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
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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)
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.
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
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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
----- 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
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
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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
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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)
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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.
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