On 8/17/05, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney(a)gmail.com> wrote: Well I just blocked -Ril- for 24 hours for his edit warring there, repeatedly placing numerous pornographic images there in violation of [[WP:POINT]] but also, I would say, classifiable as vandalism. I don't know why he couldn't just wait until the VfD closed. Violet/Riga

Geoff Burling (llywrch(a)agora.rdrop.com) [050818 20:35]: To be precise, I could see no evidence he was. I should add that -Ril- doesn't edit anything like Lir IMO - I see no reason to assume -Ril- is anything other than what he appears and claims to be, an ordinary good-faith editor with a strong interest in ancient Egypt, who has unfortunately been conflicting with quite a few people (whoever may be considered to "blame" for this). - d.

On Thu, 18 Aug 2005, David Gerard wrote: And for the record, from his style alone I never thought he was Lir. -Ril- has always demonstrated that he is informed or knowledgable -- but resolutely opinionated about the articles he contributes to. He has simply repeated this exoneration enough times -- & in at least one circumstance where it wasn't relevant -- that he is in danger of raising people's suspicions that he _might_ actually be Lir unless he stops. Or at least should someone mention it, limit his response to a terse reply like "That was proven false; look at my Talk page for the details." I didn't mean to cast doubt on David's abilities, & apologize if I gave that impression. Geoff

On 18/08/05, Phroziac <phroziac(a)gmail.com> wrote: Huh. Who, in their right mind, would familiarise themselves enough with the project to know about the banning of users, understand the general bias against use of strongly similar names, and check against the full list of banned users... before even registering an account, which we encourage them to do at the earliest opportunity? (I don't even know where to *find* a list of banned users, and I've been here best part of a year.) There are very few contexts where this is relevant - either they're already a familiarised user, in which case they're 99% sure to have registered already - so picking another username would be a red flag regardless - or they're new, in which case it is rather optomistic to expect them to go and look for hours for a page telling them what not to do. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

On 8/18/05, Phroziac <phroziac(a)gmail.com> wrote: You're expecting too much of someone new to the project creating a username. When you have a preferred online 'handle' and you try to register at a site and find your usual name is taken, would you just try a variation on it? I think most of us would. I doubt he looked at the user's page - he just got a 'that name already exists' at the account creation screen. No, it is not. We do not enforce any 'names must be sufficiently dissimilar' rule between two active users; it would be wrong to make the names of banned users MORE protected than those who contribute to the project. -Matt

On 8/18/05, Andrew Gray <shimgray(a)gmail.com> wrote: [[Wikipedia:List of banned users]]? No it can't be, that'd be too obvious. --gkhan

On Thu, 18 Aug 2005, Phroziac wrote: I must be the only person on Wikipedia who saw -Ril-'s nick, & did not immediately think of Lir. Then again, I know Lir mostly by reputation not from having interacted with hir[*], although I have editted enough of Lir's articles to be familiar with hir style: for one thing, Lir's contributions are about what I expect a 13-year-old to contribute (my apologies to all 13-year-olds who have made useful contributions to Wikipedia), & -Ril- writes at a much more informed & literate level. In any case, the matter is over & done with. Unless someone provides clear proof that they are the same person, let's move on to another issue -- which is something both Lir & -Ril- seem unable to do. Geoff [*] "hir" is a proposed gender-indefinite pronoun that I've seen used in some Usenet groups, years ago. Many people dislike it. Lir has claimed in the past to be a woman in a man's body; I feel its use in reference to Lir is appropriate.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: RIPEMD160 geni wrote: Me neither. My first thought was somewhere completely different... - -- Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \

It works OK for me so I guess that someone else already fixed it. Theo On Wed, 17 Aug 2005 13:08:56 +0100, Jake Waskett wrote:

Actually, there is. There is a list of sites on Meta which may not exist as links in any Wikimedia sites. See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Spam_blacklist However, earlychristianwritings.com isn't, and doesn't seem ever to have been, on that list. Sam On 8/17/05, Fastfission <fastfission(a)gmail.com> wrote:

I've had an error w the spam filter before too. It went pretty much example the same as what you describe, w a certain link triggering the spam filter warning, despite it not being listed @ http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Spam_blacklist Then, later, it worked. Jack (Sam Spade)

Jake Waskett wrote: I suggest calling it the ghost of Wiki past -Jtkiefer

On 8/17/05, Fastfission <fastfission(a)gmail.com> wrote: Actually, yes, there is. There is a list of "unacceptable" urls, the inclusion of any of which into an article will cause the edit to be refused. The devs maintain that list; I forget where it's kept. Kelly

That's a pretty ugly discussion, but reading over their (somewhat misguided) page does bring up one possible addition to the discussion on "inappropriate" images which I didn't see raised before. Namely, if the English Wiki servers are hosted in a U.S. state, then the site does, if I am not mistaken, fall under various laws about the distribution of "obscene" images to minors. "Obscene" is of course a subject term, in the legal realm as well as here, but there is some precedent which could allow one to make such decisions. Now this isn't a plea to delete such images; it's a point of departure for thinking about them. If images which would very likely count as "obscene" under that particular state law (Florida?) were able to be X-ed out (that is, their presence would be visible, even though their content would not be) by default, and could be "enabled" by people who swore that they were not minors (or didn't live in the U.S.), wouldn't that solve a few problems at once? Those who are worried about seeing a nipple wouldn't by default, while those who wanted to see them could easily do so, and instead of doing it under the guise of someone's projected "decency", we were doing it simply to comply with U.S. law (blame U.S. prudery on this all you want, but I'm betting laws of a similar sort, though with different boundaries set, exist in most countries). Well.. it's a thought. I'm not interested in playing nanny to the world but I am interested in Wikipedia being legally safe. An additional thought which occurred to me is that I'm fairly sure a federal law was passed not too long ago which requires age verification information for nude models to be hosted by the website hosting their pictures (proof that they are at least 18 years old). If that's the case, that's another unpleasant legal/technical thing to think about. FF On 8/17/05, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Theresa Knott wrote: It is a reasonable state on these matters, and in any event the controlling law in this sort of matter is generally the U.S. constitution (First Amendment). I agree completely. I think this is very well put. In many cases the distinction between an appropriate illustration and inappropriate pornography is a matter of style, of editorial taste and judgment. This may sound like a useless non-answer, but it's the exact same answer we routinely employ in our process of determining what articles should say. We think about it, discuss it, try to get consensus, try to find the best way to *get it right*. --Jimbo

I wonder how many people objected to obscenity in for example, the old Sears catalogs, or ads showing mini-skirts, etc. It seems difficult enough to assert free use by limiting fair use. But add to that a value judgement based on taste seems a bit out of character of maximizing free use. Either its open or its not, either its free or not, seemed to have been the standard directions on the compass. Granted, some images are controversial, but that likewise makes them either or both newsworthy and encyclopedic. [[Virgin Killer]] or [[Houses of the Holy]] (what happened to the real controversial Zeppelin one?) might be objected to for inclusion on WP, but only on the basis of the same puritanical (ie. "moral") grounds which made it controversial or noteworthy to begin with. Paraphrasing H.L. Mencken, "The great encyclopedists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom respectable. No virtuous man --that is, virtuous in the Y.M.C.A. sense --has ever written an encyclopedia worth reading..." But not to come across as being too libertine, I strongly agree with those who wish to immediately remove all facials images from Wikipedia --though even such agreeable censorship might contradict the goal of documenting and representing a rather climactic aspect of commercialized human sexuality, and not to mention the seeding interest for establishing the internet in the first place. SV ____________________________________________________ Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs

Sorry to bother anybody, but I'm perplexed. Can anyone tell me how to find the licensing information and identity of whoever uploaded an image? Thanks in advance Jake

On 19/08/05, Jake Waskett <jake(a)waskett.org> wrote: Click on the image, and you go to a page with a name like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Filename.jpg This should have, at the bottom, a tag saying the image license, and a log showing the user who uploaded it. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

On 8/19/05, Jake Waskett <jake(a)waskett.org> wrote: I'll just add that in case this image was uploaded on Wikimedia Commons, you will only see the licence information and you will have to click on the Commons warning and access the commons page to see who uploaded the image. Transclusion of image information from commons only show licence infomation and description on the various projects pages. Side note: This is one more reason not to forget to state the author in an "author" line on the information page when uploading an image on Commons, rather than just a "taken by self" which is too often seen. ;-) Best, Delphine -- ~notafish

On 8/17/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)wikia.com> wrote: Well, I'm sure you mean that (about the nipple) with certain qualifications, but I understand your point. Looking at the law in particular more specifically, it seems to have exceptions for educational purposes, which would rule out any problem anyway. Well, there is a rather crude one of a woman with a vibrator on that decency page, though I imagine it will be deleted soon anyway as its copyright information is dubious and incomplete (it was simply labled "public domain" without explanation). But it is what sparked this question to mind in particular. But anyway, thank you for the clarifications -- I had a feeling you would know a bit about this realm of legal information. ;-) FF

I just nominated the template for deletion, given the huge numbers of talk pages it has been used to spam. Sam On 8/17/05, JAY JG <jayjg(a)hotmail.com> wrote:

Thanks for responding. I have added the contents of this email to the [[Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/WikiProject_Wikipedians_for_Decency]]. If there is a problem with reposting material from this mailing list, please remove it. - Ryan Jimmy Wales wrote:

On 8/17/05, Alphax <alphasigmax(a)gmail.com> wrote: I've been editing off and on since January 2003. No. I was nominated once but I turned down the nomination. It makes you too jaded over time. The experiment has run its course, with results far beyond what I could have anticipated. I won't be doing it again. A. Nony Mouse

1. Is your first name Jason? --No 2. Is your last name Boothy? --No 3. Does the end of your username contain 443? --No. A. Nony Mouse On 8/17/05, Phroziac <phroziac(a)gmail.com> wrote: