You don't deserve originality.
Give up, pal.
2009/5/5 Bill Carter <billdeancarter(a)yahoo.com>:
> I was being sly. You must've been following Wikipedia's guidelines against
> originality when you came up with that laugher. "Oh, there is? I don't think
> you've told us about it." Poor you.
>
> Bill
>
> ________________________________
> From: James Farrar <james.farrar(a)gmail.com>
> To: Bill Carter <billdeancarter(a)yahoo.com>
> Sent: Monday, May 4, 2009 4:31:32 PM
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Notability in Wikipedia
>
> Do you have a birthday soon? I'll buy you an irony meter - you appear
> to need one.
>
> 2009/5/3 Bill Carter <billdeancarter(a)yahoo.com>:
>> You had to be around last month. Suffice to say, there is even a Knol
>> about
>> Alan Cabal now adapted from Schmidt's article:
>>
>> http://knol.google.com/k/jennifer-pelham/alan-cabal/
>>
>> My Squidoo lens has a lot of original research so it's a different animal:
>>
>> http://www.squidoo.com/Alan-Cabal
>>
>> Wikipedia is just ridiculous. Not having an article about Alan Cabal
>> should
>> remain one of its silliest decisions for years to come. I'm quite glad to
>> keep on bringing it up and DARING people to write one about Alan Cabal.
>>
>> Let the games continue
>>
>> Best,
>> Bill
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: James Farrar <james.farrar(a)gmail.com>
>> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
>> Sent: Saturday, May 2, 2009 2:25:09 AM
>> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Notability in Wikipedia
>>
>> 2009/4/28 Bill Carter <billdeancarter(a)yahoo.com>:
>>> Notability in Wikipedia is a joke, as is NPOV. Need I remind you about
>>> the
>>> article about Alan Cabal that is waiting to reach mainspace?
>>
>> Oh, there is? I don't think you've told us about it.
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>>
>
>
In a message dated 4/27/2009 11:12:44 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
saintonge(a)telus.net writes:
> Yes, and, absent any agreement to the contrary, any one of those same
> authors may grant a free licence.>>
--------
I'm very suspicious of this claim.
If I and seven other own a piece of property, I alone cannot sell it to a
prospective buyer. The same would hold of copyright. Although each owner
has a copyright, a single owner cannot grant away the entire right to a third
party.
Will Johnson
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In a message dated 5/2/2009 1:16:39 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
oskarsigvardsson(a)gmail.com writes:
> It's entirely plausible to conceive of a world where
> wikipedia didn't exist and Encarta would be listed as the first hit
> when you searched for "James Clerk Maxwell", or whatever you were
> interested in. The reason that they're not is simply because Wikipedia
> is better.>>
>
--------------------
I don't know if I buy the implication that the first hit is the one people
*like*. Often on the first page of hits I will pick the second, third, or
fifth one, simply because I recognize it as a quality link. Oftentimes the
first hit I recognize right away as something that going to be useless for
me.
Will
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2009/5/2 Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org>:
> On Sat, May 2, 2009 at 10:51 AM, Gwern Branwen <gwern0(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> What he's getting at is he's trying for the proof that
>> charitableness ⊃ tax-breaks
>> ~tax-breaks
>> ∴ ~charitableness.
>>
>> Which is of course a formally invalid proof, but nevertheless the hope
>> is that the reader will conclude that because the tax-man has adjudged
>> Wikipedia not worthy of tax-breaks, that Wikipedia is not a charitable
>> enterprise.
>
> I thought he was going on the fact that the tax-man has adjudged that "The
> production of an encyclopaedia is not the charitable advancement of
> education..." to conclude that, "according to the UK tax man",
> "Wiki-fiddling isn't a charitable activity".
That's a reasonable interpretation too, but the broader interpretation
is simpler, less nuanced, and more damning of Wikipedia - and so the
preferred interpretation by trolls.
>> That this is wrong is obvious once you know that not all
>> charitable things get breaks - for example, I understand that one way
>> in the US to fail 401(c) status is to get too much funding from one
>> place (the 'public support' test, or whatever it is).
>
> That's incorrect in too many ways for me to salvage. Read sections 501 and
> 509 of the Internal Revenue Code and get back to us.
I've never claimed to be a tax expert; '401(c)' is close enough to
'501(c)' for me.
Is my essential point, that some organization can be perfectly fine &
charitable without qualifying for the particular status (that the
Chapter was trying for), 'incorrect in too many ways' ?
--
gwern
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Thought I might link the latest Orlowski 'article'.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/27/wikipedia_charity_not/
"Wiki-fiddling isn't a charitable activity, according to the UK tax
man. Revenue and Customs is denying tax privileges that go with
charity status to Wikimedia UK, or Wiki UK Limited, as it's officially
registered."
Any article that start with an insult, you know it's going to be good!
(Also, some carelessness - is the capitalization really so hard to get
right?)
Worth noting also is the quiet little redefinition - something isn't
charitable activity unless it can get tax breaks.
'Wikimedia requested that because it is "disseminating knowledge", the
operating company should receive charitable tax perks, stating its
objective is to "aid and encourage people to collect, develop and
effectively disseminate knowledge and other educational, cultural and
historic content in the public domain or under a license that allows
everyone to freely use, distribute and modify content... [blah blah]"'
Scare quotes, belittling phrases ('charitable tax perks'? seriously);
the second quote is neutral, but one could be forgiven for not even
noticing that due to the insert of 'blah blah'. A more charitable
person would understand that all those terms are very specific and
there for a reason. Of course, a more charitable person would be
writhing in utter shame that they are Orlowski.
"Alas, the tax man didn't agree that merely curating and publishing
the world's most intensely-edited [citation needed] compendium of
Lightsaber combat and female pornographic film actors doesn't count as
education."
Not particularly stylish a variant of this hoary old criticism; and
not even correct. We amputated our lightsaber coverage with a chainsaw
and shot the bloody stumps over to Wookieepedia a long time ago.
(Although I'll admit to not knowing how meritorious our porn coverage
is.)
'"The production of an encyclopaedia is not the charitable advancement
of education and has not been accepted as such in law... If the object
[should] be the mere increase of knowledge it is not in itself a
charitable object unless it is combined with teaching or education,"
Customs responded in declining the request.
Harsh, or what?'
Perhaps. But then, as an American unacquainted with British charity
laws, this sounds to me like 'we've never supported encyclopedias, and
we have no mandate to start now'; which while arguably unfair and
silly isn't particularly harsh. 'Just doing my job, ma'am.'
"The problem could be solved if, as everyone expects, Wikipedia
becomes a commercial operation that doesn't need charitable status.
Bono-backed VC company Elevation Partners has chucked $1.35m at
Wikipedia, and the Mozilla Foundation provides a workable legal
precedent: a non-profit with a commercial wing. License changes are
currently being mooted."
This is actually my favorite paragraph in the entire piece. There's so
much to like about it! There's a subtle touch in saying 'Bono-backed'
- - it's utterly irrelevant, of course, but it immediately brings
associations of Hollywood and sneering liberals and ineffective social
policies and aid expenditures and staleness. There's a foisting of
views; 'everyone expects' Wikipedia to become a commercial operation?
Indeed.
And then there's that last line. Again we have an exquisite word
choice. The license changes could be 'voted upon', or less
informatively, 'discussed' or 'considered'. But instead we have
'mooted', with its connotations of snootyness and academia. Not to
mention that we are clearly led to believe the license changes will
facilitate such conversion, by sheer juxtaposition if nothing else.
(Although I have been educated stupid by my readings of the GFDL and
CC licenses, and so cannot appreciate just how CC-BY-SA will enable
the enrichment of Elevation Partners, that they may continue to light
their cigars with Benjamin in the manner to which they have accustomed
themselves.)
"But for now, the fiddlers could find ways of making the operation
look more edukashnul and that. We suggest Wikia UK establish a British
School of Fiddling, in which the public can be tutored in the
labyrinthine layers of bureaucracy required to have their edits to
"the Encyclopedia anybody can edit" rejected."
And a final salvo. I take off some points here for invoking fiddling
twice; it's not stylish, as it was already used in the lead. Three
times in an article is just tedious. 'edukashnul' gets some points for
having no apparent target - at least, I can't figure out who the
spleen is directed at. The government? The chapter? The Foundation?
Otherwise, good rhetoric in the figure of a School of Fiddling.
A jolly enjoyable read! My day would surely have been less enjoyable
without Orlowski's latest. With enemies like these, who needs friends?
- --
gwern
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In a message dated 4/27/2009 11:27:27 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
carcharothwp(a)googlemail.com writes:
> "Yes, the sources we have are unlikely to be wrong about the
> architectural merits, and quite possibly the building will be
> mentioned in some other local history books - it is just that this
> won't google up."
>
> Doc's saying that people delete based on Google results.>>
---------------
Google Books changes everything.
If they delete based on Google and fail to search Google Books for items of
historical note then they are acting without a duty of actual research.
I'm not saying that people should delete based on Google results in the
first place. In fact I am the one who put that note on historical subjects
into the policy in the first place a few years back. Subjects who are not
necessarily currently talked-up might have been quite the popular rage back in
1920 or 1920 or 1420, and should not be deleted based on current Google
searches.
With Google Books we can now allow the Chair Potato to see that for
themselves.
Will Johnson
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