from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject:
[Wikitech-l] "Image Credits" proposal to allow images to link
	to pages

body:
On 5/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/17/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > And how do we tell that the image is "GFDL without requested attribution?".
>
> By looking at the image description and seeing if they request attribution?

Right but since we can't do this automatically there is no way to check.

> > ... This will be a nightmare to police, and I don't see how we can
> > easily get the software to enforce it.
>
> So is getting people not to upload copyrighted images, a far greater
> problem. There are many things we can't enforce. This seems a trivial
> problem.

We do enforce that to a degree. We have tools, methods of detection,
procedures... it's all rather complicated. I've had several tens of
thousands of problem images deleted, issues detected via automated
analysis, reviewed by humans gone..

It's harder to do with this...  We have to constantly fight against
the fact that many people's instincts WRT copyright tell them to do
the wrong thing.  "I made this screenshot of the starwars movie, I own
the copyright, and I release it into the public domain".

We'll face the same problem with attribution-less images that anyone
can create but it's even more obscure an issue. When you couple the
fact that a minority of the navigation icons we're using are
attributionless licensed right now, all I can see us doing is creating
problems.

> > Also, I've been checking, and many of these navigation icons have
> > attribution requirements. Most seem to be LGPLed, taken from varrious
> > free software packages.
>
> What are their requirements? "Must show the following text when
> clicked upon?" There are lots of other ways of providing attribution
> information.

The attribution requirements differ somewhat from license to license
but overall we're in a good position if the attribution and license
data (it's not just attribution btw, the majority of copyleft licenses
require you to tell the recipient what license it's under) is
1) Easily and obviously accessable, not obscured or hidden
2) Uniform and approiate for our medium

> You really, really don't want MediaWiki to allow linkable images?

Excuse me?
I really want us to have linkable images which we can actually use,
i.e. ones that don't create copyright problems.

I love the idea of the tiny automatic (image info) link, which works
great for things like portal/main page images, but I realize that it
presents problems for navigation icons.  I'm sure we can figure out
the right solution for those as well, but we won't make progress if
you're just going to dismiss me with "You really, really don't want
MediaWiki to allow linkable images".

Shall I say "You really, really don't want to behave legally and
ethically in regard to the content we've taken from others?"  and
complete the cycle of pointless accusations?


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: jkelly at fas.harvard.edu

subject: [WikiEN-l]  Getting rid of bad fair use (was:Zero information...)

body:
  I think, in terms of where we are at with getting rid of things tagged "fair
use" spuriously, that the following diff:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ABradPatrick&diff=53000894&oldid=52777859

...really says a lot.

               Jkelly

Quoting Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com>:

> On 5/17/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> > or a "culture of image tagging"
> > that has become fairly effective at searching out and destroying
> > bad uploads.
>
> I wish.  We're managing to keep the worst of the worst out, but that
> basically means images where the uploader can't be bothered to find
> source information, or where nobody's gotten around to sticking a
> "fair use" tag on it.  The new CSD criteria will help a little with
> the worst abuses of the {{fairuse}} and {{fairusein}} tags, but
> there's still no effective way of getting rid of things like the mess
> at [[Category:Fair use magazine covers]].
>
> --
> Mark
> [[User:Carnildo]]
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Steve Summit

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On 5/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 5/17/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > And how do we tell that the image is "GFDL without requested attribution?".
>>
>> By looking at the image description and seeing if they request attribution?
>
> Right but since we can't do this automatically there is no way to check.

The licensing tag that an image has is selected from a
constrained list, right?  (I think that's how we're doing other
kinds of automated checking.)  So all we need to do is (a) create
a list of those existing licenses that don't require attribution
(PD, etc.), and maybe also (b) create one or two new variants
(e.g. "GFDL but no attribution required").


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Zero information is preferred to misleading or false
	information

body:
On 5/17/06, Katefan0 <katefan0wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> Jimbo's original post was specifically referring to living individuals.
> Let's not get off track, this is an important topic (and important
> distinction).

"This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of
negative information about living persons."

If his point was only about living individuals, then I have no further
comment to make.

Steve


body:
On 5/17/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> The licensing tag that an image has is selected from a
> constrained list, right?  (I think that's how we're doing other
> kinds of automated checking.)  So all we need to do is (a) create
> a list of those existing licenses that don't require attribution
> (PD, etc.), and maybe also (b) create one or two new variants
> (e.g. "GFDL but no attribution required").

Not constrained. We provide a list, it's no where near inclusive. So
it's not quite that simple, but yes we can test for certian things
like that. But we would also need a way of findind which images are
inlined in this matter. Walking a million articles isn't acceptable.
:)


from_name: Joe Anderson

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Should Wikipedia make it clear to users that it is
	not censored for minors?

body:
I didn't subscribe back then. No need to be uncivil.

On 5/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 5/17/06, Joe Anderson <computerjoe.mailinglist at googlemail.com> wrote:
> > Just an idea, but for articles not suitable for minors
> > ICRA<http://www.icra.org/>could be used.
>
> I'm not dreaming, we *did* discuss all this like 2 months ago didn't we?
>
> 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
>

--
Joe Anderson

[[User:Computerjoe]] on en, fr, de, simple, Meta and Commons.


body:
On 5/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> IMHO this is not likely to be such a big problem. As many have pointed
> out, linkable images are likely to be very rarely used outside the
> article space. If they're abused, we can deal with the problem them.

I've missed that part of the conversation, because I can't quite
figure out exactly what you plan on using the current proposal for...

We discussed (featured article) images on portals/main page which
don't take you to the expected location. This proposal is a nonstarter
for that solution because very few of them are under a license which
doesn't require attribution, and no upsurge in such images is
expected.

We also discussed little navigational buttons.  I'm actually having a
hard time finding any that are PD, most of the ones on enwiki are
LGPLed or GFDLed, and most came from outside sources (not wikipedia
user created).  So I'm a little confused as to how the no-attribution
linkable image proposal would be useful.  Can you provide concrete
examples (with hyperlinks to images where you would expect us to use
this feature?

> > 1) Easily and obviously accessable, not obscured or hidden
> Well we've suggested ways of doing this.

We've discussed an automatic image info link, which I support and you
reject and we've discussed making it look like a redirect, which is in
poor taste, and fails to meet the not obscured or hidden requirement.

> I feel that you're throwing an un-necessarily wet blanket on this.
> Having formed that opinion, I'll shut up about it now.

Wet blanket?

Okay!
Show us working code and the discussion can continue, right now this
all appears to be hand-waving and speculation to me... and no
compelling argument has been made why I should spend my time
implementing anything discussed here.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Unblock request (Autoblock). -
	(Hganesan)(169.229.80.218)- Please warn admin William M. Connolley

body:
I assume you are User:Hganesian?  You appear to have been blocked for
tendentious editing, which you were certainly engaging in.

I'd suggest that you use this time being blocked to figure out a way to work
more collaboratively.

k

On 5/17/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 17 May 2006 11:04:55 -0700 (PDT), you wrote:
>
> >He is being excessively unfair. Not only is he fully
> >biased, he is simply blocking me again and again, and
> >giving vandalism a free pass on the Steve Nash page.
> >He has blocked me again for the second time in two
> >days, now because I made some edits, and now he is
> >citing edit warring. He needs to notice that the
> >people deleting and vandalizing everything i posted
> >are edit warring also.  I want this guy off Wikipedia.
>
> Yet more "rouge admin abuse".  WP:ROUGE applies, as ever.
>
> Guy (JzG)
> --
> http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Philip Welch

subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
On May 17, 2006, at 12:23 PM, Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:

> Can anyone explain to me why those pages arn't not just huge WP:POINT
> violations? They serve no other point than to make the point that
> wikipedia is not censored, and they are disruptive in doing it. Thus
> "disrupting wikipedia to prove a point". These pages should be nuked
> on sight.

Try reading WP:POINT again. I think "don't disrupt Wikipedia to make
a point" is a misleading title anyway?the better title is "State your
point; don't prove it experimentally".

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


from_name: Keith Old

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia:No factions of belief

body:
On 5/17/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Based on the discussion about divisive behavior and following my
> earlier comments, I have created a new policy proposal:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_factions_of_belief
>
> Please comment!
>
> Thanks,
>
> Erik
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

Erik,

This looks like a good start for mine.

Regards

*Keith Old*


from_name: Katie (keitei)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion before discussion

body:
I'm not one to post to the mailing list complaining, but I've just
been informed by my fellow Uncyclopedians that the Uncyclopedia logo
has been removed from hundreds of userpages by
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ed_g2s. I understand why supposed
"fair use" images are not allowed on userpages and I do not wish to
contest that. However, the copyright holder did not upload the image,
and furthermore, "I'd like to allow the logo to be used for Wikipedia
userpages, userboxes, etc. - in other words, as "decoration" for
Wikipedians." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Ed_g2s#Uncyclopedia_logo)

I'm not saying this is an ideal situation and Ed g2s was wildly out of
control. It's true that Rc hasn't edited the image description page
describing the fair use rationale, but removing it without saying boo
to anyone and then demanding that he relicense it under a "free
license" is unfair to him. I think this could've been avoided if those
removing fair use images were less lazy and thought to look at who the
copyright holder might be. The description page gives a link to the
description page at Uncyclopedia, where the uploader is clearly
displayed. Furthermore, Uncyclopedia is a wiki and it's not that hard
to contact said uploader and ask what the logo may be used for.

However, what's done is done, but I'd like this to be sorted out. As
far as I know, if the copyright holder explicitly says that the image
may be used on userpages and userboxes, then WP:FUC shouldn't apply
(in that area). I don't wish to force Rc to relicense the image,
although it seems to me that if he had been uploading the image, he
might have stated the license differently. Once this is explicitly
stated or whatever needs doing, someone needs to re-add all the images
that were removed.

My only point is that this whole mess could have been avoided if there
had been a little discussion involved and involving the copyright
holder only /after/ all is said and done is very unwise.

Thank you for your time and for reading this.

-Katie
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keitei


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Complaints about Admin William M. Connolley.
	(Hganesan)

body:
It appears that he has left a pretty straightforward explanation on your
account's talk page:

Dont edit war

No sooner does your block expire than you return to the same edit wars. I've
blocked you for 24h. William M. Connolley
</wiki/User:William_M._Connolley>09:16, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

k

On 5/17/06, Harish Ganesan <kamehameha87 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> He has yet to reply to any emails I have sent him
> explaining why he is blocking me. He is totally biased
> and is frustrating me. I want him off Wikipedia. I
> understand why I was blocked yesterday for the first
> time, but now it is just getting unfair.
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Death Phoenix

body:
On 5/16/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 5/16/06, Death Phoenix <originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I had a medical encyclopedia/reference library that used to contain all
> > sorts of naughty pictures that I used to giggle at, and there was no
> need
> > for those texts to have disclaimers in big bold letters.
>
> Photos of erections?
>

I don't remember seeing erections, but there was plenty of interesting
pictures of people in various states of undress and activity that I found
interesting.


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Zero information is preferred to misleading or false
 information

body:
G'day geni,

> On 5/16/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
>>I think a fair number of people need to be kicked out of the project
>>just for being lousy writers.  (This is not a policy statement, just a
>>statement of attitude and frustration.)
>
> No they need to have their energies redirected to some element of the
> project where they can be more useful.

I agree.  The problem isn't "lousy writers", /per se/, but lousy writers
who think they're God's gift to the written word.

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

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.392 / Virus Database: 268.6.0/341 - Release Date: 16/05/2006


body:
On 5/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hell, just create a tag called "ok for linking" and people can set it
> on a case by case basis when needed, evaluating the arguments. But I
> don't honestly see much difference between saying "Only link if the
> image doesn't require easily accessible attribution, and be honest"
> and saying "You can only link if the image has been set with this tag,
> and be honest when you set it".

There is a huge difference between ignorance and malice. "Oh I see how
to get an image to do what I want.. lets just add this option tada!"
or "I'll flip every possible knob until I get the result I desire" is
vastly different from "Hey, lets screw over those wikipedia folks".

We need the right infrastructure to quickly locate usage, and the
handy information needed to evaluate that usage. Ideally we'd also
like a system thats hard to accidentally abuse... where people won't
just copy some other image link and create a copyright problem. This
is where set this tag makes sense, because it's a place where we can
include BIG BOLD TEXT that explains when you can and can not set the
tag.

I don't care what exact form the tools take as long as they are sufficient.

I'd be satisfied with a solution which stored an attribute in the
imagelinks table that indicates when the link is a 'no copyright
details' link, so long as that was coupled with a transcluded tag via
policy it would be simple enough to run a daily query which reported
the newly no-attribution-tag-needed tagged image and images used
without attribution without the tag.. And then from that data send
flaming bot death^W^W^W polite re-education to people using it in the
wrong places.

I'm sure you think that I'm being stubborn expecting there to be
problems with this... but I am speaking from experience. We've had
huge problems with people using non-free images as decorations on
their user pages, and those images are easy to detect (i.e. already
meet all the criteria I'm asking for here)... but when there are
hundreds added in a week it can be hard to keep up.


from_name: Roger Luethi

body:
On Tue, 16 May 2006 16:30:15 -0400, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> I can NOT emphasize this enough.
>
> There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of
> random speculative "I heard it somewhere" pseudo information is to be
> tagged with a "needs a cite" tag.  Wrong.  It should be removed,
> aggressively, unless it can be sourced.  This is true of all
> information, but it is particularly true of negative information about

I cannot agree with such a general statement that encompasses "all
information".

It is worth noting that the German WP is quite successful while _not_
sourcing information the way the English one does.

Compare the featured articles of the past few days and you will find that
typical English FAs contain several dozen footnotes and German FAs have
just "Literatur" sections [1].

Random speculation and hearsay is usually stated as fact -- few editors
start by saying "I heard somewhere that ...". Many if not most claims in WP
are not specifically sourced. If we removed all unsourced information
because we can't tell the difference between unsourced and untrue, we would
lose a good portion of the useful content in WP.

Roger

[1] They appear to be in constant violation of their own guide that looks
    very much like [[WP:CITE]] (stating, among other thing: "Wichtige oder
    strittige Aussagen sollten detailliert in Form von Einzelnachweisen
    belegt werden."). Even the recent FA on the death penalty
    ([[de:Todesstrafe]]) doesn't contain any important or disputed claims
    that would need to be sourced individually. Or so it seems.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Suggestion for standards for contributions to
	articles

body:
Rob Church wrote:
>"Must define topic far enough to allow for further expansion, without
>containing libel or obvious bias or overemphasis of opinion. Must not
>infringe copyrights."

That's fine - "POV" was my shorthand.

>> "Start" class:
>> Information must in all likelihood have been published somewhere, even
>> if a source is not immediately known.

>At least one reference would be nice, even if it's a generic source
>for the whole stub or whatever.

The consequences of making that a requirement is that any "start" article
without a source would have to be automatically deemed to be a "stub". You
see what I'm getting at?

>On the whole, I like the idea of some sort of rating system, but I do
>fear it would add to the administrivia. Question is, can we afford not
>to review our work? Answer: no.

I think rating systems are inevitable and there several different mechanisms
seem to be on the horizon. I'm suggesting that we use them to *enforce*
quality standards. "Your contribution is not acceptable for an article of
quality FA-class - it absolutely definitely needs a footnote."

Steve (who just changed email addresses, in case anyone is confused)


body:
On 5/17/06, Joe Anderson <computerjoe.mailinglist at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> I didn't subscribe back then. No need to be uncivil.

Oh, sorry, didn't mean that as an attack on you - the whole discussion seems
to have started up again with no reference to the previous one. It was a bit
trippy.

No incivility intended!

Steve


from_name: Rob Church

subject: [Wikitech-l] Vandalism from tor anonymity network

body:
On 17/05/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/17/06, Jan Kulveit <jk-wikitech at ks.cz> wrote:
> > I've noticed some vandalism on cswiki proxied through
> > tor (http://tor.eff.org/) routers. Any ideas how to
> > deal with it some other way than blocking addresses
> > one-by-one?
>
> The TOR software automatically maintains a database of all exits.
>
> We could create an extension for automatic blocking based on this
> data... or just a bot that would perform blocks/unblocks.  As far as
> I'm aware no one has done this. If someone does, please don't block
> non-exit nodes... they can't be used to reach Wikimedia via TOR and
> will block a lot of people unnecessarily (I'm making a point of
> mentioning this because Wikinews has done so in the past).
>
> Until we have the software support to create blocks which only inhibit
> new accounts and anon edits, I don't see a huge incentive to create
> special support for TOR.

What's quite interesting is that after I announced I'd be working on
replacing the blocking mechanism over this spring and summer, I got an
email from someone involved with Tor et al. suggesting we collaborate.
At the time, I hadn't finalised in my head exactly how everything was
going to work. If I can dig up the email and get the sender's
permission, I'll forward it to the list and/or interested parties and
we could consider a bigger collaboration.

Rob Church


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion before discussion

body:
On 5/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/17/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I'm afaraid we don't allow "with permission" images.
>
> Even in userspace? Was that an intentional decision? Does it apply when
> people upload photos of themselves?

Under current policy: even in userspace, intentionally, and it matters
even for personal pictures.

There have been proposals to change that, but none adopted.  I suspect
changing our rules as to licensing of content would have to go through
the Foundation, anyway, rather than simply being up for vote on
en.Wikipedia.

-Matt


subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
On 5/17/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:
>
> I'm personally going to see to it that most of [[User:Kingstonjr]]
> becomes a collection of dead links.

Aren't there better ways to go about achieving that though? Maybe involving
censure, stern warnings, blocks etc?

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Encyclopaedia article, review, news story?

body:
On May 17, 2006, at 3:24 PM, Rob wrote:

> I doubt I'd reduce the material, but I would restructure the article
> to be about the entire event, not just SC's appearance.  Replace
> "Stephen Colbert" with "Ashlee Simpson" and you'll get an idea of why
> I feel uneasy about the article as is.

Ashlee Simpson did not satirize the President of the United States to
his face on national television.

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


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 5/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/17/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
>
> > Right now I don't see that we have a "culture of referencing" in
> > the same way that we have a "culture of completeness" organized
> > around lists of missing articles, or a "culture of image tagging"
> > that has become fairly effective at searching out and destroying
> > bad uploads. For instance, my own library is in some areas better
> > than what most universities have, yet I have no idea if there are
> > articles that need me to go pull a book off the shelf, check the
> > claims, and type in the reference if OK. I could also imagine a
> > future culture where an unsupported claim is handled like an
> > untagged image, and gets a seven-day grace period before being
> > reverted. As with images, good faith is helped along by having
> > a bit of incentive and punishment.
>
>
> Right. And why is that? Because referencing is hard. Finding good sources is
> generally difficult, and takes time and effort. And it doesn't have that
> same neat, orderly feel about it that attracts people to tasks like filling
> in red links, stub sorting or categorising. It takes all sorts to make
> Wikipedia work, but frankly, we need a lot more of the people that like
> finding sources on random subjects and researching them, to make Wikipedia
> meet its goals.
>
I actually don't think finding good sources or referencing is
particularly hard, it just isn't very well suited to the current wiki
software.  When writing an academic paper finding sources and writing
the actual text is two separate steps.  Wikis jumble the two very
different steps into one.

How to address that at this point, without upsetting everything (and
everyone), is a very difficult question to answer.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] Is this overciting?

body:
On 5/17/06, Thomas Voghera <thomasvoghera at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> What about Google Earth pins?

I just checked Google Maps and its coverage in that area is very bad. I've
got some GPS coords but will add more.

Steve


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion before discussion

body:
Rob wrote:

>On 5/17/06, Ben McIlwain <cydeweys at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Steve Bennett wrote:
>>
>>>On 5/17/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>I'm afaraid we don't allow "with permission" images.
>>>>
>>>Even in userspace? Was that an intentional decision? Does it apply when
>>>people upload photos of themselves?
>>>
>>/Especially/ in userspace (in articles you can at least make a case for
>>fair use).  And people had better be uploading those pictures of
>>themselves under free licenses such as GFDL, CC, or PD.
>>
>
>Why?
>
>
Presumably for the same reason that the text on your user page is GFDL.

Stan


subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
On 5/17/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:
>
>
> Tagging and removal of copyright violations takes priority over beatings
> with the cluebat, unless the offender actively tries to resist the
> removal.  So far, the process is working.
>

Heh. I'm picturing the offender wandering along creating more copyvios while
you sneak along cleaning up the old ones. One solid whack with the cluebat
then puts the offender to sleep for a few minutes until you catch up with
him...

Steve


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Template:spoiler

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 5/17/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>> I still hate that damn template.  At the very least I think most would
>> agree that it is overused.
>
> You can't hate it until you've read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everyone_poops
>
> Now you can hate it.
>

Ouch. The article linked from "see also" is just as bad, even though
there's no spoiler warning:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_training

It reads like a narrative and smells like a copyvio...

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

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body:
On 5/17/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> And how do we tell that the image is "GFDL without requested attribution?".

By looking at the image description and seeing if they request attribution?

> ... This will be a nightmare to police, and I don't see how we can
> easily get the software to enforce it.

So is getting people not to upload copyrighted images, a far greater
problem. There are many things we can't enforce. This seems a trivial
problem.

> Also, I've been checking, and many of these navigation icons have
> attribution requirements. Most seem to be LGPLed, taken from varrious
> free software packages.

What are their requirements? "Must show the following text when
clicked upon?" There are lots of other ways of providing attribution
information.

You really, really don't want MediaWiki to allow linkable images?

Steve


body:
Thanks Steve!

On 5/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 5/17/06, Joe Anderson <computerjoe.mailinglist at googlemail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I didn't subscribe back then. No need to be uncivil.
>
>
>
> Oh, sorry, didn't mean that as an attack on you - the whole discussion
> seems
> to have started up again with no reference to the previous one. It was a
> bit
> trippy.
>
> No incivility intended!
>
> 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
>

--
Joe Anderson

[[User:Computerjoe]] on en, fr, de, simple, Meta and Commons.


subject: [Wikitech-l] nofollow in user: space

body:
On 5/17/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> As Ilmari suggested, let's not complicate the issue too much.
> Let's get nofollow turned off *now* (it really does seem like a
> no-brainer, even for the main namespace), then worry about noindex.

Yes. Who is able to do this?

Steve


from_name: Rob

body:
On 5/16/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of
> random speculative "I heard it somewhere" pseudo information is to be
> tagged with a "needs a cite" tag.  Wrong.  It should be removed,
> aggressively, unless it can be sourced.  This is true of all
> information, but it is particularly true of negative information about
> living persons.

The problem is that POV warriors are starting to adopt this as one of
their tactics.  They are removing information that is easily provable
with a quick google search because it is unsourced, and of course they
refuse to lift a finger to do any work providing references
themselves.  The most egregious example of this I've witnessed is the
removal of the Cheney/Leahy exchange (Dick_cheney#Rebuilding_of_Iraq)
on the grounds that it was temporarily unsourced.  Does anyone
seriously doubt that this happened?  Of course it's simple enough to
counter this edit warring with digging up references, but when edit
warriors are removing entire sections of articles at a time and you're
already working on a dozen articles at once and no one is answering
your RfC request, something is going to get lost in the shuffle and
the accuracy and neutrality of WP will suffer as a result.  I view the
{{fact}} tag as the equivalent of the {{hang on}] tag: don't delete
this until I've gotten a chance to look up the references in a couple
hours/during my lunch break/sometime soon.  Of course they shouldn't
stay unsourced indefinitely, and anything horrifically inflammatory
like the Seigenthaler/JFK claim should be removed immediately, but in
practice it's giving an advantage to the edit warriors.


body:
On 5/17/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert_at_the_2006_White_House_Correspondents%27_Association_Dinner
>
> Is it *really* sufficiently independently notable to justify a
> separate article?  I mean, it's a nicely written article, but it reads
> like a review.  I can't make it out.  What am I missing?

An article on the dinner itself I can understand, but this is a bit much.


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] GFDL lawsuits - who can sue?

body:
On 5/17/06, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> > Thanks for the link.  I was unaware of this particular law.
> >
> > The law you point out seems to be written as a law against society,
> > with the fine going to the government.
>
> That pesky government.  It's not like they exist for the good of
> society, collecting money to provide for the betterment of society.  God
> save us from government, return us to serfdom.

Having a government doesn't mean you aren't a serf -- serfdom was
state policy of Russia until 1861 (and, lest the Americans feel
superior, forget not that chattel slavery was legal in many US states
until 1865). And let's not even bring up the near-century of a mafia
state under the Soviet Union! Governance isn't what keeps us from
being slaves, and not all laws are sacred, and not all fines are
useful. As I'm sure you'd agree.

FF


body:
On 5/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:

> >the accuracy and neutrality of WP will suffer as a result.  I view the
> >{{fact}} tag as the equivalent of the {{hang on}] tag: don't delete
>
> Not as a "I seriously question this" tag?

Fair enough, I've used it in that sense as well.  But the edit
warriors I was complaining about were clearly not expressing any doubt
about the material and weren't using the tag in that way.


body:
On 5/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/18/06, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > An article on the dinner itself I can understand, but this is a bit much.
>
>
> Would you significantly reduce the material about this comedian in such an
> article? Why? I definitely learnt something worth learning while reading it.
> Sort of a demonstration that something must be notable if there is that much
> verifiable information about it, no?

I doubt I'd reduce the material, but I would restructure the article
to be about the entire event, not just SC's appearance.  Replace
"Stephen Colbert" with "Ashlee Simpson" and you'll get an idea of why
I feel uneasy about the article as is.


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Historical debates

body:
On 17/05/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> The inclusion/exclusion debate over schools (2004/5?) was pretty
> significant, and to a lesser extent the various ancillary notability
> debates. (It also had some really annoying knock-on effects I wish
> we'd seen at the time...)

additionally - page titles in American vs. Commonwealth English or in
historic vs. current local name; why "Danzig/Gdansk" or
"petrol/gasoline" are now shorthand for nastiness.

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


from_name: Will "Sceptre" Noble

body:
On 5/17/06, Harish Ganesan <kamehameha87 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> He is being excessively unfair. Not only is he fully
> biased, he is simply blocking me again and again, and
> giving vandalism a free pass on the Steve Nash page.
> He has blocked me again for the second time in two
> days, now because I made some edits, and now he is
> citing edit warring. He needs to notice that the
> people deleting and vandalizing everything i posted
> are edit warring also.  I want this guy off Wikipedia.
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

Read the 3RR page please. Request denied

--
-Sceptre
http://tintower.co.uk


from_name: geni

body:
On 5/17/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
> there's still no effective way of getting rid of things like the mess
> at [[Category:Fair use magazine covers]].

I've made some progress there although it does involve rule lawyering
the heck out the orphan fair use rule.
--
geni


subject:
[WikiEN-l] 7. Re: Zero information is preferred to misleading
	or false

body:
On May 17, 2006, at 6:33 PM, Earthhope Action Network wrote:

>  I'm stillt wondering. I am an editor, who has been blocked
> indefinitely
> from editing on Wikipedia and never had any RfC, ArbCom, mediation,
> or any
> dispute resolution at all. Never.
> Just wondering why this was. And also wondering why my unblock
> request was
> removed. Will you please just answer these  questions. Your answer to
> unblock request move and the entire process didn't cut it I'm
> afraid. Policy
> is being broken. I Never had Any Mediation or Any dispute
> Resolution. Every
> single thing the admins did was done in direct violation of
> Wikipedia Policy

I've been here for two years. So have many of the people on this
list. I think we know Wikipedia policy better than you.

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


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] Is this overciting?

body:
On 5/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:

> I would like to hear from people whether they consider this level of
> footnoting excessive, about right, deficient etc.

The level is not a problem. I tend to agree that there's no such thing
as overciting, though I'm sure someone will eventually WP:POINT out an
exception to that rule. As you say, the problem is more with the
nature of the sources used. Much of the article is currently sourced
to a web site called "Megalithic Walks" which is only attributed to
"Graham and Angela" and which does not, itself, cite sources.

However, citing such amateur websites is perfectly fine -- it's
basically one step above "citation needed" and tells other editors
that it would be nice to have a more authoritative source for the
claim (and also that it's OK to remove it if it is in dispute).

Erik


from_name: Philip Welch

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion before discussion

body:
On May 17, 2006, at 2:59 PM, Steve Bennett wrote:

> Even in userspace? Was that an intentional decision? Does it apply
> when
> people upload photos of themselves?

People should release photos of themselves under GFDL or CC-BY-SA if
they upload them. If they aren't the original photographer they
should not upload other people's copyrighted photos to Wikipedia.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Is this overciting?

body:
On 5/17/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I would like to hear from people whether they consider this level of
> > footnoting excessive, about right, deficient etc.
>
> The level is not a problem. I tend to agree that there's no such thing
> as overciting, though I'm sure someone will eventually WP:POINT out an
> exception to that rule.

I did provide three cites for one factoid once. The person I was in a
disspute with still tried to challange it though.

--
geni


body:
On 5/17/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> On May 17, 2006, at 3:24 PM, Rob wrote:
>
> > I doubt I'd reduce the material, but I would restructure the article
> > to be about the entire event, not just SC's appearance.  Replace
> > "Stephen Colbert" with "Ashlee Simpson" and you'll get an idea of why
> > I feel uneasy about the article as is.
>
> Ashlee Simpson did not satirize the President of the United States to
> his face on national television.

She's young, there's still time.


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

body:
On Wed, 17 May 2006 11:04:55 -0700 (PDT), you wrote:

>He is being excessively unfair. Not only is he fully
>biased, he is simply blocking me again and again, and
>giving vandalism a free pass on the Steve Nash page.
>He has blocked me again for the second time in two
>days, now because I made some edits, and now he is
>citing edit warring. He needs to notice that the
>people deleting and vandalizing everything i posted
>are edit warring also.  I want this guy off Wikipedia.

Yet more "rouge admin abuse".  WP:ROUGE applies, as ever.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion before discussion

body:
On May 17, 2006, at 4:52 PM, Rob wrote:

> If I ever wanted to put a pic of myself or my kids on WP, I wouldn't
> want to release it under a free (or free-ish) license so every troll I
> block for vandalism could put my family on their webpage.  Of course,
> they can already do that, but not legally, for what it's worth.

Sounds like putting a pic of yourself on Wikipedia is not for you.

On May 17, 2006, at 6:24 PM, Rob wrote:
>
>> If you don't want trolls using your family photos then you
>> shouldn't be
>> posting them on Wikipedia in the first place.  Our licensing policies
>> are non-negotiable.
>
> They should be for articles, of course, but I don't see a compelling
> reason why they should be for userspace.

By the site's design and architecture, anything  on it, including
images, can be changed, deleted, altered, replaced, etc. by anyone.
The reason for PD/GFDL/CC is that without these measures, it would be
illegal to use the wiki process on, say, your userpage.

My userpage is copyright me, but released under GFDL. It is, in
design, a derivative work of Talrias's userpage, which is copyright
him but released under GFDL. Without GFDL, I couldn't steal Talrias's
user page design.

A couple people have added pirate jokes to my userpage. Again, the
revisions they submitted are copyright them, derivative works of my
revisions under the GFDL. Wikipedia works the same way everywhere as
it does here due to technical convenience?if userspace wasn't free
content, it would have to be locked and protected from everyone
except the user whose userpage it is. This isn't even desirable, and
even if it was, it would waste valuable developer time and resources.

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


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 5/17/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:

> Right now I don't see that we have a "culture of referencing" in
> the same way that we have a "culture of completeness" organized
> around lists of missing articles, or a "culture of image tagging"
> that has become fairly effective at searching out and destroying
> bad uploads. For instance, my own library is in some areas better
> than what most universities have, yet I have no idea if there are
> articles that need me to go pull a book off the shelf, check the
> claims, and type in the reference if OK. I could also imagine a
> future culture where an unsupported claim is handled like an
> untagged image, and gets a seven-day grace period before being
> reverted. As with images, good faith is helped along by having
> a bit of incentive and punishment.

Right. And why is that? Because referencing is hard. Finding good sources is
generally difficult, and takes time and effort. And it doesn't have that
same neat, orderly feel about it that attracts people to tasks like filling
in red links, stub sorting or categorising. It takes all sorts to make
Wikipedia work, but frankly, we need a lot more of the people that like
finding sources on random subjects and researching them, to make Wikipedia
meet its goals.

It would probably be fair to say that there are a small number of people who
contribute significant amounts of material, an even smaller number that do
it outside their narrow fields of interest, but a much larger number who
categorise, order, shape, copy edit, structure and so forth.

If anyone knows how to get more of these people that we need (yes, we're
basically talking about university undergrads or grads, or even possible
retired academics...), it would be worth sharing them.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion before discussion

body:
On 5/17/06, Katie (keitei) <katiefromuncyc at gmail.com> wrote:
> However, what's done is done, but I'd like this to be sorted out. As
> far as I know, if the copyright holder explicitly says that the image
> may be used on userpages and userboxes, then WP:FUC shouldn't apply
> (in that area). I don't wish to force Rc to relicense the image,
> although it seems to me that if he had been uploading the image, he
> might have stated the license differently. Once this is explicitly
> stated or whatever needs doing, someone needs to re-add all the images
> that were removed.
>

I'm afaraid we don't allow "with permission" images.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Is this overciting?

body:
On 5/17/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The level is not a problem. I tend to agree that there's no such thing
> as overciting, though I'm sure someone will eventually WP:POINT out an
> exception to that rule. As you say, the problem is more with the
> nature of the sources used. Much of the article is currently sourced
> to a web site called "Megalithic Walks" which is only attributed to
> "Graham and Angela" and which does not, itself, cite sources.
>
> However, citing such amateur websites is perfectly fine -- it's
> basically one step above "citation needed" and tells other editors
> that it would be nice to have a more authoritative source for the
> claim (and also that it's OK to remove it if it is in dispute).

Yes, I feel that for a reader, knowing that the information that a given
stone circle is 23 metres wide came from an amateur website is a hell of a
lot more useful than just being told "this stone circle is 23 metres wide".
However I still have two unresolved problems:
a) How to elegantly express the fact that two different sources have
contradicting accounts. Do I write: This stone circle is 23 [1] or 28 [2]
metres wide, and ... or do I actually have to incorporate the metadata about
the sources into the body: The size of the stone circle is reported
differently in different accounts, as being either 23 [1] or 28 [2]
metres...
b) How to elegantly express the fact that I simply don't know something
which is pertinent. Wikipedia does not have a narrator's voice. A newspaper
might say "The Age was unable to determine the man's name", and a book or
blog might simply use "I". I feel it's misleading to say "The origins of the
rock are unknown" when surely someone *does* know them - but we (I) don't.

Steve


from_name: maru dubshinki

subject: [WikiEN-l] GFDL lawsuits - who can sue?

body:
On 5/17/06, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> > Thanks for the link. I was unaware of this particular law.
> >
> > The law you point out seems to be written as a law against society,
> > with the fine going to the government.
>
> That pesky government. It's not like they exist for the good of
> society, collecting money to provide for the betterment of society. God
> save us from government, return us to serfdom.

At least in feudal societies one doesn't have to worry about copyright.

~maru
the oppression of the master as opposed to that of the lawy3r? Worth
considering...


from_name: Ben McIlwain

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion before discussion

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

Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 5/17/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I'm afaraid we don't allow "with permission" images.
>
> Even in userspace? Was that an intentional decision? Does it apply when
> people upload photos of themselves?

/Especially/ in userspace (in articles you can at least make a case for
fair use).  And people had better be uploading those pictures of
themselves under free licenses such as GFDL, CC, or PD.

- --
Ben McIlwain ("Cyde Weys")

~ Sub veste quisque nudus est ~
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subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
On 5/17/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
>
> On May 17, 2006, at 3:50 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
> > What's "emo"?
>
> {{pov}}
>
> Emo is a widely-mocked youth subculture that's all about venting
> depression and angst (particularly over the internet), often via
> poetry of questionable literary merit. Like most youth subcultures,
> it started from a musical genre of equally questionable artistic merit.
>
> --
> Philip L. Welch
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

And they can show transvestitistic traits (is transvestitistic a word,
even?)
--
-Sceptre
http://tintower.co.uk


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] [WikiEN-l] Tearing down the Chinese Firewall

body:
On 5/17/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> HTTPS does not protect anonymity for editors. Neither does Tor.
> Low-latency encryption methods suffer a common flaw: an attacker
> can correlate timestamps and message lengths with the size and posting
> time of an edit. With ordinary HTTPS you can also correlate the
> destination address. You could almost say that encryption is useless for
> sending data which will be public 200ms after it arrives.
>
The biggest vulnerability of Tor is when the attacker is able to
observe both endpoints.  Assuming the Chinese government is not able
to do this, mere timestamps (accurate to the second) and message
lengths are unlikely to be enough to correlate if there's even just a
little bit of cover traffic (assuming the user is logged in and the
Chinese govt doesn't have CheckUser access).  Tor sends multiple TCP
streams through the same outgoing connections, so an observer at the
client endpoint wouldn't know the size of the message if there are
other TCP streams going at the same time.

That said, I doubt it's perfectly safe to run Tor in China in the first place.

Anthony


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
On 5/17/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Rob Church wrote:
>
> >On 17/05/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>I can see a lot of administrators getting pretty worried if you
> >>persistently retained a statement of personal opinion similar to the
> >>one you gave above on a page anywhere in Wikipedia.
> >>
> >>
> >Worried? I can see a lot of them jumping to block.
> >
> I'm not particularly concerned about such comments about a political
> figure on a user page; it says a lot about that user in very concise terms.
>
> Nevertheless, I would be more concerned about the uneven application of
> such a policy to one end of the political spectrum only.
>

Oh that old canard.  Policy is enforced by a large collection of
individual administrators, so it is always going to be uneven.  That's
no excuse not to enforce policy.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion before discussion

body:
On 5/17/06, Ben McIlwain <cydeweys at gmail.com> wrote:

> Steve Bennett wrote:
> > On 5/17/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> I'm afaraid we don't allow "with permission" images.
> >
> > Even in userspace? Was that an intentional decision? Does it apply when
> > people upload photos of themselves?
>
> /Especially/ in userspace (in articles you can at least make a case for
> fair use).  And people had better be uploading those pictures of
> themselves under free licenses such as GFDL, CC, or PD.

Why?

If I ever wanted to put a pic of myself or my kids on WP, I wouldn't
want to release it under a free (or free-ish) license so every troll I
block for vandalism could put my family on their webpage.  Of course,
they can already do that, but not legally, for what it's worth.


body:
On 5/17/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's harder to do with this...  We have to constantly fight against
> the fact that many people's instincts WRT copyright tell them to do
> the wrong thing.  "I made this screenshot of the starwars movie, I own
> the copyright, and I release it into the public domain".

IMHO this is not likely to be such a big problem. As many have pointed
out, linkable images are likely to be very rarely used outside the
article space. If they're abused, we can deal with the problem them.

> The attribution requirements differ somewhat from license to license
> but overall we're in a good position if the attribution and license
> data (it's not just attribution btw, the majority of copyleft licenses
> require you to tell the recipient what license it's under) is
> 1) Easily and obviously accessable, not obscured or hidden

Well we've suggested ways of doing this.

> > You really, really don't want MediaWiki to allow linkable images?
>
> Excuse me?
> I really want us to have linkable images which we can actually use,
> i.e. ones that don't create copyright problems.

I feel that you're throwing an un-necessarily wet blanket on this.
Having formed that opinion, I'll shut up about it now.

> Shall I say "You really, really don't want to behave legally and
> ethically in regard to the content we've taken from others?"  and
> complete the cycle of pointless accusations?

If you like.

Steve


body:
On 5/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/17/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> >
> > I actually don't think finding good sources or referencing is
> > particularly hard, it just isn't very well suited to the current wiki
> > software.  When writing an academic paper finding sources and writing
> > the actual text is two separate steps.  Wikis jumble the two very
> > different steps into one.
>
>
> <elitist>
> I believe it's hard for the "average person". Anyone who hasn't been to
> university is pretty unlikely to suddenly develop research skills and the
> ability to go to a library and look up journal articles.
> </elitist>
>
Nowadays you don't even have to go to a library to look up journal
articles.  Wikipedians must be getting the information they put into
articles from somewhere, and I find it hard to believe that more than
a miniscule portion of it is straight from their memory.

The ad hoc system in place now is completely backwards.  You're
supposed to get your sources first, *then* write the article.  Believe
it or not I'm completely in agreement with Jimbo that unsourced
material should not be in Wikipedia articles.  But just telling people
to do a better job or "be kicked out of the project just for being
lousy writers" is not a very productive way of achieving that.

Anthony


from_name: Rob Church

body:
On 17/05/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 17 May 2006 11:04:55 -0700 (PDT), you wrote:
>
> >He is being excessively unfair. Not only is he fully
> >biased, he is simply blocking me again and again, and
> >giving vandalism a free pass on the Steve Nash page.
> >He has blocked me again for the second time in two
> >days, now because I made some edits, and now he is
> >citing edit warring. He needs to notice that the
> >people deleting and vandalizing everything i posted
> >are edit warring also.  I want this guy off Wikipedia.
>
> Yet more "rouge admin abuse".  WP:ROUGE applies, as ever.

WP:RAUL

"Rob Church's first law: There is no smoke without fire. There is no
cry of unilateralism without an action rooted in common sense."

Rob Church


from_name: James D. Forrester

subject: [WikiEN-l] Is this overciting?

body:
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Steve Bennett wrote:

> Somewhat in response to Jimbo's post, I thought I'd offer an example
> of an article I've been working on, which has a massive number of
> footnotes.

[Snip]

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnac_stones

I see your 27 references and raise you 34 - [[Andrew Adonis, Baron
Adonis]] (very much needs many more references, though).

Yours sincerely,
- --
James D. Forrester
Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]
E-Mail    : james at jdforrester.org
IM (MSN)  : jamesdforrester at hotmail.com
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body:
On 5/17/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Not constrained. We provide a list, it's no where near inclusive. So
> it's not quite that simple, but yes we can test for certian things
> like that. But we would also need a way of findind which images are
> inlined in this matter. Walking a million articles isn't acceptable.
> :)

Hell, just create a tag called "ok for linking" and people can set it
on a case by case basis when needed, evaluating the arguments. But I
don't honestly see much difference between saying "Only link if the
image doesn't require easily accessible attribution, and be honest"
and saying "You can only link if the image has been set with this tag,
and be honest when you set it".

Steve


from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

body:
On Wed, May 17, 2006 at 02:22:18PM -0400, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> Show us working code and the discussion can continue, right now this
> all appears to be hand-waving and speculation to me... and no
> compelling argument has been made why I should spend my time
> implementing anything discussed here.

It's my turn to have gotten lost, since I (re-)started the thread.

Was some good reason put forth why the Image Credits link/tab proposal
was *unacceptable*, cause it seemed like a perfectly serviceable
approach to me:

If a user clicks through to it, thumbnail up a 50x50px thumb for
everything larger than that, and show the name and creator, with the
image the traditional link-to-the-image-page.

That specific approach might create load issues, if care isn't taken
about whether such pages would get spidered, but I suspect URL games
could be played to preclude that.

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274

     A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
     Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?

     A: Top-posting.
     Q: What is the most annoying thing on Usenet and in e-mail?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion before discussion

body:
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Rob wrote:
> On 5/17/06, Ben McIlwain <cydeweys at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Steve Bennett wrote:
>>> On 5/17/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> I'm afaraid we don't allow "with permission" images.
>>> Even in userspace? Was that an intentional decision? Does it apply when
>>> people upload photos of themselves?
>> /Especially/ in userspace (in articles you can at least make a case for
>> fair use).  And people had better be uploading those pictures of
>> themselves under free licenses such as GFDL, CC, or PD.
>
> Why?
>
> If I ever wanted to put a pic of myself or my kids on WP, I wouldn't
> want to release it under a free (or free-ish) license so every troll I
> block for vandalism could put my family on their webpage.  Of course,
> they can already do that, but not legally, for what it's worth.

If you don't want trolls using your family photos then you shouldn't be
posting them on Wikipedia in the first place.  Our licensing policies
are non-negotiable.

- --
Ben McIlwain ("Cyde Weys")

~ Sub veste quisque nudus est ~
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Template:spoiler

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> On 5/17/06, Elisabeth Bauer <elian at djini.de> wrote:
>> Anthony DiPierro schrieb:
>>> So can we please please get rid of [[template:spoiler]] while we're at it?
>> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meinungsbilder/Spoilerhinweis
>> 17 supporters, 81 people voting contra and 29 against even posing the
>> question for an encyclopedia.
>>
> Even the Google-translated version of that vote makes about as much
> sense to me as the English vote (which is, not at all).  "Property me
> the spoiler references in the English Wikipedia looked at and feels
> you as additional information. So white I at the beginning whether in
> the text a possible tensionful action is uncovered or not."
>
> Heh, sorry, I can't even figure out what the people are voting for and
> against, though I do find it disappointing that De Wikipedians vote in
> the first place (and apparently without even apologizing about it like
> the En Wikipedians do).
>

de: also has a cabal. On en: TINC.

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

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from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
On 5/17/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Inforceing that one could be interesting. The effect of deleting
>
> [[User:Kingstonjr]]
> [[User:Hashbrowns]]
> [[User:Markaci/Nudity]]
> [[User:Cyde/Weird pictures]]
> (seriously NSFW)
>
> is unlikey to involve people acting calmly. At least going by the
> normal reaction of the various wikipedia is not censored groups.

Can anyone explain to me why those pages arn't not just huge WP:POINT
violations? They serve no other point than to make the point that
wikipedia is not censored, and they are disruptive in doing it. Thus
"disrupting wikipedia to prove a point". These pages should be nuked
on sight.

--Oskar


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion before discussion

body:
On 5/17/06, Ben McIlwain <cydeweys at gmail.com> wrote:

> If you don't want trolls using your family photos then you shouldn't be
> posting them on Wikipedia in the first place.  Our licensing policies
> are non-negotiable.

They should be for articles, of course, but I don't see a compelling
reason why they should be for userspace.


from_name: Drini drini

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion before discussion

body:
EXCEPT... that Wikipedia is not your personal blog nor a free webhost
(**Official policy** at [[WP:NOT]] ). Userspace IS SUPPOSED to be
relted to your wikipedia work, not to post pictures of your family.
If you misuse it, don't cry about it later.
And , do you really think vandals will care about the copyright? they
WILL get the pictures and post them anyway.

Wikipedia IS AN ENCYCLOPEDIA not an scrapbook, but there's plenty of
sites where you can put your family pictures if you like

On 5/17/06, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 5/17/06, Ben McIlwain <cydeweys at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Steve Bennett wrote:
> > > On 5/17/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >> I'm afaraid we don't allow "with permission" images.
> > >
> > > Even in userspace? Was that an intentional decision? Does it apply
> when
> > > people upload photos of themselves?
> >
> > /Especially/ in userspace (in articles you can at least make a case for
> > fair use).  And people had better be uploading those pictures of
> > themselves under free licenses such as GFDL, CC, or PD.
>
> Why?
>
> If I ever wanted to put a pic of myself or my kids on WP, I wouldn't
> want to release it under a free (or free-ish) license so every troll I
> block for vandalism could put my family on their webpage.  Of course,
> they can already do that, but not legally, for what it's worth.
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Earthhope Action Network

body:
Message: 1
Date: Wed, 17 May 2006 22:46:24 +1000
From: Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] 7. Re: Zero information is preferred to misleading
or false

G'day Margie,

> Erik Moeller said: RfC, ArbCom, mediation, etc. - makes it all work.
>
> I'm just wondering. I am an editor, who. while never accused of lousy
> writing, has been blocked indefinitely from editing on Wikipedia and never
> had any RfC, ArbCom, mediation, or any dispute resolution at all. Never.
> Just wondering why this was. And also wondering why my unblock request was
> removed, and why my last blocker BunchofGrapes blocked my email so that I
 Mark Gallagher Re: your long uninformed rant.

All you just proved was your unwillingness to see anything but what the
group of nasty admins and others like the depraved SwatJester. I don't have
to listen to your insults any more than you have to listen to mine. The
difference between you and me is that I would never advocate punitive
actions to soothe my wounded feelings. You would and do. Also editors are
terrified to speak their mind, the ones that would defend me for fear of the
axe coming down on them next. Corbin Simpson did speak up for me. He was
lucky they didn't block him.  Please see the rfa oppose section on
Swatjester's rfc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Swatjester
Either that or you are just another example of one who is susceptible to
groupthink which is no thought at all. BTW is it okay for admins to refer to
kids as turds?

Bishonen told me my remarks to an editor John Kinney were obscene, the
(beginning or our personal and mutual dislike.) Here is Geogre calling
children turds (to Bishonen)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bishonen/Archive_14#Haymarket.2C_etc.

+:Oh, and for comparison, see the history tab on Attalus I. It has been
vandalized even more than yours was. I think, when it's an interesting
story, the turds vandalize it less. The 11 year olds ''clearly'' don't like
Attalus I. ("You must be this tall to ride the Wikipedia.")
[[User:Geogre|Geogre]] 21:06, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I could go on and on here , but rather than waste my time.. How about this
atfq if you would just answer the fucking question(s).

> Erik Moeller said: RfC, ArbCom, mediation, etc. - makes it all work.
>
 I'm stillt wondering. I am an editor, who has been blocked indefinitely
from editing on Wikipedia and never had any RfC, ArbCom, mediation, or any
dispute resolution at all. Never.
Just wondering why this was. And also wondering why my unblock request was
removed. Will you please just answer these  questions. Your answer to
unblock request move and the entire process didn't cut it I'm afraid. Policy
is being broken. I Never had Any Mediation or Any dispute Resolution. Every
single thing the admins did was done in direct violation of Wikipedia Policy

--
in peace and justice for the wildthings, Margie Laupheimer
http://earthhopenetwork.net/


subject:
[WikiEN-l] William M. Connolley- He wrote about the edit wars
	but it makes no sense!!!!!!!!!

body:
On Wed, 17 May 2006 12:30:24 -0700 (PDT), you wrote:

>Why? Because the other wikipedians are vandalizing and
>deleting ALL THE FACTS I WRITE that completely RELATE
>TO THE SUBJECT. I did not do anything wrong this time,
>but he is upset by the info I post. I am steaming
>about this. He is a horrible admin.

No, admins are just the janitors.  The solution is to click the
"Discussion" tab and engage the other editors in civil and
constructive debate.  It might take a bit of getting used to.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
On Wed, 17 May 2006 06:39:15 -0700, you wrote:

>I'm personally going to see to it that most of [[User:Kingstonjr]]
>becomes a collection of dead links.

Yup.  Pages like those serve a useful purpose, in that almost every
image turns out to be a copyvio of some sort (Cyde's probably being an
exception).  I note that the Vargas pictures have all been asserted as
free on the grounds that someone else violated the copyright first
(not stated in those terms, of course).  It's good that the people who
do this are vain as well as stupid ;-)

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


from_name: Steve Block

subject: [WikiEN-l] GFDL lawsuits - who can sue?

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> Thanks for the link.  I was unaware of this particular law.
>
> The law you point out seems to be written as a law against society,
> with the fine going to the government.

That pesky government.  It's not like they exist for the good of
society, collecting money to provide for the betterment of society.  God
save us from government, return us to serfdom.

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.392 / Virus Database: 268.6.0/341 - Release Date: 16/05/06


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject:
[WikiEN-l] 7. Re: Zero information is preferred to misleading
 or false

body:
G'day Margie,

> Erik Moeller said: RfC, ArbCom, mediation, etc. - makes it all work.
>
> I'm just wondering. I am an editor, who. while never accused of lousy
> writing, has been blocked indefinitely from editing on Wikipedia and never
> had any RfC, ArbCom, mediation, or any dispute resolution at all. Never.
> Just wondering why this was. And also wondering why my unblock request was
> removed, and why my last blocker BunchofGrapes blocked my email so that I
> cannot contact him.

I can't speak for BunchofGrapes regarding his email account, but for the
rest:

* Users who behave *so* badly that they're not considered worth the
   community's time to deal with through ArbCom can be summarily blocked.
   The way to know whether you've been treated fairly or not is to see if
   you can find an admin willing to unblock you; evidently, you cannot.

* From a look at your block log, it seems that you have been constantly
   behaving in an uncivil manner and even directing personal attacks at
   other Wikipedians since the end of April.

* A quick perusal of your talkpage showed masses of evidence of incivil
   or inappropriate conduct[0], of respected users trying patiently and
   politely to help you and being treated rudely in return[1], and of
   deliberately attempting to insert bias into our articles[2].

In short, you came here, you acted like a spoilt child, refusing to even
pay lip service to the ideals of civilised behaviour and appropriate
collaborative in a community environment.  You were treated well, but
refused to consider the hard work or feelings of anybody but yourself.
You were then warned, repeatedly, that your behaviour would lead to the
removal of your editing privileges.  *Even after many warnings and
blocks* you *still* refused to behave yourself.  And now that you've
been blocked for the last time, you cry out "why?"!  Have you no control
over your own conduct?  No capacity for self-review?

You wondered why the {{unblock}} tag was removed from your talkpage.  It
is simple: users who feel they've been unfairly blocked can tag their
talkpage with this template, and at least one other admin will then
review the circumstances of your block and either remove the tag or
unblock you.  In your case, your behaviour was reviewed by *many*
administrators: there was discussion on the Administrator's Noticeboard,
discussion between the administrators you had been rude to, discussion
on IRC, and independent review from [[User:Pgk]].  I have now looked at
your case as well, and if I had been involved in any of the discussions
prior to your block, or been reviewing it because of the {{unblock}}
tag, I would not have done anything differently from those admins who
were involved in implementing your community ban.  From the moment you
arrived[3], you have shown nothing but contempt for us or our values.

Before you invoke the dispute resolution process, please, first ask
yourself if your presence is worth the effort.  We always need good
authors, but editors who radiate more heat than light are editors we're
better off without.  Unless you can guarantee that *none* of the
behaviour you have shown so far will reappear, it's surely not worth our
while to unblock you --- we'd only be blocking you again in a day, a
week, a month, maybe a year, after you yet again refuse to behave yourself.

[0]
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:John_Kenney&diff=48963138&oldid=48886549

[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Thewolfstar&diff=prev&oldid=50117035
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Bunchofgrapes&diff=prev&oldid=50126101

[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anti-communism&diff=prev&oldid=52087437
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Common_Dreams_NewsCenter&diff=prev&oldid=47909442
are good examples.

[3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Welfare_state&diff=prev&oldid=44853115

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

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.392 / Virus Database: 268.6.0/341 - Release Date: 16/05/2006


body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert_at_the_2006_White_House_Correspondents%27_Association_Dinner

Is it *really* sufficiently independently notable to justify a
separate article?  I mean, it's a nicely written article, but it reads
like a review.  I can't make it out.  What am I missing?

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


from_name: Katie (keitei)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion before discussion

body:
On 5/17/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> On May 17, 2006, at 2:59 PM, Steve Bennett wrote:
>
> > Even in userspace? Was that an intentional decision? Does it apply
> > when
> > people upload photos of themselves?
>
> People should release photos of themselves under GFDL or CC-BY-SA if
> they upload them. If they aren't the original photographer they
> should not upload other people's copyrighted photos to Wikipedia.
>
> --
> Philip L. Welch
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch
>
>

The image this thread was originally about did have a CC license. It's
technically a free license, just not THE free license. CC-BY-NC-SA
should be allowed in userpages, in my opinion.

--
-Katie
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/User:Keitei
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keitei


subject: [WikiEN-l] Darren@nocuffs

body:
Go through
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Darren%40nocuffs

A series of articles headed "Article by Darren Kavinoky"
(http://www.gotadui.com/) on the stages, processes and implications of
DUI and related charges (growing marijuana, possession with intent to
supply etc.)

Now get this: not one of them has ever contained a link to his site.

Wow!

A knowledgeable person, a practitioner, contributing content albeit in
doubtful format, but nonetheless referenced to penal codes.  Vanity?
Or the first steps to a seriously useful contribution?

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


from_name: Platonides

body:
"Rob Church" wrote
> What's quite interesting is that after I announced I'd be working on
> replacing the blocking mechanism over this spring and summer, I got an
> email from someone involved with Tor et al. suggesting we collaborate.
> At the time, I hadn't finalised in my head exactly how everything was
> going to work. If I can dig up the email and get the sender's
> permission, I'll forward it to the list and/or interested parties and
> we could consider a bigger collaboration.
>
>
> Rob Church

Interesting.


subject:
[Wikitech-l] "Image Credits" proposal to allow images to linkto
	pages

body:
"Steve Bennett" wrote:
> Hell, just create a tag called "ok for linking" and people can set it
> on a case by case basis when needed, evaluating the arguments. But I
> don't honestly see much difference between saying "Only link if the
> image doesn't require easily accessible attribution, and be honest"
> and saying "You can only link if the image has been set with this tag,
> and be honest when you set it".
>
> Steve

Better as some kind of extra image flag (only settable by sysops?). I'd also
like to have an uninsertable-flag for images waiting for deletion (there's
already a MediaWiki mesage for doing this, but it's not good for a big
usage).


body:
"Gregory Maxwell" wrote:

> Okay!
> Show us working code and the discussion can continue, right now this
> all appears to be hand-waving and speculation to me... and no
> compelling argument has been made why I should spend my time
> implementing anything discussed here.

I'd prefer some working code, too.
Not an endless discussion between us about the best method. We ourselves are
the ''enemies''!
I may do it if i found time enough...


from_name: Sam Pointon

body:
On 17/05/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/18/06, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > themselves.  The most egregious example of this I've witnessed is the
> > removal of the Cheney/Leahy exchange (Dick_cheney#Rebuilding_of_Iraq)
> > on the grounds that it was temporarily unsourced.  Does anyone
> > seriously doubt that this happened?  Of course it's simple enough to
>
>
> It's because WP:V is very vague on this one basic point. It defines what
> should be the case. It is conspicuously tacit on what to do if it's not.
> Delete? Remove temporarily? Hide? {{fact}}? Allow for a while? Hence my
> suggestion to designate classes of articles with different rules for
> unsourced material. FA's should not tolerate any unsourced material, for
> instance.
>

For what it's worth, what I usually do in situations where there's
unsourced and disputed material that I believe/know empirically is
correct, but cannot prove at the time, is remove to talk, explicitly
saying that "this is unsourced, and unsuitable for the article at the
present time, but I plan to find references and reinsert it" or
something along those lines. What are talk pages for, if not
discussing and debating content?

-Sam


body:
On 5/17/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> We discussed (featured article) images on portals/main page which
> don't take you to the expected location. This proposal is a nonstarter
> for that solution because very few of them are under a license which
> doesn't require attribution, and no upsurge in such images is
> expected.

Ok for that case I think it's a non-issue. A main page article that
uses an image from that article would surely qualify for "easily
accessible", right? Take the example of "Philosophy of mind" currently
on the main page. Click the image, it takes you to [[Philosophy of
mind]]. If you still care who made the image, life could hardly be
easier - click it again. We can simply ask people to ensure that the
image is available on that page. Agree?

> We also discussed little navigational buttons.  I'm actually having a
> hard time finding any that are PD, most of the ones on enwiki are
> LGPLed or GFDLed, and most came from outside sources (not wikipedia
> user created).  So I'm a little confused as to how the no-attribution
> linkable image proposal would be useful.  Can you provide concrete
> examples (with hyperlinks to images where you would expect us to use
> this feature?

Ok, I concede.

> We've discussed an automatic image info link, which I support and you
> reject and we've discussed making it look like a redirect, which is in
> poor taste, and fails to meet the not obscured or hidden requirement.

I don't think I've rejected anything but ok.

> Okay!
> Show us working code and the discussion can continue, right now this
> all appears to be hand-waving and speculation to me... and no
> compelling argument has been made why I should spend my time
> implementing anything discussed here.

I apologise - I wasn't aware that you were a developer seriously
considering implementing the thing yourself.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of bad fair use (was:Zero information...)

body:
On 5/17/06, jkelly at fas.harvard.edu <jkelly at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
>
> I think, in terms of where we are at with getting rid of things tagged
> "fair
> use" spuriously, that the following diff:
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ABradPatrick&diff=53000894&oldid=52777859
>
> ...really says a lot.

I agree, although I ask if there is actually a major argument for *deleting*
a "fair use" image used incorrectly, as opposed to simply removing it from
the webpage. I don't know what the legal status of hoarding "potential fair
use" images is, of course.

Not that with the numbers of copyvios we have the luxury of really agonising
over each deletion...

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion before discussion

body:
On 5/17/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I'm afaraid we don't allow "with permission" images.

Even in userspace? Was that an intentional decision? Does it apply when
people upload photos of themselves?

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Is this overciting?

body:
On 5/17/06, James D. Forrester <james at jdforrester.org> wrote:
>
> I see your 27 references and raise you 34 - [[Andrew Adonis, Baron
> Adonis]] (very much needs many more references, though).

Since we're offering mutual criticism, it's probably better in your
footnotes that the footnote read as the date/page/newspaper of the article,
rather than just "Times article on...", isn't it?

For URLs I'm starting to develop a style whether I either leave the URL bare
or with a title coming from the page itself, followed by any commentary I
have to make on it:[www.company.com Company Inc] - corporate website;
www.magicmap.com - has maps relating to subject.

Also you're still using the old referencing format - Cyde Wey has a magic
script to convert. I am very impressed at your categorisation though :)

Steve


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Message: 4 William M. Connolley- He wrote about the
	edit

body:
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] William M. Connolley- He wrote about the
> edit wars butit makes no sense!!!!!!!!!
>
>
> Why? Because the other wikipedians are vandalizing and
> deleting ALL THE FACTS I WRITE that completely RELATE
> TO THE SUBJECT. I did not do anything wrong this time,
> but he is upset by the info I post. I am steaming
> about this. He is a horrible admin.

You'll find any number of other editors who agree with you, but this isn't
the place to discuss it. As advised, use the article discussion page to talk
about it in a civil and constructive manner. If you still cannot get
justice*, come back with a couple of good examples and ask for help. Don't
expect much if you are being a self-righteous pest.

Pete, speaking from experience

*Justice is a nebulous concept here. Wikipedia is just a website. It's not a
court of law, and even the community's most senior magistrates are
overworked volunteers who will aim for expedience over rigorous
investigation.
----
And why isn't this is a place to discuss this? Are you, by some Divine
Grace, the one
to determine what one can say here?. And that which is okay to say is
clearly what you
say. Well just because..yes.

"a self-righteous pest"? If I didn't know better I would swear that sounds
like a PA.
But what would I know, I've already been labeled as a pest myslelf and
banned indefinitely
from editing at Wikipedia.

No. Justice is not a nebulous concept here. Justice is justice always.
Wikipedia claims to be an encyclopedia and therefore based on that claim
needs
to keep it's controversial articles as unbiased as it can. And yet it does
the opposite
and does so with a vengeance. it edits out neutrality in a concerted effort
that is
backed by power-hungry admins and all their tireless mob of mindless
editors.
It happens constantly. Editors such as Peter Mackay, Lou
franklin<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Lou_franklin>,
Merecat </wiki/User:Merecat>,
myself thewolfstar <../wiki/User:Thewolfstar>, Tbeatty </wiki/User:Tbeatty>,
Morton devonshire <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Morton_devonshire>,  Jerry
G. Sweeton Jr </wiki/User:J.sweeton%40wnri.com> along with many
others  that try so hard to bring neutrality into a biased artlce constantly
get stopped
from doing so by a swarm of editors, who harass, revert, lie, block often
with no cause
and  no warning.

It's time for this to stop.Maggiethewolfstar <../wiki/User:Thewolfstar> in
peace and justice for the wildthings, http://earthhopenetwork.net/


body:
On 5/17/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
> I actually don't think finding good sources or referencing is
> particularly hard, it just isn't very well suited to the current wiki
> software.  When writing an academic paper finding sources and writing
> the actual text is two separate steps.  Wikis jumble the two very
> different steps into one.

<elitist>
I believe it's hard for the "average person". Anyone who hasn't been to
university is pretty unlikely to suddenly develop research skills and the
ability to go to a library and look up journal articles.
</elitist>

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
On 5/17/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:

> Try reading WP:POINT again. I think "don't disrupt Wikipedia to make
> a point" is a misleading title anyway?the better title is "State your
> point; don't prove it experimentally".

How about "Don't disrupt Wikipedia while making your point" - I agree with
your assessment of misleadingness.

Steve


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-05-18

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

Running test Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test Magic Word: {{NUMBEROFFILES}}... 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, closed 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, closed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!

Passed 304 of 314 tests (96.82%) FAILED!


body:
On 5/17/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert_at_the_2006_White_House_Correspondents%27_Association_Dinner
>
> Is it *really* sufficiently independently notable to justify a
> separate article?  I mean, it's a nicely written article, but it reads
> like a review.  I can't make it out.  What am I missing?

The quote from Time asserting its notability did it for me. Genuine
presidential satire in his company is rare as hens' teeth.

Steve


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Zero information is preferred to misleading or false
	information

body:
On 5/18/06, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> themselves.  The most egregious example of this I've witnessed is the
> removal of the Cheney/Leahy exchange (Dick_cheney#Rebuilding_of_Iraq)
> on the grounds that it was temporarily unsourced.  Does anyone
> seriously doubt that this happened?  Of course it's simple enough to

It's because WP:V is very vague on this one basic point. It defines what
should be the case. It is conspicuously tacit on what to do if it's not.
Delete? Remove temporarily? Hide? {{fact}}? Allow for a while? Hence my
suggestion to designate classes of articles with different rules for
unsourced material. FA's should not tolerate any unsourced material, for
instance.

>the accuracy and neutrality of WP will suffer as a result.  I view the
>{{fact}} tag as the equivalent of the {{hang on}] tag: don't delete

Not as a "I seriously question this" tag?

Steve


body:
On 5/18/06, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:

> An article on the dinner itself I can understand, but this is a bit much.

Would you significantly reduce the material about this comedian in such an
article? Why? I definitely learnt something worth learning while reading it.
Sort of a demonstration that something must be notable if there is that much
verifiable information about it, no?

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Darren@nocuffs

body:
On 5/18/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:

>
> A knowledgeable person, a practitioner, contributing content albeit in
> doubtful format, but nonetheless referenced to penal codes.  Vanity?
> Or the first steps to a seriously useful contribution?

Weird, and they all end with "*If you or a loved one was arrested for DUI,
please contact a skilled defense lawyer immediately."*
**
I don't get it, but I don't see that they're OR either. Maybe {{tone}} would
be better. They're weird topics for articles anyway, and not all very suited
to Wikipedia. Asked him what his game is?

Steve


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Historical debates

body:
Molu wrote:
> Hello,
>
> In anticipation, the wise author of the page has appealed to the
> masses to keep the page off itself. Anyway, I've moved the page to
> Historic debates. Currently it lists the Cartoon controversy, Lolicon
> and Userbox. What else do you think is significant enough to be
> included?
>

Kate Winslet.

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

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body:
On 17/05/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> I agree, although I ask if there is actually a major argument for *deleting*
> a "fair use" image used incorrectly, as opposed to simply removing it from
> the webpage. I don't know what the legal status of hoarding "potential fair
> use" images is, of course.

I'm not an expert, but I believe that since we'd still be making the
image available (via the image page, etc.) then we'd have a potential
legal battle later. Check with Brad on that one, though.

There's also the argument that hoarding the images could encourage
laziness; who's going to bother looking for a free replacement* when
there's a photo available right *now*?

Rob Church

* Discount those with their heads screwed on, who understand and
endorse our policies and de facto attitudes towards such things


subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion before discussion

body:
On 18/05/06, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/17/06, Ben McIlwain <cydeweys at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Steve Bennett wrote:
> > > On 5/17/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >> I'm afaraid we don't allow "with permission" images.
> > >
> > > Even in userspace? Was that an intentional decision? Does it apply when
> > > people upload photos of themselves?
> >
> > /Especially/ in userspace (in articles you can at least make a case for
> > fair use).  And people had better be uploading those pictures of
> > themselves under free licenses such as GFDL, CC, or PD.
>
> Why?

You don't think mirrors grab user pages? Check again. They're
available in dumps and via all the usual routes of grabbing the stuff.

Wikipedia's licence policies are clear; images must be available under
a free-content licence, release or expired into the public domain, or
else used in articles under the fair use provisions of United States
copyright law, with an appropriate rationale for each use.

Rob Church


from_name: Harish Ganesan

subject:
[WikiEN-l] William M. Connolley- He wrote about the edit wars
	but it makes no sense!!! (Hganesan)

body:
Ok I am having major problems here. Can someone who
has experienced this help me out?? When the admins are
just targeting you. I still cannot believe this. There
is vandalism going on in the pages of so many that I
edited and everyone agreed on, now people are changing
it to make it seem so biased. Take a look at "ball
hog" article for instance why is there a picture of
KOBE BRYANT on it??? It is total bias. AND LOOK AT THE
KOBE BRYANT ARTICLE why are there TWO PICTURES OF HIM
DURING THE RAPE CASE??? Out of 3!! IT is TOTAL BIAS
AND THE ADMINS ARE ALLOWING IT. And look at the Steve
Nash vandalism everyone is only putting good facts on
it and deleted all the facts I had that were
legitimate. See I ONLY posted FACTS LEGITIMATE FACTS
all the time, yet these admins like William M.
Connolley (British), MADCHESTER (A Canadian and STeve
nash is CAnadian also), and PS2PCGAMER are biased.
They love steve nash and allow BLATANT POV AND BIAS on
the Kobe Bryant pages, ball hog pages, LEBron James,
etc. They allow people to delete all the articles I
worked hard to put on there. It is not fair everytime
I post a fact on Steve Nash it GETS DELETED, BUTTTTT
Everytime i post A GOOD POSITIVE FACT IT STAYS and
nobody deletes it. AAAH I AM SO UPSET.

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