from_name: Steve

body:
By golly I suppose you'd better just call Michigan State University
and tell them the bad news.

Surely, when they read this INTERNET CONVERSATION they will surely see
their folly in conducting this study. Gerard I think you'd better
contact Harvard, too. Keeping your great wisdom from them is inhumane.

-S

On 3/21/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> Given that the argument why only American people were included was the
> cost of international telephony, your argument sucks. By restricting the
> study to the United States it is explicitly about Wikipedia usage in the
> United States. When you want to come to a conclusion on any subject with
> respect to policies in the English language Wikipedia, the result will
> not reflect how this project works.
>
> When you study left handed people, you will find only what is only true
> to left handed people by comparing the results to right handed people.
> Thanks,
>      GerardM
>
> Robert Brockway schreef:
> > On Tue, 20 Mar 2007, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> >
> >
> >> US Wikipedians will probably all be working on the English language
> >> Wikipedia. It means that all the skills and experience associated with
> >> small communities, working on an encyclopaedia that does not cover all
> >> subject matter. Working on languages where the community it is done for
> >> does not know what Wikipedia is, it is that experience that will be
> >> missing. In that way it will hardly cover the breadth of Wikipedia.
> >>
> >
> > He doesn't claim to be attempting to cover the breadth of Wikipedia.
> > Implicit in the post is that it concerns Wikipedia usage in the United
> > States.
> >
> > I find it is common for people to mistake limits placed on a study with a
> > bias in the study.  Let me give another example that might make this
> > clearer.  If a study concerns left handed people (one of the most commonly
> > studied groups) then failing to include non-left handed people is not a
> > bias in the study, it is a function of the limits of a study.  Similarly
> > if a study wanted only left handed US residents then the study would be
> > about left handed US residents.  This does not imply any bias in the
> > study.  Any study worthy of the name will go in to great detail when it
> > comes to methodology of subject selection and any subsequent testing that
> > is done.
> >
> > It will be great when smaller WP communities are studied too but this
> > study clearly isn't doing that.
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Rob
> >
> >
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [WikiEN-l] Just what *is* Jimbo's role anyway?

body:
On 3/21/07, stevertigo <stvrtg at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/20/07, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> > At English Wikipedia level, he has an informal status as a leader
> > among the community. Historically - as a leader in the community - he
> > exercised various functions (arbitration, for example) until those
> > functions were delegated down (to the ArbCom, for example).
>
> Its important to understand that Jimbo has a well defined
> discretionary powers over the ArbCom. He has never used them though,
> just as the Queen of England has never "disbanded Parliament".

And indeed, a constitutional monarchy is the best analogy for the
English Wikipedia at the moment.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

body:
On 3/21/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Scientific papers are primary sources.
> >
> > Scientific papers are secondary sources. The experimental or
> > observational data that the papers draw on are the primary sources.
>
> The data is usually published in the paper, so the paper is the primary source.

If you want to split hairs like that, then yes, insofar as the paper
merely reproduces the data, then it's a primary source. The analysis
of the data and the conclusions drawn from the data in the paper are
secondary material.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 21/03/07, James Farrar <james.farrar at gmail.com> wrote:

> It seems to me that the "constitutional monarchy" model isn't totally
> appropriate here, as in a constitutional monarchy, the monarch has
> considerable power in theory but none in practice, as the use of any
> power to over-rule the government would immediately lead to the
> removal of the said powers from them and a move directly to a
> republic.

Yeah. In extreme cases, e.g. [[Charles I of England]], the people will
express their displeasure by cutting his head off. Which probably
counts as natural causes ;-)

Australians will know the example of the [[Australian constitutional
crisis of 1975]], in which it was made clear that certain theoretical
powers could be used *precisely once*.

In the present case, it's clear the community will tell Jimbo to get
knotted if they seriously disagree.

I consider it useful to have Jimbo there. He's pretty level-headed and
most certainly has the encyclopedia's interests at heart. Mostly his
power is that (a) he speaks and people listen (whatever they think of
the result) (b) he's right enough that he's worth listening to (c) a
considerable reserve of personal loyalty from community members aware
of (b).

- d.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
geni wrote:

>On 3/21/07, Sam Blacketer <sam.blacketer at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Maybe my English way but I like the idea of keeping Jimbo's power
>>unspecified.
>>
>>
>The queen's power pretty much is specified. She gets to veto a bill
>exactly once. After that I assume that the commons would take the
>steps required to make sure it doesn't happen again.
>
The queen retains her power by not exercisiing it.  That makes it
available for those rare occasions where it must be exercised.

Sometimes a monarch (like Edward VIII) must even bow to unreasonable
demands.

Ec


body:
On 21/03/07, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:

> Well, Sheldon, this assumes that the Foundation has authority *over* the
> community, which the Foundation more or less denies.  So whatever
> corporate powers I have or don't have are likely quite different from
> whatever powers our community traditions give me.
> Several board members have made it quite clear that they don't intend to
> interfere with that one way or the other.
> The community predates the Foundation, and was created to hold certain
> legal assets and fulfill certain legal responsibilities.

The community is not the Foundation. The Foundation asserts certain
powers by virtue of being the organisation that runs the web servers,
e.g. administrator is a community function, but checkuser is more of a
Foundation job - it's essentially a power normally held by the
developers/sysadmins - the power to look certain sensitive stuff up in
the database, said database being run by the Foundation. (It was
originally created so the ArbCom didn't have to keep bugging Tim and
Brion to look up IPs.) Steward powers are probably much the same,
though they cross over. Certain things make more sense if you think in
terms of what's the community and what's the Foundation.

- d.


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Looking to interview Wikipedians

body:
Sure, Gerard. =)

I don't think either of us know enough about the study to make long
guesses/judgments about its methods. While I definitely think the
points you make are valid and better than most, whether or not it
applies to this study remains to be seen. While WP-l is a good place
to get into lengthy debates, its all premature.

Until of course we see the study cited in the Washington Post. Then
we'll all get together and talk about what a bunch of lies it is. =)

-Steve

On 3/21/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> Steve please tell me /why /I am wrong in stead of resorting to a
> personal attack, not nice.
>
> Thanks, for your recommendation to Harvard. However, given that I am of
> an age that working is more likely than studying, I hope that your
> recommendation is also good for Google.. :)
>
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>
> Steve schreef:
> > By golly I suppose you'd better just call Michigan State University
> > and tell them the bad news.
> >
> > Surely, when they read this INTERNET CONVERSATION they will surely see
> > their folly in conducting this study. Gerard I think you'd better
> > contact Harvard, too. Keeping your great wisdom from them is inhumane.
> >
> > -S
> >
> > On 3/21/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Hoi,
> >> Given that the argument why only American people were included was the
> >> cost of international telephony, your argument sucks. By restricting the
> >> study to the United States it is explicitly about Wikipedia usage in the
> >> United States. When you want to come to a conclusion on any subject with
> >> respect to policies in the English language Wikipedia, the result will
> >> not reflect how this project works.
> >>
> >> When you study left handed people, you will find only what is only true
> >> to left handed people by comparing the results to right handed people.
> >> Thanks,
> >>      GerardM
> >>
> >> Robert Brockway schreef:
> >>
> >>> On Tue, 20 Mar 2007, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> US Wikipedians will probably all be working on the English language
> >>>> Wikipedia. It means that all the skills and experience associated with
> >>>> small communities, working on an encyclopaedia that does not cover all
> >>>> subject matter. Working on languages where the community it is done for
> >>>> does not know what Wikipedia is, it is that experience that will be
> >>>> missing. In that way it will hardly cover the breadth of Wikipedia.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>> He doesn't claim to be attempting to cover the breadth of Wikipedia.
> >>> Implicit in the post is that it concerns Wikipedia usage in the United
> >>> States.
> >>>
> >>> I find it is common for people to mistake limits placed on a study with a
> >>> bias in the study.  Let me give another example that might make this
> >>> clearer.  If a study concerns left handed people (one of the most commonly
> >>> studied groups) then failing to include non-left handed people is not a
> >>> bias in the study, it is a function of the limits of a study.  Similarly
> >>> if a study wanted only left handed US residents then the study would be
> >>> about left handed US residents.  This does not imply any bias in the
> >>> study.  Any study worthy of the name will go in to great detail when it
> >>> comes to methodology of subject selection and any subsequent testing that
> >>> is done.
> >>>
> >>> It will be great when smaller WP communities are studied too but this
> >>> study clearly isn't doing that.
> >>>
> >>> Cheers,
> >>>
> >>> Rob
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Geoffrey Burling

body:
I'm surprised to see this question raised here. I raised the same issue on a
Wikipedia project talk page & practically had my head handed back to me for it.

I think it is -- or will be -- a problem because of Wikipedia's growth. Once upon
a time, everyone on Wikipedia knew who Jimbo was; if you had a problem, you
could email him & get a response in a reasonable time. Now the community & the
projects have grown, & there are a growing number of active contributors who
have at best a vague idea who he is; unless you happen to be someone who is
uppermost in his mind, it may take him as long as a month to respond to an
email. (This is not a criticism, just a statement of fact: with everything he
has a part in, I can understand that some people  don't get as much attention
as others.)

Due to all of this, I can forsee the day, may as soon as 2-3 years down the road
where enough Wikipedians don't know Jimbo, start considering him a troll or a fossil
that is limiting Wikipedia -- & stage a coup. (I laid out a vague plan of how it
could be attempted on that Talk page, which might work for a few days until someone
went to the colo & powered down the servers.) This effort to depose the "God King"
(a label I wish had never been coined) would most likely be unsuccessful, but that
will rob us of time & energy better spent on our project, & likely alienate a large
number of good contributors.

If a formal relationship between the various Wikimedia & Jimbo Wales was defined --
say that he is considered ultimate arbitrator of all disputes -- it would head off
that potential problem. I think that statement fairly describes the status quo, &
gives him no powers that he doesn't currently have. And if, years down the road,
many Wikipedians don't like that relationship, it would lead them to seek a
change by negotiation -- not a coup.

Of course, Jimbo's best solution for dealing with the growing distance between him
& the average Wikipedian is to travel & meet more -- which he is doing. But Jimbo
is one person, life is short, & the number of Wikimedians is great. Defining his
relationship with (at least) en.wikipedia would give him more time to continue this
work.

Geoff


from_name: Jossi Fresco

subject: [WikiEN-l] WP:V, WP:RS, WP:NOR and WP:ATT

body:
On Mar 21, 2007, at 1:34 PM, Jeff Raymond wrote:

> I'm in the process of trying to get [[Wikipedia:Article inclusion]]
> into
> something worthwhile.  Will it work?  Damned if I know, but I'm
> trying.
I am aware of Wikipedia:Article inclusion. Hope it gets somewhere.

> But I also know that I need to make sure I touch as many people as
> possible to get the consensus to make it what it will end up
> being.  I'm
> not sure if that really happened w/ATT.

These comments still puzzle me, Jeff. How can it be possible that you
missed it? It was referred to in recent ArbCom cases (e.g. Free
Republic); it was discussed *extensively* in the talk pages of V, NOR
and RS,  it was announced on the Village Pump...

The point that keeps being lost in this discussion is that WP:ATT is
**not** a new policy or a new formulation of existing policy. WP:ATT
is an effort to consolidate V and NOR into one easy-to-understand
policy page, based on a need that has not been disputed.

-- Jossi


body:
On 21/03/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> geni wrote:
> >On 3/21/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:

> >>Can he confer this right on others?

> That wouldn't make sense.  This is not a question of rules, but of
> charisma.  God-kings are uncreatable.

In practice, open-source and open-content projects tend to give a
great deal of respect and deference to the founder. This tends to work
out fine most of the time, and where it doesn't the founder may quit
or there may be a fork. (See [[fork (software)]], which I wrote a lot
of.)

On en:wp, Jimbo expressly handed some strong powers over to the
Arbitration Committee, on the basis that Jimbo wasn't scaling.

He still strongly concerns himself with how en:wp is going and
working. And that's arguably appropriate even as a Foundation board
member, because it's the WMF's flagship project, gets most of the
public attention and takes up a whole database server to itself.

> >>How do we distinguish
> >>between Jimbo as normal editor and Jimbo as editor with godlike
> >>powers?

> You guess. :-)

He will often say "speaking as a community member" when he is, e.g. on
Chacor's recent RFA. Which I suppose means use your good sense :-)
There is the problem that every cough he coughs is noted down and
overanalysed by devotees of Jimbomancy.

> >Jimbo's power is due mostly to the community accepting his pronouncements

> The restructure of the Board has played to Jimbo's strong suit:
> promoting Wikipedia in all corners of the world.  This is bound to
> affect his ability to be online at any given time.  Others are much
> better at maintaining financial records, or keeping members informed, or
> doing those other mundane tasks that keep a large organization functioning.

Yep. PR person for the Foundation and for en:wp is an incredibly
important job and it's good for en:wp that he's right into that.

> >>5) What concrete changes have taken place as a result of Jimbo being
> >>succeeded by Anthere as chairman of the Wikimedia Foundation Board?
> >>What is the day-to-day effect of these changes?

> >The board doesn't normally get involved in day to day matters. It is
> >of course impossible to say what would have differed if jimbo had
> >stayed as chair. Changes since the switchover are basically the
> >foundation becoming far less ad-hoc.

> That's very important in such a large group of people.

It's also good that it shows there isn't a succession problem, i.e.
that the organisation can do fine if its founder is hit by a bus or
whatever. That's a *big* what-if for a growing organisation,
particularly one running a now-famous website.

(When I started with Wikipedia in late 2003, we were #500 in the
world. I was *really impressed*. Now we're top-10. We're mainstream.
HOLY CRAP.)

> >>6) What is Jimbo's position as a spokesperson for Wikipedia or the
> >>Wikimedia Foundation? What does it mean when Jimbo tells the press
> >>that some change "will probably be going ahead"? Are we to interpret
> >>that as an order to be obeyed?

> >Up to you. You may find yourself rather outnumbered if you don't but not always.

> Having had the experience some years back of working for a flamboyand
> person who loved being in the media, I quicly learned not to give too
> much weight to what is said to the media, and to give even less weight
> to what people thought was being said.  Much of what is said to the
> media in a first instance off the cuff and not necessarily supported by
> a broad consensus.

I giggle hysterically when I see people calling the press a "reliable
source." The press is an *easily checked* source. That's quite
different from having any connection to reality or having accurately
quoted anything anyone has ever said. When doing WMF press, I've
learnt to speak almost exclusively in either unambiguous soundbites or
in almost-unquotable waffle.

> >>7) Are the answers to any of these questions different for the
> >>different language Wikipedias, or other Wikimedia projects?

> >Other projects tend to be more independent of the board and the like
> >anyway. This extends to Jimbo.

> The fact that AFAIK Jimbo is unilingual is a big factor in that.

Yeah. This is BTW another reason why Florence as chair, and Erik,
Oskar and Jan-Bart on the board is good - so that the WMF isn't
Americocentric even by accident, despite being US-based and having
been founded by an American.

- d.


body:
On 21/03/07, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:

> We wondered: gee, what can we do, who else would have the symbolic
> authority to wade in and finally ban a difficult user?  And we came up
> with a community institution to handle it: the ArbCom.  And there was
> fear about this: I had proven myself to be basically non-insane with
> banning policy (though of course not everyone agreed with everything,
> but I don't think anyone seriously thought I was a total tyrant nor a
> troll coddler)... but would an ArbCom go out of control?
> Over time we have slowly built the ArbCom into a viable institution that
> works reasonably well.

Speaking from the inside (as a former arbitrator and still being on
the list to kibitz), it helps that the AC has a lot of experienced
people who are *very far* from agreeing with each other on everything.
It's a bit like looking into a sausage factory at times. But everyone
respects each other and the results mostly work.

> But, you know, institutionalization really really sucks in some major
> ways.  So we like to keep it lightweight and as free from rules
> lawyering as possible.  So we need to experiment and have the ability to
> turn back from experiments that went wrong.

This is why Wikipedia not working on precedent is important.

> My daughter said something fun to me the other night.  We were playing
> and she said in a voice of quiet power: "I will conquer your world."
> Me: "Hmm?"
> Her: "Wikipedia.  I will conquer Wikipedia and you will make me the new
> founder of Wikipedia."
> Well, she's 6 years old, but maybe we could have a hereditary
> constitutional monarch.  (This is just me joking around, please no
> panic.  But be nice to Kira if you ever meet her. ha ha.)

Make sure she reads [[Charles I]] ;-p

> Yes.  Absolutely.  We have no other mechanism right now to say when
> something is or is not law.
> Of course, England has the same thing.  The Queen has to approve each
> law.  The monarch has done so without exception since, well, I don't
> know right now, but you could look it up in Wikipedia.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Assent

A constitution may help with this - the set of policies on policies.
That's how I think of NPOV, NOR, V (or the new role of ATT) and NPA,
AGF and arguably BITE - new rules that contradict those rules are
probably a really bad idea.

> Therefore, with respect to the situation yesterday, there has only be a
> slight editorial change.

Everything should keep working much the same without outrageous surprise.

- d.


from_name: stevertigo

body:
On 3/21/07, Geoffrey Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> I'm surprised to see this question raised here. I raised the same issue on a
> Wikipedia project talk page & practically had my head handed back to me for it.

Thats because you didn't approach the matter properly: with enough
sarcasm and facetiousness to drown a horse, understanding of course
Jimbo's good natured consideration for what people think, and his
ability to read between the lines.

-Stevertigo


body:
On 21/03/07, Sam Blacketer <sam.blacketer at googlemail.com> wrote:

> Jimbo clearly has a prerogative of mercy, unblocking some community blocked
> users (such as Anittas) when they apologise and ask to be let back.

Yeah. This is a Jimbo power the AC has too - for people who have been
community banned (and remember, a community ban means you've been
*such* a dick that lots of people are pretty sure you'll *never* fit
into Wikipedia - it's IMO a much stronger ban than an AC ban) to
appeal to the AC and/or Jimbo if they feel they understand the problem
and are able to try again fruitfully. Even the worst troublemaker
should be able to come back if they can stop making trouble. (Wik came
back lots, and people were mostly happy to look the other way as long
as he wasn't being a dick about it. Unfortunately, he continued being
a dick about it.)

> Maybe my English way but I like the idea of keeping Jimbo's power
> unspecified. We can never know when there may be an intractable dispute over
> some arcane matter which needs someone to come down and decree a solution.
> Keeping it unspecified also amounts to a restriction to only important
> exceptions. A specified power is a restricted one but also turns into a duty
> to exercise it when the specifications are met.

Indeed. It's limited by the fact that the community has to be willing
to go along with the founder's statement. This is almost universal to
open-source and open-content projects.

Remember that this isn't the world. There's a whole world out there.

- d.


body:
On 21/03/07, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:

> These comments was always kinda informed me of yours and the boards
> role on wikipedia. That the foundation has ultimate power over the
> entire community since they own the servers, but they never exercise
> this.

They have however *pushed rather hard* on occasions - e.g. Office
actions, WP:BLP. (Which was quickly hammered out in a sensible and
usable fashion because it was pretty clear it was time for something
like it.)

> I may be misinterpreting this completely, but you have to agree that
> it is a very different picture you paint now than you painted two
> years ago. Has anything changed since then, or am I completely
> misunderstanding you (then, or now)?

I don't think it's that different. The history of the role is part of
the role in that sense.

- d.


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

body:
On 3/21/07, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Well, Sheldon, this assumes that the Foundation has authority *over* the
> community, which the Foundation more or less denies.  So whatever
> corporate powers I have or don't have are likely quite different from
> whatever powers our community traditions give me.
>
> Several board members have made it quite clear that they don't intend to
> interfere with that one way or the other.
>
> The community predates the Foundation, and was created to hold certain
> legal assets and fulfill certain legal responsibilities.

Ok, I'm going to do something really filthy now and quote some
comments you made more than two years ago. I realise that's unfair,
and that I'm putting you on the spot here. I do think they are
relevant, but if you'd just like to answer with "That was two years
ago! I was drunk when I wrote that!", that's totally ok with me :)

My understanding of your role in wikipedia was pretty much formed on
this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_policy/Proposed_amendment_revote

Remember that? We wanted to change some arbcom-policies and we had
this big vote about it? Anyway, one of the issues that was voted on
was whether the arbcom should have jurisdiction over the board. If we
are searching for a policy-ruling in the vast lore that is the
wikipedia name-space, this seems to me to be the correct one to go to.
Anyway, these are some of the comments you made (again, I realise it
was 2 years ago, and I apologise. Still, this seems relevant to me):

(this is in response to the suggestion that the arbcom shouldn't be
able to be mean to people on the board)
"It should be noted that this is a simple fact, not a policy that can
be set by a vote. Any jurisdiction that the arbcom has over board
members has to be by tradition and convention, not based on a policy
vote. --Jimbo Wales 04:56, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)"

(in response to a comment)
"The arbcom is a delegation of my powers. If the arbcom ever did rule
against me, it is very likely that I would -- as a matter of courtesy
and convention -- abide by the ruling. But as a simple matter of fact,
any jurisdiction that the arbcom has over the board has to come from
the board not from a community vote.--Jimbo Wales 05:04, 16 Mar 2005
(UTC)"

(in response to a comment from Jamesday)
"Jamesday is just mistaken about this. The arbcom acts as a delegation
of my power. Jamesday may not agree with this, but it is the way the
arbcom was created.--Jimbo Wales 05:02, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)"

(in response to another comment suggesting that admins shouldn't be
beholden to the board)
"Admins *are* subject to the board's authority, make no mistake about
it. The board has the right to set policy, and this includes removing
admins, changing the powers of admins, etc.--Jimbo Wales 05:02, 16 Mar
2005 (UTC)"

These comments was always kinda informed me of yours and the boards
role on wikipedia. That the foundation has ultimate power over the
entire community since they own the servers, but they never exercise
this. Your role is that of an officer of the foundation, that you are
the ultimate arbiter of everything simply because of the de jure
nature of your position.

I may be misinterpreting this completely, but you have to agree that
it is a very different picture you paint now than you painted two
years ago. Has anything changed since then, or am I completely
misunderstanding you (then, or now)?

--Oskar


subject: [WikiEN-l] [Possible spam]Re:  WP:V, WP:RS, WP:NOR and WP:ATT

body:
On Mar 21, 2007, at 2:03 PM, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

> Post-facto, yes.  I had no idea it was subject to a promotion debate,
> or even /active/ any more, prior to the announcement on the admin
> noticeboard that it was now policy replacing NOR, V and RS.
>
> And I have not been hiding under a rock either.

I am not disputing that *some* editors missed it (let's face it,
these that missed it completely and that have declared that, are just
a few). In any case, you missed it, Jimbo missed it, and others
unnamed missed it.

The question remains:
-  "what to change so that this does not happen again"?

So far, the only proposal has been from Jimbo: (a) involve him at the
last stage; (b) run a poll after he has a chance to exercise his
leadership role.

I have no problem whatsoever with the former, but I am not sure about
the latter.

-- Jossi


from_name: Seth Finkelstein

subject: [WikiEN-l] Just what *is* Jimbo's role anyway? - "nofollow" decision

body:
[Delurking to ask a question that might be illuminating]

	Can I use this thread to ask a question as a "worked example"?
*Procedurally*, what was the way in which "nofollow" was added to
external links? My impression was that Wales just said to do it, and
it was done, even though there was no "community consensus". Now, I'm
not saying it was the wrong thing to do. But from an outsider's
perspective, it was pretty much an instance of "He's the decider".

	FYI, to dispose of a myth, there was no SEO contest targeting
Wikipedia. The SEO contest in the news had specifically ruled out such
"black hat" tactics, and would have disqualified anyone caught using them.

	Much of the talk of Wikipedia's governance tends to be along
the lines of "How many divisions does the Pope have?". It's true that
the Pope is the Pope only and solely because many people believe in
him and trust him. And a dissatisfied group could break off and decide
they want a new Pope, or no Pope at all. It's happened before in history.
But that all sort of misses the point. ALL governance, by definition,
is a social construct, which works only because enough people believe
in it. The deeper questions are what benefits there are to believing
in it, and what sanctions can be imposed for not believing in it.

--
Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer  http://sethf.com/
Infothought blog - http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/
Interview: http://sethf.com/essays/major/greplaw-interview.php


body:
On Mar 21, 2007, at 2:03 PM, Philippe Beaudette wrote:

> We all appreciate that a great deal of work went into this.  The
> problem is, despite all those efforts, people still didn't know.
> Jeff didn't know.  I didn't know.  I'm on wiki every day, and think
> of myself as fairly well informed.  I get Signpost.  I read VP as
> much as I possibly can.  But I don't read every arb case that's
> published - why would I?  Why would most of us,  ESPECIALLY non-
> admins (like myself)?
>
> I can't tell you how many times I see people site V and NOR in
> discussions, and not once in ANY of those that I saw did anyone
> mention this.  That alone should tell you that there are well-
> informed editors that didn't know.
>
> Also, your last paragraph ends with the words "that has not been
> disputed."  Actually, your premise has been disputed.  By Jimmy.

Sure. We need to find a way so that people are informed so we don't
find ourselves ever again in such quagmire. It is really painful.

At least, it is raising really good questions, such as Jimbo's role
in policy formulation, use of polls (or not) to gauge consensus for
changes to policy or development of new policies, etc.

In the future, we would be quite happy when look back to this day. I
am certain we will say that this was all a "good thing" for the project.

-- Jossi


body:
On Mar 21, 2007, at 2:15 PM, Guettarda wrote:

> From
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/
> 2007-02-19/News_and_notes
>
> Verifiability + No Original Research = Attribution?
>
> Work has been done to merge Verifiability and No Original Research
> into a
> single policy, Wikipedia:Attribution. Discussion is underway on
> Wikipedia
> talk:Attribution; the proposed move/merger has sparked significant
> discussion.

That is why this is so painful to witness these claims of "it was not
widely know".

Though I agree with Charles that we should move on from attempting to
say that "it was done properly and ATT should stay without further
discussion".

It does not matter now if it was done properly or not, does it?

-- Jossi


body:
On Mar 21, 2007, at 2:09 PM, Jeff Raymond wrote:

> HOWEVER, if you have a guy who makes 1000 edits a month and spends
> a good
> deal of time in policy space and is STILL unaware, what does that
> do for
> overall consensus?

Have you checked WP:ATT?

What do you think of the work done there? Is it useful, or not? Does
it advance the project or not? Does it make it easier for newbies to
understand, or not?

Those are *better* questions than the one you asked.

-- Jossi


from_name: Sheldon Rampton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

> There is all this authority behind Jimbo. There are a couple of
> problems: there is a drive-by aspect to it, it's Jimbo and you feel
> you should defer; the other problem is much more serious, by doing
> this Jimbo doesn't have the experience of being an ordinary editor
> that people feel they can ignore, of vainly citing policy and being
> told, forcefully, with the threat of a block, that he's just
> "trolling".

Actually, Jimbo's authority fairly often translates into the OPPOSITE
of people deferring -- as this particulat instance illustrates. If
someone other than Jimbo had made this particular edit, no one would
have considered it significant enough to be discussing on wikien-l.
No one sees much point in rebelling against just another commoner,
but if the king does something you don't like, you're more likely to
call for revolution.

--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Research director, Center for Media & Democracy (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
|     Weapons of Mass Deception
|     Banana Republicans
|     The Best War Ever
--------------------------------
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|
|  Donate now to support independent, public interest reporting:
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--------------------------------


from_name: Thomas Dalton

body:
> In the future, such a process should be made more formalized I think (as
> we get bigger and bigger, it is harder and harder to just chat with
> everyone and then make it so), and quite likely the ArbCom (who, after
> all, ultimately make decisions about what "counts" as policy through
> their enforcement of it) should be the ones certifying.

So you're suggesting that ArbCom have a role in policy making similar
to the role Bureaucrats have in RfAs? They come along after all the
discussion and determine if a consensus exists? I like that idea, it's
very easy to implement and would solve quite a lot of the confusion
that almost always surrounds changes in policy.

Now, the question is, how do we decide about changing the policy about
changing policy? This might be a good example of a time when it's best
for a GodKing to step in...


from_name: Slim Virgin

body:
On 3/21/07, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at waterwiki.info> wrote:
> >When we were developing BLP, there was no committee, no poll, no
> >seeking of specific authorization from Jimbo. It was clearly a good
> >proposal, clearly needed in some form, and everyone who posted about
> >it wanted it in broad terms. It was then just a question of filling in
> >the details and making sure it was consistent with the other policies.
>
> In the case of [[Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons]], Jimbo was very much behind it, and had a good head of steam on. Perhaps this was not visible to folks who were not a part of the arbitration committee, but that was the case. Thus you knew you had Jimbo behind you.
>
> This can be contrasted with [[Wikipedia:Articles about ongoing enterprises]] which has languished without any serious attention, other than a Free Republic activist's. While I tried to interest Jimbo and Brad, I was unsuccessful with either of them.
>
Okay, but this leaves us with a real problem. We're not psychic, so we
can't know who supports a policy or who objects unless they say
something about it. Hundreds of editors contributed to the debate
about ATT -- it wasn't a secret! -- and almost all (in fact, my
recollection is all) were supportive of the merge, though people had
different ideas about the details. But the merge of three untidy pages
into one page was completely supported. We had exactly the same broad
consensus that we had for BLP.

We can't have a situation where the ArbCom or Jimbo are determining
policy in ways that aren't visible to the rest of us, because how are
we meant to intuit what they want? We told them about ATT, no one got
back with an objection, hundreds of editors (experienced and respected
editors among them) explicitly agreed with the merge over a period of
five months, and those editors started linking to and quoting from the
new policy page *before it went live*, which is the best endorsement
of all. In fact, that's *why* it went live, because people clearly,
clearly liked it.

I can understand not wanting a situation where a large group of
editors, maybe new editors or inexperienced ones, comes up with a new
policy that blindsides people, and we need safeguards in place against
that. So I completely understand that concern.

But where you have a group of experienced editors carefully merging
two pages, making sure there are no changes, seeking input from other
experienced editors, with hundreds of editors offering opinions over
five months, that's a totally different situation, and the outcome of
that process ought to be respected.

Sarah


from_name: geni

body:
On 3/21/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/21/07, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > > (b) What was not done that we should have done;
> >
> > A process which has worked well in the past is a process of discussion
> > to arrive at a specific proposal, followed by a broad public poll (or
> > "vote"), followed by a certification of the result.
>
> Broad is the keyword here. To really get everyone notified, a specific
> announcement should be made to this list, to Village pump/policy, and
> probably several other key on-wiki discussion pages (including User
> talk:Jimbo Wales). And probably on the IRC server too. Notifications
> during the discussion phase, and during the !voting phase.
>
>

Yup that was done.

I knew about it. Looked in a couple of times but things seemed to be
going fine and the debate over fair use policy was more interesting.

Part of the problem is that it is very hard these days to contact a
significant section of the communiy other than say through
MediaWiki:Watchdetails.

> > it at all of course :) ).  But I think it is important that for really
> > major shifts of policy, we have a clear and defined endpoint.
>
> Definition of "major shift of policy", anyone? :)

One that has an impact on the day to day activities of people on the ground..

--
geni


from_name: Earle Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Ref tag usage

body:
On 20/03/07, Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/20/07, Earle Martin <wikipedia at downlode.org> wrote:
> > Am I alone in finding that more readable?
>
> It may be, but it's not the way it's normally done.  Footnote/endnote
> markers normally go right next to the thing being marked.  Also, as I
> just pointed out in reply to Steve, the spaces are breaking spaces,
> and word-wrap may end up putting the footnote marker at the start of
> the NEXT line.  That's certainly not more readable.

Very true. The problem for me, as I mentioned in the part you didn't
quote, is the gratuitous use of square brackets. If reference links
were to be formatted print-style as small raised numbers, that would
help a lot in terms of reducing clutter.

--
Earle Martin
            http://downlode.org/
http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/


body:
> Well, Sheldon, this assumes that the Foundation has authority *over* the
> community, which the Foundation more or less denies.

The way I view it, the Foundation is used by the community to
facilitate our aims (ie. making an encyclopedia). If, at any point,
the community doesn't like the way the Foundation is performing that
role, we'll simply make a new foundation and carry on as we were (ie.
we fork).


subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool - how to prepare for the onslaught

body:
On 20/03/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > The encyclopedia that Anybody can edit, but Nobody never has. (How's
> > that for grammar?)
>
> Who cares about the grammer? The actual information is wrong:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Nobody

I could have sworn that was what I checked before posting :) Oh well...

--
Earle Martin
            http://downlode.org/
http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/


body:
On 3/21/07, Jossi Fresco <jossifresco at mac.com> wrote:
> 1. Develop the policy as a proposal as we have done with ATT;
> 2. Seek Jimbo's feedback when involved editors think it is time ;
> 3. Submit the proposed policy to a "public vote" via a poll,
> including  the rationale for the policy, a summary of of the steps
> taken by involved editors (e.g time discussed, number of edits,
> advertising done to mailing lists, Village Pump, etc.) as well as
> Jimbo's comments.
>
I worry about the poll thing. When you're dealing with policy, you
have to know that the new proposal is consistent with other policies
and guidelines, consistent in letter *and* spirit. A poll might
attract 200 editors who know about the policies and have carefully
considered all the implications, which is great, but what if it
attracts 200 editors who've barely read them?

Developing a content policy isn't like discussing an article for
deletion, or a behavioral policy like 3RR. With the content policies,
the bottom line is that people have to know what they're talking
about, or else we'll end up with a dog's breakfast of pages that
contradict each other in subtle ways. We can't afford to have that
situation with pages that determine the content of Wikipedia.

Sarah


subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

body:
On 3/21/07, Sheldon Rampton <sheldon at prwatch.org> wrote:
> Fred Bauder wrote:
>
> > There is all this authority behind Jimbo.
>
> Actually, Jimbo's authority fairly often translates into the OPPOSITE
> of people deferring -- as this particulat instance illustrates. If
> someone other than Jimbo had made this particular edit, no one would
> have considered it significant enough to be discussing on wikien-l.
> No one sees much point in rebelling against just another commoner,
> but if the king does something you don't like, you're more likely to
> call for revolution.
>
Yes, but you're also much less likely to revert him, so the deference is there.


body:
On 21/03/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:

> > In the future, such a process should be made more formalized I think (as
> > we get bigger and bigger, it is harder and harder to just chat with
> > everyone and then make it so), and quite likely the ArbCom (who, after
> > all, ultimately make decisions about what "counts" as policy through
> > their enforcement of it) should be the ones certifying.

> So you're suggesting that ArbCom have a role in policy making similar
> to the role Bureaucrats have in RfAs? They come along after all the
> discussion and determine if a consensus exists? I like that idea, it's
> very easy to implement and would solve quite a lot of the confusion
> that almost always surrounds changes in policy.

The AC has done this for a while anyway - "Principles" are the AC
trying to sensibly state what they think the rules are.

> Now, the question is, how do we decide about changing the policy about
> changing policy? This might be a good example of a time when it's best
> for a GodKing to step in...

To suggest things cluefully, more or less strongly ;-)

- d.


from_name: George Herbert

body:
On 3/21/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 14:27:42 -0700, Jossi Fresco <jossifresco at mac.com>
> wrote:
>
> >That is why this is so painful to witness these claims of "it was not
> >widely know".
>
> I knew there was a discussion months ago, I had absolutely no idea -
> none at all - that it was still active, let alone about to replace the
> other policies.  Where have I been all that time?  In the usual
> places.

This was my impression as well.  I didn't mind it, but it did suprise me.

Likely lesson: Wikipedia has exceeded process critical mass.  We now
have more things going on more quickly than the existing static
process can adequately track and keep people aware of.

In a business, this sort of discovery triggers a round of executive
and management soul-searching, followed by a painful round of process
consultants, executive retreats, the creation of new business process
management groups, a couple of new VPs, etc etc.

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


from_name: Guettarda

subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

body:
On 3/21/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/20/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Might depend on the fact. Something neutral such as "Joe Foo" lives in
> > "Crankytown California" might me ok
>
> Come to think about it even a normally "neutral" fact might have some
> POV and OR issues. Let's take "date of birth" for example...
>
> There is an article about a notable model named "Carmen Roe".
>
> Carmen Roe claims to be 19 years old.
>
> Somebody digs up a copy of her birth certificate that shows that she
> is 26 and updates her Wikipedia entry.
>
> If such was done, it would be using "original research" to show that
> she "lied about her age". The article now violates both OR and NPOV.
> It would be the same as if somebody found a copy of her medical
> records that says she is HIV+ and added that. In both cases the
> article should be reverted until it's reported by a "real" news
> organization.
>
> So perhaps what this whole issue boils down to is "Wikipedia doesn't
> do investigative journalism".

There's a big difference here.  Court proceedings are published, unlike
birth certificates, and are certainly not confidential, like medical
records.  These are both published documents.  How can the use of published
documents, to verify that they said what they are reported to have said, be
said to be "original research" or, for that matter, "investigative
journalism"?


body:
On 3/21/07, Philippe Beaudette <philippebeaudette at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Jossi,
>
> We all appreciate that a great deal of work went into this.  The problem
> is, despite all those efforts, people still didn't know.  Jeff didn't
> know.  I didn't know.  I'm on wiki every day, and think of myself as fairly
> well informed.  I get Signpost.  I read VP as much as I possibly can.  But I
> don't read every arb case that's published - why would I?  Why would most of
> us,  ESPECIALLY non-admins (like myself)?

From
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2007-02-19/News_and_notes

Verifiability + No Original Research = Attribution?

Work has been done to merge Verifiability and No Original Research into a
single policy, Wikipedia:Attribution. Discussion is underway on Wikipedia
talk:Attribution; the proposed move/merger has sparked significant
discussion.

I can't tell you how many times I see people site V and NOR in discussions,
> and not once in ANY of those that I saw did anyone mention this.  That alone
> should tell you that there are well-informed editors that didn't know.
>
> Also, your last paragraph ends with the words "that has not been
> disputed."  Actually, your premise has been disputed.  By Jimmy.
>
> Philippe
>   ----- Original Message -----
>   From: Jossi Fresco
>   To: English Wikipedia
>   Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 3:51 PM
>   Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] WP:V, WP:RS, WP:NOR and WP:ATT
>
>
>
>   On Mar 21, 2007, at 1:34 PM, Jeff Raymond wrote:
>
>   > I'm in the process of trying to get [[Wikipedia:Article inclusion]]
>   > into
>   > something worthwhile.  Will it work?  Damned if I know, but I'm
>   > trying.
>   I am aware of Wikipedia:Article inclusion. Hope it gets somewhere.
>
>   > But I also know that I need to make sure I touch as many people as
>   > possible to get the consensus to make it what it will end up
>   > being.  I'm
>   > not sure if that really happened w/ATT.
>
>   These comments still puzzle me, Jeff. How can it be possible that you
>   missed it? It was referred to in recent ArbCom cases (e.g. Free
>   Republic); it was discussed *extensively* in the talk pages of V, NOR
>   and RS,  it was announced on the Village Pump...
>
>   The point that keeps being lost in this discussion is that WP:ATT is
>   **not** a new policy or a new formulation of existing policy. WP:ATT
>   is an effort to consolidate V and NOR into one easy-to-understand
>   policy page, based on a need that has not been disputed.
>
>   -- Jossi
>
>
>
>   _______________________________________________
>   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
> _______________________________________________
> 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
>


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 3/21/07, stevertigo <stvrtg at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes, but unsolicited discussion of private governance matters is one
> of the identifying marks of a troll.

What does leadership of an open-source effort to build a free and open
encyclopaedia have to do with "private governance"? It's not like I'm
asking questions relating to Jimbo's other business interests. And I'm
not even trying to put anyone on the spot here - if certain questions
are sensitive, then that's fine. But I don't see how a question like
"can Jimbo overrule consensus" could be construed as a sensitive one
best dealt with privately.

The overall picture I'm getting is this:
1) Jimbo is a board member on the Wikimedia foundation and one of its
official spokespersons.
2) Jimbo retains one or more extraordinary powers on the English
Wikipedia to do with arbitration. (if ArbCom is not confined to en, my
apologies)
3) Jimbo retains an unofficial role as community leader and spokesman
on the English Wikipedia. His pronouncements and directions are
followed, if at all,  because of trust, respect, his previous role as
GodKing, and perhaps due to community misunderstanding of his role.

What else am I missing?

I would note that role 3) definitely seems to be declining. He
intervenes much less frequently than he previously did, and is much
less present on the mailing lists and talk pages than previously.

Steve


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

body:
Guettarda wrote:
> In a recent posting, Jimbo stated that anything that draws from primary
> sources is OR.

I said no such thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Christopher_Michael_Langan&diff=prev&oldid=116704790
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AChristopher_Michael_Langan&diff=116514311&oldid=116512682


body:
On 3/21/07, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:
>
> Slim Virgin wrote:
>
> > Okay, but this leaves us with a real problem. We're not psychic, so we
> > can't know who supports a policy or who objects unless they say
> > something about it. Hundreds of editors contributed to the debate
> > about ATT -- it wasn't a secret! -- and almost all (in fact, my
> > recollection is all) were supportive of the merge, though people had
> > different ideas about the details. But the merge of three untidy pages
> > into one page was completely supported. We had exactly the same broad
> > consensus that we had for BLP.
>
> But there's the problem - such a fundamental change, one could attest,
> WASN'T known.  I wasn't under a rock for the five months that this was
> discussed, and I had WP:V and WP:RS on my watchlist, yet I had no clue.
> How does that happen, exactly?

I can't say why you didn't know about it, Jeff. It was talked about in
many different places; around 170 editors had edited it by the time it
went live, and nearly 300 had posted on the talk page. Plus it was
mentioned several times on V and NOR talk -- e.g. when editors would
post with a complaint about the policies, someone would say check out
the proposal at ATT which deals with this. It really *was* widely
discussed.

But I have to ask you: you mentioned a "fundamental change." What
exactly was the fundamental change?
>
> We keep harkening back to BLP, which was really kind of rushed and kind of
> blindsided a lot of people.

No, it didn't. Quite the reverse.

I think editors to some extent have to be responsible for keeping
themselves informed. We   can post in all the right places, but we
can't ensure people notice it, read it, remember it, fully understand
what it means, and we can't be blamed if some don't. Hundreds of
editors *did* know about it, and they don't have psychic powers. With
the best will in the world, we can't expect volunteers to post over
and over and over and over to make sure that every corner of the
empire is covered and that every single editor has seen something.

Sarah


body:
On 3/21/07, stevertigo <stvrtg at gmail.com> wrote:
> If people are confused, that is their problem.

No, if people are confused about how Wikipedia works and that impedes
their ability to contribute positively, that's *our* problem.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

body:
SonOfYoungwood at aol.com wrote:
> Actually, in looking at Jimbo's statement, it doesn't look like he's making
> an extremely generalized statement. I think he's referring to controversial
> claims or those that can easily suffer from POV issues. If that's the case,
> then  this shouldn't be extended to all primary sources.

Right, I was making no unusual claim at all.

We have here an alleged controversy that has been written up and
interpreted as being important and meaningful without any external
verification of that at all, in a BLP situation.

The portion of the article that I removed referred to events that have
been covered by no news outlet, no magazine, no book.  (At least, so far
as the references show.)  The very existence of the section is what is
at stake.  The section consists of what appears to be meticulously
referenced one-sided statements about a dispute that this fellow was in,
giving the impression of importance and leading the reader to a
conclusion that is not contained elsewhere.

Additionally, the section in question is quite controversial, with 4
editors having objected to it, as well as the subject of the biography,
who wrote a rather long rebuttal on the talk page.

This is not a novel interpretation of NOR, but a very mainstream one.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

body:
On 3/21/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > There's a big difference here.  Court proceedings are published, unlike
> > birth certificates, and are certainly not confidential, like medical
> > records.  These are both published documents.  How can the use of
> published
> > documents, to verify that they said what they are reported to have said,
> be
> > said to be "original research" or, for that matter, "investigative
> > journalism"?
>
> Stating a simple fact from a simple primary source is not a problem.
> Putting together an entire history of a case from multiple primary
> sources is OR. A history is more than just the sum of the events -
> which events you choose to include and which you don't, how much
> emphasis you put on each one, etc, all change the way the reader will
> interpret the facts, that's what makes it OR and an NPOV violation.

Yes, and there were three parts to the section.  One said "the case
happened", and was supported by a primary source document.  Not, in my
opinion, OR.  The second part supplied some details, and was sourced to the
party that filed (and won) the case.  AFAIK, the losing party has not
commented on the details of the case, but I may be wrong.  There's the
possibility of POV/RS issues here, but not OR.  The third part was the
outcome of the case, supported by the court ruling - based on a primary
source, but not, in my opinion, OR.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

body:
Guettarda wrote:
> At WP:ATT he has said the the issue was not the use of primary sources, but
> the generation of novel conclusions based on the sources.  Of course, that
> totally contradicts his original posting, where he says that the material
> should not be reintroduced unless it is supported by secondary sources.

That is not a contradiction at all.  If you can produce a source which
tells us that this obscure lawsuit was important, and which echoes your
original research and analysis into what happened, then re-insert it
with appropriate sourcing.  In the meantime the reliance on your own
original historical research is problematic, and you should not
reintroduce it until you have a secondary source.

--Jimbo


from_name: Denny Colt

subject: [WikiEN-l] Reverting banned users, and users who engage banned users

body:
Hello... this is my first post to the actual list (ever). I usually just
focus on building a few articles, and spend too much time on Recent
Changes/RC patrol. However... I got inadvertantly pulled into a couple of
policy related disputes and wanted to put this forward. Two
questions/propositions, that I posted to the Banning policy today at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Banning_policy#Reverting_banned_users.2C_and_users_who_engage_banned_users

I wanted to post it here too to get some more visibility since that page
isn't too active at all...

* 1. Reverting banned users: may vs will

The banning policy says, "Any edits made in defiance of a ban may be
reverted to enforce the ban, regardless of the merits of the edits
themselves". As the policy gives no leeway for them to post on Wikipedia
pages anyway, shouldn't this language not contridict the rest of it and say
"will be reverted" instead? Why indulge trolls and troublemakers?

* 2. Engaging editors known to be banned - policy violation

I think that, given that some admins and users won't/can't enforce this
policy even handedly, and give or don't give special treatment to users like
Barbara Schwartz and Daniel Brandt, who are both indefinitely banned... that
the banning policy should be updated to reflect that such discourse be in
and of itself a policy violation. I.e., if you see posts that are identified
as by a banned/blocked user, the proper action is to remove it (as defined
in policy). Anything else is facilitating a banned user to cicumvent their
ban. Posts to WP:RFAR would be exempt, so that they can appeal their blocks.
Or they can email the unblock mail list. Or mail Oversight. Thoughts? We
can't force people to block/ban/redact banned users... but if the policy
states that engaging/interacting with them is an act of disruption, and
bannable if ongoing... could help to close these personal loopholes that
some allow banned users...

- Denny


subject: [WikiEN-l] Jimbo's rejection of [[WP:ATT]]

body:
jf_wikipedia wrote:
> This is what he writes. He calls ATT a "monumentally bad idea".

No, I called the merge a monumentally bad idea.  To be more specific, I
found the redirects and complete elimination of WP:V and WP:NOR to be
bad ideas.  Those are conceptually distinct and need pages which explain
them.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Court judgements (and, for that matter, court filings by the disputants,
> and even trial transcripts) are a matter of public record.  This is an
> important component to maintaining the transparency of the judicial
> system.  Privacy should not be a factor with this kind of material.

I think the point about privacy is that (as far as I know) there is a
general consensus that someone sysematically going through court records
to write articles about people who were convicted of drunk driving, or
who were involved in a lawsuit, is a bad idea.  We need to have some
kind of independent verification (i.e. WP:NOR) that the incident or
lawsuit is notable and worthy of inclusion in an article, and that in
the case of people of very minor notability, there is no very good
reason to include it.


from_name: Philippe Beaudette

body:
Yeah, see, there's the pesky problem with polling (and with democracy) - unfortunately, sometimes the majority are idiots.  So it comes down to a question: how much do you trust the teeming hordes?  Until we can come up with a better way of gauging community feeling, I think we're stuck with !voting.

Philippe
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Slim Virgin
  To: English Wikipedia
  Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 2:41 PM
  Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] WP:V, WP:RS, WP:NOR and WP:ATT

  On 3/21/07, Jossi Fresco <jossifresco at mac.com> wrote:
  > 1. Develop the policy as a proposal as we have done with ATT;
  > 2. Seek Jimbo's feedback when involved editors think it is time ;
  > 3. Submit the proposed policy to a "public vote" via a poll,
  > including  the rationale for the policy, a summary of of the steps
  > taken by involved editors (e.g time discussed, number of edits,
  > advertising done to mailing lists, Village Pump, etc.) as well as
  > Jimbo's comments.
  >
  I worry about the poll thing. When you're dealing with policy, you
  have to know that the new proposal is consistent with other policies
  and guidelines, consistent in letter *and* spirit. A poll might
  attract 200 editors who know about the policies and have carefully
  considered all the implications, which is great, but what if it
  attracts 200 editors who've barely read them?

  Developing a content policy isn't like discussing an article for
  deletion, or a behavioral policy like 3RR. With the content policies,
  the bottom line is that people have to know what they're talking
  about, or else we'll end up with a dog's breakfast of pages that
  contradict each other in subtle ways. We can't afford to have that
  situation with pages that determine the content of Wikipedia.

  Sarah

  _______________________________________________
  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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Christopher_Michael_Langan&diff=116513802&oldid=116432075
>
> What the hell is going on here? Some of the sentences Jimbo removed:
> "In 2002 the owners of the Mega Society, a high IQ society, filed suit
> against Langan and his wife, Gina LoSasso, for unauthorized use of the
> society's trademarks and trade names.[29][30][31]"
>
> This is original research?

Yes.  To my knowledge, this has never been written up in any newspaper,
magazine, or book.  It was discovered by reading websites that I think
we would all agree are not themselves reliable sources and by
referencing official court documents.  The case, what happened in it,
the outcome, are all matters of interpretation involving original
research, and indeed the question of whether or not this is important
enough to include (raising questions of undue weight) is in this case
original research.

> Why remove this stuff? I find this drive-by management style of
> Jimbo's so frustrating - how can this level of chaos, disruption and
> confusion be worth whatever is being gained? He arrives on an article,
> removes text in this "I am so right and you are so wrong" manner, then
> disappears again.

Disappears?  I am right here, all day every day.

I made no policy declarations.  I responded to an ACTIVE WP:BLP
complaint by taking an action perfectly within policy and which required
no special authority or dictatorship powers by anyone.  Anyone could
have made the same removal, for the same reason, and caution and a
desire for upholding our traditional policies should lead everyone to be
very cautious in this area.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

body:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
>> A WP editor just happens to find a copy of the original suit and
>> writes about it in Joe Foo's article. Nobody anywhere else is writing
>> about Joe Foo getting sued.
>>
>> Since nobody else has written about Joe Foo getting sued, the suit
>> itself is non notable and therefore the information in Joe Foo's
>> article about the suit is removed by Jimbo.
>
> No. Jimbo never mentioned notability. He removed it on OR and NPOV
> grounds. (Mainly NPOV, I think, the comments about OR were just to
> explain where the writer had gone wrong.)

To clarify then: we should avoid OR, and one of the reasons is that it
leads to cases like this: where a one-sided interpretation of events,
hotly disputed by the subject of the biography, events that are probably
not notable, is included in the article with a plethora of statements
which are documented by footnotes.

It is probably GOOD original research.  But it is still original
research. And it is still problematic.

--Jimbo


body:
Just to be clear, Stevertigo is being facetious here, and I disagree
strongly with what he is saying.

stevertigo wrote:
> On 3/20/07, Slim Virgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> This is what he writes. He calls ATT a "monumentally bad idea". What
>>> needs to be clarified is that the distintions between V, RS and OR
>>> not only have been maintained in WP:ATT, but their formulation
>>> synchronized with one another as well.
>>>
>> Exactly, and I hope when he realizes that he'll reconsider what he did
>> today. I do think it was based on a misunderstanding prompted by the
>> discussion on the list about the Langan article.
>
> Its important to remember that Wikipedia is Jimbo's website. It doesnt
> matter if he is right or wrong on any particular issue. What matters
> is that we follow his leadership and do so promptly, simply because
> the project would likely fall to pieces without him.
>
> Who after is all is in a better position to formulate and implement
> policy changes? It is his job alone to tell the community what policy
> stands on Wikipedia, and how best to implement such.
> He after all is not just Wikipedia's founder, but its Editor in Chief,
> Chairman of the Board, and spokesperson.
>
> -Stevertigo
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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
>


list: wikitech-l

from_name: demute

subject: [Wikitech-l] Feature request: Random article in specified category

body:
It would be really nice if wikipedias Special:random-function could take
arguments, making it possible to get a random article from user-specified
categories.
A suggestion to do this is as follows. When a user click on the "random
article" link the random article is loaded with a comment on the top of the
page saying something like "you requested a random article. click here to
view options" and so the the user can mark which categories the article
should come from. The settings can either be stored in a cookie or they can
be sent in the URI.
Everyone would love this feature!

regards,
Manne Tallmarken
--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Feature-request%3A-Random-article-in-specified-category-tf3444195.html#a9604657
Sent from the Wikipedia Developers mailing list archive at Nabble.com.


body:
On 3/21/07, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:
>
> Slim Virgin wrote:
> >
> > I can't say why you didn't know about it, Jeff. It was talked about in
> > many different places; around 170 editors had edited it by the time it
> > went live, and nearly 300 had posted on the talk page. Plus it was
> > mentioned several times on V and NOR talk -- e.g. when editors would
> > post with a complaint about the policies, someone would say check out
> > the proposal at ATT which deals with this. It really *was* widely
> > discussed.
>
> Sure.  I don't disagree.  BUT people still didn't notice.  If it's not
> easy for well-established Wikiaddicts to know about such a proposal,
> what's going to happen?

You posted on the ATT talk page on February 16 just as it was going
live. You said it "looks excellent" and that you were about to start
the process of "breaking apart" RS, and you seemed to want to speed up
(not slow down) the development of the ATT/FAQ page to replace RS.
>
> I'm in the process of trying to get [[Wikipedia:Article inclusion]] into
> something worthwhile.  Will it work?  Damned if I know, but I'm trying.
> But I also know that I need to make sure I touch as many people as
> possible to get the consensus to make it what it will end up being.  I'm
> not sure if that really happened w/ATT.

I can only keep repeating that it did. Look, I have nothing to do with
the image policies. They're on my watchlist, but I almost never check
things carefully. Does that mean I should now march up to the Fair Use
policy and declare that it was developed without my explicit consent
and knowledge, and that it's therefore arguably invalid, because no
alerts were posted in advance of it being tightened and changed? That
would clearly be absurd.

The bottom line is that editors tend to specialize in different areas,
and if I want to keep track of changes in another area (fair use
policy, say), I have to go there and be attentive. I can't ask to be
spoonfed.

Sarah
>
> >> We keep harkening back to BLP, which was really kind of rushed and kind
> >> of
> >> blindsided a lot of people.
> >
> > No, it didn't. Quite the reverse.
>
> Really?  You and I edit in amazingly different areas, so maybe that's why
> you think it's the reverse.  My experience is quite different.
>
> -Jeff
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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
>


body:
John Lee wrote:
> What's the question? If the question is, "What authority does Jimbo have?"
> the answer is spelled out quite clearly: "He has no authority beyond that
> which he has been granted implicitly through the trust of the community."

And I ask for no more.  We have a set of longstanding traditions about
how things are done, and I think that for the most part, these
traditions are workable and useful.

I think that I serve a useful role in, for example, this situation with
WP:ATT.  A major policy restructuring took place in a way that a huge
number of very active and high quality editors were not consulted.  I
view my role in Wikipedia as being primarily about the defense of the
broad community and "rule of law" rather than being about any particular
policy or faction.  (Outside of certain things that I think are
foundational and beyond question and non-negotiable like NPOV.)

People tend to get very agitated from time to time.  And then we tend to
calm down and talk things over and people see that I am hardly the
raging lunatic that at least some people seem to think.  I like to move
slowly and thoughtfully, and I like for the community to move slowly and
thoughtfully.

If the community ever seeks to depose me from my special role, I hope
that this will happen via a thoughtful process, but I actually think it
is completely unnecessary.  It is my intention to fade into a purely
symbolic position over time.

In a case like the present one, there is actually no really good answer
about how policy shifts become official.  In the case of 3RR, we had an
excellent approach... a broad disucssion, a community vote, and then my
personal certification that policy had changed.  This led to a clear and
definable policy shift, without a wheel war or factions fighting endlessly.

Such orderly processes are beneficial, but we have not designed them in
all cases.

In the current case, it looks like the right way forward is exactly the
3RR way.  A broad community discussion to shed light on the very good
work done by a group of people laboring away on WP:ATT and related
pages, and then a poll to assess the feelings of the community as best
we can, and then we can have a final certification of the results.

In the future, such a process should be made more formalized I think (as
we get bigger and bigger, it is harder and harder to just chat with
everyone and then make it so), and quite likely the ArbCom (who, after
all, ultimately make decisions about what "counts" as policy through
their enforcement of it) should be the ones certifying.

But we don't have to solve all the big picture constitutional questions
when we can simply move forward usefully in the meantime.

--Jimbo


body:
jf_wikipedia wrote:
> (a) What was done that we should not have done;

The change was made before a sufficient process had taken place to make
the change, with the result that many good editors were unaware that
such a fundamental change was about to take place.  Many have reported
being baffled and unhappy with the change.

> (b) What was not done that we should have done;

A process which has worked well in the past is a process of discussion
to arrive at a specific proposal, followed by a broad public poll (or
"vote"), followed by a certification of the result.

This achieves something quite useful: broad notification, a serious
assessment of the strength or weakness of support for some proposal, and
a defined endpoint so that people know that policy has been changed.
All of these things serve to promote harmony by making policy changes
democratic rather than power struggles.

> (c) How do we gauge consensus as it relates to policy changes.

We do not have a simple clear definition of this.

> (d) Do we need to involve you in the final determination so this does
> not happen again?

I think this would be a good thing, yes.  I do not want to have a veto
over policy changes (other than perhaps WP:NPOV - if a vote of 90% of
all editors was to turn Wikipedia into Conservapedia, I would not accept
it at all of course :) ).  But I think it is important that for really
major shifts of policy, we have a clear and defined endpoint.

--Jimbo


body:
Jossi,

We all appreciate that a great deal of work went into this.  The problem is, despite all those efforts, people still didn't know.  Jeff didn't know.  I didn't know.  I'm on wiki every day, and think of myself as fairly well informed.  I get Signpost.  I read VP as much as I possibly can.  But I don't read every arb case that's published - why would I?  Why would most of us,  ESPECIALLY non-admins (like myself)?

I can't tell you how many times I see people site V and NOR in discussions, and not once in ANY of those that I saw did anyone mention this.  That alone should tell you that there are well-informed editors that didn't know.

Also, your last paragraph ends with the words "that has not been disputed."  Actually, your premise has been disputed.  By Jimmy.

Philippe
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Jossi Fresco
  To: English Wikipedia
  Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 3:51 PM
  Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] WP:V, WP:RS, WP:NOR and WP:ATT

  On Mar 21, 2007, at 1:34 PM, Jeff Raymond wrote:

  > I'm in the process of trying to get [[Wikipedia:Article inclusion]]
  > into
  > something worthwhile.  Will it work?  Damned if I know, but I'm
  > trying.
  I am aware of Wikipedia:Article inclusion. Hope it gets somewhere.

  > But I also know that I need to make sure I touch as many people as
  > possible to get the consensus to make it what it will end up
  > being.  I'm
  > not sure if that really happened w/ATT.

  These comments still puzzle me, Jeff. How can it be possible that you
  missed it? It was referred to in recent ArbCom cases (e.g. Free
  Republic); it was discussed *extensively* in the talk pages of V, NOR
  and RS,  it was announced on the Village Pump...

  The point that keeps being lost in this discussion is that WP:ATT is
  **not** a new policy or a new formulation of existing policy. WP:ATT
  is an effort to consolidate V and NOR into one easy-to-understand
  policy page, based on a need that has not been disputed.

  -- Jossi

  _______________________________________________
  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


body:
On 3/21/07, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com
<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> Let's not get too black-and-white about this, if at all possible. Maybe hundreds were literally involved in the development process, but that doesn't mean they all support all of the final out-turn. I think that isn't even how democracy works.
>
> I think sometimes one accepts two steps forward and one back as progress.
>
True, but this was two steps forward and three back, because we now
have a worse mess than before, with *four* pages tagged as policy.

Just about everyone who was involved or who commented (hundreds)
support the merge. That is a cold, hard fact. Those who disagreed
about details wanted to *change* V and NOR, and that was resisted. My
fear from the start of the ATT process was that people might try to
use it to weaken NOR and V, and Jimbo said yesterday that he'd be
against that too. So we steered a very, very careful course between
looking at some of the proposals for change (e.g. Phil Sandifer's
exception for pop culture, which I'd have gone along with), and making
sure none of the proposals got out of hand. When that one started to
get expanded, we moved back to the no-change position.

That's why its completely wrong-headed to call this a "fundamental
change." It was an incredibly *conservative* move -- irritatingly so
for some editors.

Sarah


from_name: Jeff Raymond

body:
Slim Virgin wrote:

> Okay, but this leaves us with a real problem. We're not psychic, so we
> can't know who supports a policy or who objects unless they say
> something about it. Hundreds of editors contributed to the debate
> about ATT -- it wasn't a secret! -- and almost all (in fact, my
> recollection is all) were supportive of the merge, though people had
> different ideas about the details. But the merge of three untidy pages
> into one page was completely supported. We had exactly the same broad
> consensus that we had for BLP.

But there's the problem - such a fundamental change, one could attest,
WASN'T known.  I wasn't under a rock for the five months that this was
discussed, and I had WP:V and WP:RS on my watchlist, yet I had no clue.
How does that happen, exactly?

We keep harkening back to BLP, which was really kind of rushed and kind of
blindsided a lot of people.  My hopes that we've learned from that are
erased since a) we seem to be doing it again, and b) there's an
implication that it has wide support, which I functionally dispute because
I feel a lot of the support comes from the "Well, Jimbo wanted it camp."
It's there, we're using it, and I've simply removed myself from most
living bios to not deal with the bullshit it's created, but we have to be
very, very careful of what we call "wide support" when there's a good
chance that people simply don't know about it.  When highly active editors
are surprised to see something happen, there's a problem with how the
consensus was gathered.

-Jeff


from_name: Peter Ansell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

body:
On 21/03/07, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> Columbus's logs are primary historical sources - they are a record of his
> observations and his interpretation of his observations.  Scientific
> research papers present and analyse data, and draw some conclusions from the
> data.  Primary sources are not the raw data, nor are they Columbus's
> readings of the angles of the stars or the depth of the water.  Court
> rulings are primary sources, not the policeman's log books.
>
> No.  Research publications are primary sources.  Review papers are secondary
> sources.  Textbooks tend to be secondary or tertiary sources.

Research publications should hope not to be entirely primary sources.
If a scientist makes a claim based on their data then the data is the
primary source, and their claims are secondary to it. What difference
does it make as to whether the publishing scientist makes a conclusion
or a review paper makes a conclusion?

Peter Ansell


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 3/21/07, stevertigo <stvrtg at gmail.com> wrote:
>> He can void the ArbCom, in whole and in part, including the status of
>> its members and its rulings.
>> I don't see how a list can make that any more explicit.
>
> Does he have any other explicit extraordinary powers?

I can fly, but not in the presence of kryptonite. :)

It has generally been accepted that I can engage in emergency
desysoppings and refer cases directly to the ArbCom.

I think the limits on my power are quite a bit unknown for a few
reasons, mainly that I really don't exercise power all that much, ever,
and so most questions of what I could do just simply don't come up.  And
passing a priori laws against me seems rather injudicious since our
community institutions are all quite carefully limited for good reasons
in an effort to create an atmosphere of calm loving respect.

I have no intention of doing anything unusual at all.

I have long suspected that Brits implicitly get the governance model
here better than Americans do.  I think we Americans tend to want an a
priori constitution which defines everything, and we pretend that
"convention" in the British sense doesn't play a role in our government
(though it does).

In the current case of WP:ATT, I consider my action to be nothing more
than the sort of "delaying" action that the House of Lords can take in
some cases in the UK.  I want us to really consider this major policy
shift via a wide-ranging discussion, and an actual measurement of
consensus, and an actual final point so that whatever is implemented, is
implemented with certainty, and there can be no cries that a tiny cabal
of editors lurking behind the scenes changed everything.

--Jimbo


body:
James Farrar wrote:
> On 21/03/07, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> At English Wikipedia level, he has an informal status as a leader
>> among the community. Historically - as a leader in the community - he
>> exercised various functions (arbitration, for example) until those
>> functions were delegated down (to the ArbCom, for example).
>
> If he has delegated responsibility for them, that presumably means he
> retains the authority to over-rule ArbCom's decisions?

Right.  I still retain the right to pardon people who are banned by the
ArbCom.  I have never done this, and am unlikely to do so.  But I think
it a valuable safety valve in case the ArbCom somehow begins to go
radically against community consensus in some particular case.  Unlikely.


body:
Jossi Fresco wrote:
> On Mar 20, 2007, at 6:36 PM, stevertigo wrote:
>>  but if I were actually interested,
>> I would ask Jimbo directly in private email, where this discussion
>> belongs.
>
> Why?
>
> Transparency is paramount. The intervention at WP:ATT has left me
> quite confused about his role. And by the look of it, I am not alone.
> An unambiguous response to these questions would be very much
> appreciated as it will dispel the confusion that clearly exists.

I hope that your questions have been answered.  It is confusing to be
sure.  I think no one really understands it.

--Jimbo


from_name: stevertigo

body:
On 3/21/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:

> Likely lesson: Wikipedia has exceeded process critical mass.  We now
> have more things going on more quickly than the existing static
> process can adequately track and keep people aware of.
>
> In a business, this sort of discovery triggers a round of executive
> and management soul-searching, followed by a painful round of process
> consultants, executive retreats, the creation of new business process
> management groups, a couple of new VPs, etc etc.

While I seem to remember some quote about the dangers of bureaucratic
mentality and its normative habit of forming committee's and
instituting more process and bloat, I don't think it improper to deal
with these issues in a more formal way.

Part of the problem is noise: the methods by which we communicate
openly are cluttered with noise, be it trolling, newbiance,
misconceptions, or just spam and bad email formatting.

A more comprehensive topic based threading system would seem to be
useful, not just for meta discussion on the mailing lists, but on
certain busy talk pages as well. This is a technical issue which Erik
alluded to with his comments about OTRS (and Wikipedia as a primary
source.) An ideal system would be organizable, flag-able and
integrable between email and wiki formats: an integration of messages
and documents.

The other problem is as many have said, scaling the structures of
governance to fit the larger community.  I'm of the opinion that
certain community-style things could be done to accomplish this, but
I'm likewise skeptical that such would just be more bureaucracy.  We
can of course try to visualise an expanded governance model:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/07/Org_chart.jpg/300px-Org_chart.jpg

-Stevertigo


subject: [WikiEN-l] [Possible spam]Re: WP:V, WP:RS, WP:NOR and WP:ATT

body:
On 3/21/07, Jossi Fresco <jossifresco at mac.com> wrote:
>> I am not disputing that *some* editors missed it (let's face it,
> these that missed it completely and that have declared that, are just
> a few). In any case, you missed it, Jimbo missed it ...

Just to point out that Jimbo was e-mailed about it in October.


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

body:
On 20/03/07, James Farrar <james.farrar at gmail.com> wrote:

> I had always been under the impression that the point of WP:NOR was to
> eliminate the adding of material to the encyclopaedia on the grounds
> that "I know it's true from my own experience".

No, the point was to eliminate adding novel theories.

- d.


body:
stevertigo wrote:
> On 3/20/07, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
>> And indeed, a constitutional monarchy is the best analogy for the
>> English Wikipedia at the moment.
>
> Exactly. And what obligation does a monarch have to explain
> themselves, or to document exactly what they can or cannot do. That
> would violate the very definition of a monarchy.

Just to be clear again, I don't agree with this.  I believe,
philosophically, in the consent of the governed.  I think our current
system works well: we are able to experiment with policy without
worrying about a proposal going haywire, because I stand here being my
same old boring mostly reasonable self to serve as a bit of a safety valve.


from_name: Geoffrey Burling

body:
Stevertigo wrote:

> Thats because you didn't approach the matter properly: with enough
> sarcasm and facetiousness to drown a horse

Moi? Insufficient sarcasm? The creator of the "sarcastic vote"? I was
unaware that my wells of sarcasm could ever run dry. I can hardly wait
until my wife comes home this evening to tell her this -- she would
not believe it was possible!

Then again, one of the persons in the conversation apologized after the
fact. I guess I don't edit en.wikipedia with enough frequency to drown a
horse & ensure that every Wikipedian knows that I am not a troll or a
newbie who created an account just the other day.

Geoff


body:
Bryan Derksen wrote:
> Since Jimbo's actions do affect everyone who edits Wikipedia, regardless
> of whether you call that editing capability a "right" or a "privilege"
> or whatever, I think it's quite reasonable for we the editors to be
> discussing just what actions Jimbo is capable of and what the
> implications of them may be. The fact that some trolls or other
> ne'er-do-wells may also be listening in is unfortunate but I don't see
> how to avoid it and I certainly don't see preventing it as something
> worth squelching the discussion over.

Well said. :)

--Jimbo


body:
Slim Virgin wrote:
>
> I can't say why you didn't know about it, Jeff. It was talked about in
> many different places; around 170 editors had edited it by the time it
> went live, and nearly 300 had posted on the talk page. Plus it was
> mentioned several times on V and NOR talk -- e.g. when editors would
> post with a complaint about the policies, someone would say check out
> the proposal at ATT which deals with this. It really *was* widely
> discussed.

Sure.  I don't disagree.  BUT people still didn't notice.  If it's not
easy for well-established Wikiaddicts to know about such a proposal,
what's going to happen?

I'm in the process of trying to get [[Wikipedia:Article inclusion]] into
something worthwhile.  Will it work?  Damned if I know, but I'm trying.
But I also know that I need to make sure I touch as many people as
possible to get the consensus to make it what it will end up being.  I'm
not sure if that really happened w/ATT.

>> We keep harkening back to BLP, which was really kind of rushed and kind
>> of
>> blindsided a lot of people.
>
> No, it didn't. Quite the reverse.

Really?  You and I edit in amazingly different areas, so maybe that's why
you think it's the reverse.  My experience is quite different.

-Jeff


from_name: Ron Ritzman

subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

body:
On 3/21/07, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at waterwiki.info> wrote:

> There is all this authority behind Jimbo. There are a couple of problems: there
> is a drive-by aspect to it, it's Jimbo and you feel you should defer; the
> other problem is much more serious, by doing this Jimbo doesn't have
> the experience of being an ordinary editor that people feel they can ignore,
> of vainly citing policy and being told, forcefully, with the threat of a block,
> that he's just "trolling".

Or "wikilawyering" with the article's "gang" defending the article by
citing WP:IAR.


from_name: Michael Noda

body:
On 3/21/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/21/07, Sam Blacketer <sam.blacketer at googlemail.com> wrote:
> > Maybe my English way but I like the idea of keeping Jimbo's power
> > unspecified.
>
> The queen's power pretty much is specified. She gets to veto a bill
> exactly once. After that I assume that the commons would take the
> steps required to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Not quite true: the queen gets to veto a *popular* or *controversial*
bill exactly once.  If she vetoed a bill declaring nuclear war against
Norway, and then dissolved Parliament, it's likely that the people
would back Her Majesty over Parliament, at least until the first
opportunity to vote in a new Parliament.

I'd suggest that, instead of the rock-solid monarchy of the United
Kingdom, a closer model to consider might be Spain, circa 1980.  We're
still trying to figure out this whole system of governance, and we may
have to just wing it a few times, but we're learning, and we have a
leader we can trust to not be crazy if and when things get bad.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

body:
Ron Ritzman wrote:

> Come to think about it even a normally "neutral" fact might have some
>
>POV and OR issues. Let's take "date of birth" for example...
>
>There is an article about a notable model named "Carmen Roe".
>
>Carmen Roe claims to be 19 years old.
>
>Somebody digs up a copy of her birth certificate that shows that she
>is 26 and updates her Wikipedia entry.
>
>If such was done, it would be using "original research" to show that
>she "lied about her age". The article now violates both OR and NPOV.
>It would be the same as if somebody found a copy of her medical
>records that says she is HIV+ and added that. In both cases the
>article should be reverted until it's reported by a "real" news
>organization.
>
>
There are two types of situation identified here.

In your HIV example we are dealing with a fact that was not previously
included in the article.  It is also a fact that could easily be viewed
as derogatory.  You would be right to seek stronger support before
including it.

With regards to Carmen's age I'm assuming that the question of her
editing her own article is not a factor, and that here _claim_ to be 19
is properly documented to be a claim.  I'm also assuming that there is
no direct statement that she lied about her age, and all that is really
said is that her birth certificate establishes her age as 26.

It strikes me as unethical to retain information which we know to be
wrong simply because the document which establishes the correct
information is not in an acceptable format.  If we are to remove the
information about her correct age we must also remove the information
about the age which we know to be false.

Ec


from_name: Pilotguy

body:
I'm worried that Jimbo is out of touch in general with Wikipedia policies,
etc.

On 3/21/07, Michael Noda <michael.noda at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/21/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 3/21/07, Sam Blacketer <sam.blacketer at googlemail.com> wrote:
> > > Maybe my English way but I like the idea of keeping Jimbo's power
> > > unspecified.
> >
> > The queen's power pretty much is specified. She gets to veto a bill
> > exactly once. After that I assume that the commons would take the
> > steps required to make sure it doesn't happen again.
>
> Not quite true: the queen gets to veto a *popular* or *controversial*
> bill exactly once.  If she vetoed a bill declaring nuclear war against
> Norway, and then dissolved Parliament, it's likely that the people
> would back Her Majesty over Parliament, at least until the first
> opportunity to vote in a new Parliament.
>
> I'd suggest that, instead of the rock-solid monarchy of the United
> Kingdom, a closer model to consider might be Spain, circa 1980.  We're
> still trying to figure out this whole system of governance, and we may
> have to just wing it a few times, but we're learning, and we have a
> leader we can trust to not be crazy if and when things get bad.
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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
>

--
Pilotguy
pilotguy.wikipedia at gmail.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pilotguy

http://pilotguy.wordpress.com


from_name: James Farrar

body:
On 21/03/07, Sam Blacketer <sam.blacketer at googlemail.com> wrote:

> Since 1708 (last Bill refused Royal Assent was to allow a Scottish nobleman
> to set up a private army, incidentally). The House of Lords analogy is a
> good one but poorly timed since last night they knowingly broke one of their
> few self-imposed rules and vetoed a Bill at second reading.

Actually, the [[Salisbury Convention]] does not apply as the Fraud
(Trials Without a Jury) Bill was not a manifesto commitment.


body:
On 3/21/07, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> If I was in Jimbo's position and was wanting to improve my understanding
> of the average Wikipedian, I think a relatively easy way to do it would
> be to get myself a sock puppet account and do a little editing _as_ an
> average Wikipedian. I'd try out the things that are the sources of
> controversy, such as AfD or the use of certain types of sources. Get
> into disagreements with some average Wikipedians and see what they think
> policy and standard practice really are. Continuing the monarchy
> analogy, this would be sort of like the Prince and the Pauper.
>
> Perhaps he already does this. In which case, never mind. :)

I don't think the issue raised deals with his ability to "understand
the average Wikipedian."
I dont think he has a problem with that at all. The issues were about
clarification of his role (or not), a constitution or a monarchy, and
consistent usage of powers, such that we know to consult him when we
draft a policy change, and not wait until six months later when he
gets a chance to find out about it.

In the current debate over ATT, no other individual could make such
unilateral steps as he did without prior consultation and consensus
building. The fact that he can is of course a matter which the
community wants to more fully understand in a constitutional way,
while of course not wanting to be perceived as attacking or
criticizing him.

-Stevertigo


from_name: Slim Virgin

body:
On 3/21/07, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:
>
> Jossi Fresco wrote:
> >
> > On Mar 21, 2007, at 2:09 PM, Jeff Raymond wrote:
> >
> >> HOWEVER, if you have a guy who makes 1000 edits a month and spends
> >> a good
> >> deal of time in policy space and is STILL unaware, what does that
> >> do for
> >> overall consensus?
> >
> > Have you checked WP:ATT?
>
> Yeah, I finally found it in February.
>
> >
> > What do you think of the work done there? Is it useful, or not? Does
> > it advance the project or not? Does it make it easier for newbies to
> > understand, or not?
>
> I don't think it's an improvement or a step backward.  My preferences are
> to keep them apart, but that's purely cosmetic, and that's no reason to
> oppose something anyway - when the concepts are broken and out of date, it
> doesn't matter how you present them if the insides are still the same.
>
> >
> > Those are *better* questions than the one you asked.
>
> Yeah, but those questions didn't matter by the time I saw ATT - the
> process was already said and done.
>
Not so. We posted to NOR and V that ATT would go live soon *so long as
there were no major objections*.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ANo_original_research&diff=108889776&oldid=108877841

That was one day *after* you first posted to the ATT talk page. So you
did know about it in plenty of time to object, and anyone with those
pages on their watchlist would have seen those notices.

Sarah


body:
On 3/21/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/21/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> > On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 14:34:59 +0000, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Maybe we should hook into a meta page or something, like with the
> > fund-raising drive.  Proposals for significant change to policy get
> > flagged up in an info bar, and stay there until you click-through or
> > dismiss the thing.
> >
> > Guy (JzG)
>
> there would be a very high risk of it being abused.

How could it be abused, Geni?