User:Jmabel

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[edit] I am currently only moderately active on Wikipedia

(OK, maybe "inactive" was overstating it. - 04:20, 6 November 2007 (UTC))

After being a Wikipedia mainstay for several years, I have been on an extended break from that role since April 2007, though still participating in smaller ways.

This was precipitated (but not caused) by several arguments over a list of songs containing covert references to real musicians, most notably the Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 April 15 discussion of List of songs containing covert references to real musicians. After an earlier discussion of the same article had almost driven me away from major participation, I drifted back, and, who knows, I might again. I had said in late 2005 that if Wikipedia become so tight-assed that we decided to delete that article, it would be time for me to leave the project.

This was not intended as a threat, as blackmail, or as climbing the Reichstag, it was a serious gauge of not becoming overly committed to a collaborative project that was not entirely headed the way I would want it to: a project that was increasingly forgetting that Ignore all rules was supposed to be one of the cardinal rules, and that was taking itself too damn seriously (while, at the same time, showing far too much toleration for some utter trolls).

In the wake of my remarks, the first time, the article was saved. Then some other people came through, put the list up for deletion again, and pushed through a deletion with very little notice (people kept editing after the AFD notice was added, so unless someone checked their watchlist in a particular 4-hour interval, there was no way to see anything important was happening until suddenly the article was gone). Despite the clarity of my previous expression of concern, no one had the decency to inform me, nor to engage any of the arguments that I (or others) had made the last time.

But the real kicker was the over-legalistic points and uncollegial attitude in the subsequent deletion review discussion at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 April 15, especially the appallingly uncollegial notion that some "tribe" in which 60,000 or so edits apparently do not gain me membership "has spoken". The issue, as I believe I've always made clear (although I feel like some people are willfully misunderstanding me) was never the article itself, it was (and is) a combination of two things:

  1. a generally unfriendly attitude I've been feeling lately around Wikipedia (not to say that there aren't a lot of great people here, there are, but I'm afraid lately the turkeys are exasperating me more than the good ones are giving me any pleasure)
  2. an attitude that Wikipedia should be driven entirely by some sort of legalistic framework, and one composed entirely of statute law with no case law (e.g., the utter refusal to compare to a plethora of similar - often considerably less well referenced - articles). This is often combined with an appallingly naive epistemology that seems to assume that good articles can be written almost algorithmically by following rules, and that no writing skill nor scholarly judgment is needed. Not to mention intellectual honesty.

By the way, discussion of that particular article continues at User talk:Pmanderson/List of songs containing covert references to real musicians, with some hopes of restoring the article in some form.

Meanwhile, I'll keep uploading my own photos to Commons and attaching them to articles as relevant, writing the occasional article, and doing other things on a "hit-and-run" basis. I still think Wikipedia is a great project, but I don't like the atmosphere as much as I used to, so my participation is simply not what it once was. - Jmabel | Talk 07:46, 18 April 2007 (UTC), updated 18:28, 18 June 2007 (UTC), 20:28, 30 August 2007 (UTC), 04:20, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

  Seattle meetup 5    view • talk • edit   
  Date: June 19, 2008 7:30pm
  Place: ?
  Seattle meetup 4 occurred 9 Sept 2006

Barnstars, etc. >>

Bienvenidos / Bine aţi venit / Wilkommen / Benvinguts / Bienvenue / Benvenuti / Bem-vindo

Welcome to the Wikipedia home page of Joe Mabel. For Joe's true Home Page, see http://www.speakeasy.org/~jmabel.

By the way, if anyone has a Seattle-based opening for director or VP of software development, have a look at my resume.

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Wikipedia:Babel, etc.
en This user is a native speaker of English.
es-3 Este usuario puede contribuir con un nivel avanzado de español.
Spanish
⇔
english		 I translate from Spanish to English on Wikipedia:Translation
ro-2 Acest utilizator poate contribui în română la un nivel intermediar.
Romanian
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english		 I translate from Romanian to English on Wikipedia:Translation
de-1 Dieser Benutzer hat grundlegende Deutschkenntnisse.
ca-1 Aquest usuari pot contribuir amb un nivell bàsic de català.
it-1 Questo utente può contribuire con un livello semplice di italiano.
pt-1 Este usuário/utilizador pode contribuir com um nível básico de português.
fr-1 Cet utilisateur peut contribuer avec un niveau élémentaire de français.
Cyrl-1
я		 This user has a basic understanding of the Cyrillic alphabet.
chauvin
-0		 This user chooses not to listen to ultra-nationalist rhetoric, of whatever nation.
This user helps with Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English
This user is an administrator on the English Wikipedia. (verify)
This editor is a Senior Editor, and is entitled to display this Platinum Editor Star.
This user is the subject of a wikibio.
BA This user has a Bachelor of Arts degree.
MSc This user has a Master of Science degree.
Joe Mabel This user is an actual human.

[edit] Trust

Working on Wikipedia:Forum for Encyclopedic Standards made me realize how important it is to know who you can trust to be both intellectually honest and expert in certain areas. I've also noticed that certain users have used their user pages as a Rogue's Gallery of people they are annoyed with (which strikes me as totally out of the spirit of Wikipedia, though sometimes it's easy to see how they are tempted). However, it inspired me to start listing some people whose intellectual honesty and expertise in certain areas I trust enormously: I am so glad to be able to ask these people questions sometimes (for example) I'm not sure whether to trust a particular anonymous edit or not sure exactly how to translate a particular phrase.

By its nature, the following list will never be comprehensive and there are probably some equally trusted people I'm forgetting to name, but here are some I want to single out for praise:

  • We have an enormous number of great contributors on Romanian topics. Particularly notable among the crowd are (in alphabetical order by handle) Bogdangiusca, Biruitorul, Dahn, Gutza (who has been rather scarce lately), MihaiC (ditto) and Ronline.
  • Error on all things Basque.
  • Ahoerstemeier and Hadal for general trustworthiness: I can't remember seeing a single edit from any of them that was not a plus to the article in question.
  • John Kenney and Michael Snow are two more contributors who I trust completely. I don't believe I've ever seen a bad edit from John Kenney, and we cross paths a lot.
  • Jwrosenzweig for advice on dealing with conflict within Wikipedia. I don't always take his advice, but it's nice to know he's there.
  • Angela on how to go about getting a given thing done within Wikipedia. She knows the wikipedia name-space better than I know my record collection. (2007: but she's less available these days)
  • If Sam Hocevar says he's just fixing the spelling, he isn't doing anything else, and he isn't getting it wrong.
  • LGagnon and BTfromLA both know even more about punk rock and its predecessors and successors than I do, and I've never seen either of them go wrong on the topic. BT and I apparently were in the same (very loud, rather crowded) room at the same time in London in 1976 (clue: the gig is mentioned in the article Punk rock, and not because we were there), but we don't believe we've ever properly met.
  • deeceevoice: says what she means, means what she says. We don't always agree, but she's always aboveboard.
  • Jayjg and Ramallite, two of the cooler heads involved in the difficult Israel/Palestine areas, both consistently competent and well-intentioned in an area where bullying and personal attacks sometimes drown out honest efforts to build an encyclopedia. Also Zero0000.
  • Schuminweb: Excellent on things related to anti-war groups, etc. Knows the difference between hype (on either side of the issue) and encyclopedic content.
  • I've also had the pleasure of working with Amcaja on several theater-related topics. One of the few Wikipedians writing about 19th-century theater, and doing a damn fine job of it, at that.

[edit] Wikibooks:Errata

Wikibooks:Errata: a place to note factual corrections to books. This could become a very important project, so I'm plugging it.

[edit] Mini-CV

image:JoeMabel1.jpg

Originally from Freeport, New York went to college at Wesleyan University, and did graduate work in Computer Science at the University of Washington have lived most of my adult life in Seattle; also stints in London, Barcelona, and Bucharest.

I've been in the software industry since 1980, about equally divided between hands-on programming, project/program management and management roles; since 2001 I've been contracting and consulting, but I think I'm about due to get back into a "full-time permanent" role. I am seeking work in the Seattle area. I'd also consider short-term opportunities in New York City, San Francisco, or most European locations. My resume is at http://www.speakeasy.org/~jmabel/resume.html.

[edit] Some non-wiki writings by Joe Mabel

Jmabel Oct 2006
Jmabel Oct 2006

[edit] Interests

History, art, travel, film, books, bicycling, language and linguistics, politics (mostly the non-electoral sort), the game of go.

[edit] Favorite Music

[edit] Favorite Books

[edit] Favorite Movies

[edit] Wikipedia: Major areas of work

The following is by no means comprehensive, but if you like, here's comprehensive, at least for the English language Wikipedia. I've also made extensive contributions to The Commons: see Commons:User:Jmabel.

[edit] Ethnicity

In January 2004, I started Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic Groups. A lot has been done—I think Wikipedia is no longer flummoxed by the very notion of ethnicity, as it was—but more work on the project is certainly needed. - Jmabel | Talk 07:18, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Related to Romania

Rooftops in Lipscani. You can see more of my pictures of Bucharest on my Wikimedia Commons user page
Rooftops in Lipscani. You can see more of my pictures of Bucharest on my Wikimedia Commons user page

Most of these I've written myself, a few I've translated. If you are aware of Romanian-language articles that could use translation, please notify me on my talk page.

[edit] Romanian bands

[edit] Yiddish theater

In early 2005, I wrote a bunch of articles on the early years of Yiddish theater (and related topics like badchonim and Brodersänger). You can find a lot of them at Category:Jewish film and theatre. I also did some articles on the State Jewish Theater (Romania) and related topics. More to come at some unspecified future date. Tough area: not a lot on line (I think in many cases, we're the first to post even birth and death dates for some rather important figures); I managed to borrow a copy of Israil Bercovici's Romanian-language book on the history of Yiddish theater in Romania, which was useful for research, as were actor Jacob Adler's memoir and scholar Sol Liptzin's works. Really interesting stuff. Check out especially Abraham Goldfaden. This has been a weird one to research, because while I understand a bit of spoken Yiddish, I never learned to read it, so I'm not able to go to the primary sources.

[edit] Related to Seattle

Sky Church, Experience Music Project.
Sky Church, Experience Music Project.

[edit] Related to Jorge Luis Borges and Argentina

[edit] Related to the French Revolution

I've also carried the article on the French Revolution solidly through about September 1792, and have spun out more detailed historical articles (incorporating, also, a few solid pieces that were already there), but haven't gotten around to continuing it past that point. I'd be genuinely happy if someone else would carry this forward.

[edit] Related to Catalunya and the Catalan world

I've translated:

...and a few others, mostly to do with Catalan monarchs and with Mallorca

BTW, pet peeve: Wikipedia chooses the spellings "Catalonia" and "Majorca".

I also wrote Ramon Casas i Carbó, drawing heavily on the excellent Casas Carbo Web site. I'd be interested in hearing about other decent sources to flesh this out further.

[edit] Brown v. Board of Education

In honor of the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, I've written several short articles, including ones on the three other cases combined into Brown (Briggs v. Elliott, Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, and Gebhart v. Belton) and on the Fifth Circuit Four.

[edit] Other

[edit] On systemic bias

Several people have chosen to rework Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias to remove, restore, and seriously alter my short essay on systemic bias. Rather than fight over its presence or precise content on that page, I am reproducing more or less my original essay here. Probably other people made some small edits to this (you'd have to check the history of that page to see), but this is essentially my writing, and I have deliberately worked from an early version here (dating from October 4, 2004) rather than the more collective version of November 28, 2004 when it was removed. Since this is now on my own page, I have also taken the liberty to revert some other people's edits with which I did not entirely agree. For what it's worth, I find some of the present essay on WP:CSB rather snide.

Wikipedia has a number of systemic biases, mostly deriving from the demographics of our participant base, the heavy bias towards online research, and the (generally commendable) tendency to "write what you know". Systemic bias is not to be confused with systematic bias. The latter just means "thoroughgoing bias". Systemic bias means that there are structural reasons why Wikipedia gives certain topics much better coverage than others.

As of this writing, Wikipedia is disproportionately white and male; disproportionately American; disproportionately written by people from white collar backgrounds. We do not think this is a result of a conspiracy — it is largely a result of self-selection — but it has effects not all of which are beneficial, and which need to be looked at and (in some cases) countered.

Wikipedia is biased toward over-inclusion of certain material pertaining to (for example) science fiction, contemporary youth culture, contemporary U.S. and UK culture in general, and anything already well covered in the English-langauge portion of the Internet. These excessive inclusions are relatively harmless: at worst, people look at some of these articles and say "this is silly, why is it in an encyclopedia?"

Of far greater (and more detrimental) consequence, these same biases lead to minimal or non-existent treatment of topics of great importance. One example is that, as of this writing, the Congo Civil War [eventually written about at Second Congo War], possibly the largest war since World War II has claimed over 3 million lives, but one would be hard pressed to learn much about it from Wikipedia. In fact, there is more information on a fictional plant. [28 Aug 2006: I stand corrected: "on a fictional race of giants who appear to be trees."]

An example list of poor treatment due to this bias would include (in no particular order):

  • Africa and the 'Third World' generally, in all of its aspects
  • Asia - particularly 'underdeveloped' countries
  • Female oriented/dominated subjects
  • Foreign literature (particularly writers whose work is unavailable or not widely available in English)
  • Non-white figures in the U.S., UK, etc.

Systemic biases are not easily addressed. We will need a variety of strategies. Among those are:

  • Identify existing structures that can help in promoting this effort — e.g. Collaboration of the week, the translation page, cleanup — or can serve as models: the Irish wikipedians' notice board, WikiProject Philosophy, etc.
  • Create new structures to coordinate our efforts toward countering systematic bias.
  • Create an infrastructure for recruitment and support of contributors outside the present Wikipedia mainstream. For example, this could include active outreach to Historically black colleges and universities in the U.S. and to colleges and universities in various countries of the Commonwealth of Nations.
  • Identify subject-matter areas and specific articles that have been neglected due to systemic bias and which ought to be written, added to, or otherwise improved.
  • Collaborate on producing such articles.

Wikipedia is an evolving project. While some of its biases — e.g. a preference for online sources — are probably inherent, others — generally the demographic ones — need not be. However, they will not be overcome by wishful thinking. We need to devote active effort to these matters, rather than keep doing the same thing and expect different results.

To this I would like to add (November 29, 2004):

I believe that the most important of these correctives would be infrastructure for recruitment and support of contributors outside the present Wikipedia mainstream. I also think it is the one we are doing least to address. We need to deepen our understanding of why women and certain ethnic minorities in the English-speaking world do not find this project as appealing as white men and we need to work out what we can do about it. We need to work out how to successfully recruit contributors from a broader human base.

Please write any comments on my talk page, not here. -- Jmabel | Talk

[edit] Ethical Public Relations in Wikipedia

My own take on this is at User:Jmabel/PR. I'm not at all happy with the current "just say no" approach.

Other relevant discussion can be found at User talk:MyWikiBiz, Wikipedia talk:Conflicts of interest, User:LinaMishima/PaidEditing.

[edit] Perpetual problem articles

I've noticed that a few of our articles are perpetual problem articles, constantly drawing a high ratio of pseudo-scholarship rather than actual scholarship. I'm going to start maintaining a small list here. If others wish to contribute suggestions, please make your remarks on my talk page rather that here on my user page.

…and some perpetual battlegrounds:

[edit] Cite.php trick

To get cite.php references into two columns: {{reflist|2}}.

[edit] Permissions

Got permission to use materials? List 'em at Wikipedia:Successful requests for permission.

[edit] ro:Racoviţa, Sibiu

Ce a-ti zice sa ajutati la traducerea unui articol de calitate reprezentativ pentru satul romanesc? Asybaris