Jim wrote:
>....make sweeping changes to what appears to be
>standard practice elsewhere.
>...
That begs the question since it has not been proven at
all that capitalization of any organisms outside of
the birds is standard. Many, many citations were given
to support the down-style, however.
>I would search for capitalised mammals, eg Gray
>Whale, and presumably not find them.
>...
Our search is case-insensitive so Blue Whale and blue
whale both return results for our article on blue
whales (whatever the current capitalization).
Capitalization of this animal's common name is simply
wrong since, as I have stated before, there is no
international standards committee that has made
special rules for naming mammals. Therefore we fall
back to standard rules of English grammer and
well-respected style guides for English. The great
majority of these, as has already been proven, support
the downstyle for the common names of organisms.
I do have to admit that I am intrigued by the
proposition of distinguishing species names with
capitals. But by own interest in doing so cannot
ignore standard rules of grammar and the fact that
outside of the birds common names are common nouns and
therefore capitalization is spurious.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
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Eloquence> "By endorsing fair use, we defend this principle"
I'd prefer to defend the principle of open content. That's what's in Wikipedia's
mission statement. We've come together, from diverse walks of life, with all kinds of
mutually contradictory belief systems, and united around that goal. Let's not distract
ourselves by bringing all kinds of other ideas. To my mind, we should evaluate
everything by a single question - "What will help us achieve our goal of making a
collaborative, online, accessible, open content, accurate, unbiased and
comprehensive encyclopedia?".
If someone can convince me that content filters will help us, or hinder us, in that
goal, then I'll listen carefully and "vote" accordingly. But arguments about protecting
children, or how content filters should be scrapped, are irrelevant - I didn't sign on to
Wikipedia to protect children, nor to scrap content filters. Tell me instead about how
content filters will make Wikipedia more accessible, or how they will make Wikipedia
less comprehensive. Tell me about how getting more children on Wikipedia will
improve the possibilities for collaboration, or tell me how it's impossible to do content
filtering in an unbiased way. Those are the arguments that are worth making...
Martin "MyRedDice" Harper
In a message dated 11/06/03 18:10:17 GMT Daylight Time, jtdirl(a)hotmail.com
writes:
>
> I had an interesting conversation today with a publisher and an academic on
> the issue of capitalisation. They made the following observations:
>
> 1. Capitalisation rules seem to differ between American English and British
> English (or rather American English and all forms of english other than AE).
>
> Whereas the former seems nowadays to be following a 'minimal use of caps'
> policy, non-AE english uses caps far more often.
>
> 2. This issue has caused considerable problems with American students who
> come to Europe for summer courses. Europeans see the non-use of caps as
> 'semi-literate' and regularly dock students marks for it. Americans see non
> AE use of caps as 'ludicrous' and over the top. (I know from personal
> experience that the few caps english of AE users has caused bitter anger in
> my university, where lecturers 'hit the roof' at AE users' insistence of
> lower-casing names of organisations, electoral processes, governmental
> offices, etc.)
>
> 3. Within many academic areas, a major battle has been waged on this issue.
> To the resentment of non-AE users, AE capitalisation rules increasingly tend
>
> to be followed. The reason is purely economic. Publishers see the US as
> their biggest market, and so publish books in AE or in non-AE but following
> some of the characteristics of AE in areas like capitalisation. (This has
> infuriated many non AE-using authors. Last week, one British English author
> threatened to sue her publisher for 'rewriting' her textbook in AE when it
> was aimed at a UK market. She accused them of 'dumbing down english to suit
> Americans'. Some authors, according to the publisher I was talking to, have
> insisted in their contracts that their books /not/ be rewritten in AE, even
> when an edition is launched in the US. (American authors may well equally
> have insisted that their books not be turned into non-AE. As the publisher I
>
> was speaking to is British she has no knowledge of such contracts if they
> exist in the US).
>
> If this is the case (and both the publisher and academic said so, while both
>
> expressing their dislike of AE capitalisation trends and what the latter
> called the 'wholescale manging of non-AE to suit publishers' profits by
> trampling over the language use of everyone who isn't American') that does
> explain the rows over capitalisation on wiki, and how it is AE users like
> Ec, Mav and Zoe who are so 'anti' capitalisation while it is users of other
> forms of english other than AE (Tannin, myself, etc) who want it. For if
> Mav, Ec etc were taught one set of rules on capitalisation usage, we were
> taught a different one and are infuriated by what, going by what we were
> taught, seems to be wiki's insistence on wrong use of capitals and non-use
> of capitals where they should be used.
>
> In the circumstances, we should apply to the same policy as we apply in
> general to American english versus British english, ie, respect difference
> and allow users to set the policy in an individual article, based on /their/
>
> usage of capitals in /their/ version of english. As most of the capitals
> issue involves AE users changing capitalisation applied by non AE users like
>
> Tannin in articles the non AE users have written (like on birds), it
> suggests that that process should stop and the rules on capitalisation
> should be amended accordingly. The issue is already causing enough rows
> outside wiki, with the increasing application of AE rules by publishing
> houses and style books causing major anger (the publisher said one author
> called it 'American linguistic imperialism', with AE rules being applied
> even though they conflict with all the grammar books used outside the US.)
> The best solution is not to enforce AE capitalisation rules but simply to
> recognise that different english users worldwide use different rules on this
>
> issue and to leave it to users, depending on their linguistic culture, to
> decide on capitalisation just as they decide on spelling in American
> English, British English or the various subsets of the latter (Hiberno
> English, Australian English, etc.)
>
> JT
>
Interesting; although I'd spotted some odd ( to a non-American) "missed"
capitals, in articles, it never occurred to me that there was a genuine cultural
difference.
It also explains why from the Europe/Oz viewpoint this debate looked a bit
like US v the rest, although I must admit that paranoia might also have been a
factor.
I think JT's email helps to explain how this controversy has arisen , and why
it has been so difficult to resolve.
Jim
mav
The only recent mammal book I've bought is "Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises",
which capitalises, which is the practice I've used in the cetacean articles.
I know there is no ownership of articles, but you must see that it is to say
the least irritating when you put hours of work into articles when people
whose make no contributions to these articles beyond copyedits (yes know that's
vauable too) make sweeping changes to what appears to be standard practice
elsewhere.
I've conscientiously stuck to what appeared to be the agreed policy, only to
find that it isn't agreed anymore. I've deliberately avoided fauna other than
birds and mammals because I don't know what the convention is for fish and
reptiles.
I can't really win on this-I've got too much real work on to spend a lot of
time on this debate for the umpteenth time, but failure to maintain an active
participation is only likely to weaken my position.
For mammals and birds, I can't see what's wrong with the current postion.
Somebody searching for blue whale or Blue Whale will find it. Under the proposed
lower case regime, a little knowledge will be a dangerous thing. I would
search for capitalised mammals, eg Gray Whale, and presumably not find them ( I
don't think it's wikien policy to provide capitalised redirects to all articles.)
Perhaps it's simpler only to do single word mammals, and make sure the name
is always at the start of a sentence, then nobody gets upset (sorry, being
facetious).
I just can't spare the time on this debate any longer. I'll stick to bird
articles, where at least there still appears to be a degree of tolerance, and
plenty to do on European, African and Asian species about 4,000 I should guess.
Jim
Micheal is back again as user:Punk.
I'm not reverting him yet because that would be a
waste of time due to his inability to take a hint. I
will revert all his edits as soon as he leaves.
For the sake of sanity I suggest everyone else do the
same.
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=Pu…
BTW, has anyone ever drafted a complaint letter to an
ISP complaining about a user? It would be nice to have
a draft of such a letter placed on
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Boilerplate_text
That way we can at least easily complain to the ISP's
of our persistent vandals.
I imagine that they would do something if they got a
constant stream of complaints about one of their
users.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
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Jim wrote:
>I raised the point previously as to how this will be
>decided, with has more relevance now that Mav seems
>to be retreating from his previous position. If it
>is a straight numerical thing, the American view is
>bound to prevail, despite the fact that the
>proponents of lower case contribute so little to
>actually writing the wildlife articles.
It has been proven very clearly that this is not an
"American" thing. Trying to paint things in that light
is disingenuous and smacks of Anti-Americanism (since
your premise seems to be that if Americans are trying
to impose something then it must be bad).
Oh and using your logic I should have near dictatorial
powers over WikiEN just because I've made /far/ more
edits than anyone else across nearly every subject.
And guess which area I've made a good majority of
those edits? In copyediting and fixing things like
capitalization. So according to your line of reasoning
everyone else should just shut up and let me do what I
want.
But I don't try to use my editing numbers as a wedge
in an argument because that is irrelevant. The only
thing that is relevant is what is the best thing for
us to do; the articles and their capitalization does
not belong to the people who write them. This is a
community matter - esp since it involves how articles
link to each other.
Also, this is a wiki Jim, so if you don't like other
people editing your articles then this isn't the right
place for you.
>Are we also going to insist on standardising names,
>so that the lead article has to be Common Loon,
>rather than as at present, Great Northen Diver (with
> a redirect).. and as for spelling! ( incidently,
> the group article is Loon - I wouldn't want to be
> chauvinist about this).
Why are you beating that straw man? The argument about
what to do with the birds has been won by the
capitalizers since each species has been given a very
specific name by an international body and their
convention is to capitalize those given names. I'm
content with that so long as lower-cased redirects are
provided (since there is a strong standard English
convention to write bald eagle not Bald Eagle).
The issue we have before us is whether or not to
extend capitalization beyond the birds where there
does not seem to be international standards committees
handing out official names which have a one-to-one
relationship with particular organisms (let alone any
policies on capitalization).
Do you have /any/ arguments to support capitalization
beyond the birds?
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
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Can a developer please check the IP addresses for the users listed on
[[User:Smarandache fan]]? The situation has developed somewhat, and this
user's behaviour may now be considered bannable, even ignoring the multiple
personalities. Please consider this request urgent.
I'll refer to this user as "SF".
SF accused AxelBoldt of anti-semitism and anti-americanism, on
[[Talk:Florentin Smarandache]], on the basis of a misreprentation of Axel's
personal web page.
I said the journal "multiple valued logic, an international journal" is
defunct, and I was immediately labelled a "liar" by SF. The journal was
renamed a few years ago, and changed web sites, with no indication that
anything had changed on the original website.
We've all been referred to as hating neutrosophy and Smarandache, and there
are implications that we're part of some sort of evil conspiracy to
undermine it. For example:
"Ooo, you don't play a fear game, you try to undermine by any means these
neutrosophics. You have preconceptions... And I estimated young people as
being honest, correct... user:arizonaval "
Interestingly, a similar situation has developed on Talk:Cartographic
Congress, not that I mean to imply any direct relationship between the two
groups: SF the one hand and Harry Potter, Qqq and Luther Blisset on the
other. I'm not angling for support or banning on this one, I just thought
it's an interesting story. Another honest mistake earned me this, from Qqq:
"Dear tim, i have just read your comment on VfD: LARC is not the same as the
Limehouse Town Hall. why not come here and find out instead of speculating
and writing bare faced lies!!?? Please stop interfering with stuff u do not
understand or know about! by your own admission u know little about art, and
are pretty ill qualified to make encyclopaediac comments on the subject/s.
it is as if i were to start denounceing quantum physics as an attempt by
certain scientists top place themselves into the conceptual field vacated by
god and thus ensure never ending government or military funding for whatever
nonsensical strand of research crosses their drug-crazed minds!! UserQqq"
I'm "ill qualified" due to my stated lack of knowledge in art. However, I
consider myself capable of spotting pataphysical BS, much to the chagrin of
the pataphysicians.
-- Tim Starling.
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I promised myself that I wouldn't get involved again in this, but I've
weakened.
Hi all
I raised the point previously as to how this will be decided, with has more
relevance now that Mav seems to be retreating from his previous position. If it
is a straight numerical thing, the American view is bound to prevail, despite
the fact that the proponents of lower case contribute so little to actually
writing the wildlife articles.
Are we also going to insist on standardising names, so that the lead article
has to be Common Loon, rather than as at present, Great Northen Diver (with a
redirect).. and as for spelling! ( incidently, the group article is Loon - I
wouldn't want to be chauvinist about this).
The problems with using scientific names for the article titles have I think
been adequately dealt with, but in any case wouldn't help in the text. You
can't really write about Anas platyrhychos instead of Mallard.
yours in deep gloom
Jim
>Stevertigo wrote
>- Jay's announcement framed essentially "Im in an Edit war with a Chinese
>guy who
>cant write English."
Now hold on a minute. That is a complete and utter lie and fabrication, Sv.
I am not in an edit war with a Chinese guy who can't write english. In the
last couple of days, on request, and having then contacted other
contributors to a page and sought their advice, I reverted that page that
had been rewritten by someone whose ethnic origin I am unaware of because
there was 100% agreement that
1) the version he wrote was seriously inaccurate;
2) his translations of words from chinese to english were universally
regarded as seriously flawed (eg, translating 'emperor' as 'lord');
3) the user had constantly removed contributions from others.
/All/ the contributors to that page argued that the particular user's
english language difficulties contributed to the utter mess the page was in,
but the problem was not just the linguistic mess but also the inaccurate
translation and especially the systematic editing out of everyone else's
contribution, and his revertion of a community edited text pulled together
by Mav to his own unique and inaccurate one. I played no part in the
discussion of the detail of the page, merely acted as an outsider who after
consultation and with universal agreement reverted back to the Mav text,
with the suggestion that everyone start again from there, along with a
suggestion to that user on his talk page that he listen to other
contributors on the page in question and stop deleting everyone else's
contribution.
But that had /nothing/ to do with my letter on this list. That came about
because six times in the last eight weeks I came across articles on wiki
that were unreadable because of poor english. When I mentioned this to
others, other wiki users contacted me on AIM and ICQ (on which I have been
on a lot lately) to tell me 'wait until you see this one!', they producing
other articles, one in particular a blurred mix of Swedish and English that
users of neither language could make neither head nor tail of.
>As "lets make a point of singling out foreigners who cant write English
>like
>the Queen does." A very hasty and unthought response - that was perhaps
>better expressed as a question of intent. Apo.... to James, and even
>Robert.
>
That is /not/ what I was doing. I was making a concrete suggestion as to how
we could /help/ users who know a lot of interesting information but who
because of poor english linguistic skills could not express it. Some of the
articles had been there for weeks unnoticed; one three months. Neither I nor
the other people who contacted me had the time to fix all the articles. My
suggestion, and I repeat it, was to create a special page to which articles
in need of linguistic and grammatical proofing could be placed. It was to
/help/ users with language problems, not to single out people for mockery.
BTW this is an /encyclopædia/, which means its articles /have/ to achieve
minimum standards of accuracy, not just in content but in expression. This
is not some sort of amateur scribble-box where any old rubbish will do. It
is a /professional/ encyclopædia that is intended to be taken seriously, not
as some semi-literate joke. A professional /english/ encyclopædia requires
basic standards in terms of english. All I was suggested was that we apply
basic professional standards to this project. Semi-literature articles, no
matter how much quality information they contain, do no justice to the
people who contribute them and the work they put into them, and risks
turning a supposed professional encyclopædia into a laughing stock. I made
my suggestion based on the professional needs of a professional encylopædia,
and resent having my motivation twisted and misrepresented in the manner
done by Stevertigo.
JT
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