from_name: Nathan Carter

body:
I have quite a large number of opinions on this.
There needs to be an executive in place with the subcommittees which can
act relatively autonomously but are responsible to the executive. At the
same time I would like to see us have Wikicouncil, where people from the
projects meet to discuss them and issues arising out of them.

Wikicouncil would then have someone who reported back to the executive
and again be responsible to them.

The fact is, Joe and Joanne editor couldn't really care less how the
organisation is ran so long as everything works. The organisation needs
to be ran by experts with a small amount of accountability to the user
base (which I feel Wikicouncil would achieve)
Cheers,
Nathan

oscar wrote:

>hi all,
>
>i would like to share with you some thoughts on (re)organization.
>i read that there are plans to put a ceo in place to take care of executive
>responsibilities. executive responsibilities are very different from those
>of responsible wikians within the projects. so far these things have not
>been separated at all, that is understandable for a young and growing
>organization, but such cannot last or work well forever.
>
>in my opinion:
>1. the only way this organization, its projects and mission, its vitality
>and appeal, will survive will be if a strict separation be implemented
>between volunteer-work, executive tasks and their respective supervision.
>2. separation of executive and project-related responsibilities by
>installing an elected council of representatives from the projects is
>mandatory.
>3. the task of an appointed board should be supervising the work of the
>executives, it should be a type of board consisting of very professional
>people (the kind which in a way of speaking should have "better things to
>do", if you get my meaning), and in general not deal with the projects at
>all.
>4. the council of representatives should supervise the projects, advise the
>executive level, and in general not deal with the board at all.
>
>i could be more elaborate in explaining the rationale behind these thoughts,
>but i chose to keep things concise. note however, that i spoke of how
>specific tasks, responsibilities and work can be organized, avoiding the
>who-does-what, which is not of my concern now.
>also these things should definitely not be mixed up.
>
>for what it's worth these are my two euros ;-)
>
>oscar
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Foundation-l] on (re)organizing wikimedia


list: wikien-l

from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
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Phil Sandifer stated for the record:

>>Not nearly as dangerous as the consequences of making it. Supose we
>>do. Guess what the next person we piss off will do. And the next and
>>the next.
>
>
> I know.
>
> Better that than someone dead. At least, someone who didn't know the
> risk when they did it, and didn't sign up for this.
>
> -Phil

Do you ever draw the line anywhere?  Would you tell us to comply with
the demand "I will publish the home addresses of a handful of your
administrators unless you take down all of Wikipedia and swear never to
attempt to build a free encyclopedia ever again"?

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Yes, I am the last man to have walked on the
 sean at epoptic.com | moon, and that's a very dubious and disappointing
                  | honor. It's been far too long. --Gene Cernan
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list: foundation-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Would you consider being on the Board?

body:
Kim Bruning wrote:

>Some aspects that might be good
>* Typically "older" users who have a lot of experience
>* People who are mild, and unlikely to enter conflict
>* People who have also had some amount of real life experience.
>
>
>
>
I agree with these guidelines except for the second. There is no use
having someone who is just going to follow the group dynamic and agree
on everything just because they are afraid of being confrontational. In
most organisations the real changes come from conflict. Conflict when
constructive and directed properly is useful and should not be something
we shy away from.
Cheers,
Nathan.


from_name: Erik van den Muijzenberg

body:
On 11-jun-2006, at 2:47, Kim Bruning wrote:

> On Sat, Jun 10, 2006 at 08:55:23AM +0200, Erik van den Muijzenberg
> wrote:

>> Again I don't understand why such a strict separation should be
>> necessary.
>
> What's your proposal, Muijz? :)

Well, I probably missed yours then? :-)

I'm a newbie to this list, so I'll ask questions first, clueless as they
might seem to be. And maybe come up with a proposal later on.

Erik vdMb aka Muijz


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] fundraising

body:
Kelly Martin wrote:

>On 6/11/06, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Has any thought gone into producing printed materials (either on CD or
>>even dead tree format) for high quality materials derived from Wikimedia
>>project pages?
>>
>>
>
>I fear that printed material like this is of sufficiently low margin
>as to not be a very effective fundraising activity.  The costs
>involved in producing high-quality printed material are substantial.
>Sadly, the quality of product produced by the vanity presses (like
>Lulu) is not very high, and I fear that it would do us a disservice.
>(I have the same concern regarding the merchandise we sell through
>Cafe Press.)
>
>Kelly
>
>
And that is precisely the risk we are talking about here.  And one of
the many reasons why it hasn't been done.  The difference here is that
Wikipedia does have a brand that means something beyond those typical of
a vanity press, and a reason why I think there should be at least an
exploration of the idea with some test-marketing.  As far as Cafe Press
is concerned, the up-front costs are sufficiently low enough that it
justifies the marginal income that comes in from such an activity.  I'm
not suggesting that this can completely or even substantially replace
the current direct plea for donations, but it could be some minor income
to add that extra little bit needed.

And this is something supposedly already covered by some grant money
(aka Wikijunior) where supposedly some printed materials were promised
but never delivered.  I'm suggesting that perhaps we need to deliver on
at least that promise, and it would be a good avenue to see if other
printed materials might also be attractive.

--
Robert Scott Horning


subject: [Foundation-l] fundraising


from_name: Laurence Soixante-sept

subject: [WikiEN-l] Bogdanov affair and dishonesty of Wikipedia

body:
I see that Anville has found a real playground with the article "Bogdanov affair" : obviously he has a lot of fun by adding sooo many bad items on this article which was already so negative for his subjects. Anyways, it is understandable : he can play as much as he wants, without being disturbed, as the Arbcom screened so carefully who would have the right to edit this article - and even to comment it on the talk pages !

  Now it is Anville, who started by removing the web sites which were in favour of the Bogdanovs (like mine) and now spends a lot of time for searching out any document against the Bogdanovs in order to add it to the article - surely helped by Alain Riazuelo. Always this good old NPOV...

  I have told this sickening story on a lot of blogs on the french Web, and I will carry on... My article "Wikipedia and the Bogdanov affair : "free encyclopedia" or virtual dictatorship ?" will be soon translated in english, so that the readers of the article "Bogdanov affair" will be able to judge it.

  People begin to understand what Wikipedia is really, and I will do everything I can to help them to understand even better ! The article "Bogdanov affair" is such a great example of it...

  Laurence67

 __________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
En finir avec le spam? Yahoo! Mail vous offre la meilleure protection possible contre les messages non sollicit?s
http://mail.yahoo.fr Yahoo! Mail


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
Joe Anderson wrote:
> Surely is Brandt comitting a criminal offense?
>
> I think the article should be deleted, as articles are often deleted after
> the request of the subject.

I think deleting the article would be bad. Firstly, I believe we only
delete articles on request of the subject when that request causes us to
take a hard look at it and realize that it should be deleted _anyway._
An awful lot of stuff on Wikipedia needs to get done but doesn't until
someone draws attention to it. But secondly and more importantly, I'm
sure a lot of the loonie trolls on Wikipedia know of Brandt's site and
can easily get a hold of copies of it before it goes down. They'd know
afterwards that all they have to do to win their own personal wars would
be to put up a mirror and make the same deal.

If the problem is that admins didn't know the risks they took by
becoming admins, how about updating the pages about adminship to discuss
this particular possibility? Any admins who became admins before this
incident can always request de-adminship if they don't think the risk is
worth it any more.

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from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [Foundation-l] fundraising

body:
On 6/11/06, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
> Has any thought gone into producing printed materials (either on CD or
> even dead tree format) for high quality materials derived from Wikimedia
> project pages?

I fear that printed material like this is of sufficiently low margin
as to not be a very effective fundraising activity.  The costs
involved in producing high-quality printed material are substantial.
Sadly, the quality of product produced by the vanity presses (like
Lulu) is not very high, and I fear that it would do us a disservice.
(I have the same concern regarding the merchandise we sell through
Cafe Press.)

Kelly


subject: [Foundation-l] fundraising


subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
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Sarah stated for the record:

> On 6/11/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:
>
>>Do you ever draw the line anywhere?  Would you tell us to comply with
>>the demand "I will publish the home addresses of a handful of your
>>administrators unless you take down all of Wikipedia and swear never to
>>attempt to build a free encyclopedia ever again"?
>>
>
> Yes, we would draw the line somewhere, but we don't have to be slaves
> to slippery slope arguments. The current situation is that we're
> discussing the deletion of a page about a borderline-notable figure
> who has requested the deletion. We don't have to turn everything into
> a matter of principle. Rather, we should do what's good in a practical
> sense for Wikipedia and its editors and admins.
>
> We've deleted or blanked other pages that subjects haven't wanted.
> It's getting to the point where we're digging our heels in with Brandt
> because we don't want to be the victims of extortion, and while that's
> an admirable principle, it leaves the two sides with locked horns and
> no solution.
>
> Sarah

Oh, I know what you mean.  I also find that principles can be extremely
annoying.  Life is so much easier if one ignores them when they get
inconvenient.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Yes, I am the last man to have walked on the
 sean at epoptic.com | moon, and that's a very dubious and disappointing
                  | honor. It's been far too long. --Gene Cernan
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list: wikitech-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] single signon status?

body:
John Ky wrote:
> On 4/17/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>> William Allen Simpson wrote:
>>> I've searched the archives for the past several months, and cannot find
>>> the status of this project, other than a busy fellow saying that it was
>>> the top priority in February.  Anybody know?
>> It'll be done when it's done.
>>
>> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
> Hi,
>
> Any news on the single signon?  Has coding started on it yet?

Yes, some. This happens between all the other crud I've got to do, so it's not
quite done yet. "Soon."

>  Is there a
> document describing how it will work?

Already been linked to.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
Daniel Brandt is a notable public figure. By all rights, he should
have an article in Wikipedia. And the article we have on him is a
good one.

We should also, after contacting Brandt, delete it.

I don't know if you all caught what Brandt and the folks at Wikipedia
Review did to me last month. If you didn't, here: http://
www.boingboing.net/2006/05/22/u_florida_cops_ask_f.html Basically,
someone on Wikipedia Review contacted my University to express
concern that I was a murderer, and I got to deal with a week of being
the subject of a police investigation that demanded my fingerprints.

In my case, who I am is public knowledge, and I decided to make it
that way. But that's not the case for everyone on Brandt's Hive Mind
site. A lot of them are people who didn't accept their RFA expecting
that they'd have their names, cities of residence, and photos
released. Nobody on Wikipedia, I don't think, realized that accepting
adminship meant painting a target on yourself, and, frankly, on your
family and friends.

The Foundation doesn't and can't provide admins with protection here.
And we need protection. The other admins on this site should not get
to go through what I did, or any of the far worse things that can and
will eventually happen to us.

But, after thinking about it, its my belief that the Foundation owes
its editors and admins the protections it can give. And one of those
is offering to delete Brandt's article in exchange for the removal of
the Hive Mind site. It's an awful trade. It's a horrible, awful
trade. We should hate making it, and we should hate Brandt for
forcing us to make it.

But we should make it. Because the consequences of not making it are
just too dangerous.

-Phil


subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On Jun 11, 2006, at 1:38 PM, Sean Barrett wrote:
>
> See also Terrorists#negotiating with

I agree. And I made that decision for myself when I switched to using
my real name on Wikipedia.

But that's not a decision Wikipedia has the right to make for me. It
is not a government, and I am not its citizen.

-Phil


subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
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Sarah stated for the record:

> On 6/11/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:
>
>>Oh, I know what you mean.  I also find that principles can be extremely
>>annoying.  Life is so much easier if one ignores them when they get
>>inconvenient.
>>
>
> It's not that principles should be ignored. It's that they need to be
> formulated and prioritized carefully. If the British government had
> stuck to the principle "never negotiate with terrorists," the
> Provisional IRA would still be blowing people up, but it was decided
> instead that the principle of saving lives was more important, and the
> gamble paid off.
>
> Sean, if someone points a gun at your head and asks for your wallet,
> you don't think: "If I give in, they'll just move on and do this to
> someone else." No, you hand over your wallet, because you value your
> life.
>
> Sarah

Sarah, when someone pointed a gun at my head, what I thought was "if I
give in, he'll just do it to my wife and daughter."  No, I did not hand
over my wallet, because I value their lives.

If we give in to Brandt's extortion, we are actively worsening the
danger to everyone on this site, because we will have demonstrated what
it takes to control us.  The next guy (and there will be one and more
than one) will do his own research and make his own demands.  Why
shouldn't he?  It works!  Then one of the many times that personal data
are published, someone is going to act on that data.  Brandt is not the
only evil person in the world.

What you assumed was a "slippery slope" hypothetical was nothing of the
kind.  There are those who think Wikipedia should not exist.  Delete
Brandt's article, and within days we will receive the demand "shut down
completely or I will publish your personal data."

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Yes, I am the last man to have walked on the
 sean at epoptic.com | moon, and that's a very dubious and disappointing
                  | honor. It's been far too long. --Gene Cernan
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from_name: Kirill Lokshin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On 6/11/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Jun 11, 2006, at 1:38 PM, Sean Barrett wrote:
> >
> > See also Terrorists#negotiating with
>
> I agree. And I made that decision for myself when I switched to using
> my real name on Wikipedia.
>
> But that's not a decision Wikipedia has the right to make for me. It
> is not a government, and I am not its citizen.

But it will only make things worse, though.  Brandt is neither
particularly well-connected nor particularly unique in his talents,
such as they are; and I have little doubt that secondary copies of the
Hivemind pages exist.  What you're proposing is open season on
blackmailing Wikipedia -- whether to obtain deletion or (even worse!)
actual changes to articles -- by anyone who can threaten to put up
admins' personal information.

--
Kirill Lokshin


subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
>
> Not nearly as dangerous as the consequences of making it. Supose we
> do. Guess what the next person we piss off will do. And the next and
> the next.

I know.

Better that than someone dead. At least, someone who didn't know the
risk when they did it, and didn't sign up for this.

-Phil


subject: [WikiEN-l] User Protection Fund

body:
A separate, but related issue to the Daniel Brandt thread.

It's common enough sense that Wikipedia is going to get sued someday.
And I know we've been preparing financially for that.

But with the rise of Brandt, Wikipedia Review, and whatever is going
to come after them in this progression, the fact of the matter is
that admins and regular editors are in danger too. Not just legal
danger (As I assume the Foundation would use its legal resources to
protect an admin who was sued), but personal danger.

Our photos, names, and cities are being published. People are
stalking us. Eventually, something bad is going to happen.

When it does, there should be a fund to help - whether its helping
with the medical bills of someone who's physically attacked, helping
with the legal bills of someone who's trying to stop a stalker, or
helping defray the costs of someone who's fired because of harassment
at their workplace, Wikipedia needs to be able to help the volunteers
who are put in danger by helping Wikipedia.

I believe that we should, as soon as possible, start a special
fundraiser to build this fund, and after that should devote a regular
portion of the Foundation budget to it.

Supporting Wikipedia is acquiring a high price. Simply put, Wikipedia
needs the ability to support us.

-Phil


subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
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Phil Sandifer stated for the record:

>
> On Jun 11, 2006, at 4:53 PM, Sean Barrett wrote:
>
>
>>What you assumed was a "slippery slope" hypothetical was nothing of
>>the
>>kind.  There are those who think Wikipedia should not exist.  Delete
>>Brandt's article, and within days we will receive the demand "shut
>>down
>>completely or I will publish your personal data."
>
>
> I suspect that we would have received this already if someone were
> going to do that.
>
> -Phil

Right now they don't bother because the existing evidence indicates that
they would be laughed at.  Demonstrate what sort of intimidation works
on us and that will change.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Yes, I am the last man to have walked on the
 sean at epoptic.com | moon, and that's a very dubious and disappointing
                  | honor. It's been far too long. --Gene Cernan
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
> I think his point is that even if we shut down this page, there will
> come a new one, and that new one will contain just as damaging
> information, and what happened to you will happen to someone else.
> Wikipedia is too famous and too contentious, this stuff will never
> stop no matter how many people we make deals with and how many sites
> are shut down.

Yes. We also need to come up with longer term solutions to protect
our users. I just started a thread on that too. :)

-Phil


subject: [WikiEN-l] Oversight

body:
Anthere wrote:
> Brion Vibber wrote:
>> Anthere wrote:
>>
>>>>> * what is the procedure followed in case of abusive use of the tool ?
>>>> Extreme bannination.
>>> How can evidence of misuse be gathered ?
>>
>> If alerted, a database admin can look in the hidden table.
>>
>> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
> Brion, could not it be possible that at least all those with oversight
> actually *see* the deleted revisions ?

Likely not, as that would defeat the purpose.

> I understood this was a temp hack. Would it be possible to make hidden
> version visible to oversight people ?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Sarah

subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On 6/11/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> I sympathize with Phil, I really do, but the thing is that the reason
> governments never negotiate with terrorists isn't of some abstract
> philosophical reason, it's because it doesn't work.

Governments negotiate with terrorists all the time, and it often does
work, which is why some terrorist campaigns come to an end.

I agree with Phil and I thank him for raising the issue. I deleted
Brandt's article back in October, when it was just Brandt and myself
who were writing it and he asked for it to be taken down. It would
likely have stayed deleted if he hadn't talked about it, but he posted
about it on a blog and so of course the blog owner recreated it.

Even after the Siegenthaler affair, Brandt is still only borderline
notable. I created the stub on him only because he'd been used as a
source in an article, and his name came up as a red link, so rather
than delete the red link, I created a stub. There are very few
reliable third-party sources on him. In such a borderline case, if the
subject doesn't want the page to exist, there's no harm in taking it
down.

Wikipedia is just a website, as important as it is to the people who
read and write it. It isn't worth a single human life. My fear is that
someone is going to lose their livelihood, or be physically hurt or
worse, and where any of these things is a real possibility, we have to
be responsible. The publish-and-be-damned attitude is inappropriate.

We have admins who are teenagers, single women living alone, admins in
sensitive professional positions, admins with young children. Some of
the people who have already been harassed have been contacted at home
and at their work place, and their employers and parents have been
harassed too. We shouldn't wait until someone is physically stalked or
assaulted.

In my view, we should ask Brandt to delete the hive mind pages, and
undertake not to recreate them or assist anyone else in doing so, and
then we should delete his article and keep it that way.

Sarah


body:
Kelly Martin wrote:

>On 6/10/06, Nathan Carter <magnaboy at westnet.com.au> wrote:
>
>
>>I have quite a large number of opinions on this.
>>There needs to be an executive in place with the subcommittees which can
>>act relatively autonomously but are responsible to the executive. At the
>>same time I would like to see us have Wikicouncil, where people from the
>>projects meet to discuss them and issues arising out of them.
>>
>>Wikicouncil would then have someone who reported back to the executive
>>and again be responsible to them.
>>
>>The fact is, Joe and Joanne editor couldn't really care less how the
>>organisation is ran so long as everything works. The organisation needs
>>to be ran by experts with a small amount of accountability to the user
>>base (which I feel Wikicouncil would achieve)
>>
>>
>
>I've long believed that we should have a council/assembly/etc.
>composed of representatives selected by each project; this body should
>elect, at the very least, some portion of the board of directors.
>
>Kelly
>
>
>
I agree there should be a Wikicouncil setup which has an influence on
the executive, but I do not believe that the executive needs to be
elected by the "community". Sure, the community may have a little
influence but we need to remember that the community is a seperate
entity to the foundation itself.
Cheers,
Nathan.


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 6/10/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
>> There seem to be lots of American editors who think that British
>> English is *wrong*, and likewise British editors who think that
>> American English is *wrong*.  (They rarely come out and say this
>
> I think you're mischaracterising it. There are a number of Americans
> in general who have had very little contact with British spelling, and
> find it *wrong*. Most British-spellers have had contact with American
> spelling, and those that object, find it *bad*. They generally accept
> it as a valid choice, they just don't like it.
>
> So, generalising a lot, Am->Br is usually done out of ignorance,
> Br->Am out of bloody-mindedness.
>
<snip>

Shouldn't that be the other way around?

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

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from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

subject: [WikiEN-l]  Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On 11 Jun 2006 at 13:30, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:

> But, after thinking about it, its my belief that the Foundation owes
> its editors and admins the protections it can give. And one of those
> is offering to delete Brandt's article in exchange for the removal of
> the Hive Mind site. It's an awful trade. It's a horrible, awful
> trade. We should hate making it, and we should hate Brandt for
> forcing us to make it.

Millions for defense; not one cent for tribute.
No negotiation with terrorists.

The Brandt article has been through *seven* attempts to delete it
through AfD, and has survived all of them.  Most were ended with
speedy action, but the ones that went long enough to get a large vote
total were overwhelmingly in favor of keeping.  It would be sending
entirely the wrong message to reverse this as part of a bargain to
stop outside harrassment.

--
== 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: Conrad Dunkerson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
* Phil Sandifer wrote:
> But, after thinking about it, its my belief that the Foundation owes
> its editors and admins the protections it can give. And one of those
> is offering to delete Brandt's article in exchange for the removal of
> the Hive Mind site.

I understand where you are coming from, but I don't think it would be
effective. To all appearances Brandt has strongly held 'objections' to the
fundamental nature of Wikipedia... and Google... and individually wrapped
cheese slices.

Surely he will continue to find things he disagrees with even if the
article about him is removed. Some of the people he has 'gone after' had
little or no connection to that article and he has declared a desire to
identify and 'expose' ALL of the admins on Wikipedia (hive mind 2 he calls
it). He claims that allowing anonymous editors and admins is 'a very bad
thing' <tm>. That isn't going to go away if his page does. He has been
able to justify to himself that it is acceptable for him to call people's
employers, suggest to colleagues that they are unethical, intrude into
their personal lives, get the police after them for writing stories, et
cetera... these are not the actions of a man with one little issue that is
easily resolved.

Not to mention... the sort of 'exchange' you are talking about has been
done previously and did not seem to be particularly well received.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On 6/11/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:
> Do you ever draw the line anywhere?  Would you tell us to comply with
> the demand "I will publish the home addresses of a handful of your
> administrators unless you take down all of Wikipedia and swear never to
> attempt to build a free encyclopedia ever again"?
>
Yes, we would draw the line somewhere, but we don't have to be slaves
to slippery slope arguments. The current situation is that we're
discussing the deletion of a page about a borderline-notable figure
who has requested the deletion. We don't have to turn everything into
a matter of principle. Rather, we should do what's good in a practical
sense for Wikipedia and its editors and admins.

We've deleted or blanked other pages that subjects haven't wanted.
It's getting to the point where we're digging our heels in with Brandt
because we don't want to be the victims of extortion, and while that's
an admirable principle, it leaves the two sides with locked horns and
no solution.

Sarah


from_name: maru dubshinki

subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On 6/11/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> I respectfully disagree. What happened to Phil shouldn't come with the
> territory of being an admin on a website.
>
> I sympathize with Phil, I really do, but the thing is that the reason
> governments never negotiate with terrorists isn't of some abstract
> philosophical reason, it's because it doesn't work.
>
> Suppose Brandt took down his Hive Mind page in return for us deleting
> the article. Do you think that he would stop posting stuff at
> wikipedia review? Do you think he would stop investigating admins and
> inciting other people to harass them? I doubt it.
>
> Even if we could somehow stop Brandt (which I think is HIGHLY
> doubtful, he won't change his mind and he won't change the subject, if
> you know what I mean), pulling down his page will only serve as an
> invite for the next guy. And the next guy. And the next guy.
>
> This would simply not work.
>
> --Oskar

Agreed. From what I understand of Brandt's views, nothing less than
our public and prominent shutdown would ever truly satisfy him. Have
you read his reasoning and screeds about aliiances between Google and
Wikipedia and Wikipedia mirrors and how vandalism and bad articles
will never die (and other foolishness like that)? It seems to me that
he sees himself as having been permamently wronged, and that our
entire project is antithetical to his beliefs.

~maru


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Category translation

body:
Delirium wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>Viewed
>>separately the Wikipedias in different languages are bound to arrive at
>>different NPOVs that are each strongly rooted in distinct cultural
>>values.  A language with a small concentrated geographical territory is
>>more likely to achieve a satisfactory NPOV, without the complicated
>>arguments  that may be encountered with a widely dispersed language like
>>English.  This broad range of neutralities helps keep things dynami
>>
>>
>I'd say the opposite, unless we redefine "neutral" in some relativistic
>way.  IMO, it is far more likely that the English article, due to having
>participants from multiple viewpoints, will be neutral on any given
>topic than that in a language without a very diverse speaker
>population.  For example, which do you think is more likely to cover the
>Bosnian war neutrally: the English-language Wikipedia, or the
>Serbian-language Wikipedia?  The English Wikipedia has Serbs, Bosniaks,
>Croats, and many neutral people; the Serb Wikipedia does not benefit
>from nearly the same diverse population.
>
To be sure some degree of relativism is inevitable in NPOV, no matter
how we define it.  The broader community that participates in the
English WP is bound to bring in more diverse viewpoints.  The Serbian
and Croatian WPs are likely to diverge in certain political areas with
most contributors to either being satisfied to leave the other alone.
Attempting to enforce some kind of absolute NPOV would involve
confronting the majority viewpoint.  This creates a situation quite
different from what would have been if we had insisted on a single
Serbo-Croation WP.  I'm not arguing that the reality is ideal, just for
recognizing that neutrality may be more difficult to attain on some WPs
than on others.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On 6/11/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> The thing is it's not just a matter of principle. We do this because
> if we give in more and more people will do exactly the same thing.
> And, as I've said, Daniel Brandt is a fanatic, he won't ever stop,
> even if he wins this battle. We have to be utalitarian here, we have
> to take the route where we get the least amount of trouble. We do that
> by not giving in.
>
Being utilitarian is notoriously difficult, because how many of the
foreseeable consequences do you factor in? If you want to be
rigorously consequentialist, factor in the serious physical assault
(or worse) of an admin, or an admin's kids.

We have already deleted or blanked pages that the subjects haven't
wanted, so tell me: what is so different about Daniel Brandt that we
absolutely refuse to do it for him, despite the chaos it has caused?
(And if you say it's in part because of the chaos it has caused, that
confirms that we're simply digging our heels in, which is
understandable but irrational.)

Sarah


subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On 6/11/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:
> Oh, I know what you mean.  I also find that principles can be extremely
> annoying.  Life is so much easier if one ignores them when they get
> inconvenient.
>
It's not that principles should be ignored. It's that they need to be
formulated and prioritized carefully. If the British government had
stuck to the principle "never negotiate with terrorists," the
Provisional IRA would still be blowing people up, but it was decided
instead that the principle of saving lives was more important, and the
gamble paid off.

Sean, if someone points a gun at your head and asks for your wallet,
you don't think: "If I give in, they'll just move on and do this to
someone else." No, you hand over your wallet, because you value your
life.

Sarah


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Cultural distinctions are accidental? Consensus
 among cultures is bad?

body:
Raphael Wegmann wrote:

>Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
>
>>Jimbo claims he's said this many times in the past.  I couldn't find
>>any, but if anyone else can maybe I can better understand what he's
>>saying.  If Jimbo does "NOT think that cultural distinctions between
>>difference language Wikipedias are accidental", then he must think
>>they're intentional.  That raises the question as to who intended
>>these distinctions, and what distinctions were intended.  I always
>>thought the English Wikipedia at least was supposed to be neutral with
>>regard to culture.  Maybe English is the exception?
>>
>>
>Regardless whether the cultural distinctions are intended or not,
>they are a fact. I would consider i.e. a translation of terms like
>Islam and Terrorism from english to arabic and vice versa very
>exciting. I honestly thought about paying a translator to do it.
>
Charged as those terms might be, that is not where the translation
difficulties are going to be.  Islam can be any religion based on the
Qur'an, and can include a wide range of practices, both moderate and
extremist.  "Terrorism" as a word transcends language, because the
debste over just what terrorim is will remain similar in any language.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On Jun 11, 2006, at 2:19 PM, Daniel R. Tobias wrote:
> The Brandt article has been through *seven* attempts to delete it
> through AfD, and has survived all of them.  Most were ended with
> speedy action, but the ones that went long enough to get a large vote
> total were overwhelmingly in favor of keeping.  It would be sending
> entirely the wrong message to reverse this as part of a bargain to
> stop outside harrassment.

To be clear, I don't think we should reverse the AFDs as such. I
think Brandt is notable. I think, by all editorial standards (Which
is what AFD is equipped to handle) he should have an article.

I just think there are very compelling non-editorial standards here.

-Phil


list: commons-l

from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Commons-l] some statistics

body:
Essjay wrote:
<snip> lots of replys</snip>
I am aware that none of my "solutions" is perfect, but I'm sure they
could be useful. People might be more sympathetic for admins deleting
files if "the system" prevents new uploads until the backlog of bad old
ones is cleared up. Likewise, once the backlog is down considerably, an
automativ deletion after X days would be reasonable. If the backlog
grows (vandals), it could pause. Etc.
> I am a Commons admin, and the thing that scares me most about Commons
> admin work is deletion: Almost everything on Commons, if deleted, cannot
> be recovered, and Commons materials are used on all Wikimedia projects.
> There are good tools, like the one that checks usage on other projects,
> and I'm glad we have them, but we still have the problem that there is a
> major language barrier, and very low participation from projects.
>
> However, the thing that would make me feel most comfortable deleting
> would be a way of getting things back. If deleted images could be
> recovered, I'd have no problem whatsoever with deleting things in those
> categories left and right. And, it solves the problems raised above with
> the idea of deleting by bot: As long as we know we can get it back, why not?
>
Is there a rule that says this has to be done *inside* the commons? The
images are accessible from everywhere, so deleted images could be copied
to other places prior to deletion. The toolserver might be a suitable
place, or we could even go for a distributed solution that uses the
toolserver as an organizing hub. Similar to the recycle bin on Desktops,
old deleted images (where noone complained about the deletion) could be
deleted permanently if space gets low. Images would not be accessible
for the public, so no problem arises for copyvios.

I'd be willing to code that. Note that this deletion would require going
through a script on the toolserver (to copy the image), which would then
invoke the coimmons deletion form.

Magnus


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Cultural distinctions are accidental?
 Consensus	among cultures is bad?

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>>Let's look at a scale
>>of cultural-dependency that Wikipedia as a whole could situate itself
>>on:
>>
>>3. Small deviations in content are allowed in the form of examples or
>>expressions. Eg, giving examples in English for "Personal pronoun" as
>>I alluded to.
>>
>>
>I still think that example is contrived.  Some of what you're saying
>I'd say falls under "translation".  But as for actual differences in
>what constitutes a personal pronoun, as opposed to merely
>translational differences, I'd say the English Wikipedia should
>*already* cover the topic in all languages, if necessary
>disambiguating the article.
>
>In fact, we already do this to some extent.  See [[French personal
>pronouns]].  I don't think [[Personal pronoun]] would be any worse if
>it talked only about concepts that exist across languages, and linked
>to [[English personal pronouns]] for the rest.  In fact, I think it'd
>be better.
>
The difficulty with to pronouns, or pronominal adjectives is often in
their usage.  For example, French adjectives agree with the word they
describe, while English adjectives agree with the subject of the sentence.

    "He took his watch" = "Il a pris sa montre" - It could be his own or
another person's, unless the context requires, "Il a fait attention."
    "He took her watch" = "Il a pris sa montre" - The translation
remains the same.  The fact that it was a female's watch is losat.

Translating back requires a review of the context.

To take it further, our concepts of parts of speech derive directly from
our Indo-European (notably Latin) prejudices about language.  It is
misleading to think that other languages would have similarly applied
the same terms in describing their own languages.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l]  User Protection Fund

body:
On 11 Jun 2006 at 14:07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:

> When it does, there should be a fund to help - whether its helping
> with the medical bills of someone who's physically attacked, helping
> with the legal bills of someone who's trying to stop a stalker, or
> helping defray the costs of someone who's fired because of harassment
> at their workplace, Wikipedia needs to be able to help the volunteers
> who are put in danger by helping Wikipedia.

Seems like a good idea to me... kind of like the [[Comic Book Legal
Defense Fund]], only for Wikipedians rather than the comics
community, and with a broader scope than merely legal troubles.

--
== 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: Birgitte SB

subject: [Foundation-l] Re :  on (re)organizing wikimedia

body:
osar's ideas as outlined below are far too general to
formulate much of an argument for or against.  I will
say I am against the Wikicouncil as described on Meta.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikicouncil
  It would be far too large to be effective.  I can't
see how a group of more than 20 people max could be
useful in an advisory role.  And I have no idea what
"supervision of the projects" actually entails.  Any
duties I can think of that could be considered
supervision need a group no larger than 13.

I don't mean to imply oscar's ideas have no merit.  We
certainly need to understand where some boundaries are
between different roles.  I am not sure why strict
seperation is so neccessary.  And I guess I need oscar
to define what he means by

*executive and project-related responsibilities

*supervise the projects

Before I can really comment, although I can say my
current impression is negative.

Birgitte SB

--- Traroth <traroth at yahoo.fr> wrote:

> I think Oscar's idea is really great, because it
> mixes representativity (an elected board) and
> efficiency (a designated CEO and a perennial
> administrative staff). The best proposal I have
> heard.
> I would like people against his proposition express
> their arguments.
>
> Traroth
>
> ----- Message d'origine ----
> De : oscar <oscar.wiki at gmail.com>
> ? : Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
> Envoy? le : Samedi, 10 Juin 2006, 2h44mn 15s
> Objet : [Foundation-l] on (re)organizing wikimedia
>
> hi all,
>
> i would like to share with you some thoughts on
> (re)organization.
> i read that there are plans to put a ceo in place to
> take care of executive
> responsibilities. executive responsibilities are
> very different from those
> of responsible wikians within the projects. so far
> these things have not
> been separated at all, that is understandable for a
> young and growing
> organization, but such cannot last or work well
> forever.
>
> in my opinion:
> 1. the only way this organization, its projects and
> mission, its vitality
> and appeal, will survive will be if a strict
> separation be implemented
> between volunteer-work, executive tasks and their
> respective supervision.
> 2. separation of executive and project-related
> responsibilities by
> installing an elected council of representatives
> from the projects is
> mandatory.
> 3. the task of an appointed board should be
> supervising the work of the
> executives, it should be a type of board consisting
> of very professional
> people (the kind which in a way of speaking should
> have "better things to
> do", if you get my meaning), and in general not deal
> with the projects at
> all.
> 4. the council of representatives should supervise
> the projects, advise the
> executive level, and in general not deal with the
> board at all.
>
> i could be more elaborate in explaining the
> rationale behind these thoughts,
> but i chose to keep things concise. note however,
> that i spoke of how
> specific tasks, responsibilities and work can be
> organized, avoiding the
> who-does-what, which is not of my concern now.
> also these things should definitely not be mixed up.
>
> for what it's worth these are my two euros ;-)
>
> oscar
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

__________________________________________________
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from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject:
[WikiEN-l] specialised encyclopaedias (was Re: To: Jimmy Wales -
 Admin-driven death of Wikipedia)

body:
G'day Steve,

> On 6/10/06, Jesse W <jessw at netwood.net> wrote:
>
>>You would not see that in the Encyclopedia of Late 20th Century
>>American Television?  Really?  Or do you mean in any "general"
>>encyclopedia.  Because certainly, Wikipedia reaches the level of a
>>specialized encyclopedia in a number of areas, like television shows -
>>but (I hope), we don't go too much beyond that.
>
> I still find it hard to imagine a specialised encyclopaedia listing
> all the couch gags in Simpsons episodes, or detailed plot summaries
> with "quotes" for every episode of Futurama or "Clerks: The Animated
> Series" etc etc. If someone can prove me wrong, go for it.

While still at school, I ran across a /Star Trek: The Next Generation/
encyclopaedia (it was in the school library, believe it or not).  It
included descriptions of all characters and their history (that is,
their real-world history[0] ... how the show's creators went about
recruiting actors, how they'd originally envisioned the characters[1], etc.

There was also a detailed listing of all TNG episodes, with plot
summary, credits, a very short review, interesting technical details,
and occasionally a photograph.  At the end was a detailed "making of" of
/Generations/, since that film had just been released, or was about to
be released, at the time of publication.

I think this qualifies as a specialist encyclopaedia, and I don't see a
problem with Wikipedia including analogous content --- provided we keep
in mind that a) it has to be relevant to people who don't already know
heaps about TNG, and b) it has to stay neutral and not be packed with
fan theories and other such crud.

[0] I think a lot of our fiction articles could be dramatically improved
     by taking a real-world approach: "here is what this fictional entity
     should look like to people who aren't wrapped up in the fictional
     universe".  Our /Doctor Who/ articles largely get this right; our
     /Star Wars/ and particularly /Gundam/ articles often don't.  As a
     Trekkie, I haven't bothered looking at our /Star Trek/ collection,
     for fear it would only depress me.

     Compare [[Light saber]] with [[Dalek]].  Then choose any Gundam
     article at random, and marvel at the statistics presented therein,
     instantly forgetting any criticisms you may have had for [[Light
     saber]].

[1] There was a lot of emphasis on Captain Picard being French, and why
     he stayed that way even after Patrick Stewart, the most British
     British actor the Brits have produced, was cast to play him.

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


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [Foundation-l] fundraising

body:
On 6/11/06, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/11/06, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
> > Has any thought gone into producing printed materials (either on CD or
> > even dead tree format) for high quality materials derived from Wikimedia
> > project pages?
>
> I fear that printed material like this is of sufficiently low margin
> as to not be a very effective fundraising activity.  The costs
> involved in producing high-quality printed material are substantial.
> Sadly, the quality of product produced by the vanity presses (like
> Lulu) is not very high, and I fear that it would do us a disservice.
> (I have the same concern regarding the merchandise we sell through
> Cafe Press.)
>
> Kelly

I think CDs and/or DVDs would make a good "thank you" gift for
donators.  Wikimedia might even get someone to donate the cost of
physically producing the CDs/DVDs.  In that sense I think it'd
increase the amount of donations.  I always used to buy my FreeBSD
install CDs directly from freebsd.org rather than from Cheapbytes
(back before *BSD died :), and I think a lot of people do that kind of
thing.

The real issue I think would be the legal can of worms it would open.
Better for Wikimedia to license its copyrights and trademarks to a
third party (on a $ per copy basis) and let them sell the
CDs/DVDs/print versions?/etc.


subject: [Foundation-l] fundraising


from_name: josh at ifthen.info

subject: [Foundation-l] Finding a suitable wiki for FREEDOMplay.com


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Request to mailing list Wikipedia EN-l rejected
	("Oversight")

body:
On 6/11/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> I rejected a message from Selina last night, but it appeared to be
> gibberish, not content. (As in nonsense characters not words - not as
> in "an incoherent rant")

Not to single Selina out here, but could we have a bit more pro-active
rejection of incoherent rants, obvious trolls and the like?  We've
seen a lot of useful discussion here, but on the other hand there has
been a lot of stuff from banned users who simply won't accept that the
problem lies with their behavior and not a fundamental problem with
the entire edifice of Wikipedia's administration and dispute
resolution.

While we should address problems seriously, I don't think those users
are quite the ones to raise the need for change.


subject: [Foundation-l] Searching for a suitable wiki for FREEDOMplay.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On 6/11/06, Sarah <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> We have already deleted or blanked pages that the subjects haven't
> wanted, so tell me: what is so different about Daniel Brandt that we
> absolutely refuse to do it for him, despite the chaos it has caused?
> (And if you say it's in part because of the chaos it has caused, that
> confirms that we're simply digging our heels in, which is
> understandable but irrational.)

Principles aside, we simply have no reason to believe that Brandt
would actually stop coming after Wikipedia if his article were
removed.  Taking down the Hivemind pages -- even assuming that no
copies will be put up by anyone else -- would only be the beginning,
since much of his most damaging activity has been at WR, rather than
directly on his own sites.

--
Kirill Lokshin


subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
geni wrote:

>On 6/11/06, Joe Anderson <computerjoe.mailinglist at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Surely is Brandt comitting a criminal offense?
>>
>>
>Like what? Most of the information was publicaly availible any way.
>
In some places he could be charged with obstructing justice for filing
false police reports.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On 6/11/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think in cases of borderline notability, the subject's desire not to
> be included should indeed be factored into a decision. But I already
> found Brandt pretty clearly notable before this whole mess (I have
> been aware of his websites, NameBase and Google Watch, and some of his
> other online activities for some time), and even more so now that his
> latest crusade has received international press coverage. IMHO his
> case is not borderline, and deleting the article now would establish
> the wrong principle.
>
> Erik

Is there any compromise position?  Does Brandt insist that the article
must be completely deleted, or are there only particular parts that he
objects to?

As long as NameBase and Google Watch continue to be published on the
web, I don't see why Brandt would legitimately object to Wikipedia
writing about those things which he continues to make public anyway.

Is it even clear that Brandt is willing to stop fighting against
Wikipedia/Wikipedians if the page on him is removed?  His criticisms
are certainly broader than this.

Sorry if I'm asking frequently asked questions.  I don't really know a
whole lot about the issue.


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures

body:
On 6/11/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> > So, generalising a lot, Am->Br is usually done out of ignorance,
> > Br->Am out of bloody-mindedness.
> >
> <snip>
>
> Shouldn't that be the other way around?

Yes.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On Jun 11, 2006, at 4:53 PM, Sean Barrett wrote:

>
> What you assumed was a "slippery slope" hypothetical was nothing of
> the
> kind.  There are those who think Wikipedia should not exist.  Delete
> Brandt's article, and within days we will receive the demand "shut
> down
> completely or I will publish your personal data."

I suspect that we would have received this already if someone were
going to do that.

-Phil


subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On Jun 11, 2006, at 4:44 PM, Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
>
> 1)We delete the article.
> 2)We keep the article.
>
> Pros of 1)
> * Daniel Brandt might stop being an ass.

Well, I was suggesting we confirm that he'd stop before we did it, to
clarify.

-Phil


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

body:
On 6/11/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Perhaps the proof lies in the simple fact that others DID imagine doing
> such things.  :-)
>
> Pop culture needs to be given credit for being popular.

Popular but uncritical, and rarely studied to any significant degree.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On 6/11/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I suspect that we would have received this already if someone were
> going to do that.

They might not have known what sort of personal data we were sensitive
about before.  Now, they would; rather than going out and gathering
something on their own, they could simply threaten to re-publish
Brandt's information.

--
Kirill Lokshin


subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On 6/11/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jun 11, 2006, at 4:44 PM, Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
> >
> > 1)We delete the article.
> > 2)We keep the article.
> >
> > Pros of 1)
> > * Daniel Brandt might stop being an ass.
>
> Well, I was suggesting we confirm that he'd stop before we did it, to
> clarify.
>
> -Phil

Has he suggested that he would?


subject:
[WikiEN-l] specialised encyclopaedias (was Re: To: Jimmy Wales
	- Admin-driven death of Wikipedia)

body:
On 6/11/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
> While still at school, I ran across a /Star Trek: The Next Generation/
> encyclopaedia (it was in the school library, believe it or not).  It
> included descriptions of all characters and their history (that is,
> their real-world history[0] ... how the show's creators went about
> recruiting actors, how they'd originally envisioned the characters[1], etc.

Ok, that's interesting, because that's even more "specialised" than I
was thinking. I was imagining a "encyclopaedia of US sitcoms" or
something. I think your example would struggle to really qualify as an
"encyclopaedia" though, as it sounds like it was really written for
fans to provide interesting "behind the scenes" info etc. As opposed
to being a comprehensive reference for researchers in the field, say.

> I think this qualifies as a specialist encyclopaedia, and I don't see a
> problem with Wikipedia including analogous content --- provided we keep
> in mind that a) it has to be relevant to people who don't already know
> heaps about TNG, and b) it has to stay neutral and not be packed with
> fan theories and other such crud.

It has to meet WP:V too, though, which I doubt most of our articles
about TV episodes do. References are few and far between. By
comparison with written literature, say, each episode would seem to me
equivalent to a chapter, meaning we shouldn't have articles on every
chapter, because there just isn't enough interesting to say. After
you've summarised the plot, what can you really say about an episode?
Its effect on mainstream popular culture? I doubt it. Its significance
outside that TV show? The history of production of the episode? Umm...

>      Compare [[Light saber]] with [[Dalek]].  Then choose any Gundam
>      article at random, and marvel at the statistics presented therein,
>      instantly forgetting any criticisms you may have had for [[Light
>      saber]].

[[Dalek]] is a shining example to all others of what a fancruft
article should be like. It constantly places the Dalek in the real
world, talking about how they were produced, what the producers were
thinking etc. As opposed to getting caught up in how Dalek 2348 got
blown up in episode XIV by Doctor Who's pet monkey.

>
> [1] There was a lot of emphasis on Captain Picard being French, and why
>      he stayed that way even after Patrick Stewart, the most British
>      British actor the Brits have produced, was cast to play him.

Sounds ok.
Steve


from_name: Rob Church

subject: [Wikitech-l] single signon status?

body:
On 11/06/06, John Ky <newhoggy at gmail.com> wrote:
> Any news on the single signon?  Has coding started on it yet?  Is there a
> document describing how it will work?

http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/CentralAuth/

See the various .txt files.

Rob Church


body:
> On 6/11/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 6/11/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I rejected a message from Selina last night, but it appeared to be
>>> gibberish, not content. (As in nonsense characters not words -
>>> not as
>>> in "an incoherent rant")
>>
>> Not to single Selina out here, but could we have a bit more pro-
>> active
>> rejection of incoherent rants, obvious trolls and the like?  We've
>> seen a lot of useful discussion here, but on the other hand there has
>> been a lot of stuff from banned users who simply won't accept that
>> the
>> problem lies with their behavior and not a fundamental problem with
>> the entire edifice of Wikipedia's administration and dispute
>> resolution.

For what it's worth, I generally have not been letting through the
posts of banned users who seem to be reiterating debates we've been
having with trolls since 2004.

But there's no hard rule, and it basically depends on whichever list
admin happens to see the post.

-Phil


from_name: Brianna Laugher

subject: [Commons-l] some statistics

body:
Essjay:
>  See? This is what I was talking about. Everybody wants to benefit, but
> nobody wants to accept the responsibility that comes with using what we
> offer. If you're going to use Commons images, you've got to accept that
> you're using something under a different set of policies, with a different
> set of procedures, and adjust to that. Unfortunately, most projects wont.

Hm, I disagree that it is a different set of policies. It is just what
the policy should be on all Wikimedia projects, if we want to be
serious about avoiding copyvios and creating reliable, truly free
content. There are not that many projects that allow fair use so for
most projects I would guess the policies should be the same.

Different procedures, yes, they vary wildly from wiki to wiki (and I
would rather use ours than en.wp's any day of the week... but I am
biased :)) so it would be pretty much impossible for that to be
standard. Nothing unusual though, I don't think; templates, warnings,
7 days notice, etc.

>  I still think the best thing to have would be a way to recover deleted
> images for a short period of time.

Well, possibly, but arguing about the best process rarely (sorry,
NEVER) translates into the technical solutions required. You can argue
again on http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2099 if you
like.

For a comprehensive list of how technical issues impact on the
Commons, you may like to visit
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Bugs :)

cheers,
Brianna


from_name: mboverload

subject: [WikiEN-l] User Protection Fund

body:
Do trolls get insurance, too?  Who do we define as a troll?  Who is worthy
of this kind of protection?

On 6/11/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/11/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> > How much money are we talking though? As we all know, wikimedia ain't
> > the richest organisation in the world, we are barely scraping by. And
> > a solid legal defense can be very expensive.
>
> The legal fees in question would probably simply amount to someone
> going through the paperwork to get a restraining order etc, small time
> stuff.
>
> This fund sounds like a nice idea in theory, but it would need a lot
> of scoping first - exactly who is covered, to what extent, at whose
> discretion, for what period of time, etc. You're basically talking
> about Wikipedia becoming an unfunded insurance policy. Perhaps the
> people who are covered by it would have to chip in, say $20 a year or
> so?
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
I would disagree.  An incredible amount of money is spent every year trying
to figure out what is popular.  "Popular culture" encompasses so many things
I think it would be hard to say "IT" isn't studied.

mboverload

On 6/11/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/11/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> > Perhaps the proof lies in the simple fact that others DID imagine doing
> > such things.  :-)
> >
> > Pop culture needs to be given credit for being popular.
>
> Popular but uncritical, and rarely studied to any significant degree.
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Laurence Soixante-sept

subject: [WikiEN-l] RE : Re:  Bogdanov affair and dishonesty of Wikipedia

body:
It is wrong : you banned all editors who had taken part to the edit war, and then you cancelled this ban for 2 editors. Among them : Ze Miguel, who had written only against them, and had edited almost only this article. He just hurried to write a lot of things as soon as you spoke about banning all people who had not edited other aritcles, and it worked ! Even worse : you cancelled also the ban for r-bj, who had insulted the Bogdanov several times on the discussion page : "bastards", "con-men", he suggested to put the article in the cathegory "excrement", etc. Wikipedia should have banned him, at least from this article, but you did exactly the opposite : you nominated him as one of the rare people who had sitll the right to edit the article, in order to make it a "NPOV" one !

  Of course these guys had a lot of fun to write even more bad things about the Bogdanovs, knowing that they were protected by the Arbcom. I hope you are not disappointed by the result : the article could be hardly more negative than it is ! Even the sites who were in favour of the brothers were censored by Anville !

  And concerning the sockpuppets : it is strange to see that all people who tried to defend them were considered automatically as sockpuppets of the Bogdnaovs... It is so easy !
  When you write : "The person complaining sounds like one of the Bogdanovs"... are you kidding, or do I understand badly ? You mean that I would be one of the twins ? Do not you have "check users" to verify this kind of things ?

  If you have the least doubt, it will be surely more clear like that : see this pictures, on my web site (you know, one of these external links who were censored by Anville) :
  http://www.bogdanov.ch/Photos-accueil.htm#Uto05

  On the first pictures, the third person is myself. OK ? Do I look like a sockpuppet ?
  I know also CatherineV, LLL, and some other people who were banned indefinitly, like me, as if we had done something terrible... They are not more sockpuppet than I am, of course...

  And concerning the Bogdanovs : if you really do not want people to edit on themselves, you must do what you can to prevent malicious people to write against the subjects of an article, just for the fun... or because they had a quarrel with them and want to take revenge of them, as it happened in this case. The Bogdanovs have been harrassed for years by some people who edited their article only to try to destroy them, as they had done already a lot of times on the fora, and you helped them, with your partial decision, to get what they wanted : a very bad article against the brothers. I sincerely hope that you were better as a lawyer with your "real" clients than you were in this case.

  Laurence67

  Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> a ?crit :
  The url of the arbitration case is

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

I would say there is no good solution. The Bogdanov's themselves
edited (lot of sockpuppets). The others did a hatchet job. Basically
we said that if you are not a regular Wikipedia editor, don't drag
your personal stuff onto Wikipedia. But that may have happened. The
person complaining sounds like one of the Bogdanovs. He may well have
a valid complaint about the other editor, but letting them edit
freely is no solution either.

Fred

On Jun 11, 2006, at 6:55 AM, Steve Summit wrote:

> I had never heard of the Bogdanov affair before this. I'm not
> sure what your criticism of the Wikipedia article is, but to me
> it looks balanced and well written. I enjoyed reading it, and
> it is easy to form my own opinion of the matter. Thanks for
> bringing it to my attention.
> _______________________________________________
> 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

 __________________________________________________
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En finir avec le spam? Yahoo! Mail vous offre la meilleure protection possible contre les messages non sollicit?s
http://mail.yahoo.fr Yahoo! Mail


from_name: Stephen Bain

body:
On 6/11/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
> While still at school, I ran across a /Star Trek: The Next Generation/
> encyclopaedia (it was in the school library, believe it or not).  It
> included descriptions of all characters and their history (that is,
> their real-world history[0] ... how the show's creators went about
> recruiting actors, how they'd originally envisioned the characters[1], etc.

I own the 1999 version of the Star Trek Encyclopaedia, covering the
four series and the nine movies up to that point. It's just like the
one you describe, it's concise and accessible for non-fans (although I
doubt how many non-fans would be reading it - but the point is they
could read it if they wanted).

Importantly, it treated the fictional stuff as "true", like a reader
of an encyclopaedia within the fictional universe would expect, but it
simultaneously presented information about the shows, the actors, etc
alongside the fictional stuff, without each trying to pretend that the
other didn't exist. It's hard to describe, but I think it's a
marvellous example of how encyclopaedias should address fictional
matters.

> I think this qualifies as a specialist encyclopaedia, and I don't see a
> problem with Wikipedia including analogous content --- provided we keep
> in mind that a) it has to be relevant to people who don't already know
> heaps about TNG, and b) it has to stay neutral and not be packed with
> fan theories and other such crud.

Indeed. WP is of course a generalist encyclopaedia, and although it is
not paper, and can include much more material than other generalist
works, we should always be writing for a generalist audience [1].
There are now, of course, specialist wiki encyclopaedias for these
subjects (like Memory Alpha and Wookiepedia) which are a much better
place for specialist content.

[1] Science articles are another area where there are some excellent
articles written so that they can be broadly understood, and others
which are far too detailed for the generalist reader.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Anthere

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> On 6/11/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
>
>>Start with the Q&A's and work your way through the site. This is not  about
>>attending seminars. This is about the basic responsibilities of Board  members.
>
>
> There's a Q&A on the "Ten Basic Responsibilities of Nonprofit Boards".
>  I won't quote it all here, but they include determining and
> communicating the mission, choosing and overseeing a chief executive,
> overseeing financials, and maintaining accountability.
>
> I'd say that while the board chair should probably have extensive
> experience, for the most part the main qualifications of the other
> board members are moral integrity and a committment to the goals of
> the organization.  I guess I'd add in lack of hubris.  So long as a
> board member knows she's not an expert in something and is willing to
> ask for outside help, I think she'll be just fine.  As the site says,
> "Much of the work that a board does is accomplished through its
> committees and task forces.  With the exception of the Executive
> Committee, which acts on the board's behalf, committees recommend
> action to the full board for discussion and action."  I'd say it's
> these committees and and task forces that really need the experts.  If
> the experts can also serve on the board, even better, but I don't see
> why it's required.  When it comes down to it, the main thing that's
> done by the board outside of a committee is that they discuss and
> vote.
>
> I also see a question about whether or not the Chief Staff Executive
> should be a member of the board.  The answer mentions how "some feel
> that board membership blurs the distinction between the board's
> responsibilities and the executive's responsibilities and makes it
> difficult for the board to assess the executive's performance
> objectively."  Sounds like the situation Wikimedia has itself in right
> now.
>
> Anthony

See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Description_of_board_members_jobs

I strongly believe the CEO should not be on the board. It seems to make
sense in small organisations, but I would say it is not suitable in our
case.

Doubly when the CEO is not only on the board, but also the chair of that
board.

And triply (if that term exist) when the CEO not only is the chair of
the board, but also the foundator of the leading project.

It raises the issue of
1) suitability of the CEO (not chosen per his executive abilities in the
first place)
2) availability of the CEO for day to day tasks
3) performance assessment of the CEO (since he is giving tasks to
himself and assessing his performance himself)
4) Relevance of the board existence

ant


subject: [Commons-l] An idea to help solve Commons copyright woes

body:
Hello,

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests
frequently sees recurring copyright debates, which I believe is
basically because we are a bunch of amateurs trying to make decisions
on complex international copyright law.

This is no slight on the people who take part in these debates (I am
one of them), but it simply seems to me quite silly. No one can be
sure who is right, we argue in circles and it's really inefficient. I
really feel out of my depth trying to argue on copyright cases, but I
do it because *someone* has to - there just isn't enough attention
given to these cases.

And yet Wikimedia has a legal department:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_department . Villy
(Jean-Christophe Chazalette), who is part of it, used to be quite
active on Commons but hasn't been for some time.

Therefore I propose that we (Commons community) ask the Legal
department to create and fill a permanent position known as something
like "Commons liaison officer" (CLO). Their job will be to mediate
requests for copyright advice between Commons and the juriwiki mailing
list/Legal department. Hopefully we could have a turn-around of about
two weeks on any given issue.

I hope this would be considered appropriate for the Legal department,
because Commons is handling the vast bulk of media copyright issues,
unlike text copyright issues which are spread almost everywhere else.

Of course they should not be bothered with every little issue. Only
things that cannot be resolved on [[COM:DEL]] should be taken to the
CLO (presumably by admins). (For example we would not ask them to try
and find the source of an item. The onus is on the uploader to provide
the source. If they cannot, we have to delete.) The advice they offer
should be recorded, interpreted as a precedent and binding.

I hope to draw some attention to this issue here (and the Village
pump) and if there is more or less unanimity, I will post a request to
juriwiki and the foundation-l mailing list.

Here are some recent issues that I would like resolved:
* To what extent are we bound by local laws and to what extent are we
bound by Florida's laws (as the home of our servers). Country
copyrights vary considerably with regards to duration of copyright,
"freedom of panorama" (Panoramafreiheit) /whether public objects such
as statues and even buildings can be freely photographed and there is
a lot of confusion about this. Should we respect local law always or
interpret in terms of US law?
(Big discussion at the moment about a photo of the interior of a
German railway station:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#Image:Berlin_Hauptbahnhof_pano_06.jpg
)

* There was recently a discussion about the "Against DRM" license (
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:ADRM ).

* Logos. This has still not been sufficiently resolved, in that there
is not a clear enough solution that everyone is aware of. Do we
consider copyright independently of trademark status? Is that even
possible? ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#Image:CSU-Logo_1998.jpg
)

* "Agencia Brasil" license  (
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Ag%C3%AAncia_Brasil ) also
has been debated several times. Related to the wider issue of, "if a
website says "these images can be used freely, can we interpret that
as allowing commercial use and derivative works, and thus
Commons-compliant? Or do we need to check each time whether they
intend to allow these specific rights?"

* Photographs of commercial products such as: Pokemon/Star
Wars/Simpsons toys, box of Pringles, also people in dress-up outfits
of characters such as Lara Croft/Chewbacca. Eloquence has raised this
before ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#May_21
) but I doubt even he would think this has been satisfactorily
resolved.

* US presidential portraits (
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#Official_paintings_held_by_the_U.S._Government
).

* Photographs of art - if the artwork itself is old enough to be PD,
is it true that any photograph of the art itself is also PD, but any
photograph of the art in its frame or on a wall  is not? (Because it
is 3-D, not 2-D anymore)

* Personality rights. What permission is required of people
photographed, if any? (eg "Can I take your picture"/"Can I publish
your picture on a public database that allows commercial use?") Is
this a copyright concern or a "other law" concern that we don't need
to worry about? What if the people aren't recognisable (and how can
you decide that anyway?)? (
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#All_pictures_of_little_girls_uploaded_by_User:Belginusanl
 , also some of the "visible thong" pictures on
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/G-string have been nominated before)

* Stock xchange images (current:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/COM:SXC villy also wrote
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Aurevilly/sxc.hu_%282%29 but it
seems to have stalled). What should be done with the existing images
(which are intentionally not categorised in any way as such, so they
might be hard to find), what do we have to do (if anything) in order
to use current images?

I don't really want to discuss any of these issues right now. I want
to discuss whether or not other people think it would be appropriate
to seek professional legal advice on issues like these and whether or
not they think my idea of asking for the appointment of a CLO is a
good idea or not.

Thanks,
Brianna /user:pfctdayelise


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] [[WP:OURS]] - A proposal for admin-user relations

body:
On Sat, 10 Jun 2006 11:32:46 -0700 (PDT), you wrote:

>It is not surprising to me that you -like a few
>others- are interpreting the proposals around some
>specific discussions you have in mind.

Hard not to given that you are an indefinitely blocked POV pusher, and
the proposals appear designed to strengthen the position of POV
pushers and weaken that of the admins who have to clean up after them.

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


from_name: Joe Anderson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
Surely is Brandt comitting a criminal offense?

I think the article should be deleted, as articles are often deleted after
the request of the subject.

On 6/11/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Phil Sandifer stated for the record:
>
> > Daniel Brandt is a notable public figure. By all rights, he should
> > have an article in Wikipedia. And the article we have on him is a
> > good one.
> >
> > We should also, after contacting Brandt, delete it.
>
> > <reasoning snipped>
>
> ?We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
>     No matter how trifling the cost;
> For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
>     And the nation that plays it is lost!?
>
> See also Terrorists#negotiating with
>
> - --
> Sean Barrett     | I don't have a beer gut, I have a
> sean at epoptic.com | protective covering for my rock hard abs.
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
> iD8DBQFEjFT5MAt1wyd9d+URArltAJ4vxzFYVCDhQvmtNNiIFrN2SMTG/gCfR000
> uYVPa7SS+3SUSozJp9PXECo=
> =KCR6
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Joe Anderson

[[User:Computerjoe]] on en, fr, de, simple, Meta and Commons.


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On 6/11/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> In my case, who I am is public knowledge, and I decided to make it
> that way. But that's not the case for everyone on Brandt's Hive Mind
> site. A lot of them are people who didn't accept their RFA expecting
> that they'd have their names, cities of residence, and photos
> released. Nobody on Wikipedia, I don't think, realized that accepting
> adminship meant painting a target on yourself, and, frankly, on your
> family and friends.

Pretty much anything you do online risks doing that.

>
> The Foundation doesn't and can't provide admins with protection here.
> And we need protection. The other admins on this site should not get
> to go through what I did, or any of the far worse things that can and
> will eventually happen to us.
>
> But, after thinking about it, its my belief that the Foundation owes
> its editors and admins the protections it can give. And one of those
> is offering to delete Brandt's article in exchange for the removal of
> the Hive Mind site. It's an awful trade. It's a horrible, awful
> trade. We should hate making it, and we should hate Brandt for
> forcing us to make it.
>
> But we should make it. Because the consequences of not making it are
> just too dangerous.
>
> -Phil

Not nearly as dangerous as the consequences of making it. Supose we
do. Guess what the next person we piss off will do. And the next and
the next.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On 6/11/06, Joe Anderson <computerjoe.mailinglist at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Surely is Brandt comitting a criminal offense?
>

Like what? Most of the information was publicaly availible any way.

> I think the article should be deleted, as articles are often deleted after
> the request of the subject.

I don't.

--
geni


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [Foundation-l] Re : on (re)organizing wikimedia

body:
On 6/11/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
> osar's ideas as outlined below are far too general to
> formulate much of an argument for or against.  I will
> say I am against the Wikicouncil as described on Meta.
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikicouncil
>   It would be far too large to be effective.  I can't
> see how a group of more than 20 people max could be
> useful in an advisory role.

Yes, the only point to a large body as described in the Wikicouncil
proposal is to act as an assembly or congress; in an organization such
as Wikimedia such an assembly would normally be the final governing
authority for the organization, would elect the board and the
officers, and be the legal source of authority for the board and
officers to act.  I would not object to Wikimedia moving to a congress
of delegates as the final governing authority, but I suspect such an
idea would be unacceptable at this time to the current Board.  In any
case, the entity described by the Wikicouncil proposal has no
authority at all and I see no point in it existing, except perhaps to
throw a nice party at Wikimania.

As you state, an advisory body will function better at a smaller size.
 I'm not sure that we're at the state where an advisory board would be
useful, though.

Kelly


subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On 6/11/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> I know.
>
> Better that than someone dead. At least, someone who didn't know the
> risk when they did it, and didn't sign up for this.
>
> -Phil

Ok so we take down the article on Brandt. Amorrow decides to use the
same tactic in order to try to get himself unblocked. Doesn't change
the risk of people getting hurt. In fact it ups it becuase more people
will use the tactic the information will become more widly spread and
some of those useing it will decide to cut out the middle man. The
tactic must be seen to fail.

--
geni


from_name: Sarah

subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On 6/11/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:
> They might not have known what sort of personal data we were sensitive
> about before.  Now, they would; rather than going out and gathering
> something on their own, they could simply threaten to re-publish
> Brandt's information.
>
It's probably too late to help the people already harmed by Brandt.
The point would be to persuade him not to collect information on
anyone else.


from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
Just in case anyone might misunderstand the following as suggesting a
conflict between Anthere and myself, I agree with her completely on all
points. :)

Anthere wrote:
> I strongly believe the CEO should not be on the board. It seems to make
> sense in small organisations, but I would say it is not suitable in our
> case.
>
> Doubly when the CEO is not only on the board, but also the chair of that
> board.
>
> And triply (if that term exist) when the CEO not only is the chair of
> the board, but also the foundator of the leading project.
>
> It raises the issue of
> 1) suitability of the CEO (not chosen per his executive abilities in the
> first place)
> 2) availability of the CEO for day to day tasks
> 3) performance assessment of the CEO (since he is giving tasks to
> himself and assessing his performance himself)
> 4) Relevance of the board existence
>
> ant
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

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


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Commons-l] some statistics

body:
OK, working example for safely deleting images on the commons:

http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/safe_delete_commons.php?title=Image:THE_IMAGE_NAME.SOMETYPE

It will
* Check the image text for last edit older than 14 days (can be adapted
if necessary)
* Check the image text for "delete me" templates; list of templates has
to be expanded, please tell me which to use

If all that is OK, it will
* Copy the image to the toolserver under a randomized name
* Give the randomized name for you to copy, so the image can be restored
* Generate a button that leads to page deletion (I'm not a commons
admin, so someone please check if that's working)
* Give a preview of the existing and copied image to check that copying
was successful

The deleting admin *has* to copy the new image url line, otherwise the
image can never be found again! That way, the image is stored away from
public eyes but still restorable through the deleting admin.

Comments, please.

Magnus


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
I respectfully disagree. What happened to Phil shouldn't come with the
territory of being an admin on a website.

I sympathize with Phil, I really do, but the thing is that the reason
governments never negotiate with terrorists isn't of some abstract
philosophical reason, it's because it doesn't work.

Suppose Brandt took down his Hive Mind page in return for us deleting
the article. Do you think that he would stop posting stuff at
wikipedia review? Do you think he would stop investigating admins and
inciting other people to harass them? I doubt it.

Even if we could somehow stop Brandt (which I think is HIGHLY
doubtful, he won't change his mind and he won't change the subject, if
you know what I mean), pulling down his page will only serve as an
invite for the next guy. And the next guy. And the next guy.

This would simply not work.

--Oskar

On 6/11/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> No good, compared to the real enemies of free expression, Daniel
> Brandt is just a nuisance. Some things just come with the territory.
>
> Fred
>
> On Jun 11, 2006, at 11:30 AM, Phil Sandifer wrote:
>
> > Daniel Brandt is a notable public figure. By all rights, he should
> > have an article in Wikipedia. And the article we have on him is a
> > good one.
> >
> > We should also, after contacting Brandt, delete it.
> >
> > I don't know if you all caught what Brandt and the folks at Wikipedia
> > Review did to me last month. If you didn't, here: http://
> > www.boingboing.net/2006/05/22/u_florida_cops_ask_f.html Basically,
> > someone on Wikipedia Review contacted my University to express
> > concern that I was a murderer, and I got to deal with a week of being
> > the subject of a police investigation that demanded my fingerprints.
> >
> > In my case, who I am is public knowledge, and I decided to make it
> > that way. But that's not the case for everyone on Brandt's Hive Mind
> > site. A lot of them are people who didn't accept their RFA expecting
> > that they'd have their names, cities of residence, and photos
> > released. Nobody on Wikipedia, I don't think, realized that accepting
> > adminship meant painting a target on yourself, and, frankly, on your
> > family and friends.
> >
> > The Foundation doesn't and can't provide admins with protection here.
> > And we need protection. The other admins on this site should not get
> > to go through what I did, or any of the far worse things that can and
> > will eventually happen to us.
> >
> > But, after thinking about it, its my belief that the Foundation owes
> > its editors and admins the protections it can give. And one of those
> > is offering to delete Brandt's article in exchange for the removal of
> > the Hive Mind site. It's an awful trade. It's a horrible, awful
> > trade. We should hate making it, and we should hate Brandt for
> > forcing us to make it.
> >
> > But we should make it. Because the consequences of not making it are
> > just too dangerous.
> >
> > -Phil
> > _______________________________________________
> > 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
>


from_name: Resid Gulerdem

body:
>From: Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net>
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] [[WP:OURS]] - A proposal for
admin-user relations
>Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 18:22:07 +0100
>
>On Sat, 10 Jun 2006 11:32:46 -0700 (PDT), Guy Chapman
aka JzG wrote:
>
> >It is not surprising to me that you -like a few
> >others- are interpreting the proposals around some
> >specific discussions you have in mind.
>
>Hard not to given that you are an indefinitely
blocked POV pusher, and
>the proposals appear designed to strengthen the
position of POV
>pushers and weaken that of the admins who have to
clean up after them.
>
>Guy (JzG)
>--

This statement requires rephrasing too: I am a
relatively new user, blocked indefinitely and unjustly
-twice- by the same admin, who takes the issue so
personal, behaves unquestionable, and misuse his
privileges, and the proposals are for protecting
current users and newcomers from the rage of abusive
admins who are master of wikilawyering to strengthen
their position with a crude temerity as their main
contribution. I would like to say that I know quite a
few admins who are really nice guys and I am sorry if
my statements sound like a generalization.

Don't you think it would be better if you discuss the
proposals themselves and show the weakness they may
have so that they can be modified and put into a
better and so useful from? Is it harder than personal
attacks? I am sure it, at least, requires more brain
energy.

Best,

Resid

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


body:
On 6/11/06, Nathan Carter <magnaboy at westnet.com.au> wrote:
> The point is conflict is not something to be avoided in the business world.

Indeed, conflict is something to be managed, not avoided.

Kelly


body:
You are welcome to contest your blocking/request to be unblocked.  The
wikipedia IRC channel is pretty good if you want to discuss it with several
admins in real time.

mboverload

On 6/11/06, Resid Gulerdem <resid_gulerdem at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >From: Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net>
> >Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> >To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] [[WP:OURS]] - A proposal for
> admin-user relations
> >Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 18:22:07 +0100
> >
> >On Sat, 10 Jun 2006 11:32:46 -0700 (PDT), Guy Chapman
> aka JzG wrote:
> >
> > >It is not surprising to me that you -like a few
> > >others- are interpreting the proposals around some
> > >specific discussions you have in mind.
> >
> >Hard not to given that you are an indefinitely
> blocked POV pusher, and
> >the proposals appear designed to strengthen the
> position of POV
> >pushers and weaken that of the admins who have to
> clean up after them.
> >
> >Guy (JzG)
> >--
>
> This statement requires rephrasing too: I am a
> relatively new user, blocked indefinitely and unjustly
> -twice- by the same admin, who takes the issue so
> personal, behaves unquestionable, and misuse his
> privileges, and the proposals are for protecting
> current users and newcomers from the rage of abusive
> admins who are master of wikilawyering to strengthen
> their position with a crude temerity as their main
> contribution. I would like to say that I know quite a
> few admins who are really nice guys and I am sorry if
> my statements sound like a generalization.
>
> Don't you think it would be better if you discuss the
> proposals themselves and show the weakness they may
> have so that they can be modified and put into a
> better and so useful from? Is it harder than personal
> attacks? I am sure it, at least, requires more brain
> energy.
>
> Best,
>
> Resid
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> 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] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On 6/11/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Not nearly as dangerous as the consequences of making it. Supose we
> > do. Guess what the next person we piss off will do. And the next and
> > the next.
>
> I know.
>
> Better that than someone dead. At least, someone who didn't know the
> risk when they did it, and didn't sign up for this.

I think his point is that even if we shut down this page, there will
come a new one, and that new one will contain just as damaging
information, and what happened to you will happen to someone else.
Wikipedia is too famous and too contentious, this stuff will never
stop no matter how many people we make deals with and how many sites
are shut down.

(I mean, even if Hive Mind is shut down, Wikipedia Review will still
be up, and it was because of a post on WR that you got a heap of
trouble, right?)

--Oskar