Ed Poor wrote:
>Hey, Sheldon Rampton, you outrageous liar, nyaah nyaah boo boo!
Oh yeah? Well, your mother wears army boots! Let's meet in the
playground after school and settle this once and for all!
--Sheldon Rampton
I like Zero's proposal about having twin versions: official and draft.
I've thinking about this for several weeks, ever since the nice folks at
[[talk:Silesia]] asked me to help mediate.
Perhaps we could protect the official version, and trust admins to move
consensus text into it. An alternate or working version could be at,
e.g., [[Silesia (draft)]] and purposely left unprotected.
Needless to say -- which is why I'm saying it! -- is that any admin who
is a party to an edit war or otherwise is distrusted by those working on
the draft, should not be the one to move "agreed-upon" text to the
official article.
Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed
Mark,
Robert made a general point about decorum and policy of this list.
You replied with some personal remarks.
* "You ... left this project in a huff"
* "You ... might not be the best person"
Let's try not to do that, shall we?
Ed Poor
Mailing List Administrator
Wikien-l
Let's not gang up on Robert. If anyone feels an urge to "attack" a
contributor, feel free to pick on me; I'm tough; I can take it.
Hey, Sheldon Rampton, you outrageous liar, nyaah nyaah boo boo!
Uncle Ed (taking the gloves off)
Libertarian alleged:
> It is several weeks since Ed Poor and Angela tried
> mediating on at least one issue (their mind was made up
> already but they were pretending to mediate), but when I
> confronted them with FACTS and EVIDENCE, they quietly
> withdrew from the mediation. This is a
> clear case of dishonesty, but never mind.
I gave you all the help you asked for; you stopped asking for help, so I
stopped helping. If you want more help, please ask for it.
Criticizing your helper (for not helping you enough) is not going to get
you as much help as ASKING FOR HELP.
Libertarian also seems to think:
> If flat-earth theory is given the same legitimacy as what
> science accepts the shape of the earth to be, Wikipedia
> loses its credibility.
This argument is not sound, because it ASSUMES that Wikipedia gives
legitimacy to flat earth, and that it gives legitimacy to what science
accepts.
1. The [[flat earth]] article, which I helped edit, says in its opening
sentence that the theory is "opposed to the view of modern science"
2. The Wikipedia neither endorses nor opposes the findings of modern
science: it merely REPORTS these findings. If scientists make a new
discovery, and other scientists are able to replicate these findings, we
change our science articles accordingly. If enough scientists challenge
a prevalent view, then we report the existence of that minority and
explain why they hold contrary views.
Libertartian also complained that:
> He who shouts the loudest wins on Wikipedia. This is the
> reason that it has not evolved into real storehouse of
> knowledge.
To some extent, this is true. I have been "shouted down" occasionally;
on-line discussion is not a perfect process, and a WikiWiki is not a
perfect medium. If you have alternatives, please suggest them.
But to the extent that any of our articles don't provide real knowledge,
I would venture to say that the biggest problem is that we have only
begun, and we have only a small volunteer staff. When Britannica or
Americana encyclopedias get ready to issue a new edition, they HIRE
hundreds of editors and pay REAL MONEY for articles. Our goal is to make
a free encyclopedia: free as in free speech, as well as free as in free
beer.
Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed
Anthere writes about Danny and Jimbo:
> I still have not really understood why he left. I can't
> help to think that it *can't* be just because of Jimbo's
> comments.
Your sarcasm towards Jimbo does not make Wikipedia a better
place. Please desist.
Danny has made it clear why he left. There are over 100,000
articles on Wikipedia, and he made sure that he had to get
his way on every one that he edited. The first time he was
rebuffed on *one* article, he deleted his account and ran
away. Now some other user is running away as well, all
because some people would rather blatantly censor
information than jointly edit articles.
In contrast, I have seen a few regular users on this very
list get strongly rebuffed, and most of their edits
rebuffed on some articles (not just one.) Yet they don't
leave the project in a huff; most people here understand
that this is a group effort that strives to incorporate
multiple points of view.
Those people that cannot stand the sight of points of view
other than their own will eventually burn out. It is up to
you which kind of user you would like to be.
It is not just me who feels this way: Others agree that
discussion is superior to politically motivated censorship:
>From the article's talk page.
"I just stumbled onto this article (I usually try to steer
clear of things like this). But it would be wrong to remain
silent on this one, Danny. This is nothing whatsoever wrong
or innacurate with the last sentence of the material you
have censored (it is factually accurate, just read the
textbooks; if you don't like the adjectives then change
those, but they are actually understated!), nor with the
bulk of the quotations. The material is entirely relevant
to the subject at hand. It is shameful of you to have
played the silly game of expunging the material time and
again. I don't intend to play that game or get involved in
this any further, but I do hope that others with not only
add back the material but make sure that Danny agrees to no
more censorship based on his obviously extreme political
biases. This is a real test for Wikipedia."
This person is correct.
By the way, Martin and Viajero are again *lying* about the
content of the article and are deleting vas chunks of it.
They are putting words into the mouth og Yassir Arafat and
others, makign them out to be saying the opposite of what
they actually are saying.
I understand that both of these people have a hatred of
Israel, but that does not give them the right to falsify
information and censor material. Sadly, this "edit war" is
not over.
I also am having problems with Martin, as AGAIN he is
treating me absuively on my own home page. I have already
made clear that this person is forbidden to do so; I will
not have people with pro-CI beliefs continually harass me.
Robert
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Nikos-Optim wrote:
>I consider English Wikipedia as International, and I
>want it to be International.
That is a rather odd statement since many languages (esp. French, Arabic and
Spanish) are international. English just happens to be one of the most
international (meaning there are people who speak English in many different
nations).
All those people are part of the English Wikipedia's audience.
But as I've stated before there is a primary audience (those whose native
language is English) and a secondary audience (those whose native language is
something other than English).
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert" <rkscience100(a)yahoo.com>
To: <wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org>
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2004 6:23 AM
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Please stop the censorship.
> The result is the same. They are deleting most of the
> _content_ of the article, resulting in the same censorship
> that a small but growing consensus here has condemned.
I didn't see any consensus, and calling those edits censorship is
unfair. Reading the [[Palestinian views of the peace process]], I feel this
article is more or less a trial, with the sum of all proofs, with a public
prosecutor and so on. The intent of this trial is to prove that some
Palestinian officials are lying. My reaction to this is:
1/ You are trying to prove that 1+1 = 2, all successful politicians are
"lying" this way, Bush and Chirac are equals in the sport, nothing new under
the sun.
2/ Such a mundane trial has no place in an encyclopedia, but we may disagree
on what is encyclopedic.
3/ If this article really has a place in Wikipedia, it should by written
mainly by Palestinians, with a little paragraph stating that some of them
may say something in English and something else in Arabic.
4/ If the complete trial has a place in Wikipedia, what I doubt, it should
be balanced with a similar trial on Israelis point of view about Peace.
About "consensus", what I did see here, is a consensus of people regreting
the departure of Danny.
And do call me "leftist", I am not. In Europe, you may find many people from
the right wing (what I am not either) that /you/ would call
"pro-palestinian". Things are not black and white.
OK - I have had enough of the badly organized state of conflict resolution in
Wikipedia right now, so I've tried to summarize the escalating scale of
conflict resolution in five easy steps.
Please help me write this page and the very important associated pages
[[Wikipedia:Requests for mediation]], [[Wikipedia:Mediation guidelines]],
[[Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration]], and [[Wikipedia:Arbitration
guidelines]].
Join the fun at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_resolution
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
Geoff Burling wrote:
>....
>But it seems to me that when someone enters into an
>edit war over certain pages on Wikipedia, it should be
>grounds for some kind of serious reprimand, such as a
>ban for 1 to 3 days.
Well we do business everywhere we edit around on Wikipedia, so I'll repeat my
position that a pattern of entering into edit wars with non-obvious vandals
should be considered a banable offense on a three strike basis (three such
edit wars within a certain time period, perhaps).
Confrontational people and those who don't care much about NPOV get into edit
wars often. We want to encourage cooperation and NPOV edits, no?
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)