Damn, I'm going out tonight... I'll miss it. Hopefully I can get a copy of someone... Break a leg!

On 26/01/07, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: Sit down, camera rolls. "Okay. What was Microsoft's crime?" "Well, I wouldn't call it a *crime* ..." Talked about how it was a conflict of interest and that's bad, how "I said this can only damage their good name and then it damaged their good name". What OOXML is (the Office 2007 file format) and why it's greatly contentious (competition from OpenDocument and OpenOfficeorg). How Doug Mahugh is on the talk page now and that's good and Rick Jelliffe will hopefully contribute his expertise and that's good. So that's the current problem pretty much dealt with. They have no idea how much will be used tonight, "between five seconds and five minutes." It depends whether e.g. John Reid says something particularly stupid in the next hour ;-) The issue now, the real problem, is how Wikipedia deals with this sort of thing in the future. We have procedures for actual legal problems, but not yet for this sort of editorial problem. Something where companies with issues with content can say so, and where the regular volunteers will take an interest and look into improving articles based on that. We don't have that yet. I said we'd probably work out something over the weekend. So, regular editors. How do we set up a page or forum where companies and people written about can express editorial concerns (rather than e.g. legal ones), such that they know people will at least look over them with thought and improve the articles from there? This was a MAJOR news story and it came completely out of the blue. But it is an ongoing problem for Wikipedia - we don't want companies fearful of dealing with us in case they get the sort of bad press this issue got Microsoft and Doug Mahugh. How can we get better at this, quickly? - d.

On 26/01/07, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond(a)internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote: I see your point, but I'm imagining what the sort of minds who filled our pages with linkspam till we had to switch on nofollow, and who are now whining that we must switch it off again *because* we owe them a living, would do with such a permission, however sensibly worded. It's hard to get a clue across to people who think their income depends on not getting the clue in question. - d.

On 1/26/07, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond(a)internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote: I am still of two minds on the paying-for-edits issue, but I don't believe it's going to change soon. I was thinking of something different over the weekend. A Wikipedia Article Subjects Noticeboard, where people or organizations could post things which they object to (short of what the Office would *have* to deal with) and editors can watch and respond to normally. I was thinking that the process could be something like "First, please post a comment on the article talk page with a detailed explanation of what you object to and why, and identifying who you are and what your official standing is. Then, add an entry to the top of the list below with template {{Subjectnotice|articlename}}, add some comments, and sign it... Please do so from a logged in account so that people can respond on your talk page as well as the article talk page." I haven't created the template (I have no idea how they work). Does anyone think this is a bad idea? Positive comments? -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

On 1/26/07, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: I think it would be less frustrating than a lot of other admin stuff people do. I'd watch the page. I can't speak for others, though. Good point. Making a process optimized for the WP experts is not the point... What do people think the easiest consistent process is which we could do which would allow article subjects with little WP experience to find out what to do, and do it, to make such a notification? Let's brainstorm... We can disconnect the subject notifying us from WP process tracking it once notified. So they can be different mechanisms. Ask them to put a comment in the talk page with a {{SubjectObjection}} tag, which adds the talk page to a category? Can we explain that easily enough? Create a mailing list for it and publicize the address? -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

On 26/01/07, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote: Oh yeah. Unfortunately, I don't think we have the option, as a top 10 web site, not to. We do in fact need *something*, something that'll work. That's why I posted to this list asking - doing nothing about this isn't an option any longer. - d.

On 27/01/07, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote: NIDA? Oh dear. No. Do please tell. (Nor did I hear about the Alcoa edits until a friend in Perth told me on my blog.) - d.

On 27/01/07, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote: And here I was thinking you meant the [[National Institute of Dramatic Art]] ... - d.

On 1/26/07, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote: That's an obvious answer, but doesn't address how *we* find the complaint... Without a tag or category, or a central mechanisms, there's no way that I can think of for the volunteers to know a request was filed. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

On 1/26/07, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote: Hmm. Who in the foundation would need to approve doing this? -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

On 27/01/07, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote: You're volunteering to man it? How much sewage will you swim through for Wikipedia? ;-) - d.

On 1/26/07, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond(a)internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote: We can fight those battles if they come up, but I think that what this does is give a process to make the issues completely transparently visible, where everyone can see what's going on and comment if they care. Better that, and find out what's going on, than having it happen in the shadows. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

On 27/01/07, · Firefoxman <enwpmail(a)gmail.com> wrote: That does give me hope. Although near 100% of questions there are sincere and worth answering, as opposed to the amount of unjustifiable whining that will come through this hypothetical channel ;-) I wonder what its burnout rate will be ... - d.

On 27/01/07, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote: That's thoroughly evil. I like it. - d.

On 1/26/07, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond(a)internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote: Yes. Quality of contribution should not be determined by who is contributing. This is not a new stance; this has been a rule of thumb since the first trolls were allowed to stay and continue editing. I don't know. Something about it feeling wrong, driving people from writing about what is important to writing about what is supported by patrons. I do think that edits themselves should be allowed or not based on their quality -- something that would rule out many would-be paid contributions. SJ

I don't know about that... I would steer clear of all paid editing in any way, shape, or form. It just creates problems when the article is edited or deleted and a company is outraged because they paid good money for that very article. --Mets501

On 26/01/07, Sage Ross <ragesoss+wikipedia(a)gmail.com> wrote: Yeah - that's my first reaction, compared with Mathias' - and my - second reaction. I'd file that article under "conflict is news." Yeah. When I first heard about this, I (and half the blogosphere and the tech press and then the mainstream press) reacted "WHAT ON EARTH." Then Mathias contacted Doug and Rick, and cc'd me in and I responded too. As I said, I think this particular issue is pretty much resolved - Doug is monitoring the talk page, there's a LOT of editor eyes on it now and it'll be a much better article in a few weeks. The issue is what happens for all the other cases. - d.

On 1/28/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: No thankyou people can buy their own webhosting space. In any case it risks lessening the requirment on the rest of us to be NPOV. Aditionaly who is going to speak for Carthage? -- geni