Ray mentioned "Twelve Angry Men", and Geoff mentioned "Calvinball".
Twelve Angry Men is an old movie about a jury trying to come to a
verdict after a murder trial. The first vote is 11-1 and boy is everyone
mad at Henry Fonda for being the lone hold out! He says that it is
morally wrong (and illegal to, boot) to condemn a man to death while
EVEN ONE juror has a "reasonable doubt". (The more recent remake, with
George C. Scott, has the same plot.)
Calvinball is a game whose rules frequently and spontaneously change as
Calvin and Hobbes (two cartoon characters) play it. No accusation of
cheating can ever stick, because each act is judged according to the
update rules - and either player can change any rule any time. It would
be an understatement to describe the result as chaotic.
Oh, and Ray's mention of "cannon" was a typo; I guess he meant "canon",
i.e., the body of accepted scripture. (The Wikipedia article discusses
WHO does the accepting and WHY.)
Ed Poor
This is a single thought I'd like you to consider. I agree with almost all of your points in the 'expert opinion' or validtion discussion. This note just suggests one more consideration.
An earlire point in thiss or another thread about 'global warming' suggested looking at funding and/or publication counts for journal articles as a way yo determine concensus opinion. I think these two are very tightly coupled.
If funding is available, university types get grants and mae studies. Since their future career also depends on publication, they publish results, usually in terms that will make the grant source happy.
This gets us back to politics and interset. There is only a very diluted (i.e. many people with a very mild interest) desire to prove that warmig is not occuring. There are some very concentrated intersets (i.e. few people, but with a strong interest) hoping to prove it is true. So funding, studies, papers, etc. all tend to one side of the argument.
This does not make it true, just widespread. It doersn't make it false either.
Since I valued most of your points, I wanted to plant this thought with you, hoping for future germination. This is off-list since I don't want to create an extended response or reavtivate global warming.
Regards, Lou Imholt (LouI at Wiki)
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I agree. There is something highly suspicious about
1. his rather too in-depth knowledge of wikipedia for a newbie;
2. His targeting of RK. Longtime users know RK has a short fuse and a
tendency to overreact. Of the large numbers of contributors, how did MNH
know, when barely a wet weekend in the place, /who/ to target not just on
talk pages but personally?
There is something fishy about MNH. I think the issue isn't /is/ MNH a
former wikipedian back to cause trouble, but which one is he.
JT
>
>On Tue, Dec 09, 2003 at 12:22:14AM +0000, wikien-l-request(a)Wikipedia.org
>wrote:
> >
> > Which reminds me (to everybody):
> > Has anybody with that power checked the IP logs for MNH's edits
> > to see if this might be somebody that we've met before?
> > He was quick to point to the weaknesses of our banning procedures
> > and seemed to understand the political wisdom of focusing on RK.
> >
>
>I would like to echo this request. He strikes me as sometbody who is
>uncannily familiar with the subtleties of Wikipedia politics for a
>newbie.
>
>
>_______________________________________________
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>WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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> > Which reminds me (to everybody):
> > Has anybody with that power checked the IP logs for MNH's edits
> > to see if this might be somebody that we've met before?
> > He was quick to point to the weaknesses of our banning procedures
> > and seemed to understand the political wisdom of focusing on RK.
> >
>
> I would like to echo this request. He strikes me as sometbody who is
> uncannily familiar with the subtleties of Wikipedia politics for a
> newbie.
I would like to unecho this request. Unless the following questions
can be adequately answered:
1. Does it make any difference at all, if he had an account before MNH
or not?
2. Exactly what has MNH done, that has a large majority of the
involved people thinking he should be banned?
3. Even if you think that he deserves to be banned, why does he
deserve to be "outed"?
BL
Danny,
Thank you for your comments about Leumi's /method of contributing/. I
understand that you disagree with him on key points, yet I applaud your
determination to let him /describe/ those points.
I believe that it is the Neutrality Policy of the Wikipedia to describe
each major point of view (i.e., "POV") on controversial issues. Clearly,
a topics] such as the origin, living conditions and destiny of Palestine
refugees is a Controversial Issue. Several authors publishing in English
have expressed views on this subject.
It doesn't matter whether I /myself/ endorse the views of the ADL,
Arafat, Begin, Chomsky, Daniel Pipes, Finkelstein, Hilberg, Janner,
Peters, Steinberg, or anyone else. If they or their views are popular,
we had better mention their views in the article.
That doesn't mean we have to endorse anyone's view: the Wikipedia is not
going to say:
* they were forced from their homes; or,
* they left their homes voluntarily
Rather it will say, it MUST say, that Writer X says they were forced
from their homes and that Writer Y says they lef their homes
voluntarily.
Our job is not to settle controversies, it's to describe them.
Ed Poor
Incorrect. It started off that way, but has evolved as more. It exists independantly from NS. It has its own web pages, outside NationStates. I do see your point not all micronations can be listed, and that Ariddia is far from a major one. I'm withdrawing request for it to be listed - though I do appreciate your replies. In future, perhaps Rick could bother to be a little more curteous, and to check up on what he's talking about. Just a friendly suggestion. All in all, keep up the good work in Wikipedia! Thank you for your time, and sorry for the bother.
Regards,
Adrian
Message du 07/12/03 08:38
De : Rick
A : aridd(a)wanadoo.fr, English Wikipedia
Copie à :
Objet : Re: [WikiEN-l] Question
Ariddia is the creation of this user on NationStates, which is a GAME. The creations at NationStates are not to be considered as even on the same level as the crackpot "nations" that crop up from time to time on [[List of microstates]]. *I* have a country on NationStates, and if you look at any of the informatoin on that page, you can see that NOBODY on NationStates take their creations seriously. There are THOUSANDS of fake "nations" on NationStates. If everybody there wanted to come to Wikipedia to add their fake country to it, we would be swamped (I know, "slipper slope argument"). But Ariddia is not a real place, it is not registered at a real place, it is not intended to be a real place, it is nothing but a place created to play the game.
RickK
aridd wrote:
Greetings.
I have a question, and I hope this is the right place to ask it... I saw that Wikipedia has a page listing micronations and with links to other pages containing information on each of those micronations. I contributed a page with a micronation. It was deleted, and I received an IP ban:
Your user name or IP address has been blocked by RickK. The reason given is this:
repeated creaton [sic] of nonsense articles
You may contact RickK or one of the other administrators to discuss the block.
Note that you may not use the "email this user" feature unless you have a valid email address registered in your user preferences.
Your IP address is . Please include this address in any queries you make.
My entry was a serious one, and I only made one (NOT repeated entries). I understand that Wikipedia might feel my contribution was not a useful one, and I will not repeat it. Obviously, not everything can be accepted. However, I would have appreciated that explanation being given me, rather than the above offensive message.
I apologise for the invconveniance, and also if this was not the right place to send this message.
Kind regards,
Adrian
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Andre Engels wrote on <intlwiki-L>:
>I know at least:
>* alphabetical by code (amongst others, de:, nl:)
>* alphabetical by language name in the language itself (i.e. English for
> English, Deutsch for German, Polski for Polish, etcetera) (fr:)
>* alphabetical by code, but with en: put first (hu:)
>* alphabetical by language name in the language on which the page is (pl:)
I believe that en: uses method #2, like fr:.
In any case, that's what ''I'' do.
[Crossposted to <wikiEN-L> so that readers there can verify this.
General discussion of Andre's point beyond the English wiki
should return to <intlwiki-L>.]
-- Toby
I've been following the Leumi debates with some interest without butting in,
and I actually find them quite interesting. Here is a determined contributor
who wants to ensure that another side of a very complex issue gets heard, yet
he manages to do so in a very civil and polite manner, accepting criticism and
showing willingness to compromise, while still standing up for his position
and his right to express it--even though most of the other people dealing with
the materials disagree resolutely with him. The fact that it is done civilly is
in itself commendable, and I believe that given time an acceptable compromise
will be reached.
Furthermore, when asked to give sources, he has done so. The fact that his
sources have been challenged is irrelevant--the fact is that there are plenty of
people who accept those sources, very often blindly, just as other people
accept the opposing sources, very often blindly. For example, how many of the
people who are discussing Finkelstein have actually taken the time to read
Finkelstein (lots of people admitted that they hadn't actually read the book)? Of
those that did read it, how many people really read it critically? By the way, I
would say the same thing about Peters, Pipes, or whatever sources Leumi
brings.
Unfortunately, when it comes to neutral point of view, we all tend to place
our positions somewhere near the middle ground. However, given the good nature
of the debate between the parties (and we all know how badly a bad-natured
debate can go), I think that this is a perfect venue for mediation. Regardless of
any issues of age or medical conditions (which I think are irrelevant and
border on the ad hominem), Leumi is defending his position admirably--even though
I might disagree with him on certain key points. I mean admirably not in
terms of his position but his demeanor. I hope the mediators can work their magic
here.
My suggestion would be to have each side (Leumi and Viajero) pick a mediator
each and have them both agree on a third mediator. That way there can be no
claims of bias by either side over who the mediators are.
Good luck, guys,
Danny
*By the powers vested in me by the Wikipedia power structure, I hereby declare those changes to be de facto official, subject of course to overruling by other sysops
**Is this implying that sysops have special powers in regards to the formulation of policy, I thought they were no better than the rest of us...
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"Sascha Noyes" <sascha(a)pantropy.net> schrieb:
> This bot is run by alexandros. I've had a quick glance over wikibot's edit
> history and can only find one such "disambiguation" of [[black panther]]. (On
> Ultra-Orthodox Judaism - which has been corrected.)
>
> Strange none the less. Maybe the robot's equivalent to a freudian slip?
Ah, that explains it. As an explanation, please look at the userpage of
[[User:Robbot]], it shows the working of the bot (Wikibot is the same bot,
but with another operator) when doing disambiguation.
There is a link 'murder' on the [[black panther]] page, and
so the bot chooses it as one of the possible disambiguators.
To be exactly, when 'Black panther is disambiguated, the
disambiguation options are:
0 'Black Panther Party'
1 'British'
2 'Donald Neilson'
3 'Israeli'
4 'Jews'
5 'Sephardic'
6 'USA'
7 'Ultra-Orthodox Judaism
8 'black panther'
9 'jaguar'
10 'leopard'
11 'murderer'
12 'wikipedia:disambiguation'
Apparently, Alexandros must have chosen 11, which is not just a bad, but a ridiculous choice to make in this case.
I checked some more, and the edit in question is among a list of four robot edits using the same program (the disambiguation one), and the other three are incorrect as well. I cannot see any evidence of the same program having been run for Wikibot before or after (Kchishol1970 later corrected one of these to what it _should_ have been, I reverted the other two being too lazy to actually correct). My guess is that Alexandros was kind of testing out the program, which on itself is a good idea, but he should at least have cleaned up after himself. It would have been even better to use the bot's option to work on another language to do everything on test.wikipedia.org.
I would advise Alexandros to not run solve_disambiguation.py or disamb_all.py anywhere but on test.wikipedia.org until he knows damn well how to use it.
Andre Engels