Anonymous editing aint bad - just dont break COI, now where has free speech gone in Australian government departments?
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22299984-5005961,00.html
"The Defence Department has blocked employees from altering information on Wikipedia after 5035 edits by defence staff were detected."
"Defence has closed personal edit access down, though employees will still be able to browse Wikipedia for information purposes," a defence spokesman said.
mmmmmmmm
I don't really see the problem with this. Employers are paying people to do their job, not to edit Wikipedia. Brownie points to them for allowing read-only access; many organizations would simply have blocked access entirely.
Of course, all those would-be editors can click on the site when they get home, and edit to their heart's content.
Risker
On 8/23/07, michael west michawest@gmail.com wrote:
Anonymous editing aint bad - just dont break COI, now where has free speech gone in Australian government departments?
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22299984-5005961,00.html
"The Defence Department has blocked employees from altering information on Wikipedia after 5035 edits by defence staff were detected."
"Defence has closed personal edit access down, though employees will still be able to browse Wikipedia for information purposes," a defence spokesman said.
mmmmmmmm _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 24/08/07, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
I don't really see the problem with this. Employers are paying people to do their job, not to edit Wikipedia. Brownie points to them for allowing read-only access; many organizations would simply have blocked access entirely.
Of course, all those would-be editors can click on the site when they get home, and edit to their heart's content.
Risker
On 8/23/07, michael west michawest@gmail.com wrote:
Anonymous editing aint bad - just dont break COI, now where has free speech gone in Australian government departments?
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22299984-5005961,00.html
"The Defence Department has blocked employees from altering information
on
Wikipedia after 5035 edits by defence staff were detected."
"Defence has closed personal edit access down, though employees will
still
be able to browse Wikipedia for information purposes," a defence
spokesman
said.
mmmmmmmm
I think "defence" could include guys and gals that have to use government computers on their tours of duty, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc......
michael west wrote:
On 24/08/07, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
I don't really see the problem with this. Employers are paying people to do their job, not to edit Wikipedia. Brownie points to them for allowing read-only access; many organizations would simply have blocked access entirely.
Of course, all those would-be editors can click on the site when they get home, and edit to their heart's content.
Risker
On 8/23/07, michael west michawest@gmail.com wrote:
Anonymous editing aint bad - just dont break COI, now where has free speech gone in Australian government departments?
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22299984-5005961,00.html
"The Defence Department has blocked employees from altering information on
Wikipedia after 5035 edits by defence staff were detected."
"Defence has closed personal edit access down, though employees will still
be able to browse Wikipedia for information purposes," a defence spokesman
said.
I think "defence" could include guys and gals that have to use government computers on their tours of duty, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc......
That kind of works in our favour. It's hard to see how anyone with a computer in the battlefield can provide a reliable source for what is happening there. Even if they are editing from the base during their off time, I doubt that they have much there in the way of reference material. ;-)
Ec
On 8/24/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
That kind of works in our favour. It's hard to see how anyone with a computer in the battlefield can provide a reliable source for what is happening there. Even if they are editing from the base during their off time, I doubt that they have much there in the way of reference material. ;-)
No, they leave their reference material at home. This is exactly what happened to one certain former admin.
I think "defence" could include guys and gals that have to use government computers on their tours of duty, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc......
That kind of works in our favour. It's hard to see how anyone with a computer in the battlefield can provide a reliable source for what is happening there. Even if they are editing from the base during their off time, I doubt that they have much there in the way of reference material. ;-)
They do however have digital cameras, and hence are being prevented from uploading useful images...
quiddity
On 8/24/07, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
I don't really see the problem with this. Employers are paying people to do their job, not to edit Wikipedia.
The two aren't mutually incompatible. I find writing Wikipedia a valuable part of researching sometimes, as it forces you to organise your ideas properly. And you know you won't forget where you wrote it afterwards :)
Steve
On 24/08/07, michael west michawest@gmail.com wrote:
Anonymous editing aint bad - just dont break COI, now where has free speech gone in Australian government departments? http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22299984-5005961,00.html "The Defence Department has blocked employees from altering information on Wikipedia after 5035 edits by defence staff were detected." "Defence has closed personal edit access down, though employees will still be able to browse Wikipedia for information purposes," a defence spokesman said.
But if the employers of the world do this, the world of free and open content will collapse!
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/UnNews:Research:_Uncyclopedia_worker_interrupti...
- d.
On 24/08/07, michael west michawest@gmail.com wrote:
Anonymous editing aint bad - just dont break COI, now where has free speech gone in Australian government departments?
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22299984-5005961,00.html
"The Defence Department has blocked employees from altering information on Wikipedia after 5035 edits by defence staff were detected."
"Defence has closed personal edit access down, though employees will still be able to browse Wikipedia for information purposes," a defence spokesman said.
mmmmmmmm
They are well within their rights to do that. I'm just glad they bothered to take the time to block just editing.
Did I miss something, how can *they* block people from editing? Or do they mean something like a filter blocking access to Wikipedia URLs containing, say, &action=edit in them?
On 8/24/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 24/08/07, michael west michawest@gmail.com wrote:
Anonymous editing aint bad - just dont break COI, now where has free
speech
gone in Australian government departments?
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22299984-5005961,00.html
"The Defence Department has blocked employees from altering information on Wikipedia after 5035 edits by defence staff were detected."
"Defence has closed personal edit access down, though employees will still be able to browse Wikipedia for information purposes," a defence spokesman said.
mmmmmmmm
They are well within their rights to do that. I'm just glad they bothered to take the time to block just editing.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 24/08/07, Gary Kirk gary.kirk@gmail.com wrote:
Did I miss something, how can *they* block people from editing? Or do they mean something like a filter blocking access to Wikipedia URLs containing, say, &action=edit in them?
That's what I'm assuming they've done.
On 0, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com scribbled:
On 24/08/07, Gary Kirk gary.kirk@gmail.com wrote:
Did I miss something, how can *they* block people from editing? Or do they mean something like a filter blocking access to Wikipedia URLs containing, say, &action=edit in them?
That's what I'm assuming they've done.
Shouldn't be too hard to test. We could just ask someone working for them (there's got to be at least one Wikipedian who works there!) to edit through secure.wikimedia.org and see whether that works; or to just try editing one of the non-En WPs. I very much doubt that their IT department would have written a filter broad enough to catch all that, like ".*wiki.*/&action=edit.*" - too many ways to edit WMF projects and too many other sites that might get hit.
-- gwern bce EAM MKSEARCH KLM evasion RSO varon 11Emc industrial NSWT
On 8/24/07, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:
On 0, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com scribbled:
On 24/08/07, Gary Kirk gary.kirk@gmail.com wrote:
Did I miss something, how can *they* block people from editing? Or do they mean something like a filter blocking access to Wikipedia URLs containing, say, &action=edit in them?
That's what I'm assuming they've done.
Shouldn't be too hard to test. We could just ask someone working for them (there's got to be at least one Wikipedian who works there!) to edit through secure.wikimedia.org and see whether that works; or to just try editing one of the non-En WPs. I very much doubt that their IT department would have written a filter broad enough to catch all that, like ".*wiki.*/&action=edit.*" - too many ways to edit WMF projects and too many other sites that might get hit.
-- gwern bce EAM MKSEARCH KLM evasion RSO varon 11Emc industrial NSWT
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Depending on their setup, you'd think it would be easier to just drop all POST requests to any *.wikipedia.org hosts (plus a few others - but I don't think other projects are a concern here, just Wikipedia). I can't see a use for secure.wikimedia.org to them either, so they would probably have made an outright block on that host (or at least port 443).
Still, only one way to find out :-)
(I should probably say this as well) But also, ".*wiki.*/&action=edit.*" doesn't catch them all either. Remember you can go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo?action=edit as well. (note no &action, but a ?action) Also remember that even though the edit form is &action=edit, the page save is still &action=submit, so it's still technically possible to make an edit, though completely impractical (you'll find it very hard to save a page when you can't get the source code, you can't get the timestamp of when you hit edit, and when you can't even use a normal browser to save the page, but it's still possible, and that's all that matters)
Cheers,
--Michael Billington
On 8/24/07, Michael Billington michael.billington@gmail.com wrote:
On 8/24/07, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:
On 0, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com scribbled:
On 24/08/07, Gary Kirk gary.kirk@gmail.com wrote:
Did I miss something, how can *they* block people from editing? Or do they mean something like a filter blocking access to Wikipedia URLs containing, say, &action=edit in them?
That's what I'm assuming they've done.
Shouldn't be too hard to test. We could just ask someone working for them (there's got to be at least one Wikipedian who works there!) to edit through secure.wikimedia.org and see whether that works; or to just try editing one of the non-En WPs. I very much doubt that their IT department would have written a filter broad enough to catch all that, like ".*wiki.*/&action=edit.*" - too many ways to edit WMF projects and too many other sites that might get hit.
-- gwern bce EAM MKSEARCH KLM evasion RSO varon 11Emc industrial NSWT
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Depending on their setup, you'd think it would be easier to just drop all POST requests to any *.wikipedia.org hosts (plus a few others - but I don't think other projects are a concern here, just Wikipedia). I can't see a use for secure.wikimedia.org to them either, so they would probably have made an outright block on that host (or at least port 443).
Still, only one way to find out :-)
(I should probably say this as well) But also, ".*wiki.*/&action=edit.*" doesn't catch them all either. Remember you can go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo?action=edit as well. (note no &action, but a ?action) Also remember that even though the edit form is &action=edit, the page save is still &action=submit, so it's still technically possible to make an edit, though completely impractical (you'll find it very hard to save a page when you can't get the source code, you can't get the timestamp of when you hit edit, and when you can't even use a normal browser to save the page, but it's still possible, and that's all that matters)
Cheers,
--Michael Billington
I've worked for a defense department or two, and they also record what you use your computer for, so asking someone who works there to purposely break the ban to see if it works, should come with the knowledge that you may be suggesting, if they don't know this, that they compromise their employment.
There are many instances where military personnel use defense department computers, in those cases they might be banned from accessing the computers.
Almost all Wikipedia editors I have encountered outside of the biology area use on-line sources to the exclusion of almost everything else. A major topic in the biological and earth sciences went up for deletion because the editor wasn't a scientist and couldn't find anything on the web.
Why should soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines be any different than the bulk of Wikipedia editors? Well, probably that they're in uniform, they're not the priviliged few.
KP
Gary Kirk wrote:
Did I miss something, how can *they* block people from editing? Or do they mean something like a filter blocking access to Wikipedia URLs containing, say, &action=edit in them?
They did have another option. Instead of just blocking the practice they could have fired the people for doing personal tasks on the employer's time.
Ec
On 8/25/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Gary Kirk wrote:
Did I miss something, how can *they* block people from editing? Or do they mean something like a filter blocking access to Wikipedia URLs containing, say, &action=edit in them?
They did have another option. Instead of just blocking the practice they could have fired the people for doing personal tasks on the employer's time.
Ec
Ouch. If that became widespread, we'd lose most of our editors.
The Canberra Times has an amusing cartoon on the affair: http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/opinion.asp?class=your+say&subclass=gen...
----- Original Message ----- From: "michael west" michawest@gmail.com To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Friday, August 24, 2007 2:19 PM Subject: [WikiEN-l] Australian Government Closes anon status to staff on WP
Anonymous editing aint bad - just dont break COI, now where has free speech gone in Australian government departments?
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22299984-5005961,00.html
"The Defence Department has blocked employees from altering information on Wikipedia after 5035 edits by defence staff were detected."
"Defence has closed personal edit access down, though employees will still be able to browse Wikipedia for information purposes," a defence spokesman said.
mmmmmmmm
A lot of Australian Defence Dept edits (obviously not 5k of them, though) were known at the time to have been coming from a community banned editor who continued vandalising from work.
Funny how quick we are to raise the specter of "free speech" anytime we disagree with something. Your employers (people of Australia) own the computers and your time while on the clock. They get to make reasonable rules about your conduct.
michael west wrote:
Anonymous editing aint bad - just dont break COI, now where has free speech gone in Australian government departments?
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22299984-5005961,00.html
"The Defence Department has blocked employees from altering information on Wikipedia after 5035 edits by defence staff were detected."
"Defence has closed personal edit access down, though employees will still be able to browse Wikipedia for information purposes," a defence spokesman said.
mmmmmmmm _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l