from_name: Stephanie

subject:
[Foundation-l] Concerns over en.wikipedia.org ArbCom Election
 Process

body:
effe iets anders wrote:

>Afaik has there never been a closed vote on the wiki for local policy. Even
>more, there has in my memory never been a closed vote other then for the
>boardelections.
>
While I'd recomend that we look at secret ballots for some policy issues
too, they are more insulated from the problems
that make a public ballot unsuitable for this election. Elections of
individuals have much more at stake - both emotionally, and politically,
where as votes on policy are very straightforward. In an election such
as the arbcom election, there are factors such as personal relationships
that should take a back seat to what a voter thinks is best for
en.wikipedia - with the votes public, that's not possible. A lot of the
factors that influence a vote such as this are subtle and hidden, and
remain hidden even when voting in this format. The temptation to vote to
gain percieved political favor is one of the worst aspects of such a
system, and if it happens in RFA !votes, where much less is at stake,
then we can be sure that it happens in arbcom votes.

To put it quite bluntly, people are unwilling to risk the consequences
of voting their concience, going against the masses, going against their
friendships in an "open" or public election. People are only truely open
about their opinion when they can express  that opinion without
possibility of reprisal. Therefore open ballots are not ballots placed
under free will, and the election is subject to the worst kinds of
tampering.

I realize its too late to change this how this election run, however I
also hope that this is the last time we use such an opressive method for
an election in the name of "openness".

>I guess it's not for nothing that the system we are voting
>with for the board is called boardvote. I think it would indeed be
>interesting to use the system on the one hand as it is more peacefull and
>like we vote irl, but on the other hand it might require assistence from the
>devs, or it might be very hard to track which votes are egligable, harder as
>when using open voting (when everybody can help looking who might be
>sockpuppet)
>
>
Boardvote has elegibility checks, and more importantly, the list of who
voted is public, so that votes can be stricken in a transparent manner
without knowing how they effect the outcom.

>So it has it's pro's and con's. I think at least the community has to decide
>herself whether she wants a open or closed voting, but as well the wmf has
>prolly to agree on voting this way (as it requires dev assistence). Maybe it
>would be best to ask the wmf first indeed :)
>
>Effeietsanders
>
>


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox


list: foundation-l

body:
effe iets anders wrote:

>Afaik has there never been a closed vote on the wiki for local policy. Even
>more, there has in my memory never been a closed vote other then for the
>boardelections. I guess it's not for nothing that the system we are voting
>with for the board is called boardvote. I think it would indeed be
>interesting to use the system on the one hand as it is more peacefull and
>like we vote irl, but on the other hand it might require assistence from the
>devs, or it might be very hard to track which votes are egligable, harder as
>when using open voting (when everybody can help looking who might be
>sockpuppet)
>So it has it's pro's and con's. I think at least the community has to decide
>herself whether she wants a open or closed voting, but as well the wmf has
>prolly to agree on voting this way (as it requires dev assistence). Maybe it
>would be best to ask the wmf first indeed :)
>
>Effeietsanders
>
>2006/12/6, Stephanie Erin Daugherty <stephanie at sosdg.org>:
>
>
>>Having not participated in last years ArbCom elections, I was quite
>>shocked to see, that with the important role the Arbitraton Committee
>>has in safeguarding the ideals and policies of the English wikipedia,
>>these elections are being held with an open ballot.
>>
>>I cannot have any confidence in such an election. Open ballots bring out
>>the worst in politics - bullying, fear of retaliation, groupthink, and
>>voting with the hope to gain political favor in the future. While an
>>open ballot appears open on the surface, as history has demonstrated, it
>>is anything but.
>>
>>There is a reason that most free elections use secret ballots. Only in
>>secret can someone make their true opinion known, without fear of
>>bullying, fear of retaliation, undue influence of others, or hurt
>>feelings.
>>
>>Secret ballots also allow for good judgement to be exercised in cases
>>where a moral dilemma would otherwise exist - how do you deal with
>>voting against someone who you are close friends with, or who is in a
>>position of power over you, be it actual or percieved? In an open
>>ballot, this at the very least means either hurt feelings, or votes that
>>do not reflect one's true beliefs as to right choice to make in an
>>election.
>>
>>We have facilities for secret ballots and approval voting. Those
>>facilities work well, as demonstrated in the last board elections.
>>Why on-wiki voting was chosen in favor of this, I don't know, to me it
>>defies logical sense.
>>
>>In conclusion, I condemn this election in the strongest possible terms,
>>as being flawed, subject to tampering, and as being anything other than
>>a free election. I would hope that I'm not the only person that it this
>>way, but even if I am, I know that I cannot in good concience stand for
>>such an unjust and flawed process.
>>
>>I would encourage anyone else that feels strongly about this to make
>>their voice heard, and loudly, so that future elections do not follow
>>the same flawed path, and so that we can have confidence in our
>>elections process.
>>
>>--
>>Stephanie Daugherty
>>stephanie at sosdg.org
>>User:Triona on en.wikipedia.org
>>
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>foundation-l mailing list
>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>>
>>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>


list: wikien-l

from_name: Steve Block

subject: [WikiEN-l] overzealous image deletion?

body:
It was. To be fair, the admin in question later agreed the point, but I
am so tired of all the little hoops that need to be jumped through on
Wikipedia that I had already moved on.  If the image is necessary it
will be uploaded again.  To be honest, I was posting more to illustrate
the inanity of a speedy tag which declares it cannot be removed rather
than the mis-deletion, a regular occurrence on Wikipedia, and something
I am sure even I have been guilty of.

Ryan Wetherell wrote:
> Huh?!  That sounds unecessarily arbitrary.
>
> --Ryan
>
> On 12/5/06, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
>> At this point another admin speedied it
>> because it didn't fit his fair use criteria, namely that book covers
>> aren't fair use in articles on books unless they are first edition
>> covers or something
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>

--
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from_name: Anthony

subject: [WikiEN-l] Handling unreferenced but likely-valid material

body:
On 12/6/06, dmehkeri at swi.com <dmehkeri at swi.com> wrote:
> Bah. I'll stick my neck out and say 50% of our articles have no sources or
> external links. Give or take 40%. 19 times out of 20. SCIENCE!!
>
> No really, I think people doing their own small samples of Special:Random is a
> great idea. Truly random sampling is more "scientific" than you might realize. I
> am not a statistician, so someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but if all
> you're trying to do is rule out the <20% and/or the >80% claim, then 25 clicks
> on Special:Random ought to be more than enough, 19 times out of 20.
>
After doing that little sampling I tried to figure out how to
calculate the actual margin of error.  I assume I was taking a
[[simple random sample]] (assuming "random article" works).  I got
hung up on the fact that the formula given in [[margin of error]]
didn't include the population size - but just read today that this
doesn't matter so long as it is "sufficiently large".

So for a sample size of 10, we get a 40.7% maximum margin of error at
99% confidence!  Even at a 90% confidence level the maximum margin of
error is 26%.  So I guess 10 is way too small.  Setting a 5% maximum
margin of error and a 90% confidence level, 269 random articles is
about the level I'd feel comfortable with.  Maybe my math is bad
though, or just my intuition about what margin of error is reasonable.

Anthony


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Hungarian Wikipedia queries

body:
Hi all.

I've an open query on OTRS from someone asking about a recent spate of
deletions on the Hungarian wikipedia. Apparently, they have a number
of articles on personal names, which give such features as people with
that name, name-days, etymology and history of the name, closely
related names, and diminutives/petnames ("becenev").

These "becenev" have apparently been deleted from most such articles,
and they're wondering why. Is anyone here active on huwiki and knowing
anything about this? I've not been successful in collaring someone
from there to ask about it...

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


from_name: Bryan Derksen

body:
In an attempt to get past the issues regarding small sample sizes, I
went and did a somewhat larger sampling of 100 articles. I skipped
disambiguation pages. I separately counted number of links in any
"external links" section, number of links and/or paper references listed
in any "references" section, and any links or citations within the body
of the article itself. I didn't actually examine the contents of the
references.

Of the hundred articles, 40 had no links or references of any kind.

18 had only a single external link. In most of these cases the single
external link was to some form of "official homepage" which might or
might not survive scrutiny by a WP:RS fundamentalist as "self-published"
information.

If you discount the "external links" section as references then the
number of completely unreferenced articles jumps to 71. I didn't
actually example the contents of the external links sections to see
whether they were usable as references or if they were just the first
couple of Google hits, I can imagine a wide range of opinion here.

2 articles had only a non-specific "parts of this article were from the
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica" reference.

20 articles had inline citations.

So, from this one could say that somewhere in the vicinity of 40% are
completely unsourced, at minimum.

==Raw data==

These are the articles I visited in my random walk and the reference
counts I made at each, if anyone wants to double-check me or do any more
advanced statistical fiddling (you may want to redo the "total" column
since that was done by hand and not double-checked)

total, external links, non-inline references, inline citations, URL
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1945_in_football_%28soccer%29
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1959_in_Zimbabwe
0 0 0 0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_Grand_Prix_motorcycle_racing_season
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_%28Lilo_%26_Stitch%29
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biathlon_at_the_1960_Winter_Olympics
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Bradley_%28composer/producer%29
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_sign
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Henry_%28basketball%29
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chage_and_Aska
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenging_Times
0 0 0 0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Jamieson_%28Canadian_politician%29
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Binney
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Kennedy%2C_4th_Earl_of_Cassilis
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glaze_%28painting_technique%29
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland_III
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jebel_Dair
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lance_Hill
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legion_Sports_Complex
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_In_The_So-Called_Space_Age
0 0 0 0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ambassadors_from_the_United_Kingdom_to_Turkmenistan
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mineralogists
0 0 0 0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_places_in_Caerphilly_county_borough
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_New_York_Bay
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_circle
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marek_Zi%C3%B3%C5%82kowski
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Brydges_Bulldogs
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_and_Killing_in_Hell
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_sequitur_%28absurdism%29
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_route_323
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhizospalax
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhythmic_Adult_Contemporary
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sar%C4%B1yah%C5%9Fi
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tequisquiapan
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibor_Sekelj
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulk_v._Moxhay
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Way_Moby_Polka
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Akin
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Brandon_%28author%29
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woss%2C_British_Columbia
0 0 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenia_%28automobile%29
1 0 0 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_Area%2C_San_Diego%2C_California
1 0 0 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achefer
1 0 0 1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Taylor_%28rugby_league_footballer%29
1 0 1 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Canning%2C_1st_Earl_Canning
1 0 1 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_trials
1 1 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altenburg_Abbey
1 1 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Drinkwater
1 1 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_of_Ukrainian_Nationalists
1 1 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Abugatt%C3%A1s
1 1 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-enablement
1 1 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helix_DNA_Client
1 1 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMCS_St._John%27s_%28FFH_340%29
1 1 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_International_Mime_Festival
1 1 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mishima%2C_Niigata
1 1 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_Stanley_Capital_International
1 1 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagakute%2C_Aichi
1 1 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallels_%28TNG_episode%29
1 1 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pezinok
1 1 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyus_Gold
1 1 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulihora
1 1 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentencing_Project
1 1 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutherland%27s_Law
1 1 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Til-Til
2 0 0 2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Avon
2 0 0 2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trial_of_St._Orange
2 0 2 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Forward%2C_Sr.
2 0 2 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramodon_ventralis
2 1 0 1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_and_Environmental_Research_Center
2 1 0 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedyeh_Tehrani
2 1 1 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gennadiy_Aygi
2 2 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_Trail
2 2 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilf_Kebir
2 2 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normanton_railway_station
2 2 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sisters_%28Moscow%29
2 2 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apprentice_3_%28Episode_8%29
2 2 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worlingham
2 2 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yvonne_Arnaud
3 1 0 2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessie_%28lake_monster%29
3 1 0 2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biffa_plc
3 2 0 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_Wild_Too_Long
3 3 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac_Sunbird
3 3 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Jovis
4 0 0 4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_the_Barbarian
4 4 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regions_of_Denmark
5 0 0 5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Antidote_%28Moonspell_album%29
5 0 5 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anahit
5 0 5 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estuardo_Maldonado
5 2 2 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_Signoret
5 3 0 2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Watson
5 3 2 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Benali
5 5 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deer_Run%2C_West_Virginia
5 5 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumkidz
6 5 0 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_of_Life_Church
7 3 4 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deolali
7 4 0 3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Regis_Mohawk_Reservation%2C_New_York
8 4 0 4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariska_Hargitay
8 8 0 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Lawrence
9 5 0 4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Naimark
14 9 0 5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almighty_Saints
23 7 1 15 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQLite

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from_name: Jake Waskett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
On Wed, 2006-12-06 at 21:43 +0100, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> You know what I find annoying? People who 'vote' to merge or delete on xFD.
> If you think something is mergeable, deletion shouldn't even enter your
> mind. Also, merging keeps information, deletion destroys it, they're two
> entirely different beasts. Votes like that are entirely meaningless, but
> especially annoying when the delete part is bolded and put in front.
> Why can't people just say '''Merge''' to article X.
> Deletion can be discussed again if a merge fails. Same goes for cleanup.
> Just because it's not up to scratch now, doesn't mean an article should be
> deleted immediately...
>

I've done that (delete or merge) a few times, with the best of
intentions. For me, it means "in my opinion, Wikipedia's best interests
are served by deleting this because [...]. However, if there is
insufficient support for that, then I would support [partial] merging
into [...] as a poor alternative, because I think that is better than
the present state of affairs."

> Ah, ranting relieves the soul... :)

So true!


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> You know what I find annoying? People who 'vote' to merge or delete on xFD.
> If you think something is mergeable, deletion shouldn't even enter your
> mind. Also, merging keeps information, deletion destroys it, they're two
> entirely different beasts. Votes like that are entirely meaningless, but
> especially annoying when the delete part is bolded and put in front.
> Why can't people just say '''Merge''' to article X.

As far as I understand it we're _legally required_ to preserve the
article history if we merge the contents somewhere else. The GFDL
requires us to maintain an author list and the way Wikipedia does that
is via the edit history.

I just hit a case like this a few days back over on [[Talk:Otherkin]],
where someone pasted the most recent version of the deleted article
[[Draconity]] for potential merging. As it currently stands this looks
legally no different than cutting and pasting the entire text of an
Encyclopedia Britannica article into a talk page and suggesting it be
merged.

And since [[Draconity]] itself has already been recreated as a redirect,
what is the point of keeping the history deleted anyway? The article's
inaccessible to readers either way. As long as an article isn't deleted
for copyright or libel reasons, if we've got a redirect sitting there we
might as well preserve the article history in case something salvageable
is discovered in there one day.

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list: wikitech-l

from_name: xaosflux

subject: [Wikitech-l] Block message

body:
I use the fortnight block as well, and if the person being blocked doesn't
know what a fortnight is, then I can suggest a certain online encylopedia
and/or dictionary they can use to read about it!

x

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jay R. Ashworth" <jra at baylink.com>
To: <wikitech-l at wikimedia.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 06, 2006 5:11 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Block message

> On Wed, Dec 06, 2006 at 08:12:41AM +0000, David Gerard wrote:
>> I believe several en:wp admins routinely use odd block times for
>> repeat vandals so they don't just come back same time next day. e.g.
>> that's why "31 hours" is one of the listed times on
>> [[Special:Blockip]] on en:wp. See the other blocks for that IP by
>> Clown - it's not a routine thing.
>
> It's also an easy way to mark your personal blocks, so they can be
> spotted easily in the list, assuming the list doesn't already show who
> set the block.
>
> Cheers,
> -- jra
> --
> Jay R. Ashworth
> jra at baylink.com
> Designer                          Baylink                             RFC
> 2100
> Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87
> e24
> St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647
> 1274
>
> (I've been informed that the 'divorce' quote makes me look
> misogynistic, even though Jennifer Crusie is (pretty obviously)
> a female romance novelist.  So I've removed it. :-)
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


body:
That file is a detatched, attached, electronic signature file.  If you don't
know what that is, then you can safely just ignore it.

x
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael M" <electreon10 at ntlworld.com>
To: "Wikimedia developers" <wikitech-l at wikimedia.org>
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2006 12:05 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Case sensitivity in article headings?

> At 17:04 GMT 05/12/2006, Michael M wrote:
>
> I don't know how to open .asc files. Could you help me?
>
>>Steve Bennett wrote:
>> > I see that in the last few weeks, [[:en:Template:lowercase]] has been
>> > updated to actually display the title in lowercase with a JavaScript
>> > hack.
>>
>>Stolen from Uncyclopedia, of course. (Or did they use a CSS hack?)
>>
>>--
>>Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
>>Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
>>"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
>>Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
>>
>>
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>Wikitech-l mailing list
>>Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
On 12/6/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Reading http://www.laboratorium.net/archives/SevenWikipediaFallacies.html:
>
> So maybe the argument is that the fluff somehow degrades the tone of the
> encyclopedia. But that can't be much of a concern either. Are we really
> going to discredit something useful because it also chooses to be fun? No
> one ever forces you to read about Star Trek. If you want to know how a
> Geneva
> drive <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_drive> works, what matters to
> you
> is that Wikipedia have a damn good entry on it. That the same web site
> also
> contains a multi-part list of fictional
> cities<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictional_cities>is neither here
> nor there.
>
> I tried to follow the link to the list of fictional cities (because I find
> the topic interesting). But it had been deleted.
>
> Why? The argument was that a category would be better.
>
> I have my opinions about that, but then WHY DID THEY NOT JUST REDIRECT TO
> THE CATEGORY?
>
> Arghhhhhh.
>
> Sorry for the rant.

You know what I find annoying? People who 'vote' to merge or delete on xFD.
If you think something is mergeable, deletion shouldn't even enter your
mind. Also, merging keeps information, deletion destroys it, they're two
entirely different beasts. Votes like that are entirely meaningless, but
especially annoying when the delete part is bolded and put in front.
Why can't people just say '''Merge''' to article X.
Deletion can be discussed again if a merge fails. Same goes for cleanup.
Just because it's not up to scratch now, doesn't mean an article should be
deleted immediately...

Ah, ranting relieves the soul... :)

Mgm


body:
Ummm....how is that diferant than rollback?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Bennett" <stevagewp at gmail.com>
To: "Wikimedia developers" <wikitech-l at wikimedia.org>
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2006 5:05 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] What does the "undo" link do?

> On 12/6/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I'd support adding a "dumb" undo link for current revisions that links
>> to the edit page for the previous revision...at least, for non
>> administrators. Rollback should probably take precedence when it's
>> available.
>
> Yay.
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


from_name: Aphaia

subject: [Foundation-l] Community project?

body:
Hello,
thank you Christophe for letting us share your experience and ideas.
Hopefully ongoing collaboration efforts on meta would be suggestive
for you.

It is my honor to introduce you and the community our Translation
teams developed in several languages and also their coordinators. The
idea of translation team has come from user:Dbl2010 who is active on
this mailinglist already and a translation coordinator for Turkish
language. I appreciate hereby him for his initiatives.

Translation coordinators (in full name: translation coordinator per
language, abbr. TCPL) comes mainly from their native language
community and have good experience both in translation and
coordination within/outsides of their main project, including
Wikimedia committee. They are in my opinion trustworthy and
knowledgeable people, or we invited just whom we put trust on him or
her. They are well known both on their local community and on meta,
have experienced in collaboration with us Communications committee, of
course particularly with Translation subcommittee, or with other
committees. All such teams and coordinators have begun working in
November as team. Their team are currently just launched and in an
experimental stage. The coming Fundraising campaign would be a good
test for each team. At least as far as I scanned some relevant pages,
the current teams are working in a good atmosphere and very
diligently.

For further information available on meta, specially in works they are
really doing.
Links:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/TCPL
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_teams

Since we are just in the start, we will very appreciate your feedback.
Cheers,

--
KIZU Naoko
  Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
  * Nessuna poesia prima di noi *


subject: [Foundation-l] Community project?


subject: [Wikitech-l] Block message

body:
No, they (or rather, we, as I do it too) do it because 31 is a prime number,
while 24 is not. See [[User:Drini/31 hours]].

Titoxd.

-----Original Message-----
From: David Gerard [mailto:dgerard at gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 06, 2006 1:13 AM
To: Wikimedia developers
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Block message

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

>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=block&user=Can
%27t+sleep%2C+clown+will+eat+me&page=

> I would *suggest* encouraging administrators to use whole "units" of
> time when issuing blocks. No technical reason for this, but that block
> log looks random and on first glance, suggests that someone's taking
> blocking to be a bit of a joke. Since those blocks *sound* legit to
> me, we obviously wouldn't want anybody getting the wrong idea about
> the user...

I believe several en:wp admins routinely use odd block times for
repeat vandals so they don't just come back same time next day. e.g.
that's why "31 hours" is one of the listed times on
[[Special:Blockip]] on en:wp. See the other blocks for that IP by
Clown - it's not a routine thing.

- d.


from_name: Jesse Martin

subject: [Wikitech-l] Blocking Open Proxies

body:
Dear Travis,

The MetaProject on open proxies is quite active, albeit somewhat
backlogged at the moment. We're in the process of developing a
database to manage the open proxies that are blocked, which will solve
several of the problems with the current system.

Recently blocked open proxies are listed at
[http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WM:OP/B]; older blocks became too
numerous to list manually, so they're categorized at
[http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Open_proxies_blocked_on_all_participating_projects]
until the database is ready. (We'll need to have a bot check to make
sure nobody added non-open-proxies to that category before importing
into the forthcoming database.)

Brion has nothing to do with the MetaProject to my knowledge.

Yours sincerely,
Jesse Martin
(Meta admin 'Pathoschild')

> From: "Travis Derouin" <travis at wikihow.com>
> I came across this page:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:WikiProject_on_open_proxies
>
> Is this project still active? If so, is there any easy way to import updated
> versions of this list in an automated fashion? What's the obscure blacklist
> that was mentioned in this link, can you tell us more about it Brion?
>
> Travis
>


from_name: Simetrical

subject: [Wikitech-l] What does the "undo" link do?

body:
On 12/6/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Rob Church wrote:
> > On 07/12/06, xaosflux <xaosflux at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Ummm....how is that diferant than rollback?
> >
> > Because rollback isn't a straightforward revert, despite looking like
> > one in a lot of cases.
>
> Internally, rollback has special magical powers involving
> wikimagicpixiedust, and must be kept out of the hands of the unwashed
> masses.

And more seriously, you have to load an extra two pages to undo, in
fact exactly the same number of pages as for a manual revert, plus you
get to enter an edit summary.  This makes it less well suited for
abuse, at least in theory.


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-12-07

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

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

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

Passed 451 of 471 tests (95.75%)... FAILED!


from_name: Pedro Sanchez

subject: [Foundation-l] Community project?

body:
On 12/6/06, Christophe Henner <christophe.henner at gmail.com> wrote:
> Heuuu I do think there was a misunderstanding :)
>
> I'm not speaking of translation in here (for the
> project/comitee/whatever the name), in fact we would need the help of
> translator, but the main goals are to centralize idea, solutions to
> recurrent problem, listing tools (translate it when needed), etc...
> not translation at all...
>
> Actually, the closer commitee to this project should be the
> "Communication Commitee" on some goal. The closer project would be
> [[:Communitas]], but it's a born-dead one. Then what do we have to
> centralize tools and bots and solutions? We have a huge community,
> plenty of people who has many ideas and... we all stay in our project,
> not trying to work all together. Sorry but in a such project you
> should have somewhere to coordinate a little. Some gave me the answers
> "there is meta:" Ha yeah? Is it? So where? and then no answer. It
> seems that people are "nearly" reluctant to try stuff...
>
> In this way, I'll be bold. I know some spanish guys liked the idea, so
> I'm gonna do it by myself on a personnal subpage :). If it's the only
> way to have it :)
> --
> schiste
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

Interesting, as in spanish wikipedia is where I?ve seen most people
reluctant (yet not opposed) to work on meta. Some (admins) even said
they're distrustful of foundation related stuff, and I've also been
told by several regular users that, I should stop being so active on
other wikis if I wanted to be considered a vaued contributor :P

I don't know why this happens, maybe it's a residual from the
Enciclopedia libre fork mindset.

So.. are speaking of the same es: ?


subject: [Foundation-l] Community project?


from_name: Christophe Henner

subject: [Foundation-l] Community project?

body:
Heuuu I do think there was a misunderstanding :)

I'm not speaking of translation in here (for the
project/comitee/whatever the name), in fact we would need the help of
translator, but the main goals are to centralize idea, solutions to
recurrent problem, listing tools (translate it when needed), etc...
not translation at all...

Actually, the closer commitee to this project should be the
"Communication Commitee" on some goal. The closer project would be
[[:Communitas]], but it's a born-dead one. Then what do we have to
centralize tools and bots and solutions? We have a huge community,
plenty of people who has many ideas and... we all stay in our project,
not trying to work all together. Sorry but in a such project you
should have somewhere to coordinate a little. Some gave me the answers
"there is meta:" Ha yeah? Is it? So where? and then no answer. It
seems that people are "nearly" reluctant to try stuff...

In this way, I'll be bold. I know some spanish guys liked the idea, so
I'm gonna do it by myself on a personnal subpage :). If it's the only
way to have it :)
--
schiste


subject: [Foundation-l] Community project?


from_name: matthew.britton at btinternet.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Speedy deletion patrol

body:
Well, that's not entirely true... I'd consider deletion of [[Main Page]] to
be disruption, for example.

But in this case, I agree. David did nothing wrong. It certainly wasn't
disruption.

-Gurch

-----Original Message-----
From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org]
On Behalf Of Kurt Maxwell Weber
Sent: 07 December 2006 01:10
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Speedy deletion patrol

On Wednesday 06 December 2006 05:37, Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
> > From: David Boothroyd <david at election.demon.co.uk>
> >
> > I agree with this. A few days ago I created [[338171]]. Being rather
> > bored at the time I gave a facetious edit summary which claimed the
> > article was all about the number 338,171. It was swiftly tagged with
> > a speedy delete tag, and then deleted (despite me having quickly put
> > a {{hangon}}).
> >
> > The article was actually a redirect to T.E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of
> > Arabia"). Wanting privacy, in later life Lawrence re-enlisted in the
> > RAF as an Aircraftsman (equivalent of Private in the Army), and was
> > given 338171 as his service number. He often signed himself "338171
> > A/C Shaw", prompting Noel Coward to ask him "May I call you 338?".
> >
> > It was quite obvious on reading the article that it was actually a
> > redirect. If the admin had checked the article to which it was
> > redirected he would have found the reason explained there. So while
> > it's legitimate to claim to have been misled by the edit summary,
> > that really doesn't justify mistakenly speedying a perfectly good
> > redirect. I appreciate that speedy deletion patrollers are often
> > overworked but overwork is not an excuse for lack of common sense.
>
> Good intentions are not an excuse for disrupting Wikipedia to
> illustrate a point.

What "disruption"?

That has to be about the most overused term on Wikipedia.

A single instance of an act is not "disruption".

--
Kurt Weber
<kmw at armory.com>


from_name: Rob Church

body:
On 07/12/06, xaosflux <xaosflux at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ummm....how is that diferant than rollback?

Because rollback isn't a straightforward revert, despite looking like
one in a lot of cases.

Rob Church


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikitech-l] Europe down

body:
Brief downtime again this morning 4:00 UTC. Repeated errors:

* Valid document was not found in the cache and only-if-cached
directive was specified.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Profoundly bad idea.

body:
On 12/5/06, Robth <robth1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/5/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Fix fix fix.
> >
> > Instead of complain complain complain delete delete delete.
> >
> > But hey. We're getting near the 7-year life cycle of most such innovative
> > projects, so I'm expecting the major successful fork pretty soon.
>
> The problem is this: the volume of contributions to Wikipedia by
> one-time or occasional contributors who "pass-by", as it were, and add
> something, is far too great for the community of steady
> maintenance-oriented contributors to keep up with "fixing" all of it
> as it comes in.  If we're going to place the onus on these steady
> contributors to fix all this stuff, then we're going to end up with a
> huge pile of stuff waiting to be "fixed" that is broken in very basic
> ways; articles with no sources, images without specific enough
> information, etc. This is the approach we have taken up till now, and
> huge piles of stuff waiting to be fixed is exactly what we have.
>

I'm really quite amazed that this "problem" keeps being brought up,
because the solution to this seems to me to be so blindingly simple:
ignore the huge pile of stuff waiting to be "fixed".  Set up tools to
simplify this.  Reserve deletion for those situations where it is
illegal or unethical to continue to distribute the content.

> The reason this is a problem is that on Wikipedia you get what you
> have.  One-time or occasional contributors (and, for that matter, many
> if not most fairly regular contributors) don't go read through a bunch
> of policies and what-not before they add something, they just add
> something that looks like it fits in with the rest of the content.

Well yeah, that's kind of the whole point of Wikipedia.  So I'm not
sure if this is what you're getting at or not, but the question should
be "how do we create an encyclopedia when the vast majority of the
contributors don't go read through a bunch of policies and what-not
before they add something?"  Think manual of style.  We don't delete
"EXTERNAL LINKS" sections, we change them into "External links"
sections...

> When I started contributing, I didn't list my sources, because the
> Wikipedia articles I had seen while using the site didn't list theirs.
>  If you have unsourced articles, "in popular culture" sections
> everywhere, and too many and insufficiently labelled fair use images,
> people are going to assume that those things are what you want and
> give you more of them.

A valid point, though it's much easier to stick a message on the top
of an article which warns the reader not to create something similar
than it is to put it through any of the deletion mechanisms.  It's
also rather easy to take an "in popular culture" section and move it
to its own article.  In that case I'd usually favor just deleting it,
but I guess I wouldn't object to someone who wanted to keep it - in
their own separate articles.

"Fair use" images are a whole 'nother creature, and delinking them
from articles is not an act of deletion anyway.

> If we are going to improve the net quality of
> Wikipedia, and maximize the benefit we receive from the contributions
> of people who want to help and base their judgement of how to do so on
> the type of content they have observed on the site, then we need to
> either clone dedicated Wikipedians to start fixing these things night
> and day or somehow cut off the inflow of stuff that needs fixing.

Depends how you define "net quality".  I'd define it as "Articles -
bad articles" (aka "good articles").  Either way, reducing the number
of bad articles doesn't improve "net quality".

> This proposal, with a waiting period intended to encourage the
> original contributor to add sources before the article is deleted to
> improve the average quality of our content (and thus the average
> quality of incoming contributions), strikes me as very well thought
> out.
>
Overly thought out, I'd say.  I don't have a problem with tight
editorial controls.  They just don't seem to me to have any place in a
project like Wikipedia.  If you want tight editorial controls go work
on Citizendium, not Wikipedia.  And I don't mean that in a derogatory
way - I think both projects have their good points and their bad
points.

Anthony


from_name: Travis Derouin

subject: [Wikitech-l] Blocking Open Proxies

body:
Great,

What are you using to block these proxies? Just the standard blocking
functionality in Mediawiki?

Thanks,
Travis

On 12/6/06, Jesse Martin <pathoschild at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Dear Travis,
>
> The MetaProject on open proxies is quite active, albeit somewhat
> backlogged at the moment. We're in the process of developing a
> database to manage the open proxies that are blocked, which will solve
> several of the problems with the current system.
>
> Recently blocked open proxies are listed at
> [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WM:OP/B]; older blocks became too
> numerous to list manually, so they're categorized at
> [
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Open_proxies_blocked_on_all_participating_projects
> ]
> until the database is ready. (We'll need to have a bot check to make
> sure nobody added non-open-proxies to that category before importing
> into the forthcoming database.)
>
> Brion has nothing to do with the MetaProject to my knowledge.
>
> Yours sincerely,
> Jesse Martin
> (Meta admin 'Pathoschild')
>
> > From: "Travis Derouin" <travis at wikihow.com>
> > I came across this page:
> >
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:WikiProject_on_open_proxies
> >
> > Is this project still active? If so, is there any easy way to import
> updated
> > versions of this list in an automated fashion? What's the obscure
> blacklist
> > that was mentioned in this link, can you tell us more about it Brion?
> >
> > Travis
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

subject: [WikiEN-l] First fair use criterium

body:
On 5 Dec 2006 at 14:28, "MacGyverMagic/Mgm" <macgyvermagic at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Public buildings is a clear case, but I think the main problem lies with
> pictures of people.
> Unless you want to commit a felony and stalk them, it's pretty much
> impossible to get non-fair use images for small time actors who don't visit
> premieres or award ceremonies.

I got a couple of pictures of minor celebrities (an actor and an
author; I also got a picture of an astronaut, but he already had a
better free picture so I didn't use it) that are now in Wikimedia
Commons and in the Wikipedia articles about those persons when they
and I both attended the Mensa World Gathering earlier this year.  You
don't necessarily have to be a stalker to run into mildly-famous
people; just have a camera handy when you go to conventions and other
events of that sort.

--
== 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: Andre Engels

body:
2006/12/7, xaosflux <xaosflux at gmail.com>:
>
> Ummm....how is that diferant than rollback?
>

Rollback is one click and the edit is rolled back. Undo takes you to an edit
screen that *when saved without changes* rolls back the edit.

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


subject: [Foundation-l] [Wikichix-l] Moderating an open list

body:
2006/12/6, Puppy <puppy at killerchihuahua.com>:
>
>
>
> Andre Engels wrote:
> > 2006/12/5, Puppy <puppy at killerchihuahua.com>:
> >
> >
> >>>>>> From what I read below, we are in agreement - yet many women feel
> it
> >>>>>> would be beneficial to have somewhere to discuss bias where they do
> >>>>>>
> >> not
> >>
> >>>>>> have to worry about immediately being attacked for even bringing up
> >>>>>>
> >> the
> >>
> >>>>>> bias issue. That is not, as yet, here.
> >>>>>>
> >> Please point to where I am being too thin skinned. Where I am, in fact,
> >> even stating I am hurt or unhappy in any way, valid or not.
> >>
> >>
> >
> > Well, simply speaking, the way *I* read this, is that you feel that
> either
> > you or someone else has been attacked because they brought up the issue.
> Of
> > course, I cannot judge whether you are being hurt by it, but if you do
> not
> > feel that there have been attacks, I don't see why you would consider
> such a
> > worry.
> >
> Because that is a very odd way to read my post. Boiled down, I said
> /Many women feel intimidated and would like a safe place to post./

No, you said 'Women want a place where they are not attacked for bringing up
this subject.' Since you say that should be another place than here, this
means 'People who bring up the subject here are attacked'. And since the
issue was brought up here in the preceding discussion, this means 'People
who brought up the issue in this thread have been attacked for it.'

> A
> sizable number of men have said that, too - yet you choose to lump me in
> with those women, and say *I* am too sensitive (not once did you say
> *they* are too sensitive, although the other posts were often far more
> supportive than mine) and you haven't told any of the men who support
> those who wanted a separate list that *they* were being "too sensitive".

None of those claimed that there had been "attacks" in this thread.

> In other words, you're selectively applying standards and lumping me in
> with "the women" - who are "too sensitive" - rather than responding to
> my actual post. I find this disappointing, but not surprising.
>

Should I really weigh every word for what it might mean when you read it?
And if so, shouldn't you weigh every word for what it might mean when I read
it as well?

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) schreef:
> I actually see two problems with the current round of arbcom elections:
>
> 1. We're not using a secret ballot, which makes voting too easily
> influenced by peer pressure
>
> 2. I don't believe that there are enough suitable candidates to fill the
> vacant positions, and that the community will do a very poor job of
> chosing the right people. Arbcom on en: is supposed to be made up of
> senior, trusted, respected members of the community, but most of the
> candidates could be described as anything but.
>
> So, like several people, I shall continue to boycott the current round
> of elections.
Hoi,
 From where I stand, the English language Wikipedia arbcom, is very much
an issue of the English Wikipedia community. However, the arguments that
apply for the Arbcom elections are very much the same for the Steward
elections. The voting is done in a similar way and from the way you
approach it, you cannot know the people who stand for office like the
people who know them from their native projects.

Effeietsanders for instance has his roots very much in the Dutch
language projects. I have got to know him a great guy. He is senior in
the Dutch realm, he is trusted and he is respected. There is however no
chance for you to know him like I do. You can boycott the Steward
collections because you do not believe people to have these qualities
then again how do you know? You also have to measure people by a certain
yardstick. Never mind your sterling remark that got so many people
incensed because of the sensitivity towards women (was it a joke?), I
still believe and trust that even people like yourself will rise to the
occasion and prove to do better than expected and do good in a role as
arbcom member or steward.

What do you achieve by applying this "I vote with my feet" logic? The
vote will still go ahead. You earn some more "malcontent" points. You
/will /be able to say, "I always said it would be no good" when the
arbcom does things that you disapprove off. This is a negative behaviour
that does get you nowhere. When you do not want to vote, do not vote.
Voting does not necessarily get you the results that you want, but that
is exactly what voting is meant to do.

Thanks,
    GeradM


from_name: Birgitte SB

subject: [Foundation-l] Community project?

body:
--- Darko Bulatovic <mail at itam.ws> wrote:

> Bence Damokos wrote:
> > It doesn't matter, which es: are we speaking
> about...
> > The same idea came up recently on the wikitech-l
> mailing list, and I
> > strongly support it.
> >
> > I think it could be started, by copying the
> English Wikipedias Tools and
> > bots pages to a central place, and then people
> from all over (including en)
> > could start adding their own, and making
> translations, creating simple
> > how-to (how-to use XY script, how to localise XY
> script, and not really a
> > how-to: How to improve this script, and who can
> help improving it)
> >
> > Any other ideas
> >
> > Bence
> >
> >
> Very good idea.
>
> Darko
>

I also think this is a good idea.  Don;t just limit
this to scripts, I think discussion of techniques
would be good also.  One suggestion is to make an
effort to split things up by technical ability.  A lot
of smaller projects do not have very many technically
skilled people. And most technical people seem to lump
tools together even a few of them need much less
experience to use than others.  If the page pointed
these editors to things that they might able to use
based on skill level it would be even more useful I
think.

Birgitte SB

Birgitte SB

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


subject: [Foundation-l] Community project?


from_name: Stephen Bain

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Non-commercial only and By Permission Only Images to
	be deleted

references:
<!~!UENERkVCMDkAAQACAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABgAAAAAAAAAw4JWid5Bak2qSaA3pWAusMKAAAAQAAAAL8+FotqSCEuqYHJbiBaM8QEAAAAA@chello.nl>
	<a4359dff0612051547s7b0ede2cv861ec51f077439fb@mail.gmail.com>
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body:
On 12/7/06, Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Kat Walsh wrote:
> > -Kat
> > who is, unfortunately, not a very good photographer
> >
> I can relate to that! But I'm much better than when I started taking
> pictures for WP three years ago. For instance, I find that thinking
> about someone on the other side of the world and in another culture
> viewing my photo is an aid to composition - how do I get the key
> information and context into the picture, while cutting out the
> irrelevant? I've also gotten brazen about studying the unfree pictures
> to see what it would take to get the same shots.

It's the same with people's text contributions. You'll start off
submitting stuff that's ok, though nothing special, but over time and
with practice you'll be turning out high-quality material, through
experience and through learning from other people's work.

I agree with Kat's other point. Most of us are sensible enough to know
that copying text is bad, but there's a culture that it's ok to do so
with images. Cameras are increasingly ubiquitous, and there are plenty
of people out there willing to take pictures for the projects, and I
really think that culture needs to be changed.

We have [[Wikipedia:Requested pictures]], [[Wikipedia:Photo Matching
Service]] and [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Photography]]. These are
drastically underused, even though there are people there making
excellent contributions. The more they are used, the more people with
cameras will be interested in helping and the more pictures we will
get. Please everyone, use these resources!

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Systemic bias wrt gender

body:
 "Matthew Brown" wrote

> Thus, topics not known by your typical Wikipedian
> are more likely to be nominated for deletion.  Most of these will be
> saved, but the aggravation of deletion debates is an offputting
> factor.

Yes, there is probably some deterrent factor. I think one can cope with it reasonably well, by cosmetic methods (tart the article up so that it doesn't look scruffy), and by doing a few more minutes on sourcing. Camouflage in a sense, but nothing artificial or that is an actual waste of time.

Charles

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from_name: Jeff Raymond

subject: [WikiEN-l] First fair use criterium

body:
Puppy wrote:
> Perhaps a slightly gentler, more encouraging tone? Something along the
> lines of:
>
> "Our goal is to make an encyclopedia of [[free content]], and uploading an
> unfree image of a building that someone else could photograph will do far
> more to harm our goal than it will move us closer to our goal. If you
> cannot buy a camera or borrow one, or talk a friend with one into
> contributing, then it is best to not upload an image at all rather than an
> unfree one. You can always contribute in other ways!"

But then you have to demonstrate the "harm."

-Jeff


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [WikiEN-l] First fair use criterium

body:
On 12/5/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> Public buildings is a clear case, but I think the main problem lies with
> pictures of people.
> Unless you want to commit a felony and stalk them, it's pretty much
> impossible to get non-fair use images for small time actors who don't visit
> premieres or award ceremonies.

The dozens of celbs (major and minor) uploaded to commons by user
Towpilot serves as a fine counter example.
(http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=upload&user=Towpilot&page=
)

Lets not be lazy, hard doesn't equal impossible..

(Not that I think that images of celebs are the worst of our problems
by any means.. I just don't want the misconception to stand)


subject: [WikiEN-l] First fair use criterium

body:
On 12/5/06, Bogdan Giusca <liste at dapyx.com> wrote:
[a random user wrote]
>> I have looked for a free alternative of this image, without finding one.
>> No luck on Flickr or Google. Short of forking out for a digital camera
>> and going to take the image myself, I can't see how "a free image that
>> provides substantially the same information might reasonably be found or
>> created".

I'm not known for kind answers, but my response might be something
along the lines of:

"If you're going to contribute, then yes we do expect you to buy a
camera.. or at least borrow one, or talk a friend with one into
contributing. If instead you'd rather not contribute, that is your
decision... but if you're not going to contribute then please stop
disputing our policy. Our goal is to make an encyclopedia of [[free
content]], and uploading an unfree image of a building that anyone
could photograph will do far more to harm our goal than it will move
us closer to our goal."


from_name: Ken Arromdee

subject: [WikiEN-l] First fair use criterium

body:
On Thu, 7 Dec 2006, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> > Unless you want to commit a felony and stalk them, it's pretty much
> > impossible to get non-fair use images for small time actors who don't visit
> > premieres or award ceremonies.
> The dozens of celbs (major and minor) uploaded to commons by user
> Towpilot serves as a fine counter example.

That only proves he can get pictures of dozens of celebrities.

Unless you have some reason to believe that those dozens are typical of
celebrities in general and it's as easy to get pictures of the rest as it
is to get pictures of those, it proves nothing.

I can walk into a bookstore and come out with a stack of $1 books.  Does that
mean that given any particular book, you can probably find it for $1?


subject: [WikiEN-l] First fair use criterium

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On 12/7/06, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com>
> wrote:
>> But then you have to demonstrate the "harm."
>
> Pretty easy, we have had plenty of examples of folks who didn't bother
> to upload an image because we "already had one" in the form a fair use
> image. It's happened to me personally, and it's not news.  That alone
> makes a pretty good example of harm becuase I don't think anyone would
> argue that it's not better to have free images instead of non-free
> ones.

But "better" doesn't necessarily mean "less harmful," which is the point.
The question is "does having fair use images harm the project," and
there's not a lot of evidence that it does, since we thankfully allow fair
use.

> So the FUC would have us ask the question "Does excluding this
> material preclude us from being a good encyclopedia?". Here the
> building is visable and photographable by all, so we must answer "No"
> even if we accept the notion that we can't be a good encyclopedia
> without a picture of this building. As a result, we can conclude that
> including the image is a net-harm from the perspective of furthering
> the goals of the project.

The "conclusion" is the continuing problem.  Can the building be
photographed?  Yes.  Is an existing unfree image of the building "harmful"
while we wait for the free image to come about?  The logical answer is
that it is not, but that's where the diversion is coming into play, and
the possible future in which the policy is based off of isn't doing much
to clarify it.

-Jeff


from_name: Puppy

subject: [WikiEN-l] First fair use criterium

body:
Perhaps a slightly gentler, more encouraging tone? Something along the
lines of:

"Our goal is to make an encyclopedia of [[free content]], and uploading an unfree image of a building that someone else could photograph will do far more to harm our goal than it will move us closer to our goal. If you cannot buy a camera or borrow one, or talk a friend with one into contributing, then it is best to not upload an image at all rather than an unfree one. You can always contribute in other ways!"

-kc-

Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On 12/5/06, Bogdan Giusca <liste at dapyx.com> wrote:
> [a random user wrote]
>
>>> I have looked for a free alternative of this image, without finding one.
>>> No luck on Flickr or Google. Short of forking out for a digital camera
>>> and going to take the image myself, I can't see how "a free image that
>>> provides substantially the same information might reasonably be found or
>>> created".
>>>
>
> I'm not known for kind answers, but my response might be something
> along the lines of:
>
> "If you're going to contribute, then yes we do expect you to buy a
> camera.. or at least borrow one, or talk a friend with one into
> contributing. If instead you'd rather not contribute, that is your
> decision... but if you're not going to contribute then please stop
> disputing our policy. Our goal is to make an encyclopedia of [[free
> content]], and uploading an unfree image of a building that anyone
> could photograph will do far more to harm our goal than it will move
> us closer to our goal."
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] First fair use criterium

body:
On 12/7/06, Puppy <puppy at killerchihuahua.com> wrote:
> Perhaps a slightly gentler, more encouraging tone? Something along the
> lines of:
>
> "Our goal is to make an encyclopedia of [[free content]], and uploading an unfree image of a building that someone else could photograph will do far more to harm our goal than it will move us closer to our goal. If you cannot buy a camera or borrow one, or talk a friend with one into contributing, then it is best to not upload an image at all rather than an unfree one. You can always contribute in other ways!"

Thank you.


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] Heh!

body:
That's bizarre. It's certainly a reasonable article title.

On 12/7/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Cuba
>
> Well, it made me chuckle.
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] First fair use criterium

body:
On 12/7/06, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:
> But then you have to demonstrate the "harm."

Pretty easy, we have had plenty of examples of folks who didn't bother
to upload an image because we "already had one" in the form a fair use
image. It's happened to me personally, and it's not news.  That alone
makes a pretty good example of harm becuase I don't think anyone would
argue that it's not better to have free images instead of non-free
ones.

You can also point out that since our goals which explicitly include
free content, any addition of non-free content is harm. Not all
additions are net-harm, however.  The preamble of the Fair User
Criteria on enwiki addresses the issue of harm vs net harm like this:

"The primary goal of Wikipedia's fair use policy is to protect our
mission of producing and distributing free content which is
perpetually free for unlimited distribution, modification, and
application for all users and in all mediums. This goal could best be
met by completely disallowing all content which is not free content;
however, we understand that in order to completely meet the second
part of our mission, producing a quality encyclopedia, we must permit
some non-free material for critical commentary. Thus the authors of
the English Wikipedia have decided to permit a limited compromise
which is outlined in this policy. Most popular non-English Wikipedias
do not permit unfree images at all."

So the FUC would have us ask the question "Does excluding this
material preclude us from being a good encyclopedia?". Here the
building is visable and photographable by all, so we must answer "No"
even if we accept the notion that we can't be a good encyclopedia
without a picture of this building. As a result, we can conclude that
including the image is a net-harm from the perspective of furthering
the goals of the project.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Speedy deletion patrol

body:
My takeaway is
a) David should have given an honest edit summary
b) The SD tag was fine
c) Once the {{hangon}} was added it shouldn't have been deleted.

So two different people made mistakes.

On 12/7/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 12/6/06, David Boothroyd <david at election.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > I agree with this. A few days ago I created [[338171]]. Being rather
> > bored at the time I gave a facetious edit summary which claimed the
> > article was all about the number 338,171. It was swiftly tagged with
> > a speedy delete tag, and then deleted (despite me having quickly put
> > a {{hangon}}).
>
> Heh, you redirected a number to a person, and were surprised it got
> deleted? I think the onus on weird redirects like that is on the
> person creating to justify its existence, not on the the potential
> deleter to search for any kind of rationale behind an apparently
> bizarre redirect...
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] First fair use criterium

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

> It is an explicit goal of the project to produce an encyclopedia of
> free content. Fair use images are not free. Thus it is harmful because
> the explicit goals of the project define unfree content as a
> non-solution.  The fact that other factors may make the harm
> preferable to other harms does not change the fact that unfree content
> is a harm.

But:

1) Fair use has not been defined as any sort of harm, only that it's
contrary to an eventual goal.

2) We already allow fair use, thus implying that it's really not harmful
at all.

>
> This is not rocket science. Did you even read my post? Did you read
> Kat's post? Must I assault you verbally to get your attention? :(

Preferably with witty barbs and heavy doses of sarcasm, in a light cream
sauce.

> If it's logical please explain your thought process.. because I'm not
> getting it.

A photo of a building in the town over is an "unfree" image on Wikipedia
currently.  I can't get over to said building to take a picture until,
say, next Saturday.  The "unfree" picture harms nothing.  It does not
detract from the project's goal, it does not harm anything.  Furthermore,
said building is an architectural wonder, with unique arches and windows.
Removal of the image until next week does harm to the project, as the
unfree image illustrates the object in ways words simply cannot.  The
unfree image, in this case, is not harming at all, but rather helping.

This logic can apply to any "unfree" "replaceable" image.  The policy does
further harm to the project because of the broad defintion of
"replaceable" that's being asserted by people who should know better.  An
image of J D Salinger is not really replaceable.  An image of a female
indie rock musician who has not played publically in 3 years, and has
since gotten married and had children, is not really replaceable.  An
image of a high-profile rock band that bans cameras from their live shows
is not really replaceable, unless we're advocating that other people break
the rules so they don't have to break ours.  The policy is more harmful
than the "unfree" image that the policy is designed to replace.

I reiterate - there is NOTHING wrong with pushing for free content.  It's
undoubtedly secondary to why most of us are here, but it's absolutely
worthwhile and useful to have and encourage.  To push free content to a
fault - where a fair use image cannot be used because a free *might* pop
up - is not logical.  We would never do that with, say, quotations from a
book about a President, which is fair use content that we allow although
the opinions are freely replaceable.

> 1) Non-free images do discourage people from contributing free images.
> This has happened to me personally so you can't deny it without
> calling me a liar, it has happened to friends of Jwales so you can't
> deny it without calling him a liar, we've seen people say it in
> emails. Even for folks like me who love replacing unfree images can't
> tell if an image is unfree unless they click on it. That this happens
> is not really open for debate.

I think I can thoroughly disagree with this without calling anyone a liar.
 I don't think the stick is getting the free content there any faster than
the people who are militant about deleting these images could be by
spending that time finding a free alternative.

-Jeff


subject: [WikiEN-l] First fair use criterium

body:
On 12/7/06, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:
> But "better" doesn't necessarily mean "less harmful," which is the point.
> The question is "does having fair use images harm the project," and
> there's not a lot of evidence that it does, since we thankfully allow fair
> use.

It is an explicit goal of the project to produce an encyclopedia of
free content. Fair use images are not free. Thus it is harmful because
the explicit goals of the project define unfree content as a
non-solution.  The fact that other factors may make the harm
preferable to other harms does not change the fact that unfree content
is a harm.

This is not rocket science. Did you even read my post? Did you read
Kat's post? Must I assault you verbally to get your attention? :(

> The "conclusion" is the continuing problem.  Can the building be
> photographed?  Yes.  Is an existing unfree image of the building "harmful"
> while we wait for the free image to come about?  The logical answer is
> that it is not,
[snip]

If it's logical please explain your thought process.. because I'm not
getting it.

I clearly outlined two related perspectives which show the image to be harmful:

0) Free images are not free content, so adding non-free images breaks
one of the primary goals of the project.
1) Non-free images do discourage people from contributing free images.
This has happened to me personally so you can't deny it without
calling me a liar, it has happened to friends of Jwales so you can't
deny it without calling him a liar, we've seen people say it in
emails. Even for folks like me who love replacing unfree images can't
tell if an image is unfree unless they click on it. That this happens
is not really open for debate.

You can discount these factors if you assert that free images are not
a goal of the project but if thats your position you should state it
outright so we can emphasize how incorrect you are. :)


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

body:
George Herbert wrote:
> On 12/6/06, Stephanie <stephanie at sosdg.org> wrote:
>> effe iets anders wrote:
>>
>>> Afaik has there never been a closed vote on the wiki for local policy.
>> Even
>>> more, there has in my memory never been a closed vote other then for the
>>> boardelections.
>>>
>> While I'd recomend that we look at secret ballots for some policy issues
>> too, they are more insulated from the problems
>> that make a public ballot unsuitable for this election. Elections of
>> individuals have much more at stake - both emotionally, and politically,
>> where as votes on policy are very straightforward. In an election such
>> as the arbcom election, there are factors such as personal relationships
>> that should take a back seat to what a voter thinks is best for
>> en.wikipedia - with the votes public, that's not possible. A lot of the
>> factors that influence a vote such as this are subtle and hidden, and
>> remain hidden even when voting in this format. The temptation to vote to
>> gain percieved political favor is one of the worst aspects of such a
>> system, and if it happens in RFA !votes, where much less is at stake,
>> then we can be sure that it happens in arbcom votes.
>>
>> To put it quite bluntly, people are unwilling to risk the consequences
>> of voting their concience, going against the masses, going against their
>> friendships in an "open" or public election. People are only truely open
>> about their opinion when they can express  that opinion without
>> possibility of reprisal. Therefore open ballots are not ballots placed
>> under free will, and the election is subject to the worst kinds of
>> tampering.
>>
>> I realize its too late to change this how this election run, however I
>> also hope that this is the last time we use such an opressive method for
>> an election in the name of "openness".
>>
>>> I guess it's not for nothing that the system we are voting
>>> with for the board is called boardvote. I think it would indeed be
>>> interesting to use the system on the one hand as it is more peacefull and
>>> like we vote irl, but on the other hand it might require assistence from
>> the
>>> devs, or it might be very hard to track which votes are egligable, harder
>> as
>>> when using open voting (when everybody can help looking who might be
>>> sockpuppet)
>>>
>>>
>> Boardvote has elegibility checks, and more importantly, the list of who
>> voted is public, so that votes can be stricken in a transparent manner
>> without knowing how they effect the outcom.
>>
>>> So it has it's pro's and con's. I think at least the community has to
>> decide
>>> herself whether she wants a open or closed voting, but as well the wmf
>> has
>>> prolly to agree on voting this way (as it requires dev assistence). Maybe
>> it
>>> would be best to ask the wmf first indeed :)
>
>
>
> Looking at these concerns, I see where you are coming from, but I think that
> this comes down to a difference in goals.  Is this an election?  If it's an
> election, then it's not run well.  Is it an exercise in
> consensus-gathering?  It works reasonably well for that.
>
> I know it's a common desire to want Wikipedia to be more election-like, but
> so far the policies say we aren't.  Exactly what the "pass" criteria are for
> this election are sort of vague, for example; Jimbo could create more
> positions if he wants more people on Arbcom, and select more than the top
> five "winners".
>

I actually see two problems with the current round of arbcom elections:

1. We're not using a secret ballot, which makes voting too easily
influenced by peer pressure

2. I don't believe that there are enough suitable candidates to fill the
vacant positions, and that the community will do a very poor job of
chosing the right people. Arbcom on en: is supposed to be made up of
senior, trusted, respected members of the community, but most of the
candidates could be described as anything but.

So, like several people, I shall continue to boycott the current round
of elections.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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body:
George Herbert wrote:
> On 12/6/06, Stephanie <stephanie at sosdg.org> wrote:
>> effe iets anders wrote:
>>
>>> Afaik has there never been a closed vote on the wiki for local policy.
>> Even
>>> more, there has in my memory never been a closed vote other then for the
>>> boardelections.
>>>
>> While I'd recomend that we look at secret ballots for some policy issues
>> too, they are more insulated from the problems
>> that make a public ballot unsuitable for this election. Elections of
>> individuals have much more at stake - both emotionally, and politically,
>> where as votes on policy are very straightforward. In an election such
>> as the arbcom election, there are factors such as personal relationships
>> that should take a back seat to what a voter thinks is best for
>> en.wikipedia - with the votes public, that's not possible. A lot of the
>> factors that influence a vote such as this are subtle and hidden, and
>> remain hidden even when voting in this format. The temptation to vote to
>> gain percieved political favor is one of the worst aspects of such a
>> system, and if it happens in RFA !votes, where much less is at stake,
>> then we can be sure that it happens in arbcom votes.
>>
>> To put it quite bluntly, people are unwilling to risk the consequences
>> of voting their concience, going against the masses, going against their
>> friendships in an "open" or public election. People are only truely open
>> about their opinion when they can express  that opinion without
>> possibility of reprisal. Therefore open ballots are not ballots placed
>> under free will, and the election is subject to the worst kinds of
>> tampering.
>>
>> I realize its too late to change this how this election run, however I
>> also hope that this is the last time we use such an opressive method for
>> an election in the name of "openness".
>>
>>> I guess it's not for nothing that the system we are voting
>>> with for the board is called boardvote. I think it would indeed be
>>> interesting to use the system on the one hand as it is more peacefull and
>>> like we vote irl, but on the other hand it might require assistence from
>> the
>>> devs, or it might be very hard to track which votes are egligable, harder
>> as
>>> when using open voting (when everybody can help looking who might be
>>> sockpuppet)
>>>
>>>
>> Boardvote has elegibility checks, and more importantly, the list of who
>> voted is public, so that votes can be stricken in a transparent manner
>> without knowing how they effect the outcom.
>>
>>> So it has it's pro's and con's. I think at least the community has to
>> decide
>>> herself whether she wants a open or closed voting, but as well the wmf
>> has
>>> prolly to agree on voting this way (as it requires dev assistence). Maybe
>> it
>>> would be best to ask the wmf first indeed :)
>
>
>
> Looking at these concerns, I see where you are coming from, but I think that
> this comes down to a difference in goals.  Is this an election?  If it's an
> election, then it's not run well.  Is it an exercise in
> consensus-gathering?  It works reasonably well for that.
>
> I know it's a common desire to want Wikipedia to be more election-like, but
> so far the policies say we aren't.  Exactly what the "pass" criteria are for
> this election are sort of vague, for example; Jimbo could create more
> positions if he wants more people on Arbcom, and select more than the top
> five "winners".
>

I actually see two problems with the current round of arbcom elections:

1. We're not using a secret ballot, which makes voting too easily
influenced by peer pressure

2. I don't believe that there are enough suitable candidates to fill the
vacant positions, and that the community will do a very poor job of
chosing the right people. Arbcom on en: is supposed to be made up of
senior, trusted, respected members of the community, but most of the
candidates could be described as anything but.

So, like several people, I shall continue to boycott the current round
of elections.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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body:
George Herbert wrote:
> On 12/6/06, Stephanie <stephanie at sosdg.org> wrote:
>> effe iets anders wrote:
>>
>>> Afaik has there never been a closed vote on the wiki for local policy.
>> Even
>>> more, there has in my memory never been a closed vote other then for the
>>> boardelections.
>>>
>> While I'd recomend that we look at secret ballots for some policy issues
>> too, they are more insulated from the problems
>> that make a public ballot unsuitable for this election. Elections of
>> individuals have much more at stake - both emotionally, and politically,
>> where as votes on policy are very straightforward. In an election such
>> as the arbcom election, there are factors such as personal relationships
>> that should take a back seat to what a voter thinks is best for
>> en.wikipedia - with the votes public, that's not possible. A lot of the
>> factors that influence a vote such as this are subtle and hidden, and
>> remain hidden even when voting in this format. The temptation to vote to
>> gain percieved political favor is one of the worst aspects of such a
>> system, and if it happens in RFA !votes, where much less is at stake,
>> then we can be sure that it happens in arbcom votes.
>>
>> To put it quite bluntly, people are unwilling to risk the consequences
>> of voting their concience, going against the masses, going against their
>> friendships in an "open" or public election. People are only truely open
>> about their opinion when they can express  that opinion without
>> possibility of reprisal. Therefore open ballots are not ballots placed
>> under free will, and the election is subject to the worst kinds of
>> tampering.
>>
>> I realize its too late to change this how this election run, however I
>> also hope that this is the last time we use such an opressive method for
>> an election in the name of "openness".
>>
>>> I guess it's not for nothing that the system we are voting
>>> with for the board is called boardvote. I think it would indeed be
>>> interesting to use the system on the one hand as it is more peacefull and
>>> like we vote irl, but on the other hand it might require assistence from
>> the
>>> devs, or it might be very hard to track which votes are egligable, harder
>> as
>>> when using open voting (when everybody can help looking who might be
>>> sockpuppet)
>>>
>>>
>> Boardvote has elegibility checks, and more importantly, the list of who
>> voted is public, so that votes can be stricken in a transparent manner
>> without knowing how they effect the outcom.
>>
>>> So it has it's pro's and con's. I think at least the community has to
>> decide
>>> herself whether she wants a open or closed voting, but as well the wmf
>> has
>>> prolly to agree on voting this way (as it requires dev assistence). Maybe
>> it
>>> would be best to ask the wmf first indeed :)
>
>
>
> Looking at these concerns, I see where you are coming from, but I think that
> this comes down to a difference in goals.  Is this an election?  If it's an
> election, then it's not run well.  Is it an exercise in
> consensus-gathering?  It works reasonably well for that.
>
> I know it's a common desire to want Wikipedia to be more election-like, but
> so far the policies say we aren't.  Exactly what the "pass" criteria are for
> this election are sort of vague, for example; Jimbo could create more
> positions if he wants more people on Arbcom, and select more than the top
> five "winners".
>

I actually see two problems with the current round of arbcom elections:

1. We're not using a secret ballot, which makes voting too easily
influenced by peer pressure

2. I don't believe that there are enough suitable candidates to fill the
vacant positions, and that the community will do a very poor job of
chosing the right people. Arbcom on en: is supposed to be made up of
senior, trusted, respected members of the community, but most of the
candidates could be described as anything but.

So, like several people, I shall continue to boycott the current round
of elections.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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body:
George Herbert wrote:
> On 12/6/06, Stephanie <stephanie at sosdg.org> wrote:
>> effe iets anders wrote:
>>
>>> Afaik has there never been a closed vote on the wiki for local policy.
>> Even
>>> more, there has in my memory never been a closed vote other then for the
>>> boardelections.
>>>
>> While I'd recomend that we look at secret ballots for some policy issues
>> too, they are more insulated from the problems
>> that make a public ballot unsuitable for this election. Elections of
>> individuals have much more at stake - both emotionally, and politically,
>> where as votes on policy are very straightforward. In an election such
>> as the arbcom election, there are factors such as personal relationships
>> that should take a back seat to what a voter thinks is best for
>> en.wikipedia - with the votes public, that's not possible. A lot of the
>> factors that influence a vote such as this are subtle and hidden, and
>> remain hidden even when voting in this format. The temptation to vote to
>> gain percieved political favor is one of the worst aspects of such a
>> system, and if it happens in RFA !votes, where much less is at stake,
>> then we can be sure that it happens in arbcom votes.
>>
>> To put it quite bluntly, people are unwilling to risk the consequences
>> of voting their concience, going against the masses, going against their
>> friendships in an "open" or public election. People are only truely open
>> about their opinion when they can express  that opinion without
>> possibility of reprisal. Therefore open ballots are not ballots placed
>> under free will, and the election is subject to the worst kinds of
>> tampering.
>>
>> I realize its too late to change this how this election run, however I
>> also hope that this is the last time we use such an opressive method for
>> an election in the name of "openness".
>>
>>> I guess it's not for nothing that the system we are voting
>>> with for the board is called boardvote. I think it would indeed be
>>> interesting to use the system on the one hand as it is more peacefull and
>>> like we vote irl, but on the other hand it might require assistence from
>> the
>>> devs, or it might be very hard to track which votes are egligable, harder
>> as
>>> when using open voting (when everybody can help looking who might be
>>> sockpuppet)
>>>
>>>
>> Boardvote has elegibility checks, and more importantly, the list of who
>> voted is public, so that votes can be stricken in a transparent manner
>> without knowing how they effect the outcom.
>>
>>> So it has it's pro's and con's. I think at least the community has to
>> decide
>>> herself whether she wants a open or closed voting, but as well the wmf
>> has
>>> prolly to agree on voting this way (as it requires dev assistence). Maybe
>> it
>>> would be best to ask the wmf first indeed :)
>
>
>
> Looking at these concerns, I see where you are coming from, but I think that
> this comes down to a difference in goals.  Is this an election?  If it's an
> election, then it's not run well.  Is it an exercise in
> consensus-gathering?  It works reasonably well for that.
>
> I know it's a common desire to want Wikipedia to be more election-like, but
> so far the policies say we aren't.  Exactly what the "pass" criteria are for
> this election are sort of vague, for example; Jimbo could create more
> positions if he wants more people on Arbcom, and select more than the top
> five "winners".
>

I actually see two problems with the current round of arbcom elections:

1. We're not using a secret ballot, which makes voting too easily
influenced by peer pressure

2. I don't believe that there are enough suitable candidates to fill the
vacant positions, and that the community will do a very poor job of
chosing the right people. Arbcom on en: is supposed to be made up of
senior, trusted, respected members of the community, but most of the
candidates could be described as anything but.

So, like several people, I shall continue to boycott the current round
of elections.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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subject: [Foundation-l] Introducing a new mailing list

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> In 12/6/06, rfrangi at libero.it <rfrangi at libero.it> wrote:
>>> Michael Snow wrote:
>>>
>>> Traditional list etiquette encourages that approach, yes, although
>>> really I think the odds have more to do with how the message is crafted
>>> than with whether it is delivered publicly or privately. Here it was a
>>> difficult balancing act. It is evident that at least some people do not
>>> see much of a problem, perhaps not surprising since bias and
>>> discrimination often operate in subtle and systemic ways. As a result,
>>> it is sometimes necessary to publicly call out examples.
>>>
>>> However, Snowdog is a valuable part of the community and has a good
>>> reputation, so I wasn't happy to be so critical. I did try to "play the
>>> ball, not the man" (sexist idiom, but the right gender in this case) by
>>> focusing on the comment itself and what was offensive about it. I am
>>> thankful that he continues to participate, with good grace and in a
>>> constructive fashion. A "botched joke" may cost John Kerry the chance to
>>> run for President again, but it shouldn't cost anyone the chance to post
>>> again to this list.
>>>
>>> --Michael Snow
>> Well, it was clear to me, from the beginning, that the issue of the thread
>> was gender bias and sexist remarks. So basically my "sexist joke" was a
>> field test (I'm not so stupid to make such comments in a place where those
>> comments are in discussion).
>>
>> Working primarily on the italian Wikipedia, and since this issue has
>> started on en.wiki (on which I do not follow the ongoing discussions), I
>> wanted to realize quickly, and maybe brutally, how this kind of things are
>> felt. So thanks Michael for your public reply, and you all forgive me if I
>> used you as Guinea-pigs.
>
>
> Wait, you were being *deliberately* inflammatory?
>

I suspect that, like my infamous post to wikien-l that started this
whole mess, he didn't think that anybody would take him seriously.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> In 12/6/06, rfrangi at libero.it <rfrangi at libero.it> wrote:
>>> Michael Snow wrote:
>>>
>>> Traditional list etiquette encourages that approach, yes, although
>>> really I think the odds have more to do with how the message is crafted
>>> than with whether it is delivered publicly or privately. Here it was a
>>> difficult balancing act. It is evident that at least some people do not
>>> see much of a problem, perhaps not surprising since bias and
>>> discrimination often operate in subtle and systemic ways. As a result,
>>> it is sometimes necessary to publicly call out examples.
>>>
>>> However, Snowdog is a valuable part of the community and has a good
>>> reputation, so I wasn't happy to be so critical. I did try to "play the
>>> ball, not the man" (sexist idiom, but the right gender in this case) by
>>> focusing on the comment itself and what was offensive about it. I am
>>> thankful that he continues to participate, with good grace and in a
>>> constructive fashion. A "botched joke" may cost John Kerry the chance to
>>> run for President again, but it shouldn't cost anyone the chance to post
>>> again to this list.
>>>
>>> --Michael Snow
>> Well, it was clear to me, from the beginning, that the issue of the thread
>> was gender bias and sexist remarks. So basically my "sexist joke" was a
>> field test (I'm not so stupid to make such comments in a place where those
>> comments are in discussion).
>>
>> Working primarily on the italian Wikipedia, and since this issue has
>> started on en.wiki (on which I do not follow the ongoing discussions), I
>> wanted to realize quickly, and maybe brutally, how this kind of things are
>> felt. So thanks Michael for your public reply, and you all forgive me if I
>> used you as Guinea-pigs.
>
>
> Wait, you were being *deliberately* inflammatory?
>

I suspect that, like my infamous post to wikien-l that started this
whole mess, he didn't think that anybody would take him seriously.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> In 12/6/06, rfrangi at libero.it <rfrangi at libero.it> wrote:
>>> Michael Snow wrote:
>>>
>>> Traditional list etiquette encourages that approach, yes, although
>>> really I think the odds have more to do with how the message is crafted
>>> than with whether it is delivered publicly or privately. Here it was a
>>> difficult balancing act. It is evident that at least some people do not
>>> see much of a problem, perhaps not surprising since bias and
>>> discrimination often operate in subtle and systemic ways. As a result,
>>> it is sometimes necessary to publicly call out examples.
>>>
>>> However, Snowdog is a valuable part of the community and has a good
>>> reputation, so I wasn't happy to be so critical. I did try to "play the
>>> ball, not the man" (sexist idiom, but the right gender in this case) by
>>> focusing on the comment itself and what was offensive about it. I am
>>> thankful that he continues to participate, with good grace and in a
>>> constructive fashion. A "botched joke" may cost John Kerry the chance to
>>> run for President again, but it shouldn't cost anyone the chance to post
>>> again to this list.
>>>
>>> --Michael Snow
>> Well, it was clear to me, from the beginning, that the issue of the thread
>> was gender bias and sexist remarks. So basically my "sexist joke" was a
>> field test (I'm not so stupid to make such comments in a place where those
>> comments are in discussion).
>>
>> Working primarily on the italian Wikipedia, and since this issue has
>> started on en.wiki (on which I do not follow the ongoing discussions), I
>> wanted to realize quickly, and maybe brutally, how this kind of things are
>> felt. So thanks Michael for your public reply, and you all forgive me if I
>> used you as Guinea-pigs.
>
>
> Wait, you were being *deliberately* inflammatory?
>

I suspect that, like my infamous post to wikien-l that started this
whole mess, he didn't think that anybody would take him seriously.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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