From: Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com
I think that's right. It's best, whenever possible, to think creatively about what sort of olive branch might be offered to the other person. In this particular case, the joyful compromise seems to have been to leave in "Louis' Lunch" which is undeniably of encyclopedia importance, and to remove the others.
I think the story is a bit more complicated. I'm just going to mention some salient facts. I believe there was quite a bit of less-than-ideal communication going on. I contributed to some of it, which I regret and for which I apologize.
The original language, by an anon, was:
"New Haven has 2 claims of the worlds first. 1 being the Pizza and 2 being the Hamburger. For pizza there are 2 choices Sally's Pizza and Pepe's Pizza. MBoth reside on Wooster St. And beleive you me, Its the BEST pizza in the world. For burgers, there's Louis' Lunch, using old fashiond vertical burners Louis willmake you a damn goor burger." [sic]
This was arguably POV (if "beleive you me" isn't POV I don't know what is), and certainly needed editing. In my own view, its removal was understandable, though possibly an over-reaction.
It was then reinserted by a non-anon in an improved form:
"New Haven is home of many homey eateries, including Louis' Lunch, a restaurant that claims to have originated the hamburger: its vertical burners, freshly-ground beef, and burgers on toast has long but orderly queues ten deep at lunchtime. New Haven also boasts several pizza places of distinction, notably Sally's Pizza and Pepe's Pizza, both on Wooster St., and Frank's Pizza, offering chicken pizza and clam pizza. Other spots catering to the college population include the Yankee Doodle Coffee Shop."
There were then some cycles of removal and reinsertion. Somewhere along the way the incorrect name (Sally's Pizza) was corrected to "Sally's Apizza."
What I wish to note is that on the one hand, a) the removers, including myself, didn't do much independent research to see whether the establishments really had any claim to being notable. On the other hand, b) the re-inserters didn't do much to explain _why_ the establishments were notable. Some of the re-inserters simply appealed to _their own_ authority.
Another thing that got lost in the shuffle is that even if the reinserters were correct, simply naming an establishment carries very little value to a reader who doesn't already know the establishment.
Since then, a number of points have come out. In addition to Louis' Lunch claim to notability, Sally's Apizza was apparently a favorite hangout of Garry Trudeau during his Yale years. Frank Sinatra also patronized it. One of the reinserters has since noted that the Phantom Gourmet website gave Sally's Apizza some kind of best-pizza (in the US) award in 2001; the same website says "New Haven’s Wooster Street is to pizza what Newcastle is to coal and Maine is to lobster. The two great rivals are Frank Pepe’s and Sally’s Apizza." The site rated Pepe's as having the best white-clam pizza.
Also, a claim mentioned by the original inserter that has gotten lost in the various edits is that Pepe's Pizza claims to have introduced pizza into the U.S. in 1925. (Or possibly, invented the "white pizza," I'm not quite sure which).
I'm not quite sure what counts as "notable enough" for inclusion, but these all sound like legitimate local landmarks. I realize that every town has restaurants with autographed pictures in them, but noting that "thus-and-such famous person ate there" and "it won thus-and-such national award" would, IMHO, go a long way to validating the inclusion of a place.
Daniel P.B.Smith wrote:
"New Haven has 2 claims of the worlds first. 1 being the Pizza and 2 being the Hamburger. For pizza there are 2 choices Sally's Pizza and Pepe's Pizza. MBoth reside on Wooster St. And beleive you me, Its the BEST pizza in the world. For burgers, there's Louis' Lunch, using old fashiond vertical burners Louis willmake you a damn goor burger." [sic]
This was arguably POV (if "beleive you me" isn't POV I don't know what is), and certainly needed editing. In my own view, its removal was understandable, though possibly an over-reaction.
I agree. I don't necessarily think it's an over-reaction in a case like that, either, on grounds of bad grammar alone!
"New Haven is home of many homey eateries, including Louis' Lunch, a restaurant that claims to have originated the hamburger: its vertical burners, freshly-ground beef, and burgers on toast has long but orderly queues ten deep at lunchtime. New Haven also boasts several pizza places of distinction, notably Sally's Pizza and Pepe's Pizza, both on Wooster St., and Frank's Pizza, offering chicken pizza and clam pizza. Other spots catering to the college population include the Yankee Doodle Coffee Shop."
*nod*
What I wish to note is that on the one hand, a) the removers, including myself, didn't do much independent research to see whether the establishments really had any claim to being notable. On the other hand, b) the re-inserters didn't do much to explain _why_ the establishments were notable. Some of the re-inserters simply appealed to _their own_ authority.
*nod*
I'm not quite sure what counts as "notable enough" for inclusion, but these all sound like legitimate local landmarks. I realize that every town has restaurants with autographed pictures in them, but noting that "thus-and-such famous person ate there" and "it won thus-and-such national award" would, IMHO, go a long way to validating the inclusion of a place.
Yes, I agree.
Communication is the key, I suppose.
--Jimbo
Communication is the key, I suppose.
--Jimbo
I think the best way to do this would be to change the "Do you want to edit this [[U.S. cities]] entry?" note on the talk pages of the rambot articles. They could become MediaWiki messages such as those that have sprung up of late and include suggestions of what kind of landmarks should be included and how to add information so that the encyclopedicness is obvious.
Tuf-Kat
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the name of which I will not repeat here.
Someone posted a page whose title is alleged to be the name of the woman who has accused Kobe Bryant of rape. It is illegal in the state of Colorado to reveal the personal information of alleged rape victims, IANAL so I don't know the situation where the Wikipedia servers are located, but I'd hate to see us shut down over this.
If I was wrong, the article's name is in the delete log and can be undeleted.
RickK
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We are in violation of an order of the District Court of Eagle County, Colorado. Get rid of it completely.
Fred
From: Rick giantsrick13@yahoo.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 22:35:16 -0800 (PST) To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] I just deleted a page ...
the name of which I will not repeat here.
Someone posted a page whose title is alleged to be the name of the woman who has accused Kobe Bryant of rape. It is illegal in the state of Colorado to reveal the personal information of alleged rape victims, IANAL so I don't know the situation where the Wikipedia servers are located, but I'd hate to see us shut down over this.
If I was wrong, the article's name is in the delete log and can be undeleted.
RickK
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I agree that as a matter of taste, we should (for now) keep this page deleted. However, as a matter of law, there is no reason for us not to publish this information.
Fred Bauder wrote:
We are in violation of an order of the District Court of Eagle County, Colorado. Get rid of it completely.
I'm not sure exactly what you're talking about here, but I don't think that's accurate.
http://www.post-gazette.com/FirstAmendment/20030730kobep5.asp
"The judge presiding over Kobe Bryant's sexual assault case warned reporters that they may not get a seat in his courtroom if they publish the name or photograph of the basketball star's alleged victim. Critics said the ruling may be unconstitutional."
I think that ruling *is* unconstitutional, but even so, it only applies to those reporters who wish to have a seat in that courtroom, which obviously doesn't apply to us.
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales wrote:
I agree that as a matter of taste, we should (for now) keep this page deleted. However, as a matter of law, there is no reason for us not to publish this information.
Fred Bauder wrote:
We are in violation of an order of the District Court of Eagle County, Colorado. Get rid of it completely.
I'm not sure exactly what you're talking about here, but I don't think that's accurate.
http://www.post-gazette.com/FirstAmendment/20030730kobep5.asp
"The judge presiding over Kobe Bryant's sexual assault case warned reporters that they may not get a seat in his courtroom if they publish the name or photograph of the basketball star's alleged victim. Critics said the ruling may be unconstitutional."
I think that ruling *is* unconstitutional, but even so, it only applies to those reporters who wish to have a seat in that courtroom, which obviously doesn't apply to us.
She's named in the article cited above, but I don't feel particularly concerned about that one way or another. Canada takes such things a little more seriously, and doesn't see such gag orders as violations of free speech since in most cases (except where children are involved) the matter will become public eventually anyway. Contaminating jury pools is the usual excuse for such things, but there not going to call me for jury duty there anyway. So it doesn't matter if I know her name, and do I do with that information now that I do know?
The CBC recently did a piece on the first person to be killed in a case of on ice hockey violence in 1905. His attacker was charged with murder, and subsequently was acquitted on a reduced charge of manslaughter. What really struck me was that the on-ice event took place in March of that year and by the end of April the trial was over. If the court system got on with its work instead of dragging things out for years, maybe such gag orders wouldn't matter anyway. Instead the legal system has become a high priced welfare system for high income lawyers who benefit by keeping cases in the system as long as possible.
Ec
In message 4061DEA8.1000403@telus.net, Ray Saintonge saintonge-EynCeXvFgoheoWH0uzbU5w@public.gmane.org writes
The CBC recently did a piece on the first person to be killed in a case of on ice hockey violence in 1905. His attacker was charged with murder, and subsequently was acquitted on a reduced charge of manslaughter. What really struck me was that the on-ice event took place in March of that year and by the end of April the trial was over. If the court system got on with its work instead of dragging things out for years, maybe such gag orders wouldn't matter anyway. Instead the legal system has become a high priced welfare system for high income lawyers who benefit by keeping cases in the system as long as possible.
I think maybe Americans are just used to legal cases taking forever. Take a look at http://en.wikikpedia.org/wiki/John_Alan_West for details of the last capital murder case in Britain - West was murdered in a burglary on April 7, 1964, the two burglars were arrested two days later, the trial was in June, and they were hanged on August 13th.
An interview with Jimmy Wales and info about Wikipedia:
http://news.independent.co.uk/digital/features/story.jsp?story=504287
RickK
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Rick wrote:
An interview with Jimmy Wales and info about Wikipedia:
http://news.independent.co.uk/digital/features/story.jsp?story=504287
RickK
Good! Too bad they don't realize that it's wikipedia.org rather than wikipedia.com.
Ec
After reading that article I begin to have serious doubts about the viability of a print version. What would the production costs actually be? Even giving volunteer editing, printing, binding and distribution costs might exceed any reasonable price. Remember we are talking about a multi-volume work, or are we? Maybe a 1 volume, "Best of", would be the way to go.
Fred
From: Rick giantsrick13@yahoo.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 22:41:07 -0800 (PST) To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia in the news
An interview with Jimmy Wales and info about Wikipedia:
http://news.independent.co.uk/digital/features/story.jsp?story=504287
RickK
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Fred Bauder wrote:
After reading that article I begin to have serious doubts about the viability of a print version. What would the production costs actually be? Even giving volunteer editing, printing, binding and distribution costs might exceed any reasonable price. Remember we are talking about a multi-volume work, or are we? Maybe a 1 volume, "Best of", would be the way to go.
I saw that, and wondered in a similar way. Multi-volume at this stage is probably overly ambitious, but is worth considering at some time in the future. If the publishers with whom Jimbo is negotiating are going to handle the production costs the matter is very much out of our hands.
Many of the "almanacs" that come out each year are reasonably priced and quite thick. The downside is that they are produced on a low quality paper which will fall apart faster than most.. That is nevertheless is acceptable if the plan is to revise and update every year.
As I've said before I very much support the idea of a print version, but I think that the planning that has gone down so far is somewhat short of realistic.
Ec
Maybe it should be thought of as a newspaper is, a kind of annual newspaper. After all a year is a looong time on Wikipedia. If the deal is to negotiate with a publisher, indeed production and distribution is their problem.
Fred
From: Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 05:43:08 -0800 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia in the news
Many of the "almanacs" that come out each year are reasonably priced and quite thick. The downside is that they are produced on a low quality paper which will fall apart faster than most.. That is nevertheless is acceptable if the plan is to revise and update every year
AFAIK, we're going for a one-volume desktop edition first. In the early days of Nupedia (when the earth was still flat), someone (Jimbo or Larry) mused about one day printing an encyclopedia on "phone book paper". Shouldn't bee too far off the scale, especially if we get some educational/humanitarian organization to share the costs with.
Magnus
Fred Bauder wrote:
After reading that article I begin to have serious doubts about the viability of a print version. What would the production costs actually be? Even giving volunteer editing, printing, binding and distribution costs might exceed any reasonable price. Remember we are talking about a multi-volume work, or are we? Maybe a 1 volume, "Best of", would be the way to go.
Fred
*From: *Rick <giantsrick13@yahoo.com> *Reply-To: *English Wikipedia <wikien-l@Wikipedia.org> *Date: *Tue, 23 Mar 2004 22:41:07 -0800 (PST) *To: *English Wikipedia <wikien-l@Wikipedia.org> *Subject: *[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia in the news An interview with Jimmy Wales and info about Wikipedia: http://news.independent.co.uk/digital/features/story.jsp?story=504287 RickK Do you Yahoo!? *Yahoo! Finance Tax Center <http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html> * - File online. File on time. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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-----Original Message----- From: wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Magnus Manske
AFAIK, we're going for a one-volume desktop edition first. In the early days of Nupedia (when the earth was still flat), someone (Jimbo or Larry) mused about one day printing an encyclopedia on "phone book paper". Shouldn't bee too far off the scale, especially if we get some educational/humanitarian organization to share the costs with.
Magnus
A paper edition of WP, in my opinion, would fail to sell. It loses all of WP's strengths, including: 1. WP is not paper 2. WP is constantly changing to be up to date 3. WP is accessible wirelessly via the Internet
As a venture capital journalist for the past seven years, I am skeptical. Traditional paper encyclopedia companies are going out of business.
-- David Speakman http://www.DavidSpeakman.com 501 Moorpark Way #83 Mountain View CA 94041 Phone: 408-348-1786>
David Speakman wrote:
A paper edition of WP, in my opinion, would fail to sell. It loses all of WP's strengths, including:
- WP is not paper
- WP is constantly changing to be up to date
- WP is accessible wirelessly via the Internet
As a venture capital journalist for the past seven years, I am skeptical. Traditional paper encyclopedia companies are going out of business.
I think that some skepticism is warranted, of course. But consider this: our cost model is radically (radically!) different and lower as compared to a traditional paper encyclopedia company.
Judging from publishing industry statistics, http://www.publishers.org/industry/index.cfm
the paper book per se is in no danger of extinction -- sales continue to increase year-to-year.
Publishers make money all the time, even when they have to pay for the content. Drive that cost to zero, as we have, and it seems inevitably lucrative.
--Jimbo
On Mar 24, 2004, at 1:32 PM, David Speakman wrote:
As a venture capital journalist for the past seven years, I am skeptical. Traditional paper encyclopedia companies are going out of business.
Oh, yeah. Sorry about that. Heh.
-Wikipedia
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