references:
<C2106459.1EA6%michaeldavid86@comcast.net>	<45EAFED6.9090809@scissor.com>
	<45EB1236.7070604@hackish.org>

body:
Delirium wrote:
> William Pietri wrote:
>
>> Further, in many ways, we are in the same situation as journalists. Our
>> product only has value to the extend that we have the trust of the
>> public. That means that we need both to actually be trustworthy and to
>> avoid situations whose appearance would undermine trust. Journalists
>> have been wrestling with these issues for many decades, and we can and
>> should learn from them. That's why I posted the relevant snipped from
>> the SPJ ethics code.
>>
>>
>
> I don't think our situation is particular similar to journalists'.  We
> are not doing original research, and we are not writing bylined
> articles.  We summarize sources neutrally, post it publicly, and other
> people edit our work mercilessly at the slightest hint of a problem with it.
>

I think there are two questions here. One is about producing good work,
and the other is about avoiding suspicious circumstances that would
reduce public trust. I think you've addressed only the first, so let's
start with that.

I agree that we're not doing original research, but we are still doing
research. As you can see in [[WP:COI]], we ask people with conflicts of
interest to not edit, for basically the same reasons journalists don't
take payment or gifts from people they cover. (By the way, I'm not
seeing how a byline works into it; even, and perhaps especially, for
publications that aren't bylined, the ethics issues are still the same.)

When you describe the theory of how we work, I don't have a big argument
with it. Our transparency and openness are what make Wikipedia possible.
But in practice, I think that payment changes a balance that we depend
on: that enough people with opinions on all sides of an issue have
roughly equal amounts of time and energy to put into an article.

In areas where that's not the case, I think we can end up with pretty
bad articles. Take a look at [[PA Consulting Group]], for example.
Written in large part by PA staff and sourced mainly from press
releases, I see it as a puff piece. But they had a lot more time to put
into it than anybody else, and so they managed to [[WP:OWN]] it. Or to
take another example from my watchlist, look at the fringe religious
group [[Eckanar]]. I'm told by user Andries that it has always been an
SPA playground. Just yesterday I hit my 3RR limit removing suspicious
SPA edits, and nobody else lept into the gap. Will anybody have time to
clean it up? We'll see, but given that the article was started in 2003,
I'm not expecting anything to happen soon.

Or just look more generally at the topics where spam is a problem. The
number of people with an interest in promoting their pet company or band
or theory are much larger than the number of people around to work on
articles like that, so we jump on anybody like that with both feet.
That's not because we think them particularly bad people individually,
but it's the only way we've found to cope with the vast imbalance.

So as far as doing good work goes, I think that avoiding conflicts of
interest is just as important for us as it is for journalists. And I
think, per[[WP:CSB]], we'd be wise not to introduce another source of
systemic bias.

Even if the quality of the work weren't in question, though, we'd still
come to the question of appearances.

Take a look at the reception reports get from pretty much any think tank
or self-labeled institute. The reaction depends a lot on who is funding
them. Global warming research funded by Exxon is not treated the same
way as independently-funded research. Or look at the controversies about
drug-company-funded research. Academics who consistently take a lot of
money from a particular source are treated with a level of suspicion
well beyond the norm.  Note that this doesn't even imply that any given
academic is corrupt. Companies are more likely to fund people who are
likely to make them look good, so there's a concern about selection bias
as well.

All of this applies, by the way, to the academic realm, where people are
putting years of training and their professional reputations on the
line. The incentives are stronger for them to get things right. The
incentives for J Random Contributor are not nearly as strong.
Wikipedia's reputation is not nearly as well established as, say,
Harvard. And neither is our internal governance.

So I think even if every one of the edits from paid contributors were
very good, I think people would inevitably trust Wikipedia less. And
given that I don't feel like we have a huge surplus of public trust yet,
I think we should error the side of caution here.

> More similar, I think, would be to compare historians who write works on
> commission.  These are generally paid for by an interested party, but
> with the money given up front with the understanding that they're
> commissioning an independent historical analysis that will not
> necessarily show them in a positive light.

I'd be intrigued to read more about this, but my guess is that it would
require several conditions for it to work:

   1. The company would have to have a clear and special interest in
      being seeing as completely forthright.
   2. The historian would have to be somebody with an established
      reputation and solid credentials.
   3. The historian would do a relatively small amount of work for the
      commissioning party. (E.g., they would not be a staff historian.)
   4. The historian would not primarily do commissioned work.

Note that 1 is not the usual order of things. Companies spend tremendous
amounts of money on PR and advertising, and vanishingly small amounts on
historians. I'm sure that after WWII German companies had a big need to
come clean, but that's not how business normally works.

Items 2, 3, and 4 are about reducing the conflict of interest to
manageable proportions. Serious historians have a reputation to
maintain. This is a situation notably lacking for freelance commercial
writers. By allowing unfettered contributions from people with obvious
COI problems, we would be much closer to the latter than the former.

William

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


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: David Gerard

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

body:
On 03/03/07, Jaap Vermeulen <jaap.vermeulen at gmail.com> wrote:

> I posted the following here -
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Conflict_of_interest#Editing_for_payment:
> "I have recently been approached by an organisation to improve articles
> related to the organisation in question (not create new ones). I would
> receive money for doing so. I am an administrator and am aware of the
> policies and guidelines that govern Wikipedia. The organisation understands
> that it is not acceptable to whitewash any articles and that criticism
> should be included in the article. For them it is a matter of improving the
> quality of the articles, not to whitewash them. Is this acceptable? Should I
> decide to go ahead with this I would do so in full disclosure, since I
> believe doing so without the community being aware would not be ethical,
> especially since as an admin the community has placed trust in me that I
> would not want to abuse."

The short answer is "don't, uh-uh, no way."

If they have article content concerns, there's ways to deal with that.

- d.


from_name: Marc Riddell

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

body:
on 3/4/07 12:16 PM, William Pietri at william at scissor.com wrote:

> Sorry, but I guess I wasn't clear enough.
>
> Jaap's question is, as the subject line says, whether editing for
> payment of articles related to the payee is a fundamentally problematic
> conflict of interest. My answer is yes, absolutely.
>
> Further, in many ways, we are in the same situation as journalists. Our
> product only has value to the extend that we have the trust of the
> public. That means that we need both to actually be trustworthy and to
> avoid situations whose appearance would undermine trust. Journalists
> have been wrestling with these issues for many decades, and we can and
> should learn from them. That's why I posted the relevant snipped from
> the SPJ ethics code.
>
> Unfortunately, the assumption of good faith isn't relevant when making
> this decision. That's a mechanism to defuse conflict and build working
> relationships. Jaap is obviously acting in good faith. But I have even
> talked with PR people who were spamming Wikipedia in good faith. They
> honestly thought that their links and promotional text were true and
> useful to readers, so there was no harm in including them. The
> assumption of good faith means that we should be kind to them, to treat
> them amicably, and to educate them. But it does not and must not mean
> that we allow the integrity of the encyclopedia to be compromised.
>
>
> By the way, Jaap, many thanks for being very public about this. A fine
> demonstration not just of good faith, but good sense.

Nicely put.

Marc

--
------- Smile - touch a life! -------


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

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

body:
It is my sincere hope that people will just stop discussing this whole
Essjay episode ad nauseum.

Here is someone who made a mistake. You may even say a big mistake. For  that
mistake he lost his credibility, he lost his community, he lost his  job at
Wikia, and he is the subject of disparaging articles and opinions  both online
and in print.

Apart from a public lynching, what else do people want from him?

Let him go in peace. There is no need to stomp on every last shred of
dignity he still has.

Danny

**************************************
 AOL now offers free
email to everyone.  Find out more about what's free from AOL at
http://www.aol.com.


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

body:
On Sun, 04 Mar 2007 07:42:40 -0500, Marc Riddell
<michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:

>How would giving away the money you are paid for doing work make that work
>any more credible? What about the credibility and integrity of the person
>doing that work? Ever hear of trust!?!

Because (a) you would not be doing the work (just posting the sources
and allowing others to do it) and (b) you would not personally
benefit, the foundation would.  So it's pretty much completely clean.

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


list: commons-l

from_name: Bryan Tong Minh

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

body:
On 3/4/07, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well done to everyone who helped make it a success, including
> Alvesgaspar, Michael Maggs, Bryan, Gmaxwell, LadyofHats, Dschwen,
> Herbythyme, Shyam,
>
Don't forget yourself.

Thanks, Bryan


list: wikitech-l

subject: [Wikitech-l] Commons image archive

body:
I've hacked BitTornado such that it has become almost a one click
dowload program. Unfortunately I forgot to pack it with gdiplus.dll,
so it is not working on all Windows pc's. As I am writing this, I
don't have access either to gdiplus, so I cannot currently fix it.
Hope to have it done this evening, or find a way to make wxPython
independent of gdi+.

Bryan

On 3/4/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/4/07, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > I recommended against that on the basis of the frequent and incessant
> > > advocacy of BitTorrent as a cure all for our bandwidth related issues,
> > > and that we couldn't have a better fit for BitTorrent than this
> > > application.
> >
> > Wouldn't offering it as both be a good way to see what users will prefer?
>
> Users would probably prefer the http/ftp download link option. It's
> simple, easy and fast.. at least it is so long as we have enough
> bandwidth to support it.
>
> I don't believe that anyone thinks otherwise. But user preference is
> irrelevant if the cost of bandwidth causes us to choose to not make
> such things available.
>
> The open questions are: 1) can we continue to support large files with
> our existing model and 2) what alternative exist and what are their
> limitations.
>
> A lot of the bittorrent software is fairly buggy, ... after the time I
> spent on it today I would have much rather forgone the BT software and
> worked on something else... but I do think that it is important that
> we gain some concrete and direct experience with it.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


list: foundation-l

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

body:
Yes I did.

Bryan

On 3/4/07, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Bryan Tong Minh wrote:
> > Dear Wikimedians,
> >
> > The Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year 2006 competition is now
> > over, and the winner has been selected. Thank you for voting.
> > Of the 662 Wikimedians who voted, 83 selected 'Aurora Borealis' [1]
> > as the 'Wikimedia Commons Picture of 2006'.
>
> Has anyone attempted to contact the photographer, Joshua Strang? He
> probably didn't even know it was on Commons; he might be interested to
> know it was voted picture of the year.
>
> -- Tim Starling
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [Wikitech-l] Commons image archive

body:
Bryan Tong Minh wrote:
> Windows does not have a builtin BitTorrent client. The only major
> webbrowser that has BitTorrent builtin is Opera.

There are a couple of Firefox plugins in development. Examples found
with a quick Googling:
http://code.google.com/p/bitfox/
http://moztorrent.mozdev.org/
http://www.redswoosh.net/foxtorrent/index.html

I haven't tried them myself, though. When I hit a torrent file I've
simply configured Firefox to download it and open it with Azureus, it
takes just two clicks to get the download going.


from_name: William Pietri

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

body:
geni wrote:
> On 3/4/07, Sam Blacketer <sam.blacketer at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>> The really depressing thing about the episode is that so many editors did
>> seem to want a public lynching, and thought it would be for the good of us
>> all.
>>
>
> Straw poll suggested that a majority supported him keeping his
> adminship. This does not fit with your claims.
>

Not that these aren't interesting topics, and I'd certainly like to have
a good discussion about them. But could we agree to drop this for, say,
60 days? I think emotions are too raw on many sides to have a useful
discussion now.

Thanks,

William

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


from_name: Delirium

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

body:
Jaap Vermeulen wrote:
> I posted the following here -
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Conflict_of_interest#Editing_for_payment:
>
> "I have recently been approached by an organisation to improve articles
> related to the organisation in question (not create new ones). I would
> receive money for doing so. I am an administrator and am aware of the
> policies and guidelines that govern Wikipedia. The organisation understands
> that it is not acceptable to whitewash any articles and that criticism
> should be included in the article. For them it is a matter of improving the
> quality of the articles, not to whitewash them. Is this acceptable? Should I
> decide to go ahead with this I would do so in full disclosure, since I
> believe doing so without the community being aware would not be ethical,
> especially since as an admin the community has placed trust in me that I
> would not want to abuse."
>
> I'd appreciate further feedback, since I'm not sure how I should proceed
> here.
>
I would say definitely that's fine, but others have been known to
disagree in the past.  I do think we should generally let edits speak
for themselves.  If someone is editing reasonably, then I don't care if
they're getting paid or not.  If they aren't editing reasonably, then it
doesn't help at all that they have no conflicts of interest.

-Mark


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
If they are as aware of the rules as they appear to be, there's little
problems, but you have to be very careful with your editing. And yes, do it
in full disclosure. I like the idea JzG posted better though. Even good
editors can lose their neutrality when money is involved.

Mgm

On 3/4/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
> On Sat, 3 Mar 2007 19:38:37 +0100, "Jaap Vermeulen"
> <jaap.vermeulen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >I have recently been approached by an organisation to improve articles
> >related to the organisation in question (not create new ones). I would
> >receive money for doing so.
>
> Ask them for the sources form which this should be drawn, post them to
> the Talk pages, and request that the company donate the money to the
> Foundation.  How would that do?
>
> Guy (JzG)
> --
> http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
On Mon, 5 Mar 2007 00:11:35 +1100, "Steve Bennett"
<stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:

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

Yes.  Gregory Kohs also thought it was fine to edit for pay, we banned
him because lots of people disagreed, he was arrogant about it, which
drove off those who might otherwise have agreed and a review of his
edits showed that they were largely PR pieces or directory entries,
not serious attempts at creating neutral articles.

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

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

Actually I have no problem in principle with people occasionally
editing an article where they have some minor conflict of interest,
but edits by the marketing or PR people tend to be uncritical and
problematic, and being paid for editing specified content is certainly
incompatible with Wikipedia's ethos - you have a situation where the
company will necessarily demand or expect a certain tone of editing;
would they pay up cheerfully if during your researches you found and
included a fact which reflected badly on them?  Too many problems down
that road, I think.

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


body:
On Sun, 04 Mar 2007 08:02:13 -0500, Marc Riddell
<michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:

>I feel you are missing my point. Why would being paid money for any
>contribution I made to a project make that action unclean?

Because he who pays the piper calls the tune.  See my comment
elsewhere in this thread: what would you do - and what would they do -
if your researches showed that the CEO eats babies?

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


from_name: Bartning at aol.com

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

body:
In a message dated 3/4/2007 9:08:15 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,
guy.chapman at spamcop.net writes:

Although  to be fair you were editing with a very clear conflict of
interest, adding  links to your own sites, and using Wikipedia to
advance your external  agenda.  You were also distinctly rude when
called on it.  So  it's not *terribly* surprising that you were
blocked, and not actually  unfair, as such.  Which is not to say there
are *no* unfair cases,  just that yours does not seem to be one  of
them.

There was no pay involved.  I added other nonprofit foundations  besides.  I
have a personal interest in the topic.  I don't think you  could claim that
Frederick Douglass couldn't talk about blacks or Jim Wales  online encyclopedias
for that matter.  You're making an inappropriate  argument, and it's an
attack because of my over concern about it: I was also  blocked.

 I suppose you'd call donating blood a conflict of interest too -  "because
the American Red Cross keeps your name."  Claiming conflicts of  interest for
whatever reason does not provide good policy.

Vincent

**************************************
 AOL now offers free
email to everyone.  Find out more about what's free from AOL at
http://www.aol.com.


body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> On Mon, 5 Mar 2007 00:37:03 +1100, "Steve Bennett"
> <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I don't know if that's all true (the one or two articles I looked at
>> of his were objectively much better than the void that had existed
>> before them), but in any case, bad edits are bad edits - regardless of
>> whether anyone was paid to make them. The question is, do good edits
>> become bad edits just because they were paid for?
>>
>
> Hmmm.  No, I think the question is, can we assume that paid edits are
> good edits.  If there is a paid editor, what we actually have to do is
> shadow them to check for subtle bias - if I were paid to write an
> article I would not be 100% confident I could write without subtle
> bias, especially if sources were spoonfed. How do we know that the
> sources have not been carefully selected to present a desired
> perspective?  It would be rather naive to believe they had not been so
> selected, in fact.
>
But that's true of everyone---not just people who are paid.  Anyone who
has held office for a political party, for example, whether or not they
are currently being paid... any computer scientist who has been involved
in a major dispute within her field... etc, etc.  The general solution
we use is to assume good faith, unless evidence warrants otherwise---not
to ban all Democrats from editing politics-related articles.

-Mark


subject: [Wikitech-l] Commons image archive

body:
Windows does not have a builtin BitTorrent client. The only major
webbrowser that has BitTorrent builtin is Opera.

The problem with the dll's is now fixed, unfortunately I don't have
anything here that looks like a compiler, so I cannot create a new exe
here :(

Bryan

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


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

body:
William Pietri wrote:
> Further, in many ways, we are in the same situation as journalists. Our
> product only has value to the extend that we have the trust of the
> public. That means that we need both to actually be trustworthy and to
> avoid situations whose appearance would undermine trust. Journalists
> have been wrestling with these issues for many decades, and we can and
> should learn from them. That's why I posted the relevant snipped from
> the SPJ ethics code.
>

I don't think our situation is particular similar to journalists'.  We
are not doing original research, and we are not writing bylined
articles.  We summarize sources neutrally, post it publicly, and other
people edit our work mercilessly at the slightest hint of a problem with it.

More similar, I think, would be to compare historians who write works on
commission.  These are generally paid for by an interested party, but
with the money given up front with the understanding that they're
commissioning an independent historical analysis that will not
necessarily show them in a positive light.  Several German banks
commissioned historical works about their activities during World War
II, and the resulting works were not generally very positive.  I don't
recall any objections to the funding there---that it was a bank
commissioning its own history---and in fact generally people thought the
banks *should* be the ones paying for the research.  Now add onto that
an additional layer of safety, where the work now gets edited by
hundreds of other completely unrelated people after being written.

-Mark


from_name: Guettarda

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

body:
On 3/4/07, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/4/07, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
> > It is my sincere hope that people will just stop discussing this whole
> > Essjay episode ad nauseum.
> >
> > Here is someone who made a mistake. You may even say a big mistake.
> For  that
> > mistake he lost his credibility, he lost his community, he lost his  job
> at
> > Wikia, and he is the subject of disparaging articles and opinions  both
> online
> > and in print.
> >
> > Apart from a public lynching, what else do people want from him?
> >
> > Let him go in peace. There is no need to stomp on every last shred of
> > dignity he still has.
> >
> > Danny
>
> Agreed. Let us not forget the immense work he has done for wikipedia,
> both as a writer and as a part of the administration. The horse has
> been killed, now lets just let it go.

Agreed.  It's really sad...and now worse that it cost him his job.  I hate
how toxic the culture can become.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Job: Volunteer Coordinator

body:
Robert Horning wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>The concern that becomes apparent from reading this thread is that
>>living in St. Pete's would very strongly favour having this job go to an
>>American.  To be sure some of the paying jobs can only be done at the
>>headquarters, but this is very much an international organization which
>>should do more to open opportunities for citizens of other nations.  The
>>nature of this opening suggests that the work could be done anywhere in
>>the world without the need to move to the United States.
>>
>>
>I think that any specific location anywhere in the world is going to
>favor one nationality over another.  Even Brussels is going to be very
>Euro-centric, and I could go on and on about other major cities
>throughout the world.  This is not really a very legitimate reply.
>
I said nothing about moving the headquarters.  What I sought to
emphasize was that opportunities should be equal for citizens of all
coountries.

>I will say in defense of Florida (although Miami would be a bit better
>in this regard), this is America's gateway to the Caribbean Islands,
>and home to a very diverse  number of  ethnic groups that I would
>challenge you to find anywhere in the world outside of perhaps NYC or
>San Francisco.
>
As far as which city in the United States should have the headquarters,
I have no complaints about having it where it is.  Seattle might
personally be more convenient for me, but on that level we would
probably all like to hav it closer.

>To me, this is a very anti-American attitude that is strongly suggesting
>that perhaps the WMF needs to re-incorporate somewhere in the EU.  If
>somebody from say South Africa were to work with somebody from Japan on
>a daily and face to face basis, where would you suggest that they find
>as a common location to meet, work, and live?
>
It's more pro-internationalist than anti-American.  I said nothing about
re-incorporating anywhere.

>I will also defend keeping the WMF in America at least so far as I think
>you would have a very hard time trying to find a place that is more
>politically stable or has similar economic stability and 1st world
>infrastructure necessary to carry out the mission of the WMF.  The last
>realistic attempted military invasion to the heartland of America took
>place in 1812.
>
See [[War of 1812]].  The United States was not invaded; it did the
invading.  It was an opportunistic and expansionist attempt to take
advantage of the fact that most British troops were tied down by the
little Corsican.

>Can you say that about any other country in the world
>except perhaps Switzerland?  Even that could be argued in light of WWII,
>but I won't belabor that point.  In addition, the WMF is already in
>America, and much of the legal underpinnings and relationships are based
>upon American law.
>
That seems more like an excuse than a reason.

>I guess I just don't see the point to all of this anyway or why this
>thread has brought out the attitudes that this has.  We are a very
>diverse group of people all working together, where I, as an American
>living in rural America in the heart of the Rocky Mountains have nearly
>daily conversations with people from Poland, the UK, and South Africa on
>collaborative writing projects.  Often I don't even know the nationality
>of the people that I am working with, or even what continent of the
>world they are really at when I am having these discussions.  I fail to
>see why this particular position as a Volunteer Coordinator would have
>to be any different in this regard.
>
Sure.  Why would it not then be acceptable that the volunteer
co-ordinator from any of these countries?  If the person is unable to
secure the needed visas to work at the U.S. headquarters that should not
be an impediment to getting the job.

Ec


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

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

body:
On 3/4/07, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Bryan Tong Minh wrote:
> > Dear Wikimedians,
> >
> > The Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year 2006 competition is now
> > over, and the winner has been selected. Thank you for voting.
> > Of the 662 Wikimedians who voted, 83 selected 'Aurora Borealis' [1]
> > as the 'Wikimedia Commons Picture of 2006'.
>
> Has anyone attempted to contact the photographer, Joshua Strang? He
> probably didn't even know it was on Commons; he might be interested to
> know it was voted picture of the year.

I can't wait to find out he created it while off-duty thus it isn't
public domain... and that he expects licensing fees!  :(


from_name: SonOfYoungwood at aol.com

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

body:
I find it sickening that he lost his job at Wikia over this issue.

| Tyler | Zorin Deckiller |
| Wikipedia Administrator |  Former SWU member |
| _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Deckiller_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Deckiller)   |
| _http://www.myspace.com/redsectora_ (http://www.myspace.com/redsectora)   |

**************************************
 AOL now offers free
email to everyone.  Find out more about what's free from AOL at
http://www.aol.com.


from_name: Rob Smith

body:
On 3/3/07, Jaap Vermeulen <jaap.vermeulen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I posted the following here -
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Conflict_of_interest#Editing_for_payment
> :
>
>
>
> I'd appreciate further feedback, since I'm not sure how I should proceed
> here.
>
> Jaap Vermeulen
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jacoplane

A paid contributor, i.e. an agent for another, who initiates WP:Dispute
Resolution processes against editors contributing in good faith,
fundamentally places the non-paid contributor at a disadvantage.  That is to
say, the non-paid volunteer has no knowledge of whom he is in dispute with.
Wikipedia policies do not require disclosure.


from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

body:
How can anyone even ask this?

Only a few days ago, it was reported that "Breast cancer treatment
trials that are funded by drug companies are more likely to show
positive results than studies sponsored by other sources, new
research suggests."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/26/
AR2007022600728.html

It was also reported a few thousand years ago, in a study in which a
researcher reported: "where your treasure is, there will your heart
be also... No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the
one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise
the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."


from_name: Stephen Park

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

body:
On 3/4/07, Sam Blacketer <sam.blacketer at googlemail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Apart from a public lynching, what else do people want from him?
>
>
> The really depressing thing about the episode is that so many editors did
> seem to want a public lynching, and thought it would be for the good of us
> all. All it was was just a childish joke by Essjay when he first signed up,
> that ran away with him and only caught up when he was well-known enough to
> really harm him. Not to say that I approve of what he did but I do have
> immense sympathy for him.

Public lynchings are a regular feature of wikipedia. Just look at
WP/ANI and especially the method of having a community ban
(essentially a wikilynching) instead of a trial by ArbComm.


body:
on 3/4/07 3:22 PM, Daniel P. B. Smith at wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com wrote:

> It was also reported a few thousand years ago, in a study in which a
> researcher reported: "where your treasure is, there will your heart
> be also... No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the
> one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise
> the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."

Perhaps it is time for some new thinking.

A key to progress: Before I can go anywhere, I first have to overcome where
I?ve been.

Marc Riddell


from_name: Keitei

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

references:
<C2106459.1EA6%michaeldavid86@comcast.net>
	<45EAFED6.9090809@scissor.com> <45EB1236.7070604@hackish.org>

body:
On Mar 4, 2007, at 13:38, Delirium wrote:

> I don't think our situation is particular similar to journalists'.  We
> are not doing original research, and we are not writing bylined
> articles.  We summarize sources neutrally, post it publicly, and other
> people edit our work mercilessly at the slightest hint of a problem
> with it.
>
> More similar, I think, would be to compare historians who write
> works on
> commission.  These are generally paid for by an interested party, but
> with the money given up front with the understanding that they're
> commissioning an independent historical analysis that will not
> necessarily show them in a positive light.  Several German banks
> commissioned historical works about their activities during World War
> II, and the resulting works were not generally very positive.  I don't
> recall any objections to the funding there---that it was a bank
> commissioning its own history---and in fact generally people
> thought the
> banks *should* be the ones paying for the research.  Now add onto that
> an additional layer of safety, where the work now gets edited by
> hundreds of other completely unrelated people after being written.
>
> -Mark

I have to agree with this analysis. I've heard it said that it takes
about 50 hours to write a featured article. Most people are not
willing to spend 50 hours writing something for which they will get
no recognition, which will become a huge pain in the rear to maintain
if they so choose, for which they will spend countless hours
appeasing the whims of a random group of people who have taken it
upon themselves to decide what is brilliant and what is not, and
which will be immediately set loose upon the masses to be mangled and
changed. However, if someone is compensated for those 50 hours they
spend, they might do it. I don't see this as a conflict of interest,
I see it as incentive. Of course there may not be that much to write
about companies, but when faced with having a stub for an article
because nobody is interested in the topic, what is the company to do?
I don't see anything wrong with paying someone to raise an article to
featured status with the terms of payment being that the community
agrees that it is neutral, comprehensive, and brilliantly written and
not the payer liking what they see. I really do have a hard time
seeing any such articles making it to featured status any other way,
for that matter. Because who honestly wants to spend their volunteer
free time on something as boring as company history, policy, and
organization. Or whatever boring topic you choose.
So in short, I think there is a way to do paid editing, which will
not taint the wikipedia, we just haven't stumbled on it yet. Although
I think I'd be extremely jealous of the people who get paid for their
editing time when mine is as free as everyone else's. But it's for
the good of the encyclopedia.... right?
Maybe...


from_name: Sheldon Rampton

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

body:
Sam Blacketer wrote:

> The really depressing thing about the episode is that so many
> editors did
> seem to want a public lynching, and thought it would be for the
> good of us
> all. All it was was just a childish joke by Essjay when he first
> signed up,
> that ran away with him and only caught up when he was well-known
> enough to
> really harm him. Not to say that I approve of what he did but I do
> have
> immense sympathy for him.

It probably *began* as a joke, but it was Essjay's own actions that
made it snowball out of control. He went beyond fabricating
credentials and actually cited them in support of editorial
decisions. When he took the job at Wikia, he failed to anticipate
that the disparity between his pretend bio and his real one would
become publicly known. When it *did* become known, he gave an
explanation ("I had to use disinformation so people wouldn't hunt me
down and kill me") that is both implausible and inconsistent with the
public record about when and how he began calling himself a
professor. Each of these decisions contributed further to erosion of
trust.

Personally, I have nothing against Essjay. I can empathize with the
situation he's in, because I've done some stupid, wrong things in my
own life too. (Fortunately for me, my worst errors didn't happen on
the internet.) I think the mistakes he made were mostly due to youth
and lack of experience.

Awhile back I dealt with some problems on our website that were
caused by operator error at our web hosting service. To make matters
worse, the operator who made the error didn't come clean at first,
which further delayed our efforts to fix the problem. I was livid and
wanted to get the guy fired until our webmaster (who is sometimes
wiser than me) said, "He's probably young. When you're young and
screw up, you're more likely to try to bluff your way through. When
you're old like we are and screw up, you know the truth is going to
come out anyway, so you just admit to it." I remembered some of my
own past errors, and my anger cleared. I think this is pretty much
what happened with Essjay too. He's young, did something stupid, and
what probably began for him as an amusing little fiction blew up into
something worse because he tried to bluff his way through instead of
coming clean. That's wrong, but it's also forgiveable. His
transgression was not that major. No one died, no money was stolen.
The damage that this incident has done to Wikipedia's (and Jimbo's)
reputation is manageable.

I think Essjay still has the ability to regain his position of trust
within the Wikipedia community if he wishes to do so. He simply has
to demonstrate candor, contrition, and an understanding of what he
did wrong. It's unfortunate that he seems to have decided to simply
leave the project. I know that what he's been through is unpleasant
and embarrassing, but there is a way back if he wants to take it.

The actor Hugh Grant, by the way, is often cited in by PR "crisis
management" experts as a model for how people should handle
embarrassing situations. After Grant was arrested with a prostitute
in 1995, he didn't duck or deny, didn't go into seclusion, didn't
make excuses. He went on the talk-show circuit and faced the jokes
and criticism. His answer to Jay Leno was a model of what someone
ought to say when they get caught in a screwup: "I did a bad thing...
and there you have it.? His self-deprecating humor won him quick
forgiveness, and his career never suffered.

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,1982587,00.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/09/movies/09cris.html?
ex=1312776000&en=2de709e8500c2501&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

The corollary is that Essjay's defenders haven't really done him any
favors by excusing his actions or (worse) praising them, as some have
done. Accepting his excuses or calling his critics a "baying mob"
didn't answer anyone's concerns. If anything, they simply prolonged
the "denial" stage of his crisis and made it harder for him to do
what he would have to do to recover the trust that he has lost.

--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Research director, Center for Media & Democracy (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
|     Weapons of Mass Deception
|     Banana Republicans
|     The Best War Ever
--------------------------------
|  Subscribe to our free weekly list serve by visiting:
|  http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_sotd.html
|
|  Donate now to support independent, public interest reporting:
|  https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?id=1118
--------------------------------


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

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

What about the precedent aspects?  This reminds me of the case of the New
Mexico Judge arrested for possession of cocaine but got rehab instead of a
felony conviction. Prosecuting him meant opening the door to review 900+
felony convictions he passed sentence on over several decades.

http://www.prosefights.org/nmlegal/brandenburg/brandenburg.htm#complaint


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

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

body:
On 4 Mar 2007 at 11:45, Bartning@{gag,vomit,retch}aol.com wrote (or,
rather, AOL (bleccch) appended):

>

**************************************
 AOL now offers free
> email to everyone.  Find out more about what's free from AOL at
> http://www.aol.com.

As if AOL wasn't already a hive of scum and villainy, now they're
inflicting the above stupid ad footer on all sorts of mailing lists,
complete with idiotic HTML tags even in the plain text version (which
is what ends up showing up on text-only lists and digest versions).

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


from_name: howard chen

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

body:
> > so what kind of hardware/software are being used by wikipedia to host
> > images or other resources?
>
> NFS -> a box with a lot of disks -> lighttpd -> squid
>
> Terrifying, isn't it? :D
>

no, i think squid is really useful.

howa


references:
<C2106459.1EA6%michaeldavid86@comcast.net>	<45EAFED6.9090809@scissor.com>	<45EB1236.7070604@hackish.org>	<45EB2CE2.10207@scissor.com>
	<45EB4CB1.8000000@hackish.org>

body:
Delirium wrote:
> I don't see how prohibiting honest and conscientious Wikipedians from
> being paid to edit will fix any of that. [...]
> I wouldn't mind developing some guidelines over the relative merits of
> different sorts of funding sources.
>

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

So if, say, the Ford Foundation wants to pay a dozen historians to write
historical articles, I'm all for it. Right up to the point where they
edit anything on the Ford Foundation or its funders.

I understand you're saying that with people of sufficient honor, we can
hopefully get away with it. It's plausible to me, but I can't see any
clear revision to the COI guidelines that will keep only the honorable
people doing this, and -- just as important -- keep them from being
eventually corrupted. We don't have the mechanisms to enforce honesty
that a major research institution does, and I don't think we'll be able
to afford to build them for a decade or more.

By all means propose them, but keep in mind all of the self-justifying
that goes on in the head of pretty much any shill or flack. As I have
said before, I have talked to people, perfectly nice people, who were in
our eyes corrupting Wikipedia. They had not the slightest notion they
were doing anything wrong. Everybody thinks they are on the side of the
angels.

To my mind, the solution is the same one that journalists have: that we
write for our readers alone. Anything else invites turning a trickle
into a flood.

>>> More similar, I think, would be to compare historians who write works on
>>> commission.  These are generally paid for by an interested party,[...]
>>>
>>>
>> I'd be intrigued to read more about this, but my guess is that it would
>> require several conditions for it to work:
>>
>>    1. The company would have to have a clear and special interest in
>>       being seeing as completely forthright.
>>    2. The historian would have to be somebody with an established
>>       reputation and solid credentials.
>>    3. The historian would do a relatively small amount of work for the
>>       commissioning party. (E.g., they would not be a staff historian.)
>>    4. The historian would not primarily do commissioned work.
>>
>
> The last three at least seem to be the case here---an established and
> well-respected contributor is asking if writing the occasional article
> for a paid commissioner would be okay.  I think the first is actually
> better to avoid having to decide, since the motives of companies are
> rather difficult to discern---so long as the writer is not a staff
> historian, and doesn't do this as their main living, then whether the
> company is interested in forthrightness or not matters little.
>

No slight intended to Jaap or any of our contributors but I don't think
the comparison is even close. A professional historian with an
established reputation and solid credentials has put, what, two decades
into getting there? And getting caught distorting the truth means they
throw that and their professional future away. Even our very best
editors don't have anything like that on the line. For those who are
pseudonymous, there is even less penalty for ethical missteps.

And those historians work in a field where academic norms of
intellectual independence and honesty have been built up over centuries,
with detection and enforcement mechanisms to match. Not to mention years
of training in research and writing for every person involved. We aren't
even close to having that kind of infrastructure.

As to item 1, again it comes back to conflict of interest. If Intel pays
some professional technology journalist to expand our computer science
articles, more power to them, as I don't see them as having an interest
in distorting them. But as soon as they want changes to anything where
there is a conflict of interest, we should say no.

Motivations of companies are actually not difficult to discern: they are
there to make money for their shareholders.

William

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


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

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

What I find particularly bothersome is the <BR> tags, inserted bizarrely
in the plain-text version of the messages, as seen in the text-only
digest mode version of this list.

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


body:
In a message dated 3/4/2007 11:17:00 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,
guy.chapman at spamcop.net writes:

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

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

I see citations of other educational institutions in here all of the  time.
Moreover, it did not cite anything.  I provided outside links  on the subject,
including our "competition," as I said.  It's only  information on a topic I
have interest in, not that I get paid for.  I  volunteer my work with the
organization and currently support myself by other  means.  It does however, allow
deferment of my student loans, and I plan to  return to school full time in
the fall, where I have financial aid lined  up.

WikiProject Military history rated the work I did to a "start-class" on the
article, but an 18-year-old senior in high school blocked my account, one of
your fellow admins, whereas I have much more of an education and experience
and  know a lot more about the topic, "killed in action" or KIA. He didn't even
spell  properly in describing the reason for the block, and he also has a lot
of  spelling errors on his user page.

Lastly, another admin edited the article down to just include our  nonprofit,
for some strange reason, and I reverted, including the work I had  done.  I
felt I deserved a bit of credit and also provided links to other  organizations
regarding killed in action, including The White House Commission  on
Remembrance's National Moment of Remembrance, a program by a bipartisan  committee to
honor the fallen of the United States of American.  That, too,  was removed,
and they also provide links to our organization.

I don't see how, with good conscience, you can condone or approve of  editing
for profit whereas you disapprove of editing an article you care  about.
That policy would have a lack of justice to say the least, though I  still
haven't seen the Wikimedia Foundation's approved Form 1023 goals,  something I've
requested and the IRS requires you provide; an organization  seeking official
determination as tax deductible and tax exempt by the federal  government
submits this form, which also requires public information be  disclosed.

All of this so far indicates how consensus should not override  authority.
Consensus has its place and makes authority, but it should do  it for knowledge
and truth here, not just the majority or for someone's joke  about topics
others take seriously.  Lack of seriousness occurs somewhat  when you get burned,
and certainly two sides of the issue are better than  censorship or even
types of vandalism that Wikipedia describes.

Vincent Bartning
UN: John Wallace Rich

**************************************
 AOL now offers free
email to everyone.  Find out more about what's free from AOL at
http://www.aol.com.


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

body:
On Mon, 5 Mar 2007 00:37:03 +1100, "Steve Bennett"
<stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:

>> Yes.  Gregory Kohs also thought it was fine to edit for pay, we banned
>> him because lots of people disagreed, he was arrogant about it, which
>> drove off those who might otherwise have agreed and a review of his
>> edits showed that they were largely PR pieces or directory entries,
>> not serious attempts at creating neutral articles.

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

Hmmm.  No, I think the question is, can we assume that paid edits are
good edits.  If there is a paid editor, what we actually have to do is
shadow them to check for subtle bias - if I were paid to write an
article I would not be 100% confident I could write without subtle
bias, especially if sources were spoonfed. How do we know that the
sources have not been carefully selected to present a desired
perspective?  It would be rather naive to believe they had not been so
selected, in fact.

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

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

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

>> Actually I have no problem in principle with people occasionally
>> editing an article where they have some minor conflict of interest,
>Me neither.
>> but edits by the marketing or PR people tend to be uncritical and
>> problematic, and being paid for editing specified content is certainly

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

No, worse.  I live in Reading, Berkshire.  I feel no particular
loyalty to the town, it's just a place where I live.  What if Reading
paid me to edit their Wikipedia article?  Would I write that it's a
boring drug-riddled self-obsessed town with a terrible shopping centre
and extortionate house prices, or would I write something a little
more flattering?

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

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

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

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


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 04/03/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:

> We seem to have strayed from Jaap Vermeulen's original inquiry. I still
> support his ability to receive compensation for his editing. As always, I am
> going to assume good faith.

Paid editing on a given topic has been deemed verboten previously.
Paid editing in general may be more acceptable, e.g. there's a lot of
people on very tiny Wikipedias being paid to write anything at all -
but there's no colour of COI in that.

But if someone is being paid to write on a given topic, I find it
difficult to understand how that's *not* a conflict of interest.

- d.


body:
On Sun, 04 Mar 2007 09:31:30 -0500, Marc Riddell
<michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:

>There also seems to be, in the original argument of this thread, a desire to
>yield to the larger sociocultural ethic that money is the root of all. Can't
>we rise above that here?

Actually it's the love of money that is the root of all evil. There's
rather a nice little article at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_of_all_evil

And it's the motivation, not the money, that is the problem here, as
well.  Editor A gets paid to write, declaring that bias. Editors B, C
and on then have to check every edit for subtle bias.  Only editor A
is paid.  If editor A makes biased edits on his own account, at least
all are paid the same rate for the job.

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


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

body:
On 04/03/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:

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

No articles should be written on commission from the subject of the
article (or where a COI could exist). If MarvellouslyNiceCorp were to
pay me a living wage to write Wikipedia articles, I'd go for it like a
shot ... on every subject that wasn't even tangentially related to
MarvellouslyNiceCorp.

- d.


body:
On Sun, 4 Mar 2007 11:43:34 EST, Bartning at aol.com wrote:

>I do want to say that it's questionable to have good faith when you see a
>lot of stuff wrong, including using good faith like a religion.  However,  from
>what I see, at least you have ethics as an editor (and administrator no
>less).  I think Wikipedia needs more checks on admins, and there's a lot of
>unfairness in the process right now.

Although to be fair you were editing with a very clear conflict of
interest, adding links to your own sites, and using Wikipedia to
advance your external agenda.  You were also distinctly rude when
called on it.  So it's not *terribly* surprising that you were
blocked, and not actually unfair, as such.  Which is not to say there
are *no* unfair cases, just that yours does not seem to be one of
them.

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


from_name: William Pietri

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> I find it difficult to understand how the conflict of interest
> *matters*[1].

Take a look at the professions where we depend on their correct and
unbiased handling of information. Journalism, law, medicine, academics,
accounting, and law enforcement are all good examples. And all of them
have strong codes of ethics to deal with conflicts of interest.

Now look at examples in those professions where conflicts of interest
get out of control. Advertorial journalism and paid propaganda. The
distortion of medical practice by pharmaceutical companies. Biased
academic research. Arthur Andersen and Enron. Crooked cops.

Then look at industries where conflicts of interest are endemic, or
essential. Advertising. PR. Lobbying. To a lesser extent, American
national politics.

My bet is that saying that we are ok with conflicts of interest will
shift us down that spectrum rapidly. We can't even keep fancruft in
check, and nobody is paying them to spend 2500 hours a year trying to
get maximally favorable articles into Wikipedia.

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

I think the problem is that you won't be able to create a set of rules
that filter for only those paid edits.

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

Isn't that enough to stop it right there?

William

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


from_name: Sean Whitton (Xyrael)

subject: [Foundation-l] Possible changes regarding *all* Wikimedia IRC bots

body:
Hey all. Please excuse the fact that this is posted to multiple
mailing lists, but I need to ensure that it reaches all concerned.

I'm writing as an IRC Group Contact to call all operators of Wikimedia
IRC bots to state their activity and use of their bot to me, using a
private e-mail, as I'm doing a bit of reorganisation. I have a few
issues to address and would like to try and smooth out the rather
convoluted situation we have right now.

As many will know, I'm a freenode staffer and as such am in a position
to notice the lack of continuity present. In particular many of our
bots use flood-protection exemption due to the nature of their
much-data roles. Unfortunately, with the death of freenode's founder
Rob Levin, there is no longer a very organised record of which bots
are doing what and where, and I would really like to establish a
better one. By doing this I aim to make things a lot easier for bot
operators to get the information/permissions they need. Please note
that this has nothing to do with MediaWiki bot flags or community
permission, which is still very important for bots that edit as well
as speak on IRC.

I would like to make two major changes to what we do at the moment.
Firstly, I would like to cloak all active bots with wikimedia/bot/nick
(wikimedia can be replaced by wikipedia, wikisource etc.) and add them
to a list I'll keep on meta (not set up yet, will see how this goes
first!). At the moment, there are a good few usercloak/bot/botnick
(e.g. I have wikimedia/xyrael/bot/winesteward) and a few
wikimedia/bot/botnicks around. I would like to make the distinction
that usercloak/bot/botnick is a non-Wikimedia bot and that the
project/bot/botnick is for those that are run specifically for one of
our projects.

Secondly, I would like to use one bot o:line for flood protection.
Currently, there are a good few floating about, and I'm not sure who
is actually using them actively - a cull of bots no longer in use
would be good from freenode's perspective. There are obvious trust
issues with this in that one password leak would be a lot of trouble
compared with bot operators guarding their own personal passwords, but
I think it's worth it because of the two stage process of changing the
o:lines: me as group contact and then as staff, then actually getting
hold of someone to make the change.

I realise that I've rambled a bit here, and so I'll summarise my requests:
* That all operators of IRC bots contact me via e-mail telling me
their bot nickname, what is does and what it is cloaked with, as well
as a note if it uses an o:line. I can then recloak them with your
assistance. This also has the purpose of weeding out inactive bots (no
action being taken yet, though).
* That anyone who knows an operator who doesn't read any of the lists
forwards this to them and asks them to complete my request, perhaps
translating if necessary.
* That any ideas/complaints/ways-that-are-significantly-better-than-this
are expressed in this mailing list conversation!

Thank you,
[[m:User:Xyrael]]
Friendly IRC group contact

--
?Sean Whitton (Xyrael/xyr)
sean at silentflame.com
http://xyrael.net/


subject: [Wikitech-l] Possible changes regarding *all* Wikimedia IRC bots


from_name: Delirium

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> On Sun, 04 Mar 2007 13:29:57 -0500, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org>
> wrote:
>
>
>> But that's true of everyone---not just people who are paid.  Anyone who
>> has held office for a political party, for example, whether or not they
>> are currently being paid... any computer scientist who has been involved
>> in a major dispute within her field... etc, etc.  The general solution
>> we use is to assume good faith, unless evidence warrants otherwise---not
>> to ban all Democrats from editing politics-related articles.
>>
>
> True, but the people who then come along and check the edits are at
> least on the same rate of pay.
>

Since most politicians and academics get paid, and often their pay
depends on promoting their reputations, I don't see how that's true.
We've even on occasion *welcomed* paid staff who are editing their
articles in a neutral way, even though there may be potential conflicts
of interest.  In particular there was a mostly positive thread on this
mailing list a year or two ago about some museum staff adding
information about their museum to an article.  People watched their
edits just to make sure it wasn't becoming a puff piece of course, but I
don't recall people objecting that the museum staff was getting paid to
edit Wikipedia while the watchers weren't.

And it would be naive to think that we don't already have people
outright being paid to create articles.  The only thing we're deterring
is being scrupulous about it and disclosing the payment, which prevents
anyone from even *knowing* to check the edits in the first place.

-Mark


from_name: Ron Ritzman

body:
On 3/4/07, Gary Kirk <gary.kirk at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's called a signature. Are you really that offended about it?
>
> And no offence, but what's that at the bottom of your emails?
> Personally I found your mail website quite informative when I browsed
> it a few weeks ago - but commercial or not, it's still an ad of
> sorts..

I think what his problem might be is that this might be a compulsory
signature added by AOL to all outgoing mail. Netzero use to do this
back when they were free. This seems likely here because people
usually don't add HTML tags to their sigs but it sounds like something
a corporate marketing drone would come up with.


from_name: Bartning at aol.com

body:
In a message dated 3/4/2007 2:31:40 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,
guy.chapman at spamcop.net writes:

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

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

Anyone who takes it properly can see the how you don't cite Wikipedia  policy
properly.  Besides your shouting, you say I can't write about a  topic that
interests me because of an inappropriate claim of a conflict of  interest.
It's worse than telling someone he can't write in a  Wikipedia entry about him
because it's not an autobiography.  It's  like saying a father who has lost a
son to a drunk driver can't talk  about drunk driving on Wikipedia.

I feel attacked here.  I can't block and don't have a clear view  on how to
involve WP:Arbitration but want help with it.  I want  help in the situation as
I have been unfairly treated, blocked unfairly,  and an article I care about
has been vandalized by Wikipedia definitions as  a result of ignorance.

Vincent
UN:John Wallace Rich

**************************************
 AOL now offers free
email to everyone.  Find out more about what's free from AOL at
http://www.aol.com.


from_name: Jeff Raymond

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

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

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

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

Why make the same mistake four or five times?  if we can get good
articles by having people pay for them, then why get in the way?

-Jeff


references:
<C2106459.1EA6%michaeldavid86@comcast.net>	<45EAFED6.9090809@scissor.com>	<45EB1236.7070604@hackish.org>
	<45EB2CE2.10207@scissor.com>

body:
William Pietri wrote:
> In areas where that's not the case, I think we can end up with pretty
> bad articles. Take a look at [[PA Consulting Group]], for example.
> Written in large part by PA staff and sourced mainly from press
> releases, I see it as a puff piece. But they had a lot more time to put
> into it than anybody else, and so they managed to [[WP:OWN]] it. Or to
> take another example from my watchlist, look at the fringe religious
> group [[Eckanar]]. I'm told by user Andries that it has always been an
> SPA playground. Just yesterday I hit my 3RR limit removing suspicious
> SPA edits, and nobody else lept into the gap. Will anybody have time to
> clean it up? We'll see, but given that the article was started in 2003,
> I'm not expecting anything to happen soon.
>
I don't see how prohibiting honest and conscientious Wikipedians from
being paid to edit will fix any of that.  As you can see, it hasn't
worked so far---and in the religious-group case pay quite possibly isn't
the issue anyway.  People who are paid to edit articles and *don't*
disclose it will do it anyway, and we'll have to track down their edits
by the fact that they're bad edits; whether because they're bad because
of financial interest, religious fanaticism, or just a strange view on
the subject I don't much care for.  Incidentally, all these same
problems exist in fiction-related articles owned by fans, none of whom
are being paid, so I don't see how they related to money.

> Take a look at the reception reports get from pretty much any think tank
> or self-labeled institute. The reaction depends a lot on who is funding
> them. Global warming research funded by Exxon is not treated the same
> way as independently-funded research. Or look at the controversies about
> drug-company-funded research. Academics who consistently take a lot of
> money from a particular source are treated with a level of suspicion
> well beyond the norm.  Note that this doesn't even imply that any given
> academic is corrupt. Companies are more likely to fund people who are
> likely to make them look good, so there's a concern about selection bias
> as well.
>
What is "independently-funded research"?  You seem to admit that all
sides are being funded here by someone, and usually by someone with an
agenda (or else they wouldn't be funding).  So the question is not over
taking money at all, or about the funder having an agenda, but
presumably a distinction between some funders' agendas being more benign
and consonant with the interests of good science than others.  And which
is the case depends on the research as well; a biotech firm funding drug
research is seem as problematic, while Intel funding parallelization
research rarely is.

I wouldn't mind developing some guidelines over the relative merits of
different sorts of funding sources.  For example, eventually I plan to
create a bunch of articles on Greek cities and towns.  Since there are a
lot, some will get created earlier than others, probably by random
selection.  If some municipality wanted to pay me to create an article,
would that be okay?  Essentialy, they would be purchasing a higher spot
in my article-creation queue, for an article that eventually (but maybe
not for years) would get created anyway.  Or if an AIDS-awareness
foundation wanted to pay me to improve the quality of our AIDS-related
articles would that be okay?  There are many levels of concern or
non-concern besides "money=bad".

>> More similar, I think, would be to compare historians who write works on
>> commission.  These are generally paid for by an interested party, but
>> with the money given up front with the understanding that they're
>> commissioning an independent historical analysis that will not
>> necessarily show them in a positive light.
>>
>
> I'd be intrigued to read more about this, but my guess is that it would
> require several conditions for it to work:
>
>    1. The company would have to have a clear and special interest in
>       being seeing as completely forthright.
>    2. The historian would have to be somebody with an established
>       reputation and solid credentials.
>    3. The historian would do a relatively small amount of work for the
>       commissioning party. (E.g., they would not be a staff historian.)
>    4. The historian would not primarily do commissioned work.

The last three at least seem to be the case here---an established and
well-respected contributor is asking if writing the occasional article
for a paid commissioner would be okay.  I think the first is actually
better to avoid having to decide, since the motives of companies are
rather difficult to discern---so long as the writer is not a staff
historian, and doesn't do this as their main living, then whether the
company is interested in forthrightness or not matters little.

In any case, I think it would be a grave mistake to push people
underground, when much of Wikipedia depends on openness.  I know in the
current paranoiac climate I would not disclose any funding I got for
editing Wikipedia, even if I were 100% convinced that it was on the
level and unobjectionable, like a non-profit organization paying me to
improve our educational content.  That seems unfortunate to me.

-Mark


subject:
[Foundation-l] Possible changes regarding *all* Wikimedia IRC
	bots

body:
For clarification, I refer to freenode bots only, not any of the other
IRC-related things we are involved in. Sorry for the confusion :-)

On 3/4/07, Christian Thiele <apper at apper.de> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Am 04.03.2007, 18:32 Uhr, schrieb Sean Whitton (Xyrael)
> <sean at silentflame.com>:
>
> > * That all operators of IRC bots contact me via e-mail telling me
> > their bot nickname, what is does and what it is cloaked with, as well
> > as a note if it uses an o:line. I can then recloak them with your
> > assistance. This also has the purpose of weeding out inactive bots (no
> > action being taken yet, though).
>
> could you please precise this? You wrote you're a freenode staffer, so you
> only mean IRC bots in freenode? I think most people (especially on the
> toolserver mailing list) have their bots in irc.wikimedia.org (where
> current changes in wikimedia projects are posted). Am I right, that these
> are not meant? Or do you also maintain irc.wikimedia.org?
>
> Sincerely,
> Christian Thiele
>

--
?Sean Whitton (Xyrael/xyr)
sean at silentflame.com
http://xyrael.net/


body:
On a side note, why does Gary Kirk's post appear twice in this thread,
one with and one without the quoted text?

I've had this happen to me once. Gmail glitch perhaps?


from_name: Robert Horning

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Robert Horning wrote:
>
>> I guess I just don't see the point to all of this anyway or why this
>> thread has brought out the attitudes that this has.  We are a very
>> diverse group of people all working together, where I, as an American
>> living in rural America in the heart of the Rocky Mountains have nearly
>> daily conversations with people from Poland, the UK, and South Africa on
>> collaborative writing projects.  Often I don't even know the nationality
>> of the people that I am working with, or even what continent of the
>> world they are really at when I am having these discussions.  I fail to
>> see why this particular position as a Volunteer Coordinator would have
>> to be any different in this regard.
>>
>>
> Sure.  Why would it not then be acceptable that the volunteer
> co-ordinator from any of these countries?  If the person is unable to
> secure the needed visas to work at the U.S. headquarters that should not
> be an impediment to getting the job.
>
> Ec
>
Besides the rest of this reply being part of a flame war (I apologize
having started that), I think the above part is a very valid question
that does need to be answered.  I don't see any really strong reason why
this position has to be an American any more than anything else,
although there may be a perception of having to be somebody at the
"headquarters" of the WMF, where ever that might be.

Part of this is more what the job duties of this position is going to
be.  The extent that a position like this could be done through
telecommuting is something that perhaps ought to be discussed, although
as originally envisioned there was to be somebody who could "answer the
phones" for the WMF in regards to this being a "staff" member in the
office.  But at the same time there are several Wikimedia users who are
very tech savvy and might even be able to have even conventional
land-line telephone calls re-routed to practically anywhere in the world
that has a reasonably high speed network link.  The normal concept of a
traditional office is really something that would at best be an
interface to those older more established bureaucracies who can't
conceive of anything different.

There are problems with telecommuting, but from my experience in being
involved with telecommuting employees is that the "remote" employee only
gets into trouble when a new boss takes over that simply doesn't
understand the idea in the first place.  I spent nearly four years
working with a software development team that was located across 3
different states simultaneously working on the very same software
application.  It is something that can be done and is done quite
successfully.

There is no reason for the Wikimedia Foundation, which already is noted
for pushing "leading edge" software technologies and being a very
visible with new ways of working with content creation, to have to stick
with the traditional view of a business office and "headquarters".  This
sort of telecommuting shouldn't be necessarily more expensive than
having an employee in St. Petersburg, Florida, otherwise it isn't worth
doing.  But even trying to establish a position like this even in a
formal business office is still going to require some substantial
overhead above and beyond the salary of this individual.

--  Robert Horning


from_name: Pilotguy

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

body:
Good points. But, the worst of it should be over now.

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

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

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

http://pilotguy.wordpress.com


body:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't AOL doing the exact same thing that
Yahoo's been doing for ages?

On 3/4/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On a side note, why does Gary Kirk's post appear twice in this thread,
> one with and one without the quoted text?
>
> I've had this happen to me once. Gmail glitch perhaps?
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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

http://pilotguy.wordpress.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Correction to New Yorker Article

body:
I think we should now leave the dead to die. Just a thought.

On 3/3/07, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
> Jeff Raymond wrote:
>
> >stvrtg wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >>4. If Essjay misrepresented himself in any substantial way in arguments
> >>related to his claimed expertise, how is it that noone qualified in that
> >>area suspected he wasnt a Phd/Thd?  I suspect the reason is because his
> >>ventures into misrepresentation were quite limited to the cantankerous.
> I
> >>suspect also that this fact might bother people who might have thought
> they
> >>could tell just by looking at someones pixels.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >Because, generally, we don't expect people to lie about their academic
> >credientials.  How many editors in that area who would know if he were
> >making it up do we even have?  And, again, Essjay was (yes, the word is
> >now was) a very trusted member of the community - he kept the charade up
> >enough where few, if any, would bother questioning him anyway.  That's a
> >problem, and it's disturbing that you don't recognize it.
> >
> >
>
> But we don't just defer to experts, even trusted ones, especially in
> situations where other people are also experts.  If I came across
> another person claiming to be an expert in artificial intelligence, I
> would still check their edits, and sometimes contest them---whether
> they're telling the truth about their credentials is actually pretty
> irrelevant, because there are plenty of CS PhDs with non-mainstream POV
> views on the subject.  I'd imagine theology is similarly contentious.
>
> In fact wasn't this exactly what Larry Sanger criticized us for a while
> back---that we *don't* actually defer to experts?
>
> -Mark
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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

http://pilotguy.wordpress.com


from_name: Thomas Dalton

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

body:
> he lost his  job at Wikia

Did he? I missed that. I've seen Jimbo asking him to resign his
positions of trust in the Wikipedia community, but I haven't seen
anything about his new job at Wikia.


from_name: Gary Kirk

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

body:
See his userpage on Wikia:
http://www.wikia.com/wiki/User:Essjay

On 04/03/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > he lost his  job at Wikia
>
> Did he? I missed that. I've seen Jimbo asking him to resign his
> positions of trust in the Wikipedia community, but I haven't seen
> anything about his new job at Wikia.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Gary Kirk


from_name: Ivan Krstić

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

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

Planet (http://www.planetplanet.org/) is the canonical choice. It
doesn't do web administration, but it's configured through a trivial
INI-style text file, so you could slap a web administration frontend to
it in a few lines of your favorite language.

As for filtering, you have to depend on the blogging software for each
individual blog to export tag-specific feeds. Almost all reasonable blog
software does this, with exceptions being things like Advogato.

--
Ivan Krsti? <krstic at solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu> | GPG: 0x147C722D


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

body:
On Sun, 04 Mar 2007 13:29:57 -0500, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org>
wrote:

>But that's true of everyone---not just people who are paid.  Anyone who
>has held office for a political party, for example, whether or not they
>are currently being paid... any computer scientist who has been involved
>in a major dispute within her field... etc, etc.  The general solution
>we use is to assume good faith, unless evidence warrants otherwise---not
>to ban all Democrats from editing politics-related articles.

True, but the people who then come along and check the edits are at
least on the same rate of pay.

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


body:
On Sun, 4 Mar 2007 13:29:29 EST, Bartning at aol.com wrote:

>>Although  to be fair you were editing with a very clear conflict of
>>interest, adding  links to your own sites, and using Wikipedia to
>>advance your external  agenda.  You were also distinctly rude when
>>called on it.  So  it's not *terribly* surprising that you were
>>blocked, and not actually  unfair, as such.  Which is not to say there
>>are *no* unfair cases,  just that yours does not seem to be one  of
>>them.

>There was no pay involved.  I added other nonprofit foundations  besides.  I
>have a personal interest in the topic.  I don't think you  could claim that
>Frederick Douglass couldn't talk about blacks or Jim Wales  online encyclopedias
>for that matter.  You're making an inappropriate  argument, and it's an
>attack because of my over concern about it: I was also  blocked.

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

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


body:
On 3/4/07, Pilotguy <pilotguy.wikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:

> Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't AOL doing the exact same thing that
> Yahoo's been doing for ages?

Yes, but at least theirs don't include HTML lamage.

I've never been crazy about compulsory sigs because I always felt that
the body of an email was for the sender and it should be clear to the
recipient what comes from the sender and what comes from "something
else". The headers are for the "something else".

Some webmail providers have "promotional sigs" but they are not
"compulsory". The user can go to preferences and remove it and/or add
their own.


from_name: Brianna Laugher

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

body:
Well done to everyone who helped make it a success, including
Alvesgaspar, Michael Maggs, Bryan, Gmaxwell, LadyofHats, Dschwen,
Herbythyme, Shyam,

Comments about how we can improve the running of the competition are
welcome here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Picture_of_the_Year/2006/Future

At a minimum I imagine the 2007 competition will involve
* written-down, defined procedures for vote counting and vote validity
* volunteers for roles determined prior to opening the competition
* possible simplification of voting process/work on clearer
explanations of how to vote
* possibly multiple categories such as 'Wikimedian work of the year'
(maybe also technical/subject matter categories - the fact that the
two animations in the final came 10th and 11th is not a coincidence,
IMO - people don't consider that an animation could be 'grand' enough
to be POTY, probably)
* more publicity in non-English projects and channels
* consider different voting schemes (but... need to keep things simple)

cheers
Brianna
user:pfctdayelise

On 03/03/07, Bryan Tong Minh <bryan.tongminh at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Wikimedians,
>
> The Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year 2006 competition is now
> over, and the winner has been selected. Thank you for voting.
> Of the 662 Wikimedians who voted, 83 selected 'Aurora Borealis' [1]
> as the 'Wikimedia Commons Picture of 2006'.
>
> Second was 'Sans Domicile Fixe' [2] with 78 votes and joint third were
> 'Blue Jay' [3] and 'Hoverflies mating in midair' [4] with 70 votes
> each.  We congratulate the authors of these pictures for their
> exceptional quality. The full results are available on [5]
>
> Some user comments:
> * ''Fantastic! Love the earth.''
> * ''Crazy. Wish I could vote for them all.''
> * ''If I had to pic one thing I'd like to see, I'd go with that. Stunning.''
>
> We are also proud to announce the release of an archive of all the
> 2006 Wikimedia Commons Featured Pictures. You can find more
> information on [6].
>
> Thank you all for voting,
> The Commons Community
>
> [1] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Polarlicht_2.jpg
> [2] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:P7032101_small2.jpg
> [3] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Cyanocitta-cristata-004.jpg
> [4] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Hoverflies_mating_midair.jpg
> [5] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2006
> [6] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2006/archive
>
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>


from_name: Jeffrey V. Merkey

subject:
[Wikitech-l] "Planet" feed aggregators [Wikipedia Image
	Torrents]

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>We're looking into the possibility of setting up a planet-style feed
>aggregator for Wikimedia blogs. It would be nice to get some software
>recommendations. Specifically, we would need an aggregator that
>supports
>- web based administration
>- filtering feeds based on tags assigned to posts
>
>It should scale well a large number of blogs & readers. It would also
>be nice to be able to form "groups" of blogs, but that is optional.
>
>Any tips & reviews would be appreciated.
>
>
Erik,

I have a question regarding items of interest in this area. I have
managed to download and index all of Wikiedia's images for enwiki,
wikibooks,
and wiktionary. I have enhanced the appliance tools to the point I can
download, process, translate, and extract and sync all images for any given
XML dump. I also have the ability to cross reference images with "fair
use" and "free" and selectively strip out images and compress them into
tar.gz and bz2 files (.7z would also be possible).

I have installed ctorrent at wikigadugi but I have not as of yet created
or exposed torrent downloads for all of Wikipedia's images. I do, however.
have the entire library of Wikipedia's images.

Would it be useful to host and export a bit torrent with "approved"
images and allow mass downloads of all image content from Wikipedia.
This would
not affect the main MediaWiki sites, but would allow the internet access
to the image library I have compiled.

I will not expose any torrents without the approval of the Foundation,
but I now have the capability to do so. I can setup DMCA procedures
through WMG to address any copyright complaints from contributors and I
would be able to effectively handle them. I have elected not to expose
these torrents
until I got to a point where it was time to discuss it with the Foundation.

Please advise.

Jeff


subject: [Wikitech-l] Commons image archive

body:
So what's going on? Will this archive appear on download.wikimedia.org
as well or not? I think it should be made available as a 'plain' zip
download as well. And the torrent is not being hosted on Wikimedia
servers, which it should be for reliability at least. (
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2006/archive
)

thanks
Brianna
user:pfctdayelise

On 28/02/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/27/07, Bryan Tong Minh <bryan.tongminh at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > As you might or might not know, the Commons Picture of the Year 2006
> > [1] is running. We have also made an archive [2], which we want to be
> > available as a zip download. This archive contains all Featured
> > Pictures of 2006 and their licensing and description. This archive is
> > 550 MB big. Would it be possible to have it hosted on
> > download.wikimedia.org?
>
> Hi.
>
> I've turned your directory into a 500mb zip. I've made a torrent from
> the zip.  We can host a tracker on toolserver.
>
> In addition to the wikimedia bandwidth, I can provide about 10mbit/sec.
>
> We frequently see people advocating BitTorrent for
> download.wikimedia.org. I am not convinced that we get enough
> transfers of a single dump to make it worth while. However, POTY will
> probably get more traffic.. I think it would be a worthwhile
> experiment.
>
> Any objections?
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:

> Erik Moeller wrote:
>
>> We're looking into the possibility of setting up a planet-style feed
>> aggregator for Wikimedia blogs. It would be nice to get some software
>> recommendations. Specifically, we would need an aggregator that
>> supports
>> - web based administration
>> - filtering feeds based on tags assigned to posts
>>
>> It should scale well a large number of blogs & readers. It would also
>> be nice to be able to form "groups" of blogs, but that is optional.
>>
>> Any tips & reviews would be appreciated.
>>
>>
> Erik,
>
> I have a question regarding items of interest in this area. I have
> managed to download and index all of Wikiedia's images for enwiki,
> wikibooks,
> and wiktionary. I have enhanced the appliance tools to the point I can
> download, process, translate, and extract and sync all images for any
> given
> XML dump. I also have the ability to cross reference images with "fair
> use" and "free" and selectively strip out images and compress them into
> tar.gz and bz2 files (.7z would also be possible).
>
> I have installed ctorrent at wikigadugi but I have not as of yet
> created or exposed torrent downloads for all of Wikipedia's images. I
> do, however.
> have the entire library of Wikipedia's images.
>
> Would it be useful to host and export a bit torrent with "approved"
> images and allow mass downloads of all image content from Wikipedia.
> This would
> not affect the main MediaWiki sites, but would allow the internet
> access to the image library I have compiled.
>
> I will not expose any torrents without the approval of the Foundation,
> but I now have the capability to do so. I can setup DMCA procedures
> through WMG to address any copyright complaints from contributors and
> I would be able to effectively handle them. I have elected not to
> expose these torrents
> until I got to a point where it was time to discuss it with the
> Foundation.
>
> Please advise.
>
> Jeff
>
I currently have a data center with an 8 megabyte per second internet
pipe to the internet with 70 terabytes of appliances setup running
wikigadugi and hosting this library and development. I have sufficient
bandwidth to support this from appliance sales and revenues for general
internet access. FYI.

Jeff


from_name: Sam Blacketer

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

body:
On 3/4/07, wikien-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org <
wikien-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2007 12:48:55 EST
> From: daniwo59 at aol.com
>
> It is my sincere hope that people will just stop discussing this whole
> Essjay episode ad nauseum.
>
> Here is someone who made a mistake. You may even say a big mistake.
> For  that
> mistake he lost his credibility, he lost his community, he lost his  job
> at
> Wikia, and he is the subject of disparaging articles and opinions  both
> online
> and in print.
>
> Apart from a public lynching, what else do people want from him?

The really depressing thing about the episode is that so many editors did
seem to want a public lynching, and thought it would be for the good of us
all. All it was was just a childish joke by Essjay when he first signed up,
that ran away with him and only caught up when he was well-known enough to
really harm him. Not to say that I approve of what he did but I do have
immense sympathy for him.


from_name: Andrew Cady

subject: [WikiEN-l] Freedom of Speech in WP

body:
On Sat, Mar 03, 2007 at 05:20:58PM -0800, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> andrew.cady at gmail.com wrote:
>
> >Besides their relative rudeness as rebukes, there is a substantial
> >difference between the *meaning* of the two phrases.  "Don't be a
> >dick" is a far more broad concept, and makes greater reference to
> >motives and meaning; "civility" is more about style and form.
>
> Quite the contrary.  If you're telling someone to not be a dick that
> presumes that he was being one in the first place.

Hmm.  That is not contrary to what I said.

> >For example, a dismissive, one-line response to a carefully
> >considered five paragraph argument is a "dick move" even if perfectly
> >civil.
>
> Not always.

Of course, not always.  It seems like a good example to me, though.
There are, in any case, others.

> Sometimes it just keeps the heat from being cranked up.

Perhaps.  In the majority of cases, it should be expected to have the
opposite effect.