body:
Resid Gulerdem,
You are trying to blame me for your repeated difficulties on
Wikipedia. This is FLAT OUT false as I have already demonstrated by
showing that it appears that wherever you go you are disruptive. Why
do you think you were so frequently blocked on the Turkish Wikipedia,
blocks that I had nothing to do with whatsoever? In my opinion
Wikipedia needs less influence from editors like yourself who'd do
better to leave the project permanently rather than try to create
policy that is ill founded from a contributor who's reputation is
demonstrably ill founded. You would do better to spend your effort
more productively elsewhere rather than being disruptive on both
English Wikipedia AND Turkish Wikipedia
.
-Scott Stevenson [[User:Netscott]]

> >From: "Scott Stevenson" <wikinetscott at gmail.com>
> >Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> >To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Time to start discussing
> solutions?
> >Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 11:15:08 +0200
> >
> >Resid Gulerdem you are a PERMANENTLY BLOCKED EDITOR
> who has not only
> >been disruptive on English Wikipedia :
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rgulerdem with
> corresponding
> >extensive block log:
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&page=User:Rgulerdem
> >but you've been disruptive in an entirely independent
> way on the
> >Turkish Wikipedia:
> >http://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kullan?c?:Rgulerdem
> >Where you have also been repeatedly blocked:
> >http://tr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=?zel:Log&type=block&page=Kullan?c?:Rgulerdem
> >
> >For you to be discussing policy at this point is
> ridiculous. You
> >should STEP AWAY from the project for at minimum 1
> YEAR and then come
> >back to try and contribute as at this point it is
> surely likely that
> >you'll once again be disruptive when trying to
> formulate any sort of a
> >"policy" like [[WP:OURS]] through demonstrating the
> same types of
> >disruptive editor behaviour you've already repeatedly
> demonstrated
> >(involving WP:OWN, WP:3RR, WP:POINT, WP:NPA, and
> WP:CIV).
> >
> >-Scott Stevenson [[User:Netscott]]

On 6/4/06, Resid Gulerdem <resid_gulerdem at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Dear Scott,
>
> What is your panic for? My account is blocked, yes!
> This is the third time you are repeating the same
> thing on this list. I disclosed that at the beginning
> of the proposal too. I hope people smart enough here
> to see that you are trying to denounce the proposal by
> mud-throwing at me. I expect you will continue doing
> so to distract the attention of the community from the
> proposal itself. I had issues with some admins,
> blocked at the end and '''that is why I know the
> admin-abuse problem by heart'''. I am trying to make
> some structural suggestions so that new comers do not
> live through the same difficulties I had here. Isn't
> that really understandable to you? If you would like
> to talk about the issue, focus on the proposal and
> find some mistakes in it, that would be more
> persuasive that I am doing bad and be more useful to
> correct it.
>
> I am so sorry to say that you are not an exemplary
> editor in my sight from whom I can take some advise,
> and maybe in the sight of a few other users you are
> messing up around. I do not want to waste my time to
> provide links to show what kind of editor you are.
> (There are already two links in my previous message,
> accidentally.)
>
> Maybe I should just say this: It is no good to watch
> each and every step of a fellow editor and try to
> create a negative atmosphere around him by distorting
> the facts, slandering, using your experience and
> naivety of the new users in a negative manner, biting
> the new users, trying to spoil any positive relation
> the user may have by secretly talking to others,
> organizing other users against a fellow editor etc. It
> is not also good to spoil and ruin the articles and
> proposals by starting edit-wars, reverting without
> discussion, tag'ing the articles at which you have no
> other contributions or idea about without any
> explanation, etc. I cannot see the basis for your
> motivation and do not like to describe it in terms of
> phycology for the sake of kindness. I just want to let
> you know that those are the behaviors that damage the
> community spirit of Wikipedia.
>
> I want you not answer it to me but ask this question
> yourself: What will I gain from ruining another
> proposal ([[WP:OURS]]) as I did in the case of
> [[Wikipedia:Wikiethics]]? Is mud-throwing ethical and
> can considered among the behaviors of a gentleman?
> Should I stop this poor behavior? If you have
> difficulty to find an answer please consult your
> parents for your childish behavior.
>
> If you remember, I told you 'bye' far ago. When I say
> it, I really meant that. Let me see if I can make
> myself more clearer this time: Bye again...
>
> Resid
>


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Unblock request

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/
block&page=User:Rgulerdem

Apparently he "exhausted community patience".

Fred

On Jun 4, 2006, at 1:15 PM, Nurdan Isik wrote:

>
> I'm not sure why Rgulerdem was blocked either maybe because he's
> been tryin
> to do something good for Wikipedia. I'm sorry but I think you are
> confusing
> me with someone else. noone checked the case so far that is the main
> problem. Here are the links:
>
> 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:TheLightning
> 2.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%
> 27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive104#User:TheLightning
> 3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fethullah_G%C3%BClen#tag
>
> :-)  [[TheLightning]]
>
>
>> From: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
>> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>> CC: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
>> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Unblock request
>> Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 12:24:19 -0600
>>
>> Two times checkuser confirmed what was obvious from your editing
>> pattern. You are a sockpuppet of Rgulerdem. It is possible you have
>> something to contribute, but so far you have edited one article in a
>> tendentious way and when blocked created sockpuppets and continued
>> the pattern. When you are ready to come clean and discuss the
>> underlying problems perhaps you can be unblocked. I am not quite sure
>> why Rgulerdem was blocked in the first place, but double checked the
>> checkuser results myself.
>>
>> Fred
>>
>> On Jun 4, 2006, at 12:01 PM, Nurdan Isik wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Hi Guyz,
>>> I hope I do not interrupt you from low level cold-word-wars but if
>>> you do not mind I had a request last year. I am still blocked from
>>> editin and believe or not still waitin. Recently I heard that
>>> someone is unblocked and that generated hope in my broken heart.
>>> can admins remember my request and unblock me from editing too?!...
>>> Sorry for interrupting again. [[User:TheLightning]] - a poor user
>>> forgotten in grief
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today -
> it's FREE!
> http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: foundation-l

from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office

body:
On 6/4/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> > As for Daniel Mayer being CFO, I think a large portion of what he does
> > (at least, what I've seen him do) could easily (and rather
> > inexpensively) be outsourced.  Sure, someone internal needs to decide
> > on a budget to submit to the board for approval, but that shouldn't be
> > an enormous time-waster.  I've seen it done effectively many times by
> > volunteer committees with absolutely no finance or business
> > background.
>
> I think this seriously undervalues the contribution Mav has made in this
> role.  His deep understanding of the projects, the community, the
> financial needs, and his staying on top of the spending, etc., has been
> of enormous value, and I do not think that it could have been easily
> outsourced at all.
>
> --Jimbo

Not all of what he does could be outsourced, of course.  Some of it
could.  And if it was, he'd have more time to spend applying his
irreplaceable skills.  And he probably wouldn't be as keen on
resigning.

I certainly didn't mean to undervalue the significance of his
contributions.  In fact, that he feels his job could be better
performed by someone else suggests to me that you are the one who is
undervaluing him, by not using him where he is most effective.

Anthony


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office


subject: [WikiEN-l] Unblock request

body:
 From reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikiethics
and its archives I would say it was a case of trying to do too much
too fast; getting impatient; and then frustrated.

I 'm sure a more patient approach would be more rewarding for all of us.

Fred

On Jun 4, 2006, at 1:15 PM, Nurdan Isik wrote:

>
> I'm not sure why Rgulerdem was blocked either maybe because he's
> been tryin
> to do something good for Wikipedia. I'm sorry but I think you are
> confusing
> me with someone else. noone checked the case so far that is the main
> problem. Here are the links:
>
> 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:TheLightning
> 2.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%
> 27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive104#User:TheLightning
> 3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fethullah_G%C3%BClen#tag
>
> :-)  [[TheLightning]]
>
>
>> From: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
>> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>> CC: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
>> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Unblock request
>> Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 12:24:19 -0600
>>
>> Two times checkuser confirmed what was obvious from your editing
>> pattern. You are a sockpuppet of Rgulerdem. It is possible you have
>> something to contribute, but so far you have edited one article in a
>> tendentious way and when blocked created sockpuppets and continued
>> the pattern. When you are ready to come clean and discuss the
>> underlying problems perhaps you can be unblocked. I am not quite sure
>> why Rgulerdem was blocked in the first place, but double checked the
>> checkuser results myself.
>>
>> Fred
>>
>> On Jun 4, 2006, at 12:01 PM, Nurdan Isik wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Hi Guyz,
>>> I hope I do not interrupt you from low level cold-word-wars but if
>>> you do not mind I had a request last year. I am still blocked from
>>> editin and believe or not still waitin. Recently I heard that
>>> someone is unblocked and that generated hope in my broken heart.
>>> can admins remember my request and unblock me from editing too?!...
>>> Sorry for interrupting again. [[User:TheLightning]] - a poor user
>>> forgotten in grief
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today -
> it's FREE!
> http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] HTML normalization, transclusions, nesting

body:
Tels wrote:
>
> It is very convient to be able to create templates that start tables with
> a lot of predefiened markup, so users can just say:
>
> {{start-table-for-specific-purpose-foo}}
>
> instead of creatig manually bordersizes etc. It also makes mass-changing
> tables easier.

Uuuh.... bordersizes? "etc."??

You're supposed to write:

{| class="specific-purpose"

and define the look of the table in the CSS.

Timwi


from_name: Nurdan Isik

subject: [WikiEN-l] Unblock request

body:
I'm not sure why Rgulerdem was blocked either maybe because he's been tryin
to do something good for Wikipedia. I'm sorry but I think you are confusing
me with someone else. noone checked the case so far that is the main
problem. Here are the links:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:TheLightning
2.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive104#User:TheLightning
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fethullah_G%C3%BClen#tag

:-)  [[TheLightning]]

>From: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>CC: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Unblock request
>Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 12:24:19 -0600
>
>Two times checkuser confirmed what was obvious from your editing
>pattern. You are a sockpuppet of Rgulerdem. It is possible you have
>something to contribute, but so far you have edited one article in a
>tendentious way and when blocked created sockpuppets and continued
>the pattern. When you are ready to come clean and discuss the
>underlying problems perhaps you can be unblocked. I am not quite sure
>why Rgulerdem was blocked in the first place, but double checked the
>checkuser results myself.
>
>Fred
>
>On Jun 4, 2006, at 12:01 PM, Nurdan Isik wrote:
>
> > Hi Guyz,
> > I hope I do not interrupt you from low level cold-word-wars but if
> > you do not mind I had a request last year. I am still blocked from
> > editin and believe or not still waitin. Recently I heard that
> > someone is unblocked and that generated hope in my broken heart.
> > can admins remember my request and unblock me from editing too?!...
> > Sorry for interrupting again. [[User:TheLightning]] - a poor user
> > forgotten in grief
>
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE!
http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
On 6/4/06, Troy Hunter <troyhunter0 at lycos.com> wrote:

> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_committee_conduct

With regard to this resolution in particular, which tried to guarantee
a minimal level of openness in the committees:
- Why was it rejected -- what were the arguments against it? Who voted
against it?
- Is any similar resolution planned for the future?

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


list: commons-l

from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Commons-l] Official paintings held by the U.S. Government

body:
Jim wrote:
>    1. Determination that the photos lack sufficient originality, thus
>       the photographer can not claim copyright in the photo of a public
>       domain work (following Bridgeman)
>    2. Assuming that there is sufficient originality, so we need to find
>       the copyright status of the photo seperate from the one in the
>       portrait:
>          1. If they are photos posted by the US govt and copied to
>             wikipedia from there - then those are clearly in the public
>             domain as a work of the US govt.
>          2. If the photo was taken by a contributor - then we should
>             refer to his license in uploading the work.
>
> Personally, my review of the photos in question indicate that they
> clearly fall under the Bridgeman decision and the photographer can not
> claim a copyright in them as there is not the sufficient originality by
> the photographer

The problem is that Bridgman was only a district court case, not a
circuit court case, and it is unclear that the reasoning in Bridgman
will be followed by other courts.  It is not much of a precedent to rely
upon.

--Jimbo
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: jwales.vcf
Type: text/x-vcard
Size: 211 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/commons-l/attachments/20060604/88bd3e2d/attachment.vcf


subject: [WikiEN-l] AFC needs your help!

body:
> Why not set up a system where each article proposed for creation
> exists as a separate page.  And there could be a special page set up
> which points to each of them.  This special page could list the date
> and time created, the name of the proposed page, the number of bytes
> of the page, and the username or  IP address of the proposer.

Surely that would be equivalent to just letting unregistered users
create pages again and having a Special page that simply lists all
articles that have only ever been edited by IPs.


from_name: Resid Gulerdem

body:
Hey Jay,

Welcome in. Do you think you got into the discussion
from the correct place? I think I was trying to
emphasis on the importance of discussing the proposal
itself and taking it as a first step in the
development of a better one. Anyways...

There are some people with lack of short memories. It
is OK under standard conditions at which they only
need some automated behavioral patterns. It might be
hard for them, though, when they are involved in some
sort of discussions. They, for example, can easily
forget what they said a minute ago? Can you imagine
that?

In your previous message about Salaadin, you are
complaining about conspiracy theories he has in his
mind about Jews. I do not mind your ethnic origin, so
your concerns are understandable to me. You are on the
other hand do not hesitate to construct your own
conspiracy theory here: 'new kind of abusive editors
trying to push their POV via the back door'. We have
no chance other than showing respect to your
conspiracy theory, of course, because it is yours
and not against Jews. Who wants to be blamed for being
an anti-semitist? Yours should be just fine...

Would I bother luxury and comfort of your mind if I
ask how you think these new abusive editors will abuse
something and will make their hidden agenda a policy?
Or do you know how a policy becomes a proposal in
Wikipedia?

I think, I could diagnose a problem in Wikipedia and
could suggest a fix for it. I hope it attract some
attention and works at the end. I am not able to make
a suggestion for you (a good editor working for
good of Wikipedia wihtout any doubt and in turn the
humanity like you) other than; just follow the main
policies such as 'assume good faith'.

Best,

Resid

>From: jayjg <jayjg99 at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Time to start discussing
solutions?
>Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 11:27:13 -0400
>
>On 6/4/06, Resid Gulerdem <resid_gulerdem at yahoo.com>
wrote:
> > Dear Scott,
> >
> > What is your panic for?
>
>What's worse, you
>appear to be one of the new breed of that kind of
abusive editor, the
>kind who feels that if they can't push their POV and
other policy
>abuses onto Wikipedia by force, they will do it via
the back-door,
>through policy change.
>
>Jay.

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


from_name: Roger Luethi

subject: [WikiEN-l] Types of categories

body:
On Sat, 03 Jun 2006 17:27:59 -0400, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> > Agreed. Still: can you give some specific examples of wonderful things that
> > could be done but are not possible now? That would tell us what problem you
> > are trying to solve.
> >
> I've personally run into this when trying to automatically create, for
> example, a list of all Wikipedia articles on people.  You can't just
> start at [[category:people]] and work your way down, because you wind
> up going to [[Category:Women]] (fine, all women are people) then
> [[Category:Feminine hygene]] (bad).

Okay, that's equivalent to Steve's Amelie-Paris relation. I agree that's a
problem.

> > Categories based on such intersections of attributes are conceptually bad.
> > Look at the categories for an article like [[Marie Curie]]: She's French
> > three times, female four times, Polish four times (not counting "Natives of
> > Warsaw"), etc. Why not create [[Category:Polish women who were born in
> > 1867 and died in 1934 and won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry and in Physics]]?
>
> Because there would only be one person in that category.

That's why nobody made it, but not why it shouldn't be done.

It would be nigh impossible to do well because once we start combining
attributes to create new categories, we are looking at maintaining links
between articles and an exploding number of subcategories.

But even if we maintained a complete and up-to-date system of subcats, we'd
still make it hard for people to find articles using categories. For some
fairly sensible reasons, the rule is to include articles only to the
subcategory, but not to the parent. There is no way to list articles based
on a subset of criteria (the articles in subcategories are effectively
hidden on separate pages which is only helpful if you know which one to
pick).

> If the category system could effectively build these intersection
> categories on the fly, I'd agree.  But the category system can't
> currently do that.  (And it's been around a reasonably long time, with
> that as an obvious flaw, and no one has fixed it.)

You are right, we can't effectively build these intersection categories on
the fly at the moment, but we _could_ automatically create or update such
intersection categories if the categories weren't the mess that Steve and
you describe. Kind of like the search index.

> > > Attributes: The category exists to denote some very specific small
> > > detail of a subject, such that it would be conceivable to have dozens
> > > or more such categories on an article. Examples: 1943 deaths, Living
> > > persons, Winners of Nobel Peace Prize, etc. These tend to hierarchies
> > > that start strict then end up fuzzy. Eg, 1943 deaths is only in 1943
> > > and "1940s deaths", and these have parent categories of
> > > "1940s","Years" and so forth, eventually ending up in "History",
> > > whereupon things become chaos.
> >
> > There is no way to make hierarchies not suck, especially if you have to
> > maintain them manually (as we do now). Don't try to impose hierarchies
> > unless they emerge quite naturally from the subject.
> >
> I made a proposal.  All subcategories of attributes must be a subset
> of the parent attribute.  Seems like a perfectly reasonable way to
> make hierarchies not suck.

The devil is in the details.

For instance, how do you connect the districts of Paris to the category
Paris? What is a subset of the parent attribute "Paris": "Districts of
Paris", or "Quartier Latin", or neither? Does it bother you if the article
on a French district is now in a subcategory of "Capitals in Europe"?

Or going back to [[Category:Women]]: You could declare that only articles
on instances of women (i.e.  biographies) can ever be under that category,
and that only sets of such articles can ever be subcategories of the
category women. -- You could even create a separate [[Category:Woman]],
subcategories like "female reproductive organs" containing articles like
uterus. -- But how would you express the undisputed relationship between
female human beings and your example [[Category:Feminine hygiene]]? How
about [[Category:Women's rights]]? Add an umbrella cat "Somehow related to
women" maybe?

Roger


from_name: Angela

subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
> It's not a huge deal, but could this be somehow indicated on the
> Resolutions page?  It'd be useful as a reader to be able to distinguish
> between resolutions that failed at a vote versus resolutions that
> "failed" due to never being voted on.

That is the case now. The not-voted-on ones are listed at
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolutions#Inactive_resolutions
rather than at failed resolutions. In some cases, these might still be
voted on at some later date so have not necessarily failed, just
stalled or been put aside for now.

Angela


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


subject: [WikiEN-l] To: Jimmy Wales - Admin-driven death of Wikipedia

body:
Conrad Dunkerson wrote:
>  There are admins who are routinely incivil,
> make personal attacks on a regular basis, and thumb their noses at
> consensus... and that IS damaging Wikipedia.

Give some examples?  File an arbcom case?

> Look around at your fellow admins from time to time and ask yourself... is
> there ANY way this person could pass an RFA at this point? If the answer
> is 'no' then the de facto situation is that a person who does NOT have the
> support or respect of the community has powers which are only supposed to
> be held by those who DO... and that inherently breeds disruption and
> resentment and ongoing damage to Wikipedia as a whole.

I think it would be reasonable to have some sort of process other than
ArbCom whereby admins are from time to time or upon particular
circumstances renominated for adminship.  The danger, of course, is that
such a process could be used by trolls as a hammer against some of our
more active admins.  I can see endless repeats of renominations for
adminship every time an admin does something sensible but bold.

That seems worse than whatever problems we may have now.

--Jimbo


body:
The arbitration committee will be hearing this matter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/
Saladin1970_appeal

Fred

On Jun 4, 2006, at 2:15 PM, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> BJ?rn Lindqvist wrote:
>
>> It is not. A user named Saladin1970 was recently indefinitely banned
>> by administrators because his political views was diametrically
>> opposite to theirs.
>>
>
> Ai yi yi.  I think you should take another look at this case.  I
> see no
> reason to think that political views had anything to do with it.
>
> --Jimbo
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Some statistics I wish I had...

body:
Platonides wrote:
> "Steve Bennett" wrote:
>> Do we have a database dump pre-formatted for this kind of statistics?
>> That is, simply date, page, user and edit summary for every edit,
>> without the actual diffs or current page content.
>
> I'd support such kind of dump, the history but without the text of the
> version.

This is actually generated as a temporary file during the dump process, but
they're not currently kept. If you guys want, I can have it keep them instead
perhaps. The next one won't be for a few days, though.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20060604/2b6beef9/attachment.pgp>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Some statistics I wish I had...

body:
(Sorry for the cross posting, but there are several groups who might
find this interesting.)

For years now, it has been common for people to claim that "all the good
editors are jumping ship" or "we are losing our best people".
Generally, this has not proven to be true: people come and go, to be
sure, but as some people drift away, others have drifted in.  Whether
the rate of burnout is "too high" or "too low" or "just right" is quite
hard to say.

However, it ought to be possible to at least quantify what that rate
actually is, by using the Erik Zachte statistics or a modification of them.

I would be fascinated if we could figure out such statistics as

"For any given edit, what is the average length of service of the
editor?"  "For any given edit, what is the median length of service of
the editor?"  These could be measured by either time since first edit,
or total number of edits or (perhaps best) some weighted average of the
edit history.

It would be nice to track that number over time... are we becoming
"younger" as a community, "older" as a community?  Staying about the
same?  Are old-timers sticking around longer than they used to, or
jumping ship faster?

There are also a whole set of related questions around newbies:

Are newbies more likely to stick around, or less likely to stick around,
than they were a year ago.  Some people feel we are being overrun by
newbies, others feel that we are becoming a more closed and cliqueish
community which does not welcome newbies.

I would measure this by saying "Of people who made at least 100 edits a
month ago, how many of them made at least 100 edits this month".  And
similar stats for "at least 10 edits".  (Merely looking at "new
accounts" would not be right, because we had a huge spike in new account
creation when it became necessary to have an account to create a new page.)

--Jimbo

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


body:
Yes, not only must you be doing the wrong thing; you must persist in
doing it after people have talked to you about it and asked you not
to do it. You got to be hardheaded. "Sustained aggressive tendentious
editing" You have to keep doing it in the face of other users.

Fred

On Jun 4, 2006, at 2:39 PM, Steve Bennett wrote:

> On 6/4/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>
>> No, but discussion of the editing must prove fruitless.
>>
>
> So POV pushing is not simply an editing pattern, it is an
> edit/discussion pattern?
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
Conrad Dunkerson wrote:
> Wikipedia is becoming more and more a battleground (does anyone
> disagree with that assessment?)... and in part that is because we no
> longer treat the 'problem' users with as much respect as we once did. They
> cause problems... sooner or later someone comes along and stomps them...
> and instead of slowly learning to fit in or drifting away with mildly bad
> feelings they gain an intense hatred of Wikipedia or those they see as the
> 'abusers'. It's a problem we are contributing to and ought to make more
> concerted efforts to avoid.

This is possible.  However, I am not really sure about it.  As ever,
when I am asked to look into cases of "admin abuse" and I choose to do
so, I generally find myself astounded at how nice we are to complete
maniacs, and for how long.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Unblock request

body:
On Jun 4, 2006, at 2:40 PM, Nurdan Isik wrote:

>
>   could you check my request too, by chance?
>   thank you
>

I did. Confirmed sockpuppet.

Fred

>
>> From: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
>> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>> CC: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
>> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Unblock request
>> Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 13:55:56 -0600
>>
>>  From reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikiethics
>> and its archives I would say it was a case of trying to do too much
>> too fast; getting impatient; and then frustrated.
>>
>> I 'm sure a more patient approach would be more rewarding for all
>> of us.
>>
>> Fred
>>
>> On Jun 4, 2006, at 1:15 PM, Nurdan Isik wrote:
>>
>> >
>> > I'm not sure why Rgulerdem was blocked either maybe because he's
>> > been tryin
>> > to do something good for Wikipedia. I'm sorry but I think you are
>> > confusing
>> > me with someone else. noone checked the case so far that is the
>> main
>> > problem. Here are the links:
>> >
>> > 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:TheLightning
>> > 2.
>> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%
>> > 27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive104#User:TheLightning
>> > 3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fethullah_G%C3%BClen#tag
>> >
>> > :-)  [[TheLightning]]
>> >
>> >
>> >> From: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
>> >> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>> >> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>> >> CC: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
>> >> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Unblock request
>> >> Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 12:24:19 -0600
>> >>
>> >> Two times checkuser confirmed what was obvious from your editing
>> >> pattern. You are a sockpuppet of Rgulerdem. It is possible you
>> have
>> >> something to contribute, but so far you have edited one article
>> in a
>> >> tendentious way and when blocked created sockpuppets and continued
>> >> the pattern. When you are ready to come clean and discuss the
>> >> underlying problems perhaps you can be unblocked. I am not
>> quite sure
>> >> why Rgulerdem was blocked in the first place, but double
>> checked the
>> >> checkuser results myself.
>> >>
>> >> Fred
>> >>
>> >> On Jun 4, 2006, at 12:01 PM, Nurdan Isik wrote:
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>> Hi Guyz,
>> >>> I hope I do not interrupt you from low level cold-word-wars
>> but if
>> >>> you do not mind I had a request last year. I am still blocked
>> from
>> >>> editin and believe or not still waitin. Recently I heard that
>> >>> someone is unblocked and that generated hope in my broken heart.
>> >>> can admins remember my request and unblock me from editing
>> too?!...
>> >>> Sorry for interrupting again. [[User:TheLightning]] - a poor user
>> >>> forgotten in grief
>> >>>
>> >>
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> >> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> >> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>> >> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>> >>
>> >
>> > _________________________________________________________________
>> > Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today -
>> > it's FREE!
>> > http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > WikiEN-l mailing list
>> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>> >
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from
> McAfee? Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?
> cid=3963
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
>From: Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com>
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] To: Jimmy Wales -
Admin-driven death of Wikipedia
>Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2006 15:00:13 -0500
>
>This is why there is a perception that at times there
have been
>conflicts between "admins" and "the community".  In
the past, there was
>no question at all that "the community" and "the
admins" were just about
>exactly the same people.
>
>--Jimbo

   The admins are only part of the community now and
will stay like that in the future, as far as I can
see. Are some modifications needed in your opinion? I
believe the answer is yes. I do not know if you could
see the proposal [[WP:OURS]] I posted on this list
recently. I think it can be useful and can be
developed further. I tried to outline some important
points which may reduce the conflicts between the
admins and the users. If you saw it, do you think it
is feasible?
   Best,
   Resid

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


body:
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediansEditsGt100.htm

I am not sure why these stats are incomplete after January.  But they do
confirm what many of us felt about what was going on in December and
January...

from November to December, the number of "very active users" in en went
from just over 2000 to just under 3000.  That 50% jump included a fair
number of people who were new to the process, and coincides with the
start of some "old timer" versus "newcomer" cultural fights about things
like userboxes.

This is why there is a perception that at times there have been
conflicts between "admins" and "the community".  In the past, there was
no question at all that "the community" and "the admins" were just about
exactly the same people.

--Jimbo


body:
Kelly Martin wrote:
> On 5/29/06, James D. Forrester <james at jdforrester.org> wrote:
>> Indeed. I have grave doubts that a confirmation system would be anything
>> other than absolutely disasterous, at least in the short term, to the
>> wikilove principle in favour of which it's apparently being proposed
>> (let alone the actual practical functioning of the site).
>
> I doubt I'd survive any sort of reconfirmation vote.  Then again, that
> might work out well in the long run, since I think the owners of
> Wikipedia would rather that I were an admin.....

Did you write something different from what you meant?

I fully support you as an admin, if that is what you were wondering about.


body:
BJ?rn Lindqvist wrote:
> It is not. A user named Saladin1970 was recently indefinitely banned
> by administrators because his political views was diametrically
> opposite to theirs.

Ai yi yi.  I think you should take another look at this case.  I see no
reason to think that political views had anything to do with it.

--Jimbo


body:
Anders Wegge Jakobsen wrote:
>  I run some offline statistics for dawiki, and I could use such a
> dump. If article size could be included, it would be a nice bonus, but
> even without that, it would be a help.

The page table is available as an SQL dump and has the page_len field for
current revisions. We don't have lengths stored for older revisions, though,
sogetting the length means extracting the text (slow).

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20060604/5691203d/attachment.pgp>


from_name: George Herbert

body:
On 6/4/06, Lord Voldemort <lordbishopvoldemort at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/4/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Non admins are becomeing increaseingly powerless.
> Funny you should see it as power v. no power.  Not being an admin
> affects your ability to write an encyclopedia in the most of miniscule
> ways.  Just write the encyclopedia.  Any "power" that you speak of is
> ridiculous.  All this other crap happening... not writing an
> encyclopedia. Being an admin shouldn't really matter to people.
>

It has no impact on editing articles.  I for one have a goal of spending a
majority of my WP time doing that.  I often fail 8-(  Though, to be fair,
checking articles on my watchlist for updates is a big part of the
non-adding-material time.

I care about how other people are editing articles, and in some cases how
people are responding to what other people edit in articles and in secondary
discussions.  For the most part, having some history of the situation and
how policy has evolved, and knowing where to look for things, has been the
hard part.  Not having admin bit set doesn't affect my ability to put my two
cents in on any of the discussions I have cared about.

There are a few persistent vandals who have wandered by pages I care about
and I would have blocked if I could, but the people doing automated checks
are generally responding a lot faster than I do with reverts and warnings on
talk pages, so presumably they're more effective than I could be with
blocking anyways, since I don't have time to sit and monitor in realtime
during the day.  Bravo to those writing the software.

I can recall once that someone called me on "But you're not even an admin",
followed by them being dogpiled by several other people in the discussion
including several admins.  So I can't even complain that the perception
issue as a non-admin is really causing me any issues.

--
-george william herbert
gherbert at retro.com / george.herbert at gmail.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Unblock request

body:
   could you check my request too, by chance?
   thank you

>From: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>CC: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Unblock request
>Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 13:55:56 -0600
>
>  From reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikiethics
>and its archives I would say it was a case of trying to do too much
>too fast; getting impatient; and then frustrated.
>
>I 'm sure a more patient approach would be more rewarding for all of us.
>
>Fred
>
>On Jun 4, 2006, at 1:15 PM, Nurdan Isik wrote:
>
> >
> > I'm not sure why Rgulerdem was blocked either maybe because he's
> > been tryin
> > to do something good for Wikipedia. I'm sorry but I think you are
> > confusing
> > me with someone else. noone checked the case so far that is the main
> > problem. Here are the links:
> >
> > 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:TheLightning
> > 2.
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%
> > 27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive104#User:TheLightning
> > 3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fethullah_G%C3%BClen#tag
> >
> > :-)  [[TheLightning]]
> >
> >
> >> From: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
> >> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> >> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> >> CC: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
> >> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Unblock request
> >> Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 12:24:19 -0600
> >>
> >> Two times checkuser confirmed what was obvious from your editing
> >> pattern. You are a sockpuppet of Rgulerdem. It is possible you have
> >> something to contribute, but so far you have edited one article in a
> >> tendentious way and when blocked created sockpuppets and continued
> >> the pattern. When you are ready to come clean and discuss the
> >> underlying problems perhaps you can be unblocked. I am not quite sure
> >> why Rgulerdem was blocked in the first place, but double checked the
> >> checkuser results myself.
> >>
> >> Fred
> >>
> >> On Jun 4, 2006, at 12:01 PM, Nurdan Isik wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>> Hi Guyz,
> >>> I hope I do not interrupt you from low level cold-word-wars but if
> >>> you do not mind I had a request last year. I am still blocked from
> >>> editin and believe or not still waitin. Recently I heard that
> >>> someone is unblocked and that generated hope in my broken heart.
> >>> can admins remember my request and unblock me from editing too?!...
> >>> Sorry for interrupting again. [[User:TheLightning]] - a poor user
> >>> forgotten in grief
> >>>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> WikiEN-l mailing list
> >> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> >> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> >> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >>
> >
> > _________________________________________________________________
> > Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today -
> > it's FREE!
> > http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

_________________________________________________________________
Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee?
Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963


from_name: Troy Hunter

subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Erik Zachte wrote:
>
>>* Increasingly decison are taken by the board without too much prior
>>discussion in the open, at least on places where I would expect it, like on
>>this mailing list.
>
>
> I don't think so.  I don't know of any examples.  But if there are some
> things that you would like to bring up as specifics, I would love to
> consider them.

What about the committee resolutions, such as the following?

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_committee_conduct http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_Special_projects
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_Communications_committee

> In particular, the "increasingly" perception is the one I want to
> combat, by trying to make it more clear how things are done, and how
> things have transitioned and continue to transition to having a lot more
> people involved.

I've heard that these days, most things are discussed and decided on a secret mailing list long before they become public. Is that true?

>>(#) I might add 'and created and/or sanctioned by the board'. The board
>>reigns supremely. This does not make the board evil in any way, or its
>>members less respectable, it does not discredit the committees or their
>>members, far from it, all names of committee members that I recognize are of
>>highly valued community members  (I'm not even against any of the committees
>>or their missions, heck I'm going to apply for a committee on invitation and
>>of course undergo normal co-optation procedure) it is simply a control
>>monopoly that I would like to see amended, to strenghten Wikimedia as an
>>organisation.
>
>
> In what way would you amend it?  Keep in mind that we are an actual
> organization in the real world, and there are real legal
> responsibilities, very serious ones, that have to be met by the
> organization, and board members have a very heavy burden to be sure that
> these responsibilities are met.  It would not be legal, for example, for
> the board to completely give up decision making authority over a lot of
> different things... but what we can do is involve more people (instead
> of me doing everything, which was the very old way, and then the board
> doing everything, which was the old way, to now an *increasingly*
> community oriented approach of committees and chapters).

You mean "community-oriented" as in oriented towards those people selected by Delphine and Danny to be on the committees? Sounds more like cabal-oriented to me.

>>I'm not sure I would favour to vote on everything, elections can be
>>manipulated. Perhaps the tried system of discussing major choices until a
>>consensus is reached would still work, this list is not flooded by hundreds
>>of trolls, there is still a limited community interested in these issues.
>
>
> I think we try really hard to do this, whenever possible.  I am unaware
> of any major changes of direction which were not openly discussed until
> something approaching consensus is reached.  Of course, this list does
> have some trolls, but almost everyone contributing here has a strong
> voice in the future course of the foundation in every way.

Answers.com deal? Committee selection process? Hey, what about the original bylaws of the Foundation, were they discussed until consensus was reached?

[...]
>>* The idea that a contractor, possibly an outsider (?), is charged with
>>paving the way for a true CEO, is yet another example of top down
>>management.
>
>
> Why do you suppose that an outsider would be chosen for this?

Do you have any candidates in mind at the moment? How many edits do each of them have?

troy

--
_______________________________________________

Search for businesses by name, location, or phone number.  -Lycos Yellow Pages

http://r.lycos.com/r/yp_emailfooter/http://yellowpages.lycos.com/default.asp?SRC=lycos10


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


subject: [WikiEN-l] Unblock request

body:
...and the reason for your conclusion is?

>From: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>CC: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Unblock request
>Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 14:55:58 -0600
>
>
>On Jun 4, 2006, at 2:40 PM, Nurdan Isik wrote:
>
> >
> >   could you check my request too, by chance?
> >   thank you
> >
>
>I did. Confirmed sockpuppet.
>
>Fred
>
> >
> >> From: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
> >> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> >> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> >> CC: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
> >> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Unblock request
> >> Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 13:55:56 -0600
> >>
> >>  From reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikiethics
> >> and its archives I would say it was a case of trying to do too much
> >> too fast; getting impatient; and then frustrated.
> >>
> >> I 'm sure a more patient approach would be more rewarding for all
> >> of us.
> >>
> >> Fred
> >>
> >> On Jun 4, 2006, at 1:15 PM, Nurdan Isik wrote:
> >>
> >> >
> >> > I'm not sure why Rgulerdem was blocked either maybe because he's
> >> > been tryin
> >> > to do something good for Wikipedia. I'm sorry but I think you are
> >> > confusing
> >> > me with someone else. noone checked the case so far that is the
> >> main
> >> > problem. Here are the links:
> >> >
> >> > 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:TheLightning
> >> > 2.
> >> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%
> >> > 27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive104#User:TheLightning
> >> > 3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fethullah_G%C3%BClen#tag
> >> >
> >> > :-)  [[TheLightning]]
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >> From: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
> >> >> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> >> >> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> >> >> CC: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
> >> >> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Unblock request
> >> >> Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 12:24:19 -0600
> >> >>
> >> >> Two times checkuser confirmed what was obvious from your editing
> >> >> pattern. You are a sockpuppet of Rgulerdem. It is possible you
> >> have
> >> >> something to contribute, but so far you have edited one article
> >> in a
> >> >> tendentious way and when blocked created sockpuppets and continued
> >> >> the pattern. When you are ready to come clean and discuss the
> >> >> underlying problems perhaps you can be unblocked. I am not
> >> quite sure
> >> >> why Rgulerdem was blocked in the first place, but double
> >> checked the
> >> >> checkuser results myself.
> >> >>
> >> >> Fred
> >> >>
> >> >> On Jun 4, 2006, at 12:01 PM, Nurdan Isik wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>> Hi Guyz,
> >> >>> I hope I do not interrupt you from low level cold-word-wars
> >> but if
> >> >>> you do not mind I had a request last year. I am still blocked
> >> from
> >> >>> editin and believe or not still waitin. Recently I heard that
> >> >>> someone is unblocked and that generated hope in my broken heart.
> >> >>> can admins remember my request and unblock me from editing
> >> too?!...
> >> >>> Sorry for interrupting again. [[User:TheLightning]] - a poor user
> >> >>> forgotten in grief
> >> >>>
> >> >>
> >> >> _______________________________________________
> >> >> WikiEN-l mailing list
> >> >> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> >> >> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> >> >> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> > _________________________________________________________________
> >> > Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today -
> >> > it's FREE!
> >> > http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
> >> >
> >> > _______________________________________________
> >> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> >> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> >> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> >> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >> >
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> WikiEN-l mailing list
> >> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> >> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> >> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >>
> >
> > _________________________________________________________________
> > Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from
> > McAfee? Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?
> > cid=3963
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

_________________________________________________________________
FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar ? get it now!
http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/


from_name: abu hamza

body:
So when jaygy does one alledged incident of sock puppetry used against
wikipedia policy result in an indefinate ban??
and when jaygy does citing someones ethnicity on their wikipedia biography
result in that person being antisemetic , and henced banned indefinately on
wikipedia

if i were to trawl through your posts it would not be difficult to see a
pattern emerging of extreme POV pushing, reverting posts to ensure your POV
held.

I think it is quite clear that BJorn has hit on a very sensitive and
important point. That certain administrators abuse their position by banning
or reverting posts to ensure their POV remains on wiki pages that  are close
to their life view. And that there is NO wiki policy to protect the
neutrality of wiki pages from these abuses, or of the victims of these
administration abuses.

I give you a simple example of the extreme POV pushing that goes on by
certain administrators
I attempted to include in the "further reading" section of the zionism page,
the 5-10 year academically researched book "zionism the real enemy of the
jews" by Alan Hart. Now this was disallowed on the grounds of POV, yet if we
look at the list on the zionism further reading section one has to wonder
why these aren't POV yet the alan hart book is

Sholom Aleichem. Why Do the Jews Need a Land of Their own?, 1898
Paul Charles Merkley. The Politics of Christian Zionism 1891 ? 1948 (London:
Frank Cass, 1998)
A. Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, Wiley, 2003 ISBN 0-471-46502-X.

etc.
yet of course my attempts to include it whilst it being repeatedly removed
by slimvirgin, jaygy and humus sapien, are examples of my 'anti semitism'.

If i were you jaygy i would be extremely embarassed by the episode of my
ban, and be questioning whether such a clear case of injustice actually
helps your goals.

>From: jayjg <jayjg99 at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] To: Jimmy Wales - Admin-driven death of Wikipedia
>Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 11:15:45 -0400
>
>On 6/4/06, BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > There has never been a shortage of criticism of certain admin actions.
>  A
> > > high proportion of this has always been mud-slinging by those rightly
>the
> > > target of admin sanctions.
> > >
> > > The issue of 'bias' is better phrased another way.  Do admins apply
>admin
> > > powers in attempts to control article content, in a way that is
>negative
> > > from the point of view of compliance with fundamental policies on
>content?
> > > It turns out that it is much harder to make a good case of this kind,
>than
> > > to make general accusations on 'bias'.
> >
> > It is not. A user named Saladin1970 was recently indefinitely banned
> > by administrators because his political views was diametrically
> > opposite to theirs.
>
>You mean the one who kept insisting that Britain's most prolific mass
>murderer be identified as a "Jew" in the lead, the one who kept
>inserting copyvios in other articles, kept logging out and using his
>IP to violate 3RR, etc? That one?
>
> > There was absolutely no reason for that ban, and
> > had Saladin1970's political views been better aligned with theirs, he
> > wouldn't have been blocked at all.
>
>Well, aside from his sly 3RR violations, his poorly written,
>unsourced, POV, and arguably anti-Semitic insertions, his copyvios,
>etc.
>
> > Since virtually all his edits were
> > reverted solely because they were made by a blocked user, it should be
> > painstakingly clear that (some) admins apply admin powers in attempts
> > to control article content and that that is negative for Wikipedia.
>
>Actually, what is painstakingly clear is that not only were his edits
>a net detriment to Wikipedia, but also that your posts on this list
>are pretty much the same; uninformed, POV, and almost always factually
>incorrect. What is also painstakingly clear is that the only reason
>you defend him (apart from your inevitably choosing the wrong-headed
>position on any situation) is that his political views coincide with
>your own.
>
>BJorn, you've been asked to stop projecting your own faults on others;
>if you cannot desist from this, at least please stop using this list
>for doing so.
>
> > And it won't change, because despite the probably hundreds of policies
> > wikipedian-en has, not a single one of them says that when an admin
> > fucks up that bad, s/he shouldn't be an admin.
>
>Well, except for all the admins who have been de-sysopped.
>
> > So while Saladin1970 is
> > stuck with some weird arbitration thing with Fred Bauder,
>
>Saladin1970 is not involved "with some arbitration thing with Fred
>Bauder".  Can you not even get the simplest facts straight?  He is
>involved in an arbitration case with the Arbitration Committee.
>
> > the admins
> > can continue their free roll. Saladin1970 is far from the only case,
> > he just happened to be particularly persistent and polite when
> > complaining in this list.
>
>Actually, Saladin1970 indundated this list with a series of lengthy,
>dubious, and often factually false e-mails; for example, his copyvios
>would be pointed out to him time and again, yet he would still post
>further lengthy diatribes insisting he had never been shown them, and
>also insisting on apologies.  Much like you, he seems to have
>completely missed (or avoided reading) every e-mail which detailed the
>actual behavioral reasons he was blocked, and instead concocted a
>bizarre conspiracy theory which blamed admins for blocking him for
>political reasons.  This, in fact, accords with his political views in
>general - the world is controlled by a conspiracy of secret forces
>(and you can guess exactly who those secret forces are) - but there's
>no reason why this list (or Wikipedia) need be subjected to them.
>
>Jay.
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

_________________________________________________________________
Are you using the latest version of MSN Messenger? Download MSN Messenger
7.5 today! http://join.msn.com/messenger/overview


subject:
[WikiEN-l] cancelation of the deletion review of the satanism
	userbox

body:
On 6/4/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 1 Jun 2006 16:54:11 -0700, you wrote:
> >One RFC?  Sure.  One particularly upset complaintant?  Sure.
> >Your kickback from the community is far, far past that.
>
> The community?  Whoa!  Tony pisses me off, too, but I can see when he
> has a point - which is pretty much always.  Take a deep breath and ask
> what we are here for.  Social networking?  Glory?  Ego?  Or to build
> an encyclopaedia?  In each of the numerous cases where Tony has wound
> me up, it has been because he unilaterally did something which was
> good for the encyclopaedia, and "fuck process".  I think that may even
> be a direct quote from him.
>
> A lot of the people who kick back against Tony via these RfCs are
> problem editors, just like a lot of the whining that goes on here and
> at Wikipedia Review is from frustrated POV warriors.

Which of those categories do I fall into, praytell?  8-)

Even discounting a lot of the pile-on me-too complaints against Tony from
problem editors, there remain significant numbers of people who aren't and
object to some of the stuff he's done.

My objection in short: "Fuck process" is, here and now, more of a problem
for Wikipedia than any of the individual wrongs Tony has righted using that
justification, of late.  Playing well with others is more important now.

--
-george william herbert
gherbert at retro.com / george.herbert at gmail.com


from_name: Tels

body:
Moin,

On Sunday 04 June 2006 15:04, Timwi wrote:
> Tels wrote:
> > It is very convient to be able to create templates that start tables
> > with a lot of predefiened markup, so users can just say:
> >
> > {{start-table-for-specific-purpose-foo}}
> >
> > instead of creatig manually bordersizes etc. It also makes
> > mass-changing tables easier.
>
> Uuuh.... bordersizes? "etc."??
>
> You're supposed to write:
>
> {| class="specific-purpose"
>
> and define the look of the table in the CSS.

Normal users can't edit the CSS. Thats why you add the CSS stuff (e.g.
backround colors, bordersizes etc) to a template, which gives you:

* easily changable by normal users
* revision history
* etc. all the normal wiki advantages

Adding the CSS to monobook.css or similiar wouldn't work for that, as
would adding


from_name: Peter Ansell

subject: [WikiEN-l] status qou vs reform

body:
On 04/06/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/3/06, Resid Gulerdem <resid_gulerdem at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >    I think one should not expect any action, in
> > general, from the people who are well fed by the
> > current structure which makes them feel superior, make
> > any attempt towards a bit of change...
>
> There must be an awfully large number of people who are content with
> the current structure, given that the general approval poll on your
> Wikiethics proposal failed 3 to 38 [1]. Polls are evil, of course, and
> not binding, but that level of rejection is fairly comprehensive, and
> came from all sectors of the community. I would imagine that "OURS",
> if it were ever formulated into a proposal, would receive a similar
> amount of opposition for similar reasons.
>
> There are dozens of similar proposals put up every year. If any of
> them actually received support from the community, they would be
> successful. Admins are a miniscule 0.06% of registered users - even if
> we always voted as a bloc, there is no way we could overrule a true
> community movement.
>
> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikiethics/Archive/Approval_Poll_31_April_2006
>

What if the admins all voted one way and then dismissed the result
because supposedly it was non-consensus? (as in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:May_Userbox_policy_poll )

Peter Ansell


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
Arne Klempert wrote:
> On 6/4/06, Troy Hunter <troyhunter0 at lycos.com> wrote:
> > > Why do you suppose that an outsider would be chosen for this?
> >
> > Do you have any candidates in mind at the moment? How
> > many edits do each of them have?
>
> Oh yeah, let's adopt the Requests for Adminship process for chosing
> Wikimedia Foundation's employees and contractors. Or let's just count
> the edits, then probably a bot will become CEO. And thanks to Free
> Software anyone can write his own CEO. Great idea! ;)

No, I certainly wouldn't suggest using such criteria to select a CEO. But Jimmy says that the CEO will not be an outsider, so I would like to know what the definition of an outsider is. If a candidate had less than, say, half a dozen edits, we might be forgiven for thinking of them as an outsider. Is this the case?

--
_______________________________________________

Search for businesses by name, location, or phone number.  -Lycos Yellow Pages

http://r.lycos.com/r/yp_emailfooter/http://yellowpages.lycos.com/default.asp?SRC=lycos10


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


body:
On 6/4/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/5/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> > My objection in short: "Fuck process" is, here and now, more of a
> problem
> > for Wikipedia than any of the individual wrongs Tony has righted using
> that
> > justification, of late.
>
> That obviously isn't even remotely true.  Look at the latest RfC:
> people who object to *refactoring a talk page* because the aim is to
> remove useless and intrusive formatting.  I'd say "fuck process" here
> because, really, process is simply being used as an obstacle to the
> simple act of improving the editing environment by removing useless
> crap.

It is never good to piss people off.

That you feel that you have to do so is a stunning indictment of your
current attitude problem.

--
-george william herbert
gherbert at retro.com / george.herbert at gmail.com


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] jobs

body:
Anthere wrote:

>Kelly Martin wrote:
>
>
>>On 6/1/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>There is something hugely upsetting in the comments I read in this
>>>thread. It is seeing people complain things are not publicly
>>>discussed... but who do not even comments when the issues are raised
>>>publicly. It is seeing people complain things are not done... but they
>>>do not do things themselves. It is seeing people complain we do not
>>>welcome their help... but they say no when we ask them.
>>>
>>>
>>Well, my perspective on the above comments:
>>
>>I complain about the Foundation to many people.  I don't do anything
>>about it because the structure of the Foundation is such that I am
>>disenfranchised from actually having any influence other than through
>>backchannel politicking.  The bylaws of the Foundation concentrate all
>>power in the Board, and further structured so that a majority of Board
>>members are not responsible to anyone but themselves.  This structure
>>makes the Board inherently resistant to change.  I am not sanguine
>>that the Board will ever even recognize all of the problems that exist
>>right now, let alone come up with a useful solution.
>>
>>
>it is the second time I see you using that expression. What does that
>mean "I am not sanguine" ? except for not being an orange which is
>probably true ?
>
"Sanguine" in English as in French draws its origins from the French
"sang".  It can be applied to many things with a characteristic blood
red colouring including varieties of oranges and pears, and hematite
drawing crayons.  When applied to persons the subject gets interesting.
While it is clearly related to people who are red in the face, or often
in relation to large people who have many broken small blood vessels in
their cheeks.  English and French physiognomists interpreted the
associated temperaments quite differently.  For the English it
represents cheerful optimism, and a hopeful and even na?ve belief that
everything will be all right.  For the French a sanguine person was seen
as someone with a quick temper (un col?reux), unless you were from  that
other school of thought that saw them as possessing a calm practical
sense of things.

>>So, yes, you may be asking for help, but frankly I find it hard to
>>figure out what help you need or who to talk to about it -- and
>>besides, your volunteer coordinators should be working to match
>>volunteers with tasks that need doing, instead of making volunteers
>>hunt around to find something to do that fits their talents.  But then
>>again, that's yet another one of the myriad defects of the WMF: the
>>Foundation appears to have no clue how to manage volunteers, either.
>>(Does WMF even have a volunteer coordinator?)
>>
>>
>Interesting question.
>Is the job of a board member
>1) define the strategy of the Foundation in the long run
>2) manage everyday operations of the organisation
>3) focus on human management of volunteers ?
>
>According to books, it is 1. According to reality, it is 2. According to
>wishes, is it 3 ?
>
I would rephrase that slightly to refer to the job of the Board as a
whole rather than individual members.  The first is clearly the most
important job of the Board.  It should set broad guidelines for the
second, without getting involved in micro-management.  If you trust
someone enough to put him in a position you need to trust him enough to
let him get on with the job.  The human management of volunteers is a
very special skill which could be handled at the highest level by the
right board member, but not necessarily.

>Let me see... I need
>
>1)
>
>...
>
>11)
>
The length of your list alone says a lot  about the needs that have
developed.  We may very well have volunteers who _can_ do these jobs,
but how much can you fairly expect of them?

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] jobs


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] status qou vs reform

body:
G'day Peter A,

> On 04/06/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
>>On 6/3/06, Resid Gulerdem <resid_gulerdem at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>   I think one should not expect any action, in
>>>general, from the people who are well fed by the
>>>current structure which makes them feel superior, make
>>>any attempt towards a bit of change...
>>
>>There must be an awfully large number of people who are content with
>>the current structure, given that the general approval poll on your
>>Wikiethics proposal failed 3 to 38 [1]. Polls are evil, of course, and
>>not binding, but that level of rejection is fairly comprehensive, and
>>came from all sectors of the community. I would imagine that "OURS",
>>if it were ever formulated into a proposal, would receive a similar
>>amount of opposition for similar reasons.
>>
>>There are dozens of similar proposals put up every year. If any of
>>them actually received support from the community, they would be
>>successful. Admins are a miniscule 0.06% of registered users - even if
>>we always voted as a bloc, there is no way we could overrule a true
>>community movement.
>>
>>[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikiethics/Archive/Approval_Poll_31_April_2006
>
> What if the admins all voted one way and then dismissed the result
> because supposedly it was non-consensus? (as in
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:May_Userbox_policy_poll )

Well ...

There were at least two admins who approved of the proposed policy (Grue
and Fred Bauder).  So "What if the admins all voted one way" is untrue.

The result wasn't dismissed by admins.  The poll simply didn't say the
things that certain proponents like to believe it said.  Compare with
the history of other policy created By Popular Demand, such as 3RR.   So
"then dismissed the result" is untrue.

Neither side of the poll achieved consensus.  Please consult your
favourite dictionary for evidence as to why "because supposedly it was
non-consensus" is untrue.

In short, there is not a single thing in your email that's actually
true.  You will need to hold yourself to a higher standard of research
in future, so that you don't look either clueless or disingenuous.

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


from_name: Steve Summit

body:
Jimbo wrote:
>Conrad Dunkerson wrote:
>> Wikipedia is becoming more and more a battleground (does anyone
>> disagree with that assessment?)... and in part that is because we no
>> longer treat the 'problem' users with as much respect as we once did. They
>> cause problems... sooner or later someone comes along and stomps them...
>> and instead of slowly learning to fit in or drifting away with mildly bad
>> feelings they gain an intense hatred of Wikipedia or those they see as the
>> 'abusers'. It's a problem we are contributing to and ought to make more
>> concerted efforts to avoid.
>
> This is possible.  However, I am not really sure about it.  As ever,
> when I am asked to look into cases of "admin abuse" and I choose to do
> so, I generally find myself astounded at how nice we are to complete
> maniacs, and for how long.

Actually, I agree with both Conrad and Jimbo.  I think we're
seeing several intersecting trends here.

One is that "problem" users seem to be getting more aggressive in
asserting their "right" to be, well, complete maniacs.  When the
community was younger and smaller and more cohesive, the maniacs
had much less "wiggle room"; they either changed their ways or
left for good.  Today, however, many of them display a
breathtaking level of arrogance and defiance, and if they're ever
subjected to any actual sanction, they immediately appeal it on
Jimbo's talk page or this list.  And I suspect that the natural
frustration on the part of the rest of us, when confronted with
this escalating arrogance and defiance, is sometimes to, as
Conrad put it, just stomp on somebody.

But at the same time, as we become ever larger and more visible,
we need to be more and more concerned abut the degree to which
appearances matter.  Intense, festering hatred can of course be a
real problem, too, especially when it fuels real-world personal
attacks on our editors.  We've got to keep working to find ways
to carry out our "judicial" actions politely and diplomatically,
even if it means, as the old saying goes, overriding our
desperate urge to choke the living shit out of some asshole who
desperately needs it.

Unfortunately, no matter how polite we are about it, it's going
to keep getting harder to get rid of the maniacs, now that
Wikipedia has gotten Big and Significant.  Once upon a time, if
you were a maniac who had been raking muck on Wikipedia but got
blocked or banned, you probably didn't care so much; there were
plenty of other equally interesting sites on the 'net where you
could stalk off to torment instead.  Today, however, although the
"plenty of other interesting sites on the 'net" are all still
there, they're no longer as equally interesting; Wikipedia is
now much, much more interesting.  If you're a POV-pusher with a
vengeance, you're not content to just go and push your POV
somewhere else; it's vital that you find ways to keep pushing it
*on Wikipedia*, since your potential audience is so much bigger.

This is a tricky problem, and it's not going to get any easier.


subject: [WikiEN-l] status qou vs reform

body:
On 04/06/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
> G'day Peter A,
>
> > What if the admins all voted one way and then dismissed the result
> > because supposedly it was non-consensus? (as in
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:May_Userbox_policy_poll )
>
> Well ...
>
> There were at least two admins who approved of the proposed policy (Grue
> and Fred Bauder).  So "What if the admins all voted one way" is untrue.
>
> The result wasn't dismissed by admins.  The poll simply didn't say the
> things that certain proponents like to believe it said.  Compare with
> the history of other policy created By Popular Demand, such as 3RR.   So
> "then dismissed the result" is untrue.
>
> Neither side of the poll achieved consensus.  Please consult your
> favourite dictionary for evidence as to why "because supposedly it was
> non-consensus" is untrue.
>
>
> In short, there is not a single thing in your email that's actually
> true.  You will need to hold yourself to a higher standard of research
> in future, so that you don't look either clueless or disingenuous.

Wow, there was only one thing in my email, and its not true
supposedly. You make it sound like I made more than one point. The
poll itself was created by popular demand. Obviously that criterion
only has meaning when it is created with popular demand of admins. The
poll came very close to consensus in many views. Of course, with two
admins going for it then it is a horrible generalisation, I am so
sorry about that.

Userbox policies will never actually gain consensus. In the end Jimbo
will actually enforce his stated view, but the example isn't as bad as
you make it out to be.

Peter Ansell


subject: [Foundation-l] Re :  jobs

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Alison Wheeler wrote:
>
>
>>I do hope that this is an error, or an extremely *temporary* measure
>>whilst a proper and effective process is put in place, though imho there
>>should be no need to rush to an interim appointment given the survival so
>>far and that a fit and proper appointment could be made within 2-3 months
>>anyway.
>>
>>
>Well, the idea here is to have someone in the role right away because an
>enormous amount of work needs doing right away, and that we will work
>toward a "proper and effective" process for an appointment into the future.
>
>We need help, and we need it now.  :)  And one of the roles of the
>interim ED will be to help drive forward the process.
>
That sounds like it was taken directly from the Manual of the Panic
School of Mangement. ;-)

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Re :  jobs


subject: [Foundation-l] Re : jobs

body:
Lord Voldemort wrote:

>On 6/2/06, Alison Wheeler <wikimedia at alisonwheeler.com> wrote:
>
>
>>For any charitable foundation which expects and *needs* to retain the
>>freely-donated level of work of its volunteers to engage a COO (as that is
>>what the description is far closer too rather than a CEO - see next mail!)
>>without (a) advertising the position to its membership and generally, (b)
>>publicising the shortlisted candidates under consideration in some manner,
>>and (c) having an open recruitment process throughout, would seem to be
>>very contrary to good corporate governance.
>>
>>
>Why would a shortlist need to be publicised? Do you mean actually
>listing the names of the candidates, or simply stating that "there is
>a short list of candidates"?  I am not sure posting the names of those
>"still in the running" is that common a practice.  Or are you
>referring to more publicity within the higher-ups of the Foundation?
>
As much as I support a more open process, there is a serious privacy
issue connected with publicizing the names of any candidates, including
those on a short list.  Only one (if any) is likely to get the job.  The
publicity could have an impact on the futre prospects of unsuccessful
candidates.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Re : jobs


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
Anthere wrote:

> Dunno what are SSN's and EIN...

SSN = Social Security Number
Used as an identifying number for US citizens (and legal residents) in a
lot of settings, especially financial. Knowledge of someone's number has
great potential to allow identity theft, so should not be published
under any circumstances.
EIN = Employer Identification Number
Assigned mostly to corporations for tax purposes. Not used for as many
other things as an SSN, so there's a lot less potential for misuse. One
use of interest to us is that if a company has a charitable giving
program in which employees can have an amount withheld from their
paychecks to the charity of their choice, the company would need the
charity's EIN. I'm not aware of any serious problem for a nonprofit
publishing this number (the American Red Cross publishes theirs on their
website). In fact, I've suggested putting ours out there in order to
make it easier for companies to add us to gift-matching programs, but
I'm not aware that this has been done yet.

--Michael Snow


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


from_name: Sam Spade

subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 6/4/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/3/06, Sam Spade <samspade.thomasjefferson at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> > People could fax their diploma or some such. It doesn't seem like a
> > huge deal to me. Personally I'd just like to see some '''informed'''
> > party with the final say (i.e. not a random, non-expert admin or
> > arbiter).
>
>
>
> And if there's a technical area where the experts have a disagreement, and
> the one who shows up first happens to be strongly biased in one direction or
> the other?
>
> What about fields where the number of experts are either tiny, or they are
> for various reasons grossly unlikely to ever contribute to Wikipedia?
>
> What does it say to people who are jacks-of-many-trades if you institute a
> policy which says that only a degree is valid qualification, and that it
> doesn't matter how many fields you may publish in, work professionally in,
> have patents in, only the ones on your degree matter for WP?
>
> This suggestion seems likely to seriously curb a lot of otherwise qualified
> involvement.
>
>
> --
> -george william herbert
> gherbert at retro.com / george.herbert at gmail.com

There is also the other suggestion, that anyone who is contributing to
the article counts as a peer. Also there are possibilities for reader
involvement, if someone was willing to code a small feature to allow a
reader to rate an article, and/or which of 2 competing versions they
prefer.

The point is that there needs to be some sort of organic, small scale
decision making mechanism, to allow resolution for edit conflict. It
would be awesome if we could find one that was any good at judging
article quality as well.

The way the system is now, it exaggerates conflict. For example, I
tend to get along with everyone IRL. People tend to like me, generally
agree with me, and its easy to make friends.

The wikipedia is acompletely different story. Because people get to
know me based on conflict (nobody notices when you make a good edit),
and because cliques are encouraged (RfA, etc...), it took practically
no time for me to have a gang of enemies on the wikipedia. The system
is sick, and punishing those who are willing to accept your
punishments (i.e. good users) is not an answer. The abusers can
continue to abuse the system, the stressed contributors leave, and the
cliques focus on chatting with one another about their cats and
gossiping about outgroup members, not creating quality encyclopedia
articles.

We need more productive, rewarding processes (FA / collaborative
editing), and less punishing processes (ARBCOM / RfC). Getting rid of
the clique building mechanisms (RfA/AfD) would help alot too.
Wikipedia has more ugly little cliques than my middle school had, and
sadly their are no impartial teachers to step in and break up fights,
because their all in cliques too.

SS


from_name: Brianna Laugher

subject: [Commons-l] Deleting the old WeatherBot images

body:
Then Duesentrieb pointed out [2] that by flooding the
> deletion log, I was breaking his CommonsTicker tool.

Could we just "turn off" CommonsTicker for 15 hours? Luckily there's
not too many, yet...

Brianna


body:
Mark Williamson wrote:
> I would expect the "length of service" to be fairly short, if anons are counted.

Yes, that would be interesting to know, but what I am thinking of is
more like:

When a person becomes "active" (by some definition), how long do they
tend to remain "active" (by that same definition).

I would say looking at this in a variety of ways would be useful.  Anons
pose special problems in interpreting the data, of course, and so
probably we won't get much useful information out of those.  But since
we know that almost all people who are really part of the community get
a user account, I suspect that looking at the activity patterns for user
accounts would be the most interesting.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Are phone books reliable sources?

body:
Rob wrote:

>On 6/2/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
>
>>On 6/2/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On 6/2/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>I essentially agree.  Some people still argue that Wikipedia itself is
>>>>not a reliable source.  On the other hand "Scientific American" for this
>>>>month used [[Sudoku]] as a reference in an article on the same subject.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>A good example - it depends how you use Wikipedia whether you would
>>>call it a "reliable source". If it makes a definitive, unsourced
>>>claim, I would not call it reliable. If it provides the source further
>>>upstream, and you check them out, it's a very useful source.
>>>
>>>
>>If you're checking the source "further upstream", you should be citing
>>the original source, not the encyclopedia article.
>>
>>
>I just looked at the new Scientific American (ah, the advantages of
>working in a library) and skimmed the article.  I may have missed it
>but I don't see any instances of the author citing Wikipedia as a
>source.  The article does include a link to Wikipedia under a list of
>"More to Explore" weblinks, which seems an entirely proper use.
>
This all depends on how rigidly you look at the term "source".
Scientific American does not typically have a lot of footnotes, but it
does give opportunities such as this for further exploration.  Are you
saying that this makes the magazine less credible?

Ec


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>On 6/3/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
>
>>On 6/2/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On 6/2/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>If you're checking the source "further upstream", you should be citing
>>>>the original source, not the encyclopedia article.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>You should cite both.
>>>
>>>
>>Why?
>>
>>
>I realised after I sent this that I had misread. If you're checking
>the source, then you're right, you probably don't need to cite
>Wikipedia, though it may be polite to do so.
>
That, and the fact the the encyclopedic filter could give an entirely
different perspective on the subject.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
Troy Hunter wrote:
> Jimmy Wales wrote:
>> Erik Zachte wrote:
>>
>>> * Increasingly decison are taken by the board without too much
>>> prior discussion in the open, at least on places where I would
>>> expect it, like on this mailing list.
>>
>> I don't think so.  I don't know of any examples.  But if there are
>> some things that you would like to bring up as specifics, I would
>> love to consider them.
>
> What about the committee resolutions, such as the following?
>
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_committee_conduct
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_Special_projects
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_Communications_committee
>
>
Can you be more specific with your question?  I am not sure I
understand.  The first resolution was something that we discussed at the
board level but never quite came to a firm conclusion.  I think that's
one which we will revisit at some point in the future.  The general idea
was to make sure that committees not engage in excessive secrecy, which
is a good idea, but at the same time, we did not want to encumber them
with a lot of paranoia that they have to announce evertything all the
time.  Different board members had different perspectives on how to get
those central points across.

The other two are creations of committees of volunteers.  In some cases,
the committees were simply formal recognition of what was already going
on in the community, in other cases, these were delegations in a formal
legal sense of what the board had previously done.

>> In particular, the "increasingly" perception is the one I want to
>> combat, by trying to make it more clear how things are done, and
>> how things have transitioned and continue to transition to having a
>>  lot more people involved.
>
> I've heard that these days, most things are discussed and decided on
> a secret mailing list long before they become public. Is that true?

If it is true, I guess things are decided without me, since I am not on
any secret mailing lists.  There are some mailing lists which are not
open to the general public, but I do not know of any serious objections
to that: a lot of issues need to be handled with some discretion.
Please remember that on more than one occassion, something said on a
public mailing list at Wikimedia has made international headlines.

> You mean "community-oriented" as in oriented towards those people
> selected by Delphine and Danny to be on the committees? Sounds more
> like cabal-oriented to me.

It sounds like you have a very specific complaint, so why don't
we talk about that instead of talking generalities?  Neither Delphine
nor Danny are authorized to veto membership on any committee.  Of the
two committees that you mentioned by link, neither Delphine nor Danny is
on the committee.

So, no, I do not mean any such thing.  I mean community-oriented in the
sense that the committees are made up of community members, and are
self-organized rather than being micro-managed by the board.  If you
have a beef with some specific decision made by a commitee, please bring
it forward.

--Jimbo


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [Foundation-l] Re : Where we are headed

body:
On 6/4/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Could communications be improved?  Yes, of course, but this is something
> we have all known for a long time.  I believe that the core problem is
> not a lack of information flow, but excessive flow of raw information
> which makes it hard for anyone to keep up with it all.

Yes, this is exactly the problem.  For someone like me, for whom
Wikimedia is an avocation and not a vocation, there simply isn't
enough time to read all of the huge morass of information that is out
there -- spread out over a dozen mailing lists and a dozen wikis, not
to mention other sources -- required to form a fully informed opinion.
 This definitely hampers my overall participation.

Kelly


subject: [Foundation-l] Re : Where we are headed


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> On 6/4/06, Troy Hunter <troyhunter0 at lycos.com> wrote:
>
>> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_committee_conduct
>
> With regard to this resolution in particular, which tried to guarantee
> a minimal level of openness in the committees:
> - Why was it rejected -- what were the arguments against it? Who voted
> against it?
> - Is any similar resolution planned for the future?

There were concerns about the vagueness of the resolution, and some
questions as to whether a board resolution was the proper venue for it.
 To my knowledge, there was complete and total board support for the
general concept that committees should have a certain level of openness.

For example, consider the phrase "only when confidentiality is required"
-- well, confidentiality is very seldom *required* in the sense of a
legal requirement.  But confidentiality is often the only sane course of
action.

Consider for example, the communications committee.  Part of our work is
in figuring out the best strategy to deal with breaking news stories.
We need to be able to talk openly about such things, without the concern
that whatever we say may end up in the headlines.  Confidentiality is
not strictly speaking *required*, but having an environment where the
committee members can not float some trial balloons ideas quietly with
trusted friends would be absurd.

Or consider for example the special projects committee.  We get all
kinds of proposals all the time from various kinds of organizations.
Many of these are silly, and committee members should feel free to say
so.  But not in public, where it could be embarassing to someone who has
made a good faith proposal.

So, it seems to me that the best way to approach this is not with a
formalistic board resolution (this is not our traditional way), but
through ongoing dialog and discussion, rather than rules-based demands
from the board.

--Jimbo


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Types of categories

body:
On 6/4/06, Roger Luethi <collector at hellgate.ch> wrote:
> > I've personally run into this when trying to automatically create, for
> > example, a list of all Wikipedia articles on people.  You can't just
> > start at [[category:people]] and work your way down, because you wind
> > up going to [[Category:Women]] (fine, all women are people) then
> > [[Category:Feminine hygene]] (bad).
>
> Okay, that's equivalent to Steve's Amelie-Paris relation. I agree that's a
> problem.

The problem there, now that I think about it, is that Paris should not
be in the category "Paris" (as was pointed out by someone else).

Amelie should be in the category "Paris"
The article Paris should be in the category "European capitals" (say)
The article Paris should not be in the category "Paris"
The category "Paris" should not be in the category "European capitals".

Actually, even simply obeying this last rule would solve it: Paris
*the article* belongs in the taxonomic category (Paris *is a* European
capital) , but "Paris" the category is thematic, so should only belong
to thematic categories: maybe "Europe" in this case.

That actually seems to fix the problem. I saw this with The Beatles
for example. John Lennon was in category "The Beatles" (thematic), and
that category was in "British rock bands" (taxonomic), leading to the
conclusion that Lennon was a British rock band.

> But even if we maintained a complete and up-to-date system of subcats, we'd
> still make it hard for people to find articles using categories. For some
> fairly sensible reasons, the rule is to include articles only to the

I have never completely understood these "sensible reasons". It's
redundant from a taxonomic point of view, but since category
navigation works so badly (there is no way to easily see everything in
a category and all its subcats), it often seems to work well from a
practical perspective, so that the item actually shows up where you
expect it to.

It's ok if a category consists entirely of subcategories, but if there
are both articles and subcats in it, then not having an article in the
category by virtue of the fact that it's included in a subcat is
awkward and doesn't work well.

> subcategory, but not to the parent. There is no way to list articles based
> on a subset of criteria (the articles in subcategories are effectively
> hidden on separate pages which is only helpful if you know which one to
> pick).

Yep.

> The devil is in the details.
>
> For instance, how do you connect the districts of Paris to the category
> Paris? What is a subset of the parent attribute "Paris": "Districts of
> Paris", or "Quartier Latin", or neither? Does it bother you if the article
> on a French district is now in a subcategory of "Capitals in Europe"?

Hmm, the difficulty is deciding what "subcategory" really means. I
assume you're getting at the fact that a taxonomic subcategory should
simply be getting more specific, and leading to more specialised
subjects (so "Capitals of Europe" might have subcat "Capitals of
Western Europe" or "Capitals of the European Union"), maintaining the
"X is a Capital of Europe" mantra.

In this case, it would seem best that "Districts of Paris" was a
category of the thematic category "Paris".

> Or going back to [[Category:Women]]: You could declare that only articles
> on instances of women (i.e.  biographies) can ever be under that category,
> and that only sets of such articles can ever be subcategories of the
> category women. -- You could even create a separate [[Category:Woman]],

This is a perfect example of a problem aluded to in the MoS on
categories: Women is both a taxonomic category (it's a plural) and a
theme (eg, Women throughout the ages, or whatever). Disaster is
inevitable from that point onward.

The taxonomic category "Women" could be split immediately into
fictional women and real women, then into living and dead women, then
again by various means.
The thematic category "Women" could be broken into feminism, biology, etc etc.

> subcategories like "female reproductive organs" containing articles like
> uterus. -- But how would you express the undisputed relationship between
> female human beings and your example [[Category:Feminine hygiene]]? How
> about [[Category:Women's rights]]? Add an umbrella cat "Somehow related to
> women" maybe?

With a separate, thematic, category. What would you call it? I don't
know. In practice, this would probably only work through a whole
separate structure, leaving Categories only for taxonmic categories
("X is a Y"), and creating a structure called Subjects or Themes or
something.

Steve


body:
Resid Gulerdem wrote:
>    The admins are only part of the community now and
> will stay like that in the future, as far as I can
> see. Are some modifications needed in your opinion? I
> believe the answer is yes. I do not know if you could
> see the proposal [[WP:OURS]] I posted on this list
> recently. I think it can be useful and can be
> developed further. I tried to outline some important
> points which may reduce the conflicts between the
> admins and the users. If you saw it, do you think it
> is feasible?

I see no reference to WP:OURS in google, so I am unable to comment.  Can
you send it to me?


from_name: Lord Voldemort

body:
On 6/4/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:

> Non admins are becomeing increaseingly powerless.

Funny you should see it as power v. no power.  Not being an admin
affects your ability to write an encyclopedia in the most of miniscule
ways.  Just write the encyclopedia.  Any "power" that you speak of is
ridiculous.  All this other crap happening... not writing an
encyclopedia. Being an admin shouldn't really matter to people.
--LV


subject: [WikiEN-l] status qou vs reform

body:
geni wrote:
> On 6/4/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
>> I'd say the consensus was that Jimbo Is Always Right :-)
>>
>> Guy (JzG)
>
> Umm his plan to apoint arbcom directly?

What plan was that?

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