WikiEN-l December 2002

wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org

38 participants
107 discussions

RE: [WikiEN-l] [[Ireland]] and [[China]]
by Poor, Edmund W 11 Dec '02

11 Dec '02

Ray (Eclecticology) wrote: "The official name for any country is the long form..." Sorry, but I stopped reading at that point. I think what he meant (or should have said) is the following, which is subtly yet crucially different: >>> The official name for any *government* is the long form. China, whether it's "really" one country or not, currently has two sovereign political divisions: PRC and ROC. If one division claims jurisdiction over the other, we should mention that in the article. But we should absolutely not respect one side's claims over the other. We must remain neutral, even if "everyone knows" that the only legitimate government of all of China is X. Ed Poor

3 4

Re: [WikiEN-l] [[Ireland]] and [[China]]
by Daniel Mayer 11 Dec '02

11 Dec '02

On Monday 09 December 2002 04:00 am, Larry Sanger wrote: > A comment from Mav (whose judgment and hard work I admire virtually always > :-) ) suddenly turned a light on in my head (i.e., I had a sudden > realization).... Thank you. Coming from you I consider that to be a great compliment. >.... > I think I understand now why Mav and some others were so seemingly (to me) > peremptory about the issue. It's because they are working on > [[WikiProject Countries]], and they take it to be in they brief to find > the appropriate short form name of every country on the list. I suspect > the people at work on this WikiProject see "People's Republic of China" > and say, quite reasonably, that people call the PRC "China"--that's the > popular name. Similarly for the case of "Republic of Ireland" and > "Ireland. But again, that doesn't mean that "China" always means the PRC, > or that "Ireland" always means the Republic. The PRC and the Republic > have been around for less than 100 years, and China per se and Ireland per > se are ancient and far greater and ultimately more important than the > modern states. Yes, I guess this is the main reason why Jeronimo, me et al. favored China = PRC. We developed a naming convention for countries that was an extension of the official common name naming convention. Our focus for the WkiProject is on the modern states so I guess we lost the big picture. >...... In the > context of an encyclopedia, it seems pretty obvious that "China" should be > used to mean China--not just part of it--*all* of China, its whole > history, its many languages, its people (all of them), etc. This, > unfortunately or not, means that the article about the modern state, the > PRC, cannot dominate the page called [[China]]. Similarly, the article > about the modern state, the Republic of Ireland, cannot dominate the page > called [[Ireland]]. China and Ireland as topics are much bigger than > those states. As you should know from reading [[talk:Ireland]] I've already expressed the opinion that [[Ireland]] should be about the island, Irish culture, music and ancient history. The republic and northern UK-dependent territory should have their own articles. This issue and reading your email provoked me to reevaluate my previous position on China (thus my silence on this issue so far - which is very unusual considering this is a naming issue). It should be noted, though, that what you state above is not as obvious as you may think: Princeton University's WordNet Dictionary China n 1: a communist nation that covers a vast territory in eastern Asia; the most populous country in the world Also, Britannica Concise http://education.yahoo.com/search/be?lb=t&p=url%3Ac/china Republic, E Asia. Area: 3,700,000 sq mi (9,583,000 sq km). Population (1997 est.): 1,227,740,000). Capital: Beijing. .... Of course we aim to be better than Britannica and other sources. So I guess it comes down to how much work we want to do and whether or not we want to be lumpers or dividers. I've always been more of a divider myself so what you say above has a certain appeal to me. (NOTE: Much of previous debate on this was based on NPOV issues relating to Taiwan's claims. I was also reacting to a suggestion that [[China]] be turned into just a disambiguation page! This made me see red and probably clouded my judgement.). You also mention a very valid ambiguity issue; China and the PRC really are two different things in spite of common usage. The reason is that the vast majority of Chinese history and the development of Chinese, art, science and culture occurred before the PRC. As our naming conventions state; "..article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity.." I now see ambiguity that needs to be corrected. So I favor moving [[History of China]] to [[China]] and moving [[China]] to [[People's Republic of China]]. This will require some work on all the affected articles though (a lot of text needs to be rearranged and moved around). Then the history of the PRC will officially start in 1949 with an explanation of the major events of the revolution that preceded it. [[China]] will then be the main article that will introduce all things Chinese and link to more detailed articles on various topics - which includes the current republic at [[People's Republic of China]]. But now we have a bigger problem; What about France, The Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Mexico, and many many other nations whose current government was started way after our histories on them begin? With the new logic, it doesn't seem appropriate to have [[History of the French Republic]] mention Louis XIV or Napoleon. Or the history of the United States of Mexico say much about the Aztecs. This will require a great deal of work to sort out and can't be solved by just renaming articles. Yours in the WikiWay, Daniel Mayer (aka mav) WikiKarma payment. Have you had your Wiki today? http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Starck (new) http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Huguenot&diff=475924&oldid=4758…

2 1

Re: [flame] :-) Good idea, Brion [Wikipedia-l] - Peace
by Anthere 11 Dec '02

11 Dec '02

I am sure it escaped nobody that all this conversation is taking place on the main list - not on the english list. So, on top of supporting adding [flame] in the subject, I'll be glad if - should you go on on the subject (sigh) - you could move it to the list where it belongs. English matters. NB : I don't mean antisemitism is only an english matter ;-) Sure is not. This http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-December/008154.html is a general matter This http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-December/008182.html maybe is not. This http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-December/008157.html maybe is not This http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-December/008194.html maybe is not. I know, it's tricky. Maybe a good part of this conversation could have been on a talk page also ? Main list is for general matters. Not for english banning, english page protection, english flame wars. People should not unregister from a list dealing with general issues on encyclopedia building, one of the places where internationals can meet, just because an english flame war is at the wrong place! Or should I go to the english list to bother you about our last conversations with Iala ??? I am catholic. It is the advent time. So peace on you all. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com

1 1

Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia and anti-Semitism
by Toby Bartels 10 Dec '02

10 Dec '02

Jonathan Walther wrote: >Jimmy Wales wrote: >>I agree that it's not good to use administrative powers "in the heat >>of battle". >>Do you want sysop access, Erik? You should have it. >Given Eriks partisan war-editing, I humbly request that he not be given >sysop powers. I don't trust him to use them wisely. OTC, he's the one arguing that sysop powers shouldn't be used in edit wars. I support giving Erik (Eloquence) administrator status on [[en:]]. Discussion of this should move to <wikiEN-l>. -- Toby

1 0

RE: [WikiEN-l] request that Ed Poor's sysop powers be frozen
by Poor, Edmund W 10 Dec '02

10 Dec '02

Dan, There are about 10 replies on the mailing lists on this issue. Would you like me to forward those to you? Ed Poor (not frozen but considerably melted)

1 0

sysop trust
by Dan Keshet 10 Dec '02

10 Dec '02

Hi all, If you think that this is an aberration and Ed will not abuse sysop trust in the future, then I consider this issue to be adequately handled. But I do hope that if we are forced to revisit this issue (with Ed or anybody else), we are quick to act on it. Cheers, Dan Keshet

1 0

request that Ed Poor's sysop powers be frozen
by Dan Keshet 10 Dec '02

10 Dec '02

I haven't read all the appropriate mailing lists but I scanned them to see if this subject was being discussed already. If it is being discussed in a place I couldn't find, I apologize and please let me know. The "Richard Wagner" article has been repeatedly stagnated by untimely, inappropriate freezing by Ed Poor, who is both one of the authors of the page and one of the participants in the talk page discussion. It is a grave breach of trust for somebody with "sysop" powers to "pull rank" by freezing an article he is editing. Sysop isn't supposed to be a rank, but a measure of trust. Trust which at least I have totally lost in him. This is not the first time he has done this and it is not the first time people have called him on it. Because of this, I would like to request that Ed Poor's sysop powers be, at the very least, frozen until he can prove that he is capable of not abusing them. Thank you, Dan Keshet PS: please cc: me on answers; I am not on any of these lists.

4 4

RE: [WikiEN-l] request that Ed Poor's sysop powers be frozen
by Poor, Edmund W 10 Dec '02

10 Dec '02

Well, thank you, Erik, for that magnanimous statement of support. I take it to mean that my sysop rights should be melted, rather than frozen. Or am I all wet? ;-) Ed Poor

1 0

Clutch is on a POV tirade
by Daniel Mayer 10 Dec '02

10 Dec '02

Clutch seems is seriously violating the NPOV policy and needs to stop. The worst offenses have occured in the social worker article. See diff http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Social_worker&diff=471250&oldid… Note: "Social workers are often found in hospitals, and play a hand in ear-marking newborn babies for potential seizure and kidnapping by government adoption departments." "Social workers are widely hated." "Social workers are trained to treat their feelings and gut more important than reason, rationality, and respect for the human dignity of those they seek to help. " and "Social workers are the foot soldiers of the ivory tower social engineers that governments and big businesses hire to keep the masses under control." This is just so bad that no further comment is needed. -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

11 28

Re: [WikiEN-l] Clutch is on a POV tirade
by Larry Sanger 09 Dec '02

09 Dec '02

Um, we're still talking about Clutch's views about social work. I fail to see what this has to do with Wikipedia. Larry -- "We have now sunk to a depth at which the re-statement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men." --George Orwell

1 0

← Newer
1
...
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
Older →

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

WikiEN-l December 2002