subject: [WikiEN-l] Why AFD just does not work

body:
On 6/16/06, Cobb <sealclubbingfun at googlemail.com> wrote:
> I have no problem with an article on "Lightsaber (Star Wars)"... the toys,
> the stunt work... the effect it has had on popular culture etc etc. They
> could even mention that some people have taken the styles developed
> for the films and tried to replicate it at a serious level. All of this
> could
> be written in an encyclopedic manner, with reference to sources, instead
> of being original research and fan waffle.
>
> But... the only reason this AFD was "keep" is because of the number of
> Star Wars voters. Take a look at the history of the article too. Short of
> slashing and burning it (and then it may as well have been deleted),
> it's not going to get any better because it was named for and written from
> a fictional viewpoint by masses of fans who cannot tell real from
> imaginary...  and as a result it is fundmentally unencyclopedic.

It is a start.

> It should
> have been deleted, if only to preserve the illusion that AFD isn't a big joke and
> to give it a chance to start again (with a different name).
>

Don't need to start again.

> >Legit real-world martial art phenomenon: There are a few people trying to
> >replicate the movie fighting style at a serious level.
>
> Not with lightsabers they aren't.
>
> Anyway, I'm not here to fight a case for deleting it. I'm just pointing out
> a
> particularly hideous case of why AFD is a grotesque broken horror show.

But unless you can show the outcome was wrong you haven't done that.

--
geni


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] newbie culture

body:
 From the famous Herostratus RfA: "There's no excuse to not use the
warning templates for users vandalising, especially IP users."

And the perpetrator of this idiotic statement is, according to his
userpage, an RC patroller (although, blessedly, not apparently a member
of CVU).

Once we were worried about the newbie contingent getting so large that
new users were in fact starting to consider themselves old hands and
influencing Wikipedia (see: CVU admins, userbox fiasco).  It's gone
beyond that, now: these days, the newbies are offering *advice* to more
clueful users, and expecting it to be taken.

I'm not just extrapolating from the RfA we've been discussing, of course
--- it's just that us having fallen so far that people are pompously
demanding on RfA that users do the Wrong Thing is rather shocking to me.
  Newbies-who-think-they-aren't-new saying bloody stupid things is
something I've gotten used to, thanks to the speedy deletion thing.

The other day I got reverted for removing a speedy tag from a good
article (the thing was tagged as vanity, which is not a reason for
deletion).  That's not the good bit.  The good bit is: I removed it
again, and got reverted by a completely different user, and was told
that nobody may remove speedy tags, but must use {{hangon}} until a
discussion at [[Wikipedia:Speedy deletions]] has been concluded.

I suspect it's my own fault --- I've forgotten how to suck eggs.

What do we do about this sort of stupidity?  I'm very much against, as
y'all know, the biting of newbies in general, but the biting of people
who still don't know how Wikipedia works but want to run around
insisting that they know better than those who *do* is very tempting indeed.

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse


from_name: mboverload

subject: [WikiEN-l] newbie culture

body:
Screw that.  If it shoot someone by accident once, I get a light sentence if
I'm lucky..  If it "accidentally" shoot someone TWO TIMES, I get 20 YEARS.

mboverload

On 6/16/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
>
> G'day Ryan,
>
> I agree that admins block users too fast, and should use *warnings* more
> than they do.  The templates can be a means to that end --- a help in
> warning people.  But they shouldn't be considered synonymous with the
> word "warning".  Sometimes they're appropriate, often they're not.
> Usually speaking in your own words and addressing the situation directly
> will get you further than following the {{test}} series ever did.
>


list: foundation-l

from_name: Nathan Carter

subject:
[Foundation-l] (volunteer) job position : Ombudsperson
 checkuser (or checkuser Ombudsperson or whatever)

body:
I would be interested in assisting in this area if there were to be two
people doing the job.
Nathan Carter (Cartman02au)

Anthere wrote:

>The board regularly receives some complaints about checkuser activity
>and what happened is either that no one look at the case, or look at
>them poorly. In 95% of case, the "abuse" is imaginary; but we can not be
>sure that one day there will not be a problem.
>
>So, what I suggest is a sort of ombuds-wo-man for checkuser, who will
>offer a sympathetic ear to complainers, take charge of investigating
>cases for the board in an official manner, mediate between the checkuser
>and the complainer when the case is litigious, educate checkuser if
>necessary, and will report to the board in case where there IS a problem.
>
>Additionnaly, this person might have a sort of "overview" over the way
>the checkuser system works and may give us suggestions of suitable
>modifications of policies. Or recommandations of software changes.
>
>We need to have one or two people specifically named, so as to be able
>to say "please, talk to xxx" and to be *sure* a case is taken into
>consideration (as opposed to "but I thought someone else was taking care
>of this").
>
>Any volunteers ?
>
>PS : if necessary, set up a general email address for abuse reporting,
>with an OTRS file.
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


list: wikimedia-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] newbie culture

body:
G'day Steve,

> On 6/16/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
>>The other day I got reverted for removing a speedy tag from a good
>>article (the thing was tagged as vanity, which is not a reason for
>>deletion).  That's not the good bit.  The good bit is: I removed it
>>again, and got reverted by a completely different user, and was told
>>that nobody may remove speedy tags, but must use {{hangon}} until a
>>discussion at [[Wikipedia:Speedy deletions]] has been concluded.
>
> Fwiw, in those situations, if I remove it again, I would tend to
> replace it with a comment like <!-- according to [[WP:FOO]] vanity is
> not a reason to speedy. Consider {{prod}} or {{afd}} instead? -->

Oh, the issue's been resolved.  That it occurred at all, and that two
separate users --- neither of whom would consider themselves newbies ---
argued the speedy tag should be kept for "procedural" reasons, is the
worrying bit.

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] newbie culture

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

mboverload stated for the record:

> Screw that.  If it shoot someone by accident once, I get a light sentence if
> I'm lucky..  If it "accidentally" shoot someone TWO TIMES, I get 20 YEARS.
>
> mboverload

Are you having trouble understanding the difference between an
inappropriate edit and murder?

- --
 Sean Barrett     | radiant cool, crazy nightmare,
 sean at epoptic.com | zen, new jersey, nowhere!
                  | how now, brown bureaucrats?
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Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFEk4KEMAt1wyd9d+URAhc2AJ0b8ddXaHJOCtP8O1JwRhNaOg4NIQCdEl/P
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from_name: Ryan Delaney

subject: [WikiEN-l] Why AFD just does not work

body:
On 6/16/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> WP editors and admins seem to be largely inclusionary, so you've
> already lost many of those battles.  When you lose it by a landslide
> because of a bunch of energetic Star Wars fans' it's making another
> more unfortunate point as well.  In a sense, every time AFD is misused
> in this manner, trying to "clean up" an article on a valid topic by
> AFDing it and perhaps recreating it, it brings disrepute to the
> process and a lot of "no" voters in.  We would be better off if such
> AFDs weren't called in the first place.  AFD should be the last final
> response to an unsalvagable article after you've tried cleanup tags,
> getting involved in cleaning it up, and asking other editors to help
> if the article's usual editors feel too much ownership and keep doing
> unencyclopedic things.

Thank you.

Will someone copy this down and maybe add it to the top of the AFD page?

Ryan


from_name: Keith Old

subject: [WikiEN-l] newbie culture

body:
On 6/16/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/16/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
> > The other day I got reverted for removing a speedy tag from a good
> > article (the thing was tagged as vanity, which is not a reason for
> > deletion).  That's not the good bit.  The good bit is: I removed it
> > again, and got reverted by a completely different user, and was told
> > that nobody may remove speedy tags, but must use {{hangon}} until a
> > discussion at [[Wikipedia:Speedy deletions]] has been concluded.
>
> Fwiw, in those situations, if I remove it again, I would tend to
> replace it with a comment like <!-- according to [[WP:FOO]] vanity is
> not a reason to speedy. Consider {{prod}} or {{afd}} instead? -->
>
> 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
>

In those situations, I would prod it if it warranted being deleted in my
opinion. If it is something that might be worth keeping based on my
decision, I would remove the tag and discuss why on the talk page. I would
suggest putting it before Articles for deletion if they still wanted to put
up an argument.

It is at the discretion of the admin to decide where an article meets the
criteria for speedy deletion. When it doesn't, he or she has the option of
prodding it, listing it at articles for deletion or keeping an article and
explaining why on the talk page.

This afternoon Australian time, an article on MacRobertson's chocolates who
were Australia's leading  confectioners in the early part of last century
was nominated for speedy deletion on the grounds that the article didn't
assert notability as a group. I kept it, cleaned it up a bit and renamed it
because I knew it was article and the article while it needed (and needs)
work established its notabilty. Speedy deletion requires the admin to
exercise thought not merely hit the delete button.

Regards

Keith Old

User: Capitalistroadster


subject: [WikiEN-l] newbie culture

body:
On 6/16/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
>
> From the famous Herostratus RfA: "There's no excuse to not use the
> warning templates for users vandalising, especially IP users."
>
> And the perpetrator of this idiotic statement is, according to his
> userpage, an RC patroller (although, blessedly, not apparently a member
> of CVU).
>
> Once we were worried about the newbie contingent getting so large that
> new users were in fact starting to consider themselves old hands and
> influencing Wikipedia (see: CVU admins, userbox fiasco).  It's gone
> beyond that, now: these days, the newbies are offering *advice* to more
> clueful users, and expecting it to be taken.

Frankly, I can't believe you are getting so worked up over this. Life would
probably be a lot less stressful for you if you didn't take this personally.
They think they are doing the right thing, after all.

Ryan


subject: [WikiEN-l] newbie culture

body:
On 6/16/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Frankly, I can't believe you are getting so worked up over this. Life
> would probably be a lot less stressful for you if you didn't take this
> personally. They think they are doing the right thing, after all.
>

By the way, I think that admins block users way too fast and should use
warning templates a lot more than they already do. I would say that at least
half of the time I use them, the user stops vandalizing before a block is
required.

Ryan


list: textbook-l

from_name: Jon

subject: [Textbook-l] Rewrite of Wikibooks:What is Wikibooks

body:
In the light of all these discussions about what Wikibooks' scope is, I have drafted a
proposed rewrite of What is Wikibooks here:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Inclusion_criteria/Proposal

The idea behind this is:

to define inclusion criteria (ie getting away from the idea that anything not specifically disallowed is allowed)
to be positive about what we are here for by having a positive definition
to cut out a lot of advice on WB:WIW which elongates the guidance without saying anything people would dispute
a number of other existing proposals are effectively merged into it
I have also taken an idea given to be by RobinH - that policies should say in them
what happens if they are infringed, and added an enforcement section.

I don't intend my draft to be perfect - please go ahead and improve it.

All constructive comments would be welcome!

Kind regards

Jon


from_name: Richard Fan

subject: [WikiEN-l] Request for the unblocking of PatCheng

body:
I never used the sockpuppets to engage in vandalism, but to contact
Sasquatch, who offered to talk to me and yet failed to respond. TJive
himself used the sockpuppets from Virginia to engage in edit wars on the
2008 Olympics article, and yet Blnguyen unblocked him for whatever reason.
It's rediculous that I got banned for personal attacks several months ago,
and which I apologised for, yet article vandals, POV pushers, and trolls
such as TJive never got any punishment.

On 6/16/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/16/06, Richard Fan <richardfanx at gmail.com> wrote:
> > What do you expect me to do? I tried emailing Blnguyen and several other
> > admins but they never bothered responding. I merely created the
> sockpuppets
> > as a last minute attempt to get their attention, not trying to reengage
> the
> > edit-war with TJive or anything. I corrosponded with Jimmy Wales, and he
> > asked me to take it to mediation.
>
> So far you've admitted making personal attacks, uncivil remarks, and
> using sock puppets. All those activities are taken pretty seriously at
> Wikipedia, and at the very least, we would expect a sincere apology
> and a genuine undertaking not to do it again. Demonstration that you
> understand why these things are bad, perhaps by having read the
> relevant policies, would be a good thing too.
>
> "Yes, I did that bad thing, but I was justified" is not helping your
> cause.
>
> 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: Lord Voldemort

body:
On 6/16/06, John Pozniak <gentgeen at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I take this to mean that VFD should be for book deletion only. Individual modules within a book should be deleted or included in the book as decided by the editors _of that book_. I think right now we tend to micro-manage our books, with editing decisions made by the entire community, not the contributors with the most knowldge.

I am not sure I agree. Books are not written by just the few who
actually type the letters.  It should be seen (not in a legal sense)
that the entire community writes every book. For example, if a book
was being written that the authors wanted certain elements included,
but the rest of the community disagreed with, you feel it should be
included because the authors have the most knowledge?

I can't see this as ideal.  We would be inundated with crap and people
claiming "Hey, I wrote this. You can't tell me what I can and can't
have! I know more about it than you." Sometimes individual
modules/chapters/pages do not fit in the community's goal, and it
would be reasonable to take them to VfD, no?  --LV


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Ryan

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki logo experiments

body:
> Well, I don't think they're actually 4 *colors*; I think they're more 4
different tints of one color

Go on. Laugh at my English even more. I dare you! ;]

> they might well *be* the same font, for all I know.

Impossible - catch phrase is in handwriting, name is non-sheriff type. Two
different typefaces (fonts) for sure.
--
Regards,
Dominik Dalek


subject: [Textbook-l] Wikiversity and Wikibooks

body:
I was interested to see Cormac ask us what we thought of the latest Wikiversity proposal.

I confess I still, after all this time, am unsure what it is: the name suggests that it is meant
to be for wiki-based university-level learning, but I don't think that's right. And if it's not
right, at the very least a new name would be advisable.

I would also like to question the relationship between Wikiversity and Wikibooks, as it really
is time for the separate Wikiversity project to leave Wikibooks module namespace behind -
I believe that would leave Wikibooks with the Wikiversity textbooks, which it would then
be able to integrate into its own systems and categorisations. Any Wikiversity project
pages could be moved to the Wikibooks namespace - although MetaWiki or the incubator
would seem to be better places.

I think this move is important. As some of you will be aware, I see the future of Wikibooks
as having a strong core set of textbooks suitable for school exams surrounded by many
other good textbooks for other types of studying. I am splitting these up into the following
(and bear in mind that a textbook may fall within none or more than one of these):
Wikijunior (for textbooks for 8 to 12 year olds)
Wikistudy (for textbooks for exams typically first sat at ages 15 to 19)
Wikiversity (or Wikiuniversity) (for university-level learning)
Wikiprofessional (for textbooks for professionals)
Wikilearn (for textbooks for adult learning)
Wikids (if we ever have books for under 8s)
These categorisations would, of course, sit alongside the current "by subject" style bookshelves.

Constructive comments would, as ever, be welcome.

Kind regards

Jon


from_name: reason

subject: [Foundation-l] Is it possible to spoof an IP in the change log?

body:
Hello,

A couple of users on my wiki have been arguing, and it appears that one
of them has resorted to vandalizing the other person's Wikipedia page.
This suspected vandal always accesses my wiki from the same IP, and that
IP was associated with sexual comments that were added to the other
user's Wikipedia page.

I'd just like to know if this is good evidence of misconduct, of if a
savvy user could spoof someone else's IP address and frame them for
misconduct.

Thanks,
AdamRetchless


from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [WikiEN-l] newbie culture

body:
On 6/16/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
> I suspect it's my own fault --- I've forgotten how to suck eggs.

Haven't you heard, Mark? Process Is Important.

Expect to see [[Wikipedia:Sucking eggs]] in the next day or so.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[Foundation-l] (volunteer) job position :
 Ombudsperson	checkuser (or checkuser Ombudsperson or whatever)

body:
Kelly Martin wrote:

>On 6/16/06, Michael R. Irwin <michael_irwin at verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Nathan Carter wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I would be interested in assisting in this area if there were to be two
>>>people doing the job.
>>>
>>>
>>Is Checkuser is kind of Wikipedia specific or has this function spread
>>to all wikis?
>>
>>
>CheckUser is available on all Wikimedia projects.
>
>
>>Two is excellent for alternate viewpoints and highly increased reliability.
>>
>>Three is the first odd number which provides both redundancy and no
>>deadlock capacity assuming each checker provides a firm yes or no there
>>is or is not a problem.   Three way spread with complicated opinions
>>probably means more review is necessary to figure out what the hell is
>>really going on or a simple no conclusion.
>>
>>
>My personal recommendation is for a commission of five, one of whom
>should be a Board member.  Without a Board member, the commission can
>only be advisory.
>
If you have a commission (or committee) doing this sort of thing it will
really be nothing but a second Arbcom.  Anthere's suggestion really
brings us back to having another form of mediator.  The role requires a
person with good people skills who can investigate a situation and make
recommendations, preferably a person who is not in the habit of getting
involved in disputes..  Whether there should be more than one depends on
the volume of work since each such person working independently of the
other(s) on different cases.  Most of the discussion should be
confidential and offlist to avoid any compulsion by admins to show
support of each other.  Each case would be judged on its own merits.
The perception by a newbie that nobody will pay attention to position
needs to be overcome.  Admins who are too quick to find punitive
solutions to problems give a totally misleading impression of the nature
of a wiki.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] newbie culture

body:
G'day geni,

> On 6/16/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
>> Once we were worried about the newbie contingent getting so large that
>> new users were in fact starting to consider themselves old hands and
>> influencing Wikipedia (see: CVU admins, userbox fiasco).  It's gone
>> beyond that, now: these days, the newbies are offering *advice* to more
>> clueful users, and expecting it to be taken.
>
> So in other words the next generation is comeing through. Experence
> suggests that complianing that "It wasn't like that in my day" doesn't
> work too well.

When I felt comfortable enough to start saying "this is how Wikipedia
works" rather than "um, I think this is how things go, isn't it?  Please
correct me if I'm wrong, I'm kinda new, but that seems to make sense, so
... yeah, what do you think?", there weren't any old hands who got upset
with me for not merely lecturing them on how things work, but getting it
Wrong.  I've been criticised, quite fairly, for any number of things ...
but *not once* for a tendency to, for example, tell a user who has done
good work in vandalism cleanup and warning vandals and testers that his
behaviour when RC patrolling is unconscionable, because he's not robotic
enough.

I don't have a problem with "the next generation coming through" --- I
*was* the next generation less than a year ago --- but the members of
that generation telling people the Wrong Thing and acting like it's
gospel (it's bad enough when *I* get lectured like this; what happens if
it's a newbie getting bad advice?), well before they've matured enough
to be considered to have "come through" that get my goat.

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse


subject: [WikiEN-l] newbie culture

body:
Geni,

> On 6/16/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Haven't you heard, Mark? Process Is Important.
>
> When you are dealing with people you don't know yes.

We've gotten to the stage where processes that *don't exist* are cited
by wonks.

Now, process wonks who insist we follow process regardless of the sanity
of doing so are irritating, but they obviously have the best interests
of Wikipedia at heart, and, provided they receive the proper therapy,
can even become quite likeable people eventually.  There's no excuse for
saying silly things like "nobody may remove the speedy tag; use
{{hangon}} instead".

>>Expect to see [[Wikipedia:Sucking eggs]] in the next day or so.
>
> Not really. The admins who stay active generaly keep up. We do have
> problems with those who come back from a long break but it isn't a
> significant issue yet.

The problem is not that old users (admins or no) aren't keeping up.  The
problem is that new users aren't bothering to get acculturated.  I
already *know* how Wikipedia works.  I help keep it running practically
every day.  So do most of the people on the list.  And I don't
appreciate some newbie who *doesn't* coming along and saying "you must
do it this way, and I should know, because I'm not a newbie like you".

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse


from_name: Shinjiman

body:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Rob Church" <robchur at gmail.com>
To: "Wikimedia developers" <wikitech-l at wikimedia.org>
Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 12:38:57 +0100
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] An issue on Cite.php extension
On 16/06/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 16/06/06, Shinjiman <shinjiman at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Someone just found out about an issue using the "Cite this article" function.
> > for example, when we see the "Wikipedia" article as of 00:33, 16 June
> > 2006, [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia&oldid=58859884].
> > The URL link to the "Cite this article" is linking to the current
> > version of the article. It should supposed to cite that article as of
> > that modification time, instead of the current revision , IMHO. Is
> > this really an issue about the Cite.php extension?
>
> No, but if it's an issue at all, then it's one with SpecialCite.php or
> with the core code, if we merged that functionality in.

...and I can't see why the hell this is an issue, as I can't reproduce
the problem.

Rob Church

...... as we see the screenshot from the web browser, we have the
oldid of the article which representing the previous revision of the
article. However, when we click the link "Cite the article", this will
going to the cite information for the current revision. However the
link is not quite correct, it should be the same revision number when
we browsinng a previous revision of the article. Maybe a screenshot
attached maybe make more sence to us and a reproduction of this
problem. :)

regards
Man


subject: [WikiEN-l] newbie culture

body:
On 6/16/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
> As for why this irritates me so, consider: someone *opposed an RfA for a
> good user* because the opposer was insisting he do the Wrong Thing.  RfA
> has enough problems these days ("Wikipedia doesn't scale") without
> people deliberately making the adminship process worse by imposing
> blatantly false requirements.
>

This phenomenon is remarkable to me really. Very few experienced users take
vandalism personally or get upset about it. Some of us actually find it
funny from time to time. But someone acting with good faith being a little
misguided is threatening and we get angry and fight them and spend hours on
the mailing list writing posts about it instead of writing articles and some
of us end up leaving the project over these battles.

Puzzling.

Ryan


from_name: John Lee

subject: [WikiEN-l] Why AFD just does not work

body:
Cobb wrote:

>Why AFD just does not work, or, what happens when zealots flood a
>"discussion" with keep votes.
>
>* "I can't find this anywhere else"
>
>* "Keep and Cite as per Nscheffey. This page is extremely useful to my
>  Star Wars: Jedi Academy clan, it's no worse than some other sci-fi
>  entries, it just needs citations!"
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightsaber_combat
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Lightsabercombat
>
>Will any admin have the brass ones to do the correct thing and delete
>an awful unsalvageable article, or will they count up the votes, wimp
>out, declare "no consensus" or "keep" and let an unencylopedic
>carbuncle survive?
>
>
To answer your general question about doing the right thing, the answer
is "Yes, despite whatever the 'new generation' might think". To refer to
your specific case, the decision was correct. I don't see how lightsaber
combat is an unencyclopedic topic. Rather fanboyish? Yes. But
encyclopedic? Hell yes.

John


from_name: Cobb

subject: [WikiEN-l] Why AFD just does not work

body:
> "George Herbert" wrote,
> AFD is not an acceptable substitute for a cleanup notice and some cleanup
> efforts.

I didn't say that it was... but you snipped all that out, and just replied
to
the bit that suited you.


from_name: sannse

subject: [Wikitech-l] DPLforum

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> I am copying Tim on this. Tim, the Village Pump and Help Desk are the
> main discussion areas of Wikipedia. If you are interested in promoting
> and testing your technology further, that would be an excellent
> playground -- but a decision would have to be made soon, otherwise it
> is likely that a simpler solution that is available now will be put
> into place.
>
> I would like to ask Brion to wait with any implementation until Tim responds.

Personally I like the simplicity of DPLForum - but I don't care too much
as long as there is some system of organizing questions that will
encourage newbies to use it.

--sannse


from_name: xaosflux

body:
Several anti-spam and anti-virus programs as well as software firewalls
block "unregistered" programs from sending outbound traffic on TCP 25
(SMTP), if also running these on your server, check their logs.
xaosflux
----- Original Message -----
From: "TORENVLIET Nick(NA) - BRUCE POWER" <NICK.TORENVLIET at brucepower.com>
To: <wikitech-l at wikimedia.org>
Sent: Friday, June 16, 2006 12:45 PM
Subject: [Wikitech-l] Problems with wikimedia mailing users

Hi all, just wanted to let everybody know... wikimedia is fast becoming
a part of the Engineering change control and Documentation process at
Bruce Power(www.brucepower.com) a nuclear utility in SouthWestern
Ontario.

So I've got a small problem with my installation.  It won't email users
who have properly configured email addresses in their preferences.  The
authenticate email option is off in localsettings.php.

I go the the 'recent changes' page...

I go to 'talk' to one of the users and the 'E-mail this user' option
comes up

I click on 'email this user' and get an email form... with the
appropriate users...

I click send and get the message that the email has been sent...

But no email ever arrives at the recipient's inbox.

Similarly all email notifications of page edits and such do not work.

To put this in context I ran the following from the command line using
php...

<?php
// The message
$message = "Line 1\nLine 2\nLine 3";
// In case any of our lines are larger than 70 characters, we should use
wordwrap()
$message = wordwrap($message, 70);
// Send
mail('myaddress at myplace.com', 'My Subject', $message);
?>

And I received the expected results... so the php back-end to this seems
to be working fine.

Any hints tips or tricks to get the email notification working?

Nick
**************************************************************************************************
*** The contents of this email and any attachments
*** are confidential and may be privileged.
*** They are intended for the named recipient(s) only.
*** If this message has been delivered to you in error, please reply to the
*** sender to that effect, don't forward the message to anyone
*** and delete the message from your computer.
*** Thanks for your help, and sorry for the inconvenience.
**************************************************************************************************

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] newbie culture

body:
G'day Tony,

> On 6/16/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
>>There's no excuse for
>>saying silly things like "nobody may remove the speedy tag; use
>>{{hangon}} instead".
>
> What does "hangon" do that removing a speedy tag doesn't? Is there any
> reason why we shouldn't just speedy the hangon tag and edit the
> template to stop referring to it?

We like to discourage people from removing the speedy tag from their own
articles, since (for instance) 13-year-olds writing about their
homosexual friends tend not to be particularly objective when appraising
their own profanity-strewn contributions.

However, this meant that perfectly good articles got speedied because of
the following sequence (f'r instance):
a) User A creates article that could stand to be improved.
b) User B tags it for speedy.
c) User A removes the tag.
d) User B reverts, says "you cannot remove the tag from your own
    article"
e) User A goes to the talkpage and complains.
f) Admin C doesn't even read the article, let alone the talkpage, just
    deletes.  "It's not my job to tell users they can't speedy if they
    want to."

So {{hangon}} serves the dual purpose of preventing authors from
removing appropriate speedies, but allowing them to contest in an
obvious way inappropriate speedies even when the admin isn't doing his
job properly (not that I'd mention any names).

These days, however, {{hangon}} seems largely to encourage people to
beat clueful editors over the head for no apparent reason.  But, like
geni says, that's the world of tomorrow.  I haven't forgotten how to
suck eggs, it's just that the egg-sucking procedures have changed and I
never bothered to stay informed.

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse


from_name: John Pozniak

body:
One of our current proposed policies, http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Title_pages states that title pages should, "link to a list containing the names of all the users actively working on the project - it can be placed in manual of style, foreword or separate 'Authors' page." So we're already requesting that the authors of each book be identified in a prominent place. For an active book, this group of active contributors should be able to determine the content of the book. Any request to delete a particular module should come from this group. One self-professed "expert" would have to convince all the other editors of the value of any new content.

If the community finds a book's content is not in line with the overall policies, they should join the group of active contributors of the book and work to improve it, or delete the entire book. Outsiders sweeping in and deleting specific modules without buy-in from the editors will cause bad feelings, and may cause good editors to leave the project. The formating of the book will be broken, filled with red-links to no-longer existing pages. In the longer term the content may simply be recreated at the same or another title in the book, or be incorporated into existing pages in the book, by the old contributors.

The opposite is also true. If all the authors of a book want a module deleted, the outside community shouldn't force them to keep it. If that were to happen, the editors of the book would likely "virtually" delete the page, by eliminating all links to it from the rest of the book.

I have for a long time espoused the idea that once a book reaches a certain size, it should be given more and more autonomy. This includes creating its own policies, its own manual of style, its own naming conventions, and even overall control on its own content.

John (gentgeen)

----- Original Message ----
From: Lord Voldemort <lordbishopvoldemort at gmail.com>
To: John Pozniak <gentgeen at yahoo.com>; Wikimedia textbook discussion <textbook-l at wikimedia.org>
Sent: Friday, June 16, 2006 6:40:04 PM
Subject: Re: [Textbook-l] Rewrite of Wikibooks:What is Wikibooks

On 6/16/06, John Pozniak <gentgeen at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I take this to mean that VFD should be for book deletion only. Individual modules within a book should be deleted or included in the book as decided by the editors _of that book_. I think right now we tend to micro-manage our books, with editing decisions made by the entire community, not the contributors with the most knowldge.

I am not sure I agree. Books are not written by just the few who
actually type the letters.  It should be seen (not in a legal sense)
that the entire community writes every book. For example, if a book
was being written that the authors wanted certain elements included,
but the rest of the community disagreed with, you feel it should be
included because the authors have the most knowledge?

I can't see this as ideal.  We would be inundated with crap and people
claiming "Hey, I wrote this. You can't tell me what I can and can't
have! I know more about it than you." Sometimes individual
modules/chapters/pages do not fit in the community's goal, and it
would be reasonable to take them to VfD, no?  --LV


from_name: Iron Bishop

subject: [Wikitech-l] home cache server

body:
Hi all,
 next week there will be a Wikipedia presentation in Italy [1] where we
will offer the opportunity to browse Wikipedia from a group of public
pc. The problem is: probably we will only have one/two GPRS card for the
internet connection, so we think there will be a problem because of the
low bandwidth.

I can install a squid trasparent proxy, but i don't know how to populate
the cache; i wish i could "download in the cache" at least all the
images stored on commons, in order to save a lot of bandwidth.
How can i do?

[1] http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Raduni/Vicenza_2006

--
Flavio "Iron Bishop" Pastore
http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/ironbishop/index


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [Wikitech-l] Is this a diffing bug?

body:
On 6/16/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> > It looks to me like the only thing that has changed here is a couple
> > of new lines have been removed, and the words "Dijon is the capital of
> > bourgogne and " replace "The city". However, the entire paragraph is
> > highlighted in red, making it hard to see what's really changed.
>
> The diff is paragraph-based, then shows word-based diffs within that.
>
> Paragraph 1: lots of text has been added
> Paragraph 2: has been removed

Ok thanks, that explains it.

Steve


from_name: Anthere

body:
Robert Scott Horning wrote:
> Samuel Klein wrote:

>>A general abuse-l at wikimedia.org / OTRS queue might be broadly useful.
>>There are some similar processes for dealing with abuse complaints,
>>checkuser or no.
>>
>>SJ
>>
>>
>
> I second this sentiment.  There is no reason why checkuser complaints
> ought to be singled out as something unique and special compared to
> other admin abuses.
>

I disagree.

CheckUser (with Oversight now) is the only action which may be done with
no possibility to revert.

If an admin blocks someone, you can unblock. If a bureaucrate wrongly
sysop someone, you may remove status etc...

When once a checkuser has messed, you may not remove information from
people memories.

Outing certain information may lead to a lawsuit. Blocking someone
probably not.

The tool is special because it could involve the Foundation and because
it is non reversible.

Ant


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-06-17

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

Running test External image... FAILED!
Running test External image from https... FAILED!
Running test External links: Clickable images... FAILED!
Running test Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test Language converter: output gets cut off unexpectedly (bug 5757)... FAILED!
Running test HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!
Running test Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting... FAILED!
Running test Mixing markup for italics and bold... FAILED!

Passed 388 of 404 tests (96.04%) FAILED!


from_name: mboverload

subject: [WikiEN-l] newbie culture

body:
I'm making a comment about how you don't get 4 chances of deliberate
vandalism in the real world.  Fine, I'll change it to shooting out windows.
If a cop tells you to not shoot out another window, you DON'T get another
chance.  You get TASERED.

mboverload

On 6/16/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> mboverload stated for the record:
>
> > Screw that.  If it shoot someone by accident once, I get a light
> sentence if
> > I'm lucky..  If it "accidentally" shoot someone TWO TIMES, I get 20
> YEARS.
> >
> > mboverload
>
> Are you having trouble understanding the difference between an
> inappropriate edit and murder?
>
> - --
> Sean Barrett     | radiant cool, crazy nightmare,
> sean at epoptic.com | zen, new jersey, nowhere!
>                   | how now, brown bureaucrats?
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
> iD8DBQFEk4KEMAt1wyd9d+URAhc2AJ0b8ddXaHJOCtP8O1JwRhNaOg4NIQCdEl/P
> bWDMTK+qbF8NQHWZaZDCzac=
> =P/vO
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: James Hare

subject: [Foundation-l] Greetings, Wikimedians

body:
Hello, fellow Wikimedians!

I am Messedrocker -- you may know me from Wikipedia or Wikinews. I would
like to introduce myself to the mailing list, and simultaneously tell you
about my proposed project:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Medical_dictionary_wiki -- please read the
whole thing before you criticise. I hope it's not bad form for my first post
to be a shameless spamvertisement, but that's what Meta told me to do.

Sincerely,
Messedrocker


subject: [Foundation-l] Greetings, Wikimedians


from_name: Erik Zachte

subject: [Foundation-l] Mail Stats

body:
Michael R. Irwin wrote:

>  The appears enwiki-l stats appear to shut off at five posts.   Perhaps
> the graphics is truncated for ease of use and the totals are accurate?

Yes indeed. This is on purpose. The table would be extraordinary large if I
showed everyone who edited one or two times on a list. Yet the counts are
complete. Those single edits are included.

On startup mailing lists I do show all data, even single posts.

I parse mailman archives. I do not use mail address, scan for username as z
in
"From: x at y (z)"

> It seemed to accurately pick up posts signed as both mirwin and as my
> later handle lazyquasar but they were all annotated as from Michael R.
> Irwin in the header so that was not surprising.

Yes, as explained above.

> Any further explanation to clarify exactly what is counted and how it is
> summarized if the data is not exactly accurate in the counts of all the
> emails in the archives would be appreciated by me.

Please ask if you have more questions.

Oh, I was asked why Jimbo has more posts than the board combined.
That is because Jimbo preceded the board with quite a few months.  :)

Erik Zachte


subject: [Foundation-l] Mail Stats


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Brion is *the man*

body:
Tomer Chachamu wrote:
> On 6/16/06, Essjay <essjaywiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Important notice: Brion totally rocks.
>>
>> Images can now be undeleted...Yes, I said undeleted.
>
> /me thought image deletions were permanent for disk-space reasons.

No.

> So can we see an image before undeleting it?

Yes.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Wikitech-l] Upload size and distribution

body:
On 6/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/17/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> > Given the number of files (about 650k in Commons now) and their wild and crazy
> > filenames this might not be totally feasible, but we can hope.
>
> Speaking of wild and crazy filenames, would it be possible to force
> some basic naming scheme on incoming files, such as at least making
> the extensions lower case?

This would stop one of the primary causes of duplicate uploads we see
on enwiki, where people upload Foo.JPG and then it doesn't work when
they [[Image:Foo.jpg]], so they click on it and upload Foo.jpg.

I'm close to beginning a campaign on enwiki to advocate removing the
upload link entirely, forcing people to upload by following a redlink
because even if we only count fair use tagged images there are around
a thousand never-used images uploaded per week.


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikitech-l] Brion is *the man*

body:
It makes quite a bit of sense.

Say, for example, that 100 images are deleted daily from Wikimedia
projects. If they are erased permanently, that would mean we saved at
least a little bit of space, as opposed to keeping them around
forever.

I don't know if we ever erased them permanently, though, and I also
don't know with wham frequency images are deleted, and I'm also pretty
sure disco space was never a real problem.

Mark

On 17/06/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 17/06/06, Tomer Chachamu <the.r3m0t at gmail.com> wrote:
> > /me thought image deletions were permanent for disk-space reasons.
>
> Why the hell does everybody seem to have thought that? There was
> never, as far as I am aware, any policy related to saving disk space
> that would cause that. It's simply that there was a lack of code until
> now. :)
>
>
> Rob Church
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.


body:
Rob Church wrote:
> On 17/06/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 6/17/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>>> Given the number of files (about 650k in Commons now) and their wild and crazy
>>> filenames this might not be totally feasible, but we can hope.
>> Speaking of wild and crazy filenames, would it be possible to force
>> some basic naming scheme on incoming files, such as at least making
>> the extensions lower case?
>
> It's quite a sensible idea, but we'd need to watch for collisions with
> existing files where the lowercase extension version pre-exists. The
> current collision handling would be fine.
>
> There's an open bug which requests, among other things, to have file
> extensions be insignificant with respect to using the images in pages.

Here I should plug my notes on the way files are being stored for the undeletion
archive:
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/FileStore

This is a prototype for the new file storage organization for all uploads; after
some shakedown in deletion-land we can see about migrating the public-facing
files too.

Since the actual on-disk filenames will be independent of the in-wiki names,
that'll be the time to implement full extension-independence, file renaming,
image redirects, etc.

Normalizing extensions on upload, though, would be relatively easy. Potentially
it could be added now. (Note I put in a function to do some normalization in the
Image class; it's used for normalizing the extension used for the FileStore name.)

Things to be careful of:
1) Uploading a new version of an existing file should still work.
2) uh... probably something else

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] New York Times article

body:
Since they could block for 3RR.

Fred

On Jun 17, 2006, at 6:20 AM, geni wrote:

> On 6/17/06, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Folks,
>>
>> The New York Times has an article on Wikipedia called "
>>  Growing Wikipedia Revises Its 'Anyone Can Edit' Policy
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/17/technology/17wiki.html?
>> pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&adxnnl=0&emc=th&adxnnlx=1150543441-Nof7ctx7%
>> 20AH77qh5FKXKNw
>>
>> Regards
>>
>>
>> Keith Old
>>
>
> since when have admins had "authority to exercise editorial control"?
>
> --
> geni
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Essjay

subject: [Wikitech-l] Brion is *the man*

body:
Tomer Chachamu wrote:
> On 6/16/06, Essjay <essjaywiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Important notice: Brion totally rocks.
>>
>> Images can now be undeleted...Yes, I said undeleted.
>>
>
> /me thought image deletions were permanent for disk-space reasons.
>
>
Yep. They can be previewed just like a deleted page can be.

Essjay

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


from_name: Ryan Delaney

subject: [WikiEN-l] newbie culture

references:
<44928F0E.1090600@student.canberra.edu.au>
	<eecbb0630606161826l7f4aae77v2a4954f50b62cd8d@mail.gmail.com>
	<eecbb0630606161828q2d38fecfo68a4cf8fb64206f6@mail.gmail.com>
	<eecbb0630606161828q2d38fecfo68a4cf8fb64206f6-JsoAwUIsXosN+BqQ9rBEUg@public.gmane.org>
	<4493629A.5020100@student.canberra.edu.au>
	<zzHEssBsG9kEFwfW@cartref.demon.co.uk>

body:
On 6/17/06, Arwel Parry <arwel at cartref.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> I have to differ. I think admins are often far *too* lenient with
> repetitive vandals - I long ago lost count of the number of times I've
> gone to a vandal's talk page to issue a warning and found up to a dozen
> consecutive "final" warnings; in that case I will block immediately
> without any hesitation, and the worse record the vandal has, the longer
> I will block for.

You should check to see whether the {{test4}} templates were left by an
admin or a user. A lot of the time, a user will leave a final warning and
then fail to report the vandal to [[WP:AIV]] for blocking. Or they will
report the user too early and the entry will get removed because they
haven't vandalized since last warning.

Alternatively, some IPs are shared and/or repeat sources of vandalism, so
the warning templates might have been applied to a different user.

Ryan


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] (fwd) Re:PatCheng and the mailing list

body:
Forwarded from TJive

On Sat, 17 Jun 2006 00:52:30 GMT, TJive <YINever66 at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
>Considering the fact that PatCheng continues to rant and rave in the mailing list, might you inform them as to the fact that he is returning via anon IPs to continue his harassment and disruptive revert warring?  Please post this, along with any comment of your own you may have.
>
>You can see on his first ranting <http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-June/048757.html>, among other things, that he was observing the Talk:Abu Musab al-Zarqawi page when I briefly visited it around the time of the reports of his death.  He mentions my removal <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Abu_Musab_al-Zarqawi&diff=prev&oldid=57546346> of a clear and unambiguous personal attack on other editors, which was curiously put back in its place by an anon <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Abu_Musab_al-Zarqawi&diff=prev&oldid=57559746> who was traversing through several articles I had edited, whether with my name or anonymously. <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&limit=500&target=139.168.71.93>
>
>This obvious sockpuppet was blocked by Blnguyen, and since that time two more anon IPs have showed up <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&limit=500&target=138.130.126.104> <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&limit=500&target=144.131.110.42>, with all three IPs tracing to the same provider in Australia (where PatCheng admits he is from), <http://www.apnic.net/apnic-bin/whois.pl?searchtext=139.168.71.93> <http://www.apnic.net/apnic-bin/whois.pl?searchtext=138.130.126.104> <http://www.apnic.net/apnic-bin/whois.pl?searchtext=144.131.110.42> doing much the same thing, including straight reverts of content <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bill_Gertz&diff=prev&oldid=59029048> and summary reverts which practically constitute vandalism because of the various fixes <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Students_for_a_Free_Tibet&diff=prev&oldid=59026219>.  Not only is he not interested in discussion and compromise,
>  much less a quality article, but he should not be editing in the first place given that no one has sanctioned his return.
>
>In other words, he has not merely created blatant sockpuppets to extend his campaign for parole, he is busy continuing the same disruptive practices that helped to get him blocked in the first place.  He obviously feels he has the license to behave this way unimpeded in any case, but is on the mailing list simply to seek official sanction for administrators to do so with their blessing.  I hope everyone can now see his crocodile tears for what they are.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>TJive
>

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


from_name: amgine at saewyc.net

body:
On Sat, 2006-17-06 at 19:38 +1000, Nathan Carter wrote:

> Michael R. Irwin wrote:
>
> >Is Checkuser is kind of Wikipedia specific or has this function spread
> >to all wikis?
> >
> >
> It is used on all wikis. I know it has been used on Wikinews quite a bit
> lately.
>
Just to clarify, there have been two CheckUsers performed on Wikinews in
the past couple weeks (one involving a string of IPs used by a known
sockpuppeteer.) Nathan may be somewhat unaware of volume of requests on
en.Wikipedia
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case> or on
Meta
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_CheckUser_information/Archives/2006/01>.


body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> BTW- there are a lot of uploads in our existing spools which are exact
> duplicates..  Have you been logging dups on delete? It would be
> interesting to watch.

Of 12,209 files deleted from Commons so far, 176 appear multiple times, mostly
just twice each.

The winner so far is a goatse-style image which appears in the history of 23
deleted satellite weather maps. Most others look like images which were reverted
(probably mostly from those goatse images).

Should one be curious, you can poke in the filearchive table to look for dupes;
fa_storage_key contains the hash + file extension. This ought to be available on
the toolserver (though it may need a view created for it).

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Andrew Dunbar

subject:
[Wikitech-l] double apostrophes in titles (was: Categories on
	nap.wikipedia.org don't work)

body:
On 6/16/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> Last month, Sabine Cretella was having trouble with double
> apostrophes in page and category titles, since they were of
> course treated as wiki markup for italicizing.  A workaround of
> using '' was suggested and seems to work.  Platonides
> suggested using Unicode single quotes (U+2019) instead of
> apostrophes, and I meant to suggest using Unicode apostrophes
> (U+02BC).  Phil Boswell suggested using an invisible "breaker" or
> "joiner" between the two apostrophes, such as U+200D Zero-width
> Joiner.

Allow me to correct some terminology:
U+2019 is not the "Unicode single quote", It is "right single quotation mark"
U+02BC is not the "Unicode apostrophe". It is "modifier letter apostrophe".

A "modifier letter" is very specifically not a punctuation mark. It is
a letter and
is marked as such in the Unicode database. For instance if you double-click
on a word, this character should always be treated as part of the word. It is an
exotic letter used for example in the Hawaiian language. Unicode specifically
says "U+2019 is the preferred character for a punctuation apostrophe".

This is a basic misunderstanding which I see repeatedly so it's obviously
poorly understood, even by technical people.

> And there's at least one more possibility: today I happened to
> notice that there's also a Unicode double apostrophe character,
> U+02EE.  I'm not sure, but it might be tailor-made for Neopolitan.

Again, there are multiple Unicode double apostrophe characters,
but this one is also not punctuation but a letter: "modifier letter double
apostrophe".

Andrew Dunbar (hippietrail)

> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
http://linguaphile.sf.net


body:
On 6/17/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Here I should plug my notes on the way files are being stored for the undeletion
> archive:
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/FileStore
>
> This is a prototype for the new file storage organization for all uploads; after
> some shakedown in deletion-land we can see about migrating the public-facing
> files too.

Oh! I reconize some of that system. Great to see it becoming reality.

BTW- there are a lot of uploads in our existing spools which are exact
duplicates..  Have you been logging dups on delete? It would be
interesting to watch.


body:
On 6/17/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Given the number of files (about 650k in Commons now) and their wild and crazy
> filenames this might not be totally feasible, but we can hope.

Speaking of wild and crazy filenames, would it be possible to force
some basic naming scheme on incoming files, such as at least making
the extensions lower case?

Steve


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject:
[Foundation-l] (volunteer) job position : Ombudsperson
	checkuser (or checkuser Ombudsperson or whatever)

body:
On 6/17/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> If you have a commission (or committee) doing this sort of thing it wil
> really be nothing but a second Arbcom.

No, there's no reason to believe that's what would happen.

Part of the role suggested by this group is to formulate policy as
well as to resolve individual complaints.  I'm certainly not
recommended that the complaint resolution be handled in the broken
manner that the English ArbCom operates (that is, slowly, reactively,
largely ineffectually).  Rather, I view the purpose of this group as
to monitor the use of CheckUser proactively as well as reactively and,
when it appears appropriate, to recommend changes to the privacy and
checkuser policies to the Board, as well as to provide recommendations
to either the Board or to individual member projects as to how to
resolve particular conflicts.  In any case, it should be viewed as a
delegation of the Board's authority and should be treated as a
Foundation function.

Kelly


from_name: Richard Fan

body:
On 6/16/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/16/06, Richard Fan <richardfanx at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I never used the sockpuppets to engage in vandalism, but to contact
> > Sasquatch, who offered to talk to me and yet failed to respond. TJive
>
> Ok, well no one here would accept that as a legitimate use of
> > sockpuppeting. The only legitimate uses involve users who are not
> > already banned (unlike yourself). Generally speaking, blocked users
> > can still edit their talk page, so you can communicate that way - or
> > by email.
>
> Did you actually bother to read WP:Sock puppetry? Nowhere is blocked users
> mentioned, nor is using it to get the attention of an admin. It does however
> mention use sockpuppets to engage in edits wars is clearly a violation of
> the rule, which does include TJive.
>
> > himself used the sockpuppets from Virginia to engage in edit wars on the
>
> The excuse that someone else did something...
>
> > 2008 Olympics article, and yet Blnguyen unblocked him for whatever
> reason.
>
> ...or that someone else got unblocked for something, cuts no mustard
> > here whatsoever. Don't even bother.
>
> No, it showed a severe double standard in Blnguyen's policies towards
> users with the same political opinion versus the ones who doesn't. Does this
> admin even follow WP policies regarding blocking?
>
> > It's rediculous that I got banned for personal attacks several months
> ago,
>
> No, that's quite standard.
>
> I've been blocked 24 hours for this already, thus I cannot be punished
> twice for the same offence.
>
> > and which I apologised for, yet article vandals, POV pushers, and trolls
> > such as TJive never got any punishment.
>
> No, that's the luck of the dice. By all means, bring such things to
> > other people's attention, but don't expect to get special treatment
> > because of it.
>
> Why? Admins such as Blnguyen and Tony Sidaway refuse even to talk to me,
> and openly sided with TJive, that somehow this vandal's "evidence" is all
> that needed to block me. Kunguadam already unblocked me, and Blnguyen simply
> reblocked me to engage a wheel war.
>
> Hope this helps!
>
> 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
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Greetings, Wikimedians

body:
Thank you, Angela, for responding to my question.

Call it what you wish, but really it's more of a medical assistant with more
specific information, such as how to handle it and how to identify it. As
for the unwikiness, that's really for liability purposes -- imagine if an
article was vandalized to say cyanide cures cancer. The idea of the draft
versions is to facilitate article improvement while keeping the "secure"
version free of vandalism. I really wish we wouldn't have to, but vandalism
on a medical wiki could be life threatening.

Maybe years after the advent of this wiki, when vandalism is reverted within
a second, we can allow open-editing of the main space page. However, it
would take years for the wiki to have such a level of activity.

And Nathan, thank you for responding to my proposal, too.

Yes, it would be indeed mandatory to use completely verifiable sources.
WebMD, for example, would be a great reference. The difference between a
medical wiki and Wikipedia is particularly the details -- Wikipedia would
serve to go into specific details (and we could link to them as a
supplement), while this wiki simply serves to say what the disease is, how
to determine it, and how to treat it. What we could also do on this medical
wiki that wouldn't probably do well on Wikipedia is start a dichotomous key.
There are many things we could do, and they would be more welcome on a wiki
dedicated to such a topic.

Thank you for your interest in the topic.

Messedrocker

On 6/17/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I am Messedrocker -- you may know me from Wikipedia or Wikinews. I would
> > like to introduce myself to the mailing list, and simultaneously tell
> you
> > about my proposed project:
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Medical_dictionary_wiki -- please read
> the
> > whole thing before you criticise. I hope it's not bad form for my first
> post
> > to be a shameless spamvertisement, but that's what Meta told me to do.
>
> Firstly, you might be interested in the (not very active) medical wiki
> mailing list at
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedical-l
>
> Secondly, with the exception of the unwiki suggestion that all pages
> should be protected from editing, wouldn't your project duplicate
> Wiktionary? There's already a category for medical terms at
> http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Medicine
>
> Angela.
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Greetings, Wikimedians


from_name: Arwel Parry

subject: [WikiEN-l] newbie culture

references:
<44928F0E.1090600@student.canberra.edu.au>
	<eecbb0630606161826l7f4aae77v2a4954f50b62cd8d@mail.gmail.com>
	<eecbb0630606161828q2d38fecfo68a4cf8fb64206f6@mail.gmail.com>
	<eecbb0630606161828q2d38fecfo68a4cf8fb64206f6-JsoAwUIsXosN+BqQ9rBEUg@public.gmane.org>
	<4493629A.5020100@student.canberra.edu.au>

body:
In message <4493629A.5020100 at student.canberra.edu.au>, Mark Gallagher
<m.g.gallagher-oe7qfRrRQfc+7vVa2Y8Ptdf8k/1jCSAM at public.gmane.org> writes
>> On 6/16/06, *Ryan Delaney*
>><ryan.delaney-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org
>> <mailto:ryan.delaney-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>> wrote:
>>
>>     Frankly, I can't believe you are getting so worked up over this.
>>     Life would probably be a lot less stressful for you if you didn't
>>     take this personally. They think they are doing the right thing,
>>     after all.
>>
>> By the way, I think that admins block users way too fast and should use
>> warning templates a lot more than they already do. I would say that at
>> least half of the time I use them, the user stops vandalizing before a
>> block is required.
>
>I agree that admins block users too fast, and should use *warnings* more
>than they do.  The templates can be a means to that end --- a help in
>warning people.  But they shouldn't be considered synonymous with the
>word "warning".  Sometimes they're appropriate, often they're not.
>Usually speaking in your own words and addressing the situation directly
>will get you further than following the {{test}} series ever did.

I have to differ. I think admins are often far *too* lenient with
repetitive vandals - I long ago lost count of the number of times I've
gone to a vandal's talk page to issue a warning and found up to a dozen
consecutive "final" warnings; in that case I will block immediately
without any hesitation, and the worse record the vandal has, the longer
I will block for.

The practice of repeatedly issuing "final warnings" has to stop - you
can just see the vandals laughing at you (sometimes literally) when
nothing ever happens. Issue warnings, then a final warning, and if they
don't improve their behaviour, block them.

--
Arwel Parry
http://www.cartref.demon.co.uk/


from_name: Steve Summit

subject: [Wikitech-l] double apostrophes in titles

body:
Andrew Dunbar wrote:
> On 6/16/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
>> Platonides suggested using Unicode single quotes (U+2019) instead of
>> apostrophes, and I meant to suggest using Unicode apostrophes (U+02BC).
>
> Allow me to correct some terminology:
> U+2019 is not the "Unicode single quote", It is "right single quotation mark"
> U+02BC is not the "Unicode apostrophe". It is "modifier letter apostrophe".

Sure.  I wasn't giving character names there (which is why I
didn't capitalize them).  The numeric codes made it clear which
specific characters I was referring to.

> A "modifier letter" is very specifically not a punctuation mark. It is
> a letter and is marked as such in the Unicode database. For instance
> if you double-click on a word, this character should always be treated
> as part of the word.

Aha.  So what happens if you double-click on "doesn't"? :-)

>> And there's at least one more possibility: today I happened to
>> notice that there's also a Unicode double apostrophe character,
>> U+02EE.  I'm not sure, but it might be tailor-made for Neopolitan.
>
> Again, there are multiple Unicode double apostrophe characters,
> but this one is also not punctuation but a letter: "modifier letter
> double apostrophe".

Just so.  And just as U+02BC Modifier Letter Apostrophe is
appropriate for use in Hawaiian, there's some chance -- as I
said, I'm not sure, but it's at least a possibility -- that
U+02EE Modifier Letter Double Apostrophe is appropriate for use
in Neapolitan.


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] New York Times article

body:
For the record, the Einstein article was only protected recently
because a stubborn editor was insisting on changing the formatting to
meet his own personal requirements and was revert warring. However
after a week of this he finally agreed to stop after he was instructed
as to how to modify his own monobook.css to make it display for him
how he wanted to. It is currently unprotected.

In any case, it's a boring reason for why it was protected, and had
nothing to do with its content or it being a controversial article
(which except for a few anti-Einstein cranks, it has not been).

FF

On 6/17/06, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
> Folks,
>
> The New York Times has an article on Wikipedia called "
>  Growing Wikipedia Revises Its 'Anyone Can Edit' Policy
> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/17/technology/17wiki.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&adxnnl=0&emc=th&adxnnlx=1150543441-Nof7ctx7%20AH77qh5FKXKNw
>
> Regards
>
>
> Keith Old
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Kat Walsh

subject: [WikiEN-l] New York Times article

body:
On 6/17/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> since when have admins had "authority to exercise editorial control"?

I'm particularly disappointed by that statement, considering I spent a
fair bit of effort in the interview explaining how and why they don't.

-Kat

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures

body:
Death Phoenix wrote:
> On 6/12/06, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
>> On 12 Jun 2006 at 23:48,  "Death Phoenix" <originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > PBE's a good one.
>>
>> Pompous Bullshit English?
>>...
>
> And I find that PBE is used by people who actually know English as it is
> properly used.

Hang on a sec.

We get a lot of ignorant Americans "correcting" colour to color,
or -ise to -ize.  If they're arrogant as well as ignorant, they may
claim that colour and -ise are "wrong".  That's wrong, of course.

But at the same time, we can't claim that any of British/Canadian/
Australian/Indian/Commonwealth English are uniquely "correct",
either, or that American English is "wrong".  We'll never get
past these dialect wars as long as anyone (even the English,
whose name is indeed on the language) is insisting that only
their variant is correct.

Language evolves.  The language used in the UK today is not
spoken or spelled the same way it was in 1776, either.


from_name: poore5 at adelphia.net

subject: [Foundation-l] Greetings, Wikimedians

body:
--- James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thank you, Angela, for responding to my question.
>
> Call it what you wish, but really it's more of a medical assistant with more
> specific information, such as how to handle it and how to identify it. As
> for the unwikiness, that's really for liability purposes -- imagine if an
> article was vandalized to say cyanide cures cancer. The idea of the draft
> versions is to facilitate article improvement while keeping the "secure"
> version free of vandalism. I really wish we wouldn't have to, but vandalism
> on a medical wiki could be life threatening.
>
> Maybe years after the advent of this wiki, when vandalism is reverted within
> a second, we can allow open-editing of the main space page. However, it
> would take years for the wiki to have such a level of activity.
>
> And Nathan, thank you for responding to my proposal, too.
>
> Yes, it would be indeed mandatory to use completely verifiable sources.
> WebMD, for example, would be a great reference. The difference between a
> medical wiki and Wikipedia is particularly the details -- Wikipedia would
> serve to go into specific details (and we could link to them as a
> supplement), while this wiki simply serves to say what the disease is, how
> to determine it, and how to treat it. What we could also do on this medical
> wiki that wouldn't probably do well on Wikipedia is start a dichotomous key.
> There are many things we could do, and they would be more welcome on a wiki
> dedicated to such a topic.
>
> Thank you for your interest in the topic.
>
> Messedrocker
>
> On 6/17/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > I am Messedrocker -- you may know me from Wikipedia or Wikinews. I would
> > > like to introduce myself to the mailing list, and simultaneously tell
> > you
> > > about my proposed project:
> > > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Medical_dictionary_wiki -- please read
> > the
> > > whole thing before you criticise. I hope it's not bad form for my first
> > post
> > > to be a shameless spamvertisement, but that's what Meta told me to do.
> >
> > Firstly, you might be interested in the (not very active) medical wiki
> > mailing list at
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedical-l
> >
> > Secondly, with the exception of the unwiki suggestion that all pages
> > should be protected from editing, wouldn't your project duplicate
> > Wiktionary? There's already a category for medical terms at
> > http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Medicine
> >
> > Angela.

Maybe this project would be useful. But I disagree with protecting the articles unless it is deemed "finished" and the projects want to have a "stable" version. The other reason is not good and will increase the risk of liability. No one should be taking medical advice from on line medical articles. We must be careful that Wikimedia project(s) do not send mixed signals on this point.

On English speaking projects, the biggest need is for medical articles to be adapted for low literacy readers. I know that most medical articles are well above the reading level of the average US citizen. I?m certain that similar problems exist with other English speaking countries too.

Sydney Poore aka FloNight


subject: [Foundation-l] Greetings, Wikimedians


subject: [WikiEN-l] New York Times article

body:
> "Growing Wikipedia Revises Its 'Anyone Can Edit' Policy"

Anyone can use the public library.  But if you're too disruptive,
you'll be asked to leave.


from_name: James Hare

subject: [Foundation-l] Greetings, Wikimedians

body:
So you're proposing that initially, articles should be developed in the main
namespace until "completion," then additions are to be proposed?

On 6/17/06, poore5 at adelphia.net <poore5 at adelphia.net> wrote:
>
> --- James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Thank you, Angela, for responding to my question.
> >
> > Call it what you wish, but really it's more of a medical assistant with
> more
> > specific information, such as how to handle it and how to identify it.
> As
> > for the unwikiness, that's really for liability purposes -- imagine if
> an
> > article was vandalized to say cyanide cures cancer. The idea of the
> draft
> > versions is to facilitate article improvement while keeping the "secure"
> > version free of vandalism. I really wish we wouldn't have to, but
> vandalism
> > on a medical wiki could be life threatening.
> >
> > Maybe years after the advent of this wiki, when vandalism is reverted
> within
> > a second, we can allow open-editing of the main space page. However, it
> > would take years for the wiki to have such a level of activity.
> >
> > And Nathan, thank you for responding to my proposal, too.
> >
> > Yes, it would be indeed mandatory to use completely verifiable sources.
> > WebMD, for example, would be a great reference. The difference between a
> > medical wiki and Wikipedia is particularly the details -- Wikipedia
> would
> > serve to go into specific details (and we could link to them as a
> > supplement), while this wiki simply serves to say what the disease is,
> how
> > to determine it, and how to treat it. What we could also do on this
> medical
> > wiki that wouldn't probably do well on Wikipedia is start a dichotomous
> key.
> > There are many things we could do, and they would be more welcome on a
> wiki
> > dedicated to such a topic.
> >
> > Thank you for your interest in the topic.
> >
> > Messedrocker
> >
> > On 6/17/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > I am Messedrocker -- you may know me from Wikipedia or Wikinews. I
> would
> > > > like to introduce myself to the mailing list, and simultaneously
> tell
> > > you
> > > > about my proposed project:
> > > > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Medical_dictionary_wiki -- please
> read
> > > the
> > > > whole thing before you criticise. I hope it's not bad form for my
> first
> > > post
> > > > to be a shameless spamvertisement, but that's what Meta told me to
> do.
> > >
> > > Firstly, you might be interested in the (not very active) medical wiki
> > > mailing list at
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedical-l
> > >
> > > Secondly, with the exception of the unwiki suggestion that all pages
> > > should be protected from editing, wouldn't your project duplicate
> > > Wiktionary? There's already a category for medical terms at
> > > http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Medicine
> > >
> > > Angela.
>
> Maybe this project would be useful. But I disagree with protecting the
> articles unless it is deemed "finished" and the projects want to have a
> "stable" version. The other reason is not good and will increase the risk of
> liability. No one should be taking medical advice from on line medical
> articles. We must be careful that Wikimedia project(s) do not send mixed
> signals on this point.
>
> On English speaking projects, the biggest need is for medical articles to
> be adapted for low literacy readers. I know that most medical articles are
> well above the reading level of the average US citizen. I'm certain that
> similar problems exist with other English speaking countries too.
>
> Sydney Poore aka FloNight
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Greetings, Wikimedians


from_name: Tomer Chachamu

subject: [Wikitech-l] Brion is *the man*

body:
On 6/16/06, Essjay <essjaywiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> Important notice: Brion totally rocks.
>
> Images can now be undeleted...Yes, I said undeleted.

/me thought image deletions were permanent for disk-space reasons.

So can we see an image before undeleting it?


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] newbie culture

body:
G'day Ryan,

> On 6/16/06, *Ryan Delaney* <ryan.delaney at gmail.com
> <mailto:ryan.delaney at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Frankly, I can't believe you are getting so worked up over this.
>     Life would probably be a lot less stressful for you if you didn't
>     take this personally. They think they are doing the right thing,
>     after all.
>
> By the way, I think that admins block users way too fast and should use
> warning templates a lot more than they already do. I would say that at
> least half of the time I use them, the user stops vandalizing before a
> block is required.

I agree that admins block users too fast, and should use *warnings* more
than they do.  The templates can be a means to that end --- a help in
warning people.  But they shouldn't be considered synonymous with the
word "warning".  Sometimes they're appropriate, often they're not.
Usually speaking in your own words and addressing the situation directly
will get you further than following the {{test}} series ever did.

As for why this irritates me so, consider: someone *opposed an RfA for a
good user* because the opposer was insisting he do the Wrong Thing.  RfA
has enough problems these days ("Wikipedia doesn't scale") without
people deliberately making the adminship process worse by imposing
blatantly false requirements.

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 6/17/06, Richard Fan <richardfanx at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Did you actually bother to read WP:Sock puppetry? Nowhere is blocked users
> > mentioned, nor is using it to get the attention of an admin. It does however

Well, apart from this sentence: "Users who are banned from editing or
temporarily subject to a legitimate block may not use sock puppets to
circumvent this. Evading a ban in this manner causes the timer on the
ban to restart, and may further lengthen the ban."

That difficult-to-find paragraph was under "Circumventing policy"
which was under "Prohibited uses of sock puppets". Section 1.3 if you
still can't find it.

> > mention use sockpuppets to engage in edits wars is clearly a violation of
> > the rule, which does include TJive.

Let's not worry about TJive ok? Trying to get someone else banned is
unlikely to help your case.

> > No, it showed a severe double standard in Blnguyen's policies towards
> > users with the same political opinion versus the ones who doesn't. Does this
> > admin even follow WP policies regarding blocking?

Double standards are actually ok. Admins get in trouble when they
block for the wrong reason, but failing to block at all is not a
problem - another admin could always do that.

> I've been blocked 24 hours for this already, thus I cannot be punished
> twice for the same offence.

For exactly the same instance of the same offence? I'd agree that you
*shouldn't* be punished twice for the same offence, but there's
nothing that says you *can't*. It's all up to admin discretion.

> > Why? Admins such as Blnguyen and Tony Sidaway refuse even to talk to me,
> > and openly sided with TJive, that somehow this vandal's "evidence" is all
> > that needed to block me. Kunguadam already unblocked me, and Blnguyen simply
> > reblocked me to engage a wheel war.

If they refuse to talk to you, it's probably because they've formed a
reasonable opinion that you're not worth your time. Wonder how that
happened. Well, there are still some more avenues, but most of them
involve admitting you were wrong, accepting that the admins were
right, and promising to do better in the future. Or, there's always
myspace.com.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Why AFD just does not work

body:
On 6/17/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> You seem to think that AFD is a big joke because we have bad articles
> surviving.  My point, and several others point, is that we have bad
> articles on appropriate encyclopedic topics survive AFD, and my
> argument is that that's entirely proper since we should be doing
> cleanups on them instead of arguing about deleting them.  When you

Right. If we deleted all the "bad" articles on Wikipedia, it'd be a
much smaller place. We should only delete the "inappropriate"
articles: unnoteworthy or unencyclopaedic subjects, and the odd
copyvio or defamation.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] newbie culture

body:
On 6/17/06, Arwel Parry <arwel at cartref.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> The practice of repeatedly issuing "final warnings" has to stop - you
> can just see the vandals laughing at you (sometimes literally) when
> nothing ever happens. Issue warnings, then a final warning, and if they
> don't improve their behaviour, block them.

It would be good if we could put users on probation. Occasionally I've
taken the effort to track a vandal, watching and reverting their
edits. But it would be nice to be able to say "this user's next edit
is 90% likely to be vandalism, hence, let's screen it *before* it goes
live". All the edits of probationary users could appear on one screen,
and people watching that list could pick out the occasional good ones
to let through, much like moderating a mailing list.

Steve


from_name: Chad Perrin

subject: [Wikitech-l] Brion is *the man*

body:
On Sat, Jun 17, 2006 at 05:50:08AM -0700, Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> I don't know if we ever erased them permanently, though, and I also
> don't know with wham frequency images are deleted, and I'm also pretty
> sure disco space was never a real problem.

Yeah, I've always had room to dance.

. . .

By the way, a message to Brion: you da man.

--
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
"A script is what you give the actors.  A program
is what you give the audience." - Larry Wall


from_name: Lord Voldemort

body:
On 6/17/06, John Pozniak <gentgeen at yahoo.com> wrote:
> One of our current proposed policies, http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Title_pages states that title pages should, "link to a list containing the names of all the users actively working on the project - it can be placed in manual of style, foreword or separate 'Authors' page." So we're already requesting that the authors of each book be identified in a prominent place. For an active book, this group of active contributors should be able to determine the content of the book. Any request to delete a particular module should come from this group. One self-professed "expert" would have to convince all the other editors of the value of any new content.
>
> If the community finds a book's content is not in line with the overall policies, they should join the group of active contributors of the book and work to improve it, or delete the entire book. Outsiders sweeping in and deleting specific modules without buy-in from the editors will cause bad feelings, and may cause good editors to leave the project. The formating of the book will be broken, filled with red-links to no-longer existing pages. In the longer term the content may simply be recreated at the same or another title in the book, or be incorporated into existing pages in the book, by the old contributors.
>
> The opposite is also true. If all the authors of a book want a module deleted, the outside community shouldn't force them to keep it. If that were to happen, the editors of the book would likely "virtually" delete the page, by eliminating all links to it from the rest of the book.
>
> I have for a long time espoused the idea that once a book reaches a certain size, it should be given more and more autonomy. This includes creating its own policies, its own manual of style, its own naming conventions, and even overall control on its own content.

No.  The community has every right to delete a specific module if that
one module does not fall within the scope of general WB policy.  That
does not mean the entire book should be deleted. And if there are
redlinks, they can be delinked.  We do not decide whether to do
something or not based on the ease of work.  We do not give in to
apathy. If something is deleted, and the redlinks need to be fixed...
then fix them.  If the pages are recreated later, then can be
redeleted later as well.

Of course the people actually writing the book have general control
over what the content is, but if they choose to have content that
falls outside the scope of WB, the community has the responsibility to
delete the inappropriate content.
--LV


subject: [Foundation-l] Greetings, Wikimedians

body:
I would like to echo FloNight here. I'm not sure we really want to be
providing medical advice as it opens WMF to a large degree of
liability.  And if it is just a dictionary of terms, well, like Angela
and Nathan said, wouldn't it be duplicating work?  Thanks. --LV


subject: [Foundation-l] Greetings, Wikimedians


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] New York Times article

body:
On 6/17/06, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
> Folks,
>
> The New York Times has an article on Wikipedia called "
>  Growing Wikipedia Revises Its 'Anyone Can Edit' Policy
> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/17/technology/17wiki.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&adxnnl=0&emc=th&adxnnlx=1150543441-Nof7ctx7%20AH77qh5FKXKNw
>
> Regards
>
>
> Keith Old

since when have admins had "authority to exercise editorial control"?

--
geni


subject: [Foundation-l] Greetings, Wikimedians

body:
The idea I came up with for preventing liability would be using exclusively
verifiable resources for research, i.e. something like WebMD where people
-know- it's good. I guess it was a mistake to call it a "medical dictionary"
when it's more of a "guide to finding out if you have disease X and how to
make it go away."

On 6/17/06, Lord Voldemort <lordbishopvoldemort at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I would like to echo FloNight here. I'm not sure we really want to be
> providing medical advice as it opens WMF to a large degree of
> liability.  And if it is just a dictionary of terms, well, like Angela
> and Nathan said, wouldn't it be duplicating work?  Thanks. --LV
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Greetings, Wikimedians


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] New York Times article

body:
On 17/06/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/17/06, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Folks,
> >
> > The New York Times has an article on Wikipedia called "
> >  Growing Wikipedia Revises Its 'Anyone Can Edit' Policy
> > http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/17/technology/17wiki.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&adxnnl=0&emc=th&adxnnlx=1150543441-Nof7ctx7%20AH77qh5FKXKNw
> >
> > Regards
> >
> >
> > Keith Old
>
> since when have admins had "authority to exercise editorial control"?

Well, they have the same latitude for editorial discretion and common
sense we give everybody who isn't banned or being an idiot, and as
admins are - at least in part - selected for a bare minimum of
intelligence, tact, and common sense, then you'd expect them to be
better with the whole "editorial discretion" thing.

It isn't control, but it usually gets a stable solution, so it looks like it.

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Greetings, Wikimedians

body:
On 6/17/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> The idea I came up with for preventing liability would be using exclusively
> verifiable resources for research, i.e. something like WebMD where people
> -know- it's good. I guess it was a mistake to call it a "medical dictionary"
> when it's more of a "guide to finding out if you have disease X and how to
> make it go away."

Okay, then how would it differ or be better than WebMD? --LV


subject: [Foundation-l] Greetings, Wikimedians


subject: [WikiEN-l] New York Times article

body:
On 6/17/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> Since they could block for 3RR.
>

That isn't editorial control.That is just the nutralisation of our
more incompetant edit warriours.

--
geni


subject: [Foundation-l] Greetings, Wikimedians

body:
How is Wikipedia better than World Book or Encyclopaedia Britannica? How is
Wikinews better than CNN.com? How is Wiktionary better than dictionary.com?
The idea is that when Wikimedia starts a project, we're the copyleft
alternative to the ideal corporate source we're getting information from.
The information Wikimedia publishes is for all the people with Internet
access, and eventually the entire world.

On 6/17/06, Lord Voldemort <lordbishopvoldemort at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/17/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> > The idea I came up with for preventing liability would be using
> exclusively
> > verifiable resources for research, i.e. something like WebMD where
> people
> > -know- it's good. I guess it was a mistake to call it a "medical
> dictionary"
> > when it's more of a "guide to finding out if you have disease X and how
> to
> > make it go away."
>
> Okay, then how would it differ or be better than WebMD? --LV
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Greetings, Wikimedians


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] New York Times article

body:
http://blog.jimmywales.com/index.php/archives/2006/06/17/the-new-york-times-gets-it-exactly-backwards/

Keith Old wrote:
> Folks,
>
> The New York Times has an article on Wikipedia called "
>  Growing Wikipedia Revises Its 'Anyone Can Edit' Policy
> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/17/technology/17wiki.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&adxnnl=0&emc=th&adxnnlx=1150543441-Nof7ctx7%20AH77qh5FKXKNw
>
> Regards
>
>
> Keith Old
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
#######################################################################
#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
#######################################################################


from_name: Rob Church

subject: [Wikitech-l] Brion is *the man*

body:
On 17/06/06, Tomer Chachamu <the.r3m0t at gmail.com> wrote:
> /me thought image deletions were permanent for disk-space reasons.

Why the hell does everybody seem to have thought that? There was
never, as far as I am aware, any policy related to saving disk space
that would cause that. It's simply that there was a lack of code until
now. :)

Rob Church


body:
On 17/06/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/17/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> > Given the number of files (about 650k in Commons now) and their wild and crazy
> > filenames this might not be totally feasible, but we can hope.
>
> Speaking of wild and crazy filenames, would it be possible to force
> some basic naming scheme on incoming files, such as at least making
> the extensions lower case?

It's quite a sensible idea, but we'd need to watch for collisions with
existing files where the lowercase extension version pre-exists. The
current collision handling would be fine.

There's an open bug which requests, among other things, to have file
extensions be insignificant with respect to using the images in pages.

Rob Church


subject: [WikiEN-l] newbie culture

references:
<44928F0E.1090600@student.canberra.edu.au>
	<eecbb0630606161826l7f4aae77v2a4954f50b62cd8d@mail.gmail.com>
	<eecbb0630606161828q2d38fecfo68a4cf8fb64206f6@mail.gmail.com>
	<eecbb0630606161828q2d38fecfo68a4cf8fb64206f6-JsoAwUIsXosN+BqQ9rBEUg@public.gmane.org>
	<4493629A.5020100@student.canberra.edu.au>
	<zzHEssBsG9kEFwfW@cartref.demon.co.uk>
	<b8ceeef70606170351h48451bbdj8ab52e0b88ca9e5f@mail.gmail.com>
	<4493E1AC.8050600@gawab.com>

body:
On 6/17/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> This is something of a perennial proposal. The main problem I see with
> it is the potential for edit conflicts - if a valid edit goes through
> between when the probationary edit is made, and when it is approved,
> there might be trouble merging the two edits together.

In such a case I suggest sending the conflicting (probationary) edit
back to the original editor (as a talk page message), and letting them
deal with it. Remember, people in this state have already done
something annoying...the onus is now on them to do something about
their reputation.

Steve


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

subject: [WikiEN-l] newbie culture

body:
On 16 Jun 2006 at 11:37, "Lord Voldemort" <lordbishopvoldemort at gmail.com> wrote:

> Still longer than me, and the rest of us wahoos.  We never had to walk
> to our dial-up computers, uphill both ways, on Windows 3.1, from AOL,
> like you oldbies. ;-)

AOL as a source of "oldbies"?  The *serious* oldbie crowd regards
them as the biggest source of clueless newbies!  And Windows
(whatever version) just brought more crowds of people too computer
illiterate to handle a command line interface.

No, the *real* oldbies were the ones who used computers without a
wimpy graphical interface... maybe a printing terminal using a modem
switchable between 110 baud and the "high-speed" 300 (like they had
at the high school I attended in the early '80s)... or even punch
cards (like they also used when I was in high school, taking a class
in Fortran).

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] newbie culture

body:
On 6/17/06, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
> AOL as a source of "oldbies"?  The *serious* oldbie crowd regards
> them as the biggest source of clueless newbies!  And Windows
> (whatever version) just brought more crowds of people too computer
> illiterate to handle a command line interface.
>
> No, the *real* oldbies were the ones who used computers without a
> wimpy graphical interface... maybe a printing terminal using a modem
> switchable between 110 baud and the "high-speed" 300 (like they had
> at the high school I attended in the early '80s)... or even punch
> cards (like they also used when I was in high school, taking a class
> in Fortran).

But I was specifically speaking of newbies within Wikipedia. If I
recall correctly, WP wasn't around in the '80s.  And from what I
understand, if you are still using your computer from the '80's to
access WP, you are a miracle worker.  ;-)  --LV


subject: [WikiEN-l] New York Times article

body:
On 6/17/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> since when have admins had "authority to exercise editorial control"?

They don't. It's one of the worst sins an admin can commit, but they
get collectively accused of it regularly.

Steve