Justin Cormack wrote:
> On 21 Jan 2006, at 00:19, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> I'm sure that a Darth Vader Halloween costume would be copyright
>> protected.
>
> Unlikely under US law I believe.
You are aware that the movie-related merchandise (action figures,
costumes, Lego sets, whatever) sold on the mass market is *always*
produced under licenses from the studio, producer, or whoever holds the
rights to the intellectual property in the movie? That they will make
vigorous legal action against people who mass-produce such items without
obtaining a license? That the rightsholders invariably prevail in such
cases?
Fair use for your personal Halloween costume or your personal photo
album is not the same as fair use for publishing a photograph to the
entire world over the internet.
> There are some on commons.
Commons certainly isn't perfect at abiding by its policies, just like
en: and de: aren't.
--Michael Snow
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:VFU#R.40ygold_etc. - these articles were
speedy deleted with the reason "Delete as gives info useful to child
pornographers". Thanks to VFU being intended as an appeals court, meant
to deal with process, only a majority is needed to keep deleted. Goodbye.
This is a bit snide (what a shock coming from me) but it makes some good points about relative value of material. It was in answer to a question about my editing philosophy (no, really stop laughing, I have one).
The issue is not just NPOV, but evaluating the importance of data. That's what editorial judgement for an encyclopdia is about: both NPOV and relative value.
= =
Maybe I am reading Wiki policies in an odd way, and I am happy for others to offer their views, but I think there are essentially five levels.
1. The majority view of the recognized experts in a field, and reputable authors in "mainstream" edited publications.
1. Minority views of published scholars in a field, and authors in "mainstream" edited publications.
1. Minority views of published scholars and authors in marginal but edited publications.
1. Minority views of authors in marginal publications and websites that nonetheless provide valuable insights or which have received public attention.
1. Idiosyncratic views that are essentialy self-published, overly conspiracist, or lunatic.
In regular encyclopedias, the focus is on detailing the first category, with some small mentions of the second category, and sometimes a brief discussion of publicized controversies in any of the categories. Here on Wikipedia, there is more latitude, and more room for detailing the lesser categories.
But I do not believe that minor theories should displace majority scholarship on main pages. And since there are plenty of websites, I do not think that every minority view needs to be detialed here. That's what search engines provide. The goal of a universal online encyclopedia such as Wiki is to help readers find the most reliable majority views on a subject, important minority views, with pointers to lesser views.
The claim that dissident scholars and authors are "censored" in the United States is hyperbolic. Attacked, vilified, sometimes not rehired or even fired, yes; but not censored. Take an example of the political left, with publishers such as Routledge, The New Press, South End Press, Common Courage Press, etc, and magazines such as the Nation, In These Times, Z Magazine, Mother Jones, etc. there are plenty of edited published sources for dissident minority views. This is also true on the political right, with numerous book and periodical publishers.
The problem is with Wiki editors who insist that every one of their pet theories, and the blobs of original POV research they have stumbled across while surfing the Web, deserves extended text entries on Wikipedia. This is a false--and frankly irritating and disruptive--notion that demonstrates that there is an endless supply of people whose egocentrism and sense of self importance vastly exceeds their competance and intellect.
-Cberlet
________________________________
From: wikien-l-bounces(a)Wikipedia.org on behalf of Katefan0
Sent: Wed 1/25/2006 3:51 PM
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Blue sky thinking around "neutral point of view"
I've begun making a conscious effort to stop using "POV" and instead use the
word bias, which is really more appropriate as a descriptor for bad behavior
vis a vis this policy.
-k
<<SNIP>>
I thought this was absolutely priceless...
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [HelpDesk-l] Complaint: Service abuse
Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2006 19:49:48 +0000
From: <NAME REMOVED>
Reply-To: Help desk for questions about Wikimedia projects
<helpdesk-l(a)Wikimedia.org>
To: helpdesk-l(a)wikimedia.org
Staff members of the world's biggest online encyclopedia,
I am writing this email in complaint to how easy the service can be
abused by just about anyone on the internet. While in theory it is a
positive idea to allow people to willingly submit or update articles, it
gives anyone the power to submit nothing but complete nonsensical,
biased and generally fictional information that does not reflect on the
reality of the subject.
Today I was outraged in coming to terms with this when I realized an
article of interest was willingly changed by someone who was clearly
closed-minded and totally against the subject:
http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php/FA
You may not know much on the subject, however, I believe that it would
be fair a proposal to request changing your contribution system to allow
all contributions to articles to be submitted directly to members of
staff to review the contributions first, in order to confirm the
certainty of the article by researching for facts about it online. If
the contribution is approved, it can then be displayed in the article.
Further, I personally request that you remove the biased, untrue article
edit and replace it with the much more accurate revision in the
article's history:
http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php?title=FA&oldid=47793
<http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php?title=FA&oldid=47793>
Thank you very much for taking the time to read my email of concern, and
thanks in advance for taking care of the situation in any way possible.
- A Wikipedia user
--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
I have decided to try to clean up the [[List of ethnic slurs]] article -
it's a mess of uncited and apparently unverifiable information. In trying
to get the ball rolling I have been opposed at (almost) every turn by an
editor whose view of Wikipedia seems to be:
"''Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged defines
an encyclopedia as 'a work that treats comprehensively all the various
branches of knowledge and that is usually composed of individual articles
arranged alphabetically'. Thus, in Wikipedia--the largest encyclopedia ever
created--any knowledge can be included. Stroll by a library reference
section and you will find encyclopedias of agriculture, of computing, of
'slang,' and so on. This article shows just how much encyclopedic Wikipedia
is."
I tried to counter this with policy - WP:V, WP:CITE, and "Wikipedia is not
an indiscriminate collection of nformation" to which I received the
following reply:
"In any case, I'd encourage you not to live your life based on regulations,
because life is too complicated to regulate. To do so makes one a
[[wiktionary:simpleton|simpleton]]. In any case, regulations must be
interpreted, and the consensus of the Wikipedia community appears to be that
the rules should not be enforced. Since you are the first editor I have ever
met to actually try to enforce these rules, you are in uncharted terrritory,
for sure."
While this editor is relatively new s/he is not a total newbie - s/he has
over 1300 edits, been editing for several months. While I realise that WP:V
and WP:CITE tend to only get a lot of attention in content disputes (the
Intelligent design article being the one where I have seen it most) the idea
that "the consensus of the Wikipedia community appears to be that the rules
should not be enforced" just boggles the mind. While this editor appears to
live at the opposite end of the world from the AFD addicts, I suspect that
both of these are symptoms of an underlying problem of people who don't
appear to be here to write a high-quality encyclopaedia. Suddenly I long to
argue with POV-pushers - I would rather argue the validity of references
than have someone tell me that consensus is that we don't need references...
Wow.
Ian
>I think your approach is the right one. For things like "List of ethnic
>slurs" the only approach I've ever seen to turn them into good articles
>is to get positively hardcore about cites. Ask around for help, a lot
>of good editors will back you up.
>[[Inherently funny words]] used to be nonsense, but now it is (usually)
>a quite interesting and quirky article, because it has sources.
[[List of movies considered the worst ever]] also has hardcore
citation requirements, just to keep the thing NPOV and sane. I try
similar at [[List of longest novels]], but some idjit keeps removing
the citations and imposing an arbitrary cutoff point.
- d.
In line with the community vote, I am appointing the following
candidates as per their rank-order in percentage vote:
Alpha tranche (2008)
---
Mindspillage
Filiocht
Charles Matthews
Morven
Gamma tranche (2007)
---
Mark (Raul654) - incumbent
Ben (Neutrality) - incumbent
Simon P.
Dmcdevit
Beta tranche (2006)
---
Sean Barrett (The Epopt) - incumbent
Theresa Knott - incumbent
Sam Korn
Mackensen
--------------------
And then in the interests of expanding the committee and maintaining
continuity, I'm also making the following appointments (all candidates
met with community approval, percentages listed below):
Alpha - JamesF - 75.42%
Gamma - FredB - 73.61%
Beta - JayJG - 69.75%
--Jimbo Wales
In response to an earlier message I sent, "Cleared as filed" and me,
Dzonatas, have discussed the issue somewhat. I've been unblocked early.
There is a concern I still have that isn't directed at "Cleared as filed."
I wrote the previous mail in haste, obviously. I only had a couple
minutes to spare and wanted to take advantage of time that the block
started.
The 3RR policy is valid. By pragmatic review, not every admin blocks
under the same conditions. This gives the effect of favoritism, either
personal or political.
I have many thought over many ideas in prevention, but I'll give just
one that is do-able.
If a user is under blocked under 3RR, allow a button to appear under the
users page that directs the user to the policy. The button questions
the user to agree to stay in accordance with policy and not edit the
specific page for 24 hours. If the user agrees and presses the button,
the block is undone. This allows the user to continue to edit other
pages. If the user presses the button and resumes to edit the specific
page, the block is reinstated for a duration longer than 24 hours.
In the incidence with "Cleared as filed", I felt I was blocked
inappropriately. Other users now use such block as means for character
assassination. The above idea could allow an user to continue to talk on
the discussion page, which would show that the 3RR is not punitive by
default and prevent character assassination.
In the same incidence, another user continued to show disruption by the
use of tags to delete images that I have installed. The sources and
copyright status of the images were obvious enough by guidelines;
however, the user wanted to press the technicality of it. This user
reported the block for which "Cleared as filed" instated. It would seem
possible by this example that a user is able to game the system, get a
user blocked, and add content under speedy deletion. This is why I sent
the message in haste to report "Cleared as filed", as it would help make
notice to not be so hasty to install a block and allow discussion.
Obviously, not every admin has lots of time to investigate and often
blocks on "the wrong version." This update would allow an admin to
install a block and let the user to decide to unblock early if they
agree to adhere to temporary terms, which is simply to not edit the
specific article for a day. This continues to encourage discussion.
Respectfully,
Jonathan
Jimmy Wales wrote:
>There are many many times when I need to quietly ask a group of trusted
>editors to look at a problematic article -- for example, we get a
>complaint from someone fairly obscure, on a topic I know nothing about,
>and I look at the article and it is obvious crap. The channel is
>already proving useful in that regard.
There's an obvious security problem here, of course, in that you have
no way of knowing that someone who claims to be a given admin and who
then gets into the channel is actually that admin.
So I wouldn't recommend its use for stuff that *really* has to be kept
to sane insiders, with "admin" as a rough approximation to "sane
insider" ('cos we don't *usually* get admins who are completely
batshit). But it would be useful in that sense as a saner sounding
board than the average day on #wikipedia. OTOH, you could probably get
as good results on #wikimedia in many ways ...
- d.
The IRC channel #wikipedia-en-admins has now been created, with mode +is, i.e. secret and
invite-only. It currently has an access list of 64 people. I am opposed to its existence. To call a
forum which admits 800 people "almost public" is bizarre. You admit 800 but you exclude thousands of
active contributors. Wikipedia has always attempted to encourage newcomers and to assume good faith,
but it's a clear violation of that principle to assume that the rest of the world, those 6 billion
non-administrators, have nothing useful to contribute to the discussions we wish to undertake.
Imagine if you joined Wikipedia today. How would you feel about the formidable barriers against your
potential contribution to Wikipedia's decision-making process? How would you feel about having tens
of admins declaring new policy, stating their rationale but refusing to enter into discussion with
you on equal terms, on the basis that it had already been decided in private?
-- Tim Starling