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Steve Bennett | 1 Apr 2012 02:11
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Re: Manual Of Style

On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 5:23 AM, David Gerard <dgerard <at> gmail.com> wrote:
>
> When was the last time you looked at the Wikipedia Manual of Style for
> use in your own writing? And not to tell someone else they were wrong
> about something.

What's wrong with that? That's how most rulebooks work - people
internalise the rules, and only consult the written form when two
people's understanding of the rule differs.

The reverse case would be worse: if you were frequently consulting the
MoS before making changes, it would imply that the rules were
arbitrary, hard to remember, and lacked internal logic and
consistency.

Steve

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Richard Farmbrough | 1 Apr 2012 02:17
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Re: Manual Of Style

I probably consult it every couple of weeks.  Usually to check some 
change hasn't been sneaked in, or for something that isn't covered.  Or 
because someone has told me I'm wrong.

It is a shame that it is such a battleground sometimes.  But it's also a 
shame that the basics aren't obvious to more people - i.e. favour 
readability over almost everything except accuracy.

On 30/03/2012 19:23, David Gerard wrote:
> Just a quick straw poll:
>
> When was the last time you looked at the Wikipedia Manual of Style for
> use in your own writing? And not to tell someone else they were wrong
> about something.
>
> Me, I can't remember. I think I *have*, but it would have been years ago.
>
>
> - d.
>
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David Gerard | 1 Apr 2012 09:43
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Re: Manual Of Style

On 1 April 2012 01:11, Steve Bennett <stevagewp <at> gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 5:23 AM, David Gerard <dgerard <at> gmail.com> wrote:

>> When was the last time you looked at the Wikipedia Manual of Style for
>> use in your own writing? And not to tell someone else they were wrong
>> about something.

> What's wrong with that? That's how most rulebooks work - people
> internalise the rules, and only consult the written form when two
> people's understanding of the rule differs.

So what's your answer to the question?

- d.

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Steve Bennett | 1 Apr 2012 12:21
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Re: Manual Of Style

Oops, your question wasn't rhetorical?  :-) I haven't consulted it in
years, but nor have I ever really used it to beat people over the head with.

Steve
On Apr 1, 2012 5:44 PM, "David Gerard" <dgerard <at> gmail.com> wrote:

> On 1 April 2012 01:11, Steve Bennett <stevagewp <at> gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 5:23 AM, David Gerard <dgerard <at> gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> When was the last time you looked at the Wikipedia Manual of Style for
> >> use in your own writing? And not to tell someone else they were wrong
> >> about something.
>
> > What's wrong with that? That's how most rulebooks work - people
> > internalise the rules, and only consult the written form when two
> > people's understanding of the rule differs.
>
>
> So what's your answer to the question?
>
>
> - d.
>
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> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l <at> lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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Audrey Abeyta | 4 Apr 2012 00:54
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Opinions Needed: Why Do People Contribute to Wikipedia?

Dear Wikipedia contributors, 

Your valuable opinions are needed regarding users' motivations to contribute to Wikipedia. This topic is
currently investigated by Audrey Abeyta, an undergraduate student at the University of California,
Santa Barbara. You can read a more detailed description of the project here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Motivations_to_Contribute_to_Wikipedia

Those willing to participate in this study will complete a brief online questionnaire, which is
completely anonymous and will take approximately ten minutes. The questionnaire can be accessed here:
https://us1.us.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_8ixU9RkozemzC4s. 

If you have any questions or concerns about this study, please contact Audrey Abeyta at
audrey.abeyta <at> gmail.com. 

Thank you in advance for your participation! 

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Carcharoth | 4 Apr 2012 14:27

Re: "Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement"

I noticed a thread on Jimbo's talk page that is partly related to this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#A_radical_idea.3B_BLP_opt-out_for_all

Tarc suggested:

"Any living person, subject to identity verification via OTRS, may
request the deletion of their article. No discussion, no AfD, just
*poof*. In its place is a simple template explaining why there is no
longer an article there, and a pointer to where the reader can find
information on the subject, a link similar to Template:Find sources at
the top of every AfD."

What people there seem to be missing is that the template would
explicitly say "article removed at subject's request". The point being
that this could well result in a big PR stink for either Wikipedia
("the article was rubbish and rightly removed") or for the subject
("they are (wrongly) trying to control what is said about them").

[This is why it relates to the topic of this thread]

This is why such a proposal might actually work.

I am rather surprised at why some people miss that this is about
living people though. BWilkins said:

"You can't very well tear out "Mussolini" from every copy of EB ever
printed, can you?"

Obviously, for those who are dead, this proposed policy would no
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George Herbert | 4 Apr 2012 14:47
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Re: "Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement"

BLP is a good idea and we got it for good reasons.  These recent developments, however, forget that we are *an
encyclopedia*. It's into barking mad territory.

No. We will not go to removing bios on demand on my watch. 

George William Herbert
Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 4, 2012, at 5:27, Carcharoth <carcharothwp <at> googlemail.com> wrote:

> I noticed a thread on Jimbo's talk page that is partly related to this.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#A_radical_idea.3B_BLP_opt-out_for_all
> 
> Tarc suggested:
> 
> "Any living person, subject to identity verification via OTRS, may
> request the deletion of their article. No discussion, no AfD, just
> *poof*. In its place is a simple template explaining why there is no
> longer an article there, and a pointer to where the reader can find
> information on the subject, a link similar to Template:Find sources at
> the top of every AfD."
> 
> What people there seem to be missing is that the template would
> explicitly say "article removed at subject's request". The point being
> that this could well result in a big PR stink for either Wikipedia
> ("the article was rubbish and rightly removed") or for the subject
> ("they are (wrongly) trying to control what is said about them").
> 
> [This is why it relates to the topic of this thread]
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Carcharoth | 4 Apr 2012 16:10

Re: "Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement"

On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 1:47 PM, George Herbert <george.herbert <at> gmail.com> wrote:
> BLP is a good idea and we got it for good reasons.  These recent developments, however, forget that we are
*an encyclopedia*. It's into barking mad territory.
>
> No. We will not go to removing bios on demand on my watch.

OK, but what do you call a "bio". Compare these two articles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lester_Brain

[A random FA-level biographical article]

And any article from this category:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Finnish_winter_sports_biography_stubs

[Those are *not* encyclopedic articles, they are placeholders that
might one day become encyclopedic articles - is that standard
acceptable for BLPs?]

Or indeed any article from this category:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:People_stubs

We *should* have a category of BLP stubs, but I can't find it. Maybe
someone can cross-reference the BLP category and the "people stub"
category (and its sub-categories) and find out how many are BLPs.

The point being that some articles are *never* going to be more than
stubs. A stub is arguably not a biographical article, but only a
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Ken Arromdee | 4 Apr 2012 17:24
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Re: "Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement"

On Wed, 4 Apr 2012, George Herbert wrote:
> BLP is a good idea and we got it for good reasons.  These recent developments, however, forget that we are *an
encyclopedia*. It's into barking mad territory.
>
> No. We will not go to removing bios on demand on my watch.

I would suggest as a modest proposal that we do away with "Wikipedia is an
encyclopedia".  I've already suggested that we do away with the IAR
clause "to improve the encyclopedia".

"Wikipedia is an encyclopedia" constantly gets misinterpreted to mean "we
may never allow other concerns to take precedence over being
encyclopediac".  This is wrong.

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Charles Matthews | 4 Apr 2012 17:25

Re: "Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement"

On 4 April 2012 15:10, Carcharoth <carcharothwp <at> googlemail.com> wrote:

>
>
> We *should* have a category of BLP stubs, but I can't find it. Maybe
> someone can cross-reference the BLP category and the "people stub"
> category (and its sub-categories) and find out how many are BLPs.
>
> In principle that shouldn't be too hard to do, with Catscan 2.0 to
intersect categories for you. In practice the toolserver can't be taken for
granted. And it seems that the naive way of doing this produces a list that
is just too big (I took sub-categories to depth 5 there). To get an idea,
if you do 1950 births intersect people stubs you get something over 2000.
Which suggests the magnitude of the problem might be around 100,000.

Charles
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Gmane