On 08/09/2007, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Destroying that person's online reputation - and offline reputation too, if the person's offline identity is known - with a variety of insults posted on top Google-ranking pages is revenge.
Only if it is done intentionally to harm them.
It can be harmful, without providing Wikipaedia any benefit, without being 'intentional'. We aren't telepaths, or at least I'm not.
Negative information being publicly available is a simple byproduct of transparency. It's a matter of weighing up the harm done to the person against the harm done to Wikipedia by being less transparent. Since we like Wikipedia and generally don't like to people we are blocking, is it surprising we choose what's best for Wikipedia?
I think making the pages available in high-ranking Google results is more than 'transparency', it's shouting out to the world.
The block log is publicly searchable, but is not indexed by Google. Other pages (user pages, user talk pages, Arbitration pages, RfC pages, AN pages, etc.) are indexed by Google.
I am doing a study, going through the list of banned users and running Google searches on their usernames. Often, negative Wikipaedia pages occupy the first two results. I haven't completed enough yet to provide useful statistics, but it does seem to be a problem.
Many people go on and on about how Wikipaedia is an encyclopaedia and not a tabloid. However, the encyclopaedia is contained within the article namespace. Is there any reason for namespaces other than the main (article) namespace and the image namespace to be indexed by Google? The ramifications of indexing the rest go beyond negative pages on banned users, also bringing many members of the Wikipaedia community under far more scrutiny than members of other open source projects, often with negative results.
More page blankings would also help. That said, a page with nothing but a period in it can occupy the first Google result for it's title, if the page happens to be on Wikipaedia.
On 9/8/07, Armed Blowfish diodontida.armata@googlemail.com wrote:
Many people go on and on about how Wikipaedia is an encyclopaedia and not a tabloid. However, the encyclopaedia is contained within the article namespace. Is there any reason for namespaces other than the main (article) namespace and the image namespace to be indexed
The Wikipedia namespace should be indexed, so you can search for terms like "neutral point of view". It also contains pointers to tools. MediaWiki should probably be indexed. User talk is probably the only strong candidate for non indexing. The other talks are probably ok...there are times when you want to search them. User is probably ok.
Steve
On 09/09/2007, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/8/07, Armed Blowfish diodontida.armata@googlemail.com wrote:
Many people go on and on about how Wikipaedia is an encyclopaedia and not a tabloid. However, the encyclopaedia is contained within the article namespace. Is there any reason for namespaces other than the main (article) namespace and the image namespace to be indexed
The Wikipedia namespace should be indexed, so you can search for terms like "neutral point of view". It also contains pointers to tools. MediaWiki should probably be indexed. User talk is probably the only strong candidate for non indexing. The other talks are probably ok...there are times when you want to search them. User is probably ok.
Steve
Erm, not indexing on Google doesn't mean no searching - MediaWiki does have it's own search capacity. However, things in the Wikipedia: namespace, and indeed every namespace besides main and image, are generally not of interest to non-Wikipaedians - no need to take up retail space on other search engines.
Wikipaedia namespace also includes areas in which particularly rude discussion often occurs (and, occasionally, libellous as well). For example - all the noticeboards, Requests for comment, Requests for arbitration. Talk pages can get fairly ugly too.
The User namespace is at best a collection of personal blogs, and at worst rude or even libellous, depending on the page in question. Same for User talk.
On 9/9/07, Armed Blowfish diodontida.armata@googlemail.com wrote:
Wikipaedia namespace also includes areas in which particularly rude discussion often occurs (and, occasionally, libellous as well). For example - all the noticeboards, Requests for comment, Requests for arbitration. Talk pages can get fairly ugly too.
We no-index deletion pages. We could also no-index RFC, RFAr, RFA.. etc Go make the argument, I'd support it... it's a trivial change to robots.txt.
On 9/9/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/9/07, Armed Blowfish diodontida.armata@googlemail.com wrote:
Wikipaedia namespace also includes areas in which particularly rude discussion often occurs (and, occasionally, libellous as well). For example - all the noticeboards, Requests for comment, Requests for arbitration. Talk pages can get fairly ugly too.
We no-index deletion pages. We could also no-index RFC, RFAr, RFA.. etc Go make the argument, I'd support it... it's a trivial change to robots.txt.
no-indexing of deletion pages was added due to http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4776
I just submitted http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11261
On 09/09/2007, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/9/07, Armed Blowfish diodontida.armata@googlemail.com wrote:
Wikipaedia namespace also includes areas in which particularly rude discussion often occurs (and, occasionally, libellous as well). For example - all the noticeboards, Requests for comment, Requests for arbitration. Talk pages can get fairly ugly too.
We no-index deletion pages. We could also no-index RFC, RFAr, RFA.. etc Go make the argument, I'd support it... it's a trivial change to robots.txt.
I'm confuzzled. I thought I was making the argument? Or do you mean publish the statistics when I'm done collecting them?
On 9/9/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
The Wikipedia namespace should be indexed, so you can search for terms like "neutral point of view". It also contains pointers to tools. MediaWiki should probably be indexed. User talk is probably the only strong candidate for non indexing. The other talks are probably ok...there are times when you want to search them. User is probably ok.
It's been proposed that we no-index user and user talk.. It would solve a number of problems. But our search sucks, so some things would be inconvenienced by this change so people are generally opposed to it.
It's too bad... the fact that some people abuse us for free webhosting and we can't be sure if a particular person isn't is creating tension in our community... and many community members are discouraged from using their real names because they don't want their Wikipedia user page showing up on google when someone searches for their name... and then there is the stress of trying to spam patrol pages which we don't normally execute much editorial oversight over.... and then there is the issue of "this user is blocked" showing up on google. :(
On 9/8/07, Armed Blowfish diodontida.armata@googlemail.com wrote:
Many people go on and on about how Wikipaedia is an encyclopaedia and not a tabloid. However, the encyclopaedia is contained within the article namespace. Is there any reason for namespaces other than the main (article) namespace and the image namespace to be indexed by Google?
Unfortunately, yes, there is. Mediawiki's internal search engine sucks. Plus the internal search engine can only search one wiki at a time.