body:
[cross-posted to gmane.org.wikimedia.textbook,
gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.english which I hope are the correct
groups]

Special:Booksources on en:wikipedia has an Errata option, which takes you to
a special section on en:wikibooks where---obviously enough---errata
corresponding to various ISBNs are collected.

I am not aware of the history of this cooperative venture, but I am somewhat
disturbed by the fact that a group of people at Wikibooks are trying to have
this feature removed without apparently letting anybody at Wikipedia know.
This seems to be ostensibly on the grounds that whilst it is to do with
books, it's not to do with **wiki**books.

The bit that disturbs me is the impression I get from the discussion that
cooperation with Wikipedia is somehow distasteful to some Wikibookians, and
that they shouldn't have to help out just because we share a four-letter
prefix.

Where should this be discussed, and what is the official status of the
"Errata on Wikibooks" feature?
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Tietew

body:
On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 17:46:14 -0800
In article <43FE6566.1070201 at pobox.com>
[[Wikitech-l] Updating rev_deleted as a bitfield]
Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:

> In light of the past few months' experience in what kind of revision-deletion
> people would _like_ to be doing if we had it finished, I'm starting to complete
> implementation of rev_deleted, changing it from the originally planned flag to a
> bitfield:

It's needed to hide user, target, and/or comment from
Special:Log entries, I think.

Because:
* Personal attack or harassment with username or page title.
  -- user creation log, deletion log, and block log.
* Copyvio with username or page title.
  -- user creation log, deletion log, and block log.
* (Accidently) copyvio in deletion log comment (autofill content).
  -- deletion log.

--
[[User:Tietew]] <tietew at tietew.net>
Wiki: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Tietew
PGP/GPG: 26CB 71BB B595 09C4 0153  81C4 773C 963A D51B 8CAA


list: wikien-l

from_name: Peter Mackay

subject: [WikiEN-l] A total loss of perspective

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Sam Korn

> Sorry in case my sarcasm was a little too dark (not the first
> time) -- I'm saying that the CIA are incompetant, and always
> have been!

We'd best stop using their world factbook as a source.

Pete, referring all to http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/CIA


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia on iPod (Encyclopodia) available now

body:
On 2/28/06, Robert Bamler <Robert.Bamler.epodia at gmx.de> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> > This is great. Would you please add a copyright notice about Wikipedia
> > to the copyright notice on your page? E.g.
>
> The screenshots of on the website are citations of the Wikipedia-article and
> therefore don't need a full copyright notice. However -- as I suspect you
> can't sleep at night while knowing that a handful of words are not decorated
> with a proper copyright notice that is about three times as long as the words
> themselves -- I can add the copyright notice ;-)
>
> I hope you feel better now, ;-)

How about the content on the IPOD. :)


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
True, but there are many types of openness -- backchannels are fine so
long as they are not appealed to as the basis of any particular
decision. Any logic worked out in a backchannel should be publicly
re-posted and open for discussion in some sort of santized form. One
can also alert to the presence of backchannel discussions (i.e. "Jimbo
and were having a discussion the other day...") without actually
making everyone privvy to them.

Transparency and lack of privacy are not the same thing, is all I am saying.

FF

On 2/28/06, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>  "Leif Knutsen" wrote
>
> > * Admins should strive for transparency in their workings. Backchannel
> > communications should be an exception limited to very specific problems.
>
> That at least is not really practical.  There is constant need to share
> information, that should not be posted on the Wikipedia sites.  (Think about
> it - so we really want discussions of users by admins, including necessary
> detective work, on the site?).
>
> Charles
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Snowspinner

subject: [WikiEN-l] Appeal for community support

body:
On Feb 28, 2006, at 1:40 PM, VeryVerily wrote:
>
> Indeed, I have been very, very patient with all of you.  Many users
> would be screaming in your ear right now, and not without cause.  I
> was mistreated badly once, condemned and banned without due cause.
> You might do me the courtesy of cutting me some slack now on account
> of this.
>

I was going to wait for the case to actually wrap up to comment,
since I clerked it, but this is frankly beyond the pale, and since
the case is going to go to closed any time now, I'll comment.

I went into the evidence page expecting the request to overturn the
ruling to be cut and dry. It was a long time ago, I hadn't heard
anything of you in months, I figured you must be being sensible and
that it would be an easy matter of summing up your contributions.

I was FLOORED to see that your sole grounds of appeal was that year-
old evidence and decisions were a great travesty, and wrote a summary
that was an unsubtle hint that providing some of the evidence that
the arbcom was asking for would be a good idea. I left a note on your
talk page to that effect. You basically told me to go fuck myself,
though to your credit you were somewhat more civil than that.

Here's the problem - regardless of the previous case, you were, when
you edited Wikipedia, one of the most committed revert warriors in
existence. You and 172 still have an all-time record for the size of
a revert war. And how were you sanctioned for your 40RR violation?
You weren't. You avoided any sanction for being one of the worst of
the worst in terms of edit warring until the case you're appealing.
And the arbcom, not being stupid, is well aware of that.

So basically you're splitting year-old hairs and ignoring the fact
that if that case wasn't the one that brought you down, another case
would have, because there were easily a dozen that could have been made.

And yet all you had to do - ALL you had to do - was present some
evidence that you were sorry, that you'd mellowed out in the last
year, that you could work with others. The arbcom told you that after
the first case, I told you that during your appeal, and the arbcom is
telling you that again right now. And instead you presented yourself
as the same old vicious bulldog ready to attack anything and anybody
that stood in his way. You bungled the evidence presentation in this
case in an epic manner, and turned sympathetic people against you in
doing it.

-Phil


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Appeal for community support

body:
On 2/28/06, VeryVerily <veryverily at gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't think anyone is seriously suggesting this.  All noted cases
> follow a pretty obvious theme, e.g., me preventing an attempt to deny
> the almost inconceivable scale of murder and death created by a
> communist regime.  Again, if this were a Nazi denying the Holocaust I
> had fought, I'd be being feted as a hero on the mailing list right
> now, and everyone would look the other way if any "rules" were broken.

I don't think anyone engaged in an edit war is ever feted as a hero.
Also, I don't believe anyone is suggesting you are not acting in good
faith. It just sounds like your way of going about your business is
possibly a little confrontational...

> I think I've addressed this point several times.  (a) The arbitrators
> still refuse to specify what *isn't* grounds for a block.  (b) I'd be
> a second-class editor, and everyone I tried to work with would know
> it.  (c) I didn't leave for a year then come back with this appeal so
> that nothing would change, and there remains no justification for it.

People who don't revert others' changes without discussing them on the
talk pages are second-class editors? I wish we could banish first
class.

> Actually, though I did much copyediting in my day, I honestly don't
> care that much.  It's misinformation that bothers me much more.
> Indeed, misspellings have an upside, as they remind the casual reader
> that those articles are amateurish and not credible, so when they read
> on Wikipedia that Pol Pot was a kindly old man cruelly smeared by the
> corporate media, they won't take it too seriously.

At the end of the day, anyone with a particular agenda they're trying
to push (whether valid or not), has to tread carefully. If there are
people bent on denying that particular agenda, then doubly so. Being
right isn't all that matters, after all. What else needs to be said?

Steve


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
Defenses of backchannel discussions seem to me to always be rather
weak, especially considering the gross potential for abuse and the
lessons of history.

Adminship shouldn't be a big deal. There should be more people with
admin rights.


from_name: charles matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
Slim Virgin wrote

> WP:V is supported by WP:NOR, a longstanding, established policy. The
> only way to show you're not doing OR is to produce a reliable source.
> If you can't produce one, your edit may be removed, because OR is
> never allowed.

Yes, but this doesn't override some other things, like trying to get
consensus.

> If we ever get into a situation where lots of editors are using NOR
> and V as an excuse to run around removing unsourced edits, where the
> material has been published elsewhere and isn't controversial, but
> those wanting to retain it are mysteriously unable to cite a source,
> then we can revisit the issue. But currently, that isn't happening
> (and how could it?) so it looks as though you're trying to create a
> problem where none exists.

Well, I hope people really are behaving well, all over the site.  I don't
see how anyone can be that confident.

It is like it has been said: the slope of allowing the most fiercely
contested articles set the policy is extremely slippery.  Cutting before
querying on Talk 'and do you have a source for that?' is still bad practice
(still cuts across 'assume good faith', for example).

Charles


subject: [WikiEN-l] Appeal for community support

body:
On 2/28/06, VeryVerily <veryverily at gmail.com> wrote:

> Don't be so sure.  I've been amazed by what people are willing to
> fight over around here.  The most seemingly innocuous edit may be
> deemed provocative by someone.  I'm reminded of [[User:Ark30inf]] and
> Arkansas, or that [[DNA]] mess, and a few experiences of my own.

Yes, some people do fight over silly things. But most people don't.

> With conflicting, vague, and possible out-of-my-control requirements -
> no "interpersonal disputes", no "causing conflict", etc. - copyediting
> may be all that's safe.

That's a pretty pessimistic view of life. I avoid conflicts on
Wikipedia, and yet I've tackled some pretty contentious tasks, like
rewording most policy documents, deleting some policies, and edited on
a couple of controversial articles. Sometimes, you have to accept that
to avoid a dispute, you just have to let someone else have their way
for a while. Or wait two weeks and try again :)

> Or not even that.  Last time I was being stalked, my simple attempt to
> fix the capitalization in an article "provoked" an edit war, as the
> user was simply reverting all my edits (my restoring of such edits was
> then offered by the AC as proof of my bad behavior).

What do you want us to say? Edit wars are bad. If someone acts like a
[[WP:DICK]], then get help - don't risk being mistaken for one.

Steve


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
--- Robert Bamler <Robert.Bamler.epodia at gmx.de> wrote:
> It does have a copyright notice which includes a link to the complete text of
> the GFDL. It also includes a list of all authors.

A link?? You need the full text of the GFDL on the iPod. Also - I sent you an offlist question
about the use of the Wikipedia trademark and logo. Again - did you get permission to do that?

-- mav

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


from_name: Philip Welch

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: EN:WP: One Meeeeellion Articles... and accounts

body:
>> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
>> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of SJ
>
>> for some definition of "article", we're approaching 1E6 .
>> And we seem to have broken 1E6 user accounts today.
>
> "Broken" is such a negative word. Far better to say we've hit a
> million
> users.

One million users: we've broken them and hit them, but they still
come back!

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] "Trivia" sections in articles

body:
On 2/28/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> A little more seriously, I mean that our *goal*, I think, should be to
> have everyone edit and read, whereas our expectations are that a much
> smaller percentage are much more active.

Is that even our goal? My point was just that our readership is much
greater than just the wikipedia community. I can't remember why I was
making that point, but it was surely very pertinent...

Steve


from_name: SJ

subject: [Wikipedia-l] EN:WP: One Meeeeellion Articles

body:
We could at least link to an FAQ about the counting method, and what it means.
It's certainly not meaning*less*, but does allow for confusion.

On a tangent, while naming a "millionth" article might not be terribly
meaningful, having some regular WP zeitgeist -- every hundredth edit,
every tenth article created and deleted (by namespace)  -- could be
quite useful.

Also, today may be the last day to enter the 2-million article pool.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pools

SJ

On 2/28/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/27/06, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Dear all,
> >
> > The English Wikipedia is approaching its millionth article this week.
> > A tidy milestone.
> > We are working on a press release for the event:
> >   http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/PR/1M-en
> >
> > If you are interested in helping identify the millionth article,
> > please leave a note on the talk page.
>
> Wouldn't it be nice if our press release talks about how meaningless
> this statistic is, and notes, for example, how the patent office
> recently cheated in its identification of the 7 millionth patent?
>
> Or we could just keep on encouraging innumeracy to get the cute little CNN spot.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


body:
for some definition of "article", we're approaching 1E6 .
And we seem to have broken 1E6 user accounts today.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com>
Date: Feb 28, 2006 4:29 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] EN:WP: One Meeeeellion Articles
To: wikipedia-l at wikimedia.org

We could at least link to an FAQ about the counting method, and what it means.
It's certainly not meaning*less*, but does allow for confusion.

On a tangent, while naming a "millionth" article might not be terribly
meaningful, having some regular WP zeitgeist -- every hundredth edit,
every tenth article created and deleted (by namespace)  -- could be
quite useful.

Also, today may be the last day to enter the 2-million article pool.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pools

SJ

On 2/28/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/27/06, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Dear all,
> >
> > The English Wikipedia is approaching its millionth article this week.
> > A tidy milestone.
> > We are working on a press release for the event:
> >   http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/PR/1M-en
> >
> > If you are interested in helping identify the millionth article,
> > please leave a note on the talk page.
>
> Wouldn't it be nice if our press release talks about how meaningless
> this statistic is, and notes, for example, how the patent office
> recently cheated in its identification of the 7 millionth patent?
>
> Or we could just keep on encouraging innumeracy to get the cute little CNN spot.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

--
++SJ


body:
--- Robert Bamler <Robert.Bamler.epodia at gmx.de> wrote:
> > A link?? You need the full text of the GFDL on the iPod. Also - I sent you
> > an offlist question about the use of the Wikipedia trademark and logo.
> > Again - did you get permission to do that?
>
> 1. From your first sentence I really get the impression that you only want to
> annoy me (you have to give in that your remark is really silly since the iPod
> is an offline device)

My intent is not to annoy you, but to clarify some legal issues. You said link. Given widespread
improper usage, that could easily be interpreted as stating the network location. For example,
just writing http://gnu.org/fdl.htm - the link need not be active.

> 2. I got your offlist question and I already sent a reply several hours ago.

You only said that you removed the image from the website. Is the image also on the iPod database
you provide? I don?t have an iPod so can?t check. But the much, much larger issue is trademark
related. IANAL, but the way you have used the trademarked term ?Wikipedia? seems to me to require
some sort of permission from the trademark holder (the Wikimedia Foundation).

Asking if such permission had been sought and given is a perfectly legitimate thing to do.

> 3. Have you had a look at the website again? Or don't you have the time for
> that because you're so busy looking for silly assaults against me?
Please don?t feel assaulted since that is not my intent. I simply want to make sure that your
great use of Wikipedia content does not jeopardize Wikimedia-held trademarks. Trademarks *must* be
proactively protected or they could be lost.
-- mav

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


body:
--- Tim 'avatar' Bartel <wikipedia at computerkultur.org> wrote:
> Daniel Mayer schrieb am 01.03.2006 00:11:
> > --- Robert Bamler <Robert.Bamler.epodia at gmx.de> wrote:
> >>It does have a copyright notice which includes a link to the complete text of
> >>the GFDL. It also includes a list of all authors.
> >
> > A link?? You need the full text of the GFDL on the iPod. Also - I sent you an offlist question
> > about the use of the Wikipedia trademark and logo. Again - did you get permission to do that?
>
> Because the iPod is an offline device, it's highly likely that the link
> points to a local GFDL texftile.

I assumed that is the case as well but needed confirmation from somebody who has access to the
software on an iPod. Since I don't have an iPod, I can't test my assumption.

-- mav

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


body:
--- Robert Bamler <Robert.Bamler.epodia at gmx.de> wrote:
> > A link?? You need the full text of the GFDL on the iPod. Also - I sent you
> > an offlist question about the use of the Wikipedia trademark and logo.
> > Again - did you get permission to do that?
>
> 1. From your first sentence I really get the impression that you only want to
> annoy me (you have to give in that your remark is really silly since the iPod
> is an offline device)

My intent is not to annoy you, but to clarify some legal issues. You said link. Given widespread
improper usage, that could easily be interpreted as stating the network location. For example,
just writing http://gnu.org/fdl.htm - the link need not be active.

> 2. I got your offlist question and I already sent a reply several hours ago.

You only said that you removed the image from the website. Is the image also on the iPod database
you provide? I don?t have an iPod so can?t check. But the much, much larger issue is trademark
related. IANAL, but the way you have used the trademarked term ?Wikipedia? seems to me to require
some sort of permission from the trademark holder (the Wikimedia Foundation).

Asking if such permission had been sought and given is a perfectly legitimate thing to do.

> 3. Have you had a look at the website again? Or don't you have the time for
> that because you're so busy looking for silly assaults against me?

Please don't feel assaulted since that is not my intent. I simply want to make sure that your
great use of Wikipedia content does not jeopardize Wikimedia-held trademarks. Trademarks *must* be
proactively protected or they could be lost.

-- mav

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


from_name: Leif Knutsen

subject: [WikiEN-l] admin problem

body:
>That kind of corrosive supiciousness is the problem.  For the most
>part our administrators, those who are involved in backchannel
>operations, are the best and the most trustworthy we have.

I suspect that people are far more suspicious than is warranted by what
actually goes on, but I think we can agree that suspicion is distracting and
damaging. If admins made it an explicit practice that they would communicate
privately only about certain, clearly defined issues; it might reduce some
fo the mystery (though I'm sure some suspicion and paranoia would always
persist).

I am curious, however, what is the measure of the "best and the most
trustworthy" admins. My observation is that being elected to an admin role
depends on not having too many detractors; and being deadmined is a result
of truly egregious offenses. The corollary to that is that an editor who
wants to be an admin must avoid contention in order to be elected; but can
let loose once he/she is in. I'm not saying that it's common, but it bothers
me to see how a lot of well-meaning editors can't bombarded when they ask to
become admins by people they've had content disputes with; and then see that
established admins more or less abandon the caution that got them their role
to begin with.

Leif


from_name: Death Phoenix

body:
Rats, it's too late to create [[User:Millionth account on wheels]]

On 2/28/06, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> for some definition of "article", we're approaching 1E6 .
> And we seem to have broken 1E6 user accounts today.
>


body:
Hi Robert, this is great news.  I would love to have Chinese (either
simplified or traditional) and French, as well.   How often is the
content updated?  What kind of scripts are you using to produce the
result?

On 2/28/06, Robert Bamler <Robert.Bamler at gmx.de> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm not sure whether this is the right place to post announcements. Please
> don't blame me if it isn't.
>
> I just wanted to say that version 0.9 of "Wikipedia on iPod" (Encyclopodia) is
> now available for download at:
>
>     http://encyclopodia.sourceforge.net
>
> Encyclopodia comes with a setup wizard for Windows. Installation from Linux
> and Mac is also possible, but it's still a bit tricky as there isn't any easy
> to use setup wizard for Linux and Mac yet.
>
> Currently, the English, German and Italian Wikipedia can be loaded on your
> iPod. If you're interested in another language, please send me an e-mail.
>
> Have fun,
> Robert Bamler
>
> Disclaimer: Use this software at your own risk. It might damage your iPod,
> void your warranty or blow up your golden hamster.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

--
++SJ


list: commons-l

from_name: Jorge S�nchez Seijo

body:
Thanks Alphax.

Is it possible to statically assign these skins to the pages instead of
doing it by means of links? I'm trying to use different watermarks for
different pages.

>From: "Alphax (Wikipedia email)" <alphasigmax at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: Wikimedia Commons Discussion List <commons-l at wikimedia.org>
>To: Wikimedia Commons Discussion List <commons-l at wikimedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [Commons-l] Different skins for pages within the same Wiki
>Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2006 23:10:52 +1030
>
>Jorge S?nchez Seijo wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > Is there a way to use different skins for pages within the same Wiki?
> >
>
>Take a "title=" URL (eg.
>http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page) and append
>"&useskin=(name of skin)", eg:
>
>http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&useskin=cologneblue
>http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&useskin=monobook
>http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&useskin=simple
>http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&useskin=amethyst
>http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&useskin=chick
>http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&useskin=nostalgia
>http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&useskin=myskin
>
>HTH,
>--
>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
>

><< signature.asc >>

>_______________________________________________
>Commons-l mailing list
>Commons-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
On 2/28/06, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
> Well, I hope people really are behaving well, all over the site.  I don't
> see how anyone can be that confident.
>
> It is like it has been said: the slope of allowing the most fiercely
> contested articles set the policy is extremely slippery.  Cutting before
> querying on Talk 'and do you have a source for that?' is still bad practice
> (still cuts across 'assume good faith', for example).
>

It's really bad.  Look at what has been done to our websites
guidelines *since* the webcomics case:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ANotability_%28websites%29&diff=40663958&oldid=25445902

Firstly, notice the false claim that a mere *guideline* is applied by
*most* Wikipedia editors, and then look at what has been rejected:

Having been picked up by a major webcomics publisher. These include:
- 	#*[[Keenspot]]
- 	#*[[Modern Tales]] and its sister sites: [[Serializer]], [[Graphic
Smash]], and [[Girlamatic]]
- 	#*[[Blank Label Comics]]
- 	#*[[Dayfree Press]]
- 	#*[[Dumbrella]]
- 	#Having won a significant award, such as:
- 	#* [[Eisner Award]]
- 	#* [[Ignatz Award]]
- 	#* [[Webby Award]]
- 	#* [[Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards]]

In short, *all* reference to actual, significant web publishing has
been rejected as a webiste notability guidelines.


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>On 2/28/06, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On 2/28/06, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Slim Virgin wrote
>>>
>>>
>>>>WP:V is supported by WP:NOR, a longstanding, established policy. The
>>>>only way to show you're not doing OR is to produce a reliable source.
>>>>If you can't produce one, your edit may be removed, because OR is
>>>>never allowed.
>>>>
>>>Yes, but this doesn't override some other things, like trying to get
>>>consensus.
>>>
>>The editors on a page are not allowed to reach a consensus to include
>>original research, just as they're not allowed to decide to ditch
>>NPOV. NOR and NPOV do override consensus.
>>
>
>You're a bit of a hardliner. Any form of analysis or recombination of
>ideas, any reformulation of content is original research to some
>degree. If there were no original research allowed at all, then the
>work on Wikipedia would not be copyrightable, because copyright
>requires some kind of creativity.
>
Let's not mix up "original content" with "original research". Listing
statements A, B, and C in the order B, A, C because I think it's more
readable or a better explanation that way is original composition, but
there are still only three statements, so there is no research involved,
original or otherwise. Verifiability and NOR can't even come into play
until I go to add a new statement D.

I think where people get (sometimes justifiably) paranoid is that
the writing does have to be careful not to introduce new statements
inadvertantly. For instance, "B, A, and therefore C" is not just
a rhetorical improvement on "B, A, and C". It's an interesting
exercise, for instance, to update the carefully-chosen words of an
old 1911EB entry without changing the original author's meaning.

Stan


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
 "Leif Knutsen" wrote

> * Admins should strive for transparency in their workings. Backchannel
> communications should be an exception limited to very specific problems.

That at least is not really practical.  There is constant need to share
information, that should not be posted on the Wikipedia sites.  (Think about
it - so we really want discussions of users by admins, including necessary
detective work, on the site?).

Charles


from_name: Ilya N.

body:
Aside from the GFDL notices, I'd like to see a screenshot of how this would
look on the larger color screen of the video iPod (which I am getting this
week, so I guess I could test it out if I ever feel like it)

And I wonder how much space this takes up

On 2/28/06, Tim 'avatar' Bartel <wikipedia at computerkultur.org> wrote:
>
> Hi Wikipedians,
>
> Daniel Mayer schrieb am 01.03.2006 00:11:
> > --- Robert Bamler <Robert.Bamler.epodia at gmx.de> wrote:
> >>It does have a copyright notice which includes a link to the complete
> text of
> >>the GFDL. It also includes a list of all authors.
> >
> > A link?? You need the full text of the GFDL on the iPod. Also - I sent
> you an offlist question
> > about the use of the Wikipedia trademark and logo. Again - did you get
> permission to do that?
>
> Because the iPod is an offline device, it's highly likely that the link
> points to a local GFDL texftile.
>
> Bye, avatar.
>
> --
> But we made our own fun, mostly. I recall a time, many years later, when
> American children seemed unable to amuse themselves without a fortune in
> electrical and electronic equipment.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
>
>

--
~Ilya N.
http://w3stuff.com/ilya/ (My website; DarkLordFoxx Media)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ilyanep (on Wikipedia)
http://www.wheresgeorge.com - Track your money's travels.


from_name: VeryVerily

subject: [WikiEN-l] Appeal for community support

body:
On 2/28/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> As ye olde former Arbitration Committee member, I think
>
> 1) VeryVerily is something of a dick (or, more specifically, he's
> rather incapable of ignoring antagonistic behavior, and quick to get
> antagonized).

It may be true I get antagonized more easily than I should, but I
don't think this earns me the d-word.  Maybe you have an expanded
definition.

> 2) The Arbitration Committee is being way too punitive and antagonistic.
> 3) After staying away for a year, he shouldn't have any restrictions
> on his edit behavior outside of those on the general community.
>
> In other words, we should assume good faith and not engage in probation.

No argument with any of this, of course.

> Obviously, lots of people are going to be watching him as if he were
> wearing the scarlet letter no matter what, and they'll probably find
> something to jump on eventually, since we all make mistakes/do things
> that upset another editor (e.g. Raul reverting a perfectly normal edit

A point worth underscoring.  Even if I were untethered, I'd fully
expect to get the hawkeye and be very vulnerable to being dragged
before the committee again by anyone with a beef.

And of course the hawkeye problem is doubled with this restriction, as
a menu of pretexts is open.  "I see you removed a deleted category;
someone else once added that, so it's a revert; 24-hour block."  That
is the point the arbs refuse to comment on.  In the absence of
condemnation of past abuses of the ruling, airy assertions about how
"reason" will be applied in the future aren't very reassuring.

VV


from_name: Robert Bamler

body:
Hello,

> This is great. Would you please add a copyright notice about Wikipedia
> to the copyright notice on your page? E.g.

The screenshots of on the website are citations of the Wikipedia-article and
therefore don't need a full copyright notice. However -- as I suspect you
can't sleep at night while knowing that a handful of words are not decorated
with a proper copyright notice that is about three times as long as the words
themselves -- I can add the copyright notice ;-)

I hope you feel better now, ;-)
Robert


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
On 2/28/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> >
> To an extent they are right for the wrong reasons.  Would the lecturers
> have told her not to use Britannica?  What students should learn right
> away in a short course at the beginning of a university career is how to
> evaluate resources.  Better still such a course should reiinforce things
> that are better learned much earlier.  How much she can push the
> boundary may depend on her personality, and how open-minded the
> lecturers are.

I think I would have been shot if I had ever referred to Britannica.
I had a whole university library available to me, and no excuse to
skimp.


from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [WikiEN-l] Appeal for community support

body:
On 2/28/06, VeryVerily <veryverily at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > I don't understand this.  Why is an edit made in March 2006 easier to
> > > evaulate than one made in December 2004?  And if my good intentions aren't
> > > obvious to you after 1 1/2 years of intense editing, I don't see what magic
> > > you expect in the coming months.
> >
> > Context.  I don't know the history as well as I know the history of
> > current conflicts.
>
> Why not?  In both cases all you have is the presented edit histories
> in front of you.

I happen to look at matters through my first hand appreciation of
them.  It is clearly impossible to do this here.

> > I don't live in the past.
>
> But your job is to judge it.

No.  My job is to decide what is in Wikipedia's best interests.

> > Yes.  We are giving you the chance to show that the restrictions *are*
> > (present tense, not past tense) unnecessary.
>
> If the past is irrelevant, why I am I assumed guilty until proven
> innocent?  New users are not put through this meat grinder, so why me?

To be fair, you have been found "guilty", whether that was right or
wrong.  We're looking at the future.

> > > But I suppose it's naive of me to think you would allow yourself to be
> > > persuaded to change your vote.
> >
> > You can persuade me by your actions.
>
> If you want to change your vote, you'd better hurry.  Not much time
> for my actions.

I believe we said four months.

--
Sam


from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
On 2/28/06, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> Slim Virgin wrote
>
> > WP:V is supported by WP:NOR, a longstanding, established policy. The
> > only way to show you're not doing OR is to produce a reliable source.
> > If you can't produce one, your edit may be removed, because OR is
> > never allowed.
>
> Yes, but this doesn't override some other things, like trying to get
> consensus.

The editors on a page are not allowed to reach a consensus to include
original research, just as they're not allowed to decide to ditch
NPOV. NOR and NPOV do override consensus.
>
> It is like it has been said: the slope of allowing the most fiercely
> contested articles set the policy is extremely slippery.  Cutting before
> querying on Talk 'and do you have a source for that?' is still bad practice
> (still cuts across 'assume good faith', for example).
>
But where is this happening? Please come up with examples if you feel
it's a cause for concern.

Sarah


from_name: Jeffrey M. Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] A request on my Talk page

body:
On Tuesday 28 February 2006 16:31, Justin Cormack wrote:
> I think there is a template for images designed to notify of non-
> visible uses
> (its not just templates - also audio is normally linked in such a way).
>
> Cant remember what though.

It's {{notorphan|pagename}} where 'pagename' is the article (or template)
where the image is used.

--
[[User:Jeffrey Smith]] <wikipedian at jeffsmith.us>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Ben Lowe wrote:
> I will be writing a Tony-award-winning musical about Brian Peppers within
> the next year entitled "0.5 + 0.5 = My Heart: The Brian Peppers Story".  I
> will then petition Jimbo to unblock the page.
>
> That, my friends, is *bold*.
>
>
No, it's disruption of Broadway in order to make a point. ;)

grm_wnr


list: foundation-l

from_name: Michael R. Irwin

subject: [Foundation-l] Mailing list for Wikiversity project.

body:
Hello,

Can somebody knowledgeable regarding how to get a project mailing list
authorized and setup please provide a link to the procedure and mailing
address for the person to be contacted?

Wikiversity has been experiencing slow growth and I think much of it is
because interested people inexperienced with the wikimedia interface
cannot find applicable discussions or material.  I think a mailing list
might serve as an extremely valuable community formation and
coordination tool until we get some very active courses established to
act as epicenters for newcomer activity.

Thanks,

Michael Irwin,
aka lazyquasar or mirwin


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] A request on my Talk page


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] Newest admin abuse on Wikipedia: Voter intimidation

body:
G'day Phil,

> On Feb 23, 2006, at 6:46 PM, Mark Gallagher wrote:
>> The other day you were speechless with rage; now you're unable to
>> enunciate your true level of disgust.  I think us rogue admins  ought to
>> take up a collection to buy you a thesaurus and dictionary; it may  help
>> you on such difficult issues as how to express yourself in print.
>
> This has to be the single most civil and productive message I have  ever
> read on any listserv. Mark, I must applaud you for being the  bigger man
> and addressing these concerns calmly instead of lashing  out at the person.

You're right: I *was* out of line.  The mailing list (and IRC) tend to
be a bit less civil than Wikipedia, but even so, they ought to be more
civil than cheap shots like the one I've left quoted above.  Someone
whose opinion I value highly told me I must "still be in USENET mode",
or words to that effect, and s/he's probably right ... USENET is often a
battleground, but Wikipedia ought never to be, even on this list.

So, Crotalus: I am sorry.  It was a cheap shot, uncalled for, incivil,
and unfair.  I *would* like you to stop the "speechless" bizzo, but I
could've put it a lot better.

Now, lest anyone think I really *am* being the better man, I thought I'd
clarify a few things.  First up, I *did* answer Crotalus' points, with
rather rougher language than ought to have been used with ladies
present, but they *were* answered.  Secondly, Crotalus' post amounts to
an accusation that Kelly Martin, for whom I have a lot of respect (even
if she *does* need a holiday), was essentially attempting to rig an RfA
by blocking Grue.

So, and I'm sorry if this loses all the cred I'd built up in the first
two paragraphs, I should not have said what I did, and I owe Crotalus an
apology for that ... but I am not ashamed one whit of telling him that
he was being a silly sausage, and by gum, I'd do it again.  The post
that started this thread was outrageous.

--
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: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 268.1.1/270 - Release Date: 27/02/2006


body:
Indeed

On 2/28/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
>
> >> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> >> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of SJ
> >
> >> for some definition of "article", we're approaching 1E6 .
> >> And we seem to have broken 1E6 user accounts today.
> >
> > "Broken" is such a negative word. Far better to say we've hit a
> > million
> > users.
>
> One million users: we've broken them and hit them, but they still
> come back!
>
> --
> Philip L. Welch
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
~Ilya N.
http://w3stuff.com/ilya/ (My website; DarkLordFoxx Media)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ilyanep (on Wikipedia)
http://www.wheresgeorge.com - Track your money's travels.


from_name: The Cunctator

body:
On 2/28/06, Robert Bamler <Robert.Bamler.epodia at gmx.de> wrote:
> Hello Daniel,
>
> > A link?? You need the full text of the GFDL on the iPod. Also - I sent you
> > an offlist question about the use of the Wikipedia trademark and logo.
> > Again - did you get permission to do that?
>
> 1. From your first sentence I really get the impression that you only want to
> annoy me (you have to give in that your remark is really silly since the iPod
> is an offline device)
>
> 2. I got your offlist question and I already sent a reply several hours ago.
>
> 3. Have you had a look at the website again? Or don't you have the time for
> that because you're so busy looking for silly assaults against me?
>
Hey -- again, i think this is very cool, not trying to be annoying. I
didn't mean for you to put up a copyright notice for the screenshots,
but for the ebook libraries...
http://encyclopodia.sourceforge.net/en/library.html

And you probably shouldn't be using the Wikipedia logo.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Edit/read ratio goals,
	was Re:  "Trivia" sections in articles

body:
On 2/28/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/28/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> > A little more seriously, I mean that our *goal*, I think, should be to
> > have everyone edit and read, whereas our expectations are that a much
> > smaller percentage are much more active.
>
> Is that even our goal? My point was just that our readership is much
> greater than just the wikipedia community. I can't remember why I was
> making that point, but it was surely very pertinent...

I certainly hope it's our goal. I'm not a huge fan of consumerism or
elitism, which follow from a goal of not including everyone in the
potential editorship pool.


from_name: Philip Welch

subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On Feb 28, 2006, at 7:09 PM, Tony Sidaway wrote:

> On 3/1/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I think you're stretching things a bit here about the facts in
>> relation to the TIME magazine issue:
>>
>
> No.  I have told you the complete and unvarnished truth.  Do not dare
> to accuse me of lying.  Do not dare.

Don't make Tony Sidaway angry. You wouldn't like Tony Sidaway when
he's angry...

TONY SMASH!

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 2/28/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/28/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Defenses of backchannel discussions seem to me to always be rather
> > weak, especially considering the gross potential for abuse and the
> > lessons of history.
>
> There is far too much unjustified suspicion about this. One
> administrator recently started deleting copyright infringing copies of
> Time magazine covers, an action for which he received the full
> authorization of Jimbo Wales.  He was RfC'd!  When finally he obtained
> from Jimbo permission to reproduce the email (which I also received)
> the response was to openly question his honesty, and demand that he
> prove that the email (which carried Jimbo's email address, that of the
> recipient, and my own name, and was posted openly on the wiki with
> Jimbo's permission) came from Jimbo.
>
> That kind of corrosive supiciousness is the problem.  For the most
> part our administrators, those who are involved in backchannel
> operations, are the best and the most trustworthy we have.

I'd say that the suspiciousness wasn't the problem, but the
backchannel authorization. The admin was doing something that
antagonized a lot of other editors' sensibilities, and rightly was
held to account. Deleting images is a Big Deal because it's
permanently destructive.


subject: [WikiEN-l] admin problem

body:
On 2/28/06, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> Is it really surprising that with fewer than one admin to every 1000
> articles there are some needs to make patrolling the site effective and
> practical?

One way to make patrolling the site effective and practical would be
for there to be more admins.


from_name: Servien Ilaino

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Approved requests for new languages - appeal to
	developers

body:
I can only support this request... something needs to be done, people might
just get fed up and not bother with the wiki once it's set-up. There have
been various requests to set-up the wikis so please do something.

Serv

2006/2/27, Vitaly Volkov <kneiphof at inbox.ru>:
>
> Dear developers, please have a look at
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Approved_requests_for_new_languages and
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Approved_requests_for_new_languages.
>
> There are 13 languages waiting for their wikis to be created, some of them
> for THREE MOTNS. It's no wonder that people, who would like to work for
> wikis in these langiages get frustrated and angry. I've already asked
> developers to pay attention to this sad fact in meta wiki babel, but it
> seems not to have any effect.
>
> Please, don't forget the aim of wikipedia - create encyclopedia in EVERY
> langiage!
>
> Vitaly Volkov aka Kneiphof, admin and bureaucrat of Russian wikipedia.
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
On 2/28/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> I think where people get (sometimes justifiably) paranoid is that
> the writing does have to be careful not to introduce new statements
> inadvertantly. For instance, "B, A, and therefore C" is not just
> a rhetorical improvement on "B, A, and C". It's an interesting
> exercise, for instance, to update the carefully-chosen words of an
> old 1911EB entry without changing the original author's meaning.
>
I agree with you, Stan, except for your use of the word "paranoia,"
because edits like "A, B, and therefore C," where the sources in fact
only say "A, B, C" are commonplace, and that's precisely what NOR and
V are there to guard against. Any editor can request a source for the
"therefore," and if it's not forthcoming, "therefore" is removed. It
isn't removed only where it's "controversial," as The Cunctator was
trying to add to V, and which is anyway a subjective judgment. It can
be removed, whether controversial or not, if no reliable source can be
found to support it.

What The Cunctator may be worried about is that people will use this
as an excuse to remove statements like "The sun rose on Monday. The
sun rose today. Therefore, the sun will rise tomorrow," where being
asked to track down a source would be WP:POINT. This is where
commonsense kicks in. Anyone removing obvious and undisputed facts is
engaged in a form of vandalism and we all know it when we see it. But
just because we can't produce a complete list of undisputed facts that
don't need a source doesn't mean we have to worry about making our
policies are tight as possible. Every policy contains the invisible
sentence "Use your commonsense."

In any event, I've yet to see an example of an undisputed fact for
which no reliable source could be found, or an example of an editor
going around removing undisputed facts because they lack sources.

Sarah


subject: [WikiEN-l] Appeal for community support

body:
As ye olde former Arbitration Committee member, I think

1) VeryVerily is something of a dick (or, more specifically, he's
rather incapable of ignoring antagonistic behavior, and quick to get
antagonized).
2) The Arbitration Committee is being way too punitive and antagonistic.
3) After staying away for a year, he shouldn't have any restrictions
on his edit behavior outside of those on the general community.

In other words, we should assume good faith and not engage in probation.

Obviously, lots of people are going to be watching him as if he were
wearing the scarlet letter no matter what, and they'll probably find
something to jump on eventually, since we all make mistakes/do things
that upset another editor (e.g. Raul reverting a perfectly normal edit
because it came from a friend of a troller, or any of my various
bothersome edits) and then give VV enough rope to hang himself in a
contentious arbitration hearing.

But it's just wrong for the ArbCom now to single him out.

My $.02.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Appeal for community support

body:
On 2/28/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/28/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 2/28/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Would you agree to have the arbcom remedy imposed on you?
> >
> > Avoid interpersonal dispute, not edit war, and discuss reverts before
> > making them? Sure, if you do too (and VV). One month?
> >
> > Steve
>
> Nope. I deal with copyvios. I'm not ruleing out any tactic
> (particularly when you consider I use a very broad defintion of edit
> war).

You'd just have to not deal with copyvios for a month. Couldn't you do that?


from_name: charles matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Appeal for community support

body:
"VeryVerily" wrote

> Indeed, I have been very, very patient with all of you.  Many users
> would be screaming in your ear right now, and not without cause.  I
> was mistreated badly once, condemned and banned without due cause.

Well, your approach to the case has been both original and
counter-productive.  I suppose originality has something going for it.

With any luck, the rest of this thread will indicate how mistreated you have
been. It seems to be going that way.

Charles


subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
On 2/28/06, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/28/06, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> > Slim Virgin wrote
> >
> > > WP:V is supported by WP:NOR, a longstanding, established policy. The
> > > only way to show you're not doing OR is to produce a reliable source.
> > > If you can't produce one, your edit may be removed, because OR is
> > > never allowed.
> >
> > Yes, but this doesn't override some other things, like trying to get
> > consensus.
>
> The editors on a page are not allowed to reach a consensus to include
> original research, just as they're not allowed to decide to ditch
> NPOV. NOR and NPOV do override consensus.

You're a bit of a hardliner. Any form of analysis or recombination of
ideas, any reformulation of content is original research to some
degree. If there were no original research allowed at all, then the
work on Wikipedia would not be copyrightable, because copyright
requires some kind of creativity.

The only way to truly forbid original research is to make everything
bot-created.

As someone who's been following the development of Wikipedia policy
from the beginning, the forbidding of original research is not
axiomatic to Wikipedia. The ultimate reason that original research is
not allowed is that it's death to consensus editing, which is
axiomatic to Wikipedia (note "Wiki").

And to this note, the current Verifiability policy does not say "If
you can't provide a source, your edit may be removed". It says
"Editors adding new material to an article should cite a reputable
source, or it may be removed by any editor."

There's no mention of asking for a source before removing content.

And this policy has only been in force for a month, and people are
only now becoming aware of it (e.g. I just learned about it) -- so
it's no surprised that it's not being abused yet.

Let's fix things before they become a problem.

I trust your goals, respect your perspective, and honor your opinions.
I think we can work together on this.


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] A request on my Talk page

body:
On 2/28/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> It should be perfectly reliable for pages edited since the job queue was deployed, on February 24 or
> thereabouts. I'll take any bug report related to link tables very seriously.

VERY good news, Tim!

-Matt


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Userboxen

body:
geni wrote:
> On 2/27/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On 2/27/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>"Tony Sidaway" <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote in
>>>message news:605709b90602251844m45dd7f2btbcc9107f42160fac at mail.gmail.com...
>>>
>>>>On 2/26/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
>>>>wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>Nonsense expected if any administrator can tag as divisive.
>>>>
>>>>I don't see any sense in encouraging this:
>>>>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rangers_F.C.&action=history
>>>>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Manchester_City_F.C.&action=history
>>>>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Manchester_United_F.C.&action=history
>>>
>>[...]
>>
>>>Have the particular changes to which you refer scrolled down beloew my local
>>>horizon?
>>
>>No.  The nature and quantity of the edits visible in the history are
>>simply intended to demonstrate that football is a ready source of
>>factionalism.
>
>
> Last I cheacked there had been a total of 1 war over football.
>

Really? Do we have an article on it?

--
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
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 555 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20060228/12f6f034/attachment.pgp


subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
Personally, I think it's just about right that the policy state that
information without a source may be removed.  (Perhaps it should be more
pointed -- disputed information without a source).  Didn't Jimbo say as much
in one of his responses to Seigenthaler?

k

On 2/28/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/28/06, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 2/28/06, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> > > Slim Virgin wrote
> > >
> > > > WP:V is supported by WP:NOR, a longstanding, established policy. The
> > > > only way to show you're not doing OR is to produce a reliable
> source.
> > > > If you can't produce one, your edit may be removed, because OR is
> > > > never allowed.
> > >
> > > Yes, but this doesn't override some other things, like trying to get
> > > consensus.
> >
> > The editors on a page are not allowed to reach a consensus to include
> > original research, just as they're not allowed to decide to ditch
> > NPOV. NOR and NPOV do override consensus.
>
> You're a bit of a hardliner. Any form of analysis or recombination of
> ideas, any reformulation of content is original research to some
> degree. If there were no original research allowed at all, then the
> work on Wikipedia would not be copyrightable, because copyright
> requires some kind of creativity.
>
> The only way to truly forbid original research is to make everything
> bot-created.
>
> As someone who's been following the development of Wikipedia policy
> from the beginning, the forbidding of original research is not
> axiomatic to Wikipedia. The ultimate reason that original research is
> not allowed is that it's death to consensus editing, which is
> axiomatic to Wikipedia (note "Wiki").
>
> And to this note, the current Verifiability policy does not say "If
> you can't provide a source, your edit may be removed". It says
> "Editors adding new material to an article should cite a reputable
> source, or it may be removed by any editor."
>
> There's no mention of asking for a source before removing content.
>
> And this policy has only been in force for a month, and people are
> only now becoming aware of it (e.g. I just learned about it) -- so
> it's no surprised that it's not being abused yet.
>
> Let's fix things before they become a problem.
>
> I trust your goals, respect your perspective, and honor your opinions.
> I think we can work together on this.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Userboxen

body:
geni wrote:
> On 2/27/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>
>>This userbox
>>fuss has done absolutely nothing to advance the project.
>
>
>
> It has kept large number of people away from places where they can
> fiddle with anything critical.
>
> Other than that depending on how you feel about deletion the anti
> process drive appears to have given the deletionists a solid upper
> hand.
>

Following process doesn't always give you the right result.

--
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
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 555 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20060228/bce85525/attachment.pgp


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 2/28/06, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>  "Leif Knutsen" wrote
>
> > * Admins should strive for transparency in their workings. Backchannel
> > communications should be an exception limited to very specific problems.
>
> That at least is not really practical.  There is constant need to share
> information, that should not be posted on the Wikipedia sites.  (Think about
> it - so we really want discussions of users by admins, including necessary
> detective work, on the site?).
>
> Charles

The amount is pretty limited. An awful lot of our detective work is
done onsite. I can think of maybe one case where I needed to disscuss
something without it isntantly being public.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 2/28/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> Adminship shouldn't be a big deal. There should be more people with
> admin rights.

"rights"? Shouldn't that be technical abilities?
--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
John Lee wrote:
> BJ?rn Lindqvist wrote:
>
>
>>>If people refused to AfD anything they didn't know anything about (who
>>>can really say they know anything about my local garage band?), we would
>>>be deleting a lot less crap, if less good articles. It's all a question
>>>of trading off false positives for false negatives. I have rarely seen
>>>
>>>
>>
>>It used to be that way. It was always considered better to keep a
>>crappy article than to delete a good one. The deletion policy used to
>>read "In case of doubt *don't delete*"
>>
>>
>
> AFAIK it still does. It doesn't say "In case of doubt don't nominate for
> deletion".
>
>

This would however be a sensible step to take. I saw an article the
other day about some quack medicine device which instead of AFD'ing or
{{prod}}ing, I did a quick Google search to determine that the thing
existed, then tagged with {{TotallyDisputed}} and wrote a note on the
talk page explaining /why/ I hadn't AFD'ed it. Since then it appears to
have been cleaned up a bit.

>>
>>
>>
>>>an ignorance-based debate that didn't end up getting closed as a keep,
>>>or being overturned by DRV.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>So you admit the existance of ignorance-based debates on AFD? :)
>>Sounds like a good reason to get rid of the whole thing. The ignorance
>>is time-consuming, even for those who do not wish to get involved in
>>the ignorance debates.
>>
>>
>
> Wikipedia is full of editors generally ignorant in anything other than a
> few fields. Any decision involving community input would necessarily
> involve a lot of ignorance. If you can find something that cuts out
> community input with creating excessive elitism, or permits community
> input but avoids ignorance, feel free to put forth a proposal. Until
> then, I'll presume that this is the best we can do. A wiki is about
> letting people make mistakes (whether by fucking up an edit or fucking
> up a deletion nom), in the knowledge that others will correct them later on.
>

I'm all for limiting AFD and DRV to a panel of experts. I'd rather that
we were perceived as being elitist (think of the counter-arguments we'd
have against our accuracy critics) than deleting useful content.

--
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

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 555 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20060228/de084b3a/attachment.pgp


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
Fastfission wrote:

>
>Frankly, I think I might be done trying to work on fair use policy on
>Wikipedia. Whether people think that's a good thing or a bad thing, I
>don't think anyone can say that I didn't at least try and keep every
>discussion, every rationale, and every change as open and publicly
>available and transparent as possible. My goal was to come up with an
>intelligent, legally thoughtful, and frankly workable approach to fair
>use on Wikipedia (and, long-time list readers will recall, that I
>originally started out by thinking that all fair use should be removed
>from Wikipedia; once it was clear that this was the path to go, I
>devoted my efforts to figuring out how to make our policy a sane one),
>and think some good steps towards that were accomplished. But if
>people can be so supportive of efforts to circumvent such policy,
>without so much as discussions of changing it, then apparently my
>efforts are better spent elsewhere.
>
I've certainly appreciated your efforts to work out ways to take a more
serious approach to fair use. I think it's unfortunate that some have
turned it into a jihad where the images are a problem that has to be solved
Right Now in whatever way first comes to mind. The TIME case is especially
comical in that the copyright holder has even been contacted about our
"flagrant theft of their property!", and their official response is rather
less histrionic than some of our admins on the subject - one even gets the
impression that TIME wouldn't mind much if every WP article included a
relevant cover (hey, cheapest ad space in the world :-) ).

I think Jimbo may have to take a little heat, in adopting an ambiguous
position. On the one hand, he abjures us to believe in eventualism, assume
good faith, practice wikilove, etc, then turns around and makes blanket
statements about killing all fair use images, which are then taken by
frustrated admins as license to shoot wildly in all directions. If we've
adopted a goal of limiting fair use, and really believe in our community's
ability to develop good process, then we *will* get there.

In case anyone has forgotten, image handling has improved radically; three
years ago it was atypical for an upload to have any source or copyright info
at all, and now only a couple percent of our half-million images remain
undescribed, with the forecast predicting the remainder to be fixed up
within
the next couple of months.

Three years from now, I expect that all the upset over fair use will be
something that only the oldtimers remember.

Stan


subject: [WikiEN-l] Appeal for community support

body:
On 2/28/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:

> I don't think anyone engaged in an edit war is ever feted as a hero.

Heh

> Also, I don't believe anyone is suggesting you are not acting in good
> faith. It just sounds like your way of going about your business is
> possibly a little confrontational...
>

Being confrontational under certain conditions pretty much has offical
aproval thses days.

> People who don't revert others' changes without discussing them on the
> talk pages are second-class editors? I wish we could banish first
> class.
>

Would you agree to have the arbcom remedy imposed on you?

> At the end of the day, anyone with a particular agenda they're trying
> to push (whether valid or not), has to tread carefully. If there are
> people bent on denying that particular agenda, then doubly so. Being
> right isn't all that matters, after all. What else needs to be said?
>
> Steve

When it comes to article content being right is everything.
--
geni


from_name: Ryan Delaney

subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
>
> > That kind of corrosive supiciousness is the problem.  For the most
> > part our administrators, those who are involved in backchannel
> > operations, are the best and the most trustworthy we have.

This is basically right, because the people who actually want to get stuff
done don't want to go through the trouble of haggling with process
fetishists and the 10% of people who oppose everything. Trying to convince
everyone that a particular action is right is a waste of time. No matter
what you do, there will always be someone who thinks you should have done
the opposite. Back-channels are the only way to get input from only rational
people, and cut out the trolls and so on.

On 2/28/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I'd say that the suspiciousness wasn't the problem, but the
> backchannel authorization. The admin was doing something that
> antagonized a lot of other editors' sensibilities, and rightly was
> held to account. Deleting images is a Big Deal because it's
> permanently destructive.

If deleting copyvios with an OK from Jimbo "antagonized a lot of other
editors' sensibilities", I can't be bothered to care. These people will be
offended by anything. If someone has a rational reason to object, I'll be
more inclined to say that we should talk it out.

Ryan


from_name: silaslynch at aol.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitrary Block

body:
My username, user:Please Don't Block, has been banned from editing on wikipedia either for having an inappropriate username or for "vandalism." I encourage any administrator to look into my editing history (which includes numerous excellent edits), I have vandalized no one's page. I left a comment at someone's userpage that offended another user, and therefore I was blocked. However, leaving unpleasant comments is not banned according to wikipedia policy. My username is additionally not offensive. I demand to have the block removed immediately or some explanation as to why I am blocked.

Please Don't Block


subject: [WikiEN-l] By the way...

body:
I have twice emailed the administrator who blocked me, who has not responded. His name is user:Phroziac.

Please Don't Block


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 2/28/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> "rights"? Shouldn't that be technical abilities?

Rights in terms of the software == technical abilities.

--
Sam


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] A request on my Talk page

body:
Wouldn't a note on the image page to that effect suffice?

Steve

On 2/28/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> >From my Talk page, if anyone can give me an answer:
>
> Hi. I'm working on KLF discography. To aid with formatting, I created
> two templates. The image thumbnails I am using get passed as arguments
> to the templates. I've noticed that, presumably as a result of the use
> of a template, the Image page doesn't know that the image is being
> used in an article (see e.g. Image:The KLF- Burn The Bastards.jpg).
> I'm worried that some bot will come along and say "right, they're not
> being used", and list them for deletion.
>
> If you can suggest a way round this or what might be causing it please
> leave a message on my talk page (as I've asked several people).


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 2/28/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> Defenses of backchannel discussions seem to me to always be rather
> weak, especially considering the gross potential for abuse and the
> lessons of history.

There is far too much unjustified suspicion about this. One
administrator recently started deleting copyright infringing copies of
Time magazine covers, an action for which he received the full
authorization of Jimbo Wales.  He was RfC'd!  When finally he obtained
from Jimbo permission to reproduce the email (which I also received)
the response was to openly question his honesty, and demand that he
prove that the email (which carried Jimbo's email address, that of the
recipient, and my own name, and was posted openly on the wiki with
Jimbo's permission) came from Jimbo.

That kind of corrosive supiciousness is the problem.  For the most
part our administrators, those who are involved in backchannel
operations, are the best and the most trustworthy we have.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Appeal for community support

body:
 "VeryVerily" wrote

> You never liked me anyway.  My comment about Wikipedia referencing
> itself on [[Talk:Local ring]] was sound though.

I haven't disputed the latter point since May 2004.

Charles


from_name: Iron Bishop

subject: [Wikitech-l] One installation - Many sub-directories

body:
Jim ha scritto:
> so I can control rights to even see the
> text using permissions on the directories.

MediaWiki 1.5 comes with user rights inside. You can use different
namespaces instead of folders. See:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_rights

--
Flavio "Iron Bishop" Pastore
https://fsfe.org/fellows/ironbishop/index


subject: [WikiEN-l] Appeal for community support

body:
On 2/28/06, VeryVerily <veryverily at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/28/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> > As ye olde former Arbitration Committee member, I think
> >
> > 1) VeryVerily is something of a dick (or, more specifically, he's
> > rather incapable of ignoring antagonistic behavior, and quick to get
> > antagonized).
>
> It may be true I get antagonized more easily than I should, but I
> don't think this earns me the d-word.  Maybe you have an expanded
> definition.

See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_a_dick

It's not just that you get antagonized, it's that you engage in
wheedling lawyerly arguments when you're riled up. Believe me, I'm on
your side here, but you need to just stop making your arguments over
and over. Bringing up your point once suffices. (Or it doesn't, but
repeating it won't help, either.)

Yes, it's mindblowingly frustrating to be in your position (I often
am, myself) but you still have to be the better person. The trick is
to mollifying petty autocrats is to be unpredictable in your responses
to antagonism--sometimes contesting, sometimes walking away, ideally
finding points of agreement. I find simply cataloguing attacks on me
(with anything I did to provoke it) and providing no other response to
be both satisfying and a good way to break cycles of criticism.

Look for the points of agreement.

Recognize that what most people are looking for is a sense of
contrition for driving them crazy.

Because you have driven people crazy, and you're kind of doing so now.


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 2/28/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/1/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I'd say that the suspiciousness wasn't the problem, but the
> > backchannel authorization. The admin was doing something that
> > antagonized a lot of other editors' sensibilities, and rightly was
> > held to account. Deleting images is a Big Deal because it's
> > permanently destructive.
>
> Those images were not ours to keep.  Why is this so difficult to understand?

Not difficult for me to understand, but a) never assume what's obvious
to you is obvious to others (but do trust it's explainable), b) people
aren't fully rational beings, c) people are *always* going to be upset
when their work is undone, no matter the reason, d) having a good
reason for doing something doesn't mean you don't have to provide it.

It's much like the new verifiability policy: just because something is
verifiable isn't sufficient, there needs to be a source as well.

Oh yeah, and e) copyright law as it currently stands sucks major eggs.


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
I think you're stretching things a bit here about the facts in
relation to the TIME magazine issue:

1. An admin decided to start speedying properly tagged images, as
copyvios. There are no CSD provisions for speedying copyvio images.
2. In accounting for his actions, when asked by a number of people,
the admin said that his personal interpretation of the fair use law
(and note that he pointed people to the page about the law, not our
fair use policy) was that these were copyvios and put Wikipedia at
risk. (Sound grounds and good intentions for discussing policy change,
but not throwing it to the wind.)
3. After some more people started wondering where he was getting the
authority to skip out on our copyvio procedures, he tells them to take
it up with Jimbo or the WMF. (Note that a board member of the WMF soon
said that they were indeed NOT the place to take  it up with.) He then
alludes to a secret e-mail from Jimbo where he was given authority for
deleting any TIME magazine images he wanted without question.
4. Finally, the admin produces the "backchannel" e-mail. And guess
what? It said that the images should probably be AfDed, and that if it
didn't pass AfD then *Jimbo* might speedy them himself. So it didn't
quite give the admin the authority to speedy them himself in the
slightest. Nevertheless, the admin told everyone else to eat their
words in suggesting he was acting out of policy, and claims that this
validates everything he had done.

And in the meantime lots of admins pat him on the back, say "Good job,
old sport, for ignoring the system!" and all sorts of other things
which miss more points than I dare express.

I'm involved with this, I won't claim neutrality. If the admin in
question had at least tried to go through normal channels first, at
least tried to suggest policy changes, I'd have been more sympathetic.
It makes a mockery of efforts to come up with sound policy if one
admin can decide, without consulting anyone publicly, to go on an
anti-policy crusade, flagrantly violating our deletion policy and
telling anyone who questions him to shove off, and then get
congratulatory pats on the back.

And, as I stated about a million times (and got the same curt replies
from everyone despite this), all of my truck with this has been about
the *way* it was done. If we want to decide that magazine covers from
TIME are not acceptable under a proper fair use policy at Wikipedia,
that's fine by me, I'd have helped tag and bag them. But being told to
shove off, implicitly and explicitly, because I questioned the actions
of this "bold" admin -- that's a bit much. We could have had a nice
discussion about this out in the open, and if Jimbo had wanted them
gone, he knows as well as anyone else how to get that sort of thing
accomplished. Backchannel conversation should NEVER be the primary
source of justifying an action -- it should be moved into the public
realm before it affects the public realm.

Frankly, I think I might be done trying to work on fair use policy on
Wikipedia. Whether people think that's a good thing or a bad thing, I
don't think anyone can say that I didn't at least try and keep every
discussion, every rationale, and every change as open and publicly
available and transparent as possible. My goal was to come up with an
intelligent, legally thoughtful, and frankly workable approach to fair
use on Wikipedia (and, long-time list readers will recall, that I
originally started out by thinking that all fair use should be removed
from Wikipedia; once it was clear that this was the path to go, I
devoted my efforts to figuring out how to make our policy a sane one),
and think some good steps towards that were accomplished. But if
people can be so supportive of efforts to circumvent such policy,
without so much as discussions of changing it, then apparently my
efforts are better spent elsewhere.

Vigilantism masquerading as boldness is, I think, ultimately
destructive to the goal of producing strong social networks of
dedicated and interested contributors. But I don't claim to be an
expert at this (I'm a historian, not a sociologist).

FF

On 2/28/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/28/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Defenses of backchannel discussions seem to me to always be rather
> > weak, especially considering the gross potential for abuse and the
> > lessons of history.
>
> There is far too much unjustified suspicion about this. One
> administrator recently started deleting copyright infringing copies of
> Time magazine covers, an action for which he received the full
> authorization of Jimbo Wales.  He was RfC'd!  When finally he obtained
> from Jimbo permission to reproduce the email (which I also received)
> the response was to openly question his honesty, and demand that he
> prove that the email (which carried Jimbo's email address, that of the
> recipient, and my own name, and was posted openly on the wiki with
> Jimbo's permission) came from Jimbo.
>
> That kind of corrosive supiciousness is the problem.  For the most
> part our administrators, those who are involved in backchannel
> operations, are the best and the most trustworthy we have.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 2/28/06, BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com> wrote:
> > There is far too much unjustified suspicion about this. One
> > administrator recently started deleting copyright infringing copies of
> > Time magazine covers, an action for which he received the full
> > authorization of Jimbo Wales.  He was RfC'd!  When finally he obtained
> > from Jimbo permission to reproduce the email (which I also received)
> > the response was to openly question his honesty, and demand that he
> > prove that the email (which carried Jimbo's email address, that of the
> > recipient, and my own name, and was posted openly on the wiki with
> > Jimbo's permission) came from Jimbo.
>
> Tony: Sorry guys! Queen Elizabeth gave me permission to tear down
> Buckingham Palace. Nothing you can do about it, nye ney!
> Tony: Evidence? What you mean I need evidence for? She emailed me and
> said I could.
> Tony: No I can't show it to you. She hasn't given me permission to
> show you the email yet. You trust me don't you?
> Tony: No I can't wait! Time is expensive and I have better things to
> do than argue with rules layers. I want this place cleared before
> tea-time.
>
Mr. Prosser said, "You were quite entitled to make any suggestions or
protests at the appropriate time, you know."
"Appropriate time?" hooted Arthur. "Appropriate time? The first I knew
about it was when a workman arrived at my home yesterday. I asked him
if he'd come to clean the windows and he said no, he'd come to
demolish the house. He didn't tell me straight away of course. Oh no.
First he wiped a couple of windows and charged me a fiver. Then he
told me."
"But Mr. Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning
office for the last nine months."
"Oh yes, well, as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them,
yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call
attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or
anything."
"But the plans were on display..."
"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."
"That's the display department."
"With a flashlight."
"Ah, well, the lights had probably gone."
"So had the stairs."
"But look, you found the notice, didn't you?"
"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display on the bottom of a
locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the
door saying 'Beware of the Leopard.'"


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On Feb 28, 2006, at 9:12 PM, Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:

> Or worse, a dev will run nukeUser.php and all records that you ever
> existed will be wiped from the database...

Wouldn't that be a gross violation of GFDL?

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


from_name: Jesse W

subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
I thank you for this statement of what happened.  Barring substantive
rebuttals of the facts you lay out, I find that I agree with you that,
while the goal was good, this was not rightly done.  I apologize for
having supported it without realizing this.  I still think ta bu was
acting in good faith, and doing what he felt was the best and only
course, but I now see that this was not correct; an annoucment - "I
believe that Wikipedia's use of TIME covers is invalid fair use for the
following reasons.", a week or so of time for comments, discussion
(either via an IfD, or simply as a freeform discussion), asking Jimbo
on eis talk page, rather than by email, *then* deleting the images,
would have been the right path to take.

Jesse Weinstein

On Feb 28, 2006, at 6:45 PM, Fastfission wrote:
> 1. An admin decided to start speedying properly tagged images, as
> copyvios. There are no CSD provisions for speedying copyvio images.
> 2. In accounting for his actions, when asked by a number of people,
> the admin said that his personal interpretation of the fair use law
> (and note that he pointed people to the page about the law, not our
> fair use policy) was that these were copyvios and put Wikipedia at
> risk. (Sound grounds and good intentions for discussing policy change,
> but not throwing it to the wind.)
> 3. After some more people started wondering where he was getting the
> authority to skip out on our copyvio procedures, he tells them to take
> it up with Jimbo or the WMF. (Note that a board member of the WMF soon
> said that they were indeed NOT the place to take  it up with.) He then
> alludes to a secret e-mail from Jimbo where he was given authority for
> deleting any TIME magazine images he wanted without question.
> 4. Finally, the admin produces the "backchannel" e-mail. And guess
> what? It said that the images should probably be AfDed, and that if it
> didn't pass AfD then *Jimbo* might speedy them himself. So it didn't
> quite give the admin the authority to speedy them himself in the
> slightest. Nevertheless, the admin told everyone else to eat their
> words in suggesting he was acting out of policy, and claims that this
> validates everything he had done.


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
My apologies, but I suggested only that you had "stretched" things a
bit, though I did not, and do not, intend to posit dishonesty or
maliciousness as the motivation. I'm a firm believer that one sees
what they want to see at times, and you saw this case as "decisive
action" where I think it should be better described as "hasty and in
definite violation of policy and spirit." Perhaps the most articulate
wording would have been, "I fear your perception has stretched things
a bit," but anyway I think we do not need to discuss the pedantic
points of it, since I think it should be clear by now what I meant.
I've accused nobody of lying, implicitly or explicitly.

And I think I've well described my take on things. And remember that
it was you -- and not I -- who brought it up here as an example in
relation to "backchannel" dealings.

FF

On 2/28/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/1/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I think you're stretching things a bit here about the facts in
> > relation to the TIME magazine issue:
> >
>
> No.  I have told you the complete and unvarnished truth.  Do not dare
> to accuse me of lying.  Do not dare.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 2/28/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/1/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I think you're stretching things a bit here about the facts in
> > relation to the TIME magazine issue:
> >
>
> No.  I have told you the complete and unvarnished truth.  Do not dare
> to accuse me of lying.  Do not dare.

The "complete and unvarnished truth"? Whew. Ever see [[Rashomon]]?

What in Fastfission's retelling do you consider inaccurate?

Let's not make this personal, eh?


from_name: jayjg

subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
On 2/28/06, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/28/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> > I think where people get (sometimes justifiably) paranoid is that
> > the writing does have to be careful not to introduce new statements
> > inadvertantly. For instance, "B, A, and therefore C" is not just
> > a rhetorical improvement on "B, A, and C". It's an interesting
> > exercise, for instance, to update the carefully-chosen words of an
> > old 1911EB entry without changing the original author's meaning.
> >
> I agree with you, Stan, except for your use of the word "paranoia,"
> because edits like "A, B, and therefore C," where the sources in fact
> only say "A, B, C" are commonplace, and that's precisely what NOR and
> V are there to guard against. Any editor can request a source for the
> "therefore," and if it's not forthcoming, "therefore" is removed. It
> isn't removed only where it's "controversial," as The Cunctator was
> trying to add to V, and which is anyway a subjective judgment. It can
> be removed, whether controversial or not, if no reliable source can be
> found to support it.
>
> What The Cunctator may be worried about is that people will use this
> as an excuse to remove statements like "The sun rose on Monday. The
> sun rose today. Therefore, the sun will rise tomorrow," where being
> asked to track down a source would be WP:POINT. This is where
> commonsense kicks in. Anyone removing obvious and undisputed facts is
> engaged in a form of vandalism and we all know it when we see it. But
> just because we can't produce a complete list of undisputed facts that
> don't need a source doesn't mean we have to worry about making our
> policies are tight as possible. Every policy contains the invisible
> sentence "Use your commonsense."
>
> In any event, I've yet to see an example of an undisputed fact for
> which no reliable source could be found, or an example of an editor
> going around removing undisputed facts because they lack sources.

Exactly.  The "slippery slope" argument fails in this case because what
people fear *might* happen if these policies are actually enforced, in
practice never actually *does* happen.

Jay.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Appeal for community support

body:
On 2/28/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/28/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Would you agree to have the arbcom remedy imposed on you?
>
> Avoid interpersonal dispute, not edit war, and discuss reverts before
> making them? Sure, if you do too (and VV). One month?
>
> Steve

Nope. I deal with copyvios. I'm not ruleing out any tactic
(particularly when you consider I use a very broad defintion of edit
war).

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
I don't think there was an accusation of lying. One can be "wrong" and
"evasive" and "not cooperative" and "not respectful of other editors"
and "avoiding accountability" without being a "liar" at all.

Personally, I never doubted that SOME e-mail existed (why lie about
it?), but I did doubt that the contents were exactly what they were
being portrayed as being (it didn't seem like a very Jimbo way of
doing things -- to tell someone in private to go ahead and start
deleting things without process). And in the end, I was right about
that. Again, I don't think the admin in question was lying, but I do
think he was wrong, in the sense of "incorrect."

FF

On 2/28/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/1/06, BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > There is far too much unjustified suspicion about this. One
> > > administrator recently started deleting copyright infringing copies of
> > > Time magazine covers, an action for which he received the full
> > > authorization of Jimbo Wales.  He was RfC'd!  When finally he obtained
> > > from Jimbo permission to reproduce the email (which I also received)
> > > the response was to openly question his honesty, and demand that he
> > > prove that the email (which carried Jimbo's email address, that of the
> > > recipient, and my own name, and was posted openly on the wiki with
> > > Jimbo's permission) came from Jimbo.
> >
> > Tony: Sorry guys! Queen Elizabeth gave me permission to tear down
> > Buckingham Palace. Nothing you can do about it, nye ney!
> > Tony: Evidence? What you mean I need evidence for? She emailed me and
> > said I could.
> > Tony: No I can't show it to you. She hasn't given me permission to
> > show you the email yet. You trust me don't you?
> > Tony: No I can't wait! Time is expensive and I have better things to
> > do than argue with rules layers. I want this place cleared before
> > tea-time.
> >
>
> Why do you make blatantly false accusations of lying against other editors?
>
> This shocks me more than I can say.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
I'd like to hope, in good faith, that this is a self-reflexive
criticism meant to be taken lightly. But I doubt it is, because if it
was, it would hopefully provoke some additional thoughts qualifying
your unilateral defense of this case. So I feel that it can be only
taken literally, which confuses me. But hopefully I'm wrong, and
you'll say, "Gosh, of course I would never earnestly imply that you
saying that you thought I was wrong, and explaining why, was
completely unacceptable!"

FF

On 2/28/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/1/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> > My apologies, but I suggested only that you had "stretched" things a
> > bit
>
> Well stop it.  This is completely unacceptable.  I did not stretch
> anything.  Not even a tiny little bit.  I did not lie, misrepresent,
> equivocate, deceive, stretch, or anything else.
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Mark Wagner

subject: [WikiEN-l] [WikiEn-l] Article surveys, revisited

body:
I've finished my review of the 100 randomly-selected articles I surveyed
back in November: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Carnildo/The_100  Of the
original 100, seven have been deleted, and another three have been turned
into redirects.

Over the past three months, there were 1,121 edits to the articles on the
list, giving a mean of 11.56 edits per non-deleted article.

Not much happens on most articles: of the 93 articles remaining in the
survey, the median number of edits was 3. Nine articles were completely
unchanged since November, and all but 18 of the articles had fewer than ten
changes.  About 99% of the edits were minor things: adding interwiki links,
fiddling with categories and stub tags, adjusting wikilinks, and
spelling/grammar fixes.  Only a few edits added a paragraph or more of
information.

At the other extreme of editing are the four articles with 100 or more
edits.  Unfortunately, this does not neccessarily translate into an increase
in article content.  Of the four articles, only [[Midfielder]] was expanded
significantly.  [[Aleksandr Pushkin]] and [[Lawrenceville School]] were
cleaned up, with some addition of information.  [[List of Barney & Friends
stage shows]] merely suffered prolonged vandalism.

Overall, quality has improved, but not by much. Out of the original 20
substubs, five have been deleted, and four have improved to "stub" status.
Three articles originally classified as "low" have improved to "good".  None
of the stubs has improved beyond stub status, and there are still no
articles considered "high" quality.  No article declined significantly in
quality.

The sourcing situation hasn't changed much: two articles gained sources,
while one article is now unsourced.  [[General Semantics]], the messiest,
most over-referenced article in the previous round of the survey, gained
another three sources, for a total of 17.  Fortunately, it also gained a
great deal of improvement.

The image situation has changed significantly.  Originally, free images
outnumbered non-free ones by 2:1, with only a few images of unknown
copyright situation.  The ratio of free to non-free images hasn't changed,
and the total number of images has gone up.  Of the six unsourced images in
the original survey, all of them have been sourced or removed.  However,
there are also 17 images with apparently-incorrect free-license tags: 16
images from Commons with disputed PD-self tags, and a GFDL tag on an image
that is probably not eligable for copyright.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


from_name: Robert Bamler

body:
Hi,

> How about the content on the IPOD. :)

It does have a copyright notice which includes a link to the complete text of
the GFDL. It also includes a list of all authors.

Robert


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body: I've put up [[Wikipedia:Verifiability/Proposed revision]]. Bash away!


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 2/28/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/1/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> > My apologies, but I suggested only that you had "stretched" things a
> > bit
>
> Well stop it.  This is completely unacceptable.  I did not stretch
> anything.  Not even a tiny little bit.  I did not lie, misrepresent,
> equivocate, deceive, stretch, or anything else.

Do you admit the possibility of fallibility?


from_name: John Lee

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>On 2/28/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On 2/27/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>The nominator in this case is a suspiciously new editor who has
>>>precisely one edit in article space (inserting a "POV" template).
>>>Nevertheless with his *ninth* edit he nominated for deletion an
>>>article about a reasonably well established webcomic, and to date he
>>>has made some 30 edits to the AfD.
>>>
>>>Something stinks.
>>>
>>>
>>I don't see any obvious connection with another user, though, and
>>don't think sockpuppet witch-hunts are generally productive.
>>
>>
>
>Nor I.  But is this the caliber of editor we're attracting these days?
> This is a perfectly good, encyclopedic article about  verifiable,
>referenced webcomic.  What on earth is it doing on AfD in the first
>place? When  did Wikimedia start putting up signs saying "we've run
>out of paper, please delete some articles to make more room?"
>
>
As the number of registered users approaches infinity, the probability
of running across an ignorant editor or troll approaches 1. (Hm, I just
came up with that off the bat. Something to add to Raul's laws if it
isn't there already.)

John


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 2/28/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/1/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I don't think there was an accusation of lying. One can be "wrong" and
> > "evasive" and "not cooperative" and "not respectful of other editors"
> > and "avoiding accountability" without being a "liar" at all.
>
> So you think you were accusing me, not of lying, but of being evasive,
> uncooperative, disrespectful and avoiding accountability.
>
> But the words you used were "I think you're stretching things a bit
> here about the facts in relation to the TIME magazine issue"
>
> But you are not aware of the facts.  I am, and I'm telling you to stop
> falsely accusing other editors of lying.  Moreover, when caught doing
> so, I am saying that you must not falsely accuse them of avoiding
> accountability, being evasive, uncooperative and disrespectful.  And
> any other smokescreen you want to come up with.  Just stop.

You still haven't responded to Fastfission's account. What dispute do
you have with it?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Appeal for community support

body:
On 2/28/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> Would you agree to have the arbcom remedy imposed on you?

Avoid interpersonal dispute, not edit war, and discuss reverts before
making them? Sure, if you do too (and VV). One month?

Steve