--- On Sat, 26/2/11, John Vandenberg <jayvdb(a)gmail.com> wrote: Rather than breaking the project up, one way to achieve the same thing would be to apply a type of protection to BLPs that restricts BLP editing to users who have a "BLP flag" set on their account. Having that flag would be like having a user right, a privilege that can be earned or lost, for example by adding unsourced negative material to a BLP. In terms of administration, you could create a noticeboard where non-policy- compliant edits are reported, along with an elected BLP committee that can remove the flag from an account for a certain time period, just like arbcom does desysops today. I guess the rules would need to be applied leniently at first, to allow newbies to learn, and to avoid excessive drama. Perhaps a three-strikes-and-you're-out system might work to address good-faith errors (edits that are correctly sourced but constitute undue weight, etc.). One thing is certain: reducing the number of people able to edit BLPs would make BLPs a lot more stable, and less likely to contain libel or vandalism. It would reduce the amount of real-life drama for BLP subjects and OTRS volunteers - see http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-caught-i… while probably increasing the amount of drama inside Wikipedia. That's a problem, but in the end, if you think about it, the concerns of BLP subjects should take precedence over community concerns. It's just a question of being responsible about things; losing the BLP flag doesn't ruin anyone's life, whereas losing the ability to travel because of what a Wikipedia article says about you does. Not sure how you'd handle the ability of newbie accounts to create BLPs. It would be invidious for a new account to be able to create a poorly sourced but good-faith BLP, and then not be able to correct a typo once it's been categorised as a BLP. Thoughts?

Stovepiping is already a problem. Breaking up the project in this way would make a science of it, creating a plethora of petty tyrannies in the style of Wiktionary and Wikipedia Commons but even less responsive. Fred

On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 9:51 PM, Stephanie Daugherty <sdaugherty(a)gmail.com> wrote: If there was a community/project devoted to English-language BLPs, .. my guess is that .. the RFA process would focus on a different set of criteria, inc. delicate handling of difficult issues present all too common in the biographies of living people. other processes would remove problematic contributors from the project. and a community poll on a feature like proposed/pending changes would have an outcome that is more reflective of the administrative need for the tool. -- John Vandenberg

--- On Mon, 14/3/11, John Vandenberg <jayvdb(a)gmail.com> wrote: John, how would your proposal be realized, technically? I presume BLPs would still be hosted on the same xx.wikipedia.org site, be wikilinked to, and so on. Is that correct? If so, how would the proposed spun-out BLP project, with its own admins and so on, assume jurisdiction of these articles? Could you explain how you had envisioned this to work? A.

On 03/14/2011 11:50 AM, Fred Bauder wrote: How are Wiktionary and Wikimedia Commons "petty tyrannies"?

On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 05:35, FT2 <ft2.wiki(a)gmail.com> wrote: This is a good idea, but your first and second paragraphs contradict themselves somewhat. If "proven editor" were a status people had to strive for, and really didn't want to lose, it couldn't be something awarded routinely to anyone active for over a year. We have lots of people active for over a year who are very poor editors. They currently have no reason to improve themselves, because so long as they don't engage in behavioral problems their status continues uninterrupted. If we could create a carrot -- "proven editor" or whatever we call it -- that required the acquisition of editorial skills that were within the reach of just about anyone who applied herself, it would give people something to aim for other than adminship. But there would have to be a real improvement in their editing, not just "you've shown that you're not a complete idiot," otherwise it's patronizing and worthless. Sarah

On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 12:35 PM, FT2 <ft2.wiki(a)gmail.com> wrote: [snip] First, let me apologize beforehand for sounding too cynical, but I have many years of experience with Wikipedia, and I have seen many attempts to deal with trolls, POV pushers and otherwise substandard editors (I even initiated one or two myself), and I have not seen a sign of any of them actually working. Why would a newcomer be supposed to care about that? Does it matter whether my article gets edited by a 'good' editor or by a 'bad' editor? Am I supposed to revert a bad editor but leave a good editor alone if he makes the same edit? Or should I better leave the edits of the bad editor alone, because he's probably a troll who will chase me away if I revert him? Even more so - the 'bad' editor may be an excellent editor who just has not yet had the time to prove him- or herself. Actually, no it doesn't. The way to behave in an edit war to avoid being singled out as a bad editor is to stay away from it. Is that the way we want our editors to act? Be afraid to revert, not because they might be wrong, but because there might be people who think they're wrong? Currently such pages tend to be locked to all but admins. That doesn't work either - people just keep on their fighting on the talk page until someone gives up, after which the page is unlocked and their opponent can declare their victory on the page. Or the fight simply moves to the next page. So we are supposed to add a load of work to the editors' workload in judging the edits of prospective proven editors, but then don't even make that choice have any real effect? I don't feel safe in voting for someone to be considered a 'good' editor in this sense unless first checking a few hundred of their edits. And definitely in the beginning there will be several such applicants per week, certainly if we are going to make this something for 'everyone' to aim for. Either that, or having the title will be as much a sign of being interested in the title as it is of being a 'good' editor. Again, forgive me if I sound too cynical, but I do get the feeling that such a system might well be a nice thing to have, but would be as effective in promoting good editing behaviour as a Barnstar. -- André Engels, andreengels(a)gmail.com

On 14 March 2011 12:51, Andre Engels <andreengels(a)gmail.com> wrote: Note that this is already a problem with BLPs. The rules apply not just on the articles named after living persons - but to statements about living persons anywhere in the encyclopedia, and even on talk pages. This is precisely because those who mistake the encyclopedia for a venue for activist journalism have an observed tendency to continue their fight wherever they can. Putting the BLPs elsewhere will move the battle to other pages in the main, more open, wiki. Ultimately, if people can write things, they can write things that violate rules. The question then is whether it will be more manageable or less. This would require numbers, with evidence, to support any proposal. - d.

First of all, I am not talking just about BLP. This is part of the problem. I am also concerned about new editors who were treated badly (that happens more often than you think), about unreasonable decisions of admins etc. Secondly, such ombudsman should keep a certain distance from Wikipedia's "corridors", namely, s/he must not be an administrator nor bureaucrat, and while s/he should be well acquainted with Wikipedia, perhaps it would be better if s/he won't edit. Furthermore, it is crucial that this person be identified by her/his real name and be reachable in various ways, not only through an e-mail address. It is also important that this person give a public account on the problems s/he handled and measures s/he took to solve them. The very existence of such a report is the guarantee that all complaints be addressed properly, and in addition it would increase transparency and let us have a clear picture of the Wikipedian scene. Dror K בתאריך 14/03/11 15:18, ציטוט David Gerard:

Having a layer of decision makers deciding content or making editorial or administrative decisions that have no experience editing or administrating is pretty much a non-starter. Exposing them to social, economic, and legal pressure from aggrieved parties is not a good idea either. Publishing their decisions and interventions, all ordinary edits and edits are already published, breaks down precisely in the case of material that is deleted or suppressed now, publishing it is inappropriate, or even actionable. Fred

--- On Mon, 14/3/11, Dror Kamir <dqamir(a)bezeqint.net> wrote: Having a single person would not work, as people would assume that a single person may have their own personal biases affecting their judgment. An elected committee might work, and I do think we should look at empowering such a committee to remove the right to edit BLPs from editors who repeatedly abuse it, and at creating the technical means to do so. Whether that is by creating a separate BLP project, as John has proposed, which can block or ban its own editors, or as part of a BLP flag system in Wikipedia, is relatively immaterial. Andreas

This was also a part of the discussion of the Quality Taskforce/Strategy mentioned earlier by FT2 in this thread. One of the ideas of getting the "trusted editor" status, whatever it means and whatever are the criteria to get it (if I remember correctly, we never came down to such details) was that these trusted editors can resolve disputed related to content (POV etc), whereas the arbcom role is to resolve conflicts between users. These are two different issues and require two different (possibly overlapping) sorts of arbitrators: to fix the POV or BLP issue one has to be experienced in writing Wikipedia articles, whereas to solve for instance a personal conflict one has to be a good mediator but not necessarily a good article writer. Cheers Yaroslav

On 14 March 2011 15:01, Risker <risker.wp(a)gmail.com> wrote: The link to your precise words is there. It's what you actually said. Or are you claiming those links are not to your words? - d.

On 14 March 2011 15:21, Risker <risker.wp(a)gmail.com> wrote: I think what you mean here is that you don't like being called on what you said two months ago If you no longer believe what you wrote, then say so, rather than attempting to divert attention from your words. I will note also that if curious readers go to the links I gave and follow the threads, they will see many others, not just me, also incredulous at your claims of ArbCom powerlessness to *enforce basic policies*. Claiming it's all me is (as I noted in that thread) you attempting to shoot the messenger. Again. The ArbCom feels it doesn't have much workable power on en:wp. Is a parallel construction that does the answer? - d.

--- On Mon, 14/3/11, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: What I had in mind was a committee looking at BLP editing issues. That does not mean that there must have been an editing dispute at the article concerned. If someone added inappropriate information to a series of minor articles three months ago while no one was looking, and the matter is brought to the committee's attention, they could warn the editor or remove their BLP editing right, temporarily or permanently. They could even patrol BLPs themselves, if they run out of things to do, and contact editors who have a history of inserting problematic material off their own bat. That would actually be a BLP policing job and is different from the way arbcom works in en:WP. Again, any action taken by the committee should be taken by the committee as a whole, rather than any individual member of it, so no one can abuse the position to even scores with old adversaries. Arbcom could be appealed to if any editor feels aggrieved by the actions of the BLP committee; to have checks and balances, it would be useful to have these be two different bodies. Andreas

On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 12:51 PM, Andre Engels <andreengels(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote: Efforts are incremental. This isn't aiming to "deal with trolls" per se, but to improve the quality of the editorial community as editors. Right now we leave people to themselves, and possible benefits that could be gained from recognizing accomplished proven editors aren't gained. The conclusion was that if this is given a leg-up, then it will have positive effects on other areas including issues of poor editing. Most approaches to improvement are narrow-focus, they fix a specific issue. This one tries the flip side: - if general quality increases and we recognize the users that we believe won't POV war or be biased and will act well even on difficult subjects, then we have ways to approach disputed areas that we didn't have before and we could remotivate and encourage users who got fed up, as well as providing something positive for people to aim to once they get "into" editing. help them, or whose advice in discussions is more reliable. If I have a technical problem my first issue as a newcomer is "who of all these mass of people should I ask? Who might know? Whose answers on policy are more likely accurate? It makes it easier for informal coaching to take place (user can post "I see you are experienced here, I have a question" or can I come back to you if I need more help") Making participants of proven quality easier to identify helps in other areas of life. There is every reason to expect it is helpful here. There is a big difference between "not yet proven" and "bad", so your last point isn't an issue. A means to formally recognize such users does not mean others are "bad" any more than the existence of a "junior swimmer's" badge for children means all other children can't swim. Given users don't seem to have a problem with reverting admins, I think they wouldn't have a problem reverting any other user :) from noticeboard discussions) initially have to work out what's going on. Often they don't know any (or most) of the users concerned at the start and it's all a big pile-on mess to them. This discourages experienced editors from getting into complex disputes and in some cases lets edit warriors get away with tendentiousness longer than is needed. If it were easier to see that participants XYZ are recognized by the community as competent level headed editors whose editing is consistently good quality, then it immediately orients the new visitors to the dispute. It may be the other "side" are also good editors, or that the respected users are acting badly. But in most cases this is useful information and helpful. As a side effect it makes it easy to see when someone who gained community recognition for their editing quality is acting badly, and so it will tend to discourage them doing so. Right now there's no consequence so we often see otherwise-good users behaving badly in this or that dispute. Yes. Now imagine we had 3000 users whom the community has scrutinized their editing and conduct and feels they act well and edit well across the board. We don't have to lock down the article to admins, we can restrict editing to any of those 3000 users, and anyone else who wishes to edit can seek community recognition and then do so as well. The editing is then open, but undertaken by users who have proven they know how to cite, discuss, seek NPOV, etc. Give it 3 or 6 months the article (or topic area) will probably be in good order and can tentatively be unrestricted again. Note I have very severe "mass participation" edit wars such as ethnic topics in mind here, where we have tried for years to bring good editing. We don;t have any solution. This could help. It means that instead of locking articles down to admins (who mustn't edit anything contentious), or snails pace development, we can restrict it to proven editors of which we have thousands, and anyone gaining that recoignition can join them. The article stays open, but poor conduct and mis-citing or tendentiousness vanishes - because any "proven" editor who does act up will be in a peer group of users who are overwhelmingly good quality, proven, who know bad conduct when they see it, and know how to deal with it appropriately. I would expect we can find a way to do it that is fairly straightforward. How it works is a separate issue, I think solvable, but for now I'm looking at the principle of it. In the beginning I would suggest we "Grandfather" in groups that are broadly trustworthy, such as "all users who have written 2 GAs or one FA and also passed RFA - between these criteria we can be fairly sure they can edit well and also know policy and conduct norms well. done". It doesn't mean the user's work generally or their conduct generally is good quality, that they generally edit neutrally or cite well, or treat others well, or that the wider community has reached agreement they are of proven competence and approach. Once you have that, you can do good things like motivate and coach newcomers, provide goals to head to, or develop new dispute handling methods. If you can draw on a pool of a few thousand users whose capability and appropriate behavior can largely be assumed. FT2

On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 10:24, FT2 <ft2.wiki(a)gmail.com> wrote: It's an excellent idea. It could make a huge difference to the quality of content; and it would give editors a tangible way of improving their editing and having something to show for it, which might encourage them to stay too.

I may sound negative, as said, I know much has been tried, and little succeeded. I do really hope this does work, and am well willing to think along to try to make it that way. In fact, it is not that far from ideas that I have developed myself or with other users on IRC as well - although I was putting my emphasis a bit differently - on neutrality and expertise rather than editing quality as such (the two do of course overlap, neutrality and correctedness are important parts of good editing, and writing good articles would in my scheme be the major evidence of expertise, but there are important differences as well, for example in that expertise is much more subject-dependent than editing quality). Still, apart from being afraid it all will not be successful (but at least it's worth a try), I do see some problems. One problem is still at the entrance. I don't see your community of 3000 users come about - although that may have to do with me not being from the English but the Dutch Wikipedia. There's two possibilities - either the good editor title is seen as not much at all, and many good editors won't bother trying to get it, or it _is_ seen as a great deal, and then there will be less (but still a substantial number) in that camp, but added to that there will be those who don't want it because of the responsibility that comes, and others that are more looking for the prestige than for the good editing that it comes with. To explain a bit more of my skepticism, let me tell you the following anecdote: Once I found on my user talk page a call from someone, who asked me to let my neutral eye go over an article with a fierce content dispute. Although I was a bit hesitant at first, after a little prodding I agreed. I went to the university library to read about the subject of the article, and that gave me a rather good idea what was going on. One of the main contenders (let's call him A and his opponent B) was basically adding original research - his edits were not backed by literature, not even by the source he did provide for his edit. I wrote this, proposed a toning down and shortening of his material, and proposed some improvements in other parts of the article. I discussed a bit with A, B and others in the days following, but soon A and B were throwing personal attacks at each other again, and I left in disgust. Maybe I could have done better. Maybe not. Still, being recognized as a good editor in the end did not help me in resolving this conflict - at best it stopped me from being the target of the mud being flown around. In the end, A got a long-term block - not for POV editing, not for doing original research, not for misrepresenting his sources - he could have gone on with all those without strong consequences. But he made the mistake of making repeated personal attacks on his opponents. If not, the article might well still be locked today. -- André Engels, andreengels(a)gmail.com

On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 13:22, Andrew Gray <andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk> wrote: Thanks, Andrew. I think I'll add that second email address to the policy.

--- On Mon, 14/3/11, Andre Engels <andreengels(a)gmail.com> wrote: That's precisely the problem. Being able to remove the right to edit BLPs from a user, irrespective of whether they have been uncivil etc., just based on the nature of their edits, is the only thing that will solve it. Knowing that this is a potential outcome will also, surely, lead to better and more careful BLP editing than we have today. Andreas

On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 8:57 PM, Andreas Kolbe <jayen466(a)yahoo.com> wrote: Would not have helped, since this conflict was over the biography of a person who has been dead for over 1000 years. Why single out BLPs for such a treatment, and why the need to move them to a separate place? All that is needed is a sufficient number of good, trusted editors that get the right to make judgements of the kind "Mr. A is not allowed to edit on subject X any more, and can be reverted and/or blocked if he does." -- André Engels, andreengels(a)gmail.com

On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 11:24 PM, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net> wrote: That is indeed a risk. There seems to be no way out. Either you treat trolls as deccent editors, or you treat decent editors as trolls... There seems to be no way in between. I hate this fucking world. -- André Engels, andreengels(a)gmail.com

The discussion has taken even bigger swings than usual for this list, and my above suggestion is now under the misleading heading "breaking en:wiki apart". That was not my intention at all. Please consider the benefits of "segmentation" or "virtual wikis" instead. According to John Wandenberg, that is a 10-year plan. I don't agree and consider it a 6-months plan Let each project have it's own admins, recent changes, mailing list etc. but still under the umbrella of the language wiki in question. Admins and contributors will be able to aggregate knowledge of the project's subjects, sources etc in a much deeper way than now. FT2 has even pointed to the strategy discussion about the possibility of adding an international perspective on cooperation of projects across languages with further benefits, especially maybe to narrower subjects. The big wikipedias would benefit in numerous areas by being project-driven to a much larger extent. Let a newcomer join one or more projects instead of the huge Wikipedia - let the project welcome her, discuss what contributions she wants to make and what she is able to do, hand out tasks that are unfinished etc.Think it over once again. Regards, Sir48/Thyge

It doesn't work. Even now, if you show up on some projects, create a new category, write a few new articles, you have to claw your way through nominations for deletion and a blizzard of nonsense from regulars, based on being "new". Not that I can't do it, but it is just wasted energy. Fred

On 03/14/11 5:41 AM, Andreas Kolbe wrote: Taking that one step further, when the subject of one of these biographies dies the article would need to move back; the proper article history would also need to move. Moves would also involve making sure that a lot of links are repaired. Ec

On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 2:31 AM, Keegan Peterzell <keegan.wiki(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote: *recently* deceased. -- ~Keegan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan

--- On Tue, 15/3/11, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: That sounds complicated. A user right for BLP editing in Wikipedia would not have these drawbacks. As long as an article is in the living persons category, editors would need the BLP user right to edit it; once the article is no longer in the category, it would become open to any and all editors again. Incidentally, having the BLP user right would also be a reflection on the editor's work, and a content-based "badge" to strive for that is separate from adminship. And something that editors would be loath to lose. It is not a perfect solution because, as others have pointed out, BLP- sensitive material is not just contained in BLPs. However, the majority of BLP problems that subjects are justifiably aggrieved about do occur in their actual biographies. The fact that we cannot implement a perfect solution does not mean we should not implement a solution that would help address a majority of the problems and would help foster a culture of responsibility. So, how about it? Andreas