Brad, One very easy solution to all of this is to segregate the live edited wikipedia site from the published site scraped by the search engines. In other words, setup the community server "anyone can edit" at something like draften.wikipedia.org and publish reviewed dumps of the community server to a read only external server for scraping like I am doing at Wikigadugi. I have ZERO vandalism problems , ZERO content dispute problems, and ZERO vanity page problems and I host the entire English wikipedia as well as several other languages. Very simple solution. People won't waste the time creating vanity pages when they know they may not get published in the "official" external official site. Jeff Brad Patrick wrote: _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

The fact is that they do not want to be on Yellowiki, which no one has ever heard of. They >want to be on Wikipedia, which is a household name. And for that we need real solutions. Danny

That would be an issue for controversial companies. Most are not controversial. I assume they know about NPOV and expect to have a neutral article which people will actually *read* (as opposed to the marketing gibberish they have on their homepage).

What Gerard suggests is NOT a solution. There are reasons people are spamming Wikipedia and not adding content to Yellowiki. We are the fourteenth largest website in the world, while Yellowiki does not count in the top one hundred thousand. We have a consistently high google rating and our links ensure that they will have a high google rating, Yellowiki does not. We can offer some modicum of respectability, while they cannot Compare these two statements: "Look at me! I'm in the encyclopedia!" v. "Look at me! I'm in the phonebook! " The fact is that they do not want to be on Yellowiki, which no one has ever heard of. They want to be on Wikipedia, which is a household name. And for that we need real solutions. Danny -----Original Message----- From: gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com To: foundation-l(a)wikimedia.org Cc: bpatrick(a)wikimedia.org Sent: Fri, 29 Sep 2006 1:48 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Corporate vanity policy enforcement Hoi, There are two issues that may be addressed. There is an apparant need for organisations to be VISIBLE. They want to use Wikipedia for that while we do not consider them to be of relevance in an encyclopedic setting. The content that they created would be of some value to Yellowikis. This is where this information is welcomed. By moving it sideways, we do exactly what is current practice for other content that does not fit Wikipedia. We are not as confrontational as we could be, but the teflon quality of our projects would be increased and this may lead to fewer angry people in our projects as well. PS I am totally behind the notion that we should not have non-encyclopedic content in Wikipedia.. for me it is a matter of strategy. Thanks, GerardM On 9/29/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey(a)wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote: > Brad, > > One very easy solution to all of this is to segregate the live edited > wikipedia site from the published site scraped by the > search engines. > > In other words, setup the community server "anyone can edit" at > something like draften.wikipedia.org and publish reviewed > dumps of the community server to a read only external server for > scraping like I am doing at Wikigadugi. I have ZERO > vandalism problems , ZERO content dispute problems, and ZERO vanity page > problems and I host the entire English > wikipedia as well as several other languages. > > Very simple solution. People won't waste the time creating vanity pages > when they know they may not get published in the > "official" external official site. > > Jeff > > Brad Patrick wrote: > > >> Brad Patrick wrote: >> >> >> >>> Dear Community: >>> >>> The volume of corporate vanity/vandalism which is showing up on >>> Wikipedia is overwhelming. At the office, we are receiving dozens of >>> phone calls *per week* about company, organization, and marketing >>> edits which are reverted, causing the non-notable, but >>> self-aggrandizing authors, to scream bloody murder. This is as it >>> should be. However, I am issuing a call to arms to the community to >>> act in a much more draconian fashion in response to corporate >>> self-editing and vanity page creation. This is simply out of hand, >>> and we need your help. >>> >>> We are the #14 website in the world. We are a big target. If we are >>> to remain true to our encyclopedic mission, this kind of nonsense >>> cannot be tolerated. This means the administrators and new page >>> patrol need to be clear when they see new usernames and page creation >>> which are blatantly commercial - shoot on sight. There should be no >>> question that someone who claims to have a "famous movie studio" and >>> has exactly 2 Google hits - both their Myspace page - they get nuked. >>> Ban users who promulgate such garbage for a significant period of >>> time. They need to be encouraged to avoid the temptation to recreate >>> their article, thereby raising the level of damage and wasted time >>> they incur. >>> >>> Some of you might think regular policy and VfD is the way to go. I am >>> here to tell you it is not enough. We are losing the battle for >>> encyclopedic content in favor of people intent on hijacking Wikipedia >>> for their own memes. This scourge is a serious waste of time and >>> energy. We must put a stop to this now. >>> Thank you for your help. >>> >>> -Brad Patrick >>> User:BradPatrick >>> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

That does not solve any problems. The problem is not that they want to be online. Many of them have their own websites which get considerable traffic. The problem is that they want to be on Wikipedia. That is all they want. And as long as they are not on Wikipedia, they will keep coming back, regardless of whether they are on Yellowiki or not. -----Original Message----- From: gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com To: foundation-l(a)wikimedia.org Sent: Fri, 29 Sep 2006 3:15 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Corporate vanity policy enforcement Hoi, By saying that we are big and they are small, it must be clear that it is NOT a solution right ??. So the solution is to be blunt and destroy all the effort that these people did put into what they hoped to be acceptable for Wikipedia. By moving it to Yellowikis, Yellowikis gets content that it wants to have; their content is GFDL as well so there is NO problem in doing exactly this. By providing an alternative we give less of a reason to complain and we provide Yellowikis with the content that is what they are there for. What you could appreciate is that by having such a teflon strategy, we will be better able to ruthlessly remove from Wikipedia what is not encyclopedic in the first place. Thanks, GerardM daniwo59(a)aol.com wrote: spamming Wikipedia and not adding content to Yellowiki. We are the fourteenth largest website in the world, while Yellowiki does not count in the top one hundred thousand. We have a consistently high google rating and our links ensure that they will have a high google rating, Yellowiki does not. We can offer some modicum of respectability, while they cannot Compare these two statements: "Look at me! I'm in the encyclopedia!" v. "Look at me! I'm in the phonebook! " ever heard of. They want to be on Wikipedia, which is a household name. And for that we need real solutions. for we do content this this non-encyclopedic page am _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ________________________________________________________________________ Check out the new AOL. Most comprehensive set of free safety and security tools, free access to millions of high-quality videos from across the web, free AOL Mail and more. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

In fact maybe we can beat them to the punch. Create a verifiable neutral article about them *before* they get around to it.

Wikipedia gets what it wants. The companies get what they want. Everyone is happy, except I suppose some people who calculate the value of the encyclopedia based on the popularity of the article titles.

Anthony _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

What Gerard suggests is NOT a solution. There are reasons people are spamming Wikipedia and not adding content to Yellowiki. We are the fourteenth largest website in the world, while Yellowiki does not count in the top one hundred thousand. We have a consistently high google rating and our links ensure that they will have a high google rating, Yellowiki does not. We can offer some modicum of respectability, while they cannot Compare these two statements: "Look at me! I'm in the encyclopedia!" v. "Look at me! I'm in the phonebook! "

On 10/1/06, Anthony <wikilegal(a)inbox.org> wrote: Not so. Firstly a free link is always worth while. Secondly links from wikipedia will take traffic to your website. Reading SEO forums can be somewhat worrying.

Hoi, I am amazed at this terminology that is such that I do not understand at all what you try to say. Thanks, GerardM

Yes. The problem is *not* one susceptible to a new rule, because the problem is not the failure of present rules. The problem is keeping up with the firehose of crap and not risking doing something really stupid. Brad, this needs more thought than just adding another rule.

On 29/09/06, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote: "Sorry, you can't have your article unless you apply *this* magic trick we mention on a page you didn't read, did you."

Bites the newbies badly, and doesn't stop editors of bad faith for a second. Rules can't cure malice.

Or adding a link to an existing article. You seem to be assuming the marketers of ill faith will be too thick to apply the same procedure to create an article that an editor of good faith would.

Could it be that there is no technical trick that will stop a marketer of ill faith without stopping editors and newbies of good faith the same or worse? Think!

It'd be quite a major move to have to close off new articles to that extent just because of marketers.

I spent 1.5 hours this afternoon talking to a journalist. About 20 mins of that was him complaining at length that the bureaucracy is too damned intimidating for newcomers as it is. (I proceeded to more or less reiterate [[:en:Wikipedia:Process is important]], which I'm sure those of you who consider me a hack'n'slash enemy of process would find most amusing.)

I'd suggest that if we want better behaviour from newbies, we need to make things suck less for the good ones (like this guy) - the crap newbies will not be stoppable by any force of clue. You watch.

And remember: most text appears to be written by newcomers and occasional editors, not the regulars. (Numbers not firm on this one per AaronSw, but I understand others are checking his work.)

See, that's the sort of thing we're good at. Be open to input from all, even if a tweaked vandal-checking bot puts it in a patrolling admin's "#redirect [[round file]]" list.

On 29/09/06, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote: >On 9/29/06, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > >>And remember: most text appears to be written by newcomers and >>occasional editors, not the regulars. (Numbers not firm on this one >>per AaronSw, but I understand others are checking his work.) >> >>

So? Linkless articles and orphans are easily added to a round-file list. It's not quite like they hit 'save', think it saved and it disappeared, but it's that with a delay.

Who says anybody has to do what "we" (whoever you mean by that) want them to do? What rule was wanked into saying that?

They are volunteers too, and I hope they have enough imagination to do what they want to do.

On 10/1/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote:

>They are volunteers > too, and I hope they have enough imagination to do what they want to do.

And if what they want to do includes orginal research and writeing POV articles?

Wouldn't it be better to apply the filter retroactively, i.e. to delete orphan articles with human confirmation some time after they are created? If we put in profanity filters to prevent bad page saves, Wikipedia would suddenly be overwhelmed with 5H1t, if you understand my meaning. But the current system of IRC notification and semi-automated reversion is strangely effective. Let's say for argument's sake that maybe there is a way to automatically recognise PR fluff, even if the best method is not by orphan status as geni has suggested. Then you can automate the process of deleting it. Display a big list of articles with a column of checkboxes, click "select all", select "CSD a7" from a drop-down list, click "delete". Wham, all gone. Keep the filters covert as much as possible, e.g. on the client side. These kinds of features are the things we're trying to encourage with what I've been calling "hybrid" development, i.e. simultaneous development on the client and server. Get the client-side developers interested, ask them what they need on the server side in support, and we server-side developers will see if we can incorporate it into an API or extension. -- Tim Starling _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l