The question of how one becomes unmoderated on this list has been sitting on
the en.wikipedia mailing list page for over a month:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Mailing_lists
I'm not sure if this is the appropriate venue to ask this, but what do I, as
a user in good standing on en.wikipedia, need to do to be allowed to post
effectively on this list and get involved?
WilyD
> That means that you're clever enough to spot not just the obvious, but
> the reasonably subtle. The ones who are really good at it are the ones
> you won't catch. or do you assume that nobody is that good?
"We don't have to make it impossible, just difficult.
This is helped by the fact that most obsessive enough to disrupt
Wikipedia to that extent are not stable, sensible individuals."
All editing is a result of the user's cost/benefit analysis. Wikipedia is
built upon the hopeful assumption that most of the people who take time
to contribute will act for altruistic reasons. It reinforces that
presumption with some coding and policies to give useful edits an advantage
over disruptive and exploitive edits. That's an average assumption and
based upon the site's progress over less than a decade it's overall a sound
one.
A few peaks and valleys occur on the ends of that statistical curve. One
question usually posed by outside critics is *who in heck would devote
enough energy to become an administrator?* I'd like to think we're
idealists and that opinion gets reinforced a lot among sysops. Yet it's no
joke that Wikipedia pages about edit count also link to obsessive-compulsive
disorder. Wikipedians tend to focus on the individuals who don't operate
within site standards and outside observers direct greater scrutiny on the
Wikipedians. Some of the latter scrutiny is logically or facutally flawed
and some of it reveals naive misunderstanding of how the site works,
which makes it very tempting for a Wikipedian to dismiss the criticism out
of hand. I don't think it's all invalid; it's just very challenging to
parse.
At the other end are the bell curve are the long term vandals. I propose
that most of these people are less effective than the administrators.
Whatever criticisms people may lodge against us (power hungry petty tyrants
who skip sophomore high school classes to pursue ideological vendettas), the
undeniable fact is that administrators have succeeded at working within
Wikipedia's structure while banned editors haven't. Of course some long
term vandals aren't banned yet. The Joan of Arc vandal operated for two
years before getting community banned, although thirteen months of that
occurred because I was new and it took time to earn enough clout to get
taken seriously when I presented my report and requested a siteban. Many of
his edits got reverted during that time and he broke some more policies that
I documented to make it easier for the community to agree on the solution.
I'm tracking some other long term vandals quietly who've been operating for
similar time frames; it takes a while to establish a case under certain
circumstances. Usually they're not very successful at getting their edits
to stick and they do appear to fit a similar personality profile. They also
exhibit a lot of characteristic mistakes. There are certain specific
reasons why some vandals last longer than others. I won't outline those
reasons because I know my posts get wached, but the bottom line is the long
term vandals aren't much different from the ones who get banned quickly.
In the case of ideological or profit-motivated disruption - the two kinds
that are hardest to persuade someone to stop - sitebans don't need to happen
if the editor is wise enough to change strategies. In less time than it
takes to engage in a lengthy edit war, a person could publish several
articles in a reliable small venue or get some press releases planted in the
mainstream media. Then, quite legitimately, the editor could propose those
pieces as reference sources. This is the most obvious of a variety of
policy-friendly methods for achieving the goals that otherwise result in
banning. A successful editor is one whose edits become durable and whose
talk posts persuade the community.
-Durova
I'm sure this idea has already been kicked around, but why aren't there
selective blocks, i.e. blocks restricted to one or more certain pages? I
don't mean temporary bans on articles or article groups as occasionally
imposed by the ArbCom, but a block-button block.
It could e.g. give users with specific conflicts of interest (not
necessarily in a corporate sense, also like strong personal bias/POV
etc.) the opportunity and even an incentive to work on completely
different areas, as they would be working to actively restore the
community's trust in their willingness to contribute to the encyclopedia
as a whole. Wouldn't that be a lot more constructive than temporarily
revoking '''all''' editing privileges for things like an 3RR violation
on a certain page, or personal attacks in some heated debate on a
certain talk page? If it later turned out that the user in question is
generally intolerable, s/he could accordingly be fully blocked (as
usual) to give them a stronger warning.
So, well, nevermind if the idea has already been discussed and rejected.
Adrian
Stephen Colbert did another of his ridicule jobs on Wikipedia, this
time centered on WikiScanner, and how it's evil because it engages in
"outing" of the online personas of... no, not individual Wikipedians,
but corporations, which are people with rights too. How dare that
evil attack site expose that Exxon is creating an online personality
in which it's a friend of the environment?
--
== 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/
Sorry for the blog-like tone of this, but, well, I copied it from my blog.
Basically public alpha means you dont need an account to view the content,
its moving forward, is pretty spiffy, actually. Any thoughts about
implementing variables, potentially given values through the infoboxes we
have, to give the same sort of easily called, easily distributed ability to
our articles on companies and people?
Freebase invites<http://blog.worldliberationfront.com/2007/08/freebase-invites.html>
I've been an alpha tester on Freebase, a nifty project to create a
wikipedia-like source of information on things, without the prose as a
simply straight facts version. Check out the starbucks page for example,
here. <http://www.freebase.com/view/starbucks> Especially geared towards
applications and web 2.0 stuff, with a full featured API to dynamically call
content. This is quite a nice feature for developers to use when integrating
with the content, an ability I'd like to see in wikipedia at some point.
It's now moved in to a public alpha, meaning I have ten invitations to the
project if anyone wants it. Hit me up if you do.
--
-Brock
On 8/22/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote:
> My impression is that Colbert is actually pro-Wikipedia.
...which makes his stuff weirdly multilayered. He's (apparently) pro-
Wikipedia, and he expresses this (and gets humor for his show) by
giving it some good-natured ribbing... which, in turn, he
accomplishes by having his persona of an ignorant idiot spouting
conservative dogma give empty-headed straw-man "praise" of it.
> He'll make mincemeat out of anyone who doesn't grasp his kind of
> humour.
Actually, what he does is "humor"... what Monty Python does is
"humour".
--
== 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 all,
I recently sent an e-mail to the Livingston County (New York) government,
inquiring about the possible misuse of one of my Commons images, a picture
of the Livingston County seal [1]. They use a very similar image on their
website, but it was scaled down too small for me to tell whether or not it
was my image. If it was my image they were using, then they would be in
violation of the cc-by-sa license on the image.
I received this reply:
| Dear Mr. Esham:
|
| Your email to Livingston County has been referred to me for response. I
| would refer you to section 30-e of the Judiciary Law of the State of New
| York. The use of Livingston County's seal or any replica or simulation
| thereof, in form or substance, by any unauthorized person, is prohibited.
| A violation of this prohibition constitutes a misdemeanor and is
| punishable as such. Since you are not authorized to use our seal, I would
| suggest you remove it at once.
|
| David J. Morris
| Livingston County Attorney
I managed to track down the relevant law [2], and it states, in part,
| 3. Such seal shall be used and affixed only: (a) by the county clerk of
| Livingston county or by any deputy or clerk duly authorized by him; and
| (b) by any justice of the supreme court resident in Livingston county,
| or by any clerk or officer duly authorized by said justice.
|
| 4. The use of said seal or of any replica or simulation thereof, in
| form or substance, by any unauthorized person or for any wrongful
| purpose, is prohibited. Any violation of this prohibition shall
| be deemed to be a misdemeanor and punishable as such.
I know that U.S. seals are considered to be covered by some sort of fair use
for our purposes, but can I get a quasi-professional opinion on this? I
live in Livingston County, so this isn't necessarily an empty threat to me.
[1] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Seal_of_Livingston_County%2C_New_Yo…
[2] http://preview.tinyurl.com/2hja24
Thanks,
[[User:Bdesham]]
--
Benjamin D. Esham
E-mail/Jabber: bdesham(a)gmail.com | AIM bdesham128 | PGP D676BB9A
"Shouldn't we give thanks first?"
"Thanks for what?"
"Well, that we're not Native Americans who got their land stolen
in exchange for smallpox-infested blankets."
"Amen." — /Gilmore Girls/
On 21 Aug 2007 at 12:04:11 -0700, "George Herbert"
<george.herbert(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Discussed on one of the admin pages on-wiki, but JzG has some things
> to say while on break...
>
> http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/wiki/Me_and_Wikipedia
He's got some points in there, but I have to disagree strenuously
with the paragraph about Wikipedia not sufficiently protecting MONGO.
Yes, MONGO has been trolled, but he has also continually fed the
trolls, and many of his woes are self-inflicted. As for Wikipedia
not protecting him, I don't know what alternate universe that is
written from, but the way I see it, he's always had a powerful clique
circling their wagons around him every time he's (sometimes justly)
criticized, and making sure that all the slings and arrows aimed at
him bounce back and injure his critics instead. After all that, he's
still peeved because not everybody who has ever had a bad word to say
about him has been summarily, permanently banned on just his say-so,
and that, on a few occasions, a necessity to give due process to
people he accuses of wrongdoing has been observed. He and his
friends have often been seen organizing "a sustained, vicious, well-
orchestrated and relentless attack" against those who oppose him, but
nobody can call them bullies without being labeled as a "troll".
It's long past time that the rules of Wikipedia be enforced
impartially on everybody, not with the double standard where the
favored clique is always right and anybody opposing them is always
wrong.
--
== 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/
Folks
I believe the article about Jupitermedia should be edited as
noted below. Because I do a conference with them, I have a conflict
of interest. So I marked it as non-neutral and made these suggestions
on the talk page. I hope someone neutral will take a moment and edit
the page. My best guess is that unhappy former employees are using
the page to vent. I do not believe the factual material they present
should be eliminated, but should be reduced to an appropriate length
and presented neutrally.
Thanks for helping solve this.
My comment
I have added a note to the page, because I think the dispute is
irrelevant and should be mostly eliminated and shortened. I work with
Jupiter on a conference, so did not want to make the change myself.
Note added to page - delete when updated.
I believe the below, and some of the above, should be edited for
length, style, and relevancy. I did not do so because I do a
conference with Jupitermedia and prefer to avoid the controversy
about whether those with an interest should edit. I urge any neutral
editor who sees this page to improve it, and have posted this to a
forum as well. I have included my email in the history and will be
glad to provide information. I strongly strongly support Wikipedia
and use it regularly. db
----------
My suggested change would shorten the bits about particular items
in Jupiter's past. I believe the issues are appropriate and as far as
I know factual, and hence appropriate to include in Wikipedia. But I
do not think they should dominate an article about a large public
company that has a substantial history on the Internet. I therefore
think they should be reduced to short bits and made neutral.
Happy to provide information and/or connect people with sources.
Dave Burstein email daveb dslprime.com
