from_name: Michael R. Irwin

subject:
[Foundation-l] Wiki trademark issue for ZH Wikipedia
 in	mainland China

body:
Jakob Voss wrote:

>P.S: In Germany a baker has trademark for "Wiki" for cakes since 1956
>but this is ok because Wikis and cakes are different things. Sadly he
>does not produce the cakes anymore,I would like to taste it :-)
>_______________________________________________
>
>
Interesting excellent information regarding Chinese trademark stuff!
Thanks for sharing!

Perhaps if you sent some emails regarding the wiki cake to the Wikimania
organizers, the board appointees or employees responsible for Wikimedia
Foundation funds enhancement, and the baker some wiki cakes might become
available in the future at a profit to somebody.

Perhaps it is time for a Wikimedia Foundation store or franchise
reachable from a single front portal link rather than the wiki projects
themselves. I understand there are entire monastaries scattered around
the planet that make money off of special christmas fruitcake or wine
.... or expensive choculate assortments available at extremely high
prices for next day delivery for forgetful types around valentine's day
or parents days or other special days.

Maybe the wiki cake could be frosted with appropriate URLs or a message
could be included in a card. Might be a limited market ... I understand
there are probably less than a billion people on the internet.

If Wikimedia's non profit status were threatened by accepting franchise
or forwarding micropayments I suppose something might be arranged with
other non affiliated wiki's or companies.

Personally I have no desire for a wiki cake so you are on your own with
this idea. All rights released to the universe via public mailing list.

Regards,
Michael R. Irwin,
lazyquasar


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] First-pass central authentication conflict check

body:
I've run a quick simulation of the first-pass automatic conflict resolution for
the future single login migration:

Total registered usernames:  2,097,231
   No edits on any wiki:     1,475,146 (70.3%)
Only registered on one wiki: 1,918,547 (91.5%)
Automatically resolved:        139,466 (6.6%)
Potential conflicts:            39,218 (1.9%)

Accounts can be automatically resolved ahead of time where all of the instances
of a name either have the same e-mail address listed (in which case the owner
could reset the password to the master account's) or have no listed
contributions (in which case we consider them fair game for reclaiming).

Potential conflicts are where one or more accounts exist for a name which have
some contributions listed, but the e-mail address doesn't match that of the
primary account. Many of these will be in fact owned by the same user, but just
didn't get the mail setting filled out.

Due to the salting of passwords, we can't currently perform an offline check for
matching passwords; however when the user first logs in after migration, the
passwords can be checked and any matching accounts can be automatically resolved
at that time.

In remaining cases where the passwords don't match, users will have to manually
select merging (if it's their account) or renaming (if it's someone else's) to
clear all conflicts.

Most such conflicts should be resolvable without too much administrator
intervention, at least in theory.

I'm running another pass to gather more statistics on how many potentially
conflicting accounts are barely-used versus often-used, will report in the morning.

(I've put some notes and the demo code I'm using for building these stats in the
CentralAuth project dir in SVN.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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list: textbook-l

subject: [Textbook-l] Wikibooks - removal of games walkthrough books

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>We have to draw a line somewhere, and we can argue internally endlessly
>without getting much resolution.  So a useful technique is to try really
>hard to reference some external standards.
>
>
>
>>1. What about guides to games that are not video or computer games?
>>These can include guides on how to play chess and go (which we already
>>have), bridge, whist, etc.. together with suitable strategies;
>>conceivably this may also include more modern games such as risk or
>>monopoly or cluedo. To my mind, guides on well-known intellectual games
>>such as these have educational value and are worth keeping, but your
>>comments would be welcome.
>>
>>
>
>My question would be whether or not there exist classes at accredited
>institutions on the subject which use something similar _as a textbook_.
>
>

In Oregon, USA a B.S. Degree in game development from a technical
institute .... might be IIT but I am not certain ... is being advertised
for a full four year degree available in three years of full time study
on National Broadcast Television during primetime.

The creator of Total Annihlation has announced a new "game" which is a
three sided war game which allows various combinations of teams, solo
players, computer controlled forces to interact at various scales from
ant to global overview with land, sea, space, and air assets that
interact as an accurate simulation.   Big units can step on little
units.  Nukes have cumulative accurate effects on all units within
primary blast radius and perhaps downwind.  Artillery is accurately
calculated ballistics.

I am kind of looking forward to setting up Wikiversity's War College.
It will be useful outreach for our engineers as they work with the
military students and history departments to discern tactics and
strategy from history; update it for proper time frames, and then
simulate scenarios or run war game tournament to see who makes accurate
predications and statments vs. who is hot air or misinformation
specialists.  Perhaps the Poly Sci or Wikinews folks might find some
benefit in being able to verify or validate some of the Pentagon's vs.
freedom fighters claims independently via forensic science (accurate
physics vs. propaganda or cartoon physics).

Considering that the U.S. Army uses an internally modified and supported
version of DOOM for situational awareness training  .... it is going to
be hard to claim that guidelines regarding how to manage the economy and
various scales of forces of the above while avoiding getting stepped on
or nuked or bought out by bigger or smaller or other peoples or things
are not educational at some level regarding some things.

Outpost from Sierra and Lunar Command from Mallard are both improved
versions of NASA simulations studying how to establish, maintain, expand
and operate space science stations and setttlements.

>Notice how this works: first, we can be quite broad in what constitutes
>a textbook, for example at my sister's cooking school, they use a
>cookbook for a textbook, no question.
>
>But in virtually every university, there are classes on Shakespeare
>which use Hamlet as material, but not as _textbook_ per se.
>
>I am unaware of any course at any accredited institution which teaches
>risk or monopoly or clue.  Chess and go, probably, but I actually don't
>know.  Doom?  No.
>
>
Chess is common in computer science classes and projects.

Doom.  U.S. Army. See above.

>
>
>>2. Your comments included a direct reference to wikibooks having
>>textbooks suitable for "elementary school, high school, or college
>>courses" (and I'm not sure what age groups you meant by "college" as it
>>seems to mean different things in the US from what it means in the UK).
>>I trust this list was not meant to be exhaustive and that you would
>>agree that textbooks related to professional learning (eg accountancy),
>>adult learning (eg cookery) and (if not covered by "college") university
>>learning are suitable for wikibooks.
>>
>>
>
>Yes!  I think we should be quite broad about it.  The key point is that
>there have to be some kind of courses offered by some kind of serious
>institution of learning.
>
>
There will obviously be courses in user interfaces, ergonomics, realtime
processing, simulation modeling, etc.  in the curriculum cited above for
a B.S. in Game Engineering or Design.

Perhaps it is time to modify the mission statement to match the site
name or vice versa.

What exactly is the point in restricting Wikibooks to tomes on
trigonometry when it is faster and easier for a kid to program a turtle
to circumnavigate a triangle drawn onscreen and then divide the timed
duration of the task by the programmed speed of the turtle to arrive at
the circumfrance.  Further the same kid can throw away his calculus book
by pouring water into a plastic form or 3d wire frame at a known rate
and timing or programming each infinitesimal to have the same weight and
couting the number of jelly beans that fit or the number of ants that
wander through Wikipedia.

How much does Wikipedia weigh in neutrinos Alice?

I am kind of curious.  How much do you think the rascals learn by
checking to see if the walkthroughs actually work?  It seems to me that
the cheat codes that were available for Warcraft II might have had an
adaptive quality related to the video drivers being used.   I never
sorted it though, we could always get our CAD sytems back online by
replacing the corrupted dll's with the backup files so I did not worry
about it much.   The cheat codes allowed my office managers' kids to
compete with me and my professionals effectively in after hour
recreation.  They seemed to be learning how to count their gold and
assets.  Kicked my ass a few times.

Regards,
lazyquasar


subject: [Wikitech-l] Let's all be nice please

body:
Just FYI, everybody. Being nice to friends and strangers alike is cool! Let's
all try to practice it a little more.

Assume good faith et al...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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list: foundation-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Optional advertisement on wikipedia

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>I'd guess the open questions would be:
>
>1) How would this impact the charitable non-profit status of WMF?
>
>
Zero impact.  Nonprofit means that surplus revenue is not handed to
private individuals as a return on investment.  The Wikimedia Foundation
can funnel as much money as they and their contributors feel they are
willing invest in the public good/purpose as per the
charter/organization plan/etc. approved by the State of Florida.   I
have been told that arrangements are in progress to select a CPA and get
the first required audit completed.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has assets of approximately 25
billion dollars so given billy boy's and pals past performance in
extracting revenue from captive or coerced markets it probably has an
annual income from stock dividends or splits anywhere between 2.5 and 5
billion dollars.

That revenue is government regulated and must be spent in accordance
with the laws of the state, country or tax haven the foundation is setup
within.   If you are interested you might be able to find an audit
report for past years online somewhere.

>2) Will the advertising programs be okay with only showing the ads to
>some small fraction of our users?
>
Several potential problems occur to me:

1.  Back in the good ol days whenever the issue of revenue came up Jimmy
always came forward as a generous sugar daddy with deep pockets.  The
issue always went away.  I believe he made some committments regarding
ads and ad revenue.   He also made some good points about the benefits
of no distraction from the authentic information on an encyclopedia page.

He will probably take a bit of a credibility hit with the forkers he was
discouraging if he now decides that advertising is necessary and ok.
Certainly I will waste no opportunity to shout it from the housetops.

2.  Advertising revenue implies counting who and how may have seen the
ads.   I am already rationing my use of google and other search engines
which spy on me and which are required by law to secretly share the
results of this spying with regulatory authorities and secret police.
Further, most of the privacy statements  are long winded and weasally
but eventually get around to some kind of sharing with affiliates,
partners, consortium, multinational conglomerate pieces, etc. etc.

Probably the easiest way to implement this user choice is a fork.
Answers.com currently supports itself by reporting Wikipedia data
packaged with advertising.   There are others around the net.  Most of
them do not provide identification information regarding who owns the
revenue stream generated.  I sincerely hope they are not affiliated with
any of our volunteers, employees or stacked Board members or affiliated
assets.

An easy way to experiment would be for Wikia to turn on a fork using
user choice as you suggest and find out what happens.

If this would be too potentially detrimental to our all powerful
figurehead and beloved God King or the community ..... then some other
volunteer, developer, profiteer, or entrepreneur could emulate
answers.com using the methods you suggest and possibly get rich.

3.  Revenue sources are always applicable to discussion regarding fat
cat biases built into information products.    The guys with the gold
always want to make the rules ... and then change the rules when
somebody starts to kick the shit out of them on their own playing field
or even demand the dignity due a beast of burden diligently pursuing
masters' programs given priority over personal responsibilities or
inclinations.

This is somewhat similar to the debates we used to have over whether
P'hds simply must have courtesies and preference due their long years of
servitude in academia rather than justify their opinions with citations
and actual data or arguments if Wikipedia were to attract any adequate
expertise to prosper.   I wonder how he is doing with his for profit
cable venture presenting P'hd'ed expertise freed from academia to the
masses?

Who makes the rules around here?  The guy that controls the stacked
Board controlling the nonprofit foundation paying for the centralized
editing bandwidth, the advertisers with the gold, the P'hds with
unsubstantiated opionions and no time to make their case piece meal with
drooling slackjawed trolls or script kiddies experimenting with Turing
Tests, the measily masses of volunteers who show up occasionally, or the
enlightened readers/writers of the TINC list?

Regards,
lazyquasar


list: wikien-l

from_name: Pete Bartlett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Run that by me, one more time?

body:
>"Turkish literature is the literature written in the Turkish language....."

Source?


from_name: GerardM

subject: [Foundation-l] Waerth's stewardship

body:
Hoi,
The proposal may be sensible BUT is it to be implemented retro
actively? Given the current situation in the Dutch chapter and the
Dutch wikipedia where a substantial group of people are dissatisfied
because of a perceived lack of communication, this is absolutely the
wrong thing to do.

I have heard noices that it is not for people of the Dutch community
to question the procedures around this. This is one factor that makes
the situation of the Dutch chapter even worse because it suggest that
things are done in secret and it strenghtens the existing feeling of
un-ease because it demonstrates that while the letter of the statues
of the Dutch chapter suggest a hands-off approach the facts on the
ground are different. These "noices" did not originate from people of
the chapter by the way.

It is possible to implement the proposal retro-actively. When stewards
were chosen, it was always said that they were then accepted or not
accepted by the board/Jimmy. It is therefore the board/Jimmy who can
say that they do not trust Waerth anymore in his role as a steward.
This is a communication/decision that cannot be delegated.

So from my perspective; the proposal has merit. It is up to the board
or Jimmy personally to decide on Waerth's stewardship. It would be
best to have clarity and have it settled as soon as possible; in the
end it is about people and community.

Thanks,
    GerardM

On 4/23/06, oscar <oscar.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> my suggestion as to policy would be to add the following paragraph to the
> stewards-page:
> ---
> Any abuse, or even the threatening of abuse, of the steward-rights, will
> lead to an immediate and permanent removal of these.
> ---
> oscar
>
> On 3/24/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
> >
> > At the request of Oscar from the Netherlands wikipedia, I have temporarily
> > removed Waerth's status as a Steward, pending the resolution of his
> > conflict
> > with the nl.wikipedia community. I do this with a heavy heart, and
> > recognize
> > that something like this has never been done before, however, it became
> > necessary in order to thwart Waerth's threats to override his own block
> > on  nl.wiki.
> >
> > I would be grateful to receive the comments and suggestions of other
> > stewards on this matter, especially because the circumstances
> > are  unprecedented.
> >
> > Please let's not turn this into a flame fest, but rather a productive
> > discussion of what policy should be.
> >
> > Danny
> > _______________________________________________
> > 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
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Waerth's stewardship


from_name: William Allen Simpson

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

body:
Tim Starling wrote:
> William Allen Simpson wrote:
>> Wouldn't want to bother anybody during an outage, as I'm sure that folks
>> are busy.  The point of a postmortem is to figure out how to prevent the
>> same from happening in the future.
>
> Since I still don't have a clue what you're talking about, preventing it
> from happening in the future might be difficult. I'll ask again: what is
> "local time"? Which local time are you talking about?
>
Since the thread hasn't had the words "local time" for some time, it was
hard to figure out your query.  Going back to my first message, there is
a "local time" in parentheses.  In context, it is clear that "last night
(local time)" relates to your data center.  That is, local night.

Had you looked at the graphs (or other logs) at the time, or anytime in
the following day (all I would hope), the data was obvious.  Since you
didn't, I've attached some of the dozen or so that I saved.

The time was 02:30+ UTC.

The load, CPU, and network dropped off the Squids, and the Apaches
(network incoming stayed the same, outgoing dropped), at the same time that
SQL load and CPU leaped (network showed mild incoming decrease and outgoing
increase, the inverse of the apaches).  Told you exactly which servers.

No corresponding note in the admin log.  Perhaps somebody remembers doing
something unusual at the time?

> Don't give me this "strawman" crap. You've been here 2 weeks and you think
> you know the site better than I do? Unless you're willing to treat the
> existing sysadmin team with respect it deserves, I'm not interested in
> dealing with you.
>
Never said that I did.  That's why I've been asking questions.  The level
of site documentation is excrable.

However, it would be nicer for you to treat folks offering help with the
respect *they* deserve.  After all, I do happen to have 30+ years of
experience in the field, organized the state government funding for NSFnet
(the academic precursor to the Internet) 20 years ago, was an original
member of the North American Network Operators Group (NANOG), have written
a fair few Internet standards over the years, among other things.

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22William+Allen+Simpson%22

> The yaseo apaches serve jawiki, mswiki, thwiki and kowiki. The memcached
> cluster for those 4 wikis is also located in yaseo. We discussed allowing
> remote apaches to serve read requests from a local slave database, proxying
> write requests back to the location of the master database. The problem is
> that cache writes and invalidations are required even on read requests.
>
Yes, this is obvious and well-known.  They are just caches, improvements in
local efficiency.

> While distributed shared memory systems with cache coherency and
> asynchronous write operations have been implemented several times,
> especially in academic circles, I'm yet to find one which is suitable for
> production use in a web application such as MediaWiki. When you take into
> account that certain kinds of cache invalidation must be synchronised with
> database writes and squid cache purges, the problem of distribution, taken
> as a whole, would be a significant project.
>
Amazingly, I happen to be sitting just 1 1/2 blocks from one of those
"academic circles", the Center for Information Techology Integration of
the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

> Last year, we discussed the possibility of setting up a second datacentre
> within the US. But it was clear that centralisation, at least on a per-wiki
> level, gives the best performance for a given outlay, especially when
> development time and manageability are taken into account. Of course this
> performance comes at the expense of reliability. But Domas assured us that
> it is possible to obtain high availability with a single datacentre, as long
> as proper attention is paid to internal redundancy.
>
Yes, faster, cheaper, better; pick two (as the old saying goes).

Not knowing "Domas" (or whether that's a name or a company), I'm not sure
of the basis for the assurance.  Had you checked with other sites, I'm
pretty sure you'd have heard that reliability from a single data center is
extremely unlikely.

> With the two recent power failures, it's clear that proper attention wasn't
> paid, but that's another story.
>
No, that's the same old story.  It's practically guaranteed.

> Automatic failover to a read-only mirror would be much easier than true
> distribution, but I don't think we have the hardware to support such a high
> request rate, outside of pmtpa.
>
Agreed.  So, it's probably time to think about fixing that problem.

> In the end it comes down to a trade-off between costs and availability.
> Given the non-critical nature of our service, and the nature of our funding,
> I think it's prudent to accept, say, a few hours of downtime once every few
> months, in exchange for much lower hardware, development and management
> costs. If PowerMedium can't provide this level of service despite being paid
> good money, I think we should find a facility that can.
>
Agreed.

>> I've noted that the ns0, ns1, and ns2 for wikimedia are located far apart,
>> presumably your clusters.  Good practice.
>
> Don't be patronising.
>
So, when I'm asking critical questions, I'm not giving you the respect you
deserve, but by giving you an "attaboy", I'm patronizing?

Sounds like somebody is lacking some social graces.

I'll just note in passing that the current documentation lists
   https://wikitech.leuksman.com/view/DNS
  * ns0.wikimedia.org - 207.142.131.207 (secondary IP on zwinger)
  * ns1.wikimedia.org - 207.142.131.208 (larousse)
  * ns2.wikimedia.org - 145.97.39.158 (secondary IP on pascal)

You know, that bad practice of having 2 on the same subnet, mentioned a
couple of messages back....  So, the note was supposed to be encouragement,
notwithstanding that the documentation is wrong.  The only reason I know
that it's been improved is by a bit of archeology with dig.

> If the external network was down for 20 minutes then it's PowerMedium's
> problem. They probably lost a router or something. I have better things to
> worry about.
>
The external network losses correspond to huge peaks in the MySQL graphs.
So, I doubt you have better things to worry about -- that appears to be
congestive collapse caused by something happening within your servers.

Even the loss of a router or switch or link is of concern, especially
coupled with other problems such as the loss of power.  Not knowing your
SLA, it may be a refund is due.

Anyway, I thought a postmortem was in order....  Professionals do that
kind of thing.


from_name: Tony Bruguier

subject: [Foundation-l] Advertisement on wikipedia

body:
Hi all,

Yes default is a good idea, so to try to avoid upsetting some users.
Regarding the 33% limit, it would have to be turned off but the
fundraising could always be advertised as contribution matching: "for
every dollar we give, we receive three." I'm just firing ideas and I
realize there might be plenty of other issues.

Tony

--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bruguiea


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Foundation-l] Waerth's stewardship

body:
2006/4/23, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>:
> Hoi,
> The proposal may be sensible BUT is it to be implemented retro
> actively? Given the current situation in the Dutch chapter and the
> Dutch wikipedia where a substantial group of people are dissatisfied
> because of a perceived lack of communication, this is absolutely the
> wrong thing to do.

I agree with Gerard that the situation around the Dutch chapter is
very worrying. It causes maybe the deepest rift ever having been
placed into the Dutch community, even though there seems to be a
history of crises there.

However, I do not so what a possible removal of Steward rights from
Waerth would have to do with this. Surely the Dutch community will
understand that Stewardship is based on deliberations in the Wikimedia
community at large, and not necessarily in the Dutch one. On the other
hand, retroactiveness should also not be automatical; I think it
should be a separate proposal that Oscar has not made.

Having said that, I think the wording is too strong:
------------------------------------------------------------------
Any abuse, or even the threatening of abuse, of the steward-rights, will
lead to an immediate and permanent removal of these.
------------------------------------------------------------------

People can do actions that others see as abuse while acting in
perfectly good intentions. They get a request from a community, follow
it, and later hear the request was not bona fide (for example, there
was a procedure in place at the specific wiki that should have been
followed and was not). The sysop has both people in favor and people
opposed. Those opposed claim he was abusing steward-rights. Seeing the
fighting that has been started, another Steward removes the
sysop-rights from this person. Those in favor claim he was abusing
steward-rights. Hell, for that sake, some might be of the opinion that
Danny's un-stewarding of Waerth was an abuse of Steward rights.

Secondly, the issue with the abuse of Steward rights is that Stewards
should be trusted. Abusing one's rights breaks that trust. However, I
see no reason why someone cannot regain that trust by showing true
regret over their action and acting trustworthy from then on.

Because of this, I would propose to change the proposed rule by
changing "will" in "may" and removing the "and permanent" part.

> I have heard noices that it is not for people of the Dutch community
> to question the procedures around this. This is one factor that makes
> the situation of the Dutch chapter even worse because it suggest that
> things are done in secret and it strenghtens the existing feeling of
> un-ease because it demonstrates that while the letter of the statues
> of the Dutch chapter suggest a hands-off approach the facts on the
> ground are different. These "noices" did not originate from people of
> the chapter by the way.

Again, I don't see the connection. It would not be the Dutch Wikimedia
Association, nor the much-maligned Dutch Wikimedia Foundation that
would be doing this, and surely the Dutch Wikipedia community cannot
expect to be the one deciding over a Wikimedia-wide function such as
Steward.

As for the Dutch charter problem, I am not sure what should be done
with that. The amount of distrust shown towards RonaldB and the Dutch
Wikimedia Foundation is huge. And his attempts to take away the
distrust are few and ineffective. Things seem to be on a collision
course, but I have no idea how they can be led back to the right
track.

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Waerth's stewardship


body:
2006/4/23, Tony Bruguier <tony.bruguier at gmail.com>:

> I'm new to this list, so please forgive me if I mess up. There's been
> some talk about advertisement on wikipedia or not. Why not make it
> optional, so that each user decides if he/she wants to see the
> advertisement? That way, users can "support" wikipedia or not. I don't
> think that'd be a sell out.

I personally would not object to advertisement, as long as it's not
intrusive (popups, flashing, pushing a significant portion of the
article away from first page, etc.) and editorial independence is
safeguarded. However, I do know that there also exist Wikipedia
editors who do fiercely oppose it, and we might simply lose some of
them.

Having said that, I see some practical difficulty with your proposal.
Would anonymous visitors and people who have not changed their
settings see the advertisements? If yes (opt-out system), then I fear
that the abovementioned people will still have the same strong
objections. If no (opt-in system), then I doubt whether the amount of
money generated by such advertising would be worth the trouble taken.

As said before, I personally think some simple advertisement would be
a good way to raise some money, but I also know there is quite some
resistance in the community about it. Or rather, there was such
resistance a few years ago. Of course attitudes may have changed since
then.

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


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wheel warring

body:
On 23/04/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> Take the example above of A blocking and B unblocking. Why did B
> unblock? Was it because the block was some sort of mistake (blocking
> the wrong range, or blocking an AOL proxy for too long, etc) or was it
> because B disagreed with A's interpretation of the user's edits? If
> there was such a disagreement, then why did B not discuss the block
> with A? It's that part which most people find problematic, the attack
> on someone's judgement, not the actual action of unblocking.

Funnily enough, my definition works here as well. Someone whose
judgment is being questioned will accuse their reverter of wheel
warring. Someone who made a mistake won't.

In other words: If the person you reverted accuses you of wheel
warring, then you wheel warred.

Steve


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

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

>Effective resistance is more a matter of opportunity than
>premeditation.  If I have not been served with a gag order I can't
>resist it.  I am not one of those who would avoid trouble at any price,
>but manipulating circumstances for the sole purpose of spurring the
>patriotism police into action is still trolling.
>
>
>
Opportunity for martyrdom perhaps.   Pretty useless unless some
premediation goes into post execution or incarceration publication.
Unless one buys into prayer as a universal method communications.  I
understand the Ayotollah's are not counting on prayer.   I have seen it
alleged that authentic suicide martyrs are being signed up as terrorist
retalitory smart bots in inflict maximum reprisal in the event of a
surprise, announced, authorised, or otherwise engaged or stealthy or
alleged official and/or unofficial or plausibly denied U.S. policy
enforcement action in preemptive defense of the god fearing peoples of
the free world against dirty or real atomic bombs.

Clearly discussion of this responsibly takes careful preplanning if one
wishes to avoid the consequence (personally) of one's actions.

Consider that terrorist maniac who assaulted an entire campus of
diligent students looking both ways before crossing the street or lying
down in the grass at the memorial union with an American Gas Guzzler and
manage to injure an entire nine people before calling 911 to report the
hit and run self alleged terrorist campaign.

When he gets done fullfilling his responsibilities to society for that
premedicated attempt at mass murder maybe someone should hire him as a
driver's ed teacher or a NASCAR driver.  Many U.S. drivers cannot keep
their vehicles sufficiently under control in posted 20 mph kiddie zones
or behind schools buses to avoid manslaughter and this master of
misinformation managed to injure (not kill) 9 people on a crime spree
through a major U.S. college campus.   On my personal fandango through
the Boise International Airport I think I could have got a few if I had
not created my racing friction clutch in my Mazda RX-7.   Amazing how
calm people can be with a 150hp rotary rocket screaming and grit
grinding the clutch.   Somebody was winding a turboprop up to
destruction I do not think I would be confident the fan could not pull
it .... at least not enough to walzt out with the kiddies and wives in
tow.   Maybe I could nerve myself up to risk the baggage.  No need to
take my word for it.   There is a report somewhere because I was
apprehended wandering off from the incident.

Is it cartoon physics sent down from God to protect those bible belt
believers or sheer keystone incompetence resulting from reduced blood
flow to the brain from winding those turbines too tight?
Personally I recall the CIA recruiting on campus.  It might be fun to
drive over there in a special caterpillar training with the new
prototype transmission which comes standard with four power take offs
with couple of tanks of willy wonkas biodiesal and setup a special
patriotic web transmisssion.   Then watch the shock and awe as local
super patriots that know how to scream at football games but can not
quite drift from the sugar daddy's lines yet figure out not everyone in
the crowd is a peace worshipping muslim.

If we get short on attendence we could always take some video for Lou
Dobbs of authentic U.S. college graduates burning Mexican flags and
walking barefoot ala Kung Fooiu over Israeli, Iranium, and Iraguis flags
before sewing them together and siccing the nano weather elements on
them at some International Seaport that needs modernization and
publicity.   Coos Bay, Oregon could use some publicity and investment
capital (it is one of the largest natural seaports on the West Coast)
but it is upwind from our Capital City and just incidentall my future
humble abode.  I therefoe benovolently propose we allow Portland to
continue targeting itself for dirty bombs as the only usable economic
port between Seatle and San Franscico.

Voting is premeditated in the U.S.  Most places require registration in
advance.  This is necessary to allow the system time to prepare
validation lists that can be checked by diverse (usually two, one
Republican, one Democrat but sometimes I guess another party has
volunteers) volunteers auditing or witnessing the voting and counting.

Interesting!  I suppose if the winners of the vote are planning on
executing anyone found guilty of treason or war crimes then voting might
be construed by some sovereigns as premediated murder!
Or would that be assassination since the sovereign voter is dispatching
an employee apparatus to carry out the sentence?

It is going to be a greek tragedy if Osama Bin Laden successfully has
this maniac martry who cannot find a gas peddle or a steering despite a
Master's degree from the local campus assassinated or assaulted and then
pins the blame on American "Patriots" or sloppy incompentent police
custody.   Look at that American MP executive incapable of protecting
prisoneers in her custody from torturers and sadistic pregnant women.
.... and we could have that on video or animate it for cash and carry
primetime U.S. TV!!!!  well .... subject to the needs of War on Drugs,
and the War on Poverty, and the War on Colds, and the War on Rich
Murderers, and the War on Aging, and the War on the Beast of the
Apocylypse, and the actual alsmost declared War on Saddam Hussein,
......  I think I forgot some Wars but I guess only the rating wars
really hit the bottom in any significant way and only then if the
feedback loops are managed appropriately.

>>If you are a U.S. voter I will point out that it is likely to be more
>>effective voting representatives into office who will take out the
>>totalitarian trash rather than resisting smart missiles launched by the
>>U.S. military from hundreds of miles away or secret warrants or
>>decisions made out of view of the public, allegedly for the benefit of
>>the U.S. public.
>>
>>
>>
>Good luck!
>
>
Used my quota already.   I am a natural born U.S. citizen.   Never cared
much for gambling either although my parents support of the local indian
tribes has replaced my letterman jacket twice over with a stealth
walking jacket.  When feeling paranoid strolling the starlights
fantastic, when I hear critical supplies headed anywhere after hours I
listen closely and prepare to exit stage orthogonal.

Engineering used to be about calculated risks ... so I was informed at
Oregon State University anyway.   They left out the part about local
maxima and minima along other arbitrary, capricious, or self serving
axis.   If the game is rigged properly it is not really gambling until
the games changes unexpectedly, is it?  Nothing like shooting a patriot
for treason because he was so good at doing his job at the front that
the rear echelon heroes manage to phases changes the rules after mid
morning tea and crumpets in secret in contravention of secret laws
specifying late creative accounting justifying mission critical
initiative.    I mean one could the benefit in an appropriately managed
training environment until the instructors started using their god like
control of the environment to inflict dogma or brain washing on the
neophytes or less mortals or generalists or other field specialists
offspring and/or interests.

>
>
>>If you are not a U.S. citizen, I should point out that large social
>>systems with lots of momentum often take large aggregate inputs and time
>>to change course.  A choice to actively resist U.S.G. totalitarian trash
>>may be a life or death altering decision that is effectively irrevocable
>>for the next few decades or centuries.
>>
>>
>>
>Those of us outside the US see these things more clearly.  It's easier
>to see the whole forest when you're standing outside of it.
>
>
>
This reassuring.  Did you have some specific public data that you wanted
to bring to my attention?  A few links should not overload the
Foundation's magnificent servers .... might be good if at least a few
links were applicable to the Foundations interest in all human knowledge
....  actually if you could find a link outside of those interests we
could contact the SETI at home folks and get some real publicity!

>Perhaps "vote of confidence" might have been a better term.  Entropy in
>a volunteer organization becomes manifest when it substitutes rules for
>principles.
>
>

I disagree.  Rules and principles represent standard operating
procedure, nothing more.   A child is warned to look both ways and cross
at a crosswalk.  An adult strolls where he pleases but is accountable
for his behavior.  A stroll through a freeway that results in several
hundred car pileup might be prosecuted as mass murder where as a child
squashed might be prosecuted as child endangerment or vehicular
homicide.   In Oregon the basic rule of the road is that you are
responsible for being able to halt the vehicle before hitting a
stationary object.

Vote of confidence indeed.   What kind of confidence is Eric going to
get from a trolling sock puppet voting in his favor?  Placebo was
adequate even if not the best term for it previously held place in the
semantic web.  Now that I have modified its useage creatively (and self
beneficially I might note with pride) I wonder if the term must be kept
even more secret from the patient than was previously the case?

>
>
>>People unfamilar with law as
>>it is practiced in the United States have a tendency towards gullibility
>>when a well educated lawyer in a crisp three piece suit getting paid big
>>bucks gives them free advice.   ...  It turns out that a lawyer
>>representing his client is apparently free (of consequences) to give
>>others poor legal advice (lie or attempt to deceive people other than
>>his client regarding matters of law) if it serves the interests of their
>>official paying client or some other similar self serving mumbo jumbo.
>>
>>
>>
>There is an element of institutionalized chutzpah to it all.  Lawyers
>play a large role in writing laws.  And what lawyer turned judge would
>recuse himself for conflict of interest in a case that attacks the
>privileges of his profession?
>
>It's fascinating to observe how otherwise normal rebels who regularly
>confront elitism in the professions will still pusilanimously pepper
>their comments with "IANAL".
>
>
lol  Personally I always considered it a fair warning.   I mean you
never really know if you are really talking to the master of the local
universe or some precocious teenager or some government agent or 60 year
old genus coasting or obsessing over important issues rather than your
interests.  I have encountered some barracks lawyers who talk a pretty
chat as a result of hefty, detailed reading.   Some of them have even
seen a judge pull a technicality out of his ass or thin air or even a
creative or admitted violation of law sure to overturned upon appeal
....  If you want fair results you better be damn sure to do the local
investigation and politicking necessary to rerig the local game within a
scope you are comfortable local assets can deal with fairly if they
choose to.   Then you better do the background checks on key players
.... then pray for whatever is needed ..... then settle if you can get
"fair" or "adequate" or "better than nothing" deal.

or be a good loser

or be a good winner.   Ever wonder what would happen if after winning an
environmental lawsuit a major multinational did the "right thing" and
issued checks for audited damages and cleaned up the damn mess?   They
can pay an executive hundreds of millions for effectively lying,
murdering, pillaging, etc. etc. but they cannot invest a few million or
tens or hundreds necessary to mitigate damage killing or damaging
people, cultures, nations and even planets.

be a better winner ... pay for the heart attack victims' medical bills.

IANAL could be construed as fair warning, a proud boast (I can read even
if I did not attend Harvard or Yale or secret presidential tutorials
after election), or a prudent attempt to limit liability or propagate
accurate information.  Shorthand for check the facts for yourself.

>
>
>>Drat!  I forgot to ask whether his firm does business with Bomis or
>>Wikia or other businesses owned, operated or invested in by members of
>>the stacked Board.  Maybe next time.
>>
>>Hmm ... also forgot to ask whether he volunteers time as an editor at
>>any Wikimedia projects or operates any investigatory sock puppets. ....
>>Maybe the time after the next time minus negative three or four?
>>
>>
>>
>I think that I would prefer an approach that does not make one lawyer a
>scapegoat for his entire industry.
>
>
Scapegoat how?  He keeps saying he works for the Foundation.  The
Foundation by definition belongs to the God-King, he stated he was going
to set it up that way and then proceeded to do so.  So does he have a
responsiblity to other stacked Board members or not?   Do the Board
Members take turns signing paychecks?   Maybe they should.  Maybe it
would be perceived as an unusual attempt to distribute blame or
responsibility in a premeditated fashion .... thus increasing legal
risks in an already possibly hazardous situation.

The situation in America is fraught with hazards for business.   We
usually do not firebomb the bastards, we usually try to drop a quarter
(or silver dollar or email) on them or call a lawyer.   We are the most
litiginous society on Earth and some business people claim it is killing
their bottom line.

I assure you that anybody that ever comes after Jimbo on charges that he
is mismanaging a nonprofit for personal benefit and exercising total
control and is thus liable on a personal basis for damages  (I hope he
bought a nice home with cash,  it is my understanding that Florida is
popular for bankruptcies because afterward one can sell the house and
use the capital to start over.)  is going to be looking hard at client
lawyer relationships and intermingled financial affairs.

Nobody warns a scapegoat.  They are slaughtered at the convenience of
the owners for their own benefit by definition.

>
>
>>I guess what I should have or could have asked is:   In your
>>professional opinion, would it reduce current or future legal
>>liabilities and/or expenses if different guidelines (from the apparently
>>nonexistent ones or the ones currently in use) regarding conflicts of
>>interest or potential conflicts of interest were developed and
>>implemented by the Wikimedia Foundation?
>>
>>
>>
>Is this really the stuff for lawyers' opinions?  In all fairness to
>lawyers people who ask them questions are more often looking for
>certainty instead of mere opinion.  A relatively honest lawyer after due
>research may tell them that a certain course of action has a 99% chance
>of not leading to a lawsuit, but the client is not satisfied with the 1%
>risk so he rejects the more profitable course of action out of fear.  It
>really comes down to people making decisions and accepting the
>responsibility and consequences of those decisions without looking for
>someone else (like a lawyer) to blame when things go sour.
>
>
lol  So how come the Wikimedia Foundation hired a lawyer?   Maybe Jimbo
had more money than time when he researched how to get started in
business.   I had more time than money but I still payed a lawyer for
expertise and administrative processing when it was time to put my
initial attempt at business entrepreneurship out of its misery.
Worked out ok.  Everybody's paychecks cleared but I stiffed my credit
card companies.   They were not happy about this role reversal but they
had little recourse, all the i's were dotted and t's crossed.   Most of
the local businesses when they go under protect their credit ratings by
paying the big guys and bouncing the payroll checks.   We have local
entrepreneurs that go bankrupt every quarter or two and usually have no
less than two or three businesses active at a time.   They live pretty
good lifestyles.   All I can figure is they are tied in pretty well with
the local networks of professionals.

>
>
>>>I am often highly critical of the current management format, but I can
>>>also see enough dangers in a totally democratic system to be wary of
>>>such a model.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>I also would be skeptical of a "pure" "democracy" of one sock puppet one
>>vote.    I doubt it is even feasible to set up such a structure up as a
>>U.S. liability limited non profit or for profit corporation.  It is my
>>understanding that U.S. law requires specific accountable points of
>>contact when filing for the legal priveleges granted to regulated legal
>>organizations.   However, there is a wide range of lattitude left to the
>>individual registered organization in the U.S. regarding how they
>>"manage" their own affairs within the constraints of the law.   The
>>dichotomy of our current and past discussion alternating between
>>unilateral bandwidthianism (the guy with control of the centralized
>>editing bandwidth makes the rules) and total chaos (one sock puppet one
>>vote) barely scratches the surface of the range of possibilities
>>available in the good old USA.
>>
>>
>>
>U.S. corporate structures are governed by state law.  It says something
>when a state like Delaware has corporate headquarters completely out of
>proportion to its population.  Voting in profit corporations is
>democratically on a one share one vote basis; you can buy as many
>sockpuppets as you can afford.
>
This is factually incorrect.  Voting proceeds in accordance with how the
stocks, shares, other mumbo jumbo financial instruments are defined and
voting procedures and priveleges defined in the law, offerings,
procedures, guidelines, etc.   Preferred shares usually get dividends
before others such as common stock but have no vote;  a lawyer better
have read the fine print or you may find your "share" is a share of
liability like Lloyd's of Londons new partners encountered a few years
back when joining that prestigious partnership.

Common stock often means one dollar of initial capital and one vote just
as you have stated above.  It also often means whatever someone wants it
to mean.   The guy that writes the charter probably also writes or
supervises writing the shares and the voting procedures ....  caveat
emptor right?  lol  I do not think I have ever seen a case study or a
wiki collaboration on that kind of stuff.   I wonder if the business
school at Wikiversity will be interested or if we will have to setup a
business engineering department to protect the rights of the hoard of
free engineers I expect we will develop over the next few centuries via
our masterful community management?

>I don't really have a solution to
>suggest about how Wikimedia should be run.  In the early days there were
>many sceptics who could not imagine such a scheme as viable, and look
>where it ranks now within the top 20 websites in the world.  Wikiholics
>(even just American ones) are not typical of their ambient populations.
>It's a gang of people with insanely strong individual POVs trying to
>bring NPOV to the world.  Go figure!
>
>
Ok, you have me giggling now so I have to go setup my mom's new gateway
computer or get some sleep or something.   First amendment convolved
with infinite automated soapboxbots presented almost worldwide via a
global focal point.   Nobody leanin nottung except maybe how to use oa
spell checker if not to lazy .... image what can be accomplished if we
can just tell those people how to study at our impending official
wikiversity.  Truly staggering what a corrupt self serving tyrant can
accomplish in collaboration with secret police and informers or whiners.

So kindergarden works .... what will we do for first grade if Jimbo
edicts no game cheating manuals?   Script cheating kiddies unite!!!!
Thinking ... thinking .... nothing ... maybe go check out Jimbo Neutrino
for a clue .... btw.    Saw either a Quantum or Chesire at Barion alley
downtown tonight.   Mentioned it to a local newsman.  When asked
pointblank about Wikipedia he admitted he used it regularly.  We discuss
various modus operandis and scamming techniques and he paraphrased back
enough that I could tell I had met my master in conspiracy analsis.  I
reminded him how to find Wikinews  (link on main page of Wikimedia) and
he acknowledge he might wander by sometime to check it out.

BTW  Elvis may have left the building.   There is an independent
calculational chemistry wiki and a quantum physics wiki club online.   I
have not reviewed either in detail sufficient to have an opinion on
whether they will thrive and grow or whither and fade away.   Some
mother's may I milkweed seeds have obviously drifted away  .... whether
they will waft back into poor little weedy Wikiversity to sow dandy
lionesses or useful tansy tee ooffs, probably up to sun spots or
neutrinos fluxes or something; if it ever gets started; might be a good
aerodynamics simulation exercise ... how does one photograph virtual
smoke rings or streamlines in a time tagged temporarily ordered even if
not completely accurately enough to be confident in short term trends?

I wonder if FlightGear.org could be usefully mutated or augmented with
such a beast .... a virtual plane with its own wind tunnel for adhoc mod
testing  .... this could be the answer to TA2 if we cannot attract the
halo addicts because Jimbo, in his infinite wisdom, has decided there is
no need for an english war college no matter how useful it would be to
various offshoots of the global infestation of former Englishmen and
simmering irate pit bulls.

So when we are fantasizing about saving the day on Flight 93 by pulling
a Rambo on opportunity because we were to stupid  (or smart!  ... I will
make the case that Bin Laden is CIA indian off the reservation as a
misinformation ploy to establish Amercian totacracy for the next
millenium another time to save space and time herein) to premediate a
locking door or former combat pilot side arm training via pinball
simulators we can have a combat engineer design us a robot pilot capable
of flying the now mangled 777 hanging by two thirds of fusalege and a
single source transister supplier or simply change the control laws on
the autopilot to sinc appropriately with the stealth bombers recalled
from Iranium asphalting ......  a wing with a landing system and a pilot
... my kingdom for a wings and some live pilots inaccessbile to
panicking passengers all racing to the front in a horde to exceed the
control authority of the flappers in the increasing breeze on the way down.

Too bad those heroes never had a centroid or center of mass aware
wargame when they playing corporate team paintball  .....  in clean
green english I acknowledge and agree they were heroes and people are
alive on the ground today because they forced the plane down.  Still
Rambo amano amano may have been a better strategy with women and kids
dispatched symetrically to the back ... maybe that is how they did it.
Have not seen the authoritative movie or post mortem yet.   Too bad
there is no $200 video camera and attached telemetry for the super
dupers global realtime (oxymoron unless FTL particle or appropriate time
multiplexing has been discovered or designed)  IFDAPS (Integrated Flight
Data Acquistion Processing System) or RAPIDS (Realtime Acquistion
Processing Instrumentation and Data System) ejection capsule or black
box.  Maybe next time.

I wonder if we could use the swordfish guy's 747 if we

God I love that statement.  "Nobody ever thought a 747 could be used for
a cruise missile."  I can understand that maybe she did not care for
John Wayne movies or the pacific ocean ..... but how was she missed WWII
at an Ivy League ......  maybe she studied under Japanese tutors
conspiring against us.   Kamakaze would a smoky purple merry sort of
drink .... and suicide martyr or hijacker would be ....  I am at loss.
Have to come back later.

Have a nice day, Ray

Michael R. Irwin
SCI Upgrade Program Manager,
retired, combat fatigued

cc:carnivore
cc:cape canaveral
cc:Louis L'Amour's brain excised co-conspirator, billy bobbers,
cc:chesire cat & quantum pb lead poisening barion possum depleted
radiation ammunition poisening or breeder feul ? who is financing which
war?


body:
Delirium wrote:

>Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>
>
>>I'd guess the open questions would be:
>>
>>1) How would this impact the charitable non-profit status of WMF?
>>
>>
>>
>
>The general rule is that a non-profit organization should have at least
>one-third of its annual income come from a combination of: governmental
>donations, donations from other public charities, and small (less than
>2% of total income each) donations from the general public and private
>charities (large donations can still have the first 2% counted).  If
>that all adds up to less than 1/3, things get considerably more complicated.
>
>Whether advertising income would cause a problem depends on how much we
>expect to get, and how much in large donations from private individuals
>and charities we typically get.
>
>-Mark
>
>

Interesting information.   Do you have any further detail.   Is the
above a good general guideline because it is mandated by law;  accepted
as good practice by accountants, IRS, rating organization, possible
donors or other?

Any background you care to provide regarding where you gained this
knowledge would also be appreciated but I can follow up elsewhere if you
do not care to provide that private information on a public mailing list.

Thanks for the information.

Sincerely,
lazyquasar


from_name: cwarner

subject: [WikiEN-l] Blocked by Administrator (abuse of power)

body:
On Sun, 2006-04-23 at 13:08 +0100, geni wrote:
> On 4/23/06, cwarner <cwarner at kernelcode.com> wrote:
>
> > I'm not sure this is true anymore. I'm banned based on the 3RR rule
> > except the fact is that an Administrator disregarded other rules in
> > order to do so. It's easy for me though, I simply no longer need to
> > participate on Wikipedia and will make sure others know of my experience
> > by pointing them to the relevant links.
>
> The only exection to the 3RR is correcting vandalism.

Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Lou_Dobbs

Please be sure to read the timestamps on the signatures as well. Some of
the comments made by editors such as "Wizardy Dragon" have been
succinctly placed in the discussion.

As it stands, i'm going to have to agree with others and from the emails
I've received at least the behavior exhibited agrees with their
positions that Wikipedia is a no longer a place people like me should
participate. Eventually i'll compile a list of links of why I no longer
will participate or recommend Wikipedia to others in the future.

I've been thanking all the persons who have helped thus far and thanks
to them here in public fashion, again.

-c


from_name: Cheney Shill

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel chill

body:
Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 22:22:36 +0100
From: Guy Chapman aka JzG
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Libel chill

I was a researcher on H2G2 for a long time.  I became frustrated with
the bureaucratic process of publishing and peer review - but actually
it was quite good at preventing crap form being published in the
edited Guide.  It was just frustratingly slow to get updates
recognised.  WP is much better in that respect, but it's also a lot
easier for POV pushers and obsessives like YTMNDers to hijack
articles.  I wish I had an answer.
Guy (JzG)

I have an answer.  Enforce WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NPOV and scrap everything else other than legal policies and a technical policy or 2 to keep vandals, spammers, and edit wars under control.  Other than copyright violations, those 3 policies enforced would put libel and most other legal issues in the sources' laps.

Yes, I do mean scrap all the other guidelines and quasi-rules.  In fact, enforcing only those 3 would make admin jobs more straight-forward (easier), allow them to focus on content (are sources real, spam, etc.?), abuses harder, and eliminate most vandals and edit warriers (POV pushers/obsessives/hijackers).  Why?  Because 99% of them ignore or abuse those rules in some way.  Meanwhile, wikiens can still add, change, and be bold as long as WP:V sources are provided.
~~~~Pro-Lick

---------------------------------
Blab-away for as little as 1?/min. Make  PC-to-Phone Calls using Yahoo! Messenger with Voice.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wheel culture

body:
Ilmari Karonen wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>As a rule of thumb suspensions of privileges that exceed 24-hours should
>>be considered punitive.  When there are dangerous uncertainties about
>>things that are happening 24 hours will be enough time to investigate.
>>If after a best effort this still isn't enough one extend the time 24
>>hours at a time.
>>
>>
>I'd say that depends.  An indefinite block of a vandalism-only account,
>made on the basis that "nothing good has ever come from this user, and
>most likely nothing ever will", is not punitive but preventative.
>
I suppose it's a bit of both.  In most cases this is not the type of
block to be reverted except in cases of insanity.  There could be cases
of shared IPs.  There could be a reasonable explanation of newbie
error.  There could be a lack of adequate warning.

Where the blocker may have needed to act quickly in the middle of
multiple vandal attacks, the reverter may have taken the time to
investigate a single case more thoroughly.  The reverter at least owes
an explantion when he acts, but the presumption should be that he is
acting in good faith.  Reverters who make a habit of seriously unsound
reverts will soon be known by the entire community.

Ec


body:
On Sun, 2006-04-23 at 15:15 +0100, geni wrote:
> On 4/23/06, cwarner <cwarner at kernelcode.com> wrote:
> > On Sun, 2006-04-23 at 13:08 +0100, geni wrote:
> > > On 4/23/06, cwarner <cwarner at kernelcode.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > I'm not sure this is true anymore. I'm banned based on the 3RR rule
> > > > except the fact is that an Administrator disregarded other rules in
> > > > order to do so. It's easy for me though, I simply no longer need to
> > > > participate on Wikipedia and will make sure others know of my experience
> > > > by pointing them to the relevant links.
> > >
> > > The only exection to the 3RR is correcting vandalism.
> >
> > Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Lou_Dobbs
>
>
> What am I meant to be seeing? are you claiming there was vandalism per
> [[Wikipedia:Vandalism]]?
>

The discussion in relation to Lou Dobbs and the removal of the links
www.dobbswatch.com and to the opinion journal. I removed them, they
replaced them, I removed them, and put up a NPOV Dispute tag, waited for
some civility, they replaced them. They reverted my changes, again,
another admin stepped in a reverted then undid his revert after
realizing this wasn't vandalism and asked that the admin in question
watch his tone see (Re:Blocking 216.254.126.222
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Postdlf) and get someone else to
do the blocking regarding the situation. Admin in question reverted
again, then I reverted and am blocked by said Administrator.

The short, there was no vandalism. There was no general concensus, no
Wikipedia guidelines were followed and it's a general mess. Sadly
Wikipedia's own guidelines state the following.

"Consensus should not trump NPOV (or any other official policy). A group
of editors advocating a viewpoint do not, in theory, overcome the policy
expressed in Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not concerning advocacy and
propaganda. However, a group of editors may be able to shut out certain
facts and points of view through persistence, numbers, and organization.
This group of editors should not agree to an article version that
violates NPOV, but on occasion will do so anyway. This is generally
agreed to be a bad thing."

If you also take a look at the Articles history you will begin to see a
trend of bias from its inception. Including "editors with bias" forming
together to graft more Bias.

That's what you're meant to be seeing.

-c


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wheel warring

body:
Katefan0 wrote:

>Ugh, when do we get to the part where I have to figure out whether a car
>loaded with apples going north can beat a train loaded with figs going in
>the same direction?
>
Elementary!  Since apples have smoother skins than figs there will be
less friction and that train will go faster. :-)
The problem where there are pears instead of figs is more difficult
because the skins are similar.  We would need to study the relative
aerodynamics of the two forms.

>The basic problem is one of ego. For a place that prides itself on
>collegiality among editors, and particularly among administrators, we simply
>step on one another's toes too often. I don't see why we need to have all
>this parsing and ABC'ing when what we really need is to tug on a few ears
>and remind each other that it's rarely polite to undermine someone without
>so much as a word.
>
Sure.  If the original administrator to take action feels undermined by
a single reversal it is a matter of putting his ego ahead of the good of
the community.  The reverter should explain what he is doing, but at
this stage an explanatory note with the revert will suffice.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wheel warring

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>On 23/04/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Take the example above of A blocking and B unblocking. Why did B
>>unblock? Was it because the block was some sort of mistake (blocking
>>the wrong range, or blocking an AOL proxy for too long, etc) or was it
>>because B disagreed with A's interpretation of the user's edits? If
>>there was such a disagreement, then why did B not discuss the block
>>with A? It's that part which most people find problematic, the attack
>>on someone's judgement, not the actual action of unblocking.
>>
>>
>Funnily enough, my definition works here as well. Someone whose
>judgment is being questioned will accuse their reverter of wheel
>warring. Someone who made a mistake won't.
>
>In other words: If the person you reverted accuses you of wheel
>warring, then you wheel warred.
>
So someone whose poor judgement has been questioned is perfectly
justified to impute bad faith!  Seems that you're arguing that his two
wrongs would make things right.

Ec


from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

subject: [Wikitech-l] Dumps

body:
On Sun, Apr 23, 2006 at 11:54:15AM +0200, Andy Rabagliati wrote:
> On Sat, 22 Apr 2006, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> > But I'm stickin with "how does installing an always out of date copy of
> > something already available somewhere else on the web do anyone any good?"
>
> I do not know about the original enquirer, but to answer your question :-
>
> In South Africa, we install wikipedia at schools that do not even have
> modem access to the 'net.

And that's a perfectly good justification for an off-line copy.

The keyword is, of course, "off line".

> It gives them a taste of what Internet is, without most of the cr*p, and
> they love it. Yes, I said Internet.

Well, I'm not sure that generalization really holds; the Internet is
exceedingly uneven, and there are lots of things both cooler and
crappier than Wikipedia.

> I am very excited by current efforts to provide straight HTML dumps of
> wikipedia, as I find the extra requirement of mysql causes downtime.

And by all means; I wasn't denigrating the idea of dumping the site.  I
was merely questioning the wisdom of the use the OP intended to make of
it.  (OK, perhaps "questioning the wisdom" is a bit overly polite :-)

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

     A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
     Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?

     A: Top-posting.
     Q: What is the most annoying thing on Usenet and in e-mail?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wheel warring

body:
jayjg wrote:

>On 4/23/06, Conrad Dunkerson <conrad.dunkerson at worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
>
>>* Steve Bennett wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Funnily enough, my definition works here as well. Someone whose
>>>judgment is being questioned will accuse their reverter of wheel
>>>warring. Someone who made a mistake won't.
>>>
>>>In other words: If the person you reverted accuses you of wheel
>>>warring, then you wheel warred.
>>>
>>>
>>I almost agree, but in some cases that person might still be operating
>>under mistaken assumptions. Say they found some evidence which suggested
>>that a particular user was a sockpuppet of a blocked user and placed a
>>block on the 'sockpuppet' as a result. However, the second admin then
>>uncovered proof that the person wasn't a sockpuppet and unblocked. The
>>first admin might well accuse the second of 'wheel warring' and reblock,
>>but only because of a failure of communication. The second admin wasn't
>>'opposing the judgement' of the first, they were just working off a
>>different set of facts. The second admin shouldn't have to discuss the
>>matter before taking an action they know to be correct... though it would
>>be a good idea to send the first admin a note to fill them in on the details.
>>
>>
>No, what the second admin should do is discuss the case with the first
>admin, rather than unblocking.  Maybe the first admin has evidence
>that the second admin is unaware of.  If the second admin has
>conclusive evidence, then the first admin will undoubtedly unblock. If
>not, then there is a dispute, and the second admin should not wheel
>war.  In any event, admins should not act under the bad faith
>supposition that *they know better*; that is what starts the wheel
>war.
>
Maybe the second admin has evidence that the first admin is unaware of.
Maybe the first admin was just acting in the heat of RC battle.  It
folows that it is perfectly valid to act under a good faith supposition.

It would not be appropriate to say that all these reversions are done in
bad faith  That would in itself be assuming bad faith.

Ec


from_name: Andy Rabagliati

subject: [Wikitech-l] Dumps

body:
On Sat, 22 Apr 2006, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:

> But I'm stickin with "how does installing an always out of date copy of
> something already available somewhere else on the web do anyone any good?"

I do not know about the original enquirer, but to answer your question :-

In South Africa, we install wikipedia at schools that do not even have
modem access to the 'net.

It gives them a taste of what Internet is, without most of the cr*p, and
they love it. Yes, I said Internet.

I am very excited by current efforts to provide straight HTML dumps of
wikipedia, as I find the extra requirement of mysql causes downtime.

Cheers,     Andy!

http://www.wizzy.org.za/
http://wizzydigital.org/


from_name: Jürgen Herz

subject:
[Foundation-l] Wikipedia trademark not registered by Wikimedia
	Foundation

body:
Hello,

I recently looked up the German Patent and Trade Mark Office's
database for "Wikipedia". It resulted in two hits.

One is about the trademark "Wikipedia" in the area of tents, clothes,
shoes and sportsware and dates back to mid 2004.

The other one is about the trademark "Wikipedia" in three classes
containing a lot of IT related stuff including database service, data
collecting, telecommunication in general, online informations
services.

Owner is a company called "Firestorm Forces Ltd." and searching on it
together with Wikipedia I learned they're involved some bad
anti-Wikipedia agitation. Seems they're also acting as "Infochannel
Group" and as those clashed with german Wikipedians because of their
entry ([[Infochannel Group]]) in de.wikipedia. They also run a site
called Encyclopedia Wikimania (http://www.wikimania.co.uk), a quite
strange one with no real content.

I can't say if the classes they registered are relevant and interfere
with what "our" Wikipedia does. But it might be and then it could
become troublesome for us.

The trademark was filed in November last year and puplicated on
January 27th 2006. That means the opposition period end on April 27th.

Maybe someone is interested in doing some more research and foundating
might think about filing an opposition.

Regards,
J?rgen


subject: [Wikitech-l] 2006-04-21T02:30 drastic slowdown postmortem

references:
<4448F04B.2040406@gmail.com>	<e2de51$ts7$1@sea.gmane.org>	<444AEBB2.60400@gmail.com>	<e2f6o6$as3$1@sea.gmane.org>	<444B6C1F.5080500@gmail.com>	<e2g7qj$tn9$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<e2galj$72a$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Tim Starling wrote:
> Some general thoughts about this while it's on my mind: the key here to
> minimising the impact of this kind of problem is isolation, rather than
> distribution. We already have good isolation for search, and improving
> isolation for images -- if one of those two services goes offline then the
> rest should stay up, unaffected.

As background for those not familiar, here's the situation with search:

The actual search work is performed by a daemon using the Lucene search library.
This is running on three servers, which our main PHP application servers can
contact over HTTP internally. If the HTTP request is rejected or times out (and
the timeout is obscenely short), the PHP side tries a couple more servers, until
it either finds one that works or runs out and gives up.

So if the search servers are all overloaded or down, you just get a nice little
error message and are offered the chance to use an external search
(google/yahoo/etc). No immediate gratification, but the site stays up.

When we first tried this system, the timeout and failover wasn't yet used -- if
the daemon encountered certain exceptions or got overloaded it would leave
connections hanging for a long time., All the available threads would fill up on
the apaches; a hundred php processes just waiting on their search results...
*kaboom*

The image fileserver is currently a potential problem, as the application
servers use NFS to manipulate files on it. NFS is notoriusly tempermental, and
if the server goes down it tends to hang for long periods of time, with similar
problem results.

Improvements to this could include minimizing our contact with the file server
(avoid unnecessary reads and checks for file existence; we've got a damn
database) and potentially using some more explicit file upload protocol which
can fail gracefully.

> Maybe it's time we introduced a "basic"
> query group, containing those queries required for pages views. Then we
> could send all "basic" queries to a dedicated cluster, and all other queries
> to a second isolated cluster. Then as long as we can keep the apache thread
> count low enough, any problem with those diverse special page queries would
> not affect page view performance.

Probably wise.

> We could go even further and split the apache cluster into an "ordinary page
> view" cluster and an "everything else" cluster. This would mitigate DoS
> attacks on apache resources.

Slightly less trivial, but probably doable.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Philip Welch

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fair use image galleries in articles

body:
On Apr 23, 2006, at 6:23 AM, Ilmari Karonen wrote:

>>> Without seeing any particular examples, my opinion would be that a
>>> gallery of past logos used to document the evolution of the visual
>>> identity of the company in question generally ought to be acceptable
>>> fair use.
>>
>> *If* you are talking about the evolution of the company logo.
>> *Not* if you are just talking about the company.
>>
>> Do we have articles about the history of individual company logos?
>> Not in these cases (yet). So not fair use. Just pretty copyvio pics.
>
> An article about the historical logos used by a company would probably
> be a candidate for merging with the main article about the company.
> Such a merger does not generally affect the validity of fair use
> claims
> for images included in the merged content.

Most of what can be said can be said in the image captions. For
instance, [[Wang Laboratories]]. Other articles have a specific
section, such as [[Apple Computer#Logo]]

> More generally, "pretty copyvio pics" sounds like a straw man argument
> to me.  Who in their right mind would consider a company logo pretty?

Some company logos are indeed pretty.

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


subject: [Wikitech-l] short URLs for non-latin pages

body:
Artem wrote:
> Are there any more contemporary solutions to this issue? Ideally I'd
> like to have a separate field for URL when creating/editing a page -
> is it possible to create a plugin that would allow this? Another
> solution would be having this field noneditable and automatically
> filled with transliterated name of the page..

We're not likely to ever support something like that.

Remember we're in this for the long haul; browser support for IRIs will continue
to improve. (If you don't like your current browser, try Safari -- it handles
these just fine.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wheel warring

body:
Philip Welch wrote:
> On Apr 22, 2006, at 1:35 PM, Steve Bennett wrote:
>
>>> An unblock or unprotect cannot exist without a block or protect.
>>> Unblocks and unprotects are by definition reversions.
>> Hmm. Admin A protects a page then forgets about it. Two weeks later,
>> Admin B notices the error and unprotects it. Admin C quickly jumps on
>> him, and reprotects it. You're not going to argue that B is at fault,
>> while C is simply restoring order in the force, are you...
>
> I'm only arguing that Admin B is, in fact, reverting an
> administrative action.
>

So, clearly a definition of "reverting any administrative action counts
as wheel-warring" doesn't work.

--
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: [WikiEN-l] Wars on wheels

body:
On Apr 23, 2006, at 12:33 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:

> In other words: If the person you reverted accuses you of wheel
> warring, then you wheel warred.

And the only way of knowing that for sure before you revert is to
contact the other admin before you do anything.

In both cases, there's the admin absentee problem. Solution? Silence
+ external consensus = consent to go-ahead. We're enough of a
community that you can seek out another admin for a third opinion if
the admin you're reverting isn't around.

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


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Wheel warring in the wake of the
	Eloquence/Danny	incident

body:
Phil Sandifer wrote:
> On Apr 22, 2006, at 3:11 PM, Philip Welch wrote:
>> Amen to that. Sadly (and to name names), a certain administrator
>> whose name begins with "T" and ends with "ony Sidaway" has, in the
>> past, been allowed to (and even congratulated for) reverting other
>> administrators' actions multiple times while the ruling culture
>> derides any criticism of this as "lynching".
>
> Congratulations! Your skill at trolling has increased!
> Congratulations! Your skill at thread derailment has increased!
> Congratulations! Your skill at cliched personal attacks has increased!
> Congratulations! You are now a level 2 Wiki-EN user!
>

You get backstab at level 7. </obligatory [[m:bash]] reference>

--
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: [WikiEN-l] Wheel warring

body:
On Apr 23, 2006, at 9:35 AM, Conrad Dunkerson wrote:

> I almost agree, but in some cases that person might still be operating
> under mistaken assumptions. Say they found some evidence which
> suggested
> that a particular user was a sockpuppet of a blocked user and placed a
> block on the 'sockpuppet' as a result. However, the second admin then
> uncovered proof that the person wasn't a sockpuppet and unblocked. The
> first admin might well accuse the second of 'wheel warring' and
> reblock,
> but only because of a failure of communication. The second admin
> wasn't
> 'opposing the judgement' of the first, they were just working off a
> different set of facts. The second admin shouldn't have to discuss the
> matter before taking an action they know to be correct... though it
> would
> be a good idea to send the first admin a note to fill them in on
> the details.

I tend to think that even in this case, Wikipedia is unique in that
it's better to ask permission than forgiveness.

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


from_name: Conrad Dunkerson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wheel warring

body:
* Steve Bennett wrote:

> Funnily enough, my definition works here as well. Someone whose
> judgment is being questioned will accuse their reverter of wheel
> warring. Someone who made a mistake won't.
>
> In other words: If the person you reverted accuses you of wheel
> warring, then you wheel warred.

I almost agree, but in some cases that person might still be operating
under mistaken assumptions. Say they found some evidence which suggested
that a particular user was a sockpuppet of a blocked user and placed a
block on the 'sockpuppet' as a result. However, the second admin then
uncovered proof that the person wasn't a sockpuppet and unblocked. The
first admin might well accuse the second of 'wheel warring' and reblock,
but only because of a failure of communication. The second admin wasn't
'opposing the judgement' of the first, they were just working off a
different set of facts. The second admin shouldn't have to discuss the
matter before taking an action they know to be correct... though it would
be a good idea to send the first admin a note to fill them in on the details.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wheel warring

body:
On Apr 23, 2006, at 11:25 AM, geni wrote:

>> No, what the second admin should do is discuss the case with the
>> first
>> admin, rather than unblocking.  Maybe the first admin has evidence
>> that the second admin is unaware of.  If the second admin has
>> conclusive evidence, then the first admin will undoubtedly
>> unblock. If
>> not, then there is a dispute, and the second admin should not wheel
>> war.  In any event, admins should not act under the bad faith
>> supposition that *they know better*; that is what starts the wheel
>> war.
>
> In the mean time an inocent user may stay blocked. Not good. Remeber
> the first admin was also sure enough that they knew best in order to
> block.

This discussion shouldn't take longer than 24 hours at absolute
maximum, and oftentimes it'll take less than 1 hour. An innocent user
can stay blocked for that period of time.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel chill

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
<snip>
> Some complaints, even on [[Carbon Tetrachloride]] need immediate
> action.  You would not want somebody arguing what a great high you get
> from smelling the fumes.
>

But... I've done it... at least, I /think/ that's what I was sniffing...

--
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:
TGGG85 at aol.com wrote:
> Hey Chris! You might be glad that you are not alone in all of the nonsense. I
> was blocked by an Administrator who accused me of VANDALISM without showing
> any proof. What kind of drugs are these people taking?

Mostly caffeine.

> This is an example of what happens when the wrong people are
> entrusted with power. They become petty tyrants.

Do you have any suggestions on how to improve the administrative
selection process?

> Most of the Administrators are fair people. There are some who abuse
> their priviliege of power and it appears that you have encountered
> one. So, my advice is to persist with your protest and find some
> allies. You have found one in me.
>

Claims of abuse will be heard and dealt with fairly, provided that you
bring evidence with you.

--
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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from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wheel warring

body:
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jayjg stated for the record:

> No, what the second admin should do is discuss the case with the first
> admin, rather than unblocking.  Maybe the first admin has evidence
> that the second admin is unaware of.  If the second admin has
> conclusive evidence, then the first admin will undoubtedly unblock. If
> not, then there is a dispute, and the second admin should not wheel
> war.  In any event, admins should not act under the bad faith
> supposition that *they know better*; that is what starts the wheel
> war.
>
> Jay.

The statement "if the second admin has conclusive evidence, then the
first admin will undoubtedly unblock" has been recently demonstrated to
be untrue -- the conclusive evidence that Eloquence is not a danger to
the project is patent, yet Danny (first admin) reverted my (second
admin's) unblocking.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Power corrupts. Atomic power corrupts atomically.
 sean at epoptic.org |
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Wheel warring

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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jayjg stated for the record:

> A brief block is not the end of the world. If it drags on for a
> lengthy period then it's something else.  And yes, the first admin
> executed their best judgement when making the block; that's what
> admins are supposed to do.  If a second admin disagrees with that
> judgement, then they need to take it up with the first admin, rather
> than initiate a wheel war with them.
>
> Jay.

Danny's judgement was that Eloquence should be desysopped and blocked
for life.  His /best/ judgement.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Knowledge is power. Power
 sean at epoptic.org | corrupts. Study hard, be evil.
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Wheel warring

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

jayjg stated for the record:

> One can posit all sorts of "maybes", but the fact remains that
> reverting the first admin assumes the first admin is incorrect.
> Instead of assuming, contact them first, and find out for sure.  It's
> quite simple, and it astonishes me that anyone would defend summarily
> reverting an admin action over communicating with them first and
> building a consensus.  This is not an emergency, and almost never is.
>
> Jay.

And when the first admin explicitly refuses to communicate?

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Knowledge is power. Power
 sean at epoptic.org | corrupts. Study hard, be evil.
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from_name: Guettarda

body:
On 4/23/06, Gordon Joly <gordon.joly at pobox.com> wrote:
>
> Today's featured article (Main Page, 23rd April 2006)
>
> "Turkish literature is the literature written in the Turkish
> language....."

While it sounds a little bit silly, it appears to be a valid and dignificant
assertion.  The article isn't just about the literature of Turkey (a
post-1919 state) nor is it the entire literature of the Ottoman Empire
(which was a multi-national empire).  It's also not the literature of
Anatolia - Anatolia was not Turkish until about 500-800 years ago, and the
Turks were not originally Anatolian.

Ian


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
William Allen Simpson wrote:
> Anyway, thank you for following up.  I still don't understand how the SQL
> spike affected network performance, and have not yet found the switch and
> router graph with IP subnet assignments.

Congested database -> slower responses to web requests -> less traffic served.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: geni

body:
On 4/23/06, cwarner <cwarner at kernelcode.com> wrote:

> I'm not sure this is true anymore. I'm banned based on the 3RR rule
> except the fact is that an Administrator disregarded other rules in
> order to do so. It's easy for me though, I simply no longer need to
> participate on Wikipedia and will make sure others know of my experience
> by pointing them to the relevant links.

The only exection to the 3RR is correcting vandalism.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wheel warring

body:
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jayjg stated for the record:

>>And when the first admin explicitly refuses to communicate?
>
> That, in fact, is an unusual case.  Communicate with them, and if they
> don't respond after a *reasonable* length of time, then drop them a
> note stating what you are doing and why.  What is reasonable?  In a
> case of blocking, I would say at least a half day if you don't see
> them editing, less time if you do see them editing.
>
> Jay.

By telephone.  Danny /explicitly/ refused to discuss his multi-project
indefinite block of a Wikipedian who's been around since 2001.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Knowledge is power. Power
 sean at epoptic.org | corrupts. Study hard, be evil.
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from_name: Will (Zsinj) Bumgarner

body:
Tim Starling wrote:
>Ah, well in that case, I can tell you exactly what happened. The hero of the
>day was Zsinj, a canny newbie who had his eye on the relevant monitoring
>graphs, and alerted us to the problem immediately, using very specific
>terms, allowing us to track down and fix it rapidly.

I've got the "pretty graph" bug as described by Rob Church that he
states Mark and Domas also have. What can I say? I figure every little
bit helps and when all of the other IRC channels start filling up with
people wondering what's going on. I enjoy using my knowledge, although
limited, to help in any way possible.

It just so happened I was at the right place at the right time. While
there were other people noticing slowness and trickling into
#wikimedia-tech, I imagine it would have been longer delay in
resolving the issue had someone like me not been there. *shrug*

FYI: I'm EDT -4

William Bumgarner
aka Zsinj


from_name: jayjg

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wheel warring

body:
On 4/23/06, Conrad Dunkerson <conrad.dunkerson at worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> * Steve Bennett wrote:
>
> > Funnily enough, my definition works here as well. Someone whose
> > judgment is being questioned will accuse their reverter of wheel
> > warring. Someone who made a mistake won't.
> >
> > In other words: If the person you reverted accuses you of wheel
> > warring, then you wheel warred.
>
> I almost agree, but in some cases that person might still be operating
> under mistaken assumptions. Say they found some evidence which suggested
> that a particular user was a sockpuppet of a blocked user and placed a
> block on the 'sockpuppet' as a result. However, the second admin then
> uncovered proof that the person wasn't a sockpuppet and unblocked. The
> first admin might well accuse the second of 'wheel warring' and reblock,
> but only because of a failure of communication. The second admin wasn't
> 'opposing the judgement' of the first, they were just working off a
> different set of facts. The second admin shouldn't have to discuss the
> matter before taking an action they know to be correct... though it would
> be a good idea to send the first admin a note to fill them in on the details.

No, what the second admin should do is discuss the case with the first
admin, rather than unblocking.  Maybe the first admin has evidence
that the second admin is unaware of.  If the second admin has
conclusive evidence, then the first admin will undoubtedly unblock. If
not, then there is a dispute, and the second admin should not wheel
war.  In any event, admins should not act under the bad faith
supposition that *they know better*; that is what starts the wheel
war.

Jay.


body:
On 4/23/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/23/06, cwarner <cwarner at kernelcode.com> wrote:
>
> > I'm not sure this is true anymore. I'm banned based on the 3RR rule
> > except the fact is that an Administrator disregarded other rules in
> > order to do so. It's easy for me though, I simply no longer need to
> > participate on Wikipedia and will make sure others know of my experience
> > by pointing them to the relevant links.
>
> The only exection to the 3RR is correcting vandalism.

And reverting banned users.

Jay.


from_name: Gordon Joly

body:
Today's featured article (Main Page, 23rd April 2006)

"Turkish literature is the literature written in the Turkish language....."

Gordo

--
"Think Feynman"/////////
http://pobox.com/~gordo/
gordon.joly at pobox.com///


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wheel warring

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Katefan0 stated for the record:

> I hate to personalize this as I think Erik's gone through enough, but really
> I can't let this go by.
>
> This phone call could've been avoided if he had simply made an attempt to
> communicate -- in any fashion -- before he reversed Danny.

Nice try.  If you were paying attention, you would recall that the
refusal came /before/ I attempted to correct the error.  Eloquence
called Danny to ask why he was blocked, and Danny refused to explain.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Knowledge is power. Power
 sean at epoptic.org | corrupts. Study hard, be evil.
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Wheel warring

body:
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Katefan0 stated for the record:

> I hate to personalize this as I think Erik's gone through enough, but really
> I can't let this go by.
>
> This phone call could've been avoided if he had simply made an attempt to
> communicate -- in any fashion -- before he reversed Danny.
>
> k

I apologize for my previous reply.

After rereading your message, I realize I misunderstood you -- I was
confused about which "he" you meant.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Knowledge is power. Power
 sean at epoptic.org | corrupts. Study hard, be evil.
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Wheel warring

body:
On 4/23/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/23/06, jayjg <jayjg99 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 4/23/06, Conrad Dunkerson <conrad.dunkerson at worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> > > * Steve Bennett wrote:
> > >
> > > > Funnily enough, my definition works here as well. Someone whose
> > > > judgment is being questioned will accuse their reverter of wheel
> > > > warring. Someone who made a mistake won't.
> > > >
> > > > In other words: If the person you reverted accuses you of wheel
> > > > warring, then you wheel warred.
> > >
> > > I almost agree, but in some cases that person might still be operating
> > > under mistaken assumptions. Say they found some evidence which suggested
> > > that a particular user was a sockpuppet of a blocked user and placed a
> > > block on the 'sockpuppet' as a result. However, the second admin then
> > > uncovered proof that the person wasn't a sockpuppet and unblocked. The
> > > first admin might well accuse the second of 'wheel warring' and reblock,
> > > but only because of a failure of communication. The second admin wasn't
> > > 'opposing the judgement' of the first, they were just working off a
> > > different set of facts. The second admin shouldn't have to discuss the
> > > matter before taking an action they know to be correct... though it would
> > > be a good idea to send the first admin a note to fill them in on the details.
> >
> > No, what the second admin should do is discuss the case with the first
> > admin, rather than unblocking.  Maybe the first admin has evidence
> > that the second admin is unaware of.  If the second admin has
> > conclusive evidence, then the first admin will undoubtedly unblock. If
> > not, then there is a dispute, and the second admin should not wheel
> > war.  In any event, admins should not act under the bad faith
> > supposition that *they know better*; that is what starts the wheel
> > war.
> >
> > Jay.
>
> In the mean time an inocent user may stay blocked. Not good. Remeber
> the first admin was also sure enough that they knew best in order to
> block.

A brief block is not the end of the world. If it drags on for a
lengthy period then it's something else.  And yes, the first admin
executed their best judgement when making the block; that's what
admins are supposed to do.  If a second admin disagrees with that
judgement, then they need to take it up with the first admin, rather
than initiate a wheel war with them.

Jay.