The three revert rule is now bad policy, specifically in the way it
has been allowed to evolve.
Firstly, it is badly named: if three reverts is not an entitlement
then it should not be called that, and in practice three reverts or
fewer, or over a longer period, have got editors blocked under the
general provision to block disruptive users.
Secondly, a 'revert' is not clearly defined. Lots of things which
aren't reverts are included, while plenty that is a revert is
excluded.
Thirdly, enforcing admins rarely look intelligently at what is
actually happening in an article. It is very easy to find that
POV pushers use it to enforce their position.
Fourthly, it is being enforced in a way that discourages compromise.
Editors who always revert back to their version are treated just
the same as editors who continue to disagree but propose compromise
wording instead.
Fifthly, despite the complicated and questionable interpretation
involved in working out whether the rule is engaged, there is no way
in practice to expunge the block log where the interpretation is
proved inaccurate.
Sixthly, the fact that new anonymous or IP users can claim ignorance
of the rule and be unblocked while experienced editors cannot, means
that enforcement actually discriminates against the experienced
Wikipedian old hands.
--
David Boothroyd - http://www.election.demon.co.uk
david(a)election.demon.co.uk (home)
dboothroyd(a)westminster.gov.uk (council)
I just found this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truman_Capote#In Cold Blood
Apparently some time ago, someone added a metric conversion (4 km^2)
to the term "1,000 acres" in the quoted New York Times article.
That's a direct historical quote - is an in-line metric units
conversion appropriate within the quote?
It seems to me like we shouldn't be doing that.
--
-george william herbert
george.herbert(a)gmail.com
On 30 Oct 2006 at 17:35, "Erik Moeller" <erik(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
> As I've mentioned before, Jeff Merkey has
> volunteered to host it at sep11memories.org. Hopefully, the wiki will
> be moved in the next few days; it is now again locked for editing.
Is that the Jeff Merkey who keeps suing people, making whacked-out
attacks on Wikipedia and Wikipedians on his website, and generally
showing a mental disconnect from reality?
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
> George Herbert wrote:
>
>> I just found this:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truman_Capote#In Cold Blood
>>
>> Apparently some time ago, someone added a metric conversion (4 km^2)
>> to the term "1,000 acres" in the quoted New York Times article.
>>
>> That's a direct historical quote - is an in-line metric units
>> conversion appropriate within the quote?
>>
>> It seems to me like we shouldn't be doing that.
>>
> It's a questionable practice. It is in square brackets to show that
> it's an addition, but I think a footnote would be better in this case.
> Why too is it in km^2 instead of hectares?
Because it's Bobblewik.
This particular editor is or has in the past been focussed on
providing SI equivalents for almost everything that doesn't have
them. I had a discussion with him on this particular point, because I
feel strongly that "hectares" is what you might call the idiomatic
metric conversion for "acres." Bobblewik is somewhat single-minded
and determined, but always courteous, well-informed, intelligent, and
willing to engage in discussion. I don't want to bother looking up
what he said at the time, but I believe he cited chapter and verse
for km^2 rather than hectares being the only true, proper, scientific
SI unit.
Whether it's appropriate to stick strictly to best scientific
practice in unscientific topic matter is not so clear.
I think I tried to find evidence that _lay_ European readers would be
more comfortable with and more easily understand hectares than km^2
and failed to find anything crushingly conclusive.
I think the square brackets are very important here. I really detest
editors correcting spelling or grammatical "errors" in direct
quotations. But Bobblewik is very punctilious about such things.
I agree that a footnote would be better, and I suspect Bobblewik
wouldn't object to a footnote, nor object to the footnote including
both km^2 and hectares... but I don't feel like bothering about this
on an article that is not one that I work on actively.
I don't see any terrible harm in it the way it is.
Recently I have been on a geeky reel-to-reel tape kick and have picked
up a vintage tape recorder and some tapes on eBay. It's a
manifestation of the sort of pointless vintage analog technology kink
that is impossible to explain. Probably a result of the onset of
middle age.
During the 1950s and 1960s, tape was the premium media for audio. It
was available in stereo format several years prior to the commercial
availability of stereo phonograph records, and did not suffer from pops
and scratches even when played and handled multiple times. Prerecorded
tapes were marketed to audiophiles and other serious listeners as a
better-quality alternative to records. Casual listeners of today would
notice no difference in quality between the best tape recordings of the
early 1960s and the CDs of today.
While I am unsure of the dates and exact details, it is my understanding
that recordings published prior to 1968 enjoyed copyright protection for
mechanical rights only, that is, the rights of the songwriter. Music
for which mechanical rights were in the public domain at the time the
recording was published (which would include classical works of the
19th century and earlier) enjoyed no copyright protection. Further,
during this era, a copyright notice was required and its absence on a
published work would be indicative of a release to the public domain.
I have in my hand a tape recording published by the Deutche Grammphon
Gesellschaft that was published in the USA during this era. All of the
original packaging is intact and no copyright notice is present. It
contains a collection of important sacred arias and choruses performed
by leading performers of the day, and the musical and audio quality is
beyond criticism. I bought it for a few bucks on eBay. There are many
other such recordings available on eBay and elsewhere, and they could
readily be converted to Ogg Vorbis and uploaded. Their value both to
the public at large and to the articles they could illustrate is
tremendous.
Am I misreading the legal situation, or is this an opportunity which
interested volunteers should exploit to the extent feasible?
The Uninvited Co., Inc.
(a Delaware corporation)
I ran across a review of this in the TLS today, when going through
back issues at work, and thought it sounded of some interest to many
here:
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/193763.ctl
"If a picture is worth a thousand words, then it's a good bet that at
least half of those words relate to the picture's copyright status.
Art historians, artists, and anyone who wants to use the images of
others will find themselves awash in byzantine legal terms, constantly
evolving copyright law, varying interpretations by museums and
estates, and despair over the complexity of the whole situation." ...
"Permissions, A Survival Guide explores intellectual property law as
it pertains to visual imagery. How can you determine whether an
artwork is copyrighted? How do you procure a high-quality reproduction
of an image? What does "fair use" really mean?"
I can't comment on the book itself - though I ordered a copy on spec -
but it certainly sounds to be promising. Anyone read it?
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk
I was wondering if you could update OTRS/personnel adding me, (I could
do it, but I don't know if it's appropiated).
I've also translated 4 new email templates for info-es
(the last 4 at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OTRS/es )
* '''es-Borrado de cuenta''' For people requesting account deletion
* '''es-¿Puedo escribir sobre X?''' For people requesting we add some
article or are sending us text for inclusion on wikipedia
* '''es-¿Porqué borraron mi artículo?''' People asking why their
articles got deleted
* '''es-¿Sobre cual artículo comentas?''' People email us, but they
don't mention which article is being discussed, and therefore we
request more information
Also, I'd like to point a change on a title:
* '''es-Autor reclamando sus derechos''' should be changed to
'''es-Solicitud más específica de permiso''' since the content of the
template is we asking for a more clear and
specific statement, it's not about him claiming his rights.
Can you help me getting the new templates added to the info-es choices?
User:Drini
Pedro Sánchez
Fastfission wrote
> There was a news story earlier in the year that reported that
> something like half of the FBI didn't even have e-mail working yet,
> and that they (or was it the CIA?) were having endless problems trying
> to set up a standard database for their intelligence info. These guys
> seem to be constantly way behind the times in terms of individual
> computer technology. My purely speculative guess is that -- like
> large universities and other slow-to-change bureaucracies which have
> no profit motive, tight funds, and no customer-feedback systems --
> they think in terms of big, uniform solutions that cost lots of money,
> are hard to upgrade, and are centrally controlled.
Yup, they are way ahead in bureaucracy and infighting. WP's competitive edge is really that we come at things from the other end. This is why the concept of wiki is hardly explicable in terms of the past experience of most successful people. It's counter-intuitive for those who know how organisations work, that follow the post-WWII corporate patterns of command-and-control.
Charles
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Very 'Billion Dollar Brain'.
John le Carre, of course, had his equivalent, which was an alcohol-sodden woman with cats and no life, who had apparently memorised the Circus's database.
I don't know why the spooks didn't get to wiki before WP. It's obviously ideal, when trying to sort the wheat from the chaff, to try to get NPOV pages, with Talk and sourced information.
Charles
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Folks,
C/Net reports that the US intelligence community has launched its version of
Wikipedia.
http://news.com.com/Intelligence+czar+unveils+spy+version+of+Wikipedia/2100…
*The U.S. intelligence community on Tuesday unveiled its own secretive
version of Wikipedia, saying the popular online encyclopedia format known
for its openness is key to the future of American espionage.*
The office of U.S. intelligence czar John Negroponte announced Intellipedia,
which allows intelligence analysts and other officials to collaboratively
add and edit content on the government's classified Intelink Web much like
its more famous namesake on the
Web<http://news.com.com/Study+Wikipedia+as+accurate+as+Britannica/2100-1038_3-5…>.
A "top secret" Intellipedia system, currently available to the 16 agencies
that make up the U.S. intelligence community, has grown to more than 28,000
pages and 3,600 registered users since its introduction on April 17. Less
restrictive versions exist for "secret" and "sensitive but unclassified"
material.
The system is also available to the Transportation Security Administration
and national laboratories.
Intellipedia is currently being used to assemble a major intelligence
report, known as a national intelligence estimate, on Nigeria as well as the
State Department's annual country reports on terrorism, officials said.
___________________________________________________________
Intelligence officials are so enthusiastic about Intellipedia that they plan
to provide access to Britain, Canada and Australia.
Even China could be granted access to help produce an unclassified
intelligence estimate on the worldwide threat posed by infectious diseases.
More in story.
I wonder what happens to vandals.
Regards
*Keith Old*