> In some sense I agree, but what has bothered me lately is the fact
> that Googling for "wikipedia foo" likely brings up one of our mirrors
> first, and not Wikipedia itself. So when I see a blatant error
> magnified "n" times on the many mirrors on the Internet, it sends a
> chill up my spine.
> Worse, because those sites are mirrors, and don't accept changes, it
> makes it easy for readers to walk off and say, "What a crackpot
> project."
Of course, the only way to correct that is for Wikipedia to *fix* the
information, not to delete it. If Wikipedia deletes the article, it will
still remain in many of the mirrors and therefore in google. If we instead
keep the article but remove the fluff (advertisements, POV, original
research), then the mirrors get updated and so does google.
> <snip>
>
> Going by comments I've seen, I think it feeds some people's egos
> to believe that they're saving WP's reputation from certain doom
> by quick listing of obscure articles on VfD
>
> <snip>
>
> Stan
A similar questionable outgrowth:
Some contributors are systematically going through vast numbers of
articles rephrasing them. Not to make them more NPOV or anything, but
to make them conform to their own personal ideal of writing style. Well
meant, but a Sisyphean effort that can frustrate original contributors
as well as the folks doing the rephrasing (because in doing this they
will likely end up with me-against-the-world frustration.)
Hint to such editors: Diversity is good. Dig it.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
> ---------------------------------
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish.
>
> ------------------------------
>
<troll>
> ---------------------------------
> Do you Huzzah!?
> Huzzah! Mail Address AutoNomy - We smart. You diminished.
>
> ------------------------------
</troll>
Good observations, but Usenet was just an example and copyleft
unfamiliarity was just a guess (and in a sense a rhetorical one, to
make the point that his "faults" in the leading his caravan into
quicksand are very human and I have definitely made worse ones -- even
though I'm less sympathetic as regards any hubris aspect possibly
involved).
J
On 25 Aug 2004, at 20:43, wikien-l-request(a)Wikipedia.org wrote:
> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 8:21:12 -0500
> From: <dpbsmith(a)verizon.net>
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Pcw and USENET
> To: <wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <20040825132112.RPDN8887.out005.verizon.net(a)outgoing.verizon.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
>> From: Jens Ropers <ropers(a)ropersonline.com>
>> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Dartmouth class project now on VFD
>> The instructor has really gotten his knickers in a twist with this:
>>
>> He's obviously got an IT background (at least to some extent) or he
>> would hardly be an instructor at all (maybe I'm too optimistic ;-).
>> However, as we all like to forget, IT has ''somewhat'' diversified in
>> the last two decades or so and somebody might be an old pro who knows
>> his x86 assembly language by heart but has somehow, say, never touched
>> Usenet.
>
> I recognized his name from his postings in comp.risks. And, yes, it's
> the
> same guy: I asked him.
>
> Try a Google Groups advanced search on exact phrase pcw(a)flyzone.com .
> And
> that's just ONE of his RECENT email addresses. (Then try one on "Peter
> Wayner". My only concern is the possibility that there's more than one
> Peter
> Wayner, as he seems to be fairly prolific.)
>
> Since emails from him give pcw(a)flyzone.com as the return address...
>
> ...and since pcw(a)flyzone.com seems to be the author of "Translucent
> Databases" (see
> ttp://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0967584418/002
> -3782040-1645636?v=glance&vi=reviews), why, he must also be the author
> of all
> those books at http://www.wayner.org/books/ ...
>
> ...which means he's the author of "Free for All: How Linux and the Free
> Software Movement Undercut the High-tech Titans."
>
> Which means there's at least a chance that he's read "The Cathedral
> and the
> Bazaar."
>
> I'm trying to get up the nerve to ask him outright whether _he's_
> notable.
a) Change the name of Votes for Deletion to something like Editorial Review.
I like this a lot, as I like the entire process suggested by Dpsmith a lot. It is a step toward greter quality control without being a radical departure from our Wiki norms. I heartily second the entire proposal.
Danny
Anthere,
I have placed my idea of what a mailing list admin should do, here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_list#Duties_of_administrator
Ed Poor
WikiEN-l admin emeritus
P.S. "Emeritus" means you weren't fired and didn't quit, but you're not
actively doing it any more -- but can be called back into service if
needed.
Does anybody know of any free or low-cost way to set up a mailing list?
My church's seminary wants me to set up and run a mailing list for its
900 alumni (based in part on the glowing recommendations I've gotten
from you all here *blush*).
Big problem: they only know Windows.
Is there anything on the Web, or is it better to have one's own mail
server, or what?
(And should I cross-post this to the Wikitech list?)
Ed Poor
Admin Emeritus
Wikipedia-EN Mailing List
I stopped posting to this newsgroup a long time ago, because I found it an overwhelming effort to keep up-to-date with everything that was going on. So it's been quite a while since I have found it necessary to post on here.
Although I have disagreements with other users from time to time, just recently I found myself coming into conflict with a number of users simultaneously and I have been hitting the rollback button far more than normal. My wiki-stress level is at boiling point.
I have had a disagreement with Bobblewik about the removal of the words "Great Britain" from articles when I have judged that the use of Great Britain rather than United Kingdom (or other) is contextually accurate. This caused me to start an RFC for Bobblewik. This RFC didn't receive popular support and I have not pursued the issue. I have since found myself in conflict with this user in another matter.
I ended up a revert war with that well-known troll Kenneth Alan and after both he and I had reached and exceeded the three-revert-rule, I decided that the only course of action was to block his account for 24 hours. When KA came back from this ban he directly obscene language at me and I blocked the account for 48 hours. I now recognise that I overstepped the mark in terms of my rights to block him. My actions here were caused by frustration at the fact that no progress had been made on doing something about this user on RFC. After consulting with other users, I decided that I should go through the arbitration process with KA. This action is now in progress.
Now we come to the most recent conflict which has ended up with me being listed on RFC.
A few days ago I and a number of other users noticed that pages related to TV programmes were being moved by User:Netoholic, so we questioned him about it he said that he was moving them under the guidelines at [[Wikipedia: Naming conventions (television)]]. When I looked at this page I discovered that the policy had been written by Netoholic just a few hours earlier. So on the talk page I queried the situation. The talk page showed there was a straw poll in progress on the subject of what should be used to disambiguate television programmes, but there was no indication of when the poll was due to finish. The so-called convention that Netoholic had adopted and was in the process of implementing had 5 votes and one of the other options had 2 votes. Several users argued with Netoholic that this straw poll had not received enough publicity and that no result had been declared. It was therefore queried as to why this user was unilaterally moving pages when no formal decision had been made. I ended up in a revert war with Netoholic on [[Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions]] because in my opinion he was falsely claiming that some kind of consensus had been reached, when in actual fact more people had complained to him about the policy he was implementing than had actually voted for it. Netoholic clamed that because I edited this page 4 times I had broken the three-revert rule. But in my opinion my first edit was not a revert, and so I hadn't. While this argument was running, back on the [[Wikipedia: Naming conventions (television)]] page several more people cast their votes on the straw poll, and the policy that Netoholic had unilaterally declared to be the accepted convention, was now losing by 8-5. I made a proposal that the straw poll be declared null and void; that the so called policy be declared a draft proposal; and that we restart a new poll with proper procedures and sufficient publicity. Several users agreed with this and [[User:Gtrmp]] drew up a poll and put it in his user space. Netoholic decided to ignore the suggestions of starting with a clean sheet. He drew up his own poll which rather than list different options, is just to decide whether the policy he drew up should be endorsed or not. Furthermore he has put a time limit 20 days on it. So if we are to change his policy it would need 20 days before we even got to the stage of beginning the vote on an alternative, and then I guess another 20 odd days before any change in policy is implemented.
It appears that Netoholic has decided to change the disagreements over a naming convention very personally and has sought to turn the whole thing into a personal matter between him and me. He has sought to dig-up evidence against me, in order to suggest that I am unfit to retain my admin status. This evidence now forms the basis of the complaint at RFC. Among the list of charges brought against me are the incidents related to Kenneth Alan. I have nothing to be ashamed of in the list of other charges with one possible exception. I blocked a user called narythegreat for a period of 10 minutes, because he was systematically changing instances of the word "theatre" to "theater" in articles related World War II and was not listening other users concerns about this. When he began to revert everything back, I made this block, just so that his re-reversions could be checked without going through the whole revert-re-revert procedure. If this was over-stepping the mark then I apologise.
Regards
User:Mintguy
> Unfortunately, even though the class assignment required that the articles
created by the students meet Wikipedia
> requirements, now that most of them have been listed on VfD, the
instructor is trying to claim that they do meet our
> requirements. It seems if the vast majority of the articles have made it
to VfD, then not only has the majority of the class
> failed the assignment, but the instructor doesn't understand the nature of
Wikipedia. If the majority of a class fails an
> assignment, that has to say something about the instructor, as well.
> RickK
Says something about how well we explain our requirements as well. Or in
this case, how well we agree on our requirements. Most of the articles
listed *did* meet our requirements. VfD is broken. It probably never
worked in the first place.
Anthony
> From: Jens Ropers <ropers(a)ropersonline.com>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Dartmouth class project now on VFD
> Now maybe User:Pcw was
> just a bit unfamiliar with the entire copyleft, open-source-philosophy,
> Bazaar-and-Cathedral, Free Documentation and community collaboration
> thing.
I couldn't stand the suspense so I emailed him, and pcw(a)flyzone.com confirms
that he, Wikipedia User:Pcw, and the the Peter Wayner who wrote the books
list at http://www.wayner.org/books are indeed, as I surmised, all the same
person.
His book, "Free for All: How Linux and the Free Software Movement Undercut
the High-Tech Titans" can be downloaded for free under a Creative Commons
license.
It is 351 pages long.
A good deal of its subject matter is subtleties in the respective approaches
of Richard M. Stallman and Eric S. Raymond. One index entry is:
"Cathedral and the Bazaar, The (Raymond), 10711, 11213, 172, 221.
:-)
> From: Jens Ropers <ropers(a)ropersonline.com>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Dartmouth class project now on VFD
> The instructor has really gotten his knickers in a twist with this:
>
> He's obviously got an IT background (at least to some extent) or he
> would hardly be an instructor at all (maybe I'm too optimistic ;-).
> However, as we all like to forget, IT has ''somewhat'' diversified in
> the last two decades or so and somebody might be an old pro who knows
> his x86 assembly language by heart but has somehow, say, never touched
> Usenet.
I recognized his name from his postings in comp.risks. And, yes, it's the
same guy: I asked him.
Try a Google Groups advanced search on exact phrase pcw(a)flyzone.com . And
that's just ONE of his RECENT email addresses. (Then try one on "Peter
Wayner". My only concern is the possibility that there's more than one Peter
Wayner, as he seems to be fairly prolific.)
Since emails from him give pcw(a)flyzone.com as the return address...
...and since pcw(a)flyzone.com seems to be the author of "Translucent
Databases" (see ttp://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0967584418/002
-3782040-1645636?v=glance&vi=reviews), why, he must also be the author of all
those books at http://www.wayner.org/books/ ...
...which means he's the author of "Free for All: How Linux and the Free
Software Movement Undercut the High-tech Titans."
Which means there's at least a chance that he's read "The Cathedral and the
Bazaar."
I'm trying to get up the nerve to ask him outright whether _he's_ notable.