclopedia seems like the wrong
project for you. However hard you try to avoid the
point, the fact is that checking other people's edits
is a GOOD THING, not stalking.

The Recycling Troll

--- Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>
wrote:
> The Recycling Troll wrote
>
> >It would be like a congressman trying to jail a
> > constituent for watching how they vote and writing
> > letters. It's low down and smacks of censorship.
>
> How about you just stop digging this hole you are
> in?  You are going to end
> up making a case on the highly virtuous nature of
> stalking.  This is
> unlikely to gain you any friends.  No, admin status
> at most implies use of
> admin powers should be subject to community review -
> not some piffle about
> accountability per edit by vigilantes.
>
> Charles
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________
Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday!
Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web
http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/


body:
Actually, I think that you should assume good faith. I
am not the one making a fuss about this, I am going
about the business of improving the encyclopedia.
Closely checking edits of other users is part of that.
I really don't understand why you are so afraid of
scrutiny. Oh wait, yes I do.
The Recycling Troll

--- Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com>
wrote:
> Recycling Troll said:
> > Well, the case that you're making seems to be that
> > admins are never wrong, it is an afront to check
> their
> > edits
>
> I don't believe that.  However we have a guideline
> of "assume good faith"
> which your _modus operandi_ of closely shadowing
> another editor, with your
> stated objective, may be violating.  You seem to be
> playing this thing out
> as a game of sociodynamics.  If that's what you're
> interested in doing,
> you might find that other, less focussed communities
> are more
> accommodating.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________
Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday!
Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web
http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/


body:
Well, personal attacks are all very well, but, as
usual, you fail to get to the point, which is why are
people afraid of scrutiny??
The Recycling Troll

--- Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>
wrote:
> >Oh wait, yes I do.
> > The Recycling Troll
>
> There is obviously a case for not recycling trolls,
> as well as denying them
> nourishment.  I take it they walk out of landfills;
> perhaps a deep ocean
> trench, or one of the less popular moons of Saturn.
>
> Charles
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________
Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday!
Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web
http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/


body:
What makes you think that I have a problem with
anyones behavior? Why do you think it is
counter-productive to make a focussed review of
someone's edits?
Honestly. The only thing that is counter-productive is
the continual insistence by some people to block me
because I want to review someone's edits.
If all edits are open to scrutiny, then there
shouldn't be an issue.
The Recycling Troll

--- Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com>
wrote:
> Recycling Troll said:
> > why are
> > people afraid of scrutiny??
>
> All edits on Wikipedia are public and open to
> scrutiny, so the question is
> a non sequitur.  What you seem to be doing goes
> beyond that, apparently,
> and that may be why some people seem to have a
> problem with your edits.  I
> think it's wrong to describe this kind of thing as
> "stalking", but it's
> certainly counter-productive behavior.  If you have
> a problem with
> someone's behavior why not just use the dispute
> resolution process instead
> of your current method?
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________
Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday!
Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web
http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
I am not familiar with your editing nor do I know which articles you edit. I
can only encourage you to bring the issues you are speaking of here to the
attention of the community through the dispute resolution process. Of which
the first step is negotiation on the talk pages and on user talk pages. You
do not have to make a bit fuss, just keep a log of your edits, their
removal, your talk page comments regarding your edits and their removal,
etc. You need to keep this log in terms of dates and diffs, (please get back
to me if you don't understand what I mean by diffs).

You say you are being reversed by "majority bias". That can mean you are
trying to follow the NPOV policy or that you are violating it depending on
exactly what is involved. If the majority thinks London is the capital of
Japan that's one thing, if they think the United States of America can do no
wrong that is another. We need to see it.

Now, on your way, don't call other editors assholes (or the equivalent),
don't characterize their edits as stupid (or the equivalent) and don't
revert over and over (an occasional revert accompanied by changes others
might suggest is acceptable). That way you can come to the final steps
without fear of the arbitrators turning on you and saying you are the
problem yourself, "Get out of here."

Following these steps will take some time, perhaps a few months, by the time
you get to arbitration you will have built a track record which will reduce
that risk.

In the meantime you can improve your negotiation and research skills, try
out mediation and learn how to marshal evidence.

I make these suggestions because the problem you speak of is important and
needs to be addressed. I hope you have the patience and courage to pursue
the matter.

I will conceed that in certain areas the problem you speak of actually
exists. However you need to name names and point to specific edits for
anyone to do anything about it. We may fail to adequately address the
problem, but we are willing to try.

Fred

> From: "Jim Cecropia" <jcecropia at mail.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 00:34:49 -0400
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia
>
> Do not tell me these rules are applied equally. I don't edit certain articles
> anymore because I'll research an edit, back it up with sources, and bring the
> information down to an NPOV minimum. But how many like me realize that hours
> of work will be relentlessly reversed by the majority bias on the subject?
> That's the weakness of Wikipedia.


body:
On Wed, 09 Mar 2005 01:05:08 -0800, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> I tried to keep the en:Wiktionary main page available to everybody for a
> long time.  A page move vandal changed my mind.

One step towards freeing up the main page would be offering admins the
intermediate step of move-protection.

--
+sj+


subject: [Foundation-l] Appaled by Christiaan

body:
On Wed, 09 Mar 2005 13:47:49 +0700, Walter van Kalken
<walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
> First he tells Gerard to go write down this his comments elsewhere. And
> now he is censoring the page Gerard wrote his comments. I find this

That C-word again... it's driving me... crazy...

Neither version of the page that was being fought over was
particularly NPOV; neither the one with the sentence "As the proposers
of what is now euphemestically called...." nor the one mentioning
GerardM by name.  And both sides in the dispute make good points.  I
tried to clarify the discussion and history; please work on wording
your points more precisely, rather than just reverting.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Desirability_of_end-user_image_suppression
This article will become feature-quality yet.

+sj+


subject: [Foundation-l] Appaled by Christiaan


body:
On Wed, 09 Mar 2005 08:46:31 +0100, Mathias Schindler <neubau at presroi.de> wrote:
> I got more or less the same result after consulting google :)

>>> Although up until now I had experienced no inconveniences...
>>> this time, I found some errors and misconceptions in a few

Me too.  I still remember the first time Google done me wrong.

SJ


from_name: Stephen Forrest

body:
On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 16:23:49 -0800, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

> You fail to take into account the presence of Canadian troops in the
> International Commission for Supervision and Control (ICCS)  alongside
> those from Poland and Indonesia, from 1954 to 1974.

It seems there is more of this for me to learn, though I'm surprised
this ICCS business wasn't mentioned on [[Canada and the Vietnam War]]
or the existing discussion on [[Talk:Ann Coulter]]).  Anyway, I quite
agree this belongs on the talk page.  Sorry for furthering the noise
by replying.

Steve


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

body:
> Clearly the government of Canada did not send troops to Vietnam.
> Clearly also, Canadian citizens fought alongside Americans in
> the Vietnam.
>
> However, I believe the only reasonable neutral interpretation
> of "Canada sent troops to Vietnam", in the context provided
> (when talking about the actions of the Canadian government
> w.r.t. wars) is that the Canadian government sent soldiers
> from its army to Vietnam.
>
> I quite agree that the anti-Coulter arguments deserve
> balance, and I think it's important to mention that Canadians
> did serve there (in Coulter's defence).  But I also think
> that suggesting that Canada
> *did* send troops is an inaccurate characterization of the
> facts surrounding that particular POV.
>
> Steve

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. I agree that the
[[Ann Coulter]] article should mention that (to use exact words):

* Canadians did serve there

Whether or not _government_ of Canada sent "troops in Canadian uniform"
to Vietnam is a another thing. There are three points of view on this
sub-point:

1. No Canadian troops *whatsoever* were sent "by the Canadian
government" to Vietnam (in any capacity).

2. Some Canadian troops were sent by the Canadian government, and the
"served" in Vietnam (but not as combat troops).

3. The Canadian sent substantial number of active duty soldiers (with
weapons) to Vietnam, but they never (or hardly ever) shot at North
Vietnamese soldiers or Viet Cong fighters.

4. Canada's *government* sent large numbers of combat troops to Vietnam
(at least one battalion, i.e., 500 men), and they engaged the enemy.

Option one definitely implies that Coulter was 100% wrong.

Option two makes Coulter partially wrong, and McKeown partially wrong
(but McKeown wins the "gotcha" game).

Option three makes Coulter partially right, and McKeown partially wrong
(i.e., they both were somewhat mixed up; gotcha game ends in a draw!).

Option four makes Coulter 100% right, and McKeown and Moore 100% wrong.

I don't think options #1 or #4 are correct, not based on reading
[[Canada and Vietnam]] and Ray (Eclecticology)'s recent post.

Then there's the other slant: to what extent is a person "wrong" if they
say "the country sent troops" (possibly meaning its government) rather
than "men from that country fought" (could be either gov't troops or
citizens who joined another country's army)?

Coulter's slant is that she was wrong (but she seems to regard it as a
misstatement more akin to a slip of the tongue or choosing the wrong
word.

Moore's slant is that she was dead wrong (probably even *knowingly*
wrong, i.e., lied on purpose; or possibly just ignorantly wrong, i.e.,
thought it was the government sending active duty personnel).

The anti-Coulter crowd in general (based on blog posts) seems to regard
this as Coulter being "exposed" as a deliberate liar. Finally, they have
clear, definitive proof that the B###h (or Wh###) just goes around
making stuff up even though she really has no case at all.

I don't think the Wikipedia should take the side of the anti-Coulter
crowd, but I have no objection to letting the article recount or
summarize their argument.

Ed Poor


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors

body:
The first thing that is wrong is that I am tempted to click on that link to
see who it is and what you might have done.

Then if I look at your edits and decide they are indeed "fuckwitted" and the
person making the personal attacks is a valuable and popular editor, I might
be tempted to excuse him.

The policy is No personal attacks. That attack and any other attacks you see
on yourself or any other editor may be deleted on sight.

We do not provide for automatic blocking or banning of persons who make
personal attacks. What generally happens is that eventually through the
dispute resolution process they come to arbitration. Generally they are put
on personal attack parole. Then they can be banned for a short period if
they make an attack.

Now I will follow the link:

Searching for "fuckwit", I find User:Adam Carr, a user who is considered to
be a very valuable editor who has a history of making personal attacks but
who has yet to be "brought to justice". He was once banned for one day for
this but complained vociferously. Obviously a slap on the wrist and several
warnings does no more good than a fart in the wind.

I will now examine your contributions to see if you are a "bad" editor:

The controversy seems to be about who is "head of state" of Australia, you
see to be hold a minority view, whatever that is. Adam Carr says: "We have
heard your views on these topics ad nauseam. We have decided that we don't
agree with you. We are now proceeding to edit the article in accordance with
the majority view. That is the way things work here. If you don't like it,
feel free to leave. Is that clear enough for you? Adam 06:48, 9 Mar 2005
(UTC)"

What I question, without looking at the article, or knowing with certainty
what the actual issue is; is why some mechanism using NPOV is not used to
somehow express both views.

Looking at one of the diffs in the editor war on the article page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Government_of_Australia&diff=10723
006&oldid=10720075

I see that both views are set forth in full in both your versions, but that
while Adam Carr says there IS a convention that the Governor General is head
of state of Australia, you say that there IS a contention over the question.

Ah Hah, I might say, a "bad editor arguing over nothing", because your
generalization that there is a contention is smack dab in the middle of an
extended discussion of the different ways one might look at the matter. To
extend that point further, is the question of head of state usually argued
when candidates stand for election?

Anyway, while I find Adam in the right as far as editing is concerned, he is
certainly in the wrong with respect to his abusive language and discourtesy.

Fred

Anyway, please feel free to use Wikipedia's dispute resolution mechanism,
but please don't fall into the sort of behavior we see Adam engaging in
here. Don't make personal attacks and be courteous to other editors

> From: Skyring <skyring at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: Skyring <skyring at gmail.com>, English Wikipedia
> <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 18:51:41 +1100
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors
>
> I've just copped the latest in a long line of personal attacks from
> one particular editor who stands out for his attitude in a community
> where tolerance and restraint is generally the norm. I don't think his
> comments are justified, but even if they were, I would still take
> exception to the language:
>
> "Well I'm upset (really pissed off actually) by your deliberate
> obfuscation and timewasting, your dishonesty, your malicious
> misrepresentation of other people arguments, your rampant vanity and
> egotism and your general obnoxious fuckwittedness, so get used to it."
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Government_of_Australia#The_real_issue
>
> To my mind this is no way to conduct any sort of productive debate,
> and as a rather new editor I wonder just how much this sort of thing
> is tolerated.
>
> --
> Peter in Canberra
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors

body:
Oh, well I see there is more too this in a thread I have not been following:

>> of state is not the monarchy, therefore we fall inside the definition
>> of what is a republic. This is ORIGINAL RESEARCH. I have read some of
>> his sources, and none of them state what he thinks they say.

>Before something can be Original research it must first be research.
>Please learn the difference between research and wishful thinking.

>Ec

So there is some thought that you might be a very bad editor pushing an
eccentric point of view unsupported by reliable authority. This approach is
not recommended and can easily result in you being banned from articles
which relate to Australian politics. However, our policy remains No personal
attacks.

Fred

> From: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 07:24:17 -0700
> To: <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors
>
> The first thing that is wrong is that I am tempted to click on that link to
> see who it is and what you might have done.
>
> Then if I look at your edits and decide they are indeed "fuckwitted" and the
> person making the personal attacks is a valuable and popular editor, I might
> be tempted to excuse him.
>
> The policy is No personal attacks. That attack and any other attacks you see
> on yourself or any other editor may be deleted on sight.
>
> We do not provide for automatic blocking or banning of persons who make
> personal attacks. What generally happens is that eventually through the
> dispute resolution process they come to arbitration. Generally they are put
> on personal attack parole. Then they can be banned for a short period if
> they make an attack.
>
> Now I will follow the link:
>
> Searching for "fuckwit", I find User:Adam Carr, a user who is considered to
> be a very valuable editor who has a history of making personal attacks but
> who has yet to be "brought to justice". He was once banned for one day for
> this but complained vociferously. Obviously a slap on the wrist and several
> warnings does no more good than a fart in the wind.
>
> I will now examine your contributions to see if you are a "bad" editor:
>
> The controversy seems to be about who is "head of state" of Australia, you
> see to be hold a minority view, whatever that is. Adam Carr says: "We have
> heard your views on these topics ad nauseam. We have decided that we don't
> agree with you. We are now proceeding to edit the article in accordance with
> the majority view. That is the way things work here. If you don't like it,
> feel free to leave. Is that clear enough for you? Adam 06:48, 9 Mar 2005
> (UTC)"
>
> What I question, without looking at the article, or knowing with certainty
> what the actual issue is; is why some mechanism using NPOV is not used to
> somehow express both views.
>
> Looking at one of the diffs in the editor war on the article page:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Government_of_Australia&diff=10723
> 006&oldid=10720075
>
> I see that both views are set forth in full in both your versions, but that
> while Adam Carr says there IS a convention that the Governor General is head
> of state of Australia, you say that there IS a contention over the question.
>
> Ah Hah, I might say, a "bad editor arguing over nothing", because your
> generalization that there is a contention is smack dab in the middle of an
> extended discussion of the different ways one might look at the matter. To
> extend that point further, is the question of head of state usually argued
> when candidates stand for election?
>
> Anyway, while I find Adam in the right as far as editing is concerned, he is
> certainly in the wrong with respect to his abusive language and discourtesy.
>
> Fred
>
> Anyway, please feel free to use Wikipedia's dispute resolution mechanism,
> but please don't fall into the sort of behavior we see Adam engaging in
> here. Don't make personal attacks and be courteous to other editors
>
>
>
>
>> From: Skyring <skyring at gmail.com>
>> Reply-To: Skyring <skyring at gmail.com>, English Wikipedia
>> <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>> Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 18:51:41 +1100
>> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
>> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors
>>
>> I've just copped the latest in a long line of personal attacks from
>> one particular editor who stands out for his attitude in a community
>> where tolerance and restraint is generally the norm. I don't think his
>> comments are justified, but even if they were, I would still take
>> exception to the language:
>>
>> "Well I'm upset (really pissed off actually) by your deliberate
>> obfuscation and timewasting, your dishonesty, your malicious
>> misrepresentation of other people arguments, your rampant vanity and
>> egotism and your general obnoxious fuckwittedness, so get used to it."
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Government_of_Australia#The_real_issue
>>
>> To my mind this is no way to conduct any sort of productive debate,
>> and as a rather new editor I wonder just how much this sort of thing
>> is tolerated.
>>
>> --
>> Peter in Canberra
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors

body:
--- Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> As far as I know, we don't have any policy to justify blocking over personal
> attacks. I would suggest unblocking Adam Carr, even though his abusive
> remarks in this instance are uncalled for and inconsistent with his
reputation as a
> fine editor. I guess everyone blows a fuse now and again.

All polices are enforceable. Just because a certain one does not specify a
specific punishment for violating it, does not mean it is not enforceable. The
ArbCom has banned a bunch of users for regularly violating the no personal
attacks policy. ASAIK, admins can and should enforce this policy when they see
it violated after a warning is given.

-- mav

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


from_name: James D. Forrester

body:
On Wednesday, March 09, 2005 6:18 AM, Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Why was this brought here instead of to the Talk page of the article
> in question?

One imagines for the normal reason - an attempt to rally people to the
cause, which more often than not merely causes a low-level argument over an
incrediably obscure piece of knowledge to ramble on on the mailing list (the
Wrong Place(tm)) rather than the talk page(s) involved (the Right
Place(tm)), diverting a great many's attention from other, more pressing
things.

Yours,
--
James D. Forrester -- Wikimedia: [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]

Mail: james at jdforrester.org | jon at eh.org | csvla at dcs.warwick.ac.uk
IM  : (MSN) jamesdforrester at hotmail.com


from_name: Evan Prodromou

body:
On Tue, 2005-08-03 at 11:16 -0800, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:

> PhDs are valuable evidence of that, and attracting and
> retraining academic specialists is a valid goal.

I hope you mean "retaining" and not "retraining" here, Jimbo. B-)

~Evan

--
Evan Prodromou
evan at bad.dynu.ca


from_name: Charles Matthews

body:
> Why was this brought here instead of to the Talk page
> of the article in question?
>
> RickK

Presumably because Ed Poor felt outnumbered.  His rather verbose apologia
for the Coulter lady (hmm - that the right word?) wasn't going down well.

Charles


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors

body:
I didn't look it up Ed. I don't do a lot of policing myself and have often
found myself wrong if I don't carefully examine any policy that becomes an
issue. I may once again, in a negative way, sinned by not being fully up to
date on what can and cannot be done. Rooting for you though,

Fred

> From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 10:16:13 -0500
> To: <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors
>
> I gave Adam Carr a 15-hour block (for abusive language).
>
> But then I read Fred Bauder's remark that:
> * We do not provide for automatic blocking or banning of persons who
> make personal attacks.
> So once again I hereby "place myself on report".
> I had thought that any of the 415 admins, having the "ability" to block
> signed-in users, were "authorized" to use that ability to enforce the
> rules - such as:
> [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]
> If I'm wrong, then I hope the first thing the arbcom will do is unblock
> Adam Carr. In fact, if I'm OBVIOUSLY wrong, than I guess ANY ONE of the
> 415 admins will reverse the block.
> Hmm. This is interesting. Let's see what happens.
> Uncle Ed
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Stirling Newberry

body:
On Mar 9, 2005, at 8:09 AM, Evan Prodromou wrote:

> On Tue, 2005-08-03 at 11:16 -0800, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
>
>> PhDs are valuable evidence of that, and attracting and
>> retraining academic specialists is a valid goal.
>
> I hope you mean "retaining" and not "retraining" here, Jimbo. B-)
>
> ~Evan
>

Both Wikipedia is different from academic writing. The point of an
academic paper is to drive to a point, the purpose of a wiki article is
to describe the points made in notable and documentable sources.


from_name: Mathias Schindler

body:
Mark Williamson schrieb:
> Here is my attempt:
>
I got more or less the same result after consulting google :)

Mathias


from_name: Brian M

body:
I suspect The Recycling Troll is a troll -- that is, a person who
craves attention and who finds it entertaining to annoy and provoke
others. His username looks like an announcement that he is, the first
step towand getting attention, and there is no reason not to believe
him.   A non-troll is unlikely to choose that as a username.

That said, "being a troll" is not a violation of our policies.  Our
policies are formulated in terms of behaviours, and we shouldn't be
banning people who comply with the policies and norms of the project
because we don't like the motivation behind their behaviour.    If a
troll finds away to get attention and to be provocative without
violating our policies, then we should reconsider our policies. We
shouldn't be banning people simply because they are thought to be
trolls.

Concerning, RT's behaviours in this instance, what is wrong with them.
 In fact, members of Wikipedia are routinely monitored by
administrators and other members.   There is nothing wrong with it.
If A is working on an article and notices that B's edits are
questionable (by A's lights), it seems fine with me if A checks other
articles that B has worked on, or is working on, to see if he is
propagating his supposed errors into other articles.   I don't see
anything wrong with that, although no doubt B might find it quite
annoying to have someone following him around.   As long as A's edits
are within policy, I don't see that there is any Wikipedia policy that
is being violated.  Indeed, if B is indeed a "POV-warrior", then A's
behaviour might well be hailed as a service to the community.  Who
decides who can monitor whom?   Are administrators immune from being
monitored?

Presuming that RT is a troll, he has noticed that RickK is a bit
excitable, and that he doesn't have the full support of all other
administrators, and he has decided to get attention by targetting him.
  He is doing it in a way that is entirely within policy.   The
solution is not to make up rules in order to ban him, or to allow him
to provoke a reaction from the administrators that will bring
discredit upon them rather than him.

The solution, as with all trolls is "Do not feed the trolls".  In
other words, ignore him.  An administrator, above all, must be able to
do this, because trolls will try to provoke administrators as a
favorite target, knowing that provoking an over-reaction from an
administrator is the best way to cause dissension and get attention.

So, I repeat: ignore him.   If he can't get a reaction by being
annoying within the the rules of the site, he will either get bored or
he will be compelled to break an actual policy of the project, and
then he can be blocked without doing violence to the principles
underpinning the project.


body:
--- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> I obviously speak only for myself here, not Jimbo, but IMO promoting
> minority languages is separate from the main goal.  The goal of creating
> an *encyclopedia* is to get information to people, in a language-neutral
> way.  The only importance of any language in that context is that the
> encyclopedia needs to be available in enough languages so that everyone,
> or at least as many people as possible, can access information in a
> language they feel comfortable using---only creating an English
> encyclopedia, for example, would leave out in the cold people who don't
> understand English well enough to make good use of it.

Let?s not forget that language is not only a means by which information is
presented, it is also part of the human experience we are documenting. One of
the main reasons why many schools require students to learn a second language
is to expose students to a different culture and way of codifying thought (this
contrast is often very instructive in showing the student how their own
language works).

Thus helping to preserve an endangered language by hosting an encyclopedia in
it also directly furthers our goal. This would not include non-famous conlangs
since those are largely original research.

-- mav

__________________________________
Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday!
Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web
http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/


from_name: Rick

body:
--- Theresa Knott <theresaknott at gmail.com> wrote:
> What do we do in the meantime if RickK loses it and
> decides to leave?
> We can't ignore him. SDo let's block him instead.

Well, I'm not going to do that over this stupid troll,
unless he does something really outrageous.  All I've
done up to this point is to point out his behavior.

RickK

__________________________________
Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday!
Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web
http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors

body:
--- Tom Haws <hawstom at sprintmail.com> wrote:
>Speaking from personal experience, I
> find my admin
> privileges largely useless.  Outright vandalism is
> quite rare

Are you reading the same Wikipedia that I am?

RickK

__________________________________
Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday!
Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web
http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/


from_name: Tom Haws

subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors

body:
Charles Matthews wrote:

>I don't want to find out.  Others please support me, in saying that Ed is
>out of line here.  Policy can't just be made on the hoof, any more.  The
>scare quotes round "authorized" tell me just about all I need to know.
>Civility is a big plus on WP, but enforcement of this kind goes way beyond
>what I would accept.  Out of hand bans for vandalism, yes.
>
>
I support you.  Speaking from personal experience, I find my admin
privileges largely useless.  Outright vandalism is quite rare, and good
civility constrains me from protecting pages, blocking users, and doing
outright reverts almost always.  I suspect this is as it should be.  It
is very unfortunate that for some people, losing control amounts to
inexcusable outbursts like that.  But escalating the situation is
unlikely to to any good, and definitely constitutes an abuse of force.

Tom Haws


from_name: csherlock at ljh.com.au

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Exeunt 172

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> Karl A. Krueger said:
>
>>Personal attacks are not permitted on this mailing list.
>>
>
> Spoken like a true running dog of the capitalist-imperialist war-mongering
> hegemony.

Look here you pinko liberal feminist! No personal attacks!

TBSDY


from_name: Delirium

subject: [Foundation-l] German law and wikiquote

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:

>It turns out that, according to the legal opinion, German law prohibits
>the collection of quotes, or quotes as such, if they are not used in a
>context.
>
>That would mean the German wikiquote project's legal status is shaky at
>best. (IANAL)
>
>
Does this mean that printed collections of quotes, like the equivalent
of the English world's ubiquitous _Bartlett's Book of Quotations_, are
not commonly available in German bookstores?

-Mark


subject: [Foundation-l] German law and wikiquote


from_name: JAY JG

body:
>From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
>>>Deductive reason is the application of logic to the facts as already
>>>presented.
>>
>>Easy to do in simple cases; quite complex when the issue is something like
>>politics or international law.  And, in the latter case, if done by the
>>editor themselves, generally (and wisely) forbidden as original research
>>as well, as per the No original research policy.
>
>But your reference was at least stated to be based in genetics.  The
>reference to editors is meaningless since we are all editors.

Huh?  Of course we're all editors.  And editors can't use Wikipedia articles
to present novel theses etc.

>There's very little in the way of original research done here in politics;
>you're confusing original research with original speculation.

Hmm, interesting use of a semantic argument, but irrelevant to the No
original research policy.

>>Well, I could have used real examples from articles I've seen, but that
>>would have bogged the list down, when it could have been doing more
>>important things like arguing about whether or not 172's contributions
>>were "balanced" or "pro-communist screeds".
>
>"Bogged the list down" = "exposed your ideas to attack".  The POV that you
>push does not need a basis in reality.

Huh?  I haven't brought my own ideas or POV here, nor are they "under
attack."  The No original research policy is clear; whether or not you
accept is another matter entirely.

>As for 172, it's a question of his bringing balance to some points by
>removing the half-truths and innuendos promoted by the anti-communist wolf
>pack

"Anti-communist wolf pack"?  Sheesh!  The comment was meant to inject a
lighter note into the discussion, though in hindsight I suppose I should
have said that the list could return to the more important task of deciding
whether or not Australia is a constitutional monarchy or a republic, since
this kind of over the top response from you on the 172 debate should have
been entirely predictable.

>>>>>You seem to forget the original purpose for the rule.
>>>>
>>>>I don't think so; what do you think I have forgotten?
>>>
>>>That the purpose was to avoid becoming overrun with loose cannon
>>>theories.
>>
>>Including those developed and presented by Wikipedia editors.  If a
>>particular argument hasn't been published somewhere reputable, then it too
>>is a "loose cannon theory".
>
>Again the reference to Wikipedia editors is menaingless.  Are you
>suggesting yourself as the judge of what is reputable? :-D :-D :-D

Sorry Ray, you're not making any sense.  Original research is research done
by Wikipedia editors and presented in Wikipedia articles,  as opposed to
reasearch published in other reputable venues.

Jay.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II

body:
Skyring wrote:
> On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 13:00:19 +1100, csherlock at ljh.com.au
> <csherlock at ljh.com.au> wrote:
>
>>Interesting. However, all laws must pass through the governor general
>>who is the Queen's representative.
>
>
> He is only the Queen's representative in a very limited way, as set
> out in the Constitution. His constitutional powers, including the
> reserve powers, are given to him in his own right. Unlike other
> Commonwealth realms, such as New Zealand or Canada, where the
> Governor-General merely exercises the Queen's powers.
>
>
>>Also, a republic is a "a form of government whose head of state is not a
>>monarch; "the head of state in a republic is usually a president".
>>Despite what you've said, our head of state is the Queen.
>
>
> And it says that where...?

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=republic

>>See http://www.republic.org.au/ARM-2001/q&a/qa_hos.htm - they ARM say that:
>>
>>Elizabeth II, the Queen of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, is
>>Australia's Head of State because:
>>
>>The Constitution of Australia defines the Parliament as "the Queen, a
>>Senate, and a House of Representatives" and vests the Federal
>>legislative (law-making) power in the Parliament (section 1, Constitution).
>>
>>The executive power (the governing and administrative power) of the
>>Commonwealth of Australia is vested in the Queen (section 61,
>>Constitution).
>>
>>If the ARM can't get this right, then I don't know who can.
>
>
> The ARM quotes the Constitution, but the Constitution doesn't say that
> the Queen is head of state, unlike the constitutions of other
> Commonwealth realms, such as New Zealand or Papua New Guinea. The ARM
> is relying on their own opinion rather than any definitive source.
>
> The ARM is a partisan organisation promoting a one-sided view. This is
> like saying that the Republican Party's views on gay marriage are
> definitive.
> Interesting, but unimpressive.

Find me a commentator who says we are a republic (but don't do it on the
mailing list) and then we'll talk.

TBSDY


body:
>From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
>slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:
>>>From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
>>>>JAY JG wrote:
>>>>No, that's a strawman argument.  "Deductive reasoning" becomes original
>>>>research when it is used to build a case against a position presented in
>>>>an article, not when used to do unit conversions.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Deductive reason is the application of logic to the facts as already
>>>presented.  The uncle/nephew vs. aunt/niece is simply a nonsense comment
>>>pulled out of imagination.
>>>
>>Ray - Jay is correct in his description of original research. His
>>point is simply that deduction (that is, drawing a conclusion from a
>>set of premises) should not be used by editors to make a point not
>>already made in a credible publication.
>>
>This sounds like an argument for the commandment, "Thou shalt not think."

No, Ray, it's just the No original research policy, and it allows for plenty
of thought.  Maybe you should re-read it.

Jay.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II

body:
Skyring wrote:
> On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 14:36:37 +0000, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Skyring wrote:
>>
>>>On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 08:59:49 -0500, Stephen Forrest
>>><stephen.forrest at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>>As I said before, I am not aware of any commonly accepted definition
>>>>of 'republic' which includes constitional monarchies.
>>
>>>How about the first two definitions in the Oxford English Dictionary
>>>or the first two in Australia's Macquarie Dictionary?
>>>Australia is a commonwealth, sovereignty resides in the people, the
>>>monarch is a powerless figurehead, the monarch is not the head of
>>>government, the form of government is republican and the executive
>>>power is exercised by an appointed official.
>>>Australia may share the same Queen as the UK, New Zealand and Canada,
>>>but the constitutional arrangements are quite different.
>>
>>I notice you have a severe absence of sources to refer to on the point -
>>you know, anything other than your own original research that says
>>the words "Australia is a republic."
>
>
> Do tell? Have you actually '''read''' [[Talk:Government of
> Australia]]? You'll get more sources there than you can shake a fist
> at. Dive in.
>

All refuted or questioned to some degree. I've most definitely read that
page.

TBSDY


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II

body:
>From: "csherlock at ljh.com.au" <csherlock at ljh.com.au>
>
>The controversy has come about because Skyring insists that our head of
>state is not the monarchy, therefore we fall inside the definition of what
>is a republic. This is ORIGINAL RESEARCH. I have read some of his sources,
>and none of them state what he thinks they say.

Nah, it's just "simple deductive reasoning".  I can't believe you're using
your POV and extremist interpretation of the No original research rule to
try to disallow simple deductive reasoning from Wikipedia articles; you
might as well be issuing the commandement "Thou shalt not think."

Jay.


from_name: geni

body:
> One step towards freeing up the main page would be offering admins the
> intermediate step of move-protection.

Well there certianly is a tick box for it in the protection section. I
don't know if it works though.  If it does the sandbox is protected
against page moves.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors

body:
steven l. rubenstein wrote:

> I believe that both positions I have hypothesized are extreme.  I hope
> members of the list-serve can present alternatives, and discuss this
> case as a means for clarifying our ideas about policies and procedures.
>
Steve,

Your "First aproach: No personal attacks, period" is both extreme and
correct.  That in it's pure form must always be our policy.  Yesterday,
for example, I was guilty of saying at [[Talk:Human]], "It is clear that
the editors currently present are not interested in talking first and
shooting later."  My personal attack required an apology.

If Adam Carr had believed in the primacy of that rule, he would have
directed his frustration toward finding acceptable solutions instead of
taking the easy and ineffective way out of blowing his top at Peter in
Canberra (Skyring).  He needed to search deeper for solutions to the
Peter Problem.

Tom Haws


body:
>From: Recycling Troll <recyclingtroll at yahoo.com>
>
>Erm, you have managed to completely ignore the
>question of why I am being blocked for scrutinising
>what an admin is doing. Of course, it is taboo to
>suggest that admins need any oversight.

Sheesh.  Please read the [[Strawman]] article on Wikipedia, ok?

>Please. Follow policy, common sense, and natural
>justice and let users check other's edits and make
>subsequent improvements.

I'm going to follow common sense from now on and not feed The Recycling
Trolls.

Jay.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>Some people have lower boiling points than
>others and can easily be provoked.
>
This is not to my knowledge a terminal condition or a good excuse.  We
can all learn to boil slowly and gently.  The message of the policy is
clear.  "Take responsibility for your own temper."

Tom Haws


from_name: Skyring

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II

body:
On Wed, 09 Mar 2005 09:51:19 +1100, csherlock at ljh.com.au
<csherlock at ljh.com.au> wrote:
> Skyring wrote:
> > On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 13:00:19 +1100, csherlock at ljh.com.au
> > <csherlock at ljh.com.au> wrote:
> >
> >>Interesting. However, all laws must pass through the governor general
> >>who is the Queen's representative.
> >
> >
> > He is only the Queen's representative in a very limited way, as set
> > out in the Constitution. His constitutional powers, including the
> > reserve powers, are given to him in his own right. Unlike other
> > Commonwealth realms, such as New Zealand or Canada, where the
> > Governor-General merely exercises the Queen's powers.
> >
> >
> >>Also, a republic is a "a form of government whose head of state is not a
> >>monarch; "the head of state in a republic is usually a president".
> >>Despite what you've said, our head of state is the Queen.
> >
> >
> > And it says that where...?
>
> http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=republic

Ummm, that merely gives the definition of republic you've already
quoted. I wasn't disputing that. What''s your definitive source for
saying the Queen is the head of state?

--
Peter in Canberra


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors

body:
I gave Adam Carr a 15-hour block (for abusive language).

But then I read Fred Bauder's remark that:
* We do not provide for automatic blocking or banning of persons who
make personal attacks.
So once again I hereby "place myself on report".
I had thought that any of the 415 admins, having the "ability" to block
signed-in users, were "authorized" to use that ability to enforce the
rules - such as:
[[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]
If I'm wrong, then I hope the first thing the arbcom will do is unblock
Adam Carr. In fact, if I'm OBVIOUSLY wrong, than I guess ANY ONE of the
415 admins will reverse the block.
Hmm. This is interesting. Let's see what happens.
Uncle Ed


from_name: Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:
> "in their own language" - does this mean "a language that they can, to
> a certain degree, comprehend" or "the language they learned natively
> as a child before all others" (or rather than that, at least "that
> language which in their mind comes before all others" - there can be
> various problems with native language retention given certain
> circumstances)?

I would say something closer to the latter.  If *really* pressed to be
specific, what I would say is that we would like to have Wikipedia
available in _at least_ enough languages that 99.99% of the people who
can read, can read wikipedia comfortably.

> For example, does creating a Hopi Wikipedia (assuming that we had
> already found committed people to build it) when there are only just
> over 40 monolingual speakers DIRECTLY further the goal of the project,
> or is it a sideline to it since the vast majority of the speakers of
> this language are nearly equally served by an English Wikipedia?

I would say that it is a sideline.  But if we found enough committed
people to build it, I see no problem with it in this case.  There are
some technical/social constraints here that we have to deal with of
course, so I'm not suggesting that if you go find 3 native speakers of
Hopi we should (or should not) launch a wiki for them.

We can distinguish between our _central_ purpose for multi-lingual
work (which is to bring an encyclopedia to everyone in the world) and
the _secondary_ purpose of cultural/language preservation.  The second
is something I also support, but it is secondary.

> I think that everybody needs to be clear on this. I haven't seen
> resentment from you  for minority language Wikipedias, in fact I have
> seen a great deal of support, but from some (Sheng Jiong most recently
> from some things he said) I have gotten the clear message that they
> believe we should only have Wikipedias in LWCs (languages of wider
> communication - french, spanish, japanese, afrikaans, dutch, croatian
> as opposed to breton, guarani, ainu, venda, limburgish, zulu). Please
> note that I am NOT referring to everybody who disagrees with me -
> there are many who do not show this viewpoint but still believe  that
> more criteria should be required for new Wikipedias.

Yes.  I think a lot of difficulty has been caused by high emotions
surrounding a type of case which is significantly different from Hopi.
Dialects are much more difficult to decide about, as are cases where
the written language is the same but the spoken language different.

In cases such as these, it is very hard to know where to draw the
lines.

--Jimbo


body:
>From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net
>
>If we follow the severely restrictive approach to "original research" that
>some people are proposing our encyclopedia would be full of nothing but
>dumbed-down pap.

It's not a proposal, it's an existing policy, and, when applied, it is
helping save the encyclopedia from being a repository for crank theories and
arguments presented as fact.  The notion that it will somehow create an
encyclopedia filled with " nothing but dumbed-down pap" is a bald assertion
which has no basis in reality.

Jay.


body:
Evan Prodromou wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-08-03 at 11:16 -0800, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
>
> > PhDs are valuable evidence of that, and attracting and
> > retraining academic specialists is a valid goal.
>
> I hope you mean "retaining" and not "retraining" here, Jimbo. B-)

*laugh* This is one of the best typos I have ever seen.  The beauty of
it is that it appears to subtly undermine my entire position.

"Sure, we respect academics, at least enough to retrain them..."

No, I meant 'retain'.  Sorry about that. :-)

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors

body:
JAY JG wrote:

> Thus, hypothetically, if Cheese Dreams had said Jesus was born in 100
> BCE, and Steven had insisted it was 4 BCE, the mediator would have
> insisted that they should both compromise and say that Jesus was born
> in 52 BCE.
>
More often than not, a root of the problem is the POV-pusher (and often
the valiant defender) has not read [[WP:NPOV]] at all, or maybe has only
read it quickly once.  In your example above, both editors could be
sentenced to read it twice and do a report on it.  Then they might com
up with the singularly NPOV idea that P-ists says P and Q-ists say Q.
These disputes are usually not all that difficult; the combatants simply
lack a common framework, and they spend all their time digging in
against each other instead of finding common ground.  Adam Carr in this
case could have done much better at winning over Peter as a true
Wikipedia ally.

Tom Haws


subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>I was pointing out that an undesired side-effect of enforcing "no
>personal attacks" with blocking could be, paradoxically, to give some
>people an incentive to provoke _more_ personal attacks.
>
100% correct, Tony.  Enforcement is a poor bandaid for bad diplomacy
(hmm, international implications here?)