subject:"\[WikiEN\-l\] Wikipedia article on \[\[Santorum \(neologism\)\]\]"

On Wed, 25 May 2011, George Herbert wrote:
 You are conflating the term (which associates someone with human
 waste) and our coverage of the term (which describes the term,
 descriptively, historically, and cultural and political contexts).

No, I am not.  I am conflating what the article says and the article does.

What the article *does* is smear a human being.  The fact that our rules don't
consider it to be a POV violation as long as as the article doesn't state a
position is a loophole in the rules.

You can't neutrally discuss how a person is compared to shit.  Not in any
real-world sense.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

On Thu, 26 May 2011, Andreas Kolbe wrote:
 As a matter of fact, it would help Wikipedia if the article were retitled,
 [[Dan Savage Google-bomb campaign against Rick Santorum]].

The fact that it would help is exactly why it's not going to happen--all the
people who are promoting the article because they want to participate in
the campaign would resist such a name.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-26 Thread The Cunctator

This is a mistaken understanding of what unbalanced means with respect to
Wikipedia.

On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 10:31 PM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.netwrote:

  Again - I am not Cirt, and I find the article reasonably balanced.
 
  Having an article that associates someone with human waste be reasonably
  balanced is like claiming that an article about the Richard Gere gerbil
  rumor (as long as it stated the rumor was false) would be reasonably
  balanced.
  The association of a living person with shit is inherently unbalanced;
  it spreads a negative POV towards that person, no matter how many
  disclaimers
  we add saying that we don't think he's really like shit.

 Well said. That's the problem.

 Fred



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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

On Thu, 26 May 2011, Tom Morris wrote:
 If there weren't a tea party movement, we wouldn't have an article on
 the tea party movement.

The tea party movement isn't mainly an Internet campaign, and even the aspects
of it that are Internet-based don't involve attempts to increase its search
engine rank.  Wikipedia's effect on the Tea Party by having an article about
it is much less direct and much less significant overall than it is for the
anti-Santorum campaign, given the different natures of the two campaigns.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-26 Thread George Herbert

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 8:53 AM, Ken Arromdee arrom...@rahul.net wrote:
[...]
 You can't neutrally discuss how a person is compared to shit.  Not in any
 real-world sense.

I don't agree for a moment that we can't neutrally discuss how a
person is compared to shit.  We can and in my opinion we have and do.

This is not a more sensitive topic than numerous genocides, racism, sexism, etc.

Santorum has handled the situation more maturely than several people
on the list here.  He is clearly not pleased, but neither is he making
any attempt to suppress the incident.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herb...@gmail.com

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-26 Thread Fred Bauder

 On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 8:53 AM, Ken Arromdee arrom...@rahul.net wrote:
[...]
 You can't neutrally discuss how a person is compared to shit.  Not in
 any
 real-world sense.

 I don't agree for a moment that we can't neutrally discuss how a
 person is compared to shit.  We can and in my opinion we have and do.

 This is not a more sensitive topic than numerous genocides, racism,
 sexism, etc.

 Santorum has handled the situation more maturely than several people
 on the list here.  He is clearly not pleased, but neither is he making
 any attempt to suppress the incident.


 --
 -george william herbert
 george.herb...@gmail.com

He has no responsibility for using the resources of a non-profit
corporation for political purposes. We do.

Fred


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-26 Thread Jim Redmond

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 12:47, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.comwrote:

 We aren't doing anything wrong here.  We could, but the actual
 coverage in the actual article is NPOV and does not show Santorum
 himself in a negative manner, because we show Santorum's reasoned and
 mature response for what it was.


+1.  It's far better for us to report neutrally on the term, describing its
origins, its effects on the Senator's career, et al., than to stick our
collective fingers in our collective ears and pretend that the term doesn't
exist - or worse, to whitewash our content and leave only the happy
nicknames for controversial figures.  This goes for other disparaging
googlebombs or nicknames as well, whether the subject is a politician or not
and whether the subject is alive or not; the encyclopedia is less complete
if we leave out Slick Willie or miserable failure or (my favorite)
Attila the Hen.

-- 
Jim Redmond
[[User:Jredmond]]
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-26 Thread David Gerard

On 26 May 2011 00:52, Ian Woollard ian.wooll...@gmail.com wrote:
 On 25/05/2011, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com wrote:

 The common element is promoting a POV.

 But that doesn't seem to be what's happening here; I don't see signs
 of breach of NPOV.


Andreas appears to have a vendetta against Cirt personally, and this
is just part of it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Cirt#Advocacy_concerns

Andreas has been hounding Cirt for a while, starting on Wikipedia
Review and then forum-shopping anywhere that will listen. That's the
entire source of the present discussion.

(Proposed general rule: if you launch your complaint on Wikipedia
Review, you're already wrong.)


- d.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 11:47 AM, George Herbert
george.herb...@gmail.comwrote:

 On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 10:28 AM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net
 wrote:
  On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 8:53 AM, Ken Arromdee arrom...@rahul.net
 wrote:
 [...]
  You can't neutrally discuss how a person is compared to shit.  Not in
  any
  real-world sense.
 
  I don't agree for a moment that we can't neutrally discuss how a
  person is compared to shit.  We can and in my opinion we have and do.
 
  This is not a more sensitive topic than numerous genocides, racism,
  sexism, etc.
 
  Santorum has handled the situation more maturely than several people
  on the list here.  He is clearly not pleased, but neither is he making
  any attempt to suppress the incident.
 
 
  --
  -george william herbert
  george.herb...@gmail.com
 
  He has no responsibility for using the resources of a non-profit
  corporation for political purposes. We do.

 We are not using the resources for political purposes.  The article is
 NPOV and does not show Santorum in a negative light.


George,

Your arguments fail to account for the fact that the article is curated by
biased anti-Santorum contributors, that the article is covered in too much
depth to be neutral, and that the article is being as a launchpad for the
campaign against Santorum. As I described in my OP, the use of this article
has revealed a boundary condition in our notability guidelines.

I believe that what many people find distasteful about this article is that
it is a *reductio ad absurdum *case that sets the following precedent for
others to follow on Wikipedia:

- Person A dislikes Person B. Both persons have name recognition.
- Person A creates an offensive definition for Person B's last name.
- Person A documents said definition in Wikipedia.
- Person A uses Wikipedia's intrinsically high Google ranking, in
conjunction with in-bound link-spamming to said article, to *cause* it to
appear high in Google's rankings.
- When people search for Person B's last name they find a discussion of the
smear campaign rather than the BLP.
- Wikipedia is now the lauchpad for a smear campaign, and this launchpad's
existence is justified by Wikipedian's because documenting the previous five
steps is considered encyclopedic according to the guidelines.

Suffice it to say that *many* people do not want to see Wikipedia abused in
this manner. Additionally, some people, such as myself, find the existence
of this article to be *morally wrong.*

I find the following counter-arguments unsatisfying:

- We have no control over Google. This is actually not true for a number of
reasons, some of which have already been elucidated.

- The article is NPOV, factual, cites sources and notable, therefore it
should exist. This is unsatisfying because it exists only because of
anti-Santorum pro-Savage contributors. If it were not for them the article
would not have  100 sources, would not be so long, and would not be of such
high quality. These several factors have been put there precisely in order
to increase its relevance in Google results. This point is not contested to
my knowledge. In other words, the quality of the article is not consistent
with the historicity, or notability, of the topic.

If you can reply to these points in sum, I think we might make some
progress. I believe that you should at least agree that the article should
be no more than 2-3 paragraphs in length, with a small handful of citations
to truly authoritative, and perhaps even academic, discussions of the
subject.

- Brian
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-26 Thread Carl (CBM)

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 3:02 PM, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote:
 I can agree with this. Most articles summarise their sources, and
 serve as a starting point for further reading on the topic. This
 article appears to be the starting and the ending point. Sometimes
 less is more. State what is needed, and let the reader then read more
 elsewhere as they see fit.

Wouldn't this apply to other articles equally (e.g. our biography of
Santorum or the article on cats)? If not, why not?

- Carl

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-26 Thread Carcharoth

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 8:15 PM, Carl (CBM) cbm.wikipe...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 3:02 PM, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com 
 wrote:
 I can agree with this. Most articles summarise their sources, and
 serve as a starting point for further reading on the topic. This
 article appears to be the starting and the ending point. Sometimes
 less is more. State what is needed, and let the reader then read more
 elsewhere as they see fit.

 Wouldn't this apply to other articles equally (e.g. our biography of
 Santorum or the article on cats)? If not, why not?

Part of the process of improving articles involves editing them, and
that includes removing stuff as well as adding stuff. There are many
cases of articles at the featured article process (and sometimes at
the good article level as well) where excessive detail is removed. The
specific arguments for carrying out such editing on this article
belong on the article talk page.

Carcharoth

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-26 Thread Carl (CBM)

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 3:26 PM, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote:
 Part of the process of improving articles involves editing them, and
 that includes removing stuff as well as adding stuff. There are many
 cases of articles at the featured article process (and sometimes at
 the good article level as well) where excessive detail is removed. The
 specific arguments for carrying out such editing on this article
 belong on the article talk page.

As I understand it (not having participated) the idea of reducing the
article to a stub was proposed on the talk page and rejected. I'm sure
that everyone accepts the general principle that some articles are too
long, but this thread is about a particular article.

One argument in that section of the talk page is the following:

: BLP basically means cover it sanely and safely, not don't cover
it at all.
: The ongoing reliable source interest in the phenomenon means that the
: horse has already well and truly bolted. We Wikipedians can't change the
: course of history, we can only report on it.

Now the implicit claim in that quote that we can act publicly without
affecting society is arguably incorrect; of course we change the
course of history by participating in society. But we have often been
willing to be involved in the very early development of a public
conception (e.g. articles on Michael Jackson's death and other
events).

I think that any arguments about this article are going to have to be
specific for the topic at hand, rather than trying to espouse general
principles. In other words they have to distinguish between this event
and others. I am not sure how strong those arguments are yet, which is
why I am posting in this thread.

- Carl

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

On Thu, 26 May 2011, George Herbert wrote:
 The *term* shows him in a negative light, but the *incident* actually
 shows him responding maturely and responsibly.

This is an artificial distinction that happens to fit Wikipedia rules, but not
reality.  Spreading the term automatically shows him in a negative light,
in the same way that spreading a denial gives credence to the claim that is
denied.

I have a modest proposal: change the title to read Dan Savage campaign
against Rick Santorum or something else which has Dan Savage's name in it.
Some people have already suggested this, but I will bet that the same editors
who want the 100 link template in will argue vehemently against this.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-26 Thread Rob

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 2:30 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote:
 (Proposed general rule: if you launch your complaint on Wikipedia
 Review, you're already wrong.)

This is going on my user page.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 5:34 PM, Rob gamali...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 2:56 PM, Brian J Mingus
 brian.min...@colorado.edu wrote:
 
  Your arguments fail to account for the fact that the article is curated
 by
  biased anti-Santorum contributors,

 Well, you lost me right there.  This is a terrible slur on both the
 editors of the article as well as all the uninvolved editors who have
 examined the article and found it compliant with Wikipedia policies.
 Surely if this broad slur that you've made is true, then uninvolved
 editors on both sides of this issue would have noticed this rampant
 bias and its effect on the article.  This kind of thing, as well as
 earlier emails here from another editor with dark hints about how the
 creator of this article also started an article about a gay porn
 company, is really distasteful.  And ironic that the bold defenders
 waving the banner of BLP would defend a living individual by slurring
 other living individuals.


I believe you will have a hard time justifying your claim that my comment is
false (not to mention that it is a slur). It should be easy to show that the
article is curated by at least one, and probably several, biased
anti-Santorum contributors.

- Brian
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-26 Thread Rob

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 7:44 PM, Brian J Mingus
brian.min...@colorado.edu wrote:
 I believe you will have a hard time justifying your claim that my comment is
 false (not to mention that it is a slur). It should be easy to show that the
 article is curated by at least one, and probably several, biased
 anti-Santorum contributors.

The onus is on you to prove that such a broad slur on other Wikipedia
editors is true.  Even if we accept this as truth, the solution to
such problems is typically the eyes of more editors and not deletion.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-26 Thread gmbh0000

Man, I'm not even for us having an individual article on this-it belongs in the 
Rick Santorum or Dan Savage articles-but this relentless barrage of bad faith 
assumptions is ridiculous. You're inferring a conspiracy to smear Santorum by 
enlarging the article. I hope you realize you're alienating people who would 
have supported the original position that the article wasn't worthy of 
Wikipedia. At this point, I'm staying clear of the Santorum neologism article 
by a good ten feet. This 'debate' isn't worthy of the mailing list.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

-Original Message-
From: Brian J Mingus brian.min...@colorado.edu
Sender: wikien-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org
Date: Thu, 26 May 2011 17:44:41 
To: English Wikipediawikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 5:34 PM, Rob gamali...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 2:56 PM, Brian J Mingus
 brian.min...@colorado.edu wrote:
 
  Your arguments fail to account for the fact that the article is curated
 by
  biased anti-Santorum contributors,

 Well, you lost me right there.  This is a terrible slur on both the
 editors of the article as well as all the uninvolved editors who have
 examined the article and found it compliant with Wikipedia policies.
 Surely if this broad slur that you've made is true, then uninvolved
 editors on both sides of this issue would have noticed this rampant
 bias and its effect on the article.  This kind of thing, as well as
 earlier emails here from another editor with dark hints about how the
 creator of this article also started an article about a gay porn
 company, is really distasteful.  And ironic that the bold defenders
 waving the banner of BLP would defend a living individual by slurring
 other living individuals.


I believe you will have a hard time justifying your claim that my comment is
false (not to mention that it is a slur). It should be easy to show that the
article is curated by at least one, and probably several, biased
anti-Santorum contributors.

- Brian
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 5:52 PM, Rob gamali...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 7:44 PM, Brian J Mingus
 brian.min...@colorado.edu wrote:
  I believe you will have a hard time justifying your claim that my comment
 is
  false (not to mention that it is a slur). It should be easy to show that
 the
  article is curated by at least one, and probably several, biased
  anti-Santorum contributors.

 The onus is on you to prove that such a broad slur on other Wikipedia
 editors is true.  Even if we accept this as truth, the solution to
 such problems is typically the eyes of more editors and not deletion.


This strikes me as indirection. If someone claims that an article is biased
then they are also claiming that the process governing its creation is
biased. Such a claim is not a slur, it is a purported statement of fact.
However, you would say that the claim is invalid because to claim that an
article is biased is to necessarily not assume good faith. Following your
line of indirection, it isn't possible to claim that an article is biased
because you would necessary violate the principle of good faith, ie,
implicitly or explicitly claiming that particular editors are biased. I
believe you would rather follow this line of reasoning because it directs
attention away from the real issues at hand.

- Brian
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-26 Thread George Herbert

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 5:27 PM, Brian J Mingus
brian.min...@colorado.edu wrote:
 On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 5:52 PM, Rob gamali...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 7:44 PM, Brian J Mingus
 brian.min...@colorado.edu wrote:
  I believe you will have a hard time justifying your claim that my comment
 is
  false (not to mention that it is a slur). It should be easy to show that
 the
  article is curated by at least one, and probably several, biased
  anti-Santorum contributors.

 The onus is on you to prove that such a broad slur on other Wikipedia
 editors is true.  Even if we accept this as truth, the solution to
 such problems is typically the eyes of more editors and not deletion.


 This strikes me as indirection. If someone claims that an article is biased
 then they are also claiming that the process governing its creation is
 biased. Such a claim is not a slur, it is a purported statement of fact.
 However, you would say that the claim is invalid because to claim that an
 article is biased is to necessarily not assume good faith. Following your
 line of indirection, it isn't possible to claim that an article is biased
 because you would necessary violate the principle of good faith, ie,
 implicitly or explicitly claiming that particular editors are biased. I
 believe you would rather follow this line of reasoning because it directs
 attention away from the real issues at hand.

I do not read the article as anti-Santorum or biased.

If it were anti-Santorum and biased, this discussion would likely have
taken place on the article talk page, with specific examples of
paragraphs, sentences, sections, quotes, source selection etc. which
were improper or unbalanced.

The actual discussion has included essentially none of this.

It's somewhat of a jump of faith to extrapolate from this that there's
nothing wrong at the detail level with the article, but that claim
could be made and defended credibly.

The claims of things wrong with it that are being made are, in
Wikipedia terms, novel interpretations.  BOLD allows us to take wider
views, but it does not allow one to merely assert a particular wider
view to be absolute and unchallengeable truth.

Yes, several people here believe that it's a problem.  No, not
everyone does.  No, you do not appear to have a consensus on your
side, much less a majority.

Under those conditions, BOLD fails, and we revert to the details and
to standard interpretations.  About which no detailed problems have
been asserted so far...


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herb...@gmail.com

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 6:50 PM, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.comwrote:

 On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 5:27 PM, Brian J Mingus
 brian.min...@colorado.edu wrote:
  On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 5:52 PM, Rob gamali...@gmail.com wrote:
 
  On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 7:44 PM, Brian J Mingus
  brian.min...@colorado.edu wrote:
   I believe you will have a hard time justifying your claim that my
 comment
  is
   false (not to mention that it is a slur). It should be easy to show
 that
  the
   article is curated by at least one, and probably several, biased
   anti-Santorum contributors.
 
  The onus is on you to prove that such a broad slur on other Wikipedia
  editors is true.  Even if we accept this as truth, the solution to
  such problems is typically the eyes of more editors and not deletion.
 
 
  This strikes me as indirection. If someone claims that an article is
 biased
  then they are also claiming that the process governing its creation is
  biased. Such a claim is not a slur, it is a purported statement of fact.
  However, you would say that the claim is invalid because to claim that an
  article is biased is to necessarily not assume good faith. Following your
  line of indirection, it isn't possible to claim that an article is biased
  because you would necessary violate the principle of good faith, ie,
  implicitly or explicitly claiming that particular editors are biased. I
  believe you would rather follow this line of reasoning because it directs
  attention away from the real issues at hand.

 I do not read the article as anti-Santorum or biased.

 If it were anti-Santorum and biased, this discussion would likely have
 taken place on the article talk page, with specific examples of
 paragraphs, sentences, sections, quotes, source selection etc. which
 were improper or unbalanced.

 The actual discussion has included essentially none of this.

 It's somewhat of a jump of faith to extrapolate from this that there's
 nothing wrong at the detail level with the article, but that claim
 could be made and defended credibly.

 The claims of things wrong with it that are being made are, in
 Wikipedia terms, novel interpretations.  BOLD allows us to take wider
 views, but it does not allow one to merely assert a particular wider
 view to be absolute and unchallengeable truth.

 Yes, several people here believe that it's a problem.  No, not
 everyone does.  No, you do not appear to have a consensus on your
 side, much less a majority.

 Under those conditions, BOLD fails, and we revert to the details and
 to standard interpretations.  About which no detailed problems have
 been asserted so far...


 --
 -george william herbert
 george.herb...@gmail.com



If only there were a way to quantify notability I believe this problem would
be much easier to tackle. I am personally not inclined to go through the
article point by point and try to figure out what ought to be there. In
general I think we can show that the article is too long and ought to be
rewritten in a shorter, more concise form without also having to debate
every sentence there. As was previously stated, Wikipedia is not the
end-all-be-all of information on a topic, but in this case it comes pretty
close. That's not how it's supposed to be..

- Brian
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-26 Thread George Herbert

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 6:08 PM, Brian J Mingus
brian.min...@colorado.edu wrote:
 On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 6:50 PM, George Herbert 
 george.herb...@gmail.comwrote:

 On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 5:27 PM, Brian J Mingus
 brian.min...@colorado.edu wrote:
  On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 5:52 PM, Rob gamali...@gmail.com wrote:
 
  On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 7:44 PM, Brian J Mingus
  brian.min...@colorado.edu wrote:
   I believe you will have a hard time justifying your claim that my
 comment
  is
   false (not to mention that it is a slur). It should be easy to show
 that
  the
   article is curated by at least one, and probably several, biased
   anti-Santorum contributors.
 
  The onus is on you to prove that such a broad slur on other Wikipedia
  editors is true.  Even if we accept this as truth, the solution to
  such problems is typically the eyes of more editors and not deletion.
 
 
  This strikes me as indirection. If someone claims that an article is
 biased
  then they are also claiming that the process governing its creation is
  biased. Such a claim is not a slur, it is a purported statement of fact.
  However, you would say that the claim is invalid because to claim that an
  article is biased is to necessarily not assume good faith. Following your
  line of indirection, it isn't possible to claim that an article is biased
  because you would necessary violate the principle of good faith, ie,
  implicitly or explicitly claiming that particular editors are biased. I
  believe you would rather follow this line of reasoning because it directs
  attention away from the real issues at hand.

 I do not read the article as anti-Santorum or biased.

 If it were anti-Santorum and biased, this discussion would likely have
 taken place on the article talk page, with specific examples of
 paragraphs, sentences, sections, quotes, source selection etc. which
 were improper or unbalanced.

 The actual discussion has included essentially none of this.

 It's somewhat of a jump of faith to extrapolate from this that there's
 nothing wrong at the detail level with the article, but that claim
 could be made and defended credibly.

 The claims of things wrong with it that are being made are, in
 Wikipedia terms, novel interpretations.  BOLD allows us to take wider
 views, but it does not allow one to merely assert a particular wider
 view to be absolute and unchallengeable truth.

 Yes, several people here believe that it's a problem.  No, not
 everyone does.  No, you do not appear to have a consensus on your
 side, much less a majority.

 Under those conditions, BOLD fails, and we revert to the details and
 to standard interpretations.  About which no detailed problems have
 been asserted so far...


 --
 -george william herbert
 george.herb...@gmail.com



 If only there were a way to quantify notability I believe this problem would
 be much easier to tackle. I am personally not inclined to go through the
 article point by point and try to figure out what ought to be there. In
 general I think we can show that the article is too long and ought to be
 rewritten in a shorter, more concise form without also having to debate
 every sentence there. As was previously stated, Wikipedia is not the
 end-all-be-all of information on a topic, but in this case it comes pretty
 close. That's not how it's supposed to be..

As I said earlier - I think that making it shorter and more concise
would leave out elements that *improve* how Santorum appears, in the
totality.  His behavior - described in some but not excessive detail -
and the critical and academic context - described in some but not
excessive detail - make him look better than the raw incident does.

In this particular, I am vexed and confused.  If the longer article
makes him look better, why in the flying spaghetti monster's name are
those advocating human dignity here asking to shorten it?

Seriously - the details here matter.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herb...@gmail.com

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

On 23/05/2011, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote:
 Google's search results are entirely their business.

Actually not entirely, we do have quite a bit of control.

In an absolute worse case we could noindex the entire article (I'm not
suggesting it, in fact I strongly recommend against it).

But google pay attention to how many articles link to it, and there's
an enormous 'political neologism' template at the end of the article,
which makes them all mutually link.

I can't estimate how much link juice that pushes into the article, but
it may well be substantial, there's probably relatively few Wikipedia
articles that link to the term otherwise, terms don't usually get that
many links, but I don't know how many external links in there are, or
how much link juice they supply.

There is probably a reasonably strong argument for nofollowing
internal 'link farms' like that, I don't see that one term should
inherit another's link juice, but I couldn't see any obvious way to
nofollow internal links when I checked briefly.

 --
 geni

-- 
-Ian Woollard

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-25 Thread The Cunctator

You are ascribing motive to Cirt's activities. Assume Good Faith.

This is starting to feel like something that should be dealt with by
interested parties engaging with each other, rather than researching on
wiki-en.

On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 6:34 AM, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com wrote:

 --- On Wed, 25/5/11, Ian Woollard ian.wooll...@gmail.com wrote:

  From: Ian Woollard ian.wooll...@gmail.com
  Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
  To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org
  Date: Wednesday, 25 May, 2011, 7:53
  On 23/05/2011, geni geni...@gmail.com
  wrote:
   Google's search results are entirely their business.
 
  Actually not entirely, we do have quite a bit of control.
 
  In an absolute worse case we could noindex the entire
  article (I'm not
  suggesting it, in fact I strongly recommend against it).
 
  But google pay attention to how many articles link to it,
  and there's
  an enormous 'political neologism' template at the end of
  the article,
  which makes them all mutually link.
 
  I can't estimate how much link juice that pushes into the
  article, but
  it may well be substantial, there's probably relatively few
  Wikipedia
  articles that link to the term otherwise, terms don't
  usually get that
  many links, but I don't know how many external links in
  there are, or
  how much link juice they supply.
 
  There is probably a reasonably strong argument for
  nofollowing
  internal 'link farms' like that, I don't see that one term
  should
  inherit another's link juice, but I couldn't see any
  obvious way to
  nofollow internal links when I checked briefly.


 Okay, now we are getting somewhere. There are actually three templates at
 the bottom of the article:

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Dan_Savage
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Political_neologisms
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Sexual_slang

 The sexual slang one in particular is massive, listing more than 100
 terms.

 These templates are all new creations by Cirt, the Santorum article's main
 author. They were created between 10 and 15 May, shortly after Santorum
 announced he might run for President, and then added to all the other
 articles listed in the templates, thus creating a couple of hundred
 incoming
 links, and enhancing the article's Google ranking.

 Now, *that's using Wikipedia for political campaigning.*

 By the way, Cirt's GA articles include this highly flattering portrait of
 a gay porn company: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corbin_Fisher

 Andreas

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

 You are ascribing motive to Cirt's activities. Assume Good Faith.

 This is starting to feel like something that should be dealt with by
 interested parties engaging with each other, rather than researching on
 wiki-en.

There is a on-wiki discussion and there will be more, but this:

 By the way, Cirt's GA articles include this highly flattering portrait of
 a gay porn company: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corbin_Fisher

is probably not a good direction to go in.

Fred


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

On 25/05/2011, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com wrote:
 Okay, now we are getting somewhere.

 These templates are all new creations by Cirt, the Santorum article's main
 author. They were created between 10 and 15 May, shortly after Santorum
 announced he might run for President, and then added to all the other
 articles listed in the templates, thus creating a couple of hundred incoming
 links, and enhancing the article's Google ranking.

 Now, *that's using Wikipedia for political campaigning.*

To be fair, we don't actually know it's having any effect at all, and
it could be *lowering* the ranking for the article by sending its
juice off to other articles around, averaging and diluting it down.

My point was only that we probably shouldn't be doing anything, even
accidentally, that would be likely to change its link juice over what
it naturally gets. If it's fairly naturally at the top of the google
listings, and we haven't done anything odd, then that's perfectly
fine.

 Andreas

-- 
-Ian Woollard

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

--- On Wed, 25/5/11, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote:
 From: Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net

 I don't want to get that clever, to the point that we take
 into account
 that even talking about the article on this list might
 affect ranking.
 What is needed is to improve the article; it is about a
 political act,
 not about lube.


If it's about the political act, it should be covered under [[Santorum 
controversy regarding homosexuality]].

Linguistically -- the term has been included in one dictionary, and in one
book on neologisms. Some erotic books have used it (and we have gleefully
included full quotes from each in the article's references:

She wads up the t-shirt, uses it to wipe a trickle of santorum from her 
ass, and throws it under the cot.

Mark fucked his wife with slow, sure strokes that seemed to the panting 
Valerie to penetrate her more deeply than ever before. At each descent of 
the pouncing big prick into her sanctum santorum, Valerie thrust upward with 
all her strength until the velvety surfaces of her rotund naked buttocks 
swung clear of the bed

Then, one of them broke ranks and rammed his blood-lubed fist straight up 
my ass and twisted hard, pulled it out and licked the santorum clean.)

Is that enough for linguistic notability? Perhaps enough for a Wiktionary
entry, but a whole article, on bona-fide *linguistic*, encyclopedic grounds?

As for the template use:

Including the term in *both* the sexual slang template and the political
neologisms template, both custom-created for the occasion, seems a stretch
to me.

It is not a political neologism, rightfully listed along with terms like 

Adopt a Highway • Afrocentrism • And theory of conservatism • Big 
government • Chairman • Checkbook diplomacy • Children's interests • 
Collaborationism • Conviction politics • Cordon sanitaire • Cricket test • 
Democide • Dhimmitude • Eco-terrorism • Epistemocracy • Eurocentrism • 
Eurorealism • Euroscepticism • Eurosphere • Failed state • etc.

in a 100-term template, causing it to appear in all of those articles. 

Listing it in the sexual slang template, based on less than a dozen 
appearances in print as an actual word -- as opposed to reporting about
Dan Savage's campaign -- is a closer call, but still debatable.

I don't like Santorum either, and sorry to be a spoil-sport, but it's 
unworthy of Wikipedia.

Andreas 

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

--- On Wed, 25/5/11, The Cunctator cuncta...@gmail.com wrote:

 Let's just delete articles we don't
 like. It would simplify the wikilawyering.


You see, I question whether if fulfils any encyclopedic (rather than 
Googlebombing) purpose to list santorum in a nav template of 100 political 
neologisms, and you come back with quips like that, and accuse people of 
wikilawyering (while exhorting me to Assume Good Faith, in capital letters:
You are ascribing motive to Cirt's activities. Assume Good Faith.).

Incidentally, I just noticed the following conversation on the political
neologisms template's talk page:


---o0o---

==Shouldn't this be a category?==

I'm not sure what the purpose of this is. Why would anyone looking at (say) 
Euroscepticism want to navigate to an article about Soccer mom? Surely, this 
is why categories were invented. Bastin 08:46, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

:It is most useful as a template. And yes, linguists and political scholars 
would indeed wish to navigate through these articles. -- Cirt (talk) 08:47, 
11 May 2011 (UTC)

::They're completely unrelated terms. Why would you have a template on 
'words invented since 1973'? Bastin 09:31, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

:::Because they are of interest to those studying the subject matter from 
the perspective of many different varied fields. -- Cirt (talk) 15:27, 11 
May 2011 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Political_neologisms

---o0o---


Most useful. A category doesn't add any in-bound links. And that was the 
end of that conversation.

Andreas



 
 On 5/25/11, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com
 wrote:
  --- On Wed, 25/5/11, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net
 wrote:
  From: Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net
 
  I don't want to get that clever, to the point that
 we take
  into account
  that even talking about the article on this list
 might
  affect ranking.
  What is needed is to improve the article; it is
 about a
  political act,
  not about lube.
 
 
  If it's about the political act, it should be covered
 under [[Santorum
  controversy regarding homosexuality]].
 
  Linguistically -- the term has been included in one
 dictionary, and in one
  book on neologisms. Some erotic books have used it
 (and we have gleefully
  included full quotes from each in the article's
 references:
 
  She wads up the t-shirt, uses it to wipe a trickle of
 santorum from her
  ass, and throws it under the cot.
 
  Mark fucked his wife with slow, sure strokes that
 seemed to the panting
  Valerie to penetrate her more deeply than ever before.
 At each descent of
  the pouncing big prick into her sanctum santorum,
 Valerie thrust upward with
  all her strength until the velvety surfaces of her
 rotund naked buttocks
  swung clear of the bed
 
  Then, one of them broke ranks and rammed his
 blood-lubed fist straight up
  my ass and twisted hard, pulled it out and licked the
 santorum clean.)
 
  Is that enough for linguistic notability? Perhaps
 enough for a Wiktionary
  entry, but a whole article, on bona-fide *linguistic*,
 encyclopedic grounds?
 
  As for the template use:
 
  Including the term in *both* the sexual slang template
 and the political
  neologisms template, both custom-created for the
 occasion, seems a stretch
  to me.
 
  It is not a political neologism, rightfully listed
 along with terms like
 
  Adopt a Highway • Afrocentrism • And theory of
 conservatism • Big
  government • Chairman • Checkbook diplomacy •
 Children's interests •
  Collaborationism • Conviction politics • Cordon
 sanitaire • Cricket test •
  Democide • Dhimmitude • Eco-terrorism •
 Epistemocracy • Eurocentrism •
  Eurorealism • Euroscepticism • Eurosphere •
 Failed state • etc.
 
  in a 100-term template, causing it to appear in all of
 those articles.
 
  Listing it in the sexual slang template, based on less
 than a dozen
  appearances in print as an actual word -- as opposed
 to reporting about
  Dan Savage's campaign -- is a closer call, but still
 debatable.
 
  I don't like Santorum either, and sorry to be a
 spoil-sport, but it's
  unworthy of Wikipedia.
 
  Andreas
 
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-25 Thread WereSpielChequers

I'm not surprised that a Wikipedia article shoots to the top of Google
searches, isn't that one of the reasons why we write here? I'm pretty
sure I've seen Wikipedia articles come top on Google even if they lack
templates and are practically orphans.

Nor am I surprised that someone who writes an article then goes and
creates associated templates. I don't do much with templates but I
have a similar editing pattern - I was in the British Museum for the
Hoxne Hoard challenge and wound up contributing a number of edits to
articles about the sorts of spoons that were in the hoard.

I am concerned at the risk of the mailing list degenerating into some
sort of back channel and disrupting the wiki. People using it for off
wiki complaints about an AFD and criticism of individual wikipedians
who may not be subscribing  to this list is in my view unhealthy.

Have any of the people expressing disquiet about that editor notified
them of this thread?

WereSpielChequers

On 25 May 2011 19:51, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com wrote:
 --- On Wed, 25/5/11, The Cunctator cuncta...@gmail.com wrote:

 Let's just delete articles we don't
 like. It would simplify the wikilawyering.


 You see, I question whether if fulfils any encyclopedic (rather than
 Googlebombing) purpose to list santorum in a nav template of 100 political 
 neologisms, and you come back with quips like that, and accuse people of
 wikilawyering (while exhorting me to Assume Good Faith, in capital letters:
 You are ascribing motive to Cirt's activities. Assume Good Faith.).

 Incidentally, I just noticed the following conversation on the political
 neologisms template's talk page:


 ---o0o---

 ==Shouldn't this be a category?==

 I'm not sure what the purpose of this is. Why would anyone looking at (say)
 Euroscepticism want to navigate to an article about Soccer mom? Surely, this
 is why categories were invented. Bastin 08:46, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

 :It is most useful as a template. And yes, linguists and political scholars
 would indeed wish to navigate through these articles. -- Cirt (talk) 08:47,
 11 May 2011 (UTC)

 ::They're completely unrelated terms. Why would you have a template on
 'words invented since 1973'? Bastin 09:31, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

 :::Because they are of interest to those studying the subject matter from
 the perspective of many different varied fields. -- Cirt (talk) 15:27, 11
 May 2011 (UTC)

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Political_neologisms

 ---o0o---


 Most useful. A category doesn't add any in-bound links. And that was the
 end of that conversation.

 Andreas




 On 5/25/11, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com
 wrote:
  --- On Wed, 25/5/11, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net
 wrote:
  From: Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net
 
  I don't want to get that clever, to the point that
 we take
  into account
  that even talking about the article on this list
 might
  affect ranking.
  What is needed is to improve the article; it is
 about a
  political act,
  not about lube.
 
 
  If it's about the political act, it should be covered
 under [[Santorum
  controversy regarding homosexuality]].
 
  Linguistically -- the term has been included in one
 dictionary, and in one
  book on neologisms. Some erotic books have used it
 (and we have gleefully
  included full quotes from each in the article's
 references:
 
  She wads up the t-shirt, uses it to wipe a trickle of
 santorum from her
  ass, and throws it under the cot.
 
  Mark fucked his wife with slow, sure strokes that
 seemed to the panting
  Valerie to penetrate her more deeply than ever before.
 At each descent of
  the pouncing big prick into her sanctum santorum,
 Valerie thrust upward with
  all her strength until the velvety surfaces of her
 rotund naked buttocks
  swung clear of the bed
 
  Then, one of them broke ranks and rammed his
 blood-lubed fist straight up
  my ass and twisted hard, pulled it out and licked the
 santorum clean.)
 
  Is that enough for linguistic notability? Perhaps
 enough for a Wiktionary
  entry, but a whole article, on bona-fide *linguistic*,
 encyclopedic grounds?
 
  As for the template use:
 
  Including the term in *both* the sexual slang template
 and the political
  neologisms template, both custom-created for the
 occasion, seems a stretch
  to me.
 
  It is not a political neologism, rightfully listed
 along with terms like
 
  Adopt a Highway • Afrocentrism • And theory of
 conservatism • Big
  government • Chairman • Checkbook diplomacy •
 Children's interests •
  Collaborationism • Conviction politics • Cordon
 sanitaire • Cricket test •
  Democide • Dhimmitude • Eco-terrorism •
 Epistemocracy • Eurocentrism •
  Eurorealism • Euroscepticism • Eurosphere •
 Failed state • etc.
 
  in a 100-term template, causing it to appear in all of
 those articles.
 
  Listing it in the sexual slang template, based on less
 than a dozen
  appearances in print as an actual word -- as opposed
 to reporting about
  Dan Savage's campaign -- is

Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

I've dropped Cirt a note and link to this thread, in case they weren't aware 
of it. 

As mentioned before, what is at the root of this is a wider problem though: 
to what extent we as a project are happy to act as participants, rather than
neutral observers and reporters, in the political process.

I'd say that neutrality is our best bet here, as anything else is likely to
come back to us eventually. We should not make *undue* efforts to promote
political or social campaigns.

There is little in present policy to address this. WP:Activist is an essay.

Andreas

--- On Wed, 25/5/11, WereSpielChequers werespielchequ...@gmail.com wrote:

 From: WereSpielChequers werespielchequ...@gmail.com
 Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org
 Date: Wednesday, 25 May, 2011, 20:21
 I'm not surprised that a Wikipedia
 article shoots to the top of Google
 searches, isn't that one of the reasons why we write here?
 I'm pretty
 sure I've seen Wikipedia articles come top on Google even
 if they lack
 templates and are practically orphans.
 
 Nor am I surprised that someone who writes an article then
 goes and
 creates associated templates. I don't do much with
 templates but I
 have a similar editing pattern - I was in the British
 Museum for the
 Hoxne Hoard challenge and wound up contributing a number of
 edits to
 articles about the sorts of spoons that were in the hoard.
 
 I am concerned at the risk of the mailing list degenerating
 into some
 sort of back channel and disrupting the wiki. People using
 it for off
 wiki complaints about an AFD and criticism of individual
 wikipedians
 who may not be subscribing  to this list is in my view
 unhealthy.
 
 Have any of the people expressing disquiet about that
 editor notified
 them of this thread?
 
 WereSpielChequers
 
 On 25 May 2011 19:51, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com
 wrote:
  --- On Wed, 25/5/11, The Cunctator cuncta...@gmail.com
 wrote:
 
  Let's just delete articles we don't
  like. It would simplify the wikilawyering.
 
 
  You see, I question whether if fulfils any
 encyclopedic (rather than
  Googlebombing) purpose to list santorum in a nav
 template of 100 political neologisms, and you come back with
 quips like that, and accuse people of
  wikilawyering (while exhorting me to Assume Good
 Faith, in capital letters:
  You are ascribing motive to Cirt's activities. Assume
 Good Faith.).
 
  Incidentally, I just noticed the following
 conversation on the political
  neologisms template's talk page:
 
 
  ---o0o---
 
  ==Shouldn't this be a category?==
 
  I'm not sure what the purpose of this is. Why would
 anyone looking at (say)
  Euroscepticism want to navigate to an article about
 Soccer mom? Surely, this
  is why categories were invented. Bastin 08:46, 11 May
 2011 (UTC)
 
  :It is most useful as a template. And yes, linguists
 and political scholars
  would indeed wish to navigate through these articles.
 -- Cirt (talk) 08:47,
  11 May 2011 (UTC)
 
  ::They're completely unrelated terms. Why would you
 have a template on
  'words invented since 1973'? Bastin 09:31, 11 May 2011
 (UTC)
 
  :::Because they are of interest to those studying the
 subject matter from
  the perspective of many different varied fields. --
 Cirt (talk) 15:27, 11
  May 2011 (UTC)
 
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Political_neologisms
 
  ---o0o---
 
 
  Most useful. A category doesn't add any in-bound
 links. And that was the
  end of that conversation.
 
  Andreas
 
 
 
 
  On 5/25/11, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com
  wrote:
   --- On Wed, 25/5/11, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net
  wrote:
   From: Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net
  
   I don't want to get that clever, to the
 point that
  we take
   into account
   that even talking about the article on
 this list
  might
   affect ranking.
   What is needed is to improve the article;
 it is
  about a
   political act,
   not about lube.
  
  
   If it's about the political act, it should be
 covered
  under [[Santorum
   controversy regarding homosexuality]].
  
   Linguistically -- the term has been included
 in one
  dictionary, and in one
   book on neologisms. Some erotic books have
 used it
  (and we have gleefully
   included full quotes from each in the
 article's
  references:
  
   She wads up the t-shirt, uses it to wipe a
 trickle of
  santorum from her
   ass, and throws it under the cot.
  
   Mark fucked his wife with slow, sure strokes
 that
  seemed to the panting
   Valerie to penetrate her more deeply than
 ever before.
  At each descent of
   the pouncing big prick into her sanctum
 santorum,
  Valerie thrust upward with
   all her strength until the velvety surfaces
 of her
  rotund naked buttocks
   swung clear of the bed
  
   Then, one of them broke ranks and rammed
 his
  blood-lubed fist straight up
   my ass and twisted hard, pulled it out and
 licked the
  santorum clean.)
  
   Is that enough

Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 12:48 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com wrote:
 I've dropped Cirt a note and link to this thread, in case they weren't aware
 of it.

 As mentioned before, what is at the root of this is a wider problem though:
 to what extent we as a project are happy to act as participants, rather than
 neutral observers and reporters, in the political process.

 I'd say that neutrality is our best bet here, as anything else is likely to
 come back to us eventually. We should not make *undue* efforts to promote
 political or social campaigns.

 There is little in present policy to address this. WP:Activist is an essay.

 Andreas

I completely disagree with the direction of this thread that this was
some sort of hit piece by Cirt on Santorum.

When this started I re-read the article and found it neutral and
presenting Santorum's reaction to the situation in a reasonable and
thoughtful manner.

Dan Savage is certainly playing activist here - the claim that Cirt
was is not supported, and not in good faith.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herb...@gmail.com

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

 I've dropped Cirt a note and link to this thread, in case they weren't
 aware
 of it.

 As mentioned before, what is at the root of this is a wider problem
 though:
 to what extent we as a project are happy to act as participants, rather
 than
 neutral observers and reporters, in the political process.

 I'd say that neutrality is our best bet here, as anything else is likely
 to
 come back to us eventually. We should not make *undue* efforts to promote
 political or social campaigns.

 There is little in present policy to address this. WP:Activist is an
 essay.

 Andreas

It is addressed at:

Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_soapbox_or_means_of_promotion

One of our key policies.

Advocacy, propaganda, or recruitment of any kind: commercial, political,
religious, sports-related, or otherwise. Of course, an article can report
objectively about such things, as long as an attempt is made to describe
the topic from a neutral point of view. You might wish to start a blog or
visit a forum if you want to convince people of the merits of your
favorite views.[1] See Wikipedia:Advocacy.

Again, this is NOT rocket surgery.

Fred


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

 On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 12:48 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com
 wrote:
 I've dropped Cirt a note and link to this thread, in case they weren't
 aware
 of it.

 As mentioned before, what is at the root of this is a wider problem
 though:
 to what extent we as a project are happy to act as participants, rather
 than
 neutral observers and reporters, in the political process.

 I'd say that neutrality is our best bet here, as anything else is
 likely to
 come back to us eventually. We should not make *undue* efforts to
 promote
 political or social campaigns.

 There is little in present policy to address this. WP:Activist is an
 essay.

 Andreas

 I completely disagree with the direction of this thread that this was
 some sort of hit piece by Cirt on Santorum.

 When this started I re-read the article and found it neutral and
 presenting Santorum's reaction to the situation in a reasonable and
 thoughtful manner.

 Dan Savage is certainly playing activist here - the claim that Cirt
 was is not supported, and not in good faith.


 --
 -george william herbert
 george.herb...@gmail.com

The matter can be resolved by editing which conforms the article to
Wikipedia policies.

Fred


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

 I'm not surprised that a Wikipedia article shoots to the top of Google
 searches, isn't that one of the reasons why we write here? I'm pretty
 sure I've seen Wikipedia articles come top on Google even if they lack
 templates and are practically orphans.

 Nor am I surprised that someone who writes an article then goes and
 creates associated templates. I don't do much with templates but I
 have a similar editing pattern - I was in the British Museum for the
 Hoxne Hoard challenge and wound up contributing a number of edits to
 articles about the sorts of spoons that were in the hoard.

 I am concerned at the risk of the mailing list degenerating into some
 sort of back channel and disrupting the wiki. People using it for off
 wiki complaints about an AFD and criticism of individual wikipedians
 who may not be subscribing  to this list is in my view unhealthy.

 Have any of the people expressing disquiet about that editor notified
 them of this thread?

 WereSpielChequers

Cirt has been notified and has read the thread. However, you are correct
that we have more or less completed what can appropriately been done on a
mailing list.

Fred


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

With all due respect, Fred, I believe the article either complied or
came very close to complying with WP policy when this discussion
started here.

Your opinion that it did not has been communicated, but you do not
have consensus that there is in fact a problem requiring being solved
here.

On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 1:13 PM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote:
 On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 12:48 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com
 wrote:
 I've dropped Cirt a note and link to this thread, in case they weren't
 aware
 of it.

 As mentioned before, what is at the root of this is a wider problem
 though:
 to what extent we as a project are happy to act as participants, rather
 than
 neutral observers and reporters, in the political process.

 I'd say that neutrality is our best bet here, as anything else is
 likely to
 come back to us eventually. We should not make *undue* efforts to
 promote
 political or social campaigns.

 There is little in present policy to address this. WP:Activist is an
 essay.

 Andreas

 I completely disagree with the direction of this thread that this was
 some sort of hit piece by Cirt on Santorum.

 When this started I re-read the article and found it neutral and
 presenting Santorum's reaction to the situation in a reasonable and
 thoughtful manner.

 Dan Savage is certainly playing activist here - the claim that Cirt
 was is not supported, and not in good faith.


 --
 -george william herbert
 george.herb...@gmail.com

 The matter can be resolved by editing which conforms the article to
 Wikipedia policies.

 Fred


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-george william herbert
george.herb...@gmail.com

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

--- On Wed, 25/5/11, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote:

  As mentioned before, what is at the root of this is a
 wider problem
  though:
  to what extent we as a project are happy to act as
 participants, rather
  than
  neutral observers and reporters, in the political
 process.
 
  I'd say that neutrality is our best bet here, as
 anything else is likely
  to
  come back to us eventually. We should not make *undue*
 efforts to promote
  political or social campaigns.
 
  There is little in present policy to address this.
 WP:Activist is an
  essay.
 
  Andreas
 
 It is addressed at:
 
 Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_soapbox_or_means_of_promotion
 
 One of our key policies.
 
 Advocacy, propaganda, or recruitment of any kind:
 commercial, political,
 religious, sports-related, or otherwise. Of course, an
 article can report
 objectively about such things, as long as an attempt is
 made to describe
 the topic from a neutral point of view. You might wish to
 start a blog or
 visit a forum if you want to convince people of the merits
 of your
 favorite views.[1] See Wikipedia:Advocacy.
 
 Again, this is NOT rocket surgery.
 
 Fred


Maybe I should have said there is little to effectively address this.

In my experience activists of either bent violate WP:Advocacy (and WP:BLP)
for years with impunity (cf. global warming). Each side having POV 
supporters, there is never any consensus at ANI etc. that a violation has
actually occurred. 

It usually goes on for years, until the matter goes to arbcom and swathes of
editors from both sides end up topic-banned.

Our consensus-forming process, which is effectively modeled on a chat-show
phone-in, rather than thoughtful and team-based analysis, does not help 
here. 

This is why the outcome of arbitration is frequently so different from what
the community does on its own. Ideally, it shouldn't be that way, but the
only people I've ever seen implement WP:Advocacy are arbcom.

Andreas

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

--- On Mon, 23/5/11, Ken Arromdee arrom...@rahul.net wrote:

 From: Ken Arromdee arrom...@rahul.net
 Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org
 Date: Monday, 23 May, 2011, 21:56
 I'm skeptical that we should have an
 article.

 The reason: Wikipedia is on the Internet.  If
 Wikipedia has an article
 about something whose promoter specifically intends to
 spread it on the
 Internet, it is impossible to separate reporting from
 participation.  It's
 a loophole in the definition of neutrality that doing
 things which help
 one side of a dispute doesn't break neutrality, simply
 because our
 intentions are neutral--even though our effects are not.

 This brings to mind GNAA.  GNAA is a troll group who
 intentionally gave
 themselves an offensive name so that even mentioning them
 helped them troll.
 Wikipedia had a hard time getting rid of the article about
 them, because
 we can't say by using their name, we're helping their
 goals in deciding
 whether to have an article.  It was finally deleted by
 stretching the
 notability rules instead.

 And in a related question, I'd ask: Should we have an
 article Richard Gere
 gerbil rumor?  (As long as our article describes the
 rumor as debunked, of
 course--otherwise we would be directly violating BLP.) Some
 of the
 justifications for that and for this sound similar.

It's a good comparison. There are plenty of reliable sources to satisfy
notability:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?aq=fsourceid=chromeie=UTF-8q=%22richard+gere%22+gerbil#q=%22richard+gere%22+gerbilhl=entbm=nwssource=lnttbs=ar:1sa=Xei=3m7dTcizNYS08QPCjdUBved=0CBIQpwUoBQbav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.fp=fa06e4f4a78ee6ed

We could summarise all of these, neutrally, in an article, quoting four 
dozen journalists on the controversy.

However, we shouldn't. (No doubt someone will start an article now, and
knowing Wikipedia, it will probably make DYK and GA. Ah well.)

Interested readers are directed to:

http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/celebrities/a/richard_gere.htm 

As well as our very own: 

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

Andreas

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

--- On Wed, 25/5/11, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote:

 From: David Gerard dger...@gmail.com
 Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org
 Date: Wednesday, 25 May, 2011, 22:38
 On 25 May 2011 11:34, Andreas Kolbe
 jayen...@yahoo.com
 wrote:

  By the way, [author]'s GA articles include

 See, at this point you completely blew your credibility in
 this
 discussion by slipping into ad hominem. That's where you
 wiped out all
 gains from your previous posts in the thread. Don't do this
 if you
 want to be taken seriously.

Then you've missed the point. The point is not that [[Corbin Fisher]] is 
about a gay porn company. The point is that it's written in PR style, 
complete with a blue call-out box:

I've always had a lot of professional and personal admiration for [Corbin 
Fisher] because they really defined a new space in gay adult entertainment

Read it. The common element is promoting a POV.

Andreas

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-25 Thread Ken Arromdee


On Tue, 24 May 2011, Tom Morris wrote:

The reason: Wikipedia is on the Internet.  If Wikipedia has an article
about something whose promoter specifically intends to spread it on the
Internet, it is impossible to separate reporting from participation.  It's
a loophole in the definition of neutrality that doing things which help
one side of a dispute doesn't break neutrality, simply because our
intentions are neutral--even though our effects are not.

Using that logic, we should probably shut down every page on WP about
politics, religion, alternative medicine and anything even vaguely
controversial.


There's a difference between helping someone who happens to find some publicity
useful, and helping something that is mainly a publicity campaign.  There's
also a difference between spreading facts that are incidentally used in a
publicity campaign but are independent of it, and spreading the campaign itself.

If there weren't any anti-scientology campaigners spreading the word about
Xenu, we'd still have a reason to have an article about Xenu.  If there was no
anti-Santorum campaign, we'd have no reason for the article--its entire
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 2:34 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com wrote:
 --- On Wed, 25/5/11, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com wrote:

 From: George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com

 Again - you do not have consensus (here or there) that it
 violates the policy.

 We know YOU (and Andreas) are offended, but you're
 generalizing that
 your interpretation is and must be correct.

 That's not how consensus works.


 I'm not actually *offended*, George. I just think it's political activism,
 and I know Cirt has done that sort of thing several times before.

 If it were a first-time occurrence, I might write it off.

 Andreas

Again - I am not Cirt, and I find the article reasonably balanced.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herb...@gmail.com

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

On 25 May 2011 22:53, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com wrote:

 Then you've missed the point. The point is not that [[Corbin Fisher]] is
 about a gay porn company. The point is that it's written in PR style,
 complete with a blue call-out box:


Except you did not say PR style, with call-out box - you said gay
porn company, as if those three words were enough to make your point.
You lose.


- d.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-25 Thread Ken Arromdee

 Again - I am not Cirt, and I find the article reasonably balanced.

Having an article that associates someone with human waste be reasonably
balanced is like claiming that an article about the Richard Gere gerbil
rumor (as long as it stated the rumor was false) would be reasonably balanced.
The association of a living person with shit is inherently unbalanced;
it spreads a negative POV towards that person, no matter how many disclaimers
we add saying that we don't think he's really like shit.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-25 Thread Ken Arromdee

On Wed, 25 May 2011, David Gerard wrote:
 Except you did not say PR style, with call-out box - you said gay
 porn company, as if those three words were enough to make your point.
 You lose.

In this context, gay porn company is legitimate, because it implies a
COI.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 3:21 PM, Ken Arromdee arrom...@rahul.net wrote:
 Again - I am not Cirt, and I find the article reasonably balanced.

 Having an article that associates someone with human waste be reasonably
 balanced is like claiming that an article about the Richard Gere gerbil
 rumor (as long as it stated the rumor was false) would be reasonably balanced.
 The association of a living person with shit is inherently unbalanced;
 it spreads a negative POV towards that person, no matter how many disclaimers
 we add saying that we don't think he's really like shit.

You are conflating the term (which associates someone with human
waste) and our coverage of the term (which describes the term,
descriptively, historically, and cultural and political contexts).

Our coverage of the term is NPOV and balanced, in my opinion.

You seem to wish that the term did not exist.  That's a fair wish, but
not relevant to Wikipedia.  What's relevant to Wikipedia is that it
does exist, has numerous reliable sources, has had real-world impact,
and therefore is at least arguably notable and an appropriate subject
for a WP article.

We cannot fix the fact that the term exists and was damaging to Mr.
Santorum.  Censoring Wikipedia to attempt to right wrongs done in the
real world is rather explicitly Not the Point.


-- 
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george.herb...@gmail.com

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

On 25 May 2011 23:25, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com wrote:

 We cannot fix the fact that the term exists and was damaging to Mr.
 Santorum.  Censoring Wikipedia to attempt to right wrongs done in the
 real world is rather explicitly Not the Point.


Indeed. And attacking the author is particularly odious behaviour. The
fact does not go away from attacking the documentor.


- d.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-25 Thread Brian J Mingus

On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 4:25 PM, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.comwrote:

 On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 3:21 PM, Ken Arromdee arrom...@rahul.net wrote:
  Again - I am not Cirt, and I find the article reasonably balanced.
 
  Having an article that associates someone with human waste be reasonably
  balanced is like claiming that an article about the Richard Gere gerbil
  rumor (as long as it stated the rumor was false) would be reasonably
 balanced.
  The association of a living person with shit is inherently unbalanced;
  it spreads a negative POV towards that person, no matter how many
 disclaimers
  we add saying that we don't think he's really like shit.

 You are conflating the term (which associates someone with human
 waste) and our coverage of the term (which describes the term,
 descriptively, historically, and cultural and political contexts).

 Our coverage of the term is NPOV and balanced, in my opinion.

 You seem to wish that the term did not exist.  That's a fair wish, but
 not relevant to Wikipedia.  What's relevant to Wikipedia is that it
 does exist, has numerous reliable sources, has had real-world impact,
 and therefore is at least arguably notable and an appropriate subject
 for a WP article.

 We cannot fix the fact that the term exists and was damaging to Mr.
 Santorum.  Censoring Wikipedia to attempt to right wrongs done in the
 real world is rather explicitly Not the Point.


 --
 -george william herbert
 george.herb...@gmail.com



George,

Can you please address a couple of points that I believe have been brought
up in this thread. You may want to read the previous emails that more
clearly elucidated the points first, or not. They are as follows:

1) This term deserves a Wiktionary entry at best, not a Wikipedia entry.

2) Wikipedia is being used as a platform to damage Santorum.

Thanks,

Brian
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

--- On Wed, 25/5/11, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote:

 From: David Gerard dger...@gmail.com

 
  Then you've missed the point. The point is not that
 [[Corbin Fisher]] is
  about a gay porn company. The point is that it's
 written in PR style,
  complete with a blue call-out box:
 
 
 Except you did not say PR style, with call-out box - you
 said gay
 porn company, as if those three words were enough to make
 your point.
 You lose.


If you like. :) What I actually said was, include ***this highly flattering 
portrait*** of a gay porn company.

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2011-May/109017.html

It's not my fault if your eyes home in on the gay porn bit. :Þ

Andreas

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

On 25 May 2011 23:36, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com wrote:

 It's not my fault if your eyes home in on the gay porn bit. :Þ


You are forum-shopping this issue, and it's blatant and obvious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Political_neologisms
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Sexual_slang#Santorum

Forum-shopping is an attempt to synthesise consensus. Please stop it.


- d.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

On 25 May 2011 23:39, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote:
 On 25 May 2011 23:36, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com wrote:

 It's not my fault if your eyes home in on the gay porn bit. :Þ

 You are forum-shopping this issue, and it's blatant and obvious.
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Political_neologisms
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Sexual_slang#Santorum
 Forum-shopping is an attempt to synthesise consensus. Please stop it.


Youu forgot:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Dan_Savage

Are you going to try to raise it there next?


- d.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

--- On Wed, 25/5/11, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote:

 From: David Gerard dger...@gmail.com
 Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org
 Date: Wednesday, 25 May, 2011, 23:40
 On 25 May 2011 23:39, David Gerard
 dger...@gmail.com
 wrote:
  On 25 May 2011 23:36, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com
 wrote:

  It's not my fault if your eyes home in on the gay
 porn bit. :Þ

  You are forum-shopping this issue, and it's blatant
 and obvious.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Political_neologisms
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Sexual_slang#Santorum
  Forum-shopping is an attempt to synthesise consensus.
 Please stop it.

 Youu forgot:

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Dan_Savage

 Are you going to try to raise it there next?

The discussion *started* here, two days ago. Then people said it should be 
addressed on-wiki. 

Frankly, I am not very keen to get much involved with it on-wiki. 

Andreas

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-25 Thread WereSpielChequers

Kudos to Andreas for notifying Cirt so quickly after my suggestion,
but may I suggest that we review the rules for this mailing list?

Currently neither
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l#Rules nor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikiquette which it links to
via a redirect explicitly require that editors are notified about
discussions about them.

ANI by contrast explicitly requires people to notify the editor who
you are making a complaint about.

May I suggest that we do the same?

WereSpielChequers


On 25 May 2011 21:17, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote:
 I'm not surprised that a Wikipedia article shoots to the top of Google
 searches, isn't that one of the reasons why we write here? I'm pretty
 sure I've seen Wikipedia articles come top on Google even if they lack
 templates and are practically orphans.

 Nor am I surprised that someone who writes an article then goes and
 creates associated templates. I don't do much with templates but I
 have a similar editing pattern - I was in the British Museum for the
 Hoxne Hoard challenge and wound up contributing a number of edits to
 articles about the sorts of spoons that were in the hoard.

 I am concerned at the risk of the mailing list degenerating into some
 sort of back channel and disrupting the wiki. People using it for off
 wiki complaints about an AFD and criticism of individual wikipedians
 who may not be subscribing  to this list is in my view unhealthy.

 Have any of the people expressing disquiet about that editor notified
 them of this thread?

 WereSpielChequers

 Cirt has been notified and has read the thread. However, you are correct
 that we have more or less completed what can appropriately been done on a
 mailing list.

 Fred


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 3:29 PM, Brian J Mingus
brian.min...@colorado.edu wrote:
 George,

 Can you please address a couple of points that I believe have been brought
 up in this thread. You may want to read the previous emails that more
 clearly elucidated the points first, or not. They are as follows:

 1) This term deserves a Wiktionary entry at best, not a Wikipedia entry.

 2) Wikipedia is being used as a platform to damage Santorum.

 Thanks,

 Brian

I don't agree with either statement.

The event (Savage coming up with the term, the effects on Santorum) is
notable.  It's covered in reliable sources.  The word itself would be
a Wiktionary entry, but the incident overall is Wikipedia.

We're reporting on the damage to Santorum, not causing it.  Our
reporting is not making it better, but neither is it making it worse.
The damage was done by Savage and others and was widespread long
before the article here.

We do not censor topics that are damaging to individuals just because
they are damaging.  They have to be notable and covered in a NPOV way
for us to cover them, but this passes both tests.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herb...@gmail.com

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

--- On Thu, 26/5/11, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com wrote:

 From: George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com

  George,
 
  Can you please address a couple of points that I
 believe have been brought
  up in this thread. You may want to read the previous
 emails that more
  clearly elucidated the points first, or not. They are
 as follows:
 
  1) This term deserves a Wiktionary entry at best, not
 a Wikipedia entry.
 
  2) Wikipedia is being used as a platform to damage
 Santorum.
 
  Thanks,
 
  Brian
 
 I don't agree with either statement.
 
 The event (Savage coming up with the term, the effects on
 Santorum) is
 notable.  It's covered in reliable sources.  The
 word itself would be
 a Wiktionary entry, but the incident overall is Wikipedia.
 
 We're reporting on the damage to Santorum, not causing
 it.  Our
 reporting is not making it better, but neither is it making
 it worse.
 The damage was done by Savage and others and was widespread
 long
 before the article here.
 
 We do not censor topics that are damaging to individuals
 just because
 they are damaging.  They have to be notable and
 covered in a NPOV way
 for us to cover them, but this passes both tests.


You may be forgetting that we have an article on [[Santorum controversy 
regarding homosexuality]]. That's notable. The term, linguistically, is not.
It's in one slang dictionary, and one book on neologisms. 

Andreas

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

--- On Thu, 26/5/11, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com wrote:

 From: Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com

  From: George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com

  I don't agree with either statement.

  The event (Savage coming up with the term, the effects
 on
  Santorum) is
  notable.  It's covered in reliable sources.  The
  word itself would be
  a Wiktionary entry, but the incident overall is
 Wikipedia.

  We're reporting on the damage to Santorum, not
 causing
  it.  Our
  reporting is not making it better, but neither is it
 making
  it worse.
  The damage was done by Savage and others and was
 widespread
  long
  before the article here.

  We do not censor topics that are damaging to
 individuals
  just because
  they are damaging.  They have to be notable and
  covered in a NPOV way
  for us to cover them, but this passes both tests.

 You may be forgetting that we have an article on [[Santorum
 controversy 
 regarding homosexuality]]. That's notable. The term,
 linguistically, is not.
 It's in one slang dictionary, and one book on neologisms. 

As a matter of fact, it would help Wikipedia if the article were retitled,
[[Dan Savage Google-bomb campaign against Rick Santorum]].

Andreas

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 4:29 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com wrote:
 --- On Thu, 26/5/11, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com wrote:

 From: Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com

  From: George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com

  I don't agree with either statement.

  The event (Savage coming up with the term, the effects
 on
  Santorum) is
  notable.  It's covered in reliable sources.  The
  word itself would be
  a Wiktionary entry, but the incident overall is
 Wikipedia.

  We're reporting on the damage to Santorum, not
 causing
  it.  Our
  reporting is not making it better, but neither is it
 making
  it worse.
  The damage was done by Savage and others and was
 widespread
  long
  before the article here.

  We do not censor topics that are damaging to
 individuals
  just because
  they are damaging.  They have to be notable and
  covered in a NPOV way
  for us to cover them, but this passes both tests.

 You may be forgetting that we have an article on [[Santorum
 controversy
 regarding homosexuality]]. That's notable. The term,
 linguistically, is not.
 It's in one slang dictionary, and one book on neologisms.

 As a matter of fact, it would help Wikipedia if the article were retitled,
 [[Dan Savage Google-bomb campaign against Rick Santorum]].

The Santorum controversy...  article has 2 sentences on Savage and the
neologism, no coverage of the consequences on Santorum's career,
Santorum's comments regarding it, or critical or academic coverage of
the incident.

That by itself approximates sweeping it under the rug, which will not fly.

If you want to propose a content merge of those two articles that's
not grossly offensive to my sensibilities, as long as it actually
merges the content and is not an excuse to delete one of the two
articles.

Retitling might not be a bad idea if it lessens the google focus.
That's not grossly offensive to my sensibilities.  Not sure that it
would actually work.

-- 
-george william herbert
george.herb...@gmail.com

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

On 25/05/2011, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com wrote:
 The common element is promoting a POV.

There's absolutely no ban against that.

NPOV is a property of the Wikipedia and articles, not editors.

In other words, users adding a POV to an article or articles in the
Wikipedia in general (provided it's a reliable source's POV, not your
own, and provided you don't deliberately make unbalanced articles) is
an entirely normal part of the Wikipedia and is indistinguishable from
promoting that POV.

The problems come when you remove other notable POVs or you
overemphasise your POV relative to sources.

But that doesn't seem to be what's happening here; I don't see signs
of breach of NPOV.

 Andreas

-- 
-Ian Woollard

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

--- On Thu, 26/5/11, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com wrote:

From: George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com


The Santorum controversy...  article has 2 sentences on Savage and the
neologism, no coverage of the consequences on Santorum's career,
Santorum's comments regarding it, or critical or academic coverage of
the incident.

That by itself approximates sweeping it under the rug, which will not fly.

If you want to propose a content merge of those two articles that's
not grossly offensive to my sensibilities, as long as it actually
merges the content and is not an excuse to delete one of the two
articles.

Retitling might not be a bad idea if it lessens the google focus.
That's not grossly offensive to my sensibilities.  Not sure that it
would actually work.


Well, [[Dan Savage Google bomb campaign against Rick Santorum]] could be a 
sub-article of [[Santorum controversy on homosexuality]].
That's essentially what the article is, at any rate. An exceptionally detailed 
article on Savage's campaign. It's not an article on a word. 
I could live with that. I don't think it would bring Wikipedia into potential 
disrepute, or open the project up to charges of partiality in quite the same 
way.
Andreas
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-25 Thread Tom Morris

On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 23:57, Ken Arromdee arrom...@rahul.net wrote:
 If there weren't any anti-scientology campaigners spreading the word about
 Xenu, we'd still have a reason to have an article about Xenu.  If there was
 no
 anti-Santorum campaign, we'd have no reason for the article--its entire
 existence depends directly on that campaign.


Yes, but there *is* such a campaign.

If there weren't a tea party movement, we wouldn't have an article on
the tea party movement.

But there is. So we do.

If there weren't a neologism named after Mr. Santorum, there wouldn't
be an article on it.

But there is. So we do.

-- 
Tom Morris
http://tommorris.org/

Please don't print this e-mail out unless you want a hard copy of
it. If you do, go ahead. I won't stop you. Nor will I waste your
ink/toner with 300+ lines of completely pointless and legally
unenforceable cargo cult blather about corporate confidentiality.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

 On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 23:57, Ken Arromdee arrom...@rahul.net wrote:
 If there weren't any anti-scientology campaigners spreading the word
 about
 Xenu, we'd still have a reason to have an article about Xenu.  If there
 was
 no
 anti-Santorum campaign, we'd have no reason for the article--its entire
 existence depends directly on that campaign.


 Yes, but there *is* such a campaign.

 If there weren't a tea party movement, we wouldn't have an article on
 the tea party movement.

 But there is. So we do.

 If there weren't a neologism named after Mr. Santorum, there wouldn't
 be an article on it.

 But there is. So we do.

 --
 Tom Morris
 http://tommorris.org/

No question the subject is notable. The question is how to handle it
appropriately.

Fred


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-25 Thread Carcharoth

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 1:19 AM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote:

 No question the subject is notable. The question is how to handle it
 appropriately.

Think outside the box and merge it to the article on Dan Savage?

One criticism I have of the article on the neologism is that the
background section is too long. In fact, the whole article is too
long. It is a blow-by-blow account and I suspect not many readers make
it to the end of the article. Reading the lead section is sufficient.

Carcharoth

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

 Again - I am not Cirt, and I find the article reasonably balanced.

 Having an article that associates someone with human waste be reasonably
 balanced is like claiming that an article about the Richard Gere gerbil
 rumor (as long as it stated the rumor was false) would be reasonably
 balanced.
 The association of a living person with shit is inherently unbalanced;
 it spreads a negative POV towards that person, no matter how many
 disclaimers
 we add saying that we don't think he's really like shit.

Well said. That's the problem.

Fred



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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 7:31 PM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote:
 Again - I am not Cirt, and I find the article reasonably balanced.

 Having an article that associates someone with human waste be reasonably
 balanced is like claiming that an article about the Richard Gere gerbil
 rumor (as long as it stated the rumor was false) would be reasonably
 balanced.
 The association of a living person with shit is inherently unbalanced;
 it spreads a negative POV towards that person, no matter how many
 disclaimers
 we add saying that we don't think he's really like shit.

 Well said. That's the problem.

 Fred

All things considered, it's a societal problem for people to be
claiming Santorum is human excrement, that women shouldn't have a
right to own property or vote, that homosexuals should be beaten up or
killed for being who they are, that blacks (or Latinos, or Asians, or
Jews, or whoever) are less human than (whites or whomever), or that
some adults advocate adult/child sexual relations.

We have hopefully NPOV articles on the Santorum neologism, women's
rights, gay bashing, the KKK, the Nazis' antisemitism, and NAMBLA.
And we should.

That's what being an encyclopedia is about.  Yes, it's embarrassing to
Santorum that he became the target of a particularly hateful political
advocacy campaign.  But he was a politician, and said some things that
Savage thought were particularly hateful of homosexuals.  This became
widely enough known to be news, academically interesting, and
societally and politically significant for Santorum's career.

We're an encyclopedia.  We cover stuff that's news, academically
interesting, and societally and politically significant.  Even if it's
unfortunate for the public figures that created the kerfuffle.

BLP policy says we handle all of these things, where they bear on
individual persons' lives or reputations, with kid gloves.  But it
does not say that we whitewash significant events.  I feel sorry for
Santorum, and it was a somewhat irresponsible tactic of Savage, but I
don't feel that our article is at all improper.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herb...@gmail.com

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

 On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 7:31 PM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net
 wrote:
 Again - I am not Cirt, and I find the article reasonably balanced.

 Having an article that associates someone with human waste be
 reasonably
 balanced is like claiming that an article about the Richard Gere
 gerbil
 rumor (as long as it stated the rumor was false) would be reasonably
 balanced.
 The association of a living person with shit is inherently unbalanced;
 it spreads a negative POV towards that person, no matter how many
 disclaimers
 we add saying that we don't think he's really like shit.

 Well said. That's the problem.

 Fred

 All things considered, it's a societal problem for people to be
 claiming Santorum is human excrement, that women shouldn't have a
 right to own property or vote, that homosexuals should be beaten up or
 killed for being who they are, that blacks (or Latinos, or Asians, or
 Jews, or whoever) are less human than (whites or whomever), or that
 some adults advocate adult/child sexual relations.

None of the examples you cite are living people.

Fred


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-25 Thread Carl (CBM)

On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 11:43 PM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote:
 None of the examples you cite are living people.

This reminds me again about a somewhat common misinterpretation of
BLP.  BLP is not really motivated solely by the fact that a person is
alive, To the extent that WP:BLP goes beyond WP:NPOV, it is motivated
by the desire to help people who would otherwise be unable to mount a
response to Wikipedia - people who are barely notable, or just known
for one event - people who cannot call a press conference at the touch
of a button.  These people need us to exercise special discretion
because they are at a relative disadvantage to us.

It is patently unreasonable to claim that a former U.S. sentator, who
is now running for U.S. president, needs us to help him disseminate or
control his message beyond WP:NPOV. Santorum can have multiple major
news sources report any press conference he wants to hold, just by
asking an aide to make some phone calls. So Santorum is fully able to
present his own message to the press and get it published in
mainstream news sources that we can cite. We simply need to maintain
NPOV in our articles by accurately reflecting news coverage. Santorum
does not need us to exercise special discretion, because anything he
wants to put in the media he can put in the media.

This stands in stark contrast to the people whom things like WP:BLP1E
are really intended to protect.  These people cannot simply call a
press conference to respond to our articles.

- Carl

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

On 26/05/2011, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote:
 The association of a living person with shit is inherently unbalanced;
 it spreads a negative POV towards that person, no matter how many
 disclaimers
 we add saying that we don't think he's really like shit.

 Well said. That's the problem.

Quite the contrary, I don't think it's unbalanced. I'm sure that the
term took off, because many people thought it was an entirely
appropriate metaphor.

AFAIK he was more or less calling for putting (potentially) large
numbers of homosexuals in prison essentially just for being
homosexual, and he was trying to put himself in a position where he
would have more ability to actually achieve that.

Compared to that, a rude word and a reduced chance of being a top
politician for a single individual is not very nice, but not nearly as
not nice as trying to remove people's liberty for long periods for
what appears to be a victimless 'crime'.

So I actually don't feel sorry for him at all, in fact he really seems
to have deserved it.

 Fred

-- 
-Ian Woollard

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-24 Thread GmbH


On May 23, 2011, at 7:58 PM, Andreas Kolbe wrote:

 --- On Mon, 23/5/11, Charles Matthews  
 charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote:

 From: Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com

 On 23 May 2011 02:24, Brian J Mingusbrian.min...@colorado.edu
 wrote:
 When you Google for Santorum's last name this
 Wikipedia article is the
 second result. This means that people who are
 looking for legitimate
 information about him are not going to find it
 right away - instead we are
 going to feed them information about a biased
 smear campaign rather than the
 former Senators BLP.
 Google's search results are entirely their business.

 Yes, I agree with that comment. As Google are aware, people
 try to game
 their algorithm; and their business model requires them
 to take action
 on that. Not our problem at all.

 The business of neologisms on WP was actually put into How
 Wikipedia
 Works (Chapter 7, A Deletion Case Study). At that time
 the example to
 hand was of the buzzword type, and the question was
 apparently whether
 WP's duty was to keep people informed of new jargon, or to
 be more
 distanced and only include a new term when it was clearly
 well established.

 To be a bit more nuanced about this instance: if there is a
 dimension in
 that article of a BLP, certain things follow at least at
 the margin
 about use of sources. And NPOV clearly requires that a
 successful
 campaign to discredit someone is reported in those terms.
 Here there
 is a fine line between mockery and smear, and saying
 the latter by
 default omits the element of satire. In other words, there
 are people
 who take US domestic politics very seriously, and media
 stories very
 seriously (I think enWP tends to take the media as a whole
 too
 seriously, BTW, which is the media's estimation of itself)
 , and regard
 Google now as part of the media, and so come to the sort of
 conclusion
 that Brian does.

 OTOH we have our mission, and our policies, and should do
 our job. I'm
 prepared to take the flak if our pages contribute to
 information  (i.e.
 report within NPOV) on a biased smear campaign (or
 satirical
 googlebombing, whatever you prefer); as long as our article
 is not
 biased, and is not campaigning. Bear in mind that the COI
 is supposed to
 limit the use of enWP for activism of certain kinds. We do
 have the
 policies to prevent misuse of our pages.

 Charles


 We discussed this a couple of days ago at our meet-up. I agree with  
 some of
 the other comments made here that this blurs and crosses the line  
 between
 reporting and participation.

 I have no sympathy for Santorum or his views. But based on past  
 experience,
 I also have little confidence that the main author's motivation in  
 expanding
 the article is anything other than political. They've created puff  
 pieces on
 politicians before (as well as hatchet jobs), in the service of  
 outside
 political agendas.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Dickson (later deleted as a  
 puff piece
 of a non-notable politician, but only after the election, in which  
 he was
 said to have done surprisingly well)

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

 Andreas


I think this is an excellent analysis. I too have little sympathy for  
Santorum, but it strikes me that this neologism would have no real- 
world notability if it wasn't attached to Santorum's name. In any  
other circumstance, a concept or neologism that has no notability  
outside of a larger, overarching concept would be relegated to a  
decently sized portion of the main article. Here, it's been given its  
own article, seemingly to make a political point.

I see that as the main thrust of the argument, not to delete, but to  
merge this back where it belongs-as an embarrassing but largely non- 
notable (in and of itself) episode of Rick Santorum's larger career.  
Before anyone says no, can they honestly answer the question Would  
this word have deserved an article without co-opting the name of a  
major celebrity? with a yes? If so, I'm wrong. But I don't believe a  
reasonable person can.

Moreover, it is disingenuous to suggest that we can sit on our hands  
and pretend that our handling of this issue does not have broader  
implications on the standing of Wikipedia in the world. If we begin  
to be seen as a media outlet (that description being accurate or no  
is a discussion for a later time) that actively participates in  
lending undue weight to juvenile retribution, we're going to lose our  
claim to neutrality quickly. As it is, I think we need to  
(deliberately, there's no need for haste and conspiracy) start  
trimming this article to a reasonable size and merge it into Rick  
Santorum's article, in order to give it the larger context that the  
higher calling of fairness deserves.

I believe that's the responsibility of Wikipedia, and I'd urge other  
editors, regardless of your politics (because I know most of us would  
probably not consider voting for the man, but that's

Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-24 Thread Andreas Kolbe

--- On Tue, 24/5/11, GmbH gmbh0...@gmail.com wrote:
 From: GmbH gmbh0...@gmail.com
 Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org
 Date: Tuesday, 24 May, 2011, 1:11

 On May 23, 2011, at 7:58 PM, Andreas Kolbe wrote:

  We discussed this a couple of days ago at our meet-up.
 I agree with  
  some of
  the other comments made here that this blurs and
 crosses the line  
  between
  reporting and participation.

  I have no sympathy for Santorum or his views. But
 based on past  
  experience,
  I also have little confidence that the main author's
 motivation in  
  expanding
  the article is anything other than political. They've
 created puff  
  pieces on
  politicians before (as well as hatchet jobs), in the
 service of  
  outside
  political agendas.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Dickson (later
 deleted as a  
  puff piece
  of a non-notable politician, but only after the
 election, in which  
  he was
  said to have done surprisingly well)

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

  Andreas

 I think this is an excellent analysis. I too have little
 sympathy for  
 Santorum, but it strikes me that this neologism would have
 no real- 
 world notability if it wasn't attached to Santorum's name.
 In any  
 other circumstance, a concept or neologism that has no
 notability  
 outside of a larger, overarching concept would be relegated
 to a  
 decently sized portion of the main article. Here, it's been
 given its  
 own article, seemingly to make a political point.

 I see that as the main thrust of the argument, not to
 delete, but to  
 merge this back where it belongs-as an embarrassing but
 largely non- 
 notable (in and of itself) episode of Rick Santorum's
 larger career.  
 Before anyone says no, can they honestly answer the
 question Would  
 this word have deserved an article without co-opting the
 name of a  
 major celebrity? with a yes? If so, I'm wrong. But I don't
 believe a  
 reasonable person can.

 Moreover, it is disingenuous to suggest that we can sit on
 our hands  
 and pretend that our handling of this issue does not have
 broader  
 implications on the standing of Wikipedia in the world. If
 we begin  
 to be seen as a media outlet (that description being
 accurate or no  
 is a discussion for a later time) that actively
 participates in  
 lending undue weight to juvenile retribution, we're going
 to lose our  
 claim to neutrality quickly. As it is, I think we need
 to  
 (deliberately, there's no need for haste and conspiracy)
 start  
 trimming this article to a reasonable size and merge it
 into Rick  
 Santorum's article, in order to give it the larger context
 that the  
 higher calling of fairness deserves.

 I believe that's the responsibility of Wikipedia, and I'd
 urge other  
 editors, regardless of your politics (because I know most
 of us would  
 probably not consider voting for the man, but that's
 immaterial) to  
 consider the argument here and agree. If so, I'll be happy
 to take  
 this discussion to the talk page, where we can iron out a
 way to do  
 this without doing a disservice to our commitment to
 impartiality.

 Chromancer

Well, as of today, [[Santorum (neologism)]] has taken over the no. 1 AND 2 
spots in the Google results for Santorum. Both the old and new article
title appear, in spots 1 and 2.

It's even overtaken the original Googlebomb site set up by Savage, which is
now back in fourth place. To wit:

1. 

Santorum (neologism) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santorum_(neologism) - Cached

2.

Santorum (sexual neologism) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santorum_(sexual_neologism) - Cached - Similar

3.

Rick Santorum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Richard John Rick Santorum (born May 10, 1958) is a former United States ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Santorum - Cached - Similar

4.

Santorum
www.spreadingsantorum.com/ - Cached - Similar

I've no idea how the Wikipedia article manages to get itself represented
twice, with two different titles (one of which redirects to the other). 
Personally, I think redirecting the thing to Santorum's BLP and covering 
it there would be the encyclopedic thing to do. 

The comparison to Bowdlerise, Orwellian etc. is IMO unrealistic. Those
neologisms have stood the test of time, and have been used un-consciously in 
prose. Santorum is a conscious joke word.

Andreas

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-24 Thread George Herbert

On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 9:44 AM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote:
 Yes, let's replace our elite judgment for that of everyone else.

 You've got one word right, our. You are responsible for this.

No, he (and we) are not.  Dan Savage is responsible for this.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herb...@gmail.com

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-24 Thread The Cunctator

Huh?

On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 12:44 PM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.netwrote:

  Yes, let's replace our elite judgment for that of everyone else.

 You've got one word right, our. You are responsible for this.

 Fred


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-24 Thread Andreas Kolbe

--- On Tue, 24/5/11, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com wrote:

 I don't know that it's been reviewed in analytical terms at
 that
 level.  It's so offensive on one level that academics
 and political
 commentators seem to just shy away from it rather than
 addressing the
 rather deep Hey, what does this say about
 society/politics/etc.

There is some academic analysis of this sort in 

Value war: public opinion and the politics of gay rights 
By Paul Ryan Brewer

Pages 80ff, especially the chapter The rewards and risks of signaling
starting on page 81 (covering the rewards and risks for political actors
signaling their stance on gay issues to the electorate). Unfortunately, I 
can't see the relevant page in Google Books, and amazon has no preview. 

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=U34pJTdF-VcCpg=PA81dq=%22The+Rewards+and+risks+of+signaling%22hl=enei=RgPcTeeYH4f_-gbZwdypDwsa=Xoi=book_resultct=resultresnum=1ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepageq=%22The%20Rewards%20and%20risks%20of%20signaling%22f=false

The work is actually cited in the article, but only for the frothy mixture 
quote. 

Andreas

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-24 Thread The Cunctator

There's also this:
http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/2/5/9/4/9/p259493_index.html
*Natality in the Private, Public, and Political Spheres: When Santorum
Becomes 
santorumhttp://www.allacademic.com/one/www/research/index.php?cmd=www_searchoffset=0limit=5multi_search_search_mode=publicationmulti_search_publication_fulltext_mod=fulltexttextfield_submit=truesearch_module=multi_searchsearch=Searchsearch_field=title_idxfulltext_search=%3Cb%3ENatality+in+the+Private%2C+Public%2C+and+Political+Spheres%3A+When+Santorum+Becomes+santorum%3C%2Fb%3EPHPSESSID=b31c93e7de3f2d30f62ec1c7e0beeb34
*

On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 3:17 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com wrote:

 --- On Tue, 24/5/11, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com wrote:

  I don't know that it's been reviewed in analytical terms at
  that
  level.  It's so offensive on one level that academics
  and political
  commentators seem to just shy away from it rather than
  addressing the
  rather deep Hey, what does this say about
  society/politics/etc.

 There is some academic analysis of this sort in

 Value war: public opinion and the politics of gay rights
 By Paul Ryan Brewer

 Pages 80ff, especially the chapter The rewards and risks of signaling
 starting on page 81 (covering the rewards and risks for political actors
 signaling their stance on gay issues to the electorate). Unfortunately, I
 can't see the relevant page in Google Books, and amazon has no preview.


 http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=U34pJTdF-VcCpg=PA81dq=%22The+Rewards+and+risks+of+signaling%22hl=enei=RgPcTeeYH4f_-gbZwdypDwsa=Xoi=book_resultct=resultresnum=1ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepageq=%22The%20Rewards%20and%20risks%20of%20signaling%22f=false

 The work is actually cited in the article, but only for the frothy
 mixture
 quote.

 Andreas

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-24 Thread Andreas Kolbe

--- On Tue, 24/5/11, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote:
 From: Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net
 
  I've no idea how the Wikipedia article manages to get
 itself represented
  twice, with two different titles (one of which
 redirects to the other).
  Personally, I think redirecting the thing to
 Santorum's BLP and covering
  it there would be the encyclopedic thing to do.
 
  The comparison to Bowdlerise, Orwellian etc. is IMO
 unrealistic. Those
  neologisms have stood the test of time, and have been
 used un-consciously
  in
  prose. Santorum is a conscious joke word.
 
  Andreas
 
 Well, too much. I'm on-board for fighting fascism, but not
 using
 Wikipedia as a vehicle. We need to have a policy discussion
 on-wiki about
 this.
 
 I've been actually reading the sources cited; this is
 interesting and
 useful information, but needs to be handled more
 appropriately by both
 Wikipedia and Google. We need to bring the creator, and
 protector, of the
 article into the discussion too.


As was just pointed out to me on the article talk page, the article has 
survived 
three AfDs. Since the last one in December last year, however, it has grown
from about 1500 words to 4800, as well as having captured the two top spots
in Google. 

[[Santorum controversy]] covers the same ground as well.

We do come across as just a *bit* partial here.

Andreas


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-23 Thread Charles Matthews

On 23/05/2011 03:56, geni wrote:
 On 23 May 2011 02:24, Brian J Mingusbrian.min...@colorado.edu  wrote:
 When you Google for Santorum's last name this Wikipedia article is the
 second result. This means that people who are looking for legitimate
 information about him are not going to find it right away - instead we are
 going to feed them information about a biased smear campaign rather than the
 former Senators BLP.
 Google's search results are entirely their business.

Yes, I agree with that comment. As Google are aware, people try to game 
their algorithm; and their business model requires them to take action 
on that. Not our problem at all.

The business of neologisms on WP was actually put into How Wikipedia 
Works (Chapter 7, A Deletion Case Study). At that time the example to 
hand was of the buzzword type, and the question was apparently whether 
WP's duty was to keep people informed of new jargon, or to be more 
distanced and only include a new term when it was clearly well established.

To be a bit more nuanced about this instance: if there is a dimension in 
that article of a BLP, certain things follow at least at the margin 
about use of sources. And NPOV clearly requires that a successful 
campaign to discredit someone is reported in those terms. Here there 
is a fine line between mockery and smear, and saying the latter by 
default omits the element of satire. In other words, there are people 
who take US domestic politics very seriously, and media stories very 
seriously (I think enWP tends to take the media as a whole too 
seriously, BTW, which is the media's estimation of itself) , and regard 
Google now as part of the media, and so come to the sort of conclusion 
that Brian does.

OTOH we have our mission, and our policies, and should do our job. I'm 
prepared to take the flak if our pages contribute to information  (i.e. 
report within NPOV) on a biased smear campaign (or satirical 
googlebombing, whatever you prefer); as long as our article is not 
biased, and is not campaigning. Bear in mind that the COI is supposed to 
limit the use of enWP for activism of certain kinds. We do have the 
policies to prevent misuse of our pages.

Charles

Charles


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-23 Thread Will Beback


 Words coined after the names of then-living people:


*Orwellian

 *Chauvinist

 *Boycott

 *Bowdlerize


and countless others. Wikipedia can't ignore significant cultural trends for
the sake of censorship and super injunctions. Nor should it be used to
promote those trends. So long as we stick to verifiably summarizing reliable
sources using the neutral point of view, with due consideration for living
people, we'll stay on the right path.

-Will Beback
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

 On 23/05/2011 03:56, geni wrote:
 On 23 May 2011 02:24, Brian J Mingusbrian.min...@colorado.edu  wrote:
 When you Google for Santorum's last name this Wikipedia article is the
 second result. This means that people who are looking for legitimate
 information about him are not going to find it right away - instead we
 are
 going to feed them information about a biased smear campaign rather
 than the
 former Senators BLP.
 Google's search results are entirely their business.

 Yes, I agree with that comment. As Google are aware, people try to game
 their algorithm; and their business model requires them to take action
 on that. Not our problem at all.

 The business of neologisms on WP was actually put into How Wikipedia
 Works (Chapter 7, A Deletion Case Study). At that time the example to
 hand was of the buzzword type, and the question was apparently whether
 WP's duty was to keep people informed of new jargon, or to be more
 distanced and only include a new term when it was clearly well
 established.

 To be a bit more nuanced about this instance: if there is a dimension in
 that article of a BLP, certain things follow at least at the margin
 about use of sources. And NPOV clearly requires that a successful
 campaign to discredit someone is reported in those terms. Here there
 is a fine line between mockery and smear, and saying the latter by
 default omits the element of satire. In other words, there are people
 who take US domestic politics very seriously, and media stories very
 seriously (I think enWP tends to take the media as a whole too
 seriously, BTW, which is the media's estimation of itself) , and regard
 Google now as part of the media, and so come to the sort of conclusion
 that Brian does.

 OTOH we have our mission, and our policies, and should do our job. I'm
 prepared to take the flak if our pages contribute to information  (i.e.
 report within NPOV) on a biased smear campaign (or satirical
 googlebombing, whatever you prefer); as long as our article is not
 biased, and is not campaigning. Bear in mind that the COI is supposed to
 limit the use of enWP for activism of certain kinds. We do have the
 policies to prevent misuse of our pages.

 Charles

 Charles

This seems to combine malice and political purpose. Really it is stuff
that belonged on Encyclopedia Dramatica.

Fred


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-23 Thread Charles Matthews

On 23/05/2011 13:35, Fred Bauder wrote:
 This seems to combine malice and political purpose. Really it is stuff
 that belonged on Encyclopedia Dramatica.

I take it Fred means this article or this campaign: if the latter 
that's obvious enough. Given a mainstream piece of coverage such as 
http://swampland.time.com/2011/05/17/please-do-not-google-the-name-of-this-undervalued-republican-candidate/
 
from a few days ago, I wonder if the article is really out of step.

Charles


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-23 Thread George Herbert

On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 5:54 AM, Charles Matthews
charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote:
On 23/05/2011 13:35, Fred Bauder wrote:
This seems to combine malice and political purpose. Really it is stuff
that belonged on Encyclopedia Dramatica.

I take it Fred means this article or this campaign: if the latter
that's obvious enough. Given a mainstream piece of coverage such as
http://swampland.time.com/2011/05/17/please-do-not-google-the-name-of-this-undervalued-republican-candidate/
from a few days ago, I wonder if the article is really out of step.

Charles

There is a big difference between This name-based neologism is
offensive and derogatory and This name-based neologism is offensive
and derogatory, but politicially and socially significant.

It's neither our doing or fault that the neologism has become
significant in some areas of society and has had a noticeable and
noticed effect on Santorum's potential future political career.
Failing to cover it would be an error of judgement on our part, and
quite frankly if we removed it we'd probably stir up enough negative
controversy related to censorship that his name would be dragged
through the mud worse than it already has been.

Santorum himself seems to have a decent level of understanding that
the phenomena is out of his control and not something he should try to
suppress, despite being personally offended.

We don't exist to fix the real world - we exist to report on it
accurately. Many of the things we report on are unfortunate. An IMF
candidate who alledgedly raped a hotel maid, a tornado that killed 89
plus people, a terrorist attack in Pakistan and several ongoing and
incipient wars, these are other unfortunate things that make the
neologism Santorum pale in comparison.

--
-george william herbert
george.herb...@gmail.com

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-23 Thread Carcharoth

On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 4:47 PM, George Herbert
george.herb...@gmail.com wrote:

 Many of the things we report on are unfortunate.  An IMF
 candidate who alledgedly raped a hotel maid

snip

Candidate? Last I looked, he was Managing Director of the IMF at the
time the story broke (he is now former head). Anyway, I'm surprised
that the situation with Twitter and a UK footballer hasn't been
discussed more on Wikipedia, but maybe I'm missing the discussion and
that is happening somewhere.

Carcharoth

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-23 Thread Carcharoth

On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 4:58 PM, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote:

 that the situation with Twitter and a UK footballer

I was looking at the wrong article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_British_super-injunction_controversy

This one is more specific:

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

Carcharoth

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

 On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 4:47 PM, George Herbert
 george.herb...@gmail.com wrote:

 Many of the things we report on are unfortunate.  An IMF
 candidate who alledgedly raped a hotel maid

 snip

 Candidate? Last I looked, he was Managing Director of the IMF at the
 time the story broke (he is now former head). Anyway, I'm surprised
 that the situation with Twitter and a UK footballer hasn't been
 discussed more on Wikipedia, but maybe I'm missing the discussion and
 that is happening somewhere.

 Carcharoth


It was discussed on the Foundation list in the thead, Interesting legal
action. Seems to be pretty much over now, with massive violations,
including us. However it is still in effect.

Fred


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-23 Thread The Cunctator

On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 11:47 AM, George Herbert
george.herb...@gmail.comwrote:

I take it Fred means this article or this campaign: if the latter
that's obvious enough. Given a mainstream piece of coverage such as

http://swampland.time.com/2011/05/17/please-do-not-google-the-name-of-this-undervalued-republican-candidate/
from a few days ago, I wonder if the article is really out of step.

Charles

There is a big difference between This name-based neologism is
offensive and derogatory and This name-based neologism is offensive
and derogatory, but politicially and socially significant.

Santorum himself seems to have a decent level of understanding that
the phenomena is out of his control and not something he should try to
suppress, despite being personally offended.

Well said. It's a dirty word, it's politically motivated, but it fits all
valid criteria for inclusion on Wikipedia. The only reason to delete it is
personal political or cultural bias.
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-23 Thread George Herbert

On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 8:58 AM, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote:
 On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 4:47 PM, George Herbert
 george.herb...@gmail.com wrote:

 Many of the things we report on are unfortunate.  An IMF
 candidate who alledgedly raped a hotel maid

 snip

 Candidate? Last I looked, he was Managing Director of the IMF at the
 time the story broke (he is now former head).

Braino on my part.  Yes, he was the IMF Managing Director.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herb...@gmail.com

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]


 We don't exist to fix the real world - we exist to report on it
 accurately.  Many of the things we report on are unfortunate.  An IMF
 candidate who alledgedly raped a hotel maid, a tornado that killed 89
 plus people, a terrorist attack in Pakistan and several ongoing and
 incipient wars, these are other unfortunate things that make the
 neologism Santorum pale in comparison.


 --
 -george william herbert

I think you miss the point. Malice can make even publication of true
information about a public figure actionable. Participation of a
nonprofit corporation in political activity poses problems. I'm not sure
what happened here but we need to look at it carefully and evaluate our
level of participation in creation and dissemination of this word.

Fred


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-23 Thread George Herbert

On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 11:52 AM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote:

 We don't exist to fix the real world - we exist to report on it
 accurately.  Many of the things we report on are unfortunate.  An IMF
 candidate who alledgedly raped a hotel maid, a tornado that killed 89
 plus people, a terrorist attack in Pakistan and several ongoing and
 incipient wars, these are other unfortunate things that make the
 neologism Santorum pale in comparison.


 --
 -george william herbert

 I think you miss the point. Malice can make even publication of true
 information about a public figure actionable. Participation of a
 nonprofit corporation in political activity poses problems. I'm not sure
 what happened here but we need to look at it carefully and evaluate our
 level of participation in creation and dissemination of this word.

The word was created in its neologistic sense, propogated, and became
popular / infamous without Wikipedia's help.  Google was a large part,
and blogging, but we really weren't.

I don't discount that Wikipedia is at times used promotionally,
sometimes with negative BLP impacts, but in this case it was a real
world phenomenon not something driven by WP editors.  The article
seems balanced to me, particularly presenting Santorum's objections in
a responsible and reasonably positive light.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herb...@gmail.com

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-23 Thread Ken Arromdee

I'm skeptical that we should have an article.

The reason: Wikipedia is on the Internet.  If Wikipedia has an article
about something whose promoter specifically intends to spread it on the
Internet, it is impossible to separate reporting from participation.  It's
a loophole in the definition of neutrality that doing things which help
one side of a dispute doesn't break neutrality, simply because our
intentions are neutral--even though our effects are not.

This brings to mind GNAA.  GNAA is a troll group who intentionally gave
themselves an offensive name so that even mentioning them helped them troll.
Wikipedia had a hard time getting rid of the article about them, because
we can't say by using their name, we're helping their goals in deciding
whether to have an article.  It was finally deleted by stretching the
notability rules instead.

And in a related question, I'd ask: Should we have an article Richard Gere
gerbil rumor?  (As long as our article describes the rumor as debunked, of
course--otherwise we would be directly violating BLP.) Some of the
justifications for that and for this sound similar.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-23 Thread The Cunctator

I agree. Let's remove all content on Wikipedia about the Internet.

On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 4:56 PM, Ken Arromdee arrom...@rahul.net wrote:

 I'm skeptical that we should have an article.

 The reason: Wikipedia is on the Internet.  If Wikipedia has an article
 about something whose promoter specifically intends to spread it on the
 Internet, it is impossible to separate reporting from participation.  It's
 a loophole in the definition of neutrality that doing things which help
 one side of a dispute doesn't break neutrality, simply because our
 intentions are neutral--even though our effects are not.

 This brings to mind GNAA.  GNAA is a troll group who intentionally gave
 themselves an offensive name so that even mentioning them helped them
 troll.
 Wikipedia had a hard time getting rid of the article about them, because
 we can't say by using their name, we're helping their goals in deciding
 whether to have an article.  It was finally deleted by stretching the
 notability rules instead.

 And in a related question, I'd ask: Should we have an article Richard Gere
 gerbil rumor?  (As long as our article describes the rumor as debunked, of
 course--otherwise we would be directly violating BLP.) Some of the
 justifications for that and for this sound similar.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-23 Thread Ken Arromdee

On Mon, 23 May 2011, geni wrote:
 When you Google for Santorum's last name this Wikipedia article is the
 second result. This means that people who are looking for legitimate
 information about him are not going to find it right away - instead we are
 going to feed them information about a biased smear campaign rather than the
 former Senators BLP.
 Google's search results are entirely their business.

The fact that we need to be careful about BLPs because the BLPs rank high in
Google is our business.  This is not technically a BLP, and Santorum is
known for more than one thing, but I'd think it'd at least fall under the
*spirit* of Wikipedia editors must not act, intentionally or otherwise, in a
way that amounts to participating in or prolonging the victimization.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

2011-05-23 Thread Ken Arromdee

On Mon, 23 May 2011, The Cunctator wrote:
 The reason: Wikipedia is on the Internet.  If Wikipedia has an article
 about something whose promoter specifically intends to spread it on the
 Internet, it is impossible to separate reporting from participation.  It's
 a loophole in the definition of neutrality that doing things which help
 one side of a dispute doesn't break neutrality, simply because our
 intentions are neutral--even though our effects are not.
 I agree. Let's remove all content on Wikipedia about the Internet.

Is about the Internet and is mainly an Internet promotional campaign
aren't the same thing.

Someone might write a book and want it promoted on the Internet, but the
fact that it's being promoted on the Internet is way down on the list of
important facts about that book.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]