First off, in regards to whether anglicization (or rather americinization) is dumbing down...why yes it is. As we all know, the biggest argument against using more foreign names for foreign objects is, "Oh, but its soooooo confusing".
As for me apoligizing for my past actions and changing my behavior before I am banned, I would like to state that I am guilty of heresy and I did not vote for the rules or the king and I think every person should have free will, choice, and speech. I also am opposed to racism and genocide and I believe wikipedia should strive to be very very very unamerican culture friendly, especially in this era of militant anti-americanism.
I demand that the authoritarians recognize the value of other cultures and languages and that while a german katze is most certainly a cat, Dumkopfmeyerstrasse is never Dumbheadmeyerstreet, no matter how many americans say otherwise, unless the local inhabitants decide that the americans are right and go and change the street signs.
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On Thursday 21 November 2002 06:52 am, Bridget [name omitted for privacy reasons] wrote:
> plz let me play chess with ram-man i have nobody else to play :<
I don't think the block affects your ability to edit meta. I also don't see
why you shouldn't be able to play chess there - even develop articles for
later importing into Wikipedia.
I for one don't have a big problem with your edits -- many, if not most are
quite sensible. What I do have a very big problem with is your apparent
inability to get along with others and work constructively within the
community and respect (however wrong you think they are) our conventions.
This doesn't mean that you can't work to change the conventions.
As somebody has already mentioned Cunctator disagrees with many people here on
many points. But he does it as a community member and doesn't demean others
or their culture and insist that only he is correct and also demand things
(not to mention your assertion that you think most humans as "inferior
lifeforms" and that you are the "world's foremost authority" in presumably
everything). This type of professed arrogance, true or not, doesn't a
community build. And as Jonathan Walther so elegantly said " The
Encyclopedia doesn't exist to support the community; the community exists to
support the Encyclopedia." So with a fractured or sick community, the
Encyclopedia suffers.
I do wish you can come back in a week and start working with the community
instead of against it.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
I think this should be of considerable interest to readers of Wikipedia-l.
It appeared on Wikien-l.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 03:57:08 -0800
From: Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)bomis.com>
Reply-To: wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org
To: wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: What we need
O.k., I hereby proclaim the following:
> * We will not tolerate biased content. The neutral point of view is not
> open to vote; it's decided. If you don't like it, go somewhere else.
>
> * There are certain other policies as well that basically define us as a
> community. We have arrived at them by broad consensus, and they should be
> respected. Wikipedians working in good faith should feel empowered to
> enforce those policies. They shouldn't have to apologize for doing so!
>
> * We will not stop banning vandals. We should seek out the best ways we
> know how to make sure that non-vandals are not lumped in with the vandals,
> but please stop talking as if we'll just stop banning them, because it
> ain't gonna happen.
>
> * We try to help newcomers who want to contribute but don't quite
> understand the body of good habits (and rules) we've built up. But we
> should not and *will* not tolerate forever people who are essentially
> attempting to undermine the system. See below.
>
> * To whatever extent we are or are not, or should be, a democracy, the
> following is also true. We are a benevolent monarchy ruled by a
> "constitution" or, anyway, a developing body of common law that is not
> open to interpretation, but not vote. This has been the case from the
> beginning, and we aren't going to change that.
None of this is new.
> In addition to this, it would help a LOT for you to solicit draft
> statements of policy regarding clear circumstances in which people can be
> banned for being really egregiously difficult. There has to be a
> *reasonably* clear line drawn that distinguishes difficult but
> on-the-whole useful contributors, on the one hand, from contributors so
> egregiously difficult that the project suffers from their continued
> presence. The policy should codify, for example, the reasons why we did
> ban 24 and Helga, and the reasons why we might ban Lir. Let's have a
> discussion about this, bearing in mind that one option that is *not* on
> the table is that we might decide *not* to ban people for their trollish
> behavior at all. We definitely will, so let's make the policy clearer.
> You could start the discussion and make it clear that at some point soon,
> we *will* determine a policy.
>
> I don't mean to put words in your mouth of course. I'm just saying that,
> IMO, Wikipedia is really suffering, and even losing people. You're in a
> position to help embolden the most productive members of the project, who
> it seems to me are, in at least some cases, getting very discouraged.
I agree with all of this, except with your diagnosis of the current
situation. Can you show me examples of "anarchists" who are arguing
that we "we might decide *not* to ban people for their trollish
behavior at all"?
--Jimbo
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we should refer to spacecraft from the USSR according to their Russian name-not according to the English name.
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Lir and Helga have distinct patterns of speech. Lir's English is
excellent, and she probably is American as she said. Helga is obviously
European and not a native speaker of English.
They are similar only in that they both flouted the rules too much.
Ed Poor
Lir,
I know the mailing list has been "spammy" recently, but you might want to take a look at Jimbo's e-mail. He didn't say that discussion of the rules is grounds for banning -- but only repeated violation.
No one talks about banning the Cunctator, although he questions the rules more often than any one else -- even you!
You have complete freedom on the Internet, anywhere you go. With the exception that the owner of the server hosting Wikipedia won't permit certain kinds of edits to the article database.
But any contributions to the encyclopedia project that fit the NPOV rules are fine, and we'd appreciate your cooperation on transliteration, too.
Ed Poor
-----Original Message-----
From: Bridget [name omitted for privacy reasons] [mailto:lapollutionestsimauvaise@yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2002 4:02 AM
To: wikipedia-l(a)wikipedia.org
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] americanization
genocide involves the destorying of culture. americinization is a form of genocide. stop saying that i should be banned for opposing King Jimbo Wales, whoever that is, he probably would rather see the correct name of things, than the same ol americanized crap.
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If you didnt want me talking on wikipedia-l then all you had to do was say, "Dont talk here" I didnt want to talk on the stupid thing-I only was there cuz people told me to!
I think its racist to not make more of an effort to use foreign words. Im sorry that has upset all of you so much. I don't see why I should be banned for it.
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Why am I being banned for adding an article on Wilhelm Wien? What the hell :<
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