Could the whole discussion on Erik issues over Mother
Teresa MOVE to the english list where it is relevant
WHILE
The whole discussion on watch list issues move from
the english list to the general list, where it is
relevant
OR
could we just swap mailing list names since
discussions relevant on english matter are on the
general list, while discussions relevant to the whole
community are on the english list ?
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Sigh. Another thinly veiled threat from our dear
friend 142.177.
http://meta.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Maveric149&diff=1997…
"Sadly, you didn't learn your lesson from your first
attempt at slander and censure.
There are very few things you will regret more in your
life than defending your little clique of friends
here, Daniel Mayer. What they are doing is wrong,
racist, illegal, immoral and stupid. You seemed to
realize this for a while, but, you have stepped back
in, so, you deserve what you get. This is very sad.
You seemed to have grown up. But obviously not."
"There are very few things you will regret more in
your life than defending your little clique of friends
here, Daniel Mayer." Sounds a lot like a mobster
telling a buisnessman that he will "regret" not doing
what the mobster wants. Sigh.
Sorry Craig Hubley (who lives in the Toranto area),
but the only regret is that I gave you some slack. The
hard ban will be enforced.
If my mentioning the real name of 142.177 was out of
line, then somebody delete this post.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
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Martin Harper wrote:
>>Auppose [the Wikipedia print edition] snagged the
>>same 55,000 topics as Columbia? How big would the resulting
>>text be?
>>
>>
>Wouldn't selecting the exact same 55,000 topics as Colombia be a possible
>copyright infringement? Choosing an appropriate selection of topics for a
>concise encyclopedia is a creative act...
>
It would indeed. In fact, it's probably one of the better openings we
could provide for our natural rivals to sue us. Encyclopedia topic
selection is definitely copyrightable. And given this kind of opening,
if Columbia really wanted to take Wikipedia down, they could also
recruit other parties with copyright claims and front the cost of the
litigation. (For example, the various copyright owners of the images we
included, if we haven't screened those properly.)
I doubt choosing the exact same topics as Columbia is realistic,
however. We have different naming conventions, and therefore quite a few
of the topics would not coincide exactly.
--Michael Snow
Editing material which originates in Iran, North Korea, Cuba and other
nations with which most trade is banned without a government license may be
illegal. It is interpreted as aiding the enemy. No corrections of spelling
or grammar would be allowed under this interpretation, only use of camera
ready copy. Theoretically correcting a spelling mistake by Osama ben Ladin
would fall into this category of crime.
This potentially affects us as we can in the routine conduct of business,
without even knowing, accept imput from these nations, from a user who
simply appears to be an ordinary user.
One could interprete this to apply only to input the origin of which is
clearly identified.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/28/national/28PUBL.html?th
New York Times login required
Fred
Well. I was right in the middle of a lengthy edit, and
tried to save it, and got a message access denied. I've
tried multiple means of access. Wikipedia seems to be
somehow completely screwed up right now. Fortunately, I had
the (for me) atypical good sense to save the whole edit on
my local computer before I lost it all.
--
John Knouse
jaknouse(a)frognet.net
>One example of the difference is in internal references
>(or q.v. entries). Even if the 'news style' first section
>approach is used, the first section of the full Wikipedia
>article would contain links to articles that don't exist in
>the concise version.
Oh come on. That is easy to fix - don't mark what would be dead links in a
concise version as anything special. This could be done automatically.
>Another difference was raised by Mav himself, when he
>asked that 'we have no forks and no freezing of Wikipedia
>articles.' I give firm support to the idea that we should
>never freeze a Wikipedia article in the process of creating
>the Concise Print version. But the urgency of creating the
>print ready version imposes two areas of discipline. The first
>is (IMHO) that we will need to freeze an article as ready.
Sifter software has already been written that exports the current article
version of selected articles to another site. It is therefore a fallacy to
think that freezing the article is the only option. Just edit the Wikipedia
article into news style and then select the resulting version as ready for
print. Let a script take care of the rest (removing everything but the lead
section, converting links to something that would work in print, removing what
would be empty links, etc.).
>The second was raised by Ray Saintonge (Ec), and that
>is that the project will probably need to restrict editing
>rights, something that we'd never want in Wikipedia.
Only give selected people the ability to use the sifter software. Fixed without
the need for a fork or freezing Wikipedia content.
>When I wrote the first note about using the 'Language Wiki'
>method of creating a fork, I just assumed that the fork was
>going to happen.
So long as I'm still breathing I will strenuously fight against any
Wikimedia-sponsored fork.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
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I'm going to stop forwarding these soon, but some are just too
funny.
----- Forwarded message from Plautus Satire <plautus(a)shaw.ca> -----
From: Plautus Satire <plautus(a)shaw.ca>
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2004 23:01:26 +0000
To: jwales(a)bomis.com
Subject: signal-happy clown
Ed Poor a signal-happy clown, my friend. He says the vote is nine but he
means the index is 201.
I understand without the cheatsheet I can not break your one-time pad cypher,
unless I search through the archives of the email list and the page histories
of wikipedia.
I can make reasonable inferences from my own case, which, combined with the
cases of others, might provide an accurate approximation of the cheatsheet.
Are you convinced yet?
Better get a new back channel now, the loudmouth Ed Poor blew this one.
----- End forwarded message -----
> From: Timwi <timwi(a)gmx.net>
> Daniel P.B.Smith wrote:
>
>> A weak point of Wikipedia is that people write about what they are
>> interested in, so given several topics of apparently comparable
>> importance, the length, depth, and quality of the articles may differ
>> widely.
>
> This is true. This is called "Systematic bias":
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:
> Replies_to_common_objections#Systematic_bias
>
>> This largely escapes notice in the web edition, but will become
>> much more apparent in a print edition.
>
> Is that really so bad, though?
Not on the Web, no.
> I'm sure most people will understand. :)
Yeah, right. I'm sure they'll understand why Phillips Exeter has an
article and Choate (now Choate Rosemary Hall) doesn't.
Why Bronx High School of Science has an article and La Guardia High
School of Music and Art (of _Fame_ fame) does not.
Why Cal Tech gets five paragraphs, Princeton gets seven, Harvard gets
fourteen, and MIT gets thirty-six. (This means the section on MIT's
_architecture_ is longer than the _entire article on Princeton._)
Why Radiology has nine paragraphs and Cytology gets one sentence.
Why Marianne Moore gets eight paragraphs and Vachel Lindsay gets
"Vachel Lindsay (1879 - December 5, 1931) was an American poet born in
Springfield, Illinois."
It doesn't bother me at all on the Web, but I think the slogan
"Wikipedia is not paper" may turn out to have an uncomfortable amount
of truth in it.
--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith(a)world.std.com alternate:
dpbsmith(a)alum.mit.edu
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/
On Sun, Feb 29, 2004 at 10:59:57AM -0800, wikien-l-request(a)Wikipedia.org wrote:
> Date: Sun, 29 Feb 2004 10:51:34 -0800 (PST)
> From: Geoff Burling <llywrch(a)agora.rdrop.com>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Concise Print Wikipedia (WARNING)
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org>
> Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.33.0402291044550.9514-100000(a)joan.burling.com>
> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
>
> On Sat, 28 Feb 2004, zero 0000 wrote:
> >
> > I haven't really been paying attention, but it seems like the
> > possibility of a printed snapshot of Wikipedia is under discussion.
> >
> > I hope you are all very very VERY familiar with the disastrous
> > experiences of Eric Weisstein when he gave a publisher permission to
> > print a snapshot of his online mathematics encyclopedia.
> >
> > See http://mathworld.wolfram.com/docs/legal.html .
> >
> My understanding of this case was that Weisstein thought he was selling
> the rights to only _ONE_ version of his online mathematics encyclopedia,
> when the lawyers at Chemical Rubber actually snuck language into his
> contract that enabled them to claim _ALL_ of his encyclopedia.
>
> I assume that Jimbo, being a somewhat successful businessman, usually
> has any contract he considers signing reviewed first by a lawyer. In this
> case, I hope he picks a lawyer familiar with publishing law.
>
> Twenty years ago, when I was considering a career in writing, I had the
> impression that publishers have an ethical standard higher than the music
> industry (where an artist can sell a million copies of an album, & still
> make less money than had she/he worked at McDonald's). I am no longer so
> sure of that impression.
>
Jimbo is not in a position to mistakenly sell the exclusive rights to
the Wikipedia, due to the GNU FDL, which he chose when the project
was initiated.
Unless there's some end run around its provisions...and in the unlikely
event that there is, we're in bigger trouble than one specific print
proposal.
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Merkel
robert.merkel(a)benambra.org
http://benambra.org
Simpson! Homer Simpson!
He's the greatest guy in history,
>From the...town of Springfield
He's about to hit a chestnut tree.
--The Simpsons
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
I believe the print edition will indeed require "a ton of editing." But
there is a far more serious issue I believe is lurking in the wings:
unevenness of coverage.
For example, take a look at the article on "medicine." On close
inspection, it is mainly an organization scheme with a list of links,
which in many cases are themselves are lists of links, and so forth.
Within this tree, quite a lot of the entries are unlinked. In the print
edition, can we leave out an article on "medicine?" Can the article on
medicine refer to "thoracic surgery" when there's no article on
thoracic surgery? Is it acceptable to have articles on general surgery,
neurosurgery, otolaryngology, orthopedic surgery, poastic surgery, and
urology, but not on cardiovascular surgery, maxillofacial surgery,
pedicatric surgery, thoracic surgery, and vascular surgery?
Who's going to write all the missing articles?
A weak point of Wikipedia is that people write about what they are
interested in, so given several topics of apparently comparable
importance, the length, depth, and quality of the articles may differ
widely. This largely escapes notice in the web edition, but will become
much more apparent in a print edition.
Actually, the medicine example isn't a good one because most of the
articles that _are_ there--that is, specifically those that are linked
to by the Medicine page or the tree of links it points to--are not very
good. Which, of course, raises another question...
--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith(a)world.std.com alternate:
dpbsmith(a)alum.mit.edu
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/