Kelly Martin wrote:
>Not all admins are equal
Not all admins are equal? Animal Farm anyone? Kelly Martin is more equal then others, everyone bow to him! Your comments about Erik's blocking (which was obviously a bad mistake on the part of Danny) were in very bad taste and does not indicate that you are more interested in the well-being of the encyclopaedia than thrash other people.
You not only support the blocking, you support CONTINUED blocking of one of Wikipedia's most valuable contrbutors (far more valuable than you) because of what was at most a failure to discuss a revertion of a protection before doing it. I believe one revertion is perfectly okay for a normal editorial action, whatever happened to [[WP:BOLD]]? And as Danny explicitly removed the [[WP:OFFICE]] notice (which makes it quite clear than the tag must be used to invoke the special powers of the policy), Erik had every reason to assume that it was nothing but an ordinary editorial action.
Even if Erik should have discussed the revertion, is it ground for any punishment, let alone desysoping and indefinite blocking? His action may have increased chance of harm to the Foundation, but the liability lies with Danny and not Erik. In writing such a vindictive and ill-thought comment about Erik, you behaved like a shark drawn to blood and showed an utter disrespect towards fellow community members. You should immediately apologise, but knowing you you probably won't.
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G'day Steve,
> On 21/04/06, Michael Snow <wikipedia(a)earthlink.net> wrote:
> > First of all, a neutral encyclopedia article is not an
> unrestrained free
> > speech zone, and I think the rhetoric of someone's freedom of speech
> > being chilled is out of place to begin with. Second of all, it is
> > entirely consistent with our mission to seek to "chill" content
> that is
> > decidedly non-neutral and in most cases fails to provide verifiable,
> > reputable sources for its assertions besides. Finally, in terms of
>
> I would be curious to know - not necessarily with examples - whether
> we have had legal threats related to articles that did meet WP:V. That
> is, we published something which was by all accounts true, and had
> verifiable sources to back it up - and yet was deemed offensive by
> some miffed party.
It's not *exactly* what you're asking for, but ...
A while back soufron appeared on IRC asking for Australian editors to check up on our article on Piers Akerman, which had been the subject of a legal complaint. I had a dekko, and it appeared that Mr Akerman was a South African who left to protest the end of apartheid and came to Australia, where he immediately began to indulge in a life of debauchery and drug use. Or something like that. Now, as any Aussie not too busy braiding their armpit hair could tell you, this is about as far from the life story of Mr Akerman as one could get.
I went in and found some sources and re-wrote the article. My source was 11 years old, so I had to make some changes after he helpfully pointed out that, for example, he doesn't live in Melbourne anymore. He was still unhappy about one thing: the article claimed that he'd quarrelled with his school headmaster and failed to complete his exams, whereas Mr Akerman says nothing of the sort happened. Seeing as he didn't provide a source, I went with "/The Age/ says blah blah blah, but Mr Akerman denies this." So far he seems to be happy with that arrangement, at least, I believe the Lawyer Cabal (TM) haven't received further complaints.
--
Mark Gallagher
Recently, enwiki was apparently moved without warning to a new server. This
caused the external toolserver to be unable to perform any analysis of
enwiki information. One of the major users of toolserver is Gmaxwell, who
performs several different beneficial processes using the toolserver.
He has posted to WikiTech-L explaining what happened and what the effects
are:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034904.html
There is also an essay forming at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Toolserver
I urge everyone to visit one or both of the above links to learn more and to
express your support for getting the situation resolved.
Johntex.
In a message dated 4/20/2006 2:01:33 P.M. Central Daylight Time,
jkelly(a)fas.harvard.edu writes:
While we're engaging in this critique of Danny's response, it might make
sense
to ask whether or not Danny, and the other office people, are aware that
there
exists some large segment of the admin population who regard it as routine to
undo other admin actions without discussion because they were "out of
process",
or "obviously wrong", or whatever.
I am not a admin, or even a Wikipedian for that matter. I am one of those
never mentioned "wikireaders" who noticed error and inconsistency in the
plasma cosmology article. I have tried to edit the plasma cosmology page but have
run into an admin and his two partners who interestingly enough are big bang
supporters. In other words they support theory A, but also edit Theory B
such that Theory B supports theory A.
I asked this list about ethics. The first reply was "Assuming he is a good
wikipedian, he can do what he damn well pleases."
Personally, I believe that the comment on the front page stating that anyone
can edit wikipedia is false advertisement. I did not find that to be the
case. What I found was that only copy that is approved by the admin and his
helpers will remain in the article.
There are no ethics in Wikiworld. Ethics to the Wikipedian is whatever we
damn well please?
Now I read about a Wikipedian who done as much as anyone but yet was banned
forever for reverting an action of a fellow admin. In the real world that
would be called Guilty until proven innocent and is in violation of every
principle America was founded on. Indeed, we spend trillions of dollars fighting
those countries where the accused is guilty until he proves himself innocent.
Again I am not involved as an admin, I am a reader who cannot stand idly by
while an article in the Wikipedia is obviously slanted toward the opposing
view. It is clear to me however, that my quest is futile, Wikipedia is not
edited by the people, it is run by the admin, who take data given by the people
and tell the story their way. I see things going on that are illegal in the
real world. The admins, I suppose, are run by the office, which can take
secret action without a hearing against anyone.
If they can do that to a seasoned contributor, imagine what is going on with
people like me, who just want to add a few things. Not a chance. I don't
have any suggestions for change, it is far too late for that. But Wikipedians
really should step back and look at what they are really doing. "We, here in
Wikiland, do not allow warring, therefore, when it comes to that, take
notice that we win, you lose, or else you will be banished forever."
It was, in principle, a good idea though...
tommy mandel
Hi,
I don't understand something, what is the reason of this uproar about wikitruth's publication of articles deleted by us. There's even talk of prohibiting admins from re-posting content, isn't that completely against the spirit of this project, free dissemination of information? Why should we care if wikitruth is posting copyvio and libel articles on their website? They are gonna get sued, bad for them.
I can't see how re-posting of our content will make us legally more liable than we already were. We do not remove illegal content from our servers, we simply hide it from all but a select few. That obviously does entail some legal liability. When that content is re-posted for the general public, the extra liability is incurred by wikitruth. We, as always, are still allowing only those select few to access the content.
If they are okay about attracting lawsuits, good for us. We have deleted those articles only for legal or editorial concerns. No harm done to us if someone else decides to showcase that content. In fact it's good for us since non-admin users can view deleted content without any possibility of harm to the Foundation. Or is there more to this issue than meets the eye? I'll like to know.
On a related note, there is another uproar over secrecy, concerning whether office actions need to be hidden. There is a general perception that the reason office actions are being taken nee dto be hidden from even admins. I do not see why this is so. We are not the CIA, the reasons for actions coming from the top is to protect the Foundation from lawsuits. What's so secret about that. What if every wikipedian knows that corporation A threatened to sue the Foundation and as a result libellous content has been removed from their article by office action until sources are provided? What's the harm if every office action is advertised on the front page?
I think there's a paranoia about secrecy around. We are an encyclopedia, it is our goal to provide information. The Wikimedia foundation is a not-for-profit organisation running some innovative websites without any illegal activities (hopefully). What's so secret about that?
Molu
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And you through your repeated and completely unwarranted inflammatory comments about a person who has done far more for Wikipedia than you have are trying to start a flame-war. No current policy or even community standard of acceptability prevented Erik from reverting admin action once and even when there is policy it is extremely unlikely that desysoping and indefinite banning accompanied by refusal to discuss will be prescribed as punishment. Let's not bury the real issue over the separate discussion about wheel-war (there are several peoposed policy pages for that).
We are talking about whether Danny was justified in his actions. I believe everyone except Kelly (and possibly Danny) believes he was not. Kelly not only believes his actions to be justified, but also believes that Erik should still be banned for a crime he did not commit. To advance her position, she repeatedly makes inflammatory comments about Erik without basis that on a wiki talk page would have been deleted for being violations of NPA and AGF.
She also feels herself to be more equal than other admins and qualified to pass judgments on whether admins elected to that position through community consensus about their fitness are deserving and wthether they should be desysoped.
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 21:44:06 -0500
From: "Kelly Martin"
>Except he wasn't an Wikipedian in good standing; he had attempted to
>start a wheel war.
>Kelly
---------------------------------
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On Thu, 20 Apr 2006 14:35:06 -0500, "Kelly Martin" wrote
>Perhaps the real problem is that a large segment of our admin
>population needs not to be admins anymore.
>Kelly
Obviously. Since a large segment of our admins disagree with Kelly Martin, equalest of them all, they are underserving to be admins. I think the current process of selecting admins is broken, how about giving Kelly Martin the power to select admins? That is sure to solve all Wikipedia's problems (parmanently, most likely).
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In a project as obsessed with the fictional as Wikipedia, The Game
(game) is, I guess, an archetype: a fictional construct which one
"loses" by even acknowledging its existence.
After much agonising it was finally deleted recently. It had survived
one AfD because "I've heard of it" trumped WP:V, it appears to have
been BJAODNed once or twice, but finally the total lack of any sources
whatsoever led to its deletion. And a DRV debate (obviously). And
the setting up of an external website, http://www.savethegame.org
dedicated to finding some sources for it.
Wahey! We now have a source. Reportedly. I say reportedly because I
don't have a subscription to De Morgen, and I can't read Dutch anyway.
So have the trolls won? Or has Wikipedia won? I personally think
this is yet another example of WP:V being swept aside under an
avalanche of Google hits, a problem in several areas at present where
all the POV pushers have to do is spam as many blogs and web boards as
they can find and suddenly an article must be verifiable (it's just
that the reliable source is a long way down the list, honest). A
supposed meme which inspires such fierce passions and which has had
its fans searching the world at the urging of a website, but which can
only come up with a single mention in a foreign-language newspaper,
does not sound to me like the kind of thing for an encyclopaedia. More
something for a Wikicities project. but then, I am older than your
average Wikipedian, and I've seen my kids obsessed by, and lose
interest in, many things along the way. Whether Warhammer is "better"
than Pokemon I wouldn't like to say...
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.ukhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
Jimbo Wales said:
> Mostly, if we (any of us! for any reason!) stub a
>controversial article and demand careful sourcing for rebuilding it,
>that's fine, EVEN IF THE ARTICLE SUCKS FOR A FEW DAYS.
These are very true words. I thank you for reminding us all that Wikipedia
is here for the long haul, and that most of the time we really can slow down
and take the time to think, and even rethink, before we decide to
[[WP:Bold]].
Having read through all the posts here, it seems to me that everyone or
almost everyone has respect for [[WP:Office]], and for [[User:Danny]] and
for the great job that Danny does. The concern is really around
understanding what the new "rules of engagement are" so that we don't run
afoul of them.
What I would like to understand is:
1. Are there cases where Danny needs to take [[WP:Office]] action without
labeling it [[WP:Office]]?
2. If the answer to 1 is "yes", then should we just change [[WP:Office]] to
say, "Never under any circumstances undo any action Danny makes unless you
receive permission from Danny or Jimbo first"?
As a comment, if there is in fact a need to keep things quiet and not
attract the attention that WP:Office brings, I don't think avoiding the use
of the WP:Office tag will do much practical good. It seems the trolls and
vandals will just watch Danny's every move. It will make more edits for
them to look at, but they have plenty of time. Danny "only" makes 20 edits
per day. That is a lot of edits for the person making them, but not that
many edits for a determined person to look at if they are determined.
If you can reply to my two questions I would greatly appreciate it.
Sincerely,
-Johntex
Wikitruth.info seems to be slashdotted, but according to the Google
cache, http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:
8yjjGVPUOb0J:www.wikitruth.info/ or http://tinyurl.com/otg6n , the
Wikitruth wiki is not editable, for our own good.
In its words: "We want you to read this website, not be locked in a
full-on piss-battle over changing varying articles to reflect the
whims and madness of a thousand people. Wikis do work, make no
mistake, but they ultimately only work when you have a small amount
of people doing the editing. Sure, it progresses a little slower...
but it progresses."
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony