So, in other words, stable versions. Hasn't that been thrown about a bit at en.? And if we were to use such a feature, does anyone know how it would work?
On 20/12/2007, Brian Salter-Duke b_duke@bigpond.net.au wrote:
On Wed, Dec 19, 2007 at 11:18:56PM -0800, Grease Monkee wrote:
Wikipedia should be doing what Veropedia is doing. It's not a new idea. I think Mav suggested (like five years ago, or something)
using
the Nupedia domain for exactly that.
I've been increasingly noticing that when established users leave the project (or decide to switch to a new account) an admin often deletes their usertalk pages. When I've questioned these deletions as lacking any basis in the speedy criteria, I've been pointed to [[m:right to vanish]].
Now, let me start by saying I see cases where an IAR deletion of usertalk pages might be the right thing to do: someone has account associated with a real-life identity and they are being harassed off wiki. Admins, and particularly OTRS, need some leeway here. However, as a general practice of "delete on demand" I find it problematic.
Meta's "right to vanish" states ""Your user and talk pages, and their subpages, and other non-article pages that no others have substantively contributed to and whose existence does not impact the project, may be courtesy blanked or deleted."
Now that clearly excludes any routine deletion of talk pages of established users, as others HAVE made substantial contributions. Further, the existence of those talk pages may well "impact the project" as conversation there will provide the context for decisions and posts elsewhere. Indeed, deleting such pages may well be prejudicial to other users. (A whole arbcom case, or deletion discussion, or a controversial block, can depend on a few diffs in a talk page history.) Especially, as are sometimes speaking of admin accounts.
The meta page also suggests that blanking may be an alternative.
As I say, I don't want to suggest that talkpages never be deleted. But I'm concerned about the impression of some admins that users have a "right" here - they don't. Or that the deleter has full discretion - they don't. Any deletion is an exercise of IAR and must have really good reason.
The problem is that, if this continues, those of us unhappy will have little choice but to use DRV. But, if we do that, we'll also be drawing attention to the rare cases where there is a genuine reason (which is also why I will not give any examples here). Much better if we can send a clear message that these deletions of long-standing contributors' talk pages should not happen, unless there's really exceptional grounds (and perhaps those few cases could be discussed among a few OTRS people to check they are really necessary - and that selective deletion, oversight, or blanking will not suffice).
The right to vanish is a right of contributors to leave, no questions asked, it is not a right to pull all your correspondence from the file and demand the employer shred every document you're ever signed.
Doc
On 12/20/07, doc doc.wikipedia@ntlworld.com wrote:
I've been increasingly noticing that when established users leave the project (or decide to switch to a new account) an admin often deletes their usertalk pages. When I've questioned these deletions as lacking any basis in the speedy criteria, I've been pointed to [[m:right to vanish]].
Now, let me start by saying I see cases where an IAR deletion of usertalk pages might be the right thing to do: someone has account associated with a real-life identity and they are being harassed off wiki. Admins, and particularly OTRS, need some leeway here. However, as a general practice of "delete on demand" I find it problematic.
Meta's "right to vanish" states ""Your user and talk pages, and their subpages, and other non-article pages that no others have substantively contributed to and whose existence does not impact the project, may be courtesy blanked or deleted."
Now that clearly excludes any routine deletion of talk pages of established users, as others HAVE made substantial contributions. Further, the existence of those talk pages may well "impact the project" as conversation there will provide the context for decisions and posts elsewhere. Indeed, deleting such pages may well be prejudicial to other users. (A whole arbcom case, or deletion discussion, or a controversial block, can depend on a few diffs in a talk page history.) Especially, as are sometimes speaking of admin accounts.
The meta page also suggests that blanking may be an alternative.
As I say, I don't want to suggest that talkpages never be deleted. But I'm concerned about the impression of some admins that users have a "right" here - they don't. Or that the deleter has full discretion - they don't. Any deletion is an exercise of IAR and must have really good reason.
The problem is that, if this continues, those of us unhappy will have little choice but to use DRV. But, if we do that, we'll also be drawing attention to the rare cases where there is a genuine reason (which is also why I will not give any examples here). Much better if we can send a clear message that these deletions of long-standing contributors' talk pages should not happen, unless there's really exceptional grounds (and perhaps those few cases could be discussed among a few OTRS people to check they are really necessary - and that selective deletion, oversight, or blanking will not suffice).
The right to vanish is a right of contributors to leave, no questions asked, it is not a right to pull all your correspondence from the file and demand the employer shred every document you're ever signed.
Doc
I see the theoretical issue that Doc is raising here under the guidelines, but I'm not convinced that deleting a user's talkpage typically creates any problems as a practical matter, that would warrant our insisting on keeping the page if the user really wants it gone. Have such deletions typically raised any practical problems for us?
Newyorkbrad
Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) wrote:
On 12/20/07, doc doc.wikipedia@ntlworld.com wrote:
I've been increasingly noticing that when established users leave the project (or decide to switch to a new account) an admin often deletes their usertalk pages. When I've questioned these deletions as lacking any basis in the speedy criteria, I've been pointed to [[m:right to vanish]].
Now, let me start by saying I see cases where an IAR deletion of usertalk pages might be the right thing to do: someone has account associated with a real-life identity and they are being harassed off wiki. Admins, and particularly OTRS, need some leeway here. However, as a general practice of "delete on demand" I find it problematic.
Meta's "right to vanish" states ""Your user and talk pages, and their subpages, and other non-article pages that no others have substantively contributed to and whose existence does not impact the project, may be courtesy blanked or deleted."
Now that clearly excludes any routine deletion of talk pages of established users, as others HAVE made substantial contributions. Further, the existence of those talk pages may well "impact the project" as conversation there will provide the context for decisions and posts elsewhere. Indeed, deleting such pages may well be prejudicial to other users. (A whole arbcom case, or deletion discussion, or a controversial block, can depend on a few diffs in a talk page history.) Especially, as are sometimes speaking of admin accounts.
The meta page also suggests that blanking may be an alternative.
As I say, I don't want to suggest that talkpages never be deleted. But I'm concerned about the impression of some admins that users have a "right" here - they don't. Or that the deleter has full discretion - they don't. Any deletion is an exercise of IAR and must have really good reason.
The problem is that, if this continues, those of us unhappy will have little choice but to use DRV. But, if we do that, we'll also be drawing attention to the rare cases where there is a genuine reason (which is also why I will not give any examples here). Much better if we can send a clear message that these deletions of long-standing contributors' talk pages should not happen, unless there's really exceptional grounds (and perhaps those few cases could be discussed among a few OTRS people to check they are really necessary - and that selective deletion, oversight, or blanking will not suffice).
The right to vanish is a right of contributors to leave, no questions asked, it is not a right to pull all your correspondence from the file and demand the employer shred every document you're ever signed.
Doc
I see the theoretical issue that Doc is raising here under the guidelines, but I'm not convinced that deleting a user's talkpage typically creates any problems as a practical matter, that would warrant our insisting on keeping the page if the user really wants it gone. Have such deletions typically raised any practical problems for us?
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No, this hasn't really caused issues in general. I think that users should have the complete right to vanish if needed badly enough. However, in my opinion, only user pages should be deleted as talk pages really aren't supposed to be deleted.
Jonathan
On Dec 20, 2007 9:59 AM, doc doc.wikipedia@ntlworld.com wrote:
The right to vanish is a right of contributors to leave, no questions asked, it is not a right to pull all your correspondence from the file and demand the employer shred every document you're ever signed.
I am also increasingly concerned that cases where someone is strongly insisting on a 'right to vanish' that it's actually 'right to return under another identity' being exercised, and the purpose for the deletions is to remove as much as possible the institutional memory and tell-tale signs of that person's previous interactions and behavior.
IMO, vanish means vanish. You're not vanishing if you're coming back with a new face.
-Matt
On 21/12/2007, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
I am also increasingly concerned that cases where someone is strongly insisting on a 'right to vanish' that it's actually 'right to return under another identity' being exercised, and the purpose for the deletions is to remove as much as possible the institutional memory and tell-tale signs of that person's previous interactions and behavior.
This is the case I hear most of. When someone insists loudly on deleting all trace of them here and they've had a controversial editing history, the usual reason is to come back and do the same thing again under a new account name.
- d.
On Fri, Dec 21, 2007 at 10:15:20PM +0000, David Gerard wrote:
This is the case I hear most of. When someone insists loudly on deleting all trace of them here and they've had a controversial editing history, the usual reason is to come back and do the same thing again under a new account name.
At the same time, we need to be gracious to people who wish to return under a new name because of privacy concerns (or worse, actual harassment) with the previous name.
In general, I don't see the need to save user talk pages for users who are no longer editing. We are in the business of producing an encyclopedia, not necessarily a record of all discussion that went into the production of that encyclopdia.
I would support deleting the entire userspace of editors after they don't edit for several months, after an announcement and brief grace period for other people to copy out stuff (such as essays) that they wish to preserve. The history would be permanently preserved in database dumps by that time. This might have a side effect of underscoring the social convention that user pages and user talk pages exist only to facilitate writing articles.
Carl
My inclination is to respect a user's right to privacy as they request it. The only logistical problem we could encounter with the deletion of a vanished user's talk pages is that diffs left around in old archives, et cetera, would be rendered inaccessible to non-administrators and very annoying to bring up for administrators. Perhaps we could work around this by restoring the said revisions? This would allow us to respect the user's rights to privacy, and simultaneously working around all the annoyances associated with the RTV process.
AGK
On 21/12/2007, Carl Beckhorn cbeckhorn@fastmail.fm wrote:
On Fri, Dec 21, 2007 at 10:15:20PM +0000, David Gerard wrote:
This is the case I hear most of. When someone insists loudly on deleting all trace of them here and they've had a controversial editing history, the usual reason is to come back and do the same thing again under a new account name.
At the same time, we need to be gracious to people who wish to return under a new name because of privacy concerns (or worse, actual harassment) with the previous name.
In general, I don't see the need to save user talk pages for users who are no longer editing. We are in the business of producing an encyclopedia, not necessarily a record of all discussion that went into the production of that encyclopdia.
I would support deleting the entire userspace of editors after they don't edit for several months, after an announcement and brief grace period for other people to copy out stuff (such as essays) that they wish to preserve. The history would be permanently preserved in database dumps by that time. This might have a side effect of underscoring the social convention that user pages and user talk pages exist only to facilitate writing articles.
Carl
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Carl Beckhorn wrote:
The history would be permanently preserved in database dumps by that time.
We haven't had a successful full-history database dump in a long time now, as far as I know. I wouldn't rely on that.
The export function seems to be limited to the most recent hundred revisions again, too. Was it just my imagination that this limit was lifted for a while?
On Dec 22, 2007 9:15 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/12/2007, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
I am also increasingly concerned that cases where someone is strongly insisting on a 'right to vanish' that it's actually 'right to return under another identity' being exercised, and the purpose for the deletions is to remove as much as possible the institutional memory and tell-tale signs of that person's previous interactions and behavior.
This is the case I hear most of. When someone insists loudly on deleting all trace of them here and they've had a controversial editing history, the usual reason is to come back and do the same thing again under a new account name.
That, then, would suggest that admins responding to requests for userspace deletion should be conscious of the circumstances of the user's leaving, before deciding whether to delete the page, rather than abolishing deletion of userpages altogether.
On 22/12/2007, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
That, then, would suggest that admins responding to requests for userspace deletion should be conscious of the circumstances of the user's leaving, before deciding whether to delete the page, rather than abolishing deletion of userpages altogether.
A talk page is interaction with the project. I don't see that you get any automatic right to zap that.
- d.