Hi all,
Seeing as there hasn't been much public discussion on this (at least on the English-language Wikipedia) I thought it would be a good idea to let you all know that Raul654, Fred Bauder, Kelly Martin, The Epopt and Jayjg have all been granted access to the checkuser tool[1] (the tool which allows for checking of sockpuppets by giving access to IP addresses, including those of signed-in Wikipedians).
According to the CheckUser policy[2], editors approved by the Arbitration Committee may be granted access to the checkuser tool.
The Arbitration Committee decided who would get access to the tool on their private mailing list[3].
Chris
1. http://tinyurl.com/7da8j 2. http://tinyurl.com/7rtn3 3. http://tinyurl.com/89g4k
Chris Jenkinson wrote:
Hi all,
Seeing as there hasn't been much public discussion on this (at least on the English-language Wikipedia) I thought it would be a good idea to let you all know that Raul654, Fred Bauder, Kelly Martin, The Epopt and Jayjg have all been granted access to the checkuser tool[1] (the tool which allows for checking of sockpuppets by giving access to IP addresses, including those of signed-in Wikipedians).
According to the CheckUser policy[2], editors approved by the Arbitration Committee may be granted access to the checkuser tool.
The Arbitration Committee decided who would get access to the tool on their private mailing list[3].
Haha, that's almost as good as Howard and his cronies rushing through the IR reform legislation while everyone was yelling "Oh noes! Terrarists!"...
Erm, not that I doubt the arbcom...
On 11/12/05, Chris Jenkinson chris@starglade.org wrote:
Seeing as there hasn't been much public discussion on this (at least on the English-language Wikipedia) I thought it would be a good idea to let you all know that Raul654, Fred Bauder, Kelly Martin, The Epopt and Jayjg have all been granted access to the checkuser tool[1] (the tool which allows for checking of sockpuppets by giving access to IP addresses, including those of signed-in Wikipedians).
I could of sworn Kelly Martin withdrew. Oh well.
-- geni
She "withdrew" cause they were giving her a hard time. The arbitration committee had no reason to withdraw her name.
Fred
On Nov 12, 2005, at 8:18 AM, geni wrote:
On 11/12/05, Chris Jenkinson chris@starglade.org wrote:
Seeing as there hasn't been much public discussion on this (at least on the English-language Wikipedia) I thought it would be a good idea to let you all know that Raul654, Fred Bauder, Kelly Martin, The Epopt and Jayjg have all been granted access to the checkuser tool[1] (the tool which allows for checking of sockpuppets by giving access to IP addresses, including those of signed-in Wikipedians).
I could of sworn Kelly Martin withdrew. Oh well.
-- geni _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 11/12/05, Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote:
She "withdrew" cause they were giving her a hard time. The arbitration committee had no reason to withdraw her name.
Fred
So arbcom can give people check user rights without their consent. That is an ... intersting interpritation of policy.
-- geni
On 11/12/05, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/12/05, Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote:
She "withdrew" cause they were giving her a hard time. The arbitration committee had no reason to withdraw her name.
Fred
So arbcom can give people check user rights without their consent. That is an ... intersting interpritation of policy.
Kelly Martin said she *would* withdraw, *if* it would expedite the implementation of policy. This doesn't seem to have been necessary. As she's one of those most highly qualified to use and interpret the checkuser tool, it's reasonable that she should have access, but nobody is being forced to use it.
No, we discussed this on both IRC and the Arbcom-l mailing list. There was no basis for withdrawing his name.
Fred
On Nov 12, 2005, at 8:45 AM, geni wrote:
On 11/12/05, Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote:
She "withdrew" cause they were giving her a hard time. The arbitration committee had no reason to withdraw her name.
Fred
So arbcom can give people check user rights without their consent. That is an ... intersting interpritation of policy.
-- geni _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
So your concerns are about the process and not the particular arbitrator involved?
geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:On 11/12/05, Fred Bauder wrote:
She "withdrew" cause they were giving her a hard time. The arbitration committee had no reason to withdraw her name.
Fred
So arbcom can give people check user rights without their consent. That is an ... intersting interpritation of policy.
-- geni _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
My reason for temporarily withdrawing was because some people had irrational objections to my selection which seemed to be slowing down the process of getting anybody selected to supplement David Gerard. This is an important problem that has been delayed long enough, and I was simply willing to "take one for the team" if that would help get us closer to where we need to be to effectively deal with the problems that the ArbCom has to deal with on en.
I have grave objections to the process that was followed, and am glad that the situation has been resolved in accordance with policy without even more interminable debate and mudslinging.
Kelly
On 11/12/05, Brian Haws brian@bhaws.com wrote:
So your concerns are about the process and not the particular arbitrator involved?
geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:On 11/12/05, Fred Bauder wrote:
She "withdrew" cause they were giving her a hard time. The arbitration committee had no reason to withdraw her name.
Fred
So arbcom can give people check user rights without their consent. That is an ... intersting interpritation of policy.
-- geni _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Kelly Martin wrote:
My reason for temporarily withdrawing was because some people had irrational objections to my selection which seemed to be slowing down the process of getting anybody selected to supplement David Gerard. This is an important problem that has been delayed long enough, and I was simply willing to "take one for the team" if that would help get us closer to where we need to be to effectively deal with the problems that the ArbCom has to deal with on en.
I have grave objections to the process that was followed, and am glad that the situation has been resolved in accordance with policy without even more interminable debate and mudslinging.
Kelly, just because people disagree with you does not make their opposition "irrational".
Chris
On 11/12/05, Brian Haws brian@bhaws.com wrote:
So your concerns are about the process and not the particular arbitrator involved?
I didn't say that. We have a tempory apointed arbcom memeber who has just failed on an RFB (ok to be fair the "we don't need more buracrats" group is large enough to make promotion extreamly tricky). They then open a trainreck of a RFC. Under these conditons giving the user checkuser is unwise.
-- geni
geni wrote:
I didn't say that. We have a tempory apointed arbcom memeber who has just failed on an RFB (ok to be fair the "we don't need more buracrats" group is large enough to make promotion extreamly tricky). They then open a trainreck of a RFC. Under these conditons giving the user checkuser is unwise.
-- geni
Ok now your starting to annoy me, the fact that she recently had a failed RFB is moot to whether she should get checkuser rights and everyone's view on this is bordering on being paranoid as people seem to think that the arbcom will try to read their minds by knowing their IP address and also it is very easy for her checkuser rights to be removed the minute her term expires which I assume is the plan so her having them for no bears no risk whatsoever.
-Jtkiefer
On 11/12/05, Jtkiefer jtkiefer@wordzen.net wrote:
Ok now your starting to annoy me, the fact that she recently had a failed RFB is moot to whether she should get checkuser rights
And the RFC issue
and everyone's view on this is bordering on being paranoid as people seem to think that the arbcom will try to read their minds by knowing their IP address
Strawman.
and also it is very easy for her checkuser rights to be removed the minute her term expires which I assume is the plan so her having them for no bears no risk whatsoever.
-Jtkiefer
"no risk"? This is not a concept I am hudely familia with. Everything has risk attached. The question always boils down to a risk benifit analysis.
-- geni
geni wrote:
"no risk"? This is not a concept I am hudely familia with. Everything has risk attached. The question always boils down to a risk benifit analysis.
-- geni _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Yeah but is there really a risk of giving someone who can prove that they have good intentions adminship even if they haven't been here for a long time and haven't had a huge amount of edits, editcountitis and agecountitis in terms of adminship has gone way overboard.
-Jtkiefer
On 11/12/05, Jtkiefer jtkiefer@wordzen.net wrote:
Yeah but is there really a risk of giving someone who can prove that they have good intentions adminship even if they haven't been here for a long time and haven't had a huge amount of edits, editcountitis and agecountitis in terms of adminship has gone way overboard.
-Jtkiefer
You are free to view my voteing record on adminship. I think you would have a hard time accussing me of either editcountitis or agecountitis (not voteing at allitis maybe but I have a policy of only voteing for or against people I already know).
-- geni
geni geniice@gmail.com wrote: On 11/12/05, Brian Haws wrote:
So your concerns are about the process and not the particular arbitrator involved?
I didn't say that. We have a tempory apointed arbcom memeber who has just failed on an RFB (ok to be fair the "we don't need more buracrats" group is large enough to make promotion extreamly tricky). They then open a trainreck of a RFC. Under these conditons giving the user checkuser is unwise.
-- geni _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
You feel it'd be unwise because of the possibility Kelly might abuse it?
It looks like checkuser is going to be added to the bureaucrats positions "toolkit" so if it's going to be denied to one shouldn't there be some specific reason for doing it?
On 11/12/05, Brian Haws brian@bhaws.com wrote:
It looks like checkuser is going to be added to the bureaucrats positions "toolkit"
That is not the case.
-- geni
geni geniice@gmail.com wrote: On 11/12/05, Brian Haws wrote:
It looks like checkuser is going to be added to the bureaucrats positions "toolkit"
That is not the case.
-- geni _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Nope, you're right. I misunderstood the default status (there is none). In that light, when selecting people to give those rights to, getting in (or being able to stay out of) high profile train wrecks as you called it should count for something.
I'm not sure if that implies abuse but perception is reality and it does look bad....
Giving someone involved in a highly avoidable, high-profile conflict such rights when others are denied them probably isn't a great idea..sorry about the misunderstanding, my fault.
On 11/12/05, Brian Haws brian@bhaws.com wrote:
It looks like checkuser is going to be added to the bureaucrats positions "toolkit" so if it's going to be denied to one shouldn't there be some specific reason for doing it?
There are no plans to grant checkuser to all bureaucrats.
Kelly
On 11/12/05, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/12/05, Brian Haws brian@bhaws.com wrote:
So your concerns are about the process and not the particular arbitrator involved?
I didn't say that. We have a tempory apointed arbcom memeber who has just failed on an RFB (ok to be fair the "we don't need more buracrats" group is large enough to make promotion extreamly tricky). They then open a trainreck of a RFC. Under these conditons giving the user checkuser is unwise.
Why?
On 11/12/05, Tony Sidaway f.crdfa@gmail.com wrote:
Why?
1.) It looks bad. 2.) We haven't exusted the option of not doing it (there are 4 other people on the list who haven't caused such high tension situations lately)
-- geni
geni wrote:
On 11/12/05, Tony Sidaway f.crdfa@gmail.com wrote:
Why?
1.) It looks bad. 2.) We haven't exusted the option of not doing it (there are 4 other people on the list who haven't caused such high tension situations lately)
To quote David Gerard:
On Wikipedia, the reward for a job well done is another three jobs.
On 11/13/05, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
geni wrote: To quote David Gerard:
On Wikipedia, the reward for a job well done is another three jobs.
As a general rule I prefer arbcom members to be sorting out fights no starting them.
-- geni
On 11/13/05, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
geni wrote:
On 11/12/05, Tony Sidaway f.crdfa@gmail.com wrote:
Why?
1.) It looks bad. 2.) We haven't exusted the option of not doing it (there are 4 other people on the list who haven't caused such high tension situations lately)
To quote David Gerard:
On Wikipedia, the reward for a job well done is another three jobs.
Geni seems to be using this thread as a vehicle to snipe at someone he doesn't like, and whom he blames for the recent high profile announcement (since retracted) by another editor that he intended to leave the wiki. This thread isn't the place.
Tony Sidaway wrote:
On 11/13/05, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
geni wrote:
On 11/12/05, Tony Sidaway f.crdfa@gmail.com wrote:
Why?
1.) It looks bad. 2.) We haven't exusted the option of not doing it (there are 4 other people on the list who haven't caused such high tension situations lately)
To quote David Gerard:
On Wikipedia, the reward for a job well done is another three jobs.
Geni seems to be using this thread as a vehicle to snipe at someone he doesn't like, and whom he blames for the recent high profile announcement (since retracted) by another editor that he intended to leave the wiki. This thread isn't the place.
To be fair, geni isn't the only one to have used a Wikimedia mailing list for soapboxing. Just about everyone who has been distressed at something has done likewise, myself included.
On 11/13/05, Tony Sidaway f.crdfa@gmail.com wrote:
Geni seems to be using this thread as a vehicle to snipe at someone he doesn't like, and whom he blames for the recent high profile announcement (since retracted) by another editor that he intended to leave the wiki.
That is incorrect
This thread isn't the place.
Trying to censor the mailing list now?
-- geni
On 11/13/05, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/13/05, Tony Sidaway f.crdfa@gmail.com wrote:
Geni seems to be using this thread as a vehicle to snipe at someone he doesn't like, and whom he blames for the recent high profile announcement (since retracted) by another editor that he intended to leave the wiki.
That is incorrect
This thread isn't the place.
Trying to censor the mailing list now?
Please, no provocative comments. From either of you.
Sam
On 11/13/05, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
Please, no provocative comments. From either of you.
Sam
Hey it isn't an issue until me and tony end up on the oposite sides.
-- geni
On 11/13/05, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Hey it isn't an issue until me and tony end up on the oposite sides.
Note to self: don't get on the wrong side of Geni.
Sam
Sam Korn wrote:
On 11/13/05, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Hey it isn't an issue until me and tony end up on the oposite sides.
Note to self: don't get on the wrong side of Geni.
Could be worse; could be Jimbo...
On 11/13/05, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Could be worse; could be Jimbo...
I'll conceed he's worse in the sort run but I can be more persistant. Nah I think the me tony Sideway thing is mostly down to a complete clash of world views (although I think we both support alowing anons to edit although I suspect for different reasons)
-- geni
I temporarily withdrew with the hope that delaying the request with relation to me would perhaps allow it to go through with respect to the others. I see no reason why I should not have CheckUser, and did not withdraw the request permanently. I am aware of no credible claim raised against my qualifications to use the CheckUser tool.
Kelly
On 11/12/05, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/12/05, Chris Jenkinson chris@starglade.org wrote:
Seeing as there hasn't been much public discussion on this (at least on the English-language Wikipedia) I thought it would be a good idea to let you all know that Raul654, Fred Bauder, Kelly Martin, The Epopt and Jayjg have all been granted access to the checkuser tool[1] (the tool which allows for checking of sockpuppets by giving access to IP addresses, including those of signed-in Wikipedians).
I could of sworn Kelly Martin withdrew. Oh well.
-- geni _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Seeing as there hasn't been much public discussion on this (at least on the English-language Wikipedia) I thought it would be a good idea to let you all know that Raul654, Fred Bauder, Kelly Martin, The Epopt and Jayjg have all been granted access to the checkuser tool[1] (the tool which allows for checking of sockpuppets by giving access to IP addresses, including those of signed-in Wikipedians).
I'm afraid I'm only recently following these policy discussions. Is there a publically available log showing which administrators have run checkuser checks on which users? The feature seems to be designed for times when there's a public perception that someone is a sockpuppet, so I'd imagine that that log wouldn't be a privacy violation on the people who get checked out.
I've made several "anonymous" posts on various sensitive pages and I don't like the idea that my IP records could be checked by an administrator with little oversight.
-- Creidieki
On 11/12/05, M. Creidieki Crouch creidieki@gmail.com wrote:
I'm afraid I'm only recently following these policy discussions. Is there a publically available log showing which administrators have run checkuser checks on which users? The feature seems to be designed for times when there's a public perception that someone is a sockpuppet, so I'd imagine that that log wouldn't be a privacy violation on the people who get checked out.
Public perception is not required.
Kelly
On 11/13/05, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
Public perception is not required.
Kelly
However it normaly exists. I can't at short notice think of any cases involveing it's use where no one had raised any questions.
-- geni
On 11/12/05, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/13/05, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
Public perception is not required.
Kelly
However it normaly exists. I can't at short notice think of any cases involveing it's use where no one had raised any questions.
To be fair, you don't know of very many cases.
Kelly
On 11/13/05, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
To be fair, you don't know of very many cases.
Kelly
I know of every case in which the result turned up on AN and AN/I. After all trawling for IP matches makes no sense.
-- geni
On 11/12/05, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/13/05, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
To be fair, you don't know of very many cases.
Kelly
I know of every case in which the result turned up on AN and AN/I. After all trawling for IP matches makes no sense.
I would estimate that only a small fraction of uses of CheckUser result in a comment made on one of the noticeboards.
Kelly
One of the advantages of having arbitrators do this is that they are subject to constant monitoring by the community, being in no way anonymous persons. Their real identities are known and a host of folks are looking at what they do, freely criticizing them and vocally expressing their observations.
Fred
On Nov 12, 2005, at 6:43 PM, M. Creidieki Crouch wrote:
I've made several "anonymous" posts on various sensitive pages and I don't like the idea that my IP records could be checked by an administrator with little oversight.
An interesting row is going on at [[Talk:Côte d'Ivoire]]. The country is usually known in English as Ivory Coast but is controversially at its little-used-in-English French name. A proposal by me supported by Ed Poor to move it to the more widely used English name, to follow the standard naming rules, produced the mother of all rows, with users queuing to claim that 'everyone' calls it Cote d'Ivoire.
That argument was clearly disproved. Checks on websites with the BBC, New York Times, ABC, South African television, Australian newspapers, the Times of London, the Guardian, NBC, Bloomberg, the British Foreign Office, etc shows that worldwide Ivory Coast is more used in some cases by a factor of 10. Only the US State Department uses the French name, and even then just occasionally, a far cry from the 'always' claimed.
Even then the majority was queuing up to insist the French name be kept, no matter what. But a closer look showed that a large number of those voting to keep the French name were French speakers! French and English are famous rivals to be the dominant world language, but is it a first for a English Wikipedia article to be kept at a little used French name rather than the widely used English version contrary to WP NCs and the MoS, by a block vote of French speakers defending the French language?
What is WP policy when language is used to a block vote to force the MoS and NC to be ignored in an article's name?
Thom
PS: The vote is still going on. Please come and vote.
___________________________________________________________ How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos http://uk.photos.yahoo.com
On 11/13/05, Tom Cadden thomcadden@yahoo.ie wrote:
PS: The vote is still going on. Please come and vote.
You wanted to settle a row so started a vote? oh dear.
-- geni
No. I made a request for renaming, as is standard Wikipedia policy. People are voting on the request. That is how renaming is done.
On 11/13/05, Tom Cadden thomcadden@yahoo.ie wrote:
PS: The vote is still going on. Please come and
vote.
You wanted to settle a row so started a vote? oh dear.
-- geni
___________________________________________________________ To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new Yahoo! Security Centre. http://uk.security.yahoo.com
On 11/13/05, Tom Cadden thomcadden@yahoo.ie wrote:
What is WP policy when language is used to a block vote to force the MoS and NC to be ignored in an article's name?
Policy is unformed on this. Obviously the thing to do is to ignore the block votes and move the article to its most common English language name. Consensus cannot be gauged only by voting; the external sources comprehensively refute the votes for the French name.
Tony Sidaway wrote
Consensus cannot be gauged only by voting; the
external sources comprehensively refute the votes for the French name.
That's simplistic here. I wouldn't be surprised to hear 'Ivory Coast' on BBC radio, because it is much easier to grok. But I don't imagine the BBC thinks that's the real name of the country. Diplomats are supposed to be able to hack French pronunciation. Let's face it, most anglophones can't. However WP is a written medium.
Charles
On 11/13/05, charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Tony Sidaway wrote
Consensus cannot be gauged only by voting; the
external sources comprehensively refute the votes for the French name.
That's simplistic here. I wouldn't be surprised to hear 'Ivory Coast' on BBC radio, because it is much easier to grok. But I don't imagine the BBC thinks that's the real name of the country. Diplomats are supposed to be able to hack French pronunciation. Let's face it, most anglophones can't. However WP is a written medium.
What is the name of that country in the middle of Europe, famous for its sausages and beer? Deutschland or Germany? How about the big one on the bottom left, Sandwiched between France and North Africa? Spain or España? Is it The Netherland or Nederland, Italy or Italia, Japan or Nihon, Sweden or Sverige?
Of course Ivory Coast is the real name of the country, just as Royaume Uni is the real French name of the UK, and it would be a very fatheaded French speaker indeed who insisted on parking the article on the UK under United Kingdom where hardly anybody would look for it.
Tony Sidaway wrote
What is the name of that country in the middle of Europe, famous for
its sausages and beer? Deutschland or Germany?
Yes, yes. But there's never been any doubt in my mind about the case in question: I assumed [[Côte d'Ivoire]] is it, [[Ivory Coast]] would be a redirect, and if you go to the UN in New York you find the place reserved for Côte d'Ivoire.
The argument on the page that _other encyclopedias_ go for Côte d'Ivoire is actually worth several cartloads of the rather grisly populist rhetoric this is collecting.
Charles
G'day Tony,
What is the name of that country in the middle of Europe, famous for its sausages and beer? Deutschland or Germany? How about the big one on the bottom left, Sandwiched between France and North Africa? Spain or España? Is it The Netherland or Nederland, Italy or Italia, Japan or Nihon, Sweden or Sverige?
Nederland, of course. (Dutch grandparents, eh?). But why don't we just call it "Holland"? More English speakers do than not, after all.
And I note that [[Burma]] redirects to [[Myanmar]]. Now, where *I* come from, we called it "Burma" and were bloody proud of the fact[0]; what's the deal, people? We're not letting Johnny Foreigner dictate to us proud English-speakers, are we?
Of course Ivory Coast is the real name of the country, just as Royaume Uni is the real French name of the UK, and it would be a very fatheaded French speaker indeed who insisted on parking the article on the UK under United Kingdom where hardly anybody would look for it.
Anecdotally, Cote d'Ivoire (excuse the lack of accents; I couldn't be bothered looking them up) is becoming much more prominent in English. This may be because of football (futebol, fussball ... soccer ...). The World Game bringing people together! Oh, the old eyes just cannot but well up with tears, eh? Of course, that's not a reason to move, but we may want to keep in mind that in ten or fifteen years' time we'll be wanting to bung it under the correct name after all.
I note (looking at the article now) that the national govt itself has requested that *all* nations refer to it as "Cote d'Ivoire". It would only be courteous do accede. It's their country, after all, not ours. Have other governments in similar situations --- the United Kingdom is an excelling example --- taken such a step? Have the French really told the English to "get knotted" (a much deadlier insult in French, obviously), or was the request never made?
[0] Okay, not really.
Cheers,
Mark Gallagher wrote:
G'day Tony,
What is the name of that country in the middle of Europe, famous for its sausages and beer? Deutschland or Germany? How about the big one on the bottom left, Sandwiched between France and North Africa? Spain or España? Is it The Netherland or Nederland, Italy or Italia, Japan or Nihon, Sweden or Sverige?
Nederland, of course. (Dutch grandparents, eh?). But why don't we just call it "Holland"? More English speakers do than not, after all.
And I note that [[Burma]] redirects to [[Myanmar]]. Now, where *I* come from, we called it "Burma" and were bloody proud of the fact[0]; what's the deal, people? We're not letting Johnny Foreigner dictate to us proud English-speakers, are we?
Oh bloody hell, I'm moving [[Zimbabwe]] to [[Rhodesia]], [[Democratic Republic of the Congo]] to [[Zaire]], and [[Australia]] to [[New Holland]].
On 13/11/05, charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Tony Sidaway wrote
Consensus cannot be gauged only by voting; the
external sources comprehensively refute the votes for the French name.
That's simplistic here. I wouldn't be surprised to hear 'Ivory Coast' on BBC radio, because it is much easier to grok. But I don't imagine the BBC thinks that's the real name of the country. Diplomats are supposed to be able to hack French pronunciation. Let's face it, most anglophones can't. However WP is a written medium.
My dissertation went for Côte d'Ivoire, and I do hope it counts as an English-language source...
We also have [[São Tomé and Príncipe]], not "Sao Tome and Principe", though that is by far the most common form of the name in English (and, interestingly, MS Word's spellchecker doesn't know about the version with accents!) - or [[Myanmar]] with Burma a redirect.
This latter one seems to be the most comparable situation; the government requested a change to a less familiar version, and "Burma" is still in very common use. (1600 "Burma" stories on Google News, 2100 "Myanmar")
-- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
"Andrew Gray" wrote
My dissertation went for Côte d'Ivoire, and I do hope it counts as an
English-language source...
If Google is truly my friend, so do the dangerous trendies who write the CIA Handbook.
Charles
On 11/13/05, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
[[Myanmar]] with Burma a redirect.
Another utterly ridiculous situation. The country has had a perfectly good name in English for some centuries now. Let's have done with it, move Munich to München, Venice to Venezia, Milan to Milano, Poland to Polska, and Austria to Österreich. Who needs English, anyway?
On 11/13/05, Tony Sidaway f.crdfa@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/13/05, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
[[Myanmar]] with Burma a redirect.
Another utterly ridiculous situation. The country has had a perfectly good name in English for some centuries now. Let's have done with it, move Munich to München, Venice to Venezia, Milan to Milano, Poland to Polska, and Austria to Österreich. Who needs English, anyway?
Perhaps a more useful example would be moving [[United Kingdom]] to [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland]] -- certainly the country's official name, if not its common name. On the other hand, I happen to think of the relevant African country as Côte d'Ivore. I think most news sources (the ones I read, anyway, TIME and the Guardian/Observer) do the same. The BBC might as well. That, to me, is its natural name. (The fact that I am 16 may not be irrelevant.)
Sam
Sam Korn wrote:
On 11/13/05, Tony Sidaway f.crdfa@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/13/05, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
[[Myanmar]] with Burma a redirect.
Another utterly ridiculous situation. The country has had a perfectly good name in English for some centuries now. Let's have done with it, move Munich to München, Venice to Venezia, Milan to Milano, Poland to Polska, and Austria to Österreich. Who needs English, anyway?
Perhaps a more useful example would be moving [[United Kingdom]] to [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland]] -- certainly the country's official name, if not its common name. On the other hand, I happen to think of the relevant African country as Côte d'Ivore. I think most news sources (the ones I read, anyway, TIME and the Guardian/Observer) do the same. The BBC might as well. That, to me, is its natural name. (The fact that I am 16 may not be irrelevant.)
To me, the name of Burma is Myanmar; the natural name of Zaire is the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and so on and so forth.
And yes, the Ivory Coast is properly Côte d'Ivoire. Yes, the French beat the British in naming a country. GET OVER IT.
On 11/13/05, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
To me, the name of Burma is Myanmar; the natural name of Zaire is the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and so on and so forth.
No one uses Zaire though. it wasn't a massively popular name when the country was called Zaire
And yes, the Ivory Coast is properly Côte d'Ivoire. Yes, the French beat the British in naming a country. GET OVER IT.
It's proper name is of no imporance. That isn't what the MOS says.
-- geni
geni wrote:
On 11/13/05, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
To me, the name of Burma is Myanmar; the natural name of Zaire is the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and so on and so forth.
No one uses Zaire though. it wasn't a massively popular name when the country was called Zaire
And yes, the Ivory Coast is properly Côte d'Ivoire. Yes, the French beat the British in naming a country. GET OVER IT.
It's proper name is of no imporance. That isn't what the MOS says.
Better rename all the articles on French towns, people and business in France then, too.
On 11/13/05, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Better rename all the articles on French towns, people and business in France then, too.
Execept that with the exception of a few big ones they don't really have common english names.
-- geni
geni wrote:
On 11/13/05, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Better rename all the articles on French towns, people and business in France then, too.
Execept that with the exception of a few big ones they don't really have common english names.
Well, here's an example of a German company (couldn't think of any French ones): Telefonica Deutchland. Should the article on them be called "German Telecom"???
HELLO!!!!!!!!! DID WE LOSE OUR BRAINS SOMEWHERE ALONG THE ROAD TO POLITICAL CORRECTNESS????????
On 11/13/05, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
geni wrote: Well, here's an example of a German company (couldn't think of any French ones): Telefonica Deutchland. Should the article on them be called "German Telecom"???
No becuase that is not how they are know in english. Much as the pre euro currency of germany was not know as the german mark
HELLO!!!!!!!!! DID WE LOSE OUR BRAINS SOMEWHERE ALONG THE ROAD TO POLITICAL CORRECTNESS????????
huh?
-- geni
geni wrote:
On 11/13/05, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
geni wrote: Well, here's an example of a German company (couldn't think of any French ones): Telefonica Deutchland. Should the article on them be called "German Telecom"???
No becuase that is not how they are know in english. Much as the pre euro currency of germany was not know as the german mark
The Arc de'Triomphe? The Moulin Rouge?
As Mark Williamson would be so fond of saying, "calling them by their English name is cultural oppression". The Government of the Côte d'Ivoire wants to be called that, let that be what the article is called. We already state this in the article.
HELLO!!!!!!!!! DID WE LOSE OUR BRAINS SOMEWHERE ALONG THE ROAD TO POLITICAL CORRECTNESS????????
huh?
Sorry, that wasn't directed at you... I'm late and it's tired...
On 11/13/05, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
geni wrote:
On 11/13/05, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
geni wrote: Well, here's an example of a German company (couldn't think of any French ones): Telefonica Deutchland. Should the article on them be called "German Telecom"???
No becuase that is not how they are know in english. Much as the pre euro currency of germany was not know as the german mark
The Arc de'Triomphe? The Moulin Rouge?
We drop the apostrophe. Other than that english tends to follow the french on that one probably because the result of transalteing to english would sound horible (red mill I mean what kind of name is that?). Short french phrases are quite common in english. Entente Cordiale for example. However historicaly we tend to anglisise names of countries with the result that ivory coast is the more common name at this present time. Perhaps this will change but for the time being like Mecca the "Proper name" is not the one in common use.
-- geni
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
geni stated for the record:
On 11/13/05, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
geni wrote:
On 11/13/05, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
geni wrote: Well, here's an example of a German company (couldn't think of any French ones): Telefonica Deutchland. Should the article on them be called "German Telecom"???
No becuase that is not how they are know in english. Much as the pre euro currency of germany was not know as the german mark
The Arc de'Triomphe? The Moulin Rouge?
We drop the apostrophe. Other than that english tends to follow the french on that one probably because the result of transalteing to english would sound horible (red mill I mean what kind of name is that?). Short french phrases are quite common in english. Entente Cordiale for example. However historicaly we tend to anglisise names of countries with the result that ivory coast is the more common name at this present time. Perhaps this will change but for the time being like Mecca the "Proper name" is not the one in common use.
That's right. I insist that people address their postal mail to my address in the Village of our Lady the Queen of the Angels, myself.
- -- Sean Barrett | For days, we survived on sean@epoptic.org | nothing but food and water.
G'day Alphax,
geni wrote:
On 11/13/05, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Better rename all the articles on French towns, people and business in France then, too.
Execept that with the exception of a few big ones they don't really have common english names.
Well, here's an example of a German company (couldn't think of any French ones): Telefonica Deutchland. Should the article on them be called "German Telecom"???
HELLO!!!!!!!!! DID WE LOSE OUR BRAINS SOMEWHERE ALONG THE ROAD TO POLITICAL CORRECTNESS????????
Well, if you have to shout to be heard, I imagine German Telecom's service is similar to their British and Australian counterparts ...
G'day geni,
On 11/13/05, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Better rename all the articles on French towns, people and business in France then, too.
Execept that with the exception of a few big ones they don't really have common english names.
No worries. Anyone here good with Francais? Let's take a few French names that can be translated to English and insist on using them. We needn't restrict it to towns, either: you know that "Jean" bloke at work who your secretary keeps daydreaming about? From now on, call him "John" and see how he reacts.
How about the reverse? I noticed, the other day, that a town in the USA (sorry, "the world") bears the ridiculous name of "Sugar Land, Texas". I see no reason why fr-WP shouldn't call it "Terre De Sucre". It is, after all, the *French* Wikipedia, and Texans should not be allowed to dictate to them anymore than Ivorians can dictate to us.
Cheers,
On 11/13/05, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:
G'day geni,
No worries. Anyone here good with Francais? Let's take a few French names that can be translated to English and insist on using them. We needn't restrict it to towns, either: you know that "Jean" bloke at work who your secretary keeps daydreaming about? From now on, call him "John" and see how he reacts.
How about the reverse? I noticed, the other day, that a town in the USA (sorry, "the world") bears the ridiculous name of "Sugar Land, Texas". I see no reason why fr-WP shouldn't call it "Terre De Sucre". It is, after all, the *French* Wikipedia, and Texans should not be allowed to dictate to them anymore than Ivorians can dictate to us.
Cheers,
-- Mark Gallagher
The MOS calls for the most commonly used name. French people called Jean are commonly called Jean. However major relgious centres called Makkah are commonly called Mecca.
-- geni
Chris Luer made an excellent point. I would go with whatever article was created first in Wikipedia though unless there's massive amounts of links pointing to the other article (prior to this discussion) we might consider changing that. Redirects should help pointing people in the right direction, naming conventions are to make sure links point to the right page. If the majority of articles here point to "Ivory Coast" we should call it that to avoid needless redirects and viceversa.
--Mgm
On 11/13/05, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:
G'day geni,
On 11/13/05, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Better rename all the articles on French towns, people and business in France then, too.
Execept that with the exception of a few big ones they don't really have common english names.
No worries. Anyone here good with Francais? Let's take a few French names that can be translated to English and insist on using them. We needn't restrict it to towns, either: you know that "Jean" bloke at work who your secretary keeps daydreaming about? From now on, call him "John" and see how he reacts.
How about the reverse? I noticed, the other day, that a town in the USA (sorry, "the world") bears the ridiculous name of "Sugar Land, Texas". I see no reason why fr-WP shouldn't call it "Terre De Sucre". It is, after all, the *French* Wikipedia, and Texans should not be allowed to dictate to them anymore than Ivorians can dictate to us.
Cheers,
-- Mark Gallagher "What? I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse
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MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
Chris Luer made an excellent point. I would go with whatever article was created first in Wikipedia though unless there's massive amounts of links pointing to the other article (prior to this discussion) we might consider changing that.
I don't think we should pay much attention to the link count. Way back in the mists of ancient history before the Manual of Style had taken its present form, I split up the article [[Moon]] into [[Natural satellite]] and [[Luna]] making [[Moon]] into a disambiguation page (Wikipedia hadn't invented parenthesese yet :), and like the obsessive busy beaver I am I went around changing every link to "Moon" into [[Luna|Moon]]. Needless to say, Earth's moon later got moved back to "Moon". But as a result, hundreds and hundreds of articles linked to it via the "Luna" redirect whereas only a handful of recent articles linked via Moon.
Luna is itself now a disambiguation page, so this example's long gone, but the basic idea remains. I don't think that the link count within Wikipedia is all that meaningful, and redirects are perfectly adequate.
Tony Sidaway wrote
Another utterly ridiculous situation. The country has had a perfectly
good name in English for some centuries now.
Tony, Ivory Coast may be argued both ways; but Myanmar cannot. Burma was a part of British India, not a 'country'. It would be wrong for the WP article to be called anything else besides Myanmar.
Charles
Andrew Gray wrote:
On 13/11/05, charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Tony Sidaway wrote
Consensus cannot be gauged only by voting; the
external sources comprehensively refute the votes for the French name.
That's simplistic here. I wouldn't be surprised to hear 'Ivory Coast' on BBC radio, because it is much easier to grok. But I don't imagine the BBC thinks that's the real name of the country. Diplomats are supposed to be able to hack French pronunciation. Let's face it, most anglophones can't. However WP is a written medium.
My dissertation went for Côte d'Ivoire, and I do hope it counts as an English-language source...
We also have [[São Tomé and Príncipe]], not "Sao Tome and Principe", though that is by far the most common form of the name in English
...and certainly not St. Thomas and Principe, but we do keep the English "and".
We also have Suriname instead of Surinam.
Ec
charles matthews wrote:
PS: The vote is still going on. Please come and vote.
Have done. But not in the way you hoped.
Hah, you should see the reason I gave ;)
Tom Cadden wrote:
An interesting row is going on at [[Talk:Côte d'Ivoire]]. The country is usually known in English as Ivory Coast but is controversially at its little-used-in-English French name. A proposal by me supported by Ed Poor to move it to the more widely used English name, to follow the standard naming rules, produced the mother of all rows, with users queuing to claim that 'everyone' calls it Cote d'Ivoire.
I remember looking at this over three years ago, at which time my first inclination was to change the name. Unlike many other French-speaking countries the official name for English purposes is the French one. See the member list for the United Nations at http://www.un.org/Overview/unmember.html This does not mean that other French speaking countries follow the same practice. The Central African Republic does not appear as République Centraficaine.
That argument was clearly disproved. Checks on websites with the BBC, New York Times, ABC, South African television, Australian newspapers, the Times of London, the Guardian, NBC, Bloomberg, the British Foreign Office, etc shows that worldwide Ivory Coast is more used in some cases by a factor of 10. Only the US State Department uses the French name, and even then just occasionally, a far cry from the 'always' claimed.
Maybe the US State Department is just following the UN lead on this. The proportion of newspapers and websites using the English name is irrelevant. The position of official Ivoirian sites is more influential.
Even then the majority was queuing up to insist the French name be kept, no matter what. But a closer look showed that a large number of those voting to keep the French name were French speakers!
This is a racist slur for which you owe everyone an apology.
French and English are famous rivals to be the dominant world language, but is it a first for a English Wikipedia article to be kept at a little used French name rather than the widely used English version contrary to WP NCs and the MoS, by a block vote of French speakers defending the French language?
What is WP policy when language is used to a block vote to force the MoS and NC to be ignored in an article's name?
Please avoid the use of abbreviations. They only make your comments more difficult to read.
PS: The vote is still going on. Please come and vote.
Determining the official name of a country is not a matter for voting. It is a sure way of having facts overwhelmed by ignorance.
Ec
On 11/13/05, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Maybe the US State Department is just following the UN lead on this. The proportion of newspapers and websites using the English name is irrelevant. The position of official Ivoirian sites is more influential.
not is isn't. Read what the MOS has to say.
This is a racist slur for which you owe everyone an apology.
The french speaking people of the world are now a race? Uh okeey.
Please avoid the use of abbreviations. They only make your comments more difficult to read.
Manual of style Nameing conventions
Determining the official name of a country is not a matter for voting. It is a sure way of having facts overwhelmed by ignorance.
We are not decideing it's offcial name. We are deciding how many people on wikipedia are incaple of following naming policy. Current total is 21. The nameing conventions say "article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature."
-- geni
--- geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/13/05, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Maybe the US State Department is just following
the UN lead on this.
The proportion of newspapers and websites using
the English name is
irrelevant. The position of official Ivoirian
sites is more influential.
not is isn't. Read what the MOS has to say.
This is a racist slur for which you owe everyone
an apology.
The french speaking people of the world are now a race? Uh okeey.
Please avoid the use of abbreviations. They only
make your comments
more difficult to read.
Manual of style Nameing conventions
Determining the official name of a country is not
a matter for voting.
It is a sure way of having facts overwhelmed by
ignorance.
We are not decideing it's offcial name. We are deciding how many people on wikipedia are incaple of following naming policy. Current total is 21. The nameing conventions say "article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature."
-- geni
Correct. Indeed what is going on that debate is symtomatic of just how many people don't know the MoS and the naming conventions, and take offence if someone points them out.
Some of the zanier arguments defending the less widely used French name being used in place of the far more widely used English are how:How
everyone uses it (demonstably untrue).
everyone SHOULD use it. (which breaks NPOV. It isn't our job to say what they SHOULD do, just what they DO do.)
I use it, therefore obviously the rest of the planet does to.
I've only heard it being called that (if you are a French speaker and you deal with French speakers from that country, of course you would only have heard it called that. But this is english wikipedia!)
It would be stupid not to.
All articles SHOULD be written this way (ie, it doesn't matter that they aren't. Lets make up a new rule for this page!)
We have to do what the government says (no we don't. We don't name any other country based on what their government demands, but on english speakers' usage!)
The fact that Wikipedia has a set of strict rules for naming pages doesn't seem to matter to most of the 'keep the French name' voters. It does seem suspicious that a group of French speakers can vote to ensure that a less well known French name is given priority over a far more widely name, internationally used, English version, on English Wikipedia, no matter what the factual evidence is, what the name conventions state or what the manual of style requires.
Thom
It is notable
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Tom Cadden wrote:
--- geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
The nameing conventions say "article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature."
Correct. Indeed what is going on that debate is symtomatic of just how many people don't know the MoS and the naming conventions, and take offence if someone points them out.
(snip)
The fact that Wikipedia has a set of strict rules for naming pages doesn't seem to matter to most of the 'keep the French name' voters. It does seem suspicious that a group of French speakers can vote to ensure that a less well known French name is given priority over a far more widely name, internationally used, English version, on English Wikipedia, no matter what the factual evidence is, what the name conventions state or what the manual of style requires.
There is nothing strict or absolute about "should give priority". The kind of "rule" stated here should remain a flexible guideline rather than a tool for POV pushing. The unfounded allegation that the "Côte d'Ivoire" is being spearheaded by a group of French speakers has absolutely no basis in fact, and seems indicative only of an anti-French prejudice.
Ec
--- Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Unlike many other French-speaking countries the official name for English purposes is the French one. See the member list for the United Nations at http://www.un.org/Overview/unmember.html This does not mean that other French speaking countries follow the same practice. The Central African Republic does not appear as République Centraficaine.
That is irrelevant. The official name of the Republic of Ireland is Poblacht na hÉireann. We do not use it. Nor do we use the official name in French of the French Republic. We do have have the article on Germany at the Federal Republic of Germany, let alone the German language version of the name.
WP does not use official names are article titles. With countries it uses common names, and puts the official name at the top of the article's infobox.
Maybe the US State Department is just following the UN lead on this. The proportion of newspapers and websites using the English name is irrelevant. The position of official Ivoirian sites is more influential.
The position of Ivoirian sites is irrelevant. This is not an Ivoirian encyclopædia but an English language one that does not write its articles to suit governments and official sites.
Even then the majority was queuing up to insist the French name be kept, no matter what. But a closer
look
showed that a large number of those voting to keep
the
French name were French speakers!
This is a racist slur for which you owe everyone an apology.
Absolutely not. It is a fact that an article is being kept in a location against the explicit rules in the MoS but a vote of users of one particular language, many of whom seem intent on putting their defence of that language above Wikipedia's own rules.
What is WP policy when language is used to a block vote to force the MoS and NC to be ignored in an article's name?
Please avoid the use of abbreviations. They only make your comments more difficult to read.
People on WP regularly use MoS for Manual of Style and NC for Naming Conventions.
Determining the official name of a country is not a matter for voting. It is a sure way of having facts overwhelmed by ignorance.
I'm surprised you don't know that WP policy IS to decide the location of an article by voting. It is done through requesting moves and voting on them. It is a standard procedure used throughout WP.
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Tom Cadden wrote:
--- Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Unlike many other French-speaking countries the official name for English purposes is the French one. See the member list for the United Nations at http://www.un.org/Overview/unmember.html This does not mean that other French speaking countries follow the same practice. The Central African Republic does not appear as République Centraficaine.
That is irrelevant. The official name of the Republic of Ireland is Poblacht na hÉireann. We do not use it. Nor do we use the official name in French of the French Republic. We do have have the article on Germany at the Federal Republic of Germany, let alone the German language version of the name.
WP does not use official names are article titles. With countries it uses common names, and puts the official name at the top of the article's infobox.
My understanding was that the Official Name in English, /as requested by the Government of Côte d'Ivoire/, was Côte d'Ivoire. Not "Ivory Coast". They changed their name to Côte d'Ivoire. End discussion. That's their name. Use it. Redirects are cheap.
Maybe the US State Department is just following the UN lead on this. The proportion of newspapers and websites using the English name is irrelevant. The position of official Ivoirian sites is more influential.
The position of Ivoirian sites is irrelevant. This is not an Ivoirian encyclopædia but an English language one that does not write its articles to suit governments and official sites.
Are you suggesting we should get rid of diacritical marks in article names when the devs struggled so hard to make them work in the first place?
Even then the majority was queuing up to insist the French name be kept, no matter what. But a closer
look
showed that a large number of those voting to keep
the
French name were French speakers!
This is a racist slur for which you owe everyone an apology.
Absolutely not. It is a fact that an article is being kept in a location against the explicit rules in the MoS but a vote of users of one particular language, many of whom seem intent on putting their defence of that language above Wikipedia's own rules.
I don't speak French. I voted for the "French" name. What does this say about your logical phallacy?
What is WP policy when language is used to a block vote to force the MoS and NC to be ignored in an article's name?
Please avoid the use of abbreviations. They only make your comments more difficult to read.
People on WP regularly use MoS for Manual of Style and NC for Naming Conventions.
Go read BEANS then. Just because you /can/, doesn't mean you /should/.
Determining the official name of a country is not a matter for voting. It is a sure way of having facts overwhelmed by ignorance.
I'm surprised you don't know that WP policy IS to decide the location of an article by voting. It is done through requesting moves and voting on them. It is a standard procedure used throughout WP.
[[m:Voting is evil]].
From: wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Alphax
My understanding was that the Official Name in English, /as requested by the Government of Côte d'Ivoire/, was Côte d'Ivoire. Not "Ivory Coast". They changed their name to Côte d'Ivoire. End discussion. That's their name. Use it. Redirects are cheap.
Have "Ivory Coast" redirect to "Côte d'Ivoire" or vice versa. WP:BFD & WP:IAR apply in this case, and the only people who really care about how we spell the name are probably Ivory Côteians or those who care overmuch about consistency.
Putting your balls on the line over the spelling of the name of a country that couldn't field a decent baseball team strikes me as caring a bit too much.
Sort it out on the talk page, be civil, don't engage in endless revert or move wars, have a nice day.
Pete, blatant hypocrite
Peter Mackay wrote:
Putting your balls on the line over the spelling of the name of a country that couldn't field a decent baseball team strikes me as caring a bit too much.
It's hard to imagine what Aussie rules baseball would look like. :-)
Ec
"Tom Cadden" wrote
Absolutely not. It is a fact that an article is being kept in a location against the explicit rules in the MoS but a vote of users of one particular language, many of whom seem intent on putting their defence of that language above Wikipedia's own rules.
Are you familiar with the idea of 'consensus'?
The 'users' of a particular language - would that include anyone (like me), an anglophone who happens to have reasonably fluent French?
The trouble with the acrid tone of all this campaigning is three-fold:
- firstly, demonising anyone who happens to speak French is clearly going to be more damaging than any _conceivable_ gain;
- secondly if the CIA says CI and the Library of Congress IC/CI then there is probably something on both sides, but in no way justifying a 'steamroller' voting process which will not do any consensus-building (as a name CI -brackets-IC might);
- thirdly, this is all one of Ed Poor's maleducated mares-nests anyway, designed to split people along wacky doctrinaire lines.
Charles
On 11/14/05, Tom Cadden thomcadden@yahoo.ie wrote:
Absolutely not. It is a fact that an article is being kept in a location against the explicit rules in the MoS but a vote of users of one particular language, many of whom seem intent on putting their defence of that language above Wikipedia's own rules.
The rule is explicit. The way it should be enterpreted in this case is not. The most common English name should be used. Some people consider Côte d'Ivoire more common, some consider Ivory Coast more common. If you stopped seeing things as black-or-white, right-or-wrong, you might find this whole issue easier to deal with. Both are acceptable, and the amount of debate this *minor* issue has had is absurd.
Sam
Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote: The rule is explicit. The way it should be enterpreted in this case is not. The most common English name should be used. Some people consider Côte d'Ivoire more common, some consider Ivory Coast more common. If you stopped seeing things as black-or-white, right-or-wrong, you might find this whole issue easier to deal with. Both are acceptable, and the amount of debate this *minor* issue has had is absurd. Wrong. In world usage in English, a review of sources shows that Ivory Coast is used everywhere. Cote d'Ivoire is used occasionally, in most cases purely in diplomatic texts. It is a black and white issue. The MoS say to use the most common name by a mile is Ivory Coast. For example, the US uses Cote d'Ivoire more than most. A review of 20 sources - governmental, media, reportage, NGOs - put usage as 75:25 (75 Ivory Coast, 25 Cote d'Ivoire). And that is in English a highpoint of usage. Other states' usage is 100:0 Ivory Coast vs Cote d'Ivoire.
What is happening is perfectly simple. Some French language users wish to use a lesser known name as the article name, the version version, in breach of the MoS requirement that the most common name used by English users be used to keep a French name in preference to the actually more widely used name. It is the equivalent of if a lot of German speakers voted to ensure that the Germany page was at [[Deutchland]], if a lot of Italian speakers voted to put Italy at [[Italia]], or if Ulster Scots users speakers used their numbers to put Northern Ireland at [[Northinn Airlinn]].
Language should be irrelevant to the debate. Under the MoS the only criteria is ''most commonly used". Some users seem to be saying 'to tell with the MoS, lets push our language". That is an abuse of WP.
Thom
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I am forced to laugh that you reply to my email asking you not to talk in black and white with the sentence "Wrong." I am only asking you to have a litte more respect for the other users who differ in their opinion to you.
Also, don't fall into the trap of thinking that statistics prove your point. They don't. They support it.
In my opinion, Côte d'Ivoire is more common. In your opinion, Ivory Coast is more common. I respect your right to your opinion, and I don't label you "wrong" because I happen to differ.
I only ask you afford me the same courtesy.
Sam
On 11/14/05, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
In my opinion, Côte d'Ivoire is more common. In your opinion, Ivory Coast is more common. I respect your right to your opinion, and I don't label you "wrong" because I happen to differ.
You have the right to your own opinion. You do not have the right to your own facts. In this case every properly conducted survey has turned up ivory coast as more common.
-- geni
On 11/14/05, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
You have the right to your own opinion. You do not have the right to your own facts. In this case every properly conducted survey has turned up ivory coast as more common.
Yet more people trying to paint the world in black and white. All I asked for is to be allowed to state my opinion without being labelled "wrong" for it. There are some opinions which are wholly wrong, but they are few and far between, so I would request that all people have the courtesy to respect that, and, furthermore, _be polite_.
This mailing list has become (has always been?) a place where trolls come to announce their grievances. Thus it is always a place where civility sometimes doesn't reign supreme. That is no good reason for experienced and respected Wikipedians to forget civility and make this list a very unpleasant place to be indeed.
Sam
On 11/14/05, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/14/05, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
You have the right to your own opinion. You do not have the right to your own facts. In this case every properly conducted survey has turned up ivory coast as more common.
Yet more people trying to paint the world in black and white. All I asked for is to be allowed to state my opinion without being labelled "wrong" for it. There are some opinions which are wholly wrong, but they are few and far between, so I would request that all people have the courtesy to respect that, and, furthermore, _be polite_.
This mailing list has become (has always been?) a place where trolls come to announce their grievances. Thus it is always a place where civility sometimes doesn't reign supreme. That is no good reason for experienced and respected Wikipedians to forget civility and make this list a very unpleasant place to be indeed.
Sam
You appear to think that respecting you means that I have to respect your opinions. This is not the case.
-- geni
On 11/14/05, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
You appear to think that respecting you means that I have to respect your opinions. This is not the case.
Sometimes it pays to say "hmm, I disagree with that. Nevertheless, I can see where he/she/(insert appropriate pronoun here) is coming from, so I'll respect his/her/(ditto) opinion. Maybe that will make people more keen to respect mine."
If you want people to respect you, respect them. If you want people to respect your opinions, respect theirs.
Civility is not really that hard, and would make many people much happier.
Sam
From: wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Sam Korn Sent: Tuesday, 15 November 2005 09:59 To: English Wikipedia Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Tower of Babel - Voting to ignore MoS,NCs for language reasons.
On 11/14/05, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
You appear to think that respecting you means that I have
to respect
your opinions. This is not the case.
Sometimes it pays to say "hmm, I disagree with that. Nevertheless, I can see where he/she/(insert appropriate pronoun here) is coming from, so I'll respect his/her/(ditto) opinion. Maybe that will make people more keen to respect mine."
If you want people to respect you, respect them. If you want people to respect your opinions, respect theirs.
Civility is not really that hard, and would make many people much happier.
The more I learn of Wikipedia and the WP community, the more I think that true wisdom lies not in being "right", but in finding a way to gain consensus.
These sort of nit-picking skirmishes on minor details have the potential to brew up into major wars. This particular one looks like a prime candidate for WP:LAME. I honestly couldn't care which name is right. As an English speaker, I would have thought that Ivory Coast would be the name we'd use and Cote d'Ivoire the "local" name we'd use in the template. But there seem to be arguments for both usages, and I cannot say that I am (or want to be) an expert on the matter.
But, um, who really cares? From a usability point of view, readers seeking information on this quaint nation will get to the same article whichever name they type in. Isn't that the main thing?
Much to my bemusement, I see on the discussion page for the article that this dispute has been running for over a year, and the article retains its French name. Has anything changed recently to upset what is presumably enough of a consensus to see stability for twelve months or so?
However, so long as the discussion remains civil, *shrug*
Peter (Skyring)
Peter Mackay wrote:
Much to my bemusement, I see on the discussion page for the article that this dispute has been running for over a year, and the article retains its French name. Has anything changed recently to upset what is presumably enough of a consensus to see stability for twelve months or so?
The stability has been there for more than *three* years. At least it was in 2002 that I first remarked on it. All it takes is for one person to mount a determined campaign for a change, and the community is effectively up in arms.
Ec
On 11/14/05, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
If you want people to respect you, respect them. If you want people to respect your opinions, respect theirs.
That is not the reason I want people to respect my opinions. I want people to respect them because they are logical and firmly grounded in evidence. I respect people not because I want them to respect me back but because my system of ethics does not allow me to do otherwise.
-- geni
Oh for goodness' sake. This conversation does neither of us any credit. I wish you a good night.
Sam
On 11/14/05, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/14/05, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
If you want people to respect you, respect them. If you want people to respect your opinions, respect theirs.
That is not the reason I want people to respect my opinions. I want people to respect them because they are logical and firmly grounded in evidence. I respect people not because I want them to respect me back but because my system of ethics does not allow me to do otherwise.
-- geni _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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On 14/11/05, Tom Cadden thomcadden@yahoo.ie wrote:
Absolutely not. It is a fact that an article is being kept in a location against the explicit rules in the MoS but a vote of users of one particular language, many of whom seem intent on putting their defence of that language above Wikipedia's own rules.
...wait a second. Unless I misread that talk page, the majority of the voters on both sides are Anglophone - I recognise many of the names. I fail to see how this is "a vote of users of one particular language ... intent on their defence of that language". Unless that language is English, of course.
Unless I've become part of the grand Francophone conspiracy, along with a good number of native English speakers I recognise voting on there, it's hard to read this sort of complaint as anything but a bad-faith accusation and an attempt to circumvent a process to obtain consensus *which you yourself initiated*. If you will resort to voting, please have the common decency not to try and undermine it when you dislike what the community seems to be saying.
As Sam says below, this is an issue of interpretation of a clear and sensible rule which is, in this case, ambiguous. We had the same over Gdansk/Danzig, over Gasoline/Petrol, over Alumin(i)um, a score of other pages. I have no doubt that a sizable proportion of people on both sides of those disputes knew for a fact that they were right about their preferred usage being vastly more common, and quoted specific searches to prove it.
(History, of course, records that at least half of them must have been wrong.)
-- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
If someone entering either name gets to the right page, and if both names are bolded in the first line of the article, I'm not sure why it's so important which name is the official page name.
-Matt
On 11/14/05, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
I have no doubt that a sizable proportion of people on both sides of those disputes knew for a fact that they were right about their preferred usage being vastly more common, and quoted specific searches to prove it.
Yep. The world will not be a worse place, nor Wikipedia a worse encyclopedia, if it happens to have the article on Zurich at Zürich and the article on Ivory Coast at Cote d'Ivoire. While such choices seem utterly bizarre they are certainly not matters of great moment.
I do sometimes wonder where the process of abandonment of English proper names of places will lead us, but no doubt in time we would all become accustomed to referring to Cymru, Alba, Euskal Herria, Deutschland, España, Confoederatio Helvetica, Österreich, and all the rest--and some of us may even understand which country we're talking about.
Tony Sidaway wrote: <snip>
I do sometimes wonder where the process of abandonment of English proper names of places will lead us, but no doubt in time we would all become accustomed to referring to Cymru,
Wales
Alba,
Erm...
Euskal Herria,
Erm...
Deutschland,
Germany
España,
Spain
Confoederatio Helvetica,
Switzerland?
Österreich,
Austria
and all the rest--and some of us may even understand which country we're talking about.
And the rest can just smile and nod, and read the article while nobody's looking! Perfect! :)
On 11/15/05, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
Alba,
Erm...
Ken ye no the name o' Bonnie Scotland? Dinnae fash yersel', it's mostly teuchters use it.
Euskal Herria,
Erm...
Basque Country
Confoederatio Helvetica,
Switzerland?
Yes. Having four official local languages, they decided to choose a fifth, Latin, for the official name of their country.
On 15 Nov 2005, at 04:28, Tony Sidaway wrote:
Confoederatio Helvetica,
Switzerland?
Yes. Having four official local languages, they decided to choose a fifth, Latin, for the official name of their country.
They have been known to conduct business meetings in Latin there. A friend of mine went and as there was a mixed group it was suggested that they use Latin. Alas he didnt speak Latin.
Justinc
On 11/15/05, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
And the rest can just smile and nod, and read the article while nobody's looking! Perfect! :)
Trying to figure out what langage the interlang links will take you too can be a challange.
-- geni
On 15 Nov 2005, at 03:53, Tony Sidaway wrote:
I do sometimes wonder where the process of abandonment of English proper names of places will lead us, but no doubt in time we would all become accustomed to referring to Cymru, Alba, Euskal Herria, Deutschland, España, Confoederatio Helvetica, Österreich, and all the rest--and some of us may even understand which country we're talking about.
It seems to be a gradual trend. Leghorn redirects to Livorno but not that long ago it was the standard English version; its rather rare now.
Also there were a lot of changes post war, when German names were changed (Pressburg to Bratislava etc; we used to use the German names). And we have our entry under Mumbai. I think it is an inevitable trend; there is no reason now not to use local names and the world is becoming more internationalized.
There is still an issue as to when we change.
Justinc
Justin Cormack wrote
I think it is an inevitable trend; there is
no reason now not to use local names and the world is becoming more internationalized.
My question is, what makes WP look better (more professional, better-informed, that sort of thing)?
For example, Mumbai. English is an official language in India, no? So we can get the official English-language name by following the Indian government. This should be painless, and absolutely no reason to get bogged down in side issues.
Charles
charles matthews wrote:
Justin Cormack wrote
I think it is an inevitable trend; there is
no reason now not to use local names and the world is becoming more internationalized.
My question is, what makes WP look better (more professional, better-informed, that sort of thing)?
For example, Mumbai. English is an official language in India, no? So we can get the official English-language name by following the Indian government. This should be painless, and absolutely no reason to get bogged down in side issues.
*ring ring*
"Hello?"
"Hello Ivory Coast government person, what's the name of your country in English?"
"Côte d'Ivoire."
*click*
On 11/15/05, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
"Hello Ivory Coast government person, what's the name of your country in English?"
"Côte d'Ivoire."
*click*
India has a population of over 1 billion. English is quite widespread. As a result thier view of what the english language is quite significant. Ivory Coast has a population of ~17,300,000 and is francophone. As a result what they think doesn't matter much in terms of figureing out what name is most commmonly used for the country in english.
-- geni
geni wrote:
On 11/15/05, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
"Hello Ivory Coast government person, what's the name of your country in English?"
"Côte d'Ivoire."
*click*
India has a population of over 1 billion. English is quite widespread. As a result thier view of what the english language is quite significant. Ivory Coast has a population of ~17,300,000 and is francophone. As a result what they think doesn't matter much in terms of figureing out what name is most commmonly used for the country in english.
So are you suggesting that a bunch of backwards Africans should have no say in what happens in the world. The superior developed nations decided this already, and should not need to go over these debates again. If they weren't countries then, too bad! That sounds a lot like what passes as Wikipedia rule making.
Ec
On 11/17/05, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
So are you suggesting that a bunch of backwards Africans should have no say in what happens in the world. The superior developed nations decided this already, and should not need to go over these debates again. If they weren't countries then, too bad! That sounds a lot like what passes as Wikipedia rule making.
Ec
Ok that has to be serious contender for strawman of the year 2005.
-- geni
Tony Sidaway wrote:
On 11/14/05, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
I have no doubt that a sizable proportion of people on both sides of those disputes knew for a fact that they were right about their preferred usage being vastly more common, and quoted specific searches to prove it.
Yep. The world will not be a worse place, nor Wikipedia a worse encyclopedia, if it happens to have the article on Zurich at Zürich and the article on Ivory Coast at Cote d'Ivoire. While such choices seem utterly bizarre they are certainly not matters of great moment.
I do sometimes wonder where the process of abandonment of English proper names of places will lead us, but no doubt in time we would all become accustomed to referring to Cymru, Alba, Euskal Herria, Deutschland, España, Confoederatio Helvetica, Österreich, and all the rest--and some of us may even understand which country we're talking about.
I don't hear much complaining about the change away from the established English names of Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. When the news of last year's tsunami broke I had to pause to determine what this major affected city of Chennai was.
Ec
Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I don't hear much complaining about the change away from the established English names of Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. When the news of last year's tsunami broke I had to pause to determine what this major affected city of Chennai was.
You still don't get it. The only issue is 'is a name widely used in English?' Those names are now widely used. If Ivory Coast was ever to become widely known to English users as Cote d'Ivoire rather than Ivory Coast then the page under MoS rules would have to be put at Cote d'Ivoire not Ivory Coast. It all depends on usage, not personal opinion, government order or anything else. The language doesn't matter. If English users predominantly use the native language name, then the article goes in as native language name. If English users predominantly use the English variant, the the article goes in as the English variant.
All that matters under WP MoS is usage. It is not for WP to decide what should be used. It is simply WP's job to use what IS used. And if what is used changes, we change the page. It could not be more simple.
For years the town of Kells in Ireland (the Meath one. There are two) was officially known as ''Ceananas Mór". NOBODY ever used that name. I lived there and it was an open joke that barely 0.001% of the population used the official name. In fact the signs outside town were constantly stolen by people who wanted to have a copy of a sign to what most people regarded as a non-existent place. Under your concept of how naming works, the article would be put there even though even 0% of Irish people, let alone people internationally, would have recognised the name. In the end the town council got fed up with a name that was a national joke and returned it to Kells, in the process pissing off the 'Ceananas Mor' supporters, all three of them if the numbers attending the 'defend our name' march was anything to go by.
Thom
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On 11/18/05, Tom Cadden thomcadden@yahoo.ie wrote:
For years the town of Kells in Ireland (the Meath one. There are two) was officially known as ''Ceananas Mór". NOBODY ever used that name. I lived there and it was an open joke that barely 0.001% of the population used the official name.
Was that the official name in English?
Some places have a number of official names, an official name in their own language, and an official name in some other language.
-- Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com
Tom Cadden wrote:
For years the town of Kells in Ireland
Oh look at that, the article is at "Republic of Ireland" instead of just "Ireland", even though very few English speakers would ever rattle off the whole mouthful, and in fact would be far more likely to say "Irish Republic" if they were trying to distinguish the state. The article itself even says that "Republic of Ireland" is the less-commonly-used form. So by naming rules strictly applied, and keeping in mind the ambiguity with the island, it should be "Ireland (republic)" instead, the parenthesized appendage being the standard way to disambiguate.
There are simply some situations where mechanical rule application produces ridiculous results, and we need to be more intelligent about it.
Stan
-----Original Message----- From: wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Tom Cadden
You still don't get it. The only issue is 'is a name widely used in English?' Those names are now widely used. If Ivory Coast was ever to become widely known to English users as Cote d'Ivoire rather than Ivory Coast...
I'm having difficulty with the notion that the name "Ivory Coast" could possibly be described as "widely used" or "widely known".
With a straight face, that is.
Peter (Skyring)
Peter Mackay wrote:
I'm having difficulty with the notion that the name "Ivory Coast" could possibly be described as "widely used" or "widely known".
With a straight face, that is.
Well, there are over 2,200 results on google news for "Ivory Coast". It may not be widely discussed in bar conversations, but anyone who's been reading the news has seen it come up quite a bit in the past few years.
I suspect next someone is going to argue that it's amateurish to have an article on "France" when the country's real name is "République française".
-Mark
From: wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Delirium Sent: Saturday, 19 November 2005 07:52 To: English Wikipedia Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Tower of Babel - Voting to ignore MoS, NCs for languagereasons.
Peter Mackay wrote:
I'm having difficulty with the notion that the name "Ivory
Coast" could
possibly be described as "widely used" or "widely known".
With a straight face, that is.
Well, there are over 2,200 results on google news for "Ivory Coast". It may not be widely discussed in bar conversations, but anyone who's been reading the news has seen it come up quite a bit in the past few years.
Do tell?
I reckon that anybody who really cares - about a dozen Wikipedians, apparently - should politely discuss the matter on the talk page and come to some sort of consensus. Whatever the result is, have one name redirect to the other, and whoever wants information on the country is going to be taken to the correct article whatever they type in.
Peter, who doesn't want this information, and wishes that the brainpower devoted to the matter could be directed more productively.
Delirium wrote:
Peter Mackay wrote:
I'm having difficulty with the notion that the name "Ivory Coast" could possibly be described as "widely used" or "widely known".
With a straight face, that is.
Well, there are over 2,200 results on google news for "Ivory Coast". It may not be widely discussed in bar conversations, but anyone who's been reading the news has seen it come up quite a bit in the past few years.
Ask 100 people on the street to name as many African countries as they can, and how many would include the Ivory Coast under either name?
Ec
Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote: Ask 100 people on the street to name as many African countries as they can, and how many would include the Ivory Coast under either name?
Ec Probably about 25. Almost all could name South Africa. Zimbabwe would be remembered because of constant news coverage of Mugabe. Ivory Coast (called the Ivory Coast) features in the European media once every 2-3 months, going by a review of news sites.
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Ray Saintonge wrote:
Ask 100 people on the street to name as many African countries as they can, and how many would include the Ivory Coast under either name?
I don't see how that's relevant. The relevant question is, of people who know of the country under some name, how many know it under one versus the other?
-Mark
From: wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Delirium Sent: Sunday, 20 November 2005 20:58
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Ask 100 people on the street to name as many African
countries as they
can, and how many would include the Ivory Coast under either name?
I don't see how that's relevant. The relevant question is, of people who know of the country under some name, how many know it under one versus the other?
It doesn't matter at all. With a redirect from the name we don't use, they'd still get the information they wanted.
Either name for the main article is fine by me. I'm happy to let those who really care about this battle it out on the talk page and reach a consensus, though it seems that this has already been achieved over a year ago.
Peter (Skyring)
On 11/18/05, Peter Mackay peter.mackay@bigpond.com wrote:
I'm having difficulty with the notion that the name "Ivory Coast" could possibly be described as "widely used" or "widely known".
With a straight face, that is.
As far as I'm aware, it's the most commonly used name of the country in the UK. The BBC uses it, Sky News, the Guardian, the Times, it's used in common speech and in local newspapers. You may want to argue that the French name is also common, and you may even find evidence to support your claim, but it really won't do to say that the name Ivory Coast is not widely known and used.
"Tony Sidaway" wrote
The BBC uses it
BBC World Service uses CI:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/worldservice/psims/ScheduleSDT.cgi?Pg=Co&Co...
so that's enough half-truths for the moment.
Charles
--- charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
"Tony Sidaway" wrote
The BBC uses it
BBC World Service uses CI:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/worldservice/psims/ScheduleSDT.cgi?Pg=Co&Co...
so that's enough half-truths for the moment.
Charles
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
note the search term and the result of the search:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?q=COTE+D%27IVOIRE&x=31&am...
On 11/19/05, charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
"Tony Sidaway" wrote
The BBC uses it
BBC World Service uses CI:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/worldservice/psims/ScheduleSDT.cgi?Pg=Co&Co...
so that's enough half-truths for the moment.
It looks like the BBC also uses "Ivory Coast": http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4448322.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/country_profiles/1043014.stm http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/world/country_guides/results.shtml?tt=TT005880 Carbonite
"Carbonite" wrote
It looks like the BBC also uses "Ivory Coast":
We know that. What I object to is the hammering away at ''BBC uses IC'' as if that is an argument. I'm not exactly surprised that the BBC uses both. WP is a 'World Service', just like the BBC's much-respected World Service is. Contrast the BBC's evident flexibility, with the deeply dim insistence that the English Wikipedia can never make exceptions to its own MoS. (I know there are bad arguments put forward on both sides.)
Charles
On 11/19/05, charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
"Tony Sidaway" wrote
The BBC uses it
BBC World Service uses CI:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/worldservice/psims/ScheduleSDT.cgi?Pg=Co&Co...
so that's enough half-truths for the moment.
Excuse me, Charles. I've never, ever claimed that Cote d'Ivoire was not also used as the name of the country by any part of the BBC, and I'm sorry if you thought I was claiming that. If you look more closely at my email you will see that I was simply addressing a false insinuation that the term "Ivory Coast" isn't also in common use.
I accept that the former term is sometimes used by some British sources.
Apologies if my contribution muddied the waters. It was intended solely to counter a blatant falsehood.
You write in another email: "What I object to is the hammering away at ''BBC uses IC'' as if that is an argument."
It's actually a pretty good argument against the false claim that was being advanced by one single person. I don't mistake that single person's false claims for the substance of the argument in favor of using the French name for the country instead of the English one.
From: wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Tony Sidaway
On 11/18/05, Peter Mackay peter.mackay@bigpond.com wrote:
I'm having difficulty with the notion that the name "Ivory Coast" could possibly be described as "widely used" or "widely known".
With a straight face, that is.
As far as I'm aware, it's the most commonly used name of the country in the UK. The BBC uses it, Sky News, the Guardian, the Times, it's used in common speech and in local newspapers. You may want to argue that the French name is also common, and you may even find evidence to support your claim, but it really won't do to say that the name Ivory Coast is not widely known and used.
The UK must care more about small nations. Here in Australia most people, when asked for information on the widely-known Ivory Coast, would go "Huh?", a few smartarses might suggest that it is some sort of resort for elephants, but only a few know that it is actually a landlocked Asian kingdom.
Seriously, I couldn't care what name is used, so long as the seeker after knowledge gets to the right article, and the question is resolved on the talk page with politeness and respect.
Peter (Skyring)
Peter Mackay wrote:
The UK must care more about small nations. Here in Australia most people, when asked for information on the widely-known Ivory Coast, would go "Huh?", a few smartarses might suggest that it is some sort of resort for elephants, but only a few know that it is actually a landlocked Asian kingdom.
Those few would be wrong, as it's actually in East Africa, on the coast.
Chris
On 21/11/05, Chris Jenkinson chris@starglade.org wrote:
Chris Jenkinson wrote:
Those few would be wrong, as it's actually in East Africa, on the coast.
I meant of course Western Africa.
Damn. And there I was wondering how to carry the joke further and explain you were all getting it confused with Nicaragua.
-- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
"Andrew Gray" wrote
I meant of course Western Africa.
Damn. And there I was wondering how to carry the joke further and explain you were all getting it confused with Nicaragua.
You must mean Rice Coast. Or The Saviour. Or Trinity and Tobago.
Charles
Anyone who played CM2 to a reasonable degree will have herd of the place and know it as Ivory coast. The reason is that one of the better players in the game came from there.
-- geni
charles matthews wrote:
"Andrew Gray" wrote
I meant of course Western Africa.
Damn. And there I was wondering how to carry the joke further and explain you were all getting it confused with Nicaragua.
At one time Nicaragua's Caribbean coast, with places like Bluefields which were colonized by the English, was known as the Mosquito Coast.
Ec
It appears the spam I keep deleting from the help desk uses ivory coast.
-- geni
On 11/17/05, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
When the news of last year's tsunami broke I had to pause to determine what this major affected city of Chennai was.
Quite.
Tom Cadden wrote:
--- Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Unlike many other French-speaking countries the official name for English purposes is the French one. See the member list for the United Nations at http://www.un.org/Overview/unmember.html This does not mean that other French speaking countries follow the same practice. The Central African Republic does not appear as République Centraficaine.
That is irrelevant. The official name of the Republic of Ireland is Poblacht na hÉireann. We do not use it.
Nor is the Irish language name a part of the English language list of UN members. (I can't remember for sure if "Eire" was ever on that list, but if it were that would be a valid argument for changing our entry.)
Maybe the US State Department is just following the UN lead on this. The proportion of newspapers and websites using the English name is irrelevant. The position of official Ivoirian sites is more influential.
The position of Ivoirian sites is irrelevant. This is not an Ivoirian encyclopædia but an English language one that does not write its articles to suit governments and official sites.
I didn't say simply "Ivoirian sites" but "official Ivoirian sites" such as the English language materials from their embassies.
Determining the official name of a country is not a matter for voting. That is a sure way of having facts overwhelmed by ignorance.
I'm surprised you don't know that WP policy IS to decide the location of an article by voting. It is done through requesting moves and voting on them. It is a standard procedure used throughout WP.
That only proves the point about voting being evil. With enough flunkies behind it any POV can prevail.
Ec
From: Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net
Even then the majority was queuing up to insist the French name be kept, no matter what. But a closer look showed that a large number of those voting to keep the French name were French speakers!
This is a racist slur for which you owe everyone an apology.
Can we ratchet down the rhetoric please? "Racist" has a meaning, let's not use it carelessly, or it will cease to have a meaning.
Jay.
People following this discussion might be interested in this proposal for a new naming convention:
[[Wikipedia:Naming conventions (countries)]] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_%28countries%29
-- Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com
The log is at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:CheckUser
Fred
On Nov 12, 2005, at 6:43 PM, M. Creidieki Crouch wrote:
Is there a publically available log showing which administrators have run checkuser checks on which users?
On 11/13/05, Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote:
The log is at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:CheckUser
Fred
I get the error special page does not exist message
-- geni
Maybe you have to have permission to view that page. I'll look into it more.
Fred
On Nov 12, 2005, at 7:53 PM, geni wrote:
On 11/13/05, Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote:
The log is at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:CheckUser
Fred
I get the error special page does not exist message
-- geni _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Fred Bauder wrote:
Maybe you have to have permission to view that page. I'll look into it more.
Fred
On Nov 12, 2005, at 7:53 PM, geni wrote:
On 11/13/05, Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote:
The log is at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:CheckUser
Fred
Fred,
As an editor with checkuser access, please do not forget to read the checkuser policy as well as the privacy policy before you start using the tool.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CheckUser_Policy http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Pricacy Policy
Both policies *should* be read by anyone having check user access.
(the first mention the log is only accessible to those with check user access).
ant
On 11/13/05, Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
(the first mention the log is only accessible to those with check user access).
ant
I thought that was Fred's point: users with CheckUser rights are supposed to monitor each other. Admittedly he might have phrased it more clearly (other above messages bear this out), but the point he was making is a valid one and is vital to the privacy policy.
Sam
A log is kept of who has made which queries with the tool. This log is available to those with the checkuser permission:
From
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposed_CheckUser_Policy
Sorry for the confusion. I believe the log is confidential to protect privacy of users. I am not sure what alternatives were considered.
Fred
On Nov 12, 2005, at 7:53 PM, geni wrote:
On 11/13/05, Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote:
The log is at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:CheckUser
Fred
I get the error special page does not exist message
-- geni _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 11/12/05, Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote:
The log is at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:CheckUser
Fred
Fred, that page is only visible to people who have CheckUser rights.
Kelly
Seeing as there hasn't been much public discussion on this (at least on the English-language Wikipedia) I thought it would be a good idea to let you all know that Raul654, Fred Bauder, Kelly Martin, The Epopt and Jayjg have all been granted access to the checkuser tool[1] (the tool which allows for checking of sockpuppets by giving access to IP addresses, including those of signed-in Wikipedians).
My cents: I think this whole checkuser shit is totally re-tarded. It's a grave violation of privacy. I have accounts on Wikipedia only because I care about my anonymousity (otherwise I would edit as an "anon"). I do NOT wan't someone to connect my contributions to my identity. Especially not someone I don't know and who identifies itself with a random and totally meaningless userid!
Dumb dumb dumb. Stupid stupid stupid.
-- mvh Björn
On 11/13/05, BJörn Lindqvist bjourne@gmail.com wrote:
My cents: I think this whole checkuser shit is totally re-tarded. It's a grave violation of privacy. I have accounts on Wikipedia only because I care about my anonymousity (otherwise I would edit as an "anon"). I do NOT wan't someone to connect my contributions to my identity. Especially not someone I don't know and who identifies itself with a random and totally meaningless userid!
Dumb dumb dumb. Stupid stupid stupid.
There are times when it is very useful to know if two or more accounts come from the same ip. There are also times when we need to know which ISP to send complaints to. -- geni
On 11/13/05, BJörn Lindqvist bjourne@gmail.com wrote:
My cents: I think this whole checkuser shit is totally re-tarded. It's a grave violation of privacy. I have accounts on Wikipedia only because I care about my anonymousity (otherwise I would edit as an "anon"). I do NOT wan't someone to connect my contributions to my identity. Especially not someone I don't know and who identifies itself with a random and totally meaningless userid!
Dumb dumb dumb. Stupid stupid stupid.
That is why it is only being used by a trusted set of users and only under strict terms. The developers have always had the ability to see your IP. The ArbCom needs it to check for sock puppets.
-- mav
__________________________________ Yahoo! FareChase: Search multiple travel sites in one click. http://farechase.yahoo.com
I think its the question of 'who's definition' of "trusted members" that people have a problem with.
Being a Wikipedian for at least a year might be a good idea.
SV
--- Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
On 11/13/05, BJörn Lindqvist bjourne@gmail.com wrote:
My cents: I think this whole checkuser shit is
totally re-tarded. It's
a grave violation of privacy. I have accounts on
Wikipedia only
because I care about my anonymousity (otherwise I
would edit as an
"anon"). I do NOT wan't someone to connect my
contributions to my
identity. Especially not someone I don't know and
who identifies
itself with a random and totally meaningless
userid!
Dumb dumb dumb. Stupid stupid stupid.
That is why it is only being used by a trusted set of users and only under strict terms. The developers have always had the ability to see your IP. The ArbCom needs it to check for sock puppets.
-- mav
__________________________________ Yahoo! FareChase: Search multiple travel sites in one click. http://farechase.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
__________________________________ Yahoo! FareChase: Search multiple travel sites in one click. http://farechase.yahoo.com
PS: Not to single anyone out.
AIUI the check-logs, ie. the who checked what about who logs are public, no? If not, certainly a list could be sanitized of IPs for public posting.
SV
--- steve v vertigosteve@yahoo.com wrote:
I think its the question of 'who's definition' of "trusted members" that people have a problem with.
Being a Wikipedian for at least a year might be a good idea.
SV
--- Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
On 11/13/05, BJörn Lindqvist bjourne@gmail.com wrote:
My cents: I think this whole checkuser shit is
totally re-tarded. It's
a grave violation of privacy. I have accounts on
Wikipedia only
because I care about my anonymousity (otherwise
I
would edit as an
"anon"). I do NOT wan't someone to connect my
contributions to my
identity. Especially not someone I don't know
and
who identifies
itself with a random and totally meaningless
userid!
Dumb dumb dumb. Stupid stupid stupid.
That is why it is only being used by a trusted set of users and only under strict terms. The developers have always had the ability to see your IP. The ArbCom needs it to check for sock puppets.
-- mav
__________________________________ Yahoo! FareChase: Search multiple travel sites in one click. http://farechase.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
__________________________________ Yahoo! FareChase: Search multiple travel sites in one click. http://farechase.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
__________________________________ Yahoo! FareChase: Search multiple travel sites in one click. http://farechase.yahoo.com
On 11/13/05, Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
On 11/13/05, BJörn Lindqvist bjourne@gmail.com wrote:
My cents: I think this whole checkuser shit is totally re-tarded. It's a grave violation of privacy. I have accounts on Wikipedia only because I care about my anonymousity (otherwise I would edit as an "anon"). I do NOT wan't someone to connect my contributions to my identity. Especially not someone I don't know and who identifies itself with a random and totally meaningless userid!
Dumb dumb dumb. Stupid stupid stupid.
That is why it is only being used by a trusted set of users and only under strict terms. The developers have always had the ability to see your IP. The ArbCom needs it to check for sock puppets.
The rules will be bent. Admins will use the checkuser tool for smaller and smaller infractions until it becomes in reality practically no restriction whatsoever in using the tool. It's the same thing with bans. And this may be a potshot: But I remember a certain person on this mailing list some years ago outing a user called "EofT" by publishing his real life name. It makes me think that people do not respect other peoples privacy and that similar things will happen more frequently in the future thanks to checkuser...
And the stupidest thing of all is that there is absolutely no technical need to expose peoples IP addressess at all.
-- mvh Björn
On 11/13/05, BJörn Lindqvist bjourne@gmail.com wrote:
And the stupidest thing of all is that there is absolutely no technical need to expose peoples IP addressess at all.
I don't believe there are any plans to. This is all to deal with users who abuse sockpuppets. Hence it has only been granted to ArbCom users, and those who can use it at that. The only time I can imagine when a user might have their IP address identified would be if they used their IP address without signing in to make an edit. This appears to me to be consenting to have their IP address exposed.
However, I agree that to allow this tool to all admins (or some other wide-ranging group that has nothing to do with dispute resolution) is foolish and should be avoided.
Sam
Perhaps you could explain. So far, and I'm just learning, once you have the ip address you can then see where it is coming from and sometimes whether it is a fixed or dynamic address. Blocking of dynamic addresses is not good. You can also get an address to complain to, assuming the problem is serious enough to justify that.
Fred
On Nov 13, 2005, at 7:36 AM, BJörn Lindqvist wrote:
And the stupidest thing of all is that there is absolutely no technical need to expose peoples IP addressess at all.
Perhaps you could explain. So far, and I'm just learning, once you have the ip address you can then see where it is coming from and sometimes whether it is a fixed or dynamic address. Blocking of dynamic addresses is not good. You can also get an address to complain to, assuming the problem is serious enough to justify that.
Thank you Fred. I'll try to explain but it's technical:
Currently, when an "anon" user edits an article, MediaWiki adds something like this to a row in a MySQL database:
id: 1234567 userid: "34.19.215.33" article: "Egypt" change: <a diff between the new and old version> tstamp: 20051113180645
When an edit is committed, MediaWiki checks if the user that made the change has an account or not. If the user has an account it fills in the userid field with that persons choosen alias. If not it checks the IP number of the person and uses that as the userid. The solution to the problem of exposing IP:s is to proxy them via an proxy-to-IP mapping which looks something like this:
"anon1" => "34.19.215.33" "anon2" => "179.55.66.77" "anon3" => "215.108.3.2" ....
Each time an edit is comitted from an unknown IP address a new proxy-to-ip-pair is added to the mapping. MediaWiki could then simply look in the mapping for the proxy which has a certain IP. In the example above, the proxy would be "anon1". And the "userid" field in the row would contain "anon1" instead of "34.19.215.33". Preferably only a few key developers and the MediaWiki software should be allowed access to the proxy-to-IP mapping.
Checkuser would still work, but instead of returning an IP as a result could return "user: [[foobar]], [[barfoo]] and [[anon9512]] shares an IP address." Etc. There are technical solutions.
-- mvh Björn
On 11/13/05, BJörn Lindqvist bjourne@gmail.com wrote:
Each time an edit is comitted from an unknown IP address a new proxy-to-ip-pair is added to the mapping. MediaWiki could then simply look in the mapping for the proxy which has a certain IP. In the example above, the proxy would be "anon1". And the "userid" field in the row would contain "anon1" instead of "34.19.215.33". Preferably only a few key developers and the MediaWiki software should be allowed access to the proxy-to-IP mapping.
Checkuser would still work, but instead of returning an IP as a result could return "user: [[foobar]], [[barfoo]] and [[anon9512]] shares an IP address." Etc. There are technical solutions.
This would be largely useless. A lot of the time, we're dealing with people on dynamic dialup ranges that change frequently. We use checkuser for more than just identifying that person X and person Y have used the same IP address. One case I looked at yesterday involved a credible allegation of sockpuppetry where the two users had no actual overlapping IPs but were likely (but not convincingly) the same person because, amongst other evidence, I could tell that they used the same ISP and lived in the same city. (Other compelling evidence is that the first editor's edits end before the second's start, with about one hour from last edit of the first to first of the second, that the first editor was banned, and editing time of day patterns for both editors). Your "solution" would have hidden the ISP information from me.
Kelly
On 13/11/05, BJörn Lindqvist bjourne@gmail.com wrote:
Each time an edit is comitted from an unknown IP address a new proxy-to-ip-pair is added to the mapping. MediaWiki could then simply look in the mapping for the proxy which has a certain IP. In the example above, the proxy would be "anon1". And the "userid" field in the row would contain "anon1" instead of "34.19.215.33". Preferably only a few key developers and the MediaWiki software should be allowed access to the proxy-to-IP mapping.
Hmm. Let's cut this down to a more day-to-day level.
Some anonymous user has vandalised a page I watch. I rollback, but do I warn them or not? If they're on an AOL proxy, or coming through an obvious webcache - my research suggests this is 10-20% of our users - I won't; they probably won't see it, but *someone* will, and it'll just cause more confusion and get people annoyed with the project. Nor is there much point in blocking them except if they're systematically attacking a single page (since they seem to retain the same IP here, for some reason).
We regularly have people contacting this list to ask for a block to be lifted because an administrator accidentally blocked a college of fifteen thousand people, or an ISP serving half of Chicago, or the proxy server for all of Dubai, or something. Imagine how much more common this would be where admins weren't ever able to do a quick "whois 34.19.215.33" to check on who they were actually blocking.
-- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
There are times when it is very useful to know if two or more accounts come from the same ip. There are also times when we need to know which ISP to send complaints to.
Well, obviously it is. However hat usefulness is not more important than protecting the privacy of our contributors.
-- mvh Björn
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BJörn Lindqvist stated for the record:
My cents: I think this whole checkuser shit is totally re-tarded. It's a grave violation of privacy. I have accounts on Wikipedia only because I care about my anonymousity (otherwise I would edit as an "anon"). I do NOT wan't someone to connect my contributions to my identity. Especially not someone I don't know and who identifies itself with a random and totally meaningless userid!
No one with CheckUser privileges has a "random and totally meaningless userid." If you want to point to a specific individual, please don't be disingenuous about it.
Dumb dumb dumb. Stupid stupid stupid.
I agree completely.
- -- Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.org
No one with CheckUser privileges has a "random and totally meaningless userid." If you want to point to a specific individual, please don't be disingenuous about it.
Then maybe you can tell me where there Arbitration Committe's real life names are? It surely isn't on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee where I would have expected it.
-- mvh Björn
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BJörn Lindqvist stated for the record:
No one with CheckUser privileges has a "random and totally meaningless userid." If you want to point to a specific individual, please don't be disingenuous about it.
Then maybe you can tell me where there Arbitration Committe's real life names are? It surely isn't on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee where I would have expected it.
You didn't look very hard, did you? Or have you determined that "Sean Barrett" is a "random and totally meaningless userid" and not a "real life name," just like "Fred Bauder," "James Forrester," and all the rest of those terribly clever aliases we use?
- -- Sean Barrett | For days, we survived on sean@epoptic.org | nothing but food and water.
On 11/13/05, Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.org wrote:
You didn't look very hard, did you? Or have you determined that "Sean Barrett" is a "random and totally meaningless userid" and not a "real life name," just like "Fred Bauder," "James Forrester," and all the rest of those terribly clever aliases we use?
I am going to guess that you are all more identifiable than those examining the server logs at Google, who could also release your IP if they saw fit.
Sam
Sam Korn wrote:
On 11/13/05, Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.org wrote:
You didn't look very hard, did you? Or have you determined that "Sean Barrett" is a "random and totally meaningless userid" and not a "real life name," just like "Fred Bauder," "James Forrester," and all the rest of those terribly clever aliases we use?
I am going to guess that you are all more identifiable than those examining the server logs at Google, who could also release your IP if they saw fit.
And given that Google stores indefinite preference cookies, all the searches you've ever done with them too...
Most of the Arbitration Committee give their real names on that page. Did you actually look at it?
Kelly
On 11/13/05, BJörn Lindqvist bjourne@gmail.com wrote:
No one with CheckUser privileges has a "random and totally meaningless userid." If you want to point to a specific individual, please don't be disingenuous about it.
Then maybe you can tell me where there Arbitration Committe's real life names are? It surely isn't on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee where I would have expected it.
-- mvh Björn _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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Kelly Martin stated for the record:
Most of the Arbitration Committee give their real names on that page. Did you actually look at it?
Kelly
Oh, come on. Did you seriously expect to fool anyone with that ridiculous alias, "Kelly"?
By the way, I don't think I've personally welcomed you to the cabal -- I hope you can stay for a while.
Welcome! Here's your mop; try not to get any on your shoes.
- -- Sean Barrett | For days, we survived on sean@epoptic.org | nothing but food and water.
Most of the Arbitration Committee give their real names on that page. Did you actually look at it?
Did you? I note that atleast three users present themselves without real life labels. Not that I blame them, neither would I have my full name published on a Wikipedia page. It's slightly hypocritical though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee
-- mvh Björn
It is unclear to me how user IP-hiding furthers the goal of writing an encyclopedia. Denying Arbitration Committee members the ability to check a user's IP seems to be imposing inefficiency on an over-burdened community resource. That this is an issue is confusing to me.
Jkelly
Quoting BJörn Lindqvist bjourne@gmail.com:
My cents: I think this whole checkuser shit is totally re-tarded. It's a grave violation of privacy. I have accounts on Wikipedia only because I care about my anonymousity (otherwise I would edit as an "anon"). I do NOT wan't someone to connect my contributions to my identity. Especially not someone I don't know and who identifies itself with a random and totally meaningless userid!
Dumb dumb dumb. Stupid stupid stupid.
BJörn Lindqvist wrote:
Seeing as there hasn't been much public discussion on this (at least on the English-language Wikipedia) I thought it would be a good idea to let you all know that Raul654, Fred Bauder, Kelly Martin, The Epopt and Jayjg have all been granted access to the checkuser tool[1] (the tool which allows for checking of sockpuppets by giving access to IP addresses, including those of signed-in Wikipedians).
My cents: I think this whole checkuser shit is totally re-tarded. It's a grave violation of privacy. I have accounts on Wikipedia only because I care about my anonymousity (otherwise I would edit as an "anon"). I do NOT wan't someone to connect my contributions to my identity. Especially not someone I don't know and who identifies itself with a random and totally meaningless userid!
Dumb dumb dumb. Stupid stupid stupid.
-- mvh Björn
Hi Björn,
Checks should be done only on accounts doing abusive edits to Wikipedia (vandalism, insults, spam, defaming etc...)
If checks are done without any relevant reasons related to abuse, then those checks are abusive and the person with the checkuser access should (will) lose it.
The other point is "if you have 3 accounts and do nothing abusive with these three accounts, and if for some mysterious reason an editor with check user access publicly indicates these three accounts are owned by only one person", then, providing the information is abusive and the person with checkuser access should (will) lose it.
Note that what is "abusive" in having several accounts may vary depending on wikis. Generally, getting involved in an edit war under several names is abusive. Generally, voting several times under different accounts is abusive. However, using one identity to edit articles in history and another to edit articles related to sex is not seen as abusive.
Ant
Hi Anthere
Checks should be done only on accounts doing abusive edits to Wikipedia (vandalism, insults, spam, defaming etc...) If checks are done without any relevant reasons related to abuse, then those checks are abusive and the person with the checkuser access should (will) lose it.
Just like admins wrongfully blocking accounts are also supposed to have their admin status revoked? Please realize that the two actions have very different worst cases.
Blocking: Worst case: You do not get to write in Wikipedia for a while.
IP Checking: Worst case: Someone who doesn't like you get your ip checked, calls your ISP and talks with a clueless receptionist who reveals your real life name. That person then publishes your name somewhere. Your boss who happens to also be a Wikipedia user finds out about it and fires you because s/he think your political stuff you've written on Wikipedia suck. So some brat on WIkipedia cost you your employment.
You don't even need to be an ArbCom member to do that. Let's say a veteran editor like Ed Poor asks for an ip check. Will an ArbCom member oblige? Yes, because Ed Poor is trusted. So your only job is to convince Ed Poor to ask for an ip check. For more details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_hacking With the checkuser tool it becomes so much easier.
If you have ever met a political refugee, you know that they often are very careful not to talk politics with persons they don't know. Especially not with strangers from their own home country. The reason is that they fear secret agents from their home country. Often this fear is unfounded paranoia (there aren't THAT many secret agents in the world), sometimes it is not. Their worst case checkuser scenario is even worse than the worst case scenario I described two paragraphs above.
That's why I hate the checkuser shit - (mis)uses of the tool can have very detrimental real-life effects on real-life persons. Something that nothing other on the silly text game Wikipedia can have.
-- mvh Björn
BJörn Lindqvist wrote:
Hi Anthere
Checks should be done only on accounts doing abusive edits to Wikipedia (vandalism, insults, spam, defaming etc...)
If checks are done without any relevant reasons related to abuse, then
those checks are abusive and the person with the checkuser access should (will) lose it.
Just like admins wrongfully blocking accounts are also supposed to have their admin status revoked? Please realize that the two actions have very different worst cases.
Blocking: Worst case: You do not get to write in Wikipedia for a while.
IP Checking: Worst case: Someone who doesn't like you get your ip checked, calls your ISP and talks with a clueless receptionist who reveals your real life name. That person then publishes your name somewhere. Your boss who happens to also be a Wikipedia user finds out about it and fires you because s/he think your political stuff you've written on Wikipedia suck. So some brat on WIkipedia cost you your employment.
Given the severe lack of static IPs that still exist, and the number of ISPs who now pool subscribers together into regional proxies, an IP is no longer the "personal" thing that it might once have been.
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BJörn Lindqvist stated for the record:
IP Checking: Worst case: Someone who doesn't like you get your ip checked, calls your ISP and talks with a clueless receptionist who reveals your real life name. That person then publishes your name somewhere. Your boss who happens to also be a Wikipedia user finds out about it and fires you because s/he think your political stuff you've written on Wikipedia suck. So some brat on WIkipedia cost you your employment.
How very theatrical. Notice that it took three evil people to cost "you" "your" (ooo, my very own personalized strawman!) job:
#1: the evil CheckUser user who went far beyond "yes, they match" or "no, they don't," (which, as you know, is all we ever do)
#2: the evil (and amazingly knowledgeable) receptionist
#3: the evil boss (are there no labor laws in your country?)
Not one of these villains is at all hesitant about heinously violating the terms and laws governing their roles.
That's a scary world you live in, Björn. That, of course, makes you a better person than me. More wise and more sensitive.
You don't even need to be an ArbCom member to do that. Let's say a veteran editor like Ed Poor asks for an ip check. Will an ArbCom member oblige? Yes, because Ed Poor is trusted. So your only job is to convince Ed Poor to ask for an ip check.
You, of course, have indisputable evidence showing the willingness of each and every one of us to bend over any time Ed Poor gets an urge. There's no way that you could be just making this up out of your febrile imagination.
For more details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_hacking With the checkuser tool it becomes so much easier.
If you have ever met a political refugee, you know that they often are very careful not to talk politics with persons they don't know.
Oh, very nice escalation there! We now see that CheckUser is a tool of political oppression, if we're allowed to use it, people will be getting shot in the back of the head down in the basement of the Wikipedia server farm!
Especially not with strangers from their own home country. The reason is that they fear secret agents from their home country. Often this fear is unfounded paranoia (there aren't THAT many secret agents in the world), sometimes it is not. Their worst case checkuser scenario is even worse than the worst case scenario I described two paragraphs above.
That's why I hate the checkuser shit - (mis)uses of the tool can have very detrimental real-life effects on real-life persons. Something that nothing other on the silly text game Wikipedia can have.
Well, Björn, I have to recommend that you take this matter up with someone who can actually do something about it. The ArbComm has had the tool for some time now, and will continue to use it. Writing to the mailing list won't help -- it's been too useful so far, and we're not going to give it up, even if you manage to build some sort of ground swell of emotion against it. The Board won't help -- they've agreed to let us use the tool. You might try Jimbo, but I doubt he'll overrule the ArbComm and the Board.
If you're serious about your concerns, you'll probably need to contact external authorities and tell them that the administrators of a Web site you like to use are recording your IP address for their internal monitoring and maintenance of the site.
-- mvh Björn
I'm done with this conversation. Over to you for the last word....
- -- Sean Barrett | For days, we survived on sean@epoptic.org | nothing but food and water.
This is exactly the sort of attitude that horrifies me. People who speak like this should have no power whatsoever:
The ArbComm has had the tool for some time now, and will continue to use it. Writing to the mailing list won't help -- it's been too useful so far, and we're not going to give it up, even if you manage to build some sort of ground swell of emotion against it. The Board won't help -- they've agreed to let us use the tool. You might try Jimbo, but I doubt he'll overrule the ArbComm and the Board.
Thats a despicable attitude, particularly in response to concerns of this gravity.
Jack (Sam Spade)
On 11/13/05, Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.org wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
BJörn Lindqvist stated for the record:
IP Checking: Worst case: Someone who doesn't like you get your ip checked, calls your ISP and talks with a clueless receptionist who reveals your real life name. That person then publishes your name somewhere. Your boss who happens to also be a Wikipedia user finds out about it and fires you because s/he think your political stuff you've written on Wikipedia suck. So some brat on WIkipedia cost you your employment.
How very theatrical. Notice that it took three evil people to cost "you" "your" (ooo, my very own personalized strawman!) job:
#1: the evil CheckUser user who went far beyond "yes, they match" or "no, they don't," (which, as you know, is all we ever do)
#2: the evil (and amazingly knowledgeable) receptionist
#3: the evil boss (are there no labor laws in your country?)
Not one of these villains is at all hesitant about heinously violating the terms and laws governing their roles.
That's a scary world you live in, Björn. That, of course, makes you a better person than me. More wise and more sensitive.
You don't even need to be an ArbCom member to do that. Let's say a veteran editor like Ed Poor asks for an ip check. Will an ArbCom member oblige? Yes, because Ed Poor is trusted. So your only job is to convince Ed Poor to ask for an ip check.
You, of course, have indisputable evidence showing the willingness of each and every one of us to bend over any time Ed Poor gets an urge. There's no way that you could be just making this up out of your febrile imagination.
For more details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_hacking With the checkuser tool it becomes so much easier.
If you have ever met a political refugee, you know that they often are very careful not to talk politics with persons they don't know.
Oh, very nice escalation there! We now see that CheckUser is a tool of political oppression, if we're allowed to use it, people will be getting shot in the back of the head down in the basement of the Wikipedia server farm!
Especially not with strangers from their own home country. The reason is that they fear secret agents from their home country. Often this fear is unfounded paranoia (there aren't THAT many secret agents in the world), sometimes it is not. Their worst case checkuser scenario is even worse than the worst case scenario I described two paragraphs above.
That's why I hate the checkuser shit - (mis)uses of the tool can have very detrimental real-life effects on real-life persons. Something that nothing other on the silly text game Wikipedia can have.
Well, Björn, I have to recommend that you take this matter up with someone who can actually do something about it. The ArbComm has had the tool for some time now, and will continue to use it. Writing to the mailing list won't help -- it's been too useful so far, and we're not going to give it up, even if you manage to build some sort of ground swell of emotion against it. The Board won't help -- they've agreed to let us use the tool. You might try Jimbo, but I doubt he'll overrule the ArbComm and the Board.
If you're serious about your concerns, you'll probably need to contact external authorities and tell them that the administrators of a Web site you like to use are recording your IP address for their internal monitoring and maintenance of the site.
-- mvh Björn
I'm done with this conversation. Over to you for the last word....
Sean Barrett | For days, we survived on sean@epoptic.org | nothing but food and water. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
iD8DBQFDd2A1MAt1wyd9d+URAgTJAJ9ZWmy8c4TkJgWjE48PxPWde3e4WACfT3Na in2hxv5t7NNBc+GohKtPHtk= =q6r7 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 11/13/05, Jack Lynch jack.i.lynch@gmail.com wrote:
This is exactly the sort of attitude that horrifies me. People who speak like this should have no power whatsoever:
What, realists?
Sam
mvh Björn
I'm done with this conversation. Over to you for the last word....
Sigh. There is no reason to act like a jerkass. These fears and concerns I've described are very real and existing. Whether they are based in reality or not. It is disgraceful of you and all other involved in this debacle not to acknowledge that.
-- mvh Björn
His concerns certainly hit home with me. So I'm listening to him and taking seriously the kind of damage that can occur.
Fred
On Nov 13, 2005, at 8:48 AM, Sean Barrett wrote:
For more details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_hacking With the checkuser tool it becomes so much easier.
If you have ever met a political refugee, you know that they often are very careful not to talk politics with persons they don't know.
Oh, very nice escalation there! We now see that CheckUser is a tool of political oppression, if we're allowed to use it, people will be getting shot in the back of the head down in the basement of the Wikipedia server farm!
My concern is that the ArbCom is kind of in flux, w no clear future. We have no way of knowing who will be appointed, or how. We can be pretty sure that Jimbo, one of the wikipedians least involved in editing, will be personally selection some arbiters at some times, as he has done recently.
The concerns regarding his recent appointees may or may not be valid, but I think this was_not_the_time to be giving out such powers w/o community approval. We can trust developers w these abilities, because we have to. We don't have to trust all arbiters, all the time, forever, w these sort of real world powers.
Jack (Sam Spade)
On 11/13/05, Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote:
His concerns certainly hit home with me. So I'm listening to him and taking seriously the kind of damage that can occur.
Fred
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Fred Bauder stated for the record:
His concerns certainly hit home with me. So I'm listening to him and taking seriously the kind of damage that can occur.
Fred
In my other hobby, I administer a huge database of information a good deal more personal than IP addresses.
For my income, I am a manager of a secure military network, compromise of which would be ... bad.
I have a fair understanding of privacy and security issues.
- -- Sean Barrett | For days, we survived on sean@epoptic.org | nothing but food and water.
On 11/13/05, Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.org wrote:
For my income, I am a manager of a secure military network, compromise of which would be ... bad.
I have a fair understanding of privacy and security issues.
Since we're discussing qualifications: I am the network manager for a financial services firm; systems under my supervision store personal and financial information for our clients and business partners. Privacy and security issues are obviously a significant part of my job.
Kelly
Kelly Martin wrote:
Since we're discussing qualifications: I am the network manager for a financial services firm; systems under my supervision store personal and financial information for our clients and business partners. Privacy and security issues are obviously a significant part of my job.
What would happen if either of you (Kelly or Sean) disclosed private information into the public domain? Aside from ethical concerns, what prevents you from doing this?
Chris
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Chris Jenkinson stated for the record:
What would happen if either of you (Kelly or Sean) disclosed private information into the public domain? Aside from ethical concerns, what prevents you from doing this?
Chris
I would go to prison. The [[United States Navy]] doesn't like people who disclose [[classified information]].
- -- Sean Barrett | For days, we survived on sean@epoptic.org | nothing but food and water.
On 11/13/05, Chris Jenkinson chris@starglade.org wrote:
What would happen if either of you (Kelly or Sean) disclosed private information into the public domain? Aside from ethical concerns, what prevents you from doing this?
At work or on Wikipedia?
At work, I would risk being fired, sued, and possibly prosecuted.
On Wikipedia? It would be wrong. It would also be breaking several promises I've made.
Kelly
Kelly Martin wrote:
On 11/13/05, Chris Jenkinson chris@starglade.org wrote:
What would happen if either of you (Kelly or Sean) disclosed private information into the public domain? Aside from ethical concerns, what prevents you from doing this?
At work or on Wikipedia?
At work, I would risk being fired, sued, and possibly prosecuted.
On Wikipedia? It would be wrong. It would also be breaking several promises I've made.
As both of you would face legal recourse if you were to divulge private information in your day jobs, what do you think the opposition to having a comparable legal agreement between the Foundation and people with checkuser is due to, given that the situation is reasonably similar?
Chris
On 11/13/05, Chris Jenkinson chris@starglade.org wrote:
As both of you would face legal recourse if you were to divulge private information in your day jobs, what do you think the opposition to having a comparable legal agreement between the Foundation and people with checkuser is due to, given that the situation is reasonably similar?
Well, I'm not being paid by the Foundation; I'm not inclined to accept significant liability without receiving significant benefit in exchange. In that respect, the situation is not "reasonably similar".
Kelly
On 11/13/05, Chris Jenkinson chris@starglade.org wrote:
As both of you would face legal recourse if you were to divulge private information in your day jobs, what do you think the opposition to having a comparable legal agreement between the Foundation and people with checkuser is due to, given that the situation is reasonably similar?
If I were in their situation: the volunteer relationship.
If you're not paying me, then you get my word and the law. If those aren't sufficient, make me an employee and pay me.
IMO, such a legal agreement would be part of an employment contract and would require compensation. Legally, a contract requires compensation anyway.
I suspect the Wikimedia Foundation does not want such a legal relationship anyway.
-Matt
I personally am perfectly willing to pay a fee for expert adminship. Have you seen the recent fund-drives? I've never donated money (just time) to the wikipedia, but I would for paid admins I could trust.
Jack (Sam Spade)
On 11/13/05, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/13/05, Chris Jenkinson chris@starglade.org wrote:
As both of you would face legal recourse if you were to divulge private information in your day jobs, what do you think the opposition to having a comparable legal agreement between the Foundation and people with checkuser is due to, given that the situation is reasonably similar?
If I were in their situation: the volunteer relationship.
If you're not paying me, then you get my word and the law. If those aren't sufficient, make me an employee and pay me.
IMO, such a legal agreement would be part of an employment contract and would require compensation. Legally, a contract requires compensation anyway.
I suspect the Wikimedia Foundation does not want such a legal relationship anyway.
-Matt _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 11/13/05, Jack Lynch jack.i.lynch@gmail.com wrote:
I personally am perfectly willing to pay a fee for expert adminship. Have you seen the recent fund-drives? I've never donated money (just time) to the wikipedia, but I would for paid admins I could trust.
Jack (Sam Spade)
Our past history on that front has been less than ideal. Anyway where are you going to get these expert admins from?
-- geni
Assumably from advertised applications, like any other paid position?
As far as the past, I would have preferred if Larry Sanger had stayed on, and in general that wikipedia had kept up w paid staffing. I saw from the recent budget that this idea is being returned to. Thats a good thing. Successful charities have paid staff.
Jack (Sam Spade)
On 11/13/05, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/13/05, Jack Lynch jack.i.lynch@gmail.com wrote:
I personally am perfectly willing to pay a fee for expert adminship. Have you seen the recent fund-drives? I've never donated money (just time) to the wikipedia, but I would for paid admins I could trust.
Jack (Sam Spade)
Our past history on that front has been less than ideal. Anyway where are you going to get these expert admins from?
-- geni _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Jack Lynch wrote:
Assumably from advertised applications, like any other paid position?
As far as the past, I would have preferred if Larry Sanger had stayed on, and in general that wikipedia had kept up w paid staffing. I saw from the recent budget that this idea is being returned to. Thats a good thing. Successful charities have paid staff.
Jack (Sam Spade)
On 11/13/05, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/13/05, Jack Lynch jack.i.lynch@gmail.com wrote:
I personally am perfectly willing to pay a fee for expert adminship. Have you seen the recent fund-drives? I've never donated money (just time) to the wikipedia, but I would for paid admins I could trust.
Jack (Sam Spade)
Our past history on that front has been less than ideal. Anyway where are you going to get these expert admins from?
The dynamics in an organization can easily change when it has paid staff. I very much prefer an environment where everyone is working for the love of what they believe rather than the love of money.
Ec
I don't. What your describing is a social experiment, and the sort of one I find violently objectionable. See [[communism]].
Jack (Sam Spade)
On 11/17/05, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Jack Lynch wrote:
Assumably from advertised applications, like any other paid position?
As far as the past, I would have preferred if Larry Sanger had stayed on, and in general that wikipedia had kept up w paid staffing. I saw from the recent budget that this idea is being returned to. Thats a good thing. Successful charities have paid staff.
Jack (Sam Spade)
On 11/13/05, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/13/05, Jack Lynch jack.i.lynch@gmail.com wrote:
I personally am perfectly willing to pay a fee for expert adminship. Have you seen the recent fund-drives? I've never donated money (just time) to the wikipedia, but I would for paid admins I could trust.
Jack (Sam Spade)
Our past history on that front has been less than ideal. Anyway where are you going to get these expert admins from?
The dynamics in an organization can easily change when it has paid staff. I very much prefer an environment where everyone is working for the love of what they believe rather than the love of money.
Ec
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Jack Lynch wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
The dynamics in an organization can easily change when it has paid staff. I very much prefer an environment where everyone is working for the love of what they believe rather than the love of money.
I don't. What your describing is a social experiment, and the sort of one I find violently objectionable. See [[communism]].
ZOMG WIKIPEDIA IS COMMUNISM SOCKPUPPET VANDAL TROLL!!!!!sin(pi/2)
On 11/17/05, Jack Lynch jack.i.lynch@gmail.com wrote:
I don't. What your describing is a social experiment, and the sort of one I find violently objectionable. See [[communism]].
Jack (Sam Spade)
No we cheacked what wikipedia is not and that appears not to be the case.
Ok if we have paid admins it would be logical for us to recruite the most qualified and experenced candidates. Who just happen to be the most senior part of our admins team. So no change but wikimedia ends up out of pocket. -- geni
That is so shocklingly inaccurate I am unsure where to begin explaining the differences between paid employee's and volunteers to you.
Jack (Sam Spade)
On 11/17/05, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/17/05, Jack Lynch jack.i.lynch@gmail.com wrote:
I don't. What your describing is a social experiment, and the sort of one I find violently objectionable. See [[communism]].
Jack (Sam Spade)
No we cheacked what wikipedia is not and that appears not to be the case.
Ok if we have paid admins it would be logical for us to recruite the most qualified and experenced candidates. Who just happen to be the most senior part of our admins team. So no change but wikimedia ends up out of pocket. -- geni _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 11/17/05, Jack Lynch jack.i.lynch@gmail.com wrote:
That is so shocklingly inaccurate I am unsure where to begin explaining the differences between paid employee's and volunteers to you.
Really? Ok the ideal admin know wikipedia backwards and has plently of experence of being an admin on wikipedia. Sounds like sinior admins. -- geni
Thats not an ideal admin. My ideal admin has no experience being an admin on wikipedia, and need not be an editor. Instead, he would be someone paid to follow and enforce rules, not make them up as goes along.
Jack (Sam Spade)
On 11/17/05, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/17/05, Jack Lynch jack.i.lynch@gmail.com wrote:
That is so shocklingly inaccurate I am unsure where to begin explaining the differences between paid employee's and volunteers to you.
Really? Ok the ideal admin know wikipedia backwards and has plently of experence of being an admin on wikipedia. Sounds like sinior admins. -- geni _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Jack Lynch wrote:
Thats not an ideal admin. My ideal admin has no experience being an admin on wikipedia, and need not be an editor. Instead, he would be someone paid to follow and enforce rules, not make them up as goes along.
One of the underlying aspects of Wikipedia, however, is that it's a consensus-driven model. The rules *are* made up as we go along, and not in any hard and fast manner. An outsider would really have no business enforcing rules, or be able to do so reasonably. And it would be quite contrary to the model of a user-built and user-governed encyclopedia project.
-Mark
Jack Lynch wrote:
Thats not an ideal admin. My ideal admin has no experience being an admin on wikipedia, and need not be an editor. Instead, he would be someone paid to follow and enforce rules, not make them up as goes along.
You would have Wikipedia run not by those of us who love knowledge, but rather by a squad of enforcers-for-hire?
I doubt I would enjoy the company of those who care only about money and nothing for building a free encyclopedia. Actually, that's a lie. I have no doubt at all. Bring in a mercenary Brute Squad and you lose me.
On 11/17/05, Jack Lynch jack.i.lynch@gmail.com wrote:
Thats not an ideal admin. My ideal admin has no experience being an admin on wikipedia, and need not be an editor. Instead, he would be someone paid to follow and enforce rules, not make them up as goes along.
It strikes me, Jack, that you would prefer that because you have problems dealing with rules involving common sense and judgment and can only deal with rules that you can, by logic, determine whether you are doing a permitted thing.
I don't think Wikipedia should change to accomodate such a social handicap, which is what this is.
-Matt
It is not a social handicap to prefer logic and order to the judgements and "common sense" of others. Wikipedia has little or no concensus, particularly when it comes to policy. Perhaps on obscure article talk pages concensus occurs, but when it comes to policy the few determine the fate of the many. Wikipedia's command structure is an oligarchy, w little in common w a society of friends meeting.
Jack (Sam Spade)
On 11/18/05, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/17/05, Jack Lynch jack.i.lynch@gmail.com wrote:
Thats not an ideal admin. My ideal admin has no experience being an admin on wikipedia, and need not be an editor. Instead, he would be someone paid to follow and enforce rules, not make them up as goes along.
It strikes me, Jack, that you would prefer that because you have problems dealing with rules involving common sense and judgment and can only deal with rules that you can, by logic, determine whether you are doing a permitted thing.
I don't think Wikipedia should change to accomodate such a social handicap, which is what this is.
-Matt _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Why can't a bot do that? You wouldn't have to pay it.
How will this ideal admin know the difference between a rule and a guideline?
Ec
Jack Lynch wrote:
Thats not an ideal admin. My ideal admin has no experience being an admin on wikipedia, and need not be an editor. Instead, he would be someone paid to follow and enforce rules, not make them up as goes along.
Jack (Sam Spade)
On 11/17/05, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/17/05, Jack Lynch jack.i.lynch@gmail.com wrote:
That is so shocklingly inaccurate I am unsure where to begin explaining the differences between paid employee's and volunteers to you.
Really? Ok the ideal admin know wikipedia backwards and has plently of experence of being an admin on wikipedia. Sounds like sinior admins. -- geni
It is difficult to simply predict the outcome of either alternative. But democratic centralism is not being proposed.
Fred
On Nov 17, 2005, at 8:29 AM, Jack Lynch wrote:
I don't. What your describing is a social experiment, and the sort of one I find violently objectionable. See [[communism]].
Jack (Sam Spade)
On 11/17/05, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
The dynamics in an organization can easily change when it has paid staff. I very much prefer an environment where everyone is working for the love of what they believe rather than the love of money.
Ec
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Jack Lynch wrote:
On 11/17/05, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I personally am perfectly willing to pay a fee for expert adminship. Have you seen the recent fund-drives? I've never donated money (just time) to the wikipedia, but I would for paid admins I could trust.
Jack (Sam Spade)
Our past history on that front has been less than ideal. Anyway where are you going to get these expert admins from?
The dynamics in an organization can easily change when it has paid staff. I very much prefer an environment where everyone is working for the love of what they believe rather than the love of money.
I don't. What your describing is a social experiment, and the sort of
one I find violently objectionable. See [[communism]].
I think that we have some people here who would disagree with your determination that communism is implied by people doing what they believe.
I hesitate to characterize a system that would find living according to one's belief to be "violently objectionable".
Ec
I wasn't talking about people doing what they believe, I was talking about refusing to consider taking on paid employee's due to philosophical or political predispositions. Its rather a non-issue however, since their doesn't seem to be any interest in the idea.
Jack (Sam Spade)
On 11/20/05, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Jack Lynch wrote:
On 11/17/05, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I personally am perfectly willing to pay a fee for expert adminship. Have you seen the recent fund-drives? I've never donated money (just time) to the wikipedia, but I would for paid admins I could trust.
Jack (Sam Spade)
Our past history on that front has been less than ideal. Anyway where are you going to get these expert admins from?
The dynamics in an organization can easily change when it has paid staff. I very much prefer an environment where everyone is working for the love of what they believe rather than the love of money.
I don't. What your describing is a social experiment, and the sort of
one I find violently objectionable. See [[communism]].
I think that we have some people here who would disagree with your determination that communism is implied by people doing what they believe.
I hesitate to characterize a system that would find living according to one's belief to be "violently objectionable".
Ec
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Jack Lynch wrote:
I personally am perfectly willing to pay a fee for expert adminship. Have you seen the recent fund-drives? I've never donated money (just time) to the wikipedia, but I would for paid admins I could trust.
You mean yourself.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
Jack Lynch wrote:
I personally am perfectly willing to pay a fee for expert adminship. Have you seen the recent fund-drives? I've never donated money (just time) to the wikipedia, but I would for paid admins I could trust.
You mean yourself.
Haha. How much do you think the Foundation should charge for bureaucrat status?
Ryan
Ryan Delaney wrote:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
Jack Lynch wrote:
I personally am perfectly willing to pay a fee for expert adminship. Have you seen the recent fund-drives? I've never donated money (just time) to the wikipedia, but I would for paid admins I could trust.
You mean yourself.
Haha. How much do you think the Foundation should charge for bureaucrat status?
cf. a post to the list a few weeks (months?) ago:
"Dear sirs, I want to be an administrator, how much will this cost?"
(Can't remember the exact words or email or anything...)
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
Ryan Delaney wrote:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
Jack Lynch wrote:
I personally am perfectly willing to pay a fee for expert adminship. Have you seen the recent fund-drives? I've never donated money (just time) to the wikipedia, but I would for paid admins I could trust.
You mean yourself.
Haha. How much do you think the Foundation should charge for bureaucrat status?
cf. a post to the list a few weeks (months?) ago:
"Dear sirs, I want to be an administrator, how much will this cost?"
(Can't remember the exact words or email or anything...)
Aha, found it: it was on helpdesk-l :)
(name suppressed) wrote:
Hello, I am thoroughly impressed with the Wikipedia project.
May I ask, would it be possible to receive an administration account in return for a sizable donation?
Free flowing information is the way of the future, and I intend to make my mark. Please respond as soon as possible, Thank you kindly,
(name suppressed)
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Chris Jenkinson stated for the record:
Kelly Martin wrote:
On 11/13/05, Chris Jenkinson chris@starglade.org wrote:
What would happen if either of you (Kelly or Sean) disclosed private information into the public domain? Aside from ethical concerns, what prevents you from doing this?
At work or on Wikipedia?
At work, I would risk being fired, sued, and possibly prosecuted.
On Wikipedia? It would be wrong. It would also be breaking several promises I've made.
As both of you would face legal recourse if you were to divulge private information in your day jobs, what do you think the opposition to having a comparable legal agreement between the Foundation and people with checkuser is due to, given that the situation is reasonably similar?
The situation is not reasonably similar; it's not even remotely similar.
Disclosure of the information I handle at work would immediately and directly endanger lives and damage national security, and I am rather well paid for accepting the responsibility.
Disclosure of a Wikipedian's IP address can only lead to harm through tortuous chains of unlikely happenstance, and the privilege of contributing to Wikipedia's success is not sufficient compensation to persuade me to accept the possibility of a prison term.
If legal liability were a requirement of the position, I doubt you would find many volunteers for the Arbitration Committee.
- -- Sean Barrett | For days, we survived on sean@epoptic.org | nothing but food and water.
Sean Barrett wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Chris Jenkinson stated for the record:
Kelly Martin wrote:
On 11/13/05, Chris Jenkinson chris@starglade.org wrote:
What would happen if either of you (Kelly or Sean) disclosed private information into the public domain? Aside from ethical concerns, what prevents you from doing this?
At work or on Wikipedia?
At work, I would risk being fired, sued, and possibly prosecuted.
On Wikipedia? It would be wrong. It would also be breaking several promises I've made.
As both of you would face legal recourse if you were to divulge private information in your day jobs, what do you think the opposition to having a comparable legal agreement between the Foundation and people with checkuser is due to, given that the situation is reasonably similar?
The situation is not reasonably similar; it's not even remotely similar.
Disclosure of the information I handle at work would immediately and directly endanger lives and damage national security, and I am rather well paid for accepting the responsibility.
Disclosure of a Wikipedian's IP address can only lead to harm through tortuous chains of unlikely happenstance, and the privilege of contributing to Wikipedia's success is not sufficient compensation to persuade me to accept the possibility of a prison term.
In case you are not aware of it, Yahoo recently helped the chinese government to uncover a chinese "dissident" and this lead the guy to prison. Have no doubts that some of our participants, in particular those from certain regions, or those participating to wikinews, are at the same amount of risk. *You* could yourself directly endanger a life in giving private information. I hope that in spite that you do not receive a sufficient financial compensation, you will be careful. I think feeling less responsability due to the fact you are not paid is not a very good approach of the tool.
Aside from this point, the question of what would happen if Sean or Kelly or anyone with the tool would release private information to the public is a good question.
They would lose access to the tool certainly. Very likely, they would lose position at the arbcom. Aside from this, I suppose that anyone having private information released by a person without a good reason (such as protecting our network) have the opportunity to sue Sean, Kelly or whoever on top of suing the Foundation.
Maybe a question to ask a lawyer ?
Ant
VERY good questions and comments Anthere, thank you.
Jack (Sam Spade)
On 11/14/05, Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Sean Barrett wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Chris Jenkinson stated for the record:
Kelly Martin wrote:
On 11/13/05, Chris Jenkinson chris@starglade.org wrote:
What would happen if either of you (Kelly or Sean) disclosed private information into the public domain? Aside from ethical concerns, what prevents you from doing this?
At work or on Wikipedia?
At work, I would risk being fired, sued, and possibly prosecuted.
On Wikipedia? It would be wrong. It would also be breaking several promises I've made.
As both of you would face legal recourse if you were to divulge private information in your day jobs, what do you think the opposition to having a comparable legal agreement between the Foundation and people with checkuser is due to, given that the situation is reasonably similar?
The situation is not reasonably similar; it's not even remotely similar.
Disclosure of the information I handle at work would immediately and directly endanger lives and damage national security, and I am rather well paid for accepting the responsibility.
Disclosure of a Wikipedian's IP address can only lead to harm through tortuous chains of unlikely happenstance, and the privilege of contributing to Wikipedia's success is not sufficient compensation to persuade me to accept the possibility of a prison term.
In case you are not aware of it, Yahoo recently helped the chinese government to uncover a chinese "dissident" and this lead the guy to prison. Have no doubts that some of our participants, in particular those from certain regions, or those participating to wikinews, are at the same amount of risk. *You* could yourself directly endanger a life in giving private information. I hope that in spite that you do not receive a sufficient financial compensation, you will be careful. I think feeling less responsability due to the fact you are not paid is not a very good approach of the tool.
Aside from this point, the question of what would happen if Sean or Kelly or anyone with the tool would release private information to the public is a good question.
They would lose access to the tool certainly. Very likely, they would lose position at the arbcom. Aside from this, I suppose that anyone having private information released by a person without a good reason (such as protecting our network) have the opportunity to sue Sean, Kelly or whoever on top of suing the Foundation.
Maybe a question to ask a lawyer ?
Ant
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 11/14/05, Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
In case you are not aware of it, Yahoo recently helped the chinese government to uncover a chinese "dissident" and this lead the guy to prison. Have no doubts that some of our participants, in particular those from certain regions, or those participating to wikinews, are at the same amount of risk. *You* could yourself directly endanger a life in giving private information. I hope that in spite that you do not receive a sufficient financial compensation, you will be careful. I think feeling less responsability due to the fact you are not paid is not a very good approach of the tool.
If someone's life or family is endangered by editing Wikipedia, they should immediately stop. Seriously, if a user is in a situation where they'll lose their job, freedom or life because of what they contribute to a website, they need to take responsibility for themselves and cease all editing. Of course we need to protect the privacy of all editors, and I fully support removal of checkuser access for anyone who misuses the tool. However, ultimately it up to the every user to ensure they're not putting themselves at risk. Carbonite
On 11/14/05, Carbonite carbonite.wp@gmail.com wrote:
In case you are not aware of it, Yahoo recently helped the chinese government to uncover a chinese "dissident" and this lead the guy to prison. Have no doubts that some of our participants, in particular those from certain regions, or those participating to wikinews, are at the same amount of risk. *You* could yourself directly endanger a life in giving private information. I hope that in spite that you do not receive a sufficient financial compensation, you will be careful. I think feeling less responsability due to the fact you are not paid is not a very good approach of the tool.
If someone's life or family is endangered by editing Wikipedia, they should immediately stop. Seriously, if a user is in a situation where they'll lose their job, freedom or life because of what they contribute to a website, they need to take responsibility for themselves and cease all editing. Of course we need to protect the privacy of all editors, and I fully support removal of checkuser access for anyone who misuses the tool. However, ultimately it up to the every user to ensure they're not putting themselves at risk.
Indeed. While those of us who use checkuser are aware of the potential for either financial or personal injury to those who edit Wikipedia when they ought not be, and will endeavor to protect the privacy of such people, the onus on those who violate either employment agreements or local legal authorities by editing Wikipedia when they ought not be falls on them, and not on us.
Kelly
Kelly Martin wrote:
On 11/14/05, Carbonite carbonite.wp@gmail.com wrote:
In case you are not aware of it, Yahoo recently helped the chinese government to uncover a chinese "dissident" and this lead the guy to prison. Have no doubts that some of our participants, in particular those from certain regions, or those participating to wikinews, are at the same amount of risk. *You* could yourself directly endanger a life in giving private information. I hope that in spite that you do not receive a sufficient financial compensation, you will be careful. I think feeling less responsability due to the fact you are not paid is not a very good approach of the tool.
If someone's life or family is endangered by editing Wikipedia, they should immediately stop. Seriously, if a user is in a situation where they'll lose their job, freedom or life because of what they contribute to a website, they need to take responsibility for themselves and cease all editing. Of course we need to protect the privacy of all editors, and I fully support removal of checkuser access for anyone who misuses the tool. However, ultimately it up to the every user to ensure they're not putting themselves at risk.
Indeed. While those of us who use checkuser are aware of the potential for either financial or personal injury to those who edit Wikipedia when they ought not be, and will endeavor to protect the privacy of such people, the onus on those who violate either employment agreements or local legal authorities by editing Wikipedia when they ought not be falls on them, and not on us.
Kelly
Yes ?
I think that if one chinese editor edit the english article on say... Tien An Men events, and a request comes from a chinese governement official saying you should provide private information about the editor, for the motive that talking about such a topic is violating their local laws, I will consider that any checkuser providing liberally such an information without first checking with the Foundation and its legal counselling, will be a violation of the tool use and of the trust put in the check user.
The argument that this chinese user knew he was at known risk for editing such an article and is fully responsable of being jailed, will not be an argument for me. Knowing that we are at risk should not lead us to censor ourselves in fear that some allegedly trusted editors on wikipedia could at any time lead us to jail. When someone gets in jail because he did not respected local laws which are fully against freedom, the responsibility is shared between himself and the person who denounced him.
Ant
On 11/14/05, Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
I think that if one chinese editor edit the english article on say... Tien An Men events, and a request comes from a chinese governement official saying you should provide private information about the editor, for the motive that talking about such a topic is violating their local laws, I will consider that any checkuser providing liberally such an information without first checking with the Foundation and its legal counselling, will be a violation of the tool use and of the trust put in the check user.
And I would never intentionally reveal such information without a court order specifically naming myself issued by a court with contempt power over me. And not until after I had challenged the validity of the order, and lost.
Any such challenge would be brought by my own counsel, rather than the Foundation's, unless the Foundation is also offering to insure me for any legal liability I might incur while exercising CheckUser privilege (which I doubt they are). Any consultation of the Foundation's counsel would be of courtesy.
That said, should I accidentially reveal such information, I will certainly resist being held to any legal obligation for such accident.
Kelly
Carbonite wrote:
On 11/14/05, Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
In case you are not aware of it, Yahoo recently helped the chinese government to uncover a chinese "dissident" and this lead the guy to prison. Have no doubts that some of our participants, in particular those from certain regions, or those participating to wikinews, are at the same amount of risk. *You* could yourself directly endanger a life in giving private information. I hope that in spite that you do not receive a sufficient financial compensation, you will be careful. I think feeling less responsability due to the fact you are not paid is not a very good approach of the tool.
If someone's life or family is endangered by editing Wikipedia, they should immediately stop. Seriously, if a user is in a situation where they'll lose their job, freedom or life because of what they contribute to a website, they need to take responsibility for themselves and cease all editing. Of course we need to protect the privacy of all editors, and I fully support removal of checkuser access for anyone who misuses the tool. However, ultimately it up to the every user to ensure they're not putting themselves at risk. Carbonite
I disagree with you Carbonite.
And probably do all those who ever risked anything precious to support freedom.
In memory of all those who became unofficial soldiers to liberate their country from a hostile invador. In memory of those who risked their lives to hide jews in their caves during WWII. In memory of women who were burned as witches for saving poor girls from an unwanted pregnancy. In memory of dissidents who lost their lives to ask for independance. In memory of journalists who died covering a war to provide *you* with information. In memory of encyclopedists who were exiled or put in jail for trying to publish enlightned encyclopedia de Diderot.
Some people put the public good over their own private well-being. We have nothing to criticize, because if noone had done this in our countries, we would not savor our current freedom. The best we can do is at least to protect them to the best of our abilities.
Ant
On 11/14/05, Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
I disagree with you Carbonite.
And probably do all those who ever risked anything precious to support freedom.
In memory of all those who became unofficial soldiers to liberate their country from a hostile invador. In memory of those who risked their lives to hide jews in their caves during WWII. In memory of women who were burned as witches for saving poor girls from an unwanted pregnancy. In memory of dissidents who lost their lives to ask for independance. In memory of journalists who died covering a war to provide *you* with information. In memory of encyclopedists who were exiled or put in jail for trying to publish enlightned encyclopedia de Diderot.
Some people put the public good over their own private well-being. We have nothing to criticize, because if noone had done this in our countries, we would not savor our current freedom. The best we can do is at least to protect them to the best of our abilities.
Ant
I think Carbonite's point was not to degrade the worthy efforts of these people but to say that Wikipedia is not the forum for making these points. This is his viewpoint, and as such he is perfectly entitled to it. I disagree with him; I think anyone who edits under these circumstances should know the inherent dangers of this. I don't think these dangers are any more relevant on this website, though, than any other, especially considering the high level of scrutiny placed upon the shoulders of these people.
Sam
Sam Korn wrote:
I think Carbonite's point was not to degrade the worthy efforts of these people but to say that Wikipedia is not the forum for making these points. This is his viewpoint, and as such he is perfectly entitled to it. I disagree with him; I think anyone who edits under these circumstances should know the inherent dangers of this. I don't think these dangers are any more relevant on this website, though, than any other, especially considering the high level of scrutiny placed upon the shoulders of these people.
Sam
We'll try hard to have the log server crash inadvertently if needed...
you know... volunteers... such amateurs... :-)
On 11/14/05, Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
We'll try hard to have the log server crash inadvertently if needed...
you know... volunteers... such amateurs... :-)
Every cloud...
Sam
I find Anthere's statements on this thread heroic, and I fully intend to support her for re-election to the wiki-media board, when and if such an event may occur. She has said a great many things I wanted to hear, or would have said in her place. Thank you, Anthere.
Jack (Sam Spade)
On 11/14/05, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/14/05, Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
We'll try hard to have the log server crash inadvertently if needed...
you know... volunteers... such amateurs... :-)
Every cloud...
Sam _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 11/14/05, Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Carbonite wrote:
On 11/14/05, Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
In case you are not aware of it, Yahoo recently helped the chinese government to uncover a chinese "dissident" and this lead the guy to prison. Have no doubts that some of our participants, in particular those from certain regions, or those participating to wikinews, are at the same amount of risk. *You* could yourself directly endanger a life in giving private information. I hope that in spite that you do not receive a sufficient financial compensation, you will be careful. I think feeling less responsability due to the fact you are not paid is not a very good approach of the tool.
If someone's life or family is endangered by editing Wikipedia, they
should
immediately stop. Seriously, if a user is in a situation where they'll
lose
their job, freedom or life because of what they contribute to a website, they need to take responsibility for themselves and cease all editing.
Of
course we need to protect the privacy of all editors, and I fully
support
removal of checkuser access for anyone who misuses the tool. However, ultimately it up to the every user to ensure they're not putting
themselves
at risk. Carbonite
I disagree with you Carbonite.
And probably do all those who ever risked anything precious to support freedom.
In memory of all those who became unofficial soldiers to liberate their country from a hostile invador. In memory of those who risked their lives to hide jews in their caves during WWII. In memory of women who were burned as witches for saving poor girls from an unwanted pregnancy. In memory of dissidents who lost their lives to ask for independance. In memory of journalists who died covering a war to provide *you* with information. In memory of encyclopedists who were exiled or put in jail for trying to publish enlightned encyclopedia de Diderot.
Some people put the public good over their own private well-being. We have nothing to criticize, because if noone had done this in our countries, we would not savor our current freedom. The best we can do is at least to protect them to the best of our abilities.
I think perhaps we're getting a little melodramatic here. I was under the impression that we're here to write an encyclopedia, not fight oppression. If the former happens to lead to the latter, that's a great bonus. My point was that it's up to the user to protect himself. If a slip of an IP address will likely lead to harsh punishment, the risk of editing is almost certainly too high. I'm NOT saying that we should be careless and expose IP addresses, but to treat this as a matter of life and death is unnecessary rhetoric. Carbonite
Carbonite wrote:
I think perhaps we're getting a little melodramatic here. I was under the impression that we're here to write an encyclopedia, not fight oppression. If the former happens to lead to the latter, that's a great bonus. My point was that it's up to the user to protect himself. If a slip of an IP address will likely lead to harsh punishment, the risk of editing is almost certainly too high. I'm NOT saying that we should be careless and expose IP addresses, but to treat this as a matter of life and death is unnecessary rhetoric. Carbonite
When I joined Wikipedia, I had the opportunity to protect myself. I used anonymous proxies. I edited, under these proxies, on certain topics which could lead to me certainly have professional problems. One thing I appreciated is that ips were visible, even for logged in users. So, anytime, I could check which information was registered about me.
When use of anonymous proxies was not possible any more, I stopped putting certain type of information entirely. I regretted that very much, but there was no possibility for myself to protect myself anymore.
I think some of the information I could have put on sites such as wikinews would have been worth. But I do not feel like fighting big firm lobbies.
oh... and read this http://soufron.typhon.net/article.php3?id_article=71
Ant
Anthere wrote:
Carbonite wrote:
I think perhaps we're getting a little melodramatic here. I was under the impression that we're here to write an encyclopedia, not fight oppression. If the former happens to lead to the latter, that's a great bonus. My point was that it's up to the user to protect himself. If a slip of an IP address will likely lead to harsh punishment, the risk of editing is almost certainly too high. I'm NOT saying that we should be careless and expose IP addresses, but to treat this as a matter of life and death is unnecessary rhetoric. Carbonite
When I joined Wikipedia, I had the opportunity to protect myself. I used anonymous proxies. I edited, under these proxies, on certain topics which could lead to me certainly have professional problems. One thing I appreciated is that ips were visible, even for logged in users. So, anytime, I could check which information was registered about me.
When use of anonymous proxies was not possible any more, I stopped putting certain type of information entirely. I regretted that very much, but there was no possibility for myself to protect myself anymore.
I think some of the information I could have put on sites such as wikinews would have been worth. But I do not feel like fighting big firm lobbies.
oh... and read this http://soufron.typhon.net/article.php3?id_article=71
Ant
Oh, thinking about it... I do not have any such fears any more now.
I should be doing my last day at my job tomorrow.
I started this job in august 2000. Joined Wikipedia in february 2002. I have run like crazy between my job, my two kids, my husband and Wikipédia for nearly 4 years. I am quite happy to take a break for the next few months, have real nights of sleep, be on holidays for real, have time to take the time to do nothing... I feel like I have lived 10 years in 4 years.
4 years ago, I was very afraid of having my real name, or any private information known about me. I never connected myself to Wikipedia from my job. I think my husband did not discover about Wikipedia until at least a full year working on it...
It was a huge step to take 18 months ago, to give my real name for the board elections. For the last 18 months, I also feared that my employer would discover about my second life at wikipedia (and understand why I was falling asleep during afternoon meetings). He never did. Several employees did see press stuff, but not my boss. He never saw anything.
This week is a sort of turn in life for me. My firm is bankrupt and likely will be closed by legal judgement on this friday. All the contracts I had ongoing will stop within an hour. And will never be finished by anyone. Then, I should receive a letter firing me at the end of the month. I have not been paid since september anyway.
This is a very strange feeling. This is just why I wanted to share it with you. Most of you do not see what we are doing on the board and what it sometimes imply. Just people far away. Not people you know much about.
So, here I am. I am 37 years old. I am a volunteer just like you. I have two kids. I lost a baby in spring. I will have a fourth kid, hopefully early 2006. I am losing my job this week. And I am glad to be participating to Wikipedia (even if sometimes, it is a burden...). It is a good life overall :-)
eh !
Anthere wrote:
So, here I am. I am 37 years old. I am a volunteer just like you. I have two kids. I lost a baby in spring. I will have a fourth kid, hopefully early 2006. I am losing my job this week. And I am glad to be participating to Wikipedia (even if sometimes, it is a burden...). It is a good life overall :-)
I can only answer this with a quote:
Tous les événements sont enchaînés dans le meilleur des mondes possibles ; car enfin, si vous n'aviez pas été chassé d'un beau château à grands coups de pied dans le derrière pour l'amour de Mlle Cunégonde, si vous n'aviez pas été mis à l'Inquisition, si vous n'aviez pas couru l'Amérique à pied, si vous n'aviez pas donné un bon coup d'épée au baron, si vous n'aviez pas perdu tous vos moutons du bon pays d'Eldorado, vous ne mangeriez pas ici des cédrats confits et des pistaches. -- Cela est bien dit, répondit Candide, mais il faut cultiver notre jardin.
Ec
That people may risk death for the sake of knowledge should at least be honored by their being considered to be part of reality.
Fred
On Nov 14, 2005, at 1:36 PM, Carbonite wrote:
I think perhaps we're getting a little melodramatic here. I was under the impression that we're here to write an encyclopedia, not fight oppression. If the former happens to lead to the latter, that's a great bonus. My point was that it's up to the user to protect himself. If a slip of an IP address will likely lead to harsh punishment, the risk of editing is almost certainly too high. I'm NOT saying that we should be careless and expose IP addresses, but to treat this as a matter of life and death is unnecessary rhetoric. Carbonite
No, if they are in such a situation they should cry out to the very heavens. And we should make every effort to expose any government that acts against them. Not that we should misrepresent the situation or our weakness should such events occur. I don't think anyone in North Korea, Cuba, the People's Republic of China, Iran or Saudi Arabia is so naive as to think that selecting the link, "edit this page" is a safe thing to do.
Fred
On Nov 14, 2005, at 11:58 AM, Carbonite wrote:
If someone's life or family is endangered by editing Wikipedia, they should immediately stop. Seriously, if a user is in a situation where they'll lose their job, freedom or life because of what they contribute to a website, they need to take responsibility for themselves and cease all editing. Of course we need to protect the privacy of all editors, and I fully support removal of checkuser access for anyone who misuses the tool. However, ultimately it up to the every user to ensure they're not putting themselves at risk. Carbonite
Carbonite wrote:
On 11/14/05, Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
In case you are not aware of it, Yahoo recently helped the chinese government to uncover a chinese "dissident" and this lead the guy to prison. Have no doubts that some of our participants, in particular those from certain regions, or those participating to wikinews, are at the same amount of risk. *You* could yourself directly endanger a life in giving private information. I hope that in spite that you do not receive a sufficient financial compensation, you will be careful. I think feeling less responsability due to the fact you are not paid is not a very good approach of the tool.
If someone's life or family is endangered by editing Wikipedia, they should immediately stop. Seriously, if a user is in a situation where they'll lose their job, freedom or life because of what they contribute to a website, they need to take responsibility for themselves and cease all editing. Of course we need to protect the privacy of all editors, and I fully support removal of checkuser access for anyone who misuses the tool. However, ultimately it up to the every user to ensure they're not putting themselves at risk.
That sounds like you don't think that people should stand up for what they believe.
Ec
I don't think there is any need to ask a lawyer, regardless of whether a legal cause of action would exist, anyone misusing the checkuser function is responsible for foreseeable damage whether or not there is any legal forum available or any practical way to seek redress. This especially applies to those logging in from countries with inadequate practical guarantees of personal liberty. One might be able to raise a legal defense, but there is no moral defense.
Fred
On Nov 14, 2005, at 11:13 AM, Anthere wrote:
Sean Barrett wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Chris Jenkinson stated for the record:
Kelly Martin wrote:
On 11/13/05, Chris Jenkinson chris@starglade.org wrote:
What would happen if either of you (Kelly or Sean) disclosed private information into the public domain? Aside from ethical concerns, what prevents you from doing this?
At work or on Wikipedia?
At work, I would risk being fired, sued, and possibly prosecuted.
On Wikipedia? It would be wrong. It would also be breaking several promises I've made.
As both of you would face legal recourse if you were to divulge private information in your day jobs, what do you think the opposition to having a comparable legal agreement between the Foundation and people with checkuser is due to, given that the situation is reasonably similar?
The situation is not reasonably similar; it's not even remotely similar. Disclosure of the information I handle at work would immediately and directly endanger lives and damage national security, and I am rather well paid for accepting the responsibility. Disclosure of a Wikipedian's IP address can only lead to harm through tortuous chains of unlikely happenstance, and the privilege of contributing to Wikipedia's success is not sufficient compensation to persuade me to accept the possibility of a prison term.
In case you are not aware of it, Yahoo recently helped the chinese government to uncover a chinese "dissident" and this lead the guy to prison. Have no doubts that some of our participants, in particular those from certain regions, or those participating to wikinews, are at the same amount of risk. *You* could yourself directly endanger a life in giving private information. I hope that in spite that you do not receive a sufficient financial compensation, you will be careful. I think feeling less responsability due to the fact you are not paid is not a very good approach of the tool.
Aside from this point, the question of what would happen if Sean or Kelly or anyone with the tool would release private information to the public is a good question.
They would lose access to the tool certainly. Very likely, they would lose position at the arbcom. Aside from this, I suppose that anyone having private information released by a person without a good reason (such as protecting our network) have the opportunity to sue Sean, Kelly or whoever on top of suing the Foundation.
Maybe a question to ask a lawyer ?
Ant
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Chris Jenkinson wrote:
As both of you would face legal recourse if you were to divulge private information in your day jobs, what do you think the opposition to having a comparable legal agreement between the Foundation and people with checkuser is due to, given that the situation is reasonably similar?
Because the situation is completely dissimilar: 1) IP addresses are not very important 2) Arbitrators are not employees of the Wikimedia Foundation 3) It is not in Wikipedia's best interests to introduce ridiculous legal hurdles that make it even harder to recruit people for a mostly thankless volunteer job that we already have trouble filling reliably
-Mark
Delirium wrote:
Because the situation is completely dissimilar:
- IP addresses are not very important
Personal information of any form is still personal information. I know the Foundation is a U.S. organisation and is not subject to EU laws, but various courts in the EU have found that IP addresses are personal information.
- Arbitrators are not employees of the Wikimedia Foundation
- It is not in Wikipedia's best interests to introduce ridiculous legal
hurdles that make it even harder to recruit people for a mostly thankless volunteer job that we already have trouble filling reliably
I think this is largely irrelevant. If we aren't going to take the trouble to be careful when dealing with personal information, then no one should have access to it. Taking shortcuts on it is just foolish.
Chris
On 11/14/05, Chris Jenkinson chris@starglade.org wrote:
I think this is largely irrelevant. If we aren't going to take the trouble to be careful when dealing with personal information, then no one should have access to it. Taking shortcuts on it is just foolish.
We have been careful. The people selected to have CheckUser rights are all people who are aware of the issues involved and are (in the opinion of the Committee) unlikely to release personal information inappropriately.
Kelly
Kelly Martin wrote:
We have been careful. The people selected to have CheckUser rights are all people who are aware of the issues involved and are (in the opinion of the Committee) unlikely to release personal information inappropriately.
I know, and I do trust the current people with checkuser rights to be careful with what they are doing and to know the consequences of their actions if they do divulge it.
However, this is no guarantee that future people who receive the ability will be as careful or as knowledgeable as you are. Call this a slippery slope argument if you like, but I'm just concerned about my personal information being dealt with in a legitimate and fair manner by all parties who have access to it. I hope you agree my concerns are valid.
Chris
G'day Chris,
As both of you would face legal recourse if you were to divulge private information in your day jobs, what do you think the opposition to having a comparable legal agreement between the Foundation and people with checkuser is due to, given that the situation is reasonably similar?
On Wikipedia, they're valued, trusted volunteers. In real life, they're employees being paid to assume their responsibilities.
Volunteers like Sean and Kelly are valuable: they put in the equivalent of an employee's work without the financial outlay. Asking them to also put their arses on the line is more likely to drive them away than increase our security.
Cheers,
I rather pay someone who is willing to be accountable and who we can therefore expect to be responsible.
Jack (Sam Spade)
On 11/14/05, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:
G'day Chris,
As both of you would face legal recourse if you were to divulge private information in your day jobs, what do you think the opposition to having a comparable legal agreement between the Foundation and people with checkuser is due to, given that the situation is reasonably similar?
On Wikipedia, they're valued, trusted volunteers. In real life, they're employees being paid to assume their responsibilities.
Volunteers like Sean and Kelly are valuable: they put in the equivalent of an employee's work without the financial outlay. Asking them to also put their arses on the line is more likely to drive them away than increase our security.
Cheers,
-- Mark Gallagher "What? I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse
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On 11/14/05, Jack Lynch jack.i.lynch@gmail.com wrote:
I rather pay someone who is willing to be accountable and who we can therefore expect to be responsible.
Jack (Sam Spade)
I rather pay for servers so we get an encyclopaedia that works.
Sam
On 11/14/05, Jack Lynch wrote:
I rather pay someone who is willing to be accountable and who we can therefore expect to be responsible.
Jack (Sam Spade)
Sam Korn wrote: I rather pay for servers so we get an encyclopaedia that works.
Sam
Besides, money doesnt bring about accountability. OTOH accountability and 'accounting' are quite related -- proper accounts and counting are the outward and visible signs of inward accountability.
SV
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steve v wrote:
On 11/14/05, Jack Lynch wrote:
I rather pay someone who is willing to be accountable and who we can
therefore expect to be responsible.
Jack (Sam Spade)
Sam Korn wrote: I rather pay for servers so we get an encyclopaedia that works.
Sam
Besides, money doesnt bring about accountability. OTOH accountability and 'accounting' are quite related -- proper accounts and counting are the outward and visible signs of inward accountability.
Money can buy some very creative accountants. Some dramatic bankruptcies have proven that.
Ec
G'day Chris,
Kelly Martin wrote:
Since we're discussing qualifications: I am the network manager for a financial services firm; systems under my supervision store personal and financial information for our clients and business partners. Privacy and security issues are obviously a significant part of my job.
What would happen if either of you (Kelly or Sean) disclosed private information into the public domain? Aside from ethical concerns, what prevents you from doing this?
Ethical concerns aren't enough?
Thank you for becoming slightly more human to us lay-users.
Jack (Sam Spade)
On 11/13/05, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/13/05, Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.org wrote:
For my income, I am a manager of a secure military network, compromise of which would be ... bad.
I have a fair understanding of privacy and security issues.
Since we're discussing qualifications: I am the network manager for a financial services firm; systems under my supervision store personal and financial information for our clients and business partners. Privacy and security issues are obviously a significant part of my job.
Kelly _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 13 Nov 2005, at 07.10, BJörn Lindqvist wrote:
Hi Anthere
Checks should be done only on accounts doing abusive edits to Wikipedia (vandalism, insults, spam, defaming etc...) If checks are done without any relevant reasons related to abuse, then those checks are abusive and the person with the checkuser access should (will) lose it.
Just like admins wrongfully blocking accounts are also supposed to have their admin status revoked? Please realize that the two actions have very different worst cases.
Blocking: Worst case: You do not get to write in Wikipedia for a while.
/No/, you did not heed my email about my situation. The worst case is that one person is blocked who is the only person that can spot and fix mistakes in articles that are getting more exposure, and that can dispel wrong and harmful comments in the talk pages. The longer the absence, the more that readers will think that the last word is true, when the qualified party is kept from having it. The wrongful policers must be punished for disrupting communications.
-Aut