I think that in the long run, one of the most important things for us
to do is preserve and extend our culture of co-operation, with all of
us standing as firmly as possible against the culture of conflict
embodied in Usenet.
Don't get me wrong -- I love Usenet. But Wikipedia is not Usenet, and
should not become a forum for debate, especially not debate about
Wikipedia. That's as bad as a Usenet flamewar about Usenet flamewars!
:-)
Of course there will be disagreements and debates about what belongs
on a particular page. But we should all endeavor to keep ourselves
focussed on the _end_, i.e. a well-rounded, complete, and high quality
encyclopedia. Wikipedia is not h2g2 or everything2. The community is
essential to achieving the goal, but the community exists in the
service of the goal.
--
*************************************************
* http://www.wikipedia.com/ *
* You can edit this page right now! *
*************************************************
Hey, I just wanted to say that I used you as an example to avoid
mentioning any of the participants who've been acting rather peevish
lately. And I'm sure you'd never delete any article having to do with
nutmeg. ;-)
kq
0
That's an excellent feature, Magnus. But (and I'm sorry to have to
qualify this praise) I'm not sure how useful it is without
password-based unique logins. As it is, it could allow a lot of
mischief ... suppose I go now and login in as, say [[tbc]], then
permanently delete every article having to do with [[nutmeg]].....
kq
You Wrote:
>There is a "delete this page" function in the PHP wikipedia, for
>"privileged" users only. As I anticipate this to be a problem for some
>"normal" users, as demonstrated here, I added an automatic log page
to that
>function ([[Log:Page Deletions]]). Every permanent page deletion via that
>function will be recorder there, with date and user name, and will
show on
>the "Recent Changes" page.
>
>I demonstrated it at
>http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net/fpw/wiki.phtml?title=special:RecentChanges
>with the old "Feature Requests" page, for those who'd like an example.
>
>The log page cannot be edited by *anyone* via the web interface. Of
course,
>I cannot prevent the direct edit of the database.
>
>Magnus Manske
>
0
If any of the admins are reading this, it'd make a lot of sense to block
208.60.196.xxx from editing pages as soon as possible. See the Recent Changes
page for the explanation.
(it seems, though I'm not certain, that he's using a script to do the mass-scale
vandalism).
--
Anatoly Vorobey,
my journal (in Russian): http://www.livejournal.com/users/avva/
mellon(a)pobox.com http://pobox.com/~mellon/
"Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly" - G.K.Chesterton
Below, I discuss some of Larry's post point by point; but I'll make the
one
central point here: I am not motivated by a desire to question LMS's
authority. In fact, I don't question it. If you believe that I am
so motivated, please tell me what I have done to support that belief.
: Tim, I completely reject the notion that the issue raised by Simon's post
: constitutes "a blow to the harmony of the Wikipedia community." I
: honestly think most people don't care about the situation.
The implied argument is that only if most people care about a situation,
can it be be a blow to the harmony of the Wikipedia community.
LMS has failed to provide evidence to support that argument.
The above is also a case of the slothful induction fallacy, as there
is plenty of evidence that many people do care about ths situation,
as demonstrated by this and related threads, the discussion on various
Talk pages, etc.
A much more plausible argument is that most people don't enjoy the
situation, but that's very different from not caring.
: I think they
: understand that I was engaged in an "edit war" with The Cunctator and
: Simon, who mistakenly think it is *important* (that it will actually
: achieve something of importance, other than a bit of "heat and noise") to
: test and to call into question the limits of my authority.
Unlike LMS, I don't presume to characterize the motivations of others.
I'm not interested in calling into question the limits of Larry's authority,
as he asserts. I've been creating pages I believe should be on
Wikipedia; he's exerted his authority, and taking it personally.
His characterization of this as an "edit war" is wholly misleading;
because he used methods other than editing to press his case; rather,
he
1) asserted authority (which he can justifiably do, but it's not editing)
2) erased pages (again, which he can justifiably do, but it's not editing)
I find it telling that I don't consider it a "war", but he does.
: That's what they've been doing lately.
Provide evidence that my actions are motivated by a desire to
"test and to call into question the limits of my authority."
: I think most Wikipedians are of the opinion
: that I should be given at least as much authority as I have taken upon
: myself, and that stunts by people who are doing their best to question
: that *small* bit of authority that I have asserted are not particularly
: interesting.
This contains the begging the question fallacy ("I think most people don't
care about the situation...stunts..are not particularly interesting"),
the
bandwagon fallacy ("most Wikipedians are of the opinion"), the complex
question
fallacy (I think most Wikipedians...and that stunts by people...") and
ad
hominem attacks ("stunts by people who are doing their best to question...").
: I confidently predict that in the indefinite future, there will be other
: somewhat similar situations, in which people's pages are deleted and the
: injured parties will demand justice in a public forum. Then I will, of
: course, be accused of acting like an autocrat.
I have never accused LMS of acting like an autocrat, nor have I demanded
justice. The above is irrelevant to any argument made regarding my actions.
: In many cases, these
: accusations will be raised by teenagers and college students with too much
: time on their hands, and by intelligent people with mental problems
: whether moderate or serious.
This is an ugly and inaccurate implied ad hominem. As Sanger has already
presumed to directly characterize my motivations, it is only reasonable
to assume that the above is intended to defame my character by implied
association.
Terms used are at http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Logical_fallacy and
http://www.intrepidsoftware.com/fallacy/toc.htm.
The Cunctator
Let me preface this by saying that I don't like the concept of
marriage: two people should stay together because they love each
other, not because they feel bound to each other by the prospect of a
messy divorce.
Every open content project has to deal with the threat of forking.
Somebody just takes the code or content and starts a competing
project. This is good. It keeps the managers of the project on their
toes. They will have to do a good job or else the developers will go
elsewhere.
Forking is actually less of a threat for Wikipedia than it is for
Linux, say: we could just cut and paste the forker's superior articles
into Wikipedia. Code reuse between different programs is much more
delicate.
We all agree that Bomis does an exceptional job in managing our little
project, in every respect possible. Still, I think a small but real
threat of forking is beneficial, even for our benevolent dictators.
The current table form of the invariant section almost seems to be
designed to defeat any forking attempt. I would prefer a version which
makes forkers say "Ok, you could also contribute to the project at
wikipedia.com if you think they do a better job. No hard feelings."
Axel
Thoemmes Press, a British publisher of dictionaries and works on
philosophy (on paper and online), just posted this surprise in their
newsletter, to which I subscribe. It might be interesting for
wikipedians to check out.
Yes, they are commercial. I have no affiliation with them. It is not
my intent to spam the wikipedia list. I honestly think this would be
interesting to many of you. And I do think it is related to Wikipedia.
> ------------------------
> Free - Online Encyclopedia
> ------------------------
>
> An online bibliographic data source containing entries on both minor and
> major philosophical figures from the 16th century to the present day, which
> we are delighted to offer FREE to all our users.
>
> November's new entries include:
>
> AMES, William (Latin name Guilielmus Amesius: 1576-1633)
> ANNET, Peter (1693-1769)
> BINNING, Hugh (1627-53)
> BROWNE, Peter (1664/5-1735)
> BURKE, Edmund (1729-97)
> CUDWORTH, Ralph (1617-88)
> HOOKER, Richard (1554-1600)
> KAMES, Henry Home, Lord (1696-1782)
> SWIFT, Jonathan (1667-1745)
> WOLLSTONECRAFT, Mary (later Godwin: 1759-97)
>
> To subscribe to this service, please visit
> http://www.thoemmes.com/encyclo.htm
OK, it requires registration, it is not copyright-free, the user
interface stinks, it isn't hypertext, and you cannot contribute, but
the few articles that are in there actually aren't too bad. And the
URLs to individual articles are clean and nice:
http://www.thoemmes.com/encyclopedia/ames.htmhttp://www.thoemmes.com/encyclopedia/burke.htmhttp://www.thoemmes.com/encyclopedia/home.htm
--
Lars Aronsson (lars(a)aronsson.se)
Aronsson Datateknik
Teknikringen 1e, SE-583 30 Linköping, Sweden
tel +46-70-7891609
http://aronsson.se
hi all.
I noticed today (Oct. 31 that is) that someone has added "You can edit this page right now!" to wikipedia's template. This is fine, however, the HomePage is locked for editing and IMHO it might mislead new visitors.
I don't really agree with locking pages, but that is another issue....
regards,
wojpob
----
wojtek lukasz pobratyn
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/WojPob
--
Zamow odbitki ze zdjec cyfrowych lub archiwum zdjec na CD!
[ http://lab.foto.onet.pl/laboratorium.html ]
> I sort of agree with this! I have to confess that this has been my
> attitude from the start. We just say "It is released under the GNU
> FDL" and I didn't worry too much about the exact details. The 5
> author requirement, etc. are puzzling.
This would be simple to resolve; the semi-official standard at Wikipedia
is no authorship; so we'd just have to state that officially.
We could state that's different for the Wikipedia commentary and
individual pages.
Problem solved. :)
> I would actually prefer if we had a way to release under a
> Wikipedia-specific license, but I think we need the instant "free"
> credibility of the GNU FDL license. It tells people immediately that
> they can count on certain things.
Not only that, the license is pretty tightly put together; it's
marvelously specific about printed publications, which is crucial, and it's
still applicable to electronic publications, an area in which the
law is still vague and changing.
> And, so I think that as long as we're using the GNU FDL, we need to do
> what we can to "get it right" for the more pedantic among us. :-)
I'm dead certain that the Free Software Foundation would be more
than willing to get their lawyer to help us get it right. My recommendation
would be for us to draw up a set of questions and proposed answers,
and present them to the FSF for review. They might even be willing to
do a conference call or some sort with Jimbo and Larry.
--
The Cunctator
cunctator(a)kband.com www.kband.comwww.wikipedia.com/wiki/September_11,_2001_Terrorist_Attack/In_Memoriam