Gareth wrote:
No, it hasn't. The load of merciless editing has already driven away the valued and reasonable Julie Hoffman Kemp, and yet many of the German and French history pages she looked to save are still full of petty nationalists. Kooks 1, Wikipedia 0.
And Michael Tinkler. Kooks 2, Wikipedia 0.
kq
What with the recent discussion of banning "problem" users, I thought I'd bring this up for discussion/re-discussion.
Our policy on banning people for vandalism is (as I interpret what I've read) that we restrict it to "repeated and sustained" non-useful alterations of articles.
However, it's September, the high school and college students are back with their free school accounts, and inevitably the amount of drive-by vandalism seems to be on the increase. Several of us constantly check new edits by unknown contributors, and even then, we're missing vandalism that only turns up later when paging through via "Random Page" or otherwise coming across an article. As the number of articles goes up, the chance of locating such vandalism goes down.
I've tried a few approaches to ameliorating this. I regularly check "this user's contributions" for vandals, and even sometimes for unfamiliar IP's (*thank* you folks for adding that code feature!) I do keyword searches for common obscenities, et cetera. (No, Cunctator, I don't remove them if they're obviously part of the article.) And, of course, I haunt the "Recent Changes" page. But I think it's getting harder to keep up.
I would like to suggest we add "obviously malicious vandalism" to reasons for an immediate (if temporary) IP ban: a single "Ths page is stupid" should be, in my opinion, enough to ban the address. This saves us from having to spend time on the next five instances of vandalism from that contributor, which could be better spent searching for other graffiti or *gasp* actually adding content.
Sure, one person's vandalism is another person's newbie goof. I would agree that if there's any reasonable possibility that a change was just a newbie goof or something similar, we should err on the side of caution and not ban. But in the really obvious cases - "PHREAK WUZ HERE!!" "Louis IV was a dirty frog" "f*ck you all", and similar - I honestly think we should go ahead and administer a slapdown in the form of a temporary IP ban. If they' re just drive-by vandals, they'll lose interest that much faster; if it is a serious vandal, they'll at least have to go to the trouble of getting a new IP# for each new instance of vandalism.
Yes, there's the possibility that someone may be too quick on the gun and ban someone who might, in the fullness of time, have become a useful contributor. But me, I think... do we really *want* a contributor who is starting off on the level of adding "This is so gay" to a page? The time just bringing them up to speed hardly seems worth it. If they're really *serious* about becoming a real contributor, they'll just have to wait for the ban to expire or appeal to the list.
My two cents (approx. $0.03 Canadian). -- April
Rosa Williams wrote:
[cut]
I've tried a few approaches to ameliorating this. I regularly check "this user's contributions" for vandals, and even sometimes for unfamiliar IP's (*thank* you folks for adding that code feature!) I do keyword searches for common obscenities, et cetera. (No, Cunctator, I don't remove them if they're obviously part of the article.) And, of course, I haunt the "Recent Changes" page. But I think it's getting harder to keep up. [cut]
For easy spotting of vandalism a special page whit suspicious changes can mayby be of some use. A rule system that gives points to actions and if it gets a certain value its gets listed. Somthing like spamassassin (http://spamassassin.org ) Offcource to suggest somthing or to make it work is somthing else. -- giskart
--- Rosa Williams aprilrosanina@charter.net wrote:
Yes, there's the possibility that someone may be too quick on the gun and ban someone who might, in the fullness of time, have become a useful contributor. But me, I think... do we really *want* a contributor who is starting off on the level of adding "This is so gay" to a page? The time just bringing them up to speed hardly seems worth it. If they're really *serious* about becoming a real contributor, they'll just have to wait for the ban to expire or appeal to the list.
I should point out the case of Jzcool, who started off making "This is gay" edits, and then made many useful contributions. Was it worth it to put up with some nonsense while a few Wikipedians showed him how to be constructive? I say yes.
Stephen Gilbert
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance - Get real-time stock quotes http://finance.yahoo.com
Rosa Williams wrote:
What with the recent discussion of banning "problem" users, I thought I'd bring this up for discussion/re-discussion.
Our policy on banning people for vandalism is (as I interpret what I've read) that we restrict it to "repeated and sustained" non-useful alterations of articles.
However, it's September, the high school and college students are back with their free school accounts, and inevitably the amount of drive-by vandalism seems to be on the increase. Several of us constantly check new edits by unknown contributors, and even then, we're missing vandalism that only turns up later when paging through via "Random Page" or otherwise coming across an article. As the number of articles goes up, the chance of locating such vandalism goes down.
I've tried a few approaches to ameliorating this. I regularly check "this user's contributions" for vandals, and even sometimes for unfamiliar IP's (*thank* you folks for adding that code feature!) I do keyword searches for common obscenities, et cetera. (No, Cunctator, I don't remove them if they're obviously part of the article.) And, of course, I haunt the "Recent Changes" page. But I think it's getting harder to keep up.
I would like to suggest we add "obviously malicious vandalism" to reasons for an immediate (if temporary) IP ban: a single "Ths page is stupid" should be, in my opinion, enough to ban the address. This saves us from having to spend time on the next five instances of vandalism from that contributor, which could be better spent searching for other graffiti or *gasp* actually adding content.
My understanding of how ip banning and common use of reassignment of IP numbers leads me to this concern:
If too many casual or hit and run type vandals are banned that we are likely banning the next users, not the vandal. This could be counterproductive if it occurs in conjunction with recruiting efforts or methods under discussion in other threads.
For high school or college users to begin relying on the Wikipedia as a resource timely access is required due to homework deadlines, typically on the order of days or hours, not weeks. Encountering frequent blocks due to local vandals on the same pool of IP addresses is likely to encourage the view that Wikipedia is unreliable, not that inappropriate local use is causing the problem. If the user becomes aware that he/she is being punished for another's misdeeds this could form an even worse impression.
Sure, one person's vandalism is another person's newbie goof. I would agree that if there's any reasonable possibility that a change was just a newbie goof or something similar, we should err on the side of caution and not ban. But in the really obvious cases - "PHREAK WUZ HERE!!" "Louis IV was a dirty frog" "f*ck you all", and similar - I honestly think we should go ahead and administer a slapdown in the form of a temporary IP ban. If they' re just drive-by vandals, they'll lose interest that much faster; if it is a serious vandal, they'll at least have to go to the trouble of getting a new IP# for each new instance of vandalism.
What period of time for routine banning would you (anyone) suggest as an estimate of the initial proper tradeoff between potential denial of service to legitimate users and the attention span of casual or hit and run type vandalism?
Are you aware that denial of service is often the goal of low level crackers or "script kiddies"?
This type of banning could actually become an incentive or invitation to certain types of vandal mentalities if structured and managed carefully.
Yes, there's the possibility that someone may be too quick on the gun and ban someone who might, in the fullness of time, have become a useful contributor. But me, I think... do we really *want* a contributor who is starting off on the level of adding "This is so gay" to a page?
Yes. If they (some threshold percentage to be determined later with empirical data) become productive contributers we should eventually show a profit.
I agree it is a long term investment. I agree it is possible to be losing more initially than we are gaining until more effective methods are found.
If the decision (for now) is to stick with quick, known, short term returns then I propose we plan to periodically reassess the policy. We should document the periodic review process so that interested members of the community know when, where, how to appropriately express their current views.
The time just bringing them up to speed hardly seems worth it.
It seems worth it to me. If there is sufficient interest in mutual self education then this can be left to those who choose to volunteer for it. If we decide that we have no time for this in the stacks then perhaps an alternate medium for "remedial" students and volunteer contributors can be established.
Directing newcomer's to an NPOV editing tutorial for practice if interested may be more effective that directing them to the current draft of the policy which is only lightly endorsed by members of the community and is at least subtle for many people if not actually "obviously" confusing.
Elsewhere I have proposed an ECP (engineering change proposal) or code walkthrough type of approach that would require three "vandals" to agree with each other that the "vandalism" is an appropriate change. This should slow down and break up vandalism, without potential denial of service, in several ways.
1. More effort is required to create the fake accounts and engage in the vandalism. It may be easier to delete 3 accounts and revert the damage than it is for the creator of the vandalism. Perhaps a delay on account creation with an appropriate explanation would slow down vandals while not discouraging new dropings unduly.
2. Any "vandals" editing in good faith are likley to encounter resistance from cohorts. They can spend some time bickering among themselves on the talk page or elsewhere determining what is or is not appropriate. Any defectors to our published guidelines should be welcomed.
Perhaps an appropriate modification of my proposed approached could be combined with the page freezing proposed elsewhere for occasional testing. When a freeze is invoked, changes could only proceed once the requirements of the ECP process are met. The parties to the controversy now have an incentive to agree or move on, not all Wiki authority has been stripped away for excessive controversiality. Only unilateral editing of the controversial subject page undergoing excessive flip flop editing or "edit war".
If they're really *serious* about becoming a real contributor, they'll just have to wait for the ban to expire or appeal to the list.
It is my impression that we get more casual contributors that become serious with increasing contribution and recognition of the long term value, than that people who show up intending initially to be seriously committed long term contributors.
In other words, we have a buy in process that works if people do not face too high a bar to begin contributing or do not suffer burn out attempting to do too much work themselves.
Regards, Mike Irwin
Michael R. Irwin wrote:
[cut]
My understanding of how ip banning and common use of reassignment of IP numbers leads me to this concern:
If too many casual or hit and run type vandals are banned that we are likely banning the next users, not the vandal. This could be counterproductive if it occurs in conjunction with recruiting efforts or methods under discussion in other threads.
For high school or college users to begin relying on the Wikipedia as a resource timely access is required due to homework deadlines, typically on the order of days or hours, not weeks. Encountering frequent blocks due to local vandals on the same pool of IP addresses is likely to encourage the view that Wikipedia is unreliable, not that inappropriate local use is causing the problem. If the user becomes aware that he/she is being punished for another's misdeeds this could form an even worse impression.
[cut]
I have not (yet) been banned so i do not realy know but the language configurationfile says "
"blockiptext" => "Use the form below to block write access from a specific IP address. This should be done only only to prevent valndalism, and in accordance with [[Wikipedia:Policy|Wikipedia policy]]. Fill in a specific reason below (for example, citing particular pages that were vandalized)."
So your not realy blocking a user from accesing Wikipedia. He can still read all the articels. He can only not change them. For making has homework he does not need to change content. -- giskart
Giskart wrote:
Michael R. Irwin wrote:
[cut]
My understanding of how ip banning and common use of reassignment of IP numbers leads me to this concern:
If too many casual or hit and run type vandals are banned that we are likely banning the next users, not the vandal. This could be counterproductive if it occurs in conjunction with recruiting efforts or methods under discussion in other threads.
For high school or college users to begin relying on the Wikipedia as a resource timely access is required due to homework deadlines, typically on the order of days or hours, not weeks. Encountering frequent blocks due to local vandals on the same pool of IP addresses is likely to encourage the view that Wikipedia is unreliable, not that inappropriate local use is causing the problem. If the user becomes aware that he/she is being punished for another's misdeeds this could form an even worse impression.
[cut]
I have not (yet) been banned so i do not realy know but the language configurationfile says "
"blockiptext" => "Use the form below to block write access from a specific IP address. This should be done only only to prevent valndalism, and in accordance with [[Wikipedia:Policy|Wikipedia policy]]. Fill in a specific reason below (for example, citing particular pages that were vandalized)."
So your not realy blocking a user from accesing Wikipedia. He can still read all the articels. He can only not change them. For making has homework he does not need to change content. -- giskart
I believe you are correct. Others have corrected this type of poor wording/thinking for me before. This obviously relieves the primary focus of my concern above.
A related smaller concern. I find that much of my contribution is in the form of making small updates when researching or doing some background reading in support of personal projects.
I think getting the students used to contributing tidbits, questions (on associated talk pages) or routine corrections in the course of their routine work as appropriate will be quite useful. This may ultimately be the major form of contribution by most people, as our material gets more detailed and broad. Occasional write block interference or aliasing would disrupt this form of contribution. If persisent from certain sites it be highly disruptive in attracting contributors from that site.
To me this appears to be a smaller short term impact than the scenario I devised above around faulty assumptions. Longer term is harder to estimate. If we wish to encourage a participatory trend this may be a negative. If the trend to begin contributing as (it is feasible and convenient) turns out to be quite strong among casual users, then I think it is probably negligable.
If vandals find denial of Wikipedia write access to local populations sharing a common IP address pool amusing, it may increase our attractiveness as a target.
Thanks for correcting my error.
Regards, Mike Irwin
Michael R. Irwin wrote:
If too many casual or hit and run type vandals are banned that we are likely banning the next users, not the vandal.
That's true, but I think it just shows that we should clear the banlist from time to time.
For high school or college users to begin relying on the Wikipedia as a resource timely access is required due to homework deadlines, typically on the order of days or hours, not weeks.
Banning only affects editing, not reading.
What period of time for routine banning would you (anyone) suggest as an estimate of the initial proper tradeoff between potential denial of service to legitimate users and the attention span of casual or hit and run type vandalism?
It probably depends on the context, the time of year, etc.
--Jimbo
At 04:32 PM 9/7/02 -0400, you wrote:
...a single "Ths page is stupid" should be, in my opinion, enough to ban the address. -- April
No, We cannot ban Larry.
Fred
Banning the sites of vandals (especially high school students with free accounts) presents some problems. Such sites are are natural customers. Since a person will probably come through from different computers with different IPs the individual cannot be banned, only the site.
Fred
Fellow Wikipedians, I want to say that I am thoroughly pleased with the current Wikipedia software. It is stable, speedy and useful. I think it's time we gave it a name other than "the Phase III software".
Back in the mists of Wikipedia history, two names were proposed for the new Phase II software:
1. Larry Sanger suggested the name "Encyclode", which stood for "Encyclopedia Code". Mr. Sanger himself admitted this was a very lame attempt.
2. Jimbo Wales favoured "PediaWiki", so he could say "Wikipedia runs on PediaWiki".
I sumbit these two for your consideration, but I hope you don't consider them for very long. ;-)
I like the name "PhaseIII Wiki". It is in keeping with Wikipedia history, and people won't have to get used to a completely new name.
Any other suggestions?
Stephen Gilbert
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance - Get real-time stock quotes http://finance.yahoo.com
Stephen Gilbert wrote:
Fellow Wikipedians, I want to say that I am thoroughly pleased with the current Wikipedia software. It is stable, speedy and useful. I think it's time we gave it a name other than "the Phase III software".
Back in the mists of Wikipedia history, two names were proposed for the new Phase II software:
- Larry Sanger suggested the name "Encyclode", which
stood for "Encyclopedia Code". Mr. Sanger himself admitted this was a very lame attempt.
- Jimbo Wales favoured "PediaWiki", so he could say
"Wikipedia runs on PediaWiki".
I sumbit these two for your consideration, but I hope you don't consider them for very long. ;-)
I like the name "PhaseIII Wiki". It is in keeping with Wikipedia history, and people won't have to get used to a completely new name.
Any other suggestions?
How about Wiki Accountable or Wiki Archive, WA for short. It could be codenamed for another world known revolutionary.
Washington, who helped found and lead a rather minor backwater country with a view towards future potential. Subsequent versions or translations to other languages could be named for other recognized visionaries around the world.
This would obviously state our projections of great things to come for the current "washington" code and other derivatives as they arrive.
Alternatively, we could start with Caesar or Gandhi.
Regards, Mike Irwin
On Sun, 8 Sep 2002, Michael R. Irwin wrote:
Washington, who helped found and lead a rather minor backwater country with a view towards future potential. Subsequent versions or translations to other languages could be named for other recognized visionaries around the world.
Alternatively, we could start with Caesar or Gandhi.
Or Che Guevara.
-- Daniel
Stephen Gilbert wrote:
Fellow Wikipedians, I want to say that I am thoroughly pleased with the current Wikipedia software. It is stable, speedy and useful. I think it's time we gave it a name other than "the Phase III software".
I like the name "PhaseIII Wiki". It is in keeping with Wikipedia history, and people won't have to get used to a completely new name.
I don't think that it's reasonable to have a name that says "Wiki" but not "Pedia". We are not the only Wiki around, nor the original, and I don't relish the prospect of one day, when we're famous, explaining to people that "Wiki" does not mean just Wikipedia (as I now have to explain that the "Internet" isn't just the Web).
My vote is for "PediaWiki". We now have "PediaWiki version 3". ("3" as in "3.0", except that we're far beyond just 3.0 by now.)
-- Toby
Toby Bartels wrote:
Stephen Gilbert wrote:
I don't think that it's reasonable to have a name that says "Wiki" but not "Pedia". We are not the only Wiki around, nor the original, and I don't relish the prospect of one day, when we're famous, explaining to people that "Wiki" does not mean just Wikipedia.
My vote is for "PediaWiki". We now have "PediaWiki version 3". ("3" as in "3.0", except that we're far beyond just 3.0 by now.)
I would be very careful about using any words beginning with "pedia-" or anything similar. The Greek root for this relates to children, and even the slightest inadvertant suggestion that the name could have anything at all to do with kiddy-porn may bring a whole lot of unwanted traffic.
Ec
On Fri, 2002-09-20 at 17:28, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Toby Bartels wrote:
Stephen Gilbert wrote:
I don't think that it's reasonable to have a name that says "Wiki" but not "Pedia". We are not the only Wiki around, nor the original, and I don't relish the prospect of one day, when we're famous, explaining to people that "Wiki" does not mean just Wikipedia.
My vote is for "PediaWiki". We now have "PediaWiki version 3". ("3" as in "3.0", except that we're far beyond just 3.0 by now.)
I would be very careful about using any words beginning with "pedia-" or anything similar. The Greek root for this relates to children, and even the slightest inadvertant suggestion that the name could have anything at all to do with kiddy-porn may bring a whole lot of unwanted traffic.
I wouldn't like to be a paediatrician if things are as bad as you suggest, then ;). I don't think paedophiles find their preferred internet sites through googling for "pedia". Just can't see it myself. I don't see that calling something pediawiki is going to get any "unwanted" traffic, frankly...you're a bit too worried I think :)
I think we should take the "pedia" reference up a layer of abstraction. Maybe "Reference" Wiki. Broaden the scope a little. We don't want to limit it to only people who want to make another WikiPedia. If that were the goal then we should just call it WikiPedia software (to differentiate it from WikiPedia Data)
-Jim
Toby Bartels wrote:
Stephen Gilbert wrote:
I don't think that it's reasonable to have a name that says "Wiki" but not "Pedia". We are not the only Wiki around, nor the original, and I don't relish the prospect of one day, when we're famous, explaining to people that "Wiki" does not mean just Wikipedia.
My vote is for "PediaWiki". We now have "PediaWiki version 3". ("3" as in "3.0", except that we're far beyond just 3.0 by now.)
On Fri, 2002-09-20 at 17:28, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Toby Bartels wrote: I would be very careful about using any words beginning with "pedia-" or anything similar. The Greek root for this relates to children, and even the slightest inadvertant suggestion that the name could have anything at all to do with kiddy-porn may bring a whole lot of unwanted traffic.
I wouldn't like to be a paediatrician if things are as bad as you suggest, then ;).
I would get rid of that smiley if I were you - see: http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_49785.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/wales/901723.stm
Andre Engels
On Fri, 2002-09-20 at 23:23, Andre Engels wrote:
On Fri, 2002-09-20 at 17:28, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Toby Bartels wrote: I would be very careful about using any words beginning with "pedia-" or anything similar. The Greek root for this relates to children, and even the slightest inadvertant suggestion that the name could have anything at all to do with kiddy-porn may bring a whole lot of unwanted traffic.
I wouldn't like to be a paediatrician if things are as bad as you suggest, then ;).
I would get rid of that smiley if I were you - see: http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_49785.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/wales/901723.stm
Ah, well spotted, that's exactly the thing I was thinking of :). But I was rather saying I don't think it'd be like that for an obscure reference to the name "PediaWiki" somewhere.
Andre Engels wrote:
On Fri, 2002-09-20 at 17:28, Ray Saintonge wrote:
I would be very careful about using any words beginning with "pedia-" or anything similar. The Greek root for this relates to children, and even the slightest inadvertant suggestion that the name could have anything at all to do with kiddy-porn may bring a whole lot of unwanted traffic.
I wouldn't like to be a paediatrician if things are as bad as you suggest, then ;).
I would get rid of that smiley if I were you - see: http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_49785.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/wales/901723.stm
Never underestimate the intellectual persuasiveness of ignorance!
Eclecticology wrote:
Toby Bartels wrote:
My vote is for "PediaWiki". We now have "PediaWiki version 3". ("3" as in "3.0", except that we're far beyond just 3.0 by now.)
I would be very careful about using any words beginning with "pedia-" or anything similar. The Greek root for this relates to children, and even the slightest inadvertant suggestion that the name could have anything at all to do with kiddy-porn may bring a whole lot of unwanted traffic.
Kiddy-porn is spelled "pedophilia", not "pediaphilia". They don't sound much alike to me.
-- Toby
Toby Bartels wrote:
Stephen Gilbert wrote:
Fellow Wikipedians, I want to say that I am thoroughly pleased with the current Wikipedia software. It is stable, speedy and useful. I think it's time we gave it a name other than "the Phase III software".
I like the name "PhaseIII Wiki". It is in keeping with Wikipedia history, and people won't have to get used to a completely new name.
I don't think that it's reasonable to have a name that says "Wiki" but not "Pedia". We are not the only Wiki around, nor the original, and I don't relish the prospect of one day, when we're famous, explaining to people that "Wiki" does not mean just Wikipedia (as I now have to explain that the "Internet" isn't just the Web).
My vote is for "PediaWiki". We now have "PediaWiki version 3". ("3" as in "3.0", except that we're far beyond just 3.0 by now.)
-- Toby [Wikipedia-l] To manage your subscription to this list, please go here: http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
I vote for "Phase III Wikipedia software" which is * a good name, * what it is currently being called, and * self-descriptive
Neil
My vote is for "PediaWiki".
I don't like it, because Pediatrics is the branch of medicine dealing with children, so the name implies a Wiki for (or about) children.
Axel
__________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New DSL Internet Access from SBC & Yahoo! http://sbc.yahoo.com
Axel Boldt wrote:
My vote is for "PediaWiki".
I don't like it, because Pediatrics is the branch of medicine dealing with children, so the name implies a Wiki for (or about) children.
PediaWiki would be good for a 'junior' version :) I don't see what's wrong with calling it the 'Phase III software' like everybody already does - it's going to be replaced soon enough by the Phase IV software and then you'll just be scrambling for another name!
Karen AKA Kajikit wrote:
Axel Boldt wrote:
Toby Bartels wrote:
My vote is for "PediaWiki".
I don't like it, because Pediatrics is the branch of medicine dealing with children, so the name implies a Wiki for (or about) children.
PediaWiki would be good for a 'junior' version :) I don't see what's wrong with calling it the 'Phase III software' like everybody already does - it's going to be replaced soon enough by the Phase IV software and then you'll just be scrambling for another name!
If we do, it'll only be because Axel deleted my next sentence above. The Phase IV software will be called (in my proposal) PediaWiki 4.0. What else?
-- Toby
I would imagine that Phase III will last some time: the current software base is very robust and extensible, and can take lots more features without major re-architecture.
Even moving the database and various front-end servers to different machines is still possible with the current Phase III software. (By the way, this is a good reason not to consolidate all the national databases in a single database, as we will only have to unpick them later on for scaling reasons.)
Phase IV will presumably mark the move to a distributed cluster architecture to cope with the sort of load that overwhelmed Britannica when they originally released their entire content for free.
Neil
A bit of twiddling with a ruler on a log-linear graph of the article count vs. time appears to show a "natural" exponential growth rate of between:
"Optimistic", based on May 2001 - May 2002, ignoring the Great Slowdown, and also fitting the most recent slope:
exp(0.18 * months)
"Pessimistic", fitting May 2001 - present including the Great Slowdown:
exp(0.125 * months)
This produces these extrapolations, assuming exponential growth.
Month, optimistic, pessimistic Sep 2002, 45000, 45000 ) 50,000 is reached sometime Oct 2002, 54000, 51000 ) in these two months Nov 2002, 64000, 58000 Dec 2002, 77000, 65000
Jan 2003, 92000, 74000 Feb 2003, 111000, 84000 <--- optimistic 100,000 Mar 2003, 133000, 95000 Apr 2003, 159000, 108000 <--- pessimistic 100,000 May 2003, 190000, 122000 Jun 2003, 227000, 139000 Jul 2003, 272000, 157000 Aug 2003, 326000, 178000 Sep 2003, 390000, 202000 Oct 2003, 467000, 229000 Nov 2003, 559000, 259000 <--- optimistic 500,000 Dec 2003, 670000, 293000
Jan 2004, 802000, 333000 Feb 2004, 960000, 377000 Mar 2004, 1149000, 427000 <--- optimistic 1,000,000 Apr 2004, 1376000, 484000 May 2004, 1647000, 548000 <--- pessimistic 500,000 Jun 2004, 1972000, 621000 Jul 2004, 2361000, 704000 Aug 2004, 2826000, 798000 Sep 2004, 3383000, 904000 Oct 2004, 4051000, 1024000 <--- pessimistic 1,000,000 Nov 2004, 4850000, 1161000 Dec 2004, 5806000, 1315000
Some posibel interesting numbers;
Usenet postings that contain the word "wikipedia" before 01/2001 = 0 01/2001 = 0 02/2001 = 4 03/2001 = 0 04/2001 = 19 05/2001 = 19 06/2001 = 54 07/2001 = 27 08/2001 = 84 09/2001 = 152 10/2001 = 87 11/2001 = 133 12/2001 = 105 01/2002 = 161 02/2002 = 102 03/2002 = 112 04/2002 = 141 05/2002 = 149 06/2002 = 208 07/2002 = 305 08/2002 = 389
(source google)
Giskart
Various *.gov.uk sites have material that would be useful in Wikipedia articles. However, HM Government claims "Crown copyright" to that material, and specifies:
:The material featured on this site is subject to Crown copyright protection unless otherwise indicated. The Crown copyright protected material (other than the Royal Arms and departmental or agency logos) may be reproduced free of charge in any format or medium provided it is reproduced accurately and not used in a misleading context. Where any of the Crown copyright items on this site are being republished or copied to others, the source of the material must be identified and the copyright status acknowledged.
:Images on this site may not be reproduced without payment of a fee to the Image Library.
:The permission to reproduce Crown protected material does not extend to any material on this site which is identified as being the copyright of a third party. Authorisation to reproduce such material must be obtained from the copyright holders concerned.
:The Public Record Office encourages users to establish hypertext links to this site.
My question is this: can we use their material, as long as we reproduce it accurately and not in a misleading context, and credit it like we credit FOLDOC and other sources? The license does not say anything about derivitive work.
--~~~ the Epopt
-- Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.com
On Sat, Sep 28, 2002 at 10:29:54AM -0700, Sean Barrett wrote:
Various *.gov.uk sites have material that would be useful in Wikipedia articles. However, HM Government claims "Crown copyright" to that material, and specifies:
:The material featured on this site is subject to Crown copyright protection unless otherwise indicated. The Crown copyright protected material (other than the Royal Arms and departmental or agency logos) may be reproduced free of charge in any format or medium provided it is reproduced accurately and not used in a misleading context. Where any of
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I think this forbids derivative works. So I don't think we might use it.
JeLuF
Sean Barrett wrote:
My question is this: can we use their material, as long as we reproduce it accurately and not in a misleading context, and credit it like we credit FOLDOC and other sources? The license does not say anything about derivative work.
I don't think we can use it. Anything we use has to be compatible with us re-releasing it under the GNU FDL, which means giving people permission to make derivative works from it if they live up to the conditions of the license. As we have no right to make derivative works of Crown Copyright material, we have no right to authorize others to do so, either.
--Jimbo
--- Toby Bartels toby+wikipedia@math.ucr.edu wrote:
Stephen Gilbert wrote:
I like the name "PhaseIII Wiki". It is in keeping
with
Wikipedia history, and people won't have to get
used
to a completely new name.
I don't think that it's reasonable to have a name that says "Wiki" but not "Pedia". We are not the only Wiki around, nor the original, and I don't relish the prospect of one day, when we're famous, explaining to people that "Wiki" does not mean just Wikipedia (as I now have to explain that the "Internet" isn't just the Web).
I have friends that call Wikipedia "wiki" right now, despite my protests. :(
The software is not the same as the project, however. When we're famous, non-technical people will only know about Wikipedia, not the software that runs it.
Stephen G.
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Stephen Gilbert wrote in part:
The software is not the same as the project, however. When we're famous, non-technical people will only know about Wikipedia, not the software that runs it.
The way that I understood the original "PediaWiki" proposal, the idea is that there is much Wiki software (UseModWiki, etc), but ours is the Wiki software developed for the 'Pedia. Someone that uses it for some other purpose is not using it for Wikipedia anymore but is still using the 'Pedia's Wiki ware. Hence "PediaWiki".
-- Toby
What with the recent discussion of banning "problem" users, I thought I'd bring this up for discussion/re-discussion.
Our policy on banning people for vandalism is (as I interpret what I've read) that we restrict it to "repeated and sustained" non-useful alterations of articles.
However, it's September, the high school and college students are back with their free school accounts, and inevitably the amount of drive-by vandalism seems to be on the increase. Several of us constantly check new edits by unknown contributors, and even then, we're missing vandalism that only turns up later when paging through via "Random Page" or otherwise coming across an article. As the number of articles goes up, the chance of locating such vandalism goes down.
I've tried a few approaches to ameliorating this. I regularly check "this user's contributions" for vandals, and even sometimes for unfamiliar IP's (*thank* you folks for adding that code feature!) I do keyword searches for common obscenities, et cetera. (No, Cunctator, I don't remove them if they're obviously part of the article.) And, of course, I haunt the "Recent Changes" page. But I think it's getting harder to keep up.
I would like to suggest we add "obviously malicious vandalism" to reasons for an immediate (if temporary) IP ban: a single "Ths page is stupid" should be, in my opinion, enough to ban the address. This saves us from having to spend time on the next five instances of vandalism from that contributor, which could be better spent searching for other graffiti or *gasp* actually adding content.
I would be against this. In the first place, you mention fresh students - what if student #1 does something funny, leaves, student #2 takes the computer and just happens to want to contribute to Wikipedia? It might be too rare an occasion to take care of, but it's not impossible.
Secondly, I think it might well cost more work for us than it saves. MOST acts of vandalism are single occurences. Most that are not are caught only after already more than one has been made. Thus, blocking after one act of vandalism will result in many blockings to avoid one act of vandalism. And to block someone means that you will have to do a blocking, and later someone has to do an unblocking. I think that that might actually cost more time than it saves to have to clean up the second to fifth act of the same vandal also when you could have blocked him directly.
Andre Engels
Andre Engels wrote:
[cut] Secondly, I think it might well cost more work for us than it saves. MOST acts of vandalism are single occurences. Most that are not are caught only after already more than one has been made. Thus, blocking after one act of vandalism will result in many blockings to avoid one act of vandalism. And to block someone means that you will have to do a blocking, and later someone has to do an unblocking. I think that that might actually cost more time than
[cut]
For blocking abuse form schools mayby a auto unblock-function can be usefull. When you block a ip you can select a option to unblock that ip automatic after a time period. Say 60 minutes. -- giskart
To be fair, merciless editing has driven away numerous kooks, most of whom were anonymous. Wikipedia's score should be quite a bit higher.
Stephen Gilbert
--- koyaanisqatsi@nupedia.com wrote:
Gareth wrote:
No, it hasn't. The load of merciless editing has
already driven away the
valued and reasonable Julie Hoffman Kemp, and yet
many of the German and
French history pages she looked to save are still
full of petty nationalists.
Kooks 1, Wikipedia 0.
And Michael Tinkler. Kooks 2, Wikipedia 0.
kq
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