I'm trying to understand the relevence of this unnecessary nonsense, and I must conceed that the rebutals provided by fellow editors (a great deal of them newbies that just began editting the wiki ) is some strawman to do with consideration. For more elaborate discussion see [[User talk:Megaman Zero]] and [[Wikipedia talk:Spoiler warning#Guideline]].
Obviously we all work toward building a great encyclopedia. But what do these have to do with that quality...? I'm quite confused by this. Days of discussion and not user in support of the template in question can provide one. Was there some demand by readers to implement this...? This seems quite utterly out of the boundries of a neutral editor at wikipedia to decide upon.
How on earth can a encyclopedia spoil a reader by being an encyclopedia...? Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a forum for netquitette relations. I humbly beg the community to clarify upon this matter and reconsider carefully the precense of this useless template upon wikipedia.
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Graham v. Dorling Kindersley Limited (decided May 9, 2006, U.S. Court
of Appeals Second Circuit), the ruling is worth reading in its
entirety: http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/05-2514-cv_opn.pdf
It is a very interesting case and I find it very encouraging. The most
relevant aspects in respects to Wikipedia seem to me (non-lawyer that
I am) to be:
1. That moving a work into a very different context seems to be
considered transformative (i.e. from "expressive use of images on
concert posters" into a "biographical work"). Does moving an image
into an "encyclopedic work" make it "transformatively different"?
Under the court's argumentation here, almost certainly (accompanying
the images with textual material and creating something substantially
different as a whole than the original).
2. The Court takes the Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corp. and uses it to say
that reduced size reproductions of posters (or photos, presumably)
counts as using "less" of a work. That's a great thing to have ruled
somewhere, because otherwise the Kelly v. Arriba Soft left open a lot
of questions in that respect (i.e. since it was only for a search
engine and only dealt with very small thumbnails). The court's ruling
basically justifies our current policy in regards to size, that it
should be the smallest size possible in order to permit the
transformative purpose (in our case, to illustrate the article
appropriately).
Pending discussion, this would seem to me to point towards two
directions in policy: make more firm the "reduced size" requirement,
and liberalizing some aspects on how images are used in articles (I
would still rule against galleries and using them in lists for the
most part, but their use in relevant articles accompanying relevant
text would seem pretty assured to be transformative). Of course this
is not the end of the show (one court ruling does not determine
everything, but it does point to some relevant guidelines), but it
does give more confidence in certain assertions in respect to policy.
Other intepretations, thoughts, etc. on how/whether to use this to
guide any of our policies would be greatly appreciated.
FF
On 6/22/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)wikia.com> wrote:
> The Germans have it right, in my opinion, on their homepage:
> "Gute Autorinnen und Autoren sind stets willkommen."
>
> "Good authors are always welcome."
The opposite of a good author is a bad author. What kind of person
regards themselves as a bad author _and_ will happily accept an
introduction like this as a good reason not to participate? I don't
think it's the bad authors, school children and trolls we have to deal
with on a regular basis. I think it's more likely to be people who
lack self-worth and confidence, and who will be turned away, and will
never try editing Wikipedia for fear of being shouted at. Many of
these people could become excellent contributors: not all areas of
Wikipedia require a thick skin.
If an _actual_ bad author is going to be turned away by a message like
that, I think they are likely to be the kind of person we could
reform, and turn to areas of Wikipedia where they could be productive.
After all, they have listened to reason.
We have a history of being welcoming to _everyone_, and to then
examine their track record, to assist them in improving their
contributions, or to remove them from the project. I also believe that
becoming a "good author" on Wikipedia takes a lot of learning of both
the social and the technical dimension of the project. It's not
something which you _are_ when you visit the site for the first time.
A knowledgeable person might be completely incapable of reaching
consensus, and a dyslexic might be well aware of their problem, and
focus on pictures or policies.
Jimmy, I may be wrong, but I suspect the notion above reflects your
desire for Wikipedia to be seen (correctly) as elitist by the media,
rather than a free-for-all. As you said in an interview with the
Christian Science Monitor, "I think Wikipedia is extremely elitist.
We're a bunch of snobs. But it's an elitism of productive work, it's
an elitism of results."
These were very wise words. However, an elitism of results is not in
conflict with being welcoming to everyone we don't know yet. Indeed,
it requires it.
Erik
All,
I am planning on building a computer which is a copy of en.wikipedia (including portals), en.wikitonary, en.wikibooks, species.wikimedia along with the pictures. The computer will be sent to India to be used in educational settings, and will probably be copied and shared.
I have already built a text only mirror of en.wikipedia at http://freeknowledge.dyndns.org/wikipedia/index.php/Main_Page
Any suggestions/advice on how to go about and pitfalls that I will likely encounter is greatly appreciated.
-Krishna
=====================================
Misinterpreting Copyright by Richard Stallman
"Die Gedanken Sind Frei": Free Software and the Struggle for Free Thought by Eben Moglen mp3 ogg
Free Knowledge blog
.
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please unblock namela now he hasnt vandalized anything in a while.
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I dont write here much anymore, but this is blatent
POV enough to mention.
I just told User:Drboisclair on his talk about how,
lacking any editorial guidance where consensus is
weak, non-standard strategies can work, I said:
* "If necessary we can even add Category:Anti-Arab
people to various pages to illustrate our point, but
first we should simply write something to wikien."
Of course when I start putting Category:Anti-Arab
people on various pages, people should rightly revert
me. Such a subjective categorization, as its based on
mere political rhetoric, or actions, should be
regarded as drastically POV.
[[Category:Anti-Semitic people]] on the other hand
seems to get more leeway:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_Jun…
I believe this is basic bonehead-level NPOV people,
and it should be a good lesson to resolve it. As
interesting as it is to organize people by their
faulty views, doing so in this manner only reveals our
own faulty adherence to the holy prime directive. And
if youre one of those people who has to ask what that
is...
Basic stuff, people
Stevertigo
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> Mark Gallagher wrote:
>Oh, yes? I assume you have an example at the ready, because surely no-one
>would have the gall to pull a statement like that out of their arse with
>no proof of it being true.
Proof about being wiki-stalked and hassled by organised groups?
Are you actually stupid, or being deliberately stupid, or have you just
woken up
and don't know about the Wikiedia Review fiasco? Interested parties would
like
to know.
Do you think WR are alone, or just the most high-profile?
>As for knowledge of the Wikipedia rules, that's rot, too. Knowing how to
>behave appropriately in a collaborative environment is useful (hint: don't
>be a dick), and having respect for our core principles, like neutrality
>and respect for copyright, even more so. Wikipedia has too many rules,
>true, but you can get by quite happily without them if you just use common
>sense and keep in mind our principles.
Lovely sentiments. It's just a shame they don't have anything to do with
the actual reality of Wikipedia for a newbie editor.
>I suspect, from what (admittedly little) I've seen from you, that you
>have neither the backing of policy nor common sense when you
>ride out on your high horse desperate to delete someone else's hard work.
Well, of course you don't dear... but what does this have to do with
anything?
> Despite this minor issue, which others would consider crippling, you still
insist on
> stamping your foot and complaining that you never get your own way. And
> as for "consensus building", well, it's a beautiful dream, but you
> actually have to talk to people (as opposed to ranting at them for being
> too stupid to agree with you).
As opposed to long, patronising lectures full of misrepresentations from
blowhards like you?
>As for the time it takes to run a checkuser, well, there are certain
>people who consider privacy important. Crazy, I know. What, do they have
>something to hide? All right-thinking, red-blooded human beings owe it to
>themselves --- and us, damn it! --- to look under the beds of these people
>immediately, in case a Commie is hiding there.
Your IP address is all over the internet; so is your user agent string
(operating
system and browser). You are talking a complete a total load of old bollocks
- and that doesn't come as a surprise given some of your other confused
messages on this list.
>> In summary, the system is broken. But you won't get any sense on this
>> mailing list, because most of the people here don't actually edit
>> Wikipedia these days. They just pontificate and have faith in some
>> mystical power of the Wiki.
>True, dat. It's left to people like you, the brave reformers fighting the
>good fight against us crusty old bureaucrats to try to pull Wikipedia out
>of its death spiral. Cobblers---sorry, I mean Cobb---we, who are about to
>die, salute you!
Awww... isn't that sweet. You tried to make a joke.
Hi,
You'll have to pardon me as I've been on break for a little bit.
I'm just wondering how oversight is much different than an admin just
deleting an article and restoring all but the selected revision.
It's not like the revision is deleted in the database.
So why have a separate permissions group?
--
~Ilya N. (Now with 2% Juice)
http://ilya.nepfamily.com (My website; DarkLordFoxx Media)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ilyanep (on Wikipedia)
http://www.wheresgeorge.com - Track your money's travels.
G'day Mark R,
> But that is beside the point. It still hasn't been explained why the
> Arbitrators were selected as the main repositories of these powers.
> Does the removal of revisions crop up frequently in arbitrations
> undertaken by the ArbCom? Or has the ArbCom somehow morphed into
> something more than an Arbitration Committee, to be some sort of
> Content Management Committee?
>
> The Concise Oxford English Dictionary defines 'arbitrator' as "an
> independent person or body officially appointed to settle a dispute".
I suspect it was at least partly because of the precedent of checkuser
being given to the more technically-minded arbitres. As such, it would
be a classic case of always-logical steps which nonetheless lead us away
from our original intent.
I think we should keep limits on the power of ArbCom, not least for the
peace of mind of the arbitres themselves. They --- I assume --- don't
want to end up being the go-to guys any time someone is required to
exercise power on Wikipedia. If this goes on, it could lead to arbitres
being required to accept an awesome amount of responsibility --- more
than they currently hold, and more than they signed up for.
But one could ask "if not them, then who?" Well, in the specific case
of Oversight, why not bureaucrats? After all, it's harder to become a
bureaucrat than it is to serve on ArbCom, which should give some
indication of the level of community trust held there. It's also often
been pointed out that, given the difficulty in becoming a bureaucrat,
the actual difference between a B and an admin is very little.
Cheers,
--
Mark Gallagher
"I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it."
(Raymond Chandler, /The Big Sleep/)
On 15:42 Phoebe Ayers wrote:
<many snips/>
<quoting Michael Cornfield's article/>
> They have established a Counter Vandalism Unit.
Grr!
Apart from this one sentence, and a few moments where it's evident he's
not familiar with our far-too-complex terminology, this seems (from your
excerpt) a pretty reasonable article.
It's not about How To Whitewash Your Client's Entry, but rather How To
Ensure Wikipedia Is Fair To Your Client --- a noble goal, one we strive
for ourselves (although, unlike Mr Cornfield's target audience, we
aren't being paid for it). If a bunch of campaign managers and press
agents and other such people want to provide well-sourced information
and try to keep Wikipedia neutral, then good luck to them ... if they
can resist the temptation to go too far in support of their clients.
Cheers,
--
Mark Gallagher
"What? I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse