On 9/24/07, Matthew Brown <morven(a)gmail.com> wrote: I'm not sure the "it sucks" arguments apply as much to userspace limited queries as they do in the general case. It's something of a different problem.

On 24/09/2007, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FulltextSearchEngines#Google_Search_Appliance What in the user space is so important anyway? Certainly, almost none of it is of interest to the average non-Wikipaedian. Is it really worth the risk of having defamation on top of Google and people coming to Wikipaedia for free blogspace?

On 26/09/2007, Earle Martin <wikipedia(a)downlode.org> wrote: But using Wikipaedia to attack the 'evil banned users' is tolerated and encouraged....

On 26/09/2007, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote: So is it any wonder that there are so many websites which attack Wikipaedians, given that Wikipaedia attacked them first? And no, that doesn't make what the other attack sites do right, but it is an example of how Wikipaedia fails to protect its own, caring more about attacking the banned users et. al. than caring for its own people. Hey, Wikipaedia will even join in on the attacks on its people....

Magnus Manske wrote: I don't think AB is saying it's "OK" in the sense of morally justified, or that they are pure victims. I think the point is that we shouldn't be surprised if they attack again when they feel victimized. That seems reasonable to me. History is full of situations where tit-for-tat retaliations escalate conflicts, with both sides feeling that their actions are either morally right or excusable given the provocation of the other side. I don't see anything that would make us immune from that dynamic. William -- William Pietri <william(a)scissor.com> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri

On 26/09/2007, Magnus Manske <magnusmanske(a)googlemail.com> wrote: 1. Not everyone who is banned is malicious - some were trying to help, many certainly weren't trying to hurt. 2. As someone said earlier, it doesn't matter if you've done anything wrong or broken any rules (which, let's face it, are things everyone does anyway, being human), if the community wants you out, you are gone. Being unliked doesn't mean you deserve to have your name dragged through the dirt on top of Google. In these cases, Wikipaedia attacked first. 3. The rules contradict each other any way, so you can't do much without breaking them. Bureaucracy doesn't have much to do with the worth of a person. 4. Even some vandals are drunk - not guilty by reason of insanity. 5. Even if it was malicious, vandalism is usually easily reparable - much more reparable, in many cases, than much of the well-meaning damage. Punishing it by dragging someone's name through the dirt for years is Draconian. Many banned users, specifically, the ones who did nothing wrong but were disliked, not to mention the ones who simply made mistakes or got on the bad side of some silly bureaucratic rule, were attacked first, so by attacking back, they are not attacking again. They probably see it as self-defence. In many cases, it is self-defence. I'm not saying that gives a person the right to put other people's lives at risk by outing them, but by provoking them, Wikipaedia shares the responsibility for the damage done by that. And I certainly won't blame them for being annoying.

On 24/09/2007, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote: So, if Mr. Y were to desire to harm the reputation of Mr. X, all Y would have to do is create an account on WP is X's name, and proceed to create as drastic an incident as possible... make sure to get it all over AN/I, RfC and RfAr, and end up with a banned user notice on User:X. Now X, noticing the WP page on him after his application to his dream job is denied because of it, proceeds to ask WP to take it down and replace it with a notice saying WP mistook his identity, and the banned user is actually someone else. WP says no, he deserved to be banned, and tells him to prove that User:X is someone else. He can't, of course. Mr. X then proceeds to sue WP in the UK, and wins because it is clear the defamatory material referred to him, WP did not take reasonable steps to ensure the accuracy of the defamatory material (i.e. confirm the identity of the banned user), and failed to take it down upon request, clearly failing the criteria for innocent dissemination. Perhaps all users should be prohibited from contributing under or revealing their real names on WP, to prevent this sort of thing from happening. Those who have already done so could have their usernames changed and their names removed from WP.

We can't prove it's happened, but more importantly, we can't prove it hasn't happened. On 25/09/2007, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote: -- Nick http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Nick

On 26/09/2007, Armed Blowfish <diodontida.armata(a)googlemail.com> wrote: How is using the username someone gave us when describing things they done wrong defamation? We don't say "Joe Bloggs of Number 7, Vandal Road, Vandalton, is indefinitely blocked for disruptive behaviour.", we're not naming and shaming anyone, we're just using the name we're given. If that name happens to be the name of an innocent bystander, that doesn't make what we've said defamation. It makes it unfortunate, and we should try and avoid/fix it where possible, but that's because we're nice people, it's not because it's illegal not to.

A name is not a unique identifier. I don't see how anyone could claim something is defamation when it's not even about them.

On 26/09/2007, Armed Blowfish <diodontida.armata(a)googlemail.com> wrote: The public is only going to be able to identify someone by their name alone if they are a public figure. If someone registers with the name of a public figure as their username they are blocked until they can prove they are who they say they are. I'm not sure what kind of message is put on their user pages, but if it's something that wouldn't look good on a Google search, I'm sure it can be changed. There is a slight risk that a minor public figure might not be recognised by anyone checking usernames, but the more minor the public figure, the less liable we would be, so I don't think there is a serious risk.

On 26/09/2007, Armed Blowfish <diodontida.armata(a)googlemail.com> wrote: Your tax name is Armed Blowfish? - d.

On 9/26/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner(a)gmail.com> wrote: It's still his tax name... but rather than the one the government uses to tax him it's the on he uses to tax us....

On 9/26/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86(a)comcast.net> wrote: When someone presents a novel point, or a new way of presenting an argument, I feel enriched, even when I disagree. When someone presents the same argument making the same point in the same way, I feel robbed of the time it took me to read it. So, given that I feel poorer on a scale that usually can only be beaten by the IRS, I do feel *taxed* by Ms. Blowfish.

the relative privacy and freedom from slander is more important. The level of our discussions on this pages is --perhaps necessarily--really not fit for widespread public awareness. . What sort of a search is it that cannot be performed with the current internal facility and would be an essential function? On 9/26/07, Andrew Gray <shimgray(a)gmail.com> wrote: -- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.

On 26/09/2007, Andrew Gray <shimgray(a)gmail.com> wrote: Yes. Note the complaints about the mailing lists being blocked from indexing and Google being replaced with ht://dig, which is actually much worse than useless. - d.

Erik, That would be excellent, something that would go into all the blocked and banned templates that we currently use. Blocked and banned users should be relatively easy to find through the various categories they fall into and also, given the fact many banned users have their talk pages blanked, the usefulness of allowing external search engines to index such pages is non existent. On 26/09/2007, Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: -- Nick http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Nick

On 26/09/2007, Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: The right to use Wikipaedia as a webhost without getting distracted really doesn't compare to the right to privacy and to not have your name dragged through the dirt. And no-indexing their user pages may make them feel safer in revealing personal info, which is what all the accountability people want. Don't have the skills? Erm, if you can write a wiki, you can set up a personal webpage. Just search for free webhosting with Cpanel, which will probably come with Fantastico, which will probably include an automatic wiki installation script, though not necessarily MediaWiki. Alternatively, you can look for a free Wiki hoster. Seriously, if you need help with this, email me. There's a lot of unsavory things. Statistics coming... whenever I finish. However, given that most banned users have banned user notices, and pretty much everything in RfAr, RfC, and the ANs get ugly, it shouldn't be hard to guess. 1. Good idea, but harder to code. Good idea for a long term solution, but something should be done sooner. 2. Given how impossible it is to get the MediaWiki developers to commit anything, I'm not particularly motivated to code it, unless I am lead to believe it actually would be committed. 3. Given how hard it is to get a courtesy blanking, it would probably also be hard for a banned user to get someone to noindex their userpage, and a lot have probably given up. (Although I guess it could be set from the preferences, so each user would have control over his/her user and talk page, and it would not require editing permission.) But anyway, it should probably be opt-in to Google, not opt-out.