On 4/1/07, doc <doc.wikipedia(a)ntlworld.com> wrote: There is a small but dedicated group of editors who think that these small bios are rather important to Wikipedia--in fact, I think they are where Wikipedia can shine. Please don't throw our work in the trash. Check out Daniel Rodriguez sometimes, for example, and look at the tooth pulling we had to do to polish this article up. The problem, imo, is the lack of notice of these articles, and the cat fights at AfD for anybody who doesn't have a ten-page spread in Britannica. It's too small to be a FA, and GA status is not much. It will never be on the front page, and fighting its owner to just improve the English, much less the content of the article took down at least 3 editors and an admin. The editors have to fight to keep in the small biographies all of the time by the deletionists (and yes, they exist), they're not often adopted by projects, again because they're not big names. We don't crap at "low-notability controversial subject, particularly bios." It's just the editors can't spend all their time fighting every single thing about the article and produce a good article. The person who put this article up attacked me and two other editors for every edit we made, no matter how dramatically it improved the article. The article was an unreadable piece of shit to begin with. We had to fight in AfD to keep it on Wikipedia at all. Rodriguez isn't particularly controversial, other than whether he's notable at all, but I offered a sound solution to the recent bio on what's her name and the use of blogs, namely quote from the blogs and then show the blogs are notable because OTHERS have quoted from them, but it was ignored. Wikipedia and this list both have a lot of inertia. The ideas are there, the people are there, but they're being ignored. So are the small biographies, unless and until someone complains or edit wars about them. This is an area where Wikipedia can, and imo, should shine, because you can't find this type of information in one place elsewhere on the web, succinct, well-researched and good biographies of minor notables. I think minor biographies of living people should be featured on the front page, just like FA, get all those award chasers interested in them, show people Wikipedia cares about biographies of living people. Strike out, again, in solitude against the big boy encyclopedias, by showing what you can do on the web that you can't do in print, namely include lots of minor notables, polish them up, and display them proudly. There's too much reactionary response to supposed crisis. KP

On 4/1/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner(a)gmail.com> wrote: For that matter, Hofstadter never claimed there was a contradiction. He said the entry on him "is filled with inaccuracies". Even if he *did* mean to imply that the statement about inspiring many students was one of those inaccuracies, he's still claiming there are many others. That said, I just removed the statement about inspiring students, as it was anecdotal and lacked sources. If someone cares to present a reliable source which claims that Hofstadter has inspired many students to begin careers in computing and AI, feel free to add it back with a citation. So, I fixed it. Want to make a bet someone comes along and fixes it back? Anthony

Date: Sun, 01 Apr 2007 13:27:10 -0400 In-Reply-To: <71cd4dd90704010936y9d283carf7b8771a94c07423(a)mail.gmail.com> (Anthony's message of "Sun, 1 Apr 2007 12:36:59 -0400") Message-ID: <86ejn4kntd.fsf_-_(a)elan.rh.rit.edu> User-Agent: Gnus/5.110006 (No Gnus v0.6) Emacs/22.0.95 (gnu/linux) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed --text follows this line-- Anthony <wikilegal(a)inbox.org> writes: many intelligence. contradiction. he students many students, as present a it fixes it back? It should be fixed back. I urge everyone who is interested in this thread to take a look at the Hofstadter talk page where I've been working on this since yesterday: there is a Wired interview from '95 where Hofstadter himself says that his book has so inspired people. It is something "everyone knows" because it has achieved the status of cliche; inspiring people is sort of what GEB does. -- Gwern Inquiring minds want to know.

On 4/1/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner(a)gmail.com> wrote: Following AGF, I would agree with you somewhat on just about everything, except articles about people who are still converting oxygen into CO2. Incorrect but plausible sounding information can hurt people in real life. It needs a source even if it's something you "just know" is correct.

On 4/1/07, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: It's a living bio that this thread is about. I would even go as far as to say that it's an exception to one of the oldest wiki concepts, "assume good faith". On most articles, we can assume the information in an article is correct unless we have evidence to the contrary using {fact} as a way of saying "pretty please can I see a source". On BLPs we have to assume that anything without a source is a BOLD FACED LIE (assume bad faith) until there is a source.

How is this hurting the man? It doesn't harm him at all. Mgm On 4/1/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 01/04/07, Anthony <wikilegal(a)inbox.org> wrote: {{fact}} - d.

On 4/1/07, Anthony <wikilegal(a)inbox.org> wrote: Ah ha, here it is. The post is entitled "[WikiEN-l] good example of overuse of {{fact}}" by Jimmy Wales on Oct 15, 2006 10:43 AM. His example is not a BLP: "Political correctness is a real or perceived attempt to refine or restrict language and terms used in public discussion to those deemed acceptable or appropriate. For example "blackboard" is now perceived by some as being "politically incorrect" in the United Kingdom [citation needed]" Isn't this exactly the type of anecdotal fluff which I just removed from the Hofstadter article? I have no idea whether the claim is true or false. Now, something I didn't remember is that Wales was complaining not over the use of the tag, but that it was used for so long. He says that he "would recommend that anything like this for which no citation appears within 7 days be removed or edited in some fashion to remove the need." So {{fact}} tag this for 7 days, and then remove? Or is this different because it's a BLP? Does it matter whether the statement could be construed as a bad thing or not? Does it matter that the person in question has stated that our article is filled with errors? I still think I did the right thing. But the fact that it's being questioned doesn't surprise me one bit. At times Wikipedia seems to be filled with these anecdotal statements and preconceived notions that are off-limits for removal. Anthony

On 4/1/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner(a)gmail.com> wrote: First of all, that wasn't what the statement that I removed said. Secondly, so what? Are you seriously suggesting that we should only remove libelous statements? Was the statement about blackboards being considered by some to be politically incorrect a libelous statement? Look, get the facts straight about what the hell you're talking about first. Then come back and try again. Anthony

Ron Ritzman wrote: Frankly, no. It's such a hugely influential book among geeks that had he slipped into a coma shortly after mailing the manuscript and only just awakened before the NY Times interview, he still couldn't have escaped noticing, as people would have built a shrine around his hospital bed. And more prosaically, he also said so himself: What the book did do was excite a lot of young people. Hundreds of people have written to me saying it launched them on a path of studying computer science or cognitive science or philosophy. From Kevin Kelly interviewing him in Wired, November 1995. <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.11/kelly.html?pg=2&topic=> Personally, I'd guess he didn't mean to suggest otherwise. William

On 4/1/07, Ron Ritzman &lt;ritzman(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: And he seems to imply there are other errors too. In any case, I don't see this as a problem in reference to specific errors. Whether he's right or they're right or whatever _doesn't really matter here_. What's important is this _attitude_ and it is one that is _persistent_ and it is _not entirely unfounded_. And it is why a lot of very smart people dismiss Wikipedia and would never think of participating even in a very small way. And in a sense, they're not at all incorrect, in my view. FF