Unfortunately, when I made a proposal to formalise this notion a few weeks ago it was unanimously gunned down, people voting to keep content of article as an AfD criteria.
Molu
>>Message: 1
Date: Wed, 3 May 2006 14:53:14 +0200
From: "Steve Bennett"
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Cruft
To: "English Wikipedia"
Message-ID:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
On 03/05/06, Gallagher Mark George
wrote:
>encyclopaedia article). Articles that need work and could one day
become real gems, >however, are put on AfD all the time, and this is a
pity.
This should never happen. AfD is totally superfluous when the *topic*
belongs in WP. Someone should just remove all the crud they don't like
and turn it into a stub at worst.
>>Steve
---------------------------------
Yahoo! Mail goes everywhere you do. Get it on your phone.
Today, User Cyde improperly closed a AfD that had been listed for less than
a day. He voted to Keep it and then he closed it Keep even though the
majority of votes were for deletion.
Deletion Policy states "If a clear consensus for non-deletion is quickly
reached, discussion may be closed before the end of the typical period, for
example, a clear consensus for speedy deletion, a clear consensus for a
speedy keep, or a consensus for a redirect. The debate should remain
transcluded on the appropriate deletion page. *If the proposed solution has
not achieved a very clear consensus, the listing should remain for the full
five-day period. Any substantial debate, regardless of how lopsided the
keep/delete count may be, implies that an early closing would be a bad idea.
* [76]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_policy#Early_closure>(emphasis
mine)
In this case, discussion was ongoing and the AfD should not have been
closed. Cyde had even voted on the AfD prior to closing it. He was not a
neutral party and he should not have closed this AfD even after the normal
time period, let alone close it prematurely.
Johntex
Hello,
I have a question regarding administrator privilege abuse:
What mechanism exists to prevent administrators from
blocking users with whom they disagree in a content dispute?
AFAIK a report should be filed on
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:RFC/ADMIN#Use_of_administrator_privileges
but a blocked user cannot do so before his block expires
and for an indefinitely blocked user, it will never be possible
using regular means. I don't think it's in the interest
of Wikipedia to let administrators have a final say in
a content dispute by blocking disagreeing parties for
disruption (vaguely defined as posing a threat to the normal
functioning of Wikipedia)
or
vandalism (which btw. requires them to assume
bad faith as per WP:VANDAL).
Thank you for your comments
--
Raphael
Nothing absurd about it, deleting someone's contributions DOES send the signal that that particular contribution is considered valueless by the deleting authority (speedying admin or supermajority of AfD folks).
Message: 1
Date: Tue, 2 May 2006 13:06:02 -0700
From: Philip Welch
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Cruft
To: English Wikipedia
Message-ID: <35E13D1F-87CA-4B4C-85E9-37998974110A(a)philwelch.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
On May 2, 2006, at 9:01 AM, Kelly Martin wrote:
> In my opinion calling content contributed in good faith by our valued
> contributors "cruft" is incivil. It sends the clear message that
> their contributions, and by extension themselves, are valueless.
Reductio ad absurdum time:
"In my opinion, nominating content contributed by our valued
contributors is incivil. It sends the clear message that their
contributions, and by extension themselves, are valueless."
--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch
---------------------------------
Yahoo! Mail goes everywhere you do. Get it on your phone.
In a message dated 5/3/2006 1:50:45 P.M. Central Daylight Time,
jwales(a)wikia.com writes:
Mark Gallagher wrote:
> And then you get people who'll insist that an article MUST remain the
> way it is simply because its subject doesn't want it to.
Such people should be beaten hard with the nearest available cluebat.
> Moderation in all things.
Ok you are right. Such people should be beaten _moderately_ with the
nearest available cluebat. ;-)
What kind of statement is this? Are you joking or are you serious? I am not
a Wikipedian, nor do I have any desire to become one. I happened across the
plasma cosmology page and was dismayed by the incorrect and misinformed
information presented there. When I tried to make corrections, which is how this
thing is supposed to work out, all my efforts were reverted. I have been
insulted repeatedly, blocked twice because I suggested that such behavior would
amount to legal action in the real world, now I have been blanked because my
citations on the talk page are beyond, I presume, the attention span of the
big bang group in charge of the plasma cosmology page who don't like what I have
done. Wikipedia is NOT produced by the people. the people may make the
initial contributions, but it soon taken over by the powers to be. And if those
admins are challenged, they resort to personal attacks and intimidation. At
least that has been my experience. When I raised the question of "ethics" on
this list, the reply was "A good wikipedian can do what he damn well
pleases." A few agreed and that was the end of ethics. Not all Wikireaders are
stupid, and when a cancer is not only allowed but supported by admins, then it is
only a matter of time. And that time will come. You can call me a crank and
infer a pathology all you want, I know what I am without relying on some high
school student's opinion. It is sad though when the one person who had a
wonderful idea and saw it though fails to lift himself above the lowest.
Tommy mandel
G'day Stan,
> There are not many who upload in bad faith, and those who do tend
> to weed themselves out by getting blocked. The usual case is
> ignorance; while one doesn't need to know much to add a legit
> sentence, valid uploads require more knowledge, including a basic
> familiarity with the legalities. Even after simplifying the
> legalese down via templates, and providing lots of links and advice
> on the upload pages, we still get hundreds of bad uploads per day,
> many of which will require admin cycles to clean up. It doesn't
> help that many uploaders think they know about image copyrights
> already, so there is a lot of unlearning for them to do.
Or the users who don't give a damn about copyright; they've found a purdy picture and YOU USELESS BLUDGING VANDALS are trying to RUIN OUR HARD WORK.
Maybe we should just have a big, red, bold, blinking sign up before uploads: "Note: if you do not know what you are doing, FUCK OFF. WE DON'T NEED THIS IMAGE AS MUCH AS YOU THINK WE DO."
It'll look quite nice, under my other proposals:
"WIKIPEDIA IS AN ENCYCLOPAEDIA"
"NO, NO-ONE CARES"
"EDITING IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO HELP OTHERS, NOT A RIGHT TO SATISFY YOUR OWN EGO. DON'T LET IT PASS BY."
"BE CIVIL, MORON."
"NO, 'CENTRE' IS NOT AN ERROR."
"JIMBO DOES NOT CARE ABOUT YOUR PATHETIC ATTEMPTS AT TROLLING."
"YOU DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO ABUSE OUR GENEROSITY FOR ADVERTISING."
And my personal favourite ...
"WIKIPEDIA IS NOT A TOY!"
You might say I need a break from editing. The problem, however, is that I've just had one, doing stuff that's far more stressful than Wikipedia ever is ...
> One advantage to commons is that the rules are enforced rather
> more stringently; while the admins from en: agonize over whether
> the newbie copviolators are being sufficiently praised for investing
> a whole 20 seconds copying from a random website, admins from de:
> come along and blam blam blam, the problem images are gone. :-)
Heh!
Cheers,
--
MarkGallagher
G'day Steve,
> Or perhaps I'm missing something - is there any reason I should ever
> want to upload something to EN, other than fair use?
If you wanted to upload a copyvio, it's probably preferable you do so on en-WP, where there's more people ready and watching (no disrespect intended to Commons admins, they're fine people). Also, any damage caused is thus limited to en-WP, rather than spread across other languages as the other 'pedias attempt to use that creamy image goodness.
Frankly, the number of dodgy images uploaded by irresponsible, selfish or just downright stupid people every day is enough to make one break down and gibber in terror. The last thing we want to do is inflict our problems on Commons ...
Cheers,
--
MarkGallagher
G'day Joe,
> On #wikipedia last night, a user pointed out I may be in violation of
> [[m:Don't be a dick]]. This is most probably true.
>
> This whole thing has gone out of proportion, and I accept that
> both of my
> actions maybe seen as incivil (albeit in good faith).
>
> I still, however, think the term hypocrite was unneccessarily
> harsh and I
> think the fact I am chair of [[WP:CJ]] is irrelevant.
"Hypocrite" is indeed a very harsh word. While we're talking about you being [[m:DICK]]ish, however, I think being chair of [[WP:CJ]] is a pretty dickish act in and of itself.
This is, of course, assuming that CJ is what I think it is, and not some harmless "welcoming committee"-esque thing?
Cheers,
--
MarkGallagher
> On 5/3/06, Steve Bennett <stevage(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > Thanks, works well (just had to modify it a bit to work on en)! So it
> > seems my request of checkboxes to rapidly remove large numbers of
> > watched articles already existed, but I never noticed it.
Note also the existence of the "clear" function, e.g.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Watchlist/clear (comes with a
confirmation).
> > The monobook changes above improve the functionality somewhat though.
> >
> > Out of curiosity, what's the process for getting a change incorporated
> > into the standard monobook.js?
Convince a local sysop to edit MediaWiki:Monobook.js, or possibly
(depending upon compatibility), MediaWiki:Common.css.
Rob Church
G'day Kirill,
> On 5/3/06, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 5/3/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On 5/3/06, Steve Bennett <stevage(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > You make some excellent points. A way of easily migrating
> free images
> > > > once checked by confirmed users would solve my original
> problem. Can
> > > > you elaborate on these increasingly stringent demands?
> > >
> > > Aside from the propensity of random people to tag 15th-century
> > > paintings with {{nsd}}? ;-)
> > >
> >
> > If the copy of the painting was made within the uk it is quite
> posible> it is under copyright. Or at least the copyright status
> would be
> > rather complex.
>
> Curious. I was under the impression that Bridgeman v Corel drew no
> distinction based on where the copy was made (if the copy is accurate,
> how could you tell?), and that _any_ (two-dimensional, slavish, etc.)
> reproduction of a PD artwork was considered PD under US law.
I agree: if a copy is accurate, you couldn't tell. BUT, that's American law. If a copy is made in the UK (say by a museum), and the uploader is also a Yukian, could he be held liable by Yukian courts for copyright infringement if the museum claims copyright?
I don't know --- IANAL, IJPOOTV.
--
MarkGallagher