WikiEN-l January 2005

wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org

111 participants
149 discussions

Encyclopaedia standards
by apw＠ap-woolrich.co.uk 28 Jan '05

28 Jan '05

The application of encyclopaedia standards must surely depend on the quality and experience of the editors. There does not seem to be a clear way of assessing this. I come to Wikipedia by way of writing for biographical dictionaries, working for a publisher of academic books, as well as researching and writing academic articles and books my field of the history of technology. I therefore automatically apply those standards to my contributions to Wikipedia. I can also apply those standards to pages which might need tweaking. When more editors with my kind of background can be persuaded to contribute on a regular basis then encyclopaedic standards will spread. Tony Woolrich Canal Side, Huntworth, Bridgwater, Somerset UK Phone (44) 01278 663020 Email apw(a)ap-woolrich.co.uk -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.7.1 - Release Date: 19/01/2005

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Featured article by email needs a volunteer
by Mark Pellegrini 28 Jan '05

28 Jan '05

The question has come up often enough lately that I decided to revive it - Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Raul654/FA Basically, I need someone to take over Kate's job of sending out featured articles by email. It was a popular feature, and since she left, there's been no one to do it. I'd like someone to volunteer to take it over. That page explains it fairly thoroughly. --Mark (Raul654)

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Blocking for illegitimate reason
by Jake Waskett 28 Jan '05

28 Jan '05

User:Fvw has blocked me, claiming "vandalism": 00:34, 27 Jan 2005, Fvw blocked Jakew (expires 12:34, 27 Jan 2005) (contribs) (user page vandalism) This is inappropriate, and is not supported by Wikipedia policy. It is clearly not vandalism as defined by Wikipedia. Please would someone unblock me? I originally responded to allegations against me on User:DanP's user page. I wrote: "Yes, each will doubtless follow similar accusations by yourself. Childish? Yes. Irresponsible? Yes. Can you find anything after November 2004? I doubt it. I can change. Can you? - Jakew 00:03, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)" In response to a message left on my user talk page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jakew)... I left the following messages on Fvw's user talk page: Very well. I'm sure you'll agree that directing users to DanP's talk page is not objectionable. - Jakew 00:26, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC) I then moved my comments to the user talk page, replacing it with: "Please see your talk page. - Jakew 00:23, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)" There are rules against replacing user pages with profanities or insults. Mere editing and advising readers to read the talk page is perfectly acceptable. I suggest that you read up on the matter. - Jakew 00:31, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC) Jakew.

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Chris Mahan and Hephaestos
by J.F. de Wolff 27 Jan '05

27 Jan '05

Hephaestos makes a strong point. Some issues are being fleshed out endlessly just to satisfy a fringe POV that someone once inserted and can then not be eliminated anymore, even though it has been NPOVed gradually. On secondary sources: I note that many medical articles (my personal area) are amended to include news articles. If one searches the professional literature (e.g. with PubMed or even Google), the news articles are often overstatements of scientific findings. If one Japanese group discovers a peptide that decreases the rate of mitosis of neuroblastoma cell lines, the newspapers will blurb: "CURE FOR CANCER FOUND", even though this relates to ONE type of cancer in a petri dish, and even then it has not even been tested on patients, let alone approved by the regulatory authorities. The list of examples is endless. (I've made this one up, incidentally. But have a look at "recent findings" in the entry [[Inflammatory bowel disease]], which grew this way.) If Wikipedia seeks to make core science understandable to the lay public (one of the many aims of a good encyclopedia), it will have to include primary reference material, not ruminated and regurgitated news stories (even from the BBC or CNN). User:Jfdwolff|JFW -- Internal Virus Database is out-of-date. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.7.1 - Release Date: 19/01/2005

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www.wikipedia.org no longer redirects to the en main page
by Mark Pellegrini 26 Jan '05

26 Jan '05

I'd like to start out by noting that www.wikipedia.org no longer redirects to the english wikipedia's main page. Instead, it's been turned into a replica of the language template. Deeper links ( www.wikipedia.org/wiki/name_of_article ) still work, but the main page does not. First of all, this is a MAJOR, MAJOR change and was totally unannounced. Nor did anyone in the community get a chance to object before it was put into place. (Because I suspect there would have been a major outcry) Second of all, I cannot fathom why the this was changed. By now, there's a huge inertia behind the fact that www.wikipeda.org links to the english main page. This is going to break *MANY* links, bookmarks, etc. We (the english Wikipedia) are goings to lose significant number of potential contributors because of this. Why the hell was this changed? Why was no one told before hand, or even afterward? --Mark

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[weed_harper@bigheavyworld.com: Re: Wikipedia e-mail]
by Jeff Bonham 26 Jan '05

26 Jan '05

----- Forwarded message from Weed Harper <weed_harper(a)bigheavyworld.com> ----- X-Original-To: silsor@localhost X-Originating-Ip: [64.30.208.48] From: Weed Harper <weed_harper(a)bigheavyworld.com> To: jbonham(a)mail.utm.utoronto.ca Subject: Re: Wikipedia e-mail X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.43 >Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 22:15:54 -0500 > Jeff Bonham <jbonham(a)mail.utm.utoronto.ca> Weed Harper <weed_harper(a)bigheavyworld.com> Re: Wikipedia e-mail >On Tue, Jan 25, 2005 at 01:50:53AM +0000, Weed Harper wrote: >> I am receiving a message that I am blocked at address 64.30.208.48 due to user Herschelkrustofsky. I know of no reason why I should be blocked. Please explain. > >See the discussion at: >[[Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Posting while blocked]] > >Regards, >-- >Jeff Bonham >jbonham(a)mail.utm.utoronto.ca >PGP Public Key ID: BA289747 >On Tue, Jan 25, 2005 at 01:50:53AM +0000, Weed Harper wrote: >> I am receiving a message that I am blocked at address 64.30.208.48 due to user Herschelkrustofsky. I know of no reason why I should be blocked. Please explain. > >See the discussion at: >[[Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Posting while blocked]] > >Regards, >-- >Jeff Bonham >jbonham(a)mail.utm.utoronto.ca >PGP Public Key ID: BA289747 >On Tue, Jan 25, 2005 at 01:50:53AM +0000, Weed Harper wrote: >> I am receiving a message that I am blocked at address 64.30.208.48 due to user Herschelkrustofsky. I know of no reason why I should be blocked. Please explain. > >See the discussion at: >[[Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Posting while blocked]] 1. I am not Herscelkrustofsky. 2. I am involved in an edit dispute wuth SlimVirgin, who has apparently filed a malicious report. 3. I have never committed a blockable offense. ------------------------------------------------------------ Visit Big Heavy World at http://www.bigheavyworld.com, Vermont's music 24/7. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Jeff Bonham jbonham(a)mail.utm.utoronto.ca PGP Public Key ID: BA289747

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Encyclopaedic standards
by apw＠ap-woolrich.co.uk 24 Jan '05

24 Jan '05

Following from my post earlier this evening about getting more competent editors, has any thought ever been given to snappy slogans which might be included in email signatures? eg - I edit Wikipedia, so why don't you? or - Help educate the planet - become a Wikipedia editor. No pay, just lots of satisfaction. [Suitably beefed up with the the URL,of course] At a seminar I took part in in November, the hand-outs I provided were print-outs of Wikipedia articles I had written, with a word or two about what Wikipedia was. I have no idea if these will bring results, but its was worth trying, I feel. If potential editors know someone who is an editor, they will see we are - (mostly) - serious people, with a mission, and worth considering joining. Its the personal contact that counts, I feel. Tony Woolrich -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.7.1 - Release Date: 19/01/2005

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Re: Encyclopaedia standards
by apw＠ap-woolrich.co.uk 24 Jan '05

24 Jan '05

What do you mean, can be persuaded? Wikipedia is an all-volunteer organization. People here contribute because they want to, because they believe that this will benefit mankind. They will also contribute if we show them how. I have several friends who are interested but who need showing what Wikipedia can do and how to do it by practical demonstration. I occasionally talk about Wikipedia in emails to people who might be interested. Its a sort of Viral Marketing, beloved of tele-marketers. Maybe we might have a campaign to 'introduce an editor'. Tony Woolrich -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.7.1 - Release Date: 19/01/2005

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Let us not attack sources as unreliable without reason
by Robert 24 Jan '05

24 Jan '05

Slim writes: > Would you please post your correspondence with him on > the Talk page, as you indicated you would, so that other > editors can judge whether he was evasive in response to > your enquiry? Your claims about Mitchell Bard as a > source have implications for a number of Wikipedia > articles in which he is quoted. This makes no sense. Are you seriously suggesting that Wikipedia should consider sources as unreliable if one of our thousands of anonymous editors doesn't get instant gratification from a writer and scholar that they have never met? There are hundreds of respected researchers out there who do not waste their time answering e-mails from the millions of people on the Internet. Having mommy buy you a computer and pay for your AOL account does not make you a colleague of any academic or writer, and does not mean that they have to answer you correspondance. Every week on the Phyics and Chemistry Usenet newsgroups we have people (kooks, really) claim that mainstream chemistry and physics is wrong. Their proof? They sent their own letters, questions and theories to leading scientists, and the scientists did not respond. Is this really proof that we shouldn't trust these sources? No, it is only proof that writers and researchers don't answer every demand they get from people with an AOL account. Robert (RK) __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Situation deadlocked, how to solve it?
by zero 0000 24 Jan '05

24 Jan '05

The dispute about Mitchell Bard, the number of Palestinian refugees, and the report of the UN Mediator (prepared 24 hours before his assassination), is a good example of the difficulties faced by editors who must rely on secondary or tertiary sources of doubtful veracity. Personally I would not mention Bard's claim because he obviously doesn't know what he is talking about. For example he claims results of a British census in 1945 when everyone knows that the last census was in 1931. Worse than that, his failure to note that the date of the Mediator's report meant that it was only a partial count is proof of his dishonesty; no nicer way to put it. Nevertheless....I offer to consult the original UN documents (if I have them; I think I do) to see if the 472,000 figure appears there and in what context. If the number is not there, I'll refute the claim that it is. If it is there, I'll quote it in context. Zero. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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WikiEN-l January 2005