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Talk:Noteworthy E-mails

3,441 bytes added, 19:03, March 16, 2006
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Keeping a record of these events is not inherently a bad idea. However, the fact that they seem(ed) to be recorded on multiple wiki pages gives the impression that someone is just trying to get everyone all riled up over them again, rather than merely keeping track of them for historical purposes. --[[User:06mea|06mea]] 13:02, 16 March 2006 (EST)
 
To phrase Lucy's (06lc) comment another way (at least, how I read it): Presentation is everything. It's one thing to present facts, another to present raw data, and quite something else to present particular facts and data in such a way that the reader's opinion is instantly colored by the opinion of the presenter. Whether it was intentional or not, that's what happened. Imagine if I created a "David Kane '88" page and included as its only content, "David Kane, class of '88, is the founder of EphBlog and was involved in a large controversy when EphBlog posted racist slurs." Factually true...but phrasing matters a great deal and that's certainly not the entire story of that controversy, EphBlog, or David Kane '88. Yet imagine what a casual browser of Willipedia would take from that...
--[[User:06jps|06jps]] 15:18, 16 March 2006 (EST)
 
I agree with Joe's interpretation of my statement, and I also want to say that my comments do not just apply to the category of noteworthy emails, I have also made comments on why I think other pages dealing with these controversies are not necessary or appropriate, so asking me if I "deny these emails were sent" is beside the point and not helpful. -- [[User:06lc|06lc]] 15:49, 16 March 2006 (EST)
 
First, this may be all water under the bridge since the board has decided to 1) Post public e-mails in a central archive with no commentary (e.g., [http://wso.williams.edu/wiki/images/3/3b/William_Lenhart_to_the_Williams_Community_-_1_November_2004.txt here]; 2) To not maintain private e-mails. Second, if you think that pages about things like Nigaleian or QBE are not "not necessary or appropriate" you should bring it up with the board. I believe that they have decided to include such pages in Willipedia. Third, if you think that I (or any other contributor to Willipedia) have "presented particular facts and data in such a way that the reader's opinion is instantly colored by the opinion of the presenter" in an unhelpful way, you need merely edit that presentation. You have the power. (I do not think that this is a fair characterization, by the way.) --[[User:Dkane|Dkane]] 16:09, 16 March 2006 (EST)
 
'''Action taken by the [[Willipedia board]] on this article.''' Last night, a member of the board cleared the initial content of this article as we sought a better way to archive historical content. As DKane wrote above, we are going to try this for now:
# Because historical documents are not for editing, like a wiki article needs to be, they are more like media and will be treated as media -- like the pictures etc. you can upload and link to in articles at [[Special:Upload]].
# Public emails are fine to upload as .txt files. "Public" means that the author of the text sent his email to campus@wso, williams-students, or a similar target that a sender expects will make his words public.
# Emails to individuals and student organizations, "private" emails, will not be allowed in the Willipedia archives.
#Writers may still, and are encouraged to, synthesize quotes and excerpts from documents into their writing. Footnoting such short portions with a link to the full document you've uploaded to the Media section is great, if you deem it fit.
 
We thank all above who joined the discussion on this page, and still welcome more here and on other talk pages, as you also go about making the changes you want to see.
--[[User:05jl|05jl]] 18:03, 16 March 2006 (EST)
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