from_name: Essjay

subject: [Foundation-l] new checkuser policy

body:
<snip>
Robert Scott Horning wrote:
I fail to see how comparing two different IP addresses from two users is really all that much more difficult of a technical task.
</snip>

You've quite obviously never used checkuser; there is much more to it than simply comparing IP addresses. You need to be able to recognize dynamic and/or shared IPs, be able to detect and scan open proxies, determine if and how IP ranges shift, identify and interpret the registration attached to the IP address, and quite a bit more. If detecting sockpuppets only required comparing two lists together, it could be done by a script or a trained monkey. Karynn and I are far more than trained monkeys, thank you.

Essjay

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Essjay
Wikipedia:The Free Encyclopedia
http://www.wikipedia.org/

Robert Scott Horning wrote:
> Kelly Martin wrote:
>
>
>> On 4/20/06, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> I am not all that pleased with having to deal with "outsiders" in order
>>> to obtain this critical information, although having it is better than
>>> not having it.  I am really curious as to the reasons why Essjay and
>>> Karynn are any better candidates for checkuser status on en.wikibooks
>>> than the current two candidates on the request for checkuser status, and
>>> all I can say is that they enjoy somewhat better relationships with the
>>> Foundation board.  That seems hardly a reasonable policy.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> I don't know the current candidates on en.wikibooks that well, and
>> while I don't have any reason to believe that there's anything wrong
>> with them, I also don't have any reason to believe that they can be
>> trusted at the level that should be expected and required of those
>> with CheckUser privileges. CheckUser is a position that carries very
>> hefty responsibilities; the Foundation has good cause to restrict the
>> number of people with this privilege.  Frankly I think *all*
>> CheckUsers need to be approved by the Foundation because it's the
>> Foundation that will be on the hook for a misuse of the information
>> that CheckUsers have access to.  So the fact that Essjay and I are
>> well known to the Foundation makes us more appealing to the
>> Foundation, not specifically because we have done most of our work on
>> Wikipedia (although this is true for me and to a lesser extent for
>> Essjay, who has more meta experience than I do) but because we have
>> become known to the Foundation as reliable, trustworthy individuals.
>>
>>
>>
> So why doesn't the existing policy simply say this?  If the individuals
> have to be so trusted that they need formal approval of not only the
> project, but also the Foundation board itself, then it should be stated
> as such.  This is not currently the policy.  As far as you not trusting
> these users, that is because you have not interacted with them and had a
> chance to see their editing and administrative styles, and more of a
> matter that they are not as active on en.wikipedia to your tastes.  From
> my perspective, the Wikibooks candidates are as trustworthy as any
> Wikimedia user can possibly be without getting into cabal accusations or
> political arguments, and would very likely have recieved the checkuser
> status a long time ago if they had instead been working on Wikipedia
> instead of Wikibooks.  They are solid and very active Wikimedia users.
>
>
>>> Perhaps because this was buried under all of the previous comments, but
>>> it really hasn't been answered at least to my satisfaction.  Under what
>>> reasonable criteria is being applied that would allow somebody to become
>>> a bureaucrat on a project that would not also mean they are trusted
>>> enough to have checkuser status as well?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> There's a big difference between bureaucrat and checkuser.  CheckUsers
>> have access to personal, private information about other editors,
>> information which is protected by law in some nations (e.g. the
>> European Union) and the inappropriate disclosure of which could easily
>> cause grave harm to someone.  Bureaucrats just get to decide who has
>> access to the special buttons on a given project.  The worst damage a
>> bureaucrat can do is mistakenly promote someone who ought not have
>> been promoted, resulting in annoying damage to a particular project
>> and some degree of frustration for its editors and readers.  The worst
>> damage a checkuser can do is publicly announce the IP address of a
>> political dissident editing from a country where political dissidence
>> is punishable by death.  Misuse of CheckUser power can easily lead to
>> the loss of jobs and potentially even of freedom or of lives.  I hope
>> you now understand how the gravity of the responsibility of a
>> CheckUser is that much greater than that of a bureaucrat, and why the
>> screening process for bureaucrats is inadequate for determining who
>> should be trusted with checkuser rights.
>>
>>
>>
> On this I guess we have to agree to disagree on this point.  I
> completely disagree that checkuser disclosure of IP addresses is going
> to cause any real problem at all, and is making a mountain out of a
> molehill to prevent some very minor and difficult to accomplish abuse at
> the risk of denying a very powerful tool to local projects... powerful
> in the sense of identifying blatant abuse and stoping vandals from
> destroying a project.  And pointing out that IP addresses are also used
> anyway and even publicly disclosed for most Wikimedia users as well (the
> unregistered users).  I won't rehash any of my previous arguments to
> respond further, but any attempt to not disclose this information if
> futile anyway for somebody who might lose their job or recieve capital
> punishment for something they write on a Wikimedia project, and the
> Foundation would be compelled to disclose that IP address anyway, by the
> standards of the checkuser policy as written.  This policy will never
> save even a single life, just at most give them a few more months of
> life at best due to legal manuvering with the Wikimedia Foundation
> instead being sent through the mud as harboring political dissidants or
> even people plotting to overthrow governments, such as perhaps some
> al-Queida operatives planning on blowing up the Empire State Building in
> New York City.  Is that the kind of press that the Foundation wants in
> terms of who is being protected by this policy?
>
>
>>> And getting back to the original point of this thread, the Stewards who
>>> supposedly have at least the option of having checkuser status, and are
>>> allowed to act in the capacity of performing administrative actions
>>> where existing policies on individual projects are lacking these
>>> policies due to their size, are ignoring checkuser requests.  If Essjay
>>> and Karynn have the trust and support for this widespread and cross
>>> project assistance, perhaps they should simply be made stewards as well.
>>> And to the point at hand, en.wikibooks is in English, which from what
>>> I've seen of the list of stewards is one of the languages of every
>>> current steward.  That these checkuser scans aren't being performed is
>>> more of a condemnation of all of the stewards, or a very serious
>>> misunderstanding of what their role is as backup administrators to
>>> smaller projects.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> Relatively few stewards are in a position to perform checkusers; the
>> position requires both technical competency and a high degree of trust
>> and responsibility.  That most stewards (who presumably have the trust
>> and responsibility, even if not the technical competency) are
>> unwilling to perform them is likely because they don't know how to or
>> even that they can as much as that they aren't bothering.
>>
>> Kelly
>>
>>
>>
> I guess I'm confused at the duties of stewards then.  Most of what they
> do is "promote" users to become admins or sysops, and now grant
> checkuser status as well based on a whole variety of standards, many of
> which even contradict currently the checkuser policy on Meta.  This by
> itself does require a certain level of technical competency, and I fail
> to see how comparing two different IP addresses from two users is really
> all that much more difficult of a technical task.  This is not operating
> system assembly-level driver writing we are talking about, just looking
> up an IP address or two and comparing numbers.  As far as letting
> stewards know they can do this, I hope this is a wake-up call to let
> them know that this is something that is needed, in terms of being able
> to help smaller projects on a task they simply can't do for themselves.
>  If the level of trust is so high but the amount of work so great,
> perhaps a recruiting drive to get more stewards should occur.
>
>


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Foundation-l] new checkuser policy


list: wikien-l

from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Irony,
	noun: When a judge discovers the existence of disclaimers

body:
On Fri, 21 Apr 2006 13:21:52 +0100, you wrote:

>Particularly if you consider that most of our vaccine articles are at
>best undergoing the wikipedia equiverlent of a mexican standoff.

Ain't that the truth.  There is an RfC on [[User:Whaleto]] at present
which is just one small part of that.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


list: foundation-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Indefinite block and desysopping by User:Danny

body:
I agree entirely. Given that the devs are quite busy, perhaps something
could be written up to allow this to be done with the developer flag
(the one that actually shows up on Special:Listusers), so Danny could do
it himself without having to either involve the developers each time, or
go messing around in the database itself. A restricted access log (like
the checkuser log) could be provided if desired. I have no idea if this
is doable or not, but it seems like a decent proposal to me.

Essjay

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Essjay
Wikipedia:The Free Encyclopedia
http://www.wikipedia.org/

Mark Ryan wrote:
> On 20/04/06, Kat Walsh <mindspillage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> WP:OFFICE is pretty much a invitation to every troll on the wiki to
>> come and make noise -- and now, apparently, to grab the deleted
>> material and post it elsewhere. It's been Slashdotted; we can't claim
>> we don't know about it, and it's not exactly something we want. (Yes,
>> good editors are questioning, too, but they are doing it sanely.)
>> While it has been a good barrier to prevent admins from mistakenly
>> undoing Danny's admin actions there, it has failed to be a means to
>> handle potential problems in a discreet manner and instead only draws
>> more attention to it. This seems to have been an attempt to try to
>> minimize public attention and be sure the problematic material was not
>> more widely distributed. It didn't work, but it was a reasonable
>> attempt, though unclear.
>>
>
> Maybe Danny etc. need to start getting developers to remove revisions
> of WP:OFFICE articles directly from the database, if we continue to
> have the problem of dirty admins leaking deleted material.
>
> ~Mark Ryan
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>


from_name: Michael Jennings

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel chill

body:
"geni" <geniice at gmail.com> wrote in message
news:f80608430604211143n52eff81bufa9c2d97b61d8e28 at mail.gmail.com...
> On 4/21/06, Michael Jennings <metarhyme at gmail.com> wrote:
>> <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:4cc603b0604210218i1e3bda8bk7fc75ac754817a05 at mail.gmail.com...
>> > On 4/20/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
>> >> In some cases, we may need to make a tradeoff between NPOV and risk of being sued ...
>> >>
>> > We have three content policies that are very effective when applied
>> > together: NPOV, V, and NOR. When these are strictly adhered to, they
>> > produce articles with neutral content and encyclopedic tone (NPOV)
>> > that use only reputable sources (V), with the sources being used
>> > correctly so that no novel narratives are created (NOR) -- articles
>> > that are extremely unlikely ever to cause a problem.
>> >
>> > So I'd say it's not a question of sometimes needing to relax NPOV
>> > because of a libel problem, but the opposite -- we need to enforce
>> > NPOV and the other two policies rigorously, understand how they
>> > complement each other, and realize that, jointly, they're our very
>> > best protection.
>> >
>> Yes. There could be an NPOV patrol.
>>
>
> [[Category:NPOV_disputes]] already has over 2000 articles in it.
>
Yes.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:NPOV_disputes
is not working. [[User:Jbamb]]'s thermometer top is blown off.

The NPOV policy is not enforced.  Sarah thinks it needs to be enforced.

If NPOV patrolmen were showing up they could be enforcing it.
Some inducement is required for being a content cop, about as welcome
to others as the flashing blues in the rear view mirror. Create a sub-admin
class, give 'em a roll back button, explain it, replace Jbamb, and make
promotion to admin depend on having 'done good' on NPOV patrol.

Although it's natural to deny that a busted thing it is not working,
it's inadvisable to just keep denying - it's better to get it working.


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Indefinite block and desysopping by User:Danny

body:
On 4/21/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> His status as a reputable long timer counts against him rather then
> for him in such circumstances. Anyone who has witnessed the wheel
> wars ought to know better.
>
> Fred

I don't necessarily agree with that. He has proven beyond any
reasonable doubt that he wants nothing but the best for the project.
We can trust him completely, just as we can trust that Jimbo, Danny,
Angela, David Gerard, you, etc only want the best for the project. He
got banned and desysopped from both wp and meta, an unprecedented
crossproject banishment.

If you made a single mistake similar to this (and it was a mistake,
but I blame Danny more than Eloquence), would you deserve similar
treatment?

It was a removal of a protection. Nothing more. Eloquence deserves an apology.

--Oskar


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] Why the uproar over wikitruth

body:
On 4/21/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/21/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 21/04/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > liability for publication by agents of the provider.  A Wikipedia
> > > administrator who uses his special powers to publish defamatory
> > > content or copy copyright-infringing content would tend to advance the
> > > case against Wikipedia for third-party liability.
> >
> > That would all hinge on whether a "Wikipedia administrator" represents
> > Wikipedia in any respect. I don't think they do, not more than any
> > editor does. Taken to its conclusion, you would be saying that user A
> > writes something horrible on Wikipedia, user B (possibly an admin if
> > you like) then publishes that in print in 50 magazines, and user A
> > deletes the horrible remark. Wikipedia is liable for user B's actions?
>
> Legally liable?  I would assume not, since most admins have no formal
> relationship to the Foundation.  It would probably depend on whether
> Wikimedia could simultaneously argue that (a) deleting material --
> where admins could still access it -- qualified as no longer
> publishing it and (b) Wikimedia is not responsible for the actions of
> admins who obtain that material.
>
I would think that a) isn't really necessary in the US, because truth
is a defense to libel.  So as long as it is made clear that "deleted"
versions are not necessarily factual articles, but simply a copy of
information which used to be in the database, I don't see how there
can be a claim of libel.

Also, the phrasing "no longer publishing it" implies that Wikimedia at
one time *did* publish it.  But that's most likely not true.

Anthony


from_name: Patrick, Brad

body:
Not in its entirety.  Two sections were invalidated by the US Supreme
Court, involving overbreadth challenges re: pornography and obscene
material.  See generally Ashcroft, 542 U.S. 656, 124 S.Ct. 2783, 159
L.Ed.2d 690.

The relevant section for Wikipedia purposes, 47 USC Section 230, is not
one of them, and it has not been found unconstitutional in any federal
court.

-----Original Message-----
From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
[mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Philip Welch
Sent: Friday, April 21, 2006 4:00 PM
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Why the uproar over wikitruth

On Apr 21, 2006, at 5:15 AM, Tony Sidaway wrote:

> Under the Communications Decency Act
> which provides a general exemption from third party liability to
> online information providers, this exemption does not extend to
> liability for publication by agents of the provider.

Wasn't the CDA ruled unconstitutional back in the 90's?

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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body:
And before anyone jumps all over me on this, the original case was Reno
v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844, 117 S.Ct. 2329, 138 L.Ed.2d 874.

-----Original Message-----
From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
[mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Patrick, Brad
Sent: Friday, April 21, 2006 4:10 PM
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Why the uproar over wikitruth

Not in its entirety.  Two sections were invalidated by the US Supreme
Court, involving overbreadth challenges re: pornography and obscene
material.  See generally Ashcroft, 542 U.S. 656, 124 S.Ct. 2783, 159
L.Ed.2d 690.

The relevant section for Wikipedia purposes, 47 USC Section 230, is not
one of them, and it has not been found unconstitutional in any federal
court.

-----Original Message-----
From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
[mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Philip Welch
Sent: Friday, April 21, 2006 4:00 PM
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Why the uproar over wikitruth

On Apr 21, 2006, at 5:15 AM, Tony Sidaway wrote:

> Under the Communications Decency Act
> which provides a general exemption from third party liability to
> online information providers, this exemption does not extend to
> liability for publication by agents of the provider.

Wasn't the CDA ruled unconstitutional back in the 90's?

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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this transmission, nothing contained in this message is intended or
written to be used, nor may it be relied upon or used, (1) by any
taxpayer for the purpose of avoiding penalties that may be imposed on
the taxpayer under the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended and/or
(2) by any person to support the promotion or marketing of or to
recommend any Federal tax transaction(s) or matter(s) addressed in this
message.

If you desire a formal opinion on a particular tax matter for the
purpose of avoiding the imposition of any penalties, we will discuss the
additional Treasury requirements that must be met and whether it is
possible to meet those requirements under the circumstances, as well as
the anticipated time and additional fees involved.
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-----------------------------------
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recipient, you are hereby notified that any use, dissemination,
distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited.
Please notify the sender immediately by replying to this message, then
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from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wheel culture

body:
G'day Molu,

> On Thu, 20 Apr 2006 14:35:06 -0500, "Kelly Martin" wrote
>
>> Perhaps the real problem is that a large segment of our admin
>
>> population needs not to be admins anymore.
>
> Obviously. Since a large segment of our admins disagree with Kelly
> Martin, equalest of them all, they are underserving to be admins. I
> think the current process of selecting admins is broken, how about
> giving Kelly Martin the power to select admins? That is sure to solve
> all Wikipedia's problems (parmanently, most likely).

Okay, let's try that again, without the sarcasm.

Some people can pull it off, some people can't.  It's nothing for you to
be ashamed of, but I'd like to ask that you never attempt to say
something like the above again, for the sake of generations yet unborn,
who e'en now quail in horror against the absurd monstrosity you have
unleashed.

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

--
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from_name: Michael R. Irwin

subject:
[Foundation-l] [Wikipedia-l] Indefinite block and desysopping
 by User:Danny

body:
Roberto Frangi wrote:

>We are talking of two guys that are quite important for Wikimedia. And
>moreover of two guys that know each other. So, I just don't understand
>how this could have happened, and why this hasn't been settled in a
>private way.
>
>
>
If you review the Wikimedia Foundation's solicitation for public funds
and the various project mission statements you will find there is nobody
on this planet that is not quite important for Wikimedia and its projects.

Miscommunication happens all the time in human projects.   The larger
and more complex a project gets the greater the potential for
miscommunication.  Wikipedia is arguably the largest most complex
project ever undertaken in human history or that will ever be undertaken
in human history.

Knowing each other is not necessarily helpful.  Perhaps the problem is
not miscommunication but actually disagreement regarding fundamental
project policy, effective methods, cultural imperatives, national law,
or international conflict.  Some people do not naturally get along even
when they share missions, values, or previous agreements or cordiality.

I think Eric is German but I could be mistaken.  As a result of some
extreme conflict early in the project I do not choose to interact
privately with the God King, his employees, or influential cabal
members.  Therefore I do know anything of Eric or Danny other than via
a few public emails encountered semi randomly.

I think Danny is a Wikimedia Foundation employee and probably resides,
works and is a U.S. citizen.  I do not know if foundation policy allows
employees to interact in Wikimedia projects via sockpuppets,
anonymously, etc.  If one applies the mission statements to the extreme
then obviously we would not wish to subtract access to Wikimedia
Foundation employees' knowledge without somehow verifying somone else
knows what they know regardless of how much it improves operational
efficiencies or progress towards our stated goals in the short term.

So arguably one can discern a situation might arise where one party
might be subject to the U.S. Patriot Act while another party is not.
One might be required by Act of Congress to keep these matters private
as directed by agents of the U.S. Government allegedly acting in the
National Interest while a German (or other) national might or might not
be required by their government or local Patriots, freedom fighters or
terrorist organizations to comply with arbitrary dictates of U.S.
officials acting in violoation of their oaths to protect and defend the
constitution of the United States.

Disregarding the above high level issues let's go back to an easier case
of a simple conflict between Foundation policy mandated (perhaps
privately or unilaterally) by the God-King (or his lawyer or a warrant
from U.S. secret police citing national defense and the U.S. Patriot
act) and some other community participant.  If the root cause of the
conflict appears to either party to be fundamental and likely to crop up
again in the future then one party might prefer to discuss it in public.

If one party has found the other party to be unlikely to engage fairly
in private discussion (by that party's personal standards or that
party's interpretation of the published standards of the Wikimedia
community) then they might prefer a public discussion to bring some
third party influence and/or accountability into the negotiations or
discussions.

If you require further complicating factors,  imagineering, or rampant
speculation to gain insight regarding how this type of situation might
happen feel free to change the email subject in your reply and we can
continue this discussion on another thread to avoid confusing the
specifics of this situation with abstract discussion of human or legal
factors that might affect public policy at Wikimedia projects.

Incidentally, an easy answer obviously is embodied in the assume good
faith policy.   This works well to shut up neophytes in initial
debates.   It does not work so well with experienced community members
who have a personal or public data base to consult if assuming good
faith has not worked out well in the past.

Also of possible interest can be comparisons of public and private
databases.

Regards,
lazyquasar


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 21/04/06, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> Wow.  That's disturbing.  There are times when the influence of Wikipedia
> makes me distinctly uncomfortable...if I make a mistake in what I write, if
> I screw something up, I have changed "knowledge".  Yet again, I wish that
> the world understood that Wikipedia is a beta.

I think of Wikipedia more like "my first encyclopaedia" than "beta" as
such. Sometimes beta software is pretty good. You can use beta
software to run your business. I don't think any serious professional
or academic would be trusting their reputation on "my first
encyclopaedia".

Steve


body:
On 21/04/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> liability for publication by agents of the provider.  A Wikipedia
> administrator who uses his special powers to publish defamatory
> content or copy copyright-infringing content would tend to advance the
> case against Wikipedia for third-party liability.

That would all hinge on whether a "Wikipedia administrator" represents
Wikipedia in any respect. I don't think they do, not more than any
editor does. Taken to its conclusion, you would be saying that user A
writes something horrible on Wikipedia, user B (possibly an admin if
you like) then publishes that in print in 50 magazines, and user A
deletes the horrible remark. Wikipedia is liable for user B's actions?

Steve


from_name: maru dubshinki

body:
On 4/19/06, BorgHunter <borghunter.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> maru dubshinki wrote:
>
> >We shouldn't examine that data, however. Very bad precedent, and poor
> >for privacy, especially since we aren't dealing with out-and-out
> >vandals here, but merely critics.
> >
> >
> But should critics of Wikipedia be admins of Wikipedia? I don't believe
> so. However, I suppose it's up to Jimbo and the Board if they want to
> expend the energy to look into it. As for privacy...it's not against the
> privacy policy, and besides which, I'm not sure that's an invasion of
> privacy anyway. You're sending data to the Wikimedia servers every time
> you visit a page, and that info is logged, and you (should) know that. I
> have no problems with the devs looking through page access logs, myself.

We should be the critics of Wikipedia! I mean, admins make up by far
the majority of the group of the most
qualified-to-criticize-Wikipedia. Your average admin knows far more
about Wikipedia than just about everyone except the rare various
Wales, Sanger, Foundation member/employees, and developers, and
certainly more than your average current critic like Brandt or the
various reporters we keep reading.

As  for the privacy bit, I think we basically fought this issue a
while ago with CheckUser; I don't see why we can't work on an
analogous basis. My personal reading of the CheckUser policies would
suggest against checking, but that's me...

~maru


from_name: SJ

body:
On 4/20/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> The Foundation is less than 2 years old Karynn.
> When I consider the travel already done, I am amazed. When I joined, the
> Foundation was nothing. It did not existed at all. All it had was
> basically a couple of servers, a dozen domain names and a highly visible
> and appreciated president.

A few servers, three fewer projects...

> That was all.
>
> Board members had to fit.
>
> As a board member, I followed the principles which drove me as an
> editor. I tried to listen to people the best I could. I tried not to
> offend people too much. I tried to inform people as much as I could
> whilst respecting confidentiality when it was required. I tried to
> organise things when nobody was organising them. I spoke loud when no
> one had the guts to speak loud. And I spoke plain when no one spoke
> plain. I tried to give ideas.

And your speaking loudly and plainly, and your respect and visibility,
and your ideas, are all enormously appreciated.  The Foundation would
not be the same without you.

--Sj


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Platonides

subject: [Wikitech-l] Changes in toolbar

body:
>I've added a convenient array you can use to add custom buttons. See:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Monobook.js#Redirect_edit_button
>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Monobook.js&diff=48828139&oldid=48473978
Yes, i found mwCustomEditButtons when looking for it. But it's only useful
if you are using inserttags in your buttons.

>http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki?view=rev&revision=13689
"This makes it compatible with viewing in XML mode in strict browsers like
Firefox"
I think it worked perfectly in Firefox. The only little change i see is that
if you drag&dropped a button before it used the javascript of the href and
now (as it doesn't exist) uses the img src.

It seems that the problem appears when we use the innerHTML method, the div
is reloaded but the onclick function is not preserved. A simple
javascript:void(document.getElementById("toolbar").innerHTML+=""); breaks
it.
mwSetupToolbar()
In fact, javascript:alert(document.getElementById('toolbar').innerHTML);
when returning the generated HTML, don't show onclick property.

I developed this piece of code to fix it. It sets again the onclick property
for each button. It only can be called after mwSetupToolbar() has done its
work. The toolbar.getElementsByTagName("img")[j++], will always exist as it
must have been created by  mwSetupToolbar(). Note that if you added some
button *between* the buttons the software adds, the actions may be
overlapped, failing.

mwSetItemOnClick performs the same work done at mwInsertEditButton 9th line.
Then the calling of javascript:mwRestoreToolbarFunctions() makes the buttons
work again. Note that if added from a monobook it should be the last
included because if there's any load event fired _after_
mwRestoreToolbarFunctions restored it, that new function may break it again,
so you wouldn't see any change (not working again).
You can see an example of this at
[[es:Usuario:Platonides/RestoreToolbarFunctions.js]]. You can -as always-
freely hotlink and modify it, but please, give some feedback (even if it's a
message of "I have starting using this and it works ok :-)" ).

function mwSetItemOnClick(image, item) {
 image.onclick = function() {
  insertTags(item.tagOpen, item.tagClose, item.sampleText);
  return false;
 }
}

function mwRestoreToolbarFunctions() {
        /* We perform the same checks as mwSetupToolbar. mwSetupToolbar MUST
have created the buttons. This function MUSN'T be called before it. Thus, we
check all conditions that may have stopped mwSetupToolbar of creating the
buttons. */

 var toolbar = document.getElementById('toolbar');
 if (!toolbar) return false;

 var textbox = document.getElementById('wpTextbox1');
 if (!textbox) return false;

 // Don't generate buttons for browsers which don't fully
 // support it.
 if (!document.selection && textbox.selectionStart == null)
  return false;

 var j=0;
 for (var i in mwEditButtons) {
            mwSetItemOnClick(toolbar.getElementsByTagName("img")[j++],
mwEditButtons[i]);
 }
 for (var i in mwCustomEditButtons) {
             mwSetItemOnClick(toolbar.getElementsByTagName("img")[j++],
mwCustomEditButtons[i]);
 }
}


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel chill

body:
Tim Starling wrote:
> The basic problem with {{office}} is that I don't trust Brad Patrick and Danny to decide between
> them what's right and wrong. I'm not making a slight on their character. I'm just saying that there
> needs to be oversight, when something so important as the neutrality of the encyclopedia is at
> stake. In some cases, we may need to make a tradeoff between NPOV and risk of being sued, and I fear
> that due to their background, a lawyer may be inclined to automatically choose minimisation of risk
> over neutrality, even when the risk of a successful lawsuit is very small.
>
> I would like to see review of these "office actions" by a diverse committee, such as the juriwiki-l
> mailing list.

I think this significantly misapprehends the nature of WP:OFFICE.

The most important counter I would give to this is that WP:OFFICE is
always temporary, an emergency action, an action of goodwill, thus far
used exclusively (or almost exclusively) for biographies of living
persons.  The issue is NOT "a tradeoff between NPOV and risk of being sued".

Let me repeat that, the issue is NOT "a tradeoff between NPOV and risk
of being used".  The issue is responding quickly and effectively to
cases where we have a very strong indication from someone that an
article is egregiously in violation of NPOV.

If the topic is [[Carbon Tetracholoride]] and we receive a strong
complaint that the article is biased, then {{sofixit}} can be a fine
response.  If the topic is a real live human being about whom someone
has written something egregiously false or mean spirited, and the person
calls up in hysterics, then the right answer is: stub and rebuild with
strong verification.  The right answer is: temporary protection of a
safe version while good editors take the time to figure out what the
heck is going on.

It is very deeply confused to view WP:OFFICE as some kind of rollback of
the neutrality policy.  It is a means of working towards neutrality.  It
is the morally right thing to do when we are faced with a serious issue.

Since WP:OFFICE is done publicly and under intense scrutiny from the
community and the external world, I hardly see any need for a special
narrow committee to be specifically tasked with overseeing it.

What should people do when they see a WP:OFFICE action?  Treat it as a
call for attention from the absolute best within ourselves, the absolute
best within our community.  Here we have an article which has gone
horribly wrong in some way, and sometimes it can be a mystery as to what
exactly the problem is.  Why is someone upset?  Which claim in the
article is false or overstated or biased or hostile?  I think dozens of
people should swoop in and start working really hard on a temp version
(usualy protected or semi-protected, depending on the exact nature of
the situation), with extreme hardcore attention paid to sourcing, to
neutral phrasing, etc.

In this way, WP:OFFICE articles can become models of good behavior by
Wikipedia, can show the world how seriously we take our mission, our
responsibility.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel chill

body:
Michael Snow wrote:
> Unfortunately, the community has proven unable on a number of occasions
> to actually produce a neutral encyclopedia article in a timely fashion.
> This tends to draw complaints from affected parties, who not
> surprisingly want the Wikimedia Foundation to be responsible once it has
> been put on notice of problems on a site it operates. I shall not
> comment on whether any particular case truly involves actionable libel,
> but I think to speak of "libel chill" misapprehends the situation.

Agreed.  And my own view is that "not libelling people" is the absolute
minimum standard, and we should hold our heads in shame if the best
thing we can say of our work is that it doesn't libel people.  There are
a hundred other ways an article can royally suck in a way that is
painful for the person being written about, and we should take
absolutely serious such complaints.

> First of all, a neutral encyclopedia article is not an unrestrained free
> speech zone, and I think the rhetoric of someone's freedom of speech
> being chilled is out of place to begin with. Second of all, it is
> entirely consistent with our mission to seek to "chill" content that is
> decidedly non-neutral and in most cases fails to provide verifiable,
> reputable sources for its assertions besides.

Absolutely right!

> I won't speak for the other participants on that mailing list, but from
> my personal interaction and observation, I trust Brad Patrick to handle
> outside concerns appropriately when they arise. There hasn't been much
> discussion of these cases on that list; I won't speculate as to whether
> that's due to apathy, or because nobody thinks it's that big of a
> concern. Certainly anybody who's worried that we're not aware of these
> situations is welcome to email the list and call them to our attention.

I should add that Brad and I speak frequently about such things, and I
can say that he deeply understands and shares my own views of freedom of
speech, neutrality, openness, etc.

He and I might differ on individual cases, but ironically enough, I
think the difference would be that I am much more likely to want to call
FOUL on an article than he is... because his primary concern as counsel
for the foundation is that we continue to live strongly up to our legal
obligations, whereas my primary concern is for a much much higher level
of quality than that.

--Jimbo

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel chill

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 21/04/06, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
>> First of all, a neutral encyclopedia article is not an unrestrained free
>> speech zone, and I think the rhetoric of someone's freedom of speech
>> being chilled is out of place to begin with. Second of all, it is
>> entirely consistent with our mission to seek to "chill" content that is
>> decidedly non-neutral and in most cases fails to provide verifiable,
>> reputable sources for its assertions besides. Finally, in terms of
>
> I would be curious to know - not necessarily with examples - whether
> we have had legal threats related to articles that did meet WP:V. That
> is, we published something which was by all accounts true, and had
> verifiable sources to back it up - and yet was deemed offensive by
> some miffed party.

To my knowledge, no.  Of course some people complain excessively, and we
do get a fair number of frivolous complaints.  But if after some really
hardcore scrutiny (the purpose of the WP:OFFICE policy is to give us as
a community time to do that) we find the complaints frivolous, and
someone still wants to sue us, we will not back down.

NPOV, as I have always said, is non-negotiable.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel chill

body:
slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:
> So I'd say it's not a question of sometimes needing to relax NPOV
> because of a libel problem, but the opposite -- we need to enforce
> NPOV and the other two policies rigorously, understand how they
> complement each other, and realize that, jointly, they're our very
> best protection.

I am following up on yet another post in this thread with yet another
"me too" primarily to express that what I am seeing is nearly universal
and unanimous support for what I am also saying:  there is *zero*
tension between NPOV and not being sued.

Slim Virgin is pointing out as well that there is zero tension between
any of our core editorial policies and not being sued.  NPOV, NOR, V.

We can add as well, that WP:OFFICE is in service to those policies, not
in opposition to them.

This may annoy people who think that Wikipedia is supposed to be some
kind of wild west free speech zone, but that's fine.  Those people
should find another hobby.  Here, we are writing an encyclopedia, and we
care a LOT about making sure it is GOOD.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel chill

body:
Michael Snow wrote:
> Elisabeth Bauer wrote:
>
>> Steve Bennett schrieb:
>>
>>
>>> I would be curious to know - not necessarily with examples - whether
>>> we have had legal threats related to articles that did meet WP:V. That
>>> is, we published something which was by all accounts true, and had
>>> verifiable sources to back it up - and yet was deemed offensive by
>>> some miffed party.
>>>
>>>
>> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tron_(Hacker)
>>
>>
> It's also worth noting that the response to that complaint was markedly
> different from some of the others. A neutrally written article, with
> reputable sources and, as Sarah has pointed out, no original research,
> should almost never cause problems like this. If they do, I think we're
> much more likely to dismiss those complaints and deal with whatever the
> consequences may be. But those are the complaints most of you never see,
> because they don't require intervention on the wiki.

And in this case, of course, we stood our ground.  The complaint was not
justified, and so we stood ready to fight it to the end.

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


subject: [Foundation-l] new checkuser policy

body:
On 4/20/06, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
>
> >You may find a new version of the checkuser access policy here
> >
> >http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:CheckUser_Policy#Access_.28new_version.29
< <
> >Warning : the idea is not that all checkusers be selected by wikipedias
> >and later imposed on other projects. The idea is rather that generally,
> >a person widely supported in one project to do a job... is some one we
> >generally trust to do the job properly anywhere.
> >
> >So, if wikicommons wants to appoints 5 checkusers from 5 different
> >languages, all those 5 may serve on various other projects. The one
> >requirement to keep though : always at least 2 checkusers per project.
>
> I am not all that pleased with having to deal with "outsiders" in order
> to obtain this critical information, although having it is better than
> not having it.

There is no requirement to deal with outsiders.  The idea is that, if
the local project does not have enough users to nominate their own
checkuser, they may vote to have a dedicated checkuser that has been
nominated by another project.

> Perhaps because this was buried under all of the previous comments, but
> it really hasn't been answered at least to my satisfaction.  Under what
> reasonable criteria is being applied that would allow somebody to become
> a bureaucrat on a project that would not also mean they are trusted
> enough to have checkuser status as well?

Bureaucrat actions can be undone.  Revelations of supposedly-private
information cannot.  If Wikimedia changes its privacy policy to say
"your IP may be publicized at any time," then this wouldn't be a big
deal. Currently, the privacy policy is different.  It says "Where the
user has been vandalising articles or persistently behaving in a
disruptive way, data may be released to assist in the targeting of IP
blocks, or to assist in the formulation of a complaint to relevant
Internet Service Providers" -- so if you have not been vandalizing or
disruptive, presumably your IP information will remain private.

I would gladly see a privacy policy change that clarifies that not
only developers have access to such information, and that changes
"Where the user has been" to "Where the user has been suspected of".

++SJ


subject: [Foundation-l] new checkuser policy


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Stout monks needed

body:
Wikien-l needs two or three more mods. I think we had a pile of extra
volunteers last time, they would be most welcome first. I'll make it a
test with some requirements:

* Must email "I'd like the job" message back to wikien-l-owner, not to
the list. Fail this and wh00h! 500 volts go through your chair.
* Must be some sort of respected personage on en:. This includes
pissing off the right people, of course.
* Must have time to hit the queue on a regular basis, that being the, ah, point.
* Must deal calmly with ridiculous crap. But then, I repeat myself.
* Must pass the coin-toss when we get ten instead of just two or three.

- d.


from_name: William Allen Simpson

subject: [Wikitech-l] 2006 Apr 20 drastic slowdown postmortem

body:
Platonides wrote:
> Those links seem to not being working.
>
>> There is some tracking data; see the links from:
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_servers#Status_and_problems
>
One link there works: http://ganglia.wikimedia.org/

But that was enough, at least for symptoms.  I have no idea what it means.
There's no corresponding admin log for 2:30 UTC....

"New Squids", a clear notch (drastic drop of CPU, load, and network traffic,
almost to zero).

"Apaches", a corresponding halving of CPU, load, and output (but not input)
network traffic.

"MySQL", vast increase (3-5 times) of load, doubling of CPU, but no change
in network traffic (that comes a couple of hours later, probably unrelated,
the admin log shows a copy of db2 to db3).

The MySQL servers that account for the change are ariel, db1, db2, db3, and
db4, with a smaller bump at samuel. The others seem unaffected.


body:
Those links seem to not being working.

> There is some tracking data; see the links from:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_servers#Status_and_problems


subject: [WikiEN-l] Stout monks found

body:
On 21/04/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> Wikien-l needs two or three more mods. I think we had a pile of extra
> volunteers last time, they would be most welcome first. I'll make it a
> test with some requirements:

The Cabal blesses and welcomes Phil Sandifer, Kelly Martin, John Lee
and Steve Bennett to the hallowed sewage farms of wikien-l. All hail!
I'll drop you all an email with instructions on shortly. You are now
the happy recipients of any crap forwarded to wikien-l-owner as well,
and let me tell you it gets special.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] blocked for NO REASON, multiple times.

body:
On Sat, 15 Apr 2006 17:35:08 -0800, you wrote:

>I forgot to tell you my wiki username: knowmoore

You should share your IP address with a better class of people :-)
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Template documentation convention

body:
On 21/04/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/21/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I don't like your unix-centrism. \readme.txt
> >
> > Steve
>
> Hmmph. At least my templates don't crash, are edittable, and aren't
> infected with
> more typos than a 3-bit whore...

You really haven't seen some of the more impressive meta-templates, is
all I can say.

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


from_name: geni

body:
On 4/16/06, David Miller <davidmm at alumni.upenn.edu> wrote:
> Hello, I'm having trouble with a user named "Hall Monitor" who blocked
> me for absolutly no reason, asating the following completely absurd
> claim:
>
> "returning vandal, long term vandalism, warned repeatedly, sixth unique
> block; have your system administrator contact me"
> Your IP address is 209.165.134.49.
>
> This is either a huge error, or a complete lie.
>

Neither. You appear to share your IP with a vandle.

> I have absolutely no idea why I've been blocked, but this has happened
> before. I have contributed a good amount of worthwhile helpful material
> to wiki over the the past year and a half and I hereby request that
> measures be taken to ensure this does not happen again. I have a message
> that says a picture I took might be removed, but since I'm blocked, I
> can't do anything about it.
>
> Also, since this guy "Hall Monitor" blocked me, I can't email him to ask
> what reason he had for blocking me. What should I do to make sure this
> doesn't happen again?
>

Always a difficult one. I don't know how GCI Communications, Inc
disitcutes IPs. Are you logging on from work or a place of education
by any chance (Your email adress suggests this is the case in which
case please have a word with your IT people)?

> How do I get in touch with this fellow named "Hall Monitor" when he
> blocked me from wiki? What right does he have to block me in the first
> place?
> |:).  |V|.
>

He's an admin and vandalism is comeing from that IP thus he can block it.
--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Stout monks found

body:
On 4/21/06, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> Cabalism! Cabalism! The three horsemen of the Clerking Cabal... and Steve?
> Wait.  Steve isn't even an admin, is he?  Has he ever even been before the
> arbcomm?  Hmmm...now how I stitch this conspiracy theory together?  Oh, of
> course, Steve was included to make it look like there is no cabal.  Ahh, the
> subtle manipulations of the illuminati...

Hey for all those who belive in the cabal this is good news. Those
listed will be far too busy sifting through all the spam to do any
real damage any more.

--
geni


from_name: Gallagher Mark George

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel chill

body:
G'day Steve,

> On 21/04/06, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> > First of all, a neutral encyclopedia article is not an
> unrestrained free
> > speech zone, and I think the rhetoric of someone's freedom of speech
> > being chilled is out of place to begin with. Second of all, it is
> > entirely consistent with our mission to seek to "chill" content
> that is
> > decidedly non-neutral and in most cases fails to provide verifiable,
> > reputable sources for its assertions besides. Finally, in terms of
>
> I would be curious to know - not necessarily with examples - whether
> we have had legal threats related to articles that did meet WP:V. That
> is, we published something which was by all accounts true, and had
> verifiable sources to back it up - and yet was deemed offensive by
> some miffed party.

It's not *exactly* what you're asking for, but ...

A while back soufron appeared on IRC asking for Australian editors to check up on our article on Piers Akerman, which had been the subject of a legal complaint.  I had a dekko, and it appeared that Mr Akerman was a South African who left to protest the end of apartheid and came to Australia, where he immediately began to indulge in a life of debauchery and drug use.  Or something like that.  Now, as any Aussie not too busy braiding their armpit hair could tell you, this is about as far from the life story of Mr Akerman as one could get.

I went in and found some sources and re-wrote the article.  My source was 11 years old, so I had to make some changes after he helpfully pointed out that, for example, he doesn't live in Melbourne anymore.  He was still unhappy about one thing: the article claimed that he'd quarrelled with his school headmaster and failed to complete his exams, whereas Mr Akerman says nothing of the sort happened.  Seeing as he didn't provide a source, I went with "/The Age/ says blah blah blah, but Mr Akerman denies this."  So far he seems to be happy with that arrangement, at least, I believe the Lawyer Cabal (TM) haven't received further complaints.

--
Mark Gallagher


subject: [WikiEN-l] Stout monks found

body:
On 4/21/06, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> Nah, it's all a plot. Your cabal score depends entirely on how many jobs
> you have, and Steve obviously needed a few more.

You need to start creating entirly honory positions that involve no
work such as helpdesk-I moderator post OTRS being implemented (the
issue that there is a 6 meg moderation que for some reason will be
ignored).

--
geni


from_name: Mathias Schindler

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia compared..... again!

body:
On 4/14/06, Will Sceptre Noble <tintower at tintower.tk> wrote:
> How long will it be until EB complains though?

I doubt they will complain over this article as it lacks any
significant information whatosever. And it hasn't received media
attention. Nature was a totally different size.

Mathias


subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel chill

body:
On 4/21/06, Michael Jennings <metarhyme at gmail.com> wrote:
> <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:4cc603b0604210218i1e3bda8bk7fc75ac754817a05 at mail.gmail.com...
> > On 4/20/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> >> In some cases, we may need to make a tradeoff between NPOV and risk of being sued ...
> >>
> > We have three content policies that are very effective when applied
> > together: NPOV, V, and NOR. When these are strictly adhered to, they
> > produce articles with neutral content and encyclopedic tone (NPOV)
> > that use only reputable sources (V), with the sources being used
> > correctly so that no novel narratives are created (NOR) -- articles
> > that are extremely unlikely ever to cause a problem.
> >
> > So I'd say it's not a question of sometimes needing to relax NPOV
> > because of a libel problem, but the opposite -- we need to enforce
> > NPOV and the other two policies rigorously, understand how they
> > complement each other, and realize that, jointly, they're our very
> > best protection.
> >
> Yes. There could be an NPOV patrol.
>

[[Category:NPOV_disputes]] already has over 2000 articles in it.

--
geni


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel chill

body:
On Fri, 21 Apr 2006 19:43:37 +0100, you wrote:

>[[Category:NPOV_disputes]] already has over 2000 articles in it.

How many of these are biographies of living people?  Maybe we need a
separate category.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Violet/Riga

body:
This is an excellent review, and a great find, Arwel.  This should be added
to [[Wikipedia:External peer review]], though it's a shame it's not
available online.

On 4/14/06, Arwel Parry <arwel at cartref.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> The May issue of BBC Focus magazine ("The world's best science and
> technology monthly"), (www.bbcfocusmagazine.com, but the contents are
> not online) is interesting from a Wikipedia point of view. Firstly
> there's a "quick chat" with Jimbo, together with a full page photo of
> our benevolent god-king himself, and a three-page "Tried and Tested"
> feature on online encyclopaedias - Encarta, Infoplease, Wikipedia, and
> Our Favourite Other Encyclopaedia. They only compared three articles --
> one for current news ("Bird flu"), one for history ("George
> Stephenson"), and one for obscure facts ("Planetesimal"), and also
> reviewed the usability of each site together with details of cost (if
> any), number of entries, sources, and multimedia.
>
> The usability comment for Wikipedia says "The design is a bit text-heavy
> but useful "contents" tools help you navigate the articles. Links
> abound, but the sheer number of them means you can soon find yourself
> far adrift from your starting point. There are close to 500,000 media
> files, but video and audio is restricted to the patent-free formats Ogg
> Theora and Ogg Vorbis."
>
> The Bird Flu test:
> Reviewed by St Andrews University virologist Dr Richard Elliot, looking
> to see whether the encyclopaedias can keep up with a fast-moving
> subject.
>
> Encarta: "Encarta has a short entry on avian flu with no details on the
> scale of the ongoing H5N1 outbreak. The info is out of date and
> cross-referencing is limited. The influenza entry contains a number of
> errors (for example, the influenza B virus does not infect birds, as
> stated here), and requires thorough revision."
>
> EB: "Britannica online provides a short entry on bird flu that contains
> the essential information but with no in-depth coverage. The material is
> about six months out of date and does not mention the use of
> neuraminidase inhibitors (e.g. Tamiflu) that are being stockpiled in
> some countries and widely mentioned in the media."
>
> Infoplease: "There's no specific entry for bird flu and the search
> directs to a very brief entry on influenza. However we do get an FAQ
> entry heavily based on World Health Organisation material from November
> 2005. This deals with aspects of the disease in a concise
> question-answer format but the lack of cross-references limits any
> in-depth analysis."
>
> Wikipedia: "Wikipedia provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date
> information with cross-references and links to original sources.
> Generally the entries are accurate and suitable as an
> undergraduate-level resource, but the terminology section of the H5N1
> entry is both confused and contains errors, while some links did not
> direct to the correct reference."
>
> The George Stephenson test:
> Broadcaster Dick Strawbridge was looking for an accurate and accessible
> account of the great railway engineer.
>
> Encarta: "If you need more than a couple of general lines you have to
> subscribe to the premium content, but it's easy to read and there are
> plenty of dates and facts. Reading Stephenson's obituary from The Times
> of 1848 puts the man's life in historical context and some of the links
> introduce facts not covered by the other online encyclopaedias."
>
> EB: "Britannica tells a very easy-to-read story about George
> Stephenson's life. It's not a comprehensive list of dates and events,
> but you do get a rounded portrait of the man. Unfortunately, it reckons
> Stephenson's Rocket went a lot faster than the commonly agreed 29 miles
> per hour (47 kph) - which hurts when you're paying for the information."
>
> Infoplease: "Even after following all the available links, you end up
> with very little useful information here. Historical context was thin,
> with no allusion to Stephenson's reputation as the "father of British
> steam railways". The ads that flash on the pages would have been very
> useful if I'd been looking for love. Sadly, I was after facts."
>
> Wikipedia: "An entry that is clear, comprehensive, and full of facts.
> The information is digestible, presented in chronological order, and the
> most detailed of all the encyclopaedias on test. For example, it was the
> only one to inform me that we can thank Mr Stephenson for the majority
> of the world's railway tracks being 4' 8.5"."
>
> The Planetesimal test:
> Astronomer Dr Duncan Steel examined how an ambiguous term is handled.
> "Planetesimal" is used to describe the blocks that collide to form
> planets, but is also used for modern comets and asteroids.
>
> Encarta: "The definition of 'planetesimal' is given in terms of a body
> that exists early in a solar system's history. Elsewhere on the site it
> says the Oort cloud, a huge sphere of comets about a lightyear from the
> Sun, consists of planetesimals, and that asteroids are fragments of
> planetesimals. That's fine by me, but contrary to the definition given
> here."
>
> EB: "The most authoritative entry on the subject begins with this
> admirable definition: 'One of a class of hypothetical bodies that
> eventually coalesced to form the planets after condensing from gaseous
> matter early in the history of the solar system.' A bit technical for
> the lay reader and the possible asteroid-or-comet meaning is not
> covered."
>
> Infoplease: "Planetesimals are mentioned in the context of the theory
> for the origin of the Solar System. Elsewhere, things get confusing when
> the term 'planetoid' is given as another synonym for 'asteroid'. Not
> very useful since asteroid means 'star-like' - which fits their
> appearance through a telescope, but not their physical nature."
>
> Wikipedia: "Both possible meanings of planetesimal are given, among
> various other confusing statements that contain factual errors and
> punctuation outrages. But my main beef with Wikipedia is that it
> contains an entry for Elbsteel, the asteroid I named for my youngest
> son, but not for Arrius, the one named for my eldest. This causes
> arguments at home!" [NB, actually we created an entry for "5263 Arrius"
> on 12th April, so both sons should now be happy].
>
> The Verdict:
> Ratings: Infoplease 2/5; Encarta 3/5; Britannica 3/5; Wikipedia 4/5.
>
> Wikipedia pros: Comprehensive articles with lots of detail, the most
> up-to-date encyclopaedia on test, page labels help assess the quality of
> the information; it's free.
>
> Wikipedia cons: Some factual errors found; occasional slips in spelling
> and grammar.
>
> "All the encyclopaedias contained at least some errors and omissions,
> reinforcing the point that they should be viewed as starting points for
> your research rather than as all-encompassing fountains of knowledge.
> Infoplease fared poorest in our test with very little to get your teeth
> into. Encarta has a bright design and engaging multimedia options, but
> was let down by a dismal performance in the 'current news' test.
> Meanwhile Britannica's long history was showcased in authoritative pages
> that are easy to get around. Our winner is Wikipedia which had the most
> detailed articles and was best equipped to deal with the ever-changing
> news about bird flu. While it was only marginally more accurate, it has
> close to 10 times more articles than the next biggest, all freely
> available. That means it's most likely to have what you need."
>
> --
> Arwel Parry
> http://www.cartref.demon.co.uk/


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
On 4/21/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> On Apr 21, 2006, at 5:15 AM, Tony Sidaway wrote:
>
> > Under the Communications Decency Act
> > which provides a general exemption from third party liability to
> > online information providers, this exemption does not extend to
> > liability for publication by agents of the provider.
>
> Wasn't the CDA ruled unconstitutional back in the 90's?

Some parts were found unconstitutional.  Section 230, the relevant
part, has been in use for about a decade now and has not been
successfully challenged.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Matt R wrote:

>Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com>:
>
>
>>On 4/20/06, Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com>:
>>>
>>>
>>>>That does not excuse reversion without discussion.  Even taking as an
>>>>assumption that Danny had been acting on his own behalf, Erik's
>>>>actions could easily have been the start of a wheel war, and were
>>>>inappropriate by any reasonable standard.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Yet, equally, that does not excuse the indefinite blocking of a Wikipedian in
>>>good-standing.
>>>
>>>
>>Except he wasn't an Wikipedian in good standing; he had attempted to
>>start a wheel war.
>>
>>
>What you are arguing is untenable. Even if we agree with your interpretation
>that Erik was starting a wheel-war, an indefinite block was not an appropriate
>reaction by any reasonable standard (to use your phrase). We kick people off
>the project in a limited set of circumstances: when it's clear that they are hindering
>us more than they are helping us. Danny, for all the good work that he no doubt
>does, did the wrong thing here. For him to acknowledge this in a public forum would
>be reassuring.
>
Danny's silence in this series of threads has been very loud.  He, more
than anyone else, is in a position to quell the flames with one short post.

Ec


body:
Conrad Dunkerson wrote:

>* Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>
>>Anything but a one free revert policy makes no sense at all.  There are
>>just too many reasons why one admin might revert the actions of
>>another.  Some are good reasons; others are very bad.
>>
>>
>
>Actually, I think this focus on 'sequence of reverts' misses the point.
>Even the FIRST admin action could be the start of what I would call a
>'wheel war'... yet the third might not. How does that make sense? It's all
>about 'good faith'.
>
>If someone takes an admin action that they KNOW one or more other admins
>are going to object to and almost certainly revert then that person is
>responsible for 'starting' the wheel war... it doesn't matter that they
>didn't reverse the action of another admin. They took an admin action
>which they knew was not supported by general consensus. Now usually that
>doesn't happen because we don't know how other admins are going to react,
>but sometimes we obviously do and we shouldn't give the instigator a pass
>just because they got out there with a non-consensus action FIRST. If
>anything that makes them 'the troublemaker'.
>
>In contrast, the reversion of an admin action is NOT always the start of a
>'wheel war'. There are various templates which were 'protected
>indefinitely' because of high use. When I have found that some of these
>have been deprecated into near non-existence I have unprotected them...
>without tracking down the admin who protected them in the first place to
>'discuss' it. Admins do things like this every day... and they SHOULD.
>That's not 'wheel warring'... that's simply the reasonable assumption that
>the original admin would agree that protection is no longer needed. If
>some other admin sees my unprotect and says 'Ack! That's the most heavily
>used template in the world - it needs to be protected!' they aren't
>'wheel-warring' either... just mistakenly acting on out of date
>information in good faith.
>
>So far as I'm concerned admin actions become a problem when the admin
>taking them KNOWS that the action is going to be objected to by other
>admins, but goes ahead anyway without gathering consensus. It doesn't
>matter if that's the first admin action or the fifth. Obviously it is not
>always easy to determine whether someone is being deliberately
>confrontational vs making a good faith change that they assume will be ok
>- and that's where the sequence starts to play a part as it becomes more
>difficult to NOT realize that an action is controversial after it has been
>reverted. However, any hard and fast rules on 'first revert' or 'second
>revert' seem to me a bad idea. Any admin taking an admin action (without
>consensus after discussion) that they know other admins will find
>objectionable is acting in bad faith regardless of the 'sequence'.
>
In all that it's still better to assume good faith for the original
action, and the first revert.  It goes without question that some admins
will act in bad faith, but we can't fairly make that assumption about
any specific individual.  Whether consensus is there for some action is
not always evident; it's not rare to make a proposal that gets no
response at all until after you have applied your consensus of one

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Stout monks found

body:
On 21/04/06, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> Cabalism! Cabalism! The three horsemen of the Clerking Cabal... and Steve?
> Wait.  Steve isn't even an admin, is he?  Has he ever even been before the
> arbcomm?  Hmmm...now how I stitch this conspiracy theory together?  Oh, of
> course, Steve was included to make it look like there is no cabal.  Ahh, the
> subtle manipulations of the illuminati...

I'm actually a sock puppet. Try and figure out whose!

(PS it's not David Gerard's)

:)

Steve


from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikitruth

body:
On 4/20/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
> WikiTruth may not be anti-Wikipedia, but
> it's definitely anti-Wikipedian.
...
>
> "his little princess", etc., etc.  Even when they're trying to do the
> right thing they can't resist being dicks.

So with that in mind, I suppose I'm not anti-Wikitruth, but I am
anti-Wikitruthian.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


body:
On 21/04/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/19/06, BorgHunter <borghunter.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> > maru dubshinki wrote:
> >
> > >We shouldn't examine that data, however. Very bad precedent, and poor
> > >for privacy, especially since we aren't dealing with out-and-out
> > >vandals here, but merely critics.
> > >
> > >
> > But should critics of Wikipedia be admins of Wikipedia? I don't believe
> > so. However, I suppose it's up to Jimbo and the Board if they want to
> > expend the energy to look into it. As for privacy...it's not against the
> > privacy policy, and besides which, I'm not sure that's an invasion of
> > privacy anyway. You're sending data to the Wikimedia servers every time
> > you visit a page, and that info is logged, and you (should) know that. I
> > have no problems with the devs looking through page access logs, myself.
>
> We should be the critics of Wikipedia! I mean, admins make up by far
> the majority of the group of the most
> qualified-to-criticize-Wikipedia. Your average admin knows far more
> about Wikipedia than just about everyone except the rare various
> Wales, Sanger, Foundation member/employees, and developers, and
> certainly more than your average current critic like Brandt or the
> various reporters we keep reading.

A sample conversation a little while ago at work:

Boss: "Wikipedia scares me."
AG: "It scares the *hell* out of me"

This seems to be a broadly held opinion among admins...

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


from_name: Ilmari Karonen

subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 33, Issue 120

body:
pschemp wrote:
>>From: Jesse W <jessw at netwood.net>
  [snip]
>>as it contains the toolbox links for Lupin's anti-vandal tool, a
>>combination of
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Whatlinkshere/User:
>>Lupin/recent2.js&limit=500&from=0 and
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
>>title=Special%3AListusers&group=sysop&limit=2000 results in the
>>following list of 60 admins(a much smaller list than 800+...) who have
>>installed Lupin's tool into their monobook.js file and have not taken
>>the easy step of removing the link-back to recent.js.
>
> Hi.  Watch me get a little upset that I'm on the accused list, along with
> many other innocents because I don't know how to edit my monobook properly.
> Seriously folks, its great to know that everyone will be looking at me
> suspiciously now. For christ's sake, one of the people on that list was
> promoted TWO days ago.

That list includes nearly 10% of our active admins -- I don't think
happening to be on it is any significant cause of suspicion.  In fact,
one might argue that the admins on that list are likely to be _more_
hard-working than average, at least when it comes to vandal-fighting,
since the criterion for inclusion was having Lupin's tool intalled.

And no, you're not supposed to remove the backlink.  I assume Jesse only
mentioned it because he thought whoever took that screenshot might have
done so to cover up their tracks.

(As it happens, I came up with the same list myself, but decided not to
post it in public for just the reasons you mention.  The evidence just
isn't specific enough for there to be any point in naming names.)

--
Ilmari Karonen


subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel chill

references:
<4447AA77.20305@jdforrester.org>
	<e29n46$bl6$1@sea.gmane.org>	<4cc603b0604210218i1e3bda8bk7fc75ac754817a05@mail.gmail.com>	<e2b6c5$5u6$1@sea.gmane.org>	<f80608430604211143n52eff81bufa9c2d97b61d8e28@mail.gmail.com>
	<uibi421kh4okm2uah5usd8bens74ulv7cm@4ax.com>

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> On Fri, 21 Apr 2006 19:43:37 +0100, you wrote:
>
>
>>[[Category:NPOV_disputes]] already has over 2000 articles in it.
>
>
> How many of these are biographies of living people?  Maybe we need a
> separate category.

<grumble>If the toolserver was working, we wouldn't.</grumble>

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel chill

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Since WP:OFFICE is done publicly and under intense scrutiny from the
> community and the external world, I hardly see any need for a special
> narrow committee to be specifically tasked with overseeing it.
>
Is that indeed intended to be the case?  There seems to be some
confusion in this discussion over whether WP:OFFICE actions are, or
ought to be, always done publicly.  In the particular case that spawned
this altercation, there was no public tagging of the article, just a
silent protection, and indeed someone  reverted the addition of the
"protected by WP:OFFICE" tag.  What's unclear to me is if that whole
mess was merely confusion, or intended to be but not yet stated as
official policy.  Several people have argued that it either is, or
should be, official policy, and others have argued that it isn't and
shouldn't be.

Basically: Are WP:OFFICE actions supposed to always be publicly
announced and scrutinized by the community?  It was my impression that
they were, but some of the discussion in this set of threads has made
the issue more murky.

-Mark


from_name: Cormac Lawler

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikisource list created

body:
On 4/21/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Michael R. Irwin wrote:
> > Any chance you could create a wikiversity-l mailing list?  I requested
> > one a couple of months ago so there should be something on file if that
> > is required.
>
> There's been one for some time, but it's in German (wikiversityde-l). Do you
> want a separate English list?
>
> I'll need the e-mail addresses of the initial list admin(s) to set one up.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Brion, I'll volunteer to admin the en.wikiversity list - I do admin
duties on the (inactive) foundation-news-l, and I'm also on that
Wikiversity subcommittee.

Michael, thanks for requesting this.

Cormac

>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikisource list created


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Irony,
 noun: When a judge discovers the existence of disclaimers

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 21/04/06, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Wow.  That's disturbing.  There are times when the influence of Wikipedia
>> makes me distinctly uncomfortable...if I make a mistake in what I write, if
>> I screw something up, I have changed "knowledge".  Yet again, I wish that
>> the world understood that Wikipedia is a beta.
>>
>
> I think of Wikipedia more like "my first encyclopaedia" than "beta" as
> such. Sometimes beta software is pretty good. You can use beta
> software to run your business. I don't think any serious professional
> or academic would be trusting their reputation on "my first
> encyclopaedia".
>

I know plenty of academics who use Wikipedia on a regular basis to do
real work (some of them due to my evangelizing), and am one myself.

As with any source, a grain of salt is always necessary, and if the
information is particularly important it should be verified from
multiple sources.  But in general Wikipedia articles in areas I'm
interested in (the sciences, math, and computer science) are about as
accurate as traditional encyclopedia articles (_Science_'s Wikipedia
versus Britannica survey agrees).  Of course, coverage of science in
traditional encyclopedias is far from perfect, so improvement is always
possible and to be desired.  Some of that can already be done on the
reader's end---After using it for a bit you get a feel for how much to
trust a particular article, based on how frequently edited it is, how
controversial the topic is, and whether it "sounds right" (many biased
articles *sound* like they're pushing a point of view).

As a general reference, I think it's at least beta, though.  I use it as
part of serious academic work, and I know others who do as well.  We
don't *cite* it, or rely exclusively on it, but we don't do that with
textbooks or Britannica, either.  There are certainly huge gaping holes
in coverage, and some pretty bad articles, but in general it's useful as
a reference, and I usually turn first to Wikipedia when I want to look
something up.

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel chill

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Tim Starling wrote:
>
>
>>The basic problem with {{office}} is that I don't trust Brad Patrick and Danny to decide between
>>them what's right and wrong. I'm not making a slight on their character. I'm just saying that there
>>needs to be oversight, when something so important as the neutrality of the encyclopedia is at
>>stake. In some cases, we may need to make a tradeoff between NPOV and risk of being sued, and I fear
>>that due to their background, a lawyer may be inclined to automatically choose minimisation of risk
>>over neutrality, even when the risk of a successful lawsuit is very small.
>>
>>I would like to see review of these "office actions" by a diverse committee, such as the juriwiki-l
>>mailing list.
>>
>>
>
>I think this significantly misapprehends the nature of WP:OFFICE.
>
>The most important counter I would give to this is that WP:OFFICE is
>always temporary, an emergency action, an action of goodwill, thus far
>used exclusively (or almost exclusively) for biographies of living
>persons.  The issue is NOT "a tradeoff between NPOV and risk of being sued".
>
>Let me repeat that, the issue is NOT "a tradeoff between NPOV and risk
>of being used".  The issue is responding quickly and effectively to
>cases where we have a very strong indication from someone that an
>article is egregiously in violation of NPOV.
>
>If the topic is [[Carbon Tetracholoride]] and we receive a strong
>complaint that the article is biased, then {{sofixit}} can be a fine
>response.  If the topic is a real live human being about whom someone
>has written something egregiously false or mean spirited, and the person
>calls up in hysterics, then the right answer is: stub and rebuild with
>strong verification.  The right answer is: temporary protection of a
>safe version while good editors take the time to figure out what the
>heck is going on.
>
>It is very deeply confused to view WP:OFFICE as some kind of rollback of
>the neutrality policy.  It is a means of working towards neutrality.  It
>is the morally right thing to do when we are faced with a serious issue.
>
>Since WP:OFFICE is done publicly and under intense scrutiny from the
>community and the external world, I hardly see any need for a special
>narrow committee to be specifically tasked with overseeing it.
>
>What should people do when they see a WP:OFFICE action?  Treat it as a
>call for attention from the absolute best within ourselves, the absolute
>best within our community.  Here we have an article which has gone
>horribly wrong in some way, and sometimes it can be a mystery as to what
>exactly the problem is.  Why is someone upset?  Which claim in the
>article is false or overstated or biased or hostile?  I think dozens of
>people should swoop in and start working really hard on a temp version
>(usualy protected or semi-protected, depending on the exact nature of
>the situation), with extreme hardcore attention paid to sourcing, to
>neutral phrasing, etc.
>
>In this way, WP:OFFICE articles can become models of good behavior by
>Wikipedia, can show the world how seriously we take our mission, our
>responsibility.
>
If the recent dispute had been guided by these principles it might not
have become as heated.  When a long-standing editor asks for an
explanation, and is told to ask the lawyers we aren't reading the same
page anymore.  It is quite understandable that people will react with a
"Them's fightin' words" attitude.  The person wielding the WP:OFFICE
cudgel needs to be sensitive to the community as well as the
complainant.  He needs to know from experience that any hint of secrecy
underlying his actions will raise the temperature of flames by several
degrees.

Some complaints, even on [[Carbon Tetrachloride]] need immediate
action.  You would not want somebody arguing what a great high you get
from smelling the fumes.

Ec


from_name: Thommandel at aol.com

subject:
[WikiEN-l] No Ethics, we do what we please, no warring,
	we always will win

body:
OK, Brad, let's see what happens. I went to the big bang, non-standard
cosmologies and plasma cosmologies articles and added this:

" The Doppler interpretation of the observed redshift is not without
controversy. Non-standard cosmological theories dispute the Doppler assumption  of
the redshift, claiming instead, that the redshift is caused by intrinsic
properties of interactions of light with matter. Supporting this  conjecture,
observations by W. Tifft show that the redshift has a periodic  or quantized aspect
which is not consistent with
expansion.<ref>ttp://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/downloads/Tifft.pdf  </ref>  Previously, it has also been reported in the
Journal of the  Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, by A Sandage as his
Centennial Celebration  of Hubble's birth, that Hubble himself did not consider
redshift as an indicator  of expansion, Sandage wrote:  "Hubble concluded that his
observed log N(m)  distribution showed a large departure from Euclidean
geometry, provided that the  effect of redshifts on the apparent magnitudes was
calculated as if the  redshifts were due to a real expansion. A different
correction is required if no  motion exists, the redshifts then being due to an
unknown cause. Hubble believed  that his count data gave a more reasonable result
concerning spatial curvature  if the redshift correction was made assuming no
recession. "
<ref>http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/diamond_jubilee/1996/sandage_hubble.html</ref>  The controversy remains to be resolved. "

It is now around 11:30pm CST,  the test has begun.  We've  listened to the
WikiNPOV, What will Wikipedia actually do?

Tommy

In a message dated 4/21/2006 2:51:10 A.M. Central Daylight Time,
stevage at gmail.com writes:

On  21/04/06, Thommandel at aol.com <Thommandel at aol.com> wrote:
>  Personally, I believe that the comment on the front page stating that
anyone
> can edit wikipedia is false advertisement. I did not find that  to be the
> case. What I found was that only copy that is approved by  the admin and his
> helpers will remain in the article.

Is this  the only article you've tried editing? If so, it looks like
you've been  very unlucky. Speaking for myself, I make fairly
non-trivial changes to a  large number of articles, and almost never
hit resistance. And an admin  using his status to enforce some
particular POV would be a rare occurrence  indeed...

> There are no ethics in Wikiworld. Ethics to the  Wikipedian is whatever we
> damn well please?

We don't usually  talk about ethics, as ethics often refers to
motivations, or whether one  has properly thought through one's actions
and so forth. Instead, we  concentrate on actions, and the simple
notion of "good faith". If you  didn't get much of a response to a
question about ethics, it's probably  simply because we're not used to
discussing Wikipedia in an "ethical"  framework.

> Now I read about a Wikipedian who done as much as  anyone but yet was
banned
> forever for reverting an action of a  fellow admin.  In the real  world that

Not forever - the  duration simply wasn't specified at the time. In the
end it was 48  hours.

> would be called Guilty until proven innocent and is in  violation of  every
> principle America was founded on. Indeed, we  spend trillions of dollars
fighting

Wikipedia is international -  America's foundations are totally
irrelevant.  Also, you're incorrect  - no country requires proof beyond
reasonable doubt simply to lock someone  up overnight.

> Again I am not involved as an admin, I am a reader  who cannot stand idly by
> while an article in the Wikipedia is  obviously slanted toward the opposing

That's a pity. Sometimes it's  better to let that article go, and focus
your efforts on the other 900,000  or so articles sorely in need of
your help.

> view.  It is  clear to me however, that my quest is futile, Wikipedia is not
> edited  by the people, it is run by the admin, who take data given by the
people
> and tell the story their way.  I see things going on that  are illegal in
the

That's a totally unjustified impression of  Wikipedia, and totally
inconsistent with my experiences. I've edited around  1000 different
pages, and with Wikipedia policy pages aside, I've never  seen an admin
throw his weight around.

> real world.  The  admins, I suppose, are run by the office, which can  take
> have  any suggestions for change, it is far too late for that.  But
Wikipedians
> really should step back and look at what they are  really  doing.  "We,
here in
> Wikiland, do not allow warring,  therefore, when it  comes to that, take
> notice that we win, you  lose, or else you will be banished  forever."

You're seriously  exaggerating a lot here. Any community as large and
complex as Wikipedia is  likely to have a couple of sore spots. But the
number of articles that work  exactly as the good Wikipedian intended
tham massively outnumbers them. See  the "random page" link? Hit it.
Now go and fix that  article!

Steve


from_name: Phil Sandifer

body:
On Apr 22, 2006, at 12:17 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>
> Danny's silence in this series of threads has been very loud.  He,
> more
> than anyone else, is in a position to quell the flames with one
> short post.

I have trouble implicating anyone for the frankly wise decision to
not follow the fecal matter that populates this listserv.

-Phil


subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel chill

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:
>
>
>>So I'd say it's not a question of sometimes needing to relax NPOV
>>because of a libel problem, but the opposite -- we need to enforce
>>NPOV and the other two policies rigorously, understand how they
>>complement each other, and realize that, jointly, they're our very
>>best protection.
>>
>>
>I am following up on yet another post in this thread with yet another
>"me too" primarily to express that what I am seeing is nearly universal
>and unanimous support for what I am also saying:  there is *zero*
>tension between NPOV and not being sued.
>
There is no problem with this.  Nevertheless how it's expressed can make
a big difference.

>Slim Virgin is pointing out as well that there is zero tension between
>any of our core editorial policies and not being sued.  NPOV, NOR, V.
>
I think there is a pecking order between these with NPOV being at the
top.  Verifiability can be relaxed with some subjects where it is still
desirable but people will not be misled by its absence.  I would
probably be more tolerant of Original Research than you, but that
depends on which project is being considered.

I do find that some people try to define these principles too tightly.
NPOV works because it confounds rigidity.  Attempts to define these
things in great detail will just create a breeding ground for bugs.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] The problem with flagging things with {{office}}

body:
Katefan0 wrote:
> News organizations make it a point not to repeat the original error that was
> made; we take pains to state the corrected information only in a correction.
>
Well, simply asserting that's the case doesn't make it so.  Here's a
representative quote of a recent correction from _The Economist_; their
corrections all take basically this form:

"Correction: In 'Open, but not as usual' (March 18th), we said
non-registered users could not modify most Wikipedia entries; they can,
save for some controversial ones. Also, a chart of Wikipedia's articles
and contributors incorrectly showed a downturn in December 2005, because
we used incomplete data. We apologise."

Lest you object that isn't potentially libelous, here's an apology for
an error that is (from a few months ago):

"In our article last week on the Volcker report on the UN oil-for-food
scandal ('Naming names') we mistakenly identified a company cited in the
report as being the Taurus Group of New Zealand. In fact, the Taurus
Group listed in the report is 'an oil trading consortium based in Europe
and the Caribbean'. The Taurus Group in New Zealand and its subsidiaries
have had nothing to do with Iraq. Our apologies to all concerned."

In fact I can't recall ever having seen a correction that *didn't*
restate (at least in paraphrase) the incorrect statement being
corrected, since otherwise the apology would be out of context and make
no sense.

-Mark


body:
Kirill Lokshin wrote:

>On 4/20/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On 20/04/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>How would that matter, though?  It's the content being removed that's
>>>sensitive, not the fact that *something* is gone; and if the offending
>>>revisions are deleted/hidden/whatever, there's no way for someone to
>>>get at that content (at least not directly from us).
>>>
>>>
>>Sure there is, especially if the offending material has been sitting
>>on the site for, oh, say, 4 months? This is where the "free flow of
>>information" thing comes in - it's precisely because we're focused on
>>getting information out there quickly that it's incredibly hard to mop
>>it up suddenly if we need to. After 4 months, there are probably
>>several hundred copies of the material available on the net, possibly
>>even more on various users' hard disks, without mentioning Google's
>>cache, archive.org ....
>>
>>
>I would assume (not being a lawyer) that the possibility of our
>getting sued and such increases substantially if *we* continue to
>distribute the information, versus *someone else* distributing it;
>presumably the people who actually deal with this can comment more
>concretely.
>
All risks of being sued are a matter of probabilities with no certainty
either way.

Ec


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Faulty breaker replaced

body:
The 800 amp breaker that failed twice on us has been replaced by the datacenter
with a shiny new one.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Stout monks found

body:
geni (geniice at gmail.com) [060422 03:53]:
> On 4/21/06, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Cabalism! Cabalism! The three horsemen of the Clerking Cabal... and Steve?
> > Wait.  Steve isn't even an admin, is he?  Has he ever even been before the
> > arbcomm?  Hmmm...now how I stitch this conspiracy theory together?  Oh, of
> > course, Steve was included to make it look like there is no cabal.  Ahh, the
> > subtle manipulations of the illuminati...

> Hey for all those who belive in the cabal this is good news. Those
> listed will be far too busy sifting through all the spam to do any
> real damage any more.

Nah, it's all a plot. Your cabal score depends entirely on how many jobs
you have, and Steve obviously needed a few more. After his sterling effort
to make any damned sense of the guildelines and policies, I think he's well
used to the tasks of a volunteer sewage farm worker.

(I sent an intro email to wikien-l-owner - if any of those named as new
cabalists didn't receive it, please advise asap.)

- d.