Okay, this has gone far enough.
It is remarkable that people have built all these theories on hypotheses as to what happened with Fleshlight, without actually knowing the facts. It is just ludicrous to think that I succumbed to pressure from a company. To begin with Mark Gallagher's ad hominem suggestions on that point, I have dealt with Walmart, Coca Cola, and GM (among other firms) on the phone. I have spoken with Congressmen and Senators. I have spoken to their lawyers. I have spoken to their PR people. I have spoken to their VPs in charge of advertising. I did not give in to their cajoling, their threats, or their attempts at bribes. To suggest that I did so with Fleshlight is simply ridiculous and does not merit any serious attention. Instead I invite you to spend a day in the office, or if that is too difficult, ask people who have been to the office and have heard me on the phone how I deal with those kinds of people.
The fact is, we are dealing with a problem here. We have companies galore trying to spam us. OTRS is just a small indicator of this. We have adverting executives calling to see if what they can do to move their company to a higher position on a list, or how much it costs to get them on the front page. We are prime advertising. We will soon be the tenth largest website in the world, and "anyone can edit." It is not only top notch internet advertising, but it is free too. You see, these people dont see the difference between us and MySpace. They know that we will push up their Google rankings. They know that everyone will look them up on Google and find the Wikipedia article. And I repeat, it is free. For the Americans among you, it is like getting a free commercial slot in the last two minutes of the Superbowl. And I repeat, it is free. And for this prime slot, they want to make sure they look as good as they can.
This is not hypothesis. We are dealing with it every day, from people who threaten to sue us for violating their First Amendment rights to post about their company to clueless people who think that if we put up a banner to their online poker site we will all make money. We get it from the big Fortune 500 companies and we get it from the local car rental shop, from the sister of a guy who is opening up a new real estate business in Durham North Carolina (I am not kidding) to reps of Coca Cola ("The article is biased"). We get it from Washington thinktanks led by former cabinet members to Flickr-like rip off sites (they offered us $35 for every photographer we send to them).
As a site where advertising is anathema, we have to make a choice. Do we allow this? Personally, I am opposed to paid advertising on Wikipedia, but I am even more opposed to free advertising which we cannot monetize.
As editors, we end up having to make choices. With our goals in sight, How do we continue being an encyclopedia, and not some advertising forum or MySpace? What is the difference between an article about Budweiser (which I believe we should have even though their beer is foul) and articles on every micro-brewery in the state of Wisconsin?
Fleshlight is just an example of one such minor product. Yes, it was mentioned in the Village Voice. Big deal. My mother was mentioned in the Toronto Star in the 1970s, but that does not mean we need an article about her. Six other products were mentioned in the article (which was a survey of male sex toys, not a piece about Fleshlight per se), but that doesn't mean we have articles about them (see my earlier email for a survey of the article). One hit on Google News does not make something noteworthy, especially if it is not even an article about the topic per se, but rather just a few lines in an overview article (if you actually read the article online before citing it, you will see what I mean).
For all those expressing indignation, I invite you to think about what should be included in an encyclopedia, even one the size of Wikipedia. Once you define that, consider what the definition excludes.
Which brings us back to Fleshlight. It was the subject of a subtle edit war between the company that manufactures it, and a similar company which wanted to have an external link on the Fleshlight page. Fleshlight wrote "We are happy to let others view our product, but would like to limit editing privileges. This product is seen as taboo to many, so they would just assume destroy our displayed page. Is there anyway I could be placed as moderator for that single page, just Fleshlight, so changes can still be made when necessary and not having the company product slandered." By slandered they mean, showing a rival company. Their rival wrote, "I am quite upset. While I understand that everyone can edit pages as they want, I find it quite outrageous that I add and edit information about the Fleshlight at _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleshlight_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleshlight) I am an affiliate of Fleshlight and got the word about rules at WIKI that you can't link via affiliate links, but provide USEFUL links using your own domains regarding an WIKI entry." He wanted to add "my updates regarding facts, like unavailable colors of the Fleshlight." That was the slander. Add to this mix a guy who runs a Fleshlight fansite, which is essentially a porn site, who wanted sole control over links as well (i.e., link to his site only).
Considering all this, I asked if Fleshlight really needs an article of its own. I consulted with people too. The overwhelming response was that this is spam and should be nuked. At first I thought it could redirect, but then I asked myself the following question--do we really want redirects from every possible product out there to generic articles? Ask yourself the same question. Better yet, go into a dollar store, look at the display of products and ask if we want redirects for all the rip-off brands in Wikipedia.
And I nuked.
Once again, I hope that this whole incident helps to clarify what the criteria for inclusion in Wikipedia are. At least let it launch that discussion. But to do that, we have to avoid all the rhetoric and be willing to make real decisions based on the underlying principles behind what Wikipedia is all about.
Danny
.
I'm probably just repeating what millions of others have already said, but can't we simply redirect [[Fleshlight]] to [[artificial vagina]] and mention it there, if it is indeed notable enough to merit mentioning? IMHO in general it is better to talk about _types of products_ rather than specific products in an encyclopedia.
On 10/9/06, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
I'm probably just repeating what millions of others have already said, but can't we simply redirect [[Fleshlight]] to [[artificial vagina]] and mention it there, if it is indeed notable enough to merit mentioning? IMHO in general it is better to talk about _types of products_ rather than specific products in an encyclopedia. -- Peace & Love, Erik
I second this suggestion, it seems like a good one.
Parker
On Mon, 9 Oct 2006 07:55:24 -0500, "Parker Peters" onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
I second this suggestion, it seems like a good one.
Done long since.
Guy (JzG)
On 09/10/06, daniwo59@aol.com daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
spam and should be nuked. At first I thought it could redirect, but then I asked myself the following question--do we really want redirects from every possible product out there to generic articles? Ask yourself the same question.
In most cases, I try to put these in, actually ;-) I frequently enter brand names into Wikipedia to look something up, so a redirect from a brand name to a type of product would be useful to the reader.
Better yet, go into a dollar store, look at the display of products and ask if we want redirects for all the rip-off brands in Wikipedia.
Though that's pushing it ...
- d.
On 9 Oct 2006, at 06:02, daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
Okay, this has gone far enough.
Perhaps the problem is that the traditional consensus ideal for articles is hard to reach where vested interests such as companies are concerned, unless of course there are plentiful independent press reports.
On 09/10/06, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote:
On 9 Oct 2006, at 06:02, daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
Okay, this has gone far enough.
Perhaps the problem is that the traditional consensus ideal for articles is hard to reach where vested interests such as companies are concerned, unless of course there are plentiful independent press reports.
Third-party verifiability of notability is a really simple idea to explain to aggrieved former article subjects.
- d.
On 9 Oct 2006, at 10:14, David Gerard wrote:
On 09/10/06, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote:
On 9 Oct 2006, at 06:02, daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
Okay, this has gone far enough.
Perhaps the problem is that the traditional consensus ideal for articles is hard to reach where vested interests such as companies are concerned, unless of course there are plentiful independent press reports.
Third-party verifiability of notability is a really simple idea to explain to aggrieved former article subjects.
As you will have noticed from the WP:non-notability debates ;-)
On Oct 9, 2006, at 1:02 AM, daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
Okay, this has gone far enough.
It is remarkable that people have built all these theories on hypotheses as to what happened with Fleshlight, without actually knowing the facts. It is just ludicrous to think that I succumbed to pressure from a company.
Nobody has suggested that you did. Quite the contrary, it appears that you very deliberately pissed off a company as a way of dealing with the unreasonable demands they tried to place on the project by doing the exact opposite of what they asked.
For all those expressing indignation, I invite you to think about what should be included in an encyclopedia, even one the size of Wikipedia. Once you define that, consider what the definition excludes.
Danny, the Office does not and should not be determining inclusion criteria on its own and imposing them without the consent of the community. Fleshlight survived AfD three times. For the Office to declare "Sorry, community - you're wrong" is a new approach for the Office, and one I think is a very, very bad one.
Considering all this, I asked if Fleshlight really needs an article of its own. I consulted with people too. The overwhelming response was that this is spam and should be nuked.
Which is flatly untrue, looking at the article history. It may have become spam, but the article was not inherently spam, and had good versions in its history.
Once again, I hope that this whole incident helps to clarify what the criteria for inclusion in Wikipedia are. At least let it launch that discussion. But to do that, we have to avoid all the rhetoric and be willing to make real decisions based on the underlying principles behind what Wikipedia is all about.
One of the underlying principles is deference to the community on content issues, and to a defined system of appeal upwards from that. The Office does not historically enjoy a role of roving court of appeals. In the past, in cases like this, Office members, including Jimbo, have started AfDs and made it very clear that they are asking the community to rethink inclusion on this one. The switch from that to nuking is, I will repeat, a significant turn, and a very bad one.
-Phil
On 10/9/06, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote: [snip]
One of the underlying principles is deference to the community on content issues, and to a defined system of appeal upwards from that. The Office does not historically enjoy a role of roving court of appeals. In the past, in cases like this, Office members, including Jimbo, have started AfDs and made it very clear that they are asking the community to rethink inclusion on this one. The switch from that to nuking is, I will repeat, a significant turn, and a very bad one.
Unilateral deletions are performed hundreds of times a month by Wikipedia Admins on the basis of their own judgement. Perhaps I shouldn't find it shocking that some [[troll (Internet)|opportunist]] found it useful take advantage of Danny's high profile in order to play out a little bit of performance art.
It is unfortunate and uncharacteristic to see you equate the elevation of experienced judgement and consideration over strict policy conformance with a lack of deference to the community.
It appears to me that in this thread we have seen numerous complaints about HOW this was carried out masquerade as complaints about what was done... The reality is that the claim that the deletion was clearly inappropriate can not be supported by fact: no answer was given to the point that we lack articles on the numerous similar devices which have an equal claim of notoriety, nor has our oh so violated community bothered to even write a section on this oh so notable product in the article it was later redirected to.
I wouldn't expect everyone to agree with exactly how such situations should be handled: if it were easy it would be a non-issue. Like most other things: This is a matter where rational people can disagree about the exact nature of its resolution.
However, I would expect that our long term participants could stand together, .. that they could see the clearly good intentions of each other, and not allow petty difference of opinion get in the way of friendship, respect, and our over arching goals (which I think we *all* agree does not include Wikipedia being turned into a free advertising forum).
I think this thread is just further demonstration that the English Wikipedia is no longer a community in any sense beyond a collection of people which are nearly located in 'space'... and the resemblance to an actual community appears to becoming more superficial as time passes.
In recent times English Wikipedia appears more like a ragtag band of castaways mutually stranded on an island... where distrust and petty bickering are at least as common as friendship and cooperation.
Perhaps our mere colocation on the project like the castaways in my example makes us, by definition, a community. But if that is really the destiny of the English Wikipedia community then it is a failure by my standards... and I hope such an end would be a failure by all of your standards as well.
On 10/9/06, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
Unilateral deletions are performed hundreds of times a month by Wikipedia Admins on the basis of their own judgement.
Thousands
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
It appears to me that in this thread we have seen numerous complaints about HOW this was carried out masquerade as complaints about what was done... The reality is that the claim that the deletion was clearly inappropriate can not be supported by fact: no answer was given to the point that we lack articles on the numerous similar devices which have an equal claim of notoriety, nor has our oh so violated community bothered to even write a section on this oh so notable product in the article it was later redirected to.
Reverse http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pokemon_test ? PS: we do have articles on other such devices. And, as with Fleshlight, I think they are just fine. Build your strawman somewhere else.
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On 10/9/06, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote: [snip]
One of the underlying principles is deference to the community on content issues, and to a defined system of appeal upwards from that. The Office does not historically enjoy a role of roving court of appeals. In the past, in cases like this, Office members, including Jimbo, have started AfDs and made it very clear that they are asking the community to rethink inclusion on this one. The switch from that to nuking is, I will repeat, a significant turn, and a very bad one.
Unilateral deletions are performed hundreds of times a month by Wikipedia Admins on the basis of their own judgement.
The big difference is that such deletions can be overturned on the basis of other admins' judgements, and that the basis on which those judgements are made can be reviewed and debated publically.
In the case of Office actions, on the other hand, the basis on which the deletion was made is secret and any attempt to overturn it by other admins would result in Bad Things. So this is inherently a much bigger deal.
It appears to me that in this thread we have seen numerous complaints about HOW this was carried out masquerade as complaints about what was done... The reality is that the claim that the deletion was clearly inappropriate can not be supported by fact:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Fleshlight
no answer was given to the point that we lack articles on the numerous similar devices which have an equal claim of notoriety,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybian http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBuzz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realdoll http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneros (these were just a result of a quick survey of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Sex_toys for articles that appeared to be on specific companies' products.)
(PS, I'm so glad that this mailing list isn't publically archived and accessible, so that web searches will never associate my name with that list of products. What? It _is_, you say...? :)
nor has our oh so violated community bothered to even write a section on this oh so notable product in the article it was later redirected to.
The redirect was just done TODAY. And, since the article's deletion was done by Office action, it's no wonder that people are hesitant to risk digging anything out of the deleted article's history (GFDL problems with attribution to deleted versions aside) or even have the appearance of doing so.
I think this thread is just further demonstration that the English Wikipedia is no longer a community in any sense beyond a collection of people which are nearly located in 'space'... and the resemblance to an actual community appears to becoming more superficial as time passes.
Actually, it looks to me more like a community reacting against outside interference with community affairs. If there was a copyvio or libel, that's one thing - it's widely accepted that such stuff has to be dealt with outside of community consensus for legal reasons. But this deletion appears to have been a result of an individual deciding that the subject wasn't "notable" enough to have an article, which is a decision reserved for the _community_ to make (sometimes-flawed though the decision-making mechanisms may be).
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
Unilateral deletions are performed hundreds of times a month by Wikipedia Admins on the basis of their own judgement. Perhaps I shouldn't find it shocking that some [[troll (Internet)|opportunist]] found it useful take advantage of Danny's high profile in order to play out a little bit of performance art.
It is unfortunate and uncharacteristic to see you equate the elevation of experienced judgement and consideration over strict policy conformance with a lack of deference to the community.
I think that a significant amount of the confusion here has to do with it being a little unclear whether this was intended as a WP:OFFICE act. It was done under Danny's normal account, with no reference to WP:OFFICE, so I think it is safe to assume this was Danny acting in his capacity and a long standing and widely respected editor exercising editorial judgment in a manner consistent with our longstanding policies of being bold.
It just so happened, as it turns out, that it was triggered by a call to the office.
However, I would expect that our long term participants could stand together, .. that they could see the clearly good intentions of each other, and not allow petty difference of opinion get in the way of friendship, respect, and our over arching goals (which I think we *all* agree does not include Wikipedia being turned into a free advertising forum).
This is one of the finest paragraphs in this entire thread.
--Jimbo
On 10/9/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
I think that a significant amount of the confusion here has to do with it being a little unclear whether this was intended as a WP:OFFICE act. It was done under Danny's normal account, with no reference to WP:OFFICE, so I think it is safe to assume this was Danny acting in his capacity and a long standing and widely respected editor exercising editorial judgment in a manner consistent with our longstanding policies of being bold.
No. The guideline is "be bold in updating articles". It doesn't really apply to admin actions.
On 10/9/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/9/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
I think that a significant amount of the confusion here has to do with it being a little unclear whether this was intended as a WP:OFFICE act. It was done under Danny's normal account, with no reference to WP:OFFICE, so I think it is safe to assume this was Danny acting in his capacity and a long standing and widely respected editor exercising editorial judgment in a manner consistent with our longstanding policies of being bold.
No. The guideline is "be bold in updating articles". It doesn't really apply to admin actions.
Yes, the guideline does say that. The guideline that editors should be bold is for newbies who need help in understanding how WIkipedia works (i.e. not by a horrendous editorial system). The principle[1] that *all* editors (including admins) should be bold in their actions where to do so would be to the project's benefit is so obvious that it doesn't need stating.
Or does it?
[1] Principle is my word for basic policies, as the word "policy" has been tainted.
On 10/10/06, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, the guideline does say that. The guideline that editors should be bold is for newbies who need help in understanding how WIkipedia works (i.e. not by a horrendous editorial system). The principle[1] that *all* editors (including admins) should be bold in their actions where to do so would be to the project's benefit is so obvious that it doesn't need stating.
Or does it?
That principle would be flawed on a number of levels. You can undo the fact that someone has been blocked. Most editors can't undo deletions. Screwing up certain things in the mediawiki namespace is bad. The amount of damage an editor can do is the for the most part minimal. The amount of damage an admin can do both to wikipedia and other editors is rather more significant.
[1] Principle is my word for basic policies, as the word "policy" has been tainted.
Has anyone got around to creating a wikipediaese to English dictionary yet?
On 10/10/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
That principle would be flawed on a number of levels. You can undo the fact that someone has been blocked. Most editors can't undo deletions. Screwing up certain things in the mediawiki namespace is bad. The amount of damage an editor can do is the for the most part minimal. The amount of damage an admin can do both to wikipedia and other editors is rather more significant.
We do try to give our admins a basic sanity screen, and peer pressure works better than I'd have expected.
(Although I've been going 'wtf' at some of the more ridiculous RFA requirements^Wrecommendations, I must admit you're probably right when all other systems are anticipated to be worse. If we can get the shrubbery requesters to calm down ... as far as I can tell, having x featured articles has *nothing* to do with admin-worthy stability levels, either way.)
[1] Principle is my word for basic policies, as the word "policy" has been tainted.
Has anyone got around to creating a wikipediaese to English dictionary yet?
I thought we were going to redefine English usage to match our jargon, much as the word "Wiki" in casual conversation (with an implied capital, as far as I can tell) now means Wikipedia.
- d.
On 10/10/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
That principle would be flawed on a number of levels. You can undo the fact that someone has been blocked. Most editors can't undo deletions. Screwing up certain things in the mediawiki namespace is bad. The amount of damage an editor can do is the for the most part minimal. The amount of damage an admin can do both to wikipedia and other editors is rather more significant.
It is not a contradiction to say that you should always be careful in being bold. Such care should be in direct proportion to a) how important the action is and b) how irreversible it is.
Of course admins have to be bold in their actions. They don't have to be reckless (they don't even have to ignore *any* rules). But admins absolutely do have to be bold, they have always had to be bold and it is necessary that they are bold so that the project does not get entrenched.
Wikipedia would not work if its admins were not bold.
On 10/10/06, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
Wikipedia would not work if its admins were not bold.
That's definitely something I agree with, but as I've said in various threads, there needs to be a common agreement as to the limit of when something is sufficiently controversial as to require an abandonment of being bold on that topic to allow consensus to work itself out.
Uncontroversial things should just happen. Controversial ones need time to get hashed out, or the ensuing debate starts out on harsh terms pretty much automatically.
Jimmy Wales wrote:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
Unilateral deletions are performed hundreds of times a month by Wikipedia Admins on the basis of their own judgement. Perhaps I shouldn't find it shocking that some [[troll (Internet)|opportunist]] found it useful take advantage of Danny's high profile in order to play out a little bit of performance art.
It is unfortunate and uncharacteristic to see you equate the elevation of experienced judgement and consideration over strict policy conformance with a lack of deference to the community.
I think that a significant amount of the confusion here has to do with it being a little unclear whether this was intended as a WP:OFFICE act. It was done under Danny's normal account, with no reference to WP:OFFICE, so I think it is safe to assume this was Danny acting in his capacity and a long standing and widely respected editor exercising editorial judgment in a manner consistent with our longstanding policies of being bold.
It just so happened, as it turns out, that it was triggered by a call to the office.
So it did have a reference to WP:OFFICE then.
I'm sorry Jimmy but what you've written above has to be the worst case of whitewashing ever.
"It wasn't WP:OFFICE but it was."
On 09/10/06, Kris & Adrian emailus@btopenworld.com wrote:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
Unilateral deletions are performed hundreds of times a month by Wikipedia Admins on the basis of their own judgement. Perhaps I shouldn't find it shocking that some [[troll (Internet)|opportunist]] found it useful take advantage of Danny's high profile in order to play out a little bit of performance art.
It is unfortunate and uncharacteristic to see you equate the elevation of experienced judgement and consideration over strict policy conformance with a lack of deference to the community.
I think that a significant amount of the confusion here has to do with it being a little unclear whether this was intended as a WP:OFFICE act. It was done under Danny's normal account, with no reference to WP:OFFICE, so I think it is safe to assume this was Danny acting in his capacity and a long standing and widely respected editor exercising editorial judgment in a manner consistent with our longstanding policies of being bold.
It just so happened, as it turns out, that it was triggered by a call to the office.
So it did have a reference to WP:OFFICE then.
I'm sorry Jimmy but what you've written above has to be the worst case of whitewashing ever.
"It wasn't WP:OFFICE but it was."
"It was caused by contact to the office" is *not* "It was WP:OFFICE". WP:OFFICE is shorthand for an "office task"; one made by and for the Foundation. Danny is one of the people who occasionally do these tasks. It does not cover anything that has a tangential connection with the actual office, because...
Several hundred people "contact the office" every day - usually by email, occasionally by phone. A number of people, most heavily Danny, handle this stuff, and almost always do so without further reference to "the Foundation" - articles are cleaned up, copyvios hurried along to deletion, abusive talk page messages removed, egregious bits of stupidity caught, a hundred and one things quietly kept ticking over.
If I handle one of these because someone sent an email to the office, it doesn't class as WP:OFFICE. If Kat Walsh or David Monniaux do it, it doesn't class as WP:OFFICE. If Danny does it in his normal routine of handling complaints - and in most cases, the only difference between Danny and the rest of us doing it is that he has a phone to answer, too - then *it isn't WP:OFFICE*, and the many and myriad complexities involved there don't come into it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:OFFICE
This argument is bad enough without redefining concepts on the fly...
Precisely.
Andrew Gray wrote:
On 09/10/06, Kris & Adrian emailus@btopenworld.com wrote:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
Unilateral deletions are performed hundreds of times a month by Wikipedia Admins on the basis of their own judgement. Perhaps I shouldn't find it shocking that some [[troll (Internet)|opportunist]] found it useful take advantage of Danny's high profile in order to play out a little bit of performance art.
It is unfortunate and uncharacteristic to see you equate the elevation of experienced judgement and consideration over strict policy conformance with a lack of deference to the community.
I think that a significant amount of the confusion here has to do with it being a little unclear whether this was intended as a WP:OFFICE act. It was done under Danny's normal account, with no reference to WP:OFFICE, so I think it is safe to assume this was Danny acting in his capacity and a long standing and widely respected editor exercising editorial judgment in a manner consistent with our longstanding policies of being bold.
It just so happened, as it turns out, that it was triggered by a call to the office.
So it did have a reference to WP:OFFICE then.
I'm sorry Jimmy but what you've written above has to be the worst case of whitewashing ever.
"It wasn't WP:OFFICE but it was."
"It was caused by contact to the office" is *not* "It was WP:OFFICE". WP:OFFICE is shorthand for an "office task"; one made by and for the Foundation. Danny is one of the people who occasionally do these tasks. It does not cover anything that has a tangential connection with the actual office, because...
Several hundred people "contact the office" every day - usually by email, occasionally by phone. A number of people, most heavily Danny, handle this stuff, and almost always do so without further reference to "the Foundation" - articles are cleaned up, copyvios hurried along to deletion, abusive talk page messages removed, egregious bits of stupidity caught, a hundred and one things quietly kept ticking over.
If I handle one of these because someone sent an email to the office, it doesn't class as WP:OFFICE. If Kat Walsh or David Monniaux do it, it doesn't class as WP:OFFICE. If Danny does it in his normal routine of handling complaints - and in most cases, the only difference between Danny and the rest of us doing it is that he has a phone to answer, too - then *it isn't WP:OFFICE*, and the many and myriad complexities involved there don't come into it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:OFFICE
This argument is bad enough without redefining concepts on the fly...
Kris & Adrian wrote:
So it did have a reference to WP:OFFICE then.
I'm sorry Jimmy but what you've written above has to be the worst case of whitewashing ever.
"It wasn't WP:OFFICE but it was."
AGF, please. That is not what I said. Danny has made it very clear in the past that he has two accounts. One he uses for WP:OFFICE actions, i.e. actions taken temporarily by the office based on some emergency situation (usually but not always legal in nature). And his normal account, which he uses as every other editor on the project.
--Jimbo
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Jimmy Wales stated for the record:
AGF, please. That is not what I said. Danny has made it very clear in the past that he has two accounts. One he uses for WP:OFFICE actions, i.e. actions taken temporarily by the office based on some emergency situation (usually but not always legal in nature). And his normal account, which he uses as every other editor on the project.
--Jimbo
Jimbo, I don't want to throw any more JP-5 on the fire, but if any other editor speedy-deleted an article that had survived three AFDs, the deletion would be immediately reverted with demands that he follow procedure. I am a staunch support of AGF (as well as BOLD and OFFICE and most importantly IAR) so I assume that the clear and present danger of irreversible damage to the project was so extreme as to prevent any prior discussion -- but the abruptness of this action does warrant at the very least a raised eyebrow.
- -- Sean Barrett | Who do you think you are, sean@epoptic.com | telling me to "Question Authority"?
On 10/9/06, Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.com wrote:
Jimbo, I don't want to throw any more JP-5 on the fire, but if any other editor speedy-deleted an article that had survived three AFDs, the deletion would be immediately reverted with demands that he follow procedure. I am a staunch support of AGF (as well as BOLD and OFFICE and most importantly IAR) so I assume that the clear and present danger of irreversible damage to the project was so extreme as to prevent any prior discussion -- but the abruptness of this action does warrant at the very least a raised eyebrow.
Your claim that if an article was speedied which had been AFD kept in the past would be immediately undeleted is factually inaccurate. Laughably so.
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Gregory Maxwell stated for the record:
On 10/9/06, Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.com wrote:
Jimbo, I don't want to throw any more JP-5 on the fire, but if any other editor speedy-deleted an article that had survived three AFDs, the deletion would be immediately reverted with demands that he follow procedure. I am a staunch support of AGF (as well as BOLD and OFFICE and most importantly IAR) so I assume that the clear and present danger of irreversible damage to the project was so extreme as to prevent any prior discussion -- but the abruptness of this action does warrant at the very least a raised eyebrow.
Your claim that if an article was speedied which had been AFD kept in the past would be immediately undeleted is factually inaccurate. Laughably so.
I'm glad you're amused. Not everyone is laughing, though.
- -- Sean Barrett | To bite off your shadow is neither easy nor sean@epoptic.com | painless. It demands a single-mindedness | that is almost unknown in this day.
On 10/9/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Kris & Adrian wrote:
So it did have a reference to WP:OFFICE then.
I'm sorry Jimmy but what you've written above has to be the worst case of whitewashing ever.
"It wasn't WP:OFFICE but it was."
AGF, please. That is not what I said. Danny has made it very clear in the past that he has two accounts. One he uses for WP:OFFICE actions, i.e. actions taken temporarily by the office based on some emergency situation (usually but not always legal in nature). And his normal account, which he uses as every other editor on the project.
--Jimbo
I don't want to be confrontational, but the edit summary used was exactly contradicting that:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fleshlight&diff=79363277&o...
Kylu may have misinterpreted something, but it's been a point of great confusion since he did it.
On 10/9/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Kris & Adrian wrote:
So it did have a reference to WP:OFFICE then.
I'm sorry Jimmy but what you've written above has to be the worst case of whitewashing ever.
"It wasn't WP:OFFICE but it was."
AGF, please. That is not what I said. Danny has made it very clear in the past that he has two accounts. One he uses for WP:OFFICE actions, i.e. actions taken temporarily by the office based on some emergency situation (usually but not always legal in nature). And his normal account, which he uses as every other editor on the project.
The problem is that the consequences of guessing wrong about if a particular edit by the [[User:Danny]] account is a WP:OFFICE action being kept discrete or not are so severe that nobody wants to risk it. As a result, any sudden, wildly-out-of-process action by either account is assumed to be Office-related.
On 10/10/06, Mark Wagner carnildo@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/9/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Kris & Adrian wrote:
So it did have a reference to WP:OFFICE then.
I'm sorry Jimmy but what you've written above has to be the worst case of whitewashing ever.
"It wasn't WP:OFFICE but it was."
AGF, please. That is not what I said. Danny has made it very clear in the past that he has two accounts. One he uses for WP:OFFICE actions, i.e. actions taken temporarily by the office based on some emergency situation (usually but not always legal in nature). And his normal account, which he uses as every other editor on the project.
The problem is that the consequences of guessing wrong about if a particular edit by the [[User:Danny]] account is a WP:OFFICE action being kept discrete or not are so severe that nobody wants to risk it. As a result, any sudden, wildly-out-of-process action by either account is assumed to be Office-related.
Very true, very true.
Parker
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Mark Wagner wrote:
The problem is that the consequences of guessing wrong about if a particular edit by the [[User:Danny]] account is a WP:OFFICE action being kept discrete or not are so severe that nobody wants to risk it. As a result, any sudden, wildly-out-of-process action by either account is assumed to be Office-related.
Simple solution: Danny should not perform ANY admin action on EITHER account OTHER than WP:OFFICE actions. Harsh, but if that's what is necessary to prevent another shitstorm like this then that is what needs to happen. A 'long standing and widely respected editor' (Jimbo's words, not mine) is expected to show MORE respect for the community, not less. Otherwise Citizendium will gain more contributors than it deserves.
Cynical
On 10/10/06, David Alexander Russell david@davidarussell.co.uk wrote:
Simple solution: Danny should not perform ANY admin action on EITHER account OTHER than WP:OFFICE actions. Harsh, but if that's what is necessary to prevent another shitstorm like this then that is what needs to happen. A 'long standing and widely respected editor' (Jimbo's words, not mine) is expected to show MORE respect for the community, not less. Otherwise Citizendium will gain more contributors than it deserves.
A solution with a major pitfall. Danny handles a lot of work that needs doing - dealing with complaints, mainly, and tidying up related problems, many of which require admin rights. We've only just surmounted a several-month backlog of these issues thanks to remarkable volunteer effort*; we don't have the available manpower to take the only person paid to do it consistently away.
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Andrew Gray wrote:
A solution with a major pitfall. Danny handles a lot of work that needs doing - dealing with complaints, mainly, and tidying up related problems, many of which require admin rights. We've only just surmounted a several-month backlog of these issues thanks to remarkable volunteer effort*; we don't have the available manpower to take the only person paid to do it consistently away.
There has to be something wrong. It's not as if the complaints hotline has suddenly appeared - complaints have been getting handled successfully for months without so much as a talkpage complaint. However in this case, it was either an error of judgement on Danny's part (hey, I'm trying to AGF here), in which case he should acknowledge his mistake and list the article on Afd, or a contempt for the Wikipedia community (remember those three Keep Afds?) which is much more worrying.
Given what you've said it would obviously be better for Danny to still perform admin actions, but if it's a choice between an OTRS backlog and Danny thinking he can do what he wants and to hell with everyone else, I'm sorry but OTRS doesn't win.
Cynical
On 10/10/06, David Alexander Russell david@davidarussell.co.uk wrote:
There has to be something wrong.
Yes, It would appear that some users of the website are becoming hysterical over minor issues and the rest of us are not being aggressive enough with our ignore lists. :-/
It's not as if the complaints hotline has suddenly appeared
Nor has anything suddenly changed.
complaints have been getting handled successfully for months without so much as a talkpage complaint.
What are you talking about?
[snip]
Danny thinking he can do what he wants and to hell with everyone else, I'm sorry but OTRS doesn't win.
To hell with everyone else? Oh please!
Cynical
I'd like to invite you to try compassion, trust, and patience for a change. I think you will find them more satisfying than cynicism.
(apologies to David, who gets this twice)
On 10/10/06, David Alexander Russell david@davidarussell.co.uk wrote:
There has to be something wrong. It's not as if the complaints hotline has suddenly appeared - complaints have been getting handled successfully for months without so much as a talkpage complaint.
This, perhaps, indicates that "delete, the chances of anyone kicking up a fuss are low" is actually a perfectly accurate estimation of the situation in 99% of the time!
(I've done plenty of out-of-process deletions handling complaints mail. All of it was, to my eye, fine in principle. I've rarely had grumbling result from anyone who wasn't insisting on their right to do something idiotic)
David Alexander Russell wrote:
Mark Wagner wrote:
The problem is that the consequences of guessing wrong about if a particular edit by the [[User:Danny]] account is a WP:OFFICE action being kept discrete or not are so severe that nobody wants to risk it. As a result, any sudden, wildly-out-of-process action by either account is assumed to be Office-related.
Simple solution: Danny should not perform ANY admin action on EITHER account OTHER than WP:OFFICE actions. Harsh, but if that's what is necessary to prevent another shitstorm like this then that is what needs to happen. A 'long standing and widely respected editor' (Jimbo's words, not mine) is expected to show MORE respect for the community, not less. Otherwise Citizendium will gain more contributors than it deserves.
In that case, we'd better create an OTRS shared account, since obviously anything that comes to the "office" (lowercase) is going to be "against community consensus".
On 10/10/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
AGF, please. That is not what I said. Danny has made it very clear in the past that he has two accounts. One he uses for WP:OFFICE actions, i.e. actions taken temporarily by the office based on some emergency situation (usually but not always legal in nature). And his normal account, which he uses as every other editor on the project.
Would it be reasonable to ask that any "WP:OFFICE" action involve the magic phrase "WP:OFFICE" in the edit summary, and any other action taken by Danny, regardless of account, be taken to be an ordinary account by a respected admin? This seems to be a recurring source of confusion.
Steve
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 10/10/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
AGF, please. That is not what I said. Danny has made it very clear in the past that he has two accounts. One he uses for WP:OFFICE actions, i.e. actions taken temporarily by the office based on some emergency situation (usually but not always legal in nature). And his normal account, which he uses as every other editor on the project.
Would it be reasonable to ask that any "WP:OFFICE" action involve the magic phrase "WP:OFFICE" in the edit summary, and any other action taken by Danny, regardless of account, be taken to be an ordinary account by a respected admin? This seems to be a recurring source of confusion.
Steve _______________________________________________
It would seem better to me that Office actions would use a specific account (or accounts) only. After all, anyone can add "WP:OFFICE" to the edit summary. Presumably, only specific people can use (an) identified account(s).
-Rich
On Oct 9, 2006, at 6:32 PM, Jimmy Wales wrote:
I think that a significant amount of the confusion here has to do with it being a little unclear whether this was intended as a WP:OFFICE act. It was done under Danny's normal account, with no reference to WP:OFFICE, so I think it is safe to assume this was Danny acting in his capacity and a long standing and widely respected editor exercising editorial judgment in a manner consistent with our longstanding policies of being bold.
It just so happened, as it turns out, that it was triggered by a call to the office.
In light of this, I am going to undelete and list the article for a fourth AfD.
-Phil
On 10/9/06, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
In light of this, I am going to undelete and list the article for a fourth AfD.
Phil, it already went up on deletion review and last I looked it was majority keep deleted.
To me it seems that you're just invoking your wikiright to create more drama over a minor issue... and I really don't think it's helping anything.
If the folks complaining here spent as much time researching it as they have complaining about it they would probably have noticed that the question of it being an office action had already been asked on the talk page (which was not deleted), and it was pointed out days ago that Danny performed the edit with his non-office account.
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On 10/9/06, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
In light of this, I am going to undelete and list the article for a fourth AfD.
If the folks complaining here spent as much time researching it as they have complaining about it they would probably have noticed that the question of it being an office action had already been asked on the talk page (which was not deleted), and it was pointed out days ago that Danny performed the edit with his non-office account.
Actually, Danny was not all that forthcoming, if you read the talk page. He danced around the direct question I asked him.
-Jeff
On Oct 9, 2006, at 8:18 PM, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
Phil, it already went up on deletion review and last I looked it was majority keep deleted.
DRV is a joke, dominated by people with a warped interpretation of policy and principle, and with rules that change at will so as to favor deletion as frequently as possible.
No responsible admin should pay any attention to decisions reached on DRV.
-Phil
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On 10/9/06, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
In light of this, I am going to undelete and list the article for a fourth AfD.
Phil, it already went up on deletion review and last I looked it was majority keep deleted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_review#Fleshlight
A large number of the "keep deleted" votes are using "it was an OFFICE action by Danny" as a basis, which as it turns out is simply not true. A lot of the other "keep deleted" votes are using various arguments that are more appropriate to an AfD instead, and I was under the impression that DRV is not supposed to be just a re-run of AfD.
A prime example of why this sort of thing should not actually be a _vote_, IMO. Trying to figure out this DRV's result simply by counting bold-faced words left standing at the end of an arbitrary deadline makes no sense here.
On Mon, 09 Oct 2006 18:32:19 -0400, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
However, I would expect that our long term participants could stand together, .. that they could see the clearly good intentions of each other, and not allow petty difference of opinion get in the way of friendship, respect, and our over arching goals (which I think we *all* agree does not include Wikipedia being turned into a free advertising forum).
This is one of the finest paragraphs in this entire thread.
Damn right. On DRV this is turning into a witch-hunt, with the spammers being given infinitely more consideration than Danny. That sucks badly.
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
Damn right. On DRV this is turning into a witch-hunt, with the spammers being given infinitely more consideration than Danny. That sucks badly.
To be kind of blunt about it, how much consideration did Danny give the editors?
-Jeff
On 10/9/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Mon, 09 Oct 2006 18:32:19 -0400, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
However, I would expect that our long term participants could stand together, .. that they could see the clearly good intentions of each other, and not allow petty difference of opinion get in the way of friendship, respect, and our over arching goals (which I think we *all* agree does not include Wikipedia being turned into a free advertising forum).
This is one of the finest paragraphs in this entire thread.
Damn right. On DRV this is turning into a witch-hunt, with the spammers being given infinitely more consideration than Danny. That sucks badly.
Guy (JzG)
The spammers are due no consideration. I am still wondering why they got the special consideration in the first place, which led to this happening at all, as opposed to someone tagging it with cleanup or something.
The issue with Danny is... well, ok. Nothing personal, but you're the rouge du jour, Danny.
A lot of admins are not taking due account for the potential that their actions can be as harmful to the project overall as a random spammer, vandal, or troll. Or in some cases, worse.
As I have said before: I love WP:BOLD, but as with swinging ones arms around in public, your right to swing ends slightly short of the person next to yours' chin. If you WP:BOLD something and a vandal or spammer cries out in agony, you probably did the right thing. If you WP:BOLD and a bunch of experienced editors and admins scream, you likely overstepped.
I see a lot of people complaining about loss of community. Well, that swings both ways. If you stubbornly insist that an off the cuff bold action was right, in the face of a lot of pushback, you're not giving the community its due.
Any bold action which results in flames across multiple WP admin pages, contentious DRV, and several mailing lists WAS A MISTAKE. It was too controversial to be safe to do boldly. It's fine if someone didn't know that it would be controversial beforehand. But everyone, particularly anyone who may appear to be part of "the administration" (office, arbcom, burecrats, senior admins, etc), needs to be very sensitive to this. If you stubbornly defend it rather than pull back and run it through the consensus, then you've just become the source of aggrivation of the problem.
More harm has been done to community by stubborn defenses of unexpectedly contentious bold actions over the last year than any other single thing. Vandals have damaged articles more, but they are generally ineffective at riling up the community (with a few exceptions).
On Oct 9, 2006, at 5:10 PM, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
Unilateral deletions are performed hundreds of times a month by Wikipedia Admins on the basis of their own judgement. Perhaps I shouldn't find it shocking that some [[troll (Internet)|opportunist]] found it useful take advantage of Danny's high profile in order to play out a little bit of performance art.
Since we're apparently dispensing with civility here, get off your soapbox and engage reality. Any unilateral speedy deletion that went against three AfDs would be overturned in a heartbeat, and you know it. Which is as it should be.
It is unfortunate and uncharacteristic to see you equate the elevation of experienced judgement and consideration over strict policy conformance with a lack of deference to the community.
Yes, because it's certainly not like the community has expressed their opinion on this. Three times.
It appears to me that in this thread we have seen numerous complaints about HOW this was carried out masquerade as complaints about what was done... The reality is that the claim that the deletion was clearly inappropriate can not be supported by fact: no answer was given to the point that we lack articles on the numerous similar devices which have an equal claim of notoriety, nor has our oh so violated community bothered to even write a section on this oh so notable product in the article it was later redirected to.
Yes. Because clearly the lack of other articles on a topic is evidence of something. That is, after all, why we've done away with article creation - since there are no substantial holes in our coverage.
Perhaps our mere colocation on the project like the castaways in my example makes us, by definition, a community. But if that is really the destiny of the English Wikipedia community then it is a failure by my standards... and I hope such an end would be a failure by all of your standards as well.
While I agree with you about the deterioration of the en community, this is a downright stupid issue to try to hijack into this consideration. Danny crossed a line that's important on a topic that is far from a clear case (As evidenced by the fact that three AfDs passed with a vote to keep). That's bad.
-Phil
On Mon, 9 Oct 2006 09:13:07 -0400, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
Danny, the Office does not and should not be determining inclusion criteria on its own and imposing them without the consent of the community. Fleshlight survived AfD three times. For the Office to declare "Sorry, community - you're wrong" is a new approach for the Office, and one I think is a very, very bad one.
Think of it as an advanced example of assuming good faith. The company cannot bear for the "advertising value" of "their" article to be diluted. The only way we can accommodate that is to delete it. Danny was very kind to do this, and the project is not measurably poorer as a result, it being trivially easy to find the product on the internets should one be so inclined.
Guy (JzG)
On 10/9/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Mon, 9 Oct 2006 09:13:07 -0400, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
Danny, the Office does not and should not be determining inclusion criteria on its own and imposing them without the consent of the community. Fleshlight survived AfD three times. For the Office to declare "Sorry, community - you're wrong" is a new approach for the Office, and one I think is a very, very bad one.
Think of it as an advanced example of assuming good faith. The company cannot bear for the "advertising value" of "their" article to be diluted. The only way we can accommodate that is to delete it. Danny was very kind to do this, and the project is not measurably poorer as a result, it being trivially easy to find the product on the internets should one be so inclined.
I'm not understanding this point -- why then do we have articles on things such as [[Pipe organ]] or even people such as [[Donald Knuth]] -- both of these can be easily looked up online, and they take up some much more disk space than [[Fleshlight]]
Sincerely, Silas Snider
[[User:Simonfairfax]]
On Mon, 9 Oct 2006 14:51:22 -0700, "Silas Snider" swsnider@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not understanding this point -- why then do we have articles on things such as [[Pipe organ]] or even people such as [[Donald Knuth]] -- both of these can be easily looked up online, and they take up some much more disk space than [[Fleshlight]]
I think the answer to this question is to check the availability of recorded media celebrating skilled operators of the pipe organ versus the fleshlight. Organists are notable, wankers are not.
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Mon, 9 Oct 2006 14:51:22 -0700, "Silas Snider" swsnider@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not understanding this point -- why then do we have articles on things such as [[Pipe organ]] or even people such as [[Donald Knuth]] -- both of these can be easily looked up online, and they take up some much more disk space than [[Fleshlight]]
I think the answer to this question is to check the availability of recorded media celebrating skilled operators of the pipe organ versus the fleshlight. Organists are notable, wankers are not.
How many celebrated skilled operators of [[Donald Knuth]] are there? This is kind of a weird criteria for establishing "notability", I don't think it's widely applicable.
Personally, I have no idea whether Fleshlight is notable or not without doing further research I probably don't care to perform. But that's what talk page debates, AfD, RfC and such are for. We have ways of reaching community consensus on such things.
Bryan Derksen wrote:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Mon, 9 Oct 2006 14:51:22 -0700, "Silas Snider" swsnider@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not understanding this point -- why then do we have articles on things such as [[Pipe organ]] or even people such as [[Donald Knuth]] -- both of these can be easily looked up online, and they take up some much more disk space than [[Fleshlight]]
I think the answer to this question is to check the availability of recorded media celebrating skilled operators of the pipe organ versus the fleshlight. Organists are notable, wankers are not.
How many celebrated skilled operators of [[Donald Knuth]] are there? This is kind of a weird criteria for establishing "notability", I don't think it's widely applicable.
It seems that that notability now depends on what kind of organ you play with. :-)
The high degree of subjectivity connected with the idea of notability can only result in this being a battle that never ends.
Personally, I have no idea whether Fleshlight is notable or not without doing further research I probably don't care to perform. But that's what talk page debates, AfD, RfC and such are for. We have ways of reaching community consensus on such things.
I feel the same way about the subject. I can sympathize with the Danny being under unremitting pressure from idiotic phone callers, but it is also important to clarify the demarcation between Foundation and Wikipedia (or other project) responsibilities. As office staff Danny is too easily seen as acting out of greater authority than the rest of us. This is the perception even when it is not the reality. Thus when it comes to routine admin actions he needs to show more restraint than the rest of us. Perhaps discussing the issue with admins that he trusts before taking action, and delegating to them the task of dealing with the problem article would be a more peaceable way of dealing with it. This would leave him more free to reserve his OFFICE powers to situations where the potential for legal liability is unquestionable.
If the reason for taking action is that the article has been the persistent target for spam or edit wars deleting the article ranks right up there with decapitation as a cure for a headache.
Ec
On Mon, 09 Oct 2006 17:41:29 -0600, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
I'm not understanding this point -- why then do we have articles on things such as [[Pipe organ]] or even people such as [[Donald Knuth]] -- both of these can be easily looked up online, and they take up some much more disk space than [[Fleshlight]]
I think the answer to this question is to check the availability of recorded media celebrating skilled operators of the pipe organ versus the fleshlight. Organists are notable, wankers are not.
How many celebrated skilled operators of [[Donald Knuth]] are there? This is kind of a weird criteria for establishing "notability", I don't think it's widely applicable.
I was addressing the specific question: if not fleshlight then why pipe organ. Pipe organs have been made for centuries by many different companies and individuals; the comparison is simply invalid.
How many non-trivial independent sources are there for fleshlight? Mainstream publications? Has it been reviewed in Loaded? Or is it just advertising plus a load of "hur hur, look at that, that's so smutty, hur hur"?
The inflation of this to the level of some product of transcendent global importance is patently absurd.
Personally, I have no idea whether Fleshlight is notable or not without doing further research I probably don't care to perform. But that's what talk page debates, AfD, RfC and such are for. We have ways of reaching community consensus on such things.
Sure. Debate it. But let's wait until we have all the facts before starting, rather than second-guessing Danny and crying that the sky is falling because one wank-o-matic got deleted.
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Mon, 09 Oct 2006 17:41:29 -0600, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
I think the answer to this question is to check the availability of recorded media celebrating skilled operators of the pipe organ versus the fleshlight. Organists are notable, wankers are not.
How many celebrated skilled operators of [[Donald Knuth]] are there? This is kind of a weird criteria for establishing "notability", I don't think it's widely applicable.
I was addressing the specific question: if not fleshlight then why pipe organ. Pipe organs have been made for centuries by many different companies and individuals; the comparison is simply invalid.
But "the comparison is simply invalid" was _my_ point. Why are you taking the reasons for pipe organs being important enough to include in an enclopedia and checking to see whether they also apply to a _sex toy_, of all things? It can't possibly apply in a meaningful way.
How many non-trivial independent sources are there for fleshlight? Mainstream publications? Has it been reviewed in Loaded? Or is it just advertising plus a load of "hur hur, look at that, that's so smutty, hur hur"?
I don't know. My point is that this was something for interested editors to decide via the standard mechanisms (talk pages, AfD, etc), and that Danny was flat-out wrong to unilaterally deleted it like he did.
Considering that the article was kept by AfD, which I consider to be deletionism-leaning in general, it seems likely to me that there is more to this article than just advertising.
Personally, I have no idea whether Fleshlight is notable or not without doing further research I probably don't care to perform. But that's what talk page debates, AfD, RfC and such are for. We have ways of reaching community consensus on such things.
Sure. Debate it. But let's wait until we have all the facts before starting, rather than second-guessing Danny and crying that the sky is falling because one wank-o-matic got deleted.
Why couldn't Danny have waited for all the facts before he deleted it? It's generally not a good idea to delete first and act questions later, especially when you're in a privileged position where your seemingly capricious acts can sometimes be enforced with the strength of the highest "law" on Wikipedia.
As it turns out that this wasn't an Office action, second-guessing it is entirely appropriate. Danny isn't magic.
On Wed, 11 Oct 2006 10:37:10 -0600, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
But "the comparison is simply invalid" was _my_ point. Why are you taking the reasons for pipe organs being important enough to include in an enclopedia and checking to see whether they also apply to a _sex toy_, of all things? It can't possibly apply in a meaningful way.
You would need to ask Silas why he originally made that comparison.
How many non-trivial independent sources are there for fleshlight? Mainstream publications? Has it been reviewed in Loaded? Or is it just advertising plus a load of "hur hur, look at that, that's so smutty, hur hur"?
I don't know. My point is that this was something for interested editors to decide via the standard mechanisms (talk pages, AfD, etc), and that Danny was flat-out wrong to unilaterally deleted it like he did.
Or not, depending. There is, after all, no measurable damage to Wikipedia's reputation from *not* having an article over which two apparent spammers are fighting.
Considering that the article was kept by AfD, which I consider to be deletionism-leaning in general, it seems likely to me that there is more to this article than just advertising.
Afd is absolutely not deletionist when it comes to sexcruft. It's really hard to get rid of any sex-related article - look at all those Google hits! Must be notable. Hence we have abysmal articles like donkey punch on which sane editors essentially give up trying to apply any standard of quality whatsoever.
Why couldn't Danny have waited for all the facts before he deleted it?
I think he had them. Spammers edit warring over product placement.
As it turns out that this wasn't an Office action, second-guessing it is entirely appropriate. Danny isn't magic.
No, it's always best to wait for clarification. There is no deadline to meet.
Guy (JzG)
On 10/11/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Wed, 11 Oct 2006 10:37:10 -0600, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
But "the comparison is simply invalid" was _my_ point. Why are you taking the reasons for pipe organs being important enough to include in an enclopedia and checking to see whether they also apply to a _sex toy_, of all things? It can't possibly apply in a meaningful way.
You would need to ask Silas why he originally made that comparison.
I was responding to the implication that the standard for inclusion was "...the project is not measurably poorer as a result, it being trivially easy to find the product on the internets should one be so inclined."
The project would not be measurably poorer without an article on Pipe organs by this definition, since a ton of information is available through a mere google search. Yes, the example was a bit hyperbolic, but it is still valid, I believe.
How many non-trivial independent sources are there for fleshlight? Mainstream publications? Has it been reviewed in Loaded? Or is it just advertising plus a load of "hur hur, look at that, that's so smutty, hur hur"?
I don't know. My point is that this was something for interested editors to decide via the standard mechanisms (talk pages, AfD, etc), and that Danny was flat-out wrong to unilaterally deleted it like he did.
Or not, depending. There is, after all, no measurable damage to Wikipedia's reputation from *not* having an article over which two apparent spammers are fighting.
Considering that the article was kept by AfD, which I consider to be deletionism-leaning in general, it seems likely to me that there is more to this article than just advertising.
Afd is absolutely not deletionist when it comes to sexcruft. It's really hard to get rid of any sex-related article - look at all those Google hits! Must be notable. Hence we have abysmal articles like donkey punch on which sane editors essentially give up trying to apply any standard of quality whatsoever.
Why couldn't Danny have waited for all the facts before he deleted it?
I think he had them. Spammers edit warring over product placement.
As it turns out that this wasn't an Office action, second-guessing it is entirely appropriate. Danny isn't magic.
No, it's always best to wait for clarification. There is no deadline to meet.
Guy (JzG)
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
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On Wed, 11 Oct 2006 15:31:35 -0700, "Silas Snider" swsnider@gmail.com wrote:
I was responding to the implication that the standard for inclusion was "...the project is not measurably poorer as a result, it being trivially easy to find the product on the internets should one be so inclined."
Ah, I see. But there is a single root authority for fleshlight, the maker; there is no one root authority for pipe organs, and there are several centuries of history to cover as well. When every decent sized church in Europe has a fleshlight we'll have the conversation again, eh :-)
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Wed, 11 Oct 2006 10:37:10 -0600, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
But "the comparison is simply invalid" was _my_ point. Why are you taking the reasons for pipe organs being important enough to include in an enclopedia and checking to see whether they also apply to a _sex toy_, of all things? It can't possibly apply in a meaningful way.
You would need to ask Silas why he originally made that comparison.
But you were the one who took that comparison and said
I think the answer to this question is to check the availability of recorded media celebrating skilled operators of the pipe organ versus the fleshlight. Organists are notable, wankers are not.
You were using the pipe organ article's "justification for existence" to evaluate sex toys, which is in itself silly regardless of who originally brought pipe organs up.
I don't know. My point is that this was something for interested editors to decide via the standard mechanisms (talk pages, AfD, etc), and that Danny was flat-out wrong to unilaterally deleted it like he did.
Or not, depending. There is, after all, no measurable damage to Wikipedia's reputation from *not* having an article over which two apparent spammers are fighting.
Try deleting articles that survive AfD using the argument that it causes "no measurable damage" _without_ having confusion over OFFICE to stay the hand of other admins and see how many you can get through before being reverted.
IMO the mere existence of this current firestorm of controversy and confusion is evidence enough that something went seriously wrong here. We should be trying to avoid this kind of thing.
Considering that the article was kept by AfD, which I consider to be deletionism-leaning in general, it seems likely to me that there is more to this article than just advertising.
Afd is absolutely not deletionist when it comes to sexcruft.
"Deletionist" is a subjective measure, which is why I made sure to include "I consider" in that sentence to qualify it.
Why couldn't Danny have waited for all the facts before he deleted it?
I think he had them. Spammers edit warring over product placement.
This is not a criterion for speedy deletion. In the case of an ongoing edit war just protect the article and wait for the dust to settle before deciding what to do next.
As it turns out that this wasn't an Office action, second-guessing it is entirely appropriate. Danny isn't magic.
No, it's always best to wait for clarification. There is no deadline to meet.
Once again, this is _my_ point. :)
On Wed, 11 Oct 2006 19:48:14 -0600, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
You would need to ask Silas why he originally made that comparison.
But you were the one who took that comparison and said
I think the answer to this question is to check the availability of recorded media celebrating skilled operators of the pipe organ versus the fleshlight. Organists are notable, wankers are not.
You were using the pipe organ article's "justification for existence" to evaluate sex toys, which is in itself silly regardless of who originally brought pipe organs up.
No, I was pointing out why the comparison is invalid. You appear to be asserting that my pointing out that the comparison was invalid, was invalid. I disagree.
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
No, I was pointing out why the comparison is invalid. You appear to be asserting that my pointing out that the comparison was invalid, was invalid. I disagree.
Whereas I thought I was asserting that you were using the invalid comparison to invalidate Fleshlight's inclusion in the encyclopedia. Oh the humanity.
On Thu, 12 Oct 2006 20:04:56 -0600, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
No, I was pointing out why the comparison is invalid. You appear to be asserting that my pointing out that the comparison was invalid, was invalid. I disagree.
Whereas I thought I was asserting that you were using the invalid comparison to invalidate Fleshlight's inclusion in the encyclopedia. Oh the humanity.
A perfect example to ilustrate the premise that if you go looking for an argument you will likely find one.
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Wed, 11 Oct 2006 10:37:10 -0600, Bryan Derksen
Why couldn't Danny have waited for all the facts before he deleted it?
I think he had them. Spammers edit warring over product placement.
Shouldn't a decision to keep or delete be based on the article itself, and not on who is doing the editing?
As it turns out that this wasn't an Office action, second-guessing it is entirely appropriate. Danny isn't magic.
No, it's always best to wait for clarification. There is no deadline to meet.
Excellent observation. There is rarely a real need to rush in deleting anything.
Ec
On Thu, 12 Oct 2006 11:18:58 -0700, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Shouldn't a decision to keep or delete be based on the article itself, and not on who is doing the editing?
Not always.
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
How many non-trivial independent sources are there for fleshlight? Mainstream publications? Has it been reviewed in Loaded? Or is it just advertising plus a load of "hur hur, look at that, that's so smutty, hur hur"?
The inflation of this to the level of some product of transcendent global importance is patently absurd.
Nobody is claiming it's of transcendent global importance, merely that it's important enough to merit a mention, either in an article by itself or in passing in a larger article about male-targetted sex toys (I favor the latter, unless more verifiable material turns up). It's been mentioned relatively recently (the past two years) in _Wired_, _The Village Voice_, and a few Seattle-area local papers, all of which claim that it's famous/infamous. I don't have good access to a good archive of media going back further than 2 years (my university's Lexis-Nexis subscription only covers that period), so I don't have data on whether, for example, it was discussed in media of the 1990s.
You also seem to be focusing on how interesting the object is, which neglects the fact that sociology is a legitimate and integral topic for encyclopedia articles. The object may well be boring, but if it's caused an interesting response in society, that's worth writing about. (See [[moral panic]] for some more straightforward examples of that sort of thing.)
Personally, I have no idea whether Fleshlight is notable or not without doing further research I probably don't care to perform. But that's what talk page debates, AfD, RfC and such are for. We have ways of reaching community consensus on such things.
Sure. Debate it. But let's wait until we have all the facts before starting, rather than second-guessing Danny and crying that the sky is falling because one wank-o-matic got deleted.
The disagreement is that Danny unilaterally deleted it, without first engaging in *any* discussion, and after it had actually come up before on AfD and kept. There are occasional articles that I think should be deleted but which most people disagree with me on, but I don't go around unilaterally deleting them, because that would be a misuse of my admin status.
-Mark
On Wed, 11 Oct 2006 23:02:33 -0400, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Nobody is claiming it's of transcendent global importance, merely that it's important enough to merit a mention, either in an article by itself or in passing in a larger article about male-targetted sex toys (I favor the latter, unless more verifiable material turns up).
I don't have any problem with a merge either. I *do* have a problem with the massive over-reaction to the deletion of this one product of strictly limited significance.
Maybe if I wasn't married I would view it as more important.
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Wed, 11 Oct 2006 23:02:33 -0400, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Nobody is claiming it's of transcendent global importance, merely that it's important enough to merit a mention, either in an article by itself or in passing in a larger article about male-targetted sex toys (I favor the latter, unless more verifiable material turns up).
I don't have any problem with a merge either. I *do* have a problem with the massive over-reaction to the deletion of this one product of strictly limited significance.
Maybe if I wasn't married I would view it as more important.
I think it's a combination of things, including lingering resentment over WP:OFFICE. If it had been a less prominent admin who deleted it out of process, it would probably have been summarily restored and never come up on the mailing list.
-Mark
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Delirium stated for the record:
I think it's a combination of things, including lingering resentment over WP:OFFICE. If it had been a less prominent admin who deleted it out of process, it would probably have been summarily restored and never come up on the mailing list.
-Mark
Careful, Mark. When I made that last point, I was curtly informed that I was "laughably" wrong.
- -- Sean Barrett | I am a senior philosophunculist on active duty. sean@epoptic.com | Haven't you studied amphigory? Gad, what they | teach in schools these days! ---Jubal Harshaw
Sean Barrett wrote:
Delirium stated for the record:
I think it's a combination of things, including lingering resentment over WP:OFFICE. If it had been a less prominent admin who deleted it out of process, it would probably have been summarily restored and never come up on the mailing list.
Careful, Mark. When I made that last point, I was curtly informed that I was "laughably" wrong.
Well, it's certainly the reason _I_ got involved as much as I have.
In other Fleshlight news, I see the article's moved from DRV to AfD again and has been stubbed.
On 10/13/06, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
Well, it's certainly the reason _I_ got involved as much as I have.
In other Fleshlight news, I see the article's moved from DRV to AfD again and has been stubbed.
Would an appropriate level of prominence for products like this be a fairly brief entry with URL on a "List of products of type X" article? There seems something appealing about having one long list of all the products of a certain type, perhaps with one photo, one paragraph and a link, for each one.
Benefits: * people who just want to know wtf a FleshLight is are satisfied * unverifiable statements are less likely, due to lack of space. * easier to patrol additions of spam links, since there's only one article * provides more information than a redirect, without going to indecent lengths.
Steve
PS sad observation: why do some of the biggest arguments at Wikipedia always get attached to the stupidest subjects: autofellatio (a copyright dispute!), brian peppers (office), fleshlight (office/notability). PPS: dear future web browsing person: please do not hold me in lesser esteem for discussing "fleshlights" :)
Steve Bennett wrote:
Would an appropriate level of prominence for products like this be a fairly brief entry with URL on a "List of products of type X" article?
I suspect a case-by-case determination would need to be made, since it's possible that there are individual products which do warrant an article. But I haven't exactly studied the field.
PS sad observation: why do some of the biggest arguments at Wikipedia always get attached to the stupidest subjects: autofellatio (a copyright dispute!), brian peppers (office),
I don't believe Peppers was an Office case, as far as I know Peppers never actually complained or was even aware of the article. Also, Jimmy deleted the article with the caveat that it could be recreated in a year's time (about four months away now, mark your calendars :), which doesn't seem like a typical Office sort of action to me.
PPS: dear future web browsing person: please do not hold me in lesser esteem for discussing "fleshlights" :)
And same here. :)
On 10/13/06, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
PS sad observation: why do some of the biggest arguments at Wikipedia always get attached to the stupidest subjects: autofellatio (a copyright dispute!), brian peppers (office),
I don't believe Peppers was an Office case, as far as I know Peppers never actually complained or was even aware of the article. Also, Jimmy deleted the article with the caveat that it could be recreated in a year's time (about four months away now, mark your calendars :), which doesn't seem like a typical Office sort of action to me.
Oh right, "benevolent fascism/notability" instead.
Steve
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
Think of it as an advanced example of assuming good faith. The company cannot bear for the "advertising value" of "their" article to be diluted. The only way we can accommodate that is to delete it.
And that, of course, is a load of hooey.
-Jeff
On 10/9/06, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
Think of it as an advanced example of assuming good faith. The company cannot bear for the "advertising value" of "their" article to be diluted. The only way we can accommodate that is to delete it.
And that, of course, is a load of hooey.
-Jeff
We deal with people spamming articles all the time, including companies trying to astroturf, without office involvement or actions which stretch community consensus past the breaking point.
We have probably a million articles on things fewer people know of than this one.
If this were a normal admin, I'd haul out the usual "'Be bold' is too far when a wholebuncha people yell foul at you".
On Mon, 09 Oct 2006 18:04:19 -0400, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
Think of it as an advanced example of assuming good faith. The company cannot bear for the "advertising value" of "their" article to be diluted. The only way we can accommodate that is to delete it.
And that, of course, is a load of hooey.
Your evidence for this example of "assume ill faith" being?
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Mon, 09 Oct 2006 18:04:19 -0400, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
Think of it as an advanced example of assuming good faith. The company cannot bear for the "advertising value" of "their" article to be diluted. The only way we can accommodate that is to delete it.
And that, of course, is a load of hooey.
Your evidence for this example of "assume ill faith" being?
It's based on the premise that we have an obligation to accommodate the company's concern over the dilution of the advertising value of their article. We actually have guidelines and policies _against_ that sort of thing; Wikipedia:Spam, Wikipedia:Vanity guidelines, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view.
And by the way, disagreement with your arguments is not automatically an assumption of bad faith even though in this case it was a bit harshly worded.
On Mon, 09 Oct 2006 17:47:32 -0600, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
It's based on the premise that we have an obligation to accommodate the company's concern over the dilution of the advertising value of their article. We actually have guidelines and policies _against_ that sort of thing; Wikipedia:Spam, Wikipedia:Vanity guidelines, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view.
We have an obligation to living individuals to show them a decent level of human compassion. Here I think we can accommodate the company's concerns by redirecting to artificial vagina, which means that their Google presence will not be tainted by directly associating their product with competitors.
And by the way, disagreement with your arguments is not automatically an assumption of bad faith even though in this case it was a bit harshly worded.
The bad faith was directed at Danny, in my view. There is a world of difference between "hey, Danny, what's the story here?" and "ZOMG! You deleted fleshlight! The encyclopaedia is suddenly of no value to humanity" or words to that effect.
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Mon, 09 Oct 2006 17:47:32 -0600, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
It's based on the premise that we have an obligation to accommodate the company's concern over the dilution of the advertising value of their article. We actually have guidelines and policies _against_ that sort of thing; Wikipedia:Spam, Wikipedia:Vanity guidelines, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view.
We have an obligation to living individuals to show them a decent level of human compassion.
Since when? Perhaps you're thinking of Wikinfo's "sympathetic point of view" policy, which is incompatible with NPOV and IIRC the reason why Wikinfo split.
There's nothing wrong with showing compassion but it has to fit within our more fundamental NPOV policy.
And by the way, disagreement with your arguments is not automatically an assumption of bad faith even though in this case it was a bit harshly worded.
The bad faith was directed at Danny, in my view. There is a world of difference between "hey, Danny, what's the story here?" and "ZOMG! You deleted fleshlight! The encyclopaedia is suddenly of no value to humanity" or words to that effect.
No, this is simply wrong. I was responding to you accusing Jeff Raymond of bad faith when he called your argument "a load of hooey." Danny's actions weren't the subject here.
On Wed, 11 Oct 2006 10:43:13 -0600, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
We have an obligation to living individuals to show them a decent level of human compassion.
Since when? Perhaps you're thinking of Wikinfo's "sympathetic point of view" policy, which is incompatible with NPOV and IIRC the reason why Wikinfo split.
Since Jimbo started wading in and upping the stakes on WP:LIVING. And there is absolutely nothing wring with that. We recently deleted Gregory Lauder-Frost precisely because of that.
The bad faith was directed at Danny, in my view. There is a world of difference between "hey, Danny, what's the story here?" and "ZOMG! You deleted fleshlight! The encyclopaedia is suddenly of no value to humanity" or words to that effect.
No, this is simply wrong. I was responding to you accusing Jeff Raymond of bad faith when he called your argument "a load of hooey." Danny's actions weren't the subject here.
Jeff was making judgments which I consider were personally antipathetic to Danny. I feel no compunction in calling him on it. I have a long history of civil disagreements with Jeff, and I would like to point out that it was me who nominated him for adminship (a nomination which failed for largely bogus reasons in my view).
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Wed, 11 Oct 2006 10:43:13 -0600, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
We have an obligation to living individuals to show them a decent level of human compassion.
Since when? Perhaps you're thinking of Wikinfo's "sympathetic point of view" policy, which is incompatible with NPOV and IIRC the reason why Wikinfo split.
Since Jimbo started wading in and upping the stakes on WP:LIVING. And there is absolutely nothing wring with that. We recently deleted Gregory Lauder-Frost precisely because of that.
There is nothing in that policy about "compassion." "Sensitivity" is used a number of times, but as far as I see the context implies it means "be careful" rather than "be nice". Then there's this:
The writing style should be neutral, factual, and understated, avoiding both a sympathetic point of view and an advocacy journalism point of view.
But perhaps most importantly, even if it _did_ mandate that we be "compassionate" to the subject of the article, this policy doesn't actually apply to [[Fleshlight]]. Since when is a sex toy a "living person"?
Okay, perhaps this being the Internet and all I shouldn't ask that question...
On Wed, 11 Oct 2006 20:01:20 -0600, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
There is nothing in that policy about "compassion." "Sensitivity" is used a number of times, but as far as I see the context implies it means "be careful" rather than "be nice".
Words like respect and human decency have also been used. Whatever, we owe it to people to at least hear their concerns.
Guy (JzG)
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Guy Chapman aka JzG stated for the record:
We have an obligation to living individuals to show them a decent level of human compassion.
{{citation needed}}
- -- Sean Barrett | I am a senior philosophunculist on active duty. sean@epoptic.com | Haven't you studied amphigory? Gad, what they | teach in schools these days! ---Jubal Harshaw
On 10/11/06, Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.com wrote:
Guy Chapman aka JzG stated for the record:
We have an obligation to living individuals to show them a decent level of human compassion.
{{citation needed}}
[[Social contract]]
To ignore our basic obligations to society would be unconscionable.
Fortunately: our fundamental principles, such as NPOV, align reasonably well with our obligations to the greater world we live within.
Were this not the case our efforts would have been predestined to failure from the beginning. Man can tolerate many things including things which disrespect man kind, but this tolerance is always finite.
On 12/10/06, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/11/06, Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.com wrote:
Guy Chapman aka JzG stated for the record:
We have an obligation to living individuals to show them a decent level of human compassion.
{{citation needed}}
[[Social contract]]
To ignore our basic obligations to society would be unconscionable.
Fortunately: our fundamental principles, such as NPOV, align reasonably well with our obligations to the greater world we live within.
Were this not the case our efforts would have been predestined to failure from the beginning. Man can tolerate many things including things which disrespect man kind, but this tolerance is always finite. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
Bryan Derksen
It's based on the premise that we have an obligation to accommodate the company's concern over the dilution of the advertising value of their article. We actually have guidelines and policies _against_ that sort of thing; Wikipedia:Spam, Wikipedia:Vanity guidelines, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view.
We have an obligation to living individuals to show them a decent level of human compassion. Here I think we can accommodate the company's concerns by redirecting to artificial vagina, which means that their Google presence will not be tainted by directly associating their product with competitors.
There's nothing wrong with mentioning competitors. If we describe a product, we can also add links to similar products from other companies. I have no problem with describing any product or company, or using a company's advertising as verification of what they say themselves about their own products. If the information comes from company flyers we need to say that too. This alone does not mean that we are advertising the product because we also accept impartial reports about the product, or competitors' claims as equally worthy of inclusion. If these other claims are less than flattering, too bad for them. When it comes to controversial products we should support the reader's right to receive a neutral picture of the product.
Since we do not accept advertising we have no contractual obligation to say only good things about the company.
Ec
On Thu, 12 Oct 2006 10:30:15 -0700, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
There's nothing wrong with mentioning competitors. If we describe a product, we can also add links to similar products from other companies.
Well *you* think that and *I* think that, but *they* obviously don't. And their actions might very plausibly put the article into the "not worth the trouble" category.
Guy (JzG)
Ray Saintonge wrote: <snip>
There's nothing wrong with mentioning competitors. If we describe a product, we can also add links to similar products from other companies.
<snip>
It wasn't even competitors that they were arguing with though - it was distributors and affiliates.
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
<snip>
There's nothing wrong with mentioning competitors. If we describe a product, we can also add links to similar products from other companies.
<snip>
It wasn't even competitors that they were arguing with though - it was distributors and affiliates.
That doesn't sound like they have a very healthy business climate.
Ec
On 09/10/06, daniwo59@aol.com daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
Which brings us back to Fleshlight. It was the subject of a subtle edit war between the company that manufactures it, and a similar company which wanted to have an external link on the Fleshlight page.
I think that this is one of the big advantages of German-style ideas like [[Wikipedia:Timed article change stabilisation mechanism]].
It makes it much more expensive to link farm (since they have to make ~50 good edits before changes appear, which costs *time* and hence (for a company) *money*). They *need* the edits to quickly appear; because they often get reverted quite quickly, adding a time delay puts a spanner in the works for them.
Fundamentally, these kinds of ideas primarily add *visibility* about the editors identities; it gives incentives not to be anonymous, not to vandalise, and not to link farm, but as soon as editors register accounts, then the wikipedia has a way of tracking and gaining visibility of the editors character; without in any way necessarily giving away their true identity. And these schemes do it without preventing anonymous editors from making useful contributions.
Danny
On 10/9/06, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.com wrote:
It makes it much more expensive to link farm (since they have to make ~50 good edits before changes appear, which costs *time* and hence (for a company) *money*). They *need* the edits to quickly appear; because they often get reverted quite quickly, adding a time delay puts a spanner in the works for them.
Judging by comments on SEO and webmaster froums there are already people who will make a number of good edits in order to get their link in. The general opinion appears to be that we are pretty good at removeing spam links.