from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] A quick references survey

body:
On 1/30/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, I did keep the list. I'll keep my reasons for not following your
> suggestion to myself, to avoid offending anyone. Presumably you would
> like me to email the list to you so you can carry out this work? If
> you're impatient, feel free to start hitting that "random article"
> button - you'll find lots more like I did.

I think you misunderstood Guettarda - he didn't mean improving the
list of random articles you created, he meant that each of us should
check all the articles we've created (or significantly rewritten, I'd
add) and ensure that they are up to modern referencing standards.

After all, if you created the article, you probably know where to look
to reference it.  Many of us created articles "back in the day" before
strict referencing was being encouraged as strongly as it is now, and
they could probably do with some work.

-Matt


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: Outsiders on the Board? (was Re: Poll for
	Wikistandards)

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Tim Starling wrote:
>
>> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>>
>>
>>> I am amazed that you suggest that an officer of the Wikimedia
>>> Foundation
>>> would be personally liable for the work done as an officer. I would
>>> expect that an officer of an organisation speaks for the organisation
>>> and as a consequence the organisation is liable for the actions of its
>>> personnel. Normally someone employed by an organisation is liable only
>>> when gross incompetence can be proven or in cases where the law has
>>> been
>>> violated to an extend where criminal intend can be proven.
>>>
>>> I am sure that someone can and will explain to what extend an employee
>>> is personally liable for his actions as an employee of the Wikimedia
>>> Foundation.
>>>
>> Well, firstly IANAL and secondly most of my legal knowedge comes from
>> studying Australian law rather
>> than US law. But my understanding is that civil liability for the
>> action of employees rests with the
>> corporation or individual employing them. This is called vicarious
>> liability.
>>
> Gerard's response on this seemed na?ve.  No-one wants to go into a
> situation where there is a high risk of liability,  But these things
> do happen, and there are situations where the law needs to pierce the
> corporate veil when the corporate structure is there to assist in the
> perpetration of a scam.  In some cases liability insurance can be
> purchased, but that too can be expensive.  It's also important to
> remember the level of litigiousness that is found in US society.  A
> plaintiff will often cast a wide net in the hopes of catching the
> right victim with deep enough pockets to pay for the wrongdoings of a
> penniless associate.  This can be a frightful experience when people
> with only marginal involvement find themselves put through the expense
> of defending themselves in court.
As I understand things, there are two types of people in the Wikimedia
Foundation and its projects.

    * There are the person with an official role; they are appointed or
      chosen to their function.
    * There are the persons with no official status as far as the WMF is
      concerned. These include stewards, bureaucrats, admins and users.

Only the first two groups have any protection for what they do within
the Wikimedia Foundation. They have this protection as they represent
the Wikimedia Foundation in an official capacity. When something is done
on any of the projects that results in a legal situation, it is the
person who will be, when identified, be the one prosecuted. Depending on
the situation the Wikimedia Foundation or a chapter may involve itself,
this is not a given.

When a person in his official position gets into a legal situation, it
typically is the organisation, here the Wikimedia Foundation, who will
be prosecuted. It is only when a person is criminally negligent or
involved that there is a ground to prosecute an individual.

This is my understanding of how these things work. The consequence is
that officers of the WMF or of chapters have protection that all other
WMF volunteers lack. The fact that statutory laws exist for '''gross'''
mismanagement is something that we should welcome. Typically it takes
some effort to qualify as gross mismanagement. Given the people that we
currently have in official positions this is unlikely to happen.

The only group of people for whom it is not entirely clear to me what
their status is, are the people who help out on OTRS. Yes, I do know how
careful these people try to do their job.. :)

Thanks,
   GerardM


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikien-l

from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: note David Gerard's just placed on [[WT:AFD]]

body:
On 1/30/06, Jesse Weinstein <jessw at netwood.net> wrote:
 The disadvantage is it dosn't automatically update if
> the article is changed, but on the other hand, that's actually an advantage; if
> the article changes, we *need* someone to review the references, so having the
> subpage not automatically update is actually a feature.

This I agree with: It's a problem if one person writes a nice
paragraph and carefully references it to a written source, then
someone else adds some other factoids into the paragraph. May we need
to more carefully define the granularity of our information and
references? Eg, every reference applies to one and only one sentence.

To make this not totally annoying, we really need a way of hiding
excess references though. Someone can surely come up with a template
that uses a CSS trick to hide them when not wanted...

Steve

>
> People might object that such a subpage is "just too hard", or "too
> time-consuming", or various other things; my answer to this is simply - if you
> don't want to work on it, don't work on it.  It benefits the encyclopedia, by
> easing the task of factual verification; yes it will take many years to get lots
> done, but so what? Each piece we do is one more that's done.  This is not a
> problem, folks - it's just a big job.  Get to work! (if this is the sort of work
> you want to help with...)
>
> Jesse Weinstein (User:JesseW)
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Philip Welch

subject: [WikiEN-l] US Congress Staff Editing Wikipedia

body:
>> My reaction seems to be unique so far. I would think it much better
>> for the Wikipedia project that we do not publicise that we know
>> exactly who is doing this. It is fascinating to watch the congress
>> staffers at work. It is just a pity that shortly they will smarten up
>> and be doing this with proper accounts via different IPs.
>>
>> If there have only been a thousand changes so far, most of which were
>> positive, this does not seem to be a "major" problem. Certainly not
>> compared to the information we're gleaning from this. So, by all
>> means, let's continue to revert the particularly obnoxious changes,
>> but asking them to "stop it" will simply make it invisible.
>
> A little late for that since my phone is ringing off the hook with
> reporters interested in the story.

Any chance of, say, the chairs of the House and Senate Ethics
Committees writing a response to our RfC? Or, even better, Speaker
Hastert and Vice President Cheney?

Since the Foundation is a 503(c), I think this should be taken
seriously. How much of a scandal would it be for Congressional
staffers to interfere with, say, the work of Red Cross volunteers for
crass political purposes? Wikipedia is Serious Business?.

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


from_name: Tom Harrison

subject: [WikiEN-l] question about undeletion

body:
A user with a legitimate interest in the subject has asked me to undelete
one of the incarnations of 'Gang Stalking.' It had been recreated as a
subpage of 'Conspiracy theory' and I speedily deleted it. Can I just
undelete it so he can have a look, or can I email him the text from the
page, or should he list it somewhere requesting temporary undeletion?
Tom Harrison


from_name: STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA

subject: [WikiEN-l] The deletion paradox

body:
Relax, little Svenne. The winter is at its end.

--- BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 1/30/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Anyway, the vastness of crap on Wikipedia and the
> high proportion of
> > stubs indicate that the wikipedia workforce is
> unable/unwilling to
> > keep up with this amount of work. So, given that
> our poor dog is
> > suffering a terminal illness in great pain, do we
> put him down or
> > simply pray for him to get better?
>
> WE??
>
> Who the hell are WE?
>
> YOU are free to stop bothering WIkipedia's
> collaborative work if you
> think it amounts to a poor dog suffering a terminal
> illness in great
> pain. ME are free to continue adding my improvements
> to the greatest
> knowledge base in history if only you would stop
> trying to kill the
> dog.
>
> Sorry to say this to you, but since Wikipedia is not
> a dying dog, it
> doesn't need any euthanasians. Therefore your
> services aren't needed.
> In fact, the world-wide demand for euthanasians is
> very low right now.
> Join the army or something, I heard they are helpful
> to poor dogs
> suffering terminal illnesses.
>
> --
> mvh Bj?rn
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


from_name: Mihai Floran

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Stewards policy proposal

body:
>Besides what steward(s) should do, I propose that no discussion on
>desysopping has not to be submitted on meta but on their own projects
>unless desysopping in request is related to two or more projects, or
>at least such discussion might be moved to more appropriate page (like
>requests for comment).
>
>Or, submission of request for desysopping might be qualified only if
>there is already a closed vote on project(s) in question. (sigh)

I agree. There should be no discutions at Requests for permisions. There should be just approved requests which have to be done. Maybe we shuld have a special page for this kind of discutions? It is an idea with Requests for comment. If not, we can do another page.

M


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Phil Boswell

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Where ends the responsibility of
	Wikipedia?(personal information of people)

body:
"Pawe? Dembowski" <fallout at lexx.eu.org> wrote in
message news:1172514620.20060129231510 at lexx.eu.org...
> > This seems clearly a verifiability issue. If his dob is publicly
> > verifiable,
> > then having it on wikipedia creates no additional risk for him. If not,
> > someone who knows him is a wikipedian and they added it, then it should
> > be
> > removed as not verifiable. And we don't have to bother with the identity
> > theft issue.
> This person's birthdate is also available at IMDb, actually...

Then he's out of luck, given the glacial pace of their editing mechanisms...
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Foundation-l] Password security

body:
I've disabled the ability to use blank passwords on wiki accounts.

For a long time we treated accounts very laxly in this regard; there generally
wasn't _that_ much reason to secure a casual account unless you were one of the
tiny number of sysops.

In recent years though the number of sysops has exploded, and we've added
customization features like the user javascript which are cool but potentially
really annoying if someone gets into your account and messes with them. As a
small concession to security and accountability, it's time for blank passwords
to go.

While running some password security checks, I found that a handful of sysop
accounts had blank passwords. Probably some non-sysop accounts also had blanks.

Affected accounts can reset the password by the automated e-mail password gadget
on the login form, unless of course they didn't put in an e-mail.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [Foundation-l] Password security

body:
I've disabled the ability to use blank passwords on wiki accounts.

For a long time we treated accounts very laxly in this regard; there generally
wasn't _that_ much reason to secure a casual account unless you were one of the
tiny number of sysops.

In recent years though the number of sysops has exploded, and we've added
customization features like the user javascript which are cool but potentially
really annoying if someone gets into your account and messes with them. As a
small concession to security and accountability, it's time for blank passwords
to go.

While running some password security checks, I found that a handful of sysop
accounts had blank passwords. Probably some non-sysop accounts also had blanks.

Affected accounts can reset the password by the automated e-mail password gadget
on the login form, unless of course they didn't put in an e-mail.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [Foundation-l] Password security

body:
I've disabled the ability to use blank passwords on wiki accounts.

For a long time we treated accounts very laxly in this regard; there generally
wasn't _that_ much reason to secure a casual account unless you were one of the
tiny number of sysops.

In recent years though the number of sysops has exploded, and we've added
customization features like the user javascript which are cool but potentially
really annoying if someone gets into your account and messes with them. As a
small concession to security and accountability, it's time for blank passwords
to go.

While running some password security checks, I found that a handful of sysop
accounts had blank passwords. Probably some non-sysop accounts also had blanks.

Affected accounts can reset the password by the automated e-mail password gadget
on the login form, unless of course they didn't put in an e-mail.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [Foundation-l] Password security

body:
I've disabled the ability to use blank passwords on wiki accounts.

For a long time we treated accounts very laxly in this regard; there generally
wasn't _that_ much reason to secure a casual account unless you were one of the
tiny number of sysops.

In recent years though the number of sysops has exploded, and we've added
customization features like the user javascript which are cool but potentially
really annoying if someone gets into your account and messes with them. As a
small concession to security and accountability, it's time for blank passwords
to go.

While running some password security checks, I found that a handful of sysop
accounts had blank passwords. Probably some non-sysop accounts also had blanks.

Affected accounts can reset the password by the automated e-mail password gadget
on the login form, unless of course they didn't put in an e-mail.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Password security

body:
I've disabled the ability to use blank passwords on wiki accounts.

For a long time we treated accounts very laxly in this regard; there generally
wasn't _that_ much reason to secure a casual account unless you were one of the
tiny number of sysops.

In recent years though the number of sysops has exploded, and we've added
customization features like the user javascript which are cool but potentially
really annoying if someone gets into your account and messes with them. As a
small concession to security and accountability, it's time for blank passwords
to go.

While running some password security checks, I found that a handful of sysop
accounts had blank passwords. Probably some non-sysop accounts also had blanks.

Affected accounts can reset the password by the automated e-mail password gadget
on the login form, unless of course they didn't put in an e-mail.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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list: wikitech-l

subject: [Wikitech-l] Password security

body:
I've disabled the ability to use blank passwords on wiki accounts.

For a long time we treated accounts very laxly in this regard; there generally
wasn't _that_ much reason to secure a casual account unless you were one of the
tiny number of sysops.

In recent years though the number of sysops has exploded, and we've added
customization features like the user javascript which are cool but potentially
really annoying if someone gets into your account and messes with them. As a
small concession to security and accountability, it's time for blank passwords
to go.

While running some password security checks, I found that a handful of sysop
accounts had blank passwords. Probably some non-sysop accounts also had blanks.

Affected accounts can reset the password by the automated e-mail password gadget
on the login form, unless of course they didn't put in an e-mail.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Jonathan Daugherty

subject: [Wikitech-l] OpenID Support

body:
Greetings,

Very soon (maybe this afternoon), I'd like to submit a patch to add
OpenID login support to MediaWiki.  Dan Libby has already contributed
such a patch:

  http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3060

Our patch (JanRain, Inc.) is a patch against CVS HEAD, extends Dan
Libby's original modifications, and uses the PHP OpenID library that
we built and maintain at

  http://www.openidenabled.com/openid/libraries/php/

Here are some notes from the openid.txt file included in the patch:

 - OpenID support works in *addition* to normal wiki logins, including
   any external authentication plugin configured by the MediaWiki
   administrator.  If a username looks like a URL, OpenID auth is
   tried; otherwise, the regular authentication rules apply.

 - If OpenID support cannot be verified (either because the library is
   missing or because the store directory can't be initialized -- see
   step (3) in Installation), MediaWiki will function normally even if
   $wgUseOpenID is set to true.

 - The account creation form cannot currently be used to create
   accounts with OpenID identity URLs.  If you want to create an
   account with your OpenID, just log in.  The account will be created
   automatically.

Any thoughts or concerns?  I'm busy preparing some things and then
I'll attach a .diff to the bug ticket above.

Lastly, provided that the patch is accepted at some point, I'll be
happy to be active in supporting and maintaining OpenID support in
MediaWiki.

Thanks!

--
  Jonathan Daugherty
  JanRain, Inc.


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Here's an interesting one

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> This is an interesting one. An article "List of state-named Avenues in
> Washington, D.C." was listed for deletion recently but kept because of
> no consensus.  Someone thought "dang it, AfD is supposed to be a
> discussion, not a vote", and went to Wikipedia:Deletion review (DRV)
> to try to overturn the result for what he thought were weak arguments
> to keep.
>
> Well that's all very well, but DRV (perhaps uniquely in all Wikipedia
> forums) does not operate by consensus but by majority vote.  So it
> looks to me like we've got a possible loophole where someone
> dissatisfied with an AfD result can go and have the article deleted
> anyway on a straight majority vote.  As it happens a lot of people who
> looked at the article in DRV thought it should be deleted (which isn't
> unusual--it's part of the culture in DRV)
>
> So, I thought I'd give a second AfD a go. If the first AfD wasn't
> clear enough, let's try for a second. I accordingly relisted the
> article for deletion, explaining the circumstances and recommending
> keep.
>
> Six people promptly said "keep".
>
> Whereupon someone involved in the attempt to overturn the first
> deletion discussion and delete the article "unlisted* the article from
> AfD.
>
> This is quite a quandary.
>
> I've no doubt that this fellow is acting in good faith and genuinely
> believes that we cannot have a second AfD while the first is being
> reviewed, but I cannot see why not especially if (as seems here) it's
> clarifying that yes, Wikipedians really do want this article to be
> kept.
>
> However he's not really granting good faith, is he?  He's removed the
> second AfD listing. I restored once but I don't edit war so I'm not
> going to get into that stuff.
>
> So I turn to you, dear readers.
>
> How am I to ensure that, if this article is deleted, it is only
> deleted on the basis of consensus?

1. Is the information verifiable?
2. Does the article contain original research?
3. Does the article cite sources?
4. Is the information presented in the article useful and of an
encyclopedic nature?
5. Is this whole mess driving good editors from the project?

If you answered "Yes", "No", "Yes", "Yes" and "Yes", Congratulations!
Please speedy keep the article and block those who persistantly disrupt
the project by their lack of common sense.

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

subject: [WikiEN-l] A quick references survey

body:
On 1/30/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>   I'd like to undertake a more thorough survey of wikipedia
> referencing standards, but I've started with a quick "pilot" study.
>
> Methodology: Click "random article". Discard results which are not
> articles. Count the number of "external links", "references",
> "paragraphs".
>
> Terms: A bit fuzzy, I'm treating a web page which gives more
> information as an "external link", and a page or book or whatever
> which is claimed to be the source of the information (or is clearly
> the source) as a "reference". Paragraphs are, well, paragraphs, but it
> must be said that longer articles generally have longer paragraphs
> than shorter ones do. So lines would probably be better...
>
> Preliminary results:
> Sample size:30 pages, of which 17 were stubs.
>
> Number with no links: 21
> Number with no references: 24
> Average number of links: 0.67
> Average number of references: 0.54
>
>
> I found very few book references, one of which was patently false
> ("James Maxwell's book of James Maxwells not as cool as me, by James
> Maxwell"). Similarly a list of newspaper articles turned out to all
> have been written by the subject (a journalist). One page (out of 30)
> actually gave ISBN references (Chepstow Bridge).

This compares reasonably well with the results of my survey
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Carnildo/The_100): about 15% of all
articles are sourced.  My methodology was a little different, as I
counted anything in a "references" section as a reference, while
inline links were collectively counted as one reference.

I'm still working on a survey of biography articles, but preliminary
results are that slightly fewer biographies are sourced, but ones that
are sourced tend to have more sources.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


subject: [Wikitech-l] OpenID Support

body:
# I assume that does OpenID, LID and YADIS given the development you
# guys have been doing on those areas?

Nope.  It's an OpenID-only patch.

# Is it just Relying Party support, or does it also enable registered
# Wikipedia users to use their Wikipedia identity with other places?

The patch lets people use their OpenID identities to authenticate to
MediaWiki; that's all.

--
  Jonathan Daugherty
  JanRain, Inc.


from_name: Johannes Ernst

subject: [Wikitech-l] OpenID Support

body:
I assume that does OpenID, LID and YADIS given the development you
guys have been doing on those areas?

Is it just Relying Party support, or does it also enable registered
Wikipedia users to use their Wikipedia identity with other places?

On Jan 30, 2006, at 16:02, Jonathan Daugherty wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> Very soon (maybe this afternoon), I'd like to submit a patch to add
> OpenID login support to MediaWiki.  Dan Libby has already contributed
> such a patch:
>
>   http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3060
>
> Our patch (JanRain, Inc.) is a patch against CVS HEAD, extends Dan
> Libby's original modifications, and uses the PHP OpenID library that
> we built and maintain at
>
>   http://www.openidenabled.com/openid/libraries/php/
>
> Here are some notes from the openid.txt file included in the patch:
>
>  - OpenID support works in *addition* to normal wiki logins, including
>    any external authentication plugin configured by the MediaWiki
>    administrator.  If a username looks like a URL, OpenID auth is
>    tried; otherwise, the regular authentication rules apply.
>
>  - If OpenID support cannot be verified (either because the library is
>    missing or because the store directory can't be initialized -- see
>    step (3) in Installation), MediaWiki will function normally even if
>    $wgUseOpenID is set to true.
>
>  - The account creation form cannot currently be used to create
>    accounts with OpenID identity URLs.  If you want to create an
>    account with your OpenID, just log in.  The account will be created
>    automatically.
>
> Any thoughts or concerns?  I'm busy preparing some things and then
> I'll attach a .diff to the bug ticket above.
>
> Lastly, provided that the patch is accepted at some point, I'll be
> happy to be active in supporting and maintaining OpenID support in
> MediaWiki.
>
> Thanks!
>
> --
>   Jonathan Daugherty
>   JanRain, Inc.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

Johannes Ernst
NetMesh Inc.
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from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] A quick references survey

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:

>>Any suggestions for improved methodology? It might be nice to harness
>>the wikipedia population to collect some more general article quality
>>metrics...
>>
>>
>I think we can have quite a simply solution to this. Do the same as we did
>to the images. Stuff which isn't cited within a week, can be speedy deleted
>like we do with images now. Just make sure it only applies to articles
>created after date X.
>
This isn't simple; it's simplistic.

While an image is a relatively uneditable form the same is not true of
text.  Any edit can easily invalidate the supporting reference.  Also
any source can be slapped in that roughly deals with the subject and
verifying all the details will not always be easy.  I strongly support
the need for references, but policy needs to adapt to circumstances.
Some facts (such as those about living persons) need to be referenced
more urgently than others.  Article by article negotiations are more
appropriate than arbitrary deadlines.

Ec


from_name: Guettarda

subject: [WikiEN-l] A quick references survey

body:
Here's another challenge.  If you keep a list of the articles you started,
go through them and make sure than they have external links or references,
even if they are stubs.  Gotta start somewhere - might as well start on your
own stuff

Ian (Guettarda)

On 1/30/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> [also originally sent yesterday but didn't seem to get through the
> moderator, perhaps due to my mail server?]
>
> Hi all,
>   I'd like to undertake a more thorough survey of wikipedia
> referencing standards, but I've started with a quick "pilot" study.
>
> Methodology: Click "random article". Discard results which are not
> articles. Count the number of "external links", "references",
> "paragraphs".
>
> Terms: A bit fuzzy, I'm treating a web page which gives more
> information as an "external link", and a page or book or whatever
> which is claimed to be the source of the information (or is clearly
> the source) as a "reference". Paragraphs are, well, paragraphs, but it
> must be said that longer articles generally have longer paragraphs
> than shorter ones do. So lines would probably be better...
>
> Preliminary results:
> Sample size:30 pages, of which 17 were stubs.
>
> Number with no links: 21
> Number with no references: 24
> Average number of links: 0.67
> Average number of references: 0.54
>
>
> I found very few book references, one of which was patently false
> ("James Maxwell's book of James Maxwells not as cool as me, by James
> Maxwell"). Similarly a list of newspaper articles turned out to all
> have been written by the subject (a journalist). One page (out of 30)
> actually gave ISBN references (Chepstow Bridge).
>
> Conclusions:
> None yet, really, since the methodology isn't very solid and the
> sample set is small. But notably: More than half the articles were
> stubs. Hardly any articles had any real "references". Most of the
> external links were band websites, company websites etc. Of the few
> refernces, one was blatantly false and a few were "bad". So it's
> probably a little early to be claiming that all material added to
> Wikipedia MUST be sourced or it will be removed. Because based on
> this, only around 15% of Wikipedia would survive. (Which is more than
> I would have predicted).
>
>
> Any suggestions for improved methodology? It might be nice to harness
> the wikipedia population to collect some more general article quality
> metrics...
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: stevertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] The deletion paradox

body:
Maybe its not a deletion issue at all. Maybe its an
inclusion issue for the exported content:

Use the Special:CategoryExport function to compile
downloads of compartmentalized blocks of Wikipedia
content (en-wikipedia-science,
en-wikipedia-science-astronomy, etc. )

What about QA and vandalized versions? Use the
Special:Verify and Special:PageRank functions to allow
only checked off versions in the downloads.

S

> Steve Bennett wrote:
> > [originally sent yesterday but didn't seem to get
> through the
> > moderator, perhaps due to my mail server?]
> >
> > Hi all,
> >   This is the deletion paradox as I see it:
> >
> > 1) Wikipedia has nearly a million articles. A very
> large number of
> > them are crap. The more articles we delete, the
> better.
> > 2) Deleting articles causes unhappiness and
> tension. The more articles
> > we delete, the more unhappiness and tension.
>

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subject: [WikiEN-l] The deletion paradox

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>Hi all,
>  This is the deletion paradox as I see it:
>
>1) Wikipedia has nearly a million articles. A very large number of
>them are crap. The more articles we delete, the better.
>2) Deleting articles causes unhappiness and tension. The more articles
>we delete, the more unhappiness and tension.
>
>Anyone have a solution?
>
Has anyone considered the possibility of improving those crap articles?
That would be a fine lateral solution to the paradox.

Ec


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Password security

body:
Jtkiefer wrote:
> I'm surprised that blank passwords were ever allowed since they are
> probably the worst security you can make,

Second only to letting anybody edit your web site. ;)

UseModWiki actually went so far as to allow you to create multiple user accounts
with the same user name...

> Maybe in the future a more strict password security protocol
> should be established and enforced, forcing password changes every x
> days would be unduly burdensome but complexity requirements might be a
> good idea especially since as you mentioned the adminship and the
> community pool has enlarged greatly.

I'm fiddling with some basic dictionary checks and such.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
Jtkiefer wrote:
> I'm surprised that blank passwords were ever allowed since they are
> probably the worst security you can make,

Second only to letting anybody edit your web site. ;)

UseModWiki actually went so far as to allow you to create multiple user accounts
with the same user name...

> Maybe in the future a more strict password security protocol
> should be established and enforced, forcing password changes every x
> days would be unduly burdensome but complexity requirements might be a
> good idea especially since as you mentioned the adminship and the
> community pool has enlarged greatly.

I'm fiddling with some basic dictionary checks and such.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
Jtkiefer wrote:
> I'm surprised that blank passwords were ever allowed since they are
> probably the worst security you can make,

Second only to letting anybody edit your web site. ;)

UseModWiki actually went so far as to allow you to create multiple user accounts
with the same user name...

> Maybe in the future a more strict password security protocol
> should be established and enforced, forcing password changes every x
> days would be unduly burdensome but complexity requirements might be a
> good idea especially since as you mentioned the adminship and the
> community pool has enlarged greatly.

I'm fiddling with some basic dictionary checks and such.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
Jtkiefer wrote:
> I'm surprised that blank passwords were ever allowed since they are
> probably the worst security you can make,

Second only to letting anybody edit your web site. ;)

UseModWiki actually went so far as to allow you to create multiple user accounts
with the same user name...

> Maybe in the future a more strict password security protocol
> should be established and enforced, forcing password changes every x
> days would be unduly burdensome but complexity requirements might be a
> good idea especially since as you mentioned the adminship and the
> community pool has enlarged greatly.

I'm fiddling with some basic dictionary checks and such.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
Jtkiefer wrote:
> I'm surprised that blank passwords were ever allowed since they are
> probably the worst security you can make,

Second only to letting anybody edit your web site. ;)

UseModWiki actually went so far as to allow you to create multiple user accounts
with the same user name...

> Maybe in the future a more strict password security protocol
> should be established and enforced, forcing password changes every x
> days would be unduly burdensome but complexity requirements might be a
> good idea especially since as you mentioned the adminship and the
> community pool has enlarged greatly.

I'm fiddling with some basic dictionary checks and such.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Password security

body:
Jtkiefer wrote:
> I'm surprised that blank passwords were ever allowed since they are
> probably the worst security you can make,

Second only to letting anybody edit your web site. ;)

UseModWiki actually went so far as to allow you to create multiple user accounts
with the same user name...

> Maybe in the future a more strict password security protocol
> should be established and enforced, forcing password changes every x
> days would be unduly burdensome but complexity requirements might be a
> good idea especially since as you mentioned the adminship and the
> community pool has enlarged greatly.

I'm fiddling with some basic dictionary checks and such.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Googlebomb

body:
Just to clear up any ambiguity, the request was to
invoke known methods to allow "wp" to rank highly in
google searches. First spot is not improper IMHO, and
certainly its valid for Wikipedia to replace a
particular blogging CMS in the top slot.

Sadly, a google of wp first hits Wikipedia content
(the [[WP]] disambig page) at about 165 slots down -
not really acceptable at all. Asserting that the WP
disambig show up would be OK, and I could add direct
external links to Washpost and Wordpress, etc. (a
substitute search page). But the [[Main Page]] and the
www.Wikipedia.org portal could just as well be
corrected in google searches.

S

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subject: [WikiEN-l] The deletion paradox

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>On 1/30/06, Chris Jenkinson <chris at starglade.org> wrote:
>
>
>>I don't agree with the first premise. Why is it better to delete "crap"
>>articles than improve/rewrite them?
>>
>>
>That's sort of like saying, why do we have to choose between tax cuts
>and more spending on health? Why don't we cut taxes *and* spend more
>on health?
>
Better still encourage a healthy lifestyle so that people won't need to
spend so much on health care.

Ec


subject: [Wikitech-l] OpenID Support

body:
On Jan 30, 2006, at 16:13, Jonathan Daugherty wrote:

> # I assume that does OpenID, LID and YADIS given the development you
> # guys have been doing on those areas?
>
> Nope.  It's an OpenID-only patch.
>
> # Is it just Relying Party support, or does it also enable registered
> # Wikipedia users to use their Wikipedia identity with other places?
>
> The patch lets people use their OpenID identities to authenticate to
> MediaWiki; that's all.

In which case, I'd argue that we'd rather not deliver URL-based
identity functionality piece-meal to the nice folks at Wikipedia who
would probably like to avoid having to do more integration more often
than necessary ...

I was told this morning that V0.9 of the YADIS spec is done as of
yesterday and will be on-line shortly. The purpose of this spec --
which for all practical purposes could have been called 1.0RC1 -- is
to give implementors like yourself the opportunity to provide final
feedback, and will be renamed to 1.0 within the month or so unless
something very unexpected happens.

For those of you on this list who don't know what this is all about
-- YADIS is the discovery mechanism that "everybody" with URL-based
identity technologies has agreed to, and as far as I know, most
(all?) OpenID (and LID, and i-names, ...) implementors have agreed to
"upgrade" their implementation to YADIS.

http://yadis.org/

Of course, what does and doesn't make it into the Wikipedia code base
when is entirely up to their team ... these are just my thoughts. And
yes, I'd absolutely love to see broad URL-based identity support in
Wikipedia...

>
> --
>   Jonathan Daugherty
>   JanRain, Inc.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

Johannes Ernst
NetMesh Inc.
-------------- next part --------------
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from_name: Patrick, Brad

body:
[For those who are offended by the top posting, please accept my apologies.]

There has been mention on this list of specific concepts of vicarious liability and employer/employee responsibility.  Angela has scheduled an open IRC chat on the topic of governance (broadly) which I hope to monitor and participate in if my schedule will allow.  I will address solely the point raised by Anthere below:

The initial starting point is "what law applies"; this would be the governing law of the State of Florida, USA, and applicable statutory and controlling authorities in state and US federal jurisdictions.  "Who is the client?"  I am a licensed Florida lawyer with a private firm representing the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. through its Board.  I do not represent "the community" in any technical legal sense, I answer to the Board and provide advice to the Board.

Anthere (a board member) opines that Gerard's comments represent a "dangerous" interpretation of things.  I would like to clarify why I believe she is correct for the most part.

Under Florida law (and US law generally), all actions taken by a corporation are done through a series of delegations of authority, all of which have their origin with the Board.  The delegation of authority is hierarchical and drawn in an organizational chart as a pyramid, with the Board at the top.  [N.B.: to those who would reject this concept out of hand, and insist there should be another way, you may stop reading now.  Whether you like it or not, or believe in it philosophically or not, or believe it is morally or ethically superior or inferior to another alternative, I must observe such opinions are _legally_ irrelevant.  Under FL/US law, corporate authority is delegated, and this is the law the Board is bound by today.  Also, this is not the same as traditional US private corporations with shareholders.]

To date, the Board has maintained tight control for itself in many respects, by which I mean the Board makes many day-to-day decisions.  Little is delegated.  However, various Wikipedia projects thrive through a community of users/admins/stewards/etc.  Chapters also exist and do various things, however, they are generally autonomous associations of users and do not exist as a direct delegated authority of the Foundation.  The point is that there is a middle area between the "grassroots" user base and "community" on the one hand, and the Board and those with strict delegated authority on the other.  Put another way, there exists the community and its culture, operating norms, etc., and the Foundation and its legal structure, corporate governance, and administrative day-to-day dealings.

Irrespective of name, title, or any other statement of authorization (or lack thereof), it is the case that many people have taken it upon themselves to "act" believing that they are doing so with the consent of WMF.  Devolved responsibility _is_ clear in a situation where the Board has directly and explicitly delegated authority to act to a person with the intent that they act as a corporate officer.  An example is Brion, the CTO.  Brion is tasked with running the technological side of the organization.  He is a paid employee of the Foundation and has as his defined job responsibility keeping things up and running.  It would be absurd to assume that if a server crashed, Brion would need to get permission from the Board to bring them back up - he has been delegated the authority to do so.  It would be equally absurd to suggest that it would be best for the organization to allow anyone who felt like it to have root access - to exercise no restraint on delegation of authority.  I ask rhetorically, how best to manage the middle ground between volunteer and board member?  That policy question (it is not merely a legal one) implies attention to the fiduciary responsibilities a non-profit organization has to conserve its resources and prevent against liability wherever possible.

>From a corporate liability perspective (with due regard to the fiduciary responsibility owed in this context), risk management is something which requires constant attention and improvement in any organization.  To properly obtain insurance to guard against such risk, the question of delegated authority and the actions undertaken by those who affiliate themselves with WMF must be clarified more than it has been to date.  That process is underway.  It is not in the best interests of the organization to deviate from a known fiduciary responsibility (for example, to decide _not_ obtain director and officer and general liability insurance) but rather a challenge of how best to do it.  To comment publicly on what situations would or would not create liability would be foolish and an invitation to those who would do the organization harm.  Suffice to say my responsibility to the Foundation is to provide such legal opinions when they are required, within the bounds of attorney-client privilege.

I qualify all of this to the civil context only; if there is anything criminal it should and must be dealt with immediately.  As a not-for-profit tax-exempt organization under US law, any situation of the kind is utterly intolerable and will be dealt with swiftly, summarily, and with the fullest measure of cooperation with law enforcement.  Political pressure is being brought to bear in the US Senate that would create a level of public scrutiny akin to Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) in the not-for-profit sector.  See today's headlines re Enron for treatment in the for-profit context.

To sum up:
*all power to act derives from the Board
*the Board, each Board member, and officers must act consistent with their fiduciary responsibilities under law
*the Board can delegate power to act to officers and committees of the Board, each with defined authority
*the Board is obligated to act to avoid risk or to deal with risk consistent with its fiduciary responsibilities
*specific questions require specific legal advice to the Board which is inappropriate for public discussion

-Brad

-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Anthere
Sent: Monday, January 30, 2006 2:01 PM
To: foundation-l at wikimedia.org
Subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Outsiders on the Board? (was Re: Poll forWikistandards)

Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> Tim Starling wrote:
>>
>>> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> I am amazed that you suggest that an officer of the Wikimedia
>>>> Foundation would be personally liable for the work done as an
>>>> officer. I would expect that an officer of an organisation speaks
>>>> for the organisation and as a consequence the organisation is
>>>> liable for the actions of its personnel. Normally someone employed
>>>> by an organisation is liable only when gross incompetence can be
>>>> proven or in cases where the law has been violated to an extend
>>>> where criminal intend can be proven.
>>>>
>>>> I am sure that someone can and will explain to what extend an
>>>> employee is personally liable for his actions as an employee of the
>>>> Wikimedia Foundation.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Well, firstly IANAL and secondly most of my legal knowedge comes
>>> from studying Australian law rather than US law. But my
>>> understanding is that civil liability for the action of employees
>>> rests with the corporation or individual employing them. This is
>>> called vicarious liability.
>>>
>> Gerard's response on this seemed na?ve.  No-one wants to go into a
>> situation where there is a high risk of liability,  But these things
>> do happen, and there are situations where the law needs to pierce the
>> corporate veil when the corporate structure is there to assist in the
>> perpetration of a scam.  In some cases liability insurance can be
>> purchased, but that too can be expensive.  It's also important to
>> remember the level of litigiousness that is found in US society.  A
>> plaintiff will often cast a wide net in the hopes of catching the
>> right victim with deep enough pockets to pay for the wrongdoings of a
>> penniless associate.  This can be a frightful experience when people
>> with only marginal involvement find themselves put through the
>> expense of defending themselves in court.
>
> As I understand things, there are two types of people in the Wikimedia
> Foundation and its projects.
>
>    * There are the person with an official role; they are appointed or
>      chosen to their function.
>    * There are the persons with no official status as far as the WMF is
>      concerned. These include stewards, bureaucrats, admins and users.
>
> Only the first two groups have any protection for what they do within
> the Wikimedia Foundation. They have this protection as they represent
> the Wikimedia Foundation in an official capacity. When something is
> done on any of the projects that results in a legal situation, it is
> the person who will be, when identified, be the one prosecuted.
> Depending on the situation the Wikimedia Foundation or a chapter may
> involve itself, this is not a given.
>
> When a person in his official position gets into a legal situation, it
> typically is the organisation, here the Wikimedia Foundation, who will
> be prosecuted. It is only when a person is criminally negligent or
> involved that there is a ground to prosecute an individual.
>
> This is my understanding of how these things work. The consequence is
> that officers of the WMF or of chapters have protection that all other
> WMF volunteers lack. The fact that statutory laws exist for '''gross'''
> mismanagement is something that we should welcome. Typically it takes
> some effort to qualify as gross mismanagement. Given the people that
> we currently have in official positions this is unlikely to happen.
>
> The only group of people for whom it is not entirely clear to me what
> their status is, are the people who help out on OTRS. Yes, I do know
> how careful these people try to do their job.. :)
>
> Thanks,
>   GerardM

My apologies Gerard, but all this seems to me to be a misconception of the whole issue. Not even erroneous, but dangerous actually.

I think it is incorrect to imply that those elected/appointed are somehow "protected" by their position in the Foundation (ie, the Foundation will be prosecuted rather than them as individuals) while "regular editors" lack protection.

I would like to ask Brad here to clarify this issue publicly for you, and for all those who read your statement. Brad, can you help ? Thanks in advance :-)

Anthere

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subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Outsiders on the Board?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Googlebomb

body:
"Intransitive use of 'google'" - I hadnt thought about
it, although my apparently 'original' use of it has
made it into the [[google (verb)]] encyclopedia
article. :)

..google [this].. [
..to google..
..[this] googles..
..I was pleased(sub.) to see [these](obj.)
google(v.).. or ..[this] doesnt google..

Interesting.

S

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subject: [WikiEN-l] The deletion paradox

body:
>
> Dear god, if you don't stop with the bad allegories,
> I'm going to kill
> something (and I mean it literally, I'll go to a pet
> store, buy a cat
> and drown it when I get home if I hear one more of
> these!)
>
> Cheers!
>
> --Oskar
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

Most people might think this as a joke, but not I.
Swedes don't joke about these things. They kill
animals for art.

http://sydsvenskan.se/samtidigt/article106976.ece

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subject: [Wikitech-l] OpenID Support

body:
# Any thoughts or concerns?  I'm busy preparing some things and then
# I'll attach a .diff to the bug ticket above.

I've uploaded the patch to the ticket at

  http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3060

--
  Jonathan Daugherty
  JanRain, Inc.


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Block of a Notable Wikipedian

body:
Philip Welch wrote:

>How come we're blaming her all of a sudden? We're the ones who
>screwed up. The predominant culture on Wikipedia is really good at
>pissing off good-faith contributors sometimes--I'm often loath to ask
>others to contribute because I know how they'll ultimately be treated.
>Here's someone who openly states on her page that she wants to help
>Wikipedia, but she wants the personal attacks against her removed
>before that happens. If you step back and look at it from her point
>of view, and not through the lens of the Wikipedia culture, is that
>really so unreasonable?

No, I just think the page makes her look worse that she should and
won't help matters. I'm also trying to bring DreamGuy to the party. If
we can get them to email each other directly without rancor ...

(cc to Elonka)

- d.


body:
I wrote:

>No, I just think the page makes her look worse that she should and
>won't help matters. I'm also trying to bring DreamGuy to the party. If
>we can get them to email each other directly without rancor ...

I've also unblocked Elonka and added a note on WP:ANI to this effect.

- d.


from_name: Kirill Lokshin

subject: [WikiEN-l] The deletion paradox

body:
On 1/30/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> [originally sent yesterday but didn't seem to get through the
> moderator, perhaps due to my mail server?]
>
> Hi all,
>  This is the deletion paradox as I see it:
>
> 1) Wikipedia has nearly a million articles. A very large number of
> them are crap. The more articles we delete, the better.
> 2) Deleting articles causes unhappiness and tension. The more articles
> we delete, the more unhappiness and tension.
>
> Anyone have a solution?

I would modify point 1 slightly: "... The more articles we get rid of,
the better." and add point 3: "A high proportion of articles (72% is
the last figure I'm aware of) are not watched by anybody."

The solution is pretty obvious, then: redirect (possibly after merging
any useful information) the crap articles with abandon.  I'm
surprised, for instance, that we don't simply redirect each vanity
band entry to [[Garage band]]; most of the authors won't be back to
check, I suspect.

Kirill Lokshin
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Here's an interesting one

body:
Rob wrote:
> This isn't directed at anyone in particular, but a legit question for the
> group:
>
> If someone disagrees with a deletion result, then lists it on DRV, this is
> generally (with the exception of vanity self-promoters, trolls, and the
> like) accepted as a good faith effort to improve the encyclopedia.
>
> If someone disagrees with a keep result, then lists it on DRV, this is seen
> by many as an "abuse of process" and an effort to "get the result he
> wanted".
>
The problem I've got with this situation is that the person who listed
this on DRV wanted the "keep" result to be overturned _and the article
deleted as a result._ He's essentially saying that the default
assumption should be that articles are deleteworthy until proven
otherwise. This is completely 180 degrees backwards.

If all someone wants to do is "overturn" a keep result there should
really be no need for DRV at all, just create another AfD nomination and
argue your case there. If the argument works and the new AfD returns a
clear "delete", the old AfD's keep result is moot. DRV is only
particularly useful for retrieving deleted stuff since you can't make an
AfD nomination for an article that doesn't exist.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Here's an interesting one

body:
Rob wrote:

>If someone disagrees with a deletion result, then lists it on DRV, this is
>generally (with the exception of vanity self-promoters, trolls, and the
>like) accepted as a good faith effort to improve the encyclopedia.
>If someone disagrees with a keep result, then lists it on DRV, this is seen
>by many as an "abuse of process" and an effort to "get the result he
>wanted".
>It seems that if one type of result can be reviewed and possibly overturned,
>what's wrong with reviewing another type of result?  What's the difference?

The difference is that keeping and deleting are not symmetrical. It' s
like innocent until proven guilty - it's *supposed* to be keep unless
deletable. So the first is appealing a "guilty", the second is double
jeopardy.

- d.


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] The deletion paradox

body:
Kirill Lokshin wrote:

>
>The solution is pretty obvious, then: redirect (possibly after merging
>any useful information) the crap articles with abandon.  I'm
>surprised, for instance, that we don't simply redirect each vanity
>band entry to [[Garage band]]; most of the authors won't be back to
>check, I suspect.
>
Shhh! Don't mention that on a public mailing list!!

:-)

But seriously, for the 3/4 of articles not watched by anybody,
you've pretty much got a free hand. Prune the unverifiable ramblings
out, you'll likely only end up with two lines of factual material;
add to [[Garage bands in Iowa]] or whatever, and you're done.

I used to do this kind of thing quite a lot back when I reviewed new
articles; often felt like a race to handle them usefully before AfD
got to them and made a simple task into a fight. Nearly all of them
are still redirects, a year or more later.

Stan


subject: [WikiEN-l] A quick references survey

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> I think we can have quite a simply solution to this. Do the same as we did
> to the images. Stuff which isn't cited within a week, can be speedy deleted
> like we do with images now. Just make sure it only applies to articles
> created after date X.
>
Articles without references are simply works in progress most of the
time, and I definitely don't support the deletion of works in progress.
Images are different since it's far harder to check them for copyright
issues and such.

Instead of deleting such articles, how about simply withholding "stable"
flags from all unreferenced versions (ie, all of them)?


from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> My reaction seems to be unique so far. I would think it much better
> for the Wikipedia project that we do not publicise that we know
> exactly who is doing this. It is fascinating to watch the congress
> staffers at work. It is just a pity that shortly they will smarten up
> and be doing this with proper accounts via different IPs.
>
> If there have only been a thousand changes so far, most of which were
> positive, this does not seem to be a "major" problem. Certainly not
> compared to the information we're gleaning from this. So, by all
> means, let's continue to revert the particularly obnoxious changes,
> but asking them to "stop it" will simply make it invisible.

A little late for that since my phone is ringing off the hook with
reporters interested in the story.


subject: [WikiEN-l] The deletion paradox

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> [originally sent yesterday but didn't seem to get through the
> moderator, perhaps due to my mail server?]
>
> Hi all,
>   This is the deletion paradox as I see it:
>
> 1) Wikipedia has nearly a million articles. A very large number of
> them are crap. The more articles we delete, the better.
> 2) Deleting articles causes unhappiness and tension. The more articles
> we delete, the more unhappiness and tension.

Like a bandaid -- rip it off fast. ;-)


from_name: Sam Korn

body:
On 1/30/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> My secret dream is to see the United States Congress hauled up before
> the Arbitration Committee. Maybe we could get them to pass clearer
> fair-use legislation as part of their parole.

Waste of time.  Their parole can be to pass laws licensing all works
as copyleft.

--
Sam


from_name: geni

body:
On 1/30/06, Jesse Weinstein <jessw at netwood.net> wrote:
> People might object that such a subpage is "just too hard", or "too
> time-consuming", or various other things; my answer to this is simply - if you
> don't want to work on it, don't work on it.  It benefits the encyclopedia, by
> easing the task of factual verification; yes it will take many years to get lots
> done, but so what? Each piece we do is one more that's done.  This is not a
> problem, folks - it's just a big job.  Get to work! (if this is the sort of work
> you want to help with...)
>
> Jesse Weinstein (User:JesseW)

Hard to fit in with th GFDL
--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Here's an interesting one

body:
On 1/30/06, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:
> It seems that if one type of result can be reviewed and possibly overturned,
> what's wrong with reviewing another type of result?  What's the difference?

There is nothing to stop you relisting an article on AFD.

--
geni


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: US Congress Staff Editing Wikipedia

body:
Bryan Derksen wrote:

> My secret dream is to see the United States Congress hauled up before
> the Arbitration Committee. Maybe we could get them to pass clearer
> fair-use legislation as part of their parole.

Clearer fair use legislation is not likely to do us any good. What we
want is *more generous* fair use legislation.

--Michael Snow


from_name: Rob

subject: [WikiEN-l] A quick references survey

body:
I wonder if this won't encourage the addition of crap references, with
people throwing up the first google hit they find on a subject as a
"reference" in order to save a stub from deletion.

On 1/30/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> I think we can have quite a simply solution to this. Do the same as we did
> to the images. Stuff which isn't cited within a week, can be speedy
> deleted
> like we do with images now. Just make sure it only applies to articles
> created after date X.
>


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] The deletion paradox

body:
How about improving articles rather than deleting?

Fred

On Jan 30, 2006, at 2:41 PM, Steve Bennett wrote:

> [originally sent yesterday but didn't seem to get through the
> moderator, perhaps due to my mail server?]
>
> Hi all,
>   This is the deletion paradox as I see it:
>
> 1) Wikipedia has nearly a million articles. A very large number of
> them are crap. The more articles we delete, the better.
> 2) Deleting articles causes unhappiness and tension. The more articles
> we delete, the more unhappiness and tension.
>
> Anyone have a solution?
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Jtkiefer

subject: [Foundation-l] Password security

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> I've disabled the ability to use blank passwords on wiki accounts.
>
> For a long time we treated accounts very laxly in this regard; there generally
> wasn't _that_ much reason to secure a casual account unless you were one of the
> tiny number of sysops.
>
> In recent years though the number of sysops has exploded, and we've added
> customization features like the user javascript which are cool but potentially
> really annoying if someone gets into your account and messes with them. As a
> small concession to security and accountability, it's time for blank passwords
> to go.
>
> While running some password security checks, I found that a handful of sysop
> accounts had blank passwords. Probably some non-sysop accounts also had blanks.
>
> Affected accounts can reset the password by the automated e-mail password gadget
> on the login form, unless of course they didn't put in an e-mail.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>
I'm surprised that blank passwords were ever allowed since they are
probably the worst security you can make, even worse then setting your
password as password (I wonder how many editors have that as their
password).  Maybe in the future a more strict password security protocol
should be established and enforced, forcing password changes every x
days would be unduly burdensome but complexity requirements might be a
good idea especially since as you mentioned the adminship and the
community pool has enlarged greatly.

-Jtkiefer

p.s. any replies to this on wikitech-l please also forward to one of the
other lists or cc directly to me otherwise I will not get it as I am not
subscribed to that list.  Thanks.


subject: [Foundation-l] Password security


from_name: Aphaia

body:
On 1/28/06, Mihai Floran <mihai at emma.ro> wrote:
> Hmm... anyway.... as a second tought...
> (I still support Anthere's proposal)
> what will the stewards do afterwards?
>
> There is not so much activity at Requests for permissions nowadays... exception - of course - big discutions about desysoping some users.

Besides what steward(s) should do, I propose that no discussion on
desysopping has not to be submitted on meta but on their own projects
unless desysopping in request is related to two or more projects, or
at least such discussion might be moved to more appropriate page (like
requests for comment).

Or, submission of request for desysopping might be qualified only if
there is already a closed vote on project(s) in question. (sigh)

--
Aphaea@*.wikipedia.org
email: Aphaia @ gmail (dot) com


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Where ends the responsibility of Wikipedia?
	(personal information of people)

body:
On 29/01/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 1/29/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> > It is not that your identity so far as the state or federal
> > government is stolen. Identity theft refers to someone gaining
> > sufficient access to your personal information that it is possible to
> > access your credit card accounts and bank accounts or create new
> > ones. What they are stealing is your credit rating. They can then run
> > up a big bill and leave you with it; the banks and credit companies
> > may forgive the debt, but straightening your credit rating will be
> > difficult and time consuming, or expensive (if you hire it done).
> >
>
> Can someone really "run up a big bill and leave you with it"?  I
> thought your authorization was needed in order to enter into a loan.

If I can redirect your mail to me, fake your signature, and
convincingly impersonate you on the phone... there's not much need for
any more authorisation. Sure, the loans and so on may all be
resolvable, in the end, but the loss of earnings, loss of confidence,
can all mount up. Nasty stuff.

And it can get insane. The worst case I've yet heard of involved
selling someone's house from under them -
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/08/identity_thief.html

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


from_name: John Lee

body:
A most interesting case, ladies and gentlemen:
[[Wikipedia:Requests for comment/United States Congress]]

"This RFC concerns the behavior of editors from the United States
Congress". This could possibly set a precedent for how we deal with
vandalism from organisations trying to push their POV. We should
probably contact someone at Congress to let them know how their
reputations are being soiled on Wikipedia. I'm no good at understanding
the consequences or repercussions of this, so I just think somebody
involved with the Foundation (Jimbo? Angela? Anthere?) might be
interested in this. Certainly we don't get vandalised by Congress
everyday. :)

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


body:
John Lee wrote:

> A most interesting case, ladies and gentlemen:
> [[Wikipedia:Requests for comment/United States Congress]]
>
> "This RFC concerns the behavior of editors from the United States
> Congress". This could possibly set a precedent for how we deal with
> vandalism from organisations trying to push their POV. We should
> probably contact someone at Congress to let them know how their
> reputations are being soiled on Wikipedia. I'm no good at
> understanding the consequences or repercussions of this, so I just
> think somebody involved with the Foundation (Jimbo? Angela? Anthere?)
> might be interested in this. Certainly we don't get vandalised by
> Congress everyday. :)
>
> John Lee
> ([[User:Johnleemk]])

Well, whaddya know; it's on WikiNews!

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Congressional_staff_actions_prompt_Wikipedia_investigation

That's probably a more readable explanation of what's going on than the RfC.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


from_name: Ryan Delaney

subject: [WikiEN-l] Here's an interesting one

body:
This user is "gaming the system". Isn't there some policy that explicitly
forbids this?

Ryan

On 1/30/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 1/30/06, Habj <sweetadelaide at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I can not remember where, but somewhere at enwiki it says that
> "concensus"
> > is in some cases defined as a supermajority number
>
>
> This numerical intepretation was in the Consensus article for a while,
> but it was removed.  Although one person favored it strongly and
> championed it for a long while, there was no consensus for it.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Anthere

body:
Mihai Floran wrote:
>>Besides what steward(s) should do, I propose that no discussion on
>>desysopping has not to be submitted on meta but on their own projects
>>unless desysopping in request is related to two or more projects, or
>>at least such discussion might be moved to more appropriate page (like
>>requests for comment).
>>
>>Or, submission of request for desysopping might be qualified only if
>>there is already a closed vote on project(s) in question. (sigh)
>
>
> I agree. There should be no discutions at Requests for permisions. There should be just approved requests which have to be done. Maybe we shuld have a special page for this kind of discutions? It is an idea with Requests for comment. If not, we can do another page.
>
> M

Hi Mihai

There is no reason to have a page on meta for this type of discussion.
The discussions should occur on local projects, where local editors can
participate. We do not have to make any "judgement" ourselves.

Ant


from_name: Liviu Andronic

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Fairness in voting

body:
Well Node, you and your separatist cronies, so as to - approximatively -
cite you, accuse me and my unionist buddies, so as to exactly cite your
politeness, of not being coherent. OK.

I am not going to lose much time on this discussion.

On 19/01/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com > wrote:
>
> > > Yes, and on Wikipedia, people try to work together to make it more
> > > neutral. However, Pavel was not open to that.
> >
> > This is why Moldovan Wikipedia ought to be deleted. It can never be a
> > *neutral* place. It is from the very start of it a POV. [...]
> That's a weird conclusion. If you want to just exprewss your opinions,
> that's fine, but if you're trying to actually respond coherently to
> somebody else's e-mail, your responses should follow directluy and
> logically (or at least demonstrably, if not logically) from the
> previous e-mail. Please, read the other messages in this thread.

It's not that weird a conclusion, Node. You have never been open to that
(not to my knowledge, and maybe only once). So that such blame should not be
thrown on Moldovans or Romanians. Satisfied of coherency?

Now, about making Wikipedia a neutral place and the mo.wiki issue. A trully
neutral solution - in my opinion, and I will express my opinions as soon as
they get in my mind either answering to your email or not as long as these
are relevant - would be the following.

   - *Ro.wiki keeps its Romanian content as normal*.

   - *ro-cyr.wiki gets content in Cyrillic Romanian* using this alphabet
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_Cyrillic_alphabet ), if some
   one deems it necessary to have such a Wikipedia. It is, by the way, the
   alphabet that Grigore Ureche used to write his works (and not the Moldovan
   Cyrillic alphabet), but about this later. Ro.wiki should not get
   biscriptal because this alphabet is not representative of modern Romania and
   you will not find Romanians able to actually use this script.
   It was used till 1860, when Moldavia united Wallachia to create Romania

   - *mo-cyr.wiki gets its content in Moldovan Cyrillic* using this
   alphabet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldovan_alphabet), invented in
   the 1930s by good old godfather Stalin, if you deem necessary to keep this
   Wikipedia. It should probably be named more appropriatly something like
   Moldovan/Romanian Cyrillic, but we logically cannot have two Romanian
   Cyrillics.

*Please note* that all these three scripts are used for writing the one and
same language - Romanian (and Node, you can dispute this as long as you
wish, but you cannot pronounce yourself on this matter without having any
knowledge in Romanian). Of course the language evolves in time and the
Romanian used by Grigore Ureche differs quite a lot from the one used by,
say, Mihai Eminescu, who is also Moldovan and the national most known
Romanian poet (he is someone of a hero in Romania).

   - *mo.wiki becomes only a redirect *- written in Romanian - guiding
   you towards the existing Romanian related Wikipedias. It does not get any
   content as a Wikipedia for the Romanian language already exists. Romanian
   Cyrillic would not be appropriate for the same reasons: not representative
   in any way. Moldovan Cyrillic just does not fit with modern Moldova. As soon
   as we got our independance, we immediately got rid of this Cyrillic script.
   What concerns Transnistria, it is the 14th, Russian 14th army that decides
   which language is more appropriate to the local population.

> Again, are you trying to respond to my e-mail? Your points are all
> valid and if you meant to make them independently, I will be happy to
> respond to them, but they don't seem to fit as responses to things I
> said.

Your point was: it is Pavel to blame for the similarity of mo.wiki and
ro.wiki. My point was: the two Wikipedias are inherently similar. And it was
so even before Pavel. What else do you want me to explain you?

> Furthermore, this mo.wiki is full of errors [...] low-quality content.
>
> Please go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia
>
> The entire point of a Wikipedia is that anyone may edit it. If you see
> an error, FIX IT! Don't just complain that there are so many errors
> here, it's so horrible... either do your part and try to fix it, or
> stop complaining -- you have no right to complain if you don't try to
> help with the problem.

Don't worry Node. If you have still not noticed it, I am currently trying
from all my powers to FIX IT! By making this content be moved or deleted.
Aftewards, maybe, just maybe, I will consider contributing to this
Wikipedia. Although I doubt. And you have still not said a word on the fact
that there is not one Moldovan - natively speaking this true Moldovan
language of yours (because this is not my language) - to contribute to this
Wikipedia and make it grow and try to make its contents survive. Or it is
them who you are defending? As I cannot recall myself one native speaker of
this true Moldovan language here on Wikipedia.

> > Romanians are not foreigners on the Moldovan Wikipedia!
>
> I would dispute that.

 As long as you wish.

> Now, please take a look at
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldova#Demographics
> > , especially at the correctness of the 2004 census: "About 2004 census".
>
> That page says 0 about languages. Just ethnicities. We are talking
> about languages. You and your unionist buddies too often confuse the
> two. Don't forget that there are ethnic Moldovans who don't speak the
> Moldovan language well, only Russian, and also Ukrainians or Russians
> who don't speak Ukrainian or Russian well only Moldovan. You can't
> equate language with ethnicity, especially not in modern Moldova.

How come 0? What about this: "*The precision of numbers about
nationality/ethnicity and language was questioned.*"? (take this
http://www.azi.md/news?ID=31931 and this http://www.azi.md/news?ID=31416 for
reference). This census concerned languages as well, although I couldn't
find statistics on this. Not yet. Although, logically, if one calls himself
Romanian, he speaks Romanian. Russian - Russian. Ukrainian - either Russian
or Ukrainian. Gagauz -
Gagauz. About Moldovans - when someone tells you he is Moldovan
and you ask him about the language he speaks, he will mostly certain give
you one answer: Moldovan. However, big however, he will think of the
Moldovan dialect that he is speaking day-to-day, and not of the Romanian
language he is writing in any day-to-day documents, at school, etc. And
still, my point stays: these millions of people (which cannot phisically be
more than 3.6 million; which in half makes 1.8 millions - ?a va for millions
disagree) were not necessarily able to openly declare their ethnic (which
comprises language) origin. Otherwise, if you dispose of other statistics,
please tell me.

> First of all this is the the name given by the Moldovan Constitution to
> the
> > Romanian language. I have also found a nice example here:
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldova#Comparison_with_Romanian
>
> I, for one, would debate such a comparison. It was selected out of the
> entire two constitutions for just the 3 or 4 lines which are similar.
> If you look at constitutions of, say, Portugal and Spain, you can
> probably find the same thing.

Well, Node. I have to give you the bad news: I have just taken a look at
 Moldovan (
http://e-gov.moldova.md/moldova(test).nsf/bdedfca988b2db3c85256207004f45a9/f3b543db74961f57c2256c2b003a851e?OpenDocument)
and Romanian (
http://www.cdep.ro/pls/dic/site.page?den=act2_1&par1=1#t1c0s0a1)
constitutions, and article by article these are identical. Not necessarily
always the content, but the language for sure. It is clear that the Moldovan
one is a mere copy of the Romanian.

Spain and Portugal - take a look:
http://www.parlamento.pt/const_leg/crp_port/crp_97_1.html#Artigo1 and
http://www.constitucion.es/constitucion/castellano/titulo_preliminar.html.
By far these are not identical. If you think of other countries, tell me.
I'll check them too.

> Secondly[...]Moldovan.
>
> Whether or not you write in the real Moldovan language is up to you.
> In Rep. Moldova, not many people do. It actually seems more common in
> Romanian Moldova, where you can find it in poetry and such.

Thirdly - how did you come up with a "real Moldovan language"? Which one is
this? I would like to know, because being a Moldovan I am supposed to know
it and practice it.

Unfortunately Moldovans seem to use Wallachian writing exclusively
> since about 100 years ago.

Do you understand what you are saying? Where did you come up with this
language also? For the reference, it is Romanian that was always used in
Wallachia, and that Wallachia is used only to distinguish the historical
region called "?ara Rom?neasc?" - Romanian Country -, and modern Romania
that is more or less the combination of Wallachia, Transilvania and
Moldavia. I recall you that Moldavia is united with Romania and that in
Moldavia they strangely enough write in Romanian and have nothing against it
and speak either Romanian or something one may with difficulty classify as a
Moldavian dialect. And that Moldova - present time Moldova - by mistake is
not part of Romania. Moldova historically is a Romanian province!

> Thirdly ... contents are disputed.
>
> Always imposed?

Always imposed: beginning with 1930's - Stalin (MASSR), beginning with 1940
- same Stalin (MSSR), beginning with 1989 - Russian 14th Army
(Transnistria).

In Transnistria, some of the Latin schools were
> re-opened.

Please cite your sources. I couldn't find one word on this in Moldovan
electronic newspapers. Better said nowhere on the net.

If Moldovans love the Latin alphabet so much, why are some
> kids (in fact, the majority) Moldovan in Transnistria still going to
> the Cyrillics schools?

Funny question. Why did you go to school? But, so that I not be personal,
why did I go to school? Because as a kid I was told to do so. Why the
parents give their children to school? Because they want that their children
have a future, that they get a minimum of education - the minimum that
Transnistria under Putin can offer. And sometimes when it comes the question
of the kids future, you don't ask much questions regarding the language.

> And Node, do you know [...].html
>
> Anittas wrote that absurd paragraph. If you take an actual look at the
> chronicles, Ureche never said anything so apparent. Instead, he mostly
> said things about a close kin, or mutual understanding, never anything
> about them being the same language.

Strange. Ro.wikipedia also agrees with Anittas absurdities: (
http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigore_Ureche#Opera - don't search too much,
last paragraph). And even stranger, Grigore Ureche also agrees with these
absurdities: ?Rum?nii, c??i s? afl? l?cuitori la ?ara Ungureasc? ?i la
Ardeal ?i la Maramoro?u, de la un loc suntu cu moldov?nii ?i to?i de la R?m
s? trag." (
http://www.scriptorium.ro/carti/grigore_ureche/grigore_ureche-letopisetul_tarii_moldovei-text-print.html#body.1_div.91).
So take a close look, Node. And the last time I wrote not basing myself on
the en.wiki article, but on what I read in "Pentru limba noastr?
moldoveneasc?" (
http://www.scriptorium.ro/carti/grigore_ureche/grigore_ureche-letopisetul_tarii_moldovei-text-print.html#body.1_div.4).

OK. Enough of this chit-chat. I will answer to subsequant replies of
yours only if you
manage to get well on my nerves.

>  <http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l>
>

Regards,
Liviu


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Fairness in voting

body:
Node, please understand. I do not have anything against you having a
different opinion. But, please, just please, do not impose it to those
directly concerned.


from_name: Jesse W

body:
On Jan 30, 2006, at 7:00 PM, Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
> Without commenting on the principle of the idea, I would like to point
> out that there are no such things as "article subpages". All pages in
> the main space are pure articles, with the exception of the shortcuts
> and [[Main Page]] (i bet some smart-ass is going to throw some minute
> exception at me that I forgot, but I'm pretty sure that those are the
> only two). For your suggestion to work, we would need a new namespace,
> as none of the current ones would be suitable for such a thing.

So put it in the talk namespace until we get a new namespace.  This is
a good cleanup-type point, but a non-issue as far as the substance of
the suggestion is concerned.

 > Now to comment on your suggestion: I think this is fundamentally
> unworkable. Articles can change rapidly,

Yes, some articles do change rapidly.  Some articles change *very
slowly* (like one substantive edit per 6 months, or even slower).  This
method is not appropriate for articles which are not stable.  But the
vast majority of Wikipedia articles *are* stable.  When we've got all
the stable articles fully referenced, we can work out a way to handle
the last 2% or so that change quickly.  This is not a issue of
feasibility, just a ~2% limit on the domain for which this applies.

> and it would be a herculean
> task to keep the citation page up to date.

We have done herculean jobs before; writing what we've written so far
is a herculean task a number of times over.  And fundamentally, what is
the loss if the page is not up date?  Each fact that is sourced will
still be sourced, even if the page no longer contains it.  Every fact
that has not yet been added to the page would not have a source whether
the page existed or not.  We lose nothing.

> I think that it would
> simply not be possible for it to function in a meaningful way.

I'm not sure what you mean by "meaningful way" - would the facts not be
readable?  Would writing down the source for a fact make the source
turn into a purple teddy bear?  What exactly do you mean?

>  If we reference so heavliy that it cannot fit into the article
> nicely, a
> separate page is going to be way longer than the article itself.

OK, I agree.  A full reference page would be longer than the page. (it
would have to be, as it would contain nearly all the text, plus
whatever text was needed to state the references.)  And the problem
with this is what, exactly?  Are we running out of hard drive space?
Do we have a limited number of alphabetical letters available?  Are we
going to have a "e" shortage?

> It is true that every sentance in an article should be backed up by
> sources.

We agree about this.  I actually am a pretty strong eventualist on this
subject; it's *hard* to find sources, and in nearly all cases I
wouldn't remove something from an article merely for lacking a source.
(Although I mean no disrespect to those who do remove such things; it's
useful and bloody work.)

>  That does not mean that we have to actually put a superscript
> above every single fact that we use.

Note: Nowhere in my suggestion do I advocate this.  A more classic
straw-man you are not likely to see.  In fact, my suggestion doesn't
involve footnotes or superscripts in any way at all.

>  The fact is that when articles
> are written for wikipedia, they are not PhD thesis' (I how no idea how
> to pluralize that word) that have to be presented to a number of
> proffessors for review. No, wikipedia articles is just that,
> _articles_! They have to abide by certain criteria for style. In
> short, a good wikipedia article has to be nice looking.

I certainly agree!  I think making sure that our articles are well
written, pleasant to the eye, and not too technical or cluttered is one
of our most important tasks.  However, I'm a little puzzled as to why
you brought this up, as the only change to the text of an article which
followed my suggestion would be the addition of one line of text,
placed in the References section (or simply at the end of the page):

"Detailed references are available here."

with "here" a wiki-link to the page with the detailed references on it.

While it's possible that the one line of text above contains some kind
of horrific stylistic or writing error which would permanently and
totally infect and cripple the "nice looking" quality of any article it
was put in, I sort of doubt it.  And, if it did, it can be easily
changed.

> As long as we can make sure that a) all sources are listed in a
> "References" section, b) very important facts are referenced directly
> and c) that we can always produce credible sources for every fact when
> queried, we should be fine!

"Fine"?  Again, I'm not sure what you mean by that.  I certainly agree
with your points a), b) and c).  What better way to be able to "always
produce credible sources for every fact when queried" than to write
down those sources, in a nice list on a separate page?  That way,
editors can work together to "produce credible sources", and if we are
"queried" at 3 AM when no-one happens to be around, we will still be
able to "produce" the sources?  Doesn't this seem like a good way to
achieve your point c)?  Remember, we don't have to do it perfectly
right now(or ever) - this is just a good direction to go in.  Every
step we take is one less step we still have to take, at least, as long
as we write the step down in public, where others can build on our
work.

> As long as an article is actually sourced with sources listed, we
> don't need to specify where exactly every fact came from!
Er, you said above that we need to be able to "always produce credible
sources for every fact when queried".  How exactly would we do that if
we didn't know "where exactly every fact" was said in a credible
source?  I totally agree that we don't need to include a source for
every fact *when we include it* (as I said above, we don't need to be
perfect), but we both agree that, when queried, we need to be able to
provide credible sources for every fact.  I don't see how we can do
that if we don't know where the fact we were queried about came from.
Maybe I'm missing something here, though; maybe we could "produce
credible sources" for a specific fact without "specify"ing where the
fact "came from", although I can't really see how that could work in a
"meaningful way".

> We are
> trying to build an encyclopedia, and a large part of that goal is
> readability.

As I said above, I totally agree with you.  Readability is critical,
that's why this suggestion makes only a *one line change* to the
article text of an article it is used in...  Readability is critical,
but so is being able to "produce credible sources for every fact when
queried" - which means writing down those answers in public, which is
all I am suggesting.

Thanks for the discussion!  (And if I have offended, I apologize in
advance.)

Jesse Weinstein


body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> Tim Starling wrote:
>>
>>> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> I am amazed that you suggest that an officer of the Wikimedia
>>>> Foundation
>>>> would be personally liable for the work done as an officer. I would
>>>> expect that an officer of an organisation speaks for the organisation
>>>> and as a consequence the organisation is liable for the actions of its
>>>> personnel. Normally someone employed by an organisation is liable only
>>>> when gross incompetence can be proven or in cases where the law has
>>>> been
>>>> violated to an extend where criminal intend can be proven.
>>>>
>>>> I am sure that someone can and will explain to what extend an employee
>>>> is personally liable for his actions as an employee of the Wikimedia
>>>> Foundation.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Well, firstly IANAL and secondly most of my legal knowedge comes from
>>> studying Australian law rather
>>> than US law. But my understanding is that civil liability for the
>>> action of employees rests with the
>>> corporation or individual employing them. This is called vicarious
>>> liability.
>>>
>> Gerard's response on this seemed na?ve.  No-one wants to go into a
>> situation where there is a high risk of liability,  But these things
>> do happen, and there are situations where the law needs to pierce the
>> corporate veil when the corporate structure is there to assist in the
>> perpetration of a scam.  In some cases liability insurance can be
>> purchased, but that too can be expensive.  It's also important to
>> remember the level of litigiousness that is found in US society.  A
>> plaintiff will often cast a wide net in the hopes of catching the
>> right victim with deep enough pockets to pay for the wrongdoings of a
>> penniless associate.  This can be a frightful experience when people
>> with only marginal involvement find themselves put through the expense
>> of defending themselves in court.
>
> As I understand things, there are two types of people in the Wikimedia
> Foundation and its projects.
>
>    * There are the person with an official role; they are appointed or
>      chosen to their function.
>    * There are the persons with no official status as far as the WMF is
>      concerned. These include stewards, bureaucrats, admins and users.
>
> Only the first two groups have any protection for what they do within
> the Wikimedia Foundation. They have this protection as they represent
> the Wikimedia Foundation in an official capacity. When something is done
> on any of the projects that results in a legal situation, it is the
> person who will be, when identified, be the one prosecuted. Depending on
> the situation the Wikimedia Foundation or a chapter may involve itself,
> this is not a given.
>
> When a person in his official position gets into a legal situation, it
> typically is the organisation, here the Wikimedia Foundation, who will
> be prosecuted. It is only when a person is criminally negligent or
> involved that there is a ground to prosecute an individual.
>
> This is my understanding of how these things work. The consequence is
> that officers of the WMF or of chapters have protection that all other
> WMF volunteers lack. The fact that statutory laws exist for '''gross'''
> mismanagement is something that we should welcome. Typically it takes
> some effort to qualify as gross mismanagement. Given the people that we
> currently have in official positions this is unlikely to happen.
>
> The only group of people for whom it is not entirely clear to me what
> their status is, are the people who help out on OTRS. Yes, I do know how
> careful these people try to do their job.. :)
>
> Thanks,
>   GerardM

My apologies Gerard, but all this seems to me to be a misconception of
the whole issue. Not even erroneous, but dangerous actually.

I think it is incorrect to imply that those elected/appointed are
somehow "protected" by their position in the Foundation (ie, the
Foundation will be prosecuted rather than them as individuals) while
"regular editors" lack protection.

I would like to ask Brad here to clarify this issue publicly for you,
and for all those who read your statement. Brad, can you help ? Thanks
in advance :-)

Anthere


from_name: Theresa Knott

body:
On 1/30/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Hard to fit in with th GFDL

I don't understand. Please explain,

Theresa