I unexpectedly found myself in Anthere's position today - checked on
my gallery of fair use postage stamp images today, and as expected,
images for which I hadn't yet written the article had been deleted,
but also some images long used in my article about Austrian stamps.
Turns out that some anon had emptied out half the article, this went
unnoticed for several weeks (it's on my watchlist, but must not have
checked it that day), then while I was on vacation and not examining
watchlist daily, the bot came along, marked the images as orphans,
and a couple weeks later somebody else deleted. After *that* a nice
anon quietly restored the article, leaving it unclear why the images
were deleted in the first place.
No moral to the story, except perhaps that figuring all this out (and
re-uploading from my backup copies) is time that could have gone into
content development. I suspect all this publicity is going to bring
a new crop of vandals wanting to "prove" that WP is a failure, so
even more time will go into defending rather than improving.
Stan
The next Wikimedia fund drive will start on Friday 9 December and will end on Saturday 31
December. There is no specific goal, but we would like to at least cover the budget for the rest
of this year and the first quarter of next year. That means we need at least $500,000.
I therefore encourage all language communities to help make this drive a success by translating
the fund drive documents and placing fund drive notices on their wikis when the drive begins.
The translation coordination page is here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q4_planning/Translations
The General coordinate page is here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q4_planning
Thank you for any help you can offer. :)
Daniel Mayer,
Wikimedia CFO
__________________________________
Start your day with Yahoo! - Make it your home page!
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
Matt Brown wrote:
> On 12/1/05, SJ <2.718281828(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>Why not? Requiring a 'references' section for every article (thanking the
>>heavens that WP is not paper), and reminding every editor that *every* new
>>article should come with at least one reference, seems a responsible thing
>>to do. Can you offer a reason not to have such a section for any article?
> I meant that more than that is hard to automate. You're right that
> the bare minimals can be easily checked. However, I can't see that we
> can automate much beyond that with ease.
On en:, even that will help a *great* deal.
>>If you're writing about one of those topics that is a) not private
>>research/analysis of your own, but b) has never been written about
>>anywhere else [that you know of], then we need a new class of references :
>>"personal observation by [user]", with a relevant tag not unlike the
>>original-reporting templates used on Wikinews. Then it will be crystal
>>clear that readers should visit your page, and see whether they trust you
>>as the primary/original observer/author.
> Much of this falls under 'original research', doesn't it? Or are you
> talking about the cases where someone believes that something is true
> but doesn't have the references to hand?
Either original research or that case. In that case, the personal
observation should go on the talk page for others to find a good
reference for.
- d.
Hi! I am forwarding your letter to the appropriate place for it to be
dealt with but wanted to add a personal note of thanks and a short
explanation of my own.
We were not accusing you or your organization of copyright infringement,
but rather what we perceived to be an anonymous user infringing on your
copyrights. Since the text came directly from your website, we thought
someone had simply taken it from you without your permission. We act
swiftly in such cases to protect your rights.
Someone will contact you through the official address of the website to
confirm and then we'll be able to use your contribution. Please do
understand, of course, that it will be edited considerably over time. :)
--Jimbo
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Deletion of our John Coleman Burroughs entry
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2005 02:22:26 -0600
From: Bill and Sue-On Hillman <hillmans(a)westman.wave.ca>
To: <jwales(a)wikia.com>
I am Webmaster for the Official John Coleman Burroughs Tribute site
www.JohnColemanBurroughs.com <http://www.JohnColemanBurroughs.com>
employed by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. of Tarzana, California headed by
the son of John Coleman Burroughs -- Danton Burroughs.
I contributed a John Coleman Burroughs entry to Wikipedia months ago,
using text that I and Danton had created for the Web site.
Your editors immediately accused my of copyright infringement and have
deleted the text . . . leaving everything in limbo and giving our
organization a bad name.
Please review this situation. We would appreciate it if you have
questions as to the authenticity and legality of the submission that you
contact us.
Bill Hillman
www.JohnColemanBurroughs.com <http://www.JohnColemanBurroughs.com>
www.Tarzan.com <http://www.Tarzan.com>
Tarzan(a)westman.wave.ca <mailto:Tarzan@westman.wave.ca>
I've been asked to help out with this.
Discussion on [[Wikipedia:Barnstar and award proposals#Babel Barnstar
for Translation|Babel Barnstar for Translation]] at [[WP:BAP]] has
been at a standstill for almost two months. If nothing is done
quickly, it'll be archived. Please join the discussion and let your
voice be heard. Translations should be recognized with their own
barnstar!
Mgm
News clips including more on Siegenthaler and the new Google piece.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Google Alerts <googlealerts-noreply(a)google.com>
Date: Dec 2, 2005 1:58 PM
Subject: Google Alert - Wikipedia
To: keithold(a)gmail.com
Google Alert for: *Wikipedia*
Complaints Over *Wikipedia* Accountability With
Bios<http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/051201-092150>
Search Engine Watch - USA
Daniel Brandt's been upset over the accuracy and presence of a page about
him at *Wikipedia*, and now John Seigenthaler, the former assistant to US
Attorney *...*
*Wikipedia* slander? <http://news.com.com/2061-11199_3-5978359.html>
CNET News.com <http://news.com/> - United States
John Seigenthaler, former administrative assistant to Robert Kennedy, has a
bone to pick with *Wikipedia*. In an op-ed in USAToday *...*
*Wikipedia* Is The Next
Google<http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/topnews/wpn-60-20051201WikipediaistheNext…>
WebProNews - Lexington,KY,USA
*...* fear - anymore. Despite the media's fascination with all things
search, *Wikipedia* is waiting in the wings as the next Google. They *...*
John Seigenthaler Sr. Criticises
*Wikipedia*<http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/05/12/01/0030200.shtml?tid=99&tid=95&tid=17>
Slashdot - USA
*...* former assistant to Robert Kennedy, has written a commentary in USA
Today expressing outrage at a libelous biography that appeared on *Wikipedia
* that suggested *...*
Shopping Search Innovations + Cyber
Monday<http://www.searchenginelowdown.com/2005/12/shopping-search-innovations-cybe…>
Search Engine Lowdown - USA
Regarding Cyber Monday, *Wikipedia* says "So far this year, the actual
busiest shopping day for online retailers has been November 22, 2005. *...*
------------------------------
This as-it-happens Google Alert is brought to you by Google.
Remove <http://www.google.com/alerts/remove?s=9a4f2425fa5d9963&hl=en> this
alert.
Create <http://www.google.com/alerts?hl=en> another alert.
Manage <http://www.google.com/alerts/manage?hl=en> your alerts.
I suspect the crap information inserted into the John
Seigenthaler article was part of a general trend of a
group of JFK conspiracy theorists who have used
Wikipedia as a dumping ground for their more
farfetched speculations. I've spend a good chunk of
my WP time over the last year cleaning up as much of
this stuff as I could possibly stand, and in fact
rewriting much of the Lee Harvey Oswald article was my
first major WP project.
Even if this has nothing to do with the conspiracy
buffs, it is part of a much larger problem, which is
that every unsourced text dump by an anon seems to be
treated as holy writ and uncritically accepted. While
we should apply WP:accept good faith to editors, we
should apply a lot more skepticism to unsourced info
dumps, the source of many problems involving libel and
copyright violations and just good old fashioned
inaccuracy. We have a culture of openness and DIYism
and all those good things, but I'm not convinced we
have a culture of quality control yet. How could any
halfway decent editor see a passage like "For a brief
time, he was thought to have been directly involved in
the Kennedy assassinations of both John, and his
brother, Bobby. Nothing was ever proven" and not think
"Hmmm, something's wrong here, at the very least it is
totally unsourced".
Maybe the problem is simply that an article like John
Seigenthaler Sr. is too obscure to get a lot of eyes
on it. It appears that between the crap insertion and
the insertion of a copyvio bio (possibly by
Siegenthaler himself?) months later, only one editor
edited the article. Perhaps we could just chalk this
all up to obscurity, but there are too many of the
same type of problems with articles that aren't as
obscure that we shouldn't just write this one off as
an anomaly.
__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
http://mail.yahoo.com
Poe, Marshall wrote:
> There is a more general consideration, tho: repeated notices in the
> *trusted* print press to the effect that WP is not trustworthy will
> drive people away. WP's reputation is on the line. So WP has both good
> legal and practical reasons to institute some sort of (let me just say
> it) formal editorial control over quality.
This is part of why I say we've peaked too early and will be able to
work much better on the encyclopedia when we're not flavour of the month
and our editors aren't being spooked by our current high rating. I
haven't seen a great many proposals to "remedy" this that won't risk
severely damaging the community that has produced what we have so far.
(It's one of the reasons we're explicitly not doing anything with the
ratings until we know what they look like.)
If the "trusted" print press turn away people who believe anything they
see on the internet, I suspect that would actually be better for us than
claiming we absolutely have to strangle the freedom that produced what
we have so far.
- d.
geni wrote:
>Is the old suggestion for putting a link to WP:TOOLS into the sidebar
>still active? Rename it to something like advance features and you
>could put the cite thing an other useful stuff there.
I *like* that one. I'm a big fan of simple and clear interfaces that
nevertheless have a "Wizards may do what they like and keep both
pieces" button.
- d.