from_name: Elisabeth Anderl

body:
What legitimate purpose to Wikimedia's mission do serve then Esperanto,
Ido, Interlingua, Interlingue, etc. Wiktionaries?
You might want to lock all invented languages then.
The message You got on tlh.wikt. is unaccaptable. But it should not be a
reason for closing that wikt.
Please have a look at the statements here
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9164

The reason to reopen it is:
It is a _dictionary_ of an invented language. We have other Wiktionaries
of that kind.
Also, as I could see, there are quite active contributors there, so this
wikt. got even bigger than some of the other mentioned invented
languages sites not closed.

Thanks,
best regards,
Elisabeth Anderl -aka- spacebirdy

Brion Vibber escribi?:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Per the announcement I put in the sitenotice last month, I have locked
> the Klingon-language Wiktionary, http://tlh.wiktionary.org/
>
> As far as I know there was never any deliberate intention to have such a
> site (it would have been automatically created alongside the Klingon
> Wikipedia), and it was forgotten when the Klingon Wikipedia was closed.
> As soon as I was notified of its existence I put up the notice that it
> would not stay, so anyone working on it would be aware.
>
> The only response I got to my notice was this very rude message, which
> was hidden away where I never saw it until today:
> http://tlh.wiktionary.org/wiki/lo%27wI%27_ja%27chuq:Brion_VIBBER
>
> It seems pretty clear to me that the site doesn't serve any legitimate
> purpose to Wikimedia's mission; while it may be _fun_ it would be better
> hosted somewhere else, perhaps whereever the Klingon Wikipedia ended up?
>
> If there's some legitimate reason to reopen it, let me know. We could
> hand the question off to the Language Committee if desired.
>
> - -- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (Darwin)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
> iD8DBQFGDe96wRnhpk1wk44RApOyAKCCfGg5T8QbmIplUpZt8rfixdza6gCcClGT
> iaxAkmqlLd+T6/tBUXoY4s8=
> =Fuk4
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wiktionary-l mailing list
> Wiktionary-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiktionary-l
>
>
>


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

subject: [WikiEN-l] deleting unsourced articles ..... gradually

body:
On 31 Mar 2007 at 13:06, doc <doc.wikipedia at ntlworld.com> wrote:

> 2) introducing a strong quality threshold, where we don't include, or
> swiftly delete, articles that aren't currently up to it. Yes, in theory
> they can be fixed, and if someone is actually willing to do it, then
> fine; but most wont be fixed and should not hang around 'because in an
> ideal wiki we'd fix them'

But if you cut off the bottom few rungs of a ladder, then nobody will
ever be able to climb it.  There may be a lot of topics on which
there will some day be a really great article if you let somebody
start with a crappy article, and others improve into a slightly less
crappy article, and so on.  If you have unreasonably high standards
from the start, then no article will even get started.

> We need a reality check here, folks.

Perhaps your reality check just bounced... :-)

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


from_name: K P

subject: [WikiEN-l] Yet another legal threat

body:
On 3/31/07, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
>
> In this thread:
> http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=7820
>
> somebody allegedly associated with The American Mutoscope and
> Biograph Company is threatening to sue Wikipedia over his company
> being "done wrong".
>
> From what I can gather, the company of that name was active in the
> early days of motion pictures, from the 1890s through the 1920s, but
> faded out and went completely out of business by the 1930s.  Somebody
> with no apparent true connection with the original company went into
> business in the 1990s under that name (long after all of the original
> company's copyrights and trademarks had lapsed into the public
> domain), and is making questionable claims at being the legitimate
> continuer of the original company's tradition, along with some other
> wacky claims such as saying they have purchased land on the Moon on
> which they soon will be filming movies.
>
> Of course, Wikipedia is "evil" because it fails to take all of this
> guy's claims at face value, and persists in having an article about
> the classic original company (which is legitimately notable in the
> early history of the movie industry) with only a brief paragraph
> noting the existence of an unrelated new company of the same name.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Mutoscope_and_Biograph_Company
>
> Naturally, this guy's claims and whines are getting a favorable
> reception over on Wikipedia Review, where they see no anti-Wikipedia
> rant they don't like.
>
> --
> == Dan ==
> Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
> Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
> Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/

Why is the "new" company even mentioned in the article on American Mutoscope
and Biography--as other than a redirect to its own stub (probably notable
enough to earn a wittle stubby) ?

>>"In 2003, Biograph announced that it had acquired title to 1,777 acres
>>on the Moon for use as a filming location, and Thomas R. Bond II
>>stated that he planned to start filming there by 2008.[24]"

>The guy's a kook, evidently.

>James Farrar james.farrar at gmail.com

There are plenty of notable kooks, though.

KP


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Klingon Wiktionary closed

body:
Elisabeth Anderl wrote:
> What legitimate purpose to Wikimedia's mission do serve then Esperanto,
> Ido, Interlingua, Interlingue, etc. Wiktionaries?
> You might want to lock all invented languages then.

Of the above, Esperanto has the best claim since it's actually used "in
the wild", with real speakers, including native speakers, and has over a
century of literature, music, novels, magazines, letters, plays, and
films to draw from as a corpus.

As for the others, long-established policy has generally been to allow
(especially older) languages originally created as general-purpose
auxiliary languages, while disallowing those constructed languages
created primarily for use in fictional works or hobby purposes.

Klingon is a part of a fictional universe; compare it to Tolkein's
Sindarin and Quenya (although it is a bit more developed), not to Esperanto.

The Klingon Wikipedia was closed on that basis after quite a bit of
debate, a decision finally being made by Jimmy's fiat; had we been aware
there was a stub Klingon Wiktionary it would have been closed at the
same time, but it escaped notice. (Toki pona was also closed some time
ago amid debate on where in the auxlang-conlang continuum it lies,
despite my support for it. Klingon is not alone.)

Now personally, I would be happy to let the language committee or
whoever's supposed to be deciding these things these days make a final
decision. I'd also be happy to pull the block during such an 'appeal'.

For now, I'm just applying the existing policy to something which got
forgotten.

-- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)


from_name: William Pietri

subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting hammered in a tv interview is not fun

body:
Slim Virgin wrote:
> On 3/30/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I don't recall signing up to a system of ethics when editing wikipedia.
>>
>>
> Wow, Geni.  :-(

Perhaps I'm missing some context here, but I think that's a reasonable
statement.

If we are really trying to encourage the broadest participation, then
demanding that all participants agree to some particular set of values
conflicts with that.

Naturally, some sets of values work better with our goals than others.
But I'd rather focus on the goals, where I think we have some hope of
agreement.

William


list: foundation-l

from_name: Tomasz Ganicz

subject: [Foundation-l] Belarusan Wikipedia

body:
2007/3/31, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com>:
> On 31/03/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> > On 3/31/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> > > On 3/31/07, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > Nor is it closed; it lives at
> > > > > http://be-x-old.wikipedia.org/
> > > >
> > > > Living in a vegetative, comatose fashio, though. The database is locked.
> > >
> > > It shouldn't be. I'll try to figure out what's going on there.
> >
> > Ah, apparently a misunderstanding; Brion thought a move to "be-x-old"
> > was meant to imply that it is an archive of the existing Wikipedia.
> > The "old" refers to the orthography, not the wiki.
> >
> > I have asked him to remove the lockfile; both wikis should be editable
> > now. Mind you, it might be a good idea to merge them, to kill one of
> > them, or whatever. This is for the community to work out, and I'm not
> > going to have us impose a preference for any solution.
> >
> > For now, the only thing we have authorized the LangCom to decide is
> > what the language codes for the respective versions should be if they
> > are to be separate. *Not* to close or lock wikis. That is not within
> > the authority of the LangCom.
>
> Thanks for clearing this up. I think the unannounced lock was one of
> the main points of confusion and contention among the community.
>

I am wondereing what has happened with all interwiki links which were
pointing to the old version. As the old version was two times larger
than the new one many interwiki points to the non-existing pages. Even
the still existing ones sometimes point to nowhere as the old spelling
of them is slightly different the new one. What is the interwiki code
for old version?
This especially affected Polish Wikipedia, as we have a lot of
articles about cities and villages in Biellaruss, as well as the
Biellarusian VIPs, but I expect many other Wikipedias are affected as
well.

And again I am repeating my old questions. Did the LangComm contacted
any experts from outisde before this decission was made, or just
decided on the basis of short and probably biased discussion on meta?

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


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Belarusan Wikipedia


body:
Marc Riddell wrote:
> on 3/31/07 12:30 PM, John Lee at johnleemk at gmail.com wrote:
>
>
>> I wasn't responding specifically to you - I was responding to Marc, who
>> seems to think otherwise.
>>
>
> If you believe this, you simply were not listening to me.
>

Funny, but I thought I was listening, and I had the same impression.

Since you're anxious to avoid doing harm, I should point out that
blaming the other guy for a communications failure often harms discussions.

William


from_name: Pedro Sanchez

subject: [Foundation-l] check user...

body:
On 3/31/07, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Sat, 31 Mar 2007, Sebastian Moleski wrote:
>
> > It might be prudent to use the term "jurisdiction" instead of country if
> > we're talking semantic details here. Shouldn't this discussion take place on
> > a talk page somewhere?
>
> Weak agreement on this invocation of the Fear Of Law.  Strong agreement
> that this discussion should be on a wiki page; see
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:CheckUser_policy

Actually, as it's pointed in several places, that discussion is the
sole purview of the ArbCom (as long as they don't contradict the
global checkuser policy), not to the community.

>
> I am generally loathe to use age as a barrier for anything; we should be
> clear about where this line is being drawn, and for what reasons.
>
> "This is a very important role" is not a reason to discriminate based on
> age.  "This is a role that requires being responsible" is likewise not
> appropriate.  "This is a role that requires being legally accountable for
> one's actions" is...
>
> SJ
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] check user...


body:
You know what? Hell with it, what do I care.

I'm removing the lock.

-- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)


subject: [Foundation-l] check user...

body:
On 3/31/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/31/07, Pedro Sanchez <pdsanchez at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 3/31/07, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Sat, 31 Mar 2007, Sebastian Moleski wrote:
> > >
> > > > It might be prudent to use the term "jurisdiction" instead of country if
> > > > we're talking semantic details here. Shouldn't this discussion take place on
> > > > a talk page somewhere?
> > >
> > > Weak agreement on this invocation of the Fear Of Law.  Strong agreement
> > > that this discussion should be on a wiki page; see
> > > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:CheckUser_policy
> >
> > Actually, as it's pointed in several places, that discussion is the
> > sole purview of the ArbCom (as long as they don't contradict the
> > global checkuser policy), not to the community.
>
> Um.
> No, this should be a matter of foundation policy.
>
> Never did we give any arbcom the authority to meddle with our privacy policy.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

True, I stand corrected


subject: [Foundation-l] check user...


from_name: Marc Riddell

body:
on 3/31/07 10:43 AM, Ken Arromdee at arromdee at rahul.net wrote:

> On Sat, 31 Mar 2007, Marc Riddell wrote:
>> This is in response to several recent posts. For the record, the concept of
>> "do no harm" I was presenting to in WP was related to what information we,
>> as editors, choose to include in biographies of persons. My point was that
>> to consciously include gratuitous, tabloid-like junk in a biographical
>> article is unnecessarily harmful to the person.
>
> "Do no harm" and "do no unnecessary harm" are *vastly* different.
>
Harm - in any form - no matter how it is phrased - should be unacceptable.

Marc


body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:
>
>> On 30/03/07, William Pietri <william at scissor.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> It seems to me that an interviewer will for years to come be able to
>>> easily find something in Wikipedia that is obviously wrong. Treating
>>> that a a problem is accepting a negative premise, which I understand to
>>> be a PR mistake.[1] When people catch us in errors, aren't we better off
>>> going with positive responses that begin with, "Yes, exactly..."?
>>>
>> You got it. "Of course. Wikipedia is not *reliable* in the sense it's
>> all checked. It can't be by the process it's written by. You have to
>> think when you're reading. But if you do, it's good and useful."
>>
>> ("But what if people take it as gospel?" "We can't and don't promise
>> to think for people. You have to do that for yourself.")
>>
>> I take this line every time this comes up - live radio, if not TV -
>> and it works fine. It would have worked here too.
>>
>
> Well, it more or less DID, and that's what I call dancing.

Are you sure you aren't mentally accepting the premise of their
question? It seems to me there's no need for feeling like you're dancing
around something.

My take is that outsiders who look at Wikipedia and demand perfection
have a fundamental misunderstanding about participatory culture. It's
like bringing nothing to a church potluck and then getting sniffy
because haute cuisine restaurants have nicer tablecloths. Of course they
do; $150 per head pays for a lot of pampering.


from_name: phoebe ayers

subject: [WikiEN-l] let's be honest then

body:
On 3/31/07, James Farrar <james.farrar at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> {{sofixit}}, quite frankly.
>
> Where {{sofixit} != speedy deletion when the article has already been
> kept after an AfD.

Let's be entirely clear: by sending an email to the official contact address
for Wikipedia, the complainant was *trying* to fix the article, in the best
way that s/he could figure out. Simply because someone is trying to fix
something and they don't know the official, arcane process for doing so,
doesn't mean we should take their complaint less seriously, or that it is
not valid.

Doc, in answering this email, was liasoning between the official OTRS
process and the official deletion process -- in other words, he was just
fixing it -- but sadly, Doc doesn't scale well, and it's hard and irritating
work (imagine complaints just like this by the dozens every day). He is
bringing up a real issue -- not OTRS burnout, but the fact that often
there's no good, satisfying answer to give to readers about harmful or bad
article content. (We don't want to distribute slander or misinformation, and
we certainly don't want to get sued for it, but we also often have a
difficult time really preventing it). The mailing list *is* a place to
widely discuss how to deal with potentially harmful article content, and
it's a topic that every serious editor should spend time thinking about.

-- phoebe


from_name: Earle Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Light entertainment

body:
On 30/03/07, Earle Martin <wikipedia at downlode.org> wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Earle_Martin_2

Well, never mind that, then. Bureaucrat User:Nichalp has decided to
close my RfA at halfway through, because it "does not enjoy the
support of the community", even though the support votes and comments
of confidence were starting to pour in. I have also received several
private messages wishing me success.

I would have been quite happy for the RfA to reach the end and fail
(spectacularly, perhaps). However, this feels unfair. I've raised the
issue on the bureaucrats' noticeboard.

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


from_name: Robert Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] check user...

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>
> I'll revise my position based on Aphaia's comment below:
> "I think that being at least the age of majority in their country of
> residence is important".
>
> Checkusers are in a somewhat unique position to cause irreversible
> harm and cause legal problems for themselves and the foundation. As
> such they should be old enough to assume legal responsibility for
> their actions.
>
> Just be glad that I'm not also suggesting that checkusers be insured. ;)
>

I disagree that the damage that somebody using checkuser privileges is
necessarily irreversible and necessarily causes too many legal problems
"for themselves and the foundation."  There is obviously an extreme case
or two where this may be the case, but on the whole I can't really seen
where revealing the IP address of a user is necessarily going to be a
major problem.  At best, the worst damage that can happen is to document
what computer an edit actually took place on.  Only with 3rd party
records would it even be remotely possible to tie this with a specific
individual.

In addition, any user, including anonymous users, can trace the IP
addresses of many of the contributors to Wikimedia projects.... that is
the default log-in type.  And accidental disclosure of IP addresses are
almost inevitable for most users, especially if you accidentally make an
anonymous IP edit because the cookie in your browser has expired (it has
for me on a couple of occasions).  For example (and I mention this
because he also did one of these accidental disclosures and later noted
this IP address explicitly)  Richard Stallman of the Free Software
Foundation fame is also [[w:User:Rmstallman]], and by only accessing
Wikipedia by anonymous status (I wasn't even logged into my Wikipedia
account), I can find out that at least one of the IP addresess he has
used to edit Wikipedia was with 128.30.16.48

See
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Richard_Stallman&offset=20060117021941&limit=500&action=history

Mr. Stallman in this case claims these IP edits as his own in a public
manner, so in this case I don't think this is improper disclosure.  But
it is ilustrative of how people without checkuser privileges could still
obtain this information.

I know that similar kinds of revelations of IP address can also be done
with my own account.  Or at least make a very strong circumstantial case
where all you would have to ask the WMF or a "check user" would be
something like "Could you confirm that address 10.44.44.22 is being used
by User:Jimbo Wales?"  Even if the WMF doesn't disclose this
information, an investigator familiar with Wikimedia projects is very
likely to be able to get this kind of information of a sufficient
quantity that all of the protections of the check user privileges is
essentially moot for users who have made a huge number of entries into
Wikimedia projects.

I would further note that the discussions of trying to protect an
anonymous user in China wrting something critical of the Chinese
government are also moot, as that government can make a formal request
to have that information revealed, and WMF policy is explicit to grant
that kind of request.

I should note here that I'm not asking for checkuser privileges to be
made available to all unregistered users, but I believe that the
paranoia over how dangerous an individual could be even if they made a
deliberate and conscious effort to disclose IP addresses for many users
is way overstated.  By giving this user scan ability to people who are
otherwise considered trusted users on Wikimedia projects, for example
admins and bureaucrats (I've long challenged that all bureaucrats should
have this as a default ability), I fail to see what real damage is going
to happen.

If a 10-year-old has been given bureaucrat privileges on a Wikimedia
project, I would be very surprised.  It may also present some
interesting legal problems for the WMF in terms of liability for that
user's actions, but I also believe that any such user who has achieved
that level of trust in a particular project is going to have a level of
maturity to keep from abusing the checkuser tool as well.

-- Robert Horning


subject: [Foundation-l] check user...


body:
Sorry, I accidentally clicked send. Here's the rest of what I was trying
to say:

Jimmy Wales wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:
>
>>>
>> You got it. "Of course. Wikipedia is not *reliable* in the sense it's
>> all checked. It can't be by the process it's written by. You have to
>> think when you're reading. But if you do, it's good and useful."
>>
>> ("But what if people take it as gospel?" "We can't and don't promise
>> to think for people. You have to do that for yourself.")
>>
>> I take this line every time this comes up - live radio, if not TV -
>> and it works fine. It would have worked here too.
>>
>
> Well, it more or less DID, and that's what I call dancing.

Are you sure you aren't mentally accepting the premise of their
question? It seems to me there's no need for feeling like you're dancing
around something.

My take is that outsiders who look at Wikipedia and demand perfection
have a fundamental misunderstanding about participatory culture. It's
like bringing nothing to a church potluck and then getting sniffy
because haute cuisine restaurants have nicer tablecloths and people who
bring you the food. Of course they do; $150 per head pays for a lot of
pampering.

The engine of Wikipedia's advancement is people noticing something that
could be better. That somebody has done that isn't a problem, it's an
opportunity. It's reasonable and natural that they would misunderstand
that, but I believe it is a fundamental misunderstanding.

Basically, I think you have created the world's biggest pot of stone
soup. When people say it could use some carrots, I don't think we should
apologize for a deficiency. I think we should say, "Great idea! Here,
you can borrow my knife and cutting board."

William


subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: improving quality on enwiki

body:
Kelly Martin wrote:
> This is the core, underlying attitude that dooms Wikipedia to
> mediocrity.  Thousands of volunteer projects exist worldwide that
> places often quite strenuous obligations on their volunteers.  (Think
> Habitat for Humanity.)  And yet these projects survive, even thrive.
> Wikipedia already has a good core of volunteers who are willing to do
> as requested.  We need to stop pandering to the self-centered lazy
> "volunteers" who will "only do what is fun" and instead target the
> committed volunteer who is willing to do the hard stuff that needs to
> be done.
>

By happy chance, and through Project Gutenberg's good graces, I've just
been reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer again. After the fence gets
painted, Twain ends the chapter with:

    If [Tom] had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of
    this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of
    whatever a body is / obliged / to do, and that Play consists of
    whatever a body is not obliged to do. And this would help him to
    understand why constructing artificial flowers or performing on a
    tread-mill is work, while rolling ten-pins or climbing Mont Blanc is
    only amusement. There are wealthy gentlemen in England who drive
    four-horse passenger-coaches twenty or thirty miles on a daily line,
    in the summer, because the privilege costs them considerable money;
    but if they were offered wages for the service, that would turn it
    into work and then they would resign.

I think the only thing that has changed in 150 years is that treadmills
are no longer work, but play.

William


from_name: doc

body:
I like Jimbo's notion of a prod system that says "this is crap, if it is
still crap in 7 days I will delete it"

I wonder if we could start this by simply saying "Any article that
remains unsourced after being marked as such for 7 days is deleted". It
sounds draconian, but we now do it for images, why not articles? No, it
will not solve all out problems, but it would be a workable step towards
saying that it may be better to have no article for the moment than a
crap one.

Of course, if this was introduced overnight, we'd simply have people
that like deleting things tagging 400,000 articles, and we'd have no
chance of saving the easily sourced ones. I'd suggest a phased approach,
each phase introduced at a 2week to 1 month interval.

The phases could be:

1) Any article *totally* unreferenced and uncategorised may be tagged as
such, and if not fixed, deleted after 7 says. (Trial phase, putting
people on notice, most things would get saved by a simple, and perhaps
crap, cat or ref being added - little would actually deleted)

2) Any biography *totally* lacking sources (other than the subject's own
pages) may be tagged as such and deleted after 7 days.

2b) Any page on an organisation or corporation lacking sources (other
than the subject's own pages) may be tagged as such and deleted after 7
days.

3) Any article *totally* lacking sources (other than the subjects own
pages) may be tagged as such and deleted after 7 days

If we did it properly, we'd allow time to save most most of the good
things - and end up with a policy that said "all unsourced articles get
deleted"

Eventually we could tighten it further to demand some quality in the
sources.

It isn't a panacea, but it is a start - and it begins a process of
making inclusion dependent on article quality and not just the
notability of the subject. We need a thin end to our wedge here -
something workable and broadly acceptable to our more inclusionist
elements. Thoughts?

Doc


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Foundation-l] check user...

body:
On 3/31/07, Mohamed Magdy <mohamed.m.k at gmail.com> wrote:
> Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> > On 3/30/07, christophe.henner at wikimedia.fr <christophe.henner at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> And reveal there identity publicly.
> >
> > I don't know that publicly is important. I think that revealing it to
> > the foundation is very important.
>
> For trust issues, yes.
>
>    I think that being over 18 is also
> > important.
>
> Why important?

I'll revise my position based on Aphaia's comment below:
"I think that being at least the age of majority in their country of
residence is important".

Checkusers are in a somewhat unique position to cause irreversible
harm and cause legal problems for themselves and the foundation. As
such they should be old enough to assume legal responsibility for
their actions.

Just be glad that I'm not also suggesting that checkusers be insured. ;)


subject: [Foundation-l] check user...


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
People work on Wikipedia because they enjoy it. As soon as you start forcing
responsibilities the fun factor is gone. We definitely need to put in place
some sort of referencing effort that's bigger than the existing WikiProject,
but if large existing unsourced articles that are otherwise not creating any
problems are getting deleted if someone can't find the references in a
specified time period, you're making Wikipedia worse, not better.

A lack of sources is only a real problem when the facts are dubious or
questionable.

Lack of categorization is the worst reason to delete something I've seen.
There is already a large organized effort to do this and someone can do it
easily often without knowledge of the subject. Categories should be the
easiest to add.

Mgm


body:
on 3/31/07 12:00 PM, Oldak Quill at oldakquill at gmail.com wrote:

> How do you even define "harm"? Physical damage? Mental upset?

To cut someone's head is to hurt them - this will heal.

To decapitate someone is to harm them - this will not heal.

Marc


from_name: Samuel Klein

subject: [Foundation-l] Trademark violation - muslimwikipedia.com

body:
It will be a work of oscillating size; as soon as points 2 and 3 conflict,
the article in question will have to disappear...

SJ

On Sat, 31 Mar 2007, David Gerard wrote:

> http://muslimwikipedia.com/mw/index.php/Main_Page
>
>> From the intro page
> http://www.muslimwikipedia.com/mw/index.php/MuslimWikipedia:Introduction
> -
>
> "Firstly there are guidelines, such as all work has to be sourced and
> referenced.
> Secondly the MuslimWikipedia has a NPOV policy, i.e this isn't the
> place for Peoples points of view.
> Thirdly the MuslimWikipedia is to present Islam, its History, its
> people, its tenets, its faith, its ideas in a POSITIVE light, and
> hence negative views of Islam are against the Muslim Wikipedias
> policies."
>
> Good going matching points two and three, guys.


body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> I agree with the idea of gradually deleting unsourced material. But 7 days
> is too soon, for a lot of articles there's not really a hurry. People could
> tag stuff they don't like without even making an effort to find sources. And
> there's no doubt some large articles that require detailed research that
> takes time - much longer than 7 days.
>
> I'd like to see a safeguard that proves at least attempts were made to
> source it before deleting articles. Instead of deleting the unsourced
> articles, focus should be on organizing processes and projects to source
> material. Properly sourced articles are better than deleted ones.
>
> Mgm
>

Generally, I agree that time should be given for good sourcing. But if
the creator gives no source - and nothing at all can be found after 7
days - then I see no need to keep the article hanging about.

What you say is right in principle - but in practice it has resulted in
a lot of crap hanging about.

Note, I'm not suggesting we delete things where the sourcing needs
improving - I'm suggesting we delete things where no sources whatsoever
are being supplied.

We can always have a policy of any admin undeleting if someone comes
along with a source later.


body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> On 3/31/07, doc <doc.wikipedia at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>> I wonder if we could start this by simply saying "Any article that
>> remains unsourced after being marked as such for 7 days is deleted". It
>> sounds draconian, but we now do it for images, why not articles? No, it
>> will not solve all out problems, but it would be a workable step towards
>> saying that it may be better to have no article for the moment than a
>> crap one.
>
> "No sources" != "crap". I disagree with speedy deletion. However,
> making the text of the various "no references" tags a bit more stern
> and adding a warning sign might be a good idea. For example, instead
> of:
>
> "This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources."
>
> It could say:
>
> "(!) This article lacks citations. This is is an article written by
> volunteers, and you should not rely on it unless and until sources are
> provided for all key statements.
> Please improve this article by adding references and removing
> questionable statements."
>
> For obvious crap, we have existing deletion procedures.

Utterly inadequate. We've got real quality problems and just stiffening
tags without any teeth, isn't going to make any difference.

No unsourced != crap. But if it isn't crap, it should at least be able
to be given a rudimentary source.


body:
on 3/31/07 12:16 PM, doc at doc.wikipedia at ntlworld.com wrote:

> We should also
> consider organising
> ourselves to minimise the damage we may do to individuals by having POV
> articles, attack pages, or allowing malicious people to post any crap
> about them. Here we have a moral as well as a legal responsibility to
> minimise harm. We are human beings, we don't need
> [[Wikipedia:TheSermonOnTheMount]] to tell us that thinking about others,
> and the impact our project has on them, is a Good Thing.

YES!!!

Marc


from_name: Phil Sandifer

body:
On Mar 31, 2007, at 6:58 AM, doc wrote:

>
> 2) Any biography *totally* lacking sources (other than the
> subject's own
> pages) may be tagged as such and deleted after 7 days.
>
> 2b) Any page on an organisation or corporation lacking sources (other
> than the subject's own pages) may be tagged as such and deleted
> after 7
> days.
> 3) Any article *totally* lacking sources (other than the subjects own
> pages) may be tagged as such and deleted after 7 days
>

Gah. #1 was sensible. #2-3 are terrible. People's own sites are
reliable sources for information about them. It's perfectly
reasonable to use a person or company's own site as the primary or
even sole source for a stub or relatively short article. Yes, when
they get to good and featured length they'll need more, but it's
perfectly possible to have an embryonic article that relies entirely
on the subject's own pages. The sole useful effect of #2 and #3 is to
make it possible to do incontestable deletions of articles that some
people have notability problems with. Absolutely not.

And lest anyone think I'm being hysterical here, have a look at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Ferrero. (Found though random
pages. Took me about 20 to find a good example.) This is a prime
example of the sort of article our sourcing fever doesn't really
think through. It's a stub or barely above a stub. It has more or
less purely factual information, and has a link to the subject's
official site. Anyone who wants to know about Carlos Ferrero is well
served by this article - they get a general overview and a link to
his website. Less useful if you don't speak Spanish, but I'm guessing
we'd be hard pressed for comprehensive English-language sources on
him anyway. (We'd get a good number, but most of them would be
incomplete and writing an article out of them would involve a lot of
very messy stitching together.)

The article is firmly in the large class of articles that is good
enough to keep up but not good enough to call done. It should not be
speedied, prodded, or deleted through any other means. It should be
edited. If that takes a while, it takes a while, but that's OK
because the article is serving a useful purpose right now. (Heck, I
just learned something from it!)

-Phil


from_name: Bryan Derksen

body:
doc wrote:
> This is ridiculous. I did not suggest 'do no harm' was to be a pillar of
> wikipedia. I merely
> suggested that when we are considering policies for improving wikipedia,
> that simply
> looking to what might get us sued is insufficient. We should also
> consider organising
> ourselves to minimise the damage we may do to individuals by having POV
> articles, attack pages, or allowing malicious people to post any crap
> about them. Here we have a moral as well as a legal responsibility to
> minimise harm. We are human beings, we don't need
> [[Wikipedia:TheSermonOnTheMount]] to tell us that thinking about others,
> and the impact our project has on them, is a Good Thing.

But this is all already accounted for in our existing set of policies
and guidelines. POV articles, attack pages, and allowing malicious
people to post any crap they want are already "against the rules", we
don't need to make things more complex by adding in additional
considerations.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Be-x-old interwiki

body:
On 3/31/07, Ihar Hrachyshka <ihar.hrachyshka at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello!
> We are really happy to hear that LangCom doesn't want to delete
> be-x-old. There was a problem with editing that Wiki because the
> database was locked (because of a developer error). Now the database is
> unlocked and we can write there again. Anyway, interwikis are broken.
> What can we do to make interwikis work again?
> Thanks for info!

In general, tech requests should be
1) directed at Brion, Tim or other developers on #wikimedia-tech
2) filed on BugZilla. http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

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

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


body:
On Mar 31, 2007, at 8:34 AM, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> In en.wikipedia, we have a base of work for the future.  And therefore
> it is natural and proper that we should over time get more and more
> and
> more serious about quality.

Then what the hell was the point in writing all the stuff in the
first place?

I mean, I've made a good number of contributions based on personal
knowledge and on primary sources of philosophical and theoretical
texts in the humanities. Stuff that doesn't fit the current
"independent secondary sources or bust" model at all. I'm appalled at
the idea that these contributions - contributions I made admin on the
basis of, and contributions that my ability to make was part of why I
fell in love with the project - are now part of a steaming pile of
shit that needs to be cleared out.

If we want to get serious about quality, there are ways to do it
without starting to destroy what we've already built. But this idea
that we should feel guilty because you got slammed in a television
interview is ridiculous. Of course Wikipedia has inaccuracies. It
always has. You know full well we haven't fixed them all. And we've
had a defense in line for that for years too - "it's a work in
progress. We don't recommend using Wikipedia as the only source for
serious research. We recommend using it as a starting point, with
care, and looking at the sources and other resources provided." I
know being slammed in a TV interview isn't fun. But, well, if you
want to be able to go on TV praising a project that's done and
accurate and wonderful, Wikipedia probably isn't the project to go on
TV about. It doesn't lend itself to that. It lends itself to having
to be defended, over and over again, against the same objections. It
lends itself to waiting for two or three years at which point we'll
be better. It lends itself to recognizing that we hit the big time
well before we were ready to. You of all people should know that. So
stop trying to guilt the community because the job of evangelizing
Wikipedia isn't as easy as you'd like.

-Phil


body:
on 3/31/07 12:30 PM, John Lee at johnleemk at gmail.com wrote:

> I wasn't responding specifically to you - I was responding to Marc, who
> seems to think otherwise.

If you believe this, you simply were not listening to me.

Marc


subject: [Foundation-l] check user...

body:
On Sat, 31 Mar 2007, Sebastian Moleski wrote:

> It might be prudent to use the term "jurisdiction" instead of country if
> we're talking semantic details here. Shouldn't this discussion take place on
> a talk page somewhere?

Weak agreement on this invocation of the Fear Of Law.  Strong agreement
that this discussion should be on a wiki page; see
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:CheckUser_policy

I am generally loathe to use age as a barrier for anything; we should be
clear about where this line is being drawn, and for what reasons.

"This is a very important role" is not a reason to discriminate based on
age.  "This is a role that requires being responsible" is likewise not
appropriate.  "This is a role that requires being legally accountable for
one's actions" is...

SJ


subject: [Foundation-l] check user...


from_name: Robert Brockway

subject: [Foundation-l] check user...

body:
On Sat, 31 Mar 2007, Aphaia wrote:

> Generally agreed. I would only point out 18 is not world-wide age
> considered as adult who make their legal decision without the consent
> of their parents. In Japan, the age is 20. If you think it important,
> we are better to amend this part "at least 18 and explicitly or over
> the age at which they are capable to act without the consent of their
> parent in the country they reside".

"... in the jurisdiction in which they reside".  Some federal nations
actually vary the age of majority internally.   Of course a lawyer would
need to review the final wording.

Rob

--
Robert Brockway B.Sc.        Phone:          +1-905-821-2327
Senior Technical Consultant  Urgent Support: +1-416-669-3073
OpenTrend Solutions Ltd      Email:          support at opentrend.net
                              Web:            www.opentrend.net
Contributing Member of Software in the Public Interest


subject: [Foundation-l] check user...


subject: [Foundation-l] check user...

body:
On 3/31/07, Robert Brockway <rbrockway at opentrend.net> wrote:
> "... in the jurisdiction in which they reside".  Some federal nations
> actually vary the age of majority internally.

Including the US...


subject: [Foundation-l] check user...


body:
On Mar 31, 2007, at 12:41 PM, doc wrote:

> And it would take you under a min to find a second citation for
> that..... so it is a poor example.

But what would a second citation add to that article? Or, more to the
point, how is the lack of a second citation something so bad that the
article should be deleted unless it gets one?

> Yes, with any policy change, someone is going to be able to dig out
> the
> odd example where it would not really help. If we don't act because of
> marginal damage, then we will never change anything. When we have 1.5
> million articles we need to think bigger than that - and consider net
> impact on the project, not one or two cases.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andorran_Democratic_Centre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEC_Rule_10b-5 (Only source is the
primary source)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia_University_Press
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_on_the_Family_Institute
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ferguson_%28organist%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Institute_for_the_Certification_of_Computing_Professionals

Would you like me to find more? Now, mind you, I don't know for 100%
certain that, for instance, the Focus on the Family Institute is
notable. But all of these articles are short, descriptive articles
that rely entirely on a primary source.

I also am pretty certain that instead of gutting bad articles what
would happen here is that articles on politicians in non-English
speaking countries would get gutted. We would lose our coverage on
the non-English speaking world rapidly. For instance, that first link
- the Andorran Democratic Centre? None of our articles on Andorran
political parties would survive this proposal. Neither would our
Peruvian politicians.

The need to improve sourcing does not outweigh the need to have some,
albeit stubby, coverage in these areas. And putting a seven day
timeline on fixing that is not useful - it's a double or nothing
gambit that's far, far too likely to leave us with nothing. We cannot
allow our sourcing paranoia to gut entire major areas of the
encyclopedia.

> Whatever we do, the status quo is not an option.

Sure it is. We have a pretty good encyclopedia. It's improving. I see
little reason to gut its content. Deleting to write a better
encyclopedia is like fucking for chastity.

-Phil


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Foundation-l] Belarusan Wikipedia

body:
Tomasz Ganicz schreef:
> 2007/3/31, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com>:
>
>> On 31/03/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>
>>> On 3/31/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 3/31/07, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>> Nor is it closed; it lives at
>>>>>> http://be-x-old.wikipedia.org/
>>>>>>
>>>>> Living in a vegetative, comatose fashio, though. The database is locked.
>>>>>
>>>> It shouldn't be. I'll try to figure out what's going on there.
>>>>
>>> Ah, apparently a misunderstanding; Brion thought a move to "be-x-old"
>>> was meant to imply that it is an archive of the existing Wikipedia.
>>> The "old" refers to the orthography, not the wiki.
>>>
>>> I have asked him to remove the lockfile; both wikis should be editable
>>> now. Mind you, it might be a good idea to merge them, to kill one of
>>> them, or whatever. This is for the community to work out, and I'm not
>>> going to have us impose a preference for any solution.
>>>
>>> For now, the only thing we have authorized the LangCom to decide is
>>> what the language codes for the respective versions should be if they
>>> are to be separate. *Not* to close or lock wikis. That is not within
>>> the authority of the LangCom.
>>>
>> Thanks for clearing this up. I think the unannounced lock was one of
>> the main points of confusion and contention among the community.
>>
>>
>
> I am wondereing what has happened with all interwiki links which were
> pointing to the old version. As the old version was two times larger
> than the new one many interwiki points to the non-existing pages. Even
> the still existing ones sometimes point to nowhere as the old spelling
> of them is slightly different the new one. What is the interwiki code
> for old version?
> This especially affected Polish Wikipedia, as we have a lot of
> articles about cities and villages in Biellaruss, as well as the
> Biellarusian VIPs, but I expect many other Wikipedias are affected as
> well.
>
> And again I am repeating my old questions. Did the LangComm contacted
> any experts from outisde before this decission was made, or just
> decided on the basis of short and probably biased discussion on meta?
Hoi,
The pywikipedia bot has a program that allows you to change strings ..
so you can replace "[[be:" with "[[be-x-old".

As to your question, the situation was stark and obvious. The official
orthography was not accepted. Now the be code does stand for Belarus.
The current situation is however not really acceptable. Both wikipedias
should integrate. The current situation with two projects is horrid it
will result in two biased projects.

Thanks,
    GerardM


subject: [Foundation-l] Belarusan Wikipedia


body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> On Fri, 30 Mar 2007 17:21:11 -0600, Bryan Derksen
> <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
>> Well, last I checked the information was still excluded from the article
>> on that basis, so I'm reassured to find at least one spot where we're on
>> the same side here. Makes it less likely that one of us has simply gone
>> loony.
>
> What, you mean Angela freely states that she was born on X date in X
> hospital, and we have the record, and they still won't let it in?

Not quite in that level of detail (I don't think she's identified what
hospital she was born in and I haven't registered for an account with
ancestry.co.uk to view the details it gives), but along those lines.

The removal was here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Angela_Beesley&diff=112748679&oldid=112748281
And the reasoning was given on the talk page:
"The register of births and deaths is not an acceptable source for Ms
Beesley's birthdate for the reason that it confirms only that _an_
Angela Beesley was born in the year given. Please find a source that
gives _this_ Angela Beesley's birthdate."

The source where Angela gave her own birthdate was previously rejected
because it was an edit she made to Wikipedia itself, and therefore
either "self-published" or a "reference to Wikipedia". Detailed
discussion here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Angela_Beesley#For_Bramlet

I decided it was totally not worth getting involved in this argument
since I don't really care all that much, but this is the sort of
legalistic nitpickery that makes me really hate having a detailed RS
guideline. If Angela were to have given her birthday in an interview
that got published on some other webpage I doubt there would have been
any complaint about using it even though it's no more reliable.


from_name: Aphaia

subject: [Foundation-l] check user...

body:
> On 31/03/07, Florence Devouard <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > to my opinion, should be over 18 of age.
On 3/31/07, christophe.henner at wikimedia.fr <christophe.henner at gmail.com> wrote:
> And reveal there identity publicly.

Currently some CU on local projects don't reveal their identity for
public, even if they interact with the external people under their
identity.

I heard from a jawiki CU gave the office the combination of his real
name and phone, but he said he didn't fax any copy of his
identification?(Board candidates were asked in the last year).

I would add if you would like to know their age correctly and avoid
fake, you need to check their ID *in real life* - it could even happen
that a high-school boy send a copy of his dad's ID. Which level's
verification do you would like, folks?

--
KIZU Naoko
  Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
  * habent enim emolumentum in labore suo *


subject: [Foundation-l] check user...

body:
On 3/31/07, Pedro Sanchez <pdsanchez at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/31/07, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Sat, 31 Mar 2007, Sebastian Moleski wrote:
> >
> > > It might be prudent to use the term "jurisdiction" instead of country if
> > > we're talking semantic details here. Shouldn't this discussion take place on
> > > a talk page somewhere?
> >
> > Weak agreement on this invocation of the Fear Of Law.  Strong agreement
> > that this discussion should be on a wiki page; see
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:CheckUser_policy
>
> Actually, as it's pointed in several places, that discussion is the
> sole purview of the ArbCom (as long as they don't contradict the
> global checkuser policy), not to the community.

Um.
No, this should be a matter of foundation policy.

Never did we give any arbcom the authority to meddle with our privacy policy.


subject: [Foundation-l] check user...


from_name: The Cunctator

body:
On 3/31/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/31/07, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > As a followup, doc's suggestion presupposes that unsourced == crap
> > most of the time, which is not true.
>
>
> Doc said unsourced does not equal crap. I didn't see anything about "most
> of
> the time". Even if it's true some of the time, this idea would lead to
> deleting non-crap. And doing that even once is one time too many. That's
> what I believe to be the point, although doc glasgow's mileage may vary.

Doc said:

>I like Jimbo's notion of a prod system that says "this is crap, if it is
>still crap in 7 days I will delete it"

>I wonder if we could start this by simply saying "Any article that
>remains unsourced after being marked as such for 7 days is deleted". It
>sounds draconian, but we now do it for images, why not articles? No, it
>will not solve all out problems, but it would be a workable step towards
>saying that it may be better to have no article for the moment than a
>crap one.

This is a non sequitur unless you make the assumption that unsourced==crap.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Lock new article creation for three months

body:
Many of the proposals to "fix" Wikipedia of late have seemed to take
as a premise that what we've done is wrong. I, personally, disagree.
I think we've got a pretty good encyclopedia. It needs work, but it's
good enough to go public with, which, thank God, since we went public
with it. Sensible users can use it well.

But if we really do want to speed up its improvement (which I can
take or leave, but everyone else seems desperate to take it)...

Why don't we lock new article creation in the main namespace entirely
for three months? Or six months? Demand that people fix existing
articles.

Anything that's absolutely vital that comes into being in those
months will still be possible to write about in a few months, so
there's no real rush. And a lot of the crap that we create by reflex
will not get created and be pleasantly forgotten about. (Brian
Peppers, anyone?) And we could easily make the red page text read
something like "On XX/XX/XXXX suspended new article creation until XX/
XX/XXXX in order to better work on existing articles. If this is an
important topic that has developed since we made this decision, you
can probably find information on it by looking at existing articles
on related topics."

We've suggested doing it for a day here and there. The heck with
that. Let's do it for a long period of time so that the culture of
fixing what we have becomes entrenched.

Or, I mean, we could decide that everything we've worked on this far
is actually crap and create drastic proposals for how we could start
over.

-Phil


body:
On 3/31/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Mar 31, 2007, at 12:41 PM, doc wrote:
> > Whatever we do, the status quo is not an option.
>
> Sure it is. We have a pretty good encyclopedia. It's improving. I see
> little reason to gut its content. Deleting to write a better
> encyclopedia is like fucking for chastity.

At least something good would come from the latter.


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Foundation-l] Belarusan Wikipedia

body:
2007/3/31, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>:
>
> Tomasz Ganicz schreef:
> > I am wondereing what has happened with all interwiki links which were
> > pointing to the old version. As the old version was two times larger
> > than the new one many interwiki points to the non-existing pages. Even
> > the still existing ones sometimes point to nowhere as the old spelling
> > of them is slightly different the new one. What is the interwiki code
> > for old version?
>
> The pywikipedia bot has a program that allows you to change strings ..
> so you can replace "[[be:" with "[[be-x-old".

That won't do, because the MediaWiki software does not recognize be-x-old:
as a language code. Thus [[be-x-old:Test]] will be a red link to
[[be-x-old:Test]] on your own Wikipedia, not an interwiki link to be-x-old.

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Belarusan Wikipedia


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

subject: [WikiEN-l] Yet another legal threat

body:
In this thread:
http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=7820

somebody allegedly associated with The American Mutoscope and
Biograph Company is threatening to sue Wikipedia over his company
being "done wrong".


body:
Joanne Benson wrote:
> On 3/31/07, doc <doc.wikipedia at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> <snip>
>> It isn't a panacea, but it is a start - and it begins a process of
>> making inclusion dependent on article quality and not just the
>> notability of the subject. We need a thin end to our wedge here -
>> something workable and broadly acceptable to our more inclusionist
>> elements. Thoughts?
>
> There's a lot of value in this proposal, especially regarding the
> biographies. I think that we've proven on numerous occassions that, as
> this point in time, Wikipedia as a whole just simply isn't able to
> build decent biographies on most living people. There are several
> exceptions of course, articles that are well sourced and balanced. But
> the majority? We simply don't seem to have have the right procedures
> or ways of thinking in place that make *sure* that we don't mess up -
> and biographies are NOT an area that we should be experimenting in
> like there are no consequences. I've handled and seen plenty of OTRS
> tickets that show the effects of where we're failing at the moment -
> and it isn't pretty.
>
> So, we'd delete an unsourced bio after a week. Where's the harm? If we
> delete, and kindly explain to the creator of an article like that that
> we need sources, and why, they shouldn't be too upset. Especially as
> restoring if someone can provide decent sources for what they wrote
> can be done with one single click...
>
> We need to re-educate our current and new editors - but we can't be
> too 'soft' about this any longer - it has real life consequences too
> often.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> JoanneB
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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
>

You hit the nail on the head. Everyone is so worried that if we change
things we may end up deleting some things that *could* be sourced or
otherwise fixed.

The fact is, with regard to biographies at very least, we are now tfar
too high profile for the eventualism that says we must keep awful, pov,
unsourced stuff, because in theory we could fix most of it. That's now
simply unacceptable.

On aggregate, we are not fixing it. Our quantity is such that our
quality control is not up to it.  And so the only responsible thing we
can do is to change our liberal inclusionism.

We either do that by

1) drastically lifting notability thresholds to reduce the number of
biographies to a level we can manage to maintain and monitor.

OR

2) introducing a strong quality threshold, where we don't include, or
swiftly delete, articles that aren't currently up to it. Yes, in theory
they can be fixed, and if someone is actually willing to do it, then
fine; but most wont be fixed and should not hang around 'because in an
ideal wiki we'd fix them'

We need a reality check here, folks.
Doc


body:
On Mar 31, 2007, at 12:57 PM, Phil Sandifer wrote:

>
> Would you like me to find more? Now, mind you, I don't know for 100%
> certain that, for instance, the Focus on the Family Institute is
> notable. But all of these articles are short, descriptive articles
> that rely entirely on a primary source.

Sorry - never finished that paragraph. It should end:

And that's not a glaring problem with any of them. They're
descriptive, they're useful starts for further research, they're
useful starts for further expansion. They're stubs. We like stubs.

-Phil


from_name: William Pietri

body:
Marc Riddell wrote:
>
> on 3/31/07 1:37 PM, William Pietri at william at scissor.com wrote:
>> If we are really trying to encourage the broadest participation, then
>> demanding that all participants agree to some particular set of values
>> conflicts with that.
>>
>> Naturally, some sets of values work better with our goals than others.
>> But I'd rather focus on the goals, where I think we have some hope of
>> agreement.
>>
>>
> The issue here is not "values" but "ethics". Can we please stop confusing
> the two?
>

You are welcome to replace one for the other in my comment above if that
will help you along. Regardless, my point stands: we'll be more
effecting focusing on shared practical goals then achieving mental
conformity.

William


body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> I would like to know exactly what kind of lunatic would look up Angela's
> birth date in a hometown hospital register, and why we should let them
> edit Wikipedia rather than having a quiet debate about whether Angela's
> safety would be enhanced by reporting the person to the authorities.

Angela had previously publically posted her own birthdate herself, right
on Wikipedia, so it obviously wasn't something she was trying to keep
private. However, trying to use that as a source was rejected on the
basis of it being "self-published" and/or a "reference to Wikipedia", so
presumably the person who dug that up was merely trying to find
corroborating evidence from an alternate source that would be accepted.

IMO the rejection of the original "self-published" source was the
greater lunacy. If Angela were to have announced her birthday in an
interview that was published on some other site it would be no more or
less reliable, she could be lying in either event.


subject: [Foundation-l] check user...

body:
<checks the name of the mailing list>

Most wikipedias don't have an ArbCom[m].

SJ

On Sat, 31 Mar 2007, Pedro Sanchez wrote:

> On 3/31/07, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Sat, 31 Mar 2007, Sebastian Moleski wrote:
>>
>>> It might be prudent to use the term "jurisdiction" instead of country if
>>> we're talking semantic details here. Shouldn't this discussion take place on
>>> a talk page somewhere?
>>
>> Weak agreement on this invocation of the Fear Of Law.  Strong agreement
>> that this discussion should be on a wiki page; see
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:CheckUser_policy
>
> Actually, as it's pointed in several places, that discussion is the
> sole purview of the ArbCom (as long as they don't contradict the
> global checkuser policy), not to the community.
>
>>
>> I am generally loathe to use age as a barrier for anything; we should be
>> clear about where this line is being drawn, and for what reasons.
>>
>> "This is a very important role" is not a reason to discriminate based on
>> age.  "This is a role that requires being responsible" is likewise not
>> appropriate.  "This is a role that requires being legally accountable for
>> one's actions" is...
>>
>> SJ
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> foundation-l mailing list
>> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] check user...


subject: [Foundation-l] check user...

body:
On Sat, 31 Mar 2007, Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>> Actually, as it's pointed in several places, that discussion is the
>> sole purview of the ArbCom (as long as they don't contradict the
>> global checkuser policy), not to the community.
>
> Um.
> No, this should be a matter of foundation policy.
>
> Never did we give any arbcom the authority to meddle with our privacy policy.

+1


subject: [Foundation-l] check user...


body:
Marc Riddell wrote:
>>> on 3/31/07 12:00 PM, Oldak Quill at oldakquill at gmail.com wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> How do you even define "harm"? Physical damage? Mental upset?
>>>>
>
>
>> On 31/03/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>>> To cut someone's head is to hurt them - this will heal.
>>>
>>> To decapitate someone is to harm them - this will not heal.
>>>
>
> on 3/31/07 1:24 PM, Oldak Quill at oldakquill at gmail.com wrote:
>
>
>> This is not a definition of harm I recognise.
>>
>
> It is, however, most precise.
>

Precise, but, by the dictionaries I have, inaccurate.

Perhaps while discussing things on a big mailing list you could stick
with the common definition of words? Or failing that, to warn people
when you're going to use an old word in a new way? It would save a lot
of this back-and-forth stuff, which doesn't seem to be advancing the
discussion much.

William


body:
I agree with the idea of gradually deleting unsourced material. But 7 days
is too soon, for a lot of articles there's not really a hurry. People could
tag stuff they don't like without even making an effort to find sources. And
there's no doubt some large articles that require detailed research that
takes time - much longer than 7 days.

I'd like to see a safeguard that proves at least attempts were made to
source it before deleting articles. Instead of deleting the unsourced
articles, focus should be on organizing processes and projects to source
material. Properly sourced articles are better than deleted ones.

Mgm

On 3/31/07, doc <doc.wikipedia at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
> I like Jimbo's notion of a prod system that says "this is crap, if it is
> still crap in 7 days I will delete it"
>
> I wonder if we could start this by simply saying "Any article that
> remains unsourced after being marked as such for 7 days is deleted". It
> sounds draconian, but we now do it for images, why not articles? No, it
> will not solve all out problems, but it would be a workable step towards
> saying that it may be better to have no article for the moment than a
> crap one.
>
> Of course, if this was introduced overnight, we'd simply have people
> that like deleting things tagging 400,000 articles, and we'd have no
> chance of saving the easily sourced ones. I'd suggest a phased approach,
> each phase introduced at a 2week to 1 month interval.
>
> The phases could be:
>
> 1) Any article *totally* unreferenced and uncategorised may be tagged as
> such, and if not fixed, deleted after 7 says. (Trial phase, putting
> people on notice, most things would get saved by a simple, and perhaps
> crap, cat or ref being added - little would actually deleted)
>
> 2) Any biography *totally* lacking sources (other than the subject's own
> pages) may be tagged as such and deleted after 7 days.
>
> 2b) Any page on an organisation or corporation lacking sources (other
> than the subject's own pages) may be tagged as such and deleted after 7
> days.
>
> 3) Any article *totally* lacking sources (other than the subjects own
> pages) may be tagged as such and deleted after 7 days
>
> If we did it properly, we'd allow time to save most most of the good
> things - and end up with a policy that said "all unsourced articles get
> deleted"
>
> Eventually we could tighten it further to demand some quality in the
> sources.
>
> It isn't a panacea, but it is a start - and it begins a process of
> making inclusion dependent on article quality and not just the
> notability of the subject. We need a thin end to our wedge here -
> something workable and broadly acceptable to our more inclusionist
> elements. Thoughts?
>
> Doc
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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] Oh noes, Wikimedia is selling me meds

body:
If it's from someone I don't know I'd still delete it. I will take my
Wikimedia info from the mailing list thank you. Besides, if it's about
viagra selling my spam filter kills it anyway.

Mgm

On 3/31/07, Sheldon Rampton <sheldon at prwatch.org> wrote:
>
> Will wrote:
>
> > Something humourous I've found in my spam inbox - an email from
> > "trademark
> > Wikimedia" offering me "top quality medicine". I know about exotic
> > names
> > used in spam emails, but I'd never thought "Wikimedia" would be
> > one. The
> > scary thing is, I think this has happened before.
>
> Lately spammers have started using current news headlines as the
> subject lines in their emails as a way of getting people to open
> them. I actually got a Viagra ad a few days ago with the subject
> line, "Wikipedia founder plans search engine."
>
> --------------------------------
> |  Sheldon Rampton
> |  Research director, Center for Media & Democracy (www.prwatch.org)
> |  Author of books including:
> |     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
> |     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
> |     Mad Cow USA
> |     Trust Us, We're Experts
> |     Weapons of Mass Deception
> |     Banana Republicans
> |     The Best War Ever
> --------------------------------
> |  Subscribe to our free weekly list serve by visiting:
> |  http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_sotd.html
> |
> |  Donate now to support independent, public interest reporting:
> |  https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?id=1118
> --------------------------------
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
Angela wrote:
> The issue is this:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=WP:LIVING#Privacy_of_birthdays
>
> Just because you can look up birth records in primary sources doesn't
> mean Wikipedia should list everyone's birth date.

The year of birth was taken out too, though (it's still in the infobox
template because apparently Grace Note thought removing it would break
the infobox and so deleted the whole thing, which was reverted). The
year is perfectly acceptable and the reasons for rejecting the sources
for it were IMO silly. This is my basic objection here.


body:
On 3/31/07, doc <doc.wikipedia at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> I wonder if we could start this by simply saying "Any article that
> remains unsourced after being marked as such for 7 days is deleted". It
> sounds draconian, but we now do it for images, why not articles? No, it
> will not solve all out problems, but it would be a workable step towards
> saying that it may be better to have no article for the moment than a
> crap one.

"No sources" != "crap". I disagree with speedy deletion. However,
making the text of the various "no references" tags a bit more stern
and adding a warning sign might be a good idea. For example, instead
of:

"This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources."

It could say:

"(!) This article lacks citations. This is is an article written by
volunteers, and you should not rely on it unless and until sources are
provided for all key statements.
Please improve this article by adding references and removing
questionable statements."

For obvious crap, we have existing deletion procedures.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

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

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Language Prevention Committee created

body:
Aside from the kabyle, ottoman turkish, and crimean tatar wikipedias, what
requests are you thinking of where editors are serious about starting
their wiki?

By the way -- I haven't said it often enough since incubator.wikimedia
got set up, but Three Cheers for that lovely site.  It is wonderful to
have a proper space to develop a new language wiki, precisely so that
these issues of how to fix a reasonable language policy can take place
without preventing interested editors from developing new articles in
their chosen language.

I'm not sure anyone is saying "everything is fine, move along", but I
think we also have a familiar exaggeration on both sides of the issue of
what the differences are between two fairly similar positions about what
is required to start a new wiki... perhaps it is time for a loud
broadcasting of the new language policy, and a call (in more languages
than just English) for interested participants to return to
   http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_languages
and weigh in?

SJ

On Sat, 31 Mar 2007, Arbeo M wrote:

> 2007/3/30, The Cunctator cunctator at gmail.com:
>
>> The reasonable assumption is that something in the process is broken.
>
> That's exactly the point. On one side we have a number of well-advanced
> requests for new languages with good potential. There's a number of editors
> who are serious about starting their wiki. And on the other side we have a
> committee in charge enabling this type of progress. Yet, nothing ever
> happens, instead today we're "celebrating" half a year without a single new
> Wikipedia.
>
> That's just the cold hard facts and they speak for themselves.
>
> I don't want this discussion to revolve in circles or drift off into
> polemics but we'd be a whole lot further if the committee would acknowledge
> this reality instead of insisting that everything is fine a long as the holy
> rules are left untouched. Please!
>
> --Arbeo
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Ken Arromdee

subject: [WikiEN-l] let's be honest then

body:
On Sat, 31 Mar 2007, doc wrote:
> Perhaps a more honest reply would have been:
>
> "We're sorry you had to complain about this. Regrettably that's the
> price you pay for our determination to retain as many articles as we
> can, even though we can't currently maintain most of them. You see, if
> we change things we might upset some of our editors who might have some
> of their unreferenced articles deleted by mistake. Basically, we're more
> concerned with that type of collateral damage than with wrecking your life.

If that's really a problem, then make a policy specifically related to
biographical information in articles.

A proposal was made to actively delete *all* unsourced articles.  As an
attempt to solve your user's probplem, it's massive, massive, overkill.


from_name: Puppy

subject: [WikiEN-l] Yet another legal threat

body:
Good grief, even if he weren't a kook, his writing is atrocious:

"We also was recently hacked and even embezzlement of funds occurred by
hacking that coincide with recent Wikipedia activity against the company"

This guy is planning a trip to the moon?

Daniel R. Tobias wrote:
> In this thread:
> http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=7820
>
> somebody allegedly associated with The American Mutoscope and
> Biograph Company is threatening to sue Wikipedia over his company
> being "done wrong".
>
> >From what I can gather, the company of that name was active in the
> early days of motion pictures, from the 1890s through the 1920s, but
> faded out and went completely out of business by the 1930s.  Somebody
> with no apparent true connection with the original company went into
> business in the 1990s under that name (long after all of the original
> company's copyrights and trademarks had lapsed into the public
> domain), and is making questionable claims at being the legitimate
> continuer of the original company's tradition, along with some other
> wacky claims such as saying they have purchased land on the Moon on
> which they soon will be filming movies.
>
> Of course, Wikipedia is "evil" because it fails to take all of this
> guy's claims at face value, and persists in having an article about
> the classic original company (which is legitimately notable in the
> early history of the movie industry) with only a brief paragraph
> noting the existence of an unrelated new company of the same name.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Mutoscope_and_Biograph_Company
>
> Naturally, this guy's claims and whines are getting a favorable
> reception over on Wikipedia Review, where they see no anti-Wikipedia
> rant they don't like.
>
>


body:
On Sat, 31 Mar 2007, Angela wrote:
> The issue is this:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=WP:LIVING#Privacy_of_birthdays
>
> Just because you can look up birth records in primary sources doesn't
> mean Wikipedia should list everyone's birth date.

In that case, don't include it.  But we already have a rule that says not
to include it.  Don't try to stretch different rules to do so.  It's not an
unreliable source, and it should not be banned as self-published.
Stretching the wrong rule to cover a situation can cause really bad problems
in the future when the stretched rule is now considered the rule's natural
meaning.


from_name: Joanne Benson

body:
On 3/31/07, doc <doc.wikipedia at ntlworld.com> wrote:
<snip>
> It isn't a panacea, but it is a start - and it begins a process of
> making inclusion dependent on article quality and not just the
> notability of the subject. We need a thin end to our wedge here -
> something workable and broadly acceptable to our more inclusionist
> elements. Thoughts?

There's a lot of value in this proposal, especially regarding the
biographies. I think that we've proven on numerous occassions that, as
this point in time, Wikipedia as a whole just simply isn't able to
build decent biographies on most living people. There are several
exceptions of course, articles that are well sourced and balanced. But
the majority? We simply don't seem to have have the right procedures
or ways of thinking in place that make *sure* that we don't mess up -
and biographies are NOT an area that we should be experimenting in
like there are no consequences. I've handled and seen plenty of OTRS
tickets that show the effects of where we're failing at the moment -
and it isn't pretty.

So, we'd delete an unsourced bio after a week. Where's the harm? If we
delete, and kindly explain to the creator of an article like that that
we need sources, and why, they shouldn't be too upset. Especially as
restoring if someone can provide decent sources for what they wrote
can be done with one single click...

We need to re-educate our current and new editors - but we can't be
too 'soft' about this any longer - it has real life consequences too
often.

Kind regards,

JoanneB


body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> I am sure you will agree with me that a link to a list of students,
> which did not even at that time contain the name, along with a link to a
> login page which is alleged to contain the name, does not constitute an
> "appropriate external source".

_Obviously_ a link to a list of students that doesn't actually contain
the name in question is a bad reference to support the statement that a
person is a student there. It's a reference that doesn't support the
statement, there a bad reference, but it's still a reference.

The problem is that this is not obvious unless one actually _checks_ the
reference. This statement would not have been touched by a "nuke any
unreferenced statements" policy, so it is not a good example to use in
support of implementing any such policy.


body:
On 3/31/07, doc <doc.wikipedia at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
> MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> > I agree with the idea of gradually deleting unsourced material. But 7
> days
> > is too soon, for a lot of articles there's not really a hurry. People
> could
> > tag stuff they don't like without even making an effort to find sources.
> And
> > there's no doubt some large articles that require detailed research that
> > takes time - much longer than 7 days.
> >
> > I'd like to see a safeguard that proves at least attempts were made to
> > source it before deleting articles. Instead of deleting the unsourced
> > articles, focus should be on organizing processes and projects to source
> > material. Properly sourced articles are better than deleted ones.
> >
> > Mgm
> >
>
> Generally, I agree that time should be given for good sourcing. But if
> the creator gives no source - and nothing at all can be found after 7
> days - then I see no need to keep the article hanging about.

How are you going to determine if nothing can be found in 7 days? Perhaps no
one knew the article existed after the creator posted it and left. We need a
fail safe that ensures an effort is being made.

What you say is right in principle - but in practice it has resulted in
> a lot of crap hanging about.
>
> Note, I'm not suggesting we delete things where the sourcing needs
> improving - I'm suggesting we delete things where no sources whatsoever
> are being supplied.

I know what you suggested, but what I meant is that we need to make a
difference between no sources have been found and no one has tried yet
because they haven't noticed the article.

We can always have a policy of any admin undeleting if someone comes
> along with a source later.

People are unlikely to come up with a source if they don't know it was
deleted in the first place.

I think stable versions would help a lot. Simply don't approve an edit when
no sources are provided, but I'd also like to see a program that lists
articles that have been created recently and are still in need of sources. A
sort of extended NP watcher. If we extend your 7 days to 1 or 2 months, the
program can assign people the task of fixing articles as they come in and
give their interests (perhaps have SuggestionBot weigh in). Such a bot could
also do tagging if assigning an article to a certain number of people
haven't prompted action for over 2 months.

That way you ensure "Crap" doesn't keep laying around after it outstayed its
welcome and you simultaneously make every effort to get things sourced and
ready.

I also believe that a difference should be handled between existing articles
and new ones. It's worth saving old articles because people may have looked
them up before and are expecting to find them again. We can be a bit more
lenient with those as a lot of them have been around for ages with barely
any trouble. New articles however have a clear message near the edit box
that says they need to be verifiable.

We also have bots that send people messages about mistagging images or not
giving their source. We should have a similar bot that warns people their
new articles need sources.

Mgm


from_name: Gwern Branwen

body:
"Andrew Gray" <shimgray at gmail.com> writes:

> On 31/03/07, doc <doc.wikipedia at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>> I like Jimbo's notion of a prod system that says "this is crap,
if it is
>> still crap in 7 days I will delete it"
>>
>> I wonder if we could start this by simply saying "Any article
   that
>> remains unsourced after being marked as such for 7 days is
deleted".  It
>> sounds draconian, but we now do it for images, why not
articles? No, it
>> will not solve all out problems, but it would be a workable
step towards
>> saying that it may be better to have no article for the moment
   than a
>> crap one.
>
> I did this some time ago for the contents of
  [[Category:Rapists]] and
> its ilk; unsourced claims were removed, and in the few cases
  where
> they constituted the entirety of the article, were replaced with
  a
> prod tag saying "no verifiable assertion of significance is left
  after
> defamatory unsourced assertions removed, so a contentless
  article", or
> words to that effect.
>
> I suspect I had about a one in three success rate and a lot of
  people
> screaming about disruption... and sourcing their articles.
>
> --
> - Andrew Gray

I wouldn't draw too many conclusions from that - people are
willing to *briefly* do heroic feats of editing, if they feel it
will satisfy one maniac and just get him off their and their
articles' collective backs, but to expect them to do it again and
again as a routine matter of course is quite a stretch.

--
Gwern
Inquiring minds want to know.


body:
On 3/31/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 3/31/07, doc <doc.wikipedia at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> >
> > MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> > > I agree with the idea of gradually deleting unsourced material. But 7
> > days
> > > is too soon, for a lot of articles there's not really a hurry. People
> > could
> > > tag stuff they don't like without even making an effort to find
> > sources. And
> > > there's no doubt some large articles that require detailed research
> > that
> > > takes time - much longer than 7 days.
> > >
> > > I'd like to see a safeguard that proves at least attempts were made to
> > > source it before deleting articles. Instead of deleting the unsourced
> > > articles, focus should be on organizing processes and projects to
> > source
> > > material. Properly sourced articles are better than deleted ones.
> > >
> > > Mgm
> > >
> >
> > Generally, I agree that time should be given for good sourcing. But if
> > the creator gives no source - and nothing at all can be found after 7
> > days - then I see no need to keep the article hanging about.
>
>
> How are you going to determine if nothing can be found in 7 days? Perhaps
> no one knew the article existed after the creator posted it and left. We
> need a fail safe that ensures an effort is being made.
>
> What you say is right in principle - but in practice it has resulted in
> > a lot of crap hanging about.
> >
> > Note, I'm not suggesting we delete things where the sourcing needs
> > improving - I'm suggesting we delete things where no sources whatsoever
> > are being supplied.
>
>
> I know what you suggested, but what I meant is that we need to make a
> difference between no sources have been found and no one has tried yet
> because they haven't noticed the article.
>
> We can always have a policy of any admin undeleting if someone comes
> > along with a source later.
>
>
> People are unlikely to come up with a source if they don't know it was
> deleted in the first place.
>
> I think stable versions would help a lot. Simply don't approve an edit
> when no sources are provided, but I'd also like to see a program that lists
> articles that have been created recently and are still in need of sources. A
> sort of extended NP watcher. If we extend your 7 days to 1 or 2 months, the
> program can assign people the task of fixing articles as they come in and
> give their interests (perhaps have SuggestionBot weigh in). Such a bot could
> also do tagging if assigning an article to a certain number of people
> haven't prompted action for over 2 months.
>
> That way you ensure "Crap" doesn't keep laying around after it outstayed
> its welcome and you simultaneously make every effort to get things sourced
> and ready.
>
> I also believe that a difference should be handled between existing
> articles and new ones. It's worth saving old articles because people may
> have looked them up before and are expecting to find them again. We can be a
> bit more lenient with those as a lot of them have been around for ages with
> barely any trouble. New articles however have a clear message near the edit
> box that says they need to be verifiable.
>
> We also have bots that send people messages about mistagging images or not
> giving their source. We should have a similar bot that warns people their
> new articles need sources.
>
> Mgm
>
> In other words, I'd say take the technical approach to this and let some
program collect stats about how well it works.

Mgm


body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> I am a little ashamed to admit something here, but I will.  A while
> back, I thought about Robert Mugabe, whose story I used to follow in the
> news quite regularly, and I went and read our article about him.  I
> remember reading this about his children not being subject to a travel
> ban.  I did not follow the link to see the source (I was not editing at
> that moment, I was just reading Wikipedia like any other consumer of
> information).

Consumers of information should also be checking the sources if they
intend to be using the information in any remotely serious manner
(standing up in the British House of Commons and asking a question based
off of it, for example). Wikipedia has strong disclaimers to this effect.


body:
Marc Riddell wrote:
> on 3/31/07 4:07 PM, William Pietri at william at scissor.com wrote:
>
>
>> we'll be more
>> effecting focusing on shared practical goals then achieving mental
>> conformity.
>>
>
> Sharing (and achieving) goals requires a shared code of ethics as well as a
> set of common values. And, "achieving mental conformity" is the very last
> thing I would advocate.
>

Sorry, but I'm working from the notion that chosen values and codes of
ethics are mental attributes. Requiring people to conform to participate
would inevitably push towards increased mental conformity. I'm saying
it's more effective to focus on conformity to behavioral norms, and
there only the minimal set that are required by our shared goals.

As to the first bit, that's demonstrably untrue. Hunter and hunting dog
share neither values nor ethics, but achieve the goal jointly. The
people I work with have many reasons for coming to work; what they have
in common is coming to work. You and your banker have the shared goal of
you paying off your mortgage, but neither shared ethics nor values are
necessary for that.

I think that a group can be more effective when values are shared, but
in my experience that's not something you achieve by fiat. By fiat, the
best you can do is chase off the group who has the least power. And then
you've created an environment that encourages people to lie about their
actual values, which is very hard to undo.

Better that we let people be who they are, and accept all contributions
that push Wikipedia forward, whatever their values, and whatever their
ethics.

William


from_name: Jean-Denis Vauguet

subject: [Foundation-l] Rob, full time computer technician

body:
Florence Devouard wrote:
> The Foundation evolves. Some are leaving, some are joining and
> reinforcing the current team.
>
> Welcome Rob

A bit late, but it is important to welcome-again Rob, who is doing a
tremendous work in the shade. Thank you!

jd

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body:
Florence Devouard wrote:
> The Foundation evolves. Some are leaving, some are joining and
> reinforcing the current team.
>
> Welcome Rob

A bit late, but it is important to welcome-again Rob, who is doing a
tremendous work in the shade. Thank you!

jd

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body:
Florence Devouard wrote:
> The Foundation evolves. Some are leaving, some are joining and
> reinforcing the current team.
>
> Welcome Rob

A bit late, but it is important to welcome-again Rob, who is doing a
tremendous work in the shade. Thank you!

jd

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from_name: doc

body:
> Not every article is a biography of a living person.  I am therefore
> unwilling to delete large amounts of EXISTING WORK simply because
> biographical articles are problematic.
>
> I am quite happy with a process whereby all articles on living people
> MUST be sourced by a certain date, or within X days of being tagged.
> Perhaps we should identify other categories of article that need to be
> sourced to a deadline as well.
>
> I am also happy with a process that says that all new articles after a
> specified date must be sourced within X days - although I fear that
> the process-happy will turn that into 'all new articles must be
> sourced FA-style with inline references for every three words'.
>
> I'm also happy with turning on some kind of stable versions feature
> that makes all unsourced articles default-invisible to browsing
> readers - but even then, I would wish a 'We have no stable article on
> this topic, but we do have an unchecked work-in-progress.  Do you want
> to see it?' thing for those articles.  Remember, the vast majority are
> not libellous or harmful, just incomplete or unsourced.  In fact, the
> attack article many times WILL be sourced.
>
> I am not happy with any process that sends OK articles on
> non-contentious subjects to the trash without a conscientious attempt
> to find sources.
>
> -Matt
>

OK, so let's go simply with biographies of living people, and see how it
pans out.

What about:

"any biography of a living person, which altogether lacks sources (other
than webpages directly connected with subject), may be tagged us such.
If no sources are added within seven days, the article may be deleted.
However, such a deletion shall be without prejudice to a sourced
re-creation at a later time [i.e. G4 will not apply, unless the
re-creation is still unsourced]"

We could initially start tagging articles, but suspend deletions for,
say, a month - that would allow time for cleaning up of the current
stock. The tagging would create a large category of 'unsourced BLPs'
which people could start sourcing to minimise deletions.

Bear in mind this policy is simply asking for a source - any source - so
it is a very low threshhold. But it would perhaps start to change how we
think about quality and inclusion.

Doc


subject: [WikiEN-l] let's be honest then

body:
Kelly Martin wrote:
> Unfortunately, the people in the bleachers seem unable to see us, and
> pretend that we're not actually doing anything.
>
> Thanks for the support, though.
>

Maybe it's that the people in the bleachers are actually unable to see
you? In which case, they're not pretending anything. And wouldn't
treating sincere people as fakers make the situation worse?

Andrew Gray wrote:
> Basically, the problem is not that we have people burning out by
> dealing with complaints; that's to be expected.

Not the whole problem, surely, but could that be part of the problem?

It seems to me like both Wikipedia as a whole and this list in specific
have a hard time taking upset people very seriously. If they are
outsiders, then they end up on the road to sanctions, moderation, and
bans. If they are insiders, it's a different path, but still seems to
lead to marginalization.

Taking that as a given for a moment, it seems like we guarantee
permanent problems when we put editors in a situation that a) we don't
hear much about, and b) leads to burnout.

I don't think we can change the dynamic, but could we get out of this by
making the rot problems more visible, so that it's not just an
unfortunate few who see the need to change?

William


subject: [WikiEN-l] Now why didn't we see this before?

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=30066&in_page_id=34

They misspelled my name. :)


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] let's be honest then

body:
On 3/31/07, James Farrar <james.farrar at gmail.com> wrote:
> Indeed, but carping on the sidelines doesn't help either.

I spent two hours earlier this week dealing with *one* complaint from
a corporation who was unhappy with their article on Wikipedia.  This
is pretty typical for those of us who are NOT on the sidelines.
Unfortunately, the people in the bleachers seem unable to see us, and
pretend that we're not actually doing anything.

Thanks for the support, though.

Kelly


subject: [WikiEN-l] Yet another legal threat

body:
On 3/31/07, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
> In this thread:
> http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=7820
>
> somebody allegedly associated with The American Mutoscope and
> Biograph Company is threatening to sue Wikipedia over his company
> being "done wrong".
>
> From what I can gather, the company of that name was active in the
> early days of motion pictures, from the 1890s through the 1920s, but
> faded out and went completely out of business by the 1930s.  Somebody
> with no apparent true connection with the original company went into
> business in the 1990s under that name (long after all of the original
> company's copyrights and trademarks had lapsed into the public
> domain), and is making questionable claims at being the legitimate
> continuer of the original company's tradition, along with some other
> wacky claims such as saying they have purchased land on the Moon on
> which they soon will be filming movies.
>
> Of course, Wikipedia is "evil" because it fails to take all of this
> guy's claims at face value, and persists in having an article about
> the classic original company (which is legitimately notable in the
> early history of the movie industry) with only a brief paragraph
> noting the existence of an unrelated new company of the same name.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Mutoscope_and_Biograph_Company
>
> Naturally, this guy's claims and whines are getting a favorable
> reception over on Wikipedia Review, where they see no anti-Wikipedia
> rant they don't like.

This guy is old news.  I handled his complaints last year as an OTRS
volunteer.  We got a good laugh out of it, especially the bit about
him owning filming rights on the Moon, or whatever.

Kelly


from_name: Ihar Hrachyshka

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Be-x-old interwiki

body:
Hello!
We are really happy to hear that LangCom doesn't want to delete
be-x-old. There was a problem with editing that Wiki because the
database was locked (because of a developer error). Now the database is
unlocked and we can write there again. Anyway, interwikis are broken.
What can we do to make interwikis work again?
Thanks for info!


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 31/03/07, doc <doc.wikipedia at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> I like Jimbo's notion of a prod system that says "this is crap, if it is
> still crap in 7 days I will delete it"
>
> I wonder if we could start this by simply saying "Any article that
> remains unsourced after being marked as such for 7 days is deleted". It
> sounds draconian, but we now do it for images, why not articles? No, it
> will not solve all out problems, but it would be a workable step towards
> saying that it may be better to have no article for the moment than a
> crap one.

I did this some time ago for the contents of [[Category:Rapists]] and
its ilk; unsourced claims were removed, and in the few cases where
they constituted the entirety of the article, were replaced with a
prod tag saying "no verifiable assertion of significance is left after
defamatory unsourced assertions removed, so a contentless article", or
words to that effect.

I suspect I had about a one in three success rate and a lot of people
screaming about disruption... and sourcing their articles.

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


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 31/03/07, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:

Essentially, what you're describing isn't Wikipedia as it works but a
different project starting from the same database.

(Put this new project at en.wikipedia.org and put the old one at
en-dev.wikipedia.org?)

- d.