[WikiEN-l] A new solution for the BLP dilemma

[John Vandenberg]

On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 6:59 AM, Durova<nadezhda.durova at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all, in two years of looking for solutions to the BLP issues have finally
> stumbled upon an idea that hasn't been raised before. Basically it's this:
> *Suppose we noindexed biographies of living persons, upon the subject's
> request.* This would require developer assistance, and require a bit of
> structure to make sure the ability doesn't get misused. An initial draft
> proposal is at my blog. Am interested in thoughts and suggestions.
>
> http://durova.blogspot.com/2009/06/biographies-of-living-persons-ingenius.html

This has been considered before:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Cool_Hand_Luke/Archive_8#Preemptive_explanation_of_NOINDEX

A WR thread largely about it:

http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=23060

And a wiki proposal about the general problem domain:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Search_engine_indexing

On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 10:38 AM, Stephen Bain<stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> Incidentally, NOINDEXing requires no developer assistance:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:NOINDEX

That template does not work on mainspace.  Specifically my comment here:

http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=23060&st=20&p=157928&#entry157928

For those that don't want to go to WR, roughly quoting my post:

The code is here

http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/phase3/includes/OutputPage.php?annotate=47583

It says:

if( is_null( $wgExemptFromUserRobotsControl ) ) {
  $bannedNamespaces = $wgContentNamespaces;
} else {
  $bannedNamespaces = $wgExemptFromUserRobotsControl;
}

The settings are

'wgContentNamespaces' => array(
  'default' => array( 0 ),
  ...
),

However $wgExemptFromUserRobotsControl is not defined. Theoretically,
we could ask the devs to add

'wgExemptFromUserRobotsControl' => array( 'enwiki' => array () )

That would effectively mean there no namespace is exempt from user
control, and the NOINDEX in db-spam and db-attack would start working.

--

If we do allow user control of mainspace, a dedicated categories could
track them, and I am sure there will be many folk policing them to
ensure that the article meet the conditions.

At the same time as the WR discussion, there was some onwiki
discussion on improving the template, and some suggestions were
implemented.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:NOINDEX

--
John Vandenberg