Yes, I am Willy on Wheels.
Specifically, I am one of six people who have chronically trolled numerous
wikis, notably the English version of Wikipedia. Recently, Wikipedia saved
me from failing a research project horribly, and thus, I have decided to
repent for my past colourful actions.
This whole mess started as a prank in an IRC channel. One of our members
loaded Wikipedia pages in Firefox tabs, and performed a mass-move vandalism.
Normally, this wouldn't be funny, but we had just returned from the pub and
were thorougly sloshed by then.
After we saw the reactions that people made, the vandalism became a bad
habit. We would vandalize, or attempt to vandalize pages just to get a
frantic reaction from Wikipedians. Eventually, one of our group developed a
tool written in PERL script to automate the creation of usernames and page
vandalism. Eventually, we started hunting for proxies to continue the
vandalism.
I'm done for good, and will never again vandalize Wikipedia. After it proved
so useful to me, I realized what our vandalism was taking away from others.
If someone had vandalized the pages I needed, I would have likely failed out
of university. I hope to eventually contribute to this shared knowledge for
the benefit of more than just my warped humour.
I don't expect most of you to believe me, but at least I can rest easy
knowing that I've moved beyond this childish behavior.
--Alec
For the sake of non-repudiation:
126f060696ce9f41757052316647c3c7
_________________________________________________________________
De todo para la Mujer Latina http://latino.msn.com/mujer/
Alphax wrote:
>So, a website which sells widgets and is unknown outside of the widget
>community should not have an article
I must ask: why on earth not, if the info is third-party verifiable?
How is one to research an area one is new to without cues to such
things? If you're interested in an area, why *wouldn't* you be
interested in things of interest within that area?
I see no reason to deliberately reduce our possible usefulness.
The issue of webcomic articles mostly being pretty crappy is another
matter, and an important one. But your proposal seems an
overgeneralisation of a way to use deleting the whole article as a
tool to solve *editorial* problems. The problem there being that many
people think an article being deleted means another article on that
topic can never be created, ever. (Some even think an article being
deleted means its content shouldn't be allowed in new articles
anywhere else on the encyclopedia, which I can't make sense of.)
- d.
In my experience, this bug manifests itself only when one has multiple
tabs or windows open.
Then, it is necessary to press whatever button initiates a post action
on two or more windows or tabs, without waiting for the prior post to
complete. This is only possible when the site is responding slowly. I
don't believe I've had the initial problem occur with any pages other
than the delete confirmation page, though I could be mistaken.
Even then, the action will work much of the time, perhaps because the
posts happened to be processed in the proper sequence.
Once the first error occurs, other forms will not post properly unless
they are reloaded first.
Since the cookies are shared across browser windows, with multiple
apaches being round robinned by the squids, there is no way to
guarantee that the posts will arrive in the order in which they were
sent, and there is no way to guarantee that an updated session cookie
takes effect prior to the subsequent post. Therefore, any attempt at
session control is bound to be a fruitiful source of bugs which cannot
then be reproduced in a typical test environment where there is only
one apache and no lag.
My MW test bench is now badly out of date but I suppose I could get the
latest from CVS and look for it if there is interest.
uc
He blocked even though the last edits were to MY user talk page. It's
like dictating what I can or can't have at home. He must've been mad,
maybe from losing a job earlier, or something awful in his life.
Really, can an admin block someone for deleting other users entries IN
THEIR OWN USER TALK PAGE?
68.102.193.78. (user:shultz)
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says:
"Popper holds [that] the open society can be brought about only if it is
possible for the individual citizen to evaluate critically the
consequences of the implementation of government policies, which can
then be abandoned or modified in the light of such critical scrutiny -
in such a society, the rights of the individual to criticise
administrative policies will be formally safeguarded and upheld,
undesirable policies will be eliminated in a manner analogous to the
elimination of falsified scientific theories, and differences between
people on social policy will be resolved by critical discussion and
argument rather than by force."
I maintain that the Wikipedia community is Popper's sort of "open
society" for the following reasons:
1. It is possible for the individual Wikipedian evaluate critically the
consequences of the implementation of Wikipedia policies.
2. Wikipedia policies can be abandoned or modified in the light of such
critical scrutiny.
3. The rights of individual Wikipedians to criticise administrative
policies has consistently been upheld - not only on the mailing list but
also on user pages and policy talk pages.
4. Differences between Wikipedians on social policy have almost always
been resolved by critical discussion and argument rather than by force.
Perhaps the only element missing is the elimination of undesirable
policies in a manner analogous to the elimination of falsified
scientific theories, but if so four out of five is not bad!
Uncle Ed
http://alex.polvi.net/2005/10/30/wikipedia-in-the-classroom/
The resulting article still has notable stylistic problems, but at
least there's some *content* there. I have left a note on [[User
talk:Polvi]] pointing to [[Wikipedia:School and university projects]].
- d.
Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
>For some literally inflammatory rhetoric see http://en.wikipedia.org/
>wiki/User:GRider, posted a year ago. I think that's stronger than
>"dynamite enema."
Note that GRider was one of an immense string of sockpuppets run by
User:Radman1 for use on deletion discussions, particularly concerning
schools, and this sockpuppet army is a large part of why many VFD/AFD
regulars curse the rudeness of "inclusionists" and particularly
"school inclusionists". Bad faith breeds bad faith.
- d.
Half the time I click on "Save Page" the next screen is a "Preview" (and my
edits are not yet saved). I have been careful about this, and am
definitely clicking on "Save Page," not "Show Preview." And this is
happening a lot.
Is this happening to anyone else, or is it just me?
Does anyone have any idea why it is happening?
Steve
Steven L. Rubenstein
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Webcomics/Deletion again
> Mark Gallagher stated for the record:
> When a system is so destructively broken that numerous members of the
> community realize that it is impossible to repair and begin calling
> for
> its complete abolition (and use apt phrases such as "dynamite enema"),
> it is time for that system's defenders to question their fanaticism.
"Numerous" members of the community have been calling for the
abolition of VfD, using intemperate rhetoric, for _at least_ two
years. It's not new.
For some literally inflammatory rhetoric see http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/User:GRider, posted a year ago. I think that's stronger than
"dynamite enema."
I don't see any evidence that it's intensifying. There has been a
constant debate between significantly differing visions of Wikipedia
for as long as I've been paying attention.
--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith(a)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/