Hi all,
Just some advance notice that there will be an IRC office hours in
#wikimedia-office this week with Sue Gardner, on Thursday at 17:00 UTC. We
haven't set a topic, but considering it's just a few days before Wikimania
it might be nice to chat about that. Instructions etc. about office hours
are in the usual place on Meta.[1]
--
Steven Walling
Fellow at Wikimedia Foundation
wikimediafoundation.org
1. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/meta/wiki/IRC_office_hours
As someone said previously, the mailing software truncates stuff after the
word "From", if it begins a sentence, probably because it thinks that's part
of the mail header. No conspiracy or cloak and dagger stuff, just a bug
that probably ought to be looked at.
I'd take this opportunity to ask if there's any other background to what
Kohs is talking about there. I know that he twists stuff and he's an expert
at making himself look the victim, but I've seen that particular story a
couple of times and the way he was quickly kicked from IRC does look pretty
bad. What, if anything, is he omitting from the story?
Cheers,
Craig Franklin
On 24 July 2011 04:01, <foundation-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
Message: 1
Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2011 19:17:50 +0200
From: Mike Dupont <jamesmikedupont(a)googlemail.com>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Greg Kohs and Peter Damian
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Message-ID:
<CAF0qKV3nvKKZN0boR-Wp3ZBRRrDigbfW5=i4PSk_2xqW-Ew-mg(a)mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
It looks like my message here was truncated from the mailing list archive,
so I am reposting it.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-October/061709.html
Mr Kohs pointed this out here :
http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=34460
thanks,
mike
--------------- Original Text ----------------------------------
Hello,
>From what I have seen about Greg Kohs is that he does have some
interesting points to make, but I do see that he is jumping to
conclusions and does seem to have a biased viewpoint.
People want to make their own decisions and have enough information to
do that. We don't want to have important information deleted away
because it is uncomfortable.
Banning him makes it less likely for him to be heard, and these
interesting points which are worth considering are not heard my many
people : this is depriving people of critical information, that is not
fair to the people involved.
Just look at this article for example, it is quite interesting and
well written, and why should it not be visible to everyone on the
list.
http://www.examiner.com/wiki-edits-in-national/wikimedia-foundation-directo…
Deleting and banning people who say things that are not comfortable,
that does make you look balanced and trustworthy.
The Wikimedia foundation should be able to stand up to such
accusations without resorting to gagging people, it just gives more
credit to the people being gagged and makes people wonder if there is
any merit in what they say.
This brings up my favorite subject of unneeded deletions versions needed
ones.
Of course there is material that should be deleted that is hateful,
Spam etc, lets call that evil content.
But the articles that i wrote and my friends wrote that were deleted
did not fall into that category, they might have been just bad or not
notable.
We have had a constant struggle to keep our articles from being
deleted in a manner that we consider unfair. Additionally, the bad
content is lost and falls into the same category as evil content.
Also there should be more transparency on deleted material on the
Wikipedia itself, there is a lot of information that is being deleted
and gone forever without proper process or review.
In my eyes there is a connection between the two topics, the banning
of people and the deleting of information. Both are depriving people
from information that they want and need in an unfair manner.
Instead of articles about obscure events, things, and old places in
Kosovo you have a wikipedia full of the latest information about every
television show, is that what you really want?
I think there should be room for things in places that are not not
notable because they are not part of mainstream pop culture, we also
need to support the underdogs of Wikipedia even if they are not
mainstream, Mr Kohs definitely has something to say and I would like
like to hear it. And the Kosovars have something to say even if the
Serbs don't want to hear it. The Albanians have something to say even
if the Greeks don't want to hear it, etc. There are many cases of
people from Kosovo and Albania driven out of Wikipedia and depriving
the project of important information because they are not able to get
started and the contributions are so far way from the dominating
political viewpoint of the opposite side that they don't even get a
chance to be heard.
We need to make a way for these people to be heard and to moderate the
conflicts better, that will make Wikipedia stronger and more robust.
thanks,
mike
Let's see what we've got here:
A "Board" that appears answerable only to some god; an "Executive Director"
who answers only to this "Board"; a group of "Moderators" who claim (with a
straight face) that they are "independent", but whose "moderations" are
clearly designed to keep the first two in a favorable light; and, dead last,
you have the people who, not so ironically, create the substance of the
thing that makes the first three possible. This setup sounds achingly
familiar. And, like all similar setups throughout history, is set up to
fail.
Marc Riddell
on 10/20/10 12:44 AM, Virgilio A. P. Machado at vam(a)fct.unl.pt wrote:
> Brigitte,
>
> I agree with you. You raised some very good points.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Virgilio A. P. Machado
>
>
> At 03:47 20-10-2010, you wrote:
>> ________________________________ From: Austin
>> Hair <adhair(a)gmail.com> To: Wikimedia Foundation
>> Mailing List <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
>> Sent: Tue, October 19, 2010 12:35:07 PM Subject:
>> Re: [Foundation-l] Greg Kohs and Peter Damian On
>> Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 6:40 PM, Nathan
>> <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote: > If it pleases the
>> moderators, might we know on what basis Greg
>> was > banned and Peter indefinitely muzzled?
>> Greg Kohs was banned for the same reason that
>> he's been on moderation for the better part of
>> the past yearnamely, that he was completely
>> unable tto keep his contributions civil, and
>> caused more flamewars than constructive
>> discussion. Peter Damian is only on moderation,
>> and we'll follow our usual policy of letting
>> through anything that could be considered even
>> marginally acceptable. We really are very
>> liberal about thisotheerwise you wouldn't have
>> heard from Mr. Kohs at all in the past six
>> months. I'm sure that my saying this won't
>> convince anyone who's currently defending him,
>> but nothing about the decision to ban Greg Kohs
>> was retaliatory. I'll also (not for the first
>> time) remind everyone that neither the Wikimedia
>> Foundation Board, nor its staff, nor any chapter
>> or other organizational body has any say in the
>> administration of this list. I hope that clears
>> up all of the questions asked in this thread so
>> far. It is not about defending anyone but about
>> the fact that the "I know bannable when I see
>> it" theory of moderation is unconstructive and
>> leads to dramafests. The next ban is the one
>> that will likely cause a real flame war. I
>> suspect *more* people would be on moderation if
>> any sort of objective criteria were being
>> used. The lack of explanation over this bothers
>> me so much because I suspect that you *can't*
>> explain it. It seems to be the sort of gut-shot
>> that hasn't been thought through. Moderate more
>> people based on real criteria, rather than how
>> you feel about them. Birgitte
>> SB
>> _______________________________________________
>> foundation-l mailing list
>> foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
If anyone thinks The Kohser is just a maverick who asks awkward
questions, and rather more relevantly did some sockpuppetry and ran a
breaching experiment doing "unhelpful" edits to unwatched articles,
please read the thread at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/elections_2010/Questions#Thekohser
I have no problem with former vandals returning, one of the attendees
at our last London meetup started their wiki career winning a contest
amongst their schoolmates by doing 47 vandalisms before being blocked.
But before considering the return of thekohser I would like a better
answer to the question I posed to him last year:
>There's a lot of discussion on EN wiki about the compromised admin account that recently came into your possession. >Would you be willing to tell a check user whether you acquired it by purchasing it or by compromising it, and if you >purchased it who you purchased it from, and if you compromised it how you did so?
Tolerance of dissent and forgiveness for former miscreants are both
important feature of our community, but just occasionally it makes
sense to ban people. I'd be opposed to Greg Kohs returning unless I
had assurance that he'd fully explained to our checkusers how he
obtained that compromised admin account, and some assurance that he
was unlikely to doing anything similar again.
Regards
WereSpielChequerss
On 23 July 2011 19:01, <foundation-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Send foundation-l mailing list submissions to
> foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
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>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
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>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of foundation-l digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: Greg Kohs and Peter Damian (Mike Dupont)
> 2. Re: Greg Kohs and Peter Damian (Huib Laurens)
> 3. Re: Greg Kohs and Peter Damian (Andre Engels)
> 4. Re: Greg Kohs and Peter Damian (Mike Dupont)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2011 19:17:50 +0200
> From: Mike Dupont <jamesmikedupont(a)googlemail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Greg Kohs and Peter Damian
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <CAF0qKV3nvKKZN0boR-Wp3ZBRRrDigbfW5=i4PSk_2xqW-Ew-mg(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> It looks like my message here was truncated from the mailing list archive,
> so I am reposting it.
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-October/061709.html
>
> Mr Kohs pointed this out here :
> http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=34460
> thanks,
> mike
> --------------- Original Text ----------------------------------
>
> Hello,
>
> >From what I have seen about Greg Kohs is that he does have some
> interesting points to make, but I do see that he is jumping to
> conclusions and does seem to have a biased viewpoint.
>
> People want to make their own decisions and have enough information to
> do that. We don't want to have important information deleted away
> because it is uncomfortable.
>
> Banning him makes it less likely for him to be heard, and these
> interesting points which are worth considering are not heard my many
> people : this is depriving people of critical information, that is not
> fair to the people involved.
>
> Just look at this article for example, it is quite interesting and
> well written, and why should it not be visible to everyone on the
> list.
>
> http://www.examiner.com/wiki-edits-in-national/wikimedia-foundation-directo…
>
> Deleting and banning people who say things that are not comfortable,
> that does make you look balanced and trustworthy.
>
> The Wikimedia foundation should be able to stand up to such
> accusations without resorting to gagging people, it just gives more
> credit to the people being gagged and makes people wonder if there is
> any merit in what they say.
>
> This brings up my favorite subject of unneeded deletions versions needed
> ones.
>
> Of course there is material that should be deleted that is hateful,
> Spam etc, lets call that evil content.
>
> But the articles that i wrote and my friends wrote that were deleted
> did not fall into that category, they might have been just bad or not
> notable.
>
> We have had a constant struggle to keep our articles from being
> deleted in a manner that we consider unfair. Additionally, the bad
> content is lost and falls into the same category as evil content.
>
> Also there should be more transparency on deleted material on the
> Wikipedia itself, there is a lot of information that is being deleted
> and gone forever without proper process or review.
>
> In my eyes there is a connection between the two topics, the banning
> of people and the deleting of information. Both are depriving people
> from information that they want and need in an unfair manner.
>
> Instead of articles about obscure events, things, and old places in
> Kosovo you have a wikipedia full of the latest information about every
> television show, is that what you really want?
>
> I think there should be room for things in places that are not not
> notable because they are not part of mainstream pop culture, we also
> need to support the underdogs of Wikipedia even if they are not
> mainstream, Mr Kohs definitely has something to say and I would like
> like to hear it. And the Kosovars have something to say even if the
> Serbs don't want to hear it. The Albanians have something to say even
> if the Greeks don't want to hear it, etc. There are many cases of
> people from Kosovo and Albania driven out of Wikipedia and depriving
> the project of important information because they are not able to get
> started and the contributions are so far way from the dominating
> political viewpoint of the opposite side that they don't even get a
> chance to be heard.
>
> We need to make a way for these people to be heard and to moderate the
> conflicts better, that will make Wikipedia stronger and more robust.
>
> thanks,
> mike
>
>
Hello,
>From what I have seen about Greg Kohs is that he does have some
interesting points to make, but I do see that he is jumping to
conclusions and does seem to have a biased viewpoint.
People want to make their own decisions and have enough information to
do that. We don't want to have important information deleted away
because it is uncomfortable.
Banning him makes it less likely for him to be heard, and these
interesting points which are worth considering are not heard my many
people : this is depriving people of critical information, that is not
fair to the people involved.
Just look at this article for example, it is quite interesting and
well written, and why should it not be visible to everyone on the
list.
http://www.examiner.com/wiki-edits-in-national/wikimedia-foundation-directo…
Deleting and banning people who say things that are not comfortable,
that does make you look balanced and trustworthy.
The Wikimedia foundation should be able to stand up to such
accusations without resorting to gagging people, it just gives more
credit to the people being gagged and makes people wonder if there is
any merit in what they say.
This brings up my favorite subject of unneeded deletions versions needed ones.
Of course there is material that should be deleted that is hateful,
Spam etc, lets call that evil content.
But the articles that i wrote and my friends wrote that were deleted
did not fall into that category, they might have been just bad or not
notable.
We have had a constant struggle to keep our articles from being
deleted in a manner that we consider unfair. Additionally, the bad
content is lost and falls into the same category as evil content.
Also there should be more transparency on deleted material on the
Wikipedia itself, there is a lot of information that is being deleted
and gone forever without proper process or review.
In my eyes there is a connection between the two topics, the banning
of people and the deleting of information. Both are depriving people
from information that they want and need in an unfair manner.
Instead of articles about obscure events, things, and old places in
Kosovo you have a wikipedia full of the latest information about every
television show, is that what you really want?
I think there should be room for things in places that are not not
notable because they are not part of mainstream pop culture, we also
need to support the underdogs of Wikipedia even if they are not
mainstream, Mr Kohs definitely has something to say and I would like
like to hear it. And the Kosovars have something to say even if the
Serbs don't want to hear it. The Albanians have something to say even
if the Greeks don't want to hear it, etc. There are many cases of
people from Kosovo and Albania driven out of Wikipedia and depriving
the project of important information because they are not able to get
started and the contributions are so far way from the dominating
political viewpoint of the opposite side that they don't even get a
chance to be heard.
We need to make a way for these people to be heard and to moderate the
conflicts better, that will make Wikipedia stronger and more robust.
thanks,
mike
Hi there,
I propose to start a Q&A system within Wikimedis. We need a central place for help. Getting an advise is too complicated now if a person has very diverse questions, he/she needs to look for various wiki discussion pages. Not very easy for newbies. Could be inspired by the help site of OpenStreetMap.
Following bug was filled:
"Install Q&A system at help.en.wikipedia.org"
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=29923
Discussion and hopefully creation of the site is more that welcome.
Thanks for your support!
Cheers,
Kozuch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kozuch
In its July report American Customer Satisfaction Index [1] says:
"Social Media: Wikipedia (+1% to 78) takes the top spot, while YouTube
(+1% to 74) comes in a distant second. Myspace drops from this year’s
Index because there were not enough users to create a statistically
significant sample. Overall, social media is one of the lowest-scoring
industries measured by the ACSI—only airlines, newspapers, and
subscription television services score lower." [2]
So, not bad at all.
[1] http://www.theacsi.org/
[2] http://www.theacsi.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=257:pre…
I was thinking the other day about the (relative) lack of open sound and
music files on Wikimedia projects
I happened to browse on to MusOpen - http://www.musopen.org/blog/
Does anyone here happen to know them or anything about them?
Thanks
Chris
Hi all,
The Wikimedia Foundation has received a Google Grant for AdWords. Google Grants
is an in-kind donation program awarding free AdWords advertising to select
charitable organizations. This program supports organizations sharing its
philosophy of community service to help the world in areas such as science
and technology, education, global public health, the environment, youth
advocacy, and the arts.
The fundraising team will be testing messages offsite with this grant.
We'll post updates and key findings, as we have been doing with our weekly
banner and appeal tests:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2011/Updates
You can find out more information on the Google Grants program here:
http://www.google.com/grants/
Thanks,
Megan
--
Megan Hernandez
Community Officer
Wikimedia Foundation