from_name: Florence Devouard

subject: [Foundation-l] Report on board meeting in Florida

body:
daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
>
>
> Florence,
> Thank you for  response. I will go through it section by section, explaining
> why I disagree. So  as not to bore people, I will focus only on some points,
> though that does not  mean I agree with your other points.
> You wrote concerning  the most pressing issues, that " The general answer is
> "unfixed". Practically,  we will depend on the good will of volunteer board
> members, and on the good will  of staff who prefer helping than quitting. Eh !"

> I have no idea what  you meant by, "Eh!" unless it was a personal jibe at me.

Sorry, I am not sure what jibe means... But Eh was not meant to be
detrimental in any cases. It is a french interjection, perhaps
meaning...errr... well, imagine some one having a light smile and
shrugging and saying "sad, but that is life"

> That?s fine. As for the  tasks, you made it clear to the staff that you are
> the board member who handles  legal,

I was the one to whom Brad was reporting yes. Brad being gone, he does
not report to me any more of course.

  job descriptions are board responsibility,
> and personnel needs are board  responsibility. You made it clear that you did
> not trust staff to do these  things (more on that later).

No, my report made it clear that the board considers these two things
are under ED responsability. Read again my original email, there is no
confusion possible.

  So all I can assume
> was that this was a personal  attack. As for your statement, "Those tasks are
> not necessarily DONE by the ED,  but under the responsability [sic]of the
> ED," as there is no ED, I can only  assume that there is no one responsible. Of
> course, you also told us you would  be acting as ED unless the board said
> otherwise, so, I assume that unless the  board says otherwise, that are your
> responsibility.

Unfortunately, the board said otherwise.

Let me summarize the situation for the readership because I am sure that
at this point they are entirely confused ;-)

Mid january, the board asked Brad to stop being ED end of january. At
that time, there was no ED, but there was already an ED search planned,
so we had high expectations to have an ED within 3-4 months, say may or
june.

The board discusses the issue and wonders how to organise itself in the
*interim* period, which all of us hoped would be as short as possible,
we decide to patch, and have a situation where each of the staff member
will report to a given board member. What is distributed is NOT (most
emphatically speaking) areas of activities, but reporting. There is a
public email explaining this reorganisation. In this organisation, which
was meant to be temporary, Brion (and all the tech staff) report to
Jan-Bart, Delphine to Oscar, Danny to Erik, Carolyn, Sandy and Brad to me.
Apparently, Delphine, the tech team, Sandy etc... are willing to accept
that, given this is temp. I am not saying they are happy of this, but
they are willing to give it their best, just as board members were
willing to give it their best, in spite of this being a hardly
satisfactory situation.
 From the very beginning, you were unhappy to report to Erik. Right ?
People can not always fit together. That happens. That is unfortunate.

Anyway, discussions start with the ED search company. They have people
on the phone, they visit the office etc... and basically tell us that to
be able to reach the best candidates, we should work on better
separating the board role and the ED role. Note that this role was much
better separated in the past, when Brad was the ED, but that the recent
events obviously blurred the situation.

Since we are not mindless and stuck in our opinions, we start exploring
this, in particular planning a session to work on the major issues to
deal with, and separate each of these issues, making it clear which are
ED and which are board, thinking of finding an interim ED, even for 3-4
  months. Our worry at that point is that finding someone totally
unaware of our organisation for only 3-4 months might be a little bit
hazardous. You, Danny, considers that the staff can very well handle
itself alone, without any ED. Actually, your opinion is that Carolyn can
be the ED. At that point, Carolyn opinion is the same. The board opinion
is not the same.

Maybe a little apparte here: from my perspective, the board role is this
one. Defining where we should go (which includes thinking of big
directions, rejecting certain directions, keeping others) - hiring an ED
  who will be in charge of stiring the organisation in the directions
recommanded by the board - overseeing the activities of the organisation
to make sure that the ED is actually following the strategy. How can
overseeing be done ? Essentially in being aware of the various projects
developped, approving the budget set up by the ED, checking if budget is
respected etc...

So, being a board is not saying to someone "please be the ED for now, we
trust you to do the best", it is "please be the ED for now, here are the
directions you should follow, please provide a budget that we will
approve, provide us with summary of what you are doing and where you are
heading the project". If the job is not well done, thank you and good bye.

But bottom line, this is the board who is choosing the ED. It is not
Danny. Carolyn is fabulous as a COO, and I really hope she choose to
stick with us, even if we are a mad house. The job of a COO is a
different job than the job of the ED. Both are important and essential.
But they are different jobs. Period. We talked with Carolyn about all
this, and from what we understood, she understand that. She understands
the need for an ED.

Last point. A month ago, the board suggested that I could be the ED on
an interim basis. After all, I was already doing part of the job. This
was the status of the situation when we did the board meeting. However,
we also mentionned that this was not done, as it was not sure it was a
GOOD idea for legal/financial reasons.
Here is my memory of the situation. The staff and I talked together on
monday, trying to see where we were going.
During that meeting, I informed you that you would still report to Erik
in the meanwhile. Reporting in that sense is not only "giving
information to a board member" but also "working hand in hand with a
board member, getting directions from the board through a board member".
Since you were dealing with sensible things, such as for example brand
management, and there is still very little strategy on this
(unfortunately), it made really good sense that your activity be
overviewed in a real sense, rather than letting you do whatever you
thought was a good idea. Ultimately, and from a more global perspective,
would it be proper that one employee decides what we do of our brands
and who we sell them to ? or is it something the board should oversee ?
My answer, as chair, is that the board should oversee. Does that mean we
do not trust you ? Certainly not, or you would not have been employed to
take care of that critical area. We trust you, and we delegate you the
role of taking care of those things.

But delegation is not telling someone "you are on your own, do whatever
you think is best". Delegation is at the same time, putting someone in
charge of something, being informed of what he is doing, having the
possibility to tell him what not to do. Delegation has a feedback part.
The feedback in that sense was going through Erik. This is something you
objected, and at some point, I am not sure why the reason. It may be
that you do not like working with Erik, and it may be that you are
refusing authority altogether. I tend to think that the public reason is
Erik, but the REAL reason is authority. I have been often in conflict
with Erik in the past, and do not always agree with him, but without
intending to make a love declaration to him, I really think he is doing
a great job on the board and I appreciate he is on the board.

Also, the fact you were in charge of business deals in the organisation
did not mean you were the one overseeing all the business operations in
the organisation. Unfortunately, other deals were handled by other
parties, in particular Delphine for all the deals made through the local
chapters. It seems that at some  point, Delphine and you run into
conflict over who had authority over who. The answer was none of you had
authority over the other. You worked with some deals. She worked with
other deals. You were reporting to Erik. She was reporting to Oscar.
Period. You were both working for the same organisation and toward the
same goals. I am not sure this was clear to you. Unfortunately. The only
two things that could have solved the misunderstanding at that level was
to accept to share information (eg, on the office wiki) and to be under
the authority of one unique person. All what we were asking was a little
bit of patience.

Next step was tuesday morning, one hour way from taking my flight. We
were in Carolyn office. You entered the room and gave Carolyn your
resignation letter. I told you, "please enter the room, close the door
and let us talk together about that". You looked at me in a bland
fashion, said nothing, went out of the room, closed the door and left
the office. Carolyn run after you to ask you what was going on and the
only message she brought back is that we were all crazy. Bottom line:
you refused to talk to me when I proposed that we talk. It is not normal
that you claim I never asked you an explanation, I did and you chose to
not answer.

I could go down through all the details you mention below.
Let me just pick up a few of them.

You were not informed that I was working with Landor and are shocked
that I did not inform you as you were "in charge of business development".
You were not "in charge" of business development. You were in charge of
grants, but had decided you wanted to deal with business development.
Landor is not a brand marketing company, it deals with strategy. I
discussed with them about strategy, which is board area, not Danny's
area. Your mistake here is to consider you must be aware of everything,
anytime. Not true.
As things are, I had planned to be at the brand meeting organised by the
board (ie, me) where you presented your solution. I had planned to talk
about Landor and you would have been here.
Instead, I was stuck for over 24 hours in a closed airport. I cried
blood over there. I had clothes for a Florida weather and I ended up
about 6 hours at freezing temperature with whirling winds and snow up to
the knees. Did you spend even 2 mn conforting me on the phone whilst I
thought I would sleep outside as a homeless under a box? Freezing alone
in New York pissed me off enough that I do not need on top to be accused
of having failed to be at the meeting and talk to you about Landor.

In any cases, the strategy is the board business, there is no obligation
for us to share all the details of the discussions we have with various
parties all the time with office people. Just as you do not need to tell
us of everyday office details. We might do it, but each of us has a job
and should stick as much as possible to our job for our own sanity.

Regarding organising meetings without ever asking for an authorization,
you say "Are you opposed to the  meeting? Or are you simply opposed to
the fact that something was done without  your involvement. Did you ever
ask me about it?  Would you have approved it?  "

I am not opposed to that meeting, I would have approved it. I did not
have the opportunity to ask for you about it, it was all set even before
I heard about it. Actually, since you are reporting to Erik, it was all
set before Erik heard about it.
Yes, I think that is something which should have been the object of
authorization. Since there is no budget, we need to have an oversee
about the expenses. If every employee decide to set up all by himself a
meeting with various people and the only way of being aware of it is
when suddenly we are informed there is no more cash for maintaining the
servers, or we discover it at the end of the year, when we see a bloated
travel budget and community asking us what on earth was all this travel
money spend on, then, there is a problem.
In every decent company, there is something called a "budget". To
establish a budget, there is a need to see financial statements. When we
set up a budget, it is possible to say "Danny, if you need to organise
meeting, travel to meet people, you have a budget of xxx dollars to do
so - if you plan to be above this amount, make an official request to
the person you report to".  Again, what is not normal here is that you
do not consider that you should ask anyone before doing such thing. If
only for a rubber stamp. Where would the organisation go if all of us
were doing the same ?

I would like to reflect on a very specific point you raise

 > As for the time spent discussing the recommandations, I would say that
 > given that the recommandations were presented 2 hours before the end of
 > the board meeting and that the issue was not on the agenda... of
course,
 > it was not further discussed. Not everyone is a workalcoholic  :-)
 > No, but senior  executives of huge international corporations
generally are.
 > Especially when  they are understaffed.

I find this comment particularly outraging and shocking.
Actually, this is the type of comment that I thing I will not forgive
you any time soon as it implies that I am not working enough.

I have been on Wikipedia since february 2002. I have been on the board
since june 2004, giving endless hours in spite of having a parallel job.
I lost my job in december 2005 and since then am left without income but
for a generous governmental allocation of 350 euros per month.
In the past 3 months, I have held four jobs, chair of the board, part
time interim ED. I am a mother of three kids, one being at home all the
time with me. And last, I travel to give presentations and participate
to conferences in order to collect a bit of money to be able to pay my
bills.

I know of very few women who hold 4 jobs at the same time. I sleep on
average 4 hours per night. I travel on average 2 weeks per month. And I
am not even able to pay someone to help me with housecleaning. I have
been doing that for several years now. Actually, my feeling right now is
that I am just good enough to do the work for free. This is immensely
empowering. Yes, this is in a context of volunteering. 99% of
wikipedians are volunteers, you were actually one of the very very very
few being PAID to take care of your favorite activity.

So, your comment is just "out of place". VERY out of place.

Last point (there is always going to be a last). Contrariwise to what
was suggested at the board meeting and staff meeting, and as I already
informed the staff (not you, since you are no more a staff member), I
will not be interim ED. So, there is no interim ED for now.
I will add that I will not from now on accept to be doing ED work at the
level I have been in the past few months. There is only so much that a
person will do.

I am voluntarily sharing this online as I think this is the best way to
cut on rumors. We are not perfect, none of us are. Yes, we are not the
professionals as some would expect us to be. But we have the heart and
the blood to do the job. Wikipedia is not done by professionals, how
could you expect the organisation being it to be anything else than a
bit special ?

ant

>>> Note that  they are all  ED. Am I too assume that, except for the
> coordination
>>> of legal activities, these  will all be left unfixed until  there is an
> ED, or
>>> will they be dealt with by  some undefined  else. It seems the former is
> the
>>> answer, with the exception   of a legal coordinator. In other words, are
> you
>>> leaving the most  pressing issues  unfixed? If it is the latter "undefined
> else,"
>>> how will the "else" be  selected?
>
> You wrote: Note that  all. Which makes a difference.
> I have no idea what  you mean.
>
>> Next came, " Do it  soon (but not necessarily very  important)" ?
>
> You wrote: "I have  spent the whole week trying to work on wikimania
> finances, sponsorship and  fundraising. As a volunteer. And largely because the staff
> member who was in  charge of these topics choose to quit without a warning nor
> an  explanation."
> Good answer. Of  course, I fail to see why you would complain about
> volunteering for a volunteer  organization, especially one you chair. As for an
> explanation, I will remind you  that you never asked for one. In fact, you have not
> spoken to me since I  resigned.
>
> I  asked
>> Finally, you had  "  Important (but not necessarily to do immediately)"
>> * Brand  Strategy  (board)
>> * Business Development Strategy (board)
>> *  Technical Management  (ED)
>> What professional  expertise does  the Board bring to the first two? When
>> talking about a brand   worth billions of dollars--and that means billions
> of
>> dollars for free  culture  and knowledge--I would assume that the Board
> would
>>  consider some professional  advice and assistance.
>
> You answered"  "Yes, a company proposed its assistance. It is called Landor.
> (www.landor.com).  Plenty of impressing customers. The fact you did not hear
> about something does  not mean it does not exist."
> I am sure it exists.  However, I beg to remind you that I was the person in
> charge of business  development. It is unfortunate that you have decided to
> keep business  development information from the person in charge of business
> development. I can  only assume that you really think business development is a
> board  responsibility. More on this later.
>
>> As for some of the  other  topics discussed, you wrote "What can be
> mentioned
>> probably is  this:"
>> *  work on a travel policy (nothing very fancy to report)
>> I ask: what is the  current travel policy which is being  amended?
>
> A policy was set up in 2004. It allowed 1000 dollars per  trimester per
> board member, 3000 dollars for the chair. This is the last  "validated one".
> In other words, most  board members have exceeded their "validated" trimester
> allocation. I agree it  should be expanded, but as it was not--it has been
> exceeded. Am I to assume that  board resolutions regarding spending can be
> ignored at the discretion of the  Board?
>
>> * work on a policy for  reimbursement (nothing very  fancy to report)
>> I ask: what is the  current reimbursement policy,  which is being amended.
> If
>> there is no  reimbursement policy, how  are reimbursements made? What is
>> eligible for  reimbursement and  what is not?
>
> You wrote: No written policy being amended. We agreed on  reimbursement of
> travel
> costs (2nd class), food and hotel, as indicated on  the reimbursement
> sheet done by Mav many months ago. Additionally, last  summer, there was
> an agreement to reimburse me nanny costs when I was  travelling on the
> board behalf.
> Receipts must be  provided.
> So all that is  reimbursed is travel costs and a per diem? That is a simple
> yes or no  question. A reimbursement policy should cover what else is
> reimbursed. For  instance, your nanny. Then there are other, more controversial
> expenses. I  will be happy to elaborate if you like.
>
>> * study of  some  collaboration propositions (details confidential)
>> I hope you  don?t mean  the collaboration proposals with three major
>>  organizations in DC that I brought  to the table. If you do, why was I not
>  asked about
>> them?
>
> No, I am talking about other propositions  which are confidential and
> which you were not involved  in.
> Again, why is the  board keeping collaboration proposals from business
> development or the office in  general. Do you think that only the board is qualified
> to deal with these  matters? Do you not trust the office to do its job?
>
> You wrote: No one,  which is why we created an advisory board, and ask help
> from
> companies,  especially those who accept to work on a pro bono basis.
> But you are welcome  to tell future voters that they should elect a
> community member being a  specialist of brand licensing.
> Note that you are not a specialist of brands  either.
> I will happily admit  that I am not a branding specialist and that a branding
> specialist should be  brought on board, either as staff, or as a board
> member. Once again, what  expertise does the board bring to this in the meanwhile.
>
>
>
>> You  also  wrote:
>> "During that week, the  office was really  populated, as it also hosted two
>> other meetings, one  dedicated to  Quality (might be worthwhile to ask
>> Greg to make a report on  this  one...), "
>> While Greg is  extremely qualified to report on that,  you might also ask
> the
>> person who  organized it. Oh, and how much  time did the Board take
> discussing
>> its  recommendations.
>
> You wrote: Oh good point. Since you were the organiser of that meeting,  can
> you
> provide me the budget where we approved the expenses related to that
> meeting ?
> Are you opposed to the  meeting? Or are you simply opposed to the fact that
> something was done without  your involvement. Did you ever ask me about it?
> Would you have approved it?
>
> As for the time spent discussing the recommandations, I would say that
> given that the recommandations were presented 2 hours before the end of
> the board meeting and that the issue was not on the agenda... of course,
> it was not further discussed. Not everyone is a workalcoholic  :-)
> No, but senior  executives of huge international corporations generally are.
> Especially when  they are understaffed.
>
>> You wrote:  "Delphine  was also in Florida for several  days."
>> It  is always very nice  to see Delphine. What was her role in these
> meetings?
>
> You wrote: I was not the organiser of the tech meeting. I am  still wondering
> who
> organised it really.
> I was not the organiser of the  quality meeting. You were.
> I was the organiser of the board meeting, and I  did not invite her.
>
> You also wrote: However, contrariwise to you,  Delphine has an approved
> travel budget,
> and by default, I consider staff is  not "dumb" and if she thought she
> needed travel, then she did need  travel.
> The board is not the police.
> She knows pretty well that if she  does not do her job and abuse things,
> she can be fired. It is not your place  to judge her work and the way she
> organises herself. That goes for every  employee.
> Okay, so there is no  oversight when it comes to Delphine (though this is not
> the case with the  office?you were very clear about that.) She currently has
> a higher travel budget  than the entire board combined, and no one can
> question it. By the way, is it  true that you have copied IRC board meeting
> discussions to Delphine in real  time? A simple yes or no will do.
>
>> Or does that  go under the  discussed Travel Policy (to quote you, "nothing
>> very  fancy to report.")
>
> The travel policy is the one related to the board. Not  the travel policy
> of the employees.
> The travel policy of the employees is  set up by the ED, not the board.
> There is no ED, so who  sets up the travel policy?
>
>> It would also be nice  to hear some  more elaboration from you about the
>> "difference of opinion"  between  the Board and the Search Firm regarding
> the role
>> of an  ED. How does the Board  see the role? How does the Search Firm see
> the
>> role? What efforts are being made  to bridge this difference?
>
> I would prefer that you be blunt and say your word rather than turning
> around the pot Danny.
> It's a simple  question. I am not turning it around. I am simply asking you
> to explain your  statement.
>
>> All in all, it  sounds like a fascinating meeting. I  look forward to
> reading
>> the minutes.
>
> Ah,  confidential :-) Too bad. But they were written Danny, be  reassured.
> I am reassured. I only  wonder why no board minutes whatsoever have been
> posted to  wikimediafoundation.org since 2006. I had hoped that the new board
> would usher  in a time of greater transparency. Apparently I was  wrong.
>
> Danny
>
>
>
>
> ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox


list: wikien-l

from_name: William Pietri

subject: [WikiEN-l] Lock new article creation for three months

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> I would answer: don't bother, because it will be such an utter
> clusterfuck and PR disaster (relevant since it's basically a PR-driven
> initiative) that the fine details really don't matter.
>

I hadn't thought about it in that light, but you're completely right.

It would be a major tech news story, and a lot of them wouldn't be
positive. It could be easily written as a "Wikipedia admits Wikipedia
model a failure" story. Even friendly ones would ask why, and the
headline could well end up as "Wikipedia bans new articles after
'ruining lives'".

That's not to say it isn't the right thing to do if the model really is
a failure. But I'm not there yet.

William


list: foundation-l

from_name: oscar van dillen

subject: [Foundation-l] test

body:
On 4/1/07, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
>
> test
>
>
>
> ************************************** See what's free at
> http://www.aol.com.
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

it works :-)

--
DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of the
Wikimedia Foundation nor of its Board of Trustees.


subject: [Foundation-l] test


from_name: Gwern Branwen

subject: [WikiEN-l] "So fix it." "The next day someone will fix it

body:
Date: Sun, 01 Apr 2007 13:27:10 -0400
In-Reply-To: <71cd4dd90704010936y9d283carf7b8771a94c07423 at mail.gmail.com>
	(Anthony's message of "Sun, 1 Apr 2007 12:36:59 -0400")
Message-ID: <86ejn4kntd.fsf_-_ at elan.rh.rit.edu>
User-Agent: Gnus/5.110006 (No Gnus v0.6) Emacs/22.0.95 (gnu/linux)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
--text follows this line--
Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> writes:

> On 4/1/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Apr 1, 2007, at 10:58 AM, Ron Ritzman wrote:
>> > On 4/1/07, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> Excerpt from NY Times Magazine, "Questions for Douglas
>> >> Hofstadter", 4/1/07:
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Q. Your entry in Wikipedia says that your work has inspired
      many
>> >> students to begin careers in computing and artificial
intelligence.
>> >
>> > 1000 quatloos says this was something that "everybody knows".
>> >
>> >> A. I have no interest in computers. The entry is filled with
>> >> inaccuracies, and it kinds of depresses me.
>> >
>> > And of course "everybody" is FOS.
>>
>> There's no contradiction between the two statements, though.
>>
> For that matter, Hofstadter never claimed there was a
  contradiction.
>
> He said the entry on him "is filled with inaccuracies".  Even if
  he
> *did* mean to imply that the statement about inspiring many
   students
> was one of those inaccuracies, he's still claiming there are
  many
> others.
>
> That said, I just removed the statement about inspiring
  students, as
> it was anecdotal and lacked sources.  If someone cares to
  present a
> reliable source which claims that Hofstadter has inspired many
> students to begin careers in computing and AI, feel free to add
  it
> back with a citation.
>
> So, I fixed it.  Want to make a bet someone comes along and
fixes it back?
>
> Anthony

It should be fixed back. I urge everyone who is interested in this
thread to take a look at the Hofstadter talk page where I've been
working on this since yesterday: there is a Wired interview from
'95 where Hofstadter himself says that his book has so inspired
people. It is something "everyone knows" because it has achieved
the status of cliche; inspiring people is sort of what GEB does.

--
Gwern
Inquiring minds want to know.


from_name: Robert Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] check user...

body:
Sebastian Moleski wrote:
> On 3/31/07, Robert Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
>
>> I disagree that the damage that somebody using checkuser privileges is
>> necessarily irreversible and necessarily causes too many legal problems
>> "for themselves and the foundation."  There is obviously an extreme case
>> or two where this may be the case, but on the whole I can't really seen
>> where revealing the IP address of a user is necessarily going to be a
>> major problem.  At best, the worst damage that can happen is to document
>> what computer an edit actually took place on.  Only with 3rd party
>> records would it even be remotely possible to tie this with a specific
>> individual.
>>
> The laws regarding such things vary wildly between regions. In comparison to
> American privacy laws, for instance, the laws in manz European countries are
> much more strict. Disclosing personal information without the consent of the
> person the information belongs to can be prosecuted in criminal and civil
> court in some instances. Note that many of these laws aren't primarily meant
> to restrict the government from accessing the information but other private
> entities. The legal implications of checkuser shouldn't be underestimated.
>
> In addition, any user, including anonymous users, can trace the IP
>
I would like to point out that if you connect to the internet from any
connection, you are "broadcasting" who you are and where you are at.  I
know this is something that some individuals look at differently, but
trying to maintain anonymity on the internet is a complex task at the
best and futile at its worst.  I know some of this has to do with what a
server operator claims to do with their usage logs, but you really
shouldn't expect to have your privacy maintained, so far as the address
to the computer is concerned, if you are using any internet connection.
I have seen some server operators actually publish all access logs to
their website in a very public manner.

An IP address is not a personally identifying piece of information by
itself, as compared to a nationally issued ID number or your full legal
name.  As I mentioned here above, you must used additional information
such as signed logs or billing records of the ISP in order to tie a
particular IP address to a specific individual.
>> ...
>> If a 10-year-old has been given bureaucrat privileges on a Wikimedia
>> project, I would be very surprised.
>>
>
>
> There is at least one fifteen old user who is a bureaucrat on a Wikimedia
> project.
>
That is a major accomplishment, and congratulations to that individual.
And to get there, they must have demonstrated a huge degree of maturity
as well.  This is also something self-correcting as this particular
bureaucrat will be 18 in three years, making any argument about this
particular individual moot in time.
> It may also present some
>
>> interesting legal problems for the WMF in terms of liability for that
>> user's actions, but I also believe that any such user who has achieved
>> that level of trust in a particular project is going to have a level of
>> maturity to keep from abusing the checkuser tool as well.
>>
> Actual abuse isn't necessary to be subject to a lawsuit. People who
> volunteer to perform checkuser functions must be fully aware of the
> responsibilities their actions incur and the possible consequences of those
> actions. It may be customary to assume good faith in Wikimedia projects.
> Unfortunately, the real world doesn't always work that way.
>
> Regards,
>
> Sebastian
>

I've heard a whole bunch of bluster here about how this abuse "may be
subject to a lawsuit".  Is there any clear legal examples of this
happening with other ISPs in situations similar to a disclosure by a
volunteer operator/moderator of an IP address?  How is this different
from admins who have to delete (or undelete) copyrighted material, or
set themselves up for potential liability issues and other legal matters
by performing user blocks?  Or even ordinary users setting themselves up
with libel issues based on what they write on Wikimedia projects?

I believe that the hyperparanoia over the permission of check user
access is actually a short coming to improving Wikimedia projects, and
removing a very valuable tool to help fight vandalism and other
mischief.  Particularly for smaller Wikimedia projects the current rules
place huge obstacles to being able to help fight those who mean harm.
These discussions to even further limit the scope of those eligible
(even if mainly symbolic) smacks of the elitism that I perceived even
when the check user policy was issued in the first place.

Certainly in the case of somebody trying to demonstrate eligibility for
becoming a member of the board of trustees, an age requirement is
absolutely necessary.  What is missing here in these discussions is what
the actual legal requirements would be according to the laws of a
specific country for some volunteer coordinator who has access to
information tied between a user name and an IP address, and what both
the liability to the foundation would be if they accidentally or
intentionally disclosed this information.  Furthermore, if the person
who did this disclosure was a minor, would that substantially increase
the liability of the WMF?  Sure anything can trigger a lawsuit, but has
any similar lawsuit been filed in this kind of situation, ever?  And
been successful and not thrown out as laughable by the judge?

-- Robert Horning


subject: [Foundation-l] check user...


from_name: Bryan Derksen

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> On 4/1/07, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>> Adding new limits to everyone except admins is IMO no different in
>> practical terms from giving admins more powers.
>
> Assuming this does get implemented, how do you suggest we handle current
> event articles if not in the way I suggested?

I can't think of another way offhand. What I'm saying is that if we go
ahead with this, this is how I think it'll be perceived. So, I guess I'm
coming down pretty firmly now in the "this is not a good idea" camp.


from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] "So fix it." "The next day someone will fix it back."

body:
On Apr 1, 2007, at 12:36 PM, Anthony wrote:

>
> So, I fixed it.  Want to make a bet someone comes along and fixes
> it back?

It should be fixed back.

Don't remove information you believe to be true from Wikipedia even
if it is unsourced. This is a central tenet of sourcing that needs to
be preserved in order to keep sourcing from becoming a bludgeon to
gut articles for POV or other churlish reasons.

-Phil


from_name: James Farrar

subject: [WikiEN-l] let's be honest then

body:
On 01/04/07, doc <doc.wikipedia at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> Matthew Brown wrote:
> > On 3/31/07, doc <doc.wikipedia at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> >> However, being realistic, our community is too large and impersonal for
> >> us to be in the business of reforming people - all we can do is change
> >> policies. But I get yelled at every time I suggest that.
> >
> > Because changing policies does no damn good.  Most undesirable things
> > are already prohibited.
> >
> So wikipedia is doomed to keep having its sordid downside? We're doomed
> to always be fighting a losing battle against libels and lies?

Yes.

> And there's nothing
> we can do about it? No way we can make the system even a little better?
> It isn't even worth the attempt?

Anything we do stops us doing something else; it's a zero-sum game.
Hence, given that it won't be possible to eliminate the problem
entirely, we have to determine whether the amount by which we can
reduce the problem is worth the effort that would be expended,
considering that the said effort then cannot be used to improve
Wikipedia in other ways.


from_name: Jeffrey V. Merkey

subject:
[Foundation-l] Extensive Link Errors related to Proper Names
 -	Needs Fixing

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>On 4/1/07, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>
>>I have been compiling a machine compiled lexicon created from link and
>>disambiguation pages from the XML dumps.  Oddly, the associations
>>contained in [[ARTICLE_NAME | NAME]] form a comprehesive "real time"
>>thesauraus of common associations used by current English Speakers in
>>Wikipedia, and perhaps comprise the worlds largest and most comprehesive
>>Thesaurus on the planet emedded within the mesh of these links within
>>the dumps.
>>
>>
>
>Hey Jeff, Would you mind forwarding me a copy of your extracted data?
>A long time back I extracted the same data using an instrumented copy
>of the mediawiki parser, for the purpose of creating missing redirect
>pages. I didn't save my work, and getting the data from you would save
>me from reinventing the wheel all over again.
>
>Thanks.
>
>
>
>
I'll post it today at ftp://ftp.wikigadugi.org. It's very useful.

Jeff


from_name: Guettarda

subject: [WikiEN-l] deleting unsourced articles ..... gradually

body:
The whole argument about deleting unsourced articles ignores the experience
we have had with image uploads - being forced to pick a license tends to
push people towards just picking any one license.

I came across an unsourced (and unwikified) article about a town in Trinidad
today.  It was only a one-sentence article, so I fixed it up a little, but
didn't really expand it.  I looked around for some references online, but
couldn't find any quickly.  What I did find was mention of a book at
documentary about the town, done by a notable historian.  I feel confident
that the book covers the information in the article (there's so little, and
much of it is commonsense), so it would be pretty safe to cite the book as a
source.  Safe, but dishonest, since I have never seen the book.

In addition, the presence of a source is no guarantee of accuracy.  If I had
known the book well enough, I could have added it as a reference.  Then
suppose someone else came along and added some more material.  Someone else
comes along later, checks the page history, and realises that some of the
material came after the source.  There is no way for them to determine if
the person who added the source had seen the new material (and left it,
because it was in keeping with the source), or if they missed the edit, and
have no idea that this material has been added to the article.  A casual
reader never even looks at the page history, so they see both the original
statements and the additions, and they seen a reference.

Sure, stable versions could fix this.  Deleting unreferenced articles, on
the other hand, could not fix this (and would encourage people to add
spurious references, just to prevent the article from being deleted).


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject:
[Foundation-l] Extensive Link Errors related to Proper Names -
	Needs Fixing

body:
On 4/1/07, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
> I have been compiling a machine compiled lexicon created from link and
> disambiguation pages from the XML dumps.  Oddly, the associations
> contained in [[ARTICLE_NAME | NAME]] form a comprehesive "real time"
> thesauraus of common associations used by current English Speakers in
> Wikipedia, and perhaps comprise the worlds largest and most comprehesive
> Thesaurus on the planet emedded within the mesh of these links within
> the dumps.

Hey Jeff, Would you mind forwarding me a copy of your extracted data?
A long time back I extracted the same data using an instrumented copy
of the mediawiki parser, for the purpose of creating missing redirect
pages. I didn't save my work, and getting the data from you would save
me from reinventing the wheel all over again.

Thanks.


from_name: Ron Ritzman

body:
On 4/1/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:

> It should be fixed back.
>
> Don't remove information you believe to be true from Wikipedia even
> if it is unsourced. This is a central tenet of sourcing that needs to
> be preserved in order to keep sourcing from becoming a bludgeon to
> gut articles for POV or other churlish reasons.

Following AGF, I would agree with you somewhat on just about
everything, except articles about people who are still converting
oxygen into CO2. Incorrect but plausible sounding information can hurt
people in real life. It needs a source even if it's something you
"just know" is correct.


from_name: Anthony

body:
On 4/1/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Apr 1, 2007, at 12:36 PM, Anthony wrote:
>
> >
> > So, I fixed it.  Want to make a bet someone comes along and fixes
> > it back?
>
> It should be fixed back.
>
> Don't remove information you believe to be true from Wikipedia even
> if it is unsourced. This is a central tenet of sourcing that needs to
> be preserved in order to keep sourcing from becoming a bludgeon to
> gut articles for POV or other churlish reasons.
>
OK, but what about information which I have no idea whether it is true
or false, such as the paragraph I removed?

Anthony


from_name: Mohamed Magdy

subject: [Foundation-l] check user...

body:
Hello

Just wanted to note it..if the suggestion of age is to be
applied..someone got to remove checkuser from me as I haven't reached
the needed age :).

Mohamed~alnokta


subject: [Foundation-l] check user...


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 01/04/07, Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:

> Trying to "be creative":
>
> How about locking article creation for everyone one day a week? Or one
> day in 5? or 10?

Oooh. "Maintenance Saturdays". A rather interesting idea.

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


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fairness in Wikipedia

body:
Marc Riddell wrote:
> on 4/1/07 10:09 AM, Andrew Gray at shimgray at gmail.com wrote:
>
>
>> Do you feel we should - a) ban or restrict that user and let people
>> get on with their work; or b) some other remedy which essentially
>> maintains the status quo?
>>
>>
>>
> Thanks for this very clear explanation. As for me, I would go with solution
> a) for a period of time, while - and this is the important part - working
> with and trying to help this contributor understand the problems they are
> causing. That, to me, would be a solution fair to both the contributor and
> the project.
>
Nice idea, doesn't work in practice. Way back when, I tried to help
problematic editors a number of times, and there were exactly two
outcomes; the person understood what they were doing wrong after getting
the one hint, or never understood, no matter how many times it was
explained. We get a *lot* of borderlines, and one always hopes that just
one more rephrasing will cause the light bulb to come on - but these
folks have more serious problems than can be solved with talk page notes.

You should try your hand at it, will be valuable for insight - pick a
problem editor, such as one who's come up in an RfC, Arbcom case, etc,
and assign yourself to help them.

Stan


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fairness in Wikipedia

body:
"Andries Krugers Dagneaux" wrote

> >Editors from English--speaking and European countries do operate under
> >more or less the same ethical system, which promotes freedom and
> >fairness [..]

> That is untrue. One of the working principles of the arbcom is that it
> does not want to be fair to editors, but to make decisions that will
> help the project. This was explicitly written down by arbcom members
> Flonight and Charles Matthews. I hence decided to follow their example
> of not trying to be fair to others in Wikipedia.

Not too clever, really. And your formulation is not helpful. Sometimes ArbCom decisions are led by 'management' rather than 'judicial' considerations; but that's not to say Arbitrators want them lack in fairness.

Charles

-----------------------------------------
Email sent from www.virginmedia.com/email
Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software and scanned for spam


body:
On 4/1/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/1/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > It should be fixed back.
> >
> > Don't remove information you believe to be true from Wikipedia even
> > if it is unsourced. This is a central tenet of sourcing that needs to
> > be preserved in order to keep sourcing from becoming a bludgeon to
> > gut articles for POV or other churlish reasons.
>
> Following AGF, I would agree with you somewhat on just about
> everything, except articles about people who are still converting
> oxygen into CO2. Incorrect but plausible sounding information can hurt
> people in real life. It needs a source even if it's something you
> "just know" is correct.
>
I'd even agree on articles about people, in that you shouldn't be
removing something which you know is correct.

But you should remove something that you don't know is correct, and
someone else who does know it's correct should respect that and not
add it back without a source.

Looking at the paragraph I removed:

"Hofstadter has not published much in conventional academic journals
(except during his early [[physics]] career, see below)" - Probably
true, and I wouldn't have touched this if this were the only unsourced
statement.

"preferring the freedom of expression of large books of collected
ideas." - Probably pure speculation as to his motives.  But if you've
got a source, it's OK.

"As such, his great influence on [[computer science]]" - POV,
unsourced, and not at all something I know for a fact.

"is somewhat subversive and underground —" - huh?

"his work has inspired countless research projects but is not always
formally referenced." - no, I don't know this for a fact.

"Hofstadter himself denies any such impact on computer science." - not
only unsourced, but blatantly false!  Hofstadter has said in a wired
interview that he "has inspired many students to begin careers in
computing and artificial intelligence".

Anthony


body:
On 4/1/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 01/04/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
> > OK, but what about information which I have no idea whether it is true
> > or false, such as the paragraph I removed?
>
>
> {{fact}}
>
Is this your personal opinion, or policy?  Because I swear I've read
emails from a certain prominent Wikipedian suggesting otherwise (I'll
look up the email first, then name him).  And I should point out this
*is* a biography of a living person we're talking about.

Anthony


body:
On 4/1/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> Living bios are an exception - we have good reason to be really
> hard-arsed on sourcing and content for those.

It's a living bio that this thread is about. I would even go as far as
to say that it's an exception to one of the oldest wiki concepts,
"assume good faith". On most articles, we can assume the information
in an article is correct unless we have evidence to the contrary using
{fact} as a way of saying "pretty please can I see a source". On BLPs
we have to assume that anything without a source is a BOLD FACED LIE
(assume bad faith) until there is a source.


from_name: wiki_tomos at inter7.jp

subject: [Foundation-l] check user...

body:
I think check user generates certain legal risk to the Foundation especially
when he is a minor.

Wikimedia Foundation has a privacy policy. It seems the Foundation is
expressively promising that certain information will not be released
to the third party unless specific conditions are met.

And here, "third party release" does not include, at least the
way I read the privacy policy, release of personal information
from Wikimedia Foundation to a check user. It suggests that,
at least in the context of privacy policy, the check users are
insiders for the Foundation, not a third party.

This, in turn, means that the Foundation has a legal responsibility
to make check users to understand and follow its privacy policy.

So when check user breaks the promise - i.e. violate the Foundation's
privacy policy, one may question if the Foundation is partly responsible
for the violation.

If a check user is legally a minor, he may be able to legally get away with
breaking promises he has made, including the compliance with privacy policy.
I am not sure if minors really are less reliable than adults, but if they
are equally unreliable, then the Foundation is more responsible for minors'
violation of privacy policy than adults.

So, not because minors are less reliable, but because adults can bear
more legal risk when they abuse their check user privilege, it is legally
safer for the Foundation to limit the check user to adults.

How significant this difference? That is perhaps open to debate.

I personally think that the better course of action to mitigate the
legal risk is to treat check users as outsiders in the privacy policy.

I am not a lawyer, so be reminded that my reasoning could be flawed..

Best,

Tomos


subject: [Foundation-l] check user...


from_name: Christopher Hagar

body:
Purely based on reading things on the Internet, I believe this is in
reference to efforts to make the GFDL compatible with Creative Commons
ShareAlike, i.e. effectively having a unified free license.

On 4/1/07, Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> Thanks for your mail. It is always interesting to know what's going on
> inside the organisation.
>
> Florence Devouard a ?crit :
> > Hello community,
> >
> (...)
>
> I don't have anything to say or ask except about this point:
>
> * further work on license issues (details confidential)
>
> I don't understand several things here. What could be confidential about
> licence issues? May be not knowing for which material licence is
> discussed explains that. I suppose that if it would about a licence for
> the project the community would be involved. I don't even understand why
> the board needs to discuss licence issues. The only recent issue I know
> of is the adoption are the license policy, and I don't see what could be
> confidential about that.
>
> Well, if it is really confidential, don't tell us. Consider that I am
> just thinking alone loudly. ;o)
>
> > Thanks
> >
> > Florence Devouard
>
> Best regards,
>
> Yann
>
> --
> http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
> http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
> http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclop?die libre
> http://fr.wikisource.org/ | Biblioth?que libre
> http://wikilivres.info | Documents libres
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


body:
On 4/1/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 4/1/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 01/04/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> >
> > > OK, but what about information which I have no idea whether it is true
> > > or false, such as the paragraph I removed?
> >
> >
> > {{fact}}
> >
> Is this your personal opinion, or policy?  Because I swear I've read
> emails from a certain prominent Wikipedian suggesting otherwise (I'll
> look up the email first, then name him).  And I should point out this
> *is* a biography of a living person we're talking about.
>
Ah ha, here it is.  The post is entitled "[WikiEN-l] good example of
overuse of {{fact}}" by Jimmy Wales on Oct 15, 2006 10:43 AM.  His
example is not a BLP:

"Political correctness is a real or perceived attempt to refine or
restrict language and terms used in public discussion to those deemed
acceptable or appropriate. For example "blackboard" is now perceived
by some as being "politically incorrect" in the United Kingdom
[citation needed]"

Isn't this exactly the type of anecdotal fluff which I just removed
from the Hofstadter article?  I have no idea whether the claim is true
or false.

Now, something I didn't remember is that Wales was complaining not
over the use of the tag, but that it was used for so long.  He says
that he "would recommend that anything like this for which no citation
appears within 7 days be removed or edited in some fashion to remove
the need."

So {{fact}} tag this for 7 days, and then remove?  Or is this
different because it's a BLP?  Does it matter whether the statement
could be construed as a bad thing or not?  Does it matter that the
person in question has stated that our article is filled with errors?

I still think I did the right thing.  But the fact that it's being
questioned doesn't surprise me one bit.  At times Wikipedia seems to
be filled with these anecdotal statements and preconceived notions
that are off-limits for removal.

Anthony


from_name: David Gerard

subject:
[Foundation-l] A successful request not yet fulfilled (was
	Language Prevention Committee created)

body:
On 01/04/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:

> PS I take it that calling the committee the "language prevention
> committee" is supposed to be funny. It is not.

Unfortunately, it appears to be the case in practice.

While it is true, you can expect the name to stick.

- d.


body:
A less drastic solution would be to disable new user accounts. This would
limit the number of new articles, and especially the ones that are the
greatest maintenance burden, especially unsourced articles, and would not
significantly impair our ability to cover current events or inhibit people
who are quite capable of creating sound articles. Even if the limit were
only a week, this would still be time for the person to get familiar with
how to edit Wikipedia; we should stress the idea that Wikipedia is not a
dumping ground, that if you are creating an article it should not be crap,
that it should at least have the rudiments of what is necessary for someone
else to improve it, and most importantly that you should not leave something
undone if it would take you 5 minutes to do it but it would take someone
unfamiliar with the topic and the article 20 minutes.


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject:
[Foundation-l] A successful request not yet fulfilled (was
 Language Prevention Committee created)

body:
Hoi,
The bottleneck is associated with NEW languages. So when a new project
is requested for an existing language, it is more an issue of how the
particular projects deal with this; WikiNews for instance has its own
procedure. When a new project is started, it is expected that the
language does have a message file that is part of MediaWiki proper. When
it is not, it is the ideal moment to make it part of MediaWiki proper;
this will prevent that the messages have to be localised yet again.

Thanks,
     GerardM

PS I take it that calling the committee the "language prevention
committee" is supposed to be funny. It is not.

Luiz Augusto schreef:
> Hi
>
> There is a successful and old request for opening a new wiki not yet
> fulfilled. Language prevention/creation committee/subcommittee or
> whatever/anything else, please forgive the MessagexXX.php paranoia and see
> requests for non-Wikipedias wikis a while.
>
> # [[:oldwikisource:]] have a [[Wikisource:Language domain requests]] page.
> # This page have at least one successful request for a new Wikisource wiki:
> Tamil Wikisource (ta.wikisource)
> ## This have a large community support:
> http://wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Wikisource:Language_domain_requests&oldid=215092#Domain_requests_.28ta.wikisource.org.29
> ## This have "incubator" pages: http://wikisource.org/wiki/Category:Tamil
> ## This have a bugzilla request:
> http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6982
> ## The MessagesTa.php is avaiable at MediaWiki SVN repository
> ## There is someone interested on editing in this non-existing exactly now:
> http://wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3A-jkb-&diff=215093&oldid=214978
> ## I've asked about it on the langcom wiki yesterday but no one
> apparentlyhave read it.
>
> And, if the language prevention/creation committee/subcommittee or
> whatever/anything else isn't happy to increase the current amount of
> Wikimedia wikis, I found a good solution: open the ta.wikisource and close
> the ang.wikisource. No, no one have deleted the MessagesAng.php from
> subversion, this apparently has never created, but you can find a vote to
> close that wiki with large community support at:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects/Closure_of_Old_English_Wikisource
>
> Best regards
> [[:m:User:555]]
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fairness in Wikipedia

body:
On 01/04/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
> on 4/1/07 1:42 AM, Andries Krugers Dagneaux at andrieskd at chello.nl wrote:
>
> > That is untrue. One of the working principles of the arbcom is that it
> > does not want to be fair to editors, but to make decisions that will
> > help the project.
>
> What does this mean exactly?

A clearer-than-it-would-be example: imagine there is a good-faith
contributor who just causes unbelivable amounts of strife. They mean
well, they make good-faith contributions, they haven't done anything
*wrong* per se... but the community gets in vast lengthy wasteful
fights with them over things, huge amounts of effort are wasted
looking after them and cleaning up after them and trying to calm down
the arguments and so on and so forth.

Do you feel we should - a) ban or restrict that user and let people
get on with their work; or b) some other remedy which essentially
maintains the status quo?

a) is probably more beneficial to the project, whilst b) is undeniably
more fair to the user. Both are defensible solutions, but hopefully
you can see the difference in the principles underlying each...

[I don't follow arbcom; I don't know if there have been arb bans on
the basis of They Just Waste Too Much Time. There have been community
bans to that extent, however...]

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


body:
On 4/1/07, William Pietri <william at scissor.com> wrote:
> Ron Ritzman wrote:
> > On 4/1/07, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> >> Sorry to say, but in this case it's Hofstadter, not us, who is wrong.
> >> His book _Goedel, Escher, Bach_ in particular *has* inspired many
> >> students to begin careers in computing and artificial intelligence,
> >> whether to not he likes that fact.
> >>
> >
> > I started to wonder about that after my first post in this thread. Is
> > it possible that the AI inspiration thing is a phenomenon that
> > Hofstadter was unaware of.
>
>
> Frankly, no. It's such a hugely influential book among geeks that had he
> slipped into a coma shortly after mailing the manuscript and only just
> awakened before the NY Times interview, he still couldn't have escaped
> noticing, as people would have built a shrine around his hospital bed.
>
> And more prosaically, he also said so himself:
>
>     What the book did do was excite a lot of young people. Hundreds of
>     people have written to me saying it launched them on a path of
>     studying computer science or cognitive science or philosophy.
>
>  From Kevin Kelly interviewing him in Wired, November 1995.
> <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.11/kelly.html?pg=2&topic=>
>
>
> Personally, I'd guess he didn't mean to suggest otherwise.
>
I think you're right.  Here's what the relevant two paragraphs now read:

----

Hofstadter has said that he feels "uncomfortable with the nerd culture
that centers on computers".
[http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.03/play.html?pg=3]  He admits
that "a large fraction [of his audience] seems to be those who are
fascinated by technology"
[http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.03/play.html?pg=3], but when it
was suggested that his work "has inspired many students to begin
careers in computing and artificial intelligence" he replied that he
has "no interest in computers".
[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/magazine/01wwlnQ4.t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin]

In that interview he pointed to a seminar,
[http://www.indiana.edu/~deanfac/blspr99/cogs/cogs_q700_1003.html AI:
Hope and Hype], where he took a "skeptical look at a number of
highly-touted AI projects and overall approaches".  Hofstadter has
long predicted that computers will never be able to do many of the
things which humans can do.  In ''Godel, Escher, Bach'', Hofstadter
made a prediction "that a computer chess program could never beat a
human being at chess". [http://www.nyu.edu/classes/neimark/maker.html]
 Upon the defeat of [[Kasparov]] by [[Deep Blue]], he commented that
"It was a watershed event, but it doesn't have to do with computers
becoming intelligent."
[http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~cfs/472_html/Intro/NYT_Intro/ChessMatch/MeanChessPlaying.html]

----

Also from the Wired article, a comment I didn't manage to work in: "I
always hope my writings will resonate with people who love literature,
art, and music. But instead, a large fraction of my audience seems to
be those who are fascinated by technology and who assume that I am,
too."


from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fairness in Wikipedia

body:
On 4/1/07, Andries Krugers Dagneaux <andrieskd at chello.nl> wrote:
When I asked Flonight whether topic-banning in the absence of
> such diffs was fair, I was told that the arbcom does not want to be fair
> to editors. Charles Matthews endorsed her reasoning in this respect. If
> that is the reasoning of the arbcom then I have no intention to be fair
> to contributors in Wikipedia.

Obviously I know neither Flonight's reasoning nor Charles'.  However,
speaking as someone who used to be a member of that committee, I'll
wager that there was significant more subtlety to their comments than
what you've paraphrased there.

The Arbitration Committee's overriding aim is not fairness.  Rather it
is to do the best for the encyclopaedia.  This doesn't mean that
fairness is not considered.  It just means that, when "justice" and
the interests of the encylopaedia collide, the encyclopaedia comes
first.

--
Sam


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
On 3/31/07, Seraphim Blade <seraphimbladewikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> This sounds quite a lot like the WP:PRODUS proposal I made some time
> ago (which, in turn, came from some of the discussion that took place
> at WP:CSDUA). It was rejected at the time, but maybe it's time to
> restart the discussion? Also, I was considering a process where new
> unsourced articles would be userfied to their creator after a period
> of time with no sources, and placed in a category, with the resulting
> redirect speedied as cross-namespace. This way, anyone could userfy
> content after time's up, and tag the redirect (though an admin would
> eventually be needed to delete it), and those wishing to work on
> sourcing articles could look through that category and move it back
> into mainspace once it's got some sourcing behind it.
>
> Seraphimblade

Looks like a good thing to try. I'll make my own proposal later today which
should also improve the referencing of articles (new and old).

Mgm


body:
On 4/1/07, Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Erik Moeller wrote:
> > On 3/31/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Why don't we lock new article creation in the main namespace entirely
> >> for three months? Or six months? Demand that people fix existing
> >> articles.
> >
> > Because things happen every day that deserve to be documented, and
> > there are always people who want to do so. Don't force them to try to
> > do what you want.
> >
> > There are much softer solutions to get people's attention.  For example:
> >
> > A simple notice:
> >
> > "We have 1,715,464 articles in English. Why not bring an existing one
> > up to [[featured article status]]?"
> >
> > on the new article creation page.
> >
> > A contest announced through the site notice for registered users.
> >
> > A "how to make Wikipedia better today" newsletter
> >
> > Making an "Improvement of the month" part of the Main Page for
> > readers, which would also raise awareness of what Wikipedia
> > represents.
> >
> > Organizing face-to-face meetups with a focus on actual research & work
> > -- perhaps by making them focused on topics, or WikiProjects.
> >
> > E-mail newsletters of the "how you can help Wikipedia today" type.
> > Real-time collaborations with Gobby. Topic-oriented mailing lists and
> > IRC channels.
> >
> > Be creative. Locking article creation is not.
>
> Trying to "be creative":
>
> How about locking article creation for everyone one day a week? Or one
> day in 5? or 10?
>
> Keeping up with current events becomes much less of an issue. It
> resembles the sort of routine that many people are familiar with (where,
> for example, they do not work on weekends). And it would allow for some
> time to "catch up".
>
> Of course, it would not have the immediate degree of impact that locking
> page creation for 3 months would have--but that includes both desirable
> and undesirable impact.
>
> -Rich

Even an addicted Wikipedian can simply not edit for one day of the week if
they only want to create new pages. It may help administrators with cleaning
backlogs, but when a lockdown isn't long enough it won't help people catch
up.

Say for example we use Sunday as the off-day and let's assume for a moment
that  I spend 8 hours here. If I want to do some serious research to
reference an article it may take anywhere from 15 minutes to half an hour.
In the best of cases that would mean I can source 32 articles if I go at it
for an entire day.

It would be a drop on a hot plate.

Last time I read about the stats for this, there were 55000 articles with
citation needed templates alone (that's not counting entirely unsourced
articles which are at least another 50000). To get rid of both, we'd need
100000/32 = 3125 Wikipedians who know where to find the relevant sources
working a whole day to get rid of the existing backlog. The WikiProject for
factchecking doesn't have enough members and I doubt everyone is willing to
make an effort to do this for a full working day.

In the other six days in which creation wouldn't be locked down we'd have at
least 2500 new pages created a day (those are the ones that survive) many of
which need sources added (that is 6x2500=15000 new entries that need vetting
every week) A oneday creation block simply wouldn't be enough to get rid of
the backlog or even lighten it in any sort of meaningful manner with the
amount of material coming in during the days where the wikipedians doing the
checking are busy with other stuff.

Mgm


body:
Fastfission wrote

> At this point, Wikipedia's epistemology privileges the persistant, the
> dedicated, and those with a lot of free time on their hands. Which is
> a set of qualities which describes both the best _and_ the worst
> editors.

You cited Douglas Hofstadter on [[Douglas Hofstadter]]. He was not given quite the right advice. Better advice would be to post a list of corrections to [[Talk:Douglas Hofstadter]].

Think of WP as a coral reef and you get a better picture. You can tell that you are in 'the community' if you are one of those polyps, memorialised by some permanent addition. The reef does actually grow.

Charles

-----------------------------------------
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from_name: Phil Sandifer

body:
On Apr 1, 2007, at 2:28 PM, Anthony wrote:

> On 4/1/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 01/04/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>>
>>> OK, but what about information which I have no idea whether it is
>>> true
>>> or false, such as the paragraph I removed?
>>
>>
>> {{fact}}
>>
> Is this your personal opinion, or policy?  Because I swear I've read
> emails from a certain prominent Wikipedian suggesting otherwise (I'll
> look up the email first, then name him).  And I should point out this
> *is* a biography of a living person we're talking about.

There is nothing even remotely potentially libelous about the
statement that Hofstadter, who writes about artificial intelligence,
had influence in computing. It's not something that should be deleted
wholesale except to disruptively prove a point.

Which is something you of all people should know better than to do.

-Phil


body:
Rich Holton wrote

> How about locking article creation for everyone one day a week? Or one
> day in 5? or 10?

Well, what I'd do would be to write the same articles in my userspace, and add them all to article space the next day. You'd have the same articles, but I'd probably spend less time on various associated checks and redirects. Why would this be an improvement?

It would be better to get some agreed priorities on which kinds of clean-up to target. And to think about solutions for New Pages Patrol, perhaps technically based. At present you basically have to go there and play Space Invadeers with the junk articles? Tagging is somewhat random, and is there there a tag saying "NPP Inspected April 1 2007"?

Charles

-----------------------------------------
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Fairness in Wikipedia

body:
"Andries Krugers Dagneaux" wrote

> I will continue editing at Citizendium.

Please support the use of the GFDL there.

Charles

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from_name: doc

body:
>
> I think it is too important to be dismissive about this approach. Even
> correctly cited things can be removed or butchered, even incorrectly
> cited things can stay on. I'm not sure that increased calls for
> citation will solve or even mitigate the problem. Any academic can
> tell you that citation is hardly a gold standard; it is not what
> convinces people of the accuracy of any claim. In the end that comes
> down to trust, and that comes down to authorship, and that comes down
> to things that Wikipedia doesn't, won't, and maybe can't do right.
>
> At this point, Wikipedia's epistemology privileges the persistant, the
> dedicated, and those with a lot of free time on their hands. Which is
> a set of qualities which describes both the best _and_ the worst
> editors.
>
> I don't have an answer though. Just something to muse on, in the face
> of some rather derisive high-brow publicity from an immensely popular,
> immensely intelligent person.
>
> FF
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
Persistence can win over truth and neutrality - unless the persistent
one is so blatantly inserting falsehoods that he is identified as a
vandal and blocked.

On high profile articles this matters not, as the persistence of the one
pov-pusher will be undone by the more apathetic action of the many.

The problem is with low notability articles, where one persistent pusher
can own the article for months or years.

To harp back on to my subject of bios, here there is a real problem, not
of the outright libeler but one someone persistently making sure the
article includes all negative commentary (often well cited) and no
positive. These hatchet jobs are a real problem as what really need is
someone to equally persistently research the other side and then keep
  it balanced. The admin called to the scene seldom had the time or
interest.

Maybe that is just what wikipedia is. We have a great system that can
produce great articles in fairly uncontroversial subjects, or at its
best controversial ones where there is a large group of people with a
cross-section of views interested. But we are crap at low-notability
controversial subjects, and particularly bios. Maybe trying to change
policies to correct that systemic fact is misguided.

However, the conclusion to that may well be to say that *if open,
inclusive, wikis can't do this type of thing, then we should stop
trying*......Maybe we need a different type of project to do
low-notability bios, one that is willing to say - *where we can't have a
decent fair bio, we should have no bio at all*.

Should we stop trying to be anything other than a wiki - but now accept
the limits of that method.

Doc


list: commons-l

subject: [Commons-l] InstantCommons demo

body:
On 4/1/07, Daniel Kinzler <daniel at brightbyte.de> wrote:
> Linking back to the original page is essential, of course. Also, links to the
> uploader's user page (and also the author's page, if different) have to work to
> fulfill the attribution requirement. (I can check if they do, the demo site
> appears to be down).

Uploaders page is often not the copyright holder. My view is that it
should translucde the page text like commons wiki does on the other
projects, and correctly fix up all the links.

> But most importantly: what happens if an image is deleted from commons? Does it
> vanish from the sites using it via InstantCommons? Or does it just stay? That
> would not be good legally...

Image revocation is a must solve feature before we could activate it
on commons.  Part of the reason that we don't get in deep-crap with
more copyright holders is that when they contact us we make the file
go bye-bye quickly.   If many other sites are invisibly and
automatically mirroring commons content without human oversight and
ignoring our deletions, then this kills our ability to effectively
take down infringements and keep copyright holders happy.

> Ideally, the image would be replaced by a warning icons, and local admins can
> decide if they want to delete, or "really" import their cached copy, and take
> responsibility.

It would be in our interest to block access to sites which continue to
distribute copyright infringements which we have deleted.


from_name: Andries Krugers Dagneaux

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fairness in Wikipedia

body:
On Sun, 1 Apr 2007 07:42:46 +0200, "Andries Krugers Dagneaux"
<andrieskd at chello.nl> wrote:

>>One of the working principles of the arbcom is that it
>>does not want to be fair to editors, but to make decisions that will
>>help the project.

>That's up there with "verifiability, not truth".  It does not mitigate
>against the idea that there is a set of principles which enjoy broad
>support, and whose rejection tends to be connected with a short and
>turbulent life on Wikipedia.
>
>Guy (JzG)

That is not what I meant. I was topic-banned by the arbcom though my
edits on that topic ([[Sathya Sai Baba]]) were described as "generally
responsible" and I repeatedly but unsuccessfully requested diffs that
show that I broke Wikipedia policies or made disruptive or activist
edits. When I asked Flonight whether topic-banning in the absence of
such diffs was fair, I was told that the arbcom does not want to be fair
to editors. Charles Matthews endorsed her reasoning in this respect. If
that is the reasoning of the arbcom then I have no intention to be fair
to contributors in Wikipedia.

Andries


from_name: Luiz Augusto

subject:
[Foundation-l] [Wikisource-l] A successful request not yet
	fulfilled (was Language Prevention Committee created)

body:
Thanks for the answers, Pathoschild and GerardM. I know that the process to
*request* to create a new Wikisource (and to request the creation of a new
Wikinews or a new Wikiversity) have theirs particularities. But unfortunately
I'm unable to found any documentation/policy page that explains if the
langcom need to do a final word on these requests or not. Now I have five
answers to this:

* The http://langcom.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page saying "a clear
step-by-step policy (based on quantitative indicators) for evaluating the
feasibility of new language wikis, with an automated procedure for project
development;" (with no distinctions between projects)
* The http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Language_proposal_policy saying
"The proposal is to open a new language edition of an existing Wikimedia
project that does not already exist (see the complete list of Wikimedia
projects)" (with no distinctions between projects)
* GerardM ignoring my specific question and doing a [[Ad nauseam]], followed
by some [[Ad nauseam]] answers criticizing theirs statments (my Gmail trash
is unfortunately queasy with a large amount of [[Ad nauseam]]s)
* A (nice) on-topic reply made by Pathoschild with their POV pointing
to a paragraph
originally writen by me [1] based on the Wikisource Multilingual wiki policy

* The Wikisource creation policy itself.

Please langcom members, discuss internaly and release to the public if their
committee need to do a final word on requestions for creation for new
Wikisource/Wikinews/Wikiversity wikis or if theirs policy requirements to
prevent a new wiki going to be created with 0 active users and 0 pages is
sufficient to make a bugzilla request. And please someone write a few lines
to be cuted-and-pasted at wikisource.org/wiki/ explaing about the possibles
reasons for the delays on the creation for new Wikisources wikis.

And please, related to the Tamil Wikisource specific situation: why this
don't have yet a wiki? Technical problems? Just no one with free time to set
this wiki up? Just others than me with the same questions related to the
"final word"? No sufficient pages at [[:oldwikisource:]] "incubator"? (if
the problem is the last one, the most recent Wikisource, mk.wikisource, has
been created with only the "Main page" at the "incubator" and now have 308
"articles" apart the last edit on that wiki is from 27 February from this
year).

Please keep on topic on replies. Please. Please.

[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Requests_for_new_languages&diff=prev&oldid=527531
, based on a previous
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Pathoschild&diff=next&oldid=481667

On 4/1/07, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) <pathoschild at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> The process on the multilingual Wikisource domain is not covered by
> the language subcommittee yet; you'll notice that there is a redundant
> process at < http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/RFL#Wikisource>. The
> secondary processes will eventually be merged into the Meta process
> (probably a combination of both, not simply removing one), but we want
> to make sure that the latter is working at a reasonable efficiency
> first. As your sarcasm indicates you already know, we've had some
> difficulty starting up.
>
> I would suggest continuing to follow the Wikisource process, since the
> request is there. This process is the same as it was on Meta until the
> reform: file a bug request following community approval, and it might
> be done eventually. I'm sorry that we can't do anything more at the
> moment, but we're busy catching up on requests (for many projects,
> *not* only Wikipedias) that were filed through the subcommittee
> process in the transitional period.
>
> Yours cordially,
> Jesse Martin (Pathoschild)
>
> (This message is not an official statement of the language subcommittee.)
>
>
> > From: "Luiz Augusto" <lugusto at gmail.com>
> > Hi
> >
> > There is a successful and old request for opening a new wiki not yet
> > fulfilled. Language prevention/creation committee/subcommittee or
> > whatever/anything else, please forgive the MessagexXX.php paranoia and
> see
> > requests for non-Wikipedias wikis a while.
> >
> > # [[:oldwikisource:]] have a [[Wikisource:Language domain requests]]
> page.
> > # This page have at least one successful request for a new Wikisource
> wiki:
> > Tamil Wikisource (ta.wikisource)
> > ## This have a large community support:
> >
> http://wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Wikisource:Language_domain_requests&oldid=215092#Domain_requests_.28ta.wikisource.org.29
> > ## This have "incubator" pages:
> http://wikisource.org/wiki/Category:Tamil
> > ## This have a bugzilla request:
> > http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6982
> > ## The MessagesTa.php is avaiable at MediaWiki SVN repository
> > ## There is someone interested on editing in this non-existing exactly
> now:
> >
> http://wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3A-jkb-&diff=215093&oldid=214978
> > ## I've asked about it on the langcom wiki yesterday but no one
> > apparentlyhave read it.
> >
> > And, if the language prevention/creation committee/subcommittee or
> > whatever/anything else isn't happy to increase the current amount of
> > Wikimedia wikis, I found a good solution: open the ta.wikisource and
> close
> > the ang.wikisource. No, no one have deleted the MessagesAng.php from
> > subversion, this apparently has never created, but you can find a vote
> to
> > close that wiki with large community support at:
> >
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects/Closure_of_Old_English_Wikisource
> >
> > Best regards
> > [[:m:User:555]]
> >
>
> --
> Yours cordially,
> Jesse Martin (Pathoschild)
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikisource-l mailing list
> Wikisource-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikisource-l
>


from_name: Arbeo M

subject: [Foundation-l] Language Prevention Committee created

body:
2007/4/1, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) <pathoschild at gmail.com>:
>
> Hello,
>
> The Language Prevention (sub)Committee would like to announce that the
> Kabyle Wikipedia  has entered the localization stage. Once the primary
> interface messages are translated, the subcommittee will recommend the
> creation of the Kabyle Wikipedia to the board.
>
> The Kabyle Wikipedia will be the first new wiki approved by the
> subcommittee, so we've asked the Kabyle community to help tweak the
> process for future requests. Based on this discussion, we have made it
> unnecessary to translate the entire interface: 327 messages are
> currently listed as unnecessary, and users have been invited to
> suggest others.

 That looks like a prudent solution. In combination with providing clear-cut
directions (which you kindly did on Meta) and support if necessary it will
in all likelihood turn the "barrier" of localization into a surmountable
one. Considering Kabyle as a model case for the viability of the procedure
makes a lot of sense. A big "thank you" to the langcom for this constructive
step forward.

The Language Prevention (sub)Committee is profoundly sorry for failing
> to prevent the upcoming creation of the Kabyle Wikipedia, and is in
> particular sorry for projecting a far quicker processing rate once the
> procedure has been tested.

Don't worry about it. The subcommittee has sufficiently proved that it is
capable of preventing Wikipedias over longer periods of time. Let's just
leave it at that ;-)

Yours,
--Arbeo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fairness in Wikipedia

body:
>The Arbitration Committee's overriding aim is not fairness.  Rather it
>is to do the best for the encyclopaedia.  This doesn't mean that
>fairness is not considered.  It just means that, when "justice" and
>the interests of the encylopaedia collide, the encyclopaedia comes
>first.
>
>Sam

I understand that. But topic banning an editor whose edits on that topic
were desribed by the arbcom as "generally responsible" and without diffs
that show disruptive editing on that topic is neither fair nor does it
help the encyclopedia.

I will continue editing at Citizendium.

Andries


subject: [WikiEN-l] Weekly cycles to Wikipedia traffic

body:
On 01/04/07, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:

> Raw page views seem to peak on Sunday and are lower at other times of
> the week, though there's a smaller second sawtooth around Wednesday.

Raw page views peak Sunday afternoon/evening US time. This is
notoriously the busiest time on the site and is when you're most
likely to hit a "sorry we're overloaded" message (though I haven't
gotten one of those in ages myself). Not sure why there's a Wednesday
peak as well though.

- d.


from_name: K P

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fairness in Wikipedia

body:
>
> on 4/1/07 5:24 PM, Stan Shebs at stanshebs at earthlink.net wrote:
> >>
> > Nice idea, doesn't work in practice. Way back when, I tried to help
> > problematic editors a number of times, and there were exactly two
> > outcomes; the person understood what they were doing wrong after getting
> > the one hint, or never understood, no matter how many times it was
> > explained. We get a *lot* of borderlines, and one always hopes that just
> > one more rephrasing will cause the light bulb to come on - but these
> > folks have more serious problems than can be solved with talk page
> notes.
> >
> > You should try your hand at it, will be valuable for insight - pick a
> > problem editor, such as one who's come up in an RfC, Arbcom case, etc,
> > and assign yourself to help them.
> >
> Stan,
>
> This idea is very tempting.
>
> We each bring our own individual professional backgrounds and skills to
> the
> building of the WP Project. In this bringing, the focus is still,
> nevertheless, applied to the substance of the encyclopedia. I believe what
> you are suggesting goes beyond this and into the WP Community itself.
>
> My particular involvement would be much trickier than, say, someone with
> math skills offering to tutor someone in the Community who is struggling
> with understanding the basics of arithmetic. But, in both cases, before
> such
> a relationship could have any hope of succeeding, the person in need of
> this
> help would need to ask for that help.
>
> I would be willing to make myself available to render such help, but,
> again.
> it would be up to the person to ask for this help. I'm not sure how this
> process would work in the Project. Still, it is an intriguing idea.
>
> I'm open to suggestions on how to make it work in WP.
>
> Marc Riddell
> --
> To fly - you must first suspend your belief in gravity.

But isn't it too late by the time it has gone to RfC or arbcom?  Sometimes
RfC then arbcom?  If an editor doesn't get it in RfC and is still a problem,
particularly if they are still contributing exactly the same problems, and
this Stan is familiar with, then the situation is already lost.

But when someone mentioned problematic but well-intentioned editors, I
thought of someone like our current "rewrite-the-taxonomy of the
single-celled eukaryoteic groups according to me and C-S" guy, who has had
to be downshifted a number of times on this exact same thing, his original
protist taxonomies, but crops up with it again here and there.

I did not consider someone who has been to RfC or arbcom and continues the
same pattern.  The former (protist dude) is someone worth working with, as
he's one of only a handful of editors interested in the protists.  The
latter happens rather routinely on Wikipedia, people given a billion
chances.  But it happens because these editors do something else worthwhile
to Wikipedia.

So, even if the situation is already lost, even if good editors give up
after having been burned a couple of times trying to work with the hopeless,
maybe assigning someone to them is a great idea, not just a good idea,
because all that time has been spent/wasted on arbcom or RfC because the
editor was actually contributing.

Maybe assigning someone to protist-dude would be a good idea also, as he's
not just into protists, but I think into the non photosynthetic ones.  I
wouldn't know one amoeba from another if I were phagocytotically 'et by one.

KP


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [Foundation-l] check user...

body:
>-----Original Message-----
>From: wiki_tomos at inter7.jp [mailto:wiki_tomos at inter7.jp]
>Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2007 11:33 PM
>To: foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>Subject: [Foundation-l] check user...
>
>I think check user generates certain legal risk to the Foundation especially
>when he is a minor.
>
>Wikimedia Foundation has a privacy policy. It seems the Foundation is
>expressively promising that certain information will not be released
>to the third party unless specific conditions are met.
>
>And here, "third party release" does not include, at least the
>way I read the privacy policy, release of personal information
>from Wikimedia Foundation to a check user. It suggests that,
>at least in the context of privacy policy, the check users are
>insiders for the Foundation, not a third party.
>
>This, in turn, means that the Foundation has a legal responsibility
>to make check users to understand and follow its privacy policy.
>
>So when check user breaks the promise - i.e. violate the Foundation's
>privacy policy, one may question if the Foundation is partly responsible
>for the violation.
>
>If a check user is legally a minor, he may be able to legally get away with
>breaking promises he has made, including the compliance with privacy policy.
>I am not sure if minors really are less reliable than adults, but if they
>are equally unreliable, then the Foundation is more responsible for minors'
>violation of privacy policy than adults.
>
>So, not because minors are less reliable, but because adults can bear
>more legal risk when they abuse their check user privilege, it is legally
>safer for the Foundation to limit the check user to adults.
>
>How significant this difference? That is perhaps open to debate.
>
>I personally think that the better course of action to mitigate the
>legal risk is to treat check users as outsiders in the privacy policy.
>
>I am not a lawyer, so be reminded that my reasoning could be flawed..
>
>
>Best,
>
>
>Tomos

Your legal reasoning is fine, although a parent could sign off on the legal liability. I think our problem is not with allowing a 15 year old to do responsible work, but with the understandable skepticism we will face if we ever have to explain it to a court or in the public press.

Fred


subject: [Foundation-l] check user...


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Commons-l] InstantCommons demo

body:
On 4/1/07, Delphine M?nard <notafishz at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/1/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 4/1/07, Daniel Kinzler <daniel at brightbyte.de> wrote:
>
> > It would be in our interest to block access to sites which continue to
> > distribute copyright infringements which we have deleted.
>
> Right. On another note, has a policy been thought out about mediawiki
> installations which would bar their users from uploading images
> locally and ask them to do so on Commons?
>
> Does the Wikimedia Commons community have the strength to deal with
> potentially thousands of new users not aware of our "free" policies
> and uploading images to Commons?
>
> Is there a requirement that the websites allowed to use InstantCommons
> host free content? Or can every Tom Dick or Harry use InstantCommons?

It's just a software feature. We might not use it. I would strongly
suggest that we not use it until we have good answers to these
questions.

As far as handling new users goes, ... we need to improve that for
ourselves even without the extra pressure of instantcommons.  Many
things have been proposed, few implemented.

As far as free content or not sites goes, It would be be very
interesting when some of our commons users start enforcing the
copyleft terms of their images licenses against sites using instant
commons images in sites which are non-free.

For the copyright related concerns I raised earlier in the thread,
here is a fun datapoint:

177,734 files uploaded to commons in Jan and Feb 2007,
of those files  20,741 have already been deleted which is a bit under
12%. There have been 45,810 total image deletions on commons since Jan
1st.

This graph is also interesting:
http://72.165.205.81/dimage_life3.png

It shows the distribution of age at time of deletion for files deleted
on commons. The green curve is the most recent quarter, the purple is
prior quarter. It's clear that the introduction of bot-deletion for
backlogs has had a substantial impact on the timing of our deletions.

The slope of the CDF after it initially stabilises would indicate that
once a file has passed 15 or so days old the probability of us
deleting on any given day is just a small constant. This wouldn't be
bad if old deletions weren't such a substantial fraction of our total
deletions.


from_name: Brianna Laugher

subject: [Foundation-l] Red category link is unhelpful

body:
On 01/04/07, Virgil Ierubino <virgil.ierubino at gmail.com> wrote:
> Seen as category pages work even if they DO contain no text, treating them
> in the same way as a nonexistent article is unhelpful (especially to newer
> users who only think they see a broken link).

Not true. Maybe the mechanism is not perfect, but a red category link
alerts the user that "something is wrong". The something may be
misspelling, alias problems (Hotdogs vs Hot-dogs vs Hot-Dogs vs Hotdog
vs...), or simply that the category doesn't exist yet and needs to be
created (not by giving it text, but crucially by giving it a parent
category).

The problem is not so much for that user but for subsequent ones, who
come and want to find items on Hotdogs, and have no way of knowing
that they must check many variants to find all the available material.

The category system is for sure not perfect, but the red link is
definitely better than making them all blue. Wikis that rely on
category structures for navigation and sorting of items (eg...
Commons) also rely on this red link 'alert'.

Something more flexible might be if there was a $wgAllCategoriesBlue
or something that could be configured for each wiki, but a wholesale
change would not be appropriate.

cheers,
Brianna
user:pfctdayelise


subject: [WikiEN-l] New proposal: Improving referencing tools and projects

body:
Following the multiple long mailing list discussions about the lack of
references in a large group of articles on Wikipedia, I've launched a
proposal I hope will promote the addition and maintainance of references and
make it easier to find articles to reference in a specific field of interest
to work with. It is an attempt to see if updating the referencing project
can improve the current situation without resorting to more drastic options
like deletion or an article creation lockdown.

I invite you to share any thoughts and additional ideas on the proposal's
talk page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Improving_referencing_efforts

If any of you has the technical knowledge to set up the programs or bots
I've mentioned in the proposal, please contact me.

--Mgm


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Rob Church

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Extensive Link Errors related to Proper Names -
	Needs Fixing

body:
On 01/04/07, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> I try to not post to the English Wikipedia or its mailing lists. The
> problem was reported on Foundation-l with a courtesty notice to
> the developers who control the dumps of the problem.

We control the dumps, we don't control the content of the dumps. The
issue is, in fact, nothing to do with us.

Rob Church


from_name: Jesse Martin (Pathoschild)

body:
Hello,

The developers usually want approval by the subcommittee or the board
before creating a new language subdomain. The language subcommittee
has developed the language proposal policy
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WM:LPP> to provide a clear
step-by-step policy on getting approval, but the Wikisource creation
policy is not equivalent.

Unfortunately, this means that most or all requests on the
multilingual Wikisource do not fit the requirements and will need to
be re-opened under the language proposal policy, in particular
regarding the use of arguments rather than simple votes.

Fortunately, the existence of an active test project (whether on the
incubator or the multilingual Wikisource) will mean that the request
can be fast-tracked if there are insufficient arguments against in the
new request. Requests for more projects in a language already
established in another project can be fast-tracked even further.

I apologize for the delay and inconvenience; once the new process is
fully settled in there should be much less hassle.

Yours cordially,
Jesse Martin (Pathoschild)


body:
Technological solutions are a major part of my proposal:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Improving_referencing_efforts

I would appreciate your input on it.

Mgm

On 4/1/07, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>
wrote:
>
> Rich Holton wrote
>
> > How about locking article creation for everyone one day a week? Or one
> > day in 5? or 10?
>
> Well, what I'd do would be to write the same articles in my userspace, and
> add them all to article space the next day. You'd have the same articles,
> but I'd probably spend less time on various associated checks and redirects.
> Why would this be an improvement?
>
> It would be better to get some agreed priorities on which kinds of
> clean-up to target. And to think about solutions for New Pages Patrol,
> perhaps technically based. At present you basically have to go there and
> play Space Invadeers with the junk articles? Tagging is somewhat random, and
> is there there a tag saying "NPP Inspected April 1 2007"?
>
> Charles
>
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