Dear all,
Early registration for Wikimania ends today; after which the community
rate for the conference tickets will go up. The preliminary program
and proceedings are available from the conference site :
http://wm06reg.wikimedia.org/http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Program
Scholarship applications are being reviewed and responded to over the
next two days.
Other notes related to the conference schedule : There will be some
outings on Thursday, before Wikimania begins. SIGGRAPH is taking
place in Boston before Wikimania, during Hacking Days (Tuesday through
Thursday); we're trying to arrange a tour of their exhibit floor. A
Citizen Journalism event in the same building on Monday, the day after
Wikimania ends :
http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Citizen_Journalismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIGGRAPH
Finally, don't forget the Wikimania awards -- a t-shirt contest, and
a media and writing contest. Nominations of great media (any free
format) and writing (any language) are wanted; more information to
come :
http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_awards
Warmly,
SJ
--
SJ Klein | 617 529-4266
Wikimania 2006 : wikimania2006.wikimedia.org
Mark Gallagher wrote:
> G'day Michael S,
>
>> Mark Gallagher wrote:
>>
>>> G'day Daniel S,
>>>
>>>> (And in the legal world there are also phenomena such as jury
>>>> nullification and rogue judges...)
>>>
>>> We have them on Wikipedia, too. Witness the Jack Thompson OFFICE
>>> action and certain admins.
>>
>> Pardon me, but what exactly are you referring to here?
>
> The Jack Thompson OFFICE action was an incident that occurred not too
> long ago. Some background (I don't know if you already know this
> stuff, so bear with me if you do): the American Jack Thompson is a
> professional lawyer and talented amateur wowser, famous amongst a
> small subset of gamers. The reason he's well-known to hardcore gamers
> is because the target of his wowserism is violent video games. Since
> hardcore gamers typically enjoy playing violent video games above all
> else[0], this is not a match made in heaven by any means.
>
> Through a curious quirk of the Internet, hardcore gamers are far more
> likely to contribute Wikipedia than American attorneys. In
> particular, strange though it sounds, hardcore gamers are far more
> likely to contribute to an article about Mr Thompson full of such
> improperly sourced, utterly trivial, and of course totally biased
> nonsense that the only reason I can't describe it as a "hatchet job"
> is because the phrase "embarrassment to Wikipedia" leaps far more
> readily to the tongue.
>
> When the Secret Wikipedia Puppet Government, aided by the Men In
> Black, finally pulled the plug on this hatch--excuse me, this
> embarrassment to Wikipedia, a thousand thousand gamers rose up in
> complaint. "That asshole Thompson wins again!", they cried.
> "Wikipedia under the control of a Secret Wikipedia Puppet Government,
> aided by the Men in Black!", they cried. "I credit my 'blog. That's
> enough for me to argue that Thompson is a Satanist, right?", they
> cried. "Ow, I just stood up for the first time in seventy-two hours
> and my knee joints cracked!", they cried.
As the person who drafted and watched over the rewritten Jack Thompson
article, I do already know what transpired, but you give a decent
summary for those who don't (as long as it's not taken too literally). I
would note that quite a few of the gamer editors quickly recognized the
superiority of a neutral, well-referenced version and have increasingly
taken over defending it and educating the newer arrivals on how to do
things properly.
> This seems to me a good case of "jury nullification": we asked for an
> opinion, we got utter bollocks in return, we said, "actually, let's
> not do what they said after all."
This is what confused me. If, as it would seem, you're equating the
response from gamers with that of a jury, then you've got the concept of
jury nullification exactly backwards. Jury nullification does not
involve a judge or some other higher authority nullifying the decision
of the jury. Jury nullification refers to the ability of the jury to
reach a verdict contrary to the law and the instructions of the court.
Fans of the concept like to cite John Peter Zenger's acquittal on a
charge of libel as an example of this.
--Michael Snow
Warning: This message contains shouting. Please cover your virtual
ears if necessary.
On Jul 8, 2006, at 4:51 PM, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> Mboverload is right...
I think you read far more into the utterance you quoted than is there.
> Heck even forget vandalizing, just consider
> folks coming by to add their favorite idea or interpretation.
> Wikipedia tries to be on the average pretty good, but our model
> doesn't try to be good at every instant, in fact it fundamentally
> precludes being good at every instant.
Very well said. We really do need to keep making this as clear as
possible - *WIKIPEDIA IS A PROJECT TO WRITE AN ENCYCLOPEDIA -
WIKIPEDIA.ORG *IS* *NOT* *AN* *ENCYCLOPEDIA* - IT IS A *D*R*A*F*T* OF
AN ENCYCLOPEDIA. (Pardon the shouting.)
The only reason we are leery of clarifying this point is that we still
(justifiably) hope to capture (and turn into Wikipedian editors),
innocent users who visit Wikipedia.org merely to *read*. I wish I knew
a better way to do this, but I don't.
Jesse
Jesse Weinstein
> From: Jesse W <jessw(a)netwood.net>
>
> \However, many bad pages created are not created in bad faith - the
> people who create them are not vandals. People who think the
> encyclopedia would benefit from an article on their novel theory of
> history, or their new company, or this fascinating new website they
> just came across - *are* *not* acting in bad faith, and *are* *not*
> intending to damage the 'pedia (although, in fact, they are), and so
> *are* *not* vandals.
When anyone who creates a new article, a message above the edit box
is displayed which reads:
"Wikipedia is not an advertising service. Promotional articles about
yourself, your friends, your company or products; or articles created
as part of a marketing or promotional campaign, may be deleted in
accordance with our deletion policies."
Anyone who goes ahead anyway and creates an article promoting their
new company most certainly _is_ acting in bad faith.
Hi,
during the last weeks, I had very much joy in google co-op. You will
find the first example of this tool now online for public testing.
Based on Wikipedia's geographical information, you can calculate the
distance between two cities.
The google profile for this can be found at
http://www.google.com/coop/profile?user=016597473608235241540
A short description is at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Google_Co-op#Distance_calculation
When subscribing to this google co-op-profile, a search like
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=distance+from+tampa%2C+florida+to+bost…
should work.
I appreciate any feedback about this (feel free to forward it to your
friends, if you like). Please use the meta page for suggestions to
improve it. Please continue to tag the articles with metadata such as
geoinformation. Thanks again to anyone who has already helped in this
project. There is more to come.
Mathias
>I think the problem with DRV and other processes that reivew
content is the entire premise.
>I reviewed a backlog previously to discover a template. To my
horror, it noted:
>"The community is interested in process not content".
>This is madness. - Randall Brackett
I am most definitely not a lawyer, but I think it's exactly the same
distinction as the distinction between a _trial_ and an _appeal._
(And in the legal world there are also phenomena such as jury
nullification and rogue judges...)
Mark Gallagher wrote:
> G'day Daniel S,
>
>> (And in the legal world there are also phenomena such as jury
>> nullification and rogue judges...)
>
> We have them on Wikipedia, too. Witness the Jack Thompson OFFICE
> action and certain admins.
Pardon me, but what exactly are you referring to here?
--Michael Snow
At http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Central_discussions/Apartheid a series of competing proposals have been made on how to deal with various articles on modern uses of the word "apartheid", namely [[Israeli apartheid]], [[gender apartheid]], [[sexual apartheid]], [[Crime of apartheid]] and [[global apartheid]] and also the articles [[Apartheid outside of South Africa]] and [[Apartheid (disambiguation)]]. The proposals vary from merging various articles (particularly Israeli apartheid) to leaving the articles in their current state. The debate and voting has been dominated by various interests - it would thus be best for the community if a broader cross section of people including disinterested and neutral parties, reviewed the proposals and had their say.
Jesse W wrote:
>And, for "vandalism", it still is. For misguided people - it has
>always been discussion until either the misguided people
>change their minds or enough other people get fed up, then
>more or less forceful requests to leave.
There are no such things as page creation vandals? How
interesting. Do please expand on this fascinating new
insight into what is currently happening on WIkipedia?
> From: <poore5(a)adelphia.net>
> Of course getting broad community input is good. But I wish that >you would participate in the proposed mediation.
I'm considering it but I think the process really needs input from editors who do not have strong feelings on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.