Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 20:19, Wjhonson wjhon...@aol.com wrote: It is not up to us to decide that something is private. If it's been published, then it is public. If it's been published in a reliable source, than it's useable in our project. But not everything that's usable has to be used. I'm increasingly wondering whether we should be hosting any BLPs, because these are often difficult decisions to make -- at which point there is legitimate public interest in a person's private life -- and they can't be reached thoughtfully in an open-editing environment. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
Our BLP policy is pretty solid, and the editors that enforce it are pretty good at keeping out the crap :) We can always improve it, of course. And there are never enough BLP editors. (There are probably about 5 or 6 that specialise heavily in such content). Most of the outstanding issues are with current events (not to blow my own trumpet but see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ErrantX/Current_events_and_BLP), which tend to attract enough non-BLP experienced editors to overrule them (leading to articles with content that we don't really need/want). IMO it's far from the point that hosting BLP's is more harm than it is worth. Tom On 21 May 2011 14:21, Sarah slimvir...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 20:19, Wjhonson wjhon...@aol.com wrote: It is not up to us to decide that something is private. If it's been published, then it is public. If it's been published in a reliable source, than it's useable in our project. But not everything that's usable has to be used. I'm increasingly wondering whether we should be hosting any BLPs, because these are often difficult decisions to make -- at which point there is legitimate public interest in a person's private life -- and they can't be reached thoughtfully in an open-editing environment. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 5/20/11, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: Please mail User:Oversight with any such instance you are aware of. We do suppress any mention of a superinjunction, as the assertion that there is embarrassing personal information sufficient to support issuance of a superinjunction is defaming. Is there any project which allows usernames such as Administrator, Bureaucrat, Oversight or Steward? Isn't that confused and probably not allowed? Or which project allows a user name for more than one person? Cruccone ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 21 May 2011 14:39, Marco Chiesa chiesa.ma...@gmail.com wrote: Is there any project which allows usernames such as Administrator, Bureaucrat, Oversight or Steward? Isn't that confused and probably not allowed? Or which project allows a user name for more than one person? en:wp has User:Oversight, administered by the Arbcom - its only purpose is so you can use the wiki's email this user functionality to alert the oversighters to seriously problematic material on the wiki. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
Marco Chiesa wrote: Is there any project which allows usernames such as Administrator, Bureaucrat, Oversight or Steward? Isn't that confused and probably not allowed? Or which project allows a user name for more than one person? http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Title_blacklist prohibits those names across all Wikimedia wikis. MZMcBride ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
Sarah wrote: I'm increasingly wondering whether we should be hosting any BLPs, because these are often difficult decisions to make -- at which point there is legitimate public interest in a person's private life -- and they can't be reached thoughtfully in an open-editing environment. I think anyone who has been in the BLP trenches has had the same thought. The reality is that an encyclopedia without a Barack Obama article or a Nelson Mandela article really isn't a general reference encyclopedia, or at least isn't a very good one. The issue is making a reasonable distinction between those types of individuals and everyone else. Personally, I'm not particularly concerned about this biography as it has plenty of people watching it at the moment and for the foreseeable future. The same is true of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dominique Strauss-Kahn and many others. It's the much lower profile biographies of living people that are the real concern. MZMcBride ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 14:33, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: Sarah wrote: I'm increasingly wondering whether we should be hosting any BLPs, because these are often difficult decisions to make -- at which point there is legitimate public interest in a person's private life -- and they can't be reached thoughtfully in an open-editing environment. I think anyone who has been in the BLP trenches has had the same thought. The reality is that an encyclopedia without a Barack Obama article or a Nelson Mandela article really isn't a general reference encyclopedia, or at least isn't a very good one. The issue is making a reasonable distinction between those types of individuals and everyone else. MZMcBride We could solve that by hosting only BLPs that have already had encyclopedic or extensive treatment elsewhere, i.e. have already been the subject of (a) an encyclopedia article; or (b) a book or book chapter from a reliable publisher; or (c) a profile or in-depth piece in a high-quality newspaper (one about the person, not about events the person was involved in). I know this has been suggested before, but it's coming time to consider it seriously. Sarah ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
Sarah wrote: On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 14:33, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: I think anyone who has been in the BLP trenches has had the same thought. The reality is that an encyclopedia without a Barack Obama article or a Nelson Mandela article really isn't a general reference encyclopedia, or at least isn't a very good one. The issue is making a reasonable distinction between those types of individuals and everyone else. We could solve that by hosting only BLPs that have already had encyclopedic or extensive treatment elsewhere, i.e. have already been the subject of (a) an encyclopedia article; or (b) a book or book chapter from a reliable publisher; or (c) a profile or in-depth piece in a high-quality newspaper (one about the person, not about events the person was involved in). I know this has been suggested before, but it's coming time to consider it seriously. That sounds vaguely similar to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BLP_problem#Dead_tree_standard. Let me know if you start a Requests for comment/discussion about this. I'd be interested, as would a number of other list participants, I imagine. MZMcBride ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 15:14, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: Sarah wrote: On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 14:33, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: I think anyone who has been in the BLP trenches has had the same thought. The reality is that an encyclopedia without a Barack Obama article or a Nelson Mandela article really isn't a general reference encyclopedia, or at least isn't a very good one. The issue is making a reasonable distinction between those types of individuals and everyone else. We could solve that by hosting only BLPs that have already had encyclopedic or extensive treatment elsewhere, i.e. have already been the subject of (a) an encyclopedia article; or (b) a book or book chapter from a reliable publisher; or (c) a profile or in-depth piece in a high-quality newspaper (one about the person, not about events the person was involved in). I know this has been suggested before, but it's coming time to consider it seriously. That sounds vaguely similar to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BLP_problem#Dead_tree_standard. Let me know if you start a Requests for comment/discussion about this. I'd be interested, as would a number of other list participants, I imagine. Yes, it's similar to dead tree standard, except not applied only if a BLP subject requests deletion, but applied across the board. It would solve our BLP vanity article issue too. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 21 May 2011 22:14, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: That sounds vaguely similar to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BLP_problem#Dead_tree_standard. Let me know if you start a Requests for comment/discussion about this. I'd be interested, as would a number of other list participants, I imagine. MZMcBride You realise that [[Daniel Brandt]] passes that test yes? On the other hand recently elected African leaders will tend not to. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
MZMcBride, 21/05/2011 22:25: Marco Chiesa wrote: Is there any project which allows usernames such as Administrator, Bureaucrat, Oversight or Steward? Isn't that confused and probably not allowed? Or which project allows a user name for more than one person? http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Title_blacklist prohibits those names across all Wikimedia wikis. But sysops can override the title blacklist. Nemo ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 21 May 2011 17:35, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.com wrote: MZMcBride, 21/05/2011 22:25: Marco Chiesa wrote: Is there any project which allows usernames such as Administrator, Bureaucrat, Oversight or Steward? Isn't that confused and probably not allowed? Or which project allows a user name for more than one person? http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Title_blacklist prohibits those names across all Wikimedia wikis. But sysops can override the title blacklist. That is correct, which is precisely why we were able to create this account. It has been very helpful in reducing the number of on-wiki posts saying I need oversight for this diff! which was not really terribly helpful. On the other hand, it would probably only be useful for larger projects with a lot of oversight requests and also use an email notification system. Nonetheless, it's a bit off-topic. As to the comments from MZMcBride and Sarah, I would like to see a significantly higher minimal level of notability for BLPs. In the past few years of working with the Arbitration Committee, I have seen literally thousands of BLPs that easily meet the current notability standards, but have been turned into coatracks to highlight a particular belief of the subject (whether or not that is why they are notable), to self-aggrandize, to attach all the negative information that can be found about the subject regardless of its comparative triviality. Worse yet are the ones that are userfied instead of deleted, or never even made it into article space; they often come up as top google hits for the subject, because Google crawls user space. (They don't seem to crawl user talk or article talk, or if they do, they do not include them in their results.) Risker/Anne ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 16:01, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: As to the comments from MZMcBride and Sarah, I would like to see a significantly higher minimal level of notability for BLPs. In the past few years of working with the Arbitration Committee, I have seen literally thousands of BLPs that easily meet the current notability standards, but have been turned into coatracks to highlight a particular belief of the subject (whether or not that is why they are notable), to self-aggrandize, to attach all the negative information that can be found about the subject regardless of its comparative triviality. Worse yet are the ones that are userfied instead of deleted, or never even made it into article space; they often come up as top google hits for the subject, because Google crawls user space. (They don't seem to crawl user talk or article talk, or if they do, they do not include them in their results.) A huge percentage of the BLP problems I've seen in the last six years have been vanity articles. Raising the notability bar would help to resolve that. For those who deal with the BLP queue on OTRS, how serious is the problem of BLP attack pages, whether rising to the level of defamation or not? I know the problem exists -- anyone who edits can see it -- but I'd be interested in hearing from OTRS people how pervasive it is in terms of what's reported to them. Does anyone keep figures? Sarah ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 3:09 PM, Sarah slimvir...@gmail.com wrote: For those who deal with the BLP queue on OTRS, how serious is the problem of BLP attack pages, whether rising to the level of defamation or not? I know the problem exists -- anyone who edits can see it -- but I'd be interested in hearing from OTRS people how pervasive it is in terms of what's reported to them. Does anyone keep figures? Sarah The Community Dept (Christine) is in the midst of looking at and classifying inbound tickets to begin to give us a real feel for that. I hope we'll have some answers soon, but I'll ask her to give me a 30,000 foot overview and report back here. pb ___ Philippe Beaudette Head of Reader Relations Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 415-839-6885, x 2106 (reader relations) phili...@wikimedia.org ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 3:09 PM, Sarah slimvir...@gmail.com wrote: For those who deal with the BLP queue on OTRS, how serious is the problem of BLP attack pages, whether rising to the level of defamation or not? I know the problem exists -- anyone who edits can see it -- but I'd be interested in hearing from OTRS people how pervasive it is in terms of what's reported to them. Does anyone keep figures? I asked Christine to do a quick scan, what follows is her response: *There isn't an exact BLP queue in OTRS; there is one for overall quality (called, what else, Quality) which is where a lot of the BLP concerns go, as they are quality issues. Of the current tickets in the queue, not quite half are BLP related (96 out of 209). Of those BLP tickets, about 15% of them mention being attacked/articles being biased or slanted. I didn't do any deep research into whether the accounts are true or not; this is merely the perception of the person writing in, which is the most relevant measure for the topic currently under discussion. * *Also of those BLP tickets, the same percentage specifically mention libelous information, slander, etc. * * * Hope that helps, pb ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Stalking on Wikipedia
Hello, I found an email today from someone who still cares to keep me updated about what happens on the English Wikipedia's corridors. Since my name is mentioned in the discussion, he thought I'd be interested in this. There is a user on the English language Wikipedia who calls himself Supreme Deliciousness. He was blocked and warned on and off because of his highly political edits and constant war edits. Now he started stalking people, apparently I included. Admins fully cooperate with him. I wouldn't have brought this issue to the attention of this mailing list, unless I had serious suspicions that illegal or highly unethical actions are going on. Many people here don't like my attitude toward Wikipedia. I am not here to argue about that. I will have plenty of time to discuss it with anyone who'd like to on other occasions. I think my service to Wikimedia and its projects, even when I had profound disagreements about the policy of the organization, was good enough to give me some credit. Now we are talking about unethical, or possibly illegal actions that are talking against me and people who, for some unknown reason, are associated with me. Here is the link to the discussion on en-wp: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Drork The user Supreme Deliciousness says: I have private information that I can send to admin through mail that links Drork to these IPs. I want to receive all such private information about me, so I could see whether I should file complaints to my Internet Service Provider or even a higher instance, as there is clearly a breach of my privacy. I think further checks should be made against Supreme Deliciousness to see whether he stalks other users. I also want to know why admins take this issue so lightly. If people dislike me - so be it, but I, and other people involved, are entitled to some protection against stalkers. Thank you, Dror K ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Stalking on Wikipedia
On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 9:57 PM, Dror Kamir dqa...@bezeqint.net wrote: Hello, I found an email today from someone who still cares to keep me updated about what happens on the English Wikipedia's corridors. Since my name is mentioned in the discussion, he thought I'd be interested in this. There is a user on the English language Wikipedia who calls himself Supreme Deliciousness. He was blocked and warned on and off because of his highly political edits and constant war edits. Now he started stalking people, apparently I included. Admins fully cooperate with him. I wouldn't have brought this issue to the attention of this mailing list, unless I had serious suspicions that illegal or highly unethical actions are going on. Many people here don't like my attitude toward Wikipedia. I am not here to argue about that. I will have plenty of time to discuss it with anyone who'd like to on other occasions. I think my service to Wikimedia and its projects, even when I had profound disagreements about the policy of the organization, was good enough to give me some credit. Now we are talking about unethical, or possibly illegal actions that are talking against me and people who, for some unknown reason, are associated with me. Here is the link to the discussion on en-wp: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Drork The user Supreme Deliciousness says: I have private information that I can send to admin through mail that links Drork to these IPs. I want to receive all such private information about me, so I could see whether I should file complaints to my Internet Service Provider or even a higher instance, as there is clearly a breach of my privacy. I think further checks should be made against Supreme Deliciousness to see whether he stalks other users. I also want to know why admins take this issue so lightly. If people dislike me - so be it, but I, and other people involved, are entitled to some protection against stalkers. Thank you, Dror K Nobody is hacking your accounts, Dror. You used exactly the same phrases in complaining about this as the IP did complaining about it. Do you assert that you are not that IP editor? -- -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Stalking on Wikipedia
I am not going to act as if this is a trial against me. If this is a trial, then I have every right to know who accuses me and on what ground. Currently what we have here is a WP user who says he has private information about me and about other users, allegedly proving we are the same person (this might mean that I'm Superman, but I won't put this assumption into test...). This claim of his indicate that he has been stalking me and other users. This is a serious issue. Dror K בתאריך 22/05/11 08:08, ציטוט George Herbert: On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 9:57 PM, Dror Kamirdqa...@bezeqint.net wrote: Hello, I found an email today from someone who still cares to keep me updated about what happens on the English Wikipedia's corridors. Since my name is mentioned in the discussion, he thought I'd be interested in this. There is a user on the English language Wikipedia who calls himself Supreme Deliciousness. He was blocked and warned on and off because of his highly political edits and constant war edits. Now he started stalking people, apparently I included. Admins fully cooperate with him. I wouldn't have brought this issue to the attention of this mailing list, unless I had serious suspicions that illegal or highly unethical actions are going on. Many people here don't like my attitude toward Wikipedia. I am not here to argue about that. I will have plenty of time to discuss it with anyone who'd like to on other occasions. I think my service to Wikimedia and its projects, even when I had profound disagreements about the policy of the organization, was good enough to give me some credit. Now we are talking about unethical, or possibly illegal actions that are talking against me and people who, for some unknown reason, are associated with me. Here is the link to the discussion on en-wp: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Drork The user Supreme Deliciousness says: I have private information that I can send to admin through mail that links Drork to these IPs. I want to receive all such private information about me, so I could see whether I should file complaints to my Internet Service Provider or even a higher instance, as there is clearly a breach of my privacy. I think further checks should be made against Supreme Deliciousness to see whether he stalks other users. I also want to know why admins take this issue so lightly. If people dislike me - so be it, but I, and other people involved, are entitled to some protection against stalkers. Thank you, Dror K Nobody is hacking your accounts, Dror. You used exactly the same phrases in complaining about this as the IP did complaining about it. Do you assert that you are not that IP editor? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
