The Arbitration Committee needs new members. They are down to 6; 2 are
on holiday, 3 have resigned, and 1 is permanently inactive. This means
that majority decisions pass with only 4 votes, which is fine in a
sense, but may not provide the needed level of detailed analysis that
each case deserves.
The last vote was unbelievably rancorous and a huge pain in the neck for
everyone, to no obviously good purpose, and yet I am committed in the
long run to appointing people based on the results of community votes.
But for an emergency, I don't think we need to go through that whole
process.
Therefore, I am appointing some special members for the next 6 months
(to cover the period until the next election), at the advice (and plea
for help!) of the existing arbcom and (ultimately) my own judgment about
who seems to be available and would do a good job.
JamesF
Fennec
JayJG
This is an absolutely horrible job, guaranteed to earn you general
condemnation for being both a wimp and a tyrant, and I most sincerely
apologize to the poor victims I am pulling into our service here.
There will be an additional appointment as soon as I confirm what
appears to be the case, which is that Nohat is sadly leaving the
position as well.
--Jimbo
I was wondering what was up with Boothy443.
> Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2005 00:32:14 -0700
> From: Travis Mason-Bushman <travis(a)gpsports-eng.com>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Worrying trends
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org>
> Message-ID: <BF07408E.49F3%travis(a)gpsports-eng.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
>
> Oddly enough, I think the reason Boothy443 supported me was that I reverted
> an anonymous vandalism of his userpage that referred to his admin votes in a
> negative fashion :)
>
> Travis Mason-Bushman
> FCYTravis(a)en.wikipedia
>
>
> On 7/20/05 8:50 AM, "David 'DJ' Hedley" <spyders(a)btinternet.com> wrote:
>
> > A reasoning should be mandatory for an oppose vote. See Boothy443, a while
> > back, who put "ADMINS ARE EVIL" on talk pages and voted oppose on every RfA
> > until FCYTravis'.
--
___________________________________________________________
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I have forwarded this message to the mailing list originally sent to Jimbo.
-JoeM
Jimbo,
This is User:JoeM from Wikipedia. I'm contacting you concerning my ban from
editing Wikipedia.
I want to apologize for some of my more rude behavior on your site. I at
times got too angry and enthusiastic in defending my views, and patriotism
is so important to me that I got a little out of control. I've had a lot of
time to think and cool off, though, and I'm not angry anymore, even at the
Communist and pro-terrorist users. My views on America and the importance of
defending freedom have not changed, but I now realize that the way I went
about stating these views only hurt the causes that were important to me.
If I am unblocked, I won't use sockpuppets anymore. I will not engage in
personal attacks. I won't engage in revert wars. I will calmly discuss my
edits and views on talk pages without attacking users that I disagree with.
and I will definitely never, ever vandalize pages again. I will respect the
principle of NPOV.
I think that the Wikipedia project has great potential to shine light on the
TRUTH that the mainstream media hides, and I'd like to be an active
contributor again to make sure the project reaches its full potential.
Please let me know if there's anything else I can do to help get my account
back. I really want to help Wikipedia grow.
Your friend,
Joe M.
_________________________________________________________________
Dont just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search!
http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/
Delirium wrote:
> From a Wikipedia point of view this looks sloppy and non-neutral, but
> it does fit Brittanica's historical model of being The Source of
> trusted information, not "merely" an editor and reporter of information.
I thought I had a good analogy here and forgot what it was, and now
remembered, so I'll reply to myself. If you considered making a travel
guide, I see Wikipedia as looking at other travel guides, books on other
countries, travel documentaries, reviews, and so on, and summarizing
consensus opinion, properly sourced. Britannica, on the other hand, is
more in the typical style of a travel guide---they send out a reporter
who scoops out the places himself, and tells you the "real deal" on what
is good and what's bad. Where it differs from popular opinion, they
simply assert popular opinion is wrong---"[x] is popular and gets good
reviews, but it's overrated and I'd steer clear".
Same with the encyclopedia---Britannica positions themselves as a
trusted source that looks into things, cuts through the crap, and tells
you what the truth really is, while Wikipedia doesn't claim to have any
special knowledge of what the truth really is, so sticks to reporting.
Which of these is better depends on whether you think Britannica really
*does* know what the truth is. =]
-Mark
> It's particularly foul-smelling icing, though. NPOV certainly is
> compatible with not giving minority or conspiracy-theory opinions undue
> weight by inserting them everywhere or making them seem as if they're
> mainstream, but at the same time outright name-calling is a little
> inappropriate. Saying, as Wikipedia, that Creationism is pseudoscience
> is across the line of good taste I think. Not mentioning the
> young-earth theory in the intro to [[Earth]] may imply that we judge it
> as not being a serious scientific position, but outright saying
> "Creationism is a load of horse-shit" is a little more inappropriate.
No-one is proposing that we do. Pseudo-science is a
word with a particular meaning, not name-calling
(unless applied to something that isn't actually
pseudo-science).
There are, Godwin help me, nazi categories on Wikipedia.
That's not name-calling either, when used appropriately.
Regards,
Haukur
Hello, my name is Patrick Erwin. I'm a freelance
reporter based in Madison, Wisconsin. Our local daily
paper the Wisconsin State Journal (www.madison.com)
has commissioned me to write a piece on Wikipedia.
I'm also a Wikipedian, too (see user: NickBurns).
I have experience with the site and don't need many of
the whens, wheres, and hows filled in, but was hoping
to talk to an official spokesperson to ask a few minor
questions. As we all know, it's good to name sources
and it's great to quote the source directly - no
weasel speak!
Please let me know who best to direct this inquiry to.
I look forward to your reply.
Patrick Erwin
pce53703(a)yahoo.com
608.294.9695
__________________________________________________
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Below is an email I sent to the author of an article that was semi-critical of
Wikipedia. I think it illustrates the way many in academia don't get it and how
many of those are polluting the critical thinking skills of students.
--- Daniel Mayer <maveric149(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
> Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2005 06:45:27 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Daniel Mayer <maveric149(a)yahoo.com>
> Subject: Wikipedia is fun, but credibility varies a lot
> To: Susan.Barnes(a)rit.edu
> CC: maveric149(a)yahoo.com
>
> Just a note about this article
>
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050717/BUS…
>
>
> First, the English Wikipedia had about 640,000 articles at the time your
> article was published. Not 444,000. Second, Jimmy Wales started Wikipedia
> under the ownership of Bomis in 2001 - The Wikimedia Foundation was not
> formed until June of 2003.
>
> If your article had been published on Wikinews, then these errors would have
> been very quickly corrected before being marked for publication.
>
> This just goes to show that *all* forms of media have reliability issues.
> This also shows that media published on paper with a PhD as an author is also
> prone to obvious errors. Giving students the impression that they can trust
> that by focusing on the unreliability of web resources like Wikipedia is a
> great disservice to them. All media needs to be scrutinized by students.
>
> It is true that we sometimes discount what an expert says ; the reason is
> that we value getting it right vs blindly accepting what an expert says
> without checking.
>
> Daniel Mayer,
> A Wikipedian
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
>
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>Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2005 05:56:05 +1000
>From: Skyring <skyring(a)gmail.com>
>
>That whole King James Bible issue was way outside my comfort zone!
>
>--
>Peter in Canberra
It's already been long enough that I've forgotten the issue... all I know is
that the King James Version of the Bible was among the earliest works
released by Project Gutenberg--in 1989. (In 2004 they released an English
version of the Douay-Rheims).
I have to believe that Project Gutenberg knows is or is not in the public
domain, that after sixteen years the odds are that the British Crown knows
that Project Gutenberg is doing it, and if they haven't complained there is
probably a good reason.
The following I received via wiki's "Email a user" function. I
vaguely recall this article. I told him that he could remove any
statements he feels are false, and that as far as purging the history,
there's no policy for doing that.
Kelly
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Allan jenkins <allan.jenkins(a)observer.co.uk>
Date: Jul 19, 2005 12:49 PM
Subject: Wikipedia e-mail
To: Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin(a)gmail.com>
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Subject: help please
From: allanpjenkins(a)blueyonder.co.uk
Date: Tue, July 19, 2005 6:37 pm
To: kmartin(a)jabber.org(more)
Cc: allan.jenkins(a)observer.co.uk
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