O.k., I hereby proclaim the following:
> * We will not tolerate biased content. The neutral point of view is not
> open to vote; it's decided. If you don't like it, go somewhere else.
>
> * There are certain other policies as well that basically define us as a
> community. We have arrived at them by broad consensus, and they should be
> respected. Wikipedians working in good faith should feel empowered to
> enforce those policies. They shouldn't have to apologize for doing so!
>
> * We will not stop banning vandals. We should seek out the best ways we
> know how to make sure that non-vandals are not lumped in with the vandals,
> but please stop talking as if we'll just stop banning them, because it
> ain't gonna happen.
>
> * We try to help newcomers who want to contribute but don't quite
> understand the body of good habits (and rules) we've built up. But we
> should not and *will* not tolerate forever people who are essentially
> attempting to undermine the system. See below.
>
> * To whatever extent we are or are not, or should be, a democracy, the
> following is also true. We are a benevolent monarchy ruled by a
> "constitution" or, anyway, a developing body of common law that is not
> open to interpretation, but not vote. This has been the case from the
> beginning, and we aren't going to change that.
None of this is new.
> In addition to this, it would help a LOT for you to solicit draft
> statements of policy regarding clear circumstances in which people can be
> banned for being really egregiously difficult. There has to be a
> *reasonably* clear line drawn that distinguishes difficult but
> on-the-whole useful contributors, on the one hand, from contributors so
> egregiously difficult that the project suffers from their continued
> presence. The policy should codify, for example, the reasons why we did
> ban 24 and Helga, and the reasons why we might ban Lir. Let's have a
> discussion about this, bearing in mind that one option that is *not* on
> the table is that we might decide *not* to ban people for their trollish
> behavior at all. We definitely will, so let's make the policy clearer.
> You could start the discussion and make it clear that at some point soon,
> we *will* determine a policy.
>
> I don't mean to put words in your mouth of course. I'm just saying that,
> IMO, Wikipedia is really suffering, and even losing people. You're in a
> position to help embolden the most productive members of the project, who
> it seems to me are, in at least some cases, getting very discouraged.
I agree with all of this, except with your diagnosis of the current
situation. Can you show me examples of "anarchists" who are arguing
that we "we might decide *not* to ban people for their trollish
behavior at all"?
--Jimbo
On Thursday 21 November 2002 12:41 am, Magnus Manske wrote:
> With redirects, we can catch all common spellings. The idea is that when
> someone who doesn't know the "correct" spelling (if there is such a
> thing) links to a topic, (s)he will use, with some likelyhood, the most
> common spelling. On the English wikipedia, that's the most common one
> *in English*. So, we'd want to put the article under that spelling, as
> to avoid redirects as much as possible when reading the 'pedia.
Thank you Magnus, that is the main point I've been trying to get across for
some time now. It is also one of the main reasons why my preemptive city
naming convention was never adopted - It is simply stupid and not at all
useful for have an article about the Paris in France at [[Paris, France]]
when the great majority of links to it are through the redirect [[Paris]].
Redirects are also ugly and uninformative in the search results. Their byte
counts show up as tiny and no text is displayed below them. This isn't
useful. Articles should be where they are most likely to be searched for.
External search engines like Google will also rank an article lower at a
non-English title linked via an English redirect for searches for the English
term because our article will not have the H1 title in the searched for
English term (which is going to be the most common thing that English
speakers will be searching for).
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
It is my impression that too many intelligent people spend way too
much energy on this list arguing in circles. This energy would be
better spent improving Wikipedia articles, hence the New Rule.
The New Rule
============
1. For every posting on one of Wikipedia's mailing lists, a
substantial edit to a Wikipedia article has to be made.
2. Any substantial edit can only be used for one mailing list
message.
3. The substantial edit has to have occurred within 24 hours
of the posting of the mailing list message.
4. Proof of the substantial edit is to be attached to the posting,
as link to the corresponding diff.
Notes
=====
* The New Rule is fully enforced policy and goes into
effect immediately.
* There will be no discussion, and no voting.
* As always, everybody is free to ignore the New Rule.
* I do not have a definition of "substantial edit".
* No action by Jimbo is required at this time.
Axel
P.S. http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Hilbert%27s_Nullstellensatz&dif…
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Given the trashing of Lomborg by Scientific American and the faking of
data for grant money, there is plainly a need for NPOV in science as
well as in politics.
Researcher A says there's a warming trend; researcher B says there
isn't. And C says the sunspot cycle correlates with temperature more
closely than carbon dioxide level does; while agency D never mentions
the sunspot cycle in any of their reports.
So much of what "we all know" often turns out to be propaganda. My hope
is that by naming the voices in the clamor, we can give listeners a
chance to discern the voice of reason. We'll lead them to the water, but
we shouldn't force them to drink it.
Ed Poor
Anthere, vous avais raison.
Ah, excusez-moi, nous sommes chez wikipedia anglais.
What I mean, Anthere, is that you are right: there is controversy about life on Mars. The part all scientists agree on, is that Mars is a planet.
As for the battles and distortions, we need only look at the global warming issue.
Ed Poor (aka [[user:Edmond Le Pauvre]])
The chief difference between science and politics is that most of the people who publish scholarly articles on scientific subjects are on a quest for verifiable knowledge, while most people who write about politics are partisans, purely promoting their point of view for selfish or party gain.
In science, there is a gentleman's agreement to share data and to replicate one another's findings, for the express purpose of adding to human knowledge. That's why there are no edit wars about the [[Mars]] article.
In politics, every sovereign nation places its "national interests" above all other considerations. Nations are perfectly willing to lie, cheat and murder.
How can you jump from discussion of the partisanship of politics to the cooperation inherent in science so glibly?
Ed Poor
Clutch wrote:
> We should be more concerned with presenting facts than with opinions.
> People turn to an Encyclopedia to find out the truth about things.
Just
> regurgitating "what everyone knows" is counter-productive when actual
> facts exist.
>
> Believe it or not, NPOV requires the facts to be presented wherever
> possible, instead of opinions.
Okay, then the facts are:
* Arabs want to eliminate Israel completely.
* There are no "Palestinians" other than Palestinian Arabs
* Jordan *is* the Palestinian state.
* Propagandists like you think lying and murdering are justified.
Now that we're all agreed on that, RK and I will go ahead and ....
Huh? What's that you say? Those aren't the facts?
What are they, then? Just my opinion?
Golly, it sounds like you and I can't agree on what the facts are, even
if we both agree that we should present the facts wherever possible.
So what can we do? I guess we have to agree to disagree, and just say
that Source A thinks the facts are X, and Source B thinks the facts are
Y.
Which is exactly where we were before.
On controversial topics, such as politics, all we can ever say with
certainty is that X said Y about Z. Even then, sometimes X turns around
and says Y2 about Z later on!
In a spirit of collegial cooperation,
Ed Poor
The Wikipedia should not say that most of the Arab world firmly believes
ANYTHING, unless there has been a survey or something. Rather, it should
say,
* Leader X of country Y has repeatedly announced...
* Newspaper A of country B often prints editorials saying...
Which I think is what the articles do say.
Do you support NPOV?
And what is your user name on Wikipedia? I'm getting confused about who
is who.
Ed Poor, aka [[user:Ed Poor]]