Actually, I suspect it's Vera Cruz, based on content of contributions to talk pages by MyPassword...
Well, SOMEONE is signing talk messages as [[user:Vera Cruz]] -- I just haven't bothered tracking it down, because the whole thing seems so petty. Why doesn't s/he just e-mail Jimbo and make their peace?
Apologizing is that hard: just say you're sorry and promise to be good!
Uncle Ed
172 wrote :
I've been busy lately, so my contributions lately have been slowed. I foward
to a new blitz shortly.
Thinking to recent events and to English and French memory. Blitz is not the
best word he/she could choose.
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 5 Feb 2003 08:48:34 +0000
> From: Jason Williams <jason(a)jasonandali.org.uk>
> To: wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Blocked user report
> Reply-To: wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org
>
> On Tue, Feb 04, 2003 at 03:35:42PM -0500, The
> Cunctator wrote:
> > > > > In addition to blocking Isis at your and her
> mutual request, I also blocked 5 "MyPasswordIs"
> usernames. See below.
> > > > >
> > > > Please unblock these users. Blocking them just
> encourages the behavior.
> > >
> > > And cleaning up vandalism encourages vandals?
> > >
> > First: what's the connection between the above
> thread and your question?
>
> Quite simple; blocking users that subvert the system
> is equivalent to
> cleaning up after vandalism.
Depends on which side you are
__________________________________________________
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Ed,
Thank you. That was very gracious. Jimbo and others have told me that
you're a good guy, and I believe them. As far as I'm concerned, this
little spat is settled.
You wrote:
>I look forward to working together with you in a cooperative spirit.
Ditto from my end.
--
--------------------------------
| Sheldon Rampton
| Editor, PR Watch (www.prwatch.org)
| Author of books including:
| Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
| Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
| Mad Cow USA
| Trust Us, We're Experts
--------------------------------
Sheldon,
I'm sorry I needled you and I insulted you, and I don't think that you're dishonest in any way. Nor do I think you have any opposition to our "neutral point of view policy" (NPOV). On the contrary, I applaud the respect you have shown for the arguments of people whose viewpoints differ from your own.
Moreover, I appreciate the good-natured way you responded by placing on my user page a mirror image of the gratuitous comments I had placed on yours. With that and the help of a few friends, I quickly realized my mistake.
I really am sorry, and I look forward to working together with you in a cooperative spirit.
Ed Poor
Jimbo,
In addition to blocking Isis at your and her mutual request, I also blocked 5 "MyPasswordIs" usernames. See below.
P.S. I think the mailing list is down. I haven't gotten any messages since Mon 2/3 at 2:17 PM.
Ed Poor
user_name
user_id
MyPasswordIsHELLO
7961
MyPasswordIsHELLOW
7977
MyPasswordIsSCHMOOZE
7985
MyPasswordIsYELLOW
7973
MyPasswordIsYellow
7974
(Sending from the subscribed address this time - moderator please ignore
last night's version of this)
Can I just take a minute to congratulate Wikipedians on the articles on the
Columbia accident ( http://www.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Space_Shuttle_Columbia_disaster ). The coverage is better than
anything I found on other internet media or print media, and dispels many
of the "jump to conclusions" storylines.
Wikijournalism beats standard journalism :-)
--
Richard Grevers
Jimmy Wales wrote:
>Everyone take a deep breath. It was pretty out of character for Ed to
>post a sharp remark like that, and I think he'll quickly make things
>right with Sheldon.
He hasn't done anything yet to make it right. The guy clearly has an
axe to grind about me. He's gone out of his way on more than one
occasion to insult me, without any provocation on my part. On this
occasion, he called me a liar on completely spurious grounds. I don't
think I should be expected to tolerate that without responding.
I wrote:
> > It's clearly POV and a violation of Wikipedia policy to inject
>> first-person commentary based on church gossip into the actual text
> > of articles.
And Jimbo responded:
>Maybe, unless this gossip is documented somewhere as having actually
>happened. I mean, asserting the content of the gossip as fact isn't
>good, but reporting on the gossip is fine, if it was important and
>widespread.
Take a look at it yourself. Here's the verbatim passage from Ed's
article on "Sun Myung Moon/tax case":
>The government offered to drop all the charges if Rev. Moon would
>give up his green card (permanent resident visa) and agree never to
>visit the US again. Rev. Moon preferred to go to trial, professing
>his belief in the fairness of American justice but saying that he
>would not have been prosecuted if "his skin had been white or his
>religion Episcopalian."
>
>Reference, please, for the government's offer and the quote (Sorry,
>I could not find documentation; it's a story circulated among us UC
>members -- Ed Poor .)
It's clear from this that Ed could *not* find any documentation to
support the assertions he made in the first paragraph. And since when
is it proper form for Wikipedians to insert themselves directly into
articles with first-person, signed asides? I thought that sort of
thing belonged on the Talk page.
If I were editing the above passage, I would write something along
the following lines:
>According to a version of events popular with members of Moon's
>church, the government offered to drop the charges against him if he
>would give up his permanent resident visa and leave the United
>States permanently. Rev. Moon preferred to go to trial but said that
>he would not have been prosecuted if his skin had been white or his
>religion Episcopalian.
I'm not going to make these edits, because I'm not interested in
working on articles about Rev. Moon or the Unification Church. The
point I'm making is simply that I find it hypocritical for Ed to
accuse *me* of dishonesty and bias over an article on global warming
that I had barely touched, when Ed himself has made no effort to
apply NPOV in his articles about his own church.
Jimbo also wrote:
>But I think this is a misreading. I think that his idea is a very
>good one. All of us, if we are writing in an area where we know we
>have some strong feelings, should try *hard* to formulate the
>arguments of the opponents as best we can.
I don't think I've misread Ed's intent. I think he went out of his
way to needle me and call me a liar. Ed stated that I was
"disingenuous" because I haven't written *his* beliefs into an
article on global warming -- an article that I didn't create and to
which I had only contributed a single minor edit. I agree with the
general principle that we should try to respect the arguments of
people whose viewpoints differ from our own. However, Ed's comments
about me did not arise from a discussion about those general
principles. They were gratuitous comments that had nothing to do with
anything I've contributed to Wikipedia or posted to this listserv. He
didn't make those comments in the spirit of educating us all about an
important general principle. He made them in the spirit of looking
for an excuse to attack me and call me a liar, based on any pretext
he could find, no matter how flimsy.
>There are at least two views of how wikipedia articles should be
>written -- the competitive view and the co-operative view. Ed
>is merely (and correctly, I think) advocating for the co-operative
>view.
Actions speak louder than words. How is it "co-operative" for Ed to
look for pretexts with which to publicly impugn my character?
--
--------------------------------
| Sheldon Rampton
| Editor, PR Watch (www.prwatch.org)
| Author of books including:
| Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
| Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
| Mad Cow USA
| Trust Us, We're Experts
--------------------------------
Hi,
the short version: Using the format e.g. "Java programming language" for
disambiguation is bad, because it leads to more links of the same style,
even where no disambiguation is needed. Since we have the "pipe trick", we
do not need this natural "disambiguation" at all.
The long version:
I've observed an effect which I call the disambiguation virus. As its name
suggests, it is a harmful effect that decreases the coherence of the wiki
by making linking harder.
The disambiguation virus requires another idea as its host: That "natural
disambiguation" is better than disambiguation in parentheses. An example:
"Java programming language"
vs.
"Java (programming language)".
It is easier, this idea suggests, to link to [[Java programming language]]
in the text than to [[Java (programming language)]].
However, in many cases, this is not true. For example, when I write
"C++ has a clear speed advantage when compared with higher level languages
like [[Java programming language|Java]]."
I have to write more than when I write
"C++ has a clear speed advantage when compared with higher level languages
like [[Java (programming language)|]]."
What you see here is the "pipe trick", which removes rightmost text in
parentheses from the displayed link title.
But that idea is not the actual virus. The virus is far more dangerous.
Once someone starts a page with this "natural disambiguation", others
quickly add to it. I have already moved dozens of pages from "foo
programming language" to "foo". These pages did not require any
disambiguation! "COBOL" is obviously better as a page title than "COBOL
programming language".
The same is true for web browsers (so we get "MidasWWW web browser"),
languages ("Hamburger language", which is also inaccurate) and cheeses.
Once someone has started, other people use this format for all of the
links on the same page, whether they require disambiguation or not.
This is not the case with the "foo (bar)" format, which looks somewhat
uglier and is therefore avoided. But the "foo bar" format reads natural,
almost like we should always have this kind of qualifier in titles. After
all, it's nicer to know what the page is about by reading the title,
right? Wrong! Most pages that link to the title have already established
the context, there's no need for us to repeat that. This is evident from
e.g.
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabetical_list_of_programming_languages
This page actually uses only links of the form
[[foo programming language|foo]]
ARGH! Where context is really needed, it is better provided in the text
than in the link.
In conclusion, I suggest we avoid the "natural" format and move pages to
the "unnatural" one to reduce infection rate.
Regards,
Erik
