Sorry if I gave the impression I don't want to discuss this. What I
should have said is:
1. I agree with you about the policy.
2. I think you are the best one to articulate the policy.
3. I would like you to write up a good, workable summary of the policy
for internal use and/or public posting.
4. I think you can do this without any further help from me, O
loquacious one!
5. But I'm happy to help if you so request.
And now the party of the second part requests an recess for lunch!
Ed Poor
Would it be too much trouble for a developer to give IP addresses for
*all* suspected DW aliases listed on [[User:DW]] - most or all of
which are in fact blocked already. I'm somewhat irritated with having
to deal with accusations of an Orwellian plot to ban anyone on the
slightest provocation with the excuse that they're DW. So it would be
useful if we could show that, yes, all those people were actually
coming in from the very same tiny IP range...
Evercat
--
Allan Crossman - http://dogma.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
PGP keys - 0x06C4BCCA (new) || 0xCEC9FAE1 (compatible)
I think Daniel (maveric) is not really proposing
a change in policy, so much as he is making a call
for a more congenial and cooperative attitude.
Repeatedly reverting others' edits is a pointless
waste of time and will never resolve controversies
about facts or points of view (POV). We ought to make
a distinction, as I think mav has done, between (1)
taking a firm stand against simple vandalism like
"you are a poopoo head" and (2) stubbornly insisting
on "rightness" in a POV dispute.
Resolution of a dispute requires a mutually agreeable
outcome, a "win-win" condition. Otherwise, it's
not stable. We ought to work toward stability by
clarifying each person's win conditions.
Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed
Mirko wrote:
>Viajero made a good point when he said, that we need
>new procedures to deal with this sort of users. These
>users are discouraging serious contributors and chasing
>them away (as already happened).
I agree. And if I may be so bold as to add that edit wars should be viewed a
similar way as schoolyard fights are; they are simply not acceptable behavior
and who is right and who is wrong is a secondary issue. If Johnny punches you
in the nose, duck the next blow and get away instead of hitting him back. To
paraphrase Jimbo; leave a clean paper trail and let the wrongdoer clearly
hang themself with their own actions.
So, purposefully prolonging an edit war (not to be confused with repeated
simple vandalism and reverting those edits) itself should be considered bad
regardless of who is right and who is wrong. That can be determined later
when the merits of particular versions are weighed and text/ideas integrated
where appropriate. But things like finding consensus is not really possible
in the middle of an edit war.
In short: It takes two to Tango and fighting is bad in itself.
Daniel Mayer (aka mav, aka part-time edit warrior)
I got a reply to the letter I sent to Chess and Beyond:
----- Forwarded message from Matthew Personal Account <mhollist(a)cox.net> -----
Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2003 15:54:19 -0700
From: "Matthew Personal Account" <mhollist(a)cox.net>
To: "'Arvind Narayanan'" <arvindn(a)meenakshi.cs.iitm.ernet.in>
Cc: <arvindn1(a)yahoo.com>, <karuke23(a)netscape.net>
Subject: RE: Use of content from Wikipedia
Arvind- I want to thank you for taking the time to notify us of your
responsibility in conjunction with the use to Wicipedia information. We
in no way intended to go against the copy right and apologize for the
misuse. We will gladly make the changes mentioned and thank you for
your assistance. Our design teem will bee working on it and you should
start to see the changes in the next week to ten days. Thank you again.
Matthew Hollist
Sales and Marketing Director
Chess And Beyond
www.chessandbeyond.com
sales(a)chessandbeyond.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Arvind Narayanan [mailto:arvindn@meenakshi.cs.iitm.ernet.in]
Sent: Saturday, November 15, 2003 1:29 AM
To: questions(a)chessandbeyond.com
Subject: Use of content from Wikipedia
Dear Chess and Beyond,
We're delighted to see that several pages on your website,
http://www.chessandbeyond.com/ use content from Wikipedia
(http://www.wikipedia.org/), the free encyclopedia. This
is just the sort of application that we at Wikipedia wish
to promote.
However, we'd like to point out that to use content from
Wikipedia you should include a link back to the source
Wikipedia articles (
http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame,
http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess%20strategy%20and%20tactics,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules%20of%20chess,
http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic%20chess%20notation,
http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_(chess)http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_(chess)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rook_(chess)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_(chess)http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_(chess)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawn_(chess)),
as we've suggested on our copyrights page
(http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights). Additionally,
you should also include a GFDL notice. One way of doing this would be to
add the text "This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation
License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the
entire work (including additions) remains under this license", and
provide a link to http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html.
Thanks for your assistance,
Arvind Narayanan
Wikipedia contributor
----- End forwarded message -----
--
Its all GNU to me
Rick,
1. Please ask Caius not to refer to other contributors as "Nazis".
2. As for the "current name" issue, that comes under the category of
usage.
Let's deal with the first issue, first. After the conversational tone
gets calmed down, we can start to deal with the more complex issue.
Ed Poor
Mirko,
I am frustrated, too. I don't see any easy solution to the "constant
state of edit war". Worse, I suspect that the problem of Wikipedia is a
microcosm of the problem of the entire world.
For there to be stability, there must either be a force which prevents
contending elements from clashing -- or those elements must come to a
mutually satisfying agreement.
As Viajero said or hinted (or probably both!), I have often been a
"force" which settled disputes via some sort of authority. But this does
not satisfy anyone: not me, and not Viajero, and not the contributors
who wait a day, a week, or a month and just start tearing apart the
battlefield (oops, I mean article!) again.
I find to my shock that my "solutions" are often do not provide enduring
satisfaction. I'm more like a Soviet premier using military and
political power to suppress ethnic strife than a genuine peacemaker.
This troubles me. This disturbs me. This is the number one factor that
drives me to want to leave Wikipedia forever.
Ed Poor
RickK wrote:
> [[User:Caius2ga]] is repeatedly involved in edit wars
> over the useage of the names of Polish cities, insisting
> on calling every city that ever was or ever might have
> been in Poland, by its current name, regardless of what
> it might have ever been called. He has now begun to
> refer to those who disagree with him as Nazis.
Most disgusting is the behaviour of almost all parties involved in these
edit wars. While I do not have a preference concerning the city names (I
don't care what they are called, there are indeed more important things),
the name calling and reversion wars are unacceptable.
The brave user Kosebamse mediated a compromise for the Silesia article.
The main combattants Nico and Szopen agreed to accept the final wording,
apologised to each other for previous behaviour and removed themselves
from the problem user page. But there are users who refuse to discuss
while a page is protected. See the discussion on [[User talk:Wik]], where
Kosebamse tried to convince him of discussing his points of view. As soon
as a page is unprotected, this sort of users is starting to revert. The
Silesia page was unprotected for twelve hours (which is almost a record),
and after it was protected again, user Caius2ga started to call his
opponents Nazis.
PLEASE NOTE that this is not a complaint about the content, which is
inserted into the articles by certain users. It is a complaint about the
behaviour of the users involved. Their behaviour is a shame and as far
from Wikiquette as it could be.
I am just an observer and not involved anymore, because I learnt that
mediation is useless with this sort of users. I guess, Kosebamse won't
give it one more try as well. This is so frustrating. I know of several
users who keep out of all Poland/Germany articles (me included), and I
know one user, who left Wikipedia because of this. My advice: Kick them
out. Wik and Caius2ga are not able to work in a cooperative project and
are poisoning the atmosphere.
Best regards,
Mirko.
Toby wrote:
>[Posting to <wikiEN-L> since we could change the text
>only on [[en:]] -- and we may need to only on [[en:]] if that's
>all that's being violated. [[fr:]] et al can then copy us if they
>find it necessary, or desirable; or even do their own thing,
>within reason.]
If it makes sense for en.wikipedia then it makes sense to translate it. And
what about Wikibooks and Wiktionary?
-- mav