According to the WikiProject Countering Systemic Bias, "The average
Wikipedian on English Wikipedia (1) is male, (2) is
technically-inclined, (3) is formally educated, (4) speaks English to
an extent, (5) is White , (6) is aged 15-49, (7) is from a
predominantly Christian country, (8) is from an industrialized nation,
and (9) is more likely to be employed in intellectual pursuits than in
practical skills or physical labor."
The problem with this is the unfortunate gap in coverage that results
from a lack of interest from the typical demographic of Wikipedians
described above. While this demographic is definitely interested in
contributing to a free, online encyclopedia, that doesn't mean the
others aren't. One particular problem is that in order to contribute
to Wikipedia, you'll need to use a computer. There are others who
would probably be interested in contributing to our global effort,
too, but don't understand technology. We need to allow them to
contribute.
For that purpose, I would like to start a project where people without
access to computers (or people who voluntarily choose not to use them)
can -write- their own Wikipedia entries and mail them in. The first
phase of this plan, of course, would be spreading the word. The least
expensive way would probably be distributing fliers in frequented
areas. People could then write their own articles, and mail them in to
the Wikimedia Office. Someone at the office (maybe Monica?) could open
the letters, scan them in, and email them to an offline submissions
mailing list. From there, people interested in the project would
transcribe the article into Wikipedia (if applicable, see below) and
mail back a corresponding letter featuring a print-out of the new
article. Very simple process, plus it would allow people from
non-typical-of-Wikipedia-editor backgrounds to put in their word.
What if their entry is redundant? Not to worry. If the written
submission has content the Wikipedia article doesn't, we add it in. If
it doesn't, that's okay. We don't necessarily have to tell them what
made it in and what didn't, but either way, a reply will be sent to
the writer with a print-out of the article.
----
I'm passing the above on for en:User:Messedrocker, since he's not
subscribed to the list. My thoughts:
a) This has certainly been done before on a local level with minor
languages - was it in West Africa somewhere? My mind is failing me,
but I've certainly seen it mentioned on wikipedia-l before - the
writing was done by a local elder, transcribed and put online by a
volunteer.
b) It might well work, but would probably require careful thought and
planning - who are we targeting? what sort of articles are we
targeting them for? how do we deal with unwanted and inappropriate
submissions without causing more badwill than we started with?
c) Copyrights. This might get fun.
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk
On 6/22/06, Sherool <jamydlan(a)online.no> wrote:
> On Thu, 22 Jun 2006 19:46:12 +0200, Pedro Sanchez <pdsanchez(a)gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Revisiting
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-May/023760.html
> > and checking the long long long list of images at [[Category:Images
> > used with permission]] there are many of them kept becuase they were
> > uploaded before such date.
> >
> > It's been more than a year since the ruling, I believe older images
> > weren't removed in order to let uploaders tag them properly, find
> > replacements, or so they could be processed at the old Vfd.
> >
> > Quoting Jimbo
> >
> > "It is very unfortunate that such images are still being uploaded _new_
> > when we have not be happy about them for a long time. It is not fair to
> > contributors who are working on such things, since we have no intention
> > to keep them in the long run."
> >
> > Well, if in the long run they have to go, it could start now. So, I
> > was wondering why aren't they being processed yet. I'm thinking of
> > nominating batches of them at IFD every certain time. On the other
> > hand, however [[WP:IFD]] is clogged, so I was a bit hesitant about
> > doing so without more feedback.
> >
> > Thus I created [[User:Drini/OldCopyrightedImgs]] which has a small
> > sample for the first bacth and shows how I would be nominating them. I
> > tried to sample different kind of images (uploaded by the webmaster's
> > site, by random users, by respected old users, without source,
> > orphaned images, etc) so we can get an idea what we're dealign with.
> >
> > Still, IFD is overloaded, so maybe better alternatives can come up?
> > Maybe a IFD-like for this kind of images?
> >
> > Jimbo, what's your current view about such things?
>
> I don't see how anyone could object, either they come up with a fair use
> rationale or secure a permission to release the image under a free license
> or it gets deleted, simgple as that, as you say there have been plenty of
> time to fix this. Ok a lot of people don't know that these kind of
> licenses are no longer allowed, but they will know once they get the IFD
> notice on theyr talk page, and images can be undeleted now too, so there
> is rely no excuse to delay this any further, if people are uneable to come
> up with a compelling reason to keep an image within the IFD wait period
> they can simply request the images be undeleted though Deletion review at
> a later time if the copyright holder agree to release it under a free
> license after all. Nothing like a pending deletion to make people spring
> into action.
>
> Just be sure it's done "by the book", notifying uploaders and adding
> {{ifdc}} to captions where the image is used and so forth to boost
> awarenes about why they are beeing deleted. IMHO making as many people as
> possible understand why this kind of licenses are not acceptable are more
> important than getting them all hastily deleted, "by permission" and "non
> commercial" images are still a fairly big problem, people just don't use
> those tags anymore becase they are not listed (they tend to pick "no
> rights reserved" instead for some reason). I actualy think {{permission}}
> and {{noncommercial}} should be added to MediaWiki:Licenses (at least
> after all the old ones have been cleared out), that way we can easily
> track them down and delete them rather than digging them out of some other
> random license tag the uploader choose because he didn't find a good fit
> (same deal as "don't know" and "some website"). But I digress.
>
> --
> [[:en:User:Sherool]]
>
> _______________________________________________
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> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
Well, my point is, why aren't these being speedied like the new ones?
If giving time for finding replacements was the issue, plenty of time
has been given, (yet precisely since they were kept, noone is
bothering to find free replacements). Jimbo says those won't stay
forever, but unless they start being gone, noone will get the free
stuff.
So, is anyone willing to support speedying these images?
** at least in the case of the ORPHANED noncommercial/withpermission
before the date** ?
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
first post.
after six months in WP I am totally fed up.
it is no longer worth the headache trying to
write quality articles or to improve articles
in this ennvironment.
but i would like to post some of my observations
in hopes that it might help out somehow, someday.
WP is a meeting ground for several types of people.
the main types i've observed fall under these heads:
1. accurate reporters (AR's).
2. responsible scholars (RS's).
3. infantile vandals (IV's).
4. expert disrupters (ED's)
in the present state of WP, the rules in practice and the prevailing attitudes of admins
are all skewed in favor of IV's and ED's, while the AR's and RS's don't stand a chance.
by "rules in practice" i mean the way that policies and guidelines actually get enforced.
the sad thing is that the "rules in principle" state all the right ideas, but people who
are born and bred to check facts don't have a chance against puppet mobs of pseudo-newbies,
who seem bent on nothing short of making the world safe for their current state of ignorance.
"assuming good faith" and "not biting newcomers" are so much easier for admins to parrot
that it has rendered them the most naive dupes of expert disrupters who have learned how
it easy it is to exploit their naivete. in short, WP is like email before virus protection.
this is one of the biggest reasons that WP's reputation in responsible communities
has gone from "not especially reliable source" (NERS) to "dump of popular errors" (DOPE).
it is my impression from my acquaintances that more and more responsible scholars who buy
into the ideals of WP in the beginning quickly find themselves disamyed by the realities,
and just go way quietly after a short while of seeing their efforts go to waste here.
i really do hope that something that lives up to the stated ideals and policies of WP
does come into existence someday, so i will try to put aside my present discouragement
and focus on the kinds of experiences that can be converted into constructive critique.
to be continued ...
jon awbrey
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/
wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:Jon_Awbrey
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
I've been looking round the articles relating to [[A Course In
Miracles]] (ACIM). One article details a court case pertaining to
authorship, under the rather bizarre premise that since authorship was
claimed to be Jesus, "channeled" through Helen Schucman, copyright did
not apply. I've asked for some citations from sources outside the ACIM
movement for this and other articles in this collection, and received
this reply:
"But it is quite a challenge to find comments from people outside of
the ACIM "world" when most outside of that insular world have never
even heard of ACIM. Most non-ACIM students couldn't be concerned
with whether Jesus is the literal or symbolic source, because most
non-ACIM students think the whole thing looks insane, cultish,
weird, etc."
Now to my mind if there are no sources outside the movement we ought
to be very wary about covering the subject at all. This same editor
added a section to [[forgiveness]] detailing ACIM's view of the
concept which was larger than the section devoted to Bhuddism and
about the same size as the one for Islam. My view is that unless we
have some reputable secondary sources external to the movement to draw
on, we should not include it there at all (else we'll have to have a
paragraph for Methylated Wesletarians and Jagism).
Back to the article on the court case: I'd say it's a footnote to the
book unless it's been covered extensively in the mainstream media,
discussed in the Harvard Law Review as a ground-breaking case, cited
as precedent in other cases or whatever. The only cited source we
have in that section is from the Foundation for A Course In Miracles,
which was one of the parties to the dispute. I am minded to merge.
I don't want to let my natural scepticism run away with me here, how
do others view this kind of apparent walled garden?
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.ukhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
Hi all,
When discovering a redlink, which is better: to leave it as a
redlink, or redirect it to the "closest" topic? Eg, a redlink to the
name of a book - best to leave it that way, or create it as a redirect
to the book's author? Or, create a substub "X is a book by
[[Author]]"?
Steve
On 29 Jun 2006 at 14:14, Jon Awbrey <jawbrey(a)att.net> wrote:
> Steve Bennett wrote:
> >
> > On 6/29/06, Jon Awbrey <jawbrey(a)att.net> wrote:
> > > Pending a properly controlled study of WikiPediatric epidemiology (Proposal Pending),
> > > it is this observer's estimation that the most prevalent IOP is the one that inverts
> > > the priorities of the superordinate policies cited above and the unofficial dictates
> > > of what is here nomenclated as "De Facto Consensus" (DFC). DFC must not be confused
> > > with Genuine Consensus -- defined as the absence of dissent -- DFC as it's currently
> > > observed in WP means that any three users, or evatars, coming to agreement in a half
> > > hour period, can impose their absolute dictatorship over the direction of an article.
> >
> > You seem to be constantly inventing new terms. Why?
>
> You seem to be constantly looking for things to talk about except what I'm saying. Why?
Maybe because people are having trouble figuring out just what you're
saying? Perhaps your points would be more understandable if you
spent more time giving specific examples of things that have happened
on Wikipedia that are not to your liking, rather than talking in
vague abstractions using lots of odd terminology?
--
== 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/
---- Jon Awbrey <jawbrey(a)att.net> wrote:
> o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
>
> post 8.
>
> response to a friendly off-list message,
> which i will go ahead and post here in
> the hopes that a different stroke might
> work better for different folks. ja.
>
> thanks for the friendly response.
>
> I'm a 50+ year old person with a solid lib arts BA,
> MA's in math and psych, lots of post-grad study in
> multiple fields, and years of cross-disciplinary
> experience as a statistical consultant where i
> specialized in constructing software and even
> philosophical bridges between sub-communities
> of researchers who had all but lost the ability
> to comprehend each others' ways and motivations.
>
> i understand about high ideals and non-elitism --
> I'm a onetime flower-child from a generation
> of non-elitists.
>
> but WP defeats me, and it's largely because
> it enforces a regime of dishonest communication,
> and it's gotten confused about the difference
> between non-elitism and anti-knowledge-ism.
Jon Awbrey,
Take a break from editing till your batteries are recharged then come back and help fix the problems. Theere is a place for you at Wikipedia. You need to learn the ropes.
Look me up: User:FloNight, a former Register Nurse, mother of three college students and a Wikipedia Administrator. I'll give you some tips on how to deal pov pushing editors and bullies.
Take care,
Sydney Poore
Georgetown, KY
We appear to have lose access to the Oversight logs altogether. Is
there any explanation for this at all? I presume without this slight
accountability measure in place the oversight privileges have also
been revoked from those who have them.
~Mark Ryan