subject: [Foundation-l] Wikisource list created

body:
On request I've created a mailing list for Wikisource:

http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikisource-l

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikisource list created

body:
On request I've created a mailing list for Wikisource:

http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikisource-l

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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list: wikien-l

from_name: Stephen Bain

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

body:
On 4/20/06, Katefan0 <katefan0wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Everybody who's an administrator knows -- or ought to know -- that any of
> Danny's actions could be undertaken on behalf of the foundation. To me, this
> suggests -- in fact, demands -- a lot more caution with undoing his admin
> actions than otherwise, and at the very least warrants a discreet "what's
> this about?" before taking action.

I agree, and I think this is really the point to take out of this. We
should all operate on the presumption that when Danny does something,
he's doing it for a Good Reason, and that one shouldn't undo it unless
one has checked the reason behind it with Danny first (that's if it
should even be undone at all). A little communication solves alot of
problems.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] The problem with flagging things with {{office}}

body:
On 4/20/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> But that wouldn't really solve the problem. Which is that Wikipedia, a
> site built purely for the free flow of information, in the real world,
> occasionally needs to limit the flow of information.

Whoops, what's this?  Wikipedia was constructed to write an
encyclopedia.  It's most definitely not "built purely for the free
flow of information" or we wouldn't be deleting stuff off of it on a
regular basis.

Kelly


list: commons-l

from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Commons-l] an idea for a commons help tool

body:
Brianna Laugher schrieb:
>
> 1) The vast majority of links will be red in Commons, so either links
> should be ignored, or they should point back to the original wikipedia
> article
>
I have changed the script so the links now point back to the original
wikipedia. This is much easier than removing the links (which would
require some half-parser;-)

Magnus

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from_name: Brianna Laugher

body:
It's not doing so great on non-Latin scripts, either. (Giving the
interwiki links for them) Which is strange, because the descriptions
come up fine. Specifically:

[[ar:???]]
[[bg:??????? ????]]
[[bo:????]]
[[fa:??]]
[[he:???]]
[[hr:Doma?i pas]]
[[ja:??]]
[[ko:?]]
[[lt:?uo]]
[[ru:?????? ????????]]
[[sr:???]]
[[th:?????]]
[[ti:???]]
[[uk:??????]]
[[zh:?]]

It also includes links like [[w:lupus|lupus]] as interwiki links. I'm
not sure where they even come from but they're not interwiki. Well OK
they are... they link to Wikipedia articles, but they don't produce
interwiki links - you need a language code for that. (eg. en)

Brianna
--
"Mathematicians do it with Nobel's wife."


body:
Brianna Laugher schrieb:
> It's not doing so great on non-Latin scripts, either. (Giving the
> interwiki links for them) Which is strange, because the descriptions
> come up fine.
Should work. Try installing a CJK font (e.g., [1]).
> It also includes links like [[w:lupus|lupus]] as interwiki links. I'm
> not sure where they even come from but they're not interwiki. Well OK
> they are... they link to Wikipedia articles, but they don't produce
> interwiki links - you need a language code for that. (eg. en)
>
Since I'm too lazy to make a list of all language codes used, I only
check for length ;-)
Now set to two-letter-codes only, should ignore "w:" now.

Magnus

[1]
ftp://ftp.netscape.com/pub/communicator/extras/fonts/windows/Cyberbit.ZIP

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from_name: Kirill Lokshin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Template documentation convention

body:
On 4/20/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> Oh yeah, except for that. Well, you can always transclude the talk page or a documentation subpage
> from within a <noinclude> section. Because <noinclude> suppresses link registration, updates to the
> documentation subpage won't cascade down to the actual articles.

Can a template transclude itself inside a <noinclude> section?  In
other words, would documentation that contains an example of the
template in use (very useful for infoboxes, for example) parse
properly if placed on the template itself, rather than its talk page?

Kirill Lokshin


body:
Brianna Laugher schrieb:
>
> What exactly does 'Missing interwiki links' mean?
>
It is a byproduct of following the language links. For each language, it
lists the language links that are missing. You can copy a line (/after/
the link), click on the link, edit the page, insert the line you copied,
and now that language links to all other existing languages.

Magnus

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list: foundation-l

from_name: Michael Davis

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

body:
Kelly Martin wrote:
> I also find it very hard to believe that Erik was acting in good
> faith.  I remain utterly perplexed by many of the comments in this
> discussion, especially the ones from members of the Board, who I would
> normally expect to refrain from contradicting their valued employee so
> obviously; normally when a valued high-visibility employee makes a
> mistake (and I am not saying that Danny did) the public statement
> comes in the form of a carefully worded press release from the
> organization as an entity, not as offhand rebuking comments from
> random Board members, and normally the affected employee is informed
> in advance.  But I guess I'm used to a more professional approach from
> a leading non-profit organization.
>
Whatever statements have been made by Board members, including this
statement, are made by them as individuals and only carry whatever
authority the community deems appropriate for that individual.  And you
are right, a more professional organization would handle these matters
quite differently.

Michael


body:
On 4/20/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> But Danny has explicitly said (on this list) that he is also a normal
> editor, and only his actions that are accompanied with a statement that
> they are WP:OFFICE actions should be treated as such.  So if he does
> something and does not tag it WP:OFFICE, we should all operate on the
> presumption that he is doing it in his capacity as a normal Wikipedian.

That does not excuse reversion without discussion.  Even taking as an
assumption that Danny had been acting on his own behalf, Erik's
actions could easily have been the start of a wheel war, and were
inappropriate by any reasonable standard.  WP:OFFICE has nothing to do
with that; wheel warring is still wheel warring.

Kelly


list: wikitech-l

subject: [Wikitech-l] SVN problem - Same folder twice

body:
Platonides wrote:
>> Those are different names.
> I think they are the same human-word. I have $wgCapitalLinks set ;)
> I don't see the point of having that two folders separated. The contents are
> on different subfolders so no problems would came from there. Maybe links to
> the repository? I don't think it's being very linked. And most references to
> the moved folder would be handled by the subversion merge feature.

Fine, I renamed one.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Filip Maljkovic

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:

>Since I'm too lazy to make a list of all language codes used, I only
>check for length ;-)
>Now set to two-letter-codes only, should ignore "w:" now.
>
>
There are some three-letter-codes, you know?
Filip


body:
On 4/20/06, James D. Forrester <james at jdforrester.org> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Using the {{office}} template to tag problem content is a nice idea,
> but, I would imagine, has a rather serious drawback: Wikitruth.info
> (amongst other 'helpful' critics) seems to have a sysop working for
> them. Were we to flag an article that was libellous with {{office}}, you
> can bet that they would go and dig out the deleted sections, and repost
> it to their wonderful service. Now Wikimedia has been informed that they
> are likely to be sued, and in response has done something knowing that
> it would increase the publication and spread of this libel. - we're then
> liable for their reposting of the content, and "utterly screwed". I
> know, I know, "that's not what was intended". Well, tough, that's the
> way the Real World(tm) works.

Maybe a further way of obscuring deleted content would be helpful
here?  Something where the deleted revisions could not be viewed by
all administrators?  I have no idea how difficult this would be to
implement, though.

Alternately (or in addition to that) we could crack down on whatever
admins are leaking removed content; this wouldn't entirely solve the
problem, but might decrease the practical risk of something like this
happening.

Kirill Lokshin


from_name: Fastfission

body:
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but if Wikimedia were found
liable for Wikitruth's deliberate and purposeful attempt to re-spread
material we removed at request of someone else, wouldn't Wikimedia
have standing for suing Wikitruth as attempting to defraud Wikimedia
or something like that?

FF

On 4/20/06, James D. Forrester <james at jdforrester.org> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Using the {{office}} template to tag problem content is a nice idea,
> but, I would imagine, has a rather serious drawback: Wikitruth.info
> (amongst other 'helpful' critics) seems to have a sysop working for
> them. Were we to flag an article that was libellous with {{office}}, you
> can bet that they would go and dig out the deleted sections, and repost
> it to their wonderful service. Now Wikimedia has been informed that they
> are likely to be sued, and in response has done something knowing that
> it would increase the publication and spread of this libel. - we're then
> liable for their reposting of the content, and "utterly screwed". I
> know, I know, "that's not what was intended". Well, tough, that's the
> way the Real World(tm) works.
>
> So, what does this mean? Well, flagging articles as Office-protected is
> a legal no-no in that kind of case, and something significantly less
> high profile has to be done - and, possibly, the existence of this
> action would be buried for all eternity (or, certainly, several decades,
> which on the Internet is much the same thing).
>
> This is something that we have to deal with /now/ - the Foundation could
> possibly be sued out of existence tomorrow. There is no time for us to
> have a nice chat, or wring our hands about whether it's properly the
> "wiki way". We're here to build an encyclop?dia, above all things, and
> if you don't care that the Foundation is here to keep everything
> working, then possibly you need to re-evaluate your priorities and
> commitment to this project; Distributed Proofreaders could always do
> with a few more volunteers, for instance.
>
> Please note that this is all conjecture on my part, I'm not the one who
> makes {{office}} decisions.
>
> Yours sincerely,
> - --
> James D. Forrester
> Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]
> E-Mail    : james at jdforrester.org
> IM (MSN)  : jamesdforrester at hotmail.com
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> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
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> =edGT
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Kat Walsh

body:
On 4/20/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I have not followed the details of this, but I will
> tell you what I think in general terms.  I am amazed
> how many people have written this list with the
> underlying idea that it is proper to immediately
> revert the admin action of *any* other admin without
> disscusiion.  I think that in itself would deserve
> some sort of reprimand, and shows unsuitability as an
> admin.
>
> First Eric commits what I consider a breach of
> etiquette by unprotecting a page on his own.  This may
> be just a difference in culture, but at WS we expect
> admins to request protection/unprotection like any
> other editor and a separate admin will carry out the
> action.  So to unprotect a page on your own volition
> is like closing a deletion where you made the original
> nomination in my eyes.  Next is the fact that page had
> *just* been protected.  If it had just been done by
> any average admin, I would question if Eric was trying
> to start a wheel war at this point. Then you add the
> fact that the admin action was made by a *steward*,
> which is a highly trusted position.  Now any idea the
> Eric is acting in good faith is very hard to believe.
> Do you really believe it is acceptable to revert a
> steward on any admin action without discussion?  And
> on top of that Danny is a Foundation employee who
> often makes non-editorial decisions.  I don't know how
> Eric could not have known he was asking for trouble.
> The fact that I have seen so many responses purporting
> that Eric made an honest mistake only makes me certain
> that a strong message needed to be sent.  I will not
> comment on the actual reprimands, because I am not
> familiar with what generally warrants desysoping at
> WP.  I cannot express how surprised I am that you
> think Eric should get an apology.  I do hope he can be
> repatriated to the project and that everyone who at
> first thought his actions where acceptable realizes
> their error.
>
> I wonder sometimes whether people involved in this
> project, really take it seriously.  This is real
> organization here with real concerns and a real
> hierarchy.  We elect stewards for a reason, so that
> when they do something it can be trusted.  We ask
> people like Danny to take responsibility to do the
> things that must be done for this organization.  We
> must trust them.
>
> If you do not trust the organization, work to change
> it on the big issues that your distrust stems from.
> Picking a fight with every decision however will get
> you no results.  People will simply tune you out.  Not
> everyone (or even many people) can be aware of the
> details of every decision.  If this is the reason for
> any lack of trust, I think the problem is more with
> you.  Because no matter who sits on the board that is
> not going to change.
>
>
> BirgitteSB

I agree with Birgitte here, and I've left in the whole post because
I'm responding to all of it.

First of all, English WP has been in a bit of upheaval lately about
undiscussed reversal of admin actions, so it should be on someone's
mind even without knowing that it is Danny.

Secondly: Erik is an intelligent person who generally knows what's up.
I would think seeing Danny protect a page and want to lay low about it
would be a hint to wait for more information to be clear first. Danny
is not generally one to stub and protect articles simply because he
doesn't like them, and knows well enough that what he did is outside
normal procedure. Why this one? And Erik is not generally one to go
about monitoring page protections. Why this one?

Even unmarked: when I see something fishy, done by a steward, a
longtime contributor, and an employee of the Foundation, and he seems
hesitant to talk about it, I am inclined to first give him the benefit
of the doubt. And then there is the normal courtesy you give to any
other admin by asking about their actions first. Even if it were
simply Danny acting as an editor, it is not so important to unprotect
that it needs to be done Right Now, before you've found out what's up.
If he's left it a while, and still no explanation is forthcoming and
there's no indication that anything is up, that's different.

WP:OFFICE is pretty much a invitation to every troll on the wiki to
come and make noise -- and now, apparently, to grab the deleted
material and post it elsewhere. It's been Slashdotted; we can't claim
we don't know about it, and it's not exactly something we want. (Yes,
good editors are questioning, too, but they are doing it sanely.)
While it has been a good barrier to prevent admins from mistakenly
undoing Danny's admin actions there, it has failed to be a means to
handle potential problems in a discreet manner and instead only draws
more attention to it. This seems to have been an attempt to try to
minimize public attention and be sure the problematic material was not
more widely distributed. It didn't work, but it was a reasonable
attempt, though unclear.

The immediate slam of a response was harsh, and has made something
seemingly intended to be low profile into more drama than even an
office protection. (The response would be completely appropriate if it
were explicitly an office protection; I will accept that it wasn't
fully clear.) But like the protection itself, "indefinite" blocks
often mean "until the situation is resolved". (I note that protections
have no time limit; they're all indefinite.) A "whoa, hold on, we need
to clear some things up before this goes any further" is called for in
this case with the knowledge than blocks can be lifted and situations
talked out.

In general: I am not opposed to the office keeping some things secret.
I'm not an employee of the Foundation nor am I a lawyer, but I have an
inkling of what such people do and I don't believe it is their
obligation to inform me or anyone else without a direct interest about
the full details of every sticky situation that comes up. If Danny
acts upon a potential situation, I believe that it is legitimate
without having to grill him about the exact details, as I don't think
it makes any sense for him to waste his time on situations that are
not, and if I stop thinking that Danny and Brad and Jimbo are acting
in the best interest of the project, then there is no point in my
continuing to participate. I expect to be informed where I should have
a say in the outcome, but legal issues are partially what we have a
Foundation *for*.

The communication could have been done better and the lack of clarity
about it caused problems; experiment failed. However... Erik is
reinstated and the misunderstandings cleared up, yes? The article is
protected, marked WP:OFFICE, and will be cleaned and restored in due
course as such usually are? Yes? Good. Now for the problem of how to
handle these situations without becoming a troll magnet in the
process.

-Kat

--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage  |  G/AIM:LucidWaking
mindspillage or mind|wandering on irc.freenode.net | email for phone
The good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving
-- Lao-Tzu        Wikia: creating communities - http://www.wikia.com


body:
On 4/20/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> He didn't revert Danny's edits or wheel war.

Yes, he did.  He reverted another admin's protection within a very
short time of when it was imposed, without discussion.  That, by
definition, is the open salvo in a wheel war.

Kelly


from_name: Death Phoenix

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Indefinite block and desysopping by User:Danny
	(Johntex)

body:
I agree. Regardless of whether people complain about WP:OFFICE, if Danny
applies WP:OFFICE, people will complain, but they will not reverse his
actions. Not applying WP:OFFICE means that people won't know whether they
can reverse his actions or not.

If Danny doesn't want to use WP:OFFICE anymore, he (or Jimbo) should just
delete the policy and find another way to deal with it. If, however, he
wants a readily-available and very visible way of telling people "you
reverse this action, you will get desysoped and banned for endangering the
Foundation", I don't see a better wa than applying WP:OFFICE. People may
complain, but they know the consequences of reverting him.

On 4/19/06, John Tex <johntexster at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> In response to Johntex:
> >> Finally, I love the message for our attorney which explains the
> importance
> >> of having an office policy, but does absolutely nothing to provide any
> > rational for why we should then FAIL TO FOLLW our office policy.  I
> guess
> >> maybe that sort of speech fools some of the people some of the time.
>
> TonySidaway said:
> >This is uncalled for.
>
> Tony, I have to disagree.  The attorney works for the foundation, not the
> other way around.  Critiquing whether or not he speaks to the question at
> hand is perfectly fair.  All he did was say, we need "WP:Office".  Fine.
> Let's follow WP:Office, but that means all of us.
>
> TonySidaway said:
> >I'm sitting here and, over the months, watching people head towards
> >Danny's office actions like moths to a flame.  No wonder he doesn't
> >want to advertise them, particularly the more sensitive ones.
>
> That is no justification.  Doing things on the sly is the way to attract
> INCREASING criticism.  I'm a perfect example, I've never had any complaint
> about any WP:OFFICE action untill this.
>
> TonySidaway said:
> >This latest kerfuffle is a good sign that the process we have set up just
> >isn't enough.  The rules are not an end in themselves.
>
> I agree here in principle that results are more important than
> process.  But
> the results here are all bad:  A good admin got desysopped unfairly,
> massively additional attention was drawn to this than if the rules had
> been
> followed, WP:OFFICE takes it on the chin, etc.  Therefore, saying the ends
> justified the means is no good argument in this case.
>
> -Johntex
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Delirium

body:
Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
> The point is that Eloquence, one of the oldest and most trusted users
> on wikipedia, one of the people that have really helped shape the way
> we see and use wikipedia today, was indefinitly blocked and desysopped
> for undoing what he thought was a random admin action, one that he
> thought was out of policy. Danny, who is the only one who can invoke
> WP:OFFICE, simply ignored to tell us, the rest of the community, that
> he was doing just that.
>

I agree wholeheartedly.

-Mark


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikitruth

body:
On Thu, 20 Apr 2006 01:01:35 -0700 (PDT), you wrote:

>I don't agree with their vehemence of the opposition to WP:OFFICE. But anyone who's been following this debate about Erik and Danny
>will realise its implementation has been completely ham-fisted at times.

True enough.  But in the end there has to be a policy, for obvious
reasons, and it would be much better if people worked on making it
better rather than trying to make the necessary processes go away.

As to Erik, I am reminded of Hanlon's Razor.  I would be rather
surprised if Danny makes a similar mistake in future.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


body:
On 4/20/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 20/04/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > You can't hide WP:OFFICE actions because then people could just watch
> > danny's protection and deletion log.
>
> IMHO, you can hide absolutely anything, until an admin attempts to
> unprotect the page. But anyone watching the page will probably notice
> that it went from 5 pages down to a stub without so much as a whisper.

How would that matter, though?  It's the content being removed that's
sensitive, not the fact that *something* is gone; and if the offending
revisions are deleted/hidden/whatever, there's no way for someone to
get at that content (at least not directly from us).

Kirill Lokshin


body:
Stephen Bain wrote:
> On 4/20/06, Katefan0 <katefan0wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Everybody who's an administrator knows -- or ought to know -- that any of
>> Danny's actions could be undertaken on behalf of the foundation. To me, this
>> suggests -- in fact, demands -- a lot more caution with undoing his admin
>> actions than otherwise, and at the very least warrants a discreet "what's
>> this about?" before taking action.
>>
>
> I agree, and I think this is really the point to take out of this. We
> should all operate on the presumption that when Danny does something,
> he's doing it for a Good Reason, and that one shouldn't undo it unless
> one has checked the reason behind it with Danny first (that's if it
> should even be undone at all). A little communication solves alot of
> problems.
>

But Danny has explicitly said (on this list) that he is also a normal
editor, and only his actions that are accompanied with a statement that
they are WP:OFFICE actions should be treated as such.  So if he does
something and does not tag it WP:OFFICE, we should all operate on the
presumption that he is doing it in his capacity as a normal Wikipedian.

-Mark


from_name: Ben Lowe

body:
On 4/20/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:

> Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but if Wikimedia were found
> liable for Wikitruth's deliberate and purposeful attempt to re-spread
> material we removed at request of someone else, wouldn't Wikimedia
> have standing for suing Wikitruth as attempting to defraud Wikimedia
> or something like that?
>
> FF

This is a very good point.  I would also strongly suggest that admins be
required to agree to a EULA prohibiting them from copying and redistributing
information.  Give us all ten days to sign it, de-sysop anyone who doesn't,
and require all new admins to agree.  Any new content posted on Wikitruth
that's clearly from admin-only Wikipedia screens would be a clear violation
of that EULA.  IANAL, but I imagine this would help protect Wikimedia even
more, non?

OFFICE-protected articles should have their content locked from view from
anyone, including from admins.  And I have no problem with a hidden OFFICE
block. Let's dump the OFFICE tag.  Let the page simply appear as "protected"
to non-admins, and un-unlockable to admins.  You could potentially even set
it up such that Danny does an unlogged OFFICE block of the page, and then
requests via email that an administrator block the page in the log.  Thus
([[WP:BEANS]]....) it's not possible to simply monitor Danny's contributions
to find out what pages are WP:OFFICE locked.

Yes, this is, ostensibly, censorship creep.  But I would also argue that
these steps are apparently becoming necessary.  Concealing WP:OFFICE actions
conspiracy style is not necessary, but simply being quiet about it is
appropriate.  So long as admins don't loudly kvetch about not being in the
know on why an OFFICE action has been implemented, and quietly assume that
the article will be available for edit at some later point, the profile of
this whole thing can be lowered a bit.

It might not be as catchy a tag line, but Wikipedia being "the encyclopedia
anyone can edit except in those rare cases where the subjects of articles
legitimately threaten to sue because of libelous content posted about them,
in which case the article is temporarily unavailable to edit until such
problems can be resolved " is fine by me.

Ben

> On 4/20/06, James D. Forrester <james at jdforrester.org> wrote:
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> >
> > Using the {{office}} template to tag problem content is a nice idea,
> > but, I would imagine, has a rather serious drawback: Wikitruth.info<http://wikitruth.info/>
> > (amongst other 'helpful' critics) seems to have a sysop working for
> > them. Were we to flag an article that was libellous with {{office}}, you
> > can bet that they would go and dig out the deleted sections, and repost
> > it to their wonderful service. Now Wikimedia has been informed that they
> > are likely to be sued, and in response has done something knowing that
> > it would increase the publication and spread of this libel. - we're then
>
> > liable for their reposting of the content, and "utterly screwed". I
> > know, I know, "that's not what was intended". Well, tough, that's the
> > way the Real World(tm) works.
> >
> > So, what does this mean? Well, flagging articles as Office-protected is
> > a legal no-no in that kind of case, and something significantly less
> > high profile has to be done - and, possibly, the existence of this
> > action would be buried for all eternity (or, certainly, several decades,
> > which on the Internet is much the same thing).
> >
> > This is something that we have to deal with /now/ - the Foundation could
>
> > possibly be sued out of existence tomorrow. There is no time for us to
> > have a nice chat, or wring our hands about whether it's properly the
> > "wiki way". We're here to build an encyclop?dia, above all things, and
> > if you don't care that the Foundation is here to keep everything
> > working, then possibly you need to re-evaluate your priorities and
> > commitment to this project; Distributed Proofreaders could always do
> > with a few more volunteers, for instance.
> >
> > Please note that this is all conjecture on my part, I'm not the one who
> > makes {{office}} decisions.
> >
> > Yours sincerely,
> > - --
> > James D. Forrester
> > Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]
> > E-Mail    : james at jdforrester.org
> > IM (MSN)  : jamesdforrester at hotmail.com
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> > Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
> > Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
> >
> > iD8DBQFER6p3d7WnstdBQBkRAt9RAJ40jzTONmoihwNtnrd6mbL/yhveQwCfSWfF
> > 2PwGkHMpPru3l7Giy+h6Sh0=
> > =edGT
> > -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Michael R. Irwin wrote:

>Patrick, Brad wrote
>
>>The WP:OFFICE policy is still in its infancy.  People will challenge it
>>through their words and actions.  Everyone is entitled to his or her
>>opinion.  But I believe everyone who believes in the future success and
>>sustainability of the project must also recognize the need for judicious
>>use of confidentiality at the Foundation level.
>>
>>
>Personally I do not see any need for a non profit public foundation
>dedicated to legally publishing free information created by the public
>at large; and located physically in the United States of America; to be
>engaged in excessive secrecy.  Certainly employee social security
>numbers should be kept private in keeping with U.S. laws.  The need for
>secret or private communications tools such as restricted email lists,
>non public meetings, etc. escapes me.
>
While I believe in more openness, I don't think that your prosecutorial
tone is warranted.  Some confidentiality is needed, but those who
suppress information with inadequate explanation have to accept the
consequence that people will complain loudly.

>Certainly I would advise you to
>comply strictly with all provisions of the U.S. Patriot Act when called
>upon by warrant to cooperate with U.S. Federal authorities, unless you
>enjoy small cubicle environments.
>
That's remarkably inconsistent of you.  You begin by complaining about
excessive secrecy then contradict yourself by supporting a piece of
totalitarian trash that would impose just that, notably in forbidding
people who have received information requests from letting anyone know
that they have received such requests.  When it comes to circumventing
laws the U.S. Patriot Act is fair game.

>It has been my experience that often lawyers cite specific sections of
>U.S. or State code or regulations or even specific phrases or case law
>when informing lay people of their opinions regarding legal matters.
>
Not always.  Most speak from authority and are willing to exploit that
logical fallacy to its fullest.  If you demand verifiability it comes at
a price.

>Perhaps if you or the office were to write up some specific
>recommendations regarding how the community or the Wikimedia Foundation
>or your client could avoid legal liabilities by actually complying with
>the applicable laws rather than simply recommending that the Foundation
>get secretive about its "private" matters we could avoid some legal
>risks in the future?
>
Clarifying the parameters of confidentiality would be a worthwhile
debate.  Simply doing things because one is in a position to know that
it should be done in secret is not enough.  Even the most trusted people
need to be accountable.

>I suggest the community members present on the Foundation-L mailing list
>consider a placebo vote regarding whether the Wikimedia Foundation
>should issue an apology to Eric and reimburse him for the long distance
>calls necessary to recover his editing priveleges.
>
"Placebo vote" sounds like an interesting concept.  I interpret such a
vote as one designed to make people feel good without accomplishing
anything. :-)

>>The Foundation officers
>>and Board members have a fiduciary obligation to the organization, as I
>>do as a lawyer for my client.
>>
>>Certain members of the community (and notably, not Mr. Moeller) have
>>expressed dissatisfaction about WP:OFFICE and its use.  There is a
>>healthy debate yet to be had about it.  We can have that debate, but I
>>also have to make clear that the Foundation's obligations are greater
>>than loyalty to any one user.  Even someone with the history of
>>contributions to Mr. Moeller.
>>
>>
>Are the Wikimedia Foundation's obligations greater than loyalty to a
>single founder or stacked Board of Directors?
>
>In the event of a conflict do you work for the stacked Board, Jimmy
>Wales, or the Foundation?  Is your client the stacked Board, Jimmy
>Wales, or the Wikimedia Foundation?  What is the legal signature on
>checks sent to your office in response to invoices?  Does U.S. and/or
>Florida law distinguish between individuals in offices and the
>organization itself?
>
This sounds like cross-examination to me.

>Does the Wikimedia Foundation have any fiduciary responsibilities to the
>contributing public and the public at large under U.S. law?  Are these
>responsibilities defined exclusively by U.S. law or are the public
>solicitations used to gather public donations considered somewhat
>influential or binding in Florida State or U.S. Federal  courts?
>
>
The public accountability of a broadly funded multinational organization
is a seriously difficult question.  It comes as no surprise that legal
and other professional expertise hired by mangement will support
positions favorable to management.  Membership in The Foundation is very
weakly defined, and is mostly based on being an editor.  An early
provision would have had one board member elected by a paid members, but
that has never been developed.  Membership rights and powers are
probably as strong as the rights of minority shareholders in for-profit
corporations.

It's a no-brainer to say that Florida corporate law applies to the
operation of the Foundation, because that is where it is incorporated.
The tax law of each separate state controls the right to solicit funds
in each state; that can cause a registration nightmare.  While the
Foundation can solicit foreign donations, these will not normally be tax
deductible for those foreign residents.  Tax deductibility in those
countries requires, among other things, some kind of administrative
organization in that country.  This is often accompanied by rules to
prohibit the export of donated funds.

I am often highly critical of the current management format, but I can
also see enough dangers in a totally democratic system to be wary of
such a model.

Ec


body:
On 4/20/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 20/04/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > How would that matter, though?  It's the content being removed that's
> > sensitive, not the fact that *something* is gone; and if the offending
> > revisions are deleted/hidden/whatever, there's no way for someone to
> > get at that content (at least not directly from us).
>
> Sure there is, especially if the offending material has been sitting
> on the site for, oh, say, 4 months? This is where the "free flow of
> information" thing comes in - it's precisely because we're focused on
> getting information out there quickly that it's incredibly hard to mop
> it up suddenly if we need to. After 4 months, there are probably
> several hundred copies of the material available on the net, possibly
> even more on various users' hard disks, without mentioning Google's
> cache, archive.org ....

I would assume (not being a lawyer) that the possibility of our
getting sued and such increases substantially if *we* continue to
distribute the information, versus *someone else* distributing it;
presumably the people who actually deal with this can comment more
concretely.

Kirill Lokshin


subject: [Foundation-l] new checkuser policy

body:
On 4/20/06, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
> I am not all that pleased with having to deal with "outsiders" in order
> to obtain this critical information, although having it is better than
> not having it.  I am really curious as to the reasons why Essjay and
> Karynn are any better candidates for checkuser status on en.wikibooks
> than the current two candidates on the request for checkuser status, and
> all I can say is that they enjoy somewhat better relationships with the
> Foundation board.  That seems hardly a reasonable policy.

I don't know the current candidates on en.wikibooks that well, and
while I don't have any reason to believe that there's anything wrong
with them, I also don't have any reason to believe that they can be
trusted at the level that should be expected and required of those
with CheckUser privileges. CheckUser is a position that carries very
hefty responsibilities; the Foundation has good cause to restrict the
number of people with this privilege.  Frankly I think *all*
CheckUsers need to be approved by the Foundation because it's the
Foundation that will be on the hook for a misuse of the information
that CheckUsers have access to.  So the fact that Essjay and I are
well known to the Foundation makes us more appealing to the
Foundation, not specifically because we have done most of our work on
Wikipedia (although this is true for me and to a lesser extent for
Essjay, who has more meta experience than I do) but because we have
become known to the Foundation as reliable, trustworthy individuals.

> It does indeed seem as though Wikibooks is being requested to get
> permission from Wikipedia, and all of the checkusers are selected by
> Wikipedias because they happen to, at the moment, be the big boys on the
> block, and that Wikipedia wants to have editorial control over all other
> Wikimedia projects of similar languages.  Or this is a crack in the door
> for this to happen.

CheckUser rights really does not give one any input in editorial
policy, and I think you can rest assured that neither I nor Essjay
have no interest in trying to alter the editorial policy of
en.wikibooks (at least not now; it's possible that after a time of
interacting with the project one of us might have an idea, but that
would be the case anyway).

> Perhaps because this was buried under all of the previous comments, but
> it really hasn't been answered at least to my satisfaction.  Under what
> reasonable criteria is being applied that would allow somebody to become
> a bureaucrat on a project that would not also mean they are trusted
> enough to have checkuser status as well?

There's a big difference between bureaucrat and checkuser.  CheckUsers
have access to personal, private information about other editors,
information which is protected by law in some nations (e.g. the
European Union) and the inappropriate disclosure of which could easily
cause grave harm to someone.  Bureaucrats just get to decide who has
access to the special buttons on a given project.  The worst damage a
bureaucrat can do is mistakenly promote someone who ought not have
been promoted, resulting in annoying damage to a particular project
and some degree of frustration for its editors and readers.  The worst
damage a checkuser can do is publicly announce the IP address of a
political dissident editing from a country where political dissidence
is punishable by death.  Misuse of CheckUser power can easily lead to
the loss of jobs and potentially even of freedom or of lives.  I hope
you now understand how the gravity of the responsibility of a
CheckUser is that much greater than that of a bureaucrat, and why the
screening process for bureaucrats is inadequate for determining who
should be trusted with checkuser rights.

> And getting back to the original point of this thread, the Stewards who
> supposedly have at least the option of having checkuser status, and are
> allowed to act in the capacity of performing administrative actions
> where existing policies on individual projects are lacking these
> policies due to their size, are ignoring checkuser requests.  If Essjay
> and Karynn have the trust and support for this widespread and cross
> project assistance, perhaps they should simply be made stewards as well.
>  And to the point at hand, en.wikibooks is in English, which from what
> I've seen of the list of stewards is one of the languages of every
> current steward.  That these checkuser scans aren't being performed is
> more of a condemnation of all of the stewards, or a very serious
> misunderstanding of what their role is as backup administrators to
> smaller projects.

Relatively few stewards are in a position to perform checkusers; the
position requires both technical competency and a high degree of trust
and responsibility.  That most stewards (who presumably have the trust
and responsibility, even if not the technical competency) are
unwilling to perform them is likely because they don't know how to or
even that they can as much as that they aren't bothering.

As to the possibility of being named a steward myself: I am
considering a run for steward in the next elections, which I believe
are expected to be in January, 2007.  If asked to serve in that
capacity now or in the future, I would probably accept.  I do not wish
to shortcut the existing process, however; I am not very active in
meta and I am likely not well known there, and I certainly do not wish
to presumptuously claim that it is desirable that I be appointed a
steward now or in the future.  I believe that Essjay would be a fine
candidate and will support him should he run for steward or if there
is otherwise a discussion as to whether he should be so appointed.

Kelly


subject: [Foundation-l] new checkuser policy


from_name: Andre Engels

body:
2006/4/20, Filip Maljkovic <dungodung at gmail.com>:
> Magnus Manske wrote:
>
> >Since I'm too lazy to make a list of all language codes used, I only
> >check for length ;-)
> >Now set to two-letter-codes only, should ignore "w:" now.
> >
> >
> There are some three-letter-codes, you know?

Even some longer ones; the Python Wikipediabot framework (which by the
way also has a bot to copy images from a local Wikipedia to Commons)
uses the following list of existing language codes:

'aa','af','ak','als','am','ang','ab','ar','an','roa-rup','frp','as',
           'ast','gn','av','ay','az','bm','bn','zh-min-nan','map-mbs','ba','be',
           'bh','bi','bo','bs','br','bg','ca','cv','ceb','cs','ch','ny','sn',
           'tum','cho','co','za','cy','da','pdc','de','dv','arc','nv','dz','mh',
           'et','el','en','es','eo','eu','ee','fa','fo','fr','fy','ff','fur','ga',
           'gv','gd','gl','ki','gu','got','ko','ha','haw','hy','hi','ho','hr',
           'io','ig','ilo','id','ia','ie','iu','ik','os','xh','zu','is','it','he',
           'jv','kl','xal','kn','kr','ka','ks','csb','kk','kw','rw','ky','rn',
           'sw','kv','kg','ht','kj','ku','lo','lad','la','lv','lb','lij','lt',
           'li','ln','jbo','lg','lmo','hu','mk','mg','ml','mt','mi','mr','ms',
           'mo','mn','mus','my','nah','na','fj','nl','nds-nl','cr','ne','ja','nap',
           'ce','pih','no','nn','nrm','oc','or','om','ng','hz','ug','pa','pi',
           'pam','pap','ps','km','pms','nds','pl','pt','ty','ksh','ro','rmy','rm',
           'qu','ru','war','se','sm','sa','sg','sc','sco','st','tn','sq','scn',
           'si','simple','sd','ss','sk','sl','so','sr','sh','su','fi','sv','tl',
           'ta','tt','te','tet','th','vi','ti','tg','tpi','to','chr','chy','ve',
           'tr','tk','tw','udm','bug','uk','ur','uz','vec','vo','fiu-vro','wa',
           'vls','wo','ts','ii','yi','yo','zh-yue','bat-smg','zh','zh-tw','zh-cn'

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


body:
Kelly Martin wrote:
> On 4/20/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
>> But Danny has explicitly said (on this list) that he is also a normal
>> editor, and only his actions that are accompanied with a statement that
>> they are WP:OFFICE actions should be treated as such.  So if he does
>> something and does not tag it WP:OFFICE, we should all operate on the
>> presumption that he is doing it in his capacity as a normal Wikipedian.
>>
>
> That does not excuse reversion without discussion.  Even taking as an
> assumption that Danny had been acting on his own behalf, Erik's
> actions could easily have been the start of a wheel war, and were
> inappropriate by any reasonable standard.  WP:OFFICE has nothing to do
> with that; wheel warring is still wheel warring.
>

He didn't revert Danny's edits or wheel war.  Danny stubbed and
protected the page; Erik noted that he was willing to give Danny the
benefit of the doubt on stubbing, but that the protection was contrary
to the protection policy (a correct observation), so unprotected the
page but left it stubbed.  It is quite acceptable and even encouraged to
unprotect pages that have been inappropriately protected.

If Danny had reprotected and Erik had unprotected again, that would be a
wheel war.  A single correction of a presumably mistaken admin action is
not wheel-warring, especially when it doesn't even involve completely
reversal of the action, just the problematic part.

In addition, blocking another user yourself after you personally have
had an altercation with him has always been regarded as inappropriate,
so Danny's block was inappropriate by any reasonable standard.

-Mark


body:
Since Danny didn't apply the WP:OFFICE tag, does that warrant an immediate
desysoping and indefinite ban? I've seen such measures only after an
arbitration case. Nowhere did Danny say he was applying WP:OFFICE. If Erik
got into a wheel war, fine. I've seen wheel-warring admins get desysoped (or
cautioned, or whatever), but only after an arbitration case was held against
them. An indef ban should certainly only come after an arbitration case.

On 4/20/06, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 4/20/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> > He didn't revert Danny's edits or wheel war.
>
> Yes, he did.  He reverted another admin's protection within a very
> short time of when it was imposed, without discussion.  That, by
> definition, is the open salvo in a wheel war.
>
> Kelly
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikitruth

body:
On 4/20/06, Pete Bartlett <pcb21 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Kirill Lokshin wrote:
> "...to an openly anti-Wikipedia site"
>
> >From http://www.wikitruth.info/index.php?title=Wikitruth:Editing_guidelines
>
> "some amazing people are working behind the scenes and in the front
> lines over there [i.e. at Wikipedia], putting in the hours to make a difference and make
> Wikipedia better. [...] We wouldn't have this site if we didn't respect and love
> the concept of a Wikipedia. It's the implementation we have issues with."
>

They are violateing the GFDL.

--
geni


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Foundation-l] Steward changes work for en.wikipedia again

body:
Stewards may again change permissions on enwiki from Meta and have it actually
work. Enjoy!

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
Stewards may again change permissions on enwiki from Meta and have it actually
work. Enjoy!

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Steward changes work for en.wikipedia again

body:
Stewards may again change permissions on enwiki from Meta and have it actually
work. Enjoy!

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
Stewards may again change permissions on enwiki from Meta and have it actually
work. Enjoy!

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
Stewards may again change permissions on enwiki from Meta and have it actually
work. Enjoy!

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [Wikitech-l] Steward changes work for en.wikipedia again

body:
Stewards may again change permissions on enwiki from Meta and have it actually
work. Enjoy!

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Mark Ryan

subject: [Foundation-l] Lost money

body:
On 19/04/06, Jakob Voss <jakob.voss at nichtich.de> wrote:
> Uhm, the problem that people may like to donate when servers are down
> but cannot do so when servers are down is known for ... years? Why is
> wikimediafoundation.org still hosted at Wikimedia's own server
> farm? It's only a small website isn't it? I bet the costs of moving to a
> reliable, independent webhoster will easily pay off.

As Brion said, we used to have an "offsite" donation page, which
worked for a while then Wikipedia grew so big that even the tiniest
downtime would overload almost any outside site we linked to. We had
to remove both the offsite donation page and the offsite status page
from the error page because our error-spawned traffic was crushing
their servers.

On 20/04/06, Walter Vermeir <walter at wikipedia.be> wrote:
> Is it really necessary to provide the normal donation form? Just put on
> the error-page itself ( PayPal: donation at wikipedia.org ) and if that is
> possible make from the email address a link to the website of PayPal to
> a page where the can donate to the Wikimedia Foundation.

That could work. Then all we'd have to do is shut down the servers
once a week and we'd get enough revenue to feed a large African
country. ;)

~Mark Ryan


subject: [Foundation-l] Lost money


subject: [Wikitech-l] Changes in toolbar

body:
Platonides wrote:
> Recently, with the software update somewhat the wikipedia toolbar behavior
> changed so it now is breaks many custom buttons. Or more exactly, the
> monobook.js break the original buttons, as the custom ones work but the
> originals don't react at clicking (deactivatin the monobook makes them work
> so it's an incompatibility).
> In order to look deeper on what makes them break (it may be even only on
> some browsers :S)

I've added a convenient array you can use to add custom buttons. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Monobook.js#Redirect_edit_button

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Monobook.js&diff=48828139&oldid=48473978

> Can anyone point the diff of that toolbar change? If this is talked anywhere
> else, links are welcomed, too.

http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki?view=rev&revision=13689

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Matt Brown

body:
On 4/20/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> It is quite acceptable and even encouraged to unprotect pages that have been
> inappropriately protected.

I think this is (a part of, at least) the core of the problem.  Is it
quite acceptable?  Is it encouraged?  Should it be?

Is it the right of every administrator to second-guess the
administrative actions of any other administrator, and instantly
revert them if they feel justified?

I feel that the immediatist attitude of the vandal-fighter has
infected many of the decision-making processes of en-wikipedia way too
much.  Everything must be fixed NOW.  We must act as if we have the
attention span of a mayfly, because later is as good as never.

Whereas in my belief most administrator actions do NOT need to be
fixed *right now*, even if they are wrong.  Bans and blocks - in most
cases, the world will not end if an individual can't edit Wikipedia
for a day.  Frustrating though it might be.  Page protection: everyone
can live with not editing an article for a little bit.  Deletion:
undeletion can be done at any time, and unless an article is a very
high-traffic one, our readers are unlikely to even notice.

The culture of feeling entitled to instantly revert, though, is quite
damaging.  It escalates arguments, builds up pressure, makes everyone
tense, encourages revert wars.  Nothing on Wikipedia should be settled
by a fight.  I feel that instant, no-discussion reverts of anything
other than *obvious vandalism* - whether edits or administrative
actions - encourages a quite unpleasant pattern of behaviour.

If we feel we have to do things instantly because it's too hard to
keep track of things otherwise, then we need tools - procedure or
software - to help with that.

-Matt


body:
On 4/20/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Minor correction: even the ArbComm cannot impose an indefinite ban.
> >
> > Don't let the issue here get buried under discussion of OFFICE.  The
> > issue is that Danny, while apparently acting as a common or garden
> > variety admin, -- and not just without discussion, but rather while
> > /actively refusing to discuss/ -- imposed a lifetime ban from Wikipedia.
> >
> > Indefinite block.
> >
> > While /actively refusing to discuss/.
> >
>
> Precisely. Trying to defend Danny's desysopping and ban by crying
> wheel-war is just wikilawyering in my opinion.
>

I don't know about wikilawyering, but at the very least, it shows an
inconsistent use and enforcement of WP:OFFICE and normal admin actions.


subject: [Foundation-l] Lost money

body:
Gregory Price wrote:
> On 4/19/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>> Walter Vermeir wrote:
>>> Is it really necessary to provide the normal donation form? Just put on
>>> the error-page itself ( PayPal: donation at wikipedia.org ) and if that is
>>> possible make from the email address a link to the website of PayPal to
>>> a page where the can donate to the Wikimedia Foundation.
>> Please see prior discussion on this subject.
>
> This response would be more helpful if it gave some hint
> toward finding the prior discussion.

The same place it was before; on this list and/or wikitech-l.

> If to the static page we now serve for an error
> we added a static mention of donation at wikipedia.org (or donations@)
> and a static link to PayPal, it seems likely a good flow of money would open up.
>
> So what am I missing (and Walter, and Anthony)?
> What's in that past discussion -- or where can it be found?

The problems with getting the error page have been resolved as of yesterday;
I've shown a sample error-page-with-form to mav and am reworking it per
feedback. Should be up soon.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [Foundation-l] Lost money

body:
Gregory Price wrote:
> On 4/19/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>> Walter Vermeir wrote:
>>> Is it really necessary to provide the normal donation form? Just put on
>>> the error-page itself ( PayPal: donation at wikipedia.org ) and if that is
>>> possible make from the email address a link to the website of PayPal to
>>> a page where the can donate to the Wikimedia Foundation.
>> Please see prior discussion on this subject.
>
> This response would be more helpful if it gave some hint
> toward finding the prior discussion.

The same place it was before; on this list and/or wikitech-l.

> If to the static page we now serve for an error
> we added a static mention of donation at wikipedia.org (or donations@)
> and a static link to PayPal, it seems likely a good flow of money would open up.
>
> So what am I missing (and Walter, and Anthony)?
> What's in that past discussion -- or where can it be found?

The problems with getting the error page have been resolved as of yesterday;
I've shown a sample error-page-with-form to mav and am reworking it per
feedback. Should be up soon.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [Foundation-l] Lost money

body:
Gregory Price wrote:
> On 4/19/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>> Walter Vermeir wrote:
>>> Is it really necessary to provide the normal donation form? Just put on
>>> the error-page itself ( PayPal: donation at wikipedia.org ) and if that is
>>> possible make from the email address a link to the website of PayPal to
>>> a page where the can donate to the Wikimedia Foundation.
>> Please see prior discussion on this subject.
>
> This response would be more helpful if it gave some hint
> toward finding the prior discussion.

The same place it was before; on this list and/or wikitech-l.

> If to the static page we now serve for an error
> we added a static mention of donation at wikipedia.org (or donations@)
> and a static link to PayPal, it seems likely a good flow of money would open up.
>
> So what am I missing (and Walter, and Anthony)?
> What's in that past discussion -- or where can it be found?

The problems with getting the error page have been resolved as of yesterday;
I've shown a sample error-page-with-form to mav and am reworking it per
feedback. Should be up soon.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [Foundation-l] Lost money

body:
Gregory Price wrote:
> On 4/19/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>> Walter Vermeir wrote:
>>> Is it really necessary to provide the normal donation form? Just put on
>>> the error-page itself ( PayPal: donation at wikipedia.org ) and if that is
>>> possible make from the email address a link to the website of PayPal to
>>> a page where the can donate to the Wikimedia Foundation.
>> Please see prior discussion on this subject.
>
> This response would be more helpful if it gave some hint
> toward finding the prior discussion.

The same place it was before; on this list and/or wikitech-l.

> If to the static page we now serve for an error
> we added a static mention of donation at wikipedia.org (or donations@)
> and a static link to PayPal, it seems likely a good flow of money would open up.
>
> So what am I missing (and Walter, and Anthony)?
> What's in that past discussion -- or where can it be found?

The problems with getting the error page have been resolved as of yesterday;
I've shown a sample error-page-with-form to mav and am reworking it per
feedback. Should be up soon.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
On 4/20/06, Conrad Dunkerson <conrad.dunkerson at worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> There was an arbitration case on wheel warring not so long ago where the
> set of administrators who were adjudged 'wrong' were reprimanded or
> de-sysoped while the set of administrators who were adjudged 'right' were
> not... regardless of the degree to which each individual had engaged in
> 'wheel warring'. One admin was even PRAISED for 'wheel warring'.

The AC is not supposed to be setting policy, but interpreting it;
while this does, de facto, set policy to some degree, there was and
AFAIK still is no agreed-upon policy forbidding "wheel warring" (a
term I dislike because of its lack of real definition).  I personally
could not countenance punishing all admins who had reverted all other
admins' actions simply to make an example of them, when what they did
was not defined as "wrong" anywhere.

I do not think that the just way to get rid of the problem is for the
AC to decide on what the policy should be and then make examples of
admins until everyone 'gets the message'.

-Matt


from_name: Pete Bartlett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Who wins

body:
>I personally think this is yet another example of WP:V being swept aside under an
>avalanche of Google hits, a problem in several areas at present where
>all the POV pushers have to do is spam as many blogs and web boards as
>they can find and suddenly an article must be verifiable (it's just
>that the reliable source is a long way down the list, honest).  A
>supposed meme which inspires such fierce passions and which has had
>its fans searching the world at the urging of a website, but which can
>only come up with a single mention in a foreign-language newspaper,
>does not sound to me like the kind of thing for an encyclopaedia. More
>something for a Wikicities project.  but then, I am older than your
>average Wikipedian, and I've seen my kids obsessed by, and lose
>interest in, many things along the way.  Whether Warhammer is "better"
>than Pokemon I wouldn't like to say...
>Guy (JzG)

As I too become long in the tooth I come more and more to the opinion
that it is waste of time trying to find "one size fits all" standards of notability and verifiability
to apply to all articles. Seems to just generate year after year of policy-fiddling and pointless arguing.

So I wonder if it would be more pragmatic to drop these arbitary thresholds and just say "sources are required".
Each article has the best sources we can find for that topic. If the best sources are blogs then fine -
the reader is left to him/herself to determine notability based on their own frame of references.

Well-established material gets book citations.
New material gets journal citations.
Internet memes gets blog citations.
Horses for courses.

This idea is analogous to the idea of NPOV - we just provide the data and the reader does the hard work.

Pete


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

body:
Jesse W wrote:
> On Apr 19, 2006, at 4:55 PM, maru dubshinki wrote:
>> On 4/19/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Restore_Wikitruth_info.png
>>>
>>> Ad nothing in the metadata suggests photoshop.
>> Point taken. All the other possibilities (an admin innocently taking a
>> screencap, exporting his desktop to another computer who did take a
>> screencap etc) seem less likely than a disgruntled admin. Albeit, the
>> shot is a bit odd- do logged in accounts really look like that in
>> monobook? It's been so long I've forgotten.
>
> Well, the photo has obviously been carefully cropped, as the personal
> toolbar (which begins with the account name) has been erased.  Also,
> I've only checked on Firefox on Mac OS X, but the font picked might be
> able to identify what browser and OS it was taken from.

It's either Firefox or Mozilla Suite on Windows XP.

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

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subject:
[WikiEN-l] Wheel culture (was:Indefinite block and
	desysopping...)

body:
On 4/20/06, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> But as a rule, we shouldn't be undoing each other's admin
> actions at all.

And certainly not without talking with the other admin and bringing it
to a wider forum in the hopes of getting some second, third, etc.
opinions.

There are always emergency cases (e.g. a range block that accidentally
blocked a whole ISP, etc) but in most cases a bit more deliberation
won't be the end of the world.

-Matt


from_name: Kelly Martin

body:
On 4/20/06, jkelly at fas.harvard.edu <jkelly at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
>   While we're engaging in this critique of Danny's response, it might make sense
> to ask whether or not Danny, and the other office people, are aware that there
> exists some large segment of the admin population who regard it as routine to
> undo other admin actions without discussion because they were "out of process",
> or "obviously wrong", or whatever.  Can we imagine the possibility that some
> people might interpret that as inexplicable, or even hostile, interference, if
> they aren't used to this?

Perhaps the real problem is that a large segment of our admin
population needs not to be admins anymore.

Kelly


body:
On 4/20/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> So if I say delete [[Template:NPOV]] (T1) you wouldn't revert that action?

Sometimes it will be annoying following a culture of 'no instant admin
reverts', but I think the overall effect will be positive.

In such a case, I'd leave a message on YOUR talk page to the effect of
'Are you crazy?', and post to a few noticeboard pages to the effect of
'Geni has deleted [[Template:NPOV]], anyone agree with me that he
shouldn't have?' and wait for either your response or a few other
opinions before acting.  Wikipedia will not end for want of
[[Template:NPOV]].

However, deleting a commonly-accessed page upon which policies and
guidelines depend could be construed as vandalism, too.

-Matt


from_name: Essjay

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikisource list created

body:
If listadmins are needed, I'll volunteer.

Essjay

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Essjay
Wikipedia:The Free Encyclopedia
http://www.wikipedia.org/

Brion Vibber wrote:
> On request I've created a mailing list for Wikisource:
>
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikisource-l
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikisource list created


body:
On 4/20/06, Ben Lowe <ben.lowe at gmail.com> wrote:
> I still haven't heard a reason why admins shouldn't revert admin actions "at all" except
> that it's wheel-warring, which is a rather circular answer (fitting, I suppose for a wheel).  So
> I suppose my response to "We shouldn't be undoing each other's admin actions
> at all" is that we also shouldn't be making any mistakes at all.  But it
> happens, and so should be able to unhappen.

My preferred policy change would not be 'we shouldn't ever undo admin
actions' but rather 'we shouldn't undo admin actions instantly and
without discussion'.

Very few things are so, so critical that there isn't time to discuss.

Yes, admins make mistakes - we all do.  It's not undoing admin actions
that's bad, it's the culture of instant, jump-to-conclusions reverting
that is.

-Matt


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
Hi all,
  Anyone know if there is a convention/guideline for how to document
templates, given the existence of <noinclude>? Previously, the
discussion page was used. Now it would seem more appropriate to move
documentation onto the main template page, inclosed within
<noinclude>. However, before launching into doing this, two questions:

* Is there consensus for this?
* Is there more of a burden on the surver to transclude a template
which includes a large amount of <noinclude>'d documentation?

Steve


from_name: Magnus Manske

body:
Andre Engels schrieb:
> 2006/4/20, Filip Maljkovic <dungodung at gmail.com>:
>
>> Magnus Manske wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Since I'm too lazy to make a list of all language codes used, I only
>>> check for length ;-)
>>> Now set to two-letter-codes only, should ignore "w:" now.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> There are some three-letter-codes, you know?
>>
>
> Even some longer ones; the Python Wikipediabot framework (which by the
> way also has a bot to copy images from a local Wikipedia to Commons)
> uses the following list of existing language codes:
>
Thanks, I'm using these now!

Magnus

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from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
Quite right. I want to move that way.

Fred

On Apr 20, 2006, at 2:40 PM, Conrad Dunkerson wrote:

> * Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>
>> taking the bait. It is just not good practice to reverse another
>> administrator's actions. That needs to be part of our culture, not
>> some wishy-washy notion that it is OK to wheel war when the other
>> administrator is "wrong".
>>
>
> Umm... where do you suppose the "wishy washy notion that it is OK
> to wheel
> war when the other administrator is 'wrong'" COMES from?
>
> There was an arbitration case on wheel warring not so long ago
> where the
> set of administrators who were adjudged 'wrong' were reprimanded or
> de-sysoped while the set of administrators who were adjudged
> 'right' were
> not... regardless of the degree to which each individual had
> engaged in
> 'wheel warring'. One admin was even PRAISED for 'wheel warring'.
>
> If you really want to make the case that wheel-warring is ALWAYS wrong
> then it needs to be treated that way. Not as a cudgel for use only
> against
> 'those with whom we disagree'.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: jkelly at fas.harvard.edu

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wheel culture (was:Indefinite block and desysopping...)

body:
  "Delerium",

  In regards to:

> [Erik] didn't revert Danny's edits or wheel war.  Danny stubbed and
> protected the page; Erik noted that he was willing to give Danny the
> benefit of the doubt on stubbing, but that the protection was contrary
> to the protection policy (a correct observation), so unprotected the
> page but left it stubbed.  It is quite acceptable and even encouraged to
> unprotect pages that have been inappropriately protected.

  While we're engaging in this critique of Danny's response, it might make sense
to ask whether or not Danny, and the other office people, are aware that there
exists some large segment of the admin population who regard it as routine to
undo other admin actions without discussion because they were "out of process",
or "obviously wrong", or whatever.  Can we imagine the possibility that some
people might interpret that as inexplicable, or even hostile, interference, if
they aren't used to this?

                                Jkelly


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Tool Server disabled - link to WikiTech-L maillist
	discussion (Johntex)

body:
On 4/20/06, Minh Nguyen <mxn at zoomtown.com> wrote:
>
> tools.wikimedia.org is currently timing out for me, but I hope that it
> won't be down for any extended period of time. Although the English
> Wikipedia certainly accounts for a large chunk of the Toolserver's
> usage, other language editions -- which still worked just fine with the
> tools there -- will find it odd that the tools have just suddenly vanished.

The vandalism tool is still there.  It is working on the English
Wikipedia but English database replication has been down for a couple
of weeks so recent data from that particular Wikipedia is missing from
the tool server database (not a major problem for this particular
tool)  I've tested all the other languages the tool works in, and
those databases are all up to date.  Swedish, Norwegian, Spanish,
Portuguese, Turkish, German, Polish, Italisn, and French.

I tested it yesterday and it worked well.  Today response has been
slow at times but it's still working.

http://tools.wikimedia.de/~tony_sidaway/


from_name: Sean Barrett

body:
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slimvirgin at gmail.com stated for the record:

> Exactly right. Some admins have adopted a definition of "wheel
> warring" that excludes the first revert of an admin action -- so that
> if X blocks, and Y unblocks, Y is not wheel warring. But if X restores
> the block, X has started the wheel war. This is nonsense. The first
> person to undo the original admin action has started the wheel war,
> and it's that first undoing that shouldn't be happening as a rule.
>
> Sarah

Under this definition, Eloquence's block truly would be a death
sentence, since no one could ever revert Danny's stupid initial
indefinite block -- even Jimbo.

Is that the effect you want to have?

- --
 Sean Barrett     | I've had a perfectly wonderful evening.
 sean at epoptic.org | But this wasn't it. --Groucho Marx
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list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Anthere

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

body:
BorgHunter wrote:
> Patrick, Brad wrote:
>
>
>>Greetings:
>>
>>I am the attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation in the US.  I work for
>>the Board.  Among my responsibilities is keeping the Foundation out of
>>legal trouble and responding to lawsuits, actual and threatened.  I have
>>had a long chat with Eric Moeller about the circumstances that resulted
>>in his ban (since reverted by someone Being Bold).  I also believe that
>>the misunderstanding, although in good faith, still presented a risk to
>>the Foundation.
>>
>>The issue of blocked articles is a complex one, and in many instances
>>can be the visible result of careful consideration on the part of
>>Foundation board members, staff, and other admins/bureaucrats/sysops who
>>have knowledge of the facts and circumstances.  Often the community at
>>large will not have any idea what the facts and underlying
>>considerations are.  Not everything that involves Wikipedia is public,
>>nor should it be.  The typical user or admin doesn't have all the pieces
>>of the puzzle.  Don't let hubris get the better of you.
>>
>>There may be those of you who have yet to experience the American legal
>>system in any fashion, save for a movie or two.  Dealing with lawsuits
>>is what I do for a living.  Avoiding them is also what I do for a
>>living.  My job is to make sure that the Foundation has the best legal
>>advice and best options open to it to keep things running smoothly, and
>>to not land in court unless all other avenues have been exhausted.
>>
>>The WP:OFFICE policy is still in its infancy.  People will challenge it
>>through their words and actions.  Everyone is entitled to his or her
>>opinion.  But I believe everyone who believes in the future success and
>>sustainability of the project must also recognize the need for judicious
>>use of confidentiality at the Foundation level.  The Foundation officers
>>and Board members have a fiduciary obligation to the organization, as I
>>do as a lawyer for my client.
>>
>>Certain members of the community (and notably, not Mr. Moeller) have
>>expressed dissatisfaction about WP:OFFICE and its use.  There is a
>>healthy debate yet to be had about it.  We can have that debate, but I
>>also have to make clear that the Foundation's obligations are greater
>>than loyalty to any one user.  Even someone with the history of
>>contributions to Mr. Moeller.
>>
>>-BradPatrick
>>
>>
>>Bradford A. Patrick, Esq.
>>Fowler White Boggs Banker
>>501 E. Kennedy Blvd.
>>Suite 1700
>>Tampa, FL  33602-5239
>>bpatrick at fowlerwhite.com
>>
>>
>
> Mr. Patrick,
>
> I understand the concerns about the Office action, and how it may have
> posed a legal threat to Wikimedia. The issue at stake here, however, is
> not "Was the Office action justified?" Rather, I think the problem was,
> at a fundamental level, communication. Along the way, it was failed to
> be communicated that the action in question was indeed an Office action.
> Thus, it was acted upon as if it was not. If Wikimedia feels the need to
> issue such an action, should it not be clearly labeled to avoid that
> very legal threat to Wikipedia that Danny was attempting to avoid in the
> first place? I hope that all involved have learned from the experience,
> but I don't think that Erik constitutes a continued threat. His action
> was borne of misunderstanding, and actions against him to prevent
> further threats are, now that the misunderstanding has been cleared up,
> unnecessary. I don't think anyone is questioning the legitimacy of the
> Office action here, but I think we all are concerned that a
> misunderstanding led to all this. Again, I ask: Should Office actions
> not be labeled explicitly as such?
>
> Thanks,
> BorgHunter

hi

You precisely hit the nail on the head BorgHunter.

Ant


body:
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Kelly Martin stated for the record:
> On 4/20/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
>
>>Under this definition, Eloquence's block truly would be a death
>>sentence, since no one could ever revert Danny's stupid initial
>>indefinite block -- even Jimbo.
>
>
> Don't be silly.  All you have to do is have a discussion and reach
> consensus.  A reversal based on consensus is not wheel warring.
>
> Kelly

That's not what you said, and when I consider how extreme some of your
other contributions to this discussion have been, I didn't know what to
assume.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Bad: all life stopping instantaneously,
 sean at epoptic.org | and every molecule in your body
                  | exploding at the speed of light.
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Wheel culture

body:
  Geni,

>
> You are suggesting that there are admins on wikipedia who are not
> aware that stuff done on wikipedia may be undone?

  I'm not clear on whether or not you're just goofing around here.  There are a
lot of things that "may" potentially be done on a wiki that would surprise or
alarm experienced users if they were actually put into practice.  If you were
just goofing, I didn't get the joke.

                           Jkelly


body:
On 20/04/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
> Any edits to the template itself, even to <noinclude> sections, force a
> purge of every page using the template.  For widely used templates, this
> may be a significant cost.  Thus, I'd recommend keeping only the most
> basic and stable documentation on the template page itself, and put the
> rest on the talk page.  In fact, for the majority of templates, the only
> "documentation" needed on the template page is the default rendering of
> the template code itself.

That's certainly true, but unless you're talking about the cost of the
documentation frequently changing, I suspect that's a pretty
negligible cost.  In extreme cases, perhaps a link to the talk page
would be appropriate - going to the "discussion" page for
documentation is, IMHO, extremely non-intuitive. In fact, I still fall
into the trap of thinking a template is not documented at all when
there is nothing on the actual template page.

Another solution in some cases might be to make a subpage called
/help, and then to include that subpage into the main page. But on
second thoughts maybe that doesn't solve the problem of page purging
when the doc updates...

Steve


from_name: Ilmari Karonen

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> Hi all,
>   Anyone know if there is a convention/guideline for how to document
> templates, given the existence of <noinclude>? Previously, the
> discussion page was used. Now it would seem more appropriate to move
> documentation onto the main template page, inclosed within
> <noinclude>. However, before launching into doing this, two questions:
>
> * Is there consensus for this?
> * Is there more of a burden on the surver to transclude a template
> which includes a large amount of <noinclude>'d documentation?

Any edits to the template itself, even to <noinclude> sections, force a
purge of every page using the template.  For widely used templates, this
may be a significant cost.  Thus, I'd recommend keeping only the most
basic and stable documentation on the template page itself, and put the
rest on the talk page.  In fact, for the majority of templates, the only
"documentation" needed on the template page is the default rendering of
the template code itself.

But that's just my opinion.

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: James D. Forrester

body:
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Ilmari Karonen wrote:

> Fred Bauder wrote:
>
> > Results vary when you complain, some problems are dealt with, some
> > work themselves out, some are ignored, but I have never seen a
> > vengeful or paranoid attitude from our central leadership.
>
> Depends on who you count among the "central leadership", I suppose.  I'm
> not trying to single her out here, but I was struct by the juxtaposition
> of your comment above and a message just left by Kelly Martin (who seems
> to be "in the know" on this current issue) at [[WP:1WW]:
>
> | "... Eloquence deciding that he's entitled to unilaterally reverse
> | without discussion a protection imposed by Danny, one of most trusted
> | administrators. That was wheel warring. He deserves to be desysoped (and
> | was desysoped, although that punishment, while originally imposed by
> | Jimbo, was subsequently reversed by Jimbo for reasons that frankly make
> | no sense to me) for that."
>
> So, let's see:
>
> * That nice hot-button word "unilaterally".  It wasn't more than a few
> months ago when the unwashed hordes were screaming it at Kelly herself.

Ah, yes, but they were wrong. :-)

> * Desysoping (and prosumably blocking) are apparently now punitive, not
> preventative.

It is a preventative measure against further actions which are to the
serious detriment of the Foundation.

> * "I am sure Erik will not do anything bad" frankly makes no sense to her.

The point is, I believe, that the term used in the statement is "do",
not "continue to do".

> I'm sorry to say this, but, all in all, that comment sounds pretty
> nasty.  Maybe not "vengeful or paranoid", but certainly very stressed
> out and high-handed, with a good amount of zero tolerance and "assume
> bad faith" thrown in.  Maybe I'm reading too much into this paragraph,
> but it sure sounds as if someone is in urgent need of a vacation here.

That's an intriguing line to take.

> I'd really like to know what caused all this

Evidently this isn't getting through. The reasons for such actions
normally cannot and certainly should not be revealed. I'd love to know
everything, too, but the answer is: "tough".

> Just another admin without all the pieces of the puzzle,

Indeed. Which is the exact point.

Yours sincerely,
- --
James D. Forrester
Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]
E-Mail    : james at jdforrester.org
IM (MSN)  : jamesdforrester at hotmail.com
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from_name: Gregory Price

subject: [Foundation-l] Lost money

body:
On 4/19/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Walter Vermeir wrote:
> > Is it really necessary to provide the normal donation form? Just put on
> > the error-page itself ( PayPal: donation at wikipedia.org ) and if that is
> > possible make from the email address a link to the website of PayPal to
> > a page where the can donate to the Wikimedia Foundation.
>
> Please see prior discussion on this subject.

This response would be more helpful if it gave some hint
toward finding the prior discussion.

Walter's suggestion seems a good one.

I just went to PayPal and told it to send $10 to donation at wikipedia.org;
it tells me that the money (less their cut) went to a Verified Business Account
belonging to "Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.", which has the URL of
http://www.wikimedia.org/ and the email address of donations at wikipedia.org.
That looks like a successful transaction to me.

If to the static page we now serve for an error
we added a static mention of donation at wikipedia.org (or donations@)
and a static link to PayPal, it seems likely a good flow of money would open up.

So what am I missing (and Walter, and Anthony)?
What's in that past discussion -- or where can it be found?

Greg


subject: [Foundation-l] Lost money


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Kelly Martin wrote:

>I have a
>great deal of respect for the need of the Foundation to take
>appropriate measures to protect its very real legal interests in the
>face of potential litigation.  I tend to believe that the Foundation
>is, at its core, more interested in being "an encyclopedia being
>written by a community" than a "community which is writing an
>encyclopedia".  I'm not so convinced that the same is true of the
>Wikipedia community as a whole.
>
>And, yes, I am somewhat more in the know on this issue than you are,
>but that doesn't mean I have all of the pieces of the puzzle either.
>All rhetoric aside, not all admins on Wikipedia are equal; some of us
>are clearly more bothered about this than others.
>
Welcome to Animal Farm.

At this point we have nothing more than a guess that there is potential
litigation.  That's a great foundation for sand castles.  Has anyone
ever heard of verifiability?

Ec


from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

body:
On 4/20/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> Is it the right of every administrator to second-guess the
> administrative actions of any other administrator, and instantly
> revert them if they feel justified?
>
> The culture of feeling entitled to instantly revert, though, is quite
> damaging.
>
Exactly right. Some admins have adopted a definition of "wheel
warring" that excludes the first revert of an admin action -- so that
if X blocks, and Y unblocks, Y is not wheel warring. But if X restores
the block, X has started the wheel war. This is nonsense. The first
person to undo the original admin action has started the wheel war,
and it's that first undoing that shouldn't be happening as a rule.

Sarah


body:
On 4/20/06, jkelly at fas.harvard.edu <jkelly at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
>  While we're engaging in this critique of Danny's response, it might make sense
> to ask whether or not Danny, and the other office people, are aware that there
> exists some large segment of the admin population who regard it as routine to
> undo other admin actions without discussion because they were "out of process",
> or "obviously wrong", or whatever.  Can we imagine the possibility that some
> people might interpret that as inexplicable, or even hostile, interference, if
> they aren't used to this?
>
I just posted this to another thread, but it's more appropriate here.
Some admins have adopted a definition of "wheel warring" that excludes
the first revert of an admin action -- so that if X blocks, and Y
unblocks, Y is not wheel warring. But if X restores the block, X has
started the wheel war, meaning the admin who's only trying to return
to the status quo ante gets the blame.

This is nonsense and it lies at the heart of all this trouble. The
first person to undo the original admin action has started the wheel
war, and it's that first undoing that shouldn't be happening (except
where the original admin can't be contacted and it has to be done
quickly). But as a rule, we shouldn't be undoing each other's admin
actions at all.

Sarah


body:
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Using the {{office}} template to tag problem content is a nice idea,
but, I would imagine, has a rather serious drawback: Wikitruth.info
(amongst other 'helpful' critics) seems to have a sysop working for
them. Were we to flag an article that was libellous with {{office}}, you
can bet that they would go and dig out the deleted sections, and repost
it to their wonderful service. Now Wikimedia has been informed that they
are likely to be sued, and in response has done something knowing that
it would increase the publication and spread of this libel. - we're then
liable for their reposting of the content, and "utterly screwed". I
know, I know, "that's not what was intended". Well, tough, that's the
way the Real World(tm) works.

So, what does this mean? Well, flagging articles as Office-protected is
a legal no-no in that kind of case, and something significantly less
high profile has to be done - and, possibly, the existence of this
action would be buried for all eternity (or, certainly, several decades,
which on the Internet is much the same thing).

This is something that we have to deal with /now/ - the Foundation could
possibly be sued out of existence tomorrow. There is no time for us to
have a nice chat, or wring our hands about whether it's properly the
"wiki way". We're here to build an encyclop?dia, above all things, and
if you don't care that the Foundation is here to keep everything
working, then possibly you need to re-evaluate your priorities and
commitment to this project; Distributed Proofreaders could always do
with a few more volunteers, for instance.

Please note that this is all conjecture on my part, I'm not the one who
makes {{office}} decisions.

Yours sincerely,
- --
James D. Forrester
Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]
E-Mail    : james at jdforrester.org
IM (MSN)  : jamesdforrester at hotmail.com
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body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Kirill Lokshin wrote:
>
>> On 4/19/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Don't get fixated on the admin power abuse thing. It is merely a
>>> convenient method and sign of who they have on their side. They could
>>> do it just as easily through database dumps, or spidering CFD/AFD, or
>>> scaping mirrors, or... You see what I'm getting at? Frankly, the CC
>>> GFDL issue aside, I find it kinda amusing we're all so horrified at
>>> seeing some of our content (for better or worse) on other websites.
>>> They're the one hosting it; no moral blame descends on us for at one
>>> time making a mistake, rectifying it, and then keeping records in case
>>> our rectification was a mistake. But I think I've posted enough in
>>> this thread, so good night.
>>>
>>>
>> It's not the fact that they've obtained the deleted material per se.
>> As you point out, they could have gotten it by other means; and the
>> material itself, in this case, isn't particularly impressive.
>>
>> My concern is more to the "sign of who they have on their side"
>> aspect.  The Wikipedia admin model works to a great extent because
>> admins can be trusted not to harm the project.  Here we have evidence
>> -- circumstantial and not very specific, but nevertheless quite
>> damning -- that one or more admins _are_ clearly attempting to harm
>> Wikipedia.  I would argue that this is a bad thing regardless of
>> whether they've actually damaged anything yet.
>>
> The most disturbing aspect of this view is the classic paranoia.  Of
> course we are in no position to go so far as to put a bullet in
> somebody's head for disloyalty, but the underlying aura of suspicion is
> similar.  The fear that the people you might be working with are not as
> loyal as you, that they do not worship the words of the great leader as
> much as you are very scary.  In a totalitarian regime there is no need
> for the leadership to issue repressive orders, or to hire high-price
> hitmen.  A few handshakes, a smile or a bit of casual praise to a
> roomful of sycophants and paranoids will be far more cost effective.
>
> As long as these rogue admins are taking ludicrous positions can they
> really harm Wikipedia with their rants?  And how do we distinguish
> between the kooks and the honest whistleblowers who are exposing
> legitimate problems?
>

Honest whistleblowers don't post defamatory information about people or
their children.

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

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body:
On 4/20/06, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/20/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Is it the right of every administrator to second-guess the
> > administrative actions of any other administrator, and instantly
> > revert them if they feel justified?
> >
> > The culture of feeling entitled to instantly revert, though, is quite
> > damaging.
> >
> Exactly right. Some admins have adopted a definition of "wheel
> warring" that excludes the first revert of an admin action -- so that
> if X blocks, and Y unblocks, Y is not wheel warring. But if X restores
> the block, X has started the wheel war. This is nonsense. The first
> person to undo the original admin action has started the wheel war,
> and it's that first undoing that shouldn't be happening as a rule.

I concur entirely with Sarah's definition of when a wheel war begins.
This culture of "free whacks at the post" has to go.  NOBODY is
entitled to revert without discussion.  3RR says we're willing to
tolerate it for regular editors.  Admins are expected to be above
this.  Any admin who doesn't want to play by this rule is invited to
visit [[m:Requests for permissions]].

Kelly