In the past day, [[user:jtdirl]] has published my name and address, and [[user:mackensen]] has accused me of criminal acts. Other admins apparently support both actions. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_notice... What is wrong with you people? Take a step back from your world of user accounts and internal rules and get your priorities right. Please.
Skyring wrote:
In the past day, [[user:jtdirl]] has published my name and address, and [[user:mackensen]] has accused me of criminal acts. Other admins apparently support both actions. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_notice... What is wrong with you people? Take a step back from your world of user accounts and internal rules and get your priorities right. Please.
I don't agree with or support what jtdirl did nor would I support it if any user did it since posting other users' personal info on wikipedia is unethical and breaks more than a few of the wiki's guidelines, however if what I have read on the subject is right you're not all that innocent yourself and you pushed him to leave the entire project and to a certain extent pushed him into this.
-Jtkiefer
On 9/2/05, Jtkiefer jtkiefer@wordzen.net wrote:
Skyring wrote:
In the past day, [[user:jtdirl]] has published my name and address, and [[user:mackensen]] has accused me of criminal acts. Other admins
apparently
support both actions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_notice...
What is wrong with you people? Take a step back from your world of user accounts and internal rules and get your priorities right. Please.
I don't agree with or support what jtdirl did nor would I support it if any user did it since posting other users' personal info on wikipedia is unethical and breaks more than a few of the wiki's guidelines, however if what I have read on the subject is right you're not all that innocent yourself and you pushed him to leave the entire project and to a certain extent pushed him into this.
Judging by this edit at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAdministrators%27_noti... may still be around, playing some game of his own and unwilling as ever to admit he's done anything wrong. Perhaps David Gerard can take a look at the interesting series of edits at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=8... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/AULDBITCH_LOVES_YOU and let us know his thoughts about this stuff coming out of Dublin? Nothing I've done amounts to the criminal behaviour of which Mackensen has publicly accused me, nor do my actions warrant having my name and address published by an admin, and I certainly don't deserve having my name attached to the crude vandalism of Mackensen's user page. Be fair, please!
-- Peter in Canberra
On 9/2/05, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
In the past day, [[user:jtdirl]] has published my name and address, and [[user:mackensen]] has accused me of criminal acts. Other admins apparently support both actions. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_notice... What is wrong with you people? Take a step back from your world of user accounts and internal rules and get your priorities right. Please.
-- Peter in Canberra
People who play with fire get burned.
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geni wrote:
On 9/2/05, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
In the past day, [[user:jtdirl]] has published my name and address, and [[user:mackensen]] has accused me of criminal acts.
People who play with fire get burned.
And further, accessing a computer system without authorisation is illegal in the US, the UK, and Australia, to name but a few countries; given that you are banned from Wikipedia, any edits that you were to make would constitute such an illegal act. Several sysops, and not just Mackensen, have suggested that you may well be doing this, violating your ban order. Perhaps you might want to think about finding another place to play, Skyring?
Yours sincerely, - -- James D. Forrester Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] E-Mail : james@jdforrester.org IM (MSN) : jamesdforrester@hotmail.com
On 9/3/05, James D. Forrester james@jdforrester.org wrote:
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geni wrote:
On 9/2/05, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
In the past day, [[user:jtdirl]] has published my name and address, and [[user:mackensen]] has accused me of criminal acts.
People who play with fire get burned.
And further, accessing a computer system without authorisation is illegal in the US, the UK, and Australia, to name but a few countries; given that you are banned from Wikipedia, any edits that you were to make would constitute such an illegal act. Several sysops, and not just Mackensen, have suggested that you may well be doing this, violating your ban order. Perhaps you might want to think about finding another place to play, Skyring?
Thanks, James. Given that Wikipedia doesn't require checking of real-life identification before allowing access to the system, I can't see your theory lasting too long in any court.
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Skyring wrote:
On 9/3/05, James D. Forrester james@jdforrester.org wrote:
geni wrote:
On 9/2/05, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
In the past day, [[user:jtdirl]] has published my name and address, and [[user:mackensen]] has accused me of criminal acts.
People who play with fire get burned.
And further, accessing a computer system without authorisation is illegal in the US, the UK, and Australia, to name but a few countries; given that you are banned from Wikipedia, any edits that you were to make would constitute such an illegal act. Several sysops, and not just Mackensen, have suggested that you may well be doing this, violating your ban order. Perhaps you might want to think about finding another place to play, Skyring?
Thanks, James. Given that Wikipedia doesn't require checking of real-life identification before allowing access to the system, I can't see your theory lasting too long in any court.
Which shows just how much you know about such laws. :-) Seriously, Wikipedia's very openness means that blocking and banning are highly visible and obvious instructions to people to not access the system, and IMO would be very easy to point to in court as opposed to merely unadvertised computer systems that have an open port on them that people connect to (which has landed people in gaol in several locations, especially when said computer systems are military in nature). Not that we have any intention of having you prosecuted, so this is all by-the-by and rather irrelevant.
However, wikien-l is not the place to query your ban by the Arbitration Committee; it is not a community matter, but one for the Board, and Jimbo in particular. Feel free to email them about it. Certainly, feel free to cease emailing /us/ about it, unendingly and pointlessly.
Yours, - -- James D. Forrester Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] E-Mail : james@jdforrester.org IM (MSN) : jamesdforrester@hotmail.com
On 9/6/05, James D. Forrester james@jdforrester.org wrote:
However, wikien-l is not the place to query your ban by the Arbitration Committee; it is not a community matter, but one for the Board, and Jimbo in particular. Feel free to email them about it. Certainly, feel free to cease emailing /us/ about it, unendingly and pointlessly.
Protesting injustice is never pointless, James. The USA was founded in such a spirit.
You've already admitted here that the process is unfair; you can't seriously expect me - or anyone else - to have much respect for Wikipedia's version of due process after that.
Skyring wrote:
However, wikien-l is not the place to query your ban by the Arbitration Committee; it is not a community matter, but one for the Board, and Jimbo in particular. Feel free to email them about it. Certainly, feel free to cease emailing /us/ about it, unendingly and pointlessly.
Protesting injustice is never pointless, James. The USA was founded in such a spirit.
You seem to forget that [[WP:NOT]] the USA.
Best wishes,
Nick
Protesting injustice is never pointless, James. The USA was founded in such a spirit.
Ah, the old "spirit of the founders" appeal. If I recall correctly, you're from Australia, aren't you?
You've already admitted here that the process is unfair; you can't seriously expect me - or anyone else - to have much respect for Wikipedia's version of due process after that.
We don't want your respect; we want you to go away. I would have thought that the ArbComm's decision had made that clear.
On Sat, Sep 03, 2005 at 12:24:07PM +1000, Skyring wrote:
On 9/3/05, James D. Forrester james@jdforrester.org wrote:
And further, accessing a computer system without authorisation is illegal in the US, the UK, and Australia, to name but a few countries; given that you are banned from Wikipedia, any edits that you were to make would constitute such an illegal act. Several sysops, and not just Mackensen, have suggested that you may well be doing this, violating your ban order. Perhaps you might want to think about finding another place to play, Skyring?
Thanks, James. Given that Wikipedia doesn't require checking of real-life identification before allowing access to the system, I can't see your theory lasting too long in any court.
I can't see as "real-life identification" matters. Permission to access the system is withdrawn from a person, not an "identification". Once that permission is withdrawn, access is unauthorized.
A shop does not require "real-life identification" before allowing you to enter, either. But if you behave in a manner which offends the shopkeeper and she orders you to leave and never come back, and you fail to obey, you are trespassing. Identification doesn't enter into it: the shopkeeper withdrew _your_ permission to be on her property -- not your _name's_ or _ID card's_ permission.
It isn't your "identification" that's breaking the law by continuing to edit Wikipedia (if you are so doing). It's you.
On 9/6/05, Karl A. Krueger kkrueger@whoi.edu wrote:
On Sat, Sep 03, 2005 at 12:24:07PM +1000, Skyring wrote:
On 9/3/05, James D. Forrester james@jdforrester.org wrote:
And further, accessing a computer system without authorisation is illegal in the US, the UK, and Australia, to name but a few countries; given that you are banned from Wikipedia, any edits that you were to make would constitute such an illegal act. Several sysops, and not just Mackensen, have suggested that you may well be doing this, violating your ban order. Perhaps you might want to think about finding another place to play, Skyring?
Thanks, James. Given that Wikipedia doesn't require checking of real-life identification before allowing access to the system, I can't see your theory lasting too long in any court.
I can't see as "real-life identification" matters. Permission to access the system is withdrawn from a person, not an "identification". Once that permission is withdrawn, access is unauthorized.
Wikipedia doesn't identify real-life people when permitting access. For a crime to occur, you've got to satisfy the conditions laid down in the law. James' legal threats amount to nothing.
I apologise to the list. I am the one responsible for these emails of Skyring's reaching the mailing list despite him being banned from the mailing list. I won't let it happen again.
~Mark Ryan WikiEN-l mailing list administrator
I thought people should be aware of the recent creation of a fork off of Wikipedia at www.comixpedia.org.
This is a wiki intended for webcomics.
It exists separate from Wikipedia because we blew it big time with the webcomics community.
We blew it by creating webcomics inclusion guidelines that were just plain stupid, based on Alexa rankings and not on any sort of artistic or critical notability. That meant that comics that lots of people cited as influences were getting ignored. We blew it with moronic votes for deletion debates that drove people who wanted to write good, detailed articles on things away by telling them their work was "fanwank." We blew it, in short, because of the mob of pissy deletionists who dominate VfD, and who have gotten plenty of people to call VfD a pit that's hurting Wikipedia.
If you want an example of this, I encourage you to look at the case of [[Elf Only Inn]]. Elf Only Inn is a webcomic on a syndicate called Keenspot. Keenspot is a business. Keenspot makes its money publishing webcomics. They are an online publisher. Being published by Keenspot is a big deal, and I would argue should be grounds for notability.
It turns out my argument wasn't the prevailing one on VfD, and the article got deleted. What really sticks in my craw, though, is that the webcomic inclusion guidelines say that the top twenty comics on Keenspace are notable enough for inclusion. What's wrong with this? Keenspace is a free webcomic hosting service offered by Keenspot. It's also one of Keenspot's main talent pools - they move comics out of Keenspace and into the main Keenspot. So, in theory, every comic in Keenspace is less notable than any comic in Keenspot.
But following these frankly idiotic guidelines, the comic was deleted. It got recreated later, but still - it NEVER should have been deleted. The guidelines would also have us delete [[Athena Voltaire]], which is on Graphic Smash, a webcomics syndicate that doesn't pass the Alexa test of top 200,000 sites. Athena Voltaire was nominated for an Eisner award. There is something wrong when a comic that can get an Eisner nomination could be deleted. [[Digger]] is similarly indisputably notable - except for the fact that it fails the Alexa test.
Equally annoying was the deletion of [[Gossamer Commons]], nominated with a simple "nn four-month-old webcomic" nomination. A case can be made for deletion - the webcomic's creator even made it. But the case for its deletion is not as simple as "nn four-month-old webcomic," especially considering that we have an article on the comics' writer already, that the comic has attracted considerable praise and attention among notable webcomics artists, and that the comic as a whole was something of a Big Deal at its launch.
And it's not enough to say, "Oh, [[Gossamer Commons should have been kept." The point is that there shouldn't be endless deletion debates on articles where people wave guidelines around that are transparently crap. Deletionists should not be running rougshod over a substantial group of people who want to contribute on a topic. There should not be a webcomics fork born out of frustration about how unfriendly we are to people who want to contribute on webcomics. A fork born of a desire to have even more detailed coverage than is appropriate for Wikipedia, and that wants to supplement Wikipedia's coverage? Fine. Neat. That would be cool. But this isn't that. This is a fork. This is good people taking their ball and going home, because of the toxic culture on VfD.
We blew this one.
-Snowspinner
Hi there,
because of the mob of pissy deletionists who dominate VfD
So I take it you are a pissy inclusionist then? :)
In all seriousness though it is a difficult issue. I think the more recent controversial ones like Stardestroyer.net (its 3rd VfD which finally resulted in its demise) and trekbbs one or whatever highlight this.
VfD itself is an interesting mentality that is really easy to get sucked into. Even though are many fairly notable websites that get canned because they fall just short of WB:WEB for example, many other articles that don't meet it get kept for other reasons, such as because they are entertaining (GNAA, List of Ethnic Stereotypes etc. etc.).
The system does work in a sense though. For example, a couple a put up there that were of somewhat non-notable websites, but were written very well, got deleted rather soundly with a surprising turnout given the subject matter (and some funny but demeaning jokes from the voters).
Of course, I say it works in the sense that you're making a strict encyclopedia, which tends to go against the wikiway (I mean the C2 wikiway not the wikipedia wikiway :)). In fact when I first came to WP a long time ago I thought that was the way it worked... and was surprised to see VfD and other venues to removing content.
I myself got sucked into it earlier on (admittedly its quite fun and a great way to inflate your edit count), plus there are a lot of old-timers there (who probably are deletionists themselves ;)). Lately, I've been realizing that there needs to be more inclusionists voting there (although some self-described inclusionists seem to vote delete on everything anyway...).
Maybe it gets back to the old argument that you need people who are really familiar with the subject to judge it. Who knows...
{{sofixit}} :P Completely agree though.
On 9/5/05, Ryan Norton wxprojects@comcast.net wrote:
Hi there,
because of the mob of pissy deletionists who dominate VfD
So I take it you are a pissy inclusionist then? :)
In all seriousness though it is a difficult issue. I think the more recent controversial ones like Stardestroyer.net (its 3rd VfD which finally resulted in its demise) and trekbbs one or whatever highlight this.
VfD itself is an interesting mentality that is really easy to get sucked into. Even though are many fairly notable websites that get canned because they fall just short of WB:WEB for example, many other articles that don't meet it get kept for other reasons, such as because they are entertaining (GNAA, List of Ethnic Stereotypes etc. etc.).
The system does work in a sense though. For example, a couple a put up there that were of somewhat non-notable websites, but were written very well, got deleted rather soundly with a surprising turnout given the subject matter (and some funny but demeaning jokes from the voters).
Of course, I say it works in the sense that you're making a strict encyclopedia, which tends to go against the wikiway (I mean the C2 wikiway not the wikipedia wikiway :)). In fact when I first came to WP a long time ago I thought that was the way it worked... and was surprised to see VfD and other venues to removing content.
I myself got sucked into it earlier on (admittedly its quite fun and a great way to inflate your edit count), plus there are a lot of old-timers there (who probably are deletionists themselves ;)). Lately, I've been realizing that there needs to be more inclusionists voting there (although some self-described inclusionists seem to vote delete on everything anyway...).
Maybe it gets back to the old argument that you need people who are really familiar with the subject to judge it. Who knows...
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 9/5/05, Snowspinner Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
I thought people should be aware of the recent creation of a fork off of Wikipedia at www.comixpedia.org.
This is a wiki intended for webcomics.
Specialist wikis are to be expected.
It exists separate from Wikipedia because we blew it big time with the webcomics community.
We shall see. Forks of wikipedia don't tend to do too well in the long run
One time some mean people tried to delete Cat Town
Snowspinner (Snowspinner@gmail.com) [050906 06:07]:
And it's not enough to say, "Oh, [[Gossamer Commons should have been kept." The point is that there shouldn't be endless deletion debates on articles where people wave guidelines around that are transparently crap. Deletionists should not be running rougshod over a substantial group of people who want to contribute on a topic. There should not be a webcomics fork born out of frustration about how unfriendly we are to people who want to contribute on webcomics. A fork born of a desire to have even more detailed coverage than is appropriate for Wikipedia, and that wants to supplement Wikipedia's coverage? Fine. Neat. That would be cool. But this isn't that. This is a fork. This is good people taking their ball and going home, because of the toxic culture on VfD. We blew this one.
Tch! And I remember you ranting on IRC about how rude the inclusionists were on VFD and how the deletionists would never be so obnoxious ...
Note, by the way, that the spurious deletion criteria for webcomics is a symptom of the spurious criterion of "notability". Which has repeatedly been rejected as policy.
I move:
1. VFD or AFD or whatever it's called be shut down entirely. No article deletion other than CSD, copyvios and similar. VFD is sufficiently damaging that *nothing at all* would be better than it existing in any present form. 2. A month to discuss new deletion mechanisms. 1 should get the keen deletionists very interested indeed. 3. A vote. Nothing passes with under 75% support.
- d.
From: fun@thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard)
I move:
- VFD or AFD or whatever it's called be shut down entirely. No article deletion other than CSD, copyvios and similar. VFD is sufficiently damaging that *nothing at all* would be better than it existing in any present form.
- A month to discuss new deletion mechanisms. 1 should get the keen deletionists very interested indeed.
- A vote. Nothing passes with under 75% support.
I move to replace point 1 of your proposal with:
1. Keep current VFD/AFD process for now, as it's generally working pretty well.
The rest seems a good idea.
Jay.
On 9/6/05, David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au wrote:
Tch! And I remember you ranting on IRC about how rude the inclusionists were on VFD and how the deletionists would never be so obnoxious ...
Note, by the way, that the spurious deletion criteria for webcomics is a symptom of the spurious criterion of "notability". Which has repeatedly been rejected as policy.
I move:
- VFD or AFD or whatever it's called be shut down entirely. No article
deletion other than CSD, copyvios and similar. VFD is sufficiently damaging that *nothing at all* would be better than it existing in any present form. 2. A month to discuss new deletion mechanisms. 1 should get the keen deletionists very interested indeed. 3. A vote. Nothing passes with under 75% support.
- d.
As sad as AfD can occasionally be, it's an effective tool for band vanity, etc. If we're going to get rid of AfD, we need to do one or more of the following things first:
1. Expand CSD to include things like band vanity, etc. that get submitted to AfD on a daily basis. 2. Replace AfD with something better and easier. 3. Allow administrators to delete pages on site, replacing them with a notice similar to {{deletedpage}}, and allowing all relevant debate on VfU (controversial, but perhaps an easier system than VfD is right now).
I don't think removing AfD entirely will solve anything; rather, I think accomplished trolls will start to add nonsense that *barely* passes CSD, but is unencyclopedic, or even non-factual in nature. The United States nearly collapsed until the Constitution was written, because the Articles of Confederation were as well as having no policy at all. Such would be the case if we deleted the main deletion mechanism.
I move:
- VFD or AFD or whatever it's called be shut down entirely. No article deletion other than CSD, copyvios and similar. VFD is sufficiently damaging that *nothing at all* would be better than it existing in any present form.
I don't see much damage. but then I avoid the place if at all posible
- A month to discuss new deletion mechanisms. 1 should get the keen deletionists very interested indeed.
- A vote. Nothing passes with under 75% support.
nothing will pass
VFD certainly won't pass, why don't we put ''it'' to a vote? ;)
Jack (Sam Sp;ade)
On 9/6/05, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
I move:
- VFD or AFD or whatever it's called be shut down entirely. No article deletion other than CSD, copyvios and similar. VFD is sufficiently damaging that *nothing at all* would be better than it existing in any present form.
I don't see much damage. but then I avoid the place if at all posible
- A month to discuss new deletion mechanisms. 1 should get the keen deletionists very interested indeed.
- A vote. Nothing passes with under 75% support.
nothing will pass
geni _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Hi,
On Tuesday, September 6, 2005, at 02:01 PM, Jack Lynch wrote:
VFD certainly won't pass, why don't we put ''it'' to a vote? ;)
Jack (Sam Sp;ade)
On 9/6/05, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
I move:
- VFD or AFD or whatever it's called be shut down entirely. No
article deletion other than CSD, copyvios and similar. VFD is sufficiently damaging that *nothing at all* would be better than it existing in any present form.
I don't see much damage. but then I avoid the place if at all posible
That's the problem though - by avoiding it its just contributing to the problem....
- A month to discuss new deletion mechanisms. 1 should get the keen deletionists very interested indeed.
- A vote. Nothing passes with under 75% support.
nothing will pass
Not even the rename passed, as it was done more in the name of WP:BOLD - which is a good thing I think. Not a good thing that they were claiming consensus while doing it which inflamed a lot of tensions though.
Also, I do wish we could do David's #1. I think the real question is how much of the original wikiway does wikipedia want to follow....
Ryan
On 9/6/05, Ryan Norton wxprojects@comcast.net wrote:
Also, I do wish we could do David's #1. I think the real question is how much of the original wikiway does wikipedia want to follow....
This is a question to which I don't know the answer. If we can get an answer (and I doubt we will), then it would determine the whole future of Wikipedia.
The question is fundementally "what is more important, wiki-, or -pedia?"
I think I believe that the encyclopedia should trump all else. But I am by no means sure of this. It may in fact be in the encyclopedia's very interest that a pure wiki philosophy is kept. I don't know. I would, however, be interested to hear what others think.
Sam
On 9/6/05 2:22 PM, "Sam Korn" smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
This is a question to which I don't know the answer. If we can get an answer (and I doubt we will), then it would determine the whole future of Wikipedia.
The question is fundementally "what is more important, wiki-, or -pedia?"
Our social policies are not a suicide pact. They are in place to help us write the encyclopedia... We need to take due process seriously, but we also need to remember: this is not a democracy, this is not an experiment in anarchy, it's a project to make the world a better place by giving away a free encyclopedia. --Jimbo Wales
That says it all to me.
-FCYTravis @ en.wikipedia
On 9/6/05, Travis Mason-Bushman travis@gpsports-eng.com wrote:
On 9/6/05 2:22 PM, "Sam Korn" smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
This is a question to which I don't know the answer. If we can get an answer (and I doubt we will), then it would determine the whole future of Wikipedia.
The question is fundementally "what is more important, wiki-, or -pedia?"
Our social policies are not a suicide pact. They are in place to help us write the encyclopedia... We need to take due process seriously, but we also need to remember: this is not a democracy, this is not an experiment in anarchy, it's a project to make the world a better place by giving away a free encyclopedia. --Jimbo Wales
That says it all to me.
-FCYTravis @ en.wikipedia
"Imagine a world in which every person has free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing. And we need your help."
The line between knowledge and trivia is becoming smaller. As the power of computers to store, sort, retreive, and present information in meaningful ways increases, our need for exclusivity, born in the days of chiseled stone slabs, clay tablets, and painted pottery, fades rapidly.
Something revolutionary has begun.
Until we face media shortage, a real relevant question is "At what point does a combination of data become knowledge worth recording?"
Well, recognizing that Wikipedia itself is becoming a cultural object, wouldn't it make sense at the very least to say "When it is more notable than its inclusion in Wikipedia would be"? ;-)
Put more simply, if I were in EB, it would be pretty amazing and the most notable thing about me ("Otherwise unnotable man included in Encyclopedia Brittanica," the headlines would proclaim). However if I was more notable than my inclusion into EB would be, then it wouldn't be any big deal if they had an article on me -- it might even be expected, if they specialized in breadth.
Of course, the problem with this is that it is self-reinforcing policy! That is, if the standard for inclusion to Wikipedia went down, then the likelihood of having a Wikipedia article about something would go up, which would in turn affect a standard for inclusion based on the likelihood of an article being in Wikipedia... and so on.
FF
On 9/6/05, Michael Turley michael.turley@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/6/05, Travis Mason-Bushman travis@gpsports-eng.com wrote:
On 9/6/05 2:22 PM, "Sam Korn" smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
This is a question to which I don't know the answer. If we can get an answer (and I doubt we will), then it would determine the whole future of Wikipedia.
The question is fundementally "what is more important, wiki-, or
-pedia?"
Our social policies are not a suicide pact. They are in place to help us write the encyclopedia... We need to take due process seriously, but we
also
need to remember: this is not a democracy, this is not an experiment in anarchy, it's a project to make the world a better place by giving away
a
free encyclopedia. --Jimbo Wales
That says it all to me.
-FCYTravis @ en.wikipedia
"Imagine a world in which every person has free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing. And we need your help."
The line between knowledge and trivia is becoming smaller. As the power of computers to store, sort, retreive, and present information in meaningful ways increases, our need for exclusivity, born in the days of chiseled stone slabs, clay tablets, and painted pottery, fades rapidly.
Something revolutionary has begun.
Until we face media shortage, a real relevant question is "At what point does a combination of data become knowledge worth recording?"
-- Michael Turley User:Unfocused _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Fastfission wrote:
Well, recognizing that Wikipedia itself is becoming a cultural object, wouldn't it make sense at the very least to say "When it is more notable than its inclusion in Wikipedia would be"? ;-)
Put more simply, if I were in EB, it would be pretty amazing and the most notable thing about me ("Otherwise unnotable man included in Encyclopedia Brittanica," the headlines would proclaim). However if I was more notable than my inclusion into EB would be, then it wouldn't be any big deal if they had an article on me -- it might even be expected, if they specialized in breadth.
Of course, the problem with this is that it is self-reinforcing policy! That is, if the standard for inclusion to Wikipedia went down, then the likelihood of having a Wikipedia article about something would go up, which would in turn affect a standard for inclusion based on the likelihood of an article being in Wikipedia... and so on.
FF
So that's the ultimate standard? As soon as nobody is surprised that we have an article on a subject, we need the article?
I love it! :)
-[[en:User:Humblefool]]
"Comixpedia.org http://Comixpedia.org is under the GNU license" ... "This is important so that we can share articles with the wikipedia and vice versa" Doesn't look like it's a massively problem, to be honest. violet/riga
On Tue, 6 Sep 2005, David wrote:
Fastfission wrote:
Well, recognizing that Wikipedia itself is becoming a cultural object, wouldn't it make sense at the very least to say "When it is more notable than its inclusion in Wikipedia would be"? ;-)
Put more simply, if I were in EB, it would be pretty amazing and the most notable thing about me ("Otherwise unnotable man included in Encyclopedia Brittanica," the headlines would proclaim). However if I was more notable than my inclusion into EB would be, then it wouldn't be any big deal if they had an article on me -- it might even be expected, if they specialized in breadth.
Of course, the problem with this is that it is self-reinforcing policy! That is, if the standard for inclusion to Wikipedia went down, then the likelihood of having a Wikipedia article about something would go up, which would in turn affect a standard for inclusion based on the likelihood of an article being in Wikipedia... and so on.
So that's the ultimate standard? As soon as nobody is surprised that we have an article on a subject, we need the article?
I love it! :)
I guess this is an application of a rule that Jimbo mentions in his emails from time to time: the Principle of Least Astonishment. That is, if you consider Wikipedia's coverage of a given topic definitive, authorative, &/or exhaustive, it would reasonably astonish the reader if there was not an article about a specific subject.
After all, I haven't seen anyone argue on VfD that a village of 100 people in Africa or Asia is not notable: that's difficult to claim when there are so many existing articles about communities of that size -- or smaller -- in the U.S.
Geoff
On 07/09/05, Geoff Burling llywrch@agora.rdrop.com wrote:
After all, I haven't seen anyone argue on VfD that a village of 100 people in Africa or Asia is not notable: that's difficult to claim when there are so many existing articles about communities of that size -- or smaller -- in the U.S.
I have a vague recollection of having seen a small Eastern European town or two be VfDed, though I suspect that was more through it being a substub and contextless than it being "nn. little foreign place."
On Wed, 7 Sep 2005, Andrew Gray wrote:
On 07/09/05, Geoff Burling llywrch@agora.rdrop.com wrote:
After all, I haven't seen anyone argue on VfD that a village of 100 people in Africa or Asia is not notable: that's difficult to claim when there are so many existing articles about communities of that size -- or smaller -- in the U.S.
I have a vague recollection of having seen a small Eastern European town or two be VfDed, though I suspect that was more through it being a substub and contextless than it being "nn. little foreign place."
I missed that -- but I'm not surprised. My primary complaint about VfD is that there are so many articles to wade thru: just to read the articles listed for one day can take the better part of an hour, & should I decide to add to the discussion or even research a given entry . . .
But FF put it quite well elsewhere in this thread. It is the duty of the original author of an article to make a case for notability. A contributor needs to be her/his own stringent critic, & always offer as many reasons to convince the rest of us keep a given article, rather than assume we'll accept any contribution. I still don't why I did a Google search on [[Asrat Woldeyes]], & was able to take an article that clearly failed to establish notability (it merely said his father had been killed by the Italian occupation forces), & add an entry to Wikipedia about a man who was not only a major activist in Ethiopian medicine, but also an important opposition leader whom Amnesty International had classified a "prisoner of conscience" -- but I'm glad that I did. orphaned
Geoff
Curses, I thought I had come up with something original! ;-)
FF
On 9/7/05, Geoff Burling llywrch@agora.rdrop.com wrote:
I guess this is an application of a rule that Jimbo mentions in his emails from time to time: the Principle of Least Astonishment. That is, if you consider Wikipedia's coverage of a given topic definitive, authorative, &/or exhaustive, it would reasonably astonish the reader if there was not an article about a specific subject.
On Wed, 7 Sep 2005, Geoff Burling wrote:
On Tue, 6 Sep 2005, David wrote:
Fastfission wrote:
Well, recognizing that Wikipedia itself is becoming a cultural object, wouldn't it make sense at the very least to say "When it is more notable than its inclusion in Wikipedia would be"? ;-)
Put more simply, if I were in EB, it would be pretty amazing and the most notable thing about me ("Otherwise unnotable man included in Encyclopedia Brittanica," the headlines would proclaim). However if I was more notable than my inclusion into EB would be, then it wouldn't be any big deal if they had an article on me -- it might even be expected, if they specialized in breadth.
Of course, the problem with this is that it is self-reinforcing policy! That is, if the standard for inclusion to Wikipedia went down, then the likelihood of having a Wikipedia article about something would go up, which would in turn affect a standard for inclusion based on the likelihood of an article being in Wikipedia... and so on.
So that's the ultimate standard? As soon as nobody is surprised that we have an article on a subject, we need the article?
I love it! :)
I guess this is an application of a rule that Jimbo mentions in his emails from time to time: the Principle of Least Astonishment. That is, if you consider Wikipedia's coverage of a given topic definitive, authorative, &/or exhaustive, it would reasonably astonish the reader if there was not an article about a specific subject.
After all, I haven't seen anyone argue on VfD that a village of 100 people in Africa or Asia is not notable: that's difficult to claim when there are so many existing articles about communities of that size -- or smaller -- in the U.S.
Well, I have been shown to be wrong. Check out the debate at [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Drigluidjunbl�gruidjundlei]], where instead of first making an effort to see if the village actually exists (or focussing on things like who created the article or does any other article link to it), the debate is another version of "if I haven't heard of it, & can't find it with Google, then let's delete it" argument.
Geoff
On 06/09/05, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/6/05, Ryan Norton wxprojects@comcast.net wrote:
Also, I do wish we could do David's #1. I think the real question is how much of the original wikiway does wikipedia want to follow....
This is a question to which I don't know the answer. If we can get an answer (and I doubt we will), then it would determine the whole future of Wikipedia.
The question is fundementally "what is more important, wiki-, or -pedia?"
The one is a means to a the other. The goal of the project is to provide a free encyclopedia; a wiki is the way chosen with which to do it. And the process should not trump the project...
On 9/6/05, David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au wrote:
Snowspinner (Snowspinner@gmail.com) [050906 06:07]:
is a fork. This is good people taking their ball and going home, because of the toxic culture on VfD. We blew this one.
Tch! And I remember you ranting on IRC about how rude the inclusionists were on VFD and how the deletionists would never be so obnoxious ...
Note, by the way, that the spurious deletion criteria for webcomics is a symptom of the spurious criterion of "notability". Which has repeatedly been rejected as policy.
Part of the problem is that we don't currently distinguish between criteria which do not change and are not useful to anyone ("nonsense, vandalism, or unverifiable statements,") and things which change over time, or are useful to a small audience ("non-notable, needs massive cleanup, or unencyclopedic").
Should we distinguish these, we could tell the rest of the world not to index or give search-engine juice to the latter set of articles, without deleting them.
There are dozens of small towns around the world setting up their own local wiki projects to document every location and aspect of their town. I would like to see Wikipedia encourage that. We shouldn't have to fight over this month's notability standards to let them create useful, verifiable, neutral information within Wikipedia, rather than on a separate site that may not know anything about free licenses or how to run a public wiki.
+SJ
I move:
- VFD or AFD or whatever it's called be shut down entirely. No article deletion other than CSD, copyvios and similar. VFD is sufficiently damaging that *nothing at all* would be better than it existing in any present form.
- A month to discuss new deletion mechanisms. 1 should get the keen deletionists very interested indeed.
- A vote. Nothing passes with under 75% support.
- d.
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On 9/6/05, Snowspinner Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
We blew it by creating webcomics inclusion guidelines that were just plain stupid, based on Alexa rankings and not on any sort of artistic or critical notability.
Alexa rankings are good for sorting external links and getting rid of the dodgy ones. Articles like [[Harry Potter]] attract a lot of people whose sites don't seem to get any hits apart from those they get from Wikipedia. Alexa allows us to get rid of such sites (sure, it's arbitrary, but we don't have time to assess each site on its merits). However, I don't think Alexa rankings are useful for much more than that. They are not accurate (how many people do you know use the Alexa toolbar?) and they do not reflect the fact that high traffic does not mean high quality or high relevance.
~Mark Ryan
James D. Forrester wrote:
geni wrote:
On 9/2/05, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
In the past day, [[user:jtdirl]] has published my name and address, and [[user:mackensen]] has accused me of criminal acts.
People who play with fire get burned.
And further, accessing a computer system without authorisation is illegal in the US, the UK, and Australia, to name but a few countries; given that you are banned from Wikipedia, any edits that you were to make would constitute such an illegal act. Several sysops, and not just Mackensen, have suggested that you may well be doing this, violating your ban order. Perhaps you might want to think about finding another place to play, Skyring?
I would have a hard time using this to justify the publication of someone's personal information on Wikipedia. If it were some serious alleged crime, such as death threats, perhaps that would be warranted, but evading a ban doesn't rise to the level where I would be comfortable "outing" people. At least during the period when I was on the ArbCom, when we used evidence of people's real identies or even IPs to ban sockpuppets and reincarnations, we didn't publish that evidence publicly on the wiki.
-Mark
Though Ive had little interest in particularly normal cases, I read a bunch of the Skyring ruling. The Arbcom decision seems a bit rash --to foff off some lucky punter for a year just for a little rudish pov-warring?
Yeah Skyring was pov-pushing, and ban on certain articles is indeed justified. But a complete ban for a full year? While others are simply "admonished"? Duffy and Carr arent exactly known for their perennial and soothing pleasantness, (Uncle Ed?) so that leaves critical thinkers like myself to wonder what the actual deal is. I suppose its just to clamp down on sockpuppetry and send a message.
Is "no wiki-stalking" even a policy? Cause thats what people seem to do all around anyway. Skyring seems to have a basis for some review of the latest ruling, though I suppose people will want him to demonstrate patience and heed to the rules. (In spite of WP:IAR, no doubt). Was something else going on there, or did he just kind of rub people the wrong way by being a pov-pushing smart alec?
SV
--- Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
I would have a hard time using this to justify the publication of someone's personal information on Wikipedia. If it were some serious alleged crime, such as death threats, perhaps that would be warranted, but evading a ban doesn't rise to the level where I would be comfortable "outing" people. At least during the period when I was on the ArbCom, when we used evidence of people's real identies or even IPs to ban sockpuppets and reincarnations, we didn't publish that evidence publicly on the wiki.
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steve v wrote:
[Re. The Committee's decision on Skyring]
Is "no wiki-stalking" even a policy? Cause thats what people seem to do all around anyway. Skyring seems to have a basis for some review of the latest ruling, though I suppose people will want him to demonstrate patience and heed to the rules. (In spite of WP:IAR, no doubt). Was something else going on there, or did he just kind of rub people the wrong way by being a pov-pushing smart alec?
All appeals of Arbitration Committee rulings are to be directed to Jimbo. This is made quite clear. :-) In this particular case, as can be seen from its page, Jimbo was the one who asked us to review the case in the first place in view of Skyring's highly disruptive and unhelpful behaviour.
BTW, I'm troubled by your suggestion that we are harsh. This suggests, amongst other points, two things: firstly, that we're here to meet out justice, and secondly that we're here to do so fairly. Neither of these are true. The Committee is charged with maintaining the project and protecting it from disruption with the means at its disposal. We are not, have never been, and will never be here to punish people for things they do on the wiki. Instead, we look at things from the perspective of what is best for the project.
In this case we decided that Skyring's continued presence was not only not conducive to the construction of an encyclopædia, but actively harmful, distracting worthwhile editors from actually writing and maintaining it. As such, we banned him. It is not and should not be thought of as a judgement on him personally, merely on his behaviour on the project as shewn in evidence before the Committee.
In case anyone's wondering, we banned Skyring for a year rather than permanently because we have a (non-binding) informal agreement to only ban people for a maximum of a year, 12 months being such a very long time on the Internet. If someone comes back after a year and is /still/ disruptive to the project, it is no great issue for us to re-ban them for a year (as, indeed, we have now had to do, sadly).
If you think that people do "wikistalking" to the detriment of the project, please bring them before the Arbitration Committee. It's what we're here for, but we can't be everywhere and rely on editors concerned with the project over petty recriminations to point out to us where our oversight may be required.
Hmm. Sorry that this has turned into such a screed. Hopefully some will read it and remember what we're all about: building and maintaining the best encyclopædia we possibly can.
Yours sincerely, - -- James D. Forrester Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] E-Mail : james@jdforrester.org IM (MSN) : jamesdforrester@hotmail.com
--- "James D. Forrester" james@jdforrester.org wrote:
BTW, I'm troubled by your suggestion that we are harsh. This suggests, amongst other points, two things: firstly, that we're here to meet out justice, and secondly that we're here to do so fairly. Neither of these are true. The Committee is charged with maintaining the project and protecting it from disruption with the means at its disposal. We are not, have never been, and will never be here to punish people for things they do on the wiki. Instead, we look at things from the perspective of what is best for the project.
Well, this is all nice and good, but the "whatever's best for the project" angle doesnt preclude the basic notion that Arbcom is a service which implies a due process, and that both the review and process models are best served if they have at least some resemblance to concepts of justice or fairness (at least remotely).
The Arbcom was formed not to simply be an extension of rule-by-decree, but as an institution of review by peers for peers. The monarchial model is a double edged sword: fast executive power are offset by an excessive burden of duty-and-blame, which in the end winds up equating to sluggish non-responsiveness to bottom-up community needs. BTW, I find it troubling that you would take a criticism suggesting harshness as "troubling." Can't take a criticism?
I appreciate the care put into your response (not a screed at all) but IMHO, saying a judgement cant possibly be "harsh" because the process 'isnt based on fairness at all to begin with,' is a bit counterintelligent. Even war criminals claim they were 'just doing their job.' Not that this is the same thing at all, but that seems to be the basic logic involved.
SV "He thinks the carpet-pissers did it?"
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steve v wrote:
"James D. Forrester" james@jdforrester.org wrote:
BTW, I'm troubled by your suggestion that we are harsh. This suggests, amongst other points, two things: firstly, that we're here to meet out justice, and secondly that we're here to do so fairly. Neither of these are true. The Committee is charged with maintaining the project and protecting it from disruption with the means at its disposal. We are not, have never been, and will never be here to punish people for things they do on the wiki. Instead, we look at things from the perspective of what is best for the project.
Well, this is all nice and good, but the "whatever's best for the project" angle doesnt preclude the basic notion that Arbcom is a service which implies a due process, and that both the review and process models are best served if they have at least some resemblance to concepts of justice or fairness (at least remotely).
I would disagree. If what we do is fair and just, then that is not our intent, merely a happy by-product. Wikipedia is not a democracy, and not a bureaucracy, and the Committee serves to upload neither potential set-up, nor any other community model. There is a massive range of options to go through in the dispute resolution processes before that of Arbitration is reached, all of which in their own ways are fair and just (and, in most cases, disproportionately, but not inappropriately, unfair, being weighted towards the wronger and against the wronged, as it were); by the time one is in Arbitration, the application of fairness and justice has seemed to have been unproductive.
On the other hand, we seek as much information as possible from all sides when evaluating cases. This is fair and just and a form of due process, if you will (for example, we have suspended cases temporarily whilst participants are unable to continue to edit for a short period due to being ill or away), but it is done not for their own sake but so that we can reach the most accurate decision possible. The distinction may only be theoretical, but I feel that it is important (and, as these principles are only there to act as aides to the process, they can and are by-passed when we feel that they are being "gamed").
The Arbcom was formed not to simply be an extension of rule-by-decree, but as an institution of review by peers for peers.
It was? This is news to me, and, well, given that I helped form it... We already have "an institution of review by peers for peers", except we generally just call it the "community". The reason why the entire dispute resolution process has grown up over the past two or three years is that the community wishes things, when they get out of hand, to be handled in a more formal way.
The monarchial model is a double edged sword: fast executive power are offset by an excessive burden of duty-and-blame, which in the end winds up equating to sluggish non-responsiveness to bottom-up community needs.
Indeed. This is why we're forever eager to hear complaints, suggestions, and cases. We on the Committee are, I think, all aware of the burden of duty on our shoulders, and would hope that others would guide us onto the path of the straight and narrow, e'er we err.
BTW, I find it troubling that you would take a criticism suggesting harshness as "troubling." Can't take a criticism?
Nonsense, I repeatedly emplore people to criticise us so that we can learn from our mistakes and serve our function more suitably.
What I found "troubling" was that your comments belied a failure of communication as to what the Committee's job is, and instead suggested your ascribing to us a court-like system of "due process" and "justice" and "fairness" (to quote from your words, above). This just simply isn't true, and it's not in anyone's interest for people to be mis-informed, lest they indeed become dis-informed and act in ways that not only isn't in the project's and the community's interest, but not in theirs.
I appreciate the care put into your response (not a screed at all)
Thank you. :-)
but IMHO, saying a judgement cant possibly be "harsh" because the process 'isnt based on fairness at all to begin with,' is a bit counterintelligent. Even war criminals claim they were 'just doing their job.' Not that this is the same thing at all, but that seems to be the basic logic involved.
I hope that this follow-up has clearly put across the point that this illogical step is not one that I have taken here. :-)
Yours sincerely, - -- James D. Forrester Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] E-Mail : james@jdforrester.org IM (MSN) : jamesdforrester@hotmail.com
On 9/4/05, James D. Forrester james@jdforrester.org wrote:
If what we do is fair and just, then that is not our intent, merely a happy by-product. Wikipedia is not a democracy, and not a bureaucracy, and the Committee serves to upload neither potential set-up, nor any other community model. There is a massive range of options to go through in the dispute resolution processes before that of Arbitration is reached, all of which in their own ways are fair and just (and, in most cases, disproportionately, but not inappropriately, unfair, being weighted towards the wronger and against the wronged, as it were); by the time one is in Arbitration, the application of fairness and justice has seemed to have been unproductive.
On the other hand, we seek as much information as possible from all sides when evaluating cases.
My problem with all this is that you don't necessarily evaluate the information. In the case of Jim Duffy and myself you listened to him squawking that I'd made more than a hundred edits on his articles, one after the other, and accepted his claim that this was wikistalking.
But did you look at my edits? Go to [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Presidential_Inauguration_%28Irela... Presidential Inauguration (Ireland)] and look at the diffs. Jim Duffy wrote the article single-handed and I then made fourteen edits on it. My very first one was to correct "President of the United Kingdom" to "President of the United States" and the following edits are all good ones, some of them correcting really silly mistakes. As anyone can see.
This wasn't wikistalking, this was wikiduty.
Jim Duffy's problem is that he doesn't like to admit making mistakes, and he reverted all my changes! I think that I was quite justified in taking a good look at his other articles, and surprise, surprise, I found a lot more errors and fixed them.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Jim Duffy is a good editor and he produces some excellent work based on superb research. But he makes silly mistakes now and again - I don't know why, maybe he was in hour 48 of a day long wikisession or something - and if I come along and polish up his articles, it's for the good of the project.
I was wrong in the "enfeebled mind" edit summary I made when I fixed the "President of the United Kingdom" thing, and for that and any other slights, I apologise. But I'm never going to apologise for correcting an obvious error in Wikipedia, and I trust that my outrage at being suspended for a year for doing the right thing is understandable.
I know that Skyring specialises in Wikistalking, but reading his preposterous edits, maybe we should have a new category for him - "Wikisqualking". It seems to be his new technique, endless complaints with himself as the victim, given that he cant stalk me right now on Wikipedia.
Suffice to say that as with Pete's standard claims in all the various edit wars he had been involved with, and the arbitration committee discussions that his behaviour has necessitated, his claims are pananoid and nonsensical.
BTW what is the running total of sockpuppets he is up to now? Has he surpassed 30 yet since his ban? It was moving rapidly in that direction when I left.
Discussing things with Pete (in so far as anyone's communication on Wikipedia with him ever qualified for the term 'discussion' since he ignored everyone's comments ad nausaum) reminds one of Lloyd George's description of how negotiating with de Valera was like trying to pick up mercury with a fork.
(Oh dear. I suppose writing this will mean that the list will be overrun by more Skyring wikisqualking now, how he is just a poor honourable Aussie whom has been innocent picked on by Jimbo, the ArbCom (twice), Petaholmes, Adam Carr, John Kenney, everyone on the Government of Australia page, yada yada yada.)
Have fun with him.
Thom
aka jtdirl/fear eireann
PS: maybe in his honour Wikipedia should create a special verb - to skyring, meaning 'to ignore all rules, hound people who don't agree with one, and when banned launch waves of sockpuppets onto Wikipedia, all while portraying oneself as the innocent victim of everyone else's intrigue.'
Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote: On 9/4/05, James D. Forrester wrote:
If what we do is fair and just, then that is not our intent, merely a happy by-product. Wikipedia is not a democracy, and not a bureaucracy, and the Committee serves to upload neither potential set-up, nor any other community model. There is a massive range of options to go through in the dispute resolution processes before that of Arbitration is reached, all of which in their own ways are fair and just (and, in most cases, disproportionately, but not inappropriately, unfair, being weighted towards the wronger and against the wronged, as it were); by the time one is in Arbitration, the application of fairness and justice has seemed to have been unproductive.
On the other hand, we seek as much information as possible from all sides when evaluating cases.
My problem with all this is that you don't necessarily evaluate the information. In the case of Jim Duffy and myself you listened to him squawking that I'd made more than a hundred edits on his articles, one after the other, and accepted his claim that this was wikistalking.
But did you look at my edits? Go to [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Presidential_Inauguration_%28Irela... Presidential Inauguration (Ireland)] and look at the diffs. Jim Duffy wrote the article single-handed and I then made fourteen edits on it. My very first one was to correct "President of the United Kingdom" to "President of the United States" and the following edits are all good ones, some of them correcting really silly mistakes. As anyone can see.
This wasn't wikistalking, this was wikiduty.
Jim Duffy's problem is that he doesn't like to admit making mistakes, and he reverted all my changes! I think that I was quite justified in taking a good look at his other articles, and surprise, surprise, I found a lot more errors and fixed them.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Jim Duffy is a good editor and he produces some excellent work based on superb research. But he makes silly mistakes now and again - I don't know why, maybe he was in hour 48 of a day long wikisession or something - and if I come along and polish up his articles, it's for the good of the project.
I was wrong in the "enfeebled mind" edit summary I made when I fixed the "President of the United Kingdom" thing, and for that and any other slights, I apologise. But I'm never going to apologise for correcting an obvious error in Wikipedia, and I trust that my outrage at being suspended for a year for doing the right thing is understandable.
Tom Cadden wrote:
I know that Skyring specialises in Wikistalking, but reading his preposterous edits, maybe we should have a new category for him - "Wikisqualking". It seems to be his new technique, endless complaints with himself as the victim, given that he cant stalk me right now on Wikipedia.
YHBT. YHL. HAND.
On 9/8/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Tom Cadden wrote:
I know that Skyring specialises in Wikistalking, but reading his preposterous edits, maybe we should have a new category for him - "Wikisqualking". It seems to be his new technique, endless complaints with himself as the victim, given that he cant stalk me right now on Wikipedia.
YHBT. YHL. HAND.
Huh? (And no, I realise what the abbreviations mean)
Ian
Guettarda wrote:
On 9/8/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Tom Cadden wrote:
I know that Skyring specialises in Wikistalking, but reading his preposterous edits, maybe we should have a new category for him - "Wikisqualking". It seems to be his new technique, endless complaints with himself as the victim, given that he cant stalk me right now on Wikipedia.
YHBT. YHL. HAND.
Huh? (And no, I realise what the abbreviations mean)
Why bother inventing a new term when a perfectly good one (8 letters, starts with T, ends in ING) already exists?
--- "James D. Forrester" james@jdforrester.org wrote:
BTW, I'm troubled by your suggestion that we are harsh. This suggests, amongst other points, two things: firstly, that we're here to meet out justice, and secondly that we're here to do so fairly. Neither of these are true....we look at things from the perspective of what is best for the project
Are you saying that the ArbComm should be amoral? I would hope that fairness and a vague sense of justice would figure to some extent in the activities of the Arbitration Committee. Historically, that seems to have been the case.
-- Matt
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com
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Matt R wrote:
Are you saying that the ArbComm should be amoral?
Essentially, yes. If Hitler was able to contribute usefully to the project, but Mother Theresa wasn't, we'd be forced to ban the latter, and it would be outside of our remit to ban the former. However, in the real world, generally the nasty pieces of work who, based on the general consensus morals that we have but aren't meant to project into the encyclopædia, "deserve" to be banned will act in a way that isn't for the good of the project either, and so they get banned, too.
Hmm. Did you mean "amoral with respect to the participants' nature", or "amoral with respect to the participants' activities on Wikipedia"? It rather changes the question, and my answer to it...
Yours sincerely, - -- James D. Forrester Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] E-Mail : james@jdforrester.org IM (MSN) : jamesdforrester@hotmail.com
--- "James D. Forrester" james@jdforrester.org wrote:
Are you saying that the ArbComm should be amoral?
Hmm. Did you mean "amoral with respect to the participants' nature", or "amoral with respect to the participants' activities on Wikipedia"? It rather changes the question, and my answer to it...
Oops, yes it was ambiguous. I meant amoral with respect their activities on Wikipedia. I do agree with your theoretical comments about Hitler and Mother Theresa. I was more worried about situations that might occur like the following (completely made-up, honest!):
User A gets into conflict with User B. Both behave *equally* badly, breaking various policies and just being gits in general. However, User A is also an outstanding scholar and prolific contributor of high-quality content, whereas User B only pops in every now and then for some light editing (and mostly outside of the main article space to boot). User A hints darkly that, if sanctioned, she would quit the project for good. A pragmatic, amoral ArbComm might be tempted to place heavier sanctions on User B than User A, even though that would be (morally speaking) unfair, because User A is evidently more valuable to the project than User B.
-- Matt
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com
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Matt R wrote:
"James D. Forrester" james@jdforrester.org wrote:
Are you saying that the ArbComm should be amoral?
Hmm. Did you mean "amoral with respect to the participants' nature", or "amoral with respect to the participants' activities on Wikipedia"? It rather changes the question, and my answer to it...
Oops, yes it was ambiguous. I meant amoral with respect their activities on Wikipedia. I do agree with your theoretical comments about Hitler and Mother Theresa. I was more worried about situations that might occur like the following (completely made-up, honest!):
User A gets into conflict with User B. Both behave *equally* badly, breaking various policies and just being gits in general. However, User A is also an outstanding scholar and prolific contributor of high-quality content, whereas User B only pops in every now and then for some light editing (and mostly outside of the main article space to boot). User A hints darkly that, if sanctioned, she would quit the project for good. A pragmatic, amoral ArbComm might be tempted to place heavier sanctions on User B than User A, even though that would be (morally speaking) unfair, because User A is evidently more valuable to the project than User B.
Of course, the term "fairness" can be used in both its Proceduralist and it can be Distributionalist meanings (pure Communism is arguably the latter but not the former, and pure Capitalism is the inverse thereof), as well as the Correctialist meaning followed by the Committee, but I will stop having fun with critical thinking and word-play (;-)), and instead answer the question directly:
In said circumstance, yes, I personally would go for the amoral option over the "just" course of applying exactly the same censures to each. The project would be better-served by the continued presence of User A than of User B, though in your example you didn't say that User B had threatened to leave, in which case the decision is betwixt one user leaving or none, which tilts the balance of pragmatism still further in favour of placing "heavier sanctions" on B than A, as you put it.
In reality, we normally find that one of the two (or more) parties started it, or should have known better, or something else, which allows us to properly differentiate between them in terms of how to correct the issue, so this purported situation is unlikely to come up in reality in a wholly applicable fashion.
Perhaps this way that the Committee works disappoints some people; I can certainly understand how that might be. Nevertheless, this is how it has operated for the past 20-odd months.
Yours sincerely, - -- James D. Forrester Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] E-Mail : james@jdforrester.org IM (MSN) : jamesdforrester@hotmail.com
Matt R stated for the record:
Are you saying that the ArbComm should be amoral?
Yes. We are here to ensure that an encyclopedia can be built. We don't care if you are a pedophile, a Nazi, or a tax collector. If you contribute to the encyclopedia, we leave you alone. If you hinder the encyclopedia, you're out. That is the entirety of our standards.
We're not bound by the American Bill of Rights. We're not bound by English common law. We're not bound to be fair or just. We're not even bound by precedent, though we do try to learn from what works and what doesn't work. We usually obey the laws of thermodynamics.
I would hope that fairness and a vague sense of justice would figure to some extent in the activities of the Arbitration Committee. Historically, that seems to have been the case.
-- Sean Barrett | Madness takes its toll. sean@epoptic.com | Please have exact change.
On 9/3/05, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
James D. Forrester wrote:
geni wrote:
On 9/2/05, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
In the past day, [[user:jtdirl]] has published my name and address, and [[user:mackensen]] has accused me of criminal acts.
People who play with fire get burned.
And further, accessing a computer system without authorisation is illegal in the US, the UK, and Australia, to name but a few countries; given that you are banned from Wikipedia, any edits that you were to make would constitute such an illegal act. Several sysops, and not just Mackensen, have suggested that you may well be doing this, violating your ban order. Perhaps you might want to think about finding another place to play, Skyring?
I would have a hard time using this to justify the publication of someone's personal information on Wikipedia.
Skyring's name and address were removed pretty sharply. They are no longer on Wikipedia. James was pointing out that [[user:mackensen]] was justified in accusing Skyring of criminal acts.
Theresa
On 9/3/05, Theresa Knott theresaknott@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/3/05, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
James D. Forrester wrote:
And further, accessing a computer system without authorisation is illegal in the US, the UK, and Australia, to name but a few countries; given that you are banned from Wikipedia, any edits that you were to make would constitute such an illegal act. Several sysops, and not just Mackensen, have suggested that you may well be doing this, violating your ban order. Perhaps you might want to think about finding another place to play, Skyring?
I would have a hard time using this to justify the publication of someone's personal information on Wikipedia.
Skyring's name and address were removed pretty sharply. They are no longer on Wikipedia. James was pointing out that [[user:mackensen]] was justified in accusing Skyring of criminal acts.
On examination, this turns out not to be the case. James (Forrester) talked of accessing a computer system without authorisation. Mackensen was talking of something quite different, namely my relationship with James Duffy, which he regarded as real-life stalking, based on a letter written to the editor of an Irish newspaper. Given that the letter was about a statue given by Ireland to the people of Sydney and had nothing to do with Duffy, Mackensen's accusation of criminal acts was without foundation.
Jim Duffy [[user:jtdirl]] published my <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jtdirl&diff=prev&oldid=22298881">name and address</a> on his user page.
I complained, it was removed by another editor, then Duffy republished it, protected his page and attempted to justify his action. The information was then permanently <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AJtdirl&diff=22313009&oldid=22303046">removed</a> by Mark Ryan.
My question for the Arbcom is this. In what circumstances is an admin justified in maliciously publishing, without permission, the personal details of another editor?
Duffy was in a snit because his submission to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:LAME">Lamest Edit Wars</a> wasn't judged lame enough. He doesn't have a good record with this page, possibly because he lacks the sense of humour required to laugh at some of the ridiculous edit wars people get into.
Duffy tends to see things in black and white terms, and is quite unable to admit to making an error, which is the basis of our conflict, because I like finding and fixing them. When my personal information was removed from his page, he cleared his user and talk pages and has made no further overt contribution. I think he is active "under the covers", but more of that in a little bit.
[[User:Mackensen]] then made an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&diff=prev&oldid=22349545"> extraordinary post</a> to the Administrator's Noticeboard page. He stated that he had "often reverted Skyring's vandalism". I took a look at his contributions and found that although he had certainly reverted vandalism by others he had had very little to do with me in any guise, and nothing that could reasonably be seen as vandalism. He would be hard pressed to produce a single diff to back up his claim.
Far more seriously, he then said: "<i>What Skyring has done to Jtdirl is quite likely a prosecutable crime in many countries.</i>". He used as his justification for this statement a letter written to an Irish newspaper, which he seemed to imagine was an attack on Duffy. In fact <a href="http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=53&si=1455981&issue_id=12906">this letter</a> concerns a statue now standing in Sydney which was a gift from the Irish people. I quote it in its entirety:
<blockquote><i>Sir - I recently visited Sydney in Australia, where I was pleasantly surprised to find that the statue of Queen Victoria in the city centre was a gift from the people of Ireland, and that the old Queen had stood outside Leinster House for many years until 1947.
On researching the statue's history, I found myself fascinated by Dublin's other statues, especially their witty nicknames. One rumour I am trying to confirm is whether the statue now standing outside the Queen Victoria Building once had the marvellously Joycean nickname of 'The Auld Bitch'.
If any of your readers have memories stretching back to those days, I would be delighted to hear them.</i></blockquote>
The link to me is through my contributions to the "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Victoria_Building">Queen Victoria Building</a>" article. The statue may be seen <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:QVatQVB.JPG">here</a> and I am charmed that the statue has a colourful history.
Nevertheless, neither this letter nor anything else I may have done amounts to any sort of criminal offence. Mackensen repeatedly removed responses pointing this out.
My second question to the Arbcom is this: Is an admin justified in making allegations of criminal behaviour against another editor without good evidence?
Mackensen's user page was then <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/AULDBITCH_LOVES_YOU">vandalised</a>. The use of the term "AULDBITCH" is clearly a reference to the letter. I am sure that David Gerard can check on the source of this vandalism and I am equally sure that he will find nothing to link it to me. In fact, judging by this extremely interesting <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=83.71.15.181">series of edits</a> I suggest that it will turn out to be Duffy.
02:03, 2 September 2005 (hist) (diff) Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents (Skyring) 01:34, 2 September 2005 (hist) (diff) User:AULDBITCH LOVES YOU (top) 01:30, 2 September 2005 (hist) (diff) User:AULDBITCH LOVES YOU 01:01, 2 September 2005 (hist) (diff) User:AULDBITCH LOVES YOU 22:21, 23 August 2005 (hist) (diff) Talk:Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall (→HRH) 22:21, 23 August 2005 (hist) (diff) Talk:Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall (→HRH)
Take a look at those earliest two edits on 23 August - an <a href="http://www.webyield.net/cgi-bin/ipwhois.cgi?addr=83.71.15.181">anon in Dublin</a> did the four tildes to check on his signature, and removed the edit a few seconds later. Further, if you check on the history of this <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Camilla%2C_Duchess_of_Cornwall&action=history">article</a> , you will see that only four edits were made on 23 August 2005, all within the span of a few minutes.
<i>(cur) (last) 22:24, 23 August 2005 Jtdirl (→HRH) (cur) (last) 22:21, 23 August 2005 83.71.15.181 (→HRH) (cur) (last) 22:21, 23 August 2005 83.71.15.181 (→HRH) (cur) (last) 22:20, 23 August 2005 Cooldoug111 (HRH)</i>
It might be worthwhile checking where [[user:Cooldoug111]] is posting from, but I suggest that the sequence of events is highly indicative of the anon and Duffy being the same person, with the two minutes intervening between the anon removing his sig and Duffy posting his contribution being the time needed for composition.
Looking at the final four edits made by this anon, I think I can rest my case on this. Duffy vandalised another editor's page and then made a crude attempt to link me to this vandalism.
My third question to the ArbCom is this: In what circumstances is an admin justified in forging evidence against another editor?
And my final question: I have complained about Duffy's behaviour for months now, providing evidence in the form of diffs, as requested. When are you going to start looking at the facts, and can you see why I have no faith at all in Wikipedia's dispute resolution process?