On 18 Feb 2006 at 21:23, SJ <2.718281828(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/16/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote:
> > :-D Extend the length of the day beyond 24 hours.
>
> Now *there's* a project worth doing. Does this involve Superman and
> world-sized gyroscopes?
It *does* happen on occasion. If you use the UTC standard for
timekeeping, you get an extra second once in a while as leap seconds
get added to days (most recently on December 31, 2005). This,
unfortunately, isn't all that much extra time for Wikipedia editing.
A more substantial addition is made if you go by local time in areas
that use daylight saving / summer time, where you get a 25th hour
once a year when the clocks "fall back". Unfortunately, this is
balanced by another day in the spring when you "spring forward" and
lose an hour.
--
== 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/
Hi,
What is the worst possible thing that could happen if we removed
userpages altogether? Not user talk pages, but "hands off it's mine"
user pages.
Steve
Hi all,
Here is an overview of some brainstorming I and a few others have done
on the concept of task forces for improving policy (a task force being a
temporary organisation formed to work on a single defined task or
activity). Task forces would be broadly responsible for an area of
policy (for example, deletion, adminship, etc.), and would be tasked
with coming up with improvements to an existing policy and creation of
new policies. Please take "policy" to include both guidelines and policies.
General idea
Members of a task force would be appointed in some way (for example via
elections), and would discuss amongst themselves the problems with the
existing policy, how to improve it so it better serves building the
encyclopaedia, and the removal of policies which do not help the
development of Wikipedia. The various task forces would work the
community to get feedback on all aspects of their work, including
problems with existing policies, discussion of what works and what
doesn't, and comments on their suggested proposals.
After a task force as a group were happy with their suggested
modification of a policy, they would require consent from the community
to implement it. This would probably be done via a simple straw poll,
and due to the task force already having a mandate from the community to
develop changes, would be typically lower than the usual "consensus"
pass mark (e.g. a simple majority would be sufficient to implement the
change).
I would suggest a task force for each area of Wikipedia policy, such as
moving pages, each administrative tool (deletion, blocking, protection,
rollback), manual of style, adminship, bureaucratship, recent changes,
copyright, stubs, etc. Obviously, some task forces would have larger
roles than others - some task forces, such as one for bureaucrat-related
policy, simply may not be necessary due to the low numbers.
Use to Wikipedia
This would be useful for Wikipedia because of the increasing size of the
community. Due to its size, people are excluded from topics they may be
interested in discussing and debating but may not know are under
discussion purely due to the amount of things which are under
discussion. Unfortunately this means it is likely that good ideas are
excluded. Forming a body tasked specifically with reform of an area,
which actively solicits feedback from the community gives people a
single place to discuss topics they are interested in. In a large group,
decision making becomes difficult.
Inspiration
The general idea of this was inspired in part by select committees in
legislative bodies. In the House of Commons, select committees are
groups of MPs, from all political parties, each one dedicated to a
different government department. Their role is to hold the government to
account, solicit feedback from the general public, and to report to
Parliament. While of course a direct comparison between Wikipedia and a
legislative body is naturally flawed, the concept of a small body of
people, interested and dedicated to a specific field, to help improve
the system to improve its functioning is a good one and works well in
practice.
Things to consider
* How would task forces be created?
* How would members of a task force be appointed?
* Is a single "policy committee" a better idea than having multiple task
forces?
* How do we ensure that a task force is representative of opinion across
Wikipedia/has community support?
* How do we ensure that time spent dealing with policy does not affect
contributors' time spent on encyclopaedic articles?
Thoughts welcomed! I've also put this on Wikipedia, at:
--> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Talrias/Task_forces_proposal
Chris
--
Chris Jenkinson
chris(a)starglade.org
"Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
geni wrote:
>On 2/17/06, Snowspinner <Snowspinner(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>I would like to see all userboxes done through substitution instead
>>of making TfD weep openly, which this would do.
>>
>>-Phil
>>
>>
>Fair use is difficult enough to sort out as it is. If they are useing
>un subst templates I can kill the fair use vio in seconds. Otherwise I
>have to go through every person with the image on their user page and
>ask them to remove it.
>
>
If it's not fair use, don't ask, remove it for them. Then leave a
friendly note on their talk page explaining what you've done.
--Michael Snow
At http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Wikipedia:Proposed_wheel_warring_policy , discussion has died down
and we have three different proposed policies. So I'm taking it to a
straw poll. Feel free to register your support and opposition of the
policies proposed as well as your comments—depending on how this
goes, we'll decide the next step from there.
--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch
Users of Wikipedia,
I write in earnest emotional trauma. I am a self-diagnosed wikiaddict, both
in editing and reading, I have been a prolific wikipedia user and editor for
quite a while now, I am not sure exactly how long, but I feel suitably
attached to wikipedia to feel sincerely aggrieved, due to my recent
blocking. My username is Jdcooper, and my IP address 128.243.220.42. When
attempting to revert some vandalism today I was informed that User:Golbez
has blocked me with the highly descriptive reasoning: "vandal". As someone
who has never so much as THOUGHT of vandalising an article in my life, and
as someone who gets highly troubled by wikivandalism, I was, I feel
legitimately, sent into a devastating panic by such allegations. My only
explanation is that, as I am editing from a university network (University
of Nottingham, Great Britain, if anyone cares) with over 5,000 users,
vandalism from one of said users may have been disproportionately punished.
Whatever the case, I can assure everyone, particularly Golbez, that I am the
furthest from a vandal you could ever hope to meet. I am a
non-confrontational user who generally busies himself with correcting
spelling mistakes, reverting vandalism, merging duplicates and sorting
stubs. I have e-mailed Golbez about the misunderstanding (as I am sure this
is) but I am unfamiliar with this kind of process (that of unblocking), as,
not being a vandal, this has never happened to me before. I urge someone who
can help me to do so, as I am anxious to get back to editing, my life is all
but meaningless without it.
Yours hopefully,
Jdcooper
It would mean that my lists of things to do, lists of things I have done, useful links, and suspense lists of tags I've put on articles would have to go somewhere else, probably killing portability for those items.
>
> From: Steve Bennett <stevage(a)gmail.com>
> Date: 2006/02/17 Fri AM 11:32:48 EST
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org>
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Userboxes: A radical proposal
>
> Hi,
> What is the worst possible thing that could happen if we removed
> userpages altogether? Not user talk pages, but "hands off it's mine"
> user pages.
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
This fellow was banned as User:Amorrow for vicious personal attacks
and threats against other users, and again as User:Pinktulip. His
personal attacks have escalated to stalking and threats sent to other
editors' employers. Fairly obviously, he's *remarkably* unwelcome on
anything to do with Wikipedia.
I'm trying to build up a pattern for a strong complaint, and I'm also
rolling back every edit from him I see (making the edit again by hand
if it's a good one). If you see any edits fitting the pattern, please
email me or leave a note on my talk page.
- d.
The wikimedia foundation makes comparatively little from selling
shirts, so I've put together a new store for them on spreadshirt
(which has higher quality plot prints, not just digital prints -- and
which I am not in any way affiliated with, for the record) and come up
with a few new designs and a fashion-y logo-ish thing. (I'm not a
designer by trade, so I'm sure these could be improved on.)
The store is at https://www.spreadshirt.com/shop.php?sid=21410 -- let
me know what you think (though for god's sake don't buy anything from
it yet; nobody but the hosting/shirtmaking company will get any
money).
Also, who else exactly should I contact about this?
Ben Yates
Wikipedia blog - http://wikip.blogspot.com
Excuse me? I am blocked because my IP was used by a vandal???? This I am
assuming is another asinine attempt by a sanctimonious Admin to stop
vandals by blocking an entire IP vs. the individual user... I looked at
the user ( BDOG) who supposedly vandalized something and deserved a
block and I noticed that he didn't even have any contributions other
than the sandbox nor was he even given a vandalism warning... Curps pull
your head out... This is BS and you had better have me unblocked PRONTO!
Seriously... blocking an IP address when he ( Curps) could have just
blocked the user? This has got to stop... This "Admin" has repeated
requests on his talk page to stop using autoblock and apparently he is
quick to ban entire blocks of IPs... I will change this when I become an
Admin.
Someone Please contact an Admin to correct this situation... Curps is
clearly being a Dick.