Thanks. Two questions though: It sounds promising,
but would this really make any more difference than a
lawyer's c&d? And how does one identify who is
upstream of Brandt?
David Gerard <fun(a)thingy.apana.org.au>:
DMCA notice. Anyone from any country can send one of
these. To him and
two levels of upstream. Possibly as a press release as
well.
http://www.holysmoke.org/ga/ga45.htm
- shows how [[Tilman Hausherr]] has successfully used
DMCA notices sent
from Germany when Scientology-related organisations
played fast and
loose with his photos.
The takedown provisions of the DMCA are a matter of
great concern, but
a
DMCA notice when someone is pretty damned clearly
*ripping off your
stuff* is IMO quite morally sound.
__________________________________________
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A brief contrarian point of view. If Wikipedia is to succeed in any
measure to move beyond its tabloid status then transparency is essential.
That is, every admin must necessarily have their identity exposed and it
surprises me somewhat to see the resistance here - and I find it hard to
justify.
Authority (in the sense of an encyclopedia) comes because the
individuals involved are transparent and respected in some conventional
sense. Hidden identity provides no basis for authority since the
landscape of individuals is unknown and the changes to that landscape
impossible to track. Such that, even if a group of anonymous admins is
able to command respect for a period, there is no guarantee, no way to
judge, that a group of admins have the same capacity in the future.
Indeed, if the current group of admins do manage to establish public
confidence then the public is immediately at risk since that group can
be opaquely usurped.
The short end is that for the long term welfare of Wikipedia admins -
all contributors - need to be transparent - otherwise Wikipedia is
simply a propaganda engine.
That the journal Nature should give any support to the scientific
articles in Wikipedia is a cause of great concern - since Wikipedia is
not a specialist encyclopedia they have by inference given unfounded
credence to the whole.
With respect,
Steven
--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Stevenzenith
I have been blocked for alleged vandalism. I think
this is a mistake. The blockage applies to my IP
address not my user name. I am unable to email the
admin who decided to block me. This has happened
before, I think things are getting confused.
My username is PatGallacher.
___________________________________________________________
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When people complain about inaccuracies in Wikipedia, the stock answers
are that such complaints are invalid, or involve a misunderstanding of
Wikipedia, because:
--It's a work in progress
--It's not an encyclopedia yet
--Every page has a wee little "disclaimers" link that potentially would
display a huge bold all-caps "WIKIPEDIA MAKES NO GUARANTEE OF VALIDITY"
if you clicked on it.
But when we ask for money, do we say:
--"Give the gift of an open wiki-community?"
--"Give the gift of process, not product?"
--"Give the gift of a whipped-up blend of tasty knowledge spiced with a
few foul nuggets of misinformation?"
We do not. We say "give the gift of knowledge."
Small wonder that we're starting to see some hostility from the outside.
We're trying to have it both ways. We set expectations ("give the gift
of knowledge") and then are surprised when people have the expections
we set.
"Childlove movement" is a POV euphemism for pedophilia advocacy. There is currently and AFD on the article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Childlove_move… however, we have a small number of pedophilia advocates (self-identified on their user pages) who have been editing pedophilia related articles in an attempt to promote their POV.
What this means is there may not be "consensus" at the AFD to take action such as deleting, merging or renaming the article. However, I think it's quite clear that the name of the article at least is POV.
Just as we would not allow a small group of dedicated anti-Semities to maintain an article title such as "Holohoax" we shouldn't allow a small group of pedophiles to use wikipedia to promote their preferred terminology of "childlover".
Any ideas as to how we should handle this? If a small group of dedicated advocates can block consensus that is a serious threat to our NPOV policy.
Homey
You know, it's funny, just the other day I was leafing through the Encyclopedia Britannica and was marvelling at the number of ads on each page.
Ads would kill wikipedia and would put us under pressure to suppress information that was embarassing to our advertisers and allow puff pieces. This should be a non-starter if we are serious about the principles of this project.
From: Ben Emmel <bratsche1(a)gmail.com
<http://us.f319.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=bratsche1@gmail.com&YY=65890&or…>>:
> Has anyone tried simply communicating with him civilly? One would think that
> we could work out some compromise with his HiveMind website and also our
> content. I find it hard to believe that a man who works hard to prevent
> "privacy violations" would commit such a large one as posting the
> private details of all 650+ admins online.
Do you want to try? I don't mean that in a snarky way, but a number
of people would be thankful if someone could get through to him.
I believe a number of previous attempts have been made. Linuxbreak
talked to him on the phone at length, and Jimbo even offered to fly
out to him and talk to him in person.
The problem is that his demands change depending on when you talk to
him and involve a lot of things that we really can't compromise on.
They've included deleting the article altogehter, prior notification
if an article is posted about him, removing criticism and links to
criticism of him, and locking the article to prevent further edits.
Perhaps we can get a compromise if someone can just nail him down to
something that would be acceptable to our principles and policies.
While LB reports that he seemed a reasonable fellow on the phone, I
don't think a reasonable guy compiles a hit list of his enemies and
uses it to attempt blackmail them into doing what he wants, a bold new
experiment in Wiki vandalism which we don't seem to be terribly
concerned about. I'd just say delete the thing altogether and save
the fuss, but he seems to made himself all the more notable by getting
a tremendous amount of press for various things since the article was created.
How about this for an experiment: turn off article creation _and_
deletion for a while? Freeze the table of contents (not that we have
one)...
So that all anyone could possibly do is to edit existing articles?
It would force everyone to pay attention to the articles that exist
already, and with 857,833 of them you'd think people could find
something worth their attention.
With deletion being impossible, AfD would become unnecessary... as
would DRV. So, that should make one faction happy. On the other hand,
there would be no opportunity to add subtrivial topics. (Or trivial
topics, or significant topics). That should make another faction happy.
A Snoop Dogg bootleg or unofficial compilation came up for undeletion
recently, having obviously been deleted in error at AfD. I undeleted
it and so did David Gerard. Now someone has listed every single
article on unofficial Snoop Dogg albums for deletion--an active that I
can only describe as extremely stupid.
An attempt to merge the material--nearly all of which can be verified
on official websites of reputable companies is now subject to a
deletion listing. A similar, though, smaller, campaign centers around
the unofficial released of Snoop Dogg, and involves listing for
deletion among other items an article about the work "50 Cent is the
future", which was one of two independent works produced by 50 Cent
when he lost his record deal and is credited by 50 Cent himself with
bringing his work to Eminem, who signed him to Shady Records.
I fear that this constitutes a deliberate campaign to remove from
Wikipedia a significant material about major rap artists. I find the
actions in trying to remove this important material vindictive and
impossible to explain.
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Welcome to tha chuuch mixtape vol.1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Snoop_Dogg_min…
From: Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)wikia.com>
> Regarding at least the political templates, I would
> like to raise,
> gently, a different issue. I have concern about
> people massing together
> in groups based on political affiliations at
> Wikipedia.
>
> For me, when I enter Wikipedia, I try to leave my
> personal politics at
> the door. I try to leave my personal opinions about
> religion, etc. at
> the door. Here, I am a Wikipedian. And this
> inspires in me a feeling
> of serious quiet thoughtful reflection. A mood of
> kindness and love. A
> mood of helpfulness and productivity. Neutrality
> and _getting it right_
> in the company of others who are doing the same,
> this is what I'm here for.
>
> Outside, I may be an advocate. But here, I am a
> Wikipedian.
The point is a good one Jimbo, but it doesn't seem to
operate in the real world IMO. People come to the
'pedia with their POVs intact. It would be lovely if
they correctly left them at the door but they don't -
they're only human.
My userboxes are on my userpage not for my personal
gratification, but to make a statement: "My views
are...". That way, if ever I get into a NPOV dispute
with someone, they can see what I believe and work
from that point. In effect, I'm declaring an interest
and forcing myself to edit against that type so that
no-one can ever say "your edit there betrayed the fact
that you are a XXX".
I've found that a lot of POV is subtle. It isn't
"George W is a hero"/"George W is a murderer", it's "X
church is fundamentalist"/"X church is extreme"/"X
church has different views from the majority of Y
churches"/"X church is an evangelical church". The
choice of words is always going to be POV in those
cases.
I declare on my userpage that I am an aethist.
Therefore, any edit I make to [[X Church of Y]] should
be seen through that prism; and I must ensure that my
publically stated views don't show through in that
edit.
Of course, I'm also expecting impossibly high
standards of others in this - members of X church are
just as likely to write NPOV as anyone else. But if
they declare on their userpage that they are X church,
then it's easier to judge the quality of a disputed
edit.
So I'd make the userboxes a requirement if I ruled the
world. But I don't (something for which we should all
be eternally grateful).
:"REDVERS"
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