[WikiEN-l] Proposal: limited extension of semi-protection
Molu
loom91 at yahoo.com
Fri May 26 06:00:05 UTC 2006
Message: 2
Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 14:15:32 -0400
From: Jimmy Wales
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: limited extension of semi-protection
To: English Wikipedia
Message-ID: <4475F444.90806 at wikia.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
I think we should be thoughtful about our responsibilities and exercise
good editorial judgment in all cases. This is not a violation of NPOV,
it is what NPOV is all about.
Reporting unsourced allegations with a bogus "some say..." or "critics
have said..." when the only such critics are random hate sites on the
Internet (for example) is hardly neutral, in that it creates the
impression of a controversy where none exists.
Let me give a more detailed hypothetical to explain what I mean.
Some minor celebrity, a television star, has a relatively
uncontroversial public persona. Just the usual, starred in this
television show which was in the top 50 television shows in the US from
1997-2001, appeared in 3 television movies, etc. She is not super
famous, so the total number of traditional verifiable sources about her
is rather small.
But, she has a stalker.
The stalker posts longwinded ranting criticisms and insults of her.
Do we cite those? Here I would come down with Mark Gallagher, quite
firmly. It may be true that thus-and-such blogger has said whatever,
but so what? Taking what would otherwise be a bland 5 paragraph bio,
and turning it into a mouthpiece for a stalker is not neutral.
Not every truth belongs in Wikipedia.
Because there are no rationalistic or simplistic rules for what counts
as information we ought to be providing to the public, editorial
judgment is necessary. That's what Wikipedia is really good at.
Molu wrote:
> I submit that this is a terrible standard for WIkipedia to aim for,
> and the day Wikipedia starts doing that is the day Wikipedia as we
> know it has died a horrible death. When the government of PRC censors
> content critical of them, they say those content were banned because
> they are "not in the public interest".
>
> IMO, none of the two criterias you mention are good criterias for
> inclusion in WIkipedia. Wikipedia does not report the Truth?, only
> the NPOV. As for public interest, let the public decide what is in
> their interest, wikipedia is not the appointed moral guardian of the
> society (and in case Jimbo received that appointment letter I hope he
> has burned it).
>
> Molu
>
> On Wed, 24 May 2006 13:40:28 +1000 Mark Gallagher wrote:
>
>> I submit that this is a good standard for Wikipedia to aim for
>> (even if we don't need to). If something is not true *and* in the
>> public interest to know, we should not be saying it about anyone,
>> in particular living people. That's not a legal decision, it's an
>> editorial (and, if you like, moral) one. We should be displaying
>> more discretion than simply "oh, it's true, chuck it in". Wikipedia
>> is not an indiscriminate collection of facts.
>
>
>> -- Mark Gallagher "What? I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my
>> head!" - Danger Mouse
>
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Message: 3
Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 14:18:14 -0400
From: Jimmy Wales
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: limited extension of semi-protection
To: English Wikipedia
Message-ID: <4475F4E6.9030805 at wikia.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Matt Brown wrote:
> We could screw it up one of two ways. One is like Usenet's endless
> September. The influx of new people could swamp the culture of the
> place, drive off long-time contributors, and lower standards until
> nothing useful was being done anymore.
>
> The other would be to react to popularity by over-reacting, pulling up
> the drawbridge and shutting ourselves off from the world at large.
> Becoming less welcoming, less friendly, more elitist.
>
> IMO, we have to be very careful not to do things that send us too far
> in one direction or other.
:) Yes, I agree absolutely. It has always been a balancing act, and
always will be.
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------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 14:20:27 -0400
From: Jimmy Wales
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Death of Wikipedia
To: English Wikipedia
Message-ID: <4475F56B.7000402 at wikia.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
The Cunctator wrote:
>> No, we locked some troll pages very early on. Speedy deleted a ton, as
>> well. And blocked ip numbers regularly. All of those are editing
>> restrictions.
>>
>
> How early on?
I remember blocking an ip number within the first few days. Speedy
deleted stuff, too. We did not call it speedy deletion back then, of
course, it was just deletion. As for locking pages, hmmm.... I do not
remember well. We had the ability, and we used it temporarily.
--Jimbo
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 14:21:01 -0400
From: "The Cunctator"
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: limited extension of semi-protection
policy
To: "English Wikipedia"
Message-ID:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
On 5/25/06, Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
> The Cunctator wrote:
> > Nicholas Carr's criticism, while hyperbolic, is more right than wrong.
>
> Actually, I think it is completely wrong. It completely misapprehends
> what is being discussed here.
>
> > Hiding information from users is not good.
>
> Right, but no one is proposing to hide information, merely to present
> the most useful information at the most useful time. The template
> plastered at the top of the article has been a convenient approach
> because we were able to do it ourselves, without asking Brion to change
> anything.
>
> What we want to do is to be as welcoming of diverse participation as
> possible, while at the same time controlling for vandalism. As we learn
> and think, we find better ways to do this.
>
> First, we forever had article protection and bans. These are valuable
> tools, but we don't like article protection because it keeps people from
> editing *at all*. And because it keeps people from editing *at all* we
> have to be very very sparing with the use.
>
> So, we thought about it long and hard, had a big discussion and a vote,
> and decided to *soften* article protection. With semi-protection. This
> has, in general, been a great success. It is a softer tool, so it can
> be used a bit more broadly. More people can edit more articles more
> often, and less drive by vandalism results. So far, so good.
>
> Now, we are thinking again: how can we extend this? How can we be more
> welcoming to editing?
>
> Well, one thing we know is that the big scary message at the top of
> articles discourages people from participation. It makes it seem like
> we have locked articles when we have not locked articles.
>
> So the idea is to make the user interface better, to give people the
> information they need and want, when they need and want it, rather than
> thrusting on them something that they find confusing and misleading.
>
> Hence, the proposal: don't do the notification with a template, change
> the UI so that people are more encouraged to join the project and start
> editing...
>
> As with the softening of protection -> semi-protection, the concept here
> is to encourage more people to edit, while controlling for problems when
> they need to be controlled.
>
> Calling this sort of thoughtful tweak to policy "the death of Wikipedia"
> is more than hyberbolic, it is just factually wrong.
Your language is strikingly emotional.
You describe the actions you support as:
"thoughtful"
"tweak"
"softening"
"need and want"
"more welcoming"
"soften"
"softer"
"bit more"
"great success"
"better ways"
"thought long and hard"
"most useful"
The alternatives and alternative viewpoints are presented as:
"factually wrong"
"confusing and misleading"
"plastered"
"big scary"
"discourages"
It would be interesting to try to edit down your argument into something
that was not so transparently biased. I'm not sure what would be left. But
it would be a start for having an honest discussion about this, rather than
an exercise in emotional pleading.
------------------------------
Message: 6
Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 14:24:40 -0400
From: "The Cunctator"
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Death of Wikipedia
To: "English Wikipedia"
Message-ID:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
On 5/25/06, Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
> The Cunctator wrote:
> >> No, we locked some troll pages very early on. Speedy deleted a ton, as
> >> well. And blocked ip numbers regularly. All of those are editing
> >> restrictions.
> >>
> >
> > How early on?
>
> I remember blocking an ip number within the first few days. Speedy
> deleted stuff, too. We did not call it speedy deletion back then, of
> course, it was just deletion. As for locking pages, hmmm.... I do not
> remember well. We had the ability, and we used it temporarily.
Deleting vandalism is very different from locking pages from editing.
Maybe it's inappropriate to make such strong claims about features always
being used --in an attack on someone else -- if you don't actually remember.
------------------------------
Message: 7
Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 20:36:33 +0200
From: "Steve Bennett"
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Usernames (was: Re: welch and consensus)
To: "English Wikipedia"
Message-ID:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
On 5/25/06, Nick Boalch wrote:
> We do need to be a bit careful about this, I think, or we do run the
> risk of thoughtlessly impose Anglo-US values on an international project.
Hmm, there must be examples of names that aren't particularly offensive in
"Anglo-US" culture but that are overseas?
> For instance, the username policy forbids using the 'names of religious
> figures', but in many parts of the world it's common for people to be
> named after such figures: off the top of my head, I know several
> Spaniards called Jes?s.
And Mohammed as well. Establish a list of acceptable exceptions?
> 'Offensive names are offensive names' is either categorically untrue or
> essentially empty of meaning. (Either it means that there is some
> absolute standard for what is offensive, which there isn't, or it means
> that any name that could be found offensive by anyone, anywhere in the
> world should not be permitted, which, given the apparent ability of
> people to get worked up about nothing, would probably lead to all of us
> getting socked with indefinite username bans).
See whether anyone gets worked up about the name within the first two weeks,
if not, it's ok?
Steve
------------------------------
Message: 8
Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 13:21:02 -0600
From: Fred Bauder
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Death of Wikipedia
To: English Wikipedia
Cc: Fred Bauder
Message-ID: <22442BB2-CECF-4438-982B-862DF1722BFE at ctelco.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
True, but much preferable to endless wack a mole.
Fred
On May 25, 2006, at 8:56 AM, The Cunctator wrote:
> Redvers and Jimbo made the claim that "Restrictions on editing -
> specifically the ability to prevent an article from being edited -
> have
> always existed and have always been used. Semi-protection actually
> *increased* the number of people able to edit, by doing away with
> the need
> to completely lock many articles."
>
> So far as I remember, during the UseModWiki days there were no
> restrictions
> on editing for a good while. Only after extended debate did Larry
> lock the
> front page.
>
> I believe it is false to claim that restrictions on editing have
> always been
> used.
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------------------------------
Message: 9
Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 15:36:03 -0400
From: Fastfission
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] for slimline and the reference to harold
shipman
To: "English Wikipedia"
Message-ID:
<98dd099a0605251236x764c2a03vbb153010f99d3461 at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
On 5/24/06, abu hamza wrote:
> It was then removed repeatedly.
Which should tell you something. When multiple editors end up
reverting you about 8 times, you should probably stop trying to
re-insert the information and instead discuss it on the talk page,
seeking consensus.
> Thankfully there is NO WIKIPEDIA policy that states this is grounds for an
> indefinate ban???
>
> The issue here was not my obsession with putting it back in, but someones
> obsession with taking it out.
Um, actually the former is really what is an issue here. It was not
one person who kept removing it, but many. The issue here IS your
attempt to insert something which only you seemed to support, and as
such it is up to you to seek consensus to add it, not the other way
around.
There is plenty of precedent for banning people who continue to
attempt to insert POV into articles against the will of other editors.
The time to debate the content-aspect of the issue was before you keep
re-inserting it. At this point, as a behavior issue, it is pretty
clear to me that you were in the wrong.
FF
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