On 6/19/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/19/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > ... the *940* admins, and a million registered users, and who knows how
> > many anonymous contributors. And that's just for the English Wikipedia!
> > What about on de:, fr:, ja: and the rest?
>
> See why I think we should prune all the dead registered users? Only a
> fraction of those claimed "million registered users" have ever even
> logged in and made a couple of useful edits. A tiny fraction are still
> logging in and making useful edits.
The last numbers I saw had roughly 2/3 of registered accounts on en:
having no non-deleted edits; some might have created pages that later
got deleted. (Note: user creation jumped after the restrictions on
anon users creating articles were put in place.)
However, I don't think we can prune dead accounts until after single
user login is implemented... some "dead" usernames were registered by
people from other languages to prevent impersonation. Even then, many
people have accounts solely for reading, in order to set user
preferences, or to avoid getting a constant stream of "new messages"
from vandalism warnings for shared IPs -- and we encourage them to do
this.
-Kat
--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage | G/AIM:LucidWaking
mindspillage or mind|wandering on irc.freenode.net | email for phone
The good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving
-- Lao-Tzu Wikia: creating communities - http://www.wikia.com
Protection is a hack. When it was first implemented in early 2003, it
was noted as such; from the start, there has been the idea of
improving on protection by "reduc[ing] the requirements for sysop
intervention for useful things to happen".
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:List_of_protected_pages…
Wikis are designed to be editable; the ideal wiki is as open to
incoming content as possible -- a metric of a wikis success at
wiki-nature might be how long it takes first-time contributors to make
typical edits, and how long it takes them to get/see feedback.
"Open to incoming content" isn't the same as "open to changes in what
everyone else sees as outgoing content". We should strive to increase
our openness to inboud content, even as we tighten quality controls on
outbound content. Articles for Creation is an even worse hack than
protection, and regularly fails silently and completely [the user
never comes back, or thinks their work is lost; their work *is* lost].
Semi-protection is also a hack. One way to make these protection
hacks work more effectively is to recognize that they are *not* the
desired solution, but a quick way to implement something close.
Protection is a 'reasonable' hack because anyone can still edit the
talk page, leave comments for page-contributors on *their* talk pages,
&c. New editors don't know any of this. Old editors and vandals
don't need to be told what protection's all about.
Suggestions for improving these hacks through more information :
* make protection templates very short and inobtrusive; not in the
header, to maintain a clean interface : most readers don't need to
know about them (an NPOV or Disputed template can be placed there if
needed, that's separate. If an article's being protected just b/c it
was on slashdot, that's different).
* keep the "edit" button for protected pages. add a little icon in
that tab if needed, to denote the protected nature. Offer a message
on editing, varying by protection type, explaining briefly why the
protection, and where to post edits and suggestions (the talk page),
with a link to a longer explanation of who can edit where, how to
request unprotection, how to ask for help, &c.
* update the "this page is protected from editing" message one gets
when viewing the source of a protected page. make it friendlier,
again linking to where one *can* suggest changes and explaining this
in postive rather than negative terms.
* make it more clear than it is now who applied protection when, and
what their protection-summary was. pull this information into the
notices listed above.
-- SJ
Wikipedia's administrative system: An MMORPG rotten to the core
The past week or so has unintendedly resulted in a clash between me and what I call the administrative system of Wikipedia, and I couldn't help but notice a number of flaws of process. There is no cabal - But there are factions on Wikipedia. A faction is any number of individuals who collaborate in order to achieve a common goal. The administrative system increasingly shows the sign of such a faction.
In the middle ages, noblemen were to be tried by their fellow noblemen for their crimes, which resulted in hardly anyone ever getting convicted. Similiarly, the clerical system had jurisdiction over itself - and even gross sexual abuse often went on for years without anyone intervening - if at all.
On Wikipedia, administrators are given authority and technical provisions to punish disruptive users. Some SysOps would point out that the purpose of a block is not to punish, but to prevent - But since a block is not an effective prevention, as it can be evaded at the leisure of any somewhat tech-savy user, it can only serve as punishment and to get rid of unwelcome or different POV editors.
If blocked, in error or abuse, or even legitimately, an editor has basically no chance to revoke the block. He can no longer edit the relevant pages such as the Administrator's Noticeboard for Intervention. Thus, even though the policy explicitely and uncompromisingly forbids abusing blocked or disruptive users, regardless of their past, an user, once blocked, is realistically considered free game for all sorts of false accusations, abuses, personal attacks and libel.
Because of the factionalizing mechanics of the administrative system, a blocked user has basically no chance to get an abusive ban lifted. The policy quite clearly states that the originally blocked user is meant to lift blocks he invoked himself. An abusive sysop will simply not do so. And nobody else will. WikiEN-l is a mailing list mostly read by the administrative system itself, who again, naturally, almost always will side with the administrator they know rather than a random editor.
RFComments don't work, neither do RFMediations - especially when blocked. The RfArbitration system is limited by the number of cases the ArbCom can deal with in any given timeframe, and is made a mockery of justice when a blocked user is denied the ability to defend himself. And because the ArbCom members are themselves also part of the administrative system, they again tend side with problematic or long standing administrators much more easily than with problematic or new editors.
If the wrongly blocked user then decides to ignore the block, and proceeds with the trivial technical task of evading the block, in order to protect himself from false accusations, personal attacks, or - dear lord - continuing to edit mainspace articles or talk pages, this is actually seen as an invitation to administrators to resort to personal attacks, vandalize the user at will - more even than before he becomes "free game", easily resulting in blocks lasting to the end of time, literally forcing an user that wants to contribute to Wikipedia to evade or leave the project.
Ignorance and indifference to policy are normal in today's administrative system of Wikipedia. Completely unfair and unwarranted blocks occur on a daily basis, personal attacks, vandalizations of the userpages of unpopular editors - a strong pecking order. The policies are ignorable, the only thing that counts is "Don't piss off the sysops that have real power".
All of this also undermines the basic content policies of Wikipedia. Adherents of a different POV can be removed easily (although no administrator would ever be caught dead with banning an user on the basis of POV). Not to mention it removes strong editors, and replaces them with weak ones compliant to the POV of increasingly sociopathic administrators having an interest in the article.
Currently Wikipedia is too much of an MMORPG: If one editor has 500 edits, and another has 20'000, and they have a dispute, the editor with 20'000 edits always wins - especially so when he is a sysop himself, the chances for which increase almost exponentially with the number of posts. This is not a way to find consensus: Consensus must be found in debate. And debate is the hardest of all ways to fight an opposite POV - It is almost always the more successful strategy to get the opposite side blocked than to actually get down and find this sacred consensus (or compromise).
Why are administrators needed in the first place? "To combat vandalism" would most answer. But interestingly, popups, applications, bots, etc are all much more effective than the administrative power to block and to protect an article - These are either trivially easy circumvented by a determined vandal, or undermine the most basic idea of Wikipedia: That everyone can edit it - the very idea that made Wikipedia so popular, and what it is today. Regular editors can patrol RecentChanges just as much as administrators can. The only real necessity for privileged users is the management of the front page - And it doesn't take thousands of administrators to do that.
The solution to the system is to simply remove all administrative privileges, short of maybe a dozen "hard core" people needed to manage the front page, and instructed not to use their powers for anything in the mainspace. For everything else, regular users are just as well equipped for dealing with vandalism and other disruptive occurances as administrators. And for NPOV: It does not ever serve the neutrality of an article if one party is equipped with the power to block the other party.
Would the removal of all administrators result in more edit warring? Yes of course. Because no longer would one party simply get the opposite party blocked. But edit warring is not effective, it is indeed mutually assured destruction: If two parties simply revert each other all the time, they would never get anywhere - Ultimately even the most stubborn POV warrior realizes he will have to arrange with the other side. Personal attacks? Don't listen to it and grow a skin. Copyvios? Give regular users the ability to remove pictures. Delete and undelete? Merely a technical problem.
Everything is better than compromising the sanity and integrity of the "Encyclopedia" Wikipedia.
Hello,
I think it is time to inform the community about the Word2MediaWikiPlus
converter I wrote:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Word2MediaWikiPlus
Download macro and installer directly:
http://www.beadsoft.de/files/Word2MediaWikiPlus.zip
To improve the acceptance of the wiki software in our company I needed a
user friendly converter.
This converter comes with an installation routine, has comfortably
dialog boxes and works with the english and german office versions.
If you have MS Photo Editor installed, it will extract and upload images
from the document, too.
It converts most things found in normal documents, like
- text formatting and colors
- headings
- lists
- tables, also nested
- images
- footnotes
- page headers and footers
- text boxes
- framed paragraphs
By now I find it easier to write in Word and convert, especially tables.
This macro can be used as an image extractor of the document, without
any wiki usage.
It has been extensivly tested and can be considered as a stable beta
release.
Since the macro can be localized, I would like contact to users, who use
a non german and non english Microsoft office.
Enjoy,
Gunter
Hello,
I think it is time to inform the community about the Word2MediaWikiPlus
converter I wrote:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Word2MediaWikiPlus
Download macro and installer directly:
http://www.beadsoft.de/files/Word2MediaWikiPlus.zip
To improve the acceptance of the wiki software in our company I needed a
user friendly converter.
This converter comes with an installation routine, has comfortably
dialog boxes and works with the english and german office versions.
If you have MS Photo Editor installed, it will extract and upload images
from the document, too.
It converts most things found in normal documents, like
- text formatting and colors
- headings
- lists
- tables, also nested
- images
- footnotes
- page headers and footers
- text boxes
- framed paragraphs
By now I find it easier to write in Word and convert, especially tables.
This macro can be used as an image extractor of the document, without
any wiki usage.
It has been extensivly tested and can be considered as a stable beta
release.
Since the macro can be localized, I would like contact to users, who use
a non german and non english Microsoft office.
Enjoy,
Gunter
From: Jon Awbrey <jawbrey(a)att.net>
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Exit Interview -- Jon Awbrey
Message-ID: <4494D0B6.ED03BE97(a)att.net>
An attempt at translation:
> it is no longer worth the headache trying to
> write quality articles or to improve articles
> in this ennvironment.
"Wikipedia doesn't suit me."
> but i would like to post some of my observations
> in hopes that it might help out somehow, someday.
"Because..."
> WP is a meeting ground for several types of people.
> the main types i've observed fall under these heads:
>
> 1. accurate reporters (AR's).
> 2. responsible scholars (RS's).
> 3. infantile vandals (IV's).
> 4. expert disrupters (ED's)
"There are a number of types of people on it I don't
like."
> in the present state of WP, the rules in practice
> and the prevailing
> attitudes of admins
> are all skewed in favor of IV's and ED's,
> while the AR's and RS's don't
> stand a chance.
"And the admins are to blame."
> by "rules in practice" i mean the way that
> policies and guidelines
> actually get enforced.
> the sad thing is that the "rules in principle"
> state all the right
> ideas, but people who
> are born and bred to check facts don't have a
> chance against puppet
> mobs of pseudo-newbies,
> who seem bent on nothing short of making the
> world safe for their
> current state of ignorance.
> "assuming good faith" and "not biting newcomers"
> are so much easier for
> admins to parrot
> that it has rendered them the most naive dupes
> of expert disrupters who
> have learned how
> it easy it is to exploit their naivete. in short,
> WP is like email
> before virus protection.
"Because I don't like how admins operate and the rules
don't work."
> this is one of the biggest reasons that WP's
> reputation in responsible
> communities has gone from "not especially
> reliable source" (NERS) to "dump of
> popular errors" (DOPE).
> it is my impression from my acquaintances that
> more and more
> responsible scholars who buy
> into the ideals of WP in the beginning quickly
> find themselves disamyed
> by the realities,
> and just go way quietly after a short while of
> seeing their efforts go
> to waste here.
"And I don't like how Wikipedia works generally."
> i really do hope that something that lives up
> to the stated ideals and
> policies of WP
> does come into existence someday, so i will try
> to put aside my present
> discouragement
> and focus on the kinds of experiences that can
> be converted into
> constructive critique.
"Although it would be nice if it worked how I thought
it was going to work, and I'm in a bad modd because it
doesn't."
---
> the resistance to facing unpleasant realities
> is perfectly human and thorougly understandable,
> but real situations do not improve
> unless people squarely face the gap between ideals
> and realities. i am not such a newbie on planet
> earth that i have not faced constant disappointment
> and near-utter discouragement on a recurring basis,
> and i have survived long enough on
> planet earth to know that there is nothing for it,
> when the transient pain has passed, but to salvage
> what lessons can be learned from the experience.
"You may not like what I have to say, but I'm entitled
to say it."
> so, yes, it will be necessary in this
> parting feedback
> to recount a number of negative turns of events that
> i have experienced during my sojourn in wikipedia.
> but the purpose of examining these incidentals
> is to find some means of learning from them.
"I haven't enjoyed my time with Wikipedia and here is
why."
---
> i will try to stay focused on the task at hand,
> which is simply to provide clear feedback that
> might become useful at some time in the future
> toward the actualization of a worthy objective
> with which i continue to feel a certain degree
> of sympathy, even though my personal resources
> on its behalf are approaching final exhaustion.
"I'm fed up, but want to give my reasons".
> accesses of strong feelings as i lay out this
> narrative
> are probably inevitable, and defensive reactions
> on the
> part of some of its readers are quite natural
> and to be
> expected, especially with those who share a
> strong bond
> of common identity with each other and the
> ideals of WP.
> indeed, until just a few days ago, i was
> commonly found
> to be voicing many of the same apologies and
> excuses to
> my acquaintances with regard to the rough-
> jeweled state
> and the promise of WP, so i know most of these
> by heart.
"Wikipedia editors tend to band together."
> i do not know if the reputation of WP could
> be diminished
> any further among the acquaintances that i
> have discussed
> it with, but i do know that whether its
> reputation improves
> or worsens, it will be through the acts of
> the WP community
> as a whole, and not through my words.
"My friends agree Wikipedia isn't much good, and only
Wikipedia's editors can change that opinion."
I'll have a crack at the next email in the sequence
when I get it. I've often had to work on
machine-translated words, like Mr Awbrey is posting
here, so I'm pretty good at getting the gist, although
it's more useful to have the originsl to work from as
well.
Mr Awbrey: please will you email this to me in your
original language and I will try to find a translator
who can help with the details. Thank you.
->REDVERS
___________________________________________________________
Try the all-new Yahoo! Mail. "The New Version is radically easier to use" The Wall Street Journal
http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html
On 17 Jun 2006 at 20:36, "The Cunctator" <cunctator(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> That said, I found it quite interesting how Larry Sanger is now lost
> from the official narrative of the creation of Wikipedia. History
> belongs to the victors, I suppose. Although I became one of his most
> active critics during his tenure, he does not deserve to become a
> footnote, or worse, forgotten.
This is ironic, given that Wikipedia is often a place where true
histories of things are given a fair presentation, even where they
differ from the "official corporate history". See [[Monopoly
(game)]] (not really invented by Charles Darrow), [[McDonald's]] (not
really started by Ray Kroc), and the decades-long battle between
[[Skippy peanut butter]] and [[Skippy (comic strip)]] (ignored in the
corporate history).
--
== 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/
"The administrators are all volunteers, most of them in their 20's."
Did Hafner actually research the age of 51% of all administrators, or
is she just making things up here?
-Nandesuka