from_name: Florian Straub

subject: [Commons-l] Splitting up picture requests

body:
Hi,

I just wanted to tell you, that I've started splitting up
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_requests/Requests in order
to enable everyone just to put the parts relevant for him on his watchlist
and to use email notification. I've started with the following three parts:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_requests/Requests/Europe
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_requests/Requests/America
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_requests/Requests/Nature

Feel free to discuss this issue on
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Picture_requests/Requests

Best regards,

Flo

@Brianna: Sorry for not making Australia, but I didn't know what all to
include there :)


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Bartning at aol.com

subject:
[WikiEN-l] [Foundation-l] Accountability: bringing back a
	proposal I made...

body:
In a message dated 3/8/2007 7:47:45 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,
wikilegal at inbox.org writes:

Would we  have any ownership of our own articles?  I'd rather not have
private  details of my life up on a wiki page.  My concern with your
proposal  is privacy, not notability.  I realize the link would be
optional, but  an on/off switch is much more coarsely grained than the
current  system.

Also, verifiability seems too strong for this, because it  means
*anyone* can verify the details.  Perhaps someone wants to state  that
they are a professor, but not give details of where they teach out  to
the world to be edited mercilessly.  A private  confidential
verification might be acceptable, but not a public  one.

Anthony

You may not want ownership of articles, but then again, work without credit
is slavery.

Vincent

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


body:
In a message dated 3/8/2007 7:59:38 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,
cunctator at gmail.com writes:

I'm not  saying this has to be done *instead* of other policies, though my
personal  opinion is that Wikipedia is best served if people are either
anonymous  & claims about their credentials are recognized to be caveat
emptor or  people are publicly identified.

I think it's generally a good idea that  we eat our own dog food.

There's not enough accountability then.  Someone who gives his name's  going
to take things more seriously than someone who doesn't, and this  atmosphere
of edit for the sake of it, where it even ruins an article, has major  flaws.

Vincent

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


from_name: Sheldon Rampton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Review

body:
Re: the Essjay affair, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

> Now how did that attract international mainstream media
> attention?

I think it was probably due to my own boyish good looks. A friend of
mine from high school phoned a couple of days ago to say that he had
just seen me on television. Apparently one of the TV networks did a
brief story about l'affaire Essjay that included some stock footage
from Wikimania 2006, and there I was in the middle of the shot,
sitting in a conference room and typing on my laptop.

If their footage had been of someone else, they'd probably have
ignored the story completely. Those TV reporters...so
shallow...sniff... ;-)

--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Research director, Center for Media & Democracy (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
|     Weapons of Mass Deception
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|     The Best War Ever
--------------------------------
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--------------------------------


from_name: Kurt Maxwell Weber

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Study finds that Wikipedia has evolved from an
	oligarchy to a ...

body:
On Saturday 10 March 2007 20:28, Bartning at aol.com wrote:
> It's been a while since I read a good portion of Plato's book, _The
> Republic_, but I wouldn't say it ruled out democracy, only the problems
> with democracy, notably the lack of protection of minority factions
> including of  the individual.  Democracy and freedom are basically
> synonymous.   However, I may mix classical and modern-political thought.
>
> Please  remember that (if we are to believe the dialogue) Socrates
> could have fled,  but chose to drink the hemlock out of respect for
> the authority of Athenian  government.  Even where the state murders
> to censor critics, its  dictates are not to be resisted.  That is the
> mentality of  Plato.
>
Really, Volume 1 of Popper's "The Open Society and its Enemies" is a
must-read.

--
Kurt Weber
<kmw at armory.com>


body:
In a message dated 3/6/2007 4:19:22 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,
andrew.cady at gmail.com writes:

Plato's Republic was not essentially dissimilar to Soviet  Communism;
the main difference is that the Soviets at least payed lip  service to
democracy and the value of the working class.  Russell on  Plato:

It has always been correct to praise Plato, but not to  understand
him.  This is the common fate of great men.  My  object is the
opposite.  I wish to understand him, but to treat  him with as little
reverence as if he were a contemporary English or  American advocate of
totalitarianism. [...]

But even  if we suppose there is such a thing [in government]
as "wisdom," is  there any form of constitution which will give
the government to the  wise?  It is clear that majorities, like
general councils, may  err, and in fact have erred.  Aristocracies
are not always  wise; kings are often foolish; Popes, in spite of
infallibility,  have committed grievous errors. [...]

The problem of finding a  collection of "wise" men and leaving the
government to them is thus  an insoluble one.  That is the ultimate
reason for  democracy.

It's been a while since I read a good portion of Plato's book, _The
Republic_, but I wouldn't say it ruled out democracy, only the problems with
democracy, notably the lack of protection of minority factions including of  the
individual.  Democracy and freedom are basically synonymous.   However, I may mix
classical and modern-political thought.

Please  remember that (if we are to believe the dialogue) Socrates
could have fled,  but chose to drink the hemlock out of respect for
the authority of Athenian  government.  Even where the state murders
to censor critics, its  dictates are not to be resisted.  That is the
mentality of  Plato.

I won't touch on whether Athens was "true  democracy."

Well, it was much more democratic than any institution  today, a rule of 10
by 1.

I agree that Plato's republic was radical.  Basically  you wouldn't even have
people raising their own children, and the children of  those who were
believed inferior would be quietly killed.

By that time, the world had experienced and was  experiencing a republic,
that of Rome, but I believe I've hit a  wall.

Vincent

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from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal for simplified credentials model

body:
William Pietri wrote

> charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com wrote:
> > William Pietri wrote
> >
> >
> >> As the Chronicle of Higher Education wrote, "But the incident is clearly
> >> damaging to Wikipedia's credibility -- especially with professors who
> >> will now note that one of the site's most visible academics has turned
> >> out to be a fraud."
> >>
> >
> > I'm going to sound like a snob. Why would anyone think tenure at a private college in the mid-West in theology was any kind of high academic profile? Academics would know how to rate this (i.e. there are thousands of middle-aged guys in this general category).
> >
>
> I don't know that anybody has suggested it was a *high* academic
> profile. My point was more that being a full professor has a social
> standing both in the academic world and in the population at large. If
> you compare with a situation where Essjay claimed falsely to be a
> garbage collector or a busboy in an all-night diner, you'll see what I
> mean. We wouldn't be having this problem.

OK, but my point was that 'especially with professors' is entirely misdirection.

Charles

-----------------------------------------
Email sent from www.virginmedia.com/email
Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software and scanned for spam


from_name: Ron Ritzman

subject: [WikiEN-l] Sorry, I know this is lame but I just had to

body:
BTW I didn't even know there were "editable" mirrors of Wikipedia. I
found this one by accident.

Might come in useful for reading deleted articles.


list: foundation-l

from_name: Jeffrey V. Merkey

subject: [Foundation-l] BitTorrent Downloads of enwiki Images

body:
Lars Aronsson wrote:

>christophe.henner at wikimedia.fr wrote:
>
>
>
>>The point is I don't see what the DMCA have to do with redistribution
>>of free images. With Fair Use I can see but, in my opinion, the
>>
>>
>
>Regardless of the image metadata provided by the uploader, the
>image could constitute slander, hate speech, child pornography,
>disclosure of state secrets, or a copyright violation.  I'm not
>sure how the U.S. DMCA works, but similar laws in Sweden
>(BBS-lagen, SFS 1998:112; LEK, SFS 2003:389) requires the hosting
>provider to cooperate with the police in (a) taking down the
>offensive content, and (b) tracing the uploader.  If Jeff copies
>images from Wikimedia and hosts them, tracing the (original)
>uploader (the criminal offender) goes back through the WMF, e.g.
>its IP logs.
>
>I don't know if Jeff needs any permission from WMF.  All he should
>need to do, when he receives a take-down notice with a requirement
>to trace the offender, is to point the police to WMF, and the
>police could then contact the WMF if need be.  Or something such.
>
>Whether the uploader claimed this is "fair use" or "public domain"
>or "creative commons licensed" doesn't matter much if the picture
>was illegal in some other way to begin with.
>
>Despite everything you might read in media, my impression (as a
>hosting provider) is that in practice these laws work very well.
>
>
>
>
After reviewing Anthere's comments that the images are part and parcel
with Wikipedia's free content, and she does not feel it is needed to
grant any permissions, I am going to expose the torrents. Also, Greg's
very insightful comments are much appreciated. Since there is an image
archive with fair use images and one without for each dump, users of
Wikipedia content can choose which they wish to use.

If anything, the logs between the two image archives are a "report card"
on how well Wikipedia is doing in getting rid of fair use images as much
as possible and substituting free images.

If I receive DMCA notices regarding any of the fair use images, I am
going to respect the privacy rights of Wikipedia's users and simply take
the images down and log them in the public logs area via ftp access for
the server hosting the torrents any respond to the filer the images have
been removed. As far as who is or is not an "uploader" of the images, me
or the original person publishing them in an encyclopedia is an area of
experimental law we should avoid -- its always better to be smart than
to be right.

The community should reasonably be expected to review the DMCA takedown
logs published at WikiGadugi regularly to help identify images which
folks feel strong enough about to send such notices, and consider
removing them or replacing them with free images.

Jeff


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Checkered background (from [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN:
 [20065] trunk/phase3)

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

Rob Church wrote:
> On 10/03/07, Platonides <Platonides at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Preference settings are much easier to explain and use. Why are them evil?
>
> Preferences (can) increase the number of individual cache variants
> required, and can make the user support process harder. They add
> complexity to the code and increase the number of available code
> paths.

In this particular case it would just change the generated user CSS, but
it's still one extra thing. :)

My general inclination to avoid having something as preference, but to
stick to a sane default that people will more rarely want to change.
There certainly are some benefits to indicating transparency, but
perhaps it could be:

a) less visually intrusive?

b) a toggle on the actual page?

c) some different kind of thing?

Just some thoughts that might be worth exploring before tossing new
prefs about.

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (Darwin)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFF828dwRnhpk1wk44RAvHzAJ9zMZo5eEyDESIx9SnBCmWCTc1WQQCgjIYd
hAll20fpvOUA4CPcZoNiBow=
=5wYz
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Platonides

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Checkered background (from [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN:
	[20065] trunk/phase3)

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> I removed it from the en.wp stylesheets a while ago (after getting
> consensus for doing so) and now did so again. IMHO it should be
> removed from the default stylesheets as well. Those editors who work
> with images and benefit from the transparency information can put it
> in their own monobook.css.

Brion wrote:
 >> If this is problematic, make it a flag on user preferences, so it's
 >> easy for everybody to have/avoid it.
 >Nooooooo

? As has been shown on this thread, some people like it, others dislike
it. Custom js/css files (magnificent tools) are really powerful, but are
often seen as {{esoteric}}
I prefer not having to explain to a large number of users how to
(correctly) override via monobook.css a global site setting.

Preference settings are much easier to explain and use. Why are them evil?


list: commons-l

from_name: Alison Wheeler

subject: [Commons-l] Join us now and free the video

body:
On Sat, March 10, 2007 17:26, Oldak Quill wrote:
> Sadly, only Windows XP users have access to this service. How free can it
> be?

I have no knowledge of any computer-based access to the service; I get it
(for free/no additional charge for use) via my cable tv supplier.

Alison


from_name: Robert Leverington

body:
It is, of course, possible to circumvent the restriction on where you
live by using open proxies. This does not make it free, however.

On 10/03/07, Alison Wheeler <wikimedia at alisonwheeler.com> wrote:
> On Sat, March 10, 2007 17:26, Oldak Quill wrote:
> > Sadly, only Windows XP users have access to this service. How free can it
> > be?
>
> I have no knowledge of any computer-based access to the service; I get it
> (for free/no additional charge for use) via my cable tv supplier.
>
> Alison
>
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>


body:
On Sat, March 10, 2007 22:32, Robert Leverington wrote:
> It is, of course, possible to circumvent the restriction on where you
> live by using open proxies. This does not make it free, however.

The point I was actgually making appears to have got lost in this
discussion about means of transmission and charging; that the broadcaster
had removed the advertisements from the product they were now making
available, and it is advertising that make the (commercial) tv/radio world
go round.

Alison


from_name: Thomas Dalton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Almeda University paying for positive Wikipedia edits

body:
They're basically paying someone to revert vandalism on their entry,
which is probably a good thing. Unfortunately, it looks like their
definition of vandalism doesn't quite match ours... If there was some
way to ensure it was done in Wikipedia's interest, paid watchlisting
(which is what this is) could be an excellent idea. I'm not sure there
is some way to ensure it's not done for POV reasons.


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

body:
On Sat, 10 Mar 2007 23:17:16 +0000, "Thomas Dalton"
<thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:

>They're basically paying someone to revert vandalism on their entry,
>which is probably a good thing. Unfortunately, it looks like their
>definition of vandalism doesn't quite match ours...

Almeda "University", ah yes, I remember that one.  I assume good faith
of unaccredited universities, up to the point where it becomes obvious
that they are diploma mills working really *really* hard to ensure
that nobody realises they are diploma mills.  And this is one of them.

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


body:
> The real issue is that when I receive DMCA notices, the "uploader" or
> "provider" of the content is the Foundation if the author cannot be
> identified or contacted. In response to Anthere, the real issue for the
> foundation is this:

Surely *you* are the uploader/provider? I don't see what Wikipedia has
to do with it, it's simply a middleman.

> 1. I will need either the foundation to the notify users on Wikipedia
> via their talk page I have received such a notice or I am required to
> contact the users about an image they have uploaded.

Why can't you contact the users in that way? You're the one receiving
the DMCA notice.

> 3. The Foundation needs to decide whether these notices should be sent
> to the individual wikipedia users, or the Foundation directly. in any
> event, it would be an extra layer shielding the foundation from claims
> for distribution of fair use images in tarballs along with XML dumps.

Again, what does the foundation have to do with it?

> What will be distributed?
>
> .tar.gz and .tar.bz2 syncrhonized archives of all images for each XML
> dump published by Brion Vibber and the team
> .tar.gz and .tar.bz2 syncrhonized archives of all images for each XML
> dump with tagged fair use images removed published by Brion Vibber and
> the team

How is you distributing images that are only used in Wikipedia under
fair use not completely illegal? Your use of them isn't fair.


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Dealing with juvenile vandalism

body:
One thing useful for schools might be to ask for an abuse contact to
list on the IP page.

Although we've had some such contacts say "look, just block us, please!" ;-)

- d.


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2007-03-11

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

This is MediaWiki version 1.10alpha (r20334).

Reading tests from "maintenance/parserTests.txt"...
A database query syntax error has occurred.
The last attempted database query was:
" SELECT  page_id  FROM `parsertest_page`  WHERE page_namespace = '0' AND page_title = 'Main_Page'  FOR UPDATE LIMIT 1 "
from within function "LinkCache::addLinkObj".
MySQL returned error "1064: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'LIMIT 1' at line 1 (localhost)"


body:
On 11/03/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:

> http://88.208.194.172/wiki/index.php/Atlantic_Records

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Records

- d.


body:
On 11/03/07, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> The real issue is that when I receive DMCA notices, the "uploader" or
> "provider" of the content is the Foundation if the author cannot be
> identified or contacted. In response to Anthere, the real issue for the
> foundation is this:
>

The point is I don't see what the DMCA have to do with redistribution
of free images. With Fair Use I can see but, in my opinion, the
Foundation shall NOT give any autorization for redistribution of fair
use image, or even help at it.

--
schiste


from_name: Rob Church

body:
On 10/03/07, Platonides <Platonides at gmail.com> wrote:
> Preference settings are much easier to explain and use. Why are them evil?

Preferences (can) increase the number of individual cache variants
required, and can make the user support process harder. They add
complexity to the code and increase the number of available code
paths.

Preferences should be avoided where there is a clear and accessible
workaround, such as this - editing one's custom CSS subpage, which has
been possible for a long time.

Rob Church


from_name: bawolff

subject: [Commons-l] Yotophoto (free image search engine) developments

body:
Well my biggest comment (although this is not really related to the
subject at hand) is that yotophoto doesn't actually index things. If
I'm trying to find a free image, I generally search yotophoto and
mayflower. Mayflower finds stuff 10 times more often then yotophoto.
yotophoto theoretically should be a superset of mayflower, how come
they don't find anything one you search them (I've maybe found images
with them twice).
</rant>
-bawolff
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: 10-Mar-2007 07:51
> Subject: Re: [Provide feedback] Wikimedia Commons photos
>
> Brianna,
>
> First, sorry for the delayed response and thanks for your comments. I
> especially appreciate feedback from people in your position as I want
> Yotophoto to be embraced by those contributing to  important projects
> like Wikimedia Commons.
>
> Right now, most of the links to go back to Wikipedia instead of the
> Commons for the main reason that awareness of the Wikipedia project is
> higher than that of Commons. It's just easier for people to get their
> head around it if they are unfamiliar with Commons.  (As an aside, I
> find it pretty tough  explaining how everything works with regards to
> 'free' licensing and how we index only third party sites and so on.
> You wouldn't believe how often people write us to ask if they can use
> one of "our" images or how they can upload their own images to us).
>
> One thing I also like about linking to the Wikipedia page over the
> Commons one is that the list of pages that link to the image seem to
> be more accurate on Wikipedia than Commons. Is this your experience as
> well? Any feedback on this would be helpful. See #3 below for a little
> more on why this is relevant.
>
> Having said that, I'm working a new version that will change a few
> things. Here's an overview:
>
> 1) Every site we index will have it's own "about" page. Here we will
> explain a bit about what each site is about, how to contribute, what
> kind of licenses the site allows and so on. In the case of the
> Wikipedia and Commons we intend to outline the relationship between
> the two and how Wikipedia will often hold a 'fake' image for images
> that come from Commons as you described.
>
> [I told him about Check Usage.]
>
> 2) Most images will have an intermediate preview (probably in a pop-up
> lightbox). From here we can provide a link to *both* the Commons and
> Wikipedia pages for an image. What do you think?
>
> 3) Yotophoto will eventually index images using captions from the
> various Wikipedia articles that include said image. So if an image
> doesn't have a complete description on it's own page - we can still
> index it based on all the captions used for that image throughout
> Wikipedia. Commons tends to have decent image descriptions but for
> images only on Wikipedia taken from third party sites (say a PD US-GOV
> image), the descriptions are often lacking.
>
> [I said:
> On Commons we have enough trouble forcing people to annotate their
> files with basic information like licensing and author, let alone a
> decent content description. Many people when they submit files, are
> submitting them with a specific purpose in mind and are focused on
> that, not on the possibility that the file might be re-used in the
> future for something else. Also when one is looking at an image, it is
> often quite self-explanatory, so the user doesn't feel the need to
> explain the purpose or background to the file beyond three words. Of
> course that doesn't stack up well for searching since machines can't
> "read" images well at all (or even, mostly, at all).
> ]
>
> 4) Yotophoto would like to enable one click republishing of images
> found so people can repost to their own blogs etc. To do this we will
> provide a copy and paste HTML code they can use. This code will link
> back to the image source (ie. Commons) as well as to the image
> license. Sites like Commons will get tons of back-links and exposure
> in this way I think. I like to think of this as the "Flickerization of
> Wikipedia" (and Commons).
>
> [I forwarded this part to wikitech-l to see what they say.]
>
> 5) The depth of the index will increase massively. We intend to one
> day have the entire Commons and Wikipeida image collections searchable
> (right now it is only a fraction) including not only photos but other
> types of images as well like maps, charts, flags and so on.
>
>
> I'd love to know what you think, and if you have any further
> suggestions. As well, feel free to invite anyone from the Commons to
> submit their ideas to me as well. I hadn't seen the Mayflower tool
> before but it looks quite nice -  I want to look into it more.
>
> Regards,
>
>
>
>
>
> On 2/26/07, brianna.laugher at gmail.com <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Brianna Laugher sent a message using the contact form at
> > http://yotophoto.com/feedback.
> >
> > Hi, I'm a volunteer on the Wikimedia Commons website. I just wanted to say
> > how impressed I am with Yotophoto at the moment. Displaying the license
> > and the image dimensions in the results is particularly awesome. A couple
> > of comments:
> >
> > Is it possible to do domain-specific searches? (like in Google,
> > site:commons.wikimedia.org) - doesn't seem like it, so far
> >
> > As you may or may not know, when projects like Wikipedia use images from
> > Wikimedia Commons, it creates 'fake' image pages like this one:
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Common_frog.jpg (note the red tab and
> > the tag 'This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons. The description on its
> > description page there is shown below.'). To better promote Wikimedia
> > Commons, it would be preferable if such images could be referred back to
> > their Wikimedia Commons page, rather than the 'fake' page at Wikipedia.
> > Would that be possible?
> >
> > Also, another Wikimedia editor has developed an image search engine
> > specifically for Wikimedia Commons called 'Mayflower', which you might be
> > interested in checking out:
> > http://tools.wikimedia.de/~tangotango/mayflower/
> >
> > As the default wiki search engine for media performs very poorly, we tend
> > to be very happy whenever we find out about nice products like these :)
> >
> > thanks!
> >
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>
>
> End of Commons-l Digest, Vol 22, Issue 12
> *****************************************
>


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Commons-l] Planet Wikimedia: Add your blog feeds

body:
We have just launched http://planet.wikimedia.org/ , which is an
aggregator for all on-topic wiki-related weblog (blog) posts by
participants in Wikimedia projects. The planet can be found at:

http://planet.wikimedia.org/

To get added, please follow the instructions at:

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

This is a kind of beta test, and right now, the planet is in the
English language; however, I have prepared a process for requesting
new languages to be set up here:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Planet_Wikimedia/New_language

So please add your support if you wish to aggregate blog posts in
another language.

Again, this is for on-topic posts, not for diary entries. All feeds
must either point to a blog which is almost exclusively about wikis,
or filtered (WordPress, Blogger and other common blog engines all
support filtered feeds by categorizing your posts, e.g., adding the
"wiki" category to all posts which you want to be included in the
planet). If this makes you feel uncomfortable, you can (in addition or
in substitution) add your blog to http://wikiblogplanet.com/ , which
does not filter posts for on-topicness. WikiBlogPlanet is run
independently by Nick Jenkins.

I hope that this new tool will allow us to share useful and
interesting information, as well as opinions, more effectively across
project boundaries.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

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

"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic


subject: [Foundation-l] Planet Wikimedia: Add your blog feeds


list: textbook-l

subject: [Textbook-l] Planet Wikimedia: Add your blog feeds


subject: [WikiEN-l] Planet Wikimedia: Add your blog feeds


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Planet Wikimedia: Add your blog feeds


list: wiktionary-l

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Planet Wikimedia: Add your blog feeds


from_name: Slim Virgin

subject:
[WikiEN-l] [Wikipedia-l] Accountability: bringing backa
	proposal I made nearly 2 years ago

body:
On 3/10/07, Philippe Beaudette <philippebeaudette at gmail.com> wrote:
>Erik, the only thing I would add is that perhaps instead of simply
saying "verified >credentials on X date", it should say "Verified
Masters Degree from >FirstCollegeofWhateverState on X date".  I'd hate
to see people adding degrees >post-verification of their first one,
and it not being immediately clear that THOSE degrees >are not
verified.
>
Who will carry out this verification? It's going to be a lot of work.
Will we investigate which institutions are properly accredited? How
will we define that, given that we're dealing with the entire world?
Will we require editors to say what their degrees are in too? Someone
who says on his user page that he has a PhD and who edits all the time
in history subjects will be assumed to be an historian; but what if
his PhD is in physics and he has no expertise in history?

I think we could just as easily introduce a culture of strongly
discouraging people from saying anything about their academic or
professional backgrounds unless they're prepared to give sufficient
personal details on their user pages to allow others to check if they
want to. In other words, if you're not prepared to say a lot about
yourself, say nothing; don't drop uncheckable hints.

I worry that the formal verification thing will take us down the
Citizendium road. I think it will inevitably lead to two-tier editing,
and this would be a great shame, not least because the editors who
present themselves as experts are often not the best editors, so the
two-tier ideology would be misleading and unhelpful, as well as
unpleasant.

Sarah


from_name: Lars Aronsson

body:
christophe.henner at wikimedia.fr wrote:

> The point is I don't see what the DMCA have to do with redistribution
> of free images. With Fair Use I can see but, in my opinion, the

Regardless of the image metadata provided by the uploader, the
image could constitute slander, hate speech, child pornography,
disclosure of state secrets, or a copyright violation.  I'm not
sure how the U.S. DMCA works, but similar laws in Sweden
(BBS-lagen, SFS 1998:112; LEK, SFS 2003:389) requires the hosting
provider to cooperate with the police in (a) taking down the
offensive content, and (b) tracing the uploader.  If Jeff copies
images from Wikimedia and hosts them, tracing the (original)
uploader (the criminal offender) goes back through the WMF, e.g.
its IP logs.

I don't know if Jeff needs any permission from WMF.  All he should
need to do, when he receives a take-down notice with a requirement
to trace the offender, is to point the police to WMF, and the
police could then contact the WMF if need be.  Or something such.

Whether the uploader claimed this is "fair use" or "public domain"
or "creative commons licensed" doesn't matter much if the picture
was illegal in some other way to begin with.

Despite everything you might read in media, my impression (as a
hosting provider) is that in practice these laws work very well.

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Trust vs. Credentials (was Re: Accountability:
	bringing back a proposal I made nearly 2 years ago)

body:
On 3/11/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> On 3/11/07, Slim Virgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I worry that the formal verification thing will take us down the
> > Citizendium road.
>
> Let's think about expressing trust in different ways, of which
> recognizing a person's credentials is just one. We could build a
> voluntary "web of trust" where editors recognize others as:
> - being the person they claim to be, including but not limited to
> claims they make about themselves, such as credentials (identity)
> - being knowledgeable in a particular subject area or possessing a
> particular skill (ability)
> - acting in good faith, in recognition of their limitations, and in
> awareness of Wikipedia's policies and practices (reliability) ...
>
> Such a web of trust model does not require technical changes. It could
> be built using user subpages, similar to the German
> "Vertrauensnetzwerk":
>
> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vertrauen

Editors who've been around for a while do this already. I know which
editors I can trust; what their strengths and weaknesses are; who
tends to engage in OR; who's great at citing sources; whose edits
never need to be checked.

Formalizing this wouldn't work, because you'd get a ton of editors
adding others to their "web of trust" on the basis of agreeing with
their POV alone. Who's going to decide whose "web of trust" can be
trusted? Which gets me back to the original question: who is going to
do the verifying?

I don't know much about the German Wikipedia but from everything I've
heard it's overly expert-dominated; this shows in the reaction of
German Wikipedians when they arrive here and are suddenly expected to
cite their sources no matter how much they think they know about a
topic. I would hate to see the English Wikipedia head in the direction
of taking people's word for things just because they're part of
someone's "web of trust."

Sarah


body:
On 3/11/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> On 3/11/07, Slim Virgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Editors who've been around for a while do this already. I know which
> > editors I can trust; what their strengths and weaknesses are; who
> > tends to engage in OR; who's great at citing sources; whose edits
> > never need to be checked.
>
> Then that seems like knowledge worth sharing.

It's only worth sharing if people think my opinion is worth something
(i.e. if I rate highly enough on various "webs of trust" myself), so
you'd end up with endless intersecting webs, each one trying to
provide support for some other. This *is* the way it works in people's
minds, to be sure, but trying to formalize it would be hopeless. And
what happens when someone suddenly surprises me or let's me down? Do I
have to remove him from some list? Inform others who've copied my list
that X has fallen from favor?
>
> > Formalizing this wouldn't work, because you'd get a ton of editors
> > adding others to their "web of trust" on the basis of agreeing with
> > their POV alone.
>
> Then those editors' trust databases would be less useful than those of
> others -- itself an indication of lower reliability. I think that
> perhaps one could also capture a reasonable amount of this natural
> tendency with a fourth dimension, "people I like"

Exactly, at which point it becomes useless.


subject: [WikiEN-l]  UK's Mail on Sunday article


body:
On 3/11/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> On 3/11/07, Slim Virgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > It's only worth sharing if people think my opinion is worth something
> > (i.e. if I rate highly enough on various "webs of trust" myself), so
> > you'd end up with endless intersecting webs, each one trying to
> > provide support for some other. This *is* the way it works in people's
> > minds, to be sure, but trying to formalize it would be hopeless. And
> > what happens when someone suddenly surprises me or let's me down? Do I
> > have to remove him from some list? Inform others who've copied my list
> > that X has fallen from favor?
>
> You don't have to do anything. How well you maintain your network is
> up to you. Other users will look at the dates when you wrote certain
> statements, and take this into account. Your trust network is linked
> to your person, so if you stop to maintain it completely, others will
> simply judge it to be unreliable and stop using it.
>
> Imagine that what you end up is something like [[Category:Positive
> trust statements about SlimVirgin]], which contains pages such as
>
> User:Eloquence/Positive trust/SlimVirgin/Biology
> User:Dogmaster3000/Positive trust/SlimVirgin/Identity

A kind of "rate this user" thing, as on e-bay?

It's interesting. Just thinking off the top of my head -- would it
discourage people from getting involved in disputes, or from taking up
unpopular positions? If only 10 people have made positive statements
about me, and I can see that if I toe the party line on [[Islam]],
maybe another few people will say nice things about me, how likely am
I to insist that popular editor A cite his sources? In other words,
would being liked become more important than editing courageously? Or
rather (because it probably is more important at the moment), would
that priority become formalized?

Sarah


from_name: Bartning at aol.com

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Trust vs. Credentials (was Re: Accountability:
	bringing back a...

body:
In a message dated 3/11/2007 3:48:48 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
erik at wikimedia.org writes:

Quite to  the contrary, the addition of a noisy category can reduce
noise in others.  Furthermore, disclosure of friendships can help to
predict and understand  bias, just like disclosure of  official
affiliations.

The idea of being fair should be handled correctly.  Wikipedia only  received
its 501(c)(3) predetermination status last year.  I can see  temptation to
forget that donors actually spend money and editors actually spend  time and
work on articles, not to mention the work of the nonprofit.   However, Wikipedia
also speaks for a whole new potential knowledge base, so the  Wikimedia
Foundation should value the quality of articles here.   Instead, I see too much
value of getting along over knowledge.

Vincent

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


from_name: William Pietri

body:
Oldak Quill wrote:
> Other than that, I think an institution paying for vandalism revision
> and nothing else, is fair enough. What's the difference between them
> paying a Wikipedian to do it or paying a secretary to do it? The
> former is more transparent.
>

Hmmm... I think I should have provided more context.

Almeda University is an unaccredited degree-by-mail "university" that
grants degrees for "life experience". They are run from Florida via an
Idaho PO Box on behalf of a corporation registered in the island nation
of Nevis (a place notable mainly for its lack of corporate
transparency). In most of the US, it's illegal to use their degrees for
anything more than a place mat. They have been repeatedly ordered to
stop operating in various states, and they once gave a degree to a dog.

What they are paying for isn't vandalism reversion. It's for someone
else to do the blatant POV manipulation that they have so far failed to
achieve themselves under a variety of accounts. And they want it done
365 days a year. This isn't about preventing vandalism; it's about
paying somebody to distort a reference work so that their $3
million/year "novelty degree" business isn't harmed by people actually
getting a factual, NPOV description of what's going on.

With that background, I find their work solicitation pretty sinister,
sinister precisely because they can make such a reasonable-sounding case
for it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Almeda_University#Paying_freelancers_to_revert_this_article_daily

This sort of willful refusal to understand what we are trying to do is a
bad enough problem now when we have to beat back each individual
partisan. Unless we make it clear that any sort of paid
conflict-of-interest editing is strictly forbidden, we will open a door
to endless trouble. Spam email was a problem when people did it
themselves. But it only really became a monster when the legal and moral
ambiguity allowed professional spammers to set up shop.

William

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


from_name: Marc Riddell

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Trust vs. Credentials (was Re:
	Accountability:	bringing back a proposal I made nearly 2 years ago)

body:
on 3/11/07 7:37 AM, Slim Virgin at slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:

> It's interesting. Just thinking off the top of my head -- would it
> discourage people from getting involved in disputes, or from taking up
> unpopular positions? If only 10 people have made positive statements
> about me, and I can see that if I toe the party line on [[Islam]],
> maybe another few people will say nice things about me, how likely am
> I to insist that popular editor A cite his sources? In other words,
> would being liked become more important than editing courageously? Or
> rather (because it probably is more important at the moment), would
> that priority become formalized?

Excellent and incisive point, Sarah. Each of us must decide what our
individual identity, self-concept and self-definition are tied to. This
determines how they are affected by such things as disagreement with our
ideas, criticism, ridicule, disapproval, failure at a task, etc. At the end
of the day, you are the one that's got to be alone with you. And, the
question you will be confronted with is: do you approve of you?

Marc Riddell


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 3/12/07, William Pietri <william at scissor.com> wrote:
>
>> This sort of willful refusal to understand what we are trying to do is a
>> bad enough problem now when we have to beat back each individual
>> partisan. Unless we make it clear that any sort of paid
>> conflict-of-interest editing is strictly forbidden, we will open a door
>> to endless trouble. Spam email was a problem when people did it
>>
>
> Well, I don't agree with the logical connection you're making there.
> Would outlawing transparent, regulated, paid Wikipedia editing have
> any effect on this kind of insidious behaviour? I don't see why it
> should. Quite clearly, Almeda was attempting to work behind closed
> doors here. They also knew that what they wanted to do would not be
> tolerated. How would any rule or policy against paid editing have had
> any effect at all?

Yes, it would have a big effect.

The problem here is that any rules we create to filter the good
conflict-of-interest edits from the bad ones will have to be subtle,
requiring balanced judgment. For many people though, if their income
depends on having warped judgment, they will have it all the live-long
day. Self-deception isn't just a universal human flaw. In many
industries, it's a vital resource.

A rule against paid conflict-of-interest editing means that we can
explain very clearly why something isn't allowed. We can have a nice
FAQ, a clear WP:NOPAY redirect, a simple decision flow chart. We can
explain it to the media, to editors, to companies. We can make it an
electric fence that people fear to touch.

By doing that we eliminate the vast amount of Wikilawyering that will go
on. We keep out all of the starving writers and underpaid English majors
who might be fooled by the self-justification of an Almeda University,
or the PR machine of a tobacco company. And most importantly, we prevent
the emergence of a cottage industry that specializes in slipping things
past us.

If we make a clear, impossible-to-misunderstand rule, then we will still
have problems. But if there is ambiguity or room for doubt, we increase
our problems tenfold. Or if the rise of spam in other media is any
parallel, much more than that.

William

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Trust vs. Credentials (was Re: Accountability:

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 3/12/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> Indeed, we should caution against a positive/negative system with
>> visible metrics. What I propose is structured, positive-only social
>> commentary that is not transaction-driven but relationship-driven and
>> is not evaluated numerically.
>>
>
> What problem are we trying to solve exactly?
>
> Problem: Magazine interviews Wikipedia editor and believes his falsely
> claimed credentials.
> Solution: Caution media to check any credentials claimed by Wikipedia editors.
>

Well, there is also the problem of a Wikipedia administrator writing to
professors as a fellow professor. That was pretty bad in my mind, and
could have also led to a public black eye even if the media had checked
credentials.

For completeness, some also see using false credentials in an editing
dispute as a problem. Personally, I haven't yet seen a case where it
actually ended up harming the articles.

William

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] 10 Things You Did Not Know About Wikipedia

body:
I've written a draft of some insights which I think could be helpful
to readers, new editors, and journalists alike:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:10_Things_You_Did_Not_Know_About_Wikipedia

(Shortcut WP:10T)

I'd appreciate comments and (cautious) editing. I've also submitted
this text to our Communications Committee for their use as they see
fit.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

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

"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic


subject:
[WikiEN-l] [Wikipedia-l] Accountability: bringing
 backa	proposal I made nearly 2 years ago

body:
Slim Virgin wrote:
> I think we could just as easily introduce a culture of strongly
> discouraging people from saying anything about their academic or
> professional backgrounds unless they're prepared to give sufficient
> personal details on their user pages to allow others to check if they
> want to. In other words, if you're not prepared to say a lot about
> yourself, say nothing; don't drop uncheckable hints.

I like that a great deal. It does seem to fit better with the current
culture, and would be a lot easier to manage.

It's obviously not something I'm worried about, but how would you
address Essjay's "disinformation keeps the crazies away" argument?

Thanks,

William

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


from_name: geni

body:
On 3/11/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> I've written a draft of some insights which I think could be helpful
> to readers, new editors, and journalists alike:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:10_Things_You_Did_Not_Know_About_Wikipedia
>
> (Shortcut WP:10T)
>
> I'd appreciate comments and (cautious) editing. I've also submitted
> this text to our Communications Committee for their use as they see
> fit.

"You cannot actually change anything in Wikipedia."

Is somewhat confusing ("we store all past article versions" would
probably get the point across better)

"We're here to stay."

Is somewhat smug.

No mention of

"we really mean it about the image copyright stuff"

Which rather a lot of our uploaders really don't seem to know.

--
geni


from_name: Jeffrey V. Merkey

subject: [Foundation-l] BitTorrent Downloads of enwiki Images

body:
Thomas Dalton wrote:

>>>How is you distributing images that are only used in Wikipedia under
>>>fair use not completely illegal? Your use of them isn't fair.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>We cannot presume that his usage is fair or not.
>>
>>
>
>I think we can. He is not really using them at all, just distributing
>them, so it can't fall under fair use.
>
>
http://en.wikigadugi.org

I am using them.

Jeff

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


subject: [Foundation-l] a tought

body:
Florence Devouard wrote:

>maybe because it is sunday...
>
>I was having a look at the press a few minutes ago, and I saw Essjay
>real name plastered everywhere, and referred to a "fake", fired from
>Wikipedia and fired from Wikia.
>
>To be honest, whatever the degree of his mistake, my heart grieves for
>him. He did not deserve to be shamed publicly in this way. I feel very
>very sorry for him.
>
>ant
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
As long as he learned something from the whole experience, it will make
it worth it. I have lived the past ten years labelled
a "thief, liar, and sabotuer" of Novell's trade secrets. The real facts
are, I quit Novell and made Eric Schmidt look bad, and he went for revenge.
The first couple of years were the hardest. If anything, it will make
him indestructible inside and impervious to the views of others.

I had to succeed in spite of it, he will too. This will make him grow up
early and open doors and opportunities he would never have had
before. It's not all bad.

Jeff


subject: [Foundation-l] a tought


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Trust vs. Credentials (was Re: Accountability: bringing
	back a proposal I made nearly 2 years ago)

body:
On 3/11/07, Slim Virgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> I worry that the formal verification thing will take us down the
> Citizendium road.

Let's think about expressing trust in different ways, of which
recognizing a person's credentials is just one. We could build a
voluntary "web of trust" where editors recognize others as:
- being the person they claim to be, including but not limited to
claims they make about themselves, such as credentials (identity)
- being knowledgeable in a particular subject area or possessing a
particular skill (ability)
- acting in good faith, in recognition of their limitations, and in
awareness of Wikipedia's policies and practices (reliability)

The first dimension matters to _processes of representation_:
positions of high level trust (stewardship, Wikimedia committees,
possibly ArbCom).

The second dimension matters to _processes of collaboration_:
identifying people to work with.

The third dimension matters to _parameters of participation_: setting
the limits of a contributor's right to action within the community.

Such a web of trust model does not require technical changes. It could
be built using user subpages, similar to the German
"Vertrauensnetzwerk":

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vertrauen

A somewhat similar effort was made in the English Wikipedia a while
ago, but never received traction. The German network, on the other
hand, remains active and proves the basic viability; the model could
be extended to cover the above three dimensions. This _might_ involve
some use of external software such as OTRS for verification-related
processes. It would be completely voluntary and not involve any
official Foundation capacities.

I would caution against any expression of _mistrust_ in such a system,
as it can destabilize a community. Instead, I would suggest that the
only alternative to any expression of trust is _action_: monitoring or
limiting another user's contributions. We have existing processes to
do so, and to raise awareness of problem users, so I think we've got
that base pretty well covered.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

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

"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic


from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

body:
> From: "Slim Virgin" <slimvirgin at gmail.com>
> A kind of "rate this user" thing, as on e-bay?

Ugh. No no. Eeewwww.

I assume people know how this works on eBay. Feedback comments and
ratings are wildly, wildly, wildly inflated.

Your average Feedback profile will be 99.9% positive, with comments
almost entirely like

"Great communications, payment and response. AAAAA+++++ Thanks for
the business"
"Excellent ! Super fast contact and immediate PayPal payment. Thank
U! AAA+++"
"Great eBayer! Will ALWAYS Recommend... Thanks a Million!"

A single "neutral" feedback is an eyebrow-raiser. More than three or
four "negatives" that are not from obvious kooks in a thousand
entries and if they're not from obvious kooks is a great big red
flag. An entry like "Shipping a bit slow, arrived damaged,
replacement OK" means "you'd be crazy to deal with this seller."

P. S. (Lest anyone think this is sour grapes, my own feedback profile
is 98 positives, no neutrals, no negatives).


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Almeda University paying for positive Wikipedia edits

body:
William Pietri wrote:

>For those wondering why allowing paid editing might not be such a good
>idea, take a look at this:
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Almeda_University#Paying_freelancers_to_revert_this_article_daily
>
>It's a long-term contract for a 7-days-a-week effort  to replace
>negative edits with positive ones. Full marks to [[User:Randywombat]]
>for finding this.
>
>Note in particular the endless self-justification in the Almeda
>approach. I think that will undermine any attempt to find clever rules
>that allow paid editing where there is even the slightest possibility of
>conflict of interest. I'm sure any of us could rewrite that job
>description to make full use of Wikipedia jargon. And if somebody's
>income depends on them not getting the essential meaning behind our
>words, they may be able to keep it up for quite a while.
>
It is not a simple matter that editing for money is wrong.  What is
wrong is editing to impose a particular point of view, or to insure a
favorable article for the paying company.  How we treat biased editing
should have no connection with the payment arrangements between the
company and the editor.  Biased editing is wrong whether or not the
person is being paid.  In the Almeda case, would the edits somehow have
been any better if they were by an unpaid person?  As a third party we
are not bound by the agreement between Almeda and the editor.

We don't need "clever rules" to allow paid editing.  All we need to do
is remind all editors that their work can be edited mercilessly, and
that we are free to ignore whatever payment arrangements may exist.  Why
should we even need to know about the payment details?  General rules
should not be guided by our most abusive examples.  Requiring a
declaration of conflict of interest is perfectly acceptable; it makes us
cautious in reviewing the edits that these people make.  Using conflicts
of interest as an excuse for holding an editor to a higher standard
leaves us pushing our collective POV.  It discourages people from
declaring their conflicts, and has them looking for ways to circumvent
Wikipedia policy.

In the long run there is benefit to be derived from paid editing.  Take
this example which may be more suited to Wikibooks.  The writing in
software manuals is often abysmal.  I could very well see a company that
has a great piece of software asking us to host a manual, paying a
general editor to keep it organized, and paying us to host it with open
wiki style editing.  The net result could be a better manual at a
fraction of the cost to the company.

There is no benefit to be derived for anyone from maintaining perpetual
confrontation with the for-profit sector.

Ec


from_name: Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Study finds that Wikipedia has evolved from an
	oligarchy to a ...

body:
On 3/11/07, Bartning at aol.com <Bartning at aol.com> wrote:
> In a message dated 3/6/2007 4:19:22 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,
> andrew.cady at gmail.com writes:
>
>
> Please  remember that (if we are to believe the dialogue) Socrates
> could have fled,  but chose to drink the hemlock out of respect for
> the authority of Athenian  government.  Even where the state murders
> to censor critics, its  dictates are not to be resisted.  That is the
> mentality of  Plato.

You have misread the dialogue. Socrates has respect for the *law* not
a respect for the government or his judges. In fact he insults his
judges by suggesting as an alternate penalty for himself a state
pension and additional perquisites. Furthermore, Socrates famously
declined to assent to a state (government) decrees implementation when
it was not based on law (the trial of the generals of the Sicilian
campaign). Please do understand that the law is totally and
categorically separate from the state and the government.
>
> I won't touch on whether Athens was "true  democracy."

Socrates was a fan of Spartas raw democracy, but other observers of
the time claimed that Athens was best ruled when it was ruled neither
by the "mob" (democracy) nor by the "tyrants" (rule of 30), but by a
"select group" (rule of 5000).

--
--
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]


body:
On 3/11/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'd just dread the effect it would have on RfA... It's pretty much a
> certainty that you'll see "'''Oppose''' Not enough people trusting" on
> an RfA within a week of this becoming widely used. Even worse will be
> the "Trusts too many people", "Trusts too few people", "Trusts
> User-I-don't-like, so must have bad judgement", etc. opposes.
>
"Trusted by untrustworthy people." We'd end up being deliberately
horrible to certain editors in the hope they wouldn't add our names to
their "web of trust." ;-D


body:
David Gerard wrote:
> On 11/03/07, William Pietri <william at scissor.com> wrote:
>
>
>> A rule against paid conflict-of-interest editing means that we can
>> explain very clearly why something isn't allowed. We can have a nice
>> FAQ, a clear WP:NOPAY redirect, a simple decision flow chart. We can
>> explain it to the media, to editors, to companies. We can make it an
>> electric fence that people fear to touch.
>>
>
>
> Please write this up on a page as simply, clearly and unambiguously as
> you can. I'm just forwarding your email to the comcom list as an
> excellent example of just what we need.
>

Glad to. Glad to start it, anyhow. I was just handwaving there, but if I
think about it, I guess we're talking about something done under the
"proposed policy or guideline" banner that would go something like this:

    Wikipedia:Paid Editing

    (shortcuts WP:PAY, WP:NOPAY)

    On Wikipedia editing for pay is, in most cases, strictly forbidden.
    The only exception is for [insert exceptions we absolutely can't
    live without here].

    1. Background and principles
    2. Paid editing is generally forbidden
    3. Specific exceptions
    4. What to do instead
    5. What to do if you suspect paid editing
    6. Examples
    7. Frequently asked questions
    8. See also

Are we, so to speak, on the same page here?

William

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


body:
David Gerard wrote:
> On 11/03/07, William Pietri <william at scissor.com> wrote:
>
>
>> Well, there is also the problem of a Wikipedia administrator writing to
>> professors as a fellow professor. That was pretty bad in my mind, and
>> could have also led to a public black eye even if the media had checked
>> credentials.
>>
>
>
> This is a falsehood on the part of the person writing the email. This
> is not a problem that can be addressed with any sort of credentialing
> system on the site itself.

Well, not entirely. Essjay's letter to professors pointed back to his
profile for people to verify his credentials. In theory a credential
verification system might have helped some.

Not that I'm for one, particularly; I think the cost/benefit ratio is
much worse than for SV's prove-it-to-the-world approach.

> It's hard enough to get editors to listen to experts when they damn
> well should be smart enough to.

No argument there.

William

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


body:
On 3/11/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> "You cannot actually change anything in Wikipedia."
>
> Is somewhat confusing ("we store all past article versions" would
> probably get the point across better)

Well, the point is to catch the reader by surprise and make them
wonder what is meant by this apparently completely nonsensical
statement. The advantage of tagging this as an essay is that I will
hopefully be able to get away with taking this stylistic liberty. :-)

<places finger on revert button>

> "We're here to stay."
>
> Is somewhat smug.

How about "We're in it for the long haul" or "We're building for the future"?
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

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

"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic


body:
On 3/11/07, Slim Virgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> Editors who've been around for a while do this already. I know which
> editors I can trust; what their strengths and weaknesses are; who
> tends to engage in OR; who's great at citing sources; whose edits
> never need to be checked.

Then that seems like knowledge worth sharing.

> Formalizing this wouldn't work, because you'd get a ton of editors
> adding others to their "web of trust" on the basis of agreeing with
> their POV alone.

Then those editors' trust databases would be less useful than those of
others -- itself an indication of lower reliability. I think that
perhaps one could also capture a reasonable amount of this natural
tendency with a fourth dimension, "people I like".

> Who's going to decide whose "web of trust" can be
> trusted?

Nobody.

> Which gets me back to the original question: who is going to
> do the verifying?

Everyone.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

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

"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic


body:
Jeff Raymond wrote:
> But can we be realistic here?  Paid editing is not inherently bad.

I don't think it's inherently bad. Neither is giving gifts to politicians.

We should forbid paid conflict-of-interest editing for the same reason
that I can't just give my congressman a new car out of gratitude for his
public service. It's a slippery slope, and one which the vast, vast
majority of the money available will be pushing in one direction, a
direction that fundamentally conflicts with the purpose of the institution.

William

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


from_name: Anthony

body:
On 3/11/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/12/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> > Indeed, we should caution against a positive/negative system with
> > visible metrics. What I propose is structured, positive-only social
> > commentary that is not transaction-driven but relationship-driven and
> > is not evaluated numerically.
>
> What problem are we trying to solve exactly?
>
> Problem: Magazine interviews Wikipedia editor and believes his falsely
> claimed credentials.
> Solution: Caution media to check any credentials claimed by Wikipedia editors.
>
That's a good question.  I regard someone lying about their
credentials on their userpage to be a bad thing, but I wouldn't go so
far as to call it a problem.  The fact that people apparently knew
about this and did nothing about it might be a problem, but I'm not
sure it's something that would happen again, and isn't really
something that can be solved anyway.

I regard lots of other things as problems, but none of them are
sufficiently related to this incident except as an "I told you so".

Anthony


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Trust vs. Credentials (was Re:
 Accountability:	bringing back a proposal I made nearly 2 years ago)

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>On 3/11/07, Slim Virgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Editors who've been around for a while do this already. I know which
>>editors I can trust; what their strengths and weaknesses are; who
>>tends to engage in OR; who's great at citing sources; whose edits
>>never need to be checked.
>>
>>
>Then that seems like knowledge worth sharing.
>
Let's not confuse sharing knowledge (theoretical) with sharing
experience (practical).

Ec


body:
On 3/11/07, Slim Virgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's only worth sharing if people think my opinion is worth something
> (i.e. if I rate highly enough on various "webs of trust" myself), so
> you'd end up with endless intersecting webs, each one trying to
> provide support for some other. This *is* the way it works in people's
> minds, to be sure, but trying to formalize it would be hopeless. And
> what happens when someone suddenly surprises me or let's me down? Do I
> have to remove him from some list? Inform others who've copied my list
> that X has fallen from favor?

You don't have to do anything. How well you maintain your network is
up to you. Other users will look at the dates when you wrote certain
statements, and take this into account. Your trust network is linked
to your person, so if you stop to maintain it completely, others will
simply judge it to be unreliable and stop using it.

Imagine that what you end up is something like [[Category:Positive
trust statements about SlimVirgin]], which contains pages such as

User:Eloquence/Positive trust/SlimVirgin/Biology
User:Dogmaster3000/Positive trust/SlimVirgin/Identity

Each of these pages would contain a signed comment as to what it
actually means, such as, "I've worked with SlimVirgin on
biology-related articles for some time, and believe she is eminently
qualified to write about bombardier beetles" or "I've met SlimVirgin
at Wikimania 2006 and can confirm that she's really slim. I cannot
comment on the other part."

Additional user categories could be made for specific disciplines,
such as [[Category:Positive trust statements about biology]]. Even if
many people would only put you in this category because they agree
with your controversial POV on bombardier beetles, the aggregate of
users in that category could be a useful group of people to write an
NPOV article on the topic together.

(Yeah, there's actually a bombardier beetle controversy.)

> > Then those editors' trust databases would be less useful than those of
> > others -- itself an indication of lower reliability. I think that
> > perhaps one could also capture a reasonable amount of this natural
> > tendency with a fourth dimension, "people I like"

> Exactly, at which point it becomes useless.

Quite to the contrary, the addition of a noisy category can reduce
noise in others. Furthermore, disclosure of friendships can help to
predict and understand bias, just like disclosure of official
affiliations.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

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

"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic


from_name: Michel Vuijlsteke

body:
On 3/11/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/11/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> > I've written a draft of some insights which I think could be helpful
> > to readers, new editors, and journalists alike:
> >
> >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:10_Things_You_Did_Not_Know_About_Wikipedia
>
> "You cannot actually change anything in Wikipedia."
>
> Is somewhat confusing ("we store all past article versions" would
> probably get the point across better)

How about "Nothing you write is ever lost?" (or: erased)

Michel


from_name: K P

body:
I work with some of the de.wiki editors on plants, and they're always a bit
surprised at how scattered we are at en.wiki for all the articles we have,
and they just seem to have far fewer outliers in every area than we have on
en.wiki.  Heck, they can even get away with common names instead of
scientific names for organisms.  This isn't just a function of the
homogeneity of the language in the area, because it is not homogeneous,
there are as many regions, hundreds of years (thousands in their case) of
settlements, disturbances, migrations, wars, and interlopers that impacted
the language as much as English--it's that de.wiki is different from en.wiki.
Different in a way that apparently allows something like formalized common
names and confidence networks to work for them.

In essence it *is* a popularity contest as Sarah suggests.  I have no
interest in learning how to expand my popularity or add others to my
list.  Popularity contests among editors and administrators already make for
problems, especially in all the nationalistic brouhahas.  Also, the more
things like this, user boxes, confidence networks that en.wiki has, the more
ways to distinguish an ordinary editor from every one else, an editor who
justs drops in sometimes to edit from the masses who spend chunks of time
every day editing, the more en.wiki becomes a stratified society.

Less ways to stratify editors is better than more ways, imo.

Also en.wiki already informally does this, as others have pointed out.  I
know who to ask to edit an article, who not to ask, what editors I can
ignore when they do edits on my watch list, what editors I can't ignore.
Other editors send people to me with questions or issues, people ask me to
settle disputes on certain issues, and I know what editors I can go to for
the same thing.  It takes a lot of time to learn this about other editors,
formalizing it, I believe, might remove this necessary time and put new
editors into doing it sooner than they really can do it.  I loved realizing
a few weeks ago that I could and should ask my favorite pop teen editor to
work on an article about an african surgeon.  I liked it when an editor I
barely work with copied a new editor's post to my talk page, knowing I could
answer the questions in it.

Some things take time.  Starting out with a network for editors to fill out,
assign people to, will wind up like user boxes--a gadget, rather than a
community building tool.  New editors will spend an incredible amount of
time on it, without any real understanding, without really gaining any
insight into how wikipedia works, how the community works, without really
becoming a part of their networks.  It will consume time and energy that
could be spent really becoming part of the existing networks.

En.wiki just isn't that big on formalizing things, also, so implementing it
probably would not occur.

KP

On 3/11/07, Slim Virgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/11/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I'd just dread the effect it would have on RfA... It's pretty much a
> > certainty that you'll see "'''Oppose''' Not enough people trusting" on
> > an RfA within a week of this becoming widely used. Even worse will be
> > the "Trusts too many people", "Trusts too few people", "Trusts
> > User-I-don't-like, so must have bad judgement", etc. opposes.
> >
> "Trusted by untrustworthy people." We'd end up being deliberately
> horrible to certain editors in the hope they wouldn't add our names to
> their "web of trust." ;-D
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Steve Summit

body:
Erik wrote:
> I'd appreciate comments and (cautious) editing.

#4 ("You cannot actually change anything in Wikipedia") is weird.
I see what you're trying to say, but the surface implications
seem misleading.  (I've taken a stab at editing it.)


body:
Thomas Dalton wrote:

>>>How is you distributing images that are only used in Wikipedia under
>>>fair use not completely illegal? Your use of them isn't fair.
>>>
>>>
>>We cannot presume that his usage is fair or not.
>>
>>
>I think we can. He is not really using them at all, just distributing
>them, so it can't fall under fair use.
>
And how is that our business?  In some cases he may be using them, and
others not.

What we accept as fair use in Wikipedia is based on stricter standards
than what are specified in the law.  There is a wide gap between the two
standards.  Someone managing another site can have a different level of
risk tolerance.  Even if we can presume the right to judge then that
judgement needs to be on an image by image basis, and not by a single
blanket statement.

Ec


body:
On 3/11/07, William Pietri <william at scissor.com> wrote:
>
> David Gerard wrote:
> > On 11/03/07, William Pietri <william at scissor.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >> Well, there is also the problem of a Wikipedia administrator writing to
> >> professors as a fellow professor. That was pretty bad in my mind, and
> >> could have also led to a public black eye even if the media had checked
> >> credentials.
> >>
> >
> >
> > This is a falsehood on the part of the person writing the email. This
> > is not a problem that can be addressed with any sort of credentialing
> > system on the site itself.
>
> Well, not entirely. Essjay's letter to professors pointed back to his
> profile for people to verify his credentials. In theory a credential
> verification system might have helped some....  William

I think this also goes to the issue of who thinks credentials are important
and who thinks they are not.

I write to scientists (university professors) all of the time via e-mail,
both using my anonymous Wikipedia name, sending a link to my user page, and
using my real name, with my real credentials (I'm a naturalist, not a
scientist, and edit a natural history newsletter), requesting reprints of
various articles for work on Wikipedia with my Wikipedia information, or my
newsletter or my research (I'm a student also) or my artwork (I'm an artist)
with my real information.

I'm treated the same either way, with my anon Wikipedia account and crappy
user page, or with my name, credentials, and links to my work:  the
scientists politely send me an electronic copy of the article, saying to
e-mail them back if I can't open it, adding a few sentences to a paragraph
on updated details of the article, or sending me an additional article or
references if something is out of date, and encouraging me to write back if
I have any further questions.

University professors are not as out of touch with the real world as
some may think.  They know what Wikipedia is.  No scientist the world over,
no matter how famous, has ever refused me anything that I needed for work on
Wikipedia.  This will probably not hold true for all Wikipedia editors, and
I have enough access to peer reviewed journals that I haven't asked for a
lot of articles.  But I have spend a lifetime reading scientific literature
and requesting information from professors.  I have *never* had a request
refused.  Scientists communicate their research to the world--it's an almost
universal aspect of the profession.

Wikipedia editor is the only credential anyone needs to ineract on behalf of
Wikipedia with a university professor.  Essjay's creation was for his own
ego.  Wikipedia went astray in giving any respect to Essjay based on his own
self-proclaimed credentials.  But the press were the responsible parties who
had an obligation to fact check what they printed.  I wish people wouldn't
inflated themselves.  But I think that who people are is of far less
importance than the results of their editing on Wikipedia.  And the last I
can judge with my own OR.

KP


from_name: Philippe Beaudette

body:
NO information keeps the crazies away just as well or better.  That's the part of this whole thing I just don't get.  WHY in the name of all that is holy (or the lack therof) would anyone create a false identity?  Just don't give out identity information, period.  It's much easier.

I think we should officially discourage "disinformation", plainly and clearly.  Instead, we encourage not giving ANY personal information about yourself online, and being smart about it.  For instance, if I join the WikiProject Oklahoma, I think I might also join WikiProject Vermont and Montana too, just to disguise where I live.  I'm not giving misinformation, but I'm deliberately obscuring the truth.

Philippe
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: William Pietri
  To: English Wikipedia
  Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2007 11:55 AM
  Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] [Wikipedia-l] Accountability: bringing backa proposal I made nearly 2 years ago

  Slim Virgin wrote:
  > I think we could just as easily introduce a culture of strongly
  > discouraging people from saying anything about their academic or
  > professional backgrounds unless they're prepared to give sufficient
  > personal details on their user pages to allow others to check if they
  > want to. In other words, if you're not prepared to say a lot about
  > yourself, say nothing; don't drop uncheckable hints.

  I like that a great deal. It does seem to fit better with the current
  culture, and would be a lot easier to manage.

  It's obviously not something I'm worried about, but how would you
  address Essjay's "disinformation keeps the crazies away" argument?

  Thanks,

  William

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

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


body:
I wrote:
> #4 ("You cannot actually change anything in Wikipedia") is weird.
> I see what you're trying to say, but the surface implications
> seem misleading.  (I've taken a stab at editing it.)

But my edit got reverted, so I submit it here for consideration:

	No one can actually make a permanent change to Wikipedia.

	Anyone can edit Wikipedia, but what that does is to
	create a new copy of an article, which is then implicitly
	chosen to be the one shown to all readers by default.


from_name: Tomasz Ganicz

subject: [Foundation-l] Planet Wikimedia: Add your blog feeds

body:
2007/3/11, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org>:
> We have just launched http://planet.wikimedia.org/ , which is an
> aggregator for all on-topic wiki-related weblog (blog) posts by
> participants in Wikimedia projects. The planet can be found at:
>
> http://planet.wikimedia.org/
>
> To get added, please follow the instructions at:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Planet_Wikimedia
>
> This is a kind of beta test, and right now, the planet is in the
> English language; however, I have prepared a process for requesting
> new languages to be set up here:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Planet_Wikimedia/New_language
>
> So please add your support if you wish to aggregate blog posts in
> another language.
>
> Again, this is for on-topic posts, not for diary entries. All feeds
> must either point to a blog which is almost exclusively about wikis,
> or filtered (WordPress, Blogger and other common blog engines all
> support filtered feeds by categorizing your posts, e.g., adding the
> "wiki" category to all posts which you want to be included in the
> planet). If this makes you feel uncomfortable, you can (in addition or
> in substitution) add your blog to http://wikiblogplanet.com/ , which
> does not filter posts for on-topicness. WikiBlogPlanet is run
> independently by Nick Jenkins.
>
> I hope that this new tool will allow us to share useful and
> interesting information, as well as opinions, more effectively across
> project boundaries.
> --
> Peace & Love,
> Erik
>
> DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
> the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
>
> "An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
> free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic
>

There is similar Polish project which was established around a year ago. See:

http://adamdziura.9g.pl/wikipedia/planetawiki/

--
Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz
http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek
http://www.poli.toya.net.pl
http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html


from_name: Thomas Dalton

body:
> >How is you distributing images that are only used in Wikipedia under
> >fair use not completely illegal? Your use of them isn't fair.
> >
> We cannot presume that his usage is fair or not.

I think we can. He is not really using them at all, just distributing
them, so it can't fall under fair use.


body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> It is not a simple matter that editing for money is wrong.  What is
> wrong is editing to impose a particular point of view, or to insure a
> favorable article for the paying company.  How we treat biased editing
> should have no connection with the payment arrangements between the
> company and the editor.  Biased editing is wrong whether or not the
> person is being paid.

This is true, but paid editing opens up a can of worms that I don't
think we have near the resources to deal with. In the US, PR is a $4
billion industry, growing at 9% annually. And that's a tiny fraction of
the $500 billion that will be spent on advertising and marketing this
year in the US.

I know many editors feel like we are an unstoppable legion, and when I
look at what has been accomplished, I feel that way too. But I think we
would be wise to avoid assuming that we can overmatch that kind of
money. Indeed, the decision to turn on nofollow is an admission that we
can't even keep out those bottom-feeders of the marketing world, the
link spammers.

> In the Almeda case, would the edits somehow have
> been any better if they were by an unpaid person?

I'm sure there will be fewer of them.

It is the very rare editor who will turn up daily to push for POV
distortion. But as anybody who has ever talked to a telemarketer knows,
people will do all sorts of things for money that they would never do on
their own. Suddenly they're "just doing their job". Sure, it makes them
miserable, and it makes the people they deal with miserable. But when
you're two months behind on the car payment and your kid needs new
shoes, you can learn to live with that.

We do not need those people editing on Wikipedia.

> It discourages people from
> declaring their conflicts, and has them looking for ways to circumvent
> Wikipedia policy.
>

Any scrutiny at all does that. By making it clear that reputable editors
and reputable companies should stay well away from conflict-of-interest
for-pay editing, I believe many fewer people will even try, keeping the
number of bad edits that slip through lower than if we have a gray area.

> In the long run there is benefit to be derived from paid editing.  Take
> this example which may be more suited to Wikibooks.  [...]

If I thought we were lacking for edits on topics of commercial interest,
I'd find this more persuasive. But I don't think our coverage of, say,
companies or products or bands is lacking in raw contributions.
Wikibooks is welcome to make up their own rules, naturally.

> There is no benefit to be derived for anyone from maintaining perpetual
> confrontation with the for-profit sector.

I don't think we need to make it a perpetual confrontation.

If we tell people paid editing is forbidden, most people will get this.
PR people already get that with journalists just fine. Lobbyists and
political contributors get it less, but I think that's precisely because
the fuzzier rules allow plenty of room for the amoral or cash-hungry to
justify it to themselves. Continuously arguing with full-time paid PR
people over exactly how distorted they can get away with being, that's
perpetual confrontation.

William

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


from_name: Patrick Hall

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Notability changes from Jimbo's view

body:
On 3/11/07, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:

> I am sure that Jimbo does not want to be considered as the yardstick whereby
> everything is measured. Worthiness is this new word created by the American
> television guy and it means whatever you make it.

I think you're thinking of "truthiness"... "worthiness" has been
around for a while...

http://rhymezone.com/r/ss.cgi?q=worthiness&mode=k

=]

-Pat


from_name: Ian Tresman

body:
In the old days, Jimbo described "Verifiability" as the criteria for
inclusion in Wikipedia, and this was endorsed by the description of
"Notability".

Not any more. "Notability" has been redefined as equating
to:  worthiness, "attracting attention", supported by secondary
sources, popularity, consensus, or perceived truth.

And articles that are not considered "note-worthy", or balderdash,
are now deleted, rather than described as such.

Is this what Jimbo wants?

Regards,
Ian Tresman


body:
geni wrote:

>On 3/11/07, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
>
>>This may be a matter of judgment and who the target audience is, but in
>>my experience #1 and #2 aren't really things people don't know about
>>Wikipedia.  People get lots of things wrong about us, but that Wikipedia
>>is a free-content encyclopedia run by a non-profit organization is
>>usually gotten right.
>>
>>
>I've seen rather a lot of "will google buy wikipedia?" blogs and forum threads.
>
If that ever happens the question of who gets the money would be
interesting.

Ec


from_name: Rob Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Review

body:
On 3/11/07, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>
wrote:
>
> "Rob Smith" wrote
>
> > The Essjay affair can be summed up as: the guy was a victim of his own
> > stupidity. Now how did that attract international mainstream media
> > attention?
>
> Go work on [[victim blaming]]. Oh sorry, that was tactless. Still, it's a
> great tactic.
>
> Charles

Point is if every victim of thier own stupidity made *LaMonde, The
Telegraph, New York Times* & ABC News we'd have no time read about anything
else; what made this particular victim so unique?


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] UK's Mail on Sunday article

body:
On 11/03/07, Slim Virgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=441432&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source=

Not bad at all!

Er, excellent editors to [[Edwina Currie]] please ...

- d.


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

body:
No, Verifiability has never been the criteria for inclusion in Wikipedia.
Every branch of McDonalds can be verified by looking them up in phonebooks--that
 does not mean that they are notable and should be included. If anything the
criteria for notability have eroded somewhat, so that topics that would have
been deleted on sight are included as a matter of course.

Danny

In a message dated 3/11/2007 9:20:02 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
it at knowledge.co.uk writes:

In the  old days, Jimbo described "Verifiability" as the criteria for
inclusion in  Wikipedia, and this was endorsed by the description of
"Notability".

Not any more. "Notability" has been redefined as  equating
to:  worthiness, "attracting attention", supported by  secondary
sources, popularity, consensus, or perceived truth.

And  articles that are not considered "note-worthy", or balderdash,
are now  deleted, rather than described as such.

Is this what Jimbo  wants?

Regards,
Ian Tresman

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from_name: Steve

body:
Some things are not so cut-and-dry. For example, take this former
article on 'Userpic':

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Userpic&oldid=67561422

Deleted for reasons of varifiability. Now, if you are a MySpace user
you know full and well that this article is complete and factual to
the T. However, its not "verifiable" because:

a) no research or media exists which catalogues the facts contained

b) being simply a MySpace user doesn't give your contribution any
weight. You will be charged with conducting "original research".

-S

On 3/11/07, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
>
> No, Verifiability has never been the criteria for inclusion in Wikipedia.
> Every branch of McDonalds can be verified by looking them up in phonebooks--that
>  does not mean that they are notable and should be included. If anything the
> criteria for notability have eroded somewhat, so that topics that would have
> been deleted on sight are included as a matter of course.
>
> Danny
>
> In a message dated 3/11/2007 9:20:02 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> it at knowledge.co.uk writes:
>
> In the  old days, Jimbo described "Verifiability" as the criteria for
> inclusion in  Wikipedia, and this was endorsed by the description of
> "Notability".
>
> Not any more. "Notability" has been redefined as  equating
> to:  worthiness, "attracting attention", supported by  secondary
> sources, popularity, consensus, or perceived truth.
>
> And  articles that are not considered "note-worthy", or balderdash,
> are now  deleted, rather than described as such.
>
> Is this what Jimbo  wants?
>
> Regards,
> Ian Tresman
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

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body:
charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote
>
>
>>How we treat biased editing
>>should have no connection with the payment arrangements between the
>>company and the editor.  Biased editing is wrong whether or not the
>>person is being paid.
>>
>>
>Both sentences are correct on some interpretation.
>
>But: if there is an edit war, sanctions on a biased editor who is paid can and should be harsher (if there is any reasonable evidence that payment being made). And the difference between a fan and a flack tweaking the biography of a film star to read more favourably strikes me as important.
>
The evidence of paid editing will most often be unavailable.  There will
often be endless disputes on what editing is biased.  We also have
editors who are prone to jump to conclusions at the faintest smell of
wrongdoing.  Ultimately though, we need to rely on well-tested criteria,
such as persistent reversion accompanied by an unwillingness to discuss
the matter on the talk page.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Review

body:
On 11/03/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

> Sensation hungry sharks on a feeding frenzy.  When they have nothing new
> to say they go around in circles repeating themselves.  I'm surprised
> they didn't send off a cadre of paparazzi to Louisville waiting for
> Essjay to give them a juicy shot.

Apparently they did.

- d.


from_name: Oldak Quill

body:
On 11/03/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> I've written a draft of some insights which I think could be helpful
> to readers, new editors, and journalists alike:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:10_Things_You_Did_Not_Know_About_Wikipedia
>
> (Shortcut WP:10T)
>
> I'd appreciate comments and (cautious) editing. I've also submitted
> this text to our Communications Committee for their use as they see
> fit.

Firstly, I agree with geni when it comes to number 4. You do change
Wikipedia by adding a new version of an article and by selecting this
version as default. I think this section should be put more clearly.

Secondly, I think the title is too assertive and doesn't give much
away about what the essay is about. How about "10 Things You May Not
Know About Wikipedia"?

PS. I took the liberty of changing "newbie editors" to "new editors".
Hope you don't mind.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


from_name: William Pietri

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia:Paid editing

body:
As discussed in the Almeda thread, I have added the skeleton of a
proposal at [[Wikipedia:Paid editing]]:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Paid_editing

Comments, questions, and suggestions are very welcome. From the
discussion here, I know this isn't the only possible solution to the
problem, so if you feel like this is going off in completely the wrong
direction, I'd encourage (and probably contribute to) alternate approaches.

William

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


from_name: Jeff Raymond

body:
William Pietri wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:
>> On 11/03/07, William Pietri <william at scissor.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> A rule against paid conflict-of-interest editing means that we can
>>> explain very clearly why something isn't allowed. We can have a nice
>>> FAQ, a clear WP:NOPAY redirect, a simple decision flow chart. We can
>>> explain it to the media, to editors, to companies. We can make it an
>>> electric fence that people fear to touch.
>>>
>>
>> Please write this up on a page as simply, clearly and unambiguously as
>> you can. I'm just forwarding your email to the comcom list as an
>> excellent example of just what we need.
 >
>
> Are we, so to speak, on the same page here?

Do we all agree that the Almeda sitaution is one we want to avoid?
Hopefully.

But can we be realistic here?  Paid editing is not inherently bad.  At
worst, it can hit on the same COI issues we already run into - the best
edits we don't notice, and some need to be dealt with.

We handled MyWikiBiz badly.  We fumbled horribly on the Microsoft one.
Why can't we simply make a clear, concise statement on the matter and
let it be:

Paid editing is highly discouraged by the community, we understand that
there's no way we can realistically stop it, so paid edits are simply
handled like any other, and cannot be guaranteed by Wikipedia to exist
in the same way they were submitted.

Either we can stop pretending or continue to sweep issues like this
under the rug.  At some point, the rug gets a big bulge, and people
start asking questions.

-Jeff

--
Name: Jeff Raymond
E-mail: jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com
WWW: http://www.internationalhouseofbacon.com
IM: badlydrawnjeff
Quote: "I was always a fan of Lisa Loeb, particularly
	because you kind of get the impression she
	sang every song either about or to her cats.
	They seem to be the driving force in most of
	her creative process."     - Chuck Klosterman


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia:Paid editing

body:
On 3/11/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 11/03/07, William Pietri <william at scissor.com> wrote:
>
> > Comments, questions, and suggestions are very welcome. From the
> > discussion here, I know this isn't the only possible solution to the
> > problem, so if you feel like this is going off in completely the wrong
> > direction, I'd encourage (and probably contribute to) alternate
> approaches.
>
>
> It's not quite accurate - not on en: but on other Wikipedias, they're
> often push-started by people paid to write articles, e.g. by the
> institute of the local language. I can see this sort of paid writing
> not being a COI if the person is careful not to edit anything related
> to their sponsor. I mention this as a real-life example that happens
> now with no-one having any objection to it.
>
>
> - d.

COI wouldn't be limited to "related to their sponsor"; a person can be paid
to trash a busines competitor or opponent in some other field of active
competition.  COI is not limited to self-promotion.


body:
On 10/03/07, William Pietri <william at scissor.com> wrote:
> Note in particular the endless self-justification in the Almeda
> approach. I think that will undermine any attempt to find clever rules
> that allow paid editing where there is even the slightest possibility of
> conflict of interest. I'm sure any of us could rewrite that job
> description to make full use of Wikipedia jargon. And if somebody's
> income depends on them not getting the essential meaning behind our
> words, they may be able to keep it up for quite a while.

One problem I have with this kind of paid editing is that those who
can afford to pay will have more NPOV, better written articles. Do we
want the quality of parts of Wikipedia to be determined by who's
paying for what?

Other than that, I think an institution paying for vandalism revision
and nothing else, is fair enough. What's the difference between them
paying a Wikipedian to do it or paying a secretary to do it? The
former is more transparent.

On the other hand, I'm not sure that paying someone to take a look at
an article occassionally will make much difference. Our anti-vandalism
mechanisms are quite robust.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


from_name: Bartning at aol.com

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Want to Begin by Complaining about Suspected Sockpuppet
	Account

body:
I've been having a lot of problems on Wikipedia lately.  I also notice  that
admins apply double standards.  Now I've been accused of beginning a
"sockpuppet" account, and I want to begin by complaining about a suspected
"sockpuppet" account myself.

Wikipedia needs improvement.  There's no doubt about it.  The  mechanisms in
place at the moment do not function well and seem too difficult to  use.
Moreover, it's too much for someone who doesn't want to have to spend  too much
time with the political part of the organization as he already has  another
organization and other things to do.  I think I want it to end with  a good
approach to the Arbitration Committee if necessary, and I've refrained so  far
because I haven't wanted to "illustrate a point."  However, even the  rules get
questionable descriptions and arbitrary applications.

Ideas/Help?

Thanks!

Vincent Bartning
UN: John Wallace Rich

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