from_name: Ryan W. (Merovingian)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [...] Re: Taking your eyes off the ball

body:
I am simply worried about the ratio of featured articles to non-featured articles.  As I see it, FAs would be the first to go straight to Wikipedia 1.0, so why not produce more high-quality articles?

--Ryan

> From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: Taking your eyes
> 	off the	ball
>
> If you think they're too slow maybe you need to learn a little
> patience.  What's the rush?
> Ec
>
> Ryan W. (Merovingian) wrote:
>
> > I can see that; it's not that I think the standards are too
> > tough, more like the process is too slow.
> >
> >
> >> From: geni <geniice at gmail.com>
> >> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: Taking your eyes off the
> >> 	ball
> >>
> >> On 10/2/05, Ryan W. (Merovingian) <bigwiki at earthling.net> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>> Blargh, I don't know.  I was talking more about AfD, though.
> >>>
> >>> Nevertheless, the FAC process needs to go faster.  Look at last
> >>> week: we gained four and >lost three FAs.  That comes out to a
> >>> total gain of one.  This is unacceptable.
> >>>
> >>>
> >> The standards for a FA are increaseing.

--
___________________________________________________________
Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com
http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 27, Issue 10

body:
> This would swing the balance too far in favor of the deletionists. The
> unsourced statement would have to be unreasonable. Obvious common knowledge
> statements should not have to be sourced, and someone edit warring,
> demanding that every petty statement be sourced is being unreasonable, and
> should not be rewarded by being allowed to impose a burden upon other
> editors.
> -- Silverback

The simple solution to someone edit warring demanding that a statement be
sourced is to add a reference at the bottom of the article. If the statement
really is obvious then it should be simple to find a source.

Yes, someone gaming the system by removing something which they know to be
true rather than just adding the source themselves should be reprimanded.
But at the same time, a better solution than edit warring with that person
would be to just add the source.

I don't think anyone's claiming that you have to cite sources for every fact
within the main body of the article. I don't think [1] that articles [2]
should look [3] anything like [4] this. [5] Rather for something "obvious",
it should be enough to cite the source at the bottom of the page.

I'm saying all this as though it's a proposal, but it's really already
policy. See [[Wikipedia:Verifiable]], especially #Checking content.

Anthony


from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 3RR

body:
> From: steve v <vertigosteve at yahoo.com>
>
> Easy to say. You dont have right-wing nutcases tag
> team reverting your rewrites.

That's a difficult problem, maybe impossible.

But it can't be solved by Wikilawyering the number of reverts
complaining about what computer programmers call "fencepost errors"
in counting reverts, or when 24 hours begins, or whether you get an
extra hour if the change from Daylight Savings to standard time
happens during the 24 hours... or anything like that.

Although Wikipedia is not supposed to be majoritarian, if you have a
garden-variety revert war between one person and many, yes, the many
can effectively impose their will. As far as I know, the only remedy
is to patiently conduct discussions, gain consensus, and then ask for
help when you can show that people are reverting against consensus.

That may not work, either.

All I can say is that fussing about how many reverts you get to make
and whether some sysop counted them properly isn't going to help.

--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/


from_name: geni

body:
On 10/3/05, Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> [*] ISTR someone mentioning that it is not uncommon for most important
> works in at least one field -- railroad history -- to be published by
> the author & often not listed in these catalogs. I'd be happy to
> include some or all college, public or private libraries with online
> catalogs to solve this problem -- but there *needs* to be some easy way
> to verify that the work cited does exist.

Simular for canals except there you go back to the primary sources
which you dig out of various record offices (which for some reason are
often in a completely different part of the country to the canal).

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Quasi-vanity and quasi-advertising

body:
On 10/3/05, dpbsmith at verizon.net <dpbsmith at verizon.net> wrote:
>
> One of the characteristics of being a fan is that one has a sort of
> illusory
> personal connection to the object of one's admiration. Let's suppose,
> hypothetically, that I were a fan of Arlo Guthrie. I would feel almost as
> if
> Arlo Guthrie were a close friend.
>
> Now, suppose I were to insert an fawning article on his latest album,
> "Live
> in Sydney," pointing out the neutral and objectively true encyclopedic
> fact
> that it's terrific and everyone should buy one or two copies.
> Hypothetically.
> For only twenty-seven hypothetical U. S. dollars.
>
> I don't get a cut of the profits, and I'm not hired by Rising Son Records
> to
> promote this album, so I can say truthfully that it is not advertising.
>
> But, it sort of is. Because even though I don't get _money_ out of the
> deal,
> I do get the warm fuzzy feeling that I'm helping my close friend Arlo.
> (Even
> though he's not really my friend). And that I'm validating my fandom by
> increasing the number of fans.
>
> So, it's deliberate _promotion._
>
> It's not vanity, because Arlo Guthrie didn't write the article himself.
>
> But, it sort of is, because a close friend of Arlo wrote the article. Or,
> someone who has the illusion of being a close friend of Arlo wrote the
> article.
>
> Of course, wanting to "help" or promote the topic area on which one is
> writing is probably the commonest motivation for writing articles for
> Wikipedia, and up to a point it's legitimate.
>
> I'd like to redefine "vanity" as meaning "an imbalanced mix of motives in
> which serving the needs of the contributor outweights serving the needs of
> the reader."

Who cares about whether or not it's vanity? It's POV, and as such it should
be fixed.


from_name: Alphax

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Becoming more encyclopedia-like: 1: Encephalon's
	comments

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Alphax wrote:
>
<snip>
>> The question is: What is The Bit of Wikipedia Formerly Known as AfD
>> designed to do? Is it to get articles that you don't like deleted? Or is
>> it to seperate the chaff from the grain?
>>
>> Hrm.... "Wikipedia:Article Threshing". I like it :)
>>
> I don't think that changing the tiger's stripes is going to make it any
> less vicious.

But if you take the stripes off the tiger, does the tiger forget that it
is a tiger, and stop trying to eat people? Do not blame God for having
made the tiger; rather, thank Him for having not given it wings.

- --
Alphax                      |   /"\
Encrypted Email Preferred   |   \ /     ASCII Ribbon Campaign
OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613  |    X   Against HTML email & vCards
http://tinyurl.com/cc9up    |   / \
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Three levels

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
>> On 10/2/05, Daniel P. B. Smith <dpbsmith at verizon.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Users browsing the encyclopedia can set a default level of viewing on
>>>
>>>
>>>> arrival, but bottom level articles are, by default, not included.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Ideological pure-Wiki advocates might suggest that by putting these
>>> article on the bottom level you were preventing people from seeing
>>> them and improving them.
>>>
>>
>> It's unclear what it means for bottom level articles to be "not
>> included".
>> Not included in search and in random page are obvious*, but there would
>> almost certainly be a link there for anyone who typed in the exact
>> term. We
>> already have a link that says "View X deleted
>> edits<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Brian_Torby>?"
>> For bottom level articles, you'd actually be able to view those edits by
>> clicking on that link (the text of which would probably be rephrased).
>>
> Why not have these levels set by the long proposed article evaluation
> scheme, based on th numbers which that process gives.  That carries no
> deletion implication, but it warns the user that if he views articles
> below a certain threshold he may just be viewing a lot of garbage.
>

Good idea.

- --
Alphax                      |   /"\
Encrypted Email Preferred   |   \ /     ASCII Ribbon Campaign
OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613  |    X   Against HTML email & vCards
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from_name: actionforum at comcast.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] Do 3RR rules favor the contributer or the deletionist?

body:
Wikien-l,
I have just been blocked for an alleged 3RR violation at Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda
I thought the rules favored the contributor, since the first edit doesn't count as a revert, but in this case it appears the first edit is being counted as a revert so the deletionist is getting the final say.
While my first edit is adding text that I have previously proposed, it is two days later and to a new version of the article.  The text had previously been opposed but on unconvincing, rather spurious grounds that I have responded to in good faith on the talk page and in the edit summaries.  I think this article is heading for two versions because csloat is trying to rally a clique, but in the meantime I am curious about this technical issue of how edits/reverts are counted.  I would not have knowingly violated 3RR, apologies if I am wrong.
            -- thanx for your consideration,
                                           Silverback


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Henrygb

subject: [Wikitech-l] Remote loading by firebird.cn

body:
The fact that http://www.firebird.cn/wiki/Special:Newpages produces an uptodate
list suggests that this site is remote loading.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Three levels

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

Michael Turley wrote:
> On 10/3/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>>Why not have these levels set by the long proposed article evaluation
>>>scheme, based on th numbers which that process gives.  That carries no
>>>deletion implication, but it warns the user that if he views articles
>>>below a certain threshold he may just be viewing a lot of garbage.
>>>
>>
>>Good idea.
>
>
> I also think this is a good idea.
>
> I previously didn't like the idea of public article rating schemes,
> but I was wrong to express my opposition before waiting to see what
> would develop.  This could be a very good use indeed.
>

Do you think that articles which fall below a certain threshhold (eg.
- -100) should be deleted, or just hidden? Or should the current article
rating be displayed in big red numbers at the top of the article?

- --
Alphax                      |   /"\
Encrypted Email Preferred   |   \ /     ASCII Ribbon Campaign
OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613  |    X   Against HTML email & vCards
http://tinyurl.com/cc9up    |   / \
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from_name: Theresa Knott

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 27, Issue 20

body:
On 10/3/05, Jeff Willis <simsgenius069 at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Hi, everyone. Not sure exactly how this works yet, but I'll learn. :-) I'm new to the mailing list, so hi, everyone!

Hi Jeff welcome to the madhouse!

Theresa


body:
> Folks, let me suggest that there's a trick to avoiding this kind of hassle.
> Don't edit war.

That is my philosophy too, but when facing editors that fail to respond with valid points on the talk page and just want the page their own way, I revert, so as not to allow their behavior to be rewarded.  I attempt to scrupuluously avoid a warlike demeanor, in the face of unreasonable behavior.  Perhaps technically it is edit warring.  8-)     Stopping the war would reward the behavior of the other party in starting it, and such reinforcement of the behavior after such long persistance would unfortunately be the strongest possible reinforcement.  One must either give in right away to those presuming ownership of a page or commit to warring forever or reach a compromise that is not too rewarding.  Unfortunately, the current text is already too great a compromise, which I mistakenly offered too early in the process, but it is where I must draw the line.

            sincerely, Silverback


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>On 10/3/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>How did the deletion period get reduced from 7 to 5 days. That seems
>>far too short, especially considering that many other deletions still
>>require 7 days. A _minimum_ of a week seems most appropriate.
>>
>>
>An interesting observation. Actually I had no idea that it was ever longer.
>I wonder if it was reduced as the old double-transclusion version of VfD
>became unwieldy. If so, in theory it could be changed back, or even doubled.
>
>But in practice the maximum lag time for an article (days between nomination
>and deletion) is eight days at the moment, and it has been much longer at
>times.
>
>And from closing debates, my experience is that articles that don't get much
>attention in the first day or two aren't likely to get more over the current
>five day period. But if neglected listings (say four people or fewer in five
>days of discussion) are then relisted they tend to get more attention. So
>extending lag time would probably have minimal benefit and other methods of
>improving exposure are available and are fairly commonly used.
>
The rules governing this process are a complete maze to work through, to
the point where very little of it means anything anymore.  At
[[Wikipedia:Deletion policy]], under the heading "Lag times" all other
types of deletion (except speedy) are shown as having seven or eight
days lag times.. The ichange was under discussion between May and July.
See [[Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion/lag time]].
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Votes_for_deletion/lag_time>At
the rate that changes take place there it could have been snuck in at
any time without it being noticed.

Your observation of what happens makes sense.  Something that is not
noticed when it appears on RFC  will get a free ride into deletion
whether or not it has any value.

So I've enterred a debate on [[Open Season (2006 movie)]] which User:Fvw
and User:Android79 insist on speedy deleting without any discussion.
The former went so far as to delete the talk page to suppress
discussion.  When these newbies get a little power as admins it goes to
their head.

I got involved when someone wrongly added it to Wiktionary and I moved
it here with a few improvements..  In any event I know of no policy to
delete short articles on movies in production as long as they are
verifiable, which this is.  This is obviously the kind of article that
will grow with time.

Ec


body:
> Im naive and idealistic, so Ive been trying reason and
> responsiveness. I guess you could say it hasnt been
> working, so maybe youre right and now its time to
> finally form that anti-tyranny/pro-liberty cabal that
> people have been waiting for.

But isn't that conceding defeat, forming a collective to fight collectivism?
Almost as much a contradiction as having conscripts fight for
"freedom".
                     -- Silverback


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
On 10/3/05, Mark Pellegrini <mapellegrini at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>
> The thing is - let's face it - we have all the bases covered. We already
> have
> articles on more-or-less all the topics you would expect in a traditional
> encyclopedia.

Actually, no, but that's by-the-by. Why this insistence on reference to
paper encyclopedias? Why is it important to cripple Wikipedia by removing
content? I say "removing content" because it looks to me that in violating
deletion policy through the insistence on deleting articles that could be
merged, the intention of some parties is to destroy certain wikipedia
content, to declare it, by edict of four or five editors who happened to be
around during a debate, beyond the reach of Wikipedia.

A discussion is now taking place on Wikipedia Votes for undeletion. An
article about a developing games forum website was deleted a few months ago
on the grounds that it was "crystal ball gazing". Now the website is up and
running and someone asks for the article, with some 40 edits by to be
deleted. People are sitting on VFU right now and seriouslyarguing that it
should be kept deleted because "at the time, the VfD discussion was valid.

That beggars belief.


body:
> Tony Sidaway wrote:
>
> >On 10/3/05, Michael Turley wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Anyone have any good ideas of how better to encourage people to cite
> >>sources?
> >>
> >>
> >Make verifiability a key policy, and egregious edit-warring to insert
> >unsourced statements a blockable offence.
> >
> Great idea!

This would swing the balance too far in favor of the deletionists.  The unsourced statement would have to be unreasonable.  Obvious common knowledge statements should not have to be sourced, and someone edit warring, demanding that every petty statement be sourced is being unreasonable, and should not be rewarded by being allowed to impose a burden upon other editors.
                                -- Silverback


from_name: Ryan Norton

body:
>
> Your observation of what happens makes sense.  Something that is not
> noticed when it appears on RFC  will get a free ride into deletion
> whether or not it has any value.
> So I've enterred a debate on [[Open Season (2006 movie)]] which
> User:Fvw and User:Android79 insist on speedy deleting without any
> discussion.  The former went so far as to delete the talk page to
> suppress discussion.  When these newbies get a little power as admins
> it goes to their head.

Uh, Fvw has been here a year longer then even tony sidaway according to
kate....

Thanks,
Ryan

[[User:RN]] at wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:RN
Ryan Norton at wxforum: http://wxforum.org


body:
Folks, let me suggest that there's a trick to avoiding this kind of hassle.
Don't edit war.

Simple.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Three levels

body:
Michael Turley wrote:

>On 10/3/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Michael Turley wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I previously didn't like the idea of public article rating schemes,
>>>but I was wrong to express my opposition before waiting to see what
>>>would develop.  This could be a very good use indeed.
>>>
>>>
>>Do you think that articles which fall below a certain threshhold (eg.
>>- -100) should be deleted, or just hidden? Or should the current article
>>rating be displayed in big red numbers at the top of the article?
>>
>>
>Deletion should never be an automatic process.  I've seen far too many
>articles "saved" while on AfD to support that.
>
That impatient drive for automation and decisions that require minimal
thoughtful effort is a big part of the social problem around deletion.
Before I trust an editor I look to see the work that he is doing.
Deletions and proposed deletions are a subset of one's edits.  If that
subset takes up too big a proportion of his edits I become suspicious.
So I look at his deletion practices to see how he exercises judgement.
I've lurked at numerous VFD/AFD entries and done nothing, mostly because
the subject matter was only marginal to my interests.  But my
observations would certainly note the reccurrence of certain editors'
names, and my trust would be affected accordingly.

The problem with automated process is that they do not require the
intervention of a brain.  It is conceivable that some deletions could be
done automatically, but we are nowhere near having criteria to which we
could all agree.  I don't mind at all if the process is a little slow.

I like the big red number, but I would be satisfied if only the lower
numbers were red.  Articles rated in the top and bottom 20% will always
get attention, either because they are so bad or because the rating is
too good to be true.  Rating the first entry in an article at a
mandatory 10 will have the effect of drawing eyes to that article.

>Further, it is the existence of "poor quality" or nonexistent articles
>that gets us new editors.  If all of the articles we allow the public
>to view are near perfect, few will join.
>
>
There's ironic truth to that.  Few people edit Britannica because it's
so perfect. :-)   A very poorly rated article will also get attention,
preferably from people who understand what it means to improve something
rather than those who want to prevent improvement.

Ec


body:
On 10/4/05, steve v <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Folks, let me suggest that there's a trick to
> avoiding this kind of hassle.
> Don't edit war.

Easy to say. You dont have right-wing nutcases tag
> team reverting your rewrites.

I've dealt with stuff like that. You know there are talk pages, RfCs, all
kinds of stuff. And oodles of very reasonable editors around to make sure
extreme stuff doesn't go unchallenged. So there's no need to edit war.


from_name: admin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Ip range block

body:
23:32, 3 October 2005, Talrias
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Talrias> blocked 217.43.0.0/16
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:217.43.0.0/16> (expires 23:32, 5
October 2005) (contribs
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=217.43.0.0/16>)
(Irish republican vandal (please email User:Talrias
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Talrias>).)

this seems to block a range of ips?

Gary


subject: [WikiEN-l] What Readers Say on Inclusion

body:
Philip Sandifer wrote:

> I just did a very informal poll among friends I have who do not edit
> Wikipedia, but who read it, on the matter of when an article should
> be deleted.
>
> I did not express my own opinion to any of them and solicit
> agreement. So the fact that they are my friends so, naturally, they
> agree with me doesn't play into this. On the other hand, the
> possibility that I am naturally prone to talking to people who
> basically agree with me, even on issues we haven't discussed, might.
>
> In any case - no one I talked to mentioned notability as a reason to
> delete. All of them, upon being specifically asked about notability,
> generally took a "whatever" approach to it, with several specifically
> saying, "No, if the article isn't lies, it should definitely be
> included no matter how trivial the topic." Other views included "If
> the topic is mentioned in another article, and that mention wasn't
> created specifically to make an excuse to have an article, it should
> be included" (The closest thing to a deletionist position I got) and
> "If someone cares enough to create it, it should probably not be
> deleted, even though that someone might be being an idiot."
>
> Which doesn't prove anything, I'll be the first to admit. But I think
> this is an important thing we haven't been asking - what do readers
> think. Most of the people expressing their opinions on this inclusion/
> exclusion debate are editors. Most of us, in fact, are very jaded
> editors. And we are an incredible minority among the people who load
> en.wikipedia.org every day. And we should bear that in mind - because
> after a bit of talking to readers, I think people really do want us
> to try to be a place where you can find any piece of knowledge or
> fact. To a degree, actually, that's even beyond what I think is
> important to achieve (Although I still would rather leave in garage
> bands than exclude notable but obscure topics, and I still don't care
> enough to delete garage bands myself).

These are excellent observations.  My son's Social Studies teacher is an
info geek who is familiar with Wikipedia.  I should ask him if he would
be willing to run a survey of his class asking:  "What belongs in an
encyclopedia?" and "What should not be in an encyclopedia?" Perhaps even
adding a series of yes-or-no questions about subjects that have been
particularly contentious.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: Taking your eyes off the ball

body:
grm_wnr wrote:

> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> The deletionist's anomaly is that he is often nominating articles
>> that are outside of his interests.  If a candidate article comes up
>> in his own field of interest he is in a better position to improve
>> it.  I don't have a lot of interest in rock bands, so apart from a
>> very few very big names none of them are notable to me.  Taking that
>> further, even if I were interested in such music how could I possibly
>> evaluate the local scene in some other large city.  Of course, if I
>> participate in the vote I expect my vote to be counted even if I have
>> no idea WTF I'm talking about.  If it's a matter of rock bands (and
>> similarly for other subjects), perhaps a vote should have less value
>> if the person has done no editing in that subject area.
>
> This is an idea I've been toying with myself - giving the parts of the
> community concerned with a topic (WikiProjects, basically) more
> autonomy in their respective fields. We already do that in some ways -
> [[WP:MUSIC]], [[WP:SFD]]. Of course, this could lead to a certain
> "inbreeding" / "groupthink" mentality.

That is a real danger.  I've seen it in the sciences where too many are
quick to put a pseudoscience label on things that they don't
understand.  If these topics turn out to be complete nonsense let them
do so on their own lack of merits, without applying a prejudgement.
Preventing inbreeding requires some system for occasionally bringing in
people from outside the field, perhaps in the way that a faculty person
from another department might be brought into a thesis committee.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Public Domain in occupied Iraq

body:
steve v wrote:

>--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>I don't know whether this is better characterized as
>>irrational or
>>incoherent. There is no suggestion that President
>>Hussein was the
>>personal copyright holder for the photograph. Your
>>ramblings have
>>nothing to do with copyright. It doesn't seem right
>>to want to punish
>>all the citixens of a country just because you don't
>>like its former
>>president.
>>
>>
>Well, whats not to like? Its odd that you raise the
>issue of "punishment" when I was simply alluding to a
>major discrepancy in your claimed notion of what Iraqi
>law actually is.
>
>According to the current Coalition-instituted "Iraqi
>law," Coalition soldiers can shoot whomever they
>please and by law must be released from custody. An
>"irrational" argument would be to claim (as you do)
>that a military occupied country that has essentially
>instituted extremely low value thresholds for the
>protection of its own people, should somehow be
>regarded for its IP "rights." *That* seems rather
>irrational to me. In a case where no doubt the
>photographer might want to remain anonymous, and yet
>have their photograph published anyway (presumably
>just to 'get the word out').
>
Copyright law is what has a direct bearing on what we do as
Wikipedians.  I have no more facts about whether the photographer wanted
to remain anonymous than you, but I prefer not to engage in speculation
about it.  In the absence of personal knowledge about an anonymous
photographer how can you possibly justify having "no doubt".

What does the fact that you condone murder by occupation troops have to
do with IP law?  All I'm saying is that the military occupiers have no
business imposing their IP values on the Iraqi people.

>If we really wanted to be nutty about IP law we could
>have taken down all the Abu Ghraib photos, as they
>were put up only on a prima fascia claim of public
>domain -- which assumed that the models/photographer's
>claim of "official duties" would stand in court. AIUI,
>according to military law rulings, those soldiers were
>not performing "official" duties. :) Would we need to
>go visit the photographers in prison to inquire if
>they want to release them under PD-GNU-CC?
>
The Abu Ghraig photos were taken by Americans who, as individuals, have
not established any permanent residence in Iraq, so American copyright
law should be applicable.

>"Do you have a model release for that photo?"
>
Releases from the "models" in the picture is not a matter of copyright
law, but of the privacy of those people in the photos.
Ec


body:
Respect for the laws of others has nothing to do with who has nukes.
This type of fatuous comment projects an image of Americans that would
leave many American Wikipedians ashamed.

Ec

steve v wrote:

>Again, because Bavaria doesnt have any nukes, we dont
>really have to listen to it's griping about what it
>owns and what it doesn't.
>
>;)
>SV
>
>--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>I've heard of that case.  It determined that the
>>book (Mein Kampf) was still
>>copyright protected, but did not recognize Bavaria
>>as the owner.
>>


from_name: Nikos Korfiatis

subject: [Wikitech-l] XML Export of the full history

body:
Dear all,
I want to export the page history in an xml format. I found the page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Export for exporting the page history
in XML but unfortunately the result contains only the current revision. I
unchecked the checkbox but again it gives me the current revision. Is there
any special parameter that i have to pass to the url ?

Thanks in advance,

Nikos Korfiatis
Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden


body:
dpbsmith at verizon.net wrote:

>One of the characteristics of being a fan is that one has a sort of illusory
>personal connection to the object of one's admiration. Let's suppose,
>hypothetically, that I were a fan of Arlo Guthrie. I would feel almost as if
>Arlo Guthrie were a close friend.
>
>Now, suppose I were to insert an fawning article on his latest album, "Live
>in Sydney," pointing out the neutral and objectively true encyclopedic fact
>that it's terrific and everyone should buy one or two copies. Hypothetically.
>For only twenty-seven hypothetical U. S. dollars.
>
It's a bit like asking Eric Bogle to sing Bob Dylan.

>I don't get a cut of the profits, and I'm not hired by Rising Son Records to
>promote this album, so I can say truthfully that it is not advertising.
>
>But, it sort of is. Because even though I don't get _money_ out of the deal,
>I do get the warm fuzzy feeling that I'm helping my close friend Arlo. (Even
>though he's not really my friend). And that I'm validating my fandom by
>increasing the number of fans.
>
>So, it's deliberate _promotion._
>
>It's not vanity, because Arlo Guthrie didn't write the article himself.
>
>But, it sort of is, because a close friend of Arlo wrote the article. Or,
>someone who has the illusion of being a close friend of Arlo wrote the
>article.
>
You can get anything you want at the Wiki Restaurant. :-)

>Of course, wanting to "help" or promote the topic area on which one is
>writing is probably the commonest motivation for writing articles for
>Wikipedia, and up to a point it's legitimate.
>
>I'd like to redefine "vanity" as meaning "an imbalanced mix of motives in
>which serving the needs of the contributor outweights serving the needs of
>the reader."
>
Riight!  Who's to judge whether that applies.  Let's not make things
more complicated than they need to be.

Ec


body:
On 10/4/05, actionforum at comcast.net <actionforum at comcast.net> wrote:

> This would swing the balance too far in favor of the deletionists.  The unsourced statement would have to be unreasonable.  Obvious common knowledge statements should not have to be sourced, and someone edit warring, demanding that every petty statement be sourced is being unreasonable, and should not be rewarded by being allowed to impose a burden upon other editors.
>                                 -- Silverback

There are worse war cries than "source?"

--
geni


body:
geni wrote:

>On 10/3/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Make verifiability a key policy, and egregious edit-warring to insert
>>unsourced statements a blockable offence.
>>
>>
>Trying to figure out if a source exists or not is going to be fun.
>
That's precisely why the burden of proof should be on the person who is
making the claim, but the person should be given reasonable time to
provide that source if asked to do so.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>On 10/3/05, Philip Sandifer <snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>If we add "verifiability" as a speedy criterion, the number
>>that could be speedied goes to around 85%, I think.
>>
>>
>I do think these should be handled outside AfD, but I wouldn't make them
>speediable because an unverified article can be verified by research. I've
>suggested a copyvio-like process for this--list for a couple of weeks to
>give people a chance to verify, then delete if still unverified.
>
Hmmm!  This is a bit like what I have been trying to promote in
Wiktionary, but it's un uphill battle.  Some people expect you to do
their homework for them.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
Philip Sandifer wrote:

> On Oct 3, 2005, at 2:28 PM, geni wrote:
>
>> On 10/3/05, Philip Sandifer <snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> An equally large chunk, however,
>>> were, if not speedies, at least things that any sensible person who
>>> watches AfD for a day or two could determine the result of in
>>> advance. If we add "verifiability" as a speedy criterion, the number
>>> that could be speedied goes to around 85%, I think.
>>
>> Come up with a solid defintion of verifiable
>
>
> Information that is checkable through a source that is both
> reasonably accessible and reasonably likely to be around in a decade.
> Internet sources are maximally accessible and kind of minimally
> permanent, though it depends on the website - the higher the Alexa
> ranking of the site that hosts the information, in general the more
> likely it is to survive, if for no other reason than that archive.org
> is likely to preserve it. Random Geocities pages and the like - not
> enough for verifiability.
>
> Print media through a reputable press is pretty much always enough -
> newspapers, magazines, etc. A decent rule of thumb for print would be
> "Is there likely a university library in America that's holding onto
> this?" If yes, it's enough.

Fair enough, but I would not include the limitation "in America".

I'm currently trying, without success, to find info about "Esson's
Land".  It's a geographical territory roughly along the south shore of
Alaska.  My source is a book on map projections published in 1717 (i.e.
before Captain Cook's voyages in the Pacific).  I don't have enough on
it to even write a stub, but the reference source is still interesting.
Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
> Yes. The opposed groups are not "inclusionists" versus deletionists,
> but *contributors* versus deletionists. (This is still the case even
> though the deletionists contribute elsewhere.) Then the deletionists
> wonder why the contributors get so damn stroppy.

LOL, that's kind of silly. I guess those are the same contributers that
made "Greasy Cannonball", LOL. Seriously though, many of us go to VfD
to kill original research and other nonsense and vanity. It would be
nice if we had people like you participating there rather than just
complaining about the system, as it were :).

Believe it or not, it does work quite well considering the
alternatives. Sometimes it takes multiple VfDs, sometimes it ends up on
VfU etc.. But eventually it does work - thanks to the work of the
people who populate VfD (the people you seem to live to hate, LOL :)).

Hate a little WP:FAITH in the system, it does work quite well. Maybe
you should talk about it on the talk page of WP:AfD - its a rather
low-traffic talk page comparatively.

Thanks,
Ryan

[[User:RN]] at wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:RN
Ryan Norton at wxforum: http://wxforum.org


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
On Tuesday, October 4, 2005, at 03:15  AM, David Gerard wrote:

> On 10/4/05, Ryan Norton <wxprojects at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> LOL, that's kind of silly. I guess those are the same contributers
>> that
>> made "Greasy Cannonball", LOL. Seriously though, many of us go to VfD
>> to kill original research and other nonsense and vanity. It would be
>> nice if we had people like you participating there rather than just
>> complaining about the system, as it were :).
>
>
> I have. It's a ridiculous amount of work and the VICIOUS STUPIDITY AND
> BLATANT IGNORING OF THE ACTUAL DAMN DELETION POLICY DOES NOT STOP.
> Trying to hold back the waves of poisonous stupidity at VFD is a quick
> route to burnout. AFD sill needs a dynamite enema.

As far as I know most of us follow policy quite well, what parts in
particular are some of us not following? I'm always listening for
improvement :).

Thanks,
Ryan

[[User:RN]] at wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:RN
Ryan Norton at wxforum: http://wxforum.org


list: commons-l

from_name: Anthere

subject: [Commons-l] Re: courriel envoyé depuis Wikimedia Commons

body:
Bonjour,

Je crois que les habitants de Wikicommons ont une
politique tr?s "ferme" vis ? vis des licences.

Je ne sais pas trop ce que tu as fait... tu ne pouvais
d?j? pas ?diter sous ip, puisqu'? priori l'upload des
images requiert un compte utilisateur.

Y a t-il un francophone qui puisse aider ?

Anthere

--- Zivax <zivax at club-intrenet.fr> wrote:

>
> J'ai implant?? des images de wiki Anglais sur
> commons...j'ai eu mon I.P de retir??, et depuis je
> me retrouve dans la panade compl??te, car certaines
> photos m'??taient donn??es par leurs auteurs.
> Les articles cr????s sur wikip??dia n'ont plus
> d'images autoris??es...j'ai commis qqlqs erreurs
> mais tout retirer je trouve cela peu diplomate...je
> suis nouveau sur wiki mais honn??te. Je fais mon
> mea-culpa pour les erreurs mais j???apprends au fur
> et ?? mesure.
> Comment rattraper le coup.. ? ? ?
>
>

__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
http://mail.yahoo.com


subject: [Commons-l] Re: failure notice

body:
je pense que ceci r?sout le probl?me...

Ant

--- MAILER-DAEMON at yahoo.com wrote:

> Hi. This is the qmail-send program at yahoo.com.
> I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to
> the following addresses.
> This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it
> didn't work out.
>
> <zivax at club-intrenet.fr>:
> Sorry, I couldn't find any host named
> club-intrenet.fr. (#5.1.2)
>
> --- Below this line is a copy of the message.
>
> Return-Path: <anthere9 at yahoo.com>
> Received: (qmail 47074 invoked by uid 60001); 4 Oct
> 2005 11:45:51 -0000
> DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws;
>   s=s1024; d=yahoo.com;
>
>
h=Message-ID:Received:Date:From:Subject:To:Cc:In-Reply-To:MIME-Version:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding;
>
>
b=h8klirIjqTMjZaFQj+cipeNvudZrAntEbrYfOfVYlQQD0HP7q/Lx10owTNb4LdqVrNrr+oLm8r2s506WvVOeSWVchWyF7yluMJxTFhoxSd0ddOeZuhZVH9eBh1qt5fbNbt4ayiTHdpoHrilb4ev91SdeL++u/T5sKCyzHec7Tgk=
>  ;
> Message-ID:
>
<20051004114551.47072.qmail at web32907.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
> Received: from [83.205.50.250] by
> web32907.mail.mud.yahoo.com via HTTP; Tue, 04 Oct
> 2005 04:45:50 PDT
> Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2005 04:45:50 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: courriel envoy? depuis Wikimedia
> Commons
> To: Zivax <zivax at club-intrenet.fr>
> Cc: commons-l at wikimedia.org
> In-Reply-To:
> <200510041043.j94AhhAJ001690 at srv15.pmtpa.wmnet>
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
>
>
> Bonjour,
>
> Je crois que les habitants de Wikicommons ont une
> politique tr?s "ferme" vis ? vis des licences.
>
> Je ne sais pas trop ce que tu as fait... tu ne
> pouvais
> d?j? pas ?diter sous ip, puisqu'? priori l'upload
> des
> images requiert un compte utilisateur.
>
> Y a t-il un francophone qui puisse aider ?
>
> Anthere
>
> --- Zivax <zivax at club-intrenet.fr> wrote:
>
> >
> > J'ai implant?? des images de wiki Anglais sur
> > commons...j'ai eu mon I.P de retir??, et depuis je
> > me retrouve dans la panade compl??te, car
> certaines
> > photos m'??taient donn??es par leurs auteurs.
> > Les articles cr????s sur wikip??dia n'ont plus
> > d'images autoris??es...j'ai commis qqlqs erreurs
> > mais tout retirer je trouve cela peu
> diplomate...je
> > suis nouveau sur wiki mais honn??te. Je fais mon
> > mea-culpa pour les erreurs mais j???apprends au
> fur
> > et ?? mesure.
> > Comment rattraper le coup.. ? ? ?
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
> http://mail.yahoo.com
>

__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
http://mail.yahoo.com


list: foundation-l

from_name: SJ

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: [Wikimania] Wikimania 2006 - host city contest,
	latest update

body:
Cormac Lawler <cormaggio at gmail.com> wrote:
>  Did anyone think to create a log of this meeting or save it in some form?

The public shortlist meeting held Sunday night lasted a bit over an
hour.  During the meeting, there was private discussion among the jury
members*, to reach consensus on the finalists.

You can see a log of the public chat here :
  http://hcs.harvard.edu/~sjklein/mania-meeting-log.txt

And the finalists here :
  http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2006/Boston
  http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2006/Toronto

Both are exciting bids... it is a nice change to see major
universities vying for association with Wikimedia projects.  Next up:
libraries vying to be official repositories of snapshots?

* So I was told.  The original jury was set up before Boston was a
candidate city.  Now that I am the contact for Boston, I am not on the
jury, nor involved with its private discussions.

++SJ

On 9/30/05, Delphine M?nard <notafishz at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> PS. "Jury" will be composed of the Board of the Foundation, Elian,
> Akl, JeLuF, Austin, Sj and myself.


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] The New Cliche: "It's the Wikipedia of..."

body:
What is a dermatology atlas?

Dermatology, I understand. Atlas, I understand. But what is a
dermatology atlas? A book of maps of the skin?

Mark

On 04/10/05, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thought you all would find this amusing - Jeremey Wagstaff, WSJ tech
> columnist, had a great piece about the Wikipedia as a new cliche...
>
> http://loosewire.typepad.com/blog/2005/09/the_new_cliche_.html
>
> The New Cliche: "It's the Wikipedia of..."
>
> You know something has arrived when it's used to describe a
> phenomenon. Or what people hope will be a phenomenon. Here's a
> sampling:
>
>     * Laptops This from Nicholas Negroponte, describing his $100
> laptop for the developing world (via Andy Carvin's Waste of
> Bandwidth): "It's the Wikipedia equivalent (of hardware)," he said,
> describing the spirit of the laptop initiative.
>
>     * Gasbuddy  Poster at ezboard: "It's the Wikipedia of Gas pumps. I
> use it whenever I need gas. I can't believe I forgot about it until
> now."
>
>     * New York Times ? This from a Xanga blogger: "It's the Wikipedia
> of newspapers: great resource with plenty of interesting but useless
> content. For goodness' sake, it's a newspaper, not Cosmo Girl."
>
>     * The UK Good Food/Good Pub guide, described on Wikipedia chat as
> "It's the wikipedia of food guides"
>
>     * Urban Dictionary ? described by this blogger as "the Wikipedia
> of the streets beyach!"
>
>     * Sushi World Guide ? "it seems the community is still growing. It
> is the 'Wikipedia of Sushi'.
>
>     * Pure Energy Systems ? " We will be the Wikipedia of alternate
> energy technology."
>
>     * Wondir ? hailed on the unofficial google blog as "the Wikipedia
> of answer sites"
>
>     * Dermatlas ? described here as "the Wikipedia of dermatology atlases"
>
>     * Math World ? described here as "the wikipedia of math"
>
>     * GuitarWiki ? described by a visitor as possibly becoming "the
> Wikipedia of the guitar world"
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


subject: Fwd: [Commons-l] Re: failure notice

body:
yes, but did you notice that I received the mail with this broken address ?
I did not make a typo in copying the address to answer him...
How could he send it then ?

Ant

Delphine M?nard <notafishz at gmail.com> wrote:
Nope, just a typo in the address. There's no such thing as
club-intrenet. However, there is a provider called : club-internet :P

I have answered to the guy on his talk page and will be sending him an email.

Best,

Delphine

On 10/4/05, Anthere wrote:
> je pense que ceci r?sout le probl?me...
>
> Ant
>
> --- MAILER-DAEMON at yahoo.com wrote:
>
> > Hi. This is the qmail-send program at yahoo.com.
> > I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to
> > the following addresses.
> > This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it
> > didn't work out.
> >
> > :
> > Sorry, I couldn't find any host named
> > club-intrenet.fr. (#5.1.2)
> >
> > --- Below this line is a copy of the message.
> >
> > Return-Path:
> > Received: (qmail 47074 invoked by uid 60001); 4 Oct
> > 2005 11:45:51 -0000
> > DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws;
> > s=s1024; d=yahoo.com;
> >
> >
> h=Message-ID:Received:Date:From:Subject:To:Cc:In-Reply-To:MIME-Version:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding;
> >
> >
> b=h8klirIjqTMjZaFQj+cipeNvudZrAntEbrYfOfVYlQQD0HP7q/Lx10owTNb4LdqVrNrr+oLm8r2s506WvVOeSWVchWyF7yluMJxTFhoxSd0ddOeZuhZVH9eBh1qt5fbNbt4ayiTHdpoHrilb4ev91SdeL++u/T5sKCyzHec7Tgk=
> > ;
> > Message-ID:
> >
> <20051004114551.47072.qmail at web32907.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
> > Received: from [83.205.50.250] by
> > web32907.mail.mud.yahoo.com via HTTP; Tue, 04 Oct
> > 2005 04:45:50 PDT
> > Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2005 04:45:50 -0700 (PDT)
> > From: Anthere
> > Subject: Re: courriel envoy? depuis Wikimedia
> > Commons
> > To: Zivax
> > Cc: commons-l at wikimedia.org
> > In-Reply-To:
> > <200510041043.j94AhhAJ001690 at srv15.pmtpa.wmnet>
> > MIME-Version: 1.0
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
> > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
> >
> >
> > Bonjour,
> >
> > Je crois que les habitants de Wikicommons ont une
> > politique tr?s "ferme" vis ? vis des licences.
> >
> > Je ne sais pas trop ce que tu as fait... tu ne
> > pouvais
> > d?j? pas ?diter sous ip, puisqu'? priori l'upload
> > des
> > images requiert un compte utilisateur.
> >
> > Y a t-il un francophone qui puisse aider ?
> >
> > Anthere
> >
> > --- Zivax wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > J'ai implant?(c) des images de wiki Anglais sur
> > > commons...j'ai eu mon I.P de retir?(c), et depuis je
> > > me retrouve dans la panade compl??te, car
> > certaines
> > > photos m'?(c)taient donn?(c)es par leurs auteurs.
> > > Les articles cr?(c)?(c)s sur wikip?(c)dia n'ont plus
> > > d'images autoris?(c)es...j'ai commis qqlqs erreurs
> > > mais tout retirer je trouve cela peu
> > diplomate...je
> > > suis nouveau sur wiki mais honn??te. Je fais mon
> > > mea-culpa pour les erreurs mais j???apprends au
> > fur
> > > et ? mesure.
> > > Comment rattraper le coup.. ? ? ?
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > __________________________________
> > Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
> > http://mail.yahoo.com
> >
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>

--
~notafish

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

---------------------------------
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from_name: Herschel Krustofsky

subject:
[WikiEN-l] I ask you to consider whether this block was not
	malicious and frivolous

body:
To whom it may concern:

I believe that I have been blocked by an administrator for frivolous reasons, as part of a campaign of personal animosity that constitutes [[Wikipedia:Harassment]]. The administrator in question is Willmcw, and the ostensible reasons for the block are posted at [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration.2FLyndon_LaRouche_2]. My initial responses are also available at that location and at [[Talk:American System (economics)]]. Further response on those pages by me has, of course, been blocked.

If you will examine this exchange: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Willmcw#LaRouche] ...on Willmcw's talk page, you will note that, despite the rather furtive language, the topic is the best means to prevent "H", that is, myself, from editing. Willmcw and his correspondent, SlimVirgin, are clearly aware of the impropriety of either of them banning me, since they have both engaged me in protracted POV conflicts. They also make reference to recent discussions of "WikiCliques or POV posses," indicating that they are aware that their behavior is under scrutiny. SlimVirgin advises Willmcw to persuade a third party, Snowspinner, to block me.

In this exchange: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Snowspinner#ArbCom_enforcement] ...Willmcw approaches Snowspinner on this matter. We have only Willmcw's side of the discussion, but it is apparent that Snowspinner is unwilling to be a party to it. Willmcw then decided to block me himself that same day.

The portion of the relevant ArbCom decision which is used to justify the ban is the following:
"4) Herschelkrustofsky is placed on POV parole for up to and including one year. If he re-inserts any edits which are judged by a majority of those commenting on the relevant talk page in a 24-hour poll to be a violation of the NPOV policy, then he shall be temp-banned for a short time, up to one week." In the talk page in question ([[Talk: American System (economics)]], there are a grand total of two participants: Willmcw and myself. Therefore it is certainly questionable as to whether "a majority of those commenting" took Willmcw's side in the matter. Willmcw apparent sought to obfuscate this matter in this edit: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:American_System_%28economics%29&diff=24356839&oldid=24353961]. Willmcw had the option of posting a Request for Comment in hopes of soliciting some allies, but he did not avail himself of this option.

My request to readers of this list, is that they examine the relevant talk page and other exchanges, to determine whether this ban by Willmcw was not made frivolously and maliciously.   -HK

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from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject:
[Foundation-l] Authoring on wikijunior :
	providing	private	information.

body:
Jean-Baptiste Soufron wrote:

> As far as I understood this is not mandatory information but only
> recommended stuff.
>
> One fact is that identification of the author and of his year of death
> is very important for copyright law since his work will fall into
> public domain 70 years after he died.
>
> But there is nothing mandatory in these informations !
>
> Jean-Baptiste Soufron, Legal
> CERSA-CNRS PARIS 2

Is there any reason why we should not collect this information as
voluntary information fields on the user configuration page?  Are there
any realisitc legal roadblocks or some other reason why this information
should not be there associated with the contributions to each change
with the Wikimedia projects?

This seems as though I'm asking for identification numbers like Social
Security numbers, bank account information, or other related
information.  I am not.  What I am asking for is that if you want to
claim copyright on your contribution, you need to give this minimum
amount of information for legal protection and to give a realistic
copyright claim on your contributions.  As it stands right now, there is
no way that you can realisticly claim copyright on any of your
contributions right now, and certainly there is no way that you can
resolve potential copyright claims on material if it goes to court in a
dispute.

I really don't see what the big deal about this is anyway.  If you want
to be an anonymous contributor... even with a "registered user" account,
that is still possible.  That will not be taken away, but at the same
time you can't be anonymous and maintain control of copyright.  Those
are mutually exclusive issues.  And all content for Wikimedia projects
is copyrighted... just with generous redistrubtion licenses available to
anybody who is interested.

I guess it will take a formal legal disupte to force the issue here, but
by then it will be too late.  I would be willing to be an "expert
witness" for a plaintiff willing to invalidate copyright claims for
anybody who has currently done contributions toward Wikimedia Foundation
projects right now.

--
Robert Scott Horning


from_name: apw at ap-woolrich.co.uk

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 27,
	Issue 20/ Copyroght libraies as a source

body:
The following argument is not valid. I can think of several titles
relevant to the the history of technology which are not in the BL
catalogue, and not listed on the C19 Short Title Catalogue which
covers a range of copyright libraries. This is particularly true for
trade catalogues which are outside outside UK copyright deposit rules
and so never recorded.

On 3 Oct 2005 at 21:33, wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org wrote:

> An even easier solution: the holdings of the Library of Congress is
> accessible from the Internet. I would expect that the same could be
> said for the British Library, the Biblioteque Nationale (sp?) in
> Paris, & the equivalents in Germany, Italy, Japan, & Australia.
> (However, funding for such useful projects always seem to be
lacking.)
>
> Any citation from a source that cannot be found at one of those
sites
> is considered invalid; & considering that, by law, a copy of every
> book printed in the US or the UK ends up at the respective national
> library, one would have to work hard to find a reliable source not
in
> one of those catalogs.[*]

Tony Woolrich
Canal Side, Huntworth, Bridgwater, Somerset UK
Phone (44) 01278 663020
Email apw at ap-woolrich.co.uk

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from_name: Carbonite

body:
On 10/3/05, steve v <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> I dont know. Im being RFAR'ed for pretty much the same
> thing. Depends on who whines on IRC first.

  That's completely false. You know why you're the subject of arbitration
and it's NOT because you violated the 3RR. It's because of blantant misuse
of your admin powers in an attempt to "win" an edit war. The fact that you
keep insisting otherwise is seriously hurting your case and your
credibility.
 Carbonite


from_name: Snowspinner

body:
On Oct 4, 2005, at 4:32 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
> These are excellent observations.  My son's Social Studies teacher
> is an info geek who is familiar with Wikipedia.  I should ask him
> if he would be willing to run a survey of his class asking:  "What
> belongs in an encyclopedia?" and "What should not be in an
> encyclopedia?"

I think it would be important to specify "Wikipedia" not "an
encyclopedia," so as to avoid treating Wikipedia like paper.

-Snowspinner


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 10/4/05, Snowspinner <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Oct 4, 2005, at 4:32 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> >
> > These are excellent observations. My son's Social Studies teacher
> > is an info geek who is familiar with Wikipedia. I should ask him
> > if he would be willing to run a survey of his class asking: "What
> > belongs in an encyclopedia?" and "What should not be in an
> > encyclopedia?"
>
> I think it would be important to specify "Wikipedia" not "an
> encyclopedia," so as to avoid treating Wikipedia like paper.
>
> -Snowspinner
> _______________________________________________
> 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 was thinking the same thing. It might be interesting to hear what school
children have as a conception of what an encyclopedia is, but I don't think
it's very useful in determining what Wikipedia should or shouldn't include.

Personally I do believe that Wikipedia needs to stay focussed on being an
encyclopedia, and not something else, but that's an issue of form more than
an issue of inclusion/exclusion. It's also not a very good argument for
outright deletion, as even if one can come up with facts which have no place
in an encyclopedia I feel they still should one day be handled by one of the
Wikimedia projects. One of the problems there is that a Wikimedia project
can't be started unless there is consensus that the information doesn't
belong in Wikipedia, and a higher standard of what constitutes consensus is
generally used. Personally I'd be content if the foundation simply started a
sister project for everything which doesn't belong in one of the other
projects, and transwikied all the non-speedy (and non-copyvio) deletions
there.

Barring that, I'd be content if Wikipedia just gave me access to the deleted
files table, or mailed me a copy of everything that went through VFD, or
something similar.

Anthony


body:
> I don't think we should unduly bias the test group; say "an encyclopedia
> with no space limitations". They may /already/ think that Wikipedia is
> something /other/ than an Encyclopedia.

I'd be interested in hearing the answer from all the people contributing to
this discussion.

Personally I think the only restriction is we should limit ourselves to
articles on things (including concepts) other than words. The rest is just
really realistic limitations on how to accomplish that. NPOV and
verifiability are necessary because we're a wiki, and "no bots" is necessary
because we generally need to be able to organize the information as we add
it.

Other than that, I don't think there's anything we can't handle. I'd like to
see us add the name, address, telephone number, and social security number
of every person in the US, for instance.

Anthony


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
Snowspinner wrote:

>But apparently moving in this direction gets you RfCed with an
>intention of being taken to the arbcom, so there's some logistical
>problems to work out, it seems.

And don't forget! When someone says you've violated an unwritten
policy by enforcing the ratified one and should promptly relinquish
your adminship, you should do so immediately and not think they're a
tad clueless about the project, because that would be rude.

- d.


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject:
[WikiEN-l] I ask you to consider whether this block was
	notmalicious and frivolous

body:
In my opinion, any allegation of "wikistalking" a contributor which
fails to mention that said contributor is under arbcom parole which
requests or invite blocks for violating that parole, is in itself
disruptive. I think HK should be banned for 30 days for wasting
everyone's time with this frivolous accusation.

Ed Poor


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
Ray Saintonge

>I agree that most things won't  draw such a debate, and even if a lot of
>the articles proposed for deletions really are deletable there is still
>that small obsessive group determined to preserve our "bodily humours"
>in the manner of Dr. Strangelove.  They need to be more sensitive to the
>efforts of others, and to understand that many of these most bitter
>disputes are not about what's in the articles, but about a small group
>that wants to control the work of others.

Yes. The opposed groups are not "inclusionists" versus deletionists,
but *contributors* versus deletionists. (This is still the case even
though the deletionists contribute elsewhere.) Then the deletionists
wonder why the contributors get so damn stroppy.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 27, Issue 10

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>But the reason I'm writing is to respond to your second point. Yes, it's
>much easier for most people to write a stub than to write a comprehensive,
>well referenced article. And yes, some of this won't ever go away. But I
>think this also points to a weak point in the Mediawiki software. Adding
>references is a major pain in the ass, and once those references are added
>it's usually not at all clear what parts of the article are referenced and
>what parts aren't, so the same work gets done over and over again. Finally,
>even though there are in theory rules that people should be adding
>references whenever they add substantial text to the wiki, these rules are
>not at all enforced.
>
>Maybe a really simple addition to the wiki could be made to help this - an
>optional field in addition to the comments field to list source(s) for your
>edit. Just a free text field, which you could leave blank if you really want
>to, which would be accessible to people who want to fact-check a
>contribution. Eventually we might be able to figure out how to get the
>software to tie the reference to the contributed text, but just adding the
>field would be a good start and less than a day's worth of coding.
>
>
The irony is that rules about references are ignored, while dubious
rules about notability are regularly applied by a certain segment.
Something that lacks verifiability tends to say more about the
credibility of the project than something which is verifiable but merely
trivial.

Linking references to spscific parts of an article is important, but I
would be less concerned about that than about articles that have no
references at all.  Adding references is indeed a pain in the ass, and
even more so when you did not write the article.  Someone who encounters
an article with no references at all may have no idea where to look for
information about it. The original contributor presumably had references
right there when he wrote the article  If he didn't, and wrote from
memory, we have no way of knowing whether he is perpetuating some sort
of urban myth.  Your idea is constructive, and it makes the physical
process of adding references a little easier, but I don't see the
problem of references as primarily at that level of the process.  The
writers just need to do their own basic research.

Ec


subject:
Borrowing a phrase (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Quasi-vanity and
	quasi-advertising)

body:
Jim Redmond wrote:
>David Gerard wrote:

>>Hagiographic fan writing

>oh, I am SO using that phrase in an edit summary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:David_Gerard/music is something I
wrote a while ago about my attempts to come up with a way to write
music articles that didn't suck.

Let me reiterate: hagiographic writing is a *style* problem - an
editorial matter. I really don't see how throwing it to VFD will help
in any way at all. "Delete, you like the subject too much"? WTF?

- d.


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 27, Issue 20/ Copyroght
	libraies as a source

body:
On Tue, 4 Oct 2005 apw at ap-woolrich.co.uk wrote:

> The following argument is not valid. I can think of several titles
> relevant to the the history of technology which are not in the BL
> catalogue, and not listed on the C19 Short Title Catalogue which
> covers a range of copyright libraries. This is particularly true for
> trade catalogues which are outside outside UK copyright deposit rules
> and so never recorded.
>
Then where should one turn to verify that these books exist? Is there
the information in an online database? Or even a printed reference
work that would be available at a large public or college library?

The whole point of proving a citation is to allow others to either
confirm or extend our research. If they can't find a copy of the
material cited, then the citation isn't very useful. That's the
reason unpublished materials or private conversations aren't permitted
sources in Wikipedia.

Unless we can verify that the source exists, then we might as well
allow every kook in who cites this certain book that was printed a
few years ago, but almost every copy has been destroyed, & the
publisher was forced out of business. (Or claims that it was given
to him by an angel, a crewman of a UFO, or a talking salamander.)

Geoff


from_name: Ryan W. (Merovingian)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Dispute resolution attempt in the Ashida Kim case

body:
This is the first time I've heard of this thing, and it makes me very upset.

> From: Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com>
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Dispute resolution attempt in the Ashida Kim case
>
> In the light of the recent escalation of the Ashida Kim case on Wikipedia, I
> have registered on Ashida Kim's board and made the following post in the
> General forum as a good faith attempt to open a dialog as the first step in
> resolving this issue. My username is Tony Sidaway.
>
>
> I don't think either Wikipedia or Ashida Kim comes out of this smelling of
> roses. I speak as an experienced editor and administrator at Wikipedia, and
> the person who last unprotected the article Ashida Kim on Wikipedia. I do
> not speak for Wikipedia, with which I have no formal connections, but as an
> individual. On Wikipedia, an administrator is like a mod on forums, a
> trusted editor who performs clerical tasks. Wikipedia is huge so there are
> hundreds of us.
>
> First let me explain, without defensiveness, the way in which Wikipedia
> works. I'll do this solely in order that you'll understand why it behaves in
> the way it does.
>
> First, it's a wiki, so anyone can edit it, unless we take the trouble to
> block them, which we can do by username or by IP. As you have found, it's
> extremely easy to evade a Wikipedia block. As you have also found, Wikipedia
> has immense human resources who are very vigilant, so it's difficult for
> anyone to evade a Wikipedia block for long.
>
> Second, it's run by consensus of the users. The content of an article,
> subject to legal requirements such as copyright and defamation law, is
> decided by consensus. This is supplemented with policies of good faith
> editing, verifiability and neutrality.
>
> Our deletion debates seem to have puzzled Ashida Kim. Contrary to his
> belief, we don't automatically delete an article if it's a vandalism
> target--having such a policy would make any article easy to destroy by
> malicious vandalism. Scientologists could attack the article on Scientology,
> creationists could attack the article on Evolution, and so on. We debate
> deletion to decide whether there is a rough consensus (which is usually 2/3
> or more of those voting) to delete. Editors in a deletion debate are
> expected to make their decision in good faith, and if a person with few
> edits appears in such a debate this may be taken as a sign of bad faith.
> Votes from so-called "meat puppets", people who appear on Wikipedia as a
> result of an exhortation on a board such as that we have seen from Ashida
> Kim, are not counted, and their appearance to vote in this way is often
> interpreted as a breach of good faith. This is because Wikipedia decisions
> are supposed to be those of the community, not of outsiders rounded up to
> pack a debate. Nevertheless a person who appears "out of the blue" and gives
> persuasive arguments may sway others in a debate.
>
> I'm not happy with the article at present. It falls short of the quality I
> expect from Wikipedia, and I will probably take the opportunity to edit it
> towards a more neutral point of view when next it is unprotected. In that
> sense you can regard me as a potential friend on Wikipedia, and one whose
> voice is generally respected so my opinions will be listened to. But that's
> by-the-by. This doesn't mean I'm sympathetic to Ashida Kim or his methods,
> only that I'm committed to Wikipedia's ethic of neutrality.
>
> Another point on which I think Ashida Kim may have a legitimate complaint is
> that the names and contact details of his friends were apparently placed
> into the article and Wikipedia may have been tardy in its response to this
> invasion of privacy. In my opinion that content should have been removed
> from the article editing history as soon as practically possible. Without
> examining what happened and when, which would take some time, I can't say
> for sure, but I take Ashida Kim's complaints in good faith and accept that
> there may be a case to answer. I will investigate further and recommend
> policy changes if I think they will help to stop Wikipedia being used for
> malicious purposes.
>
> Ashida Kim's response to the situation, using private details about the
> founder of Wikipedia in a tit-for-tat attack, is in my opinion
> understandable although I do not condone it and hope that he will
> reconsider. This kind of escalation makes problem resolution more difficult
> to achieve. However I admit that in one sense it has been productive--it has
> focused my attention on Ashida Kim's legitimate complaint of invasion of
> privacy.
>
> I think that we can arrive at a compromise that all will be happy with. We
> have tens of thousands of biographical articles of living people on
> Wikipedia, and only a tiny handful have ever been the cause of any serious
> problems.
>
> I hope to start a dialog with a view to solving these problems. If email is
> preferred, please use the email address minorityreport at bluebottle.com,
> otherwise respond here. *
>
> Edited by: Tony
> Sidaway<http://p206.ezboard.com/bashidakimmessageboards.showUserPublicProfile?gid=tonysidaway at ashidakimmessageboards>at:
> 10/4/05 8:46
> *
>
>
> ------------------------------

"Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." -Jimmy Wales, July 2004

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body:
On 10/4/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA256
>
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> > Other than that, I don't think there's anything we can't handle. I'd
> like to
> > see us add the name, address, telephone number, and social security
> number
> > of every person in the US, for instance.
> >
>
> That is a gross invasion of privacy and probably illegal.

Not if the information is verifiable, it isn't.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
Alphax wrote:

>Oh good, that means we can delete all the articles on Pokemon, B-grade
>afternoon soaps, one-hit wonders, and the Roman Empire, right? *ducks*

* d, nn. If this "Hilter" guy wants an article he can write one. Then
we can delete that too. - ~~~~

- d. (elete)


body:
On Mon, 3 Oct 2005, geni wrote:

> On 10/3/05, Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> > [*] ISTR someone mentioning that it is not uncommon for most important
> > works in at least one field -- railroad history -- to be published by
> > the author & often not listed in these catalogs. I'd be happy to
> > include some or all college, public or private libraries with online
> > catalogs to solve this problem -- but there *needs* to be some easy way
> > to verify that the work cited does exist.
>
> Simular for canals except there you go back to the primary sources
> which you dig out of various record offices (which for some reason are
> often in a completely different part of the country to the canal).
>
Finding documents in Britain is half of the challenge: as I understand
it, records of a given locale are scattered across the country -- &
over the ocean to the US & beyond -- due to historical connections,
accidents of history, vagarities of how family papers are disposed of,
as well as previous researchers who did not try hard enough to remember
to return what they have borrowed.

However, Geni, you have touched on another matter. If the material
cited is unpublished, then we can't use it in Wikipedia. The policy is
that if you need to depend on unpublished primary material for an
article, have your research published first in an appropriate forum
(in your case, a local history journal or monograph), *then* quote
from there. As burdensome as this may seem, having your research
published elsewhere first helps Wikipedia to offer the assurance
that at least one set of expert eyes has examined the material we
are using.

Geoff


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>>Anyone have any good ideas of how better to encourage people to cite
>>sources?
>>
>>
>Move any uncited contribution to the talk page, and contact the contributor
>to tell her you've done so.
>
>Note that I'm not saying there has to be a footnote for every contribution,
>but every source you use to create an article should be listed in the
>==References== section. This isn't just for verifiability purposes. It's
>important to document your sources in case you are ever accused of copyright
>infringement or plagiarism.
>
>And yes, I don't always follow this myself, but a) I really should, and b) I
>would if someone dropped me a reminder on my talk page to do so.
>
>
That's good.  I've been thinking of trying something like that in
Wiktionary.  Since stubs are perfectly acceptable there it will mean
that whole articles will end up with no content, an only a talk page.
Many of these entries come from anons for words with ancestries as
questionable as their own.  When asked for evidence certain contributors
put forth the notion that the credibility of a term is in direct
proportion to the number of Google hits.

Ec


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Dispute resolution attempt in the Ashida Kim case

body:
On 10/4/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> My opinion is that this guy has legitimate privacy complaints we can and
> should act on, but we shouldn't expect him to thank us for it, because he
> wants the article gone from Wikipedia.

Can we configure the servers so that when *he* requests the article it
comes up blank, but everyone else gets the article? :)

Kelly


body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>On 10/3/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>So supose I claim that "heterocycles can have many nitrogens but only
>>one sulfur or oxygen in any ring" and cite page 1176 Organic chemistry
>>Clayden, Greeves, Warren and Wothers ISBN 0-19-850346-6. Now the book
>>exists but your local libary may not have a copy so it takes time for
>>you to get it. That is quite a lot of effort (fortunetly in this case
>>the book is a fairly standard text book so there should be at least
>>one other person who has a copy). This gets really fun when someone
>>decides to reference something that can only be aquired from the
>>public records office.
>>
>>
>There's a difference between making sources necessary and making them
>sufficient. Just because something has a listed source doesn't mean it can't
>be removed. In the case of obscure sources we have to use our best
>judgement, including considering the user who has cited the source and the
>reasonableness of the statement being claimed. But something without a
>listed source, for which no source can be found, should definitely be
>removed from the article.
>
The question that arises from this is just how far an editor (not the
contributor of the material) should look for those sources.  There are
many instances where I suspect that the writer may be correct, but I'm
not prepared to spend an hour or more in a search that may turn up nothing.

>P.S., I'm sorry for so many replies to this thread, but I consider citing
>sources to be one of the most important things for an encyclopedia article.
>
No need to be sorry.  I find this important enough to simply say, "Me too!"

Ec


body:
> If we really wanted to be nutty about IP law we could
> have taken down all the Abu Ghraib photos, as they
> were put up only on a prima fascia claim of public
> domain -- which assumed that the models/photographer's
> claim of "official duties" would stand in court. AIUI,
> according to military law rulings, those soldiers were
> not performing "official" duties. :) Would we need to
> go visit the photographers in prison to inquire if
> they want to release them under PD-GNU-CC?

I thought the doctrine of equitable estoppel prevented a party from making
one claim in one court case and then making the opposite claim in another
court case.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re: Dispute resolution attempt in the Ashida Kim case

body:
I'm ready to get rid of the whole thing right now.

> From: Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Dispute resolution attempt in the Ashida Kim
> 	case
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> 	<605709b90510040819v3a644237v58915ec294a2d1de at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> On 10/4/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > David Gerard wrote:
> > >Nice one :-) If they're amenable to reasonable discussion, this should
> > >be just the thing.
> >
> >
> > Looks like he's, er, not:
> >
> >
> Oh well, I gave it my best shot. If anyone else has some ideas?
>
> My opinion is that this guy has legitimate privacy complaints we can and
> should act on, but we shouldn't expect him to thank us for it, because he
> wants the article gone from Wikipedia.

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Three levels

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>>>Why not have these levels set by the long proposed article evaluation
>>>scheme, based on th numbers which that process gives. That carries no
>>>deletion implication, but it warns the user that if he views articles
>>>below a certain threshold he may just be viewing a lot of garbage.
>>>
>>>
>I thought the long proposed article evaluation scheme worked on a single
>edition of an article. Either way, it seems like it'd be horribly abused.
>Wikipedia is not Slashdot. The day we incorporate meta-moderation into
>Mediawiki the project is doomed :).
>
Any system can be abused, but then I've never had anything to do with
Slashdot..  It can probably be made to work with any article.  Would the
result be any worse than unending arguments with notabilists.

It does look as though the perpetual debate has more to do with
"notabilists" vs. "verifiabilists" than deletionists vs. inclusionists.
At least that seems to be the dominant subset of the debate.

Ec


from_name: Greg Andrews

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia as community service

body:
I'm happy to announce that I presented this idea to my class/teachers
and they accepted it!  Also, four our other students joined on.

My idea is for us to pick a few topics and articles to focus and
collaborate on together (ie, NAIT (our school), some local topics,
some topics relating to our coursework).  Additionally, each member
can define their own personal areas of expertise to focus on.  The
point is that we want to be able to go back to our instructors and say
"This is what we focused on, this is what we did"  Instead of just
pointing them to the contributions list of random page cleanup.

Also, another idea of mine was to write an article on doing just this,
using Wikipedia for school community service.  Does such an article
exist already?  Would it be suitable for Wikipedia, or might it be
better placed on Wikibooks or similar?

-Greg

On 9/29/05, Greg Andrews <gregandrews at gmail.com> wrote:
> As part of a college class I am in, we are required to, along with at
> least a few other students, do 10 hours of community service.  We are
> allowed to present our ideas to the class for others to join our
> cause.
>
> My thought is to use Wikipedia as a community service project.  Pledge
> to spend those 10 hours (ideally non-consecutive) editing, cleaning,
> and writing for Wikipedia.
>
> I'm set to propose this idea to my class tomorrow.  Has anyone done
> something like this before, and what are you opinions on it?
>
> -Greg
>


from_name: Brian Haws

body:
I have to ask, you used the word notable a couple times in your reply but in the actual AFD entry description here you used verifiable information as a standard to judge inclusion.

Do you see notablility as a inclusion standard? Or is notability just a another way to express that something can be verified. And as such doesn't have
a separate meaning (in AFD debates) to judge Wilipedia inclusion standards?

Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
Alphax wrote:
> Hmm, looks like Wikipedia is going to become the New Usenet, where
> people will scream blue murder if you don't write about them exactly how
> they want you to (if at all)...

Well, let's try to avoid being the New Usenet, whatever we do. :-)

I have (clumsily, I'm not a very experienced editor) renominated the
page for deletion. My essential argument is that Ashida Kim is not
prominent, there is no verifiable information about him (no newspaper
articles, no nothing other than a bunch of message board flamewars and
his own website).

I have noticed a trend in my personal correspondence recently. It seems
that what Wikipedia is attracting these days is spillover flamewars from
other parts of the net. Non-notable people who have rolling pissing
matches all over the web end up trolling (perhaps by accident) us, in
our goodnatured goodwill intention of getting it right in all cases, etc.

In many such cases, it is not clear to me why we even have an article
about the person in the first place. Non-notable in the extreme,
troublemaking in the extreme, these kinds of cases absorb rather a great
deal of time for a lot of good people for no good purpose.

--Jimbo
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from_name: Phroziac

subject: [WikiEN-l] Abandon hope banner on subscription page

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Alphax wrote:
>>>Use {{abandon hope}} to do it!
>
>
> It's a static HTML page with some funny mailman tokens... :(
I know, but you can still use the general design of it. Additionally, is
the timestamp on this email correct? I was alerted on IRC that my
computer clock was a day ahead. Hah.

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from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

body:
On 10/4/05, Herschel Krustofsky <hersch_krustofsky at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I believe that I have been blocked by an administrator for frivolous reasons, as part of a campaign of personal animosity that constitutes [[Wikipedia:Harassment]]. The administrator in question is Willmcw, and the ostensible reasons for the block are posted at [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration.2FLyndon_LaRouche_2]. >
> If you will examine this exchange: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Willmcw#LaRouche] ...on Willmcw's talk page, you will note that, despite the rather furtive language, the topic is the best means to prevent "H", that is, myself, from editing. Willmcw and his correspondent, SlimVirgin, are clearly aware of the impropriety of either of them banning me, since they have both engaged me in protracted POV conflicts. They also make reference to recent discussions of "WikiCliques or POV posses," indicating that they are aware that their behavior is under scrutiny. SlimVirgin advises Willmcw to persuade a third party, Snowspinner, to block me.
>
The discussion between myself and Will on his talk page was not
"furtive." I called you H only because Herschelkrustofsky is a long
word. I didn't advise him to "persuade" Snowspinner to block you: I
advised him to refer the matter to Snowspinner only to be safe. In the
end, Will correctly took the matter to [[WP:AN/I]], where you accused
him of "harassment" and "wikistalking," and received a reply from Fred
Bauder saying: "Enforcement of the Arbitration remedies which have
been enacted concerning Herschelkrustofsky is not Wikistalking. It is
doing your job."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:AN/I#Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration.2FLyndon_LaRouche_2

The fact is that you appear to have resumed your behavior of inserting
pro-LaRouche material into articles in violation of the injunction
against you. The arbcom ruled that the IP address identified with you
counts as a sockpuppet of yours. You had ample opportunity at the
time to explain either that it wasn't yours, or that it was in a house
or office containing more than one person who might be making
pro-LaRouche edits to the same articles you were editing. You chose
not to offer any such explanation, and so the arbcom ruling stands,
and Will was right to block you and to reset your ban.

Sarah


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
On 10/4/05, Ryan Norton <wxprojects at comcast.net> wrote:

> LOL, that's kind of silly. I guess those are the same contributers that
> made "Greasy Cannonball", LOL. Seriously though, many of us go to VfD
> to kill original research and other nonsense and vanity. It would be
> nice if we had people like you participating there rather than just
> complaining about the system, as it were :).

I have. It's a ridiculous amount of work and the VICIOUS STUPIDITY AND
BLATANT IGNORING OF THE ACTUAL DAMN DELETION POLICY DOES NOT STOP.
Trying to hold back the waves of poisonous stupidity at VFD is a quick
route to burnout. AFD sill needs a dynamite enema.

- d.


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
In my opinion wide discretion was granted to Wikipedia administrators
in the matter. It was contemplated that any administrator who
encountered editing by HK which violated the remedy should block him
regardless of whether they were involved in a dispute with them. The
obvious solution for HK is to not edit articles which deal with
politics or religion and not to   share an ip with anyone who is
likely to. The views of Lyndon La Rouche can be disseminated via
other media; we are only restricting their use of Wikipedia.

Fred

On Oct 4, 2005, at 8:49 AM, Herschel Krustofsky wrote:

> To whom it may concern:
>
> I believe that I have been blocked by an administrator for
> frivolous reasons, as part of a campaign of personal animosity that
> constitutes [[Wikipedia:Harassment]]. The administrator in question
> is Willmcw, and the ostensible reasons for the block are posted at
> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%
> 27_noticeboard/Incidents#Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration.
> 2FLyndon_LaRouche_2]. My initial responses are also available at
> that location and at [[Talk:American System (economics)]]. Further
> response on those pages by me has, of course, been blocked.
>
> If you will examine this exchange: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
> User_talk:Willmcw#LaRouche] ...on Willmcw's talk page, you will
> note that, despite the rather furtive language, the topic is the
> best means to prevent "H", that is, myself, from editing. Willmcw
> and his correspondent, SlimVirgin, are clearly aware of the
> impropriety of either of them banning me, since they have both
> engaged me in protracted POV conflicts. They also make reference to
> recent discussions of "WikiCliques or POV posses," indicating that
> they are aware that their behavior is under scrutiny. SlimVirgin
> advises Willmcw to persuade a third party, Snowspinner, to block me.
>
> In this exchange: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
> User_talk:Snowspinner#ArbCom_enforcement] ...Willmcw approaches
> Snowspinner on this matter. We have only Willmcw's side of the
> discussion, but it is apparent that Snowspinner is unwilling to be
> a party to it. Willmcw then decided to block me himself that same day.
>
> The portion of the relevant ArbCom decision which is used to
> justify the ban is the following:
> "4) Herschelkrustofsky is placed on POV parole for up to and
> including one year. If he re-inserts any edits which are judged by
> a majority of those commenting on the relevant talk page in a 24-
> hour poll to be a violation of the NPOV policy, then he shall be
> temp-banned for a short time, up to one week." In the talk page in
> question ([[Talk: American System (economics)]], there are a grand
> total of two participants: Willmcw and myself. Therefore it is
> certainly questionable as to whether "a majority of those
> commenting" took Willmcw's side in the matter. Willmcw apparent
> sought to obfuscate this matter in this edit: [http://
> en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:American_System_%28economics
> %29&diff=24356839&oldid=24353961]. Willmcw had the option of
> posting a Request for Comment in hopes of soliciting some allies,
> but he did not avail himself of this option.
>
> My request to readers of this list, is that they examine the
> relevant talk page and other exchanges, to determine whether this
> ban by Willmcw was not made frivolously and maliciously.   -HK
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Yahoo! for Good
>  Click here to donate to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 3RR

body:
On 10/3/05, Daniel P. B. Smith <dpbsmith at verizon.net> wrote:
> Although Wikipedia is not supposed to be majoritarian, if you have a
> garden-variety revert war between one person and many, yes, the many
> can effectively impose their will. As far as I know, the only remedy
> is to patiently conduct discussions, gain consensus, and then ask for
> help when you can show that people are reverting against consensus.

Yes, but how many times have we seen someone who was in the losing
side in one of those battles that wasn't pushing a POV?

Kelly


body:
On Oct 4, 2005, at 10:49 AM, Herschel Krustofsky wrote:
>
> In this exchange: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
> User_talk:Snowspinner#ArbCom_enforcement] ...Willmcw approaches
> Snowspinner on this matter. We have only Willmcw's side of the
> discussion, but it is apparent that Snowspinner is unwilling to be
> a party to it.

To be clear, I totally support Willmcw on this, and apologize to him
for not getting back to him - it was a busy week.

-Snowspinner


body:
actionforum at comcast.net wrote:

>>Tony Sidaway wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On 10/3/05, Michael Turley wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Anyone have any good ideas of how better to encourage people to cite
>>>>sources?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Make verifiability a key policy, and egregious edit-warring to insert
>>>unsourced statements a blockable offence.
>>>
>>>
>>Great idea!
>>
>>
>This would swing the balance too far in favor of the deletionists.  The unsourced statement would have to be unreasonable.  Obvious common knowledge statements should not have to be sourced, and someone edit warring, demanding that every petty statement be sourced is being unreasonable, and should not be rewarded by being allowed to impose a burden upon other editors.
>
Not at all. The deletionists tend to argue on the basis of notability.
I prefer to avoid the question of whether a statement is reasonable;
that's just too subjective.  While a person could put in "obvious common
knowledge statements" without initially showing a source they could and
should still be open to challenge.  There is nothing wrong with having
one or two "standard works" as reference to cover the essentials of the
subject.  Thus an article about physics could, through the category page
show references to the standard works.  The individuals who make
unreasonable demands should be dealt with separately.  Major policy
directions should not be held at the mercy of a handful of extremists.
The responsibility of an editor to search for sources could then be
limited to those standard sources.

Ec


from_name: ABCD

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Three levels

body:
On 10/4/05, Alphax wrote:
> Because non-admins can deny being members of the cabal ;)

TINC.

ABCD


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 3RR

body:
Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:

>> From: steve v <vertigosteve at yahoo.com>
>>
>> Easy to say. You dont have right-wing nutcases tag
>> team reverting your rewrites.
>
>
> That's a difficult problem, maybe impossible.
>
> But it can't be solved by Wikilawyering the number of reverts
> complaining about what computer programmers call "fencepost errors"
> in counting reverts, or when 24 hours begins, or whether you get an
> extra hour if the change from Daylight Savings to standard time
> happens during the 24 hours... or anything like that.
>
> All I can say is that fussing about how many reverts you get to make
> and whether some sysop counted them properly isn't going to help.

The 3RR does nothing more than cool down a debate for a little while.
It has nothing to do with the substance of the debate.  Whatever the
state of a particular article when the 3RR is invoked it still needs
work before a solution can be found.

If I were in such an edit war, I could carefully follow the time limits,
and be perfectly within the rules when my fourt revert was entered 24
hours and one minute after the clock started running, but the biggest
criticism of that practice is that I would be wasting my own time.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Do 3RR rules favor the contributer or the deletionist?

body:
On 10/4/05, Alphax wrote:
> You mean the cabal isn't like that already?
>
> I must be in the wrong cabal...

TINC.

ABCD


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
On 10/4/05, Ryan Norton <wxprojects at comcast.net> wrote:
> On Tuesday, October 4, 2005, at 03:15  AM, David Gerard wrote:
> > On 10/4/05, Ryan Norton <wxprojects at comcast.net> wrote:

> >> LOL, that's kind of silly. I guess those are the same contributers
> >> that
> >> made "Greasy Cannonball", LOL. Seriously though, many of us go to VfD
> >> to kill original research and other nonsense and vanity. It would be
> >> nice if we had people like you participating there rather than just
> >> complaining about the system, as it were :).

> > I have. It's a ridiculous amount of work and the VICIOUS STUPIDITY AND
> > BLATANT IGNORING OF THE ACTUAL DAMN DELETION POLICY DOES NOT STOP.
> > Trying to hold back the waves of poisonous stupidity at VFD is a quick
> > route to burnout. AFD sill needs a dynamite enema.

> As far as I know most of us follow policy quite well, what parts in
> particular are some of us not following? I'm always listening for
> improvement :).

See the current RFC on the subject, or indeed read this list over the
last few days.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Snowspinner_2

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 27, Issue 20

body:
Alphax wrote:

>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>Hash: SHA256
>
>Theresa Knott wrote:
>
>
>>On 10/3/05, Jeff Willis <simsgenius069 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>Hi, everyone. Not sure exactly how this works yet, but I'll
>>>>learn. :-) I'm new to the mailing list, so hi, everyone!
>>>>
>>>>
>>Hi Jeff welcome to the madhouse!
>>
>>
>Can one of the list admins edit the subscription page to put a big
>header saying "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here"?
>
That could be a copyvio of what really belongs at the top of the AFD
page. :-)

Ec