Re: [WikiEN-l] FlaggedRevs test wiki needs you!
On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 12:44 AM, Aude wrote: > Can the templates from enwiki (at least those in use) be imported to the > test wiki? It's important to look at the flagged revs, together with > templates, to make sure the css stylings don't conflict between what's used > in the infoboxes and what's used in the flagged rev interface elements. The ones in use are supposed to be imported but some were not. > On the Arabic Wikipedia, which is using flagged revisions, I have found many > pages where the infobox together with the flagged revs mw-revisiontag > (sighted/draft) div in the corner cause the infobox to be displaced on the > page. I think the styling of the high visibility flagged revs mv-revisiontag is bad for usability: It's by far one of the most visible thing on a typical articles. While I'm sure that mv-revisiontag is great important to flagged revs developers I don't think it's *that* important to editors and especially readers. It's certainly not more important than the edit and history tabs which it is 1000x more visible than. Perhaps it should be moved down and become a component of the review box at the top of the article, keeping no more than a tab and/or icon at the top of the page? ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] FlaggedRevs test wiki needs you!
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 8:24 PM, Brion Vibber wrote: > Apparently due to some miscommunications, a lot of people didn’t realize > that the FlaggedRevs labs test wiki has been active and waiting for > people to poke at it for a month, since just before Wikimania! > > We need interested people to be get up as local administrators to try > out the the per-page stabilization settings (accessed via the ‘protect’ > tab); by default most pages do not activate FlaggedRevs in the > configuration we’re testing for English Wikipedia. > > I’ve added a couple quick notes to this affect on the main page: > http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page > > We're collecting some folks to be bureaucrats and help set up more test > admins so we can get things going quick! > > > Also posted on the Wikimedia tech blog: > http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/09/flaggedrevs-test-wiki-awaits-you/ > > -- brion > > Can the templates from enwiki (at least those in use) be imported to the test wiki? It's important to look at the flagged revs, together with templates, to make sure the css stylings don't conflict between what's used in the infoboxes and what's used in the flagged rev interface elements. On the Arabic Wikipedia, which is using flagged revisions, I have found many pages where the infobox together with the flagged revs mw-revisiontag (sighted/draft) div in the corner cause the infobox to be displaced on the page. Examples: http://bit.ly/17anh9 (October 2 - arwiki calendar page) http://bit.ly/3zfe5x (Polonium - arwiki element page) http://bit.ly/1cR7J4 (Jurassic Park 2 - arwiki page) (Note: I haven't had the time to look into this and find where exactly the bug is, and help fix it. I am curious if it's happening only on arwiki or a more widespread problem) It would be good know if this might be a problem on enwiki, by testing with templates on the test wiki. -Aude > ___ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] FlaggedRevs test wiki needs you!
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 11:23 PM, Gregory Maxwell wrote: > On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 11:06 PM, Steve Bennett wrote: >> On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 12:58 PM, Gregory Maxwell >> wrote:> There is a page on the wiki collecting comments, please add >> yours: >> >> Done. >> >> One thing that makes testing this thing quite difficult is that the >> experience for admins and non-admins is very different. In particular >> if you're an admin, every change you make is auto-reviewed. You really >> need to have two browsers open to do any playing. > > I had originally thought there was some checkbox in flagged revs that > you could hit to suppress the autoflagging of your own edit (like the > minor edit box) but I don't see it in the code. > > Is this a feature we'd like beyond simple testing? Oh— it's there. Hmph. I could have sworn it wasn't. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] FlaggedRevs test wiki needs you!
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 11:06 PM, Steve Bennett wrote: > On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 12:58 PM, Gregory Maxwell > wrote:> There is a page on the wiki collecting comments, please add > yours: > > Done. > > One thing that makes testing this thing quite difficult is that the > experience for admins and non-admins is very different. In particular > if you're an admin, every change you make is auto-reviewed. You really > need to have two browsers open to do any playing. I had originally thought there was some checkbox in flagged revs that you could hit to suppress the autoflagging of your own edit (like the minor edit box) but I don't see it in the code. Is this a feature we'd like beyond simple testing? ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] [Foundation-l] Status of flagged protection (flagged revisions) for English Wikipedia.
On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 6:05 AM, Gregory Maxwell wrote: > When will the test wiki be activated? This requires something like > pasting 25 lines of configuration, an extension install, and kicking a > maintenance script. Can you give a bit of background here? You seem to be saying that there is another test wiki (ie, in addition to flaggedrevs.labs) that will more closely resemble en, with a bit of configuration? What's the difference? Steve ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] FlaggedRevs test wiki needs you!
On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 12:58 PM, Gregory Maxwell wrote:> There is a page on the wiki collecting comments, please add yours: Done. One thing that makes testing this thing quite difficult is that the experience for admins and non-admins is very different. In particular if you're an admin, every change you make is auto-reviewed. You really need to have two browsers open to do any playing. Steve ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] FlaggedRevs test wiki needs you!
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 9:23 PM, Steve Bennett wrote: > So, please let's not inflict this on en without making a few decent > improvements to the user experience. Absolutely. I think a lot of clarity can be added just by changing the interface text... Sighted? Wtf is that. There is a page on the wiki collecting comments, please add yours: http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia:FlaggedRevs_issues ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] FlaggedRevs test wiki needs you!
On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 10:24 AM, Brion Vibber wrote: > I’ve added a couple quick notes to this affect on the main page: > http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Ah, I didn't know about this. Having a quick look now. Comments: - It looks like the UI could do with a bit of work - it took a fair bit of poking around to work out what status a page was in. - Language should be stabilised. I see the terms "reviewed", "sighted", "draft", "stable version", "stable page", "sighted page"...but not "flagged revision". We should use as few terms as possible and use them consistently. - Clicking the +/- shows some escaped HTML code (
[WikiEN-l] FlaggedRevs test wiki needs you!
Apparently due to some miscommunications, a lot of people didn’t realize that the FlaggedRevs labs test wiki has been active and waiting for people to poke at it for a month, since just before Wikimania! We need interested people to be get up as local administrators to try out the the per-page stabilization settings (accessed via the ‘protect’ tab); by default most pages do not activate FlaggedRevs in the configuration we’re testing for English Wikipedia. I’ve added a couple quick notes to this affect on the main page: http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page We're collecting some folks to be bureaucrats and help set up more test admins so we can get things going quick! Also posted on the Wikimedia tech blog: http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/09/flaggedrevs-test-wiki-awaits-you/ -- brion ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] So what does Flagged Revs feel like?
On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 6:20 AM, David Gerard wrote: If you want to know how Flagged Revisions feels from an unprivileged position, go to Wikinews and fix typos. I just did this on http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Geelong_win_2009_Australian_Football_League_Grand_Final - check the history. I'm not an admin or reviewer on en:wn. What did it feel like? Curiously unsatisfying. The fix not going live immediately left me wondering just when it would - five minutes/? An hour? A day? It felt nothing like editing a wiki - it felt like I'd submitted a form to a completely opaque bureaucracy for review at their leisure. Don't take my word for it - go typo-fixing on Wikinews and tell me how it feels to you. So, yeah. I remain a big fan of flagged revisions for those times when we need it - basically, as a less-worse alternative to protection or semiprotection. But it really does kill the wiki motivational buzz dead. - d. "After the posting of the 26th May The Secretary of the WM Foundation Had articles distributed in the MSM Stating that the editors Had forfeited the confidence of the foundation And could win it back only By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier In that case for the foundation To dissolve the community And elect another?" (With apologies to Bertolt Brecht.) -- gwern signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
[WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Staff office hours
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Hello all! This Thursday, October 1, 2009 between 9:00 AM and 10:00 AM PDT (UTC 16:00 and 17:00) Rand Montoya, Wikimedia's Head of Community Giving will be joining us for office hours. Rand will be online to answer your questions and talk about the role of fundraising for the Wikimedia Foundation and the upcoming Fundriaser. The IRC channel that will be hosting Rand's conversation will be #wikimedia-office on the Freenode network. If you do not have an IRC client, you can always access Freenode by going to http://webchat.freenode.net/, typing in the nickname of your choice and choosing wikimedia-office as the channel. You may be prompted to click through a security warning. It's fine. - -- Cary Bass Volunteer Coordinator, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate PS: I'll be sending a follow up email to start a thread to discuss the times of the office hours. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAkrBLZ0ACgkQyQg4JSymDYmBRwCfTEu4qbPCvAmWg09/cs4ESwOy vnQAniw77gSugbNW/GmwCoQ4fJitiWAv =p3Sc -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
[WikiEN-l] A decent discussion of WP, history, Flagged Revision, etc.
I've spoken with a lot of media folks about flagged revision of late. In one, I was told I'd be on at the last minute with a WP "critic" and never got the chance to correct the egregious errors in the intro segment (i.e., WP was hiring people to review the quality of articles.) That was disappointing. However, an interview with Bryan Crump on Radio New Zealand was just posted -- and its only up this week -- that I think was rather excellent. But it lasts 40 minutes, so perhaps that's why :). http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/nights/20090928 ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Loose ends (was other stuff)
David Gerard wrote: > That's probably horribly accurate, considering the arbcom tends - > fairly reasonably - to regard the workshops as somewhere annoying > people go to be ignored ... I know. AGF, srsly. -Stevertigo ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
[WikiEN-l] [Foundation-l] Status of flagged protection (flagged revisions) for English Wikipedia.
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 3:11 PM, Erik Moeller wrote: [snip] > plan, and Brion is hoping to invest some of his remaining time with it > in helping to get the extension ready for en.wp. It's not trivial: The > scalability concerns at that size are a step more serious than with > de.wp, Of course. But I wasn't expecting a turn up on English Wikipedia yet. I'm asking why the 25 lines of configuration that EnWP specified have not yet been added to the test wiki at http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page > and we're also concerned about the potential negative impact on > participation. Please help me understand the implications of this statement. The English Wikipedia reached an overwhelmingly strong decision to try a particular mode of operation. I hope you can appreciate how difficult it can be to balance various interest and achieve agreement on a change with such a widespread impact on a project as large and well established as EnWP. Enhancements were made to the software by volunteers to support the proposal and a configuration was designed. Since then there has been almost no progress in turning up a public trial wiki with this configuration for testing and further refinement. Now, "we" (I do know know for whom you speak) are concerned about an underspecified concern regarding a negative impact on participation. So? Now what? Does the now staff obstruct the rollout with passive resistance and year+ delays? Based both on the actions thus far and on your statement this is what it sounds like to me. Is this sort of over-concern regarding participation, so paranoid that it obstructs a simple time limited trial of an article selective feature, the behavior we can now expect from the WMF now that it has substantial funding tied to unspecified participation goals? I too am concerned about participation: I'm concerned that people who came to build a project together will not want to participate under a Wikimedia Foundation which views its contributors as 'users' rather than partners. Reaching a design for the policy and configuration and educating and convincing people is the result of thousands of hours of volunteer labor from hundreds of people across several years. Moreover, the ability to reach a decision to try something at this scale is a ray of hope that EnWP hasn't become totally stuck and immune to change. All of this is wasted if the Wikimedia Foundation isn't able or willing to hold up its side of its partnership with the community. > The user interface is well-suited for the current de.wp > implementation, but needs some TLC to work for the "flagged > protection" use case. The community has largely taken care of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Flagged_protection_and_patrolled_revisions/Implementation#PHP_configuration Of course, there will need to be additional refinement but that can not proceed until the test wiki is up. > We're committed to getting there but at this stage I can't give you a > better promise than allocating some percentage of the core team to > supporting the UI development, testing, and production roll-out, > hopefully resulting in a full production roll-out prior to the end of > this year. When will the test wiki be activated? This requires something like pasting 25 lines of configuration, an extension install, and kicking a maintenance script. Even if everything else is delayed having the text site up and running would allow the community to test and provide feedback to volunteer developers who can refine the software in advance of the availability of resources for the large scale deployment. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Loose ends (was other stuff)
2009/9/28 Charles Matthews : > OK, here's an old-style formulation: X is to current policy and > policy-review discussions as RfAr is to the Workshop. What would X be? That's probably horribly accurate, considering the arbcom tends - fairly reasonably - to regard the workshops as somewhere annoying people go to be ignored ... - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
[WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Foundation-l] Status of flagged protection (flagged revisions) for English Wikipedia.
There will be a slight delay ... - d. -- Forwarded message -- From: Erik Moeller Date: 2009/9/28 Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Status of flagged protection (flagged revisions) for English Wikipedia. To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Hi Greg, a quick note on Sue's behalf since we're all quite swamped right now. On the tech side of things we're planning for the CTO transition right now, as well as building up our capacity; those are core foundation-building priorities that have to be higher than any specific deployment, particularly given Brion's departure now. We haven't committed to a specific FlaggedRevs deployment deadline precisely because there isn't enough capacity right now to allocate to the project. Pretty much all development work is done by a single contractor, Aaron Schulz, who is amazing and deserves massive credit for the fact that there is a usable FlaggedRevs extension at all, which is in production use on our second-largest Wikipedia and many others. There's no project manager for it, there are no other developers who are assigned to working with Aaron, nor are there team meetings to plan the further roll-out of the product. The only situation where there's actually a dedicated full-time team working on one specific problem-set is the usability project, and that's because we've been able to receive an $890,000 grant specifically to build it. It's time-limited, but we're looking for ways to extend it past its grant run. As I think has been visible with the successful roll-out of the usability beta, the milestones so far, etc., this is one viable approach to get stuff done. Should we have a dedicated quality assurance team? Perhaps; it's a high-risk but potentially also high-gain technology priority. Is it higher priority than, for example, massively improving mobile access to Wikipedia and thereby potentially reaching hundreds of millions of new readers/contributors? Maybe: The Strategy Project is designed to help us answers these questions. At this stage of organizational development, we can possibly have 2-3 usability-sized tech projects per year. There are other ways to support project roll-outs, such as hiring product/project managers, which we've budgeted for but may have to delay past the other planned tech hiring. All that said, even with Brion transitioning, we're hoping to have at least some scheduled small group conversations about the roll-out plan, and Brion is hoping to invest some of his remaining time with it in helping to get the extension ready for en.wp. It's not trivial: The scalability concerns at that size are a step more serious than with de.wp, and we're also concerned about the potential negative impact on participation. The user interface is well-suited for the current de.wp implementation, but needs some TLC to work for the "flagged protection" use case. We're committed to getting there but at this stage I can't give you a better promise than allocating some percentage of the core team to supporting the UI development, testing, and production roll-out, hopefully resulting in a full production roll-out prior to the end of this year. Erik -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ foundation-l mailing list foundatio...@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
[WikiEN-l] To do: Polanski article
(Previous post does not show text in archive) >From the article: "He is also known for his turbulent and controversial personal life.[6] In 1969, his pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, was murdered by the Manson Family, and in 1977, he was arrested in Los Angeles and pleaded guilty to "unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor", a 13-year-old girl; he fled the US and subsequently was a fugitive from US justice, living in France and continuing to direct films." This kind of transition is deplorably poor form. Separate events of extreme difference in consequence cannot be stated in the same breath. -Stevertigo ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
[WikiEN-l] To do: Polanski article
>From the article: "He is also known for his turbulent and controversial personal life.[6] In 1969, his pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, was murdered by the Manson Family, and in 1977, he was arrested in Los Angeles and pleaded guilty to "unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor", a 13-year-old girl; he fled the US and subsequently was a fugitive from US justice, living in France and continuing to direct films." This kind of transition is deplorably poor form. Separate events of extreme difference in consequence cannot be stated in the same breath. -Stevertigo ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Invitation for review
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 6:35 PM, Nathan wrote: > On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 4:42 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote: >> George Herbert wrote: >>> On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 2:05 PM, Nathan wrote: >>> There is a mailing list for block reviews, this isn't it. We also don't usually get into discussing specific content issues here unless there is a point of wider significance to the encyclopedia. You believe Holocaust denial can only be defined using the separate definitions of "Holocaust" and "denial", and want the article to reflect your definition. Others state (correctly) that the term "Holocaust denial" taken as a whole is used to refer specifically to denial of the Holocaust of Jews (Shoah). Perhaps if we try to glean wider significance from this incident, it would be in the area of dealing with specious arguments from editors of long tenure who have become sophisticated in their misuse of dispute processes. >>> This dispute looks either like some combination of original research, >>> disruption, or possibly active but intellectual support of holocaust >>> denialists. >>> >> Original research perhaps; disruption perhaps, but it is dishonest to >> call it "intellectual support of holocaust denialists." Expanding a >> term to a wider application certainly does not equate to holocaust >> denial. It merely recognizes the plain fact that those who deny the >> suffering of other victims than the dominant group are just as guilty of >> denying the Holocaust. >> >> I don't dispute that the Jews were the dominant victims of the >> Holocaust, but it is extremely disturbing when some appear to abuse that >> dominance to minimize the suffering of others. That the victimized Jews >> were more numerous than the others increases the likelihood that they >> have relatives to write about them. The higher value that Jews attach to >> literacy also increases the same likelihood. Gays had a much lower >> number of progeny to write on their behalf. So I fully expect that more >> will be written by Jews about Jews, but the smaller numbers of others >> does not make the fate of those others any less tragic. >> > This is an amazing thing you've written. I've read your posts for > perhaps two years, but I will read all future comments in an entirely > new light. I'm not endorsing what anyone has said in this thread (I think Ray put things the way he did very clumsily), but it doesn't take much Googling to find seemingly reputable sources on stuff related to this (I searched for "overemphasis" and "Holocaust"): http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&source=hp&q=overemphasis+holocaust&btnG=Google+Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=overemphasis+holocaust&fp=5328dbdaa6a8f0fa Now, among those are the usual suspects of far-right and other anti-semitic groups, but also some that are superficially, or actually, reputable. First the superficially reputable one: http://www.h-net.org/announce/show.cgi?ID=131913 "Critical Holocaust Anthology" "Today, the language of the holocaust cannot be understood apart from the Jewish experience. Historically, this argument is suspect, if not inadequate. The intent of this proposed anthology is to understand why this national investment is made and to what extent these terms impact debates concerning genocide beyond the Jewish community. [...]" However, further searching seems to indicate this anthology was never published (or if it was, that it was not widely reviewed or well-received). That call for papers was dated 2003, but was circulating earlier as well. I found a criticism of it here: http://www.atlanticblog.com/archives/000104.html Moving on to something that (to my mind) is more clearly reputable: http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=052138057X "After Tragedy and Triumph - Essays in Modern Jewish Thought and the American Experience" [Published November 1990] "The story of American Jewry is inextricably entwined with the awesome defeat of the Holocaust and the rebirth of the state of Israel. However, for Michael Berenbaum, and others of his generation, whose adult consciousness included the war in Lebanon and the Palestinian Uprisings, the tale is more anguished [...]" Chapter 4 is titled: "Is the centrality of the Holocaust overemphasised? Two dialogues". We have an article on the author of that book, Berenbaum: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Berenbaum Another article he has written is here: http://giving.ajula.edu/Content/ContentUnit.asp?CID=982&u=&t=0 "The Complexity of the Jewish Narrative in Our Times" >From that article, we have: "Dr. Berenbaum is the Director of the Sigi Ziering Institute Exploring the Ethical and Religious Implications of the Holocaust. He is the author and editor of 13 books, scores of scholarly articles and hundreds of journalistic pieces on the Shoah. This fall he will publish two books, A Promise to Remember: The Holocaust in the Words and Voices of Its Survivors and Martyrdom: The
Re: [WikiEN-l] Invitation for review
Nathan wrote: > Your arguments focus on the definition and description of the > Holocaust as an event, not Holocaust denial as a phenomena. The > counter argument, which you've chosen to ignore, is that Holocaust > denial as a phenomena is nearly absolutely limited to the "Jewish" > portion that you find has been the unfair focus of attention. That's fine. Just say so, and why. That's my argument. The other points I touched on about other kinds of "denial" were sensory, and not advocated. Note that articles like [[Nazi crimes against Soviet POWs]] are to some degree conceptualized within the general Holocaust. So there is no need to assume that another article, HD, should rely on another without explanation. > With your avowed great talent for debate, I'm surprised you find ignoring > arguments an effective strategy. Well, if some here can't presently deal with the rational arguments suggesting a rational interpretation of WP:LEDE, then I don't see why they couldn't spend their time dealing with other things. RQM has a backlog. > your claims of skill in "destroying" your opponents, or "[taking them] > to the woodshed", > I promise that my comments, regardless of how snarky or pointed, are aimed at your concepts, not you, and that I am neither trying to ape nor balderdash anyone, though the resulting sensations may be similar. >But there is some similarity between [the above] and those rappers > whose body of work mostly revolves around stating how incredibly > talented they are. Maybe your next redirect can be [[WP:MADBEATS]]. While the Oral Tradition is alive and well, keep in mind that the usage of the written word serves not just immutability, but also the formation of rational arguments, and the recording of details. That I am occasionally required to deal with irrational arguments has consequences, and I simply prefer that those consequences belong largely to the irrational arguer. :-) > If you and Ray want to counter what you see as an inappropriate bias > in the depth and breadth of Holocaust historical coverage, then you > should pursue an academic post and start publishing. Good luck to you > with that. Perhaps in academia the idea that no one actually "died" in > the Holocaust will be met with something other than outright > dismissal. Again, as with the [[Nazi crimes against Soviet POWs]] article, the issue isn't revisionism, or even consistent usage of terms - its about conceptualization in accord to NPOV. Trust me: I'm not an atheist. -Stevertigo ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Invitation for review
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 2:00 PM, stevertigo wrote: > Nathan wrote to Ray: >> This is an amazing thing you've written. I've read your posts for >> perhaps two years, but I will read all future comments in an entirely >> new light. > > Well, I think what Ray is doing is trying to conceptualize a kind of > systemic bias in a certain historical area and how it affects our > general view of history. That 11 million are omitted from the > traditional account is something that we need to deal with, simply > because we cannot accept ethnic or otherwise subjective concepts as > categorical. > > I would suggest interpreting these kinds of expressions as attempts at > conceptualization, perhaps the usage of counter-bias as a device, or > maybe just playing devil's advocate. Insinuations of deeper biases > should be checked first, and that I think goes for everybody. > > stevertigo wrote: >> I already took George to the woodshed for that remark, Raymond. I'm >> sure he doesn't like being reminded of that experience. > > My usage of this arcane idiom for a spanking here was inappropriate. > My apologies to George. > > -Stevertigo > Your arguments focus on the definition and description of the Holocaust as an event, not Holocaust denial as a phenomena. The counter argument, which you've chosen to ignore, is that Holocaust denial as a phenomena is nearly absolutely limited to the "Jewish" portion that you find has been the unfair focus of attention. With your avowed great talent for debate, I'm surprised you find ignoring arguments an effective strategy. But there is some similarity between your claims of skill in "destroying" your opponents, or "[taking them] to the woodshed", and those rappers whose body of work mostly revolves around stating how incredibly talented they are. Maybe your next redirect can be [[WP:MADBEATS]]. If you and Ray want to counter what you see as an inappropriate bias in the depth and breadth of Holocaust historical coverage, then you should pursue an academic post and start publishing. Good luck to you with that. Perhaps in academia the idea that no one actually "died" in the Holocaust will be met with something other than outright dismissal. Nathan ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
[WikiEN-l] Loose ends (was other stuff)
Ray Saintonge wrote: > stevertigo wrote: > >> More thing on my to-do list: Get Arbcom to actually deal with >> adjudicating policy and sections therein. >> >> >> > > That can't work without opening up the broader question of how policies > are formulated and later amended. Any kind of policy review process > needs to operate separately from Arbcom, and be able to rule whether > policies were properly adopted. Until such a process is fully > operational nothing useful would be accomplished by having Arbcom rule > on those policies. > OK, here's an old-style formulation: X is to current policy and policy-review discussions as RfAr is to the Workshop. What would X be? It would be some sort of policy review that operated to a schematic, with things like "in fewer than 500 words" for submissions, and so on. And it would not be a free-for-all or brainstorming session. Charles ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Invitation for review
Nathan wrote to Ray: > This is an amazing thing you've written. I've read your posts for > perhaps two years, but I will read all future comments in an entirely > new light. Well, I think what Ray is doing is trying to conceptualize a kind of systemic bias in a certain historical area and how it affects our general view of history. That 11 million are omitted from the traditional account is something that we need to deal with, simply because we cannot accept ethnic or otherwise subjective concepts as categorical. I would suggest interpreting these kinds of expressions as attempts at conceptualization, perhaps the usage of counter-bias as a device, or maybe just playing devil's advocate. Insinuations of deeper biases should be checked first, and that I think goes for everybody. stevertigo wrote: > I already took George to the woodshed for that remark, Raymond. I'm > sure he doesn't like being reminded of that experience. My usage of this arcane idiom for a spanking here was inappropriate. My apologies to George. -Stevertigo ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Things to do with your home movies
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 11:43 AM, Durova wrote: > Congratulations! And thanks for your dedication to the project. You > realize when he turns thirteen he's going to die of embarrassment over > this...? > That's the idea. We're stocking up on embarrassing things we can show to his first girlfriend/boyfriend. :) I'd be surprised (and disappointed) if someone doesn't put up a better video of the Moro reflex by the time he's 13, though. It's finally becoming easy to make videos for Wikimedia projects. -Sage ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Invitation for review
Ray Saintonge wrote: > Original research perhaps; disruption perhaps, but it is dishonest to > call it "intellectual support of holocaust denialists." I already took George to the woodshed for that remark, Raymond. I'm sure he doesn't like being reminded of that experience. > Expanding a term to a wider application certainly does not equate to > holocaust denial. Its called "universalism," which is basically a real-world philosophical incarnation of NPOV. > It merely recognizes the plain fact that those who deny the suffering of > other victims than the dominant group are just as guilty of denying the > Holocaust. I did sort of hint at this point on the HD talk, but I don't want to go there. Finkelstein may have made this criticism, but I can't look it up till I fix a borked storage partition. > I don't dispute that the Jews were the dominant victims of the > Holocaust, but it is extremely disturbing when some appear to abuse that > dominance to minimize the suffering of others. This gets way too far into speculative territory, and in any case I don't think its really about minimization of others' suffering - though that may be a side effect. It's about conceptualization - in accord with an ethic lens. "Holocaust comprehension" essentially covers it - that millions of people who are missing their family are trying to cope, and using the pen to put some events into some understanding is certainly one way to do it. The only issue then is that for us, in our context of NPOV, that the ethnic conceptualizations not be employed without context, and not be accepted as categorical. > That the victimized Jews were more numerous than the others increases > the > likelihood that they have relatives to write about them. The higher > value that Jews attach to literacy also increases the same likelihood. > Gays had a much lower > number of progeny to write on their behalf. So I fully expect that more > will be written by Jews about Jews, but the smaller numbers of others > does not make the fate of those others any less tragic. The unspoken irony in the whole "denial" concept is that the basic thesis of "denial" is actually correct, albeit in a strange way: That no Jews - also Soviet POWs, Poles, Roma, German dissidents, etc - "died" in the Holocaust, is a simple and plain fact for anyone who understands what divine salvation and eternal life are. The Nazis? Eh. Not so good. -Stevertigo ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Invitation for review
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 4:42 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote: > George Herbert wrote: >> On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 2:05 PM, Nathan wrote: >> >>> There is a mailing list for block reviews, this isn't it. We also >>> don't usually get into discussing specific content issues here unless >>> there is a point of wider significance to the encyclopedia. >>> >>> You believe Holocaust denial can only be defined using the separate >>> definitions of "Holocaust" and "denial", and want the article to >>> reflect your definition. Others state (correctly) that the term >>> "Holocaust denial" taken as a whole is used to refer specifically to >>> denial of the Holocaust of Jews (Shoah). Perhaps if we try to glean >>> wider significance from this incident, it would be in the area of >>> dealing with specious arguments from editors of long tenure who have >>> become sophisticated in their misuse of dispute processes. >>> >> This dispute looks either like some combination of original research, >> disruption, or possibly active but intellectual support of holocaust >> denialists. >> >> > Original research perhaps; disruption perhaps, but it is dishonest to > call it "intellectual support of holocaust denialists." Expanding a > term to a wider application certainly does not equate to holocaust > denial. It merely recognizes the plain fact that those who deny the > suffering of other victims than the dominant group are just as guilty of > denying the Holocaust. > > I don't dispute that the Jews were the dominant victims of the > Holocaust, but it is extremely disturbing when some appear to abuse that > dominance to minimize the suffering of others. That the victimized Jews > were more numerous than the others increases the likelihood that they > have relatives to write about them. The higher value that Jews attach to > literacy also increases the same likelihood. Gays had a much lower > number of progeny to write on their behalf. So I fully expect that more > will be written by Jews about Jews, but the smaller numbers of others > does not make the fate of those others any less tragic. > > Ec This is an amazing thing you've written. I've read your posts for perhaps two years, but I will read all future comments in an entirely new light. Nathan ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Invitation for review
Ray Saintonge wrote: > The distinction between using "reliable sources" and "using source > reliably" is not likely to be productive. If a fundamental editorial foundation is flawed because of subjectivity is in the mix, that means we need to reformulate the mixture. The Titanic came apart not just because of bad driving, but because of flaws in the basic composition of its components. > Having reliable sources is a fine ideal, but the problem is that the word > "reliable" is inherently just as subjective as the word "notable". Well, yeah and you and I have probably been saying that for years. BTW, my new "Awesome sources" replacement proposal is no more subjective than RS but has even higher goals. ;-) In any case, in the discussion, the issue of RS was a total red herring, and anyone who reads the discussion can see it. (That's why at my own honorary ANI subpage, Rube and others are looking at my "pattern of disruptive editing" - which apparently means "edits" to talk pages, and digging up diffs from 2003). > Definition of the article's major thesis should be such as to find > common ground for discussion; it should not be about demanding one or > the other of competing definitions. > In the current dispute we have had one side insisting on a definition that > flies in the face of plain language, and using sources to perpetuate that > fiction. Magically they have taken the position that "Holocaust" should > change its meaning in the expression "Holocaust denial". This is vague writing of the best kind - it requires people to actually parse it in order to grep your meaning. Unfortunately the typical 6-ply parsing will output the opposite result than a 7-ply parsing. ;-) -Stevertigo ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Oversized criticism sections and WP:UNDUE
stevertigo wrote: > More thing on my to-do list: Get Arbcom to actually deal with > adjudicating policy and sections therein. > > That can't work without opening up the broader question of how policies are formulated and later amended. Any kind of policy review process needs to operate separately from Arbcom, and be able to rule whether policies were properly adopted. Until such a process is fully operational nothing useful would be accomplished by having Arbcom rule on those policies. Ec ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Things to do with your home movies
2009/9/28 Durova : > Congratulations! And thanks for your dedication to the project. You > realize when he turns thirteen he's going to die of embarrassment over > this...? Only if he hasn't made admin yet. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Strategic Planning Office Hours
On Sep 28, 2009, at 10:56 AM, Philippe Beaudette wrote: > IRC office hours for the strategy project are upon us again Our > next office hours will be: 20:00-21:00 UTC, Tuesday 29 September. > Local timezones can be checked at > http://timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?month=9&day=29&year=2009&hour=20&min=0&sec=0&p1=0 > > Office hours are on IRC (#wikimedia-strategy at freenode) > > > You can access the chat by going to https://webchat.freenode.net/ and > filling in a username and the channel name (#wikimedia-strategy). You > may be prompted to click through a security warning. It's fine. > Another option is http://chat.wikizine.org. > ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Things to do with your home movies
Congratulations! And thanks for your dedication to the project. You realize when he turns thirteen he's going to die of embarrassment over this...? On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 7:08 PM, Sage Ross > wrote: > On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 9:12 PM, Steve Bennett > wrote: > > On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 9:38 AM, Sage Ross > > > > wrote: > >> It's not too hard now if you're running Firefox 3.5. Just edit your > >> video in whatever video software is easiest on your machine (e.g., > >> Windows Movie Maker) and save a high quality version in a convenient > >> format (e.g., AVI, MPEG, other common formats), then go firefogg.org, > >> install the plug-in, click "make ogg", and use the default encoding > >> settings. > >> > >> If you're feeling especially ambitious, you can add metadata and/or > >> fiddle with the resolution and bit-rate settings (all through > >> firefogg). Converting to Commons-ready ogg with firefogg is actually > >> easier than uploading a file to Commons. > > > > Hmm, sounds like that would make a good extension to Commonist. > > > > Firefogg is part of the "add media wizard" that (I think) is being > refined for default deployment on Commons. (It's already available if > you add a bit of code to your javascript page.) So yeah, sooner or > later it will be possible for many users to simply upload their > non-free format videos have them seamlessly transcoded. > > Along the same lines, hopefully Commonist will simply become > unnecessary and batch uploads possible without extra software. > > > On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 7:42 PM, Risker wrote: > > See now...when I read Steve's question, I was thinking about the "hard > work" > > of taking care of the star of the film... > > All the jokes I thought of in response require too much familiarity > with me to be unambiguously non-sexist to WikiEN-l subscribers, so > I'll just say... that's how I read the question at first, too. > > -Sage > > ___ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > -- http://durova.blogspot.com/ ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
[WikiEN-l] Loose ends (was other stuff)
stevertigo wrote: > Charles Matthews wrote: > >> I believe you are misreading what is said here. It is not being stated >> that Arbcom has no time to do the job. Rather, it is being stated that >> if it wants to do the job, it doesn't also have the time to deal with >> all the heckling and rewriting of history that can go on after a case is >> closed. >> > > I appreciate the correction. My point simply was that there is a place > for "heckling," even after the close of the case. The issue then is > how to focus that signal - irritating as worn-out-brakes it may be - > into something coherent. > > The distinction here is that its a fatal error to characterize what > people say as just wiki-lawyering, when the issue is solveable through > broader signal enhancing techniques, that if Arbcom wants to, we can > start exploring. > There is _more_ of an argument for this approach now, than there was when Arbcom was closing 100 cases a year. Then the "be gruesome" (sei grausam) approach of saying "get over it" was fairly clearly applicable: appeal in 3 months or 6 months if you must, but don't assume everything on the site revolves round you. Now the acceptance filter means it is mainly big, complicated cases that go to arbitration, and perhaps a paragraph afterwards in the Signpost is a little scanty. But this is what blogs are for, surely. And blogging onsite is basically a bad idea. If there is an argument to put, why not write it up coherently offisite and send the Arbcom a link? Carcharoth wrote >Actually, having seen this (and contrary to my previous e-mail): >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Advisory_Council_on_Project_Development#Still_viable.3F >I think all it needs is someone to drag things forward a bit. That >might still happen. It does seem that the ACPD is currently more >active than the other proposals. "Loose ends" means an endemic lack of closure to onsite discussions. Quite unlike the pre-filtering of arbitration cases, there is no forum onsite, I believe (who knows the whole site these days?), in which general policy matters pass through a preliminary "interesting/rehashed and dull" gate, after which they could have some fuller status of live topics. Should there be? And are these two halves of something? Charles ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
[WikiEN-l] Status of flagged protection (flagged revisions) for English Wikipedia.
This thread may turn out to be of interest to participants here: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-September/055352.html ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Invitation for review
George Herbert wrote: > On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 2:05 PM, Nathan wrote: > >> There is a mailing list for block reviews, this isn't it. We also >> don't usually get into discussing specific content issues here unless >> there is a point of wider significance to the encyclopedia. >> >> You believe Holocaust denial can only be defined using the separate >> definitions of "Holocaust" and "denial", and want the article to >> reflect your definition. Others state (correctly) that the term >> "Holocaust denial" taken as a whole is used to refer specifically to >> denial of the Holocaust of Jews (Shoah). Perhaps if we try to glean >> wider significance from this incident, it would be in the area of >> dealing with specious arguments from editors of long tenure who have >> become sophisticated in their misuse of dispute processes. >> > This dispute looks either like some combination of original research, > disruption, or possibly active but intellectual support of holocaust > denialists. > > Original research perhaps; disruption perhaps, but it is dishonest to call it "intellectual support of holocaust denialists." Expanding a term to a wider application certainly does not equate to holocaust denial. It merely recognizes the plain fact that those who deny the suffering of other victims than the dominant group are just as guilty of denying the Holocaust. I don't dispute that the Jews were the dominant victims of the Holocaust, but it is extremely disturbing when some appear to abuse that dominance to minimize the suffering of others. That the victimized Jews were more numerous than the others increases the likelihood that they have relatives to write about them. The higher value that Jews attach to literacy also increases the same likelihood. Gays had a much lower number of progeny to write on their behalf. So I fully expect that more will be written by Jews about Jews, but the smaller numbers of others does not make the fate of those others any less tragic. Ec ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Invitation for review
stevertigo wrote:
> Risker wrote:
>
>> Using a _reliable source_ means that we depend on the source to be reliable;
>> the qualitative analysis is on whether or not the source can be reliable.
>> Using a _source reliably_ means that it doesn't matter the quality of the
>> source, as long as we use it in a consistent ("reliable") manner; the
>> qualitative analysis has nothing to do with the source itself, but in the
>> way that it is used on Wikipedia.
>>
> The issue here is not reliable sources, or your inaccurate
> characterization of my point that we use "reliable" sources
> "reliably": (i.e. Even the Bible can be misrepresented, misquoted,
> inaccurately cited).
>
IIRC there was an 18th century edition in which the word "not" was
omitted from "Thou shalt not commit adultery."
> The source I cited was already in the article in first position, use
> specifically for the purpose of defining the context. The source gives
> a "reliable" overview of the variance in the context term, and states
> this variance to be subjective. We don't allow subjective concepts to
> stand as encyclopedic contexts, without appropriate definition. Hence
> my opposition simply wants to omit using that same "reliable" source
> in a "reliable" way.
>
> A more recent argument suggested changing the current "reliable"
> source to something more in agreement with the preexisting context
> (subjectively "reliable"), and designating the current (objectively)
> "reliable" source less "reliable" simply because it doesn't fit the
> context.
>
>
The distinction between using "reliable sources" and "using source
reliably" is not likely to be productive. Having reliable sources is a
fine ideal, but the problem is that the word "reliable" is inherently
just as subjective as the word "notable".
Definition of the article's major thesis should be such as to find
common ground for discussion; it should not be about demanding one or
the other of competing definitions. In the current dispute we have had
one side insisting on a definition that flies in the face of plain
language, and using sources to perpetuate that fiction. Magically they
have taken the position that "Holocaust" should change its meaning in
the expression "Holocaust denial".
Ec
___
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
