Having been bitten multiple times, I can definitely say the unfriendly
atmosphere has been a problem for a while now. Editors/admins who are
regularly rude to others are not only tolerated by most of the community,
they often have a group of supporters around them always ready to praise
everything they do, manipulating RfCs and other voting (sorry, !voting)
situations. A newbie running afoul of these people rarely even gets token
sympathy if they try to get the problem addressed. The handful of editors
who try to address these situations have to wade through multiple attacks
and allegations just to try and do the right thing.
If we want to make WP more friendly, we have to make sure admins and
high-profile editors are actually trying to BE friendly. If they can't
handle that, they shouldn't be working in a collaborative environment.
In addition, I believe that templates are 1) often not worded in a friendly
manner, and 2) overused. Using a template when there isn't a very good
reason to is going to often be perceived as rude, especially if an article
they've worked hard on has just been speedy deleted.
If WP is going to continue to gain editors, it has to do better.
Sxeptomaniac
> Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:36:24 -0400
> From: Sage Ross
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Newbie and not-so-newbie biting
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
>
> This isn't a new issue by any means, but here's a nice post by someone
> who's been contributing occasionally since 2004, about how daunting
> "wikibullying" can be for newbies and other editors who aren't
> well-versed in the procedures and processes.
>
>
> http://travel-industry.uptake.com/blog/2009/09/04/bullypedia-a-wikipedian-w…
>
> Unfriendliness is built into the system, even when admins and others
> who enforce the rules are perfectly civil and try to be friendly at an
> individual level.
>
> -Sage
>
>
Readers of this list who have not already seen or heard it may be interested
in a talk I gave in July at the 2009 Wikiconference New York. The (somewhat
pompous) title of the talk is "Wikipedia, the Internet, and the Future of
Privacy."The video of that talk has now been posted and is available at:
http://www.archive.org/details/nywikiconf_newyorkbrad_26july2009
Please note that my talk actually begins about 9 minutes into the video,
following some discussion about logistics of the day, etc.
Later in the day, there also was a session where I answered some questions
regarding my talk. The video for the Q&A is not yet available, but I will
post the link to it when it is.
Newyorkbrad
In a message dated 8/23/2009 4:53:57 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
brewhaha(a)freenet.edmonton.ab.ca writes:
> The search for "bees" and "flowers" suggests "pollination". I do not see
> anything mindless about that. That is a human association>>
-----------------
You're not understanding me. An article discussing bees and mentioning
that they pollinate flowers IS a human association. I didn't say it wasn't.
However the meta-network of *all* such associations to the nth degree of
relatedness is not something a human can encompass in one bite. That's one
thing.
What I was stating is that this meta-network itself, is created by a
computer algorithm, which ITSELF has no mind. It has no idea what the terms mean,
or refer to, or imply. It only knows that they are associated in some way.
It creates this meta-network and ranks the associations in a mindless way,
i.e. without comprehension. That's what I meant.
W.J.
>
> From: wjhonson(a)aol.com
>
> Sure a manuscript is an unpublished primary source, or an ancient book
> only held in 12 libraries.
> However if that item is published that does not create a secondary
> source.
> And if that item includes interviews with other people, that does not
> make it a secondary source.
>
How does becoming old, and being held in only 12 libraries suddenly
cause a book to revert to primary source status?
It seems that a lot of people are prone to gaming source levels to suit
their own objectives.
Ec
Sorry, guys. This is not good enough. You *must* manually reject.
Your mail to 'WikiEN-l' with the subject
Re: "Well known"
Is being held until the list moderator can review it for approval.
The reason it is being held:
Post to moderated list
Either the message will get posted to the list, or you will receive
notification of the moderator's decision. If you would like to cancel
this posting, please visit the following URL:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/confirm/wikien-l/d269eb6a28d7da25cafea5…
--
[http://ecn.ab.ca/~brewhaha/ BrewJay's Babble Bin]
The six year anniversary of Arbcom is coming up, and I was just going
through some of the old Wikien posts. I kind of got sentimental -
being to some degree responsible for the regrettable institution we
now call formalistic dispute resolution.
Anyway. Libertudian ("liberty"+ 'tude" + "-ian" + "-ism" ) concepts in
the news brought to mind one particular post, this one from... myself:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-September/054047.html
I have other faves, of course. Some are my own, but most are from tha people.
-Stevertigo
>
> Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 12:25:28 +1000
> From: Steve Bennett <stevagewp(a)gmail.com>
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 3:54 AM, Fred Bauder<fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net> wrote:
>
>> > I suppose, as in matters of internet deportment, civility, we must also
>> > accept the burden of maintaining the standard for English usage, global
>> > English usage. It is a grim and dreary business, but I must admit it is
>> > our responsibility.
>>
> Disagree. High quality, comprehensive, readable information is far
> more important than English grammar pedantry. "Most well known" or
> "best known"? Whichever one is currently in the article. Focus your
> efforts elsewhere.
>
One can hardly call a respect for good grammar pedantry. The quality of
information is diminished when it is expressed by imprecise language.
Good grammar and usage is exactly what makes it readable.
> (Bias: Background in linguistics and technical writing.)
So what?
Ec
Hi Greg -
You're barking up the wrong tree here: none of us as individuals are
involved in moderating wiki-en-L. The moderators are found here:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l#Admins
As a general suggestion, you may find you have more success in having your
posts accepted if you present your larger point rather than making a pithy
comment that is out of context.
Risker
2009/9/16 Gregory Kohs <thekohser(a)gmail.com>
> I am asking now for a third time about a post of mine intended for the
> WikiEN-l mailing list. I have not been given the courtesy of a moderator's
> reply for over 23 hours. Is this the practice of "list moderation", or is
> it de facto banning?
>
> While my comment may have been a bit snarky, my larger point is still a
> valid concern -- what does the Wikipedia community have to say about
> detecting a corporate counter-attack on a competitor's well-placed links in
> Wikipedia? If I worked for Microsoft, would it be beyond comprehension that
> I might spam-link Wikipedia with Apple.com links, in hopes of getting all
> 6,700+ links to Apple auto-magically removed?
>
> Of course, then I'm sure a well-written lawyer's letter from Apple to the
> Wikimedia Foundation might lift the Apple name off the spam blacklist. But
> then, wouldn't that then be a sort of "free license" to Apple to spam links
> as much as they want, because it could always be blamed on "the competition
> running a joe job"?
>
> Greg
>
> On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 10:47 PM, Gregory Kohs <thekohser(a)gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Is this going to get moderated through, or not?
>>
>> Greg
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 3:21 PM, Gregory Kohs <thekohser(a)gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> Risker says:
>>>
>>> +++++++++++++
>>>
>>> Amazing how few people realise that we're also perfectly capable of
>>>
>>>
>>> blacklisting their websites, and will do so without hesitation should a
>>> spambot show up. Heck, we give people a hard time for putting in half a
>>>
>>> dozen of the same links.
>>>
>>>
>>> Risker
>>>
>>> +++++++++++++
>>>
>>> If someone were to write a spambot script that spammed Wikipedia with
>>> outbound links to Wikia.com, would the Wikia.com domain (finally) get placed
>>> on the blacklist?
>>>
>>> Greg
>>> --
>>> Gregory Kohs
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Brion Vibber <brion(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: 2009/9/17
Subject: [Wikitech-l] Beta edit toolbar disabled temporarily
To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Due to compatibility problems on Internet Explorer after yesterday’s
code update, I’ve temporarily disabled the Usability Initiative’s beta
advanced toolbar. If you’ve had it enabled, you’ll just get the regular
old edit toolbar until we re-enable it.
Hopefully we should have this resolved within a day or so, and it’ll be
back on for all our happy testers!
If you want to follow the fix:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20668
-- brion
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