This is beginning to become somewhat of a significant problem...
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Promophoto&diff=25617866…
On October 15, someone changed [[Template:Promophoto]] quite
significantly. The old text read that "This work is a copyrighted
promotional photo with a known source [...]" The new text reads that
"This work is a copyrighted promotional photograph of a person that is
'''known''' to have come from a media kit or similar source."
I can see the reasoning, that works which are not from a media kit or
similar source are not acceptable. But I think that changing the text
of such a template is very dangerous.
Looking at "what links here", there seem to be several instances of
tagged images which probably did not come from a media kit or similar
source. That is to say, I can't really say for certain that they
definitely didn't come from a media kit or similar source, but they
give no indication that they were, and they were tagged before this
came into play.
This is bad for oh so many reasons. I won't get into the legal ones,
in part because I'm not sure who exactly is to blame, but it should be
enough reason that someone might come along, see this image, and
assume that it's part of a press kit, because, well, *it says it is*.
Anthony
> It can be, yes. But as in the Siegenthaler incident, there
> are cases where there is an unsourced negative claim that
> anyone could easily spot and remove. You don't need to be an
> expert in anything to know that claiming someone was briefly
> suspected of an involvement in the Kennedy assassinations
> requires a source and should be instantly removed if there is
> no source.
> Right, but this wasn't a "potentially libelous" or negative
> article, I assume? If it says "Such and such is a journalist
> in India, he worked here, he worked there" then fine, tag it
> {{POV-check}} and ask for sources. If it says "Such and such
> is a NeoNazi activist..." or "Such-and-such was convicted of
> rape..." then if there is no source, blank it!
>
> --Jimbo
It strikes me that you are giving directives which are not spelt out
in [[WP:V]] (or would it be [[WP:BLP]]. They sound very reasonable,
but perhaps this new policy of "delete all unsourced potentially
libellous material no matter what" should be made more public.
Yes, it is described in many places that potentially libellous
material does not belong. But there is a difference between "it
doesn't belong" and "actively look for it and destroy it unless it has
rock solid references".
>From an earlier post:
>Totally! What you do in such a case is give the article an aura of
>having been checked or written by real Wikipedians, when it's still the
>same crap some anon stuck in there in the first place.
This is another argument for having proper quality tags/stable
versions/verified versions. There are many people who make formatting
changes to articles without reading them, such as the various
wikiprojects for punctuation etc. I don't think we should discourage
them. The software should simply make a clearer distinction between "X
looked at this article, thought it was ok, and added a full stop" and
"X simply added a full stop".
Hell, even a couple of extra edit summary tags would help. We have
"minor edit", why not "proofread", "checked sources" or "checked for
unsourced libellous material"?
Steve
Peter Mackay wrote:
>If you don't want to get involved, and I can appreciate that you have better
>things to do than be continually stamping out stupid little fires, why not
>get (say) half a dozen editors you trust to have sensible heads on their
>shoulders, point them in the direction of the stupid little problem and ask
>them to keep an eye on it. Pick a different half-dozen each time. Think of
>it as an unofficial jury duty. Solid, steady, experienced editors are going
>to do the right thing, quench the flames, monitor the situation and if
>things get out of hand, they will call for assistance from their own
>resources. In effect, they put the thing on their watchlists.
That's pretty much what I'm asking for ;-) Preferably people less
inclined than me to call a spade a fucking shovel.
- d.
Someone created {{User pedophile}}. While almost anyone would think
this was created as a vehicle for trolling and personal attacks, the
creator actually did create it for the purpose of finding and blocking
paedophiles from editing, since *of course* they would put it on their
own page.
Someone went "wtf" and killed it. Then someone else RECREATED it. Then
it was put on TFD. Then someone else killed it. Then someone else
recreated it *because it was in the process*.
A sample of the depths of Wiki discussion can be found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:AN#Blocking_self-identified_pedophiles
What happens is that really really stupid ideas get floated and
discussed, but people who aren't stupid avoid the discussions because
their brain will fall out if they try ... so then the people who like
the stupid idea consider they've formed a 'consensus' amongst all
those interested, and think it's the will of the community to push the
really stupid idea.
I think we really, really need a Wiki Stupidity Patrol to go to really
dumb discussions and attempt to inject sense into them.
- d.
MGM wrote:
>On 2/3/06, asd asdh <chemancheche at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> ZOE IS A TERRORIST SYMPATHIER, BLOCKS AMERICAN PATRIOT FOR REPORTING
>> TERRORIST
>Exactly how did this message get through?
wikien-l is the official place for complaints listed on the block
message if you can't get through to the admin. So we probably have to
let at least the first of each of these through.
Consider it testament to some fine admin work ;-) Zoe has a powerful
distaste for wikien-l, but I pointed her at this one.
- d.
stevertigo wrote:
>With that said, it might be best to avoid using
>pejoratives to refer to people, David. Youre English;
>surely you can craft your concepts with a bit more
><wit. I of course am no stranger to the need for
>clarity, but if were going to take it to that level,
>then you're talking about a kind of overhaul of
>current WP structure and WP culture. Same canine
>complaining --different context.
I'm Australian, actually, so I tend to call a spade a fucking shovel
;-) But jeez. I can euphemise "this is jawdroppingly, mindbogglingly
stupid" and the people who will be offended by their stupid actions
being called "stupid" will only not be offended if it's so euphemised
they don't understand their action is being called "stupid." (And they
seem to have difficulty IME distinguishing between themselves and
someone noting evidence of grossly defective judgement on their part.)
However, I take your point.
- d.
Stan Shebs wrote:
>Andrew Gray wrote:
>>On 03/02/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
>>>So what do you suggest we call it when someone blanks the featured
>>>article and overwrites it with "COCK COCK COCK COCK COCK FUCK ASS
>>>COCK GAY LOLWTFBBQ"?
>>"Uninventive"?
>I know! I know! It's a "cry for help", and the Foundation should
>offer free but non-judgmental therapy.
I love everyone, but the amount of Tough Love they need strikes me as
a waste of good hammers.
- d.
geni:
>Try thinking about people a second. People who are prepared to sit
>there day after day fighting off vandalism are a little different from
>others. Oh a lot of people go through a vandle fighting stage but they
>burn out on that. That means we need a constant stream of new
>recruites and ways to try and get the old hands stay on. CVU helps
>with both. We know from "internet wars" that there are a fair number
>of combat orentated internet users. CVU takes that and channels it
>into something useful.
*ahem* not that I have ever resembled that remark at all, or
frequently start my day with [[WP:ANI]] and [[WP:AN]] over my morning
coffee, looking for the latest sources of trouble to deal with ...
- d.
Wikipedia's still great, I love it, but really. The Wikipedia Counter
Vandalism Unit?
Let's just strap on the jackboots and start humming Beethoven's 5th.
Silly, silly me, thinking the Wikipedia Militia was bad. They've even
got their own freaking logo! Which, if I'm not mistaken, is a gross
copyright vio.
"Semi-protection" is also something that bothers me no end. As does
the concept of needing to "semi-protect" talk pages.
Wikipedia doesn't need protection. It needs participation. It's not a
piece of china, folks.
Neither is it some kind of dystopian arcology that needs paramilitary
posses threatening people around every corner.
<crazy old guy rant>There's TOO MUCH PROCESS going on in articles
these days. Too many damn boxes!</rant>
Normally we're very parsimonious about protection. This comes from the
fact that Wikipedia's main strength is that articles can be edited,
and historically we have found this beneficial. I'm concerned about
what I see as officious protection of articles that have been
temporarily undeleted and are being actively edited, in good faith,
during the undeletion discussion. For instance, the article Patrick
Alexander (cartoonist), about a published cartoonist, was edited by
User:DollyD on 30 January after being undeleted during a DRV debate.
User:Splash than protected this article and covered it with a
template. DollyD's edits had added an external link and two paragraphs
about the cartoonist's history; it seems counter-productive to try to
prevent such productive edits, which might well have impacted people's
decisions on whether this article should have been deleted in the
first place.
Now I don't doubt that Splash believed that he was in some way
preventing some kind of harm being done to the article when he
protected it, but I cannot understand what possible form that harm
might have taken. Why was this done? Why are we preventing this wiki
from operating on articles during an undeletion discussion in which a
good faith undeletion request has been acted on for the purpose of
that discussion and an editor is actively improving it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Deletion_review#On_protecting_a…