I recall seeing a post in the past couple of months where someone had a
solution to check all the boxes when restoring a deleted item.
Unfortunately, I can't for the life of me figure out what I did with
that message. Would anyone happen to have it laying around?
Thanks!
Jareth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jareth)
Something else to talk about:
Some of our rather intelligent sciency people seem to
have an unusual inability to distinguish science from
neutrality. Ultimately, they tend to argue that
articles should hold a defacto deference to what is
essentially a Scientific Point of View, rather than a
Neutral Point of View.
How best to single these people out and correct their
behaviour? Any examples of articles in question? Isnt
the term "pseudoscience" a POV pejorative from the
SPOV?
Stevertigo
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
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Dear Admins,
Here is a case of a block that has been lifted and that in fact hasn't been lifted...
Some technicals I guess.
I got an (unwarned) blocking that I had made lifted regularily here in this group, but, twelve days afterwards, that is still on. You may refer to my talk page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:L%27Omnivore_Sobriquet
There is nothing else I can do but simply report this mistake, that could be corrected within a short time. (yes, should be, in my view.)
Your IP address is 83.205.12.198. Please include this address, along with your username (if you are a registered user), in any queries you make.
Please act or explain !!
l'Omnivore Sobriquet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Articles_that_need_to_be_wikified
If you're feeling particularly strong and have a fresh pack of
[[Kretek|Gudangs]] and a bottle of whisky to hand, there's a Metric
Shitload of stuff in that category that can only be fixed by hard
editorial slog. Call them the "unfeatured articles" ... the polar
opposite of [[WP:FA]].
(Worst is when it's an article about something clearly article-worthy,
but just thinking about how to fix the crappy prose makes your brain
seize up ...)
[Note that I'm not saying "OMGWTFBBQ WESUCKANDWE'RED0000MED" ... I'm
pointing out a practical thing that people can do if they're feeling
inspired to hard unglamorous slog. I'm not sure I am right now; I'll
let you know when I'm back on Sunday.]
- d.
On 1/3/06 1:08 PM, "wikien-l-request(a)Wikipedia.org"
<wikien-l-request(a)Wikipedia.org> wrote:
> From: Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney(a)gmail.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2006 05:37:24 +1100
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad
>
> On 1/4/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On the other hand, many people don't care about the userboxes, but are
>> instead upset over the way with which their deletion has been handled.
>> More deletions at this point may solve the userbox problem, but not
>> the community interaction problem.
>
>
> If there's anything to be learned from this, it's that unproductive members
> of the community do less harm than trying to take away their toys does. You
> end up alienating a lot more people than you thought you would.
>
> Ryan
Not to sound elitist but I probably will but WHO CARES if we alienate a few
people who are more interested in making a sticker book than an
encyclopedia? If someone is so riled that their little sticker that says
"Caring Cat Owner" (yes, it does exist at Template:User_Caring_Cat_Owner) is
no longer allowed, so much so that they decided to leave the project then I
say don't let the door hit ya in the ass on the way out. We ARE NOT going
to miss those people.
If this community and this project should have learned any damn thing from
the Siegenthaler fiasco it is that QUALITY matters more than QUANTITY and
that translates on down the line. I would rather have 100 thoughtful
editors than 1000 who don't have a clue.
Does this mean that I think we should have some sort of test or requirement
for editors? Of course not. Does it mean that we shouldn't let everyone on
in to contribute? Of course not. What it does mean is that any addition to
the project needs to be closely scrutinized with a cost/benefit analysis --
does this feature, project, fork, or what have you offer more benefit to the
project than it could cause harm? We apply the same criteria to special
protection -- do anonymous editors add more benefit to controversial
articles than they could cause harm? Absolutely not and we've developed a
process to deal with that.
In the case of user boxes, outside of the babel boxes, I think this whole
matter has demonstrated without a single doubt ABSOLUTELY NOT and they
should be terminated.
--Guy (User:Wgfinley)
A couple of points on userboxes:
- If there's use to some userboxes, who's to determine which ones are and
aren't acceptable?
- Aren't there at least half a dozen other ways that people could round up
votes for one cause or another, anyway; and wouldn't we just get
"off-campus" userbox phenomena if we banned them here?
At the risk of sounding like an anarchist (where's the userbox for "people
who sometimes sound like anarchists?"), I say let them be. And those who
delete them should be cited for vandalism (deleting copyrighted images is
another matter entirely).
Now, about disruption. It seems to me a range of sins disrupt wikiefforts
(and arguably also help them often):
1) Sins of hot-headedness - we sometimes get so emotional about subjects we
care about that we forget to be reasonable
2) Sins of self-righteousness - we are so convinced that we know the truth
that we close our minds to valid objections
3) Sins of subterfuge - we are deliberately pushing our point of view in
more or less sneaky ways: POV forks, obfuscations, etc., using the
credibility of Wikipedia to promote our pet causes
4) Sins of vandalism - we are deliberately trying to disrupt the Wikipedia
enterprise in various ways
Those who commit 1) should notice that their blood pressure is rising and
give themselves time off, but otherwise be easily forgiven. We want
passionate people here. Those who commit 2) should lighten up a little and
try to find more inspiration in standards of intellectual honesty. 3) have
to make to make up their minds whether they want a soapbox or an
encyclopedia. 4) should be booted out.
Lest anyone think WP only gets bad press, there was a nice article in
the New York Times this morning on the front of the Science section
about the WP v. EB comparison. Among other things, it features the
fact that the prestigious reviewer of one of our articles had a
similar error to the one criticized WP for in his own book on the
subject (when asked about this, he notes that it must be a
typographical error -- that's gotta sting!), and notes that "many of
the purported blunders seem open to debate."
At times the author seems downright explicitly against the model of
EB: "The idea that perfection can be achieved solely through
deliberate effort and centralized control has been given the lie in
biology with the success of Darwin and in economics with the failure
of Marx."
The author notes that even though one can write really silly things on
WP articles, they generally get cleaned up pretty quickly.
He ends on a pretty positive note: "Whatever their shortcomings,
neither encyclopedia appears to be as error-prone as one might have
inferred from Nature, and if Britannica has an edge in accuracy,
Wikipedia seems bound to catch up."
Check it out:
George Johnson, "The Nitpicking of the Masses vs. the Authority of the
Experts" ''New York Times'' (January 3, 2006).
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/03/science/03comm.html
FF
Dear Mr. Jimmy Wales,
Why don't you make wikipedia per-to-per, so the other countries could be the
owners of their own contents ? I don't believe in a secure and accurate
information under the USA, and Europe servers, according with their laws and
interests. Their Laws isn't the World law, and Wikipedia contents are World
contents. Think about it, if you don't give us the right (under our law) to
access world public information, so I will be very interested to make it
possible.
Thanks,
Cacalo.
_________________________________________________________________
http://imaginemsn.com/messenger/default2.aspx?locale=pt-br
I agree with the notion that wikipedia should profess the truth, but my problem in allowing us to label certain fields, beliefs, or whatever, as “quackery,” or “pseudoscience,” etc., is manifold:
- It assumes that our readers need such labels because they can't make an informed judgment otherwise - this seems to me the opposite of what we are trying to do here
- I don't know who among us is qualified to determine what is true or not - my personal experience is that those who most loudly invoke scientific jargon are also most prone to abuse it
- and last but not least, what is unassailable science this year is archaic superstition the next year.
Sent wirelessly from my Blackberry.
Some food for thought:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9075-1962714,00.html
In an interview, Jimbo discusses the possibilities of ads eventually on the
Wikipedia, due to the huge number of page views that we get.
Also mentioned is the large-scale rejection of ads by the "wikitopeans"
[sic] in the community.
--
Ben Emmel
Wikipedia - User:Bratsche
bratsche1(a)gmail.com
"A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees."
-- William Blake