WikiEN-l November 2003

wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org

69 participants
251 discussions

WORKABLE solutions for the RK matter: lessons in etiquette and accepting de-cent
by Abe Sokolov 12 Nov '03

12 Nov '03

The etiquette lessons are a good idea. For starters, if RKs coming back, there ought to be a gentlemens agreement that the Nazi comparisons be tossed aside. This pertains to RK in particular. It is entirely ridiculous for either side to equate the other to Nazism. Nazism was a product of the contradictions of German society, within the context of Germanys political culture, German traditions, the peculiarities of the various actors, and the capacity of Germanys material development. It was not the product of a mutual, mass-based conflict between Jews and gentiles in Germany, whereas the Israeli-Palestinian matter is an us versus them conflict, which escalated in such a way that bred hatred. If one were provide similes, the suicide bombings and targeted assassinations would be analogous to a couple of old, bitter enemies finally having enough, and lashing out violently against each other. The final solution, on the other hand, would be analogous to a serial killer, such as John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, or Jeffrey Dahmer, acting out his frustrations and arbitrarily picking out certain types of people in a killing spree. At this point, we can still set some informal agreements to avoid having peoples feelings hurt. We could firmly set limits on the more outlandish hyperbole, such as the historically groundless use of the Nazi tag as a means of rhetoric. Now, let me address the issue of mass-based conflicts (not the Holocaust which was no mutual conflict, but sheep being led to the slaughter house) played out on Wikipedia flame wars. In general, among the parties involved in an escalated conflict, the conceptions of reality (vis-à-vis the other party) start taking on ideas that have little basis in reality. Conflict is never primordial, but when they take on a mass-based element, and escalate ideologically to a certain level, easy settlements (e.g., carrot and stick, incorporation, concessions, separation, or coalition) become extremely difficult. Attrition, more conflict, or total defeat of one group, are the only realistic outcomes. Thus, its no coincidence although other factors are certainly involved that the total wars of the past century coincided with the modern age of mass culture, nationalism, and mass society. While cleavages breeding mass hatreds certainly predate modern times, the capacity for mass hatred between peoples was certainly facilitated by advancements in communication and transportation, the rise of the nation-state, and new social contradictions. As an aside, Israels leaders were not skillful enough to handle the Palestinian matter before generations were born and reared in refugee camps. For good or for ill, a free online medium like Wikipedia will inevitably become a form for anyone with internet access who has found the site to play out these strong tensions. And any attempts to avoid this, so long as we can stop anyone from SUCCESSFULLY using the site to promote an agenda, will be futile. Anyone can log in; and if we start banning people in droves, and developing committees to keep the RK-types and proxy wars out, then we no longer have a free encyclopedia. Furthermore, with Wikipedia more popular than Britannica, oversight committees and planning becomes impossible. Let me use another analogy. Rationalized planning worked well in the Soviet Union until a point: achieving the fastest rate of industrial development ever, fastest rate of social mobility ever, and incredible advancements in living standards (between the period in which the Soviets started reaping the benefits of industrialization and the onset of stagnation in the 1970s), but it eventually exhausted its capacity. Eventually, it was the victim of its own success, creating complexity (e.g., technological development, an intricate division of labor, so much diversification, such a high degree of occupational specialization) that the planners couldnt handle. It worked when for the Soviets when they had a lot of peasants and a lot of hard-to-extract resources (not a humane combination) in the beginning; and regulating things to avoid partisan flame wars on Wikipedia might work for us in the beginning. But this site is growing so fast that ability for all these conflicts to be managed by a tight community will be exhausted. Its time to accept that were going to have to deal with a more de-centralized approach. RKs rivals will do a better job managing him than committees, mailing lists, and developers. _________________________________________________________________ Add MSN 8 Internet Software to your existing Internet access and enjoy patented spam protection and more. Sign up now! http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/byoa

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RE: [WikiEN-l] Response to Edmund Poor, Ray Saintonge and Sean Barrett
by Poor, Edmund W 12 Nov '03

12 Nov '03

Libertarian, Thank you for your detailed, point by point response. I have written you and Brian Corr privately, responding to the proposal you both made. I don't intend to discuss that proposal on the list, because mediation works better without an audience. As for calmness, I hope I've shown enough of it to interest you in my (free) services as a mediator. I appreciate your efforts to seek a resolution. Coming to the mailing list and asking for help is the proper thing to do, and you have done it well! :-) All POVs about a controversy are welcome, if they are attributed to their advocates. (Note that you and I are not considered advocates. I mean someone like a member of Parliament, or a famous journalist.) Facts are good. Let's put plenty of them in the articles. If any facts are disputed, let's write about the dispute. Like: * Vishnachristy said the fire occurred accidentally. * Krishnamurta said Muslims started the fire deliberately. Note that the article will not tell the reader which source to believe. It will only indicate WHAT each source SAID. I'm sorry that it took so long for you to get help. We are not a mature organization, and the only person officially in charge of "helping" is the website owner, Jimbo Wales. He's very busy, but he hasn't appointed any official assistants yet. So we are all volunteers. In my case, I postponed my offer of help until AFTER I was convinced that you were more interested in cooperation than in retaliation. Puzzle over THAT for a while, eh? I hope that as a result of my offer to help, there will be a lot less branding. We can't reach our mutual goal by inflicting scorching pain on each other. If you are willing to take the time to work together on making a neutral article, I will help. Ed Poor

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Straw man as Whipping Boy
by Martin Harper 12 Nov '03

12 Nov '03

To further Ed's point, people who argue about the risks of deleting certain articles, or of keeping certain articles, are often arguing emotionally, from their gut. And that's good - it's important that people express their emotions and instincts, because that helps us make good decisions.. Trying to shut that down by pointing out that they aren't conclusive logical statements is kind of missing the point. We seem to have an excess of monitor-evaluators on the list... WikiLove, -Martin "MyRedDice" Harper

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Straw man
by Bjorn Lindqvist 12 Nov '03

12 Nov '03

> The slippery slope argument only becomes a fallacy if you make an > unreasonable conclusion connecting happening A and happening B. Folks > were debating the merits of including ~3,000 victims of 9/11 > individually as articles in Wikipedia. Asking what this means for other > victims of other disasters and crimes around the world and in history is > not a far stretch. That is why "rounding up" all arguments of this type > to fallacy is not fair. There seems to be a deep disagreement on what rules is and how they should be interpreted on WP. Slippery slope argumentation which seems similar to Aristotoles proving a contradiction debating technique in absurdium or something, I don't really know much about the subject, might be valid. But whether it is or not doesn't really matter. Wikipedia is fortunately not ruled by an armada of lawyers who read rules literally, but by an armada of rationally thinking individuals and Jimbo. People that know that HOW the rules work RIGHT NOW is important. NOT how they WOULD work if some troll comes around and tries to invoke lawyerism on us. It is unlikely that that will happen. And even if it DOES happen, those few trolls will be so few that they are barely noticeable. Just like they are today. And then the rules can obviously change if that is necessary just like they did because of Michael the Vandal. So therefore we can have articles about the 9/11 victims, but leave out mav's dog. Why? Common sense! BL

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Response to Edmund Poor, Ray Saintonge and Sean Barrett
by libertarian 12 Nov '03

12 Nov '03

I don't want to prolong this thread either. I shall try my best not to prolong this thread (I shall however reply to Brian Corr's post apart from this mail and give him information he needs). Meanwhile, my request to you is to look at the points I raised in an OBJECTIVE MANNER. Please calm down and for a moment think over this. If VR Krishna Iyer's claims against India can be posted as a legitimate point of view and he is treated as a respectable person, surely you will agree that the following information about Bill Clinton should be posted in the article on Clinton. I want you guys to calm down and answer if it is acceptable to you to post the claims below as fact. Here is some information for you from their (Marxist) magazine. http://www.flonnet.com/fl1707/17070190.htm The very first major round of protest against Clinton's visit was held under the aegis of the All India Anti-Imperialist Forum, a group formed in 1995. Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer, president of the forum, said that the U.S. President was being a surrogate for American corporate power. Expressing resentment at the red carpet welcome extended to Clinton, the Convention held that the so-called champion of peace, upholder of democracy and votary of human rights was the perpetrator of the worst form of criminal activities in the international political arena. It accused Clinton of having "launched murderous missile attacks on sovereign countries such as Afg hanistan and Sudan on the plea of fighting terrorism, while the U.S. administration itself had been aiding and abetting terrorist groups. And here is his claim about a conspiracy (his word, not mine) - http://www.ahrchk.net/hrsolid/mainfile.php/1995vol05no01/1875/ "I am not anti-West. The poor in the West are also suffering. But all these collaborations to manufacture Jaguars and fancy cars in our countries are basically a conspiracy to defeat human rights." Shouldn't that be posted as a legitimate point? Please do not avoid answering the above question. It is not intended for rhetoric effect. It is intended to demonstrate to you that it is wrong to assume that the person in question is objective and truthful about India but not USA. ----------------- Edmund Poor wrote: > I am beginning to lose my patience with the length and > contentiousness of this thread. > Rick, please don't fan the flames any more; give it a rest, please. If you guys calmed down and wondered for a moment if there is a possibility that I could be right and I have been the one trying to behave properly (until I faced hostility here instead of help), it might help everyone. If you go to the various topics and see who was the one who tried to discuss the issues, you will find that it was I. You will also find that I asked Brian Corr to help out as an arbitrator. The silence I met on the Talk boards is what made me bring it up here. For a moment, why don't you try thinking on the following lines. "If VR Krishna Iyer is the kind of person who comes up with conspiracy theories against Americans, is there a possibility that libertarian might be right? Maybe I should look at it objectively instead of dismissing it as I have done so far." > Libertarian, please try to understand that Wikipedia is not a place > to "post" your point of view or argue about it. We are trying to > write neutral articles about topics. Correct. This was *MY* point. Check out the talk pages. *I* was the one who wanted facts. I was told that if there is a POV, it has to be posted. In that case, shouldn't every POV be posted? Please enlighten me - why am I wrong in saying that either all POVs must be posted or none must be posted? I am in favor of only those POVs which are based in facts? Why am I wrong in asking for facts to be represented? > If there is controversy about a topic you care deeply about, you > have some choices: > 1. Don't write about it here, if you can't accept our Neutral Point > Of View (NPOV) editorial policy. I've accepted it. I'm pointing out violation of that policy by some abusers. > 2. Stop and ask for help, every time someone reverts one of your > edits. An experience writer (like me :-) will come to your aid, and > help you revise your edit so that it is accepted by others. I am sorry to say this, but this is exactly what I did. Instead of help, I faced hostility, abuses and name-calling. This is the sad truth. No one offered to help until I retaliated with hostility. > There is no third way. Complaining about how everyone is unfair Please go back and read my posts. I was asking for help. I was the one who asked for arbitration. I was the one who did due diligence by posting facts. I was ridiculed and told that I am a "Hindu nationalist" and my posts were branded "rants" and I was told that Communists in India were objective rising above their prejudices and why, they may not be Communists at all! That I was making it up that some people were Communists! > will never get you anywhere, and eventually you will either be > hounded out (as it will seem) or get kicked out (if you get so > upset that you start deliberately breaking the rules). I have not broken any rules. Why is asking for help wrong. > I think you ought to try option #2: pick ONE SMALL PROBLEM and ask > about it. Then stop. And wait. Give people time to respond. I think you ought to respond to option #2 instead of ridiculing the person who came here out of respect for you asking for help. -------------- Ray Saintonge wrote: > In the interests of maintaining peace in the family, I will > restrain myself in my attempts to be tauntingly truthful in matters > relating to India. ;-) Yes Ray, maybe you think I was making it up when I talked of Communists. Why don't *you* arbitrate. I'll provide you the input you need. Even though you've been hostile to me, I am very confident because facts are on my side. Even though I feel uncomfortable about trusting Americans (no offense here, but it is my belief that Americans do not try to take the factually correct position but try to "accomodate" all sides and many times that even allows pure fiction to be represented as fact), why not? Why don't you look at the points I send in for Brian Corr's benefit and see if there is any merit in them. Let us go point by point on the issues I raise. What do you say? Let Ed Poor and Sean Barrett be part of the team too. I hope you will learn the way Communists operate. All I want is that you see things point by point (not think that you'll give me 50% of the points and the Communists 50% of the points and that constitutes the truth.) > Your observation is factually incorrect. John Turner was the most > recent foreign born prime minister. You're right about where he was born, but he was born to a Canadian citizen and so he was a Canadian. Most countries follow the international convention (and have it as a law) that grants citizenship as a right jus soli (citizenship by soil) or jus sangunis (citizenship by blood). In Turner's case, he was born of a Canadian mother and so he was a Canadian citizen. We're not discussing the location of birth (for example, if diplomats posted outside their home country have a child in a foreign land, the child would still be eligible for citizenship of the home country.) USA too has foreign born Governors (Michigan has a Canadian born woman while California has elected an immigrant from Austria.) India is unique in the sense that it allows naturalized citizens to hold the highest offices. ------------- Sean Barrett wrote: > Very good. This is exactly the kind of thoughtful, well-reasoned > discourse that will bring all us ignorant Americans over to your > side. Sean, my aim is not confrontation. I was taken aback at the hostility I encountered on the list when I asked for help to counter people who abuse Wikipedia. I was branded a "Hindu nationalist" and accused of "rants". I assumed this is standard stuff for the list and used harsh words. I think it makes sense to have less heat and more light. Having said that, be careful what you say. In the above lines, you're implying that it is not facts which will bring over Americans to my side, but pleasing them! -libertarian _______________________________________________ No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. Introducing My Way - http://www.myway.com

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Straw man (was: Proposed: stop all deletes for 6 months, then reconsider)
by Alex Rosen 11 Nov '03

11 Nov '03

>That's an inductive argument, not a slippery slope argument. > >All inductive arguments are fallacies, in the rigorous sense. Only deductive >arguments are rigorously valid. > >Although they are fallacies, that does not mean that inductive arguments >should be ignored. They simply need to be recognized as such--that there is >necessarily an element of uncertainty about the conclusion. Then you're using the word "fallacy" in a different way than normal humans use it. That might be a more correct way of using it, I don't know, but just be aware that people will take it differently than you mean it. Calling something a fallacy sounds like you're saying that it's incorrect and should be completely discounted. I don't think anybody believes that their "slippery slope" argument is conclusive proof, we all know it's just one consideration in the debate. Alex

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Proposed: stop all deletes for 6 months, then reconsider
by James Duffy 11 Nov '03

11 Nov '03

>Erik wrote > >I'll just register my strong objections to a deletion moratorium for the >record. I do not see any evidence for "rampant" deletionism and think VfD >works reasonably well (have people agreed on a threshold, 80% or something >like that, of votes required for deletion yet?). If you want to see >rampant deletionism, go to Everything2.com, where pages get "nuked" >arbitrarily and anonymously. Wikipedia's process is open, based on >consensus-forming and well-documented policies. > >There are people who make even the deletion of the crappiest conceivable >article difficult by voting to keep by default. This kind of behavior >leads to the amassment of junk in the database, which never gets cleaned >up because once it is gone from RC and VfD, everyone quickly forgets it. >You might say people will eventually edit it, but in the case of the rare, >obscure and idiosyncratic, that might very well happen years from now, if >ever. Of course we shouldn't delete legitimate stubs, but we should remove >articles which are in clear violation of one of our policies, be it NPOV >or "What Wikipedia is not". > >Junk will still get spidered by the search engines if a single link points >to it, nd if people come to Wikipedia and find this stuff (like Sep. 11 >articles with tributes mixed in), it will greatly lower their opinion of >our project (in cases that I consider "fixable", the 7 days of VfD are a >nice ultimatum for doing so). Remember that most of our new users come >from the search engines. > >I am somewhat disturbed by Wikipedia 1.0 being used as an argument not to >keep the working Wikipedia clean of junk. Both serve the same purpose. The >goal for Wikipedia 1.0 (a limited subset for distribution) is to filter >out the kind of stuff that is hard to verify, too obscure, offensive etc., >but that would go through VfD unscathed. > >Given the large majority support needed for deletion, I do not think that >any kind of out-of-control deletion is to be expected. If you are the kind >of person who thinks a "List of heterosexuals" might be useful, then you >might feel that Wikipedia is somehow oppressing you, but if you want to >build an encyclopedia, it is unlikely that you will. > >The whole idea to label one faction of Wikipedia as "deletionists" and >another as "inclusionists" is bogus. This only makes it more difficult for >people to reflect their own decisions and contributes to herd-like >behavior. With very few exceptions, everyone accepts that some cleaning up >is needed. We just need to agree on when to delete and what to remove, >which is best done by improving, newly implementing and pointing to policy >pages. I agree 100% with Erik. This proposal is absurd in the extreme. Wikipedia finds it hard enough to keep up with the deletion of articles continually. A ban for six months would leave a back log of hundreds if not thousands of articles that have no place on an encyclopedia but end up surviving by default, or else leading to a /massive/ period of deletions unprecedented in wikipedia history. It is quite frankly the most ludicrous of ludicrous ideas, an unworkable idea that would damage wikipedia. The ''deletionists'' against ''inclusionists'' argument is utterly bogus. It is a case of those who take the idea that wikipedia as an encyclopedia seriously and basic standards below which an article is deleted and those who see wikipedia as some sort of scribblebox where any sort of rubbish, not matter how bad, has a 'right' to be left undisturbed. JT _________________________________________________________________ Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963

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Nice Cunctator, Nice Alex
by Poor, Edmund W 11 Nov '03

11 Nov '03

Calm down, my dear Cunctator, Alex was paying you a compliment: you have more knowledge of classical rhetoric and logic in your little finger than any 10 Wikipedians combined. You have an abnormally keen mind! Ed "The Peacemaker" Poor

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Example of a Slippery Slope argument
by Poor, Edmund W 11 Nov '03

11 Nov '03

In "Good Morning, Vietnam" the Adrian Cronauer character argues with the two tough Gis who want to throw out his Vietnamese friend. "If you throw out the gooks, next you'll have to throw out the spics, the kikes, ... And pretty soon we'll have nothing left but two brain-dead rednecks." Then there's the Catholic who lamented that when they came for the Jews, he was not alarmed. When they came for the Protestants, he was not alarmed. But when the Nazis came for him, it was too late. If the slippery slope is never valid, then the old Arab proverb about "Give him an inch, he'll take a mile" is just foolishness. And we can tell Al Gore to give it a rest about the PATRIOT Act being the "first step" in the gradual erosion of US civil liberties, right? And if we don't nip it in the bud, it'll grow until it chokes us: I mean this habit of stopping all business on the list to have lofty abstract arguments over rhetorical techniques. Anyway, whether or not any PARTICULAR argument using the slippery slope or "give him an inch" is sound is all that matters. I'm not exalting or critiquing the principle here. Can we get away from abstract arguments about rhetoric now, and return to our noble task? Oh, yeah, now I remember: writing neutral articles about all topics, lofty and trivial. Ed Poor

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Communist paper apologises but Wikipedia endorses the malicious claim!
by libertarian 11 Nov '03

11 Nov '03

--- On Mon 11/10, Ray Saintonge < saintonge(a)telus.net > wrote: > http://bjp.org/history.htm I could not have described nationalism > better myself. All political parties all over the world try to describe themselves as patriotic and nationalistic. There is nothing new in this. We are discussing the phrase "HINDU nationalist" not nationalist. > As for Iraq, I can assure you that the American requests to be > rescued from their new Vietnam have not just gone out to "brown" > countries. The whole sham was for Indian troops and if BJP had its way, they would have shamelessly sent the troops in order to curry favor with the Americans. Fortunately, India has many parties and they couldn't come to agreement even within the ruling coalition. > This is a "non-sequitur". India is a democracy, but it does not > follow that it is because of its Hindu majority. Empirical evidence is on my side. In 1947, a portion of India was chopped off and given to Muslims. It ended up an Islamic theocracy and ethnically cleansed whatever minorities it had. Certain states in North Eastern India which are Christian majority have already "warned" people to convert to Christianity or else... The region is in flames. It is only because Hindus are a majority that India is democratic. > I'm glad to see that the residents of the occupied Portuguese > territories are receiving a fair share of representations. He > succeeded a Sikh. I guess that the old Hindu kshatriya caste is not > as effective as it used to be. I suppose that's the down side to > being peaceful. What do you mean 'downside'? Is this a Western trait to see it as a downside unless someone from your tribe is not holding all important positions? As far as I know, Indians are proud of GeorgeF's efficiency despite his socialist past. > Saddam Hussein did not become more tolerable by naming a Christian, > Tariq Aziz, as foreign minister. If you had followed the news in the region, you'd have known that Saddam Hussein was a secular person and his Govt was not a jihadi Govt. Is this what Fox TV brainwashed Americans with? I know that Americans were hoodwinked by massive propaganda into supporting a war using lies and deception, but I didn't think they were told that Iraq was an Islamic fundamentalist state. > It overran Sikkim, and the Portuguese territories Sikkim joined India and the Sikkim Assembly voted for it since they knew that they'd be taken over by China otherwise. Goa was overrun and the Portuguese kicked out liberating the Goan people. Heard of the Goan Inquisition where barbaric acts were committed by the Church? > Indian Marxists were all home-grown. Communist Party of India split into two when India went to war with China over the issue of whether the masters were in Peking or Moscow. > At least here in British Columbia we have had a provincial premier, > Ujjal Dosanjh, who was born in India. You're still a xenophobic country in the sense that your Prime Minister cannot be foreign born. OTOH, we allow foreign born people to hold the office of Prime Minister and one such person could become our Prime Minister anytime. She is the leader of the opposition now. > Nothing prevents the views of communists and democrats from > coinciding on given issues. If a view was morally correct, I'd support the view too. I wouldn't oppose it just because the Communists support it. On this issue, it so happens that they cooked up lots of stuff. I am willing to discuss the issue point by point. The problem is that others who contributed to it acted in an arrogant manner and refused to do so. I'll give this to you - my style is not correct and I may tend to use hyperboles and am open to correction. However, the substance I contribute will be accurate and to the point. If you look at my contributions, I have taken the effort to explain my position and give links and at the same time I have removed lines which were hyperboles and attribution of motives which I should not have done. All I am asking is that others not attribute motives without basis (the only valid basis would be either an oral or written statement which is documented). > As the saying goes, yours is a case of the pot calling the kettle > brown. :-) There you go again, refusing to distinguish between a riot and a state sponsored genocide. > There are some very selective omissions from this. Iyer was a > minister in a state government in 1957, not the federal government. Selective ommission? You're attributing motives to me by making that statement. I didn't mention it because it didn't even strike me. Even if he was just a village level Marxist, he is a Marxist! If you knew about Indian politics, you'd have known that Communists never formed a Govt (except as part of a coalition) at the Centre and there are only 3 states where they routinely form the Govt. Again, you miss the whole point. Why should a self appointed commission run by a Marxist get precedence over many other self appointed commissions of inquiry? By arguing on where you are a Minister, you assume that we are in agreement over the Marxist commission getting precedence over all other commissions of inquiry. > The 1987 presidential vote was a matter of all the parties working > together to oppose the Congress(I) candidate. It seems that even > the BJP voted for the Communist candidate. I remember this election vividly. BJP voted against him and held a grudge it had extending back to 30 years. I am not sure where you get your news from or whether you start googling after I make a post here on the list. If that is the case, I am sorry to say you are on the wrong track. This was given as an example of why not to make enemies in politics and how it comes back to bite them. -libertarian _______________________________________________ No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. Introducing My Way - http://www.myway.com

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WikiEN-l November 2003