http://news.com.com/Growing+pains+for+Wikipedia/2100-1025_3-5981119.html?ta…
"Thus, to avoid future problems, Wales plans to bar anonymous users from
creating new articles; only registered members will be able to do so.
That change will go into effect Monday, he said, adding that anonymous
users will still be able to edit existing entries."
Why were Wikipedians the last to know about this? I only saw some
discussion on the mailing list about this, but nothing final. Why do we
have to learn of this from the media instead of straight from Jimbo?
This is really disturbing.
John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])
>From time to time, I come across complaints about the "admin subculture" at
Wikipedia, and there are times when I've been struck by the fact that while
som/most admins make a sincere effort at applying policy, guidelines and
their judgment consistently, others seem to have absolutely no difficulty
abandoning any semblance of fairness if other considerations are more
weighty.
People who raise the issue in this forum are typically frustrated - they are
told that either being an admin is "no big deal," or that "the system works
pretty well," or "stop being a malcontent," all in so many words.
At the same time, there is an ongoing debate about the various trends
(userboxes, lawsuits, editors with inferior intellects) that threaten the
existence of Wikipedia.
I have my own opinion about what threatens Wikipedia most (a decay of
intellectual integrity for the sake of conventional wisdom, SPOV, and
appeals to authority that in turn breed slovenly thinking), but I really do
want to weigh in on an appeal that the admin community - whether it is a
subculture or not - give some serious thought to how the reinforce
accountability around the WP core standards.
Being an admin is a big deal whether we want it to or not, because admins
have it in their power to do really really annoying things to editors. Aside
from 24-hour blocks, locking articles in various ways, closing discussions
on AFDs, CFDs, etc., they also seem to enjoy a certain level of immunity
against complaints. There is, as far as I can tell, a presumption that
anyone who complains about an admin is a bit of a narcissist or
troublemaker. There are also constant allegations that some admins are
softer on people whose POV align with theirs, etc.
I think that the open source philosophy should be preserved, so I'm
reluctant to add more rules and processes than absolutely necessary.
However, I do think that some principles should apply, whether they are
instituted formally or not:
* Admins should be able to defend their actions in light of Wikipedia
policy, guidelines, or accepted practice. In other words, if an editor
protests a decision made by an admin, it should be incumbent upon (and easy
for) the admin to point to a clear precedence for his/her decision. And
these precedents should be developed by some level of consensus that at
least meets the standard applied for everything else.
* Admins should strive to be role models in their roles as editors. There
will be people who are better suited as admins than editors, and we all have
content issues we're passionate about; but I believe there is plenty of room
within policy and guidelines to expresss passion without being uncivil,
dishonest, flip, or offensive.
* Admins should strive for transparency in their workings. Backchannel
communications should be an exception limited to very specific problems.
I could think of more, but this is plenty for now.
Leif
David's original point is a valid one and is an excellent example of the
fact that failing internal processes do affect the success of Wikipedia.
AFD, RFA, the AC election, and the AC itself are examples of processes
that are not scaling well, and they are also examples of the way that a
changing editor and administrator base is affecting the quality of
processes throughout Wikipedia. There's no one minding the store
anymore: Jimbo, Angela, and Anthere have minimal engagement with the
community itself, having instead chosen to look outward and emphasize
publicity and financial matters. Recent policy initiatives, such as
the deletion of unsourced images and the restrictions on anonymous
creation of articles, have been driven by legal, financial, and public
relations concerns rather than anything that any contributors to the
project have said.
One thing that is clear is that the community can't make any
nonincremental changes to policy itself without solid leadership, and
there are any number of contributors with social insight who have quit
even discussing meaningful change (as well as those who have quit the
project entirely) because of the impossibility of accomplishing it.
The reasons for this have to do with the size of the contributor base,
the fact of the developers not being accountable to the community, and
the presence of many contributors who are perhaps excellent writers and
editors but who lack skills and experience in group decisionmaking.
The Uninvited Co., Inc.
(a Delaware corporation)
I'm aware that policy isn't made in press interviews, even by Jimbo.
But this starts getting quoted on talk pages:
"Wales said entries have to meet a standard of newsworthiness and, as a
general rule, should not be written by an interested party either a
supporter or an opponent."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12535412/from/RS.2/
If didn't get this wrong, until now even interested parties
are welcome, as long as they aim for NPOV -- with the notable
exception of the autobiography clause.
And where does "interested party" start?
There are even topics so obscure ([[New Kadampa Tradition]] comes
to my mind), that only vocal opponents and vocal proponents
contribute. Should they already be considered "interested
parties"? Shall we hope, that they will battle it out so that the
result is NPOV?
Regards,
Peter
[[User:Pjacobi]]
--
"Feel free" - 10 GB Mailbox, 100 FreeSMS/Monat ...
Jetzt GMX TopMail testen: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/topmail
I have been a Wikipedian since 2001 and a MediaWiki developer since
2002. I was Chief Research Officer of the Foundation from May to
August 2005. I initiated two of Wikimedia's projects, Wikinews and the
Wikimedia Commons, and have made vital contributions to both. I have
made roughly 15,000 edits to the English Wikipedia, and uploaded about
15,000 files to Wikimedia Commons. A list of my overall contributions
can be found at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Eloquence
and the linked to pages; this does not include my numerous
international activities such as conference speeches, as well as my
book and articles about Wikipedia. I have never been blocked before,
nor have I ever been subject to an Arbitration Committee ruling (in
fact, I was one of Jimmy's original suggestions for the first ArbCom,
and one of the people who proposed that very committee).
I have just been indefinitely blocked from the English Wikipedia, and
desysopped, by user Danny, under the new nickname "Dannyisme", as an
"Office Action" for alleged "reckless endangerment" which was not
specified further. I have called Danny on the phone, but he said that
he was not willing to discuss the issue, and that I should instead
talk to the Foundation attorney instead. To my knowledge, this is the
first time office authority has been used to indefinitely block and
desysop a user.
What happened?
Yesterday, Danny radically shortened and protected two pages,
[[Newsmax.com]] and [[Christopher Ruddy]]. The protection summary was
"POV qualms" (nothing else), and there was only the following brief
comment on Talk:NewsMax.com:
"This article has been stubbed and protected pending resolution of POV
issues. Danny 19:26, 17 April 2006 (UTC)"
There was no mention of WP:OFFICE in the edit summary or on the talk
page. Danny did not apply the special Office template, {{office}}, nor
did he use the "Dannyisme" account that he created for Foundation
purposes, nor did he list the page on WP:OFFICE. Instead, he applied
the regular {{protected}} template.
Given that Danny has now more explicitly emphasized this distinction
between his role as a Foundation employee and a regular wiki user, I
assumed he was acting here as a normal sysop and editor, and
unprotected the two pages, with a brief reference to the protection
policy. I also asked Danny, on [[Talk:NewsMax.com]], to make it
explicit whether the protection was under WP:OFFICE. I would not have
reprotected, of course, if he had simply said that they were, and left
it at that.
I apologize if this action was perceived as "reckless", but I must
emphasize that I was acting in good faith, and that I would much
appreciate it if all office actions would be labeled as such. I was
under the impression that this was the case given past actions. In any
case, I think that the indefinite block and desysopping is very much
an overreaction, and would like to hereby publicly appeal to Danny,
the community and the Board (since Danny's authority is above the
ArbCom) to restore my editing privileges as well as my sysop status. I
pledge to be more careful in these matters in the future.
Thanks for reading,
Erik
Hi.
Preliminary: This posting is *NOT* meant to re-incite a discussion that
has already taken place and is already over: namely, the debates about
the deletion of [[Template:User en-5]] and its equivalents for other
languages.
I just wanted to note one thing that struck me as significant and no-one
else seems to have brought this up anywhere in the discussion (the AfD
discussion; I haven't followed the mailing list):
The entire discussion blatantly reflects the stereotypical
English-speakers' language ignorance, which postulates that a native
speaker is necessarily "perfect" or "best", and a non-native speaker is
necessarily worse than a native speaker. The entire discussion assumes
that "native speaker" is an adequate label for a level of skill.
In reality, most non-native English speakers I know speak and write
English way better than an average native speaker. In reality, among all
speakers (native or non-native) there are huge variations in the level
of skill, ranging from "lolz asl?" to Pulitzer-prize winning prose. It
is *that* which the Babel templates are trying to gauge, *not* whether
someone is a native speaker or not.
Timwi
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 02:14:15 -0600
From: Fred Bauder
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Checkuser verification errors
Make a claim that there was an error and request a second opinion at
Wikipedia:Requests for CheckUser. Our competence varies.
Fred Bauder
On Apr 25, 2006, at 9:03 PM, Cheney Shill wrote:
> How does one resolve errors in checkuser results?~~~Pro-Lick
I made the request along with a request for other suggestions if declined and was "Declined" 4 days later without any explanation or proposed alternatives by Mackensen:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_CheckUser#Checkuser_err…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mackensen
Suggestions? Arbitration?~~~~Pro-Lick
---------------------------------
New Yahoo! Messenger with Voice. Call regular phones from your PC and save big.
Hi everyone,
As you may or may not know, Wikimania 2006 is less than 100 days away. There
is a strong possibility that I will be giving a presentation at the
conference regarding Wikipedia's continuing success. As part of my
presentation, I would love to include input from other Wikipedians regarding
the project.
You may find the survey at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Linuxbeak/Wikimania_2006/Wikipedian_Survey.
Your responses are greatly appreciated.
--Alex
Someone unblocked me without an explanation. I assume that you are aware of
the various complaints about "Mr. Alkivar." Since he was IMPOSSIBLE to contact
by E-Mail when I was blocked without an adequate explanation by him, what am
I to think?
Is it possible that NONE of the administrators have "sock-puppets?" You can
be sure that some of them masquerade as vandals and then "rescue" articles
just to "enhance" their standing in the Wikipedia Community. This is OLD news at
this point. isn't it?
All of this nonsense alienates talented and expert writers. Of course, you
already realize that, don't you? I am going to continue with my Internet
publishing work where it is appreciated.Wikipedia is getting to be a tiresome
place for innovation which rubs some administrators the wrong way. ENOUGH ALREADY!
A page, similar to WP:AIV and WP:RFCU, has been drafted for the purpose of
contacting ISPs whose users are vandalising WP. Once the page is in action,
it will provide a place to send IPs for whom previous attempts at foiling
their vandalism have failed in the hopes that ourselves and the ISPs can
figure out a solution (through blocking, account suspension, or something
else). Past experience has shown that contacting schools that vandals are
coming from is very effective. It's currently in a draft/proposed state, and
we want as many people as possible to comment on the talk page, and as many
interested volunteers as we can get to help it to run once it's on it's
feet. Here's the link, lads:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Abuse_reports.
Thanks for paying attention, mates.