>-----Original Message-----
>From: David Gerard [mailto:dgerard@gmail.com]
>Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 03:46 AM
>To: 'English Wikipedia', 'Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List'
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] We really need to avoid the next Microsoft-Wikipedia bad publicity storm
>
>I got a call yesterday from a press officer for a major UK bank. My
>number was one of the few contact numbers they could find.
>
>They spent lots of time yesterday morning adding stuff to the bank's
>article from their websites and having it reverted as a copyright
>violation. They couldn't work out what she was doing wrong, so they
>called me. They hadn't heard about the Microsoft mess at all. Oh dear.
>
>I explained that editing the article about yourself is a conflict of
>interest, and pointed them at the talk page and said this was the
>right place to put stuff - that they should introduce themselves, etc.
>And that people might argue, but that happens on the Internet. I also
>said I'd have a look myself.
>
>Well, that's one more innocent disaster averted ...
>
>But we really need something to handle this sort of thing and make it
>widely known. Something as n00b-friendly as possible - just type on a
>page (or in a form) or send an email.
>
>Which will mean another firehose of crap to find volunteers to deal
>with. This is the tricky bit. Compare to OTRS, which has the twin
>problems of (1) a firehose of crap with a few important things in it
>and (2) too few volunteers, who then get (understandably) tetchy and
>close to burnout, and not great success at recruiting more.
>
>So:
>
>0. I submit that we really do need this.
>1. Most n00b-friendly interface possible. This is not a big problem.
>2. How to get volunteers interested in wanting to look at this? This
>is the tricky one.
>
>Ideas please!
>
>(I'm tempted to submit this to Ask Slashdot for ideas ... any objections?)
>
>Another bad publicity storm such as happened last week to Microsoft is
>absolutely not in Wikipedia or Wikimedia's interests. We don't want to
>make organisations fearful of coming near us.
>
>
>- d.
We need to add a notice to the software either above (preferable) or below the edit box about conflict of interest. The Arbitration Committee is also devoting too much retail attention to this wholesale problem.
Fred
On 1/31/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> The reason I suggest it is because the reason most people give for an
> edit count requirement is that once you've reached X edits, we'll know
> if you're a vandal or not. However, us knowing isn't much good if you
> get autoconfirmed anyway. Unless we want to indef block all registered
> vandals as their first block, an edit count is useless without it
> being possible to prevent autoconfirming if the edits aren't
> acceptable ones.
Interesting point. At present, the reason for autoconfirmed is
basically to stop certain forms of casual vandalism. You have to do
some preparation if you want to engage in page-move vandalism, which
due to software limitations has historically been more of a pain to
deal with. I would tend to view edit counts as an extension of this:
not only must you sign up and wait, you also have to make some
innocuous edits.
I suspect that if a user is dedicated and sinister enough to plan out
ten edits and four days to get autoconfirmed before going on a
page-move spree, he's probably going to make some whitespace changes
with his ten edits, not vandalism, so I'm not sure this will help at
all.
geni wrote
charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com wrote:
> > OK. How long is it going to take before self-styled "press officers" actually inform >themselves _properly_ about WP?
> Why should they? It isn't as if we are a major part of their job.
WP is as big a part of their job as their employer makes it. In the Microsoft example, it clearly started requiring some management time.
Charles
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On 31 Jan 2007 at 00:57, "xaosflux" <xaosflux(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> I like 4 days, AND 25 edits is a good threshold for en:
But those numbers should reset every time you do something clueless,
like top-posting a response on a mailing list.
--
== Dan ==
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"David Gerard" wrote
> Another bad publicity storm such as happened last week to Microsoft is
> absolutely not in Wikipedia or Wikimedia's interests. We don't want to
> make organisations fearful of coming near us.
OK. How long is it going to take before self-styled "press officers" actually inform themselves _properly_ about WP?
I mean, the teaboy in the PR room is going to be given the job of actually editing the site. But people who are _employed_ to know about PR should be _professional_ in their approach. Not assume that 'free to edit' is 'free PR'; that's an entirely amateur view, that it costs nothing and never can have any downside or fallout.
Charles
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In a message dated 1/30/2007 10:12:31 PM Central Standard Time,
stevagewp(a)gmail.com writes:
They don't even have to be a troll. Anyone who joins a new group and
immediately starts criticising and telling the group they've got it
all wrong is going to be rejected - whether they're right or wrong.
Nothing to do with groupthink, it's just normal behaviour.
Exactly; I get this all the time when I go into a group and try to beat the
heck out of their nostalgic groupthink masturbation. I'm also guilty of
groupthink in some instances, though. I guess it's human nature.
| Tyler | Zorin Deckiller |
| Wikipedia Administrator | Former SWU member |
| _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Deckiller_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Deckiller) |
| _http://www.myspace.com/redsectora_ (http://www.myspace.com/redsectora) |
Everyone / anyone,
Real quick, short question. Are their any copyright or other issues involved
in uploading photos or other images from the Find-a-Grave site?
Thanks,
Marc Riddell
In a message dated 1/29/2007 8:28:34 AM Central Standard Time,
guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net writes:
>Seeing how a few detractors here have been throwing around the term
>"groupthink" I have to ask, is there any real difference between the
>two or does it depend on which side of a "consensus" decision you are
>on? That is, if an article you wrote/are involved with survives AFD,
>then it's "consensus", if it gets deleted, it's "groupthink". Of
>course it's the other way around if it's an article you don't like.
Consensus is where people discuss and agree on something, usually after
hearing all options. Consensus is often modified. On the other hand, groupthink
is where people shut themselves off from minority ideas or ammendments,
because they believe everything is already "just fine". In other words: consensus
means constantly being open to new discussions and change, whereas groupthink
shuts the valve for new ideas. And if you don't comply to groupthink, you are
shut out instead of looked on respectfully.
Most companies fail because of groupthink.
| Tyler | Zorin Deckiller |
| Wikipedia Administrator | Former SWU member |
| _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Deckiller_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Deckiller) |
| _http://www.myspace.com/redsectora_ (http://www.myspace.com/redsectora) |