WikiEN-l October 2005

wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org

160 participants
455 discussions

I ask you to consider whether this block was not malicious and frivolous
by Herschel Krustofsky 04 Oct '05

04 Oct '05

To whom it may concern: I believe that I have been blocked by an administrator for frivolous reasons, as part of a campaign of personal animosity that constitutes [[Wikipedia:Harassment]]. The administrator in question is Willmcw, and the ostensible reasons for the block are posted at [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incide…]. My initial responses are also available at that location and at [[Talk:American System (economics)]]. Further response on those pages by me has, of course, been blocked. If you will examine this exchange: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Willmcw#LaRouche] ...on Willmcw's talk page, you will note that, despite the rather furtive language, the topic is the best means to prevent "H", that is, myself, from editing. Willmcw and his correspondent, SlimVirgin, are clearly aware of the impropriety of either of them banning me, since they have both engaged me in protracted POV conflicts. They also make reference to recent discussions of "WikiCliques or POV posses," indicating that they are aware that their behavior is under scrutiny. SlimVirgin advises Willmcw to persuade a third party, Snowspinner, to block me. In this exchange: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Snowspinner#ArbCom_enforcement] ...Willmcw approaches Snowspinner on this matter. We have only Willmcw's side of the discussion, but it is apparent that Snowspinner is unwilling to be a party to it. Willmcw then decided to block me himself that same day. The portion of the relevant ArbCom decision which is used to justify the ban is the following: "4) Herschelkrustofsky is placed on POV parole for up to and including one year. If he re-inserts any edits which are judged by a majority of those commenting on the relevant talk page in a 24-hour poll to be a violation of the NPOV policy, then he shall be temp-banned for a short time, up to one week." In the talk page in question ([[Talk: American System (economics)]], there are a grand total of two participants: Willmcw and myself. Therefore it is certainly questionable as to whether "a majority of those commenting" took Willmcw's side in the matter. Willmcw apparent sought to obfuscate this matter in this edit: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:American_System_%28economics…]. Willmcw had the option of posting a Request for Comment in hopes of soliciting some allies, but he did not avail himself of this option. My request to readers of this list, is that they examine the relevant talk page and other exchanges, to determine whether this ban by Willmcw was not made frivolously and maliciously. -HK --------------------------------- Yahoo! for Good Click here to donate to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.

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Re: Becoming more encyclopedia-like: 1: Encephalon's comments
by Daniel P. B. Smith 04 Oct '05

04 Oct '05

> From: Alphax <alphasigmax(a)gmail.com> > Inclusionists and Deletionists are playing what they think is a > zero-sum > game. It's WORSE than that: the mere presence of their mindless > ranting > is actually HURTING Wikipedia. By arguing over what should be > kept/deleted, we lose information. We lose readers. We lose editors. > > The solution: > > Become more encylopedia-like. > > For just about every value of X, where the number of total X is > sufficiently large, we can make more logical and more comprehensive > articles by MERGING the bits of information we have (which on their > own, > are perma-stubs) into more comprehensive articles on the topic. > > In doing so, we play a BETTER than zero-sum game. We build articles > that > a "traditional" encyclopedia would be jealous of. We HELP Wikipedia by > having articles that both retain information and look professional. I'd like to call attention to some remarks by Encephalon. I hesitate to do this because of the context that they're in, and I hope he/she will work them up into a standalone essay, but nevertheless. Take a look in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/ Lingnan_Primary_School near the bottom, the portion that begins: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. That is the very first thing you read under Key Policies (WP:RULES), the main page of the essential rules that govern this encyclopedia. It is the very first thing that you read in the fundamental five pillars (WP:5P). The fundamental requirements of encyclopedia writing are enshrined in the basic, fundamental tenets of its policies. WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV are each and all fundamental rules that we may not ignore as we please... ...and the subsequent discussion, and this _very interesting_ comment: "I am using the criteria all of us should use: the principles central to writing encyclopedic articles on WP. Pages which violate those policies should be removed, whether they've been on WP for 3 weeks or 3 years, whether they pertain to the United States or to sub-Saharan Africa. Likewise, pages that are written in accordance with such principles should be kept, no matter how obscure or unknown to WPns at large." -- Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith(a)verizon.net "Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print! Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/

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Re: Dispute resolution attempt in the Ashida Kim case
by Ryan W. (Merovingian) 04 Oct '05

04 Oct '05

This is the first time I've heard of this thing, and it makes me very upset. > From: Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa(a)gmail.com> > Subject: [WikiEN-l] Dispute resolution attempt in the Ashida Kim case > > In the light of the recent escalation of the Ashida Kim case on Wikipedia, I > have registered on Ashida Kim's board and made the following post in the > General forum as a good faith attempt to open a dialog as the first step in > resolving this issue. My username is Tony Sidaway. > > > I don't think either Wikipedia or Ashida Kim comes out of this smelling of > roses. I speak as an experienced editor and administrator at Wikipedia, and > the person who last unprotected the article Ashida Kim on Wikipedia. I do > not speak for Wikipedia, with which I have no formal connections, but as an > individual. On Wikipedia, an administrator is like a mod on forums, a > trusted editor who performs clerical tasks. Wikipedia is huge so there are > hundreds of us. > > First let me explain, without defensiveness, the way in which Wikipedia > works. I'll do this solely in order that you'll understand why it behaves in > the way it does. > > First, it's a wiki, so anyone can edit it, unless we take the trouble to > block them, which we can do by username or by IP. As you have found, it's > extremely easy to evade a Wikipedia block. As you have also found, Wikipedia > has immense human resources who are very vigilant, so it's difficult for > anyone to evade a Wikipedia block for long. > > Second, it's run by consensus of the users. The content of an article, > subject to legal requirements such as copyright and defamation law, is > decided by consensus. This is supplemented with policies of good faith > editing, verifiability and neutrality. > > Our deletion debates seem to have puzzled Ashida Kim. Contrary to his > belief, we don't automatically delete an article if it's a vandalism > target--having such a policy would make any article easy to destroy by > malicious vandalism. Scientologists could attack the article on Scientology, > creationists could attack the article on Evolution, and so on. We debate > deletion to decide whether there is a rough consensus (which is usually 2/3 > or more of those voting) to delete. Editors in a deletion debate are > expected to make their decision in good faith, and if a person with few > edits appears in such a debate this may be taken as a sign of bad faith. > Votes from so-called "meat puppets", people who appear on Wikipedia as a > result of an exhortation on a board such as that we have seen from Ashida > Kim, are not counted, and their appearance to vote in this way is often > interpreted as a breach of good faith. This is because Wikipedia decisions > are supposed to be those of the community, not of outsiders rounded up to > pack a debate. Nevertheless a person who appears "out of the blue" and gives > persuasive arguments may sway others in a debate. > > I'm not happy with the article at present. It falls short of the quality I > expect from Wikipedia, and I will probably take the opportunity to edit it > towards a more neutral point of view when next it is unprotected. In that > sense you can regard me as a potential friend on Wikipedia, and one whose > voice is generally respected so my opinions will be listened to. But that's > by-the-by. This doesn't mean I'm sympathetic to Ashida Kim or his methods, > only that I'm committed to Wikipedia's ethic of neutrality. > > Another point on which I think Ashida Kim may have a legitimate complaint is > that the names and contact details of his friends were apparently placed > into the article and Wikipedia may have been tardy in its response to this > invasion of privacy. In my opinion that content should have been removed > from the article editing history as soon as practically possible. Without > examining what happened and when, which would take some time, I can't say > for sure, but I take Ashida Kim's complaints in good faith and accept that > there may be a case to answer. I will investigate further and recommend > policy changes if I think they will help to stop Wikipedia being used for > malicious purposes. > > Ashida Kim's response to the situation, using private details about the > founder of Wikipedia in a tit-for-tat attack, is in my opinion > understandable although I do not condone it and hope that he will > reconsider. This kind of escalation makes problem resolution more difficult > to achieve. However I admit that in one sense it has been productive--it has > focused my attention on Ashida Kim's legitimate complaint of invasion of > privacy. > > I think that we can arrive at a compromise that all will be happy with. We > have tens of thousands of biographical articles of living people on > Wikipedia, and only a tiny handful have ever been the cause of any serious > problems. > > I hope to start a dialog with a view to solving these problems. If email is > preferred, please use the email address minorityreport(a)bluebottle.com, > otherwise respond here. * > > Edited by: Tony > Sidaway<http://p206.ezboard.com/bashidakimmessageboards.showUserPublicProfile?gid=t…>at: > 10/4/05 8:46 > * > > > ------------------------------ "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." -Jimmy Wales, July 2004 -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm

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Re: Potential Wikipedian growing pains
by Zephram Stark 04 Oct '05

04 Oct '05

How about a more natural approach to the function of the AfD? Many sites, including Netflix.com, allow users to rate the articles of other users, or at least click on whether or not these articles are helpful. At Netflix, this determines placement of the review, with the top placed review becoming the default. Alternate reviews are easily retrievable and could be promoted to the top place if people find them more useful for that subject. At Wikipedia, we could add a stipulation that if most people find the entire subject of the article not useful, it would be placed on a deletion short-list. Items on the short-list would automatically be removed to a compressed archive if they ever go more than thirty days without being accessed. The system could also automatically add any article to the short-list that goes more than six months would being accessed. The only significant source of contention at Wikipedia is when people try to unduly influence articles. Yet, it is possible to create a system where unduly influencing articles cannot be achieved. Many sites have done this on a small basis. We can get rid of administrators and do it on a large basis here if we are willing to let our influence be based on the quality of our edits and not on the friends we know in high places. Zephram Stark zephramstark(a)yahoo.com 432-224-6991 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Daniel P. B. Smith" <dpbsmith(a)verizon.net> Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2005 6:03 PM >> From: Geoff Burling <llywrch(a)agora.rdrop.com> > >> is there a point in Wikipedia's size where it's current growth >> will taper off or stop? I don't mean to repeat the old chestnut that >> knowledge is somehow finite: put in different words, is there a >> certain >> point where contributors will find it far easier to work on existing >> articles than to contribute new ones? > > Oddly enough, I wonder about the exact opposite. I fear that people > enjoy creating new articles far more than they enjoy editing existing > articles, and that people look desperately for topics that do not > exist yet so that they can be the first to create them. The > Wikipedian equivalent of the Slashdot FIRST POST!!!! > > This means that over time a greater proportion of newly created > articles will reflect an artificial attempt to find a topic that > hasn't been "taken," and a smaller proportion will be reflect a > genuine attempt to serve potential readers. > > I do not think its growth will stop. The problem is, will the quality > of the articles hold up? There's no obvious reason why it shouldn't, > and no obvious reason why it should. > > One reason why it _might_ not hold up is that when Wikipedia was less > famous, contributing to it required a greater interest in the project > and a greater commitment to the project's ideals. As it becomes more > and more familiar, it is possible that we will see an increasing > proportion of new "articles" that are really paragraph-long newbie > tests. > > To tell the truth, I think many of the "articles" that land on AfD > are best not regarded as articles at all, but as elaborate newbie > tests OR as badly executed article requests. I'm thinking of substubs > that convey no information at all except the fact that someone either > a) genuinely wanted an article on that topic, or b) simply wanted to > experience the pleasure of creating an article. > > I've been casting "votes" recently in AfD that say "delete, and enter > a request for the article." So far, nobody but me seems to think this > is a good idea. > > -- > Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith(a)verizon.net > "Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print! > Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html > Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 27, Issue 10
by actionforum＠comcast.net 04 Oct '05

04 Oct '05

> > This would swing the balance too far in favor of the deletionists. > > The unsourced statement would have to be unreasonable. Obvious > > common knowledge statements should not have to be sourced, and > > someone edit warring, demanding that every petty statement be sourced > > is being unreasonable, and should not be rewarded by being allowed to > > impose a burden upon other editors. > > Oh, I don't know - we managed to find a source for the statement "the > Earth is round" :) What a waste of time though, if you would rather have been making other contributions. -- Silverback

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Dispute resolution attempt in the Ashida Kim case
by David Gerard 04 Oct '05

04 Oct '05

Tony Sidaway wrote: >In the light of the recent escalation of the Ashida Kim case on Wikipedia, I >have registered on Ashida Kim's board and made the following post in the >General forum as a good faith attempt to open a dialog as the first step in >resolving this issue. My username is Tony Sidaway. >http://p206.ezboard.com/bashidakimmessageboards.showUserPublicProfile?gid=t… Nice one :-) If they're amenable to reasonable discussion, this should be just the thing. - d.

1 0

Dispute resolution attempt in the Ashida Kim case
by Tony Sidaway 04 Oct '05

04 Oct '05

In the light of the recent escalation of the Ashida Kim case on Wikipedia, I have registered on Ashida Kim's board and made the following post in the General forum as a good faith attempt to open a dialog as the first step in resolving this issue. My username is Tony Sidaway. I don't think either Wikipedia or Ashida Kim comes out of this smelling of roses. I speak as an experienced editor and administrator at Wikipedia, and the person who last unprotected the article Ashida Kim on Wikipedia. I do not speak for Wikipedia, with which I have no formal connections, but as an individual. On Wikipedia, an administrator is like a mod on forums, a trusted editor who performs clerical tasks. Wikipedia is huge so there are hundreds of us. First let me explain, without defensiveness, the way in which Wikipedia works. I'll do this solely in order that you'll understand why it behaves in the way it does. First, it's a wiki, so anyone can edit it, unless we take the trouble to block them, which we can do by username or by IP. As you have found, it's extremely easy to evade a Wikipedia block. As you have also found, Wikipedia has immense human resources who are very vigilant, so it's difficult for anyone to evade a Wikipedia block for long. Second, it's run by consensus of the users. The content of an article, subject to legal requirements such as copyright and defamation law, is decided by consensus. This is supplemented with policies of good faith editing, verifiability and neutrality. Our deletion debates seem to have puzzled Ashida Kim. Contrary to his belief, we don't automatically delete an article if it's a vandalism target--having such a policy would make any article easy to destroy by malicious vandalism. Scientologists could attack the article on Scientology, creationists could attack the article on Evolution, and so on. We debate deletion to decide whether there is a rough consensus (which is usually 2/3 or more of those voting) to delete. Editors in a deletion debate are expected to make their decision in good faith, and if a person with few edits appears in such a debate this may be taken as a sign of bad faith. Votes from so-called "meat puppets", people who appear on Wikipedia as a result of an exhortation on a board such as that we have seen from Ashida Kim, are not counted, and their appearance to vote in this way is often interpreted as a breach of good faith. This is because Wikipedia decisions are supposed to be those of the community, not of outsiders rounded up to pack a debate. Nevertheless a person who appears "out of the blue" and gives persuasive arguments may sway others in a debate. I'm not happy with the article at present. It falls short of the quality I expect from Wikipedia, and I will probably take the opportunity to edit it towards a more neutral point of view when next it is unprotected. In that sense you can regard me as a potential friend on Wikipedia, and one whose voice is generally respected so my opinions will be listened to. But that's by-the-by. This doesn't mean I'm sympathetic to Ashida Kim or his methods, only that I'm committed to Wikipedia's ethic of neutrality. Another point on which I think Ashida Kim may have a legitimate complaint is that the names and contact details of his friends were apparently placed into the article and Wikipedia may have been tardy in its response to this invasion of privacy. In my opinion that content should have been removed from the article editing history as soon as practically possible. Without examining what happened and when, which would take some time, I can't say for sure, but I take Ashida Kim's complaints in good faith and accept that there may be a case to answer. I will investigate further and recommend policy changes if I think they will help to stop Wikipedia being used for malicious purposes. Ashida Kim's response to the situation, using private details about the founder of Wikipedia in a tit-for-tat attack, is in my opinion understandable although I do not condone it and hope that he will reconsider. This kind of escalation makes problem resolution more difficult to achieve. However I admit that in one sense it has been productive--it has focused my attention on Ashida Kim's legitimate complaint of invasion of privacy. I think that we can arrive at a compromise that all will be happy with. We have tens of thousands of biographical articles of living people on Wikipedia, and only a tiny handful have ever been the cause of any serious problems. I hope to start a dialog with a view to solving these problems. If email is preferred, please use the email address minorityreport(a)bluebottle.com, otherwise respond here. * Edited by: Tony Sidaway<http://p206.ezboard.com/bashidakimmessageboards.showUserPublicProfile?gid=t…>at: 10/4/05 8:46 *

1 0

Quasi-vanity and quasi-advertising
by dpbsmith＠verizon.net 04 Oct '05

04 Oct '05

One of the characteristics of being a fan is that one has a sort of illusory personal connection to the object of one's admiration. Let's suppose, hypothetically, that I were a fan of Arlo Guthrie. I would feel almost as if Arlo Guthrie were a close friend. Now, suppose I were to insert an fawning article on his latest album, "Live in Sydney," pointing out the neutral and objectively true encyclopedic fact that it's terrific and everyone should buy one or two copies. Hypothetically. For only twenty-seven hypothetical U. S. dollars. I don't get a cut of the profits, and I'm not hired by Rising Son Records to promote this album, so I can say truthfully that it is not advertising. But, it sort of is. Because even though I don't get _money_ out of the deal, I do get the warm fuzzy feeling that I'm helping my close friend Arlo. (Even though he's not really my friend). And that I'm validating my fandom by increasing the number of fans. So, it's deliberate _promotion._ It's not vanity, because Arlo Guthrie didn't write the article himself. But, it sort of is, because a close friend of Arlo wrote the article. Or, someone who has the illusion of being a close friend of Arlo wrote the article. Of course, wanting to "help" or promote the topic area on which one is writing is probably the commonest motivation for writing articles for Wikipedia, and up to a point it's legitimate. I'd like to redefine "vanity" as meaning "an imbalanced mix of motives in which serving the needs of the contributor outweights serving the needs of the reader."

4 3

Re: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations
by David Gerard 04 Oct '05

04 Oct '05

Alphax wrote: >Oh good, that means we can delete all the articles on Pokemon, B-grade >afternoon soaps, one-hit wonders, and the Roman Empire, right? *ducks* * d, nn. If this "Hilter" guy wants an article he can write one. Then we can delete that too. - ~~~~ - d. (elete)

1 0

Re: Borrowing a phrase (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Quasi-vanity and quasi-advertising)
by David Gerard 04 Oct '05

04 Oct '05

Jim Redmond wrote: >David Gerard wrote: >>Hagiographic fan writing >oh, I am SO using that phrase in an edit summary. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:David_Gerard/music is something I wrote a while ago about my attempts to come up with a way to write music articles that didn't suck. Let me reiterate: hagiographic writing is a *style* problem - an editorial matter. I really don't see how throwing it to VFD will help in any way at all. "Delete, you like the subject too much"? WTF? - d.

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WikiEN-l October 2005