FF wrote:
>Ah yes, and I've got good friends who are black... (if I could roll my
eyes through e-mail, I would)
Actually, Charles is one of the few people at wikipedia with significant
life experience both in and out of academia, so he probably is in a good
position to judge how accurate those "ivory tower" stereotypes really are.
I don't think it's an ivory tower parody to say that academics are poor at
popularization. That's how they are trained. A premium is placed on the
ability to write highly technical material for experts and to amass as many
such publications to put on one CV as possible. Who cares if you actually
have something important to say. Relatively little premium is placed on
communicating with others outside one's little research area, or on
explaining the significance of research to the larger citizenry. (And I am
not talking about undergraduate pedagogical issues.) People who focus on
this citizenry aspect of scholarship risk putting their career in jeopardy,
unless they amass a large number of publications or grant money first. At
the very least, they risk getting denied tenure.
(There are some institutions which are exceptions, of course. But there is
no denying that publishing technical papers in research journals is what
most tenure committees and administrators are looking for first and
foremost.)
darin
On 20 Nov 2005 at 22:11, ABCD <en.abcd(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > ... Wikimedia has emerged from the Wikipedia, the freely-available,
> > editable, open and collaborative online encyclopaedia set up by
> > Jimmy Wales. ... <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4450052.stm>
But just what did Jimmy mean by this statement:
"We are not talking about dissidents and being critical of the
Chinese government," he said, stressing that Wikipedia was about
having the tools to promote your culture.
Is Wikipedia (the Chinese version) censoring out any dissident or
government-critical views in the hopes of getting unblocked by the
Chinese (mainland) government?
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
Hi!
There's currently a vote underway at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(Norse_mytho…
The proposal under consideration is, basically, to use common English
names - like Thor, Odin and Valhalla - where those exist (as per "Use
English") and to use the original Old Norse forms where no common English
name exists (as per "Use English"). There are also some specific
recommendations regarding representation of alternative forms and some
thoughts on what the "native spelling" should be considered in this case.
Last time around those of us most heavily involved in editing the Norse
mythology articles (Wiglaf and myself) agreed on a convention and slowly
worked according to it for several months. Then this fact suddenly came to
the attention of people who criticized us for not having publicized our
proposal outside of Norse mythology pages and naming convention pages. So,
this time I'm posting notices hither and yon and this is one of them.
What grates me a bit is that there has been very little material
discussion on Old Norse names. Many of those expressing their opinions
simply have a blanket opinion against all non-English characters in
article titles.
So we have oppose votes like these:
"I do not think that article names in an English language encyclopedia
should ever use non-English letters."
"Strongly Oppose the use of exotic non-English characters as if they were
a normal part of the alphabet"
This is, of course, an entirely legitimate opinion but I just wonder if
the larger issue of non-English characters couldn't be settled one way or
another somewhere else.
Anyhow, if you have opinions on the matter - or, *sigh*, if you want to
use this vote as a proxy to express your blanket opposition to non-English
characters in article titles - here's the location again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(Norse_mytho…
Regards,
Haukur Þorgeirsson
On 20 Nov 2005 at 17:33, El C <el.ceeh(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> You're welcome. I post with gmail, I don't usually write my posts in
> it in
> case it crashes on refresh. I usually get the quotes mixed up, copying
> text from wordpad into gmail does strange things, apperently (this
> time with stars).
A few tips on keeping your replies well-organized so they don't turn
into tangled messes:
* Always leave a blank line between each section of quoted material
and each section of reply, so they don't run together and make it
hard to tell which is which.
* Trim down quoted material to the minimum needed to establish
context. Snip out unnecessary parts, especially signature blocks and
list footers; there's no need to quote that stuff back.
* Put your answer after the question you are answering instead of
before; this is not the Jeopardy! game show.
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
[please note cross-posting and amend follow-ups as appropriate]
Is it now safe to SUBSTitute templates which have a <noinclude> section?
If so, we can go back and re-insert those <noinclude> sections which were
removed because they screwed up the target articles.
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]
>From Lauritsen talk page:
>>I don't know much about this person, but he seems to be real at least
([http://www.duesberg.com/subject/jlbib.html bibliography]) regardless, if
you think he is not notable please use [[Wikipedia:Articles for Deletion]] -
[[User:Cohesion|cohesion]] | [[User_talk:Cohesion|talk]] 06:43, 10 October
2005 (UTC)
* Warning: The bibliographies of John Lauritsen on the internet are widely
speculated to be false. I think this should be cleared up before an article
is finalized and posted. [[User:Rabryan|Rabryan]] 06:51, 10 October 2005
(UTC)
::I really have no knowledge of this person, if you think it is a candidate
for deletion though you should add it [[Wikipedia:Articles for Deletion]],
it's not speedy deletable though under the [[WP:CSD]] rules. -
[[User:Cohesion|cohesion]] | [[User_talk:Cohesion|talk]] 06:59, 10 October
2005 (UTC)
:::This just ''barely'' scrapes under the speedy deletion criterion "An
article about a real person that does not assert that person's importance or
significance". OK, so he is an "activist and scholar" who "covered AIDS for
the (publication which we do not have an article on)". Is that asserting
importance or significance? Come on, if the guy has published books, at
least mention that. --[[User:Stormie|Stormie]] 23:37, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
::How can a bibliography be false?? The existence of his articles and books
are trivial to verify. I own several of them at home. What a moron (or
troll). [[User:198.59.188.232|198.59.188.232]] 23:01, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
*If bibliographies are false, it doesn't mean they don't exist. It means
they carry false information. - [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm]]|[[User
talk:MacGyverMagic|<sup>(talk)</sup>]] 23:27, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
>> (end of talk page)
Now, let's examine what kind of "reasoning" is going on here:
Almost nothing has been written on this article at the moment, (2 lines),
yet someone is already taking pre-emptive measures to assert that this
person's writings (none of whose claims have even been articulated in the
article) are false before the article is "finalized or posted". Just the
wording there tells me this is someone completely unfamiliar with wikipedia.
On top of this, this nonsense about a "bibliography being false", confusing
it with the claims in the elements of the bibliography. You could use this
against anyone. You could say, "well, we shouldn't have articles on
holocaust deniers, because their bibliographies (sic) are false". Their
bibliographies are NOT FALSE -- holocaust deniers may be spouting incredibly
false statements, but the existence of their publications is not "false". I
am shocked at the lack of basic logic and reasoning used at this talk page
and elsewhere.
Note also the fact that the New York Native has no wikipedia is article is
used as "evidence". This is even worse than googling and alexa rankings. As
I've said before, ignorance knows no bounds, and nothing will stop people
from pontificating about things which they're completely ignorant of.
Of course, what do I care. Episodes like this have already driven me leaving
wikipedia for now, creating a new wikicity and consulting wikipedia just to
copy stuff to it.
darin
It seems that the BBC likes us now :-).
---------- Forwarded message ----------
> OPEN media to connect communities
> BBC News - UK
> ... Wikimedia has emerged from the Wikipedia, the freely-available, editable,
> open and collaborative online encyclopaedia set up by Jimmy Wales. ...
> <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4450052.stm>
> Most non-user academics are going to miss the point about hypertext. An
> area of WP with good navigation can get you in an hour what might cost a
> week of a well-appointed library.
Very true. One thing I never understand when I hear academics (or esp.
librarians) ragging on wikipedia is the notion that the only use of an
information resource is as a citation for a paper or as a hard reference to
verify something. This makes little sense, since I *know* this isn't the
only thing they use information resources for.
One of the most common uses I have for wikipedia is getting a quick,
readable overview of a topic or term which I'm unfamiliar with. The result
may not be ideal or perfect, but it's a heck of a lot better than googling
or trying to wander the stacks aimlessly. Esp. in fields totally unrelated
to training. Imagine you're a math person reading something about painting
or chemistry or history, something slightly above mass popular accounts. You
come to a topic or term that is unfamiliar, so that you can't read on
without seriously losing what is being said. If you try to go to the stacks
to figure it out, you're left with (a) incomprehensible specialist journals,
(b) specialist encyclopedias, (c) textbooks that are either poorly written
or that assume prerequisite knowledge, or (d) mass popular accounts that
assume you're completely ignorant of everything and give too few details or
external references. Even on areas close to research area, it's easy to just
be led on a wild-goose chase through research papers, lecture notes, and GTM
books.
(E.g., read research paper A, come to term X you don't understand, be led to
previous papers B and C, which still don't explain the term or definition
but give a reference to textbooks D, E, and F. But D assumes you've already
read D-prequel by the same author, E has a variant presentation that
requires reading alternate but equivalent account G, and F assumes you've
already familiar with problems Y and Z from another area of math. Pretty
soon, you've got photocopies of 3 or 4 papers, you've checked out half a
dozen monograph or books, but a week later, you still can't explain the damn
thing to yourself or anyone else in your own words.)
I have already used the math part of wikipedia to learn the basics of a
number of topics which would have taken me far more time to sort through at
the stacks.
> But only academics who actually remember
> the mazy, hazy grad student days of bombardment by things about which one
> should already know will rate that aspect.
Actually remember? I'm still trying to actively forget!! :)
As an observation, shouldn't this really be life-long activity, though?
Hardly anyone can keep up with the amount of stuff being published today.
(Meaning, shouldn't "a sense of bombardment by things about which you should
already know", be a normal part of scholarship?)
> Most popularizing academics will find the tone of WP rather subdued.
(This
> is a good thing. We have no need to do boosterism. )
At the same time, don't most academics find the tone of most popularizations
rather hypomanic?
darin
On 20 Nov 2005 at 21:45, Jack Lynch <jack.i.lynch(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Those who refuse to consider the option of incentive are violently
> objectionable.
Money isn't the only possible incentive. And any system not
involving slave labor, in which work actually gets done, obviously
includes incentives sufficient to get the people involved to do the
work. (Well, I guess slave labor does too, if you consider "keeping
from getting whipped to death" an incentive.) Are you claiming that,
due to declining the use of paid staff, Wikipedia will end up forced
into acquiring slaves to do its work?
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
> From: Tom Cadden [mailto:thomcadden@yahoo.ie]
> As has been pointed out repeatedly, the MoS does not say 'do
> what Brittanica does' Brittanica is a business-orientated
> hardcopy encyclopædia which follows governmental usage to
> avoid offending native populations because it needs them to
> buy their product. It is called sometimes 'Strategic Naming'.
>
> They follow their own MoS. We follow ours. Ours is not
> business based but based exclusively on the most common name
> principle. Objective evidence shows that the most common name
> of that state, as evidenced by surveys of communication
> vehicles worldwide, is 'Ivory Coast' by a ratio of 85:15 over
> Cote d'Ivoire.
>
> They have to follow their MoS which follows 'Strategic
> Naming'. We have to follow ours, which follows 'Most Common
> Name'. Under our MoS the name we are obliged to place the
> name at is Ivory Coast. Their MoS, following their criteria,
> produces a result that is irrelevant to us.
I don't actually care about this particular "country name", as much as I care about the larger issue. If we allow people to go against policy, and then require a majority vote (or supermajority vote) to choose to FOLLOW policy, then Wikipedia will quickly be over-run by abusers.
The article should be put at the policy-determined place (which happens to be "Ivory Coast") and then - IF a consensus developes that this particular country article should be an exception to policy, THEN move it to the French name.
The idea that article names should be dictated to us, by whoever the article happens to be about is NOT GOOD POLICY. It will only lead to balkanization of the 'pedia. We picked "most common usage English" specifically to head off this sort of thing.
Ed Poor