WikiEN-l March 2007

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181 participants
397 discussions

Fwd: [Foundation-l] Foundation Licensing Policy
by Pedro Sanchez 27 Mar '07

27 Mar '07

somebody had to forward it :P ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Kat Walsh <kat(a)wikimedia.org> Date: Mar 26, 2007 9:18 PM Subject: [Foundation-l] Foundation Licensing Policy To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> The board has now passed its resolution on the media licensing policy, available now at: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Licensing_policy This policy is intended to reflect the principles in the message posted earlier at http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2007-February/027547.html and to make the guidelines for acceptable media licenses clearer across all projects. A beginning draft of an FAQ page is on Meta at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Licensing_policy_FAQ_draft -- please add your own questions and suggest answers. Please pass this information on to your project communities! Cheers, Kat Walsh -- Wikimedia needs you: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage | (G)AIM:Mindspillage mindspillage or mind|wandering on irc.freenode.net | email for phone _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

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Jimmy Wales foreshadows possible changes to Wikipedia
by Keith Old 27 Mar '07

27 Mar '07

Folks, The Sydney Morning Herald has an article featuring an interview with Jimmy Wales. http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/wikipedia-wont-be-so-dicky/2007/03/27/117476… It foreshadows changes such as stable versions and credential checking. *"One of those tools was an upcoming feature called "stable versions", which Wales said would "allow the community to flag particular versions of articles as being non-vandalised so that those would be shown to the public first in certain high-risk areas".* *This would help to reduce the number of instances where blatant errors have passed through unchecked, many of which going unnoticed for weeks.* *One of many to fall victim to false Wikipedia entries is the former governor-general of Australia, Peter Hollingworth.* *Mr Hollingworth called in to the ABC radio program Australia Talks last week, as it was interviewing Mr Wales.* *"I found an entry on me at one stage which I found offensive and inaccurate and it had been put on there by someone I had never heard of and I purely by accident found it when someone else told me that I should check it out," he said.* *"Now I fully support the whole idea of the democratisation of knowledge ... [but there is still] the question how you balance this out with truth and accuracy."* *Mr Wales said while many inaccuracies were picked up within minutes, one way to avoid them would be to, for particularly vulnerable articles, "make sure that new edits perhaps are reviewed by someone in the community before they go live".* *He was considering adding this feature to future versions of Wikipedia, but stressed that control would remain in the hands of the community.* *"We are not contemplating any kind of a system where there is going to be hundreds of editors in a building reviewing what the public's doing - that model makes no sense for us," he said.* *The Wikipedia community was also "discussing the possibility of a voluntary credential verification process" for contributors.* *Mr Wales would not give specific details on how contributors would be verified, but the idea arose after revelations this month that one of Wikipedia's most trusted editors, who claimed to be a professor, was actually a 24-year-old with no advanced degrees.* *He said verifying professional credentials for certain contributors would not be particularly difficult."* As noted earlier, this misleading content was based on media reports but I digress. The other interesting thing is that the photo is from "Wikipedia Commons". Regards *Keith Old*

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Out of process deletions
by Fred Bauder 27 Mar '07

27 Mar '07

>-----Original Message----- >From: Ron Ritzman [mailto:ritzman@gmail.com] >Sent: Monday, March 26, 2007 07:14 AM >To: 'English Wikipedia' >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Out of process deletions > >On 3/26/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic(a)gmail.com> wrote: > >> The message that started this thread quoted a message from the Barbara Bauer >> situation. It may look and sound malicious to the untrained eye and ear at >> first glance, but anyone who dives deeper into the material will find all of >> the sources are truthfull and reliable. > >The deleting admin didn't think so. If my idea was in effect and the >foundation didn't have the Bauer article in limbo, then you, if an >admin, could have restored it and that would have been the end of the >story as far as super fast ultra-speedy deletes are concerned. The >"truthfullness" and "reliability" of the sources could then be argued >on AFD if necessary. >Also, I have a hard time imagining a situation where it is absolutely >impossible to purge POV from the bio of an otherwise notable person >without nuking the article. The "offending" information remains in the history without extensive oversighting which would be grossly inappropriate in this case as the article history is the subject of a legal action. Fred

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[LONG] Re: Re: Radical redefinition of OR
by charles.r.matthews＠ntlworld.com 27 Mar '07

27 Mar '07

Ray Saintonge wrote > charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com wrote: > > >>It's hard to know what brought on this personal attack. If there is > >>anything "subtly misleading" in my posts let him present the facts that > >>support that. Otherwise, I can only assume that Charles' statement was > >>made out of the sheer pleasure of being argumentative. > >> > >>Ray > >> > >> > >Went through my Trash folder, results appended (my comments in [ ]). > > > >Charles > > > Thank you; so now let's go through these one-by-one. > > >*We have no need to be strict about notability. [Oh really] > Notability is mostly subjective, and the occasional non-notable article > will probably not be noticed because it is non-notable. Nothing > misleading about that. It is utterly misleading that WP does not need to be strict about notability. For example, we would be overwhelmed by CV type entries if we did not delete them. 'Occasional not notable article' hardly compares withe daily thousands posted and correctly deleted. Are we on the same planet? > >*Having "non-encyclopedic topics" (whatever that means) does not make us a worse encyclopaedia. [Not ?whatever that means?] > Ditto. Notable and encyclopedic are very similar concepts. Not misleading. Well, this is chop-logic. "Non-encyclopedic topics" make an _encyclopedia_ worse. > >*>>Scientific papers are secondary sources. The experimental or > >>>observational data that the papers draw on are the primary sources. > >>The data is usually published in the paper, so the paper is the primary source. > >Another non-sequitur. [Silly quibble with Thomas Dalrton.] > > > No doubt that I have frequently disagreed with Tom. If A is the primary > source, and B utilizes A that does not make B a primary source. There is > nothing misleading about a logical analysis of the statements. Well, it was a useless quibble. While a lab notebook is a 'primary' source, it is not a published source. From WP's point of view only published sources count, as we all know. > >*Idolatry is not a valid basis for argument. [Personal attack on Steve Bennett or stevertigo, or someone] > The response was to stevertigo; Steve Bennett had mad an intermediate > comment. The comment was in the nature of "If Jimbo says it it must be > right". "Idolatry" is ad rem since it refers to the statement; > "idolator" would have been ad hominem. The wording was perhaps a bit > strong, but strong comments are anything but misleading. Actually this is part of your continuing sly denigration of Jimbo, suggesting that those who support do not do so this side of claims of infallibility. > >*I think your response is just another way of saying that you do not know. [Sort of personal attack or sniping at stevertigo] > I remember writing that, and it was perhaps a tad sarcastic, but since I > forget what I was responding to, I will not comment at this point about > whether it was misleading. It was. > >*Much of what is said to the media in a first instance (is) off the cuff and not necessarily supported by a broad consensus. [Well, an individual is being interviewed.] > The media look for sound-bytes, and when people are caught unawares it > is very easy to say things that have not been thought through. The media > hate dead air, and people often feel obliged to say something when > things get too silent. Those who are media savvy will of course do > better. Nothing misleading in that. The whole point of interviewing technique is to get people into territory where they are spontaneous rather rehearsed. Misdirection. (I was interviewed at short notice by ABC, BTW.) > >*Stonewalling is indeed an effective tactic. The only problem with it is that it pisses people off just as effectively. [Silence is golden, you know. Contradicts the ?off the cuff? comment, too.] > That was not necessarily in relation to the media. Government officials > can be very adept at this when they don't want to admit anything. It's a > part of being media savvy, and the media savvy do not get trapped into > off-the-cuff remarks. Again, not misleading. You want it both ways, really > >*[>Because the topic of Wikipedia's governance and processes of control > > > > > >>are typical fodder for trolls, who are far more interested in hurting > >>the project than helping it. > >> > >> > >That's like saying that democracy is too precious to be put under the > >control of the general population. [Oh really. Arguing with stevertigo again. Trolls really do go wild about constitutional definitions.] > If you say that was in response to stevevertigo I'll believe you; the > banter does tend to go in series of comments. IIRC the argument had just > been made in favour of limiting participation in governace discussions > on the above basis. When you start limiting participation out of a > prejudged fear that some participants might be trolls my comment is > perfectly applicable. If there are trolls identify them and deal with > them individually rather than acting out of fear that they might be > there. Nothing misleading about that. Evasive. > >*>And indeed, a constitutional monarchy is the best analogy for the > > > > > >>English Wikipedia at the moment. > >> > >> > >Charles I discovered the hard way that there are limits to monarchy. [He wasn?t a constitutional monarch, as you know. Seems to be sniping at Jimbo now.] > There was an intervening comment that lacked the adjective > "constitutional". Perhaps the allusion was a little sharp, but it was > not misleading. Oh, you weren't threatening Jimbo with beheading, then? Some of us might have been misled. > >*When a process becomes backlogged it is evidently not scaling well. [No.] > Perhaps it might have been better if I had said "chronically backlogged" > If the in-box keeps filling up faster than the outbos we need more > effective processes. Not misleading. No, backlogged processes on WP are to do with volunteer priorities. They more often indicate that the need is not clearly seen. People redeploy when persuaded the work matters. You are quite wrong about this. >*>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons > > > > > >>suggests that whether or not primary sources can be used depends on > >>how public the figure is. For non-public figures, it says "material > >> > >> > >>from primary sources should generally not be used," whereas for public > >>figures it says "material from primary sources should be used with > >>care" though that is under the heading "Presumption in favor of > >>privacy". > >Court judgements (and, for that matter, court filings by the disputants, > >and even trial transcripts) are a matter of public record. This is an > >important component to maintaining the transparency of the judicial > >system. Privacy should not be a factor with this kind of material. [Privacy is written into WP:BLP, so this is not the point at all.] > We evidently are using different interpretations of "privacy". As I see > it information that is already available to the public is not private. > You have chosen a different definition. Failure to agree to your > definition does not make my comments misleading. The 'living persons' policy is very clearly againt, for example, non-salient inclusions of minor legal involvements. This is what matters. > >*Being "not supposed to do it" is not a strong enough excuse for not > >doing it. One shouldn't become doctrinnaire about sources when an > >article is just started; that only quashes the inspiration to do > >something. [Wrong. And somewhat wrong.] > All that says is that rules should be applied flexibly to suit the > circumstances. Articles need time to grow, and immediately sourcing > facts is more importasnt in some areas of knowledge than others. I've > been consistent in my view so there is nothing misleading about it. It is misleading to say one should not consider sources in starting an article: of course one should. Absent reliable sources, one shouldn't start the article. The sources don't need all to be in the first draft (we can agree that much). > >*Fractal systems incorporate a lot of randomness. [Tosh. They may or may not.] > You can never be sure where new structures will develop. Not misleading. No, you are just abusing the term 'fractal', which means something quite different. > >* I do not believe that reliability should be or even can be one of our goals. [Really.] > Really! Although we should always be ttrying to improve the content, we > also need to disavow people of reliability. That will encourage them to > seek additional sources. Not misleading. You argued a few days ago that schools articles would be useful to parents. Tell me, are parents looking for reliable information or some other kind? You want it both ways, once more. Reliability _is_ one of our goals, and a disclaimer about it doesn't change that. Misdirection. > >*The queen retains her power by not exercisiing it. [Bad history ? 1973 general election.] > > > In which country? There was no UK general election that year. I tried to > look it up to find out what you were talking about. Once in 55 years > does not exactly make her a radical interventionist. Nevertheless, > "using it sparingly" might have been more precise wording, but the > general tone stands, and is not misleading. Sorry, I meant 1974. She used precise constitutional powers, to keep Wilson out of 10 Downing Street, while Ted Heath tried to form a coalition. Misleading to say the powers are not used. > >*A statistical mathematical model should be capable of marginalizing the effect that idiots have on the article. [Or not.] > Statistics allows for exceptions. When a single vote makes the > difference between winning and losing the trolls can matter much more > than if their votes are burid in a larger pattern of voting The idea > might be radical but it's not misleading. Statistical ideas are more likely to be gamed than just about any others. Quite misconceived. > >*The alternative would be for the reporters to learn what putting Wikipedia in proper perspective means. They might even have to check their facts. That would not be the easy way out for them. [Implication that our coverage suffers from a lack of professionalism. Anyone believe this is helpful?] > Your implication is not mine. Reporters will be happy with Wikipedia as > long as they can easily use the material in their work. They still need > to check their facts. When they don't and the Wikipedia article that > they use turns out to be one that has been subtly vandalized, they are > more likely to blame Wikipedia than to take responsibility for their own > action. This seems to be what happened with the publicity folders for > Sioux Lookout. If anyone's professionalism is being criticized it's that > of the reporters. Not at all misleading. You switch cheerfully from 'putting WP into proper perspective' (reporting about WP) to reporters using WP as a source (something quite other) and then to 'Sioux Lookout', which was PR work not journalism, wasn't it? Quite an intellect mish-mash. Well, I say it again, IMO you post industrial quantities of this kind of chop-logic and misdirecting stuff to this list. Charles ----------------------------------------- Email sent from www.virginmedia.com/email Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software and scanned for spam

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium to launch this week
by Daniel P. B. Smith 27 Mar '07

27 Mar '07

>> On 3/25/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> >> >>> This part of their policy is almost funny seeing how much we all >>> just >>> "love" WP:TLAs >>> >>> "No initialisms. The Policy pages of the Citizendium may not contain >>> any three-letter "initialisms." For example, "IAR," "NOR," and "AFD" >>> are three letter initialisms. These expressions are a considerable >>> problem for new users who are unfamiliar with them. The first time a >>> user introduces such an expression in a policy page, he/she will be >>> warned and the expression removed. The second time a user repeats >>> this >>> offense, he will be banned for a suitable amount of time.? >> >> I look forward to seeing what sort of private jargon they wind up >> developing -- and if they realize that they've done so. Initialisms >> are the English Wikipedia's jargon. Conservapedia doesn't have any objection to initialisms as such, but they've adopted one--VSA for Very Short Article--in order to avoid calling them stubs, i.e. to be different from Wikipedia for the sake of difference. The template which expands into "This article has been identified as having problems with length, content and/or style, and is therefore classified as a Very Short Article (VSA)..." is... wait for it... {{stub}}

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR
by charles.r.matthews＠ntlworld.com 27 Mar '07

27 Mar '07

> It's hard to know what brought on this personal attack. If there is > anything "subtly misleading" in my posts let him present the facts that > support that. Otherwise, I can only assume that Charles' statement was > made out of the sheer pleasure of being argumentative. > > Ray Went through my Trash folder, results appended (my comments in [ ]). Charles *We have no need to be strict about notability. [Oh really] *Having "non-encyclopedic topics" (whatever that means) does not make us a worse encyclopaedia. [Not whatever that means] *>>Scientific papers are secondary sources. The experimental or >>observational data that the papers draw on are the primary sources. >> >> >The data is usually published in the paper, so the paper is the primary source. Another non-sequitur. [Silly quibble with Thomas Dalrton.] *Idolatry is not a valid basis for argument. [Personal attack on Steve Bennett or stevertigo, or someone] *I think your response is just another way of saying that you do not know. [Sort of personal attack or sniping at stevertigo] *Much of what is said to the media in a first instance (is) off the cuff and not necessarily supported by a broad consensus. [Well, an individual is being interviewed.] *Stonewalling is indeed an effective tactic. The only problem with it is that it pisses people off just as effectively. [Silence is golden, you know. Contradicts the off the cuff comment, too.] *[>Because the topic of Wikipedia's governance and processes of control >are typical fodder for trolls, who are far more interested in hurting >the project than helping it. That's like saying that democracy is too precious to be put under the control of the general population. [Oh really. Arguing with stevertigo again. Trolls really do go wild about constitutional definitions.] *>And indeed, a constitutional monarchy is the best analogy for the >English Wikipedia at the moment. Charles I discovered the hard way that there are limits to monarchy. [He wasnt a constitutional monarch, as you know. Seems to be sniping at Jimbo now.] *When a process becomes backlogged it is evidently not scaling well. [No.] *>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons >suggests that whether or not primary sources can be used depends on >how public the figure is. For non-public figures, it says "material >from primary sources should generally not be used," whereas for public >figures it says "material from primary sources should be used with >care" though that is under the heading "Presumption in favor of >privacy". Court judgements (and, for that matter, court filings by the disputants, and even trial transcripts) are a matter of public record. This is an important component to maintaining the transparency of the judicial system. Privacy should not be a factor with this kind of material. [Privacy is written into WP:BLP, so this is not the point at all.] *Being "not supposed to do it" is not a strong enough excuse for not doing it. One shouldn't become doctrinnaire about sources when an article is just started; that only quashes the inspiration to do something. [Wrong. And somewhat wrong.] *Fractal systems incorporate a lot of randomness. [Tosh. They may or may not.] * I do not believe that reliability should be or even can be one of our goals. [Really.] *The queen retains her power by not exercisiing it. [Bad history 1973 general election.] *A statistical mathematical model should be capable of marginalizing the effect that idiots have on the article. [Or not.] *The alternative would be for the reporters to learn what putting Wikipedia in proper perspective means. They might even have to check their facts. That would not be the easy way out for them. [Implication that our coverage suffers from a lack of professionalism. Anyone believe this is helpful?] ----------------------------------------- Email sent from www.virginmedia.com/email Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software and scanned for spam

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Out of process deletions
by Fred Bauder 27 Mar '07

27 Mar '07

>-----Original Message----- >From: James Farrar [mailto:james.farrar@gmail.com] >Sent: Monday, March 26, 2007 07:37 PM >To: 'English Wikipedia' >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Out of process deletions > >On 27/03/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> On 3/26/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> >> > > Also, I have a hard time imagining a situation where it is absolutely >> > > impossible to purge POV from the bio of an otherwise notable person >> > > without nuking the article. >> >> > But is that the point? If a credible legal threat it made, we might as >> > well just delete the thing first and ask questions later. No single >> > article is worth getting sued over - whether the Foundation would win >> > the case or not. >> >> Such cases are why we unfortunately have the necessary evil that is WP:OFFICE. > >Indeed. > >And in the absence of an Office intervention, surely an admin speedily >deleting an article that has already failed an AfD is acting beyond >his powers? No, any user may remove or delete libelous or malicious material without limit. Fred

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium to launch this week
by SonOfYoungwood＠aol.com 27 Mar '07

27 Mar '07

I'm not jumping ship. Wikipedia hasn't driven me away yet. ************************************** AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at http://www.aol.com.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Out of process deletions
by Daniel R. Tobias 27 Mar '07

27 Mar '07

On 27 Mar 2007 at 11:13, "Steve Bennett" <stevagewp(a)gmail.com> wrote: > But is that the point? If a credible legal threat it made, we might as > well just delete the thing first and ask questions later. No single > article is worth getting sued over - whether the Foundation would win > the case or not. But if we take that attitude, then anybody who wants to suppress anything will just have to make such a 'credible legal threat', knowing that we'll roll over and play dead. Sometimes it's necessary to take a stand on principle. On a different but related matter, I notice that on the talk page of the admin who deleted the article there's this gem: The fact that the project is apparently being sued by the subject (a fact I had no knowledge of when I deleted) makes the recklessness of trying to undelete this mindbogglingly stupid. Frankly, anyone who is seriously wanting to fight this one should be hard-banned as a total liability. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Doc_glasgow So, apparently all of us who have the temerity to disagree with him on this ought to be banned from Wikipedia. Maybe some of the critics are right about there being fascistic tendencies among some of the admins. -- == 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/

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Out of process deletions
by Fred Bauder 27 Mar '07

27 Mar '07

>-----Original Message----- >From: Ron Ritzman [mailto:ritzman@gmail.com] >Sent: Monday, March 26, 2007 07:59 PM >To: 'English Wikipedia' >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Out of process deletions > >On 3/26/07, James Farrar <james.farrar(a)gmail.com> wrote: > >> And in the absence of an Office intervention, surely an admin speedily >> deleting an article that has already failed an AfD is acting beyond >> his powers? > >If you are talking about the Barbara Bauer article, the AFD on that >was closed "keep". These are the previous AFDs on "Daniel Brandt" >which a recent "out of process" delete ignited a wheel war... > >Keep AFD 2 March 2007 >Speedy close, AFD 23 February 2007 >Keep, AFD 28 December 2006 >Speedy keep, AFD 12 August 2006 >Speedy keep, AFD 13 July 2006 >Snowball keep, AFD 19 June 2006 >Speedy keep, AFD 10 June 2006 >Speedy keep, AFD 5 June 2006 >Invalid, AFD 13 April 2006 >Speedy keep, AFD 12 April 2006 >Snowball keep, AFD 05 April 2006 >Keep, AFD 13 November 2005 >Speedy keep, AFD 07 November 2005 > >The "office" is the only way that one's going away. But there is no problem with that article, at least as far as we are concerned. Fred

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WikiEN-l March 2007