>Garion1000 wrote:
>>On 6/22/06, Cobb wrote:
>>
>> 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.
>Excuse me? I know editcount doesn't mean everything. But I would hate
>counting the editcount of regular posters on this mailing list. Even if
>only counting (main) edits.
"These days".
Some of the pontificators here should throw themselves
back into editing from a newbie's point of view. Pick some craphole
area of Wikipedia and try editing, and imagine that you don't know
anyone else... don't have tame admin buddies to call on. Imagine
facing up to a group of editors who know the ins and outs of the
process and how to game it. It might wake some people up.
Regarding my point about AFD... which seems to be misunderstood
by Jesse W.
The Wikipedia AFD process is complicated and crufty. Putting an
article up for AFD should be easy as adding {{afd|reason}} (don't make
technical arguments in response to this. I'm just telling you how it should
work). Putting something up for deletion should be almost as easy as
creating a new page. Currently the AFD process is obscure and
technical. It doesn't help that there are inclusionist editors who seem
to want to make it as unintuitive as possible and keep it that way,
and frustrate any attempts to change it. Pure wiki deletion might
offer an improvement... but something tells me that it's going
nowhere due to being too simple and easy to use.
>JesseW wrote:
> Also, as I mentioned above, we have a number of areas that are
>well-patrolled by non-nutballs who *do* follow our polices and guidelines,
>and editors who don't want to fight can also toil in those areas, and leave
>the work of defending the articles against crazies to others.
And this is an argument against what? Some bits of Wikipedia aren't too
bad, so that's ok.
Why don't you folk (including that ODA weirdo Contreras)
take the time to read the http://www.VancouverUniversity.cahttp://www.WorldwideUniversity.edu
website.
--
Internal Virus Database is out-of-date.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 268.8.4 - Release Date: 6/13/2006
Fadix: Questioning an admin's capability is generally Not A Good Idea[tm].
I wouldn't resort to this myself and I've said some things that have been
pretty disruptive.
- Nathan (User:nathanrdotcom)
Revisiting http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-May/023760.html
and checking the long long long list of images at [[Category:Images
used with permission]] there are many of them kept becuase they were
uploaded before such date.
It's been more than a year since the ruling, I believe older images
weren't removed in order to let uploaders tag them properly, find
replacements, or so they could be processed at the old Vfd.
Quoting Jimbo
"It is very unfortunate that such images are still being uploaded _new_
when we have not be happy about them for a long time. It is not fair to
contributors who are working on such things, since we have no intention
to keep them in the long run."
Well, if in the long run they have to go, it could start now. So, I
was wondering why aren't they being processed yet. I'm thinking of
nominating batches of them at IFD every certain time. On the other
hand, however [[WP:IFD]] is clogged, so I was a bit hesitant about
doing so without more feedback.
Thus I created [[User:Drini/OldCopyrightedImgs]] which has a small
sample for the first bacth and shows how I would be nominating them. I
tried to sample different kind of images (uploaded by the webmaster's
site, by random users, by respected old users, without source,
orphaned images, etc) so we can get an idea what we're dealign with.
Still, IFD is overloaded, so maybe better alternatives can come up?
Maybe a IFD-like for this kind of images?
Jimbo, what's your current view about such things?
At 09:59 AM 6/19/2006, Guettarda wrote:
>Don't forget the accounts which exist to prevent impersonation in one's main
>language - names with capital I's to mimic L's and Cyrillic characters.
>Deleting these would just open things up for abuse again.
Is there are a reason why user names with weird Unicode characters
are even allowed? It would seem sensible to limit user names on each
Wikipedia to the alphabet that is used in that language.
Chl
geni wrote:
> On 6/21/06, Stan Shebs <shebs(a)apple.com> wrote:
>
>> Empirically I find it to be true. It's amazing how many people
>> will fight tooth and nail to get their POV into [[X]], while
>> being oblivious to [[History of X]], [[X and Y]], [[X-Z effect]],
>> [[list of Xes]], etc, all of which will have extensive material
>> inconsistent with the wanted POV. (My unkind belief is that POV
>> pushers are simply not smart enough to figure out that the
>> encyclopedia has more than one article.)
>
> Or they are smart enough to get as far as figureing out that most
> people only look at the high profile articles.
A combination of both, I suspect. Some simply do not bother to figure
out how much contradictory information is out there. Some rely on the
obvious choice being both the first and last port of call for most
readers. Those who are working more or less in isolation will also often
conserve their energy by fighting the battle where it will have the most
effect. Also, people who are linking to a specific article from outside
Wikipedia, perhaps even quoting it, may vigorously defend their version
of that article but care very little about other articles.
--Michael Snow
From the famous Herostratus RfA: "There's no excuse to not use the
warning templates for users vandalising, especially IP users."
And the perpetrator of this idiotic statement is, according to his
userpage, an RC patroller (although, blessedly, not apparently a member
of CVU).
Once we were worried about the newbie contingent getting so large that
new users were in fact starting to consider themselves old hands and
influencing Wikipedia (see: CVU admins, userbox fiasco). It's gone
beyond that, now: these days, the newbies are offering *advice* to more
clueful users, and expecting it to be taken.
I'm not just extrapolating from the RfA we've been discussing, of course
--- it's just that us having fallen so far that people are pompously
demanding on RfA that users do the Wrong Thing is rather shocking to me.
Newbies-who-think-they-aren't-new saying bloody stupid things is
something I've gotten used to, thanks to the speedy deletion thing.
The other day I got reverted for removing a speedy tag from a good
article (the thing was tagged as vanity, which is not a reason for
deletion). That's not the good bit. The good bit is: I removed it
again, and got reverted by a completely different user, and was told
that nobody may remove speedy tags, but must use {{hangon}} until a
discussion at [[Wikipedia:Speedy deletions]] has been concluded.
I suspect it's my own fault --- I've forgotten how to suck eggs.
What do we do about this sort of stupidity? I'm very much against, as
y'all know, the biting of newbies in general, but the biting of people
who still don't know how Wikipedia works but want to run around
insisting that they know better than those who *do* is very tempting indeed.
--
Mark Gallagher
"What? I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse
Ian Woollard wrote:
> I definitely agree, but I think the nupedia experiment tells us that
> formal reviews are bad for the wikipedia though.
Depends what you mean by that. Featured article nominations are formal
reviews in some sense, or about as formal as one gets on a project whose
culture trends to the informal. Formal reviews aren't bad per se, but
Nupedia had a poorly designed workflow. Now that we have the community
and the tools to produce large amounts of content, it makes sense to try
to see if we can't adjust the tools to also allow for better review
processes.
Incidentally, historically speaking your characterization is backwards.
It's Wikipedia that was the experiment relative to Nupedia, not the
other way round.
--Michael Snow
On 6/20/06, Fastfission <fastfission(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/18/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > By discussing the *possibility*
> > that it could ever exist on Wikipedia, we were giving the wrong
> > impression about the purpose for which Wikipedia exists, and saying
> > that we don't care about our core policies.
>
> This is nonsense. One should be able to discuss anything on Wikipedia,
> even things which are plainly bad ideas. The idea that some things are
> "beyond discussion" is the sort of weak nonsense that people who don't
> or can't engage with others throw out as a justification for shutting
> down debate, which you seem to make a habit of.
>
> Beyond that, discussing the possibility is a useful heuristic, as
> others have pointed out, for deciding exactly where to draw the line.
> If we all agree that a Conservative Noticeboard is a bad idea, do we
> necessarily think that a LGBT Noticeboard is a bad idea? What about a
> Political Noticeboard? What about an Evolution Noticeboard? Most of
> the "Restore" votes on the DRV were made not because they thought the
> board should exist, but because it was out-of-process and that full
> discussion had not taken place. Though if you think that "discussion"
> itself is a dangerous thing, I suppose you'd fine those invalid
> reasons. I think you have far too little faith in the Wikipedia Way
> and far too little appreciation for how to be involved in a large
> organization.
>
> I think there's more evidence to support the idea that a few arrogant
> admins can do a lot more long term damage to Wikipedia's productivity
> than a few discussions.
>
> I'm not a fan of "Wikilawyering", if that's the term we want to use
> for asking politely that others follow rules and guidelines developed
> by the community, even if it is not as expedient than just breaking
> them. But I do believe that communities function better when there are
> reliable rules, when actions do not appear arbitrary, and when it is
> clear that people are not being shut down simply because of their
> political opinions. In this case none of that is clear in the
> slightest.
>
> FF
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
Something tangentially related to this thread.
All the political USER categories are up for CFD since yesterday
Originally it was only the conservative category that was up for CFD,
and people complained about it being "unfair" to nominate only this
one and were opposing in a "all or none way". Later, someoneelse
decided to went ahead and nominate all political user categories. I
think it' an important issue and that more people should join and drop
comments, given ti's quite a big change (there are hundreds of
user-categories dealing with political statements
[[User:Sussexman]] has been indef-blocked for legal threats following
a rather complex and nasty exchange in which he alluded to another
editor, [[User:Edchilvers]], that legal process would be served, and
such process duly was, but by a person not provably identical to
Sussexman.
He is asking for unblock:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sussexman
The article in question is [[Gregory Lauder-Frost]]
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Lauder-Frost).. Unfortunately
most of the talk has now been deleted; looking at the deleted history
I can't see any reason why ed Chilvers should be singled out for this
treatment, but that is by the by.
Brad states that Lauder-Frost's solicitors have contacted the
Wikimedia Foundation.
The article was originally a blatant hagiography which included for a
long time a provable falsehood regarding the subject's criminal
record, stated in loaded terms:
Politically motivated, his employers (HM Government) then claimed
financial irregularities in January 1992 and this led to a
succession of charges against Lauder-Frost which were over a period
of eight months either dropped or amended as challenged. A
conviction on a reduced number of counts for theft was obtained in
November 1992 but because of the irregularities of the case (no
audited accounts) the judge, Mr.Justice Marr-Johnson, refused an
order for restititution. A successful appeal eventually came the
following year. A Civil case was then raised against him which also
failed.
The facts as reported in contemporaneous press reports were that he
was convicted of theft from his employers, a health authority, on
eight specimen charges totalling £8,700, and asked for numerous other
counts apparently totalling over £100,000 (according to testimony in
court) to be taken into consideration; he was jailed for two years;
his appeal was dismissed and he served his term in jail.
Sussexman and an anonymous editor claim that the UK's Rehabilitiation
Of Offenders Act makes it illegal to discuss this conviction. They
also claim that "convicium" applies, that is, that the case is being
nooised about in order to defame and damage the subject. No evidence
of intent to defame has been presented in the Talk pages that I can
see, but there is undoubtedly some determination to include all the
facts, regardless of how flattering they are, and to remove trivia
along the lines of "once sat near Margaret Thatcher".
At this point I would like to see the deleted Talk restored and moved
to an archive, leaving the existing Talk as-is, but I am not going to
do that without some discussion.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.ukhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG