WikiEN-l July 2009

wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org

88 participants
131 discussions

Does this make any sense?
by arromdee＠rahul.net 18 Jul '09

18 Jul '09

I just stumbled on this a bit too late to actually be able to effect it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Gre… Summary: -- User is sent to Arbcom for date delinking. The Arbcom remedy, however, prohibits him from making _any style change_ that is not specified by a style guideline. -- Someone edits 4 out of 24 links to remove style. This user changes them back. Result: user is blocked. Problems with this: -- The user was blocked for 24 additional hours because he did this after a *mistaken* block. (Yes, really.) -- Banning style changes is like banning use of the letter "Z". It bans a huge number of things that are not abuse and puts stumbling blocks where normal activity now turns into violation of an Arbcom remedy. -- The blocking admin decided that "because Arbitration Committee decisions are binding, we cannot review this restriction here on its merits, but must enforce it." The idea of common sense seems to completely escape some admins. -- This decision apparently runs on the principle that the user must himself describe the style guideline that his action meets. Lots of people do things that follow rules without being able to name the rule. The blocking admin obviously didn't make a good faith effort to determine himself if a style guideline was involved, rather than saying that the user is guilty because he hasn't named one. It took me only a few minutes to find a style guideline that demands consistency and makes this action legal.

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Ahhh, physics cranks
by David Gerard 18 Jul '09

18 Jul '09

Physics cranks drive so much. They were responsible for our "No Original Research" rule, and now they've forked arXiv.org: http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/39845 viXra.org is for the stuff even arXiv.org doesn't want. It appears to be driven by cranks getting butthurt at being put into the "General Physics" category, i.e. where the nutters get put. Note their stuff still got onto arXiv, they just didn't like the category. I can hardly wait to see what level of crankery viXra produces ... - d.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] MediaWiki is getting a new programming language
by Sheldon Rampton 18 Jul '09

18 Jul '09

Steve Bennett wrote: > Oh, this is so easy in MOO code[1], it's not funny: > > {{`tostr(args[1], " + ", args[2], " = ", args[1] + args[2]) ! ANY => > "that's an error"'}} > > (yes that's a backquote at the start and a normal one at the end. > Semantics of "+" may differ from what you intended.) I think it needs more squiggly brackets. And a couple of @ symbols. Can you sprinkle in some hash marks too, pretty please? ------------------------------------------- SHELDON RAMPTON Research director, Center for Media & Democracy Center for Media & Democracy 520 University Avenue, Suite 227 Madison, WI 53703 phone: 608-260-9713 Subscribe to our free Weekly Spin email: <http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_sotd.html> Subscribe to our Weekly Radio Spin podcasts: <http://www.prwatch.org/audio/feed> Read and add to articles on people, issues and groups shaping the public agenda: <http://www.sourcewatch.org> Support independent, public interest reporting: <http://www.prwatch.org/donate>

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Featured churn
by Mark Gallagher 17 Jul '09

17 Jul '09

G'day Charles, > Steve Bennett wrote: > > On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 5:06 AM, Andrew Gray wrote: > >> I have, interestingly, been noticing it moving in exactly the opposite > > direction; articles with a couple of paragraphs of text, a reference > >> or two, an image or an infobox, being marked as "stubs". There's > >> standards inflation at both ends of the rating system... > > > > IMHO, this kind of thing is one of Wikipedia's greatest failings. We > > still can't even agree on a definition of things like "stub", and it > > seems to be in everyone's interest not to. People like stuff like that > > being subjective. > > > > (FWIW, I think it's reasonable to have "stub" be relative to the > > expected content. Two paragraphs on a country would clearly be a > > "stub". Two paragraphs on an obscure medieval scribe might be the most > > comprehensive resource possible.) > > > The stub business goes back almost forever, though. And the affection > for grey areas is not the dominant trend: there are people who seem to > have the MoS and its pickier points as bedtime reading. There has always > been an adequate definition of stub, which relates to the idea that the > article as stands has serious missing information, so is incomplete in > an essential way. So Steve's FWIW is correct (no, I haven't looked up to > see whether some genius has changed the definition of stub). I've never > taken much notice of what is and isn't denominated a stub. In fact (and to return to the original topic ;)), I would argue that Steve's comprehensive two-paragraph article on an obscure-but-important mediaeval scribe could even be considered a Featured Article, if it was Pure Awesome in all other respects. But, thanks to feature creep ... * '''Oppose''', too short ~~~~ -- Mark Gallagher 0439 704 975 http://formonelane.net/ "Even potatoes have their bad days, Igor." --- Count Duckula

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Oversight or RevisionDelete
by Andrew Turvey 17 Jul '09

17 Jul '09

Many thanks for that reply - very useful to have the facts out in the open and I hope it helps to build trust. > > When oversight or suppression are used, it's book policy that oversighters > > almost never discuss or disclose anything, beyond what can be seen openly in > > the public logs. In many cases, that makes sense. However, in this case, the sensitive material was only sensitive at the time - once the subject was released there was no continuing risk. As you mentioned, oversight wasn't necessary in this case. However, it's not inconceivable that another case where oversight is used might also be "temporarily sensitive". Perhaps, for instance, if it has been used in a suspected harassment that turns out to be something else. In that case, it might make sense for the "book policy" to allow disclosure (or even reversal) of the oversight in these cases. ----- "FT2" <ft2.wiki(a)gmail.com> wrote: > From: "FT2" <ft2.wiki(a)gmail.com> > To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> > Sent: Thursday, 16 July, 2009 21:20:04 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland, Portugal > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] News suppression: Did it use Oversight or RevisionDelete? > > Update: I've now checked the case, and yes I had heard of this matter. But > being on a break for the last few weeks to deal with real-world matters, I > hadn't made the connection just from the words "Rohde/NYT". I checked which > article with Rohde in the title, also covered the NYT as well. Luckily there > was only one. > > Quick explanation :) > > FT2 > > > On Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 9:06 PM, FT2 <ft2.wiki(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > A quick answer. > > > > I have no idea which dispute or real-world issue this was about, nor when. > > I'm assuming following a quick search the page concerned is "David S. > > Rohde". > > > > When oversight or revision delete are used, it's almost without exception > > for serious reasons, for example where there is a concern over potential > > defamation or breach of privacy policy in the post. Not mere offensive > > comments, and not mere undesirability. A significant number of users > > cross-check each other on it, and there is an audit committee on english > > wikipedia to investigate any concerns as well. Privacy issues are taken > > extremely seriously. > > > > When oversight or suppression are used, it's book policy that oversighters > > almost never discuss or disclose anything, beyond what can be seen openly in > > the public logs. The trust required is why oversighter selection is a big > > deal. The underlying reason for the policy is that sometimes just having > > confirmation that a person or topic was targeted can be enough to do serious > > harm, when genuine cases such as stalking and serious harassment etc are > > intended by someone, if you think about it. (And if some were answered and > > others weren't then things might be read into a non-answer.) > > > > So the standard answer to all inquiries of this kind by any oversighter is > > "we don't discuss such matters, but we will look and check nothing untoward > > has happened, if you would like" > > > > However in this case I have discussed the inquiry and can confirm, that no > > material was or has ever been oversighted or suppressed (using > > revisiondelete) from the article I think you're referring to, "[[David S. > > Rohde]]". > > > > Hopefully that's enough to put your mind at rest. Don't count on such > > confirmation another time -- it's exceedingly rare to get it :) > > > > FT2 > > > > > > On Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 7:41 PM, Joseph Reagle <reagle(a)mit.edu> wrote: > > > >> > >> Does anyone know if during the NYT/Rohde case the Oversight function was > >> used to hide edits? When the story broke, I could see all the edit history, > >> but I presume the function can be deployed against select revisions and then > >> removed? Or maybe it was the new RevisionDelete? > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> WikiEN-l mailing list > >> WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > >> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: > >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > >> > > > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >

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someone after non-active admin accounts
by Abigail Brady 16 Jul '09

16 Jul '09

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Wp freedom fighter <wikifreedomfighter(a)googlemail.com> Date: Sun, May 10, 2009 at 1:14 PM Subject: Wikipedia e-mail To: Morwen <morwen(a)evilmagic.org> Dear X, We notice you haven't edited Wikipedia for some time. Perhaps you grew disillusioned with the project after seeing the corruption and bureaucracy at every level? If so, why not help us to help you. We are currently expanding our portfolio of administrator accounts, and as yours remains dormant perhaps you could consider donating it to us - to do so will take you only two minutes: change the password (if desired) and then reply to this email with your login details. We'll do the rest! Thank you for your time and consideration, and naturally do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions. Kind Regards, The Wikipedia Freedom Fighters -- This e-mail was sent by user "Wp freedom fighter" on the English Wikipedia to user "Morwen". It has been automatically delivered and the Wikimedia Foundation cannot be held responsible for its contents. The sender has not been given any information about your e-mail account and you are not required to reply to this e-mail. For further information on privacy, security, and replying, as well as abuse and removal from emailing, see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Email>.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] MediaWiki is getting a new programming language
by WJhonson＠aol.com 16 Jul '09

16 Jul '09

In a message dated 7/6/2009 11:46:18 AM Pacific Daylight Time, stvrtg(a)gmail.com writes: > ..if you dislike Lua, Python, etc. because they aren't similar enough > to English, then Neil's offering: "PRINT THE NUMBER OF CHARACTERS > BEFORE THE FIRST OCCURRENCE OF THE > COLON CHARACTER IN THE..." makes the substantial point, in addition to > being esoterically funny.>> > -------------- The reason BASIC was and still enjoys wide popularity is because it's easier to learn. The example does not make the substantial point because it veers so strongly to the opposite end of the spectrum as to be unrelated to the argument whatsoever. I never suggested that a language should *mimic* English (or a bizarre type of hyper-English). I welcome however, anyone who wants to actually conduct this argument, on Earth. Will Johnson ************** Looking for love this summer? Find it now on AOL Personals. (http://personals.aol.com/?ncid=emlcntuslove00000003)

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Re: [WikiEN-l] What was our youngest admin again?
by Biblio 16 Jul '09

16 Jul '09

>From a check of the user I have in mind, they became an admin at 11 and a crat at 12. biblio --- On Wed, 7/15/09, Alex Sawczynec <glasscobra15(a)gmail.com> wrote: From: Alex Sawczynec <glasscobra15(a)gmail.com> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] What was our youngest admin again? To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Date: Wednesday, July 15, 2009, 4:53 PM Hmm, I was fairly sure the youngest admin/crat was the same person; I thought I remembered hearing that they were 12 when adminned, and then 13 when made crat. All these figures seem to be in about the same range, though. - GlassCobra _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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Re: [WikiEN-l] What was our youngest admin again?
by Biblio 16 Jul '09

16 Jul '09

Our youngest crat, if I'm not mistaken, was 12 years old. I'm not sure how young our youngest admin was, but 10 seems to ring a bell. It wasn't the same two people, I know that for sure. biblio --- On Wed, 7/15/09, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote: From: Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] What was our youngest admin again? To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Date: Wednesday, July 15, 2009, 4:41 PM 2009/7/16 David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com>: > http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2009/07/hey-kid-support-your-local-wiki/ If memory serves, our youngest admin was 10 and our youngest crat 14 (quite possibly the same person). _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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What was our youngest admin again?
by David Gerard 16 Jul '09

16 Jul '09

http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2009/07/hey-kid-support-your-local-wiki/ - d.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] admins blocking but refusing to justify which policy or guidel...
by WJhonson＠aol.com 13 Jul '09

13 Jul '09

In a message dated 7/12/2009 4:39:56 PM Pacific Daylight Time, fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net writes: > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block& > page=User%3ARebroad > > there were four previous blocks. A week might have been a bit better, but > a month is not excessive.>> > ------------- I find it just a little bit unfair, to bring up things a person did *two years* ago. Two years in Wikitime is like 100 centuries in real life. The block should be related to what they have done recently, not forever. Will Johnson ************** Looking for love this summer? Find it now on AOL Personals. (http://personals.aol.com/?ncid=emlcntuslove00000003)

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Re: [WikiEN-l] admins blocking but refusing to justify which policy or guideline applies
by Andrew Turvey 13 Jul '09

13 Jul '09

---- "R E Broadley" <rebroad+wikimedia.org(a)gmail.com> wrote: > From: "R E Broadley" <rebroad+wikimedia.org(a)gmail.com> > To: wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > Sent: Sunday, 12 July, 2009 23:10:30 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland, Portugal > Subject: [WikiEN-l] admins blocking but refusing to justify which policy or guideline applies > > Hi, > > ... which policy or guideline justifies my block, Here are some policies, guidelines and essays that may help to explain the background to the block: Policy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Edit war Guideline: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Disruptive_editing Essay: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tendentious_editing > I also think there should be a facility for admins who operate outside > of the law (if it can be called that) to be able to face consequences > for their actions by some higher governing body - does such a body > exist? Yes - admins who misuse their powers can be challenged in various ways, which can ultimately lead to withdrawal of their powers. An overview is given at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ADMINABUSE Hope this has been helpful. Regards, Andrew

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Re: [WikiEN-l] admins blocking but refusing to justify which policy or guidel...
by WJhonson＠aol.com 13 Jul '09

13 Jul '09

In a message dated 7/12/2009 3:11:12 PM Pacific Daylight Time, rebroad+wikimedia.org(a)gmail.com writes: > I have been blocked by > an admin for 1 month,>> > > A month seems extraordinary. Typically in a case like this do not we use something like 24 hours or even 48? A month? For edit-warring? Seems like a wholely new bar to me. Will Johnson ************** Looking for love this summer? Find it now on AOL Personals. (http://personals.aol.com/?ncid=emlcntuslove00000003)

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wexperts.net/
by Fred Bauder 11 Jul '09

11 Jul '09

http://www.wexperts.net/ Fred

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Bible websites
by WJhonson＠aol.com 11 Jul '09

11 Jul '09

I noticed as I was fixing up one article that we appearently have a tag bibleverse that links to *one specific* website. I'm not comfortable with that sort of approach. It seems to highly favor a particular bible website over other similar ones. Don't we have a similar issue when linking to a book citation? That is, we provide several sources for the ultimate underlying book citation, not just a single link to amazon for example. Will ************** Make your summer sizzle with fast and easy recipes for the grill. (http://food.aol.com/grilling?ncid=emlcntusfood00000005)

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Re: [WikiEN-l] The current purges in English Wikipedia (...and my personal case)
by Andrew Turvey 11 Jul '09

11 Jul '09

---- "Ray Saintonge" <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: > From: "Ray Saintonge" <saintonge(a)telus.net> > > Andrew Turvey wrote: > > Per the policy [[WP:NOSHARE]], "Sharing an account – or the password to an account – with others is not permitted, and doing so will result in the account being blocked." > > > > This is worded in such an absolute way as to make the hearts of the > policy police glow. The wording is clear with no provision for > mitigating circumstances. There is especially no room for previous > discussion, that might just reveal innocent circumstances. This policy should be read in conjunction with [[WP:BLOCK]], which states, for instance: "administrators should generally ensure that users are aware of policies, and give them reasonable opportunity to adjust their behaviour accordingly, before blocking." If you think the blocking administrator was wrong to impose this block, then say that and let's have that discussion. Having looked through the discussions, I don't think he was. > Somebody with that attitude would be well-suited to running a > totalitarian regime. This is an attempt to help a user, who had been blocked, get out of that situation. And indeed it worked. Please see my posts in that context. Calling me totalitarian is a bit uncalled for. > It presumes guilt. "Guilt" was admitted and the block was imposed on that basis. Please refer to the linked talk page. Andrew

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Fwd: [Wikitech-l] Proposal: switch to HTML 5
by David Gerard 11 Jul '09

11 Jul '09

Plans for shifting Wikimedia to HTML5, probably starting with en:wp Main Page. (Simetrical is quite keen on this change, as apart from anything else it'll cut our served page size *after gzipping* by 5-20%.) HTML5 is the new HTML standard. It's specifically been written be backward compatible with most of the horrible quirks in all past browsers - it's a vendor-driven standard - and now it's the W3C official future of HTML. So nothing should break for anyone. Note provisions in below plan in case something does. - d. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Aryeh Gregor <Simetrical+wikilist(a)gmail.com> Date: 2009/7/10 Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Proposal: switch to HTML 5 To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Apparently something ate my last post here. (I think it was my Chromium nightly build.) Okay, reposting from memory: After discussion with Brion on IRC, I've provisionally enabled an HTML 5 doctype in r53034: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:Code/MediaWiki/53034 My thoughts on what we should do in the immediate future are: 1) Get at least the enwiki Main Page set up so it will validate as HTML 5 when we scap: <http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/&charset=(de…> 1a) Remove border="0" from Wikimedia's $wgCopyrightIcon (it does nothing anyway). 1b) Rope some enwiki sysops into getting rid of all cellpadding, cellspacing, align, and clear attributes on the Main Page (converting them to CSS). 2) Scap (whenever this happens -- maybe not so immediate future :) ). 3) Wait a couple of hours to see if anything breaks. 4) Make a tech blog post and post a notice to the whatwg list (I'll do this). We'll have our front page validating as HTML 5 at this point, hopefully, to make a more positive impact. 5) See what happens! I expect this will pick up some interest, since we'll probably be increasing the number of HTML 5 page views by a factor of -- oh, ten thousand? (Is there any top *1000* site that uses HTML 5 for all its primary content?) We can see how things develop, and if all goes well start using more HTML 5 features. I'd recommend that until the code goes live, this should be considered an *experimental* *development* change. People shouldn't go around announcing this everywhere until it's actually live. For one thing, some unknown problem might crop up and we'd have to temporarily roll back, which would cause confusion and bad press for both us and HTML 5. For another thing, it would be nice if we could link to a validating main page in the announcement. I'm sure people can hold off posting stories to Slashdot for a week or two, right? :) _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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Grape Lane (euph.)
by David Gerard 11 Jul '09

11 Jul '09

I can hardly believe there was no angst here, of all places, on yesterday's featured article. Did someone fail to think of the fictional children? Good discussion on Raul's talk page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Raul654#Today.27s_featured_article - d.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] The current purges in English Wikipedia (...and my personal case)
by Andrew Turvey 10 Jul '09

10 Jul '09

Looking at the blocking notice [2], there seems to be a sensible solution to this: You stated [1] that: "Some years ago, other people I knew became interested in my work at Wikipedia and I gladly supported them. The initial idea was that each one should have a personal account, but in practice, since it was real life collaboration and we had available only one computer, most of their/our edits ended up under my username ... I learned later that some of them managed to supplement their income by working at Wikipedia." Per the policy [[WP:NOSHARE]], "Sharing an account – or the password to an account – with others is not permitted, and doing so will result in the account being blocked." It sounds like you had a clear contravention of this policy and the admins giving you a block seems to be the right thing to do. However, given your long history of good editing to the projects, particularly with the other account, you seem to have grounds to appeal the "indefinite" block. All you need to say is: "a) I accept that I shouldn't have let others use my account b) I no longer let others use my account and won't in future c) My account is not compromised as I have changed the password " Therefore: Given that it was done in good faith given that we only had access to one computer, and I have an otherwise clean record of extensive good faith edits to Wikipedia: "Please replace my indefinite block with a time limited block (maybe ask for a week?)" In the "Guide to appealing blocks" [3], it explicitly says: "You, as a blocked editor, are responsible for convincing administrators: • ... or: • that the block is no longer necessary because you understand what you are blocked for, you will not do it again and you will make productive contributions instead." If they come back with other concerns about, say, paid editing, then you can address that then - but at the moment I'd suggest you focus on the reason given for the block. Do all that and I'm sure you'll be up and running in no time. :) Regards, Andrew [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Bad_ne… [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Desiphral#Compromised_account [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:GAB "Desiphral" <desiphral(a)gmail.com> wrote: > From: "Desiphral" <desiphral(a)gmail.com> > To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> > Sent: Thursday, 9 July, 2009 11:18:44 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland, Portugal > Subject: [WikiEN-l] The current purges in English Wikipedia (...and my personal case) > > I was recently indefinitely blocked in connection with the paid editing > issue, without being a paid editor myself. Actually the paid users with whom > I had a previous collaboration on voluntary subjects are even now free to > edit. Worse, it is proposed the closure of the Wikipedia I put on track. > > > Here are the relevant links: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Bad_ne… > > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Forum#The_Vlax_Romani_Wikipedia_an… > > and in this article: > > http://publish.indymedia.org/en/2009/07/926495.shtml > > this is the part that concerns me: > > > "However, we find even more tragicomic and worrisome a strange case that > occured in the last few days. One of the "detectives" > found<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Bad_ne…>that > the Tayzen account from Elance included in its portfolio from October > 2008 the work of Desiphral, a veteran user who contributed a great deal of > voluntary work at English Wikipedia and also founded the Wikipedia in his > native language. The proposed conclusion, namely that this user is engaged > in paid editing, was accepted by most of the other users without any > inquiries. Quickly, in the discussion place there appeared users seemingly > having some previous grudges against Desiphral, using the opportunity to > request his block. Additionally there appeared some at least dubious users > requesting the closure of the Wikipedia founded by Desiphral (in the > language of a certain minority of Indian origin widely discriminated). In a > normal (or better said, a previous) communication process at Wikipedia, such > conclusions would have been dismissed as a good joke, but it was not the > case here. We took our liberty to check the edits of the incriminated user > and we did not find anything to suggest paid editing. Needless to say that > the accusers too did not present any actual evidences for their allegations. > > After a few days, when it appeared there Desiphral himself, it turned out > that he had some years ago a collaboration on Wikipedia with people from the > staff of Tayzen, but not in the field of paid editing (our investigation > found out that the respective Elance account did not even exist at that > time). Somehow unexpectedly (given the current atmosphere of fear and > adulation at Wikipedia around the issue of paid editing), besides > complaining about the attempt of public shaming, he started to point out the > unprofessional manner of conducting the current purges. There followed some > retorts, then... silence. When we contacted Desiphral to find out what > exactly is going on there, we learned that his account was blocked, but the > blocking notice was hidden somewhere in the talk page, not displayed on the > user account, as it is the common practice at Wikipedia. The "death > sentence" was done on the sly, after talking too much, somehow reminding of > our attempt to talk openly there. We found the blocking reason really > sarcastic, namely that "he indicated he permitted the use of his account for > commercial purposes" (without showing where exactly was that indication, > while we could not find anything of this kind in his replies). Even if it > would have been true, this is not a punishable offense on Wikipedia... only > you'll get intro trouble with those who do not like this. The accusers > changed later the reason for blocking to "group account", because he > permitted some years ago some people to learn how to edit, using his > account. Obviously, a pretext, the same "first shoot, then ask" pattern, > since the casual teaching of other people did not amount to what is > understood at Wikipedia as a "group account", plus that the respective user > was not active on Wikipedia for about a year and a half and at the time > scale of Wikipedia such old issues are not considered when judging an user. > > The suppressed user also told us that he was not announced by e-mail about > the public shaming (he was not active on Wikipedia for long time and for > such cases this would be the standard procedure), thus preventing him to > present his position. He was not announced also about the following requests > of somebody to block<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Steward_requests/Global#Global_lock_for_Desi…>him > in the Wikipedias in all languages and to > close down<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Forum#The_Vlax_Romani_Wikipedia_an…>the > one he founded. The most ironic thing in all this affair is that those > suspected editing on behalf of Tayzen are free to edit even at this moment > (although they keep being hindered), while the one who was wrongly accused > to associate with them was taken to the backyard and executed on the sly for > sulking against the conduct of the purges. The language and the conduct of > this episode suggests a combination of muting the dissent and a seizure of > the opportunity by some people who have a problem with the respective user > and/or with the Wikipedia he started." > > > > After this episode, I have a feeling I am in China when logged in to English > Wikipedia. I don't know if other users are in my situation. I guess that my > luck resides in this coverage, to make my case known to the "free world". I > did not check thoroughly the other things highlighted in the article, > however, the links provided look compelling. > > > Desiphral > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >

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Quality of community-created help pages (was: Recommending a Browser...)
by Sage Ross 10 Jul '09

10 Jul '09

Cross-posting to Wikien-l... On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 9:01 PM, Erik Moeller<erik(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: > Unfortunately, > community-created help pages tend to accumulate vast amounts of > instruction cruft that distracts from simple high-level information. Maybe it's time English Wikipedia (at least) created a set of standards for help pages and a process for identifying good ones. "Manual of Style (help pages)", "Helpful help page candidates" and "What is a helpful help page?", anyone? (The latter two are only half facetious; the first is probably a good idea, although I would have no idea where to start.) -Sage (User:Ragesoss)

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The current purges in English Wikipedia (...and my personal case)
by Desiphral 10 Jul '09

10 Jul '09

I was recently indefinitely blocked in connection with the paid editing issue, without being a paid editor myself. Actually the paid users with whom I had a previous collaboration on voluntary subjects are even now free to edit. Worse, it is proposed the closure of the Wikipedia I put on track. Here are the relevant links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Bad_ne… http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Forum#The_Vlax_Romani_Wikipedia_an… and in this article: http://publish.indymedia.org/en/2009/07/926495.shtml this is the part that concerns me: "However, we find even more tragicomic and worrisome a strange case that occured in the last few days. One of the "detectives" found<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Bad_ne…>that the Tayzen account from Elance included in its portfolio from October 2008 the work of Desiphral, a veteran user who contributed a great deal of voluntary work at English Wikipedia and also founded the Wikipedia in his native language. The proposed conclusion, namely that this user is engaged in paid editing, was accepted by most of the other users without any inquiries. Quickly, in the discussion place there appeared users seemingly having some previous grudges against Desiphral, using the opportunity to request his block. Additionally there appeared some at least dubious users requesting the closure of the Wikipedia founded by Desiphral (in the language of a certain minority of Indian origin widely discriminated). In a normal (or better said, a previous) communication process at Wikipedia, such conclusions would have been dismissed as a good joke, but it was not the case here. We took our liberty to check the edits of the incriminated user and we did not find anything to suggest paid editing. Needless to say that the accusers too did not present any actual evidences for their allegations. After a few days, when it appeared there Desiphral himself, it turned out that he had some years ago a collaboration on Wikipedia with people from the staff of Tayzen, but not in the field of paid editing (our investigation found out that the respective Elance account did not even exist at that time). Somehow unexpectedly (given the current atmosphere of fear and adulation at Wikipedia around the issue of paid editing), besides complaining about the attempt of public shaming, he started to point out the unprofessional manner of conducting the current purges. There followed some retorts, then... silence. When we contacted Desiphral to find out what exactly is going on there, we learned that his account was blocked, but the blocking notice was hidden somewhere in the talk page, not displayed on the user account, as it is the common practice at Wikipedia. The "death sentence" was done on the sly, after talking too much, somehow reminding of our attempt to talk openly there. We found the blocking reason really sarcastic, namely that "he indicated he permitted the use of his account for commercial purposes" (without showing where exactly was that indication, while we could not find anything of this kind in his replies). Even if it would have been true, this is not a punishable offense on Wikipedia... only you'll get intro trouble with those who do not like this. The accusers changed later the reason for blocking to "group account", because he permitted some years ago some people to learn how to edit, using his account. Obviously, a pretext, the same "first shoot, then ask" pattern, since the casual teaching of other people did not amount to what is understood at Wikipedia as a "group account", plus that the respective user was not active on Wikipedia for about a year and a half and at the time scale of Wikipedia such old issues are not considered when judging an user. The suppressed user also told us that he was not announced by e-mail about the public shaming (he was not active on Wikipedia for long time and for such cases this would be the standard procedure), thus preventing him to present his position. He was not announced also about the following requests of somebody to block<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Steward_requests/Global#Global_lock_for_Desi…>him in the Wikipedias in all languages and to close down<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Forum#The_Vlax_Romani_Wikipedia_an…>the one he founded. The most ironic thing in all this affair is that those suspected editing on behalf of Tayzen are free to edit even at this moment (although they keep being hindered), while the one who was wrongly accused to associate with them was taken to the backyard and executed on the sly for sulking against the conduct of the purges. The language and the conduct of this episode suggests a combination of muting the dissent and a seizure of the opportunity by some people who have a problem with the respective user and/or with the Wikipedia he started." After this episode, I have a feeling I am in China when logged in to English Wikipedia. I don't know if other users are in my situation. I guess that my luck resides in this coverage, to make my case known to the "free world". I did not check thoroughly the other things highlighted in the article, however, the links provided look compelling. Desiphral

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Re: [WikiEN-l] MediaWiki is getting a new programming language
by Sheldon Rampton 10 Jul '09

10 Jul '09

Stevertigo wrote: > The word "monopoly" implies unfair business practices such that make > an inferior product the exceedingly market-dominant one. Putting aside > its basic inapplicability in an open-source context, and the fact that > in that context people will make free choices to use a tool, and not > to mention participate in that tools' further development.. what is > the argument? If you don't like the connotations of the word "monopoly," maybe you'll be happier with "path dependence," which conveys the same basic point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_dependence Obviously, "unfair business practices" are not responsible for maintaining Wikipedia's existing templating system. However, path dependence clearly occurs even in open source contexts. I think path dependence plays a big role in enabling Wikipedia to maintain its standing as the most popular online encyclopedia, and it probably is responsible for preventing a number of improvements from happening with Wikipedia. For example: (1) No WYSIWYG editing system. (2) The current templating system, which works but is far from easy for most people to use. (3) Governance practices which are sometimes less than optimal. If you look at Wikipedia pages and really compare them to what has now become state-of-the-art website design, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that Wikipedia looks a lot like Web 1.0 rather than Web 2.0. Web design has come a long way since Wikipedia was launched. Many websites now integrate video very nicely and use Javascript/AJAX to improve user-friendliness and make pages more interactive and dynamic. The semantic web is also becoming more than a buzzword, and it's not hard to imagine a "Wikipedia 2.0" that would incorporate those sorts of features to become even more useful, attractive and popular than it already is. So why aren't those features already in place? Because the huge weight of Wikipedia's millions of articles and users makes it inevitable that introducing those sorts of features will be more technically challenging than if someone were to design those same features for a website that only has a small number of articles and users. In short, path dependence means that Wikipedia's very success makes it harder in some ways for the project to innovate and improve. ------------------------------------------- SHELDON RAMPTON Research director, Center for Media & Democracy Center for Media & Democracy 520 University Avenue, Suite 227 Madison, WI 53703 phone: 608-260-9713 Subscribe to our free Weekly Spin email: <http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_sotd.html> Subscribe to our Weekly Radio Spin podcasts: <http://www.prwatch.org/audio/feed> Read and add to articles on people, issues and groups shaping the public agenda: <http://www.sourcewatch.org> Support independent, public interest reporting: <http://www.prwatch.org/donate>

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Governance review
by Thomas Dalton 10 Jul '09

10 Jul '09

A review of governance on the English Wikipedia has been started here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Governance_review The input of everyone with an interest in the project is welcomed and encouraged. Please keep discussion on that page and its talk page and subpages, please don't split the discussion by talking about it on this list. Thanks!

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Re: [WikiEN-l] The current purges in English Wikipedia (...and my personal case)
by Andrew Turvey 10 Jul '09

10 Jul '09

----- "Desiphral" <desiphral(a)gmail.com> wrote: > From: "Desiphral" <desiphral(a)gmail.com> > To: "charles r matthews" <charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com>, "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> > Sent: Thursday, 9 July, 2009 20:49:28 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland, Portugal > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The current purges in English Wikipedia (...and my personal case) > > Thank you for these thoughts. The suggestions of Andrew about how to make an > appeal will probably get me unblocked. > > But, in the first place, I'm not sure if I was blocked correctly. I was told > in my last request for unblock that "the same person and only that one > person may press the keys on the keyboard". Is this part of the policy > regarding the role accounts? No, but it is part of the policy regarding user accounts generally. Personally, I think you were correctly blocked - not because of "role accounts" - which is a slightly different issue - but because of the policy [[WP:NOSHARE]]. Two people should not share a single user account - although the wording you quoted was that of the individual, the principle is clearly laid down in policy. Have a read of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NOSHARE if you want more information. Regards, Andrew

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The terrorists have won
by Gwern Branwen 10 Jul '09

10 Jul '09

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/opinion/05pubed.html 'The Public Editor: Journalistic Ideals, Human Values' "Although word spread quickly last November among Western reporters in Afghanistan that Rohde, Ludin and their driver, Asadullah Mangal, had been snatched, The Times persuaded news organizations around the world to keep a lid on the story with a simple appeal: The kidnappers had demanded silence. “Possibly by defying them, we would be signing David’s death warrant,” said Bill Keller, the paper’s executive editor." Hm. So if the terrorists do not make any demands about silence, it is our ethical duty to censor ourselves, as many wiser heads than mine have expounded about at length in many forums such as WikiEN-l. But if they do make demands about silence, it is our ethical duty to... censor ourselves? - -- gwern -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEAREKAAYFAkpSrQ0ACgkQvpDo5Pfl1oKeewCfTiK8vGLXOqKAUyciFaNDAPYS XMgAoJtDVa+YfQjJyguLON6V3siW6x3x =wyB3 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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WikiEN-l July 2009