Karl Juhnke wrote: Abstract principles can be important and useful. Governing principles are often stated well in the abstract and then ignored in practice. This often causes problems that could be avoided. Our recent pattern is interesting. From the outside they look a great deal like previous incidents. A couple of which I personally witnessed. Others only fragmentary clues remained. If one uncooperative person is banned then clearly the project can survive and prosper. If the only method for dealing with controversy is banning, then it may be inappropriate for me to expend further time here. Fear not! I am quite capable of disappearing when I decide too, nobody need yell "Good riddance!" to expedite the decision. Likewise I will simply take a break when I feel the need, and likely be back quickly. Some have put it on record that the project is at risk of losing good people if "problems" cannot be eliminated (by banning) after reasonable time. I merely wish to place it on record that similar risks are available from excessive banning. It has already been publicly alleged in several online forums (the spanish fork {hearsay, I do not speak spanish}, geocities, advogato, kurohin5, this mailing list, and meta) that censorship is a risk or problem here at Wikipedia. This is not a good reputation to cultivate. It discourages participation. The current policy of edit boldly serene in the knowledge that others will do the same effectively forms a feedback loop that should converge on a product output of high quality mainstream views (NPOV'ed material substantiated in detail) if sufficient participation is available. Moving from edit wars to routine banning risks breaking the fundamental assumptions implicit in the above. This one seems to be one though. The frequency of incidents seems to be growing and the chosen response seems to be settling into a routine. Not necessarily a problem if the goal is to exceed the quality of a 1911 public domain encyclopedia or present a slightly more neutral world view (acceptable to "Western" scholastic authorities) than Brittanica. IMO Broad, deep, reliable requires more than merely regurgitating material already published for profit in western academia. Perhaps. Perhaps it merely has not been written down precisely. Perhaps, we aggressively advertise one thing on the front and orientation pages to encourage participation and then selectively enforce something else. If community approval and trust is required to remain an editor then this should be emphasized up front so that newcomer's know to fan out and develop contacts with like minded people. Eventually a trust metric similar to that used by advogato.com could be used by the community to establish peer ratings, if these are required to remain active in the community. But My hopes are similar. Personally I favor setting up some robust procedures that work well without resort to the current "owner" or enforcer. Mr. Wales has done an excellent job so far, but I hope and fear his available time for managing controversy and enacting bans will not scale up as rapidly as the contributing community. It is also interesting to note that his diplomatic skills are not typcially currently brought into play until the current alleged problem is highly irate and defensive. This leads me to suspect that we may not be getting maximum benefit from his efforts. Of course this conclusion is derived from my contention that there is plenty of work to go around and we need access to as many viewpoints as possible. Others may feel a more homogenous cooperative group is perfectly capable of writing a broad, deep, reliable Wikipedia. LOL I may someday call on you as a character witness should others once again locally become tired of my efforts at fuzzy integrated reasoning. I am well aware that tradeoffs are often required in real world projects. The trick is to avoid trading away the project's chances of success while being "practical". Nothing practical about iron with insufficient inpurities to achieve specified alloy properties. Typically, it will collapse far short of design goals. IMO The current problem is not the diverse viewpoints that we are running off but that highly valued "regulars" with proven contribution records get tired of deleting or modifying front page material to keep the material's reliability up. I contend that reducing our project team or community's diversity is not an appropriate method of revision control. Elsewhere I have proposed implementing a "code walkthough" where approval by two or three logged in accounts is required to place changes on the current page. This should easily reduce the poor material currently residing on the current articles by at least an order of magnitude, Without running off diverse viewpoints. Helga, Art, "24", myself, the previous incarnation of the Cuncator, and a few others no longer with us could learn to modify their writings to attract approval required to move from the draft to current page without much of the heated controversy and repetitive wasted efforts that currently results from the inverted process: Place your material on the current page and see if anyone deletes, modifies, or yells about it. This method would allow Mr. Sanger (and the rest of us) to follow his widely published advice and ignore perceived trolls, at least until the material is reviewed/modified/approved by two others ..... possibly mistakenly. The "troll" may also be less defensive or even quiet while other faction members with better social skills help defend or modify the material. Factions could not be ignored, but this is no loss as they cannot currently be ignored. Also, it is a well known characteristic of negotiations that they proceed best with multiple items or views in play, this gives the parties face saving manuevering room. On the downside: 1. Some people feel the immediate wiki gratification of "edit any page" will be lost from modification to: "go to the draft version in progress and propose any change for a random editor to approve". 2. Certain obvious problems such as people creating multiple accounts can be reduced somewhat via appropriate software. Diplomacy efforts will still be required. The above is certainly not a cure all. The minute sufficient approval is gathered but the material is unacceptable to another faction then we have another controversy. It should be easier to mediate between two teams of 3 people than with one out numbered person placed on the defensive by the mailing list's current "run em off" tactics. Others have proposed other solutions to help manage controversy or improve reliability and quality via other forms of revision control. Well, I fuzzied up this email slightly in response to your request for less rigid adherence to extreme reasoning regarding singular issues. I hope it is still somewhat coherent. Perhaps I should emulate the star in "Mission to Mars", in all future lengthy fuzzy posts I may prepend: "It wasn't me!" or "It was his idea!" regards, Mike Irwin

Jimmy Wales wrote: This is not my perception. Nor, apparently, whoever proposed the initial wording. I would agree with this assertion. Credence should not be given to any views, it should be earned in the thought processes of the readers. This is distinctly non "NPOV". The Nazi party existed. It had the popular support of one of the most populated and heavily industrialized Democracy of its day. The totality of the material presented should not be selected to support the frame or view that the Holocaust was undeserved. Similarly, there were legitimate security concerns that lead to U.S. Japanese internment camps. We should present the concerns, the evidence, the surrounding context, the allegations which revolve around the failure to isolate/intern the large U.S. population of German descent, etc. and allow the reader to draw their own conclusions. I would even support summaries providing the mainstream conclusion for the mentally lazy reader as long as not all contradictory evidence is excluded. Just as it is insufficient or inappropriate to present only the mainstream credible summaries and then the contradictory evidence it is insuffucient and inappropriate to "summarize" minority views as "crackpots" or "crank" view without presenting any supporting evidence which may exist to substantiate them slightly. If this approach prevails then the statement: "Once upon a time the Earth was considered flat." would never have mutated from the prevailing consenus of westen authorities and society that "God separated the Earth and Waters from the sky." Notice the second statement is still arguably true although many Scientists contend it was gravity and natural processes, not God, which separated them. You and I may disagree with the conclusions of the Nazi party that Eugenics and Genocide were appropriate but that does not erase the fact that either millions of Germans believed it or else thousands of German leaders and influential people embraced it supported by a substantial minority or majority of the population. If this NPOV fact provides an impression contradictory to the NPOV summary someone chooses to present then it should be pushed to an appropriate article and linked appropriately as per the consensus of the community in how to best achieve "NPOV, current revision." "NPOV" will present facts regarding both viewpoints neutrally and allow the reader to decide. Otherwise, an implicit editorial policy has emerged just as "24" alleged it should/would. If this is the case then we need a methodology to establsh editorial policy and criteria. Mr. Sanger has proposed that we ask a panel of highly respected intellectuals to provide us with *guidance*. Perhaps this *guidance* would also involve editorial policy. If we refuse to abdicate this power then the responsibility for editorial policy remains with either the community consenus or the "owner". Then our procedures and methodologies need improvement. Our project model, as I understand it, assumes that we can converge on where we want to be, high quality neutral presentation, from chaotic random starts and edits from less than perfect all knowing contributors. Education varies worldwide. Broad, deep, reliable will not be achieved unless our process is robust enough to help our spontaneous contributors overcome limitations in their skills and source materials. I have little compassion or condescension for "her plight". My concern is with rounding out an effective process to evolve the best material ever available from an online encyclopedia that remains an ever improving best available resource. This necessarily requires input from more than a restricted, filtered, or "biased" pool of indoctrinated academics or people within the existing western industrial power and economic structures. Perhaps it is time for our policy to be updated. As Mr. Sanger is fond of pointing out he was responsible in large part for its formulation. Clearly it has served its purpose in helping initiate the project. Whether it is of such quality at the current time that it can no longer be improved is a proposition that I assert the community should assess occasionally. Otherwise newcomer's are not involved as peers in our community and have no reason to embrace and assist with extension or completion of our project. Selection, censorship or propaganda? If Nazi views can be summarily dismissed as inappropriate or incorrect then there are few modern minorities influential enough to justify NPOV presentation. If competing views cannot be presented, only reported from the view of the currently dominant faction with claims of being "NPOV" in style of presentation then Wikipedia should drop its pretense of broad and deep. Reliability may also be compromised. What are your criteria for "appropriate context"? How should these critera be modified or influenced by newcomers to improve their neutrality or suitability for the Wikipedia in the consensus view of the current community? If the answer is agree with the current predefined project standards or go elsewhere then we clearly have: 1. A possibly builtin bias based upon the initial group who arrived and consented to policy prior to the freeze. 2. An inability to improve or broaden our community of participators beyond the initial pool well represented (accidentally) by the current policy and guidelines. 3. No way to correct errors present at the project initialization. We will not be ever converging on the best definition of perfection or neutrality we can devise with the assistance and consensus of the instantaneous community of active contributors; but rather on the best interpretation of the initial policy the community can agree to put up with. Elsewhere I have suggested that top level NPOV summaries should be contextualized from the mainstream views, as neutrally as practical, with links to additional material or detail for the reader who desires it. Some of which may be presented from an identified viewpoint. regards, Mike Irwin

At 04:29 AM 9/4/02 -0700, Jimmy Wales wrote: Exactly. Otherwise we'd need to carefully avoid suggesting--on each of the September 11 pages--that the victims were innocent. Either is absurd and offensive. Thank you for putting this clearly and calmly. -- Vicki Rosenzweig vr(a)redbird.org http://www.redbird.org

The reason was not that they did not see it as a criminal act, but that they were not convinced that Al-Qaida was responsible for it - the US basically told when asked for proof: "We have proof, and that should be enough for you." This asking for proof might well have been a tactic to give some formal international political reason for a decision that was taken on fully other grounds, but the Taliban have never said (publically) that they did not regard the attacks a crime. In fact, like Khadafi, but unlike Saddam Hussein, they reacted to the attacks with a message of sympathy for the victims. Andre Engels

At 03:31 PM 9/4/02 -0700, you wrote: As far as I know, nobody--even the mainstream Arab press--is saying that the individuals killed in the September 11 attacks were personally guilty of anything: the argument by defenders of the attack is that this was an act of war, not that people who happened to work at Windows on the World or Cantor Fitzgerald or the NY Fire Department specifically deserved to die. -- Vicki Rosenzweig vr(a)redbird.org http://www.redbird.org

Jimmy Wales wrote: Only if one considers a major World War beneath notice. To me that seems a bit controversial if one is presenting an NPOV as a neutral reporter. I reviewed the NPOV last night. It is lengthy and internally contradictary. It also attempts to assume/conclude in circular arguments that many/most are inherently neutral or well practiced from their jobs in presenting material in a neutral fashion. Despite these flaws there seems to be a lot of support for my position that all views, information, evidence etc. should be presented and the reader allowed to draw their own conclusion. When we start assessing situations as "obvious" and "offensive" then I suspect a personal frame of reference is in use. No we used firestorms in Tokyo and the Atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Civilians dead are dead. How much the leaders enjoyed issuing the directives which provided the results or the victims suffered seems almost another entire topic to me. Agreed. Agreed. I agree the wording quoted is above poor. It appears to quote several opionions and give them "credence". The NPOV policy specifically or implicitly states in several places (If I recall or interpret correctly) that we are not to choose the legitimate option or frame of reference. Our job as neutral writers is to present the facts in a neutral way for the readers critical assessment. We are not attempting to indoctrinate the reader into any specific "legitimate" view. Agreed. OTOH It is not "offensive" to report the facts on the Holocaust without mentioning in every other paragraph that the Nazi's were obviously to all right thinking people sick and evil. Just as it is not necessary every time the Bible is quoted to point out that it reports the Jews were practicing Genocides along with most other identifiable or surviving tribes or religions at various times and places who were organized well enough to keep verbal or written histories. OTOH2 We should not be implying that every Nazi involved in the Holocaust was an automaton who was merely following orders unenthusiastically. No government capable of continent spanning warfare has one guy with a gun pointed at millions of unbelievers directing all traffic. Somebody thought the Holocaust was deserved or it would not have happened. Likewise, post war analysis by some parties have a hard time justifying the "strategic" bombing conducted by the Allies. Its primary effect seems to have been to kill civilians. Somebody thought this was justified or it would not have occurred. The NPOV (to me) seems to advance the proposition of staying off the slippery slope of telling other people what to think; by proposing to stick to informing them of the facts in the best neutral summaries we can provide. It suffers a bit from assuming that scholarly academics are obviously capable of neutrally weighing the relative relevence of "facts" and minority or radical views. However, it recovers nicely by stating that all should be presented. If neutrality is to be presented in the context of personal judgements such as "obvious" or "offensive" then (IMO) some editorial guidelines or criteria beyond the existing "NPOV" policy will be required. Regards, Mike Irwin

Gareth Owen wrote: I do not think that I have asserted that it was deserved, merely that many people were involved in helping create it. Presumably they believed it was deserved. It has been my experience that few people consider themselves the villians or perpetrators of injustice. It is usually the view of one faction that it is the other side's fault and vice versa. Thus it has been my assertion that at least some of the Germans responsible for it (the Holocaust) probably felt it was deserved and this (and reasons they provide regarding why they felt it was deserved) could be reliably reported within the confines of an "NPOV" presentation of the facts surrounding the holocaust.

Michael R. Irwin wrote: Victors uniformly believe that their own side was incapable of war crimes. History often needs to wait until the participants have died of old age before truths can be discovered. By that time any determination of guilt for war crimes is moot. These events are far more alarming than the original terrorist acts. Hysteria is the only required justification. Quantico is in the USA. Guantanamo is the base in Cuba. If suddenly the Americans are recognizing Guantanamo as being on Cuban soil, then these jailed "terrorists' should have the full protection of Cuban law. That could be an interesting prospect. It would be an interesting reversal of the incident a few years back when Castro emptied his jails of common criminals and shipped them all to the United States. Victors win the right to invent the history. We can't honestly do much more. I don't even consider American lives more valuable than others.

Michael R. Irwin wrote: The only way we can say that it is uncontroversial that the Holocaust was undeserved is if we think that WWII is unworthy of notice? To put it another way, are you saying that if we think WWII is an important event, we have to regard it _controversial_ to claim that the Holocaust was wrong? That's what you said; I'm sure it isn't what you intended. But I think this illustrates the lack of clarity in your thoughts on these matters. This is a straw man fallacy. Absolutely no one here is claiming that we have to inject moral condemnation of the Nazis into "every other paragraph". Pretending that we are merely muddles the discussion to no good purpose. Please don't do that. Here's a false alternative: (a) pretend that 'maybe' the Nazis were right or (b) engage in random moralizing on every controversial topic in wikipedia. When I say that we must avoid (a), I am not advocating (b). You may think that the NPOV is muddled and self-contradictory. I think that you aren't thinking clearly, as shown by your fallacies and non sequiturs. --Jimbo

Well, since I seem to have spent most of the last few days posting wikipedia stuff, thought i'd pop my head up and say hi to the mailing list. I was wondering where i'd find the tedious, long and counter-productive arguments, and it looks like I hit paydirt! :). (No offence intended to anyone - just an observation that long, tedious and counter-productive arguments are entirely inevitably in any internet system of a given complexity...) Have already redirected anything involving the words "Helga", "jewish" or "holocaust" directly to trash. ;). Anyway, not much to say, except Hi!, and I hope the stuff i've contributed has been useful and appreciated. Wikipedia seems like a great project, and I hope it succeeds even more than it is at present. Thanks everyone, bye! (I'm user AdamWill. Just in case that's not close enough for my name for everyone to twig. =>) -- adamw

Hi Adam, welcome to the list! I was filtering anything about HTML tables to the trash for a while. ;-) As on Wikipedia, please only pay attention to what you're interested in. Stephen Gilbert --- Adam Williamson <aw280(a)cam.ac.uk> wrote: __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance - Get real-time stock quotes http://finance.yahoo.com