Let's start out with a general explanation. I am http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Flameviper . I had been contributing since May 2005 or so, with numerous crapstacles. I had been banned/unbanned about 3 times, etc, etc.
I had been editing pages and such for about 3 months since unbanning when I saw a comment from the user Elaragirl. I went to her talk page to respond, and read the linked document EL:TEACUP, which (if I recall correctly) is still linked to from her talk page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Elaragirl).
Anyways, I said something to the effect of "you're either going to be my friend or a pain in the ass, I hope for both our sakes it will be the former". Of course, both Elaragirl and I (as later cleared up via email) understood the point of the message and neither of us were offended (I asked her). However, I was banned per the personal attack policy.
On AN/I, Ryanpostlewait (sorry if I spelled it wrong Ryan) posted an e-mail from me (which I thought had been private) which said something along the lines of me being a troll and trying to be good and not get banned. Of course, I meant to say something completely different, but nobody asked me about it again, and I was summarily banned.
A couple months later, I came back with another account named Two-Sixteen. This time, however, I was friendly (perhaps overly so) to everyone I saw. I made great (perhaps overly exaggerated) efforts to not offend anyone, and I got along fine with the general Wikipedia population. I edited pages, I categorized things, I didn't really do anything spectacular.
One day, someone raised the issue of the account Flameviper being unblocked (maybe it was me, I don't remember). I didn't have a crusade for Flameviper to be unblocked, I simply suggested the idea and left the discussion alone (although I said "I agree" on the noticeboard).
It was generally agreed that Flameviper had not done anything wrong in the first place, and so that account was unblocked. At this point, "Flameviper" was unblocked (although the account's past was still suspicious) and Two-Sixteen had never received so much as a warning for anything.
The next day, I logged on and found that Jpgordon had performed a checkuser (although without any type of process, even though I remember a lengthy process to approve requests for checkuser) and found that Flameviper and Two-Sixteen were the same person.
Two-Sixteen was indef-blocked immediately for being "disruptive" (although the account in question had never disrupted anything).
Flameviper was indef-blocked immediately for "using a sockpuppet to manipulate an unblock" (which is odd, since the administrator unblocked on his own judgement).
Now here is my opinion of the entire incident.
My statement in the e-mail to Ryan (which was something along the lines of "I enjoy Internet
drama" was somehow twisted into "I like to create Internet drama" and
that was further bastardized into "I am a troll". And when whoever it was
offered to be my mentor or whatever, I accepted the offer, which was
somehow twisted into "I decline the offer". And again, TROLL. I
*personally* find being banned offensive to me, but I at least realize that by
banning me the admins aren't trying to be offensive and that they're
just doing what they think is right. And I respect your right to have
your own opinion and not sugar-coat everything you say so it won't be
construed as a "PERSONAL ATTACK OH MY GOD". Because furthermore, what I
said on Elaragirl's talk page was more along the lines of "When I meet
someone with a similar personality to mine, we either agree on everything
and it's a blast, or we have a massive conflict because we have
differing opinions and we both have the rock-colid attitude that nothing is
going to change our minds, and most of our decisions will conflict with
one another's, and we'll end up hating each other. I hope for both of
our sakes that we can learn to get along". But instead of saying that, I
contracted it to "You're either going to be my friend or a pain in the
ass, I hope it's going to be the first one". And because I didn't
carefully sugarcoat all the pointy phrasings of my comment, it was taken as
a "personal attack" by people who it wasn't even directed at (nobody
even asked Elaragirl if she was offended or not), and I was banned. I'm
sick of talking for an entire damn paragraph when I could say the same
thing in three words, and although I realize the policies on "trolling"
and "personal attacks" were intended to protect innocent users from
actual trolls and flamers, they're becoming utterly ridiculous and a
nuisance to everyone involved.
I joined Wikipedia to write an encyclopedia, not to have a damn soap
opera every time I say something.
---------------------------------
Looking for a deal? Find great prices on flights and hotels with Yahoo! FareChase.
There is currently a discussion at the village pump over redesigning
the placeholder images:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28proposals%29#Redesig…
May be of some importance given how many pages these images now appear
on and that they are starting to appear on other projects.
At the same time I would be interested in knowing if there are any
wikiprojects that think this could be useful for finding images
relating to their area and are prepared to deal with the uploaded
images.
A sample of the images uploaded (not all they keep disappearing off to
commons) can be found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Fromownerviewed
--
geni
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
> Earlier: "... I joined Wikipedia to write an encyclopedia, not to have
a damn soap opera every time I say something ..."
Hi fellow Wikipedians and MediaWiki users,
... and you have every right, just as everyone else has, to
participate unfettered, even if, especially if, someone else feels
uncomfortable when they read your contribution.
The whole point is that they were able to read your
contribution. I want to be able to read it, too, without it being
erased by someone before me who thinks I can't do my own editing for
myself, thank you very much!
The whole point is that we all are expanded by each other's
contributions - positive and negative, agree or disagree -- and I hate
the thought that someone, anyone, is being denied participation in our
greater community by some self-righteous admin who thinks they have a
better idea of what a community is, and so starts culling people out of
the community.
A community without all it's members intact is a failure.
When I go to court, the first thing the judge asks is, "Did you
try to resolve this yourselves?"
If someone thinks your writing is inappropriate for the
community, they should say so in private to you just to verify if they
understand you right, and offer you a chance to resend if you concur
that your intention has not been fulfilled by your original send. First
person contact.
Then, it makes sense to raise the issue in public in the same
place where your writing is, and try to build a consensus and
understanding between the two of you, to verify their suspicion and
confirm your intention. Second person contact.
If they still feel uncomfortable after all that, they should
then present their discomfort to a third person, a non-partisan party,
an uninvolved body, for moderation, arbitration, and resolution.
Right now, a lazy, misunderstanding admin can skip steps 1, 2
and 3, and jump right to what should be an unavailable step 4, ban you -
all on their own, without a second thought, without a 1st, 2nd or 3rd
thought, as above! Then we all suffer the loss of yet another precious
community member, and the challenge of yet another arduous battle to
reconnect and repair the shattered community.
See what I mean by instituting a "no banning" policy?
We are not here to have a clean experience. If we want to have
clean, well-protected experiences, then we should all turn off our
computers, televisions, and phones, and stop reading newspapers,
magazines, and books!
We are here to grow (or die), and no to kill anything. We are
here to grow ourselves and others, and that's messy. Gardens are full
of mud and manure -- and flowers and vegetables!
Imagine if I banned myself from communicating with myself every
time I experienced myself as uncomfortable to myself! I'd never grow,
develop discipline, skills, and make the most of my talents, I'd never
recover and learn from a mistake, and I'd never risk fulfilling my
dreams, let alone have any dreams in the first place. The same goes for
our wiki community - we are one, let's keep it that way!
Banning is bad for the person who bans!
Banning is bad for the person who has someone else do their
pre-editing, censoring, and banning for them.
Banning is bad for the person who witnesses the ban and does
nothing.
Banning is bad for the person who never gets to witness the ban,
who never gets to experience the person who was banned.
Banning is bad for the person who receives the ban.
Banning is bad for the community - in part, and in whole.
Rather than think we save time (as if that's the wiki's goal) by
allowing unchaperoned banning and then cleaning up goofs afterwards,
which take way more time anyway, I suggest that we put in the extra
effort up front to resolve anyone's discomfort without having the
banning tool so readily at hand.
A wiki, by definition, builds a community.
Banning, by definition, destroys a community.
How many more strikes against the current banning policy do we
need before we abandon it altogether, and actually put in the real work
required to just get along with each other as the community the
wiki-idea was supposed to build and support in the first place?
To reiterate:
-- Free and open to all -- (no proxy filter blocks)
-- Multiple co-moderators -- (no admin is all-powerful
or is permitted to use admin powers to resolve their own discomfort)
-- No banning -- (temporary block spammers and vandals
only, all others get an open discussion page, and have at it!)
- Peter Blaise
"If we can't resolve our discomfort with each other using words,
I shudder to think of the alternative methods." -- unattributed
paraphrasal
==
Just wondering: when external url's are used in a page, why are they
numbered? That is, why is this:
[http://foo.com]
displayed as this:
[1]
?
I imagine that once this was a useful behaviour, before we had proper
referencing tools, so they kind of looked like footnotes. But there's
no list of these URLs generated anywhere, so what purpose does it
serve?
Would it perhaps be tidier to display something like a tiny [url] or
[link] or something?
Steve
PS I'm bringing this up on this list, rather than mediawiki or
wikitech, as it's a question of deciding what we actually want.
*Good, the journals now take my being shot down for trying to stop them
for spamming Wikipedia as an open invitation to add any academic
journals and books to all articles all over Wikipedia. And create as
many sock puppet accounts, or use as many IPs as they want to do it.
Forget it that I work over these articles to try to make sure that
every outside source and link is directly related and important and
useful to readers. Forget that we discuss them for weeks on WP:Plants
and on the article talk pages. It's clear that it's more important to
let these people spam the fuck out of Wikipedia.
KP
**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/64.62.138.21*<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/64.62.138.21>
Where were you shot down for trying to stop journals from spamming?
Although actual referencing is welcome, spam is still spam. I favor a
softer approach with this sort of poster because there's a better
possibility that the individual will become a useful contributor, but I also
recall a deliberate and rather baldfaced campaign by one university library
to boost its site traffic by adding low quality links to Wikipedia articles.
-Durova
The Higher Education Supplement of the Australian in speculating whether
the current Vice Chancellor of Lancaster University in the UK is in the
running to become VC of the University of Sydney, uses information from
wikipedia to describe the candidate:-
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22363294-14981,00.html
Some of that information is what I added when I started the article in
January 2006 when I saw a redlink and made a stub. One would have
thought that the premier newspaper in Oz would do I bit more research
for a candidate to be VC of the oldest university in Oz, particulary
when the article has no references. The article is:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Wellings_%28Lancaster_University%29
I guess I had better find some sources.
Brian.
--
Brian Salter-Duke b_duke(a)bigpond.net.au
[[User:Bduke]] mainly on en:Wikipedia.
Also on fr: Wikipedia, Meta-Wiki and Wikiversity
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Please be comfortable in the knowledge that I am not about to feed
> you.
In a similar spirit, please be comfortable in the knowledge that I am
not about to make you think of an elephant.
--------------------------------
| Sheldon Rampton
| Research director, Center for Media & Democracy (www.prwatch.org)
| Author of books including:
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| Trust Us, We're Experts
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--------------------------------
Is it just me, or is the capitalisation of section headings becoming
more and more common? I seem to recall that previously it was
relatively rare to find an article using that format, sufficiently so
that I would take the time to fix it. But now I see so many that I
don't bother.
Here's one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Davies
Steve