On Thu, 23 Jan 2003, Jimmy Wales wrote:
This seems better suited to a /Talk page?
I agree. But since Erik Moeller has made misleading claims about me on this mailing list, could I please be allowed to correct them? Most people here won't bother to look at the Talk page in question, and I don't want them thinking that I am responsible for an edit war.
Firstly, I have never insisted on keeping the quote in the article. I have made only one edit to the article itself, and that was before the quote was removed. I simply reverted the quote to its original state, as someone had added some vandalism about "having you-know-what" with Ms. Sweeney. My subsequent comments at the Village pump and on the article's Talk page actually agreed that the quote should be removed, albeit a little ambivalently (containing a "maybe" and an "I suppose" respectively).
It was only *after* Arno had put the quote back into the article that I proposed - in the Talk page, not in the article itself - my compromise wording, which simply makes a verifiable statement (albeit an arguably unencyclopaedic one) about the history of the article.
Neither I nor Tom Parmenter have made any edits to the article in question since the quote was removed, and neither of us can be held responsible for the subsequent edit war between Arno and Eloquence.
Sorry to clog up the mailing list with this, but I felt that a public defence had to be made against a public complaint. Further comments, if necessary, to the Talk page...
Oliver
Erik Moeller wrote:
Hi,
there's a problem with the article [[Madeline Amy Sweeney]], about a victim of the Sep 11 attacks. This started out as an anonymous contribution:
"Amy was a wonderful person to wrok with. She inspired me to enjoy my life, work hard and have fun with my job as an American Airlines Flight Attendant, because it was the best of the best."
It was expanded, and the quote was removed. Oliver Perreira and Tom Parmenter have insisted on keeping that quote in the article. The latest variant used by Oliver is this:
-- The Wikipedia article on Madeline Amy Sweeney was started on November 28, 2001, with the following anonymous sentiment:- "Amy was a wonderful person to wrok with. She inspired me to enjoy my life, work hard and have fun with my job as an American Airlines Flight Attendant, because it was the best of the best." --
A new contributor named Arno also wants to keep the quote in, with the remark "SPECIAL NOTE". Because he is encouraged by Tom and Oliver, he is now ready to start an "edit war".
My position is that, however touching this may be, there are several reasons not to have the quote in the article:
- We have a precedent here. On [[Wilson Flagg]] we have kept the comment on
the Talk page and linked to it, with the link name "Tributes and Comments".
- The anonymous quote is unverifiable. I could easily come along and add
another, similar quote to the article under an anonymous IP. Should that then, too, be included because of its sentimental value? Or does the first quote get priority because it was "the quote that started this article"? In that case, can I come along and add new articles about Sep 11 victims with fake anonymous quotes that are destined to remain in them forever?
- Any self-reference of the type "The Wikipedia article .." is
non-encyclopedic to the extreme and should be avoided whenever possible.
In conclusion, I think it is obvious that we should keep the anonymous comment on the Talk page, and not in the article. It would set an extremely bad precedent if we allowed these kind of unverifiable comments in articles. I'd like to hear more opinions on, preferably on the Talk page of the article [[Madeline Amy Sweeney]].
Regards,
Erik
-- +++ GMX - Mail, Messaging & more http://www.gmx.net +++ NEU: Mit GMX ins Internet. Rund um die Uhr f�r 1 ct/ Min. surfen!
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@wikipedia.org http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@wikipedia.org http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
+-------------------------------------------+ | Oliver Pereira | | Dept. of Electronics and Computer Science | | University of Southampton | | omp199@ecs.soton.ac.uk | +-------------------------------------------+