subject: [Wikitech-l] Commons image archive

body:
On 04/03/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/4/07, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> > So what's going on? Will this archive appear on download.wikimedia.org
> > as well or not? I think it should be made available as a 'plain' zip
> > download as well.
>
> I recommended against that on the basis of the frequent and incessant
> advocacy of BitTorrent as a cure all for our bandwidth related issues,
> and that we couldn't have a better fit for BitTorrent than this
> application.

Wouldn't offering it as both be a good way to see what users will prefer?

> >And the torrent is not being hosted on Wikimedia
> > servers, which it should be for reliability at least. (
> > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2006/archive
>
> Yes it is.  Where did you get the idea that it was not?

Yeah, sorry, that was my bad :)

cheers
Brianna


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Bryan Tong Minh

subject: [Wikitech-l] Commons image archive

body:
It appears to be stable and running.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2006/archive

Bryan

On 3/4/07, Bryan Tong Minh <bryan.tongminh at gmail.com> wrote:
> Windows does not have a builtin BitTorrent client. The only major
> webbrowser that has BitTorrent builtin is Opera.
>
> The problem with the dll's is now fixed, unfortunately I don't have
> anything here that looks like a compiler, so I cannot create a new exe
> here :(
>
> Bryan
>
> On 3/4/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 04/03/07, Bryan Tong Minh <bryan.tongminh at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > I've hacked BitTornado such that it has become almost a one click
> > > dowload program. Unfortunately I forgot to pack it with gdiplus.dll,
> > > so it is not working on all Windows pc's. As I am writing this, I
> > > don't have access either to gdiplus, so I cannot currently fix it.
> > > Hope to have it done this evening, or find a way to make wxPython
> > > independent of gdi+.
> >
> >
> > Those of us using modern Linux distros will find that just clicking on
> > a torrent link will start the BitTorrent download working in a
> > completely transparent manner. Which is nice. Are things really that
> > bad on Windows and Mac?
> >
> >
> > - d.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> >
>


list: commons-l

subject: [Commons-l] Commons Picture of the Year 2006

body:
All Featured Pictures of 2006 are now available over BitTorrent:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2006/archive

Bryan

On 3/3/07, Bryan Tong Minh <bryan.tongminh at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Wikimedians,
>
> The Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year 2006 competition is now
> over, and the winner has been selected. Thank you for voting.
> Of the 662 Wikimedians who voted, 83 selected 'Aurora Borealis' [1]
> as the 'Wikimedia Commons Picture of 2006'.
>
> Second was 'Sans Domicile Fixe' [2] with 78 votes and joint third were
> 'Blue Jay' [3] and 'Hoverflies mating in midair' [4] with 70 votes
> each.  We congratulate the authors of these pictures for their
> exceptional quality. The full results are available on [5]
>
> Some user comments:
> * ''Fantastic! Love the earth.''
> * ''Crazy. Wish I could vote for them all.''
> * ''If I had to pic one thing I'd like to see, I'd go with that. Stunning.''
>
> We are also proud to announce the release of an archive of all the
> 2006 Wikimedia Commons Featured Pictures. You can find more
> information on [6].
>
> Thank you all for voting,
> The Commons Community
>
> [1] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Polarlicht_2.jpg
> [2] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:P7032101_small2.jpg
> [3] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Cyanocitta-cristata-004.jpg
> [4] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Hoverflies_mating_midair.jpg
> [5] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2006
> [6] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2006/archive
>


list: foundation-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Commons Picture of the Year 2006


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikien-l

from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] a final word on Essjay

body:
On 04/03/07, Yonatan Horan <yonatanh at gmail.com> wrote:
> I was all for him resigning his positions in the Wikipedia community but
> it's sad that he lost his job at Wikia over this.

To clarify - it appears he resigned, not fired. he lost his job, but
by his own decision.

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


from_name: Bartning at aol.com

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Is editing for payment a fundamentally problematic
	conflict of...

body:
In a message dated 3/4/2007 4:42:06 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,
william at scissor.com writes:

Just to  be clear, I'm not against paying honest and conscientious
Wikipedians to  edit. What I am opposed to is accepting editorial
conflicts of  interest.

So if, say, the Ford Foundation wants to pay a dozen  historians to write
historical articles, I'm all for it. Right up to the  point where they
edit anything on the Ford Foundation or its  funders.
Current rules remain unclear about policies.  I only hear about paid
corporations and nonprofits that also edit pages.  However, one criticism  involves
Wikipedia being too commercial and actually asking corporations to put  their
logos on articles about them.


from_name: NSLE (Wikipedia)

subject: [WikiEN-l] EssJay situation

body:
Any reason why Essjay's talk page hasn't been protected yet? It's over. He's
gone.


body:
Re-Write Using More Standard Indentation for Clarity

In a message dated 3/4/2007 4:42:06 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,
william at scissor.com writes:

>Just to be clear, I'm not against paying honest and conscientious
>Wikipedians to edit. What I am opposed to is accepting editorial
>conflicts of interest.

So if, say, the Ford Foundation wants to  pay a dozen historians to write
historical articles, I'm all for it. Right  up to the point where they
edit anything on the Ford Foundation or its  funders.
Current rules remain unclear about policies.  I only hear about paid
corporations and nonprofits that also edit pages.  However, one criticism  involves
Wikipedia being too commercial and actually asking corporations to put  their
logos on articles about them.


from_name: Stephen Bain

body:
On 3/4/07, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> * consider different voting schemes (but... need to keep things simple)

Boardvote could be hacked to be used for this. It wouldn't have worked
this year because of the need for people without Commons accounts to
link their vote to their home project account, but we should have SUL
in time for the next one so that will be possible.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Ron Ritzman

subject: [WikiEN-l] AFDs on featured articles

body:
[[Memory_alpha]], which is a previous featured article, is up for
deletion. Putting the question of wp:snow and wp:point aside I was
wondering. Has a featured article ever been deleted?

The only way I can see it happening is if the article is later
revealed to be a hoax or a copyvio.


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] a final word on Essjay

body:
On 3/4/07, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
> It is my sincere hope that people will just stop discussing this whole
> Essjay episode ad nauseum.
>
> Here is someone who made a mistake. You may even say a big mistake. For  that
> mistake he lost his credibility, he lost his community, he lost his  job at
> Wikia, and he is the subject of disparaging articles and opinions  both online
> and in print.
>
> Apart from a public lynching, what else do people want from him?
>
> Let him go in peace. There is no need to stomp on every last shred of
> dignity he still has.
>
> Danny

Agreed. Let us not forget the immense work he has done for wikipedia,
both as a writer and as a part of the administration. The horse has
been killed, now lets just let it go.

--Oskar


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] a final word on Essjay

body:
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Stephen Park [mailto:stephenpark15 at gmail.com]
>Sent: Sunday, March 4, 2007 01:32 PM
>To: 'English Wikipedia'
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] a final word on Essjay
>
>On 3/4/07, Sam Blacketer <sam.blacketer at googlemail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > Apart from a public lynching, what else do people want from him?
>>
>>
>> The really depressing thing about the episode is that so many editors did
>> seem to want a public lynching, and thought it would be for the good of us
>> all. All it was was just a childish joke by Essjay when he first signed up,
>> that ran away with him and only caught up when he was well-known enough to
>> really harm him. Not to say that I approve of what he did but I do have
>> immense sympathy for him.
>
>Public lynchings are a regular feature of wikipedia. Just look at
>WP/ANI and especially the method of having a community ban
>(essentially a wikilynching) instead of a trial by ArbComm.

We can stop that if we want to. Do you think there are community bans which are inappropriate? There are obvious problem with public hangings but even more with private hangings.

Fred


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] a final word on Essjay

body:
On 3/4/07, Sam Blacketer <sam.blacketer at googlemail.com> wrote:
> The really depressing thing about the episode is that so many editors did
> seem to want a public lynching, and thought it would be for the good of us
> all.

Straw poll suggested that a majority supported him keeping his
adminship. This does not fit with your claims.

--
geni


from_name: Husky

body:
Cool!

-- Hay Kranen / [[User:Husky]]

On 3/4/07, Bryan Tong Minh <bryan.tongminh at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> All Featured Pictures of 2006 are now available over BitTorrent:
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2006/archive
>
> Bryan
>
> On 3/3/07, Bryan Tong Minh <bryan.tongminh at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Dear Wikimedians,
> >
> > The Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year 2006 competition is now
> > over, and the winner has been selected. Thank you for voting.
> > Of the 662 Wikimedians who voted, 83 selected 'Aurora Borealis' [1]
> > as the 'Wikimedia Commons Picture of 2006'.
> >
> > Second was 'Sans Domicile Fixe' [2] with 78 votes and joint third were
> > 'Blue Jay' [3] and 'Hoverflies mating in midair' [4] with 70 votes
> > each.  We congratulate the authors of these pictures for their
> > exceptional quality. The full results are available on [5]
> >
> > Some user comments:
> > * ''Fantastic! Love the earth.''
> > * ''Crazy. Wish I could vote for them all.''
> > * ''If I had to pic one thing I'd like to see, I'd go with that.
> Stunning.''
> >
> > We are also proud to announce the release of an archive of all the
> > 2006 Wikimedia Commons Featured Pictures. You can find more
> > information on [6].
> >
> > Thank you all for voting,
> > The Commons Community
> >
> > [1] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Polarlicht_2.jpg
> > [2] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:P7032101_small2.jpg
> > [3] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Cyanocitta-cristata-004.jpg
> > [4] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Hoverflies_mating_midair.jpg
> > [5] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2006
> > [6]
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2006/archive
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Gary Kirk

subject: [WikiEN-l] As if AOL wasn't annoying enough before...

body:
It's called a signature. Are you really that offended about it?

And no offence, but what's that at the bottom of your emails?
Personally I found your mail website quite informative when I browsed
it a few weeks ago - but commercial or not, it's still an ad of
sorts...

--
Gary Kirk


body:
It's called a signature. Are you really that offended about it?

And no offence, but what's that at the bottom of your emails?
Personally I found your mail website quite informative when I browsed
it a few weeks ago - but commercial or not, it's still an ad of
sorts...

On 04/03/07, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
> On 4 Mar 2007 at 11:45, Bartning@{gag,vomit,retch}aol.com wrote (or,
> rather, AOL (bleccch) appended):
>
> >

**************************************
 AOL now offers free
> > email to everyone.  Find out more about what's free from AOL at
> > http://www.aol.com.
>
> As if AOL wasn't already a hive of scum and villainy, now they're
> inflicting the above stupid ad footer on all sorts of mailing lists,
> complete with idiotic HTML tags even in the plain text version (which
> is what ends up showing up on text-only lists and digest versions).
>
> --
> == Dan ==
> Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
> Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
> Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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
>

--
Gary Kirk


from_name: Yonatan Horan

subject: [WikiEN-l] a final word on Essjay

body:
I was all for him resigning his positions in the Wikipedia community but
it's sad that he lost his job at Wikia over this.

-Yonatan

On 3/4/07, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/4/07, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 3/4/07, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
> > > It is my sincere hope that people will just stop discussing this whole
> > > Essjay episode ad nauseum.
> > >
> > > Here is someone who made a mistake. You may even say a big mistake.
> > For  that
> > > mistake he lost his credibility, he lost his community, he lost
> his  job
> > at
> > > Wikia, and he is the subject of disparaging articles and
> opinions  both
> > online
> > > and in print.
> > >
> > > Apart from a public lynching, what else do people want from him?
> > >
> > > Let him go in peace. There is no need to stomp on every last shred of
> > > dignity he still has.
> > >
> > > Danny
> >
> > Agreed. Let us not forget the immense work he has done for wikipedia,
> > both as a writer and as a part of the administration. The horse has
> > been killed, now lets just let it go.
>
>
> Agreed.  It's really sad...and now worse that it cost him his job.  I hate
> how toxic the culture can become.
> _______________________________________________
> 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:
This list is plaintext. Not AOL's fault particularly, but yes it looks
a little bizarre. Oh well...

On 04/03/07, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
>  > It's called a signature. Are you really that offended about it?
>
> What I find particularly bothersome is the <BR> tags, inserted bizarrely
> in the plain-text version of the messages, as seen in the text-only
> digest mode version of this list.
>
> --
> == Dan ==
> Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
> Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
> Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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
>

--
Gary Kirk


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

body:
On Sun, 4 Mar 2007 16:56:16 EST, Bartning at aol.com wrote:

>>Pay is  completely irrelevant.  You added links to, and content in
>>support of,  an organisation in which you play a leading role. Conflict
>>of  interest.  I don't think I have ever edited the articles on
>>Wikipedia  or Jimmy Wales, by the way.

>I edited an article and began a corporation to benefit fellow families of
>killed in action.  The article involves life-long learning about the  concept,
>something my faculty advisor, a Stanford-graduated Ph.D., also thought  I would
>be good at because of the courses I took.  Foundations and other  credible
>organizations even provide information and research about topics, and  our
>nonprofit is legally incorporated as an educational institution.

All of which is, as you have been told numerous times, COMPLETELY
IRRELEVANT because when YOU write  about it YOU have a conflict of
interest.  Is that so very hard to understand?  That is not a judgment
on the merit of your organisation, it's about the appropriateness of
YOU adding links to it and YOU adding content about it.

And that, I think, had better be my last word on the subject, at least
on this list.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Is editing for payment a fundamentally problematic
	conflict of interest?

references:
<eaba02640703031038h1e3a8b6aq284818c149131475@mail.gmail.com>
	<b8ceeef70703040511k5676d002tde976e3866601e1f@mail.gmail.com>
	<lrhlu2dukgra7l02adubo7mpner5nnqdi9@4ax.com>
	<b8ceeef70703040537q396b19e0vcb6ad0ad9985dfc0@mail.gmail.com>
	<5fulu29p30mv009iped4qe4tcufh04upfd@4ax.com>
	<b8ceeef70703041441s41052631k70bb6d62bb316fcb@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On Mon, 5 Mar 2007 09:41:35 +1100, "Steve Bennett"
<stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:

>> shadow them to check for subtle bias - if I were paid to write an
>Why? There are plenty of edits being made with blatant bias. Subtle
>bias is the least of our problems.

No.  Overt bias is usually easy to spot.  I would argue that subtle
bias is the *worst* of our problems.

--8<-----------------

>> No articles should be written on commission.  I believe Jimbo Has
>> Spoken on that issue.

>Me too. See my original post. I believe Jimbo's point of view was "the
>appearance of conflict of interest would undermine our credibility".
>Not "paid editing always produces bad edits".

Indeed.  That and, for me, the likelihood of subtle bias.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Is editing for payment a fundamentally	problematic
 conflict of interest?

body:
Marc Riddell wrote:

>>>On Sat, 3 Mar 2007 "Jaap Vermeulen" wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>I have recently been approached by an organisation to improve articles
>>>>related to the organisation in question (not create new ones). I would
>>>>receive money for doing so.
>>>>
>>>>
>On 3/4/07, Guy Chapman wrote:
>
>
>>>Ask them for the sources form which this should be drawn, post them to
>>>the Talk pages, and request that the company donate the money to the
>>>Foundation.  How would that do?
>>>
>>>
>on 3/4/07 7:24 AM, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
>
>
>>If they are as aware of the rules as they appear to be, there's little
>>problems, but you have to be very careful with your editing. And yes, do it
>>in full disclosure. I like the idea JzG posted better though. Even good
>>editors can lose their neutrality when money is involved.
>>
>>
>Huh!?!
>
>How would giving away the money you are paid for doing work make that work
>any more credible? What about the credibility and integrity of the person
>doing that work? Ever hear of trust!?!
>
>As for "good editors losing their neutrality when money is involved" - to
>make this statement work you need to remove the word "good".
>
I agree that giving this earned money to WMF as some kind of Act of
Contrition is grossly unrealistic.  By and large I find that supporters
of open access to intellectual property in its various forms have not
grasped the larger economic environment that would make this work.  The
people who contribute still to make a living, and the number of those
contributors that believe in a Marxist paradise where everyone gets what
he needs are few and far between.  Plese someone, tell me what economic
model is going to keep this all alive over an extended time.

Conflicts of Interest, and how we deal with corporations seriously need
an injection of common sense.  Is it really to our advantage to have
people declare their conflicts of interest only to be put to a series of
arcane restrictions.  Under those circumstances if I were in that
position I wouldn't declare my conflict, and just go quietly about my
work.  If another editor complains that my edits are too favorable to
the company I would have no problem apologizing quietly, knowing full
well that my more subtle biases will go by unnoticed.  With the recent
EssJay case his falsehood went undetected for nearly two years, and that
only efter he had very effectively climbed the Wikipedia social ladder.
Would a corporation's representative be more easily discovered if his
pay depended on playing the game so as not to be discovered?  The
company could even forbid him from doing anything beyond being an admin.

I really don't think that most corporate representatives who come here
to edit for their company are here to create a bias.  Most of their work
will give us uncontroversial   Who's on their board of directors.  Where
does the company have factories.  What the company produces.  A record
of the company's share prices.  The additives that a company puts in its
products.  These are all valuable types of data around which we are
notably weak.

With the relatively small part of the material that really is
controversial we will have no shortage of editors who are willing to
make the discrepancies obvious.  What are we afraid of?

Ec


body:
On Mon, 5 Mar 2007 09:46:55 +1100, "Steve Bennett"
<stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:

>I find it difficult to understand how the conflict of interest
>*matters*[1]. As everyone knows, WP is full of crap. Not 100%, but
>some high proportion. The existence of crap has never bothered us
>before, and there's every reason to believe that paid, COI edits would
>still be an improvement, especially if they involve creating new
>articles.

These days we have approaching 2 million articles, creating new ones
is not an unequivocal good - the majority of new articles are
currently, by my reckoning, vanity crap.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


references:
<cec.ae18f72.331c9a80@aol.com>
	<c2imu2henqqc5di4ad16pukdchh1s5hp8a@4ax.com>
	<45EB4C1E.3040005@internationalhouseofbacon.com>

body:
On Sun, 04 Mar 2007 17:45:50 -0500, Jeff Raymond
<jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:

>If he didn't tell us, though, how would we know?

Trust me, it was obvious.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Is editing for payment a fundamentally problematic
 conflict of interest?

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

>On Mon, 5 Mar 2007 00:11:35 +1100, "Steve Bennett" wrote:
>
>
>>In my very humble personal opinion, this type of activity is
>>beneficial to everyone, and ought to be encouraged. However, the
>>appearance of conflicts of interest and the perception of erosion of
>>neutrality are so damaging that we don't currently appear able to
>>allow it.
>>
>>
>Yes.  Gregory Kohs also thought it was fine to edit for pay, we banned
>him because lots of people disagreed, he was arrogant about it, which
>drove off those who might otherwise have agreed and a review of his
>edits showed that they were largely PR pieces or directory entries,
>not serious attempts at creating neutral articles.
>
A person who acts arrogantly, or otherwise has minimal social skills is
not a good role model for other would-be corporate representatives.

>I have no doubt that many employees of companies edit their company's
>articles.  Most of these edits are not really COI, since they are not
>editing *as representatives of the company* or being paid to edit.
>
So if a company "allows" certain of its employees to take time from
their work day to review Wikipedia material about the company they're
not being paid to edit so it's OK.  Their use of the company's hardware
for "personal" reasons is just given a wink and a nod.

>>Which in practice means that people like Jaap who would disclose that
>>they're editing for money, and would invite community supervision
>>aren't allowed to. And that others that would do so under the table
>>with no supervision or transparency will keep doing it anyway. So
>>overall we're worse off. Ho hum.
>>
>>
>Actually I have no problem in principle with people occasionally
>editing an article where they have some minor conflict of interest,
>but edits by the marketing or PR people tend to be uncritical and
>problematic, and being paid for editing specified content is certainly
>incompatible with Wikipedia's ethos - you have a situation where the
>company will necessarily demand or expect a certain tone of editing;
>would they pay up cheerfully if during your researches you found and
>included a fact which reflected badly on them?  Too many problems down
>that road, I think.
>
What constitutes fulfillment of a contract for services is strictly
between the editor and the company.  Neither has any control over the
mercilww processes that an article goes through.  I can even imagine
where a company would view our material superior to whatever their PR
department can produce, and even begin to virally use it in its own
corporate publications.  Some companies have a hard time finding
literate employees.

The bigger problems down the road will probably derive from a failure to
take a realistic approach to this matter.

Ec


body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

>On Sun, 04 Mar 2007 08:02:13 -0500, Marc Riddell
><michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>
>>I feel you are missing my point. Why would being paid money for any
>>contribution I made to a project make that action unclean?
>>
>>
>Because he who pays the piper calls the tune.  See my comment
>elsewhere in this thread: what would you do - and what would they do -
>if your researches showed that the CEO eats babies?
>
That argument is a straw baby. ;-)

Ec


body:
Guettarda wrote:

>On 3/4/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
>
>>On Sun, 04 Mar 2007 08:02:13 -0500, Marc Riddell wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I feel you are missing my point. Why would being paid money for any
>>>contribution I made to a project make that action unclean?
>>>
>>>
>>Because he who pays the piper calls the tune.  See my comment
>>elsewhere in this thread: what would you do - and what would they do -
>>if your researches showed that the CEO eats babies?
>>
>>
>It's all a matter of how you do it.  If someone asked you to write an
>article in a format that is acceptable to Wikipedia (wikicode, NPOV, etc.),
>I don't see anything wrong with them compensating you for your time.  On the
>other hand, if someone asked you to write the article, post it under your
>own name, and defend it, then we have a problem.  The difference is, are
>they asking for your service as a writer who knows how to write a
>WP-acceptable article, or are they trying to rent your reputation in
>Wikipedia?  The former is no big deal, the latter is a problem.
>
And with that reputation comes, hopefully, a certain level of
integrity.  The real problems are less with the writing of an article
than with its defence.

Ec


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Is editing for payment a fundamentally problematic
 conflict of...

body:
Bartning at aol.com wrote:

>I brought up Wikipedia on a nonprofit org list.  It was after I was  unfairly
>blocked, and I get a lot of awkward and/or inappropriate arguments from
>those in power at Wikipedia, but I also get ignored and see them elsewhere - or
>something like them.  However, the subject came up regarding how  corporations
>pay and even involve their legal teams on Wikipedia articles.
>
Sorry, but dealing with this important issue in the context of someone
being "unfairly blocked" tends to distract from the main issue.

Ec


references:
<45EAF3DD.9090406@scissor.com>
	<C2106459.1EA6%michaeldavid86@comcast.net>
	<fbad4e140703040902m5176530eq33c6d6b1967c2360@mail.gmail.com>
	<b8ceeef70703041446k1681bb36w22711f1db6fd6374@mail.gmail.com>
	<9hjmu2hkqm3a202fm4dl1vj5rves2jppmn@4ax.com>
	<b8ceeef70703041506g6b06301dhefcade7c863c138@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On Mon, 5 Mar 2007 10:06:03 +1100, "Steve Bennett"
<stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:

>> These days we have approaching 2 million articles, creating new ones
>> is not an unequivocal good - the majority of new articles are
>> currently, by my reckoning, vanity crap.

>Yes. I thought I had implied that I was referring to articles which
>were going to survive AfD. Obviously creating soon-to-be-deleted
>articles doesn't help us.

Heh!  Well that puts us straight then.  I don't go near
Special:Newpages any more, too stressful.  The firehose of crap, and
the crap tends to stick.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


body:
On Mon, 5 Mar 2007 09:57:15 +1100, "Steve Bennett"
<stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:

>> No.  Overt bias is usually easy to spot.  I would argue that subtle
>> bias is the *worst* of our problems.

>But aren't we talking about companies disclosing their editing? That
>makes it checkable at least.

The usual recommendation is that they suggest changes on Talk.  It
avoids the appearance of conflict of interest.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 3/4/07, Jaap Vermeulen <jaap.vermeulen at gmail.com> wrote:
> "I have recently been approached by an organisation to improve articles
> related to the organisation in question (not create new ones). I would
> receive money for doing so. I am an administrator and am aware of the

In my very humble personal opinion, this type of activity is
beneficial to everyone, and ought to be encouraged. However, the
appearance of conflicts of interest and the perception of erosion of
neutrality are so damaging that we don't currently appear able to
allow it.

Which in practice means that people like Jaap who would disclose that
they're editing for money, and would invite community supervision
aren't allowed to. And that others that would do so under the table
with no supervision or transparency will keep doing it anyway. So
overall we're worse off. Ho hum.

Steve


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2007-03-05

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

This is MediaWiki version 1.10alpha (r20138).

Reading tests from "maintenance/parserTests.txt"...
Reading tests from "extensions/Cite/citeParserTests.txt"...
Reading tests from "extensions/Poem/poemParserTests.txt"...

  18 still FAILING test(s) :(
      * URL-encoding in URL functions (single parameter)  [Has never passed]
      * URL-encoding in URL functions (multiple parameters)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)  [Has never passed]
      * BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: dt/dd/dl test  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Images with the "|" character in the comment  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, without trailing slash or name.  [Has never passed]
      * TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, with lots of extra trailing slashes.  [Has never passed]

Passed 493 of 511 tests (96.48%)... 18 tests failed!


from_name: Earle Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Please don't read this post about an AFD

body:
On 04/03/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
> Also I noticed that [[Double posting]] is up for its second
> nomination. If "Top posting" is ever nominated, will someone find a
> way to make it always appear at the top of the AFD page for that day?

Probably not, but ideally all the votes on it would be placed above
the nomination.

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


body:
On 3/5/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> Yes.  Gregory Kohs also thought it was fine to edit for pay, we banned
> him because lots of people disagreed, he was arrogant about it, which
> drove off those who might otherwise have agreed and a review of his
> edits showed that they were largely PR pieces or directory entries,
> not serious attempts at creating neutral articles.

I don't know if that's all true (the one or two articles I looked at
of his were objectively much better than the void that had existed
before them), but in any case, bad edits are bad edits - regardless of
whether anyone was paid to make them. The question is, do good edits
become bad edits just because they were paid for?

> I have no doubt that many employees of companies edit their company's
> articles.  Most of these edits are not really COI, since they are not
> editing *as representatives of the company* or being paid to edit.

They're also probably not neutral. Does it matter? If not, would it
matter if they were paid to make them?

> Actually I have no problem in principle with people occasionally
> editing an article where they have some minor conflict of interest,

Me neither.

> but edits by the marketing or PR people tend to be uncritical and
> problematic, and being paid for editing specified content is certainly

Yes, about as bad as people writing about their own religion, home
town, favourite basketball team, singer or painter. If only that
problem was confined to professional editors, Wikipedia would be much
better off.

> incompatible with Wikipedia's ethos - you have a situation where the
> company will necessarily demand or expect a certain tone of editing;
> would they pay up cheerfully if during your researches you found and
> included a fact which reflected badly on them?  Too many problems down
> that road, I think.

Is anyone suggesting that the Wikimedia foundation take money from
companies and edit on their behalf? If a company pays someone, such as
an employee, to edit an article on their behalf, then that's an issue
between them. Our issue is to keep all articles NPOV, whether they
were written on commission or not.

Steve


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikitech-l] "Planet" feed aggregators

body:
We're looking into the possibility of setting up a planet-style feed
aggregator for Wikimedia blogs. It would be nice to get some software
recommendations. Specifically, we would need an aggregator that
supports
- web based administration
- filtering feeds based on tags assigned to posts

It should scale well a large number of blogs & readers. It would also
be nice to be able to form "groups" of blogs, but that is optional.

Any tips & reviews would be appreciated.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic


from_name: Cool Cat

subject: [WikiEN-l] a final word on Essjay

body:
Complete agreement. This issue should be closed...
   - Cool Cat

On 3/4/07, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
>
> It is my sincere hope that people will just stop discussing this whole
> Essjay episode ad nauseum.
>
> Here is someone who made a mistake. You may even say a big mistake.
> For  that
> mistake he lost his credibility, he lost his community, he lost his  job
> at
> Wikia, and he is the subject of disparaging articles and opinions  both
> online
> and in print.
>
> Apart from a public lynching, what else do people want from him?
>
> Let him go in peace. There is no need to stomp on every last shred of
> dignity he still has.
>
> Danny
>
>

**************************************
 AOL now offers free
> email to everyone.  Find out more about what's free from AOL at
> http://www.aol.com.
> _______________________________________________
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> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Virgil Ierubino

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Nonfictional, factual,
	objective perspectives must apply to both stories and religions

body:
On 02/03/07, David Goodman <dgoodmanny at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I think readers will understand  that an article about a particular
> religion will be primarily about the religion as seen in its own
> lights. If I am reading an article about a religion, and it says what
> the fate of the righteous will be, I know perfectly well that I am
> talking about what that religion thinks it will be.

Well, when I'm reading a Stargate article about Sokar the master of the
universe, I too understand that it's just telling me what the show's story
is about. However, that WikiProject is constantly dogged by having to state
everything factually - "In episode 13, Sokar took over the universe - a plot
arc unpopular with fans [1]." etc etc.

The point here is NPOV, and religions apply to NPOV most of all. "If the
pilgrim dies before entering Mecca, their soul is sent into limbo, where
Allah will judge them by the purity of their soul and their lifetime
devotion to Islam and the words of Muhammad" is just simply NOT TRUE from
the position of any religion other than Islam. This line is thus completely
POV.

So what I'm saying is that any guideline articles about factual perspectives
(relevent to writing about fiction) should also apply to religions, and
should say so. Either that, or all articles (tv shows as well as religions)
should be allowed to make do with disclaimer templates.


from_name: Conrad Dunkerson

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Accountability: bringing back a proposal I made
 nearly 2	years ago

body:
I see at least two potential problems, which were addressed to some extent
in your original note;

1: Having these 'verified credentials' visible will INEVITABLY lead to
incidents of 'I am a verified expert and you are not'. Frankly, I have as
much problem with Essjay saying, 'we should do it this way because I am an
expert on theology' AT ALL as with it not being true. We just should not
be giving greater weight to 'experts' (verified or not). That encourages
'original research' and 'POV pushing' on the esoterica of their fields.
Experts should work by providing relevant citations and establishing
consensus around text which presents all relevant views... just like
everyone else. If you give them a special status that inherently becomes
less likely and there aren't enough admins to patrol every edit against it.

2: This would be establishing a form of 'academic status' within Wikipedia
that has nothing to do with contributions TO Wikipedia. There will be
countless disputes about what constitutes validation and what sort of
credentials 'count'. There will be a change in culture from this and
people with accepted credentials will feel pressured to reveal them while
people without will resent the hell out of it.

I'd suggest going in a somewhat different direction. I think it makes
sense for the foundation to REQUIRE verification of identities for some
positions, but to not make them public. Board members already have to
publicly identify themselves. It wouldn't be unreasonable to require that
OTRS responders or Checkusers verify their identities privately with the
foundation. You suggested discouraging people from claiming unverified
credentials... I'd instead discourage people from claiming credentials at
all. Their arguments should stand or fall on their merits and citations,
not outside titles and recognitions.

* Jimmy Wales wrote:
> In response to the EssJay scandal, I want to bring back an old proposal
> of mine from 2 years ago for greater accountability around credentials:
>
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-May/022085.html
>
> At the time, this seemed like a plausibly decent idea to me, and the
> reaction at the time was mostly positive, with some reasonable caveats
> and improvements:
>
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-May/thread.html
> to read the entire thread of "An idea".
>
> Nowadays, I bring back the proposal for further consideration in light
> of the EssJay scandal.  I think it imperative that we make some positive
> moves here... we have a real opportunity here to move the quality of
> Wikipedia forward by doing something that many have vaguely thought to
> be a reasonably good idea if worked out carefully.
>
> For anyone who is reading but not online, I will sum it up.  I made a
> proposal that we have a system whereby people who are willing to verify
> their real name and credentials are allowed a special notification.
> "Verified Credentials".  This could be a rather open ended system, and
> optional.
>
> The point is to make sure that people are being honest with us and with
> the general public.  If you don't care to tell us that you are a PhD (or
> that you are not), then that's fine: your editing stands or falls on its
> own merit.  But if you do care to represent yourself as something, you
> have to be able to prove it.
>
> This policy will be coupled with a policy of gentle (or firm)
> discouragement for people to make claims like those that EssJay made,
> unless they are willing to back them up.
>
> How to confirm? What counts as confirmation?  What sorts of things need
> confirmation? These are very interesting questions, as there are many
> types of situations.  But one thing that we have always been very very
> good at is taking the time to develop a nuanced policy.
>
> Just to take a simple example: how to verify a professor?  This strikes
> me as being quite simple in most cases.  The professor gives a link to
> his or her faculty page at the college or university, including the
> email there, and someone emails that address to say "are you really
> EssJay?"  If the answer is yes, then that's a reasonable confirmation.
>
> We can imagine some wild ways that someone might crack that process
> (stealing a professor's email account, etc.) but I think we need not
> design around the worst case scenario, but rather design around the
> reasonable case of a reasonable person who is happy to confirm
> credentials to us.
>
> (This is a lower level of confirmation than we might expect an employer
> to take, of course.)
>
> For someone like me, well, I have an M.A. in finance.  I could fax a
> copy of the degree to the office.  Again, someone could fake their
> credentials, but I don't think we need to design against some mad worst
> case scenario but just to have a basic level of confirmation.
>
> --Jimbo


from_name: Delirium

body:
William Pietri wrote:
> Delirium wrote:
>
>> I don't see how prohibiting honest and conscientious Wikipedians from
>> being paid to edit will fix any of that. [...]
>> I wouldn't mind developing some guidelines over the relative merits of
>> different sorts of funding sources.
>>
>>
>
> Just to be clear, I'm not against paying honest and conscientious
> Wikipedians to edit. What I am opposed to is accepting editorial
> conflicts of interest.
>
> So if, say, the Ford Foundation wants to pay a dozen historians to write
> historical articles, I'm all for it. Right up to the point where they
> edit anything on the Ford Foundation or its funders.
>

This is a pretty vague definition, but yes, it's the sort of thing I
wouldn't mind seeing expanded.  Note that conflicts of interest can be
very subtle, though.  If our article on [[autism]] was edited by someone
paid by a company selling autism drugs, that's a pretty clear conflict
of interest.  But if it were edited by someone paid by a non-profit
group like [[Cure Autism Now]], there would also be potential conflicts
of interest; in particular, Cure Autism Now finds views that autism
isn't a disease offensive, so would be prone to having those treated in
an exclusively negative light if at all.  The mythical independent
editor does not really exist; it's more a matter of degrees.  I happen
to think that a conscientious editor accepting money from a source that
might have a conflict of interest is actually low on the list of
problems.  A PhD in CS editing CS-related articles in which he has
published extensively is much more in a conflict of interest (since it
is the very rare professor who has no bias in the field, or any interest
in career advancement), but we actually encourage that.

However I also think it would be nice if people disclosed the money they
accepted---along with disclosing other potential conflicts of
interest---so articles could be scrutinized appropriately.  We can never
actually force that to happen in all cases, but at the moment our
policies actively discourage it, which hardly helps.

-Mark


body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> The point is to make sure that people are being honest with us and with
> the general public.  If you don't care to tell us that you are a PhD (or
> that you are not), then that's fine: your editing stands or falls on its
> own merit.  But if you do care to represent yourself as something, you
> have to be able to prove it.
>

I don't particularly like it.  I have some credentials, and in a few
years when I complete my PhD I'll have some more, but on principle I
would not verify them, yet I would continue to state them offhand on my
userpage (they're true, after all), although I would not really state
anything more strongly than "I research in this area" (a vague
non-credential) in an actual content discussion.  Verifying credentials
opens up a huge minefield of what sorts of credentials count (we now
have to come up with an official list of diploma mills, etc.), and
promotes a sort of credentialism whose absence is largely responsible
for Wikipedia's success.  Basically the only way I could see it being
beneficial for Wikipedia is in the very narrow sense of avoiding
negative press coverage for Essjay-like cases, but that's a small PR
benefit for the much larger amount of real damage it could cause to the
encyclopedia's quality and community.

-Mark


body:
Delirium wrote:
> [a skeptical comment of mine]

Actually I came up with a better-thought-out list of things I'm
skeptical about (degree of skepticism: 35%) which I posted on the talk
page, alongside some comments from other Wikipedians:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Credentials

-Mark


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] AFDs on featured articles

body:
I dunno if it ever happened, but yeah, that are pretty much the only
possible reasons.

Mgm

On 3/5/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> [[Memory_alpha]], which is a previous featured article, is up for
> deletion. Putting the question of wp:snow and wp:point aside I was
> wondering. Has a featured article ever been deleted?
>
> The only way I can see it happening is if the article is later
> revealed to be a hoax or a copyvio.
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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: William Pietri

subject: [WikiEN-l] Essjay RFC deleted

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> # 15:01, 5 March 2007 David Gerard (Talk | contribs | block) deleted
> "User talk:Essjay/RFC" (talk page of deleted RFC)
> # 15:00, 5 March 2007 David Gerard (Talk | contribs | block) deleted
> "User:Essjay/RFC" (uncertified RFC, not requested 'kept' by the
> subject; deleted per RFC policy and for the precise reasons contained
> in that policy)
>
> I eagerly await an RFC and arbcomming over an in-process deletion ...
>

Hi. I requested on the talk page that rather than deleting it, it be
moved back out to community noticeboard. Others, if I recall rightly,
asked the same. Could you tell me more about your reasoning for deleting
it instead?

Regardless, would you mind sending me a copy of it? As I mentioned
before, I think in a couple of months when people have cooled down, it's
worth coming back to see what we can learn  of all this. However, the
vigor with which people are deleting the record is going to make that
harder than I'd like.

Thanks,

William

--
William Pietri <william at scissor.com>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri


subject: [WikiEN-l] Essjay RFC deleted

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> On 05/03/07, William Pietri <william at scissor.com> wrote:
>
>
>> Hi. I requested on the talk page that rather than deleting it, it be
>> moved back out to community noticeboard. Others, if I recall rightly,
>> asked the same. Could you tell me more about your reasoning for deleting
>> it instead?
>>
>
>
> Just because people want it around is not a justification to keep an
> uncertified RFC around. Uncertified RFCs are exercises in
> reputation-trashing. That's *why* they get deleted.
>

I think the case where some frothing loon uses an RFC to make somebody
look bad unfairly is indeed an important one. I don't think that applies
here.

The RFC brought together important evidence that people weren't aware
of. Its most popular positions were calling for something milder than
what eventually happened, And the view that it was a purely an exercise
in reputation-trashing was, as demonstrated in the RFC, a minority one.

Further, given that it started life outside of the RFC space, you could
just as well have moved it back out again to some talky-talk space and
it would have met you procedural concern.

This especially concerns me as you used your administrative powers to
enforce your minority view in a disagreement in which you were very
actively involved. Wouldn't it have been better to let somebody who had
less involvement decide the outcome?

>> Regardless, would you mind sending me a copy of it? As I mentioned
>> before, I think in a couple of months when people have cooled down, it's
>> worth coming back to see what we can learn  of all this. However, the
>> vigor with which people are deleting the record is going to make that
>> harder than I'd like.
>>
>
>
> I have to say "too bad, that's not what RFCs are for."
>

 From all the chaos, it appears we did not have the perfectly
appropriate structure to deal with this. I didn't realize you were a big
fan of the narrow following of process, but since you appear to be,
perhaps you could propose the process you think would make this go
better next time?

Thanks,

William


body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> By and large I find that supporters of open access to
> intellectual property in its various forms have not
> grasped the larger economic environment that would
> make this work.  The people who contribute still [need]
> to make a living, and the number of those contributors
> that believe in a Marxist paradise where everyone gets
> what he needs are few and far between.  Plese someone,
> tell me what economic model is going to keep this all
> alive over an extended time.
>

As somebody who made his first open-source contribution in 1992 and has
done occasional bits ever since, I've given this some thought.

I think the main economic model for the next few years is going to be
exactly the one that drove it to the current state: increasing wealth
and education allows people to devote substantial time, money, and
intellectual power to hobbies.

I don't think it will take the turn that large open-source projects
have, where major contributions come from people who are paid with
commercial money. The companies that pay for open-source developer time
have a direct financial interest in improving the tools at hand. I think
that's unlikely here, although I could see it happening with
non-encyclopedia free content, like training materials and documentation
for popular tools.

Down the line, I think we'll run of gas some with we hobbyists. Not that
we won't get and use a ton of that, just that the quality level and
topic focus will leave gaps that will become more and more obvious. I
think the step over that will either be through advertising on Wikipedia
or through large donations from tech billionaires creating an endowment.
Either one will result in the Foundation hiring people full time to work
on the content. This will expand the caste system in a way that will
involve much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the community, but people
will eventually get over it because it will actually make the
encyclopedia better.

And then my guess is that as long as the funding is stable, things will
pretty much stick that way, although as more of the content management
responsibility shifts to the Foundation, they'll need to spend more and
more in an arms race with spammers, COI types, and POV pushers of all
sorts. This will probably involve the development of hardcore editing
and monitoring tools along the lines of the current RC patrol and
anti-vandal tools, but much more extensive and integrated in to
Wikipedia's core.

> Under those circumstances if I were in that
> position I wouldn't declare my conflict, and just go quietly about my
> work.  If another editor complains that my edits are too favorable to
> the company I would have no problem apologizing quietly, knowing full
> well that my more subtle biases will go by unnoticed.

And wouldn't that apply just as well if we were ok with declared
conflicts of interest? That still involves an increased level of
scrutiny that is uncomfortable.

> I really don't think that most corporate representatives who come here
> to edit for their company are here to create a bias.

I don't think they will think of it as a bias because the essence of PR
is a pervasive and relentless bias. Expecting them to notice it
consciously is like expecting us to think about the air all the time.
This isn't a slam, by the way, I have friends in marketing and PR that I
like just fine.  I just don't want them writing articles on Wikipedia
about their employers because they don't have the skills for it.

Just to be clear, I'm fine with some random IBM employee who turns up to
correct a detail about some IBM research facility. But that's not what
writing for pay will be.

> With the relatively small part of the material that really is
> controversial we will have no shortage of editors who are willing to
> make the discrepancies obvious.  What are we afraid of?
>

I am afraid of articles like [[PA Consulting Group]]. The number of
person-hours we have from good editors is very, very small when compared
with the number of people who work in the advertising, PR, and marketing
industries, all of which have bias as part of their core.

William

--
William Pietri <william at scissor.com>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri


body:
Exactly, Y! Mail has always had the compulsory sig and the user can
add their own above, like with Hotmail. My two messages was due to me
(on a PDA) accidentally unticking Include quotas text, not noticing,
clicking send, noticing, ticking and re-sending. Oops.

On 05/03/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/4/07, Pilotguy <pilotguy.wikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't AOL doing the exact same thing that
> > Yahoo's been doing for ages?
>
> Yes, but at least theirs don't include HTML lamage.
>
> I've never been crazy about compulsory sigs because I always felt that
> the body of an email was for the sender and it should be clear to the
> recipient what comes from the sender and what comes from "something
> else". The headers are for the "something else".
>
> Some webmail providers have "promotional sigs" but they are not
> "compulsory". The user can go to preferences and remove it and/or add
> their own.
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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
>

--
Gary Kirk


subject: [WikiEN-l] Essjay RFC deleted

body:
David Gerard wrote:
>
> You're leaving because I dared use my l33t admin powers to delete in
> process an odious pretense at a dispute resolution page under the
> rules regarding the colour it assumed in its claim for legitimacy,
> *despite* a lynch mob feeling otherwise. How dare I!

I understand you viewed it as a lynch mob, and that you were upset about
that. I get it.

But you don't seem to have acknowledged that a) you didn't get much
support in that view, and b) other people could have other reasonable
interpretations. Have you considered either of those things?

Thanks,

William

--
William Pietri <william at scissor.com>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri


from_name: Ken Arromdee

subject: [WikiEN-l] a final word on Essjay

body:
On Sun, 4 Mar 2007 SonOfYoungwood at aol.com wrote:
> I find it sickening that he lost his job at Wikia over this issue.

Why?  What would happen if you got hired for a job and then it was discovered
that you falsified your resume?


subject: [WikiEN-l] a final word on Essjay

body:
Ken Arromdee wrote:
> On Sun, 4 Mar 2007 SonOfYoungwood at aol.com wrote:
>
>> I find it sickening that he lost his job at Wikia over this issue.
>>
>
> Why?  What would happen if you got hired for a job and then it was discovered
> that you falsified your resume?

He didn't do that. At least according to him, he came clean about his
real identity to Wikia staff before taking the job.

What he apparently didn't come clean about were the other,
non-hiding-from-scary-people uses of his credentials.

William

--
William Pietri <william at scissor.com>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri


from_name: Domas Mituzas

subject: [Wikitech-l] Is wikipedia using MogileFS?

body:
>
> no, i think squid is really useful.

... if chef is good... mmm... calamaris...

--
Domas Mituzas -- http://dammit.lt/ -- [[user:midom]]


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] a final word on Essjay

body:
Ken Arromdee wrote:
> On Sun, 4 Mar 2007 SonOfYoungwood at aol.com wrote:
>
>> I find it sickening that he lost his job at Wikia over this issue.
>>
>
> Why?  What would happen if you got hired for a job and then it was discovered
> that you falsified your resume?
>
To Whom It May Concern:

My Wikipedia user page is not my resume.

Stan


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Larry Sanger weighs in on the Essjay incident

body:
On 3/3/07, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
> As in Chinese Democracy, the Guns n. Roses album that has been 15 years in
> the making and still hasn't been released.

Dude, Guns 'n Roses? Don't you know that if you need an abandonware
example on the internet, you use [[Duke Nukem Forever]]? I mean,
that's just common courtesy.

--Oskar


from_name: Ron Ritzman

subject: [WikiEN-l] AFDs on featured articles

body:
On 3/5/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> I !voted "delete nominator".

Funny that the guy who responded to your comment first seemed to be in
the "delete" camp though he didn't "vote", later said he thought it
should be kept. Also, the nominator  is an admin, not an SPA or
someone who lost an edit war so I think he is trying to do one of two
things.

1. He is trying to demonstrate that because it is possible to make a
good faith AFD nom on an article about a website which a "reasonable
person" would conclude belongs on wikipedia, that the guidelines on
web notability are flawed.

2. He is using a "snow nom" as a cluestick to get MA's editors to
clean up and properly source the article.


from_name: cohesion

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Accountability: bringing back a proposal I made
	nearly 2 years ago

body:
> On Mon, 5 Mar 2007 14:53:49 +0100, "Erik Moeller" <erik at wikimedia.org>

> >I would modify the proposal: You only need to verify the credentials
> >if you're in a position of trust (adminship or higher).
>
> I'd start with admins, but if it is not onerous open it to others.
> There is definite value in being able to establish your bona-fides. It
> also helps us to check for subtle bias.

Is this for PR reasons? It seems to me like the people with advanced
credentials are not that often admins due to other demands. This may,
however, preclude them from having the time to send in their
credentials. I wouldn't want to encourage the concept that admins have
more weight in content disputes, and if they are the only ones that
can verify their credentials that might be the case.

I wouldn't mind requiring people in trusted positions not be
anonymous, but if we are moving to a general credentialing system I
wouldn't want that to break down on adminship lines.

Judson
(enwiki:cohesion)


from_name: Angela

subject: [Wikitech-l] "Planet" feed aggregators

body:
> On 3/5/07, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> > I've fiddled a bit with Planet before; if there's no objection I'll set
> > that up later today. If anyone wants in, let me know where to find your
> > blog. :)

wikiangela.com/blog

There are also a lot of Wikimedia blogs listed at
http://wikiangela.com/wiki/Blogs

On 3/5/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> No objection from me, but: I want us to make sure that all the blog
> posts appearing are only Wikimedia-related. So I would insist that
> blogs either provide a Wikimedia-specific feed, or that we are able to
> filter them on our side by tag.

Is it possible to get category-specific RSS feeds in Wordpress? It
doesn't seem to be an option in the default install.

Angela


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 3/5/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> Pay is completely irrelevant.  You added links to, and content in
> support of, an organisation in which you play a leading role. Conflict
> of interest.  I don't think I have ever edited the articles on
> Wikipedia or Jimmy Wales, by the way.

Um, I've created a stub on a company I worked for, and added an
external link to their site. The fact of creating the external link
isn't the problem - the problem is adding a link when it isn't
justified.

Steve


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Wikitech-l] Commons image archive

body:
On 3/5/07, River Tarnell <river at attenuate.org> wrote:
> Gregory Maxwell:
> > Users would probably prefer the http/ftp download link option. It's
> > simple, easy and fast.. at least it is so long as we have enough
> > bandwidth to support it.
>
> > I don't believe that anyone thinks otherwise. But user preference is
> > irrelevant if the cost of bandwidth causes us to choose to not make
> > such things available.
>
> we don't currently pay for bandwidth at knams (which includes hemlock),
> so if you want to offer HTTP download as well, i don't see that being a
> problem.

[shhhh. The folks who complain that we spend too much on bandwidth
might move on to subjects which are harder to refute...]

> of course not many people are going to bother with BT if there's an
> HTTP alternative ;-)

Yes, this was my point. Geek fetishism would be the only reason use BT
if we offered it via http. :) This would prevent us from learning
about BT, which may or may not make sense for the future.


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] Essjay RFC deleted

body:
On 3/5/07, Slim Virgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/5/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > William Pietri wrote:
> >
> > > > This especially concerns me as you used your administrative powers to
> > > > enforce your minority view in a disagreement in which you were very
> > > > actively involved. Wouldn't it have been better to let somebody who had
> > > > less involvement decide the outcome?
> >
> William, I understand that feelings are running high and people feel
> they need an outlet. Still, we have a very serious situation here
> where the subject has left Wikipedia and yet is continuing to be
> attacked. Bear in mind that he's being discussed by what we believe to
> be his real name, so BLP kicks in here, and we have to be careful what
> we say, and respectful of his right to get on with his life. It's
> important to discuss the political fall-out so we can work out what
> the lessons are, but comments about the person aren't necessary. As
> David said, it was an uncertified RfC, and he was within his rights to
> delete it.

I would like to spin this back.  I don't particularly like the carping
on Essjay, and I'm not going to participate in it, but there is
clearly a lot of community upset over both the affair, and whether we
like it or not, it's going to come out.

Having a specific RFC page lets that happen in a single centralized
space, which is probably better for the project - people can "me too"
instead of venting the same thing over and over again in different
places, and also if there's a fair degree of support for Essjay then
those who are upset can see that, which is important.  If they feel
that they're being persecuted by an internal elite who delete RFC
pages and the like they may get an inaccurate feeling that Essjay's
supporters are only a small narrow insiders group.

I wouldn't recreate anything myself (as I said, I will not get into
this, it's odious to me), but I think that until it dies off on its
own, it needs its space somewhere.  Let it burn itself out rather than
fester.

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


references:
<eaba02640703031038h1e3a8b6aq284818c149131475@mail.gmail.com>
	<b8ceeef70703040511k5676d002tde976e3866601e1f@mail.gmail.com>
	<lrhlu2dukgra7l02adubo7mpner5nnqdi9@4ax.com>
	<b8ceeef70703040537q396b19e0vcb6ad0ad9985dfc0@mail.gmail.com>
	<5fulu29p30mv009iped4qe4tcufh04upfd@4ax.com>

body:
On 3/5/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> Hmmm.  No, I think the question is, can we assume that paid edits are
> good edits.  If there is a paid editor, what we actually have to do is

Of course we can't. We can't assume that *any* edits are good edits.
That's why we have patrols.

> shadow them to check for subtle bias - if I were paid to write an

Why? There are plenty of edits being made with blatant bias. Subtle
bias is the least of our problems.

> article I would not be 100% confident I could write without subtle
> bias, especially if sources were spoonfed. How do we know that the
> sources have not been carefully selected to present a desired
> perspective?  It would be rather naive to believe they had not been so

You mean they provide sources? Fantastic! That's a huge step forward
from most edits.

> I don't know.  Companies have disgruntled employees and enthusiastic
> evangelists.  Would it matter if they were paid to write?  Yes,
> because only the evangelists would be paid.

Oh, you must mean like how on many ethnic conflicts, representatives
of one ethnicity editing are outnumbering the others. Or how for an
article on a famous singer, there are more supporters editing the
article than detractors. Yes, it's a problem.

> No, worse.  I live in Reading, Berkshire.  I feel no particular
> loyalty to the town, it's just a place where I live.

So one of my 6 examples doesn't apply to you.

>What if Reading paid me to edit their Wikipedia article?  Would I
write that it's a
> boring drug-riddled self-obsessed town with a terrible shopping centre
> and extortionate house prices, or would I write something a little
> more flattering?

Hopefully something more flattering.

> No articles should be written on commission.  I believe Jimbo Has
> Spoken on that issue.

Me too. See my original post. I believe Jimbo's point of view was "the
appearance of conflict of interest would undermine our credibility".
Not "paid editing always produces bad edits".

Steve


body:
On 3/5/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> But if someone is being paid to write on a given topic, I find it
> difficult to understand how that's *not* a conflict of interest.

I find it difficult to understand how the conflict of interest
*matters*[1]. As everyone knows, WP is full of crap. Not 100%, but
some high proportion. The existence of crap has never bothered us
before, and there's every reason to believe that paid, COI edits would
still be an improvement, especially if they involve creating new
articles.

It would be bad if someone created an article that survived a long
time before being noticed and terminated by the AfD mob.
It would be bad if someone removed "good" text in favour of some
company-preferred "bad" text.
It would be bad if a company put significant time and effort into
subverting our processes (like AfD or consensus) to achieve their own
goals.

However, adding well-copywritten, non-copyright-violating, vaguely
NPOV, useful text, even if done with a blatant COI - I don't see the
problem.

Steve
[1] The acknowledged *perception* of COI aside...


references:
<eaba02640703031038h1e3a8b6aq284818c149131475@mail.gmail.com>
	<b8ceeef70703040511k5676d002tde976e3866601e1f@mail.gmail.com>
	<lrhlu2dukgra7l02adubo7mpner5nnqdi9@4ax.com>
	<b8ceeef70703040537q396b19e0vcb6ad0ad9985dfc0@mail.gmail.com>
	<5fulu29p30mv009iped4qe4tcufh04upfd@4ax.com>
	<b8ceeef70703041441s41052631k70bb6d62bb316fcb@mail.gmail.com>
	<h3jmu29m1n69jis73s75sr24c4ivju1957@4ax.com>

body:
On 3/5/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> No.  Overt bias is usually easy to spot.  I would argue that subtle
> bias is the *worst* of our problems.

But aren't we talking about companies disclosing their editing? That
makes it checkable at least.

Steve


from_name: Earle Martin

body:
On 05/03/07, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> For anyone who is reading but not online, I will sum it up.  I made a
> proposal that we have a system whereby people who are willing to verify
> their real name and credentials are allowed a special notification.
> "Verified Credentials".  This could be a rather open ended system, and
> optional.

I think this is a fine idea that can only add to the credibility of the project.

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


references:
<45EAF3DD.9090406@scissor.com>
	<C2106459.1EA6%michaeldavid86@comcast.net>
	<fbad4e140703040902m5176530eq33c6d6b1967c2360@mail.gmail.com>
	<b8ceeef70703041446k1681bb36w22711f1db6fd6374@mail.gmail.com>
	<9hjmu2hkqm3a202fm4dl1vj5rves2jppmn@4ax.com>

body:
On 3/5/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> These days we have approaching 2 million articles, creating new ones
> is not an unequivocal good - the majority of new articles are
> currently, by my reckoning, vanity crap.

Yes. I thought I had implied that I was referring to articles which
were going to survive AfD. Obviously creating soon-to-be-deleted
articles doesn't help us.

Steve


from_name: Pedro Sanchez

subject: [WikiEN-l] a final word on Essjay

body:
On 3/5/07, Ken Arromdee <arromdee at rahul.net> wrote:
> On Sun, 4 Mar 2007 SonOfYoungwood at aol.com wrote:
> > I find it sickening that he lost his job at Wikia over this issue.
>
> Why?  What would happen if you got hired for a job and then it was discovered
> that you falsified your resume?
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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
>

Stop bashing essjay. People get all the facts wrong and then portrait
him as some sort of evildoer.
He didn't falsify his resume. His wiki userpage is not his resume. He
provided his true name , age and data for wikia.


from_name: Slim Virgin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Essjay RFC deleted

body:
On 3/5/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > William Pietri wrote:
>
> > > This especially concerns me as you used your administrative powers to
> > > enforce your minority view in a disagreement in which you were very
> > > actively involved. Wouldn't it have been better to let somebody who had
> > > less involvement decide the outcome?
>
William, I understand that feelings are running high and people feel
they need an outlet. Still, we have a very serious situation here
where the subject has left Wikipedia and yet is continuing to be
attacked. Bear in mind that he's being discussed by what we believe to
be his real name, so BLP kicks in here, and we have to be careful what
we say, and respectful of his right to get on with his life. It's
important to discuss the political fall-out so we can work out what
the lessons are, but comments about the person aren't necessary. As
David said, it was an uncertified RfC, and he was within his rights to
delete it.

Sarah


subject: [WikiEN-l] Essjay RFC deleted

body:
On 3/5/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 05/03/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
> > Unsurprisingly I back David.  That page has an inglorious history:
> > started as a wildly out of process straw poll on whether to hang,
> > disembowel or burn the witch, moved to an RfC, refactored into a form
> > which was at least marginally compliant, but as David says never
> > properly certified - and in any case now moot since Essjay has "left
> > the building".  One more piece of navel fluff under the Wikipedia
> > microscope.
>
>
> It's hit DRV, where the lynch mob are now asserting that anyone who
> doesn't agree with them is too biased to comment:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2007_March_5#User:Essjay.2FRFC

There appear on first glance to be more "This deletion is going to
make us look bad" and "Transparency is important" and "Most of what
got deleted was substantial support for Essjay" than "David's a
(insert bad word)".

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


body:
Delirium wrote:
> William Pietri wrote:
>
> So if, say, the Ford Foundation wants to pay a dozen historians to write
> historical articles, I'm all for it. Right up to the point where they
> edit anything on the Ford Foundation or its funders.
>
>
>
> This is a pretty vague definition, but yes, it's the sort of thing I
> wouldn't mind seeing expanded.  Note that conflicts of interest can be
> very subtle, though.  [...]
>

Yes, and I think again the journalistic approach is the appropriate one.
Declare any interests that might be worrisome, avoid vigorously working
on anything where you have a conflict, and absolutely don't go looking
for new conflicts of interest.

> If our article on [[autism]] was edited by someone
> paid by a company selling autism drugs, that's a pretty clear conflict
> of interest.  But if it were edited by someone paid by a non-profit
> group like [[Cure Autism Now]], there would also be potential conflicts
> of interest; in particular, Cure Autism Now finds views that autism
> isn't a disease offensive, so would be prone to having those treated in
> an exclusively negative light if at all.

Right. And although the questions are endlessly complicated, I think the
solution is simple. Interests are fine, especially when declared.
Conflicts of interest, real or apparent, are forbidden. In practice,
this means that if anybody raises a reasonable conflict-of-interest
concern, especially one with a pecuniary motivation, the editor steps
back and makes their suggestions on the talk page. And that we rule out
obvious conflicts from the beginning, in exactly the same way the
various journalistic codes of ethics I linked to do now.

William

--
William Pietri <william at scissor.com>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri


from_name: Jim Wilson

subject: [Wikitech-l] "Planet" feed aggregators

body:
> No objection from me, but: I want us to make sure that all the blog
> posts appearing are only Wikimedia-related. So I would insist that
> blogs either provide a Wikimedia-specific feed, or that we are able to
> filter them on our side by tag.

I often blog about extensions that I've written or ways to
hack/bypass/modify/deal with MediaWiki.  I'd be happy to make a separate
feed just for these posts if it might result in my inclusion in the
aggregate feed.

http://jimbojw.com/wiki/index.php?title=Blog

Also, you mention filtering the feed items by tag - do you mean the
<category> tag in RSS (I believe this is "atom:category" in Atom)?

> And it would be _very_ nice if we could make it scale beyond you or
> the dev team -- i.e., if some other volunteer could be in charge of
> approving and adding feeds.

I wouldn't mind serving in this facility - but I'm biased since I hope to
have my own content included in the aggregate.  Would the person in charge
of approving/monitoring* feeds necessarily have to be an unbiased
third-party?

* I say "monitoring" since it's possible that someone might create a feed
which is initially MW/WM related, then after inclusion start spamming the
list.  Approval is just the first step - the person filling this role would
need to be vigilant about spammers.

-- Jim R. Wilson (jimbojw)

On 3/5/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> On 3/5/07, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> > I've fiddled a bit with Planet before; if there's no objection I'll set
> > that up later today. If anyone wants in, let me know where to find your
> > blog. :)
>
> No objection from me, but: I want us to make sure that all the blog
> posts appearing are only Wikimedia-related. So I would insist that
> blogs either provide a Wikimedia-specific feed, or that we are able to
> filter them on our side by tag.
>
> And it would be _very_ nice if we could make it scale beyond you or
> the dev team -- i.e., if some other volunteer could be in charge of
> approving and adding feeds.
> --
> Peace & Love,
> Erik
>
> DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
> the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
>
> "An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
> free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Accountability: bringing back a proposal I
 made	nearly 2 years ago

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> On 3/5/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
>> There are two parts to the suggestion: 1) marking some statements with
>> a "verified credentials" tag, and 2) a "policy of gentle (or firm)
>> discouragement for people to make claims like those that EssJay made,
>> unless they are willing to back them up".
>>
>
> I'm cross-posting this to wikipedia-l and foundation-l, because it may
> very well become a Foundation-level issue at some point.
>
> I would support the following:
>
> 1) Any user can ask for his or her professional credentials to be verified.
>
In principle this makes sense; but limiting to verifiable bits is going
to make it a short list - degree X, licensed Y, employed by company Z
between dates W. How do you verify a carpenter, or "freelance
consultant", aka euphemism for being unemployed? :-)

Stan


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] [WikiEN-l] Accountability: bringing back a
 proposal I made	nearly 2 years ago


subject: [Foundation-l] Update of Foundation organization

body:
On 3/5/07, Florence Devouard <anthere at anthere.org> wrote:
[snip]
> * we wish to involve people from all over the world, not restricting
> employees to USA only. Currently, those working "offshore" have to be
> their own employers (they are contractants). This is not sustainable in
> the long run, so we have to explore more international employment issues.
[snip]

First off, I'm terrified to raise this point in public because I know
that there are people here who will scream that I'm some kind of
nationalist bigot for bringing this up. But I think it's a very
serious matter which demands the input and understanding of a wide
audience.

It is my understanding that if we have true employees in a nation that
our organization will have a legal presence in that nation. If we have
a legal presence in that nation, we will be subject to the
jurisdiction of that nation.

It would be ideal that our activities would generally be so far away
from the ambiguous grey areas of the law that the differing legal
behavior would not be a substantial issue for us. However, this just
isn't the case today. We benefit substantially from detailed aspects
of US law in the areas of libel, copyright, and privacy.

*Does operating the foundation with regular employees in a nation
create a jurisdictional issue as I described?
*How can we avoid this risk while maintaining the agility to hire
useful people from any part of the world?
*What are the qualities and risks of various jurisdictions?
*How can we deal with the impact of being subject to multiple jurisdictions?

I fear that in the worst case being directly subject to the laws of
many nations we may find our entire method of operation (open access
Wikis) to be too risky.


from_name: Jeff Raymond

subject: [WikiEN-l] Essjay RFC deleted

body:
William Pietri wrote:

> This especially concerns me as you used your administrative powers to
> enforce your minority view in a disagreement in which you were very
> actively involved. Wouldn't it have been better to let somebody who had
> less involvement decide the outcome?

This is becoming more and more epidemic in recent weeks.  It's one of the
major reasons why I'm seriously considering not contributing further.

-Jeff


from_name: Rob Smith

references:
<C21028EF.1E94%michaeldavid86@comcast.net>
	<45EBBDFA.1050909@telus.net> <45EC3E57.1080805@scissor.com>

body:
There are various techniques in the Internal Revenue Manual that could be
employed; for example, reviewing the edit contributions of an employee of a
non-profit organization, a reasonable estimate of manhours allocated by that
non-profit organization over a given period of time would meet standards of
proof to establish income from paid editing, as well as the activities of
the employer, not to mention possible conflicts of interest, or violations
of Wikipedia's internal policies.


from_name: Jeff V. Merkey

subject:
[Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Accountability: bringing back
 a	proposal I made nearly 2 years ago

body:
Erik,

This is going to be nightmarish to police and run. Not to mention you
have to have a
signed release from the person in order to obtain access to this level
of personal information.

The whole controversy over Essjay will die down in time. Folks should
stop and think
things through rather than reacting to the bad publicity. One reasonable
step would be that any high ranking member
must submit accurate credentials before being appointed to an office of
trust.

Let's be honest, if it were a low level editor or admin on the english
wikipedia no one would have cared
or even noticed. It was because it was a high ranking member of the
community who had been used for
press interviews.

One other solution is that only PR or spokepersons talk to the press,
not just anyone.

Jeff

Erik Moeller wrote:

>On 3/5/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
>
>>There are two parts to the suggestion: 1) marking some statements with
>>a "verified credentials" tag, and 2) a "policy of gentle (or firm)
>>discouragement for people to make claims like those that EssJay made,
>>unless they are willing to back them up".
>>
>>
>
>I'm cross-posting this to wikipedia-l and foundation-l, because it may
>very well become a Foundation-level issue at some point.
>
>I would support the following:
>
>1) Any user can ask for his or her professional credentials to be verified.
>
>2) Making up professional credentials is prohibited, and may result in
>a ban. (This may or may not be covered by existing policy, but judging
>from the Essjay case, it is probably not sufficiently clear.) This is
>independent of whether or not the user asks for credentials to be
>verified. We may investigate claims that are dubious when they are
>pointed out to us.
>
>3) Any user trusted on admin level or higher who makes a statement of
>credentials on their user page must have them verified through a team
>of volunteers designated to this role by the Wikimedia Foundation (we
>may want to involve the chapters if this becomes international). The
>process of verification could be similar to what Citizendium uses,
>i.e.:
>a) have an existing, credentialed user vouch for the credentials to be
>correct based on personal knowledge,
>b) respond to an email associated with a reliable institution, and
>point us to a web page of that institution where their credentials are
>listed,
>c) point to someone associated with a reliable institution we can
>contact to verify the credentials.
>
>We may extend this to regular users if it proves to scale well.
>
>4) Users with verified credentials will get a little "Verified
>credentials on <date>" marker on their user page, nothing more. This
>marker would ideally be independent of the wikitext of the page, and
>set in the user table instead.
>
>I am opposed to any marker of edit contributions and such -- users who
>care about credentials can look them up, those who do not care should
>not be bothered by them in discussions or contributions.
>
>


subject:
[WikiEN-l] [Foundation-l] Accountability: bringing back
 a	proposal I made nearly 2 years ago


from_name: William Pietri

subject: [WikiEN-l] Essjay RFC deleted

body:
Hi, Sarah. Thanks for writing. I especially appreciate the temperate tone.

Slim Virgin wrote:
> On 3/5/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> William Pietri wrote:
>>>
>>>> This especially concerns me as you used your administrative powers to
>>>> enforce your minority view in a disagreement in which you were very
>>>> actively involved. Wouldn't it have been better to let somebody who had
>>>> less involvement decide the outcome?
>>>>
> William, I understand that feelings are running high and people feel
> they need an outlet. Still, we have a very serious situation here
> where the subject has left Wikipedia and yet is continuing to be
> attacked. Bear in mind that he's being discussed by what we believe to
> be his real name, so BLP kicks in here, and we have to be careful what
> we say, and respectful of his right to get on with his life. It's
> important to discuss the political fall-out so we can work out what
> the lessons are, but comments about the person aren't necessary. As
> David said, it was an uncertified RfC, and he was within his rights to
> delete it.
>

I feel deeply for Essjay in this. As with Sheldon Rampton, I know how
painful it is to learn that bluffing your way through a problem doesn't
work in the long run. And my education in this was a tiny fraction of
what Essjay brought upon himself. If I knew him personally I'd be out
right now dragging him for long walks in the park. As I've said
repeatedly in various contexts, I hope he'll come back first as an
editor and eventually as an admin. Once he has actually learned this
lesson, I'll be first in line to support his RFA.

I also think that mere attacks are unnecessary and harmful. I've asked a
number of people to settle down, tried to build consensus in the RFC,
and redacted various needlessly harsh bits of language. Had I seen
anybody both frothing and unwilling to calm down, I would happily have
asked AN/I to give them a time out. Fortunately, I didn't have to do that.

However, I still think David's decision was wrong.

First, the RFC was closed. If there were attacks, no new ones were
happening. Open or not, there were ways to remove or archive actual
attacks without removing the very large amount of substantive comment on
many sides of the issue.

Second, BLP rightly doesn't apply to talk pages. BLP is to prevent our
hopefully neutral, factual articles from being distorted with opinion
and lies. The RFC was obviously opinion, and signed opinion at that.
Nobody would have accidentally taken it as NPOV fact.

Third, suppressing discussion here is not going to suppress it
everywhere. A quick look at the blog reactions show a hundred times more
venom and contempt than were expressed on the RFC page. And what David
has buried also includes a fair bit of neutral analysis and outright
support for Essjay, as well a much more moderate and reasoned criticism.

Fourth, although I agree that Ryan Jordan has a right to get on with his
life, that doesn't mean that Wikipedia the institution must or even
should stop discussing the Essjay incident, any more than the New York
Times should have stopped internal discussion, external publication, or
message board comments around the Jayson Blair incident at the time he
resigned.

Which leads me to my fifth and last point: our transparency. Negative
things about Essjay are disappearing at a much faster rate than positive
things. I think this is a natural consequence of people with heft being
upset at seeing a friend go through the wringer, or seeing a project
they love get a black eye. But if we are only transparent and open when
we find it pleasant and easy, then it's not a principle, it's a convenience.

William

--
William Pietri <william at scissor.com>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri


body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>On 3/5/07, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>>This is going to be nightmarish to police and run. Not to mention you
>>have to have a
>>signed release from the person in order to obtain access to this level
>>of personal information.
>>
>>
>
>I'm not sure I've provided enough context to fully explain the
>proposal. The idea is not to _require_ anything, but to only ask for
>confirmation if people make the claim _themselves_, and then only for
>people in positions of trust, or those whose credentials have been
>called into question. Anyone is free to reach any level of trust
>without professional credentials.
>
>
This is more reasonable. I concur.

Jeff


subject: [WikiEN-l] Essjay RFC deleted

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> You're leaving because I dared use my l33t admin powers to delete in
> process an odious pretense at a dispute resolution page under the
> rules regarding the colour it assumed in its claim for legitimacy,
> *despite* a lynch mob feeling otherwise. How dare I!

Not you personally, but you're certainly not contributing positively to
the culture.

And enough with the lynch mob nonsense.  Seriously.  Expecting a result
when someone grossly overstates themselves and then uses it as leverage is
not a lynch mob.  I liked Essjay, too, but let's be serious.

-Jeff


from_name: Cheney Shill

body:
Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:

> In response to the EssJay scandal, I want to bring back
> an old proposal
>
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-May/022085.html
>
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-May/thread.html
> to read the entire thread of "An idea".
>
> For anyone who is reading but not online, I will sum it
> up.  I made a
> proposal that we have a system whereby people who are
> willing to verify
> their real name and credentials are allowed a special
> notification.
> "Verified Credentials".  This could be a rather open
> ended system, and
> optional.
>
> The point is to make sure that people are being honest
> with us and with
> the general public.  If you don't care to tell us that
> you are a PhD (or
> that you are not), then that's fine: your editing stands
> or falls on its
> own merit.  But if you do care to represent yourself as
> something, you
> have to be able to prove it.

For someone reading and online, but blocked for nearly a
year and unable to comment elsewhere, I like it in general.
 It seems to go even a step further than requiring only
admins to verify significant credentials they claim and
apply it to everyone.

My primary concern is in practical elements:
1. Who's verifying (e.g., admins verifying themselves,
buddy admins verifying one another)?
2. Are they allowed to post credentials while waiting on
verification, potentially taking advantage of practical
limits in how much can be verified via an extended waiting
period?  As a rough example, there are citation requests
that are essentially infinite, circumventing the point of
requesting verfication.
3. Do the credentials override any of the basic policies?
E.g., does a verified PhD get to post OR?  I foresee
latitude problems as it is, much like admins and article
creators seem to get months, if not years, to provide
sources.

~~Pro-Lick
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick
http://www.wikiality.com/User:Pro-Lick (now a Wikia supported site)

--spam may follow--

____________________________________________________________________________________
The fish are biting.
Get more visitors on your site using Yahoo! Search Marketing.
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from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] "Planet" feed aggregators

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Ivan Krsti? wrote:
> Erik Moeller wrote:
>> We're looking into the possibility of setting up a planet-style feed
>> aggregator for Wikimedia blogs. It would be nice to get some software
>> recommendations. Specifically, we would need an aggregator that
>> supports
>> - web based administration
>> - filtering feeds based on tags assigned to posts
>
> Planet (http://www.planetplanet.org/) is the canonical choice. It
> doesn't do web administration, but it's configured through a trivial
> INI-style text file, so you could slap a web administration frontend to
> it in a few lines of your favorite language.

I've fiddled a bit with Planet before; if there's no objection I'll set
that up later today. If anyone wants in, let me know where to find your
blog. :)

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)
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body:
On 3/5/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:

> Is what for PR reasons? Start with admins?  I guess not; it gives us a
> defined subset of generally active and high profile users.

Yeah, I mean it would actually be useful for PR, the fact that essjay
was an admin did help carry the story in a lot of areas. People
outside wikipedia have weird and innaccurate views of what admins are,
so if there was some problem with a non-admin user's credentials I
don't think people would get so upset.

> No, I'd see it as something that should be available to all, but I
> have no objection to trialling it on admins to see what the overhead
> is like.

That seems reasonable, I would imagine the admin overhead might be a
lot higher per person than non admin, with non-admin users being less
involved and willing to verify that information. It does seem like
there may be a subset of non-admin users that are very
subject-oriented that might enjoy this system though, but I also have
no problem taking it slowly as long as the eventual goal is to open it
for everyone.

Judson
(enwiki:cohesion)


body:
Delirium wrote:
> William Pietri wrote:
>
>> Right. And although the questions are endlessly complicated, I think the
>> solution is simple. Interests are fine, especially when declared.
>> Conflicts of interest, real or apparent, are forbidden. In practice,
>> this means that if anybody raises a reasonable conflict-of-interest
>> concern, especially one with a pecuniary motivation, the editor steps
>> back and makes their suggestions on the talk page. And that we rule out
>> obvious conflicts from the beginning, in exactly the same way the
>> various journalistic codes of ethics I linked to do now.
>>
>
> My point, though, is that there are *almost always* conflicts of
> interest, especially with the sort of qualified editors we would most
> like to attract.  Someone who does extensive work in CS and holds an
> academic job in that position has a conflict of interest when it comes
> to editing CS-related articles, especially any related to his area of
> research... but we hardly want to ban experts in CS from editing
> CS-related articles!

Someone who does extensive work in CS can edit the 99% of CS articles
where the do not have a strong conflict of interest. I have absolutely
asked passionate topic experts, no matter how qualified, to not edit on
their personal pet projects. There are areas where I have strong
expertise that I don't touch for the same reason: I'm a partisan.

> I don't see monetary influence as being a worse
> sort of conflict (except for PR reasons).

Having worked both in publishing, where these conflicts of interest play
out regularly, and in Silicon Valley startups, where PR is a necessary
fact of life, I believe it is a much stronger conflict. Academics and
journalists both have reputations to lose. PR people and other
commercial writers don't, not like academics.

Journalistic and academic reputations are built on the factual quality
and accuracy of one's work. There are extensive vetting and enforcement
mechanisms in both industries. People in PR and advertising build
reputation on their ability to work without regard to factual accuracy,
or in spite of it. They are professional POV warriors. We adopt their
funding models at our peril.

William

--
William Pietri <william at scissor.com>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri