I've abandoned my AndyL account on wikipedia and have moved to homeontherange
At the moment I'm still signing my talk posts as AndyL but that will end soon.
I'm wondering if it's possible to move my admin privleges from the AndyL account to homeontherange?
Thanks
I was going to post this as a reply to another posting, but my thoughts
have become somewhat general, and so I'm posting this as a new entry.
I have come to realise that our current process of requesting adminship
is at a sharp contrast to the wiki model in general. I have come to
believe that we are not following our own principles that we so highly
value.
Why do we let anyone edit? Because we believe that assuming good faith
is a good thing. We let people edit because they can't do any lasting
damage anyway; if they turn out to be editing in bad faith, we can still
revert their edits and block them later. No permanent damage done. We
also let people edit because we believe that they are innocent until
they show themselves guilty.
Incidentally, with admin powers, we handle it quite differently. Not
only does becoming an admin require majority support, but it is even the
case that many people vote "oppose" on the grounds of lack of
dedication, lack of a minimum number of edits, or lack of involvement in
community issues. They can apparently get away with an argument that
essentially amounts to saying "we can't really be sure they're innocent,
so we'll have to assume they're guilty for now". As a result, there are
people who are not admins even though they would never be doing anything
wrong if they were. Those people should be admins.
If we disregard for a moment that admins can delete images permanently,
which surely can be rectified in a future software update, admins cannot
do any lasting damage, just like editors. As such, their situation is a
quite close analogy to the case of the editors. If we applied the
current request-for-adminship philosophy to editing, we would have to
vote on everybody's right to edit before allowing them to edit!
Suppose for a moment that users were to start out as admins, and only
lose the admin powers when they abuse them. (No, I'm not suggesting
this, but let's explore this hypothetical scenario.) Suppose also that
if admin powers are removed from an account, all accounts that are
editing from the same IP also lose admin powers. Of course many of you
will object to this model, because users could just open a new account
from another IP to re-gain the administrative privileges. But if you
think about it, editors are in exactly the same position: If they're
blocked, they only need to edit from another IP to evade the block. We
already have the societal mechanics (policies and procedures) in place
to deal with this. The situation is exactly analogous.
However, I am not suggesting such a radical change.
As a first step, I would like to suggest to make it policy that "oppose"
votes must be accompanied by reasoning indicating the nominee's past
wrongdoing or potential for wrongdoing. It should not be permitted to
vote "oppose" just because someone has "only a few hundred edits", as
this is neither a crime nor a sign of bad faith. As a safeguard against
crackpots nominating themselves straight after their first edit,
however, I suggest that candidates must be nominated by an existing admin.
In the long-term, my suggestion is to abolish the requirement for
majority vote. Anyone who is already an admin is trusted; I think
someone nominated by an existing admin should therefore be given a
certain "initial trust" too. Thus, admins should be able to just appoint
other admins. As for removing adminship, ideally I would like to see the
process closely resemble that for blocking users. The things we have
collected at [[Wikipedia:Blocking policy]] have evolved over time; a
similar "deadminning policy", containing various behaviours that warrant
deadminning without a vote, is surely conceivable. In particular, I can
imagine the 3RR apply to page-protection, deletion/undeletion, or
blocking/unblocking other users. Having more admins, and therefore more
sensible admins ;-), makes this much easier to keep under control by the
community.
What if tens of people gang up, all become admins and then do lots of
bad stuff? Well, it is already possible for people to gang up -- and
indeed, gangs of web forum users have done so in the past.
Please discuss! :)
Timwi
One way that I think would increase the value of our "fair use" tags,
and prevent them from being just slapped around haphazardly, is if
they contained their justifications a little more explicitly, and also
explained themselves a little more specifically.
Here's an example I've been playing with (obviously it could enjoy
some editing, but I think my intent should be clear), for a fair use
tag which could be used on photographic portraits of individuals (not
promotional material, necessarily) used to illustrate articles:
--
This is a copyrighted photographic portrait of a notable
individual. It is believed that this qualifies under the fair use
provision of United States copyright law (see copyrights), because the
editor of Wikipedia who has placed this copyright tag believes it to
satisify the following criteria:
1. It is used for purely educational purposes and significantly
enhances value of the encyclopedia article it is being used to
illustrate and is not meant to defraud or otherwise harm the existing
copyright holder.
2. Alternative photographs under a free license have not been
located and seem unlikely to currently exist.
3. Its total pixel dimensions is far below any suitable print
resolution. As such it is only provides a limited amount of
reproducibility and in limited applications.
4. Its ultimate source and likely copyright holder is listed above
if known, for those seeking to license the photograph for their own
use. If it is not known, its immediate source is listed above, who may
be possibly contacted for copyright information as well.
5. It is being used on the English edition of Wikipedia, which is
sponsored by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, for the purpose of
creating an encyclopedia and spreading general knowledge. If you are
re-using Wikipedia content for another website (see our copyright
policy), these fair use criteria may not apply.
Please note that the posting of copyrighted material that does not
have the express permission of the copyright holder may be in
violation of applicable law and of our policy. Those with a history of
violations may be temporarily suspended from editing pages.
----
I didn't note all of the links and wikis, but suffice to say important
terms (i.e. "notability") would be linked, and the links to the
Foundation and Wikipedia itself would be hard-linked (URLs).
The benefits I see in a (long) tag like this is:
1. Its very use defines what characteristics the picture must have. It
would thus be very easy to spot whether or not it was incorrectly
placed or incorrectly used, and hopefully any user applying it would
understand what it meant. This is meant both to help police fair use
images, and also to help users who don't have a great understanding of
the requirements of the fair use clause.
2. It makes fair use look like serious business. Which it should be.
3. It clearly states that the fair use criteria may only apply to the
English Wikipedia, and that other re-users of content will have to
re-think whether the criteria applies to their our pages.
4. I think that if a copyright holder saw this, they'd at least
understand what they'd be going up against. Current fair use tags
provide no justifications for the decision (we're told it may have
been discussed, but we know that's not usually true) -- this one at
least has it built into it.
So... thoughts? Obviously the wording should be fixed up a bit, but
that can be done in the standard fashion. I'm more interested in
whether or not the concept is good (and whether some of the specifics
that I think are important are worthwhile -- i.e. the low print
resolution, which I think makes it clear that we are not trying to
encourage copyright violation). If so, this is something which could
easily be done, in one way or another, for all of our fair use tags.
FF
I have never agreed with the practice of "reverting all edits" by a
particular user. Either ban them outright, or take each edit on its
merits.
We need to improve the integrity of Wikipedia policy. Now that we have
the ability to communicate with blocked users via their user talk page,
things are different. And we need to relate this to our NPOV policy,
which has never really taken hold.
We say we want neutrality in the articles, but in the special cases
where NPOV *most* needs application, we tend to surrender to
POV-pushing. This is an egregious lapse, and is retarding Wikipedia's
acceptance as a reliable and authoritative source.
It's not the fact that "anyone can edit any time" which makes librarians
and college professors shun our work. It's that there is insufficient
dedication to policy enforcement. No one is really worried about "stray
marks" on the page. There are enough eyes to deal with simple vandalism.
It's the long-term errors of bias which hurt us.
Take for example, the Jerusalem article. A friend of mine who is a
PhD-holding religious scholar told me that it was riddled with subtle
digs, and thinly veiled (supposedly neutral) "historical" observations,
and language style, all meant to make some person's case or another,
over historical right to the land, specific religious sites and so
forth.
It's the same with countless other articles. I stopped even trying to
list them, long ago. It's like indexing a book. If there's only a few
references, you list them by page number. When something's mentioned all
throughout, you just say "passim".
So many times I get frustrated with the bias in the articles. I'm
especially frustrated because the problem could be solved so easily.
Simply adopt the following policy:
* Any addition to an article, which 1 or more users label as an "NPOV
violation", may be moved from the article into the text page.
* It must not be replaced, until there is sufficient agreement that an
accurate description of the dispute has been crafted.
Forget 3RR. It's mechanical and therefore (nearly) senseless. Let's
start using our judgment. We are all smart enough to do that.
Ed Poor
Hi,
I disagree totally with the notion of putting these templates on the article page. They run counter to the main principle of Wikipedia, that "anyone can edit." It seems like the learning curve for a new editor must be kept at a _minimum level_. Otherwise, you will not attract new editors. Further, for readers, they are just distracting.
As Ever,
Ruth Ifcher
--
-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Haukur Þorgeirsson <haukurth(a)hi.is>
> > I'm appalled by the idea. The articles are part
> > of Wikipedia; a project's work should be *invisible*
> > except the results themselves.
>
> As I said I don't care as strongly about placement
> of the WikiProject tags as the other metadata tags
> under consideration.
>
> I'd like to note that one of the things that
> initially pulled me into Wikipedia was the humble
> {{stub}} template.
>
> "... you can help Wikipedia by expanding it."
>
> I can? Really? Where do I sign up?!
>
> Regards,
> Haukur
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Hi everyone.
If this is going to be a problem then its all the more reason for
banning fair use.
As far as I can see there has been no discussion about obtaining more
public domain images, only on handling those which are problematic.
I have two thoughts:
First: I was, in regard to the London bombing, greatly impressed by
the images from Flickr (www.flickr.org) I see from their FAQ that one
of the licencing options they offer users is a public domain one,
which is presumably how we came by those we used. I spent a while
poking around their site and the spread of high quality images of
many subjects is awesome
Maybe contact could be made with them asking if they can give
publicity to Wikipedia and saying we are always on the look out for
PD images for Commons we can use in articles.
Second: There must be specialist editors like me who have book
collections with out-of-copyright material which could be scanned.
This gets over the hassle of reproduction fees from library sources.
We should have a drive to get more editors making PD images even if
they are for articles they have not written.
I am probably looking in the wrong place, but I have not found
anywhere detailed instructions for the best methods of scanning for
Wiki use. Much of the material I have comprises drawings and
engravings, and these need care in scanning to avoid dither. While
there is much detailed information about how to make the FTP transfer
and handling the image on the Wiki page. I cannot find in the
tutorials anything on how to make the scans to optimum Wiki
standards.
Tony Woolrich (AKA Apwoolrich)
--
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Hi
While I was reading a protected article, I discovered at the bottom of the page the following disclaimer
This work may be protected by copyright. Please see 17 USC 108.
This version of the article has been subsequently revised.
Besides normal editing, the reason for revision may have been that this version contains
factual inaccuracies, vandalism, or material not compatible with the GFDL.
----------------
I am *very* perplex. There are MANY reasons why an article can be protected on Wikipedia, and I would dare saying that having part of its content under copyright is probably the least probable reason for it to be restricted in edition. Protection is most of the time against vandalism or to cool down spirits. On the contrary, if an article contains factual inaccuracies or copyrighted material, it should be OPEN to editing so that it can be fixed as quickly as possible.
I perceive this disclaimer as possibly be meant to protect ourselves... but also as giving a very inacurate reason why we protect articles...
Second, WHY this reference to the US law code here?
Anthere
---------------------------------
Sell on Yahoo! Auctions - No fees. Bid on great items.
> And then there are the people who oppose because (a) he knows
> too much about the subjects about which he edits, and now (b)
> because...
>
> "Being an 'active' contributor I would see possible
> conflicts of interest if he would be an admin too"
>
> When did being an "active contributor" make you ineligible to
> be an admin? Here I was thinking this project was about
> writing an encyclopaedia. Am I going crazy, or has the world
> gone nuts?
Ian, you are right on both counts. There's nothing wrong with an admin
being knowledgeable or active. (By the way, I left a note on your talk
page on the same matter.)
Uncle Ed
> Anyone willing to defend this should go to
> http://tinyurl.com/8bxwp , because it's heading for a quick demise.
>
> -- Tim Starling
By my count, it's 8 support vs. only 3 oppose. Looks like it's here to
stay.
See also: [[Wikipedia:New features]]
Ed Poor
Developer Emeritus