On Saturday 23 November 2002 12:39 pm, Tom Parmenter wrote:
> I'm resurrecting this feature request from [[Wikipedia:Village pump]]
> where it is discussed under "Wikipedia Evangelism".
>
> The point raised was the desirability of an easy way to ask a friend
> to comment on the accuracy of an article, or simply to point out an
> interesting article to someone.
>
> How about doing what a lot of news pages do? Add a box at the bottom
> of each article
>
> [] Send this article to a friend
>
> along with a java mailer to fire the message off and a text box to add
> a note. Having a linked mailer would eliminate the necessity of
> firing up a mail program.
This would be a most cool feature. Of course, it would only be available to
logged-in users that have valid email addresses set-up in their preferences.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
Opps! I forgot to add a diff to a list response to JHK to wikiEN-L. Here are a
couple of substantial edits to pay for this mailing list post and the JHK
one;
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Niobium/Temp&diff=0&oldid=440062http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Jimmy_Doolittle&diff=0&oldid=44…
On Saturday 23 November 2002 12:39 pm, Julie Hofmann Kemp wrote:
>....
> Some while back, those of us most interested and most learned in these
> things worked together to come up with a nomenclature policy. We agreed
> that it made the most sense to use the most common English-language
> version of a name (different forms of English notwithstanding) for the
> title BUT, because we all felt it very important to let people know that
> other cultures and language-speakers had different names for the same
> thing, so we listed alternate names in the article itself. This means
> that English-speakers, arguably the largest audience, could search for
> articles in the way most natural to them, but the articles would still
> appear in searches by speakers of other languages searching in those
> languages. I can't see that Lir's political beliefs are valid reasons
> to change this policy
>....
I is wonderful to hear from you again Julie. :-) I also most wholeheartedly
agree with your entire message, especially the above text about our central
naming convention. What is most commonly known and used by English speakers
is the foundation for all our naming conventions and the current attack
against Anglicization would seriously undermine that foundation and lead to
confusion and more work.
In fact Anglicization is really a red herring and not at all needed when we
already have "what is most commonly used by English speakers." I suggest we
merge Anglicization with common English useage because the name of the
convention itself may give the incorrect impression that we /prefer/
Anglicization and translation even in cases where the native form is more
widely used by modern English speakers than an Anglicized or translated
version. But we should also be careful to not make-up our own Anglicized
terms for subjects that are not widely known and used by English speakers and
don't have widely recognized English language forms. This is where our
central naming convention breaks down and we are left with the confusing
choice of alternate native transliterations.
So long as Mein Kampf, Les Miserables, Charlemagne etc are used and recognized
by a majority of English speakers then by all means lets use them so long as
POV or naming conflicts don't get in the way (We can't use Charles the Great
because that is a POV title). What is most widely known and used by English
speakers is all that really matters. Secondary spellings, translations,
transliterations, native forms or Anglicizations should be redirected (at
least eventually) to what most English speakers would recognize and expect.
The article itself should eventually explain just when and where the other
forms are used (but Wikipedia is not a usage guide or dictionary, so these
explanations need to be brief in most cases).
If we don't stick with most common usage by English speakers then our naming
conventions would be confusing mess that will lead to needlessly complex and
foreign names. That isn't at all useful to either readers or writers.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
Larry (writing about cleaning up uncivil talk, etc.)
>http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:The_Cunctator/Bias_Talk
yowza. "what a sports nut, huh?"
That page really doesn't seem conducive to civility either, though,
really? Cunctator gets knocked around quite a bit. Decide for
yourself if you think he deserves it--and Larry, you don't have to
tell me what you think; but really he does. Which hatchet needs
burying? Oh, there are two?
kq
Larry, why so bitter? Haven't I always shown you respect and spoken to you with civility? And people like kq and April and Zoe and elian and Brion and many, many more are so unfailing polite and courteous and helpful, too.
I have more hope than ever for the success of Wikipedia.
Your sifter idea is a great adjunct, by the way. (Magnus said he's going to make me an admin on that project, after the nice things I said about his 0.01 and 0.02 versions of the software.) Everyone will by trying like the dickens to get the coveted "Larry Award" -- the encyclopedic equivalent of a Pulitzer Prize!!
A little refactoring, a little civility -- why, I think we can even get Julie to come back!
Take some time off, smell the flowers, and then jump in again: the water's fine!!!
Ed Poor
(As a warning to others, wikien-l(a)nupedia.com goes into a black hole. The
old lists work at both @nupedia.com and @wikipedia.org. Jason, can you
fix this?)
Ultimately, I would say that it is perfectly o.k. to ban people if,
after a reasonable period of time, they appear to be unwilling or
unable to work together with others in a collegial spirit of mutual
respect.
Wikipedia is not Usenet. It is not the right place for people to
attempt to put forward particular ideological positions. It is
important for all ideological positions to be put forward in a fair
manner, and it is therefore valid for people with a particular
ideology to work on Wikipedia to ensure that their viewpoint is fairly
represented. But the essential here is that people from all
viewpoints should be working towards NPOV. To fail to do so is to
fail to work together with others in a collegial spirit of mutual
respect.
Wikipedia is not a joke book. User names like Throbbing Monster Cock
are inappropriate. TMC's contributions have been perfectly o.k., as
far as I know, but his name is clearly chosen in an attempt to be
funny or (likely) to deliberately annoy people. TMC has argued that
changing his name is tantamount to the use of force against him. This
argument is stupid, because he has no property interest in his
username, but if he wishes to press it, he should write to me
personally about it, as this was my decision.
We should take great care to ensure a diversity of contributors. We
should take great care that people are not banned for making policy
proposals that are annoying to us. We should take great care that
people are not banned too soon, even for breaking the rules.
For ip addresses, anonymous contributions, we should continue our
policy of banning them for simple vandalism at the slightest
provocation.
For usernames, we should be more forgiving, but only because the fact
that someone has taken the effort to login suggests that there is some
hope of sincerity. Even so, simple vandlism is ample grounds for a
ban.
The more difficult cases are cases like Lir, or TMC. TMC has
committed only one violation -- the selection of a deliberately
annoying username. His contributions are, apparently and to date, not
bad. Lir, on the other hand, has been uncollegial and rude to others
on multiple occassions, and has received ample warning.
--Jimbo
I agree with tarquin about cleaning up talk pages and refactoring. Some other wikis place the article text at the top of the page, with discussion following. And every once in a while someone will refactor EVEN THE TALK PART.
Of course, on Ward's Wiki there is or was a preponderance of programmers into XP which uses refactoring like Americans use ketchup!
Refactoring is a lot of work, but like archiving old talk it's usually appreciated.
Ed Poor
On Thursday 21 November 2002 12:44 am, Toby Bartels wrote:
> NPOV, of course, has nothing to do with this (despite what Lir says).
> As you know, NPOV doesn't mean the majority point of view.
> It means presenting every point of view in a manner fair to it.
Key words "in a manner fair to it". In my world view what is most "fair" in
terms of NPOV is to express majority opinions as majority opinions and
minority ones as minority. This also affects the amount of text we give to
any particular opinion in an article. So majority opinions get majority time.
Therefore if something is known by a particular name by the great majority of
English speakers we should reflect this fact in our choice of what to name
the article. So yes, NPOV does most certainly apply.
> A truly NPOV title would be [[The city known to its residents as
> "München" but commonly called "Munich" in English,
> and which some people argue that we should talk about
> in an article entitled "München" becuase <blah blah blah>
> but which others argue that we should talk about
> in an article entitled "Munich" because <yada yada yada>]].
> But we can't do this, so we pick one or the other.
> Either is an equally POV choice (since the majority POV
> is as much a POV as going to the original name is),
> which is why we use naming *conventions* instead.
Either is /not/ equally POV. See above. And the description of things go into
the articles themselves, not in titles so that anti-argument is no argument
at all.
> Under the current plan we also have to delve into linguistic usage
> (not *wars* that I can see, but I don't anticipate those in any case),
> to decide which usage is most common. That's an issue of linguistic usage.
Eh? Finding out what most English speakers actually use is much easier than
having to research what the residents of where the term is derived use it.
Their language evolves too, just like ours. Should we use what they call the
term now, back when the term was coined or some arbitrary date inbetween?
There will also be different spellings and different use of diacriticals to
deal with, not to mention competing terms. How in the world can an
English-only speaker sort this out? The proposed plan is asking way too much
and the more I argue about it the more I am convinced that it would be a very
very bad thing to do.
> I don't know about Lir, but I don't propose such a thing,
> because "mammal" is a common noun, not a proper noun.
> I certainly don't want to change all of our article titles
> back to Proto-Indo-European ^_^!
Well that is the road we will be heading down if this convention takes hold. I
for one will fight tirelessly to stop this from happening. Already there is a
continuum of opinion on how such a convention would work; Lir on the extreme
"all anglicization is bad" end, you in the middle and Ec on the more liberal
and IMO sane side.
> >There is also
> >article rankings by Google to take into consideration: Articles that have
> > the searched-for name in the title are ranked higher. Why should we
> > purposely reduce article rankings and therefore reduce the reach of our
> > content?
>
> This is definitely the best point that I've seen so far.
> You can tell, because I don't have any response to it ^_^!
> I'll have to think about that.
The "Google question" is an important point to consider.
Below are some questions that you haven't answered yet to my recollection.:
1) There is also the fact that the proposed change absolutely requires the use
of a technological fix to work (namely redirects). How is it less complicated
when redirects are absolutely required? Not to mention the fact that the
current display of redirects is rather ugly after following them. To fix this
would require yet another technological fix.
2) Google's language tools can be used as an objective measure of widest usage
whereas the proposed plan depends on subjective choices between different
more native transliterations and language sets.
3) How is it more NPOV when it shuns widest English usage for a minority
naming scheme?
4) What about the audience: How is it more useful for them to use words they
can't pronounce, spell or are familiar with?
6) What about the writers: How is it more useful for them to have articles
that they can't link to directly (or at all when redirects are not made)?
Also, most English speakers do not know how to make the more elaborate
diacrtic marks with their keyboard. So they will have to copy and paste to
make direct links. How is that at all user-friendly?
7) How would the proposed system not cause a chilling effect by favoring
titles that most English speakers don't know? Remember: "Otherwise somebody
will come by later and move the article and probably chide the original
author for their Anglo-centric based ignorance." Just because you won't do
it, doesn't mean that others will be so nice.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
It occurs to me that it is possible that some may have mistaken my
disagreement with Larry about the state of the wikipedia might be
misunderstood as a disagreement with his basic position, with which I
have very little disagreement at all.
I fully support his efforts to find ways to raise the quality of
wikipedia, and to make it more hospitable to experts. The only thing
I disagree with him in is his evaluation of how that debate is going:
I think he's winning, and has the support of almost every regular --
in goal, if not in all aspects of methodology.
I don't think there's a single regular on this mailing list who would
disagree that low quality contributions are bad, or that we should
find ways to minimize the pain that serious contributors have in
dealing with people who are obnoxious, stupid, trying to be funny,
biased, etc.
There is disagreement on methodology, and varying degrees of support
(from *zero* to *considerable*) for a more extensive use of banning.
But even within that disagreement, there is broad support for some
general principles, such as that banning is both undesirable (because
it would be better to let the wasps just fly out the window) *and* an
unfortunate necessity at times.
I think things are going pretty well, and that slow change is a good
thing.
--Jimbo
Everyone,
This is the kind of praise that makes me think my wikimoderation is a Good Thing:
<< Hi Ed - of course I know who you are ;-) Thanks for your words, although I don't think, that I deserve the praise. Now I feel like having overreacted in that case. At that time Mirsa just repeated her edit again and again without any comment - so I took her actions for vandalism, probably erroneously. Let me say, that I was really impressed about the way, you settled the yesterday dispute on the Wagner article. I really appreciate your tolerance and patience against other users - much more patience than I would use to have, unfortunately. In this case your way to settle the dispute was a nice success. I will learn my lesson and next time be less abusive against a newbie - I promise ;-) -- Cordyph >>
Ed Poor