A newspaper article of Erik Möller about Wikipedia was printed today in the "Süddeutsche Zeitung", one of the largest newspapers in Germany (circulation about 450.000). In addition, we had a snow chaos last night and they link prominently to our article on [[Schnee]]. So, please, if possible, don't do anything which will bring down the servers from now on (it's 5:30 pm in Germany right now, people come back from work now) until tomorrow, unless it's really really necessary. There might be many people wanting to have a look at us today.
Uli
I suggest to prohibit users from changing their displayed username when they vote, discuss or participate in talk pages.
It creates confusion and I find this action highly suspicious.
For example a user may have the username "Blablabla" but he/she signs with "Mr12356".
Somebody could have a user account "Blablabla" and sign as "Optim". The link, of course, will lead to User:Blablabla... We can still investigate who wrote what by examining the username link.
But those who don't examine the links, will
Why people do this thing?
If somebody wants to hide his/her username, how can I trust him/her or pay attention to his/her vote or message?
If you want to hide your name, you can logoff and write as an anonymous IP address. Or change your username, or don't sign, or create more user accounts, or go to... {CENSORED} :)
May I call you (those who hide their name) to stop this behaviour, please?
If you just want to individualise your sign, you can do that with HTML, colours or whatever... but please let your username intact... So that we can know who votes or talks without having to examine the links.
Don't put "masks" on your usernames. I find this action as antisocial.
Because I notice several users, both new and old ones, who do that, I suggest to make a new policy in order to prohibit this phenomenon.
--Optim
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/
No good. Probably all the mediators and arbitrators need to edit, and fuss, under alternate names to keep bad feelings from developing toward them when they play their mediator or arbitrator role.
Fred
From: Optim optim81@yahoo.co.uk Reply-To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 09:54:05 -0800 (PST) To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikipedia-l] PROPOSED: Prohibition of alternate displayable usernames
I suggest to prohibit users from changing their displayed username when they vote, discuss or participate in talk pages.
It creates confusion and I find this action highly suspicious.
For example a user may have the username "Blablabla" but he/she signs with "Mr12356".
Somebody could have a user account "Blablabla" and sign as "Optim". The link, of course, will lead to User:Blablabla... We can still investigate who wrote what by examining the username link.
But those who don't examine the links, will
Why people do this thing?
If somebody wants to hide his/her username, how can I trust him/her or pay attention to his/her vote or message?
If you want to hide your name, you can logoff and write as an anonymous IP address. Or change your username, or don't sign, or create more user accounts, or go to... {CENSORED} :)
May I call you (those who hide their name) to stop this behaviour, please?
If you just want to individualise your sign, you can do that with HTML, colours or whatever... but please let your username intact... So that we can know who votes or talks without having to examine the links.
Don't put "masks" on your usernames. I find this action as antisocial.
Because I notice several users, both new and old ones, who do that, I suggest to make a new policy in order to prohibit this phenomenon.
--Optim
Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/ _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
There are all sorts of reasons that people may have for using pseudonyms in different circumstance, and I don't usually feel bothered by it. The best way to avoid the problem in connection with voting is to minimize the use of votes, most of which are a source of friction anyway. Even fewer votes should be binding.
Ec
Optim wrote:
I suggest to prohibit users from changing their displayed username when they vote, discuss or participate in talk pages.
It creates confusion and I find this action highly suspicious.
For example a user may have the username "Blablabla" but he/she signs with "Mr12356".
Somebody could have a user account "Blablabla" and sign as "Optim". The link, of course, will lead to User:Blablabla... We can still investigate who wrote what by examining the username link.
But those who don't examine the links, will
Why people do this thing?
If somebody wants to hide his/her username, how can I trust him/her or pay attention to his/her vote or message?
May I call you (those who hide their name) to stop this behaviour, please?
If you just want to individualise your sign, you can do that with HTML, colours or whatever... but please let your username intact... So that we can know who votes or talks without having to examine the links.
Don't put "masks" on your usernames. I find this action as antisocial.
Because I notice several users, both new and old ones, who do that, I suggest to make a new policy in order to prohibit this phenomenon.
I think at least in voting pages and policy discussion pages etc, hiding the real username should be considered harmful.
--Optim
--- Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
There are all sorts of reasons that people may have for using pseudonyms in different circumstance, and I don't usually feel bothered by it. The best way to avoid the problem in connection with voting is to minimize the use of votes, most of which are a source of friction anyway. Even fewer votes should be binding.
Ec
Optim wrote:
I suggest to prohibit users from changing
their
displayed username when they vote, discuss or participate in talk pages.
It creates confusion and I find this action highly suspicious.
For example a user may have the username "Blablabla" but he/she signs with "Mr12356".
Somebody could have a user account "Blablabla" and sign as "Optim". The link, of course, will lead to User:Blablabla... We can still investigate who wrote what by examining the username link.
But those who don't examine the links, will
Why people do this thing?
If somebody wants to hide his/her username,
how
can I trust him/her or pay attention to
his/her
vote or message?
May I call you (those who hide their name) to stop this behaviour, please?
If you just want to individualise your sign,
you
can do that with HTML, colours or whatever...
but
please let your username intact... So that we
can
know who votes or talks without having to
examine
the links.
Don't put "masks" on your usernames. I find
this
action as antisocial.
Because I notice several users, both new and
old
ones, who do that, I suggest to make a new
policy
in order to prohibit this phenomenon.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . till we *) . . .
Hi Optim,
I think at least in voting pages and policy discussion pages etc, hiding the real username should be considered harmful.
What exactly is the "real username"? My username is "tillwe", and my standard signature in Wikipedia is "till we *)" because I like it that way. My real real name is Till Westermayer. Which of the following voting signs should be legal (if used by me on a voting page)?
[[User:tillwe]] [[User:tillwe|till we *)]] [[User:tillwe|Till]] [[User:tillwe|Till Westermayer]] [[User:tillwe|Mr. Westermayer]] [[User:tillwe|***]] [[User:tillwe|A guy from Freiburg, Germany]] [[User:tillwe|Jimbo himself]] [[User:optim|till we *)]]
And why?
With the page history function and the preview of actual link I don't think we need this proposed prohibition.
Regards, Till __ . / / / / ... Till Westermayer - till we *) . . . mailto:till@tillwe.de . www.westermayer.de/till/ . icq 320393072 . Habsburgerstr. 82 . 79104 Freiburg . 0761 55697152 . 0160 96619179 . . . . .
The real username is the user account name.
This is allowed --> [[User:tillwe]] This is allowed --> [[User:tillwe|till we *)]] This is disallowed --> [[User:tillwe|Till]] This can be discussed --> [[User:tillwe|Till Westermayer]] This is can be discussed --> [[User:tillwe|Mr. Westermayer]] This is disallowed --> [[User:tillwe|***]] This is dissallowed --> [[User:tillwe|A guy from Freiburg, Germany]] This is bannable behaviour --> [[User:tillwe|Jimbo himself]] This is bannable behaviour --> [[User:optim|till we *)]]
when I say "this is allowed" etc I mean "according to my idea". My idea may change according to the input and arguments of other wikipedians, including you.
an "attempt to hide your real username" is defined as: Any action which results in inability of other wikipedians to say what your real user account is without examining your userpage link.
examining one's userpage link is usually done by using the mouse to point on the link and reading the browser's status bar message which reveals the target address. However, in other environments (PDAs?) or text mode browsers (Lynx?) this may not be so easy. Hypothetically, copying and pasting a discussion will result in loss of the wiki-markup and the links, and if you hide, mask, encrypt, change or whatever your username, it will be impossible to say who you are by reading the pasted content.
[[User:tillwe]] is allowed because it is your real username.
[[User:tillwe|till we *)]] is allowed because it contains your real username and the possibility to be confused with another username is close to zero. Everything which contains your exact real username is allowed, as long as it cannot create confusion or be misunderstood as another username. [[User:Optim|Optimus]] would be disallowed because another user Optimus may exist and other wikipedians may not immediatelly understand that Optimus=Optim. [[User:Optim|Optim .'.]] is allowed because others wikipedians can normally immediately understand that "Optim .'." is "Optim". The possibility for someone to create a useraccount with decorative text approaches zero. If another useraccount "Optim .'." exists, it would be disallowed for me to use it in my signature.
[[User:tillwe|Till]] is disallowed because it creates confusion and can be used as a way to hide your real username. If you want to hide your identity you can logoff and post with an anonymous IP. Also, another useraccount may exist with the name "Till". Not everybody knows your first name, so we should examine the link in order to understand who you are.
[[User:tillwe|Till Westermayer]] this can be discussed. I am undecided on this. I want to listen to you and other wikipedians about how they think on this. My initial idea on this: Disallowed because not everybody knows your full name so we cannot say that Till Westermayer is tillwe until we examine the link. However this is your legal name and it is acceptable from a legal POV, so it should be also acceptable in the wiki. For the moment I am undecided. How do you think?
[[User:tillwe|Mr. Westermayer]] this can also be discussed. I am undecided on this. I want to listen to you and other wikipedians about how they think on this. My initial idea on this: Disallowed because not everybody knows your last name so we cannot say that Mr. Westermayer is tillwe until we examine the link. However this is your legal name and it is acceptable from a legal POV, so it should be also acceptable in the wiki. For the moment I am undecided. How do you think?
[[User:tillwe|***]] this is disallowed because it is an attempt to hide your real username.
[[User:tillwe|A guy from Freiburg, Germany]] this is disallowed because it is an attempt to hide your real username.
[[User:tillwe|Jimbo himself]] is bannable behaviour because you pretend to be someone else.
[[User:optim|till we *)]] is bannable behaviour: it creates confusion until someone examines the Page history. Some people may think that it was me that posted the message.
Why we need the prohibition:
Someone may vote to delete one of the articles I started and I feel emotionally involved and I don't want it to be deleted. hypothetically I could go to the vfd page and I vote NO with the signature [[User:Optim|Angela]]. I hope you understand why this is bad. Another possibility: I go to the vfd page and I vote NO with the signature [[User:Optim|blablabla]]. My intention would be to make people think that I am another user not emotionally involved in the issue. Only the users who will examine my userpage link will understand who I really was. If someone tells me that it is "illegal" to sign with [[User:Optim|blablabla]] I may request to see an actual policy page which prohibits this kind of signature, etc etc etc...
--Optim
--- Till Westermayer till@tillwe.de wrote:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . till we *) . . .
Hi Optim,
I think at least in voting pages and policy discussion pages etc, hiding the real username should be considered harmful.
What exactly is the "real username"? My username is "tillwe", and my standard signature in Wikipedia is "till we *)" because I like it that way. My real real name is Till Westermayer. Which of the following voting signs should be legal (if used by me on a voting page)?
[[User:tillwe]] [[User:tillwe|till we *)]] [[User:tillwe|Till]] [[User:tillwe|Till Westermayer]] [[User:tillwe|Mr. Westermayer]] [[User:tillwe|***]] [[User:tillwe|A guy from Freiburg, Germany]] [[User:tillwe|Jimbo himself]] [[User:optim|till we *)]]
And why?
With the page history function and the preview of actual link I don't think we need this proposed prohibition.
Regards, Till __ . / / / / ... Till Westermayer - till we *) . . . mailto:till@tillwe.de . www.westermayer.de/till/ . icq 320393072 . Habsburgerstr. 82 . 79104 Freiburg . 0761 55697152 . 0160 96619179 . . . . . _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/
Optim a écrit:
[[User:tillwe|Jimbo himself]] is bannable behaviour because you pretend to be someone else.
[[User:optim|till we *)]] is bannable behaviour: it creates confusion until someone examines the Page history. Some people may think that it was me that posted the message.
My....I am remembering the number of people that could be banned for similar offense in the past 2 years, and my mouth gap in amazement :-)
Beginning by me :-(((((
Anthere wrote:
Optim a écrit:
[[User:tillwe|Jimbo himself]] is bannable behaviour because you pretend to be someone else.
[[User:optim|till we *)]] is bannable behaviour: it creates confusion until someone examines the Page history. Some people may think that it was me that posted the message.
My....I am remembering the number of people that could be banned for similar offense in the past 2 years, and my mouth gap in amazement :-)
Beginning by me :-(((((
Good point Anthere. I think like all rules this would need common sense and flexibility. You signing as [[User:Anthere|Ant]] is obviously not intended to mislead, me signing as [[User:Sannse|Anthere]] would be rather more questionable, and me signing as [[User:Anthere|Anthere]] would be wrong.
Actually in the examples above someone signing as "Jimbo himself" would probably be just a bit of obvious silliness and nothing to get worked up about.
--sannse
yes we need flexibility.
As I said the proposed prohibition seeks to prevent malicious behaviour and not to make our life difficult.
many people "mask" their usernames but they don't have malicious intention. Most of them use the same "mask" all the time.
If we can have a consensus that a policy regarding "masked" usernames is needed, we can start discussing the details and formulate the policy so that it will be flexible and will not make our life difficult.
Also, nobody will be "prosecuted" until the policy will be in effect. And of course the policy should be well-formulated in order to avoid misunderstandings and "prosecution" of non-malicious users.
How could we distinguish malicious from non-malicious behaviour with a formulated policy (i.e. without human judgement) ?
--Optim
--- sannse sannse@delphiforums.com wrote:
Good point Anthere. I think like all rules this would need common sense and flexibility. You signing as [[User:Anthere|Ant]] is obviously not intended to mislead, me signing as [[User:Sannse|Anthere]] would be rather more questionable, and me signing as [[User:Anthere|Anthere]] would be wrong.
Actually in the examples above someone signing as "Jimbo himself" would probably be just a bit of obvious silliness and nothing to get worked up about.
--sannse
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . till we *) . . .
Hi Optim,
How could we distinguish malicious from non-malicious behaviour with a formulated policy (i.e. without human judgement) ?
why exactly do we need that? Why can't human jugdement and maybe the one or other discussion be enough?
Till
__ . / / / / ... Till Westermayer - till we *) . . . mailto:till@tillwe.de . www.westermayer.de/till/ . icq 320393072 . Habsburgerstr. 82 . 79104 Freiburg . 0761 55697152 . 0160 96619179 . . . . .
Optim a écrit:
yes we need flexibility.
As I said the proposed prohibition seeks to prevent malicious behaviour and not to make our life difficult.
many people "mask" their usernames but they don't have malicious intention. Most of them use the same "mask" all the time.
If we can have a consensus that a policy regarding "masked" usernames is needed, we can start discussing the details and formulate the policy so that it will be flexible and will not make our life difficult.
Also, nobody will be "prosecuted" until the policy will be in effect. And of course the policy should be well-formulated in order to avoid misunderstandings and "prosecution" of non-malicious users.
How could we distinguish malicious from non-malicious behaviour with a formulated policy (i.e. without human judgement) ?
--Optim
I think that a policy here would be inappropriate. Common sense is appropriate. Please, do not turn Wikipedia in something worse that french administration. Too many policies, kill the policies that really matter :-)
my rationale is that small communities don't need many policies and rules but large communities tend to use them more because they need the policies.
As wikipedia becomes more popular, we will face new problems and new trollying behaviour that we will need to fight. We can build the policy from before so that we can be ready when the problem arises. We already have ~200K articles. As we grow, we may attract more troublemakers too.
unfortunately... in a large community it is difficult not to use policies and rules.
the proposed prohibition is not meant to limit individuality and personal creative expression but to make the life difficult for people who may use "masked" usernames as a means of creating some confusion etc.
--Optim
--- Anthere anthere8@yahoo.com wrote:
Optim a �crit:
yes we need flexibility.
As I said the proposed prohibition seeks to prevent malicious behaviour and not to make
our
life difficult.
many people "mask" their usernames but they
don't
have malicious intention. Most of them use
the
same "mask" all the time.
If we can have a consensus that a policy regarding "masked" usernames is needed, we
can
start discussing the details and formulate
the
policy so that it will be flexible and will
not
make our life difficult.
Also, nobody will be "prosecuted" until the policy will be in effect. And of course the policy should be well-formulated in order to avoid misunderstandings and "prosecution" of non-malicious users.
How could we distinguish malicious from non-malicious behaviour with a formulated
policy
(i.e. without human judgement) ?
--Optim
I think that a policy here would be inappropriate. Common sense is appropriate. Please, do not turn Wikipedia in something worse that french administration. Too many policies, kill the policies that really matter :-)
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship&...
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship&...
*Oppose - as a father and teacher Uwe spends too much time on wikipedia anyway [[User:Vikings|sailor]] 01:42, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC) ''([[User:JamesDay]] notes that sailor is [[User:Vikings]])''
and I ask:
why we need to run after them and note their "username tricks" ?? why not just prohibit this behaviour??
I didn't want to refer to certain examples at first, so I was discussing from a theoretical point of view.
Now whith this actual example, how do you think?
--Optim
--- Optim optim81@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
my rationale is that small communities don't need many policies and rules but large communities tend to use them more because they need the policies.
As wikipedia becomes more popular, we will face new problems and new trollying behaviour that we will need to fight. We can build the policy from before so that we can be ready when the problem arises. We already have ~200K articles. As we grow, we may attract more troublemakers too.
unfortunately... in a large community it is difficult not to use policies and rules.
the proposed prohibition is not meant to limit individuality and personal creative expression but to make the life difficult for people who may use "masked" usernames as a means of creating some confusion etc.
--Optim
--- Anthere anthere8@yahoo.com wrote:
Optim a �crit:
yes we need flexibility.
As I said the proposed prohibition seeks to prevent malicious behaviour and not to make
our
life difficult.
many people "mask" their usernames but they
don't
have malicious intention. Most of them use
the
same "mask" all the time.
If we can have a consensus that a policy regarding "masked" usernames is needed, we
can
start discussing the details and formulate
the
policy so that it will be flexible and will
not
make our life difficult.
Also, nobody will be "prosecuted" until the policy will be in effect. And of course the policy should be well-formulated in order
to
avoid misunderstandings and "prosecution"
of
non-malicious users.
How could we distinguish malicious from non-malicious behaviour with a formulated
policy
(i.e. without human judgement) ?
--Optim
I think that a policy here would be inappropriate. Common sense is appropriate. Please, do not turn Wikipedia in something worse that french administration. Too many policies,
kill
the policies that really matter :-)
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/ _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org