Sadly, it appears that there are some hurtful vandals out there who are attacking the people trying to counter them. For example, User:Zoe has just posted that she's abandoning her efforts to counter vandals; see: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User%3AZoe which begins: "I'm tired of fighting, I'm tired of arguing, I'm tired of being called names." The last straw seems to have been an edit by No-Fx to Zoe's user page, in which No-Fx made it appear that Zoe was "into oral sex". I don't know enough about this situation to know for sure if this is an example, but I am concerned about the long-term dangers if this starts a trend.
Attacks on users and sysops - particularly highly dedicated ones - are much more dangerous to the Wikipedia than simple attacks on a few pages. If these kinds of attacks cause people to stop weeding out bad pages or vandals for fear of retribution, the project is doomed.
Is there any way the software could be modified to make it harder for vandals to counter-attack the people who are trying to remove vandalism?
At the least, why not let the User:NAME pages be ONLY editable by NAME? The "User_talk:" spaces need to be editable in some way, but I don't see a need for others to "fix" the User: space of someone; it's not critical that that content be fixed, and there's advantanges to having some areas that are "precious" to each user.
Here's a more controversial idea: perhaps some information relating to deletion of pages and banning of users should be hidden from non-sysops. For example, since "delete" can only be done by sysops, why not just tell non-sysops that a deletion occurred, but not WHICH sysop did it? By the same token, perhaps some discussion areas should be only readable/writeable by sysops, in particular a discussion area to discuss banning someone. Perhaps there could be a way where anyone (non-sysop) could suggest that someone be banned, without having their name revealed to non-sysops. Since real deletes and banning can only be done by sysops anyway, and sysops are trusted, there's no reason this information MUST be public.
A related idea might be to modify the "talk" system so that it's more like a bulletin board, with threaded messages and a clear identification of who made it (click on "reply" to reply to that item, maybe in a threaded way). That way, any message is clearly identified with its REAL author. A side-effect would be that the attribution would happen automatically (no more forgetting ~~~~). That way, when people discuss things, they can't make it appear that someone else made an outrageous/nasty statement.
The goal here would be to prevent people from attacking each other, or at least limit its effectiveness.
Thoughts?
Attacks on users and sysops - particularly highly dedicated ones - are much more dangerous to the Wikipedia than simple attacks on a few pages. If these kinds of attacks cause people to stop weeding out bad pages or vandals for fear of retribution, the project is doomed. ... At the least, why not let the User:NAME pages be ONLY editable by NAME?
As with many features, removing the possibility of abuse would also hamper our ability to detect it. If the software were as you suggest above, for example, Mr. No-Fx would not have been able to to demonstrate to us that he is so clearly outside the realm of rational adult behavior that we can summarily block him with clear conscience and no further ado.
The net has a long and glorious tradition that anyone who does anything useful will be attacked unmercifully. Most of us get used to it and get on with the job. Was Zoe frustrated because she couldn't block the idiot, or for some other reason? I can't imagine that she would be so dismayed merely by the opinion of someone whose opinions clearly aren't worthy of any respect or notice.
Here's a more controversial idea: perhaps some information relating to deletion of pages and banning of users should be hidden from non-sysops. For example, since "delete" can only be done by sysops, why not just tell non-sysops that a deletion occurred, but not WHICH sysop did it?
I much prefer the combination of freedom and accountability: let lots of people take appropriate action, but track what they do so it can be fixed or discussed after the fact if necessary. That's usually a powerful system with good, stable, negative feedback.
By the same token, perhaps some discussion areas should be only readable/writeable by sysops, in particular a discussion area to discuss banning someone. Perhaps there could be a way where anyone (non-sysop) could suggest that someone be banned, without having their name revealed to non-sysops. Since real deletes and banning can only be done by sysops anyway, and sysops are trusted, there's no reason this information MUST be public.
But I really don't see any reason to hide it either. Sysops are trusted. If a Sysop blocks someone, we have a public record that someone we trust has made a specific judgment about an action he or she felt necessary, and unless extraordinary cirsumstances come to light that it may have been a particularly bad judgment, that really should end the matter. Sure, people may complain, but let them. Just because an action is unpopular that doesn't mean we can't stand up for it and take responsibility.
--- "David A. Wheeler" dwheeler@dwheeler.com wrote:
Sadly, it appears that there are some hurtful vandals out there who are attacking the people trying to counter them. For example, User:Zoe has just posted that she's abandoning her efforts to counter vandals; see: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User%3AZoe which begins: "I'm tired of fighting, I'm tired of arguing, I'm tired of being called names." The last straw seems to have been an edit by No-Fx to Zoe's user page, in which No-Fx made it appear that Zoe was "into oral sex". I don't know enough about this situation to know for sure if this is an example, but I am concerned about the long-term dangers if this starts a trend.
Attacks on users and sysops - particularly highly dedicated ones - are much more dangerous to the Wikipedia than simple attacks on a few pages. If these kinds of attacks cause people to stop weeding out bad pages or vandals for fear of retribution, the project is doomed.
Is there any way the software could be modified to make it harder for vandals to counter-attack the people who are trying to remove vandalism?
At the least, why not let the User:NAME pages be ONLY editable by NAME? The "User_talk:" spaces need to be editable in some way, but I don't see a need for others to "fix" the User: space of someone; it's not critical that that content be fixed, and there's advantanges to having some areas that are "precious" to each user.
Here's a more controversial idea: perhaps some information relating to deletion of pages and banning of users should be hidden from non-sysops. For example, since "delete" can only be done by sysops, why not just tell non-sysops that a deletion occurred, but not WHICH sysop did it? By the same token, perhaps some discussion areas should be only readable/writeable by sysops, in particular a discussion area to discuss banning someone. Perhaps there could be a way where anyone (non-sysop) could suggest that someone be banned, without having their name revealed to non-sysops. Since real deletes and banning can only be done by sysops anyway, and sysops are trusted, there's no reason this information MUST be public.
A related idea might be to modify the "talk" system so that it's more like a bulletin board, with threaded messages and a clear identification of who made it (click on "reply" to reply to that item, maybe in a threaded way). That way, any message is clearly identified with its REAL author. A side-effect would be that the attribution would happen automatically (no more forgetting ~~~~). That way, when people discuss things, they can't make it appear that someone else made an outrageous/nasty statement.
The goal here would be to prevent people from attacking each other, or at least limit its effectiveness.
Thoughts?
Yes.
I have three other suggestions.
Why not also just hiding deletion log to non-sysops people?
After all, all they can do is look at the log. Not look at the deleted pages, not even really get a sysop to tell them what is in them. So does it have any interest that they can see which pages were deleted at all ? Perhaps, they don't need to know about it ?
Similarly, what about hiding the list of blocked users from non-sysops users ? After all, since they can do nothing to unban them, and since you suggest making it impossible for them to participate in banning discussion, perhaps does it have no sense for them knowing about banning at all ?
Another suggestion : why not making the whole wikipedia read only for non-sysop users ?
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--- Brion Vibber vibber@aludra.usc.edu wrote:
On Thu, 22 May 2003, Anthere wrote:
Another suggestion : why not making the whole wikipedia read only for non-sysop users ?
Careful there. Remember we Americans are notoriously bad at recognizing sarcasm. :)
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
I trust canadians to remind americans if necessary :-)
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Anthere wrote:
--- Brion Vibber vibber@aludra.usc.edu wrote:
On Thu, 22 May 2003, Anthere wrote:
Another suggestion : why not making the whole wikipedia read only for non-sysop users ?
Careful there. Remember we Americans are notoriously bad at recognizing sarcasm. :)
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
I trust canadians to remind americans if necessary :-)
What makes you think they listen to us any better than to anybody else? :-P
David-
Sadly, it appears that there are some hurtful vandals out there who are attacking the people trying to counter them. For example, User:Zoe has just posted that she's abandoning her efforts to counter vandals; see: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User%3AZoe which begins: "I'm tired of fighting, I'm tired of arguing, I'm tired of being called names."
First, Zoe made this decision about a month ago:
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User:Zoe&oldid=869255
And it had to do with more than just vandals editing her page. If that was the problem, she could have just protected it, as some sysops have done.
Here's a more controversial idea: perhaps some information relating to deletion of pages and banning of users should be hidden from non-sysops. For example, since "delete" can only be done by sysops, why not just tell non-sysops that a deletion occurred, but not WHICH sysop did it? By the same token, perhaps some discussion areas should be only readable/writeable by sysops, in particular a discussion area to discuss banning someone.
This is not going to happen. At Wikipedia we strongly value openness and transparency, and the lack of different "user classes". Sysops should merely be the "executive organs" of the users at large. If you want to see a system that works the opposite way, take a look at Everything2, where new users are told that they should expect half of their first articles to be deleted. Users are only notified of deletions by an anonymous bot called "Klaproth" and have no way of questioning them. The party line is that "abuses may happen, but they will probably be rare". The whole E2 system is built up so that users have to work their way to the top, gaining new privileges as they write. It has 13 different levels, many of which come with new "powers". Suffice it to say that as a level 1 user, your opinions are not worth much. Oh, as for censored conversations, the only real forum they have is the "chatterbox", and if you say something they don't like, any editor or "god" (they are really called gods) can unleash the "Everything Death Borg" on you and silence you.
Are you scared yet? I hope you're scared. I'm not making this up. This is what happens when you let a bunch of insecure geeks run a collaborative writing community :-). Any power that is not kept in check by those who do not have it is likely to be abused.
We are always looking for new solutions that allow us to maintain two ideals:
1) We want to productively create an accurate, high quality encyclopedia. 2) We want our system to be as free of restrictions and power structures and as open and transparent as reasonably possible.
Regards,
Erik
David A. Wheeler wrote in part:
At the least, why not let the User:NAME pages be ONLY editable by NAME? The "User_talk:" spaces need to be editable in some way, but I don't see a need for others to "fix" the User: space of someone; it's not critical that that content be fixed, and there's advantanges to having some areas that are "precious" to each user.
Your other suggestions were against Wikipedia's openness, and I'm happy to be confident that they will never happen. But I do think that read-only user pages *as*an*option* would be a useful idea. There have been other problems before.
-- Toby
David A. Wheeler wrote in part:
At the least, why not let the User:NAME pages be ONLY editable by NAME? The "User_talk:" spaces need to be editable in some way, but I don't see a need for others to "fix" the User: space of someone; it's not critical that that content be fixed, and there's advantanges to having some areas that are "precious" to each user.
Your other suggestions were against Wikipedia's openness, and I'm happy to be confident that they will never happen. But I do think that read-only user pages *as*an*option* would be a useful idea. There have been other problems before.
It is an option. Leave a message on a sysop's talk page and ask them to protect your user page.
Regards,
Erik
On Thu, 2003-05-22 at 21:59, Erik Moeller wrote:
David A. Wheeler wrote in part:
At the least, why not let the User:NAME pages be ONLY editable by NAME? The "User_talk:" spaces need to be editable in some way, but I don't see a need for others to "fix" the User: space of someone; it's not critical that that content be fixed, and there's advantanges to having some areas that are "precious" to each user.
Your other suggestions were against Wikipedia's openness, and I'm happy to be confident that they will never happen. But I do think that read-only user pages *as*an*option* would be a useful idea. There have been other problems before.
It is an option. Leave a message on a sysop's talk page and ask them to protect your user page.
Then the user himself would be unable to edit it.
Cunc-
David A. Wheeler wrote in part:
At the least, why not let the User:NAME pages be ONLY editable by NAME? The "User_talk:" spaces need to be editable in some way, but I don't see a need for others to "fix" the User: space of someone; it's not critical that that content be fixed, and there's advantanges to having some areas that are "precious" to each user.
Your other suggestions were against Wikipedia's openness, and I'm happy to be confident that they will never happen. But I do think that read-only user pages *as*an*option* would be a useful idea. There have been other problems before.
It is an option. Leave a message on a sysop's talk page and ask them to protect your user page.
Then the user himself would be unable to edit it.
You don't say? Well, these are the problems of read-only pages. ;-)
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
The Cunctator wrote:
Toby Bartels wrote:
David A. Wheeler wrote:
At the least, why not let the User:NAME pages be ONLY editable by NAME? The "User_talk:" spaces need to be editable in some way, but I don't see a need for others to "fix" the User: space of someone; it's not critical that that content be fixed, and there's advantanges to having some areas that are "precious" to each user.
Your other suggestions were against Wikipedia's openness, and I'm happy to be confident that they will never happen. But I do think that read-only user pages *as*an*option* would be a useful idea. There have been other problems before.
It is an option. Leave a message on a sysop's talk page and ask them to protect your user page.
Then the user himself would be unable to edit it.
You don't say? Well, these are the problems of read-only pages. ;-)
Ah, I see. Making a joke at the expense of my poor phrasing. Very well.
Luckily I included David's original text, so does anybody have a comment on what we were actually talking about?
-- Toby
On Mon, 26 May 2003, Toby Bartels wrote:
Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 16:44:30 -0700 From: Toby Bartels toby+wikipedia@math.ucr.edu Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Countering the vandals who attack users (not just pages)
Erik Moeller wrote:
The Cunctator wrote:
Toby Bartels wrote:
David A. Wheeler wrote:
At the least, why not let the User:NAME pages be ONLY editable by NAME? The "User_talk:" spaces need to be editable in some way, but I don't see a need for others to "fix" the User: space of someone; it's not critical that that content be fixed, and there's advantanges to having some areas that are "precious" to each user.
Your other suggestions were against Wikipedia's openness, and I'm happy to be confident that they will never happen. But I do think that read-only user pages *as*an*option* would be a useful idea. There have been other problems before.
It is an option. Leave a message on a sysop's talk page and ask them to protect your user page.
Then the user himself would be unable to edit it.
You don't say? Well, these are the problems of read-only pages. ;-)
Ah, I see. Making a joke at the expense of my poor phrasing. Very well.
Luckily I included David's original text, so does anybody have a comment on what we were actually talking about?
I'd like to see it as an optional thing, maybe a user viewing something in their own namespace could see a "protect this page" link in the sidebar like sysops do for all pages. I'd also like to see it extended to some kind of subpages, though I'm not sure whether that ought to go for [[User:JohnOwens/Temp]], [[User:JohnOwens:Temp]], [[User:JohnOwens (temp)]] pages, all of the above, or what.
David A. Wheeler wrote:
Attacks on users and sysops - particularly highly dedicated ones - are much more dangerous to the Wikipedia than simple attacks on a few pages. If these kinds of attacks cause people to stop weeding out bad pages or vandals for fear of retribution, the project is doomed.
I agree, but in large part this is a social phenomenon, and the best defense that we can have against it is a strong culture of mutual support and caring. Regular users should know that they are in the family, so to speak, and that the malicious actions of a few newcomers or passerby are not worthy of a lot of emotional energy.
Is there any way the software could be modified to make it harder for vandals to counter-attack the people who are trying to remove vandalism?
Quite possibly -- subtle changes to software can make for big changes to social environments. But, the changes aren't always what are hoped for. It's a tricky business.
At the least, why not let the User:NAME pages be ONLY editable by NAME? The "User_talk:" spaces need to be editable in some way, but I don't see a need for others to "fix" the User: space of someone; it's not critical that that content be fixed, and there's advantanges to having some areas that are "precious" to each user.
But there are disadvantages as well. We aren't a free homepage provider, so although custom has it that the User: space is relatively wide open, a big part of what makes wiki work so well is mutual vulnerability. That mutual vulnerability carries risks, of course, but it also encourages individual responsibility, thoughtfulness towards others, etc.
I don't agree at all with your ideas of hiding some information from users... one of our great strengths is transparency and openness. We've tried really hard -- and with some success -- to avoid cliquishness in terms of sysops, banning, policy discussions, etc.
One of the things that keeps the "in crowd" honest is a commitment to transparency and personal accountability. Moves away from that may help sysops avoid being yelled at by trolls, but it also risks bad behavior on *our* part.
--Jimbo
I don't agree at all with your ideas of hiding some information from users... one of our great strengths is transparency and openness. We've tried really hard -- and with some success -- to avoid cliquishness in terms of sysops, banning, policy discussions, etc.
One of the things that keeps the "in crowd" honest is a commitment to transparency and personal accountability. Moves away from that may help sysops avoid being yelled at by trolls, but it also risks bad behavior on *our* part.
--Jimbo
I agree with all this.
There is one area though where transparency of information is not offered to regular users, it is in the deleted pages. Once a page is deleted, no one except sysops can look at it. I think it right only sysops can delete and undeleted pages. But I think it wrong regular users can not from time to time check whether pages were not unproperly deleted (not along community defined rules).
That is a feedback control not offered in Wikipedia. I think providing a feedback tool would help strengthening the trust regular users have in sysops. And be a real commitment to transparency and accountability.
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Anthere wrote:
But I think it wrong regular users can not from time to time check whether pages were not unproperly deleted (not along community defined rules).
I'm sympathetic, but we do need a way to delete some things *permanently* and *completely*. Examples would include copyright infringement, goatse.cx picture, etc.
Since almost anyone can be a sysop, and since we're trying to eliminate the "prestige" of being a sysop, there does exist a way for anyone who is really interested to gain access to the deleted material.
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales wrote:
Anthere wrote:
But I think it wrong regular users can not from time to time check whether pages were not unproperly deleted (not along community defined rules).
I'm sympathetic, but we do need a way to delete some things *permanently* and *completely*. Examples would include copyright infringement, goatse.cx picture, etc.
But we *don't* delete these things permanently and completely! Most of the time, they appear on pages that aren't deleted, and then they're still visible in the edit histories. There is little correlation between your examples and the material that's inaccessible to nonadmins on deleted pages.
If you think that we need to more aggressively delete copyright infringements (whereas we now rely on their simply not being archived by robots), then I can accept that, especially since you're the one with the liability. But this has nothing to do with deleted *pages*; it requires a change to the software allowing us to delete *revisions* from the edit history of a page that itself may very well survive.
I believe that we have only once permanently and completely deleted material from the database since soft deletion began. This was a special operation, performed by developers, to remove a rash of goatse.cx pics from edit histories. Even this example wasn't about deleted *pages*. (And it wouldn't need to be repeated if it happened again, since we no longer display external images.)
Since almost anyone can be a sysop, and since we're trying to eliminate the "prestige" of being a sysop, there does exist a way for anyone who is really interested to gain access to the deleted material.
Relatively new people can't become admins. They'll only be able to gain access after several months. This is not a recipe for openness and accountability. Generally speaking, I think that Wikipedia is excellent in these matters; the inability of users to view deleted pages is glaring as an exception.
-- Toby
Anthere-
But I think it wrong regular users can not from time to time check whether pages were not unproperly deleted (not along community defined rules).
On en:, someone created [[Wikipedia:Censorship]] a while ago to complain about such incidents. I don't think it's the best title (who would want to be labeled a censor?), but such a page would certainly allow for the kind of feedback you envision.
Regards,
Erik
_______________________________________________
I thank you for that comment Erik. I know about that page. Parts of it were moved on meta. Others comments dealing about what could be only bare mistakes or a little too quick decisions made by our sysops in very stressful moments, are the reasons for the birth of [[Wikipedia:votes for undeletion]]. There is nothing wrong with making mistakes from time to time.
However, for a proper feedback, are needed both tools and information. If noone give regular users the information they kindly ask, there are only questions unanswered, and no feedback.
Ant
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Anthere-
However, for a proper feedback, are needed both tools and information. If noone give regular users the information they kindly ask, there are only questions unanswered, and no feedback.
I agree. I am sure sysops will be more willing to paste the content of deleted pages once the deletion feature is improved (currently Special:Undelete is almost unusable because of the page size; flushing the archive might be a tempfix). The changes I just made, with the text of short pages auto-pasted into the comment field by default, should also help. Patience :-)
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote: Anthere-
However, for a proper feedback, are needed both tools and information. If noone give regular users the information they kindly ask, there are only questions unanswered, and no feedback.
I agree. I am sure sysops will be more willing to paste the content of deleted pages once the deletion feature is improved (currently Special:Undelete is almost unusable because of the page size; flushing the archive might be a tempfix). The changes I just made, with the text of short pages auto-pasted into the comment field by default, should also help. Patience :-)
Regards,
Erik _______________________________________________
If I know a developer is really thinking in improving the process, I am more than willing to be patient Erik
Thanks
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Erik Moeller wrote in part:
currently Special:Undelete is almost unusable because of the page size; flushing the archive might be a tempfix
I'd like to remind administrators of my work-around for this. To view the deleted page [[xxx]], just go this URL: http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special%3AUndelete&target=xxx (or the equivalent on whatever language's wiki is involved). Note that going here does *not* undelete the page; it only views it! You'll need to push an extra button to actually undelete anything. But it does skip the long list at [[Special:Undelete]] itself, and I use it often (mostly when combining histories) with no problems.
This is, of course, a temporary work-around. A more user-friendly software solution would still be good.
-- Toby
--- Toby Bartels toby+wikipedia@math.ucr.edu wrote:
Erik Moeller wrote in part:
currently Special:Undelete is almost unusable because of the
page size; flushing the
archive might be a tempfix
I'd like to remind administrators of my work-around for this. To view the deleted page [[xxx]], just go this URL:
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special%3AUndelete&target=xxx
(or the equivalent on whatever language's wiki is involved). Note that going here does *not* undelete the page; it only views it! You'll need to push an extra button to actually undelete anything. But it does skip the long list at [[Special:Undelete]] itself, and I use it often (mostly when combining histories) with no problems.
This is, of course, a temporary work-around. A more user-friendly software solution would still be good.
-- Toby
That is great ! Just needs to be seeable by anyone. The sysop status could be just necessary to hit the button
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Bonjour, Here the new version of LanguageFr.php. The main change is the correction of the date form (removed odd character). It's not critical, but all static date (with 4 ~) will be wrote incorrectly until you update the french interface. If you need to make some change before updating, please do it directly at http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:LanguageFr.php then you will not have to do it each time. Cheers,
Aoineko
I send you again this message. PLEASE UPDATE OUR INTERFACE.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Guillaume Blanchard" gblanchard@arcsy.co.jp To: wikitech-l@wikipedia.org Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2003 12:24 PM Subject: [Wikitech-l] LanguageFr.php
Bonjour, Here the new version of LanguageFr.php. The main change is the correction of the date form (removed odd
character).
It's not critical, but all static date (with 4 ~) will be wrote
incorrectly
until you update the french interface. If you need to make some change before updating, please do it directly at http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:LanguageFr.php then you will not
have
to do it each time. Cheers,
Aoineko
Brion est absent pendant une semaine Guillaume...
--- Guillaume Blanchard gblanchard@arcsy.co.jp wrote:
I send you again this message. PLEASE UPDATE OUR INTERFACE.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Guillaume Blanchard" gblanchard@arcsy.co.jp To: wikitech-l@wikipedia.org Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2003 12:24 PM Subject: [Wikitech-l] LanguageFr.php
Bonjour, Here the new version of LanguageFr.php. The main change is the correction of the date form
(removed odd character).
It's not critical, but all static date (with 4 ~)
will be wrote incorrectly
until you update the french interface. If you need to make some change before updating,
please do it directly at
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%EF%BF%BDdia:LanguageFr.php
then you will not have
to do it each time. Cheers,
Aoineko
ATTACHMENT part 2 application/octet-stream
name=LanguageFr.php
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On Mon, May 26, 2003 at 06:18:53PM -0700, Anthere wrote:
--- Toby Bartels toby+wikipedia@math.ucr.edu wrote:
Erik Moeller wrote in part:
I'd like to remind administrators of my work-around for this. To view the deleted page [[xxx]], just go this URL:
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special%3AUndelete&target=xxx
(or the equivalent on whatever language's wiki is involved).
That is great ! Just needs to be seeable by anyone. The sysop status could be just necessary to hit the button
I don't think this should be available to the public. Currently, copyrighted material is just deleted, but can still be reached by sysops for inspection or undeletion. We can't make those pages available.
Regards,
JeLuF
Jens Frank wrote:
I don't think this should be available to the public. Currently, copyrighted material is just deleted, but can still be reached by sysops for inspection or undeletion. We can't make those pages available.
But I think one case to eliminate that material is removing it from the page, and it will still apear in the history. Do you realy think the page is deleted and than goes back to the version before the material is included? Not every page starts with copyrighted material.
Smurf
Jens Frank wrote:
Anthere wrote:
Toby Bartels wrote:
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special%3AUndelete&target=xxx
That is great ! Just needs to be seeable by anyone. The sysop status could be just necessary to hit the button
I don't think this should be available to the public. Currently, copyrighted material is just deleted, but can still be reached by sysops for inspection or undeletion. We can't make those pages available.
If you really think that this can't be made viewable by just anybody, then aren't you concerned about the many copyright infrigements that remain visible all over Wikipedia in various pages' edit histories?
Deleted pages are not the same thing as copyright infringments. Not all (or most) deleted pages are copyright infringements, nor or all (or most?) copyright infringements on deleted pages. If it's a problem that copyrighted material remains on Wikipedia, albeit buried in rarely visited places that spiders don't archive, then we should address *that* issue, which remains outstanding. But it's irrelevant to Anthere's IMO reasonable desire to view the text of deleted pages on wikis where she's not an admin.
I hope that our practice of simply burying copyrighted material, when it's added to old pages, isn't really a problem, since we can remove it by special actions on the database if ever a complaint is lodged, thus avoiding liability. The only problem should be if the material remains on the current version of some page, leading to its incorporation into future edits. But if I'm wrong, then continuing to block ordinary users from viewing the content of recently deleted pages does little if anything to address the issue.
-- Toby
Anthere-
That is great ! Just needs to be seeable by anyone. The sysop status could be just necessary to hit the button
And to view the text of the individual deleted revisions. I'm sure you meant to say that, instead of bringing up that old, long-answered question again.
Regards,
Erik
--- Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:
Anthere-
That is great ! Just needs to be seeable by
anyone.
The sysop status could be just necessary to hit
the button
And to view the text of the individual deleted revisions. I'm sure you meant to say that, instead of bringing up that old, long-answered question again.
Regards,
Erik
tsssseeee
I mostly thought it was a great idea. Fortunately our deletion file is still quite small, but each time I have to open it, and waiiiiiiiit for it to load, I feel sorry for the performance.
Here is a nice direct way to access the file I didnot know of.
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Erik Moeller wrote:
Anthere wrote:
That is great ! Just needs to be seeable by anyone. The sysop status could be just necessary to hit the button
And to view the text of the individual deleted revisions. I'm sure you meant to say that, instead of bringing up that old, long-answered question again.
That's just what *I* thought that Anthere was bringing up again. What else would one expect a nonadmin to see on that page?
-- Toby
Toby-
That's just what *I* thought that Anthere was bringing up again. What else would one expect a nonadmin to see on that page?
At most a mere list of previous revisions, so as to see who wrote them. The text of deleted pages will remain hidden to non-sysops, for a variety of reasons which have been discussed ad nauseum.
As for copyright infringements in article histories, this may be a reason to have a "delete this revision" function.
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
Toby Bartels wrote:
That's just what *I* thought that Anthere was bringing up again. What else would one expect a nonadmin to see on that page?
At most a mere list of previous revisions, so as to see who wrote them.
I think that this would be an improvement. It's really up to Anthère to say what she's looking for, however; my interest is in her happiness (and that of users like her), since I can see this stuff anyway on the only wiki that I participate in much.
The text of deleted pages will remain hidden to non-sysops, for a variety of reasons which have been discussed ad nauseum.
I know that it came up before, but I only remember the copyright problems. I think that there were more ... but I can't find it on the archives! (Has anybody written a search engine for them yet? -- besides Google?) Do you remember when this came up before?
As for copyright infringements in article histories, this may be a reason to have a "delete this revision" function.
Yes, I think that this would be a good idea -- *if* we are in any danger from these infringements (either legally or nonlegally). Remember that <robots.txt> hides them from (most) spiders.
-- Toby
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