Surely every news source has its biases. I don't see how we Wikipedians
would (or could) ever be able to agree that any particular newspaper was
"really telling the truth", given that we Wikipedians also have our
biases.
One thinks the Guardian or the New York Times is "objective,
truth-based, etc." while another condemns both as hopelessly entrenched
bastions of liberal bias.
How do we each decide which news source to trust? If you're like me, you
probably measure the reliability of a source in terms of how much of its
"news" agrees with what you already "know".
If you're a fan of socialism, and "his" source criticizes socialism,
then obviously that source is biased. If you're a US Republican, and
"her" source criticizes Bush, then obviously, etc.
Larry and Jimbo wisely crafted the Neutral Point of View formula as the
only workable way to deal with this mess, and it seems to be holding up
rather well.
Uncle Ed
-----Original Message-----
From: wikien-l-bounces(a)Wikipedia.org
[mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Jimmy Wales
>I personally think that the BBC is horribly biased, and so I was
alarmed to see how often we link to them, as compared to other sources
that may give a
>more "fair and balanced" perspective (yes, you know what I mean, and
yes I'm having fun).
I am not sure what you mean, but I am glad you are having fun. You say
that a good portion of the BBC links are about the BBC, leaving (I
guesstimate) 100 that use the BBC as a source. Well I guess I am
personally responsible for a huge chunk of those. I reference my
articles more than most, and I write on British current event issues and
the BBC is a very natural source area for these areas. If there is a
problem with the BBC as a source (but not geocities!!) then it is
important for me to know what it is.
Pete/pcb21
Sorry for the massive crossposting, but this is big good news.
The new colocation facility (Neutelligent/Hostway, Tampa) just called
me and they are at this moment taking delivery of 9 new servers
belonging to the Wikimedia Foundation. :-)
I'm heading over there now with Michael and we will be spending as
long as it takes to install them.
It's more up to Brion and the other developers as to when we'll be
able to go live on these. I'm just going to get them up and running
and make sure that the latest (most secure) ssh is on them.
Since I'm on my way out the door and need a quick list of names
suidas
beauvais
glanwilla
moreri
hoffman
bayle
coronelli
zwinger
browne
are taken from "Notable encyclopedists before 1700",
in the article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia
--Jimbo
I'm surprised that there are only 40 links to the Washington Times. Is
someone going around behind me and removing these? Or are they just
expiring because they embargo their news after a couple of weeks?
Ed Poor
Generally speaking, I reserve Minor edit for clear-cut typos and for changes
to my user page. Every time I see a vote on VfD marked minor, I think the
option should be turned off.
Billy Mills (Bmills)
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-----Original Message-----
From: Timwi [mailto:timwi@gmx.net]
Sent: 29 January 2004 18:07
To: wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org
Cc: wikitech-l(a)wikipedia.org
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: What is a minor change?
>What regulars have come to think of as "minor" is what I would call
"trivial".
>Timwi
That's very sensible. Can we have "minor edit" renamed "trivial edit" to
make things clear ?
Theresa
168... has protected [[DNA]] despite his being
involved in the edit war there. He has repeatedly
refused to discuss the article on the talk page.
__________________________________
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I don't think we should do students' homework for them. Queries in the
form of, "My professor assigned me to answer this question; please give
me the answer" are an invitation to help a student cheat. I choose to
decline such invitations.
If the information required isn't in the Wikipedia, then by all means
let's respond to the query by adding that information. I'd love to know
more about ocean currents, myself.
There's been discussion (last year, was it?) about how Wikipedia is like
a library, or perhaps not like one. The reference librarian is happy to
help you FIND YOUR OWN ANSWERS, thus facilitating your homework -- not
doing it for you.
The point is to help you learn, to let you know.
Ed Poor
Wikipedia is becoming a resource. What more can we ask for? I also answered,
like this:
"Here's a hint for your homework:
Look up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_stream"
It hardly delayed the expansion of Wikipedia. On the other hand, I do think a
place or list for people to ask questions of this kind is a good idea. In
fact, it would be helpful to us in finding out where we should focus some of our
energies to fill in incomplete articles. We could link to it from the Main
Page.
Danny
There is no official definition of what a "minor change" is. My
working definition is "anything that my fellow contributors would
agree is minor".
And the operative question is "Would they want to see this on
Recent Changes (with 'hide minor changes' in effect?"
I mark these as minor:
* Nearly all my grammar and spelling fixes
* Copy-edits that DO NOT CHANGE the meaning
I usually don't mark these as minor:
* Copy-edits that subtly correct a nuance of POV
* Re-writes and re-phrasing which PROBABLY DON'T CHANGE the
meaning, but which some other user might think is a sly attempt
to inject my own POV (in a controversial article).
Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed