Let me just start by saying that I am completely in favour of [[WP:OFFICE]] (I for one have no intention of paying the legal bills we would undoubtedly incur if we had no such system in place).
But...
Take for example Pacific Western University. This is a verifiably unaccredited school, there are numerous credible reports in the press about people being disciplined after claiming its degrees, it is not in the accreditation database, it is listed in several sources as a diploma mill. A university it ain't.
Here's a typical example of external coverage: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE1D81E30F937A15754C0A9619...
Look up the "unaccredited correspondence school" in the press report and you get an article on what appears to be a legitimate school offering various degree programmes. No mention of accreditation.
The article was stubbed and OFFICEd, no doubt in response to complaints from the school or its alumni. No problem with that, the history sows some, ahem, problematic content. But well over a month ago I asked Danny if we could at least add {{unaccredited}}. No response.
Where is the mechanism for review and feedback in respect of OFFICEd pages? I can't find any. Should I be bold, ignore all rules and add {{subst:unaccredited}} in the lead, as I have done for every other unaccredited school article I've found being whitewashed by its students? Right now we provide a directory entry for an institution multiply identified as a diploma mill, which makes no mention whatsoever even of the trivially verifiable fact of its being unaccredited. Doesn't look good, does it?
Guy (JzG)
On 12/14/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
The article was stubbed and OFFICEd, no doubt in response to complaints from the school or its alumni. No problem with that, the history sows some, ahem, problematic content. But well over a month ago I asked Danny if we could at least add {{unaccredited}}. No response.
I suspect in many circumstances Danny will not be able to respond to such questions, since he doesn't want an official decision of the Foundation on record.
I would say that careful addition of factual content would not be a problem.
-Matt
On 14/12/06, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
I suspect in many circumstances Danny will not be able to respond to such questions, since he doesn't want an official decision of the Foundation on record.
I thought this project was founded on accountability.
Really? I didn't know allowing everyone in the world to edit with exposing yourself as really optional was accountable.
On 12/14/06, Earle Martin wikipedia@downlode.org wrote:
On 14/12/06, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
I suspect in many circumstances Danny will not be able to respond to such questions, since he doesn't want an official decision of the Foundation on record.
I thought this project was founded on accountability.
-- Earle Martin http://downlode.org/ http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/ _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 12/15/06, Earle Martin wikipedia@downlode.org wrote:
On 14/12/06, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
I suspect in many circumstances Danny will not be able to respond to such questions, since he doesn't want an official decision of the Foundation on record.
I thought this project was founded on accountability.
Editors are accountable for their own actions.
The Foundation rightly does not want to be accountable for other people's actions.
Stephen Bain wrote:
On 12/15/06, Earle Martin wikipedia@downlode.org wrote:
On 14/12/06, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
I suspect in many circumstances Danny will not be able to respond to such questions, since he doesn't want an official decision of the Foundation on record.
I thought this project was founded on accountability.
Editors are accountable for their own actions.
The Foundation rightly does not want to be accountable for other people's actions.
This is all fine, but Office actions should not be a technique for sweeping issues under the rug indefinitely. If someone has made a statement that may be libellous, and it is so alleged by a person who may be affected a bit of time needs to be taken to gather the appropriate verifiability.
If an educational institution is not accredited we do need to mention which list(s) of accredited institutions we have checked to back our position. But note too that we are supporting a negative position. If they are accredited they should have no problem establishing that. A failure to find their name on any reliable list, combined with their refusal to answer about their accreditation would be very difficult for them to sustain in any litigation.
I have no idea who if anyone has been threatening lawsuits, but students and alumni would likely not have standing for this. Perhaps the university administration? Surely the foundation is not responsible for the legal defence of its editors, but a plaintiff is likely to want to make the Foundation at least a co-defendent in a law suit, It should be prepared to defend itself against groundless, vexatious, or SLAPP lawsuits. If it ends up defending an editor at the same time so much the better.
Ec
On 12/15/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Stephen Bain wrote:
Editors are accountable for their own actions.
The Foundation rightly does not want to be accountable for other people's actions.
<snip>
Surely the foundation is not responsible for the legal defence of its editors, but a plaintiff is likely to want to make the Foundation at least a co-defendent in a law suit, It should be prepared to defend itself against groundless, vexatious, or SLAPP lawsuits. If it ends up defending an editor at the same time so much the better.
I was speaking in the general case, to explain one common reason why people like Danny and Brad don't speak on every matter they are asked to speak on.
To bring this back to the specific case at hand, the article once again has the assertion that the institution is unaccredited, but there are no sources cited to verify this. This is highly surprising, given that one such source was mentioned in the original email in the thread. Why have the sources not been added to the article?
Ray Saintonge wrote:
This is all fine, but Office actions should not be a technique for sweeping issues under the rug indefinitely.
I agree completely. The message of WP:OFFICE should not be "hands OFF" but "hands ON".
The core idea is that the process SHOULD work like this:
1. A hysterical phone call comes in to the office. There might or might not be legal threats. The hysteria might or might not be justified. But someone is sad, and Wikipedia is not here to make people sad. So we want to respond in a helpful and loving way.
2. The article is stubbed and tagged as WP:OFFICE. This is a message to good editors: "Please help us. This article is making someone unhappy. We want to make sure that it is a thoughtful, fair, neutral article. We need GOOD editors to pay attention to it, and help us make it good."
I would recommend protection or semi-protection at this point, but with the idea that even if protected admins are (as compared to normal protection) actually encouraged to come help with the article.
3. After some reasonable period of time, hopefully 24 hours, but perhaps as long as a week, the article has become a shining beauty. The subject of the biography (and really, these are most often biographies) is either made happy (because a horrible error was corrected, a troll was vanquished, or whatever) or made at least satisfied (the story of the negative thing he or she did once is now placed in appropriate context, properly cited, including citations to his or her own response and defense).
4. Joy.
-----
In fact, this is far too often not what happens.
A few things can go wrong with this.
Perhaps trolls scream that the OFFICE is being paid off to censor Wikipedia.
Perhaps trolls scream that Jimbo is pulling the strings for his friends.
Perhaps young and excitable Wikipedia contributors think that the point of the exercise is to SHOW PEOPLE that you CAN'T PUSH WIKIPEDIA AROUND, and go out to try to dig up well-cited dirt on the person, creating an even more horribly bad and biased article than we started with, forcing us to start all over again.
Perhaps good contributors who respect WP:OFFICE think "Gee, trouble here, I will just stay out of the way"... and then nothing happens.
Perhaps no one really cares in the first place, such that if the article has been out-of-process speedied, it would have slipped through the cracks.
Etc.
I am unsure exactly how to redesign the process so that we get the good outcome more often, and the bad outcome less often.
An example of the good outcome can be seen at [[Ron Jeremy]], which was NOT subject WP:OFFICE, but rather subject to a controversial blanking by an ordinary editor. It has become an excellent article which continues to improve, because good editors are keeping unsourced cruft out of the article completely.
--Jimbo
If someone has made a
statement that may be libellous, and it is so alleged by a person who may be affected a bit of time needs to be taken to gather the appropriate verifiability.
If an educational institution is not accredited we do need to mention which list(s) of accredited institutions we have checked to back our position. But note too that we are supporting a negative position. If they are accredited they should have no problem establishing that. A failure to find their name on any reliable list, combined with their refusal to answer about their accreditation would be very difficult for them to sustain in any litigation.
I have no idea who if anyone has been threatening lawsuits, but students and alumni would likely not have standing for this. Perhaps the university administration? Surely the foundation is not responsible for the legal defence of its editors, but a plaintiff is likely to want to make the Foundation at least a co-defendent in a law suit, It should be prepared to defend itself against groundless, vexatious, or SLAPP lawsuits. If it ends up defending an editor at the same time so much the better.
Ec
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I am unsure exactly how to redesign the process so that we get the good outcome more often, and the bad outcome less often.
I think the OFFICE template needs a parameter telling people what the complaint was. We can't fix something if we don't know what's broken about it.
It seems you're hoping that people will turn it into a perfect article, and thus fix whatever was complained about in the process, however it is very difficult to make an article perfect, and often the ones that are complained about aren't articles people are very inclined to work on (popular articles are usually good articles already). If we knew precisely what needed fixing we could fix that quickly and be done with it. No-one wants to start a job without any way of knowing when they're finished other than by reaching perfection.
On Fri, 15 Dec 2006 09:46:11 -0500, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
I am unsure exactly how to redesign the process so that we get the good outcome more often, and the bad outcome less often.
Stating the case here has already helped. We should work on [[WP:OFFICE]] to ensure that it reflects this aim. I am very happy to hear that we should be working to fix up these articles, since it is often the case that several editors are motivated to do just that.
Sometimes it's not quite so simple (as with Gregory Lauder-Frost, whose friends made baseless claims in respect of our ability to document his verifiable conviction for fraud, a notable and significant fact by any rational assessment).
In this case, hopefully it is simple. We have impeccable sources for a number of significant facts which bear directly on why this place was ever considered notable in the first place. We can work on those, applying the highest standards of care.
Hopefully the evidence of this care, through showing our working, will be sufficient to ward off trouble, but there is still the niggling concern that fiddling with OFFICEd articles has in the past led to summary disciplinary actions. I'd really rather that didn't happen to me.
Guy (JzG)
Go forward, Guy, with my blessing and protection.
But this really needs a longer term solution, and I agree with you that discussing it here (even with the unnecessary flaming around the edges of the discussion) seems helpful in sorting through this.
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Fri, 15 Dec 2006 09:46:11 -0500, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
I am unsure exactly how to redesign the process so that we get the good outcome more often, and the bad outcome less often.
Stating the case here has already helped. We should work on [[WP:OFFICE]] to ensure that it reflects this aim. I am very happy to hear that we should be working to fix up these articles, since it is often the case that several editors are motivated to do just that.
Sometimes it's not quite so simple (as with Gregory Lauder-Frost, whose friends made baseless claims in respect of our ability to document his verifiable conviction for fraud, a notable and significant fact by any rational assessment).
In this case, hopefully it is simple. We have impeccable sources for a number of significant facts which bear directly on why this place was ever considered notable in the first place. We can work on those, applying the highest standards of care.
Hopefully the evidence of this care, through showing our working, will be sufficient to ward off trouble, but there is still the niggling concern that fiddling with OFFICEd articles has in the past led to summary disciplinary actions. I'd really rather that didn't happen to me.
Guy (JzG)
On 12/15/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
But this really needs a longer term solution, and I agree with you that discussing it here (even with the unnecessary flaming around the edges of the discussion) seems helpful in sorting through this.
And your post further up this thread will, I think, be invaluable in moving towards that long-term solution in helping people understand exactly how this should be managed.
On 12/15/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
This is all fine, but Office actions should not be a technique for sweeping issues under the rug indefinitely.
I agree completely. The message of WP:OFFICE should not be "hands OFF" but "hands ON".
The core idea is that the process SHOULD work like this:
- A hysterical phone call comes in to the office. There might or might
not be legal threats. The hysteria might or might not be justified. But someone is sad, and Wikipedia is not here to make people sad. So we want to respond in a helpful and loving way.
Problem is that it's used for more than that (Image:Crosstar.png for example which I wish someone would oversite away and have done with)
- The article is stubbed and tagged as WP:OFFICE. This is a message to
good editors: "Please help us. This article is making someone unhappy. We want to make sure that it is a thoughtful, fair, neutral article. We need GOOD editors to pay attention to it, and help us make it good."
That would be cleanup and the wait is about 6 months. In the meantime we have [[Elevator music]].
I would recommend protection or semi-protection at this point, but with the idea that even if protected admins are (as compared to normal protection) actually encouraged to come help with the article.
Admins have rather a lot of other things to do. Admin only editing of articles does not strike me as a good idea. In theory at least when it comes to editing we are all equal.
- After some reasonable period of time, hopefully 24 hours, but
perhaps as long as a week, the article has become a shining beauty. The subject of the biography (and really, these are most often biographies) is either made happy (because a horrible error was corrected, a troll was vanquished, or whatever) or made at least satisfied (the story of the negative thing he or she did once is now placed in appropriate context, properly cited, including citations to his or her own response and defense).
- Joy.
This assumes the person complaining is ah reasonable.
Perhaps young and excitable Wikipedia contributors think that the point of the exercise is to SHOW PEOPLE that you CAN'T PUSH WIKIPEDIA AROUND, and go out to try to dig up well-cited dirt on the person, creating an even more horribly bad and biased article than we started with, forcing us to start all over again.
I don't think it is a good idea to get into the habit of removing well cited information
Perhaps good contributors who respect WP:OFFICE think "Gee, trouble here, I will just stay out of the way"... and then nothing happens.
Can you blame them?
Perhaps no one really cares in the first place, such that if the article has been out-of-process speedied, it would have slipped through the cracks.
People are supriseingly good at picking up impropper speedies
I am unsure exactly how to redesign the process so that we get the good outcome more often, and the bad outcome less often.
Outline the problem on the talk page as see if we can get the person complaining to suggest any souces that could be useful.
An example of the good outcome can be seen at [[Ron Jeremy]], which was NOT subject WP:OFFICE, but rather subject to a controversial blanking by an ordinary editor. It has become an excellent article which continues to improve, because good editors are keeping unsourced cruft out of the article completely.
Try [[Jack Thompson (attorney)]] I suspect the subject still has issues with the article but at least it now covers more of his life than his campains against certian types of computer games.
On Fri, 15 Dec 2006 17:18:43 +0000, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Admins have rather a lot of other things to do. Admin only editing of articles does not strike me as a good idea. In theory at least when it comes to editing we are all equal.
I'm not sure I agree here. There is a bar to entry for admins, and it is reasonable to require, at least in the short term, that we allow editing only by trusted individuals. Protection is a blunt instrument and certainly excludes many highly trustworthy individuals, but it does exclude most of those likely to perpetuate the problem. Hopefully if the clarification Jimbo gave is taken to heart, the protection period can be reduced as we fix the articles.
Guy (JzG)
On 12/15/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Fri, 15 Dec 2006 17:18:43 +0000, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Admins have rather a lot of other things to do. Admin only editing of articles does not strike me as a good idea. In theory at least when it comes to editing we are all equal.
I'm not sure I agree here. There is a bar to entry for admins, and it is reasonable to require, at least in the short term, that we allow editing only by trusted individuals. Protection is a blunt instrument and certainly excludes many highly trustworthy individuals, but it does exclude most of those likely to perpetuate the problem. Hopefully if the clarification Jimbo gave is taken to heart, the protection period can be reduced as we fix the articles.
Guy (JzG)
The divide between editors and admins should be as small small as posible. At the moment most of the admin powers are ah procedural. They are not really ment to be related to content. I would not like to see that change. There are too many traps on that path.
On Dec 15, 2006, at 11:54 AM, geni wrote:
The divide between editors and admins should be as small small as posible. At the moment most of the admin powers are ah procedural. They are not really ment to be related to content. I would not like to see that change. There are too many traps on that path.
I agree in principle and in nearly every other instance, but working in the legal profession myself, I understand how important and damaging certain actions can be to future civil action. Looking at [[WP:OFFICE]], I see that 8 articles are under protection, and 1 should probably be delisted and can't be fixed by anyone. We're not talking about an enormous backlog of OFFICE-protected articles, and I think each article that needs editing could have that done by one or two enterprising administrators. In my mind, it's not that big of a deal.
On 12/15/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
<snip>
Try [[Jack Thompson (attorney)]] I suspect the subject still has issues with the article but at least it now covers more of his life than his campains against certian types of computer games. -- geni
The subject is also an overly litigious bag of hot air...
Parker
I would recommend protection or semi-protection at this point, but with the idea that even if protected admins are (as compared to normal protection) actually encouraged to come help with the article.
Admins have rather a lot of other things to do. Admin only editing of articles does not strike me as a good idea. In theory at least when it comes to editing we are all equal.
Jimbo said protection *or semi-protection*. Perhaps more OFFICE articles should be semi-protected, rather than protected.
I don't think it is a good idea to get into the habit of removing well cited information
Indeed. A balanced article isn't one that has the same number of good points as bad points. It's one that has a ratio of good points to bad points that accurately represents how good/bad the subject is (yes, it's not our job to decide is someone is a good person or not, but we don't need to, if we do our research properly and cite everything properly, we'll get the right ratio without having to decide what that ratio is). An article on a convicted murderer is going to have mainly bad points, that's perfectly balanced. An article on an uncontroversial charity worker will have mainly good points, that's perfectly balanced.
If there are far more bad points than good points in an article, and the bad points are all well cited, then there are two possibilities. Either the subject is simply bad, in which case the article is fine, or the article is missing some good points, in which case they should be added. I can't see any reason for a well cited bad point to be removed.
Perhaps good contributors who respect WP:OFFICE think "Gee, trouble here, I will just stay out of the way"... and then nothing happens.
Can you blame them?
Especially not when [[WP:OFFICE]] says:
"The following pages are currently under full Office protection and full page protection and must not be edited by anyone not explicitly authorised to do so."
From following this thread, I think what that means is the article
should be edited on a temporary subpage and then get explicit authorisation to move the subpage to the main page. If that's what's intended, it should be made clearer.
Thomas Dalton wrote:
I would recommend protection or semi-protection at this point, but with the idea that even if protected admins are (as compared to normal protection) actually encouraged to come help with the article.
Admins have rather a lot of other things to do. Admin only editing of articles does not strike me as a good idea. In theory at least when it comes to editing we are all equal.
Jimbo said protection *or semi-protection*. Perhaps more OFFICE articles should be semi-protected, rather than protected.
Probably, although the cases vary widely and assuming good faith of Danny and Brad seems to be in our best interest overall.
Especially not when [[WP:OFFICE]] says:
"The following pages are currently under full Office protection and full page protection and must not be edited by anyone not explicitly authorised to do so."
From following this thread, I think what that means is the article
should be edited on a temporary subpage and then get explicit authorisation to move the subpage to the main page. If that's what's intended, it should be made clearer.
Given that we have seen that things tend to end up under office protection for rather longer than we would like, I think we should try to come up with gradations, at a minimum.
--Jimbo
On 15/12/06, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/15/06, Earle Martin wikipedia@downlode.org wrote:
On 14/12/06, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
I suspect in many circumstances Danny will not be able to respond to such questions, since he doesn't want an official decision of the Foundation on record.
I thought this project was founded on accountability.
Editors are accountable for their own actions.
The Foundation rightly does not want to be accountable for other people's actions.
I have no idea where you got the idea that I was asking the Foundation to be responsible for other people's actions. I'll quote you again the text (quoted above) that I was replying to:
"Danny... doesn't want an official decision of the Foundation on record."
In this case, it was an "office action", which appears to generally equate to "putting stuff in the memory hole".
Is it Foundation policy to hide official decisions of the Foundation? Or is it Danny policy? Either way, it appears that the management of this project is asymptotically approaching that of the Open[sic] Directory Project.
On 12/15/06, Earle Martin wikipedia@downlode.org wrote:
On 15/12/06, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/15/06, Earle Martin wikipedia@downlode.org wrote:
On 14/12/06, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
I suspect in many circumstances Danny will not be able to respond to such questions, since he doesn't want an official decision of the Foundation on record.
I thought this project was founded on accountability.
Editors are accountable for their own actions.
The Foundation rightly does not want to be accountable for other people's actions.
I have no idea where you got the idea that I was asking the Foundation to be responsible for other people's actions. I'll quote you again the text (quoted above) that I was replying to:
"Danny... doesn't want an official decision of the Foundation on record."
In this case, it was an "office action", which appears to generally equate to "putting stuff in the memory hole".
Is it Foundation policy to hide official decisions of the Foundation? Or is it Danny policy? Either way, it appears that the management of this project is asymptotically approaching that of the Open[sic] Directory Project.
-- Earle Martin
Given that the risk of violating an Office action is Danny having you banned/desysopped/draped in sackcloth and ashes, I think that the boundaries of Office actions need to be spelled out pretty clearly. Hiding them is not good for the project.
Parker
Yes. We all know what happened to Erik Moeller.
And now let's not speak of that incident ever again.
On 12/15/06, Parker Peters onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/15/06, Earle Martin wikipedia@downlode.org wrote:
On 15/12/06, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/15/06, Earle Martin wikipedia@downlode.org wrote:
On 14/12/06, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
I suspect in many circumstances Danny will not be able to respond
to
such questions, since he doesn't want an official decision of the Foundation on record.
I thought this project was founded on accountability.
Editors are accountable for their own actions.
The Foundation rightly does not want to be accountable for other people's actions.
I have no idea where you got the idea that I was asking the Foundation to be responsible for other people's actions. I'll quote you again the text (quoted above) that I was replying to:
"Danny... doesn't want an official decision of the Foundation on
record."
In this case, it was an "office action", which appears to generally equate to "putting stuff in the memory hole".
Is it Foundation policy to hide official decisions of the Foundation? Or is it Danny policy? Either way, it appears that the management of this project is asymptotically approaching that of the Open[sic] Directory Project.
-- Earle Martin
Given that the risk of violating an Office action is Danny having you banned/desysopped/draped in sackcloth and ashes, I think that the boundaries of Office actions need to be spelled out pretty clearly. Hiding them is not good for the project.
Parker _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
James Hare wrote:
Yes. We all know what happened to Erik Moeller.
... he got elected to the Board?
He may have been the first permabanned user to become elected to the Board of Trustees!
(Although his ban was lifted... I was talking about the nasty office issue.)
On 12/15/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
James Hare wrote:
Yes. We all know what happened to Erik Moeller.
... he got elected to the Board?
-- Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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On 12/16/06, James Hare messedrocker@gmail.com wrote:
He may have been the first permabanned user to become elected to the Board of Trustees!
Erik wasn't exactly "permabanned", and neither was he the first trustee to be elected after being blocked. I wonder how many people remember that Jimmy blocked an account Anthere was using many years ago. :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Mediator&diff=1570530&...
Angela
I may be senior to many Wikipedians but I wasn't around in the stone ages! :)
On 12/15/06, Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/16/06, James Hare messedrocker@gmail.com wrote:
He may have been the first permabanned user to become elected to the
Board
of Trustees!
Erik wasn't exactly "permabanned", and neither was he the first trustee to be elected after being blocked. I wonder how many people remember that Jimmy blocked an account Anthere was using many years ago. :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Mediator&diff=1570530&...
Angela _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 12/15/06, James Hare messedrocker@gmail.com wrote:
I may be senior to many Wikipedians but I wasn't around in the stone ages! :)
Interesting. I thought everyone newer than me was a rank newbie... (yeah, I know, I've been here a whole 3 months longer than you).
On 12/15/06, Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/16/06, James Hare messedrocker@gmail.com wrote:
He may have been the first permabanned user to become elected to the
Board
of Trustees!
Erik wasn't exactly "permabanned", and neither was he the first trustee to be elected after being blocked. I wonder how many people remember that Jimmy blocked an account Anthere was using many years ago. :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Mediator&diff=1570530&...
Angela _______________________________________________ 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 12/15/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
Interesting. I thought everyone newer than me was a rank newbie... (yeah, I know, I've been here a whole 3 months longer than you).
Doesn't everyone think that?
On 12/15/06, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/15/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
Interesting. I thought everyone newer than me was a rank newbie... (yeah, I know, I've been here a whole 3 months longer than you).
Doesn't everyone think that?
After a while you adjust that to everyone who joined after you made it to admin.
On 12/15/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/15/06, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/15/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
Interesting. I thought everyone newer than me was a rank newbie... (yeah, I know, I've been here a whole 3 months longer than you).
Doesn't everyone think that?
After a while you adjust that to everyone who joined after you made it to admin.
You do? Oh good.
On 12/15/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/15/06, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/15/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
Interesting. I thought everyone newer than me was a rank newbie...
(yeah, I
know, I've been here a whole 3 months longer than you).
Doesn't everyone think that?
After a while you adjust that to everyone who joined after you made it to admin.
The sad thing is that the ranks of people who joined around the same time as me are starting to thin. I've gotten used to the fact that most of the regulars when I joined don't edit much any more, but it's sad to see that the people who joined around the same time as I did (mid to late 2004) aren't around much either. What really makes me feel old is all the people who have come, become stalwarts of the community, and then burned out...who weren't even editing back when I had my RFA. It makes you feel rather ent-ish ;)
On 12/15/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote: but it's sad to see that
the people who joined around the same time as I did (mid to late 2004) aren't around much either. What really makes me feel old is all the people who have come, become stalwarts of the community, and then burned out...who weren't even editing back when I had my RFA. It makes you feel rather ent-ish ;)
Hm. I'm on dewp since April 04 and I don't feel ent-ish yet. At least on dewp, there are still a lot of people, who were regulars (as in "sysops") when I joined... Michael
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Stone age?? That was only three years ago. :-) Ec
James Hare wrote:
I may be senior to many Wikipedians but I wasn't around in the stone ages! :)
On 12/15/06, Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/16/06, James Hare messedrocker@gmail.com wrote:
He may have been the first permabanned user to become elected to the Board of Trustees!
Erik wasn't exactly "permabanned", and neither was he the first trustee to be elected after being blocked. I wonder how many people remember that Jimmy blocked an account Anthere was using many years ago. :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Mediator&diff=1570530&...
Angela
Angela wrote:
On 12/16/06, James Hare messedrocker@gmail.com wrote:
He may have been the first permabanned user to become elected to the Board of Trustees!
Erik wasn't exactly "permabanned", and neither was he the first trustee to be elected after being blocked. I wonder how many people remember that Jimmy blocked an account Anthere was using many years ago. :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Mediator&diff=1570530&...
Did you know that this is, as far as I can remember, the first time I ever knew that account was being used by Anthere? :)
--Jimbo
On 12/15/06, Parker Peters onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/15/06, Earle Martin wikipedia@downlode.org wrote:
On 15/12/06, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/15/06, Earle Martin wikipedia@downlode.org wrote:
On 14/12/06, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
I suspect in many circumstances Danny will not be able to
respond
to
such questions, since he doesn't want an official decision of
the
Foundation on record.
I thought this project was founded on accountability.
Editors are accountable for their own actions.
The Foundation rightly does not want to be accountable for other people's actions.
I have no idea where you got the idea that I was asking the Foundation to be responsible for other people's actions. I'll quote you again the text (quoted above) that I was replying to:
"Danny... doesn't want an official decision of the Foundation on
record."
In this case, it was an "office action", which appears to generally equate to "putting stuff in the memory hole".
Is it Foundation policy to hide official decisions of the Foundation? Or is it Danny policy? Either way, it appears that the management of this project is asymptotically approaching that of the Open[sic] Directory Project.
-- Earle Martin
Given that the risk of violating an Office action is Danny having you banned/desysopped/draped in sackcloth and ashes, I think that the boundaries of Office actions need to be spelled out pretty clearly. Hiding them is not good for the project.
Parker ____
On 12/15/06, James Hare messedrocker@gmail.com wrote:Yes. We all know
what happened to Erik Moeller.
And now let's not speak of that incident ever again.
James,
to "not speak of something again" isn't helpful either. Right or wrong, eventually cleared up or not, that incident seems entirely relevant to the questions being asked today, because another admin is trying - in very good faith - to get the answers he needs so that he doesn't step on the toes of OFFICE.
If those answers aren't provided, if OFFICE isn't willing to tell an administrator what he needs to know, or even to give him a "well we can't say 100% but we know you are acting in good faith so if we have to undo something you do, no hard feelings/punishment will be coming your way", then we've got a pretty big problem on our hands.
Parker
On 12/15/06, Parker Peters onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
... to get the answers he needs so that he doesn't step on the toes of OFFICE.
If those answers aren't provided, if OFFICE isn't willing to tell an ..
As an aside, could we stop writing "office" in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS? It's starting to kind of creep me out. ;-) The office is not _that_ impressive; believe me, I've been there. :-)
I don't think it's likely that an editor will be indef-blocked for good faith edits anytime soon -- and if it does happen, we'll try to straighten it out ASAP. Most of the articles under office protection end up there because they were written by people not familiar with our policies of verifiability and neutrality, or those deliberately violating them. In general, the process is: stub it down and start from scratch, with more trusted editors taking the lead.
I think the office process is still one we need to eventually reform (make more transparent, scalable, etc.). But right now we're in the middle of a major fundraiser and other organizational reforms, so it's not the highest priority for Board+ED+Legal Counsel.
Erik Moeller wrote:
I don't think it's likely that an editor will be indef-blocked for good faith edits anytime soon -- and if it does happen, we'll try to straighten it out ASAP.
Precisely.
Most of the articles under office protection end up there because they were written by people not familiar with our policies of verifiability and neutrality, or those deliberately violating them. In general, the process is: stub it down and start from scratch, with more trusted editors taking the lead.
I think the office process is still one we need to eventually reform (make more transparent, scalable, etc.). But right now we're in the middle of a major fundraiser and other organizational reforms, so it's not the highest priority for Board+ED+Legal Counsel.
:)
--Jimbo
James Hare wrote:
Yes. We all know what happened to Erik Moeller.
And now let's not speak of that incident ever again.
Exactly. Drummed from the project in shame, never to be heard from again. ;-)
(In case anyone reading this doesn't get this obscure reference, there was an unfortunate incident which was quickly cleared up regarding WP:OFFICE and some confusions surrounding it, and Erik is of course still a valued member of the community and in fact a member of the board.)
The point is, mistakes are made, errors are reversible, assuming good faith and trying to listen to each other is always better than the alternatives.
On 12/15/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
James Hare wrote:
Yes. We all know what happened to Erik Moeller.
And now let's not speak of that incident ever again.
Exactly. Drummed from the project in shame, never to be heard from again. ;-)
(In case anyone reading this doesn't get this obscure reference, there was an unfortunate incident which was quickly cleared up regarding WP:OFFICE and some confusions surrounding it, and Erik is of course still a valued member of the community and in fact a member of the board.)
The point is, mistakes are made, errors are reversible, assuming good faith and trying to listen to each other is always better than the alternatives.
Precisely, Jimbo.
And assuming good faith, and asking what the boundaries are before doing something when OFFICE is potentially involved, would seem to be a good course of action, would it not?
Parker
Parker Peters wrote:
The point is, mistakes are made, errors are reversible, assuming good faith and trying to listen to each other is always better than the alternatives.
Precisely, Jimbo.
And assuming good faith, and asking what the boundaries are before doing something when OFFICE is potentially involved, would seem to be a good course of action, would it not?
Yes.
James Hare wrote:
Yes. We all know what happened to Erik Moeller.
And now let's not speak of that incident ever again.
That would not be remedial.
It was an instructive incident about how quickly things can develop badly. To be instructive it needs to be depersonalized. That Danny and Erik were the persons involved is of no consequence. It's evident from the present thread that the incident did have a broader effect, because some senior editors have become excessively cautious about being bold.
Ec
Parker Peters wrote:
On 12/15/06, Earle Martin wikipedia@downlode.org wrote:
On 15/12/06, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/15/06, Earle Martin wikipedia@downlode.org wrote:
On 14/12/06, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
I suspect in many circumstances Danny will not be able to respond to such questions, since he doesn't want an official decision of the Foundation on record.
I thought this project was founded on accountability.
Editors are accountable for their own actions.
The Foundation rightly does not want to be accountable for other people's actions.
I have no idea where you got the idea that I was asking the Foundation to be responsible for other people's actions. I'll quote you again the text (quoted above) that I was replying to:
"Danny... doesn't want an official decision of the Foundation on record."
In this case, it was an "office action", which appears to generally equate to "putting stuff in the memory hole".
Is it Foundation policy to hide official decisions of the Foundation? Or is it Danny policy? Either way, it appears that the management of this project is asymptotically approaching that of the Open[sic] Directory Project.
-- Earle Martin
Given that the risk of violating an Office action is Danny having you banned/desysopped/draped in sackcloth and ashes, I think that the boundaries of Office actions need to be spelled out pretty clearly. Hiding them is not good for the project.
Given the number of people who don't understand or don't care that what happens on Wikipedia can have real-world implications, a suitable degree of "HERE BE DRAGONS" /is/ needed.
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
Given the number of people who don't understand or don't care that what happens on Wikipedia can have real-world implications, a suitable degree of "HERE BE DRAGONS" /is/ needed.
So I agree with you about that... to a degree.
The problem is that far too often, when something is tagged WP:OFFICE it just sits there, for months, with everyone scared to do anything. This is the opposite of what is intended.
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales wrote:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
Given the number of people who don't understand or don't care that what happens on Wikipedia can have real-world implications, a suitable degree of "HERE BE DRAGONS" /is/ needed.
So I agree with you about that... to a degree.
The problem is that far too often, when something is tagged WP:OFFICE it just sits there, for months, with everyone scared to do anything. This is the opposite of what is intended.
More carrot, less stick?
On 12/15/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
Given the number of people who don't understand or don't care that what happens on Wikipedia can have real-world implications, a suitable degree of "HERE BE DRAGONS" /is/ needed.
So I agree with you about that... to a degree.
The problem is that far too often, when something is tagged WP:OFFICE it just sits there, for months, with everyone scared to do anything. This is the opposite of what is intended.
--Jimbo
I'm extremely glad you came here and said this, as the impression which has been filtering out, as I saw it, was that OFFICE meant that even senior trusted editors had to stay hands-off unless you happened to be "In the OFFICE loop" on a particular problem.
I agree with something I think Guy said earlier, that even having the "This is OFFICE because of reason XYZ" descriptor on articles, rather than "It's OFFICE (implied don't touch)", would be a huge improvement.
I am perfectly willing to help with problem articles, IF I know what the problem is and I won't get yelled at or blocked for doing so.
Jimmy Wales wrote:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
Given the number of people who don't understand or don't care that what happens on Wikipedia can have real-world implications, a suitable degree of "HERE BE DRAGONS" /is/ needed.
So I agree with you about that... to a degree.
The problem is that far too often, when something is tagged WP:OFFICE it just sits there, for months, with everyone scared to do anything. This is the opposite of what is intended.
That's what I am unclear on (and I imagine some others are too). My original understanding of WP:OFFICE was that it was a quick-fix lockdown: while the Foundation is trying to sort out an imminent problem, the page gets stubbed or blanked and has a WP:OFFICE banner on it, giving the Foundation a bit of temporary breathing room to do the sorting out.
But it seems that's not what it's *actually* being used for, since the banner sometimes stays for months and there doesn't seem to be any of that "sorting out" activity going on in the meantime. So what is actually intended? That the article be rewritten cautiously from scratch? How long does the WP:OFFICE banner (and protection) stay on in that case? Basically I'm unsure what, as a normal editor, I should do with regards to such pages. My original understanding was that I should just leave the page alone for a few days, pending someone figuring out the situation and re-opening editing from a new starting point. But maybe that's not the process?
-Mark
Delirium wrote:
That's what I am unclear on (and I imagine some others are too). My original understanding of WP:OFFICE was that it was a quick-fix lockdown: while the Foundation is trying to sort out an imminent problem, the page gets stubbed or blanked and has a WP:OFFICE banner on it, giving the Foundation a bit of temporary breathing room to do the sorting out.
But it seems that's not what it's *actually* being used for, since the banner sometimes stays for months and there doesn't seem to be any of that "sorting out" activity going on in the meantime.
Right, but this is not intended. We who do not work in the office (and I do not work in the office, remember) need to remember that those who do are overwhelmed. They have good reasons for flagging things, but they can't always follow up on everything themselves... it's too much.
We, good experience editors who have a sensitivity to both legal situations and human dignity, should stand ready to carefully try to help make NPOV articles when there is a problem, without a lot of ludicrous accusations of bias and whatnot.
So what is actually intended? That the article be rewritten cautiously from scratch? How long does the WP:OFFICE banner (and protection) stay on in that case? Basically I'm unsure what, as a normal editor, I should do with regards to such pages. My original understanding was that I should just leave the page alone for a few days, pending someone figuring out the situation and re-opening editing from a new starting point. But maybe that's not the process?
I think right now we don't know. This needs to be fixed, so that we have a better system.
--Jimbo
On Sun, 17 Dec 2006 12:05:33 +0000, "Thomas Dalton" thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
So, we're all agreed that it's broken and needs fixing. That's an excellent first step! :-) How do we want to do the second step?
Jimbo already answered that. We discuss every change really thoroughly and ensure that all changes have broad consensus and are impeccably sourced and neutral. As long as we do that, there should be no pressing problem.
But...
We still have the odd cases like Gregory Lauder-Frost where the office action was the result of his legal advisors stating that we could not mention his conviction for fraud because of the UK's Rehabilitation of Offenders Act. That demands actual legal advice. As it happens, the Act only prevents "spent" convictions being mentioned in a defamatory way, there is no apparent restriction on coverage in a neutral, independent biography, and his friends did not help his case by initially including the case but claiming that he had been cleared on appeal - it was possible (though certainly not trivial) to verify that this was simply not true, and it was only when we included the citations to back up the conviction and failed appeal that they pulled the office stunt.
In these cases it is good to have feedback, even if the feedback is a weekly "sorry, no progress yet". And it would be good to know if there is a particular issue which needs to be addressed.
In other cases, the one which prompted this thread being Pacific Western university, there is no question of verifiable facts for which there might be a legal basis for forbidding inclusion. It's all about tone, sourcing and above all scrupulous fairness. So we can verify that PWU cooperated in an investigation into diploma mills, we can verify that it was discussed in the same breath, but we cannot say that the GAO director actually called it a diploma mill, because he did not, not in so many words. So as long as we set the bar high for sourcing, and ensure that we attribute every statement which might be perceived as questionable, I think we can proceed with improving the article.
Guy (JzG)
On 12/17/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
We still have the odd cases like Gregory Lauder-Frost where the office action was the result of his legal advisors stating that we could not mention his conviction for fraud because of the UK's Rehabilitation of Offenders Act. That demands actual legal advice. As it happens, the Act only prevents "spent" convictions being mentioned in a defamatory way, there is no apparent restriction on coverage in a neutral, independent biography, and his friends did not help his case by initially including the case but claiming that he had been cleared on appeal - it was possible (though certainly not trivial) to verify that this was simply not true, and it was only when we included the citations to back up the conviction and failed appeal that they pulled the office stunt.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. How would Wiki[m/p]edia, in the United States, be subject to a law in the United Kingdom? Just because some country has a law that would prevent Wikipedia from stating something about some particular topic doesn't mean Wikipedia has to follow it. If we followed North Korean or Chinese or Iranian laws on free speech, I have the feeling some of our articles would be pretty blank. :-)
Or should we even try discussing that, because most of us aren't lawyers?
On Sun, 17 Dec 2006 09:46:53 -0800, theProject wp.theproject@gmail.com wrote:
How would Wiki[m/p]edia, in the United States, be subject to a law in the United Kingdom? Just because some country has a law that would prevent Wikipedia from stating something about some particular topic doesn't mean Wikipedia has to follow it.
Ah, well. First up, the editor who posted the verifiable info was not in the UK, so was, as you suggest, probably safe, but Lauder-Frost had solicitors' letters sent to at least one editor threatening legal action, and that's why Sussexman is indef-blocked. It's a it like the Scientologists - the threat of all that cost and aggravation can be enough.
However... Brad's opinion (and that of several others who know the law in the UK) was that the claim was bogus anyway. Plus, of course, the Foundation is not in the UK. But these things can have degrees of enforceability outside of their home territory, depending on the involvement of other parties. I think Lauder-Frost would first of all have to take down the London Gazette, which contains official records which corroborate the events, and that's not happening any time soon.
Guy (JzG)
theProject wrote:
Whoa, whoa, whoa. How would Wiki[m/p]edia, in the United States, be subject to a law in the United Kingdom? Just because some country has a law that would prevent Wikipedia from stating something about some particular topic doesn't mean Wikipedia has to follow it. If we followed North Korean or Chinese or Iranian laws on free speech, I have the feeling some of our articles would be pretty blank. :-)
While the placement of the servers and offices gives primary legal jurisdiction to the United States, this is not a green light for ignoring the laws of other countries completely. People in many countries become justifiably upset when Americans take this route.
A respect for the legal culture of other countries helps to build mutual co-operation even if there is no conceivable avenue for enforcing those laws. Why shouldn't North Korean, Chinese or Iranian law be respected when they are relevent?
Ec
On 12/20/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
theProject wrote:
Whoa, whoa, whoa. How would Wiki[m/p]edia, in the United States, be subject to a law in the United Kingdom? Just because some country has a law that would prevent Wikipedia from stating something about some particular topic doesn't mean Wikipedia has to follow it. If we followed North Korean or Chinese or Iranian laws on free speech, I have the feeling some of our articles would be pretty blank. :-)
While the placement of the servers and offices gives primary legal jurisdiction to the United States, this is not a green light for ignoring the laws of other countries completely. People in many countries become justifiably upset when Americans take this route.
A respect for the legal culture of other countries helps to build mutual co-operation even if there is no conceivable avenue for enforcing those laws. Why shouldn't North Korean, Chinese or Iranian law be respected when they are relevent?
Ec
A lot of what gets written would get people arrested or worse elsewhere in the world.
This even applies in Europe - see Irving just having gotten out of jail in Austria.
On 12/21/06, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
A lot of what gets written would get people arrested or worse elsewhere in the world.
This even applies in Europe - see Irving just having gotten out of jail in Austria.
Bits of europe. Our legal systems are not harmonised (heh even the legal systems within the UK have their differences).
On 12/20/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
A respect for the legal culture of other countries helps to build mutual co-operation even if there is no conceivable avenue for enforcing those laws. Why shouldn't North Korean, Chinese or Iranian law be respected when they are relevent?
So, no maps showing that Kashmir is not entirely and undisputedly part of India. No pictures of women with uncovered faces. No criticism of Kim Jong-Il. No mention that Arab countries call it the Arabian Gulf, or that most other countries call it the Persian Gulf.
There's a whole lot that we couldn't include in Wikipedia if we were to respect all the relevant laws of countries where Wikipedia is accessible.
Mark Wagner wrote:
On 12/20/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
A respect for the legal culture of other countries helps to build mutual co-operation even if there is no conceivable avenue for enforcing those laws. Why shouldn't North Korean, Chinese or Iranian law be respected when they are relevent?
So, no maps showing that Kashmir is not entirely and undisputedly part of India. No pictures of women with uncovered faces. No criticism of Kim Jong-Il. No mention that Arab countries call it the Arabian Gulf, or that most other countries call it the Persian Gulf.
There's a whole lot that we couldn't include in Wikipedia if we were to respect all the relevant laws of countries where Wikipedia is accessible.
Respect for foreign laws does not extend to abjectly kowtowing to all their peculiarities. That would be impossible even if we knew them all. If we must follow Indian law about Kashmir we must also follow Pakistani law on the same issue.
Much of the respect comes from applying NPOV, and treating everyone with fairness, and taking note of the fact that Wikipedians living in those countries have to live with what they have. If the common criticisms of Kim Jong-Il are valid it still does not justify gratuitously insulting language. If the United States ignores the copyright laws of another country because it does not have copyright relations with it, that does not mean that we too should be free to ignore them.
Ec
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
But...
We still have the odd cases like Gregory Lauder-Frost where the office action was the result of his legal advisors stating that we could not mention his conviction for fraud because of the UK's Rehabilitation of Offenders Act. That demands actual legal advice. As it happens, the Act only prevents "spent" convictions being mentioned in a defamatory way, there is no apparent restriction on coverage in a neutral, independent biography, and his friends did not help his case by initially including the case but claiming that he had been cleared on appeal - it was possible (though certainly not trivial) to verify that this was simply not true, and it was only when we included the citations to back up the conviction and failed appeal that they pulled the office stunt.
In these cases it is good to have feedback, even if the feedback is a weekly "sorry, no progress yet". And it would be good to know if there is a particular issue which needs to be addressed.
Right, and that case WAS different, since we were (are?) unclear on exactly what the legal situation is.
Most of these cases don't involve such bizarre complexities though. They are about bios that have been wrecked by trolls who hate someone, and all that is needed is for someone good to go through and carefully write a sensible bio.
We do need to have a way of distinguishing these cases.
I've been closely following the thread about WP:Office actions and appreciated what clarification has been provided as to the different types of Office actions that can be taken. If I am reading things correctly, I gather there is a distinction between (1) a page that is fully Office Protected (meaning that it basically shouldn't be edited at all without express Office permission; this is a rare status, there are only 7 such pages as of now in the whole project); and (2) and a page that has been Office Blanked/Stubbed (meaning the article needs to be redone but feel free to edit as long as it's in accordance with policy including WP:Living). In due course, the WP:Office page might be clarified in this regard as there does seem to be widespread uncertainty.
Another WP:Office related question on which clarification might be in order is under what circumstances an administrator or editor should call situations to the Office's attention. A few weeks ago, I came across a serious legal threats situation involving threats to sue the Foundation unless changes were made in an article immediately. I suggested on one of the noticeboards that this seemed like the sort of thing that the Office would want to know about right away. I was e-mailed by two people who indicated that the Office actually prefers that administrators deal with these situations on their own without getting the Foundation involved. Some clarification on when the Office should be notified of the various types of threats and other situations that arise could be helpful so that admins and editors are able to do the best possible job of protecting the Foundation and the contributors. This is a concrete issue that comes up every week, any insight would be helpful.
Newyorkbrad
Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) wrote:
Another WP:Office related question on which clarification might be in order is under what circumstances an administrator or editor should call situations to the Office's attention. A few weeks ago, I came across a serious legal threats situation involving threats to sue the Foundation unless changes were made in an article immediately. I suggested on one of the noticeboards that this seemed like the sort of thing that the Office would want to know about right away. I was e-mailed by two people who indicated that the Office actually prefers that administrators deal with these situations on their own without getting the Foundation involved. Some clarification on when the Office should be notified of the various types of threats and other situations that arise could be helpful so that admins and editors are able to do the best possible job of protecting the Foundation and the contributors.
I agree with the two e-mails that you received. To understand this requires an appreciation of the subtle distinction between the roles of the Foundation and the various communities that operate under its wing. If the function of the Foundation is to serve as some kind of ISP it does not know about most of these suspicious edits. This is on a more serious level than just playing dumb. In a sense sourcing is just as important for complaints as for claims in an article. I believe that for a person to have a valid claim, he must first of all have standing. This is a matter of either being directly affected, or being officially authorized to represent such a person. If the office were to act on every claim by a third-party do-gooder the situation would be much worse, and the office would soon grind to a halt.
There are many, many more admins than there are Foundation trustees and employees. Why should they not be the ones to clean up the situation when they are apprised of the situation? An experienced admin is not new to legal threats. Admins as a group have the tools to deal with such people. While there may be situations involving threats of physical violence where the office should be notified, we also should not presume that the office is manned 24/7. The threatened person could be dead before the office even has a chance to open. Admins based in Europe, North America and Australia are together in a much better position to give 24/7 coverage. If someone feels that he has been treated unjustly, and receives no satisfaction from the admins it's up to him to notify the Foundation in whatever way he deems appropriate.
Ec
On Sun, 17 Dec 2006 21:03:02 -0500, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
We do need to have a way of distinguishing these cases.
As long as we have some idea what the grounds for objection were, the application of Clue should be sufficient. Hopefully protection will do that, since admins are supposed to posses that elusive quantity.
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Sun, 17 Dec 2006 21:03:02 -0500, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
We do need to have a way of distinguishing these cases.
As long as we have some idea what the grounds for objection were, the application of Clue should be sufficient. Hopefully protection will do that, since admins are supposed to posses that elusive quantity.
The number who have been desysopped suggests otherwise.
On 12/18/06, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
The number who have been desysopped suggests otherwise.
How many people have been forcibly desysopped? I don't think it's many...
About a dozen, last time I counted.
--Ryan
On 12/18/06, Ryan Wetherell renardius@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/18/06, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
The number who have been desysopped suggests otherwise.
How many people have been forcibly desysopped? I don't think it's
many...
About a dozen, last time I counted.
--Ryan
That's about right, according to the list available at: [[Wikipedia:Requests_for_de-adminship]].
"Newyorkbrad"
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Thomas Dalton wrote:
About a dozen, last time I counted.
Less than 1% of admins, then... I don't think that suggests anything.
It suggests that it takes a lot to de-admin someone. I'm not entirely sure that's a good thing, but I'm not sure how to solve it anymore, either.
-Jeff
On 18/12/06, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
About a dozen, last time I counted.
Less than 1% of admins, then... I don't think that suggests anything.
It suggests that it takes a lot to de-admin someone. I'm not entirely sure that's a good thing, but I'm not sure how to solve it anymore, either.
I don't think it's a bad thing. Before 2006, de-adminning was ridiculously rare. Unfortunately, with so many more users we have hugely more admins, so we're going to be wrong about the "basic sanity check" from time to time. The ArbCom does de-admin when it's called for.
Though cluification is *always* preferred, and a bit of positive peer pressure (honey catches more flies than vinegar) from fellow admins, in a collegiate spirit, goes a long and productive way. I've seen a lot of admins I thought would be disasters turn out fine, so I worry a lot less now.
- d.
Though cluification is *always* preferred, and a bit of positive peer pressure (honey catches more flies than vinegar) from fellow admins, in a collegiate spirit, goes a long and productive way. I've seen a lot of admins I thought would be disasters turn out fine, so I worry a lot less now.
Maybe we need a new subpage of the admin noticeboard for determining consensus on whether or not an admin made the right decision. At the moment, admins sometimes go to AN/I and say "I've done this, was I right?" which is great, but I think a more formal process would be good (and a way for other people to ask the question).
Someone explains the admin action, then other admins state whether or not they endorse it. In most cases, we'll just get a load of " '''Endorse''' --~~~~" comments, and that should shut up anyone complaining about the admin action. In cases where the admin action is more questionable, it can be discussed more fully and a course or action decided upon, rather than it becoming a wheel war. This is essentially what happens on AN/I already, but I think it should happen more often (not for every action, obviously, but anything controversial - it should only take a few admins a couple of minutes to check and endorse an action), and slightly more formally.
If we had this process, we would be able to catch admins making questionable decisions before they start making outright wrong decisions, and we move the "You're abusing your powers, unblock my friend now" comments from the admin's talk page, to a central place where we can help deal with them.
On 12/16/06, Earle Martin wikipedia@downlode.org wrote:
I have no idea where you got the idea that I was asking the Foundation to be responsible for other people's actions.
That's how it seemed from putting what you said in the context of the other two posts.
My reading of the conversation: Guy was wondering why he hadn't heard any answers from Danny in regard to fairly specific questions he had asked about what he could or could not do to the page. Matthew suggested one reason would be that Danny doesn't want it on record that the Foundation has said "yes you can add this to an article" or similar statements, because the Foundation doesn't want to be accountable for what editors do in that type of situation.
So when you mentioned accountability, I thought you were following the same line that Matthew had followed. Sorry if that's not what you meant.
On Sat, 16 Dec 2006 00:51:21 +1100, "Stephen Bain" stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
My reading of the conversation: Guy was wondering why he hadn't heard any answers from Danny in regard to fairly specific questions he had asked about what he could or could not do to the page.
I'd just like to confirm that this was one of the two questions I needed answered; the other was: what should we do in order to avoid having OFFICEd articles in a state of perpetual stagnation, often at the "wrong version". Talk pages of these articles often contain a lot of debate, much of it focused on why we can't get any kind of answer from OFFICE. Sometimes the answer is perfectly reasonable - Brad needs to consider a issue, for example - other times, the answer is "dunno". It's fine to reply with "sorry, we can't say", but no reply at all is very hard to deal with.
Matthew suggested one reason would be that Danny doesn't want it on record that the Foundation has said "yes you can add this to an article" or similar statements, because the Foundation doesn't want to be accountable for what editors do in that type of situation.
That sounds like a bit of a conspiracy theory to me. Much more likely that he has no easy answer and Foundation hasn't equipped him with a set of usable guidelines. Not that Danny is stupid or lacking initiative, but he is, I understand, very busy.
Guy (JzG)
Earle Martin wrote:
On 15/12/06, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/15/06, Earle Martin wikipedia@downlode.org wrote:
On 14/12/06, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
I suspect in many circumstances Danny will not be able to respond to such questions, since he doesn't want an official decision of the Foundation on record.
I thought this project was founded on accountability.
Editors are accountable for their own actions.
The Foundation rightly does not want to be accountable for other people's actions.
I have no idea where you got the idea that I was asking the Foundation to be responsible for other people's actions. I'll quote you again the text (quoted above) that I was replying to:
"Danny... doesn't want an official decision of the Foundation on record."
In this case, it was an "office action", which appears to generally equate to "putting stuff in the memory hole".
Is it Foundation policy to hide official decisions of the Foundation? Or is it Danny policy? Either way, it appears that the management of this project is asymptotically approaching that of the Open[sic] Directory Project.
That's grounds for moderation, citizen.
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
Earle Martin wrote:
In this case, it was an "office action", which appears to generally equate to "putting stuff in the memory hole".
Is it Foundation policy to hide official decisions of the Foundation? Or is it Danny policy? Either way, it appears that the management of this project is asymptotically approaching that of the Open[sic] Directory Project.
That's grounds for moderation, citizen.
I don't think Earle needs to be put on moderation, I think Earle needs a big hug.
Earle, I can tell you that nothing is approaching anything like the Open Directory Project. Is there a problem that WP:OFFICE articles have tended to sit there in the "wrong version" for too long, and that good editors are unsure how to proceed?
Absolutely.
But that's a problem that everyone wants to fix in an open, transparent, and loving way. It is not very helpful to accuse Danny or the Foundation of any sort of "memory hole" policies or of becoming closed like the ODP.
Please, let's all always move forward by assuming good faith. Good people, trying to do a good thing for the world, balancing many complex and competing concerns. It's a complex mess. That's because the world is a complex mess. We're all doing our best here.
--Jimbo
On 15/12/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
I don't think Earle needs to be put on moderation, I think Earle needs a big hug.
Aw, shucks.
Earle, I can tell you that nothing is approaching anything like the Open Directory Project.
I'm very glad to hear it. Speaking from bitter experience as ex-ODP... but that's better suited elsewhere.
It is not very helpful to accuse Danny or the Foundation of any sort of "memory hole" policies or of becoming closed like the ODP.
After subjecting earlier posts in this thread to a more careful re-reading, it appears I missed the lines quoted in Matthew Brown's original post, which made his comments appear to mean something very different indeed when read out of context ("Danny doesn't want an official decision of the Foundation on record") - hence my incredulous reply.
I apologise for any offence caused by my misunderstanding. I certainly wouldn't want anyone to compare a project of mine to the ODP. (Whoops, there I go again!)
Thanks for taking the time to reply.
Earle (enjoying a hearty dinner of crow and humble pie)
Jimmy Wales wrote:
But that's a problem that everyone wants to fix in an open, transparent, and loving way. It is not very helpful to accuse Danny or the Foundation of any sort of "memory hole" policies or of becoming closed like the ODP.
Please, let's all always move forward by assuming good faith.
"Memory holes" strike me more as a by-product of negligence than of any assumption of faith, good or bad. The person who lurks at the problem article but does nothing to repair it may also operating on the good-faith intent that he should not be meddling in a situation that he knows nothing about.
Ec
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
Earle Martin wrote:
In this case, it was an "office action", which appears to generally equate to "putting stuff in the memory hole".
Is it Foundation policy to hide official decisions of the Foundation? Or is it Danny policy? Either way, it appears that the management of this project is asymptotically approaching that of the Open[sic] Directory Project.
That's grounds for moderation, citizen.
While Earle's interpretation may be debatable, this kind of reaction tends to put a chill on the conversation. The suggestions are at least possible, but easily rebuttable. The kind of questions asked are predictable in an environment where only limited real information is made public. If they are kept open without answers they are too easily taken to logical conclusions of cabal and conspiracy. A threat of punishment only catalyses such a conclusion.
Ec
On Dec 14, 2006, at 2:13 PM, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
Let me just start by saying that I am completely in favour of [[WP:OFFICE]] (I for one have no intention of paying the legal bills we would undoubtedly incur if we had no such system in place).
But...
Take for example Pacific Western University. This is a verifiably unaccredited school, there are numerous credible reports in the press about people being disciplined after claiming its degrees, it is not in the accreditation database, it is listed in several sources as a diploma mill. A university it ain't.
Here's a typical example of external coverage: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html? res=9B0DE1D81E30F937A15754C0A961948260
Look up the "unaccredited correspondence school" in the press report and you get an article on what appears to be a legitimate school offering various degree programmes. No mention of accreditation.
The article was stubbed and OFFICEd, no doubt in response to complaints from the school or its alumni. No problem with that, the history sows some, ahem, problematic content. But well over a month ago I asked Danny if we could at least add {{unaccredited}}. No response.
Where is the mechanism for review and feedback in respect of OFFICEd pages? I can't find any. Should I be bold, ignore all rules and add {{subst:unaccredited}} in the lead, as I have done for every other unaccredited school article I've found being whitewashed by its students? Right now we provide a directory entry for an institution multiply identified as a diploma mill, which makes no mention whatsoever even of the trivially verifiable fact of its being unaccredited. Doesn't look good, does it?
The procedures w.r.t. [[WP:OFFICE]] should be more fully fleshed out. But looking at what we do have in this case, in particular the [[WP:OFFICE]] template, the text says this: "This page is currently under the scrutiny of the Wikimedia Foundation Office and is protected. **If you are able to edit this page, please discuss all changes and additions on the talk page first.** Do not remove protection from this article unless you are authorized by the Wikimedia Foundation to do so."
From that, I think it's fair for administrators to edit the page as long as the changes are factual and discussed on the talk page first, which I assume are monitored at least partly by Danny or someone else at the Foundation, who could throw the axe down on an edit that might affect the Foundation legally.
My $0.02.
On Thu, 14 Dec 2006 14:25:44 -0600, bbatsell wikipedia@theskeptik.com wrote:
**If you are able to edit this page, please discuss all changes and additions on the talk page first.** Do not remove protection from this article unless you are authorized by the Wikimedia Foundation to do so."
I think you are right. I will be bold but cautious...
Guy (JzG)
Hmmm... the template on the page suggests you can edit it, as long as you discuss the changes first. The [[WP:OFFICE]] page clearly states not to edit the article at all. Personally, I would leave the article completely alone until you manage to contact Danny...