Here's a site that is rather critical of wikipedia. In fact, its very critical.
http://www.wikipediasucks.com/
Some interesting popups appear when you leave the site which perhaps indicate what its worth.
Its claim that "There are now thousands of pages if you search for 'wikipedia sucks' in
any search engine." is wrong - the supplied does a google search for pages with the words wikipedia or sucks, which not surprisingly does yield thousands of results. But a search for the phrase brings
out 149 instead. And whats all this about Sollog, the Temple of 'Hayah, and a $10 million fine for
"religious hate crimes"? Bizarre!
However, I do feel compelled to ask : who are those cute young friends on the yacht with Jimbo?
--
_______________________________________________
Find what you are looking for with the Lycos Yellow Pages
http://r.lycos.com/r/yp_emailfooter/http://yellowpages.lycos.com/default.as…
--- "steven l. rubenstein" <rubenste(a)ohiou.edu> wrote:
> As a number of people have recently made clear, Wikipedia is a project to
> develop a quality encyclopedia first, and a wiki-community second. It is
> therefore impossible for behavioral guidelines alone, or a
> dispute-resolution process that is blind to matters of content, to suffice.
As much as I'd hate to have to judge content on the ArbCom, I think you are
right. I'm not sure if this will be successful and I'm pretty sure this is
dangerous ground to tread on.
-- mav
__________________________________
Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday!
Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web
http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/
--- Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca> wrote:
> Rick wrote:
>
> >--- Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>"Any VFD nomination not listing a reason in
> >>Wikipedia:Deletion policy
> >>may be summarily removed from the page."
> >>
> >>
> >Exactly. And "not notable" is not one of those
> >criteria. And yet it's one of the most commonly
> used
> >reasons for listing an article.
> >
> >
> So why not add non-notability to the deletion
> policy? If it's one of the
> most commonly used reasons for listing an article
> and yet it isn't
> actually listed as a valid reason for deletion in
> the deletion policy,
> it seems there's already a pretty big problem either
> with the VfD
> process or with the deletion policy.
Because, in the recent vote for inclusion as a VfD
reason, notability didn't get enough of a consensus as
a reason for deletion.
RickK
__________________________________
Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday!
Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web
http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/
Fred Bauder wrote:
>I remember a number of claims you made in that regard. According to you,
>your advocacy of your point of view represented an objective academic point
>of view in sharp contrast to other editors who had only published reports of
>eye-witness accounts to go on. You claimed to be a political scientist and
>that trumped the experience of the people who actually lived under the
>systems you advocated
I am sorry that Fred Bauder finds it necessary to personalize 172's
comments about the quality of our articles. For one thing, I am not
entirely sure Fred is being fair to 172 -- my sense from having had to deal
with him in the past (and he and I have gotten into some pretty heated
arguments) is not that he claims to have authority because of some
credential or because of his job, but rather that his academic training and
work have put him in a position where he has done a tremendous amount of
research on both particular topics and the different arguments scholars
have over those topics.
Be that as it may, if Fred has a problem with how 172 has behaved in the
past, he should address that behavior through the appropriate channels in
Wikipedia. The members of the list-serve have no authority to sanction an
editor, so the list-serve is not the appropriate place to try and judge an
editor's behavior. My concern is that by personalizing 172's comments and
calling into question his motives, sincerity, or legitimacy, will only
distract and divert us from addressing a serious issue -- an issue that
needs to be addressed no matter who happens to have brought it up.
Fred raises the issue of NPOV, and I do agree with him that our NPOV policy
is one of the most important policies we have to facilitate the writing of
quality articles. But nothing 172 wrote suggests that we should abandon
the NPOV policy. 172 was simply making the point that we do not have
adequate mechanisms for ensuring the quality of articles, and he is
right. We do have policies, but however crucial NPOV is, other policies --
No original research, Cite sources, and Verifiability -- are just as
important for achieving quality articles. I think there is a pretty strong
consensus among veteran editors about what NPOV means and how to police it
(although of course there are exceptions). I do not think the community
has such shared clarity about these other policies, though.
Finally, although we have a vigorous mechanism for dealing with behavioral
conflicts (from mediation to arbitration), we have no such mechanisms for
dealing with unresolvable problems over content. It is not the place of
the ArbCom to address the quality of content -- which I think is
reasonable. But because ArbCom is really the only strong mechanism we have
for dealing with problems, I think that sometimes conflicts that are really
about content end up going to mediation or ArbCom, which are ill-equipped
to deal with them.
As a number of people have recently made clear, Wikipedia is a project to
develop a quality encyclopedia first, and a wiki-community second. It is
therefore impossible for behavioral guidelines alone, or a
dispute-resolution process that is blind to matters of content, to suffice.
Steve
Steven L. Rubenstein
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701
I just saved [[WP:VFD]] as of a few minutes ago. The HTML alone is 1,324,734
bytes. The associated files are 28,964 bytes.
I have a Pentium II 450MHz with 768MB memory running Netscape 7.2. It takes
a minute or two just for the page to render.
So to vote on VFD, you must have a broadband connection - anyone on dialup
is pretty much barred - and preferably be browsing with an Athlon 64. Or
maybe a Cray.
Here's one suggestion: make the main VFD page just links to the day pages,
rather than transcluding every one of them.
- d.
-------------- Original message --------------
>d. wrote:
> actionforum(a)comcast.net wrote:
>
> >>I really don't see what's so hard about actually putting a reason bearing
> >>a relationship to policy, particularly when VFD explicitly says to do so.
>
> > What's hard, it that applying policy to to a factual situation is "original
> > research". If we can't apply definitions of words, or count for ourselves,
> > perhaps we get out of the habit of reasoning.
>
> Er, I can make no sense of your response in terms of the discussion. Could
> you please clarify? Where TF does 'original research' come into VFD policy?
I was pointing out the irony, that the "original research" prohibition is taken to extremis in the editing of articles, and yet is relied upon so heavily in the enforcement of and application of policy.
The "original research" prohibition probably has many unintended consequences. It can, with a petty community of editors, severely limit the use of words with plain meanings, plainly applied to a situation. If the word hasn't been applied by someone else to the situation it is considered original research. It also, results in articles that are thought to have language that is not smoothing flowing. For example, one often cannot point out an "irony", unless it has been pointed out elsewhere. But one can get two facts contradictory facts into the article in close juxtoposition to each other, and leave the detection of the irony to the reader, but it doesn't quite flow as well as the explicit notation of the irony would.
Application of policy to a factual situation is no different than application Just War theory or the Geneva Convention to a factual situation. One is required of the community and the other effectly banned, in the articles, at least. That is why the talk pages are often as useful as the articles themselves. It is also an advantage that signed articles in conventional encyclopedias have, the allow an authorial voice, reasoning and categorization, resulting in good summarys.
-- Silverback
-------------- Original message --------------
> On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 21:57:04 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway
> wrote:
> > It's the "We need *this* edit war for the good of Wikipedia" syndrome.
> > It's related to [[Wikipedia:The Wrong Version]].
>
> Indeed. There is so much to be achieved through dialectic and
> consensus, and nothing at all to be achieved through violence. And
> though it may debase the meaning of violence to apply it digitally, a
> revert was _is_ analogous a physical controntation when words have
> failed. Let us import knowledge from the real world, not stupidity.
> :-)
That is both debasing to the meaning of violence, and taking the revert all too personally. Really, it may be no more than a statement, that the edit wasn't obvious, and needs to be justified if you are serious about it. You also forget that the edit being reverted may be a change or deletion, and so the "edit" may have been every bit as "violent" as a revert.
-- Silverback
-------------- Original message --------------
> Tony Sidaway wrote:
> Tomer Chachamu said:
> > On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 20:27:41 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway
> > wrote:
> >> > Remove "nofollow" -- 61% (85 votes)
> >> > Keep "nofollow" -- 39% (55 votes)
> >>
> >> This is not a consensus. There is no need to take any action.
> >
> > Don't be ridiculous. In such a case, where there is a clear majority
> > *and the decision is instantly reversible*, the rel="nofollow" should
> > be removed.
>
> Absolutely not. We do things by consensus of en.wikipedia. I suggest we
> continue this discussion on wikien-l where it belongs.
We don't reach consensus here on wikien-l to the exclusion of the rest of the community, but in the open on the wikipedia site. What we do here is conduct some business with blocked users who don't otherwise have access. Any "consensus" we reach here is mere discussion.
-- Silverback
--- Michael Snow <wikipedia(a)earthlink.net> wrote:
> For people using "not notable" or "not encyclopedic"
> as bare-bones
> justifications, I would suggest that they retrain
> themselves to
> elaborate a little bit more. By themselves, these
> are meaningless
> shorthand for "should be deleted" - we know that
> already, that's why you
> came to the page. Point out that you put in a little
> bit of effort to be
> confident that it doesn't belong. "I've never heard
> of it and couldn't
> find any evidence that anyone else has, either" will
> go a lot farther
> than "I've never heard of it so it must not be
> notable".
>
> --Michael Snow
But "not notable" and "not encyclopedic" is not the
same thing as "I never heard of it". There are lots
of things on VfD right now which are listed because
they're not notable, or at least the nominator
believes so, which has nothing to do with whether
they're obscure or not. Things like [[Countries on
two continents]], [[Russian joke]], [[F11]], [[Cities
with same latitude]], [[Axis of weasel]],
[[Hypocoristics for Spanish names]], [[Esuvee]],
[[Vampire lifestyle]], etc., etc., etc.
RickK
__________________________________
Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday!
Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web
http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/
--- David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Rick wrote:
> > --- David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>(I still don't see what's so damned hard about
> >>having to give a listed reason with one's
> >>nomination,
> >>JUST LIKE IT SAYS TO DO AT THE TOP AND BOTTOM OF
> >>VFD.
> >>Can you please explain to me why that's even there
> >>if
> >>it's too hard?)
>
> > But that's not what this proposal is asking for.
> It's
> > asking to be allowed to delete the listing if the
> > person who deleted it doesn't agree with the
> reason
> > for listing.
>
>
> OK, that is a possible loophole. How would you
> phrase it?
>
>
> - d.
What's wrong with just leaving things the way they
are?
RickK
__________________________________
Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday!
Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web
http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/