<Snowspinner> Glad you're not dead.
<DavidGerard> i'm glad too!
<DavidGerard> i've just come back to irc and see a zillion talk
messages and a pile of channels with my name dropped
<DavidGerard> all about wikipedia battles to the death for insanely
low stakes ...
<DavidGerard> makes me want to start a sock just to write articles
<Snowspinner> lol
<Snowspinner> We have articles now?
<DavidGerard> i think so. someone said there were a million of them.
<Snowspinner> WTF?
<Snowspinner> I thought we just had policy pages and userboxes.
<DavidGerard> I can't find [[Wikipedia:Jordanhill railway station]] anywhere
<DavidGerard> or [[Template:Jordanhill railway station]]
<DavidGerard> I think {{user Jordanhill railway station}} doesn't exist either
<DavidGerard> what sort of pissant project is this? that press release
will make a laughingstock of our adherence to process
- d.
Here: http://tinyurl.com/nwyss
"An American expatriate called 'Calton' apparently doesn't like the
political userboxes.
'Kill them, kill them with fire, nuke them from orbit, salt the earth
behind them,' he wrote on one deletion-review page.
Then 'Misza13' of Poland cried foul on 'Calton': 'I'd like to note
that, in my humble opinion, your vote ('Kill them ... ') is an example
of Wikihate. Please, don't hate.''
Kirill Lokshin
Those interested in verifiability, and in particular whether
"insufficiently verified" information can be rightfully removed,
might be interested in a controversy bubbling over at the
[[Jeffrey Vernon Merkey]] page. That page contains information
critical of Merkey which was derived from the [[Linux Kernel
Mailing List]], and one editor ([[User:Waya sahoni]], who has
been accused of being a Merkey sockpuppet) is trying to delete
the material on the grounds that mailing lists aren't
authoritative sources. (In an imaginative twist, he's also
claimed that the LKML-related material belongs not on the Merkey
page but on the mailing list page, and tried to move it there.)
On Alexa.org, try the Traffic rankings, comparing WP with the BBC site
bbc.co.uk, and looking at the Page Views tab: like
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?&range=3m&size=large&comp…
.
Then since Christmas WP and the Beeb are almost spookily tracking each
other; and not just in the weekday/weekend fluctuations.
Any idea of what this might mean? The numbers could be broken; or the
demographics match amazingly over the population from which these things are
calculated.
It could mean that WP became a household word in December; in that target
group.
One to watch.
Charles
Hi all,
The situation on blocking people for bad usernames seems extremely
confused at the moment. According to the official policy
(WP:USERNAME), this should not happen:
--
If enough people complain about your user name (through talk pages
or the mailing lists or Meta-Wikipedia), the bureaucrats will change
it. Neither complaints nor name changes should be arbitrary, but user
names that are offensive to a significant number of people will be
changed, not without notice, but without appeal.
Co-operative contributors should normally just be made aware of
our policy via a post on their talk page. Voluntary changes (via
Wikipedia:Changing username) are preferred: users from other countries
and/or age groups may make mistakes about choosing names -- immediate
blocking or listing on RfC could scare off new users acting in good
faith.
Where a change must be forced, we first discuss it. This can take
place on either (A) the user's talk page, (B) a subpage of the user's
talk page, or (C) a sub page of Wikipedia:Requests for comment. It
should be listed on Wikipedia:Requests for comment in the appropriate
section. The user should also be made aware of the discussion.
--
However the policy claims that username changing is currently
disabled, so all of that is moot. Arguably, if you can't change a bad
username, then blocking might be permissible? But in any case,
[[WP:CHU]] makes no mention of it being disabled.
On the talk page for Wikipedia:Username, there was a straw poll on
whether sysops should be able to make snap decisions when policy is
clearly breached. It has achieved anything but consensus (roughly 55%
in favour).
So what is going on? Why do we keep seeing messages on this list about
people being blocked without warning for having mildly provocative
usernames?
Steve
> From: "charles matthews" <charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com>
>
> "Daniel P. B. Smith" wrote
>
>> The reliability of the source is relatively less important. The only
>> real problem occurs when the "source" is, in fact, another entity
>> like Wikipedia--one in which the identity and credentials of the
>> contributor are not easy to assess.
>
> Or an average nineteenth century historian.
Not at all.
I take your remark to mean that you regard "an average nineteenth
century historian" as an unreliable source. Fine. That doesn't make
it an inappropriate source.
If you see something in Wikipedia and it's not sourced, you don't
know what to think. If you see something in Wikipedia and it's
sourced to someone you recognize as an average nineteenth century
historian, you do know what to think and can give it the amount of
credence you consider appropriate.
There is an enormous difference between an unsourced statement and
one that is sourced to, say, the National Review. Or The Progressive.
Or, for that matter, the National Enquirer.
When looking at an editor's contributions history, deleted edits do
not show up. That makes it a little tricky to find proof of editors
who create multiple (speedied) attack pages or other contentious and
quickly removed content.
Is it worth raising a feature request to add a "show deleted edits" as
with articles?
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.ukhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG