Wikipedia:Village pump/June 2004 archive 1

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[edit] Zonealarm

I use zonealarm, I have enabled the cookie and ad block to high. However all the images in Wikipedia are then treated as ads and blocked, except for the top left logo. Anyone in mediawiki, is it possible to eliminate this glitch so that inspite of the settings, we get to see the pictures? Nichalp 19:56, May 30, 2004 (UTC)

I had the same problem. Zonealarm is a law unto itself as to whatever it considers an ad to be (I think it goes on geometry, but who knows). I made a special entry in Zonealarm's "privacy" setting for en.wikipedia.org to stop it from blocking images - unfortunately one needs to do this for each wikipedia (de.wikipedia, es.wikipedia, etc). It's just one more reason I wish there were a decent Open-Source alternative to Zonealarm. Grrr. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:10, 30 May 2004 (UTC)
You could try the AdBlock plugin for firefox (see http://texturizer.net/firefox/extensions/). -- Gabriel Wicke 00:19, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)
THANK YOU! I was missing the pictures of wikipedia on my computer for almost a week now, and I couldn't find out why. Now it works! -- Chris 73 | Talk 22:51, 30 May 2004 (UTC)
In case others run into this problem, let me say that I had similar problems with ZoneAlarm Pro 4.5, even after creating a separate en.wikipedia.org entry and completely freeing it from constraints. It would continue to ignore this and follow the overall settings on occasion, with no pattern I detected. I finally reinstalled ZAPro after mercilessly deleting every trace of it from my system and then recreated the separate entry for Wikipedia. It's worked well for weeks now. Go figure. -- Jeff Q 07:11, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] How Dry Should Wikipedia Be?

Have come across this a few times before, but having a particularly hard time with samovar - an overly colorful, and occasionaly totally POV article, but so charmingly written I almost cant stand to delete paragraphs like "Ground-breaking technologies provided mankind with wondrous inventions: space travel, nuclear powerplants, supersonic jets, and the nickel-plated electric samovar. " and "Will the twenty-first century bring Internet-enabled computer-controlled samovars that guide us through the tea-brewing process in the language of our choice?" and " During the above outlined process of evolution, the samovar achieved technical perfection: nothing to add, nothing to take away" and thats from about three paragraphs of a very long article. And article is full of computer language analogies (huh?) and more besides. Datepalm17 20:16, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

The bizarre idioms and analogies are due to the bulk of the article being lifted from a Unix Howto, which are generally written from the POV of some sort of hacker. They're a little weird. --Eequor 14:19, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Obviously not an encylopedic article, but it seems a shame to remove all of the colorful language - how much of this sort of colorful commentary can be kept in articles? Basically, do articles have to be completely dry, if they're understandable and free of POV and bizzare idioms and things. (and what to with totally inappropriate, but correct, analogies?). Datepalm17 20:16, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

I like colourful language. It will be a sad day when it is eliminated entirely from here, and I don't think it is necessary to do so. However, some users do not agree with this and will edit anything remotely colourful to death if you draw their attention to it. So as a rule I do not. --Nevilley 21:02, 30 May 2004 (UTC)
It's just me, but I try to apply the "alien archeologist test". Suppose sometime in the distant future an alien archeologist finds a tiny fragment of wikipedia in the ashes of the lost "McDonaldsPlaystation" layer. All that's readable is the Samovar article. Obviously she's going to get a tiny, jaundiced slice of "our" knowledge, but does the article give her an unnecessarily wrong picture? In-jokes are funny only to those who fully understand the domain, and I think our alien archeologist could me misled as to the comparative importance of a samovar, or its supposed perfection. Now obviously extra-terrestrials and distant-future civilisations aren't a "core target market" of wikipedia, but the future civilisation of our children is, and however entertaining the sections you cite are, they're both wrong, or at least significantly misleading. Style is good, but where there is conflict, truth must always win. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:32, 30 May 2004 (UTC)
I noticed too that some article are unencyclopedic for the sake of the dramatic effect. Esp. WWII articles. I have to admit that I made some of those edits myself too. I don't think those edits belong here. It is all right if an article is boring here. Andries 21:39, 30 May 2004 (UTC)
Encyclopedia articles should not be dry. This is a recent and unpleasant development. The 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica is full of life, full of personality and (for topics which interest one) fun to read. And, IMHO, it more authoritative than recent encyclopedias written in dry style, because many of the articles were written by top people in their field (Lord Rayleigh, Ernest Rutherford, etc.) Articles in U.S. 1930s textbook articles were lively, too. During the 1950s, during the McCarthy scare, schools and textbook publishers became deathly afraid of including anything "controversial." Meanwhile, encyclopedias, originally written by educated people for educated people, became instead highly commercialized enterprises marketed to parents who hoped to give their children an unfair advantage in school. Encyclopedia articles followed the lead of textbooks and became dumbed down and dried up.
I agree. Wikipedia is in the game of INFORMATION, not PROSE. When people come here, they should get the correct information, without a point of view, and that's it. Personally, I find dry writing to have a certain charm of itself. Wyllium 06:55, 31 May 2004 (UTC)
There is nothing about NPOV that requires writing to be distant or dry. John McPhee and Bill Bryson are recent examples of nonfiction authors who are both highly accurate and wonderful prose stylists. Dry prose is sometimes a lazy way of avoiding NPOV issues by avoiding the expression of any point of view at all.
'So you would carpet your room ... with representations of flowers, would you?' said the gentleman. 'Why would you?' 'If you please, sir, I am very fond of flowers,' returned the girl. 'And is that why you would put tables and chairs upon them, and have people walking over them with heavy boots?' 'It wouldn't hurt them, sir. They wouldn't crush and wither, if you please, sir. They would be the pictures of what was very pretty and pleasant, and I would fancy - '
'Ay, ay, ay! But you mustn't fancy,' cried the gentleman, quite elated by coming so happily to his point. 'That's it! You are never to fancy.' .... 'Fact, fact, fact!' said the gentleman. And 'Fact, fact, fact!' repeated Thomas Gradgrind.
—Charles Dickens, Hard Times (Note: for any Gradgrinds reading this... Dickens was being ironic). Dpbsmith 21:53, 30 May 2004 (UTC)
Dryness depends somewhat on the subject matter. Holocaust should be very dry. Infinite Improbability Drive should not be (and isn't). -- Cyrius|✎ 07:20, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Respect and Decency

I am appalled at the material that has been submitted to this encyclopedia by users. I have attempted to remove material, specifically from articles about Jennifer Love Hewitt, Cary Grant, Drew Barrymore, Kylie Minogue and Angelina Jolie. Having read many thousands of legitimate articles in such publications as Encyclopedia Brittanica, I am quite familiar with the standards that they apply to their work, and these are in no way consistent with what is being allowed in Wikipedia.

In an additional ironic twist, the articles that I have written about Negro League Baseball players were materially altered by various fellow users, one in such a way that I consider to be racist. If anyone at anytime may alter another contributor's articles, even in offensive ways, then it seems to me that my "censorship" of the articles of others amounts to no more than the editing done by every other user of Wikipedia.

To state my reasons for editing the above articles, I will say that stating that a private area of the body of a serious actress are her best-known feature and providing a link to a crazed website that focuses on the woman's anatomy is extremely sexist, vulgar and classless. I also think that making reference to a certain supposed incident in Cary Grant's adolescence is highly unneccessary and unprofessional. Furthermore, listing an actresses's "measurements" is demeaning and an invasion of privacy, as well as being completely unnecessary to the content of the article. When the same writer adds his tabloid-based opinion about her sexual orientation, the debasement is complete. I think, too, that most would agree with editing an article with three paragraphs focusing primarily on a private area of a female singer's body and accompanied by a photograph that brings to mind the worst sexist images in rap and hard rock music videos. I also made an innocent change to an article on an actress that implied that her looks are more responsible for her success than her talent, something that I know to be entirely false.

I assumed that I was perfectly free to make such changes as I wished, since my articles had been terribly butchered and since the disclaimer below what I am typing right now says that articles may be "mercilessly" edited. Yet a certain overbearing webmaster (and he knows who he is) has said that I am committing "vandalism" and orders me to stop what I am doing or lose my membership with this site. Okay, then would he please tell others to stop vandalizing the social message of my articles?

I would like to request that a higher standard of respect, particularly for women and their privacy, be upheld on this site. I do not believe that anyone reading this would want such things said or shown of their sister. I am not asking to remove legitimate biological and psychological discussions of human sexuality, merely to prevent a pornographic mindset from seeping into what should be a serious educational tool. I encourage feedback so long as it is not of a threatening or accusative nature. Thank you. (Felix F. Bruyns)

The page diffs in questions are:
Jennifer Love Hewitt]
It appears to me that you were removing legitimate information from the articles because it is politically incorrect, which (in my book) is not a valid reason. →Raul654 00:24, Jun 3, 2004 (UTC)
Raul, Felix F. Bruyns is a troll who appeared here a couple of days ago as User:168.103.232.64. When asked about copyvio regarding his baseball player entries, he did not reply but changed his name. Unfortunately, his copyvio entries remain. Moriori 00:40, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Felix, I had a look at those. Some I agree with - the paragraph you removed from Jennifer Love Hewitt shouldn't really have been there. Others I don't - the swathe of material you removed from Kylie Minogue was a perfectly fair summary of a part of her career. Angelina Jolie and Drew Barrymore I have edited in an attempt to find a compromise that might be acceptable to both you and the people who have been reverting you. Cary Grant I'm leaving alone since I have no idea whether the incident in question is idle gossip or well-known fact. --Stormie 00:44, Jun 3, 2004 (UTC)

Well I disagree with Stormie. None of the material should be culled. Just because other encyclopedias are too worried about appearing prurient doesn't mean Wikipedia has to be. I have restored all the censored material including the Cary Grant story for which I found a reference. Paul Beardsell 01:15, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Paul, the only thing I thought should be culled was the line "References to her breasts cropped up in almost all of her print interviews, and even inspired the creation of a website devoted solely to them [1]" in Jennifer Love Hewitt. Reason being: the website linked to is 404, so obviously that half of the sentence needs to be lopped out, leaving only "References to her breasts cropped up in almost all of her print interviews" which is a terrible, vague, meaningless, unverified (and probably unverifiable) mess of a sentence. I have no problem with someone writing something about the fame of her breasts - but that sentence is terrible. The other articles, my "compromise" edits all involved adding material for clarity or balance, not culling anything. Oh, and the reference you found for the Cary Grant story is fantastic, keep up the good work! --Stormie 01:23, Jun 3, 2004 (UTC)
Sorry, I meant to say I disagreed with you in that respect only. I did not follow the link. It has also been pointed out I have used the word prurient incorrectly. Now fixed, kind of. Paul Beardsell 01:29, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)
While "Felix F. Bruyns"'s deletions were excessive, I agree with a couple of them. Specifically, an external link that gives a 404 error should not be in WP, and an actress' measurements should not be included. Why? 1) it is POV to list female measurements, but not male. 2) inherently unverifiable--unless you have a tape measure, and access to the person. 3) variable--just because the measurements might be true today, who knows about tomorrow.
I would not have removed the 'bisexual' reference from Ms. Barrymore's article, but I would argue that it is also POV to cite bisexual people, unless sexual orientation is referenced in all biographical articles. Niteowlneils 16:04, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)
It isn't POV if the person in question self-identifies as such, and its POV to try to hide the information. I don't have a problem with the edit Felix made to the Jennifer Love Hewitt article, it was silly, but I'm very worried about censorship, and will revert if Felix gets carried away with this "decency" fixation. Moriori, have you listed the supposed Copyvios on WIkipedia:Copyright problems? RickK 19:06, Jun 3, 2004 (UTC)
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