Wikipedia-l November 2003

wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

71 participants
98 discussions

meta policy
by Anthere 27 Nov '03

27 Nov '03

>>As I said this morning, where is the sense of >>editing these now "black" articles if what we >>add, us, good and honest editors is reverted >>without consideration ? >No - you should not be reverted without consideration. >However I seriously doubt you would have edited these >articles /at all/ if 142.177 had not created them >first. I think this is incorrect. We are many contributors on wikipedia Mav. You can't know all of them. As things are, I know not really Metaweb. So, I would not have edited it, but I am doubly interested by the links and description. I have been following Consumerium for quite a while now, 3 or 4 months. I think you would gracefully admit that the goal of this project fits quite well with some of the topics which interest me. Such as again all the GMO matters. But also local food http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_food or ecoregion http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecoregion or perhaps biopiracy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biopiracy or ecotourism http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecotourism or precautionary principle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle (would someone improve that low quality article ?) All these, I believe, somehow related to that project. As for disinfopedia, I do not think I ever wrote anything in it (though I might have on a few iraki related topics), but I sure regularly read it and referenced to it many times on some french mailing lists or private discussions I had. I think it is valuable. I think both consumerium and disinfopedia are very important to be mentionned in meta. Why not limit ourselves to the encyclopedia space ? Easy. These two projects have a pecularity that goes beyond what is encyclopedic. And this pecularity does not belong to the encyclopedic article. They are both a justification and a "faire valoir" (my, what is the english word for this ?) I mean : 1) they strongly rely on the existence of the encyclopedia, since they use it widely as a reference. Without Wikipedia, it is likely these projects would not be viable really. Or much tougher to build. They do not need to include everything themselves, they can use us as a source, and may focus on what is important to them => disinformation and consumerism. They are specialists sources. They directly benefit from Wikipedia growth. 2) at the same time, they augment the quality, the interest, the traffic and the growth of Wikipedia. They directly link to us (not pick up the information to use it freely) hence bringing us new readers and new contributors. As specialists projects, they increase the value of our work. They refer to us. Wikipedia directly benefits from their existence as well. In ecology, that is called a symbiosis :-) I do not have the proper words to explain this perhaps, but this is important. It is important to increase the visibility of such projects. And I cannot figure putting this in the encyclopedia article itself. Now, if I put this, without even an introduction explaining what the project is, or without the external link to the projects (which is the currently banned content), it is just bullshit. >>I noted with interest that in your reply >>on my other mail, you said that * when you mentionned in the comment box >>(upon my pressing request), that the >>agronomy article was authored by me and >>not by Robert or you, this is ok with >>the GNU license Yes it is since I named the original author, you. >>* but when I mention in the comment box >>(upon no one request) that I am not the >>author, but avoid mentionning the original >>author (whose name is available in the >>deletion history) for ***your*** sake, >>this is illegal ? >Huh? If the text is by 142.177 it should be credited to that IP. The deletion >history /cannot/ be read by anybody but Admins. Thus it is useless for author credit. >However, whether or not we should host that text is a different matter. I did not mention the ip on purpose, to avoid giving authorship to a banned user. This is a legal matter anyway (for the legal list). Either we need attributions, or we do not. >>Netesq reverted these two edits back and >>engaged in discussion with 142. >>Discussion, much more than my poor line >>asking that 142 be nicer with you. >>But this is just further staking the deck >>on *me* : I communicated (1 line !) with a >>banned user. I am said involved, while >>obviously no one else is. >User talk pages brings up touchy issues. In those cases my rule of thumb is to revert >the edit but not to re-revert if the user resurrects the banned user's edit. I don't like it but >as I said user pages are a bit more of a special case. Agreed. So let's apply the same principles about discussion to all of us. >>Mav. I am not *aiding* him. It would >>be nice that you stop placing people >>in a black and white state : the ones >>who pity you and inforce the banning, >>versus the ones who don't care and >>help the banned users. >.... I don't need your pity or anyone's else's. Americans at least don't think that being >pitied is a good thing. It is in fact a bit insulting to say that you pity someone. Ah ? Really ? I apology then. I wonder if you read pity in the sense I used it (or rather if I used it in the sense you read it) I looked in my dictionnary, and it seems it may have different meanings either commiseration mixed with scorn or compassion I meant pity/compassion. Compassion is not really an emotion, it is "suffering with". It is an attitude that make us tend to be sensible to another one suffering. It is different from identification, where we put ourselves in the other person shoes. I see you are suffering, but I have no idea how I would react to such comments made to me. It is also different from empathy, because empathy is when one is able to understand what the other one is feeling "from the inside". It is tough to understand what the other one is feeling inside. But you can also understand but not feel concerned. I had a thought the other day. I was reflecting once again on how it could be acceptable that someone call another one a nazi without much reaction. Someone said to me, not a very long time ago, that for american people, though it was an insult, it is not a very bad insult. From this exchange, I concluded that it appear calling someone a nazi is a much ruder insult for a french than for an american. If so, perhaps a french person should be able to measure the weight of the insult, depending on who said it; and perhaps the insult in the mouth of an american is more acceptable than in the mouth of a french then. But also perhaps when a american call a french a nazi, should he be aware that the insult is much more offensive to the one receiving it than it would have been to the american person. Consequently, not only do identical words do not carry the same meaning, but when they do, they do not even carry the same emotional weight. I will drop the use of the word "pity". I feel compassion. Even if you do not need it. >>Curiously, you chose to attack me, and >>request my unsysoping because I was >>following one of the alternative techniques, >>that others are following as well. >Again -- STOP PRETENDING THAT I REQUESTED TO DE-SYSOP YOU!!! I did no >such thing (stating that I was going to do so on your talk page is NOT a request for de->sysoping, but a warning that I planned to. I changed my mind for reasons already >stated, however). A conversation where person A : I am gonna request a de sysoping :person B : you may do that ::person C : done Sound like you did it. I appear to have misunderstood that. But I understand that you were upset, and reconsidered calmly. That is ok. Let's forgive and forget about that, would you ? >>I precisely question the "disregard for policy". >>No policy was ever written on the matter on meta >However you seem to be talking about techniques and I am talking about the ban itself. >I think we have not been communicating. In fact I am open to discussions on hard ban >techniques. This is the first time I recall you talking about techniques though. Hum... When I look backward, I have the feeling I have done basically nothing but considering blocking and banning options in the past weeks. If you look at the comments on the ban and block page on en, I have wrote quite a good bunch of comments there in the past 2 months or so. Since then, I dropped participation in en meta matters, as it is too heavy for me to follow conventions that appear to change too often; conventions that you are expected to know and respect to the latest point. At one point, I was really willing to participate in that policy, but it was eating too much time, and it is frustrating because I do not edit policies myself as these require to be crystal clear. After a while, discussing things, and seeing that it has little, if no impact gets bothersome. http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk%3ABans_and_blocks On fr, I think I am the main contributor of all the pages dealing with vandalism. I have begun setting a ban and block page some time ago, but I feel the topic has to cool down first before we can seriously work on it. I have spent the past two months, as many contributors on fr, trying to figure out what to do with Papotages, first in my case initially trying to integrate him, second to have him soft ban rather than hard banned. Mercifully for the community sake, Papotages finally switched to full gear vandalism, allowing all contributors to agree a hard ban was a must (though we disagreed on the means to inforce that ban for a little while). I have personnaly spent a lot of time bugging Tim Starling, to have technical support in inforcing the ban. Before I switched to full inforcing activity (I perhaps blocked 50 Papotages ip adresses and deleted or reverted perhaps a hundred of pages in two weeks), I tried to pick up all information I could around. Even going to MeatBall to try to gain some understanding, interpretation on what was going on and what we could do. http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?FrenchWikipedia I also invite you to check french mailing list history to see whether I have been discussing banning and blocking options, and how they could be inforced in august, september, october, november, and in particular what I felt of displaying real names of vandals in public, what I felt of contacting isp as a technical way to block a vandal (as Tim said, I finally gave my blessing to this, poor me). I also tried to see how Jimbo could be involved in the whole hard banning process on our pedia, as an ultimate resort, a neutral third party insurring some standards are respected. In truth, what else than spending hours on block and bans matters have I been doing recently ? Far too much is the big truth. I am here to improve the amount of knowledge made available, and to improve access to the information. Not here to block and ban people all the time. Not here to delete other people work. Not here to spent all my time fighting with the ones I disagree with on minor topics. Not here to see the articles that I have not the time to write myself, be deleted just because of their author. When it comes to the point we spent most of our available time doing this, then something is badly wrong. >So you can understand my frustration at seeing you re-create the exact article I >deleted. It looked to me like you were thumbing your nose to the ban. Please, receive my apologies >>... >However, even if meta is basically currently >>following en policy (which is perhaps fine >>for the moment), I repeat that some en users >>are also restoring some articles, just as I >>did, so why should I be attacked on doing >>what other people also think is proper ? >Sorry, but I do have a life outside of Wikipedia so I can't argue with everybody who does >things I don't like. You just happened to be the person to set me off when I had some >time to respond. This seems to happen more with you than with other people -- sorry >about that. That just reflects the fact that our personalities clash. You noticed as well ? :-) We might reflect on that both of us. >I like you and greatly respect you but sometimes you really irritate me - moreso than >your actions probably justify sometimes. Nod. I feel the same. >>It appears that the attack on RK made all >>the sourness of your case go up again. And >>that because of the attack on another person, >>you are all angry and shaken again on your >>own case. Why did not you call the police >>then, when you were attacked, rather than now ? >Slow boiling. It took reading all his threats together to prompt me to do so. I am also a >very forgiving person and didn't want to make trouble for him hoping that he would just >go away. Well he hasn't gone away and is still doing the same things which got him >banned in the first place. There is only so much a person can take. Understood >>What about, if one finds an article ok >>(**only** in this case of course), to >>blank it, perhaps even to orphan it, to >>put it aside for a while, perhaps to >>move it in a user space, and perhaps to >>recreate it by any means you might think >>acceptable later, with modifications ? >Yes, we can discuss this since it deals with hard ban techniques and not whether or >not the ban applies to meta (which of course it does). Let's do so on the RfD talk page. >-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav) That suits me. I thank you. I am sure we will find a satisfying agreement. I will see that later in the week on meta. Lots of work planned for the next two days for me. Please, would you accept my apologies to have been tough on you ? --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard

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[Wikilegal-l] [Wikipedia-l] GFDL, History, and Combining Documents (was "since we are on the subject")
by Martin Harper 27 Nov '03

27 Nov '03

Hi all. When a Wikipedian moves content from one article to another, this is covered under section 5: COMBINING DOCUMENTS. This requires that 'In the combination, you must combine any sections Entitled "History" in the various original documents, forming one section Entitled "History";'. Clearly we don't do this. However, we might to be able to claim that we combine the history "by reference" if we state "from [[X]]". Dubious? The only alternative would be to claim that in fact we don't need to keep a history at all, except for text imported from third parties (like Nupedia). This would have to be based on a fairly liberal interpretation of "if you do not want your text to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, do not submit it here". Now, the possible requirement to keep history causes us serious problems. For example: * If a third party makes a derivative work, do they need to copy the complete Wikipedia site locally? * If a third party makes a verbatim copy, do they need to copy the page history? * Can we delete an article if its contents have been merged elsewhere? * Can we move pages that have been previously referenced in a "from [[X]]" page? * Where page histories get inadvertantly screwed up, do we need to delete the entire article and start again? * If I print out several copies of a Wikipedia article, do I need to print out several copies of the page history to go along with them? Is our "printable version" hence illegal? * If a vandal writes misleading text in an edit summary - eg "I am the principal author of this article", is this a problem? * Do we need to mention the publisher (Wikimedia foundation now, Bomis previously) in every line in the history? * Do we need to keep page history URLs stable? If so, how can we move articles, given that the move destroys the history? As a result, I feel that we should seek to interpret the text "if you do not want your text to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, do not submit it here" so as to void our requirement to keep a full history, if this is at all legally possible. However, we should publicise this move well, and if any current or former contributor objects then we should immediately strip Wikipedia of their contributions. The costs of making a full and accurate history available are significant, and I would say unreasonable for a wiki-based system. I am aware that people have interpreted the current submission text in ways that release us from our obligation to keep a full history, and I think we should look for ways to make that interpretation official. -Martin "IANAL" Harper

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Attrition war
by Anthere 27 Nov '03

27 Nov '03

Anthere wrote: >>Grumble...another mailing list...grumble >Absolutely!!! Attrition is inevitable. I succeeded to avoid it for at least one month, that is not so bad. But *they* got me. Terrible. >>This is a very good point. I have brought it up >>before. Really, if you move text from one page (or >> >>from one language version to another) as part of the > >>move you should analyze the text and determine who >> >the >five major contributors are and list them in the > >>summary box. How to determine who the five major >>contributors are? Should it be via the amount of >> >text >each > >>contributes? Or the number of ideas? How to count >>ideas? >>Perhaps an alternative is to state where the page >>comes from that way someone should be able to work >>back and find out who made the contribution. >>... >>Alex756 >> >Applying any of these criteria, except for the five >most recent >contributors, can be the type of time-consuming >process that people tend >to avoid. Agreed >>AieAieAie, I think, reading comments by Alex, Martin, >>Ec...that it would be best that we just abandon this >>notion of authorship. >> >>It would still be a good idea to always indicate the >>origin of a content moved from another place in the >>comment box. >> >Comment boxes just appeared one day without much >discussion about how to >use them in contrast to the article's talk page. I've >just ignored the >feature. Tu me parles d'un temps, que les moins de 20 ans, ne peuvent pas connai-tre. tididadidadaaaa, tidadidadadaaaa Ok, I usually forget that feature as well. I thought it was part of the initial package. When did you arrive Ec ? __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree

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meta policy
by Daniel Mayer 27 Nov '03

27 Nov '03

Anthere wrote: >This morning, I added one line (it was a >*personal* addition, not in the original >article by the banned user) to the >consumerium article. That line was >blanked by Cimon nonetheless. That means, >whatever *I* add to the article, it is >considered bad and blanked and reverted. >Even if *I* Anthere, wrote that line. Funny the text that Cimon blanked is /exactly/ the same as the text that 142.177 submitted. Original by 142.177: http://meta.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Undelete&target=Consum… Cimon's blanking: http://meta.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Consumerium&diff=21685&oldid=2… The only difference is one small line added by you at the end. I could see how Cimon could have missed that. I just noticed it myself - otherwise I would have saved your line. But that line was not in the version I deleted: http://meta.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Undelete&target=Consum… >.... >As I said this morning, where is the sense of >editing these now "black" articles if what we >add, us, good and honest editors is reverted >without consideration ? No - you should not be reverted without consideration. However I seriously doubt you would have edited these articles /at all/ if 142.177 had not created them first. >I noted with interest that in your reply >on my other mail, you said that * when you mentionned in the comment box >(upon my pressing request), that the >agronomy article was authored by me and >not by Robert or you, this is ok with >the GNU license Yes it is since I named the original author, you. >* but when I mention in the comment box >(upon no one request) that I am not the >author, but avoid mentionning the original >author (whose name is available in the >deletion history) for ***your*** sake, >this is illegal ? Huh? If the text is by 142.177 it should be credited to that IP. The deletion history /cannot/ be read by anybody but Admins. Thus it is useless for author credit. However, whether or not we should host that text is a different matter. >Because to my opinion, banning does not >imply blind deletion. That is a valid opinion. >Netesq reverted these two edits back and >engaged in discussion with 142. > >Discussion, much more than my poor line >asking that 142 be nicer with you. > >But this is just further staking the deck >on *me* : I communicated (1 line !) with a >banned user. I am said involved, while >obviously no one else is. User talk pages brings up touchy issues. In those cases my rule of thumb is to revert the edit but not to re-revert if the user resurrects the banned user's edit. I don't like it but as I said user pages are a bit more of a special case. >Mav. I am not *aiding* him. It would >be nice that you stop placing people >in a black and white state : the ones >who pity you and inforce the banning, >versus the ones who don't care and >help the banned users. >.... I don't need your pity or anyone's else's. Americans at least don't think that being pitied is a good thing. It is in fact a bit insulting to say that you pity someone. >There is not ONE technique to enforce >a ban. There are a collection of options >to help exclude someone from a community. Re-creating the exact article text the banned user wrote, as you did, is not one of those techniques. It is a violation of the ban order (and has other problems which I already explained). >Curiously, you chose to attack me, and >request my unsysoping because I was >following one of the alternative techniques, >that others are following as well. Again -- STOP PRETENDING THAT I REQUESTED TO DE-SYSOP YOU!!! I did no such thing (stating that I was going to do so on your talk page is NOT a request for de-sysoping, but a warning that I planned to. I changed my mind for reasons already stated, however). >I precisely question the "disregard for policy". >No policy was ever written on the matter on meta. Again Jimbo said he was banned /everywhere/. However you seem to be talking about techniques and I am talking about the ban itself. I think we have not been communicating. In fact I am open to discussions on hard ban techniques. This is the first time I recall you talking about techniques though. So you can understand my frustration at seeing you re-create the exact article I deleted. It looked to me like you were thumbing your nose to the ban. >... >However, even if meta is basically currently >following en policy (which is perhaps fine >for the moment), I repeat that some en users >are also restoring some articles, just as I >did, so why should I be attacked on doing >what other people also think is proper ? Sorry, but I do have a life outside of Wikipedia so I can't argue with everybody who does things I don't like. You just happened to be the person to set me off when I had some time to respond. This seems to happen more with you than with other people -- sorry about that. That just reflects the fact that our personalities clash. I like you and greatly respect you but sometimes you really irritate me - moreso than your actions probably justify sometimes. >It appears that the attack on RK made all >the sourness of your case go up again. And >that because of the attack on another person, >you are all angry and shaken again on your >own case. Why did not you call the police >then, when you were attacked, rather than now ? Slow boiling. It took reading all his threats together to prompt me to do so. I am also a very forgiving person and didn't want to make trouble for him hoping that he would just go away. Well he hasn't gone away and is still doing the same things which got him banned in the first place. There is only so much a person can take. >What about, if one finds an article ok >(**only** in this case of course), to >blank it, perhaps even to orphan it, to >put it aside for a while, perhaps to >move it in a user space, and perhaps to >recreate it by any means you might think >acceptable later, with modifications ? Yes, we can discuss this since it deals with hard ban techniques and not whether or not the ban applies to meta (which of course it does). Let's do so on the RfD talk page. -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav) __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! 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External pictures
by Guillaume Blanchard 27 Nov '03

27 Nov '03

Hi all, Can you please reactivate external pictures for "user", "talk" and "meta" namespaces? I fully agree the deactivation of external pictures for articles, but it was very useful especially for talk pages to show a picture and discuss it. The fact only local pictures can be rendering stimulate people to copy non encyclopaedic pictures on the servers. This is a problem for me. If you don't reactivate external pictures, please give the reason. Aoineko

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[Wikilegal-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] since we are on legal matters ...
by Anthere 27 Nov '03

27 Nov '03

Grumble...another mailing list...grumble >This is a very good point. I have brought it up >before. Really, if you move text from one page (or >from one language version to another) as part of the >move you should analyze the text and determine who the >five major contributors are and list them in the >summary box. How to determine who the five major >contributors are? Should it be via the amount of text >each >contributes? Or the number of ideas? How to count >ideas? >Perhaps an alternative is to state where the page >comes from that way someone should be able to work >back and find out who made the contribution. >... >Alex756 AieAieAie, I think, reading comments by Alex, Martin, Ec...that it would be best that we just abandon this notion of authorship. It would still be a good idea to always indicate the origin of a content moved from another place in the comment box. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree

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Mav and policy
by Anthere 27 Nov '03

27 Nov '03

> From: Daniel Mayer <maveric149(a)yahoo.com> > Anthere wrote: > >I encourage editors to consider the three > >articles I have been restoring. These > >three have any right to be on meta. The > >content of these is uncontroversial. > > Article quality is irrelevant because they should > not > have been created to begin with. However, if you had > created them independent of any action by 142.177 > then > the existence of the articles would be fine. Since > all > you did was copy /exactly/ what 142.177 wrote Cimon > Avaro has blanked them. If somebody wants to create > their own unique content about those subjects, then > do > so. But re-creating the exact text by a hard banned > user is subverting that ban. This morning, I added one line (it was a *personal* addition, not in the original article by the banned user) to the consumerium article. That line was blanked by Cimon nonetheless. That means, whatever *I* add to the article, it is considered bad and blanked and reverted. Even if *I* Anthere, wrote that line. > >It could be edited by anyone, and I am > >ready to put any effort necessary in > >those to modify them, as I indicated to Mav, > > They are a clean slate now. Go ahead. However we > should not do this too often since it allows 142.177 > to direct our attention to certain topics. Thus also > subverting the ban. I put MY line back. That line alone looks very stupid. Look by yourself http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumerium If it is reverted *again*, how do you plan proving that articles touched by banned users are freely editable ? As I said this morning, where is the sense of editing these now "black" articles if what we add, us, good and honest editors is reverted without consideration ? > >provided that they are not deleted again, > >even when I recreate them under my name. > > The text in these particular articles is minimal. > However if you did that for larger ones then you > would > be in violation of the GNU FDL (since you would deny > 142.177 credit). I noted with interest that in your reply on my other mail, you said that * when you mentionned in the comment box (upon my pressing request), that the agronomy article was authored by me and not by Robert or you, this is ok with the GNU license * but when I mention in the comment box (upon no one request) that I am not the author, but avoid mentionning the original author (whose name is available in the deletion history) for ***your*** sake, this is illegal ? > >I do not feel ready to put some work on articles > >that are being deleted immediately after. I fear > >that instant deletion of these articles as now > >practiced, under any editors name, even trusted > >ones, is likely to slow down discussion and > >evolution of meta. > > No it won't. It will just take control of meta's > content away from 142.177 (who is, BTW, meta's > number > one 'contributor') and give it to the wider > community. Yes, it will. Even my poor edition was removed, and I dare not even put the external link to the project. > >It is not a good idea that any topic touched > >by a banned user, becomes de facto a topic > >which must not be mentionned any more. > > What? I already explained on your talk page that > this > is not the case. There is nothing stopping you from > writing on topics that a banned user 'touches'! Just > don't recreate the banned users exact (or even > substantial) edits and try hard not to be prompted > to > edit a subject just because the banned user brought > it > to your attention. This denies the banned user > influence over our content and the direction of > discussion. I am all ready to wait one full month before editing any of these articles; Problem is that after one month, the article is long gone. If proper articles are not deleted, I will gladly respect a certain time before editing them if that suits you. > >I entirely recognise and accept the decision > >over the banning of 142. > > Then why are you recreating his edits! Because to my opinion, banning does not imply blind deletion. .... Besides that > is > /not/ what you have been doing: you have been > reverting the deletion of the text that 142.177 has > written and you have also been responding to his > posts. That is very different than just happening to > write in the same areas. Your involvement is direct > and with the banned user. In the past three days, Cimon has been consistantly reverting edits by 142. This is ok by me. Everyone is free to look or not to look at them. I do not see a problem there. Among the edits Cimon reverted, two were written on Netesq talk page http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk%3ANetesq Netesq reverted these two edits back and engaged in discussion with 142. Discussion, much more than my poor line asking that 142 be nicer with you. But this is just further staking the deck on *me* : I communicated (1 line !) with a banned user. I am said involved, while obviously no one else is. Seriously Mav ! ... > >If this goes to this, preventing regular users to > >edit topics because of their smell, where is > >Wikipedia going ? > > I think I have already proven that this is a weak > argument, if not a strawman. what about my line on consumerium ? Okay, just kidding. You are right of course :-) > >The rules should not be decided by Mav, > > Since when have I been deciding the rules in this > regard? I was acting on a decision authorized by > Jimbo > and in response to a request by another user to > immediately delete the articles in question. You > were > acting on your own authority. So who is making up > the > rules? Right now ? You. Clearly. When two people are trying to discuss together, and one is requesting unsysoping of the other one, and accusing her of about every bad action he can figure out (such as her acting in illegality as regards gfdl), that is *intentionally* trying to remove any legitimacy in her participating to setting the rules Leaving you alone. Btw, we two are not the only sysops on meta. I did not notice the other sysops were jumping on the delete button each time they saw 142. Even more, others have been deleting some 142 edits, to restore them under their names, in order to remove unnice comments to you. See http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Banned_user So, I ask again, why the attack on *me* ? Am I so scary ?? Why ??? >>Perhaps you have not read this email: >>http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2003-March/009407.html Given that you paste it in every mail, it would be hard to miss it :-) >.... >>Just like the english main page, not editable >>by most users. Just like the wikimedia guide, >>just you editing it, and calling other attempts >>forks. >What? Please stop the personal attacks and lies. In >addition to myself these other users have also edited >the user's guide: Patrick, Brion, Nanobug, Hashar, >Kat, Mintguy, Archivist, and MyRedDice. And that is >just from the first several pages of the guide! I have >not taken issue with their edits. What I do take issue >with is the creation of a competing MediaWiki >documentation project instead of simply adding to the >current one. However I think the person doing this and >I have reached an understanding. Yes ? I am glad to hear that. Indeed, the understanding must have been clear : http://meta.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Documentation&diff=0&oldid=216… So, yours is the old manual. Hum... And of course, no one *ever* complained about the fact you basically own the english main page ? Apologies, I must have been inventing this fact :-) >>Mav, I recognise you are doing a great job, >>and you have been hurt by that user, and >>that 142 is indeed banned; >Then why are you aiding and abetting him in the >subversion of the ban? Mav. I am not *aiding* him. It would be nice that you stop placing people in a black and white state : the ones who pity you and inforce the banning, versus the ones who don't care and help the banned users. There are other alternatives. For example, I already told you I was sorry for you, and really can feel the unhappiness this whole story is causing to you. However, one can feel sorry, recognise the ban, but not follow your technique to inforce a ban. There is not ONE technique to enforce a ban. There are a collection of options to help exclude someone from a community. Perhaps everyone just naturally accept there is a ban. But not everyone choose to follow the same techniques as regards this ban. On en, users have chosen different paths. Some choose to delete immediately, without even taking into consideration other people edited the page afterwards sometimes Other users just close the eyes and pretend they have seen nothing Other users actively seek to save the good articles, usually by kidnapping them, keeping them aside for a while, and then recreating them under other author names, with some refactoring. These three techniques are tolerated on en. Curiously, you chose to attack me, and request my unsysoping because I was following one of the alternative techniques, that others are following as well. When I suggest that we talk about this, you completely evade the issue, and refuse to answer to me, limiting yourself to appeal to authority and to repeat that the only way is immediate deletion, and claiming it is the only technique practiced, while obviously it is not. Then you ask for unsysoping me, me alone, for doing things that others are doing as well. Sadly, you are just attacking the one that appears the feablest. >>what I have troubles accepting is that you >>decide the way we should enforce the ban, >>you remove my comments on talk pages, you >>delete articles I created under my name, >>assuming if need there is their authorship, >>and finally, that you try to break the only >>opposition to your decisions on meta by >>calling for unsysoping people. >Perhaps you have not read my first email: >http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2003-November/013113.html >Where in that email have I called for de-sysoping >anyone? You are assuming that I said you wrote that in the email, but it is not; it was on my talk page on meta this is where you mention that you are going to strongly advocate me being unsysoped http://meta.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Anthere&diff=21642&o… And this is where you confirm that you did ask for my unsysoping http://meta.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Anthere&diff=0&oldid… >I did consider doing that but then I realized >that it really wasn't an abuse of sysop power that you >were doing, but a basic disregard for policy. I am sure glad you changed your mind. I precisely question the "disregard for policy". No policy was ever written on the matter on meta. So, everyone assume it is the english policy, which I regret, as every wikipedia is also setting up personal policy, which might be different from the en one. There is no reason why meta should endorse the en one. However, even if meta is basically currently following en policy (which is perhaps fine for the moment), I repeat that some en users are also restoring some articles, just as I did, so why should I be attacked on doing what other people also think is proper ? >recreated your edits (a one line response to 142.177) >and removed just what 142.177 wrote. Yet you reverted >that. No, two times, you removed my comments from the page. Two times you removed comments that were never done by 142. The first line was certainly not a response, that was gently asking 142 to be nicer to you. My poor attempt to cool things down didnot deserve censorship. The second paragraph that you censored, was something I wrote several days ago. It had nothing to do with the current issue. You removed it blindly anyway. >>So Mav, there is a point there. I explained >>in length on meta why I was restoring these >>three articles. >And I explained in length why I deleted them and >reverted 142.177's edits. So ? So we discuss, and when we do not agree, you ask for desysoping ? >>I also remind you that other users on en are >>also doing this, and that it has suggested >>that in case this is done, the articles should >>be recreated under another person name. >Again that is subverting the ban and is a violation of >the GNU FDL. Just because others are doing it too does >not make it right. I do not believe it is a violation of the GNU FDL. This is nicely made up to suit the situation. "making it right" is a personal opinion. And that does not justify jumping on Anthere, just because you think you can jump on me, while it would perhaps less confortable to jump on others (I hope I am not claiming to be fat here, though I am far from skinny either) >>In any place, there should be balance. The >>fact you delete them is fine with me; the >>fact you refuse to accept that other people >>have different opinions on how meta should >>work is just plain not wiki. ... >It is also highly insulting and in fact disgusting >that you are helping a person who stated that my >murder would be justified because I am being a censor. Stop the appeal for pity on simplification of the issue, Mav, you are taking it far too personally. Really. I have a question btw. Your disagreement with 142 is from ... I do not remember...perhaps a year ago (say). At that time, you were naturally and quite understandebly shaken. After a few months, you decided that though the ban was still in place, you would tolerate 142 edits, provided that he behaved. That is...somehow, even if you could not forget, not really forgive, there was a good step in the direction of forgiveness though, and I told you how happy that made me. I was real glad you were going over that stress. Later, there was the attack on RK. Not on you again; just on RK. And following this attack on RK, you decided to enforce the ban again. It appears that the attack on RK made all the sourness of your case go up again. And that because of the attack on another person, you are all angry and shaken again on your own case. Why did not you call the police then, when you were attacked, rather than now ? ...... >From 142.177: "There are very few things you will regret more in your life than defending your little clique of friends here, Daniel Mayer. What they are doing is wrong, racist, illegal, immoral and stupid. You seemed to realize this for a while, but, you have stepped back in, so, you deserve what you get." Yes, this is very unnice. It is very unlike you who are very open. >On top of this he also used my real name in a very >slanderous and false statement and if believed by my >employer could get me fired. That diff has since been >deleted from the database thanks to Brion. Shall I dare to say ? I also abandonned any attempt to contact professionals to talk about Gaia matters as I had thought of doing at some point. Too afraid of them seeing what was in the discussion page. Too afraid of them being said nasty things, that would have covered Wikipedia image with opprobe. And that is why, even if one day I give my real name, I will not change my contribution from my pseudo to my real name. I also can't really figure my own boss finding some of the emails adressed to me and widely available on the net. This is irrelevant to the current personal matter, but just to refocus things on other personal matters :-) >Do I deserve that Anthere? By subverting the ban you >are implicitly saying that what 142.177 wrote above is >OK since in effect you are directly opposing the ban >as if it did not have merit. In fact I'm going to >inform the cops about 142.177 (I've never read all his >threats in quick order before - it creeps me out). No, you do not deserve these comments. No, what he said is not ok, and I do not support it. I really hope we can work a way out of this Mav. What about, if one finds an article ok (**only** in this case of course), to blank it, perhaps even to orphan it, to put it aside for a while, perhaps to move it in a user space, and perhaps to recreate it by any means you might think acceptable later, with modifications ? __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree

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since we are on legal matters ...
by Daniel Mayer 26 Nov '03

26 Nov '03

tc wrote: >For a very long time I've advocated making it >explicit that the only authorship credit we >should require downstream is "Wikipedia >contributors" to avoid any bothersome >bullying or complaints such as what >Maverick is engaging in right now. What? I just mentioned as a small part of my argument that deleting an article and then posting /exactly/ the same text under a different user name and /not/ stating who wrote that text is a violation of the author requirement of the GNU FDL and thus opens us to potential litigation from the person who is not being credited. This person has already stated that he hates "Jimbo and his friends" and has called for "Wikipeida regime change in 2004." So how am I being a bully by pointing out something that could be used by such a person as a basis to harm Wikipedia? >But I'll try to believe that his actions >are merited by his good-intentioned but >unnecessary efforts to follow the GFDL on >behalf of 142 and not based on a goal of >censoring anything written by 142. It is not a matter of me censoring anything. He has already been hard banned so everything he writes is in violation of that ban and should be removed from the top edits of articles. Not doing so invalidates the ban and implicitly gives permission to everyone that the activity that the user was banned for is at worst OK and at best not something we try to stop. -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav) __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree

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Project Sourceberg
by Brion Vibber 26 Nov '03

26 Nov '03

In response to continual nagging, I've set up an original-sources wiki so people will stop dumping stuff in ps.wikipedia.org, which is supposed to be for the Pashto-language Wikipedia. http://sources.wikipedia.org/ now contains a basic wiki for dumping source documents into. Final domain name, title, logo, and magic sources-specific special features (like annotations) are a matter for the future. -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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since we are on legal matters ...
by Anthere 26 Nov '03

26 Nov '03

Since we are on legal matters, I would like that enlightement is brought to me on a GFDL license point : the one that is about authorship :-) Mav claims I am illegally removing the credit for text I did not write myself. I answered that I mentionned in the comment box that I was not the original author, hence not doing anything illegal and definitly not stealing anyone else job. Mav answers : Wrong. Read the author credit areas of the GNU Free Documentation License. So my question is : if none of us has the right to attribute to himself the credit of something written by someone else, what happen to all the major amount of text that is regularly clipped from one article, and moved to another page by someone who is not the original author of the text ? How does the licence handle that ? If the moved text contains legal issues, who is said liable, the lost original author, or the one who took the responsability of the move and who is consequently the owner of the edit? And is commenting in the comment box that we are not the original author of the edit not enough to insure legal rights of authorship are respected ? What are we supposed to do when moving someone else work ? Is commenting enough ? Or not ? Should we leave a message in the talk page ? Depending on the answers provided (I really understand little of the gfdl matters :-)) I would like also to have an old edit of mine restored as *mine*, as I was the main author of it. It is there http://en2.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Agricultural_science&action=his… The edits credited to Maveric and Robert Merkel are mine entirely. It was my fifth edit as Anthere. And my additions still constitute very much the core of the current article. It was a welcome present to the newbie Anthere that it was credited to someone else. Not to be a pain either, but I would like as well, that the creation of the article "Trade war over genetically modified food" credited to Graft, be credited to me, as the content was my work (Graft just excised it from "genetically modified food" that I had made a few days before) and as most of the article is still essentially my work. It is here http://en2.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Trade_war_over_genetically_modi… Now, * either legal issues are used to attack other wikipedians in dishonest ways, and if my work being credited to other people is making these edits illegal, then I really would like that these credits taken by other people be given back to me, to respect the license. I would not like that the license is not respected :-) In this case, any major move from one article to another should also mention clearly all the main authors of the piece moved. * or we admit that we are together building an encyclopedia, that ownership is secondary in our building process, and that what is important is the content, not the author. I would very much prefer that option :-) __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Free Pop-Up Blocker - Get it now http://companion.yahoo.com/

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