subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
On 2/9/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
> on 2/9/07 2:58 PM, Stan Shebs at stanshebs at earthlink.net wrote:
>
> > I
> > encourage you to try designing a support system though, WP can't afford
> > to lose all its admins to "churn".
>
>
> Stan
>
> I?ve learned a lot from the List today; specifically about some of the
> people who make Wikipedia go. I have a hell of a lot to learn about its
> administrative workings; and I won?t even think about going near the
> technical background elements (no one is ready for the chaos that would
> produce :-) ) But, the people?
>
> Everyone brings their own special gifts to the Project; that?s what makes it
> work so well. Mine happens to be people: how they interact with their self,
> and with other persons.
>
> From what I have read I do believe a formal, recognized support mechanism is
> needed to help persons in the project experiencing periodic, situational
> difficulties. Were are dealing with creative personalities here, and, like
> it or not, this creativity comes with a certain degree of fragility, and,
> yes, flakiness (very definitely, me included ? in fact I?ve been called
> things I had to look up).
>
> To even suggest that if someone burns out, there are hundreds waiting in the
> wings to replace them is to dehumanize them.
>
> I?m going to chew on this some more. But whatever proposal I come up with is
> probably going to require people to do some thinking outside the Wikibox;
> but why the hell not ? something?s not working within it.
>
> Marc Riddell

Problems like this have plagued online interactions since they
started, and to some extent volunteer organizations back into the dark
depths of modern history.

That said, some organizations deal with them pretty well, and I am all
for outside-ish suggestions on how we can do better with them.

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Andrew Gray

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] precisions about the recent WMF "fair use"
	decision

body:
On 09/02/07, J.L.W.S. The Special One <hildanknight at gmail.com> wrote:

> If I were a celebrity, I would not release my photo under a free
> license. If I were a professional photographer or artist, I would not
> release my work under a free license either.
>
> Why? Imagine Fiona Xie releasing her photo under a free license to let
> Wikipedia use it, and a nasty vandal creating a derivative work by
> enlarging the size of her boobs, and publishing the derivative photo.

Bear in mind that copyright is not related to your right not to have
your image used in a defamatory or misleading manner - whatever rights
the law gives you in this regard you retain whether you hold the
copyright or not.

And malicious vandals usually don't give a damn about the legal status
of the work they're chopping around...

> If I were a professional photographer or artist, and I released my
> work under a free license, I wouldn't be able to earn a living.

There are a few professional and semi-professional photographers who
have released work under a free license - have a look at Towpilot's
work on Commons, where what he's doing is releasing a load of
freelance photos he made of Hollywood stars on promotional tours in
the 70s/80s. The market he took these for no longer exists - he can't
really flog them to Scandinavian entertainment magazines twenty years
on! - and they're of no real economic value to him now; sure, he might
be able to sell one or two for a biography or a retrospective, but who
would hunt him down to find them?

It's also advertising - you're releasing photos, there is the promise
of more to come, of other (better?) images you still have on the
market. They're attributed, so your name continues with them; an
interested reuser can always contact you.

And, pragmatically, a lot of reusers don't want to deal with open
licenses or the like - they want what they understand, which is a
clear license for a specific use from the copyright holder, for which
they are willing to pay. There are a few people who make a small but
comfortable amount from people finding their freely-licensed images on
Commons and then paying to use them...

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


from_name: Artur Fijałkowski

body:
2007/2/9, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>:
>
> On 09/02/07, Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Maybe we should start using some sort of place-holder image for living
> > people without free images. It could show a typical generic shadow bust,
> > with "No free image available" written in bold letters.

Remember that even if I (or anyone else)  agree for distribution of photos
of myself it doesn't mean that I resign from protection of my image. Eg. PD
photo of me cannot be used in advertisement of condoms without my permission
although it's PD ;)

AJF/WarX


list: foundation-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Clearing up Wikimedia's media licensing policies

body:
On 09/02/07, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm sorry, but that does fly right in the face of existing laws - searches
> on both Wikipedia and Google tell me that legal abandonment of copyright
> only occurs when one explicitly confers material to the public domain. If
> you don't hear anything from the copyright holder in a reasonable term, that
> can be implicitly an acquiescence to your usage of the material. It does not
> remove any rights they have against others.

FWIW, UK copyright law recognises a defence of acquiescence, but you
need to show that the other party was *aware* of it as well as taking
no steps to stop it. This dates from 1906, but a ruling was made as
recently as 1996 - there, the copyright holder became aware in early
1993 that use beyond the license was being made of its material, and
the judge held that a defence of acquiescence could be made out from
at least the middle of that year.

(I am unsure what that translated to in practice - I'm trying to dig
up the reports, but suspect it was something along the lines of "you
can only sue for the first couple of months of infringing use")

It's a defence (like fair-use) for infringement, though, *not* a
release. And, of course, simply making your infringement public is not
the same thing as them knowing about it - you'd have to somehow prove
they were aware.

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


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikitech-l

from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Wikitech-l] Fwd: [Foundation-l] Mail archives

body:
On 09/02/07, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> Not in my experience. Both MARC and Gmane allow you to narrow down your
> search by list, author and date, which gives them an advantage over a
> simple keyword search in certain situations. Even when Google was indexing
> the lists, I found it to be pretty poor by comparison.

Would links to MARC and Gmane on the archive pages be a good idea?

(Are the MARC copies of the lists archived on Google?)

- d.


list: wikien-l

from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
On 2/9/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 09/02/07, Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I propose an experiment:
> > Select at random 100 editors who meet some minimal criteria* and make
> > them admins. Make it clear to them that they may turn down adminship
> > without prejudice.
> > Then, we watch these 100 "probationary" admins for 3 months. If they
> > abuse their admin powers in that time, their admin status is removed.
> > Otherwise, we treat them as regular admins. The only difference with a
> > "probationary" admin is the level of scrutiny they receive.
> > If this works, then after 3 months we do it again. And again every three
> > months. Soon, adminship loses almost all of its "status" appeal. It's
> > just something you'll get if you hang around and keep your nose clean.
> > Of course, you can still apply through RfA. But I predict that RfA will
> > quickly become much less political and controversial.
> > *My suggestion for "minimal criteria":
> >     At least 50 edits to at least 10 different non-own-user pages for
> > each of the past three months, and
> >     No blocks in the past three months
> > Essentially, just enough to give a good indication that the user is
> > involved and isn't a trouble-maker. Nothing more.
> > Comments? Flames?
>
>
> EXCELLENT idea. If Jimbo and the ArbCom like it (I'm picking the AC as
> sanity checkers here) then the experiment should be declared.

Good idea. How about no blocks after the first week of editing? Editors who
are bold and learn from their mistakes would make good admins.


body:
On 09/02/07, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> (I am unsure what that translated to in practice - I'm trying to dig
> up the reports, but suspect it was something along the lines of "you
> can only sue for the first couple of months of infringing use")

Aha, found it. Reported in the Times, Dec.02 1996:

"The owner of copyright in films who was aware that one of its
licensees had plans to broadcast the films outside the area specified
in the licence agreement and had subsequently done so, but did not
complain or take any other action to stop them, had acquiesced and was
therefore not entitled to claim an infringement of copyright."

The action was dismissed. I can pass a copy of the report (aha! fair
scholarly use!) on to anyone wishing to peruse it further...

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


from_name: Platonides

subject: [Wikitech-l] Complimentary vandalism?

body:
Mark Clements wrote:
> Except that the pages we need to block in this case are pages that will
> never need to be created, so it won't get in the way of any legitimite
> activity which a captcha would.
>
> - Mark Clements (HappyDog)

How many anonymous users have a legitimate activity of creating pages on
mediawiki.org? How many to create them on an even namespace?

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:Newpages seemed to contradict
myself, showing three pages created by anons. They were a blanked 'edit
experiment' and two "hacked by"


list: textbook-l

from_name: Simetrical

subject: [Textbook-l] Offer to upload a book, subject to conditions

body:
Okay, it seems that everyone is happy with the idea of posting it with
a link back to a controlled copy on her website.  I've explained the
terms of the GFDL to her and she's perfectly happy with them.  I'll
probably end up putting the book up sometime reasonably soon.

On 2/8/07, Andrew Whitworth <wknight8111 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> This would be perfectly acceptable. As has been done in the past, if a book
> is donated to wikibooks, prominent links will be displayed to the original
> version of the book, and information will be posted about the original
> author.

Just for reference, what's an example of such a Wikibook?


from_name: Zordsdavini iz Litvy

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Milestones

body:
Till 1 year birthday Samogitian Wikipedia (http://bat-smg.wikipedia.org)
reached 1000 article.

2007/2/7, Annie <alensha at gmail.com>:
>
> Congratulations to the Italian, Finnish and V?ro Wikipedias!
>
> Another milestone is approaching: Hungarian Wikipedia is about to reach
> 50,000 articles today. (It has 49,958 right now. :-)
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Ok^ ek^ besla ikv Olmok Vzauep^evk
:)


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fluctuating Google result count with Firefox

body:
On 2/9/07, David Ashby <humble.fool at gmail.com> wrote:
> Posing the question to a guy I know who works at Google received this response:
>
> >The count of results is just an approximation; it's not the actual count.
>
> So I assume that he means it's figured on the fly, and is subject to
> random variation? Just proves you can't put any real stock in the
> number returned.

Well, that doesn't explain why the number randomly oscillates between
precisely two numbers, with a different layout of the results on the
screen. I actually suspect that what's happening is the "discard
similar results" option is generating the smaller number with
indenting, and that option is being set or not set randomly. Using a
less popular query and specifically choosing to discard similar
results gives a stable number.

Whether the bug is in how firefox interacts with google, or how google
interacts with firefox is unclear.

I would also be curious to know if Google has any kind of confidence
parameters on those estimates. Can one say for example that if query Q
returns "approximately" 1,000,000 results and P returns
"approximately" 1,500,000 results - then are there definitely more
real results for P than Q?

Steve

Steve


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
On 2/9/07, Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Bleah. I couldn't even read the whole thing, it's so sordid and petty.

The CVU has rather a good record of bringing new people into the
community. So when a group of admins falls for a troll and trys to
take action against the first group to make you feel part of a
community on wikipedia it is understandable that you are going to want
to make sure that doesn't happen again.

> There are many hurts in life. I know Mr. Linkspam-Cabo-every-day is
> bummed that I revert him over and over, he's even said so, but his goal
> is to make a buck no matter what it does to WP. I'm sure if he was
> smarter, he could find editors to testify to the arbcom that I'm being a
> mean and nasty admin by not reverting him with an individually-composed,
> sensitive, and caring message each time, and should be desysopped as an
> example to the others. So, are you on his side, or on mine?
>

That would the false dilemma logical fallacy.

No one is objecting to linkspamers being reverted or blocked. Problem
is the community know admins don't just limit themselves to that kind
of activity

> If I'm not going to be supported by other editors, admin or not, then I
> don't want to be an admin any longer.
>

We have no right to demand support. We have to earn it.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
On 2/9/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/9/07, Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I propose an experiment:
> >
> > Select at random 100 editors who meet some minimal criteria* and make
> > them admins. Make it clear to them that they may turn down adminship
> > without prejudice.
> >
>
> So we increase the number of paper admins in return for what? Risk
> benefit analysis doesn't look good.
>
> > Then, we watch these 100 "probationary" admins for 3 months. If they
> > abuse their admin powers in that time, their admin status is removed.
> > Otherwise, we treat them as regular admins. The only difference with a
> > "probationary" admin is the level of scrutiny they receive.
> >
>
> I have better things to do with my time than babysit admins. So do most
> people.

If you don't want to be involved, then don't be.


from_name: Guettarda

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
On 2/9/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/9/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
> > on 2/9/07 3:44 PM, geni at geniice at gmail.com wrote:
> >
> > > ?you end up with resentment against the lucky
> > > ones.
> >
> > After reading all of the posts on the provocatively-named subject "Admin
> > Burnout", I am hard pressed to see anything "lucky" about being "chosen"
> as
> > one. How on earth would you go about persuading someone to take this on?
> The
> > whole day's posts have spoken about nothing but the negative side of the
> > job; are there any advantages - or are you simply hoping there are
> enough
> > masochists out there to fill the positions?
> >
> > Marc Riddell
>
> You can see deleted edits you can speedy stuff without tagging and you
> can block without going through AIV. You can edit protected templates
> without messing around. reverting is less effort. Certian types of
> page moves are only posible for admins
>
> On the less official side people tend to think twice before attacking
> you and you tend to get a free pass when it comes to being trusted.
>
> On the against policy but can be done anyway if you are smart. You can:
>
> Speedy rather than prod
> Block new users who are being anoying

Having admin powers is convenient from an editing perspective, especially
the ability to move pages and see deleted edits.

There are a lot of reasons not to give people admin powers after just 50
edits.  I'm guessing that one of them is copyright.  Right now there are a
lot of deleted copyvios.  If anyone who registers (just about) has access to
those copyvios, then aren't we back to publishing the copyvios?  It would
also create a lot more need for oversight - we'd be opening up a huge amount
of personal information to the public.

Then, of course, there's the damage an admin can do.  Willy on Wheels can
sit tight for 50 edits.  Fifty edits with a sleeper account and you can put
all the penises you want on the main page. A dozen sleeper accounts and a
dynamics IP, and you could really have fun.  And while I won't go into
details per WP:BEANS, there are a lot of ways that an admin can do
effectively irreversible damage.

While we probably need lots more admins, we don't need automatic admins.


from_name: Timwi

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
>>>How does the Community define a "quality admin"?
>
>>Why do you need such a definition?
>
> I would think for the same reason that, before you decide something is
> substandard, you would first need to define what the standard is.

Hm, this sounds like you didn't read the rest of my posting, but maybe I
didn't make it clear enough, so I'll try again.

I believe that current Wikipedia practices implement the following mindset:

You don't need to define what constitutes a "good quality" editor
because the "medium quality" editors can edit just as much as the "good
quality" editors. You only need to define "bad quality" editors because
those are the ones you need to find in order to block them from editing.
"Bad quality" can be determined on the basis of specific incidents (e.g.
continued vandalism).

Similarly, I am advocating that the same should apply to admins:

You don't need to define "good quality" in this case because the "medium
quality" admins can stay just as much as the "good quality" admins. You
only need to define "bad quality" admins because those are the ones you
need to find in order to demote them. "Bad quality" can be determined on
the basis of specific incidents (e.g. continued disruptance).

Why do we allow everyone to edit even though people vandalise pages all
the time? Of course, it's because the constructive edits from passers-by
outweigh the work required to clean up after vandals. The RfA system is
analogous to having all users blocked by default and requiring them to
apply for editing privileges first. Then you'd get people voting
"oppose" because the user makes spelling mistakes in their blog or
something, thereby missing out on potentially useful contributions like
uploading selfmade pictures or organising categories.

Wikipedia claims to have a system in place that finds "good quality" (or
at least "good enough quality") admins -- it's called RfA. What I'm
saying now is that this search for "good enough quality" admins is
misguided because the ones you need to identify are the "bad quality"
ones. Although the current system makes it difficult for a genuinely
bad-quality user to become admin, it also misses out on "good enough
quality" admins because of specious criteria like "not enough edits".
This way (potentially) hundreds of users are prevented from helping
constructively.

Timwi


body:
J.L.W.S. The Special One wrote:
> If I were a professional photographer or artist, and I released my
> work under a free license, I wouldn't be able to earn a living.

If you put a free license on some of your photos and 145889 people
downloaded and shared it, you would have 145889 people knowing about
you, and knowing that you make great photos -> they may hire you.

Note that:
a) We're not saying you should publich *all* your work. If you have 20
photos of John Doe, you can publish one low-quality and sell the other 19.

b) People copying your photos will get even less profit, as they will
have to acknowledge you were the author (i assume at least a Attribution
License).

c) If your work is bad. There's very little licenses can do to make you
earn more money.


from_name: Marc Riddell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
on 2/9/07 3:44 PM, geni at geniice at gmail.com wrote:

> ?you end up with resentment against the lucky
> ones.

After reading all of the posts on the provocatively-named subject "Admin
Burnout", I am hard pressed to see anything "lucky" about being "chosen" as
one. How on earth would you go about persuading someone to take this on? The
whole day's posts have spoken about nothing but the negative side of the
job; are there any advantages - or are you simply hoping there are enough
masochists out there to fill the positions?

Marc Riddell


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
On Fri, 09 Feb 2007 07:54:06 -0800, Stan Shebs
<stanshebs at earthlink.net> wrote:

>There are also quite a
>few editors who are inclined to regard admins unfavorably to begin, as
>tiny manifestations of the The Man(tm), and who I'm sure are secretly
>gleeful when admins are taken down. It's not an organized program of
>divide-and-conquer, but the net effect is the same.

Seen the ED page on MONGO?

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Your comments on wikien-l regarding adminship

body:
on 2/9/07 3:49 PM, Gary Kirk at gary.kirk at gmail.com wrote:

> Wikipedia is not a democracy.

What is it then?

Marc Riddell


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
geni wrote:
>
> Editors are people. Being blocked hurts. Haveing your work deleted hurts.

Think about this a bit more. Being blocked hurts. Is it so much of a
stretch of imagination to realise that (for some if not most people)
being excluded from adminship also hurts? It is, after all, functionally
the same as being "blocked" from the extra features.

People probably don't realise this readily because it's a qualitatively
different kind of hurting -- it's not a singular event like being
blocked or a page being deleted, which is like a stab in the chest which
may (or may not) heal. This is different; it's more like a nagging
headache that doesn't go away.


from_name: Jeff Raymond

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
George Herbert wrote:
> On 2/9/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:

>> How on earth would you go about persuading someone to take this on?
>> The
>> whole day's posts have spoken about nothing but the negative side of the
>> job; are there any advantages - or are you simply hoping there are
>> enough
>> masochists out there to fill the positions?
>
> Why is anyone contributing to Wikipedia at all?

That's a really good answer to this.

I mean, I look at things this way, for myself:

1) I'd make a really good, if not great, administrator on this site.
2) Even as a mediocre administrator, I have the spare time and ability to
clean out uncontroversial backlogs.  I'm "available" 12-16 hours a day in
many cases.
3) I'll never pass RfA for a number of reasons, none of which would have
to do with my trustworthiness except for one or two editors.
4) I'm still not sure I even want to be part of that "club," given some of
the administrators in place.
5) Even with #4 being true, I'm dedicated enough to this project to have
donated two years of my time to it, and I'm capable of more and would do
it if I could.
6) I can't.

Do I WANT to be an administrator?  No, not really, for all the reasons
people describe - it's largely thankless, it leaves you wide open for even
more criticism, and it's not "fun" in the way writing about an 18th
century chess hoax is.  Could I BE a greater asset to the project as an
administrator?  Without question.

So the system leaves people like me behind.  Since I don't really WANT the
bit, I'm not terribly concerned about it.  But when I hear about burnout
and backlogs from the same people who want to stand in the way of getting
people who can use the tools equipped (and that generally does not apply
to people here), I simply have to roll my eyes.

So yeah.  Someone else said it - it's probably going to take a
Foundation/Jimbo-level decree to get anything to change on this point.  A
great idea at [[Wikipedia:Trial adminship]] was ditched this week, and the
100 new admins every 3 months idea is even better, but will never gain
traction from the non-mailing list community.  It's a pathetic truth, but
there it is.  And until we start being more forgiving of users who've made
mistakes and learned from them, the situation's not going to get much
better.

-Jeff


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> On 2/8/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>We apparently just lost Alkivar (hopefully just on a stress relief
>>break, but he says he's out of here indefinitely).
>>
>>We're doing terribly at keeping identified, overstressed admins from
>>ending up going over the edge.  What are we doing wrong, or what do we
>>need to learn to do right?
>
> Why assume we're doing anything wrong? Some degree of churn is, I think,
> healthy.

I can't speak for George (the OP), but I don't think I'm working from
the assumption that we're doing anything wrong. I come to the conclusion
that we do.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Expandable dablinks

body:
On 2/9/07, Bill Konrad <bkonrad123 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> I'm not sure I see the advantages here. Sure it is kind of cool in a bit of
> a geeky way, but you still have to click a link to see the disambiguation

It's not geeky, it's good UI design, which MediaWiki kind of lacks. My
internet connection is fairly slow, and it takes seconds to load a new
page. Being able to avoid that would be great.

> And it would appear
> to make both adding the disambiguation note at the top of pages and possibly

Not true - I've made an otheruses4-expand template which is a drop-in
replacement for otheruses4.

> the actual structure of the disambiguation pages more complex and fraught
> with potential for error.

Yeah, that's true. The major issues identified so far are:
- not allowing section headings to be transcluded
- not allowing the {{disambig}} (and related) templates to be transcluded

There may be others. I notice that some disambig pages have wiktionary
links, but they can probably safely stay.

> Until the method is relatively idiot-proof [1], and there are clear
> advantages beyond a little bit of "gee whiz, ain't that neat", I'm
> skeptical.

I think what we've got so far is "relatively idiot-proof". At worst,
the drop-down box may be a bit ungainly. If an idiot did something
really bad like putting <noinclude> around the whole page or
something, then the worst possibly result is that the end user sees
nothing drop down - and they're in the same situation as now.

Advantages:
- Saving a couple of seconds every time a user needs to pass through a
disambiguation page.
- Requiring one less page load in that scenario. The basic workflow
would go from three page loads (searching for their term which loads
the "wrong page", clicking the disambig page link which loads the
disambig page, clicking a link which loads the "right page") to two
(loading the wrong page, loading the right page).

What are the disadvantages?

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
Pilotguy wrote:
>
> Being an admin is not what it is made out to be. People think, once you are
> an admin, you get a big office on the top floor with a massage chair. This
> is not the case [...]. The situation is that we do something like
> clear out hundreds of pages in CAT:CSD, and instead of getting support and
> encouragement for doing a task that's a pain in the ass, we get yelled at by
> everyone. [...]

This is probably all true. But that's not the problem we're discussing.
You see, no matter how many people you tell this story, the majority of
new users will still view adminship as "having a big office on the top
floor with a massage chair". Why? Not because they've been there and
seen it or anything, but simply because people start out /without/ it
and, if accepted by the community, are elevated to this "higher status".
That is enough already to create this impression that admins are
(considered by the community to be) "better people".

Timwi


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
>
>>I can't speak for George (the OP), but I don't think I'm working from
>>the assumption that we're doing anything wrong. I come to the conclusion
>>that we do.
>
> Okay,  how have you come to that conclusion?

I've already explained this elsewhere, so I'll only give a quick summary
here. Wikipedia does something _right_ by letting everyone edit. The
underlying philosophy is that everyone starts out as innocent, and is
blocked from editing only if they show misbehaviour. Adminship is the
wrong way around. Users start out as being viewed with caution and
suspicion, and must "earn" their admin "privileges" by fulfilling some
ridiculous set of criteria. The _right_ way would be to demote the ones
who misuse it, not to prevent the constructive ones from being constructive.

Timwi


from_name: Jüvä Sullõv

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Milestones

body:
That's great! Best wishes to our
neighbours in Samogitia!

J.S.

[[fiu-vro:user:V?rok]]

9.02.2007 15:46:13, "Zordsdavini iz Litvy" <zordsdavini at gmail.com> kirot':

>Till 1 year birthday Samogitian Wikipedia (http://bat-smg.wikipedia.org)
>reached 1000 article.
>
>
>2007/2/7, Annie <alensha at gmail.com>:
>>
>> Congratulations to the Italian, Finnish and V?ro Wikipedias!
>>
>> Another milestone is approaching: Hungarian Wikipedia is about to reach
>> 50,000 articles today. (It has 49,958 right now. :-)
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikipedia-l mailing list
>> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>>
>
>
>
>--
>Ok^ ek^ besla ikv Olmok Vzauep^evk
>:)
>_______________________________________________
>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>


from_name: Rich Holton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> On 2/9/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 09/02/07, Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I propose an experiment:
>>> Select at random 100 editors who meet some minimal criteria* and make
>>> them admins. Make it clear to them that they may turn down adminship
>>> without prejudice.
>>> Then, we watch these 100 "probationary" admins for 3 months. If they
>>> abuse their admin powers in that time, their admin status is removed.
>>> Otherwise, we treat them as regular admins. The only difference with a
>>> "probationary" admin is the level of scrutiny they receive.
>>> If this works, then after 3 months we do it again. And again every three
>>> months. Soon, adminship loses almost all of its "status" appeal. It's
>>> just something you'll get if you hang around and keep your nose clean.
>>> Of course, you can still apply through RfA. But I predict that RfA will
>>> quickly become much less political and controversial.
>>> *My suggestion for "minimal criteria":
>>>     At least 50 edits to at least 10 different non-own-user pages for
>>> each of the past three months, and
>>>     No blocks in the past three months
>>> Essentially, just enough to give a good indication that the user is
>>> involved and isn't a trouble-maker. Nothing more.
>>> Comments? Flames?
>>
>> EXCELLENT idea. If Jimbo and the ArbCom like it (I'm picking the AC as
>> sanity checkers here) then the experiment should be declared.
>
>
> Good idea. How about no blocks after the first week of editing? Editors who
> are bold and learn from their mistakes would make good admins.
> _______________________________________________

Well, my criteria were just a starting point, and I hope they can be
improved upon. Do note, however, that I suggested no blocks in the last
three months. Blocks early on won't matter after three months of no blocks.

-Rich


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
On 09/02/07, Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Marc Riddell wrote:

> > As I suggested in a post a while back, perhaps there needs to be an
> > identified, organized support system within WP that an embattled admin can
> > turn to for encouragement and perspective. In this way they may not feel
> > they are so alone in a given situation.

> It would be continuously attacked, as proof positive of the evil admin
> cabal. That's all part of the baiting culture. There are also quite a
> few editors who are inclined to regard admins unfavorably to begin, as
> tiny manifestations of the The Man(tm), and who I'm sure are secretly
> gleeful when admins are taken down. It's not an organized program of
> divide-and-conquer, but the net effect is the same. One of the reasons I
> don't do more admin work is that I see what happens to other admins who
> stick their necks out, and it's just not worth it to me.

c.f. the attacks upon #wikipedia-en-admins, which are largely a proxy
for attacks on Kelly Martin.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
On 09/02/07, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/9/07, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:

>   The _right_ way would be to demote the ones
> > who misuse it, not to prevent the constructive ones from being constructive.

> And who would be empowered to de-admin people?  Those people would
> become the cabal with the "special" "privilieges" instead of admins.

The ArbCom does this now.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
geni wrote:
> On 2/9/07, Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I propose an experiment:
>>
>> Select at random 100 editors who meet some minimal criteria* and make
>> them admins. Make it clear to them that they may turn down adminship
>> without prejudice.
>>
>
> So we increase the number of paper admins in return for what? Risk
> benefit analysis doesn't look good.
>
>> Then, we watch these 100 "probationary" admins for 3 months. If they
>> abuse their admin powers in that time, their admin status is removed.
>> Otherwise, we treat them as regular admins. The only difference with a
>> "probationary" admin is the level of scrutiny they receive.
>>
>
> I have better things to do with my time than babysit admins. So do most people.
>
>> If this works, then after 3 months we do it again. And again every three
>> months. Soon, adminship loses almost all of its "status" appeal. It's
>> just something you'll get if you hang around and keep your nose clean.
>>
>
> Statistically no. In fact you end up with resentment against the lucky
> ones. At least at the moment there is some theoretical reason why
> people are or are not admins.
>
>> Of course, you can still apply through RfA. But I predict that RfA will
>> quickly become much less political and controversial.
>>
>> *My suggestion for "minimal criteria":
>>     At least 50 edits to at least 10 different non-own-user pages for
>> each of the past three months, and
>>     No blocks in the past three months
>>
>
> So I now need to be hitting users who stay just below the level of
> blocking with 1 second blocks?
>
>> Essentially, just enough to give a good indication that the user is
>> involved and isn't a trouble-maker. Nothing more.
>>
>> Comments? Flames?
>>
>
> I strongly suspect you don't know all the things that it is
> theoretically possible for an admin to do.

Well, in your last point you're wrong. I'm one of those "paper admins"
that you seem to hate so much.

As far as "hitting users who stay just below the level of blocking with
1 second blocks", it sounds to me like "gaming the system".

What is your *real* objection to this suggestion, Geni? You seem to
simultaneously complaining about any added work, and bashing good faith
suggestions for improving the situation.

-Rich


from_name: Earle Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

references:
<eqhtc4$e5m$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<C1F1E8C3.1671%michaeldavid86@comcast.net>
	<eqi6cr$k0k$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On 09/02/07, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> You don't need to define "good quality" in this case because the "medium
> quality" admins can stay just as much as the "good quality" admins. You
> only need to define "bad quality" admins because those are the ones you
> need to find in order to demote them. "Bad quality" can be determined on
> the basis of specific incidents (e.g. continued disruptance).
> ...
> Although the current system makes it difficult for a genuinely
> bad-quality user to become admin, it also misses out on "good enough
> quality" admins because of specious criteria like "not enough edits".
> This way (potentially) hundreds of users are prevented from helping
> constructively.

Hear, hear.

--
Earle Martin
            http://downlode.org/
http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
On Fri, 9 Feb 2007 17:17:58 +0000, "David Gerard" <dgerard at gmail.com>
wrote:

>The ArbCom does this now.

LOOK! LOOK! CABAL!

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
Marc Riddell wrote:
> on 2/9/07 3:44 PM, geni at geniice at gmail.com wrote:
>
>> ?you end up with resentment against the lucky
>> ones.
>
> After reading all of the posts on the provocatively-named subject "Admin
> Burnout", I am hard pressed to see anything "lucky" about being "chosen" as
> one. How on earth would you go about persuading someone to take this on? The
> whole day's posts have spoken about nothing but the negative side of the
> job; are there any advantages - or are you simply hoping there are enough
> masochists out there to fill the positions?
>
> Marc Riddell
>

While it's true that some people's approach to being admins puts them in
the way of much undeserved abuse, that is not the only way to be an admin.

Lest I be misunderstood, I appreciate the work that those admins do. It
is necessary work, and Wikipedia benefits from it. These admins deserve
our thanks and our support.

However, Wikipedia can also benefit from the less active admins. These
admins have a lower profile, and spend much less time on the project.
Because of how RfA works now, these admins tend to be those who have
burned out, or who became admins quite some time ago (as I did).

-Rich


from_name: Joshua Brady

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
On 2/9/07, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> Joshua Brady wrote:
>
> > >  * Wikipedia doubles every 6 months, we need an admin pool to
> > compensate it, and we need those who will focus on handling admin
> > issues, not waive the mop around for 2 months and discontinue use. So
> > lets not look at a new admin based on his edit count, but his
> > contributions and WILLINGNESS.
>
> Here is this wrong sentiment again. Just because you need admins who
> "will focus on handling admin issues", you are (incorrectly) concluding
> that people who only "waive the mop around for 2 months and discontinue
> use" are somehow worthless and therefore shouldn't be made admins. Even
> if someone helps out with some admin tasks for only 2 months, surely
> they're worth more than they would be if they couldn't do any of it
> because they're denied access to the admin functions. You never know if
> one of them stays on and becomes the focussed admin you need.

Out of everything I posted, how did you draw the conclusion that I
said anything to the effect that, those who "wave the mop around for 2
months and discontinue use" were worthless?

I simply stated that we need more admins who were willing to stick it
out for the long haul.

> Timwi

- Josh


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

references:
<eqho26$hep$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<C1F1D09B.1660%michaeldavid86@comcast.net>
	<b8ceeef70702090510p2582bb80g35119179340a4ef7@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On 2/9/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/9/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
> > How does the Community define a "quality admin"?
>
> Duh. 100% edit summaries. 3000 edits, well distributed across article
> space, project space and article talk space. Never having pissed
> anyone off. Ever.

I'd be reluctant to support anyone who has never pissed anyone off.
They don't know how to handle personal confrontation.

> Steve

- Josh


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
On 2/9/07, Keitei <nihthraefn at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Feb 9, 2007, at 9:42, geni wrote:
>
> > Editors are people. Being blocked hurts. Haveing your work deleted
> > hurts.
>
> Why does being blocked hurt? If a block is just what happens when you
> do such and such (like revert three times), why would that be a blow
> to the ego? You wait it out, you can edit again, no big deal.
> Ideally, you don't do anything which would lead to a block and
> nothing happens.
>

Problem is the out of process blocks. In that case the problem is two
fold. When something is within process it looks like everyone is
working from the same rulebook and for the most part admins can avoid
takeing flack since thier actions are not really personal.

Once you step outside process you have the problem that it appears the
rules only apply to the little people and that it looks a lot more
personal. Worse still it may be more than apearence.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
on 2/9/07 2:58 PM, Stan Shebs at stanshebs at earthlink.net wrote:

> I
> encourage you to try designing a support system though, WP can't afford
> to lose all its admins to "churn".

Stan

I?ve learned a lot from the List today; specifically about some of the
people who make Wikipedia go. I have a hell of a lot to learn about its
administrative workings; and I won?t even think about going near the
technical background elements (no one is ready for the chaos that would
produce :-) ) But, the people?

Everyone brings their own special gifts to the Project; that?s what makes it
work so well. Mine happens to be people: how they interact with their self,
and with other persons.


from_name: Glen S

body:
Take a look at whether or not your google results are "localized" when you
use the toolbar. For example (I'm based in NZ) and quite often when I use
the toolbar to search I get local results only (i.e. all from xxx.co.nz)

However, when I hit search on the page itself, using the same keywords, it
does a full "international" search and the number of results increases
dramatically.

Just an idea...

Glen

On 2/9/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/9/07, David Ashby <humble.fool at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Posing the question to a guy I know who works at Google received this
> response:
> >
> > >The count of results is just an approximation; it's not the actual
> count.
> >
> > So I assume that he means it's figured on the fly, and is subject to
> > random variation? Just proves you can't put any real stock in the
> > number returned.
>
> Well, that doesn't explain why the number randomly oscillates between
> precisely two numbers, with a different layout of the results on the
> screen. I actually suspect that what's happening is the "discard
> similar results" option is generating the smaller number with
> indenting, and that option is being set or not set randomly. Using a
> less popular query and specifically choosing to discard similar
> results gives a stable number.
>
> Whether the bug is in how firefox interacts with google, or how google
> interacts with firefox is unclear.
>
> I would also be curious to know if Google has any kind of confidence
> parameters on those estimates. Can one say for example that if query Q
> returns "approximately" 1,000,000 results and P returns
> "approximately" 1,500,000 results - then are there definitely more
> real results for P than Q?
>
> Steve
>
> Steve
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Glen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Glen_S


subject: [WikiEN-l] "About Wikipedia" in navigation sidebar

body:
Geepers... well my left sidebar was getting so cluttered its reaching all
the way down the page - but, simple solution I guess;

li#n-About-Wikipedia
{display:none}

:P

On 2/9/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Sandra (the Foundation communications person) suggested an "About
> Wikipedia" link go in the sidebar, not just at the bottom of each
> page. So I floated it on [[MediaWiki Talk:Sidebar]], got no objections
> and put it in today. This is to be the sort of "about" link lots of
> websites have.
>
> The link goes to [[Wikipedia:About]]. I ask the august embattled
> wikiveterans of this list to hack at said page until it's actually the
> sort of thing a completely fresh visitor would expect to see linked
> from "About Wikipedia." At the moment it strikes me as about twice as
> long as it should be and entirely peppered in caveats ... thoughts
> plz.
>
>
> - d.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Glen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Glen_S


from_name: Gurch

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
Pilotguy wrote:
> ...
>
> The close-knit community of yesterday is gone, and I want it back. Less
> bitching, more supporting.
>

"Close-knit community" equals "cabal" when viewed from outside. There
will never be one such group, and I think there never was. Many smaller
groups exist, but any attempt to affiliate yourself with one creates
conflict with others.

-Gurch


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
geni wrote:
> On 2/9/07, Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Well, in your last point you're wrong. I'm one of those "paper admins"
>> that you seem to hate so much.
>>
>
> How does the whitelist work?
>
>> As far as "hitting users who stay just below the level of blocking with
>> 1 second blocks", it sounds to me like "gaming the system".
>
> I would regard it as protecting the system from itself. Legal fictions
> have a long and sometime honorable history.
>
>> What is your *real* objection to this suggestion, Geni? You seem to
>> simultaneously complaining about any added work, and bashing good faith
>> suggestions for improving the situation.
>>
>> -Rich
>
> Good faith does not mean correct. My experience is that most people
> most of the time act in good faith. Left to themselves humans tend to
> do so. No I am not claiming the idea was made in anything other than
> good faith. It could be argued that the first sentence of that
> paragraph assumed bad faith but perhaps it is better read as a request
> for clarification.
>
>
> But I do claim it was flawed. Lets look at the benefits yes? Maybe 10
> active admins. Maybe.
>
> Downsides:
>
> 100 admins who don't really know policy. Sure we have a load that
> applies to at the moment but at least in their case we know they once
> did.
>
> 100 admins I can't trust (that is what probation means). Sure there
> are a handful I can't trust right now (whoever is behind wikitruth)
> but that is a problem I would rather not see grow.
>
> Greater ease for someone with an agenda to get admin powers.
> Astroturfers, Scientologists, probably various political agents
>
> Greater ease for trolls perhaps whoever it was who was hitting the
> main page a while back.
>
> I don't know if you read SEO forums much but text generation systems
> are getting quite good. How certain are you that you can pick up 100%
> of them within 150 edits? Heck write a wikification bot and even fewer
> will be picked up.
>
> The risks outweigh the benefits.
>

Geni,

You're welcome to your opinions, and I appreciate your more thought-out
response. However, I do believe that you're missing the largest benefit
of the proposal: the de-politicizing of RfA. The de-emphasizing of the
status of being an admin. Perhaps you don't see these a benefits.

It seems to me that one hazard for an admin who if heavily involved is a
sort of "messiah complex" -- the belief that without them (or in this
case, others like them) the project will fail.

As others have pointed out, Wikipedia is built on a premise that open
editing can produce a quality encyclopedia. This is a premise that many
(most?) traditional encyclopedia editors can't believe will work,
because they passionately believe that without people like them, it
cannot possibly work.

So I ask you to think carefully about your own motives and beliefs about
admins on Wikipedia. No one else knows what those are.

It's very possible that my proposed experiment has real problems and is
unworkable. But, may I suggest that you offer alternate suggestions for
improvements, instead of just criticizing those of others?

-Rich


list: commons-l

from_name: nilfanion wiki

subject: [Commons-l] Dual-Licensing Commons

body:
I had a random thought today and think it is worth a cursory consideration.
Would it be (1) desirable, (2) technically feasible and (3) legal to
relicense Commons under a dual GFDL / Creative Commons license as opposed to
the current GFDL state?

I don't no strong feelings about this, but I feel it is worthy of a
discussion. If it IS possible and legal (I'm not a lawyer so I don't know if
it is possible or not), I think there might be beneficial effects of it. For
example, imagine the following scenario:

An image is uploaded to Commons as CC-by-sa-2.5. A third party then makes
use of the image, under the terms of the CC license. In addition to the
image, they copy the description on the Image: page to use as their caption.
As the text of the page is licensed under the GFDL, would this downstream
user have violated the GFDL?

If the answer to this question is yes, then there could be significant
benefits to a dual-licensing of Commons itself. If this went anywhere, I'd
imagine the final decision would be made by the Foundation, but the
community ought to think it over first...

What do people think? (If its daft, don't hold your punches I don't mind)

Nilfanion
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/commons-l/attachments/20070209/d4f8da82/attachment.htm


from_name: William Vogeler

subject: [WikiEN-l]  Original research

body:
Hi Jimmy:

As a new user at Wikipedia, I created a journal for Amateur Astronomy at Academic Publishing Wiki. I was encouraged by the project because it is a forum for original research in a Wiki environment.

I then linked from Wikipedia articles to Academic Publishing Wiki and the journal I created there, but I was reprimanded by Wiki editors who said that I had violated policies against promoting websites and spamming. I tried to reason with the editors about it, but they unanimously concluded that it is against Wikipedia policy to allow links to Academic Publishing Wiki.

I invite you to review the debate at my discussion page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Wvogeler. If you feel so inclined, I would appreciate your thoughts on the subject. Thank you.

Sincerely,

WVogeler


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
geni wrote:
> On 2/10/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 10/02/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I don't know if you read SEO forums much but text generation systems
>>> are getting quite good. How certain are you that you can pick up 100%
>>> of them within 150 edits? Heck write a wikification bot and even fewer
>>> will be picked up.
>>
>> I must say I hadn't heard of that one. Do you have any pointers to
>> somewhere I can read up on this?
>>
>
> markov text generator
>
> The tactics tends to be regarded as black hat so a lot of stuff isn't
> public and at present direct scraping wikipedia and the like is more
> popular
>
>> I still aspire to an English Wikipedia where any editor can become
>> admin unless unsuitable - rather than the present utterly broken RFA
>> process. Meh!
>>
>
> That will first require a more effective way of neutraliseing problem admins.
>
Geni,

What do you see as the current issues in dealing with problem admins? Is
it that it's necessary to go through a lengthy ArbCom process? Do you
have any thoughts on how to improve?

-Rich


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
On 2/9/07, Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> geni wrote:
> > On 2/9/07, Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Well, in your last point you're wrong. I'm one of those "paper admins"
> >> that you seem to hate so much.
> >>
> >
> > How does the whitelist work?
> >
> >> As far as "hitting users who stay just below the level of blocking with
> >> 1 second blocks", it sounds to me like "gaming the system".
> >
> > I would regard it as protecting the system from itself. Legal fictions
> > have a long and sometime honorable history.
> >
> >> What is your *real* objection to this suggestion, Geni? You seem to
> >> simultaneously complaining about any added work, and bashing good faith
> >> suggestions for improving the situation.
> >>
> >> -Rich
> >
> > Good faith does not mean correct. My experience is that most people
> > most of the time act in good faith. Left to themselves humans tend to
> > do so. No I am not claiming the idea was made in anything other than
> > good faith. It could be argued that the first sentence of that
> > paragraph assumed bad faith but perhaps it is better read as a request
> > for clarification.
> >
> >
> > But I do claim it was flawed. Lets look at the benefits yes? Maybe 10
> > active admins. Maybe.
> >
> > Downsides:
> >
> > 100 admins who don't really know policy. Sure we have a load that
> > applies to at the moment but at least in their case we know they once
> > did.
> >
> > 100 admins I can't trust (that is what probation means). Sure there
> > are a handful I can't trust right now (whoever is behind wikitruth)
> > but that is a problem I would rather not see grow.
> >
> > Greater ease for someone with an agenda to get admin powers.
> > Astroturfers, Scientologists, probably various political agents
> >
> > Greater ease for trolls perhaps whoever it was who was hitting the
> > main page a while back.
> >
> > I don't know if you read SEO forums much but text generation systems
> > are getting quite good. How certain are you that you can pick up 100%
> > of them within 150 edits? Heck write a wikification bot and even fewer
> > will be picked up.
> >
> > The risks outweigh the benefits.
> >
>
> Geni,
>
> You're welcome to your opinions, and I appreciate your more thought-out
> response. However, I do believe that you're missing the largest benefit
> of the proposal: the de-politicizing of RfA. The de-emphasizing of the
> status of being an admin. Perhaps you don't see these a benefits.

Is the benefit worth the trouble of a dozen vandalbots with admin powers?
Is it worth the benefit of trying to undo some of the far worse things an
admin can do... (I won't give examples, per BEANS, but I'm sure you could
come up with some pretty awful things)

It seems to me that one hazard for an admin who if heavily involved is a
> sort of "messiah complex" -- the belief that without them (or in this
> case, others like them) the project will fail.
>
> As others have pointed out, Wikipedia is built on a premise that open
> editing can produce a quality encyclopedia. This is a premise that many
> (most?) traditional encyclopedia editors can't believe will work,
> because they passionately believe that without people like them, it
> cannot possibly work.
>
> So I ask you to think carefully about your own motives and beliefs about
> admins on Wikipedia. No one else knows what those are.
>
> It's very possible that my proposed experiment has real problems and is
> unworkable. But, may I suggest that you offer alternate suggestions for
> improvements, instead of just criticizing those of others?
>
> -Rich
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
Keitei wrote:
> On Feb 9, 2007, at 9:42, geni wrote:
>
>>Editors are people. Being blocked hurts. Haveing your work deleted
>>hurts.
>
> Why does being blocked hurt? If a block is just what happens when you
> do such and such (like revert three times), why would that be a blow
> to the ego? You wait it out, you can edit again, no big deal.
> Ideally, you don't do anything which would lead to a block and
> nothing happens.

Being blocked hurts simply because it is a slap-in-your-face message
that someone doesn't like you, and uses force to keep you out of
somewhere. Many users get blocked but don't realise that they were
violating some policy. Many users appear to regard the conflicts they
get into as a mere disagreement with some opinion, and then if they get
blocked it easily seems like the person is using their power unfairly to
enforce their opinion and to suppress the user's. If you were a new user
and you were to get that impression, I'm quite sure you'd feel hurt.

Timwi


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
On 2/9/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/02/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I don't know if you read SEO forums much but text generation systems
> > are getting quite good. How certain are you that you can pick up 100%
> > of them within 150 edits? Heck write a wikification bot and even fewer
> > will be picked up.
>
>
> I must say I hadn't heard of that one. Do you have any pointers to
> somewhere I can read up on this?
>
> I still aspire to an English Wikipedia where any editor can become
> admin unless unsuitable - rather than the present utterly broken RFA
> process. Meh!

The one plus side is that controversial people get flagged really quickly.

I think that my RFA failed because of that - as much as I think I was
in the right in where I was trying to balance my responses to the
MONGO situation previously, at the time my RFA came up, the topic and
what I was trying to do were pretty controversial.

I can live with that.  I don't think it was fair, but it's probably
the least of the unfair things that happened to people coming out of
that sequence of events. The community saying "that's controversial"
was reasonable.

I do want a good feedback mechanism in place.  It may make more sense
on the back end (desysopping more easily) than front end (RFAs harder)
but I do think we need that feedback and correction mechanism working
there.

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
Rob wrote:
> On 2/9/07, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
>   The _right_ way would be to demote the ones
>
>>who misuse it, not to prevent the constructive ones from being constructive.
>
> And who would be empowered to de-admin people?  Those people would
> become the cabal with the "special" "privilieges" instead of admins.

Oh, but the people who are currently empowered to _grant_ adminship
aren't considered a "cabal" by the admins!

It seems to me that this whole "cabal" thing usually refers only to
admins who do blocking or speedy deletions, but never to an admin who
enforces an AfD decision or a bureaucrat who executes the result of an
RfA. The reason for this is likely because there is sufficient
discussion going on in the latter cases. Blocks are not discussed, so to
a new user they can easily seem arbitrary and (perhaps) personal.

Thus, if de-adminship was discussed enough, it would probably solve your
concern. Of course, people who go on a rampage would still need to be
de-adminned quickly, but the discussion can still go on and the user can
perhaps defend their actions and get their permissions back if it turns
out they were acting correctly.

Timwi


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
Guettarda wrote:

> On 2/8/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> on 2/8/07 10:34 PM, Michael Snow at wikipedia at earthlink.net wrote:
>>
>> > We are supposed to be focusing on quality, not quantity, with
>> respect to
>> > the encyclopedia articles. It's high time we did the same for
>> > administrators.
>>
>> A resounding YES!
>>
>> Marc
>
> I'd have to say a resounding NO.  The article quality philosophy says
> that
> we have enough articles and we should put higher priority on improving
> the
> ones we have than adding new ones.  That philosophy isn't workable with
> admins.

Without the context provided by the remainder of my message, I'm afraid
you've misunderstood what I meant by this. I was addressing the way we
evaluate candidates for adminship, a bloated process that emphasizes
quantity (as in volume of activity) over quality.

I am more concerned that we have a process to choose quality
administrators, rather than invent a way to get large numbers of
mediocre-to-poor ones. The current system badly needs to be redesigned
to accomplish the former and avoid the latter. A natural byproduct of
this may well be that we get more administrators because the process is
not so tortuous.

--Michael Snow


body:
Kelly Martin wrote:
>
> Have you seen my proposal for adminship?  It's on my blog at
> http://nonbovine-ruminations.blogspot.com/2006/10/proposal-for-adminship-on-english.html

Nice. You appear to be going in the same direction as me, but I want it
even more radical. :) In particular, your system still requires people
to _ask_ for adminship (which, again, would be analogous to requiring
them to apply for editing privileges instead of just letting people
register freely), and I find one month a bit excessive. Other than that,
I think you hit the nail on the head :)


from_name: Nick Jenkins

subject: [Wikitech-l] Bandwidth usage

body:
> At least this explains why we have half as many CSS loads as page views. :)

Actually, I think 20% is an *underestimate* of the CSS & JS loads. The way it's being measured is like this:
=======================================================
+	("upload", re.compile(r"^http://upload.wikimedia.org/")),
+	("article", re.compile(r"^http://[^/]+/wiki/")),
+	("wikifiles", re.compile(r"^http://[^/]+/w/")),
+	("skins-css", re.compile(r"^http://[^/]+/skins-1.5/.*\.css")),
+	("skins-js", re.compile(r"^http://[^/]+/skins-1.5/.*\.js")),
+	("skins-image", re.compile(r"^http://[^/]+/skins-1.5/.*\.(?:png|gif|jpg)"))]
=======================================================

Now, for me, 4 of the 7 CSS stylesheets I'm loading would be counted as "wikifiles" :
=======================================================
@import "/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Common.css&usemsgcache=yes&action=raw&ctype=text/css&smaxage=2678400";
@import "/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Monobook.css&usemsgcache=yes&action=raw&ctype=text/css&smaxage=2678400";
@import "/w/index.php?title=-&action=raw&gen=css&maxage=2678400&smaxage=0&ts=20070207033933";
@import "/w/index.php?title=User:Nickj/monobook.css&action=raw&ctype=text/css";
=======================================================
(The reason it's 7 rather than 6 stylesheets is that I have a custom stylesheet;
 in IE it'd be 8 stylesheets)

An extra rule for "css-wikifiles" that matched on "/w/ + "action=raw&ctype=text/css" or "action=raw&gen=css"
could be useful. I recognise and acknowledge though that the original figures were just a
very rough quick back-of-the-envelope thing, and any figures are good and welcome :-)

My very very crude guess though is that *maybe* 2/3rds of the "wikifiles" category is
CSS or JS files - which would make the total bandwidth usage around 26% for CSS and JS.

And what's more, that figure would certainly be higher, if it were not for the dynamic
content compression already in place for those files (but not for the skins/ files).

All the best,
Nick.


from_name: Bryan Tong Minh

subject: [Commons-l] Dual-Licensing Commons

body:
Totally relicensing Commons would be impossible: it would require
consent of all current and past contributors. For me personally, I
think copyleft is evil, and have all my text contributions multi
licensed with the CC-BY-2.5.

Bryan

On 2/9/07, nilfanion wiki <nilfanion at googlemail.com> wrote:
> I had a random thought today and think it is worth a cursory consideration.
> Would it be (1) desirable, (2) technically feasible and (3) legal to
> relicense Commons under a dual GFDL / Creative Commons license as opposed to
> the current GFDL state?
>
> I don't no strong feelings about this, but I feel it is worthy of a
> discussion. If it IS possible and legal (I'm not a lawyer so I don't know if
> it is possible or not), I think there might be beneficial effects of it. For
> example, imagine the following scenario:
>
> An image is uploaded to Commons as CC-by-sa-2.5. A third party then makes
> use of the image, under the terms of the CC license. In addition to the
> image, they copy the description on the Image: page to use as their caption.
> As the text of the page is licensed under the GFDL, would this downstream
> user have violated the GFDL?
>
> If the answer to this question is yes, then there could be significant
> benefits to a dual-licensing of Commons itself. If this went anywhere, I'd
> imagine the final decision would be made by the Foundation, but the
> community ought to think it over first...
>
> What do people think? (If its daft, don't hold your punches I don't mind)
>
> Nilfanion
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>
>


from_name: Michael Wechner

subject: [Wikitech-l] WYSIWYG (or WYSIWYM or WYSIWYM) status?

body:
Matthew Simoneau wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>First of all, I'm sending a big thank you to everyone who contributes
>code to MediaWiki.  You all make this social revolution possible.
>
>Based on Jimmy Wales' Wikimania keynote and other sources, I know that
>much of the community recognizes WYSIWYG editing as an important feature
>for enabling greater participation.  There's a comment, however, from
>Brion on the discussion page of the MediaWiki roadmap
><http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_roadmap> that it isn't in their
>immediate plans.
>
>A page on Meta <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WYSIWYG_editor> lists
>several experiments and implementation ideas, but is anyone seriously
>tackling this problem?  Should we take up a collection to hire a
>developer to work on this?  Or maybe to offer X PRIZE style bounty for a
>successful implementation?  I'm in for $25!
>
>

well, we recently started to integrate Yulup (http://www.yulup.org/) resp.
the Neutron protocol (http://neutron.wyona.org/) which I think would
make editing
really simple and also allow to connect many other editors without much
effort, but
because of our unfamiliarity of the MediaWiki code our efforts stalled.

I would be very happy to restart, but would need some help from someone
familiar with the MediaWiki code (instead of money ;-) I think for
someone experienced it might take 1-2 days (also see
http://neutron.wyona.org/#getting_started).

Cheers

Michael

>Sincerely,
>Matthew Simoneau
>http://www.matthewsim.com/
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>

--
Michael Wechner
Wyona      -   Open Source Content Management   -    Apache Lenya
http://www.wyona.com                      http://lenya.apache.org
michael.wechner at wyona.com                        michi at apache.org
+41 44 272 91 61


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
On 09/02/07, Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:

> I propose an experiment:
> Select at random 100 editors who meet some minimal criteria* and make
> them admins. Make it clear to them that they may turn down adminship
> without prejudice.
> Then, we watch these 100 "probationary" admins for 3 months. If they
> abuse their admin powers in that time, their admin status is removed.
> Otherwise, we treat them as regular admins. The only difference with a
> "probationary" admin is the level of scrutiny they receive.
> If this works, then after 3 months we do it again. And again every three
> months. Soon, adminship loses almost all of its "status" appeal. It's
> just something you'll get if you hang around and keep your nose clean.
> Of course, you can still apply through RfA. But I predict that RfA will
> quickly become much less political and controversial.
> *My suggestion for "minimal criteria":
>     At least 50 edits to at least 10 different non-own-user pages for
> each of the past three months, and
>     No blocks in the past three months
> Essentially, just enough to give a good indication that the user is
> involved and isn't a trouble-maker. Nothing more.
> Comments? Flames?

EXCELLENT idea. If Jimbo and the ArbCom like it (I'm picking the AC as
sanity checkers here) then the experiment should be declared.

- d.


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
On 2/9/07, Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:
> I propose an experiment:
>
> Select at random 100 editors who meet some minimal criteria* and make
> them admins. Make it clear to them that they may turn down adminship
> without prejudice.
>

So we increase the number of paper admins in return for what? Risk
benefit analysis doesn't look good.

> Then, we watch these 100 "probationary" admins for 3 months. If they
> abuse their admin powers in that time, their admin status is removed.
> Otherwise, we treat them as regular admins. The only difference with a
> "probationary" admin is the level of scrutiny they receive.
>

I have better things to do with my time than babysit admins. So do most people.

> If this works, then after 3 months we do it again. And again every three
> months. Soon, adminship loses almost all of its "status" appeal. It's
> just something you'll get if you hang around and keep your nose clean.
>

Statistically no. In fact you end up with resentment against the lucky
ones. At least at the moment there is some theoretical reason why
people are or are not admins.

> Of course, you can still apply through RfA. But I predict that RfA will
> quickly become much less political and controversial.
>
> *My suggestion for "minimal criteria":
>     At least 50 edits to at least 10 different non-own-user pages for
> each of the past three months, and
>     No blocks in the past three months
>

So I now need to be hitting users who stay just below the level of
blocking with 1 second blocks?

> Essentially, just enough to give a good indication that the user is
> involved and isn't a trouble-maker. Nothing more.
>
> Comments? Flames?
>

I strongly suspect you don't know all the things that it is
theoretically possible for an admin to do.
--
geni


from_name: Gary Kirk

body:
IMHO, it should be easier to get adminship as a) it's No Big Deal(r)
and b) all actions can now  be reversed - and users can quickly be
dysopped. The three month tenure, however, I find silly - if someone
was good enough and behaved well for those three months then obviously
they should be allowed to continue. Desysopping after three months
would turn the whole RfA process into a lottery-like game - "if it's
no big deal, why can't I continue as an admin?".

I also disagree with not allowing users to object to more than one RfA
every three months - Wikipedia is not a democracy.

On 2/9/07, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> Kelly Martin wrote:
> >
> > Have you seen my proposal for adminship?  It's on my blog at
> >
> http://nonbovine-ruminations.blogspot.com/2006/10/proposal-for-adminship-on-english.html
>
> Nice. You appear to be going in the same direction as me, but I want it
> even more radical. :) In particular, your system still requires people
> to _ask_ for adminship (which, again, would be analogous to requiring
> them to apply for editing privileges instead of just letting people
> register freely), and I find one month a bit excessive. Other than that,
> I think you hit the nail on the head :)
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Gary Kirk


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
On 2/9/07, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> If you don't want to be involved, then don't be.

You didn't have a problem trying to tell us how to delete images.

--
geni


from_name: Pedro Sanchez

subject: [WikiEN-l] Free online maths books

body:
On 2/9/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sorry, got the link slightly wrong:
> http://pspxworld.com/book/mathematics/
>
> On 2/10/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > These look pretty good. I seem to recall a repository of links to free
> > stuff to use for Wikipedia articles?
> >
> > http://pspxworld.com/repo/content/33.php
> >
> > Steve
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

Some free, some not
For instance
"Reproduction for commercial purposes is prohibited. The cover page,
which contains these terms and conditions, must be included in all
distributed copies. It is not permitted to post this book for
downloading in any other web location, though links to this page may
be freely given."
from "Logic for COmputer Science". A few ones GFDL, many without a
copyright statement.


from_name: J.L.W.S. The Special One

body:
Sometimes, getting a "free" photograph may be difficult, dangerous, or
even illegal. For example, getting a "free" photograph of some living
celebrities may entail Wikipedians becoming the paparazzi.

If I were a celebrity, I would not release my photo under a free
license. If I were a professional photographer or artist, I would not
release my work under a free license either.

Why? Imagine Fiona Xie releasing her photo under a free license to let
Wikipedia use it, and a nasty vandal creating a derivative work by
enlarging the size of her boobs, and publishing the derivative photo.
If I were a professional photographer or artist, and I released my
work under a free license, I wouldn't be able to earn a living.

Wikipedia is over-emphasising freedom, compromising quality in the
process. While I believe in freedom, I believe quality is more
important. The main reason why I don't support free software is that I
find it too ideological, and not pragmatic.

On 2/9/07, David Monniaux <David.Monniaux at free.fr> wrote:
> Kat Walsh said:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Important_notice_regarding_fair_use_that_all_administrators_should_see
>
> " There are some works, primarily historically important photographs and
> significant modern artworks, that we can not realistically expect to be
> released under a free content license, but that are hard to discuss in
> an educational context without including the media itself. "
>
>
> I do agree that there are various kinds of important situations that, in
> order to be properly discussed in an educational fashion, need a
> photograph (or at least, omitting one reduces significantly the interest
> of the article).
>
> To me, these include, among others:
> * recent works of art
> * military operations and hardware
> * spacecraft
> (this list is non exhaustive, I'm just taking examples).
>
> In all the cases in the above list, we can include written descriptions
> (this is what people used to do before it was easy to reprint pictures).
> However, having images is profitable. Also, in all those cases, there is
> little hope that we should get "free" photographs, simply because of we
> will not obtain an authorization from the artist or because our
> photographers will not be allowed to photograph inside the museum, or
> inside a war theater, or a spacecraft.
>
> The usual answer (at least on these mailing-list) on such cases is that
> we should delete the pictures, and it's the fault of the artist or the
> organizations that could have authorized some free pictures if we don't
> have pictures in the article about their activities. In a sense, that
> makes sense: we're effectively devoting some free space to describe what
> they do, so they should be graceful and give us a photograph.
>
> Now, it seems (but I may be mistaken, and this is why I'm asking for
> precisions) that we may carve an exemption for "significant modern
> artworks".
>
> I suspect that the adjective "significant" was added so as to exclude
> all the album covers and other "pop culture" artwork, and that what is
> meant is that we should have, say, photographs of Picasso's Guernica and
> similar works.
>
> To me, this is troubling. An article discussing a painting on Wikipedia
> is, in effect, free advertisement for a number of people:
> * the museum owning the painting, because it attracts visitors
> * the artist's family, in countries with a _droit de suite_ (this is a
> clause in EU law that says that under some circumstances and within a
> limited period of time, the artist or its heirs obtain a little share of
> the resale price of the works of the artist).
> These people can authorize free pictures.
>
> Thus, I'm puzzled: it seems that we're doing a favor to museums and the
> heirs of various "modern artists", and supporting the speculation that
> declares that certain works are more "significant" than others, without
> any support from the people whose work we promote.
>
> As an example, I remember processing some emails on behalf of the
> Foundation: some artist wanted us to carry pictures of his work, but at
> the same time didn't want to give a free license. In short, he wanted us
> to give them free promotion without giving something back. (I'm unsure
> whether this artist would be considered "significant", but he apparently
> considered himself to be so.)
>
> I would thus be glad if we could have some clarification about the
> extent of this exemption for fair use, and why we seem to give 'carte
> blanche' for "significant modern art".
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Written with passion,
J.L.W.S. The Special One


from_name: Thomas Dalton

body:
> Nice. You appear to be going in the same direction as me, but I want it
> even more radical. :) In particular, your system still requires people
> to _ask_ for adminship (which, again, would be analogous to requiring
> them to apply for editing privileges instead of just letting people
> register freely), and I find one month a bit excessive. Other than that,
> I think you hit the nail on the head :)

Basically, you are suggest removing the concept of administrators
entirely, giving everyone access to all the tools, and then
introducing a new kind of block that take some tools away from users
that do something wrong.

The system we use for editing pages (the one you think should be
extended to admin powers) results in an enormous amount of vandalism,
which takes a lot of effort to clean up. It's considered worth it, so
we just shut up and get on with it. Using the same system with admin
powers would result in an equal amount of admin vandalism, which takes
more effort to clean up, does more damage, and is not at all worth it.

Also, if adminship is opened up that much, we would have to introduce
a new level of admin anyway to handle blocks (which would actually be
desysopings, as everyone would be able to unblock themselves), and
then all the problems of RfA just get moved to Requests for
Super-adminship, so we have absolutely no gain at all.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
On 2/9/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
> on 2/9/07 3:44 PM, geni at geniice at gmail.com wrote:
>
> > ?you end up with resentment against the lucky
> > ones.
>
> After reading all of the posts on the provocatively-named subject "Admin
> Burnout", I am hard pressed to see anything "lucky" about being "chosen" as
> one. How on earth would you go about persuading someone to take this on? The
> whole day's posts have spoken about nothing but the negative side of the
> job; are there any advantages - or are you simply hoping there are enough
> masochists out there to fill the positions?
>
> Marc Riddell

You can see deleted edits you can speedy stuff without tagging and you
can block without going through AIV. You can edit protected templates
without messing around. reverting is less effort. Certian types of
page moves are only posible for admins

On the less official side people tend to think twice before attacking
you and you tend to get a free pass when it comes to being trusted.

On the against policy but can be done anyway if you are smart. You can:

Speedy rather than prod
Block new users who are being anoying

--
geni


from_name: Andre Engels

body:
2007/2/9, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com>:
>
> On 09/02/07, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> > (I am unsure what that translated to in practice - I'm trying to dig
> > up the reports, but suspect it was something along the lines of "you
> > can only sue for the first couple of months of infringing use")
>
> Aha, found it. Reported in the Times, Dec.02 1996:
>
> "The owner of copyright in films who was aware that one of its
> licensees had plans to broadcast the films outside the area specified
> in the licence agreement and had subsequently done so, but did not
> complain or take any other action to stop them, had acquiesced and was
> therefore not entitled to claim an infringement of copyright."
>

I do not have the actual judgement, but it seems to me from this quote that
the effect of the acquiescence was not equivalent to the material being in
the public domain. Only the given copyright infringement ceased to be
enforceable. If someone else took the same films, or even if the licensee
were to use them in a way covered neither by his original license nor by the
acquiesced-to announcement, normal copyright protection would again prevail.
For the OrphanWiki this would mean that if one could make a sufficiently
strong case that the work's owner had known about te copyright infringement
for a certain amount of time without trying to take action, it could
afterward remain on the OrphanWiki, but there is no reason to assume that
copyright protection would be diminished or removed beyond that.

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


from_name: Florian Straub

subject: [Commons-l] One new and one old tool

body:
"Brianna Laugher" <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote on Tuesday, February 06,
2007 3:11 AM:

> On 06/02/07, Florian Straub <flominator at gmx.net> wrote:
>> Hi there,
>>
>> I just wanted to share two of tools with you:
>>
>> * Flinfo fetches a complete picture description from Flickr by a given
>> picture ID like 151898652:
>> http://wikipedia.ramselehof.de/flinfo.php
>
> Flinfo is good because it grabs the image description, which
> ImportFreeImages doesn't do, but it also grabs an appalling list of
> categories:
>

[mentioned list]

>
> (from 375290340... not sure what happened there...)

Seems I had a little double output there ....

I fixed it and added a small bonus to it, see for yourself :)

Regards,

Flo


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
On Fri, 9 Feb 2007 16:32:37 -0500 (EST), "Jeff Raymond"
<jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:

>Do I WANT to be an administrator?  No, not really, for all the reasons
>people describe - it's largely thankless, it leaves you wide open for even
>more criticism, and it's not "fun" in the way writing about an 18th
>century chess hoax is.  Could I BE a greater asset to the project as an
>administrator?  Without question.

That was my view, anyway :-)  But we know what the outcome was (and
many of us know that it was wrong).  Perhaps we should try again.

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


body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

>
>
>We're not likely to dump our markup in the next few years. Nothing else
>is likely to happen without the markup being formalized.
>
>

I think it would make a lot of sense to standardize the wiki syntax
and maybe also to introduce an XML representation of Wiki (whereas this
might be more difficult than it seems).

It seems to me that a person who is being considered to be an authority
within the Wiki World has to take the lead  on this. It's silly, but it
seems like people tick this way ...

Cheers

Michael

>- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)
>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
>Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (Darwin)
>Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
>iD8DBQFFzNKywRnhpk1wk44RAgl/AJ0VNBJf+35OUCO24u+HRwiVGvgd5gCfdDJ/
>GqC1oj/tVGDSwjFI8nCL6Mo=
>=uGPb
>-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>

--
Michael Wechner
Wyona      -   Open Source Content Management   -    Apache Lenya
http://www.wyona.com                      http://lenya.apache.org
michael.wechner at wyona.com                        michi at apache.org
+41 44 272 91 61


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

references:
<bd4c411e0702090937y3482dadcm2a9d0f99b70eefd3@mail.gmail.com>
	<eqiicb$7rs$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<8731ce350702091249m7dda10a8xa245add927a07f64@mail.gmail.com>

body:
There's a reason why adminship isn't given to everyone. If you do it the
other way around, abuse can cause a lot more damage before the person
abusing the rights get blocked which will result in a lot more housekeeping
to undo damage. It's nice in theory, but it simply doesn't work in practice.

People who get adminship should display knowledge of the rules. If any
newbie got those powers, this would be anarchapedia.

Mgm

On 2/9/07, Gary Kirk <gary.kirk at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> IMHO, it should be easier to get adminship as a) it's No Big Deal(r)
> and b) all actions can now  be reversed - and users can quickly be
> dysopped. The three month tenure, however, I find silly - if someone
> was good enough and behaved well for those three months then obviously
> they should be allowed to continue. Desysopping after three months
> would turn the whole RfA process into a lottery-like game - "if it's
> no big deal, why can't I continue as an admin?".
>
> I also disagree with not allowing users to object to more than one RfA
> every three months - Wikipedia is not a democracy.
>
> On 2/9/07, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> > Kelly Martin wrote:
> > >
> > > Have you seen my proposal for adminship?  It's on my blog at
> > >
> >
> http://nonbovine-ruminations.blogspot.com/2006/10/proposal-for-adminship-on-english.html
> >
> > Nice. You appear to be going in the same direction as me, but I want it
> > even more radical. :) In particular, your system still requires people
> > to _ask_ for adminship (which, again, would be analogous to requiring
> > them to apply for editing privileges instead of just letting people
> > register freely), and I find one month a bit excessive. Other than that,
> > I think you hit the nail on the head :)
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
>
> --
> Gary Kirk
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Commons-l] Vision for Commons, 2007

body:
"Brianna Laugher" <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote on Thursday, February
08, 2007 2:38 PM:

> * Reach out to local Wikimedia wikis and actively promote "Commons
> only" upload policies.
> Switching to Commons only has massive benefits for both the local wiki
> (hugely reduced maintenance burden) and us (new contributions).

A lot of people on de.wp are against Commons because of logos and old
pictures without authors. Since we want to keep them, I don't see a way to
achieve keeping them and having Commons only.

My additional wish would be a way to contact one time contributers. There
are several ways to achieve this:
* Creating a field "home wiki" on the resistration form.
* Making email adresses mandatory & auto activate email notification

Another one would be a way to notify people of mass deletion requests. There
are people who often place general DRs for whole categories and nobody is
notified. Maybe we could improve CommonsTicker?

Regards,

Flo


subject: [Commons-l] Vision for Commons, 2007

body:
"Stan Shebs" <stanshebs at earthlink.net> wrote on Friday, February 09, 2007
10:35 PM:

> Florian Straub wrote:
>> My additional wish would be a way to contact one time contributers. There
>> are several ways to achieve this:
>> * Creating a field "home wiki" on the resistration form.
>> * Making email adresses mandatory & auto activate email notification
>>
> So why do you think people won't create throwaway email addresses? They
> do that all the time now.

Then we might also have to activate email confirmation.

Regards,

Flo


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] precisions about the recent WMF "fair
	use"	decision

body:
Hoi,
It is a good thing that Wikipedia is Free content right .. Free Software
is this stuff that these developer dudes spend their time on. Not
something for you then... It is a good thing that our developers are
quite pragmatic.. they help us make the Internet suck less .. It still
sucks, but thanks to them it sucks nicely.
Thanks,
    GerardM

J.L.W.S. The Special One schreef:
> Sometimes, getting a "free" photograph may be difficult, dangerous, or
> even illegal. For example, getting a "free" photograph of some living
> celebrities may entail Wikipedians becoming the paparazzi.
>
> If I were a celebrity, I would not release my photo under a free
> license. If I were a professional photographer or artist, I would not
> release my work under a free license either.
>
> Why? Imagine Fiona Xie releasing her photo under a free license to let
> Wikipedia use it, and a nasty vandal creating a derivative work by
> enlarging the size of her boobs, and publishing the derivative photo.
> If I were a professional photographer or artist, and I released my
> work under a free license, I wouldn't be able to earn a living.
>
> Wikipedia is over-emphasising freedom, compromising quality in the
> process. While I believe in freedom, I believe quality is more
> important. The main reason why I don't support free software is that I
> find it too ideological, and not pragmatic.
>
> On 2/9/07, David Monniaux <David.Monniaux at free.fr> wrote:
>
>> Kat Walsh said:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Important_notice_regarding_fair_use_that_all_administrators_should_see
>>
>> " There are some works, primarily historically important photographs and
>> significant modern artworks, that we can not realistically expect to be
>> released under a free content license, but that are hard to discuss in
>> an educational context without including the media itself. "
>>
>>
>> I do agree that there are various kinds of important situations that, in
>> order to be properly discussed in an educational fashion, need a
>> photograph (or at least, omitting one reduces significantly the interest
>> of the article).
>>
>> To me, these include, among others:
>> * recent works of art
>> * military operations and hardware
>> * spacecraft
>> (this list is non exhaustive, I'm just taking examples).
>>
>> In all the cases in the above list, we can include written descriptions
>> (this is what people used to do before it was easy to reprint pictures).
>> However, having images is profitable. Also, in all those cases, there is
>> little hope that we should get "free" photographs, simply because of we
>> will not obtain an authorization from the artist or because our
>> photographers will not be allowed to photograph inside the museum, or
>> inside a war theater, or a spacecraft.
>>
>> The usual answer (at least on these mailing-list) on such cases is that
>> we should delete the pictures, and it's the fault of the artist or the
>> organizations that could have authorized some free pictures if we don't
>> have pictures in the article about their activities. In a sense, that
>> makes sense: we're effectively devoting some free space to describe what
>> they do, so they should be graceful and give us a photograph.
>>
>> Now, it seems (but I may be mistaken, and this is why I'm asking for
>> precisions) that we may carve an exemption for "significant modern
>> artworks".
>>
>> I suspect that the adjective "significant" was added so as to exclude
>> all the album covers and other "pop culture" artwork, and that what is
>> meant is that we should have, say, photographs of Picasso's Guernica and
>> similar works.
>>
>> To me, this is troubling. An article discussing a painting on Wikipedia
>> is, in effect, free advertisement for a number of people:
>> * the museum owning the painting, because it attracts visitors
>> * the artist's family, in countries with a _droit de suite_ (this is a
>> clause in EU law that says that under some circumstances and within a
>> limited period of time, the artist or its heirs obtain a little share of
>> the resale price of the works of the artist).
>> These people can authorize free pictures.
>>
>> Thus, I'm puzzled: it seems that we're doing a favor to museums and the
>> heirs of various "modern artists", and supporting the speculation that
>> declares that certain works are more "significant" than others, without
>> any support from the people whose work we promote.
>>
>> As an example, I remember processing some emails on behalf of the
>> Foundation: some artist wanted us to carry pictures of his work, but at
>> the same time didn't want to give a free license. In short, he wanted us
>> to give them free promotion without giving something back. (I'm unsure
>> whether this artist would be considered "significant", but he apparently
>> considered himself to be so.)
>>
>> I would thus be glad if we could have some clarification about the
>> extent of this exemption for fair use, and why we seem to give 'carte
>> blanche' for "significant modern art".


from_name: Ryan Wetherell

subject: [WikiEN-l] In hospital

body:
With all due respect, how is this relevant to any Wikimedia project,
much less the English Wikipedia?

--Ryan

P.S. I notice we don't have a [[C. Bean Transport]] article yet.

--
[[en:User:Merovingian]]


from_name: Steve Bennett

references:
<b8ceeef70702081648p6918a82end972e6598db5d0e9@mail.gmail.com>
	<eqhm3o$2fk$1@sea.gmane.org> <eqhont$s6i$2@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On 2/9/07, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> > It's because every search request is routed to a randomly-selected
> > Google server farm. Some of those farms may be running on the newest
> > index, while some may still be waiting for the latest index update. This
> > effect is not unique to the search query you entered; lots of people
> > keep noticing it and wondering about it. I'm pretty sure there is an
> > entry about it in one of Google's many FAQs, but I couldn't find it.
>
> Turns out the proper term is "Google Dance", and googling for that gives
> us an interesting blog entry. http://dance.efactory.de/

Ah, randomly selected servers - that explains it perfectly. But I
wonder why I don't get the effect with IE. Maybe IE caches the
server's IP or something.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Expandable dablinks

body:
On 2/9/07, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> My suggestion would be to load the page every time as soon as the user
> come to the article. The user would not notice this because it loads
> after the page is rendered in their browser. There would be a slight
> performance tax, but it is nothing the user would notice and nothing
> the servers couldn't handle. Well, I shouldn't put words in the
> developers mouths, but that's what I imagine. I think that would be
> the best solution.

It would also solve another problem I just noticed: interwiki links.

Would anyone care to sketch out a pure javascript based proof of concept?

Steve