=>From: Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk>
=>
=>I posit that Wikipedia
=>would be better off with a well-behaved, NPOV-writing Neo-Nazi than
=>without;
=>could such an individual exist?
=
=I agree with this in theory; I've just never met one who fit the
criteria.
=
=Jay.
You've met *me*, and we all know that Unificationists are well to the
right of Adolf Hitler. I'm the most conservative, homophobic,
anti-scientific, pro-brainwashing, POV-pushing contributor to Wikipedia.
(Er, to hear others tell it, anyway ;-)
And yet I manage to write so neutrally on many topics that people
regularly come to me for help when there's an edit war on all sorts of
controversial articles. (Except those topics on which I have known blind
spots).
So it *is* possible for a writer to temper their extreme POV and write
neutrally.
Ed "The thick-skinned one" Poor
aka Uncle Ed
[crossposted to wikipedia-l, wikien-l, wikitech-l]
Daniel Mayer (maveric149(a)yahoo.com) [050222 20:25]:
> "A small price to pay for a project like this. But get a move on with all those
> ambitious plans for paper versions. Most of the world doesn't have computers."
> by Anonymous
The closest we appear to have to an active plan for this is ... mine!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:David_Gerard/1.0
This relies on rating code (so as to let the Wiki do the work - editorial
committees don't scale, editors with opinions will).
Jimbo's idea - which passes the "simple brilliant elegance" test - is to
set up ratings on a large Wikipedia (e.g. en:!) and just gather data for a
month or whatever. Then release the data for everyone to look at and make
sense of.
This relies on someone who knows PHP writing rating code, or better yet
beating Magnus Manske's existing rating code into production quality ...
I could install MediaWiki at home (it runs on FreeBSD, right?) and hack on
it here. And, ahahaha, learn PHP, of which I know not a jot or tittle. And
I haven't written anything longer than a quickie shell script since 1993.
"Rusty" isn't in it.
So if SOMEONE ELSE who is interested and KNOWS PHP could come forward, that
would be *really good*!
- d.
> From: Richard Holton <richholton(a)gmail.com>
>
> Would we allow a photo of a
> Ku-Klux-Klan member wearing obvious identification of membership on
> their home page? I think that we probably should. -Rich Holton
NOTE: WIKIPEDIAN IN-JOKING AHEAD. NOT REALLY A SERIOUS COMMENT.
Recently, a user requested that someone post the text of a properly
VfDed article in Votes for Undeletion, for "viewing." A sysop did so.
The user promptly re-created the article in his user space.
It was promptly speedy-deleted on the grounds that it was re-creation
of a VfDed article.
So... deliberately mixing up two unrelated contexts, and indulging
myself in the hobgoblin of little minds:
Premise 1: a user's self-portrait in KKK regalia would be acceptable in
one's user space
Premise 2: a re-creation of a VfDed article is not acceptable in one's
user space.
Inference: To deal with self-portraits in KKK regalia, post the user's
page as an article, so it will be promptly VfDed as vanity, thereby
making it legitimately speedy-deletable from the user's page.
--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith(a)verizon.net
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/
I keep getting "The page cannot be displayed" for both
en.wikipedia.org and www.wikipedia.org.
RickK
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
All your favorites on one personal page � Try My Yahoo!
http://my.yahoo.com
>From Wikipedia-l.
My top-of-the-head translations, hope this isn't a duplicate.
Mark Williamson said:
> "Für die Menschheit" - Anon
For mankind.
> "Wikipedia ist eines der coolsten Projekte im Netz... ohne wäre ich
> wohl ab und an arg verloren. Rock on" - Sumedha Widyadharma
One of the coolest projects on the net. Sometimes I'd be completely lost
without it. Rock on!
> "In deze tijd een hoopvol initiatief" - Paul Hefting
A hopeful initiative in these times.
> "Für Wissen und Freiheit" - Ralf Muno
For knowledge and freedom
> "Diese Wissensdatenbank ist es wert." - Maximillian Winkler
This knowledge data bank is worth it.
> "Super Projekt wenn ich mehr habe dann auch mehr Spende" - Anon
Super project. And when I have more I will give more.
> "Wissen muss frei verfügbar bleiben!" - Detlev Mahnert
Knowledge must stay freely available!
> "Ánimo, gracias por hacer que avance la civilización / Toda gran
> cultura tiene su enciclopedia" - Anon
Spirit (?) thanks for doing something to advance the civilization. All
great cultures have their encyclopedia.
> "Dankie vir 'n uitstekende diens." - David Roux
(guessing, I don't know much Dutch and I don't know any online translation
systems) Thanks for an outstanding service.
> "Dan Holmlund's mom is a butter balloon." -- ???
Untranslatable.
Someone wrote "You want TBSDY desysopped because he blocked
SS-88 after he said this:"
> "You consider the right side of the fence to be on the
side of the
> haters. You call us stupid, but you should know that we
have a log of
> your hatred and abuse of "power" against one of our
comrades. THAT WAS
> STUPID! Your actions have been documented and have, so
far, been
> circulated to thousands of aryans who do not look kindly
on your type
> of hatred. You know what happens to people who ignore
history......
> 88 !!"
>> I refer you to the blocking policy:
>> "Blocks may be imposed in instances where threats have
been made or
>> actions performed (including actions outside the
Wikipedia site)
>> which expose other Wikipedia editors to political,
religious or other
>> persecution by government, their employer or any others.
In such
>> a case a ban for a period of time may be applied
immediately by any
>> sysop upon discovery. "
Teresa responded, very rationaly:
> This looks like a pretty straightforward case to me
It also sounds straightforward to me. If we allow violent
hatespeech by Nazis, white supremacists, Nation of Islam
black supremacists, "Heil Hitler" comments, and the like on
Wikipedia, we will instantly become a joke.
The use of Wikipedia would then rightly be banned by all
high schools, and by most colleges. Professional scholars
and academics will be forced to see Wikipedia not as an
encyclopedia, but rather as some sort of sick experiment in
using the phrase "free speech" as an excuse to shove the
most violent hate and lies, and as a forum where
dispassionate and rational contributors are scared off.
Many present and potential black contributors will
*certainly* be driven away if allow them to be the victims
of such abuse and persecution. The same is true for many
present and potential Jewish, Gay, and other contributors.
The project will simply cease to exist as it presently
does.
Already I have been pursued by one many who openly
identified himself as a Nazi (John Hoode, aka Mr. Natural
Health) and was threatened by Craig, Entmoots of Trolls,
who promised to send me identity to fundamentalist Islamist
groups, who at the time (and now) were mass murdering Jews
and many others. Now we have a number of individuals with
similar beliefs attacking non-"Aryans", saying "88" (code
for "Heil Hitler", and abusing and driving away decent
contributors.
Any rational person should see this as the death of
Wikipedia, and most of our Sysops rightly ban such actions.
So I was hurt and stunned when Zero 0000 _again_ defended
Nazi hatespeech and harassment, and called for its
acceptance on Wikipedia.
Zero 0000 writes:
> I must be missing something. How do these (highly
offensive)
> remarks expose this sysop to "political, religious or
other
> persecution by government, their employer or any others"?
These attacks in of themselves are persecution and
harassment. Maybe you don't know what it is like to be a
black person, a gay person, or a Jew, but many of us do.
Being cyver-followed around by hatemongers who scream "Heil
Hitler" and who abuse us, and who advocate violence, is by
the very definition of the word "persecution". How can
people not recognize this?
> Unless the sysop lives in a state with a Nazi government,
it
> is clear to me that there is no such exposure.
Is this an ironic joke, or are you writing as if such
hatespeech does not exist? Do you have any idea how many
Jews, gays and blacks are beaten each year by the very
people who engage in such harassment and hatespeech? In my
own town in the USA a Jewish synagogue was burned less than
four years ago by people spewing this hatespeech. In my
own school we have had Jews taunted and swastikas drawn on
the walls and posters. We also have had death threats made
against blacks by certain white groups...and these threats
led to serious beatings of black students less than three
months ago.
Free speech about killing Jews always leads to killing
Jews. The same is true about speech towards killing
"niggers" or "queers". Have we learned nothing from the
20th century?
I find Zero's acceptance of this violent, explicitly Nazi
hatespeech to be a clear danger to Wikipedia. We can be an
encyclopedia where hatemongers are not welcome, working to
create a peer-reviewed NPOV open-source encyclopedia. Or
we can allow those people Zero continually defends to
destroy our own work, and make us a laughing stock in the
eyes of the rest of the world.
The choice is clear.
Robert (RK)
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The all-new My Yahoo! - What will yours do?
http://my.yahoo.com
Rich Holton writes:
> It seems to me that there are two separate but related
issues
> at hand:
> 1. Banning uses who make threats; and
> 2. Banning users due to their professed beliefs or
associations.
>
> For me, the first is beyond question. We even ban users
for
> making legal threats. If someone makes a threat to
health,
> life, family, safety, or even to privacy, that user
should
> be dealt with swiftly and emphatically. Such behavior has
no
> place on Wikipedia.
I am in complete agreement.
> However, the second is also beyond question -- in the
> negative. There is no way to reconcile such banning of
> contributors by POV with Wikipedia's mission and culture.
> How would we be able to claim NPOV when certain groups
> are not allowed to participate?.
In general, I agree. For most people, in most groups, this
would be true. Yet some people are members of groups
whose goal is that which you described in issue 1 - part of
their goal is to make such threats! If someone is a member
of an organization whose very goal is to make threats - and
eventually carry them out - then (in these cases) wouldn't
we be obligated to ban such users?
How can we say that it is wrong to make threats, let alone
harm people - but then allow Wikipedia to be used as a
forum to help strengthen Nazis and other groups who do make
threats as policy, and who do carry out violent acts?
There is no God-given right to use a Wiki or work on an
encyclopedia. We have a rather open-minded editorial
policy, and it does not constitute censorship. Thus, we
should not allow "contributors" whose admitted endgoal is
to intimidate, or to incite violence. If we scare away the
blacks, the Jews, the gays and the Catholics by opening up
this encyclopedia to violent hate groups, then what are we
left with? We will end up limiting the free speech of the
many other people who will certainly be driven away, and we
will be damaging our own reputation for no good reason.
Robert (RK)
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Even if there were total agreement among Wikipedians proper content, so
long as Wikipedia is open to "zero-threshold" editing, it will always
contain a certain among of material that does not belong. The
equilibrium between the rate at which such material is inserted and the
rate at which it is removed guarantees this.
Even if we had a consensus so clear that "obscenity" could be a valid
speedy candidate, removal would still not be _instantaneous._ As things
stand, questionable articles will remain visible for at least five
days--and the very existence of the VfD discussions makes it easy for
anyone who wishes to attack Wikipedia to find them.
No matter what technical mechanism we put into place, tagging an
article as offensive likely to be considered debatable and require
several days to ascertain consensus before the tagging becomes stable.
This doesn't affect the broad questions we've been discussing, but it
does mean that Wikipedia will _always_ be vulnerable to those who wish
to attack it for containing offensive material. The only way to change
this would be to subject every article to _prior_ review before release
into the main namespace.
I think it's pointless to discuss making Wikipedia "safe for
classrooms." Any teacher who lets his or students access Wikipedia will
always be taking some risk with their career. The risk is small, and
that a prudent teacher in the right circumstances might deem it
acceptable, but it will always be there. The risk of a student running
across one of these pages _by accident_ is very small, but in the
fifties my little friends and I were certainly getting _our_ giggles
looking up "rape" and "carnal" and "vagina" in the dictionary, and
discoveries are quickly shared.
In George Orwell's novel, _A Clergyman's Daughter_, a schoolteacher
inadvisedly presents "Macbeth" to her students. They reach the words
"Macduff was from his mother's womb/Untimely ripp'd," and a student
asks the fatal question, "Please, Miss, what does that mean." She
explains "haltingly and incompletely--but she did explain," and the
following evening she is confronted by angry parents who feel "it is a
disgrace that schoolbooks can be printed with such words in them; I'm
sure if any of us had known that Shakespeare had that kind of stuff,
we'd have put our foot down at the start.... If I had my way, no
child--at any rate, no girl--would know anything about the Facts of
Life till she was twenty-one."
Fast forward to Holden Caulfield's tombstone, and Wikipedia.
--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith(a)verizon.net
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/
-------------- Original message --------------
> You are absolutely right. The choice is clear. Freedom of speech,
> especially of speech we find hateful, is infinitely more important than
> sanctimonious attempts to create a controlled "classroom" environment.
I've never been a big fan of free speech or considered it a basic right. The protection of threatening political free speech appears to be a necessary evil (like government) for democracies to work. There is a lot of threatening hate speech on wikipedia, from the Nazi hate speech at issue here, to those advocating drug regulation, compulsory education, conscription, progressive taxation of the rich, etc. If all threatening political hate speech were banned, only libertarian political speech would be allowed. Some even argue that the red baiting of the 50s was wrong. Yes the black listing, guilt by association and innuendo were wrong, but can democracy really afford be tolerant of political parties with which the 1st election they win would be the last free election you would ever have.
The problem with drawing the line at threatening speech is where do you draw the line. As someone who views most of my fellow voters (and myself) in the United States as mass murders for having supported FDA drug regulation (I have since reformed my voting), I have learned to tolerate hate speech or at least to meet it head on in the world of ideas. Perhaps threatening political speech should be both legal and rare, to adopt an analogy from Clinton's stance on abortion.
-- Silverback
----- Forwarded message from Kate Turner <keturner(a)livejournal.com> -----
From: Kate Turner <keturner(a)livejournal.com>
Reply-To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)wikimedia.org>
To: wikipedia-l(a)wikimedia.org, wikitech-l(a)wikimedia.org
Cc:
Subject: [Wikitech-l] scheduled downtime warning
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 15:05:04 +0000
>From fun Tue Feb 22 01:58:43 2005
Delivery-date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005 01:58:43 +1100
X-Original-To: wikitech-l(a)wikimedia.org
Organization: Wikimedia Foundation
X-BeenThere: wikitech-l(a)wikimedia.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5
List-Id: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l.wikimedia.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l>,
<mailto:wikitech-l-request@wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l>
List-Post: <mailto:wikitech-l@wikimedia.org>
List-Help: <mailto:wikitech-l-request@wikimedia.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l>,
<mailto:wikitech-l-request@wikimedia.org?subject=subscribe>
hello,
all projects will be offline at some point today while routine network
maintenance is being performed. this is not expected to last more than an
hour or so.
apologies for any inconvenience...
kate.
_______________________________________________
Wikitech-l mailing list
Wikitech-l(a)wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
----- End forwarded message -----