Steve Rapaport and a couple of others have argued that
my reversion of the anti-censorship diatribe is wrong,
on each of several specious grounds.
Most amusingly (but dangerously), that my reversion
amounts to "censorship". They seem to see some irony here,
but this one in a series of errors or rhetorical tricks.
Here is my response:
1. The article is not censored.
1a. The entire text of the article is at the top of the
talk page.
1b. That text, and some variations of it, are freely
available on the "Older Versions" page.
1c. The article is NOT PROTECTED.
2. All Steve and company need do is recast the diatribe
in the form of an article, a task I am willing to help
with.
3. Whether they know it or not, I hate censorship.
3a. I would L-O-V-E to see more articles on censorship in
the Wikipedia.
3b. I have no desire to hide the FACT that there has been
a lot of censorship in America.
Apparently what Steve is pushing for is an unlimited right
to put whatever he wants into an article. Well, he doesn't
have that right, and calling my efforts to frustrate his
assertion of this non-existent right is not "censorship",
no matter how delicious the sensation of branding it
"ironic" may be.
Ed Poor
Hello to all wikipedians, I'm fairly new to wikipedia, I have
accumulated a number of suggestions which all can be summed in one
phrase: "Making wikipedia a multi-cultural encyclopedia".
Here are the main guidelines (This refers to English wikipedia only):
1.
The language of use in e-wikipedia should be called "International
English". I know this is a pretty vague concept (it is highly debated
and sometimes ridiculed on alt.usage.english, sometimes said to be a
computer jargon) for now, I will use the definition: "English written
for an audience without cultural references".
An alternative (but sometimes vague) definition of "International
English": "The English language, usually in its standard form, either
when used, taught, and studied as a lingua franca throughout the world,
or when taken as a whole and used in contrast with American English,
British English, South African English, etc." (London: Edward Arnold,
1982, ISBN 0340586451).
Practical implications:
Use of Latin, Greek, French (culture specific) etc. derived forms of
words and phrases should be minimized, this arose from a short debate I
had with Martin (MyRedDice) on whether to use "Formulae" or "Formulas".
(I still don't know how to pronounce "Formulae" in speech :) ..)
I have noticed that most wikipedia articles are pretty fine with this
rule (The extreme contrast would be Wikipedia written like a Shakespeare
play , or like 1911 Britannica..)
Note: This has nothing to do with American Vs British Vs Canadian etc.
english. British english is taught in India, I think in south america
and mexico, they use forms of American english. Here in Israel we learn
mostly American, but some british english..
2.
The articles should not assume the reader has a specific cultural
affiliation. This is very problematic in the current form. Most articles
assume the reader has personal familiarity with "Westren" (or even
American!) ideas or way of life and culture. For example, "Popular
Music" and related articles, does not even recognize the fact that local
popular music widely exists in china, arab popular music, india etc..
I will call this type of writing "Cultural Bias"
Another thing that confuses international readers (and sometimes makes
them mad, in my case), Is reader's supposedly familiarity with US
geography. For example, in the "Michael Jackson" article:
"Michael Joseph Jackson was born on in Gary, Indiana to Joseph.."
Where on earth is "Gary, Indiana"? in Bangladesh?
Imagine I would write: "Rotem Dan was born in Holon, Gush-dan
municipality" what would you understand by that?
I will call this type of writing "Geographical Bias".
3.
Prior knowledge, background, and education.
A lot of articles assume the reader is fairly (or even highly in the
scientific articles) educated and knowledgeable in the subject of the
article. For each article there should be an extensive background
paragraph(s), which specifically states what the article is about, it's
general field and it's uses in "Real life":
(a bit extreme) example: taken from "Reverse Osmosis":
The article starts like this:
"Membrane separation technology in the application for water supply
augmentation has been well recognised and is getting an important role
in water treatment. The family of membrane processes is now very
diverse. They are generally classified as microfiltration (MF),
ultrafiltration (UF), ..."
This is perfect gibberish to anyone not knowledgeable (or even expert!)
in the field. I've noticed most computer-related and social/exact
science articles are suffering from some degrees of it.
What does this have to do with "multi-cultural"?
In different places in the world, education is sometimes being conveyed
differently, or in a lower/higher level of detail then western
countries. In some places, high education (college/university) is not as
common (and affordable) as in western countries. Wikipedia writers
should understand this and be considerate, because these readers will
not be able to comprehend these articles if they are not given a full,
supportive background of the terms and fields.
I will call this type of writing an "Educational bias"
There are many more types of "Cultural Biases" which are not listed.
However, I am by no means whishing to make Wikipedia more "Politically
correct", I understand that most writers on e-Wikipedia are from English
speaking countries and western cultures (USA and UK especially), this
should be changed. Until then, please be sensitive in what you write.
Realize you're writing to an international audience with diverse culture
and beliefs, varied education levels and understanding of the english
language.
Keep up the great work on the living Wikipedia organism
Rotem Dan, of Tel Aviv, Israel.
Sure, it was my end. Maybe divine retribution for being so heavy-handed? I'm usually so mild-mannered. In fact, my wife won't let me wear contact lenses, because when I take off my glasses, I might become "dangerously" handsome to other women. Hence, the Clark Kent look.
Ed Poor
At 13:28 14/04/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>I guess I shouldn't have blocked the IP of that one guy who wanted the POV
>version of the censorship article. Because wikipedia.org has been
>inaccessible ever since -- maybe a DOS attack, eh?
>
>Ah, the delicious irony. If we won't let them dictate our editorial policy
>on controversial articles, they'll simply CENSOR the entire encyclopedia.
>Metaphors like the pot calling the kettle black would come to mind, but
>I'm too overwhelmed to think of any right now.
>
>Anyway, when the 'pedia comes back up, would someone please un-block
>80.14.137.218 for me?
'Tis done.
wikipedia.org is accessible to me, by the way (and to lots of others
judging from Recent Changes) - there must be a problem at your end.
lp (camembert)
I guess I shouldn't have blocked the IP of that one guy who wanted the POV version of the censorship article. Because wikipedia.org has been inaccessible ever since -- maybe a DOS attack, eh?
Ah, the delicious irony. If we won't let them dictate our editorial policy on controversial articles, they'll simply CENSOR the entire encyclopedia. Metaphors like the pot calling the kettle black would come to mind, but I'm too overwhelmed to think of any right now.
Anyway, when the 'pedia comes back up, would someone please un-block 80.14.137.218 for me?
Ed Poor
On Mon, Apr 14, 2003 at 04:07:54PM +0200, Rotem Dan wrote:
> Prior knowledge, background, and education.
> A lot of articles assume the reader is fairly (or even highly in the
> scientific articles) educated and knowledgeable in the subject of the
> article. For each article there should be an extensive background
> paragraph(s), which specifically states what the article is about, it's
> general field and it's uses in "Real life":
Linking is the right answer here, in my opinion. You shouldn't
have to wade through a thorough grounding in computer science
before reading about how LL parsers work. Instead, [[Computer
science]] and [[Compilers]] should be prominently linked,
along with each technical term used.
I think -
* Everybody should be able to understand broadly what an article
is describing (LL Parsers are a technique used in computer
science to interpret text, or something. You get the idea,
I'm sure)
* Everybody should be able to learn whatever they need to understand
any given article merely by clicking within wikipedia. Obviously
this is a [[platonic]] wikipedia that has the sum of all human
knowledge contained within it :-)
* Everybody should *not necessarily* be able to understand an
article just by reading it
Oh, and many "borrowed" phrases from non-English languages are an
inseparable part of English vocabulary, in my opinion. If I mean
per se, or de facto, or de jure, I should be able to say so. Don't
steal away the richness of the language for the sake of avoiding
making people expand their vocabulary, please!
--
jason(a)jasonandali.org.uk http://www.jasonandali.org.uk/jason/
Someone -- Steve I think -- wrote a POV diatribe entitled [[Censorship in the United States]]. I deleted the text and replaced it with a neutral stub.
Then someone reverted the article to the original diatribe, whereupon I reverted to Notheruser's version. I am just about to lock the article and bow out of further edits, if this nonsense persists.
A talk comment raised the amusing but irrelevant point that I had seemingly "censored" the censorship article. Not true.
I deleted a diatribe. It's not an encyclopedia article. There should be an encyclopedia article.
The US definitely does have censorship. I know quite a bit about it. The military censors news on the war. Courts censor "obscene" materials. School libraries, in a way, censor books by refusing to carry them -- although the public library in the same town might carry it.
One might even argue that news media censor non-liberal viewpoints, by refraining from any mention of them -- but that is probably stretching the word *censorship* a bit too far. There's no law against printing, mailing, selling or reading conservative newspapers or magazines.
Let's write an article on censorship -- but let's write it AS AN ENCYCLOPEDIA ARTICLE, not as a pro-censorship or anti-censorship diatribe.
Ed Poor
tarquin wrote, "Susan Mason ... is still banned, but is getting around that by virtue of an AOL IP which we apear to be unable to block." (Ed Poor edited t's remarks for brevity)
Actually, it wasn't by virtue of his AOL IP; rather, it was Developer Inertia. Jimbo banned the Susan Mason account weeks ago, but I had another fit of soft-heartedness and managed to avoid carrying out the ban. The other developers were apparently content to follow suit -- or not to bid at all, or whatever the right metaphor is...
Anyway, I blocked the Susan Mason account today. Let me know if any other incarnations appear and start causing trouble.
Ed Poor
I don't think anyone should be on auto-revert, with one exception.
Because:
* Auto-revert can lose good changes, along with the bad.
* Auto-revert provides no possibility for contributor improvement.
* Auto-revert is just plain mean.
Exception:
* Someone who signs in and then starts doing
precisely what would get an 'IP user' banned
But even the lone exception is an emergency measure, until the sysop can contact a Developer (I'm thinking of mav and the 'MIT vandal').
If someone keeps breaking the rules, we need to give them a period of banning (what in my Uncle Ed incarnation I would call a "time out"). After the period expires, they can apologize suitably and resume as if nothing had ever happened (except people might watch them a bit more closely).
I'm pretty sure a temporary ban, such as I just described, is in accordance with Jimbo's policy.
Ed Poor
Susan Mason was officially banned, weeks ago, but I guess none of the Developers ever got around to ENFORCING it. I locked the account in question this morning at 9:33 A.M.
Ed Poor
-----Original Message-----
From: Jimmy Wales [mailto:jwales@bomis.com]
Sent: Monday, April 14, 2003 7:41 AM
To: wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Susan Mason
tarquin wrote:
> AFAIK Susan Mason has not been unbanned by Jimbo.
>
> Could a developer block the IP?
That's right. Susan Mason/Lir/Vera Cruz is banned.
--Jimbo