WikiEN-l February 2003

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57 participants
159 discussions

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sysop
by Oliver Brown 08 May '03

08 May '03

I would like to be a sysop to assist in the general maintenance and welfare of wikipedia. Sincerely, Oliver King Turtle

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Lists which are sheer nonsense
by Poor, Edmund W 07 Mar '03

07 Mar '03

Sean, I agree that the entire issue is nonsense, but maybe not in the way you meant it. Granted that Pierre Trudeau, being a well-know Canadian, is unlikely to be confused with a US citizen. But the [[List of Americans]] article seems designed to provoke controversy, to stir up a fuss and to pro- vide entertainment for those who want to have some- thing to wrangle about. Remember all the fun that was had with [[List of famous Canadians]]? I'm NOT going to discuss it on the talk page, and I'm not going to get involved with the article: I think it's stupid and useless. I don't see what legitimate purpose it serves. Sure, I'm proud of America (i.e., the United States) and proud to be a natural-born citizen of it. But what the heck do we need a list for? I mean, what would any- one *do* with such a list? Okay, if someone wants to start creating lists like the following, I guess I won't mind :-) * [[List of US citizens]] * [[List of citizens of South Korea]] * [[List of Mexican restaurants in Los Angeles]] * [[List of Latin American singers]] But please let's not waste any more time with contro- versy magnets. Uncle Ed, aka Ed Poor

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Re: A suicide note on the Wikipedia?????
by Daniel Mayer 04 Mar '03

04 Mar '03

On Friday 14 February 2003 04:00 am, Jimmy Wales wrote: > I forwarded this information to the administrators there. If it's > real, perhaps they can help. If it's a prank, hopefully they can deal > with that, too. Yes it was the real thing and after I asked if anybody had contacted the local police Stevertigo then called the Cheshire PD about it. In the future we should act on this even faster than we did (it was nearly 3 hours before the cops were called). It is up the cops, not us, to determine whether or not stuff like this is a prank and take the appropriate action (even if it is just to give a warning to a prankster). Forward: > To: 'steve' > Sent: Friday, February 14, 2003 4:38 AM > Subject: RE: thank you > > Thank you, Cheshire PD alerted us and we took immediate action. The > Student is in Yale-New Haven Hospital for assessment/observation. Thank > you for your assistance.

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142
by Dan Keshet 28 Feb '03

28 Feb '03

I noticed that you all are discussing 142 again. I'd just like to point out my experience that, after enthusiastically trying to start [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Voting Systems]], I just as quickly abandoned it because I didn't have the time or effort to keep up with the nonsensical edits of 142. He has knowledge about the subjects he writes about, but the entries he writes are often hodgepodges of related subjects, conjoined in a meaningless way. He frequently uses accepted terminology in non-accepted ways (e.g. instant-runoff voting) or makes up terminology (e.g. disapproval voting), then has long arguments over their meanings. When I've challenged the veracity of articles he's written, he has never supplied reproducible references (although he has belittled me for failing to see the obviousness of his prose). The amount of effort it takes to challenge an article is more than I'm willing to make anymore. He also is not willing to join the rest of the community by getting a username; he says he won't do so because he doesn't want his contributions to be tracked. That is part of the reason for the incoherence of this discussion we're having. Yes, I'll be sorry if we lose some articles on subjects that he has some knowledge about. But, on balance, we're better off without them. And, the reason for the silent ban is because this is a decision we have already made, many times, but could not enforce consistently because he's coming in through a popular dial-up service. --dk

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142
by Dan Keshet 28 Feb '03

28 Feb '03

Sorry that my messages don't thread; I read through the web. Anyway, just for the record, the conversation I was referring to about logging in and being tracked is at [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Voting Systems]]. --dk

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SoftSecurity, Roman style (was: Return of DW?)
by Poor, Edmund W 28 Feb '03

28 Feb '03

Egad, where the Cunctator when you need him? At the drop of a hat, people are talking about banning this one and banning that one. If someone writes badly, just revise their work. If someone puts something on the wrong shelf, just put it back. SoftSecurity, right? Uncle Ed -----Original Message----- From: Jimmy Wales [mailto:jwales@bomis.com] Sent: Friday, February 28, 2003 1:30 PM To: wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Return of DW? Lee Pilich wrote: > I strongly suspect that User:Ron Davis is User:DW (who was banned a > while ago) under a different name. Has anyone asked Ron Davis? One possible route for redemption, one that I don't really want to encourage but can't really prevent, is for a person who has been warned repeatedly and then banned for bad behavior to come back under a new name *and behave*. If they actually *do* behave, well, there's not much harm. The only harm, really, is that a standing policy like that might encourage some people to just keep coming back under new names. In particularly problematic cases, we might have to be really strict about it, up to and including complaining to ISPs or bigger authorities if absolutely necessary.

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Return of DW?
by Lee Pilich 28 Feb '03

28 Feb '03

I strongly suspect that User:Ron Davis is User:DW (who was banned a while ago) under a different name. Both have worked a very great deal on cemetery articles, both have a very similar (non-conventional) biographical style, both place a string of periods before their signature, and the long message Ron Daivs left on [[User talk:Rbrwr]] has more than a hint of DW to it. Most recently, Ron Davis has moved [[List of communities in Quebec]] back to [[Communities of the Province of Quebec, Canada]], from where it was originally moved by User:Montréalais. Montréalais' move was correct in my opinion, Ron Davis' is rather petty, and judging from the comment he left on [[Talk:List of communities in Quebec]], was done simply because it wasn't the name he had originally given the article (considering articles he had written to be "owned" by him was another DW characteristic). What we should do about this, if anything, I don't know. I just mention it out of interest and as a sort of warning. Apologies if it seems that I'm jumping to conclusions, but I've been watching this guy for a number of weeks, and I'm completely convinced. lp (camembert) WikiKarma: two more Turner Prize winners - [[Tony Cragg]] and [[Richard Long]]

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Tracking (was: [WikiEN-l] 142)
by Poor, Edmund W 28 Feb '03

28 Feb '03

I think what Jimmy just wrote amounts to a new policy -- or a fresh reformulation of something I always felt was either policy or a "feature" of our wiki software. Some wiki boards don't track who changes what, and they don't have a problem with it. They have a low edit volume and high readership rate, so any nonsense gets weeded out quickly. But our wiki is the world's largest, and the ratio of reads to writes isn't as high as it used to be. We _need_ user tracking. If I see one bogus edit, like "Hi I am Johnny and I love that cutie Mary from English class" replacing the [[William Shakespeare]] article, I want to be able to click on the "User Contributions" link and see what other damage this graffiti artist has done. I'll revert everything and list the IP or username on a page where sysops and other interested parties can see it. Also, if someone has really bad spelling or grammar skills, or goes on a POV rampage or even (*happy sigh*) writes brilliant prose, I want to be able to see more of their work. Being able to know who does what is important around here, and maybe we should make that clear in the policy pages. Uncle Ed, aka Ed Poor

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Re: [WikiEN-l] election
by james duffy 28 Feb '03

28 Feb '03

I would be dead set against 'List of Americans'. America has two meanings. It can be state-specific, the US, or geography-specific, the continent of America. We have to be ultra-careful to remember that Wiki is meant to be a world-wide sourcebook, which means avoiding causing (1) confusion, (2) unnecessary offence, (3) inaccuracy. 'Claiming' US = America sets a precedent that poses the question, what to we call the 'continent' and how do we refer to people on the continent who are not resident in the US? 'Non-American Americans?' This same problem exists on the island of Ireland. Ireland can mean one island or two political entities, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, with half the people on Northern Ireland not wanting to be called Irish (and taking high offence in being called Irish) and half 'demanding' it. The solution there is to call the political entities by their formal name, and the geographic entity (the island) simply as Ireland. (And run a mile from a 'List of Irish people' - Calling Ian Paisley Irish and you'd be picking your teeth up from the ground. Call Gerry Adams 'British' and you'd be trying to find your kneecaps!) The same is true in the UK. England is NOT the island it is on. Using England to mean everyone on the island on Great Britain 'english' is liable to get you a punch in the face from people in Scotland and Wales, who will tell you 'we are bloody well not English and how dare you suggest it!' Just because a lot of people thousands of miles might call everyone from that island 'English' would be NO EXCUSE for us doing it. Ditto with America. Call the geographic entity 'America' but those who could from the various counties/states by the political entity, US, Canada, Mexico. It may seem pedantic but this is a SERIOUS sourcebook here, not a game where we adopt the attitude 'ah shucks, who cares?' Canadians aren't going to take a sourcebook seriously that acts as though they don't exist and usupts the name of the continent they share for 'one' bit of the continent' just as Scottish people will treat as rubbish a sourcebook that calls everyone on the island of Great Britain as english, Norwegians would hit the roof if we presumed that everyone in Scandanavia was Swedish, and the Portuguese would practically declare war (without even having a George Bush!) if we called everyone on Iberia Spanish. (And anyone who talks about Ireland as being part of the British Isles - or worse still calls us 'British', which still happens, would be told in no uncertain manner to 'fuck off, you ignorant wanker!') So be VERY VERY careful with terminology, if you want Wikipedia to be taken seriously out there. JT. > > >The first one is stupid, the second one is all right, I suggested [[List of >people from the United States]], and nobody even commented on that. > >Zoe > > > mail <pholango(a)yahoo.com> wrote:it looks like we will have a vote to >decide what to >call notable u.s. citizens. the top two choices are >"people from the united states" or "americans" > >[[Talk:List of United States people]] > >__________________________________________________ >Do you Yahoo!? >Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, more >http://taxes.yahoo.com/ >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l(a)wikipedia.org >http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > >--------------------------------- >Do you Yahoo!? >Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, and more _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus

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Blocking 205.188*
by Zoe 28 Feb '03

28 Feb '03

I have blocked several IP addresses beginning with 205.188. Seeing the histories of these addresses, it appears that they are joint addresses that have been used for useful additions to the Wikipedia in the past. If someone wants to review the blocks and unblock them in a while, please do so, but I was trying to stem an attack. Zoe --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, and more

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WikiEN-l February 2003