WikiEN-l October 2006

wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org

135 participants
206 discussions

Public Domain and Non-Commercial at the same time
by Bogdan Giusca 15 Oct '06

15 Oct '06

There's a peculiar copyright case for the governmental works from Philippines. Apparently, they are at the same time in the Public Domain and under a Non-Commercial/Permission license, or at least the current template claims so: "this work is only available in the public domain under a non-commercial and permission-based license" Also, it claims that the images should be used "in accordance with Wikipedia's fair use policy", but none of the 500+ images have any fair-use rationale... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:PD-PhilippinesGov

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Re: [WikiEN-l] RFA has gone weird
by charles.r.matthews＠ntlworld.com 14 Oct '06

14 Oct '06

geni wrote > More arbcom members in future can be arranged. You can bring a horse to water, but can you make it drink? Charles ----------------------------------------- Email sent from www.ntlworld.com Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software Visit www.ntlworld.com/security for more information

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"Doomsday" threat?
by Daniel R. Tobias 14 Oct '06

14 Oct '06

[[User:Instant Karma]] recently made a posting to [[User Talk:Jimbo Wales]] titled "The End Is Nigh", making a series of demands of Wikipedia (such as the removal of most sex-related material, the addition of an attempt to keep minors out of whatever remains in that area, and the removal of most pop-cultural stuff including reducing mention of Star Trek to a single article). It concluded with a threat of unspecified retribution of a "Doomsday Machine" nature which would allegedly result in the destruction of Wikipedia. Just thought you ought to know that we're allegedly all doomed now... :-) -- == Dan == Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/ Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/ Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/

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Trivial categories
by Bogdan Giusca 14 Oct '06

14 Oct '06

Should we have a category which says that the subject of the article (a mathematician) collaborated with another mathematician who collaborated with another mathematician who collaborated with with another mathematician who collaborated with Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős? Well, according to the apparent CfD result, we should. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_Oct… What is the limit of triviality? We have many people who love trivia, but I think we should try to keep trivia outside of the category system and keep only the defining characteristics for the articles.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] wtf
by Daniel R. Tobias 14 Oct '06

14 Oct '06

On 13 Oct 2006 at 11:24, <charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com> wrote: > It would be better of course to have a header for emails, > reminding people to boot up their sense of humour. Only British people have a "sense of humour"... us Americans have to make do with a mere "sense of humor". -- == Dan == Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/ Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/ Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/

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Where to discuss best approach to deal with defamitory article?
by bksimonb 14 Oct '06

14 Oct '06

I've been tasked to deal with a defamitory article written about the organisation of which I am a member. I tried reasoning with the main editor but as I, and others who have tried, have found that the guy acts like a tyrant and won't budge an inch. Even to the extent of reverting NPOV warnings. Obviously I am looking into all available routes to restore some kind of balance on the page. I raised a Wikiettiquette alert now the next stop seems to be mediation, which I am planning now. However there is absolute carnage going on in the discussion page with other editors. Can't bear to look! Right now I just want to talk with other more experienced Wikipedians who can just help me to streamline my approach. This whole thing is taking a lot of energy and is very damaging to the organisation. We are encountering questions all the time from people who have read the article. Certainly we are not expecting the article to be a glowing glorification of the organisation but would gladly settle for a less hateful and a more neutral account. I have a hunch this isn't the best forum to discuss this but would appreciate any pointers. I found an alt group but they seem to be focussed on gripes and Wikipedia controversy more than mutual help. Thanks & regards. -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Where-to-discuss-best-approach-to-deal-with-defamitor… Sent from the English Wikipedia mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

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Fleshlight
by daniwo59＠aol.com 13 Oct '06

13 Oct '06

Okay, this has gone far enough. It is remarkable that people have built all these theories on hypotheses as to what happened with Fleshlight, without actually knowing the facts. It is just ludicrous to think that I succumbed to pressure from a company. To begin with Mark Gallagher's ad hominem suggestions on that point, I have dealt with Walmart, Coca Cola, and GM (among other firms) on the phone. I have spoken with Congressmen and Senators. I have spoken to their lawyers. I have spoken to their PR people. I have spoken to their VPs in charge of advertising. I did not give in to their cajoling, their threats, or their attempts at bribes. To suggest that I did so with Fleshlight is simply ridiculous and does not merit any serious attention. Instead I invite you to spend a day in the office, or if that is too difficult, ask people who have been to the office and have heard me on the phone how I deal with those kinds of people. The fact is, we are dealing with a problem here. We have companies galore trying to spam us. OTRS is just a small indicator of this. We have adverting executives calling to see if what they can do to move their company to a higher position on a list, or how much it costs to get them on the front page. We are prime advertising. We will soon be the tenth largest website in the world, and "anyone can edit." It is not only top notch internet advertising, but it is free too. You see, these people dont see the difference between us and MySpace. They know that we will push up their Google rankings. They know that everyone will look them up on Google and find the Wikipedia article. And I repeat, it is free. For the Americans among you, it is like getting a free commercial slot in the last two minutes of the Superbowl. And I repeat, it is free. And for this prime slot, they want to make sure they look as good as they can. This is not hypothesis. We are dealing with it every day, from people who threaten to sue us for violating their First Amendment rights to post about their company to clueless people who think that if we put up a banner to their online poker site we will all make money. We get it from the big Fortune 500 companies and we get it from the local car rental shop, from the sister of a guy who is opening up a new real estate business in Durham North Carolina (I am not kidding) to reps of Coca Cola ("The article is biased"). We get it from Washington thinktanks led by former cabinet members to Flickr-like rip off sites (they offered us $35 for every photographer we send to them). As a site where advertising is anathema, we have to make a choice. Do we allow this? Personally, I am opposed to paid advertising on Wikipedia, but I am even more opposed to free advertising which we cannot monetize. As editors, we end up having to make choices. With our goals in sight, How do we continue being an encyclopedia, and not some advertising forum or MySpace? What is the difference between an article about Budweiser (which I believe we should have even though their beer is foul) and articles on every micro-brewery in the state of Wisconsin? Fleshlight is just an example of one such minor product. Yes, it was mentioned in the Village Voice. Big deal. My mother was mentioned in the Toronto Star in the 1970s, but that does not mean we need an article about her. Six other products were mentioned in the article (which was a survey of male sex toys, not a piece about Fleshlight per se), but that doesn't mean we have articles about them (see my earlier email for a survey of the article). One hit on Google News does not make something noteworthy, especially if it is not even an article about the topic per se, but rather just a few lines in an overview article (if you actually read the article online before citing it, you will see what I mean). For all those expressing indignation, I invite you to think about what should be included in an encyclopedia, even one the size of Wikipedia. Once you define that, consider what the definition excludes. Which brings us back to Fleshlight. It was the subject of a subtle edit war between the company that manufactures it, and a similar company which wanted to have an external link on the Fleshlight page. Fleshlight wrote "We are happy to let others view our product, but would like to limit editing privileges. This product is seen as taboo to many, so they would just assume destroy our displayed page. Is there anyway I could be placed as moderator for that single page, just Fleshlight, so changes can still be made when necessary and not having the company product slandered." By slandered they mean, showing a rival company. Their rival wrote, "I am quite upset. While I understand that everyone can edit pages as they want, I find it quite outrageous that I add and edit information about the Fleshlight at _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleshlight_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleshlight) I am an affiliate of Fleshlight and got the word about rules at WIKI that you can't link via affiliate links, but provide USEFUL links using your own domains regarding an WIKI entry." He wanted to add "my updates regarding facts, like unavailable colors of the Fleshlight." That was the slander. Add to this mix a guy who runs a Fleshlight fansite, which is essentially a porn site, who wanted sole control over links as well (i.e., link to his site only). Considering all this, I asked if Fleshlight really needs an article of its own. I consulted with people too. The overwhelming response was that this is spam and should be nuked. At first I thought it could redirect, but then I asked myself the following question--do we really want redirects from every possible product out there to generic articles? Ask yourself the same question. Better yet, go into a dollar store, look at the display of products and ask if we want redirects for all the rip-off brands in Wikipedia. And I nuked. Once again, I hope that this whole incident helps to clarify what the criteria for inclusion in Wikipedia are. At least let it launch that discussion. But to do that, we have to avoid all the rhetoric and be willing to make real decisions based on the underlying principles behind what Wikipedia is all about. Danny .

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Fleshlight
by wikipedia2006＠dpbsmith.com 13 Oct '06

13 Oct '06

It's unlikely that any utterly fresh new insights on this topic are going to come to light. Many have expressed their own points of view with great clarify. Danny has been party to the discussion and he has either heard and understood these points of view, or he has not. Either way, it is unlikely that further reiteration will change that much. Similarly, the discussion may or may not influence his future activities, but whatever that influence may be, it is probably complete, and extending the discussion will probably not have much affect on his future actions. I suggest the topic be put to rest.

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jello
by Ray Saintonge 13 Oct '06

13 Oct '06

FYI: I'm always pleased when our CBC makes reference to Wikipedia. This afternoon, after playing Tom Lehrer's "New Math", they refered to our note about his invention of the jello shot. What more evidence do we need for the usefulness of such information. Ec

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Re: [WikiEN-l] RFA has gone weird
by charles.r.matthews＠ntlworld.com 13 Oct '06

13 Oct '06

"David Gerard" wrote > Please enlighten me as to why it is good for adminship to be a > big-deal artificially scarce commodity. I'm not aware of discussion (recent, anyway) of what would be an ideal number of admins. What are the criteria for that? One per 1000 articles as a rule of thumb? Charles ----------------------------------------- Email sent from www.ntlworld.com Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software Visit www.ntlworld.com/security for more information

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WikiEN-l October 2006