from_name: Brian M

subject: [WikiEN-l] I've added a note to the 3RR policy page

body:
I think your wording is a good addition, except for one point.

As I have argued a few times on WP:AN, I think administrators should
avoid second-guessing each other.   Therefore, I don't think people
should be advised to go to a different administrator to unblock them
than the one who imposed the block in the first place.   This just
encourages people who have been blocked to  "forum shop" for the
softest/friendliest admin they can find, playing administrators
against each other.   It is clear that there is antipathy between some
administrators, and people shouldn't be able to exploit this.

In the case where the 3RR violation is not disputed, and a person
wants to apologize, express contrition etc, he or she should do that
with the admin who imposed the block.    The scenario where A blocks
B, B expresses contrition to C, C unblocks B is not a good scenario.
It puts the admins into conflict, and undermines their roles.  Admins
should avoid this scenario if at all possible.

In the case where the blocked member wishes to dispute the 3RR block,
that should be done initially with the admin who imposed the block, so
that admin can recognize and reverse his own error,  and apologize if
appropriate to the blocked person, minimizing future bad feelings and
conflict.  Only if that fails should the blocked person be able to ask
a different admin to intervene.    The intervention in most cases
should be to leave the block in place but to open a discussion about
it on AN/I, so that a consensus can be formed about whether the block
was proper or not. Once a consensus is established, any admin can
implement it.

Brian (BM)

On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 13:03:33 +0100, MacGyverMagic/Mgm
<macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> > *If you didn't, you should email the admin who blocked you (or another
> > admin), politely point this out and ask to be unblocked.
> > *If you did, you should either wait the 24 hours to calm down, or email the
> > admin who blocked you (or another admin), acknowledge your error and
> > apologise and ask to be unblocked.
> Nicely said. Couldn't have said it better myself. Why do so much
> people immediately ask for removal of sysop status? Sysops are only
> human. Just asking nicely will have a much better result.
>
> Mgm
>
>
> On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:37:48 +0000, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I've just added the following to [[WP:3RR]]. I think it concisely
> > reflects how these things actually work. Feel free, of course, to
> > edit ;-)
> >
> > I'm a big fan of 3RR blocks, because sterile reverting is bad. But
> > if someone emails me acknowledging their error and asking to be
> > unblocked, I'll generally do so. The idea is to get people to edit
> > better. Some admins are real hardarses about it, but I'm not sure
> > that's really productive myself.
> >
> > ==I've been blocked under 3RR! What do I do?==
> > First, check if you actually did make a fourth revert in 24 hours or very
> > close to it.
> >
> > *If you didn't, you should email the admin who blocked you (or another
> > admin), politely point this out and ask to be unblocked.
> > *If you did, you should either wait the 24 hours to calm down, or email the
> > admin who blocked you (or another admin), acknowledge your error and
> > apologise and ask to be unblocked.
> >
> > Some admins look at the quality of the edits in question, but most admins do
> > not as the rule does not concern itself with edit quality.
> >
> > Note that historically, public denunciation of the blocking admin has not
> > tended to gain sympathy.
> >
> > - d.
> > _______________________________________________
> > 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
>


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable
	block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk

body:
Andrew Lih wrote:

>On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 01:09:30 -0400, Jim Cecropia <jcecropia at mail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton so that he can defend himself
>>in the appropriate forums on Wikipedia.
>>
>>The 3RR, as I've stated elsewhere, is a loose cannon which tends to
>>favor the status-quo. If the there is a content dispute, the better solution
>>is to protect the article for a limited time to get the combatants to hash
>>out the issue in article talk. In the instant case, I notice that
>>GeorgeStepanek, for example, numbered his reverts ("first, second, third")
>>which telegraphs consciousness of the 3RR as a trap, then another editor
>>who disagrees with Houghton picked up on the reverting.
>>
>>
>It's dangerous to ascribe intent. Simply numbering one's edits does
>not mean it's a "trap." In fact, *not* numbering them, and losing
>count, could be construed as a trap as well.
>
>But I agree that an outside admin would have served the community
>better by simply locking the page, and not banning anyone. Somehow
>this needs to be emphasized on the 3RR page - not all 3R violations
>need to be followed up by a ban.
>
I agree.  In a Wikilove environment people would need to stop seeking
the maximum penalty for minimum violation.  Many editors who get
involved in edit wars in one subject can be perfectly well behaved when
they are working elsewhere.  Whatever happened to "assume good faith"?

Ec


list: foundation-l

from_name: Sj

subject: [Foundation-l] Proposal for New Project Wikirec

body:
Joe: To test out the feasibility of what you describe, whether or not
it would end up being part of a larger project, you should start by
creating 3 or 4 sample pages.  Perhaps you can do this in your user
space on meta... then we can figure out whether to develop it further
there, help launch a new project, etc.

SJ

On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 18:43:57 -0800 (PST), Galloway Joe
<threestudindia at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'd like to announce a proposed new project, currently
> titled Wikirec,
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikirec.  A wiki for
> outdoor recreation and locations.  Thanks
>
> Joe
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Make Yahoo! your home page
> http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
+sj+
 _ _ :-------.-.--------.--.--------.-.--------.--.--------[...]


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Blair P. Houghton

subject:
I have unblocked Blair P.
	Houghton.	Re:	[WikiEN-l]	Unreasonableblock
	of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk

body:
David Gerard wrote:

> Blair P. Houghton wrote:
>
>> Garrrr! It not roid rage! It justifiable barbellcide! Garrr!!!
>> I even spelled out in the talk page that I wasn't being
>> vituperative.  But did anyone read back more than two layers of
>> comments? Hard to tell.
>
>
> Take me through this one slowly:
>
> What's so hard about not reverting repeatedly?

I dunno.  I didn't revert it.  I edited it to make it right.  Ask the
guy who reverted it.

> Why does it have to go into the article THAT SECOND?

Why does it have to be reverted to wrong information that second?

>
> What bit of the 3RR is ambiguous?

Who said it was? Read my rebuttal.  I didn't violate the 3RR.

>
> I look forward to your answers.

I look forward to a little educated forethought on the part of every
self-elected
politician on wikipedia.

--Blair
"Still not being vituperative."


body:
geni wrote:

>On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 14:05:42 +0800, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Blair,
>>
>>It was legit to unblock you but the biting comments don't help. So
>>keep the personal comments out of it. Play the ball, not the man/men.
>>
>>I've also been bold and altered the 3RR page:
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Three-revert_rule#Intent_of_the_policy
>>
>>Still not entirely happy with the edits, but I do think 3RR needs to
>>be closer to the "means of last resort" rather than the quick tool it
>>is now.
>>
>>-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
>>
>>
>The 3RR was supported by comunity conmsensus. If you want to change it
>get another consensus
>
That sounds like hiding behind rules to avoid the use of common sense.

Ec


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] What is de.wikiversity.org?

body:
Ang-

that seems reasonable to me. I have added a site notice to the effect
that Wikiversity is not yet an official Wikimedia project, with a link
to your mailing list post.

As for the general project idea, the page
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity is still a big hodgepodge of
keywords and threadmode discussions. Now would be a good time for
someone to take the lead in defining the project goals properly. I
cannot support the project until that has happened, because I fear
people in the different language communities would develop vastly
different resources under the same name.

The most important question seems to me whether Wikiversity will just be
a repository of learning materials, or a true online university that
includes
- a graduation process
- original research
- a publication and peer review process for scientific papers, theses, etc.

That information would be necessary before people can make an informed
decision whether Wikiversity should exist as a separate project, as an
umbrella project that includes Wikibooks, as part of Wikibooks, or not
at all. For example, I would only support a separate project if its
goals go beyond merely collecting and creating resources for educators
in existing institutions.

I'm really excited about the broader vision of a wiki-university. I'd be
happy to assist in taking this project from brainstorming to reality,
though I do believe it might be a good idea to wait another couple of
months before formally launching a vote on the launch, to avoid voter
fatigue and the general impression that Wikimedia is moving too fast
with new projects.

Peace,

Erik


body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:

>>*If you didn't, you should email the admin who blocked you (or another
>>admin), politely point this out and ask to be unblocked.
>>*If you did, you should either wait the 24 hours to calm down, or email the
>>admin who blocked you (or another admin), acknowledge your error and
>>apologise and ask to be unblocked.
>>
>>
>Nicely said. Couldn't have said it better myself. Why do so much
>people immediately ask for removal of sysop status? Sysops are only
>human. Just asking nicely will have a much better result.
>
That works two ways.  Should it not have been the responsibility of the
person doing the blocking to discuss it nicely first?  After all, the
sysop presumably has more experience here than the person that he is
blocking.

It is only natural for people who feel they have been attacked to react
with anger, and to feel victimized.

Ec


body:
geni wrote:

>The 3RR was supported by comunity conmsensus. If you want to change it
>get another consensus
>
>
You don't "get consensus" in the way you "get a bunch of bananas from
the store."  You "get consensus" in the way you "get the joke."

Consensus isn't something you obtain, demand, husband, or cite.  It's
something that happens.

Consensus follows action.  To believe otherwise is to obviate the prime
directive of Wikipedia, which is to '''be bold'''.

The cooperative counterparts in a community of bold people are those who
accept the boldness of those who are right, regardless of the prior
consensus.

This concept of cooperation imbues every organization that relies on the
truth.  Ask Galileo sometime.  Or ask your 5th-grade science teacher why
you were taught about Galileo's legal problems. (Not that I think I'm
Galileo or these noobs are the Inquisition; but a boy's got to get out
the ''reductio ad absurdum'' sometimes to put a point across.)

--Blair


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Sebastien BARRE

subject: [Wikitech-l] Simple ACL implementation for 1.3.11

body:
Hi

Nice, I'll give it a shot.

At 3/16/2005 12:35 PM, you wrote:

>I did a small change to SearchEngine, so that the search does
>not give previews if the feature is enabled. Users will see
>if their search term appears in a hidden page, but that's it.
>
>I left RecentChanges alone, so the page names and change
>comments are still visible to everyone.

What about diffs ? I hope they are protected too ?

What about medias ? Sounds a little more difficult to do.

--
Sebastien Barre


from_name: Tom Haws

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time

body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:

>I don't have all the answers, but the first idea
>that popped into my mind was:
>
>* Let users (or a subset of them) "tag" an article
>  version.
>* A tag (or "flag") could take on any assigned
>  meaning.
>* My favorite tag idea: "Vandalism-patrolled by mav" (!)
>* Here's another: "Selected for the print edition"
>
>
This is the right approach.  All article versions need to have several
slider flags associated with them in the database.  Some of those flags,
like confidence, need to be automatically set according to the
software's judgement of the trustworthiness of the editor (based on some
reputation model).  Other flags need to have an interface radio button
setting so readers/editors can rate the article versions on any number
of aspects.

>Or if a Wikipedian makes a minor correction (like
>spelling, punctuation, grammar; or an obviously
>relevant internal link) to an article version tagged
>by the foundation - then it would be GREAT if the
>software would notify the foundation's editors. They
>could quickly review the change and probably be GLAD
>to endorse the current version. This would PREVENT
>forking, or at least reduce it to a bare minimum.
>
>Better yet, if a Wikipedian makes a SIGNIFICANT
>IMPROVEMENT to a foundation-tagged article version,
>I'd think the foundation would be OVERJOYED to
>endorse it. (I'm planning to educate them about
>using the History and Diff functions.)
>
>
Right, Ed.  There is absolutely no reason for a fork.  All we need is
some proactive, creative, and *bold* programming experimentation.

Long live Respectipedia.org!!

Tom Haws


subject: [Wikitech-l] Trail of pages visited

body:
At 3/16/2005 02:37 PM, Alison Russell wrote:
>Hi again,
>
>Has anyone ever implemented a trail of pages visited? I would like to do a
>floating trail which opens in a new mini window and keeps track of last
>ten visits a user makes?
>
>Any ideas or examples anyone can refer me to?

Yup, I wrote a small extension that does something very similar some weeks
ago. It's not in a mini window though, but you can adapt it.
http://public.kitware.com/Wiki/User:Barre/Extensions/kw_bread_crumbs

--
Sebastien Barre


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time

body:
The latest issue of Software Development magazine is on-line now:

http://www.sdmagazine.com/documents/sdm0504e/

Their excellent article "The Wiki Way" gives significant attention to
MediaWiki software and the Wikipedia. There's even a section on Wiki
Woes (like vandals).

And I found a professor of church history whose students cite Wikipedia
in papers they write.

I think we're finally beginning to be taken seriously. We have half a
million articles, and we're approaching the level of respectability
which Encyclopedia Britannica labored for centuries to achieve.

The question is, where do we go from here? Larry Sanger left the project
for a mix of reasons, but SOME of them made sense (at least to me). We
never resolved the tension between:

A) Anyone can edit any article, any time; and,
B) People can count on every article to be accurate and fair.

Not enough people were interested in Larry's "Sifter Project". I don't
know if anyone is using Magnus Manke's "tagging" software. Do we need to
fork?

I was approached by the director of a foundation (with a multi-million
dollar budget) to create a fork of Wikipedia leading to a print edition
to be published no later than 2008. If I do this, maybe it will get me
out of your hair? (The Cunctator wrote, "Rinse, wash, repeat.") But I
worry whether a fork is the best approach, or even necessary at all.

Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed


subject:
I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton.
	Re:	[WikiEN-l]Unreasonableblock of user

body:
JAY JG wrote:

>
> If enough people are reverting you, one could argue that what you are
> seeing is actually "concensus", not "3RR gamesmanship".

"One could argue" and "one could prove" are not the same thing.

And when the players in any particular page arrive totally at random,
you have no chance of ensuring that "consensus" will do "the right
thing" even most of the time.  My real beef with the cries of
"consensus!" from GeorgeStepanek is that he was the only one doing any
reverting or talking during the time he was demanding there was
consensus.  And that's not consensus, it's a form of gamesmanship known
as the "semi-bluff", in which you don't have a winning hand, but still
have a chance to make one as the game progresses.

Personally, I don't think Taxman was doing anything other than
misinterpreting the problem as educated vandalism and taking over where
GeorgeStepanek had to stop (although his countdown of his reverts
indicates he was laying the trap).  Taxman's part in this is merely
stupid.  It's GeorgeStepanek who crossed the line, making many mistakes
in accusing me of 3RR violation, and then CryptoDerk who went along
gleefully absent of understanding.

--Blair


body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:

>>*If you didn't, you should email the admin who blocked you (or another
>>admin), politely point this out and ask to be unblocked.
>>*If you did, you should either wait the 24 hours to calm down, or email the
>>admin who blocked you (or another admin), acknowledge your error and
>>apologise and ask to be unblocked.
>>
>>
>Nicely said. Couldn't have said it better myself. Why do so much
>people immediately ask for removal of sysop status? Sysops are only
>human. Just asking nicely will have a much better result.
>
>
Because if a few sysops lost their admin privs because they failed to
perform due diligence,
then all of them will start performing the diligence that is due.  And
then you'd stop seeing
calls for their ouster for such minor errors.

--Blair


body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>I dispute any suggestion that protection of a page is in any way *less*
>drastic than blocking a user.  If a page is protected, *nobody* can edit
>it.  If one or two over-enthusiastic revert warriors are blocked for up to
>a day, only their potential edits are lost--and since they're likely to be
>holding up editing by their reverts, their loss is often a very good
>thing.
>
>
There's one very important distinction:  if you block the page, the user
is still able to edit other pages.

I couldn't, for example, discuss the accusation of 3RR violation at all
in the fora on which it was being discussed.

I had to join this mailing list (which honestly I'd rather not have
cluttering up my in-box) to get ANY communication with the community.

I was able to send "user email", but have as yet received zero response,
and expected none from people whose intent was to railroad me.

I couldn't even edit my own user-talk page.

Blocking someone based on a knee-jerk reaction to n biased accusation is
a very bad policy, IMO.

--Blair


subject:
I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton.Re:	[WikiEN-l]Unreasonableblock
	of user

body:
JAY JG wrote:

>> From: "Blair P. Houghton" <blair at houghton.net>
>
>> And when the players in any particular page arrive totally at random,
>> you have no chance of ensuring that "consensus" will do "the right
>> thing" even most of the time.
>
>
> Interesting assertion.  An assertion and a proof are not the same thing.

I have found that waiting a few weeks usually allows enough players to
arrive to start building a respectable consensus.  The 3RR is right.
Those who must repeatedly revert are simply impatient.

Tom Haws


body:
Andrew Lih wrote:

>On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:58:20 +0000, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>The 3RR was supported by comunity conmsensus. If you want to change it
>>get another consensus
>>
>>
>Text that was voted on says:
>"If you violate the three revert rule, sysops may block you for up to 24 hours."
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Three_revert_rule_enforcement
>
>The policy provides authorization for blocking, but not much wisdom or
>guidance on whether to use it. Just wanted to note that page locking
>is also a viable (and less drastic) option for admins.
>
It's important to note that "may block" is not the same as "shall
block"  There is room there for the application of sound judgement.

Ec


subject:
I have unblocked
	Blair	P.	Houghton.	Re:	[WikiEN-l]	Unreasonableblock
	of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk

body:
John Lee wrote:

> Blair P. Houghton wrote:
>
>>> I look forward to your answers.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> I look forward to a little educated forethought on the part of every
>> self-elected
>> politician on wikipedia.
>
>
> Just so you know, David Gerard is an elected arbitrator. I don't think
> he's acting in an official capacity, just thought you should know,
> since that seems a bit unfair.

Well, I apologize then.

It's not possible to know who is and who isn't elected unless they wear
the right color of propellor beanie.

I was referring however to those in the Weight Training page who seem to
think they know better than I do what a consensus is, what Weight
Training is, or what due process is.

--Blair
"Mine's a rich, plebeian brown."


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject:
I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l]
	Unreasonableblock of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk

body:
Jim Cecropia said:

> I hope you generally support the idea that if an article gets too
> contentious, "locking is better than blocking."

I don't agree with this in all cases.  Sometimes there are just one or two
people whos editing is problematic, and it's wrong to prevent *everybody*
editing it in such cases.  It would be cool if we could block an editor
from editing a specific article, but that kind of granularity isn't yet
available so a block is sometimes the way to take the most disruptive
elements out of circulation for a few hours.
It needs emphasizing that the length of the block is at the sysop's
discretion.  It can be anything *up to* 24 hours.  Even two hours can be a
pretty effective block for people who are already in an edit war.
I also disagree with you on the idea that reverts by multiple users
violate the spirit of the 3RR.  In my opinion they exemplify it, and this
is supported explicitly by the text of WP:3RR, though it rightly points
out that extended disputes are better dealt with by protection rather than
edit warring:
"This policy applies to each person. Use of sockpuppets (multiple
accounts) is not a legitimate way to avoid this limit, and the 3RR
specifically does not apply to groups. If the edit really needs reverting
that much, somebody else will probably do it?and that will serve the vital
purpose of showing that the community at large is in agreement over which
of two competing versions is correct. If you like, chat with other
Wikipedians whom you respect, and ask them if they could take a look. If
you and the person you've asked to help have both needed to revert three
times, then it is probably time to ask for the page to be protected and to
start looking into dispute resolution."


body:
Blair P. Houghton wrote:

> I had to join this mailing list (which honestly I'd rather not have
> cluttering up my in-box) to get ANY communication with the community.

This seems somewhat self centered.  How do you think the list enjoys
being cluttered?  Yesterday was oh, so nice and quiet.  It is rather
disrespectful when users hijack the list for personal grievance airing.

> I was able to send "user email", but have as yet received zero
> response, and expected none from people whose intent was to railroad me.

I know that we have said we don't want to encourage shopping for
admins.  But in a case like yours, I think the best course of action is
to shop for an ombudsman admin rather than to take your personal
grievances to the list.  We need to do something to make this clear to
blocked users so this list doesn't continue to be bloated with
internecine bickering about wars that should be resolved on talk pages.

Tom Haws


body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>Andrew Lih said:
>
>
>>On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:58:20 +0000, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>The 3RR was supported by comunity conmsensus. If you want to change it
>>>get another consensus
>>>
>>>
>>Text that was voted on says:
>>"If you violate the three revert rule, sysops may block you for up to
>>24 hours."
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Three_revert_rule_enforcement
>>
>>The policy provides authorization for blocking, but not much wisdom or
>>guidance on whether to use it. Just wanted to note that page locking is
>>also a viable (and less drastic) option for admins.
>>
>>
>I dispute any suggestion that protection of a page is in any way *less*
>drastic than blocking a user.  If a page is protected, *nobody* can edit
>it.  If one or two over-enthusiastic revert warriors are blocked for up to
>a day, only their potential edits are lost--and since they're likely to be
>holding up editing by their reverts, their loss is often a very good
>thing.
>
If an editor has something to add that is not related to the war it will
still be just as valid afte the lock-up period has ended.  Very little
is of such immediate importance as to not survive the application of a
little patience.

Ec


subject:
I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re:
	[WikiEN-l]	Unreasonableblock of user

body:
JAY JG wrote:

>> From: "Blair P. Houghton" <blair at houghton.net>
>>
>> Consensus isn't something you obtain, demand, husband, or cite.  It's
>> something that happens.
>
>
> More typically, it is something you build based on discussion or
> debate.  Talk: pages are a great place for that.
>
>> Consensus follows action.  To believe otherwise is to obviate the
>> prime directive of Wikipedia, which is to '''be bold'''.
>
>
> I hadn't heard "Be bold" referred to as Wikipedia's "prime directive"
> before; I'm not sure everyone here would agree.  In any event, while I
> don't know the details of this particular case, it amazes me how often
> people attempting to make major, usually contentious, and often highly
> POV re-writes to articles cite "Be bold", yet fail to note that the
> majority of that policy is devoted to when you *should not* "Be
> bold".  In particular, much of the policy clearly points out that on
> disputed issues and controversial subjects one should, instead, get
> consensus on Talk: pages first.

Clairvoyance isn't my strongest skill.  I don't know who will complain
until I do what I have a right to do.  And I suspect I'm "only human" in
that regard, as is everyone else.

>> The cooperative counterparts in a community of bold people are those
>> who accept the boldness of those who are right, regardless of the
>> prior consensus.
>
>
> I believe we are straying into "argument from silence" logical fallacy
> territory here.

It's the basis for most of the Wikipedia.  What doesn't get munged is
accepted.  And if you see a problem, you fix it.  Has a lot to do with
the way life works, too.  Which is one of the attractive features of the
place.

> This concept of cooperation imbues every organization that relies on
> the truth.
>
> Cooperation is something that comes from both sides; it cannot be
> unilaterally imposed by "Bold" individuals.

Tell that to the guy who reverted me, hollering "consensus!" from the
back of his mule, then having me jailed for arguing the point, then
including everything I added (but retaining a bit of stuff that is soon
to be gone anyway).

--Blair


from_name: JAY JG

subject:
I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re:
	[WikiEN-l]Unreasonableblock of user

body:
>From: "Jim Cecropia" <jcecropia at mail.com>
>I also must state that, as Houghton infers, neither truth nor
>accuracy is determined by consensus, and that is NOT a comment
>specifically on the Weight Training article.

"Truth" is a thing that is hard to determine, and often hotly disputed; in
any event its determination is not something that is within the purview of
Wikipedia. Instead we have the NPOV policy.

>Having two people on one side of a disagreement play "tag team" on reverts
>(consciously or not) is a violation of the spirit, if not exactly the
>wording, of the 3RR. In effect, Taxman's first and second reverts were
>really GeorgeStepanek's fourth and fifth. Result: one side in an article
>can always win AND get the opposition blocked so long as they have one more
>supporter than the other side.
>
>This 3RR gamesmanship has to end. Ask an admin to protect the article and
>take it to the talk page.

If enough people are reverting you, one could argue that what you are seeing
is actually "concensus", not "3RR gamesmanship".

Jay.


body:
Tom Haws wrote:

>
> JAY JG wrote:
>
>>> From: "Blair P. Houghton" <blair at houghton.net>
>>
>>
>>> And when the players in any particular page arrive totally at
>>> random, you have no chance of ensuring that "consensus" will do "the
>>> right thing" even most of the time.
>>
>>
>>
>> Interesting assertion.  An assertion and a proof are not the same thing.
>
>
> I have found that waiting a few weeks usually allows enough players to
> arrive to start building a respectable consensus.  The 3RR is right.
> Those who must repeatedly revert are simply impatient.

1.  I didn't violate 3RR.

2.  I had actually been waiting for some time before fixing that article
as someone else was being abused by that group of page-owning campers.
All the wait managed to do was drive out the few reasonable editors
who'd tired of the arguments.

--Blair


body:
Tom Haws wrote:

> Blair P. Houghton wrote:
>
>> I had to join this mailing list (which honestly I'd rather not have
>> cluttering up my in-box) to get ANY communication with the community.
>
>
> This seems somewhat self centered.  How do you think the list enjoys
> being cluttered?  Yesterday was oh, so nice and quiet.  It is rather
> disrespectful when users hijack the list for personal grievance airing.

That seems somewhat self-centered.  You want a public forum quiet while
people are being denied their rights?  I have to do my business where I
must, and then leave.

>> I was able to send "user email", but have as yet received zero
>> response, and expected none from people whose intent was to railroad me.
>
>
> I know that we have said we don't want to encourage shopping for
> admins.  But in a case like yours, I think the best course of action
> is to shop for an ombudsman admin rather than to take your personal
> grievances to the list.  We need to do something to make this clear to
> blocked users so this list doesn't continue to be bloated with
> internecine bickering about wars that should be resolved on talk pages.

As I've pointed out, "ketcheh-twenty-two".  This is the only place to
get a soapbox once the block is in place.  If it were a message board it
would be hierarchically organized and we  wouldn't have to act to delete
threads we aren't interested in.  That it's still a mailing list implies
a great deal of slothful acceptance of the status quo.

--Blair


subject:
I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton.
	Re:	[WikiEN-l]	Unreasonableblock of user

body:
Blair P. Houghton wrote:

> Tell that to the guy who reverted me, hollering "consensus!" from the
> back of his mule, then having me jailed for arguing the point, then
> including everything I added (but retaining a bit of stuff that is
> soon to be gone anyway).

Blair, I will say it directly.  You are in the wrong in this case.
Please note the following steps:

1.  Find a page that you think needs "improvement".
2.  Ignore the talk page and *boldly* fix the page.
3.  When you are reverted, bite your tongue, go to the talk page and
say, "Huh?".
4.  Spend the next 4 months discussing your POV and building consensus
toward a better solution.

You failed the above at step 3.  I recommend you come to an admin with
hat in hand, promise not to revert again, and go to work building a new,
better consensus.  That's the way it works.

Tom


subject:
I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton.
	Re:[WikiEN-l]	Unreasonableblock of user

body:
JAY JG wrote:

>> From: "Blair P. Houghton" <blair at houghton.net>
>>
>> JAY JG wrote:
>>
>>> I hadn't heard "Be bold" referred to as Wikipedia's "prime
>>> directive" before; I'm not sure everyone here would agree.  In any
>>> event, while I don't know the details of this particular case, it
>>> amazes me how often people attempting to make major, usually
>>> contentious, and often highly POV re-writes to articles cite "Be
>>> bold", yet fail to note that the majority of that policy is devoted
>>> to when you *should not* "Be bold".  In particular, much of the
>>> policy clearly points out that on disputed issues and controversial
>>> subjects one should, instead, get consensus on Talk: pages first.
>>
>>
>> Clairvoyance isn't my strongest skill.  I don't know who will
>> complain until I do what I have a right to do.  And I suspect I'm
>> "only human" in that regard, as is everyone else.
>
>
> Little clairvoyance is needed to know that the very first time you are
> reverted, it means that your edits are contentious and disputed.  And
> it's a bad sign when people start taking about what they "have a right
> to do" on Wikipedia; as far as I know, editing Wikipedia is still not
> covered under the Constitution, Bill of Rights, or similar legislation.

You ought to read them sometime.  They don't list all of your rights.

>
>>> I believe we are straying into "argument from silence" logical
>>> fallacy territory here.
>>
>>
>> It's the basis for most of the Wikipedia.  What doesn't get munged is
>> accepted.  And if you see a problem, you fix it.  Has a lot to do
>> with the way life works, too.  Which is one of the attractive
>> features of the place.
>
>
> As soon as you are reverted, the "argument from silence" is obviously
> no longer correct.

And then we get into the "argument from self-imposed dictatorship".

>
>>> Cooperation is something that comes from both sides; it cannot be
>>> unilaterally imposed by "Bold" individuals.
>>
>>
>> Tell that to the guy who reverted me, hollering "consensus!" from the
>> back of his mule, then having me jailed for arguing the point, then
>> including everything I added
>
>
> Referring to one's opponents on Talk: pages as "juvenile delinquents"
> and oneself as the "teacher" is a particularly bad strategy for
> getting cooperation.

I prefer to interpret the facts as showing nobody was trying to
cooperate with me.

>
>> (but retaining a bit of stuff that is soon to be gone anyway).
>
>
> This statement is an ominous sign.

Nope.  Just a statement that I know the truth and the truth always wins
when consensus is at stake.

--Blair


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time

body:
Matt wrote:

> The problem with a fork is that you'd leave most of the
> community behind, and the community is A) large, B) full
> of experts in obscure topics, and C) knowledgable about
> the state of existing WP articles.
>
> Having "stable-development" branches for articles seemed
> an excellent idea, and would effectively be an "in-
> project" fork...is this still under consideration?

I prefer the idea of "branching": we're writing
encyclopedia articles, not computer software. I don't
want to leave the community behind at all.

The foundation plans to hire professional editors and
writers. They'll create, say, an additional 4,000
articles (on lofty topics, no doubt ;-) and also
choose a subset of the half million Wikipedia articles
to whip into shape.

But I'm recommending to the foundation that any
articles it revises be posted back to Wikipedia
immediately - as opposed to waiting until their
publication day. (I don't know the legal niceties; is
prompt re-publication a requirement, or can they hang
on to their version in-house till the last minute?)
BOTH projects would surely benefit from this cross-
pollination.

I'd like to do whatever I can to reduce the 'forkiness' of
the foundation's project and increase the 'give-and-take-iness'
of it. Collaboration has been the key of Wikipedia's success;
let's not change horses in midstream.

Ed Poor


subject:
I have unblocked Blair P.
	Houghton.	Re:	[WikiEN-l]	Unreasonableblock of user

body:
Tom Haws wrote:

> Blair P. Houghton wrote:
>
>> Tell that to the guy who reverted me, hollering "consensus!" from the
>> back of his mule, then having me jailed for arguing the point, then
>> including everything I added (but retaining a bit of stuff that is
>> soon to be gone anyway).
>
>
> Blair, I will say it directly.  You are in the wrong in this case.
> Please note the following steps:
>
I am not.

> 1.  Find a page that you think needs "improvement".

I did.

> 2.  Ignore the talk page and *boldly* fix the page.

I fixed the page according to what I saw on the talk page.

> 3.  When you are reverted, bite your tongue, go to the talk page and
> say, "Huh?".

You presume the person doing the reversion was right not to say "Huh?"
to me.

> 4.  Spend the next 4 months discussing your POV and building consensus
> toward a better solution.

Would have loved to do that, but it wasn't being offered to me in kind.
Others were accepting of the edits I made but only too willing to
pretend that I was breaking the rules.

> You failed the above at step 3.

Again, you are wrong.

> I recommend you come to an admin with hat in hand, promise not to
> revert again, and go to work building a new, better consensus.  That's
> the way it works.

I did nothing wrong and I will not kowtow to blind authority; I will
work to make authority responsible.  That's the way it works.

--Blair


subject:
I have unblocked Blair P.
	Houghton.	Re:[WikiEN-l]	Unreasonableblock of user

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>Blair P. Houghton said:
>
>
>>I prefer to interpret the facts as showing nobody was trying to
>>cooperate with me.
>>
>>
>>
>
>How about: there are more of them than you and they seem to have a
>different perspective?  Maybe you could work on changing their minds
>instead of saying, as you did in one edit summary that they're engaged in
>a conspiracy to publish bad information?  You forgot to assume good faith.
>
>
I assumed good faith until I was hit in the side of the head by
irrational reversions.  Then I deduced bad faith.  Which was proved by
the false accusations of 3RR violation.

The bad faith didn't originate with my edits of the lead, either.
GeorgeStepanek had abused Dan100 previous to that.

--Blair


subject:
3RR again (was Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l]
	Unreasonableblock of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk)

body:
Andrew Lih wrote:

>You have to break eggs to make an omelette, and sometimes you have to
>let people see the futility of war. :)
>
>
Fresh thinking and good point against *enforcing* the 3RR.  But I don't
completely understand the next paragraph.  Can you restate?

>The problem with 3RR as it's being practiced now -- it assigns blame
>much too early in the process, without even an attempt to stabilize
>the situation and let cooler heads prevail.
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: From Wikipedia admin Tom Haws

body:
Tom, your spam-blocker bounced my email.  Here's my reply:

Tom Haws wrote:

> Blair,
>
> Could we unburden the list by discussing this between us?

You're not the only one I'm discussing it with, so it'll stay on the
list until all those expressing false interpretations of the incident
have their misapprehensions explained to them.

I'd rather it went away, but that will require people to stop thinking I
violated the 3RR.

--Blair


subject:
I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton.Re:[WikiEN-l]	Unreasonableblock
	of user

body:
JAY JG wrote:

>
> Blair, I regret to inform you that I'm going to have to withdraw from
> the discussion at this point, because of self-imposed feeding
> restrictions.

I had a protein shake, oatmeal, and a banana after spin-class this morning.

--Blair
"See, now *that* is irrelevant noise."


from_name: Alex J. Avriette

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Five points we should be discussion about the
	mediawiki projects

body:
(note this is wrapped to 78 characters. Sorry if it comes out wonky for you)

The points I'm going to cover in this (long) message:
* Why one message instead of five
* Introduction
* Systems availability
* The need for a better templating system and community agreement on
templating systems -- and machine parsing
* Fancruft and how to cope
* How to cope with a message of this length and complexity.

1. Why one message instead of six?

  Firstly, let me apologize for taking up so much of everyone's time.
I was once told that most people will not read emails which exceed two
paragraphs.
I find that it is mostly true. My hope is that the people who do actually read
through to the end of this email (or post, if you're the nntp sort) are the
important people, and those who do not are directed to the appropriate place to
read the discussion which will inevitably ensue.

  Sending six messages would create six (perhaps) lively threads, and
nobody has time to read nor contribute to all of those threads. I sure don't.
Putting everything here, and then augmenting it with the wiki (more on that
later), ensures that everyone reads all the issues (they do mostly all
interrelate
to some degree). My hope is that most of the discussion will actually occur on
IRC, and that the important details will be worked out and documented on the
wiki.

2. Introduction

  My name is Alex Avriette. I've been a systems administrator of one form
or another since the mid nineties. Yeah, that means that I'm a little younger
that some of the wikipedians (I will be 27 on March 20). However, I am a second
generation Unix administrator, and I have been using Solaris since before I was
old enough to actually hold a job, and got my first internet email address at
age 12. Some of you may be able to dig some of that stuff up on google groups
if you're that nosy.

  My interest in this project -- mediawiki and wikiepdia -- started to take a
more serious note when the "great power loss crash" occurred. As a systems admin
who has been in charge of high availability systems, it shocked me how long it
took to recover. It further shocked me that data had been lost, when I had spent
the entire day adding what I felt was useful content.

  Honestly, my first contributions were bitching and whining on IRC about "why
isn't anyone fixing the thing?" Among others. Not very productive. After hanging
out a while, I wound up being on-channel when we blew a power strip, and chaper
took notice of me.  He and others suggested I mail jwales with my concerns. What
proceeded was a long discussion about how to increase the availability of the
wikipedia (I realize there are other projects involved, allow me to use the term
'wikipedia' to encompass all related wikimedia projects), and an email from me
to jimbo.

  I mention this because chaper and Jimbo and I have discussed the availability
of the wikipedia, and also the fact that it has been run largely by developers.
As somebody who has been both a developer and a systems administrator (clever
readers will be able to find my resume online), I can tell you that this is
frequently a very bad idea. That is not to say that developers should not have
the keys to the kingdom, but frequently, a developer does not know that we need
a bigger APC or that we might need APC PDU's, and so on and so forth. I want to
say that I'm not just some kook who joined the list to bitch and moan. I've been
in conversations with the relevant people, and this email is the first step in
the right direction.

3. Systems Availability

  So the introduction, while rambling, turns out to be a reasonably good segue
into my next real gripe, which is system availability. Some of the outages we
have seen have been due to really unacceptable things. The colo losing power is
one of them, but not one we can really control too well (more on this in a
minute).  A power strip blowing is something we most certainly can avoid. We
discussed the APC PDU's, I think that's a great step. Have we made any progress
on that? We recently also had a "database overload", which we can also avoid.
Let me sort of address these individually.

* Power outage at the colo
  Kate says we pay for this. This makes it very hard to tolerate failure of that
magnitude.  Since then, we still don't have ariel back up as the master database
server. The solution is multiple collocation centers. The problem with this is
the database, which I'll address in a minute.

* Blowing a power strip
  APC PDU. Problem solved. I think we're getting there. I mentioned I'm willing
to go down and help with datacenter-type stuff if need be (I'm in Virginia). The
other thing to consider is to make sure that each server has redundant power
supplies, and that each PSU is connected to a separate power source, and that
those sources are both diesel and battery-backed up. Simple datacenter stuff.
Some of it, we can control, the rest of it is up to the datacenter. I've had
good luck with Savvis as a datacenter, but I don't know how their rates compare
to what we're presently paying.

* Database overload
  Well, this, I think is the biggest, ugliest, most political "problem" in this
message.  We have *one* master database, and a bunch of slaves. This is fine for
failover, if we can then make a slave a master, and edits can continue. This is
also fine if we are satisified with fail-to-readonly as a solution. I, for one,
am not.  But there may be technical problems ahead which preclude
fail-to-promoted-slave-as-master solutions. Here's the ugly part. In the past,
I used PostgreSQL for a database at America Online which received far, far, more
traffic than the wikipedia. It ran, most recently, on a quad 3ghz 32-bit Xeon
machine. At AOL, I embarked on a 2-month project to figure out how to scale past
the "single master database on a single box" problem. Postgres, at version 7.3.2
and 7.4.1 (which we had in production), was not ready. Since then, a product
called Slony ("Slony" is polish for the plural of "Elephant", the elephant is
the postgres mascot, etc), which allows promotion of slaves to masters. Which
allows the kind of replication that the wikipedia needs. In order to solve the
problem of "a nuke lands on the colo in florida", we need to have
multiple master
databases in multiple places. As Kate says, having a redundant
nameserver somewhere
in Europe doesn't really help if Florida is offline, because they STILL CANT GET
TO THE CONTENT.

  Lastly, Oracle has a product called RAC, their Real Application Clusters. I
think that (and no I haven't asked them), they may be willing to *give* us
licenses in exchange for being able to use in marketing data "well the
wikipedia,
which receives x gazillion hits a day uses RAC" and a soundbyte from Jimbo...
Or whatever. Additionally, since the wikipedia is not a commercial use, it may
be legal to just use Oracle for development use, eg the entire wikipedia. Oracle
is slower than postgres. Oracle is slower than mysql. However, it is
more scalable,
and it is more robust. If we're able to run it 64-bit on Opteron and go 4- or
8- way with it, and have, say, 2 masters (one in europe and one in the us), we
might score a major win with site failover and reliability. I'm just throwing
that option out.  I think it's possible, but I also think it's as peril-ridden
as the google thing.

  And before I forget to mention it, Postgres is *more Free* than mysql. I
understand that mediawiki has been coded with mysql in mind, but it might be
possible to begin work on a database-agnostic version of the software that
actually could plug into postgres and we could test things like
cross-continental
failover.

  Another system reliability subject is the lack of disaster-recovery
documentation.
Lack of sufficient network diagrams. Lack of documentation required for us (me)
to start attacking this from a SYSTEMS point of view. I understand how we work
squid, apache, mysql, the slaves, and mediawiki.  Cool. But tell me where the
switches are. What models they are. Which nodes are connected to which switches.
I am happy to contribute all this documentation just by talking to people on IRC
(probably Kate, chaper, and jwales).  But the fact that it isn't there means
that as we continue to grow (and grow we do), the worse this situation gets and
its damn near impossible to get a wikipedia sized wrench around the roblem and
start tightening stuff down.

4. The need for a better templating system and community agreement on
templating systems -- and machine parsing

  I've been doing a lot of work on US Military (specifically USMC) weapons
systems. To me, this means aircraft, missiles, artillery, and small arms. But
as I began to edit them, and add photos, and tables (and wikify things that were
html), I found that others were coming along after me to change them
to different
formats. An example of this would be to use the <nowiki>= header =</nowiki>
notation rather than a wiki table with two cells of width, a simple
Metric: Value
(eg Maximum Operating Ceiling: 60,000ft). The user I was discussing this with
is Rlandmann, who is obviously a wikipedian in very good standing. My personal
preference is for the wiki table, compared to a header with * Foo: Bar. I find
the wiki table to be more machine parseable for starters (I cannot tell you how
many times I've had to write a scraper for something).

  What I'm getting at is we have no "Regularized Data Committee" or something.
We have groups of people, such as Rlandmann, who are into aircraft, and want to
see the [[CH-21 Shawnee]] look like some of his other aircraft articles. I see
that, and I would prefer it look more like the [[GAU-17]]. At any rate, I think
we need to have an open discussion on how data should look across the wikipedia,
because we have so many articles, and so few of them bear a standard format. I
just run into this more than I think others might because I've been editing the
weapons systems so much.

  I hate committees, and I think it's a bad idea. However, I want to open
discussion on how to address this problem, because I definitely think if it
hasn't already, it deserves to be elevated to "problem" status.

5. Fancruft and how to cope

  Those of you who know me on irc (as keats) will know that I am from time to
time (well, daily, really) shocked at the amount of fancruft in the wikipedia.
Kate makes the excellent argument against my argument,

  Fancruft, (n), Information about a subject which does not interest me.

I have no real argument against this. I'll be perfectly honest, I don't like the
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. I've spent the last couple days collapsing the
fifty or sixty or so articles they had on various "monsters" and "villains" into
giant page (please see my contributions, I don't want to post them here), until
some user got quite upset at my characterization of "bulk and skull"
as villains.
I never watched the show. Having read the article, they seemed like villains,
and I placed them there. To say nothing of the fact that the articles
I collapsed
into the villains list were identical copies of eachother and poorly written.

  But this isn't really about fancruft. Fancruft, unfortunately, has its place
in the pedia.  I think probably Darth Vader deserves his own page. But that's
also probably because I happen to like Star Wars a little more than MMPR, and
since this is a community project, that's not my decision to make.

  Let me, however, share an anecdote. My first article, as I recall, to the
wikipedia, was [[Treeship]]. I was particularly interested in the treeships from
Dan Simmons' Hyperion book. My initial hope had been that somebody else had done
the research and explained exactly what they were, and what an erg (from the
book, not the term) was, and so on. When I didn't find that, I created the node
with the best information I had. I found out a few months later that somebody
had gone and essentially concatenated all the individual nodes I had made for
characters in the book, like Fehdman Kassad, and Hyperion (planet),
and condensed
them all into the rather convenient place of [[Hyperion Cantos]]. And lo, all
the information required for understanding the series, all four books (five?),
was there, in one page. It was neatly wikified in such a way that I could quite
easily find the information I needed, and an appropriate
<nowiki>{{spoiler}}</nowiki>
warning was added. I feel that we can do that with some of the other sections
of the wikipedia which have sort of "blossomed" into their own sub-pedia of
television or book-fiction. The two that really worry me (and I've been too
afraid to look) are Charmed and Xena -cruft.

  There's one more thing to address here, though. Whatever your take on fancruft
is, there's an angle that nobody seems to be considering. As a
database administrator
(oh, did I forget to mention I've been that, too?), I can tell you as tables get
bigger (each page having its own tuple or whatever), indices get clobbered, and
we slow down the ENTIRE WIKIPEDIA because somebody needed to make a node for
Treeship. and Ummon. And so on. Again, I use my own mistakes here, to show that
at one point, I didn't have any real understanding of a way to add
fancruft which
is of cultural value (and in the case, I won't admit that Xena or Charmed have
cultural value, but somebody does, and I don't own the wikipedia). I think that
what I'm getting at here is that fancruft is not just harmful in the way that
it degrades the credibility of the wikipedia (say a user goes to a random node
and gets what I got -- [[Needlenose (Power Rangers)]] -- a MMPR monster created
from "tommy's cactus that he brought home from arizona), but it also degrades
the overall system performance and availability of the wikipedia as a whole.  So
maybe we need to take a more serious approach to this Fancruft issue. Maybe it
isn't all me bitching "I don't like Xena or Charmed [or television
much at all]".
Or, somebody could come along and tell me that our database schema is robust and
segmented enough that we can support having sixty power rangers
articles on minor
characters that got blown up after one episode, that we can have sixty xena
villain nodes, and so on and so forth. I for one don't buy it, but I might be
convince-able.

6. How to cope with a message of this length and complexity.

  Probably best to post this to the wikipedia. It's probably got RfC content in
it, VfD content in it, and so on. It will initially be a sub-node off my my home
node (I'm a perlmonks veteran, hence the 'node' vernacular). Please comment
there, split out into separate pages as necessary, and so on. NNTP and email
aren't sufficient for discussing all these things in parallel.

  I will attempt to lightly wikify. Consider this my permission to wikify
this node to your hearts' content.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Avriette/The_Big_Email

Except, we're having another meltdown.

 Error in numRows(): Duplicate entry '2-Avriette/The_Big_Email' for key 2

 Backtrace:

     * Database.php line 502 calls wfdebugdiebacktrace()
     * Database.php line 600 calls databasemysql::numrows()
     * LinkCache.php line 151 calls databasemysql::selectfield()
     * Title.php line 980 calls linkcache::addlinkobj()
     * Skin.php line 1659 calls title::getarticleid()
     * SkinTemplate.php line 174 calls skinmonobook::makeurldetails()
     * OutputPage.php line 417 calls skinmonobook::outputpage()
     * OutputPage.php line 614 calls outputpage::output()
     * Database.php line 360 calls outputpage::databaseerror()
     * Database.php line 309 calls databasemysql::reportqueryerror()
     * Database.php line 885 calls databasemysql::query()
     * Article.php line 871 calls databasemysql::insert()
     * EditPage.php line 239 calls article::insertnewarticle()
     * EditPage.php line 68 calls editpage::editform()
     * EditPage.php line 164 calls editpage::edit()
     * index.php line 173 calls editpage::submit()

# aja // vim:tw=78:ts=2:et

--
Alex Avriette
avriette at gmail.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user

body:
Dear Blair,

Is the status of your issue such that I may be of assistance?  I would
be grateful to be able to do anything to help you resolve the issue.

Tom Haws
"And [the angel] said unto me: Knowest thou the condescension of God?
And I said unto him: I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I
do not know the meaning of all things."

>


subject:
3RR again (was Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re:
	[WikiEN-l]
	Unreasonableblock of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk)

body:
Tom Haws wrote:

> Andrew Lih wrote:
>
>> You have to break eggs to make an omelette, and sometimes you have to
>> let people see the futility of war. :)
>
> Fresh thinking and good point against *enforcing* the 3RR.

Maybe we need to find a way to get Hollywood to make more movies that
glorify the 3RR to the point of being anti-3RR movies...

> But I don't completely understand the next paragraph.  Can you restate?
>
>> The problem with 3RR as it's being practiced now -- it assigns blame
>> much too early in the process, without even an attempt to stabilize
>> the situation and let cooler heads prevail.
>>
An anecdote to prove Anderew's point:

I had left the page for several hours to attend to other things and to
allow those still there to read the reference I had posted long ago, to
realize they were beinig wrong, and to accept the edits I made (which
they should have done the first time I made them, but they failed to do;
Taxman actually accused /me/ of failing to lead him by the hand to the
reference he failed to read).

I went back to resume the discussion from that point.

But in my very short absence I was blocked.  Since then the issue has
been unreasonable blocks and other abuses of the system, and there has
been no progress on the original issues with the page, nor with the
dispute in process on the page.

A small problem became a very large one, just as it was about to become
none.

Andrew observed that, and now you may.

--Blair


body:
OK.  Please note that both Jay and I will no longer be responding on the
list due to self-imposed restrictions.  But feel free at any time to
e-mail me personally for comment or assistance.

Tom Haws
"And [the angel] said unto me: Knowest thou the condescension of God?
And I said unto him: I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I
do not know the meaning of all things."

Blair P. Houghton wrote:

> Tom, your spam-blocker bounced my email.  Here's my reply:
>
> Tom Haws wrote:
>
>> Blair,
>>
>> Could we unburden the list by discussing this between us?
>
>
>
> You're not the only one I'm discussing it with, so it'll stay on the
> list until all those expressing false interpretations of the incident
> have their misapprehensions explained to them.
>
> I'd rather it went away, but that will require people to stop thinking
> I violated the 3RR.
>
> --Blair
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user

body:
Tom Haws wrote:

> Is the status of your issue such that I may be of assistance?  I would
> be grateful to be able to do anything to help you resolve the issue.

Thanks for the offer, Tom, but if you read back through the list to last
night you'll see the unreasonable block was removed by Jim Cecropia, and
I remain reasonably unblocked (although the entire DB is locked today so
it won't do me any good).

It's at the level of a discussion and fact-dissemination now, unless
someone gets a hair up his ass and decides to block me unreasonably again.

For anyone wishing a respite from this mess, I offer the following, gratis:

http://promo.guinness1759society.com/spd/issue5.cfm

Can't imagine not wanting to talk to THAT guy about SOMETHING.

--Blair
"Sl?inte!"


from_name: David Gerard

subject:
I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton.
	Re:	[WikiEN-l]	Unreasonableblock
	of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk

body:
Blair P. Houghton wrote:

> Garrrr! It not roid rage! It justifiable barbellcide! Garrr!!!
> I even spelled out in the talk page that I wasn't being vituperative.
> But did anyone read back more than two layers of comments? Hard to tell.

Take me through this one slowly:

What's so hard about not reverting repeatedly?

Why does it have to go into the article THAT SECOND?

What bit of the 3RR is ambiguous?

I look forward to your answers.

- d.


from_name: Lane, Ryan

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Trail of pages visited

body:
You aren't forced to use this, and he isn't wasting YOUR time by coding it.
Personally, I find this very convenient.

Just because you don't find an extension useful, doesn't mean everyone
doesn't. You may not find my LDAP authentication plugin useful (I could use
http authentication or PAM authentication, why reinvent the wheel?).

Ryan Lane
NAVOCEANO

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
> [SMTP:wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Alex J. Avriette
> Sent:	Wednesday, March 16, 2005 11:21 AM
> To:	minorityreport at bluebottle.com; Wikimedia developers
> Subject:	Re: [Wikitech-l] Re: Trail of pages visited
>
> I concur. My (and all modern) browser has a history window. The fact
> that it is "inconvenient" is no reason to go around coding things.
>
> Might I mention that the wikipedia is presently down and there is
> coding we could be using for things like stability and uptime instead
> of this breadcrumbs nonsense?
>
> Alex
>
>
> On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 17:18:15 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway
> <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> > Sebastien BARRE said:
> > > At 3/16/2005 11:54 AM, you wrote:
> > >
> > >>I don't want you seeing that I viewed [[double-sided dildo]] prior to
> > >>viewing [[GAU-17]].
> > >
> > > And how would you view that ? Of course it should not be implemented
> > > server-side, that would be dumb, but client-side, as a cookie/session
> > > (like  I did in my extension). And you should have a choice to disable
> > > it.
> >
> > Take your favorite browser and visit a few Wikipedia pages.
> >
> > Done that?  Okay, here's what to do next.
> >
> > Now take your mouse up to the top left of your browser.  There is
> usually
> > a button marked with a left-facing arrow. Beside it there is usually a
> > small downward arrow.  Click on the downward arrow and a drop-down box
> > will appear, containing a list of all the places on Wikipedia that you
> > have visited.  Select one of the items on the list and you will be taken
> > back to that item.
> >
> > Why reinvent the wheel?
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> >
>
>
> --
> Alex Avriette
> avriette at gmail.com
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] I've added a note to the 3RR policy page

body:
>As I have argued a few times on WP:AN, I think administrators should
>avoid second-guessing each other.   Therefore, I don't think people
>should be advised to go to a different administrator to unblock them
>than the one who imposed the block in the first place.   This just
>encourages people who have been blocked to  "forum shop" for the
>softest/friendliest admin they can find, playing administrators
>against each other.   It is clear that there is antipathy between some
>administrators, and people shouldn't be able to exploit this.

Or (in my experience) sometimes they just e-mail all admins, hoping someone
will (for whatever reason) unblock them. It's kind of like standing in an
apartment lobby and buzzing all the apartments; someone inevitably buzzes
you in.

>In the case where the 3RR violation is not disputed, and a person
>wants to apologize, express contrition etc, he or she should do that
>with the admin who imposed the block.

I've unblocked 3RR violators immediately for doing exactly that.

>In the case where the blocked member wishes to dispute the 3RR block,
>that should be done initially with the admin who imposed the block, so
>that admin can recognize and reverse his own error,  and apologize if
>appropriate to the blocked person, minimizing future bad feelings and
>conflict.  Only if that fails should the blocked person be able to ask
>a different admin to intervene.    The intervention in most cases
>should be to leave the block in place but to open a discussion about
>it on AN/I, so that a consensus can be formed about whether the block
>was proper or not. Once a consensus is established, any admin can
>implement it.

Well, one of the downsides of the more efficient ArbCom is that users want
to bring every grievance they have there immediately.  It doesn't help that
RfC is only intermittently helpful, and RfM appears (at least in my
experience) to still be completely non-functioning.

Jay.


body:
I've just added the following to [[WP:3RR]]. I think it concisely
reflects how these things actually work. Feel free, of course, to
edit ;-)

I'm a big fan of 3RR blocks, because sterile reverting is bad. But
if someone emails me acknowledging their error and asking to be
unblocked, I'll generally do so. The idea is to get people to edit
better. Some admins are real hardarses about it, but I'm not sure
that's really productive myself.

==I've been blocked under 3RR! What do I do?==
First, check if you actually did make a fourth revert in 24 hours or very
close to it.

*If you didn't, you should email the admin who blocked you (or another
admin), politely point this out and ask to be unblocked.
*If you did, you should either wait the 24 hours to calm down, or email the
admin who blocked you (or another admin), acknowledge your error and
apologise and ask to be unblocked.

Some admins look at the quality of the edits in question, but most admins do
not as the rule does not concern itself with edit quality.

Note that historically, public denunciation of the blocking admin has not
tended to gain sympathy.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time

body:
>From: "Charles Matthews" <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>
>
>Good question.  Obviously a million articles on wiki-en in a couple of
>years time is within reach.

If we stop deleting one line stubs on every public school in the United
States, we should be there in a couple of months. ;-)

P.S. Just a little humour, not meant to incite inclusionist/deletionist
wars.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time

body:
>From: Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com>
>
>However the fact that others are thinking about this in terms of
>needing a fork should get our attention that we need to create something
>in-house ASAP that is fast, open and scalable (see above).

Maybe more of the focus should be on making the Wikipedia infrastructure
itself fast and scalable.  It is rarely the former (and in fact is down
again), which is leading me to doubt the latter.

Jay.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Trail of pages visited

body:
No, it should not be done at all.

I don't want you seeing that I viewed [[double-sided dildo]] prior to
viewing [[GAU-17]].

Why in the hell would you want this other than a blatant disregard of
somebody else's privacy?

Alex

On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 17:23:15 +0100, Jonathan ILIAS
<jonathan.ilias at eseo.fr> wrote:
> Anthere a ?crit :
> > I am not sure at all this is a good idea.
> > It might conflict with our (yet to be born) privacy policy.
>
> I have not the time and knowlegde to do this now... maybe later...
>
> Maybe a hacker would do this ;-) :
> it should be implemented using a cookie to store the trail and a
> javascript to read and display it.
>
> --
> Jonathan ILIAS
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
Alex Avriette
avriette at gmail.com


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Re: Careless image deletion : a minor outrage

body:
No, you would not.

You would just need a checkbox similar to the "minor edit" checkbox,
indicating that it was copyvio material.

Mark

On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 12:26:30 +0100 (CET), Alfio Puglisi
<puglisi at arcetri.astro.it> wrote:
>
> To make #2 work, you need to have two separate deletion tools: one for
> legally-required deletion, and one for generic deletion.
>
> Alfio
>
> On Wed, 16 Mar 2005, Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> >Please reread #2.
> >
> >
> >On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 14:48:06 +0800, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 23:02:22 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > 1) Since this is a technical issue (isn't it?) shouldn't it have been
> >> > put up for a vote on meta rather than en:?
> >>
> >> Not really a technical issue. The most prominent of the "no" votes
> >> cited legal issues. Anthere put it best:
> >>
> >> "Many of the articles deleted are deleted for a very good reason. Some
> >> because they are copyright violations or libel. These must stay non
> >> visible for obvious legal reasons."
> >>
> >> -Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
> >>
> >_______________________________________________
> >Wikipedia-l mailing list
> >Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time

body:
>>... and in fact is down again ...
>>
>>Jay
>
>... and up again ...
>
>Charles

... and down again ...


from_name: geni

subject:
I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable
	block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk

body:
On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 14:05:42 +0800, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
> Blair,
>
> It was legit to unblock you but the biting comments don't help. So
> keep the personal comments out of it. Play the ball, not the man/men.
>
> I've also been bold and altered the 3RR page:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Three-revert_rule#Intent_of_the_policy
>
> Still not entirely happy with the edits, but I do think 3RR needs to
> be closer to the "means of last resort" rather than the quick tool it
> is now.
>
> -Andrew (User:Fuzheado)

The 3RR was supported by comunity conmsensus. If you want to change it
get another consensus

--
geni


from_name: Jonathan Leybovich

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [Fwd: Kennisnet will underwrite/pay for the
 creation of Wikidata and the Ultimate wiktionary]

body:
Hi All-

I was wondering what the proper channel would be for voicing
suggestions/comments about the technical design of the WikiData project.
  I guess this would be the WikiData discussion page on Meta, but this
has not been updated in a while and I wanted to make a few comments
before the Ultimate Wiktionary deadline.

Also, how will development work be coordinated?  The Ultimate Wiktionary
project page implies Eric will be doing all the development, and though
I am happy to follow his lead (as well as let him claim the  contract ;)
I would like to help with development as I am preparing a project
proposal that will have WikiData functionality as a prerequisite.  Thanks.

Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> Hoi,
>
> I am very happy to announce that Kennisnet is willing to underwrite/pay
> for the creation of wikidata and the ultimate wiktionary. This will
> allow us to host relational data within a Mediawiki environment.
> Wikidata will particularly enhance projects like Wikispecies and
> Wiktionary where a lot of the relevant data is relational in nature. The
> details of this project can be found here:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/RfP_Wikidata_and_Ultimate_Wiktionary
>
> Thanks, :)
>   GerardM


subject:
3RR again (was Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l]
	Unreasonable	block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk)

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> If an editor has something to add that is not related to the war it
> will still be just as valid afte the lock-up period has ended.  Very
> little is of such immediate importance as to not survive the
> application of a little patience.
>
> Ec

Sigh.  Why is it that so often that obvious things like patience are the
answer?  Of course you are right.  But also keep in mind that the "harm"
in protecting pages relates not so much to active editors (both warriors
and peacefuls), but to casual passersby who see in a protected page that
they can't really "edit this page now".

Thus page protection really *is* anti-wiki even though it is a most
positive tactic (more positive than blocking a user) for peacemaking.

Tom


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Trail of pages visited

body:
At 3/16/2005 11:54 AM, you wrote:

>I don't want you seeing that I viewed [[double-sided dildo]] prior to
>viewing [[GAU-17]].

And how would you view that ? Of course it should not be implemented
server-side, that would be dumb, but client-side, as a cookie/session (like
I did in my extension). And you should have a choice to disable it.

--
Sebastien Barre


subject:
I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l]
	Unreasonableblock of user

body:
>From: "Blair P. Houghton" <blair at houghton.net>
>
>Consensus isn't something you obtain, demand, husband, or cite.  It's
>something that happens.

More typically, it is something you build based on discussion or debate.
Talk: pages are a great place for that.

>Consensus follows action.  To believe otherwise is to obviate the prime
>directive of Wikipedia, which is to '''be bold'''.

I hadn't heard "Be bold" referred to as Wikipedia's "prime directive"
before; I'm not sure everyone here would agree.  In any event, while I don't
know the details of this particular case, it amazes me how often people
attempting to make major, usually contentious, and often highly POV
re-writes to articles cite "Be bold", yet fail to note that the majority of
that policy is devoted to when you *should not* "Be bold".  In particular,
much of the policy clearly points out that on disputed issues and
controversial subjects one should, instead, get consensus on Talk: pages
first.

>The cooperative counterparts in a community of bold people are those who
>accept the boldness of those who are right, regardless of the prior
>consensus.

I believe we are straying into "argument from silence" logical fallacy
territory here.

>This concept of cooperation imbues every organization that relies on the
>truth.

Cooperation is something that comes from both sides; it cannot be
unilaterally imposed by "Bold" individuals.

Jay.


subject:
I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton.Re:
	[WikiEN-l]Unreasonableblock of user

body:
>From: "Blair P. Houghton" <blair at houghton.net>
>
>JAY JG wrote:
>
>>
>>If enough people are reverting you, one could argue that what you are
>>seeing is actually "concensus", not "3RR gamesmanship".
>
>
>"One could argue" and "one could prove" are not the same thing.

Right.  That's undoubtedly why I chose the former wording.  Thanks for
confirming the correctness of my choice.

>And when the players in any particular page arrive totally at random, you
>have no chance of ensuring that "consensus" will do "the right thing" even
>most of the time.

Interesting assertion.  An assertion and a proof are not the same thing.

Jay.


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Careless image deletion : a minor outrage

body:
I think images should only be deleted when they're obviously
copyrighted by someone else than the uploader or if they're used only
to commit vandalism (and nothing else). In all other cases, admins
doing the deleting should attempt to contact the uploader to get
copyright info on the image and give them a certain amount of time to
respond before deleting anything.

Mgm

On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 03:11:55 -0800 (PST), zero 0000
<nought_0000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> I'll go further and say that the image cops are doing more
> harm to Wikipedia than the same number of vandals.
>
> I think that an image of unknown provenance should only
> be deleted if it appears likely to be someone's substantial
> commercial asset.  That is the only circumstance in which
> a lawsuit is even remotely plausible.
>
> Zero.
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site!
> http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Trail of pages visited

body:
I concur. My (and all modern) browser has a history window. The fact
that it is "inconvenient" is no reason to go around coding things.

Might I mention that the wikipedia is presently down and there is
coding we could be using for things like stability and uptime instead
of this breadcrumbs nonsense?

Alex

On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 17:18:15 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway
<minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> Sebastien BARRE said:
> > At 3/16/2005 11:54 AM, you wrote:
> >
> >>I don't want you seeing that I viewed [[double-sided dildo]] prior to
> >>viewing [[GAU-17]].
> >
> > And how would you view that ? Of course it should not be implemented
> > server-side, that would be dumb, but client-side, as a cookie/session
> > (like  I did in my extension). And you should have a choice to disable
> > it.
>
> Take your favorite browser and visit a few Wikipedia pages.
>
> Done that?  Okay, here's what to do next.
>
> Now take your mouse up to the top left of your browser.  There is usually
> a button marked with a left-facing arrow. Beside it there is usually a
> small downward arrow.  Click on the downward arrow and a drop-down box
> will appear, containing a list of all the places on Wikipedia that you
> have visited.  Select one of the items on the list and you will be taken
> back to that item.
>
> Why reinvent the wheel?
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
Alex Avriette
avriette at gmail.com


from_name: Andrew Lih

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by
	adminCryptoDerk

body:
Blair, according to the 3RR page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Three_revert_rule#Enforcement

this is the right place to go:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/3RR#User:Blair_P._Houghton

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)

On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 21:06:30 -0700, Blair P. Houghton
<blair at houghton.net> wrote:
> [[Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship]] says to ask here, or Jimbo.
>
> Which I guess means Jimbo is the only one who counts.
>
> And he doesn't seem to care that admins aren't paying attention
> to the voted-on criteria for blocking users, as it's not sufficient
> cause to block an admin.
>
> --Blair
>
> Jack Lutz wrote:
> >>What is the usual procedure for having admin privileges stripped in cases
> >
> > of abuse?
> >
> > Apparently one must make an appeal to ArbCom or Jimbo, though note that only
> > a few (2?) sysops have lost privileges on EN. See also the proposed
> > [[Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship]].
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > 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
>

--

Andrew Lih, Assistant Professor
Journalism and Media Studies Centre
University of Hong Kong
Email: alih at hku.hk | Web: http://jmsc.hku.hk/faculty/alih
AOL IM: fuzheado | ICQ: 231894253
Yahoo Messenger: andrew_lih | MSN Messenger: andrew_lih at msn.com


from_name: Alfio Puglisi

body:
To make #2 work, you need to have two separate deletion tools: one for
legally-required deletion, and one for generic deletion.

Alfio

On Wed, 16 Mar 2005, Mark Williamson wrote:

>Please reread #2.
>
>
>On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 14:48:06 +0800, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 23:02:22 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > 1) Since this is a technical issue (isn't it?) shouldn't it have been
>> > put up for a vote on meta rather than en:?
>>
>> Not really a technical issue. The most prominent of the "no" votes
>> cited legal issues. Anthere put it best:
>>
>> "Many of the articles deleted are deleted for a very good reason. Some
>> because they are copyright violations or libel. These must stay non
>> visible for obvious legal reasons."
>>
>> -Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
>>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: MaPhi Werner

subject: [Wikitech-l] Simple ACL implementation for 1.3.11

body:
Hi everyone,

as I needed some basic protection on some pages of my wiki, I
went ahead and implemented a simple ACL mechanism. This is
based on the 1.3.11 version of the code, I did not yet look
at the 1.4 stuff. I plan to adapt 1.4 when I'm upgrading my
site, which will not happen before the final release.

The changed files can be found at
http://www.maphi.net/SimpleACLs-1.3.11.zip if anyone is
interested.

Now, as I have no idea on how the submittal process works.
Is there a chance to include this into the wiki itself, or
does it have to be for 1.4 in order to be included?
Do I need to submit the changes in a specific format, like
a diff? If so, which would be the right tool to use? I'm
working on a Windows box, using WinDiff - I guess that's not
the right tool here :)

Some background on what I did:

The page SpecialMakesysop allows Developer-Sysops (the user
needs both rights) to give arbitrary rights to users. This
can be any string, comma-separated for multiples, with a total
length of 255 characters because of the DB limit. With the
exception of sysop, bureocrat, developer, bot, and hidden
(see below) there is no special meaning to any right.

I changed Skin.php, SkinCologneBlue, and SkinPhptal, so that
the protect button is available to any user that has any
right. As these rights need to be given by someone else,
vandalism should not be an issue.

Protecting a page sets its restrictions to the rights of the
protecting user. If the user has more than one right, he can
specify which of his rights should be applied by editing the
restriction string. This is rather error prone, but in my
wiki, people have only one right.

The protect page contains a checkbox to hide a page from
public view. If this checkbox is set, the "hidden" restriction
is added to the page as well.

People can only edit a page if they have all rights (minus
hidden) that the page requires. This is straight from the
existing code. They also need all rights to unprotect the page.

People can only read hidden pages if they have at least one
of the necessary rights.

Sysops can always read, edit, and unprotect all pages.

I did a small change to SearchEngine, so that the search does
not give previews if the feature is enabled. Users will see
if their search term appears in a hidden page, but that's it.

I left RecentChanges alone, so the page names and change
comments are still visible to everyone.

The whole feature can be enabled by setting $wgEnableSimpleACLs
to true in LocalSettings.php. You also need to create one
developer,sysop user using SQL as described in
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Setting_user_rights_in_MediaWiki.
This user then can give rights to other users.

Comments (and bug detections) are welcome.

Regards, MaPhi


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Alfio Puglisi wrote:

>To make #2 work, you need to have two separate deletion tools: one for
>legally-required deletion, and one for generic deletion.
>
>Alfio
>
>On Wed, 16 Mar 2005, Mark Williamson wrote:
>
>
>
Hoi,
Given the amount of work that is in need of doing, I think it is a waste
of time to discuss it further. When something needs deleling and it is,
creating a backdoor to see it anyway is for  normal use not necessary.
Creating two methods violates the KISS principle.

Thanks,
    GerardM

>>Please reread #2.
>>
>>
>>On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 14:48:06 +0800, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 23:02:22 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>1) Since this is a technical issue (isn't it?) shouldn't it have been
>>>>put up for a vote on meta rather than en:?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Not really a technical issue. The most prominent of the "no" votes
>>>cited legal issues. Anthere put it best:
>>>
>>>"Many of the articles deleted are deleted for a very good reason. Some
>>>because they are copyright violations or libel. These must stay non
>>>visible for obvious legal reasons."
>>>
>>>-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
>>>


subject:
I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re:[WikiEN-l]
	Unreasonableblock of user

body:
>From: "Blair P. Houghton" <blair at houghton.net>
>
>JAY JG wrote:
>>I hadn't heard "Be bold" referred to as Wikipedia's "prime directive"
>>before; I'm not sure everyone here would agree.  In any event, while I
>>don't know the details of this particular case, it amazes me how often
>>people attempting to make major, usually contentious, and often highly POV
>>re-writes to articles cite "Be bold", yet fail to note that the majority
>>of that policy is devoted to when you *should not* "Be bold".  In
>>particular, much of the policy clearly points out that on disputed issues
>>and controversial subjects one should, instead, get consensus on Talk:
>>pages first.
>
>Clairvoyance isn't my strongest skill.  I don't know who will complain
>until I do what I have a right to do.  And I suspect I'm "only human" in
>that regard, as is everyone else.

Little clairvoyance is needed to know that the very first time you are
reverted, it means that your edits are contentious and disputed.  And it's a
bad sign when people start taking about what they "have a right to do" on
Wikipedia; as far as I know, editing Wikipedia is still not covered under
the Constitution, Bill of Rights, or similar legislation.

>>I believe we are straying into "argument from silence" logical fallacy
>>territory here.
>
>It's the basis for most of the Wikipedia.  What doesn't get munged is
>accepted.  And if you see a problem, you fix it.  Has a lot to do with the
>way life works, too.  Which is one of the attractive features of the place.

As soon as you are reverted, the "argument from silence" is obviously no
longer correct.

>>Cooperation is something that comes from both sides; it cannot be
>>unilaterally imposed by "Bold" individuals.
>
>Tell that to the guy who reverted me, hollering "consensus!" from the back
>of his mule, then having me jailed for arguing the point, then including
>everything I added

Referring to one's opponents on Talk: pages as "juvenile delinquents" and
oneself as the "teacher" is a particularly bad strategy for getting
cooperation.

>(but retaining a bit of stuff that is soon to be gone anyway).

This statement is an ominous sign.

Jay.


subject:
I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton.Re:[WikiEN-l]
	Unreasonableblock of user

body:
>>>JAY JG wrote:
>>>
>>>>I hadn't heard "Be bold" referred to as Wikipedia's "prime directive"
>>>>before; I'm not sure everyone here would agree.  In any event, while I
>>>>don't know the details of this particular case, it amazes me how often
>>>>people attempting to make major, usually contentious, and often highly
>>>>POV re-writes to articles cite "Be bold", yet fail to note that the
>>>>majority of that policy is devoted to when you *should not* "Be bold".
>>>>In particular, much of the policy clearly points out that on disputed
>>>>issues and controversial subjects one should, instead, get consensus on
>>>>Talk: pages first.
>>>
>>>
>>>Clairvoyance isn't my strongest skill.  I don't know who will complain
>>>until I do what I have a right to do.  And I suspect I'm "only human" in
>>>that regard, as is everyone else.
>>
>>
>>Little clairvoyance is needed to know that the very first time you are
>>reverted, it means that your edits are contentious and disputed.  And it's
>>a bad sign when people start taking about what they "have a right to do"
>>on Wikipedia; as far as I know, editing Wikipedia is still not covered
>>under the Constitution, Bill of Rights, or similar legislation.
>
>You ought to read them sometime.  They don't list all of your rights.
>
>>
>>>>I believe we are straying into "argument from silence" logical fallacy
>>>>territory here.
>>>
>>>
>>>It's the basis for most of the Wikipedia.  What doesn't get munged is
>>>accepted.  And if you see a problem, you fix it.  Has a lot to do with
>>>the way life works, too.  Which is one of the attractive features of the
>>>place.
>>
>>
>>As soon as you are reverted, the "argument from silence" is obviously no
>>longer correct.
>
>And then we get into the "argument from self-imposed dictatorship".
>
>>
>>>>Cooperation is something that comes from both sides; it cannot be
>>>>unilaterally imposed by "Bold" individuals.
>>>
>>>
>>>Tell that to the guy who reverted me, hollering "consensus!" from the
>>>back of his mule, then having me jailed for arguing the point, then
>>>including everything I added
>>
>>
>>Referring to one's opponents on Talk: pages as "juvenile delinquents" and
>>oneself as the "teacher" is a particularly bad strategy for getting
>>cooperation.
>
>I prefer to interpret the facts as showing nobody was trying to cooperate
>with me.
>
>>
>>>(but retaining a bit of stuff that is soon to be gone anyway).
>>
>>
>>This statement is an ominous sign.
>
>Nope.  Just a statement that I know the truth and the truth always wins
>when consensus is at stake.
>
>--Blair

Blair, I regret to inform you that I'm going to have to withdraw from the
discussion at this point, because of self-imposed feeding restrictions.

Good luck,

Jay.


body:
> *If you didn't, you should email the admin who blocked you (or another
> admin), politely point this out and ask to be unblocked.
> *If you did, you should either wait the 24 hours to calm down, or email the
> admin who blocked you (or another admin), acknowledge your error and
> apologise and ask to be unblocked.
Nicely said. Couldn't have said it better myself. Why do so much
people immediately ask for removal of sysop status? Sysops are only
human. Just asking nicely will have a much better result.

Mgm

On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:37:48 +0000, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> I've just added the following to [[WP:3RR]]. I think it concisely
> reflects how these things actually work. Feel free, of course, to
> edit ;-)
>
> I'm a big fan of 3RR blocks, because sterile reverting is bad. But
> if someone emails me acknowledging their error and asking to be
> unblocked, I'll generally do so. The idea is to get people to edit
> better. Some admins are real hardarses about it, but I'm not sure
> that's really productive myself.
>
> ==I've been blocked under 3RR! What do I do?==
> First, check if you actually did make a fourth revert in 24 hours or very
> close to it.
>
> *If you didn't, you should email the admin who blocked you (or another
> admin), politely point this out and ask to be unblocked.
> *If you did, you should either wait the 24 hours to calm down, or email the
> admin who blocked you (or another admin), acknowledge your error and
> apologise and ask to be unblocked.
>
> Some admins look at the quality of the edits in question, but most admins do
> not as the rule does not concern itself with edit quality.
>
> Note that historically, public denunciation of the blocking admin has not
> tended to gain sympathy.
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject:
3RR again (was Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton.
	Re:[WikiEN-l] Unreaso

body:
>From: Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com>
>On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:53:44 -0700, Tom Haws <hawstom at sprintmail.com>
>wrote:
> > Fresh thinking and good point against *enforcing* the 3RR.  But I don't
> > completely understand the next paragraph.  Can you restate?
> >
> > >The problem with 3RR as it's being practiced now -- it assigns blame
> > >much too early in the process, without even an attempt to stabilize
> > >the situation and let cooler heads prevail.
>
>Sure. Before the 3RR, the standard procedure was for an uninvolved
>admin to come in and protect a page with an edit war, so no one could
>edit it. The parties were forced to go to the Talk page to hash
>something out. No one was declared right or wrong, no individuals were
>singled out and the admin didn't care about the relative viewpoints.
>
>After an unspecified amount of time the page would be unprotected so
>the article could be updated.

However, what often happened instead was that both sides waited out the
protection period, and then immediately started warring again when the
protection was removed.

Jay.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Trail of pages visited

body:
At 3/16/2005 05:18 PM, Tony Sidaway wrote:
>Sebastien BARRE said:
> > At 3/16/2005 11:54 AM, you wrote:
> >
> >>I don't want you seeing that I viewed [[double-sided dildo]] prior to
> >>viewing [[GAU-17]].
> >
> > And how would you view that ? Of course it should not be implemented
> > server-side, that would be dumb, but client-side, as a cookie/session
> > (like  I did in my extension). And you should have a choice to disable
> > it.
>
>Take your favorite browser and visit a few Wikipedia pages.
>
>Done that?  Okay, here's what to do next.

[...] blabla

and what about you visited some other sites in the meantime ? What about
you visited the Wikipedia pages the whole day, collecting like 50 pages or
so ? etc etc. At the end of the day, this drop-down menu, or this history,
involve clicking, sorting, scrolling down, finding out among pages, picking
one, eventually closing the history window, etc, etc, vs. one-click.
Anyway, I don't know why wasting time on this one, this is a "convenience"
feature, in the same way you guys added a back-link to sub-pages in
MediaWiki. There will always be people trying to convince other people that
it is not convenient for *them*, hence not worth considering. As someone
else reported, it's not even your time involved (and actually, anybody's
time if you use the extension I wrote just to do that).

--
Sebastien Barre


body:
On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 01:09:30 -0400, Jim Cecropia <jcecropia at mail.com> wrote:
> I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton so that he can defend himself
> in the appropriate forums on Wikipedia.
>
> The 3RR, as I've stated elsewhere, is a loose cannon which tends to
> favor the status-quo. If the there is a content dispute, the better solution
> is to protect the article for a limited time to get the combatants to hash
> out the issue in article talk. In the instant case, I notice that
> GeorgeStepanek, for example, numbered his reverts ("first, second, third")
> which telegraphs consciousness of the 3RR as a trap, then another editor
> who disagrees with Houghton picked up on the reverting.

It's dangerous to ascribe intent. Simply numbering one's edits does
not mean it's a "trap." In fact, *not* numbering them, and losing
count, could be construed as a trap as well.

But I agree that an outside admin would have served the community
better by simply locking the page, and not banning anyone. Somehow
this needs to be emphasized on the 3RR page - not all 3R violations
need to be followed up by a ban.

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)


from_name: Blair P. Houghton

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> has something to add that is not related to the war it will still be
> just as valid afte the lock-up period has ended.  Very little is of
> such immediate importance as to not survive the application of a
> little patience.

I've done that before.  You just put a watch on the page and get on with
other things.

The problem here though was the constant imputation of consensus that
didn't and doesn't exist.  The consensus is that my edits were
acceptable, so the claims of consensus against them was false.  If I'd
let the reverts stand, it might have been taken as assent to the false
consensus.  Didn't help that my intelligence was being insulted at the
same time, neither.

--Blair


from_name: Sebastien BARRE

subject: [Wikitech-l] Thanks Sebastien - Positioning??

body:
At 3/16/2005 06:45 PM, you wrote:

>So I have saved the file kwBreadCrumbs.php into extensions folder and
>and entered include("extensions/kwBreadCrumbs.php"); into LocalSettings.php.
>
>I want the trail to run along the top of the page like in your Wiki
>system. I have set $on_top_hack = 1;
>What does "use the tag anywhere in the page " mean?

There are 3 *different* ways to position the element, and "anywhere in the
page" is the one involving modifying the template of the page itself. Don't
use that if you are not familiar with templates, etc. on_top_hack should be
good enough if you like the way I set it on my page.

If you have any further questions, contact me privately, let's not pollute
the thread any longer.

--
Sebastien Barre