body:
Fennec Foxen wrote:
> On Wed, 5 May 2004 16:36:17 +0100, KNOTT, T <tknott at qcl.org.uk> wrote:
> > Just tossing out ideas here, but why don't we have a group of God users,
> > who we trust. The God users would have the power to temporary ban
> > someone for say a week. (or a month, whatever is necessary).Or delete
> > personal attacks, or Perhaps two of them would be needed, to stop anyone
> > of them going on a rampage, they would be held accountable by the AC and
> > the community.
> >
> > We could then just let them get on with it.
>
> Sounds like more complaints about the heirarchy and allegations of a
> cabal would follow pretty quickly in that event. :)

Anyhow, it's not nearly tedious and time-consuming enough for us.
*wink*.

Seriously, the problem with such a system would be simply that there
is no one we trust enough, not even me.  I mean, I used to fill that
role, but lots of people were legitimately nervous about it, and it
only worked out because, by temperament, I was always disposed to wait
too long before actually banning, and too quick to let people back in.

I can envision some huge huge huge wars about arbitrary decisions.

Some form of voting is important for the purpose of legitimizing
decisions in these eyes of the wider community.

--Jimbo


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wik and a not-quite-proposal for constitutional change

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>The problem here is ironic.  We let trolls go on a bit too much.  Then
>someone like Wik sticks his neck out to fight them, but *also* in the
>process makes himself extremely annoying to other users.  If we had
>already gotten rid of the original problem users, then maybe Wik
>wouldn't have felt compelled to behave badly.
>
Wik would be great if he were the only person working on Wikipedia. But
he seems unable to distinguish between trolling and good-faith editing;
if you disagree with him on *anything*, it must be because you're a troll
or a moron or both. As you can now see from his user page, if you get rid
of everyone that Wik deems a problem user, you'll end up with a
much-shrunken list of contributors.

Wiki editing requires an atmosphere of basic mutual trust; anybody
who insists on poisoning that, either by doing untrustworthy things
(trolling, sock puppetry, etc), or by distrusting everybody else
indiscriminately (Wik), has to be excluded for the sake of everybody
else.

Stan


from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
I think that's a very perceptive analysis, Stan.  I agree completely.

Just as a by the way, I think that Wik's current user page is beyond
the pale.  We have a firm rule against personal attacks, and he's
really crossed the line there recently.  He calls lots of people
"morons" and "Nazi" and "lying" and so on.  And he did so after I
tried to persuade him to not use that page in a provocative manner.

I am of the tentative opinion that he did it (post a list of morons,
trolls, etc) simply to get a rise out of people, simply to be obnxious,
simply because he wants to be banned.  Others may disagree about his
motives, but it is hard to disagree that we do have a rule against
that sort of thing.

--Jimbo

Stan Shebs wrote:

> Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
> >The problem here is ironic.  We let trolls go on a bit too much.  Then
> >someone like Wik sticks his neck out to fight them, but *also* in the
> >process makes himself extremely annoying to other users.  If we had
> >already gotten rid of the original problem users, then maybe Wik
> >wouldn't have felt compelled to behave badly.
> >
> Wik would be great if he were the only person working on Wikipedia. But
> he seems unable to distinguish between trolling and good-faith editing;
> if you disagree with him on *anything*, it must be because you're a troll
> or a moron or both. As you can now see from his user page, if you get rid
> of everyone that Wik deems a problem user, you'll end up with a
> much-shrunken list of contributors.
>
> Wiki editing requires an atmosphere of basic mutual trust; anybody
> who insists on poisoning that, either by doing untrustworthy things
> (trolling, sock puppetry, etc), or by distrusting everybody else
> indiscriminately (Wik), has to be excluded for the sake of everybody
> else.
>
> Stan
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Sheldon Rampton

subject: [WikiEN-l] More evidence of Wikipedia's success

body:
>May 05, 2004
>
>Research Shows Media Increasingly Cite Wikipedia as Credible Source
>
>A fascinating paper presented by Andrew Lih, an Assistant Professor
>at Hong Kong University, at the University of Texas at Austin's
>recent International Symposium on Online Journalism analyzes how
>Wikipedia's articles are increasingly cited in the media and as a
>credible source. Wikipedia is a popular Internet-based, user
>contributed encyclopedia that is collaboratively edited.
>
>"Wikipedia as Participatory Journalism: Reliable Sources?" (PDF) is
>the equivalent of The Pelican Brief for the public relations
>industry. It's a must read for any PR pro trying - as I am - to
>understand the impact that participatory/citizen journalism will
>have on our profession. It provides clear metrics that show how
>Wikipedia has quickly emerged as a media influencer. During a 14
>month period (Jan. 03 - Mar. 04), according to the research, 113
>Wikipedia articles were referred to by various news outlets.

http://steverubel.typepad.com/micropersuasion/2004/05/research_reveal.html

http://journalism.utexas.edu/onlinejournalism/wikipedia.pdf

--Sheldon Rampton


subject: [WikiEN-l] Jail

body:
I think this is consistent with my concept of using QuickPolls to temp
ban users.  I'm uncomfortable with giving individual sysops the power
to do this sort of thing, because if we lack any sort of multi-person
review of a decision until the week or two it takes the committee to
act, we'll have a lot of trouble.

But if 80% and at least 8 users say to "arrest" someone, then by golly,
it sounds good to me.

Additionally, I don't think it's easy to project what the results of
quickpolls in such a system would be if we just base it on the quickpolls
we've done so far.  People's voting incentives change if the vote is for
a temp ban that will be reviewed by the arbitration committee.

--Jimbo

Christopher Mahan wrote:

> In the Western movies the good sheriff would go after the bad guy and
> bring him in, throw him into the jail house, and then the court would
> set up a trial.
>
> Of course, if the guy resisted the sheriff's arrest attempts, the
> sheriff would get rough, puching and kicking and throwing a bar stool
> or two around. And if the guy resisted the sheriff with a pistol, the
> sheriff wouls simply take out his own in faster-than-light speed
> (don't you love the magic of movies?) and put blow him away.
>
> What's my point?
>
> We don't have enforcers. We just let the
> robber/vandal/please-mommy-help-me-i-m-innocent-crybaby run amok
> while we try to get a jury pool together.
>
> I say throw him/her in wikiJail: No edit rights, a gag order (no
> mailing lists), and access to ONE court appointed
> wikilawyer/mediator, via email only.
>
> Then, a court date, a judge, jury, and decision within 24 hours.
>
> If the jailed person decides to try to escape the constrains of
> confinement, then he/she will receive an immediate and automatic X
> year(s) ban. X determined by the judge.
>
> Wikipidia editing is a Privilege, not a Right.
>
>
>
> =====
> Christopher Mahan
> chris_mahan at yahoo.com
> 818.943.1850 cell
> http://www.christophermahan.com/
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
> http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Fennec Foxen

body:
> Has anyone suggested Wik simply be denied watchlist rights?  With the
> servers groaning, a watchlist of 10000+ pages is surely greedy for
> resources.
> Charles

Is there software in place to allow denials such as this?


list: foundation-l

from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Information

body:
Anthere-

first, a note: please use foundation-l for project wide discussions.

> I personally do not think adding a "real name" field

I also think it is unnecessary, especially in light of the fact that many
thousands of edits are merely assigned to numbers.

Mostly I want to keep the sign-up form as simple as possible. But I have
no problem with Wikitravel activating it. Of course we must be wary of
"feature clutter".

> * instead of writing "will be down in a few minutes", writing something a
> bit more specific

That's of course desirable, but oftentimes specifics will not be
available, and sometimes shit happens without anyone expecting it. We seem
to be particularly unlucky when it comes to server stability.

However, it will be difficult to have both - informative *and*
internationalized messages. Because I don't think we can get someone to
translate "There are problems with the Squid proxy server on coronelli, a
new machine is being set up and will hopefully be installed by 20:00 UTC;
in the meantime, cached pages will remain available" into Maori within 5
minutes (just making up an example, don't know what the actual problem was
today).

> Recently, I looked at the bug report on fr:, and I saw an awful mess, that
> was going up to october 2002, where we were switched to phase III. There was
> no way to know what was still valid, and what was not (it has been cleaned
> now).

Not sure what you mean here, bugs are managed using the SourceForge bug
tracker and closed when fixed.

Regards,

Erik


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Information


from_name: Anthere

body:
--- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> Anthere-
>
> first, a note: please use foundation-l for project
> wide discussions.

This is exactly what I said very recently. Till
recently, wikipedia-l was the list to discuss project
wide discussion. Now, we are beginning to cross post,
because we do not see where this discussion is
supposed to take place.

Typically, discussion over list of contributors, is
related to gfdl, so should go to foundation, while
discussion over a message to display during down time
is rather wikitech or wikipedia-l.

In short, Erik, the difference between wikipedia-l and
foundation-l is now difficult to define. Either we
define it much better, or we should just remove a
list.

> > * instead of writing "will be down in a few
> minutes", writing something a
> > bit more specific
>
> That's of course desirable, but oftentimes specifics
> will not be
> available, and sometimes shit happens without anyone
> expecting it. We seem
> to be particularly unlucky when it comes to server
> stability.

Obviously, this is not for urgent situation.

> However, it will be difficult to have both -
> informative *and*
> internationalized messages. Because I don't think we
> can get someone to
> translate "There are problems with the Squid proxy
> server on coronelli, a
> new machine is being set up and will hopefully be
> installed by 20:00 UTC;
> in the meantime, cached pages will remain available"
> into Maori within 5
> minutes (just making up an example, don't know what
> the actual problem was
> today).

Nod. Perhaps between this type of message and short
information, there can be a middle ? Perhaps part of
the message could be language specific and part in
english ? Not everyone speaks english.

> > Recently, I looked at the bug report on fr:, and I
> saw an awful mess, that
> > was going up to october 2002, where we were
> switched to phase III. There was
> > no way to know what was still valid, and what was
> not (it has been cleaned
> > now).
>
> Not sure what you mean here, bugs are managed using
> the SourceForge bug
> tracker and closed when fixed.

Simple. Users who report bugs, do it on the pump. Soon
enough the pump is clogged; Only a couple of people do
make the effort to try to clean it up. Now, there is a
bug report page on each wikipedia. So, it would be
nice if users reported bugs on the bug report page,
instead of the pump. So, we sent them to the bug
report page. And there, all they could see is a 70 ko
page, with first messages 18 months old, and
absolutely no idea whether the problems reported has
been fixed or not; And the place was actually so
clogged, that they report bugs that are already
reported. That is a loss of time. I am wondering if
that bug report page is very wise, and if we should
not just redirect it simply to SourceForge.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover


from_name: Toby Bartels

body:
Anthere wrote in part:

>Erik Moeller wrote:

>>first, a note: please use foundation-l for project
>>wide discussions.

>This is exactly what I said very recently. Till
>recently, wikipedia-l was the list to discuss project
>wide discussion. Now, we are beginning to cross post,
>because we do not see where this discussion is
>supposed to take place.

>Typically, discussion over list of contributors, is
>related to gfdl, so should go to foundation, while
>discussion over a message to display during down time
>is rather wikitech or wikipedia-l.

>In short, Erik, the difference between wikipedia-l and
>foundation-l is now difficult to define. Either we
>define it much better, or we should just remove a
>list.

Arguably, <wikipedia-L> should only be for issues
that relate to the Wikipedia encyclopaedia projects,
while anything that equally affects Wiktionary, Wikisource, etc
sould go to <foundation-L> instead.

OTOH, what I thought was the purpose of <foundation-L>
is to discuss matters related to the Wikimedia Foundation,
while anything about the Wikimedia projects themselves
would go to <wikipedia-L> as before.

Now, we could create a /new/ list <wikimedia-L> (with an "m").
Then people posting to <wikipedia-L> could be told
"Hey, this affects Wiktionary too!  Take it to <wikimedia-L>.",
while people posting to <wikimedia-L> could be told
"Hey, this is only about Wikipedia!  Take it to <wikipedia-L>.".
And people posting to <foundation-L> could be told
"Hey, this is about the project content, not Foundation management!
Take it to <wikimedia-L>.", while people posting to <wikimedia-L>
could be told "Hey, this requires official action by the Foundation!
Take it to <foundation-L>.".

What fun that would be! ^_^

-- Toby


body:
On Wed, 5 May 2004 16:36:17 +0100, KNOTT, T <tknott at qcl.org.uk> wrote:
> Just tossing out ideas here, but why don't we have a group of God users,
> who we trust. The God users would have the power to temporary ban
> someone for say a week. (or a month, whatever is necessary).Or delete
> personal attacks, or Perhaps two of them would be needed, to stop anyone
> of them going on a rampage, they would be held accountable by the AC and
> the community.
>
> We could then just let them get on with it.

Sounds like more complaints about the heirarchy and allegations of a
cabal would follow pretty quickly in that event. :)


from_name: Peter Gervai

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wiktionaries for all!

body:
On Tue, 04 May 2004 13:13:00 +1000, Tim Starling
<ts4294967296 at hotmail.com> wrote:

>  > Which language.php does it use? It should be updated as well.
>
> It uses the same language as the associated Wikipedia

<obsolete>
I am confused. does that language have now separate entries for wiktionary?
(I guess it doesn't.)
The same isn't usable since all "wikipedia" strings have to changed to the
name of wiktionary, including namespace name, and many strings haver to be
changed because they should link to wikipedia (like copyright, disclaimer,
etc).

What is the suggested way to make these changes?
</obsolete>

What is the suggested way to change the name of 'wikipedia:' namespace
anyway?

[ We're in the middle of guessing a better name for hu.wiktionary since
the english
form is almost impossible to use in plain hungarian text environment ;)
This probably
would require a logo change, so I ask it beforehand: how to get that done
then? ]

>  > Which list shall I use for further questions?
>
> It's probably more relevant to foundation-l.

Yes, sir! :)

>  > Also, the updated lng file for the Polish Wiktionary was uploaded to
>  > http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/LanguageWiktionaryPL.php a month ago.
>
> I'll look into that.

Hmm, seems to have a separate language file then. ;-) I'll check.

Peter
--
Now using M2, Opera's e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] mediawiki update

body:
Joachim Schiele wrote:
> i want to update our wiki to the current version
> MediaWiki: 1.2.0rc4
> PHP: 4.1.2
> MySQL: 3.23.58
>
> as in the Version.php from 1.2.0rc4 the number "1002" doesn't differ from the
> 1.2.5 Version.php so i guess that copying the files from the source over the
> files would just work, right?

Version.php is obsolete and no longer used except for one check when
upgrading from really, REALLY ancient wikis that can't be determined
from the database structure. I think there's a note to that effect now
in the dev version.

Anyway yes, you should be able to just drop in the updated files, there
haven't been any database changes since 1.2.0rc4.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] WikiReader production

body:
I have sent 3300 EUR from the foundation account to Erik Moeller on
behalf of Thomas Koll for the purchase of a print run of WikiReaders.

These funds are for the purchase on behalf of the foundation of the
WikiReader printing run of Thomas Koll as per our emails on the
subject.  Thomas is to sell the Wikireaders on behalf of the
foundation, keeping a portion of the profit for himself, remitting the
rest of the profit plus the original cost to the foundation.  The
books are to be the property of the foundation, so that if any are
left over, Thomas will not owe any money in return (just the leftover
books!)

I am going to personally guarantee the Foundation's risk, so that if
this project is not successful, the Foundation will not be out any
money.  Let me repeat that last -- since this is an experiment, I want
to make sure that no donor money is risked in the project, so I am
personally pledging to make up any shortfall which may result from
this.

If this project is successful, it may provide for a very interesting
"grass roots" way for volunteers to help spread the word about
wikipedia.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] A not-so-modest proposal on blocking policy

body:
mapellegrini at comcast.net wrote:
> My thought was - why not give all admins discretionary authority
> to temp-ban (for 24 hours) anyone who violates the three revert
> rule? It would give the rule some teeth, and it would keep the
> quickpolls relatively uncluttered (which was the biggest complaint
> - that they were being used frivilously).

Why not restrict the start of QuickPolls to sysops?  That is, the rule
can be that you can't start a QuickPoll for little reasons, and this
is much easier to enforce if we say that QuickPolls are to be started
by sysops.  Sysops have been around long enough to know the ropes.

This would keep there from being too many frivolous quickpolls, but
would not require the one thing that I keep resisting strongly --
individual discretionary authority, which is too easy to abuse, but
not only that gives grounds for people to raise holy hell about
discreationary abuse even when it doesn't exist.

It's easy to say "Waaah, Erik did something mean to me."  It's a lot
harder to (convincingly) say "Waaah, 80% of the voters did something
mean to me."

I share the concerns that have been raised about the problem of
quickpolls being used as popularity contests, such that the results
for different people who do the same thing are different.  That's not
good.

At least when I was dictator, I was consistent in the sense of
consistently letting people get away with just about anything.  :-)

--Jimbo


from_name: David Iberri

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: HTML to wiki(pedia) toy

body:
--- "Thomas R. Koll" <tomk32 at gmx.de> wrote:
> On Mon, May 03, 2004 at 04:11:43PM -0400, David Friedland wrote:
> > I want to try to connect this somehow to a CGI to make a webpage where
> > people can paste in HTML and get wikitext out by clicking a button. This
> > would make it easy to convert HTML tables I run across to wikitables
> > quickly, by just a couple copy and pastes.
>
> Try the tremendous table2wiki.py from the pywikipediabot at
> http://pywikipediabot.sf.net

Earlier in this thread, someone asked for a Perl program similar to Magnus' C++ HTML-to-wikitext
converter. I decided to give it a whirl and wound up writing HTML::WikiConverter (for lack of a
better package name). I've created a small Mason page that uses the module, at:

  http://diberri.dyndns.org/html2wiki.html

Some more instructions are contained at that URL. Basically, just enter an HTML snipped into the
text box, press the convert button, and wikitext magically appears :-) I'll be posting the source
of the module within the next day or so (after I get add a few more features like IMG-tag
processing).

Cheers,
David (User:Diberri)


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
Highly recommended. For example there is no reason there cannot be a Danzig
article and a Gdansk article, one dealing mostly with with Danzig as a
German city, the other with the modern Polish city. Likewise with cities and
villages which were formerly German, for example Hoffnungstal and Cebrikove,
the German and Ukrainian names for the village my family came from. The same
physical place, but a whole new group of people and a new culture.

This is, of course, the Wikinfo formula, but no reason Wikipedia can't adopt
it to reduce some conflict.

Fred

> From: "Martin Harper" <martin at myreddice.freeserve.co.uk>
> Reply-To: martin at myreddice.co.uk, English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 05 May 2004 20:48:31 +0100
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wik and a not-quite-proposal for constitutional change
>
> * Multiple independent versions of controversial articles


from_name: Charles Matthews

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote

> Where is that support system?  Who supports him?  Can they be
> encouraged to pressure him into better behavior?

I think finger-pointing is not a good idea in this case.  Let's say that he
has apologists, who may very well be acting in perfectly good faith and be
valued community members in their own right.

> I don't see any reason for the process to go on for several *more*
> rounds and for 6 *more* months.  At some point, very soon, he just
> needs to be banned, and that's that.

Not something I'd have any personal problem with - asocial and legalistic
defines what a wiki _is not_; and it is hard to deny that is what Wik is,
whatever else might be said in his defence.

I would find it difficult to take the inevitable triumphalism of some of
those who have been in conflict (as I have) with Wik.  If Wik is to go, let
it be for clearly right reasons, not what anyone thinks of as wrong
opinions.

Has anyone suggested Wik simply be denied watchlist rights?  With the
servers groaning, a watchlist of 10000+ pages is surely greedy for
resources.

Charles


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Arnaud LAGRANGE

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Ligo al Reta Vortaro / Link to Reta Vortaro

body:
En iuj wikimedia projektoj  [[ReVo:titol]] ligas al la  artikolo de Reta Vortaro ( http://www.uni-leipzig.de/esperanto/voko/revo/ ) kun titolo "titol", sed ne jam el eo.wiktionary.org !

Cxu developisto povas ripari tion ?
Dankas
Arno.

In some Wikimedia projects [[ReVo:titol]] does link to Reta Vortaro  ( http://www.uni-leipzig.de/esperanto/voko/revo/ ) article with tittle "titol", but not in eo.wiktionary.org !

Can a developper fix that ?
Thanks

Arno Lagrange
Le Village
FR 31570 TARABEL
33 (0) 561 839 159


from_name: kelvSYC

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Name of Chinese Wiktionary

body:
It's a bit off-topic here, but I wanted to reach a larger audience, so
here goes:

Seeing that the Chinese Wiktionary is empty, I decided to start some
work on it, but I found out that even the name needs attending to, as
there are three different names that people have referred to as the
Chinese term for Wiktionary.  In traditional Chinese, they are: ????,
????, and ????.

Now, the first one is used in the English Wiktionary entry on
Wiktionary as its Chinese translation.  The second is used in the
Chinese Wikipedia to refer to Wiktionary, and the third was what I put
down when I wrote down the Chinese main page (as well as some
appendices/indices that should be similar to the Wiktionary Appendix
namespace).

??, ??, and ?? all mean the same thing, but (at least in the dialect of
Chinese I use - a hybrid of Cantonese and Putonghua) ?? is a dictionary
of single characters, ?? is a dictionary of single characters and
multiple character phrases (ciyu), and ?? I use as a "blanket term"
(despite the fact that according to ''Xinhua Cidian'', ? is synonymous
with ?) for dictionaries, and thus I favor the use of ???? for
Wiktionary.  I don't know what the MediaWiki software uses (I think
it's ???? based on probabilities).

I'm sure that there are people who disagree with me on this, but what
should be done?

PS. After this debacle, a lot of the text in the Chinese Wiktionary
still refer to it as Wikipedia, and I can't do those changes.  Perhaps
someone can help me out.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] [Fwd: [WikiEN-l] More evidence of Wikipedia's success]

body:
Thought this would be of interest to people not on WikiEN-l as well.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [WikiEN-l] More evidence of Wikipedia's success
Date: Wed, 5 May 2004 10:16:29 -0500
From: Sheldon Rampton <sheldon.rampton at verizon.net>

>May 05, 2004
>
>Research Shows Media Increasingly Cite Wikipedia as Credible Source
>
>A fascinating paper presented by Andrew Lih, an Assistant Professor
>at Hong Kong University, at the University of Texas at Austin's
>recent International Symposium on Online Journalism analyzes how
>Wikipedia's articles are increasingly cited in the media and as a
>credible source. Wikipedia is a popular Internet-based, user
>contributed encyclopedia that is collaboratively edited.
>
>"Wikipedia as Participatory Journalism: Reliable Sources?" (PDF) is
>the equivalent of The Pelican Brief for the public relations
>industry. It's a must read for any PR pro trying - as I am - to
>understand the impact that participatory/citizen journalism will
>have on our profession. It provides clear metrics that show how
>Wikipedia has quickly emerged as a media influencer. During a 14
>month period (Jan. 03 - Mar. 04), according to the research, 113
>Wikipedia articles were referred to by various news outlets.

http://steverubel.typepad.com/micropersuasion/2004/05/research_reveal.html

http://journalism.utexas.edu/onlinejournalism/wikipedia.pdf

--Sheldon Rampton


from_name: KNOTT, T

body:
>The problem here is ironic.  We let trolls go on a bit too much.  Then
>someone like Wik sticks his neck out to fight them, but *also* in the
>process makes himself extremely annoying to other users.  If we had
>already gotten rid of the original problem users, then maybe Wik
>wouldn't have felt compelled to behave badly.

I think you're absolutely right. Wik appears to have become so used to dealing with real vandals, that he seems to see anyone who disagrees with him as a vandal. As for your quickpoll proposal, we should try it and see. It's the only way of finding out if it has merit.

Theresa


body:
Fennec Foxen wrote

> > Has anyone suggested Wik simply be denied watchlist rights?  With the
> > servers groaning, a watchlist of 10000+ pages is surely greedy for
> > resources.
> > Charles
>
> Is there software in place to allow denials such as this?

I have no idea.  It is surely technically possible to clear the list.

Charles


body:
Just tossing out ideas here, but why don't we have a group of God users,
who we trust. The God users would have the power to temporary ban
someone for say a week. (or a month, whatever is necessary).Or delete
personal attacks, or Perhaps two of them would be needed, to stop anyone
of them going on a rampage, they would be held accountable by the AC and
the community.

We could then just let them get on with it.

Theresa


body:
Would it be possible to limit the watchlist for everyone. It would be
fair, we could have it capped at say 1000 (or higher if you like). ~~~~

-----Original Message-----
From: Fred Bauder [mailto:fredbaud at ctelco.net]
Sent: 05 May 2004 16:25
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wik and a not-quite-proposal for constitutional
change

I first noticed this long watchlist. I take it to be evidence of a
certain
over-involvement. Certainly keeping 10,000 articles, "straight" doesn't
leave much time for conversation with other users about changes and
reversions.

Fred

> From: "Charles Matthews" <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 5 May 2004 16:07:37 +0100
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wik and a not-quite-proposal for
constitutional change
>
> Fennec Foxen wrote
>
>>> Has anyone suggested Wik simply be denied watchlist rights?  With
the
>>> servers groaning, a watchlist of 10000+ pages is surely greedy for
>>> resources.
>>> Charles
>>
>> Is there software in place to allow denials such as this?
>
> I have no idea.  It is surely technically possible to clear the list.
>
> Charles
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Mark Richards

subject: [WikiEN-l] Trolls - A novel approach - don't feed them

body:
Folks,
This is my first post here, so I'm sorry that it is on
such an unfortunate topic, but I wanted to suggest an
alternative approach to the users who have been
involved with J.R.R. Trollkien and other users with
'troll' in the name.
It seems to me that by continuing to ban, block, hold
hearings about etc, that we are feeding trollish
behavior. The recent banning of one user for
'disruptive edits' or something like that in
particular, while I can understand the sentiment,
leaves us open to a double standard - I have seen many
other users exhibit much more disruptive edits.
I would suggest that we stop creating a lot of light
and noise about this, and deal with behavior when / if
it becomes a problem. Above all, don't needlessly feed
the trolls - creating rules like 'no usernames with
the word troll in them' seems gaurunteed to spur
trolls to find the limit of this eg anagrams, words
containing 'troll', synonyms etc - I'm pretty sure the
novelty of it would wear off if people ignored them.
My two cents.
Mark

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Mark Richards wrote:

>Yes, but it seems that the fun of having the word
>'troll' in their username is the fuss it causes. If we
>just didn't feed that behavior, it wouldn't be fun. I
>may be wrong, but I think that the proliferation of
>'troll' names is a response to people making a fuss
>about it. Without anyone to feed them, trolls will
>look elsewhere.
>
I agree with you.  Simply having "troll" as a part of the name doesn't
mean anything.  What these individuals do "with" their accounts is a lot
more significant.  Those people who get so worked up over a name need to
lighten up a bit.

Ec


body:
Theresa Knott wrote

>Would it be possible to limit the watchlist for everyone. It would be
fair, we could have it capped at say 1000 (or higher if you like). ~~~~

Oh, I knew I shouldn't have brought this up (I watch about 1200).

Can I argue that 1000 would be low?  If 200 sysops each watch 1000 pages,
that's at most 80% of WP under observation?

Charles


body:
Sure, I appreciate what you're saying - but I'm not
talking about the rights and wrongs though, just that
not feeding trolls is about the most effective way of
reducing their impact that I've seen - this sort of
thing looks like more food for trolling.
Mark

--- Fennec Foxen <fennec at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 5 May 2004 17:06:56 -0700 (PDT), Mark
> Richards
> <marich712000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > It seems to me that by continuing to ban, block,
> hold
> > hearings about etc, that we are feeding trollish
> > behavior.
> Is there an alternative besides allowing them to be
> disruptive at
> will? Plaster requests for legal action all over the
> place? We could
> just revert them all without explanation and open
> ourselves to more
> accusations of being a cabal... :)
> > The recent banning of one user for
> > 'disruptive edits' or something like that in
> > particular, while I can understand the sentiment,
> > leaves us open to a double standard - I have seen
> many
> > other users exhibit much more disruptive edits.
> The failure of other users to be censured, blocked,
> or have policy
> applied to them should directly not affect whether
> these users should
> be censured or blocked. Just because OJ Simpson got
> away with
> something doesn't mean I can use his failure to be
> imprisioned as a
> defense in a court of law.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover


body:
On Wed, 5 May 2004 14:25:25 -0700, Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
> mapellegrini at comcast.net wrote:
> Why not restrict the start of QuickPolls to sysops?  That is, the rule
> can be that you can't start a QuickPoll for little reasons, and this
> is much easier to enforce if we say that QuickPolls are to be started
> by sysops.  Sysops have been around long enough to know the ropes.

Perhaps so. It should be trivial to convince certain sysops to start
quickpolls. On the other hand, it raises more concerns about sysops
being called a cabal.


body:
Yes, but it seems that the fun of having the word
'troll' in their username is the fuss it causes. If we
just didn't feed that behavior, it wouldn't be fun. I
may be wrong, but I think that the proliferation of
'troll' names is a response to people making a fuss
about it. Without anyone to feed them, trolls will
look elsewhere.
Mark

--- Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> My feeling is that they would not at all enjoy
> Wikipedia if they did not
> have "troll" in their user name. A sharp stick in
> the eye is what they are
> all about.
>
> Killjoy Fred
>
> > From: Mark Richards <marich712000 at yahoo.com>
> > Reply-To: English Wikipedia
> <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> > Date: Wed, 5 May 2004 17:06:56 -0700 (PDT)
> > To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> > Subject: [WikiEN-l] Trolls - A novel approach -
> don't feed them
> >
> > Folks,
> > This is my first post here, so I'm sorry that it
> is on
> > such an unfortunate topic, but I wanted to suggest
> an
> > alternative approach to the users who have been
> > involved with J.R.R. Trollkien and other users
> with
> > 'troll' in the name.
> > It seems to me that by continuing to ban, block,
> hold
> > hearings about etc, that we are feeding trollish
> > behavior. The recent banning of one user for
> > 'disruptive edits' or something like that in
> > particular, while I can understand the sentiment,
> > leaves us open to a double standard - I have seen
> many
> > other users exhibit much more disruptive edits.
> > I would suggest that we stop creating a lot of
> light
> > and noise about this, and deal with behavior when
> / if
> > it becomes a problem. Above all, don't needlessly
> feed
> > the trolls - creating rules like 'no usernames
> with
> > the word troll in them' seems gaurunteed to spur
> > trolls to find the limit of this eg anagrams,
> words
> > containing 'troll', synonyms etc - I'm pretty sure
> the
> > novelty of it would wear off if people ignored
> them.
> > My two cents.
> > Mark
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > __________________________________
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
> >
> http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> >
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

__________________________________
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Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover


body:
Jimmy-
> What would be different is how users are dealt with during the
> intermediate period between the trouble starting and final
> adjudication.  If a quickpoll indicates a ban, the user is banned
> unless and until the appeal is successful.

Well, I invented quickpolls so I'm of course in favor of using them, but I
must caution that results so far haven't made me very optimistic. There
have been a couple of cases where there were quickpolls on two users for
violation of the three revert rule, and one of them got banned, and the
other didn't. It was clear that the user who didn't get banned did so
solely because people liked him more ("we can't afford to lose him") or
agreed with him politically.

So this does to some extent confirm the fears that people have had that
voting would lead to popularity contests instead of informed decisions. It
may be possible to address this through a "same crime, same time" policy,
moderation, restrictions on voting, and so forth, but with the current
system Fred is correct when he says that quickpolls are good for flies but
not for hawks. That is why we have presently agreed to suspend the use of
quickpolls for violations of the three revert rules, and use them only for
more obvious cases. Policy reform is of course welcome.

We also need a wide range of instruments of punishment:

Technical:
- per article bans
- edit throttling ("edit only every x minutes")
- edit limiting ("only edit this page x times per day")
- namespaces limiting ("no editing of Wikipedia: pages")
- deny access to page history (makes reverting difficult)

Policy:
- "no revert without prior discussion on talk page, otherwise ban at
discretion of sysop"
- "no reverts, period"
- "remove personal attack X, or else"

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Rick

body:
I can't really say that I'm a Wik fan, but in THAT PARTICULAR CASE, it was Cantus that was at fault.

RickK

Martin Harper <martin at myreddice.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
Jimbo asked:
> I genuinely want to know what arguments are being made in his
> favor, and by whom, and for what reason.

Eg:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/Wik2

172 and Danny in particular. To a perhaps lesser extent, Baldhur, Meelar, Dissident,
RickK, Secretlondon, Sam Spade.

That's just on one page. There are lots of other discussion pages, of course, but reading
through that should give you a pretty good insight into the relevant discussion. Happy
reading! :)

Erik wrote:
> I have to say that if they cannot solve this problem [of Wik], I must consider the
arbitration process broken.

With the best will in the the world, the arbitration committee is not going to magically
turn Wikipedia into a place of sweetness and light, nor is it going to reform troublesome
users into paragons of righteousness. A fair, unbiased, and accurate banning process is
probably part of the puzzle, but it is actually quite a small part. Other parts might
include:

* Technical measures of various sorts (anti-puppet, anti-revert, anti-edit war, anti-anon
edit, etc)
* Better policies and guidelines in general
* Good mediation for problems
* Some form of content arbitration, possibly votes, possibly something else
* Bold editing
* Better policies for allowing bans of various lengths that don't require the committee.
* Culture change
* Multiple independent versions of controversial articles
* yada
* yada
* yada

As an arbitrator, I'm entirely happy to enforce whatever rules you folks decide on, and if
those rules make the committee obsolete, that would be absolutely fine.

-Martin
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

---------------------------------
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body:
My feeling is that they would not at all enjoy Wikipedia if they did not
have "troll" in their user name. A sharp stick in the eye is what they are
all about.

Killjoy Fred

> From: Mark Richards <marich712000 at yahoo.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 5 May 2004 17:06:56 -0700 (PDT)
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Trolls - A novel approach - don't feed them
>
> Folks,
> This is my first post here, so I'm sorry that it is on
> such an unfortunate topic, but I wanted to suggest an
> alternative approach to the users who have been
> involved with J.R.R. Trollkien and other users with
> 'troll' in the name.
> It seems to me that by continuing to ban, block, hold
> hearings about etc, that we are feeding trollish
> behavior. The recent banning of one user for
> 'disruptive edits' or something like that in
> particular, while I can understand the sentiment,
> leaves us open to a double standard - I have seen many
> other users exhibit much more disruptive edits.
> I would suggest that we stop creating a lot of light
> and noise about this, and deal with behavior when / if
> it becomes a problem. Above all, don't needlessly feed
> the trolls - creating rules like 'no usernames with
> the word troll in them' seems gaurunteed to spur
> trolls to find the limit of this eg anagrams, words
> containing 'troll', synonyms etc - I'm pretty sure the
> novelty of it would wear off if people ignored them.
> My two cents.
> Mark
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
> http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] A lengthy defense of Wik

body:
Hello,

Jimbo has asked who supports Wik. Well, I do, for one. I would like to
explain.

As I see it, Wik is not a problem with Wikipedia but, rather, a symptom of a
much larger problem. In many ways, JHK, Zoe, Kosebamse, Tannin, and quite a
few others were different symptoms of the same problem. That is because the real
problem is the proliferation of users, some well-known, and some rather new,
who have forgotten the most basic principle of Wikipedia: we are out to build
an encyclopedia. Period. We are out to collect and organize the sum of human
knowledge and present it in a manageable, readable format that could be of help
to anyone. And we invite everyone to participate in this process, because we
believe that it will benefit everyone. Yes, it is intellectually titillating,
exciting, challenging, and fun. Those are side benefits of the essential value
of the pursuit and dissemination of knowledge.

There are, however, people who do not share in our objectives. Because we are
an open source (I hope I am using the term correctly), there are people who
get their rocks off adding "Danny is a fag" or "Fuck you" into articles, or
perhaps erasing texts, and engaging in other kinds of vandalism. They are
annoying--sometimes even very annoying--but so are mosquitoes. While I think we need
a better infrastructure to deal with these kinds of "users," I also believe
that we are pretty effective cleaning up after them.

Then there are other kinds of users: users who come to Wikipedia with strong
opinions one some subject or another, who insert these opinions into articles.
The fact of the matter is, most of us have strong opinions, but we are more
cautious (or perhaps, more sophisticated) when it comes to introducing them to
Wikipedia. I have no doubt that these people believe strongly in their
opinions, but I think we all agree that this is not the place for them to advocate on
their behalf. That is why we have the NPOV policy. For instance, I am
convinced that many Wikipedians would like to rewrite the George W. Bush or Bill
Clinton (or Thatcher, or Sharon, or Arafat, or Evolution, or Homosexuality or any
other contentious topic) articles so that they better reflect their personal
politics, but they don't. Some people do, and frankly, they can be a stubborn
lot--and I am assuming good faith, nonetheless.

Essentially, it is these users who are behind most of our edit wars. There
can be several reasons for this: 1) they do not understand our NPOV policy; 2)
they choose to ignore our NPOV policy; 3) they feel like adding their positions
makes for more accurate NPOV. Personally, I have issue with the latter
position, but this is not the place to discuss that. The problem is, that whatever
their reason, this results in virulent edit wars, which tend to disrupt the
community.

We are remarkably tolerant of these people--our bylaws were, in many cases,
created with the assumption that they can reform--but unfortunately these users
do tend to disrupt our community. Many users spend an inordinate amount of
time cleaning up after them or just getting into polemical arguments on talk
pages with them. When it gets particularly heated, some users who sincerely care
about the quality of the project leave in disgust (this was the case with JHK,
for instance).

Wik is a valuable Wikipedian too. One only need look at his other, extensive,
non-controversial edits to see that. The problem is that Wik also represents
another option to trolls and vandalism: fighting back. Out of what seems like
over-zealous quality control, he reverts them and does not waste his time in
what he perceives as futile dialogue. By the way, my personal feeling is that
if anyone here thinks that they will convince a biased POV pusher of their
position on a talk page, they are severely deluded as to their persuasive
skills--in almost all cases, it is simply an exercise in rhetoric.

There is a flaw in Wik's style: his methods tend to provoke rather than get
rid of those trolls and vandals (yes, the vandals, too, are drawn to the
confrontation). On the other hand, it is one way of dealing with a severe problem of
trolling and vandalism that will only grow in intensity if it is not nipped
in the bud. Leaving Wikipedia does not help resolve the problem. Banning
someone for fighting back does not help resolve the problem either. In both cases,
it just leaves the problem to fester, so that we see more and more established
and valuable users getting frustrated. I quote Jimbo here:

"I should point out, not in support of Wik, but just by way of comment, that
the great irony about Wik is that he's sort of an anti-troll troll.  He
claims, and I have little reason to doubt his sincerity of belief, that his annoying
actions are just proper responses to various troublemakers on the site"

I believe that in the case of Wik, people are pointing the finger at him,
rather than seeing what it is he is reverting (and yes, he has come under attack
by respected users, which only exacerbates his own feeling of isolation and
frustration). He is here to help build an encyclopedia, and as he seems to see
it, he is being thwarted.

One last thing. I do not condone the lists of users on Wik's page. In fact,
they trouble me. If he is reading this, or if someone can send this to him, I
ask him to remove the lists as a gesture of good faith. Then, hopefully, we can
all work together to improve the quality and quality control of Wikipedia.

Danny
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body:
On Wed, 5 May 2004 11:41:49 -0700, Toby Bartels
<toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu> wrote:
> Now, we could create a /new/ list <wikimedia-L> (with an "m").
> Then people posting to <wikipedia-L> could be told
> "Hey, this affects Wiktionary too!  Take it to <wikimedia-L>.",
> while people posting to <wikimedia-L> could be told
> "Hey, this is only about Wikipedia!  Take it to <wikipedia-L>.".
> And people posting to <foundation-L> could be told
> "Hey, this is about the project content, not Foundation management!
> Take it to <wikimedia-L>.", while people posting to <wikimedia-L>
> could be told "Hey, this requires official action by the Foundation!
> Take it to <foundation-L>.".
>
> What fun that would be! ^_^
> -- Toby

Since we're using MailMan, don't we have some special options for
predefined topics filters somewhere? You could merge everything into
one list and rely on those to tag different iteme.


body:
On Wed, 5 May 2004 17:06:56 -0700 (PDT), Mark Richards
<marich712000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> It seems to me that by continuing to ban, block, hold
> hearings about etc, that we are feeding trollish
> behavior.
Is there an alternative besides allowing them to be disruptive at
will? Plaster requests for legal action all over the place? We could
just revert them all without explanation and open ourselves to more
accusations of being a cabal... :)
> The recent banning of one user for
> 'disruptive edits' or something like that in
> particular, while I can understand the sentiment,
> leaves us open to a double standard - I have seen many
> other users exhibit much more disruptive edits.
The failure of other users to be censured, blocked, or have policy
applied to them should directly not affect whether these users should
be censured or blocked. Just because OJ Simpson got away with
something doesn't mean I can use his failure to be imprisioned as a
defense in a court of law.


from_name: The Centerfielder

subject: [Wikitech-l] index.php/Main_Page style URLs

body:
Well.

It appears I had installed 1.2.0 instead of a newer release.  Downloaded
and installed 1.2.5 and it found that my PHP installation was configured
with apache2handler and it did all the right things to run with ugly URLs
and now everything is fine.  Sorry to have been an idiot.

brad

The Centerfielder wrote:
> Thanks for the fast response.  I'll give all this a try when I get to
> work tomorrow;  I do know the web install complained of an older version
> of PHP, but I was unable to find the latest version as an .rpm, so went
> with the default.
>
> And thanks for the fine software;  it's very impressive.
>
> brad
>
> Brion Vibber wrote:
>
>> On May 4, 2004, at 18:07, The Centerfielder wrote:
>>
>>> I've installed MediaWiki on an ISP's servers and had no trouble.
>>> Recently
>>> I built a RedHat box for an internal wiki at work, and URLs of the form
>>>
>>>   http://internal.domain/index.php/Main_Page
>>>
>>> result in a 404 error.  I've applied the suggested RewriteEngine rules
>>> specified at http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_config#mod_rewrite to
>>> a .htaccess file where index.php is, but that didn't help.  Any
>>> suggestions?
>>
>>
>>
>> Some PHP configurations don't allow using extended path information
>> after the script name; in particular when configured as CGI or
>> 'apache2handler' it will fail. The (web-based) install tries to detect
>> known-bad configurations, but it might have missed yours or if you
>> installed 1.2.4 it won't have had the apache2handler detection in yet.
>>
>> Add this to LocalSettings.php:
>> $wgArticlePath = "$wgScript?title=$1";
>>
>> and if necessary this:
>> $wgUsePathInfo = false;
>>
>> Now make sure your rewrite configuration is using the long-form URLs
>> for the destination (/index.php?title=Main_Page)
>>
>> Can you run the following short script to check if it's something new
>> we have to check for?
>>
>> <?php print "PHP server API is: " . php_sapi_name(); ?>
>>
>> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 05/05/04 16:28, Charles Matthews wrote:
> Theresa Knott wrote

>> fair, we could have it capped at say 1000 (or higher if you like). ~~~~

> Oh, I knew I shouldn't have brought this up (I watch about 1200).
> Can I argue that 1000 would be low?  If 200 sysops each watch 1000 pages,
> that's at most 80% of WP under observation?

I'm not even a sysop and I have approaching 1200 pages on my watchlist.
Most of them are pretty low in edit traffic, though. I expect that list
could and will usefully reach 10,000 easily with time.

I certainly hope having a large watchlist isn't going to become something
to be taken as prima facie evidence of ill intention.

- d.


from_name: Thomas R. Koll

body:
On Wed, May 05, 2004 at 11:29:17AM -0700, Anthere wrote:
> In short, Erik, the difference between wikipedia-l and
> foundation-l is now difficult to define. Either we
> define it much better, or we should just remove a
> list.

Why hard to define?
wikipedia-l is for topics concering all wikipedias while
foundation-l is for topics concering all projects of the
foundation and for projects which have no own mailing-list
yet.

> Simple. Users who report bugs, do it on the pump. Soon
> enough the pump is clogged; Only a couple of people do
> make the effort to try to clean it up. Now, there is a
> bug report page on each wikipedia.

We should close the bug-report page on en:
On the other languages it makes sense because not
everyone speaks english and sysops from the
non-en: must do the job of translating and
transfering the bug-reports to SF

ciao, tom
--
== Weblinks ==
* http://www.tomk32.de - just a geek trying to change the world
* http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:TomK32 - Free Knowledge
* http://tinyurl.com/27c88 - WikiReader Internet: bald im Druck
* http://tomk32.bookcrossing.com - Free Books


from_name: Martin Harper

body:
Jimbo asked:
> I genuinely want to know what arguments are being made in his
> favor, and by whom, and for what reason.

Eg:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/Wik2

172 and Danny in particular. To a perhaps lesser extent, Baldhur, Meelar, Dissident,
RickK, Secretlondon, Sam Spade.

That's just on one page. There are lots of other discussion pages, of course, but reading
through that should give you a pretty good insight into the relevant discussion. Happy
reading! :)

Erik wrote:
> I have to say that if they cannot solve this problem [of Wik], I must consider the
arbitration process broken.

With the best will in the the world, the arbitration committee is not going to magically
turn Wikipedia into a place of sweetness and light, nor is it going to reform troublesome
users into paragons of righteousness. A fair, unbiased, and accurate banning process is
probably part of the puzzle, but it is actually quite a small part. Other parts might
include:

* Technical measures of various sorts (anti-puppet, anti-revert, anti-edit war, anti-anon
edit, etc)
* Better policies and guidelines in general
* Good mediation for problems
* Some form of content arbitration, possibly votes, possibly something else
* Bold editing
* Better policies for allowing bans of various lengths that don't require the committee.
* Culture change
* Multiple independent versions of controversial articles
* yada
* yada
* yada

As an arbitrator, I'm entirely happy to enforce whatever rules you folks decide on, and if
those rules make the committee obsolete, that would be absolutely fine.

-Martin


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Wik and a not-quite-proposal for constitutional
	change

body:
Tim Starling wrote:

> David Gerard wrote:
>
>> I certainly hope having a large watchlist isn't going to become
>> something
>> to be taken as prima facie evidence of ill intention.
>
>
> I should hope not, since Patrick still has more watchlist entries than
> Wik: 13,762 compared to 13,030. Here is the current hall of shame:
>
> 8345 Stan Shebs

Hey! :-) I touch an article, I watch it, plus I add new articles that
I find interesting; RC gets too long to be worth looking at anymore.
But it does go to show that long watchlists don't mean combativeness.

I'd be interested to know which articles aren't being watched by
any active editors; it would be easy for anons' vandalism to be
overlooked in the flood that RC has become, and going by what I
clean up every day in the articles I'm watching, the anon vandals
are pretty random about what they choose to, uh, "tag".

Stan


from_name: Joachim Schiele

subject: [Wikitech-l] mediawiki update

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

i want to update our wiki to the current version
MediaWiki: 1.2.0rc4
PHP: 4.1.2
MySQL: 3.23.58

as in the Version.php from 1.2.0rc4 the number "1002" doesn't differ from the
1.2.5 Version.php so i guess that copying the files from the source over the
files would just work, right?

thanks in advice,
joachim schiele

- --
Keine "Software-Patente" in Europa
Wir protestieren gegen "Software-Patente" in Europa.

Die EU-Kommission und der Ministerrat bem?hen sich im Verborgenen um
unbegrenzte Patentierbarkeit von Software, wie von internationalen
Gro?konzernen und Patentanw?lten gefordert. Sie ignorieren dabei die
demokratische Entscheidung des Europa-Parlamentes vom 24. September 2003,
welche die Unterst?tzung von mehr als 300.000 B?rgern, 2.000.000 Kleinen &
mittelst?ndischen Firmen und Dutzenden von ?konomen und Wissenschaftlern
genie?t.

Dar?ber hinaus k?nnen Sie uns unterst?tzen, indem Sie den Aufruf zum Handeln
II des FFII e.V. unterzeichnen.
http://www.ffii.org/ffii-cgi/aktiv?f=euparl&l=de

Vielen Dank,
Joachim Schiele
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFAmT5uyzk1c1T5Os4RAiljAJ4vAlID5Uve3X2wWcIon2q5qbuf8QCeO+Qu
Whj9Jkn/OE1csNVJB+1NOQQ=
=L22O
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


body:
It's a bit off-topic here, but I wanted to reach a larger audience, so
here goes:

Seeing that the Chinese Wiktionary is empty, I decided to start some
work on it, but I found out that even the name needs attending to, as
there are three different names that people have referred to as the
Chinese term for Wiktionary.  In traditional Chinese, they are: ????,
????, and ????.

Now, the first one is used in the English Wiktionary entry on
Wiktionary as its Chinese translation.  The second is used in the
Chinese Wikipedia to refer to Wiktionary, and the third was what I put
down when I wrote down the Chinese main page (as well as some
appendices/indices that should be similar to the Wiktionary Appendix
namespace).

??, ??, and ?? all mean the same thing, but (at least in the dialect of
Chinese I use - a hybrid of Cantonese and Putonghua) ?? is a dictionary
of single characters, ?? is a dictionary of single characters and
multiple character phrases (ciyu), and ?? I use as a "blanket term"
(despite the fact that according to ''Xinhua Cidian'', ? is synonymous
with ?) for dictionaries, and thus I favor the use of ???? for
Wiktionary.  I don't know what the MediaWiki software uses (I think
it's ???? based on probabilities).

I'm sure that there are people who disagree with me on this, but what
should be done?

PS. After this debacle, a lot of the text in the Chinese Wiktionary
still refer to it as Wikipedia, and I can't do those changes.  Perhaps
someone can help me out.


from_name: mapellegrini at comcast.net

body:
A had a thought and I'd like to get some opinions on it.
There was an issue recently where Cantus had flagarantly violated
the three-revert limit on several articles. But, since quickpolls
are currently out of the question, an admin would have to be
a vigilante to block him.

My thought was - why not give all admins discretionary authority
to temp-ban (for 24 hours) anyone who violates the three revert
rule? It would give the rule some teeth, and it would keep the
quickpolls relatively uncluttered (which was the biggest complaint
- that they were being used frivilously). It wouldn't have to be
applied in all cases, but just one where the admin thinks that the
involved user(s) need a time-out. If someone thinks they
are unfairly banned, they could bring it up on the Request for
review of Admin actions. Quickpolls could be reserved for persistantly
bad behavior.

I'd like some feedback to see what everyone thinks.

--Mark


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Two users left because of Wik

body:
Fred Bauder wrote
> I can't believe he left on that account. I think it was more the general
> athmosphere. The process with Wik will probably go for several rounds and
> drag on for 6 months. This is linked to the substantial support system Wik
> has among other users many of who would rebel on the other side if the
> arbitrators were seen to deal pre-emptively with him.

Yes it was the general atmosphere, but it's important not to use that as an
excuse to be defeatist. Wik featured as a big part of that general
atmosphere. Tannin said on his user page:

: I got so bloody tired of seeing so much good work destroyed by a tiny
: minority of well-known problem users that I quit.[...]

: I guess that one of the things that really brought this home
: to me was that, quite by chance, I've had to spend a good
: deal of time working on some other multi-contributor
: cooperative web-based projects lately. Somewhere along the
: line I had forgotten what it was like to work with people
: who want to work with you toward a common goal, as opposed
: to putting up with the disruptions and distortions and
: evasions and downright lies that we get so used to here.
: (You want examples? Try Wik or Nico or RK. There are others
: of course, but those three will do to illustrate my point.
: It's easy to tell who they are. Just ask yourself if User X
: does more harm to the project, or good for it.)

: Maybe one day the Wikipedia community will get its act
: together and do something to encourage people who actually
: contribute to the encyclopedia instead of pandering to the
: trolls and the fanatics and the lunatics. Maybe.

The arbitration committee does not have to be like Jimbo; always hesitant to
act except in the most egregious cases. The community will squabble amongst
itself forever about whether users should be kept on or banned. This
bickering damages the community. What I want from the arbitration committee
is decisive leadership aimed at the betterment of the encyclopedia project.
I don't want a legalistic process or proof beyond reasonable doubt.

Of course it's true that you can't really keep anyone out of a wiki if
they're determined to circumvent technical measures. The value of leadership
is to end the in-fighting, and to avoid the sense of betrayal so many
Wikipedians feel when they are attacked for defending the community against
a troll.

-- Tim Starling


body:
> why not give all admins discretionary authority to temp-ban (for 24 hours) anyone who
> violates the three revert rule?

Good question.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:How_to_revert_a_page_to_an_earlier_versio
n/Policy_vote:_24_hour_bans_for_revert_wars

... has some discussion of that point. I suggest you take it there.

-Martin


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Walloon Wikipedia

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> The Walloon Wikipedia has been moved from outside hosting to our main
> servers, at http://wa.wikipedia.org/
>
> Links should be updated.

This brings us up to 300, including the extra test wiki I created the other
day. That's 300 wikis hosted by Wikimedia.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Namespace fever (LanguageWiktionaryPl.php)

body:
I've commented out the following lines from LanguageWiktionaryPl.php:
#       10      => "Indeks",
#       11      => "Dyskusja_indeksu",
#       12      => "Aneks",
#       13      => "Dyskusja_aneksu"

since a) they caused the hundred+ pages with 'Indeks:' and 'Aneks:'
prefixes to be completely inaccessible and b) the numbers conflict with
the Template and Help namespaces in MediaWiki 1.3.

In the future, we really should have two things:
* An automated script for migrating pages safely from pseudo-namespaces
into newly created namespaces
* A safe 'user namespace' area where specific MediaWikis can set up
local namespaces that won't conflict with MediaWiki upgrades.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
Anthere-
> This is exactly what I said very recently. Till
> recently, wikipedia-l was the list to discuss project
> wide discussion.

It is now, as the name suggests, the list to discuss project wide issues
for *WIKIPEDIA*. There is also Wikisource, Wikibooks, Wikiquote,
Wiktionary, etc. The issues discussed in your post affect *all* these
projects. Such matters belong on foundation-l.

> In short, Erik, the difference between wikipedia-l and
> foundation-l is now difficult to define.

It is very easy to define. foundation-l is intended for Wikimedia-wide
issues, wikipedia-l is intended for Wikipedia-wide issues, wikitech-l is
the technical equivalent to foundation-l. So a post regarding server
messages would be appropriate on wikitech-l and foundation-l, but not on
wikipedia-l.

The only reason I called it foundation-l and not wikimedia-l is to avoid
constant wikimedia/wikipedia typos.

> I am wondering if
> that bug report page is very wise, and if we should
> not just redirect it simply to SourceForge.

SourceForge is our bug tracking mechanism. The only other bug reports page
that matters is on test.wikipedia.org. What might make sense is a kind of
queue where people who don't speak English can report bugs, and people who
do can translate this into English and enter it into the tracker.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Wikitech-l] GNU Mailman upgraded to 2.1.5rc2

body:
On account of various troubles, most particularly rejection of all mail
to wikipl-l for the last couple weeks, I've upgraded mailman from 2.1.2
to 2.1.5rc2. It seems to work so far, but give a holler if it does
something unexpected.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [WikiEN-l] A lengthy defense of Wik

body:
In a message dated 5/6/2004 1:04:49 AM Eastern Standard Time,
charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com writes:
would find it easier to believe that Wik and I are on the same side, if I
could edit down the bloated [[1920 in Germany]] page without reverts from
him and 172,
So teh problem with Wik is that he is long winded?
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from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wik has removed the lists (short)

body:
I, for one, appreciate the gesture.

What I would really like is for him to come here and join in the
policy discussions.  There seems to be an emerging consensus here for
a faster process for dealing with some of the problems that he seems
to care a lot about, and his refusal to join the policy discussions is
unfortunate, because he may have useful thoughts to offer.

daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:

> As a gesture of goodwill, Wik has removed the lists from his page that people
> found offensive. I hope that the other side in this dispute will reciprocate
> in some way.
>
> I also hope that we will begin to address some of the issues Wik has raised.
>
> Danny

> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
Many of the issues Wik could potentially raise could be handled by following
the established dispute resolution process, the first step of which is to
communicate with other users, a tedious process, but one I find much more
pleasant than just butting heads with them. As it looks now the arbitration
decree will tend toward forcing him to follow that process rather then
singlehandedly keeping thousands of articles in the shape he feels is
"right".

Fred

From: daniwo59 at aol.com
Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Date: Thu, 6 May 2004 07:42:48 EDT
To: wikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wik has removed the lists (short)

As a gesture of goodwill, Wik has removed the lists from his page that
people found offensive. I hope that the other side in this dispute will
reciprocate in some way.

I also hope that we will begin to address some of the issues Wik has raised.

Danny

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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from_name: Charles Matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] A lengthy defense of Wik

body:
>He is here to help build an encyclopedia, and as he seems to see it, he is
being thwarted.

I would find it easier to believe that Wik and I are on the same side, if I
could edit down the bloated [[1920 in Germany]] page without reverts from
him and 172, with no use at all of the Talk page.  Why defend blah windbag
stuff like

''When, therefore, Germans came to survey the course of their history
between the first partition of Poland, in 1772, and the Treaty of
Versailles, they could not fail to feel singularly dissatisfied with the
results which had been achieved. ''

???

Like it says beneath the box, stuff posted to WP is subject to being edited;
especially 50K articles full of time-expired prose style.

Charles


body:
 "Mark Richards" wrote

>I think that the proliferation of
> 'troll' names is a response to people making a fuss
> about it. Without anyone to feed them, trolls will
> look elsewhere.

Don't believe that works for WP.  In-your-face usernames cause a
deterioration of trust.  UseRealNames is best, but not everyone would want
this or find it possible.  Having to keep one's cool in dealing with a
potential dispute with User:Trolls'R'Us is that much harder.

Charles


from_name: Christopher Mahan

subject: [WikiEN-l] On trolls, usenet and Wikipedia

body:
On Usenet or any of many online forums, trolls can be ignored (not
fed) and they mostly disappear. On wikipedia, they escalate their
vandalism, learning ever-sneakier ways of damaging articles that
people have spend countless hours of their precious time crafting.

Ignoring a troll on wikipedia is the worst thing you could possibly
do, since it will bite you in the proverbial bum.

=====
Christopher Mahan
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
818.943.1850 cell
http://www.christophermahan.com/

__________________________________
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from_name: Mark Richards

body:
Hang on a second, I thought vandals were easy to deal
with? Revert, ban if necessary, done. The problem is
users who have not vandalised anything, but seek to
engage in endlessly convoluted arguments with anyone
who will play. Unfortunately, if you play, you have
lost already.
If the troll vandalises, ban him immediately. If not,
don't feed him.
Mark

--- Christopher Mahan <chris_mahan at yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Usenet or any of many online forums, trolls can
> be ignored (not
> fed) and they mostly disappear. On wikipedia, they
> escalate their
> vandalism, learning ever-sneakier ways of damaging
> articles that
> people have spend countless hours of their precious
> time crafting.
>
> Ignoring a troll on wikipedia is the worst thing you
> could possibly
> do, since it will bite you in the proverbial bum.
>
> =====
> Christopher Mahan
> chris_mahan at yahoo.com
> 818.943.1850 cell
> http://www.christophermahan.com/
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs
> http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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from_name: Hunter Peress

subject: [Wikitech-l] short domain name.

body:
i think we should have a really short domain name. ideally 5 chars total, like:  wp.eu

please try your respective countries.

heres a page to document our efforts:  http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Domain_Name

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body:
Christopher Mahan wrote:
> On Usenet or any of many online forums, trolls can be ignored (not
> fed) and they mostly disappear.

That is not my experience with unmoderated Usenet forums.  Typically,
over a period of time, unmoderated forums degenerate as good people
lose patience and people who love to fight come to increasingly
dominate the conversation.  "Pure" trolls, i.e. people who come to a
forum and say outrageous things as a prank do tend to go away, but
that's about it.

Even this forum, which is generally very civilized, is kept so because
of the constant possibility of getting kicked off, which has in fact
happened a few times.

Nonetheless, I do agree completely with this:

> Ignoring a troll on wikipedia is the worst thing you could possibly
> do, since it will bite you in the proverbial bum.

--Jimbo


body:
Mark Richards wrote:
> If the troll vandalises, ban him immediately. If not,
> don't feed him.

But how to "not feed" him?  Let him have his way with an article?
Shall we allow Paul Vogel to have his way and post articles advocating
for Cosmotheism and White Separatism?

--Jimbo


body:
Christopher Mahan wrote:
> When you say: "If the troll vandalises, ban him immediately." How do
> you separate a troll from a not-mainstream-media edit?
> This is the whole sticking point.

Indeed.  And reasonable people can (and do!) differ in how to make
that separation, both in principle and in terms of the evaluation of
specific facts.

--Jimbo


body:
--- Mark Richards <marich712000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hang on a second, I thought vandals were easy to deal
> with? Revert, ban if necessary, done. The problem is
> users who have not vandalised anything, but seek to
> engage in endlessly convoluted arguments with anyone
> who will play. Unfortunately, if you play, you have
> lost already.
> If the troll vandalises, ban him immediately. If not,
> don't feed him.

People that don't vandalize anything don't bother me, since I'm not
even aware they exist (they're called readers).
People that vandalize then say: "I was wronged, The Cabal is Out To
Get Me" and proceed to make the edit again under the guise of Freedom
of Speech and Your Sources Are Biased Too, those are the troll we are
talking about.

When you say: "If the troll vandalises, ban him immediately." How do
you separate a troll from a not-mainstream-media edit?
This is the whole sticking point.

=====
Christopher Mahan
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
818.943.1850 cell
http://www.christophermahan.com/

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body:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:

> That is not my experience with unmoderated Usenet forums.
> Typically,
> over a period of time, unmoderated forums degenerate as good people
> lose patience and people who love to fight come to increasingly
> dominate the conversation.  "Pure" trolls, i.e. people who come to
> a
> forum and say outrageous things as a prank do tend to go away, but
> that's about it.

That's a result of the trolls feeding off each other. I agree that
moderation is a required part of civility.

> Even this forum, which is generally very civilized, is kept so
> because
> of the constant possibility of getting kicked off, which has in
> fact
> happened a few times.

Also because this list is not as attractive to trolls since they are
in fact mostly ignored. If I were a troll I would rather
edit/sabotage articles in the 'pedia rather than try to raise a stink
on this list.

=====
Christopher Mahan
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
818.943.1850 cell
http://www.christophermahan.com/

__________________________________
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from_name: fabiform

subject: [Wikitech-l] images and the category system

body:
People have just started [[Wikipedia:List of images]] (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_images/Animals for an example).
It's a sorted list/index of images displayed in a simple gallery (using the
markup: [[Image:Image Name.gif|thumb|100px|left|Short Description]]).

It seems to me that this would be better organised using the category system.
Would it be possible to create image categories which displayed their contents
in a gallery like this, rather than as a list of links to image description
pages?  I don't know how we'd deal with the captions, other than making them be
the file name, which might not be that useful... but creating a category system
by hand like these pages are doing does seem labour-intensive.

Fabi.

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subject: [Wikitech-l] Switch query

body:
Currently we are using a 16 port 10/100 switch on loan from (and
shared with) Bomis.  It is full.  I have here another 8 port 10/100
switch that I can use for when the new servers arrive, but sooner or
later I will want to buy a wikipedia-only switch.

We currently have 9 servers live, and we will soon have 5 more.  At
some point, Jason will send me pliny and larousse, and we will
probably use them for something as well.  (I think Wikipedia owns
three "old" machines?  I would have to review email to see which ones
of those I said that we gave to the foundation versus loaned.)

So that's maybe 17 ports plus the port for the remote power
controller.  Anyway, a 16 port will not be enough.

A 24 port would be enough for now, but at our current rate of growth,
it seems very likely to me that a 32 port would be needed as well.

I am interested in getting feedback on the issue of 10/100 versus
gigabit.  The answer of which to get depends, of course, on the total
price -- if the price difference is large, we can be happy with
10/100.  If the price difference is small, we might as well get the
gigabit.

--Jimbo


body:
You may be right, but it seems that a lot of the
'troll username' stuff is not users who have made any
undesirable article changes, it is just about pulling
people's chains on obscure process issues. I guess
where I'm going with this is that trolls have tied up
masses of time and attention of serious users who are
responding to their flaimbait on meta pages or talk
pages, without any real impact on actual content
(damaging content is different, Paul Vogel has
violated NPOV and other principles). These trolls have
managed to annoy a lot of people, waste a lot of time,
raise people's blood pressure, without doing much
damage to articles.
I guess I just feel that if you respond to these
(assuming there is no actual article damage) then you
have been trolled, and you have lost.
I wish there was a friendly 'D'oh, you've been
trolled' dope slap that I could award well meaning
people who get sucked into responding to someone who
is just dying for a user to do something like set up
an arbitration committee about them.
You're right though, there may not be many other
alternatives. Ah well,
Mark

--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
> Mark Richards wrote:
> > If the troll vandalises, ban him immediately. If
> not,
> > don't feed him.
>
> But how to "not feed" him?  Let him have his way
> with an article?
> Shall we allow Paul Vogel to have his way and post
> articles advocating
> for Cosmotheism and White Separatism?
>
> --Jimbo
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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from_name: Mr Paul Vogel

subject: [WikiEN-l] PAUL VOGEL INSANE? HARDLY! LOL! :D

body:
User is blocked
>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Your user name or IP address has been blocked by
Silsor. The reason given is this:
insane

Mark Richards wrote:
> If the troll vandalises, ban him immediately. If
not,
> don't feed him.

But how to "not feed" him?  Let him have his way with
an article?
Shall we allow Paul Vogel to have his way and post
articles advocating
for Cosmotheism and White Separatism?

--Jimbo

Now I am both a "troll" and "insame"?
because I have posted NPOV articles
for my own religion of Cosmotheism
and NPOV articles on the "unfashionable"
politics of "White Separatism"?

What nonsense!

Obviously, there is a Social-Marxist and
Jewish-Zionist "political bias" within Wikipedia
and not the least of which is shared by Jimbo and
this "censorship" and "banning" and "blocking" of
me by this ilk or cabal was solid proof of it for
any doubters.

If you are wondering why there are so many "vandals"
and "trolls", you really should first go take a good
long look in the mirror, and see that only your own
typical political bigotry and double-standards have
and biased censorship has created many if not most of
them.

Good luck!!!!

Best regards,

Paul Vogel

http://www.cosmotheism.net
and bias

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subject: [WikiEN-l] NPOV COSMOTHEISM ARTICLE

body:
('''Cosmotheism''' is a form of [[classical
pantheism]] that
identifies [[God]] with the ''cosmos'', that is, with
the
[[universe]] as a unified whole.

==Overview==

Cosmotheism asserts that "all is within God and God is
within all".
It considers the nature of reality and of existence to
be mutable and
destined to co-evolve towards a complete universal
consciousness, or
godhood.

[[etymology|Etymologically]], ''cosmotheism'' differs
from 'pan-
theism' in that "pan" is [[Ancient Greek|Classical
Greek]]
for ''all'', while the Greek word ''cosmos'' means an
orderly and
harmonious universe. Cosmotheists take this as meaning
the divine is
immanent to reality and consciousness, an inseparable
part of an
orderly, harmonious, and whole universal system.

In its broadest sense, the word cosmotheism may be
considered simply
as being synonymous with ''[[pantheism]]'', although
not all modern
pantheists would accept Cosmotheism as a synonym for
their own
worldview due to the historical association of
Cosmotheism with a
political movement, [[white separatism]], which some
within the
pantheist community may find objectionable.

According to a Cosmotheist Web site dedicated to the
late Dr.
[[William Pierce|William L. Pierce]]:

:"''Cosmotheism is a religion which positively asserts
that there is
an internal purpose in life and in cosmos, and there
is an essential
unity, or consciousness that binds all living beings
and all of the
inorganic cosmos, as one.''"

:"''What is our true human identity is we are the
cosmos made self-
aware  and self-conscious by evolution. ''"

:"''Our true human purpose is to know and to complete
ourselves as
conscious individuals and also as a self-aware species
and thereby to
co-evolve with the cosmos towards total and universal
awareness, and
towards the ever higher perfection of consciousness
and
being.''"[http://www.cosmotheism.net/]

Some claim [[Albert Einstein]] was a Cosmotheist,
[http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1982/JASA3-82Seeger.html],
along with
[[Carl Sagan]], [[Benedict Spinoza]] and other
historical
figures?although there is no quoted evidence of any of
these
three claiming to be "cosmotheist" as such, and all
could also be
said to be [[Pantheist]].

==Mordekhay Nesiyahu's cosmotheism==
In Israel, Cosmotheism was also described by
[[Mordekhay Nesiyahu]],
one of the foremost ideologists of the Israeli Labor
Movement and a
lecturer in its college Beit Berl in Israel.

In ''Cosmotheism ? Israel, Zionism, Judaism and
Humanity
towards the 21st Century'', Nesiyahu proposed not to
just assume the
existence of God, being "prior to all that was
created," but to
consider God as only being a result of the development
of the
universe and the consciousness of all of humankind.

Divinity in this particular view is inherently a human
invention.

The development of the divine (or what the believer
would qualify as
being "the revelation of the Divine") was, in
Nesiyahu's opinion,
both the condition for a more exalted human
functioning and all that
bears the fruit that comes out of it.

In Nesiyahu's universalist re-imagining of a secular
divinity, the
universal celebration of Cosmotheism is the basis for
rebuilding the
Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, and is also a secular
ethnically Jewish
and a Zionist contribution to all of humankind.

==Dr. William L. Pierce's Cosmotheism==

===Origins===
In the United States, ''cosmotheism'' sometimes refers
to a religion
adopted in [[1978]] by [[National Alliance]] founder
and [[white
separatist]]  the late Dr. [[William Pierce|William L.
Pierce]].
Pierce affirmed his cosmotheist belief in a speech
that he once gave
entitled "Our Cause":

:''"All we require is that you share with us a
commitment to the
simple, but great, truth which I have explained to you
here, that you
understand that you are a part of the whole, which is
the creator,
that you understand that your purpose, the purpose of
mankind and the
purpose of every other part of creation, is the
creator's purpose,
that this purpose is the never-ending ascent of the
path of creation,
the path of life symbolized by our life rune, that you
understand
that this path leads ever upward toward the creator's
self-
realization, and that the destiny of those who follow
this path is
godhood."''

Pierce's interpretation of cosmotheism
([http://baldur.libertyforum.net:8079/Our_Cause.txt])
was greatly
influenced by several disparate factors:
interpretations of [[George
Bernard Shaw]]'s play ''[[Man and Superman]]'';
strains of [[German
Romanticism]]; [[Charles Darwin|Darwinian]] concepts
of [[natural
selection]] and of survival of the fittest, mixed with
the related
early [[20th century]] [[eugenics|eugenic]] ideals;
and [[Ernst
Haeckel]]'s version of [[monism]].

===Religion, society, and race===

The foundation of Pierce's Cosmotheism was essentially
similar to
classical monistic pantheism ? he recognized no
physical
difference or separation between human and divine,
between  creator
and created ? but with a few differences. <!-- most
notably his
idea of the "degree of consciousness of the whole,
within". --- This
means nothing. How is that different to classical
pantheism?
Explanation is needed. -->

Pierce described his form of Cosmotheism as being
based on "[t]he
idea of an evolutionary universe ... with an evolution
toward ever
higher and higher states of self-consciousness," and
his political
ideas were centered on racial purity and [[eugenics]]
as the means of
advancing the [[white race]] first towards a
superhuman state, and
then towards godhood. In his view, the white race
represented the
pinnacle of human evolution thus far and therefore
should be kept
genetically separate from all other races in order to
achieve its
destined perfection in Godhood.

Dr. Pierce  believed in a hierarchical society
governed by what he
saw as the essential principles of nature, including
the survival of
the fittest. In his social schema, the best-adapted
genetic stock,
which he believed to be the [[white race]], should
remain separated
from other races; and within an all-white society, the
most fit
individuals should lead the rest. He thought that
extensive programs
of "racial cleansing" and of [[eugenics]], both in
Europe and in the
U.S., would be necessary to achieve this
socio-political program.

His [[National Alliance]] was to be the political
vanguard and the
spiritual priesthood of this program, which was
designed ultimately
to bring about a "White racial redemption". His
Cosmotheist Community
Church, which was to be the next step of this plan,
was set up in the
mid-1970s, alongside Pierce's other political projects
? the
National Alliance, National Vanguard Books, and the
weekly
broadcast ''American Dissident Voices'' ? all from his
mountain
retreat headquarters in West Virginia.

===Critical assessments===
Pierce's views have been characterized as a version of
early
twentieth century racial anthropology, but driven by
spiritual, as
well as scientific, beliefs. This area of his belief
was likely
influenced by his early association with [[George
Lincoln
Rockwell]]'s [[American Nazi Party]]. Others have
noted the German
Romantic roots that Pierce's ideas shared with
[[Nazism]] and have
observed similarities between the two ideologies:
Pierce's plan for
white divinity was similar to [[Adolf Hitler]]'s
vision for
the ''[[Master race|Herrenvolk]]''; also, his attacks
against Jews
as "parasites" on white society, who would prevent the
white race
from reaching its destined godhood by replacing the
white elite with
their own kind, echoed previous Nazi descriptions of
Jewish traits
and character.
[http://www.natvan.com/who-rules-america/wra.pdf]

Other criticisms have been harsher if not as
factually-accurate; for
example, the [[Southern Poverty Law Center]] has
characterized
Pierce's Cosmotheism as "an unsuccessful tax dodge".
Followers of
Pierce's cosmotheism do call many of these
characterizations
erroneous, as can be seen from this part of the Dr.
Griffin interview
with Dr. Pierce below from "The Fame of a Dead Man's
Deeds":

Dr Pierce-"And then there was a big fight with the IRS
which I lost.
They said that we weren't a church. They were
obviously under
pressure to take away the tax exemption we had. The
IRS sent some
agents out here to check us out. I still have the
report they wrote.
It had things like the road out here was very rough
and not conducive
to people getting to the services, and that we didn't
have enough
chairs and where were people going to sit, and there
was no central
heating system and so there couldn't be services in
the winter? a
bunch of baloney."

Dr. Griffin-(The IRS revoked Pierce's church status
and the
revocation was upheld in court. Pierce thinks the IRS
was responding
to pressure applied on it by the Anti-Defamation
League of B'nai
B'rith. While the vast majority of people view the ADL
in a positive
light, as an opponent of bigotry and intolerance,
Pierce sees it as a
Jewish instrument of thought control and the
abridgment of freedoms.
He contends that the ADL seeks to harm or even destroy
anyone or
anything that gets in the way of the Jewish agenda for
this country,
which includes him and his organization.)

Dr. Griffin-"You think your racial views were the real
reason the IRS
got on your case?"

Dr. Pierce-"If I had been preaching a doctrine that
didn't irritate
the Jews they would have left us alone. There are all
kinds of snake-
handling cults and everything else up here in these
hills, and the
IRS lets them call themselves a church and doesn't
bother them. It is
no big drain on the federal budget, and the IRS stays
in good graces
generally by not bothering people more than it has to.
But in our
case they were determined to get us, and it was
strictly because of
what I was teaching on racial and Jewish matters."

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

==Related articles==
*[[Classical pantheism]]
*[[Creativity Movement]]
*[[Eugenics]]
*[[List of Pantheists]]
*[[Pan-atheism]]
*[[Panentheism]]
*[[Pantheism]]

==Uncritical Reference for Nesinyahu's Cosmotheism==
*''Cosmotheism, Israel, Zionism, Judaism and Humanity
- towards the
21st Century'' by Mordecai Nesinyahu (Poetica - Tuvi
Sopher
Publishing, Tel Aviv.)

===[[Jewish]] or [[Marxist]] Critical References for
Dr. Pierce's
Cosmotheism===

*''Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White
Separatism'', by
Mattias Gardell[http://66.102.7.104/search?
q=cache:aDOMqBmbq40J:www.spunk.org/texts/pubs/llr/sp000382.txt+Mattias
+Gardell+and+Sweden+International&hl=en] (ISBN
0822330717)
*''The Turner Diaries and Cosmotheism: William
Pierce's Theology of
Revolution'', by Brad
Whitsel[http://66.102.7.104/search?
q=cache:r4e9cNal8AMJ:www.alphalink.com.au/~radnat/titles.html+Brad+Whi
tsel+Marxist&hl=en]  published in ''Nova Religio''
Vol.1, No.2, April
1998.

==External links==

=== Mordekhay Nesiyahu's cosmotheism ===

*[http://members.tripod.com/~TheHOPE/mikt2.htm
Nesiyahu's
interpretation of Cosmotheism]

===Dr. William L. Pierce's Cosmotheism===

====[[Jewish]], [[Marxist]], [[Pan-atheist]], and
[[Fundamentalist]]
[[Christianity]]  Criticisms====

*[http://www.alphalink.com.au/~radnat/usanazis/cosmotheism.html
''The
Turner Diaries and Cosmotheism: William Pierce's
Theology of
Revolution''] by Brad
Whitsel[http://66.102.7.104/search?
q=cache:r4e9cNal8AMJ:www.alphalink.com.au/~radnat/titles.html+Brad+Whi
tsel+Marxist&hl=en]  (''Nova Religio'')
*''Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White
Separatism'', by
Mattias Gardell[http://66.102.7.104/search?
q=cache:aDOMqBmbq40J:www.spunk.org/texts/pubs/llr/sp000382.txt+Mattias
+Gardell+and+Sweden+International&hl=en]  (ISBN
0822330717)
*[http://www.pantheist-
index.net/Distortions_Aberrations/Hugenholtz.html ''A
Blemish on the
Blossom: Pantheism and White-Supremacist Hate
Groups''] by Esther
Hugenholtz[http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:EqSl-
UZPAR8J:www.geocities.com/esther_hugenholtz/introduction.html+Esther+H
ugenholtz+(Pantheist+Index)+&hl=en]  (''Pantheist
Index'')
*[http://www.encyclopedia4u.com/p/pseudo-pantheism.html]
  Pseudo-
Pantheism by
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Naturyl]
(Encyclopedia4U)]
*[http://66.102.7.104/search?
q=cache:ZqR0uWfk_V4J:www.christianseparatist.org/briefs/sb1.03.html+Co
smotheism+and+Pastor&hl=en  The Devil and its False
Faces]  by
[http://www.christianseparatist.org/index.html]

====Cosmotheist Advocacy====
*[http://www.cosmotheism.net Cosmotheism site]
**[http://bks.ark11.net/dpm.htm A Tribute to the late
Dr. William L.
Pierce]
**[http://www.cosmotheism.net/thepath.shtml The Path],
by Dr. William
L. Pierce
**[http://www.cosmotheism.net/onlivingthings.shtml On
Living Things],
by Dr. William L. Pierce
**[http://www.cosmotheism.net/onsociety.shtml On
Society] by Dr.
William L. Pierce
**[http://www.cosmotheism.net/affirmations.shtml An
example of a
Cosmotheist affirmation of belief]
*[http://forums.originaldissent.com/showthread.php?t=12548
Interview
with Dr. William L. Pierce on Cosmotheism] (from ''The
Fame of a Dead
Man's Deeds'' by Dr. Robert Griffin)

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from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Watchlist and time-wasting (was: Wik)

body:
How much strain on the server does a long watchlist cause? If limiting a
watchlist to 100 entries would reduce my average WikiWait time from 5
seconds to 4 seconds, I would be in favor of such a limit.

My two biggest time-wasters at Wikipedia are:
*trolls and other fools
*the 5-second-or-more time lage

Ed Poor


body:
As it sits now we would deal with the user who reverted you, but entered
into no dialogue with you on the talk page. Remember you are just a NEW
troll, not an established old timer. As to dealing with well established
trolls they have set up a disruptive pattern which if analysed can be
demonstrated.

Fred

> From: "KNOTT, T" <tknott at qcl.org.uk>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Thu, 6 May 2004 17:01:29 +0100
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: RE: [WikiEN-l] On trolls, usenet and Wikipedia
>
> It's a bit of an oversimplification. If I wanted to troll, I'd make a
> controversial edit. When it was reverted I'd troll on the talk page. Get
> no bites - make another  controversial edit and troll on the talk page
> again. Get no bites again? Troll quickpolls, village pump, review of
> admin actions etc, complaining that I was being reverted without
> discussion.
>
> How do you deal with users like a troll version of me?
>
>
> Theresa
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Richards [mailto:marich712000 at yahoo.com]
> Sent: 06 May 2004 16:25
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] On trolls, usenet and Wikipedia
>
> Hang on a second, I thought vandals were easy to deal
> with? Revert, ban if necessary, done. The problem is
> users who have not vandalised anything, but seek to
> engage in endlessly convoluted arguments with anyone
> who will play. Unfortunately, if you play, you have
> lost already.
> If the troll vandalises, ban him immediately. If not,
> don't feed him.
> Mark
>
> --- Christopher Mahan <chris_mahan at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> On Usenet or any of many online forums, trolls can
>> be ignored (not
>> fed) and they mostly disappear. On wikipedia, they
>> escalate their
>> vandalism, learning ever-sneakier ways of damaging
>> articles that
>> people have spend countless hours of their precious
>> time crafting.
>>
>> Ignoring a troll on wikipedia is the worst thing you
>> could possibly
>> do, since it will bite you in the proverbial bum.
>>
>> =====
>> Christopher Mahan
>> chris_mahan at yahoo.com
>> 818.943.1850 cell
>> http://www.christophermahan.com/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> __________________________________
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>
>
>
>
>
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