I am very frustrated.
We have on Wikipedia a list with the following selection criteria:
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This is a list of notable tall men, starting at 198 cm (6 ft 6 in). In
several cases these men were among the tallest in their profession,
their province, or nation.
The concept of "what is tall" can vary by average height of any given
population. In the United States the highest percentile of height
given by the FAA is the 99th percentile, which is 75.2 inches or
approximately 191 centimetres.[1] Pediatricians place tall stature at
2.5 to 3 standard deviations above the mean for age and gender.[2][3]
In adult males this begins at around 192 cm. An additional 6 cm is
added to this second figure due to height variation and to assure that
comparative tallness is a part of the individuals notability or
significance.
Note: Names placed in this list must have their height be a part of
their fame or significance. As basketball players are noted as having
above average height this means they will need to be taller than the
cut-off point in order to be notable as tall. Exceptions to this is
members of the Philippine Basketball Association, as heights above 213
cm are essentially unheard of in their league, and early twentieth
century basketball players as they lived in an era where player height
was much smaller.
-----------------
Tall is defined by agreement of editors, not by any externally
verifiable definition. After five or six deletion debates, no
consensus third-party definition of tall has been produced. Average
height is increasing over time so the list naturally favours
contemporary figures. Average height varies by country, so this list
favours Western (and especially Dutch) figures. Average height varies
by ethnicity, so this list works against Vietnamese and Japanese, to
name but two. We don't have a place in here for Edward I
("Longshanks"), whose height is an integral part of his notability,
because he's below the arbitrary criterion. The height has changed
from 6'3" to 6'7" and up and down, based primarily on the size of the
resulting list, not any objective definition of tall. We have to take
special measures (i.e. additional arbitrary criteria) to stop it
simply being a list of basketball players, which it more or less
became.
To me this list exemplifies all that is worst about the worst
Wikipedia lists. The definition of tall is original research, the
selection of tall and men is indiscriminate anyway, the list has no
evident utility, is systemically biased in numerous ways. We might as
well have [[List of stuff I like]] and leave it at that.
Compare with another list:
-----------------
This list provides a guide to the most important opera composers, as
determined by their presence on a majority of compiled lists of
significant opera composers. (See the "Lists Consulted" section for
full details.) The composers run from Jacopo Peri, who wrote the first
ever opera in late 16th century Italy, to John Adams, one of the
leading figures in the contemporary operatic world. The brief
accompanying notes offer an explanation as to why each composer has
been considered major. Also included is a section about major women
opera composers, compiled from the same lists. For an introduction to
operatic history, see Opera. The organisation of the list is by
birthdate.
-----------------
Here we have a list explicitly based on external criteria. The list
has objective validity, and evident utility in identifying the most
significant composers in a particular genre. Sadly we also have the
tacked-on section of "major women opera composers", of whom there are,
according to the sources, none at all, which was added in order to
appease a soapboxing editor who was absolutely determined to add a
composer whose work is published by his company. It was asserted that
the lack of women was "systemic bias". No, it's more that opera is
ludicrously expensive to produce, and for most of its history women
composers were vanishingly rare anyway.
Sadly, although we managed to delete the list of tall me once, that
was sent back to AfD and there is no consensus to delete it. No
consensus in this case means that there is no clear majority of !votes
- policy and guidelines (which reflect a much wider consensus) are
that we do not have original research, and there is no credible
rebuttal of the assertion that the list of tall men is based on just
that.
OK, now I'll get off my soapbox.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.ukhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
Hello,
I've been editing Wikipedia for quite a while, but decided to make an
account recently and signed up. I continued my normal editing (mostly typo
and fixes on random articles, which seems to be a way to find a lot of your
mistakes) but noticed a problem on the Administrators' Noticeboard and left
my opinion there.
A user included me in a CheckUser for speaking up on the issue. They accused
the user PSPMario, who seems to have edited only on the Playstation 3 and
Playstation Portable articles, of being a sockpuppet of someone after he
reported two users he suspected of being a sockpuppet.
I find it a very bad precedent to immediately accuse someone of being a
sockpuppet, for trying to report a potential problem themselves. I find this
equally problematic to say that "identical additions of info" happen when we
give users the tools in difference comparison to easily copy content from an
earlier edit to a later edit. PSPMario says he was replacing something he
saw that was missing when he returned to the page, and I believe him,
because there is no reason for me not to believe him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incide…
The result of the Checkuser came back as "likely."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/RunedCho…
I am not sure what this means. I know I am no sockpuppet, and given the
writing style of PSPMario, I am reasonably certain he is not a sockpuppet
either.
I do not know when we started using weasel words for CheckUser, which ought
to be a yes or no answer, but this sets a very bad precedent for abuse of
the CheckUser system. Additionally, we have users trying to get everyone
they can blocked, no matter what their edits or edit history, based on the
results of weasel-worded RFCU postings.
This situation is a detriment to Wikipedia.
Thank you for your time.
Wikipedia isn't "Not Ready for Prime Time" any more... we were
recently mentioned in a U.S. prime time broadcast network television
program. At the end of this past Sunday's episode of "American Dad",
which concerned exposing a historical conspiracy, a character asks
the rhetorical question of where he can publish his expose of the
"true facts" he has uncovered so that people will believe it in
absence of actual proof... then answers it by creating an article on
Wikipedia. (This actually violates several policies, including No
Original Research and Verifiability / References.)
This may be the most prominent pop-cultural mention we've got so far;
previous TV mentions were mostly on late-night cable shows like The
Colbert Report, but this is on a major network (if you call Fox that)
in prime time (7 or 8 PM - 11 PM in the U.S.). It's perhaps related
that the Wikipedia traffic ratings spiked up again in Alexa at that
time, with the rank at a new record of #8.
--
== 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: Cheney Shill <halliburton_shill(a)yahoo.com>
> David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page
> >
> http://www.conservapedia.com/Examples_of_Bias_in_Wikipedia
>
> David, you do realize that this site is not comedic or
> parody? It's best described as a front site for christian
> fundamentalists, registered by the people behind
> http://www.eagleforum.org, the "leading the pro-family
> movement since 1972". [it's registered to]
> Schlafly, Andrew aschlafly(a)aol.com
(who is Phyllis Schlafly's son, and general counsel for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a more-or-less venerable and legitimate right-wing organization of AMA members for whom the AMA isn't right-wing enough).
Actually, if you analyze the articles and make plausible assumptions, there are only a _few_ conservative Christian adults working on it, perhaps a dozen kids, and a couple of people who are either parents or young adults who are conscientiously trying to rough out some kind of outline for an encyclopedia by entering substubs for every term contained in their textbooks.
And at least two oddball Wikipedia admins (editing under the same user names they use on Wikipedia), who are emphatically not conservative Christian creationists but who, for some reason have enjoyed trying to improve the articles (in good faith; in some cases, yes, trying to moderate over-the-top conservative nuttiness when it strays so far from the facts that Conservapedians are willing to accept the changes... but mostly just doing straight Wikipedian work).
It's probably moot, anyway. I think it's melting down.
After a few notices in conservative blogs, praising the site (apparently the bloggers hadn't actually looked at it), Google searches show the top hits now to be on non-conservative sites cackling away with mocking glee at the idiocy of it all.
The interesting part is that the site _is_, increasingly, becoming a source of comedic parody, as vandals flood in, and the most popular kind of vandalism consists of inserting over-the-top caricatures of creationist POV. The site's rants on AD/BC versus CE/BCE, and its insistence on American spelling are genuine enough, and the site brought it on itself by promoting an Wiki with three thousand amateurish substubs, a few dozen high-school-term-paper quality articles, and a few dozen personal essays by Schlafly as if were a reliable encyclopedia.
It's interesting to watch. When you can get in and look at Recent Changes, it's clear that the admins are currently unable to block vandal accounts or delete joke articles as fast as they're created, and unless it's a seven-day's wonder and traffic eases off they're going to need to solicit donations for new servers. (It's no worse than Wikipedia was at various times in 2004, though!)
It also makes you realize how important it is for a Wiki-based encyclopedia to have policies and procedures that are roughly in harmony with those of those people who are spontaneously attracted to the site. Wikipedia's neutrality policy, as stated and as applied in practice, may have an even greater depth of wisdom to it than I had previously appreciated.
For one, ther was no reason to ban Parker Peters. I liked him; he was intelligent.
For two, Yanksox, gone? I believe I may be somewhat responsible for pointing out that he was responsible for the overreaction to my irresponsibility (you should be able to understand that).
For three, as for the suggestion about a program to mentor new users, I started just that several months ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Adopt-a-User
For Four, I have the diffs and a supporting argument. Bring that bitch to ArbCom, tell them to stick it in their pipe and smoke it.
---------------------------------
Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28policy%29#Bot_edit_r…
This has been discussed on wikitech-l a bit in the last few days. Tim
Starling says there's no technical reason for a limit, the current
limit's to allow workable human review; so it's a matter for local
policy. Further discussion at above URL.
- d.
To start of my evidence-fueled tour da force, here's a quote from Yanksox.
"I'm guessing this guy is a failed /b/tard. He's spitting out 4chan memes like a total newbie. I don't have an issue with this guy's being a 4channer, but his actual contribution to the encyclopedic aspect of this site has been minimal and barely marginal at best. Most of the time, he's just testing our patience. I'm really leaning towards a permaban. Yanksox 18:24, 10 February 2007 (UTC)"
And now, my retort. I had never even heard of Yanksox until several days earlier, so his insinuation that "I'm sooooo tired of Flameviper, I've had to deal with him, like, FOREVAR" is complete bull. For second, his claim of "barely marginal" is "barely legitimate" at best. [[Five themes of geography]] made DYK. My editcount is 3000+ (that should give you ideas), see [[User:Flameviper/edits]] for more. For last, I have never been on 4chan, and that accusation is simply an ad hominem personal attack. "Like a newbie"? This kind of shit, coming from a normal user, would warrant a block (or at least serious warning via WP:NPA). But from High Lord Sysop, it's just another drop in the bucket.
And now I will give you some actual URLs to substantiate myself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Flameviper&action=histo…
I wanted to take a 30-day Wikivacation on account of being blocked. Perhaps obstinate, but not grounds for revert+protect. The net result would be the same; me not editing for 30 days. BUT NOOOOO!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Flameviper
Rather self-explanatory. I had conceived an idea (Wikipedia:Informal checkuser) of a practice that could potentially be put to bad use. Instead of seeing it for what it was (a cautionary warning), High Lord Sysop and Friends decided that it was my claim of being targeted. Which it wasn't. My IP address is 69.81.50.1, and another one is 216.11.222.21. I'm not hiding anything.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Flameviper
Self-explanatory. My edit summaries are somewhat immature, but you should get the gist of it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/HUNGY_MAN
A small-scale account that I created back in May 06 for no apparent reason. Not as a sock. I can't remember why. Anyway, I used it to make very small edits to my Flameviper userpage and got infiinitely banned.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Flameviper&action=history
Revert war between myself and High Lord Sysop and Friends.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Archiv…
WP:AN thread where I have been grossly misrepresented, abused, and generally thrashed. I'm not able to defend myself because I'm banned.
So there, you have it. An archive of an abused snake.
---------------------------------
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