WikiEN-l September 2006

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137 participants
216 discussions

Encyclopedia of Earth appears to be now online...
by Mathias Schindler 28 Sep '06

28 Sep '06

Hi, after being announced several times, the "Encyclopedia of Earth" (EoE) has surfaced at http://www.eoearth.org/. It is published by the Digital Universe Foundation and it is part of the Earthportal project. It currently consists of 363 articles (according to the "All Articles" list at http://www.eoearth.org/articles). The EoE seems to be the only special topic encyclopedia that does not cover its own topic itself. There is an article about the http://www.eoearth.org/article/Crude_Oil_Windfall_Profit_Tax_Act_of_1980,_U… but nothing about Earth (...yet). The content is licensed under CC-BY-SA, so it is free (as in freedom) but not compatible with the GFDL at present. I have not counted how many articles are modified versions of text that has already appeared somewhere else: http://www.eoearth.org/article/Meter "This article is taken wholly from, or contains information that was originally published by, the National Institue of Standards and Technology. Topic editors and authors for the Encyclopedia of Earth may have edited its content or added new information. The use of information from National Institue of Standards and Technology should not be construed as support for or endorsement by that organization for any new information added by EoE personnel, or for any editing of the original content." In Berlin, I spoke with Larry Sanger from the Digital Universe Foundation. He said (if I remember correctly) that the EoE people have already "written" (maybe including as in cut&pasted from the NIST) over 1000 articles. You can listen to Larry's answer at http://phalacrocorax.informatik.hu-berlin.de/fr/06_13h_QualityManagementInF… 90:05 Larry: "The Encyclopedia of Earth is under development. They have over a thousand articles in the wiki but at present it is a semi-closed wiki." More stats here: http://www.eoearth.org/stats Published Articles 364 Updated in last week 139 Updated in last month 364 Published Topics 53 All Contributors 276 Published Contributors 106 Published Authors 83 Published Topic Editors 30 Published Copyeditors 8 Last Published 22-Sep-2006 20:05:13 UTC (9 minutes ago) Mathias

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Re: [WikiEN-l] How to deal with direct requests for articles?
by charles.r.matthews＠ntlworld.com 28 Sep '06

28 Sep '06

"David Gerard" wrote > Ideas please? It's now a little while, and I have other concerns, but I thought _last_ year that a 'how to edit Wikipedia' book would be an excellent idea. (I went as far as getting a proposal turned down by a publisher.) Still relevant in 2006? Scenario is non-Webbish person (middle aged, middle class) wants a book on how to interact with Wikipedia, with a specific end in view. About as interesting as 'spreadsheets for dummies' type literature, but actually comprehensive as a reference, and _not_ just a bunch of hypertext looking like overgrown rhododendrons. This at least is one type of answer to DG's phone call issue (I can't tell you it all in five minutes but I can recommend a book); and an admission that however simple the theory, the practice has become demanding. Charles Charles ----------------------------------------- Email sent from www.ntlworld.com Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software Visit www.ntlworld.com/security for more information

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Re: [WikiEN-l] How to deal with direct requests for articles?
by Gregory Kohs 28 Sep '06

28 Sep '06

>> From: "David Gerard" <dgerard(a)gmail.com> >> Subject: [WikiEN-l] How to deal with direct requests for articles? My phone number and email are publicly available for media contact purposes. This means, of course, I get emails and calls about *everything*. A common call is "How do I get an article about me/my book/my achievement?" Now. What's a helpful answer to this? Better than "You don't, someone else has to write one," because you *know* they'll just write a really bad one themselves and it'll all end in a tearful AFD entry and someone hating or fearing Wikipedia henceforth. Assume that referring them to a web page or policy page is less good than being able to answer on the phone right there. Ideas please? ++++++++++++++ David, I know that this will sound like it's self-serving promotion, but in all honesty, MyWikiBiz.com could potentially be another alternative to consider if your caller is asking about a notable, verifiable company or non-profit organization that currently lacks an article in the mainspace. We do our best to research the entity, evaluate both the "good" and the "bad" news associated with it, and write a NPOV article. Then, according to Jimmy Wales' request, we see if an independent, non-paid, non-employee editor thinks it's up to Wikipedia's standards for inclusion, and we see if it gets posted. I think our examples at [[The Family & Workplace Connection]] and [[Arch Coal]] demonstrate fairly well that we are not here to spam Wikipedia, but rather, to fill in the gaps. Also, I know you have no way of knowing or verifying this, but we turn away the potential business of about 20%-25% of our contacts, usually on the grounds that they fail [[WP:CORP]]. One final note -- we are currently running a promotion where, if the client is a non-profit entity with a humanitarian mission, we complete the work on a pro bono basis (no charge). Kindly, Gregory Kohs MyWikiBiz.com

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Using social networking sites as sources
by Andrew Gray 28 Sep '06

28 Sep '06

This may be of interest to some people, given our occasional habit of fleshing out articles by raiding the personal sites of subjects: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003211808_fancher20.html It's a brief report of a discussion at the Seattle Times about the reliability and ethical appropriateness of using (say) the Myspace page of a murder victim in reporting on them. Not much content, but it's good to see people are asking themselves these questions. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

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Contest reminder
by daniwo59＠aol.com 28 Sep '06

28 Sep '06

This is just a reminder that there are less than ten days lefts for my contest. Here is a chance to improve articles and get rewarded for it. I invite everyone to participate. See [[WP:DC]] for more information. Danny

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How to get linked wikipedia text
by pataya6 28 Sep '06

28 Sep '06

How to get automatically linked text like in Wikipedia? If you look at wikipedia.org, you can see that the text is linked to other related articles. I doubt this is done by hand, any idea how to do this? I would like to apply it to my http://site xuzo.com , it's a joomla site. -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/How-to-get-linked-wikipedia-text-tf2346217.html#a6531… Sent from the English Wikipedia mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

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Schools, notability, inclusionism, deletionism, etc.
by Daniel R. Tobias 27 Sep '06

27 Sep '06

There's been some discussion here lately on the desirability of including or deleting the article for some smallish private school. Actually, it's my impression that, over the couple of years I've been involved with the project, Wikipedia has been steadily moving in the direction of inclusionism in a number of subject areas, including schools, roads, pop music, and TV episodes. A while back, something had to be highly notable to be included in those subjects, but now there are articles on county roads, middle schools, upcoming as-yet- unnamed pop albums, etc. So is this a good thing or a bad thing? At least in some areas, where there are bounded categories that are (fairly) well defined (one can always expect there will be a few edge cases though), there's some value to aiming for having a complete set of articles, even if some of them are of marginal notability and don't have all that much to be said about them. Some past U.S. vice presidents are pretty obscure now, but it would be good to have all of them anyway (do we?) We've got articles on all the popes (and various antipopes as well), though some of the early ones have practically no known facts beyond their regnal names and (sometimes approximate) dates of office. We've got all the U.S. census-listed places, thanks to an early "bot" run, and probably should aim to get similarly complete coverage of the rest of the world, even including remote villages of tiny population; it's useful in the aggregate to be able to look up any place (particularly when this is integrated into applications where you can click on a spot on a map for more information). So, should we be just as complete for schools, albums, songs, TV shows, and so on? Would that just be duplicating IMDB, etc., or would it be helping to make Wikipedia a one-stop resource for more in- depth info (including links where appropriate to other sites like IMDB) on everything in each of these fields? -- == 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/

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Unblock request
by abu hamza 26 Sep '06

26 Sep '06

Hi, my wiki name is saladin1970. I joined just 3 days but find myself banned. i was banned by Jayjg . He cited the following reasons 1) 3RR rule 2) No useful edits 3) Copyright violoations 4) attacks on talk pages They all seem very serious. yet when we look into each of the reasons, they really have no substance. 1) I have two pc's one is shared at work - hence the same ip address and editor the othe is my home pc. I only reverted 3 times, as did my collegue at work. 2) I have made many contributions, including a section on moors in the spanish inquisition, additions to the islam in china section, background info on harold shipman and contributions to alan harts page and zionism page, and turkic. 3) There have been NO copyright violations. Every post was referenced to a website or to a book. All of whom allow references to as part of their copyright. So there was NO copy right violation 4) there were no personal attacks on talk pages. The worst that could be said was that i called someone a 'zionist'. Clearly there is something more to this than the above, as these at best are minor violations that would carry warnings. however I contend that this blocking falls under the "not advised to block rule". my posts in the zionism forum have illicited strong responses . Including the person that banned me jayjg. These posts included a) a section on the talmudic three oaths - which is the reason behind orthodox jews who oppose political zionism. This was reverted many times by jayjg amongst others also i added a further reading section book entitled "zionism the enemy of the jews by alan hart", who was a itv corrospondent during the 80's. His book is well researched 'historical and political' of the lead up to the creation of israel. Given that Jayjg was part of this debate, i can see no other reason for my ban (as the reasons given are spurious) other than to eliminate a user who has a different view of zionism. for this reason i am asking a moderator to look at the material posted by me, and make a fair decisions as to whether i should be banned indefinately thanks saladin _________________________________________________________________ Are you using the latest version of MSN Messenger? Download MSN Messenger 7.5 today! http://join.msn.com/messenger/overview

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Process wonkery
by Mark Gallagher 26 Sep '06

26 Sep '06

G'day Con, > Note that notability is not the policy. Verifiability is. Even if a > school is notable "by default", as some claim, if there is no > verifiable information about it, there should be no article. Fuck policy. Get into the habit of saying "notability is not the basis for my argument", rather than quoting policy as if it's the Last Word. You're right either way, but by following the Sensible Route instead of the Process Wonk Route you get the prestigious Fuddlemark Thumbs Up Of Approval, and that's worth its weight in gold! -- Mark Gallagher "What? I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!" - Danger Mouse

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Simplified blocking policy, for your consideration
by David Gerard 25 Sep '06

25 Sep '06

Rewrite (started by Inksplotch, lots of tightening by me): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Blocking_policy/Simplified Discussion at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Blocking_policy#Refactored_bloc… I've written a new bit of the process essay covering the sort of 'policy' that's hardened process, and tested it by applying it to this rewrite. Let's see if it worked. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:David_Gerard/Process_essay#Process_harden… - d.

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WikiEN-l September 2006