from_name: Kelly Martin

body:
On 1/4/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> Develop a standard template for leaveing on people's tlak pages asking
> them to remove any fair use images.

Create a user box that says "This user uses unlicensed media on user
pages, despite the fact that this violates copyright law" and put it
on his/her page.

Kelly


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fair use outside of mainspace

body:
On 1/4/06, grm_wnr <grmwnr at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wp_ayb.gif
>
> Like Jimbo Wales (even though I guess he didn't put it in his userspace
> personally), David Gerard and Jayjg? The text on Yelyos' page also has
> to go, it's fair use as well. Yes, I'm being a dick here, but I just
> want to demonstrate that this is more fundamental than it seems. If
> we're going to take a radical approach, we give up a lot of the little
> jokes and amenities we're used to. I'm against plastering fair use
> images all over the user namespace via templates, but it's not just a
> problem of "omg all these new editors have no clue about our policies
> and need to be whacked over the head".
>
> grm_wnr
>
> P.S. Please inform me if this is deleted, I'll host it in my personal
> webspace because it's darn funny.
>
> jkelly at fas.harvard.edu wrote:

The paradory aspect makes that a non standard fair use claim with the
result it can be used in non standard ways

--
geni


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal on userbox disagreement

body:
On 1/4/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> >
> Yes, information is bad.  We should definitely blame the spread of
> information for the fact that idiots act like idiots.  This fits in
> perfectly with a foundation whose mission is giving people free access
> to the sum of all human knowledge.
>

I think you're failing to draw an adequate distinction between
"encyclopedia" and "webhosting/blogging/forum service".  On the former
we seek to provide information of encyclopedic value, on the latter we
let people chatter away, troll. argue about politics, anathematize or
proselytize various religions by turn, insult one another and all the
other delights of online interaction.  In general the kind of behavior
that is commonly observed on the latter is frowned upon on this
encyclopedia.


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Sheldon Rampton

subject: [Wikitech-l] Page-variable skins

body:
We'd like to modify our version of MediaWiki (currently running
1.4.x, but soon to upgrade to 1.5) so that the skin will display
differently depending on the content of the page. For example, if the
source code of page "Foo" contains the text "{{template:bar}}", page
"Foo" would show a different site logo than other pages on the site,
or it would use a different CSS stylesheet.

Is there an existing way to do this? If not, can someone point me to
the spot in the codebase where we should look if we need to hack this
ourselves?

--Sheldon


from_name: Nathan Russell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Worthy admins? (was "The userbox fad")

body:
On 1/4/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> I almost wish it were feasible to make a "Request for De-adminship" where
> someone could be nominated for admin removal as a result of a user conduct
> RFC, but then I realize what a trollpit that would become in a matter of
> hours. Arbcom is really the only way to take away admin rights with any
> measure of civillity and rationality. And they are swamped.
>
> Maybe we need to be thinking harder about how to improve Arbcom.
>
> Ryan

Perhaps Arbcom could be enlarged, and start forming qorums of 5-6 to
hear the incoming cases on some sort of rotating basis?

Nathan


from_name: Jon

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rewrite of Verifiability policy

body:
There is a proposed rewrite of the Verifiability policy on http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Verifiability/temp&action=submit .

  So far it has had positive reviews, and there have been a number of amendments made as a result of its exposure on the Wikipedia talk:Verifiability page and on IRC.

  The intention is to restate current policy much more succinctly, and so that the policy can easily be used to maintain and improve standards.

  Further comments would be welcome. The intention is that, after exposing the proposed rewrite here, and making any improvements suggested as a result, it would be mentioned on the Village Pump, with a view to it then becoming live.

  Kind regards

  Jon

---------------------------------
Yahoo! Photos ? NEW, now offering a quality print service from just 8p a photo.


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Worthy admins? (was "The userbox fad")

body:
Alphax wrote:

>Once upon a time (certainly in late 2004) it was pretty much a
>"requirement" for admin candidates to "have" a Featured Article.
>
That was more of a hobby-horse being ridden by one or two voters.
Idiosyncratic adminship criteria get alternately criticized and ignored,
and usually go away eventually.

> Then
>someone decided that editcountitis was a much better metric, so people
>started using that.
>
Editcountitis has been around much longer than that, although it wasn't
as big an issue for the adminship process in the beginning. Even so,
people have used edit counts as a metric for admin candidates for a very
long time, in Wikipedia terms. Since the software makes it relatively
easy, the phenomenon is sort of inevitable.

The problem is partly that the expectations of edit-counters are
constantly inflating. As their expectations increase, so does the amount
of work required in counting, and they demand additional tools to make
the process as easy as it once was. You might think it would occur to
them that the fault lies with their inflated criteria, but no.

Curing editcountitis is not the only solution to the flaws in the
adminship process, of course. But it's an important element in
considering candidates based on their qualifications, instead of
resorting to unthinking substitutes for real evaluation.

--Michael Snow


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Userbox fads

body:
On Wed, 4 Jan 2006, Nathan Russell wrote:
>
> If users are engaging in personal attacks, racism, homophobia, or what
> have you in userboxes, talk pages, wikipedia_talk pages, or anywhere
> else on WP, that should be dealt with in terms of WP:NPA, WP:CIVIL,
> and their sister policies.  Not in terms of userboxes being a bad
> thing, but in terms of some userboxes (and some users' use of
> userboxes) being disruptive to the community and being individually
> taken to TFD as such.
>
> If I make a user subpage [[User:Pakaran/Why Someuser is a big fat
> bastard]], then that does not mean that user subpages are bad.  It
> means that I made a bad use of that user subpage, and *I* should be
> dealt with (and the page should probably be deleted, etc).

I have to agree with Nathan here. The arguments I've seen for the
thesis "Userboxes are bad" include:

* they misuse wikipedia's Fair Use guidelines
* they enable zealots with similar POVs to find each other
* they cause divisiveness
* they are an unnecessary burden on the servers
* there are Wikipedians who spend more time on Userboxes than on
contributing to the rest of Wikipedia

All of these arguments can be dealt with effectively on a case-by-case
basis. No template or userbox should have Fair Use images: Jimbo has
spoken & that should be that. People of the same POV have always found
each other on Wikipedia, & Userboxes are hardly a powerful new tool
to accomplish this. If a userbox can be construed as a personal attack
(e.g., "This use believes anyone who uses MS Windows is lame"), then
it should be shot on sight.

No one has supplied any details on how Userboxes effect the servers.
This would be something important to know -- & decisive in this matter;
by this, if I mean if Userboxes could be shown to have a measurable
effect on the servers, then the developers should disable this feature,
end of argument. If they have no measurable effect on the servers,
then I find it hard to worry much about them.

As for the matter that some Wikipedians spend more time on Userboxes
than contributing content, if this is the case then someone needs to
have a talk with the person & explain that the goal of Wikipedia is
to create an encyclopedia -- not a web page with lots of cute & colorful
Userboxes. If they refuse to get with the program, then perhaps the
solution then would be to either treat them like a vandal or haul them
before the ArbCom for an official banning. (And if anyone is curious,
I can identify one person who falls into this category -- so there
are people with accounts on Wikipedia who need to get with the program.)

Honestly, I don't see how putting a couple of userboxes on one's user
page transforms the average Wikipedian into some drooling, lamer noob
who uses Wikipedia only to hang with his bro's & to pick fights with
his unkewl rivals. And for the record, while I have a few of these
things on my User page, I find this phenomena silly -- like Sailor Moon
anime, teen-aged Republicans, & people who can't understand the difference
between "your" & "you're". However, I can cheerfully ignore it & spend
my time on more important matters, like compiling material in order to
add to Wikipedia an article on every population center in Ethiopia.
Indeed, I've spent about an hour writing this email that I could have
devoted to this project; I wonder how many more hours have been squandered
on this subject.

Well this is my last email on the matter -- if I can help it. If I post
to this thread again, I'll have to find some suitable way to do penance
for my weakness.

Geoff


from_name: Chris Jenkinson

body:
jayjg wrote:
> On 1/4/06, grm_wnr <grmwnr at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wp_ayb.gif
>>
>>Like Jimbo Wales (even though I guess he didn't put it in his userspace
>>personally), David Gerard and Jayjg?
>
> What stuff on my User page is fairuse?

I'm assuming he was referring to the link he gave above.

Chris


from_name: l'Omnivore Sobriquet

body:
Thank you,
    Do I have to wait 24hours to let the autoblock out ?
Anyway thanks
l'Omnivore Sobriquet
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ben Emmel" <bratsche1 at gmail.com>
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2006 5:29 PM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Unblocking the unblocked... please !

Hello there:
Your block was indeed lifted by Asbestos a while back. I found that when
Jayjg blocked you, he blocked your username with User: attached to it
(meaning [[User:User:l'Omnivore Sobriquet]]). I've undone all blocks that I
can find. Hope this helps.

--
Ben Emmel
Wikipedia - User:Bratsche
bratsche1 at gmail.com
"A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees."
-- William Blake
_______________________________________________
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: jkelly at fas.harvard.edu

subject: [WikiEN-l] Userboxes and fair-use images in userspace

body:
  What to do with this?

  http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Trekphiler&oldid=33854963

                 Jkelly


subject: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

body:
On 1/4/06, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/4/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> > We have a settled policy that users can do pretty much anything
> > they like on their user pages and subpages, within the bounds of
> > civility.
>
> That is plainly false.
>
> Kelly

Experence of trying to inforce otherwise suggests that for the most
part this is the case. And yes this has been disscussed quite a few
times (often in reference to the 3RR). People try and change this from
time to time. The results are fairly predictable.

--
geni


body:
On 1/4/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
> It's a lot easier to get along with somebody if you know who they are,
> what they believe in, etc.  Do you disagree, or do you just think it
> isn't important for Wikipedia editors to get along with one another?

I work well with many editors and seldom give a thought to their
backgrounds, native tongue, politics, religion or personal outlook on
life.  That they share with me an ability to cooperate is evident from
their behavior and the results of our cooperation.

I am very suspicious of the suggestion that having editors categorized
by beliefs and convictions helps Wikipedia, and I see no evidence that
this is so.  Moreover Wikipedia survived very well to the point of
800,000 articles without any significant user categorization by
belief.  I am aware of three recent cases in which that categorization
was used in attempts to further factional ends, and I am also aware
that the number of such boxes has increased tenfold in one month.  The
balance is thus tipping strongly against conviction-related userboxes.


from_name: Ryan Delaney

subject: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

body:
On 1/4/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:

> Similarly, "user has too many useless userboxes/user has < 500 article
> edits" could become a regular "oppose" reason at RfA... after all, if
> it's bad userboxes and stupid admins who are being targeted here, why
> not draw the conclusion that "stupid userboxes -> bad admins"?
>
>
Because once that becomes publicized, people will start removing userboxes
during their RFA, and re-adding them after they are +sysoped. Looking at the
content of someone's userpage will always be a lazy and inappropriate way to
research whether someone is qualified to be an admin, I'm afraid.

Ryan


from_name: Conrad Dunkerson

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Userbox compromise proposal (Was: Proposal on userbox
	disagreement)

body:
Chris Jenkinson wrote:
> Tony Sidaway wrote:
>>Damn.  Clever stuff.  Would probably work, too.
>>POV templates (1) use case, (2) no cat.
>>So coalesce the templates: a perfect mergist solution,

> The only problem is it kills the servers. :)

There are ways to do it without killing the servers. Currently there are
two different ways (one based on a 'hiddenStructure' CSS trick and one
based on parameter defaults for unset parameters) of doing conditional
logic which do not involve meta-templates. All of the big meta-templates
are being re-written based on these concepts.

The same could be done for this 'hide in plain sight' concept on the
grouping templates.


body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wp_ayb.gif

Like Jimbo Wales (even though I guess he didn't put it in his userspace
personally), David Gerard and Jayjg? The text on Yelyos' page also has
to go, it's fair use as well. Yes, I'm being a dick here, but I just
want to demonstrate that this is more fundamental than it seems. If
we're going to take a radical approach, we give up a lot of the little
jokes and amenities we're used to. I'm against plastering fair use
images all over the user namespace via templates, but it's not just a
problem of "omg all these new editors have no clue about our policies
and need to be whacked over the head".

grm_wnr

P.S. Please inform me if this is deleted, I'll host it in my personal
webspace because it's darn funny.

jkelly at fas.harvard.edu wrote:

>  "Fair use" images aren't allowed in template- and user-space by our current
>guidelines (although there was some edit-warring where that clause was removed
>last week, if I recall).  Enforcing this in any way is problematic, because the
>number of people who like to decorate their userpages with professional graphic
>design is larger than the number of people devoted to free content.
>
>                      Jkelly
>
>
>>I support that and I suggest that a note be posted on AN/I immediately
>>to the effect that all fairuse images outside of the article space are
>>subject to immediate deletion and that our fairuse and userbox
>>guidelines be changed to reflect that.
>>
>>


subject: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

body:
On 1/4/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> Kelly Martin wrote:
>
> >On 1/4/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> >
> >>We have a settled policy that users can do pretty much anything
> >>they like on their user pages and subpages, within the bounds of
> >>civility.
> >>
> >
> >That is plainly false.
> >
> True enough, it's a guideline and not a policy, and I oversimplified
> by not listing all of the caveats. But do you think we have a policy
> disallowing POV advocacy on user pages? If so, where would I find it?
>

There is this interpretation of policy from the Anthony DiPierro 2 case:

Userpages
1) A user may say whatever he/she wants on his/her user page within
reason (e.g. [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]). However,
[[Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not|Wikipedia is not]] a hosting
service, and you should generally avoid any substantial content on
your user page that is unrelated to Wikipedia. (See
[[Wikipedia:Userpage]].)

 ''Passed 6-0.''

A later restatement of this in the Libertas case, without the
"However...service" phrase, passed 8-0 with one absention.

This does *not* rule out advocacy.  I can say how nasty I think that
Mr Tulkinghorn is and what a rotten job I think Mr Walpole is doing of
running the country, and I can express my belief that the Tay Bridge
disaster was caused by an unsound central girder.  However the caveats
"within reason" and "avoid substantial content on your user page that
is unrelated to Wikipedia" are important.  You can't do "pretty much
anything...within the bounds of civility."  I'd say that adding my web
page to a category of "Wikipedians who think Walpole is a rotter"
probably oversteps the margin by a wide mark by providing Wikipedia
with a ready-to-wear voting kit for anti-Walpolians who secretly blame
the scoundrel for the lamentable state of a Scottish bridge and the
loss of many lives.


body:
On 1/4/06, Nyenyec N <nyenyec at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I'm not sure if there is an easy solution. Maybe an eBay rating /
> Slashdot karma like system is the way to go.

Possibly a trust metric.  I seem to recall that Slashdot's system lets
you see friends, freaks, friends of friends, friends of freaks, etc,
but I'm not sure that this sort of thing helps. In Slashdot's case I
think the tinkering with Karma and the like developed into an arms
race, and in any case Slashcode is more user-tunable; reading at level
3 I never see any nonsense, but you can't operate a decision-making
process in that way.


body:
On 1/4/06, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/4/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Develop a standard template for leaveing on people's tlak pages asking
> > them to remove any fair use images.
>
> Create a user box that says "This user uses unlicensed media on user
> pages, despite the fact that this violates copyright law" and put it
> on his/her page.
>
> Kelly

Don't tempt me.

Quite a few of the "pinups" around the outside of Trekphiler's
userpage are also fair use, as are the Enterprise and DS9 images on
the right side.

Nathan


from_name: Jtkiefer

body:
Nathan Russell wrote:

>
>Don't tempt me.
>
>Quite a few of the "pinups" around the outside of Trekphiler's
>userpage are also fair use, as are the Enterprise and DS9 images on
>the right side.
>
>Nathan
>
Remove the images and put it on your watchlist and also tell the user
why they can't have the images up there and if they put them back then
lock the user page and/or temporarily block the user for violating
copyrights and Wikipedia's guidelines on using fair use images.  Jimbo
himself has stated that we now should have zero tolerance for people who
knowingly violate copyrights.

-Jtkiefer


body:
On 1/4/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 1/4/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> > Knowing more about other editors has always helped me working with
> > them, so there's at least one counter-datapoint. For instance, I
> > found trying to reason with Wik to be very difficult because nobody
> > knew anything about him, and so we couldn't figure out whether he
> > was stubborn on principle, extremely immature, mentally ill, or what.
> >
> I seem to recall something to the effect of "please create a user
> account so we know who we're talking to" being written on a lot of IP
> address talk pages, too.

This may have more to do with the difficulty of memorizing sequences
of numbers.  If someone gets a named account it doesn't give you any
more information about them.

On Wik, well what matters is the behavior.  I don't think anyone knows
anything much about maoririder, but his behavior strongly suggests a a
capacity to learn and improve, with a personality that does not react
well to  attempts at coercion.  This isn't difficult to figure out,
and is strongly supported by the marked *decline* in maoririder's
skills after he was blocked.  He had, in effect, been taught that it
was pointless to make efforts to improve.


body:
For those who are interested, I've created a template at {{user legal
userboxes}}.

Nathan


subject: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

body:
On 1/4/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> Would
> [[User:Tony Sidaway/list of Wikipedians who think Walpole is a rotter]]
> be an acceptable subpage or not?

In that it would perform the same function as  a similar category, no.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Leif Knutsen wrote:

>>Jay wrote
>>
>>You appear to think the problem is
>>that it's difficult to de-admin an administrator.  I think the problem is
>>that we are creating administrators who are not part of the community, not
>>familiar with its policies and norms, and not particularly interested in
>>Wikipedia's goals."
>>
The difficulty in having someone de-admined is one part of the problem,
but far from being the whole thing.  I've been dealing with one
situation on Wiktionary where my preferred course of action would be a
probationary period.  If it doesn't work out the admin status could
easily be withdrawn.  However, because it would be so difficult to undo
the status when once given, the decision has been to defer the decision
for a month.  The problem has been precisely the kind of concern that
Jay has raised.

>It seems to me that in order to be an admin, a person has to demonstrate
>knowledge of and commitment to Wikipedia's policies, goals, values, etc.
>Right now we're leaving that up to a more or less random votes of people who
>are inclined to drop in and have their say. Clearly, if only qualified and
>committed editors become admins, we'll have fewer problems with existing
>admins who are either fools or knaves with their powers.
>
Commitment to goals and values, certainly.  Policies are a lot more
fluid, because we are not well served by people who want to make a
career of wikilawyering.  A good admin really needs to understand how
the policies got to where they are.  He also needs to understand that
the poliies are themselves wikis and changeable, and that those changes
often happen without the broader community being aware of them until
someone tries to enforce one of the policies.

No vote on admiship should be decisive by itself because the subset of
Wikipedians who regularly participate in these votes are not really
representative of the community.  The good editors are too busy editing
and creating articles.  If they expended as much time and integrity on
votes as they do on edits they would have no time left to edit.

>Would it be too formal to set up a test of some kind that candidates would
>have to pass in order to be eligible for adminship? And then set in place an
>admin board (separate from the Arbcom) that can suspend or disqualify an
>admin for a poor job?
>
A test might find the fools and the completely clueless, but we already
manage that part of it.  Social dysfunction can be more difficult, and
it's often not apparent until it's too late.

An admin board should be a workable idea, but not if it means wading
through stacks of controversy, as might be more normal for the arbcom.
They shouldn't need to be put to the same degree of stress induced burnout.

Ec


body:
Ryan Delaney wrote:

>On 1/5/06, jayjg <jayjg99 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Further, when we find there's a bad admin, this doesn't mean "we need to
>>
>>
>>>make it harder for people whose main contribution is vandal-fighting to
>>>be an admin", it means, fire their ass, deadmin them, and then get
>>>someone else. If all they do is get in fights with other uses or throw
>>>their weight around on talkpages, they don't need the anti-vandal tools.
>>>
>>>
>>It turns out that, in practice, it is difficult to de-admin an
>>administrator.
>>
>>
>Well I think we all agree about what the problem is here. So what do we do
>about it?
>
For starters we could abandon the notion that elevation to adminship
needs to be a "democratic" process.

Ec


body:
The redraft is progressing slowly so that as many concerns with the wording as possible can be dealt with. Where there is concern (objection seems too strong a word) over the redraft, the same really applies to the policy as currently worded anyway (since, after all, it is a redraft, not a fundamental change).

  The redraft does, however, clarify existing practice, and I think it leaves no loopholes - by being straightforward and not allowing for complicated exceptions, and by having fewer words to argue about, loopholes are eliminated.

  Of course, the wording is, no doubt, imperfect, and suggestions for taking this forward would, I'm sure, be welcome by all,

  Jon
  jguk

slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:
  On 1/4/06, Jon wrote:
> There is a proposed rewrite of the Verifiability policy on http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Verifiability/temp&action=submit .
>
> So far it has had positive reviews, and there have been a number of amendments made as a result of its exposure on the Wikipedia talk:Verifiability page and on IRC.

Please note too that it has also had objections, and because it's one
of only three editorial policies, and the one dealing with sourrces,
it's important that no loopholes be opened in a drive to be succinct.

Sarah
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body:
On 1/4/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> I for one am interested in knowing what the community feels are the
> different "generations" of Wikipedians, where the cutoffs are and what
> defines each group. I should have been a sociologist...

I had identified four generations of Wikipedians a while back.  I
think we may be seeing the birth of the fifth, though.

Kelly


from_name: nigel kerr

subject:
[Wikitech-l]
	NavMap Extension, was Navigational structure experiment

body:
good wikitech-l folk,

after perhaps more lying about on holiday than was quite healthy, i've
put together a new version of this NavMap extension.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Nigelk/Nav

the links to the demo have the most recent version installed.  thanks to
all who commented here or en Meta.  the changes:

* php4 compatibility (i'd been wandering along blissfully ignorant of
php4 vs php5 issues...)
* some of the appearnce of the extension have some more options
* a battery of unit-tests for the features as i went (what do folks here
do for testing/unit-testing?) and attendant robustness

but it remains much as it was in terms of basic functionality.

i heartily solicit and welcome feedback and observations.  my next step
is to write a SpecialPage that can concatenate pages in the navmap
together (inspired by the wikibooks comments i've received).

cheers,
nigel


subject: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

body:
On 1/4/06, Fl Celloguy <flcelloguy at hotmail.com> wrote:
> I'm just going to play devil's advocate here, meaning that I don't
> necessarily support the proposal below. I also know that this is radical and
> may be going too far. But what if we entirely eliminated user pages? Sure,
> having one can be good, but how much do user pages contribute to the
> encyclopedia? Anything relevant on there can be placed on user talk
> subpages. While user pages could essentially be moved to user talk subpages,
> I'm sure that would take some of the focus away from user pages. Thoughts on
> this? (Again, I'm just playing [[Devil's advocate]] here and would like to
> see comments on this.)
>

Teh we just end up with the same problem appearing in the use talk namespace.
--
geni


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikipedia-l] 33 cents

body:
By the time this mail reaches the mailing list, the English Wikipedia
should have crossed the 900000 article mark. Congratulations!

Also, the fund drive is now at roughly $300000. That means each article
is worth about 33 cents to the public :-)

Magnus


body:
Chris Jenkinson wrote:

> jayjg wrote:
>
>> Well, that's great, but again, the issue isn't this particular
>> individual.
>> Rather, this is a symptom:  Why do we have administrators who are
>> unfamiliar
>> with policy? Why do we have administators who are unwilling to accept
>> community consensus, and, indeed, seem almost unfamiliar with the
>> concept?
>> Why do we have administrators who think that it is so important to have
>> "fair use" images on userboxes that it is reasonable to completely
>> ignore
>> any risks of copyright lawsuits against Wikipedia?
>>
>> Those are the issues here, and your having a chat with your friend isn't
>> going to fix the root cause.
>
> Well, I talked with Karmafist for about an hour trying to persuade him
> to stop his actions on this matter. Unfortunately it didn't go
> anywhere, but perhaps I can add some insight based on the discussion
> as to why he is acting the way he does.

I sti;; read Jay's comment as directed to the policy level rather than
the individual user level.  A good admin should be able to distinguish
between these levels.

> Firstly, one of the things about the internet is its anonymity which
> helps lower the barrier for social interaction. People with autism and
> related psychological conditions such as Asperger's syndrome tend to
> gravitate towards it. One reason I think for his actions is due to the
> fact that he has Asperger's which means he finds social interaction
> difficult and because of what he sees as hostile comments tends to
> cloud his judgement of the entirety of the group who hold similar
> viewpoints - for example, he has had bad experiences with Kelly
> Martin, who holds that fair use images shouldn't be in user/template
> namespace. Unfortunately this clouds his perception of others who hold
> similar viewpoints on fair use, even those with who he has got on
> perfectly fine otherwise (guilt by association).

I agree that people with conditions such as Asperger's will tend to
gravitate here.  The anonymity can help them to feel that they can
contribute on an equal footing with everyone else.  The downside is that
in return for being treated like everyone else, they must act like
everyone else.   The Wikipedian community cannot make particular
allowances for these conditions when to do so would conflict with a
person's anonymity.

> Part of the reason he is re-adding them is because people like Kelly
> Martin are removing them - due to Kelly's actions which he sees as a
> breach of policy and process (concepts which he agrees with), and due
> to the fact his opinion has been ignored or dismissed by some, he
> feels he has no other way to "be heard" than to breach policy himself
> (a fact he fully admits) and just undo the removal of the images. This
> scenario has arisen due to a lack of communication between both
> "sides", a lack of presuming good faith by all and temporary gaps in
> civility. We're all guilty of it. As they say, you can do nice things
> to someone 99 times and be an arsehole once, and their opinion of you
> will be that you're an arsehole.

When otherwise normal little kids use this technique, and it works it
becomes a learned strategy that they take into later life.

> So what can we do to stop situations like this from occurring?
>
> Obviously we all need to be civil, presume good faith and listen to,
> and respond to other's opinions, so they don't feel ignored. Being
> ignored is more socially exclusive than being told you are wrong, and
> for people who are not as naturally talented at communications with
> others, who tend to be more common on Wikipedia and other online
> communities than in offline communities, this is definitely a common
> problem. It's much easier to ignore someone on the internet than in
> 'real life'. We also need to be more apologetic when people
> misinterpret, answer every message we get, even if just to say "thanks
> for the message". We need to increase our communication with each
> other and to make it more friendly.

The sentiments there are good but not always practical.  I can get far
more attention with a pointed one-liner than with a long detailed
analysis of a situation.  That has nothing to do with the validity of my
assessment.  When it comes to answering messages one needs to be
selective.  Answering every message can be a physicla impossibility.

Ec


from_name: Philip Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

body:
On Jan 4, 2006, at 2:55 PM, Kelly Martin wrote:

> On 1/4/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
>> We have a settled policy that users can do pretty much anything
>> they like on their user pages and subpages, within the bounds of
>> civility.
>
> That is plainly false.

Indeed. We have not so much settled on that policy as failed to
adequately enforce the actual policy.

-Phil


from_name: Deathphoenix

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Mistakenly blocked User:Regforafd--block affecting
	family and friends in 3 US states

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:

>On 1/4/06, Reg forafd <regforafd at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>This account is NOT a sockpuppet for AfD!!! Didn't anyone notice that it
>>was created about the time that ANON's stopped being able to create "New"
>>articles? I created this account because I can no longer file things on AfD
>>using my normal IP account User:24.17.48.241. Jeez. Regforafd 23:03, 3
>>January 2006 (UTC)
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
>The account may not be a sockpuppet, but the name is quite suggestive, and
>
>
>>personally I would give it a {{usernameblock}} just like I would names
>>including the words "admin" or "moderator". The name somehow appears to
>>claim authority by including the name of the deletion process. Why not pick
>>another more appropriate name?
>>
>>
>
>
>As long as you use it to submit articles to AFD, I doubt your lack of
>contributions under any particular name will be a problem. People with a
>lack of edit history will be ignored in some discussions, but that would've
>been the case with IPs as well.
>
>
I wouldn't exactly count the name as being "offensive", since this could
mean "This is Reg, my account for filing AfD requests". At least, that's
what it meant to me when I first looked at it.


from_name: Jay Converse

body:
On 1/4/06, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>
> Curing editcountitis is not the only solution to the flaws in the
> adminship process, of course. But it's an important element in
> considering candidates based on their qualifications, instead of
> resorting to unthinking substitutes for real evaluation.
>

I don't think editcountitis is ENTIRELY a bad thing.  Opposing an editor
entirely based off of an incremental counter is one thing.  That shouldn't
be done.  But the fact remains that the amount of edits someone has made IS
pertinent to the discussion of whether the user should become an
administrator.  For instance, if someone wants to be a vandal fighter,
they'd sure as heck better have a lot of edits to articles and to user talk
pages (warnings).

Sorry if I'm missing the point here, I'm just dropping in my two cents.

--Jay Converse (Mo0)

--
I'm not stupid, just selectively ignorant.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Userbox fads

body:
On Jan 4, 2006, at 10:52 PM, Geoff Burling wrote:
>
> * they misuse wikipedia's Fair Use guidelines
> * they enable zealots with similar POVs to find each other
> * they cause divisiveness
> * they are an unnecessary burden on the servers
> * there are Wikipedians who spend more time on Userboxes than on
> contributing to the rest of Wikipedia

You're missing a key one - the userbox project has become a poisonous
pit that explicitly targets those who do not like userboxes, and it
is actively fostering a crusade mentality. This is a systemic
problem, not one of specific boxes. In short, the project itself
needs to go.

-Phil


subject: [WikiEN-l] Userbox fads

body:
On 1/4/06, Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 4 Jan 2006, Nathan Russell wrote:
> As for the matter that some Wikipedians spend more time on Userboxes
> than contributing content, if this is the case then someone needs to
> have a talk with the person & explain that the goal of Wikipedia is
> to create an encyclopedia -- not a web page with lots of cute & colorful
> Userboxes. If they refuse to get with the program, then perhaps the
> solution then would be to either treat them like a vandal or haul them
> before the ArbCom for an official banning. (And if anyone is curious,
> I can identify one person who falls into this category -- so there
> are people with accounts on Wikipedia who need to get with the program.)

If their actions are not detrimental to the encyclopedia as a whole, why
should they be ArbCommed?  This seems like an overreaction to me.  There's
no reason someone who just makes userboxes should be forced to leave.

Honestly, I don't see how putting a couple of userboxes on one's user
> page transforms the average Wikipedian into some drooling, lamer noob
> who uses Wikipedia only to hang with his bro's & to pick fights with
> his unkewl rivals. And for the record, while I have a few of these
> things on my User page, I find this phenomena silly -- like Sailor Moon
> anime, teen-aged Republicans, & people who can't understand the difference
> between "your" & "you're". However, I can cheerfully ignore it & spend
> my time on more important matters, like compiling material in order to
> add to Wikipedia an article on every population center in Ethiopia.

As another food for thought, does this make any admin with a userbox on
their userpage a useless admin?  I've seen that argument being bandied
about.

--Jay Converse (Mo0)

--
I'm not stupid, just selectively ignorant.


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> Hi,
>   Time for hiercharchies of admins? Give "rollback" powers to anyone
> with half a clue. Save temporary block powers for people with a whole
> clue.  Save permanent block/ban powers for people with demonstrated
> good judgement, preferably on the previous levels.
>
> Not to make it a prestige thing, of course...
>

Actually this is not as much of a Bad Idea as it sounds. We've long had
a debate about "request for rollback" but that was always dismissed due
to the JS emulation. But now that semi-protection exists, should we
seperate out the administrative powers?

--
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: Tony Sidaway

body:
On 1/4/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:

Damn.  Clever stuff.  Would probably work, too.

POV templates (1) use case, (2) no cat.

So coalesce the templates: a perfect mergist solution,


subject: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

body:
On 1/4/06, Fl Celloguy <flcelloguy at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Finally, I know that this is a tangentally-related issue, but I'm wondering
> if there's a policy against imitating genuine articles on user pages (i.e.
> writing about a subject not deemed encyclopedic enough but placing it on
> your user page, with the article's title as the user name, complete with
> stub tags).

The classic case of this was User:Leeharveyoswald, which contained a
facsimile of the Lee Harvey Oswald article that had been altered to
promote a conspiracy theory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/User:Leeharveyoswald

Looked like a unanimoujs delete to me.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia and world

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:
> I think you mean Peer-to-peer and don't mean that a country such as
> Russia or Saudi Arabia would own contents but that Wikipedia would be
> held in a distributed network. Is that what you mean? What software
> would be needed and what barrier exists to doing that in parallel to
> our present setup?
>

The very nature of wikis makes this impossible. If anyone can edit, how
do the other peers know that they are now out of date? The entire system
would be one big edit conflict.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> On 1/4/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Damn.  Clever stuff.  Would probably work, too.
>
> POV templates (1) use case, (2) no cat.
>
> So coalesce the templates: a perfect mergist solution,

The only problem is it kills the servers. :)

Chris


subject: [WikiEN-l] Trust metric Was: Userbox compromise proposal

body:
On 1/4/06, Nyenyec N <nyenyec at gmail.com> wrote:
> Currently several tasks in Wikipedia require editor's to make a guess
> about the trustworthyness of other editors.

Trying to quantify this for purposes other than whether we trust their
vandalism identification abilities for the purpose of RC patrol really
isn't  a good idea.  I wasn't seriously suggesting a trust metric when
I raised the term, I was just doing blue sky.

Some people are good at working human stuff out. Jayjg seems to have a
knack for identifying socks.  Snowspinner seeme to be good at being
one step ahead of whoever is after him this time.  I could list many
more people with particular skills and weaknesses.

You can't quantify this stuff, and the minute you did, the system
would suffer multiple breaks.


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Get inspired by the story of the Encyclopedie

body:
http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/entertainment/13541042.htm

We should do so well!

- d.


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: templatelinks-related changes

references:
<dpa1hn$sfs$1@sea.gmane.org> <dpghvh$vub$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<2865989.9xvRbK9qQp@hyacinth.local>

body:
kate wrote:
> Phil Boswell:
>
>>Was this the set of changes which removed the "offset" parameter from
>>[[Special:Whatlinkshere]]?
>
>
>
>>The new "from" parameter, which seems to work on datestamps, is intriguing
>>but hardly conducive to "ignore the first N entries".
>
>
>
>>Can we have the "offset" parameter back, please?
>
>
> i think it's unlikely any "offset" parameters will be added in the future
> (at least, i hope not).
>
> the reason offset was removed from several pages (Contributions,
> Whatlinkshere) is that it requires the database to search though every
> entry to find the offset you want.  a request for starting at a particular
> record is much faster because it can be found quickly from the index.
>
> k.

Right, we've known for a while about the poor performance of offset clauses.
The problem was fixed in several places already. I was doing some work on
Special:Whatlinkshere while I was working on templatelinks, and took the
opportunity to fix it there as well. Like Kate says, the offset parameters
are gone for good.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: geni

body:
On 1/5/06, Nathan Russell <windrunner at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/4/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I almost wish it were feasible to make a "Request for De-adminship" where
> > someone could be nominated for admin removal as a result of a user conduct
> > RFC, but then I realize what a trollpit that would become in a matter of
> > hours. Arbcom is really the only way to take away admin rights with any
> > measure of civillity and rationality. And they are swamped.
> >
> > Maybe we need to be thinking harder about how to improve Arbcom.
> >
> > Ryan
>
> Perhaps Arbcom could be enlarged, and start forming qorums of 5-6 to
> hear the incoming cases on some sort of rotating basis?
>
> Nathan

Again we disscussed this back in about september. It got some support
but there were worries about there being enough good candidates.

--
geni


from_name: Justin Cormack

body:
On 5 Jan 2006, at 00:53, David Gerard wrote:

> http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/entertainment/13541042.htm
>
> We should do so well!

"For example, the entry about bees compares the busy workers with the
drones, which lack stings, start their day later and "frolic around
the hive without working." Their "only usefulness" is to impregnate
the queen, after which, "the workers hunt them down and kill them.""

Is this the fable of the admins and the user boxes?


from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

subject: [Wikitech-l] Special:Unwatchedpages

body:
On 1/4/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's now a known bug, which I'll likely get to looking at later, if
> someone doesn't beat me too it.

I beat you to it;)

I just forgot to add "unwatchedpages" it to the list of rights when I
created the permission.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Userboxes and fair-use images in userspace

body:
On 1/5/06, jkelly at fas.harvard.edu <jkelly at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:

>   What to do with this?
>   http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Trekphiler&oldid=33854963

Delete them, attempt to educate the user in what fair use is and
isn't, repeat as needed, bang head against wall.

- d.


from_name: Chris Jenkinson

body:
jkelly at fas.harvard.edu wrote:
>   What to do with this?
>
>   http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Trekphiler&oldid=33854963

I'm assuming some/most of those images are fair-use. Have you asked him
to remove them?

Chris


body:
On 1/5/06, jkelly at fas.harvard.edu <jkelly at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
>   What to do with this?
>
>   http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Trekphiler&oldid=33854963
>
>                  Jkelly
>

Develop a standard template for leaveing on people's tlak pages asking
them to remove any fair use images.

--
geni


body:
On 1/5/06, Chris Jenkinson <chris at starglade.org> wrote:
> jkelly at fas.harvard.edu wrote:
> >   What to do with this?
> >
> >   http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Trekphiler&oldid=33854963
>
> I'm assuming some/most of those images are fair-use. Have you asked him
> to remove them?

It's a mixture militry ones are probably PD. The star treck ones tend
to be fair use.

--
geni


body:
Jtkiefer wrote:
> Remove the images and put it on your watchlist and also tell the user
> why they can't have the images up there and if they put them back then
> lock the user page and/or temporarily block the user for violating
> copyrights and Wikipedia's guidelines on using fair use images.  Jimbo
> himself has stated that we now should have zero tolerance for people who
> knowingly violate copyrights.

Wow, that's incredibly heavy handed. A better first step would be to ask
that they remove them, then if they don't remove them yourself,
explaining yourself all the way, and then do protection/blocking if it's
really necessary. We're not trying to get rid of people here.

Chris


from_name: Nathan Russell

body:
On 1/4/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> grm_wnr wrote:

> Stick it on Uncyclopedia; they are non-commercial only, which makes
> their fair use claims much stronger.

Uncyclopedia is now hosted by a for-profit company.
Nathan


body:
On 1/5/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> Chris Jenkinson wrote:
>
> The sentiments there are good but not always practical.  I can get far
> more attention with a pointed one-liner than with a long detailed
> analysis of a situation.  That has nothing to do with the validity of my
> assessment.  When it comes to answering messages one needs to be
> selective.  Answering every message can be a physicla impossibility.
>
> Ec

The other disadvantage to doing point-by-point dissertations on a topic is
that you run the risk of the argument being SO LONG that no one will bother
to read it, figuring it's someone just mouthing off.  That's yet another way
to get your argument sidestepped.

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

--
I'm not stupid, just selectively ignorant.


from_name: Ryan Delaney

body:
I almost wish it were feasible to make a "Request for De-adminship" where
someone could be nominated for admin removal as a result of a user conduct
RFC, but then I realize what a trollpit that would become in a matter of
hours. Arbcom is really the only way to take away admin rights with any
measure of civillity and rationality. And they are swamped.

Maybe we need to be thinking harder about how to improve Arbcom.

Ryan


body:
On 1/5/06, jayjg <jayjg99 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Further, when we find there's a bad admin, this doesn't mean "we need to
> > make it harder for people whose main contribution is vandal-fighting to
> > be an admin", it means, fire their ass, deadmin them, and then get
> > someone else. If all they do is get in fights with other uses or throw
> > their weight around on talkpages, they don't need the anti-vandal tools.
>
>
> It turns out that, in practice, it is difficult to de-admin an
> administrator.

Well I think we all agree about what the problem is here. So what do we do
about it?

Ryan


body:
On 1/5/06, jayjg <jayjg99 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I don't think we all do agree on that.  You appear to think the problem is
> that it's difficult to de-admin an administrator.  I think the problem is
> that we are creating administrators who are not part of the community, not
> familiar with its policies and norms, and not particularly interested in
> Wikipedia's goals.

This is really two ways of saying the same thing. I am agreeing that the
standards at RFA need to be upped; it would be best if we never adminned
someone who would have to lose it later. But we have to be realistic--
occasionally, the wrong people are going to get adminned, and we need a
failsafe. That means we need a real, clean, and logical way to get
irresponsible admins de-adminned.

Ryan


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: immediate help required

references:
<dpfcdt$m9c$1@sea.gmane.org>	<43BB3EF5.7080808@pobox.com>	<dpfg6g$v64$1@sea.gmane.org>	<e92136380601040505o351beb65t@mail.gmail.com>
	<dph6nd$gan$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
candy wrote:
> I am not trying to use 1.4 script to talk to 1.5 database. And I know
> the schemas has changed.
> Let me put it clearly, I installed mediawiki 1.4 and the result was
> creation of a database (wikidb) with the tables as per the 1.4 schema.
> Now I downloaded the pages_full.xml.bz2 from the web (17 gig file). And
> I want to import it.
>
> Option 1: importdump.php -  not possible as it is not there in 1.4
> mediawiki
> Option 2: mwdumper - problem error :
> Error 1146(42SO2) at line 31 : Table 'wikidb.old' does not exist

There are three possibilities:
1) You didn't put any tables in the database 'wikidb'
2) You put 1.5 tables in the database 'wikidb'
3) You put 1.4 tables with a prefix in the database 'wikidb'

You need to actually look in the database and tell us which before continuing.
You also need to be very specific about the steps you are taking.

For some background on how to request help in an effective manner, please see:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

body:
On 1/5/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> There are edge cases in this that concern me a little.  Facts should
> be from reputable sources?  Not quite.  They should be from
> appropriate sources.  The British National Party is not reputable and
> (like even some reputable British political parties) cannot be
> expected to publish accurate membership figures and certainly cannot
> be cited on issues such as social concerns of people living in
> Sheffield.  It is a perfectly appropriate source, however, for the
> wording of a campaign address given by its by-election candidate in
> Sheffield ...

Tony, the British National Party and similar organizations may be used
as sources of information about themselves, but may not be used as
sources regarding anything or anyone else. See [[WP:RS]] under
"Partisan websites."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:RS#Partisan_websites

The same guideline applies to any kind of self-published information.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:RS#Personal_websites_as_primary_sources

Sarah


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Allow multiple entries for one topic

body:
This is an excellent idea. Rather than try to cram all points of view
into one article, how about loosening up and allowing several
articles with differing points of view or level of detail?

This idea has been discussed before, but is worth another look.

Fred

On Jan 5, 2006, at 3:05 AM, Troas wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> Inspired by the article about Wikipedia in Nature, I have recently
> made some
> contributions to Wikipedia in my field of expertise. Based on this
> experience with Wikipedia, I would like to suggest a change to the
> structure
> of Wikipedia. I'm not sure whether my suggestion has been discussed
> previously. I have scanned e-mails in the list from the last months
> and
> couldn't find anything related, but apologize if I simply reiterate
> an older
> discussion.
>
> Here's my suggestion: Allow multiple entries for one topic.
>
> Why? In my opinion, there is no such thing as THE perfect entry
> about a
> topic or, as a matter of fact, the TRUTH about a topic. So, why
> adopt one of
> the shortcomings of printed encyclopedias? Why not allow users to read
> different entries (and opinions!) about one topic?
>
> An important complement of my suggestion is the introduction of a
> rating
> system. How could this work? I would suggest a rating system
> consisting of
> three parts. After reading an article, you can:
> 1. rate the quality of the entry on a, say, 6-point rating scale
> 2. rate yourself as an expert, amateur, or layperson in the field
> the entry
> belongs to
> 3. enter strengths or weaknesses of this entry in a comment textbox
> (not
> obligatory)
>
> When you access an entry, you would then first get a list of existing
> entries with their respective ratings ? separately for expert,
> amateur, and
> layperson ratings. Based on these ratings, you then choose the
> article you
> want to read.
>
> Open questions: Is there a danger of too many articles for one
> topic? Should
> there be a limit of parallel articles? If yes, how do you get in new
> articles if this limit is reached? (Possible solution: You can
> write a new
> article and "challenge" the worst existing article. If your article
> gets
> higher ratings in the next, say, 4 weeks, your article replaces the
> older
> one.)
>
> Best,
> Troas
>
>
> --
> Telefonieren Sie schon oder sparen Sie noch?
> NEU: GMX Phone_Flat http://www.gmx.net/de/go/telefonie
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Re: Page age notice hack: comments?

references:
<43BBF8B0.5040604@pobox.com>
	<dph00k$kqv$1@sea.gmane.org>	<9f02ca4c0601040951j31645825q@mail.gmail.com>
	<dpivna$urv$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Phil Boswell wrote:
>>> I'm getting the notice, but no coloured box.
>>> Am I doing something wrong?
>> CSS problem, perhaps? What browser are you using?
>
> IE6 on WXP-pro (SP2)
>
> I have freshed and re-freshed my cache until it squeaks...not certain what
> more I can do :-(

Seems to be a bug in IE; you can't set a DOM node's class attribute with
setAttribute(). :P

Should be working now (clear cache or whatever to make sure the JS updates).

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
jayjg wrote:
> Well, that's great, but again, the issue isn't this particular individual.
> Rather, this is a symptom:  Why do we have administrators who are unfamiliar
> with policy? Why do we have administators who are unwilling to accept
> community consensus, and, indeed, seem almost unfamiliar with the concept?
> Why do we have administrators who think that it is so important to have
> "fair use" images on userboxes that it is reasonable to completely ignore
> any risks of copyright lawsuits against Wikipedia?
>
> Those are the issues here, and your having a chat with your friend isn't
> going to fix the root cause.

Well, I talked with Karmafist for about an hour trying to persuade him
to stop his actions on this matter. Unfortunately it didn't go anywhere,
but perhaps I can add some insight based on the discussion as to why he
is acting the way he does.

Firstly, one of the things about the internet is its anonymity which
helps lower the barrier for social interaction. People with autism and
related psychological conditions such as Asperger's syndrome tend to
gravitate towards it. One reason I think for his actions is due to the
fact that he has Asperger's which means he finds social interaction
difficult and because of what he sees as hostile comments tends to cloud
his judgement of the entirety of the group who hold similar viewpoints -
for example, he has had bad experiences with Kelly Martin, who holds
that fair use images shouldn't be in user/template namespace.
Unfortunately this clouds his perception of others who hold similar
viewpoints on fair use, even those with who he has got on perfectly fine
otherwise (guilt by association).

Part of the reason he is re-adding them is because people like Kelly
Martin are removing them - due to Kelly's actions which he sees as a
breach of policy and process (concepts which he agrees with), and due to
the fact his opinion has been ignored or dismissed by some, he feels he
has no other way to "be heard" than to breach policy himself (a fact he
fully admits) and just undo the removal of the images. This scenario has
arisen due to a lack of communication between both "sides", a lack of
presuming good faith by all and temporary gaps in civility. We're all
guilty of it. As they say, you can do nice things to someone 99 times
and be an arsehole once, and their opinion of you will be that you're an
arsehole.

So what can we do to stop situations like this from occurring?

Obviously we all need to be civil, presume good faith and listen to, and
respond to other's opinions, so they don't feel ignored. Being ignored
is more socially exclusive than being told you are wrong, and for people
who are not as naturally talented at communications with others, who
tend to be more common on Wikipedia and other online communities than in
offline communities, this is definitely a common problem. It's much
easier to ignore someone on the internet than in 'real life'. We also
need to be more apologetic when people misinterpret, answer every
message we get, even if just to say "thanks for the message". We need to
increase our communication with each other and to make it more friendly.

Just some thoughts for digestion,

Chris


from_name: Carbonite

body:
On 1/5/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> You know I suspect that we're making this whole thing unnecessarily
> complicated.  Why don't we just let people keep their userbox
> templates but remove the categories?  I'm pretty sure that doing so
> would make instances of abuse pretty rare.  The boxes themselves
> aren't really much of a problem, they're just a means of
> self-expression.

I tried removing the categories from the templates that had been
nominated for deletion. This was reverted almost immediately...by
someone with less than 50 article edits (but with over 700 total
edits). That's when I began to wonder who was running the asylum. I
still think removing the categories is a good idea, even if it allows
Whatlinkshere to be used by POV crusaders.

Carbonite


body:
No good, the post was about improving Wikipedia.

Fred

On Jan 5, 2006, at 4:56 AM, Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:

> Troas wrote:
>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> Inspired by the article about Wikipedia in Nature, I have recently
>> made some
>> contributions to Wikipedia in my field of expertise. Based on this
>> experience with Wikipedia, I would like to suggest a change to the
>> structure
>> of Wikipedia. I'm not sure whether my suggestion has been discussed
>> previously. I have scanned e-mails in the list from the last
>> months and
>> couldn't find anything related, but apologize if I simply
>> reiterate an older
>> discussion.
>>
>> Here's my suggestion: Allow multiple entries for one topic.
>>
>>
>>
>
> You seem lost; perhaps you were looking for http://wikinfo.org/ ?
>
> --
> 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
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [Wikipedia-l] 33 cents

body:
On 04/01/06, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> By the time this mail reaches the mailing list, the English Wikipedia
> should have crossed the 900000 article mark. Congratulations!

900,000 in less than five years... wonderful. Do we have a guess as to
the relevant article?

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


from_name: Rob Church

subject: [Wikitech-l] Special:Unwatchedpages

body:
All the better.

Rob Church

On 05/01/06, ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason <avarab at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/4/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> > It's now a known bug, which I'll likely get to looking at later, if
> > someone doesn't beat me too it.
>
> I beat you to it;)
>
> I just forgot to add "unwatchedpages" it to the list of rights when I
> created the permission.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 1/5/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/5/06, Garion1000 <garion1000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Many supreme courts or international courts do work like this though. They
> > consist for instance totally of 10 judges but some cases are just taken up
> > by three of them. I haven't encountered any inconsistencies there.
> > Although
> > I do not know how they solved it. Probably because they have and use a
> > good
> > bureaucratic system.
>
>
> Two points:
>
> (1) WP:ISNOT a bureaucracy. :-) I had to get that out there.
> (2) I'm probably more interested in the lower-court system since I'm from
> the United States and I'm modelling this after the Supremer Court. My main
> point, however, is that while increasing the number of Arbs may improve the
> situation, it couldn't improve the situtation any more than a lower court
> system would also- but the lower court system would have fewer possible
> drawbacks.
>
> Ryan

Regarding number 2, this is how the US appeals courts work.  "In a
court of appeals, an appeal is almost always heard by a "panel" of
three of the court's judges, although there are instances where all of
the judges will participate in an en banc hearing."  [[United States
court of appeals]]

I have no idea what the advantages/disadvantages are supposed to be.

Anthony


subject: [Wikitech-l] Page-variable skins

body:
Look at the skin PHP files, to start with.

Rob Church

On 05/01/06, Sheldon Rampton <sheldon at prwatch.org> wrote:
> We'd like to modify our version of MediaWiki (currently running
> 1.4.x, but soon to upgrade to 1.5) so that the skin will display
> differently depending on the content of the page. For example, if the
> source code of page "Foo" contains the text "{{template:bar}}", page
> "Foo" would show a different site logo than other pages on the site,
> or it would use a different CSS stylesheet.
>
> Is there an existing way to do this? If not, can someone point me to
> the spot in the codebase where we should look if we need to hack this
> ourselves?
>
> --Sheldon
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


body:
On 1/4/06, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Editcountitis has been around much longer than that, although it wasn't
> as big an issue for the adminship process in the beginning. Even so,
> people have used edit counts as a metric for admin candidates for a very
> long time, in Wikipedia terms. Since the software makes it relatively
> easy, the phenomenon is sort of inevitable.
>
Only if you use voting to choose administrators.


subject: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

body:
On 1/4/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> > [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Tony Sidaway
>
> > When the house is on fire, you don't hold a discussion.
>
> We're talking about userboxes here. These are used by a few editors to
> display their pride in their beliefs and other personal aspects. Issues over
> images and copyright can be resolved. And so what if like-minded people try
> to collectivise their individual powers?
>
> None of this amounts to an abuse of Wikipedia, nor is it "the house burning
> down", or "the sky falling down" or anything else. It's just normal human
> behaviour. If it makes editors happy, then smile and accept it as part of
> building a community.
>
> What I'm concerned about is the attitude that seems to be taken by some in
> this discussion is that userbox users are somehow less worthy than other
> Wikipedians.

Have you taken a look at the article space edits of some of the
loudest defenders of userboxes? Would you like getting lectured about
consensus and Wikipedia policy by someone with 20 article edits? If
someone isn't here to actually contribute to the encyclopedia, then I
suppose they would be less worthy.

Carbonite


from_name: Leif Knutsen

body:
>
>
> >
> A test might find the fools and the completely clueless, but we already
> manage that part of it.  Social dysfunction can be more difficult, and
> it's often not apparent until it's too late.
>
> An admin board should be a workable idea, but not if it means wading
> through stacks of controversy, as might be more normal for the arbcom.
> They shouldn't need to be put to the same degree of stress induced
> burnout.
>
> Ec
>
>
I recognize and applaud the fact that we want to keep things as simple as
possible, but let me argue for the test idea a bit more.

I think such a test would have two purposes:
- It would provide some self-screening - if admin candidates have to prove
to themselves or others that they possess the knowledge and understanding to
do a good job, they might be a bit more reluctant to self-nominate
- It would create greater accountability in that the rest of us can assume
that bad admin behavior is not a result of ignorance but something else

One option is to not make it mandatory but optional; those who take it and
pass it will presumably have an easier time getting approved.


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Muke Tever

subject: [Wiktionary-l] For your info

body:
Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> I have a blog http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com/ that deals almost
> exclusively with the Ultimate Wiktionary project.
>
> Today I was helped to add a "Site Feed" to my blog. This makes it more
> convenient to follow my blog.

Actually it's been there for some time--I've been pulling that feed
since May.  :)

	*Muke!
--
website:     http://frath.net/
LiveJournal: http://kohath.livejournal.com/
deviantArt:  http://kohath.deviantart.com/

FrathWiki, a conlang and conculture wiki:
http://wiki.frath.net/


subject: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

body:
On 1/5/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
>
> > From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> > [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Carbonite
> >
> > On 1/4/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
>
> > > What I'm concerned about is the attitude that seems to be taken by
> > > some in this discussion is that userbox users are somehow
> > less worthy
> > > than other Wikipedians.
> >
> > Have you taken a look at the article space edits of some of
> > the loudest defenders of userboxes? Would you like getting
> > lectured about consensus and Wikipedia policy by someone with
> > 20 article edits? If someone isn't here to actually
> > contribute to the encyclopedia, then I suppose they would be
> > less worthy.
>
> That's *some* userboxers, not *all* userboxers, wouldn't you agree?

Of course. Any userbox that focuses on a user's skills (Babel boxes)
or expertise should be encouraged.

>
> As for being lectured by people who don't know what they are talking about,
> I usually find this an excuse for a good guffaw, rather than something to
> grump about.

They'd be more guffaws if a good portion of these users weren't trying
to burn valuable contributors at the stake.

>
> May I suggest that 20 edits from an unpaid volunteer is 20 edits that we
> wouldn't have had otherwise, and that encouraging them to do more might be a
> more productive avenue than lambasting them. But then again, you've been
> around longer than I have, and who am I to lecture you?

If they only made those 20 edits, then I'd agree, but many are making
10x that many edits complaining about their toys being taken away. My
comment wasn't about having an attitude of "I've been here longer, I
know better!", it's about users who view Wikipedia primarily as a
social club where they occasionally edit an article. In my opinion,
someone who makes a vast majority of their edits to their user space
probably is less worthy than those who actually work to improve the
encyclopedia.

Carbonite


from_name: Kirill Lokshin

body:
On 1/5/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/5/06, Carbonite <carbonite.wp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > I tried removing the categories from the templates that had been
> > nominated for deletion. This was reverted almost immediately...by
> > someone with less than 50 article edits (but with over 700 total
> > edits). That's when I began to wonder who was running the asylum.
>
> Welcome to the Eternal September of Wikipedia.

I suspect that, had you tried to remove the categories before this
entire affair had occurred, you could have done so with little
objection; and that, once this fades from memory somewhat, you'll be
able to do so as well.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of people right now who wouldn't
normally care about userboxes, but, in the current atmosphere, will
view any attempt to change them as an extension of the initial
deletion spree.  Completely unfair - but pretty unavoidable, at this
point.

Kirill Lokshin


body:
On 1/4/06, Chris Jenkinson <chris at starglade.org> wrote:
> Obviously we all need to be civil, presume good faith and listen to, and
> respond to other's opinions, so they don't feel ignored.

I know that bickering on the list is not good, but I can't ignore this
hypocrisy. Chris Jenkinson (user:Talrias), an admin, who calls for
civility, has caused me considerable trouble recently (to the point
where I've had to ask him to leave me alone) because I objected to his
wheel warring over the block of [[User:Marsden]]. Since then he has
made several personal attacks against me on talk pages, including
calling me a "liar,"
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Talrias&diff=prev&oldid=33921820
and deleting another admin's NPA warning about it, then accusing me of
"whining" when I wrote to the list yesterday about my concerns over
the admin selection process (prompted precisely by behavior like his).

More sorry details here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAdministrators%27_noticeboard%2FIncidents&diff=33939047&oldid=33937039

Regardless of how right we may be about an issue, there's no excuse
for anything that even looks like one admin harassing another, or
calling each other liars. This is the behavior that I'm noticing more
and more, which is why I expressed concern yesterday. To see one of
the culprits pontificate about the need to be civil after publicly
displaying the opposite behavior is too much.

Sarah


from_name: Derick Rethans

subject: [Wikitech-l] PHP 4.4.2RC2 testing

body:
Hello!

You are receiving this email because your project has been selected to
take part in a new effort by the PHP QA Team to make sure that your
project still works with PHP versions to-be-released. With this we hope
to make sure that you are either aware of things that might break, or to
make sure we don't introduce any strange regressions. With this effort
we hope to build a better relation between the PHP Team and the major
projects.

If you do not want to receive these heads-up emails, please reply to me
personally and I will remove you from the list; but, we hope that you
want to actively help us making PHP a better and more stable tool.

The second release candidate of PHP 4.4.2 can be found at
http://downloads.php.net/derick/ . If everything goes well, we hope to
release PHP 4.4.2 at the end of next week.
If you find any issues, please contact the PHP QA team at
"php-qa at lists.php.net".

In case you think that other projects should also receive this kinds of
emails, please let me know privately, and I will add them to the list of
projects to contact.

regards,
Derick

--
Derick Rethans
http://derickrethans.nl | http://ez.no | http://xdebug.org


subject: [WikiEN-l] Userbox fads

body:
On 1/5/06, Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 4 Jan 2006, Nathan Russell wrote:
> >
> . People of the same POV have always found
> each other on Wikipedia, & Userboxes are hardly a powerful new tool
> to accomplish this.

But userboxes makes it a lot easier to do so. Look it two AFD's. The one for
some catholic encyclopedians and the gay rights in iraq article.

> Well this is my last email on the matter -- if I can help it. If I post
> to this thread again, I'll have to find some suitable way to do penance
> for my weakness.

In case you have to do penance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Articles_that_need_to_be_wikified :)

Garion

> Geoff
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Ray Saintonge

body:
Fastfission wrote:

>Mainly because a large deal of our feeling confident that our use of
>unlicensed copyrighted material is "fair" is that it is purportedly for
>"comment and criticism." This approach seems backed up by a number of
>informed sources, i.e.
>http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-a.html#1which
>lists "Comment and Criticism" and "Parody" as the two primary
>categories of things which receive legal blessing for "Fair use" claims. I
>think most people have a pretty poor view of what counts legally as the
>latter (most seem to think it just means "used in a funny way" which is not
>at all how the courts interpret "parody"). As for the former, the Stanford
>page says:
>
>"If you are commenting upon or critiquing a copyrighted work--for instance,
>writing a book review -- fair use principles allow you to reproduce some of
>the work to achieve your purposes. Some examples of commentary and criticism
>include:
>
>   - quoting a few lines from a Bob Dylan song in a music review
>   - summarizing and quoting from a medical article on prostate cancer in
>   a news report
>   - copying a few paragraphs from a news article for use by a teacher or
>   student in a lesson, or
>   - copying a portion of a Sports Illustrated magazine article for use
>   in a related court case.
>
>The underlying rationale of this rule is that the public benefits from your
>review, which is enhanced by including some of the copyrighted material.
>Additional examples of commentary or criticism are provided in the examples
>of fair use cases in Section C."
>
>Now whether we achieve this in the article namespace is of course often
>under discussion. In the User and Template namespaces media is primarily
>used for decoration and personalization. This would not seem to fall under
>the above descriptions even in a very optimistic approach.
>
>Unfortunately the Stanford Fair Use case summaries page has almost nothing
>relating to using images on webpages (only the "thumbnailing" case which is
>not quite the same thing) so it is hard to know what sort of precedent one
>would be fallnig back upon in either direction. I know a few cases offhand
>but I'm not a lawyer and it is hard for me to sort through what is most
>relevant and what would not be.
>
>This is, anyway, my understanding of what the policy is based upon, for
>better or worse. There is also a crude risk/benefit equation going on here.
>There is simply no compelling reason to allow unlicensed, copyrighted images
>in the user namespace, and a number of reasons to be suspicious of it.
>
I think that we can probably use a more flexible standard for talk pages
than article pages, but that still does not mean that anything goes.
For one thing there is no plan to publish. The last page of the Stanford
commentary begins with, "The difficulty in claiming fair use is that
there is no predictable way to guarantee that your use will actually
qualify as a fair use. "

Two other important consideration that is mentioned in that page are
whether it will cause the copyright owner to lose money, or whether it
will be offensive.  As long as a contributor can make a reasonable case
within the four factors we should have some latitude for fair use images
on talk pages.

Ec


body:
On 1/5/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 1/5/06, Nathan Russell <windrunner at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Perhaps Arbcom could be enlarged, and start forming qorums of 5-6 to
> > hear the incoming cases on some sort of rotating basis?
> >
> >
> This was rejected because currently, all Arbitrators must hear all cases,
> so
> adding to Arbcom doesn't reduce the amount of work. Having a  low quorum,
> or
> splitting the Arbcom into two panels, means you get an incoherent
> political
> situation where the result of the RFA is determined by the randomly
> selected
> makeup of the panel. What will happen when one Arbcom disagrees with the
> other?

Many supreme courts or international courts do work like this though. They
consist for instance totally of 10 judges but some cases are just taken up
by three of them. I haven't encountered any inconsistencies there. Although
I do not know how they solved it. Probably because they have and use a good
bureaucratic system.

Garion


list: foundation-l

from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Korean Wikipedia under National
	Security Law?

body:
Puzzlet Chung wrote:

>I am Puzzlet Chung, one of the administrators in Korean Wikipedia.
>
>User:WonYong (also in en.wp) in Korean Wikipedia claims that Korean
>Wikipedia should follow South Korean National Security Law so that the
>contents potentially able to threat the nation (i.e. South Korea)
>should be censored. He made National Security violation templates, to
>tag "anti-State" articles which should be deleted:
>
>http://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:National_Security
>http://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:National_Security2
>
>WonYong insists that it is South Korea that try to conserve Korean
>language and protect it from extinction, hence both administration and
>contents of Korean Wikipedia should follow South Korean laws, and
>Korean language speakers who is not South Korean citizens don't have
>anything to do with it. He states that North Korea is not recognized
>by South Korea as a nation but a "band of mafias," (the statement of
>which is not true, since North Korea is a member of UN, and relation
>between two Koreas has changed), and doesn't deserve for Korean
>Wikipedia to reflect its POV.
>
>The problem is that some users would agree to his point of view. Out
>of two Korean [[names of Korea]], some South Koreans relate "Chos?n"
>with North Korea and Communism. They think equal juxtaposition of two
>names, (juxtapose the names when they have to, of course), as not
>satisfying Natural Point of View as in South Korea, where the majority
>of the Korean Wikipedia users live in, and where the server is located
>as well. Although "Chos?nmal" is the name of Korean language called
>not only by North Koreans, but majority of Chinese Koreans and some
>Japanese Koreans, some find "Chos?nmal" aggressive and inappropriate
>to use it in some articles.
>
>I am a South Korean citizen myself, but as far as I understand
>Wikipedian policy of NPOV, WonYong's activity threats NPOV more than
>the "Evil Wikipedia" would threat the existence of South Korea, not
>like what he might think, as long as Wikipedia is not a some kind of
>Communists' propaganda. But I've started to seriously consider about
>moving DB server back to Florida and "foreigning" the site,
>contributed by so-called foreigns and South Koreans who's not afraid
>of South Korean laws.
>
>Regards,
>
>Puzzlet Chung
>
This is indeed very bad and flies against everything wikipedia stands
for! I am also mailing this mail to the foundation list as this seems to
go against everything the foundation stands for.

Waerth/Walter


list: wikimedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Korean Wikipedia under National Security Law?


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [MediaWiki-CVS] phase3/includes Title.php, 1.251,
	1.252

body:
Zigger wrote:

>I guess this means we can have
>
> +-----+
> | C++ |    ?
> +-----+
>
>:+)
>-- Zigger
>
>
If only for the MediaWiki source code instead of the titles ;-)

Magnus


from_name: jayjg

subject: [WikiEN-l] Userbox fads

body:
On 1/4/06, Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 4 Jan 2006, Nathan Russell wrote:
> >
> Honestly, I don't see how putting a couple of userboxes on one's user
> page transforms the average Wikipedian into some drooling, lamer noob
> who uses Wikipedia only to hang with his bro's & to pick fights with
> his unkewl rivals.

While not commenting on the thesis here, I simply note again that the page I
looked at yesterday had *86* user boxes on it.  Eighty-six.

Jay.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Worthy admins? (was "The userbox fad")

body:
On 1/5/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> Leif Knutsen wrote:
>
> >>Jay wrote
> >>
> >>You appear to think the problem is
> >>that it's difficult to de-admin an administrator.  I think the problem
> is
> >>that we are creating administrators who are not part of the community,
> not
> >>familiar with its policies and norms, and not particularly interested in
> >>Wikipedia's goals."
> >>
> The difficulty in having someone de-admined is one part of the problem,
> but far from being the whole thing.  I've been dealing with one
> situation on Wiktionary where my preferred course of action would be a
> probationary period.  If it doesn't work out the admin status could
> easily be withdrawn.  However, because it would be so difficult to undo
> the status when once given, the decision has been to defer the decision
> for a month.  The problem has been precisely the kind of concern that
> Jay has raised.

Well, the flip-side of "adminship should be no big deal" might be that it
should also be "no big deal" if adminship is delayed for a month.

Jay.


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
You know I suspect that we're making this whole thing unnecessarily
complicated.  Why don't we just let people keep their userbox
templates but remove the categories?  I'm pretty sure that doing so
would make instances of abuse pretty rare.  The boxes themselves
aren't really much of a problem, they're just a means of
self-expression.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Userbox fads

body:
On 1/5/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> > [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Garion1000
> >
> > On 1/5/06, Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> > > . People of the same POV have always found each other on
> > Wikipedia, &
> > > Userboxes are hardly a powerful new tool to accomplish this.
> >
> > But userboxes makes it a lot easier to do so. Look it two
> > AFD's. The one for
> > some catholic encyclopedians and the gay rights in iraq article.
>
> So what are you saying? It should be *hard* for Wikipedians to find others
> with similar interests?
>

Well it shouldn't be so absurdly easy that it fosters campaigning.
This is an encyclopedia, not a dating service.


body:
On 1/4/06, jkelly at fas.harvard.edu <jkelly at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
>
>   What to do with this?
>
>   http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Trekphiler&oldid=33854963
>
>                  Jkelly

By my count I get 87 userboxes.  Could this be a new record?

Jay.


subject: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

body:
On 1/5/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > If they only made those 20 edits, then I'd agree, but many
> > are making 10x that many edits complaining about their toys
> > being taken away.
>
> Again, why not encourage them to be more productive instead of lambasting
> them?

With so many of them, the last thing you'd want is for them to become
more productive, because they're terrible editors. Carbonite is right:
increasing numbers of people see this as a social club, many of whom
seem to have difficulty getting along with people, or else enjoy
causing trouble and drama; and from time to time, just to keep their
hand in encyclopedia-wise, they'll engage in a quick bit of POV
pushing, a flurry of reverts, and some name-calling, with a few
spelling mistakes thrown in for good measure. Otherwise, it's back to
editing the user page and trying to change policy.

Sarah


body:
On 1/4/06, Chris Jenkinson <chris at starglade.org> wrote:
>
> Jtkiefer wrote:
> > Remove the images and put it on your watchlist and also tell the user
> > why they can't have the images up there and if they put them back then
> > lock the user page and/or temporarily block the user for violating
> > copyrights and Wikipedia's guidelines on using fair use images.  Jimbo
> > himself has stated that we now should have zero tolerance for people who
> > knowingly violate copyrights.
>
> Wow, that's incredibly heavy handed. A better first step would be to ask
> that they remove them, then if they don't remove them yourself,
> explaining yourself all the way, and then do protection/blocking if it's
> really necessary. We're not trying to get rid of people here.

So, for example, in order to avoid being "heavy handed", one might ask an
editor (and fellow administrator) to remove "fair use" images from their
page [
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:SlimVirgin&diff=prev&oldid=33916201],
and then when they object to the request on several grounds, including not
considering one of the images to be "fair use", say their comments are "so
full of lies, misinformation and patent nonsense" that you must assume they
are "ignorant, not malicious" [
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:SlimVirgin&diff=prev&oldid=33919864],
and finally (a whole 39 minutes after your first request) delete them
yourself.[
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:SlimVirgin&diff=prev&oldid=33920362]
Have I got that right?

Jay.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rewrite of Verifiability policy

body:
There are edge cases in this that concern me a little.  Facts should
be from reputable sources?  Not quite.  They should be from
appropriate sources.  The British National Party is not reputable and
(like even some reputable British political parties) cannot be
expected to publish accurate membership figures and certainly cannot
be cited on issues such as social concerns of people living in
Sheffield.  It is a perfectly appropriate source, however, for the
wording of a campaign address given by its by-election candidate in
Sheffield, although it must be attributed if the text has not been
published elsewhere.  If one is writing about the British National
Party's political strategy in South Yorkshire then appropriate
reference to material published by the party itself (say the party's
official mailshot delivered free by Royal Mail during the by-election
or words obtained from the party's official website) may be used with
caution, as long as material published solely by the party is not
given undue weight and is treated as campaigning material and not a
supporting source for factual claims made in the material.

Currently I'd feel confident in arguing for appropriate use of such
material, but it may be that we want to employ higher standards and
omit such material altogether.


from_name: Nyenyec N

body:
All I'm saying is that a number can help you. It won't replace human
communication of course.

It helps eBay users, it helps Slashdot users. If I had the option to
see such a number I would keep it turned on.

-- nyenyec

On 1/4/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/4/06, Nyenyec N <nyenyec at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Currently several tasks in Wikipedia require editor's to make a guess
> > about the trustworthyness of other editors.
>
> Trying to quantify this for purposes other than whether we trust their
> vandalism identification abilities for the purpose of RC patrol really
> isn't  a good idea.  I wasn't seriously suggesting a trust metric when
> I raised the term, I was just doing blue sky.
>
> Some people are good at working human stuff out. Jayjg seems to have a
> knack for identifying socks.  Snowspinner seeme to be good at being
> one step ahead of whoever is after him this time.  I could list many
> more people with particular skills and weaknesses.
>
>
> You can't quantify this stuff, and the minute you did, the system
> would suffer multiple breaks.
> _______________________________________________
> 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:
On 1/5/06, Carbonite <carbonite.wp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 1/5/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> > You know I suspect that we're making this whole thing unnecessarily
> > complicated.  Why don't we just let people keep their userbox
> > templates but remove the categories?  I'm pretty sure that doing so
> > would make instances of abuse pretty rare.  The boxes themselves
> > aren't really much of a problem, they're just a means of
> > self-expression.
>
> I tried removing the categories from the templates that had been
> nominated for deletion. This was reverted almost immediately...by
> someone with less than 50 article edits (but with over 700 total
> edits). That's when I began to wonder who was running the asylum.

Ah yes, an editor who manages to devote only 6% of his edits to articles,
who has apparently never felt the need to make even *one* comment on an
article Talk: page, and who has 4 times as many edits to his user page as to
the encyclopedia itself.  Well, on the bright side, he appears to have only
26 userboxes on his user page.

Um, what are these people doing here again?

Jay.


subject: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

body:
On 1/5/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
>
> > From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> > [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Carbonite
>
> > My comment wasn't about having an attitude
> > of "I've been here longer, I know better!", it's about users
> > who view Wikipedia primarily as a social club where they
> > occasionally edit an article. In my opinion, someone who
> > makes a vast majority of their edits to their user space
> > probably is less worthy than those who actually work to
> > improve the encyclopedia.
>
> There are better social clubs available on the net. If socialising is
> truly
> their main interest, then they'll go elsewhere soon enough.

There are no social clubs available on the net with the prestige of
Wikipedia.  It is a top 20 website.

 But so long as
> they aren't actually doing any harm, then why not praise their
> constructive
> efforts, instead of trying to chase them away? The more we make Wikipedia
> a
> cheerful co-operative community instead of a battleground, the better for
> all concerned.
>
>
When they argue about policy with longtime editors who actually know
something about policy, they *are* doing harm.  They are wasting the time
and trying the patience of someone who is actually contributing to the goal
of the project.

Jay.


from_name: Ben Yates

body:
Give people their own page/room/clothing and a way to customize it,
and do so to show their identity, as an end in itself.  Seems pretty
harmless.

On 1/5/06, jayjg <jayjg99 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/5/06, Carbonite <carbonite.wp at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 1/5/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > You know I suspect that we're making this whole thing unnecessarily
> > > complicated.  Why don't we just let people keep their userbox
> > > templates but remove the categories?  I'm pretty sure that doing so
> > > would make instances of abuse pretty rare.  The boxes themselves
> > > aren't really much of a problem, they're just a means of
> > > self-expression.
> >
> > I tried removing the categories from the templates that had been
> > nominated for deletion. This was reverted almost immediately...by
> > someone with less than 50 article edits (but with over 700 total
> > edits). That's when I began to wonder who was running the asylum.
>
>
> Ah yes, an editor who manages to devote only 6% of his edits to articles,
> who has apparently never felt the need to make even *one* comment on an
> article Talk: page, and who has 4 times as many edits to his user page as to
> the encyclopedia itself.  Well, on the bright side, he appears to have only
> 26 userboxes on his user page.
>
> Um, what are these people doing here again?
>
> Jay.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Ben Yates
Wikipedia blog - http://wikip.blogspot.com


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>On 1/5/06, jayjg <jayjg99 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On 1/5/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
>> But so long as
>>
>>>they aren't actually doing any harm, then why not praise their
>>>constructive
>>>efforts, instead of trying to chase them away? The more we make Wikipedia
>>>a
>>>cheerful co-operative community instead of a battleground, the better for
>>>all concerned.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>When they argue about policy with longtime editors who actually know
>>something about policy, they *are* doing harm.  They are wasting the time
>>and trying the patience of someone who is actually contributing to the goal
>>of the project.
>>
>>Jay.
>>
>
>Not really.  Arguing about policy with longtime editors who actually
>know something about policy tends to make for better, more well
>thought out, and more clearly documented policies.
>
>If the longtime editors "who actually know something about policy"
>don't understand *why* those policies are in place, then maybe they
>should learn this, or maybe the policy itself needs to be re-examined.
> If things have been well thought out and documented, then pointing
>the newbie to a link which explains it all should take very little
>time, and will create a better contributor.
>
You're very generous with other people's time! We have "contributors"
with reading-comprehension problems, for whom pointing at a page
does no good, we have some who are simply not smart enough to be of
any help, we have some whose social skills are too limited even to
manage basic spelling fixes without driving everybody else up the
wall.

While I'm generally in favor of broad latitude for user behavior,
there are some people who are simply net negatives, and it is in our
interest to get them to go away. I've come to steer away from most
of that kind of debating, because the encyclopedia benefits more
from me applying myself in areas where I have specialized skills,
knowledge, and reference sources. But sooner or later we're going
to have to develop better ways to filter out the unhelpful.

Stan