On 8/29/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:

On 8/29/06, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:

...

It would be useful if someone could translate some of this for those of us who do not read russian.

as far as I can figure out from machine translations the policy has recently been translated from English and they are now trying to get community approval. Most of the opposition appears to be from those who think it is over ridged and that cites should only need to be provided in cases where something has been challanged.

This is the practice on enwiki in any case. Cites are recommended but not mandatory unless there is a dispute. Here we have an example of where the complex real policy mismatching the clearly stated written policy is causing problems.

On 8/29/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:

I believe that's currently the policy regarding {{cite}} tags on en: ... that you don't put them on unless it's been questioned.

Okeeey so when you you put them in? I mean my way of dealing with stuff that doesn't have cites that I don't belive is to delete it.

On 8/29/06, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:

On 8/29/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:

...

It appears that Russian Wikipedia is about to reject Verifiability as a policy:

http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%BF%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B...

It would be useful if someone could translate some of this for those of us who do not read russian.

It's a bit too long to translate entirely (and some of it seems to be people settling personal scores -- oppose because so-and-so supports and that sort of thing), but here's a sampling of the opposes:

"Bureaucracy = evil" -- Иваныч

"Don't see the point. These rules are too obvious (on the level of being fundamental principles of Wikipedia), and are thus simply extraneous" -- Edwardбох

"Without a strict understanding of 'authoritative source', the rule is useless and perhaps even harmful" -- Jannikol

"Our deletionist activists will start to remove the contents of the encyclopedia at a very rapid pace. The {{citation needed}} template is quite sufficient" -- Юра

"Forbidding original research will be enough, in my opinion. Extra disputes and bureaucracy won't lead to anything good" -- Terminus

"And what am I supposed to do if my source is a paper book?" -- Ян Владимирович

"The assertion that verifiability is more important than truth seems disputable. And furthermore, to create the ideal article, we need to study the actual thing, not stories about it in 'authoritative sources'" -- Fred

"According to this rule, I cannot, for example, write about something which I saw with my own eyes..." -- Azh7

(I haven't read the actual policy yet; I wonder how close it is in meaning to the English one.)

Thanks for translating!

On 8/29/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:

It's a bit too long to translate entirely (and some of it seems to be people settling personal scores -- oppose because so-and-so supports and that sort of thing), but here's a sampling of the opposes:

Some of these objections make a kind of wierd sense (Edwardбох's for instance), many of them seem to me to be just people not understanding the policy.

"Bureaucracy = evil" -- Иваныч

Per definition? Someone should say something to the bureocrats.....

"Don't see the point. These rules are too obvious (on the level of being fundamental principles of Wikipedia), and are thus simply extraneous" -- Edwardбох

"Without a strict understanding of 'authoritative source', the rule is useless and perhaps even harmful" -- Jannikol

"Our deletionist activists will start to remove the contents of the encyclopedia at a very rapid pace. The {{citation needed}} template is quite sufficient" -- Юра

What is {{citation needed}}, other than an implementation of this policy?

"Forbidding original research will be enough, in my opinion. Extra disputes and bureaucracy won't lead to anything good" -- Terminus

"And what am I supposed to do if my source is a paper book?" -- Ян Владимирович

Use the book as the source?

"The assertion that verifiability is more important than truth seems disputable. And furthermore, to create the ideal article, we need to study the actual thing, not stories about it in 'authoritative sources'" -- Fred

If something is true and encyclopedic, it should be verifiable. If there are no sources to a claim, then chances are it's not fit to be included in an encyclopedia.

"According to this rule, I cannot, for example, write about something which I saw with my own eyes..." -- Azh7

No you can't..........you never could, that would be original research.

(I haven't read the actual policy yet; I wonder how close it is in meaning to the English one.)

I think Jimbo needs to step in and talk to some bigwigs at ru.wikipedia.org and sort this out. Maybe even wave his magic wand if need be (after all, he more than anyone else has been arguing for this for a long time). We cannot have an encyclopedia without a verifiability policy, it's just not possible in the long run.

--Oskar

Delirium wrote:

Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:

...

I think Jimbo needs to step in and talk to some bigwigs at ru.wikipedia.org and sort this out. Maybe even wave his magic wand if need be (after all, he more than anyone else has been arguing for this for a long time). We cannot have an encyclopedia without a verifiability policy, it's just not possible in the long run.

Given the translation, I'm not sure that's necessary. It appears only a handful of people really oppose verifiability in general, and most of the worry is that this is going to be some draconian policy where any uncited sentence is going to be deleted 48 hours from now or something. I'd be inclined to see what happens and allow the community to craft their policy, only stepping in if it goes horribly awry or something.

Supporters of draconian policy anywhere have a great capacity for enraging people. Their policies tend to be designed around the worst case scenario, which only rarely happens. The result is that people who would otherwise behave and operate within self-controlled parameters too easily step over the rigid bounds set by the rulemakers who have a vested interest in literal interpretation. People who wouldn't dream of being vandals get their toes stepped on.

With most, but not all, unverified material there is no citation emergency inviting dire consequences if the material isn't immediately removed from the data base. Alternative proposals pending verification need to be available in most cases. The suspect material needs to be identified, and perhaps moved to the talk page where verification can proceed at a more leisurely pace.

Ec

Jimmy Wales wrote:

Yeah, totally. I have been to Russia and I hung out with some of the

Russian Wikipedians. They'll be fine. :) It'll be a noisy fight with good people coming down in subtly different but respectable places, a few trolls trying to cause trouble, a few idiots blathering on about nothing, and in the end the middle way will more or less prevail to reasonably good results.

Sounds like they are conforming to some kind of template. :-)

Ec

I don't see how you can have NPOV without Verifiability - surely by presenting a dispute or provide critical analysis or whatever by showing what other people have said about it you are inherently requiring that these statements be verifiable, no? Unless of course the Russian Wikipedia's concept of what NPOV means is different to the English Wikipedia's, which from "And furthermore, to create the ideal article, we need to study the actual thing, not stories about it in 'authoritative sources'" they quite possibly do.

adam

Kirill Lokshin wrote:

It's a bit too long to translate entirely (and some of it seems to be people settling personal scores -- oppose because so-and-so supports and that sort of thing), but here's a sampling of the opposes:

...

"The assertion that verifiability is more important than truth seems disputable. And furthermore, to create the ideal article, we need to study the actual thing, not stories about it in 'authoritative sources'" -- Fred

On 29/08/06, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:

WP:CIVIL is probably more borderline, because it's more about internal dynamics of the community than about the encyclopedia. Presumably all communities will come up against issues of civil behavior, but I'd be inclined to let them decide how to formulate policies to deal with them. But we can't support an encyclopedia project under the "Wikipedia" name that isn't neutral and based on existing, cited sources.

Er, yes. Offer those trying to vote verifiability out help in setting up a fork. "Here's the software, here's how we set it up, here's how you use the database dump, here's how Wikinfo does it. Have fun now, don't forget to write, scream if you get killed."

What is the rationale for dumping verifiability, and what cracksmoking maniacs thought this was a good idea and why?

- d.

On 8/29/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:

(I mention Wikinfo as an example as it's not a particularly acrimonious forking. I wonder if we could set up a UserboxProcessPedia forked from en:.)

No but http://eng.anarchopedia.org/index.php/Main_Page already exists and I'm sure a nocommunitypedia could be started.

G'day David,

What is the rationale for dumping verifiability, and what cracksmoking maniacs thought this was a good idea and why?

I think --- based on one of Kirill (thanks!)'s quotes --- the thing is, they already *have* "we are an encyclopaedia" and "we don't do original research" as principles, and they're trying to decide whether or not to copy a supporting policy for NOR across as well; it's not a case of "why don't we get rid of this?" but "why do we need this extra thing?". No?

If that's correct, I can understand why they'd be wary. There is always --- rightly so[0] --- resistence even to codifying "editing best practices" because some fuckwit out there is going to misunderstand what it means and insist his version be enforced with a sledgehammer[1].

It doesn't mean they're abandoning a core principle, necessarily. As I see it, the core principles of English Wikipedia are:

1. _Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia_. This implies some things, such as we're a tertiary source, we don't fill our project with crap.

2. _Wikipedia is neutral_. That Wikipedia adopts a neutral point of view is crucial to the success of an international, stable project.

3. _Wikipedia is free content_. Everything we do on Wikipedia is available under the GFDL or equivalent (I prefer the phrase "less silly") licence. We don't infringe copyrights: creating stuff (text, images, sounds) for Wikipedia is called "generating free content"; taking existing stuff and pretending we have a right to it[2] is called "bald-faced theft".

4. _Wikipedia contributors try to avoid being dicks_. I should hope this is self-explanatory, however many policies people cruft --- I mean craft --- to help out.

5. _Wikipedia does not have firm rules_. Good ol' IAR, here, boys. Much as Certain People may complain about it, it's one of the pillars on which rests our hopes and our success so far.

Now, '4' and '5' can be regarded as peculiar to the English Wikipedia. I don't know if they are or not (they're so gosh darn sensible I'd *hope* the other languages use them as well), but if people on, say, the Polish Wikipedia run around being dicks to each other I'm not going to lose any sleep. However, '1', '2', and '3' are *absolutely essential*. These three are the raison d'être of the international Wikipedia project, and for them to vanish from any sub-project would be very sad indeed.

The question is: do Russian Wikipedia plan to abandon the notion of encyclopaedia as a tertiary source, or are they just saying they don't want more process?

[0] I may be biased there.

[1] Maybe I'm being overly cynical. After all, English Wikipedia has been groaning with the strain of so many policies for a while now, and yet nobody's ever done *this* ... right?

[2] As opposed to *actually* having a right to it under fair use, of course!

On 8/29/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:

jayjg wrote:

...

It appears that Russian Wikipedia is about to reject Verifiability as a policy:

In Soviet Russia, Wikipedia verifies YOU!

-- Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax

In Soviet Wikipedia, you must verify Verifiability? In Russian Wikipedia, [[Soviet (council)|Soviet]]s work on wikiprojects? In Soviet Wikipedia, votes on Verifiability need not be verifiable?

~maru /got nothing

On 8/30/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:

jayjg wrote:

...

It appears that Russian Wikipedia is about to reject Verifiability as a policy:

http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%BF%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B...

Verifiability is usually considered one of the 3 core content policies on English Wikipedia.

This leads to a question; must the different Wikipedias have the same core policies? Could Russian Wikipedia do away with NPOV and NOR as well? Could some other language Wikipedia do away with WP:CIVIL, etc.?

Well, it seems more that they are having some discussions over the precisely implementation, not over the policy in the broadest sense.

As far as I can tell, the vote has been closed and the policy has failed.

Jay.