Erik wrote:
>Magnus-
>> Oh, if someone creates "textbook.wikipedia.org", could we
>> also have a test wiki for the gunpedia project set up?
>
>Oh boy, that's gonna be hard to keep NPOV ;-)
IMO it can't and shouldn't. The POV of whatever textbook is being worked on
should be a "Discipline Point Of View." This means that if a textbook is on
Biology then the POV of biologists should be in the book. There will be
neutrality rules but they only apply from within whatever discipline the
textbook is being written for. So for example a chapter on evolution would
focus on the major differing views on the subject that exist from within the
biological sciences but it would not seriously consider the POV of groups
outside the biological sciences.
The reason why our encyclopedias have to be NPOV is because our audience is a
general one. The reason why our textbooks have to be DPOV is because our
audience is very focused (the biology student, for example) and we need to
bring that student through the material in a logical and efficient way.
Same thing is true for a section of a medical textbook on abortion ; we leave
out most of the history and the different political views on the subject and
just talk about the procedure itself and maybe have a single paragraph at the
end sating something about access to the procedure and that risks doctors
face when they choose to specialize in this area.
So textbooks are inherently POV - that is why each time somebody tried to
write a textbook in Wikipedia their efforts were quickly thwarted.
Textbooks are organized in a very different way than an encyclopedia and they
also have a specific audience. These two things make textbook material
completely incompatible with Wikipedia. Thus a separate project is needed
(and probably a few tweaks to the software to make it easy to have chapters).
Hm. Maybe http://textbook.wikimedia.org would be better... I guess it doesn't
really matter because that URL will be replaced by a real name for the
project as soon as somebody thinks of one.
--- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
>Jimmy Wales wrote:
>>Joe Canuck is banned from wikipedia. Would someone with the
>>appropriate powers please take the appropriate steps to make this
>>technically true.
>>
>>As always, Joe is invited to write to me to discuss this further,
>>and/or is invited to the mailing list.
>>
>>Some have expressed a strong conviction that Joe Canuck is the same
>>person or persons as DW, etc. I express no opinion on that matter,
>>and find that Canuck's actions alone are sufficient for banning. To
>>the extent that it is true, of course, then just being the same person
>>is grounds for a continuation of the ban.
>>
>>--Jimbo
>
>what has he done?
Just to clarify for those who don't know:
(1) He systematicaly downloaded a series of images to wikipedia, many of
which may well have been copyright.
(2) When a number of users asked him to clarify their status, he became
highly verbally abusive, issued legal threats and then deleted the questions
from his talk page.
After a series of requests and after consulting with various users I removed
the images from the pages and placed them on the Votes for Deletion page. A
note was left with each image stressing the problems with copyright and
stating that they were listed for deletion. (Given his history of deleting
'unwelcome' comments I thought it safer to protect the image pages, so that
he could not delete the note and then claim he did not know of it.) All
users without exception who commented said that in view of his refusal to
give /any/ information on their original sources, the images should be
deleted.
(3) Though asked not to, Canuck reinserted the images into the pages. When
users removed them, he tried to reinsert them yet again. To stop these edit
wars, I was forced to protect all the pages onto which he continually tried
to reinsert the images /temporarily/.
(4) Canuck then verbally abused and threatened users on the Votes for
Deletion page and on various talk pages.
(5) A close examination of his edit pattern, and the /manner/ in which he
edited pages (eg, removing birth and death dates from after a person's name
in the first line, the standard encyclopædic method of entry which is also
used by wikipedia), coupled with the nature of his abuse left little doubt
but that Joe Canuck was banned user DW, who was banned for among other
reasons verbally abusing users and charging article structures to a version
he wanted, even when users told him that his version was contrary to wiki
style.
In view of the refusal to give details of the origins of images, the sheer
scale of his abuse of users and the overwhelming evidence that he was a
banned user, a number of users requested his immediate banning. Though not
commenting on the issue of whether he was DW (which was academic in the
circumstances), Jimbo agreed that Canuck's behaviour was so completely
contrary to all wiki stands for as to warrant immediate banning. Following
his banning I immediately removed all the protections placed on the pages.
Unfortunately the history of this user as DW, Black Widow and now as Joe
Canuck suggests that he will return, will continue to download and install
images the copyright status of which he will refuse to clarify, and when
challenged will begin verbally abusing people again. While users like
Michael and Adam have been banned for adding in textual inaccuracies to
articles and for acting provocatively to other users, DW/Joe Canuck's
behaviour is far more serious in so far as by blatently using potentially
copyright images he endangers wiki itself, through the possibility of legal
problems arising from his action. The fact that he is consistently abusive
/in the extreme/ to anyone who gets in his way or simply politely asks as to
the status of his images makes dealing with him a particularly unpleasant
experience.
For evidence of his abuse, see [[User:Joe Canuck]] page, onto which his
abuse has been transferred from other pages. Also [[Votes for Deletion]].
JT.
_________________________________________________________________
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I'm a little frustrated right now. Excuse me, but what IS THIS?
(1) First this:
Could not connect to DB on 130.94.122.197
Host 'larousse.wikipedia.org' is blocked because of many connection errors.
Unblock with 'mysqladmin flush-hosts'
If this error persists after reloading and clearing your browser cache,
please notify the Wikipedia developers.
And this is what I'm doing right now. I cannot make head or tail of this
message.
Kurt Forstner aka KF
(2) And a few seconds later this:
This Message was undeliverable due to the following reason:
Each of the following recipients was rejected by a remote mail server.
The reasons given by the server are included to help you determine why
each recipient was rejected.
Recipient: <wikidown(a)wikipedia.org>
Reason: 5.1.1 <wikidown(a)wikipedia.org>... User unknown
Please reply to Support(a)chello.at
if you feel this message to be in error.
Falls Sie diese Fehlermeldung für unrichtig erachten und chello Kunde in
Österreich sind,
bitte wenden Sie sich an support(a)chello.at .
Jesli uwazasz, ze podany przez Ciebie adres polskiego uzytkownika chello
jest prawidlowy skontaktuj sie pomoca techniczna chello: serwis(a)chello.pl .
Amennyiben Ön magyarországi chello elofizeto és hibaüzenetet kap,
kérjük válaszoljon a support(a)chello.hu .
Merci de vérifier l'adresse e-mail du déstinataire.
Si l'addresse concerne une addresse chello (nom(a)chello.fr) et vous pensez
que celle-ci est correcte,
renvoyer ce message d'erreur à support(a)chello.fr qui se chargera de la
vérifier.
Our official "Manual of Style" policy until today was that dates are
written in the form "Month Day", what is referred to by some as the
"American style" (even though some British newspapers used it since the
19th century).
Today Mav changed this to the effect that the style "Month Day" should be
used on pages about US/world topics, and "Day Month" on pages about
British topics. This is analog to our currently (IMHO silly) rule to have
British spelling on British pages, US spelling on .. pretty much every
other page. This further leads to a split into a British Wikipedia and an
"American" Wikipedia. Of course, no similar rule exists for German style
-- if I wrote "17. June" in an article about a German subject, I would be
called a vandal after three reverts.
Interestingly, what Mav did is in contradiction to the current
distribution of opinion on the talk page
[[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)]]
where 21 users favor the British style, 16 the American style and 8/10
respectively voted for two very similar options that amount to "do what
you want". Mav has now turned a separate option into policy, namely the
one of separating between UK and US/world topics.
I do not think that we should have a UK-Wikipedia and a US/World-
Wikipedia. Personally, I would love to have the following compromise:
* US-style spelling in all articles
* British style dates in all articles
But the worst solution is one where every article looks different. That
conveys an unprofessional image: That we only can maintain consistency on
a single page, but not throughout our encyclopedia.
I would like to ask you to vote on the above page, preferably for one of
the two options "Month Day" or "Day Month" (I'm trying to use my evil
manipulative powers here), so that we can get a clear result, change (or
not change) all our articles accordingly, and move on to more important
things.
Regards,
Erik
The article [[Fucking Amal]] should be changed...I know many kids who go
to this site.
I would like to also propose a boilerplate text that says something like
this:
"WARNING: This article may countain offensive, or adult articles and links"
but really the article mentioned above should be renamed to something
like [[F... Amal]] or something
-- Ilya N.
I see that my coinage of "Wikimedia" has become the name of the
Wikimedia Foundation. Well and good, well and good. Now I'll just
wait a few years until this thing gets really big, and then I'll sue
for intellectual property theft, settle out of court for a few
million bucks, and then retire to my country estate. Heh heh heh... ;)
Seriously, folks...has anyone considered approaching some of the big
computer companies like Microsoft or Apple, or for that matter the
Free Software Foundation? I'd think that some of them might have an
interest in coming up with some funding. For example, Apple is
primarily in the hardware business and might have an interest in
encouraging the development of an open source internet platform for
multimedia that motivates people to go out and buy more iBooks and
iPods so they can use iMovie and iTunes.
--
--------------------------------
| 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
| Weapons of Mass Deception
--------------------------------
[Could people please make unofficial translations of this for posting
on *.wikipedia.org wikipedias?]
I'm pleased to announce the existence of the Wikimedia Foundation,
Inc., a nonprofit corporation organized under the laws of Florida,
United States. I am transferring to this new corporation the assets
that follow:
1. All Nupedia.com/net/org/etc. domain names
2. All Wikipedia.com/net/org/etc. domain names
3. All copyrights in software or articles that were previously owned by
Bomis, Inc. and already placed under a copyleft license. (This
includes work-for-hire by Jason, Tim, Larry, Toan, Liz, and myself, as
well as any other Bomis employees who may have worked on these
projects as a part of their job, but doesn't include any work by those
parties conducted on their own time or while not an employee of
Bomis.)
(All that stuff was already under GNU GPL or GNU FDL, so the
contribution of copyrights is basically a formality. Even so, we want
to set a good example.)
4. Additionally, I am contributing all of my personal copyrights to work
already released under GNU GPL or GNU FDL in Wikipedia and Nupedia to
the foundation.
-------
For the time being, the two machines on which Wikipedia runs will be
continue to be owned by Bomis, but my intention is to donate those if
the tax implications make sense. I have to consult with an accountant
on that, first.
I do NOT encourage you to make donations to the Wikimedia Foundation
just yet! I am still working on tax exempt status with the IRS, and I
have not yet set up a bank account for the foundation anyway. Those
things will take a couple more weeks.
On my TODO list here are:
1. Complete the IRS process for tax-exempt status
2. Create forms for the transferance of copyrights to the foundation,
if anyone wants to do that. See:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.html
for reasons why this might a Good Thing.
3. Setup a bank account for the foundation
4. Setup a merchant account for the foundation to make credit-card
donations an easy option
I'll update everyone in a couple of weeks with the status.
--Jimbo
Dante writes:
> I'm not entirely certain that this IS a feature request (and if it
> is, it probably doesn't belong on this list) but what does everyone
> think about changing the default behavior of the search box? As of
> now, if I type something into the box and hit <enter> (or carriage
> return, or whatever) the behavior is as if I had pressed the search
> button. I suggest changing this to acting is if I had pressed the
> GO button.
And Richard Grevers writes:
> Agreed. I would also like to have the Search/Go on pages other than
> the index page, rather than just search on other pages (saves
> having to reload the index all the time.
I'm confused. When I press return, it behaves like I'd clicked Go.
Also, the Search pane is on every page.
Unless these changes were made today in response to these
suggestions. But I thought it had always been this way... :-)
--
Allan Crossman
a.crossman(a)blueyonder.co.uk
http://dogma.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
Ec wrote:
>Out of the 6 options given in that vote, when I last
>looked 4 of them had a significant number of votes.
>When that happens you want to be able to look for a
>solution that respects all of these views. A winner
>takes all approach just leaves people angry.
Amen to that! We need to avoid the tyranny of
simple-minded voting schemes as much as possible here
in order to maintain good will and all that happy
crap. :)
That's why the current vote is fatally flawed; it is
winner take all solely based on which option gets the
largest share of votes (which wouldn't even be 30% of
the total!).
What we need to work on, as Ec wrote, is something
that combines the best parts of each of the 4 leading
options. That way the great majority of voters can
have a system they can at least live with.
Eloquence is planning on creating a graduated
approval/disapproval voting vote to replace the
current one. Hopefully we can reach a consensus before
it comes to that though (IMO voting should be one of
the last things we use to resolve conflicts -
consensus should always be sought first).
-- mav
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If we could get a unified search going across the
Wikipedia, Wiktionary, wiki textbook site and any other
wiki projects, that will put our efforts way ahead of
anything else that I have seen out there on the web. Search
a dictionary, encyclopedia and textbooks all at the same
time ? That would be awesome ! What ? And its free ? That
should help push adoption of use of the sites .. And some
users later become contributers.
__________________________________
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