Yonatan Horan wrote:

The question here isn't about notability. The two examples given by geni are well notable in Israel and Hebrew-speaking culture (even those who are for the deletion of all porn articles will say that). The problem is that the articles aren't judged on a case-by-case basis, if they have anything to do with porn, it is very likely that they will be very quickly speedy deleted. You can't ban a whole subject on a wikipedia just because you don't like it. By the way, I am well aware of what goes on on the English Wikipedia as I am more active there than on the Hebrew one and I'm not saying the Hebrew Wikipedia needs to allow articles on many esoteric porn actors like en but by the same token they can't just delete articles on porn (especially not notable subjects) without passing a vote to make this policy and without complying with WMF guidelines.

Thanks, Yonatan

There are often times "informal" or "defacto" policies, that while they are not necessarily "ratified" or "official", do tend to influence the decisions of administrators on a given project. I will note especially on en.wikibooks this has been a fairly common practice, although efforts to move some of the unofficial policies (even when written down) into an official status has some momentum. It would take somebody with a sociology degree to try and explain why some policies may get this defacto status over others, but it is something I have seen especially on the smaller wikis. The larger communities tend to be more formal mainly because there is usually somebody to challenge the policy unless it is official. Both that and there tends to be less communication between the admins on larger projects to discuss general philosophies.

Certainly by almost any measure, he.wikipedia has a much smaller community than en.wikipedia, so you shouldn't expect the same sort of rigid social heirarchy and policy structure to be the same on both projects.

I will also admit that smaller projects have a tendancy of being influenced by a single individual or a small group of like minded individuals that can push their opinions onto the rest of the project. As long as there is room for opposing viewpoints and a chance to reverse policies, I don't see this as a a serious problem. At the extreme is when somebody can't edit due to significant differences in opinions, and the people opposing the content editing is an an administrator or bureaucrat position.

The added problem here is that pornography is also a very strong religious issue, and is also illegal in many places as well... even "softcore" porn. The issues and justifications for keeping it is similar to arguments that can be made about articles or books (for Wikibooks) about engaging in illegal activities. This became a major issue on en.wikibooks when the "Manual of Crime" was created, which was more or less a how-to book about engaging in various criminal activities such as money laundering, extortion, rape, and murder. This book (with a strong prompting by Jimbo) was eventually deleted, and policies now exist to keep similar content from being created. Still, the arguments about where the line to censor Wikimedia projects against content of this nature is an ongoing point of discussion, as clearly some content is simply too far "out there" to reasonably consider worth our time.

One of the strong arguments in favor of removing some of this material is also "how much does this detract from the main mission of the project?" If keeping a specific kind of content is going to generate so much controversy that it keeps the rest of the project from being written, perhaps as a practical matter it should simply be banned and deleted. It should be noted that this says nothing about the nature of the content, but is more a way to cope with the social nature that we all have, and the fact that some things certainly would be much more controversial in some cultures than others. Porn on the Dutch Wikipedia may not be controversial at all, but it would be a huge deal on the Arabic Wikipedia., for example. But articles about the Aryan Nations and other neo-Nazi groups would have problems on the German Wikipedia instead. This certainly was the excuse that was used for removing the video game books from en.wikibooks, even though it is clear that writing a book about the video game "America's Army" (one of the larger books formerly on Wikibooks) can hardly be called writing about illegal activity.

-- Robert Horning

The Cunctator wrote:

Since when are the different language Wikipedias supposed to defend nationalistic or cultural norms?

Since the English Wikipedia folks do JUST THAT, as an example. Why should there be categories such as LGBT entertainers, authors, etc. There are no categories for HETERO authors, actors, etc. Oh, I forgot, that's a CUTTURAL NORM on the english Wikipedia that we OPENLY DISCUSS sexual behavior and put labels on people, whether they like it or not, or whatever or not is offends others, and then RAM IT DOWN EVERYONE ELSE'S THROATS.

There's a great example of an open cultural norm on the English Wikipedia. Putting labels on people prevents you from seeing the real person beneath and fosters BIAS. Something we should avoid.

In essence, what I am saying here is that the OPENNESS and NPOV viewpoints are PART OF THE ENGLISH WIKIPEDIA CULTURE. I agree they are erstwhile concepts and important, but they are very much European attitudes, and not all cultures embrace them the same way.

You seem to imply that the NPOV varies from language to language.

Yep. It does.

Jeff

On 3/8/07, Jeff V. Merkey jmerkey@wolfmountaingroup.com wrote:

The Cunctator wrote:

...

Since when are the different language Wikipedias supposed to defend nationalistic or cultural norms?

Since the English Wikipedia folks do JUST THAT, as an example. Why should there be categories such as LGBT entertainers, authors, etc. There are no categories for HETERO authors, actors, etc. Oh, I forgot, that's a CUTTURAL NORM on the english Wikipedia that we OPENLY DISCUSS

I believe you meant "CULTURAL", not "CUTTURAL".

sexual behavior and put

labels on people, whether they like it or not, or whatever or not is offends others, and then RAM IT DOWN EVERYONE ELSE'S THROATS.

Interesting choice of language, there.

There's a great example of an open cultural norm on the English

Wikipedia. Putting labels on people prevents you from seeing the real person beneath and fosters BIAS. Something we should avoid.

If I'm not mistaken, the labels are going on articles, not people.

In essence, what I am saying here is that the OPENNESS and NPOV

viewpoints are PART OF THE ENGLISH WIKIPEDIA CULTURE. I agree they are erstwhile concepts and important, but they are very much European attitudes, and not all cultures embrace them the same way.

Impressive, that you consider NPOV, the core policy of Wikipedia (not just the English Wikipedia), part of the English Wikipedia culture.

You seem to imply that the NPOV varies from language to language.

...

Yep. It does.

Do you recognize that as a problem?

On 3/8/07, Jeff V. Merkey jmerkey@wolfmountaingroup.com wrote:

How is putting labels on people to create external bias NPOV? Here is one area where our culture and the english wikipedia culture differ. We do not ever put labels on people this way. Someone's personal sexual behavior is private, and certainly not an open topic in an encyclopedia.

How were you planning to write about say [[Peter Tatchell]]? or pretty much anyone listed on:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:LGBT_rights_activists

Yes, it can be. What is NPOV to you may not be to me (as evidenced by my previous comment).

That isn't how NPOV works. NPOV is meant to be an objective standard.

On 3/8/07, Jeff V. Merkey jmerkey@wolfmountaingroup.com wrote:

Or how about:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Lynde http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Sargent

I guess its OK to "out" them since they are deceased now -- doesn't matter what impact it might have on their children or grandchildren? This is my point.

Why should it have an impact?

Or this one is a great one. Look at the disputed tag "Categorization of People"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Gay_actors

This is a far from NPOV in my culture as you can get. So where are the "Heterosexual Actors" category, or are they in the group "if you have not been labeled with our POV labels, you are hetero".

No one is interested in makeing lists of hetrosexual actors.

It isn't POV to describe say Ian McKellen as gay.

On 3/8/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:

On 3/8/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:

...

No one is interested in makeing lists of hetrosexual actors. It isn't POV to describe say Ian McKellen as gay.

So much drama.

Why can't we argue about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Autofellatio.ogg instead?

Copyvio. User has no other uploads and no edits on commons or en.

On 08/03/07, Jeff V. Merkey jmerkey@wolfmountaingroup.com wrote:

Since the English Wikipedia folks do JUST THAT, as an example. Why should there be categories such as LGBT entertainers, authors, etc. There are no categories for HETERO authors, actors, etc. Oh, I forgot, that's a CUTTURAL NORM on the english Wikipedia that we OPENLY DISCUSS sexual behavior and put labels on people, whether they like it or not, or whatever or not is offends others, and then RAM IT DOWN EVERYONE ELSE'S THROATS.

No - if someone does not label themselves, we do not label them. If we do, that is against policy and should be righted.

Your usage of capital letters and inflammatory language is one of the lesser reasons why you (and all of your sockpuppets) are permanently banned from the English Wikipedia, the greaters reasons are your unwillingness to cooperate with the Wiki process and your extensive use of sockpuppets for malicious purposes. I am still not sure why you are listened to at all here or why you were trusted with admin privs at any foundation-run Wiki. And don't claim I am telling a non-truth here, the first person who claimed such things about you on mailinglists was Angela Beesley (on wikipedia-l), not me. I think most people afford her more credibility than they do you.

In essence, what I am saying here is that the OPENNESS and NPOV viewpoints are PART OF THE ENGLISH WIKIPEDIA CULTURE. I agree they are erstwhile concepts and important, but they are very much European attitudes, and not all cultures embrace them the same way.

No, NPOV is mandatory on all Wikipedias. You may not create a policy counter to that at a a local Wiki. Whether or not it is ethnocentric is up for discussion, but it is currently required for everyone. If you don't like that, you are welcome to start a discussion about the ethnocentricity and unfairness of the policy, but it is currently a foundation-wide policy so you may not turn chr.wp or any other Wiki into your own POV fork.

And here is a good example on the Cherokee Wikipedia as to why this statement has a great deal of merit.

http://chr.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:CULTURE

What you forgot to mention is that you are the only active eitopr on that Wiki, and that you singlehandedly wrote that policy. We have yet to hear whether or not any other Cherokee speakers support it (I am not sure I even believe you are one yourself, considering you use a machine translation engine to write articles and your history of dishonesty at other projects).

Mark

Mark and Jeff

I had requests to moderate you on that list again. That is a warning sign. Please consider a break

thank you :-)

anthere