WikiEN-l August 2007

wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org

147 participants
183 discussions

25 Jul '09

At http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cool_Wall we had a complete list of cars which appear on the BBC Top Gear "Cool Wall". I removed this as being almost certainly a violation of copyright. It is now being argued that reproducing the list in full does not violate copyright, because it is not published in the show's magazine or on the website and has been compiled by collating the lists from numerous shows. It is further asserted that compiling the list from these shows does not constitute original research, although there is no known reliable secondary source for any of the data, let alone the complete collated list Original research? You decide. Copyright? I think so, but what do I know? Fancruft? Ooooh, tricky :-) Guidance appreciated. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

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Our content gets *everywhere*
by Andrew Gray 23 Dec '07

23 Dec '07

It worries me a little that I can spot Wikipedia text a mile off - our house style isn't that obvious, is it? - but it seems to be one of those little skills you pick up after a while. Very useful for marking school essays, I'm sure. Anyhow, I was packing up some boxes today, and happened across the box for the Nokia 770 (a really useful little bit of kit, incidentally), which shows someone merrily using the device to chatter away to a friend on an instant messenger. For some reason, the friend is writing something to them about poetry. I looked at the sentence. Something went click. "Kim: A poem is a composition usually written in verse. Poems rely heavily on imagery, precise word choice, and metaphor, may be written in measures consisting of" [...] http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Literature&oldid=3562677 I'm used to seeing our content reused all over the place, but somehow I didn't expect to see fragments used as lorem-ipsum filler on a box cover... -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

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Ten things is a good idea - sort of
by stevertigo 06 Sep '07

06 Sep '07

Hello list, I like the fact that people (by one means or another) agreed on using the banner space for something other than the fund drive (there is already a permanent link in the interaction sidebox, no?). Then things is an interesting usage for that valuable bulletin space. But I don't think its the best usage. A better usage would be for mobjobs; fix-it tasks which would effectively serve double duty as reminders (or first time notices) of some basic process and policy, focusing on particular problems or aspects. These can be minor items that need lots of eyeballs to correct on a large scale. My favorite peeves are: * the misuse of external links in the body of articles, * improper hatnotes (WP:HAT - hey, my protologism is official terminology! ;) * self refs in-body/outside-of-parenthesis. 'For more information,' etc. -stevertigo

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Redirects, was Re: Re: Writing for the Pedia
by charles.r.matthews＠ntlworld.com 05 Sep '07

05 Sep '07

"michael west" wrote > As for REDIRECTS - what is the current policy? take two of my google > searches yesterday as examples* j s m ward * > http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=res… > - > the first wikipedia page is miles away John Sebastian Marlow Ward I would have no hesitation in creating a redirect of [[J. S. M. Ward]] to [[John Sebastian Marlow Ward]]. I would do that simply on the basis that an academic book indexed Ward by initials. > ;and kryolite (my alternative? spelling of Cryolite) > http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=kryolite&meta= If one hears > a word on television or radio its not always obvious how it is spelled Typos a little harder to justify. If this is an actual alternate spelling, the redirect would be automatic > i would never suggest that every permutation of an articles name should be a > redirect, but i wouldn't consider writing one now that everybody has TW. I > just wouldn't be bothered with arguing over a PROD on a redirect. The resource implications of redirects are apparently small. Using many bytes to justify deleting a couple of dozen seems to make little sense. Charles ----------------------------------------- Email sent from www.virginmedia.com/email Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software and scanned for spam

10 15

Admin alert mechanism?
by David Gerard 05 Sep '07

05 Sep '07

http://www.wikirage.com/ - shows the most actively edited articles of late. - d.

2 1

What en:wp would look like printed out
by David Gerard 05 Sep '07

05 Sep '07

750 volumes. How do they break down? http://www.qwghlm.co.uk/blog/2007/08/29/what-wikipedia-would-look-like-if-o… - d.

25 49

Misogyny is the perfect troll
by Durova 02 Sep '07

02 Sep '07

In respect to a thread here and a recent private discussion I'll highlight the valuable side effects of misogyny. *Misogyny discredits the individual who possesses it.* From a distance it may not be obvious which side of a dispute can supply better evidence, but open bigotry sure as heck is obvious. *Misogyny relieves me of regrets.* Sometimes I second guess myself after I use the sysop tools. A sexist quip clears my conscience. I go away happy to be the sysop and equally happy the fellow is blocked or banned. *Misogyny is the perfect troll. * I'm not above a little *schadenfreude*; I think it's hilarious. Misogyny generates misery among a certain set of people who are basically unpleasant anyway and wastes huge amounts of their time and energy. Best of all, I break zero rules and keep all my online buddies while they make themselves despised and sometimes even endanger their careers. -Durova

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Article authorship was: Making damn sure image attribution is very clear
by Gregory Maxwell 01 Sep '07

01 Sep '07

On 8/25/07, K P <kpbotany(a)gmail.com> wrote: [snip] > even an entire article > in Wikipedia is seldom ever the contribution of only one editor, Do you have any evidence to support this claim? All the data that I've seen so far suggest that most articles may well be the product of single authors. Not most high profile articles, or most featured articles, ... but most articles. Most articles are mostly short and on obsecure matters. Yes, most have had edits by a few others. But these edits are overwhelmingly tagging and markup related. It would often be hard to argue that they were substantial enough to carry a copyright interest, and no one sane would argue that such edits are enough to rightly call the editor an author.

4 9

Re: [WikiEN-l] Jayjg is not AWOL
by Daniel R. Tobias 01 Sep '07

01 Sep '07

On 28 Aug 2007 at 14:57:16 -0700, "George Herbert" <george.herbert(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Either the system works... we are mostly honorable people, and have > enough honest and principled people that if something seriously > sinister started someone would stand up and publically announce it and > call for it to end. ...and get labeled a "troll", his messages summarily deleted as trolling, and eventually he gets banned, then any subsequent person who expresses similar ideas gets labeled a "sockpuppet" and banned too, even more summarily. And the clique pats themselves on the back for defeating another bad guy. -- == 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/

6 7

Jayjg is AWOL
by Frank Bellowes 01 Sep '07

01 Sep '07

User:Jayjg has apparently been missing from Wikipedia since August 4th http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Jayjg, shortly before an ArbComm in which he is named as a party formally opened. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Allegations… Perhaps also not coincidentally, one of the other editors named in the case, User:Urthogie, has also disappeared without a trace. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Urthogie Unlike Urthogie, Jayjg is a trusted user and admin who has access to tools such as Oversight and Checkuser and is also on the ArbComm mailing list as a former member of that body. He's well aware of the custom of announcing when you are on "Wikibreak" or "Wikiholiday" but has not posted any such announcement. Further, he is also now at the center of a very serious allegation that he misused his Oversight tools in order to coverup an old incident of abusive sockpuppetry by one of his friends http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incide… The Sockpuppet case is old and evidently occurred when SV was still a new editor though, given that she used an "alternate account" to support her main account on various pages including "double voting" in the instance of a Featured Article nomination, it would have been nice had she simply publicly admitted her mistake and apologized. Instead, she has sent out private emails explaining away the "alternate account" by saying wikipedia was different then, she was new and her double voting was simply a "mistake". I think we can excuse an old mistake but a bit of contrition would have been nice. In any case, the real problem is not SV's sockpuppetry but Jayjg's agreement, in the past year, to coverup any evidence of this by oversighting various edits. Several respected editors have expressed concern about Jay's behavior in the ANI discussion: Gmaxwell: "Except it's already been before Arbcom and it appears that they failed us. When oversight was first introduced the logs were public. I noticed Jayjg's mass over-sighting of seemingly harmless edits like spelling corrections with an summary of "pi". I brought the issue up with Brion, who thought it looked odd so he temporally removed oversight from Jayjg. [23]. Arbcom looked at the issue, and apparently decided that it was all okay. Jay's access was restored, the revisions stayed oversighted, and he continued mass over-sighting old edits like these. I trusted then. Having seen the evidence I think it would be unwise to extend the same trust again. --Gmaxwell 03:03, 25 August 2007 (UTC)" "Although Sarah's actions are old enough to be uninteresting, as Dan pointed out above, the possible appearance of coverup is very interesting and important and should be fully resolved." (Gmaxwell) Thatcher131: "Overly aggressive use of oversight by Jayjg was brought up privately as an issue when oversight was first instituted, but the concerns were apparently dismissed. This should be looked into again." Jayjg really needs to explain himself but he has evidently decided to abandon wikipedia, at least for the period of the ArbCom case against him. Apart from an initial post opposing the ArbComm taking on the case he has made no contribution to the ArbComm case, not to the Workshop or Evidence page. In the past admins who have failed to participate in an ArbComm case involving them have been desysopped. Given Jayjg's unexplained absence, his failure to respond to one ArbCom case against him, the serious questions that exist considering his use of Oversight in another matter and the possibility that an account that has quite a number of tools attached has been abandoned and may be usurped by a hacker I'm wondering whether anything will be done? Will Jayjg be desysopped and have his tools removed (and be unsubscribed from ArbComm-L) at least as a precaution until he returns and explains himself? Will he be deemed to have abdicated his responsibilities by refusing to respond to an ArbComm case against him and refusing to explain the Oversight situation? At the very least Jimbo should direct the ArbComm to examine Jay's possible abuse of his Oversight tools and investigate other possible abuses. The dereliction of duty by a senior admin is a serious problem which should not be swept under the carpet or overlooked. Doing so only further damages Wikipedia's credibility in a year in which we have taken a number of serious blows.

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WikiEN-l August 2007