On 7/9/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Sun, 8 Jul 2007 20:36:21 +0100, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
I am one of them, I know a lot of others, all we actually want is for people to be prepared to wait a while for things to be cleared up.
Being able to enforce this is office level powers.
Not having to "enforce" it is evidence of maturity in the project. We received a complaint, naturally some people will automatically react by pushing as hard as possible for inclusion of the material the subject wants excluded, but these people are not likely to be our finest contributors.
It would really rather depend on the situation and the context.
Step 1: remove the offending material to forestall legal action;
Um I suspect that may be problematical in some situations because it could be used as admission that there was a problem.
Maybe. But probably not. Leaving it in despite knowing that it is contested is, in my view, far more likely to result in a real problem.
Eh that would be an area where I think some general advice from Mike Godwin could come in handy
In the mean time, volunteers is all we have. Yes, I know, having an encyclopaedia run by unqualified volunteers is never going to work, God alone knows why we even try.
The difference is open review. Any edit made on wikipedia is open to review by anyone. If I state an image is a copyvio I would need to be able to publicly back that up if challenged. The result is that if I screw up with regards to copyright law we will likely find out that I did and why.
People are genuinely upset when Wikipedia says bad things about them. Sometimes the bad things need to be said, albeit sometimes with somewhat less obvious spite, but it does us no harm to demonstrate at every point that we have listened respectfully to their concerns, even if we ultimately dismiss them as baseless.
Removing verifiable material is harmful.
And leaving it in may well be more harmful.
So it is a balance. your initial statement fails to acknowledge this.
Sometimes "verifiable material" amounts to a tabloid story from a couple of local papers being elevated to worldwide prominence on a top ten website by some folks whose motivation is less than pure. Attempts to portray such issues in black and White terms are rarely productive.
There is a difference between a sites and web pages.
Additionally I would argue that wikipedia is of greater value when it includes stuff not previously online.
Everybody is invited to OTRS. You don't have to be an admin.
No but the new admins are the logical recruitment targets. So have you contacted them on their talk page? Email?
What happened when you volunteered?
Eh volunteered of permissions way back. No response. Then real name requirement kicked in.
False dilemma logical fallacy
False dilemmas are indeed a logical fallacy. But you are on the outside pissing in, here.
I'm hardly likely to accept that claim.
You are bitching about the system and not actually offering any practical help in fixing it.
Can't. In order to fix something you need some level of control. The board my have some level of control over OTRS. Perhaps the office people. Anyone else? Not so much.
And no, "do nothing" is not an option when hurt, upset people contact Wikipedia. Just ask that nice Mr. Wales.
My experience was that explaining why we were doing nothing worked surprisingly well. That was a while ago mind.