WikiEN-l January 2006

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177 participants
274 discussions

Re: Requests for rollback privileges
by Redvers ＠ the Wikipedia 06 Jan '06

06 Jan '06

From: Chris Jenkinson <chris(a)starglade.org> > Given the recent discussion about admins, and some > thoughts about > raising the bar, I thought I might bring up an old > proposal of mine, > which is to give rollback privileges to deserving > users who request it. Is the current system (of a rollback add-on for those "in the know") broken? If not, does it need to be fixed? I ask only for information. :"REDVERS" ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Photos NEW, now offering a quality print service from just 8p a photo http://uk.photos.yahoo.com

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Re: The userbox fad
by Michael Snow 06 Jan '06

06 Jan '06

jayjg wrote: >On 1/5/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay(a)bigpond.com> wrote: > > >>>From: wikien-l-bounces(a)Wikipedia.org >>>[mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of jayjg >>>Sent: Friday, 6 January 2006 10:26 >>>To: English Wikipedia >>>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad >>> >>>On 1/5/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay(a)bigpond.com> wrote: >>> >>> >>>>>From: wikien-l-bounces(a)Wikipedia.org >>>>>[mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of jayjg >>>>>Sent: Friday, 6 January 2006 09:24 >>>>>To: English Wikipedia >>>>>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad >>>>> >>>>>On 1/5/06, Peter Mackay < peter.mackay(a)bigpond.com> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>>>From: wikien-l-bounces(a)Wikipedia.org >>>>>>>[mailto: wikien-l-bounces(a)Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of jayjg >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>>>There are better social clubs available on the net. If socialising is >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>truly their main interest, then they'll go elsewhere soon enough. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>There are no social clubs available on the net with the prestige of >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>>Wikipedia. It is a top 20 website. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>Surely, using your own definition, that would mean that there are 19 >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>more attractive ones? >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>Not really, since the others don't allow people to do this kind of thing. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>Ah. So you see Wikipedia as a social club. A prestigious social club. >>>> >>>> >>>Actually, I've been arguing the exact opposite. Are you sure >>>you're reading my e-mails? >>> >>> >>You said: "There are no social clubs available on the net with the >>prestige >>of Wikipedia." That looks like a statement that Wikipedia is the most >>prestigious social club available on the net. >> >> >I was responding to *your* e-mail, in which you first introduced the concept >of Wikipedia as a social club, and suggested there were better ones around. > >Are you all done playing games? > > I'm not suggesting the word-twisting should continue, but this entire discussion seems to have been carried on in ignorance of the fact that there is, in fact, a better alternative for people who choose their online communities based purely on the amount of traffic they get. MySpace currently ranks 13th according to Alexa, still quite a few spots ahead of Wikipedia. I'm not sure that prestigious is the word you're looking for (your average pundit would probably resort to the tried and true "hip"), but whatever it is they've got, it was worth $580 million to Rupert Murdoch. --Michael Snow

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia block dispute
by MAURICE FRANK 06 Jan '06

06 Jan '06

In sympathy. Following common sense you cite Wiki's rules. But as a long line of us have found here, Wiki doesn't have any rules, that are for taking literally. Iit only has "spirits of rules" for interpreting in its overall interests not in yours. They will tell you here "You're not entitled to anything". You were entitled to be told that before you ever joined, though. You would have preferred that. Most of the world would prefer that too. That's why most of the world is starting to write critical newspaper reviews of Wiki and accord it lightweight status as a source. Keep that bright in your heart + watch it happen. wikien-l-request(a)Wikipedia.org wrote: Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2006 01:29:39 +0000 From: Kevin Mulligan Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia block dispute To: wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org Message-ID: <43BDC803.6060606(a)kebeol.net> --------------------------------- To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new Yahoo! Security Centre.

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Wikipedia block dispute
by Essjay -Wikipedia- 06 Jan '06

06 Jan '06

First, it would have been nice for Kevin to either email me, as the blocking policy suggests, or leave a note on his talk page; however, as we all know, it is much more satisfying to burn an admin at the stake via the mailing list rather than try to resolve the situation directly. I feel it such a waste to have a dozen different ways to contact me listed on my talk page and have none of them be of any use to him. I issued the indefinnate block after Kevin trolled Cool Cat and several other users, including Anthere, over a completely inappropriate userbox. I settled on an indef block because he admitted that his intention in the entire situation was to troll, and we all know that trolling is the last thing Wikipedia needs, although it certainly receives more than its share. I announced the block in #wikimeda, and no other admin saw fit to adjust it, although there were several (including two Board members, and, if I remember correctly, Jimbo himself) in the channel and actively discussing the matter. Further, the block was recorded in the block log, as all blocks are, and no other user saw fit to raise the issue on my talk page, AN/I, or elsewhere. Given that several other users have been affected by the resulting autoblocks, I'm willing to reduce the block to 24 hours (from whatever time I set it) and be done with the matter, provided that, as Kevin asserts that he has been a upstanding contributor for a long time, he gives up trolling and goes back to making useful edits. If he intends to continue trolling, however, I'm not inclined to reduce the block, as why would I unblock someone so they can return to trolling. I don't normally get the mailing list emails, so if another admin sees a response from Kevin indicating that he has given up trolling and would like to be unblocked, please feel free to unblock, and leave me a note on my talk saying that it has been done. If one of you disagrees with the block (and I'm sure there will be at least one), I invoke what I have written on my userpage: <quote> I strongly encourage other administrators who feel I have made an action inappropriately to take the appropriate action to rectify it and follow up with a note to me. </quote> If, by some odd chance, Kevin would like to email me directly, instead of involving the entire mailing list, he is welcome to do so. I'm also available by the other twelve methods listed on my userpage. As always, peace be with you all. Essjay --------- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Essjay Wikipedia:The Free Encyclopedia www.wikipedia.org _________________________________________________________________ Dont just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/

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Wikipedia block dispute
by Kevin Mulligan 06 Jan '06

06 Jan '06

Hi, I've just received a block from Wikipedia of "indefinite duration" by the user Essjay. I was blocked for trolling on the user Cool Cat's talk page[1] by leaving a joke userbox and then making a mildly offensive comment as he proceeded to "feed the troll". In this comment I admitted to trolling and user Essjay saw this as grounds enough to ban me immediately for an indefinite period. Essjay left a comment[2] on my talk page stating that he had blocked me "in line with the Arbitration Committee's ruling that simple vandals and others who engage in overt, easily demonstrable vandalism can be blocked immediately." I accept that I did wrong by trolling on Cool Cat's page but what I did was not vandalism but a very minor personal attack, which is, according to Wikipedia's policy, to be treated in an entirely different manner. In fact, it states clearly under on [[Wikipedia:Vandalism]], under the "What vandalism is not" heading that personal attacks are not vandalism. The Wikipedia Blocking Policy itself states that for personal attacks should only be considered in "extreme cases" and goes on to note that the practice is always controversial. The Blocking Policy itself goes on to say: "Logged-in users that do essentially nothing but vandalism may also be blocked for the same time periods. However, user accounts that perform a mixture of valid edits and vandalism should not be blocked in this manner. Blocks should not be used against isolated incidents of vandalism." I have had my Wikipeda account since early 2004 and have since made over 1200 edits[3], and my edits to Cool Cat's talk page are the first which can possibly be considered as misconduct. Considering all of the above I am very disappointed that I have been treated this way by Essjay. It seems to me as though he has acted in gross violation of the Wikipedia policies as far as my ban is concerned. I should like it to be revoked or be given a reason why it should remain there rather than the alternate avenues of resolution, as suggested at WP:NPA, be explored. Regards, Kevin Mulligan [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Cool_Cat/Archive/2006/01#New_user_box [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AKevin_Mulligan&diff=3… [3] http://tools.wikimedia.de/~kate/cgi-bin/count_edits?user=Kevin+Mulligan&dbn… -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.14.13/221 - Release Date: 1/4/2006

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Want to publish English version of Wikipedia on DVD and need help/advice
by Richard Seltzer 06 Jan '06

06 Jan '06

I publish books (mainly public domain) on CD and DVD. You can see my offerings at http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat I would like to publish a DVD that includes the full text of Wikipedia, peferably as a set of interlinked html pages (easy for a novice to use, and with no need for a database). The DVD would also include dozens of other reference books. I understand (thanks to Lars Aronsson) that Directmedia Publishing in Berlin (www.directmedia.de) put the German Wikipedia on DVD (ISBN 3-86640-001-2). It sells for $10 on www.amazon.de, and $1 of that goes to the German branch of the Wikimedia Foundation. I would like to do something similar for the English version. I would sell it for $12 since it includes other works as well and also since I provide free shipping inside the US. I could also contribute $1 for each DVD sold to the Wikimedia Foundation (or whatever branch of that is appropriate). In addition, I would like to update the DVD about once a month. I downloaded 20051105_pages_articles.xml.bz2 823 Mbytes I uncompressed that file (using ZipZag) to 20051105_pages_artcles.xml 3.5 Gigabytes But what can I/should I do next? The xml file is too big to open in my IE browser (and too big for any customer to open either). I was hoping to get a set of inter-linked files (similar to the way downloads of the CIA World Factbook are presented), so anyone could open a home page and navigate to the the rest. Is there anything I can do (with my Windows PC) to convert the downloadable files to this format? Or could anyone out there in the Wikipedia community help me? Thanks very much. Best wishes. Richard Richard Seltzer, seltzer(a)samizdat.com, 617-469-2269, http://www.samizdat.com A library for the price of a book http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat A summary of our book publishing projects http://www.samizdat.com/orientation.html

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Get inspired by the story of the Encyclopedie
by David Gerard 06 Jan '06

06 Jan '06

http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/entertainment/13541042.htm We should do so well! - d.

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Re: The userbox fad
by Michael Snow 06 Jan '06

06 Jan '06

Anthony DiPierro wrote: >On 1/5/06, Stan Shebs <shebs(a)apple.com> wrote: > > >>While I'm generally in favor of broad latitude for user behavior, >>there are some people who are simply net negatives, and it is in our >>interest to get them to go away. I've come to steer away from most >>of that kind of debating, because the encyclopedia benefits more >>from me applying myself in areas where I have specialized skills, >>knowledge, and reference sources. But sooner or later we're going >>to have to develop better ways to filter out the unhelpful. >> >>Stan >> >> >You could always turn Wikipedia into an exclusive club that people can >only get into if they can prove themselves worthy. > Hardly what he's suggesting. Filtering out the unhelpful means removing people from the "club" after they've proven themselves unworthy, not requiring them to prove worthiness before getting in at all. We already do the former, but optimizing the filtering process is a bit challenging. For similar reasons, we constantly struggle with the filtering process currently known as "Articles for deletion". Since this one deals with people even more directly, it should not be surprising that a happy medium is difficult to find. --Michael Snow

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Proposal on userbox disagreement
by SCZenz 05 Jan '06

05 Jan '06

Here's what I think we should do. I don't expect it to be popular, but compromises never are... 1. The userbox wikiproject go through and get rid of all userbox images used that have inappropriate copyright permissions for userpages, including fair use images. Likewise they make sure there are no meta-template issues in the userboxes. The Wikiproject agrees to police these problems itself in the future. 2. Kelly Martin aknowledges that there are many serious contributors who like userboxes, so her decision to delete userboxes in defiance of those contributors' opinions was an overreaction. 3. We all go back to the live-and-let-live attitude that lets us write an encyclopedia. SCZenz

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Requests for rollback privileges
by Chris Jenkinson 05 Jan '06

05 Jan '06

Given the recent discussion about admins, and some thoughts about raising the bar, I thought I might bring up an old proposal of mine, which is to give rollback privileges to deserving users who request it. The proposal is at: --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_rollback_privileges I'd be grateful for any comments on the proposal, and if you support it, please leave a note on the talk page. Thanks, Chris -- Chris Jenkinson chris(a)starglade.org "Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful." -- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

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WikiEN-l January 2006