Sorry, then!
> > It's an awful idea, but only because there's no way to
> > differentiate between accounts made for the purpose of good, and
> > those made for the purpose of evil.
> >
> > > On 16/08/05, David Gerard <fun(a)thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> > > > > Open question to all: do you think that new accounts should
> > be prevented
> > > > > from creating pages? Would it clean out VFD? Or is the idea
> > > > > fundamentally unwiki?
>
>
> Please note the above quote is from Alphax, not me!
>
> (gotta watch that trimming and those quote levels)
>
>
> - d.
I actually think this is more of a Schrodinger's cat type of problem. There's a 50% chance of a new user being good (or bad).
> Clearly we need developers to make an addition to the login creation
> screen!
>
> Please indicate the purpose of this account:
> [*] Good
> [ ] Evil
>
> I suppose one could argue that there should be a
> "Neutral" option too, and that everybody must choose it.
>
> :-)
>
> Stan
--
___________________________________________________________
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I think this is a great word to describe the phenomenon we are talking
about. It's very easy to stereotype such people as being trolls or
deliberate troublemakers, but it's hard to reconcile that with the
amount of good work they also do.
Something which is brittle can also be beautiful and functional. Handle
with care. :-) The only problem with brittle people is that they don't
bend, they break. So the rough and tumble of social interaction on
Wikipedia can often deteriorate very quickly in a way that less brittle
people have a hard time understanding. Moral condemnation comes easily
to hand, but it isn't always appropriate, and in any event is rarely
productive.
As with many others who have answered David Gerard's original post, I
have no answers, but I think the question of how we can better serve
such people is a great one.
--Jimbo
Let's call it "Nopedia."
It would contain no articles.
The policy, "no point of view" would require no enforcement.
It would satisfy inclusionists, because no articles would ever be deleted.
It would satisfy deletionists, because it would contain no crap articles.
It would satisfy the Wikipedia-whatever-it-is-for-Decency people because it
would contain no obscene images.
Jimbo Wales could be like the captain of the Snark, who
"had bought a large map representing the sea,
Without the least vestige of land:
And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be
A map they could all understand....
'Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!
But we've got our brave Captain to thank
(So the crew would protest) that he's bought us the best--
A perfect and absolute blank!'"
Okay, I'll get on it right away, just see if I don't!
Ed Poor
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bryan Derksen [mailto:bryan.derksen@shaw.ca]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 16, 2005 10:22 PM
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Welcoming Peter C. Wayner and...
>
>
> Fastfission wrote:
>
> >You know, the ultimate way to save VFD trouble is to just disable
> >editing altogether! Can I get an amen?
> >
> >
> Excellent idea! And we can remove all possible NPOV violations by
> blanking all of the existing articles. Imagine how this will ease the
> server load - we could finally enable the article version
> rating feature. :)
>
>
... the hundreds of good articles his class is about to contribute.
I put up a note about this in the Village Pump Miscellaneous section.
I hope some of us will try to keep an eye on things and try to make
this years' experience is more positive than last year's. Here's what
I said in the Pump, minus the links:
Peter C. Wayner (who wrote some books on cryptography and one on the
free software movement) is again giving a course on computer science
for non computer-science majors. One of the assignments is to
contribute an article to Wikipedia.
Last year, his students contributed about 600 articles. As he says on
his user page, "Some were great and some were just quick hacks turned
out to get some credit." Most of them went completely unnoticed by
Wikipedians. There was nothing in particular to identify an excellent
article on an unpublished work by Jane Austen as being the product of
a Dartmouth class exercise.
But. Maybe ten per cent of these articles were puff pieces on
subtrivial aspects of Dartmouth student life, talking about some
student activity in language that would have been appropriate to a
recruiting brochure, traditional games played in certain living
units, and so forth. The sudden arrival of a few dozen pieces of
Dartmouthcruft brought out the very worst in the Wikipedian community.
The final disposition of most of these articles was that they were
cleaned up and merged into Dartmouth College, which is a much better
article than it was two years ago, so even these articles were
beneficial, but along the way there was a great deal of unnecessary
incivility and hurt feelings.
This year, let's welcome the Dartmouth students and the hundreds of
decent articles they are about to contribute.
We will probably get a few articles on topics that seem too narrow to
be encyclopedic. Let's remember that redirects are cheap and that
anyone can merge-and-redirect, which is a far gentler process than
nomination for deletion. If we do feel a need to nominate any of them
for deletion, let's really adhere to the policies of
*civility and
*assume good faith and, oh yes,
*Don't bite the newbies.
Nobody is trying to spam us. And we have a standing invitation to
professors to engage in just such projects.
Welcome back, Big Green.
--
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/
It's an awful idea, but only because there's no way to differentiate between accounts made for the purpose of good, and those made for the purpose of evil.
> On 16/08/05, David Gerard <fun(a)thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> > > Open question to all: do you think that new accounts should be prevented
> > > from creating pages? Would it clean out VFD? Or is the idea
> > > fundamentally unwiki?
--
___________________________________________________________
Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.comhttp://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm
The UAE and SA each run the whole country's internet access through
small proxy subnets. However, the proxies appear to be open, at least
a bit, in places. Do we risk blocking the whole damn countries?
Is it worth excluding them from IP blocks when a name is blocked? (Is
this another instance of bug 550?)
- d.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com>
Date: Aug 15, 2005 8:34 PM
Subject: Re: Wikipedia e-mail
To: -----
I think what happened was that I blocked someone else (Boothy443 I
think) who had been using the IP, and so the IP was blocked as well
for a while. If it's clear now then good!
But if the Emirates proxy is blocked again, please do let the blocking
admin know, with the listed blocked name - that's how the admin can
work out which block it is and jnblock it.
- d.
On 8/15/05, ----- wrote:
> yes, but now its unblocked, so i cant remember.
>
> this is -----, this is just my backup mailbox cos i cant
> access my main one at the moment.
>
> On 8/15/05, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > I can't actually find a block on that IP or range. Did the message say
> > which username was blocked?
> >
> >
> > - d.
> >
> >
> >
> > On 8/15/05, ----- wrote:
> > >
> > > "Your IP address is 213.42.2.11. Please include this address, along with your username, in any queries you make"
> > >
> > > this IP address that you have blocked is the proxy that allows access for an entire country, the united arab emirates, by blocking this, thousands will be effected
> > >
> > >
> >
>
On Aug 16, 2005, at 4:00 AM, wikien-l-request(a)Wikipedia.org wrote:
> On 8/15/05, Haukur Þorgeirsson <haukurth(a)hi.is> wrote:
>
>>> I have a draft up at [[Wikipedia:School and university projects -
>>> instructions for students]]. Alterations appreciated, and anyone
>>> else
>>> willing to help please stick your name down...
I thought this was a little general and vague. I wrote a draft taking
a somewhat different approach at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dpbsmith/Dartmouth
Comments, discussion, and edits welcome.
--
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/
This might be of interest to some:
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/08/13/bbc_punks_wikipedia_.html -
Wikipedia articles (now VfDed) about a fictional popstar being added
as part of a viral marketing campaign. It raises the not unreasonable
question - how many of these are out there already?
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk
>> Still, someone wrote into boingboing with the following:
>>
>> "I can't say who I am, but I do work at a company that uses Wikipedia
>> as a key part of online marketing strategies. That includes planting
>> of viral information in entries, modification of entries to point to
>> new promotional sites or "leaks" embedded in entries to test
>> diffusion
>> of information. Wikipedia is just a more transparent version of
>> Myspace as far as some companies are concerned. We love it (evil
>> laugh).
Let's not get our knickers in a twist over this.
As a wise person once told me, "Don't ever think that an ad agency's
business is to sell the product to the consumer. An ad agency's
business is to sell the AD to the CLIENT."
That company probably lists viral marketing via Wikipedia as one of
their unique services. And charges for it. Sure, they can plant viral
information in Wikipedia. But how long does it stay there? And does
it have any effect in marketing products? Or is it just more
"subliminal advertising?"
They say their company "uses Wikipedia." They do not say whether the
results are effective.
"I can call spirits from the vasty deep."
"Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?"
"I can plan viral marketing in the vasty Wikipedia..." "Why, so can
I, or so can anyone..."
--
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/