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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 24.61.9.111 (talk) at 07:12, 9 December 2012 (→Elen: new section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.


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Wikipedia is now enriching itself by contributing to the destruction of small businesses

Jimbo, could you drop by and comment at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Wikipedia is now enriching itself by contributing to the destruction of small businesses? I'm not sure I can continue to work on this project if we are going to prostitute ourselves in this way. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:22, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I find your argument unpersuasive. But even more so, I'm unhappy to see your personal attacks (accusing people of not being literate enough) on others who don't agree with you.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:32, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well, to be fair, there was some overheated rhetoric on the other side, too. Perhaps not as bad, but... Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 19:41, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I lived in a town where the libraries were tiny and underfunded and ideologically sanitized. I associate free and independent bookstores and booksellers, be they left or libertarian or religious or genre-specific, with literacy and diversity of human opinion; I guess it just seems axiomatic to me that people who value reading would value books and thus would value bookstores and booksellers. I'm sorry if my language struck anybody as intemperate. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:36, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Like you, I was exposed to free and independent bookstores in my youth, so I know what you mean. I grew up with Aardvark Books, Central Park Bookstore, City Lights, Cody's, Kepler's, Stacey's, and all the rest. I think I can say with some certainty that people who value reading value free time, or as I like to expound upon at some length, contemplation. Contemplation is a form of blue-sky thinking, and it can lead to new ways of seeing ourselves and others—this is the "diversity of human opinion" you've observed. We need to bring contemplation back to the foreground, and when we do, the value of reading will increase. We need to have free time to contemplate ideas and the time to savor them. "Social media" doesn't allow or want us to do that. We need more time to leisure at thinking things through, and that means quiet time. The history of discovery, breakthroughs, science and technology is a history of contemplation by people who had lots of free time. If you want to value books then you need to value the free time and leisure required to read them. Viriditas (talk) 08:22, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Amazon has invested an undisclosed sum of money in Wikia, Jimbo's for-profit wiki operation. Readers may form their own conclusions. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:36, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, they may. But they'd be pretty mistaken if they formed the opinion that you want them to form.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:15, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm very much aware that post hoc, ergo propter hoc is a fallacy. Cui bono, on the other hand, is a rule-of-thumb (and nothing more) used by every law enforcement office and investigator in history. --Orange Mike | Talk 22:21, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The fallacy you are committing is called Ad hominem actually. And additionally, it's just a stupid thing to say. It makes absolutely no coherent logical sense and completely fails to address any interesting questions at all. You are behaving in an insulting manner.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:58, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Look, this isn't helping to build an encyclopaedia, is it? Much as the pair of you may love having political debates, here is not the place. Now go cleanup an article or something. Rcsprinter (natter) @ 00:47, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
@Rcsprinter, are you suggesting that Jimbo might be better off "cleaning up an article or something"? Thank you for the laugh. Yeah that's probably a good idea.
@Mike, I do not believe you are right on this one. Wikipedia has been always enriching itself by all possible means. All nonprofits do, and all for profits do. And about Amazon's destruction of small businesses, well, that's just the way it goes around the net. Wasn't it Wikipedia that first killed Encarta and then Killed Encyclopedia Britannica Books? It is the law of evolution: only the strongest will survive. 67.169.11.52 (talk) 03:04, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That myth was debunked many decades ago. Try reading survival of the fittest to learn why you are wrong. "Fittest" does not mean "strongest". Viriditas (talk) 07:26, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I know that. I used "strongest" on purpose. Wikipedia is not the fittest, it is the strongest, and it is the strongest mostly for the wrong reasons. 67.169.11.52 (talk) 15:11, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That article is from 2006, very old news. Wrt book stores: what's the point? I've read 63 books since I bought my first tablet less than a year ago vs. the ~20 books I'd read annually before that. I can get any one of millions of titles delivered to me digitally within 3 seconds. For books without a digital edition I get free two day shipping as a member of Prime (which also gives me unlimited access to movies and TV shows). Every amazon page has recommendations based on my past purchase history, and my past browsing history, and based on the item I'm viewing at any given time - and if I'm still not sure I can read the reviews or google for more recommendations.
I have two bookshelves in my house with about 200 books that I'll likely never read again and another couple hundred sitting in my basement taking up space - not only are physical books inconvenient but a huge waste of paper as well. My Galaxy tab has around 85 books on it that I can access at any time so it stops me from having to lug around a bag of books for school or variety. If there's something significantly important about bookstores that Amazon can't provide I'd say the publishing industry isn't doing a great job of explaining what that is to the public because I have no idea. Sædontalk 04:41, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That article may indeed be from 2006, but http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/30/ugc-startup-wikia-raises-10m-from-ivp-bessemer-ventures-and-amazon/ is from four days ago. Andreas JN466 05:06, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have rooms floor to ceiling with shelves of books, cupboards full of books, and an attic full of boxes of books. e-books are great for serial works, stuff where you start at the start and end at the end, or where the work is a few pages or so. In my experience and those of my colleagues they are hopeless for reference works, broken technology in fact. So a novel I'll buy as an ebook, medieval history or a guide to a family of insects I'll have it on paper. John lilburne (talk) 15:39, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Orange Mike, small book stores/libraries are purchasing print on demand (POD) machines like Espresso Book Machine. No shipping, warehousing, returns or pulping. Problem solved. This isn't destroying old business models, it's creating new ones. The problem is that someone at some point in the future might very well decide to erase or rewrite the digital copies, so there needs to be a way to preserve the text because both digital and printed copies have finite lifespans. Try to focus on the real problem. How do you preserve knowledge over thousands of years? Viriditas (talk) 07:41, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Using your logic, and I don't think you have much, contributing to Wikipedia is killing off book stores by making a reference book available for free, on line. doktorb wordsdeeds 09:04, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I do get some books from the local book stores but very often the ones I want are ranked over 200000 on Amazon and I am very grateful to them for making life easier and better for me. Progress always brings problems. I remember this one in Nigeria saying how they wished there was no modern medicine because it just led to overpopulation. Dmcq (talk) 12:14, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Comment: Didn't Wikimedia move away from GoDaddy over their support for SOPA? There is precedent there for considering the behaviour of suppliers, at least. And as an entity dependent on a community, Wikimedia might consider community opinions on the suppliers it chooses. However, it's probably impossible to please everyone, or even to get a representative sampling of community opinion, so making their own decisions based on what's practical is not unreasonable. Rd232 talk 13:07, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently on the say so, and in consideration of $500,000 from criminals, tax cheats and proven liars. 1, 2, 3 for the woefully ignorant. John lilburne (talk) 13:13, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Google are "criminals" for undermining the medical cartel's exploitative pricing of drugs needed by sick people. Horrors. That puts them in league with many American politicians who want to see our people have the right to buy things at the same price as others around the world. See also gray market, etc. - this is not an isolated case. I'd rather support criminals than people who withhold medicine from the sick and fight to ensure that America will forever run huge trade deficits until it is entirely owned by foreigners. And as for tax cheats - that's practice for all the big companies.
I trust you're aware the censors have their own economy - that companies like BAE Systems Detica have funded the "Internet Watch Foundation" to put the UK behind a censorship blockade, ostensibly to block child porn, but with the more important effect of making their spying black boxes a legally indispensable part of everyone's conversation in the entire country, something for which Britain now pays dearly in money as well as privacy.
I don't trust Google for one minute, but I'll gladly side with any corporation for exactly as long as it agitates for free speech and free content and the public's right to know. Wnt (talk) 16:54, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
free speech and free content and the public's right to know John lilburne (talk) 19:02, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
free content John lilburne (talk) 19:06, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
the public's right to know John lilburne (talk) 19:09, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously the first appalls me, though I don't know every detail. The second actually does not - yes, Google gets bandwidth cheaper than the individual customer, and that's unfortunate, but we all know that volume buying gives an advantage. They're comparing lines that the company probably owns itself, or leases, to lines that have to do metering and billing and such. And bargainers who probably make seven-digit salaries against Joe Bloggs who reads two brochures from the local telephone and cable companies before picking which. And, we're paying for some amount of "dark fiber" that is sitting there waiting for a TV station to mention something for us to go look at, whereas Google probably has to tailor its habits to whatever bandwidth is available moment to moment. As for the third, well, our message at [1] isn't all that different, and also mentions Chilling Effects. The fact is, issuing a DMCA notice is serious legal juju and does expose people to liability, and they should get a serious warning for their own good. Some news service's robot used one of those blasted things to sabotage NASA YouTube coverage of the Curiosity landing. They better be liable for this kind of automated censorship, and the people considering sending one had better know it. Wnt (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Did you not understand the second link at all? Its not that Google is getting a cheaper rate, its that Google isn't paying a bean for the infrastructure that transports the content and what little infrastructure it does provide it got a $1 billion subsidy from the government. Secondly for most websites the download bandwidth is dominated by Googlebots crawling, and recrawling the site. The googlebots are the dominant visitors to my site accounting for some 4 hours of downloads in the last month. Everyone with a website pays the bandwidth bill for google leaching their site. And before you start on about robots.txt, robots doesn't stop the crawling it just stops the pages appearing in search results. As for the third link, the photos of children were being used for age play games on Orkut. The parents complained, Google ignored the issue, the parents complained about impersonation of the 5 year old kid by adults on Orkut, Google demanded driving license photo evidence for the 5 year old, DMCA takedowns were sent, the parents got lawyered up. Google is a multinational company that is out of control. It is fucking people over just as much as the wall street bankers, WAKE TF UP! John lilburne (talk) 19:23, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your rant. Now, 1 is bad, sure. 2 is debatable, but that they seek subsidies seems normal: the fault, if any, lies in who gives them. As for 3, they are doing the fracking right thing. DMCA is an abominable law with mostly abominable consequences, even if I understand it was used for a good purpose there (it must be the first time I see DMCA takedowns used for a less-than-nefarious purpose). However if Google made it impossible to file DMCA, they could have had a point. But whining just because they put a fair warning about what filing the complain means is ridicolous and pathetic. I am not a particular Google fan, even if I use several of their products: but if that's the worst you can come up with, I'd say they're even less evil than I thought. --Cyclopiatalk 20:18, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I will always defend the individual against the powerful, the corporation, and the collective, the DMCA is the one piece of legislation that empowers the individual. A photographer, musician, film maker, author, and artist cannot fight a federal case against a large organisation. Mostly they don't want to either. They just want the abuse to stop. The DMCA gives the power to do that. In the last 6 years I've issued about a dozen DMCA notices to commercial organisations ripping of my work. It is quick, and it is fast, and 1000s of people use that route every week. John lilburne (talk) 10:43, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
DMCA has been used extensively by the powerful, the corporation and the collective. Just see this for an example. But yes, DMCA also empowers the individual: to punch other individuals in the face, taking down their content first and then asking questions later. I'm sure you also want people to go around with AK-47s and a piece of law that allows you to shoot anybody you find suspicious: doesn't this empower the individual? But anyway, Google is not making it any harder for you to send DMCA notices, it only informs you about what it is and what it means. Calling this a problem is disingenous. --Cyclopiatalk 12:38, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Your third sentence is quite out of line. You sound like a reasonable person, so I'm betting you will agree.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 14:02, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It was meant as a reductio ad absurdum of John's position: I don't mean that he literally wants that. Sorry for the misunderstanding. --Cyclopiatalk 14:21, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The DMCA provides remedies against people that abuse the system. The fact remains that should the Hubbardistas exploit my work I can fire a shot across their bows before deciding on a federal lawsuit. Also you are quite wrong about Google making it easy to file DMCA takedowns. It is impossible to do so when the infringer is Google itself. Try their street view on the pages are linked stilled photos, anyone can take an ARR image from flickr and link onto street view in order to promote the business, find a way to get Google to remove it. Also on maps they wrap geodata feeds from flickr and overlay maps with the photos. Say you have taken a load of shots of the Golden Gate bridge then Google will index that feed with Golden Gate, and overlay the images on maps. However, because the feed is dynamic so when someone clicks on it the feed might well be showing images of your kids birthday party, in Atlanta. Find a way to direct a DMCA takedown to Google, when the infringer is Google itself. Now take their YouTube service which is mostly full of infringing content, if the copyright owner issues a DMCA google will replace the video with an apology for the video's unavailability, they should be displaying an apology to the content creator that their site is full of thieving bastards. John lilburne (talk) 10:10, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That article mingles all sorts of issues indiscriminately, but if you're concerned with consumer bandwidth, well, that's easy. If, say, Wikipedia wants to keep Google from leeching up its bandwidth, all it has to do is put "FOAD" or whatever the proper technical language is in a robots.txt file, and the company will trouble us no more. If we don't do that ... maybe we think it's worth it? As for subsidies, I don't see any explanation of what subsidy Google is seeking or presently receives for bandwidth; until I do, I don't know the company has an unfair advantage in getting it. Wnt (talk) 21:23, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just a probably ill-informed observation. Amazon Payments isn't an additional way of paying compared to the other methods offered, but it's more convenient for Amazon customers and it's also something that Amazon would like to promote. Given that, are Amazon paying WMF for the promotion that's being provided? If not, WMF is getting a raw deal. Formerip (talk) 00:10, 5 December 2012 (UTC) A couople of points:[reply]

  • If OM is interested in diversity and accessibility of books then surely Amazon is a good thing; they have much more available than a small independent store...
  • Amazon Payments is part of Amazon's "Web Services" section, an innovative and progressive business that has done much for making servers cheap, easy and accessible.

So, you know, 6 and two threes. --Errant (chat!) 09:57, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • I've bought over a dozen books on Amazon in the last 6 weeks (and made a donation here through Amazon, for that matter) and each one came from a different bookseller. I've also "borrowed" books on my Kindle through their library. And bought another dozen from a local bookseller. I finally went to the county library today since I haven't gotten a card since moving into town over a year ago. And I buy books from Goodwill, small book stores (including Ed McKay Used Books in Greensboro when I get the chance). If anything, Amazon has made it easier for me to find these small sellers of books. Not sure you have the right idea Mike. Amazon just connects me to MORE small sellers, not less. And makes it really easy to trust them by backing it up. It is expensive for the individual sellers, however 25-35%, but so is a building on Main Street or a slot in the mall. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 21:46, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not getting involved in any discussion of the role of large online retailers and digital books in the future of the independent bookstore. But to find out that we are using a company which has been utterly condemned by the UK Government for engaging in aggressive tax avoidance to process our donations is an extremely sour and unwelcome revelation. — Hex (❝?!❞) 21:52, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In all fairness, any company big enough to process payments for our donations is going to engage in that kind of sleazy financial practices – the worst of which are likely to be the banks and credit companies where the payments originate from. This is an artifact of our economic system and neither a reflection on the relative morality of one of those companies against the others. — Coren (talk) 01:41, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's it!, Dennis, you have it! Wikimedia should work a deal with Goodwill for joint donations. To donate to Wikipedia, we should be able to go to our nearest local Goodwill or Salvation Army and hand them cash or any other medium in which they take donations. They can take, oh, 25% or so as a "processing fee" that goes to support poor people, and Wikipedia gets the rest. No greedy scumbag corporations required! Can we do that? Wnt (talk) 04:05, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
According to our article, The Salvation Army has a yearly operating budget of $2.6 billion. The fact that someone managed to rob them once of 1/1000 of that is not really an indictment of their whole membership (our article cites a figure of 100,000 employees). Wnt (talk) 13:22, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The irony of your sarcasm, Wnt, is that by supporting The Salvation Army we'd be helping them press that pro-Christian POV complained about in a lower thread. Of the two, I think Amazon is the lesser evil. Resolute 03:19, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Please sell wikipedia. Editors edit when they want to. And your page says edit things, to fix them if we don't like. But then someone deletes what we edit, what is the point?

Please sell it to a trusted major company like google or microsoft

Yes, please sell it to google, or someone else who would be accepted popularly. The adverts for donations are annoying. And I read you are receiving millions in donations. This is too much money to expect in charity. If the site costs that much to run, then sell it to a company like google, who can afford to run it at a loss, and offset it against their money making businesses. In order to keep supporting wikipedia for the value of it's knowledge and it's prestige with people. Much like facebook is run for popularity and not really making any money compared to it's costs. But it is popular. But it also can afford to run.

Wikipedia could be afforded easily if it was bought by google, or similar. And they seem to have a part of their company which is for public benefit ventures as well (such as campaigning to support open and free internet), and not only for money making. So I think google is a natural friend to support wikipedia, and perhaps to buy it and support it as a loss making venture, for prestige. Supported by their other businesses.

Wikipedia has a large problem with biased and muslim doctored pages promoting islam, and revising history to be written from an islamic myth point of view. Wikipedia seems to allow these biased pages, without reliable verification of facts, and then when the facts are checked and corrected to be balanced and not only the muslim view, then the correction is denied by editors and the biased one sided article is kept the same (even though it has no verification of many of the facts it presents), and the contrary facts which do have sources, are not allowed to correct the page, because the muslim side is deemed the only credible side for facts whenever islam or muslims are mentioned.

Google is a credible company, not run by volunteers or edited with personal views of editors. And is likely to be able to make wikipedia a much more accurate site, with better checks and guidelines, and verifications, perhaps some more automation of verification of sources, maybe by knowing if they are credible sites or popular or well known sites based on info from google search statistics, or little sites.

Or they might be able to contribute better volunteers! from other communities they already have around their other sites. Or to contribute more staff.

Wikipedia is decaying from the pages which have wrong information, especially about islam and religion. Too much pro islam propaganda, and too hard to correct such propaganda, because editors are biased against corrections of islamic propaganda. I have a feeling wikipedia is going downhill if nothing changes about this editing.

Also, wikipedia should be based on current and up to date sources. Not books from 1970s or very old sources, which have been proven wrong, and outdated. Or which state facts, which the facts have changed by today. Therefore wikipedia should not state facts from the past, as true today, without checking if they are true today or not. It should use up to date sources. And as i mentioned above, many islamic propaganda facts, are based on incorrect books from decades ago, which have all been disputed and discredited, and yet the modern sources which discredit it are rejected at wikipedia. And the original muslim propaganda texts are kept as the only main view presented at wikipedia, as the correct view.

P.S. Editors editing everything to edit half a conversation, while keeping other things, is exactly why it should be sold. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.149.231.85 (talk • contribs) 20:54, 7 December 2012

We get similar rants from people who think this an anti-Islam site. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 21:08, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If Google want to set up their own online encyclopaedia, there is nothing to stop them. If they want to set one up using content from Wikipedia there is nothing to stop them, providing that they comply with the necessary attribution requirements etc - and they wouldn't have to pay for it. If they wanted to do it at a loss, their shareholders might of course object. As for the rest of your comments, I'll not comment, beyond stating that the suggestion that Wikipedia suffers from a pro-Islamic bias is so far off the mark as to be laughable. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:10, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Google already tried that and it was a pretty dismal failure.--ukexpat (talk) 21:16, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Google Knol started out with a hope to be various views, such as about Albert Einstein, but it turned into bait-and-switch Knols, as if twisting, "Einstein was a physicist, but for the physics of kitchen-remodeling, we have solutions to your appliance needs" and Einstein even typically disliked people using his name to sell their books, much less kitchen appliances". -Wikid77 (talk) 17:21, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The OP almost had me ... until they referred to Microsoft as "trusted" LOL. Reality is that no company would keep running Wikipedia as a loss-leader. Period. (✉→BWilkins←✎) 21:12, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia has a small bias towards the (US) liberal and political correctness dictates. But it is an immense success story. North8000 (talk) 21:15, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No, actually, it does not. It's just difficult for some editors to admit that their parochial view of reality is neither accurate nor desired. An encyclopedia takes a broader view than a fundamentalist in some small town with population 150. Viriditas (talk) 03:35, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Possibly - but given the conservative bias (by worldwide standards) of the average US liberal, that isn't saying much... AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:23, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the pro Islamic claim is off base. One look at Talk:Muhammad Talk:Muhammad/images will show that it is not the commonly held belief and that if anything Wikipedia is more often accused of being Anti-Islamic than pro.--199.91.207.3 (talk) 23:50, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia is really an expieriment in making a million points of view combine to form one NPOV. It actually succeeds more often than one would think. Resolute 00:28, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
But a million amateur points of view don't trump the view of one expert. Viriditas (talk) 03:36, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Microsoft's Encarta encyclopedia wasn't all that bad. 66.127.54.40 (talk) 18:02, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The OP, while misguided in general, may have been referring to the fact that Wikipedia has been misused with many UNDUE claims of achievements by Islamic scholars (see WP:Jagged 85 cleanup). That problem is irritating because of course there were many such achievements, but enthusiasts have gilded the lily (my personal favorite being the claim "Another contemporary, al-Kindi, described an early concept of relativity, which some see as a precursor to the later theory of relativity developed by Albert Einstein in the 20th century". Al-Kindi was a 9th century polymath; see here. Johnuniq (talk) 01:00, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I’m waiting for someone to hat this unproductive drivel... Evanh2008 (talk|contribs) 04:11, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, good to review Wikipedia longevity versus Knol shutdown mid-2012: Many people have imagined that financing WP with ads could be very successful. Meanwhile, we had a multi-year comparison of the "free encyclopedia anyone can edit" (limited by notability) versus the "knols where any owner can lock out changes (corrections)". To me, the knols reached the point to where actual articles could rarely be found amid all the adverts as far-off tangents to a subject. I think it could be a warning to beware nebulous disambiguation pages which can hijack and obscure wp:COMMONNAME topics. -Wikid77 17:21, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Greg Martin

I think the assistance you're personally providing Greg Martin is really admirable. Thank you for helping out your fellow man. He's a really sweet man, it sounds like. -- 131.239.63.5 (talk) 23:20, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Your comment about copyrights on CNN (music in birthday videos getting DMCAed)

I think you have brought an excellent point few people have the courage to put forward. I think we should start some discussion on the matter. I am unsure if you are interested in a broader discussion on the matter at this point. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 11:53, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

For reference, the article, complete with a video of the interview, is here:
Andreas JN466 15:11, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Christian POV on wikipedia

What do you guys think about my essay on the Christian POV on Wikipedia? Pass a Method talk 14:02, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It is biased against unbelievers like me and Jimbo, for a start ;-) AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:07, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think this POV needs to be countered. The latest example is at religion where an editor thinks a 20 religion symbol image i created (diff) needs to be deleted because some religions don't have enough followers. This subequently forced me to start an rfc on the talk page. Pass a Method talk 14:25, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think that attempting to 'counter POV' by promoting another one isn't necessarily the best approach. Why are symbols for 20 religions any better than 12? Where is the symbol for atheists? For agnostics? For people that don't think you can meaningfully reduce complex cultural constructs to abstract symbols... AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:34, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The essay is inapt. Wikipedia covers a multitude of non-Abrahamic religions qute well -- vide Islam, Hinduism and its subgroups, Buddhism, and even your "Paganism and New Religious Movements" as a whole. I admit Wikipedia does not give huge theological detail on Aztec (32K) and Mayan religions (56K), perhaps, but that may be related to the lack of adherents to those theologies at this point, not due to an Abrahamic bias of any sort. And we do tend to refer to Norse, Celtic, Egyptian, Greek and Roman gods as "myth" which I suppose is POV, but the place to object is on the article talk pages for those gods and religions, and I do not se any "Christian bias" involved. Collect (talk) 14:31, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Islam is an Abrahamic religion. --kelapstick(bainuu) 15:48, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Andy, i spent quite a while working on that image and downloaded software for it. So its quite annoying when someone single-handedly undoes your work. Pass a Method talk 16:36, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well, putting effort on something is not a reason to keep it. I understand it's frustrating. --Cyclopiatalk 16:45, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, as Kelapstick says. Islam is an Abrahamic religion. LadyofShalott 17:29, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How is 'narrative' more neutral than 'myth'?

I'm a bit tired of this claim. My OED says that narrative means "a spoken or written account of connected events." And it defines 'account' as "a report or description of an event or experience." Am I the only one that thinks this suggests that 'account' means an actual account of events? Dougweller (talk) 06:21, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Opportunities for commonality (version of 06:17, 7 December 2012) begins with these statements.

Wikipedia tries to find words that are common to all varieties of English. Insisting on a single term or a single usage as the only correct option does not serve the purposes of an international encyclopedia.

Similarly, the question of naming narratives that some people believe to be myths provides opportunities for commonality in article titles and in article text. The titles "Genesis creation narrative" and "Genesis flood narrative" are neutral in regard to whether the narratives are true or false. The same naming convention can be applied to beliefs of followers of any religion, without any disadvantage to believers in those two narratives.
The categories Category:Creation myths and Category:Flood myths can be Category:Creation narratives and Category:Flood narratives, without any disadvantage to anyone, and readers can decide what to believe and what to disbelieve.
See Matthew 7:12 and 1 Corinthians 9:20, 21, 22, 23.
—Wavelength (talk) 22:14, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Creation Myth has a specific academic meaning. You essentially want to rename them to avoid offending readers sensibilities? IRWolfie- (talk) 23:45, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The phrases "creation myth" and "evolution myth" are not neutral. The phrases "creation narrative" and "evolution narrative" are neutral.
—Wavelength (talk) 01:48, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You've kind of dodged the issue where the academic sourcing says "creation myth" most of the time, not "creation narrative". I don't know what you are talking about mentioning evolution. Are you comparing science to "a symbolic narrative of how the world began"? IRWolfie- (talk) 01:54, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Some people (including some people in academic fields) believe that scientific evidence supports creation. Some people (including some people in academic fields) believe that scientific evidence supports evolution. The category title "Category:Evolution myths" is not neutral. The category title "Category:Evolution narratives" is neutral. I am discussing a neutral presentation of views.
—Wavelength (talk) 03:22, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
See WP:FRINGE. 'Scientific' creationism is fringe pseudoscience, and WP:NPOV policy doesn't extend to pretending otherwise. 03:28, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
As a Christian, I'll add a big Amen! to that, whoever you are. --Orange Mike | Talk 03:37, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Only me - messed up the signature... AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:45, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As a pagan.....I'll ask.....how does this improve Wikipedia?--Amadscientist (talk) 03:40, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
What you reckon to be a fringe may be wider than what you reckon it to be.
—Wavelength (talk) 06:10, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Please take your soapbox/pulpit somewhere else - creationist 'science' is pseudoscientific bullshit, by the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community. That a god-botherers-bullshit lobby promoting a particularly warped version of 'Christianity' has managed to fool so many rational US citizens is unfortunate, but of no relevance to its validity as 'science'. Anyway, Wikipedia is an international project, and cannot be driven by the misperceptions of a single nationality. If you wish to promote creationism, there is an alternative 'encyclopaedia' available, as I'm sure you are aware. AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:22, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The fact that 46% of Americans believe in creationism has absolutely no bearing on what the scientific community thinks of it. It is a matter of fact that scientists of the relevant fields universally accept evolution. If anything, those stats are a rebuke to the US educational system. In short: Science is not a vote. Yazan (talk) 06:58, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sockpuppets on buses

As an article rescuer who opines delete, I fulfil two of Drmies' criteria, but I'm finding it hard to be tearful. Although it is saddening that at least one other person, Trevj, has fallen hook, line, and sinker for Drmies' parody.

For those who don't know what Dennis Brown was alluding to, here are some of the many other "delights" from the sockpuppetteer who created this article, more on whom here, that you can enjoy: Combustion vehicle (AfD discussion) ("but, but, but I can put the string into Google!")  · car-to-car (RFD discussion)  · Child computer (AfD discussion) User:Nudecline/Child computer  · combination of vehicles  · Category:Battery swap buses (CfD discussion)  · car transportation (RFD discussion)  · notebook motherboard  · Special:Undelete/Electric go-kart  · English ham (RFD discussion)

Maybe if I go and eat a chile … Uncle G (talk) 14:49, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I note that there was no mention of the article creator's history in the AfD up until now. Anyway, I'll have a closer look. -- Trevj (talk) 19:19, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Elen

Jimbo, please remove Elen of the Roads from the ArbCom. You are the only one with this power and authority. If there was ever a time to use this power it is now. Please don't let us down. 24.61.9.111 (talk) 07:12, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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