In thinking about the recent Hasbara Fellowships situation, it reminds
me of previous situations where we've made summary blocks, like the US
Congress IPs. I'm wondering if we could use another tool in our toolbox:
the ability to ban people from articles only, while letting them
contribute normally to article talk and other pages. Here's why:
Wikipedia is becoming a bigger and bigger target for people with strong
points of view. A lot of these are people with conflicts of interest,
and another big segment is those engaged in political battles. Turned
loose on the encyclopedia, they could (and would) substantially harm our
NPOV goal.
Right now, we have two options to deal with them. One is to trust that
our system is robust enough to keep POVs roughly balanced. The other is
to just ban people outright from participation, temporarily or
permanently. For these strong POV types, I don't see either one of
those as a great solution.
Even when we can distill POV contributions into NPOV articles, POV
pushers are wearying. Blocking them can help, but it gives them an
incentive to pop up elsewhere, leading to sock-puppet hunts and a lot of
admin whack-a-mole. More importantly, it deprives us of their help in
providing references and in spotting POV distortion from others.
Would it be worth creating a new, more limited kind of block, where they
are just forbidden to touch main-space article pages? If they were
complete jerks, we could still use a normal block, of course. But
creating the softer option of semi-protection worked well, and I'm
thinking a softer kind of block would be a similar step forward.
William
--
William Pietri <william(a)scissor.com>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri
On 27 Jul 2007 at 18:04:37 -0400, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote:
> On 7/27/07, SPUI <drspui(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/27/1943254 is currently on
> > the front page, along with the text "It turns out that a Wikipedia
> > administrator named SlimVirgin is actually Linda Mack..." Looks like
> > outing to me.
> >
> It's only outing if it's true, and apparently it isn't.
Then why has Slim's entire clique always been so desperate to
suppress all mention of it? This seems to have been a primary motive
of the whole idiotic "attack site link" policy, for instance.
--
== 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/
Hello everyone.
As a few of you may know, about 5 weeks ago some new guidelines were
put into place on meta for the IRC channel #wikipedia. At the same
time, the operator access list for the channel was emptied and started
from scratch.
The changes were quite unpopular, to say the least. A discussion
thread was started about them on the foundation-l mailing list, but
probably should have been started on wikipedia-l.
Now that I am back from my holiday, I have opened a review discussion
about the guidelines on their talk page on meta, which you can access
at the follow URL:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:IRC_guidelines/wikipedia
I would very much appreciate the input there of all people who have an
interest in the guidelines, and indeed any users of the
Wikipedia-affiliated IRC channels on Freenode.
~Mark Ryan
>-----Original Message-----
>From: John Lee [mailto:johnleemk@gmail.com]
>Sent: Monday, July 30, 2007 06:51 AM
>To: 'English Wikipedia'
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Self-sensorship, how far should it go?
>
>On 7/30/07, sean(a)epoptic.com <sean(a)epoptic.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Sun, Jul 29, 2007 at 06:20:58PM -0400, Steve Summit wrote:
>> > I can't begin to untangle all the rhetorical questions, strawmen,
>> > and sarcastic remarks here, but: the point is that, for the
>> > current issue at least, there *is* a de facto ban on links to
>> > slashdot. All sorts of random editors, at least some of them
>> > presumably innocent and well-meaning, are asking questions about
>> > the Slashdot story, and those questions are being methodically
>> > removed without a trace.
>>
>> "those questions are being methodically removed without a trace" --
>> oh, really? How is that "without a trace" being implemented? Oversight?
>>
>> Or is your statement just another part of "all the rhetorical
>> questions, strawmen, and sarcastic remarks here"?
>
>
>Well, I think a recent post to the list suggested that the old-fashioned
>"delete and restore" route we used to take prior to oversight's invention
>has been followed - it's not "without a trace", but it's enough to make it
>hard to see what was there unless you're an admin. And according to David
>Gerard (I think), there have been rejected requests to use oversight in this
>case. Steve may be exaggerating, but not by much.
>
>Johnleemk
I went and looked at the Slashdot discussion. It's not about the kooky accusations, but about significant issues. Our users would find the discussion interesting and it would help if they weighed in. I think we are shooting ourselves in the foot removing links to the Slashdot page. It's certainly an initiation into the kind of nonsense we've been dealing with privately for the last two years. Time everybody got baptized.
Fred
>-----Original Message-----
>From: James Farrar [mailto:james.farrar@gmail.com]
>Sent: Sunday, July 29, 2007 11:21 AM
>To: 'English Wikipedia'
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Self-sensorship, how far should it go?
>
>On 29/07/07, Oleg Alexandrov <mathbot(a)hemlock.knams.wikimedia.org> wrote:
>> As we know, Slashdot posted a story linking to a paranoic article
>> revealing SlimVirgin's real name and claiming she is a secret
>> agent. Bad and dumb on their part. That of course makes
>> SlimVirgin feel distressed, creates a lot of damage, etc.
>
>And therefore, in order "to support productive editors and protect
>them from harassment both on and off Wikipedia", it is necessary that
>all links to Slashdot be expunged from Wikipedia immediately, right?
No, we don't take such foolish suggestions seriously.
Fred
On 29 Jul 2007 at 09:05:12 -0400, Steve Summit <scs(a)eskimo.com>
wrote:
> Dan Tobias wrote:
> > ...why has Slim's entire clique always been so desperate to
> > suppress all mention of it? This seems to have been a primary motive
> > of the whole idiotic "attack site link" policy, for instance.
>
> I believe it's because the discussion is held as unseemly and hurtful.
But one has to ask just how long Slim should be enabled by her
friends to take her her "damsel in distress" position, where her
tender, delicate sensibilities are being cruelly assaulted by all
those evil trolls and attackers. She's not a weak, defenseless,
lowly person here... she's one of the most prominent and powerful
editors and administrators on Wikipedia, and has a whole clique
surrounding her that wields a huge degree of power and influence over
the whole site. As such, she's arguably in the sort of position
where one must develop a thick skin about criticism. Critics won't
always be polite, and reasonable, and civil, and fair... especially
when they're doing their criticism over on other sites that play by
different rules from ours. But if you resort to heavyhanded tactics
to try to suppress all mention of the critics and criticisms, you
just surrender the moral high ground and make yourself and your
organization look bad.
A few articles up from the one about Wikipedia and Slim on Slashdot,
there's one about the New Zealand legislature (or parliament, or
whatever the heck they have over there) passing rules banning
journalists from using images of the legislators in session in
contexts that ridicule the legislature. Maybe that country has its
own local versions of John Stewart that like using politicians' own
speeches and the like to make fun of them, and that apparently hurt
somebody's feelings over there. Criticizing the government is fine
in a free country... but can't those critics be *fair* and *civil*
about it? Showing a legislator caught on camera picking his nose, in
order to sneer at him, is just *unfair*, and should be suppressed!
However, these rules are backfiring on them... I hear that Jon
Stewart even did a segment making fun of them for it... since he's in
the U.S., they can't do any more about it than Wikipedia's clique can
do about Slashdot commenters it dislikes.
A few years ago, Singapore's government dealt with critics who
claimed that the government was muzzling criticism via litigation...
by suing the critics for libel! That's the sort of thing that makes
one a laughingstock worldwide. Having the Wikipedia clique gang up
to suppress people who talk about how Wikipedia has a clique that
gangs up on people is right in that vein.
It's ironic that, just a few months ago, I was one of the most rabid
pro-Wikipedia, anti-critic people around. Very ironically, what
started turning things around for me was the fact that I liked to
laugh at the critics and their sites... at one point I frequently
called Wikipedia Review "the WikiWhiners" (something that got me
temporarily banned from that site, where I'd registered an account
for the purpose of responding to the attacks and criticisms they were
making about me). But to criticize the critics, and make fun of
them, it was useful to be able to link to what I was criticizing,
like "See [link]... look at the silly stuff they're saying now!" So
the attack-site link ban was troublesome to me... and when I spoke up
against it, it brought to my attention the seamy underbelly of the
Wikipedia clique and how it stood together in "solidarity" to circle
its wagons against anybody who went against it. That was an eye-
opener, and though I still strongly disagree with most of the
ideology of the "attack sites", I now have much more sympathy for
them than I did before.
--
== 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/
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Steve Summit [mailto:scs@eskimo.com]
>Sent: Sunday, July 29, 2007 10:20 AM
>To: wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Self-sensorship, how far should it go?
>
>Fred Bauder wrote:
>> But is there anything to it? Or is it just nasty gossip?
>> If you want to gossip, join the Navy.
>
>There's a fine line to be trodden here. Certainly, we don't
>want or need to dignify wild rumors with any attention at all.
>But once a story "has legs" (and whether it deserves them or not),
>too-strenuous attempts to deny it only fuel the speculations that
>there *is* a cabal and a cover-up -- and those speculations can
>end up driving more long-term damage than the original, spurious
>accusation would have.
>
>A single, simple statement on Slim's user or talk page, saying
>that the rumor is false, would be much better than all this
>rampant reverting by ElinorD, Jayjg, and Crum375. (And there may
>have been other reverters, sorry if I left you out, but evidently
>this issue has become so "serious" that [[User talk:SlimVirgin]]
>has had a bunch of its history deleted.)
I haven't done anything. I don't know how to handle it, but since it is no more than scuttlebutt what is there to discuss? The campaign against SlimVirgin has been going on for a couple of years. Every once in a while they find an acorn, but never anything substantial. ~~~~
Welcome to Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
-Justin
---- Original message ----
Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2007 14:22:23 -0400
From: Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner(a)gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Fringecruft piles up
To: English Wikipedia
<wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
>
>
>On Jul 26, 2007, at 4:35 PM, The Cunctator wrote:
>
>> Why don't you not spend your effort attacking
the work of others?
>
>Why don't others stop writing and defending
pieces of shit that are
>an embarrassment to the project?
>
>-Phil
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Generally speaking we don't include stuff that is made up; unless it crosses the notability threshold. This might, but does not seem to yet.
Fred
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Oleg Alexandrov [mailto:mathbot@hemlock.knams.wikimedia.org]
>Sent: Saturday, July 28, 2007 06:59 PM
>To: 'English Wikipedia'
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] Self-sensorship, how far should it go?
>
>As we know, Slashdot posted a story linking to a paranoic article
>revealing SlimVirgin's real name and claiming she is a secret
>agent. Bad and dumb on their part. That of course makes
>SlimVirgin feel distressed, creates a lot of damage, etc.
>
>However, how far should Wikipedians go to "protect" the feelings
>of their editors? As of now, any attempts (and they were many) to
>mention anything about this anywhere on Wikipedia is reverted on
>sight. Any post with the words "SlimVirgin news" is just deleted.
>
>I beleive this is going overboard. The damage is done. Shutting
>our eyes and ears, pretending "All is well in Wiki-land", and
>ruthless self-censoring is just further damaging Wikipedia's
>reputation.
>
>Comments?
>
>Oleg Alexandrov
>
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
Just an example of long-term unreverted vandalism for your amusement:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Art_Tatum&diff=32294907&oldid=292…
External links, language links, categories and a sound sample reference
were deleted in December 2005 by an anon. The sound sample itself was
permanently deleted a month later citing "orphaned fair use". The lost
sections were progressively rebuilt by human effort over the 18 months
following, except for the sound sample which remains lost.
-- Tim Starling