I notice a lot of pages of countries which reply on information from the CIA
factsbook include information US diplomatic representation to that country
and that country's diplomatic representation to the US. Two things strike
me:
1. That sort of information changes very quickly, much quicker than details
about who is in government, etc, because diplomatic postings are regularly
changed. So it is something that can very very easily be out of date even
when being put on wiki, or within a small time afterwards.
2. It hardly creates a fair and balanced article if its focuses exclusively
on issues to do with that country's diplomatic relationship with the US. Is
there a single article on wiki that mentions with the British ambassador is
to a country and what the UK embassy address is? What about the Italian
Ambassador? Brazilian ambassador? Irish ambassador? Rwandan ambassador, etc.
It all adds a regrettable and unnecessary degree of americo-centrism to
articles.
Given this fact, and that the information is likely to change rapidly, is it
not time that such unnecessary and americo-centrist information was left
out? The entire world doesn't need to know who the US ambassador to Germany
is, or who the Germany ambassador to the US is, do they?
If it is thought worth keeping, it should all be moved to a specific article
on [[United States Embassies and Ambassadors]] and [[International
Ambassadors to the United States]]. There it can be easily updated and
avoids making articles appear too americocentric.
JT
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(resubmission, submitted before under improper email profile)
Just a little note.
In the interest of fairness I wanted to state that it may not be strictly
true that no one objects to the ban on User:Viking. I believe User:Triton
may. The following is from Triton on my Talk page (now archived at User
Talk:Dante Alighieri/clovis et al.):
Take a look now at the new way of humiliating a user. A new file has been
made called <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Viking/ban>User
talk:Viking/ban that will keep showing up on the Recent Changes list as
many times as their attacker(s) wish. When someone not involved sees that,
what is the impression of UserViking?
Now, I don't know for CERTAIN that this means Triton objects to the ban,
but I certainly would want to give Triton the chance to clarify himself. I
wouldn't want his comments to go unheard and risk us banning Viking without
giving anyone who cares to defend him a chance to do so.
Let's not ban Viking until we give Triton a clear chance to voice himself.
I would hate for Triton to go unheard.
-----
Dante Alighieri
dalighieri(a)digitalgrapefruit.com
"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
-Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321
Where was the discussion for the naming convention for animals. A new user is
reverting the Canada goose, and I really don't want to get into that whole
fight again.
Danny
For what it's worth, I support JTDirl as a sysop. I don't think that JTD
was being rude to FB on his page, I think that perhaps FB isn't looking at
it in the same light that it was intended.
On a side note, even if it WAS rude, if ever being rude was a valid reason
to deny someone sysop status, then a WHOLE bunch of sysops are in SERIOUS
trouble. lol (laughing out loud, remember? You DID go read [[leet]], didn't
you?)
-----
Dante Alighieri
dalighieri(a)digitalgrapefruit.com
"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
-Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321
I have temporarily revoked Kils' sysop status on en:, someone with
developer status on de: may want to do the same. Explanation:
In the last few days, a user named "Viking" has vandalized/downsized a
couple of articles he considered "indecent" (especially the [[fisting]]
article), threatened people not to question what he is doing if they
didn't have "administrator status" and then left (there was a brief
discussion of a possible ban). Kils subsequently deleted Viking's user and
talk pages and explained it was an "experiment of his children".
I asked him for details, he responded and then *deleted his talk page*
before I could read his response. I restored the talk page and there was
the following response.
-----------------------
Eloquence: I confirm this - I do not think any had the quality of
vandlism, otherwise I would have stepped in. We were concerned that a
"handbook type" with direct instructions to certain practises on certain
pages was endangering the reputation of wikipeia and of us as visible
contributers and cooperators. A first thing many teachers and professors
for example do, before they endorse or use a web based project in class or
with students/parents, is to search for ugly content within. And there was
some, and as we were supported by responses of colleagues with the right
background it was beyond the rules of wikipedia - young vikings are often
of very spontaneous mannors, I advised them to do things different, but
then we are also very democratic. they plan to do it different now - we
could have done everything anonymous, but we did not - from that you can
deduct that we all are interested in communication and construction - we
are all astonished how much time you spent in the wikipedia project
(Anerkennung!) you seem to need only very little sleep - best greetings
across the ocean (from the USA) from uwe kils - user Kils 18:50 31 May
2003 (UTC)
-----------------------
It seems quite clear that Uwe Kils shares Viking's standard of "decency"
regarding Wikipedia articles and feels that material e.g. about specific
sexual practices is inappropriate. In light of his actions, I do not trust
him to be a sysop anymore.
In spite of my objections, this should normally go through discussion
first before the status is revoked, but I am worried that Kils might
delete more pages, and it seemed like an appropriate safety measure. I
also wanted to allow others to take a look at his user talk page to have a
track record, and this was not possible with him being a sysop, because
then I could not protect the page or stop him from deleting it. If anyone
feels that Kils must be a sysop again, please post.
Regards,
Erik
I don't think the blanket reverting efforts directed
at Michael are good. I went through the contrabutions
of 24.130.213.24x (those of you reverting know who I'm
talking about) and many, if not most, of his edits
were useful and even factual. I will be un-reverting
all of his useful edits, but only after fact checking.
--LittleDan
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CGS is one of the good guys. Seconded.
He will be an asset to the team.
Tony
(Tannin)
(By the way, what happened to the nomination for JTDirl? That one seems
to have fallen through the cracks. It's been ages.)
Just a little note.
In the interest of fairness I wanted to state that it may not be strictly
true that no one objects to the ban on User:Viking. I believe User:Triton
may. The following is from Triton on my Talk page (now archived at User
Talk:Dante Alighieri/clovis et al.):
Take a look now at the new way of humiliating a user. A new file has been
made called <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Viking/ban>User
talk:Viking/ban that will keep showing up on the Recent Changes list as
many times as their attacker(s) wish. When someone not involved sees that,
what is the impression of UserViking?
Now, I don't know for CERTAIN that this means Triton objects to the ban,
but I certainly would want to give Triton the chance to clarify himself. I
wouldn't want his comments to go unheard and risk us banning Viking without
giving anyone who cares to defend him a chance to do so.
Let's not ban Viking until we give Triton a clear chance to voice himself.
I would hate for Triton to go unheard.
-----
Karim Moussally
kmoussally(a)cal.berkeley.edu
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre
minds. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly
submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his
intelligence."
-Albert Einstein, attributed
I just want to reiterate my full support for Zoe on this one. Zoe (and
several other good Wikicitizens) have been implementing a soft ban on
our misguided friend with the dynamic IP. People, we *can't* implement
a hard ban. At least not without banning several good and useful
contributors as well. On the whole, much as I'd like to see the back of
our socially-challemged friend, I'd rather contribute to a Wikipedia
that had Micheal around than a Wikipedia that managed to ban him only
at the expense of banning Danny as well!
If Mav's suggestion of complaining to AOL works, then great! But I
won't hold my breath for that.
The soft ban is the answer. Zoe and about six or eight others (incuding
me) have taken to ruthlessly reverting *everything* that Michael posts.
We don't bother reading it or tying to work out if it contains a shred
of fact or not (with Michael's stuff, this is damn near impossible
anyway - in 10 minutes he can post up enough of that devilishly twisted
mixture of fact and fiction to keep two or three copy-editors busy
checking on "facts" and correcting 50% of them for several hours). None
of us have time for that idiocy: the only sensible way to deal with
Michael is to revert on sight and without compunction. Three clicks and
the 'pedia is idiocy-free once more, and *you* are back to working on
something *useful* again.
Best of all, because it only takes a few moments and hardly any thought
at all to blanket-revert Michael edits (excuse me while I shout this
bit) ... WE REVERSE THE BURDEN OF LABOUR! For the first time, it's
harder for him than it is for us. Instead of *us* taking hours to clean
up the mess that *he* creates in mere minutes, when we just revert
Michael unread and on sight, we can undo his many minutes of creative
vandalism in just a few seconds. I know he's a determined little
horror, but no-one can push that sort of load uphill for too long.
Hell, if I was Tsar Jimbo, I think I'd un-ban his user names in the
hope that he started posting as "Michael" or "No-FX" again - 'cause
that just makes it easier to spot Michael edits and revert them.
Anything he can post in an hour, Zoe can rollback in three minutes
flat.
Or me. Or Quercus. Or *you*.
Let's all pitch in, people. Think of it as an experiment in psychology.
How long would *you* keep on making contributions to the 'pedia for if
every single edit you ever made was reverted without coment inside of
ten minutes?
Tony Wilson
(Tannin)
This is an open request, but it is specifically aimed at Jimbo. Can we have
a clear and definitive answer on Michael and his pseudonyms and his/their
ban status? Also, can this be posted on the Wikipedia so that it can be
easily linked to? The current situation requires that we direct people to
Michael's ban talk page and that they then link to the No-Fx page and the
Weezer pages. I am, as are others, spending too much time defending our
actions when we delete Michael's garbage. Thanks.
-----
Dante Alighieri
dalighieri(a)digitalgrapefruit.com
"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
-Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321