from_name: John Stowers

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Template parsing logic and the use of extensions in
	them

body:
Hello All,

I have a wiki, currently running the GeSHi syntax highlighting
extension[1].
I wish to use this from within a template page (Template:HF). This
template
page contains the following wikitext

Click
[http://john.greenbirdsystems.com/files/{{{1
<http://john.greenbirdsystems.com/files/%7B%7B%7B1>}}}<http://john.greenbirdsystems.com/files/%7B%7B%7B1%7D%7D%7D>here]
to download this file.
<bash-file>/var/www/john .greenbirdsystems.com/files/{{{1}}}</bash-file>

According to the extension, the file between the <bash-file> tags should
be
parsed and displayed inline when I call

{{HF|test.sh}}

from another page.

But because the order that extensions and templates are processed all I
get
is

Click here to download this file.
Could not load /var/www/john.greenbirdsystems.com/files/{{{1}}}

See how the template var is not expanded. The extension gets called
first.
Can anyone suggest a solution to my conumdrum?

When not in template form the plugin works great. Its source code is
available at [1]. I have done quite a bit of research trying to get tis
to
work but couldnt find anywhere that said anything about this situation.
Help
would be appreciated.

Cheers

John

[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ajqnic:GeSHiHighlight


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: maru dubshinki

subject: [WikiEN-l] Template documentation convention

body:
On 4/21/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Steve Bennett wrote:
> > On 20/04/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> That sounds like an excellent way to go. It will be visible from the
> >> template page, and editable in its own place, away from both the
> >> actual template code and the talk page discussion.
> >
> > Shall we propose a naming convention? Possibilities:
> >
> > /help
> > /documentation
> > /doc
> > /usage
> >
>
> /etc/man?

No, no, no. Everyone knows documentation goes in the /usr/share/doc
hierarchy! /etc/man would be for configuring the software used to view
the documentation, and we all know that MediaWiki configuration goes
in /etc/Special:
Sheesh. What a n00b.

~maru


from_name: Tim Starling

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> Hi all,
>   Anyone know if there is a convention/guideline for how to document
> templates, given the existence of <noinclude>? Previously, the
> discussion page was used. Now it would seem more appropriate to move
> documentation onto the main template page, inclosed within
> <noinclude>. However, before launching into doing this, two questions:
>
> * Is there consensus for this?
> * Is there more of a burden on the surver to transclude a template
> which includes a large amount of <noinclude>'d documentation?

I've been thinking about introducing a tag which specifies that the source of the template should be
displayed when you view the template page. There are a lot of meta-templates around where conversion
to HTML with their default parameter values substituted in doesn't really tell you much about them.
This would replace most uses for <includeonly>. Any comments on that?

In any case, I would recommend documenting templates using <noinclude> sections, as long as the
formatting is such that it is clear where the template stops and the documentation begins. I think
that would be an improvement for usability, over using the talk page. The server overhead should be
negligible (6ms per 100KB).

-- Tim Starling


body:
Ilmari Karonen wrote:
> Steve Bennett wrote:
>
>>Hi all,
>>  Anyone know if there is a convention/guideline for how to document
>>templates, given the existence of <noinclude>? Previously, the
>>discussion page was used. Now it would seem more appropriate to move
>>documentation onto the main template page, inclosed within
>><noinclude>. However, before launching into doing this, two questions:
>>
>>* Is there consensus for this?
>>* Is there more of a burden on the surver to transclude a template
>>which includes a large amount of <noinclude>'d documentation?
>
>
> Any edits to the template itself, even to <noinclude> sections, force a
> purge of every page using the template.  For widely used templates, this
> may be a significant cost.  Thus, I'd recommend keeping only the most
> basic and stable documentation on the template page itself, and put the
> rest on the talk page.  In fact, for the majority of templates, the only
> "documentation" needed on the template page is the default rendering of
> the template code itself.
>
> But that's just my opinion.
>

Oh yeah, except for that. Well, you can always transclude the talk page or a documentation subpage
from within a <noinclude> section. Because <noinclude> suppresses link registration, updates to the
documentation subpage won't cascade down to the actual articles.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: John Lee

subject: [WikiEN-l] The problem with flagging things with {{office}}

body:
James D. Forrester wrote:

>Using the {{office}} template to tag problem content is a nice idea,
>but, I would imagine, has a rather serious drawback: Wikitruth.info
>(amongst other 'helpful' critics) seems to have a sysop working for
>them. Were we to flag an article that was libellous with {{office}}, you
>can bet that they would go and dig out the deleted sections, and repost
>it to their wonderful service. Now Wikimedia has been informed that they
>are likely to be sued, and in response has done something knowing that
>it would increase the publication and spread of this libel. - we're then
>liable for their reposting of the content, and "utterly screwed". I
>know, I know, "that's not what was intended". Well, tough, that's the
>way the Real World(tm) works.
>
>So, what does this mean? Well, flagging articles as Office-protected is
>a legal no-no in that kind of case, and something significantly less
>high profile has to be done - and, possibly, the existence of this
>action would be buried for all eternity (or, certainly, several decades,
>which on the Internet is much the same thing).
>
>This is something that we have to deal with /now/ - the Foundation could
>possibly be sued out of existence tomorrow. There is no time for us to
>have a nice chat, or wring our hands about whether it's properly the
>"wiki way". We're here to build an encyclop?dia, above all things, and
>if you don't care that the Foundation is here to keep everything
>working, then possibly you need to re-evaluate your priorities and
>commitment to this project; Distributed Proofreaders could always do
>with a few more volunteers, for instance.
>
>Please note that this is all conjecture on my part, I'm not the one who
>makes {{office}} decisions.
>
>
While I agree with all that you've said, I fear that for practical
reasons, it would be impossible to cover up an action. As geni has noted
on Wikipedia-l, often what happens instead is that the scandal becomes
even bigger once it's revealed a controversial action was kept quiet --
something which, as we've just learnt, probably isn't going to be a rare
occurrence. Security through obscurity isn't a very effective mechanism.
I suggest creating a special board class of users (as others have
proposed), so that ordinary admins can't wheel war with these users, or
otherwise do anything liable to get us in trouble (i.e. view deleted
revisions of a page deleted by a board user). Confronting the problem
head on is a lot more effective than trying to prevent people from
finding out about the problem -- with the latter, you either succeed
greatly, or fail miserably. Security through obscurity won't work here,
not as things stand.

On another note, I find it disturbing that some people (Kelly and Tony,
mainly) appear to have missed the greater point here. Yes, we know --
doing something under WP:OFFICE draws trolls and real rouge admins to
the article like moths to a flame. However, if due to this, we abandon
WP:OFFICE altogether, what's the point? And even assuming that all
admins have their heads screwed on the right way, and do ask Danny if he
did this because of legal issues, how does this resolve anything? The
rouge admins would still have the information they need.

I'm not saying this because of "free speech" or "openness" or all that
crap -- you guys know that I'm among the last people who would care
about Wikipedia being a social experiment and all that. What's
concerning is that this is a very effective way to piss off admins while
leaving an apparent loophole for the rouge admins to bulldoze their way
through. Apparently the fact that Karmafist, et al made a number of
terribly insensible arguments has obscured one of the few things that
they got right: anarchism isn't a feasible way to build an encylopaedia.

I'm not a process wonk -- far from it -- but unlike most established
[[common law]] policies which trolls were challenging using the "OMG, if
we don't know the rules, how can we abide by them?" argument, WP:OFFICE
is an established (but new) policy which Danny did not follow in this
particular case. He obviously had good reasons for it, and I'm not
criticising him for performing one of the most thankless jobs a
Wikipedian can have, but I hope we can drive home some lessons from this
terrible misunderstanding: If you don't want people to undo something
because of an established policy with real-world implications, do make
it explicit that this policy is being applied here.

Now, maybe there is a point in just not stepping on Danny's toes and
letting him go about his business. However, unlike with most ordinary
cabal members, Danny and other editors like Angela, Jimbo, et al can be
acting either as ordinary editors/admins or in their capacity as a
representative of the Foundation. This presents worrying consequences
for the enforcement of policy -- is NPOV really non-negotiable if we
can't touch an edit Danny made where he might have inadvertently
introduced POV into an article, but nobody dares to correct it?

All I'm saying is, we might need to go this far. But there are plenty of
other possibilities yet to be explored. Let's accept the fact that
trolls will buzz around WP:OFFICE protected articles, spreading their
malicious lies. As James has noted, what's important is that we batten
down the hatches and prevent any real damage from coming to Wikipedia.
One way at least guaranteed to achieve something towards this end is to
prevent board actions from being reverted, and to make the information
related to them out of bounds to ordinary admins and editors. It's a lot
better than being left in a situation where admins aren't even sure
whether their next action (be it a simple query about something Danny
did, or undoing a very questionable deletion) will get Wikipedia and/or
the Foundation in deep shit.

John


from_name: Stephen Bain

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Tool Server disabled - link to WikiTech-L maillist
	discussion (Johntex)

body:
On 4/20/06, John Tex <johntexster at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I urge everyone to visit one or both of the above links to learn more and to
> express your support for getting the situation resolved.

It should be noted that zedler (the toolserver) was apparently nearing
its capacity already, in terms of disk space and ability to keep up
with the task of database replication. The wikitech-l people have
mentioned some technical fixes to get around the situation with enwiki
being on a different cluster now, but the toolserver will still be an
issue. It may be that more servers will have to be bought, or zedler
upgraded, if the toolserver project is to keep running.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Indefinite block and desysopping by User:Danny

body:
On 4/21/06, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/20/06, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I concur entirely with Sarah's definition of when a wheel war begins.
> > This culture of "free whacks at the post" has to go.  NOBODY is
> > entitled to revert without discussion.  3RR says we're willing to
> > tolerate it for regular editors.  Admins are expected to be above
> > this.  Any admin who doesn't want to play by this rule is invited to
> > visit [[m:Requests for permissions]].
>
> Slightly OT, I think it makes a lot of sense to clearly tell
> prospective admins what *obligations* they are subjecting themselves
> to, as well as what special 'powers' they are gaining, by becoming
> administrators.
>
> Obligations to:
> * Learn relevant policy and keep up with policy changes

WP:CSD is edited more than once a day. I mean seriously that page
needs an RSS feed or something. Keeping up with it is no trivial task.

> * Obey a 1RR?

Revert warriours would just love that.

--
geni


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Wheel culture (was:Indefinite block and
	desysopping...)

body:
On 20/04/06, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> work done.  Note also that sending articles to AfD or prod doesn't
> require an admin.

You can send them there, but they don't go anywhere much afterwards :)

Fwiw, I agree with you, but when this point was brought up at RfA,
some admins made the point that there are useful things they can do
without showing up on the radar, and even an admin who only does 2 or
3 "admin actions" per month may still be very valuable in other ways.
Hell, how often does Jimbo perform an "admin action"?

Would it be worth asking less active admins to consider handing in
their mops, on the understanding that they can ask for them back
without having to go through RfA again? Just to keep the number of
mops out there down a bit?

Steve


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Tool Server disabled - link to WikiTech-L maillist
 discussion (Johntex)

body:
John Tex wrote:
> Recently, enwiki was apparently moved without warning to a new server.  This
> caused the external toolserver to be unable to perform any analysis of
> enwiki information.  One of the major users of toolserver is Gmaxwell, who
> performs several different beneficial processes using the toolserver.
>
> He has posted to WikiTech-L explaining what happened and what the effects
> are:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034904.html
>
> There is also an essay forming at:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Toolserver
>
> I urge everyone to visit one or both of the above links to learn more and to
> express your support for getting the situation resolved.

We're way ahead of you. To improve the administrative situation, two more people have been given
root access: Gregory Maxwell (who you mention above) and DaB. Mark Bergsma will be installing a new
external disk array within the next week, hopefully giving the toolserver enough disk space and
power to replicate all databases. Please be patient.

It was down altogether for a few hours today. If I understand correctly, this was due to a planned
reboot for maintenance and some subsequent problems getting it to come back up.

-- Tim Starling


body:
On 21/04/06, Nathaniel Sheetz <spangineer at gmail.com> wrote:
> What if he had left on vacation immediately after deleting the article?
> Does the AfD just sit there?

Under the amended definition I gave somewhere (if the revertee would
not argue with you, it's not a wheel war), you could safely delete it.

>
> Alternatively, what if I talked with 4-5 other admins and they all agreed
> that I should undelete the article?  Under the definition above, I would
> still be starting a wheel war by undeleting the article.

Under the amended definition Kelly gave, this would not be wheel warring.

> Obviously wheel warring is bad news, but surely common sense must be applied
> in some situations.  If you think I'm off track, please tell me what I
> should have done instead.

The original definition was unnecessarily strict. The two amendments
proposed introduce "common sense". Hopefully. :)

Steve


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
James D. Forrester wrote:

>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>Hash: SHA1
>
>Using the {{office}} template to tag problem content is a nice idea,
>but, I would imagine, has a rather serious drawback: Wikitruth.info
>(amongst other 'helpful' critics) seems to have a sysop working for
>them. Were we to flag an article that was libellous with {{office}}, you
>can bet that they would go and dig out the deleted sections, and repost
>it to their wonderful service. Now Wikimedia has been informed that they
>are likely to be sued, and in response has done something knowing that
>it would increase the publication and spread of this libel. - we're then
>liable for their reposting of the content, and "utterly screwed". I
>know, I know, "that's not what was intended". Well, tough, that's the
>way the Real World(tm) works.
>
Do you have legal references to support this, or are you just guessing?

Ec


from_name: Matt R

body:
Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com>:
> That does not excuse reversion without discussion.  Even taking as an
> assumption that Danny had been acting on his own behalf, Erik's
> actions could easily have been the start of a wheel war, and were
> inappropriate by any reasonable standard.

Yet, equally, that does not excuse the indefinite blocking of a Wikipedian in
good-standing. Reverting another admin, while undesireable, should
not result in immediate excommunication. I'm sure Danny is a fine
fellow who does a great job for us, but I'm afraid to say that his punitive
actions here were Not Good. If that's also the general view of the community,
then Danny should take that on board.

-- Matt

[[User:Matt Crypto]]


from_name: BJörn Lindqvist

body:
> > I really don't see any need for that.  Most of the low-activity admins
> > aren't the ones causing trouble, just a few of them.  My point is that
> > we should not be that concerned about lopping off problematic admins;
> > we're not running short on them by any means.
>
> The practical question here is how we go about determining which
> admins are "problematic".

You are approaching the problem the wrong way. You only need to
determine which _actions_ are problematic. Wikipedia has a number of
policies for doing that. Then you only need to act on it.

--
mvh Bj?rn


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 21/04/06, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/20/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > The practical question here is how we go about determining which
> > admins are "problematic".
>
> Indeed.

It is probably worth remembering that this whole sorry argument began
with one of the few dozen people least likely to get desysopped by any
such test...

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


body:
On 21/04/06, Ben Lowe <ben.lowe at gmail.com> wrote:
>  Someone please define wheel-warring, and not simply by example.  If
> "wheel-warring" is when one admin reverts another, the word "wheel" seems
> irrelevant and the word "war" is blatant hyperbole.

Wheel war: Two or more admins (wheels) repeatedly undermining each
other (warring). This discussion has mostly been trying to determine
the threshold for the smallest occurrence that could be called a
"wheel war".  Everyone agrees that 2 admins repeatedly reverting each
others' admin actions for days on end is a "wheel war". We're less
sure whether the first revert counts.

Note that we're only talking about reverting admin actions - hence the
"wheel" is relevant.

Steve


from_name: Thommandel at aol.com

subject:
[WikiEN-l] No Ethics, we do what we please, no warring,
	we always will win

body:
In a message dated 4/20/2006 2:01:33 P.M. Central Daylight Time,
jkelly at fas.harvard.edu writes:

While  we're engaging in this critique of Danny's response, it might make
sense
to  ask whether or not Danny, and the other office people, are aware that
there
exists some large segment of the admin population who regard it as  routine to
undo other admin actions without discussion because they were  "out of
process",
or "obviously wrong", or  whatever.

I am not a admin, or even a Wikipedian for that matter.  I am one of  those
never mentioned "wikireaders"  who noticed error and inconsistency in  the
plasma cosmology article. I have tried to edit the plasma cosmology page but  have
run into an admin and his two partners who interestingly enough are big  bang
supporters. In other words they support theory A, but also edit Theory B
such that Theory B supports theory A.
I asked this list about ethics.  The first reply was "Assuming he is a  good
wikipedian, he can do what he damn well pleases."

Personally, I believe that the comment on the front page stating that  anyone
can edit wikipedia is false advertisement. I did not find that to be the
case. What I found was that only copy that is approved by the admin and his
helpers will remain in the article.

There are no ethics in Wikiworld. Ethics to the Wikipedian is whatever we
damn well please?

Now I read about a Wikipedian who done as much as anyone but yet was  banned
forever for reverting an action of a fellow admin.  In the real  world that
would be called Guilty until proven innocent and is in violation of  every
principle America was founded on. Indeed, we spend trillions of dollars  fighting
those countries where the accused is guilty until he proves himself  innocent.

Again I am not involved as an admin, I am a reader who cannot stand idly by
while an article in the Wikipedia is obviously slanted toward the opposing
view.  It is clear to me however, that my quest is futile, Wikipedia is not
edited by the people, it is run by the admin, who take data given by the people
and tell the story their way.  I see things going on that are illegal in  the
real world.  The admins, I suppose, are run by the office, which can  take
secret action without a hearing against anyone.

If they can do that to a seasoned contributor, imagine what is going on  with
people like me, who just want to add a few things. Not a chance.  I  don't
have any suggestions for change, it is far too late for that.  But  Wikipedians
really should step back and look at what they are really  doing.  "We, here in
Wikiland, do not allow warring, therefore, when it  comes to that, take
notice that we win, you lose, or else you will be banished  forever."

It was, in principle, a good idea though...

tommy mandel


list: foundation-l

from_name: Michael R. Irwin

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikisource list created

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

>Michael R. Irwin wrote:
>
>
>>Any chance you could create a wikiversity-l mailing list?  I requested
>>one a couple of months ago so there should be something on file if that
>>is required.
>>
>>
>
>There's been one for some time, but it's in German (wikiversityde-l). Do you
>want a separate English list?
>
>
Yes, please.

>I'll need the e-mail addresses of the initial list admin(s) to set one up.
>
>-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>
Give me a couple of days.  I will check with our English organizational
subcommittee and post a notice on the main page (s) soliciting people
interested in helping out with the admin of a list.  I will then get
back to you with a consolidated list of email addresses for the initial
list of adminstraters.

Regards,
lazyquasar


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikisource list created


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Indefinite block and desysopping by User:Danny

body:
Michael Davis wrote:
> Kelly Martin wrote:
>
>>I also find it very hard to believe that Erik was acting in good
>>faith.  I remain utterly perplexed by many of the comments in this
>>discussion, especially the ones from members of the Board, who I would
>>normally expect to refrain from contradicting their valued employee so
>>obviously; normally when a valued high-visibility employee makes a
>>mistake (and I am not saying that Danny did) the public statement
>>comes in the form of a carefully worded press release from the
>>organization as an entity, not as offhand rebuking comments from
>>random Board members, and normally the affected employee is informed
>>in advance.  But I guess I'm used to a more professional approach from
>>a leading non-profit organization.
>>
>
> Whatever statements have been made by Board members, including this
> statement, are made by them as individuals and only carry whatever
> authority the community deems appropriate for that individual.  And you
> are right, a more professional organization would handle these matters
> quite differently.
>
> Michael

Writing a press release ?

Sure. Which level of energy and time does that require ?
First, the board needs to discuss this together. See where they agree.
When they agree, they should contact the comcom. Have the comcom write a
press release. Put it on the board wiki. Vote. Then publish.

At the minimum, two weeks. If all goes well.
In other words, forever. Needless to say that this will never get done.
If only because we have other things to take care of. This might be
possible in an organisation where the board has nothing to take care of
other that doing a yearly meeting with petits fours and champaign. Not
exactly our organisation.

The Foundation is less than 2 years old Karynn.
When I consider the travel already done, I am amazed. When I joined, the
Foundation was nothing. It did not existed at all. All it had was
basically a couple of servers, a dozen domain names and a highly visible
and appreciated president.

That was all.

Board members had to fit.

As a board member, I followed the principles which drove me as an
editor. I tried to listen to people the best I could. I tried not to
offend people too much. I tried to inform people as much as I could
whilst respecting confidentiality when it was required. I tried to
organise things when nobody was organising them. I spoke loud when no
one had the guts to speak loud. And I spoke plain when no one spoke
plain. I tried to give ideas.

I never claimed to be a professional. I only tried to help the best I
could a project I loved and found fabulous. I would have helped more as
a board member if I had been given the opportunity to act as a board
member as the job is defined in more "professional" organisations. It is
not the case.

The more I think about it, the more I think you guys can be very happy
with a valued highly visible employee.

Ant


list: textbook-l

subject: [Textbook-l] English language wikiversityen-l mailing list

body:
Hi all,  just a heads up.

Brion has agreed to setup an English language wikiversityen-l mailing
list for the English Wikiversity project.  I posted the following
announcement both at the wikibooks main page and the Wikiversity
Subcommittee page at meta:

    Mailing Lists

German wikiversityde-l

There is a mailing list regarding the German language Wikiversity
available. Check at the German Wikiversity or the Wikimedia Foundation
mailing lists page for details.

English wikiversityen-l

Brion has agreed to setup an English language wikiversity mailing list
for us. He needs an initial list of mailing addresses for volunteers
interested in administering the mailing list. Please send your wikimedia
handles and actual mailing address to michael_irwin at verizon.net NLT 26
April 06 and I will include you on the list of initial administrater
candidates submitted for activation of the mailing list. Lazyquasar
<http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Lazyquasar> 08:53, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks to all Wikibookians for the use of the textbook-l mailing list
for the past few months.  With luck we will soon be out of your wiki
space (excepting when using or contributing to textbooks) as well.

regards,
lazyquasar


from_name: Ilmari Karonen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wheel culture

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
>
> Fwiw, I agree with you, but when this point was brought up at RfA,
> some admins made the point that there are useful things they can do
> without showing up on the radar, and even an admin who only does 2 or
> 3 "admin actions" per month may still be very valuable in other ways.
> Hell, how often does Jimbo perform an "admin action"?

Not to mention that counting "admin actions" is about as useful a metric
as counting edits.  I can easily make a hundred or two admin actions a
day, if I put my mind to it, by clearing out some of the more monotonous
backlogs.  Or I can spend the time carefully editing a MediaWiki page,
which won't even show up as an admin action in most statistics.  Neither
action is intrinsically more valuable than the other, but their effect
on the statistics is completely different.

--
Ilmari Karonen


body:
On 4/21/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
>
> Well, you can always transclude the talk page or a documentation subpage
> from within a <noinclude> section. Because <noinclude> suppresses link registration,
> updates to the documentation subpage won't cascade down to the actual articles.

That sounds like an excellent way to go. It will be visible from the
template page, and editable in its own place, away from both the
actual template code and the talk page discussion.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wheel culture

body:
Matt Brown wrote:
> On 4/20/06, Ben Lowe <ben.lowe at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I still haven't heard a reason why admins shouldn't revert admin actions "at all" except
>> that it's wheel-warring, which is a rather circular answer (fitting, I suppose for a wheel).  So
>> I suppose my response to "We shouldn't be undoing each other's admin actions
>> at all" is that we also shouldn't be making any mistakes at all.  But it
>> happens, and so should be able to unhappen.
>>
>
> My preferred policy change would not be 'we shouldn't ever undo admin
> actions' but rather 'we shouldn't undo admin actions instantly and
> without discussion'.
>
> Very few things are so, so critical that there isn't time to discuss.
>

A correlary ought to be: We shouldn't *do* admin actions instantly and
without discussion, for the same reason.

-Mark


body:
James D. Forrester wrote:
> Using the {{office}} template to tag problem content is a nice idea,
> but, I would imagine, has a rather serious drawback: Wikitruth.info
> (amongst other 'helpful' critics) seems to have a sysop working for
> them. Were we to flag an article that was libellous with {{office}}, you
> can bet that they would go and dig out the deleted sections, and repost
> it to their wonderful service. Now Wikimedia has been informed that they
> are likely to be sued, and in response has done something knowing that
> it would increase the publication and spread of this libel. - we're then
> liable for their reposting of the content, and "utterly screwed". I
> know, I know, "that's not what was intended". Well, tough, that's the
> way the Real World(tm) works.
>

No, that isn't at all how the Real World works.  In the Real World, when
someone is accused of libel, they do exactly what we do: Take down the
content and post a prominent notice that it was taken down.  Often the
original content is actually republished along with an apology;
something like: "We claimed in our issue of November 2 that Dr. Smith
was indicted for fraud; in fact, he was merely investigated by a grand
jury and never indicted; we regret the error."

As far as I know no media organization has been actually sued (at least
not successfully) for that.

-Mark


from_name: jayjg

body:
On 4/20/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> John Tex wrote:
> > Recently, enwiki was apparently moved without warning to a new server.  This
> > caused the external toolserver to be unable to perform any analysis of
> > enwiki information.  One of the major users of toolserver is Gmaxwell, who
> > performs several different beneficial processes using the toolserver.
> >
> > He has posted to WikiTech-L explaining what happened and what the effects
> > are:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034904.html
> >
> > There is also an essay forming at:
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Toolserver
> >
> > I urge everyone to visit one or both of the above links to learn more and to
> > express your support for getting the situation resolved.
>
> We're way ahead of you. To improve the administrative situation, two more people have been given
> root access: Gregory Maxwell (who you mention above) and DaB. Mark Bergsma will be installing a new
> external disk array within the next week, hopefully giving the toolserver enough disk space and
> power to replicate all databases. Please be patient.
>
> It was down altogether for a few hours today. If I understand correctly, this was due to a planned
> reboot for maintenance and some subsequent problems getting it to come back up.

When it is able to once again replicate all databases, will things
like Interiot's tool start working properly?  Or will the missed
information be forever lost?

Jay.


from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel chill

body:
On 4/20/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> In some cases, we may need to make a tradeoff between NPOV and risk of being sued ...
>
We have three content policies that are very effective when applied
together: NPOV, V, and NOR. When these are strictly adhered to, they
produce articles with neutral content and encyclopedic tone (NPOV)
that use only reputable sources (V), with the sources being used
correctly so that no novel narratives are created (NOR) -- articles
that are extremely unlikely ever to cause a problem.

So I'd say it's not a question of sometimes needing to relax NPOV
because of a libel problem, but the opposite -- we need to enforce
NPOV and the other two policies rigorously, understand how they
complement each other, and realize that, jointly, they're our very
best protection.

Sarah


from_name: Kelly Martin

body:
On 4/21/06, Molu <loom91 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>   You not only support the blocking, you support CONTINUED blocking of one of Wikipedia's most valuable contrbutors (far more valuable than you) because of what was at most a failure to discuss a revertion of a protection before doing it.

Dear lord, please, you're going to use up all the straw at this rate.

Kelly


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
His status as a reputable long timer counts against him rather then
for him in such circumstances. Anyone who has witnessed the wheel
wars ought to know better.

Fred

On Apr 20, 2006, at 8:44 PM, Kelly Martin wrote:

> Except he wasn't an Wikipedian in good standing; he had attempted to
> start a wheel war.
>
> Kelly


from_name: Guettarda

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Irony,
	noun: When a judge discovers the existence of disclaimers

body:
On 4/21/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Interesting.  In this case, apparently, a Special Master, appointed by
> the court under the Vaccine Act, introduced items from the internet,
> including one which originated as a Wikipedia article.  On the
> evidence in those unverified documents, she dismissed a case for
> damages because evidence could not be presented to demonstrate that
> the nature of the child's seizures following vaccination was as
> described in the internet documents.  There was no evidentiary hearing
> and so neither party had the opportunity to challenge that internet
> evidence introduced by the Special Master.
>
> The federal court, naturally, was not impressed.

Wow.  That's disturbing.  There are times when the influence of Wikipedia
makes me distinctly uncomfortable...if I make a mistake in what I write, if
I screw something up, I have changed "knowledge".  Yet again, I wish that
the world understood that Wikipedia is a beta.


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel chill

body:
Elisabeth Bauer wrote:

>Steve Bennett schrieb:
>
>
>>I would be curious to know - not necessarily with examples - whether
>>we have had legal threats related to articles that did meet WP:V. That
>>is, we published something which was by all accounts true, and had
>>verifiable sources to back it up - and yet was deemed offensive by
>>some miffed party.
>>
>>
>http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tron_(Hacker)
>
>
It's also worth noting that the response to that complaint was markedly
different from some of the others. A neutrally written article, with
reputable sources and, as Sarah has pointed out, no original research,
should almost never cause problems like this. If they do, I think we're
much more likely to dismiss those complaints and deal with whatever the
consequences may be. But those are the complaints most of you never see,
because they don't require intervention on the wiki.

--Michael Snow


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

body:
On 4/20/06, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
<snip>
> Karmafist.  Ed Poor.  Guanaco.  Stevertigo.  There's others; do you
> pay any attention to the Arbitration Committee's docket lately?
>

Ofcourse I've been paying attention. Those admins misused adminship,
they got deadminned. You said "Perhaps the real problem is that a
large segment of our admin
population needs not to be admins anymore." That's four people out of
800. Half of a percent. It's not what anyone would call a large
segment. The vast, vast majority perform their duty admirably, without
anyone complaining.

So how, in what way, was your comment anything other than
inflammatory? Please tell me, I really want to know.


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Who wins

body:
On Thu, 20 Apr 2006 23:30:35 -0700 (PDT), you wrote:

>  Umm... No? What's so bad about it? Wikipedia has an article saying two
> blogs contain a sentence "Fred is Gay" and the reader draws the inference
> that the owner of those blogs is seriously retarded. Big deal.

Yes, big deal.  Ask the lawyers.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: doc

subject: [WikiEN-l] Who wins

body:
>>  Umm... No? What's so bad about it? Wikipedia has an article saying two
>> blogs contain a sentence "Fred is Gay" and the reader draws the inference
>> that the owner of those blogs is seriously retarded. Big deal. )
>>
Yes, and we could re-name ourselves at the same time: not longer
'encyclopedia' but simply 'blog report' or 'blogs in brief'!


body:
News organizations make it a point not to repeat the original error that was
made; we take pains to state the corrected information only in a correction.

k

On 4/21/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
> James D. Forrester wrote:
> > Using the {{office}} template to tag problem content is a nice idea,
> > but, I would imagine, has a rather serious drawback: Wikitruth.info
> > (amongst other 'helpful' critics) seems to have a sysop working for
> > them. Were we to flag an article that was libellous with {{office}}, you
> > can bet that they would go and dig out the deleted sections, and repost
> > it to their wonderful service. Now Wikimedia has been informed that they
> > are likely to be sued, and in response has done something knowing that
> > it would increase the publication and spread of this libel. - we're then
> > liable for their reposting of the content, and "utterly screwed". I
> > know, I know, "that's not what was intended". Well, tough, that's the
> > way the Real World(tm) works.
> >
>
> No, that isn't at all how the Real World works.  In the Real World, when
> someone is accused of libel, they do exactly what we do: Take down the
> content and post a prominent notice that it was taken down.  Often the
> original content is actually republished along with an apology;
> something like: "We claimed in our issue of November 2 that Dr. Smith
> was indicted for fraud; in fact, he was merely investigated by a grand
> jury and never indicted; we regret the error."
>
> As far as I know no media organization has been actually sued (at least
> not successfully) for that.
>
> -Mark
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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: maru dubshinki

body:
On 4/21/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't like your unix-centrism. \readme.txt
>
> Steve

Hmmph. At least my templates don't crash, are edittable, and aren't
infected with
more typos than a 3-bit whore...

~maru


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
I don't like your unix-centrism. \readme.txt

Steve

On 21/04/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/21/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Steve Bennett wrote:
> > > On 20/04/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >> That sounds like an excellent way to go. It will be visible from the
> > >> template page, and editable in its own place, away from both the
> > >> actual template code and the talk page discussion.
> > >
> > > Shall we propose a naming convention? Possibilities:
> > >
> > > /help
> > > /documentation
> > > /doc
> > > /usage
> > >
> >
> > /etc/man?
>
> No, no, no. Everyone knows documentation goes in the /usr/share/doc
> hierarchy! /etc/man would be for configuring the software used to view
> the documentation, and we all know that MediaWiki configuration goes
> in /etc/Special:
> Sheesh. What a n00b.
>
> ~maru
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Silas Snider

subject: [Wikitech-l] Google Summer of COde Projects

body:
I've been lurking on this list for a while now, waiting for the time
to actually work on the Mediawiki code.  Therefore, I was very
interested in the proposed summer of code project "Wikitext parser
rewrite"(http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_Code_2006#Wikitext_parser_rewrite)

I am going to submit an application when I can, but I have a
clarifying question: Since wikitext does not appear to be even
context-free, will we be allowed to change how wikitext works? (I.e.
if the internal link syntax turns out (as I think it will) to be
non-context-free (and therefore there is not a parser generator for
it), will the student be able to change the syntax?)

Sincerely,
[[en:User:Simonfairfax|Silas Snider]]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Silas Snider is a proud member of the Association of Wikipedians Who
Dislike Making Broad Judgements About the Worthiness of a General Category
of Article, and Who Are In Favor of the Deletion of Some Particularly Bad
Articles, but That Doesn't Mean They are Deletionist
(AWWDMBJAWGCAWAIFDSPBATDMTD) , and the Harmonious
Editing Club of Wikipedia.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------


subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel chill

body:
On 21/04/06, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> First of all, a neutral encyclopedia article is not an unrestrained free
> speech zone, and I think the rhetoric of someone's freedom of speech
> being chilled is out of place to begin with. Second of all, it is
> entirely consistent with our mission to seek to "chill" content that is
> decidedly non-neutral and in most cases fails to provide verifiable,
> reputable sources for its assertions besides. Finally, in terms of

I would be curious to know - not necessarily with examples - whether
we have had legal threats related to articles that did meet WP:V. That
is, we published something which was by all accounts true, and had
verifiable sources to back it up - and yet was deemed offensive by
some miffed party.

Steve


body:
On 21/04/06, Thommandel at aol.com <Thommandel at aol.com> wrote:
> Personally, I believe that the comment on the front page stating that  anyone
> can edit wikipedia is false advertisement. I did not find that to be the
> case. What I found was that only copy that is approved by the admin and his
> helpers will remain in the article.

Is this the only article you've tried editing? If so, it looks like
you've been very unlucky. Speaking for myself, I make fairly
non-trivial changes to a large number of articles, and almost never
hit resistance. And an admin using his status to enforce some
particular POV would be a rare occurrence indeed...

> There are no ethics in Wikiworld. Ethics to the Wikipedian is whatever we
> damn well please?

We don't usually talk about ethics, as ethics often refers to
motivations, or whether one has properly thought through one's actions
and so forth. Instead, we concentrate on actions, and the simple
notion of "good faith". If you didn't get much of a response to a
question about ethics, it's probably simply because we're not used to
discussing Wikipedia in an "ethical" framework.

> Now I read about a Wikipedian who done as much as anyone but yet was  banned
> forever for reverting an action of a fellow admin.  In the real  world that

Not forever - the duration simply wasn't specified at the time. In the
end it was 48 hours.

> would be called Guilty until proven innocent and is in violation of  every
> principle America was founded on. Indeed, we spend trillions of dollars  fighting

Wikipedia is international - America's foundations are totally
irrelevant.  Also, you're incorrect - no country requires proof beyond
reasonable doubt simply to lock someone up overnight.

> Again I am not involved as an admin, I am a reader who cannot stand idly by
> while an article in the Wikipedia is obviously slanted toward the opposing

That's a pity. Sometimes it's better to let that article go, and focus
your efforts on the other 900,000 or so articles sorely in need of
your help.

> view.  It is clear to me however, that my quest is futile, Wikipedia is not
> edited by the people, it is run by the admin, who take data given by the people
> and tell the story their way.  I see things going on that are illegal in  the

That's a totally unjustified impression of Wikipedia, and totally
inconsistent with my experiences. I've edited around 1000 different
pages, and with Wikipedia policy pages aside, I've never seen an admin
throw his weight around.

> real world.  The admins, I suppose, are run by the office, which can  take
> have any suggestions for change, it is far too late for that.  But  Wikipedians
> really should step back and look at what they are really  doing.  "We, here in
> Wikiland, do not allow warring, therefore, when it  comes to that, take
> notice that we win, you lose, or else you will be banished  forever."

You're seriously exaggerating a lot here. Any community as large and
complex as Wikipedia is likely to have a couple of sore spots. But the
number of articles that work exactly as the good Wikipedian intended
tham massively outnumbers them. See the "random page" link? Hit it.
Now go and fix that article!

Steve


body:
On 21/04/06, jayjg <jayjg99 at gmail.com> wrote:
> When it is able to once again replicate all databases, will things
> like Interiot's tool start working properly?  Or will the missed
> information be forever lost?

Which Interiot's tool exactly? The edit counter will work just as it
always did. What information could be lost exactly?

Steve


from_name: geni

body:
On 4/21/06, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/20/06, Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> > Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com>:
> > > That does not excuse reversion without discussion.  Even taking as an
> > > assumption that Danny had been acting on his own behalf, Erik's
> > > actions could easily have been the start of a wheel war, and were
> > > inappropriate by any reasonable standard.
> >
> > Yet, equally, that does not excuse the indefinite blocking of a Wikipedian in
> > good-standing.
>
> Except he wasn't an Wikipedian in good standing; he had attempted to
> start a wheel war.
>
> Kelly

Doubtful. Certianly you have no evidence of that claim and if we look
at hostoric wheel wars they were rarely planned.

--
geni


from_name: Elisabeth Bauer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel chill

body:
Steve Bennett schrieb:

> I would be curious to know - not necessarily with examples - whether
> we have had legal threats related to articles that did meet WP:V. That
> is, we published something which was by all accounts true, and had
> verifiable sources to back it up - and yet was deemed offensive by
> some miffed party.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tron_(Hacker)

greetings,
elian


from_name: William Allen Simpson

subject: [Wikitech-l] 2006 Apr 20 drastic slowdown postmortem

body:
Time to time, I'm sure we've all noticed that wikipedia slows to a crawl.
Such as last night (local time), for about 15-20 minutes, reading was poor,
writing was nearly impossible, see:

  April 20, 2006, 10:36 pm http://www.thewritingpot.com/wikistatus/

I tried looking at the site from various views.  What struck me was that
no matter where I looked from here in the US, east or west or central, all
traffic seems to go to Florida, even when the servers are not responding.

No failover to other clusters?

Also, the DNS stopped serving inverse addresses.  Compare:

  9  ae-23-54.car3.tampa1.level3.net (4.68.104.107)  222.648 ms
     ae-13-55.car3.tampa1.level3.net (4.68.104.139)  221.783 ms
     ae-13-53.car3.tampa1.level3.net (4.68.104.75)  223.539 ms
10  level3-co1.tpax.as30217.net (4.71.0.10)  224.125 ms  222.308 ms  223.698 ms
11  e1-1.dr1.tpax.as30217.net (84.40.24.22)  230.567 ms  222.853 ms  227.562 ms
12  gi0-50.csw1-pmtpa.wikimedia.org (64.156.25.242)  222.394 ms  223.082 ms  223.56 ms
13  rr-206.pmtpa.wikimedia.org (207.142.131.206)  225.189 ms  215.542 ms  224.085 ms

11  ae-23-54.car3.Tampa1.Level3.net (4.68.104.107)  51.362 ms
     ae-13-51.car3.Tampa1.Level3.net (4.68.104.11)  51.299 ms
     ae-13-53.car3.Tampa1.Level3.net (4.68.104.75)  51.291 ms
12  level3-co1.tpax.as30217.net (4.71.0.10)  54.396 ms  53.682 ms  53.826 ms
13  84.40.24.22 (84.40.24.22)  54.127 ms  53.686 ms  53.826 ms
14  gi0-50.csw1-pmtpa.wikimedia.org (64.156.25.242)  59.873 ms  58.579 ms  55.517 ms
15  rr-235.pmtpa.wikimedia.org (207.142.131.235)  53.879 ms  54.104 ms  53.891 ms

That 84.40.24.22 inverse is only at 2 DNServers both located on the same
subnet (very bad practice):

;; ANSWER SECTION:
22.24.40.84.in-addr.arpa. 200   IN      PTR     e1-1.dr1.tpax.as30217.net.

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
24.40.84.in-addr.arpa.  200     IN      NS      rns1.powermedium.com.
24.40.84.in-addr.arpa.  200     IN      NS      rns2.powermedium.com.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
rns1.powermedium.com.   14128   IN      A       84.40.24.94
rns2.powermedium.com.   14128   IN      A       84.40.24.98

However, that loss of DNS responses from the same subnet leads to the
conclusion the subnet might be under congestive collapse.  That is, this
lag might not be produced by wikimedia itself, but a problem with the
link to or within the facility.

Is there any other data that might correspond?

Does anybody have clues or notes on what actually might have been
happening at the time?  RTG/MRTG?

  - - -
Also, I'm seeing incorrect DNS configuration (CNAME to CNAME):
;; ANSWER SECTION:
en.wikipedia.org.       92      IN      CNAME   rr.wikimedia.org.
rr.wikimedia.org.       600     IN      CNAME   rr.pmtpa.wikimedia.org.

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
wikimedia.org.          7200    IN      SOA     ns0.wikimedia.org. hostmaster.wikimedia.org. 2006041914 43200 7200 1209600 3600


from_name: John Lee

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>Kelly Martin is not in "our central leadership" (that would be Jimbo,
>Angela, Anthere, Daniel Mayer, and a few others) and has no future as
>a diplomat. <snip>
>
>Fred
>
>
I think we all know that. However, the way she has been behaving as of
late seems to indicate she has more pieces of the puzzle than the rest
of us, which would certainly imply some (un?)official role in the
"central leadership".

John


from_name: Keith Old

body:
On 4/21/06, Kirill Lokshin
>
> <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 4/20/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On 21/04/06, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > On 4/20/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > The practical question here is how we go about determining which
> > > > > admins are "problematic".
> > > >
> > > > Indeed.
> > >
> >
> > It is probably worth remembering that this whole sorry argument began
> with one of the few dozen people least likely to get desysopped by any
> such test...

If you mean the unprotect/desysop/block mess, certainly.

If we make some (possibly quite incorrect) assumptions about why Danny
moved in the way he did -- to wit, that at least a partial reason for
keeping office actions less visible is the leaking of deleted
information -- it becomes less clear.  Would desysopping the (assumed)
admin(s) passing this information to wikitruth -- ignoring for the
moment the question of whether we can catch them -- help in avoiding
the need for this sort of secrecy in the future?  Or will office
actions need to be kept under wraps even if there's no danger of
admins interfering?

Kirill Lokshin
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

Folks,

Why should we worry about Wikitruth? They claim to be the "Scandal Sheet
that anyone can edit." It will probably be a ghost site within a year.

If we need to use Office for whatever reasons, we need to use Office. The
fact is that if an article meets out standards such as NPOV, no original
research and verifiability, it shouldn't have problems with Office. It is
the articles which don't comply with these standards that run into problems.
If we have an article which is a stub for a day or so, we have plenty of
time to expand it in a way consistent with our policies

We shouldn't worry about what Wikitruth thinks or says.

We should take notice of considered criticism from whatever source whether
it be Nature, the Guardian, USA Today or the blogger who raised concerns
about some of our biographies such as Jane Fonda. I have seen nothing on
Wikitruth that indicates that we should consider its criticisms seriously.
We certainly should not change our policies because of them.

A brief inspection of Wikitruth has given me no reason to consider its
comments to be considered criticism. It is a derivative of Wikipedia and of
little interest to the wider world.

Regards

*Keith Old*

I don't


from_name: Mathias Schindler

body:
http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/Opinions/Allegra/06/ALLEGRA.Campbell.pdf

The articles that the Special Master culled from the Internet do not ?
at least on their face
remotely meet this reliability requirement. Consider the item on
"febrile seizures" that she added from the Dictionary of Neurology,
www.explore-medicine.com. Although that website no longer exists, the
exhibit introduced by the Special Master indicates that its
information was drawn from Wikipedia.com, a website that allows
virtually anyone to upload an article into what is essentially a free,
online encyclopedia. A review of the Wikipedia website reveals a
pervasive and, for our purposes, disturbing series of disclaimers,
among them, that: (i) any given Wikipedia article "may be, at any
given moment, in a bad state: for example it could be in the middle of
a large edit or it could have been recently vandalized;" (ii)
Wikipedia articles are "also subject to remarkable oversights and
omissions;" (iii) "Wikipedia articles (or series of related articles)
are liable to be incomplete in ways that would be less usual in a more
tightly controlled reference work;" (iv) "[a]nother problem with a lot
of content on Wikipedia is that many contributors do not cite their
sources, something  that makes it hard for the reader to judge the
credibility of what is written;" and (v) "many articles commence their
lives as partisan drafts" and may be "caught up in a heavily
unbalanced viewpoint."


from_name: Matt R

body:
Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com>:
> On 4/20/06, Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> > Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com>:
> > > That does not excuse reversion without discussion.  Even taking as an
> > > assumption that Danny had been acting on his own behalf, Erik's
> > > actions could easily have been the start of a wheel war, and were
> > > inappropriate by any reasonable standard.
> >
> > Yet, equally, that does not excuse the indefinite blocking of a Wikipedian in
> > good-standing.
>
> Except he wasn't an Wikipedian in good standing; he had attempted to
> start a wheel war.

What you are arguing is untenable. Even if we agree with your interpretation
that Erik was starting a wheel-war, an indefinite block was not an appropriate
reaction by any reasonable standard (to use your phrase). We kick people off
the project in a limited set of circumstances: when it's clear that they are hindering
us more than they are helping us. Danny, for all the good work that he no doubt
does, did the wrong thing here. For him to acknowledge this in a public forum would
be reassuring.

-- Matt
[[User:Matt Crypto]]


from_name: Christopher Beland

body:
> Does anybody have clues or notes on what actually might have been
> happening at the time?  RTG/MRTG?

There is some tracking data; see the links from:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_servers#Status_and_problems

-B.


from_name: Kirill Lokshin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Why the uproar over wikitruth

body:
On 4/21/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 21/04/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> > liability for publication by agents of the provider.  A Wikipedia
> > administrator who uses his special powers to publish defamatory
> > content or copy copyright-infringing content would tend to advance the
> > case against Wikipedia for third-party liability.
>
> That would all hinge on whether a "Wikipedia administrator" represents
> Wikipedia in any respect. I don't think they do, not more than any
> editor does. Taken to its conclusion, you would be saying that user A
> writes something horrible on Wikipedia, user B (possibly an admin if
> you like) then publishes that in print in 50 magazines, and user A
> deletes the horrible remark. Wikipedia is liable for user B's actions?

Legally liable?  I would assume not, since most admins have no formal
relationship to the Foundation.  It would probably depend on whether
Wikimedia could simultaneously argue that (a) deleting material --
where admins could still access it -- qualified as no longer
publishing it and (b) Wikimedia is not responsible for the actions of
admins who obtain that material.

Having said that, it would still be major egg on our face.  "Wikipedia
administrators distribute defamatory material" really isn't a
beneficial type of headline.

Kirill Lokshin


from_name: Mark Ryan

body:
On 20/04/06, Kat Walsh <mindspillage at gmail.com> wrote:
> WP:OFFICE is pretty much a invitation to every troll on the wiki to
> come and make noise -- and now, apparently, to grab the deleted
> material and post it elsewhere. It's been Slashdotted; we can't claim
> we don't know about it, and it's not exactly something we want. (Yes,
> good editors are questioning, too, but they are doing it sanely.)
> While it has been a good barrier to prevent admins from mistakenly
> undoing Danny's admin actions there, it has failed to be a means to
> handle potential problems in a discreet manner and instead only draws
> more attention to it. This seems to have been an attempt to try to
> minimize public attention and be sure the problematic material was not
> more widely distributed. It didn't work, but it was a reasonable
> attempt, though unclear.

Maybe Danny etc. need to start getting developers to remove revisions
of WP:OFFICE articles directly from the database, if we continue to
have the problem of dirty admins leaking deleted material.

~Mark Ryan


from_name: Jeremy Dunck

body:
On 4/21/06, Silas Snider <swsnider at gmail.com> wrote:
> it), will the student be able to change the syntax?)

I'm interested in the answer to this as well.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel chill

body:
On 21/04/06, Elisabeth Bauer <elian at djini.de> wrote:
> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tron_(Hacker)

Oh yeah, that is a good example. Ta.

Steve


from_name: Hsiang-Tai Chien

subject:
[Foundation-l] Wiki trademark issue for ZH Wikipedia in mainland
	China

body:
Dear Wikipedians in fundation,

We now in Chinese Wikipedia have some trademark issues that needs your help.

We have found an Chinese had registered "Wiki" and "??" (in literly it
also means "Wiki" in Chinese) as his trademarks at 2005/11/23 in mainland
China. Since we now have WP and WN, there might be some trademark issues in
mainland China. Do you have any advice or suggestions that we can do?

Best regards,
Zh:User:HTChien

___________________________________________________  ??? Yahoo!?????? 7.0???????????  http://messenger.yahoo.com.tw/


from_name: Mark Gallagher

body:
G'day John,

> While I agree with all that you've said, I fear that for practical
> reasons, it would be impossible to cover up an action. As geni has noted
> on Wikipedia-l, often what happens instead is that the scandal becomes
> even bigger once it's revealed a controversial action was kept quiet --
> something which, as we've just learnt, probably isn't going to be a rare
> occurrence. Security through obscurity isn't a very effective mechanism.
> I suggest creating a special board class of users (as others have
> proposed), so that ordinary admins can't wheel war with these users, or
> otherwise do anything liable to get us in trouble (i.e. view deleted
> revisions of a page deleted by a board user). Confronting the problem
> head on is a lot more effective than trying to prevent people from
> finding out about the problem -- with the latter, you either succeed
> greatly, or fail miserably. Security through obscurity won't work here,
> not as things stand.

That can work.  Make Dannyisme one of these users, but leave Danny as it
is.  Make attempts to undo Dannyisme's actions show a message similar to
the failed rollback error thingy.

> On another note, I find it disturbing that some people (Kelly and Tony,
> mainly) appear to have missed the greater point here. Yes, we know --
> doing something under WP:OFFICE draws trolls and real rouge admins to
> the article like moths to a flame. However, if due to this, we abandon
> WP:OFFICE altogether, what's the point? And even assuming that all
> admins have their heads screwed on the right way, and do ask Danny if he
> did this because of legal issues, how does this resolve anything? The
> rouge admins would still have the information they need.

Yes, but you mean "rogue".  *You're* a rouge admin, but I'd never call
you rouge ... unless the clarion call of McCarthyism grew too strong, of
course.  Grrrowl.

<snip />

> All I'm saying is, we might need to go this far. But there are plenty of
> other possibilities yet to be explored. Let's accept the fact that
> trolls will buzz around WP:OFFICE protected articles, spreading their
> malicious lies. As James has noted, what's important is that we batten
> down the hatches and prevent any real damage from coming to Wikipedia.
> One way at least guaranteed to achieve something towards this end is to
> prevent board actions from being reverted, and to make the information
> related to them out of bounds to ordinary admins and editors. It's a lot
> better than being left in a situation where admins aren't even sure
> whether their next action (be it a simple query about something Danny
> did, or undoing a very questionable deletion) will get Wikipedia and/or
> the Foundation in deep shit.

I'm not sure we *can* be held responsible for the behaviour of
WikiTruth.  On the face of things (and I'm talking common sense here,
not legal stuff, because we have a lawyer and he's not me), WikiTruth
republishing defamatory or copyvio material is no different from any
mirrors doing the same thing, from Wikipedia's point of view.  In either
case, the material is out there, there's nothing we can do about it, and
we've already done our best to satisfy the victim.

'Course, the fact that one of our number (who, I understand, reads this
mailing list --- hi, there!) is going out of his way to hurt other
people as a perverted way of getting at us might mean something --- we
can't even trust our own admins!  But I dunno that it's worth panicking
about --- anyone can get the info off a mirror, or save
likely-to-be-deleted stuff ahead of time, or ... yeah.

I liked Phil Welch's suggestion (I note that WikiTruth don't) that
anyone concerned about defamatory material being hosted on WikiTruth
should be told to leave us the hell alone and go sue WikiTruth.  After
all, it's their fault and their problem.

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

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.4.4/318 - Release Date: 18/04/2006


from_name: Guettarda

subject: [WikiEN-l] Stout monks found

body:
Cabalism! Cabalism! The three horsemen of the Clerking Cabal... and Steve?
Wait.  Steve isn't even an admin, is he?  Has he ever even been before the
arbcomm?  Hmmm...now how I stitch this conspiracy theory together?  Oh, of
course, Steve was included to make it look like there is no cabal.  Ahh, the
subtle manipulations of the illuminati...

On 4/21/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 21/04/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Wikien-l needs two or three more mods. I think we had a pile of extra
> > volunteers last time, they would be most welcome first. I'll make it a
> > test with some requirements:
>
>
> The Cabal blesses and welcomes Phil Sandifer, Kelly Martin, John Lee
> and Steve Bennett to the hallowed sewage farms of wikien-l. All hail!
> I'll drop you all an email with instructions on shortly. You are now
> the happy recipients of any crap forwarded to wikien-l-owner as well,
> and let me tell you it gets special.
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Tony Sidaway

body:
Interesting.  In this case, apparently, a Special Master, appointed by
the court under the Vaccine Act, introduced items from the internet,
including one which originated as a Wikipedia article.  On the
evidence in those unverified documents, she dismissed a case for
damages because evidence could not be presented to demonstrate that
the nature of the child's seizures following vaccination was as
described in the internet documents.  There was no evidentiary hearing
and so neither party had the opportunity to challenge that internet
evidence introduced by the Special Master.

The federal court, naturally, was not impressed.


from_name: Philip Welch

body:
On Apr 21, 2006, at 5:15 AM, Tony Sidaway wrote:

> Under the Communications Decency Act
> which provides a general exemption from third party liability to
> online information providers, this exemption does not extend to
> liability for publication by agents of the provider.

Wasn't the CDA ruled unconstitutional back in the 90's?

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


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
Silas Snider wrote:
> I've been lurking on this list for a while now, waiting for the time
> to actually work on the Mediawiki code.  Therefore, I was very
> interested in the proposed summer of code project "Wikitext parser
> rewrite"(http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_Code_2006#Wikitext_parser_rewrite)

That's probably not an appropriate project, as it would be dependent on the
syntax being formally defined first (a separate project, which will require
being done with community input and careful consideration of compatibility).

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 21/04/06, Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> What you are arguing is untenable. Even if we agree with your interpretation
> that Erik was starting a wheel-war, an indefinite block was not an appropriate
> reaction by any reasonable standard (to use your phrase). We kick people off
> the project in a limited set of circumstances: when it's clear that they are hindering
> us more than they are helping us. Danny, for all the good work that he no doubt
> does, did the wrong thing here. For him to acknowledge this in a public forum would
> be reassuring.

I'm sticking with my interpretation that the "indefinite" bit of the
block was most likely not intended to be a life ban, but was simply
Danny making a quick decision, and leaving the question of how long to
block for later reflection. I could be wrong, but that seems quite
reasonable. Sort of like how when a parent sends a kid to his room
"Until I say so", they're not really sentencing the kid to death by
starvation...

However, it would probably be better, for everyone's sake, to ban for
some conventional period like 1 week in future cases.

Steve


body:
On 4/21/06, Molu <loom91 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>   I can't see how reposting of our content will make us legally more liable than we already were.

Well I don't think this is the way the law is likely to see it.  In
the famous 1990s Prodigy case, an information provider that policed
its forums in much the same way that Wikipedia polices its content was
found to be a publisher of information, and thus subject to third
party liability for content.  Under the Communications Decency Act
which provides a general exemption from third party liability to
online information providers, this exemption does not extend to
liability for publication by agents of the provider.  A Wikipedia
administrator who uses his special powers to publish defamatory
content or copy copyright-infringing content would tend to advance the
case against Wikipedia for third-party liability.

This has not been tested in court, but it would be very expensive to
test it and Wikipedia probably would prefer to spend more of its money
on equipment and technicians than on teams of attorneys.


body:
G'day Kelly,

> On 4/20/06, Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
 >
>>Yet, equally, that does not excuse the indefinite blocking of a Wikipedian in
>>good-standing.
>
> Except he wasn't an Wikipedian in good standing; he had attempted to
> start a wheel war.

A little while back someone on IRC told me that if an admin did
something outside policy, they should no longer be considered a
Wikipedian in good standing, but rather a vandal, and that an admin
should be able to revert them 'til doomsday without feeling any guilt.

I think he was commenting on the rash of userbox deletions in
December/January, but I could be wrong.

We shouldn't twist our definitions until good admins become bad
Wikipedians ... there's no telling what we might be saying to one
another without knowing.  A Wikipedia in which my mate on IRC isn't
talking crap would be a grim Wikipedia indeed.

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

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.4.4/318 - Release Date: 18/04/2006


from_name: geni

body:
On 4/21/06, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/21/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Interesting.  In this case, apparently, a Special Master, appointed by
> > the court under the Vaccine Act, introduced items from the internet,
> > including one which originated as a Wikipedia article.  On the
> > evidence in those unverified documents, she dismissed a case for
> > damages because evidence could not be presented to demonstrate that
> > the nature of the child's seizures following vaccination was as
> > described in the internet documents.  There was no evidentiary hearing
> > and so neither party had the opportunity to challenge that internet
> > evidence introduced by the Special Master.
> >
> > The federal court, naturally, was not impressed.
>
>
> Wow.  That's disturbing.  There are times when the influence of Wikipedia
> makes me distinctly uncomfortable...if I make a mistake in what I write, if
> I screw something up, I have changed "knowledge".  Yet again, I wish that
> the world understood that Wikipedia is a beta.

Particularly if you consider that most of our vaccine articles are at
best undergoing the wikipedia equiverlent of a mexican standoff.

--
geni


body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Silas Snider wrote:
>> I've been lurking on this list for a while now, waiting for the time
>> to actually work on the Mediawiki code.  Therefore, I was very
>> interested in the proposed summer of code project "Wikitext parser
>> rewrite"(http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_Code_2006#Wikitext_parser_rewrite)
>
> That's probably not an appropriate project, as it would be dependent on the
> syntax being formally defined first (a separate project, which will require
> being done with community input and careful consideration of compatibility).

As an example of something I'd _like_ to change:

It would be great if template substitutions work at the syntax-tree level,
rather than the source text level. This would make it much easier to work with
the data programmatically, and for instance much easier to get a clean interface
on a mostly-WYSIWYG-like editing system.

It would though mean that some existing template styles would need to be
changed. For instance something like this:

{{cool table header}}
|a row
|a row
{{cool table footer}}

would need to be replaced with something like this:

{{cool table|
|a row
|a row
}}

This of course requires being able to put things like table syntax into
parameters without having it explode. (Escaping? etc)

This kind of incompatible change might break many thousands of pages; it would
be good for a project working on syntax cleanup to search data dumps for such
problems, and see what can be relatively automatically fixed and what needs a
bigger cleanup project.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

subject: [Wikitech-l] Data dumps, now with md5sums

body:
On Thu, Apr 20, 2006 at 02:20:57AM -0700, Brion Vibber wrote:
> download.wikimedia.org is back online and I've restarted the dump runs. MD5
> checksums are available again for new dumps, to confirm that files downloaded
> correctly.

You silly boy: clearly, attempting to dump the databases is what's
failing the PDU's at the colo.

:-)

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

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

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


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 20/04/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
>> That sounds like an excellent way to go. It will be visible from the
>> template page, and editable in its own place, away from both the
>> actual template code and the talk page discussion.
>
> Shall we propose a naming convention? Possibilities:
>
> /help
> /documentation
> /doc
> /usage
>

/etc/man?

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

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from_name: Michael Jennings

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel chill

body:
<slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote in message
news:4cc603b0604210218i1e3bda8bk7fc75ac754817a05 at mail.gmail.com...
> On 4/20/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
>> In some cases, we may need to make a tradeoff between NPOV and risk of being sued ...
>>
> We have three content policies that are very effective when applied
> together: NPOV, V, and NOR. When these are strictly adhered to, they
> produce articles with neutral content and encyclopedic tone (NPOV)
> that use only reputable sources (V), with the sources being used
> correctly so that no novel narratives are created (NOR) -- articles
> that are extremely unlikely ever to cause a problem.
>
> So I'd say it's not a question of sometimes needing to relax NPOV
> because of a libel problem, but the opposite -- we need to enforce
> NPOV and the other two policies rigorously, understand how they
> complement each other, and realize that, jointly, they're our very
> best protection.
>
Yes. There could be an NPOV patrol.

Is an article about a living person? Is an article controversial?

The NPOV patrol would paste the POV to talk, along with an
explanation and request for changes. A qualification of admins
should require acceptable prior service on the NPOV patrol.

I am suggesting implementation of an NPOV patrol.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Who wins?

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 20/04/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>> After much agonising it was finally deleted recently.  It had survived
>> one AfD because "I've heard of it" trumped WP:V, it appears to have
>> been BJAODNed once or twice, but finally the total lack of any sources
>> whatsoever led to its deletion.  And a DRV debate (obviously).  And
>> the setting up of an external website, http://www.savethegame.org
>> dedicated to finding some sources for it.
>
> Since there are really no genuine sources apart from possibly a single
> article, there's not a lot to write about. Once the concept is
> explained, there is no encyclopaedia article, because as a social
> phenomenon, nothing is actually known about it.
>
> End result: Replace by a two mention on some "List of hoax memes" page
> or something.
>
> Whatever you do, don't "delete" it - that might upset people. Simply
> file it somewhere more appropriate.
>

[[WP:NFT]], perhaps?

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

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from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel chill

body:
James D. Forrester wrote:
> Using the {{office}} template to tag problem content is a nice idea,
> but, I would imagine, has a rather serious drawback: Wikitruth.info
> (amongst other 'helpful' critics) seems to have a sysop working for
> them. Were we to flag an article that was libellous with {{office}}, you
> can bet that they would go and dig out the deleted sections, and repost
> it to their wonderful service. Now Wikimedia has been informed that they
> are likely to be sued, and in response has done something knowing that
> it would increase the publication and spread of this libel. - we're then
> liable for their reposting of the content, and "utterly screwed". I
> know, I know, "that's not what was intended". Well, tough, that's the
> way the Real World(tm) works.

The basic problem with {{office}} is that I don't trust Brad Patrick and Danny to decide between
them what's right and wrong. I'm not making a slight on their character. I'm just saying that there
needs to be oversight, when something so important as the neutrality of the encyclopedia is at
stake. In some cases, we may need to make a tradeoff between NPOV and risk of being sued, and I fear
that due to their background, a lawyer may be inclined to automatically choose minimisation of risk
over neutrality, even when the risk of a successful lawsuit is very small.

I would like to see review of these "office actions" by a diverse committee, such as the juriwiki-l
mailing list.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Sydney Poore

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel chill

body:
Talk is not a good place to put suspected defamation and libel. IMO, it
should be completely removed from the article. Other types of
questionable content can go on the talk page awaiting verifiable
reliable sources. The person removing the content should look for
reliable sources. Also they should contact the person that put the
content in the article. Reverting the content without the follow up
posts is not Best Practice editing.
Sydney aka FloNight

Michael Jennings wrote:
> <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:4cc603b0604210218i1e3bda8bk7fc75ac754817a05 at mail.gmail.com...
>
>> On 4/20/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
>>
>>> In some cases, we may need to make a tradeoff between NPOV and risk of being sued ...
>>>
>>>
>> We have three content policies that are very effective when applied
>> together: NPOV, V, and NOR. When these are strictly adhered to, they
>> produce articles with neutral content and encyclopedic tone (NPOV)
>> that use only reputable sources (V), with the sources being used
>> correctly so that no novel narratives are created (NOR) -- articles
>> that are extremely unlikely ever to cause a problem.
>>
>> So I'd say it's not a question of sometimes needing to relax NPOV
>> because of a libel problem, but the opposite -- we need to enforce
>> NPOV and the other two policies rigorously, understand how they
>> complement each other, and realize that, jointly, they're our very
>> best protection.
>>
>>
> Yes. There could be an NPOV patrol.
>
> Is an article about a living person? Is an article controversial?
>
> The NPOV patrol would paste the POV to talk, along with an
> explanation and request for changes. A qualification of admins
> should require acceptable prior service on the NPOV patrol.
>
> I am suggesting implementation of an NPOV patrol.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>

--
Sydney Poore

Go Bengals!


from_name: Conrad Dunkerson

body:
* Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Anything but a one free revert policy makes no sense at all.  There are
> just too many reasons why one admin might revert the actions of
> another.  Some are good reasons; others are very bad.

Actually, I think this focus on 'sequence of reverts' misses the point.
Even the FIRST admin action could be the start of what I would call a
'wheel war'... yet the third might not. How does that make sense? It's all
about 'good faith'.

If someone takes an admin action that they KNOW one or more other admins
are going to object to and almost certainly revert then that person is
responsible for 'starting' the wheel war... it doesn't matter that they
didn't reverse the action of another admin. They took an admin action
which they knew was not supported by general consensus. Now usually that
doesn't happen because we don't know how other admins are going to react,
but sometimes we obviously do and we shouldn't give the instigator a pass
just because they got out there with a non-consensus action FIRST. If
anything that makes them 'the troublemaker'.

In contrast, the reversion of an admin action is NOT always the start of a
'wheel war'. There are various templates which were 'protected
indefinitely' because of high use. When I have found that some of these
have been deprecated into near non-existence I have unprotected them...
without tracking down the admin who protected them in the first place to
'discuss' it. Admins do things like this every day... and they SHOULD.
That's not 'wheel warring'... that's simply the reasonable assumption that
the original admin would agree that protection is no longer needed. If
some other admin sees my unprotect and says 'Ack! That's the most heavily
used template in the world - it needs to be protected!' they aren't
'wheel-warring' either... just mistakenly acting on out of date
information in good faith.

So far as I'm concerned admin actions become a problem when the admin
taking them KNOWS that the action is going to be objected to by other
admins, but goes ahead anyway without gathering consensus. It doesn't
matter if that's the first admin action or the fifth. Obviously it is not
always easy to determine whether someone is being deliberately
confrontational vs making a good faith change that they assume will be ok
- and that's where the sequence starts to play a part as it becomes more
difficult to NOT realize that an action is controversial after it has been
reverted. However, any hard and fast rules on 'first revert' or 'second
revert' seem to me a bad idea. Any admin taking an admin action (without
consensus after discussion) that they know other admins will find
objectionable is acting in bad faith regardless of the 'sequence'.


from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikisource list created

body:
> Any chance you could create a wikiversity-l mailing list?  I requested
> one a couple of months ago so there should be something on file if that
> is required.  If there is a standard request template I could take that
[cut]

I would like also a "steward-l" list like there is now one for checkusers. I
believe such a list can be useful for the stewards.

Walter
---
contact: walter AT wikipedia DOT be


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikisource list created


from_name: shi zhao

subject:
[Foundation-l] Wiki trademark issue for ZH Wikipedia in
	mainland China

body:
In Chinese, wikipedia=????. If ?? registered, ????, ????(wikinews)...., not
use.

[[zh:user:shizhao]]

2006/4/21, Hsiang-Tai Chien <htchien1225 at yahoo.com.tw>:
>
> Dear Wikipedians in fundation,
>
> We now in Chinese Wikipedia have some trademark issues that needs your
> help.
>
> We have found an Chinese had registered "Wiki" and "??" (in literly it
> also means "Wiki" in Chinese) as his trademarks at 2005/11/23 in mainland
> China. Since we now have WP and WN, there might be some trademark issues
> in
> mainland China. Do you have any advice or suggestions that we can do?
>
> Best regards,
> Zh:User:HTChien
>
>
>
> ___________________________________________________  ??? Yahoo!?????? 7.0?
> ??????????  http://messenger.yahoo.com.tw/
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


body:
not use. -> can't use

2006/4/21, shi zhao <shizhao at gmail.com>:
>
>  In Chinese, wikipedia=????. If ?? registered, ????, ????(wikinews)....,
> not use.
>
> [[zh:user:shizhao]]
>
> 2006/4/21, Hsiang-Tai Chien <htchien1225 at yahoo.com.tw>:
>
> > Dear Wikipedians in fundation,
> >
> > We now in Chinese Wikipedia have some trademark issues that needs your
> > help.
> >
> > We have found an Chinese had registered "Wiki" and "??" (in literly it
> > also means "Wiki" in Chinese) as his trademarks at 2005/11/23 in
> > mainland
> > China. Since we now have WP and WN, there might be some trademark issues
> > in
> > mainland China. Do you have any advice or suggestions that we can do?
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Zh:User:HTChien
> >
> >
> >
> > ___________________________________________________  ??? Yahoo!??????
> > 7.0???????????   http://messenger.yahoo.com.tw/
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
>
>


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [Foundation-l] new checkuser policy

body:
On 4/20/06, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:

> So why doesn't the existing policy simply say this?  If the individuals
> have to be so trusted that they need formal approval of not only the
> project, but also the Foundation board itself, then it should be stated
> as such.  This is not currently the policy.

Indeed.  Perhaps it should be.  Perhaps it will someday.  That's not
my call; I'm not a member of the Board.

> As far as you not trusting
> these users, that is because you have not interacted with them and had a
> chance to see their editing and administrative styles, and more of a
> matter that they are not as active on en.wikipedia to your tastes.

I thank you to not put words in my mouth.  I don't trust them because
I've not interacted with them.  It's got nothing to do with whether or
not they've been active on en.wikipedia, except for the coincidence
that someone who is active on en.wikipedia is more likely to have
interacted with me.  It's not that I distrust them either; it's just
that none of these people has been introduced to me by a trusted
introducer, and so by default I don't grant a lot of trust.

> From
> my perspective, the Wikibooks candidates are as trustworthy as any
> Wikimedia user can possibly be without getting into cabal accusations or
> political arguments, and would very likely have recieved the checkuser
> status a long time ago if they had instead been working on Wikipedia
> instead of Wikibooks.  They are solid and very active Wikimedia users.

I'm not challenging that.  And if the Foundation has cause to trust
your evaluation of them (something which I cannot speak to, but the
Foundation presumably can), then that should be good enough.

> I guess I'm confused at the duties of stewards then.  Most of what they
> do is "promote" users to become admins or sysops, and now grant
> checkuser status as well based on a whole variety of standards, many of
> which even contradict currently the checkuser policy on Meta.  This by
> itself does require a certain level of technical competency, and I fail
> to see how comparing two different IP addresses from two users is really
> all that much more difficult of a technical task.  This is not operating
> system assembly-level driver writing we are talking about, just looking
> up an IP address or two and comparing numbers.

This, combined with the comments about policy I did not copy, lead me
to seriously question whether you are qualified to be granted
checkuser rights.  Using checkuser requires a thorough understanding
of the general geography of the Internet, a large battery of tools
(whois, google, nmap, etc.), and often painstakingly detailed
detective work.  It's not mechanical; if it were we wouldn't need
checkusers, but could just automate the process.

Kelly


subject: [Foundation-l] new checkuser policy


subject: [WikiEN-l] Stout monks found

body:
On 4/21/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 21/04/06, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Cabalism! Cabalism! The three horsemen of the Clerking Cabal... and
> Steve?
> > Wait.  Steve isn't even an admin, is he?  Has he ever even been before
> the
> > arbcomm?  Hmmm...now how I stitch this conspiracy theory together?  Oh,
> of
> > course, Steve was included to make it look like there is no cabal.  Ahh,
> the
> > subtle manipulations of the illuminati...
>
> I'm actually a sock puppet. Try and figure out whose!
>
> (PS it's not David Gerard's)
>
> :)
>
> Steve

Must be Tony's - he's the only missing horseman (or Caballero).  And you
have agreed with him a couple of times.  MUST be Tony's sock... ;)


from_name: Dominik Bach

subject: [Wikitech-l] Import rights

body:
A new ripuarian Wikipedia has been set up on ksh.wikipedia.org. The testwiki with 9000+ pages should be transferred from wikoelsch.dergruenepunk.de and have already been exported from there. Purodha has been given temporary Bureaucrat status on ksh.wikipedia.org. However, import priviliges are disabled. How can these be activated? This Wikipedia has been for a month without articles, and we really want to hurry up to prevent a big mess, which would occur when new articles are created and then overwritten by the imported ones. Thank you for your help, Dominik

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