This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (miscellaneous). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.
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Little thingy for those who dislike fragmented user discussions:
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{{Usertalkback}}
{{Usertalkback|small=yes}}
(Of course the "leave me a new message" link doesn't work properly on this page.)
It follows the standard format of Wikipedia:Talk page templates, contrary to the others I found. Options and more at the documentation for {{ Usertalkback}}, including a "See also" with all similar templates I found. — Komusou talk @ 19:48, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
P.S.: But then, if you do prefer fragmented discussions:
If I have left you a message: please answer on my talk page, else inform me. If you leave me a message: I will answer on your talk page, unless you request otherwise. Please click here to leave me a new message. |
If I have left you a message: please answer on my talk page, else inform me. If you leave me a message: I will answer on your talk page, unless you request otherwise. Please click here to leave me a new message. |
{{Usertalkback|you=other|me=other|runon=yes|icon=frag}}
{{Usertalkback|you=other|me=other|runon=yes|icon=frag|small=yes}}
— Komusou talk @ 23:20, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
The Wikimedia Commons is currently preparing the 2007 Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year contest. We are now requesting users for help with the translation of the contest pages to the 14 most-widely spoken languages. You can find more information about this here. If you know a language mentioned there or know someone who does, please help out!
For the Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year committee,
Agüeybaná ( talk) 02:05, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
Why the "Suite Gothique" of Léon Boëllmann have this name?
Any good idea can be turned into a bad one if you try hard enough. Templates and biographical articles seem to be an example in progress. If I look at Stephen of England, there is no point at which some template or other is not taking up part of the page. We start with {{ Infobox Monarch}}, then there's {{ House of Normandy}}, then a home-grown version of {{ Ahnentafel3}}, then some succession boxes, a family information box which duplicates much of the ahnentafel, and finally {{ English Monarchs}}. I've started a little discussion of this phenomenon at Talk:Louis V of France. If you have any view on this, do pop over and leave a note. Many thanks, Angus McLellan (Talk) 16:29, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
The above Uni has said in reply to a SPAM warning the following: "Staff members - lecturers, librarians, ect - often vandalise articles in front of the students to demonstrate their belief that wikipedia is not a reliable source. The uni doesn't seem too interested in not being blocked. This varies by faculty but is more or less true of the majority." I have explained that we cannot take these edits, and will block if needed. Has anyone got any ideas on how to control this Uni? (this IP needs watching between 9am → 5pm) -- Whiteandnerdy111 ( talk) 19:59, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
People please watchlist this article. I don't edit much anymore, but I'm looking through it, and it has just a sick amount of vandalism in it, and no one is watching it. Thanks. The Evil Spartan ( talk) 00:10, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
Why does Wikipedia use the made up word "disambiguous".
Why use a word that does not exist and more importantly; why create a word when other word with the same meaning exist already? —Preceding unsigned comment added by James Mead ( talk • contribs) 20:19, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
For the mathematics and computer geeks among us, Wikipedia has exceeded 2,097,152 = 2^21 articles. By an extremely rough calculation (looking at the current number of articles and counting the difference back in Special:Newpages), I get cryptologist Daniel Bleichenbacher as the article in question. Confusing Manifestation( Say hi!) 22:21, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
I have been trying to research the correct way to create new words in English n Wikipedia that are representative of new ways of looking at and doing as a result of the new capabilities of internet technology.
What is the correct way to begin? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gutzywoman ( talk • contribs) 05:27, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
that says someone, probably me, (not) has changed my password. Why? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.231.239.206 ( talk) 12:36, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
I have noticed a recent rise in vandalisim since the donation banner was put up and I believe the donation banner might have something to do with it. I believe that this banner puts mischeivious thoughts into the heads of the vandals. When they see the banner and the great quotes, they are even more motivated to destroy the project. Perhaps Wikipedia:The Motivation of a Vandal might give us some answers. Your thoughts? Marlith T/ C 01:23, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Do we have a policy on including a link to a Google Books search within a reference? For instance, on List of animals displaying homosexual behavior, many of the refs look like this:
I think the link might have originally brought you to the specific page referenced, but it doesn't seem to do so now. Anyway, just curious as to whether those links were accaptible, were a copyright vio, or what. If possible, could a reply be posted on my talk page? Thanks! -- SatyrTN ( talk | contribs) 16:15, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
If wikipedia is not a dictionary, how come we keep seeing pronunciation guides at the top of the pages? Is it because the Encyclopædia Brittanica does something like that? The pronunciation guide is less than helpful for me, as I haven't memorized the pronunciation glyphs. So it's just so much disruptive text in the lead. (Sorry.) — RJH ( talk) 17:36, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't know if other people feel the same way but I find the complaint banners that frequently appear at the tops of pages to be annoying, distracting and irrelevant. These banners are for example: COI (conflict of interest), Cleanup (article needs cleanup), Citation (article needs more citations), sources etc, etc, etc. These editorial banners belong in the comments on an article, not in its text.
Frankly I think these editorial comments/complaints don't belong at the top of the page. They are distracting and really don't have anything to do with the topic. When I go to a topic I want to read about the topic, not read some wannabe editors opinion about the article's shortcomings. These banners remind me of "site under construction" notices on amateur web pages. Well, guess what? The whole web is "under construction", we don't need a message to inform us of that fact.
If an armchair editor thinks an article needs more evidence the proper response is to provide it instead of whining about a lack of evidence. In all honesty you could put a "Citation" complaint on every single article in the Wikipedia, so they are somewhat meaningless I think.
I realize that page editors can put these notices wherever they want so there may be no easy way to direct them, say to the bottom of the page where they may be less distracting.
Perhaps, the best solution would be to relegate the use of these editorial banners to the comments page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.248.107.194 ( talk) 20:19, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
First of all Benjiboi it would be spelled PROS not prose whicth if you look it up right at this very site
prose is some poetry term. However, I have to agree with both the starter of this topic and (in reverse order) Ummit, the two Anons above him, Mr.Brooks, Half with Benjiboi, and Mr.Duncan. It just seems for starters, a very large amount of the POP. probably already knows what a cat is whitch would make an intro worthless. Then moving on to books, last I checked if you were looking for a plot summery the chances are very good that you will find at least some of the plot a bit farther ahead. So we should now that there are going to be spoilers when read a Snypopsis. I could rant more but, I was just using examples. —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
65.78.64.27 (
talk)
03:37, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
What could a technical solution look like?
Thoughts?-- Eloquence * 04:00, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
Ok this has been bugging me for awhile, seeing as I'm currently doing spell checks everywhere. I've noticed on my Firefox, whenever it says "realise" or any other word that can use S or Z, it highlights the S version as a spelling error. Whenever I switch it to "realize", the highlighting disappears. So do we have like a set policy on S or Z in certain words?
Also, same question applies for "honor"/"honour", or "glamor"/"glamour". Whats the preferred way (I know "our" is Canadian...I think...but Firefox highlights any word with our as a spelling error". Vampire Warrior 16:14, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
The 2007 Wikimedia Foundation steward's election has been opened for voting, see meta:Stewards/elections_2007 to participate. — xaosflux Talk 00:45, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Just Wondering. With the 2101000+ articles on Wikipedia how long do you think to just hitting over and over again to come back to the article you started on. PROVIDED THAT YOU NEVER REPEAT AN ARTICLE UNTIL YOU HAVE SEEN THEM ALL. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.78.64.27 ( talk) 03:04, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
You got it Knott however, if you had allready seen each and everyone then it would not be a repeat. BTW. Yes Graham I am referring to the random page feature. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.78.64.27 ( talk) 15:13, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
But of course that is only if you never repeat a page.
More realistically, if there are m pages, and you have hit repeat page n times, the probability of a particular page having been hit exactly r times will tend to a Poisson distribution,
so the chances for any particular page of it having been hit 0 times will be
and the total expectation number of pages that have been hit 0 times will be
The actual number k of pages that have been hit 0 times will (I think) also be Poisson distributed,
So the probability that all pages have been hit, i.e k=0 will be
The median time is defined by the number of draws it is likely to takes for this probability to come up to 0.5; so
which gives
Putting m = 2,101,000, this works out to give a median n = 14.92 m, so n = 31,400,000
I was actually expecting it to come out at a bit more than that; so I may have lost a factor somewhere, or slipped up with one of my assumptions... Jheald ( talk) 01:30, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 November 27#CompactTOCs merge and rename needs further community input. There is no dispute there or anything, it's just that it is a multi-template merge of some complexity, and it has not (probably because of said complexity) garnered any comments all, pro or con, so far. — SMcCandlish [ talk] [ cont] ‹(-¿-)› 16:44, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Hi,
Where can I make a suggestion for Wikipedia Improvements?
The Helpful One (Talk) 17:59, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Hi! As has been posted on the main page's talk page, the World Economic Forum (WEF) has chosen the Wikimedia Foundation as one of the 2008 Pioneers of Technology. 38 other organisations or companies have also been selected for the list of pioneers. If interested, read the full story on Wikinews. Puchiko ( Talk- email) 15:54, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Here's an idea to help the WikiProjects with their good article and featured article drives: special edition project level triple crowns. In order to qualify, a project needs to have five members who qualify for a standard triple crown based on contributions within the project's scope. Several editors can share credit for the same GA or FA if they each put enough into a collaborative effort.
Once a project comes close to qualifying, contact me and I'll design a special award as thanks for your efforts. Happy editing! Durova Charge! 21:50, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I have seen the name of a producing group called "Chris and Drop" numerous times within Wikipedia pages of musicians, but i cannot find more inforamtion about them. They were cited on the page of Dutch Singer Ninthe, Amerie, Lupe Fiasco, Nikki Jean, Cassidy. How would one go about requesting that an article be written about them? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lelaninavarro ( talk • contribs) 22:51, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Voting for the 2007 Arbitration Committee Elections has officially begun. Visit the Voting page for more information. Thank you. - Mtmelendez ( Talk) 00:03, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
I am wondering if there is any Wikipedia users of Orkut who can help. The article Ezhava seems to have been listed on some Orkut forum with the forum moderator there directing people to edit the article here to a particular unsourced version. See the WP:AN discussion, and I've requested a link from both User:Vvmundakkal and User:125.99.225.216. I don't know if that's enough but if someone could explain to them that making up sources (saying things came from books when they didn't), reinserting the same POV text repeatedly, and recreating deleting articles are generally not helpful here? There is a discussion somewhat at Talk:Ezhava but it requires them to actually discuss the article, not simply insult everyone and leave to edit war again. -- Ricky81682 ( talk) 09:41, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
what kind of font is used in the "L", "M", and "N" in the Death Note manga? —Preceding unsigned comment added by WikiDragon295 ( talk • contribs) 22:13, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm looking for a policy I can post on our own local Wiki (using Wikimedia) regarding ownership or lack thereof of info / material posted onto a Wiki. Does anyone know where I might find such a policy, e.g., that the site is public domain and free for use / citation, etc.? If you have any suggestions, please post them on the TALK page. Thanks. -- Pdmawiki ( talk) 19:41, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
As you know, every article has a set of four links that are typically labeled as shown above. But these links actually lead to a set of six related pages, not four. That's because two of the links, when used, silently change the meaning of the other two. Selecting "discussion" not only brings up the talk page, it also causes the "edit this page" to edit the talk page and the "history" link to show the talk page history. Conversely, selecting "article" not only brings up the article, it causes "edit this page" to edit the article itself and the "history" link to show the article's history. But the "article" and "discussion" links always point to the article and the talk page respectively, no matter which of the other five pages you're on.
This is not a big deal, but it is a mildly confusing design, and it ought to be possible to do better. If the present behavior of four links really is the Right Thing, then one simple possibility would be for the wording to change so they read either
or
as applicable.
This is in keeping with the way "edit this page" changes to "view source" when you don't have permission to edit, and "article" changes to "project page" when you're viewing a project page.
Of course there is one other difference as well: talk pages have a "+" link to add a new item, and article pages don't. As this is less than transparent, I would also suggest that if changes are being made, then "+" should become "add item" or "new item".
Yes, of course it's possible to get used to the present design. I'm sure everyone who's likely to read this is thoroughly used to it. But please try to look at these links like someone who isn't familiar with it, and see if on reflection you don't agree that they're confusing.
Another thing I think is a bit confusing is the use of the word "discussion" in these links. I don't see it as a big deal whether they're called talk pages or discussion pages, but I do think it's confusing when almost everything else in Wikipedia that talks about them calls them talk pages, even the talk page URLs use the word "Talk", and yet the link that points to them reads "discussion".
I'm sure this has been discussed before, or perhaps talked about :–), but since I'm talking about rewording the link names, this seems a good time to raise the point again.
I can see that a link marked "talk" by itself might also be confusing, but "talk page" might fly. Or maybe even "talk page (discuss this article)".
The other alternative, of course, is to drop "talk" altogether and use "discussion". Then many templates such as POV and Citecheck and Pp-dispute and Expert and Story would have to be changed, and so would pages like Wikipedia:Template messages/Deletion and many others that speak of "talk pages". Personally, I'd see rather the briefer word survive.
Still another confusing wording is "project page". This is fine for pages that actually are at the center of something that might be called a project, but it doesn't really apply to forums like the Reference Desks or the Village Pump. However, I don't have a good suggestion for a better wording.
-- 207.176.159.90 ( talk) 03:12, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Our school is trying to deal with Wikipedia vandalism internally (looking at logs etc), and I'd appreciate any advice as to whether we're missing any technical aspects of WP that we can use to help prevent vandalism. At the moment, all we've been able to do is subscribe to an RSS feed of changes to our talk page which, while useful, doesn't really help. Is there, for example, a feed from Special:Contributions that I haven't found? Or any other MediaWiki functionality that we (as school staff and owner of the IP address) are missing? Many thanks, Alexlmuller 11:48, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
(From foundation:Resolution:License update)
“ | Whereas the Board seeks to respond responsibily to longstanding community concerns about issues of compatibility between the
GNU Free Documentation License and the
Creative Commons CC-BY-SA license, as well as to continue longstanding traditions of strong community input and control over major decisions affecting the projects, and
Whereas a long period of discussion and negotiation between and amongst the Free Software Foundation, Creative Commons, the Wikimedia Foundation and others has produced a proposal supported by both the FSF and Creative Commons to modify the Free Documentation License in such a fashion as to allow the possibility for the Wikimedia Foundation to migrate the projects to CC-BY-SA, and Whereas, Creative Commons and the Free Software Foundation (FSF) would like formal support for this license change, It is hereby resolved that:
|
” |
-- KTC
I just sent this to the mailing lists as well:
I'm pleased to announce that four Wikipedians -- myself, Charles Matthews, Ben Yates and SJ Klein -- are writing a book about using and understanding Wikipedia, tentatively titled "How Wikipedia Works". It will be published by No Starch Press in early 2008.
This guide will be focused on helping readers understand Wikipedia and helping new editors contribute. We hope to include enough detail to make it a useful reference for current contributors as well. (Note that this is a different project from the O'Reilly book that was discussed earlier on the lists).
We welcome community feedback and ideas, and hope to make this a truly community-based work. There is a project page here. We'll add detail there over the coming weeks, and have asked for feedback in some specific areas. Please do contribute and send us your thoughts and ideas.
Some details:
If you have any questions, concerns or ideas, please let me or one of the other authors know. I'll be updating the project page with progress information as we get closer to publication. Best, -- phoebe/( talk) 18:50, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Hi. Some statistics of namespace 0 deleted pages from last logging-dump available. Come on deletionists! You have to delete ~50,000 pages this month ;) -- Emijrp 20:47, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
December 2004 3097 January 2005 11446 February 2005 11459 March 2005 15603 April 2005 16406 May 2005 18712 June 2005 18387 July 2005 21952 August 2005 25607 September 2005 24700 October 2005 33984 November 2005 33615 December 2005 27460 January 2006 25706 February 2006 24693 March 2006 30824 April 2006 33467 May 2006 43050 June 2006 37393 July 2006 35812 August 2006 41188 September 2006 44055 October 2006 56181 November 2006 57680 December 2006 54718 January 2007 59734 February 2007 59603 March 2007 59376 April 2007 60147 May 2007 58817 June 2007 48186 July 2007 43802 August 2007 44194 September 2007 44063
Anyone want to create Category:Manufacturers? The subcategories are ready-made, but for some reason nobody thought of it. It's a very tedious job unless someone can program a bot to do it. Shalom ( Hello • Peace) 15:46, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
I want to make a request to make a new article about Jimmy Napitupulu. I want to make it in Wikipedia, but I'm afraid that I thought that I made a vandal. Please help me. Thank you. Albert@Indonesia ( My User Talk Page Shortcut here) —Preceding comment was added at 06:11, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Do it! Be bold! I will proofread if you'd like. Sukiari ( talk) 10:08, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
I wonder if Angioma and Hemangioma are the same thing and should be merged? Hovev ( talk) 11:20, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
-- PaperclipedMime ( talk) 21:02, 5 December 2007 (UTC) I apologize if I am spamming the Village Pump (*snicker* still can't get over that...), but I don't really know where else to ask. Does anyone know anything about the illustration project that Wikipedia is sponsoring that is going on right now? Artists can submit illustrations for specific articles that Wiki needs, and the staff will pick the best ones and post them, but I'm not really sure who to contact on that one or where I could even get more information on the project. Help please?
-- PaperclipedMime ( talk) 02:11, 6 December 2007 (UTC)Thank you very much for your response. If I could ask two more questions, that would be great. First off (and I realize that this makes me sound like a noob) but is there a special program for SVGs, or is that just another type of file (I just found that part a bit confusing as I've never encountered the term before). Also, is there an available list of illustrations that need to be done? Again, thanks for the help.
Let's dig a little deeper. Underneath the edit that started this section, I see an assumption: that actions of editors must be "justified." It was written, in particular:
Actions should not follow policy; rather, policy follows actions. The right thing to do in a particular situation, whatever it may be, is totally independent of policy.
This is, of course, true, there is no fault in it. As far as it goes. But actions do not take place in a vacuum. They take place in an environment where there is precedent and shared understanding, and without this, a community cannot grow and develop intelligence, except for the raw, a-priori, and individual intelligence of its individual members. And then it was written:
When it becomes clear that most of what is now termed "policy" is in fact not, IAR will become useless--because actions, orthodox or not, will be justified on their own merits.
"Policy" is, in fact, a defense of an action as reasonable on its face. It is not a defense of the ultimate value of the action. There is a big difference. First of all, if there is no policy, then every action is easily subject to challenge, and, as a group grows in size, the challenges will multiply. We have elected, as a community (or those with decision power decided) to entrust certain powers to what are called in other organizations "trusted servants." These powers are essentially police powers, and, because of the familiarity with the situations, I will now describe admins as police. The police, in a healthy society, have no punitive power, they have only the power to "serve and protect," as is the motto of a local police department, and it is regrettable when they act otherwise. Nevertheless, if a police officer acts according to established policy, the action is defensible, unless the harm of it is blatant and irreversible, and any reasonable person would have recognized this. But there is more. Police officers are also given discretion. This is the public version of WP:IAR. Where action is required that is outside of policy, but is necessary or appropriate *for the public welfare," that action is lawful, and if the action is challenged, a showing that the officer reasonably believed this would be sufficient to protect the officer from disciplinary consequences. Again, for public servants, the *legal* standard is WP:AGF. Wikipedia is not as different from normal society as we sometimes think. Courts do, in fact, have a standard that, by common law, supercedes written law ("policy'), it is called "public policy," as a basis for decisions. When a court cites "public policy," it would be acknowledging that it is making a decision that is contrary to law or precedent, in the public interest based on the facts of the case. This, then, if sustained, becomes new policy through precedent.
We entrust administrators with a difficult task that can be expected to raise hackles. If an administrator does actual harm, absolutely, it should be challenged. If the action was contrary to policy, it's also appropriate to expect the action to be justified at least to the level of the intention involved. A controversial action should naturally be reviewed to see if policy is adequate. Policy, properly, is a living thing, not fixed to whatever current statements comprise it. But so too is, properly, the discretion of administrators. It is well-known that police must have discretion if they are to effectively protect the public. No set of policies can anticipate what an officer will face. There is, however, a question of the limits of discretion. We have come, in public society, to recognize a balance between discretion and policy, and, increasingly, for an officer to detain and arrest on a mere hunch has come to be considered contrary to policy; but this is controversial, for it conflicts with the protection of the public.
However, what if the action of the officer does no harm? Or the harm done is reversible?
We have a situation where ongoing harm is being done to Wikipedia by disruptive editors and sock puppets. To maintain the project in the face of determined and continual attack by such is becoming an increasing burden. I believe that there is a way to make this more efficient, but the tools to do it are not in place. Until then, we need, in fact, some set of users to be vigilant against what are actually worse than vandals. Vandalism is easy to detect and not controversial. But a POV-pusher is another matter. Such people create edit wars, but, more seriously even, they harm newcomers. A sock puppet is often an experienced Wikipedia user, a wikilawyer, and skilled at presenting "policy" justifying abusive edits that can completely snow a newcomer. If there are no other experienced editors defending an article and the newcomer, many simply go away. It even happens when there *are* experienced users helping, for some newbies will disappear at the first deletion of the edit that took them a long time to put together, gone in a flash. Experts, who don't have time to go through complex wikipedia process, go away in disgust.
Wikipedia is bleeding from these thousand cuts a day. This is what we must balance against an allegedly overaggressive protection against sock puppetry. Further, the alleged harm to a newbie from being unjustly blocked is ameliorable. The very climate that requires administrators to "justify" their actions increases the need for admins to come up with strong reasons, which then can be offensive, and, indeed, drive a newcomer away. Blocking is not and should not be presented, ever, as a punitive action, and the message received by those with blocked IP or account should never accuse, and it should thoroughly explain how to appeal, all that, *and it should apologize for the inconvenience and encourage the user to help fix the situation.* There is no harm in apologizing to a miscreant, they can't bank it.
To me, Durova committed no offense at all. We need more like her, though I'm not sure we deserve it yet. She made an error. But if the police never make errors, they aren't trying hard enough to protect the public. The questions, properly, should have been, when her action was challenged, "Did she have reason to believe that her action was needed for protection of the project and its users?" "Is there any evidence that she used her police power to advance a personal agenda, i.e., to block users selectively because she disagrees with their POV or opinions." "Could her error have been made by a competent person?"
If, *starting with a presumption of WP:AGF*, the answer to all these questions is "Yes," then she should stand in no need of defense, and the only question would be whether or not policy was adequate to guide her.
The question of secret evidence is a huge red herring. Police action, ultimately as the situation deepens in complexity and the increasing sophistication of those who would abuse our freedoms, requires secrecy to be effective. The demands that the content of a private, off-wiki mailing list be provided are utterly unreasonable. The future of Wikipedia actually depends on the freedom of private speech, it will become increasingly important, and it's the only ultimate protection against increasing bureaucratic control. We cannot tell whether or not what is on that list is interesting, boring, represents an evil conspiracy, or was entirely benign and helpful. And, quite simply, it is not our business. Durova, when her action was challenged, apparently felt it necessary to note that she had not taken the action alone, but this, in fact, was irrelevant. She was responsible for her own action, and if it was worthy of de-sysopping, she'd be the one, not anyone whom she asked *privately* for advice or support. A *very* important part of freedom of speech is the protection of privacy. Without it, free speech, ultimately, becomes severely constrained. Private speech is *irrelevant* to Wikpedia policy.
Durova is to be *congratulated* for not carrying her burden alone, but nobody has seriously proposed that a private list of concerned people should be a mechanism in policy. Absolutely, it is not adequate for review of a block; however, the only immediate question with a block should be whether or not it should be maintained. Whether the administrator erred or not is *irrelevant* to that question. In my view, the *worst* problem here is that an administrator reviewed an unblock request and denied it. I've seen far more errors, far more serious in effect, from the denial of an unblock than from blocking. I'd suggest that, instead of leaping to conclusions based on some idea that an administrator should be supported by denying the unblock, administrators not respond to unblock requests unless they can unblock. It's pretty bad when an innocent user gets blocked, requests unblock, and gets a denial instead of the request starting some process where the evidence will be reviewed by more than one or two persons. If I were a newbie, and I were wrongly blocked, and I saw that my request started a process of review that was founded on AGF, I'd say that I'd probably be gratified, not offended. I'd see that the community was trying to protect everyone, including me.
The harm of a block, in itself, is small, except to true POV-pushers, who *must* protect that article they worked so hard to get the way they want. And even these should be able to recruit a meat puppet -- even legitimately -- if what they want to keep in or out is legitimately so. There is *far* more harm from sock puppets, who aren't polite to newbies, insult them, tear up their edits, and generally drive them away, quoting policy as the wikilawyers they often are -- and some newbies have no idea about Undo or even History, no idea what to do against a determined and unrestrained sock puppet, who fears no consequences. Socks are cheap. To learn the guidelines takes a long time, to navigate the process for reporting suspected sock puppets is forbidding and confusing, and it is really easy to get it wrong in some way, to then be chided by a less than helpful admin. Yes, Wikipedia has problems, but I believe they can be resolved. I have experience as a chair under Robert's Rules, for a large assembly with inexperienced members, and my duty as chair, as I understood it, was not to simply rule a member out of order, but also to explain to the member how the member could do what the member plainly wanted to do. "Protect and serve." -- Abd ( talk) 19:46, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (miscellaneous). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.
< Older discussions · Archives: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X · 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79
Little thingy for those who dislike fragmented user discussions:
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{{Usertalkback}}
{{Usertalkback|small=yes}}
(Of course the "leave me a new message" link doesn't work properly on this page.)
It follows the standard format of Wikipedia:Talk page templates, contrary to the others I found. Options and more at the documentation for {{ Usertalkback}}, including a "See also" with all similar templates I found. — Komusou talk @ 19:48, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
P.S.: But then, if you do prefer fragmented discussions:
If I have left you a message: please answer on my talk page, else inform me. If you leave me a message: I will answer on your talk page, unless you request otherwise. Please click here to leave me a new message. |
If I have left you a message: please answer on my talk page, else inform me. If you leave me a message: I will answer on your talk page, unless you request otherwise. Please click here to leave me a new message. |
{{Usertalkback|you=other|me=other|runon=yes|icon=frag}}
{{Usertalkback|you=other|me=other|runon=yes|icon=frag|small=yes}}
— Komusou talk @ 23:20, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
The Wikimedia Commons is currently preparing the 2007 Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year contest. We are now requesting users for help with the translation of the contest pages to the 14 most-widely spoken languages. You can find more information about this here. If you know a language mentioned there or know someone who does, please help out!
For the Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year committee,
Agüeybaná ( talk) 02:05, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
Why the "Suite Gothique" of Léon Boëllmann have this name?
Any good idea can be turned into a bad one if you try hard enough. Templates and biographical articles seem to be an example in progress. If I look at Stephen of England, there is no point at which some template or other is not taking up part of the page. We start with {{ Infobox Monarch}}, then there's {{ House of Normandy}}, then a home-grown version of {{ Ahnentafel3}}, then some succession boxes, a family information box which duplicates much of the ahnentafel, and finally {{ English Monarchs}}. I've started a little discussion of this phenomenon at Talk:Louis V of France. If you have any view on this, do pop over and leave a note. Many thanks, Angus McLellan (Talk) 16:29, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
The above Uni has said in reply to a SPAM warning the following: "Staff members - lecturers, librarians, ect - often vandalise articles in front of the students to demonstrate their belief that wikipedia is not a reliable source. The uni doesn't seem too interested in not being blocked. This varies by faculty but is more or less true of the majority." I have explained that we cannot take these edits, and will block if needed. Has anyone got any ideas on how to control this Uni? (this IP needs watching between 9am → 5pm) -- Whiteandnerdy111 ( talk) 19:59, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
People please watchlist this article. I don't edit much anymore, but I'm looking through it, and it has just a sick amount of vandalism in it, and no one is watching it. Thanks. The Evil Spartan ( talk) 00:10, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
Why does Wikipedia use the made up word "disambiguous".
Why use a word that does not exist and more importantly; why create a word when other word with the same meaning exist already? —Preceding unsigned comment added by James Mead ( talk • contribs) 20:19, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
For the mathematics and computer geeks among us, Wikipedia has exceeded 2,097,152 = 2^21 articles. By an extremely rough calculation (looking at the current number of articles and counting the difference back in Special:Newpages), I get cryptologist Daniel Bleichenbacher as the article in question. Confusing Manifestation( Say hi!) 22:21, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
I have been trying to research the correct way to create new words in English n Wikipedia that are representative of new ways of looking at and doing as a result of the new capabilities of internet technology.
What is the correct way to begin? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gutzywoman ( talk • contribs) 05:27, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
that says someone, probably me, (not) has changed my password. Why? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.231.239.206 ( talk) 12:36, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
I have noticed a recent rise in vandalisim since the donation banner was put up and I believe the donation banner might have something to do with it. I believe that this banner puts mischeivious thoughts into the heads of the vandals. When they see the banner and the great quotes, they are even more motivated to destroy the project. Perhaps Wikipedia:The Motivation of a Vandal might give us some answers. Your thoughts? Marlith T/ C 01:23, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Do we have a policy on including a link to a Google Books search within a reference? For instance, on List of animals displaying homosexual behavior, many of the refs look like this:
I think the link might have originally brought you to the specific page referenced, but it doesn't seem to do so now. Anyway, just curious as to whether those links were accaptible, were a copyright vio, or what. If possible, could a reply be posted on my talk page? Thanks! -- SatyrTN ( talk | contribs) 16:15, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
If wikipedia is not a dictionary, how come we keep seeing pronunciation guides at the top of the pages? Is it because the Encyclopædia Brittanica does something like that? The pronunciation guide is less than helpful for me, as I haven't memorized the pronunciation glyphs. So it's just so much disruptive text in the lead. (Sorry.) — RJH ( talk) 17:36, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't know if other people feel the same way but I find the complaint banners that frequently appear at the tops of pages to be annoying, distracting and irrelevant. These banners are for example: COI (conflict of interest), Cleanup (article needs cleanup), Citation (article needs more citations), sources etc, etc, etc. These editorial banners belong in the comments on an article, not in its text.
Frankly I think these editorial comments/complaints don't belong at the top of the page. They are distracting and really don't have anything to do with the topic. When I go to a topic I want to read about the topic, not read some wannabe editors opinion about the article's shortcomings. These banners remind me of "site under construction" notices on amateur web pages. Well, guess what? The whole web is "under construction", we don't need a message to inform us of that fact.
If an armchair editor thinks an article needs more evidence the proper response is to provide it instead of whining about a lack of evidence. In all honesty you could put a "Citation" complaint on every single article in the Wikipedia, so they are somewhat meaningless I think.
I realize that page editors can put these notices wherever they want so there may be no easy way to direct them, say to the bottom of the page where they may be less distracting.
Perhaps, the best solution would be to relegate the use of these editorial banners to the comments page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.248.107.194 ( talk) 20:19, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
First of all Benjiboi it would be spelled PROS not prose whicth if you look it up right at this very site
prose is some poetry term. However, I have to agree with both the starter of this topic and (in reverse order) Ummit, the two Anons above him, Mr.Brooks, Half with Benjiboi, and Mr.Duncan. It just seems for starters, a very large amount of the POP. probably already knows what a cat is whitch would make an intro worthless. Then moving on to books, last I checked if you were looking for a plot summery the chances are very good that you will find at least some of the plot a bit farther ahead. So we should now that there are going to be spoilers when read a Snypopsis. I could rant more but, I was just using examples. —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
65.78.64.27 (
talk)
03:37, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
What could a technical solution look like?
Thoughts?-- Eloquence * 04:00, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
Ok this has been bugging me for awhile, seeing as I'm currently doing spell checks everywhere. I've noticed on my Firefox, whenever it says "realise" or any other word that can use S or Z, it highlights the S version as a spelling error. Whenever I switch it to "realize", the highlighting disappears. So do we have like a set policy on S or Z in certain words?
Also, same question applies for "honor"/"honour", or "glamor"/"glamour". Whats the preferred way (I know "our" is Canadian...I think...but Firefox highlights any word with our as a spelling error". Vampire Warrior 16:14, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
The 2007 Wikimedia Foundation steward's election has been opened for voting, see meta:Stewards/elections_2007 to participate. — xaosflux Talk 00:45, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Just Wondering. With the 2101000+ articles on Wikipedia how long do you think to just hitting over and over again to come back to the article you started on. PROVIDED THAT YOU NEVER REPEAT AN ARTICLE UNTIL YOU HAVE SEEN THEM ALL. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.78.64.27 ( talk) 03:04, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
You got it Knott however, if you had allready seen each and everyone then it would not be a repeat. BTW. Yes Graham I am referring to the random page feature. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.78.64.27 ( talk) 15:13, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
But of course that is only if you never repeat a page.
More realistically, if there are m pages, and you have hit repeat page n times, the probability of a particular page having been hit exactly r times will tend to a Poisson distribution,
so the chances for any particular page of it having been hit 0 times will be
and the total expectation number of pages that have been hit 0 times will be
The actual number k of pages that have been hit 0 times will (I think) also be Poisson distributed,
So the probability that all pages have been hit, i.e k=0 will be
The median time is defined by the number of draws it is likely to takes for this probability to come up to 0.5; so
which gives
Putting m = 2,101,000, this works out to give a median n = 14.92 m, so n = 31,400,000
I was actually expecting it to come out at a bit more than that; so I may have lost a factor somewhere, or slipped up with one of my assumptions... Jheald ( talk) 01:30, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 November 27#CompactTOCs merge and rename needs further community input. There is no dispute there or anything, it's just that it is a multi-template merge of some complexity, and it has not (probably because of said complexity) garnered any comments all, pro or con, so far. — SMcCandlish [ talk] [ cont] ‹(-¿-)› 16:44, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Hi,
Where can I make a suggestion for Wikipedia Improvements?
The Helpful One (Talk) 17:59, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Hi! As has been posted on the main page's talk page, the World Economic Forum (WEF) has chosen the Wikimedia Foundation as one of the 2008 Pioneers of Technology. 38 other organisations or companies have also been selected for the list of pioneers. If interested, read the full story on Wikinews. Puchiko ( Talk- email) 15:54, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Here's an idea to help the WikiProjects with their good article and featured article drives: special edition project level triple crowns. In order to qualify, a project needs to have five members who qualify for a standard triple crown based on contributions within the project's scope. Several editors can share credit for the same GA or FA if they each put enough into a collaborative effort.
Once a project comes close to qualifying, contact me and I'll design a special award as thanks for your efforts. Happy editing! Durova Charge! 21:50, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I have seen the name of a producing group called "Chris and Drop" numerous times within Wikipedia pages of musicians, but i cannot find more inforamtion about them. They were cited on the page of Dutch Singer Ninthe, Amerie, Lupe Fiasco, Nikki Jean, Cassidy. How would one go about requesting that an article be written about them? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lelaninavarro ( talk • contribs) 22:51, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Voting for the 2007 Arbitration Committee Elections has officially begun. Visit the Voting page for more information. Thank you. - Mtmelendez ( Talk) 00:03, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
I am wondering if there is any Wikipedia users of Orkut who can help. The article Ezhava seems to have been listed on some Orkut forum with the forum moderator there directing people to edit the article here to a particular unsourced version. See the WP:AN discussion, and I've requested a link from both User:Vvmundakkal and User:125.99.225.216. I don't know if that's enough but if someone could explain to them that making up sources (saying things came from books when they didn't), reinserting the same POV text repeatedly, and recreating deleting articles are generally not helpful here? There is a discussion somewhat at Talk:Ezhava but it requires them to actually discuss the article, not simply insult everyone and leave to edit war again. -- Ricky81682 ( talk) 09:41, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
what kind of font is used in the "L", "M", and "N" in the Death Note manga? —Preceding unsigned comment added by WikiDragon295 ( talk • contribs) 22:13, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm looking for a policy I can post on our own local Wiki (using Wikimedia) regarding ownership or lack thereof of info / material posted onto a Wiki. Does anyone know where I might find such a policy, e.g., that the site is public domain and free for use / citation, etc.? If you have any suggestions, please post them on the TALK page. Thanks. -- Pdmawiki ( talk) 19:41, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
As you know, every article has a set of four links that are typically labeled as shown above. But these links actually lead to a set of six related pages, not four. That's because two of the links, when used, silently change the meaning of the other two. Selecting "discussion" not only brings up the talk page, it also causes the "edit this page" to edit the talk page and the "history" link to show the talk page history. Conversely, selecting "article" not only brings up the article, it causes "edit this page" to edit the article itself and the "history" link to show the article's history. But the "article" and "discussion" links always point to the article and the talk page respectively, no matter which of the other five pages you're on.
This is not a big deal, but it is a mildly confusing design, and it ought to be possible to do better. If the present behavior of four links really is the Right Thing, then one simple possibility would be for the wording to change so they read either
or
as applicable.
This is in keeping with the way "edit this page" changes to "view source" when you don't have permission to edit, and "article" changes to "project page" when you're viewing a project page.
Of course there is one other difference as well: talk pages have a "+" link to add a new item, and article pages don't. As this is less than transparent, I would also suggest that if changes are being made, then "+" should become "add item" or "new item".
Yes, of course it's possible to get used to the present design. I'm sure everyone who's likely to read this is thoroughly used to it. But please try to look at these links like someone who isn't familiar with it, and see if on reflection you don't agree that they're confusing.
Another thing I think is a bit confusing is the use of the word "discussion" in these links. I don't see it as a big deal whether they're called talk pages or discussion pages, but I do think it's confusing when almost everything else in Wikipedia that talks about them calls them talk pages, even the talk page URLs use the word "Talk", and yet the link that points to them reads "discussion".
I'm sure this has been discussed before, or perhaps talked about :–), but since I'm talking about rewording the link names, this seems a good time to raise the point again.
I can see that a link marked "talk" by itself might also be confusing, but "talk page" might fly. Or maybe even "talk page (discuss this article)".
The other alternative, of course, is to drop "talk" altogether and use "discussion". Then many templates such as POV and Citecheck and Pp-dispute and Expert and Story would have to be changed, and so would pages like Wikipedia:Template messages/Deletion and many others that speak of "talk pages". Personally, I'd see rather the briefer word survive.
Still another confusing wording is "project page". This is fine for pages that actually are at the center of something that might be called a project, but it doesn't really apply to forums like the Reference Desks or the Village Pump. However, I don't have a good suggestion for a better wording.
-- 207.176.159.90 ( talk) 03:12, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Our school is trying to deal with Wikipedia vandalism internally (looking at logs etc), and I'd appreciate any advice as to whether we're missing any technical aspects of WP that we can use to help prevent vandalism. At the moment, all we've been able to do is subscribe to an RSS feed of changes to our talk page which, while useful, doesn't really help. Is there, for example, a feed from Special:Contributions that I haven't found? Or any other MediaWiki functionality that we (as school staff and owner of the IP address) are missing? Many thanks, Alexlmuller 11:48, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
(From foundation:Resolution:License update)
“ | Whereas the Board seeks to respond responsibily to longstanding community concerns about issues of compatibility between the
GNU Free Documentation License and the
Creative Commons CC-BY-SA license, as well as to continue longstanding traditions of strong community input and control over major decisions affecting the projects, and
Whereas a long period of discussion and negotiation between and amongst the Free Software Foundation, Creative Commons, the Wikimedia Foundation and others has produced a proposal supported by both the FSF and Creative Commons to modify the Free Documentation License in such a fashion as to allow the possibility for the Wikimedia Foundation to migrate the projects to CC-BY-SA, and Whereas, Creative Commons and the Free Software Foundation (FSF) would like formal support for this license change, It is hereby resolved that:
|
” |
-- KTC
I just sent this to the mailing lists as well:
I'm pleased to announce that four Wikipedians -- myself, Charles Matthews, Ben Yates and SJ Klein -- are writing a book about using and understanding Wikipedia, tentatively titled "How Wikipedia Works". It will be published by No Starch Press in early 2008.
This guide will be focused on helping readers understand Wikipedia and helping new editors contribute. We hope to include enough detail to make it a useful reference for current contributors as well. (Note that this is a different project from the O'Reilly book that was discussed earlier on the lists).
We welcome community feedback and ideas, and hope to make this a truly community-based work. There is a project page here. We'll add detail there over the coming weeks, and have asked for feedback in some specific areas. Please do contribute and send us your thoughts and ideas.
Some details:
If you have any questions, concerns or ideas, please let me or one of the other authors know. I'll be updating the project page with progress information as we get closer to publication. Best, -- phoebe/( talk) 18:50, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Hi. Some statistics of namespace 0 deleted pages from last logging-dump available. Come on deletionists! You have to delete ~50,000 pages this month ;) -- Emijrp 20:47, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
December 2004 3097 January 2005 11446 February 2005 11459 March 2005 15603 April 2005 16406 May 2005 18712 June 2005 18387 July 2005 21952 August 2005 25607 September 2005 24700 October 2005 33984 November 2005 33615 December 2005 27460 January 2006 25706 February 2006 24693 March 2006 30824 April 2006 33467 May 2006 43050 June 2006 37393 July 2006 35812 August 2006 41188 September 2006 44055 October 2006 56181 November 2006 57680 December 2006 54718 January 2007 59734 February 2007 59603 March 2007 59376 April 2007 60147 May 2007 58817 June 2007 48186 July 2007 43802 August 2007 44194 September 2007 44063
Anyone want to create Category:Manufacturers? The subcategories are ready-made, but for some reason nobody thought of it. It's a very tedious job unless someone can program a bot to do it. Shalom ( Hello • Peace) 15:46, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
I want to make a request to make a new article about Jimmy Napitupulu. I want to make it in Wikipedia, but I'm afraid that I thought that I made a vandal. Please help me. Thank you. Albert@Indonesia ( My User Talk Page Shortcut here) —Preceding comment was added at 06:11, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Do it! Be bold! I will proofread if you'd like. Sukiari ( talk) 10:08, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
I wonder if Angioma and Hemangioma are the same thing and should be merged? Hovev ( talk) 11:20, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
-- PaperclipedMime ( talk) 21:02, 5 December 2007 (UTC) I apologize if I am spamming the Village Pump (*snicker* still can't get over that...), but I don't really know where else to ask. Does anyone know anything about the illustration project that Wikipedia is sponsoring that is going on right now? Artists can submit illustrations for specific articles that Wiki needs, and the staff will pick the best ones and post them, but I'm not really sure who to contact on that one or where I could even get more information on the project. Help please?
-- PaperclipedMime ( talk) 02:11, 6 December 2007 (UTC)Thank you very much for your response. If I could ask two more questions, that would be great. First off (and I realize that this makes me sound like a noob) but is there a special program for SVGs, or is that just another type of file (I just found that part a bit confusing as I've never encountered the term before). Also, is there an available list of illustrations that need to be done? Again, thanks for the help.
Let's dig a little deeper. Underneath the edit that started this section, I see an assumption: that actions of editors must be "justified." It was written, in particular:
Actions should not follow policy; rather, policy follows actions. The right thing to do in a particular situation, whatever it may be, is totally independent of policy.
This is, of course, true, there is no fault in it. As far as it goes. But actions do not take place in a vacuum. They take place in an environment where there is precedent and shared understanding, and without this, a community cannot grow and develop intelligence, except for the raw, a-priori, and individual intelligence of its individual members. And then it was written:
When it becomes clear that most of what is now termed "policy" is in fact not, IAR will become useless--because actions, orthodox or not, will be justified on their own merits.
"Policy" is, in fact, a defense of an action as reasonable on its face. It is not a defense of the ultimate value of the action. There is a big difference. First of all, if there is no policy, then every action is easily subject to challenge, and, as a group grows in size, the challenges will multiply. We have elected, as a community (or those with decision power decided) to entrust certain powers to what are called in other organizations "trusted servants." These powers are essentially police powers, and, because of the familiarity with the situations, I will now describe admins as police. The police, in a healthy society, have no punitive power, they have only the power to "serve and protect," as is the motto of a local police department, and it is regrettable when they act otherwise. Nevertheless, if a police officer acts according to established policy, the action is defensible, unless the harm of it is blatant and irreversible, and any reasonable person would have recognized this. But there is more. Police officers are also given discretion. This is the public version of WP:IAR. Where action is required that is outside of policy, but is necessary or appropriate *for the public welfare," that action is lawful, and if the action is challenged, a showing that the officer reasonably believed this would be sufficient to protect the officer from disciplinary consequences. Again, for public servants, the *legal* standard is WP:AGF. Wikipedia is not as different from normal society as we sometimes think. Courts do, in fact, have a standard that, by common law, supercedes written law ("policy'), it is called "public policy," as a basis for decisions. When a court cites "public policy," it would be acknowledging that it is making a decision that is contrary to law or precedent, in the public interest based on the facts of the case. This, then, if sustained, becomes new policy through precedent.
We entrust administrators with a difficult task that can be expected to raise hackles. If an administrator does actual harm, absolutely, it should be challenged. If the action was contrary to policy, it's also appropriate to expect the action to be justified at least to the level of the intention involved. A controversial action should naturally be reviewed to see if policy is adequate. Policy, properly, is a living thing, not fixed to whatever current statements comprise it. But so too is, properly, the discretion of administrators. It is well-known that police must have discretion if they are to effectively protect the public. No set of policies can anticipate what an officer will face. There is, however, a question of the limits of discretion. We have come, in public society, to recognize a balance between discretion and policy, and, increasingly, for an officer to detain and arrest on a mere hunch has come to be considered contrary to policy; but this is controversial, for it conflicts with the protection of the public.
However, what if the action of the officer does no harm? Or the harm done is reversible?
We have a situation where ongoing harm is being done to Wikipedia by disruptive editors and sock puppets. To maintain the project in the face of determined and continual attack by such is becoming an increasing burden. I believe that there is a way to make this more efficient, but the tools to do it are not in place. Until then, we need, in fact, some set of users to be vigilant against what are actually worse than vandals. Vandalism is easy to detect and not controversial. But a POV-pusher is another matter. Such people create edit wars, but, more seriously even, they harm newcomers. A sock puppet is often an experienced Wikipedia user, a wikilawyer, and skilled at presenting "policy" justifying abusive edits that can completely snow a newcomer. If there are no other experienced editors defending an article and the newcomer, many simply go away. It even happens when there *are* experienced users helping, for some newbies will disappear at the first deletion of the edit that took them a long time to put together, gone in a flash. Experts, who don't have time to go through complex wikipedia process, go away in disgust.
Wikipedia is bleeding from these thousand cuts a day. This is what we must balance against an allegedly overaggressive protection against sock puppetry. Further, the alleged harm to a newbie from being unjustly blocked is ameliorable. The very climate that requires administrators to "justify" their actions increases the need for admins to come up with strong reasons, which then can be offensive, and, indeed, drive a newcomer away. Blocking is not and should not be presented, ever, as a punitive action, and the message received by those with blocked IP or account should never accuse, and it should thoroughly explain how to appeal, all that, *and it should apologize for the inconvenience and encourage the user to help fix the situation.* There is no harm in apologizing to a miscreant, they can't bank it.
To me, Durova committed no offense at all. We need more like her, though I'm not sure we deserve it yet. She made an error. But if the police never make errors, they aren't trying hard enough to protect the public. The questions, properly, should have been, when her action was challenged, "Did she have reason to believe that her action was needed for protection of the project and its users?" "Is there any evidence that she used her police power to advance a personal agenda, i.e., to block users selectively because she disagrees with their POV or opinions." "Could her error have been made by a competent person?"
If, *starting with a presumption of WP:AGF*, the answer to all these questions is "Yes," then she should stand in no need of defense, and the only question would be whether or not policy was adequate to guide her.
The question of secret evidence is a huge red herring. Police action, ultimately as the situation deepens in complexity and the increasing sophistication of those who would abuse our freedoms, requires secrecy to be effective. The demands that the content of a private, off-wiki mailing list be provided are utterly unreasonable. The future of Wikipedia actually depends on the freedom of private speech, it will become increasingly important, and it's the only ultimate protection against increasing bureaucratic control. We cannot tell whether or not what is on that list is interesting, boring, represents an evil conspiracy, or was entirely benign and helpful. And, quite simply, it is not our business. Durova, when her action was challenged, apparently felt it necessary to note that she had not taken the action alone, but this, in fact, was irrelevant. She was responsible for her own action, and if it was worthy of de-sysopping, she'd be the one, not anyone whom she asked *privately* for advice or support. A *very* important part of freedom of speech is the protection of privacy. Without it, free speech, ultimately, becomes severely constrained. Private speech is *irrelevant* to Wikpedia policy.
Durova is to be *congratulated* for not carrying her burden alone, but nobody has seriously proposed that a private list of concerned people should be a mechanism in policy. Absolutely, it is not adequate for review of a block; however, the only immediate question with a block should be whether or not it should be maintained. Whether the administrator erred or not is *irrelevant* to that question. In my view, the *worst* problem here is that an administrator reviewed an unblock request and denied it. I've seen far more errors, far more serious in effect, from the denial of an unblock than from blocking. I'd suggest that, instead of leaping to conclusions based on some idea that an administrator should be supported by denying the unblock, administrators not respond to unblock requests unless they can unblock. It's pretty bad when an innocent user gets blocked, requests unblock, and gets a denial instead of the request starting some process where the evidence will be reviewed by more than one or two persons. If I were a newbie, and I were wrongly blocked, and I saw that my request started a process of review that was founded on AGF, I'd say that I'd probably be gratified, not offended. I'd see that the community was trying to protect everyone, including me.
The harm of a block, in itself, is small, except to true POV-pushers, who *must* protect that article they worked so hard to get the way they want. And even these should be able to recruit a meat puppet -- even legitimately -- if what they want to keep in or out is legitimately so. There is *far* more harm from sock puppets, who aren't polite to newbies, insult them, tear up their edits, and generally drive them away, quoting policy as the wikilawyers they often are -- and some newbies have no idea about Undo or even History, no idea what to do against a determined and unrestrained sock puppet, who fears no consequences. Socks are cheap. To learn the guidelines takes a long time, to navigate the process for reporting suspected sock puppets is forbidding and confusing, and it is really easy to get it wrong in some way, to then be chided by a less than helpful admin. Yes, Wikipedia has problems, but I believe they can be resolved. I have experience as a chair under Robert's Rules, for a large assembly with inexperienced members, and my duty as chair, as I understood it, was not to simply rule a member out of order, but also to explain to the member how the member could do what the member plainly wanted to do. "Protect and serve." -- Abd ( talk) 19:46, 6 December 2007 (UTC)