Re: Lists which are sheer nonsense

Re: Lists which are sheer nonsense

Zoe wrote:

>Nonsense.  Americans are the citizens or residents of the United 
>States.  DESIGNED to provoke controversy?  Only if you're looking 
>for something to make controversial.

I've been wanting to avoid wading into this discussion, but the term 
"Americans" does have a double meaning, and its usage as a reference 
solely to U.S. citizens  rankles with some people from Canada, Mexico 
and other parts of North and South America who also consider 
themselves "American" as well. The term is commonly used in reference 
U.S. citizens, and it doesn't particularly offend me personally, but 
I know people who object to it.

Using "Americans" in reference to U.S. citizens is a bit like using 
"Indians" in reference to Native Americans or "cripples" in reference 
to the physically disabled. I know there are people who find it silly 
and irritating that they should be asked to use more "politically 
correct" language, but whenever possible I think it's best to be 
sensitive about these things. I don't see a downside to saying 
"United States citizens." It's precise, unambiguous and offends no 
one. That would be my preferred usage.
--

-- 
--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Editor, PR Watch (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
--------------------------------

Re: Lists which are sheer nonsense

On Sat, 1 Mar 2003 11:49:23 -0600, Sheldon Rampton 
<sheldon.rampton@...> wrote:

> Zoe wrote:
>
>> Nonsense.  Americans are the citizens or residents of the United States. 
>> DESIGNED to provoke controversy?  Only if you're looking for something 
>> to make controversial.
>
> I've been wanting to avoid wading into this discussion, but the term 
> "Americans" does have a double meaning, and its usage as a reference 
> solely to U.S. citizens  rankles with some people from Canada, Mexico and 
> other parts of North and South America who also consider themselves 
> "American" as well. The term is commonly used in reference U.S. citizens, 
> and it doesn't particularly offend me personally, but I know people who 
> object to it.
>
> Using "Americans" in reference to U.S. citizens is a bit like using 
> "Indians" in reference to Native Americans or "cripples" in reference to 
> the physically disabled. I know there are people who find it silly and 
> irritating that they should be asked to use more "politically correct" 
> language, but whenever possible I think it's best to be sensitive about 
> these things. I don't see a downside to saying "United States citizens." 
> It's precise, unambiguous and offends no one. That would be my preferred 
> usage.

Given the near-universal* usage of "American", I see it as preferable to 
the cumbersome "United States Citizens" (also given that "United States" 
itself is an incomplete descriptor**). The other nations on the North 
American continent both have good adjectices to distinguish them (Canadian, 
Mexican), and the term "North American" is a manageable collective 
adjective.

* The most common term in Australia/NZ might in fact be "bloody yanks", but 
I concede that this might not be appropriate 
**After all, would you simply stop at "Federated States" if you were 
talking about Malaysia?
--

-- 
Richard Grevers

French language-bot entries

Just so everybody knows, IP 62.147.142.55 just added a stack of 
French-language stubs on sci-fi novels at a rate which suggested they had 
to be using a bot (over 20 per minute). I've blocked the address to prevent 
any more being added and left the user a note saying that one needs 
approval before using a bot, and the French language wikipedia is somewhere 
else anyway.

Out of interest, am I right in thinking that if this user were to now make 
a user account and start again, there's nothing we could do about it until 
a developer came along to block them?

lp (camembert)
WikiKarma: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._8_(Mahler)

Re: French language-bot entries

On Sat, 2003-03-01 at 11:21, Lee Pilich wrote:
> Just so everybody knows, IP 62.147.142.55 just added a stack of 
> French-language stubs on sci-fi novels at a rate which suggested they had 
> to be using a bot (over 20 per minute). I've blocked the address to prevent 
> any more being added and left the user a note saying that one needs 
> approval before using a bot, and the French language wikipedia is somewhere 
> else anyway.

This appears to have been due to a problem with Athymik's bot, which
he's been testing on test.wikipedia.org. (Probably somehow left out the
'host' header; leaving the default virtual host, the English wiki, as
the target.) There shall be words exchanged.

> Out of interest, am I right in thinking that if this user were to now make 
> a user account and start again, there's nothing we could do about it until 
> a developer came along to block them?

For the moment.

-- brion vibber (brion  <at>  pobox.com)

Re: Re: Lists which are sheer nonsense

On Sun, Mar 02, 2003 at 08:03:39AM +1300, Richard Grevers wrote:
> **After all, would you simply stop at "Federated States" if you were 
> talking about Malaysia?

And, of course, it'd make no sense to talk about the UK rather than
the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland 

--

-- 
jason@...    http://www.jasonandali.org.uk/jason/

Re: Re: Lists which are sheer nonsense

On Sat, 2003-03-01 at 13:06, Jason Williams wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 02, 2003 at 08:03:39AM +1300, Richard Grevers wrote:
> > **After all, would you simply stop at "Federated States" if you were 
> > talking about Malaysia?
> 
> And, of course, it'd make no sense to talk about the UK rather than
> the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland 

...and *Northern* Ireland. Don't want to ruffle _those_ feathers, now do
we? :)

-- brion viber (brion  <at>  pobox.com)

Re: Re: Lists which are sheer nonsense

On Sat, 1 Mar 2003 21:06:11 +0000, Jason Williams 
<jason@...> wrote:

> On Sun, Mar 02, 2003 at 08:03:39AM +1300, Richard Grevers wrote:
>> **After all, would you simply stop at "Federated States" if you were 
>> talking about Malaysia?
>
> And, of course, it'd make no sense to talk about the UK rather than
> the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland 
>
Gatcha - I meant the federated states of Aurstralia . The UK is 
unambiguous for the time being.

--

-- 
Richard Grevers

Re: SoftSecurity, Roman style (was: Return of DW?)

At 02:10 PM 2/28/03 -0500, Ed Poor wrote:
>Egad, where the Cunctator when you need him? At the drop of a hat, people 
>are talking about banning this one and banning that one.

You're doing a fine job of channeling him here.

>If someone writes badly, just revise their work. If someone puts something 
>on the wrong shelf, just put it back.
>
>SoftSecurity, right?

We have bans for good and sufficient reasons. I don't think it's 
unreasonable for people to
point out cases (e.g. VeraCruz) in which a banned user comes back in 
disguise and
repeats the behavior that caused banning.

It's possible that you could revise everything that needs revising, and 
move back everything
that's in the wrong place--but it would use all your energy.

Me, I want to create something good, not just spend all my time painting 
over graffiti.
If I enjoyed the endless, losing fight against entropy, I'd go scrub my 
kitchen floor.

--

-- 
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr@...
http://www.redbird.org

Do we really want to confuse every American who reads the Wikipedia?