On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 21:25:39 UTC, Stormie
<wikien-l-RB5ZwyA4Hgu1Z/+hSey0Gg(a)public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Dan Drake wrote:
> > Is there any more to be said about a sysop who is a _participant_ in a
> > revert war..
>
> The sysop in question's only participation in the edit war was to revert
> our anon user's _11th_ and _12th_ insertion of the offending phrase. The
> way you say that makes it sound like he war actively involved in the
> POV-feuding.
Looks as if I didn't read the history with enough care. My bad. I
withdraw the "participant" remark -- mostly. See below.
>
> > and who blocks an adversary (legalistically, a proper action
> > under 3-reverts) with no more explanation than a rude, spiteful comment
> > that _assumes_ the other knows all the rules?
>
> The comment was a bit flip, but obviously a reference to the fact that
> the user had ignored the two messages posted to his talk page,
A bit flip? It assumes that the user knows and is willfully violating
3-reverts. The first message you refer to merely told him to stop making
his changes because Texture considered them wrong, or rather, nonsense.
The second, from Oberiko, finished with "I will ban you if you add your
currently POV edit into the text again." Can you find where that
mentions the *valid* reason for banning him? I mean, the 3-revert rule.
Offending a sysop is not supposed to be valid reason for banning --
particularly if the sysop has taken part in the revert war, however
innocently and properly (at least, so I read a whole lot of the discussion
that has taken place here in the last couple of months).
The first part of Oberiko's message is good, I agree. A pity he couldn't
stick to the point, and explain that what 24.4 did was more than just bad
manners and non-cooperation -- how quickly do we ban people for bad
manners and misbehavior? does anybody remember 72 and Wik??? -- it's a
specific action violating a specific (though widely disliked) policy that
justifies immediate, unilateral banning.
and
> continued to revert and revert and revert, with no attempt at
> conversation beyond a mischievous attack on Texture which certainly made
> it seem to ME that he was no newbie.
By mischievous attack, I assume you mean calling Texture a newbie. Pretty
funny, in a way, if done by a newbie; seriously out of place if he knows
anything of the facts, or if he troubles to examine publicly available
data before popping off. But it's not an unbelievable error in a newbie
who has just been accused of vandalism and considers himself innocent of
it. (BTW I think that in calling it vandalism Texture is dead wrong -- a
highly unusual condition, but apparently nobody is perfect.)
What's the point of this ramble? That his actions don't conclusively
prove that he's a knowledgeable vandal; not even to the extent of
overriding "assume good faith [and ignorance]" so that one would be
obliged NOT to mention the 3-revert rule.
>
> Serious question: what would you have done?
Easy: Refer him to the three-revert rule. By the way, if that was the
11th revert (taking your word for it, not counting), then where the hell
was everybody else? Why did nobody complain on the fourth through tenth
reverts? Here we have several people, not just Oberiko, deciding not to
take the rule seriously, preferring rather to engage in edit wars.
And one could do other things, like starting out on his Talk page with
less hostility and assumption of bad faith. And perhaps making similar
changes in the approach to writing edit summaries. (Followers of Benjamin
Franklin are referred to the last line of this posting.)
>... He was showing signs of being a troll rather than an honest
> newbie.
You can interpret it that way. Another can interpret it the opposite way.
Which approach is more likely to lead to progress in Wikipedia, and which
is asking for another long, more or less acrimonious debate on WikiEn-l?
> As far as I can see, there's only 3 possibilities:
>
> 1) Give up, let him have the Ronald Reagan article to write in his POV
> 2) Protect the article
> 3) Block him
>
> Can you think of another alternative? Or do you just think that #2 is
> the better of the options?
Well, I've given some. Lots more, and better ones, have appeared in this
list recently. Alas, most of them need to be applied early on. Once the
hole has been dug, there may be no good way of climbing out -- I wouldn't
think of mentioning the Middle East here -- and the unsatisfactory
possibilities seem to be,
1a) Three-revert warning, even though one thinks this guy is a troll and
is laughing at one -- hideous fate, since one cares so much for the
opinions of trolls and vandals; together with
1b) User-Talk messages and Edit summaries strongly urging use of the Talk
page and stressing that one must learn not to get into edit wars, and
couched in the most polite and least hostile terms available; non-flaming
at this point may require outside assistance. Followed, if need be, by
2) If these are ignored, then a ban or protection, at discretion of sysop,
who of course will consult with one or more peers before doing anything
more than a quick ban for a simple 3-revert violation.
One good thing about giving other people good advice: It raises the
standard I'll have to hold myself to, the next time I'm tempted to a
shoving match.
Cheers,
Dan Drake
Abe (user:172) has asked me to inform the mailing list that I have
"retracted" my request to ban him. I'd like to take this opportunity to
clarify a few points.
When I asked, "Can we ban 172 and VV?", I was using a rhetorical device.
What I sought was merely that ALL parties concerned, would be in
compliance with Wikipedia policy. Be cooperative, or be elsewhere:
nothing more, nothing less.
I've broken a lot of log jams at Wikipedia, and when I set out to do
something here I've always succeeded. If it's an article, I've always
been able to find a way to get all the contributors to agree on both the
process and the product. If it's a 'troublesome user', it's a bit more
involved.
The best outcome is that the user sees the light and chooses
_voluntarily_ to support Wikipedia policy: chiefly, no insults and no
reversion wars. Other alternatives include getting an "official warning"
or being blocked (temporarily) or banned (indefinitely). The last
alternative is always farthest from my mind, because it's the worst for
all involved.
But some people think that calling someone to account comprises a
personal affront: "How dare you tell me to follow the rules!" Well,
somebody has to do it. Better me than Jimbo, because most people who
tangle with Jimbo wind up getting exiled. I'm much more patient and easy
to deal with.
But Abe handled the "shape up or ship out" confrontation rather well.
It's a pity that the process was so disturbing to him, but I don't feel
I have anything to apologize for. My job (as I see it) is to ensure that
articles are accurate and unbiased; my method is to encourage users to
contribute with courtesy.
It's not dis-courteous to insist that another user conform to Wikipedia
policy. Contrariwise, it's my duty.
Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed
Bureaucrat
Hi!
Maybe the problem with categories is not that bad in en.wikipedia, but as far as
I can see its pretty chaotic there, too. I wrote this having in mind the attemts
in de.wikipedia - my main reasons are true in every language.
Since Version 1.3 of MediaWiki we have the nice category function. In the
german wikipedia there is a lot of confusion and struggle on how to use
categories in the right way. As a student of library science I could tell
several methods how to classify, index and sort things but none of them
seems to be applicable easily with the current implementation of categories.
As far as I can tell there are three main reasons for Wikipedia's success:
1. It's very easy to contribute (Wikitax, everybody can edit)
2. Every edit is monitored in watchlists and list of lasts edits
so we can control each other
3. There is a clear common mission - to create an encyclopedia (+NPOV)
As far as I also can see the category-function contradicts all of them:
1. It's not easy.
It's not easy to know how to do it in the right way because subject
indexing is a complex issue and it's not easy because of lacks in the
implementation (no rename, no redirects, no assignment of articles to
categories without editing every single the article pages). Editing an
article I have to guess which categories are existing, how they are
spelled and the rules what to classify into them and what not.
2. It's not controllable.
You cannot watch a category to get noticed on new articles or when
somebody removes an article from the category nor when sub-categories are
created.
3. There is no common mission
Can anybody tell the purpose of categories? Finding articles (without
a coordinated search function?!) Browsing in topics (without a clear
overview of all categories?!) Are we trying to index articles with
subject heading, using a thesaurus, a classification or even a structure
ontology? Library science has invented several kind of schemes like that
but at the moment everybody is muddling this and that trying to invent
the already invented wheels of documentation (by the way there are also
methods of automatic indexing, clustering and classification).
And: In classification there is no NPOV because there is no "right" way
to classify the world but it depends on the special needs and questions
I want to answer with a special system of subject indexing.
Given the reasons I strongly recommend to stop using the categories and
to focus on writing and improving good articles. Many categories can easily
be replaced with normal links between articles. Adding and removing
categories do not change an article's content a bit. If you want to
keep track of all articles in some area use (Wiki)Projects, article
series, portals and learn how to use the "what links here"-function!
A good article is an article that can be found easily without categories.
Indeed classifying wikipedia articles is very interesting and will
become more important, but this should be an independent project - maybe
in a "Classifipedia" or "Categorypedia" that links to wikipedia articles.
You know - librarians normally do not write the books they organize and
search engine experts do not write the websites they crawl, so let's focus
on what we can do the best: creating the most detailed, most understandable
and freest encyclopedia in the history of mankind!
Greetings,
Jakob Voss (aka nichtich(a)de.wikipedia)
I just had a look at the "longest pages" list. It was spearheaded by an
untranslated article of incredible 243880 bytes. While I blanked that
one and listed it on VfD, I keep wondering if some of these pages
shouldn't go someplace else. [[Table of divisors]] and similar would
IMHO fit better on wikisource. [[List of candidates in the 2004 Canadian
election
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_candidates_in_the_2004_Canadian_electi…>]]
would fit nicely into the "election data" section, no? The many "List of
asteroids" entries could go there as well. Other lists ([[List of
astronomical topics
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_astronomical_topics>]], as an
example) can be restructured into the category system, while leaving
unwritten topics.
To sum this up, I think we could get rid of at least 100 of the 150
longest pages, without sacrificing any functionality. Shall we try this
or not?
Magnus
I let it slip on IRC that I was going to DC for a day (tomorrow, in fact), and a bunch of people took the liberty of preparing a list for me -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Raul654/Washington_pictures
So, when The Man (tm) raids my place, I'll have deniability :)
Finlay - I'll see you in Guantanamo. And just to make sure the NSA reads this: Allah Iraq bomb infidels President Bush Al Qaeda
--Mark
Thought for the day
-------------------
For the former half of next month, I'm eschewing the leaden skies of my
dank scots homeland for the sunny climes of the SF Bay Area and
(briefly) NYC.
Ever the dilligent photowikipedian, I sat tonight and looked for
articles in the en: wiki in those geographical areas that need a basic
photo but don't have one. I wrote out a list.
Uh-oh.
I'd like to posit "McWalter's 14th law":
All wikipedia photo-todo-lists read _exactly_ like terrorist
(oops, sorry, militant) hitlists.
Bridges, airports, subways systems, landmarks, public buildings. I
can't cross an international border with this list - I'll end up at GTMO
for sure.
So if I end up on Missing Wikipedians, you'll know why.
Later,
FIn
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
W.Finlay McWalter [[User:Finlay McWalter]] http://www.mcwalter.org
"With the thoughts you'd be thinkin', You could be another Lincoln..."
Timwi wrote
>
> hcheney wrote:
>
> > I propose that the community start issuing awards of
> > merit to users that will be voted upon by the
> > community over a period of a week. Some of the ideas I
> > kicked around were...
> >
> > the <i>Wikipedia Peace Prize</i> - for users who have
> > worked to resolve conflict in the community.
> >
> > the <i>Gutenberg Award</i> - for users that have
> > extensively improved the main-namespace content of
> > Wikipedia
>
> The idea is quite nice and innovative, but I really don't think it'll
> work, for several reasons:
>
> (1) The reasons Rick already mentioned.
> (2) WikiMoney didn't work either.
> (3) People will start doing certain things (e.g. make loads of trivial
> edits to the article namespace) *just* to get (one of) these awards,
> and then genuinely think they are entitled to (one of) these awards.
> (4) Community recognition works best when it is not measurable. I can
> say with certainty that Anthere is more popular on Wikipedia than a
> vandal, but I can't rank her with other people. If she were awarded
> a "Wikipedia peace prize" and, say, Angela wasn't, then this would
> create an artificial (and deceptive) ranking between them.
>
> Timwi
I think Timwi is generally right, but to go back to the beginning of this
thread, I think that Meatball's pages "Reward Reputation," "Open Process,"
and "Us and Them" have very good things to say about this topic. Rather than
go on about my own opinions I'll just refer people there:
<http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?RewardReputation>
<http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?UsAndThem>
<http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?OpenProcess>
Thanks,
Brian (BCorr)
Recently, a user was nominated for adminship because
thought " . . he needs to be rewarded for all the hard
work and dedication." <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship…">[1]</a>
Though the user in question was very well qualified
for adminship, I am disturbed by the trend that
adminship is some sort of "reward" or "vote of
confidence" in the name of the community, however, in
reality adminship is a vote of confidence and reward
for making a great deal of edits and behaving well in
the process.
I propose that the community start issuing awards of
merit to users that will be voted upon by the
community over a period of a week. Some of the ideas I
kicked around were...
the <i>Wikipedia Peace Prize</i> - for users who have
worked to resolve conflict in the community.
the <i>Gutenberg Award</i> - for users that have
extensively improved the main-namespace content of
Wikipedia
As such, we will be able to stroke the egos (and
hard-working motivation) of users, while seperating
adminship from the equation. I hope that in such a
situation, the community will finally be able to give
certain users a resounding vote of confidence when
adminship would be inappropriate.
--H. Cheney
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail is new and improved - Check it out!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
This was sparked by a conversation in IRC.
Would you consider numeric standards harmful- particularly those
regarding Requests for Adminship? I know there is someone (who may
identify himself if he feels like it, and whom several people already
know about) who places blanket opposition (no Neutral votes, a full
Oppose) on any candidate for sysophood unless the candidate has 3,500
edits and has been here... two months, was it? But anyway...
First of all, with this specific edit count, I'd be interested in how
many of our current sysops meet that threshold. I know that I don't,
and a *large* amount of my contributions have been stuff which I
really wouldn't be involved in if I were not a sysop- the stuff which
comes up on a patrol of Recent Changes (which is hardly as profitable
an activity without a Rollback link and a button to delete nonsense,
AND the ability to back up the you-might-be-banned notice dropped on
user pages). I certainly would not have done a fraction of that
quantity of work if I were a regular user.
Even without this specific number, such standards may also be
inconsistent- a user with an inflated edit-count due to countless
corrections or user page adjustments is rewarded under this system,
where a serious and careful user may suffer. This is the exact
opposite of what is optimal.
I'm also concerned that this type of standard places an unnecessary
burden on valid users, who might become discouraged by high standards,
while it would be trivial for a sneaky undercover returning troll
(cited as a reason for these sorts of standards) to meet these sorts
of standards with sheer persistence and a little patience. Good people
lose out, while the bad ones are merely inconvenienced.
I speak here only of sysophood standards. Are there other strict
numeric standards which would be subject to effects which are similar?
Finlay,
When you come to SF, be sure to bring some warm
clothes. The high temp for about half the days you'll
be there will probibly be about 20 - 25 �C. San
Francisco merchants sell more sweatshirts in July than
any other month during the year. If you're not going
to be in San Francisco itself, be prepared for warmer
temperatures; highs above 35� are not uncommon in
Livermore or Gilroy.
If you're going to be in San Jose, many of the
articles relating to the city and it's attractions
need pictures.
John Pozniak (Gentgeen)