WikiEN-l October 2006

wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org

135 participants
206 discussions

Re: [WikiEN-l] Corporate vanity policy enforcement
by charles.r.matthews＠ntlworld.com 04 Oct '06

04 Oct '06

"David Mestel" wrote > I don't think that "implied discretion" is a good idea long-term - > it's better to codify it in policy so that everything is consistent > and in the open. Apart from anything else, it's kind of inadvertantly > biting the newbies when stuff happens for reasons which aren't > explained. Well, as for explanation, when deleting a page one is supposed to fill in a Reason box, and something like 'promotional material' is a quite adequate explanation. But your reply shows that (per David Gerard, and others of course), we have dialogues here in two languages. Let's for the purposes of argument call them Wonkish and Arbish. In Wonkish, 'discretion' stands for certain grey and disreputable areas of policy, where what should happen is not yet properly regulated. In Arbish, however, and I speak here as an Arb with the publicly stated aim of keeping admins' discretion something meaningful, you have always to look behind applications of policy to see intention, and the application to the mission statement we have of writing the encyclopedia. In other words, discretion in Arbish is read as saying that pro-active admins are the first, second and probably third lines of defence of the project. It is much better to have them out there doing their best, and taking away the mop-and-bucket from a very few, than doing up the constraints ever tighter, because it is felt that this pre-empts misuse of admin powers. This debate, of course, will run and run. 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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Re: [WikiEN-l] No references in the "end product?"
by Daniel P. B. Smith 04 Oct '06

04 Oct '06

Three minor clarifications... first, our article on radioactivity is a redirect to "Radioactive decay," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_decay and that's the article to which my comments apply. Second, the Encyclopaedia Britannica Eleventh Edition's article on "Radioactivity" is considerably _longer_ than ours, so an equivalent citation density in ours would be less than fifty-four inline citations... I haven't got time to do the math right now but since our article has zero citations the ratio is still the same. Third, no, just for the record, I don't think E. Ru.'s 1911 article would be the best article to rely on, as of 2006, as one's sole source of information on radioactivity, a few things having been learned in the last century....

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Mywikipediaspace
by daniwo59＠aol.com 04 Oct '06

04 Oct '06

Hello I am currently reading the Terms of Service of Myspace. It is quite interesting. Remember, this is a social networking site, not an encyclopedia/dictionary/textbook/library/etc. As such, one would think that they would be a tad more lax than us. Not so. Note that I not suggesting that these policies are followed or that the millions of Myspace users have actually read them. Nevertheless, it is there in writing. People who sign up agree to this. Perhaps we can learn from them. Rule 5: Non-commercial Use by Members. The MySpace Services are for the personal use of Members only and may not be used in connection with any commercial endeavors except those that are specifically endorsed or approved by MySpace.com. Illegal and/or unauthorized use of the MySpace Services, including collecting usernames and/or email addresses of Members by electronic or other means for the purpose of sending unsolicited email or unauthorized framing of or linking to the MySpace Website is prohibited. Commercial advertisements, affiliate links, and other forms of solicitation may be removed from Member profiles without notice and may result in termination of Membership privileges. Appropriate legal action will be taken for any illegal or unauthorized use of the MySpace Services. Forbidden thing 11 is: displaying an advertisement on your profile, or accepting payment or anything of value from a third person in exchange for your performing any commercial activity on or through the MySpace Services on behalf of that person, such as placing commercial content on your profile, posting blogs or bulletins with a commercial purpose, selecting a profile with a commercial purpose as one of your "Top 8" friends, or sending private messages with a commercial purpose; As I said, I sincerely doubt most (any) Myspace members have read the Terms of Service, I can assure you that they are far more substantial than our own Terms of Service. Personally, I hope that the Board rectifies this. Danny

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Re: [WikiEN-l] How to deal with direct requests for articles?
by charles.r.matthews＠ntlworld.com 04 Oct '06

04 Oct '06

Zephram Stark wrote > A person who wants to contribute something noteworthy about themselves, or make a one-time contribution on another subject, does not have the time or resources to learn the procedures or establish their reputation. They can of course ask. I have been dealing offline by email with a professor in his 80s, who falls exactly into the category. 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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Reports of AFP using Wikipedia content without attribution
by Mathias Schindler 03 Oct '06

03 Oct '06

Hi, today I was informed that the German subsidiary of AFP (Agence France Presse), a news agency seems to have taken a significant amount of text about the Amish from de.wikipedia.org. In a phone call, the AFP office confirmed that the text was from Wikipedia and stated that this was against "AFP policy" because "wikipedia is not a citable source". They refuse to retract or ammend the story with proper attribution for Wikipedia and the license. On the other hand, AFP sued Google News in 2005 because in AFP's point of view, Google was violating their copyright. A short report about this event from today can be found (in German) at http://mathias-schindler.de/index.php/2006/10/03/einladung-zum-textvergleic…. I will update or correct anything there. Feel free to translate the text or refer to it. Mathias

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Re: [WikiEN-l] List of banned books
by charles.r.matthews＠ntlworld.com 03 Oct '06

03 Oct '06

Kim van der Linde wrote > That would amount to deleting around 90% of the article as unsourced........ Unsourced is not the same as unverifiable, naturally. 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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Re: [WikiEN-l] Porchesia
by charles.r.matthews＠ntlworld.com 02 Oct '06

02 Oct '06

Stan Shebs wrote > On a more serious note, this was an article created by a new user, with > no links from anywhere (so no watchlists to be triggered). You find these hoax things, often enough, lurking at the 'far end' of a Google search. 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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Re: [WikiEN-l] Citationgate: expertise and verifiability
by charles.r.matthews＠ntlworld.com 02 Oct '06

02 Oct '06

"Laura Scudder" wrote > I'm am very pro-citation when it helps us build a better encyclopedia, > but I'm anti-"let's footnote everything even though it appears in any > textbook on the subject and is totally uncontroversial, just to > satisfy a process decision". I think it's a horrid idea to have any policy on this which would allow people to spam us with inline references, for example, to their version of The Great American Calculus Text. Those books _all_ follow the pattern set down by Thomas of MIT in the 1950s. They are alike as two peas in a pod. They are written for money, and contain material that has all been known for 150 years. Charlee ----------------------------------------- Email sent from www.ntlworld.com Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software Visit www.ntlworld.com/security for more information

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Mywikipediaspace
by dmehkeri＠swi.com 02 Oct '06

02 Oct '06

> > A TOS doesn't necessarily have to be dense. > > I'm having a dense case of TOS - TLA Overload Syndrome - quietly in a corner > over here. > Terms Of Service. Which segues into my question: what Services can we possibly set the Terms for? What are we willing to come out and say we are providing? "The privilege of contributing to our encyclopedia?" Sounds like a one-sided contract. Or are we actually going to come right out and say: "in exchange for getting your company's name on the whatever'th most popular website..." Regards, Dan

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Mywikipediaspace
by charles.r.matthews＠ntlworld.com 02 Oct '06

02 Oct '06

"Stephen Bain" wrote > A TOS doesn't necessarily have to be dense. I'm having a dense case of TOS - TLA Overload Syndrome - quietly in a corner over here. 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