Since I posted this as an update to my comments in the RFC in
question, I thought I'd do it here too:
I have to start by apologizing for the tone of my earlier piece;
whatever my beliefs may be about other editors, pursuing grudges in a
nasty way is not the best of human behavior, and I need to always
remember to assume good faith. Also, I don't always understand all of
the facts behind complex disputes, so sometimes I may be mistaken, as
Cla68 seems to have been regarding several of his own actions here. I
think his putting of Weiss up for deletion was a silly move; although
the policy at the time might be readable to cover it, deleting an
article about a notable person just because there have been possible
conflicts of interest in its past editing doesn't seem to be the best
practice. I'll try to assume good faith about everyone involved, as
much as possible, and hope they'll do the same and not overreact to
anybody else's actions that seem to resemble or recall those of a
hated troll. *Dan T.* 22:36, 3 June 2007 (UTC) (P.S.: Is Gary Weiss
any relation to investment newsletter publisher Martin Weiss? Before
getting into this whole controversy here, I'd heard of the latter,
but not the former.)
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
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On 3 Jun 2007 at 15:30:17 -0400, jayjg <jayjg99(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> I find it of interest that you so thoroughly misconstrued the
> incidents in question, and filled the RFC itself with a rather vicious
> rant/personal attack, seemingly without shame, and carry it forward to
> this list:
Sometimes it's necessary to stand up against bullies, even a whole
clique of them, and even if it gets me in trouble in return.
I'm not out to "out" the users I'm criticizing; I don't give a darn
who they are in real life, just how they behave on-wiki. I'm not out
to harrass or personally-attack them either, but I'm not about to
stand by and let them form tag-teams to harrass and ban anybody who
looks at them the wrong way, either, or to get their way on policy
issues (such as the whole "BADSITES" thing).
[[User:Ptmccain]] seems to be another victim of this.
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
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On 3 Jun 2007 at 21:30:47 +0200, Eugene van der Pijll
<eugene(a)vanderpijll.nl> wrote:
> No, apart from [[WP:IDONTLIKEIT]], [[WP:BLP]], [[WP:NPA]], [[WP:FU]] and
> [[WP:NOT]], there was not a single reason for deletion of these pages,
Or [[WP:EIEIO]], which, I believe, is the policy on farm-related
articles.
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
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Consider, for a moment, this edit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Addams_Family_%28pinball%29&d…
It is a minor modification to our description of "The Addams Family"
pinball machine. Because I happen to own one of those machines, I know
that this edit is partly right but almost certainly partly wrong.
However, I haven't played it much lately, so my first instinct was to
commit the grievous sin of original research by playing a few games.
In thinking about this further, there are whole classes of article just
like this one, full of uncited information that is probably original
research. The unifying characteristics seem to be:
1. If the article is somewhat inaccurate, there is little risk of
real-world harm,
2. The topic is of relatively low importance,
3. Having something on the topic is a net benefit to our readers, and
4. There is a wide enough base of people with knowledge of the topic
that the article can generally be verified from collective
personal experience.
Personally, I think these articles are worth keeping. Our readers get
information they want. It also seems like a good place for newbies to
contribute: it's a topic they are interested in, there is plenty for
them to fix, and if they don't get it exactly right they won't
immediately be reverted and slapped with a talk page notice containing
eight links to policy shortcuts as they would on, say, [[Evolution]].
As far as I can tell, though, there is no written policy or guideline
for this kind of thing. Is that the case? It's probably for the best,
honestly, as they are doing fine without it, and I imagine creating a
special exception for this kind of thing would lead to all sorts of
disruptive wikilawyering.
Regardless, I thought it was interesting how much has been built in the
outskirts of our metropolis. Not up to our building codes, but not a big
problem, and better than nothing.
William
Jeffrey O Gufstason's unilateral action to delete nearly all of
WP:BJAODN was an extreme act of admin abuse. I find it bizarre that he
is not being sanctioned.
On 3 Jun 2007 at 19:08:00 +0100, Guy Chapman aka JzG
<guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net> wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Cla68
>
> Cla68 would like to open a debate on Wiki about this, seems eminently
> sensible, please feel free to pitch in.
I found it of interest, in the incident from December that this RfC
centers on, that Mantanmoreland was insisting that Cla68 be blocked
for making a mistaken accusation of sockpuppetry with regard to him
and another user (based on a misunderstanding of another message
thread), while Mantanmoreland himself is profligous with accusations
of sockpuppetry, meatpuppetry, and trolling with regard to people who
end up at odds with him in a dispute (he did some of that at the very
same time he was regarding it as an inexcusable offense to make that
sort of accusation at *him*). He gets so much mileage out of the
fact that he was at one point trolled by "WordBomb" (an apparent
single-purpose trolling account that was banned after a very short
"career") that, if it were a frequent-flyer program, he'd have
several free trips already -- people who criticize him are likely to
end up on the receiving end of his accusations that they're a
"sock/meatpuppet of a banned user".
So I ask... is there a double standard on Wikipedia, where there's an
"untouchable" caste that gets to hurl accusations freely, but can
suppress anybody who does the same back at *them*?
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
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On 5/25/07, Sean Barrett <sean(a)epoptic.com> wrote:
>
> I seem to recall a page of requested images but I can't recall where.
> Can someone point it out to me?
>
> More specifically, if your favorite hypothetical person were about to be
> punished by cruel fate with spending the week of 18-25 June at [[le
> Bourget airport]], is there anything in particular would you want him to
> try to photograph?
>
> --
> Sean Barrett | If we can't say "fuck," how can we say
> sean(a)epoptic.com | "fuck the government"? --George Carlin
Photograph native plants with their names at botanical gardens--close up of
flower, of leaf, of branch, portrait of entire plant. Post on Wikipedia
talk:WikiProject Tree of Life or my talk page (User talk:KP Botany).
Take this as a standing request for all list members.
And, please, more than anything, anyone who happens to go anywhere near New
Caledonia or know anyone who knows anyone whose third cousin thrice removed
married the daughter of someone who's uncle's sister moved to New Caledonia,
please please please get a picture of *Amborella*! It's beautiful leaves
would be fine, a plant in its native environment would be stunning, but only
if without causing environmental damage. Flowers would be to dream the
impossible dream, you don't even have to know if they're male or female.
Just please get the picture of *Amborella trichopoda*.
KP
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/SOSChildrenUK2007
It's sorta related to the 0.5 CD, but with a particular aim in mind.
SOS Children did most of the work, WMF says "here's a logo and
blessings."
Andrew Cates happens to be en:wp admin [[User:BozMo]] as well :-)
- d.
SOS Children UK and the Wikimedia Foundation announce the launch of
the Wikipedia Selection for Schools
29th May 2007: SOS Children UK, in coordination with the Wikimedia
Foundation, have launched the Wikipedia Selection for Schools. The
Selection DVD has the content of a 15 volume encyclopaedia - with
24,000 pictures, 14 million words and articles on 4,625 topics. It
includes the best of Wikipedia, and many thousands of pages of extra
material specifically selected to be of interest to children aged 8-17
who follow the UK National Curriculum and similar curricula elsewhere
in the world.
Florence Devouard, chair of the Wikimedia Foundation, said: "The
Wikimedia Foundation aims to encourage the development and
distribution of reference content to the public free of charge: this
project is an excellent example of free resources being offered to a
particular audience which we warmly encourage, and are proud to
support."
Dr Andrew Cates, CEO of SOS Children (and himself a Wikipedia
administrator) said: "Wikipedia offers a fantastic learning resource.
We are delighted to have been able to play a part in increasing the
number of children who will be able to benefit from it. We are
indebted to the volunteers in our offices and on Wikipedia who helped
check articles and to the Wikipedia community for their help with this
project."
The Selection can easily be run on school intranets or in remote
locations in the developing world where Internet access is a problem.
A pilot version of this release has already been distributed to
schools in South Africa by the Shuttleworth Foundation. It is intended
to extend and update the Selection periodically.
SOS Children is best known as the world's largest orphan charity (UK
Charity No. 1069204) but is also a very large educational charity
running 192 schools with 91,000 pupils in the developing world. See
www.soschildren.org
The Wikimedia Foundation Inc. is a US non-profit charitable
organisation dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and
distribution of free, multilingual content, and to providing the full
content of these wiki-based projects to the public free of charge. The
Wikimedia Foundation operates some of the largest collaboratively
edited reference projects in the world, including Wikipedia, one of
the 10 most visited websites in the world.
Summary points:
* The selection is organised around National Curriculum subjects
* The articles have been cleaned up and checked for suitability
for and usefulness to children
* Website: http://schools-wikipedia.org ;
* Downloads
http://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk/charity-news/wikipedia-for-schools.h…
* Available for free as BitTorrent full download (3.5GB with full
size images) standard download (1GB with only thumbnail images) or on
DVD from the charity's offices in Cambridge.
There has been recent public discussion, started by the Education
Secretary, on the suitability of Wikipedia for UK schools. Many
articles on the live Wikipedia website are of acceptable quality and
accuracy. This Selection aims to correct the remaining criticisms made
of Wikipedia as a school resource:
* the Selection has been screened;
* the Selection cannot be vandalized;
* children cannot "meet" adults there;
* there are no very explicit articles or content. (The most
detailed article is
http://schools-wikipedia.org/wp/b/Birth_control.htm , which has been
kept technical and neutral).
Note: The Wikipedia Selection for Schools is a separate project from
the recent 0.5 Release Version of Wikipedia, although they share
technology and volunteers. The Selection is about twice the size, and
aims to give a fairly complete selection of articles of direct
interest to school children or of direct relevance to the National
Curriculum. It is entirely free, and has no commercial advertising.
Contact:
* David Gerard, UK media contact, Wikimedia Foundation:
wp(a)davidgerard.co.uk, +44 7733 223584
* Andrew Cates, CEO, SOS Children UK: andrew(a)soschildren.org, +44
1223 365589 mobile 07963 986751
* Chrissy Davey, Press Officer, SOS Children UK:
chrissy(a)soschildren.org, +44 1223 365589