I have been banned for trying to add the following two bits of information to the wikipedia:
*This page refers to Saddam Hussein as "Saddam"; however, doing so may be extremely inapppropriate. See the section below: ==Hussein's Name==. As a result of this, the NPOV of this article is questioned.
*Hussein may not be a surname in the Western sense; however, as his children also bear the name "Hussein"; it would not be unreasonable to conclude that the Hussein family does use a Western surname, and that they chose Hussein as that surname.
**Saddam (pronounced "Sad-DAHM") is his given personal name; Hussein is his father's given personal name; al-Majid is a quasi-familial name, and al-Tikriti is his regional affiliation. It is common for Arab men to add the name of their town or village onto their name, this would give Saddam Hussein al-Awja. In many nations, he is most commonly referred to as Saddam Hussein or Saddam; however in Iraq, he is most commonly referred to by his formal presidential title.
**Some observers have argued that referring to the man as only Saddam may be derogatory and academically inappropriate; especially since it is often mispronounced "Sodom" or "Sa-damn". During the 1990 war, some people in the US began to deragatorily refer to Hussein as: Saddam Insane.
Referring to him as "Saddam" is sort of like referring to Pope John Paul II as "John"; or referring to Bush as "George". It is rude and disparaging, and the article must at least mention (in a visible location) that this issue exists.
As a result Guanaco has banned me unfairly, over an edit war in which he was involved. He then proceeded to remove my vote from Requests for Adminship. He did all these things without warning, attempting to talk to me, or explanation -- I have clearly not met the threshold of "pure vandalism" and should not have been treated in this manner.
It is questionable that I violated the three reverts rule, as he claims -- even if I did; a warning would be more appropriate, prior to banning me. Certainly Guanaco should not have been the one to determine whether I was in violation, since he was involved in the edit war.
After successfully appealing to an admin via the IRC channel (where I was harrassed by several users), I was then re-banned by RickK; who makes the unfounded claim that I am a sockpuppet account. I am not and these actions towards me are completely inappropriate. The sysops responsible must be desysoped, they must not be allowed to continue abusing their authority and attacking other users.
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http://homepage.univie.ac.at/horst.prillinger/blog/archives/2004/06/index.h…
Eine Perle:
"Text and concepts for Wikipedia entries are often blatantly copied from
other websites. To avoid instant recognition, the text is sometimes
rewritten, adding inaccuracies, inconsistencies or even errors. Due to
the nature of the content and the open format of Wikipedia, no copyright
holder can do anything about this."
(I don't agree with this text but I find it interesting to read most
objections to wikipedia condensed on a single non-wikipedia-affiliated page)
Sonnenscheinverwöhnte bitte wegschauen..
Nicht, daß ich glaube, daß er das Prinzip in der letzten Konsequenz
verstanden hat...
Mathias
--
nach uns der synflood.
From: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales(a)bomis.com>
> Given that we already *have* Toki Pona, my main interest is that we
> all understand that whatever we end up doing with it, it is an
> historical anomoly that should not be viewed as precedent setting for
> the future.
Hi Jimbo,
I'm not very familiar with
the details on Toki-Pona,
but if it does have some
active users, and a supportive
community of folks who are
willing to contribute articles
then what makes this language
less worthy of inclusion than
some minority natural languages?
I believe the precedent will be
established. Whether it is viewed
as a precedent or a loosely put
together guideline of what to
accept for inclusion and what
to exclude. The goal, I'm sure
you'd agree would be to respect
the community of active users.
If they are actively working with
the language then one can say
that a culture building process
is taking place. To deny inclusion
would actually deny recognition
for a culture, a community and
a different take on the world
we all share. I've never met an
active user of Toki-Pona, although
I did visit their webpage a long
while ago when it first appeared
on the web and it was mentioned
in linguistic circles I frequent.
However, I have met some
folks who use Klingon, and are
devoted to its development and
active practice. And they're take
on life and the world is, shall
we say, a bit different than mine.
But I respect their point of view
even if different from mine.
(But then again Sapir and Whorf
would have probably fit in as
Klingon-lubbers... wasn't Whorf
the security officer in the NG
trek series :-)
Culture and language go hand in
hand. To exclude a language is
the same as not including a certain
culture or a community's point
of view. I'd support the right of
a minority community to be
recognized as worthy of having
their own language namespace
in the Wikipedia project.
with regards,
Jay B.
[[User:ILVI]]
From: "Joachim Schiele" <js(a)dune2.de>
> But if it's just a flaming war related to the Klingons or their language,
post
> somewhere else. Go and create your own wiki-server. It's easy to setup and
> maintain a wiki which is _as_ good as the mediawiki is.
>
> Thank you,
> Joachim
Hi, Joachin,
I understand your concern.
But the issue of having a
namespace/subdomain does
involve tech know-how and
help. The issue goes beyond
Klingon language itself since
the precedent would extend
to other languages.
The end result may set a
pecedent for other languages
being assigned a wikipedia
subdomain, and maybe even
the removal of some existing
wikis, like the toki-pona one,
if the discussion goes that way.
I understand this discussion
should go to wikipedia-l
where it may be discussed
at more detail and perhaps
some concensus or vote
being taken.
Sincerely,
Jay B.
[[User:ILVI]]
From: "Andre Engels" <engelsAG(a)t-online.de>
> As strange as it may sound, it is not fully nonsense. As
> I understand, our own contributor and Steward Arno Lagrange
> grew up in a family where Esperanto was the language spoken
> at home, and thus can be considered a native speaker of the
> language.
No, you misunderstand my
intention. I've actually met
a family from Rochester NY
who are raising their children
with Esperanto as the lang
in the home. And I was
delighted to speak with
the little boy in Esperanto.
That wasn't my intention.
The fact that the Ethnologue
mentions that Esperanto is
a language native to France
and has 200-2000 native
speakers there is highly
irregular. In fact it is a lie.
Esperanto was Zamenhof's
invention and he wasn't
French, perhaps they meant
"Ido". Gasp!
But really, if the info here
is flawed and they have no
respect for the truth in this
matter how can you trust
what else they claim. I've
been a World Language
teacher for 18 years (and
a professional translator).
In my evaluation these errors
make the Ethnologue list highly
flawed and very suspect.
If a language has documents
published in a certain language,
and has a following of active
users. And the ISO recognizes
this and assigns an abbrev. this
in my opinion is a much better
standard than some biased and
prejudiced linguist list. Not that
the Ethnologue list doesn't have
it's merits, and it is usable for
some research purposes, but
definitely not for the purpose
of basing a decision on whether
a language merits inclusion in
the wikipedia project or not.
I maintain that the ISO list is
a much better standard in this
respect. And the Wikipedia may
actually help some minor languages
be included in the ISO list in the
future... consider this. A minor
language of Latin America,
spoken by some few folks in
the jungle and having no
written standard form is assigned
some other subdomain name.
(e.g. Guarani-dialect-B.wikipedia.org,
not that there's anithing such, I think.)
If they get a hundred articles
written in a common acceptable
or unagreed standard it could
be brought to the attention of
the ISO, they get a shorter
address after they are assigned
an abbrev. and the Ethnologue
gets a hold of their existence
(and would probably mention
that there are actually 100-1000
native speakers in France, as well,
by the way, maybe the emigrated ;-)
But we have gl.wikipedia.org and
there are still arguments pro or
con a standard written form for
Gallician/Galego. There's a lot
of other languages out there who
are minority languages which
may be recognized by the ISO
but which don't actually yet
have the necessary standardization
that would bring a common look
to the articles in a Wikipedia
project based on multiple persons
editing a specific article. One could
use one spelling another yet some
other prefered spelling etc.
In this regard several conlangs,
constructed languages, are actually
more settled, Occidental/Interlingue
comes to mind, there is a small
group of speakers who are active
and use it in publications even today.
It has an ISO code "ie" and it has
almost a century long history of
use and a library of publications,
an extensive and detailed vocabulary
in the sciences and yet it doesn't
have a wikipedia namespace.
But let's move the discussion
to Wikipedia-l and consider
what needs to happen for some
acceptable stipulations to be
accepted which will result in
the inclusion or exclusion of
a certain language. This would
be very helpful although it does
seem quite difficult.
With regards,
Jay B.
Hi, everybody, I'm an administrator in Chinese Wikipedia - User:Mountain.
I have a request: Who can help us to change the default font size on Chinese Wikipedia.
Now the default font size on Chinese Wikipedia is too small, many users required us to change it.
we can change the default css to that:
body, #globalWrapper { font-size:11pt }
It looks better for most users.
Thanks for your help.
Hi there,
Can I obtain the "sysop" privilege on zh-cfr/minnan.wikipedia.org so
that I can continue to coordinate the interface L10N? We have done some of
the translation but now the system message pages are locked, and we can't
continue the L10N work.
my username is pektiong
http://minnan.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pektiong
best
pektiong
I'd like to know what you define as "noise". Is it
Rambot? Stubs on celebrities? How can you tell noise
from articles that you just aren't interested in?
Meelar
> > Basically, what is happening here is the building
> of a parallel World Wide
> > Web inside the wikipedia.org domain
>
> And actually he is perfectly right: That *is* our
> biggest problem. Not the
> copying, not errors, not the missing editors, not
> the enthusiasts he
> mentions. But the "superfluous trivia". Our problem
> is noise, in en: even
> more as in de:. The noise repells qualified authors
> and editors. This is the
> reason why the article quality does not increase the
> way that should be
> expected given the idea behind wikipedia and the
> popularity and it already
> has.
>
> As an encyclopaedia, we should reduce noise. Instead
> we are creating noise by
> accepting articles on any subject. For me - opposing
> that
> noise-accepting-policy since one and a half years
> now - that outsiders
> statement is very interesting.
>
> Uli
=====
"The difference between extra-marital sex and extra marital sex is not to be sneezed at."
--George Will, on hyphen use
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I wonder why Grin, who seems to be in charge of editing/revising/censoring wikipedia in Hungarian, has been given the privilege and the courage to disqualify any entries that
a) are not direct translations of a similar entry in the En Wiki
b) he is not familiar with, as he does not seem to be knowledgeable in everything, save GNU technology and practising paranoia.
It has happened twice already, and both me and a friend of mine find it insulting and revolting to doubt our competence that way, especially so, because both entries were offered in the trial sections (usertalk) for comment and were instead labelled as text of dubious origin.
Could you tell the s.o.b. that despite his memorable contributions in general, he is no GOD almighty disguised as peter gervai?
ferenc kovacs
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If this description of the situation is correct, I see no reason to
interfere. In fact, I just wished problems would work this way more
times. Grin has problems with an article. He says what his problems
are. Bögöly answers to the objections. That's the way such things
should be solved - discussion. Demanding that Grin just lets his
objections be would be just as wrong as it would for him to censor
the article. Instead, the objections should be discussed in a way
aimed at getting agreement. I don't think that what happened here
is further from that ideal than most other discussions on Wikipedia.
Andre Engels
"Ralesk Ne'vennoyx" <ralesk(a)livejournal.com> schrieb:
> Situation. User:Bögöly has been writing an article under their User
> area. The article was going to be about dictionary. According to the
> content -- which is quite freeworded at parts, not written in
> "officialspeek" if you get me -- this is a quite good definition for
> what is a dictionary. At this point I do not see why Grin so adamantly
> (later in the discussion) stood up for the point that Wikipedia is not a
> dictionary. How else should one write an encyclopaedia entry on a
> 'dictionary' if not by defining what all kinds of dictionaries exist?
>
> Anyway, from the discussion, I see a misunderstanding, or as we would
> say "egymás mellett elbeszélni". Grin was wondering about the
> following: why not write the article in the article space, where it
> belongs; who would be interested in this article and why would it belong
> here (as wikipedia is not a dictionary); and third, he didn't really
> look but wonders whether Bögöly wrote this or not (and hopes they did,
> else he would have to go and erase after them). But anyway, if it makes
> Bögöly feel good, they can continue their secret whatever, Grin just
> doesn't understand why it is being done here.
>
> Bögöly replies: This is a stub for an article, and it has been said
> that such may be developed in the Sandbox or the userspace, thus Bögöly
> decided their stubs would be developed in userspace [and when the
> content is agreed upon, it would be moved to articlespace -- translator
> guessing from questions placed directly after the two article stubs,
> directed towards the readership]. Why does Grin regard this some
> "secret project"? Bögöly is aware of the difference between WP and
> Wiktionary, and points out there exists a WP article on 'dictionary' in
> the English Wikipedia.
>
>
> My humble conclusion is that Grin is a bit overprotective about the
> content put on WP and assumes that people are completely unaware of the
> rules regarding copying. I do see why he is being regarded as paranoid
> in the other post. Bögöly, meanwhile, misunderstood Grin's intention
> and took it tougher than they should have.