from_name: David Baltzer

subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: Notice of Appeal of Ban

body:
Mr. Wales: Thank you for your reply, I am pleased to see you have the courage to deal with all issues on this matter openly and not hide behind theblocking of my communication by the moderator. I regret the delay in responding, but  it has taken me time to read and gather information from searching Wikipedia references so that I state facts. Unfortunately, the paranoia by some is so great that checking out the pages of all the aliases I?m accused of being, takes some time but they proved most valuable as you will see herein. I have inserted my most approropiate responses possible in italics and inserted the writers name.

J.WALES: First, don't be so formal and legalistic.  This isn't a court of law, it's a private website where editing is a privilege generously extended, and a friendly community of people trying to work on something we believe in.  It doesn't help your cause to be so formal.

Just speak plainly.

Joe Canuck: A person's writing style is a product of their education and lifelong environment. As such, it would be very difficult to comply with your request.  As to Wikipedia being a "friendly community," I discern something quite different from reading many of the messages on this list plus you might want to review your own recent outburst against J. Hoffman Kemp regarding Ayn Rand calling her remarks a "bizarre and ill-educated slur."  That is my definition of offensive. Then, your own words of advice to all on how to behave after announcing the Wikimedia Foundation.

 Joe Canuck: In response to my request for the reasons you banned me you stated:

 J.WALES: Please look at this concise summary:

http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-June/004729.html

Mr. Wales, this is not an answer. The statement here is AFTER you issued your ban and is therefore immaterial to the actions you stated as the facts that I had committed warranting your ban. And, unless you are waiving DMCA protection, you cannot step in to ban me but must be requested to do so by a third party. Please provide the complete details of the request for my banning.

 J.WALES:  1.  Are you the same person who was formerly logged in as 'DW' or 'Black Widow'?  Do you know DW and Black Widow?  Are you associated with them in any way?

 Joe Canuck: As to me being either of the above, in your banning announcement you said "I express no opinion on that matter." If it is a non-issue, why the sudden reversal once I question your ban? You did invite me challenge your ban as part of it being a non issue, did you not? And, as to do I "know" someone who, as best I can discern was previously banned, or am I  "associated" with someone who may have been previously banned, are you stating that if you ban someone their father, mother, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, children, friends, employers, priest, accountant, or any other party "associated" with them is banned too? As I do not understand, please clarify this important question so that I can and will answer all three questions fully.

 J.WALES:  2. As an example of the rude behavior in question, please re-read what you wrote:

 >The above photos were placed in Wikipedia by me in FULL compliance

>with the legal requirements set forth by the owners of

>Wikipedia.org. Arbitrary removal of these photos by any person here

>constitutes a violation of my rights to use Wikipedia.org in

>accordance with the owners regulations and the licenses under which it

>operates. I am not legally bound to answer any questions about photos

>I place here from other Users who show up here to use this site under

>the same equal terms and conditions as I. I am obliged only to obey

>the regulations set down by the owners under an open website

>license. Any person who disagrees with my position is welcome to take

>up the matter with the owners of Wikipedia.org. and I will obey their

>ruling without question. But, any individual who, without the express

>written authority of the owners of this website, violates my right to

>free and equal use and enjoyment of this open website will be held

>liable for their actions. Joe Canuck 03:36 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)

 This sort of quasi-legalistic nonsense is extremely rude, and completely misunderstands all of our policies.  The people who acted to remove those photos did so under my "express written authority".

You *had* the right to edit wikipedia, and others *still have* the right to make further edits, including removing the images that you uploaded.

 Joe Canuck: My words are a statement of fact and are in no way rude or disrespectful, or threatening  whatsoever. Your calling them "nonsense" is an opinion being tossed out not accompanied by proofs of any kind. Editing is one thing, but unwarranted interference is another. Text can be edited, and the reasons for it debated. Photos cannot. Therefore one cannot justify the arbitrary removal of a photo on any grounds. It is what it is. User?s are required to obey the rules set down by Wikipedia.org, not the rules created by others as I will demonstrate further on. If I, or any User at Wikipedia, were to obey what others on this OPEN site say, then some of us would be dead, others would be trying to have sex with themselves and others trying to go to hell etc. On your website Mr. Wales, I am not obliged to obey the whims of other users.

 J.WALES: Accusing them of violating your rights is preposterous.

 Joe Canuck: When I (or any person) arrives at Wikipedia they are granted the right to use this site in accordance with the rules built into the software which in turn operates under the  licenses under which the website is given the right to operate. Similarly, I nor anyone else has  the right to abuse this site nor do I have the right to deny another person the right to enjoy this site. For the site owner/operator to intervene and ban anyone, they must do so based on credible facts, not innuendo.  In the United States, it is a right to carry on business, not a privilege, and using an Open website has inherent rights under the DMCA because the owner must be passive and cannot interfere. Therefore, it is not a privilege, but an equal right. The first principle is equality of all Users. When another User demands I perform certain things over and above the built in software requirements, that is in fact a violation of my right to freely use this website. When they continue to demand of
 me the same thing, that is harassment. When others join in and together begin demanding I obey them, that is an organized or spontaneous cabal, something you declared as unacceptable in your statemnent of principles. The DMCA law states that you, being an owner-operator, must remain passive:  the conduct of the site Users are neither your responsibility or under your control unless you refute DMCA protection and choose to intervene. And I checked this morning, you have not cancelled your DMCA registration for copyright infringement protection. The issue over the photos I uploaded had nothing to do with fair use. It was solely my clear request that I not be discriminated against but that I be treated exactly as prior usewrs had, and users after me who had uploaded photos. What happened to meis clear, deliberate and targeted discrimination. I uploaded photos and followed the rules created by the Wikipedia.org software. And, being new (but one who  read a great deal before opening my
 mouth) I uploaded images consistent with the way ALL OTHER  users had been doing. If you, Mr. Wales, had taken the time to investigate before banning me, you would have seen that I alone was being told I MUST supply information others were not being asked to do. Despite my clear enunciation of the facts that out of the past 500+ to possibly 5,000 photos uploaded to Wikipedia, mine were the '''ONLY''' ones on which copyright proof was demanded yet a great many uploaded by others had no statement of copyright given. I suggest, Mr. Wales, that  you read the record of the facts about discrimination against me at Wikipedia talk:Image use policy/copyright. Check the image list as well as the facts on the Wikipedia talk:Image use policy/copyright page Mr. Wales and you will see someone posted samples of the multitudes of images uploaded where the only explanation is the name of the image or other meaningless wording that was never challenged, questioned or deleted. Others uploaded images
 have an unfounded claim that they were "taken by the User. " Accepting user claims of having taken a photo is an invitation to unlimited abuse yet it is in fact tolerated. However, even so if they do abuse this, there is no risk of any kind to Wikipedia because of your registration under the DMCA. Note however that UserMaverick posted a photo claiming it was in the ''public domain'' which was an outright lie. No one questioned this, not even after the lie was pointed out. But, the only ones questioned as to copyright for as far back as the list takes a user were mine --- and my photos were deleted. That Mr. Wales, is blatant discrimination.  And if I advise another User not to discriminate against me, that sir is not a threat. It is merely a proper desire  that everty citizen wants and is what democracy and human rights is all about.

 But, beyond the fact that no user is obliged to answer someone?s question, tolerance of that kind of conduct on an open site always escalates. And, at Wikipedia, tolerance of those making their demands on users has in fact been escalating. Here is an example on the  [[Wikipedia:Bans and blocks]], written by the user and your sysop, MyRedDice:

If you are the victim of a mistaken identity, please provide some evidence of who you are. This evidence might include a photograph of yourself (holding a sign saying "Hi, Wikipedia!"), or a non-disposable email address, or a work address or telephone number, or a link to your off-Wikipedia home page. Your evidence needs only be sufficient to convince the community that there is some reasonable doubt -- it need not be conclusive.

That this kind of demand is tolerated by you, Mr. Wales,  through the supposed Wikipedia Administrators, is not only absurd, it is frightening. Keep in mind, I recognize you must be passive, but equally passive. So, now you have notice on this matter. Worse though, is that you already received a written warning as to this Sysop?s conduct. Look back in this mailing list of May 8. You had a complaint from a User named sonyalebrun stating as fact that sysop MyRedDice had used Wikipedia to launch a hacker's attack against her. In your reply Mr. Wales, you were grossly rude, making unfounded accusations (that set an example for others), and belittled this person by stating that: "I find the claim about MyRedDice placing a photo of himself into this person's cookie folder wildly implausible." Following thisunacceptable conduct on your part, another user named koyaanis qatsi, who I believe is a long time and respected Wikipedia User, was so concerned that the next day he e-mailed you, with
 the following comment directed specifically to you:

 Jimmy writes:

> I find the claim about MyRedDice placing a photo

> of himself into this person's cookie folder

> wildly implausible, but nonetheless, I'm duty

> bound to say don't do that.  :-)

Hm, you don't think Martin could have hacked the

server and changed it to assign an ASCII-art

self-portrait cookie to DW and pals, but no one else?

I thought that's what Martin did for a living.

Kq

 Mr. Wales, User:MyRedDice is a sysop and one who acts, as you stated above: " under my "express written authority" ."Not only were you rude and dismissive of a serious charge against a person under your "express written authority," you ignored a warning from another credible user and did nothing but insult the complainant. That Mr. Wales is beyond rude, it is disgraceful and a dereliction of your duty under the laws which allows you to operate this site. And this statement by me is not "quasi-legalistic nonsense" as you called it above, but is an absolute fact of law. You can quote me on that.

 In addition, I found where User: J. Hoffman Kemp made racists statements about Canadians that User:MyRedDice moved to another page and rewrote them so as to deliberately obfuscate the racists statements. Question, Mr. Wales, why are the sysops and you tolerating this conduct? Intimidation works when others recognize that User:MyRedDice has hacker skills and as Kq said above that is: "what Martin did for a living." .

J.WALES: Questions about what you are, or are not, "legally bound" to do are completely irrelevant in this context -- you are bound to treat others with respect (this is a formal policy of Wikipedia!) as a matter of courtesy and as a matter of achieving valid goals.

 Joe Canuck: I treated everyone with respect at all times. In fact, had you taken the time to read the communications on this matter before banning me, you would see that I went out of my way to politely explain my position to several people even though I am not obliged to answer those questions. And, if you wish to waive your DMCA protection and abandon the passive requirement placed on you, then please do so and as an active owner/operator make all the rules you wish and I will, as I said I would, obey them.

 J.WALES: The question of "fair use" of images is a thorny one, and one which we struggle with constantly.  It is therefore important that those who are involved in controversies related to fair use of images stand ready to work in a friendly manner with others to reach a consensus. Making quasi-legalistic arguments like the one outlined above is wrong, and will not be tolerated.

 Joe Canuck: Here, Mr. Wales, I will do as you requested and try to be less formal. Your statement that "The question of "fair use" of images is a thorny one, and one which we struggle with constantly," is purely self-serving bull. Wikipedia.org has no stated goal for its future or that of its contents beyond the operational use of this website as it exists. Wikipedia.org through the DMCA license of Bomis Inc. has no risk of any kind with respect to a Wikipedia User uploading photos. You cannot be held liable so long as you remove them after your appointed DMCA agent receives a written legal notification of a violation from the copyright owner.  And, you are not required to monitor the photos uploaded to Wikipedia in any way shape of form. And, ewhen a user makjes a statement to you that I endangered Wikipedia with my photos and you ban me, then you have misrepresented this website to its users. And you did point to USER:Jtdirl?s statement to that effect. Where your supposed
 "struggle" comes in, is when Bomis Inc. uses Wikipedia?s uploaded images on their "For Profit" website. Second, we now move back  to your statements at the beginning of this discussion as to the software you created in compliance with your operating licenses. You do not have to "struggle" because you have control over the software and can prevent the uploading of images at anytime had you chosen to do so.

 J. WALES: If you are unable to agree, then we should just part company now.  I can give you some recommendations of hosting services for you to start your own website, as well as to give you the names of other "open editing" websites where your behavior may be more tolerated.

 Joe Canuck: No, thank you. My behaviour if you looked at it, was to put many hours of work on Wikipedia. And, from this mailing list have to know that someone called my contributions excellent. Logic, Mr. Wales, says someone who works quietly doing a great deal of work didn?t come to Wikipedia to cause harm. In fact, had you not exhibited prejudice as you did in your statement in response to sonyalebrun, you would have understood that.

 J. WALES: But behavior like this, which directly undermines our community spirit of friendly co-operation, is not allowed at Wikipedia.

--Jimbo

 Joe Canuck: First, my words and actions never once undermined your so-called community spirit. In fact, I tried to give off the message as politely as possible that Users who discriminate, harass, libel or take certain other actions against another User could trigger a lawsuit that is a real threat to Wikipedia while pointing out that uploaded images are no threat whatsoever.  My effort to enlighten others of the dangers has proven factual with yesterday?s announcement that the Recording Industry, who can do nothing about anything uploaded by Users on a DMCA registered site including songs and photos, are proceeding with legal actions against hundreds of users. As you, Mr. Wales, are aware, it is the website operator who is automatically drawn into these legal battles first, and secondly always as a co-respondent. If an individual has been the victim of harassment etc. at Wikipedia and sues the User for damages, Wikipedia will be named as was Kazaa in order to obtain the User?s true
 identity and you can well be forced to be part of lengthy and costly multiple legal proceedings. I was trying to help your website Mr. Wales, not harm it. However, I find your statement unacceptable and will list an example of your claim that Wikipedia is a " friendly community":

 From: User talk:172

Adam's family is trying to garble the opening paragraph of the history of the SU article. They seem intend on chopping up the opening paragraph so that it says something else to what it was meant to say. *sigh*. What a monumental asshole Adam and his minions is!!! [[User:Jtdirl|ST?D/??RE]] 04:23 Apr 12, 2003 (UTC)

 Also from: User talk:172

You not had a threat yet from that fuckwit 'Olga' yet? Darn it. You must be feeling left out. I've come across some piles of horse manure in my time but this crackpot really stands out. If only the nutter's intelligence was even half as well developed as his arrogance, he might be able to contribute something to wiki. But about all this fuckwit does is give everyone a laugh as they count down to his next banning. A prize asshole of the highest order who thinks we all don't know who he really is. [[User:Jtdirl|??REman]] 02:43 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC)

 Following these "friendly Wikipedia community remarks" calling people horse manure, crackpots, fuckwit, monumental asshole. User:Jtdirl|ST?D/??RE was accepted by you as an Administrator of Wikipedia where he could as you said, act  under your "express written authority." Note please, the following clear and precise statement accompanying Jtdirl?s appointment and can be found on:  [[User talk:Jtdirl (Archive 6)]]:

 As per Jimbo's agreement, you have just been made a sysop! Sysops basically can't do anything: They cannot delete pages arbitarily (only obvious junk like "jklasdfl,?asdf JOSH IS GAY"), they cannot protect pages in an edit war they are involved in, they cannot ban signed in users. What they can do is delete junk as it appears, ban anonymous vandals, remove pages that have been listed on Votes for deletion for more than a week, protect pages when asked to, and help keep the few protected pages there are, among them the precious Main Page, up to date.

Eloquence 01:10 3 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Note Mr. Wales,  the very clear warning about protecting pages when personally involved in an edit war. Note, Mr. Wales, had you checked before banning me, you would see that while acting under your  "express written authority" Sysop Jtdirl did precisely that to me, violating your trust by using his sysop powers to protect  several pages in an edit war with me. Following this, and your banning me came User:Jtdirl?s lies and libelous statement about me that you not only accepted but used to provide a link to as your answer for banning me. After this, your Sysop Jtdirl received this warning on [[User talk:Jtdirl (Archive 6)]]:

 01:26 24 Jun 2003 . . Maveric149

You said in an edit summary reverting another user: "moved to correct spelling after some idiot screwed it up"

JT, you're an Admin now and the user in question is not an "idiot." You know the rest. --mav

 However, Mr. Wales, this warning did neither either to stop Jtdirl because this followed:

 User talk:Evercat

18:03 25 Jun 2003 . . Jtdirl

With Michael running riot, Adam and DW back after the umpteenth banning, and a small bunch of arrogant idiots screwing up articles because of their own agendas (and blind to their own ignorance about most of the topics they insist on editing

Your "friendly" community has been clearly defined by the actions and words, and racist slurs under your "express written authority" of Administrators, Jtdirl, MyRedDice, J. Hoffman Kemp and others who I can document, along with your own rude and dismissive comments to sonyalebrun.

Finally, I request that you examine the facts and remove the ban on me and that you permnanently ban your Administrators, Jtdirl and MyRedDice for their conduct.

 Thank you. I await your reply.

 D.C. Baltzer (User:Joe Canuck)

---------------------------------
Post your free ad now! Yahoo! Canada Personals
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20030626/54f5b6fa/attachment.htm


list: textbook-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Daniel Ehrenberg

subject: [Textbook-l] Some concept ideas

body:
--- Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> On the other hand, keeping anonymous edits might be
> good as well, as
> vandals then wouldn't log in, and *potential* (!)
> vandalism could be
> rather easily on Recent Changes by the very fact
> that it's an anonymous
> edit (most "real" authors are probably logged in).

That seems akin to racial profiling. I knew a great
previously-anon user who now goes by
Crusadeonilliteracy. He didn't want to take credit for
his contrabutions, so he didn't make a login. But a
login was required to upload pictures and move pages,
so he made a username. If he couldn't make anon edits,
he probably wouldn't use wikipedia. I, and probably
the majority of the people on this list, also started
out anon for the first few contrabutions. Anonimity is
an essential part of a wiki. UseMod (which most wikis
run on for simplicity and speed, no offence Magnus)
doesn't even have logins.
-LDan

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
http://sbc.yahoo.com


subject: [Textbook-l] Textbooks (response to Jimbo's WikiEN-l post)

body:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
> Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
> > Could we please stop being US-centric ? There
> aren't any
> > creationists anywhere else in the world, and those
> in US seems more
> > like some kind of cult than something that has
> anything to do with
> > science.
>
> I don't see anything particularly US-centric about
> this discussion.
>
> --Jimbo

Well, the US is a religious, backwards country.
Whenever new (or old, like this) science is developed,
there is a big contraversey (unless it is something
that helps big buisness like GM foods. Then it is
swept under the rug). Some schools in the US want to
only teach creationism, but I'm sure that happens in
other countries. There must be other unscientific
countries like us.
LDan

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
http://sbc.yahoo.com


body:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
> Daniel Mayer wrote:
> > When there is no real controversy on a topic (in a
> global sense)
> > then facts can be presented as facts.
>
> That's right.  And a lot of science at the level of
> details does fall
> into the category.  For example, reasonable
> creationists don't claim
> that scientists are just *lying* about finding
> fossils, about genetic
> variation, and so on.  All the basic evidence is
> uncontroversial, at
> least generally speaking, although of course there
> are challenges to
> specific details here and there.
> --Jimbo

Even so, we'd need to report on the 'unreasonable'
creationists, which imho make up the vast majority.

And facts can be contravercial too. UFO sightings are
called 'facts', but they are, of course, disputed.
They are considered evidence for sentient life on
other planets, but the mainstream considers it false
evidence and therefore defenately a false conclusion.
It would be taking a POV to say, conclusively, that
the evidence is true while it is actually disputed. It
makes much more sense to just admit it's DPOV, and
leave out all of the extraneous arguments.
-LDan

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
http://sbc.yahoo.com


subject: [Textbook-l] Some concept ideas

body:
--- Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu> wrote:
> If we require /everybody/ to log in, then it
> shouldn't say that.
> It should say "'''Edit this page'''" with a nice
> bright link --
> that sends them to the log in page (returning to the
> edit page).
>
> -- Toby

But it's so much easier when you don't have to log
into things. Sometimes, I edit wikipedia anon when I
don't have enough time to login, and that is very
convenient. I don't see why these extra restrictions
must be added.
-LDan

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
http://sbc.yahoo.com


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Textbook-l] Some concept ideas

in_reply_to: <3EFB600A.5080704@web.de>; from magnus.manske@web.de on Thu, Jun 26, 2003 at 11:05:14PM +0200

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:
> The smaller pool of authors is the very reason I'd prefer logged-in
> edits only, as less "real" authors means shifting the author:vandal
> ratio in favor of the vandals.

Well, you do have a very good point there.  A very good point indeed.

> On the other hand, keeping anonymous edits might be good as well, as
> vandals then wouldn't log in, and *potential* (!) vandalism could be
> rather easily on Recent Changes by the very fact that it's an anonymous
> edit (most "real" authors are probably logged in).

Well, maybe we could try it this way, allowing anonymous edits, but be
prepared to make a switch if it seems like trouble.  Making the switch
is easy software-wise, and won't be controversial if we all agree in
advance that it's possible that it would be useful.

> So far, in Germany the state paid for all the books in school. Just
> today, it was announced that due to Germany's financial sorta crisis,
> the parents will have to pay for the books in the future.
> Too bad there's no free source for such books...

Very interesting, is this at all levels of school?

In public schools in the U.S. up through high school, books are
generally provided.  In all states?  In most states?  I don't know for
sure.

In universities, books are not provided, and are unreasonably
expensive.

--Jimbo


subject: [Textbook-l] Some concept ideas

in_reply_to: <20030626224931.23509.qmail@web41811.mail.yahoo.com>; from littledanehren@yahoo.com on Thu, Jun 26, 2003 at 03:49:31PM -0700

body:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
> Anonimity is an essential part of a wiki. UseMod (which most wikis
> run on for simplicity and speed, no offence Magnus) doesn't even
> have logins.

Well, we switched from UseMod primarily because it could no longer
handle the load, so "speed" is a relative thing.

But remember that anonymity is actually *greater* for logged in users.
You can make up any sort of name, and no one can even guess where you
are.  When you're working un-logged-in, anyone can figure out what ISP
you are using, and often what city you're located in.

So, really, not that anyone ever believes it, ha ha, the truth is that
logins provide enhanced anonymity.

--Jimbo


in_reply_to: <20030626231552.33564.qmail@web41812.mail.yahoo.com>; from littledanehren@yahoo.com on Thu, Jun 26, 2003 at 04:15:52PM -0700

body:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
> Even so, we'd need to report on the 'unreasonable'
> creationists, which imho make up the vast majority.

Well, in an encyclopedia we would.  In a biology text, probably very
little mention of the controversy needs to be made at all.  I could
see it going either way.  Do you have a chapter on scientific
responses to common challenges to evolutionary biology?  Maybe.  But I
don't think it's require in order to have NPOV.

> And facts can be contravercial too. UFO sightings are
> called 'facts', but they are, of course, disputed.
> They are considered evidence for sentient life on
> other planets, but the mainstream considers it false
> evidence and therefore defenately a false conclusion.
> It would be taking a POV to say, conclusively, that
> the evidence is true while it is actually disputed. It
> makes much more sense to just admit it's DPOV, and
> leave out all of the extraneous arguments.

Well, it makes more sense to me, if this is a controversy of
importance in some specific field, to present the controversy
neutrally.  The danger I see in 'DPOV' is precisely that it sounds
like a temptation to include too-strong statements of the Truth
According To Science, rather than sticking to that which is
uncontroversially known.

--Jimbo


subject: [Textbook-l] Re: Textbooks

body:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
> Toby Bartels wrote:
> > The text in [[en:Wikipedia:Neutral point of view]]
> of course must be changed,
> > since it refers to a comprehensive encyclopaedia
> on everything.
> > But this is /context/, not the /essence/ of NPOV.
>
> I think that's right.
>
> --Jimbo

No, to be unbiased, we need rebuttals for the
individual points in articles, otherwise we are using
a DPOV/SPOV. If you want to change Wikipedia to SPOV
like I-E is, that's fine, but don't keep saying it's
unbiased. Each article would convince the person to
that POV unless the counterarguments are placed /in
the article/, not on a seperate page. When people are
looking something up, they don't say, "I think I'll
look at all of the related topics, and all of the
topics related to those topics, to get an unbiased
view", they just look at that article! Plus, where
would attacks on other theories go anyway if they are
undirected towards a particular alternate theory? Do
you think, by your logic, that [[Scientific
creationism]] (which says it was invented for getting
creationism in schools, btw) shouldn't have any
reasons against it on the article, and that the
reasons against should be on some other article like
evolution or intelligent design? That's completely
rediculous!

I really don't think we need a policy change in that
respect. It's best to preserve the neutrality of each
individual article.
-LDan

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
http://sbc.yahoo.com


subject: [Textbook-l] Some concept ideas

body:
--- Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> So maybe we can coax people in a nice way to log-in
> by just reminding them
> about logging in after they make their 10th (or
> whatever) edit by having a
> short message in bold text under the edit button.
> And also maybe have those
> IPs show up in bold in Recent Changes.
> -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

That sounds like a good idea (except for IPs in bold;
no real reason to do that if we're flooded), but I
think we'd need to make a page like
[[Wikipedia:Reasons to get a username]] or something
like that, that we'd link to in the warning. And the
warning should be for all anon contributions, but
small and ignorable for those who wish to be a
long-term anon contributer.
-LDan

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
http://sbc.yahoo.com


list: wikien-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [WikiEN-l] a new ChuckM's threat and another DW 'personality'

body:
On Fri, 27 Jun 2003, james duffy wrote:
> One final point: a quick glance suggests that many of the earlier DWs
> (notably Ron Davis but also others) downloaded many images with no
> indication of copyright. These may also have to be removed from articles and
> deleted. The downloads of Joe Canuck have now been deleted from wikipedia.

I should point out that, regardless of copyright issues, as a matter of
academic ethics we should *never* use third-party materials in Wikipedia
without citing the sources. That goes just as strongly for images as for
text.

Yes, we've got a lot of images already here that aren't well documented;
and they do need to be gone through and either documented or tossed out,
which will be boring and take a lot of time.

People uploading _new_ images should know better, and ought to be citing
sources as they upload.  If you forget to do so, that's okay; but when
someone calls you on it, you need to correct the fault and cough up the
cite, not threaten and insult them and hide behind nonsense about
copyright and the DMCA. That kind of behavior is not going to be
tolerated, and images under that kind of dispute are almost certain to be
deleted on principle.

(Speaking only for myself, but I don't think I'm wrong here.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] An open letter

body:
--- Dante Alighieri <dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com>
wrote:
> Dear asshole,
>
> You're a real jerk and everyone here knows it. You
> can pretend that you're
> /not/ an asshole, but you're not fooling anyone. The
> fact that you continue
> to troll the 'pedia and vandalize despite being
> repeatedly banned is just
> sad. Is your life /truly/ so pathetic that this is
> how you derive pleasure?
> Take my advice, jump off a bridge. The world will
> not miss you.
>
> -----
> Dante Alighieri
> dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

err...who is "asshole" in that letter ???

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

That is a very nice quote indeed :-)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
http://sbc.yahoo.com


from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Notice of Appeal of Ban

body:
David Baltzer (Joe Canuck) wrote in part:

>For the site owner/operator to intervene and ban anyone, they must do so based
>on credible facts, not innuendo.  In the United States, it is a right to carry
>on business, not a privilege, and using an Open website has inherent rights
>under the DMCA because the owner must be passive and cannot interfere.

I have some idea now where JC is coming from in his legal threats.
The DMCA's Safe Harbor provision (?512) protects ISPs
from infringing content.  But the ISP must be passive towards content
(see ?512.a, for example).  Since Jimmy is interfering with JC's use,
JC thinks that Jimmy must therefore waive his protections.
(Actually, it's Bomis, Inc., a limited liability corporation,
that would have liability and protections, not Jimmy himself.)
This is simply false as I read the text of the law (although IANAL).

First, we come in not under ?512.a but instead under ?512.c.
(See ?512.n for why we follow only one of these subsections.)
This specifically requires (?512.c.1.A.iii) the ISP
to remove material that it knows to be infringing.
Since Jimmy is CEO (or something along those lines) of Bomis
and has (if only by convention) extraordinary priveleges here
as a direct result of that, then if he knows of infringing material
(and knows that it is in fact infringing), then he /must/
see that it is removed in order to preserve the protection.
This is true regardless of whether the information comes to him
from the copyright owner through the designated agent process
(that's ?512.c.1.C and 512.c.3, a separate provision).
IOW, ?512.c.3 is what makes him remove the material
when the /copyright owner/ merely /claims/ that it's infringing,
while ?512.c.1.A makes him remove the material
when /anybody/ manages to /prove/ that it's infringing.
(Sec 512.c.3.B clarifies the relationship here.)
So passivity is clearly contraindicated.

Of course, the passivity that JC is charging Jimmy with violating
isn't specifically passivity regarding the infringing material itself,
but instead passivity regarding the /users/ of the web site.
Even ?512.a (which does not apply to us anyway, since we use ?512.c)
doesn't say anything about passivity regarding who is a user.
OTC, ?512.i.1.A /requires/ the ISP to terminate the accounts
of "repeated infringers".  If that's the basis for JC's banishment,
then Bomis is, far from /violating/ the DMCA's requirements,
in fact /complying/ with them.

Now, ?512.g suggests (but doesn't explicitly provide a cause of action)
that Bomis may face liability, not from copyright owners but from JC himself,
if Bomis removes infinging material and doesn't inform JC about it.
There's even some business about providing JC with the basis for removal.
But since the material was removed in the ordinary course of using the site,
rather than at the express directive of Bomis following ?512.c.1.C,
this is not applicable.  True, JC is latching on Jimmy's claim
that he "authorized" the actions of the admins that deleted the images,
but the authorization didn't come from ?512, so that's not relevant.
And this is not exactly what JC is demanding anyway;
he's demanding from Jimmy the basis for his /banishment/,
rather than the basis for the deletion of his images.
In any case, this subsection only provides additional protection;
it doesn't /create/ a cause of action for JC to sue Bomis,
which cause of action must come from some other provision in law.

Of course, it's clear why JC's babbling is "quasi-legalistic",
making only vague references to the DMCA and its protections,
rather than citing anything explicitly.  That's because
there's nothing explicit that he could have cited!

It's also worth mentioning, that in case any /real/ threat appears
that Wikipedia isn't correctly following the Safe Harbor provisions,
then placing things under the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation
should remove all financial pressure from Bomis,
since Wikimedia will own essentially no assets.

The text of the DMCA that I used came from
<http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/512.html>.
It's not terribly long (although this is only ?512 ^_^).
Those interested in the RIAA's plan to sue individual P2P users
may be interested in reading ?512.h.

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] wikipedia homepage

body:
Anth?re wrote in very small part:

>what does "purty" means ?

It's a humorous or derogatory spelling of "pretty",
which implies that the speaker is unsophisticated.
Mispronouncing "pretty" as "purty" /'p at rti/ (see [[SAMPA Chart]])
is similar to mispronouncing "nuclear" as "nucular" /'nuwkj at l@r/.
Such pronunciation has even become standard in the case of "iron",
which is pronounced "iurn" /'aj at rn/ even by educated speakers.

-- Toby


from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

body:
On Thu, Jun 26, 2003 at 09:01:42AM -0700, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Daniel Mayer wrote:
> > When there is no real controversy on a topic (in a global sense)
> > then facts can be presented as facts.
>
> That's right.  And a lot of science at the level of details does fall
> into the category.  For example, reasonable creationists don't claim
> that scientists are just *lying* about finding fossils, about genetic
> variation, and so on.  All the basic evidence is uncontroversial, at
> least generally speaking, although of course there are challenges to
> specific details here and there.

"reasonable creationist" sounds oxymoron to me.
Could we please stop being US-centric ? There aren't any creationists
anywhere else in the world, and those in US seems more like some kind of
cult than something that has anything to do with science.


list: wikitech-l

subject: [Wikitech-l] LanguageFr.php and Clonaid

body:
--- Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
>
> >Ok, this is an stupid issue, but I find quite
> curious
> >that this topic was initially raised by the french
> >wiki, that so many french people expressed their
> >dislike of this method, that final conclusion was
> to
> >drop the count system, that we indicated in our
> talk
> >pages that the count system was changed
> >
> >just to find oneself totally ridiculous many months
> >later discovering that *nothing* has changed and
> that
> >the old system is still the one working.
> >
> Basically here's what happened:
> * I saw the silliness, decided to make a change, and
> announced my plan.
> * Some people decided we had to hold a vote first.
> * All momentum was destroyed.
> * The vote, eventually, turned out pretty much as I
> had planned to do
> anyway.

May I suggest that next time, you do the change very
quietly. Pick up some trusted people (I am your
servant) to distract other wikipedians so you can
silently update the soft, and perhaps nobody will
notice ? :-)

> * The latest working code did end up with the new
> count system, but was
> not at that time installed, having other
> experimental code.
> * Everything was supposed to move to the new server,
> with the latest code.
> * The English wiki got moved to the new server to
> load test, etc.
> * Lee announced we were going to move & upgrade the
> rest, then vanished
> for a few weeks.
> * I haven't had time to do it either.
>
> At some point I do want to get everything upgraded
> at least, but haven't
> had a chance to double-check that the CVS version is
> not currently
> broken with experimental code.
>
> (Incidentally, I've been having trouble with my
> settings for wikitech-l;
> I thought I had gotten everything right, but it's
> still not sending me
> mail except for digests. Off to configure again...
> So, if I haven't
> responded to something dreadfully important, please
> remind me. I may not
> have seen it.)
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Perhaps Clonaid could be the first for donations to
the new foundation ?
The donation would "not" be money, but Brion multiple
duplication...

Thanks Brion

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
http://sbc.yahoo.com


from_name: cprompt

subject: [WikiEN-l] An open letter

body:
Dante Alighieri wrote:

> Dear asshole,
>
> You're a real jerk and everyone here knows it. You can pretend that
> you're /not/ an asshole, but you're not fooling anyone. The fact that
> you continue to troll the 'pedia and vandalize despite being
> repeatedly banned is just sad. Is your life /truly/ so pathetic that
> this is how you derive pleasure? Take my advice, jump off a bridge.
> The world will not miss you.

Relax, Wikilove, don't feed trolls, innocent till proven guilty, etc. etc..

Stevertigo had a really spiffy link:
http://www.hugkiss.com/platinum/hugs.shtml

--

--cprompt


subject: [Textbook-l] Re: Textbooks

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote in small part:

>One thing about textbooks is that they need to be self-contained and
>*ordered* in a way that an encyclopedia is not.  This depends, in
>part, on the subject matter, but take math as an example -- the
>concepts of trigonometry need to be presented more or less in a
>particular order, or the student will be lost.

Take a look at an advanced (upper level undergrad or higher) math text.
If it was recently published, then there's a pretty good chance
that you'll find, among the introductory material,
a description of possible course outlines (omitting some material).
With some luck, you'll even find a chart of dependence,
explaining which chapters are needed for which other chapters.
We can link to similar information from the front page of our textbook,
thus allowing teachers (or students studying alone)
to choose an order to go through our various modules.
We shouldn't impose any more order than is logically necessary --
which isn't to deny that /some/ order is logically necessary.

Even in elementary school mathematics,
where fractions build on division builds on multiplication etc,
there are two tracks being followed (in US schools):
a development of arithmetic (and later algebra),
and a largely independent development of plane geometry.
(Sometimes geometry will borrow from arithmetic or algebra,
but not the reverse until you get into trigonometry).

The trickier course is when there are multiple possible orders.
In calculus, differentiation and integration are logically independent,
but the fundamental theorem of calculus requires both of them.
Since you need the FTC to do /practical calculations/ with integration,
most courses (again, in US schools) today do differentiation first,
allowing the FTC to be presented early in the integration material.
But Caltech (at least 10 years ago), taking a more theoretical approach,
does things in the reverse (more old-fahsioned) order,
defining integrals directly after the preliminary work with limits,
but saving examination of calculation techniques for later.
The advanced undergraduate analysis course
usually puts differentiation before (Riemann) integration,
(since the new material to cover beyond calculus is easy,
while the Riemann integral in all its rigorous glory is a nasty beast),
while the graduate analysis course puts (Lebesgue) integration first
(since almost all of the new material on differentiation
depends on the background of Lebesgue measure theory).
So the order of a subject will, in many cases, depend on your purpose.
One textbook might set that purpose by choosing its level
(the advanced undergrad course, or instead the grad course),
while another might prefer to leave that up to the teacher,
as in a calculus textbook with separate modules on the main idea
(either order) and calculation techniques (differentiation first).

One can even get into POV battles about appropriate orders,
and we should strive to remain neutral about those.
For example, there's a new movement in universities these days
to teach the Henstock integral instead of the Riemann integral
in the advanced undergraduate course, since the theory is similar
but Henstock's is (like Lebesgue's) more its powerful.
Of course, people argue about /which/ to teach,
but we can simply allow both and let the reader choose
(and let the writers' interests decide when each is written);
that's not what I'm worried about.

The complicated bit is what this says about the /graduate/ course,
which if we follow the usual pattern is a completely different book.
The new movement uses Henstock to define the Lebesgue /integral/,
then applies that to set theory to define Lebesgue /measure/;
the traditional course defines Lebesgue /measure/ using infinite series,
then applies that to functions to define the Lebesgue /integral/.
So when studying Lebesgue's theories for the first time,
does the integral depend on the measure or the other way around?
Well, it could be either, depending on /which/ prerequisites
you already know from your undergraduate course.
As long as only one development appears in the textbook,
then we can rightly say that one module depends on the other.
But once both developments appear (as must be allowed for NPOV),
then this will change, and we have to watch for that.

The simplest course might be separate modules,
one for either of the different developments of definitions,
and another for the further devlopment of the concept.
But this makes our modules much smaller than a traditional chapter!
I think that this (small modules) will generally be a good thing.
Aside from the flexibility that it offers
for NPOV on various pedagogical disagreements,
it also makes it easy to save the more advanced material
for when it will be needed (or to omit it entirely),
rather than telling people that (say) the end of Chapter 6
will not be studied until we need it for Chapter 10.
(Of course, right now we have the technical difficulty
that some people can't edit pages that are longer than 30 kB,
but we should still look towards a technical solution for that.)
Many books divide chapters into sections that approximate this.

-- Toby


subject: [Textbook-l] Re: Textbooks

body:
Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:

>"reasonable creationist" sounds oxymoron to me.
>Could we please stop being US-centric ? There aren't any creationists
>anywhere else in the world, and those in US seems more like some kind of
>cult than something that has anything to do with science.

There aren't any creationists in Latin America and the Middle East?
I'd have to disagree with you there, Tomasz.
Certainly almost all of the creationists in the /West/ are in the US;
there are very few in Europe and the British Commonwealth.
But to claim that there are no others in the /world/
strikes me as rather, well, Eurocentric.

-- Toby


from_name: Stevertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] wikipedia homepage

body:
 Anth?re wrote in very small part:
| >what does "purty" means ?
|
| Toby wrote: It's a humorous or derogatory spelling of "pretty",
| which implies that the speaker is unsophisticated.
| Mispronouncing "pretty" as "purty" /'p at rti/ (see [[SAMPA Chart]])
| is similar to mispronouncing "nuclear" as "nucular" /'nuwkj at l@r/.
| Such pronunciation has even become standard in the case of "iron",
| which is pronounced "iurn" /'aj at rn/ even by educated speakers.

Toby is once again, dead wrong. The proper incorrect spelling for "pretty"
is "purdy" -- with a "D"...  I'm compiling my sources now...

-S


subject: [Textbook-l] Re: Wikipedia may provide books made with different perspectives input, whilst others can't

body:
Anth?re wrote:

>Except that if the official rule for textbooks defines that these textbooks
>must be "DPOV" (as a basic rule at the same level than NPOV on Wikipedia,
>meaning "mandatory"), then there is no room in this project for this book.
>This virtual book would have to go in another project.

The virtual book would be about corn farming, not biology,
so it wouldn't have to fit into the DPOV of biology.
The discipline of corn farming includes all of what you said,
just as the discipline of medicine includes medical ethics.

But anyway, I doubt that DPOV will ever be written up.
Jimmy invented NPOV, and he says that NPOV includes what mav wants.
If anything happens, it's that [[NPOV]] will have to be clarified.
But since Jimmy also keeps agreeing with my intepretations of it,
I see no risk that any such clarification will threaten your book.
The only alternative is that Jimmy's opinions are incoherent,
but nobody is arguing that.

-- Toby


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [Wikipedia-l] letter to HMSO

body:
Here is the current draft of the letter I will send to HMSO.  I plan
to send it on 3 July (the mail isn't picked up the following day ;->).
Please reply with your comments and suggestions before that date.

Controller and Queen's Printer
HMSO
St.Clements House
2-16 Colegate
Norwich
NR3 1BQ

Dear Ms. Tullo:

I am an administrator of the Wikipedia, a multilingual project to
create a complete and accurate open content encyclopedia.  The
English-language version can be seen on the Web at
http://www.wikipedia.org/.  We gather information from many sources,
and government Web sites are often very useful to us.  We have
reviewed the terms of the Crown copyright, but are still unsure
whether we can use that material.

We understand that we can use your material "free of charge in any
format or medium provided it is reproduced accurately and not used in
a misleading context [and] the source of the material [is] identified
and the copyright status acknowledged."  Our question centers on the
interaction between the Crown copyright and our own.  We maintain
copyright over the material we create, but license its use under the
GNU Free Documentation License, which was designed by the Free
Software Foundation (FSF) for free content.  The license text can be
found at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html.  It stipulates that any
copy of the material, even if modified, must carry the same license.
Wikipedia is the largest documentation project to use this license.

Thus, under the terms of the GFDL, we cannot pass the Crown copyright
restrictions on to third-generation re-copiers.  For example, I might
copy material from the Royal Navy's site into an article about HMS
SCEPTRE, doing so accurately, honestly, and with attribution, but a
third party who copied the article onto his Web site, removed the
attribution, and somehow altered the information to be deceptive would
not be in violation of our license.

As participants in a unique and highly visible project who are freely
releasing our work to the public, we are punctilious about respecting
copyright.  We would be very grateful if you could provide us with a
statement of HMSO's opinion on our ability to copy material from HM
Government Web sites and relicense it under the GFDL.

I can be contacted by e-mail at sean at epoptic.com, by telephone at
01-310-739-xxxx (I am in time zone UTC-7 -- please call in your late
afternoon), and by post at Sean Barrett, xxxx xxxxxx Avenue, Los
Angeles CA 90xxx, USA.  Thank you very much for your time and
consideration.

Sincerely,


from_name: Richard Grevers

subject: [WikiEN-l] wikipedia homepage

body:
On Thu, 26 Jun 2003 01:21:05 -0700, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com>
gave utterance to the following:

> Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
>> May I change the layout of the homepage of the English Wikipedia to that
>> of the Esperanto Wikipedia? I think that layout looks much better. I
>> would ask this on [[Talk:Main Page]], but not many people look there
>> that often, and this would be a huge change.
>
> IMO that is HMTL madness -- WAY too many spurious colors that mean
> nothing and whose only purpose is to look "purty" in the eyes of the
> designer. We have already worked out a more conservative color scheme for
> the Main Page but were waiting for some earth-shattering announcement to
> make to go with the upgrade (such as "The Wikimedia Foundation is open
> for business and is now accepting donations!" - not that we would say
> that on the Main Page but we would have a link to a press release).
>
> See: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page/Temp
> Which is based on: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
>
Why do the section headings "Encyclopedia" and "Community" have a line
height smaller than their font size? Text is really rather difficult to
read when all the descenders are truncated.
--
Richard Grevers
I haven't lost my mind; it's backed up on tape somewhere!


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Textbook-l] Some concept ideas

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Particularly since textbooks are, by their nature, not as general as
> an encyclopedia, there is a smaller pool of authors *per book*, so
> that we need to be very careful about any barriers to participation.

The smaller pool of authors is the very reason I'd prefer logged-in
edits only, as less "real" authors means shifting the author:vandal
ratio in favor of the vandals.

On the other hand, keeping anonymous edits might be good as well, as
vandals then wouldn't log in, and *potential* (!) vandalism could be
rather easily on Recent Changes by the very fact that it's an anonymous
edit (most "real" authors are probably logged in).

> Here's the thing that I want to keep reminding everyone: the whole
> idea of wiki is completely insane.  It's obvious to me, based on
> everything I know about human nature, that it just can't possibly
> work.  But... it does.
>
> So my inclination is to discourage 'a priori problem solving', as
> least to a degree.  Nupedia was an exercise in excessive a priori
> community design, and it failed miserably.  But trusting people to do
> the right thing seems to work remarkably well.
>
> Even so, it's entirely possible that the community dynamic for writing
> a textbook is very different from the community dynamic for writing an
> encyclopedia.  So experience might teach us that radical-wiki-openness
> really can't work here.
>
> Still, isn't that something that we should let experience teach us,
> rather than making assumptions beforehand?

OK, I'm convinced! Let's keep anon edits in until all hell breaks loose ;-)

Oh, one motivational issue:
So far, in Germany the state paid for all the books in school. Just
today, it was announced that due to Germany's financial sorta crisis,
the parents will have to pay for the books in the future.
Too bad there's no free source for such books...

Magnus


from_name: Neil Harris

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Major new thread: Looking for consensus on content
 metadata

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:

> OK, if you're all in favor of that, I might be willing to code (what a
> surprise!). I deeply regret, however, that I can't remember the
> details of Erik's scheme.
>
> Before you go looking for the original mail, was it something like this:
> * A [[category:foo]] *link* in an article works similar to a language
> link (shows somewhere in the surrounding framework rather than in the
> text)
> * The [[category:foo]] *article* has a description of the category,
> and some kind of automated list of backlinks.
>
> If Erik suggested something completely different, please find that
> mail  for me...
>
> Magnus
>
>
ABOUT THE  CODE

That sounds pretty much like the Erik's proposal as I remember it, and
it seems both harmless and non-intrusive to existing work.  Yay! Let's
do it!

There was at one point a proposal for a separate DB field for metadata,
like the language and category links. It's a nice idea for the long
term, but it's simply too much complexity for now, and would complicate
things too much by requiring lots of new UI code. So let's just keep the
category links in the main body, and keep them at the top or bottom by
convention.

Presumably:

* The description of the category should be in the "page text" for
[[Category:xxx]],  like some of the special pages.
* category page bodies  should be able to be edited by anyone, just like
ordinary pages, with the same code for protection by admins, deletion, etc.
* category page bodies should also be able to contain category links
themselves, allowing a directed graph of categories to be created.
* there should be a "list of all categories" special page

A comment:
* moving category pages does not really make sense in this simple scheme
as the names are "hardwired" in the [[Category:XYZ]] links in the
back-linking articles
* but there's probably no reason to disable this operation...

Once we have some code, the next thing to do is to agree how to use this
feature: but this should not hold up writing and releasing the code.

ABOUT USAGE

I expect
* lots of arguments about category schemes
* pragmatic agreement on the most obvious categories
* much useful entry of data according to various schemes
* eventual and wonderful automatic indexes, Bayesian
auto-classification, etc. etc.

I'd like to suggest a few conventions, before the category wars begin.
There are a number of existing  category schemes at the moment, such as
the Library of Congress system, and SUMO. I suggest that, rather than
using these codes raw, we prefix them with their scheme name, thus:

[[Category: SUMO ExistingThingName]] or
[[Category: LOC  BD-300]]

This will greatly simplify collating them together, or
machine-processing them later, and helps forestall the flamewars about
Dewey vs. LOC vs. Cyc vs. SUMO vs. ... each set of enthusiasts can
simply code away as they like...

This leaves the "no-prefix" namespace ready for the Wikipedia category
free-for-all....

My first suggestions:

[[Category:Person]] eg [[Henry Droop]]
[[Category:Place]] eg [[Poland]] or [[London, England]]
[[Category:Time period]] eg [[1427]] or [[15th century]]

...and then we can use the information from the more sensible [[List of
XXX topics]] articles, for mathematics, physics, politics, medicine,
rare diseases, etc. to auto-mark the given articles.

If we do this right, we can probably _eventually_ get rid of most of the
list articles entirely: ''but'' there is one fly in the ointment with
doing things this way: we lose the ability to create links in category
lists to non-existing articles. This would be a great pity, as it is one
of the most useful ways to create lists of new candidates for articles
within a topic.

Suggestions anyone?

-- Neil


body:
OK, if you're all in favor of that, I might be willing to code (what a
surprise!). I deeply regret, however, that I can't remember the details
of Erik's scheme.

Before you go looking for the original mail, was it something like this:
* A [[category:foo]] *link* in an article works similar to a language
link (shows somewhere in the surrounding framework rather than in the text)
* The [[category:foo]] *article* has a description of the category, and
some kind of automated list of backlinks.

If Erik suggested something completely different, please find that mail
  for me...

Magnus

Brion Vibber wrote:
> On Wed, 25 Jun 2003, Toby Bartels wrote:
>
>>Toby Bartels wrote:
>>
>>>Erik Moeller wrote:
>>>
>>>>all of the requirements you describe would be met nicely by my
>>>>[[Category:Foo]] scheme. :-)
>>
>>>I would just like to not here that I'm in full favour of Erik's scheme.
>>
>>                      ^^^
>>s/not/note
>
>
> You're so contrary, Toby! Don't deny it...
>
> (For the record, I also favor an Erik-style madcap scheme with
> [[Category:foo]] links, based largely on improved backlinks magic.)
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Menchi Zh-En WP

subject: [WikiEN-l] ChuckM (ban)

body:
>requesting clarification of copyright status about every image he can
>find that doesn't specifically cite a source.

Agreed.

Such an act is intended to scare away new Wikipedians uploading their very
first images, already with a conscious or subcon fear that they might've
done it wrong. Newcomers may even mistaken him as a representative of WP.
Therefore, such an act is destructive.

If he does not stop such a behaviour immediately as some administrators have
asked him to, his continuance will cause further damage to our name, and
therefore must be banned to ensure his discontinuance.

Menchi Zh-En

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


from_name: tarquin

subject: [Wikitech-l] Proposed new layout

body:
Here's my rough version of a new layout.
It's not too radical a departure from what we have, but I think it is
much clearer, particularly for newcomers.

Is it possible someone could upload those two test page files somewhere
on the server so people can easily see the test page & comment?

I would sugest that the current default skin be kept as an option, but
that this become the new default skin.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: paddington-2.css
Type: text/css
Size: 1883 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20030627/c8346a0b/attachment.css>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20030627/c8346a0b/attachment.html>


subject: [WikiEN-l] [OT] English phonology (Was: wikipedia homepage)

body:
Stevertigo wrote:

>Toby is once again, dead wrong. The proper incorrect spelling for "pretty"
>is "purdy" -- with a "D"...  I'm compiling my sources now...

This spelling indicates use of a voiced alveoloar flap
(IPA [r-with-no-line-above-the-curve])
instead of an unvoiced alveolar stop (IPA [t]).
Since mav well may use this flap himself (saying "priddy"),
perhaps he left it out of his mispronunciation spelling,
lest he be accused of hypocrisy.

Say ... /you/ don't use that flap, do you SV?
(Test: Do you pronounce "latter" and "ladder" the same?)
You're not being hypocritical here, are you? ^_^

Similarly, anybody that makes fun of G.W. Bush
by spelling his pronunciation of "nuclear" as "noocular",
yet themself pronounces the word as "nooclear",
is being hypocritical (that's why I wrote "nucular").
"nookyuhlar" is primarily unjustified exaggeration.
And don't get me started on "wuz"!

(Brits, of course, have more freedom to make fun of Americans
using some of these spellings.)

-- Toby


subject: [Textbook-l] Some concept ideas

body:
LittleDan wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>If we require /everybody/ to log in, then it shouldn't say that.
>>It should say "'''Edit this page'''" with a nice bright link --
>>that sends them to the log in page (returning to the edit page).

>But it's so much easier when you don't have to log
>into things. Sometimes, I edit wikipedia anon when I
>don't have enough time to login, and that is very
>convenient. I don't see why these extra restrictions
>must be added.

Since I did just give an argument about how
the login regime might be made to work smoothly,
let me note that I too see no need for it yet.
And I also began as an anonymous editor.
And, yes, I probably wouldn't be here if I hadn't
(judge for yourselves if that's good or bad ^_^).

-- Toby


subject: [Textbook-l] NPOV (Was: Textbooks)

body:
LittleDan wrote in part:

>And facts can be contravercial too. UFO sightings are
>called 'facts', but they are, of course, disputed.
>They are considered evidence for sentient life on
>other planets, but the mainstream considers it false
>evidence and therefore defenately a false conclusion.

It's generally uncontroversial that X saw lights in the sky;
occasionally, people suspect that X was drunk or lying,
but even then it's uncontroversial what X /claimed/ to have seen.
What's controversial is that the lights came from a flying object
and if so, whether that object has been correctly identified
as (say) a weather balloon.

And then sometimes, it may be uncontroversial that X saw a flying object
and that nobody has managed to identify the object -- a literal UFO.
Still, the conclusion that the object must be an interstellar spacecraft
is bound to remain controversial.

Whether all this is relevant to a textbook on astronomy
(which typically deals with stars and interstellar gases)
is another matter entirely.

-- Toby


body:
On Thu, Jun 26, 2003 at 03:58:37PM -0700, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
> --- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
> > Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
> > > Could we please stop being US-centric ? There
> > aren't any
> > > creationists anywhere else in the world, and those
> > in US seems more
> > > like some kind of cult than something that has
> > anything to do with
> > > science.
> >
> > I don't see anything particularly US-centric about
> > this discussion.
> >
> > --Jimbo
>
> Well, the US is a religious, backwards country.
> Whenever new (or old, like this) science is developed,
> there is a big contraversey (unless it is something
> that helps big buisness like GM foods. Then it is
> swept under the rug). Some schools in the US want to
> only teach creationism, but I'm sure that happens in
> other countries. There must be other unscientific
> countries like us.

Maybe in deepest Africa, but I doubt even there.

Creationism is something that no sane biology textbook should waste paper or diskspace for.
If one really wants to describe alternative views one has more-or-less-scientific
stuff like panspermia and lamarckism (which for some reason is described in
almost every Polish high-school biology textbook in notes about history of biology,
and of course there is no single word about mythology).


from_name: james duffy

body:
ChuckM - formerly DW/Black Widow/Olga Bityerkokoff/Jacques Delson/Joe Canuck
et al, left the following message on my talkpage:

Hello you monumental asshole, crackpot, horse manure, idiot, fuckwit. If I?m
all these banned people you claim, why don?t you have me banned too? ChuckM
21:18 26 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Regarding Joe Canuck. In my email it was suggested that Canuck was
'suceeded' by ChuckM. It turns out in true DW form this may not be wholly
accurate. [[User:L'il Orphan Eddie]] appeared at 22:32 on the 20th, a little
over hour after Joe Canuck was banned.

According to its user page:

I'm a poor orphan, cold and lonely since my papa DW was killed and mama
Black Widow followed. I miss them so much but I know I will make new friends
here. I can't stomach a lot of things but I take in as much [[Dietary
fiber]] as possible.

The following was put on its talk page in response, approximately one hour
later.

Most likey this is DW/Black Widow/Joe Canuck. -fonzy

See also User:Joe Canuck/ban, then. -- Karada 22:39 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Other than opening the page, this 'new' user did nothing. Instead DW
reverted to form and used a 'sleeper' already, the already created
[[User:ChuckM]] placed on wiki to begin defending Canuck and deleting
references to the hard ban.

So the current list DW 'creations' should read:

DW? ( 9 Aug 02- 30 Jan 03 BANNED)
Ron Davis (7 Feb - 28 Feb 03)
Elliott?? (30 August 02 - 20 Dec 02; 03 March - 06 March 03)
Black Widow??? (12 March 03 - 15 April 03 BANNED)
Olga Bityerkokoff??? (15 April 03 - 17 April 03)
Jacques Delson??? (28 April 03 - 26 May 03)
64.228.30.125??? (05 Jan 03 - 10 June 03)
ChuckM??? (10 June 03)
Joe Canuck (11 June 03 - 20 June 03 BANNED)
L'il Orphan Eddie (20 June 03)
ChuckM (22 June O3 -? )

One final point: a quick glance suggests that many of the earlier DWs
(notably Ron Davis but also others) downloaded many images with no
indication of copyright. These may also have to be removed from articles and
deleted. The downloads of Joe Canuck have now been deleted from wikipedia.

JT

_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus


subject: [Textbook-l] Free (beer) textbooks (Was: Some concept ideas)

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote in part:

>Magnus Manske wrote:

>>So far, in Germany the state paid for all the books in school. Just
>>today, it was announced that due to Germany's financial sorta crisis,
>>the parents will have to pay for the books in the future.
>>Too bad there's no free source for such books...

>In public schools in the U.S. up through high school, books are
>generally provided.  In all states?  In most states?  I don't know for
>sure.

In most (if not all) States, they're generally provided.
Whether they're up to date and in good shape,
and whether there are enough for each individual student
(so they don't have to trade off who gets to take the book home),
well these matters will depend on the available funding.

I get the impression from Magnus' post that in Germany,
the funding of textbooks is done on a national level.
(Not /some/ parents, but /all/ parents,
due to a /national/ fiscal crisis.)
Of course, the US does these things at a State level.
But the funding of textbooks is in many (most? all?) States
is in fact a /local/ budgetary decision;
so you may see neighbouring districts in the same State (county, city)
with very different funding levels for all sorts of things.

Partly, this is because of our traditional reliance
on locally collected taxes, generally property taxes.
School districts here are chartered by their States
to collect taxes within their boundaries to fund themselves.
The idea is to give the districts a measure of autonomy,
by not making them dependent on the State government for funds.
But another result is that the funds available to a district
depend heavily on the wealth of the property owners there;
poor districts have poor books, and rich districts have good books.
Also, since districts in most (all?) States
now supplement the property tax with a great deal of State funding,
and even take a small but significant amount of national funding,
the goal of financial independence is pretty much shot anyway.

That's why the national government is able to require (say)
national standards testing or gender equality in sports
without a direct mandate from the Constitution to regulate local schools;
they simply put that clause into the funding bill,
and the local districts can either comply or do without.
(Well, that's how they get the Supreme Court to swallow it, at least.
I don't intend to try to /justify/ such legal chicanery.)

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] An open letter

in_reply_to: <5.2.0.9.2.20030626152708.0303ea80@mail.digitalgrapefruit.com>; from dalighieri@digitalgrapefruit.com on Thu, Jun 26, 2003 at 03:29:16PM -0700

body:
While I understand and sympathize to a degree with what you're saying,
but I must point out that we are under an obligation -- strategically,
if for no other reason -- to extend every courtesy to the bitter end.

One of the things that's really helpful to me in making and defending
these banning decisions is a _clean paper trail_.  When a good person
has an outburst like yours -- no matter how warranted by the
circumstance -- I can rest assured that it will be quoted back to me
as evidence of my inconsistency because I didn't ban or reprimand
you, when I did ban or reprimand someone else.

Sure, cause and effect and "who started it" matters.  But those things
also get lost to history, to a maze of counter-allegations.

It's better when we are all courteous and kind, even in the face of
extreme provocation.

Everyone who was named as an "example" of rude behavior by "Joe
Canuck" should examine their own actions.  Are we consistent, if we
insist on good behavior from others, but don't insist upon it for
ourselves?  We almost all fail in this regard from time to time --
such is the human condition, I guess -- but we should strive for the
best within us.

--Jimbo


body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> People uploading _new_ images should know better, and ought to be citing
> sources as they upload.  If you forget to do so, that's okay; but when
> someone calls you on it, you need to correct the fault and cough up the
> cite, not threaten and insult them and hide behind nonsense about
> copyright and the DMCA. That kind of behavior is not going to be
> tolerated, and images under that kind of dispute are almost certain to be
> deleted on principle.
>
> (Speaking only for myself, but I don't think I'm wrong here.)

No, you're directly on target.  We really need everyone to work
together co-operatively.


from_name: a.crossman at blueyonder.co.uk

subject: [WikiEN-l] ChuckM (ban)

body:
I request a ban on User:ChuckM. Currently, his only activities are
complaining about Jtdirl on random people's talk pages, and
requesting clarification of copyright status about every image he can
find that doesn't specifically cite a source.

This is, frankly, ridiculous.

Evercat
--
Allan Crossman
a.crossman at blueyonder.co.uk
http://dogma.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Notice of Appeal of Ban

body:
Toby Bartels wrote:
> (Actually, it's Bomis, Inc., a limited liability corporation,
> that would have liability and protections, not Jimmy himself.)

Right, well, actually, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. owns the site, not
me or Bomis.  :-)

> This is simply false as I read the text of the law (although IANAL).

Right, and furthermore in this case, Joe Canuck was not banned for
posting copyrighted images, but for a pattern of behavior surrounding
the controversy over the images.  So we don't even reach the question
of the degree to which the Wikimedia Foundation needs to be a "passive
conduit" in order to be an ISP rather than a publisher.

--Jimbo


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

>Toby is once again, dead wrong. The proper incorrect spelling for "pretty"
>is "purdy" -- with a "D"... I'm compiling my sources now...

This spelling indicates use of a voiced alveoloar flap
(IPA [r-with-no-line-above-the-curve])
instead of an unvoiced alveolar stop (IPA [t]).
Since mav well may use this flap himself (saying "priddy"),
perhaps he left it out of his mispronunciation spelling,
lest he be accused of hypocrisy.

Say ... /you/ don't use that flap, do you SV?
(Test: Do you pronounce "latter" and "ladder" the same?)
You're not being hypocritical here, are you? ^_^

Similarly, anybody that makes fun of G.W. Bush
by spelling his pronunciation of "nuclear" as "noocular",
yet themself pronounces the word as "nooclear",
is being hypocritical (that's why I wrote "nucular").
"nookyuhlar" is primarily unjustified exaggeration.
And don't get me started on "wuz"!

(Brits, of course, have more freedom to make fun of Americans
using some of these spellings.)

-- Toby

LOL. Thanks to both of you anyway :-)

We should have sounds in wiktionary...
to be NPOV, each word would have to respect each pronunciation :-)

And...I pronounce nuclear, newclear :-(((

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20030627/6d652ade/attachment.htm


subject: [WikiEN-l] ChuckM (ban)

body:
>Evercat wrote:

>I request a ban on User:ChuckM. Currently, his only activities are
>complaining about Jtdirl on random people's talk pages, and
>requesting clarification of copyright status about every image he can
>find that doesn't specifically cite a source.

Forget 'doesn't cite a source' . The images site the source, the RT? Press
Office. Someone even gave him their telephone number. But he wants the
formal name of the press officer, the full name and address of the location.
Next thing he will want Ann's fingerprints, birth date, marriage certificate
and favourite shade of lipstick.

Yeah. I think it is time this latest version of DW was binned. Then we can
play the game of 'spot DW's 19th identity!

JT

_________________________________________________________________
Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: ChuckM (ban)

body:
Evercat wrote:

>>I request a ban on User:ChuckM. Currently, his only activities are
>>complaining about Jtdirl on random people's talk pages, and
>>requesting clarification of copyright status about every image he
>>can find that doesn't specifically cite a source.

JT replies:

>Forget 'doesn't cite a source' . The images site the source, the RT?
>Press Office. Someone even gave him their telephone number. But he
>wants the formal name of the press officer, the full name and
>address of the location. Next thing he will want Ann's fingerprints,
>birth date, marriage certificate and favourite shade of lipstick.

I would point out that he's actually done this with a *lot* of users
and a lot of images, not just JT's ones. This is not a minor act of
disruption, it's quite severe.

(sorry JT, I realise you were agreeing with me, but there was some
potential for confusion)

Evercat
--
Allan Crossman
a.crossman at blueyonder.co.uk
http://dogma.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: letter to HMSO

in_reply_to:
<$1cEhjGkWC$+Ewcj@cartref.demon.co.uk> (message from Arwel Parry
	on Fri, 27 Jun 2003 12:08:20 +0100)

body:
Arwel Parry wrote
>>01-310-739-xxxx (I am in time zone UTC-7 -- please call in your late

>From the UK that would be 00-1-310-739... assuming 310 is your area
>code. Even better, write it in the International format +1 310 739 so
>anyone anywhere would know the right number to dial.

Believe it or not, I knew that ... the mystery is why I typed the
zeros instead of the plus. Thanks!


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: ChuckM (ban)

body:
>From: a.crossman at blueyonder.co.uk
>Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
>To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: ChuckM (ban)
>Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2003 05:22:23 +0100
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>Received: from pliny.wikipedia.org ([130.94.122.197]) by
>mc7-f33.law1.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.5600); Thu, 26 Jun
>2003 21:23:08 -0700
>Received: from pliny.wikipedia.org (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1])by
>pliny.wikipedia.org (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id h5R4N6I26563;Fri, 27 Jun
>2003 04:23:06 GMT
>Received: from smtp-out3.blueyonder.co.uk (smtp-out3.blueyonder.co.uk
>[195.188.213.6])by pliny.wikipedia.org (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id
>h5R4MMI26546for <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>; Fri, 27 Jun 2003 04:22:22 GMT
>Received: from Pluto ([80.194.108.252]) by smtp-out3.blueyonder.co.uk with
>Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.5329); Fri, 27 Jun 2003 05:22:21 +0100
>X-Message-Info: EoYTbT2lH2MsQxQLKd6QGpQxvU17UYmU
>Message-ID: <3EFBD48F.29555.15216D7 at localhost>
>Priority: normal
>X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v4.11)
>X-OriginalArrivalTime: 27 Jun 2003 04:22:21.0278 (UTC)
>FILETIME=[B3D167E0:01C33C63]
>X-MIME-Autoconverted: from Quoted-printable to 8bit by pliny.wikipedia.org
>id h5R4MMI26546
>Sender: wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org
>Errors-To: wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org
>X-BeenThere: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
>X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.13
>Precedence: bulk
>List-Help: <mailto:wikien-l-request at wikipedia.org?subject=help>
>List-Post: <mailto:wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
>List-Subscribe:
><http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l>,<mailto:wikien-l-request at wikipedia.org?subject=subscribe>
>List-Id: Discussion list for English-language Wikipedia
><wikien-l.wikipedia.org>
>List-Unsubscribe:
><http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l>,<mailto:wikien-l-request at wikipedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
>List-Archive: <http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/>
>Return-Path: wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org
>
>Evercat wrote:
>
> >>I request a ban on User:ChuckM. Currently, his only activities are
> >>complaining about Jtdirl on random people's talk pages, and
> >>requesting clarification of copyright status about every image he
> >>can find that doesn't specifically cite a source.
>
>JT replies:
>
> >Forget 'doesn't cite a source' . The images site the source, the RT?
> >Press Office. Someone even gave him their telephone number. But he
> >wants the formal name of the press officer, the full name and
> >address of the location. Next thing he will want Ann's fingerprints,
> >birth date, marriage certificate and favourite shade of lipstick.
>
>I would point out that he's actually done this with a *lot* of users
>and a lot of images, not just JT's ones. This is not a minor act of
>disruption, it's quite severe.
>
>(sorry JT, I realise you were agreeing with me, but there was some
>potential for confusion)
>
>Evercat

I've been so busy dealing with abuse from him I haven't had time to pay much
attention to his abuse elsewhere. He really is so pathetic and childish.

JT

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


subject: [Textbook-l] Re: Textbooks

in_reply_to: <20030627000838.49044.qmail@web41810.mail.yahoo.com>; from littledanehren@yahoo.com on Thu, Jun 26, 2003 at 05:08:38PM -0700

body:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
> No, to be unbiased, we need rebuttals for the
> individual points in articles, otherwise we are using
> a DPOV/SPOV.

I respectfully dissent.  I think you should go read the NPOV policy
again.  It's more sophisticated that you give it credit for here.

--Jimbo


body:
| This spelling indicates use of a voiced alveoloar flap
| (IPA [r-with-no-line-above-the-curve])
| instead of an unvoiced alveolar stop (IPA [t]).
| Since mav well may use this flap himself (saying "priddy"),
| perhaps he left it out of his mispronunciation spelling,
| lest he be accused of hypocrisy.
|
| Say ... /you/ don't use that flap, do you SV?
| (Test: Do you pronounce "latter" and "ladder" the same?)
| You're not being hypocritical here, are you? ^_^
|

Sheesh. You win.

:)- Steevin


subject: [WikiEN-l] An open letter

body:
| It's better when we are all courteous and kind, even in the face of
| extreme provocation.
|
| Everyone who was named as an "example" of rude behavior by "Joe
| Canuck" should examine their own actions.  Are we consistent, if we
| insist on good behavior from others, but don't insist upon it for
| ourselves?  We almost all fail in this regard from time to time --
| such is the human condition, I guess -- but we should strive for the
| best within us.

King Jimbo I will be remembered for his wiseness and his thoughfulnessness.

-Stevertigo


from_name: John R. Owens

body:
On Fri, 2003-06-27 at 07:08, Anthere wrote:
>
>         And...I pronounce nuclear, newclear :-(((

	Personally, I pronounce nuclear "ah-tom-ik", just to be on the safe
side. ;)

--
John R. Owens http://www.ghiapet.homeip.net/
Congratulations citizen G'Kar. You are now a religious icon. --Ta'Lon


subject: [Textbook-l] Re: Textbooks

in_reply_to: <20030627102808.GA4903@tavaiah>; from taw@users.sourceforge.net on Fri, Jun 27, 2003 at 12:28:08PM +0200

body:
I very strongly disagree with LittleDan's claim that the U.S.  is
"backwards".  But we shouldn't spend too much time on this, as we're
getting pretty far afield from discussing textbooks.

Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
> Seriously, I haven't heard of anyone other than radical US
> protestant sects supporting creationism.

I read in Wikipedia that a poll conducted by the UN revealed that "18%
of Europeans polled believed that man was created divinely by God
(although this does not necessarily exclude evolution of the rest of
nature)."  On a talk page, someone claimed that the same survey found
that 33% of people in Poland believe the same thing.  (I've been
unable to find the survey online, so I can't confirm.)

It's worth noting, too, that while the Catholic Church stance on
evolution is complicated, it's a form of "intelligent design".

A serious evaluation of why theories liket his have more impact in the
U.S. needs to consider the impact of the First Amendment and on the
way the school curricula are controlled by local school boards in the
U.S.  In other nations, scientific elites have more power, as opposed
to the power of ordinary unscientific people here.

See:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/ecc-account.html

for more on Creationism in Europe.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Why I don't believe (any more) in NPOV

body:
Richard Grevers wrote in part:

>You are comparing apples and oranges here... The holocaust is knowable
>because people actually experienced if first hand. The existence of God is
>not provable and is based upon belief ('faith'). Anyone who "knows" rather
>than "believes" that God exists is probably violating the tenets of their
>professed religion.

I'd wager that there are more people alive today
that have directly experienced God first hand
than have /ever/ directly experienced the Shoah.
I don't pretend to have data to back up that hunch;
however, I do know some of the former people personally,
and if you like, then I'll ask if it violates their beliefs
to claim to /know/ that God exists.  I doubt it.
Not all faiths are as wishy-washy as (say) liberal Protestantism.

>Perhaps Wikipedia needs to be "a documentation of human knowledge and
>beliefs" - but with the latter we make a qualified statement that a belief
>exists, and in most cases there is a counter-belief.

Indeed, and that's what NPOV does.  Even for the Shoah!

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] ChuckM (ban)

body:
EVERCAT wrote:| For those who are concerned, one way or another,
[[User:ChuckM/ban]]
| now exists. I added this page after ChuckM created a ban page for
| Hephaestos, who had only been cleaning up his junk.

{{{

Im not up to speed on current procedure - but it seems, because banning is
an administration matter, the documentation (important) should be on a
Special page.. like   Case:User:Pizza Puzzle,  which would then become
Banned user:Pizza Puzzle

Keeping all the evidence formal and in one place ought make it easier and
clearer to everyone.

As system pages Banned User pages (separate from banned ips) pages would be
pruned - and rather limited.  There have been only a few people who qualify.
Pages made as vandalism or trolling could be deleted immediately -- though
not by the admin they might be directed towards.

-SV-

}}}


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Major new thread: Looking for consensus on content metadata

body:
Neil Harris wrote in part:

>* category page bodies should also be able to contain category links
>themselves, allowing a directed graph of categories to be created.

This is one of the most important features of Erik's idea
that IMO sets it above the others.

Another is the possibility of category #REDIRECT pages.

>* moving category pages does not really make sense in this simple scheme
>as the names are "hardwired" in the [[Category:XYZ]] links in the
>back-linking articles

But this would work perfectly well with #REDIRECT pages --
we shouldn't have to alter the code for moving pages one bit.

>If we do this right, we can probably _eventually_ get rid of most of the
>list articles entirely: ''but'' there is one fly in the ointment with
>doing things this way: we lose the ability to create links in category
>lists to non-existing articles. This would be a great pity, as it is one
>of the most useful ways to create lists of new candidates for articles
>within a topic.

We can always revive the [[Wikipedia:xxx basic topics]] pages,
which have been replaced (and greatly expanded upon)
by the bastard category pages.

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Notice of Appeal of Ban

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>(Actually, it's Bomis, Inc., a limited liability corporation,
>>that would have liability and protections, not Jimmy himself.)

>Right, well, actually, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. owns the site, not
>me or Bomis.  :-)

For some reason, I thought that this awaited filling out some forms.
After all, what's your position in the Wikimedia Foundation
that lets you make such decisions?  (Well, custom, if nothing else.)
Do we even have /any/ official organisational structure?
And what impact would a lack of such have on the legal situation?
(Feel free to interpret these questions as rhetorical if you wish.)

-- Toby


from_name: Julie Kemp

subject: [WikiEN-l] Chuck, Pizza Puzzle, etc.

body:
I'm pretty sure Chuck M is Triton, and probably Trontonian, so if not
DW, one of the DW crowd.  As for Pizza Puzzle -- I don't know if he's
Lir or not, but I find it interesting that he's putting encouraging
remarks on Chuck M's page and elsewhere where ChuckM places comments.

Otherwise, hi all -- is someone please going to wipe my real name?
Please?

Cheers and Happy Summer -- and for the record, no hard feelings towards
Jimbo.  Even the best of us occasionally say thing we regret.

Jules


from_name: Daniel Ehrenberg

subject: [Textbook-l] Re: Textbooks

body:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
> Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
> > No, to be unbiased, we need rebuttals for the
> > individual points in articles, otherwise we are
> using
> > a DPOV/SPOV.
>
> I respectfully dissent.  I think you should go read
> the NPOV policy
> again.  It's more sophisticated that you give it
> credit for here.
>
> --Jimbo
I've already read it, and imho it supporst my opinion
on the matter.

To quote /you/ from [[Wikipedia:NPOV]]:

"2. An encyclopedia article should not argue that
laissez-faire capitalism is the best social system. (I
happen to believe this, by the way.) It should instead
present the arguments of the advocates of that point
of view, and the arguments of the people who disagree
with that point of view."

The section "consequence: writing for the enemy" (the
title explains my point alone) explains my view, but
it is written confusingly, and I'd need to include the
entire section in this post. Just go there and read
it. I would edit it for clarity, but I think that
would be unethical when refering to it.

If we purposly exclude other POVs, this effect will be
even stronger. Exclusion of information is inherently
POV, and if we can, we should keep it to a minimum.

In the Q/A section, the policy also clarifies there is
no such thing as objectivity, but objectivity was
assumed when talking about evidence.

My suggestion for all of this is that we make several
appendicies, kept only online, that explain the
reasons against, say, evolution, and for other
theories such as intelligent design or creationism, in
a textbook-like manner. That way, we can include
enough information to be NPOV while still writing like
a textbook.
-LDan

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
http://sbc.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Pronunciation guides

body:
Mirko Thiessen wrote:

>It appears to me, that a guide how to pronounce a word would rather belong
>to the Wiktionary project than to Wikipedia. In Wiktionary the
>pronunciation appears to be a regular paragraph, while it is in Wikipedia
>in one per thousand articles. What are your opinions about this?

We only need pronunciations in Wikipedia for strange words,
typically for names (which won't appear in Wiktionary!).
A SAMPA (or whatever we use) phonemic transcription should be fine,
along with a link to [[SAMPA Chart]] (or whatever we use).
For tricky Egnglish words (but not foreign names in general),
we could also use a "foh-NETT-ik" spelling if it helps.

But the following is unnecessarily long, and as you note, less precise:

>In the above example Arpingstone added a sentence to the Bremen article:
>"The 'Bre' of Bremen rhymes with 'clay'."

-- Toby


body:
On Thu, 26 Jun 2003 07:56:05 -0700, Toby Bartels
<toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu> gave utterance to the following:

>> I don't either belive in NPOV. Never did and never will. Whatever
>> happens Wikipedia will get the POV of the masses, a conglomerat of all
>> authors working on the project.
>
>> Like the cubic earth example, writing "the earth is spherical" wouldnt
>> be correct because 0,001% know it is cubic. Even worse to say that the
>> holocaust has happened because 0,1% know it has. Or saying that God's
>> existance hasn't been proven because 10% know it has.

You are comparing apples and oranges here... The holocaust is knowable
because people actually experienced if first hand. The existence of God is
not provable and is based upon belief ('faith'). Anyone who "knows" rather
than "believes" that God exists is probably violating the tenets of their
professed religion.

>
> Actually, 90% know that God exists.
> Yet our articles on God don't claim that He does.
> So much for the POV of the masses!
>
Perhaps Wikipedia needs to be "a documentation of human knowledge and
beliefs" - but with the latter we make a qualified statement that a belief
exists, and in most cases there is a counter-belief.
--
Richard Grevers
I'd like a hot dog Tom said frankly


from_name: sgilbert at nbnet.nb.ca

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: letter to HMSO

body:
> Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2003 21:29:53 -0700
> From: Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org>
>
> Thus, under the terms of the GFDL, we cannot pass the Crown copyright
> restrictions on to third-generation re-copiers.  For example, I might
> copy material from the Royal Navy's site into an article about HMS
> SCEPTRE, doing so accurately, honestly, and with attribution, but a
> third party who copied the article onto his Web site, removed the
> attribution, and somehow altered the information to be deceptive would
> not be in violation of our license.

I recommend using a more positive example of breaking Crown
Copyright, such as creating derivative works. The deceptive editing
example is likely the reason why they don't allow modifications in
the first place. Also, you might want to mention that the GFDL has
no restrictions against commercial use.

- Stephen Gilbert
-------
Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia
http://www.wikipedia.org


subject: [WikiEN-l] sue Michael Canuck

body:
Probably is another DW/Chuck/etc.  All the edits are harmless, so far ?
my guess is that it?s just a blatant attempt to play on what Chuck, DW,
Triton, Trontonian, et al. call the atmosphere of paranoia.  That is,
make lots of minor, useful, edits (and clearly by someone not a novice,
BTW) while making ing?nue-like comments.  Definitely antisocial ? like a
stalker who knows exactly how far his restraining order operates, and so
stays six inches beyond it at all times.  Don?t feed it.

Jules
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20030627/9524ee14/attachment.htm


body:
| I know at least two people who have experienced gods, and
| more than two who survived the Shoah. In both cases, I'm basing
| this on direct personal report.
|
| (One of the two mentioned above is now a serious follower of the
| gods in question; the other had an idle conversation, enjoyed the
| garden as the god invited him to, and hasn't changed his life in
| any way.)

I take issue with the above --for its expression that God as an idea or a
concept is dead.  This tends to come from a natural rejection of dogmatism
and puritanical/evangelical/fundamental views (those that contradict reality
and sense) -- and in that sense its an attitude with which I identify with
highly.

But its all too typical in AmSociety to deal see God as a leftover relic of
a primitive humanity.  The primitive "hand of God" notion -- playing with
humanity like a bunch of toy soldiers -- is indeed a relic, but a relic of a
misinterpretation.  The monotheist idea of "all is of one " is equivalent to
the eastern traditional ideas where "all is one".  The meaing of "God" --
"that which cannot be named" -- regardless of the the time, is quite an idea
to wrap a human mind around.  Its the idea of something thats too ... to fit
into an idea.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Pronunciation guides

body:
LD and I were talking about this at length. In attempting to sort out some
basic rules for phonetic schemes, it occurred to us that though phonetics
are important, they would tend to default to majority accents - which are
irreconcilable ethno-political fodder.

English words act as symbolic placeholders which contain an idea within the
shape -- just as Hanzi does.  This, despite the fact that shape of English
words of course, is entirely designed to represent the phonetic -- these
shapes in and of themselves make no attempt at representing the thing
itself --unlike Han ideographs.

So theres a tradeoff with each.  English, though the lingua franca -- is not
in the majority in terms of how its vowels are used.  Its this difference
between American English and the older and the
more widespread Latin/Balto-Slavic vowel sounds that exemplifies the bulk of
any disagreement.  I mean, if you cant agree on what an "a" sounds like, you
cant really continue.

This is where English, I think is in the minority, and will typically tend
to reject like the metric system any attempt at mundification.  So typically
English sounds arent it - and neither are SAMPA eugh!  (There was an
interesting booktv talk on the origins of the American units system, btw --
and why today people in the US look at the metric system in a xenophobic and
skeptical way)

I challenge anyone to show us here a scheme that is both easy to read (SAMPA
eugh) and gives all the sonic description that these attempt to. In the end,
the sonic descriptors are practically irrelevant when they get into too much
detail -- regardless of how accurately you interpret the signs, youre still
going to speak the foreign word with your particular accent.  And its going
to be wrong.  The merits of the Roman alphabet are that its fairly standard,
covers quite enough ground -- is modifyable in slight ways (ie pinyin,
romaji.... SAMPA eugh!)

Still, where phonetic descriptions are used, some direction toward an
international standard is a good idea.

-S-