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Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2010 12:06:34 +0100 From: Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Fw? About WM private policy To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: AANLkTi=aJpxkJ7E3G6vCHtdG_VAKP7fOYj12=RvJ51Ks@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
The question should be: IS "EDIT" EQUAL TO "CREATE"?
Thanks. HW
2010/12/24 HW waihorace@yahoo.com.hk
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Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2010 12:06:34 +0100 From: Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Fw? About WM private policy To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: AANLkTi=aJpxkJ7E3G6vCHtdG_VAKP7fOYj12=RvJ51Ks@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
The question should be: IS "EDIT" EQUAL TO "CREATE"?
Thanks. HW
The Wikimedia Foundation does not require that individuals create a user
account in order to make any kind of editing. However, the local project community (in this discussion - English Wikipedia) decides on what can and cannot be done without a user account. Many (most?) language editions of Wikipedia allow anonymous users to create articles but the English Wikipedia does not allow it. This decision on English Wikipedia was taken primarily as a deterrence against SPAM - not taken for privacy policy reasons. Also, it was taken by the Wikipedia community, not by the Wikimedia Foundation. This decision could be changed in the future if the English Wikipedia community formed consensus amongst themselves to do so.
I hope that helps, -Liam
Liam Wyatt wrote:
The Wikimedia Foundation does not require that individuals create a user account in order to make any kind of editing. However, the local project community (in this discussion - English Wikipedia) decides on what can and cannot be done without a user account. Many (most?) language editions of Wikipedia allow anonymous users to create articles but the English Wikipedia does not allow it. This decision on English Wikipedia was taken primarily as a deterrence against SPAM - not taken for privacy policy reasons. Also, it was taken by the Wikipedia community, not by the Wikimedia Foundation. This decision could be changed in the future if the English Wikipedia community formed consensus amongst themselves to do so.
With all due respect, you're talking out of your ass. (A less polite way of saying "citation needed.")
Anonymous page creation was disabled by decree on the English Wikipedia following the "Wikipedia biography controversy."[1][2][3] It had nothing to do with spam (though you could arguably say it had to do with vandalism, I suppose) and it was not a decision made by the English Wikipedia community. There was a subsequent "Requests for comment" in 2007 on the English Wikipedia.[4]
All of this information and history is readily available with a few quick searches, so I'm confused as to why you're posting the nonsense that you're posting. Simple confusion, I assume.
Your assertion that it's a simple matter of local community consensus in order to change this configuration setting on the English Wikipedia is also dubious given the current political realities.
For reference, you can see which wikis restrict the 'createpage' right by looking at the public Wikimedia configuration files.[5]
MZMcBride
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_biography_controversy [2] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-December/033880.html [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Wikipedia#2005 [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=181968815 [5] http://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/InitialiseSettings.php.txt
----- Original Message ----
From: MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Fri, December 24, 2010 2:57:54 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] About WM private policy
Liam Wyatt wrote:
The Wikimedia Foundation does not require that individuals create a user account in order to make any kind of editing. However, the local project community (in this discussion - English Wikipedia) decides on what can and cannot be done without a user account. Many (most?) language editions of Wikipedia allow anonymous users to create articles but the English
Wikipedia
does not allow it. This decision on English Wikipedia was taken primarily
as
a deterrence against SPAM - not taken for privacy policy reasons. Also, it was taken by the Wikipedia community, not by the Wikimedia Foundation. This decision could be changed in the future if the English Wikipedia community formed consensus amongst themselves to do so.
With all due respect, you're talking out of your ass. (A less polite way of saying "citation needed.")
Anonymous page creation was disabled by decree on the English Wikipedia following the "Wikipedia biography controversy."[1][2][3] It had nothing to do with spam (though you could arguably say it had to do with vandalism, I suppose) and it was not a decision made by the English Wikipedia community. There was a subsequent "Requests for comment" in 2007 on the English Wikipedia.[4]
All of this information and history is readily available with a few quick searches, so I'm confused as to why you're posting the nonsense that you're posting. Simple confusion, I assume.
Your assertion that it's a simple matter of local community consensus in order to change this configuration setting on the English Wikipedia is also dubious given the current political realities.
It is a simple matter of local community consensus as opposed an imposition of the WMF privacy policy. If changing policy by consensus is no longer simple is in some local communities; I would imagine that the issue is systematic to the local community and not particular to this issue. I am not sure if the OP was complaining about this practice existing at en.WP at all; or if they are concerned about the en.WP template here being imported into zh.WP under the guise of a requirement from WMF. It might be rather simple to determine consensus at zh.WP.
Self-dertermination of local communities further promotes the experimentalist ideology which is what has brought the projects such great success. We succeed because we are so tolerant of failure. There is no reason bring general policies in line across local communities and we can learn a great deal from being able to compare the results of divergent approaches. So if the complaint is that this policy existing at en.WP should be seen as a failure of openness, I wouldn't worry too much. There are lots of failures out there and this is not among the very few types failures which cannot be tolerated. As MZMcBride shows above this practice began as a reaction to the failure to protect Living Persons from defamation which happens to be one of the few types of failures which cannot be tolerated. If it does in fact turn out to be overreaction, I imagine it will be adjusted sooner or later. There are good reasons to be tolerant of local overreactions; it is not as though we can judge which practice will fail of the cost/benefit equation without trying it on for some time.
Birgitte SB
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