subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
Stop wikilawyering.

  It was clear that these images were going to go. That's the important thing.

  Ok, TBSDY cut to the chase - but he got the job done. "Process" is not some god to be bowed down to. Now, ok, if TBSDY deleted images wholesale where there was a realistic possibility that after going through a fuller process they would have stayed, then there would be some point in asking him not to do the same thing in the future  - and even then you shouldn't rake him over the coals for actions clearly conducted in good faith. However, in this case, noting this email, there is no doubt - the images were doomed and the only action worth doing in response is thanking TBSDY for carry out the administrative chore.

  Jon

Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
  The TBSDY e-mail has been posted at the RFC with Jimbo's permission,
so I don't think it's wrong to repost it here.

From: Jimmy Wales Mailed-By: wikia.com
To: Arbitration Committee mailing list
Cc: ta.bu.shi.da.yu at gmail.com, Tony Sidaway
Date: Feb 19, 2006 7:42 AM
Subject: Re: [Arbcom-l] ta_bu_shi_da_yu believes over 200 Time
magazine covers pose a serious liability and bad PR
threat

I'd like to see a bulk AfD on these things. And if the answer is wrong,
then I'll personally delete them anyway and use this as a good example
of what's broken about AfD.

--
#######################################################################
# Office: 1-727-231-0101 | Free Culture and Free Knowledge #
# http://www.wikipedia.org | Building a free world #
#######################################################################

I think my interpretation is correct that this did not give TBSDY
authority to speedy the images. As we know, AFD is about the polar
opposite of speedying, for better or worse.

FF

On 3/2/06, Justin Cormack wrote:
> On Thu, 2006-03-02 at 11:58 -0500, Fastfission wrote:
> > Here are my claims simplified:
> > 1. TBSDY was speedying large amounts of images labeled as "fair use"
> > as being copyvios.
> > 2. There are no CSD provisions for speedying images as copyvios (or at
> > least, were not any at the time he was doing this; I haven't checked
> > them since then).
> > 3. TBSDY claimed that Jimbo gave him the right to speedy images as
> > copyvios in a private e-mail.
> > 4. TBSDY produced the e-mail, and it said that TBSDY could nominate
> > the images for deletion (the proper policy), and if that failed, Jimbo
> > might decide to speedy them. It did not say TBSDY could speedy images,
> > or any other admin, as copyvios.
> >
> > My conclusions: TBSDY did not, in fact, have the authority to speedy
> > images as copyvios, and was acting against policy. I'm perfectly happy
> > to assume good faith on this and assume he misunderstood Jimbo's
> > e-mail or something like that -- nothing dishonest is posited.
>
> Seems like an amount of misunderstanding.
>
> Can we see the email?
>
> Justinc
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
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list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Gareth Hughes ([[User:Garzo]])

subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability and Africa

body:
There is quite a difference between unverifiable and something that is
just difficult to verify. There are also overlaps with 'no original
research' here. In the end, common sense needs to be factored in. What
is common knowledge in one part of the world may not be in another.
Verifiability should not be turned into a bureaucratic exercise, where
information is removed because it hasn't filled its form in correctly.
Of course, editors should be challenged to give supporting evidence
for something, but it should not be rejected just because it cannot be
supported by internet sources or an American/Australian/British
library. Such a line would only increase the systemic bias towards
English-speaking computer users in developed countries. The world is
growing ever smaller, but it's not yet that small.

Gareth Hughes.

On 02/03/06, Jon <thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Indeed, but something that is inherently unverifiable, as an otherwise unpublished report is, is never a reasonable source.
>
>   Jon
>
>
> Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>   Too grim. What is a reasonable source varies with the subject.
>
> Fred
>
> On Mar 2, 2006, at 8:47 AM, Jon wrote:
>
> > To be blunt, which bit of saying that every bit of info must be
> > supported by a verifiable and reputable source is unclear?
> >
> > In this instance, the information is clearly unverifiable, so it
> > shouldn't be added.
> >
> > Jon
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>
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> _______________________________________________
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> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Jon

subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
And what I am saying is that WP should concentrate on what it is doing, and what it's aims are. Accentuate the positive.

  Jon

jayjg <jayjg99 at gmail.com> wrote:
  On 3/2/06, slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:
>
> On 3/2/06, Jon wrote:
> > This is succinct, to the point, and absolutely correct. It doesn't need
> development (keep things simple!).
> >
> > All you need now is to get rid of the nonsense in the first half of
> the policy page referring to what the policy isn't, and stick to saying
> clearly what the policy is. At present the first third of the page just
> tells you WP's not looking for truth!!?!?!?!?!!!
> >
> But that's arguably the most important part of the policy, Jon. If
> people understand that the threshold for inclusion is verifiability,
> not truth, then they've grasped the essence of V and NOR.
> Unfortunately, lots of people just don't get it, which is why the
> point is made right at the top of the page.

And sometimes, when they do get it, they try to remove it from the policy?
Why? Because they imagine that they (via Wikipedia) can actually
disseminate the TRUTH, and if it so happens that the TRUTH is only found in
their own head, or "everyone knows it", or (at best) it is found on some
personal or blatantly propagandistic website, well, so be it.

There are plenty of websites out there that disseminate the TRUTH; e.g. The
Truth about Hell (http://www.av1611.org/hell.html), The Truth about George
W. Bush (http://www.thetruthaboutgeorge.com/), The Truth about Iraq (
http://www.thetruthaboutiraq.org/), The opposite Truth about Iraq (
http://www.truthaboutwar.org/home.shtml), The Truth about Islam (
http://www.lamblion.com/New08.php), The opposite Truth about Islam (
http://www.twf.org/), oops, a different opposite Truth about Islam (
http://islamstrueface.blogspot.com/), The Truth about Black Helicopters (
http://zapatopi.net/blackhelicopters/), etc. - that last one is
intentionally funny, by the way, unlike the others, which are only
unintentionally so.

One of the brilliant things about Wikipedia is that it is not so arrogant as
to presume it can or should present "the TRUTH"; instead it presents
verifiable information from reliable sources, which is far more useful, and
almost always more truthful, than "the TRUTH".

Jay.
_______________________________________________
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WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
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from_name: Keith Old

subject: [WikiEN-l] We've Hit One Million

body:
 On 3/2/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I guess Jimbo seeded Wikipedia with its initial articles. Best would be
> > to
> > check [[History of Wikipedia]] or ask him.
> >
> > Mgm
> >
> >
> > On 3/2/06, STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA <wizzard_bane at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Who wrote the first article and what was it about?
> > > Anyone who knows?
> > >
> > > --- "Ilya N." <ilyanep at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hehe...
> > > >
> > > > I agree the article will probably be FA sometime
> > > > tomorrow or this week ;)
> > > >
> > > > Anyways, congratulations on the great achievement to
> > > > everyone.
> > > >
> > > > On 3/1/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > Ben Emmel wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_press_releases/Wikipedia_hits_milestone_1_million_English_articles
> > > > > >
> > > > > > The article is [[
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordanhill_railway_station]]
> > > > > >
> > > > > > This is a pretty big accomplishment. Good job,
> > > > everyone. Our next
> > > > > milestone
> > > > > > will be 1,000,000 featured articles, sometime in
> > > > March 2050.
> > > > >
> > > > > I think our next milestone will be 1,000,000
> > > > userboxes... sometime next
> > > > > week. ;-)
> > > > >
> > > > > Everyone don't party too much tonight, we don't
> > > > need to have a huge
> > > > > WikiHangover tomorrow. :)
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > --
> > > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > #######################################################################
> > > > > #    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture
> > > > and  Free Knowledge #
> > > > > #    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a
> > > > free world         #
> > > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > #######################################################################
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > > > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > > > > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > > > >
> > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > ~Ilya N.
> > > > http://w3stuff.com/ilya/ (My website; DarkLordFoxx
> > > > Media)
> > > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ilyanep (on
> > > > Wikipedia)
> > > > http://www.wheresgeorge.com - Track your money's
> > > > travels.
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > > > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > __________________________________________________
> > > Do You Yahoo!?
> > > Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> > > http://mail.yahoo.com
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
According to the History of Wikipedia article, it was U if you mean the
first article still in our article space.

Regards

*Keith Old*


from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
On 3/2/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> Which is exactly what I've been arguing for.  Contested, unsourced
> citations should be dealt with.
>
> > Which is basically what the current policy says.
>
> Unfortunately not.
>
That's because you're looking at the wrong part of the page, Steve.
Why quote from halfway down it when you could quote from the top? It
says:

1. Articles should contain only material that has been published by
reputable sources.

2. Editors adding new material to an article should cite a reputable
source, or it may be removed by any editor.

3. The obligation to provide a reputable source lies with the editors
wishing to include the material, not on those seeking to remove it.

There's no "crud," as you put it, and it's crystal clear.

Sarah


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pity the admin....

body:
On Thu, 2 Mar 2006 16:08:27 +0000, you wrote:

>This article would be, I dare say, of intense interest to
>members of the American and Canadian scout movement who are involved
>in this controversy.

Ah, so it's useful in furthering a political agenda.  That explains
the massive pile-on in AfD, anyway.  I guess it's like Christianity:
Jesus is dead so we can all make a living pretending we alone know
what he thought :-)
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Victoria Powers

subject: [Wikitech-l] Setting up Recent Changes for a different database

body:
Hello,

I just created a simple form as a special page with in my wiki.  This form is a simple data entry form and uses a mysql database.  How can I  link this database to the recent changes page.  Or better yet, have a separate special page of recent changes for changes to this database only?

Any info will be greatly appreciated!

Thank you,

Victoria.


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Escaping the GDFL -- can it be done?

body:
On 02/03/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:

> Based on this principle: can one really ask users to
> re-(multi)-license their PAST contributions? That is, can I say, "All
> those contributions I said were under the GFDL? Well, now I want them
> to also be GFDL or CC-BY-SA." Legally, I'm suspicious, but I'm also
> not a lawyer.

It seems acceptable to me.

I make an edit to a page. This edit is utterly and irrevocably
copyrighted by me (assume, for now, that it's a nontrivial edit).
However, I also implicitly release that edit under the GFDL.

I am, however, completely at liberty to reuse that edit *outside* the
terms of the GFDL, since I personally own the copyright; this would
include, for example, deeming it to be licensed under a different
license *so long as I did not revoke the GFDL*. The GFDL is a license,
not an abdication of copyright.

Does that make sense? Consider a non-commercial CC license - it
doesn't mean the copyright holder can't make money off it, it just
means that no-one *else* can.

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pity the admin....

body:
Peter Mackay wrote:
>>From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
>>[mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Guy
>>Chapman aka JzG
>
>
>
>>...who has to close this mess:
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/R
>>obert_Baden-Powell%27s_sexual_orientation
>>
>>A whole article devoted to speculation in a couple of books
>>on the sexuality of the founder of Scouting, apparently
>>because nobody could agree how little of it should go in the
>>main article.
>>
>>The word count given to such speculation between the two
>>articles, is, according to my rough and ready count, more or
>>less equivalent to the combined count for his military career
>>AND the founding of the Scout Movement.  Can we say "undue weight"?
>
>
> I was looking up some recent historical figure yesterday - can't remember
> who - and the second para of the article was devoted to speculation about
> his homosexuality. I thought that was really weird.

That wasn't Richard the Lionheart by any chance was it?

> I'm not uncomfortable
> with famous people being homosexual, but I'm just not sure that we need to
> give such prominence and weight. It's almost as if such people are being
> used as posthumous pin-up boys for modern day homosexual folk, when the
> reality is that we are writing biographical articles about the careers and
> achievements of these people, not about who poked whom. This information
> should go at the bottom, maybe in a trivia section.
>

Or better yet, in a seperate article which lumps all of the various
speculations about a hundred different figures in history together on
one page, and *then* we will have a decent article.

And know, I'm not proposing it be called [[Historical figures who poked
people they shouldn't have]].

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> On 3/2/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>  You're asking me to take on faith that you know better than
>> me,
>>
>
> Yes.   I cannot discuss the contents of email communications with you,
> but I can say that Ta bu shi da yu's actions had the full support of
> Jimbo Wales.
>
I hate to jump in on a conversation that seems to have ended
acrimoniously, but it's kind of important considering image deletion
isn't revertible. If Jimbo has decided that a class of images that are
otherwise acceptable on Wikipedia in accordance with Wikipedia's
policies are instead to be deleted wholesale, then why in heaven's name
won't he just _say_ so in a public place? It's within his authority,
after all, and would make things so much easier for everyone. Secrecy
just doesn't make any sense.
>> despite all evidence to the contrary.
>>
>
> There is no evidence to the contrary.  You're being unbelievably
> obtuse and grossly offensive, but you have absolutely no grounds to
> attack Ta bu shi da yu in this way and no grounds for your repeated
> false claim that I have misrepresented the facts.
>
As an outside observer who hasn't seen anything except what's been
posted on this thread, I must say that I just can't see this.
"Misinterpretation" is a far cry from "misrepresentation." It can be
completely innocent, and can happen to anyone.

And in the end, it doesn't really matter who misinterpreted what or who
insulted who in this particular case. The end result of relying on
private emails that can't be made public is that new editors coming
along (like me) won't have any idea what the correct action in this
situation is. I think it's quite reasonable to point out this problem.


from_name: Justin Cormack

subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On Thu, 2006-03-02 at 17:36 +0000, Jon wrote:
> Stop wikilawyering.
>
>   It was clear that these images were going to go. That's the important thing.
>
>   Ok, TBSDY cut to the chase - but he got the job done. "Process" is not some god to be bowed down to. Now, ok, if TBSDY deleted images wholesale where there was a realistic possibility that after going through a fuller process they would have stayed, then there would be some point in asking him not to do the same thing in the future  - and even then you shouldn't rake him over the coals for actions clearly conducted in good faith. However, in this case, noting this email, there is no doubt - the images were doomed and the only action worth doing in response is thanking TBSDY for carry out the administrative chore.
>

We need a policy because there is far too much of this "fair use"
rubbish for one person to delete - tens of thousands of images need to
go so we can get back on track making a free encyclopaedia. At least
this action suggests that Jimbo has finally decided to move to the next
stage.

Anyone fancy deleting all the Pokemon images next?

Justinc


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] Escaping the GFDL -- can it be done?

body:
On 3/2/06, Steven Ericsson Zenith <steven at semeiosis.org> wrote:
>
> Philip is correct.  The only way to escape the GDFL is to rewrite the
> entire encyclopedia under a different license - or get every single
> contributor to agree to reassign the content.  Good luck with that.
>
You could always mix the two.  Relicense some parts and rewrite the
rest.  Of course, figuring out which parts are relicensed and which
aren't is almost as hard as just rewriting the thing.

> The first approach actually seems viable to me - see
> http://www.panopedia.org  :-)
>
> With respect,
> Steven

The first approach is of course viable.  At the very worst it could be
done with the same amount of time it took to create the current
version.  But in practice it'd be easier.  Plus, you could fact check
and reference while you're at it.

In the long term, on the order of a decade or so, this is probably
what's going to wind up happening anyway.

Anthony


from_name: Adrian Buehlmann

subject: [WikiEN-l] <ref> and {{reference}}

body:
On Thursday, March 02, 2006 4:10 PM [GMT+1=CET],
The Cunctator wrote:
[snip]
> Example:
>
> A trillion articles is a million<ref name="million">{{news reference
>> url=http://it.slashdot.org/it/06/03/02/006208.shtml
>> org=Slashdot
>> title=Wikipedia Reaches 1,000,000 Articles
>> date=March 1, 2006
> }}</ref> million<ref name="million" /> articles.
>
> <references/>

Please have a look at at

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=AIDS&action=edit

for an example formatting of this kind of wikisource.

Adrian Buehlmann
adrianb @ pobox.com


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
On 3/2/06, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/2/06, Jon <thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> > This is succinct, to the point, and absolutely correct. It doesn't need development (keep things simple!).
> >
> >   All you need now is to get rid of the nonsense in the first half of the policy page referring to what the policy isn't, and stick to saying clearly what the policy is. At present the first third of the page just tells you WP's not looking for truth!!?!?!?!?!!!
> >
> But that's arguably the most important part of the policy, Jon. If
> people understand that the threshold for inclusion is verifiability,
> not truth, then they've grasped the essence of V and NOR.
> Unfortunately, lots of people just don't get it, which is why the
> point is made right at the top of the page.

I think one point of confusion is that we're putting
* implications of the policy
* guidelines based on the policy
* interpretations of the policy

on the same page as the policy.

The only thing that should be on the policy page is the policy.

In fact, this is certain ways the type of confusion that motivated
Larry Sanger to create Meta.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Alex Reid

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Error in fetchObject(): ?

body:
Hello fellow wikipedians!

I'm in the middle of moving a wiki project from one IP to another.
I've successfully transferred the database and files. But I'm getting this
error:

Error in fetchObject(): Can't open file: 'page.InnoDB'. (errno: 1)
Backtrace:

GlobalFunctions.php line 451 calls wfbacktrace()
Database.php line 531 calls wfdebugdiebacktrace()
MessageCache.php line 151 calls databasemysql::fetchobject()
MessageCache.php line 94 calls messagecache::loadfromdb()
MessageCache.php line 247 calls messagecache::load()
GlobalFunctions.php line 342 calls messagecache::get()
GlobalFunctions.php line 322 calls wfmsggetkey()
GlobalFunctions.php line 297 calls wfmsgreal()
OutputPage.php line 657 calls wfmsgnodb()
Database.php line 411 calls outputpage::databaseerror()
Database.php line 358 calls databasemysql::reportqueryerror()
BagOStuff.php line 382 calls databasemysql::query()
BagOStuff.php line 279 calls mediawikibagostuff::_doquery()
BagOStuff.php line 228 calls mediawikibagostuff::_query()
MessageCache.php line 83 calls mediawikibagostuff::get()
MessageCache.php line 247 calls messagecache::load()
GlobalFunctions.php line 342 calls messagecache::get()
GlobalFunctions.php line 322 calls wfmsggetkey()
GlobalFunctions.php line 288 calls wfmsgreal()
wiki line 77 calls wfmsgforcontent()

----
Any ideas?

Thank you in advance!

Alex Reid
Winnipeg, MB, Canada


from_name: geni

body:
On 3/2/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> In order to
> accomplish that at present, we'd have to do a hostile takeover of the
> Free Software Foundation.
>

And the downside of doing that would be?

>
> If this principle works -- couldn't we change the terms of use? That
> is, instead of every edit being licenseable under the GFDL, couldn't
> we change it to say that "this contribution, and any other
> contribution I have previously made, is licenseable under the GFDL or
> any other similarly 'free' license"? It wouldn't necessarily get *all*
> of the content out of the GFDL but, if we assume that many of the
> editors now were editors previously, it would potentially "free up" a
> very large amount of content.

Derivative works. One editor per article would be enough to really
mess things up.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
Philip Welch wrote:
> On Mar 1, 2006, at 3:48 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>>We have to assume people can read English. Saying that an unsourced
>>>edit MAY be removed is clearly not the same as saying it MUST be or
>>>SHOULD be.
>>>
>>
>>Of course they're different, but most people don't read with that
>>degree
>>of precision even though they have been reading English for most of
>>their lives.
>
>
> Rules and policies are meant to be written precisely, Ray. They have
> precise meanings.
>
> The fact that stunningly large amounts of people have poor reading
> comprehension does not detract from this.
>

In this case I would have thought the meaning perfectly clear:

"Like any other material which you submit to Wikipedia, unsourced edits
may be removed at the discretion of any editor."

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 3/1/06, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>>Part of the problem is with the permissive word "may", which is too
>>>often read as though it were "shall".
>>>
>>
>>We have to assume people can read English. Saying that an unsourced
>>edit MAY be removed is clearly not the same as saying it MUST be or
>>SHOULD be.
>
>
> I also couldn't come up with a more ambiguous expression if I tried.
>
> Two different meanings:
> 1) An unsourced edit could end up being removed - be warned
> 2) You have the permission to remove unsourced edits
>
> How can we better word this?
>

At present it says:

"Editors adding new material to an article should cite a reputable
source, or it may be removed by any editor."

A better wording would be:

"New material added to an article that lacks a reputable source is
likely to be removed without warning. It is courteous for the editor who
removes this material to re-insert it on the talk page of the article,
along with a note about why it was removed."

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
jayjg wrote:
> On 3/1/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>What about online sources that go off-line?
>>I've had it happen several times, turning a completely verifiable article
>>into something that can't be verified through said sources anymore. How
>>are
>>we supposed to fight that?
>>
>>
>
> You reference it with the name and URL of the page, and the date accessed.
>

And hope there's an archive.org copy available in six months time.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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from_name: Brian Salter-Duke

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pity the admin....

body:
It looks like I may be the only person who reads this list who has been
involved in this "mess".

On Thu, Mar 02, 2006 at 12:03:05AM +0100, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> I'm not sure that info should go anywhere. Surely it's a fringe theory?

No, it is not fringe. It is from the most modern researched biography
of Baden-Powell. It does not state he was homosexual. It raises some
serious issues about a man who started a major youth movement. These are
important.

This was hived off to a sub article with the agreement of both sides who
had been warring about what went into the main article. They then agreed
on the content as part of the war was about how much to add to the main
article without losing the balance there between different parts of his
life

Note the nominator wants to get rid of it as a "smear" against Baden-Powell.
It is'nt yet some Scouts see him so much as God that they can not bear to
see any possible criticism. Actually I do not think the article is
critical in any bad sense. It shows he was human, battled with a rather
strange sexual orientation, yet won out and founded Scouting and had, late
in life, three kids. It makes him more of a hero to me, not less.

Even if it is kept, some argument will continue, but it will in the end
make a better article. If it is deleted it will just be back to war
again on the main article. It is best kept. It is important.

However, I'm not an admin, so I do not have to sort it out.

> Anyway, I really don't get why some people are so obsessed with the sexual
> orientation of celebrities and historical figures. What does it really
> matter?
>
> Besides, some of those will never have any conclusive proof. You could argue
> Caesar was homosexual, but unless someone finds his diary tomorrow in which
> he revealed all his secrets, you're never going to know. It's pointless to
> debate someone's sexuality when it has absolutely no bearing on what they're
> famous for.
>
> Also, the word "homosexual" means the person described as such feels
> attracted to people of the same sex (hence: it's a feeling). You can say he
> kissed X and looked lovingly at Y, but none of it proves anything because it
> says nothing about their feelings.
>
> Bottom line. Even if Powell was gay, it doesn't make him a pedophile so why
> should it be at all important to Scouting?
>
> Unless the celeb in question open admitted their sexual preference,
> speculation about the issue is totally pointless.
>
> Mgm
>
>
> ------------------------------

--
         Brian Salter-Duke (Brian Duke) b_duke at octa4.net.au
       Post: 626 Melbourne Rd, Spotswood, VIC, 3015, Australia
    Phone 03-93992847. http://members.iinet.net.au/~linden1/brian/
Honorary Researcher Fellow, Dept. of Medicinal Chemistry, Monash Univ.


subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 3/2/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>A better wording would be:
>>
>>"New material added to an article that lacks a reputable source is
>>likely to be removed without warning. It is courteous for the editor who
>>removes this material to re-insert it on the talk page of the article,
>>along with a note about why it was removed."
>
>
> Why do we keep coming back to this strange policy? It doesn't make
> much sense (95% of Wikipedia is "likely to be removed without
> warning"?), and it certainly doesn't reflect current practice.
>

With any luck it's keeping the original research out.

> This situation is starting to remind me of police who tell the public
> "if you do X or Y, you WILL be caught", when the actual apprehension
> rate is vanishingly small.
>

Don't forget that we're working towards 1.0 and a million featured
articles...

> Is it not silly to have the most fundamental policy we have be so far
> removed from a) current practice, and b) what we actually want? We
> want sources, but we also want material to be added - we don't
> actually remove material except as a last resort. Maybe we need
> something like:
>
> "When considering removing unsourced material, take into account the
> likely factual accuracy of the material, the possible harm that could
> be done by leaving it, and the chance that a subsequent editor could
> find a source for it. Libellous material or copyright violations
> aside, it is polite to move the material to the talk page with an
> explanation for your removal."
>

Good, much better than my version. But we also need to encourage people
to cite their sources (where possible) and remind them that anything
which doesn't seem quite right *is likely to be removed*.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
On 3/2/06, jayjg <jayjg99 at gmail.com> wrote:
> One of the brilliant things about Wikipedia is that it is not so arrogant as
> to presume it can or should present "the TRUTH"; instead it presents
> verifiable information from reliable sources, which is far more useful, and
> almost always more truthful, than "the TRUTH".

It may not seek to determine a single truth on controversial issues,
but it generally aims to present "true" facts on noncontroversial
topics, rather than simply references. *That* is the value - not,
"here is a list of 30 websites about topic X, knock yourself out", but
instead, "200 editors contributed what they believe to be true about
topic X, and we also have 3 references to high quality websites that
back that up".

Verifiability and sources are great, and are a good goal to be aiming
for. But if we don't have them, let's at least have make sure
Wikipedia contains "true" "facts" in the meantime.

Steve


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pity the admin....

body:
On 3/2/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 2 Mar 2006 16:08:27 +0000, you wrote:
>
> >This article would be, I dare say, of intense interest to
> >members of the American and Canadian scout movement who are involved
> >in this controversy.
>
> Ah, so it's useful in furthering a political agenda.  That explains
> the massive pile-on in AfD, anyway.  I guess it's like Christianity:
> Jesus is dead so we can all make a living pretending we alone know
> what he thought :-)

I think that's over-cynical.  While the authors don't write in a
political vacuum, there's no suggestion that they're just grinding a
political axe.  Just because, say, evolution is still a political hot
potato in one or two countries, doesn't mean that we cannot write
factual articles about research in the area, and it certainly doesn't
mean that we should write off published research that is widely
recognised. Looking at the references section of the article and
comparing it to the contents page of Jeal's book at Amazon, I see that
he devotes a whole chapter, 35 pages in a relatively brief biography,
to the question.

I don't think there's any sense in failing to admit that this is a
controversial subject for some people and in some countries.  That
this is no longer considered such a controversial subject in
Baden-Powell's native England is not the point.  So it seems to me
that the question becomes: do we write about research in areas that
may upset the religious right of the United States?  Well I know my
answer.


body:
On 3/2/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/2/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Derivative works. One editor per article would be enough to really
> > mess things up.
>
> That's true, and would be a serious snag for, no doubt, many articles
> -- it also does not help this that many of those which are "most
> important" for encyclopedia are also the ones with the most edits.
> Though I wonder -- if an edit is reverted, does the editor still have
> the ability to claim authorship? I can see different answers to that,
> none of which I'm completely satisfied.
>

Under GFDL yes however they probably don't hold copyright (you know
original content creativity that stuff).

> At the very least, a change to the terms of use would at least prevent
> the issue for any articles created from that point forward, and would
> focus the problem on issues relating to editors who no longer
> contribute.
>
> FF

It is editors who are dead that would be the real issue.


from_name: Fastfission

body:
On 3/2/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> You could always mix the two.  Relicense some parts and rewrite the
> rest.  Of course, figuring out which parts are relicensed and which
> aren't is almost as hard as just rewriting the thing.

There might be automated ways to do it -- massive database crunches to
see who wrote one in an existing article, whether they were under the
new scheme, what exactly would need to be rewritten/removed/whatever.
But that's a little out of my league, technically speaking -- I don't
know if it is feasible in terms of processing power, the amount of
time it would take to code the whole thing, etc. (it probably isn't).

> The first approach is of course viable.  At the very worst it could be
> done with the same amount of time it took to create the current
> version.  But in practice it'd be easier.  Plus, you could fact check
> and reference while you're at it.

I imagine it would take a lot less time -- the number of editors has
grown dramatically since then, so hypothetically there are already
huge resources available. Hypothetically.

FF


from_name: Peter Mackay

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pity the admin....

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Brian Salter-Duke

> It looks like I may be the only person who reads this list
> who has been involved in this "mess".
>
> On Thu, Mar 02, 2006 at 12:03:05AM +0100, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> > I'm not sure that info should go anywhere. Surely it's a
> fringe theory?
>
> No, it is not fringe. It is from the most modern researched
> biography of Baden-Powell. It does not state he was
> homosexual. It raises some serious issues about a man who
> started a major youth movement. These are important.

Deserving of mention, perhaps. But not to the extent where speculation and
debate are given equal time to the real achievements of a historical figure.

Peter (Skyring)


from_name: Ilya N.

subject: [WikiEN-l] Protection of the Today's FA

body:
Agreed. It may be a bad idea to do it all the time, but I'd rather that new
readers didn't go on FAs and see pictures of penises

On 3/2/06, Jtkiefer <jtkiefer at wordzen.net> wrote:
>
> Zzyzx11 at Wikipedia wrote:
> > It seems that some admins are protecting the "Triumph of the Will"
> article
> > to prevent vandalism, even though it is currently Today's FA and against
> our
> > protection policy of high visible articles. I was even reverted on the
> page
> > protection:
> >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=protect&user=&page=Triumph+of+the+Will
> >
> > Comments? ~~~~
> >
> > Zzyzx11 at en.wikipedia.org
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zzyzx11
> > zzyzx11 at hotmail.com
> >
> That policy makes no sense.  I agree that protection should be avoided
> if at all possible on visible articles but the policy is taken way too
> literally at times and there are times when protection of an FA is a
> good idea.
>
> -Jtkiefer
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
~Ilya N.
http://w3stuff.com/ilya/ (My website; DarkLordFoxx Media)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ilyanep (on Wikipedia)
http://www.wheresgeorge.com - Track your money's travels.


from_name: Robert Bamler

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia on iPod (Encyclopodia) available now

body:
Hello,

> least as far as the webpage is concerned. I still have not heard whether or
> not the logo that appears to be on a splash/intro screen on the iPod has
> been removed

This must be a misunderstanding. Encyclopodia doesn't have a splash screen,
the image in the Encyclopodia-installer [1] is just an illustration. I'll
remove the Wikipedia-logo from that image soon.

Sorry for that confusion,
Robert

[1] http://encyclopodia.sourceforge.net/en/installer.gif


from_name: Jtkiefer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Protection of the Today's FA

body:
Zzyzx11 at Wikipedia wrote:
> It seems that some admins are protecting the "Triumph of the Will" article
> to prevent vandalism, even though it is currently Today's FA and against our
> protection policy of high visible articles. I was even reverted on the page
> protection:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=protect&user=&page=Triumph+of+the+Will
>
> Comments? ~~~~
>
> Zzyzx11 at en.wikipedia.org
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zzyzx11
> zzyzx11 at hotmail.com
>
That policy makes no sense.  I agree that protection should be avoided
if at all possible on visible articles but the policy is taken way too
literally at times and there are times when protection of an FA is a
good idea.

-Jtkiefer


from_name: Rob

subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability and Africa

body:
I'm sure an anthropologist would be very interested in this.  We, however,
are writing an encyclopedia, not compiling an oral history of the world.
There are enough areas of human knowledge that we don't have sufficiently
covered that fall under the scope of our quixotic mission without creating
all new categories of things to accomplish.

On 3/2/06, Nicholas Moreau <beaubeaver at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>   Suppose a tribes' elder writes an article on his village, he'll do
> it  based on oral history, or one-off documents. This information may
> be  recorded in books, but these books are stashed away in libraries
> miles  upon miles away.
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] We've Hit One Million

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Ray Saintonge

> Would anyone consider having a branze plaque mounted to that
> railway station to commemorate the event?

I'll bet it would be promptly and brazenly vandalised.

Peter (Skyring)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability and Africa

body:
This kind of stuff is actually a big concern within studies about the
writing of history (historiography) and the philosophy and sociology
of science -- what kinds of sources become part of "the archive", what
sorts of systemic biases are imposed by certain "standards of rigor",
how demarcation boundaries are really ways of imposing certain
"regimes of truth", and so forth.

In the end, though, being "an encyclopedia" already probably commits
us to certain epistemological programs over others. We can try to
lessen that where possible -- orals sources, can, for example, be
transcribed -- and try not to flaunt our biases, but we should not
feel unimpeded to draw the line somewhere.

The philosopher Paul Feyerabend was known for arguing that the
scientific method, as a method, was by definitive restrictive to what
sorts of knowledge could be integrated into the scientific corpus. He
was right, but I think he erred when he implied that this was not, in
fact, the entire point of having a scientific method: it's a
necessarily non-holistic form of knowledge, but it is reliable form of
knowledge. You trade away some of your possibilities, but you get
reliability and robustness in return.

I think it is an apt analogy in this case as well. A verfiability
policy of our sort might lose the elders, but it keeps what we do
include clean.

FF

On 3/2/06, Nicholas Moreau <beaubeaver at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Africa was brought up in discussion of verifiability. This raises an  important question, should/can we be lax references for African content  in en?
>
>   Suppose a tribes' elder writes an article on his village, he'll do it  based on oral history, or one-off documents. This information may be  recorded in books, but these books are stashed away in libraries miles  upon miles away.
>
>   What happens then? It's true information, but there's little or no available sources for the writer to cite.
>
>   Nick/Zanimum
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Yahoo! Messenger  NEW - crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: SJ

subject: [WikiEN-l] Jordanhill railway station Commemoration

body:
On 3/2/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> > [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Nicholas Moreau
>
> > It has been expressed by many users that the Wikimedia
> > Foundation should contact the authorities in control of the
> > Jordanhill railway station, and request a plaque be placed at
> > the station, in commemoration of the 1 millionth English article.
> >
> > If you agree with this concept in principle, you may put your
> > username here.
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Jordanhill_railway_station/C
> > ommemoration
> >
> > You must be logged in to a valid user account, with at least
> > 5 unreverted mainspace edits, at the time of signing.
>
> I fear that the plaque would be promptly vandalised...

There could be instruction on the side, in small print, regarding how
to deal with vandalism... and a little 'rollback' button

> But I have to wonder about the reaction of the railway administration and
> whether they might think we are taking ourselves a bit too seriously. It's
> only a website, after all.

And the Library of Congress is only a building...

...with 118 million items and 500 miles of shelf space.

SJ


from_name: Angela

body:
On 3/2/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:

> There was also the big push, awhile ago, to get
> users to put templates on their user pages indicating that their
> present, future, and, I think, *past* contributions were
> multi-licensed as well -- I believe it had to do with making certain
> articles compatible with WikiCities' license.

Wikicities is under the GFDL (to be compatible with Wikipedia), so any
relicensing had nothing to do with that.

> If this principle works -- couldn't we change the terms of use? That
> is, instead of every edit being licenseable under the GFDL, couldn't
> we change it to say that "this contribution, and any other
> contribution I have previously made, is licenseable under the GFDL or
> any other similarly 'free' license"?

There is a proposal on the German Wikipedia about making unregistered
users dual license their edits under the Creative Commons Attribution
Share-Alike License and GFDL. See
<http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meinungsbilder/Creative_Commons-Migration_Teil_1>
(Machine translation into English at <http://tinyurl.com/bkov5>). It
was discussed in German in this thread:
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikide-l/2006-January/016116.html

Angela


subject: [WikiEN-l] One Millionth - News items

body:
News items are starting to be published about the Jordanhill Station
article, some more heavily reliant on the official press release than
others. http://tinyurl.com/jvw2s is the link to the Google News list.

The article itself is rather over-egged for one about a suburban railway
station, but it is heart-warming to see that the first photographs in the
dawn light of a new day have been added after a lot of discussion about
copyright usage of images found here and there on the web.

Peter (Skyring)


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pity the admin....

body:
On Thu, 2 Mar 2006 20:11:36 +0000, you wrote:

> Just because, say, evolution is still a political hot
>potato in one or two countries, doesn't mean that we cannot write
>factual articles about research in the area

For sure.  Although I think our coverage of creation "science" is
altogether too sympathetic (and that's speaking as a practising
Christian).

>Looking at the references section of the article and
>comparing it to the contents page of Jeal's book at Amazon, I see that
>he devotes a whole chapter, 35 pages in a relatively brief biography,
>to the question.

Yes, 35 pages of a large book.  Here, it's about 30% of our entire
coverage of the subject.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] One Millionth - News items

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of MacGyverMagic/Mgm
> Sent: Friday, 3 March 2006 00:01
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] One Millionth - News items
>
> The TechWhack article is by far the best of the lot I've
> seen.

Heh. You write that one?

Actually, I think it's the weakest, from a journalistic viewpoint. I realise
it's from a PR database, but I don't have a lot of respect for journalism
that merely repeats or paraphrases the PR. I like to see a bit of skepticism
and investigation on the part of the media outlet. Good stories need
conflict and tension, and your average press release is pretty one-eyed.
--~~~~


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
G'day Steve,

> On 3/2/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>>Ahh!  That's the same rule that applies to sourced edit.  If that's the
>>case why bother even having the rule at all?
>
> Good point. There probably shouldn't be a "rule" about when to remove
> unsourced edits. Just some guidelines to be applied with common sense.

It's prolly important to include something to the effect of if you *do*
remove an unsourced edit because it's unsourced, then you're not going
to get in trouble.  That's something that policy's actually useful for,
actually --- as is [[WP:IAR]] ...

--
Mark Gallagher
"But the visibility was very poor, and you yourself admit that you were
being struck by thunderbolts all the time, which must have distracted
your attention, so it is more than probable you were mistaken."
- Esmond Haddock, /The Mating Season/

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 268.1.1/272 - Release Date: 1/03/2006


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-03-03

body:
An automated run of parserTests.php showed the following failures:

Running test BUG 361: URL within URL, not bracketed... FAILED!
Running test External links: invalid character... FAILED!
Running test Bug 2702: Mismatched <i> and <a> tags are invalid... FAILED!
Running test A table with no data.... FAILED!
Running test A table with nothing but a caption... FAILED!
Running test Link containing "#<" and "#>" % as a hex sequences... FAILED!
Running test Template with thumb image (wiht link in description)... FAILED!
Running test Link to image page... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A ISBN with a thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A <math> with a thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test BUG 561: {{/Subpage}}... FAILED!
Running test Simple category... FAILED!
Running test Section headings with TOC... FAILED!
Running test Media link with nasty text... FAILED!
Running test Bug 2095: link with pipe and three closing brackets... FAILED!
Running test Parser hook: static parser hook inside a comment... FAILED!
Running test Sanitizer: Validating the contents of the id attribute (bug 4515)... FAILED!

Passed 271 of 288 tests (94.1%) FAILED!


subject: [WikiEN-l] One Millionth - News items

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Steve Bennett

> On 3/2/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > The article itself is rather over-egged for one about a suburban
> > railway station, but it is heart-warming to see that the first
> > photographs in the dawn light of a new day have been added
> after a lot
> > of discussion about copyright usage of images found here
> and there on the web.
>
> I'm not sure what you mean about over-egged. I think it's
> great - there is actually a history of the railway station.
> This is not random trivia or excessive detail imho. Where
> else would you go to find that out?
>
> Anyway, there are a huge number of articles about stations
> out there (the Singapore metro network is particularly well
> covered). Just a pity most don't have this attention to
> detail, number of sources etc.

That's what I mean about over-egged for an article about a suburban railway
station. It would be great if '''all''' articles about such places had the
same level of detail. Great if you're a nut about railway stations, I
suppose. Knowing the number of parking spaces at a station is probably more
than I'll ever want to know.

Peter (Skyring)


subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
On 3/2/06, jayjg <jayjg99 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, I'm not advocating deleting everything in Wikipedia that doesn't have
> a citation from a reliable source beside it.  However, the instant someone
> says "I don't think this statement is true or factual", then you do have to
> produce a verifiable citation from a reliable source to back it up.

Which is exactly what I've been arguing for.  Contested, unsourced
citations should be dealt with.

> Which is basically what the current policy says.

Unfortunately not.

"Sometimes a statement can only be found in a publication of dubious
reliability, such as a tabloid newspaper. If the statement is
relatively unimportant, remove it."

"If an article topic has no reputable sources, Wikipedia should not
have an article on that topic. Any edit lacking a source may be
removed, but some editors may object if you remove large tracts of
Wikipedia without first giving people a chance to provide references
to support their inclusion."

It's hinted at...but my word there is a lot of crud in WP:V at the
moment. There are actually two distinct summaries of the policy as
well. Eep.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Pity the admin....

body:
On 3/3/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 2 Mar 2006 20:11:36 +0000, you wrote:
>
>
> >Looking at the references section of the article and
> >comparing it to the contents page of Jeal's book at Amazon, I see that
> >he devotes a whole chapter, 35 pages in a relatively brief biography,
> >to the question.
>
> Yes, 35 pages of a large book.  Here, it's about 30% of our entire
> coverage of the subject.

Actually the book is only a little over 200 pages in length, so the
chapter is a substantial fraction of the book.

I don't think it's even remotely correct to state that the article
comprises 35% of all our coverage of Powell.  Besides the Scout
movement itself, Baden-Powell is most famous in Britain for his
masterly defense of Mafeking, a garrison which, outnumbered 4:1, he
held against the Boers for over 200 days with the help of a home made
howitzer, a great quantity of non-existent barbed wire, some fake
landmines and a biscuit tin.  And if you think that sounds like
something out of Black Adder, maybe you'll understand the brilliance
of the tactician.  The Boers gave up because they concluded that the
garrison was too heavily defended.


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 3/2/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
>>G'day Steve,
>>It's prolly important to include something to the effect of if you *do*
>>remove an unsourced edit because it's unsourced, then you're not going
>>to get in trouble.  That's something that policy's actually useful for,
>>actually --- as is [[WP:IAR]] ...
>
>
> Well, you almost never "get in trouble" on Wikipedia. But to suggest
> that you no one would raise an eyebrow if you removed an uncontested,
> but unsourced sentence from the first paragraph of a major article is
> probably going a little far...
>

How about pointing out that instead of removing unsourced material,
people can tag it with {{citation needed}} and move on?

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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from_name: Nicholas Moreau

body:
It has been expressed by many users that the Wikimedia
Foundation should contact the authorities in control
of the Jordanhill railway station, and request a
plaque be placed at the station, in commemoration of
the 1 millionth English article.

If you agree with this concept in principle, you may
put your username here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Jordanhill_railway_station/Commemoration

You must be logged in to a valid user account, with at
least 5 unreverted mainspace edits, at the time of
signing.

Nick

___________________________________________________________
To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new Yahoo! Security Centre. http://uk.security.yahoo.com


from_name: Zzyzx11 at Wikipedia

subject: [WikiEN-l] Protection of the Today's FA

body:
It seems that some admins are protecting the "Triumph of the Will" article
to prevent vandalism, even though it is currently Today's FA and against our
protection policy of high visible articles. I was even reverted on the page
protection:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=protect&user=&page=Triumph+of+the+Will

Comments? ~~~~

Zzyzx11 at en.wikipedia.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zzyzx11
zzyzx11 at hotmail.com

_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE!
http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Protection of the Today's FA

body:
--- Jtkiefer <jtkiefer at wordzen.net> wrote:
> Zzyzx11 at Wikipedia wrote:
> > It seems that some admins are protecting the "Triumph of the Will" article
> > to prevent vandalism, even though it is currently Today's FA and against our
> > protection policy of high visible articles. I was even reverted on the page
> > protection:
> >
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=protect&user=&page=Triumph+of+the+Will
> >
> > Comments? ~~~~
> >
> > Zzyzx11 at en.wikipedia.org
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zzyzx11
> > zzyzx11 at hotmail.com
> >
> That policy makes no sense.  I agree that protection should be avoided
> if at all possible on visible articles but the policy is taken way too
> literally at times and there are times when protection of an FA is a
> good idea.

I agree. Way too many vandalisms from IPs and new users vs the *VERY* little to any improvement
those user classes make to the article while it is a TFA. All the many reverts do is take time
away from fighting other vandalism and pollute the history page with anon edit followed by revert
times 50 to a 100 for any TFA. TFA is supposed to showcase our very best work, not a page whose
only content for several minutes is ?I like farts?.

We needn't hype the editability fact so much given that we get many edits, have so many editors,
and that readers outnumber editors by at least 200 to 1. The vast, vast majority of people who now
come to Wikipedia expect to see quality content not fart jokes. Because of that, vandalism is
becoming increasingly less and less tolerable in my mind; even when it only is in the top edit for
less than a minute given that one or more readers may have loaded that page in that time.

Ideally I would like to see the saving of *all* edits by anons and new users to be delayed until
they are OKd by a trusted user (to be defined) or a clock runs out (default could be 5 minutes and
admins could increase that time on a per article basis).

But enough is enough.

-- mav

__________________________________________________
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Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
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from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability and Africa

body:
Actually it keeps what you do dirty and unreliable. We have an
article, "Damned knowledge" which partially addresses this question.
Political and ethnic considerations should play a minimum role is
what is considered knowledge. That is one reason I defended
User:Deeceevoice so strongly (although she undoubtedly considers me
her worst enemy). I continue to maintain that should a village elder
(or high school student) in Africa manage somehow to get on-line and
write an article about their village we should be happy to have the
input. Consider our article about Bonanza, Colorado, a decrepit
collection of shacks in a barren gully in Colorado, who if you would
believe Wikipedia, has an per capita income of $66,857. If I should
add information from my personal knowledge that the reason for this
astounding statistic is that one of the fourteen souls who was
counted in the 2000 census has a nice income, but while he does not
live in the town, other than brief periods in the summer, maintains
his legal residence there so that he and his friends can vote there,
in one of the tiniest incorporated towns in the United States, I
would be adding unverified information. If I went further and
speculated that the reason for the struggle for control of the town
government was related to hopes regarding legalized gambling, I might
be even further out of line. Yes, the line must be drawn somewhere,
but an image of this desolate wasteland might prove very
illuminating, despite being very much original research.

Fred

On Mar 2, 2006, at 9:11 PM, Fastfission wrote:

> The philosopher Paul Feyerabend was known for arguing that the
> scientific method, as a method, was by definitive restrictive to what
> sorts of knowledge could be integrated into the scientific corpus. He
> was right, but I think he erred when he implied that this was not, in
> fact, the entire point of having a scientific method: it's a
> necessarily non-holistic form of knowledge, but it is reliable form of
> knowledge. You trade away some of your possibilities, but you get
> reliability and robustness in return.
>
> I think it is an apt analogy in this case as well. A verfiability
> policy of our sort might lose the elders, but it keeps what we do
> include clean.
>
> FF


subject: [WikiEN-l] Protection of the Today's FA

body:
--- Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/3/06, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > I agree. Way too many vandalisms from IPs and new users vs the *VERY* little to any
> improvement
> > those user classes make to the article while it is a TFA. All the many reverts do is take time
> > away from fighting other vandalism and pollute the history page with anon edit followed by
> revert
> > times 50 to a 100 for any TFA. TFA is supposed to showcase our very best work, not a page
> whose
> > only content for several minutes is 'I like farts'.
>
> I don't think we expect to get much improvement to the front page FA
> from anons. We just want to prove that they can edit.

What? TFA is not a sandbox.

> We don't need to encourage people to edit because we have 200 times as
> many readers as editors? I disagree.

Very few people create information yet we all consume it. That is a fact of life.

> > come to Wikipedia expect to see quality content not fart jokes. Because of that, vandalism is
> > becoming increasingly less and less tolerable in my mind; even when it only is in the top edit
> > for less than a minute given that one or more readers may have loaded that page in that time.
>
> However I agree with this, because...
>
> > Ideally I would like to see the saving of *all* edits by anons and new users to be delayed
> until
> > they are OKd by a trusted user (to be defined) or a clock runs out (default could be 5 minutes
> and
> > admins could increase that time on a per article basis).
>
> ...I totally agree with this. I suspect it would be somewhat tricky to
> implement, but yes, this would help a great deal with vandalism. I
> don't think it's "unfair" on anon users that their edits are delayed
> for a while, and I think it would have a deterrent effect on vandals
> as well. ("What? My fart joke isn't even going to get its 1 minute of
> fame?")

There will be a minor undesirable side effect of denying anons and new users the instant
gratification of having their valid fix or addition delayed. But that is greatly mitigated by the
much, much longer time their edits will be viewable by all and the fact that getting rid of the
delay is something that only takes a bit of time and effort on their part (becoming an editor in
good standing ; should be auto-determined based on age of account and number of non-reverted
edits).

-- mav

__________________________________________________
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from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
You can't suddenly change the agreement by which things were licensed.
If we were to change the GFDL to become PD, lots of people will want to
retract edits it applies to, because that's not what they agreed to when
they edited it at the time.

Mgm

On 3/2/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/2/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> > On Mar 2, 2006, at 9:19 AM, Fastfission wrote:
> >
> > > It is just a thought I had -- the only one I could come up with which
> > > seems really plausible, aside from the possibility of the FSF being
> > > convinced to make updates to the GFDL (which I suspect they would be
> > > very dubious about, especially if the edits were primarily to benefit
> > > Wikipedia).
> >
> > A revised version of the GFDL wouldn't help us because Wikipedia
> > would still be licensed under the old version.
>
> Wikipedia is licensed under all versions of the GFDL starting with
> version 1.2.  From [[Wikipedia:Copyrights]]:
>
> "Permission is granted to copy, distribute, and/or modify this
> document under the Gnu Free Documentation License, version 1.2 or any
> later version published by the Free Software Foundation"
>
> This means that if GFDL 2.0 comes out as a verbatim copy of the
> Creative Commons 2.5 Attribution Share-Alike license, then all of
> Wikipedia is effectively dual-licensed under GFDL 1.2 and CC-BY-SA
> 2.5, and anyone re-using the content can pick whichever license they
> want.
>
> --
> Mark
> [[User:Carnildo]]
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Bacchante Maenad

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin Power Abuse

body:
Almost immediately after creating account for what would be my first time
editing wikipedia an admin blocked me indefinitely.

username : Let's Get High And Edit Wikipedia
IP : 69.60.118.148
Reason given "stoner..." by
"*Freakofnurture<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Freakofnurture>"
*

This admin describes himself as pissed off and also proudly displays a
widget that says he does not do any drugs.  I had the impression, perhaps
wrongly so, that wikipedia was supposed to be more of an open atmosphere
where there isn't such a heavy hand with admin powers.  In other words, a
place where someone's first visit isn't met with an insult (stoner) by
someone claiming to be angry, pissed off and a judeofacist (whatever that
is, but it doesn't sound too nice).  I really do not see what the problem
with my username is.  It is silly, perhaps, but not offensive.

Thank you


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
Ok, I'm not trying to argue here, but you say it's crystal clear, and it's not.

On 3/3/06, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> 1. Articles should contain only material that has been published by
> reputable sources.

What does should mean? "Must"? "Should in an ideal world, but that's
ok, we're in beta"? Are we talking about the Wikipedia ideal, or the
minimum standard for inclusion in Wikipedia at the moment.

Also, we've had numerous examples of material which has never been
published by reputable sources, but are agreed by consensus as being
acceptable. Information about various websites, for example. Is this
in violation of the policy?

> 2. Editors adding new material to an article should cite a reputable
> source, or it may be removed by any editor.

Should again. But also, as discussed, "may". As everyone knows, anyone
"may" make any edit they like, so what is this really saying? Is it
saying that no one should have any qualms whatsoever about removing
any uncited material? Or is it simply a warning against adding new
information?

Also, as it stands, this only covers "new material". What about
unsourced existing material? "May" any editor remove that too?

> 3. The obligation to provide a reputable source lies with the editors
> wishing to include the material, not on those seeking to remove it.

Editors have obligations now? This line is definitely against the
Wikipedia spirit - instead of all working together to achieve
something, this line makes it sounds like we're at cross purposes, so
if we want to get our own way in the face of opposition, there are
certain hoops to jump through.

> There's no "crud," as you put it, and it's crystal clear.

The section on verifiability vs truth is very wordy. But here's a
better example of crud:

--
Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, and then
claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason,
self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not
acceptable as sources. Exceptions may be when a well-known,
professional researcher in a relevant field, or a well-known
professional journalist, has produced self-published material. In some
cases, these may be acceptable as sources, so long as their work has
been previously published by credible, third-party publications.
However, exercise caution: if the information on the professional
researcher's blog is really worth reporting, someone else will have
done so.
--

What is this saying? "You can cite a dodgy source as long as a better
source exists". How would you know if the better source exists? Why
not just cite that? What if another editor doesn't believe that a
better source exists? It seems to me that if a better source exists,
you haven't achieved much by citing a dodgy source - so why bother
with this exception?

There are other problems with the policy as it stands, however. Examples:
- A reputable source publishes something in error (and later retracts
it). What then?
- A source is cited, but does not support the claim made.
- A made-up source is cited - how to handle this situation?

In short, the policy very wordily attempts to define the notion of
"verifiability" and gives examples of clear-cut situations of
verifiable and unverifiable information, but doesn't give much help in
applying this approach to everyday Wikipedia daily live, and doesn't
help sort out borderline or unusual cases at all.

Steve

Steve


body:
On 3/3/06, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> There could be instruction on the side, in small print, regarding how
> to deal with vandalism... and a little 'rollback' button

Rollback privileges for anon users???

Steve


from_name: Guettarda

subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability and Africa

body:
Interesting example popped up yesterday.  An article I had written early on
got tagged by Can't sleep with {{cleanup-verify}} last night.  If I would
have written the article now is another issue, but it seemed like a good
idea a year ago (and I still think it meets the notability standard).

So here's the problem.  I wrote the article about someone I know in real
life - not so close that I think I shouldn't be writing about him, but close
enough that my information about him came primarily from him talking about
himself.  It's fairly easy to verify that he holds the position that he does
by looking at the web site of the organisation he works for.  But is it
really appropriate to reference a page that says " For more information on a
specific item or on how to make a gift to the Centre from our "Wish List"
please call or email [the person] the Centre's CEO and Conservation Manager"
to support that he is the conservation manager and CEO?  The organisation's
web site refers to him all over the place, other publications also refer to
him and state his job title - but all of them mention him in passing, much
like the above quote.

That said, there's material in the article which I cannot source at this
point in time, although it is verifiable, and then there was information
which is unverifiable because it refers to hearsay about back-channel
negotiations within government.  Given that I have the information from more
than one source who was in a position to know, I don't doubt the truth of
the statement, but it's obviously unverifiable hearsay and OR, so it had to
go

On 3/3/06, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
> "Fastfission" wrote
>
> > This kind of stuff is actually a big concern within studies about the
> > writing of history (historiography) and the philosophy and sociology
> > of science -- what kinds of sources become part of "the archive", what
> > sorts of systemic biases are imposed by certain "standards of rigor",
> > how demarcation boundaries are really ways of imposing certain
> > "regimes of truth", and so forth.
>
> I made this sort of point a while back.  Yes, there's a tension between
> being hardcore about verifiability, and the wish to eliminate systemic
> bias.
> I would rather reach out, try to fix up the systemic issues, and fuss
> about
> sources later.  I'm not exactly happy about the subtexts, like
> 'verifiability means anglophone sources', which do come up (e.g. the
> Rajput
> case on the ArbCom).
>
> We still need 'be bold!', in fact.  Consider that there are legal
> problems;
> but that they are likely to come from the rich.  We should certainly be
> tougher on articles about living Americans than for living Liberians, for
> example.
>
> Charles
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Stephen Bain

body:
On 3/3/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> So how to escape?

Easy! Three steps:

1. Get everyone who has ever contributed to WP to revoke their GFDL
licensing, and re-license the stuff as whatever;
2. Buy out the copyright in all derivative works (ie, all the forks);
3. Buy out all the mirrors.

> Based on this principle: can one really ask users to
> re-(multi)-license their PAST contributions? That is, can I say, "All
> those contributions I said were under the GFDL? Well, now I want them
> to also be GFDL or CC-BY-SA." Legally, I'm suspicious, but I'm also
> not a lawyer.

If you own the copyright you can release it under whatever licence you
choose. Someone changing to multi-licencing can make all their past
edits available under a different licence without any problems - it
simply takes effect from the date they multi-licence.

> It is just a thought I had -- the only one I could come up with which
> seems really plausible, aside from the possibility of the FSF being
> convinced to make updates to the GFDL (which I suspect they would be
> very dubious about, especially if the edits were primarily to benefit
> Wikipedia).

While other ways forward are theoretically possible, in practice this
is our best option. All the content is already licenced under "GFDL
1.2 or any later version." I can't recall where I saw it exactly, but
I do remember some FSF people talking about making future versions of
the GFDL more compatible with projects like WP. Our use of GFDL is
good for everyone, including the FSF, so I wouldn't put it completely
out of consideration that they'd make the next versions better for us!

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Victoria Powers wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I just created a simple form as a special page with in my wiki.  This form is a simple data entry form and uses a mysql database.  How can I  link this database to the recent changes page.  Or better yet, have a separate special page of recent changes for changes to this database only?
>
> Any info will be greatly appreciated!
>
> Thank you,
>
> Victoria.
Hoi Victioria,
At present you do not. We are developing something called Wikidata. This
would allow for exactly what you want. This is what we have at the
moment: http://wiktionaryz.org
Thanks,
   GerardM


body:
On 3/3/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/3/06, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > There could be instruction on the side, in small print, regarding how
> > to deal with vandalism... and a little 'rollback' button
>
> Rollback privileges for anon users???
>
> Steve

Of course not, it would only work when it recognizes the fingerprint of an
admin.
Besides, if do it right the first time, the first edition of such a plaque
would be perfect, so we could just protect it from editing. ;)

Mgm1


from_name: Justin Cormack

subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 3 Mar 2006, at 01:31, Bryan Derksen wrote:
> I hate to jump in on a conversation that seems to have ended
> acrimoniously, but it's kind of important considering image deletion
> isn't revertible. If Jimbo has decided that a class of images that are
> otherwise acceptable on Wikipedia in accordance with Wikipedia's
> policies are instead to be deleted wholesale, then why in heaven's
> name
> won't he just _say_ so in a public place? It's within his authority,
> after all, and would make things so much easier for everyone. Secrecy
> just doesn't make any sense.

Image deletion of images that are simply copied off other web sites is
easily reversible. Especially as if they dont have a source URL they
should have been speedied in the first place.

A few of the "fair use"/copyvio images have been scanned but not many.

Justinc


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] Protection of the Today's FA

body:
On 3/3/06, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I agree. Way too many vandalisms from IPs and new users vs the *VERY* little to any improvement
> those user classes make to the article while it is a TFA. All the many reverts do is take time
> away from fighting other vandalism and pollute the history page with anon edit followed by revert
> times 50 to a 100 for any TFA. TFA is supposed to showcase our very best work, not a page whose
> only content for several minutes is 'I like farts'.

I'd say we have quite enough editors now. Let's stop letting new
people edit anything on Wikipedia, and soon it will be perfect.


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Error in fetchObject(): ?

body:
Hello,

You might prefer write to wikitech-lAT wikimedia.org for technical
issues :-)

thanks

Ant

Alex Reid wrote:
> Hello fellow wikipedians!
>
> I'm in the middle of moving a wiki project from one IP to another.
> I've successfully transferred the database and files. But I'm getting this
> error:
>
> Error in fetchObject(): Can't open file: 'page.InnoDB'. (errno: 1)
> Backtrace:
>
> GlobalFunctions.php line 451 calls wfbacktrace()
> Database.php line 531 calls wfdebugdiebacktrace()
> MessageCache.php line 151 calls databasemysql::fetchobject()
> MessageCache.php line 94 calls messagecache::loadfromdb()
> MessageCache.php line 247 calls messagecache::load()
> GlobalFunctions.php line 342 calls messagecache::get()
> GlobalFunctions.php line 322 calls wfmsggetkey()
> GlobalFunctions.php line 297 calls wfmsgreal()
> OutputPage.php line 657 calls wfmsgnodb()
> Database.php line 411 calls outputpage::databaseerror()
> Database.php line 358 calls databasemysql::reportqueryerror()
> BagOStuff.php line 382 calls databasemysql::query()
> BagOStuff.php line 279 calls mediawikibagostuff::_doquery()
> BagOStuff.php line 228 calls mediawikibagostuff::_query()
> MessageCache.php line 83 calls mediawikibagostuff::get()
> MessageCache.php line 247 calls messagecache::load()
> GlobalFunctions.php line 342 calls messagecache::get()
> GlobalFunctions.php line 322 calls wfmsggetkey()
> GlobalFunctions.php line 288 calls wfmsgreal()
> wiki line 77 calls wfmsgforcontent()
>
> ----
> Any ideas?
>
> Thank you in advance!
>
> Alex Reid
> Winnipeg, MB, Canada


body:
Robert Bamler wrote:
> Hi,
>
>
>>A suggestion I would make as well concerns the call for donation you are
>>making. While it would be a donation for the work you did to have the
>>projects on the ipod itself, I think there might be a confusion in the
>>public mind that the donation is somehow related to the encyclopedia
>>itself.
>
>
> You've got a point there. OK, so this is what I'll do: I'll add a notice on
> the donation page that clarifyes that this is not Wikipedia. And I'll contact
> the board at wikimedia.org whether I'm allowed to use the term "Wikipedia" on
> my page.
>
> So, finally, I hope that everyone can sleep without fear tonight. But don't be
> too lazy, you've still got a lot to do [1] ;-)
>
> Regards,
> Robert
>
> [1]http://www.google.com/search?&q=wikipedia+-site%3Awikipedia.org+-site%3Awikimedia.org

Hi Robert

Thanks a lot for the clarification and link to our donation page. I
appreciate that.

Best regards

Ant


body:
On 3/3/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> Of course not, it would only work when it recognizes the fingerprint of an
> admin.
> Besides, if do it right the first time, the first edition of such a plaque
> would be perfect, so we could just protect it from editing. ;)

Actually I have a better idea - someone should grafitti "Wikipedia is
gay" or "I have a huge penis" somewhere on the station walls. We can
call it Wikiproject:Fightback.


from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability - Case Study I

body:
On 3/3/06, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> A  couple of combative columnists, [[Johann Hari]] and [[Mark Steyn]].
>
> I'll take Johann Hari first, since the issues are entry-level.
>
> User:81.157.14.152 thought that his secondary schooling was not verifiable,
> and cut it out (20 February); no edit summary, let alone discussion.  One of
> the schools in question is [[John Lyon School]]. The information that Hari
> went there was added on 17 February by User:Epitome1, who had the same day
> edited the page, [[John Lyon School]]. And then immediately gone on to add
> the fat that Hari was an alumnus.
>
> Reasonable presumption would take it that User:Epitome1 has a close enough
> connection to John Lyon School; perhaps even was a pupil there with Hari, or
> teaches there.  Nothing to raise the slightest suspicion, anyway.
>
> So User:81.157.14.152 cuts out this and another school.  Objections from
> User:Felix-felix, who puts it back in.  Talk page discussion:
> User:81.157.14.152 emails Hari to check, and comes back satisfied on the
> John Lyon School, at least.
>
> But under [[Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons]], of course, we cannot
> accept this information, on the basis of a supposed email exchange.

Correct. Wikipedia editors are not journalists and have no access to
the kind of fact-checking process that reporters have. This is why we
publish only what reliable sources have already published.

However, even though the e-mail exchange is not acceptable as a
source, there is likely to be some other way of obtaining the
information e.g. from a school magazine or local newspaper. It'll just
require a bit of extra digging.

Sarah


body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

> I think it's important that an organization have explicit channels for
> dealing with things such as licensing, and that volunteers within the
> organization don't step outside of those channels and act
> authoritative on those matters.  Further, it should be crystal clear
> to the public who is authoritative on what matters and who isn't.  It
> took 15 posts before someone finally said, "contact X to get
> authorization".  And it's still up in the air whether or not that
> authorization is going to be given, because there's no public written
> policy on the matter.

You've got a point. Generally, I'd say that on such matters, right now,
best is to send an email to board AT wikimedia.org. We forward those
mails to the legal team when needed.
If the person needs a phone contact and in particular if the person is
english speaking, then best to call the Foundation itself in Florida.

This said... In the process of working on business development, I expect
an email address will soon be available to forward request of
partnership or business deals. I expect one day we'll have more such
emails addresses for specific issues and we should have an efficient
contact page on the foundation website.

Current reference is http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Contact_us

Please use this link on the sites to orient requests.

For those who can help with the translations, please help keep this page
properly updated. Thanks

Ant


subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
Seems pretty clear to me.  The only people who I can see having questions
about what these points mean are those actively looking to find them.

k

On 3/3/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Ok, I'm not trying to argue here, but you say it's crystal clear, and it's
> not.
>
> On 3/3/06, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > 1. Articles should contain only material that has been published by
> > reputable sources.
>
> What does should mean? "Must"? "Should in an ideal world, but that's
> ok, we're in beta"? Are we talking about the Wikipedia ideal, or the
> minimum standard for inclusion in Wikipedia at the moment.
>
> Also, we've had numerous examples of material which has never been
> published by reputable sources, but are agreed by consensus as being
> acceptable. Information about various websites, for example. Is this
> in violation of the policy?
>
> > 2. Editors adding new material to an article should cite a reputable
> > source, or it may be removed by any editor.
>
> Should again. But also, as discussed, "may". As everyone knows, anyone
> "may" make any edit they like, so what is this really saying? Is it
> saying that no one should have any qualms whatsoever about removing
> any uncited material? Or is it simply a warning against adding new
> information?
>
> Also, as it stands, this only covers "new material". What about
> unsourced existing material? "May" any editor remove that too?
>
> > 3. The obligation to provide a reputable source lies with the editors
> > wishing to include the material, not on those seeking to remove it.
>
> Editors have obligations now? This line is definitely against the
> Wikipedia spirit - instead of all working together to achieve
> something, this line makes it sounds like we're at cross purposes, so
> if we want to get our own way in the face of opposition, there are
> certain hoops to jump through.
>
> > There's no "crud," as you put it, and it's crystal clear.
>
> The section on verifiability vs truth is very wordy. But here's a
> better example of crud:
>
> --
> Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, and then
> claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason,
> self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not
> acceptable as sources. Exceptions may be when a well-known,
> professional researcher in a relevant field, or a well-known
> professional journalist, has produced self-published material. In some
> cases, these may be acceptable as sources, so long as their work has
> been previously published by credible, third-party publications.
> However, exercise caution: if the information on the professional
> researcher's blog is really worth reporting, someone else will have
> done so.
> --
>
> What is this saying? "You can cite a dodgy source as long as a better
> source exists". How would you know if the better source exists? Why
> not just cite that? What if another editor doesn't believe that a
> better source exists? It seems to me that if a better source exists,
> you haven't achieved much by citing a dodgy source - so why bother
> with this exception?
>
> There are other problems with the policy as it stands, however. Examples:
> - A reputable source publishes something in error (and later retracts
> it). What then?
> - A source is cited, but does not support the claim made.
> - A made-up source is cited - how to handle this situation?
>
> In short, the policy very wordily attempts to define the notion of
> "verifiability" and gives examples of clear-cut situations of
> verifiable and unverifiable information, but doesn't give much help in
> applying this approach to everyday Wikipedia daily live, and doesn't
> help sort out borderline or unusual cases at all.
>
> Steve
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability - Case Study I

body:
On 3/3/06, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> My interest here is rather in people's behaviour.  The user who cut the
> information has, in my view, made numerous mistakes.  Since the
> Verifiability policy will not in any case prevent the making of mistakes,
> here's the question to the class.
>
> User:81.157.14.152 didn't follow best practice here.  Enumerate the ways in
> which best practice was not followed.
>
I'm not sure I see the point of this, Charles, because each situation
is different, depending on whether the editors know each other, how
potentially harmful the unsourced edit is, and so on. But in this
case, I would look for a source myself online. If I couldn't find one,
I'd request one on talk. For a harmless edit like this, I'd probably
wait for a couple of weeks,  then go back and delete it. If I cared
about the subject, I'd try to track down an offline source myself. If
the edit was potentially more damaging that where someone went to
school, I'd add the {{fact}} template. If it was more damaging than
that, I'd remove it (moving damaging edits to talk is not a good idea,
because they're still cached by Google).

But WP:V can't give endless examples like this. We have to assume,
even if flying in the face of all the evidence, that most editors have
a degree of common sense.

Sarah


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
Justin Cormack wrote:
> On 3 Mar 2006, at 01:31, Bryan Derksen wrote:
>
>> I hate to jump in on a conversation that seems to have ended
>> acrimoniously, but it's kind of important considering image deletion
>> isn't revertible. If Jimbo has decided that a class of images that are
>> otherwise acceptable on Wikipedia in accordance with Wikipedia's
>> policies are instead to be deleted wholesale, then why in heaven's
>> name
>> won't he just _say_ so in a public place? It's within his authority,
>> after all, and would make things so much easier for everyone. Secrecy
>> just doesn't make any sense.
>>
>
> Image deletion of images that are simply copied off other web sites is
> easily reversible. Especially as if they dont have a source URL they
> should have been speedied in the first place.
>
This doesn't change the underlying point, though, it was just an
explanation for why I was jumping in right away rather than waiting to
let heated tempers cool down first. Why should any sort of policy change
or directive like this be _secret_?

Has Jimbo weighed in on this discussion at any point? Just a few words
from him here on this public mailing list would solve everything.


from_name: Ilya N.

body:
I'm wondering if this could be a step to *something* bigger.

On 3/2/06, XaosFluX <xaosflux at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I've added a note regarding this to [[MediaWiki:Watchdetails]].
>
> xaosflux
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Guettarda" <guettarda at gmail.com>
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> Sent: Thursday, March 02, 2006 12:02 AM
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Email confirmation - IMPORTANT
>
>
> > 1. Any chance this could make its way to the top of people's watchlists
> or
> > something, like the voting thing did?
> >
> > 2. Any idea whether this will affect the ability of people who don't use
> > spamcop to get email?
> >
> > On 3/1/06, Zzyzx11 at Wikipedia <zzyzx11 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> From:
> >>
> >>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28technical%29&diff=41813660&oldid=41810143
> >>
> >> >For some lovely reason our new mail server has been blacklisted by
> >> SpamCop,
> >> >allegedly for sending mail to spamtrap addresses. (They provide no
> >> details
> >> >by
> >> >policy, of course, so there's no way to verify it.)
> >>
> >> >Since there's a tiny possibility that the user-to-user email feature
> >> >actually could be
> >> >abused, I've gone ahead and enabled the e-mail confirmation
> requirement
> >> for
> >> >using
> >> >email features. This is a bit annoying for the moment since you have
> to
> >> do
> >> >it
> >> >separately on each wiki.
> >>
> >> >I've disputed the listing, so hopefully we'll get it removed soonish
> and
> >> >those who
> >> >aren't getting email will, uh, start getting it again. --Brion 22:42,
> 1
> >> >March 2006 (UTC)
> >>
> >> What this means is that everyone will have to go to
> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Confirmemail
> >> If you don't, you will not receive Wikipedia email.
> >>
> >> Zzyzx11 at en.wikipedia.org
> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zzyzx11
> >> zzyzx11 at hotmail.com
> >>
> >> _________________________________________________________________
> >> Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from
> McAfee(r)
> >> Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> WikiEN-l mailing list
> >> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> >> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> >> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >>
> >>
> >>
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
~Ilya N.
http://w3stuff.com/ilya/ (My website; DarkLordFoxx Media)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ilyanep (on Wikipedia)
http://www.wheresgeorge.com - Track your money's travels.


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
On 3/3/06, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> Or editors who remove references they don't like from articles then
> nominate them for deletion as unverifiable. When bailed up on it, they say
> "but the sources are crap." What can practically be done about this?

Beat them with a very large clue-stick?

References SHOULD NEVER BE REMOVED unless alternative references for
the referenced facts are found or the information those references
support is removed from the article.  To do otherwise is completely
against the spirit of our verifiability and sourcing policies and
practise.

This is the case regardless of whether the references are
unimpeachably solid or 'According to my friend Jamie who knows about
this stuff'.

If you don't like a reference, you can do a variety of things:

* Ignore the problem
* Post a query to the article talk page, user's talk page etc.
* Find a better reference yourself
* Remove the information, preferably placing it on the talk page
unless it's defamatory in nature

One thing you cannot do is remove the reference without replacing it
and leaving the content in the article.

I suspect I know which editor you're talking about here.  They know better.

While I can't comment for my fellow arbitrators, I know that editors
have been censured by the AC for much less serious abuse of references
and verifiability, and if this kind of behaviour came before me in an
AC case I would propose/support censure.  (in other words: If you're
doing this, knock it off).

-Matt