Right--and this would make all the difference. I am teaching a college
class for which an optional assignment is to learn to edit in Wikipedia.
Most of the students have had good experiences. Only a few have felt
"incivility consciously as a tactic. " We discuss this in class and a few
snide/bullying editors do great damage. There just isn't any reason for it.
Good people will not tolerate bullying. It's no rite of passage that people
must undergo.
On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 3:25 PM, Charles Matthews <
charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:
> On 15 April 2013 18:39, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > "You're an idiot, and you're damaging the project. It's not about
> > copyright, or understanding it. What I'll do is to keep swearing at
> > you, and I'll be uploading tons of files onto en.WP, not Commons. That
> > will just disadvantage other users, and will cause Commons admins more
> > work eventually in having to go through the process of transferring
> > them to Commons. I will refuse to categorise. And I will encourage all
> > other editors to do the same. Continue your personal vendetta against
> > me—fine. Again, you and your thug friends on Commons are idiots and
> > deserve no respect. Tony (talk) 15:15, 15 April 2013 (UTC)"
> >
> > That's the comment Charles refers to. Oops! I can see why some
> > frustration on Tony1's part is legit; a Commons admin deleted the
> > image illustrating the Signpost article on the attempt by the DCRI to
> > have a French Wikipedia article deleted, and then failed to explain it
> > in a way that would make sense to a non-expert. You won't see me argue
> > against accusations that Commons is dysfunctional, but the response is
> > clearly way out of proportion.
> >
> > But the point that I made, and that probably hundreds of people have
> > made before me, is that there isn't much we can do without altering
> > the fundamental architecture of the community.
>
> Actually, that is defeatist talk, and we can.
>
> It is completely clear that some editors use incivility consciously as
> a tactic. (The cited conversation is a smoking gun, if one were
> needed.) Such people should be sanctioned. Many more people have a
> temper (come to think of it, just about everyone does), and the point
> needs to be made that sanctioning those who use incivility
> systematically and disruptively does not mean sanctioning everyone on
> the planet.
>
> Then perhaps we could deal more rationally with the issue that
> discussions on enWP are often conducted in the wrong "register".
>
> Charles
>
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>
I just stumbled upon this (from a user asking help on
#wikimedia-commons): an en.wiki supposedly respected user shows gross
incivility on Commons, a surprised local admin doesn't know what to
think and is insulted in return, the user continues and gets two blocks.[1]
Until a few months ago I would have been suprised too, but I'm not after
the case where a steward had to lock for security reasons a probably
compromised en.wiki sysop and oversighter account, who was insulting
people in all caps, only to be told that the behaviour is absolutely
normal (the lock was quickly reversed).[2]
So I'm wondering, would we benefit from some sort of communication 101
to help understanding between the continent (Wikimedia projects) and the
island (en.wiki), in which inhabitants of the latter are reminded their
communication standards may be misunderstood, and inhabitants of the
former to "keep calm and carry on"?
Nemo
[1] Excerpts:
* Go fuck yourself [...] Tony1 (talk) 03:14, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
* I repeat: Go fuck yourself. Tony1 (talk) 04:00, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Tony1&oldid=94558…>
[2] Excerpts:
* «[...] edit summary "FUCK OFF YOU PETTY FASCIST IDIOT", I have blocked
Beeblebrox indefinitely as a possibly compromised account.»
* «I'd say that's a fairly typical response (even if left unsaid) to
anybody who attempts logic with the user Beeblebrox was having a
discussion with. So, probably not compromised.»
* etc.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noti…>
Also reverts of messages, that are apparently free on en.wiki but would
get the user a block on several wikis I know:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Beeblebrox&diff=next&o…>
> On Sat, Apr 13, 2013 at 7:54 PM, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net>
wrote:
>> Jimbo and Angela did not play a significant role in debates over
inclusion and deletion
>
> Indeed, that was my point. I don't think they did anything, or
> intended anything of the kind, but they chose not to intervene back
when the gradual slide could have been stopped and so the ultimate
effect was much the same. (Amusingly eventually leading to a nasty
surprise for Jimbo with Mzoli's.)
>
> --
> gwern
> http://www.gwern.net
Once the herd got going, no one had much effect.
Fred
This is not very helpful for someone trying to find assistance..I guess you
think this is funny, but it really seems like a bunch of 8th grade
middle-school boys.
On Sat, Apr 13, 2013 at 11:53 AM, Gwern Branwen <gwern(a)gwern.net> wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 13, 2013 at 2:36 AM, Tom Morris <tom(a)tommorris.org> wrote:
> > I'm waiting for extreme inclusionists or deletionists to produce some
> high-quality, not-at-all bullshit research that shows that failure to
> adhere to their preferred philosophy is something that shows a deep
> psychological tendency to rape kittens.
> >
> > That'll elevate the debate, I'm sure.
>
> On Sat, Apr 13, 2013 at 8:06 AM, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net>
> wrote:
> > Obviously toilet training is involved. That is the source of the anal
> > personality. Need a study of toilet training of future editors...
>
> Thanks for your contributions, guys, they were really helpful and not
> at all completely useless and off-topic and exactly what I was hoping
> not to see.
>
> --
> gwern
> http://www.gwern.net
>
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> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
There is a lack of economic knowledge in the world and this project
attempts to solve this problem.
I would love to see map out the global economy in a simplified format.
Under a standardized structure, local/country economic data would be
collected. Economists can help determine the most concise and educational
way to present the data. Education and simplicity is the top goal of this
project. This project is designed for anybody to be able to understand.
Here is link to 'Economy of the United States' sample article. This exact
format can be repeated for all 196 countries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcnabber091/Economy_of_the_United_States
Here is a link to the project proposal page:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_Economic_Map
Somewhat interesting new journal article:
* http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0060584
The researchers found that political discussions among openly
Wikipedians who declare a U.S. party affinity on their user pages don't
follow some of the common patterns observed in other online communities.
For example, researchers have documented that among bloggers, those
affiliated with the same party tend to discuss amongst each other much
more commonly (what they gloss as " cyberbalkanization"); and they also
reference the "other side's" in a way that's much more likely to be
argumentative, dismissive, and/or negative. But on Wikipedia neither
appears to be true: those who declare a U.S. party affiliation don't
seem to either segregate into more discussion with others on "their
side", or to have a clear pattern of more acrimonious interactions with
the "other" side than with "theirs".
Taken for whatever it's worth, of course. One hypothesis is the one the
paper offers, that our Wikipedian community identity trumps partisan
affiliation when it comes to guiding on-wiki interaction patterns. A
more skeptical hypothesis could be that the D/R split is actually,
unlike in the U.S. political blogosphere, not one of the more vicious
ones among Wikipedians to begin with, so is in a way an easier case. A
guess: a different fault line, like Israel/Palestine, might turn up less
positive results.
But in any case, it's an interesting read.
-Mark
Sent this message now. Comments are welcome, after the fact, as a way to learn
from my mistakes.
Begin forwarded message:
Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2013 13:18:33 +0300
From: Shlomi Fish <shlomif(a)shlomifish.org>
To: brian(a)LH7management.com
Subject: [Christina Grimmie] Please provide a photo of Ms. Grimmie under a
licence suitable for Wikimedia Projects ( e.g:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_Grimmie )
Dear sirs or madams,
I am an editor of the English wikipedia and other wikimedia projects and
currently we have this page about Ms. Christina Grimmie:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_Grimmie
( Christina is my favourite YouTube artist, and Team Grimmie rocks! )
However, one thing lacking from there is a photograph, and I was unable to find
any good photograph of Ms. Grimmie under a suitable licence (e.g: Creative
Commons CC-by-sa, CC-by, Public Domain, etc.) on Flickr. I know some localised
wikipedias (where Ms. Grimmie also has some presence - see the translations)
require photos to be under a liberal licence).
If you, or Ms. Grimmie can provide us with a good, representable photo of her,
that would be a great gesture and a wonderful way to promote her in Wikimedia
projects and other collaborative projects such as http://wikia.com/ , and other
people and I would be incredibly grateful for that. I am not a lawyer (IANAL)
but I think that you can license a lower resolution version of the photo under a
liberal licence, and keep the original photo as "All-Rights-Reserved". It can
also be a one-off photo dedicated for Wikipedia.
Please let me know of what you think.
Best regards,
Shlomi Fish
P.S: I realise the page about Ms. Grimmie could use more work, and is somewhat
out-of-date, but I'd like to tackle one issue at a time.
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