from_name: wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com

body:
> From: Cheney Shill <halliburton_shill at yahoo.com>
> David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page
> >
> http://www.conservapedia.com/Examples_of_Bias_in_Wikipedia
>
> David, you do realize that this site is not comedic or
> parody?  It's best described as a front site for christian
> fundamentalists, registered by the people behind
> http://www.eagleforum.org, the "leading the pro-family
> movement since 1972".  [it's registered to]
>       Schlafly, Andrew  aschlafly at aol.com

(who is Phyllis Schlafly's son, and general counsel for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a more-or-less venerable and legitimate right-wing organization of AMA members for whom the AMA isn't right-wing enough).

Actually, if you analyze the articles and make plausible assumptions, there are only a _few_ conservative Christian adults working on it, perhaps a dozen kids, and a couple of people who are either parents or young adults who are conscientiously trying to rough out some kind of outline for an encyclopedia by entering substubs for every term contained in their textbooks.

And at least two oddball Wikipedia admins (editing under the same user names they use on Wikipedia), who are emphatically not conservative Christian creationists but who, for some reason have enjoyed trying to improve the articles (in good faith; in some cases, yes, trying to moderate over-the-top conservative nuttiness when it strays so far from the facts that Conservapedians are willing to accept the changes... but mostly just doing straight Wikipedian work).

It's probably moot, anyway. I think it's melting down.

After a few notices in conservative blogs, praising the site (apparently the bloggers hadn't actually looked at it), Google searches show the top hits now to be on non-conservative sites cackling away with mocking glee at the idiocy of it all.

The interesting part is that the site _is_, increasingly, becoming a source of comedic parody, as vandals flood in, and the most popular kind of vandalism consists of inserting over-the-top caricatures of creationist POV. The site's rants on AD/BC versus CE/BCE, and its insistence on American spelling are genuine enough, and the site brought it on itself by promoting an Wiki with three thousand amateurish substubs, a few dozen high-school-term-paper quality articles, and a few dozen personal essays by Schlafly as if were a reliable encyclopedia.

It's interesting to watch. When you can get in and look at Recent Changes, it's clear that the admins are currently unable to block vandal accounts or delete joke articles as fast as they're created, and unless it's a seven-day's wonder and traffic eases off they're going to need to solicit donations for new servers. (It's no worse than Wikipedia was at various times in 2004, though!)

It also makes you realize how important it is for a Wiki-based encyclopedia to have policies and procedures that are roughly in harmony with those of those people who are spontaneously attracted to the site. Wikipedia's neutrality policy, as stated and as applied in practice, may have an even greater depth of wisdom to it than I had previously appreciated.


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Jeff Raymond

subject: [WikiEN-l] Daniel Brandt

body:
Mark Ryan wrote:

  > You don't think we should delete people's biographies upon request,
> where those people are of very marginal notability? Because apparently
> it's quite common for us to perform such deletions upon request
> nowadays, under WP:BLP or something.

No.  I also disagree with the idea of "marginal" "notability" for
Brandt.  Yanksox should be blocked for vandalism and deadminned
immediately, but that won't happen.

Wikipedia's completely lost its way.

-Jeff


list: foundation-l

from_name: teun spaans

subject: [Foundation-l] RfC: Draft licensing policy resolution

body:
On 2/23/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hoi.
> You got it completely backwards.

NO. Fair use says others may use what we write. yes. Fair use says that in
the US and Canada (and perhaps a bunch of UK-related countries) images may
be used in a certain context, but this is often haphazard, as the context is
always a matter of debate. It can not be freely used outside this domain.
The fair use excemption seems to be only provided because of the huge
oppostion on the english wiki. But the allowance of fair use on the wikis
should not be based on US laws, but on international treaties, and its
adherence to freedomdefined.org. The fact that US laws allow it, is no
reason for us to allow it as well.

Content tagged as NC and ND will on its
> own not be permitted.

It will be deleted by 2008 according to the draft
> resolution.

The draft says:  ''

By February XX, 2008, all existing files under an unacceptable
license must either be used under an EDP, or shall be deleted''

So if a community acccepts NC or ND as an EDP, it will not be deleted.
So your statement is invalid.

When a project has an EDP, fair use may be permitted. This
> is indeed explicitly not in compliance with the notions of the
> freedomdefined.org. Fair use material may have a license, any license,
> including NC and ND. This material will be permitted on the basis of the
> EDP and on the basis of it being considered Fair use. I have never ever
> said that an EDP will allow for all NC or ND.

You have not said that, but  the draft does not exclude it.

What I have said, but not in this thread, that there is no provision for
> the inclusion of logos of organisations. It is extremely useful to have
> logos in our encyclopaedia. The notion that these logos have to be
> available under a license that will allow people to make derivatives is
> moronic. In my opinion it is being over-zealous in how we provide a Free
> resource. The first criteria for our projects is providing information.
> This is forgotten in the argument. Now this is just one reason why it is
> good to have an EDP; this way a project can have logos of organisations
> on its articles and Commons can be what it is; only a resource of
> digital material available under a Free license.

Logos are a prime example of images which are not free and ND. So you
> contradict yourself.

Logos can probably be used under fair use as far as copyright goes, but
often have other restrictions as well.
Logos doe not carry any information accept recognition. They do not server
the purpose of an encyclopedia very much, though they might serve a book
about logos.

If you allow logos, you might as well grant the whole world of press photos,
which are generally intended to be used freely but  ND.

kind regards,
teun

Thanks
>     GerardM
>
> teun spaans schreef:
> > Gerad,
> >
> > "fair use" does not comply with the freedom as in freedomdefined.org.
> There
> > seems to be na rationale to allow fair use except that a large part of
> the
> > english community objects.
> >
> > You keep repeating that NC and ND will be tolerated as "fair use", but
> so
> > far I've read no rationale for regarding them as such. They are simply
> two
> > totally different concepts.
> >
> > kind regards,
> > teun
> >
> > On 2/22/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Hoi,
> >> When material is used with a "Fair Use" argumentation, the license that
> >> this material would otherwise be available under is irrelevant. The
> >> material could even have a commercial license. The claim of Fair Use
> >> trumps any license restriction. When someone wants to re-publish
> >> Wikipedia, the same claim of Fair Use should apply. This is why it has
> >> to conform to the laws of the US and the local law(s).
> >>
> >> It is therefore really simple. On its own ND and NC will not be
> >> permitted. Within the limits of the law, there may be an EDP.
> >>
> >> Thanks,
> >>     GerardM
> >>
> >> Peter van Londen schreef:
> >>
> >>> I politely disagree,
> >>>
> >>> This will be the case when you leave too much room for
> interpretations.
> >>> By using an EDP approach, you leave all possibilities open for
> >>> non-conforming material to the freedomdefined definition. You might
> >>>
> >> close
> >>
> >>> the gap of too far off EDP's with a control by anyone, any committee
> >>> (although there seems to be a disagreement between Kat and Eric about
> >>>
> >> that),
> >>
> >>> but allowing images within an EDP conflicting with the freedomdefined
> >>> definition, like Fair Use, opens up in principle all possibilities for
> >>> communities to do whatever they want, conflicting with the original
> >>> definition.
> >>>
> >>> I asked you to explain me how you can use fair use images for
> commercial
> >>> exploitation and for derivative works: you could not David. But I am
> not
> >>> opposed to using Fair Use, as long as there are no juristic
> detrimental
> >>> implications for the Wikimedia projects, but then be clear about it.
> The
> >>> draft can be adjusted, so that interpretations can be minimized.
> >>>
> >>> Forget about an EDP: use the freedomdefined definition, with two
> >>>
> >> exceptions:
> >>
> >>> Fair use images for the EN:WP and another exception for the Polish
> >>>
> >> Wikinews.
> >>
> >>> Any other exception should have to be approved by the board/GC.
> >>>
> >>> Kind regards, Londenp
> >>>
> >>> 2007/2/22, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> On 22/02/07, Kat Walsh <kwalsh at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> I am afraid of misconceptions and misinterpretations spreading too
> far
> >>>>> about what is to be allowed and what isn't, and I've been hearing
> >>>>> misinterpretations both on the too-inclusive and too-exclusive
> side...
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>> I fear it's a case where either side will seize on anything that
> could
> >>>> possibly support their obviously correct view rather than the
> >>>> obviously misguided opposing view.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> - d.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Moderation on this mailing list

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

Gwern Branwen stated for the record:
> Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> writes:
>
>> Parker Peters stated for the record:
>>> Final series, # 13/14/15: Steel359, after insulting the user for reporting
>>> Sean Barrett/The_Epopt's abusive locking of user page ...
>> Wrong.  I have /never/ locked any user page.  Given this rather
>> fundamental error of fact, one has to wonder what else you have gotten
>> wrong . . .  or are simply lying about.
>>
>> --
>>  Sean Barrett     | A thunder of jets in an open sky,
>
> Actually, it is incorrect to say never. You have. Last year,
> specifically, you protected a number of user and user talk pages.
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=protect&user=The+Epopt&page=>

By Jove, you're right!  I completely forgot about Irismeister and his
permutations.  I withdraw my early statement and apologize for any
inconvenience I have caused by it.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | But now we are faced with a new and very troubling
 sean at epoptic.com | assault on our fiscal security, on our very
                  | economic life and we are facing it from a thing
                  | called the videocassette recorder. --MPAA (1982)
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Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

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from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] Parker Peters

body:
On 2/23/07, John Lee <johnleemk at gmail.com> wrote:
> The moderators have agreed to ban this user from subscribing to the list.
> Since he was not making any positive contributions through his membership,
> it has been revoked.

This is sort of sad; gadflys and contrary opinions help strengthen
projects, and on his good days, he was on the "probably making me
think enough that it's positive overall" side of things.

But I see why, from the bad days.

We need a better class of gadfly.

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


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Dr. Robert P. Biuk-Aghai

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Instant Messenger / Email integration
	with	MediaWiki

body:
Thanks for all the replies to my initial post. I still see value in an
IM and/or email integration with MediaWiki, simply because both of these
communication tools are so much part of people's lives nowadays, and
while wikis are strong in supporting collaboration through the jointly
created article, they are weak in terms of communication (just have a
look at how little discussion there is on many of the discussion pages
in Wikipedia, which I believe is due in no small part to the clumsiness
of this communication tool). I'll try to find someone to develop this,
probably starting with an IM integration as this seems easier.

Robert.

Platonides wrote:
> Steve Bennett wrote:
>
>>> If i had such free service, i'd set a server doing it for me :P
>>> If it's a 'private' service, things gets easier:
>>> -Authentication: Use a variable account name as password.
>>>
>> A "variable account name"?
>>
>
> I didn't explain well. If today you need to post by sending an email to
> wikipost5de133e7d at example.com, tomorrow to
> wikipostc9ece41a19 at example.com and so on, it's higly difficult to
> impersonate you (without being a man-in-the-middle, which could catch
> your password on http, too).
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: gjzilla at gmail.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Daniel Brandt

body:
No, he shouldn't. I think his comments were right on the money (but I have
more hope for Wikipedia).

On 2/23/07, NSLE (Wikipedia) <nsle.wikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> And you should be moderated for trolling. Seriously. Not surprised your
> RFA
> failed.
>
> On 23/02/07, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Mark Ryan wrote:
> >
> >   > You don't think we should delete people's biographies upon request,
> > > where those people are of very marginal notability? Because apparently
> > > it's quite common for us to perform such deletions upon request
> > > nowadays, under WP:BLP or something.
> >
> > No.  I also disagree with the idea of "marginal" "notability" for
> > Brandt.  Yanksox should be blocked for vandalism and deadminned
> > immediately, but that won't happen.
> >
> > Wikipedia's completely lost its way.
> >
> > -Jeff
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Jay R. Ashworth

subject: [Wikitech-l] Announcing UsenetSyntax Extension

body:
On Fri, Feb 23, 2007 at 10:17:28AM -0600, Jim Wilson wrote:
> Steve Bennet wrote:
> > Heh, I'd assumed you would add // and __, too. But then, I was coming
> > at this from a kind of pure wiki syntax point of view, where as much
> > syntax as possible is just doubled punctuation: ** // __ {{ [[ == .
> > Though I now see that __ would conflict with some magic words like
> > __NOTOC__.
>
> Actually the underscores wouldn't conflict since the hook happens so late in
> the process.  By the time the hook is run, those have already been removed.
>
> And MW is smart enough to, for example __leave this alone__ since "leave
> this alone" is not a recognized magic word.

Thanks for the addendum; that was my next question.  Of course,
overlapping markup like that leaves you open to the possibility someone
will expand the magic word list in a later release -- it's *still* not
the best idea...

> Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> > Because the goal is to leverage what people *actually do*.  I almost
> > *never* see doubled punctuation.
>
> That's a good point too though - I'm beginning to think I should probably
> take the doubles back out.

I would say so, myself.

> Evan Prodromou wrote:
> > You should probably look at reST, a popular wiki-like text format that
> > is based on the same formatting conventions you're trying to emulate.
>
> Yeah - that's interesting.  reST is one of many _many_ light markup
> languages out there - like Markdown, Textile or APT[1].

Markdown.  Heh.  :-)

> Maybe what I should do is fix the current problems with UsenetSyntax (like
> clobbering through tags and affecting preformatted text blocks) by breaking
> it up into two extensions:
>
> * One extension that doesn't do anything to the text itself, but adds a hook
> that other extensions leverage to safely parse for their own syntax
> * A demo implementation of such a leveraging extension which just so happens
> to implement Usenet style syntax.

Hee.  I love good factoring.

> The upside of the previous plan is that I'm less likely to get bogged down
> in "wouldn't it be cool if's" because extension devs can make their own.

Good point.

> The downside of the plan is that people might still send me "wouldn't it be
> cool if's", and I'd have gone through the work of abstracting the layers for
> no benefit.

Except that you can then say "see how easy it is to..."

Or point them to Asking Good Questions.  :-)

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Ron Ritzman wrote:

>On 2/22/07, Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>But one can not legitimately "defend" an article against a newbie being
>>bold in a good faith effort to fix an article.
>>
>>
>But what if previous consensus has determined that it "ain't broke"?
>
How can such a "consensus" possibly have been reached when this bold
person was not a part of the discussion?  How can you know that someone
who was not there doesn't have a completely different unexplored outlook
on the subject?  It could even be that those who were a part of the
"previous consensus" are no longer around, and that today's consensus
might be comppletely different from the previous one.

What has to be accepted as a fundamental principle of collaborative
communities is that very few, if any, consensuses are final.  They are
all open for reconsideration.  It may seem tiresome to keep going over
the same material again and again, but that is a small price to pay for
the fruits of being truly collaborative.  No vote should ever be
considered permanently closed.

The implication for admins who must deal with a bold edit is that they
should provide the bold editor a link to where the "previous consensus"
was reached.  He could then review the discussion, add his comments or
vote, as the situation requires.  The fact that the old discussion is
deep in the archives or was previously presumed closed should have no
bearing on his action.

>>A newbie being bold is
>>not, in and of itself, a violation of any policy.
>>
>>
>No it's not. And if the newbie is being whacked by an admin acting as
>the article's pit bull after a bold or two then yes, the admin himself
>should be whacked.
>
>This should never happen...
>
>bold/revert/bold/whack
>
>However, this is what we see in too many of these cases...
>
>bold/revert/bold/revert/dick/whack
>
3RR is still a part of this context.  The first bold action and the
first revert can probably be very simple actions.  The second bold tells
everyone that the person has an issue that goes beyond a simple
correction and should be explained, but a failure to give proper
explanation can be excused through lack of  experience.  The second
revert (presumably by an admin) should include an attempt to open a
discussion that is not just boilerplate.

>>Quite the contrary, we
>>encourage it. If a change to an article does not violate policy but is
>>reverted, and then the change stonewalled on the talk page, the
>>"defender" is violating policy ([[Wikipedia:Ownership of articles]]),
>>
>>
>And this can be responded too by the dispute resolution procedures.
>This is mentioned in WP:OWN. If the "newbie editor" responds with
>"dickery" then whether or not he's right or wrong he will get whacked,
>not for the bold but for the dickery and I don't believe you can argue
>that he was goaded into being a dick (uncivil, personal attacks etc.)
>or somehow magically made to act like a dick by the article's "gang".
>
You make it sound like it's only newbies that engage in dickery.  If the
dickery is in the form of goading or from a gang why is it so immune to
being argued?  What's good for newbie dicks is good for admin dicks.

Ec


body:
Parker Peters wrote:

>If wikipedians act like dicks, a new user coming in will see that Wikipedia
>is a place for people to be dicks. It's the normal course of procedure, and
>they are GOING to respond in kind.
>
If a boy sees his dad regularly beating up his mom he will learn from
that mentorship, and apply those lessons in his own marriage.

>Dickery is goading, plain and simple. The so-called "experienced"
>wikipedians and admins goad and provoke people all the time, knowing they
>can get away with it since their friends will protect them.
>
>
After five years I would consider myself experienced, and hope that I
have successfully avoided the use of such provocative actions on any
regular basis.  It's important to avoid the implication that simply
being experienced or being an admin means support for abusive
behaviours.  My suspicion is that most of these people do not get
involved in such things, and will only apply their experience and admin
privileges in the limited area of their personal interests.

Ec


body:
Rich Holton wrote:

>Perhaps you're using the idea of "defending" an article differently than
>I am. From the context of Parker Peter's original post that you were
>replying to, we're talking about someone who is, in good faith, trying
>to improve the article, and an admin "whacking" them for doing it.
>
>As I see it, one can legitimately defend an article against vandalism,
>against overall POV, against the addition of questionable and
>unreferenced "facts", and against unintelligible incoherence. There may
>be others I'm not thinking of right now, but these are specifically
>defined violations of policy (except perhaps for the last one), and we
>all want to defend articles against these.
>
>But one can not legitimately "defend" an article against a newbie being
>bold in a good faith effort to fix an article. A newbie being bold is
>not, in and of itself, a violation of any policy. Quite the contrary, we
>encourage it. If a change to an article does not violate policy but is
>reverted, and then the change stonewalled on the talk page, the
>"defender" is violating policy ([[Wikipedia:Ownership of articles]]),
>and this is particularly damaging when the "defender" is an admin.
>
A person who makes a good-faith effort to explain his position on the
talk page needs to be fairly considered.  If he does this, and receives
no good-faith replies (which may include a link to a previous
discussion) in 24 hours,  he is perfectly justified in restoring his
bold edit.  Stonewalling could have the person waiting indefinitely.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Daniel Brandt

body:
I don't want to sound like Peter Parkers, but this closing of the DRV was,
frankly, wrong. It was closed about 2.5 hours after the review was opened.
Yes, yes I know about WP:SNOW, but WP:PROCESS matters too. There were a few
valid keep votes near the end.

Anyway, FYI, here's the cached link:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:l9nE4AhDCB0J:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Brandt+Daniel+Brandt&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a

On 2/23/07, NSLE (Wikipedia) <nsle.wikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> FWIW deletion has been speedily endorsed.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Daniel Brandt

body:
NSLE (Wikipedia) wrote:
> And you should be moderated for trolling. Seriously. Not surprised your RFA
> failed.

Gee, someone's got some thin skin.  People don't seem to like the truth.

-Jeff


subject: [WikiEN-l] Daniel Brandt

body:
gjzilla at gmail.com wrote:
> I don't want to sound like Peter Parkers, but this closing of the DRV was,
> frankly, wrong. It was closed about 2.5 hours after the review was opened.
> Yes, yes I know about WP:SNOW, but WP:PROCESS matters too. There were a few
> valid keep votes near the end.
>
> Anyway, FYI, here's the cached link:
> http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:l9nE4AhDCB0J:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Brandt+Daniel+Brandt&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a
>
>
> On 2/23/07, NSLE (Wikipedia) <nsle.wikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
>> FWIW deletion has been speedily endorsed.

Another travesy of Wikijustice.  I don't know what's more disconcerting
- that few seem to see the problem, or that people are so willing to
approve of such nonsense.

-Jeff


body:
Ron Ritzman wrote:

>On 2/21/07, Rich Holton wrote:
>
>
>>Perhaps I'm misconstruing your point. Is your question rhetorical, or
>>actually seeking information? Are you suggesting that, if a "newbie
>>editor" were to simply walk away, there would be no problem?
>>
>>
>If the newbie's (or anybody else's) change to an article is reverted
>and he can't make his case in the "talk" phase then yes "walk
>away". There's no consensus for his change. A "dick" phase is not
>going to change that. If he strongly feels that. If he strongly feels
>that the article is being defended in a state that violates policy
>then there are "non dick" paths he can follow such as rfcs or arbcom.
>If he can't get satisfaction there then hey that's life. You can't win
>them all.
>
If nobody answers his comments on the talk page, he has made his case.

Your Kafkaesque universe seems to suggest that the house should play
with a stacked dick.

Ec


body:
Parker Peters wrote:

>The problem admins may be in the minority. They may not be.
>
This is one place where your arguments seem to go off the rails.  I
think that the vast majority of admins keep away from all the
contentious issues.  They are content to narrowly restrict their edits
to what may relate to one WikiProject.

>Some admins are perfectly fine one day and then absolute dicks the next;
>there ought to be a corrective mechanism of an admin being temporarily
>relieved of duty, both as a form of stress relief and yes, a punitive
>measure should an admin act like a dick.
>
I prefer remedial actions rather than punitive.  The part-time dicks are
probably the ones that would be most amenable to a regime of strict but
fair enforcement of a code for admin behaviour.

Ec


from_name: Marc Riddell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Four things to say

body:
on 2/23/07 12:08 PM, Flame Viper at flameviper12 at yahoo.com wrote:

> For three, as for the suggestion about a program to mentor new users, I
> started just that several months ago.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Adopt-a-User

Thanks for the heads up on this; I didn't know it was there. How is it
working so far?

Marc Riddell


subject: [WikiEN-l] Daniel Brandt

body:
Now Doc has taken it back to DRV. Proper decision. ~~~~!

On 2/23/07, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
> Mark Ryan wrote:
> > Administrator Yanksox has deleted Daniel Brandt's article with the
> > following summary: "privacy concerns, more trouble than it is actually
> > worth. Are you people even human?"
>
> Riiiight. So I guess the implication is that we're expecting Daniel to
> stop "troubling" Wikipedia now that his entry is gone.
>
> Hypothetically speaking, let's say that in six months Daniel is still
> "troubling" Wikipedia just as much as he is now. Does that mean we can
> undelete his article then?
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Now we're ready for prime time...

body:
In Soviet Russia, entry on Wikipedia makes up YOU!!!! ~~~~!

On 2/22/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/22/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 2/23/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> > > I prefer not to believe everything I hear on an American sitcoms.
> > > Writers of fiction in particular can be allowed certain licence on the
> > > road to making their stories work.
> >
> > Heh. Sitcom accuses Wikipedia of unreliability. Wikipedia accuses
> > sitcom of unreliability. Where will it end?????//
>
> Unreliability accuses Wikipedia of Sitcom.
>
> (Film at 11...)
>
>
> --
> -george william herbert
> george.herbert at gmail.com
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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] Four things to say (No)

body:
Flame Viper wrote:
> You're not helping, at all. Stop begging for me to be moderated for The Truth, wake up, and smell the corrodite. Unless you can't handle the truth?
>

Hi. This post is inflammatory and content-free. If your goal is to be
heard on points you think are important to Wikipedia's success, posts
like this are harming your cause. To the extent people agree with you,
you are harming their causes, too.

If your goal is to create drama, then I would be much obliged if you did
it on one of the many parts of the internet where drama is welcome, or
even the goal.

Assuming you're really here to help, then I'd suggest you take a break
to relax (personally, I use long walks) and then check out these articles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:CIVIL
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NPA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:TIGERS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:COOL

I'm sure you've seen some of them before, and may even resent some of
them as sticks you feel people have used to whack you. But they're very
helpful guidelines to getting things done via the regrettably bad medium
of plaintext.

Thanks,

William

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


from_name: Gwern Branwen

subject: [WikiEN-l] A new way of image uploading. Sort of

body:
geni <geniice at gmail.com> writes:

> OK there is still some fiddling to be done but You can see the first
> example of something I hope will become widespread here:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Mamet
>
> be sure to click the image to look around the stuff behind it (mostly
> a new separate image upload page but there are other things)
>
> As I said it isn't quite finished and suggestions are welcome.
>
> Much credit goes to Editor at Large for the SVG, Gmaxwell for much of
> the formatting and Brion for turning on the required extension on en.
> --
> geni

I would suggest capitalizing 'free'. There are no doubt plenty of free
as in cost images which you can download without paying anything
(<http://images.google.com/images?q=david%20mamet&num=30&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi>),
but that's quite different from what we want, which are Freely-licensed
images. It should be emphasized from the beginning that it's free as in
speech not money. It's a hard and unusual concept for a lot of people,
if all the image deletions on en are anything to go by.

--
Gwern
Inquiring minds want to know.


body:
Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> writes:

> Parker Peters stated for the record:
>> Final series, # 13/14/15: Steel359, after insulting the user for reporting
>> Sean Barrett/The_Epopt's abusive locking of user page ...
>
> Wrong.  I have /never/ locked any user page.  Given this rather
> fundamental error of fact, one has to wonder what else you have gotten
> wrong . . .  or are simply lying about.
>
> --
>  Sean Barrett     | A thunder of jets in an open sky,

Actually, it is incorrect to say never. You have. Last year,
specifically, you protected a number of user and user talk pages.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=protect&user=The+Epopt&page=>

--
Gwern
Inquiring minds want to know.


from_name: Rich Holton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Daniel Brandt

body:
Mark Ryan wrote:
> Administrator Yanksox has deleted Daniel Brandt's article with the
> following summary: "privacy concerns, more trouble than it is actually
> worth. Are you people even human?"
>
> Yanksox then proceeded to delete his or her user page with the summary
> "My, My. Hey, Hey / Won't you let me burnout or fadeaway?"
>
> Cool Cat has started a Deletion Review on this, at the following URL:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2007_February_23#Daniel_Brandt
>
> Consensus there appears to be to endorse the deletion.
>
> I thought it would be important to mention this on the mailing list,
> considering the number of people who have participated in debates over
> the existence of the Daniel Brandt article over the years.
>
> ~Mark Ryan
>

I'm caught in a bit of a paradox...I didn't know who Daniel Brandt was
until I went to the article history, which might suggest that having an
entry on him is useful. Of course, the only reason his name even came to
my attention was the debate about the article's deletion... :)

It seems like he may be a marginally notable character, and if indeed
there is precedent for respecting deletion requests for marginally
notable characters, then it's probably best to keep it deleted.

However, it must have been pretty predictable that a speedy delete would
cause controversy, and accusations of abuse of admin powers. If we do
have such a practice of removing marginally notable characters at their
request, shouldn't we codify that somehow, so as to avoid (or at least
reduce) the controversy?

-Rich Holton


body:
David Gerard wrote:

>On 23/02/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>This analogy is excessively dramatic. When considering granting admin
>>privileges one needs to assume good faith in the absence of evidence to
>>the contrary.
>>
>>
>You haven't seen RFA lately then, I take it.
>
Has it improved? O:-)

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Latest comedic parody of Wikipedia

body:
Cant create an account there anymore, and their servers are slow as heck.

On 2/23/07, wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
>
> > From: Cheney Shill <halliburton_shill at yahoo.com>
> > David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page
> > >
> > http://www.conservapedia.com/Examples_of_Bias_in_Wikipedia
> >
> > David, you do realize that this site is not comedic or
> > parody?  It's best described as a front site for christian
> > fundamentalists, registered by the people behind
> > http://www.eagleforum.org, the "leading the pro-family
> > movement since 1972".  [it's registered to]
> >       Schlafly, Andrew  aschlafly at aol.com
>
> (who is Phyllis Schlafly's son, and general counsel for the Association of
> American Physicians and Surgeons, a more-or-less venerable and legitimate
> right-wing organization of AMA members for whom the AMA isn't right-wing
> enough).
>
> Actually, if you analyze the articles and make plausible assumptions,
> there are only a _few_ conservative Christian adults working on it, perhaps
> a dozen kids, and a couple of people who are either parents or young adults
> who are conscientiously trying to rough out some kind of outline for an
> encyclopedia by entering substubs for every term contained in their
> textbooks.
>
> And at least two oddball Wikipedia admins (editing under the same user
> names they use on Wikipedia), who are emphatically not conservative
> Christian creationists but who, for some reason have enjoyed trying to
> improve the articles (in good faith; in some cases, yes, trying to moderate
> over-the-top conservative nuttiness when it strays so far from the facts
> that Conservapedians are willing to accept the changes... but mostly just
> doing straight Wikipedian work).
>
> It's probably moot, anyway. I think it's melting down.
>
> After a few notices in conservative blogs, praising the site (apparently
> the bloggers hadn't actually looked at it), Google searches show the top
> hits now to be on non-conservative sites cackling away with mocking glee at
> the idiocy of it all.
>
> The interesting part is that the site _is_, increasingly, becoming a
> source of comedic parody, as vandals flood in, and the most popular kind of
> vandalism consists of inserting over-the-top caricatures of creationist POV.
> The site's rants on AD/BC versus CE/BCE, and its insistence on American
> spelling are genuine enough, and the site brought it on itself by promoting
> an Wiki with three thousand amateurish substubs, a few dozen
> high-school-term-paper quality articles, and a few dozen personal essays by
> Schlafly as if were a reliable encyclopedia.
>
> It's interesting to watch. When you can get in and look at Recent Changes,
> it's clear that the admins are currently unable to block vandal accounts or
> delete joke articles as fast as they're created, and unless it's a
> seven-day's wonder and traffic eases off they're going to need to solicit
> donations for new servers. (It's no worse than Wikipedia was at various
> times in 2004, though!)
>
> It also makes you realize how important it is for a Wiki-based
> encyclopedia to have policies and procedures that are roughly in harmony
> with those of those people who are spontaneously attracted to the site.
> Wikipedia's neutrality policy, as stated and as applied in practice, may
> have an even greater depth of wisdom to it than I had previously
> appreciated.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject:
[Foundation-l] Commons request for input: policy on automatic
	image replacement

body:
Basically I think it is a good idea to have some kind of automated warning
when a photo is superseded by a new version or renamed.

ad 1: I do not understand this
ad 2: It can also be safely done when the image is renamed (pls do! I run
into articles ruined because the images on commons get renamed!)
ad 3: only if they are technical identical, not if someone regards them as
indentical. As an obvious example, one person may view two pictures of the
Big Ben as identical, because they both show the Big Ben in the sunshine,
while another views them as different because ons is from the south, the
other from the north.
ad 4: It can imho be safely done when the new version is a technical upgrade
from the previous version, such as .svg instead of .png. There should be a
proces that makes sure that the conversion was a technical conversion, not a
new version from scratch, such as with (some of) the flags. Basically, this
is the responsibility of the uploader, but I would like to see some kind of
check by a second person.

If these conditions are met, I see no reason for a timedelay.
kind regards.

teun

On 2/19/07, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> (If your project doesn't have a CommonsTicker... GET ONE...
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Duesentrieb/CommonsTicker
> and if nobody maintains it... well don't complain you were never informed
> :P )
>
> CommonsDelinker is a Wikimedia-wide bot designed to remove image
> redlinks from pages after an image has been deleted at Commons.
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:CommonsDelinker
>
> At the moment it is in the "testing" stage of image "relinking" --
> replacing one image with another. I want to get some input from
> communities about under what circumstances it would be acceptable for
> Commons to use the bot for "relinking".
>
> There are several reasons why replacing images might be desired:
>
> 1. Avoid conflicts with local image of the same name (bug 889, 2717)
> [although usually this would be done at the local wiki rather than
> Commons, but if the Commons image is poorly named, it can be
> appropriate]
> 2. Rename images: as redirects don't work, the only option to upload
> under the new name (bug 709, 4470)
> 3. Consolidate use of duplicate images at just one of them
> 4. Replace an image with a distinct, "improved" version
>
> I guess (hope) 1 and 2 are not controversial. So I want to talk a bit
> about 3 and 4.
>
> Regarding 3: some people feel that there is no need to consolidate
> duplicate images together. While it is true that there is no argument
> to do this for "disk space reasons", consider it like a 'fork' of the
> image. We don't allow forks of articles. One reason, for sure, has to
> do with NPOV, but another reason is just about efficiency and the
> natural human tendency to sort, collate, collect and organise. It
> makes sense to have all the info about one thing in one place, whether
> that is a topic (article) or an image.
>
> Now regarding 4. This is the first point where the image being
> replaced is not a true duplicate to the original. The most contentious
> point has been where images are converted from raster (GIF, JPG, PNG)
> to vector (SVG) format.
> I don't want to hash out the details of a PNG vs SVG debate here. Some
> PNGs are superior to SVGs, some SVGs are superior to PNGs. I want to
> establish: what process should take place before a bot replacement
> like this is acceptable?
>
> Because it's a bot, I want Commons to have really clear guidelines
> about when it is OK to use it, to avoid disrupting local projects.
>
> Currently, such images are tagged with {{superseded}} and listed at
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Superseded
> . This page is quite backlogged (nearly 5 months, over 5000 items in
> [[category:superseded]]) and almost no-one works on it (since our
> copyvios are also backlogged, and they are more urgent, this is OK,
> IMO).
>
> Note: we have {{superseded}}, which usually means the old one will be
> nominated for deletion, and we also have {{vector version available}},
> which merely advertises the existence of a vector file and does not
> imply the old one should be deleted.
>
> So basically my question is, assuming someone putting a {{superseded}}
> tag on an image appears on your local CommonsTicker, how long is it
> acceptable to wait before we replace such images? A week, a fortnight,
> a month?
> What should consensus look like in such discussions? Since we don't
> have to delete things for copyright reasons, is *one* person objecting
> enough to keep the image? What if that person is the uploader? What
> reasons should ensure an image gets kept?
>
> Here are some main ones I know of:
> * Art. IMO no art "near-duplicates" should be deleted unless they are
> TRUE duplicates (eg by hash). Colour differences are too subjective to
> rule which one is the most accurate, so best idea is to keep them all
> and let local projects decide which to use.
> * Small size PNGs used as icons - may be hand-optimised for rendering
> in IE, which SVGs will still suffer from (as they thumbnail to PNG but
> without special treatment).
> * Errors in SVG rendering (there are many in bugzilla)
> * PNGs as source files - should be kept for historical record (luckily
> we can undelete now, this is not such a big deal, but still something
> to keep in mind)
>
> So, please take this as an opportunity to describe the most open and
> accessible way Commons can work with your project, and how you would
> like to see it operate to best benefit your project in this regard.
>
> cheers,
> Brianna
> user:pfctdayelise
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: geni

body:
OK there is still some fiddling to be done but You can see the first
example of something I hope will become widespread here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Mamet

be sure to click the image to look around the stuff behind it (mostly
a new separate image upload page but there are other things)

As I said it isn't quite finished and suggestions are welcome.

Much credit goes to Editor at Large for the SVG, Gmaxwell for much of
the formatting and Brion for turning on the required extension on en.
--
geni


body:
On 2/23/07, Nick Wilkins <nlwilkins at gmail.com> wrote:
> One of the common concerns that image owners bring up is the potential for
> commercial re-use of their images.  Would it be proper to make it explicit
> that uploading the image (and placing it under a free license) means that
> they would have to allow that?  In a perfect world, they would read and
> understand the text of the license; of course, it's not a perfect world.
> Regardless that they *should* know, it would probably be good if we did our
> best to avoid the situation where uploaders get mad at us when they find out
> the "hard way" that their images can be used commercially by others.
>
> -- Jonel

I think "allow everyone to use, modify, and redistribute your work for
any purpose" covers that but there is still space on
[[Wikipedia:Fromowner]] if you want to mention it again.

--
geni


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [Wikitech-l] Exporting sections of pages

body:
On 2/22/07, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> > Or do you mean:
> > ==section header tag==
> > {{sectionmagicword|secthead}}
>
> The latter, yes.  If you're tagging something for remote retrieval, you
> want the tag decoupled from both the accidental section number, and
> the human changeable section header text.

If we're doing that, we might as well have start/stop tags, and
totally decouple it from the idea of wiki ==Headings==.  It would seem
useful both to be able to transclude several sections, and less than a
whole section.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rx Dosage Instructions in Wikipedia

body:
On 2/21/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> There's a difference. It is reknowned for its casinos is clearly about
> Vegas.
> "Its main visitor attractions are its churches, renowned gastronomic
> restaurants and art galleries" could be about any city in the world. (By the
> way, gastronomic restaurants is either a tautology or pleonasm.

"Gastronomic restaurants" is neither - ee [[gastronomy]]. But this
quibble is pretty pointless, don't you think?

Steve


from_name: Simetrical

subject: [Wikitech-l] Bot edit rates

references:
<445562e00702191954vd25b5cetb23c303addcf8073@mail.gmail.com>
	<erhukr$rmj$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<6faf39c90702211055w381e93f4pa8f55dcdc84a38bc@mail.gmail.com>
	<eri7c8$t6d$1@sea.gmane.org> <ern1iu$mpr$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On 2/23/07, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> Amazing: You were very tempted to block them because they were causing
> too much traffic, but it still didn't occur to you to simply add the
> count to the Special:Contributions page, thereby peacefully rendering
> them obsolete?

First of all, there was no edit count until just recently.  Second of
all, people aren't just interested in edits, they're interested in
edit *stats*.  People will still want to know things like how many are
article/user talk/Wikipedia:/etc.  So if we want this to be faster, we
should fix enwiki toolserver replication (if it's not fixed now, I'm
not keeping tabs on it) so that the queries can be run directly rather
than in tiny chunks interspersed with who knows what unnecessary
queries.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Daniel Brandt

body:
On 2/23/07, Glen S <wikiglen at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/24/07, NSLE (Wikipedia) <nsle.wikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > And you should be moderated for trolling. Seriously. Not surprised your
> > RFA
> > failed.
> >
> > What an incredibly ironic statement for you to make Chacor.
>
> Though I am certainly far from an inclusionist myself I agree with BDJ here.
> I believe Brandt's notability is certainly in question, I'm growing sick of
> renegade sysops making crazy decisions - then attempting to steamroller them
> through citing IAR, SNOW and the like. The deletion should be overturned,
> and let's do this properly (via AfD), please

I am an inclusionist, and I think Brandt's notability is in question...

I'm going to stay out of the AFD/DRV.  I do encourage everyone to
respect the process on this - the process lets everyone who does care
about it vent and explain themselves and talk about it.

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


body:
On 2/22/07, Jim Wilson <wilson.jim.r at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dang.  When I asked everybody on the IRC channel, they told me it was
> *bold*, _underline_, and /italics/

That would be the simplest typesetting convention. But if it's
semantics, not appearance, that you're after, then I believe the
convention is _italics_ and *bold*.

Two questions:
* Why *single* punctuation rather than **double**?
* Since when does anyone use or want underline on MediaWiki? :) Didn't
underline become evil when it became the web standard for hyperlinks?

Steve


body:
On 2/23/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> I prefer not to believe everything I hear on an American sitcoms.
> Writers of fiction in particular can be allowed certain licence on the
> road to making their stories work.

Heh. Sitcom accuses Wikipedia of unreliability. Wikipedia accuses
sitcom of unreliability. Where will it end?????//

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbcom appointments

body:
On 2/23/07, James Forrester <jdforrester at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 23/02/07, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > I hereby appoint Mackensen and EssJay to the Arbitration committee.
> > After consulting with the existing arbitration committee and others, I
> > decided to appoint Mackensen to Dominic's seat (Dominic is retiring),
> > and EssJay to an expansion seat in the shortest tranche.
>
> It goes without saying, but I will anyway: a public welcome to our new
> members, and our regrets to see Dominic's stepping down.

Congratulations, Mackensen and EssJay, and thanks to Dominic.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Daniel Brandt

body:
FYI: Jimbo is not happy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Daniel_Brandt_deletion_wheel_war

Yanksox desysopped by Jimbo fiat, Geni and Freakofnurture temporarily
desysopped pending referral to Arbcom (case not filed publically as of
yet, I assume email/IRC is happening or will soon...)

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


list: commons-l

from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Commons-l] King of the FlickrLickrs

body:
On 2/20/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Erik, if a Flickr user misclicked on the dropdown and selected the
> wrong license unknowingly and unintentionally they did not make a
> valid release under that license.

There is no dropdown on the upload screen. Licensing is a user
preference, and not an easy to find one (I just took about 3 minutes
to find it again, even though I've been there several times -- it's
under "Your account|Privacy & Permissions|Defaults for new uploads").

The main problem is that Flickr does not indicate the currently
selected license on the upload screen (though it does show it once the
file has been uploaded), and that it makes it easy to "change" the
licensing retroactively as many times as the user wants. But I find
any claim of accidental CC licensing on Flickr very hard to believe,
as it takes significant effort and understanding to use the CC option
in the first place.

> A second human review is a good sanity check against
> situations where the flickr user is not really the copyright holder.

I encourage copyright review and verification on all resources hosted
on Wikimedia projects. The Flickrreview process is strangely specific,
especially given that FlickrLickr _already_ involves human volunteer
reviewers. When repeated copyvios from a particular Flickr user are
pointed out to me, I also delete all their metadata from my database,
so that no further images are shown for review.

We should work towards a solution that is not specific to one
resource. The underlying principles will be similar to the "stable
version" idea: if a user is not trusted, all their uploads will have
to undergo copyright review. Such review could take two stages - smell
test, and detailed review. The smell test would be the check for
obvious signs of copyvio: promo photo, screenshot, etc. The detailed
review could involve contacting the copyright holder. The smell test
is mandatory, whereas the review is optional (but desirable).

A first way to implement this approach without special software would
be to only use positive tagging for pictures that _have_ undergone
in-depth copyright review, rather than trying to negative-tag all
those which are semi-suspicious.

--
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


body:
On 2/23/07, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:

> Or give them the extremely quick summary: the viral nature of copyleft
> licences (the "share-alike" provisions) prevents commercial
> exploitation while allowing commercial innovation.

That is, unfortunately, not quite true. For images in particular,
CC-BY-SA provides no meaningful protection from commercial
exploitation. An article using a CC-BY-SA picture is _not_ considered
a derivative; only any direct modifications to the picture trigger the
share-alike clause.

We are currently discussing alternatives on the cc-licenses list that
would trigger share-alike on strongly semantically linked combinations
as well -- but the current license does not do that.

Strangely enough, the existing CC-BY-SA license _does_ consider the
combination of music and a film a derivative work that would require
the whole film to be copyleft -- but not the embedding of images into
an article.
--
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: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Bot edit rates

body:
Tim Starling wrote:
>
> The worst offenders we've discovered in recent times are the edit counters
> -- web based scripts that send requests to the servers often lasting
> minutes, with unrestricted parallelism. We were very tempted to block them
> all. We would have blocked them for much less if we weren't afraid having
> an angry mob of hundreds of Wikipedians obsessed with edit counts,
> descending on our door.

Amazing: You were very tempted to block them because they were causing
too much traffic, but it still didn't occur to you to simply add the
count to the Special:Contributions page, thereby peacefully rendering
them obsolete?

Timwi


from_name: Jeff Raymond

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Parker Peters wrote:
>
>> The problem admins may be in the minority. They may not be.
>>
> This is one place where your arguments seem to go off the rails.  I
> think that the vast majority of admins keep away from all the
> contentious issues.  They are content to narrowly restrict their edits
> to what may relate to one WikiProject.

I tend to agree with you on this - the vast majority do go unnoticed.
The problem children are the ones who repeatedly do the wrong thing, and
never realize it because they're rewarded for their efforts.  With no
realistic dispute resolution process in place, and with the worst of the
bunch being applauded when they act out of line because they have enough
buddies to back 'em up, there's no recourse.

This is ongoing, it's not anything new or recent.  There may not be a
cabal, but there's something.

> I prefer remedial actions rather than punitive.  The part-time dicks are
> probably the ones that would be most amenable to a regime of strict but
> fair enforcement of a code for admin behaviour.

Yeah, but the part-time dicks aren't the problem.

-Jeff


from_name: Rob Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Daniel Brandt

body:
On 2/23/07, Slim Virgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/23/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I don't spend much time at DRV, what's the policy for DRVs that have
> > no consensus? This one is looking like a fairly even split. Common
> > sense would seem (to me) to be that consensus to endorse is required
> > for speedy deletions, otherwise they get undeleted, and consensus to
> > undelete is required for AfDs, otherwise they stay deleted. In other
> > words, this article should probably end up being undeleted. Is that
> > how it works, or is there precedent for something else?
> >
> Good question. A recent DRV of one of the Rachel Marsden articles -- I
> speedied it in accordance with an ArbCom ruling, which allowed speedy
> deletion if an admin felt there were BLP issues -- had a majority in
> favor of keeping it deleted, but an admin undeleted it anyway, then
> moved it to AfD, arguing that there had to be a consensus in favor of
> the deletion, not just a majority.
>
> The policy seems to imply this is the case with all deletions, not
> just speedies, which means that DRV has basically become pointless,
> assuming I've understood it correctly.
>
> Sarah

Before voting to keep, please review the evidence presented at

http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=5641&view=findpost&p=22084

Thank you.

Nobs01


body:
On 2/23/07, Jim Wilson <wilson.jim.r at gmail.com> wrote:
> Fixed.  Now supports both *single* and **double** syntax for asterisks.  No
> change has been made for slashes or underscores.

Heh, I'd assumed you would add // and __, too. But then, I was coming
at this from a kind of pure wiki syntax point of view, where as much
syntax as possible is just doubled punctuation: ** // __ {{ [[ == .
Though I now see that __ would conflict with some magic words like
__NOTOC__.

But as long as we're not actually trying to achieve WikiBabel (or
whatever it's called), there's no compelling reason to do so.

Steve


body:
on 2/23/07 2:40 PM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge at telus.net wrote:

> If a boy sees his dad regularly beating up his mom he will learn from
> that mentorship, and apply those lessons in his own marriage.

Absolutely!

Kids take notes.

    Marc Riddell


subject: [Wikitech-l] Moving the contents to the side panel

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> The contents box seems to cause endless problems with article layout,
> particularly when combined with an infobox[1], or when the intro
> section is short compared to the number of sections in the article.[2]
> The result always seems to be a huge white space between the intro and
> the rest of the article.

I don't really see a problem with that. Whitespace can often make
something easier to read, especially where the alternative is to confuse
the eye with lots of clutter.

Then again, maybe the TOC should be slightly smaller font and layed-out
in two columns (like some References/Footnotes sections are)?


from_name: stvrtg

subject: [WikiEN-l] WP:TARCH

body:
Want to know from people if this will work or not.

-Stevertigo


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Daniel Brandt

body:
On 23/02/07, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:
> Mark Ryan wrote:
>
> > Consensus there appears to be to endorse the deletion.
> >
> > I thought it would be important to mention this on the mailing list,
> > considering the number of people who have participated in debates over
> > the existence of the Daniel Brandt article over the years.
>
> Every time I think I can't get more disgusted, something else happens.
> It's bad enough we can get the right mix of editors to bully the rest of
> us around, now we're going to cave to Brandt?

And here we have the entire problem with this article (and a few others).

The community as a whole is very twitchy about some issues. Someone
wants us to remove a page on them, we say "fuck you, we're not
censoring ourselves, we're going to make the page *better*". And we
get so caught up in doing this that the quiet voice of common sense -
do we really need to have this article? is it worth the effort? is the
subject of encyclopedic notability? what does editorial judgement say?
gets lost in the noise.

"Caving to Brandt" may have the same functional effect as "applying
common sense", but that doesn't make doing the latter the same as the
former.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] WP:TARCH

body:
On 2/22/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

The main problem with any form of archiving is that it's the busiest
> pages that need it, and the busiest pages tend to be controversial. So
> picking how to archive them is not so much a technical matter as
> politics. Date-based archiving is generally tolerable to most.

This doesnt replace date based Ordered archives.  Im hoping that redundancy
and plenty of cross linking between Topical archives (TA) and OA will keep
people from disagreeing too much with the subjectivity that will go into
forming readable TA.

-Stevertigo


from_name: T P

subject: [WikiEN-l] WP:TARCH

body:
I think this is a good idea.  As long as you can rely on people to have a
clue and archive to both (not a given by any means).

Adam

On 2/23/07, stvrtg <stvrtg at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Want to know from people if this will work or not.
>
> -Stevertigo
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
Marc Riddell wrote:

>I am going to suggest something as a possible remedy for the problems you
>brought up.
>
>When I first joined the WP Community I not only had no idea how to maneuver
>within WP (and, yes I had read all of the intro stuff) my computer skills
>consisted of point & click ? anything beyond that and I had to scream for a
>computer tech. From day one, this wonderful WP Community Member came out of
>the woodwork to help. They answered the 1000+ questions I had, and actually
>helped me to format my User Page. I was very grateful for this, and it also
>gave me an indication of, and made he very comfortable with, the WP culture.
>
>So, how about this: When a new person registers to join the WP Community
>they are automatically assigned, designated (whatever term you want) to an
>established Community Member. This established Member would act as their
>mentor for a given period of time. And any questions or problems the new
>Member may have in the beginning could be mentored by this person.
>
>If an idea like this has been proposed before & rejected, I would love to
>know why. If it hasn?t as yet, what do you think?
>
Your lack of technical skills is a far more tractable problem set than
the lack of social skills exhibited by some others. ;-)

I've raised the idea of mentorship before, but the results have been no
response, and not outright rejection.  I don't know whether on a
practical basis it would work at all.  Assigning the right mentor to the
right newbie is not an easy task, because there can be so many different
incompatibilities.  Some people do just fine quietly figuring things out
for themselves, others, like you, are really helped by a little
technical guidance, still others may have absolutely no problem with the
technology but need a more personal intervention of someone who can help
to calm them down or run interference with single-minded admins.

I don't know if the idea would work, but I need to maintain an open mind.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Daniel Brandt

body:
On 2/23/07, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
> Rich Holton wrote:
> > However, it must have been pretty predictable that a speedy delete would
> > cause controversy, and accusations of abuse of admin powers. If we do
> > have such a practice of removing marginally notable characters at their
> > request, shouldn't we codify that somehow, so as to avoid (or at least
> > reduce) the controversy?
> >
>
> The problem is that we have nowhere near consensus for such a policy.  A
> large number of editors support it, and a large number of editors oppose
> it.  Different specific cases have gone different ways, mostly depending
> on who showed up to the debate that day.

That there is no system for listing names of certain BLP based deletes lends
to the sense that these are OFFICE actions. Even talk pages get removed and
we have to wonder WTF?  So theres this thin line between notablity and
sensitivity - stating a preference for the latter doesnt really offer people
a method by which they can be more attuned to peoples feelings and less
attuned to just encyclopise everything.

-Stevertigo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Daniel Brandt

body:
PS: For BLP use something like {{deletedbio}} instead of {{deletedpage}}.
There is no {{deletedbio}} AFAIK so someone needs to make one.

-Stevertigo


from_name: Slim Virgin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Daniel Brandt

body:
On 2/23/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't spend much time at DRV, what's the policy for DRVs that have
> no consensus? This one is looking like a fairly even split. Common
> sense would seem (to me) to be that consensus to endorse is required
> for speedy deletions, otherwise they get undeleted, and consensus to
> undelete is required for AfDs, otherwise they stay deleted. In other
> words, this article should probably end up being undeleted. Is that
> how it works, or is there precedent for something else?
>
Good question. A recent DRV of one of the Rachel Marsden articles -- I
speedied it in accordance with an ArbCom ruling, which allowed speedy
deletion if an admin felt there were BLP issues -- had a majority in
favor of keeping it deleted, but an admin undeleted it anyway, then
moved it to AfD, arguing that there had to be a consensus in favor of
the deletion, not just a majority.

The policy seems to imply this is the case with all deletions, not
just speedies, which means that DRV has basically become pointless,
assuming I've understood it correctly.

Sarah


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Daniel Brandt

body:
Rich Holton wrote:
> However, it must have been pretty predictable that a speedy delete would
> cause controversy, and accusations of abuse of admin powers. If we do
> have such a practice of removing marginally notable characters at their
> request, shouldn't we codify that somehow, so as to avoid (or at least
> reduce) the controversy?
>

The problem is that we have nowhere near consensus for such a policy.  A
large number of editors support it, and a large number of editors oppose
it.  Different specific cases have gone different ways, mostly depending
on who showed up to the debate that day.

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Daniel Brandt

body:
Encyclopise?

Adam

On 2/23/07, stvrtg <stvrtg at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/23/07, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> >
> > Rich Holton wrote:
> > > However, it must have been pretty predictable that a speedy delete
> would
> > > cause controversy, and accusations of abuse of admin powers. If we do
> > > have such a practice of removing marginally notable characters at
> their
> > > request, shouldn't we codify that somehow, so as to avoid (or at least
> > > reduce) the controversy?
> > >
> >
> > The problem is that we have nowhere near consensus for such a policy.  A
> > large number of editors support it, and a large number of editors oppose
> > it.  Different specific cases have gone different ways, mostly depending
> > on who showed up to the debate that day.
>
>
> That there is no system for listing names of certain BLP based deletes
> lends
> to the sense that these are OFFICE actions. Even talk pages get removed
> and
> we have to wonder WTF?  So theres this thin line between notablity and
> sensitivity - stating a preference for the latter doesnt really offer
> people
> a method by which they can be more attuned to peoples feelings and less
> attuned to just encyclopise everything.
>
> -Stevertigo
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Parker Peters wrote:

>On 2/20/07, Guy Chapman wrote:
>
>
>>On Tue, 20 Feb 2007 10:41:56 -0800, Ray Saintonge
>><saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>>
>>(apologies for non-trimmed top posting)
>>
>>Ray, I subscribe to unblock-en-l.
>>
>>
>So do I.
>
I admit that I didn't know about that list until it was mentioned in
this thread.  I confess too that I sometimes have wished that it did
exist, for the uncharitable reason that I did not want to read through
all the crap.  But I never stated this before.   It has seemed more
important to keep an eye on this sort of thing.

>  I *know* some cases are valid even
>
>
>>though they are stated in obnoxious terms and often by obnoxious
>>people.  One who was unblocked under a month ago is now in front of
>>ArbCom; the unblock was probably valid but I'd not have unblocked.
>>
>>
>Which proves that you don't deserve the power you have, since you're willing
>to throw the book at people even when it's clear they've already been abused
>by someone else.
>
I'm not concerned right now with specifying who deserves the power.
Rather than "throw the book" at anyone, I would prefer techniques that
give us a better chance to identify those who have been unjustly
treated.  If a bad egg gets through from time to time that's nothing to
worry about.  The bad ones are good at repeating their mistakes, and
will soon enough let us know.


from_name: Pilotguy

subject: [WikiEN-l] Daniel Brandt

body:
What an awful abuse of admin powers.

On 2/23/07, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
> Rich Holton wrote:
> > However, it must have been pretty predictable that a speedy delete would
> > cause controversy, and accusations of abuse of admin powers. If we do
> > have such a practice of removing marginally notable characters at their
> > request, shouldn't we codify that somehow, so as to avoid (or at least
> > reduce) the controversy?
> >
>
> The problem is that we have nowhere near consensus for such a policy.  A
> large number of editors support it, and a large number of editors oppose
> it.  Different specific cases have gone different ways, mostly depending
> on who showed up to the debate that day.
>
> -Mark
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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

http://pilotguy.wordpress.com


body:
William Pietri wrote:

>Hi, Samuel.
>
>Samuel L Bronkowitz wrote:
>
>
>>Lie much?
>>
>>
>
>Here we have an example of why you are unlikely to make any progress in
>this.
>
>No, I don't lie much. I offered you advice on how to press your case;
>you rejected it out of hand. I gave my opinion in answer to a question
>asked, and you accuse me of lying. I'm not sure how I could be lying
>about my own opinion, but let that pass.
>
>This isn't my job. I'm just an occasional volunteer editor, with no
>special perks, no special powers, and no personal acquaintance with
>anybody here. I have no obligation to deal with you just because you're
>in a lather. But I took the time to look into into your concern, because
>it's important to me that Wikipedia succeeds, and I think the move
>toward a caste system is one of the biggest risk factors right now. If
>that's not enough for you, that seems like your problem, not mine.
>
>
That's what most of us are.  Some of us will try to look through all the
rhetoric and accusations, and try to make sense of the situation, but it
often ends up that the people we are trying to help do not make the job
very easy.

Ec


body:
Parker Peters wrote:

>Ideally? I'd like for administrators not to do the things that cause
>problems. But that's not likely.
>
>So here's a few thoughts/steps:
>
Thank you for the thoughtful consideration in this post.

>#1 - Recognize that adminship, as it exists now, is a big deal.
>
>If Adminship were not a big deal, then losing adminship would not be a big
>deal. However, the bar for losing adminship is nearly impossibly high.
>If Adminship were not a big deal, the ever-growing requirements for it would
>not be ever-growing. But they are.
>
>Adminship is a big deal. It is a big deal because of the damage an
>administrator can do to the project. But it is also a big deal because of
>the control it gives an administrator: they have the ability to not only
>damage the project, but to cause major damage just to individual
>contributors at the drop of a hat, anyone with whom they have a
>disagreement... save for other administrators.
>
Then this could be solved by reducing the "big deal" that is in fact
associated with adminship.  Opening it up would do this.

>#2 - Make it perfectly clear: administrators are NOT above the rules.
>
>here is the biggest problem with wikipedia today. Administrators are free to
>do whatever they want. Any administrator can claim something is "trolling",
>and the rest of the administrators will pop their heads up to say "sure is"
>without really looking; again, if one administrator can claim something is
>"trolling" and wield their power, it makes it easier for the next one to as
>well.
>
Simply put the rules need to be enforced sternly against all, including
admins.

>#3 - Set clear-cut rules against the ongoing abuses of the system. ENFORCE
>THEM.
>
Good!

>#4 - STOP Abusive usage of CheckUser
>
>One of our worst items today is the CheckUser code: I wrote an email after
>seeing the output in one case, earlier.
>
>CheckUser itself isn't a bad tool. Correctly used, it can distinguish with
>some relative certainty, though not absolute certainty, whether someone is
>sockpuppeting. This is useful.
>
OK

>My solution would be: SEPARATION OF POWERS.
>
>It's quite simple. The less power someone has, the less likely they are to
>be corrupt. The problem we have today is a bunch of people running around
>who are Judge, Jury, Executioner, Court Reporter, Appeals Court, King,
>Bishop, Whatever all thrown together in one neat little package. They have
>way too much power in one set of hands.
>
>Someone who is a Bureaucrat should not be an Administrator.
>Someone who does CheckUser should not be an Administrator.
>Someone who is on ArbCom should not be an Administrator.
>
>Preferably, they should Never Have Been administrators.
>
I don't think that this is workable.  The listed sets of powers all
include admin privileges.  It could be impossible to do these jobs
without admin powers.  Certainly a person who has these higher duties
should have an ability to use his regular admin privileges with
restraint, and know when using them would compromise his decision making.

Ec


from_name: Jossi Fresco

subject: [WikiEN-l] Parker Peters

body:
On Feb 23, 2007, at 1:13 AM, John Lee wrote:

> The moderators have agreed to ban this user from subscribing to the
> list.

Thanks!


from_name: Trebor Rowntree

subject: [WikiEN-l] Daniel Brandt

body:
Frankly, two and a half hours for a DRV is bordering on the ridiculous. Very
few people have the opportunity to see it and form opinions in this time;
hell, a lot of them won't even be awake. This was a vastly out of process
speedy deletion, considering the article had survived so many AfDs. But we
could perhaps consider it to be in the spirit of IAR. But you don't then
justify an out of process deletion with an out of process speedy
endorsement. Discussion is _not_ bad. All this does is cause more and more
discussion over the nature of the closure, and less and less on the issue
(and thus even _less_ attention goes on the rest of the encyclopaedia).
Jimbo commented on the Peppers DRV "As I say, I think it would have been
slightly better to let it run for at least 24 hours"; this is going in the
opposite direction.
Trebor


body:
On 2/23/07, Roger Dearnaley <rpdearnaley at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Can you direct to the commons upload page, instead?  We should really
> encourage all free images to go to commons.

I could. I'm not going to until I get some data on how clean and how
big the image stream will be. Commons isn't set up to handle copyvios
on the scale en is.

--
geni


from_name: John Lee

subject: [WikiEN-l] Parker Peters

body:
The moderators have agreed to ban this user from subscribing to the list.
Since he was not making any positive contributions through his membership,
it has been revoked.

Regards,
John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Daniel Brandt

body:
On 2/23/07, Mark Ryan <ultrablue at gmail.com> wrote:
> Administrator Yanksox has deleted Daniel Brandt's article with the
> following summary: "privacy concerns, more trouble than it is actually
> worth. Are you people even human?"
>
> Yanksox then proceeded to delete his or her user page with the summary
> "My, My. Hey, Hey / Won't you let me burnout or fadeaway?"
>
> Cool Cat has started a Deletion Review on this, at the following URL:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2007_February_23#Daniel_Brandt
>
> Consensus there appears to be to endorse the deletion.
>
> I thought it would be important to mention this on the mailing list,
> considering the number of people who have participated in debates over
> the existence of the Daniel Brandt article over the years.
>
> ~Mark Ryan
>

I really fail to see the problem. Policy accepts that any admin may
undo a speedy. Process has not been followed. The deletion is not
universaly supported therefor it should be trivial for one of our 11
hundread admins to undelete.

--
geni


from_name: peter green

subject: [Commons-l] King of the FlickrLickrs

body:
> The detailed
> review could involve contacting the copyright holder.
unfortunately the structure of present copyright laws and also the lack of any decent mechanisms for searching the net for copies of images (i think google images only supports searching for text) make it impossible to tell for sure who the real copyright holder of an image is.

you can contact the person who the uploader claims is the copyright holder but if the uploader claims they made it themselves you can never be sure if they are telling the truth.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Daniel Brandt

body:
On 2/23/07, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:

> Myself, I'm about to head out of the house and be without internet
> connectivity for at least eight hours. It's not even a question of
> sleeping. The speediness with which this is all being done is silly
> considering how long the article and its attendant "controversy" has
> been around.

Indeed. Wikis are not suited for fast debate, and we are not in any rush,
yet these decisions are still being made in a matter of hours. What is this
accomplishing other than confusion and irritation?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Daniel Brandt

body:
Slim Virgin wrote:

>
> The policy seems to imply this is the case with all deletions, not
> just speedies, which means that DRV has basically become pointless,
> assuming I've understood it correctly.

Yup.  You essentially have.  There have been too many recent failures to
indicate otherwise, IMo.  It's only typically good for uncontroversial
A7s and gross mistakes at AfD.

-Jeff

--
Name: Jeff Raymond
E-mail: jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com
WWW: http://www.internationalhouseofbacon.com
IM: badlydrawnjeff
Quote: "As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the
	Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else."
	- Sen. Rick Santorum on the war in Iraq.


from_name: Marc Riddell

body:
on 2/23/07 12:26 PM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge at telus.net wrote:

> Until we can find a way to deal seriously and severely with the
> behaviours that Parker mentioned we cannot hope to build the
> collaborative community that most of us profess to support.  Those of us
> who have invested serious amounts of time in these projects, and have
> thought deeply about its underlying principles despair just as much over
> the actions of the petty tyrants as over the actions of the vandals.

Ray,

There are ways to solve the problems you present to. Companies and other
organizations are recognizing, confronting and dealing with them every day.

But, in the context of Wikipedia, this is a tough one. You and I and others
in this Community can identify the problems, commiserate, gnash our teeth,
and go through countless other fruitless gyrations. But without the power to
make change ? nothing can or will. Unless change is recognized as needed -
and mandated - by those with the ability to do so ? nothing can happen. We
need leadership (with teeth).

Marc Riddell


from_name: Ron Ritzman

body:
On 2/23/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

> If nobody answers his comments on the talk page, he has made his case.

Here's how I would handle it.

If my bolds on an article are reverted by regular editors, especially
more then one, I would assume by the reverts themselves that there is
no consensus for my bolds. I might make a polite query on the talk
page but my next move would be to "go play elsewhere".

You see it's not important to me that one particular edit in one
particular page sticks. I don't even watch the pages I edit. If the
edit sticks, fine. If it gets reverted, then hey that's life. Let
someone else go to war there. There's thousands of other articles to
read and edit. (most of my edits have so far been minor ones anyway)

I think every editor, especially newbies, need to ask themselves this
question. "Am are here to help the project and make enwikipedia a
better encyclopedia or am I here to get my point across in
[[Article]]?"

Here's another quote from the "don't be a dick" essay  I posted earlier...

"Honestly examine your motivations. Are you here to contribute and
make the project good? Or is your goal really to find fault, get your
views across, or be the one in control? Perhaps secretly inside you
even enjoy the thrill of a little confrontation. This may not make you
a bad person, but to everyone who is busily trying to build something
great, you become an impediment"


subject: [WikiEN-l] Daniel Brandt

body:
On 2/23/07, Mark Ryan <ultrablue at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 24/02/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I really fail to see the problem. Policy accepts that any admin may
> > undo a speedy. Process has not been followed. The deletion is not
> > universaly supported therefor it should be trivial for one of our 11
> > hundread admins to undelete.
>
> Bumm13 undeleted it because of this, I think, and had it re-deleted
> within a minute because the undeletion was "out of process". I think
> because it's on deletion review, it doesn't matter what the manner of
> its deletion was; if it's on DRV, it seems it has to stay deleted
> until the end of the debate. Well, that's the way it's being pushed
> anyway.
>
> ~Mark Ryan

That isn't true. Process is more complex than that.

--
geni


body:
On 2/23/07, Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I would suggest capitalizing 'free'. There are no doubt plenty of free
> as in cost images which you can download without paying anything
> (<http://images.google.com/images?q=david%20mamet&num=30&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi>),
> but that's quite different from what we want, which are Freely-licensed
> images. It should be emphasized from the beginning that it's free as in
> speech not money. It's a hard and unusual concept for a lot of people,
> if all the image deletions on en are anything to go by.
>

capitalizing free is unlikely to help with that since most people
won't know what that means either. that is the reason I''m focusing on
ownership.

--
geni


from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [WikiEN-l] How did Fuzzy decide to sue Josef Silny?

body:
On 2/23/07, Gregory Kohs <thekohser at gmail.com> wrote:
> Before it got erased from the record, I thought I asked some relevant
> questions about the Fuzzy Zoeller case:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Fuzzy_Zoeller&diff=110240475&oldid=110237714

They're questions that no-one here could possibly answer. You really
should ask the people involved if you're interested in the matter.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Dr. Robert P. Biuk-Aghai

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Instant Messenger / Email integration with
	MediaWiki

body:
Thanks for your thoughts.

In fact, I have in mind that there will be a Jabber server with an
interface from/to MediaWiki. On the discussion page there will be a
"Chat" link (next to the "edit" and "+" links), so that clicking on it
will launch the IM program (such as GAIM) with a session that is
archived in the discussion page from where the session was
started/joined. That is, the logging of conversations will be implicit
as users will start up their chats from within wiki. There will also be
a list of other online users in the page and a way of inviting them to a
chat session.

Regarding your comments:

> 1) Batch Edits - Please batch together IM dialog as a single edit rather
> than having each new statement in a conversation be a new "Edit" to the
> page.  This is to prevent flooding of the Recentchanges as well as the pages
> edit histories.
>
Hmm, these are valid considerations. One would hope that conversations
are not too long. If you have IM sessions that are still alive after a
couple of hours then those outside the session might miss quite a bit of
the pending discussion page update.
> 2) Consent - It would probably be good to have a way for your users to
> "consent" to having their IM conversations logged as wiki pages since this
> amounts to a sort of cyber-monitoring system.
>
As mentioned above, the IM conversation is launched from within the wiki
making the logging implicit, but you're right that users should be made
aware of this. "Use implies consent to archiving of the conversation in
this page" sort of thing.
> 3) Bot Edits - Depending on popularity, it would probably be a good idea to
> attribute these automatic edits to a bot user.  This is to limit flooding of
> Recentchanges and watchlist emailings (if they're enabled).
>
Kind of same as above. If an entire IM conversation gets saved by the
bot and assuming that there won't be more than a couple of these per day
then a flooding is not too likely. Of course an entirely different case
may exist on chat-crazy sites.
> That's what I can think of off the top of my head.  Good luck!
>
Thanks Jim!

Robert.


from_name: Eugene van der Pijll

subject: [WikiEN-l] Daniel Brandt

references:
<a4a70770702230717o63dfca8eo36de5b49eb171947@mail.gmail.com>
	<45DF082A.1010600@internationalhouseofbacon.com>
	<a4a70770702230749y3421e998s79279389dc9469ac@mail.gmail.com>
	<45DF0E62.904@internationalhouseofbacon.com>

body:
Jeff Raymond schreef:
> Mark Ryan wrote:
>
>   > You don't think we should delete people's biographies upon request,
> > where those people are of very marginal notability? Because apparently
> > it's quite common for us to perform such deletions upon request
> > nowadays, under WP:BLP or something.
>
> No.  I also disagree with the idea of "marginal" "notability" for
> Brandt.

IMHO, it's perfectly possible to make a good encyclopedia without a
Daniel Brandt page. If his page was deleted because of his repeated
demands, it would be bad. But we shouldn't just keep the page just
because he's annoying us.

> Yanksox should be blocked for vandalism and deadminned
> immediately, but that won't happen.

I may agree with this. It does seem to me to have been a move designed
to be controversial, and to disrupt wikipedia to leave a departing
message.

On the other hand, consensus seems to be that he's right, so... in view
of AGF and IAR, ... let's just say this whole affair is simply NOT
IMPORTANT ENOUGH to be upset about it.

> Wikipedia's completely lost its way.

It's still a damn fine encyclopedia, with or without [[Daniel Brandt]].

Eugene


body:
Ron Ritzman wrote:

>On 2/23/07, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>If nobody answers his comments on the talk page, he has made his case.
>>
>>
>Here's how I would handle it.
>
Thank you for answering fairly.

>If my bolds on an article are reverted by regular editors, especially
>more then one, I would assume by the reverts themselves that there is
>no consensus for my bolds. I might make a polite query on the talk
>page but my next move would be to "go play elsewhere".
>
It probably took a little time here before you came to that conclusion.
Newbies are not born with this skill.  It needs to be politely discussed
with them, and that can't be done with bureaucratic boilerplate on his
talk page.  As a newbie you can have no idea who the "regular" editors are.

Polite queries are good, and it is good to wait at least 24 hours for a response, preferably longer.  Unfortunately what often happens when you repeat your bold after a fair waiting period is that it is reverted again with no explanation by the same person who then posts a nasty threat on your talk page, and refuses to discuss the matter despite all your polite entreaties.

>You see it's not important to me that one particular edit in one
>particular page sticks. I don't even watch the pages I edit. If the
>edit sticks, fine. If it gets reverted, then hey that's life. Let
>someone else go to war there. There's thousands of other articles to
>read and edit. (most of my edits have so far been minor ones anyway)
>
It's not a problem with most minor edits, and I agree that keeping a
long list of watched pages is not particularly productive.

>I think every editor, especially newbies, need to ask themselves this
>question. "Am are here to help the project and make enwikipedia a
>better encyclopedia or am I here to get my point across in
>[[Article]]?"
>
Other than for "especially newbies" I agree with you.  I would come down
much harder on admins because they should know better.

>Here's another quote from the "don't be a dick" essay  I posted earlier...
>
>"Honestly examine your motivations. Are you here to contribute and
>make the project good? Or is your goal really to find fault, get your
>views across, or be the one in control? Perhaps secretly inside you
>even enjoy the thrill of a little confrontation. This may not make you
>a bad person, but to everyone who is busily trying to build something
>great, you become an impediment"
>
Certainly.  Insisting on your own way and immediately collapsing from a
position that you believe to be wrong  can both distance you from the
task of making a good encyclopedia.  How far you go before giving up is
not going to be the same in every instance.  How you do things is
important.  I still believe that those who are thoroughly undisdickable
are a small minority.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Daniel Brandt

body:
Mark Ryan schreef:
> At 1.26am, after 2 and a half hours of debate, it gets closed as a
> "snowball" endorse, and attempts to "unclose" it are met with reverts.

And then, at 16:57utc, the outcome was changed to "Taken to AfD", which
now means there is one single place to discuss the issue.

Perhaps not exactly according to process, but that seems like a
reasonable resolution. Let's not discuss the AfD's and DRV's any longer.

Eugene


from_name: Jeff Raymond

subject: [WikiEN-l] Daniel Brandt

body:
George Herbert wrote:
> FYI: Jimbo is not happy:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Daniel_Brandt_deletion_wheel_war
>
> Yanksox desysopped by Jimbo fiat, Geni and Freakofnurture temporarily
> desysopped pending referral to Arbcom (case not filed publically as of
> yet, I assume email/IRC is happening or will soon...)

Smart move, if not a little too late.  Too bad it won't go further
backwards to others who have been just as abusive.  Somehow, wheel
warring is more important?

-Jeff


from_name: Earle Martin

body:
On 23/02/07, gjzilla at gmail.com <gjzilla at gmail.com> wrote:
> In Soviet Russia, entry on Wikipedia makes up YOU!!!! ~~~~!

In West, you write articles on government. In Soviet Russia,
government writes articles on you.

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


body:
Marc Riddell wrote:

>on 2/23/07 12:26 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>Until we can find a way to deal seriously and severely with the
>>behaviours that Parker mentioned we cannot hope to build the
>>collaborative community that most of us profess to support.  Those of us
>>who have invested serious amounts of time in these projects, and have
>>thought deeply about its underlying principles despair just as much over
>>the actions of the petty tyrants as over the actions of the vandals.
>>
>>
>There are ways to solve the problems you present to. Companies and other
>organizations are recognizing, confronting and dealing with them every day.
>
>But, in the context of Wikipedia, this is a tough one. You and I and others
>in this Community can identify the problems, commiserate, gnash our teeth,
>and go through countless other fruitless gyrations. But without the power to
>make change ? nothing can or will. Unless change is recognized as needed -
>and mandated - by those with the ability to do so ? nothing can happen. We
>need leadership (with teeth).
>
All we get from gnashing our teeth is broken dentures. :-(

Profit-making companies have some tools that we don't have, notably
control over salary.

Acknowledging leadership is difficult in a community brought together
because it is such a collection of individuals.  The individuality is
needed to keep the project innovative.  Acknowledging leadership means
giving up a little power for the greater good, but that requires trust.
The world around us gives us cause to not trust any kind of leadership.

Ec


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] Daniel Brandt

body:
On 2/23/07, Mark Ryan <ultrablue at gmail.com> wrote:
> Considering that history, how could it possibly be considered
> appropriate to close this article's deletion review after only 2.5
> hours, when most interested users have not even had notice of the
> DRV's existence?

Agreed. This may or may not be a good time to re-evaluate Brandt's
notability, but trying to push through an obviously out of process
deletion through aggressive posturing is not my idea of how Wikipedia
should work. The proposition that this will reduce the time wasted on
this issue is self-defeating; all this is going to accomplish is set
into a motion another shitstorm around this issue, and hurt the
Wikipedia community.
--
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: Rich Holton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Daniel Brandt

body:
Delirium wrote:
> Rich Holton wrote:
>> However, it must have been pretty predictable that a speedy delete would
>> cause controversy, and accusations of abuse of admin powers. If we do
>> have such a practice of removing marginally notable characters at their
>> request, shouldn't we codify that somehow, so as to avoid (or at least
>> reduce) the controversy?
>>
>
> The problem is that we have nowhere near consensus for such a policy.  A
> large number of editors support it, and a large number of editors oppose
> it.  Different specific cases have gone different ways, mostly depending
> on who showed up to the debate that day.
>
> -Mark
>

So, without consensus on the removing (bio's of) marginally notable
characters, the speedy delete seems completely unjustifiable.

Does anyone have a clue as to what triggered this action at this
particular time?

-Rich


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [Commons-l] a new free image!

body:
Howard Cheng wrote:
> You know, it's been in my mind for some time that sports reporters could be a good source of photos. Since they get access to sports personalities, we could make personal appeals to them to take pictures (with their own cameras) when they do interviews for Wikipedia purposes. Maybe we can organize an email WikiProject for Wikipedians and Commoners to solicit reporters at their local/regional newspapers?
>
That would be a good idea - and not just the reporters, but the
photographers, whose shoeboxes have thousands of photos that never made
the cut for the front page, but which we would be ecstatic to have.
There are *far* more photographs in the world than are published online;
even after uploading to WP for some time, I'm still remembering "oh
yeah, I actually have photos of that I took years ago" - and I'm not
even a big photography-type.

As visible as WP is, most people still don't know we want image
donations. Get the word out! I just pitched it today to a retired
professor working on a book, who found some of my plant images through a
Google search and was asking about them. Will he upload his own photos?
Dunno, but the concept is passed on to one more person.

Stan