WikiEN-l February 2004

wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org

106 participants
441 discussions

Plautus rebanned, banned from wikien-l
by Jimmy Wales 27 Feb '04

27 Feb '04

I've rebanned Plautus satire from Wikipedia, and intend that he should remain so. It's not a matter for mediation anymore, it's a matter for arbitration. Additionally, in light of his behavior last night in sending so many pointless messages to the mailing list, I've banned him from the mailing list. As to his numerous inquiries about blah blah blah blah blah blah, my only response is that I don't really care. Here's a forum for him to post about his case. Knock yourself out, Plautus. http://boards.wikimedia.org/viewforum.php?f=2 ---- Here's where I am this morning: excited, thrilled, on top of the world. Wikipedia is growing fast, we're getting more and more attention for what we're doing, we're maturing as a community, and we have a lot of exciting things going on. Print Wikipedia! Money in the bank for more servers to deal with our growing popularity! Continued strong traffic growth! An amazing group of contributors who are doing amazing things every day. I spent half the day yesterday, and nearly half the day (so far) today dealing with Plautus satire. That's ridiculous. I was interviewed by The Economist yesterday. I talked to people at Yahoo about using our content. I talked to people at a major publisher about publishing our content. I talked to a columnist from the Boston Herald. And the other half of my day, I dealt with Plautus. I'm done. --Jimbo

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RE: [WikiEN-l] Expect a Miracle
by Poor, Edmund W 27 Feb '04

27 Feb '04

In The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins sees an opportunity to Kill Gollum, wretched slave to the One Ring, in the goblin caves. Yet something stays his sword, and he does not. "A sudden understanding, a pity mixed with horror, welled up in Bilbo's heart: a glimpse of endless unmarked days without light or hope of betterment, hard stone, cold fish, sneaking and whispering." Bilbo's emotion of pity and the act of mercy that flows from it is destined to profoundly affect the outcome of the War of the Ring in JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Years later Frodo and Gandalf are discussing Bilbo's compassionate act. Frodo says what a pity Bilbo didn't stab Gollum when he had the chance. Gandalf replies: "Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. and he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity." http://www.jrrtolkienepics.com/Gollum.html -----Original Message----- From: wikien-l-bounces(a)Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Fred Bauder Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 11:23 AM To: English Wikipedia Subject: [WikiEN-l] Expect a Miracle (Fred sent a blank message)

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Re: Vigilantism
by Sheldon Rampton 27 Feb '04

27 Feb '04

I wrote: > > One solution might be to designate a few trusted individuals as >> volunteer "judges" -- people to whom Jimbo in his capacity as dictator >> grants the authority to take action instantly, if they feel conditions > > warrant. The decisions of judges, of course, would be subject to >> review by the arbitration committee, and a judge who repeatedly abuses > > his authority would have it revoked. To which Mark Pellegrini replied: >Well, if this is done, I'm not sure why we'd really need the arbitration >committee. Just to rubber-stamp judge decisions? No, not at all. Perhaps I should change my metaphor. Instead of "judges" and "arbitration committees," perhaps it would be better to use terms like "police" and "juries," along the lines that Ed Poor has suggested (see below). What we're dealing with fundamentally is the need to have some system of governance for the Wikipedia. Everyone here (myself included) wants to have "as little government as possible," but we need SOME rules and SOME enforcement. On Wikipedia, we don't have to worry about the worst kinds of crime, like murder or even theft of property, but an aggressively obnoxious person can do more harm than we ought to tolerate. The situation is rather akin to throwing a party in your home. Jimbo has invited everyone in the neighborhood, but if some jerk shows up and starts harassing the other guests, it would be inconsiderate of the other guests if Jimbo DIDN'T tell the jerk to leave. And as owner of the house, he's entitled to do that. If the party is large enough and Jimbo can't do this entirely on his own, he's entitled to ask some other people he trusts to police the party as his surrogates. In most effective systems of government, there is a division of labor. In the U.S. federal government, we have the legislative branch (whose job is to write laws), the executive branch (whose job is to implement and enforce them), and the judiciary (whose job is to determine interpret the laws and their enforcement). Of course, this isn't a perfect system (nothing is), but it accomplishes certain worthwhile things: (1) it creates a division of powers, which reduces arbitrariness and abuse; and (2) it encourages public ACCEPTANCE of the government's actions. We have a similar system in the town where I live: A city council that passes local ordinances (the legislative branch); a mayor and police who enforce laws (the executive branch); and local courts where people can seek judgment if they have disputes (the judiciary). Each branch performs a necessary but separate role. The legislators establish the rules governing police and the mayor as well as everyone else. The police perform a necessary role, but they can't simply arrest someone without cause because they know they have to be able to defend their actions in court if they are sued. The courts do not simply "rubber-stamp" decisions by police and the mayor, although often the courts rule in favor of the police. One of the reasons to have police and a mayor is SPEED OF ACTION, because they don't have to go through a deliberative process like a courtroom before they can take any action. Imagine that you see a crime in progress in your neighborhood and your only recourse is to initiate a lawsuit. By the time you even got a court date set, the criminals would have completed their crime and be long gone. Ed Poor also responded to my suggestion, writing: >Should we invest some users with authority which elevates them from >"vigilantes" and makes them more like a police force ("judges", as >Sheldon put it)? > >This is essentially Erik's idea, dressed up in an official uniform (hope >I'm not being tactless, here :-) Actually, though, the point is that people who are invested with authority ("dressed up in an official uniform") are NOT vigilantes. A vigilante is someone who acts as a law unto himself and who is therefore himself a law-breaker rather than an enforcer of laws. Of course, the difference between vigilantism and police is not always this clear-cut (a theme that has been explored in several Clint Eastwood movies), but the basic idea works. We authorize police to issue fines and arrest people -- even using physical force if they deem it necessary -- precisely because we don't want EVERYONE in society using force to have their way. If we are wise, we also limit police abuses by having clear laws that limit their powers, providing them with training in proper police procedures, and having courts that are willing to curb abuses when necessary. If all of this sounds like a lot of work, it can be. But it's also a lot of work for Wikipedians to be continually agonizing anew over how to deal with the latest troll. -- -------------------------------- | Sheldon Rampton | Editor, PR Watch (www.prwatch.org) | Author of books including: | Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities | Toxic Sludge Is Good For You | Mad Cow USA | Trust Us, We're Experts | Weapons of Mass Deception | Banana Republicans (Tarcher/Penguin, May 2004) --------------------------------

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http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_mediation&action=edit&section=4
by Plautus Satire 27 Feb '04

27 Feb '04

I initiated the mediation. Curps refuses to let the proceedings be open, thus, Curps is refusing mediation. Curps is abusing me, he admitted it, I have now superfluosly and redundantly proven it. Why is the process being ignored? Codie Vickers

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I think you and I are on the same side.
by Plautus Satire 27 Feb '04

27 Feb '04

I truly do understand your strong emotions on this issue. I am under no illusions that you intend to turn wikipedia into a substantial revenue stream. Nobody is asking you for any of it so far as I can tell. We just want to be a part of it. In order to do that you have to duplicate yourself. Who amongst the crowd calling down your thunder and lightning is most like you? Codie Vickers

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apologies for long lines, please don't assume this means I am a "long line" troll.
by Plautus Satire 27 Feb '04

27 Feb '04

I just realized in the archive everyone else linebreaks. I will start doing this in the future, I got lazy, I am sorry. Codie Vickers

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Word of advice to troll mafia.
by Plautus Satire 27 Feb '04

27 Feb '04

Curps is a lousy footsoldier. Can I please get unbanned now Mr. Wales? Codie Vickers

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Rick's request to "moderate" Plautus
by Brian Corr 27 Feb '04

27 Feb '04

Yes, please put Plautus on moderation. Thanks for all of your work on this, Brian (Bcorr) Ed Poor wrote: >Yes, I can put Plautus on moderation. But I have no authority to do so. >When I took this job, it was quite firmly stated that my only task is to >"administer". > >If a consensus develops that P. is flooding the list, and enough people >insist, I can turn on the moderation flag for any user. > >Ed Poor >Mailing List Administrator >Wikien-l

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Erroneous attribution (was: Print edition)
by Poor, Edmund W 27 Feb '04

27 Feb '04

Peter, you mis-attributed the "split out versions" quote to me. It's an easy mistake to make, when the list is at high volume. Actually, it was Mark (Delirium) who wrote it, in respones to my "invisible marker" suggestion, as follows. -- regards, Ed Poor Poor, Edmund W wrote: >It's too hard to keep a running list with more than 100 links. > >How about an invisible marker like {ready for print} near the top of >the article text? > > I think we need to split out versions somewhere else, because we're looking for concise articles, not full encyclopedia articles. Simply marking [[World War II]] as "ready for print" doesn't do anything towards getting us a good one-to-two-paragraph summary of World War II. -Mark _______________________________________________

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Print edition
by limholt＠excite.com 27 Feb '04

27 Feb '04

General Remark: A very positive goal. Suggestions: Create one or two Wiki namespace pages to summarize, and use their talk pages for discussion. The mail list is fine, but makes it reallly difficult to follow or comment, since I don't know what has already been covered in messages I haven't read yet. If I get one or two seonds for this idea, I'll go ahead and create two pages, one to summarize logistics or mechanics and one to summarize content and formnat discusion. Versioning or Article summaries: Mark Pellegrini suggested a separate page space similar to a talk page. I think I sympathize with his goals, but would amend it. Why not make the '''Concise Wikipeddia''' or '''Concise English''' a language Wiki. We've already got the Simple English example. If we always use the 'other language link' when we move an artcle, you can see at a glance what is over there. This also generates some other thoughts, such as: - We could always have a talk page section that lists last date synched with or copied from the main Wiki. - Article links still work, sort of, provided that the linked article has been moved, or they show that it hasn't yet. Issues to Resolve: Since Wiki isn't paper, but Concise will be, our convention of ussing normal form names will probably need to change. Any Encyclopedia I've seen lists JFK under Kennedy, John F. not John F. Kennedy. We might expect this change. Article Links: Most encyclopedias tell use q.v. or something similar to tell you there iss an article. I've seen bold print, or a typeface shift used the same way. So, comments about adjusting piped links work, but require some thought. For example, individual names (if last, first is used as article title) could still use a pipe in the online version. Since I just caught up on all my mail, I've ijcluded some things reated to different parts of the discussion thread. I' apolgize for that, but must warn you that I don't feel guilty. Regards to all, Lou Imholt (LouI at Wiki) _______________________________________________ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web!

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WikiEN-l February 2004