William Pietri wrote
That's an intriguing argument. It's not hard to find almost any bit of information on Wikipedia, so by that reasoning we wouldn't be hurting anybody by shutting down entirely. All Wikipedia does is make existing information better available.
That's an intriguing fallacy. Actually WP is constantly adding information that is not at all easy to find, unless you already know where to look, and how to formulate your query. For example, it comes out of a book. On the other hand, it genuinely is easy to find images (which are not generally used to add information to articles, by the way, as maps and diagrams and graphs would) online, in the kinds of cases under discussion.
Charles
----------------------------------------- Email sent from www.virginmedia.com/email Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software and scanned for spam
On 24/09/2007, charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
William Pietri wrote
That's an intriguing argument. It's not hard to find almost any bit of information on Wikipedia, so by that reasoning we wouldn't be hurting anybody by shutting down entirely. All Wikipedia does is make existing information better available.
That's an intriguing fallacy. Actually WP is constantly adding information that is not at all easy to find, unless you already know where to look, and how to formulate your query. For example, it comes out of a book. On the other hand, it genuinely is easy to find images (which are not generally used to add information to articles, by the way, as maps and diagrams and graphs would) online, in the kinds of cases under discussion.
Yes. If it wasn't easy to find images not under a free content licence, we wouldn't have this problem.
People have no problem finding images of people; there is no problem for Wikipedia to solve by expressly permitting nonfree images.
- d.
Just thinking about it, how long does it take to track down a photo of a celebrity on Flickr and ask the photographer for him to relicence one or two images under CC-BY or CC-BY-SA licences on Flickr ? I'd imagine, about the same amount of time it takes to upload a non free image, write a fair use rationale and add all the necessary information. There's no benefit in taking a short cut and sticking up a random photo from Google Image search when the same amount of time and effort could see a good quality free image nobody will annoy you about ever again. Ditto for sending an e-mail to a publicist or publishing house.
I've also found lots of free images on other Wikipedias, if something doesn't have an image, check the interwiki links and see if the image you want is on Commons or is free on another project. That's how we got our Pavarotti image.
On 24/09/2007, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 24/09/2007, charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
William Pietri wrote
That's an intriguing argument. It's not hard to find almost any bit of information on Wikipedia, so by that reasoning we wouldn't be hurting anybody by shutting down entirely. All Wikipedia does is make existing information better available.
That's an intriguing fallacy. Actually WP is constantly adding
information that is not at all easy to find, unless you already know where to look, and how to formulate your query. For example, it comes out of a book. On the other hand, it genuinely is easy to find images (which are not generally used to add information to articles, by the way, as maps and diagrams and graphs would) online, in the kinds of cases under discussion.
Yes. If it wasn't easy to find images not under a free content licence, we wouldn't have this problem.
People have no problem finding images of people; there is no problem for Wikipedia to solve by expressly permitting nonfree images.
- d.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
The easiest way to find a free image is probably to take it yourself, and release it under a free licence of your choice. Okay, so you might not be able to find *that thing in particular you are looking for*, but consider what you do have to take pictures of, and let others worry about the rest.
Then again, maybe you don't have a camera. Maybe banning the people who do have cameras, and use them, isn't always a good idea.
On 24/09/2007, Nick heligolandwp@googlemail.com wrote:
Just thinking about it, how long does it take to track down a photo of a celebrity on Flickr and ask the photographer for him to relicence one or two images under CC-BY or CC-BY-SA licences on Flickr ? I'd imagine, about the same amount of time it takes to upload a non free image, write a fair use rationale and add all the necessary information. There's no benefit in taking a short cut and sticking up a random photo from Google Image search when the same amount of time and effort could see a good quality free image nobody will annoy you about ever again. Ditto for sending an e-mail to a publicist or publishing house.
I've also found lots of free images on other Wikipedias, if something doesn't have an image, check the interwiki links and see if the image you want is on Commons or is free on another project. That's how we got our Pavarotti image.
On 24/09/2007, Armed Blowfish diodontida.armata@googlemail.com wrote:
Then again, maybe you don't have a camera. Maybe banning the people who do have cameras, and use them, isn't always a good idea.
Names or GTFO.
You'll find a link to my Flickr pages on my en.wiki, commons and meta userpages. All my images are available under the GFDL licence or other licences by prior agreement. You'll also find a number of images I've taken that adorn articles on the English Wikipedia. I'm not exactly in the most brilliant part of Britain to take lots of photos we would really like, but I do what I can.
Now, can you please tell me who we've banned who actually takes photos and uploads them to en.wiki or any of our sister sites ?
You've had my word I'd look into editors who have been banned for contributing photos, hell, I'll look at any editor who was a decent contributor of photographs but has been banned. I do rather need lists of names to work from though.
On 24/09/2007, Armed Blowfish diodontida.armata@googlemail.com wrote:
The easiest way to find a free image is probably to take it yourself, and release it under a free licence of your choice. Okay, so you might not be able to find *that thing in particular you are looking for*, but consider what you do have to take pictures of, and let others worry about the rest.
Then again, maybe you don't have a camera. Maybe banning the people who do have cameras, and use them, isn't always a good idea.
On 24/09/2007, Nick heligolandwp@googlemail.com wrote:
Just thinking about it, how long does it take to track down a photo of a celebrity on Flickr and ask the photographer for him to relicence one or
two
images under CC-BY or CC-BY-SA licences on Flickr ? I'd imagine, about
the
same amount of time it takes to upload a non free image, write a fair
use
rationale and add all the necessary information. There's no benefit in taking a short cut and sticking up a random photo from Google Image
search
when the same amount of time and effort could see a good quality free
image
nobody will annoy you about ever again. Ditto for sending an e-mail to a publicist or publishing house.
I've also found lots of free images on other Wikipedias, if something doesn't have an image, check the interwiki links and see if the image
you
want is on Commons or is free on another project. That's how we got our Pavarotti image.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 24/09/2007, Nick heligolandwp@googlemail.com wrote:
Now, can you please tell me who we've banned who actually takes photos and uploads them to en.wiki or any of our sister sites ?
You've had my word I'd look into editors who have been banned for contributing photos, hell, I'll look at any editor who was a decent contributor of photographs but has been banned. I do rather need lists of names to work from though.
I'm afraid bringing names into this would result in further victimisation of the banned users or the people who banned them, and many of these are old cases anyway.
I am merely suggesting that the next time you ban someone, you may want to consider the good he or she has done, not just a list of rule violations.
On 24/09/2007, Armed Blowfish diodontida.armata@googlemail.com wrote:
I'm afraid bringing names into this would result in further victimisation of the banned users or the people who banned them, and many of these are old cases anyway.
i.e. you are lying.
- d.
On 24/09/2007, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 24/09/2007, Armed Blowfish diodontida.armata@googlemail.com wrote:
I'm afraid bringing names into this would result in further victimisation of the banned users or the people who banned them, and many of these are old cases anyway.
i.e. you are lying.
- d.
No, I consider Wikipaedia an attack site, and do not wish to further Wikipaedia's attacks against individuals.
Editing Armed Blowfish #redirect [[Clown]]
(c) Fred
On 24/09/2007, Armed Blowfish diodontida.armata@googlemail.com wrote:
On 24/09/2007, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 24/09/2007, Armed Blowfish diodontida.armata@googlemail.com wrote:
I'm afraid bringing names into this would result in further victimisation of the banned users or the people who banned them, and many of these are old cases anyway.
i.e. you are lying.
- d.
No, I consider Wikipaedia an attack site, and do not wish to further Wikipaedia's attacks against individuals.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Someone wrote:
No, I consider Wikipaedia an attack site, and do not wish to further Wikipaedia's attacks against individuals.
Sorry, but why is this person still being allowed to post here? It's enough of a firehose already without this kind of nonsense.
Armed,
I think you meant to say... "Well of course I can't think of anybody, I didn't think anybody would ask and I don't actually know of people in this situation and I thought someone would mention someone and they didn't and I now look silly."
I'll take an e-mail of all the names in private, if you're serious.
On 24/09/2007, Armed Blowfish diodontida.armata@googlemail.com wrote:
On 24/09/2007, Nick heligolandwp@googlemail.com wrote:
Now, can you please tell me who we've banned who actually takes photos and uploads them to en.wiki or any of our sister sites ?
You've had my word I'd look into editors who have been banned for contributing photos, hell, I'll look at any editor who was a decent contributor of photographs but has been banned. I do rather need lists of names to work from though.
I'm afraid bringing names into this would result in further victimisation of the banned users or the people who banned them, and many of these are old cases anyway.
I am merely suggesting that the next time you ban someone, you may want to consider the good he or she has done, not just a list of rule violations.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
You want statistics? If you want, I can go through Wikipedia:List of banned users and keep track of how many of them contributed non-deleted images, and if you want other numbers. How many contributed non-fair use images? How many contributed images attributed to the user him or her self? What sorts of numbers do you want? Bear in mind the more detailed statistics you ask for, the longer it will take, not to mention I will probably put this off until I am done with a different statistical study. Also bear in mind some things, like reasons people were banned, do not fit into statistics.
On 24/09/2007, Nick heligolandwp@googlemail.com wrote:
Armed,
I think you meant to say... "Well of course I can't think of anybody, I didn't think anybody would ask and I don't actually know of people in this situation and I thought someone would mention someone and they didn't and I now look silly."
I'll take an e-mail of all the names in private, if you're serious.
On 9/24/07, Armed Blowfish diodontida.armata@googlemail.com wrote:
You want statistics? If you want, I can go through Wikipedia:List of banned users and keep track of how many of them contributed non-deleted images, and if you want other numbers. How many contributed non-fair use images? How many contributed images attributed to the user him or her self? What sorts of numbers do you want? Bear in mind the more detailed statistics you ask for, the longer it will take, not to mention I will probably put this off until I am done with a different statistical study. Also bear in mind some things, like reasons people were banned, do not fit into statistics.
Banned users and missing images are not related problems. If we unbanned everyone today, we would not be greeted with a flood of free images filling our articles.
If someone was banned, then it was likely for a good reason. If it was not for a good reason, then their banning can be examined in the usual manner. Their skill with photography and work providing images should allow them some extra slack, perhaps, but if things have progressed to the point where they were banned, then they have used up all of the slack we should provide to them. Wikipedia has many skilled and talented people donating their time and while I don't wish to dismiss whatever good contributions these banned users have made, we also have many skilled and talented people who are capable of interacting with other users in a positive way and are able to adhere to our policies. To be blunt, we are not so desperate for help that we need to put up with their crap, nor should we allow them to alienate the people who manage to contribute to Wikipedia without getting banned.
On 24/09/2007, Rob gamaliel8@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/24/07, Armed Blowfish diodontida.armata@googlemail.com wrote:
You want statistics? [snipped]
Banned users and missing images are not related problems.
Hmmm, perhaps we should poll banned users and ask them how many free images they *would* have contributed if they had not been banned.
If we unbanned everyone today, we would not be greeted with a flood of free images filling our articles.
Of course, because 83% of banned users are sitting at their computers waiting for an unban notification from WP.
If someone was banned, then it was likely for a good reason.
Likely? Hmmm... perhaps I could go through the list of banned users and put them into binary categories of 'banned for good reason' and 'banned for bad reason', and then come up with a statistic such as '89% of banned users were banned for a good reason' or '7% of banned users were banned for a good reason'. Perhaps I could try assigning a 128-bit integer value to the reasons people were banned, such as a 1583 good reason or a -8372 good reason, and average it all together, and find that the average goodness of banning reasons is 2375 or -4947, and the median goodness of banning reasons is 2194 or -7325.
If it was not for a good reason, then their banning can be examined in the usual manner. Their skill with photography and work providing images should allow them some extra slack, perhaps, but if things have progressed to the point where they were banned, then they have used up all of the slack we should provide to them. Wikipedia has many skilled and talented people donating their time and while I don't wish to dismiss whatever good contributions these banned users have made, we also have many skilled and talented people who are capable of interacting with other users in a positive way and are able to adhere to our policies. To be blunt, we are not so desperate for help that we need to put up with their crap, nor should we allow them to alienate the people who manage to contribute to Wikipedia without getting banned.
On a more serious note, isn't dismissing 'whatever good contributions these banned users have made' exactly what happens in the banning process? And what slack does a person get when in a content dispute? Negative slack, it seems. Why should they put up with Wikipaedia's crap? And what is the appeals process but another opportunity to get attacked, emotionally abused and possibly defamed?
On 24/09/2007, Rob gamaliel8@gmail.com wrote:
Banned users and missing images are not related problems. If we unbanned everyone today, we would not be greeted with a flood of free images filling our articles.
Hmmm... so how many BSD-licenced images would it cost to get a Wikipaedia-namespace BLP-vio deleted? How many would it cost to get one blanked?
Yeah, go through banned users, find editors that uploaded images they created themselves and are used in articles or could be used in articles (20 photos of their gerbil doesn't really count) and get back to us. Also, cross reference for the block reason, it might well be that they've gone something really weird with their images, like tried to revoke the licence, or something.
On 24/09/2007, Armed Blowfish diodontida.armata@googlemail.com wrote:
You want statistics? If you want, I can go through Wikipedia:List of banned users and keep track of how many of them contributed non-deleted images, and if you want other numbers. How many contributed non-fair use images? How many contributed images attributed to the user him or her self? What sorts of numbers do you want? Bear in mind the more detailed statistics you ask for, the longer it will take, not to mention I will probably put this off until I am done with a different statistical study. Also bear in mind some things, like reasons people were banned, do not fit into statistics.
On 24/09/2007, Nick heligolandwp@googlemail.com wrote:
Armed,
I think you meant to say... "Well of course I can't think of anybody, I didn't think anybody would
ask
and I don't actually know of people in this situation and I thought
someone
would mention someone and they didn't and I now look silly."
I'll take an e-mail of all the names in private, if you're serious.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Okay, great. A couple things: how do you expect me to determine a vague criterion such as 'could be used in articles'? Wikipaedia covers a wide variety of topics, so pretty much everything *could* be used in an article. A more realistic statistic would be how many articles (or pages?) an image actually *is* being used in, but then again, some pics may not be being used as much as they could be, so it is unclear how useful such a statistic would be.
I am also not sure how you expect me statisticise a block / ban reason.
On 24/09/2007, Nick heligolandwp@googlemail.com wrote:
Yeah, go through banned users, find editors that uploaded images they created themselves and are used in articles or could be used in articles (20 photos of their gerbil doesn't really count) and get back to us. Also, cross reference for the block reason, it might well be that they've gone something really weird with their images, like tried to revoke the licence, or something.
On 24/09/2007, Armed Blowfish diodontida.armata@googlemail.com wrote:
You want statistics? If you want, I can go through Wikipedia:List of banned users and keep track of how many of them contributed non-deleted images, and if you want other numbers. How many contributed non-fair use images? How many contributed images attributed to the user him or her self? What sorts of numbers do you want? Bear in mind the more detailed statistics you ask for, the longer it will take, not to mention I will probably put this off until I am done with a different statistical study. Also bear in mind some things, like reasons people were banned, do not fit into statistics.
The idea that the number of images in articles is plummeting absolutely depends on which types of articles you're looking at. The examples you cited all seem to be bios. Obviously it's much harder to get images, especially free ones, for bios than other subjects. But if you want to look at articles that have surpluses of images, just check out zoological articles. The dog and cat breed articles are usually the worst offenders, sometimes with a dozen+ images of one breed (at least until WikiProject Dog reached a consensus to generally disallow galleries in breed articles).
On 9/24/07, Armed Blowfish diodontida.armata@googlemail.com wrote:
Okay, great. A couple things: how do you expect me to determine a vague criterion such as 'could be used in articles'? Wikipaedia covers a wide variety of topics, so pretty much everything *could* be used in an article. A more realistic statistic would be how many articles (or pages?) an image actually *is* being used in, but then again, some pics may not be being used as much as they could be, so it is unclear how useful such a statistic would be.
I am also not sure how you expect me statisticise a block / ban reason.
On 24/09/2007, Nick heligolandwp@googlemail.com wrote:
Yeah, go through banned users, find editors that uploaded images they created themselves and are used in articles or could be used in articles
(20
photos of their gerbil doesn't really count) and get back to us. Also,
cross
reference for the block reason, it might well be that they've gone
something
really weird with their images, like tried to revoke the licence, or something.
On 24/09/2007, Armed Blowfish diodontida.armata@googlemail.com wrote:
You want statistics? If you want, I can go through Wikipedia:List of banned users and keep track of how many of them contributed non-deleted images, and if you want other numbers. How many contributed non-fair use images? How many contributed images attributed to the user him or her self? What sorts of numbers do you want? Bear in mind the more detailed statistics you ask for, the longer it will take, not to mention I will probably put this off until I am done with a different statistical study. Also bear in mind some things, like reasons people were banned, do not fit into statistics.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Armed,
If all the images they've uploaded are of a personal nature, their own photograph or something we could never use, I'd exclude those editors, anything else, whether it's used or not would be fine for including. If they've been blocked for something relating to uploading images, I'd put those users into a seperate set of statistics.
On 25/09/2007, Armed Blowfish diodontida.armata@googlemail.com wrote:
Okay, great. A couple things: how do you expect me to determine a vague criterion such as 'could be used in articles'? Wikipaedia covers a wide variety of topics, so pretty much everything *could* be used in an article. A more realistic statistic would be how many articles (or pages?) an image actually *is* being used in, but then again, some pics may not be being used as much as they could be, so it is unclear how useful such a statistic would be.
I am also not sure how you expect me statisticise a block / ban reason.
On 24/09/2007, Nick heligolandwp@googlemail.com wrote:
Yeah, go through banned users, find editors that uploaded images they created themselves and are used in articles or could be used in articles
(20
photos of their gerbil doesn't really count) and get back to us. Also,
cross
reference for the block reason, it might well be that they've gone
something
really weird with their images, like tried to revoke the licence, or something.
On 24/09/2007, Armed Blowfish diodontida.armata@googlemail.com wrote:
You want statistics? If you want, I can go through Wikipedia:List of banned users and keep track of how many of them contributed non-deleted images, and if you want other numbers. How many contributed non-fair use images? How many contributed images attributed to the user him or her self? What sorts of numbers do you want? Bear in mind the more detailed statistics you ask for, the longer it will take, not to mention I will probably put this off until I am done with a different statistical study. Also bear in mind some things, like reasons people were banned, do not fit into statistics.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
'of a personal nature', i.e. I should not include people who took pornographic pictures of themselves? I'm pretty sure those pictures were deleted anyway, but even if they weren't, I don't think so many people did that that it would affect that statistics much. Or do you mean pictures only used in userspace? Of course, those probably would have been deleted when the banned user notice got stuck on their user page.... And then if they are banned for something relating to uploading images, all their images are likely deleted.... Of course, it would be difficult to tell if these things would influence the statistics much without actually doing the study, I'm just wondering if it is worth the time to check, given the subjective nature of the necessary judgements.
On 24/09/2007, Nick heligolandwp@googlemail.com wrote:
Armed,
If all the images they've uploaded are of a personal nature, their own photograph or something we could never use, I'd exclude those editors, anything else, whether it's used or not would be fine for including. If they've been blocked for something relating to uploading images, I'd put those users into a seperate set of statistics.
On 9/24/07, Armed Blowfish diodontida.armata@googlemail.com wrote:
I'm afraid bringing names into this would result in further victimisation of the banned users or the people who banned them
Do the lurkers support you in email?
On 25/09/2007, Ron Ritzman ritzman@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/24/07, Armed Blowfish diodontida.armata@googlemail.com wrote:
I'm afraid bringing names into this would result in further victimisation of the banned users or the people who banned them
Do the lurkers support you in email?
I wouldn't know unless they emailed me or expressed themselves on a website I read.
There are certainly others who agree that Wikipaedia is an attack site, too. I don't know if they have my squeamishness about talking about individuals who are not around to respond and may not wish to be discussed.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Armed Blowfish wrote:
There are certainly others who agree that Wikipaedia is an attack site, too. I don't know if they have my squeamishness about talking about individuals who are not around to respond and may not wish to be discussed.
At least they don't have your obsession with our mailing list.
- -- Sean Barrett | And the party on the left are sean@epoptic.com | now parting on the right.
Armed Blowfish wrote:
There are certainly others who agree that Wikipaedia is an attack site, too. I don't know if they have my squeamishness about talking about individuals who are not around to respond and may not wish to be discussed.
At least they don't have your obsession with our mailing list.
Sean Barrett | And the party on the left are sean@epoptic.com | now parting on the right.
Heh. I never posted here until certain Wikipaedians made it clear to me they believed I must be made to suffer for the good of the Wikipaedia community.
Armed Blowfish wrote:
Armed Blowfish wrote:
There are certainly others who agree that Wikipaedia is an attack site, too. I don't know if they have my squeamishness about talking about individuals who are not around to respond and may not wish to be discussed.
At least they don't have your obsession with our mailing list.
Sean Barrett | And the party on the left are
Heh. I never posted here until certain Wikipaedians made it clear to me they believed I must be made to suffer for the good of the Wikipaedia community.
I never realized that they considered you so important.
Ec
On 26/09/2007, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Armed Blowfish wrote:
Heh. I never posted here until certain Wikipaedians made it clear to me they believed I must be made to suffer for the good of the Wikipaedia community.
I never realized that they considered you so important.
Ec
Neither did I. ;_;
Crazy idea, but I'll throw it out there. What if we display a link to various image searches when we have no free image available, like we do for ISBN's now sorta. It would be super easy.
{{image search}} click to expand, and have a few links:
http://images.google.com/images?q=%7B%7BARTICLENAME%7D%7D http://flickr.com/search/?q=%7B%7BARTICLENAME%7D%7D&w=all
etc. Maybe even include the [[replace this image.svg]] thing in that same template, nice and simple.
And for the record, I don't think it's a minority of people that want Wikipedia to have primarily (if not only) free content.
On 24/09/2007, Armed Blowfish diodontida.armata@googlemail.com wrote:
Then again, maybe you don't have a camera. Maybe banning the people who do have cameras, and use them, isn't always a good idea.
I love this implication that we ban people *for trying to help*. It's amazing we got anything done with this crazed band of power-trippers shooting everyone who tried to write an encyclopedia!
Oh, wait.
On 24/09/2007, Nick heligolandwp@googlemail.com wrote:
I've also found lots of free images on other Wikipedias, if something doesn't have an image, check the interwiki links and see if the image you want is on Commons or is free on another project. That's how we got our Pavarotti image.
Idealy there should be a bot that does such checks and posts results to the talk page.~~~~