from_name: Oldak Quill

subject: [WikiEN-l] Parker Peters's comments

body:
On 06/10/06, Parker Peters <onmywayoutster at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Part of the problem I think with admins who get on power trips is that one
> day, they went from being an un-powerful little normal editor, to the next
> day being able to do all these amazing things. Imagine if you one day woke
> up with x-ray vision: your first thought would probably be to use it on
> your
> hot next-door neighbor, wouldn't it?
>

It been traditional for Wikipedia to have as many admins as possible without
laxing our barriers to adminship too much. I think this is from the open
source "many eyes catch all the bugs" school of thinking. The reason we are
able to do this is because, as someone has already mentioned, all admin
actions are recorded and reversible.

I also do not think that making it harder to become an admin would make some
admins more civil. Many of the most curt admins (perhaps read "uncivil")
have been with us for a long time. Clearly, their curtness has nothing to do
with your X-ray effect and is more related to a jaded outlook.
--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Mike O

subject: [Wikitech-l] Throttling rebuildall.php?

body:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Steve Summit" <scs at eskimo.com>
> To: wikitech-l at wikimedia.org

> Try running the command
>
> 	ulimit -a

Doesn't look like it. Here's the output:

core file size        (blocks, -c) 0
data seg size         (kbytes, -d) unlimited
file size             (blocks, -f) unlimited
max locked memory     (kbytes, -l) unlimited
max memory size       (kbytes, -m) unlimited
open files                    (-n) 1024
pipe size          (512 bytes, -p) 8
stack size            (kbytes, -s) unlimited
cpu time             (seconds, -t) unlimited
max user processes            (-u) unlimited
virtual memory        (kbytes, -v) unlimited

So CPU time isn't limited in this account. So it should run fine. But there still could be some bot killing the process.

I guess I'll have to ask the ISP why it happens. I can't think of any reason.

Mike O

--
_______________________________________________
Surf the Web in a faster, safer and easier way:
Download Opera 9 at http://www.opera.com

Powered by Outblaze


list: wikien-l

from_name: Stephen Streater

subject: [WikiEN-l] Quitting Wikipedia and wanted you to know why.

body:
On 6 Oct 2006, at 13:22, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> There is no doubt in my mind that some of what has been raised in this
> thread is valid.  As the community has grown, it has become harder to
> maintain the distinction between the kindness and love of Wikipedia
> and
> the hostility you find in most of the Internet.
>
> But, I think we still do a pretty good job, even though as humans of
> course we could always do better.

There's a lot of kindness and cooperation too.


from_name: Kirill Lokshin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Parker Peters's comments

body:
On 10/6/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 06/10/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > The ArbCom also seems to take a fairly narrow view of what constitutes
> > "abuse", in the sense that disruptive behavior -- even *massively*
> > disruptive behavior -- is ignored if it (a) seems to sort of work out
> > in the end, (b) can be claimed as being "for the good of Wikipedia",
> > or (c) both.
>
> You mean, where they consider the "disruption" was the right thing,
> they consider it was the right thing? Well, uh, yeah.
>
> (If you don't mean that, be specific about what you do mean.)

No, I meant that they would overlook the disruption (which is
generally not the best way of doing things, even if it happens to work
out in the end) if the person responsible for it had good intentions.

This isn't necessarily consitent behavior, of course.  In some cases
(e.g. Anoranza) the ArbCom has decided that acting in good faith to
improve the encyclopedia did not justify doing so in a disruptive
manner; in other cases (e.g. the various iterations of the userbox
affair) the disruptive effects of certain actions were ignored because
the person responsible was acting in good faith to improve the
encyclopedia.

--
Kirill Lokshin


body:
On 6 Oct 2006, at 14:44, Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:

> Stephen Streater wrote:
>> On 6 Oct 2006, at 04:27, Draicone wrote:
>>
> <snip>
>>> Wikipedia is, as you say, broken.
>>
>> Maybe. But there are many great articles and good
>> improvements to existing articles every day.
>>
>> And will I ever be made an Admin? Who can say.
>>
>
> Do you need to be an admin?

No. But I could help out more if I was one.

> Can you be trusted as an admin?

Yes.

> enwiki has over 1000 administrators now - 1015 at present, although
> how
> many are "active" is another matter - who knows how many of these are
> sockpuppets of people who have been banned for stalking, death
> threats,
> POV pushing, and other lunacy.

As long as unhelpful behaviour is discouraged,
the mix should be constantly improving. This is
why it's so good to have a record of everything
which was said and when.


body:
On 6 Oct 2006, at 15:56, Parker Peters wrote:

> Yes, it does bother me that I did this, and yes, this is partially
> why I'm
> leaving, or at least taking a decently long wikibreak.

"I'm leaving" is now turning into "taking a wikibreak".
Here's the truth: There's no escape from Wikipedia!


list: foundation-l

from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [Foundation-l] UMP Convention

body:
(apologies to Andre, who gets this twice)

> Actually, Dutch law already has such a provision: Dutch government
> materials are copyrighted only when copyright is explicitly claimed.
>
> From the English translation of Dutch copyright law
> (http://www.ivir.nl/legislation/nl/copyrightact.html):
>
> The further communication to the public or reproduction of a literary,
> scientific or artistic work communicated to the public by or on behalf
> of the public authorities shall not be deemed an infringement of the
> copyright in such a work, unless the copyright has been explicitly
> reserved, either in a general manner by law, decree or ordinance, or
> in a specific case by a notice on the work itself or at the
> communication to the public. Even if no such reservation has been
> made, the author shall retain the exclusive right to have appear in
> the form of a collection his works which have been communicated to the
> public by or on behalf of the public authorities.
>
> Problem now is how to get those materials...

This is very interesting, though I'm a bit confused about how the last
sentence works - I suspect the translator's understanding of
"exclusive right" and mine differ.

Do you know how it works in practice?

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


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] UMP Convention


body:
On 6 Oct 2006, at 17:59, Parker Peters wrote:

> I am not trying to flame, or be rude, or anything else. I will tell
> you that
> I find your combative attitude rude, which is why I asked for your
> calm and
> suggested a breather might be in order.

This perpetuates the myth put out by the
blocking people that a breather helps
a disagreement. I find that discussion
is more likely to create a resolution than
ignoring differences.

I've also found that a more heated exchange
sometimes allows people to resolve to a new
consensus.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Parker Peters's comments

body:
On 6 Oct 2006, at 19:03, Oldak Quill wrote:

> On 06/10/06, Parker Peters <onmywayoutster at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Part of the problem I think with admins who get on power trips is
>> that one
>> day, they went from being an un-powerful little normal editor, to
>> the next
>> day being able to do all these amazing things. Imagine if you one
>> day woke
>> up with x-ray vision: your first thought would probably be to use
>> it on
>> your
>> hot next-door neighbor, wouldn't it?
>>
>
> It been traditional for Wikipedia to have as many admins as
> possible without
> laxing our barriers to adminship too much. I think this is from the
> open
> source "many eyes catch all the bugs" school of thinking. The
> reason we are
> able to do this is because, as someone has already mentioned, all
> admin
> actions are recorded and reversible.
>
> I also do not think that making it harder to become an admin would
> make some
> admins more civil. Many of the most curt admins (perhaps read
> "uncivil")
> have been with us for a long time. Clearly, their curtness has
> nothing to do
> with your X-ray effect and is more related to a jaded outlook.

Also, people don't like change. The older
Admins are used to the old way of working.


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Parker Peters's comments

body:
The example you listed is particularly prone to confusing rules and stuff.
It's best to determine whether to give someone a specific power without any
artificial restrictions. That way the editor can apply for some powers and
explain why they need them and show their expertise in that particular
field.

Does anyone know why the proposal failed? I seem to remember it did.
If nominations are drying up, the current system isn't scaling and if WP is
growing we need more admins to do housekeeping.

Mgm

On 10/6/06, Parker Peters <onmywayoutster at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Mgm,
>
> I could agree with that. I think that maybe there ought to be multiple
> grades of admin, who have specific abilities. Part of the problem right
> now
> is that so many admins wield what might as well be "absolute power" when
> compared to a normal user.
>
> For instance, why not have a "first grade" admin who have the power only
> to
> semiprotect articles (to protect from systemic anon-ip/newuser vandalism),
> not to lock talk pages at all (including user talk pages) and to impose
> blocks up to 48 hours but no longer? Make them ask for help if they see
> anything that needs anything longer or appears to be a problem?
>
> You could have a lot more of those less-powerful admins handling many of
> the
> issues without worry about whether they went nuts, because even if they
> went
> nuts, there's be a lot less permanent damage they could do.
>
> Parker
>
>
>
> On 10/6/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Some adminship requests get opposed because the user aren't familiar in
> a
> > specific field of administrator work. If we could specifically give
> people
> > the tools they have the knowledge for, more requests would succeed.
> > Perhaps
> > it's time to run that plan to give people separate admin tools.
> >
> > Mgm
> >
> >
> > On 10/6/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Originally, I planned to answer Parker Peters's email. I wanted to say
> > > something, at least, but I didn't want it to be trite. I didn't want
> to
> > > defend
> > > some admin actions while agreeing with him about others. There will be
> > > (have
> > > been?) plenty of people to do that. In the end, all of that is
> > irrelevant,
> > > because it is his perception of the problem that really matters, not
> > > whether the
> > > problem is truly relevant in particular instance X or Z. It is a
> > > macro-issue,
> > > and it deserves macro-answers, or alternately, macro-changing in
> > > our  thinking.
> > >
> > > I think the real issue can be boiled down to a single statement:
> > > "Wikipedia
> > > is big ... really, really big." As of yesterday, Alexa ranks us the
> > number
> > > 12
> > > website in the world, and we are still climbing. In English alone, we
> > have
> > > close  to 1.5 million articles and 6 million total pages. We have over
> > 2.4
> > > million users and close to 600 thousand images. I don't know how  many
> > > edits we
> > > are getting per day, per hour, per second, but I can  only assume that
> > it
> > > is a
> > > very substantial number.
> > >
> > > No single person, or even small group of people, can tend to something
> > > this
> > > big, or even familiarize themselves with all its nooks and crannies.
> Yet
> > > we
> > > have  to. That is the challenge.
> > >
> > > There are 1,015 people with admin powers, and for various reasons it
> is
> > > assumed that the burden of responsibility lies with them (it really
> > > doesn't,
> > > since it should rest on the entire community, but that is a different
> > > story). Of
> > > these thousand or so people, some are more active than others. Some
> can
> > be
> > > found  patrolling the projects every hour of every day, while others
> pop
> > > in for a
> > > few  minutes every few months, and still others are gone for good.
> > >
> > > As such, the burden is overwhelming. There is so much to do, so much
> > that
> > > needs tending, but we've grown faster than our admnistrative
> structure,
> > > and the
> > > fissures are beginning to show. By piling on the load, it is only
> > natural
> > > that  admins (and here I mean people who perform admin tasks, whether
> > they
> > > are
> > > admins  or not) begin to feel frustrated and burn out. It is
> especially
> > > onerous
> > > when  every action is going to be viewed by people who will challenge
> > > it--and
> > > the  admin--any way they can. Do you risk making all the rapid
> decisions
> > > that
> > > need to  be made, one after the other, even if it means that some bad
> > > decisions will  inevitably be made? Do you risk maintaining old
> > > procedures, which once
> > > worked  quite well but are starting to buckle under the weight, or do
> > you
> > > experiment  with something new and untested? If there is to be change,
> > > what are
> > > the  priorities? If there is to be discussion about change, at what
> > point
> > > do we
> > > end  the talking and decide to act?
> > >
> > > These are some of the real issues that Parker Peters is raising. Note
> > that
> > > they are dilemmas, and the nature of a dilemma is that there is no
> right
> > > answer,  except perhaps from the safety of hindsight. And yet,
> decisions
> > > have to be
> > > made.
> > >
> > > Danny
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> 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] Fleshlight

body:
On 6 Oct 2006, at 19:47, SPUI wrote:

> Fleshlight and its representatives have contacted us, asking that they
> have sole discretion over the content of the page, because any edits
> could ruin its advertising value. This is a non-notable product. The
> page was created solely for promotional purposes. It is now gone.
> Danny
> 01:06, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
>
> http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=fleshlight&btnG=Google
> +Search&sa=N&tab=wn
> seems "notable", verifiable, whatever. But our hands are tied by the
> office shit. Any company can now contact Danny, convince him that they
> are "non-notable", and get salted.

That's quite a jump in the logic there, isn't it?


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Parker Peters's comments

body:
On 06/10/06, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:

> The answer is simple.  Since RfAr is considered a major roadblock to
> removing adminship, make it easier to do.  Then, people who you may have
> trust issues with can be more easily promoted, because they can easily be
> removed.  I'm much more likely to vote support on a candidate with a long
> history, but some questions about, if I know that if they abuse the tools
> or continually do the wrong thing, I can work to get them removed.  That's
> not the case currently.

In practice I don't think this is such a problem. I can think of a
couple of people who are now admins who I had pretty much this qualm
over, but who both shaped up fine after a slightly rocky start.

And deadminning is a much bigger deal than adminning by its nature.

- d.


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
On 10/6/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
> That's quite a jump in the logic there, isn't it?

Pure adverts tend not to have 560 edits and [[Wikipedia:Articles for
deletion/Fleshlight]] came out as keep. On the other hand there is no
indication that this is an office action so it should be fairly
trivial to undelete.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Parker Peters's comments

body:
On 6 Oct 2006, at 19:59, David Gerard wrote:

> On 06/10/06, Jeff Raymond
> <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:
>
>> The answer is simple.  Since RfAr is considered a major roadblock to
>> removing adminship, make it easier to do.  Then, people who you
>> may have
>> trust issues with can be more easily promoted, because they can
>> easily be
>> removed.  I'm much more likely to vote support on a candidate with
>> a long
>> history, but some questions about, if I know that if they abuse
>> the tools
>> or continually do the wrong thing, I can work to get them
>> removed.  That's
>> not the case currently.
>
>
> In practice I don't think this is such a problem. I can think of a
> couple of people who are now admins who I had pretty much this qualm
> over, but who both shaped up fine after a slightly rocky start.
>
> And deadminning is a much bigger deal than adminning by its nature.

Isn't it better to try to improve an Admin
rather than just deadmin them, at least
to start with? Deadmin should be a much
rarer process.

Even Admins respond to feedback.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
On 6 Oct 2006, at 20:03, SPUI wrote:

> Stephen Streater wrote:
>> On 6 Oct 2006, at 19:47, SPUI wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Fleshlight and its representatives have contacted us, asking that
>>> they
>>> have sole discretion over the content of the page, because any edits
>>> could ruin its advertising value. This is a non-notable product. The
>>> page was created solely for promotional purposes. It is now gone.
>>> Danny
>>> 01:06, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
>>>
>>> http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=fleshlight&btnG=Google
>>> +Search&sa=N&tab=wn
>>> seems "notable", verifiable, whatever. But our hands are tied by the
>>> office shit. Any company can now contact Danny, convince him that
>>> they
>>> are "non-notable", and get salted.
>>
>>
>> That's quite a jump in the logic there, isn't it?
>
> No.

Danny, for example, may not be convinced by any company.


subject: [Foundation-l] clearing the checkuser-l backlog this weekend

body:
No-one's been adding new people to checkuser-l for a while. (Kelly
Martin was but she's taking a probably substantial break from the
project.) I'm going to try to clear the backlog this weekend. My
sincere apologies for this, and I'll try to keep up with list requests
in future.

(It's really not a very interesting or active list, so you're not
missing much ;-)

- d.


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Foundation-l] FUCK OFF!

body:
2006/10/6, Kim Bruning <kim at bruning.xs4all.nl>:

> Well, come on over to the english wikipedia, where we work by consensus
> and where we have a rule called "ignore all rules". Of course, some
> people are working hard to undermine that and take control of the wiki,
> so ... well there you go. Maybe you can help me at least save
> en.wikipedia? :-)

Very doubtful, given that already 3 years ago I fled from en: to nl:
for similar reasons.

> > The current issue is that apparently on the Dutch Wikipedia proposing
> > that some page should be deleted is enough to be flamed at.
>
> Oh, that's useful information. Which page is causing the trouble?

No idea what page it was about. The remarks are rather general.

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


subject: [Foundation-l] FUCK OFF!


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Parker Peters's comments

body:
 "Jeff Raymond" wrote

>  I'm much more likely to vote support on a candidate with a long
> history, but some questions about, if I know that if they abuse the tools
> or continually do the wrong thing, I can work to get them removed.  That's
> not the case currently.

I don't find this a very reassuring argument.

Admins must, in the first place, be trusted people. That's pretty basic. The various criteria, hoops to jump through, questionaires, cavils about 'admin material' and scruples about how and in what spaces people edit (ugh) are secondary. I would prefer to see more people promoted, who just add good content. Those, typically, will have the smarts to understand policy and its uses. I do not want to see more people who are subject to reservations on their discretion become admin. Wait a few months and take a second view, yes.

Charles

-----------------------------------------
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Parker Peters's comments

body:
On 06/10/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
> On 6 Oct 2006, at 19:59, David Gerard wrote:

> > In practice I don't think this is such a problem. I can think of a
> > couple of people who are now admins who I had pretty much this qualm
> > over, but who both shaped up fine after a slightly rocky start.
> > And deadminning is a much bigger deal than adminning by its nature.

> Isn't it better to try to improve an Admin
> rather than just deadmin them, at least
> to start with? Deadmin should be a much
> rarer process.
> Even Admins respond to feedback.

Well, yes!

I mean, there's more than one way to do it. On Meta, adminship is for
a year at a time, for example. On sr:, admins aren't just janitors but
have editorial decision powers. Etc.

People still complain that it's impossible to get rid of a bad admin
when that's manifestly false. The ArbCom is *not* happy with cases of
clear abuse of admin powers and does act when such are brought to its
attention.

I think it's far better and simpler to make it relatively easy to
become an admin, then remove the bad ones as and when they show it,
than to require a process with ever-escalating requirements for
adminship most of which have nothing to do with the powers in question
in the hope that this will stop the problem before it occurs.

As I said, I've yet to hear a convincing reason why we wouldn't want
most editors to have admin powers once they've got enough experience
to know their way around. Admin powers are just more ability to do
nuts'n'bolts things around the wiki.

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] FUCK OFF!

body:
On 06/10/06, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2006/10/6, Kim Bruning <kim at bruning.xs4all.nl>:

> > Well, come on over to the english wikipedia, where we work by consensus
> > and where we have a rule called "ignore all rules". Of course, some
> > people are working hard to undermine that and take control of the wiki,
> > so ... well there you go. Maybe you can help me at least save
> > en.wikipedia? :-)

> Very doubtful, given that already 3 years ago I fled from en: to nl:
> for similar reasons.

Hey! We're batshit insane, but we're very popular!

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Parker Peters's comments

body:
Stephen Streater wrote

> Isn't it better to try to improve an Admin
> rather than just deadmin them, at least
> to start with? Deadmin should be a much
> rarer process.
>
> Even Admins respond to feedback.

There are two basic cases: knows what was done wrong and will not change attitude; still can't work out what was wrong with what was done. Applying IAR one gets a Grand Unified Theory of why someone should be an ex-sysop: use of discretion carries no conviction.

Some exceptions, but basically you're told first, probably several times.

Charles

-----------------------------------------
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subject: [Foundation-l] FUCK OFF!


subject: [WikiEN-l] Parker Peters's comments

body:
On 06/10/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> People still complain that it's impossible to get rid of a bad admin
> when that's manifestly false. The ArbCom is *not* happy with cases of
> clear abuse of admin powers and does act when such are brought to its
> attention.
>
> I think it's far better and simpler to make it relatively easy to
> become an admin, then remove the bad ones as and when they show it,
> than to require a process with ever-escalating requirements for
> adminship most of which have nothing to do with the powers in question
> in the hope that this will stop the problem before it occurs.

Proposal: Arbcom states it is willing to desysop people on petition. X
many admins, in a set time frame, are willing to sign their names to
"This guy keeps doing X and Y and bringing the project into disrepute
by so doing"? He's gone, and he can RFA if he wants the bit back.
(Arbcom would have the power to say "go away" to frivolous complaints,
of course)

Defining X would be tricky, but no doubt we could think of something.
Equal to half the support votes on their RFA, in a few days?

This proposal is based on the key, and possibly fallacious, assumption
that 90% of admins are sane sensible quiet people who know Acting Like
A Tosser when it's pointed out to them. (Restricting it to admins
isn't meant to be some kind of elegant blackball system for overriding
RFA, just to get some guaranteed sanity involved...)

Thoughts?

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Mywikipediaspace

body:
2006/10/6, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com>:

> Now imagine that someone sets up a website that strongly implies that
> paying him will get a company a good article in Wikipedia, and follows
> that up by posting blatant PR puffery and claiming that it is NPOV.
> That's a very serious problem, especially in an era when we are seeing
> increasing attention paid to "how to manipulate wikipedia for the good
> of your client" by the lower dregs of the PR industry.

The scary thing is... This already exists. Maybe I should have
notified the list or the board or whoever before, but having a
GoogleNews subject 'Wikipedia' gave me a link to the following
advertisement-thinly-disguised-as-press-release shortly before the
Wikimania conference:

http://www.24-7pressrelease.com/view_press_release.php?rID=16892
I checked http://www.mywikibiz.com and they do indeed claim to be in
business, charging $49 for a stub, $79 for a full article and $99 for
a full article with some extras... Then again, checking
[[en:User:MyWikiBiz]] tells me you already were notified of this
recently.

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


subject: [Foundation-l] Mywikipediaspace


subject: [WikiEN-l] Parker Peters's comments

body:
On 06/10/06, Parker Peters <onmywayoutster at gmail.com> wrote:

> > I mean, there's more than one way to do it. On Meta, adminship is for
> > a year at a time, for example. On sr:, admins aren't just janitors but
> > have editorial decision powers. Etc.

> I seem to remember proposals for limited-term adminship on here at some
> point, but it was a while back and got shouted down pretty quick...

The practical effects on en: would be (a) a lot of people with
experience going "o rly? you do it then." (b) the people with no
experience then enthusiastically recapitulating the entire history of
wikistupid as they make all the same mistakes again; (c) lots of
really bad process wars, like late 2005 all over again once more with
feeling, for maybe a couple of years; (d) turning adminship into quite
definitely A Big Deal.

It strikes me as a bad idea with not much reason if the problem is
that RFA isn't promoting suitable candidates because they're making a
big deal of it. I'd address the problem at the RFA end, and am
presently attempting to do so.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Parker Peters's comments

body:
On 06/10/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> Proposal: Arbcom states it is willing to desysop people on petition. X
> many admins, in a set time frame, are willing to sign their names to
> "This guy keeps doing X and Y and bringing the project into disrepute
> by so doing"? He's gone, and he can RFA if he wants the bit back.
> (Arbcom would have the power to say "go away" to frivolous complaints,
> of course)
> This proposal is based on the key, and possibly fallacious, assumption
> that 90% of admins are sane sensible quiet people who know Acting Like
> A Tosser when it's pointed out to them. (Restricting it to admins
> isn't meant to be some kind of elegant blackball system for overriding
> RFA, just to get some guaranteed sanity involved...)

Given recent conflicts on the wiki, particularly the surprisingly
nasty one on RFAr right now, I doubt it would *guarantee* sanity. It
might be something.

But ... I'm still waiting for anything resembling verifiable evidence
that there are clear targets for such a process. That is to say:
evidence diffs of problematic behaviour, not just ranting on the
mailing list that admins are an evil abusive cabal.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
On 6 Oct 2006, at 20:14, Parker Peters wrote:

> Hmm.
>
> #1 - they are apparently a registered company, with a business
> address and
> everything.
> #2 - they are selling a product (several really) to the public
> #3 - they apparently do a significant amount of advertising.
>
> One would think this makes them notable.

My main company, set up in 1998, has
number over 3500000. This gives an idea
of how many companies had been set up
in the UK since the relevant Act was passed.

There are millions of non-notable companies
in the world.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Parker Peters's comments

body:
On 06/10/06, Parker Peters <onmywayoutster at gmail.com> wrote:

> We were shown one the other day.

And you can be sure it was looked at, and if nothing happened then nobody cared.

> You dismissed the person who brought it up, and that killed the discussion.
> That didn't sit well with me at all. Killing the messenger is never
> acceptable.

Because I have l33t powers, which is why you are no longer posting.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Parker Peters's comments

body:
On 6 Oct 2006, at 20:16, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com wrote:

> Stephen Streater wrote
>
>> Isn't it better to try to improve an Admin
>> rather than just deadmin them, at least
>> to start with? Deadmin should be a much
>> rarer process.
>>
>> Even Admins respond to feedback.
>
> There are two basic cases: knows what was done wrong and will not
> change attitude; still can't work out what was wrong with what was
> done. Applying IAR one gets a Grand Unified Theory of why someone
> should be an ex-sysop: use of discretion carries no conviction.
>
> Some exceptions, but basically you're told first, probably several
> times.

Well, if people refuse to fit in, they'll probably
be happier not swimming against the tide the
whole time anyway.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Parker Peters's comments

body:
On 06/10/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:

> Well, if people refuse to fit in, they'll probably
> be happier not swimming against the tide the
> whole time anyway.

You'd think that. But doing the same thing over and over and expecting
different results appears to be the defining characteristic of
stupidity rather than insanity.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Parker Peters's comments

body:
On 6 Oct 2006, at 20:49, David Gerard wrote:

> On 06/10/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
>
>> Well, if people refuse to fit in, they'll probably
>> be happier not swimming against the tide the
>> whole time anyway.
>
>
> You'd think that. But doing the same thing over and over and expecting
> different results appears to be the defining characteristic of
> stupidity rather than insanity.

I learned on a course once that if something
doesn't work try something different. They
said they taught it because so few people
actually did it. Lots of people think they do.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Parker Peters's comments

body:
Stephen Streater wrote

> Well, if people refuse to fit in, they'll probably
> be happier not swimming against the tide the
> whole time anyway.

Certain favours are hardest to do for the people who most need them ...

Charles

-----------------------------------------
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Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software
Visit www.ntlworld.com/security for more information


subject: [WikiEN-l] Parker Peters's comments

body:
On 6 Oct 2006, at 20:51, Gregory Maxwell wrote:

> On 10/6/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Some adminship requests get opposed because the user aren't
>> familiar in a
>> specific field of administrator work. If we could specifically
>> give people
>> the tools they have the knowledge for, more requests would
>> succeed. Perhaps
>> it's time to run that plan to give people separate admin tools.
>
> Even as screwed up as things are today with respect to RFA the fact
> remains that adminship is more about trust than about knowledge. If we
> can't *trust you* to refrain from breaking the site too badly than you
> should have exactly zero admin features.
>
> That adminship is mostly is sometimes being obscured the fact that
> there is no clear way to measure trust... but breaking up adminship
> into little boxes will not solve that.
>
> It is a shame because the tools of adminship are really tools which
> every experienced user acting in good faith should have.  ... that was
> always the intent, .. Remember? "No big deal".   But life has turned
> out so much more complex.

That's because people don't trust strangers,
and most people on RfA are strangers.

Basically, paranoia is safer.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Parker Peters's comments

body:
On 6 Oct 2006, at 20:56, Stephen Streater wrote:

>
> On 6 Oct 2006, at 20:51, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>
>> On 10/6/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Some adminship requests get opposed because the user aren't
>>> familiar in a
>>> specific field of administrator work. If we could specifically
>>> give people
>>> the tools they have the knowledge for, more requests would
>>> succeed. Perhaps
>>> it's time to run that plan to give people separate admin tools.
>>
>> Even as screwed up as things are today with respect to RFA the fact
>> remains that adminship is more about trust than about knowledge.
>> If we
>> can't *trust you* to refrain from breaking the site too badly than
>> you
>> should have exactly zero admin features.
>>
>> That adminship is mostly is sometimes being obscured the fact that
>> there is no clear way to measure trust... but breaking up adminship
>> into little boxes will not solve that.
>>
>> It is a shame because the tools of adminship are really tools which
>> every experienced user acting in good faith should have.  ... that
>> was
>> always the intent, .. Remember? "No big deal".   But life has turned
>> out so much more complex.
>
> That's because people don't trust strangers,
> and most people on RfA are strangers.
>
> Basically, paranoia is safer.

I might also add that is why Wikignomes
always get promoted, and exciting people
who might actually make some progress
have a tough time. People are risk averse
when it comes to Admins.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Parker Peters's comments

body:
On 06/10/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 06/10/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> > This proposal is based on the key, and possibly fallacious, assumption
> > that 90% of admins are sane sensible quiet people who know Acting Like
> > A Tosser when it's pointed out to them. (Restricting it to admins
> > isn't meant to be some kind of elegant blackball system for overriding
> > RFA, just to get some guaranteed sanity involved...)
>
> Given recent conflicts on the wiki, particularly the surprisingly
> nasty one on RFAr right now, I doubt it would *guarantee* sanity. It
> might be something.
>
> But ... I'm still waiting for anything resembling verifiable evidence
> that there are clear targets for such a process. That is to say:
> evidence diffs of problematic behaviour, not just ranting on the
> mailing list that admins are an evil abusive cabal.

I dunno. I agree with the general broad thrust of this complaint;
there are too many "young admins" generally being... overzealous. I'm
not sure I can really quantify it, but I know the feeling.

(Maybe this is just me feeling a little burned out; I don't know. But
there is something there, even if I don't feel it as strongly...)

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Age?

body:
On 10/6/06, Asher Heimermann <sheboyganpolitics at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
>   I was asked today if there was an age limit on the wikimedia.org website.
>
>   Like, how old do you have to be in order to edit and make articles.
>
>   Even, I did not know...

Depends on who is asking but the general answer is that we have no way
of inforceing any age limits.

--
geni


subject: [Foundation-l] Age?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Parker Peters's comments

body:
On 6 Oct 2006, at 21:04, Gregory Maxwell wrote:

> On 10/6/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
> [snip]
>>> It is a shame because the tools of adminship are really tools which
>>> every experienced user acting in good faith should have.  ...
>>> that was
>>> always the intent, .. Remember? "No big deal".   But life has turned
>>> out so much more complex.
>>
>> That's because people don't trust strangers,
>> and most people on RfA are strangers.
>>
>> Basically, paranoia is safer.
>
> Yes. This is a factor.  I can think of .. um, one? Wikipedian I've met
> in person whom I wouldn't want to support for adminship, ... comfort
> is still very much a meat based thing for most people.
>
> But it goes beyond the simple familiarity issue that you pointed out:
> As an RFA participant we're asked to state our trust about how the
> person for an indefinite time into the future when challenged with a
> potentially infinite spectrum of tasks under an infinite number of
> conditions. People change, our needs change... and as a result our
> process makes it unrealistically difficult to feel comfortable with an
> approval.

It is interesting how the psychology is set up.
People could also be concerned about all the
good decisions that might be lost if someone
is not promoted. But as these never happen,
they are easier to ignore individually.

But collectively, the conservative nature of
Admin promotions is contributing to the
problems we see. For examples, Admins
don't generally choose to stand up and correct
bad actions in other Admins - they are being
selected to be inane and bland.


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

body:
On 6 Oct 2006 at 18:40, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:

> On 6 Oct 2006, at 15:56, Parker Peters wrote:
>
> > Yes, it does bother me that I did this, and yes, this is partially
> > why I'm
> > leaving, or at least taking a decently long wikibreak.
>
> "I'm leaving" is now turning into "taking a wikibreak".
> Here's the truth: There's no escape from Wikipedia!

You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


from_name: effe iets anders

subject: [Foundation-l] Age?

body:
Well, the only limit as far as I know is that you have to be able to
type usefull information. Children can do that sometimes even ebtetr
as elder people. In principle there is afaik no age limit on reading
or writing for the wikimedia projects (what is waht you mean I
guess?), especially because we don't are able to check that age, nor
should it be necessairy.

Greetings, Lodewijk

2006/10/6, Asher Heimermann <sheboyganpolitics at yahoo.com>:
> Hi,
>
>   I was asked today if there was an age limit on the wikimedia.org website.
>
>   Like, how old do you have to be in order to edit and make articles.
>
>   Even, I did not know...
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Talk is cheap. Use Yahoo! Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls.  Great rates starting at 1?/min.
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Age?


subject: [Foundation-l] Age?

body:
2006/10/6, Asher Heimermann <sheboyganpolitics at yahoo.com>:

>   I was asked today if there was an age limit on the wikimedia.org website.
>
>   Like, how old do you have to be in order to edit and make articles.
>
>   Even, I did not know...

I'm quite convinced that there is not, and I would also be very much
against any limit that is not necessitated by law. As long as we are
not collecting personal information, I don't think there's any
problems in that aspect. On wikimedia.org it is still the case that
nobody knows that you're a dog.

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


subject: [Foundation-l] Age?


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Any suggestions for editing refs?

body:
--- Maury Markowitz <maury_markowitz at hotmail.com> wrote:
> I'm trying to be the good wikipedian and adding lots of on-topic refs, but I
> find editing them to be extremely difficult and error prone. IMHO the actual
> "body" of the ref should definitely not be placed in the article body, where
> it is now, as this makes reading the source difficult, to say the least.
> Click edit on Zune some time...
>
> Is there some alternate format? Can I use the <ref name=gizifa/> and then
> place the actual contents later in the article, like in the actual reference
> section? All of my attempts to date have failed.
>
> If not, is there some sort of editor that makes this easier?

Here is what I do: Under ==References== I have two subsections, ===Works cited=== and ===Notes===.
===Works cited=== has the full reference info in standard reference order while ===Notes=== has
<references/>. Then inline, I have stuff like <ref>Smith, John, p. 249</ref>. However, this does
not work well for articles that use more than a dozen or so separate sources.

-- mav

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Age?

body:
On 06/10/06, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 2006/10/6, Asher Heimermann <sheboyganpolitics at yahoo.com>:
> I'm quite convinced that there is not, and I would also be very much
> against any limit that is not necessitated by law. As long as we are
> not collecting personal information, I don't think there's any
> problems in that aspect. On wikimedia.org it is still the case that
> nobody knows that you're a dog.

Indeed, some gifted 14 year-olds are more gifted in encyclopedia-building
than many 30 year-olds.
--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


subject: [Foundation-l] Age?


from_name: SPUI

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
> SPUI wrote:
>
>>Fleshlight and its representatives have contacted us, asking that they
>>have sole discretion over the content of the page, because any edits
>>could ruin its advertising value. This is a non-notable product. The
>>page was created solely for promotional purposes. It is now gone. Danny
>>01:06, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
>>
>>http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=fleshlight&btnG=Google+Search&sa=N&tab=wn
>>seems "notable", verifiable, whatever. But our hands are tied by the
>>office shit. Any company can now contact Danny, convince him that they
>>are "non-notable", and get salted.
>>
> Wrong. Any company can contact Danny saying "hello, you keep changing
> our spam, can you let us have total control of the page?" and have it
> deleted as spam under CSD G11.

And salted so it can't be re-created as non-spam or even redirected to
artificial vagina? What bullshit.


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [Foundation-l] UMP Convention

body:
David Gerard wrote:
<snip>
> (Personally I consider the GFDL a pretend-open licence for print use
> of images; it's technically free content, but the compliance
> requirements are onerous.)
>

See also:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:BD-propagande.jpg

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

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subject: [Foundation-l] UMP Convention

body:
David Gerard wrote:
<snip>
> (Personally I consider the GFDL a pretend-open licence for print use
> of images; it's technically free content, but the compliance
> requirements are onerous.)
>

See also:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:BD-propagande.jpg

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

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subject: [Foundation-l] UMP Convention

body:
David Gerard wrote:
<snip>
> (Personally I consider the GFDL a pretend-open licence for print use
> of images; it's technically free content, but the compliance
> requirements are onerous.)
>

See also:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:BD-propagande.jpg

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

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subject: [Foundation-l] UMP Convention

body:
David Gerard wrote:
<snip>
> (Personally I consider the GFDL a pretend-open licence for print use
> of images; it's technically free content, but the compliance
> requirements are onerous.)
>

See also:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:BD-propagande.jpg

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

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subject: [Foundation-l] Mywikipediaspace

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Daniel Mayer wrote:
>> No it is not a policy and it never will if I have anything to do with it. I'm sure Jimmy was
>> talking about companies paying PR firms and similar ilk to promote them by writing sanitized and
>> glowing Wikipedia articles about the company paying the bill.
>
> That's right.
>
>> I would *love* to see many groups pay or otherwise get people to edit Wikipedia to add NPOV and
>> verified content; esp in areas and in languages we now have poor coverage in.
>
> Absolutely.
>
> There are two entirely separate issues here.  Imagine that a grant is
> secured to hire people as "evangelizers" and initial admins in, say,
> African languages.  Great.  Or, imagine that a health education
> organization decides that the best way to educate the public on health
> issues is to have staff contribute their work to Wikipedia.  Great.
>
> Now imagine that someone sets up a website that strongly implies that
> paying him will get a company a good article in Wikipedia, and follows
> that up by posting blatant PR puffery and claiming that it is NPOV.
> That's a very serious problem, especially in an era when we are seeing
> increasing attention paid to "how to manipulate wikipedia for the good
> of your client" by the lower dregs of the PR industry.
>
<snip>

Exactly. Allowing this sort of thing leads to phone calls to Danny along
the lines of "I paid X thousand dollars for an entry in Wikipedia, why
has it been changed/deleted?"

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

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subject: [Foundation-l] Mywikipediaspace

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Daniel Mayer wrote:
>> No it is not a policy and it never will if I have anything to do with it. I'm sure Jimmy was
>> talking about companies paying PR firms and similar ilk to promote them by writing sanitized and
>> glowing Wikipedia articles about the company paying the bill.
>
> That's right.
>
>> I would *love* to see many groups pay or otherwise get people to edit Wikipedia to add NPOV and
>> verified content; esp in areas and in languages we now have poor coverage in.
>
> Absolutely.
>
> There are two entirely separate issues here.  Imagine that a grant is
> secured to hire people as "evangelizers" and initial admins in, say,
> African languages.  Great.  Or, imagine that a health education
> organization decides that the best way to educate the public on health
> issues is to have staff contribute their work to Wikipedia.  Great.
>
> Now imagine that someone sets up a website that strongly implies that
> paying him will get a company a good article in Wikipedia, and follows
> that up by posting blatant PR puffery and claiming that it is NPOV.
> That's a very serious problem, especially in an era when we are seeing
> increasing attention paid to "how to manipulate wikipedia for the good
> of your client" by the lower dregs of the PR industry.
>
<snip>

Exactly. Allowing this sort of thing leads to phone calls to Danny along
the lines of "I paid X thousand dollars for an entry in Wikipedia, why
has it been changed/deleted?"

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

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subject: [Foundation-l] Mywikipediaspace

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Daniel Mayer wrote:
>> No it is not a policy and it never will if I have anything to do with it. I'm sure Jimmy was
>> talking about companies paying PR firms and similar ilk to promote them by writing sanitized and
>> glowing Wikipedia articles about the company paying the bill.
>
> That's right.
>
>> I would *love* to see many groups pay or otherwise get people to edit Wikipedia to add NPOV and
>> verified content; esp in areas and in languages we now have poor coverage in.
>
> Absolutely.
>
> There are two entirely separate issues here.  Imagine that a grant is
> secured to hire people as "evangelizers" and initial admins in, say,
> African languages.  Great.  Or, imagine that a health education
> organization decides that the best way to educate the public on health
> issues is to have staff contribute their work to Wikipedia.  Great.
>
> Now imagine that someone sets up a website that strongly implies that
> paying him will get a company a good article in Wikipedia, and follows
> that up by posting blatant PR puffery and claiming that it is NPOV.
> That's a very serious problem, especially in an era when we are seeing
> increasing attention paid to "how to manipulate wikipedia for the good
> of your client" by the lower dregs of the PR industry.
>
<snip>

Exactly. Allowing this sort of thing leads to phone calls to Danny along
the lines of "I paid X thousand dollars for an entry in Wikipedia, why
has it been changed/deleted?"

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

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subject: [Foundation-l] Mywikipediaspace

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Daniel Mayer wrote:
>> No it is not a policy and it never will if I have anything to do with it. I'm sure Jimmy was
>> talking about companies paying PR firms and similar ilk to promote them by writing sanitized and
>> glowing Wikipedia articles about the company paying the bill.
>
> That's right.
>
>> I would *love* to see many groups pay or otherwise get people to edit Wikipedia to add NPOV and
>> verified content; esp in areas and in languages we now have poor coverage in.
>
> Absolutely.
>
> There are two entirely separate issues here.  Imagine that a grant is
> secured to hire people as "evangelizers" and initial admins in, say,
> African languages.  Great.  Or, imagine that a health education
> organization decides that the best way to educate the public on health
> issues is to have staff contribute their work to Wikipedia.  Great.
>
> Now imagine that someone sets up a website that strongly implies that
> paying him will get a company a good article in Wikipedia, and follows
> that up by posting blatant PR puffery and claiming that it is NPOV.
> That's a very serious problem, especially in an era when we are seeing
> increasing attention paid to "how to manipulate wikipedia for the good
> of your client" by the lower dregs of the PR industry.
>
<snip>

Exactly. Allowing this sort of thing leads to phone calls to Danny along
the lines of "I paid X thousand dollars for an entry in Wikipedia, why
has it been changed/deleted?"

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

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
On 06/10/06, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:

> http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=fleshlight&btnG=Google+Search&sa=N&tab=wn
> seems "notable", verifiable, whatever. But our hands are tied by the
> office shit. Any company can now contact Danny, convince him that they
> are "non-notable", and get salted.

"Adolf Hitler is the Chancellor of Germany [1]. He is noted for his
work on the moral fibre of German society [2] and stimulating the
economy [3], notably through the Autobahn programme [4]. Some have
criticised aspects of his work [citation needed]."

- entry written after Hitler's complaint and a rigid WP:OFFICE
application of WP:BLP.

- d.


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

body:
On Fri, 06 Oct 2006 23:14:54 +0930, "Alphax \(Wikipedia email\)"
<alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:

>Do you need to be an admin?

Nobody *needs* to be an admin.

>Can you be trusted as an admin?

I think Stephen would be an excellent sysop, but what do I know?

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] Parker Peters's comments

body:
On 06/10/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/6/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> > People still complain that it's impossible to get rid of a bad admin
> > when that's manifestly false. The ArbCom is *not* happy with cases of
> > clear abuse of admin powers and does act when such are brought to its
> > attention.

> The ArbCom also seems to take a fairly narrow view of what constitutes
> "abuse", in the sense that disruptive behavior -- even *massively*
> disruptive behavior -- is ignored if it (a) seems to sort of work out
> in the end, (b) can be claimed as being "for the good of Wikipedia",
> or (c) both.

You mean, where they consider the "disruption" was the right thing,
they consider it was the right thing? Well, uh, yeah.

(If you don't mean that, be specific about what you do mean.)

> Actually, the current RFA is fairly successful in one respect: it's a
> decent filter against people who are likely to react explosively to
> pressure, which is actually pretty helpful.  Having admins that lose
> their composure easily is not really the best idea, for obvious
> reasons.

There is a certain appeal to that at present. Mind you,
overcompensating would be bad, and I wouldn't have picked *any* of the
present participants as explosive.

- d.


body:
On Fri, 06 Oct 2006 23:31:26 +0930, "Alphax \(Wikipedia email\)"
<alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:

>There's still the very slight matter of why Oversight was invented...

When there were a hundred admins they all knew and trusted each other.
That model doesn't scale.  When you have a thousand admins, *someone*
has to take a watching brief.  The stakes are much higher now, with
Wikipedia a prime target for every POV-pusher on the planet.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] Parker Peters's comments

body:
On 06/10/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> There is a certain appeal to that at present. Mind you,
> overcompensating would be bad, and I wouldn't have picked *any* of the
> present participants as explosive.

"... at the time of their RFA, for sure."

- d.


body:
On Fri, 6 Oct 2006 07:31:37 -0500, "Parker Peters"
<onmywayoutster at gmail.com> wrote:

>This is a larger problem I have with our policies, though. Every policy we
>have on the matter is designed to make it impossible for an aggrieved user
>to make any protest against abuse.

No, none of the *policies* we have prevent this, I think.  It is very
hard to be truly objective when reviewing unblock requests, though,
and we definitely need more people like JoshuaZ and Phaedirel who are
able to see the good in everybody.

But let's be honest, the SPUIs of this world are tolerated despite the
disruption they cause.  Sock-farming POV pushers should be shown the
door speedily and in no uncertain terms.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] Parker Peters's comments

body:
On 06/10/06, Parker Peters <onmywayoutster at gmail.com> wrote:

> Testing to see if this gets through... and I do not appreciate your
> continued rudeness.

I don't appreciate your continued querulousness, but it's useful as an
object lesson in why the list got moderated the first time around.

What you're whining about is that Queeran's post (the character is
what passes, btw, for creativity from Enviroknot; he kept making
homophobic and anti-Muslim comments, so he thought we'd definitely
never pick it was him if he pretended to be a GAY MUSLIM!! Then, when
he was busted yet again, he started complaining on IRC ... using his
home IP. Well done) got through to the list fine and then did not
result in the admin in question immediately being taken out and shot.

Admin complaints get through fine, and several of the *many* admins on
this list will look into them, but most are spurious and are not acted
upon or commented upon after people have had a look at the issue. This
is what *usually* happens. If you were an admin you'd have known this
perfectly well.

I expect you to do better next time around.

- d.


body:
On 06/10/06, Parker Peters <onmywayoutster at gmail.com> wrote:

> Ok, here's a basic question. One we should all be able to agree on.
> Should a "suspected sockpuppet" (new username) of a username block be
> blocked for being a sockpuppet?
> It's a simple enough question. Yes or no?

Generally not, I'd say. Speaking as the admin you say you are, what
would you say should be done concerning such?

- d.


from_name: Anthony

subject: [Foundation-l] Mywikipediaspace

body:
On 10/6/06, Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se> wrote:
> If they market themselves as Wikipedia-based PR agents, something
> they cannot legally deliver, there are laws (in some countries, at
> least) against false marketing.

They would also be on pretty thin ice regarding trademark law, if not
outright in violation of it.

> However, it seems more likely
> that they would market themselves as PR agents without even
> mentioning Wikipedia as part of the package.

Moreover, the hard part is *writing* the article.  Simply adding it
into Wikipedia is easy, and need not be done by the same person who
wrote the article.  In fact, there's little benefit to having the
person hired to write the article know it's getting put into Wikipedia
in the first place.

Of course, getting the article to *stay* in Wikipedia might be harder,
depending on how obvious it is that it's a PR article, but hiring
someone to edit war over an article or otherwise vandalize Wikipedia
is pretty obviously wrong.

In the end, short of disallowing anonymous/psedonymous editors,
there's probably little that can be done to stop people from getting
paid to create Wikipedia articles, even if it were something we wanted
to do.

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] Mywikipediaspace


subject: [Foundation-l] Mywikipediaspace

body:
On 06/10/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

> You can't stop the phone calls or do anything about them.

In particular, messing with the encyclopedia to try to slow down the
stupid people is not going to slow them down a jot. We're #12 today.
#5 in Europe. Not a jot.

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Mywikipediaspace


subject: [WikiEN-l] Parker Peters's comments

body:
On Fri, 6 Oct 2006 12:47:01 +0200, "MacGyverMagic/Mgm"
<macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:

>Some adminship requests get opposed because the user aren't familiar in a
>specific field of administrator work. If we could specifically give people
>the tools they have the knowledge for, more requests would succeed. Perhaps
>it's time to run that plan to give people separate admin tools.

I'm not sure.  I've proposed, I think, two or three people for
adminship, in each case because I was very confident that they would
assume good faith and be fair-minded.  That is, in my view, all you
need.  Everything else can be learned on the job.

Needless to say these people were voted down at RFA, for reasons
entirely divorced from their fitness to do what the sysop bit allows,
namely blocking where justified and deleting where necessary.

Obviously it's me who is at odds with consensus.  I think that Stephen
Streater in particular would be a fine admin, and if I can persuade
William Pietri to accept a nomination I will be very happy.  I bet
somebody will find a reason to oppose even William.

But really I think that the peer-review process for admin actions is
lacking.  I am firmly of the view that we should talk more about what
we do, and we desperately need to find a better way of dealing with
trolls: either they get blocked immediately (which violates BITE) or
we let them hang around until we get thoroughly fed up with them, in
which case they poison everything they touch.  Danny's right, though -
these are dilemmas and there is no easy answer.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
On Fri, 06 Oct 2006 14:47:22 -0400, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:

>Fleshlight and its representatives have contacted us, asking that they
>have sole discretion over the content of the page, because any edits
>could ruin its advertising value. This is a non-notable product. The
>page was created solely for promotional purposes. It is now gone. Danny
>01:06, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

And the problem is?...

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


body:
Stephen Streater wrote:
> On 6 Oct 2006, at 04:27, Draicone wrote:
>
<snip>
>> Wikipedia is, as you say, broken.
>
> Maybe. But there are many great articles and good
> improvements to existing articles every day.
>
> And will I ever be made an Admin? Who can say.
>

Do you need to be an admin?
Can you be trusted as an admin?

enwiki has over 1000 administrators now - 1015 at present, although how
many are "active" is another matter - who knows how many of these are
sockpuppets of people who have been banned for stalking, death threats,
POV pushing, and other lunacy.

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

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
On Fri, 6 Oct 2006 22:48:54 +0100, "David Gerard" <dgerard at gmail.com>
wrote:

>- entry written after Hitler's complaint and a rigid WP:OFFICE
>application of WP:BLP.

Yeah but here we are working with WP:BDN (biographies of dead Nazis).
Plus Godwin's Law just got invoked.  Plus genuinely verifiable and
well-sourced criticism can be inserted any time, the problem is
*unsourced or badly sourced* criticism.  We still have plenty of
criticism of living individuals, where it's warranted.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


body:
On Fri, 6 Oct 2006 17:01:20 -0500, "Parker Peters"
<onmywayoutster at gmail.com> wrote:

>Ok, here's a basic question. One we should all be able to agree on.
>Should a "suspected sockpuppet" (new username) of a username block be
>blocked for being a sockpuppet?
>It's a simple enough question. Yes or no?

And in trying to render it as an unambiguous yes/no answer you have
the nub of the problem: it depends entirely on who the puppeteer is,
the quality of the evidence, the edits which were made under the
suspected sock account.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


body:
On Fri, 06 Oct 2006 23:17:54 +0100, Guy Chapman aka JzG
<guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:

>>Ok, here's a basic question. One we should all be able to agree on.
>>Should a "suspected sockpuppet" (new username) of a username block be
>>blocked for being a sockpuppet?
>>It's a simple enough question. Yes or no?

>And in trying to render it as an unambiguous yes/no answer you have
>the nub of the problem: it depends entirely on who the puppeteer is,
>the quality of the evidence, the edits which were made under the
>suspected sock account.

Oh, plus, blocking is preventative.  Is there  a potential problem to
be averted?  Will blocking and then discussing on the user talk page
be a better result for the project than letting them edit?

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [Wikipedia-l] FYI: Missing images tool, V2.0

body:
On 06/10/06, Magnus Manske <magnusmanske at googlemail.com> wrote:

> http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/missing_images.php

*applause*

Is there an index (on meta, presumably) of tools like this?

- d.


body:
David Gerard wrote:
> On 06/10/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> enwiki has over 1000 administrators now - 1015 at present, although how
>> many are "active" is another matter - who knows how many of these are
>> sockpuppets of people who have been banned for stalking, death threats,
>> POV pushing, and other lunacy.
>
>
> Presumably none who've continued with such behaviour since.
>

There's still the very slight matter of why Oversight was invented...

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

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body:
On 6 Oct 2006, at 22:57, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

> On Fri, 6 Oct 2006 07:31:37 -0500, "Parker Peters"
> <onmywayoutster at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> This is a larger problem I have with our policies, though. Every
>> policy we
>> have on the matter is designed to make it impossible for an
>> aggrieved user
>> to make any protest against abuse.
>
> No, none of the *policies* we have prevent this, I think.  It is very
> hard to be truly objective when reviewing unblock requests, though,
> and we definitely need more people like JoshuaZ and Phaedirel who are
> able to see the good in everybody.
>
> But let's be honest, the SPUIs of this world are tolerated despite the
> disruption they cause.  Sock-farming POV pushers should be shown the
> door speedily and in no uncertain terms.

Luckily we have Admins who are
steadfast in their dedication to this task :-)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Parker Peters's comments

references:
<c08.61aaa33.325789b2@aol.com>
	<fb7fdd9c0610060347k7b779885v5371eb5fa288bcaf@mail.gmail.com>
	<1nkdi2lftc5i5o085nfg7dvelt2v85pcqp@4ax.com>

body:
On 6 Oct 2006, at 23:11, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

> On Fri, 6 Oct 2006 12:47:01 +0200, "MacGyverMagic/Mgm"
> <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Some adminship requests get opposed because the user aren't
>> familiar in a
>> specific field of administrator work. If we could specifically
>> give people
>> the tools they have the knowledge for, more requests would
>> succeed. Perhaps
>> it's time to run that plan to give people separate admin tools.
>
> I'm not sure.  I've proposed, I think, two or three people for
> adminship, in each case because I was very confident that they would
> assume good faith and be fair-minded.  That is, in my view, all you
> need.  Everything else can be learned on the job.
>
> Needless to say these people were voted down at RFA, for reasons
> entirely divorced from their fitness to do what the sysop bit allows,
> namely blocking where justified and deleting where necessary.
>
> Obviously it's me who is at odds with consensus.  I think that Stephen
> Streater in particular would be a fine admin, and if I can persuade
> William Pietri to accept a nomination I will be very happy.  I bet
> somebody will find a reason to oppose even William.

That's very kind of you.

Needless to say, you do not meet the
current requirement for blandness!

> But really I think that the peer-review process for admin actions is
> lacking.  I am firmly of the view that we should talk more about what
> we do, and we desperately need to find a better way of dealing with
> trolls: either they get blocked immediately (which violates BITE) or
> we let them hang around until we get thoroughly fed up with them, in
> which case they poison everything they touch.  Danny's right, though -
> these are dilemmas and there is no easy answer.

Yes - there seems to be a stiff entry requirement
followed by little accountability. Perhaps if we
did it the other way round, we would get better
service from our Admins.


from_name: Magnus Manske

body:
Some time ago I wrote a tool to facilitate the spread of images on
wikipedia (which is mostly a good thing). However, it was very slow
and not very user-friendly.

Finally, I got around to rewrite it from scratch (something we're all
good at;-) and now call it V2.0:

http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/missing_images.php

Basically, it scans through a set of random articles, or articles from
a category, and checks if they have images. If they don't, it tries to
locate images in the matching wikipedia articles in other languages.
It also checks on their license status, and wether they're already on
commons. If not, copying them to commons is assisted by my
commonshelper tool.

If you find the tool mistakes some icon from a navigational element
for an image, please add the icon name to
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Missing_images_tool/Ignored_images

Also, feature suggestions and bug reports are always welcome.

Thanks,
Magnus


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Parker Peters's comments

body:
That's because it would give more opportunities to argue when the year
is up.  While there would be some benefit to clearing out the deadwood,
this serves no useful purpose in relation to active admins.

Assuming terms of one year, the idiots would make themselves obvious
long before that.  Those who use admin privileges sparingly but
correctly, thus consistently flying under the radar, would be
unjustifiably forced annually to run the gauntlet of the inhabitants at
Requests for Adminship.

The first thing that I would scrap about adminships is the voting.
Establish a few easily defined criteria for becoming an admin, and
anyone who has met those criteria and wants to be an admin then only
needs to ask and it will be granted.  This simplicity would bolster the
principle that adminship is no big deal.  It would also be no big deal
to de-sysop for absenteeism, because that person would only need to
become active again in order to be reappointed.

Repeated incivility (however we choose to define that) could be a
further basis for automatic desysopping, but that too can be reversed
when the person (who can still make ordinary edits) shows an ability to
get along with people.

Ec

Parker Peters wrote:

>I seem to remember proposals for limited-term adminship on here at some
>point, but it was a while back and got shouted down pretty quick...
>
>
>>I mean, there's more than one way to do it. On Meta, adminship is for
>>a year at a time, for example. On sr:, admins aren't just janitors but
>>have editorial decision powers. Etc.
>>


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-10-07

body:
An automated run of parserTests.php showed the following failures:

Running test TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Template with thumb image (with link in description)... FAILED!
Running test Template infinite loop... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold... FAILED!
Running test TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML Hex character encoding.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: dt/dd/dl test... FAILED!

Passed 420 of 437 tests (96.11%) FAILED!


from_name: Alison Wheeler

subject: [Foundation-l] Mywikipediaspace

body:
On Fri, October 6, 2006 22:36, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> It might be useful to have a disclaimer somewhere that states that any
> such arrangements are strictly between those parties.

Whilst it might be accurate I doubt it wuold be sensible. Those who hadn't
thought of it might see this clause and believe we were condoning such
activity and go search for someone whereas before they might not have even
thought of it.

Alison Wheeler


subject: [Foundation-l] Mywikipediaspace


subject: [WikiEN-l] Parker Peters's comments

body:
Draicone wrote:

>This is similar to the system we have on Wikiversity, actually. Anyone
>can nominate themselves for custodianship (our term for sysop), but a
>present custodian has to accept them for mentoring, and then they
>undergo a mentoring period for a number of weeks, after which the
>community can comment on their performance and decide if they can
>become a full sysop or not. Their actions generally come under further
>scrutiny during their mentorship period, and its assumed that they'll
>learn not to do anything stupid (of course, tests are acceptable and
>encouraged, I blocked myself for 10 minutes during my probation period
>to familiarise myself with it). It is, in essence, quite an effective
>system considering Wikiversity is just coming up.
>
This is why project autonomy is important.  It increases the probability
that at least one project may find a solution that works.  It is still
had to say how such a working solution will scale.

Ec


from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject: [Foundation-l] **** OFF!

body:
>
>Well, come on over to the english wikipedia, where we work by consensus
>and where we have a rule called "ignore all rules". Of course, some
>people are working hard to undermine that and take control of the wiki,
>so ... well there you go. Maybe you can help me at least save
>en.wikipedia? :-)
>
>
>
English wikipedia was lost already at the time I discovered wikipedia in
2003 (my god it is long ago). Unfortunately nl: is at the some point en:
was in 2003 and it only gets worse. To many rulefetisjists and police
officer wannabees who think they are enriching the project by telling
other people to follow rules they thought up and putting templates
everywhere. They offcourse do not write anything themselves, but they
are laying down the law on the people who actually enrich the projects.
I have written over 500 articles on nl: And have enough material for
another 500 at least ...... (look at my long list of sources in my space
on nl:) but I feel so much discouraged since the beginning of this year
that I haven't contributed anything worthwhile in months. And it isn't
getting better. All I see is 14-20 year olds coming and laying down
their law and seeing wiki as a way to make a carreer.

We desperately need a refocus on all the bigger languages. Away from
rulefetisjism and playing police officers and back to writing and
sourcing articles. But in the current climate I only see things
deteriorate.

Seriously dissillusioned about the current state of the projects,
Waerth


subject: [Foundation-l] **** OFF!


from_name: Hsiang-Tai Chien

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimania 2007

body:
Hi, I have replied in Wikimania-l, thanks.

H.T.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
> [mailto:foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Anthere
> Sent: Friday, October 06, 2006 9:24 PM
> To: foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimania 2007
>
> We received ROC email and I'll answer it as well.
> I answer here since the previous mail was on Foundation, but
> add in copy wikimania-l.
> I suggest further discussions be held on wikimania-l

___________________________________________________
 ??????? ? ????????????????
 http://messenger.yahoo.com.tw/


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimania 2007


from_name: Lars Aronsson

subject: [Foundation-l] Mywikipediaspace

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

> There are two entirely separate issues here.

I agree, but the difference is apparently not about being paid,
but about the contents of the resulting articles.

We all agree that articles should be encyclopedic, NPOV and cover
relevant topics.  Contributors who cannot learn to comply with
this can ultimately be blocked and banned, and will have their
edits reverted.

If they market themselves as Wikipedia-based PR agents, something
they cannot legally deliver, there are laws (in some countries, at
least) against false marketing.  However, it seems more likely
that they would market themselves as PR agents without even
mentioning Wikipedia as part of the package.  This probably
happens already.  Do we know where all the detailed articles on
various BMW car models come from?  Why does the [[en:Saab 9-5]]
article "require cleanup", while all BMW articles are good?
I don't want to start any witch hunt.  I'm glad that there are
good articles about BMWs.  I don't care who wrote them.  Let's
hope other brands can radiate the same inspiration to contributors
of good articles.

When I edit Wikipedia, it's in my free time, when I could decide
to work instead, so I'm already paying a price (to myself) for
editing.  Some people cannot afford this free time, but are forced
to have double jobs.  Northern welfare states (Canada, Sweden,
Japan) have more people with computers, education, and free time
available to edit Wikipedia, so these societies will be covered in
more detail than other regions.  If I get a scholarship, I can
spend more of my time editing Wikipedia.  Next step, if the
tourist board of my region (or a health eduction organization)
would pay me, I could focus on covering topics relevant to them.
And perhaps some hotel chains (or drug companies) can add to that
money.  Since I'm giving talks and technical consulting, I could
also advice PR firms on how to understand and interact with
collaborative Internet communities.

I don't see that I would step over some sharp border, were I to go
from paying myself to receiving scholarships or corporate
sponsoring for writing on Wikipedia. The sharp border is if I'm
starting to write bad articles.

It is possible that we should all openly declare any money we
receive for Wikipedia-related activities.  Are there any
guidelines for this already?  Would that include personal wealth
that enables us to spend time and resources on Wikipedia?  Do
other organizations (churches, Red Cross, ...) have such ethical
guidelines?

> But we can and should stand firm on the ethical principles.

But which are the ethical principles here?

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se


subject: [Foundation-l] Mywikipediaspace


subject: [Foundation-l] UMP Convention

body:
On 10/6/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> (apologies to Andre, who gets this twice)
>
> > Actually, Dutch law already has such a provision: Dutch government
> > materials are copyrighted only when copyright is explicitly claimed.
> >
> > From the English translation of Dutch copyright law
> > (http://www.ivir.nl/legislation/nl/copyrightact.html):
> >
> > The further communication to the public or reproduction of a literary,
> > scientific or artistic work communicated to the public by or on behalf
> > of the public authorities shall not be deemed an infringement of the
> > copyright in such a work, unless the copyright has been explicitly
> > reserved, either in a general manner by law, decree or ordinance, or
> > in a specific case by a notice on the work itself or at the
> > communication to the public. Even if no such reservation has been
> > made, the author shall retain the exclusive right to have appear in
> > the form of a collection his works which have been communicated to the
> > public by or on behalf of the public authorities.
> >
> > Problem now is how to get those materials...
>
> This is very interesting, though I'm a bit confused about how the last
> sentence works - I suspect the translator's understanding of
> "exclusive right" and mine differ.
>
> Do you know how it works in practice?

It's been a while since I read the journals on that article, so I don't
remember the details, but the consensus seemed to be that even with that new
article (and other articles following from a EU directive) the release of
Dutch government information won't increase.

Garion96


subject: [Foundation-l] UMP Convention


from_name: Keith Old

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
On 10/7/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
>
>
> On 6 Oct 2006, at 20:14, Parker Peters wrote:
>
> > Hmm.
> >
> > #1 - they are apparently a registered company, with a business
> > address and
> > everything.
> > #2 - they are selling a product (several really) to the public
> > #3 - they apparently do a significant amount of advertising.
> >
> > One would think this makes them notable.
>
> My main company, set up in 1998, has
> number over 3500000. This gives an idea
> of how many companies had been set up
> in the UK since the relevant Act was passed.
>
> There are millions of non-notable companies
> in the world.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

G'day folks,

A Google News Archive search shows some coverage of this product.

http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=Fleshlight&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&btnG=Search+Archives

The claim by the company is an ambit claim completely contradictory to our
principles. The product is marginally notable but I am not shedding too many
tears about the temporary loss of the article under the circumstances.

Regards

Keith Old


from_name: Shinjiman

subject: [Wikitech-l] Comments on the new wikipedias

body:
Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at ...> writes:

>
> Hoi,
> WiktionaryZ does not follow RFC 3066 because it is unusable for its
> purposes. The RFC 3066 is unusable for the languages that are not
> addressed by it. To link into the projects of the Wikimedia Foundation
> we can include the code used by the Wikimedia Foundation.
>
> The practice of using codes that are made up and that are not
> distinguishable from ISO-639 codes is against the terms of use. The
> codes qaa to qtz are the codes where you are free to do what you want to do.
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>

Hi GerardM,

Since the WiktionaryZ does not following RFC 3066, but no idea is the language
codes that used suits for RFC 4646 or not. :S

Shinjiman


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Foundation-l] Mywikipediaspace

body:
2006/10/7, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org>:

> > However, it seems more likely
> > that they would market themselves as PR agents without even
> > mentioning Wikipedia as part of the package.
>
> Moreover, the hard part is *writing* the article.  Simply adding it
> into Wikipedia is easy, and need not be done by the same person who
> wrote the article.  In fact, there's little benefit to having the
> person hired to write the article know it's getting put into Wikipedia
> in the first place.

I think there is. Knowing that and knowing Wikipedia, one can adapt
one's style to the Wikipedia style and go further in removing/avoiding
PR buzzwords than one would in another publication. The hard part is
not writing the text (that's something that has often already been
done), but writing it in such a way that it is suitable for Wikipedia.

> In the end, short of disallowing anonymous/psedonymous editors,
> there's probably little that can be done to stop people from getting
> paid to create Wikipedia articles, even if it were something we wanted
> to do.

Well, we could have a stricter policy against advertisements. That
might make it less profitable for companies to hire someone to write
about them on Wikipedia. Then again, it might also mean that
abovementioned "wikipedia styling" might become *more* interesting.
And then there is the possibility that companies switch to less
obviously advertizing articles. Like writing an article not about the
company, but about the product in which it happens to be a major
player. Or, as someone else suggested, a pharmaceutical company
sponsoring articles about the conditions they sell treatments for (in
the Netherlands we had for example one company paying quite a lot of
money in television commercials intended to have people with
[[onychomycosis]] visit the doctor about it (whom they hoped would
then prescribe their drug).

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


subject: [Foundation-l] Mywikipediaspace


from_name: GerardM

body:
Hoi,
The RFC 4646 provides many things that I will gladly follow particularly in
the way it allows for extentions. I have discussed the issues that I have
with Felix Sasaki (W3C) and Gerhard Budin (ISO) among others.

   - Many recognised languages have to "fit" as a subtag of another
   language. This is for many people who think "politically" about languages
   not acceptable. The way it is implemented is also a travesty for people who
   know about languages. The motivation is to provide backwards compatibility
   even though ISO-639-2 was dismissed as useless and ISO-639-3 had to be
   created really quickly.
   - Some of the things not standardised yet in the ISO codes are worked
   on as new standards (eg dialects) the proposed codes are not known at this
   time and this creates a mess of its own.
   - Orthographies are not supported in the planned for extentions to
   ISO-639. This is acknowledged as an ommission.

Consequently, it is much better to make a clean break while still conforming
to standards. The standards complicance existing in WiktionaryZ is better
than the standards compliance of the current crop of Wikimedia language
codes. They do not conform to a standard because it breaks standards in many
places. Some of the language codes used are voted in with a total disregard
of what would be valid vis a vis the terms of usage of the ISO-639 codes.

Let me repeat that WiktionaryZ does include a code for Wikimedia language
codes; it makes sense to have backwards compatibility. The basis for
inclusion at WiktionaryZ for languages at this time are the ISO-639-3 codes.
When need be the ISO-639-3 codes are extended using RFC 4646 to provide
guidelines on how to do this and we will and do ask people in standards
organisations on how to solve issues that are outside what RFC 4646 provides
answers for.

We do have a code currently indicated as "ISO-639-2" in our database. We
could enter something there that would be compatible with the RFC 4646 once
it is figured out what would be a valid code under this regime. Problematic
is that many of the ISO-639-2 codes are depreciated in ISO-639-3 and, it
would be a nice academic excercise to create these codes where I do not want
to deal with the political fall out that this creates.

Thanks,
    GerardM

On 10/7/06, Shinjiman <shinjiman at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at ...> writes:
>
> >
> > Hoi,
> > WiktionaryZ does not follow RFC 3066 because it is unusable for its
> > purposes. The RFC 3066 is unusable for the languages that are not
> > addressed by it. To link into the projects of the Wikimedia Foundation
> > we can include the code used by the Wikimedia Foundation.
> >
> > The practice of using codes that are made up and that are not
> > distinguishable from ISO-639 codes is against the terms of use. The
> > codes qaa to qtz are the codes where you are free to do what you want to
> do.
> > Thanks,
> >     GerardM
> >
>
> Hi GerardM,
>
> Since the WiktionaryZ does not following RFC 3066, but no idea is the
> language
> codes that used suits for RFC 4646 or not. :S
>
> Shinjiman
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Dschwen

subject: [Wikitech-l] installed fonts for SVG->PNG

body:
Hi,
what Fonts are installed on the wikimedia servers that can be used by the
automatic SVG->PNG conversion.
A list could be helpful for people who create SVG illustrations. And since I
heard a couple of complaints about 'poor font support' maybe the list can be
extended?
Best
--
[[:en:User:Dschwen]]
[[:de:User:Dschwen]]
[[:commons:User:Dschwen]]


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

body:
On 10/6/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> SPUI wrote:
> > Fleshlight and its representatives have contacted us, asking that they
> > have sole discretion over the content of the page, because any edits
> > could ruin its advertising value. This is a non-notable product. The
> > page was created solely for promotional purposes. It is now gone. Danny
> > 01:06, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
> >
> > http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=fleshlight&btnG=Google+Search&sa=N&tab=wn
> > seems "notable", verifiable, whatever. But our hands are tied by the
> > office shit. Any company can now contact Danny, convince him that they
> > are "non-notable", and get salted.
> >
>
> Wrong. Any company can contact Danny saying "hello, you keep changing
> our spam, can you let us have total control of the page?" and have it
> deleted as spam under CSD G11.

I hate to "me too" this, but... G11 doesn't trump legitimate notability.

Or if it does, shouldn't, and something is grossly wrong with policy.

As is, you have just handed a mechanism to any company to get their WP
entries nuked.

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com