WikiEN-l February 2006

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184 participants
279 discussions

Re: UK press: Guardian tomorrow
by Michael Snow 11 Feb '06

11 Feb '06

Steve Bennett wrote: >On 2/10/06, Steve Bennett <stevage(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > >>Maybe we need a list of priorities for edits. >>Number one priority: no copyvio >>Number two: no vandalism >> >> >Actually number two would be no libel, wouldn't it. > > Actually, no. No libel is #1. No copyright infringement is #1A. But if I had to prioritize, for both legal and PR reasons I would put eliminating libel first. No vandalism is a distant #3, assuming the vandalism doesn't put anyone in legal jeopardy. --Michael Snow

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More AfD toxicity
by uninvited＠nerstrand.net 10 Feb '06

10 Feb '06

Let's consider this in context. Your original article text was: --- A '''Cart00ney''' (usually spelled with two zeroes) is a [[neologism]] originallly coined in the [[Usenet]] [[newsgroup]] [[news.admin.net-abuse.email]] to describe both [[spammer]]s who threaten legal action to prohibit being described as spammers — for example, being added to [[blacklist]]s — as well as the threats themselves. The use of the term is no longer restricted to spammers; it has expanded from its orignal meaning to include, for example, those who threaten [[Wikipedia]] administrators for taking action against them. ==External links== *[http://www.spamfaq.net/terminology.shtml#cartooney Definition at Spamfaq.net] *[http://www.cart00ney.org/ a list of cart00neys] {{compu-stub}} {{vocab-stub}} --- Savidan probably didn't recognize your name. The article, as written, did little to establish notability. We delete dozens of articles on neologisms every day, most of them by people who misunderstand the nature of the project. Many of them get speedied. It's the authors responsibility to establish notability in the first revision of new articles. We don't have "patrolled edits" or any sort of queues for RC patrollers to use to check back to see if an article gets better after 30 minutes. -- The Uninvited Co., Inc. (a Delaware Corporation)

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No more blocking people for who they *are*?
by Steve Bennett 10 Feb '06

10 Feb '06

Hi all, Just a thought in the wake of the pedophile thing. Could we agree not to ever again block people for what they are? No matter how disgusting, unpleasant, immoral etc. Such things always being at least somewhat objective, we should stick instead to only blocking people for actions. In other words: If someone says, "I'm a pedophile", then by policy this should not be a reason to block them. If, on the other hand, they are trolling, and it works, then that becomes a blockable action - trolling. I worry that there is a genuine slippery slope where "I am a pedophile" gets confused with "I am a terrorist", then "I am a member of Hamas" then "I support Eta" and so on and so forth. Is it not better to simply say "We do not block people for statements of who they are or what they believe"? Steve

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UK press: Guardian tomorrow
by David Gerard 10 Feb '06

10 Feb '06

The UK media has discovered the US Senate story and today is Media Batshit Day. I just did a Guardian interview for tomorrow (to be in both paper and online - the online version is 3x the size of the paper version, so it's always a good idea to ask!). So look out for it. There should be TV coverage as well, if Danny can match interviewees with interviewers fast enough - if everyone could try to record the assorted TV news tonight, that'd be great, particularly if you have a DVD recorder and/or can do multiple channels! We'll probably try to drag in Alison Wheeler as a backup UK media contact for *special* days like this. (Alison, you're drafted!) Other suitable UK volunteers who can get away from their desk by day at short notice might be good too. - d.

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Most referenced article ever?
by Steve Bennett 10 Feb '06

10 Feb '06

[[Katie Holmes]] 85 footnotes and a similar number of "bibliography" entries. Can anyone top that? :) Steve

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Guardian article: Doctoring the past - Wiki style (Patrick Barkham)
by David Gerard 10 Feb '06

10 Feb '06

Today's Guardian article is up: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1706597,00.html Not bad at all. Even my quote is accurate :-) Did anything hit TV news at all? - d.

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The cart before the horse: policy changes
by Jonathan 10 Feb '06

10 Feb '06

February 10, 2006 Dear Wikipedians: Would you be bold and update policy? Does it seem bolder to take administrative action without proper justification? This is what needs to be addressed. The foundations of wikipedia are based on (a) discussion, (b) discussion, and (c) discussion. Somewhere along the way was inserted others option: (d) block and (c) end of discussion. There are many reasons to start discussion, and there are some reasons to block, and there are even better reasons to continue discussion. Would you rather block and end discussion or attempt to follow the foundations and allow for discussion? Let's get to the point and work with that (to avoid a lengthy business like letter). Sometimes when the block is done, it puts the cart before the horse. The block is given but no discussion to justify the block is done until (maybe) some later time. Given that wikipedia is open content, the only justification that seems applicable for such swift action is if continual vandalism is in progress, and the block is the only way to stop it. However, blocks are given out much easier than that. We have examples of where blocks are given out that are not based on technicalities of policy, and I'll provide evidence below: It took about 10 minutes for a user to make a 3RR report and for the block to be instated. Reason: "Blocked for 24h for 3RR on the Template. Not technically 3RR on the Talk because the first edit wasn't a revert, just a total waste of everyones time. Dzontas: please learn to get along with people. D's complaints about personal attack I judge totally unfounded. William M. Connolley <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_M._Connolley> 22:21, 9 February 2006 (UTC)." [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:AN/3RR#User:Dzonatas ] Further discussion with wikipedians on #wikipedia led to the belief where the block was almost entirely undone. The block for the template was found as not valid since the first edit was not a revert, so both technically were not 3RR. Discussion continued on the #wikipedia to justify a block. It took about a half hour to find any decent justification. It took about an hour to pinpoint justification, which isn't explicitly stated in the Three Revert Rule policy. I agreed to a block on the basis that once one person contests an edit then discussion must follow on the talk page about the edit, like to find consensus before another edit. This is the policy change to make that would make this much clearer. The 3RR has implied such but it doesn't explicitly state it; although, a 3RR block has been used regularly on this basis. "The point is," it wasn't obvious. The policy change would make it obvious. Also realize in the case above, the user that made the 3RR report never did discuss the reason for his revert. Discussion did happen on the talk page, but none of the discussion specifically addressed the edit summary of the revert. The question about the reason for the revert was avoided and a block handed out instead. This needs also to be covered in policy to make sure that relevant discussion on the talk page justifies any revert; otherwise, they are subject to count towards a 3RR rule block on the person that doesn't answer the questions to justify that person's revert. I know by this process I have actually exploited a common tactical revert-war technique. That is to revert, not discuss the revert, and let the other user edit again until there is enough edits to make a 3RR report. An admin might block upon it, as in the above case proves it happens. Also, in the above case, the edit summary stated "gr" and later "grammar" but the user never stated the point of exactly where he thought the grammar was wrong enough to justify a revert - it is a personal attack to just comment without reason on someone's grammar, otherwise. Thanks for you time to read this. I plan to post diffs on this activity, but not on this mail-list. The block is the cart while the horse is the discussion. The horse needs to pull the cart -- it doesn't seem right other way around. I also expect mutual application of such policy. To continually apply it to some wikipedians while it is not equally applied to others implies seditious activity against wikipedia and wikipedians. Concerned, Jonathan

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Re: [WikiEN-l] UK press: Guardian tomorrow
by David Gerard 10 Feb '06

10 Feb '06

On 2/9/06, Phil Sandifer <snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote: > On 2/9/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote: > > Exactly. I'm not really sure what my point is here, but perhaps we > > should make a token effort to impress upon people that there *are* > > policies, and as long as they edit in ignorance of such policies, they > > should not claim any particular rights or presume anything in > > particular about the project. > Step #1 - Make the policies readable and intelligible. We should note that Steve has been working on just that, with the project to put a one-line description at the top of each policy or guideline. Now we need to hack away at the guidelines removing everything that's aimed at the clueless or at bad-faith editors, because they're the two groups that don't or can't read the guidelines, and writing aimed at them is the #1 source of instruction creep. Then we can get to work on making sense of badly-written policies ... - d.

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CVU -> WP:CVP? (was The Counter Vandalism Unit? Whaa?
by David Gerard 10 Feb '06

10 Feb '06

Fastfission wrote: >As for the project itself, I don't see it adding "process"; it seems >like a way to centralize certain resources and participation, which I >don't think is negative in any way. I think the CVU is a clear win for Wikipedia and holding back the masses (and I do mean *masses*) of vandalism. Curps in particular has done some amazing work with bot-based detection of vandalism, needed to counter the bot-based vandalism that is fashionable amongst the kiddies these days. You really would not believe the mountains of crap the CVU holds back. If the name is the real issue, I don't see anything wrong with calling it "WikiProject Counter Vandalism Project", which after all is what it is. - d.

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Hilarious--WoW
by The Cunctator 10 Feb '06

10 Feb '06

I know I'm coming late to the party, but Willy on Wheels is hilarious, as is the Wikipedia tribute page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vandalism_in_progress/Willy_on_Wheels And I remember when LMS threw a hissy fit because I was preserving home page vandalism, out of fear it would only encourage them. People these days are doing a better job than I ever could. Shouldn't this be in Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense?

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WikiEN-l February 2006