from_name: Jeff Raymond

subject: [WikiEN-l] MONGO and the ArbCom

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> Interested parties may wish to read this summary of the findings of
> fact:
>

Well, now I have two reasons to oppose Radiant.

-Jeff

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


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: NSLE (Wikipedia)

subject: [WikiEN-l] MONGO and the ArbCom

body:
I'm not asking them to reveal their name, am I? Just their Wiki handle. It
may just be me (although I suspect many, many more people do too), but
anyone under a name "Concerned Wikipedian" doesn't earn any points in my
book. Especially relevant, given we're talking about privacy (I wouldn't put
it past WikiReview idiots to be using such handles).

On-topic, though, I see no reason not to go through with it. I cannot
believe people are using the mailing list to appeal to Jimbo to lighten a
sentence on an admin - being handled by the ARBCOM - for something which is
obviously de-sysop-able for. Others haven't gotten that consideration, so
why start now? The ArbCom are technically independent from Jimbo, and I
don't see why he should intervene.

On 12/12/06, Puppy <puppy at killerchihuahua.com> wrote:
>
> NSLE: I suggest you reconsider your position with this in mind - your
> name is almost certainly not NSLE or Chacor. I know my r/w name is not
> KillerChihuahua. The majority of Wikipedians and Wikipedia
> administrators do not contribute under their real names, and for good
> reason. The same logic which makes using a "handle" on Wikipedia in
> general a Good Idea also applies here. MONGO has been the target of
> massive trolling and harassment. It shows good sense to try to insulate
> oneself from becoming a target of the same people, and the Concerned
> Wikipedian is doing precisely that. I fail to see how that makes his or
> her concern any less valid. How precisely are you defining this as
> "trolling"? I see no trolling, and would appreciate it if you would
> share your logic with me and the others on this list, as apparently I
> have missed something.
>
> NSLE (Wikipedia) wrote:
> > Hear, hear. Good decision. Seriously, the second I saw "Concerned
> > Wikipedian" as the person I knew that this would be something trollish
> like
> > this. Seriously now, make the plea openly instead of hiding behind
> > "Concerned Wikipedian".
> >
> > On 12/12/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> >
> >> I would be much more inclined to intervene if you were willing to put
> >> your reputation on the line and make the defense publicly, rather than
> >> under a pseudonym and throwaway email address.
> >>
> >> Concerned Wikipedian wrote:
> >>
> >>> Mr Wales,
> >>>
> >>> I am hereby writing to you to express my displeasure and discontent at
> >>> "your" Arbitration Committee's decision to desysop MONGO, one of the
> >>>
> >> most
> >>
> >>> dedicated and resilient users Wikipedia has ever seen.
> >>>
> >>> MONGO has had to put up with every kind of harassment you could think
> >>>
> >> of; by
> >>
> >>> definition of [[WP:HA]], a number of users that have forced him into
> his
> >>> mental decline should have been blocked and/or banned ages ago.
> >>>
> >>> So, I officially protest this decision, and wish you to evaluate it.
> >>>
> >> Given
> >>
> >>> your ability to veto any decision made by the AC, I hereby request
> that
> >>>
> >> if
> >>
> >>> you agree with my sentiment, you use this to stop Wikipedia from
> losing
> >>>
> >> yet
> >>
> >>> another prolific administrator and user to the abyss of trolls and
> >>>
> >> vandals -
> >>
> >>> RickK springs to mind as another.
> >>>
> >>> Last time I checked, MONGO wasn't the only administrator who could, on
> >>> occasion, skirt the guidelines of civility. I could name 15 or so who
> do
> >>>
> >> it
> >>
> >>> worse than he does, and yet it is him who takes the fall.
> >>>
> >>> MONGO stood up for NPOV, something you yourself should extremely proud
> >>>
> >> of -
> >>
> >>> Wikipedia wouldn't be Wikipedia without servants like MONGO who try to
> >>>
> >> keep
> >>
> >>> unverified rubbish out, in accordance with "What Wikipedia is not", as
> >>>
> >> well
> >>
> >>> as "Neutral Point of View". Further, your relentless push of making
> >>> Wikipedia fully verified through "Verifiability" and "Reliable
> Sources",
> >>> which I commend you for emphasising, was one of MONGO's ideals, and
> >>> something he sought to try and create under your direction.
> >>>
> >>> There is no denying that MONGO may have overstepped his mark once or
> >>>
> >> twice;
> >>
> >>> I would be a fool to say so. What I will say, however, is your ArbCom
> >>>
> >> has
> >>
> >>> previously found that "occasional mistakes are entirely compatible
> with
> >>>
> >> [the
> >>
> >>> role] ? administrators are not expected to be perfect". I believe
> that,
> >>> given the crap, for want of a better word, that MONGO has had to deal
> >>>
> >> with
> >>
> >>> in his fight to uphold your, and Wikipedia's, values, he should be
> given
> >>> leeway in this precedent.
> >>>
> >>> You yourself said that "The Arbitration Committee [...] can impose a
> >>> solution that I'll consider to be binding, with of course the
> exception
> >>>
> >> that
> >>
> >>> I reserve the right of executive clemency and indeed even to dissolve
> >>>
> >> the
> >>
> >>> whole thing if it turns out to be a disaster. But I regard that as
> >>>
> >> unlikely,
> >>
> >>> and I plan to do it about as often as the Queen of England dissolves
> >>> Parliament against their wishes, i.e., basically never, but it is one
> >>>
> >> last
> >>
> >>> safety valve for our values". I feel that it is your turn to stand up
> >>>
> >> and be
> >>
> >>> counted, Jimmy, to stand up for our values. Wikipedians are not
> perfect;
> >>> administrators are not perfect, by the same token; nor should
> >>>
> >> administrators
> >>
> >>> be expected to be unflappable in the face of persistent, ridiculous
> >>>
> >> trolling
> >>
> >>> and harassment that MONGO has had to.
> >>>
> >>> Cometh the hour, cometh the man; will you be the man, or will the hour
> >>>
> >> slip
> >>
> >>> you by? I hope you can see the devastation that this would cause
> >>>
> >> Wikipedia
> >>
> >>> should you decide that the Arbitration Committee, which is becoming
> more
> >>>
> >> and
> >>
> >>> more dissented by members of the community as segregated, has somehow
> >>>
> >> got
> >>
> >>> this one right.
> >>>
> >>> The question you must ask yourself, in the spirit of IAR: If this
> >>>
> >> decision
> >>
> >>> will be detrimental to improving or maintaining Wikipedia more than
> the
> >>> opposite decision will be, ignore it. You made this official policy on
> >>> August 19, 2006 stating "IAR is policy, always has been". I feel that
> >>>
> >> this
> >>
> >>> is as good a time as any to apply its' principle.
> >>>
> >>> -- Concerned Wikipedian
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> WikiEN-l mailing list
> >>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> >>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> >>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >>>
> >>>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> WikiEN-l mailing list
> >> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> >> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> >> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >>
> >>
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] MONGO and the ArbCom

body:
To tag this on to my point about something de-sysoppable for:
Look at it this way. Someone committing these actions applying for admin
would be flatly rejected. I'd say that's grounds enough.

On 12/12/06, Puppy <puppy at killerchihuahua.com> wrote:
>
> Jeff Raymond wrote:
>
> <snip>
> > Mongo's continued abuses and incivility
> <snip>
> > Don't believe the hype.  Mongo does great things for NPOV and for
> > defending some terrible POV pushers at the 9/11 articles.  But that
> > doesn't excuse him.
> >
> > -Jeff
> >
> Is desysopping the answer? Is it appropriate to desysop, generally
> reserved for abuses of /admin/ functions,  for incivility, which is an
> /editor/ action, and usually is addressed with either a caution or
> probation?
>
> Guy suggests a month long enforced break, which seems reasonable to me.
> -kc-
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Admins who pretend to quit (was Re: MONGO and the
	ArbComm)

body:
On 12/12/06, M Roget <mroget at gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
> Frankly, it looks like his "resignation" was a stunt to try to rally support
> against the ArbComm decision to desysop him. That is disruptive but its the
> sort of disruption that would be curtailed by a "you quit, you're
> desysopped" rule.
>
> And again, there's nothing here that would punish someone for taking a
> wikibreak as long as they didn't claim that they were quitting when they
> really were just taking a break.

Exactly.

I don't want to exacerbate problems for folks who are upset.. but at
the same time, we can't let people disrupt or manipulate us with
drama.

Our practices shape the way our contributors behave.  We'd and all our
contributors would be better off if people took breaks rather than
made big productions about quitting.

Of course, it wouldn't be fair to apply this to anyone who has already
quit prior to it being established.. after all the intent should be to
discourage disruption, not to punish folks for being human.


from_name: The Cunctator

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Completely unreasonable block and behavior by admin
	friends of Itaqallah to win a content dispute

body:
On 12/12/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> > On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 10:43:02 -0600, "Parker Peters"
> > <onmywayoutster at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Does anyone know why this "Parker Peters" is not on mod by now?
> >
>
> It's much more credible when trolls are defeated by sound reasoning
> rather than outright censorship.

You should try to avoid labelling people.


from_name: Eugene van der Pijll

subject: [WikiEN-l] Hello

body:
Sam Korn schreef:
> On 12/12/06, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
> > I don't understand how it would defeat the purpose of subcats. My goal is to
> > be able to retrieve lists of persons with like characteristics. Unless a
> > person is included in a subcategory, they will not be included in that list.
> > A person who dies from lung cancer, also belongs in the larger list of
> > persons who died from cancer.
>
> The suggestion is that some kind of tool -- as yet, I believe
> unwritten -- could generate a list of all members of a category and
> its subcategories.  I imagine this would suit your purpose.

Unfortunately, it would not. At least, not completely. Categorization is
not transitive: if article A is a member of category C, and C is a
subcat of D, A need not be a member of D. For example: [[Seine]] is in
[[Category:Paris]], which is in [[Category:Cities in France]], which is
in [[Category:France]], which is in [[Category:Republics]], which
ultimately is a subcat of [[Category:Thought]].

But the Seine is not a thought, a republic, or a city in France.

Categories as implemented now have mixed meanings: they can describe
"is-a", "has-a" or "is-related-to" connections. See earlier
discussions on this list in September 2004 and June 2006
(http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/htdig/wikien-l/2006-June/048183.html).

Eugene


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
On Dec 12, 2006, at 8:08 PM, Gregory Maxwell wrote:

> We can improve this by reducing our tolerance, but part of that is
> reducing our tolerance for the complete cycle of drama and hate. It's
> harder to be hard line on our trolls when our 'best' are constantly
> operating at the edge and acting like children.

Now you are starting to grapple with MONGO.

Fred


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Abuse on mo.wiki

body:
Hoi,
I would say that many people do not respect the decision to block the
http://mo.wikipedia.org . Certainly the way it was handled and the
outrageous way in which people were treated was not political correct
(this is an euphemism). We have seen with some regularity that there is
too much heat in this controversy. People INSIST that there way is the
only way. That is tough on them.

The language sub committee has been asked to come up with suggestions by
one of the board members. In the mean time several of the committee
members agreed that my outline of a potential way out of this has some
merits. As a start I do think that Yann did the right thing. I also am
of the opinion that anyone who vandalises the mo.wikipedia deserves to
be banned on any project.

Thanks,
    GerardM

ro.wiki schreef:
> I don't think I asked who respects Yann's decision or not. The edits should be reverted, because de decision was to block that Wikipedia. What, if he is a steward does he have a right of decision bigger than me for example? He should have started a discussion because is a delicate subject not all act by himself.
>
>   Danutz


from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [WikiEN-l] Hello

body:
On 12/12/06, Eugene van der Pijll <eugene at vanderpijll.nl> wrote:
> Unfortunately, it would not. At least, not completely. Categorization is
> not transitive: if article A is a member of category C, and C is a
> subcat of D, A need not be a member of D. For example: [[Seine]] is in
> [[Category:Paris]], which is in [[Category:Cities in France]], which is
> in [[Category:France]], which is in [[Category:Republics]], which
> ultimately is a subcat of [[Category:Thought]].
>
> But the Seine is not a thought, a republic, or a city in France.
>
> Categories as implemented now have mixed meanings: they can describe
> "is-a", "has-a" or "is-related-to" connections. See earlier
> discussions on this list in September 2004 and June 2006
> (http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/htdig/wikien-l/2006-June/048183.html).

Hmm.  I hadn't thought of those points.  Fair enough.

--
Sam


body:
Rather, more people should be made admins.

On 12/12/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> > On 12/12/06, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com
> > <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> >> We do have an Arbitration principle that those who give up admin
> >> powers while 'under a cloud' cannot expect to resume them without
> >> confirmation.
> >
> > Since when did arbcom set precedent?
> >
> > Leaving, .. no problem. Using threats of leaving to manipulate and
> > otherwise spread ill will.. very uncool.
> >
> > I like the notion of automatic desysoping for anyone who 'quits'
> > simply because we can handle it in a straightforward and dispassionate
> > way. It will give people cause to pause for a moment before they bring
> > out the hysterical reaction. ... but until we become more fair about
> > resysoping people, I'm not sure that the results would be good.
> >
>
> And, we've then got less potential disgruntled former admins running
> around screaming "omg censorship". Why is is that adminship on en: is
> effectively for life? While I don't think that they need to be
> reconfirmed, certainly people should lose it if they're inactive.
>
> --
> Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
> Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
> "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
> Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] MONGO and the ArbCom

body:
On 12/12/06, Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) <newyorkbrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have reviewed Radiant!'s analysis of the findings.  It independently
> corroborates much of Durin's analysis posted to the talkpage of /Proposed
> Decision today.  I have also posted my own thoughts to the talkpage of
> the /Proposed Decision.

Both you and Radiant! limited your comments solely to the few
citations in the arbcom finding and ignored the evidence page
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Seabhcan/Evidence)
which has  dozens of examples.

I'll be the first to agree that the actual arbitration finding texts
are often poorly written and illconsidered, but that by no means
causes the outcome of the decision to be invalid. You must consider
the underlying evidence, just as the arbcom did before you can fairly
comment.


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] MONGO and the ArbCom

body:
On 12/12/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at waterwiki.info> wrote:
>
> On Dec 12, 2006, at 10:14 AM, geni wrote:
>
> > On 12/12/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at waterwiki.info> wrote:
> >
> >> No, no active editing regarding the matter. However, I have seen no
> >> reliable evidence supporting the conspiracy theories.
> >>
> >> Fred
> >>
> >
> > There isn't however there are professors supporting it and other than
> > popular mechanics most of the debunkings don't get published.
>
> Even in popular publishing there is some peer review.
>
> Fred
>

Wikipedia has never herd of [[popular publishing]] so I'm not sure
what you are talking about.

[[Scholars for 9/11 Truth]] is a significant indication of the problem.

Rember it takes a lot less effort to make something up than it takes
to debunk it.
--
geni


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

body:
On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 13:58:29 -0600, "Michael Smith"
<runedchozo at gmail.com> wrote:

>Whatever you say, dick.

Oh, I get it - you *can't* can't post less stridently.  No wonder you
have a problem.  Still, it's your problem not mine, since in the end
it's admins (like me) you'll need to convince if you want anything
done about this, and admins are sufficiently accustomed to hysterical
accusations of abuse that we tend to dismiss them, I'm afraid.

So maybe something a little less strident would be worth a shot, in
the end?

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


body:
On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 15:57:40 -0500, "M Roget" <mroget at gmail.com>
wrote:

>Can we have a rule that states that any admin who "quits" Wikipedia to
>protest this or that is automatically desysopped?

Why?  "Bah! Sod this, I'm off!" can mean it (in which case there is no
urgency) or it can be a precursor to a Wikibreak to restore sanity.
Let each case be judged on its merits, in accordance with the
Clue-based principles on which the whole edifice is after all founded.

Mind you, if we auto-moderated all "I'm leaving" posts from this list,
life would probably be more pleasant :-)

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


from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Hello, Marc Riddell

body:
> From: Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net>
>
> Hello,
>
> I'm a new kid on the block. I am sending this first email mostly to
> see what
> happens when I do, and to find out how the process works. What type of
> subjects are open for discussion? My only warning is that I am hard
> science
> and math challenged - in these areas, I will gladly act as an
> astounded
> observer. My education, background and experience is in clinical
> psychology.
> My interests are many - my curiosity insatiable.

So, Marc... have you satisfied your 'satiable curiosity about what
kinds of subjects are typically discussed on this mailing list?

I do hope you had the wisdom to sign up with the "digest" option!

By the way, the traffic the last few days has been unusually high,
but I'd say the general range of subjects and tone and tenor of the
discussions has been reasonably typical...


body:
On 12/12/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at waterwiki.info> wrote:
[snip]
> I don't like this. First, because I would have been desyopped,
> second, because very upsetting things happen in the normal course of
> events and having been worked over once, they would under that policy
> be worked over twice. The people who get upset are often our very
> best. How could you not get upset at some of the nonsense?

Since when did anyone propose we desysop anyone for simply being upset?


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Michael Bimmler

subject: [Wikitech-l] Htdig, mailman & broken links

body:
Quite easy to reproduce:
Go to http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/htdig/wikien-l
Click on any item in the "downloadable version" column, say the one
for december 2006.
It's a link to http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/htdig/2006-December.txt
And htdig (?) then tells you "No such list 2006-december.txt".
However, it should probably link to
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-December.txt
as does http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/
(to anticipate a response: Yes, I guess the very first link might not
really be a good start page to browse the archive, yes, you should
rather use the second one with the pipermail in it, yes, only the
second one is linked.
But still, as it delivers intelligible output, the links should be correct).

Michael


body:
On 12/12/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Michael Bimmler wrote:
> > Quite easy to reproduce:
> > Go to http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/htdig/wikien-l
>
> You're at the wrong place, you want to be at:
> http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/
>
And I thought, I couldn't emphasize the anticipated-response-bit more...
Yes, I know, that I most likely wouldn't be there. But if I for some
reason go to this page (maybe somebody gave me this wrong link) and if
there appears neither a 404 error nor a 403 error nor a 501 error, I
should also be able to expect the links not to be broken.

Michael


subject: [WikiEN-l] MONGO and the ArbCom

body:
On 12/12/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/12/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > [[Scholars for 9/11 Truth]] is a significant indication of the problem.
>
> What is wrong with that page?
>

No idea I haven't read it isn't relvivant to my point. My point out
there is that there are CTs produceing a large amount of citable
material. Most the the active oponents (such as the author of "screw
loose change") who are the ones who acutaly write down the point by
point debunkings tend not to produce the same amount of citable
material.
--
geni


from_name: Dan Jacobson

subject:
[Wikitech-l] [Bug 8184] in so many crannies $wgSitename is
	cached

body:
rebuildMessages.php --rebuild didn't help. The Main Page's
{{SITENAME}} was still rendered as the former one. However
"&action=purge" fixed it for now. Too bad I don't know how to do a
"&action=purge" "to the maximum extent of the law on all places where
the old {{SITENAME}} germs may be hiding.
Ah ha. Finally reproduced something:
$ echo -n ??|php deleteBatch.php
$ php importTextFile.php --title ?? ??
and now {{SITENAME}} is rendering back to it former name!
Well! I had better always do a &action=purge as a third step then when
I update a page that way.


subject: [Wikitech-l] text/x-wiki vs. firefox

body:
Upon being sent
Content-Type: text/x-wiki; charset=utf-8
How can one get firefox to act like it was sent
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8?

That way I could finally browse action=raw files.

OK, never mind. I now use WWWOFFLE's
CensorHeader
{
 <http://*/*?*action=raw>Content-Type=text/plain; charset=utf-8
}


from_name: Matthew Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] MONGO and the ArbCom

body:
On 12/12/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'll be the first to agree that the actual arbitration finding texts
> are often poorly written and illconsidered, but that by no means
> causes the outcome of the decision to be invalid. You must consider
> the underlying evidence, just as the arbcom did before you can fairly
> comment.

This is definitely the case, and thank you for bringing that up.  We
have sometimes been poor at 'showing our working' - there is sometimes
(often?) a gap between the stated findings and the remedies.  The
arbitrators will easily take issue with findings or remedies that are
clearly not agreed upon, but sometimes it does not come quickly to
mind that B does not necessarily follow from A.

This is not, often, because we are off conspiring in some back room
deciding what to do, but simply because as Gregory says we are
reaching our conclusions about what should be done by reading directly
from the evidence, and possibly further research on our own, not from
only reading the findings.

We are also not some mechanical process of input the policy violations
here, apply some math, out come the remedies there.  In this, I feel,
we are attempting to follow Jimbo's way of running things pre-Arbcom -
that the final arbiter of things should not be a mechanical
application of rules but a human process of evaluating the thing as a
whole and trying to do the best thing for the project.  We are always
evaluating things in the light of someone's overall contribution and
behaviour, not just the behaviour brought to light in a specific case.

Some admins seem to want Arbcom decisions to be purely a mechanical
application of rules, purely based on the evidence set forth, and with
a very laid down set of penalties for various violations of the rules.
 I do not, personally, agree with that.

-Matt


subject: [WikiEN-l] MONGO and the ArbCom

body:
On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 13:28:29 -0800, "George Herbert"
<george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:

>What is wrong with that page?

It gives far to much credence to their absurd theories.

Look at it this way: if I said to you that 300 people in the world
believed that the moon was made of green cheese, and that the "moon
made of rock" theory was a hoax perpetrated by the evil American
government, and then created articles on Scholars for Green Cheese
Truth, List of researchers supporting Moon Cheese Hypothesis,
Alternate Explanations of Moon Construction, Evidence for Green Cheese
Moon and so on and so on, then the whole walled garden would be gone
by morning, and rightly so.

We have a *massive* collection of articles on these nutters and their
absurd views, and most of them are "notable" solely for propounding
absurd theories which violate Occam's Razor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Researchers_questioning_the_official_account_of_9/11
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_conspiracy_theories
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_Truth_Movement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_demolition_hypothesis_for_the_collapse_of_the_World_Trade_Center

and so on and so on.  All classic conspiracy theory shit: We "know"
that their explanation is bogus, they refuse to tell us the truth,
what are they hiding, and variations on that theme.  If we can't rebut
something which is obviously bogus from credible sources, that
indicates to me that maybe it should not be there at all. Aetherometry
and pseudoscience all over again.

Meanwhile the rest of the world - to a fairly good approximation 100%
of it - accepts that it was an act of terrorism, and that the
buildings collapsed because nobody had thought to design against being
hit square-on by a suicide bomber in an airliner fully loaded with
fuel - a remarkable oversight given how often this had happened
before.

We might disagree on the reasons behind the reasons, but as far as I
can tell nobody with a full deck seriously believes that the WTC and
Pentagon attacks were anything other than terrorism.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] MONGO and the ArbCom

body:
On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 13:25:05 -0800, "George Herbert"
<george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:

>It is in my opinion notable and verifyable that there are conspiracy
>theories about 9/11.  In my opinion, it's perfectly fine to document
>that fact in Wikipedia, and explain what those theories are.

No problem with that.

>It's also perfectly fine to segregate that off on topic specific pages
>with a brief mention in the event page that says "Various
>organizations believe different theories of these events, see
>[[Conspiracy theories about XYZ]]".  Segregation is not suppression,
>and even the conspiracists eventually generally give in on those types
>of points.

Or indeed that.

>In my currently ideal world, we'd do something like a policy which
>says that conspiracy theories MUST be segregated to a separate page,
>and simply apply normal warn-and-block to anyone who violates that and
>puts it on the main pages.

Yup, and the Pseudoscience ArbCom says pretty much that.  But the
articles on the conspiracy crap are (a) not theirs to play with, they
should still be held to normal standards of neutrality and
verifiability; and (b) should not be allowed to increase in number to
a point well beyond what can be justified by an objective evaluation
of the number and extent of the concepts being discussed.

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


body:
On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 13:22:16 -0800, Luna <lunasantin at gmail.com> wrote:

>Well, maybe "entitled" is a poor word choice. But if somebody solves more
>problems than they cause, in the long run, I'm personally willing to
>tolerate breakdowns and depressions.

Exactly that.  You serve your dues, you earn a bit of slack.

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


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Hello

body:
"Parker Peters" wrote
>
> If an article fits into Mythology, and Greek Mythology, and Pre-Homeric
> Greek Mythology, and Athenian Mythology all at once, then it should be in
> ALL of those categories, because each is a different search.

No, that's wrong. All except the top-level category, Mythology, maybe.

The fact is that very large, unsorted categories are unusable. They need to have sub-categorisation go on.

Charles

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body:
On 12/12/06, Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net> wrote:
[snip]
>Just
> as for companies, WP has a significant investment in experienced people,
> and it's foolish to throw it away on a whim.

Who suggested banning people for qutting?

>As they say in the
> military, everybody breaks under torture, and we've been way too
> tolerant of sadistic nutcases who will stop at nothing to get their way.

We can improve this by reducing our tolerance, but part of that is
reducing our tolerance for the complete cycle of drama and hate. It's
harder to be hard line on our trolls when our 'best' are constantly
operating at the edge and acting like children.


subject: [WikiEN-l] MONGO and the ArbCom

body:
On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 15:03:54 -0700, "Rob Smith" <nobs03 at gmail.com>
wrote:

>Yah what do you do when a long term conspiracy theory is later debunked with
>reputable, verifiable information, and the then anti-conspiracists invent
>conspiracy theories to debunk the WP:RS, WP:V, WP:ATT former conspiracy
>theory.  I can point to a real life situation.

I am all ears :-)

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


body:
On 12/12/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:

> Mind you, if we auto-moderated all "I'm leaving" posts from this list,
> life would probably be more pleasant :-)
>
/me goes constructing an Artificial Intelligence Module which
auto-moderates all potential trolls by assessing their previous posts
and thus drawing conclusions about their character.
Michael
> Guy (JzG)
> --
> http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Hello

body:
Puppy wrote

> It seems to me a good point
> has been made - if you want all suicides, then having to traverse all
> subcats is tedious, to say the least.

I have occasionally wanted this feature: flatten out all subcategories of something into a list. I hope we see it.

That does not mean that I want [[Category:Mathematics]] to consist of 15000 pages. How would that help anyone? I have actually done work, on [[Category:Set theory]] (where I was thanked) and [[Category:Fluid dynamics]] (perhaps unnoticed) on getting useful subcategories; which then can sit inside two or more higher-level categories. This all adds to the convenience of the user. It is quite a good idea, in many cases, to consider splitting categories which have gone 'over the page'.

Charles

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from_name: Tariq Ab- Jo- Tu-

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Completely unreasonable block and behavior by admin
 friends of Itaqallah to win a content dispute

body:
For those keeping up on this, the checkuser results have come in (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/RunedChozo).
I will also copy the comment I made to [[WP:ANI]]:

    The results of the checkuser have come in with the conclusion being
    /possible/. Nevertheless, let me make a case for why the IP address
    in question that led to the extended block is most likely RunedChozo
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:RunedChozo&action=edit>
    (talk <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:RunedChozo> ? contribs
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/RunedChozo>).
    First, note the previous request for checkuser that came back
    confirmed. The IP address from that confirmed checkuser request
    comes from Houston, Texas (see WHOIS lookup
    <http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?ip=129.7.35.126>). Both IP
    addresses part of the more recent checkuser (the one the ended as
    only /possible/) come from Houston as well (see WHOIS lookup one
    <http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?ip=70.114.237.14> and two
    <http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?ip=70.114.236.109>). As
    stated already, the rhetoric from RunedChozo
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:RunedChozo&action=edit>
    (talk <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:RunedChozo> ? contribs
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/RunedChozo>) and
    70.114.237.14
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:70.114.237.14&action=edit>
    (talk <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:70.114.237.14> ?
    contribs
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/70.114.237.14>)
    are quite similar (note the reference to the talk page being
    protected, as well as the /tool/ accusations). One editor on the
    English Wikipedia mailing list noted that 70.114.237.14
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:70.114.237.14&action=edit>
    (talk <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:70.114.237.14> ?
    contribs
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/70.114.237.14>)'s
    edit times don't match up with those of RunedChozo
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:RunedChozo&action=edit>
    (talk <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:RunedChozo> ? contribs
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/RunedChozo>).
    Perhaps that is correct, but it does not seem unreasonable, in my
    opinion, for someone to be editing around 11:30pm and 12:30am,
    especially if a user is angry and passionately wants to say something.

    So, it is possible that 70.114.237.14
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:70.114.237.14&action=edit>
    (talk <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:70.114.237.14> ?
    contribs
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/70.114.237.14>)
    and RunedChozo
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:RunedChozo&action=edit>
    (talk <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:RunedChozo> ? contribs
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/RunedChozo>) are
    just both especially anti-Muslim editors who happen to both live
    near Houston, edit similar articles, and use similar types of
    statements. However, I am convinced, without reservation, that the
    users are one and the same. -- *tariqabjotu
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Tariqabjotu>* 03:08, 13 December
    2006 (UTC)

-- Tariq Ab- Jo- Tu-


from_name: Marc Riddell

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Admins who pretend to quit (was Re: MONGO and
	the	ArbComm)

body:
Generals fighting among themselves have abandoned what they are there to
defend.

> From: "Gregory Maxwell" <gmaxwell at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2006 22:08:26 -0500
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Admins who pretend to quit (was Re: MONGO and the
> ArbComm)
>
> It's
> harder to be hard line on our trolls when our 'best' are constantly
> operating at the edge and acting like children.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Categories (was: Hello)

body:
It is beginning to dawn on me (perhaps the sun rises later here) that there
is/would be a great difference between categorizing biographical articles v.
non-biographical ones. The biographical would require much less complex
layers. Any thoughts on this?

Marc Riddell

> From: "Steve Bennett" <stevagewp at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 14:17:29 +1100
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Categories (was: Hello)
>
> On 12/13/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
>> By which I mean, the argument usually boils down to trying to
>> decide precisely whether category membership is supposed to
>> denote an "is-a", "has-a" or "is-related-to" relationship.
>> But that can't be answered, so the arguments can never really be
>> resolved, and people have to fall back to using categories not
>> to implement rigid OO-like inheritable hierarchies, but rather,
>> looser collections where the only semantic attached to category
>> membership is "is-kinda-related-to".  Some categories and the
>
> Well, yeah, unfortunately this is basically true. We should have a
> well-defined category structure, or use really loose and flexible
> keywords...we sort of have the worst of both worlds here.
>
>> "Category:Arrondissements in Paris" and "Category:Topics relating
>> to Paris", rather than just "Category:California" and
>> "Category:Paris".  And we're probably doing a lot of that today.
>
> The downside is it's much easier to guess "Paris" as a category name
> than "Topics relating to Paris". What would actually be good would be
> stronger, semi-automated systems for funnelling people's guesses into
> the right names. There's nothing wrong with someone guessing "Paris"
> if a bot can then channel that into the correct name - or at least
> highlight it for human recategorisation. Just like we don't "object"
> to people adding {{stub}} - we have people that come along and do the
> stage two recategorisation.
>
> Wikis work very well when you tolerate this kind of behaviour - don't
> ask for perfection up front, but instead appreciate every
> micro-improvement.
>
>> But there are still (and will always be) lots of problems when
>> categories contain other categories, and we'll always be
>> wondering whether category membership is or isn't or should or
>> shouldn't be transitive, and it's these larger-scale questions
>> which we can't (under the current architecture) ever fully
>> satisfactorily resolve.
>
> Well we've discussed this at length, and I think we can go some way
> towards resolving it through either naming conventions or some other
> way of formally describing categories. Good rules might be "This
> category should not directly contain pages.", "This category is a
> geographical hierarchy.", "This category is thematic" etc.
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


body:
"M Roget" wrote

> Can we have a rule that states that any admin who "quits" Wikipedia to
> protest this or that is automatically desysopped?

Not sure I want that.

The 'wiki way' has always involved the idea that if you are fed up of the wiki, you take a break. Some people make a big deal about that, which is a pity (flouncing takes some dress sense, in my experience ...)

People in standing who leave and come back should be welcomed. That's about it.

We do have an Arbitration principle that those who give up admin powers while 'under a cloud' cannot expect to resume them without confirmation.

Charles

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body:
Dear everybody,
Michael Smith has already been placed on moderation by David Gerard
shortly after this post.
Thanks
Michael (Bimmler, not Smith...)

On 12/12/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Michael Smith stated for the record:
> > Whatever you say, dick.
> > ... Your policies are so much bullshit.
>
> Moderators, please put Michael Smith on moderation.
>
> - --
>  Sean Barrett     | Is smoke supposed to come out of it like that?
>  sean at epoptic.com |
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
> iD8DBQFFfyK0/SVOiq2uhHMRAmR7AJ9Qz9JbQVSX7K1pPlCGahzrlyOFcACePZ1q
> +Pz3bFLET+MaYlq1WFMCHn0=
> =YU0h
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


references:
<2ea0be9d0612121257l4efe6fd9o957f85020a285a73@mail.gmail.com>
	<9g6un21p4k91qcup9fsrrs5qtaju9chto4@4ax.com>
	<353e9f360612121314n59b67d8fk76d2b6a04cc684f3@mail.gmail.com>
	<1adf38660612121322u6ce13dcev33d52cc17cf35246@mail.gmail.com>
	<l0aun25i0fnu7domhsdhjvdnfcdsord8ju@4ax.com>
	<46d9b7490612121413m38e64d2dqd5c64869622aabda@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 16:13:13 -0600, "Parker Peters"
<onmywayoutster at gmail.com> wrote:

>"A bit of slack" is one thing, the utter disregard for even the remote
>possibility that admins are in the wrong that I've seen?

Now let me guess: you got blocked and nobody would believe that it was
all a terrible conspiracy against you?

Statements like yours absolutely demand dismissal.  I cannot think of
a single admin who is dismissive of the possibility that admins are
ever in the wrong, I have however seen many cases where every admin
who has ventured an opinion has agreed that a specific admin was in
the right.  Neither of these indicates a problem.

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


from_name: Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia)

body:
A couple of months ago, a respected admin got fed up and announced he was
leaving and gave us his sysop access.  A few days later, he changed his mind
and returned.  When he asked for his buttons back, a bureaucrat remembered
that he had been involved in some vague quarrel with some user or other and
told the editor he needed to go through a new RfA, which passed with a
margin of something like 106/0/0.  I don't see how going through that
exercise helped the community, although I'm sure the editor in question was
pleased to break WP:100 on his second try.

Having a policy that once an administrator announces he or she is leaving, a
new RfA is required, would have some marginal effect on deterring "I'm
leaving" type announcements, but the benefits would be outweighed by the
significant negatives of putting the community through pointless re-RfA's,
and more importantly, of potentially deterring good people who get annoyed
or burdened for whatever reason, but then decide to return, from wanting to
come back or to become admins again.  Often a person who makes a leaving
announcement and then decides to return wants to quietly resume activity
without making a big deal about being back, or maybe being teased about
having changed their mind, which I have seen happen as well.  And finally,
sometimes a user thinks he or she needs to leave the site because of a
harassment situation or legal threat or the like, and again, it would be
unfair to stop such a person from coming back and picking up where he or she
left off.

So I would oppose this proposed change, but of course, there's nothing to
stop the proposer from suggesting it on-Wiki and seeing what the reaction
is.

"Newyorkbrad"

On 12/12/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I think the intent is if they claim to be perma-leaving, and they mean it,
> they wouldn't mind giving up their wares. If it's simply a Wikibreak, then
> that means they recognize that they're coming back.
>
> On 12/12/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 15:57:40 -0500, "M Roget" <mroget at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > >Can we have a rule that states that any admin who "quits" Wikipedia to
> > >protest this or that is automatically desysopped?
> >
> > Why?  "Bah! Sod this, I'm off!" can mean it (in which case there is no
> > urgency) or it can be a precursor to a Wikibreak to restore sanity.
> > Let each case be judged on its merits, in accordance with the
> > Clue-based principles on which the whole edifice is after all founded.
> >
> > Mind you, if we auto-moderated all "I'm leaving" posts from this list,
> > life would probably be more pleasant :-)
> >
> > Guy (JzG)
> > --
> > http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Fwd: Completely unreasonable block and behavior by
	admin friends of Itaqallah to win a content dispute

body:
On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 16:11:56 -0600, "Parker Peters"
<onmywayoutster at gmail.com> wrote:

>the utterly dismissive attack rhetoric that's been
>heaped on him, both here and on wikipedia?

... are amply justified by the aggressive tones in which he made his
statement.  Ever heard the old adage that you catch more flies with
honey than with vinegar?  It never hurts to ask politely.

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


from_name: Rob Church

subject: [Wikitech-l] how to have extension users create mysql tables

body:
On 12/12/06, David Grogan <dgrogan at gmail.com> wrote:
> are created?  Do I have to tell them to run the .sql file through a
> mysql client manually?

Yes.

Rob Church


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

body:
On 12 Dec 2006 at 10:37, "Michael Smith" <runedchozo at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Yadda yadda, you've got your fingers in your ears and you're screaming you
> can't hear, you don't care as long as it's a muslim who's the one doing the
> lying.

Attacking people for the religion they believe in is likely to make
you look like a bigot and cause your ideas to be discounted.

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


body:
"Gregory Maxwell" wrote

> > We do have an Arbitration principle that those who give up admin powers while 'under a cloud' cannot expect to resume them without confirmation.
>
> Since when did arbcom set precedent?

We don't. Principles are there to make the reasoning in a given case more comprehensible. They neither set precedent nor constitute policy.

> I like the notion of automatic desysoping for anyone who 'quits'
> simply because we can handle it in a straightforward and dispassionate
> way. It will give people cause to pause for a moment before they bring
> out the hysterical reaction. ... but until we become more fair about
> resysoping people, I'm not sure that the results would be good.

Define 'quits'. I can't, or don't want to. It certainly has no status as a concept.

Charles

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body:
On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 14:30:14 -0800, Luna <lunasantin at gmail.com> wrote:

>By preliminary looks through page
>histories, it looks like he *was* being pretty disruptive and edit warring,
>with a persistent failure to use talk pages -- but then, he wasn't the only
>one doing so. The full protection of the page seems more or less
>appropriate, as a means of forcing discussion.

I got the same result, but I don't see the block log as evidence of a
cabal, I regard William pretty highly, for example.

This has all the appearances of someone bringing their battles to
Wikipedia.

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


body:
On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 17:54:22 -0500, "Jim Schuler" <jim62sch at gmail.com>
wrote:

>The illogical preaching logic?  Oh, the irony.

Yup.  Since the mods won't do it, I'm putting the troll in the
killfile.  First time for this list!

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


from_name: Rob Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] MONGO and the ArbCom

body:
On 12/12/06, Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>   We are always
> evaluating things in the light of someone's overall contribution and
> behaviour

Someone's overall contributions and behavior, or *what is said *about a
persons overall contributions and behavior?

nobs


body:
On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 18:00:17 -0500, "Gregory Maxwell"
<gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:

>Be reasonable, someone who says "I quit" and deletes their userpage,
>and then returns should qualify as someone whos engaging in overly
>dramatic and manipulative behavior

Nah.  They qualify as someone who is seriously unhappy.

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


list: commons-l

from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Commons-l] Fwd: [Wikitech-l] ImportFreeImages Extension

body:
On 12/12/06, Bence Damokos <bdamokos at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I do not think this is good enough to celebrate. I'd welcome a tool that
> > would allow us to move properly licensed free images from wikipedias to
> > commons. Now I'd celebrate then.
>
> >
> >
> > *ahem*
> >
> > http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/pushforcommons.php
>
> Is there a way, to have the one-click upload feature in the ImportFreeImages
> extension made available in the pushforcommons as well?

PushForCommons uses CommonsHelper, which already has that option. But,
it is currently hidden, as all one-click uploads are then attributed
to a Commons upload bot. There was concern it might be abused. Now, if
there were consensus to enable this publicly, and if the toolserver
databases were back...

Magnus


from_name: Luna

body:
George Herbert wrote:

> As far as I can see, it's entirely over his editing of his talk page,
> removing unblock request refusals and re-unblock-requesting, plus
> arguing with people there.
>
> As a personal opinion - lengthening blocks due to ongoing argument
> ONLY on a blockee's talk page is among the worst abuses that a pack of
> administrators can commit, ganging up on someone.
>
> RunedChozo came into the argument with a bunch of abuses he'd
> committed counting against him, and certainly was being disruptive on
> several levels.  He did have one point that I see - Itaquallah did use
> inappropriate edit summaries and remove material with source info
> claiming it's unsourced.  There was a two-sided abusive edit war going
> on; Itaquallah was not an innocent party there, and should have been
> warned against that.
>
> It's hard to see this and not wonder if RunedChozo is too disruptive
> to be a Wikipedia participant, but a bunch of admins have gone and
> collectively beaten up on someone in a way which is not called for or
> appropriate.  If someone can't stop being a dick on their talk page
> while they're blocked, admins need to just walk away and let them cool
> down.
>
> Bad day.

All in all, I like that post. I don't think we'll all completely agree on
everything, but you're attempting to be fair and objective, and I like that.

Moving on to the checkuser results -- Essjay reports that it's "possible"
RunedChozo and 70.114.237.14 are the same person.

"Possible" means just that. It's objectively possible that it's the same
person, but also objectively possible that it's not -- meaning that there
are other people active in this IP range, most likely. We're probably not
going to get a solid result, through checkuser; that evidence seems
circumstantial.

George Herbert brings up an interesting point -- RunedChozo has a strong
tendency to edit at about 10:00-15:00 (my time), but 70.114.237.14 was
editing only between 20:00-23:00 (my time). I can only find two exceptions
to this, in RunedChozo's edit history:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:RunedChozo&diff=prev&oldid=88763202
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:RunedChozo&diff=prev&oldid=88763010

Both were on 18 November, at about 22:40. This seems to hint away from
RunedChozo being 70.114.237.14, but given such a brief sampling, it's
difficult to be entirely certain. We know that he *can* stay up until
whatever time that is, locally, but also that he does so rarely.

70.114.237.14 has two main "periods" -- once, at 20:16-20:34 on 10 December
(about half a day before RunedChozo's block @ 11:45, 11 December), where the
primary activity was apparently trolling at Striver. It's possible this was
another user, or also possible it was a registered user logging out to
attempt to avoid responsibility for attacks. The IP's second block of edits
comes at 21:32-22:34, 11 December (about 10 hours after RunedChozo's block),
and the first edit again attacks Striver. The IP then proceeds to the AN/I
thread RunedChozo started, and makes some more attacks before being blocked,
at which point it continues at its talk page.

Given the IP started its second block by attacking Striver, I think we can
at least assume the 70.114.237.14 was the same user, both days.

So, I decided to check if RunedChozo has had any previous interaction with
Striver. He has. On 14 November, he made two edits to Striver's talk page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Striver&diff=prev&oldid=87786569
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Striver&diff=prev&oldid=87795801

They appear to have been clashing over these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Beit_Hanoun_November_2006_incident
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Israeli_shelling_of_Beit_Hanoun

This evidence doesn't seem to clearly pin RunedChozo as 70.114.237.14, but
it does establish that he had an antagonistic relationship with Striver, and
we do know that 70.114.237.14 attacked Striver's userpage.

I can see a few other similarities between RunedChozo and 70.114.237.14.
Both consider Striver to be an anti-Israeli POV-pusher and/or anti-semite.
Both consider the Muslim Guild to be a group of meatpuppets or some other
form of conspiracy.

They both refer to Future Perfect as a "tool"
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Muhammad_as_a_diplomat&diff=prev&oldid=93636099
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Future_Perfect_at_Sunrise&diff=prev&oldid=93633482
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&diff=prev&oldid=93753665

Both call Tariqabjotu and Itaqallah "liars" frequently
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:RunedChozo&diff=prev&oldid=93664423
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:RunedChozo&diff=prev&oldid=93688036
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&diff=prev&oldid=93760600
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&diff=prev&oldid=93628825
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&diff=prev&oldid=93761034

And as is no doubt obvious to any interested party by this point, they both
seem to have a high interest in the exact same AN/I thread and the same
article (Beit Hanoun November 2006 incident).

So, what do we think?

-Luna


from_name: Mongo Montana

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Admins who pretend to quit (was MONGO and the
	ArbComm) (Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia))

body:
I actually did quit. I was requested
  by numerous emails to return to
  help with articles related to the
  events of 9/11. I have not once
  quit before and unless ArbCom
  or Jimbo Wales tells me to,
  I don't intend to quit again. I
  have been editing on a limited
  basis over the past couple of days.

  The 9/11 articles are generally
  excellent and all I have done is to
  try and ensure that we adhere to
  the undue weight clause of NPOV
  when confronted with efforts by
  others to expand on what most
  label as conspiracy theories. Just as
  a geologist might be helpful when
  writing articles related to geology,
  my 3 months in the field at GZ I
  thought would be helpful to making
  those articles better.

---------------------------------
Have a burning question? Go to Yahoo! Answers and get answers from real people who know.


list: foundation-l

from_name: Delphine Ménard

subject:
[Foundation-l] [Internal-l] Agreement between local chapters
	and Foundation

body:
On 12/11/06, florencedevouard <anthere at anthere.org> wrote:

> The agreement proper was essentially drafted by the local chapters
> coordinator, Delphine M?nard, the UK chapter, Alison Wheeler and our GC,
> Brad Patrick.

Give credit where credit is due. The agreement was actually drafted in
its entirety and collectively by the Chapters committee [1] and
polished by the three of us. :-)

Delphine
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapters_committee

--
~notafish
NB. This address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails sent to
this address will probably get lost.


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Parker Peters

body:
I like to think that, since I've continued to use this and stood by my words
in this email account, it'd be clear by now that this is not a "throwaway"
account.

But if you insist on trying to put labels on me and [[Attack the
messenger]], by all means, keep doing so. It only shows how weak your own
argument is.

Parker

On 12/12/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The Cunctator wrote:
> > On 12/12/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> >>> On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 10:43:02 -0600, "Parker Peters"
> >>> <onmywayoutster at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Does anyone know why this "Parker Peters" is not on mod by now?
> >>>
> >> It's much more credible when trolls are defeated by sound reasoning
> >> rather than outright censorship.
> >
> >
> > You should try to avoid labelling people.
> >
>
> Sorry. I'll rephrase that:
>
> It's much more credible when arguments from throwaway email accounts are
> defeated by sound reasoning rather than outright censorship.
>
> --
> Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
> Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
> "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
> Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>
>


body:
On 12 Dec 2006 at 13:58, "Michael Smith" <runedchozo at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Whatever you say, dick.

As the person you're addressing does not appear to be named Richard,
I would categorize the above as a personal attack.

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


body:
"Possible". What did the checkuser actually say, I wonder.

As far as I know Checkuser (and I've examined the code), it's a yes or no
thing. Putting forth a claim of "possible" is just a hedge being used to
continue to beat up on this user while they are blocked and their talk page
locked.

I don't buy it. This whole thing doesn't pass the smell test, your conduct
included.

Parker

On 12/12/06, Tariq Ab- Jo- Tu- <tariqabjotu at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> For those keeping up on this, the checkuser results have come in (see
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/RunedChozo
> ).
> I will also copy the comment I made to [[WP:ANI]]:
>
>     The results of the checkuser have come in with the conclusion being
>     /possible/. Nevertheless, let me make a case for why the IP address
>     in question that led to the extended block is most likely RunedChozo
>     <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:RunedChozo&action=edit
> >
>     (talk <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:RunedChozo> ? contribs
>     <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/RunedChozo>).
>     First, note the previous request for checkuser that came back
>     confirmed. The IP address from that confirmed checkuser request
>     comes from Houston, Texas (see WHOIS lookup
>     <http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?ip=129.7.35.126>). Both IP
>     addresses part of the more recent checkuser (the one the ended as
>     only /possible/) come from Houston as well (see WHOIS lookup one
>     <http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?ip=70.114.237.14> and two
>     <http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?ip=70.114.236.109>). As
>     stated already, the rhetoric from RunedChozo
>     <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:RunedChozo&action=edit
> >
>     (talk <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:RunedChozo> ? contribs
>     <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/RunedChozo>) and
>     70.114.237.14
>     <
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:70.114.237.14&action=edit>
>     (talk <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:70.114.237.14> ?
>     contribs
>     <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/70.114.237.14>)
>     are quite similar (note the reference to the talk page being
>     protected, as well as the /tool/ accusations). One editor on the
>     English Wikipedia mailing list noted that 70.114.237.14
>     <
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:70.114.237.14&action=edit>
>     (talk <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:70.114.237.14> ?
>     contribs
>     <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/70.114.237.14>)'s
>     edit times don't match up with those of RunedChozo
>     <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:RunedChozo&action=edit
> >
>     (talk <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:RunedChozo> ? contribs
>     <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/RunedChozo>).
>     Perhaps that is correct, but it does not seem unreasonable, in my
>     opinion, for someone to be editing around 11:30pm and 12:30am,
>     especially if a user is angry and passionately wants to say something.
>
>     So, it is possible that 70.114.237.14
>     <
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:70.114.237.14&action=edit>
>     (talk <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:70.114.237.14> ?
>     contribs
>     <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/70.114.237.14>)
>     and RunedChozo
>     <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:RunedChozo&action=edit
> >
>     (talk <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:RunedChozo> ? contribs
>     <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/RunedChozo>) are
>     just both especially anti-Muslim editors who happen to both live
>     near Houston, edit similar articles, and use similar types of
>     statements. However, I am convinced, without reservation, that the
>     users are one and the same. -- *tariqabjotu
>     <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Tariqabjotu>* 03:08, 13 December
>     2006 (UTC)
>
> -- Tariq Ab- Jo- Tu-
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] MONGO and the ArbCom

body:
Interested parties may wish to read this summary of the findings of
fact:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2006/Candidate_statements/Questions_for_Radiant&diff=93930771&oldid=93928459

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


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-12-13

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

Reading tests from "/home/brion/src/wiki/phase3/maintenance/parserTests.txt"...
Running test TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold... FAILED!
Running test TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line... FAILED!
Running test TODO: dt/dd/dl test... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Images with the "|" character in the comment... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, without trailing slash or name.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, with lots of extra trailing slashes.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Don't fall for the self-closing div... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Always escape literal '>' in output, not just after '<'... FAILED!

Reading tests from "/home/brion/src/wiki/phase3/extensions/Cite/citeParserTests.txt"...

   1 new PASSING test(s) :)
      * Template with thumb image (with link in description)
   1 previously FAILING test(s) removed O_o
      * TODO: Template with thumb image (with link in description)
Passed 452 of 471 tests (95.97%)... FAILED!


subject:
[WikiEN-l] (offlist) Re: Admins who pretend to quit (was Re:
	MONGO and the ArbComm)

body:
I'm going to mention that you wrote "offlist" in subject, but still sent
this here.

Why you thought a simple support should be offlist, I'm not sure. It
certainly doesn't sound like something that ought to be hidden...?

Parker

On 12/12/06, Sarah <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 12/12/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at waterwiki.info> wrote:
>
> > I don't like this. First, because I would have been desyopped,
> > second, because very upsetting things happen in the normal course of
> > events and having been worked over once, they would under that policy
> > be worked over twice. The people who get upset are often our very
> > best. How could you not get upset at some of the nonsense?
> >
> Well said, Fred.
>
> Sarah
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: cohesion

subject: [WikiEN-l] Hello

body:
On 12/12/06, Eugene van der Pijll <eugene at vanderpijll.nl> wrote:

> Unfortunately, it would not. At least, not completely. Categorization is
> not transitive: if article A is a member of category C, and C is a
> subcat of D, A need not be a member of D. For example: [[Seine]] is in
> [[Category:Paris]], which is in [[Category:Cities in France]], which is
> in [[Category:France]], which is in [[Category:Republics]], which
> ultimately is a subcat of [[Category:Thought]].
>
> But the Seine is not a thought, a republic, or a city in France.
>
> Categories as implemented now have mixed meanings: they can describe
> "is-a", "has-a" or "is-related-to" connections. See earlier
> discussions on this list in September 2004 and June 2006
> (http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/htdig/wikien-l/2006-June/048183.html).
>
> Eugene

This is a real problem, which an extension, semantic mediawiki,
(http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Semantic_MediaWiki) was made to solve.
It's definitely worth taking a look at for situations like this. It
allows you to do things like say, "Paris is a [[type:=city]] in
[[located in::France]], with a population of
[[population:=1,000,000,000]].  You can then do fun things like say,
show me all the cities with populations over 20 etc.

For this original example, Fred is a [[profession::writer]] who
committed [[type of death::suicide]]. [[Category:People]]  etc. You
could then query all the writers who's type of death was suicide
without having to have one million categories for every possible
union. I hope one day we can (maybe cross your fingers) use some of
this on the main wikipedia. It's usefulness as a replacement for a lot
of categories is one of the biggest benefits.

Judson
[[:en:User:Cohesion]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Categories (was: Hello)

body:
On 12/12/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:

> We have a current trend towards splitting big categories. We prefer a
> single category "Dutch authors" rather than adding two massive
> categories to an article: "Dutch people" and "Authors". However this
> approach is pretty clearly a dead-end: how many times can we split?
> What do we split on next, "Dead Dutch authors"? Good category
> intersections would really help that one...

I just wanted to point out semantic mediawiki extension, as it solves
these problems fairly well. It may be a little difficult for many
users, but I don't think it's that bad.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Semantic_MediaWiki

Judson
[[:en:User:Cohesion]]


from_name: NSLE (Wikipedia)

body:
Seriously now, stop trolling and go back to your playroom.

On 13/12/06, Michael Smith <runedchozo at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Yadda yadda, you've got your fingers in your ears and you're screaming you
> can't hear, you don't care as long as it's a muslim who's the one doing
> the
> lying.
>
> On 12/12/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 09:35:06 -0600, "Michael Smith"
> > <runedchozo at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > >Nobody has yet even bothered to deal with this. Instead, Itaqallah got
> an
> > >admin friend of his to lock the article page, got another member of his
> > >Muslim Guild to block me, and then I come in today and ANOTHER of his
> > lying
> > >friends has falsely accused me of sockpuppeting while I was gone and
> > they've
> > >jacked the illegal block all the way to five days now.
> >
> > Ah, so they *have* dealt with this.  Good.
> >
> > Just for future reference, hysterical accusations of "rouge admin
> > abuse" are pretty much bound to be discounted.  Next time try posting
> > something much less strident.
> >
> > Guy (JzG)
> > --
> > http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
Oh please. If I "always [assumed] that admins are right" many things would
be different. That argument really fails on someone who's gone through a
desysopping.

On 13/12/06, Parker Peters <onmywayoutster at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Ok, perhaps that was a bit harsh.
>
> Let me rephrase:
>
> YOU, NSLE, have a bad habit of always assuming that admins are right, and
> a
> further bad habit of accusing anyone with whom you have the slightest
> disagreement of "trolling."
>
> There.
>
> Parker
>
> On 12/12/06, Parker Peters <onmywayoutster at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Ah, the famed "trolling" attack... stalwart of our unreasonably "admins
> > are always right at all costs" NSLE.
> >
> > Power-mad much?
> >
> > Parker
> >
> > On 12/12/06, NSLE (Wikipedia) <nsle.wikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Seriously now, stop trolling and go back to your playroom.
> > >
> > > On 13/12/06, Michael Smith <runedchozo at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Yadda yadda, you've got your fingers in your ears and you're
> screaming
> > > you
> > > > can't hear, you don't care as long as it's a muslim who's the one
> > > doing
> > > > the
> > > > lying.
> >
> >
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [WikiEN-l] MONGO and the ArbCom

body:
On 12/13/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I'm completely ignorant to the case other than what I've read on the
> page, but it would seem to me that some of the support emails here are
> operating in an even greater information vacuum.

Indeed. The case seems to revolve around two admins misusing (or
threatening to misuse) their tools in edit wars on a number of
occasions. The likely outcome of the case will be that both will be
desysopped. Unless I'm missing something, these remedies like
appropriate and fairly obvious responses.

> After reviewing the material there, I really do believe we're doing
> MONGO a favor although it might be too late in any case...  There have
> been many "Sole defenders of the  Wiki" who completely burned out when
> they realized that the community, in fact, would not let them get away
> with anything, such as RickK.

I tend to agree.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] MONGO and the ArbCom

references:
<5cosn2he24nt57ntjdorgog081p8pjsbph@4ax.com>
	<mqftn2lcfma5bm1dg7tjjnkg2gmbocjo8h@4ax.com>
	<35C63923-9D4B-45B7-86E2-6D8B609F939D@waterwiki.info>
	<f80608430612120812h2848f5c6g6f767d4ea6143bea@mail.gmail.com>
	<8448DB0E-94EF-41C4-A955-3E4929BC9872@waterwiki.info>
	<457EFDF2.5030905@KillerChihuahua.com>
	<BFED0585-0D94-43FA-B5BB-5E22A12B5104@waterwiki.info>
	<lo0un252neiq4cchotk8qkd0ob78976qug@4ax.com>
	<457F5066.7030507@gmail.com>
	<picvn2htapil2hktq8a2qftpns7uk09g4m@4ax.com>

body:
On 12/12/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 13 Dec 2006 11:29:18 +1030, "Alphax \(Wikipedia email\)"
> <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> Why?  Dismissing it outright is what any rational human being does.
>
> >NPOV says otherwise.
>
> Not so.  We can document it, in terms which make it abundantly clear
> that *this is simply not true* even though some people are determined
> to believe it.  NPOV would not, of course, allow the mad theory to
> creep into the main article.

Guy, I hope it's obvious that I respect you quite a lot, but as much
as I agree with you that the ideas the conspiracists put forth are
intellectual garbage, I really very badly think that this attitude
ultimately encourages them and (much worse) public perceptions of
them.

We can't make the lunacy go away; if we really want to minimize the
encouragement we give them, let the light of neutral open review of
their ideas expose them as garbage.  People are much less likely to
believe conspiracy theories when the whole situation is laid
dispassionately out for them to see what kooks the kooks are.
Anything else ends up encouraging them.

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


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] MONGO and the ArbCom

body:
On 13/12/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:

> > We might disagree on the reasons behind the reasons, but as far as I
> > can tell nobody with a full deck seriously believes that the WTC and
> > Pentagon attacks were anything other than terrorism.
>
> There was a poll a couple of years ago which found that 40% of the
> population of New York City thought that there was something that had been
> covered up about the official 9/11 story, though support for the individual
> specific conspiracy theories was lower.

Mmmm... but how many of those thought that what had been covered up
was embezzlement in the rebuilding contracts, or another couple of
intelligence screwups that never made it to the public record?

See, with something like... oh, like the Apollo claims, it's binary.
You claim they landed, or you claim they didn't. One side conspiracy
theorists, one side pretty much the official line. If you're on the
not-hoax side, then it's exceptionally rare for you to quibble with
the "official story" - or, if you do, you contextualise it as part of
a historical discussion, "hey, this new document suggests we've had X
wrong all along" and not as Something Smells Fishy Here, "hey, this
new document exposes the official coverup of Y". Details don't
desperately matter; indeed, hoax proponents with greatly differing
reasons behind their beliefs seem to coexist happily.

Whereas, with this, the fundamental event is accepted as having
happened by all sides (mostly, anyway, but I suspect those who deny it
aren't usually in New York), so the theories become ones of
explanation, which are by their nature much more complex and diffuse.
You have a hundred points in the "official story", and each conspiracy
theory contests or reinterprets some of those points whilst accepting
others*.

Contesting any of those points by definition means you're disputing
the official story, saying it concealed the truth (or just never found
it), but not all of them immediately produce a "conspiracy theory"; it
depends on the spin you put on it as much as anything. There are
people who believe the fourth plane was shot down by the CIA to panic
people - and people who believe it was shot down by a fighter, in a
panic, and hushed up afterwards to avoid a lynching.

The two happily coexist in disagreeing with the government line -
"fourth plane shot down!" - but wildly diverge on having a conspiracy
theory - "CIA Terror Campaign!" vs. "Hijacked Plane Accidentally
Downed". The open question is just how much of the 40% consists of
each side... and that depends entirely on your original poll. Ho hum.

> That many people thinking there's something conspiratorial going on
> terrifies me, for one, but it is a real issue...

It really is a pity they didn't ask for details, even try to
categorise it. There's the germ of a really interesting oral history
project there, come to think of it; wonder if anyone's doing that?
"Memories of 9/11" won't be in short supply, but contemporary theories
might...

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

* I don't think it's possible to have a conspiracy theory which
explicitly rejects every point of the official story - it'd be "All
quiet in the Western Hemisphere", which won't sell many books...


body:
On 12/12/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> We can improve this by reducing our tolerance, but part of that is
> reducing our tolerance for the complete cycle of drama and hate. It's
> harder to be hard line on our trolls when our 'best' are constantly
> operating at the edge and acting like children.

In the abstract, I agree that we need to find ways to apply
directional advice to project participants (editors and admins) which
reduces the spectacular flameouts which have become popular of late.
These are not doing anyone, or the project, any good.

That said, I think that your idea for how to do that is
counterproductive and dangerous.  This particular aspect of it is, in
my opinion, harmless to moderately beneficial, and a minor symptom.

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


from_name: Sherool

subject: [Commons-l] New tool - User dupes

body:
On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 14:06:41 +0100, Magnus Manske
<magnusmanske at googlemail.com> wrote:

> On 12/12/06, Bryan Tong Minh <bryan.tongminh at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 12/4/06, Magnus Manske <magnusmanske at googlemail.com> wrote:
>> > There was a discussion somewhere (maybe on this list? I don't
>> > remember) to store MD5-hashes of image data in the table with the
>> > other image information (size etc.). Nothing came of it, I'm afraid.
>> > Too bad.
>> What was the reason for this? Was it the technical difficulties, or
>> just a lack of willingness?
>
> I'd say 10% the former (MD5ing all existing images on all wikipedias
> and commons would mean server stress), and 90% the latter.

I'm sure the job que could be tweaked to handle hashing of all existing
images in the "background", it would probably take a few days to complete,
but it would hardly need to be a major stress factor). Did anyone file an
actual feature request in bugzilla or did the discussiuon just fizzle out
before anyone got around to it?

--
[[:en:User:Sherool]]


from_name: Brianna Laugher

subject:
[Commons-l] Cookie based blocking and bug #3233. A quick hack
	implimented on commons.

body:
Please now see http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Cookieblock.js .

regards,
Brianna


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Open Access Chat

body:
I would like to invite you to join a chat about the relationship
between the Wikimedia community and the Open Access movement in
scientific publishing. This will explore issues of licensing, content
sharing, technology, and hopefully result in mutual commitments to
collaborate.

In a nutshell: December 17, 2006; irc.freenode.net; 21:00 UTC; #openaccess

Please see:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Open_Access_chat

for more (including a link to a web interface for accessing the IRC
channel). I would appreciate it if you would add yourself to the "I
want to attend!" list on the page, so we have an idea how many people
are coming.

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

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


list: textbook-l

subject: [Textbook-l] Wikimedia Open Access Chat


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikimedia Open Access Chat


from_name: florencedevouard

body:
Delphine M?nard wrote:

>On 12/11/06, florencedevouard <anthere at anthere.org> wrote:
>
>
>
>>The agreement proper was essentially drafted by the local chapters
>>coordinator, Delphine M?nard, the UK chapter, Alison Wheeler and our GC,
>>Brad Patrick.
>>
>>
>
>Give credit where credit is due. The agreement was actually drafted in
>its entirety and collectively by the Chapters committee [1] and
>polished by the three of us. :-)
>
>
>Delphine
>[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapters_committee
>
>
>

Okay.
I rephrase then

A simple hand shake to Nathan Carter (cause I do not know him well)
?ukasz Garczewski, we can look together toward the future if you wish
(retreat type)
Austin Hair will have a hug (cause he needs to get used to noisy
europeans chicks hugging him)
Delphine M?nard, I'll share a room with her in a few days as a sign of
my happiness
Well, another hand sake I guess to Hari Prasad Nadig

And 2 advisers: Somehow... I doubt Andrew was involved in this one...,
Kuddos to Arne.

_______________________________________________
Internal-l mailing list
Internal-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/internal-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] MONGO and the ArbCom

body:
On 12/13/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 14:21:02 +0000, <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>
> wrote:
>
> >OK, not going to be 'popular'. Do you suggest we look at the evidence, or the buzz?
>
> I suggest that the context and history also needs to be considered as
> a mitigating factor.

See this section with respect to context:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Seabhcan/Proposed_decision#MONGO.27s_habitual_over-reaction

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Hello

body:
Eugene van der Pijll wrote:
> Sam Korn schreef:
>
>> The suggestion is that some kind of tool -- as yet, I believe
>> unwritten -- could generate a list of all members of a category and
>> its subcategories.  I imagine this would suit your purpose.
>>
>
> Unfortunately, it would not. At least, not completely. Categorization is
> not transitive: if article A is a member of category C, and C is a
> subcat of D, A need not be a member of D. For example: [[Seine]] is in
> [[Category:Paris]], which is in [[Category:Cities in France]], which is
> in [[Category:France]], which is in [[Category:Republics]], which
> ultimately is a subcat of [[Category:Thought]].
>
> But the Seine is not a thought, a republic, or a city in France.
>

I agree that this often happens, but in my opinion some of these sorts
of things are bad uses of the category system and can be avoided (which
I do in my own categorization).  In particular, categories that are very
clearly collections of things, like [[Category:Cities in France]],
should *not* contain "related-to" subcategories.  The article [[Paris]]
should be in [[Category:Cities in France]], but [[Category:Paris]]
should not be.

-Mark


from_name: Tim Starling

subject:
[Foundation-l] Cookie based blocking and bug #3233. A quick
 hack implimented on commons.

body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
>
> A better solution is to embed the MAC address of the workstation into
> the cookie itself, so you can track someone no matter what account
> or IP they use.

It should be obvious that you can't obtain the MAC address using any
documented Java or JavaScript interface, that would be a privacy issue. I
once suggested a browser plugin, "click yes at the security dialog box to
allow editing from AOL", but for some reason the response from those
present was not positive... You might expect some anti-spyware advocates
to get annoyed, since in essence that's what it would be. Then there's the
issue of trusting data from the client: if you want to add anti-debugger
and anti-disassembly measures then it becomes a significant development
task, and no such measure is perfect anyway.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Jim Schuler

body:
Did it really rate a comment?

On 12/13/06, Parker Peters <onmywayoutster at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I'm going to mention that you wrote "offlist" in subject, but still sent
> this here.
>
> Why you thought a simple support should be offlist, I'm not sure. It
> certainly doesn't sound like something that ought to be hidden...?
>
> Parker
>
> On 12/12/06, Sarah <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 12/12/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at waterwiki.info> wrote:
> >
> > > I don't like this. First, because I would have been desyopped,
> > > second, because very upsetting things happen in the normal course of
> > > events and having been worked over once, they would under that policy
> > > be worked over twice. The people who get upset are often our very
> > > best. How could you not get upset at some of the nonsense?
> > >
> > Well said, Fred.
> >
> > Sarah
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Jim
http://iacobomus.blogspot.com/


body:
On 12/12/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> > On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 10:43:02 -0600, "Parker Peters"
> > <onmywayoutster at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Does anyone know why this "Parker Peters" is not on mod by now?
> >
>
> It's much more credible when trolls are defeated by sound reasoning
> rather than outright censorship.
>
> --
> Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax

Depends on whether or not "reason" has any meaning to the troll.

--
Jim
http://iacobomus.blogspot.com/


body:
On 12/12/06, Parker Peters <onmywayoutster at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 12/12/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 12/12/06, Tariq Ab- Jo- Tu- <tariqabjotu at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > However, I don't appreciate the accusations (not from
> > > you, George) of this being some Muslim Guild conspiracy. It's not; I'm
> > > not even a member of the Muslim Guild.
> > >
> >
> > Lest anyone misunderstand on that point, I fully agree that claims of a
> > conspiracy starting this are clearly unreasonable, and help show why
> Runed
> > may not have the temperment to be a productive WP editor.
> >
> > I don't agree with Parker Peters that it is a conflict of interest for
> > Muslim admins to react to abuse issues on Islam related pages.
> >
> > I think that it is a generally tendentious and unhelpful thing to do.
>
> In cases where a Muslim editor is in an edit conflict with another editor
> on
> an Islam-related topic, a third admin who just "happens" to be Muslim is
> definitely going to raise questions over conflict of interest, especially
> when both sides are accusing each other of POV pushing and the Muslim
> admin
> sides with the Muslim editor.
>
> Parker

I see.  So if a Christian editor and an unspecified editor are duking it out
on the Creation article, whatever admin decides to step in can't be
Christian because of potential COI, especially if he happened to agree with
the Christian editor?  OK, so if the other editor is an atheist, then I
suppose an atheist admin would be blocked from acting for the same reason.
But since Muslims and Jews are "of the Book", as Guy said, and since both
believe in a Creation myth, they couldn't step in either so I guess we would
need to search for a Hindu or Buddhist or Shintoist, yes?  At what point
does the lunacy end?  Or, could it be that Peter Parker or Parker Peters or
whatever simply has a visceral hatred for and innate suspicion of Muslims?

--
> Jim
> http://iacobomus.blogspot.com/


body:
Tired retort.  It has naught to do with agreeing or disagreeing, it has to
do with what you post and how you post it.  You aren't really here to
discuss or remedy anything, are you?

On 12/12/06, Parker Peters <onmywayoutster at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> And once again, the "anyone who doesn't agree with me is a troll" attitude
> rears its ugly head.
>
> sigh.
>
> Parker
>
> On 12/12/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> > > On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 10:43:02 -0600, "Parker Peters"
> > > <onmywayoutster at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Does anyone know why this "Parker Peters" is not on mod by now?
> > >
> >
> > It's much more credible when trolls are defeated by sound reasoning
> > rather than outright censorship.
> >
> > --
> > Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
> > Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
> > "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
> > Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> >
> >
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Jim
http://iacobomus.blogspot.com/


body:
You've examined the code, eh?  Probably not.  As for the "possible", see
[[WP:BEANS]].

On 12/13/06, Parker Peters <onmywayoutster at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> "Possible". What did the checkuser actually say, I wonder.
>
> As far as I know Checkuser (and I've examined the code), it's a yes or no
> thing. Putting forth a claim of "possible" is just a hedge being used to
> continue to beat up on this user while they are blocked and their talk
> page
> locked.
>
> I don't buy it. This whole thing doesn't pass the smell test, your conduct
> included.
>
> Parker
>
> On 12/12/06, Tariq Ab- Jo- Tu- <tariqabjotu at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > For those keeping up on this, the checkuser results have come in (see
> >
> >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/RunedChozo
> > ).
> > I will also copy the comment I made to [[WP:ANI]]:
> >
> >     The results of the checkuser have come in with the conclusion being
> >     /possible/. Nevertheless, let me make a case for why the IP address
> >     in question that led to the extended block is most likely RunedChozo
> >     <
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:RunedChozo&action=edit
> > >
> >     (talk <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:RunedChozo> ? contribs
> >     <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/RunedChozo>).
> >     First, note the previous request for checkuser that came back
> >     confirmed. The IP address from that confirmed checkuser request
> >     comes from Houston, Texas (see WHOIS lookup
> >     <http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?ip=129.7.35.126>). Both IP
> >     addresses part of the more recent checkuser (the one the ended as
> >     only /possible/) come from Houston as well (see WHOIS lookup one
> >     <http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?ip=70.114.237.14> and two
> >     <http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?ip=70.114.236.109>). As
> >     stated already, the rhetoric from RunedChozo
> >     <
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:RunedChozo&action=edit
> > >
> >     (talk <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:RunedChozo> ? contribs
> >     <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/RunedChozo>) and
> >     70.114.237.14
> >     <
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:70.114.237.14&action=edit
> >
> >     (talk <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:70.114.237.14> ?
> >     contribs
> >     <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/70.114.237.14>)
> >     are quite similar (note the reference to the talk page being
> >     protected, as well as the /tool/ accusations). One editor on the
> >     English Wikipedia mailing list noted that 70.114.237.14
> >     <
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:70.114.237.14&action=edit
> >
> >     (talk <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:70.114.237.14> ?
> >     contribs
> >     <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/70.114.237.14
> >)'s
> >     edit times don't match up with those of RunedChozo
> >     <
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:RunedChozo&action=edit
> > >
> >     (talk <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:RunedChozo> ? contribs
> >     <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/RunedChozo>).
> >     Perhaps that is correct, but it does not seem unreasonable, in my
> >     opinion, for someone to be editing around 11:30pm and 12:30am,
> >     especially if a user is angry and passionately wants to say
> something.
> >
> >     So, it is possible that 70.114.237.14
> >     <
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:70.114.237.14&action=edit
> >
> >     (talk <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:70.114.237.14> ?
> >     contribs
> >     <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/70.114.237.14>)
> >     and RunedChozo
> >     <
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:RunedChozo&action=edit
> > >
> >     (talk <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:RunedChozo> ? contribs
> >     <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/RunedChozo>) are
> >     just both especially anti-Muslim editors who happen to both live
> >     near Houston, edit similar articles, and use similar types of
> >     statements. However, I am convinced, without reservation, that the
> >     users are one and the same. -- *tariqabjotu
> >     <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Tariqabjotu>* 03:08, 13 December
> >     2006 (UTC)
> >
> > -- Tariq Ab- Jo- Tu-
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Jim
http://iacobomus.blogspot.com/


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Categories

body:
Marc Riddell wrote:
> Steve,
>
> It is clear to me from all of the dialogue, that the issue of Categories and
> their use in Wikipedia is not only controversial, but also pretty much
> unresolved and unfocused. And, what could be a powerful tool within
> Wikipedia has evolved into an unfocused mess. I believe it is going to take
> a small group of focused, objective persons, taking an equally focused,
> objective look at it, and formulate a set of firm guidelines for its use ?
> starting with, of course, its very purpose.
>
Hate to be a downer, but this ain't ever going to happen. Just when you
think it's all figured out, a new group comes along and undoes
everything, all the while declaiming about how awful your system is.
Categories are one of those things that editors can do without having
any writing ability, or even much subject-matter knowledge, so the pool
of categorizers is quite large.
> I would like to take the discussion back to my original question: May I
> include both a main category and a subcategory in the same article? I would
> like to accomplish this without creating an edit war with another editor who
> thinks it?s wrong.
>
>
Although we don't have much consensus on categories, the "no supercats"
rule is pretty broadly followed. It would be less work to change
MediaWiki, even if you're not a programmer. :-)

Stan