Re: [WikiEN-l] Administrator coup / mass deletions
Some people won't be satisfied until Wikipedia has no BLPs. 2010/1/21 K. Peachey p858sn...@yahoo.com.au On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 12:48 AM, Cool Hand Luke failure.to.communic...@gmail.com wrote: Remember also that The burden of proof is on those who wish to retain the article to demonstrate that it is compliant with every aspect of the policy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Badlydrawnjeff Cool Hand Luke Which people don't have the chance to when people randomly delete them compared to going though either speedy and prod and they have time to work on it, and discuss the matter at hand. -Peachey ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Administrator coup / mass deletions
2010/1/22 James Farrar james.far...@gmail.com: Some people won't be satisfied until Wikipedia has no BLPs. No true Strawman will be satisfied until authority reassures him Wikipedia has no BLPs. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Administrator coup / mass deletions
On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 5:45 PM, phoebe ayers phoebe.w...@gmail.com wrote: And to disagree with Gwern: sourcing matters. You can correct subtle mistakes, misunderstandings, and sometimes errors of fact in the process of sourcing (I sourced a bio the other day where the husband of the person involved had died in between when the bio was created and when I worked on it; someone has to change is married to.. eventually and that's not the kind of thing you want to guess at). Not to mention all the implications for readers, the larger project, etc. etc. But personally I pick and choose, and only work on people whose lives I find interesting -- I give the footballers, the olympians, and the pop stars a miss. Those seem to be the bulk of BLPs, though, and it seems like there are ought to be a good way to source those en masse, maybe through the relevant wikiprojects. -- phoebe I don't think Gwern was saying that sourcing is irrelevant, only that unreferenced BLP is a blunt measurement that doesn't return much real information about the status of any given article. In a two paragraph stub, sourcing the date of marriage or birth to a particular year (and referencing nothing else) exempts the entire article from the category. It does not exempt the article from the same sorts of severe problems one might find in a completely unreferenced article: the distinction between one reference and no references is often insignificant. A better way to determine whether an unreferenced article should be deleted might be to read it, but the administrators who decided to mass delete these articles have been indiscriminate (c.f. Cunctator's comment about restoring an article on a former prime minister). I'm sure there are all sorts of other long backlogs of article problems, even on BLPs. Should all articles tagged with a POV template, a fact tag, or other 'problem templates' be deleted after a certain period of time? Clearly there would be too many of them for anyone to actually fix all of them in a reasonable period of time, say a week? Nathan ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people
Re [[Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people]] The sad thing about the current deletion spree is that it started only a fortnight after DASHBot started gently chiding authors about their supposedly unsourced BLP contributions. I think the next logical step would be to have a similar bot inform wiki projects about unsourced BLPs relevant to that project. The preceding step should have been to change our article creation processes to require sources for all new BLPs.. The risks of the current approach are that some contributors may be lost to the project, a whole bunch of poorly sourced BLPs will be hastily brought to a standard that will keep them safe for a few more years, lots of good if poorly sourced material will be lost, and some really damaging stuff will slip through the net because so much attention is currently focussed on low traffic mostly harmless bios. There will be really damaging stuff on the pedia that we won't find for months and I bet much of it will be in articles that at least appear to be sourced. Anyone who wants an example of a non BLP vandalism worse than anything I've seen found in these old bios is welcome to ask me at the next London meetup - which should be on the 14th Feb. WereSpielChequers ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Administrator coup / mass deletions
Nathan wrote: On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 5:45 PM, phoebe ayers phoebe.w...@gmail.com wrote: And to disagree with Gwern: sourcing matters. snip -- phoebe I don't think Gwern was saying that sourcing is irrelevant, only thatunreferenced BLP is a blunt measurement that doesn't return much real information about the status of any given article. It's a blunt metric, to be sure, but Gwern's argument that some referencing looks like make-work (true) means that adding references to biographies is pointless (false) is pretty much flawed. Consider how one tests an article to see whether it is a hoax: one tries to verify this and that, and in the end nothing checks out, which is the now I'm suspicious moment. A proper reference in a BLP shows it isn't a hoax, and that is one criterion our articles should satisfy. I'm sure there are all sorts of other long backlogs of article problems, even on BLPs. This is also true. The people who worry about copyright are, well, worried. This is the most interesting comparison. Do we or do we not regard lack of sourcing in a BLP to be as serious as copyright violation? No consensus on that yet, clearly. One step is being taken in that direction, would be one way to explain what is currently going on. Even that much is not perhaps going to be accepted. But the two issues stand out from other things such as POV and writing problems because they have a legal dimension, or in other words could be threats to the whole project. Charles ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Administrator coup / mass deletions
At 07:34 PM 1/21/2010, Ryan Delaney wrote: Repeat after me: Pure Wiki Deletion. Pure Wiki Deletion. - causa sui Pure Wiki Deletion. Well, I'd add a note to the article. PWD deals with the problem without destroying the work that was done on the article, it is there for anyone to recover. The note would provide a link to clear instructions on how to replace the article, with a request not to restore it without adding sources. Done by bot, this would immediately deal with the BLP problem, en masse, without the harmful effects of deletion. Adding a cat to the article, maybe Blanked BLP, would make all such articles easy to find, for people who want to restore them with sources. The instructions for restoration would ask the restorer to remove the category. If some such article is repeatedly restored without sources by IP, it could be semi-pro'd. But, otherwise, this action requires no admin privileges. Pure Wiki Deletion. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
[WikiEN-l] Custom Google search engines for finding RSs for subject areas
So, on a lighter note, I recently got sick tired of running site: search after site: -wiki search in Google, and began looking for some way to automate it. I discovered that one can make a 'custom' Google search: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Google_Co-op It allows one essentially to tell Google to increase the score of any hits in certain domains, and blacklist other domains. It has a number of neat features - for example, I can tell it to blacklist any domain on https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks/All . You might think that a parameter like '-wiki' or '-wikipedia' would do the same thing, but alas! In particular, I've created a CSE focused on anime manga topics: http://www.google.com/cse/home?cx=009114923999563836576:1eorkzz2gp4 I started with all the links listed in https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Anime_and_manga/Online_reliable_sources and then began running searches on random topics and pruning based on that - chucking sites into the blacklist sinbin, or finding good sites omitted from the list and adding them to the whitelist. At last count, I had 200 sites on the nice list and 311 on the naughty list (but this counts things like the Mirrors page as a single link, though they ban dozens or hundreds of sites). The results are *much* better. To take my most recent use, finding material on [[Amanchu!]] for its AFD (https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Amanchu!), compare the regular Google search: http://www.google.com/search?q=amanchu with the CSE search: htp://www.google.com/cse?cx=009114923999563836576%3A1eorkzz2gp4q=amanchu All the blogs scanlations forums in the former are great for someone who just wants to read _Amanchu!_, but for a Wikipedian? It's terrible. Notice that the ANN launch article, which is apparently the most substantive English coverage in a RS*, is the first hit in the CSE but the fifth in the regular Google search, and you can keep scrolling down and find mostly chaff. And the weekly sales ranking that puts _Amanchu!_ at #8 nationally, that shows up in the first page in the CSE? I've no idea where it is in the regular Google hits. Or take a critical classic: _The Wings of Honneamise_ (https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Royal_Space_Force:_The_Wings_of_Honn%C3%AAamise). Google: http://www.google.com/search?q=wings%20of%20honneamise CSE: http://www.google.com/cse?cx=009114923999563836576%3A1eorkzz2gp4q=wings+of+honneamise Google has on its first page WP, IMDb, Amazon, video links, Tucows (!), ads, and just 2 reviews a Wikipedian might find useful. CSE has 9 or 10 good review sources from respectable publications like Ex.org or the New York Times, and even the questionable hits like RottenTomatoes have their good points - RT would lead one to the famous critic Roger Ebert's *very* flattering review of _Wings of Honneamise_. And it'll take you straight to Ebert's review on page 2, whereas in regular Google search, you have to go to page 7 or 8. Further examples can be multiplied, but I hope this shows that CSEs can be very useful for finding online sources; I'm sure it would work as well for other subject-areas! (And since I can't let recent events go, I'll mar my little essay with a final remark: *this* is the sort of thing that will lessen issues like BLPs - not fanaticism like Caedite eos! Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.) * Unsurprising, really. _Amanchu!_ is Japanese only and likely will stay that way for years; even the anime media can be very language-parochial. -- gwern ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Administrator coup / mass deletions
Roger Davies has posted an excellent comment on the civil disobedience aspect of these events here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Casediff=prevoldid=339367826 I've seen much talk today of doing the right things the right way and doing the right things the wrong way. I suppose the lesson of history is that determining which is which is usually possible only with the advantage of considerable hindsight. Think of some examples: the barons at Runnymede, the Roundheads, George Washington et al, the Tolpuddle Martyrs, the sailors on the Potemkin; the suffragettes, Rosa Parks, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela The core of civil disobedience is the principle that people should do the right things the wrong way when trying to do them the right way failed or is not possible. And that's pretty close to the underlying principle of WP:IAR. *Roger Davies* *talk* 16:39, 22 January 2010 (UTC) This was only the beginning; it was precipitated by the pressure of repeated failed attempts to reach elusive consensus on the matter. This is not anarchy, but a brief transition point. The RFC shows the way forward. MZMcBride's summary deletion proposal does not have consensus and will not reign. The processes proposed by Jehochman and David Gerard, on the other hand, are doing very well. Under these proposals, there will be a review period for unsourced BLPs, but any tagged biography that does not become sourced must be scrapped. Cool Hand Luke ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Administrator coup / mass deletions
At the same time, *Always leave something undone. **Give the author a chance.* *Build the web.* *Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point.* and *If the page can be improved, this should be solved through regular editing, rather than deletion.* On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 12:05 PM, Cool Hand Luke failure.to.communic...@gmail.com wrote: Roger Davies has posted an excellent comment on the civil disobedience aspect of these events here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Casediff=prevoldid=339367826 I've seen much talk today of doing the right things the right way and doing the right things the wrong way. I suppose the lesson of history is that determining which is which is usually possible only with the advantage of considerable hindsight. Think of some examples: the barons at Runnymede, the Roundheads, George Washington et al, the Tolpuddle Martyrs, the sailors on the Potemkin; the suffragettes, Rosa Parks, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela The core of civil disobedience is the principle that people should do the right things the wrong way when trying to do them the right way failed or is not possible. And that's pretty close to the underlying principle of WP:IAR. *Roger Davies* *talk* 16:39, 22 January 2010 (UTC) This was only the beginning; it was precipitated by the pressure of repeated failed attempts to reach elusive consensus on the matter. This is not anarchy, but a brief transition point. The RFC shows the way forward. MZMcBride's summary deletion proposal does not have consensus and will not reign. The processes proposed by Jehochman and David Gerard, on the other hand, are doing very well. Under these proposals, there will be a review period for unsourced BLPs, but any tagged biography that does not become sourced must be scrapped. Cool Hand Luke ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Administrator coup / mass deletions
On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 5:05 PM, Cool Hand Luke failure.to.communic...@gmail.com wrote: period for unsourced BLPs, but any tagged biography that does not become sourced must be scrapped. pendantry biography != BLP BLP = biography of living person Those people who have been safely dead for a while, it tends to be easier to establish notability and find sources (they are also less litigious). Let not mix up the term BLP with the broader term biography. /pedantry Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Administrator coup / mass deletions
On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 12:50 PM, Cool Hand Luke failure.to.communic...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 11:20 AM, The Cunctator cuncta...@gmail.com wrote: At the same time, *Always leave something undone. **Give the author a chance.* *Build the web.* *Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point.* and *If the page can be improved, this should be solved through regular editing, rather than deletion.* These maxims were very good in the formative stages of our project. You and other early editors were right (maybe even prophetic) to adopt them. The fledgling project needed hands, eyeballs, and content. By zealously keeping and expanding content--even shoddy content--we grew dramatically. But this debate has come to a boil because we've been too slow in realizing that the balance must change because conditions have changed. We are no longer a small project, but one that places in the top three google search results for almost any topic in our encyclopedia. We have succeeded because of our formative policies, and with our success comes responsibility. In an era when any living subject can have their life harmed by a poorly vetted biography, we should strike a new balance. We should not bite off more than we can chew. In this area, we ought to weed out BLPs that we can no longer maintain at appropriately high standatds. As a happy consequence of this process, many notable biographies will be improved. I hope that this improvement and re-examination process is continual. In this way, we will effectively shoulder the responsibility we have for maintaining one of the top ten sites on the internet. Cool Hand Luke When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. eh? You older Wikipedians run along now; you've had your day. The adults are talking now - I are serious editors, this are serious website. Funny how BLPs have been the most serious threat facing the project, so serious that mass mutiny is justified and the jettisoning of our old ways and practices - and have been since at least 2006. I guess when I look cynically upon the Chicken Little BLP warriors, it just reflects my own ignorance of how Wikipedia teeters on the brink every day, how countless suicides and ruined lives have been averted by their heroic daily efforts. -- gwern ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Google Books settlement reached
This is, of course, the second settlement agreement. The first was scrapped when serious objections emerged from from numerous parties, including the justice department. I would not count it as a done deal until after the fairness hearing when Judge Chin may or may not approve it. Frank On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 2:34 AM, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.comwrote: It seems a settlement has been reached between Google Books and those taking action against it. Anyone here know what this means in terms of what we do and how we use Google Books? http://books.google.com/googlebooks/agreement/ Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Administrator coup / mass deletions
On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 5:35 PM, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: Those people who have been safely dead for a while, it tends to be easier to establish notability and find sources (they are also less litigious). There's an idea. Some people assert that Elvis is still alive. Why don't we put a whole section in his article saying he was a paedophile. If he doesn't sue we can assume he's properly dead and put an end to the debate. I feel this would be an excellent use of charitable funds. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Administrator coup / mass deletions
On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 12:02 PM, Gwern Branwen gwe...@gmail.com wrote: When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. eh? You older Wikipedians run along now; you've had your day. The adults are talking now - I are serious editors, this are serious website. This is a radical misunderstanding of what I said. This isn't an old editor vs. new editor issue. David Gerard is hardly an arrogant upstart, and Jimbo Wales (one of the original Wikipedians) surely is not. Both are firmly on the side of change with regards to retaining shoddy BLPs. It's a question of what policies would be best for the project right now. Policies that were good in 2001 no longer strike the right balance in 2010. Originally, our goal was generating content, but we now have tons of content--so much that readers are more concerned about reliability. BLP subjects are most especially concerned that we get their entries right, and our project's credibility suffers most when they are harmed. At this point in time, retaining shoddy BLPs is bad for subjects and frankly bad for Wikipedia. Cool Hand Luke ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Administrator coup / mass deletions
On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 10:02 AM, Gwern Branwen gwe...@gmail.com wrote: You older Wikipedians run along now; you've had your day. The adults are talking now - I are serious editors, this are serious website. Funny how BLPs have been the most serious threat facing the project, so serious that mass mutiny is justified and the jettisoning of our old ways and practices - and have been since at least 2006. I guess when I look cynically upon the Chicken Little BLP warriors, it just reflects my own ignorance of how Wikipedia teeters on the brink every day, how countless suicides and ruined lives have been averted by their heroic daily efforts. -- gwern This is really not the attitude that we want to project toward anyone. I'm very disappointed by the tone of this email. - causa sui ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Administrator coup / mass deletions
On 22/01/2010, Ryan Delaney ryan.dela...@gmail.com wrote: This is really not the attitude that we want to project toward anyone. I'm very disappointed by the tone of this email. Tone is one thing, but I'm more concerned about the complete lack of process here. Am I correct in thinking that a lone admin can technically delete *any* BLP article at all by: a) 'challenging' and removing any references b) instantly deleting the article for being unreferenced While that's a somewhat contrived scenario; I've seen admins do things a bit like that before, and they could probably argue that a) was what they truly believed (even if everyone else considers the references to have been good). So is it right that there's a rule, but no process for these kinds of deletions? - causa sui -- -Ian Woollard ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Administrator coup / mass deletions
On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 11:38 AM, Ian Woollard ian.wooll...@gmail.com wrote: On 22/01/2010, Ryan Delaney ryan.dela...@gmail.com wrote: This is really not the attitude that we want to project toward anyone. I'm very disappointed by the tone of this email. Tone is one thing, but I'm more concerned about the complete lack of process here. Thanks for getting this back on track. Am I correct in thinking that a lone admin can technically delete *any* BLP article at all by: a) 'challenging' and removing any references b) instantly deleting the article for being unreferenced In theory, an administrator could do this. Technically. While that's a somewhat contrived scenario; I've seen admins do things a bit like that before, and they could probably argue that a) was what they truly believed (even if everyone else considers the references to have been good). The solution to that is to follow dispute resolution and clean up the mess. We don't add rules to cover every possible eventuality. We have common sense for that. So is it right that there's a rule, but no process for these kinds of deletions? Pretty much. What you're describing, if it is happening, does sound like a problem deserving of attention. But I wouldn't jump to creating a new bureaucracy to handle this problem any more than I would another. - causa sui ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Administrator coup / mass deletions
Chicken Little is a fairly good comparison. I see in this group of BLPs only the possibility of potential problems. I am waiting for evidence that any of those deleted without checking so far has done harm by being there. Let us suppose for the sake of argument that out of the 500, 1 or 2 of them was a potential problem;. Based on my running work with this, for about half of them there was both the ability to source enough to lose the unsourcedBLP status very easily, and the potential to become a acceptable articles after reasonable work. The project thus has been wrong several hundred times more than it has been right. A yield rate of less than 1% and a damage rate of 50% is unacceptable quality. I would feel quite differently if either 90% of the articles were truly unsourceable or unsuitable, or if even 5% of them had been actual problems. BLP violations are serious, and I agree that we ought to risk making a few errors to remove them--a 5% error rate is as low as any Wikipedia process can reasonably attain-- but this was a process 99% of which was either wrong or unnecessarily hasty. If this does not meet the standard for disrupting Wikipedia to make a point, I do not know what would. True, they made the point. There were so many ways to have done it better. They would have made the point just as well with 50, not 500 deletions. They would have made the point just as well and contributed something to the process if they actually checked for even the most obvious and easily sourceable notability. They would have been less foolish if they had not deleted the 5 or 10% of articles that did have sources, though not in the usual places. In the month or so that this plan probably took shape, each of the 50 people involved or strongly defending them could have checked properly 10 articles a day while still doing their usual work. That would have cleared 10,000 articles. In the years that people have been complaining about the situation, if they had worked instead of talked, the whole problem of the old articles could have been dealt with--even by themselves alone. And then we would be able to concentrate on the much bigger problem of all the sourced articles in Wikipedia that nonetheless contain major errors. David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 2:19 PM, Ryan Delaney ryan.dela...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 10:02 AM, Gwern Branwen gwe...@gmail.com wrote: You older Wikipedians run along now; you've had your day. The adults are talking now - I are serious editors, this are serious website. Funny how BLPs have been the most serious threat facing the project, so serious that mass mutiny is justified and the jettisoning of our old ways and practices - and have been since at least 2006. I guess when I look cynically upon the Chicken Little BLP warriors, it just reflects my own ignorance of how Wikipedia teeters on the brink every day, how countless suicides and ruined lives have been averted by their heroic daily efforts. -- gwern This is really not the attitude that we want to project toward anyone. I'm very disappointed by the tone of this email. - causa sui ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Administrator coup / mass deletions
Jimbo has never been an active editor. The BLPs aren't being deleted for being shoddy, they're being deleted for not having references. On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 1:33 PM, Cool Hand Luke failure.to.communic...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 12:02 PM, Gwern Branwen gwe...@gmail.com wrote: When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. eh? You older Wikipedians run along now; you've had your day. The adults are talking now - I are serious editors, this are serious website. This is a radical misunderstanding of what I said. This isn't an old editor vs. new editor issue. David Gerard is hardly an arrogant upstart, and Jimbo Wales (one of the original Wikipedians) surely is not. Both are firmly on the side of change with regards to retaining shoddy BLPs. It's a question of what policies would be best for the project right now. Policies that were good in 2001 no longer strike the right balance in 2010. Originally, our goal was generating content, but we now have tons of content--so much that readers are more concerned about reliability. BLP subjects are most especially concerned that we get their entries right, and our project's credibility suffers most when they are harmed. At this point in time, retaining shoddy BLPs is bad for subjects and frankly bad for Wikipedia. Cool Hand Luke ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Administrator coup / mass deletions
2010/1/21 David Gerard dger...@gmail.com: Does anyone have a summary of the articles deleted in the present blood-crazed axe frenzy? Is there a list up? And/or a description of the general type of BLP deleted? I understand many were hardly-viewed articles with no edits in the last six months. Which sounds innocuous enough, but remember that [[John Seigenthaler]] was one of those until the subject noticed. Here you go, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:The_wub/Lazarus It only includes deletions by one admin so far, but I plan to add more tomorrow. Also useful things like google cached versions for non-admins. Pete / the wub ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Administrator coup / mass deletions
2010/1/22 David Goodman dgoodma...@gmail.com: Chicken Little is a fairly good comparison. I see in this group of BLPs only the possibility of potential problems. I am waiting for evidence that any of those deleted without checking so far has done harm by being there. [[John Seigenthaler]] would have been a good example member of this group. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Administrator coup / mass deletions
2010/1/22 David Goodman dgoodma...@gmail.com: If this does not meet the standard for disrupting Wikipedia to make a point, I do not know what would. Evidently. WP:POINT is about doing something you *don't* want to have happen to make a point, not about doing things spectacularly in general. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Administrator coup / mass deletions
On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 11:59 AM, David Goodman dgoodma...@gmail.com wrote: Chicken Little is a fairly good comparison. I see in this group of BLPs only the possibility of potential problems. I am waiting for evidence that any of those deleted without checking so far has done harm by being there. You probably won't be getting that evidence, since the way the policy is in place, the burden of proof isn't on the person removing the content-- it's on the person adding it. That's not just how BLP works, but the verifiability policy as well, and that's a Good Thing(tm). If people want to add content to Wikipedia, they ought to be providing sources for it. We're somewhat lax about enforcing that when it's inanimate objects, but we aren't lax about it when we're talking about real people. That seems to me to be the right balance. - causa sui ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Administrator coup / mass deletions
2010/1/22 Ryan Delaney ryan.dela...@gmail.com: You probably won't be getting that evidence, since the way the policy is in place, the burden of proof isn't on the person removing the content-- it's on the person adding it. That's not just how BLP works, but the verifiability policy as well, and that's a Good Thing(tm). If people want to add content to Wikipedia, they ought to be providing sources for it. We're somewhat lax about enforcing that when it's inanimate objects, but we aren't lax about it when we're talking about real people. That seems to me to be the right balance. It does really suck that this is trashing what are mostly likely perfectly okay pieces that people put work into. This needs to be acknowledged and we need to work to alleviate the suck from it. the_wub's list will help recover stuff, and hopefully things will proceed in a less axe-crazy manner henceforth. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Administrator coup / mass deletions
On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 11:49 AM, Ryan Delaney ryan.dela...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 11:38 AM, Ian Woollard ian.wooll...@gmail.com wrote: a) 'challenging' and removing any references b) instantly deleting the article for being unreferenced In theory, an administrator could do this. Technically. This did happen at least once in the leadup to all this. And, at least one case of a referenced article, which was in the category anyways apparently by accident (not maliciously) getting removed in the removal sprees. The removals were sloppy. That helped kick off the protests at the beginning. -- -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Free data (UK government)
I think we should also note that one of Wikimedia's own was involved in this project from the beginning. In his professional capacity (not as a volunteer Wikimedian) former en.wp Arb - James Forrester ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jdforrester) has played an important roll in achieving the launch of data.gov.uk and the licensing arrangement therein. Congratulations! I'm also guessing that is no small part of the reason why their wiki just happens to be a heavily skinned MediaWiki :-) http://data.gov.uk/wiki/User:Jdforrester Now that it's live - I'd love to see if we can demonstrate some innovative re-use cases of the UK datasets on en.WP to help justify to the UK gov't (and other governments who are investigating releasing their data freely - like my own here in Australia) the positive outcomes of making their content available both Gratis and Libre. You might also be interested in Creative Commons' own blogpost about this http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/20228 Sincerely, -Liam [[witty lama]] wittylama.com/blog Peace, love metadata On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 5:26 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.comwrote: 2010/1/22 Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com: I *think* Mike Peel reads this list. I was about to do something else, so maybe someone else could point this out to them? They probably know already, but it wouldn't hurt to ask (I'm just not going to do it right now). Yes, we know already, but thanks for thinking of us! ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Custom Google search engines for finding RSs for subject areas
On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 8:45 PM, K. Peachey p858sn...@yahoo.com.au wrote:
On Sat, Jan 23, 2010 at 3:00 AM, Gwern Branwen gwe...@gmail.com wrote:
...snip...
I started with all the links listed in
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Anime_and_manga/Online_reliable_sources
and then began running searches on random topics and pruning based on
that - chucking sites into the blacklist sinbin, or finding good sites
omitted from the list and adding them to the whitelist. At last count,
I had 200 sites on the nice list and 311 on the naughty list (but this
counts things like the Mirrors page as a single link, though they ban
dozens or hundreds of sites).
...snip...
Perhaps we should encourage more WikiProjects to create lists like the
one displayed then add them into a category and someone could work on
a custom search that suitable to use across the project that is
continuously updated with more allow/black lists.
-Peachey
That would be an excellent idea, especially if they could then all be
{{subst}}ed into a single page - just as I can ban every site listed
in the consolidated WP:MIRRO page, so too I can *include* every site
listed on a page. It would probably be superior to the current AfD
template with just some normal Google/Books/News searches.
--
gwern
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