Now that it's over (mostly), a brief synopsis of what happened:
* A "joke" article was created in the User namespace * Article was nominated as a FAC for April 1st 2005 * Mailing list, IRC and Cabal members shouted at each other * Raul, Supreme Overlord of Features, grumpily declared "no" * More shouting results in Main Page becoming full of silliness * Many "joke" articles created * Much concern about cleaning up the aftermath
And now for something completley different:
April 1st, 2006. April Fools Day *next year* (assuming Wikipædia still exists).
Many people liked the idea of an April Fools Day Wikipedia. Many did not. Answer: Compromise!
Here is my plan for Supreme Domination and pwnership next year:
* The Main Page and Article namespace as a whole will remain "sensible". Links to April Fools version /might/ be possible. * The Help namespace (which AFAIK is protected anyway) will remain untouched. We need to keep the serious things serious. * The Wikipedia namespace (except for policy and information pages) is fair game. However, spurious VFDs (eg. Wikipedia:Votes for Deletion/Main Page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Main_Page) should *not* be tolerated. * Templates should be pranked with caution. Examples: VFD Template - Terminator Edition http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Vfd&oldid=11749823, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Vfd&oldid=11749823Wikistress http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/archive/1/19/20050401120959%21Wikistress3D_1_v3.jpg * Things in Mediawiki namespace should be pranked with /extreme caution/. Only those things visible to Sysops (or at the very worst, logged-in users) should be touchable. Example: Changing "block" to "crush by elephant" (but remember, the same joke is only funny once). * Various other suggestions welcome.
DISCLAIMER: I am a deletionist inclusionist sockpuppet troll. I founded the Cabal. Jimbo, /I/ am your Father!. Wikipedia is not sane. ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!
Alphax (alphasigmax@gmail.com) [050402 14:50]:
Now that it's over (mostly), a brief synopsis of what happened:
- A "joke" article was created in the User namespace
- Article was nominated as a FAC for April 1st 2005
- Mailing list, IRC and Cabal members shouted at each other
- Raul, Supreme Overlord of Features, grumpily declared "no"
- More shouting results in Main Page becoming full of silliness
- Many "joke" articles created
- Much concern about cleaning up the aftermath
And a new entry on [[WP:LAME]]!
- d.
On Apr 2, 2005 4:50 AM, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Now that it's over (mostly), a brief synopsis of what happened:
* A "joke" article was created in the User namespace * Article was nominated as a FAC for April 1st 2005 * Mailing list, IRC and Cabal members shouted at each other * Raul, Supreme Overlord of Features, grumpily declared "no" * More shouting results in Main Page becoming full of silliness * Many "joke" articles created * Much concern about cleaning up the aftermath
And now for something completley different:
April 1st, 2006. April Fools Day *next year* (assuming Wikipædia still exists).
Many people liked the idea of an April Fools Day Wikipedia. Many did not. Answer: Compromise!
Here is my plan for Supreme Domination and pwnership next year:
* The Main Page and Article namespace as a whole will remain
"sensible". Links to April Fools version /might/ be possible. * The Help namespace (which AFAIK is protected anyway) will remain untouched. We need to keep the serious things serious. * The Wikipedia namespace (except for policy and information pages) is fair game. However, spurious VFDs (eg. Wikipedia:Votes for Deletion/Main Page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Main_Page) should *not* be tolerated. * Templates should be pranked with caution. Examples: VFD Template - Terminator Edition http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Vfd&oldid=11749823, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Vfd&oldid=11749823Wikistress http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/archive/1/19/20050401120959%21Wikistress3D_1_v3.jpg * Things in Mediawiki namespace should be pranked with /extreme caution/. Only those things visible to Sysops (or at the very worst, logged-in users) should be touchable. Example: Changing "block" to "crush by elephant" (but remember, the same joke is only funny once). * Various other suggestions welcome.
DISCLAIMER: I am a deletionist inclusionist sockpuppet troll. I founded the Cabal. Jimbo, /I/ am your Father!. Wikipedia is not sane. ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!
-- Alphax http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S. Lewis
I say the simplest answer to next April Fools is to write an article on a genuine subject, which *truly* seems incredible (in the proper sense of the word) and bring it through FAC.
Really, to do so shouldn't be too hard. If we did a really good job of this, with it written completely professionally and deadpan, and kept *everything* else on Wikipedia as normal (as far as possible), then it would be truly a public bepuzzlement to be proud of.
I'm not suggesting a hoax, or a lame-o-rama. I'm saying we have a year, lets find a really unbelievable true subject to create an FA about.
Oh, and don't give in to impatience and use it before 1 April.
If we don't manage it, I say the suggestion of filling Did You Know with really unbelievable facts would achieve the same.
----
I was one of the advocates for ETPH on the main page. I was however sorry to see such really lame "jokes" as the tab renaming, the VfD template change, etc. Such things were disruptive *and* not in the spirit of April fools. They were *really* *really* lame. The whole point is to have one or two convincing subtle hoaxes and keep everything else normal. The EB takeover thing was a nice idea, but in reality was far too farcically done.
So although I was happy to see Wikipedians did have a sense of humour and didn't be too stiff-lipped, I did feel it was a very crude and unrefined humour.
I'm sure some others were none too surprised to see somewhat of a parallel between /. and Wikipedia yesterday.
In summary, I'm in favour of us letting our hair down and having April Fools' content. But we should strive to do it well, and be the best at it if we're going to bother.
Zoney
Next year we should switch the wiki to read-only mode for 48 hours and take the opportunity to clean up the database schema a bit. Remember it's not just admins messing with articles, there's plenty of anonymous users too, and not all of them are careful to clean up the next day.
-- Tim Starling
Next year we should switch the wiki to read-only mode for 48 hours and take the opportunity to clean up the database schema a bit. Remember it's not just admins messing with articles, there's plenty of anonymous users too, and not all of them are careful to clean up the next day.
-- Tim Starling
Come on - I thought the principle was to stay open for business.
Charles
Charles Matthews said:
Next year we should switch the wiki to read-only mode for 48 hours and take the opportunity to clean up the database schema a bit. Remember it's not just admins messing with articles, there's plenty of anonymous users too, and not all of them are careful to clean up the next day.
-- Tim Starling
Come on - I thought the principle was to stay open for business.
Not at all. Didn't you know the internet closes for cleaning on April 1?
That's actually a good idea. And we may as well make it read-only for anons all the time; they often have no intention of cleaning up after themselves. Think of the massive effort that goes into monitoring their edits -- just for the sake of 'community' -- that could go into writing quality articles. --sj--
On Apr 2, 2005 11:24 AM, Tim Starling t.starling@physics.unimelb.edu.au wrote:
Next year we should switch the wiki to read-only mode for 48 hours and take the opportunity to clean up the database schema a bit. Remember it's not just admins messing with articles, there's plenty of anonymous users too, and not all of them are careful to clean up the next day.
ps - I hear there are five very powerful Japanese-built multi-lingual Internet-crawling robots now out of business since the upgrade to the new "self-cleaning" Internet v2... maybe we can hire them.
That would be undermining the very point that promotes Wikipedia, though. "Anyone can edit" is false if anons can't edit. Theres a lot of people who would just walk out if that became true.
I think making it read-only for cleanup on April Fool's is a bit of a bad idea. Ideal case is the Pope - If it was read only, the site would be saying he is in critical condition, and many other events would be unattended. Not long ago Wikipedia was read-only for just 9 hours or so, and that was far too long a wait for many.
Few would enjoy seeing 48 hours of reading Wikipedia, and nothing else. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sj" 2.718281828@gmail.com To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@wikipedia.org Sent: Sunday, April 03, 2005 1:02 AM Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: April 1st 2006, IRC, the mailing list,and the Cabal
That's actually a good idea. And we may as well make it read-only for anons all the time; they often have no intention of cleaning up after themselves. Think of the massive effort that goes into monitoring their edits -- just for the sake of 'community' -- that could go into writing quality articles. --sj--
On Apr 2, 2005 11:24 AM, Tim Starling t.starling@physics.unimelb.edu.au
wrote:
Next year we should switch the wiki to read-only mode for 48 hours and take the opportunity to clean up the database schema a bit. Remember it's not just admins messing with articles, there's plenty of anonymous users too, and not all of them are careful to clean up the next day.
ps - I hear there are five very powerful Japanese-built multi-lingual Internet-crawling robots now out of business since the upgrade to the new "self-cleaning" Internet v2... maybe we can hire them. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On Sun, 3 Apr 2005 01:06:44 +0100, David 'DJ' Hedley wrote:
That would be undermining the very point that promotes Wikipedia, though.
"Anyone can edit" is false if anons can't edit. Theres a lot of people who would just walk out if that became true.
Analysed at that level, the promotional statement is already untrue. Blocked users and users of blocked IP addresses cannot edit. At a more extreme level, those with no access to the Internet cannot edit.
In my opinion, preventing anonymous edits makes the project no less open as long as registration is unrestricted.
Theo
Theo Clarke (wiki@tignosis.com) [050404 20:35]:
On Sun, 3 Apr 2005 01:06:44 +0100, David 'DJ' Hedley wrote:
That would be undermining the very point that promotes Wikipedia, though. "Anyone can edit" is false if anons can't edit. Theres a lot of people who would just walk out if that became true.
Analysed at that level, the promotional statement is already untrue. Blocked users and users of blocked IP addresses cannot edit. At a more extreme level, those with no access to the Internet cannot edit. In my opinion, preventing anonymous edits makes the project no less open as long as registration is unrestricted.
This one comes up again and again, and the consensus has always been "nope, anon edits will continue thanks."
- d.
I am not advocating the prevention of anonymous edits. I am saying that such a policy has no relevant connection to the claim that "anyone can edit".
Anonymous edits enable impulse contributions to WP. I share the consensus view that this is desirable. It is not a matter of openness; merely a matter of immediacy.
Theo
On Mon, 4 Apr 2005 12:42:57 +0100, David Gerard wrote:
Theo Clarke (wiki@tignosis.com) [050404 20:35]:
On Sun, 3 Apr 2005 01:06:44 +0100, David 'DJ' Hedley wrote:
That would be undermining the very point that promotes Wikipedia, though. "Anyone can edit" is false if anons can't edit. Theres a lot of people who would just walk out if that became true.
Analysed at that level, the promotional statement is already untrue. Blocked users and users of blocked IP addresses cannot edit. At a more extreme level, those with no access to the Internet cannot edit. In my opinion, preventing anonymous edits makes the project no less open as long as registration is unrestricted.
This one comes up again and again, and the consensus has always been "nope, anon edits will continue thanks."
- d. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Theo Clarke (wiki@tignosis.com) [050404 23:04]:
I am not advocating the prevention of anonymous edits. I am saying that such a policy has no relevant connection to the claim that "anyone can edit".
Er yes, sorry about that - I read more than you actually wrote.
- d.
"Theo Clarke" wrote
Anonymous edits enable impulse contributions to WP. I share the consensus view that this is desirable. It is not a matter of openness; merely a matter of immediacy.
Really, that's not right. Put up a registration barrier, and you are less open.
The main issue though is WP's responsiveness. The USP of wiki is that they are very responsive to what the online population thinks or knows. Having no registration promotes that quality: we do the maximum to make WP responsive by removing obstructions to just editing. If we were trying to scoop other news media, this would show up as an advantage.
Charles
All three people responding to my post misunderstood the point that I wished to make. I regret my lack of clarity. I am sorry that I have merely muddied the waters. I will try to use the language of openness differently in future.
Theo
On Mon, 4 Apr 2005 14:33:14 +0100, Charles Matthews wrote:
"Theo Clarke" wrote
Anonymous edits enable impulse contributions to WP. I share the consensus view that this is desirable. It is not a matter of openness; merely a matter of immediacy.
Really, that's not right. Put up a registration barrier, and you are less open.
The main issue though is WP's responsiveness. The USP of wiki is that they are very responsive to what the online population thinks or knows. Having no registration promotes that quality: we do the maximum to make WP responsive by removing obstructions to just editing. If we were trying to scoop other news media, this would show up as an advantage.
Charles
_______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On Monday 04 April 2005 07:42, David Gerard wrote:
Analysed at that level, the promotional statement is already untrue. Blocked users and users of blocked IP addresses cannot edit. At a more extreme level, those with no access to the Internet cannot edit. In my opinion, preventing anonymous edits makes the project no less open as long as registration is unrestricted.
This one comes up again and again, and the consensus has always been "nope, anon edits will continue thanks."
I'm curious, do you have a pointer to this consensus? (Because of [1].)
On Apr 4, 2005 3:25 PM, Joseph Reagle joseph.nyu@reagle.org wrote:
On Monday 04 April 2005 07:42, David Gerard wrote:
Analysed at that level, the promotional statement is already untrue. Blocked users and users of blocked IP addresses cannot edit. At a more extreme level, those with no access to the Internet cannot edit. In my opinion, preventing anonymous edits makes the project no less open as long as registration is unrestricted.
This one comes up again and again, and the consensus has always been "nope, anon edits will continue thanks."
I'm curious, do you have a pointer to this consensus? (Because of [1].)
My initial suggestion that "we may as well make it read-only for anons all the time; they often have no intention of cleaning up after themselves" was sarcasm. A significant fraction of serious edits (over 30%, I believe) are anonymous. Whoever took fifteen seconds to update [[Johnny Cochran]] last week, 3 minutes after he shuffled off his mortal coil, was anonymous. Try visiting a dozen random pages, and inspecting their histories.
The soft security of allowing but monitoring anonymous edits is a cornerstone of Wikipedia's community, philosophy, and success. Those suggesting that we bar anons from editing are often new to the community, or new to wiki, and mistake soft security for no security, or for a philosophical decision made "for the community" rather than for the quality of the project. One canonical reference: http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?SoftSecurity
(There is surprisingly no good WP article on the subject...)
There are certainly clever ways to improve the handling of edits from anonymous or unknown users, some of which have themselves come up many times (but hang on implementation). My favorite is the idea of optimizing/structuring the distributed process of reviewing such edits, so that there is limited repetition of work, and no edits pass by unremarked.
SJ
On 4/4/05 3:30 AM, "Theo Clarke" wiki@tignosis.com wrote:
On Sun, 3 Apr 2005 01:06:44 +0100, David 'DJ' Hedley wrote:
That would be undermining the very point that promotes Wikipedia, though.
"Anyone can edit" is false if anons can't edit. Theres a lot of people who would just walk out if that became true.
Analysed at that level, the promotional statement is already untrue. Blocked users and users of blocked IP addresses cannot edit. At a more extreme level, those with no access to the Internet cannot edit.
In my opinion, preventing anonymous edits makes the project no less open as long as registration is unrestricted.
To correct the above statement, replace "no less open" with "less open".
By definition placing restrictions and conditions on users makes the project less open. There can be a reasonable debate about whether and when it is worth placing restrictions on the project--but it's difficult to have that reasonable debate when people can't admit what that's doing.
Tim Starling wrote:
Next year we should switch the wiki to read-only mode for 48 hours and take the opportunity to clean up the database schema a bit. Remember it's not just admins messing with articles, there's plenty of anonymous users too, and not all of them are careful to clean up the next day.
This has got to be the best idea on how to deal with 1st April. Normally I am quite opposed to downtime, but this time I think we have a pretty good excuse.
I can already see the message going something like:
On 1st April, 2004 and 2005, we experienced significant troubles due to attempted April Fool's jokes which turned into disagreements and eventually edit wars. As a counter-measure, All Wikimedia projects are read-only from 30th March 12:00 to 2nd April 12:00. We are pleased to use this opportunity to apply considerable improvements to our software architecture.
We have 1 year to agree on the exact wording of the message and to translate it into the 70-something languages we have wikis in. Depending on when you start planning the actual improvements, you have something between 1 year and 48 hours for them. :-)
Timwi
Timwi (timwi@gmx.net) [050408 04:20]:
Tim Starling wrote:
Next year we should switch the wiki to read-only mode for 48 hours and take the opportunity to clean up the database schema a bit. Remember it's not just admins messing with articles, there's plenty of anonymous users too, and not all of them are careful to clean up the next day.
This has got to be the best idea on how to deal with 1st April. Normally I am quite opposed to downtime, but this time I think we have a pretty good excuse. I can already see the message going something like: On 1st April, 2004 and 2005, we experienced significant troubles due to attempted April Fool's jokes which turned into disagreements and eventually edit wars. As a counter-measure, All Wikimedia projects are read-only from 30th March 12:00 to 2nd April 12:00. We are pleased to use this opportunity to apply considerable improvements to our software architecture. We have 1 year to agree on the exact wording of the message and to translate it into the 70-something languages we have wikis in. Depending on when you start planning the actual improvements, you have something between 1 year and 48 hours for them. :-)
Don't explain why. Just say:
All Wikimedia projects are read-only from 30th March 12:00 to 2nd April 12:00. We are pleased to use this opportunity to apply considerable improvements to our software architecture.
That'll do the job nicely ;-)
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
Don't explain why. Just say:
All Wikimedia projects are read-only from 30th March 12:00 to 2nd April 12:00. We are pleased to use this opportunity to apply considerable improvements to our software architecture.
That'll do the job nicely ;-)
heh, I'll bet everyone will think that IS the april fools joke...that is until they try and edit a page ;-)
Blog: http://frazzydee.ca
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.1 GCS d? s:- a--- C+++ UL++ P+ L+ E---- W++ N+ o+ K+ w+ O? M-- V? PS++ PE Y PGP++ t 5-- X+ R tv b++ DI++ D+ G++ e- h! !r !z ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------
On Thu, Apr 07, 2005 at 07:57:36PM -0500, Faraaz Damji wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
Don't explain why. Just say:
All Wikimedia projects are read-only from 30th March 12:00 to 2nd April 12:00. We are pleased to use this opportunity to apply considerable improvements to our software architecture.
That'll do the job nicely ;-)
heh, I'll bet everyone will think that IS the april fools joke...that is until they try and edit a page ;-)
Good! Heh. That works nicely.
"Never explain. Your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway." - Elbert Hubbard
-- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
I have just received an e-mail from John Cheese, the editor of pointlesswasteoftime.com telling me that if we do not delete the [[Pointless Waste of Time]] article, he will ask his "80,000 loyal readers" and the readers of "somethingawful.com, fark.com, and portalofevil.com" "to pour them into that page and give them free range on anything connected to it". I don't know what his problem is, but it seems substantial.
T^heo
Have you replied to confirm it's a valid email and not a spoof of his email address?
Cheers,
-j
I have just received an e-mail from John Cheese, the editor of pointlesswasteoftime.com telling me that if we do not delete the [[Pointless Waste of Time]] article, he will ask his "80,000 loyal readers" and the readers of "somethingawful.com, fark.com, and portalofevil.com" "to pour them into that page and give them free range on anything connected to it". I don't know what his problem is, but it seems substantial.
T^heo
Jason Trickey wrote:
Have you replied to confirm it's a valid email and not a spoof of his email address?
The headers should usually be enough, no?
Blog: http://frazzydee.ca
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.1 GCS d? s:- a--- C+++ UL++ P+ L+ E---- W++ N+ o+ K+ w+ O? M-- V? PS++ PE Y PGP++ t 5-- X+ R tv b++ DI++ D+ G++ e- h! !r !z ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------
At 08:51 PM 15/04/2005 -0400, you wrote:
Jason Trickey wrote:
Have you replied to confirm it's a valid email and not a spoof of his email address?
The headers should usually be enough, no?
Usually yes, but nothing replaces simply asking, 'did you send this' and awaiting a reply.
Cheers,
-j
John Cheese has now replied to my reply. He feels that our "admins,�from�the beginning, have made it a point to be as rude and narrow-minded�as�humanly possible towards me and every person from my site. �We are�now�prepared to show them the same lack of respect. �We were being nice�at�first, and once we were talked down to, we stopped being nice."
I am writing back to him.
His call to arms is at http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=14192
Theo
Weirdly, John Cheese comes over as a rather pleasant reasonable guy by e-mail. His original beef was that the PWOT article was inaccurate and he did not want to go to the hassle of fixing it. He sees his site as a self-contained pocket of bitter twisted humour that does not merit an encyclopedia article. He feels that he asked nicely for it to be removed but was either ignored or dismissed as a newbie. He has encouraged his friends to vandalise the site but has exhorted them to confine themselves to the PWOT article, its talk page and the VFD subpage.
Several things have goaded this group to higher levels of aggression: 1. The dismissal of their votes (which we did not explain). 2. The accusation that they are sockpuppets; we should check IP addresses before making such accusations. 3. The perceived arrogance of some sysops sending messages to the effect that they will never win because we can ban them all. That sort of claim escalates the conflict; we should avoid them if similar circumstances arise. 4. Belligerent comments on their board by "Zazzy" who claims to be a Wikipedia sysop and appears convincing. Zazy, if you are reading this, please try to be more temperate when jandling this sort of thing in the future. 5. Mis-spelling by geni (they particularly enjoyed 'vanderlism'); I imagine that this would be no problem were they not already enraged. 6. Statements by some VFD voters that their vote is simply to spite the POW members. I have trouble understanding how the voters failed to see how inflammatory this was. 7. This post: You know, there's more of us than there is of them: we could swamp the hell out of their little board, if we had the inclination... � ClockworkSoul 21:40, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Theo
- This post: You know, there's more of us than there is of them: we could swamp the hell out of their little board, if we had the inclination... – ClockworkSoul 21:40, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Theo
It doesn't particularly evoke wikilove. But how can they expect us to not vandalise their board if they do the same to us? There's bound to be some people here willing to do it as revenge.
BTW, has anyone seen the message Mr. Cheese claimed to have written in which he asked for deletion nicely?
--Mgm
I imagine that they expect us not to vandalise their board in much the same way that a graffitist does not expect the local authorities to retaliate by demolishing his home.
John Cheese's "nice" request was: " * Delete I'm 1/2 of the PWoT writing team. I'd rather brush my teeth with a wood-file than have a PWoT entry on this site. "Deserve" to be on Wikipedia? Please, for the love of God, delete this retarded entry before I vomit blood. -John Cheese"
He has acknowledged that it was not the nicest phrasing but he mistook some of the terse or intemperate phrasing by other editors to indicate that robust language was normal here. In my opinion, his post was nicer than some purportedly wikipedian posts on his website and way nicer than the normal tone of his members on that website.
On Sat, 16 Apr 2005 09:18:25 +0100, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
we could swamp the hell out of their little board
It doesn't particularly evoke wikilove. But how can they expect us to not vandalise their board if they do the same to us? There's bound to be some people here willing to do it as revenge.
BTW, has anyone seen the message Mr. Cheese claimed to have written in which he asked for deletion nicely?
That post was terrible and very atypical of me. I guess that I shouldn't deal with VfD after fighting with my wife. :/
-ClockworkSoul
- This post: You know, there's more of us than there is of them: we could swamp the hell out of their little board, if we had the inclination... - ClockworkSoul 21:40, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Theo
It doesn't particularly evoke wikilove. But how can they expect us to not vandalise their board if they do the same to us? There's bound to be some people here willing to do it as revenge.
BTW, has anyone seen the message Mr. Cheese claimed to have written in which he asked for deletion nicely?
--Mgm
Several things have goaded this group to higher levels of aggression:
- The dismissal of their votes (which we did not explain).
- The accusation that they are sockpuppets; we should check IP addresses before making such accusations.
That would really mess up normal operating precedure (and it's not like there aren't ways round IP tracess anyway)
- Mis-spelling by geni (they particularly enjoyed 'vanderlism'); I imagine that this would >be no problem were they not already enraged.
If me not being able to spell is now going to be classed as a problem you have around a thousand edits to fix
Whatever the normal operating procedure might be, and I confess I had forgotten that only developers can see the IP addresses of registered users) accusations of sockpuppetry are likely to offend the accused. We should be wary of making such accusations and we should refrain from making them on 'public' pages without first posting to the user's talk page.
Geni's spelling in general is not the key issue here. I should have been more explicit: If we are interacting with angry or hostile people we should try to avoid inflaming them further. It is clear that grammatical or spelling errors become sticks with which the criticised can beat us. I suggest that anybody writing anything critical or cautionary should take particular care to ensure that their posts are correct. We seem to have banned one of the POTW subscribers because s/he misspelt the name of one of our user's on the POTW web-site. (Yep! That is right. A user claims that their Wikipedia account was blocked because of what that user wrote on another web-site). If we so dislike misspelling (even if in this case the misspelling yields mild profanity and may have been conscious) then we need to be very careful ourselves.
Theo
On Sat, 16 Apr 2005 10:19:53 +0100, geni wrote:
Several things have goaded this group to higher levels of aggression:
1. The dismissal of their votes (which we did not explain). 2. The accusation that they are sockpuppets; we should check IP addresses before making such accusations.
That would really mess up normal operating precedure (and it's not like there aren't ways round IP tracess anyway)
5. Mis-spelling by geni (they particularly enjoyed 'vanderlism'); I imagine that this would >be no problem were they not already enraged.
If me not being able to spell is now going to be classed as a problem you have around a thousand edits to fix
On 4/16/05, Theo Clarke wiki@tignosis.com wrote:
Whatever the normal operating procedure might be, and I confess I had forgotten that only >developers can see the IP addresses of registered users) accusations of sockpuppetry are >likely to offend the accused. We should be wary of making such accusations and we should >refrain from making them on 'public' pages without first posting to the user's talk page.
There is no reason why someone's first edit should be to VFD. 9 times out of 10 they turn out to be a sock pupet. VFD has ended up with it's methods and procedures through long experimentation. A low level attack from a single forum is not a reason to change them.
geni wrote:
On 4/16/05, Theo Clarke wiki@tignosis.com wrote:
Whatever the normal operating procedure might be, and I confess I had forgotten that only >developers can see the IP addresses of registered users) accusations of sockpuppetry are >likely to offend the accused. We should be wary of making such accusations and we should >refrain from making them on 'public' pages without first posting to the user's talk page.
There is no reason why someone's first edit should be to VFD. 9 times out of 10 they turn out to be a sock pupet. VFD has ended up with it's methods and procedures through long experimentation. A low level attack from a single forum is not a reason to change them.
Usually that's true, but in cases such as this I can understand that many new users would flock to Wikipedia in an attempt to rally votes. If they are not sock puppets, it is entirely understandable that they would be frustrated when their vote is simply dismissed.
Perhaps, as a beginning, we should at the very least create a template that can be throw onto the user page of newcomers that head directly into a voting situation, to let them know of our common practice, and why it is so. Something along the lines of:
"Welcome, {{PAGENAME}}! We noticed that you placed a vote on {{{1}}}. Community activity is encouraged, of course, but your status as a brand new user means that your vote ''might not'' be counted if the administrator that tallies your votes believes that you might be another user logged in under a second account (a so-called "sock puppet"). Please understand that this is the common practice on Wikipedia, and that it is necessary to prevent deliberate "loading" of our votes. "
I am going to create this template under the name {{newvoter}}, and I will also report this email to the Admin board.
(Of course, this would be a moot point if we had a way to distinguish genuine newcomers from sockpuppets, but until then we'll just have to use our best instincts.)
-ClockworkSoul
ClockworkSoul (mtitmus@optonline.net) [050416 23:22]:
Perhaps, as a beginning, we should at the very least create a template that can be throw onto the user page of newcomers that head directly into a voting situation, to let them know of our common practice, and why it is so. Something along the lines of: "Welcome, {{PAGENAME}}! We noticed that you placed a vote on {{{1}}}. Community activity is encouraged, of course, but your status as a brand new user means that your vote ''might not'' be counted if the administrator that tallies your votes believes that you might be another user logged in under a second account (a so-called "sock puppet"). Please understand that this is the common practice on Wikipedia, and that it is necessary to prevent deliberate "loading" of our votes. " I am going to create this template under the name {{newvoter}}, and I will also report this email to the Admin board.
Don't forget to note that "Votes" for deletion aren't "votes" per se - they're an attempt to ascertain whether there is community consensus to delete. If you've made your first-ever Wikipedia edit to VFD, and were there only because of a call to arms on another site, you might reasonably be considered not (yet) part of the community in question. That would need noting.
(This is similar to the Calvinball rule of Wikipedia policy, i.e. "if you think you've come up with a stunningly clever hack of our rules which will get your way against our community wishes, good for you! The rule just changed.")
- d.
I love that quote, David. :)
I think that brevity is important here, and the purpose is just to tell them that their vote may not be counted, and not to take it personally. Here is the exact text I used, which I think makes the point adequately:
Welcome, {{PAGENAME}}! We noticed that you placed a vote on [[{{{1}}}]]. Participation in the community is encouraged, of course, but your status as a brand new user means that your vote ''might not'' be counted if the administrator that tallies the votes believes that you might be another user logged in under a second account (a so-called "[[Wikipedia:Sock puppet|sock puppet]]"). Please understand that this is a common practice on Wikipedia, and that it is necessary to prevent deliberate "loading" of our votes.
Of course, it's subject to change, but I really think that it should be kept short.
-ClockworkSoul
David Gerard wrote:
Don't forget to note that "Votes" for deletion aren't "votes" per se - they're an attempt to ascertain whether there is community consensus to delete. If you've made your first-ever Wikipedia edit to VFD, and were there only because of a call to arms on another site, you might reasonably be considered not (yet) part of the community in question. That would need noting.
(This is similar to the Calvinball rule of Wikipedia policy, i.e. "if you think you've come up with a stunningly clever hack of our rules which will get your way against our community wishes, good for you! The rule just changed.")
- d.
On Sat, Apr 16, 2005 at 09:48:16AM -0400, ClockworkSoul wrote:
I love that quote, David. :)
I think that brevity is important here, and the purpose is just to tell them that their vote may not be counted, and not to take it personally. Here is the exact text I used, which I think makes the point adequately:
Welcome, {{PAGENAME}}! We noticed that you placed a vote on [[{{{1}}}]]. Participation in the community is encouraged, of course, but your status as a brand new user means that your vote ''might not'' be counted if the administrator that tallies the votes believes that you might be another user logged in under a second account (a so-called "[[Wikipedia:Sock puppet|sock puppet]]"). Please understand that this is a common practice on Wikipedia, and that it is necessary to prevent deliberate "loading" of our votes.
Of course, it's subject to change, but I really think that it should be kept short.
I agree that it should be kept short, but I'm also of the opinion that it should include text to the effect that "votes" are not votes per se, and may be ignored for no other reason than the fact that they may be considered invalid for purposes of gaining a community consensus. A bunch of people whose only connection with Wikipedia is a VfD, and who will likely never have anything to do with Wikipedia again aside from that VfD and, perhaps, some vadalism, is not someone whose "vote" is particularly valuable in a test of community consensus.
Maybe that's just me, though.
Frankly, I have little sympathy for John Cheese and his cronies. Yes, some Wikipedians have responded to them in the same manner they've approached the Wikipedia community. While those Wikipedian responses are unfortunate and should be dealt with internally in much the same way that they'd be dealt with if they were responses to other Wikipedians, John Cheese and crew being somehow offended by this is absurd considering their own behavior. He has come here with the sole purpose of removing encyclopedic information from an encyclopedia, and he somehow expects the community that maintains the encyclopedia to bow to his wishes. I sincerely hope we wouldn't delete an entry about someone just because that someone wishes it. Just as someone creating an entry about himself should be chastised for creating a vanity article, John Cheese's efforts here should be viewed as attempting a "vanity deletion". To take up what is essentially a violent opposition to our policies, then expect that nobody from Wikipedia will act equally unreasonably in return, is an asinine slip in judgment: a community of dozens has essentially declared war on a community of hundreds of thousands, and is surprised when a handful of those hundreds of thousands lack perfect self-control. As I said, I have little sympathy.
Keep the article, if it's in any way encyclopedic. Ignore any and all votes from members of the PWOT community when the people voting have only participated in Wikipedia procedures because of John Cheese's actions, whether they vote for or against. Be courteous, but firm, with these vandals as we should with any. Finally, and most importantly, don't let spite motivate any of your actions in dealing with these people.
-- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Several others (including myself) are inclined to agree. The current draft reads:
Welcome, {{PAGENAME}}! We noticed that you placed a vote on [[{{{1}}}]]. Participation in the community is encouraged, of course, but your status as a brand new user means that your vote ''might not'' be counted. Voting on Wikipedia is meant to measure community concensus, and should not necessarily not be taken as literal voting. Please understand that this is a common practice on Wikipedia, and that it is necessary to prevent deliberate "loading" of our votes. However, we encourage you to make further contributions to Wikipedia and to become a valuable member of the community.
It's being discussed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Voting_....
-ClockworkSoul
Chad Perrin wrote:
I agree that it should be kept short, but I'm also of the opinion that it should include text to the effect that "votes" are not votes per se, and may be ignored for no other reason than the fact that they may be considered invalid for purposes of gaining a community consensus. A bunch of people whose only connection with Wikipedia is a VfD, and who will likely never have anything to do with Wikipedia again aside from that VfD and, perhaps, some vadalism, is not someone whose "vote" is particularly valuable in a test of community consensus.
Maybe that's just me, though.
ClockworkSoul (mtitmus@optonline.net) [050417 02:15]:
Several others (including myself) are inclined to agree. The current draft reads: Welcome, {{PAGENAME}}! We noticed that you placed a vote on [[{{{1}}}]]. Participation in the community is encouraged, of course, but your status as a brand new user means that your vote ''might not'' be counted. Voting on Wikipedia is meant to measure community concensus, and should not necessarily not be taken as literal voting. Please understand that this is a common practice on Wikipedia, and that it is necessary to prevent deliberate "loading" of our votes. However, we encourage you to make further contributions to Wikipedia and to become a valuable member of the community.
That's pretty good :-)
- d.
On Sun, Apr 17, 2005 at 02:51:41AM +1000, David Gerard wrote:
ClockworkSoul (mtitmus@optonline.net) [050417 02:15]:
Several others (including myself) are inclined to agree. The current draft reads: Welcome, {{PAGENAME}}! We noticed that you placed a vote on [[{{{1}}}]]. Participation in the community is encouraged, of course, but your status as a brand new user means that your vote ''might not'' be counted. Voting on Wikipedia is meant to measure community concensus, and should not necessarily not be taken as literal voting. Please understand that this is a common practice on Wikipedia, and that it is necessary to prevent deliberate "loading" of our votes. However, we encourage you to make further contributions to Wikipedia and to become a valuable member of the community.
That's pretty good :-)
Aside from the extraneous "not" after the word "necessarily", I'd say it's VERY good. I like it.
-- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
ClockworkSoul wrote:
<snip>
"Welcome, {{PAGENAME}}! We noticed that you placed a vote on {{{1}}}. Community activity is encouraged, of course, but your status as a brand new user means that your vote ''might not'' be counted if the administrator that tallies your votes believes that you might be another user logged in under a second account (a so-called "sock puppet"). Please understand that this is the common practice on Wikipedia, and that it is necessary to prevent deliberate "loading" of our votes. "
I am going to create this template under the name {{newvoter}}, and I will also report this email to the Admin board.
Added to [[Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace]].