> Subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD is dead
>
> It's official: AFD is dead.
It's official: I hereby declare the Principle of Wikienl Induction.
The Principle of Wikienl Induction states that the observation of a
single perceived imperfection in the outcome of a process proves that
the process is flawed, inherently flawed, broken, irretrievably
broken, dead, dead and stinking with the fetid odor of putrescent
decomposition wafting to the outermost reaches of the Kuiper belt.
And should immediately be replaced with a process involving no
community input, or, preferably no human decision-making at all, but
a flawless automatic bot working from a precisely specified intensely-
bright-line algorithmic definition.
This general principle is proved by the recent posting "AFD is dead."
On 4/7/07, Daniel R. Tobias <dan(a)tobias.name> wrote:
> http://www.thisistrue.com/zt.html
>
> That mindset dislikes letting the "authorities" have any discretion to
> use common sense in administering rules depending on the circumstances;
> they'd rather have an absoulute rule, enforced absolutely ([[Judge
> Dredd]] style). You see a lot of that both on Wikipedia and in the
> outside world these days; too many people want to simplify a complex
> world by being absolutist in their following of rules.
On Usenet once I proposed an alternate rational for "zero tolerance"
in some cases. An example I used was "weapon like" items carried by
school children. Take this scenario.
1. A white (or black) student is caught with a key chain that's sharp
enough to possibly be used as a weapon. The principal makes a
determination that the student didn't know it was not allowed and lets
him off with a warning.
2. A black (or white) student is caught with a switchblade knife and expelled.
3. The black (or white) student's parents, with the support of Al
Sharpton (or David Duke), sues the school for racial discrimination
arguing that the administration gives preferential treatment to white
(or black) students caught with weapons.
To avoid the possibility of having to spend taxpayer dollars defending
such a suit, (frivolous or otherwise) the school simply chooses to
follow a zero tolerance rule to the letter so they can say that
everybody gets treated equally.
I'm (re)sending this to lots of lists -- people, we need more
submissions! Please be bold in sending us your papers -- we'd love to
see you in Taiwan this year. :-)
Please forward to other relevant lists as well! See
http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Call_for_Participation/distribution
for the ones we've already covered.
Erik
- - - -
Wikimania is an annual global event devoted to Wikipedia and the other
Wikimedia Foundation projects. It is a community event, which is also
open to the public and to researchers. This year's conference will be
held from August 3-5, 2007 in Taipei, Taiwan at Chien Tan Overseas
Youth Activity Center. For more information, please visit the
Wikimania site:
http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/
Send your submissions through:
http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submission
We are accepting submissions for posters, presentations, workshops,
and discussion groups. We are also accepting nominations for speakers
and speaker panels, and suggestions for other activities. Please note
the details below and be bold in your submissions!
== Important dates ==
* 1 March – 30 April: Submission
* 1 May – 31 May: Feedback and notification of acceptance
* 3 – 5 Aug 2007 : Wikimania
== Conference Themes ==
Submissions should address one or more of the following themes:
* Wikimedia Communities – Interesting projects and particularities
within the communities (we explicitly invite you to present your local
Wikimedia project's community!); policy creation within individual
projects; conflict resolution and community dynamics; reputation and
identity; multilingualism, languages and cultures; social studies.
* Free Content – Open access to information; ways to gather and
distribute free knowledge, usage of the Wikimedia projects in
education, journalism, research; ways to improve content quality and
usability; copyright laws and other legal areas that interfere with
Wikimedia projects.
* Technical infrastructure – Issues related to MediaWiki
development and extensions; Wikimedia hardware layout; new ideas for
development (including usable case studies from other wikis or similar
projects).
Your topic must be related to Wikimedia projects and its communities
or to the creation of free content in general.
== Types of Submissions ==
We are seeking submissions for
* presentations (10–30 minute talks with optional short or full papers)
* posters (printed presentations or visual displays that can stand on their own)
* workshops (30–120 minute session with more involvement of the audience)
* panels (group of 2-5 speakers to discuss on a specific subject)
* Birds-of-a-Feather (BoF) (45-60 minute informal meetup of group
discussion on a particular topic)
* artistic artifacts (plays, competitions, comedy, visualizations, or
other representations of some aspect of the projects)
== Guidelines ==
Wikimania is organized by volunteers, so please help us to minimize
wasted effort by following these guidelines carefully before
submitting and be sure not to forget anything that is mentioned here.
All submissions must explicitly include the following:
* an English title
* a short English abstract of 50 to 100 words. The abstracts should be
provided as plain text, and not as file attachments. This abstract
will be used as public description of your submission in the
conference program
* a detailed description (or full paper) of at least one page (300
words or more). This description will not be published unless you want
it, but used for reviewing your submission. Give an overview of the
areas to be covered or taught. State clearly the relevance to the
Wikimedia projects and whether submission concerns a specific wiki
project. You may use any language, but we strongly suggest English or
Chinese. Full descriptions may include a link to a full paper or
slides in HTML or PDF, if available.
* full name, email address, and a short bio of 1–3 sentences for each
author. You may also add wiki usernames and nicknames.
* the type of submission (presentation, poster, workshop, panel, BoF, artistic)
* the language(s) you are going to talk in (or the language of your poster)
Please tell us with your submission whether you will attend to
Wikimania (a) surely, (b) probably, (c) only if your submission is
accepted, or (d) only if we provide travel and/or accommodation.
Additionally, please specify:
* the target audience you are going to reach and what previous
knowledge is needed
* special requirements (such as equipment for a workshop or panel) if needed
* images or sketches of the poster or artistic artifact if available
* for panel submissions short biographies of each suggested panelist
* whether the presentation is intended to be a specific length.
* BoF proposals should describe the significance of and community
interest in the topic, and name the proposed discussion leader(s).
For poster sessions there are additional guidelines:
http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Poster_session
Please note that all submissions must be dual licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License version 1.2 or later and the Creative
Commons Attribution License.
== Submissions ==
Once you are sure you have included all of the required information,
please send your submission by the respective deadline through our
submission system:
http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submission
Please do not send submissions by email. If you need help for
translating your work please visit our translation help page.
Questions, but not submissions, may be directed to cfp(a)wikimedia.org.
== Hacking Days ==
Before the main conference there will also be informal Hacking days
for MediaWiki developers who are familiar with the software, If you
are interested in joining it, please visit:
http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Planning/Hacking_Days_Extra_2007
== See also ==
* About the venue: http://www.cyh.org.tw/
* Brainstorming page for program ideas:
http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Program_Ideas
* Editable list of attendees: http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Attendees
* WikiSym 2007 (October 21-23, 2007, Montreal), an alternative wiki
conference: http://www.wikisym.org/ws2007/
Ladies and gents,
I've not come across this in the past, so am unaware how best to deal
with it, so any thoughts, comments and/or advice is gratefully
appreciated!
There's a bit of an edit war developing in [[Stockport County F.C.]]
as one or more individuals (anon, natch!) have made several attempts
to introduce a "fact" that s/he/they believe to be true (and they
actually have a reference for - albeit merely an assertion that is not
backed up) - namely that the said football club's recent 7-2 home
defeat was the first time the club had conceded seven goals in a home
game.
I know this to be untrue because I have a counter-example.
I have now expanded the "Club Records" section to include the
counter-example, and added a hopefully appropriate reference and
commented on the talk page, but what should I do if the false
statement is added again? I'm conscious of the existence of
[[WP:3RR]]...
J.
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Brian Haws [mailto:brian@bhaws.com]
>Sent: Saturday, April 7, 2007 12:25 PM
>To: ''English Wikipedia''
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Suppression of links to 'attack sites'?
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: wikien-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>[mailto:wikien-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Bryan Derksen
>Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2007 1:13 PM
>To: English Wikipedia
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Suppression of links to 'attack sites'?
>
>>This "violation" is highly dependant on the context in which it's made. You
>can't just find one instance where a link to a web site is
>>used as a personal attack and then declare _all_ links to anything on the
>entire site, used _anywhere_ in Wikipedia, to be a personal
>>attack. I could probably get major news sites like The Register banned
>under this interpretation.
>
>>The hard banning of external sites should be sparingly used and only in
>cases where it's absolutely clear that it's appropriate for all
>>concievable situations. We have human editors with human editorial
>judgement for a reason.
>
>The difference is that WR encourages and promotes the investigation and
>publication of personal information regarding Wikipedia editors. For that
>reasoon, if for no other, is why linking should be banned...
>
>Brian
I guess the distinction is that they don't openly advocate publication of false information.
Fred
This is a new, neat tool that helps you find whether certain US
published books are out of copyright even if they are published after
1923. As most copyright savvy people know, there was a period of time
after that in which copyrights had to be officially renewed to stay
valid, meaning that a lot of works published after that time are
officially in the public domain in the United States. But these are
hard to find, since renewal notices are hard to peruse and in many
cases not machine-searchable at all.
But no longer! Stanford has created a Copyright Renewal Database,
making it quite easy to check if any book published first in the U.S.
between 1923 and 1963 are in the public domain. It could potentially
clear up copyright ambiguities for certain things taken from these
works.
http://collections.stanford.edu/copyrightrenewals/
FF
On [[Latymer Upper School]], one contributor has added, in relation to
the school's new logo/shield:
"No approval was obtained from the [[College of Arms]] for this new
shield, and it is, therefore, unauthorised by the [[Law of Arms]]."
I originally removed it from the article as needing a source, but
replaced it after the contributor in question demonstrated to me on
the talk page that he appears to know what he is talking about -
certainly more than I know about heraldry.
However, is this original research? Or does it follow on naturally
once the Law of Arms is understood? It appears to be a legal opinion,
and I would imagine that any legal opinions should come from a citable
source.
My main concern is that, even if it is true, it would need to be
proved that approval was not in fact obtained, and that could be
difficult to do. My instinct is to remove the statement from the
article again pending this.
--
Earle Martin
http://downlode.org/http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/
> Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2007 13:09:50 -0700
> From: "phoebe ayers" <phoebe.wiki(a)gmail.com>
>
> A nice example :)
>
> Well, the OED, generally recognized as the gold standard in
> etymology, lists
> the first use of the term in a figurative sense ("leading to
> disaster") in
> 1951: *"1951* J.
> FLEMING<http://dictionary.oed.com/help/bib/oed2-f.html#j-fleming>
> *Man who looked Back* x. 132 You go off down the slippery slope;
> it'll do
> you good." There are two more quotations, one from 1964 and one
> form 1979.
> There are of course earlier uses of the phrase but they are not
> meant in the
> same way. Seems to me that to really make your case based on your
> original
> research in the NYT, you'd need to check every single use of the
> citation to
> make sure they were talking about a slippery slope (figuratively,
> as in
> leading to disaster) and not a slippery slope (literally). Did you
> do this?
I made a sort of loosy-goosy due-diligence effort.
There were really two questions here. One was: what are some example
of early uses in its present sense. That's sort of a separate topic.
The second is: despite the fact that there _are_ early uses in its
present sense, its use exploded circa 1980 or so. Based on casual
sampling, virtually all uses after 1980 are in the present figurative
sense. (Before that, quite a lot of them are not).
If I search _only_ for articles in which the phrase "slippery slope"
appears _in the title_, the very first such reference is in 1943, and
is to a literal use: "Dauntless Is the Skier Seeking Snow; The
Uncertainties of Travel Fail to Halt His Quest for Slippery Slopes as
Shown by a Railroad Trip to Snow Valley Above Manchester, Vt." The
next nine span 1963 to 1988, and all are, I claim, I judge, I opine,
the modern use. "Russia and China Edge Down a Slippery Slope;" "The
Nation; U.S. and Cambodia: Down the 'Slippery Slope' Again?;" "On the
Slippery Slope To Another Vietnam," etc.
So, again, what would you do here? State the common-sense inference
("the very first such reference is in 1943, and is to a literal use;
the next nine span 1963 to 1988 and are all the modern use," and give
title, date, and page of all ten in a footnote? Surely not: put
title, date, page of all ten in the article itself?
With regard to the OED and first use in its present sense, why yes, I
know better than that edition of the OED. First of all, William
Safire gives a 1909 example in a 2002 column:
"The key task of the phrasedick is to find earliest uses of
["slippery slope"] in its present sense of "a course that leads
inexorably to disaster." The OED tracks it to a 1951 novel, but new
retrieval technology lets us do better than that.... We have this
1857 use from Chambers' Journal: "When the educated person of the
middle class is reduced to pennilessness... what but this gives him
the desire to struggle again up the slippery slope of fortune?"
In both of these citations, the meaning is closer to "the greasy
pole...." The current sense... probably surfaced in the early 20th
century, possibly in an article by a writer in a 1909 Quarterly
Review, published in London: "the first step down that slippery slope
at the bottom of which lies a parliamentary government."
But new retrieval technology, namely Google Books, lets me do better
than Safire.
I found an 1878 reference by one Bernard O'Reilly: "It is not with
them we are concerned: they will not be taught or reformed; so, they
will go down the steep and slippery slope on which the heartless
move, to perdition!"
I think that's unquestionably an example of usage to mean "a course
that leads inexorably to disaster." (Of course, I'd never draw such
an inference; I'd just quote it and let the reader decide. The
reference is: The Mirror of True Womanhood, A Book of Instruction for
Women in the World, 2nd Edition, Dublin, M. H. Gill and Son,
"Reprinted from the Thirteenth American Edition." p. 136." Actually
the question of the year is complicated because the Google Books
image is from an 1883 edition, but the 1883 edition says it's from
the Thirteenth American Edition, which was published in 1878. Whether
it was in earlier editions I don't know. But it's older than 1951 and
by golly it's older than 1909.
And I found an 1837 reference that does not actually use the phrase
"slippery slope," but does say: "There are points where the Christian
must always stand on guard. His danger is seldom found in gross
offenses... but in small indulgences, and weak compliances, where
conscience rather doubts, than condemns. These gradually draw him
nearer and nearer to the world, till the line of separation is lost.
Many a Christian has glided down this slope to perdition." Osler,
Edward (1837), Church and King," Smith, Elder and Co., London, p. 13
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Earle Martin [mailto:wikipedia@downlode.org]
>Sent: Monday, April 2, 2007 05:35 AM
>To: 'English Wikipedia'
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] Original research or common sense inferral?
>
>On [[Latymer Upper School]], one contributor has added, in relation to
>the school's new logo/shield:
>
>"No approval was obtained from the [[College of Arms]] for this new
>shield, and it is, therefore, unauthorised by the [[Law of Arms]]."
>
>I originally removed it from the article as needing a source, but
>replaced it after the contributor in question demonstrated to me on
>the talk page that he appears to know what he is talking about -
>certainly more than I know about heraldry.
>
>However, is this original research? Or does it follow on naturally
>once the Law of Arms is understood? It appears to be a legal opinion,
>and I would imagine that any legal opinions should come from a citable
>source.
>
>My main concern is that, even if it is true, it would need to be
>proved that approval was not in fact obtained, and that could be
>difficult to do. My instinct is to remove the statement from the
>article again pending this.
>
>
>--
>Earle Martin
It strikes me that this information can be checked. Also, the harm done if it is wrong is minimal.
Fred