[WikiEN-l] 2004 NYT censorship on govt. wiretapping

[stevertigo]

http://m.guardiannews.com/world/2013/jun/11/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-profile

"For an American, the traditional home for the kind of story Snowden was
planning to reveal would have been the New York Times. But during extensive
interviews last week with a Guardian team, he recalled how dismayed he had
been to discover the Times had a great scoop in election year 2004 – that
the Bush administration, post 9/11, allowed the NSA to snoop on US citizens
without warrants – but had sat on it for a year before publishing."

We don't seem to have any info on this particular embargo.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_controversy

In fact our "news embargo" article doesn't seem to have much info on this
type of censorship, and we apparently don't have a "news censorship"
article yet, just articles on "censorship," "self-censorship," and
"corporate censorship," but little in the way of discussing the subject
from the point of view of news media specifically, which is different from
these others in that it's in the realm of a journalistic ethos regarding
freedom of the press and freedom of speech.

Regards,
S
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Another WP redesign

[stevertigo]

Newspaper columns are not all of uniform size. Layout editors choose one
width from within a certain readable range of column widths. Different
stories may be of different widths, but a particular story will keep to the
same width, as different widths would look strange. Of course if a story
jumps to another page, it can have a different width.

On the web the same principle applies that columns of text which are too
narrow (when pinched by photos etc) or too wide (single column on a wide
screen with browser at full width) then its probably going to make readers
unhappy.
-S
On Jan 28, 2013 4:27 PM, "Steve Bennett"  wrote:

> On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 9:23 AM, David Gerard  wrote:
> > Trouble there is that newspapers are portrait and have pages, but
> > screens are usually landscape and (the important bit) stretch
> > indefinitely vertically. A good example of the problem with doing it
> > like a newspaper is https://sites.google.com/site/sophieinnorthkorea/
> > - brilliant article, but on a laptop screen the layout is just really
> > confusing.
>
> And newspaper layouts are handcrafted for exactly one width and
> height. It's hard enough to get articles to display nicely with
> embedded images and infoboxes with a single column - could that really
> work multi column? Maybe a better use of the extra horizontal space
> would be to expand some of the embedded images and infoboxes out of
> the text?
>
> I was going to point to theglobalmail.org as an interesting example of
> a multi-column layout on the web (horizontal scrolling!) but it looks
> like they've caved in and gone to a conventional one column vertical
> layout.
>
> Steve
>
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Another WP redesign

[stevertigo]

There is an ideal column width for readability, which is well understood in
newspaper publishing but less so in books and even less so on the web. I
think its around 10 words.

-Steven
On Jan 28, 2013 2:00 PM, "Magnus Manske" 
wrote:

> One thing this and previous designs agree upon is to use a three-column
> layout for content. On today's wide screens, reduced line length for the
> main text should improve readability, and still use the side columns
> pragmatically; it seems the TOC usually goes to the left, and infoboxes to
> the right.
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 28, 2013 at 8:20 PM, David Gerard  wrote:
>
> > I found this one visually appealing:
> >
> > http://dribbble.com/wirwoluf/projects/104912-wikipedia-redesign
> >
> > No doubt others will now take it apart :-)
> >
> >
> > - d.
> >
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Re: [WikiEN-l] 'Wikipedia editing courses launched by Zionist groups'

[stevertigo]

Gwern Branwen  wrote:
>> The organisiers of the Wikipedia courses, are already planning a competition 
>> to find the "Best Zionist editor", with a prize of a hot-air balloon trip 
>> over Israel.

Is that a balloon ride over Eretz Israel or just Israel?

-S

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Re: [WikiEN-l] One article, 12 volumes, and a snapshot of how news becomes history

[stevertigo]

Andrew Gray  wrote:
> Not counting footnotes and so on, it's approximately 16,000 words; say
> 40-50 pages of a book, or about a normal chapter. Which seems right,
> for a "very large article".

Agree. My 'time to split' light goes on somewhere around 100K, but
maybe 200K ~45 pages makes more sense for certain articles.

-S

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Re: [WikiEN-l] One article, 12 volumes, and a snapshot of how news becomes history

[stevertigo]

Charles Matthews  wrote:
> I've always thought that WP is not in the business of "writing history".
> I'd need convincing that [[Iraq War]] has made the transition from
> "current affairs" to "history": it's obvious why some people might be
> consigning the War to history just now, but that is far from saying that
> the article measures up to the criteria.

Its an interesting way to look at an article. IIRC, I pushed people
into naming it "Iraq War" to begin with - back when it was still
called something less neutral - "invasion" or such. The current
article is 193K? in size.. what's that in pages?

-S

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Re: [WikiEN-l] New tool: Write before you revert

[stevertigo]

WereSpielChequers  wrote:
> I'm prett suspect that the vast majority of reverts on EN wiki are
> reversion of vandalism by hugglers and other patrollers at newpage
> patrol. I don't think it would be a good idea to discourage those who
> do that accurately. Giving feedback to those with an excessive error
> rate is useful - but not what you are proposing.

The concept is that reverts by people who don't participate in
discussion are typically misinformed or adversarial at best. If you
don't participate in discussion, there's no need for your help on the
article.

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] New tool: Write before you revert

[stevertigo]

Carcharoth  wrote:
> You would likely just force insincere discussion. Not that this
> doesn't happen already (sorry, in a cynical mood tonight).

Ha: "Insincere discussion" - translation 'edit warring is more sincere.'

-SC

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[WikiEN-l] New tool: Write before you revert

[stevertigo]

Encountering certain problems with DBAD at the [[Human]] article,
wondering if it would work to autoblock anyone from reverting a page
whom has not actually participated in discussion on the talk page..

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia:WikiProject >> Project

[stevertigo]

I've moved discussion to a meta page,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_namespace ,
and made a tally.

I wonder if its possible that someone from the technical staff to give
us an unbiased breakdown of the technical requirements and server
costs to implement a namespace change.

-SC

quiddity  wrote:
> If these pages were moved to "Wikiproject:..." would there be any
> problems with our continuing to use WP: as a shortcut prefix?

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Re: [WikiEN-l] 'Wikipedia editing courses launched by Zionist groups'

[stevertigo]

geni  wrote:
> The LGBT mob would be the most obvious counter example.

Care to elaborate?

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia:WikiProject >> Project

[stevertigo]

Current tally appears to be ~ 16 in favor of changing it, to 9 opposed
to changing it. The objections appear to be based in technical
criticism, which I've commented on. I think the technical objections
are overstated.

-SC

quiddity  wrote:
> I assume it would be basically fine, as those are >all using a handmade 
> redirect

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia:WikiProject >> Project

[stevertigo]

David Gerard  wrote:
> Supported :-D

srsly.



-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia:WikiProject >> Project

[stevertigo]

stevertigo  wrote:
> David Gerard  wrote:
>> Run the idea of a "Wikiproject:" namespace past the village pump,
>> build a consensus and then a new namespace should be easy enough.

Posted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28proposals%29#Rename_Wikipedia:WikiProject_namespace

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia:WikiProject >> Project

[stevertigo]

David Gerard  wrote:
> Run the idea of a "Wikiproject:" namespace past the village pump,
> build a consensus and then a new namespace should be easy enough. The
> "Wikipedia:Wikipedia WikiProject" or whatever it is faff is minor but
> has annoyed me enough I'd go "my goodness yes" to a shorter namespace
> for them.

Project would be ideal, but there are 'technical issues.'

'Wikiproject' works, but 'Collaboration' has certain semantics that
'Wikiproject' does not.
And it has the added bonus in that it doesn't have the word "wiki-" in it.

I'm firmly on the fence between the two.

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia:WikiProject >> Project

[stevertigo]

David Gerard  wrote:
> Can I predict a heated 100-kilobyte discussion over "Wikiproject:"
> versus "WikiProject:"?

Is there that much CamelCase support still? I thought it was bad
enough we were stuck with sticking "wiki-" onto everything.

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia:WikiProject >> Project

[stevertigo]

David Gerard  wrote:
> Wikiproject: would be fine as a namespace name.

That works. Something simple.

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia:WikiProject >> Project

[stevertigo]

Liam Wyatt  wrote:
> I guess that the underlying idea is that Wikiprojects (and indeed any form
> of collaboration that is more complex than what can be handled in an
> individual article's talkpage) are such a fundamental part of the way we go
> about building the encyclopedia that they deserve a namespace in their own
> right. Is that it Stevevertigo?

Exactly.

> Is there an on-wiki essay or proposal that you can link to to give a more
> detailed discussion of the idea?

Nope.

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia:WikiProject >> Project

[stevertigo]

Bejinhan  wrote:
> Do you have any reasons for that? ...

Ease.

-SC

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[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia:WikiProject >> Project

[stevertigo]

I propose (again) a change to the "Wikipedia:WikiProject [Name]"
namespace of the form:

 "Wikipedia:WikiProject [Name]" >> "Project:Name"

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Destructionism

[stevertigo]

Fred Bauder  wrote:
> You would need some examples to credibly demonstrate this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Good_and_evil&diff=379134639&oldid=378943442

An example of a restore, from 2008. 'Perfection by reduction' experts
trimmed it down to virtually nothing. Note that that second paragraph
could use some trimming, but the essence of its definition was removed
entirely.

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Destructionism

[stevertigo]

stevertigo  wrote:
> It is. I had thought destruction was the salient concept here, in
> keeping with our old tradition of creating "-isms"

Yes, henceforth I pledge to transcend the usage of "-isms" of anysuch kind.

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Destructionism

[stevertigo]

Tony Sidaway  wrote:
> That seems to be a description of entropy.

It is. I had thought destruction was the salient concept here, in
keeping with our old tradition of creating "-isms" (deletionism, (did
I coin that?) inclusionism, etc.)

> Of course the older revisions remain in the history and anybody is free to 
> extract a
> snapshot that he considers to be superior to the present one.

I just did this at [[matter]], but the issue though is that there's no
way to really see what gold exists in previous versions, unless you
know what already exists there and understand what erosion has taken
place.  Matter is an example of a case where 1) everyone knows the
common definition and 2) the technical definitions can sometimes
contradict, hence 3) rewrites to include these advanced caveats turn
the article into WP:NONCE.

> But note that entropy is unavoidable on an encyclopedia even if an
> article is "complete". [..] the quality of the article, judged according to
> that knowledge, degrades if it is not updated.

+

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Destructionism

[stevertigo]

William Beutler  wrote:
> I don't see it
> as a terrible thing that editing be slowed down on those articles, for
> instance. It took a lot of considered work to get there. Maybe it should
> take some consideration to change them.

Remember that film "Six degrees.." There was an anecdote about the
kids artistic success being due to their schoolteacher knowing when to
take the kid's crayons away...

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Destructionism

[stevertigo]

David Gerard  wrote:

> People come to Wikipedia for its breadth of coverage, not its
> polished writing.
> Indeed, some articles decay into mush. I didn't say polishing was easy
> - it isn't, which is why the people who do it get so resentful.

I do work hard at polishing ledes, and Im not unhappy when something
Ive written stands the test of time. But there are times when it seems
that open editing model itself was nothing more a bad idea. I guess
this idea reflects a bit of that pessimism. :-)

The 'decay into mush' point is well made. Its difficult sometimes for
one to justify to oneself the effort required to overcome mush-ism -
particularly when its an adversarial system (WP:BRD). Its the
adversarial systems which seem to be paradoxically constructive and
destructive at the same time.

-SC

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[WikiEN-l] Destructionism

[stevertigo]

Destructionism: The tendency for Wikipedia articles which have reached
an advanced degree of completeness and encyclopedic value to be edited
in increasingly destructive ways, simply because perfection has
already been achieved or nearly achieved, yet articles remain open to
editing.

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] History what?

[stevertigo]

Alan Liefting  wrote:
> Thomas Dalton wrote:
>> On 2 August 2010 03:26, stevertigo  wrote:
>>> Anyone know what the name of that magickal clone project was - the one
>>> which represented edit authorship/version by color-highlighting
>>> article text?
>> WikiTrust?
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiTrust

Didn't seem to do much. At least on the articles I wanted to look at,
it didn't really report much at all on the diff changes. Fortunately
the person who wrote the passage left a little  indicating their authorship.

-SC

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[WikiEN-l] History what?

[stevertigo]

Anyone know what the name of that magickal clone project was - the one
which represented edit authorship/version by color-highlighting
article text?

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Medpedia

[stevertigo]

Sage Ross  wrote:

> It looks like their main focus has been batch imports of content from
> other sources, including lots of full journal articles automatically
> quasi-formatted for the wiki.  Actual human edits seem to be minimal,
> though.  Compare all edits (dominated by automatic imports) versus
> mainspace edits (which trickle in slowly):

General site notice is Creative Commons. Are they as careful with
copyright? I was going to suggest that they look like a good source
for certain import material as their medical take on medical topics
seems both acute and compact. But maybe not suitable for import.

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] [Foundation-l] Renaming "Flagged Protections"

[stevertigo]

Erik Zachte  wrote:
> Revision Review (or any similar term) clearly signals this is a human
> process, which IMHO gets it 80% right already.

Review of a "revision cue" or "edit cue" works. You are right, as both
words "Flagged" and "Protections" convey an autocratic sense.

Note, on wikien-l, some are discussing what kind of "revert etiquette"
that Revision Review (formerly Flagged Protections) should use.
"Revert etiquette" seems inherently contradicted, though its at a good
sign that people are mindful that Revision Review can and probably
will be used in the wrong way.

-SC
(crossposted to foundation-l and wikien-l)

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Country-specific blocking of websites

[stevertigo]

Carcharoth  wrote:
> Might be of interest:
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/10130195.stm
> "Pakistan has blocked the popular video sharing website YouTube
> because of its "growing sacrilegious content". [...] Some Wikipedia
> pages are also now being restricted, latest reports say. [...]"

They wouldn't be talking about "Little girls / Single Ladies" would they?

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Temporal tags and outdating

[stevertigo]

Andrew Gray  wrote:
> In the first case, he did. In the second case, it didn't, because the
> program got cancelled. A self-updating text would be fine in the first
> half, but quite problematic in the latter.

Nice catches. I've been seeing them all the time too in my casual
reading. I wouldn't have raised the issue otherwise.

Though I don't thing "quite problematic" is the right phrase, I do
agree that in such cases we would need the flag to have a fallback
mode. We've been discussing user messaging as a solution, where the
switch tag whould include at least one editor's name attached,
{{dateswitch|is going to fly|flew|DATE|~~~}}, and the bot would
message the editor on the date to check up on it.

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Temporal tags and outdating

[stevertigo]

Carcharoth  wrote:
> Just remembered that we do have time-dependent updating in the "age"
> bits of infoboxes. People's ages increase by one each year and they
> are assumed to be still alive until such time as their death is
> reported or they look a bit too old. But that is the only case I am
> aware of where content is automatically updated over time. But there
> may be others, of course.

So where its a simple matter of math, there's no verifiability issue.
There is a general substantive argument against automated content
creation, and most objections sit in that context. Age calculation
could be argued is an example which violates the principle. Its
interesting: By disliking automation in other seemingly simple
linguistic contexts and allowing for outdating (of weeks perhaps), it
seems that people much prefer the incorrect over the inaccurate. Which
is fine as long as its sourced.

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Temporal tags and outdating

[stevertigo]

Matthew Brown  wrote:
> Wikis are all about eventualistic processes.  It's kind of the point.
> That said, automatic notification of people who care that a statement has
> become stale is useful.  Perhaps this could set a special flag in
> watchlists?
> I'm against the idea of automatically updating content for the reason that
> it's assuming the prediction in the article about a future event is true and
> actually happened as predicted.

That's an interesting compromise.

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Temporal tags and outdating

[stevertigo]

Carcharoth  wrote:
> The usual solution is to use templates to flag up outdated material
> for editors to review and check things did happen, and to issue the
> needed corrections and updates.

Exactly. Its quaint. Tagging specific forecasts as temporal takes what
is a lazy eventualistic, let-someone-else-do-it process and signals
that specific outdated language (and its outdated reference) need
updating. A "switchbot" could then perhaps message the editor who
wrote the section/tag. Context-based signalling.

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Temporal tags and outdating

[stevertigo]

geni  wrote:
> Because at best you have a source that something is expected to happen
> at a future date. you do not have a source saying it actually has
> happened and thus a tense change leads to misrepresenting the source.

Well put. So your concern is that outdated phrases and claims be
properly corroborated with their respective outdated sources? Would
you suggest that an automagic solution for both problems is
impossible?

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Temporal tags and outdating

[stevertigo]

geni  wrote:

> [[WP:V]] says no. The use of the wrong tense has the additional
> benefit in that it instantly indicates that there is something that
> needs updating here.

You assume that such errors are good, just because they are obvious.
While I respect your uberterseness, you miss the point that these are
errors which are not always obvious and therefore go undetected. You
also miss the point that "date" here refers not just to tenses, but to
any context where language refers to future events. That such events
often do not come is one objection, but it does not to my mind rise to
become an issue of V.

So what in V would prohibit date-based tense or context switches?

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Temporal tags and outdating

[stevertigo]

Martijn Hoekstra > Could a temporal template in one way or another subst: itself once the
>> expiriation date passes? Now that would be awesome.
William Beutler  wrote:
> A self-updating template seems very unlikely to this non-programmer, but a
> bot could certainly be created to handle these tasks. I wonder if that isn't
> already done on, say, {{as of}} for example?

IANAP so take with a grain of salt, but this is my sense of things.
There are bots that work with templates, categories, etc.. AIUI, for
this kind of template to work requires a switching function that would
be based on the conditional {{if}} templates. One of the complaints
about the template system is that things can only be done through
these boolean templates, which locks the programmer into certain ways
of doing things which themselves are not objectively functional, for
example searching the database. Combining template functions with bot
processes is something people have done, but AFAIK noone has worked on
developing this combination as an actual computing paradigm. During
debates about implenting a scripting language, people seemed hung up
on the surface-level issues with template scripting.

-SC

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[WikiEN-l] Temporal tags and outdating

[stevertigo]

Recap: A while ago we discussed date conditional switching templates:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2009-May/100714.html .
The problem to be corrected was the use of future tense language which
then becomes outdated and thus notably incorrect. This also has a
greater effect of casual correction patterns which essentially
annotate the error rather than fixing it. For example:

""Apple's iTunes store *will start* to sell DRM-free 256 kbit/s (up
from 128 kbit/s) AAC encoded music from EMI for a premium price (this
has since reverted to the standard price).""

A proper correction would have simply changed "will start [to sell]"
to "began [to sell]" and that would be that. Time and tenses require a
little bit of thinking however, and an editor made a parenthetical
comment (edit note, annote) in place of a considered switch of tense.
Forgivable but incorrect. If the {{dateswitch}} template idea was
fully implemented and used, anyone writing future events could simply
write {{dateswitch|will start|began|ON DATE}} and the switch would
happen on the date.

The idea had some support, but people had some issues with dateswitch
templates that would produce the wrong output because of some later
change in the input. I guess that this might be more rare than common.
The above example is notable however of where they miss the point. I
note that we now have a category for some tags which relate to time,
but I don't know about some of them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Temporal_templates  These appear
to be largely template messages, and if we are to employ actual
computational power in helping deal with outdating, would it make
sense to make a distinction between temporal messages and temporal
(functional) tags?

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Pedantry on privileges

[stevertigo]

Charles Matthews  wrote:
> Much confusion, it seems to me, between two "metrics" or axes: one to do
> with fallibility (anyone can make mistakes relative to unfamiliar or
> even familiar situations on the wikis, particularly when "implementation
> details" are in the hands of self-selected groups and process wonks);
> and another to do with politicisation (in which the default assumption
> is of bad faith in those who would disturb a supposed equilibrium) which
> is a version of small-c conservatism. The BOLD editor has trouble on
> both fronts ("you're doing it out of process" and "anyway change is only
> allowed after long debate").

In other words there are two kinds of BOLDness, the creative,
contributive, substantive kind, and the other kind. We seem to be
getting a better picture now of why the adversarial system only works
up to a point. In a perfect encyclopedic/journalistic environment
conflicts would be resolved by discussions, and discussions would be
won by the validity of arguments. We've seen people gaming the system
successfully, such that the BRD cycle is only as good as the mediation
and arbitration systems around it. (RFM apparently has a big backlog).

I'll go one step further: Wikipedia is important, and its essential
that we codify our work in accordance with concepts of
professionalism. We've long understood NPOV to be our [[objectivity
(journalism)]] equivalent, and just as in journalism we should label
certain types and modes of editing as literally ""unethical.""

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Arguments

[stevertigo]

On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 3:15 AM, AGK  wrote:
> On 18 May 2010 10:46, K. Peachey  wrote:
>> I think this message needs some context?
>
> Could be an accidental post? We've had a couple of those recently.
>
> AGK

Yes, accidentally sent to everyone. Redirecting to the particular
mediator it was intended for.

-SC

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[WikiEN-l] Arguments

[stevertigo]

I was wondering how you were doing.

By the way, Medcom has a backlog and needs more members. Dispute
resolution seems to be in need of some overhauling again anyway. Might
be a place where some leadership would help.

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Reliable sources— some of these bab ies are ugly

[stevertigo]

David Gerard  wrote:
> The article is basically not even wrong. And that's because they
> really don't care, and literally just made up some >shit: 
> http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/16/jimmy-wales-
>fox-news-is-wrong-no-shakeup/
> Sources of this type, even if owned by a large media company, need to
> be taken with an extra grain of salt.

And then there is this idea that Jimbo has relinquished actual
authority by giving up some functional capacities, when he plainly
said in about as many words this was a symbolic gesture to diffuse and
refocus criticism. The naive reader might think it means "shakedown",
we who've been around for a while know that functional flags can be
turned off an on, and Jimbo doesn't edit Wikipedia anyway.

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Reliable sources— some of these bab ies are ugly

[stevertigo]

There is no centralized place here for ruling on the reliability of
particular sources. Competitors and sites like FactCheck.org suffice
in most cases, and people deal with sources as they come up.

To my knowledge the particular news source you cite is generally not
regarded as reliable on matters which have not been corroborated by
other news sources beforehand. Do we give it an air of reputability to
be cited here as a secondary source? Perhaps. But putting a label of
"yellow journalism" on particular news outlets can only be done
informally at the water-cooler.

-SC


Nathan  wrote:
> To return to the topic of the original post, we have a practice of
> assuming reliability based on content categorization. We've never
> examined Fox News and determined "Fox News has substantial quality
> control at the editorial level, including fact checking and high
> journalistic standards." Similarly, our presumptive stance against
> citing blogs is not based on the evaluation of any particular blog.
> What Greg points out is that our generalizations fail, sometimes
> spectacularly, at the level of the individual source.
>
> Obviously it would be an impossible task to study all potential
> sources and make a proactive determination of reliability. We hope to
> some extent that folks citing academic sources have vetted them in
> some way as to their credibility, but with mainstream news sources
> even that expectation is set aside. So instead, perhaps we could have
> a reactive policy of reassessing the assumption of reliability for
> specific sources based on a history of errors. When Fox News articles
> are shown to be riddled with errors of basic fact, indicating that no
> effort was made to verify claims, we should stop granting it the same
> deference we extend to other institutions with more integrity.
>
> If I had any technical ability at all, I'd run some sort of query that
> would tell me how many times Fox News is cited inside reference tags.
> Perhaps evaluating a random sample of cited articles could tell us if
> their Wikimedia articles (citing a banned editor as the only
> non-public source quoted?) are representative or anomalous.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Reliable sources— some of these bab ies are ugly

[stevertigo]

Charles Matthews  wrote:
> Well, I was keeping various things in mind. In our very own inane
> jargon, WP:BOLD is qualified by "Often it is easier to see that
> something is not right rather than to know exactly what /would/ be
> right", which is something of a plea for measured responses, and WP:BRD
> with "In a way, you're actively provoking another person with an edit
> they may (strongly) disagree on [...]". I actually don't see that the
> issue under discussion is a new type of issue. There is a new type of
> context, which is what I hoped to be addressing.

BRD: Read "mitgated but still adversarial editing cycle" (see
[[WP:PX]] bottom entry). As much as I agree with the issue, Jimbo's
BOLD action appears to have been a shock to the systems of a great
number of people who had all this time thought that seriously bold
actions required consensus-first. Wikimedia.

Hopefully Jimbo will soon write up his views as a formal argument and
then in discussion we can weigh their validity. Just how arguments are
weighed afterward is the interesting "context" as you put it.

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Reliable sources— some of these bab ies are ugly

[stevertigo]

Charles Matthews  wrote:

> But every opinion can be put
> in a measured manner: that is not, generally, our way either, but I
> think the advantages are apparent of _not_ using language like this:
> "By rush-imposing his views and decisions on people who are not out of
> the debate yet, he is browbeating their inner self, ignoring their
> beliefs and opinions, discarding the value of the Other".
> This is classic WP-internal rhetoric, isn't it? It is designed to press
> buttons with those who, although notionally subscribing to "WP isn't a
> democracy", basically believe there is "no consensus that doesn't
> include me". It is quite possible to write "there were plenty who
> disagreed", without covering in batter, frying in lard, sprinkling with
> onion rings and cheese, placing under the grill. and serving with
> sparklers and a side-salad of old grievances.

Keep in mind statements like those were made in the context of an
action by Jimbo, wherein the issue of "consensus" was moot, because
there was none.

The trend towards non-profit corporate culture has had a natural but
unpleasant button-down effect. (And not to mention an inane corporate
jargon effect - "assets" and "identity?")

-SC

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[WikiEN-l] Limited usage image tags not working?

[stevertigo]

For example see vandalism on the [[Talmadge Blevins]] article.

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Reliable sources— some of these bab ies are ugly

[stevertigo]

Risker  wrote:

> It's time to recognise that anyone,
> including reporters, can read those mailing lists; one doesn't even have to
> subscribe for some of them, I believe.  So it is advisable that people think
> carefully about what they are saying, and to be aware that the audience is
> not limited to people who are active participants in the various
> communities.

Unless something has changed around here since 2005, we are not a
closed community. Also we should regard anyone's participation on
these forums as a part of our open mission to assist people around the
world write informative articles about the things they know.

It is also natural that we should want employees of the most
misinformed institutions, FoxNews being among them, to make use of our
materials to better inform themselves.

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Reliable sources— some of these bab ies are ugly

[stevertigo]

Emily Monroe  wrote:
> I think Charles was saying that admins aren't always good at dealing
> with the public.

Well it's journalistically improper to use admins as sources. At the
very least they would have to find an official cabal member.

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Reliable sources— some of these bab ies are ugly

[stevertigo]

Charles Matthews  wrote:

> I think the conclusion should be that admins (such as the one quoted)
> who mouth off about the doings in the usual hyperbolic terms that we get
> used to on mailing lists, might have to reconsider their approach to
> commenting so freely in public, given that this is going to be war of
> attrition against tabloid tactics.

Are you saying admins are not reliable sources? ;-)

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] The New Look

[stevertigo]

Risker  wrote:

> Thanks Steve, that's getting closer.  What's missing is texture. The
> original looks like a puzzle, and the alternates don't quite get there yet;
> when you look at a puzzle, you see shadings as you come close to the lines,
> which in a real puzzle are pressed cuts, so there is a more reflective
> (whiter) edge at the bottom and right sides and a more absorbent (darker)
> edge on the top and left sides of each individual piece.  That, to me, is
> what is missing in the "new and improved' versions.
>
> I really do appreciate all the work that has gone into making all of these
> versions. A lot of improvements have been made in the lettering, the
> placement of letters, the "3-D-ness" of the globe. It's just lost its
> "puzzle-ness" along the way, and I'm sure it can be fine-tuned as time goes
> on.

You're right about the issues with the textures and the "3-D-ness" -
though some may consider a smoother look to be more "2.0."

The issue with the loss of "3-D-ness," as people may have figured out,
is that it's next to impossible to emulate a 3-D rendering with
2-D/vector gradients . SVG/vector formats are made for graphical art,
not realistic looking things, and my sense is that the 3-D globe looks
warped out of shape.

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] The New Look

[stevertigo]

Casey Brown  wrote:
> Actually, there's now a thread on Commons for logo feedback:
> 

I have tried my hand at tweaking a few things in SVG:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia-logo-v2-en-alt.svg

Notes are in there too.

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] The New Look

[stevertigo]

Charles Matthews  wrote:

> Indeed. Going back to monobook is not quite enough, though. Best to hide
> the message speaking of "We've made a few improvements to Wikipedia", too.

And who is "we" in the "we've made improvements." It was not long ago
that "we" made the improvements.

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] The New Look

[stevertigo]

> stevertigo  wrote:
>> Agree - it needs a lot of tweaking to make it look presentable, let
>> alone professional. The shadows and thin lines make it look
>> reminiscent of Uncyclopedia's logo.

Carcharoth  wrote:
> I get the feeling something is missing behind it.

It used to have a soul.

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] The New Look

[stevertigo]

David Gerard  wrote:
> I disagree. I've been using Vector since the beta and find it no problem.

I agree. I've been using beta as well and I think people just need to
be familiar with it. What would be "usable" would be a simple drop
down menu for letting the user choose between them.

> (I suspect the puzzle globe rendering could do with tweaking,

Agree - it needs a lot of tweaking to make it look presentable, let
alone professional. The shadows and thin lines make it look
reminiscent of Uncyclopedia's logo.

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Jimbo on Commons

[stevertigo]

Ian Woollard  wrote:
>> Long-term, we're aiming to compile all knowledge into one
>> freely-accessible location. We shouldn't infringe on that mission,
>> even if we displease some easily-upset persons along the way.

Notable here is this oft-repeated and rather
weak-excuse-for-an-argument personal attack that characterises the
opposition as just a bunch of "easily-upset people."

The Free Culture argument is a valid one, try using it. The
"easily-upset people" meme doesn't do it justice, and just sends out
the signal that the unnecessary is being angrily defended.

-SC

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Jimbo on Commons

[stevertigo]

Carcharoth  wrote:
> But when it comes to the human body and physiological functions, it is
> possible (and in my opinion, better) to limit the number of images to
> the best pictures and those that *really* improve an article, rather
> than accept everything and hope the best rise to the top by a process
> of natural selection (= use in articles).

> That is not censorship. That is a sensible editorial policy.

Exactly. Besides there is something qualitatively unencyclopedic about
user-submitted photos of their genitals, or their private sexual
practices - whatever - is that they are moreoften than not
unprofessional in the sense that they are infused with a discernible
exhibitionist intent rather than the professional agnostic sterile
perspectives of actual medical professionals.

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Jimbo on Commons

[stevertigo]

Carcharoth  wrote:
> OK. Would you like to try writing something that would be suitable for
> use as "image content guidelines", or at least being
> * Explicit sexual content
> * Explicit medical content
> * Images of identifiable people
> * Images depicting death
> * Images depicting violence
> * Images depicting religious figures

There's a concept that many are missing here, namely that there is a
concept of *gratuitous expressions (via various media) - a concept
that most people are and in fact have been sensitive to - and which
people at Commons deserve a lot of credit for exercising a degree of
sensible moderation over the years.

Exhibitionism for its own sake has no place on Wikipedia. While I
think you and others are right to raise the issue of cultural
puritanicalism as something we should not support, that's not to say
that everything in pornographic culture belongs in Free Culture.  Is
it the dissenting argument that Commons is no longer an island of Free
Culture?

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 82, Issue 14

[stevertigo]

Howie Fung  wrote:
> We are planning to run a central notice letting all users know that the
> changes are on the way.  This will let us capture the majority of users
> who aren't on either the lists or on the other places we've posted the
> message (Village Pump and Admin's Noticeboard).

[OT], Howie, I know its not easy to deal with lots of posts to wikien
(though it's been extremely inactive lately), but its polite to change
the automatic and topically-ambiguous subject header to something else
- particularly the same as the posts you are responding to - when
replying to posts contained in Wikien digests.

Its a little flaw in the digest mode's functionality that subject
headers are uncorrelated with the actual topics that people are
commenting on.

Regards,
Steven

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] IPA issues

[stevertigo]

Nathan  wrote:

> I just assumed that if IPA were widely used, someone might have
> mentioned that in previous iterations of the arguments over its use.
> Perhaps that assumption is a mistake, if the limit of research done by
> IPA advocates is cherry picking Google search results. (Of course that
> comment is unfair, but then again, so was your characterisation of my
> previous post).

Keep in mind that I, for example, share many of your misgivings with IPA.
Nevertheless I recognize, as others here do, the benefits of using a single
pronunciation scheme. Granted, pronunciation is typically placed low on
most people's lists as far as language acquisition is concerned. In truth
it's not that low at all: Proper pronunciation of words in a new language
opens doors for new speakers.

> Even the IPA article mentions that EFL references use pronunciation
> guides.

I might agree to using a second standard, if that second standard was actually
a standard. It is instead something we cobbled together based on English.

My original premise, again, was that IPA be used across all wikis. If
its the in
fact the international standard that linguists claim it to be, then
why can't it be
used internationally. My suspicion may surprise other critics here in that I
see IPA as being not as international at it would like to be.

Still I favor of using a standard scheme like IPA accross all language wikis.
Even if the idea only stirs up debate, like ours here, that debate
that will likely
yield some positive results.

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] IPA issues

[stevertigo]

>And like DGG said, we're fortunate to have a single internaʃonal
> standard in the first place.

I had a thought. We put so much cultural value into proper spelliŋ.
One of the reasons for why theres so much dislike for a strange scheme
like IPA is that repelling English words using a different scheme
works to destroy the deeply-engrained informaʃon about word
etymologies stored in "proper" spelling.

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] IPA issues

[stevertigo]

Emily Monroe  wrote:
> Okay, but which pronoucation should we use? Australian English?
> British English? Canadian English? Does this matter with IPA?

If you look at the IPA for English page you'll see all of the major
English dialects represented, and yes there are substantial phonetic
differences between them - vowels particularly. Plain English is
flexible for all of these dialects such that spelling things out in
IPA isn't necessary. Using IPA to distinguish between English dialects
would be overcomplicating.

Dealing with foreign concepts however - that is, the 80% of the planet
that doesn't originate from an English-speaking culture - should
require using some basic pronunciation scheme. And like DGG said,
we're fortunate to have a single internaʃonal standard in the first
place.

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] IPA issues

[stevertigo]

Question - Is this wrong:

> "Socrates (pronounced /ˈsɒkrətiːz/)"

Or really wrong?

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium dead?

[stevertigo]

Thomas Dalton  wrote:
> We only started insisting on references once we realised
> people were, against all expectation, actually using the articles we
> were writing! You shouldn't judge people's historical actions by
> modern standards.

True. Remember at the time there was little or no assumption on our
part that our articles were even being read by anyone but "us."

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium dead?

[stevertigo]

David Gerard  wrote:

> It's evident, however, that Citizendium's alternative approach has
> been a resounding failure, whereas Wikipedia wouldn't be a top 10 site
> if it wasn't actually useful to people.
> So the question becomes: how to get more expert oversight in?

Keep in mind that Wikipedia has only been a resounding success because
of its open ethics. No other reasons come close. Talk about "expert
oversight" is just Nupedia-speak.

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium dead?

[stevertigo]

Tim Starling  wrote:

> Note that Sanger's didn't magically become difficult to get along with
> after he left Wikipedia. He annoyed people in 2001 just as he does
> now. Wikis have a way of losing history, or at least making it hard to
> find, but you can find hints of discontent at pages like:

Um, remember that in 2001, Sanger was *paid to annoy people. Anyone
who is paid to do a task nobody else gets paid to do, will naturally
have  ideas about performing up to some impossible standard.

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] IPA issues

[stevertigo]

Joseph Reagle  wrote:
> I've never been able to. I always hoped that the theory was that > from the 
> IPA, you could translate it into some scheme that
> would make sense in different vernaculars, but I never found
> the IPA -> English pronunciation link.

Well let's face it that most of linguistics looks esoteric to
monoglots and overcomplicated by specialized terminology.

English vowels are morphophonetic (c*ake, w*alk, c*at) wheras Latin
ones are not (torta*, ca*mina*r, ga*to), and that seems to constitute
the bulk of complexity regarding pronunciation of English in IPA.

For IPA beginners, I recommend just learning the *vowels - you can get
away with using English consonants anyway and vowel differences fall
along the lines of English vs. Latin's alphaphonetic pronunciations.

For expediency's sake, I'll agree that the rest is of IPA is mostly Chinese.

-Steve

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Re: [WikiEN-l] IPA issues

[stevertigo]

Charles Matthews  wrote:

>I'm seeing arguments like "too international" (not so handy for
> English readers) and "not  international enough" (too Anglo-centric).

Hm. People, myself included, don't understand it too well in a couple
of ways: "Too international" to me translates to IPA was meant to be a
tool for understanding foreign phonologies and not just word
pronunciations, so its usage in that area might be excessive. "Not
international enough" to me is an issue with IPA being largely
Roman-based with highly specialistic-looking glyphs that were
conceived of over a hundred years ago by mostly French and English
linguists. I agree with both criticisms.

> I'm quite sympathetic to the idea that there should be more IPA on
> the various Wikipedias and other projects. But I don't feel the
> foundations for that discussion have been laid. If for the
> example the WMF handed down some view on IPA, would it be >endorsing  a 
> "standard international standard" like the SI
> system, or a "standard" such as some version of "imperial" > >units? All this 
> affects
> attitudes, and the discussion on automation too.

We can consider IPA's usage on en.wiki as widespread enough to call a
"foundation," keeping in mind that its a linguistics tool that we
turned into something that many of us consider commonplace. I remember
when some first discussed using IPA back in 2003-2004. Linguists were
highly in support of it, and the word of linguists was enough for our
fearless leader and everyone else. Those are the foundations.

What caused me to write here about this was this alternate system
being promoted on en, which to me is disruptive to the professional
quality of our articles. IPA is specialized, true, but it should not
be abandoned as some appear to suggest. We would be better off looking
at ways to reform it in ways that make it more accessible. As I see
it, simply offering tips on the basics of learning IPA - like learning
the vowels first - sufficiently answers most critics.

-Steve

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Re: [WikiEN-l] IPA issues

[stevertigo]

Nathan  wrote:

> I have a hard time understanding this claim that using IPA improves
> communication. Surely a device intended to facilitate communication
> should make accessibility its first priority?

OK, its not about "communication" per se, its just a transcription
system for phonetics, that we chose a few years ago to use for
pronunciation keys.

> I suppose forcing all the various projects to use English might make it 
> easier for the
> people who understand English to read them all; but as it
> happens,
> there are quite a few people who don't read English comfortably and
> we've sacrificed rigid uniformity for actual usefulness.

Straw man. Your confusing English with "Roman alphabet" - the latter
of which is just about universal at this point. The rest of your
argument sort of got lost.. I don't understand what you are saying,
except that you are misrepresenting my argument as one about
"universality."

Gregory Maxwell  wrote:
> I think the prospect of a nice machine
> synthesizer in the future (with the ability to provide real
> recordings, of course) is probably sufficient justification for
> continuing to use IPA all by itself.

Ah. The minimalist argument. :)

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] [Foundation-l] IPA issues

[stevertigo]

Gregory Maxwell  wrote:

> We ought to have a speech synthesizer that extension that provides
> clickable audio playback for marked up IPA.

Great idea. Is there still some hangup about needing to transcribe IPA
to ASCII, or can these things be done in UTF-8 now?

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] [Foundation-l] IPA issues

[stevertigo]

On Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 4:19 PM, Gerard Meijssen
 wrote:
> Hoi,
> A lot of so called IPA out there is created by Americans for Americans and
> expect that certain sounds can be expressed by the ordinary Latin
> characters. The consequence is that such polution makes the whole of IPA
> hard to use.
>
> Consequently I argue that in order to save the usefulness of IPA at all we
> HAVE to be academically correct in how it is expressed.

Quite. We need to make the distinction between exonym and endonym
transcription. Endonyms come first, and exonym-repronunciations are
noted as such. But likewise we can't get too stuffy about pronouncing
words according to native phonologies, clicks and whirrs and so forth.
:P

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] IPA issues

[stevertigo]

On Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 3:58 PM, Nathan  wrote:
> What's the point of using a phonetic alphabet that 95% of our
> readership can't interpret? If the idea is to help readers understand
> how a word is pronounced in English, it should actually be useful to
> the majority of readers and not largely useless but academically
> perfect.

On Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 4:14 PM, Emily Monroe  wrote:
> I'd have to agree with you, Nathan. I can't read IPA to save my life!

The idea behind IPA is, that there be a single standard alphabet that
everyone can use which can help us all communicate a bit better when
speaking a new language or just using a term from another language.
It's basic and encyclopedic information and should be included.
Consider a word we've all seen recently: Eyjafjallajökull, which
apparently just means "island-mountain glacier" (I suggest that
"Eyja-fjalla glacier" is the sensible English translation). It's not
necessary that anyone pronounce it exactly as [ˈɛɪjaˌfjatlaˌjœːkʏtl̥],
still its basic information about the name itself.  A name is a key
into a concept, and a foreign name is a key into a foreign concept. We
don't omit basic information just because it gives us too much of a
window into strange and foreign ways of conceptualization that we just
don't understand.

The issue of accessibility is valid, but I can answer that by
understating IPA's usability as flexible, ranging from the basic to
the expert. Most people I imagine start with learning few of the IPA
vowels, and the consonants are mostly intuitive. Being flexible means
that its also quite forgiving, and that anyone who makes an honest
attempt at writing in IPA is making a contribution, even if they are
politely corrected here and there by someone a bit more.. 1337.

I agree that IPA can seem a bit cumbersome and even ambiguous when
used at extreme detail (ie. it gets into reproducing whole
foreign-language phonologies at a single-word level, which isn't
always useful nor necessary). At least I can understand why it's not
universally accepted and used on our foreign encyclopedias, namely
that its still a bit esoteric enough for us on en. Nevertheless its,
again, encyclopedic and necessary.

-Stevertigo

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[WikiEN-l] IPA issues

[stevertigo]

(Crossposted to wikien and foundation:)

Some points about IPA on all language wikis.

1) As a rule, all language wikis should use International Phonetic
Alphabet as their standard pronunciation scheme. Very few appear to
actually do.
2) All language wikis should attempt to use IPA to pronounce the
endonym of a foreign word, not the exonymic re-pronunciation (ie. Iraq
= /iːˈrɑːk/ not /ɪˈræk/).
3) With rare exceptions, IPA should be the default phonemic
transcription scheme, and
alternate schemes such as [[Wikipedia:Pronunciation respelling key]]
should be avoided or deprecated.
4) Feedback from languages about IPA should be useful. IPA is actually
quite flexible about exactness, while still being phonetically
precise. If there are flaws in IPA itself, the Wikipedia community can
help raise them for the Internation Phonetic Association.
5) Ambiguity about how it is supposed to be used is a cross-project
issue should be dealt with at the Foundation level (ie. global not
just inter-wiki policy).

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] [Foundation-l] Follow up: Fan History joining the WMF family

[stevertigo]

Ryan Lomonaco  wrote:
> I don't see how that would be an issue.  Notability is not a foundation
> policy, it's a community guideline that was enacted by editors of the
> English Wikipedia.  Other projects within the WMF family would not
> necessarily be subject to the same standards, in the same way that the
> Spanish Wikipedia does not allow fair use images while the English Wikipedia
> does.

This is an excellent point that gets to the heart of the divergence
problems between Wikipedia's and Wikimedia's respective purposes. The
difference though is that Wikimedia serves Wikipedia - not the other
way around. Wikipedia's success itself came largely from being able to
confine its scope and its mission toward dealing with issues of
substance and not so much ideas about fluff - popular as that fluff
may be.

But I agree that Wikimedia is not so encumbered with principles as
Wikipedia, and thus it can take on projects that deal with
non-encyclopedic content. (In fact this unencumberance allows for some
degree of allowance for non-encyclopedic content on even Wikipedia -
see Commons for example). You have to understand the objection here
though - which is that we inevitably find that Wikipedia will conflict
with any other Wikimedia projects if their priorities are too
different.

Wikipedia is more than just Wikimedia's flagship project, and its
encyclopedic and journalistic principles have a priority that far
exceeds its own "wiki."

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Something on the nature of working for free

[stevertigo]

Bod Notbod  wrote:
> Could change, of course:
> http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Editor_awards_and_rewards

Which leads us to the question - is that "peer to peer" logo David
made open source, and can we upload it to Strategy wiki?

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] activity

[stevertigo]

stevertigo  wrote:
> Your not so active

Whoops. That was for someone offlist. I forgot to edit the To line.

-Stevertigo

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[WikiEN-l] activity

[stevertigo]

Your not so active on enWiki these days?
Checked your contributions, when I got curious about wikien's traffic
seeming to be slowing down.

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Ad-free forever?

[stevertigo]

Carcharoth  wrote:
> That is really eye-catchingly different. One became 14 million. 270
> languages is (superficially at least) also very impressive. I suppose
> they might use the number of daily edits next as well.

Eh. If you came up with this one though, how much would you charge for it?

> On the negative side, the "great, great, great, grandson/daughter" one
> made me cringe. Even more than the "Wikipedia Forever" one. It seemed
> to distract from the utility people have for Wikipedia right here and
> now.

The issue behind both was endurance - futurism, and Wikipedia's place
in it (and who better to wax about that than a bunch of ad execs with
a total of maybe ten edits amongst them).  Do you have some particular
*issue with reproducing and then leaving the planet and all your stuff
behind?  ;-)

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Ad-free forever?

[stevertigo]

Magnus Manske  wrote:
>> I'm not here to discuss the wording of the fundraising slogans yet
>> again, but this one screams "legal trouble":
>> Wikipedia. Ad-free forever.
>> [Progress bar] [Donate now button]
>> I'd interpret this as "if we reach $7.5M, Wikipedia will be ad-free
>> forever". I really wish that'd be the case, but if not, people (from
>> simple dudes to legal trolls) might come out of the woodwork screaming
>> fraud.

Steve Bennett  wrote:
> Strange, I'd interpret it as "Wikipedia will be ad-free forever. Now,
> hand over the cash."
> But afaik the foundation has never said such a thing. The last I heard
> was Jimbo saying "not anytime soon, and only if there is some major
> shift in public opinion".

Well, that's certainly a shift from the "never" position. We really
have to give props to Jimbo for sticking with it so long though. Money
isn't the issue nor the object, and that's the principle that will
endure, regardless.

But, putting the ideas in this thread together with an earlier
discussion about creating an endowment: Ostensibly there is some
validity to the idea that, if people discussed (openly, dammit) how
big exactly a permanent Wikipedia endowment would have to be, and then
asked the community (ie. the people that give Wikipedia its actual
value) for permission to allow ads (small ones, no animation, no
scripting, at the bottom of Wikipedia articles) for a just the
exactly-calculated period of time necessary to create the target
endowment, then people might see that as not violating the principle.

And Wikimedia can do the same if it wants one.

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] The Internet? Bah!

[stevertigo]

Nathan  wrote:
> Now that it is what it is, any idiot can look back and say it was
> obvious what would happen. Far more people got it wrong 15-20 years
> ago, and I guess its good for a chuckle (especially since this
> particular writer was so condescending) - but hindsight is as perfect
> as foresight is rare.

Its not about having some kind of crystal ball, though. It's about
giving credence to people who understand the components and can, in
their mind at least, put them together long before they can be put
together in material form. It would help any confusion of course if
visionaries could explain their visions with more conviction and
convincing detail. But in that case though, the writer was just
completely and perfectly wrong about everything.

And that's in part due to (as you say) that conventional tendency. The
point here is that it's a tendency based in not giving credence to the
most competent visions, not just in natural incapacity. Even the
objections which haven't yet been totally disproven ('no
hypergovernment') will of course have to fall also, just to satisfy
statistical idealism.

And are laypeople today really going to start arguing with a David
Deutch or a Peter Shor? I think Stoll must have hit mid-age and that
set his thoughts back to 1983, in which state of mind he penned a
treasure trove's worth of postdated humor. Nobody could actually get
all the answers wrong - that is, nobody, but a guy who really knew all
the answers.

-Stevertigo
"And carried on without a comma...

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Wikitech-l] Downtime this morning

[stevertigo]

Aryeh Gregor  wrote:
> The original message was not cross-posted.  Andrew posted it on wikitech-l 
> only.

Well if a 17 minute site crash is "no big deal" as Tim said.. Then a
little casual informative crossposting ain't worth frettin over, eh?

-Stevertigo
"You're hopelessly hopeless...

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Wikitech-l] Downtime this morning

[stevertigo]

Tim Starling  wrote:
> Actually neither of them are "caching managers" or have any direct
> role in caching.

OK. "Various monitoring tools" is sort of sufficient.

Stevertigo wrote:
>> "Caching" basically just
>> means keeping wiki pages in RAM so that things get fetched quickly -
>> most people are not logged in so they get the same HTML
Tim Starling wrote:
> This is not particularly accurate either.

OK. Well (again, just pulling this out of my ear) either its the
wikitext or HTML that is cached, and it didn't seem to me like it made
sense to reformat each page as HTML each time it was called. Granted,
HTML is bulkier and takes up more RAM (50% more?), and that probably
outweighs the load/computensity issue of doing reformatting for each
time. (Something I didn't consider, as I was pulling... )

So, given what I assume is a rather steepish ratio of casual readers
(who need standard pages) to logged in editors (who need customized
pages), I just went with the HTML and figure the rest was smoke and
mirrors.

I didn't think though about how wikitext changes all the time, and
thus handling them as HTML would probably add a static element to how
pages are refreshed. Hm.

Anyway, sorry if I was less than accurate in my explanation.

> I think you mean LiveJournal.

Ah. True.

-Stevertigo
"I know I'll keep searching...

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[WikiEN-l] The Internet? Bah!

[stevertigo]

http://www.newsweek.com/id/106554

Linked and digged from a current article. Quite chuckleworthy.

-S

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Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused

[stevertigo]

Ryan Delaney  wrote:
> I think that's a noble goal, and the idea behind this project seems like a
> good one. Incidentally, I'm probably in the running for most rabid
> inclusionist here.

Correcting systematic wrongs is, I agree, good.

> I think we all ought to be able to understand, though,
> that it goes too far when the experiment itself becomes a source of
> disruption. I don't know all the details, but I'm guessing that's why WSC
> asked to put it on hold.

Eh. Remember when Jimbo nullified the WP:ATT merger? Or when
Foundation handed over a 1/4 Million USD to some marketeering outfit?

The point is that "disruptions" happen. We celebrate the good ones.

-Stevertigo
"见风转舵

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Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused

[stevertigo]

Ryan Delaney  wrote:

> You might be misunderstanding what the objection is here. Nobody needs to be
> reminded that use of sysop tools is subject to peer review.

True (though I don't think David is misunderstanding anything). The
issue is not reviewing how sysops use their tools. It is about
correcting the misconceptions upon which sysops base a substantially
destructive usage of those tools.

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Wikitech-l] Downtime this morning

[stevertigo]

Carcharoth  wrote:
> nagios?
> ganglia?
> 4-CPU apache?
> scap?
> swap?
> memcached node?
> 
> Is it fixed now? Oh, good. :-)

Off the top of my head...

"Nagios" is ostensibly the report server and caching manager and
"ganglia" IIRC is a page caching manager. "Caching" basically just
means keeping wiki pages in RAM so that things get fetched quickly -
most people are not logged in so they get the same HTML and reuse the
same CSS.

The main concept was that the error not only caused caching servers
that were supposed to keep pages in RAM had to dump these pages into
swap memory, but it affected a main caching node through which other
nodes... do stuff... apparently. "Memcached" is the name of the
caching software, or rather one of them, and the first one implemented
here. IIRC it was first developed for /. (?), and kind of kept WP
barely alive through the great traffic growth spurts of 04 and 05.

I looked up "scap" and still dunno what it is.

Again, that's just off the cuff. Don't take anything seriously.

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused

[stevertigo]

Ryan Delaney  wrote:

> Actually, it's the other way around. Deliberately writing a bad article that
> should be deleted, but doesn't technically fit the CSD due to some loophole,
> sounds like the definition of disruption to make a point. I'd have to see a
> test case to say that for sure.

The entire NEWT project is a "disruption to make a point" - and the
point is well made: A good number of deletionists could do something
better with their time.

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] WIKIPEDIA FOREVER

[stevertigo]

stevertigo wrote:
>> And I've said a hundred times that there's nothing wrong with cubic
>> zirconia.
Soxred93  wrote:
> Just don't let your girlfriend/wife hear you.

That's not a problem.

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused

[stevertigo]

> On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 4:50 PM, Gregory Maxwell  wrote:
>> or do you claim that we shouldn't
>> delete sub-stubs duplicating pre-existing articles?
Carcharoth  wrote:
> If the title is valid, it is easier to turn it into a redirect and
> merge any content not already mentioned in the existing article (a
> s-merge as it is sometimes called). The failure to consider moving
> content elsewhere (and leaving a redirect to preserve the
> contributions history) is a common misunderstanding made by those who
> request deletion in such cases.

+!

Well, that's the point. If our sanitation engineers actually did what
real sanitation engineers do and actually salvaged things (nice coffee
table!), nobody would have a problem with deletion as a process.

And as for the philosophical aspects, we don't generally let nihilists
have too much control for the simple reason that they tend to turn
destruction into an -ism.

-Stevertigo
"Is that some sort of Eastern thing?

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Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused

[stevertigo]

Ken Arromdee  wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Nov 2009, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>> It seems that, under the guise of this project, some people are
>> intentionally writing very low quality articles and then rules-lawyering
>> over the specific speedy deletion category names:
>
> I'd argue that tagging something for speedy deletion when it doesn't actually
> fit the criteria is itself a form of rules lawyering.



-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused

[stevertigo]

Gregory Maxwell  wrote:
> WereSpielChequers could have expressed his concerns a bit better here.
> It seems that, under the guise of this project, some people are
> intentionally writing very low quality articles and then rules-lawyering
> over the specific speedy deletion category names:
> There can be a fine line between probing the boundary of new user treatment
> and a breaching experiment.

I don't really understand the "[x]-lawyering," in that diff (in Greg's
post). (Note that "[x]-lawyering" is largely just a stigmanym given
out like candy to anyone who's actually somewhat successful at arguing
against mob rule).

But, since you mention it, is "intentionally [creating] very low
quality articles" really a serious problem on Wikipedia in the first
place? Edits like these (
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Big_Lebowski&oldid=286557
) are what built Wikipedia, and yet the deletionista says these need
immediate deletion to "purify" and "protect" WP from "POV" and "OR."
(In that case at lease, capable people decided to employ Wikipedia's
article editing functionality, and {{sofixit}}ed it instead).

The issue is really that deletion is reserved for two things: 1)
Articles created with no purpose (ie. titles that do not correspond to
anything encyclopedically conceptual), and 2) articles created as
vandalism. My thinking is that lots of [[red links]] are in fact a
good thing for WP. Maybe making red links a different color (green?)
might counter our tendency to undo new links and thus foster article
creation? The issue there is teaching newbies how to find the existing
article and redirecting to it.

-Stevertigo
"Some people say a man is made outta mud..

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Re: [WikiEN-l] WIKIPEDIA FOREVER

[stevertigo]

Emily Monroe  wrote:
>> I don't understand how this [off topic discussion about big diamonds and 
>> physics] even relates to banner slogans, people!
>> Emily
Keegan Paul  wrote:
> It relates because using anything claiming it to be forever is stupid.
>  Short of theological concepts and some metaphysical debate on the origins
> of the universe, the WIKIPEDIA FOREVER slogan is a cubic zirconia knock-off
> of De Beers.

Well that's a bit strongly-worded, even if its mostly accurate. Note
that love actually *is forever, regardless of what the diamond cartels
may say.

And I've said a hundred times that there's nothing wrong with cubic zirconia.

-Stevertigo
"..and we all lose our charms in the end.."

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Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused

[stevertigo]

WereSpielChequers  wrote:
> If anyone was contemplating participating in [[Wikipedia:Newbie
> treatment at CSD]], please don't create any more new articles under
> undisclosed new accounts, whilst we discuss concerns that some users
> have raised that the damage to the new page patrol process may
> outweigh the benefits.

Sounds like just more strategic deletionist excusism. There is no
excuse for anyone giving to destruction a higher value than they do to
creation.

So now that things are wrapping up, don't forget to hand out some
merit badges to the 'winners.'  Ostensibly, there is a deletionist who
stands out from the pack, for whom a specially branded Trout Award
will do just fine.

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] WIKIPEDIA FOREVER

[stevertigo]

Evangeline Han  wrote:
> Can the Foundation give an explanation as to why they went on with putting
> up that banner despite strong opposition from many people?

Giving out explanations would defeat the purpose of having a command
entity in the first place. A "command" is exactly that in large part
because it is not an "explanation."

-Stevertigo
"It's hard to love a man whose legs...

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Re: [WikiEN-l] WIKIPEDIA FOREVER

[stevertigo]

Keegan Paul  wrote:
>>> A DIAMOND IS FOREVER.

stevertigo  wrote:
>> That's not exactly true. Sol will consume Terra in only about 3.8
>> billion years, which, as anyone knows, < forever.
>> And if whoever the previous owner of the Koh-I-Noor is in fact still
>> alive in some alternate afterlife reality, I'm sure they really
>> couldn't care less about where it is now.

Carcharoth  wrote:
> The alternate afterlife reality is contained *within* the Koh-I-Noor.

That's absurd. While it is true that studying rocks like the
Koh-I-Noor *can* yield insights into the physics of matter ('this rock
seems to be really hard'), *can* be useful in very serious
applications (~diamond-housed beryllium atoms as qubits), and that
other-dimensional "objects" *can* exist within the "objects" we can
deal with (stuff passes right through the Earth all the time), it is
*not true that regular-dimensional objects like that really small rock
actually"contain" transcendental realities.

Please stop deliberately spreading misinformation.

-Stevertigo
"and the wind is making speeches..

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Re: [WikiEN-l] WIKIPEDIA FOREVER

[stevertigo]

Keegan Paul  wrote:
> A DIAMOND IS FOREVER.

That's not exactly true. Sol will consume Terra in only about 3.8
billion years, which, as anyone knows, < forever.

And if whoever the previous owner of the Koh-I-Noor is in fact still
alive in some alternate afterlife reality, I'm sure they really
couldn't care less about where it is now.

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] WIKIPEDIA FOREVER

[stevertigo]

Brian J Mingus  wrote:
> I believe the banner will be judged, not based on the almost universally bad
> impressions of it that I have seen from Wikipedians, but based on how much
> money it makes. I don't think it's surprising that the banner rubs many
> Wikipedians the wrong way. It was created by a PR agency with the express
> purpose of raking in as much cash as possible. It's supposed to hit all the
> right chords of the hundreds of millions of visitors that will see it, of
> whom we long time Wikipedians are a miniscule fraction.

Well its tacky - if for no other reason that it presumes to represent
Wikipedia's eternal presence. Which is an interesting thought about
futurism, but one that needs an essay to link to.  And the slogan is
in SHOUTCASE, which everybody knows is the quasi-official font of
tacky.

So, not to be too hard on the creative marketing staff who came up
with the slogan, or the executive staff who somehow implemented it, it
just belies our sense of tradition and community so see things like
these (or any things we do for that matter) implemented without open
collaboration - the kind that usually mitigates tackiness, or any
appearance thereof.

The best (worst) part is the conceptualization of 'protection' - "Our
shared knowledge. Our shared treasure. Help us protect it" and "This
is where we protect Wikipedia, the encyclopedia written by the people"
read like they were written from a commodity point of view, by someone
who doesn't understand that Wikipedia is actually about destroying
traditional knowledge more than it is about preserving it.

Wikimedia's job is in fact just to keep the lights on - not to
"protect" Wikipedia (which, ironically, would get along just fine
without Wikimedia).

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] fictional categories

[stevertigo]

Carcharoth  wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 1:55 PM, Ken Arromdee  wrote:
>> Too bad noboy said this when spoiler warnings were deleted on the grounds 
>> that
>> we had bad examples like Romeo and Juliet or fairy tales.
>
> Isn't mentioning spoiler warnings (again) a kind of mini-Godwin's Law
> for this list? :-)

At least he didn't mention the userbox wars. Or /2003-October/ 

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] deletionism in popular culture

[stevertigo]

Steve Bennett  wrote:

> Deletion is good because it totally dispenses with junk.

Parsing... "Destruction = [qualitative superlative] because
[destruction] [completely destroys] [things that need destroying]."

Please let us all pledge to henceforth refrain from employing circular
logic in our arguments. And likewise let us pledge to point and giggle
at these  circulars whenever we have to see them.

-Stevertigo
"...and I thank his sword

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Re: [WikiEN-l] fictional categories

[stevertigo]

On Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 8:43 PM, Steve Bennett  wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 12:37 PM, Ian Woollard  wrote:
>> Schroedinger's cat very definitely is fictitious; it's not an
>> experiment you can actually do and get an alive/dead cat that you can
>> actually see, you would get either an alive cat, or a dead cat.
>
> I agree with the statement that it should not be in that category.
> Essentially, because schrodinger's cat is not a cat. Felix the Cat is
> a fictional cat. Simba the lion is a fictional cat, in a broader
> sense. Schrodinger's cat is a concept in physics that has nothing to
> do with cats or fiction. There is no notable fiction in which
> Schrodinger's cat features heavily, for example.
>
> To the OP: Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. One bad
> category member does not justify nuking an entire family of
> categories.

Hold on. Schroedinger's Cat is not actually a fictional cat (its more
of a hypothetical cat), but that does not mean that its categorization
there is improper. Sometimes these things can be dealt with on a
case-by-case basis. The idea of categorizing a hypothetical cat within
the context of a fictional cat is not too far out of bounds, and does
not represent any agenda other than to increase its visibility.
Someone who might be interested in cats might find the usage of a cat
in a science metaphor interesting, and perhaps find it an introduction
to the science behind the hypothesis - in this case the necessity to
regard superpositions as actual phenomena.

-Stevertigo
"Fireflies illuminate our play...

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