Hi,
The conflict at the Moldovan Wikipedia has reignited.
A new user made a page called "Alegeri" (elections).
It starts with him espousing his POVs.
The requirements of the vote are:
1) You have to speak Romanian/Moldovan "adequately". Whether or not
your skills are "adequate", is to be judged by this particular user
himself.
2) You have to have at least 25 contributions on the Moldovan
Wikipedia... OR the Romanian Wikipedia!!!
Now, that strikes me as inherently unfair. Romanian Wikipedians are
allowed to vote, sort of like a free pass? But no other Wikimedians??
It's not the ROmanian Wikipedia after all, it's the Moldovan
Wikipedia!
You may argue all you want about whether or not Moldovan and Romanian
are a single language, whether or not that Wikipedia should exist, but
to let everybody from one Wiki vote for the future of another one, but
nobody from any other wikis may participate, seems inherently unfair.
The same user has been very... shall we say, "headstrong". He moved
dozens and dozens of pages from Cyrillic titles to Latin titles
(instead of creating brand-new pages in Latin), and replaced their
entire contents with direct copy from ro.wiki, systematically. He
obviously didn't even review his work, because many images were broken
because the image tag for ro: ([[imagine:...]]) doesn't work on
mo.wiki (you have to use the default, [[image:...]]).
Now, so far, of all the people who voted, the vast majority are
Romanians. How is that fair? Romanians get to decide the future of the
Moldovan Wikipedia, but no *other* foreigners may weigh in?
Well, maybe some Romanians don't see themselves as foreigners, but in
the eyes of the world, they are. And besides, very clearly, there are
two separate subdomains. Whether or not Romanians are Moldovans and
vice-versa, very clearly most ro.wikipedians are NOT mo.wikipedians,
though a few are.
Your thoughts, please?
Also, I encourage everybody to vote. I explained it at the enwiki
village pump--news.
Mark
Walter,
This chap sounds like quite the fool. If he's actually putting this in
articles (I do not read Dutch well, so I don't know exactly what was
written), then it is POV rubbish and should be reverted like any common
vandalism. Saying "Allah Akhbar is almost the same as Heil Hitler" is quite
clearly POV.
That said, if he's just hitting up talk pages and his own user page with
this sort of nonsense, I'd let it slide. Yes, it stinks, and yes, I
disagree with it, but it's better to let him make a fool of himself than
start censoring. It's a slippery slope from "no racist comments" to "don't
question Jimbo Wales IX, Supreme Overlord and God-Emperor of Wikipedia!".
This also works in reverse, so all of the nonsense on the talk page of
[[en:Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons]] about getting rid of images that
are potentially offensive to Muslims is rubbish. There is no room on
Wikipedia for self-censorship to pander to any minority group, be they
Muslims or racists.
Regards,
- Craig Franklin [[en:Lankiveil]]
-------------------
Craig Franklin
PO Box 764
Ashgrove, Q, 4060
Australia
http://www.halo-17.net - Australia's Favourite Source of Indie Music, Art,
and Culture.
----- Original Message ----- >
> Message: 10
> Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2006 22:59:23 +0700
> From: Walter van Kalken <walter(a)vankalken.net>
> Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Insulting the islam is allowed on nl: wikipedia
> To: wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org, Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l(a)wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID: <43DF895B.90409(a)vankalken.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
>
> On nl: wikipedia we have a user (Torero) who under him quoting the
> rights of freedom of speech is insulting the islam and everyone who
> doesn't think like him on a regular basis.
>
> Today he wrote:
>
>
http://nl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Overleg:DemoCrates.net&diff=301155
1&oldid=3011315
>
> Allah Akbar is almost the same as Heil Hitler.
>
> This is not the first time he did this. He has insulted the islam and
> muslims on multiple occasions. Also he constantly accuses people of
> being leftwing etc.
>
> Unfortunately this is "tolerated" on nl: by the mods and anyone else who
> do not dare to pose an opposition against these kind of users. And
> everytime he apologises some time later. But what does an apology count
> for if he keeps on repeating himself time and time again. And again a
> user who happens to be muslim is going on wikibreak because of this.
>
> Freedom of speech ?????
>
> Waerth/Walter
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
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> Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org
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>
>
> End of Wikipedia-l Digest, Vol 30, Issue 40
> *******************************************
>
>
Neil Harris wrote:
> Since it appears to be possible to generate Europanto by word-by-word
> translation of English into European languages chosen at random on a
> word-by-word basis, I'd imagine that it would not be too difficult to
> generate a Europanto Wikipedia programmatically, using the English
> Wikipedia as source material, and perhaps Wiktionary as the
> word-for-word translation dictionary. Throw in link grammars for
> fair-to-reasonable part-of-speech tagging...
>
> Und voila! Esta Vikipedio Europantoi - L'encyclopédie fria e gratuita,
> mit 950,000 artikelen!
Curiously, my brain processes that as "The fried encyclopedia". So I
guess it's a decent enough joke. As a Wikipedia language, though, it
ranks up there with Klingon.
--Michael Snow
brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com) wrote:
> I've disabled the ability to use blank passwords on wiki accounts.
>
> For a long time we treated accounts very laxly in this regard; there generally
> wasn't _that_ much reason to secure a casual account unless you were one of the
> tiny number of sysops.
>
> In recent years though the number of sysops has exploded, and we've added
> customization features like the user javascript which are cool but potentially
> really annoying if someone gets into your account and messes with them. As a
> small concession to security and accountability, it's time for blank passwords
> to go.
>
> While running some password security checks, I found that a handful of sysop
> accounts had blank passwords. Probably some non-sysop accounts also had blanks.
>
> Affected accounts can reset the password by the automated e-mail
> password gadget on the login form, unless of course they didn't put in an e-mail.
This is seriously wrong. It should be completely reversed.
A lot of people have just lost their account because of this,
and it wasn't even announced that it was coming.
This part of the problem could be reduced if the change was
announced in advance.
However, that's not the full problem.
Many people use blank or trival passwords and don't give their emails.
This is completely reasonable, as it's very hard to remember just
another password (and reusing passwords on different websites is about
as bad as having none),
and even if spamming wasn't a problem, why the heck would any website
need their email in the first place ?
So, while dictionary-checking sysops' passwords make a lot of sense,
there's very little point in limiting passwords of the non-privileged accounts.
(and yeah, /me just lost 2 (rarely used) accounts on fr.wp and de.wp)
Joseph Reagle wrote:
> Comments on these drafts are most welcome!
>
> http://reagle.org/joseph/blog/career/phd/f05?showcomments=yes
>
> * Wikipedia's Heritage: Vision, Pragmatics, and Happenstance -
> moving on from my earlier consideration of print publishers in
> Four Short Stories about the Reference Work, I consider recent
> digital encycopedic works:
>
> This essay explores development of globally available digital
> reference works from their first imaginings to contemporary cases.
> My hope in undertaking such a project is to identify technical and
> social aspects of digital reference work production that can
> contribute to an understanding of a prominent contemporary
> exemplar, the Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia. Why did it
> take over 50 years for the vision of "[w]holly new forms of
> encyclopedias" (Bush 1945: 8 to be realized? The answer,
> presented in this essay, was that it required an alignment of a
> coherent goal, technical practicality, and serendipity: vision,
> pragmatics, and happenstance. ...
>
>
> * Do as I do: leadership in the Wikipedia
>
> In this paper I consider how notions of leadership operate in
> collaborative on-line cultures. In particular, I consider the
> seemingly paradoxical, or perhaps merely playful, juxtaposition of
> informal tyrant-like titles (e.g., "Benevolent Dictator") in
> otherwise seemingly egalitarian voluntary content production
> communities such as the Wikipedia. To accomplish this, I first
> introduce the Wikipedia as an open content community and review
> existing literature on the role of leadership in such communities.
> I then relate ethnographic and archival data on how leadership is
> understood, performed, and discussed in the Wikipedia community. I
> conclude by integrating concepts from existing literature and my
> own findings into a theory of leadership and note other communities
> and leaders against which this theory could be tested. ...
>
Looks interesting...
I just printed it... Looks like it will put me back in the past. I'll be
glad to put one day new perspectives on the topic I think ;-)
ant
Jan. 31, three days ago, marked the passing of someone whose life and
work have managed to touch many on this list -- Paddy Roy Bates, known
in refined circles as Prince Roy of Sealand.
After claiming HM Fort Roughs as the Principality of Sealand[1] in
1967, Prince Roy defended it against physical and legal attacks in the
years that followed, including a mass forgery of Sealand passports.
Sealand and its aura of mystique provided the perfect, slightly
surreal, backdrop for the rollout of HavenCo[2] Limited in 2000, a
data center set up in "the world's only true free market environment";
as well as the Wikipedia micronation wars through which many of us
became familiar with this story.
The Principality will remain under control of Prince Michael, who has
been Prince Regent since 1999.
++SJ
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealand
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HavenCo
Comments on these drafts are most welcome!
http://reagle.org/joseph/blog/career/phd/f05?showcomments=yes
* Wikipedia's Heritage: Vision, Pragmatics, and Happenstance -
moving on from my earlier consideration of print publishers in
Four Short Stories about the Reference Work, I consider recent
digital encycopedic works:
This essay explores development of globally available digital
reference works from their first imaginings to contemporary cases.
My hope in undertaking such a project is to identify technical and
social aspects of digital reference work production that can
contribute to an understanding of a prominent contemporary
exemplar, the Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia. Why did it
take over 50 years for the vision of "[w]holly new forms of
encyclopedias" (Bush 1945: 8 to be realized? The answer,
presented in this essay, was that it required an alignment of a
coherent goal, technical practicality, and serendipity: vision,
pragmatics, and happenstance. ...
* Do as I do: leadership in the Wikipedia
In this paper I consider how notions of leadership operate in
collaborative on-line cultures. In particular, I consider the
seemingly paradoxical, or perhaps merely playful, juxtaposition of
informal tyrant-like titles (e.g., "Benevolent Dictator") in
otherwise seemingly egalitarian voluntary content production
communities such as the Wikipedia. To accomplish this, I first
introduce the Wikipedia as an open content community and review
existing literature on the role of leadership in such communities.
I then relate ethnographic and archival data on how leadership is
understood, performed, and discussed in the Wikipedia community. I
conclude by integrating concepts from existing literature and my
own findings into a theory of leadership and note other communities
and leaders against which this theory could be tested. ...
--
Regards, http://www.mit.edu/~reagle/
Joseph Reagle E0 D5 B2 05 B6 12 DA 65 BE 4D E3 C1 6A 66 25 4E
Heinz wrote:
> David Gerard schrieb:
>
>> This is excellent:
>>
>> http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/2006-02-02/goods_next.php
>>
>> It may also be a good experiment to suggest to teachers in general if
>> they're trying to explain Wikipedia.
>>
>>
> very funny.
> teachers begin to explain to pupils how to use wikipedia for doing their
> homework with wikipedia. ;-)
>
There's a template that's sometimes used on the refdesk for exactly that
purpose:
{{dyoh}}
--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
It's an absolute disgrace that it should be allowed to continue. It's been clear to me for a while that the large wikipedias are as much about furthering western hegemony as anything else. NPOV generally means making western civilisation look like the absolute pinnacle, POV is when one dares challenge this hegemony. Write about vikings or celts and you can say anything you want without ever being challenged, dare suggest that something originated in the mediterranean, and all hell breaks loose. Basic premise of NPOV? Civilisation flows from north to south and west to east, don't you ever dare suggest that it has been in the reverse in the past!
You think I am exaggerating - for starters try checking out the article on race and IQ, to me it looks like a gathering point for white supremists - but hey, who am I to question that? Add a graph, quote the odd looney tune scientist, and presto, you have an idiotic article that absolutely crashes through the POV barrier. It laughably suggests that as a matter of course, the average monolingual, barely literate, uncultured Homer Simpson has on average a 50% greater IQ than the average sub-saharan African - let's get real people! NPOV indeed.
pippu d'angelo
Message: 10
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2006 22:59:23 +0700
From: Walter van Kalken
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Insulting the islam is allowed on nl: wikipedia
To: wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org, Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Message-ID: <43DF895B.90409(a)vankalken.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
On nl: wikipedia we have a user (Torero) who under him quoting the
rights of freedom of speech is insulting the islam and everyone who
doesn't think like him on a regular basis.
Today he wrote:
http://nl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Overleg:DemoCrates.net&diff=30115…
Allah Akbar is almost the same as Heil Hitler.
This is not the first time he did this. He has insulted the islam and
muslims on multiple occasions. Also he constantly accuses people of
being leftwing etc.
Unfortunately this is "tolerated" on nl: by the mods and anyone else who
do not dare to pose an opposition against these kind of users. And
everytime he apologises some time later. But what does an apology count
for if he keeps on repeating himself time and time again. And again a
user who happens to be muslim is going on wikibreak because of this.
Freedom of speech ?????
Waerth/Walter
---------------------------------
Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i messaggi, antispam, antivirus, POP3
For those not familiar with this particular bit of American culture,
today is Groundhog Day. It occurs to me that the movie of this name is a
good metaphor for Wikipedia at times. So to celebrate the tradition and
create this experience for yourself, I might suggest you spend the day
trying to edit articles like [[George W. Bush]] or [[Arab-Israeli
conflict]]. Then crawl back in your burrow and figure out how to spend
the rest of your winter.
<announcer voice>
Your Wikipedia forecast for today: Morning calm, changing to edit wars
by afternoon with a chance of blocking, especially in the Washington,
D.C. area.
</announcer voice>
--Michael Snow