http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/23/metapedia/
http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
A Nazi apologist encyclopedia. More readable than the late unlamented White Nationalist Wiki. w00t! Can't wait to get questions about this one.
- d.
On 7/24/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/23/metapedia/
http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
A Nazi apologist encyclopedia. More readable than the late unlamented White Nationalist Wiki. w00t! Can't wait to get questions about this one.
If they are copying the Wikipedia's content without a GFDL license attached (see the Adolf Hitler article) they are breaching copyright. Somebody should do something about it, although I don't know what can be.
Angela
On 24/07/07, Angela Anuszewski psu256@member.fsf.org wrote:
On 7/24/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/23/metapedia/ http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Main_Page A Nazi apologist encyclopedia. More readable than the late unlamented White Nationalist Wiki. w00t! Can't wait to get questions about this one.
If they are copying the Wikipedia's content without a GFDL license attached (see the Adolf Hitler article) they are breaching copyright. Somebody should do something about it, although I don't know what can be.
Anyone who contributed substantially to the article has a copyright interest in it.
They appear to be based in Sweden.
- d.
On 7/24/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Anyone who contributed substantially to the article has a copyright interest in it.
They appear to be based in Sweden.
I should point out that this site has had some media attention calling it out. It is also being investigated by JK (the "Justice Chancellor", think Attorney General) for hate speech crimes.
--Oskar
On 7/24/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
I should point out that this site has had some media attention calling it out. It is also being investigated by JK (the "Justice Chancellor", think Attorney General) for hate speech crimes.
--Oskar
Correction: they *were* being investigated, it turns out that JK dropped the case. Shame, really.
--Oskar
On 7/24/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/24/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
I should point out that this site has had some media attention calling it out. It is also being investigated by JK (the "Justice Chancellor", think Attorney General) for hate speech crimes.
--Oskar
Correction: they *were* being investigated, it turns out that JK dropped the case. Shame, really.
--Oskar
Why the shame, is it particularly unique hate speech? I haven't heard of hate speech that says anything new or interesting or worth discussing on this list or any other.
KP
On 7/24/07, Angela Anuszewski psu256@member.fsf.org wrote:
On 7/24/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/23/metapedia/
http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
A Nazi apologist encyclopedia. More readable than the late unlamented White Nationalist Wiki. w00t! Can't wait to get questions about this one.
If they are copying the Wikipedia's content without a GFDL license attached (see the Adolf Hitler article) they are breaching copyright. Somebody should do something about it, although I don't know what can be.
See [[Wikipedia:GFDL Compliance]] and [[Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks]]; it's far from the only site that uses WP content without following the GFDL.
-- Jonel
On 7/24/07, Angela Anuszewski psu256@member.fsf.org wrote:
On 7/24/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/23/metapedia/
http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
A Nazi apologist encyclopedia. More readable than the late unlamented White Nationalist Wiki. w00t! Can't wait to get questions about this one.
If they are copying the Wikipedia's content without a GFDL license attached (see the Adolf Hitler article) they are breaching copyright. Somebody should do something about it, although I don't know what can be.
Angela
Careful. Do you really want to be credited as an author on a nazi site?
Of course depending on swedish law this might not be legal but ah we've already had one argument over moral rights recently.
David Gerard wrote:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/23/metapedia/
http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
A Nazi apologist encyclopedia. More readable than the late unlamented White Nationalist Wiki. w00t! Can't wait to get questions about this one.
- d.
We probably shouldn't have released the Monobook-skin under the GPL. This makes it way too easy for these kind of sites to imitate us and benefit from, or damage our reputation.
--Ruud
On 7/24/07, Ruud Koot r.koot@students.uu.nl wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/23/metapedia/
http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
A Nazi apologist encyclopedia. More readable than the late unlamented White Nationalist Wiki. w00t! Can't wait to get questions about this one.
- d.
We probably shouldn't have released the Monobook-skin under the GPL. This makes it way too easy for these kind of sites to imitate us and benefit from, or damage our reputation.
Someone could recreate Monobook with photoshop. We'd have to trademark and copyright it and establish that infringements hurt Wikipedia in a legally actionable way to stop people from imitating us.
The quality of this site is low enough that their article on the newest large building in the world ( [[Burj Dubai]] ) denies that it exists. People are going to look at the site and laugh at it, if they look at the content.
Anything we could do to try and shut them down would give them additional PR airtime. As is... journalists who cover the Internet are hopefully aware enough to be able to check a MediaWiki's "All pages" and "Recent Changes" and think about whether a particular MW based wiki is a credible information source, or some lone nut in his bedroom.
The lone nuts aren't newsworthy. This one appears to clearly fall into that end of the spectrum.
It's one thing to note for our benefits that it exists. Don't turn the small depression into a Grand Canyon.
George Herbert wrote:
On 7/24/07, Ruud Koot r.koot@students.uu.nl wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/23/metapedia/
http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
A Nazi apologist encyclopedia. More readable than the late unlamented White Nationalist Wiki. w00t! Can't wait to get questions about this one.
- d.
We probably shouldn't have released the Monobook-skin under the GPL. This makes it way too easy for these kind of sites to imitate us and benefit from, or damage our reputation.
Were I come from anything original your create is copyrighted by default, and recreating that in Photoshop(TM) would be considered a derivative work. Now, whether or not a user interface can be trademarked would be an interesting question. One I don't feel qualified to answer, though.
--Ruud
G'day George,
[many snips - see http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Main_Page for context]
The quality of this site is low enough that their article on the newest large building in the world ( [[Burj Dubai]] ) denies that it exists. People are going to look at the site and laugh at it, if they look at the content.
I agree that these guys are not particularly worrisome; they're clearly so nutty that even the extremist racist fuckwits will throw up their hands and say, "Those Metapedia guys are insane". I can't see the site gaining much support, or influence.
However, when it comes to Burj Dubai, I think they may have been hit by a hoaxer (as in, someone out to damage their reputation from within with satirical articles). The same author is responsible for this: http://en.metapedia.org/w/index.php?title=Afro-European_War&oldid=1181
"Excuse me, are you speaking Jewish?" inquired a curious Irving. "Because if you read my latest article for the Daily Mail, you'd know that the Jewish language was created by a panel including Communists, Labour party officials, and Irishmen."
There are people crazy enough to write a passage like that without intending to lampoon racism and Holocaust denialism, but I suspect this chap isn't one of them.
For all the folks who think they can make themselves appear more witty than they are, just by pointing out vandalism type articles on the site that are humourous., just stop it...
We would not want to be judged on the vandalism on wikipedia /wikimedia projects, so making fun of the vandalism on another site is not very cool by any standard.
For what it is worth, I checked out the articles written/created by the sysops/admins/bureaucrats on the site, and they appeared fairly run of the mill legitimate articles, though clearly of subjects that would be of interests of a specific group.
There is a genuine difference between this site and the one that was put up by stromfront. First of all, it seems this site is trying to create selected articles, perhaps in part based on wikipedia articles, but not mass importing the whole thing...
Most specifically of import to my own reaction to the site, they have not mass imported all the user pages of wikipedia...
That was what got me all het up under the collar about the previous incarnation of a nazi oriented wikiengine powered web site...
In this particular case, they have done the look and feel thing viz a. Viz. monobook, but their logo is in fact quite cute.
So the best way to not be trolled (tm) by this site is to help them as best able we are, by telling them how to comply with GFDL, and let them either do the right thing and show it, or fail. and show that. Please do not prejudge.
Compared to Conservapedia, I don't see them having any specific page attacking wikipedia in any shape or form...
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
Compared to Conservapedia, I don't see them having any specific page attacking wikipedia in any shape or form...
Wikipedians don't simply dislike Conservapedia because it is critical of our endeavors, we dislike it because it is poorly written and fundamentally opposed to the spirit of inclusiveness and neutrality that Wikipedia stands for. The same goes for Metapedia. It's a lobby for a particular viewpoint on subjects, not a fair and comprehensive encyclopedic endeavor.
On 7/25/07, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
For all the folks who think they can make themselves appear more witty than they are, just by pointing out vandalism type articles on the site that are humourous., just stop it...
We would not want to be judged on the vandalism on wikipedia /wikimedia projects, so making fun of the vandalism on another site is not very cool by any standard.
For what it is worth, I checked out the articles written/created by the sysops/admins/bureaucrats on the site, and they appeared fairly run of the mill legitimate articles, though clearly of subjects that would be of interests of a specific group.
There is a genuine difference between this site and the one that was put up by stromfront. First of all, it seems this site is trying to create selected articles, perhaps in part based on wikipedia articles, but not mass importing the whole thing...
Most specifically of import to my own reaction to the site, they have not mass imported all the user pages of wikipedia...
That was what got me all het up under the collar about the previous incarnation of a nazi oriented wikiengine powered web site...
In this particular case, they have done the look and feel thing viz a. Viz. monobook, but their logo is in fact quite cute.
So the best way to not be trolled (tm) by this site is to help them as best able we are, by telling them how to comply with GFDL, and let them either do the right thing and show it, or fail. and show that. Please do not prejudge.
Compared to Conservapedia, I don't see them having any specific page attacking wikipedia in any shape or form...
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 7/26/07, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
Compared to Conservapedia, I don't see them having any specific page attacking wikipedia in any shape or form...
Wikipedians don't simply dislike Conservapedia because it is critical of our endeavors, we dislike it because it is poorly written and fundamentally opposed to the spirit of inclusiveness and neutrality that Wikipedia stands for. The same goes for Metapedia. It's a lobby for a particular viewpoint on subjects, not a fair and comprehensive encyclopedic endeavor.
First of all, you appear to feel you have the right to represent what wikipedians as a group dislike. That feeling is without justification.
It would furthermore be quite legitimate to say that Encycopaedia Britannica falls well short of the requirements of neutrality that Wikipedia sets for itself. And yet that does not allow us to point a finger at Encyclopaedia Britannica and say that their compendium is a ridiculous endeavour.
The world really has space enough for more than one viewpoint. And it certainly has room for more than the "neutral viewpoint".
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
Oh yes, I'm sure faux-intellectual white supremacists and Christian fundamentalists absolutely need to be heard through their own "encyclopedia". It's not like they would disavow the rights of others to speak freely.
Oh wait, yeah they would.
While obviously freedom of speech is meaningless unless you defend the rights of every nut job and hate monger to have his say, I certainly don't have to condone what they are saying or support their project. Just because I wouldn't forbid them from saying what they please doesn't mean I have to advocate that they do so. The less heard from these crackpots the better.
On 7/25/07, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/26/07, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
Compared to Conservapedia, I don't see them having any specific page attacking wikipedia in any shape or form...
Wikipedians don't simply dislike Conservapedia because it is critical of
our
endeavors, we dislike it because it is poorly written and fundamentally opposed to the spirit of inclusiveness and neutrality that Wikipedia
stands
for. The same goes for Metapedia. It's a lobby for a particular
viewpoint on
subjects, not a fair and comprehensive encyclopedic endeavor.
First of all, you appear to feel you have the right to represent what wikipedians as a group dislike. That feeling is without justification.
It would furthermore be quite legitimate to say that Encycopaedia Britannica falls well short of the requirements of neutrality that Wikipedia sets for itself. And yet that does not allow us to point a finger at Encyclopaedia Britannica and say that their compendium is a ridiculous endeavour.
The world really has space enough for more than one viewpoint. And it certainly has room for more than the "neutral viewpoint".
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 7/26/07, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
Oh yes, I'm sure faux-intellectual white supremacists and Christian fundamentalists absolutely need to be heard through their own "encyclopedia". It's not like they would disavow the rights of others to speak freely.
Umm. I am sure you aren't pre-judging any of these folks... (ever wonder what the root for the word "prejudice" stems from?)
Oh wait, yeah they would.
Be careful with that brush. Painting everybody with a broad one will get more folks messed up in paint than you ever would want.
While obviously freedom of speech is meaningless unless you defend the rights of every nut job and hate monger to have his say, I certainly don't have to condone what they are saying or support their project. Just because I wouldn't forbid them from saying what they please doesn't mean I have to advocate that they do so. The less heard from these crackpots the better.
Well, I wouldn't want to characterise the preceding text as hatemongering, but I have a hard time seeing it as love-fostering or conciliation-directed either. But I have no objection to you using this mailing list to express your feelings, hostile, gregarious or otherwise.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
You seem to be missing the point. I don't have to like or applaud something to support it's right to exist. You can mock something and not be trying to disenfranchise it.
On 7/25/07, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/26/07, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
Oh yes, I'm sure faux-intellectual white supremacists and Christian fundamentalists absolutely need to be heard through their own "encyclopedia". It's not like they would disavow the rights of others to speak freely.
Umm. I am sure you aren't pre-judging any of these folks... (ever wonder what the root for the word "prejudice" stems from?)
Oh wait, yeah they would.
Be careful with that brush. Painting everybody with a broad one will get more folks messed up in paint than you ever would want.
While obviously freedom of speech is meaningless unless you defend the rights of every nut job and hate monger to have his say, I certainly
don't
have to condone what they are saying or support their project. Just
because
I wouldn't forbid them from saying what they please doesn't mean I have
to
advocate that they do so. The less heard from these crackpots the
better.
Well, I wouldn't want to characterise the preceding text as hatemongering, but I have a hard time seeing it as love-fostering or conciliation-directed either. But I have no objection to you using this mailing list to express your feelings, hostile, gregarious or otherwise.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 7/26/07, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
You seem to be missing the point. I don't have to like or applaud something to support it's right to exist. You can mock something and not be trying to disenfranchise it.
Certes, but mocking something on untenable grounds, is counterproductive to the intention of the mocker.
So far the mocking has been based on content clearly not added by the people hosting the site, or central in its operation, but rather more its vandals. There really is a clear analogue here on people mocking wikipedia for being "editable" here.
"Wikipedia is unsecure!" - Yes, anybody can edit it.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
On 7/25/07, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
The world really has space enough for more than one viewpoint. And it certainly has room for more than the "neutral viewpoint".
And it has room for people to mock a nazi apologist encyclopedia too I imagine. I haven't read any of it, and probably won't (disinterest not boycott), but come on. People are going to make fun of this. Telling people not to will only make them upset.
Judson [[:en:User:Cohesion]]
On 7/26/07, cohesion cohesion@sleepyhead.org wrote:
On 7/25/07, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
The world really has space enough for more than one viewpoint. And it certainly has room for more than the "neutral viewpoint".
And it has room for people to mock a nazi apologist encyclopedia too I imagine. I haven't read any of it, and probably won't (disinterest not boycott), but come on. People are going to make fun of this. Telling people not to will only make them upset.
Well, that is what has been absent here in the midst of all the mocking. What was made fun of, was obviously not by the people running the site, nor is there any clear indication that the particular content will remain there. Sure, people will make fun of it. Wikipedia is constantly made fun of on equally solid ground. Of course it happens. But the point is that if it is not valid (although all too human) to make fun of wikipedia in this fashion, it is not that devastating a critique against another site with much less resources than wikipedia to catch vandalism.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
On 7/25/07, cohesion cohesion@sleepyhead.org wrote:
On 7/25/07, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
The world really has space enough for more than one viewpoint. And it certainly has room for more than the "neutral viewpoint".
And it has room for people to mock a nazi apologist encyclopedia too I imagine. I haven't read any of it, and probably won't (disinterest not boycott), but come on. People are going to make fun of this. Telling people not to will only make them upset.
There is a world of difference between a moral pronouncement "Stop mocking these eminently mockable people, it's wrong to say they shouldn't have freedom of speech," which is not what was said here, but you might be implying was along the lines of what was said, and "It's unseemly for Wikipedia as a project, or Wikipedia mailing lists, to be used to mock eminently mockable people and projects like that," which is what I took from Jussi's emails.
I agree with what I think Jussi meant; what you do on your own time is your business, but Wikipedia and this mailing list should not be used to go around mocking other projects.
It would furthermore be quite legitimate to say that Encycopaedia Britannica falls well short of the requirements of neutrality that Wikipedia sets for itself. And yet that does not allow us to point a finger at Encyclopaedia Britannica and say that their compendium is a ridiculous endeavour.
That's never stopped us before...
On 7/26/07, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
The same goes for Metapedia. It's a lobby for a particular viewpoint on subjects, not a fair and comprehensive encyclopedic endeavor.
To comment specifically on these two points, these are not legitimate complaints at all. On these points the adage applies: "The more, the merrier."
The fact that all the subject-specific projects that have sprung up on wikia.com (some of them based on formerly wikipedia-content some of them not) are not and will never be balanced in terms of what you or I or the fictional wikipedian horde would feel appropriate, is neither here nor there. It is valid content in the wiki sense of being useful enough for someone bothering to write about it. The fact that wikipedia/media has a pike up its ass these days about wanting to be respectable and all that jazz, doesn't change the original wikiway at all.
Ward Cunningham said it well, I forget the original quotation, but it went something on the lines that wikipedia would not be a wiki, nor an encyclopaedia... Maybe I have it wrong, but that is definitely how I feel about wikipedia these days. We lost the wikiway, but we are never going to swallow the encyclopaedia kool-aid.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
Steven Walling wrote:
Wikipedians don't simply dislike Conservapedia because it is critical of our endeavors, we dislike it because it is poorly written and fundamentally opposed to the spirit of inclusiveness and neutrality that Wikipedia stands for. The same goes for Metapedia. It's a lobby for a particular viewpoint on subjects, not a fair and comprehensive encyclopedic endeavor.
It's their project, so they get to decide the underlying philosophy.
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Steven Walling wrote:
Wikipedians don't simply dislike Conservapedia because it is critical of our endeavors, we dislike it because it is poorly written and fundamentally opposed to the spirit of inclusiveness and neutrality that Wikipedia stands for. The same goes for Metapedia. It's a lobby for a particular viewpoint on subjects, not a fair and comprehensive encyclopedic endeavor.
It's their project, so they get to decide the underlying philosophy.
Ec
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Sure. And we get to say it sucks. Ain't free speech great?
On 7/26/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Sure. And we get to say it sucks. Ain't free speech great?
Even though wikipedia has been soundly panned by Harlan Ellison, I can't help but refer you to his line about people not being entitled to their opinion, but rather being entitled to an *informed* opinion.
So far all the panning of metapedia has been based on pages that had obviously been inserted there with the purpose of disrupting the site. Saying it sucks because of such attempts to disrupt the site in question is hardly an informed opinion.
There may be crappy content on metapedia inserted there by its core contributor base, but I have yet to find any myself, and more to the point, none of the people who have expressed distaste at the site existing in the first place, have presented such either. Saying that one disagrees with the ideology of some group of people, is one thing, saying that what they write is without merit is a separate question.
Infact what I have found so far, though often brief, compares favourably to the content on _supposedly_ quality oriented citizendium on the neutrality scale.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
On 7/26/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Sure. And we get to say it sucks. Ain't free speech great?
Even though wikipedia has been soundly panned by Harlan Ellison, I can't help but refer you to his line about people not being entitled to their opinion, but rather being entitled to an *informed* opinion.
So far all the panning of metapedia has been based on pages that had obviously been inserted there with the purpose of disrupting the site. Saying it sucks because of such attempts to disrupt the site in question is hardly an informed opinion.
There may be crappy content on metapedia inserted there by its core contributor base, but I have yet to find any myself, and more to the point, none of the people who have expressed distaste at the site existing in the first place, have presented such either. Saying that one disagrees with the ideology of some group of people, is one thing, saying that what they write is without merit is a separate question.
Infact what I have found so far, though often brief, compares favourably to the content on _supposedly_ quality oriented citizendium on the neutrality scale.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I was talking about Conservapedia. I haven't read Metapedia, so I have no informed opinion there.
On the other hand, I have read (as much as I could stomach) of Conservapedia. And my (thus informed) opinion is that it sucks. Take the worst POV revisions of every article we've got, and you got Conservapedia!
On 7/26/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
On 7/26/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Sure. And we get to say it sucks. Ain't free speech great?
Even though wikipedia has been soundly panned by Harlan Ellison, I can't help but refer you to his line about people not being entitled to their opinion, but rather being entitled to an *informed* opinion.
So far all the panning of metapedia has been based on pages that had obviously been inserted there with the purpose of disrupting the site. Saying it sucks because of such attempts to disrupt the site in question is hardly an informed opinion.
There may be crappy content on metapedia inserted there by its core contributor base, but I have yet to find any myself, and more to the point, none of the people who have expressed distaste at the site existing in the first place, have presented such either. Saying that one disagrees with the ideology of some group of people, is one thing, saying that what they write is without merit is a separate question.
Infact what I have found so far, though often brief, compares favourably to the content on _supposedly_ quality oriented citizendium on the neutrality scale.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I was talking about Conservapedia. I haven't read Metapedia, so I have no informed opinion there.
On the other hand, I have read (as much as I could stomach) of Conservapedia. And my (thus informed) opinion is that it sucks. Take the worst POV revisions of every article we've got, and you got Conservapedia!
Please stop using wikien-l as a forum to bash other wikis. We knew what you thought about them some number of posts ago. These comments being made on a public mailing list don't do Wikipedia's public image any good.
I neither think your conclusions are wrong nor want to infringe your freedom to have and speak your opinions, but ongoing bashing on this list is bad for Wikipedias' reputation.
George Herbert wrote:
On 7/26/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
On 7/26/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Sure. And we get to say it sucks. Ain't free speech great?
Even though wikipedia has been soundly panned by Harlan Ellison, I can't help but refer you to his line about people not being entitled to their opinion, but rather being entitled to an *informed* opinion.
So far all the panning of metapedia has been based on pages that had obviously been inserted there with the purpose of disrupting the site. Saying it sucks because of such attempts to disrupt the site in question is hardly an informed opinion.
There may be crappy content on metapedia inserted there by its core contributor base, but I have yet to find any myself, and more to the point, none of the people who have expressed distaste at the site existing in the first place, have presented such either. Saying that one disagrees with the ideology of some group of people, is one thing, saying that what they write is without merit is a separate question.
Infact what I have found so far, though often brief, compares favourably to the content on _supposedly_ quality oriented citizendium on the neutrality scale.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I was talking about Conservapedia. I haven't read Metapedia, so I have no informed opinion there.
On the other hand, I have read (as much as I could stomach) of Conservapedia. And my (thus informed) opinion is that it sucks. Take the worst POV revisions of every article we've got, and you got Conservapedia!
Please stop using wikien-l as a forum to bash other wikis. We knew what you thought about them some number of posts ago. These comments being made on a public mailing list don't do Wikipedia's public image any good.
I neither think your conclusions are wrong nor want to infringe your freedom to have and speak your opinions, but ongoing bashing on this list is bad for Wikipedias' reputation.
I don't believe NPOV applies to the mailing list, the last time I checked.
On 7/26/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
George Herbert wrote:
On 7/26/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
On 7/26/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Sure. And we get to say it sucks. Ain't free speech great?
Even though wikipedia has been soundly panned by Harlan Ellison, I can't help but refer you to his line about people not being entitled to their opinion, but rather being entitled to an *informed* opinion.
So far all the panning of metapedia has been based on pages that had obviously been inserted there with the purpose of disrupting the site. Saying it sucks because of such attempts to disrupt the site in question is hardly an informed opinion.
There may be crappy content on metapedia inserted there by its core contributor base, but I have yet to find any myself, and more to the point, none of the people who have expressed distaste at the site existing in the first place, have presented such either. Saying that one disagrees with the ideology of some group of people, is one thing, saying that what they write is without merit is a separate question.
Infact what I have found so far, though often brief, compares favourably to the content on _supposedly_ quality oriented citizendium on the neutrality scale.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
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I was talking about Conservapedia. I haven't read Metapedia, so I have no informed opinion there.
On the other hand, I have read (as much as I could stomach) of Conservapedia. And my (thus informed) opinion is that it sucks. Take the worst POV revisions of every article we've got, and you got Conservapedia!
Please stop using wikien-l as a forum to bash other wikis. We knew what you thought about them some number of posts ago. These comments being made on a public mailing list don't do Wikipedia's public image any good.
I neither think your conclusions are wrong nor want to infringe your freedom to have and speak your opinions, but ongoing bashing on this list is bad for Wikipedias' reputation.
I don't believe NPOV applies to the mailing list, the last time I checked.
No, certainly not.
But writers and critics are clearly aware of the list, and though they may not get uppity now when you're poking fun at a bunch of white supremacists who likely karmically deserve it, they will remember. And everything you say here is on the public record, and since it's a Foundation list, it indirectly reflects on the Foundation.
This went beyond "take notice of" and "have obligatory round of comments on", to "bash on site X a while". That doesn't reflect well on us.
Do you want David Gerard to have to defend all your comments today live on BBC News some day? Or Jimmy, on CNN or Larry King Live?
George Herbert wrote:
On 7/26/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
George Herbert wrote:
On 7/26/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
On 7/26/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Sure. And we get to say it sucks. Ain't free speech great?
Even though wikipedia has been soundly panned by Harlan Ellison, I can't help but refer you to his line about people not being entitled to their opinion, but rather being entitled to an *informed* opinion.
So far all the panning of metapedia has been based on pages that had obviously been inserted there with the purpose of disrupting the site. Saying it sucks because of such attempts to disrupt the site in question is hardly an informed opinion.
There may be crappy content on metapedia inserted there by its core contributor base, but I have yet to find any myself, and more to the point, none of the people who have expressed distaste at the site existing in the first place, have presented such either. Saying that one disagrees with the ideology of some group of people, is one thing, saying that what they write is without merit is a separate question.
Infact what I have found so far, though often brief, compares favourably to the content on _supposedly_ quality oriented citizendium on the neutrality scale.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
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I was talking about Conservapedia. I haven't read Metapedia, so I have no informed opinion there.
On the other hand, I have read (as much as I could stomach) of Conservapedia. And my (thus informed) opinion is that it sucks. Take the worst POV revisions of every article we've got, and you got Conservapedia!
Please stop using wikien-l as a forum to bash other wikis. We knew what you thought about them some number of posts ago. These comments being made on a public mailing list don't do Wikipedia's public image any good.
I neither think your conclusions are wrong nor want to infringe your freedom to have and speak your opinions, but ongoing bashing on this list is bad for Wikipedias' reputation.
I don't believe NPOV applies to the mailing list, the last time I checked.
No, certainly not.
But writers and critics are clearly aware of the list, and though they may not get uppity now when you're poking fun at a bunch of white supremacists who likely karmically deserve it, they will remember. And everything you say here is on the public record, and since it's a Foundation list, it indirectly reflects on the Foundation.
This went beyond "take notice of" and "have obligatory round of comments on", to "bash on site X a while". That doesn't reflect well on us.
Do you want David Gerard to have to defend all your comments today live on BBC News some day? Or Jimmy, on CNN or Larry King Live?
I don't know why David Gerard, or Jimmy Wales, or anyone else would even try to defend my comments, or the comments of anyone on this list but themselves. There's an easy response to any such-"Nothing said on the mailing list is any kind of official opinion of the Foundation or anyone but the person who posted it. If you want to know why he said that, you've got his email from looking at the list, why aren't you asking him?"
What would the question be, anyway? "Mr. Wales, do you realize that you have people on the Wikipedia mailing list who (dramatic pause) dislike neo-Nazis?"
on 7/27/07 6:04 AM, Todd Allen at toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
George Herbert wrote:
On 7/26/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
George Herbert wrote:
On 7/26/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
On 7/26/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
> Sure. And we get to say it sucks. Ain't free speech great? > > > Even though wikipedia has been soundly panned by Harlan Ellison, I can't help but refer you to his line about people not being entitled to their opinion, but rather being entitled to an *informed* opinion.
So far all the panning of metapedia has been based on pages that had obviously been inserted there with the purpose of disrupting the site. Saying it sucks because of such attempts to disrupt the site in question is hardly an informed opinion.
There may be crappy content on metapedia inserted there by its core contributor base, but I have yet to find any myself, and more to the point, none of the people who have expressed distaste at the site existing in the first place, have presented such either. Saying that one disagrees with the ideology of some group of people, is one thing, saying that what they write is without merit is a separate question.
Infact what I have found so far, though often brief, compares favourably to the content on _supposedly_ quality oriented citizendium on the neutrality scale.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I was talking about Conservapedia. I haven't read Metapedia, so I have no informed opinion there.
On the other hand, I have read (as much as I could stomach) of Conservapedia. And my (thus informed) opinion is that it sucks. Take the worst POV revisions of every article we've got, and you got Conservapedia!
Please stop using wikien-l as a forum to bash other wikis. We knew what you thought about them some number of posts ago. These comments being made on a public mailing list don't do Wikipedia's public image any good.
I neither think your conclusions are wrong nor want to infringe your freedom to have and speak your opinions, but ongoing bashing on this list is bad for Wikipedias' reputation.
I don't believe NPOV applies to the mailing list, the last time I checked.
No, certainly not.
But writers and critics are clearly aware of the list, and though they may not get uppity now when you're poking fun at a bunch of white supremacists who likely karmically deserve it, they will remember. And everything you say here is on the public record, and since it's a Foundation list, it indirectly reflects on the Foundation.
This went beyond "take notice of" and "have obligatory round of comments on", to "bash on site X a while". That doesn't reflect well on us.
Do you want David Gerard to have to defend all your comments today live on BBC News some day? Or Jimmy, on CNN or Larry King Live?
I don't know why David Gerard, or Jimmy Wales, or anyone else would even try to defend my comments, or the comments of anyone on this list but themselves. There's an easy response to any such-"Nothing said on the mailing list is any kind of official opinion of the Foundation or anyone but the person who posted it. If you want to know why he said that, you've got his email from looking at the list, why aren't you asking him?"
What would the question be, anyway? "Mr. Wales, do you realize that you have people on the Wikipedia mailing list who (dramatic pause) dislike neo-Nazis?"
I don't believe that is the point. Rather, should Wikipedia (or anyone or anything associated with it) be constantly criticizing other sites - and, in the process, be calling attention to them. We are better than that.
Marc Riddell
Marc Riddell wrote:
I don't believe that is the point. Rather, should Wikipedia (or anyone or anything associated with it) be constantly criticizing other sites - and, in the process, be calling attention to them. We are better than that.
It's not constant, it's only been for the past couple of days. And it's not "Wikipedia" that's doing the criticizing, since that would run afoul of NPOV, it's just a couple of Wikipedians. So the real question is "should some Wikipedians occasionally criticize other sites?"
My position is, why not? Seems like a reasonable human activity. Sometimes criticism is valuable, and sometimes it is deserved. Heck, we've got a list somewhere on Wikipedia itself (in the Wikipedia namespace mind you) where we keep a big list of errors Britannica has made that Wikipedia has corrected.
This seems like a rather minor thing to be getting worked up over.
Marc Riddell wrote:
I don't believe that is the point. Rather, should Wikipedia (or anyone or anything associated with it) be constantly criticizing other sites - and, in the process, be calling attention to them. We are better than that.
on 7/27/07 12:27 PM, Bryan Derksen at bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
It's not constant, it's only been for the past couple of days.
Criticism of other sites has been occurring only in the past couple of days!?! I must be reading a different List from you.
And it's not "Wikipedia" that's doing the criticizing, since that would run afoul of NPOV, it's just a couple of Wikipedians. So the real question is "should some Wikipedians occasionally criticize other sites?"
And I am speaking to that "couple (?) of Wikipedians" when I say we should spend our time and energy focusing on growing and improving our own site. Anything else in minor league.
My position is, why not? Seems like a reasonable human activity.
The question is not whether it is "reasonable", but whether it is productive.
Sometimes criticism is valuable, and sometimes it is deserved.
And, sometimes, it is just childish.
Heck, we've got a list somewhere on Wikipedia itself (in the Wikipedia namespace mind you) where we keep a big list of errors Britannica has made that Wikipedia has corrected.
An amateur waste of space.
Marc
on 7/27/07 1:59 PM, Thomas Dalton at thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
My position is, why not? Seems like a reasonable human activity.
The question is not whether it is "reasonable", but whether it is productive.
Yes, it's productive. Even Wikipedians need a break from time to time to work at their best.
Thomas, they need a break to do what? Criticize??
Marc
On 27/07/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Thomas, they need a break to do what? Criticize??
A break to do something they enjoy. Yes, having a laugh at someone else's expense isn't particularly nice, but is it really that bad?
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the point is that they dont have to do it here, on the wikipedia mailing list. if they want to take the piss out of people with no substantiation (LOL THEY HAVE VANDALISM OMG THEY SUCK), that's fine, but they can do it elsewhere
the point is that they dont have to do it here, on the wikipedia mailing list. if they want to take the piss out of people with no substantiation (LOL THEY HAVE VANDALISM OMG THEY SUCK), that's fine, but they can do it elsewhere
At what better place can you find people interested in wiki encyclopedias?
On 7/28/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
A break to do something they enjoy. Yes, having a laugh at someone else's expense isn't particularly nice, but is it really that bad?
I believe it is, yes.
You're in for an uphill struggle. Pretty much all humour is at somebody's expense.
Quite so. Humour that falls flat, is at the expense of this mailing list.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
On 7/28/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Quite so. Humour that falls flat, is at the expense of this mailing list.
Very profound. Also, very irrelevant seeing as the humour didn't fall flat...
How do you get that. The people doing the nyah nyah nyah thing, were pointing at clear vandalism. I don't see how that is funny in a sense that wikipedia itself is not a valid target of "wow, you let yourself be vandalised, you dufuses!" jokes.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
How do you get that. The people doing the nyah nyah nyah thing, were pointing at clear vandalism. I don't see how that is funny in a sense that wikipedia itself is not a valid target of "wow, you let yourself be vandalised, you dufuses!" jokes.
The bit that was funny was that it wasn't clear vandalism - it was almost believable.
On 7/28/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
How do you get that. The people doing the nyah nyah nyah thing, were pointing at clear vandalism. I don't see how that is funny in a sense that wikipedia itself is not a valid target of "wow, you let yourself be vandalised, you dufuses!" jokes.
The bit that was funny was that it wasn't clear vandalism - it was almost believable.
Eh? Almost believable in the sense that it is almost believable that John Seigenthaler was directly involved in the murders of RFK and JFK.
I apologize if I don't share your sense of humour.
The fact that the opinions may have been such that numbskulls who had never met smart neo-nazies in real life might ignorantly ascribe them to hold, does not change the fact that there was no difficulty in ascertaining that the edits were not legit edits by the community in question.
There is a difference between demonising your opponent to such a degree that you will believe anything about them (even that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion were not a forgery, but that that it was "almost believable" as a representation of Jewish thought at large), and taking a cool look at the real circumstances in the cold light of day, and checking to see if you are joking *at* the people in question, or whether you are helping them justify their alienation by demonstrating that you aren't going to address them on a level playing field, for whatever reasons.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
On 7/28/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
The bit that was funny was that it wasn't clear vandalism - it was almost believable.
Eh? Almost believable in the sense that it is almost believable that John Seigenthaler was directly involved in the murders of RFK and JFK.
No, almost believable in the sense that similarly nonsensical stuff is on Conservapedia and it isn't considered vandalism there.
On the one wiki, we've got Christian fundamentalists writing articles based solely on their own POV. The result is articles that appear ridiculous to non-Christian-fundamentalists who don't share their POV. On the other wiki we've got white supremacists writing articles based solely on their POV. I find it quite believable that they'd produce articles that appear ridiculous to non-white-supremacists.
There is a difference between demonising your opponent to such a degree that you will believe anything about them (even that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion were not a forgery, but that that it was "almost believable" as a representation of Jewish thought at large), and taking a cool look at the real circumstances in the cold light of day, and checking to see if you are joking *at* the people in question, or whether you are helping them justify their alienation by demonstrating that you aren't going to address them on a level playing field, for whatever reasons.
If we were writing a Wikipedia article about them then I would most heartily support making that article as NPOV as possible. That's what Wikipedia is all about.
This is wikien-l. It's a discussion forum. We're allowed to have POVs here.
On 7/28/07, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
There is a difference between demonising your opponent to such a degree that you will believe anything about them (even that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion were not a forgery, but that that it was "almost believable" as a representation of Jewish thought at large), and taking a cool look at the real circumstances in the cold light of day, and checking to see if you are joking *at* the people in question, or whether you are helping them justify their alienation by demonstrating that you aren't going to address them on a level playing field, for whatever reasons.
If we were writing a Wikipedia article about them then I would most heartily support making that article as NPOV as possible. That's what Wikipedia is all about.
This is wikien-l. It's a discussion forum. We're allowed to have POVs here.
Um, AFAIK this is a list meant for discussions related to the English Wikipedia, not Anything Wikipedians Would Like To Talk About. We post stuff to the list that other Wikipedians may find interesting because it is related to our work on en, but if we go down the path of discussions irrelevant to our volunteering on Wikipedia (i.e. going on a long frolic bashing other websites, and starting a subfrolic of criticising that bashing), I'm not sure we're in line anymore with the purpose of this mailing list.
Johnleemk
John Lee wrote:
On 7/28/07, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
This is wikien-l. It's a discussion forum. We're allowed to have POVs here.
Um, AFAIK this is a list meant for discussions related to the English Wikipedia, not Anything Wikipedians Would Like To Talk About. We post stuff to the list that other Wikipedians may find interesting because it is related to our work on en, but if we go down the path of discussions irrelevant to our volunteering on Wikipedia (i.e. going on a long frolic bashing other websites, and starting a subfrolic of criticising that bashing), I'm not sure we're in line anymore with the purpose of this mailing list.
The irrelevance of this thread is debatable, though. Metapedia is another online encyclopedia so comparative analysis with Wikipedia is reasonable and on-topic. It's also funny, which IMO is important to have every once in a while.
And the sub-thread criticizing the bashing seems on-topic to me because it's discussing the mailing list itself. Unless there's a wikien-l-l out there, this seems to be the appropriate place for such discussions. :)
On 7/27/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
on 7/27/07 3:37 PM, Thomas Dalton at thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Thomas, they need a break to do what? Criticize??
A break to do something they enjoy. Yes, having a laugh at someone else's expense isn't particularly nice, but is it really that bad?
I believe it is, yes.
Marc
IMO, it's not that it's all that bad, it's that you've elevated it to something that it's not, namely important enough to talk about.
KP
On 7/28/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
IMO, it's not that it's all that bad, it's that you've elevated it to something that it's not, namely important enough to talk about.
We weren't talking about it because it was important. We were talking about it because it was fun.
But it's not really that fun, either. Or maybe I'm missing something. What's so fun, original, interesting or special about the site? This is the issue, really, with hate sites on-line, they tend to point to human de-evolution. I've never heard a racist say anything new, interesting, original or accurate. They're boring. They're repetitive. They're unoriginal. Again, maybe I missed something, and there was something interesting and original about the site, but I don't think so. I think it is the usual: low grade, plagiarized, unoriginal, copies of the same old crap that the usual round of bigots need to keep their heads filled with in order to prevent some sense or original thoughts from creeping in.
This is what these sites crave, anyone who's never encountered their boring repetitive drivel, who is willing to challenge them, to give them the attention they crave and are incapable of getting any other way.
Of course, I could be wrong, maybe there was something original, interesting or creative in this site, but I doubt it, because generally the whole point of bigotry is to prevent original thought.
KP
But it's not really that fun, either. Or maybe I'm missing something. What's so fun, original, interesting or special about the site?
It's not so much the site that is fun, it's more that talking about it is fun. It's not very original, no, but then, as the saying goes, the old jokes are the best.
On 7/28/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
It's not so much the site that is fun, it's more that talking about it is fun. It's not very original, no, but then, as the saying goes, the old jokes are the best.
Worst. Saying. Ever.
--Oskar
Marc Riddell wrote:
on 7/27/07 12:27 PM, Bryan Derksen at bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
It's not constant, it's only been for the past couple of days.
Criticism of other sites has been occurring only in the past couple of days!?! I must be reading a different List from you.
This thread only goes back to the 24th. That's three days by my watch.
And it's not "Wikipedia" that's doing the criticizing, since that would run afoul of NPOV, it's just a couple of Wikipedians. So the real question is "should some Wikipedians occasionally criticize other sites?"
And I am speaking to that "couple (?) of Wikipedians" when I say we should spend our time and energy focusing on growing and improving our own site. Anything else in minor league.
If you're speaking to those Wikipedians then say that you're speaking to those Wikipedians. The point of my previous post was that you were asking an incorrect question.
Sometimes criticism is valuable, and sometimes it is deserved.
And, sometimes, it is just childish.
Sure. But _is_ it this time? You didn't make any sort of case.
Heck, we've got a list somewhere on Wikipedia itself (in the Wikipedia namespace mind you) where we keep a big list of errors Britannica has made that Wikipedia has corrected.
An amateur waste of space.
In Your Opinion. In my opinion, all other potential uses aside, a list like this is good for making sure common misconceptions don't slip back into articles. People write articles based on information in Britannica sometimes.
How about that Nature study a while back that identified a bunch of errors in Wikipedia articles? We corrected all of them in short order. Also a waste of space?
Todd Allen wrote:
George Herbert wrote:
Please stop using wikien-l as a forum to bash other wikis. We knew what you thought about them some number of posts ago. These comments being made on a public mailing list don't do Wikipedia's public image any good.
I neither think your conclusions are wrong nor want to infringe your freedom to have and speak your opinions, but ongoing bashing on this list is bad for Wikipedias' reputation.
I don't believe NPOV applies to the mailing list, the last time I checked.
That depends. If you consider rules to be more important you are right. If you consider friendly relations and problem solving to be more important you are wrong.
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Todd Allen wrote:
I don't believe NPOV applies to the mailing list, the last time I checked.
That depends. If you consider rules to be more important you are right. If you consider friendly relations and problem solving to be more important you are wrong.
One can argue in support of or against a POV in a friendly and problem-solving-oriented manner. I haven't done any sort of survey but I expect that the vast majority of posts that are made to this mailing list are made in the interests of advancing some POV or another. Your own post is an example.
Crazy people exist. Lots of people use wikis. Crazy people will eventually start a wiki. News at 11.
(The only noteworthy thing here is that this is a group of white supremacists who are actually able to write well and have some public relations savvy, which is a little scary.)
On 7/26/07, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/26/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Sure. And we get to say it sucks. Ain't free speech great?
Even though wikipedia has been soundly panned by Harlan Ellison, I can't help but refer you to his line about people not being entitled to their opinion, but rather being entitled to an *informed* opinion.
So far all the panning of metapedia has been based on pages that had obviously been inserted there with the purpose of disrupting the site. Saying it sucks because of such attempts to disrupt the site in question is hardly an informed opinion.
There may be crappy content on metapedia inserted there by its core contributor base, but I have yet to find any myself, and more to the point, none of the people who have expressed distaste at the site existing in the first place, have presented such either. Saying that one disagrees with the ideology of some group of people, is one thing, saying that what they write is without merit is a separate question.
Infact what I have found so far, though often brief, compares favourably to the content on _supposedly_ quality oriented citizendium on the neutrality scale.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
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On 7/26/07, Ben Yates ben.louis.yates@gmail.com wrote:
Crazy people exist. Lots of people use wikis. Crazy people will eventually start a wiki. News at 11.
(The only noteworthy thing here is that this is a group of white supremacists who are actually able to write well and have some public relations savvy, which is a little scary.)
This is nothing new. There have been erudite PR-savvy white supremacists since before I was born.
This is not a new problem. The net allows all the fringes to have their say; fortunately, it also makes getting informed counterarguments easier.
On 7/26/07, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
Even though wikipedia has been soundly panned by Harlan Ellison, I can't help but refer you to his line about people not being entitled to their opinion, but rather being entitled to an *informed* opinion.
So far all the panning of metapedia has been based on pages that had obviously been inserted there with the purpose of disrupting the site. Saying it sucks because of such attempts to disrupt the site in question is hardly an informed opinion.
There may be crappy content on metapedia inserted there by its core contributor base, but I have yet to find any myself, and more to the point, none of the people who have expressed distaste at the site existing in the first place, have presented such either. Saying that one disagrees with the ideology of some group of people, is one thing, saying that what they write is without merit is a separate question.
The reason you can't find anything is that the english section is fairly small compared to the Swedish one, and those articles that do exist are written in a sort of code. They don't come out and actually say what they mean, they use a sort of neutrality shield to hide behind. Let me quote you the Adolf Hitler article from the Swedish side (and that side is closed from editing by the general public). Loosely translated it reads like this:
"Adolf Hitler, born April 20, 1889, died April 30 1945. Know for amongst other things as the leader of the NSDAP political party and chancellor for the German Kingdom 1933-1945. Author of Mein Kamph, one of the most sold books in the world"
And that's it. Nothing else. Every single article reads like this, technically they are true and the tone is neutral, but they skew the facts into oblivion. If you want to see a really distasteful article for yourself, read http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Nordisk.nu which is basically an ad for a site that is proud to be a racist social network.
Talk about free speech all you want, but don't for a second claim that these people writing this thing are anything other than scum. It doesn't make you look fair-minded or unprejudiced, it makes you look like an idiot.
--Oskar
On 7/26/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
The reason you can't find anything is that the english section is fairly small compared to the Swedish one, and those articles that do exist are written in a sort of code. They don't come out and actually say what they mean, they use a sort of neutrality shield to hide behind. Let me quote you the Adolf Hitler article from the Swedish side (and that side is closed from editing by the general public). Loosely translated it reads like this:
"Adolf Hitler, born April 20, 1889, died April 30 1945. Know for amongst other things as the leader of the NSDAP political party and chancellor for the German Kingdom 1933-1945. Author of Mein Kamph, one of the most sold books in the world"
And that's it. Nothing else. Every single article reads like this, technically they are true and the tone is neutral, but they skew the facts into oblivion. If you want to see a really distasteful article for yourself, read http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Nordisk.nu which is basically an ad for a site that is proud to be a racist social network.
Talk about free speech all you want, but don't for a second claim that these people writing this thing are anything other than scum. It doesn't make you look fair-minded or unprejudiced, it makes you look like an idiot.
Your comment about myself notwithstanding ;o) ...
I think by and large what you say above is very fair comment. Like I said above, I had only examined the english language side, and that cursorily. I have since checked out the swedish side too, and it does appear that it is pernicious, even if subtly so.
I do kind of regret that the english wikipedia no longer has an article on the site. A neutral article based on the media visibility the site has had in Sweden would have been quite useful in putting the site in proper perspective. I read in some Swedish news article that there had been pictures of Jews hanged on some portal or other of the site. (not sure if that was vandalism or run of the mill content for the site, but nevertheless)
In this case however as in most, criticism to be effective, ought to be based on accurate facts, rather than stuff that misses the point, as much of the criticism has been here on the list; most specifically not including yours, as you have the ability to read the Swedish sites content, and the media coverage.
For all that, however malevolent the site may be, it would be sort of sad for this list to turn into a sort of metapedia-review. I would much prefer wikipedia to have a neutral article on the site that would bring forth the basic factors that make the site malingnant. But since it was AFD:d that is not likely to happen soon. And I would note that the Swedish language wikipedia article on the site remains adcopy by the founders of the site, not NPOVed at all, which needless to say, isn't hardly ideal.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
Jussi, the Metapedia site was deleted because it has recieved little to none English-language coverage in reliable sources. Just because it's a wiki doesn't make it notable enough for encyclopedic treatment. Personally I think the site is covered under WP:FRINGE, and that as such a comprehensive encyclopedic article would be lending importance to this quack venture that simply doesn't exist.
On 7/26/07, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/26/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
The reason you can't find anything is that the english section is fairly small compared to the Swedish one, and those articles that do exist are written in a sort of code. They don't come out and actually say what they mean, they use a sort of neutrality shield to hide behind. Let me quote you the Adolf Hitler article from the Swedish side (and that side is closed from editing by the general public). Loosely translated it reads like this:
"Adolf Hitler, born April 20, 1889, died April 30 1945. Know for amongst other things as the leader of the NSDAP political party and chancellor for the German Kingdom 1933-1945. Author of Mein Kamph, one of the most sold books in the world"
And that's it. Nothing else. Every single article reads like this, technically they are true and the tone is neutral, but they skew the facts into oblivion. If you want to see a really distasteful article for yourself, read http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Nordisk.nu which is basically an ad for a site that is proud to be a racist social network.
Talk about free speech all you want, but don't for a second claim that these people writing this thing are anything other than scum. It doesn't make you look fair-minded or unprejudiced, it makes you look like an idiot.
Your comment about myself notwithstanding ;o) ...
I think by and large what you say above is very fair comment. Like I said above, I had only examined the english language side, and that cursorily. I have since checked out the swedish side too, and it does appear that it is pernicious, even if subtly so.
I do kind of regret that the english wikipedia no longer has an article on the site. A neutral article based on the media visibility the site has had in Sweden would have been quite useful in putting the site in proper perspective. I read in some Swedish news article that there had been pictures of Jews hanged on some portal or other of the site. (not sure if that was vandalism or run of the mill content for the site, but nevertheless)
In this case however as in most, criticism to be effective, ought to be based on accurate facts, rather than stuff that misses the point, as much of the criticism has been here on the list; most specifically not including yours, as you have the ability to read the Swedish sites content, and the media coverage.
For all that, however malevolent the site may be, it would be sort of sad for this list to turn into a sort of metapedia-review. I would much prefer wikipedia to have a neutral article on the site that would bring forth the basic factors that make the site malingnant. But since it was AFD:d that is not likely to happen soon. And I would note that the Swedish language wikipedia article on the site remains adcopy by the founders of the site, not NPOVed at all, which needless to say, isn't hardly ideal.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
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On 7/26/07, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
Jussi, the Metapedia site was deleted because it has recieved little to none English-language coverage in reliable sources. Just because it's a wiki doesn't make it notable enough for encyclopedic treatment. Personally I think the site is covered under WP:FRINGE, and that as such a comprehensive encyclopedic article would be lending importance to this quack venture that simply doesn't exist.
I won't address the main substance of your argument, because when it comes down to it, on these things we have to all make our own determinations, and me saying that you are not entitled to yours, would be as bad as you saying I am not entitled to mine.
Purely out of curiosity, since I have seen it mentioned in numerous other instances, wherein does the requirement for coverage to be in the English language stem from? Or are you saying that that is the just way things happen in the real world? That regrettable as it is, Swedish language media coverage and legal investigation by a cabinet level official do not bestow notability, because neither the government in question speaks english, nor the media either.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
Wow, and I thought metapedians on wikipedia had it rough before a racist encyclopedia was named after them....I wonder what "Exopedia" will be.
iki
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
For all the folks who think they can make themselves appear more witty than they are, just by pointing out vandalism type articles on the site that are humourous., just stop it...
We would not want to be judged on the vandalism on wikipedia /wikimedia projects, so making fun of the vandalism on another site is not very cool by any standard.
Generally, I agree that we should control ourselves, though a little more latitude on themailing list should be acceptable.
So the best way to not be trolled (tm) by this site is to help them as best able we are, by telling them how to comply with GFDL, and let them either do the right thing and show it, or fail. and show that. Please do not prejudge.
Compared to Conservapedia, I don't see them having any specific page attacking wikipedia in any shape or form...
Sounds like encouragement to apply NPOV to our attitudes as well as our writing.
Ec
Jesus, a "website for Pro-European activists"? I guess European means white supremacy, though their language discounting the millions of non-caucasian European citizens is bit off. Nice try at a disguise, better luck next time.
On 7/24/07, Ruud Koot r.koot@students.uu.nl wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/23/metapedia/
http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
A Nazi apologist encyclopedia. More readable than the late unlamented White Nationalist Wiki. w00t! Can't wait to get questions about this one.
- d.
We probably shouldn't have released the Monobook-skin under the GPL. This makes it way too easy for these kind of sites to imitate us and benefit from, or damage our reputation.
--Ruud
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Here's http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Afro-European_War a shining example of the best of Metapedia...
On 7/24/07, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
Jesus, a "website for Pro-European activists"? I guess European means white supremacy, though their language discounting the millions of non-caucasian European citizens is bit off. Nice try at a disguise, better luck next time.
On 7/24/07, Ruud Koot r.koot@students.uu.nl wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/23/metapedia/
http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
A Nazi apologist encyclopedia. More readable than the late unlamented White Nationalist Wiki. w00t! Can't wait to get questions about this one.
- d.
We probably shouldn't have released the Monobook-skin under the GPL. This makes it way too easy for these kind of sites to imitate us and benefit from, or damage our reputation.
--Ruud
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On 7/24/07, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
Here's http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Afro-European_War a shining example of the best of Metapedia...
I liked their article on Cthulhu. Apparently "While regarded as a fictious creature by the Wikipedia and most of the mainstream sciencests, there is numerous evidence for Cthulhu being a real etnity". H.P. Lovecraft would be thrilled.
Looks like [[Burj Dubai]], [[Afro-European_War]], and [[Cthulhu]] were all created by the same Metapedia user. Either he's a prankster or rides an extra short bus.
My favorite article unmentioned thus far is [[Battlecry (band)]] - all misspellings and gratuitous caps in the original:
"Battlecry was formed in response to what we saw as a lack of Heavy Metal representation in the music of the Pro White movement."
"Heavy Metal is rightously considered by many as the modern inheritage of classical music, it represents the spirit of the European people."
The ironic part is that the whole project is one giant refutation to the notions of white supremacy. If we're voting on which should be "the master race", it certainly shouldn't be the one that thought up all that crock. Another thing I wonder about...vis a vis the Dave Chappelle sketch, does this site have any non-white users?
On 7/24/07, Rob gamaliel8@gmail.com wrote:
Looks like [[Burj Dubai]], [[Afro-European_War]], and [[Cthulhu]] were all created by the same Metapedia user. Either he's a prankster or rides an extra short bus.
My favorite article unmentioned thus far is [[Battlecry (band)]] - all misspellings and gratuitous caps in the original:
"Battlecry was formed in response to what we saw as a lack of Heavy Metal representation in the music of the Pro White movement."
"Heavy Metal is rightously considered by many as the modern inheritage of classical music, it represents the spirit of the European people."
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On 7/24/07, Sam Blacketer sam.blacketer@googlemail.com wrote:
On 7/24/07, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
Here's http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Afro-European_War a shining example of the best of Metapedia...
I liked their article on Cthulhu. Apparently "While regarded as a fictious creature by the Wikipedia and most of the mainstream sciencests, there is numerous evidence for Cthulhu being a real etnity". H.P. Lovecraft would be thrilled.
That Cthulhu article is fantastic. A truly bizzare mix of Lovecraft and the Full Metal Alchemist movie. Best laugh I've had in a while.
Angela
That Cthulhu article is fantastic. A truly bizzare mix of Lovecraft and the Full Metal Alchemist movie. Best laugh I've had in a while.
Best bit: The guy that wrote it included a "(citation needed)" comment! I also particularly like the bit about pre-human writing... Neanderthals kept historical records now, did they?
On Tue, Jul 24, 2007 at 06:28:04PM -0400, Steven Walling wrote:
Here's http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Afro-European_War a shining example of the best of Metapedia...
I was beginning to wonder whether the whole thing is a spoof, a kind of odd Swedish humour. After reading that page, I am even more convinced it is.
Brian.
On 7/24/07, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
Jesus, a "website for Pro-European activists"? I guess European means white supremacy, though their language discounting the millions of non-caucasian European citizens is bit off. Nice try at a disguise, better luck next time.
On 7/24/07, Ruud Koot r.koot@students.uu.nl wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/23/metapedia/
http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
A Nazi apologist encyclopedia. More readable than the late unlamented White Nationalist Wiki. w00t! Can't wait to get questions about this one.
- d.
We probably shouldn't have released the Monobook-skin under the GPL. This makes it way too easy for these kind of sites to imitate us and benefit from, or damage our reputation.
--Ruud
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In reply to Brian: bork bork bork!
On 7/24/07, Brian Salter-Duke b_duke@bigpond.net.au wrote:
On Tue, Jul 24, 2007 at 06:28:04PM -0400, Steven Walling wrote:
Here's http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Afro-European_War a shining
example of
the best of Metapedia...
I was beginning to wonder whether the whole thing is a spoof, a kind of odd Swedish humour. After reading that page, I am even more convinced it is.
Brian.
On 7/24/07, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
Jesus, a "website for Pro-European activists"? I guess European means white supremacy, though their language discounting the millions of non-caucasian European citizens is bit off. Nice try at a disguise,
better
luck next time.
On 7/24/07, Ruud Koot r.koot@students.uu.nl wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/23/metapedia/
http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
A Nazi apologist encyclopedia. More readable than the late
unlamented
White Nationalist Wiki. w00t! Can't wait to get questions about
this
one.
- d.
We probably shouldn't have released the Monobook-skin under the GPL. This makes it way too easy for these kind of sites to imitate us and benefit from, or damage our reputation.
--Ruud
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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-- Brian Salter-Duke b_duke@bigpond.net.au [[User:Bduke]] mainly on en:Wikipedia. Also on fr: Wikipedia, Meta-Wiki and Wikiversity
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I was beginning to wonder whether the whole thing is a spoof, a kind of odd Swedish humour. After reading that page, I am even more convinced it is.
That's the great thing about a wiki - each contributor can have a different idea of what the site is about. For some, it's a spoof, for others, a political statement, for a few it's a serious attempt to create a useful resource. The game is to work out which is which - answers on a postcard.
On 7/25/07, Brian Salter-Duke b_duke@bigpond.net.au wrote:
I was beginning to wonder whether the whole thing is a spoof, a kind of odd Swedish humour. After reading that page, I am even more convinced it is.
As the resident swede on the list I would like to point out that we aren't that funny. That page is probably a joke, but don't think for a second that there aren't people thinking those things.
This is exactly the brand of lunatics that we get here, and unfortunately they are getting more popular. In the recent (well, it was in september last year) election here a party called the "Sweden Democrats" got an alarmingly high number of votes. They didn't break the 4% barrier needed to be included in the parliament, but they got a significant percentage (almost 3%, if I recall) meaning that they will receive funding from the state to support their party for the next for years and money for their campaign in 2010. They also got positions in a number of municipal boards. They are the slightly less insane version of the Metapedia people, calling for a basically a total ban on immigration and the public beating of anyone daring to go near a Mosque. They are absolute scum, I wouldn't wipe my boots on anything they touch.
Different places in the world has different pathologies when it comes to these people. In America, they might be redneck yahoos who think Brown v. Board of Education was bad thing, here they tend to be faux-intellectuals who try to use Europe (and Sweden, in our case) as some beacon of light when they really just hate people with dark skin.
These are the things that a free society have to deal with. Fortunately, the Sweden Democrats are by far the most hated non-fringe party in Sweden, almost 70% of people actively despise them. In the end, reason will prevail.
--Oskar
Blocked by [[Education Queensland]] filters. Good times....
[[User:Giggy]]
On 7/25/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/25/07, Brian Salter-Duke b_duke@bigpond.net.au wrote:
I was beginning to wonder whether the whole thing is a spoof, a kind of odd Swedish humour. After reading that page, I am even more convinced it is.
As the resident swede on the list I would like to point out that we aren't that funny. That page is probably a joke, but don't think for a second that there aren't people thinking those things.
This is exactly the brand of lunatics that we get here, and unfortunately they are getting more popular. In the recent (well, it was in september last year) election here a party called the "Sweden Democrats" got an alarmingly high number of votes. They didn't break the 4% barrier needed to be included in the parliament, but they got a significant percentage (almost 3%, if I recall) meaning that they will receive funding from the state to support their party for the next for years and money for their campaign in 2010. They also got positions in a number of municipal boards. They are the slightly less insane version of the Metapedia people, calling for a basically a total ban on immigration and the public beating of anyone daring to go near a Mosque. They are absolute scum, I wouldn't wipe my boots on anything they touch.
Different places in the world has different pathologies when it comes to these people. In America, they might be redneck yahoos who think Brown v. Board of Education was bad thing, here they tend to be faux-intellectuals who try to use Europe (and Sweden, in our case) as some beacon of light when they really just hate people with dark skin.
These are the things that a free society have to deal with. Fortunately, the Sweden Democrats are by far the most hated non-fringe party in Sweden, almost 70% of people actively despise them. In the end, reason will prevail.
--Oskar
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