In the interest of Sunshine, Adam has asked that I forward this.
He has agreed, by the way, not to make any edits to wikipedia under
any username at all. He seemed to be indicating to me that he didn't
know that before. (!)
----- Forwarded message from Adam von [name omitted for privacy reasons] <cddvdlenscleaner(a)yahoo.com> -----
From: Adam von [name omitted for privacy reasons] <cddvdlenscleaner(a)yahoo.com>
Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2003 10:25:50 -0700 (PDT)
To: Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)bomis.com>
Subject: Re: your mail
I think it would only be fair to inform your friends that I have emailed you. That way, they can stop making statements such as, "Lir has only to email Jimbo and then he can be reinstated!"
For example:
Lir and Michael and Helga...). If any of
these users want to be a valuable contributor, they
have only to email Jimbo and I get the feeling he is
looking for an excuse to reinstate them.
-Tuf-Kat
Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)bomis.com> wrote:
Juanita von [name omitted for privacy reasons] wrote:
>> Since I do not wish to see any edits by you, under any username, can
>>I have your assurance that I will not see any such edits?
> That is correct.
I'm sure you'll understand my nitpicking here, but are you pledging
not to edit wikipedia until you are reinstated?
If so, then that's the very *first* step towards reconciliation.
--Jimbo
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----- End forwarded message -----
One other point with regard to the everlasting capitalisation debate is that
it is usually argued that non-specialist encyclopedias use lower case, and
only specialist handooks like HBW, HANZAB and BWP use capitals.
If it is being seriously suggested that Wikien should be the same as a paper
encyclopedia (or on-line version thereof), can I suggest the following to
bring other aspects into line.
1) Standardise spelling and names as American English (this solves the
capitalisation problem too, since you lose the European and Australian contributors
who write 90% of the animal/bird articles at a stroke.
2) Get rid of articles you wouldn't find in a "proper" encyclopedia, such as
lists of people called Fred, album play lists, articles on "fisting" , lists
of famous Hungarians etc. (I'll help on this.)
3) If you do item 1, then you can also revert the many US-centric articles,
which just assume there are no other countries that matter, back to their
original unsullied versions.
Hope this is (sort of) helpful
Jim
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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In a message dated 03/06/03 09:14:17 GMT Daylight Time, saintonge(a)telus.net
writes:
> Further to my previous expressions on the subject, i recently added the
> following to another user's talk page.
>
> The Style Manual for Biological Journals as "Prepared by the
> Committee on Form and Style of the Conference of Biological Editors
> of the American Institute of Biological Sciences" states at page 68,
> "Generic names used as vernacular names are neither italicized nor
> capitalized" Since an other authoritative source has indicated that
> capitalization is usually done among ornithologists (though it is
> not a rule) I will leave birds alone ... for now.
>
> What exactly does that mean. "Generic names" - doesn't that mean "names
> of a genus". So, for instance, if you use the generic name Gorilla as
> the common name, "gorilla", you don't have to capitalize it. It seems to
> me that while in a normal sentence, the word "gorilla" should not be
> capitalized, it ought to be capitalized when it is referring to the
> species as a whole. And that your reference doesn't seem to be referring
> to what you think it is referring to.
>
> A rereading of the item that I quoted does give some support for
> your interpretation. The sentence is repeated on the next page with
> the single change of "vernacular" to "common".(I've since won
> another much thicker book about writing style in biology, but it
> might not get to me for another couple weeks.) The Latin species
> name is never capitalized anyway. Capitals and single quotes are
> used, however, for cultivars. This may give support for a similar
> practice for dog breeds, but I'm not yet ready to take a stand on
> that. A little later the book gives examples and particular rules
> relating to insects, plants and bacteria. For birds it refers us to
> the American Ornithologists Union's check-list of North American
> birds, but gives no examples. It is silent about mammals and other
> vertebrates.
>
> The Globe and Mail Style Book directs lower case for all animals,
> including birds, except when what would otherwise be a common name
> is involved. It is more direct than most general style manuals when
> dealing with this, and that gives some weight when we are concerned
> with a work of general knowledge such as Wikipedia.
>
> The other point that favors lower case is the general rule in titles
> to lower case all words unless there is a good reason to the contrary.
>
> The next source is an online one at
> http://www.biology.ualberta.ca/courses.hp/biol335/Lecture8-9.html I
> quote
>
> * capitalization:
> * unless the common name includes a proper name (e.g., person's
> name or place name), most common names are not capitalized
> * however, there are exceptions for certain groups of
> organisms. One obvious exception is that the common names of birds are now usually
> capitalized
> * e.g. white-tailed deer vs Atlantic salmon vs Richardson's
> ground squirrel vs Great Horned Owl vs Englemann spruce vs balsam poplar vs
> Rocky Mountain juniper
> * for vertebrates and probably other groups of organisms, there
> are international committees that recommend on common names in each language
> * e.g. the sparrow hawk is now the American Kestrel
>
> Note the word "usually" in regards to birds. The practice follows
> the American Ornithologists Union but is by no means universal. I am
> at least prepared to concede the matter in regards to capitalizing
> bird names, in the absence of further evidence.
>
> There is no such list for mammals, and apparently none for other
> vertebrates, but I have not explored these others.
>
> The Alaska Department of Fish and Game Writer's Guide at
> http://www.cf.adfg.state.ak.us/geninfo/download/adfguide/wrtrguid.pdf
> supports lower case for all species, including birds where it does
> note that its view is contrary to that of the Ornithological Union.
>
> From the publication The Prairie Naturalist at
> http://www.fhsu.edu/biology/pn/pnstylerules.htm we have "Common
> names of organisms are not capitalized except for proper nouns or
> adjectives that are part of the name, e.g., green-winged teal,
> American coot, Cooper's hawk."
>
> The Newsletter of the Baltimore Bird Club at
> http://baltimorebirdclub.org/cn/cn0010.html states,
> "Many birding publications follow an unofficial convention for
> capitalization of bird names. I have chosen to follow this
> convention in Chip Notes because it makes the name stand out and it
> honors the objects of our devotion. If you would follow these
> "rules" in your submissions it would save a lot of time. The "rules"
> run something like this:
>
> * All non-hyphenated parts of a bird's name are capitalized.
> * The hyphenated parts that are a type of bird are also capitalized.
> * The hyphenated parts that are NOT themselves a type of bird, such as
> "-bellied" or "-tailed," are not capitalized.
>
> A good illustration of all these principles is "Yellow-crowned
> Night-Heron."
>
> Based on all of the above I reach the conclusion that all common names
> of life forms should be lower cased, with the possible exception of birds.
>
> Eclecticology
A further example of the final para's use of capitalisation is Wilson's
Storm-Petrel, where petrel is capitalised because the storm-petrels are a group of
birds, and petrel is is not a part of the bird.
I don't know why we are fighting this battle for the at least the fourth time
since I started contributing in Feb. I thought that a consensus had been
agreed through wide debate on the mailing list and various talk pages. I know that
for the fish, some contributors are happy with lower case, which is fine. You
must have seen the reasons put forth by eg Tannin and myself for the current
capitalisation of bird English names (scientific names I don't think are a
problem). I have within reach four books, three on birds, and one on cetaceans.
All species are capitalised. On my bookshelves I have bird books (too many),
and others on mammals, insects etc. All capitalise species names.
Since there are lower case links to articles, nothing is lost in terms of
searches.
In any case, if we must re-open this discussion again, I don't think
reverting random articles is particularly constructive or open, nor what would be
expected from an experienced contributor.
more in sorrow....
Jim (jimfbleak)
I don't really have anything in particular in mind. I think it could go
many ways. I am totally open for discussion, provide your input. I had
an idea today of a voting system, and this could work in many different
ways. People have suggested rating system, or flagging systems. I
think they all sound good. Have you guys ever heard of Kuro5hin? Maybe
we could implement something like that. There really are so many
possibilities!
--
Michael Becker
-----Original Message-----
From: wikien-l-admin(a)wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-admin@wikipedia.org]
On Behalf Of koyaanis qatsi
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 5.47
To: wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Just to throw this out there...
Hi all,
I'm a bit concerned about what I've been reading
lately about proposed filters. Before I respond,
though, I'd like to make sure I understand. Jimmy,
what is it you're thinking of exactly? Michael, what
did you have in mind?
best.
kq
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Yes, a voting system would do nicely. Even if not used for filtering,
people could tell how many people found an article useful, etc. This
really could work in so many ways! I think this type of thing is
defiantly something that we should talk about, and develop into
something useable.
--
Michael Becker
-----Original Message-----
From: wikien-l-admin(a)wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-admin@wikipedia.org]
On Behalf Of Daniel Ehrenberg
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 7.12
To: wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org
Subject: RE: [WikiEN-l] Just to throw this out there...
--- Peter Bartlett <pcb21(a)btconnect.com> wrote:
>
> Erik wrote:
> >On a wiki, we risk "flagging wars", and by defining
> what "can be
> >considered offensive" we are leaving NPOV behind.
>
> One possibility is that each user has the option to
> give a page a score
> : 1 meaning "Doesn't need filtering" through to 10
> "Nearly everyone
> would want to filter this". Then the overall 'score'
> for a page is the
> average of all scores users have given it. Then
> someone browsing the
> 'pedia could choose to filter at a particular score
> e.g. browse at 0
> (filter everything with an score of more than 0 i.e.
> everything!) to 10
> (= filter articles with average score 10 i.e.
> nothing!). 11 viewing
> configurations available to the user... I believe
> Google only has 3!
>
> Because each person/ip could only cast one score per
> article (though of
> course they could change their score as the article
> changes) "flagging
> wars" would be difficult because it would require
> ip-hopping/multiple-log-in to try to tip the score in a particular
> direction.
>
> This idea may be computationally quite feasible...
> we already have to
> store everyone who's watching an article... maybe we
> could store
> everyone who's scoring an article too. (Watchlist
> has a tag saying
> "article changed since you last scored" etc).
>
> Obviously the idea extends to other scores too...
> instead of a "filter
> score" you could have a "quality score" and users
> could browse only
> articles that on average believed to be high
> quality.
>
> Obvious disadvantage : The filter is "1-dimensional"
> i.e. you can't
> filter on sex, religion whatever... only on the
> score... so if religion
> were to get scores of about 5 and sex 7.. to filter
> religion you would
> have to filter sex too.. I don't know if it can be
> made to fit with team
> certification idea.
>
> Anyhow these are only implementational ideas. My
> personal view is that
> any sort of filtering along these lines is going to
> take effort on the
> part of users.. perhaps we should stick to writing
> the encyclopedia for
> now!
>
> Pete
That sounds like a very good idea, but how would
people deal with unrated pages? Let's say all of the
unmodified rambot pages were unrated. Then no one with
any sort of filtering could go there. If someone made
a rating bot to solve this, it would seriously
undermine the system.
A way to (partially) solve this could be to have a
period wherein people can rate pages (and are required
to in each edit) but ratings cannot yet be used for
filtering.
Overall, it's a good idea but not practical.
--LittleDan
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First - I don't know anything about the particulars, but thought I'd
give you my take on the messages Kils left for Eloquence. There seems
to be no question from what Kils said that Viking is a user name that
was made up for a group of students and offspring of Kils to use. I
gathered from Kils' posting that this was being used for a possible
student project. In that vein, Viking and Kils were worried that
younger people might wander into the site, practicing editing, web use,
etc, and come across some of our articles not usually found in
encyclopedias and more often found in specialty areas. Some of those
articles really could be considered inappropriate for non-adults - and I
think that may be something we should consider, an advisory or
something?
Anyway, Kils and co thought that the rampant removal of "pornographic"
materials was necessary and within their rights. When the "ban Viking"
thing flared up, Kils killed Viking and removed all traces. One of
Kils' reasons for all this was that he had a reputation to protect and
didn't want it connected to pornography. Now, he has "kind of"
apologized; At least, that's how I understand all of this. Also, From
reading comments on Erik's page, the Vikings would like to do the same
kind of trace wiping from the German version. If I've summarized badly,
please correct me - I certainly won't be offended.
My response to this?
First, we should realize that the wikipedia is a site that might be seen
as many (reading the main page) as an educational site. I don't know if
child safety filters are going to catch it. I also think there are
articles on the site that are certainly more education than necessary
for kids (Prince Albert Piercing and Fisting come to mind) - and I think
that we should do the socially responsible thing and post that
somewhere. We certainly don't want an attack by the moral minority, and
as yucky as I find some of those articles, I don't think they should be
removed unless the project is severely redefined.
On Kils specifically, I think his actions show that, although his
intentions may have been honorable, he clearly does not quite "get" the
spirit and the intent of the wikipedia. Moreover, he used his sysop
powers in a way that we all (I think) find unacceptable. And he has not
guaranteed that that behavior would stop. So I would say that he should
go back to being a user. It removes the temptation for misuse, however
well-intentioned, and gives him the power to say to others that he has
no way of changing content except in a wiki way.
My take on it at least FWIW
Jules
An interesting way to offer advertising, would be to offer to let people
sponsor pages. This is done with Highways, (i.e. This section of
highway sponsored by such and such). I think many users would like this
idea, and would sponsor pages they contributed heavily to, and you could
offer packages for "advertisers" outside of the project like mentioned
above, (using some sort of algorithm to figure out what pages are
relevant) and then offer a price per page type thing.
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising_on_Wikipedia
--
Michael Becker
Hi,
Because of certain aggresive attitude concerning the modification
of some articles, have looked to the contributions of [[User:Tom Peeters]].
It is just me that found it rather strange:
- seems to be an old user [[tompeeters]] active from 24 Oct 2001 to 26 Nov 2001.
- recently converted to [[User:Tom peeters]].
- under this new account active from the 30 May 2003
- make aggresive remarks concerning changes made by others to his toys articles
- he have made several contribs under the IP 194.109.250.130
- on his user page he say to have rewrote some articles
for example the article [[Easter]], when looking at the history
he made only a small change to it.
- yesterday, after some bad discussion he forked the article
[[Hipparcos]] to [[Hipparcus]]. He doesn't seems to be annoyed by
the fact that all the articles still link to the ld one,
except of course the other ont that he actually changes [[Ptolemy]]
All in all, I find this user somewhat 'strange' and annoying.
Anyone else having problems with him?
Can some of you take a look to him and his behaviour?
See you
--
Luc Van Oostenryck aka [[User:Looxix]]
(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