On Wednesday 20 November 2002 04:00 am, Khendon / Jason Williams wrote:
> I've been here a few months now; can I be a sysop, please?
As a matter of fact I was thinking about inviting you to become one.
Developers, please upgrade Khendon's account to sysop.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
PS Khendon this is a request better suited for the en.wiki mailing list
(wikiEN-L).
tarquin Wrote:
>Here's another thing WikipediaIsNot: a creche.
>
>Lir's been learning to follow rules, sure: she's applying NPOV to such
>entries as Star Wars (maybe the empire isn't evil) and Vampirism
>
><snip>
>
>meanwhile, she is getting up more & more people's noses: see Talk:Battle
>of Dien Bien Phu
LDC saw the writing on the wall long before I did. I should have left
well enough alone. apologies again for the unbanning; I'm having less
and less faith that Lir will cease antagonizing.
kq
Could someone fix this list? Reply-to is not set; Ed's last post came to
me only.
Please could Jimbo or one of the developers do something about TMC's
username? The joke is old and tired. The guy is clearly taking the piss:
"I neither request nor consent to a database driven name change. If this
is done done without my request or consent, it is analagous to the use
of force against me. TMC"
Big deal. We've lost Isis because of this username -- has everyone
forgotten that?
What's the soft security way here? Cunctator, do you have any bright
ideas how we can softly enforce Community Expectation?
I think Ram-Man has 2 equally valid reasons for playing chess with Lir on her user page:
* it has been excellent practice for learning how to set up tables
* it's a friendly way to engage a new community member
Ed Poor => moving discussion to wikiEN-l
This is my reply to Zoltan. Consider it public domain, if you want to re-use
any of my explanations elsewhere.
Regards,
Erik
--- Weitergeleitete Nachricht / Forwarded Message ---
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 16:10:03 +0100 (MET)
From: Erik Moeller <erik_moeller(a)gmx.de>
To: "zoltan simon" <zasimon(a)hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Proposed changes (Trojan War)
> Hello Zoltan,
>
> we are well aware of the criticisms that can be brought against an attempt
> such as ours. Quite a while ago some of us have written this page:
>
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AOur_Replies_to_Our_Critics
>
> Briefly, we try to avoid bias and sabotage by several means:
>
> - The "Neutral point of view" policy. If someone adds new information to
> an
> article, it should be attributed. Unattributed information that is
> considered
> controversial is either attributed or deleted.
>
> - The "Recent changes" list. This page displays edits that have recently
> been made to Wikipedia, and many contributors review it when they have
> time. It
> not only allows users to view the changes, it also makes it possible, by
> clicking on the "diff" link, to show the differences between a new page
> and its
> previous version. If someone edits a page and inserts four letter insults
> all
> over the place, we recognize this as vandalism and correct it. If a vandal
> persists, he is banned from the Wikipedia.
>
> - The personal watch lists. Users who work on articles usually add these
> articles to their individual watch lists. If they view this watch list,
> they see
> a list of all changes that have been recently made to these specific
> articles. So a user who has worked on an article that was vandalized or
> changed in a
> bad way and who hasn't noticed that on the Recent Changes page can still
> see
> it weeks later in his Watch List and fix anything that hasn't been fixed
> yet. This works rather well.
>
> - The discussion pages. Each article has a "Talk" page attached to it,
> which
> makes it possible for collaborators to work out conflicts, ask questions
> and
> agree on solutions.
>
> There's more, and it all works amazingly well. Generally speaking,
> articles
> that are viewed a lot are edited a lot and are typically of higher
> quality,
> more balanced, less "crankish" etc. Articles on fringe or exotic subjects
> that
> few people care about can be of lower quality or less balanced. Some of us
> are thinking about implementing an additional certification scheme to
> detect
> high quality articles. Currently, some of our best articles are collected
> on a
> special page:
>
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3ABrilliant_prose
>
> Sorry for being a bit verbose in this explanation, but the Wikipedia
> concept
> is so different from what people are used to that it takes a while to
> explain why it works ;-)
>
> As for incorporating your material, feel free to send me anything you
> have,
> but note that I'm currently quite busy with various stuff (including some
> Wikipedia articles I'm working on, such as Library of Alexandria and
> Hypatia of
> Alexandria), so it may take some time for me to get to evaluating them,
> especially if they are long. I can read DOC files, but only in English and
> German.
>
> But if the only reason you don't want to work on Wikipedia is that you're
> scared you might do something wrong, that's not a very good reason :-) We
> have
> a policy that's called "Be bold in updating pages". If people don't like
> what
> you do, they will tell you how it can be improved, or do it themselves.
> Our
> "Neutral point of view" policy makes it possible for many different views
> on
> a subject to coexist, if they are all attributed properly and without
> bias.
>
> I have noticed myself that much of the research about the ancient world
> and
> the Middle Ages is flawed. What I'm missing the most is critical
> examination
> of sources -- if a text by a Catholic monk says that evil Jews massacred
> good
> Christians, many historians like to take it at face value, without any
> critical perception whatsoever. In Germany we have Karl-Heinz Deschner,
> who has
> done excellent work with his "Criminal History of Christianity", and in
> the
> 19th century, there were many critical historians, but nowadays more
> relativistic interpretations tend to prevail.
>
> Few people have any realistic idea of the greatness of the ancient world
> in
> comparison to what followed it -- ancient Rome at its peak was on a
> technological level comparable in most ways to 19th century Europe. I'm
> very
> interested in developments surrounding the Antikythera device and other
> findings of
> technologically advanced ancient artififacts. The most emotionally
> impressive
> way to view the cultural difference is, in my opinion, to look at the
> development of art from Pompeii and the Fayum portraits to the primitive
> medieval
> paintings that lacked any sense of perspective or beauty and again to the
> art of
> the Renaissance, very similar to the ancient art.
>
> We have a Hungarian Wikipedia, but it doesn't have any contributors (other
> foreign language Wikipedias are quite active: the German one has 7,000
> articles, and the Esperanto Wikipedia has 4,000 -- the English Wikipedia
> has
> 90,000). Note that the English Wikipedia is not even 2 years old, and some
> of the
> non-English ones are much younger!
>
> If you are interested in helping to build a Hungarian Wikipedia from the
> ground up, there's a mailing list here:
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intlwiki-L
> where interested people from the international Wikipedias coordinate their
> development.
>
> Please note that Wikipedia does not have a real power hierarchy, so I
> can't
> speak for the entire project. There are no special "editors", although we
> do
> have sysops who can delete pages and ban users, but they have to follow
> strict rules in doing so. For the most part, Wikipedia is a democratic
> project
> where everyone can participate.
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik
>
> --
> +++ GMX - Mail, Messaging & more http://www.gmx.net +++
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>
>
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Hi,
I received this mail from Zoltan (see previous message). My reply follows in
a separate mail.
Regards,
Erik
--- Weitergeleitete Nachricht / Forwarded Message ---
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 06:24:20 -0800
From: "zoltan simon" <zasimon(a)hotmail.com>
To: erik_moeller(a)gmx.de
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Proposed changes (Trojan War)
> Dear Erik, Mr. Moeller,
>
> Thank you for your prompt answer. I am still dubious about this fantastic
> project. I just simply cannot believe that this could exist in our days. I
>
> would feel the same if I would find an Archaeopteryx alive, sitting on a
> polished diamond in the middle of the trail here in Brazil.
>
> I mean, if anyone can edit any page of this project, a furious or maniac
> person who disagrees with some text may type in some four-letter-words in
> it. Or, simply, type in his/her own absurd theory. (Now one can say if an
> absurd idea is really silly or really revolutionary.) For example, Sir
> Isaac
> Newton dated the pyramids of Cheops and his generations 2000 years later
> than they actually belonged. I think that he was extremely wrong, and
> modern
> scholars are right, at least here.
>
> I have written so many works that had been ignored by ruling authorities
> that I have bacame somehow sceptic: I hardly believe in the progress of
> the
> human sciences. Also, I feel that I cannot force my results onto anyone. I
>
> would prefer to send my non-conformist conclusions to yourself first. It
> would be too strange to revise hundreds of articles arbitrarily, without
> consulting yourself directly first. I mean, my revisions are mainly
> chronographical, and that is the skeleton of history. It is present
> everywhere, in every article.
>
> For example, I have a manuscript of 52 pages, entitled a revised
> chronology
> of the ancient world, entitled "Black box from the past," a revised Greek
> (Athens and Sparta) and Latin-Roman chronology, 24 and 5 pages
> respectively.
> Could I mail those to you? Or, is it possible by e-mail Attachments? (In
> what format? It is in Word Document now.)
>
> Thank you for your kind comments and advise that is extremely important
> for
> the progress/ advancement of the sciences. Perhaps I send you now another
> message about our works and subjects. If you accept my results somehow, I
> would be glad to be your editor in the Hungarian language. (I also speak
> Spanish and "Portugnol," a mixture of Spanish and Portuguese.)
>
> Sincerely yours,
>
> Zoltan
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >From: Erik Moeller <erik_moeller(a)gmx.de>
> >To: "zoltan simon" <zasimon(a)hotmail.com>
> >CC: wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org
> >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Proposed changes (Trojan War)
> >Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 14:48:14 +0100 (MET)
> >
> >Hello Zoltan,
> >
> >thanks for your detailed feedback regarding the "Penelope" page. I'll
> >incorporate the changes you suggested. You may or may not have noticed
> that
> >Wikipedia is a collaborative project run by volunteers -- it's a whole
> >encyclopedia
> >built by hundreds of people from all around the world, in many different
> >languages. It works by allowing everyone to edit any page (a history of
> all
> >changes is kept so that bad edits can be reverted). That way, Wikipedia
> has
> >become
> >a quickly growing and evolving repository of human knowledge.
> >
> >I write this to let you know that you, too, can feel free to make any
> >changes you consider helpful to the Penelope article and any others you
> are
> >interested in. This includes the addition of references, quotes, or
> >whatever you
> >feel is appropriate. You do not need any special "geeky" knowledge to do
> >so,
> >it's very simple.
> >
> >Just go to this page:
> >http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Penelope&action=edit
> >
> >An editing window should pop up which allows you to change the text of
> the
> >article. You can write normal text, and if you want to use formatting
> like
> >italics, lists etc., there's a page that describes how to do that:
> >
> >http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AHow_does_one_edit_a_page
> >
> >We'd appreciate it if you would take a look at pages that interest you,
> and
> >try to improve them where you can!
> >
> >Yours sincerely, and thanks again for your mail,
> >
> >Erik Moeller
> >
> >Wikipedia contributor
> >
> >--
> >+++ GMX - Mail, Messaging & more http://www.gmx.net +++
> >NEU: Mit GMX ins Internet. Rund um die Uhr für 1 ct/ Min. surfen!
>
>
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I think it would be good for Ram-Man and other chess players to mark as "minor" any edits to their chess games.
Also, they could move their table-setup experiment and community-building just as well on MetaWiki, couldn't they?
Ed Poor
Attn.: The Editors, or to whom it may concern
(Trojan War, Odysseus, Penelope, etc. absolute dates)
November 20, 2002
Dear Wikipedia,
I cannot access this kind of dialogue box under the heading "Penelope," and
not sure how to send you comments regarding any page. So I try to do it
here. Namely, "Penelope waits twenty years for the return of her husband
from the Troy war." There is a grammatical mistake: it should be "Trojan
War" (both words capitalized), as widely accepted by historians.
Other observation: although Homer mentions the twenty years of his
absense, he also mentions repeatedly that Penelope resisted the army of
suitors after the fall of Troy for almost four years. (From the summer of
1182 to April 1178 BC.) You may consider including a new absolute date for
the slaying of the suitors by Odysseus on April 16, 1178 BC, during a total
eclipse of the Sun observed at Ithaca. We came up with this proposal six
years ago in Robinson, 1996:97, and by now three web pages have accepted it.
I can give you the details if you are interested, including some academic
publications. (A total solar eclipse occurs at the same place once in an
average of 410 years.)
I congratulate for your excellent Wikipedia. Best regards,
Zoltan Andrew Simon, Senior Editor/ Land Surveyor
Vitória, Brazil
E-mail: zasimon(a)hotmail.com
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Erik Moeller wrote:
>A mail from Ed? Surely this cannot be, as you just announced your
>departure from the project a couple of days ago (for the second time), and
>wrote that Wikipedia is doomed. Or are you perhaps a bit moody? Let me
>guess, the big advantage of Sunday school over Wikipedia was that it was
>*only* on Sundays ;-)
Ah, he's only bluffing ^_^.
(I hope *_*.)
>The problem I see is that in a consensus-finding decision making process,
>a single dedicated person can prolong discourse forever.
A *single* person can't prolong the decision-making process forever,
because we have enough people around that lack of a single person
is no obstacle to reaching a consensus. Consensus != unanimity
(in English, although apparently it does mean that in French --
see some earlier posts between me and Anthere).
And even with a voting mechanism in place, a single dedicated person
could still prolong *discourse* forever. Or would you censor speech?
[[Democratic centralism]] != democracy (indeed, the term is a misnomer).
Whatever decision-making process we use, those who dissent
must still always have the right to express that dissent,
or democracy is over, whatever of its trappings may remain.
>Nothing in our rules says that Lir cannot continue the debate
>about naming conventions forever -- so it would be wrong for us to punish
>her if she does.
Absolutely wrong! Voting is one thing, but if this much *ever* changed,
then there would be no democracy left in Wikipedia, and I would have to leave.
>And I'm afraid that when people get tired of our tedious
>decision making process, they will want to resort to more drastic forms of
>enforcement and more permanent power structures, which will in turn lead
>to wrong decisions, alienation, power struggles.
Agreed, but IMO, that's exactly what *you* are trying to do ^_^.
(Don't misunderstood me; I know that your intentions are only the best.
I only think that the effect would be bad.)
-- Toby