Jimmy Wales wrote:
>But imagine if someone were to write a Wikipedia article using precisely
the (daft, if
>you ask me) arguments that Anthony DiPierro has been using. It is a
>confirmable story, we do know a number of fairly trivial facts about
>her, and... we might imagine... this *could* become an idiotic short
>lived meme among the immature segment of the under-17 crowd on the
>Internet, as did Brian Peppers.
>Should we therefore have an article? Let's assume that we can verify
>the story easily enough. (Maybe one newspaper keeps its archives online
>for free... maybe a dozen blogs pick up the story.)
>I would vote "delete, nn - human dignity". A full explanation would be:
> For goodness sake, leave the poor woman alone.
As a relative newcomer to the mailing list, after following the "Borderline
Notable Bios (yes, again)" thread for several days, I respectfully believe
that articles like Brian Peppers and the woman named in the AP story have
not place in Wikipedia, and I wish to make a two points in this regard.
First, Wikipedia certainly should not be a sex offender registry, because
all but a handful of states pay good money to maintain online sex offender
registries. Nor should Wikipedia become a police blotter (as Sydney pointed
out). I doubt it is prudent to allow a felony conviction alone establish
notablility, becuase considering that more than a million people are
currently imprisoned in the United State, just creating and maintaing
articles on all convicted felons would likely consumed vast amount of
Wikipedia editorial resources.
-Danntm
On 12 Jul 2006 at 16:54, Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)wikia.com> wrote:
> This is in direct opposition to a certain faction with a different read
> on what it means to be the 'sum' of all human knowledge, a read which
> comes closer to a 'data dump' of all human knowledge. :)
Wikipedia: Where Human Knowledge Goes to Take a Dump!
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
---- Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)wikia.com> wrote:
>
> I am curious to know whether very many people agree with me that "human
> dignity" is a valid reason for a "delete" vote in a case like this.
>
> Here is another example, and I will probably regret mentioning it:
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060714/ap_on_fe_st/911_love
>
> This woman (please do not name her in the email archives, eh?) had a
> policeman come to her home for a noise complaint. She thought he was
> very attractive. So, a few weeks later, she called 911 to inquire about
> him, to ask for his name. She indicated in the phone call that she did
> not know how else to contact him, and gave her phone number and ask them
> to have the officer call her or drop by.
>
> Now, if she had stopped for a moment to think about why calling 911
> about this was a bad idea, I am sure she could have called the
> non-emergency phone number. (For non-US readers: '911' is what you call
> everywhere in the US in case you have an emergency, and they will send
> the police, fire department, or ambulance as necessary.)
>
> Instead, she was arrested for abuse of the 911 system. As far as I can
> tell from the story, she did not have malicious intent, it was not even
> a prank, it was just a mistaken call to the wrong number, and a "cute"
> story.
>
> The AP, in what I must say I personally find to be a lack of
> journalistic ethics, chose to publish her full name and distribute the
> story to millions of people worldwide. Our understanding of the story
> is not enhanced by knowing her full name. It is just a funny little
> story about someone being stupid.
>
> Fortunately, most AP stories vanish from the net pretty quickly. This
> one will. The Yahoo link will die in a few months. But imagine if
> someone were to write a Wikipedia article using precisely the (daft, if
> you ask me) arguments that Anthony DiPierro has been using. It is a
> confirmable story, we do know a number of fairly trivial facts about
> her, and... we might imagine... this *could* become an idiotic short
> lived meme among the immature segment of the under-17 crowd on the
> Internet, as did Brian Peppers.
>
> Should we therefore have an article? Let's assume that we can verify
> the story easily enough. (Maybe one newspaper keeps its archives online
> for free... maybe a dozen blogs pick up the story.)
>
> I would vote "delete, nn - human dignity". A full explanation would be:
> For goodness sake, leave the poor woman alone.
>
> --Jimbo
This would be outside of encyclopedic content altogether as far as I am concerned.
Wikipedia is not covering the "police beat."
She may or may not want the article. Some people do want the attention.
If she did not want the information even *in* an article I would be inclined to remove it. This type of thing happens regularly. Why should is women be highlighted.
Wikipedia is NOT EVIL
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NOT_evil
Sydney
On 7/13/06, David Boothroyd <david(a)election.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In my view the
> principle is clear: if a person meets notability for a biographical
> article, then the whole of their life is notable even if on its own
> it would not qualify them. For example, Bill Clinton is not a notable
> saxophone player - he would not qualify for an article based on
> having played the saxophone - but it is reasonable to mention this
> fact in his article because it is a significant part of how he was
> perceived.
>
The difference between Clinton's saxaphone playing and this situation
is that the mention of the former is not harmful to Clinton; and the
difference between a politician whose career is ruined by a scandal is
that it'll have attached itself to his name, whereas in GLF's case,
that appears not to be the case.
Wikipedia doesn't benefit from including the information about GLF,
but he will be harmed if we do. Therefore, we ought not to. Fairness
is as important as accuracy when writing about living people, if not
more so.
Sarah
I'm forced to use an unsecure wireless connection for a bit and I can't find
the address of the wikipedia secure server - it encrypts the password right?
mboverload
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:JzG&diff=prev&oldid=636…
The article in question originally stated that the subject, a minor
far-right Tory, was cleared on appeal of charges; actually it turns
out he was convicted. Ever since that fact went into the article
there has been a war waged, with legal letters sent to Ed Chilvers,
now threatened to me, Brad involved, and so on. Having failed to have
the article pulled by Brad they submitted a complaint through OTRS
which resulted in stubbing; we do not know (because nobody will tell
us) whether this was because of supposed imbalance, in which case we
can start rebuilding to NPOV standards immediately, or whether it was
their novel interpretation of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act,
which conflicts with the text of the act as posted.
These people are apparently determined to have a hagiography or
nothing, and they also appear to want to intimidate away anybody who
has any interest at all in keeping the article factual.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.ukhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
Amanda Congdon (rocketboom.com) was gracious enough to be our press
representative at the recent Time 100 party in New York. She got a lot
of footage of the guests, which was quite a group of famous people,
probably at least 100 people at the party already have wikipedia
articles, many with no photos or fair use photos.
As a condition of being invited, I asked that she release her footage
and photos under a free license.
I do not know yet exactly how we will get this, but based on what I saw,
her team was mostly just doing filming, so it will probably be raw video
(I asked for the highest possible resolution, so that would be the raw
tape). To get good screen caps, someone will have to take this raw
footage and import it into something and do captures or whatever.
My guess is that, due to the size of it all, we will get a tape rather
than a downloadable file. I am looking for someone with good experience
with video to do something useful with it. :)
Please volunteer by emailing me directly. Since I will probably just
have them mail a tape copy to you, you must be reliable and known to me,
because I don't want to have them mail the tape to someone who vanishes. :)
--Jimbo
--
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On 16 Jun 2006 at 11:37, "Lord Voldemort" <lordbishopvoldemort(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Still longer than me, and the rest of us wahoos. We never had to walk
> to our dial-up computers, uphill both ways, on Windows 3.1, from AOL,
> like you oldbies. ;-)
AOL as a source of "oldbies"? The *serious* oldbie crowd regards
them as the biggest source of clueless newbies! And Windows
(whatever version) just brought more crowds of people too computer
illiterate to handle a command line interface.
No, the *real* oldbies were the ones who used computers without a
wimpy graphical interface... maybe a printing terminal using a modem
switchable between 110 baud and the "high-speed" 300 (like they had
at the high school I attended in the early '80s)... or even punch
cards (like they also used when I was in high school, taking a class
in Fortran).
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
In response to responses to
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/08/AR200607080…
"Thanks to everyone for taking the time to read and write.
Apologies for the mass e-mail but, as you may have guessed, I got
plenty of feedback.
In case you are interested in knowing, it broke down approximately like
this:
- 65 percent: You don't get that Wikipedia is not designed to break
news, you idiot.
- 10 percent: You and the rest of your dead-tree Luddite friends just
don't get it, you idiot.
- 10 percent: You're the best! Thank you for exposing Wikipedia for
the unreliable tar pit it is! (These primarily came from .edu
addresses.)
- 10 percent: You raise some good points. For an idiot.
- 5 percent: I can tell from your writing that you are a masculine and
virile male specimen and that greatly arouses me. (Typically, that's
about 30 percent of my e-mail, FYI.)
Just to clarify: My point was NOT that Wikipedia is a place to go for
breaking news. Everyone knows that. My point was that this breaking
news EXPOSED the weakness of Wikipedia, which is that anyone can go in
and
write anything. I realize such rantings/inaccuracies may only last
minutes or hours, but then again, they may not. Because there is no
expert peer-review, single editor or board of editors and experts who
approve or
discard entries, it can be a Wild West.
I acknowledged that this is Wiki's greatest strength, as well. It is
dynamic and vibrant and draws from expertise and points of view far
beyond that which could be assembled on any editorial board. In many
ways,
Wiki approaches the ultimate editorial board. But it is still board by
gang, subject to the currents and eddies of political bias and
inaccuracy.
To recapitulate: I like Wikipedia. I just want it to be better. And it
will become so. I have no desire or ability to stop Wikipedia; I enjoy
it, find it entertaining and a useful first-dive for information.
Finally, to the one wittily sarcastic e-mailer: No, it has not escaped
mynotice that I write about TECHNOLOGY for a NEWSPAPER. Soon, however,
The Post will be a Web site with a newspaper attached, not the other
way
around, if that hasn't already happened.
Thanks much and please keep reading. You may feel free to post this on any
and all forums. (fora?)
Best,
Frank Ahrens"
I'm not sure if this is a retaliatory effort for the deletion of some
meme or not, but there is a deletion debate on both Lumber Cartel and
There Is No Cabal, based on the assertion that the cited sources for
these Usenet phenomena, being themselves on Usenet, are not reliable.
We have some references from Eric Raymond which to my mind amount to
reliable sources, but it's an interesting point.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.ukhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG