good points, all. Should we reconsider/clarify/expand on the policy?
kq
Lee wrote:
>I'm probably a major offender here, so I'd like to argue that perhaps
>the policy needs to be changed or clarified. First, articles that
>have no content or history should be deletable with less formality.
>What we want to prevent is the loss of content.
>
>Secondly, Wikipedia is dynamic in nature, and I don't think we should
>play by the same rules as static websites in terms of keeping old
>links alive. Certainly in some cases it's warranted; if someone
>moves "James Earl Carter" to "Jimmy Carter", and the old one has been
>around for a long time (not just a few days), then it's reasonable to
>expect that there may be external links to it and there's no reason
>not to leave the redirect. But if it is, say, a misspelling, I'd
>rather just delete it. We are under no obligation to keep our
>mistakes around forever, and if someone links to it and finds it
>broken, we have done him a service by forcing him to correct it.
>Likewise, if someone creates a page and I think it needs a different
>title, if I catch that error within a day or two and move it, I'll
>just delete the old title. There's not point in cluttering the
>database with a redirect that's just a mistake, and hasn't been
>around long enough to accumulate links.
>
>And finally, anything outside encyclopedia namespace should be more
>freely deletable as well. Anyone who links to a talk page deserves
>what he gets.
>
>
>
>
>
>[Wikipedia-l]
>To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
>http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Tarquin wrote:
>TMTOWTDY I suppose...
What does that mean?
>Toby Bartels wrote:
>>I'm not about to get upset if you change by <b> to ''', however,
>>and could be convinced to follow your lead exactly if you work at it;
>>I'll only get upset if you mess with <var>, as explained in another post
>>(not yet made, or look on Jan's page).
>I change <b> around the article title in the first sentence.
I do that too.
>I haven't changed any <var> tags, though I have created formulae myself
>with '' around variables, because I'd seen it done like that.
>The $$ for <var> idea is interesting, but I don't think it will make
>formulae significantly easier on the eye in raw form.
I don't think that the '' version is easy on the eye either.
Easy on the eye would be a limited implementation of TeX
that would render the wiki input $$x^2 y = z_1$$ into HTML as
<var>x</var><sup>2</sup><var>y</var> = <var>z</var><sub>1</sub>.
But that opens up its own whole new can of worms.
OTOH, $$x$$<sup>2</sup>$$y$$ = $$z$$<sub>1</sub> would be an improvement,
and $$x$$^^2^^$$y$$ = $$z$$__1__ would be even better.
(This won't quite work, since ^^ and __ can't be interpreted as toggles,
but I'm not sure how to deal with that right now.)
-- Toby Bartels
<toby+wikipedia-l(a)math.ucr.edu>
> I've hacked the phpwiki code to add a new namespace
> [[math: ]] so you can write formulas like [[math:a^2+b^2=c^2]] or
> [[math:\sum_{n=0}^{\infty}\frac{1}{n}=\infty]].
>
> The code will make TeX create an image (PNG) of the formula. Those
> images will be cached, they will be created only once and will be
> shared between articles. ( [[math:E=m c^2]] might be used on many
> pages ).
That's almost exactly what I had in mind; only I think it would be
better for the back end to have to have a spearate process
communicating with the Wiki code over IPC--the "TeX server"--
which will take formulas and return images, out of a cache if
they've been rendered already, calling TeX to render them if needed.
The cache will be indexed by a hash function on a canonicalized
text of the expression.
The wiki end of this won't be hard. The other server is the real
work. I'm afraid I can't take on that project right now, but if
that server gets built, I'll be happy to call it.
>Yes. I'm assuming that is the rule about making things redirects
>instead, and keeping old pages in the database to avoid 404 errors
>from search engine results. (new junk pages with no useful content
>can be deleted safely). MANY deletions violate this rule.
I'm probably a major offender here, so I'd like to argue that perhaps
the policy needs to be changed or clarified. First, articles that
have no content or history should be deletable with less formality.
What we want to prevent is the loss of content.
Secondly, Wikipedia is dynamic in nature, and I don't think we should
play by the same rules as static websites in terms of keeping old
links alive. Certainly in some cases it's warranted; if someone
moves "James Earl Carter" to "Jimmy Carter", and the old one has been
around for a long time (not just a few days), then it's reasonable to
expect that there may be external links to it and there's no reason
not to leave the redirect. But if it is, say, a misspelling, I'd
rather just delete it. We are under no obligation to keep our
mistakes around forever, and if someone links to it and finds it
broken, we have done him a service by forcing him to correct it.
Likewise, if someone creates a page and I think it needs a different
title, if I catch that error within a day or two and move it, I'll
just delete the old title. There's not point in cluttering the
database with a redirect that's just a mistake, and hasn't been
around long enough to accumulate links.
And finally, anything outside encyclopedia namespace should be more
freely deletable as well. Anyone who links to a talk page deserves
what he gets.
>maveric149 wrote in part:
>
>>Again I would like to restate my proposal
>>to have an 'old hand' status that
>>would allow users that have been around
>>a while and are generally trusted to
>>move pages and edit protected pages.
>
>I don't think that I've done this before,
>so I'd like to officially state my
>agreement on this. 30 days/30 edits,
>mentioned before, seems reasonable offhand.
>Is there agreement that we do want to open
>up these two functions, and that the only
>thing left to discussion is the criteria?
>...
>-- Toby Bartels
There seems to be a growing consensus that these two
functions should be available to many more users than
they are now.
The 30 day AND 30 edit automatic promotion idea was
really an off hand suggestion of mine. The 30 day part
seems reasonable enough to me but I am now not sure
about the 30 edit part -- which may be a ridiculously
low number of edits for an entire month. What does
everyone else think? Would changing the criteria to 30
_pages_ edited AND 30 day old account seem more
reasonable?
During my first month I averaged 10 edits a day --
most which were clustered around several different
pages per day. I still easily surpassed 30 pages
edited in a month. Heck, if we wanted to we could even
make it 30 pages edited in the article namespace in
order to promote editing of articles over chatter on
talk or user pages (which I know I am guiltily of --
sorry, I developed a bad habit in my early wiki
days..). At any rate I don�t think any harm will be
done to those that take two or three months to hit the
30 edit/pages edited/articles edited threshold -- we
are in fact giving users /extra/ features and not
holding back current ones.
LDC -- would it be possible/easy to allow an 'old
hand' (or whatever we decide to call this � I never
liked "trusted hand" though) the ability to edit a
protected page /without/ being able to
protect/unprotect the page (which is a meta function
that should be limited to admins me thinks)?
Also, if we do decide to reinstate the "vote for�"
convenience feature, should this also be something
only available to 'old hands' and above (newbies of
course being less familiar with NPOV and our deletion
policy)? There still would be nothing stopping newbies
from bookmarking, linking to or searching for the
various "vote for" pages and editing them manually (as
we all have to do now). This would be an added bonus
for users as they graduate to 'old hand' status.
If we do choose to have a 'old hand' status, then the
only special features admins would have available to
them would be meta functions: page deletion, page
protection/un-protection, blocking IPs and the ability
to promote/demote users to/from �old hand� and admin
status (just as it was in phase two -- although
"trusted hand" was a clone of "user" then). Admins
could also be encouraged to promote newbies who
obviously understand our policies and guidelines
earlier than 30 days to 'old hand' status before they
are automatically promoted.
--mav
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better
http://health.yahoo.com
Yes. I'm assuming that is the rule about making things redirects
instead, and keeping old pages in the database to avoid 404 errors
from search engine results. (new junk pages with no useful content
can be deleted safely). MANY deletions violate this rule.
kq
Jeroen Heijmans wrote:
>Also, because much of the deletions that do occur do not comply with
the Wikipedia
>policy on permanent deletion of pages (especially rule 6), I'm
sometimes confused.
I just had an interesting experience with an apparent copyright violation.
The text in [[Marina Tsvetaeva]] is very similar and in many cases exactly
the same as text in an external website. One user deleted the text in the
article citing a copyright violation on our end. Even though I saw obvious
similarities between our version and theirs I wasn't so sure /we/ were the
ones who violated copyright because the article existed in pretty much the
same form since before the move from the UseMod wikiware back in February.
My suspicion that we in fact were not violating any copyright was confirmed
when user:sjc claimed authorship and stated that the text had been in the
public domain for 12 years.
I am not sure if the external website used the public domain version by sjc
or one of our earlier versions, but as Wikipedia grows we will increasingly
find apparent copyright violations on our end that are in fact just the
opposite: other websites taking our text and using it in a way that is not
compatible with our license (there is also the issue of public domain text
too.... Remember, cite your sources!).
What should we do in such cases? Furthermore, should we make a rule that if a
Wikipedia article "fails" the Google test AND is over a set number of weeks
old, then we should give the original contributor the benefit of the doubt
and /not/ delete the text?
We almost lost a great article on Marina Tsvetaeva and I don't want to lose
any others due to this type of mixup.
--mav
> If one attempts with the new software to edit a redirected page
> (by fiddling with the URL) one is simply redirected to the
> destination. So it becomes impossible to resurrect a page once
> it has been redirected.
When you arrive at a redirected page, you'll notice that the
subtitle is "Redirected from..." with a link; that link will take
you to the original page. Clicking "edit" while there will edit
the redirect page, not the destination. You'll notice that
"redirect=no" has been added the URL--if you want to use the
URL directly, you'll have to do that too.
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> I say Jeroen and Danny would make a great sysops. However I know Jeroen used
> to use the "vote for deletion" feature of phase II Pedia Wiki a lot and at
> least several of the entries submitted had to be removed from the deletion
> queue as not being valid for administrative removal. But I still trust that
> Jeroen will /not/ abuse the delete page sysop feature and when there is /any/
> question that a page should be removed that that page be first placed on the
> vote for deletion page for a day or two -- which is the general policy anyway.
Yes, I'm aware of that; it's actually the reason I didn't consider becoming a sysop before.
Also, because much of the deletions that do occur do not comply with the Wikipedia
policy on permanent deletion of pages (especially rule 6), I'm sometimes confused.
The vote feature allowed me to state my opinion without using a Talk-page; if somebody
disagreed (usually Maveric), that was fine with me. Which reminds me: LDC said on
Sourceforge that the voting feature needs to be discussed before it comes back. I agree
with Maveric that it should come back; any objections?
> Unfortunately, LDC never got around to porting the promote/demote feature of
> Phase II to Phase III, so Jimbo (possibly a developer) will have to promote
> you two. I'm sure nobody will object to your promotion.
LDC himself has already contacted me to do the job, so he's working on it.
Dear Wikipedians,
I've wanted to write this letter for a long time, but has delayed it deeming
the upkeep of Wikipedia principles more important than my comfort. But the
principles become broken anyway, and my comfort is as well gone; therefore
I'll tell you what troubles me below.
It is not a secret that Wikipedia is at occasions the scene of massive
content wars between the supporters of various positions. This is natural
and expectable, the resolution coming at the end of each such war being an
improvement to the original article. However, there's one content war that
is unique, in several ways. It concerns the Arab-Israeli, and
Palestinian-Israeli conflicts.
During the recent months, Wikipedia has been the target of almost daily
twiddling, in sum amounting to vandalism, from different supporters of the
Arab position on the internet, most often editing the page anonymously. I do
not oppose them stating their views; however, their style of modifying bits
here and there, copy & pasting copyrighted articles, linking to pages of
explicitly propagandist nature, coupled with the fact that they do not have
a clue of what NPOV and Wikipedia in general is all about, creates a serious
problem.
On the other side of this equation, however, there's me. There aren't too
many people who are aware of the complex history of the region on Wikipedia;
out of them, there are fewer less who are ready to share they knowledge (by
risking to pace on the mine-field of political discussions). Although I do
not claim to be deeply knowledgeable, it is often only up to me to include
the Israeli perspective in these articles.
This is not to say that I don't get any help from you - I often do, and I'm
deeply grateful for it. But unfortunately, I am one man, yet what I face is
a whole horde of anonymous trolls. Just removing random changes and fixing
"omissions" takes all the time I can spare for Wikipedia; considering the
growing popularity of the site, I have to admit that my outlook on further
contribution grows grimmer; needless to say that this disappoints me, as I
have a deep sympathy to the Wikipedia effort, and politics (in forms
relevant to this discussion) are far from being on the list of my favorite
topics.
The basic premise of the Wiki concept is that in an open environment, an
article which can be edited by many participants, enjoys peer cooperation,
and as a result becomes better. I feel that this premise cannot work in this
case, as the troll cut-ins are random, and they certainly are not interested
in improving the article. The situation is too heated-up to allow normal
cooperation.
I should make it clear that in such an environment, my own ability to write
good-quality content (that is belonging to a NPOV, researched,
carefully-worded) is impaired. It is not just my personal comfort that
suffers; trolling does hurt Wikipedia by creating biased content, which
could, if uninterrupted, in the long run jeopardize Wikipedia's reputation
as a source representative and respective of different perspectives, and
showing understanding to various positions, not just one.
My request for you, then, is to block some of the most contested articles
(the list can be discussed elsewhere) from being edited by anonymous
("IP-only") users. Logged-in users will have access; whoever wishes to
include his points, will be able to do it in the traditional Wiki fashion -
by debate and cooperation. It seems to me as the optimal way of promoting
the peaceful conclusion of this content war - by disarmament, and minimal
impairing of Wiki rights.
If you have any other proposals - I'll be glad to know them. I do not know
which course we shall ultimately take, but I am confident that it is in our
power to bring about a proper, comprehensive solution for this situation.
With deepest respect,
Uri Yanover