So you are saying Guerdlam's accusations are actually true? In that case it is a cause for concern! If a certain admin will not pass a RfA today, he has no buisness whatsoever bieng an admin. An admin is a person who has been entrusted with some additional abilities by the community because he is trusted to make good use of them and entrusting those abilities to all users has too much potential for disruption.
If however an admin ceases to be popular within the community, that means he has overstayed his welcome and immediately needs to be kicked out, call it a lynchmob if you will. An admin is a janitor, not the member of some elite aristocracy and if they perform actions unpopular to the majority of the community then they are abusing their powers.
molu
On Mon, 29 May 2006 12:36:51 +0100 Nick Boalch wrote:
>I don't think that is a particularly fair test. As is obvious, admins
>are occasionally called upon to perform actions that upset people -- I
>don't think admins should shrink from making those hard choices.
>I can think of several thoroughgoingly solid admins, people who temper a
>good knowledge of policy with a healthy dose of knowing that what we're
>here to do is write an encyclopaedia, who I doubt would pass an RfA
>because they've done things that have made them controversial or
>unpopular in certain sectors of the community.
>The community giveth, and the community taketh away -- but it taketh
>away under the auspices of proper consideration by the arbitration
>committee, not by having unpopular admins strung up by a baying lynchmob.
>Cheers,
>N.
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I've created an essay on Wikipedian organisations. You can view it
here<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedian_organisation>
.
I'm aware many people have problems with Wikipedian organisations, and I
would be interested in writing a policy to stop so many CVU clones, amongst
trolling organisations.
If you look at MfD you see the pure amount of organisations for deletion,
yet there's no policy or guideline to support the deletion of them.
I would like thoughts on a possible guideline or policy.
--
Joe Anderson
[[User:Computerjoe]] on en, fr, de, simple, Meta and Commons.
I submit that this is a terrible standard for WIkipedia to aim for, and the day Wikipedia starts doing that is the day Wikipedia as we know it has died a horrible death. When the government of PRC censors content critical of them, they say those content were banned because they are "not in the public interest".
IMO, none of the two criterias you mention are good criterias for inclusion in WIkipedia. Wikipedia does not report the Truth, only the NPOV. As for public interest, let the public decide what is in their interest, wikipedia is not the appointed moral guardian of the society (and in case Jimbo received that appointment letter I hope he has burned it).
Molu
On Wed, 24 May 2006 13:40:28 +1000 Mark Gallagher wrote:
>I submit that this is a good standard for Wikipedia to aim for (even if
>we don't need to). If something is not true *and* in the public
>interest to know, we should not be saying it about anyone, in particular
>living people. That's not a legal decision, it's an editorial (and, if
>you like, moral) one. We should be displaying more discretion than
>simply "oh, it's true, chuck it in". Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate
>collection of facts.
>--
>Mark Gallagher
>"What? I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
>- Danger Mouse
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If there's something an admin wouldn't be doing if he knew he would be accountable for doing it, then he shouldn't be doing it anyway. If you are prepared to take an action only in the knowledge that you have nothing to lose if you are found to be wrong, then you are reasonably certain that you are in fact wrong in which case your actions are the most obvious abuse of power.
Tenured professors don't provide a valid analogy in this case, Supreme Court justices are more likely and not all think appointing them for life is a good idea. Our justice system is far from perfect, there is no need to take it as model in Wikipedia.
Molu
On Mon, 29 May 2006 16:27:47 -0700 Philip Welch wrote:
>Wikipedia admins are appointed for life (or at least until
>resignation or disciplinary dismissal) for a very important reason--
>they can't properly do their job if they have to worry about being re-
>appointed or re-elected. Tenured professors and Supreme Court
>justices fall under the same model for the same reason.
>--
>Philip L. Welch
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch
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Hello, all!
I recently proposed an Activism project for the Wikimedia foundation, but the project as I had proposed it was POV. Oops. So now we're working on it on Wikia, and we could really use some editors who are experienced. Are any of you interested in contributing something? Also, since there is almost no one active on the project now, we'll need some admins very soon.
If you have some level of interest, you can check out the project at activism.wikia.com . See my user profile (activism.wikia.com/wiki/User:Nabarry) for a grander vision of the project; see the Activism:Vox Populi page for some more practical, immediate changes that need to be made.
Even if you are uninterested in helping edit, we'd really appreciate any helpful tips you can give on how the project could develop. Also, if you have suggestions for where else we could look for editors on the project, those would be welcome as well.
If you stop by, leave a hello on my talk.
- Nicholas Barry [input] [input]
>
> From: "Prasad J" <prasad59(a)gmail.com>
> Date: 2006/05/24 Wed AM 07:46:21 GMT
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] my week ban - which is now an indefinate ban again
>
> Um, that's what the listserv is for.
>
> Yes, but it will be more "official" if it was recorded on Wikipedia.
> Also this (putting it up on WP:ANI) is the practice that seems to be
> more common. It's just a request, given the somewhat disputable nature
> of this block.
I've put a suggestion on WP:AN for a process to quickly confirm community bans and allow for review. I agree with Prasad that this sort of thing needs to be done on Wikipedia itself. We need a rapid, open and fair method for ensuring that community bans have genuine community support, and it seems to me we don't really have that at the moment. Once an admin's decided on a community ban, the only way that can currently be overruled is an appeal to the arbitration committee, or the start of a wheel war.
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Hello, all: I've written up [[Wikipedia:Quasi-protection policy]] [1], a
proposal similar to semi-protection that would effectively limit sleeper
accounts used to vandalize articles linked from the Main Page. I know that
I've written a lot, and at first glance, the proposal may seem daunting.
However, I truly believe that this would immensely improve Wikipedia and
implore you to read it through and offer your thoughts. Thanks!
Flcelloguy
>From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Quasi-protection_policy
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I've been working on an outdoors website that has a focus on parks.
The idea is I can add photos, reviews, scores, and other information
to a given park. The site is Wiki-like, in that people can correct
and add information that is listed (like admission fee info and lat/
long). I think that I have many pages that would be of interest to a
person browsing related Wikipedia articles.
So, I would like to edit a number of articles to add links to my
pages. For example, I would link to my Yellowstone National Park
(http://www.unearthedoutdoors.net/parks/140 ) from Wikipedia (http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_National_Park ). Would this be
acceptable? Could I do the same for many other pages?
Like (for another example):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erie_National_Wildlife_Refugehttp://www.unearthedoutdoors.net/parks/1594
Making these links makes sense, as far as I can tell, but I thought
I'd ask about them first, because I'd be making a few hundred of them
(at least) and I don't want to step on any toes.
Thanks,
Seth
Hi,
There has been a poll for a userbox policy at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:May_Userbox_policy_poll#Poll which seems to be almost concluded (probably closed by the time you read this) which has garnered more than a two-third consensus for a compromise that will allow even POV userboxes but migrate them out of Template: namespace into a new Userbox: namespace (apparently Rob Church has agreed to create this namespace if the community agrees). Are we finally at the end of the road? Or will this policy also get rejected as no consensus? We sure could do without this particular debate.
Molu
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We can't do that really. Just drop the person a polite note explaining that while we respect his right to privacy, we are an encyclopedia and it's our job to provide information. It is unfortunately not possible for us to remove verifiable information based on such considerations. This is a sensitive issue and care needs to be taken. But ultimately, we really can't put the interests of the subject over those of the encyclopedia.
Molu
On Sun, 28 May 2006 20:44:50 -0700 (PDT) Joseph Hiegel wrote:
>Yesterday a user posted to ANI requesting that excisions be made from the >edit history of a biographical article in order that information troubling to the >subject should be removed.
<snip>
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