Mailing List Archive

Brad,

One very easy solution to all of this is to segregate the live edited
wikipedia site from the published site scraped by the
search engines.

In other words, setup the community server "anyone can edit" at
something like draften.wikipedia.org and publish reviewed
dumps of the community server to a read only external server for
scraping like I am doing at Wikigadugi. I have ZERO
vandalism problems , ZERO content dispute problems, and ZERO vanity page
problems and I host the entire English
wikipedia as well as several other languages.

Very simple solution. People won't waste the time creating vanity pages
when they know they may not get published in the
"official" external official site.

Jeff

Brad Patrick wrote:

>Brad Patrick wrote:
>
>
>>Dear Community:
>>
>>The volume of corporate vanity/vandalism which is showing up on
>>Wikipedia is overwhelming. At the office, we are receiving dozens of
>>phone calls *per week* about company, organization, and marketing
>>edits which are reverted, causing the non-notable, but
>>self-aggrandizing authors, to scream bloody murder. This is as it
>>should be. However, I am issuing a call to arms to the community to
>>act in a much more draconian fashion in response to corporate
>>self-editing and vanity page creation. This is simply out of hand,
>>and we need your help.
>>
>>We are the #14 website in the world. We are a big target. If we are
>>to remain true to our encyclopedic mission, this kind of nonsense
>>cannot be tolerated. This means the administrators and new page
>>patrol need to be clear when they see new usernames and page creation
>>which are blatantly commercial - shoot on sight. There should be no
>>question that someone who claims to have a "famous movie studio" and
>>has exactly 2 Google hits - both their Myspace page - they get nuked.
>>Ban users who promulgate such garbage for a significant period of
>>time. They need to be encouraged to avoid the temptation to recreate
>>their article, thereby raising the level of damage and wasted time
>>they incur.
>>
>>Some of you might think regular policy and VfD is the way to go. I am
>>here to tell you it is not enough. We are losing the battle for
>>encyclopedic content in favor of people intent on hijacking Wikipedia
>>for their own memes. This scourge is a serious waste of time and
>>energy. We must put a stop to this now.
>>Thank you for your help.
>>
>>-Brad Patrick
>>User:BradPatrick
>>Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
>>
>>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l@wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>

_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Hoi,
There are two issues that may be addressed. There is an apparant need for
organisations to be VISIBLE. They want to use Wikipedia for that while we do
not consider them to be of relevance in an encyclopedic setting. The content
that they created would be of some value to Yellowikis. This is where this
information is welcomed.

By moving it sideways, we do exactly what is current practice for other
content that does not fit Wikipedia. We are not as confrontational as we
could be, but the teflon quality of our projects would be increased and this
may lead to fewer angry people in our projects as well.

PS I am totally behind the notion that we should not have non-encyclopedic
content in Wikipedia.. for me it is a matter of strategy.

Thanks,
GerardM

On 9/29/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey@wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>
> Brad,
>
> One very easy solution to all of this is to segregate the live edited
> wikipedia site from the published site scraped by the
> search engines.
>
> In other words, setup the community server "anyone can edit" at
> something like draften.wikipedia.org and publish reviewed
> dumps of the community server to a read only external server for
> scraping like I am doing at Wikigadugi. I have ZERO
> vandalism problems , ZERO content dispute problems, and ZERO vanity page
> problems and I host the entire English
> wikipedia as well as several other languages.
>
> Very simple solution. People won't waste the time creating vanity pages
> when they know they may not get published in the
> "official" external official site.
>
> Jeff
>
> Brad Patrick wrote:
>
> >Brad Patrick wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Dear Community:
> >>
> >>The volume of corporate vanity/vandalism which is showing up on
> >>Wikipedia is overwhelming. At the office, we are receiving dozens of
> >>phone calls *per week* about company, organization, and marketing
> >>edits which are reverted, causing the non-notable, but
> >>self-aggrandizing authors, to scream bloody murder. This is as it
> >>should be. However, I am issuing a call to arms to the community to
> >>act in a much more draconian fashion in response to corporate
> >>self-editing and vanity page creation. This is simply out of hand,
> >>and we need your help.
> >>
> >>We are the #14 website in the world. We are a big target. If we are
> >>to remain true to our encyclopedic mission, this kind of nonsense
> >>cannot be tolerated. This means the administrators and new page
> >>patrol need to be clear when they see new usernames and page creation
> >>which are blatantly commercial - shoot on sight. There should be no
> >>question that someone who claims to have a "famous movie studio" and
> >>has exactly 2 Google hits - both their Myspace page - they get nuked.
> >>Ban users who promulgate such garbage for a significant period of
> >>time. They need to be encouraged to avoid the temptation to recreate
> >>their article, thereby raising the level of damage and wasted time
> >>they incur.
> >>
> >>Some of you might think regular policy and VfD is the way to go. I am
> >>here to tell you it is not enough. We are losing the battle for
> >>encyclopedic content in favor of people intent on hijacking Wikipedia
> >>for their own memes. This scourge is a serious waste of time and
> >>energy. We must put a stop to this now.
> >>Thank you for your help.
> >>
> >>-Brad Patrick
> >>User:BradPatrick
> >>Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
> >>
> >>
> >_______________________________________________
> >foundation-l mailing list
> >foundation-l@wikimedia.org
> >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

On 9/29/06, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Brad Patrick wrote:
> > Dear Community:
> >
> > The volume of corporate vanity/vandalism which is showing up on
> > Wikipedia is overwhelming. At the office, we are receiving dozens of
> > phone calls *per week* about company, organization, and marketing
> > edits which are reverted, causing the non-notable, but
> > self-aggrandizing authors, to scream bloody murder. This is as it
> > should be. However, I am issuing a call to arms to the community to
> > act in a much more draconian fashion in response to corporate
> > self-editing and vanity page creation. This is simply out of hand,
> > and we need your help.
> >

Srticles are only one problem. There are aparently people prepared to
pay money to people ho can get links into wikipedia.


> > We are the #14 website in the world. We are a big target. If we are
> > to remain true to our encyclopedic mission, this kind of nonsense
> > cannot be tolerated. This means the administrators and new page
> > patrol need to be clear when they see new usernames and page creation
> > which are blatantly commercial - shoot on sight. There should be no
> > question that someone who claims to have a "famous movie studio" and
> > has exactly 2 Google hits - both their Myspace page - they get nuked.
> > Ban users who promulgate such garbage for a significant period of
> > time. They need to be encouraged to avoid the temptation to recreate
> > their article, thereby raising the level of damage and wasted time
> > they incur.
> >

This would be covered by CSD a7 for the most part.

> > Some of you might think regular policy and VfD is the way to go. I am
> > here to tell you it is not enough. We are losing the battle for
> > encyclopedic content in favor of people intent on hijacking Wikipedia
> > for their own memes. This scourge is a serious waste of time and
> > energy. We must put a stop to this now.
> > Thank you for your help.

Afd. In theory prod/CSD should take care of most of it. Problem is
that figureing out the notibility or whatever of companies is a pain
in the neck since most of us don't have a vast amount of experence in
that area.


--
geni
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Hoi,
I am amazed at this terminology that is such that I do not understand at all
what you try to say.
Thanks,
GerardM

On 9/29/06, geni <geniice@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 9/29/06, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Brad Patrick wrote:
> > > Dear Community:
> > >
> > > The volume of corporate vanity/vandalism which is showing up on
> > > Wikipedia is overwhelming. At the office, we are receiving dozens of
> > > phone calls *per week* about company, organization, and marketing
> > > edits which are reverted, causing the non-notable, but
> > > self-aggrandizing authors, to scream bloody murder. This is as it
> > > should be. However, I am issuing a call to arms to the community to
> > > act in a much more draconian fashion in response to corporate
> > > self-editing and vanity page creation. This is simply out of hand,
> > > and we need your help.
> > >
>
> Srticles are only one problem. There are aparently people prepared to
> pay money to people ho can get links into wikipedia.
>
>
> > > We are the #14 website in the world. We are a big target. If we are
> > > to remain true to our encyclopedic mission, this kind of nonsense
> > > cannot be tolerated. This means the administrators and new page
> > > patrol need to be clear when they see new usernames and page creation
> > > which are blatantly commercial - shoot on sight. There should be no
> > > question that someone who claims to have a "famous movie studio" and
> > > has exactly 2 Google hits - both their Myspace page - they get nuked.
> > > Ban users who promulgate such garbage for a significant period of
> > > time. They need to be encouraged to avoid the temptation to recreate
> > > their article, thereby raising the level of damage and wasted time
> > > they incur.
> > >
>
> This would be covered by CSD a7 for the most part.
>
> > > Some of you might think regular policy and VfD is the way to go. I am
> > > here to tell you it is not enough. We are losing the battle for
> > > encyclopedic content in favor of people intent on hijacking Wikipedia
> > > for their own memes. This scourge is a serious waste of time and
> > > energy. We must put a stop to this now.
> > > Thank you for your help.
>
> Afd. In theory prod/CSD should take care of most of it. Problem is
> that figureing out the notibility or whatever of companies is a pain
> in the neck since most of us don't have a vast amount of experence in
> that area.
>
>
> --
> geni
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

On 9/29/06, GerardM <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> I am amazed at this terminology that is such that I do not understand at all
> what you try to say.
> Thanks,
> GerardM


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:CSD#A7

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:PROD

--
geni
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

What Gerard suggests is NOT a solution. There are reasons people are spamming Wikipedia and not adding content to Yellowiki. We are the fourteenth largest website in the world, while Yellowiki does not count in the top one hundred thousand. We have a consistently high google rating and our links ensure that they will have a high google rating, Yellowiki does not. We can offer some modicum of respectability, while they cannot Compare these two statements: "Look at me! I'm in the encyclopedia!" v. "Look at me! I'm in the phonebook! "

The fact is that they do not want to be on Yellowiki, which no one has ever heard of. They want to be on Wikipedia, which is a household name. And for that we need real solutions.

Danny

-----Original Message-----
From: gerard.meijssen@gmail.com
To: foundation-l@wikimedia.org
Cc: bpatrick@wikimedia.org
Sent: Fri, 29 Sep 2006 1:48 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Corporate vanity policy enforcement

Hoi,
There are two issues that may be addressed. There is an apparant need for
organisations to be VISIBLE. They want to use Wikipedia for that while we do
not consider them to be of relevance in an encyclopedic setting. The content
that they created would be of some value to Yellowikis. This is where this
information is welcomed.

By moving it sideways, we do exactly what is current practice for other
content that does not fit Wikipedia. We are not as confrontational as we
could be, but the teflon quality of our projects would be increased and this
may lead to fewer angry people in our projects as well.

PS I am totally behind the notion that we should not have non-encyclopedic
content in Wikipedia.. for me it is a matter of strategy.

Thanks,
GerardM

On 9/29/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey@wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>
> Brad,
>
> One very easy solution to all of this is to segregate the live edited
> wikipedia site from the published site scraped by the
> search engines.
>
> In other words, setup the community server "anyone can edit" at
> something like draften.wikipedia.org and publish reviewed
> dumps of the community server to a read only external server for
> scraping like I am doing at Wikigadugi. I have ZERO
> vandalism problems , ZERO content dispute problems, and ZERO vanity page
> problems and I host the entire English
> wikipedia as well as several other languages.
>
> Very simple solution. People won't waste the time creating vanity pages
> when they know they may not get published in the
> "official" external official site.
>
> Jeff
>
> Brad Patrick wrote:
>
> >Brad Patrick wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Dear Community:
> >>
> >>The volume of corporate vanity/vandalism which is showing up on
> >>Wikipedia is overwhelming. At the office, we are receiving dozens of
> >>phone calls *per week* about company, organization, and marketing
> >>edits which are reverted, causing the non-notable, but
> >>self-aggrandizing authors, to scream bloody murder. This is as it
> >>should be. However, I am issuing a call to arms to the community to
> >>act in a much more draconian fashion in response to corporate
> >>self-editing and vanity page creation. This is simply out of hand,
> >>and we need your help.
> >>
> >>We are the #14 website in the world. We are a big target. If we are
> >>to remain true to our encyclopedic mission, this kind of nonsense
> >>cannot be tolerated. This means the administrators and new page
> >>patrol need to be clear when they see new usernames and page creation
> >>which are blatantly commercial - shoot on sight. There should be no
> >>question that someone who claims to have a "famous movie studio" and
> >>has exactly 2 Google hits - both their Myspace page - they get nuked.
> >>Ban users who promulgate such garbage for a significant period of
> >>time. They need to be encouraged to avoid the temptation to recreate
> >>their article, thereby raising the level of damage and wasted time
> >>they incur.
> >>
> >>Some of you might think regular policy and VfD is the way to go. I am
> >>here to tell you it is not enough. We are losing the battle for
> >>encyclopedic content in favor of people intent on hijacking Wikipedia
> >>for their own memes. This scourge is a serious waste of time and
> >>energy. We must put a stop to this now.
> >>Thank you for your help.
> >>
> >>-Brad Patrick
> >>User:BradPatrick
> >>Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
> >>
> >>
> >_______________________________________________
> >foundation-l mailing list
> >foundation-l@wikimedia.org
> >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

________________________________________________________________________
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_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
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On 9/29/06, daniwo59@aol.com <daniwo59@aol.com> wrote:
> The fact is that they do not want to be on Yellowiki, which no one has ever heard of. They >want to be on Wikipedia, which is a household name. And for that we need real solutions.
>
> Danny

How about FUD? You know stuff along the lines of "do you really want a
page you can't control being the number one search result for your
company?"

--
geni
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Hoi,
By saying that we are big and they are small, it must be clear that it
is NOT a solution right ??. So the solution is to be blunt and destroy
all the effort that these people did put into what they hoped to be
acceptable for Wikipedia.

By moving it to Yellowikis, Yellowikis gets content that it wants to
have; their content is GFDL as well so there is NO problem in doing
exactly this. By providing an alternative we give less of a reason to
complain and we provide Yellowikis with the content that is what they
are there for. What you could appreciate is that by having such a teflon
strategy, we will be better able to ruthlessly remove from Wikipedia
what is not encyclopedic in the first place.

Thanks,
GerardM


daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
> What Gerard suggests is NOT a solution. There are reasons people are spamming Wikipedia and not adding content to Yellowiki. We are the fourteenth largest website in the world, while Yellowiki does not count in the top one hundred thousand. We have a consistently high google rating and our links ensure that they will have a high google rating, Yellowiki does not. We can offer some modicum of respectability, while they cannot Compare these two statements: "Look at me! I'm in the encyclopedia!" v. "Look at me! I'm in the phonebook! "
>
> The fact is that they do not want to be on Yellowiki, which no one has ever heard of. They want to be on Wikipedia, which is a household name. And for that we need real solutions.
>
> Danny
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: gerard.meijssen@gmail.com
> To: foundation-l@wikimedia.org
> Cc: bpatrick@wikimedia.org
> Sent: Fri, 29 Sep 2006 1:48 PM
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Corporate vanity policy enforcement
>
> Hoi,
> There are two issues that may be addressed. There is an apparant need for
> organisations to be VISIBLE. They want to use Wikipedia for that while we do
> not consider them to be of relevance in an encyclopedic setting. The content
> that they created would be of some value to Yellowikis. This is where this
> information is welcomed.
>
> By moving it sideways, we do exactly what is current practice for other
> content that does not fit Wikipedia. We are not as confrontational as we
> could be, but the teflon quality of our projects would be increased and this
> may lead to fewer angry people in our projects as well.
>
> PS I am totally behind the notion that we should not have non-encyclopedic
> content in Wikipedia.. for me it is a matter of strategy.
>
> Thanks,
> GerardM
>
> On 9/29/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey@wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>> Brad,
>>
>> One very easy solution to all of this is to segregate the live edited
>> wikipedia site from the published site scraped by the
>> search engines.
>>
>> In other words, setup the community server "anyone can edit" at
>> something like draften.wikipedia.org and publish reviewed
>> dumps of the community server to a read only external server for
>> scraping like I am doing at Wikigadugi. I have ZERO
>> vandalism problems , ZERO content dispute problems, and ZERO vanity page
>> problems and I host the entire English
>> wikipedia as well as several other languages.
>>
>> Very simple solution. People won't waste the time creating vanity pages
>> when they know they may not get published in the
>> "official" external official site.
>>
>> Jeff
>>
>> Brad Patrick wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Brad Patrick wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Dear Community:
>>>>
>>>> The volume of corporate vanity/vandalism which is showing up on
>>>> Wikipedia is overwhelming. At the office, we are receiving dozens of
>>>> phone calls *per week* about company, organization, and marketing
>>>> edits which are reverted, causing the non-notable, but
>>>> self-aggrandizing authors, to scream bloody murder. This is as it
>>>> should be. However, I am issuing a call to arms to the community to
>>>> act in a much more draconian fashion in response to corporate
>>>> self-editing and vanity page creation. This is simply out of hand,
>>>> and we need your help.
>>>>
>>>> We are the #14 website in the world. We are a big target. If we are
>>>> to remain true to our encyclopedic mission, this kind of nonsense
>>>> cannot be tolerated. This means the administrators and new page
>>>> patrol need to be clear when they see new usernames and page creation
>>>> which are blatantly commercial - shoot on sight. There should be no
>>>> question that someone who claims to have a "famous movie studio" and
>>>> has exactly 2 Google hits - both their Myspace page - they get nuked.
>>>> Ban users who promulgate such garbage for a significant period of
>>>> time. They need to be encouraged to avoid the temptation to recreate
>>>> their article, thereby raising the level of damage and wasted time
>>>> they incur.
>>>>
>>>> Some of you might think regular policy and VfD is the way to go. I am
>>>> here to tell you it is not enough. We are losing the battle for
>>>> encyclopedic content in favor of people intent on hijacking Wikipedia
>>>> for their own memes. This scourge is a serious waste of time and
>>>> energy. We must put a stop to this now.
>>>> Thank you for your help.
>>>>
>>>> -Brad Patrick
>>>> User:BradPatrick
>>>> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

That does not solve any problems. The problem is not that they want to be online. Many of them have their own websites which get considerable traffic. The problem is that they want to be on Wikipedia. That is all they want. And as long as they are not on Wikipedia, they will keep coming back, regardless of whether they are on Yellowiki or not.

-----Original Message-----
From: gerard.meijssen@gmail.com
To: foundation-l@wikimedia.org
Sent: Fri, 29 Sep 2006 3:15 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Corporate vanity policy enforcement

Hoi,
By saying that we are big and they are small, it must be clear that it
is NOT a solution right ??. So the solution is to be blunt and destroy
all the effort that these people did put into what they hoped to be
acceptable for Wikipedia.

By moving it to Yellowikis, Yellowikis gets content that it wants to
have; their content is GFDL as well so there is NO problem in doing
exactly this. By providing an alternative we give less of a reason to
complain and we provide Yellowikis with the content that is what they
are there for. What you could appreciate is that by having such a teflon
strategy, we will be better able to ruthlessly remove from Wikipedia
what is not encyclopedic in the first place.

Thanks,
GerardM


daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
> What Gerard suggests is NOT a solution. There are reasons people are spamming
Wikipedia and not adding content to Yellowiki. We are the fourteenth largest
website in the world, while Yellowiki does not count in the top one hundred
thousand. We have a consistently high google rating and our links ensure that
they will have a high google rating, Yellowiki does not. We can offer some
modicum of respectability, while they cannot Compare these two statements: "Look
at me! I'm in the encyclopedia!" v. "Look at me! I'm in the phonebook! "
>
> The fact is that they do not want to be on Yellowiki, which no one has ever
heard of. They want to be on Wikipedia, which is a household name. And for that
we need real solutions.
>
> Danny
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: gerard.meijssen@gmail.com
> To: foundation-l@wikimedia.org
> Cc: bpatrick@wikimedia.org
> Sent: Fri, 29 Sep 2006 1:48 PM
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Corporate vanity policy enforcement
>
> Hoi,
> There are two issues that may be addressed. There is an apparant need for
> organisations to be VISIBLE. They want to use Wikipedia for that while we do
> not consider them to be of relevance in an encyclopedic setting. The content
> that they created would be of some value to Yellowikis. This is where this
> information is welcomed.
>
> By moving it sideways, we do exactly what is current practice for other
> content that does not fit Wikipedia. We are not as confrontational as we
> could be, but the teflon quality of our projects would be increased and this
> may lead to fewer angry people in our projects as well.
>
> PS I am totally behind the notion that we should not have non-encyclopedic
> content in Wikipedia.. for me it is a matter of strategy.
>
> Thanks,
> GerardM
>
> On 9/29/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey@wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>> Brad,
>>
>> One very easy solution to all of this is to segregate the live edited
>> wikipedia site from the published site scraped by the
>> search engines.
>>
>> In other words, setup the community server "anyone can edit" at
>> something like draften.wikipedia.org and publish reviewed
>> dumps of the community server to a read only external server for
>> scraping like I am doing at Wikigadugi. I have ZERO
>> vandalism problems , ZERO content dispute problems, and ZERO vanity page
>> problems and I host the entire English
>> wikipedia as well as several other languages.
>>
>> Very simple solution. People won't waste the time creating vanity pages
>> when they know they may not get published in the
>> "official" external official site.
>>
>> Jeff
>>
>> Brad Patrick wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Brad Patrick wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Dear Community:
>>>>
>>>> The volume of corporate vanity/vandalism which is showing up on
>>>> Wikipedia is overwhelming. At the office, we are receiving dozens of
>>>> phone calls *per week* about company, organization, and marketing
>>>> edits which are reverted, causing the non-notable, but
>>>> self-aggrandizing authors, to scream bloody murder. This is as it
>>>> should be. However, I am issuing a call to arms to the community to
>>>> act in a much more draconian fashion in response to corporate
>>>> self-editing and vanity page creation. This is simply out of hand,
>>>> and we need your help.
>>>>
>>>> We are the #14 website in the world. We are a big target. If we are
>>>> to remain true to our encyclopedic mission, this kind of nonsense
>>>> cannot be tolerated. This means the administrators and new page
>>>> patrol need to be clear when they see new usernames and page creation
>>>> which are blatantly commercial - shoot on sight. There should be no
>>>> question that someone who claims to have a "famous movie studio" and
>>>> has exactly 2 Google hits - both their Myspace page - they get nuked.
>>>> Ban users who promulgate such garbage for a significant period of
>>>> time. They need to be encouraged to avoid the temptation to recreate
>>>> their article, thereby raising the level of damage and wasted time
>>>> they incur.
>>>>
>>>> Some of you might think regular policy and VfD is the way to go. I am
>>>> here to tell you it is not enough. We are losing the battle for
>>>> encyclopedic content in favor of people intent on hijacking Wikipedia
>>>> for their own memes. This scourge is a serious waste of time and
>>>> energy. We must put a stop to this now.
>>>> Thank you for your help.
>>>>
>>>> -Brad Patrick
>>>> User:BradPatrick
>>>> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
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geni napisał(a):
> On 9/29/06, daniwo59@aol.com <daniwo59@aol.com> wrote:
>> The fact is that they do not want to be on Yellowiki, which no one has ever heard of. They >want to be on Wikipedia, which is a household name. And for that we need real solutions.
>>
>> Danny
>
> How about FUD? You know stuff along the lines of "do you really want a
> page you can't control being the number one search result for your
> company?"

That would be an issue for controversial companies. Most are not
controversial. I assume they know about NPOV and expect to have a
neutral article which people will actually *read* (as opposed to the
marketing gibberish they have on their homepage).

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Hoi,
When people have been removed from Wikipedia with us providing a reasonable
alternative, we have taken the moral highground. When all we can do is
destroy, there is reason to be indignant. The solution that Yellowikis
provides us with is that we provide both a "reasonable" argument and a
"reasonable" alternative.

It therefore does solve a problem; it makes us seem reasonable.

Thanks,
GerardM

On 9/29/06, daniwo59@aol.com <daniwo59@aol.com> wrote:
>
> That does not solve any problems. The problem is not that they want to be
> online. Many of them have their own websites which get considerable traffic.
> The problem is that they want to be on Wikipedia. That is all they want. And
> as long as they are not on Wikipedia, they will keep coming back, regardless
> of whether they are on Yellowiki or not.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: gerard.meijssen@gmail.com
> To: foundation-l@wikimedia.org
> Sent: Fri, 29 Sep 2006 3:15 PM
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Corporate vanity policy enforcement
>
> Hoi,
> By saying that we are big and they are small, it must be clear that it
> is NOT a solution right ??. So the solution is to be blunt and destroy
> all the effort that these people did put into what they hoped to be
> acceptable for Wikipedia.
>
> By moving it to Yellowikis, Yellowikis gets content that it wants to
> have; their content is GFDL as well so there is NO problem in doing
> exactly this. By providing an alternative we give less of a reason to
> complain and we provide Yellowikis with the content that is what they
> are there for. What you could appreciate is that by having such a teflon
> strategy, we will be better able to ruthlessly remove from Wikipedia
> what is not encyclopedic in the first place.
>
> Thanks,
> GerardM
>
>
> daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
> > What Gerard suggests is NOT a solution. There are reasons people are
> spamming
> Wikipedia and not adding content to Yellowiki. We are the fourteenth
> largest
> website in the world, while Yellowiki does not count in the top one
> hundred
> thousand. We have a consistently high google rating and our links ensure
> that
> they will have a high google rating, Yellowiki does not. We can offer some
> modicum of respectability, while they cannot Compare these two statements:
> "Look
> at me! I'm in the encyclopedia!" v. "Look at me! I'm in the phonebook! "
> >
> > The fact is that they do not want to be on Yellowiki, which no one has
> ever
> heard of. They want to be on Wikipedia, which is a household name. And for
> that
> we need real solutions.
> >
> > Danny
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: gerard.meijssen@gmail.com
> > To: foundation-l@wikimedia.org
> > Cc: bpatrick@wikimedia.org
> > Sent: Fri, 29 Sep 2006 1:48 PM
> > Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Corporate vanity policy enforcement
> >
> > Hoi,
> > There are two issues that may be addressed. There is an apparant need
> for
> > organisations to be VISIBLE. They want to use Wikipedia for that while
> we do
> > not consider them to be of relevance in an encyclopedic setting. The
> content
> > that they created would be of some value to Yellowikis. This is where
> this
> > information is welcomed.
> >
> > By moving it sideways, we do exactly what is current practice for other
> > content that does not fit Wikipedia. We are not as confrontational as we
> > could be, but the teflon quality of our projects would be increased and
> this
> > may lead to fewer angry people in our projects as well.
> >
> > PS I am totally behind the notion that we should not have
> non-encyclopedic
> > content in Wikipedia.. for me it is a matter of strategy.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > GerardM
> >
> > On 9/29/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey@wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Brad,
> >>
> >> One very easy solution to all of this is to segregate the live edited
> >> wikipedia site from the published site scraped by the
> >> search engines.
> >>
> >> In other words, setup the community server "anyone can edit" at
> >> something like draften.wikipedia.org and publish reviewed
> >> dumps of the community server to a read only external server for
> >> scraping like I am doing at Wikigadugi. I have ZERO
> >> vandalism problems , ZERO content dispute problems, and ZERO vanity
> page
> >> problems and I host the entire English
> >> wikipedia as well as several other languages.
> >>
> >> Very simple solution. People won't waste the time creating vanity pages
> >> when they know they may not get published in the
> >> "official" external official site.
> >>
> >> Jeff
> >>
> >> Brad Patrick wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>> Brad Patrick wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> Dear Community:
> >>>>
> >>>> The volume of corporate vanity/vandalism which is showing up on
> >>>> Wikipedia is overwhelming. At the office, we are receiving dozens of
> >>>> phone calls *per week* about company, organization, and marketing
> >>>> edits which are reverted, causing the non-notable, but
> >>>> self-aggrandizing authors, to scream bloody murder. This is as it
> >>>> should be. However, I am issuing a call to arms to the community to
> >>>> act in a much more draconian fashion in response to corporate
> >>>> self-editing and vanity page creation. This is simply out of hand,
> >>>> and we need your help.
> >>>>
> >>>> We are the #14 website in the world. We are a big target. If we are
> >>>> to remain true to our encyclopedic mission, this kind of nonsense
> >>>> cannot be tolerated. This means the administrators and new page
> >>>> patrol need to be clear when they see new usernames and page creation
> >>>> which are blatantly commercial - shoot on sight. There should be no
> >>>> question that someone who claims to have a "famous movie studio" and
> >>>> has exactly 2 Google hits - both their Myspace page - they get nuked.
> >>>> Ban users who promulgate such garbage for a significant period of
> >>>> time. They need to be encouraged to avoid the temptation to recreate
> >>>> their article, thereby raising the level of damage and wasted time
> >>>> they incur.
> >>>>
> >>>> Some of you might think regular policy and VfD is the way to go. I
> am
> >>>> here to tell you it is not enough. We are losing the battle for
> >>>> encyclopedic content in favor of people intent on hijacking Wikipedia
> >>>> for their own memes. This scourge is a serious waste of time and
> >>>> energy. We must put a stop to this now.
> >>>> Thank you for your help.
> >>>>
> >>>> -Brad Patrick
> >>>> User:BradPatrick
> >>>> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
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GerardM wrote:

>PS I am totally behind the notion that we should not have non-encyclopedic
>content in Wikipedia.. for me it is a matter of strategy.
>
>Thanks,
> GerardM
>
>
While on the surface I totally support this idea and philosophy, the
problem is in the details. There is a legitimate reason to have
encyclopedic articles about major notable businesses and organizations
such as Coca-Cola and General Motors. The problem is when the POV of
these articles shift from a NPOV exercise to simply a glowing P.R.
astroturfing exercise that wipes out any criticism or negative (to the
company) publicity, even if it is factual and verifiable.

I'm currently engaged directly in one of these efforts where there have
been close to 100 edits about a particular company that has been edited
to wildly different points of view and little middle ground is seemingly
possible. Some of the edits are by (I suspect) employees of the company
in question.

As for business that are not notable, that is of course subject to
interpretation but even then some sort of good faith ought to go into
some of the suggestions. Historical significance should play as much a
role as Alexa ranking or other factors. John's "Gently Used Cars"
should not be considered a notable business by all of these factors and
more, and certainly does not deserve note in Wikipedia, even if it might
help improve rankings on Google for their website. This is perhaps one
of the motivations for this type of behavior, unfortunately.

There are some companies that while small now, did have a small but
important historical significance to the area where they are located, or
to the industry they are in.

Somehow I don't think that most of the web pages that Brad is
complaining about here really fit this sort of criteria.

--
Robert Scott Horning



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On 9/29/06, £ukasz Garczewski <tor@oak.pl> wrote:
> That would be an issue for controversial companies. Most are not
> controversial. I assume they know about NPOV and expect to have a
> neutral article which people will actually *read* (as opposed to the
> marketing gibberish they have on their homepage).

You relise a fair number of things deleted as copyvios are direct
coppies of companies "marketing gibberish"?

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geni napisa³(a):
> On 9/29/06, £ukasz Garczewski <tor@oak.pl> wrote:
>> That would be an issue for controversial companies. Most are not
>> controversial. I assume they know about NPOV and expect to have a
>> neutral article which people will actually *read* (as opposed to the
>> marketing gibberish they have on their homepage).
>
> You relise a fair number of things deleted as copyvios are direct
> coppies of companies "marketing gibberish"?

Context is everything. Marketing gibberish is only marketing gibberish
when it's on a corporate website. On Wikipedia, however, marketing
gibberish becomes an encyclopedic article. Magic. ;)

--
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On 29/09/06, geni <geniice@gmail.com> wrote:

> This would be covered by CSD a7 for the most part.
> Afd. In theory prod/CSD should take care of most of it. Problem is
> that figureing out the notibility or whatever of companies is a pain
> in the neck since most of us don't have a vast amount of experence in
> that area.


Yes. The problem is *not* one susceptible to a new rule, because the
problem is not the failure of present rules. The problem is keeping up
with the firehose of crap and not risking doing something really
stupid. Brad, this needs more thought than just adding another rule.


- d.
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On 9/29/06, David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes. The problem is *not* one susceptible to a new rule, because the
> problem is not the failure of present rules. The problem is keeping up
> with the firehose of crap and not risking doing something really
> stupid. Brad, this needs more thought than just adding another rule.

Make it impossible to create orphan articles.

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On 29/09/06, geni <geniice@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/29/06, David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com> wrote:

> > Yes. The problem is *not* one susceptible to a new rule, because the
> > problem is not the failure of present rules. The problem is keeping up
> > with the firehose of crap and not risking doing something really
> > stupid. Brad, this needs more thought than just adding another rule.

> Make it impossible to create orphan articles.


"Sorry, you can't have your article unless you apply *this* magic
trick we mention on a page you didn't read, did you."

Bites the newbies badly, and doesn't stop editors of bad faith for a
second. Rules can't cure malice.


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On 9/29/06, David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 29/09/06, geni <geniice@gmail.com> wrote:
> "Sorry, you can't have your article unless you apply *this* magic
> trick we mention on a page you didn't read, did you."
>

you don't get that becuase the only way to get to a page that allows
you to create a new page is to click a redlink.

> Bites the newbies badly, and doesn't stop editors of bad faith for a
> second. Rules can't cure malice.

You can't create an article that no one else wants without editing an
existing article that someone might care about.

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On 29/09/06, geni <geniice@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/29/06, David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 29/09/06, geni <geniice@gmail.com> wrote:

> > "Sorry, you can't have your article unless you apply *this* magic
> > trick we mention on a page you didn't read, did you."

> you don't get that becuase the only way to get to a page that allows
> you to create a new page is to click a redlink.
> You can't create an article that no one else wants without editing an
> existing article that someone might care about.


Or adding a link to an existing article.

You seem to be assuming the marketers of ill faith will be too thick
to apply the same procedure to create an article that an editor of
good faith would.

Could it be that there is no technical trick that will stop a marketer
of ill faith without stopping editors and newbies of good faith the
same or worse?

Think!


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On 9/29/06, David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com> wrote:
> Or adding a link to an existing article.
>
> You seem to be assuming the marketers of ill faith will be too thick
> to apply the same procedure to create an article that an editor of
> good faith would.
>

As soon as you add a link to an existing article you are more likely
to be noticed by a wikipedian who knows the area. Ever look at how
many prod, speedies and ADFs are orphans?

> Could it be that there is no technical trick that will stop a marketer
> of ill faith without stopping editors and newbies of good faith the
> same or worse?
>
> Think!

Just because someone is acting in good faith it doesn't mean that they
are doing something that we want them to do. There are various tricks
(marketers appear to be rather found of our no comercial use lisence
option on images for example) which could be used to target marketers
but then it gets complex.

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On 29/09/06, geni <geniice@gmail.com> wrote:

> As soon as you add a link to an existing article you are more likely
> to be noticed by a wikipedian who knows the area. Ever look at how
> many prod, speedies and ADFs are orphans?


It'd be quite a major move to have to close off new articles to that
extent just because of marketers.


> Just because someone is acting in good faith it doesn't mean that they
> are doing something that we want them to do.


I spent 1.5 hours this afternoon talking to a journalist. About 20
mins of that was him complaining at length that the bureaucracy is too
damned intimidating for newcomers as it is. (I proceeded to more or
less reiterate [[:en:Wikipedia:Process is important]], which I'm sure
those of you who consider me a hack'n'slash enemy of process would
find most amusing.)

I'd suggest that if we want better behaviour from newbies, we need to
make things suck less for the good ones (like this guy) - the crap
newbies will not be stoppable by any force of clue. You watch.

And remember: most text appears to be written by newcomers and
occasional editors, not the regulars. (Numbers not firm on this one
per AaronSw, but I understand others are checking his work.)


> There are various tricks
> (marketers appear to be rather found of our no comercial use lisence
> option on images for example) which could be used to target marketers
> but then it gets complex.


See, that's the sort of thing we're good at. Be open to input from
all, even if a tweaked vandal-checking bot puts it in a patrolling
admin's "#redirect [[round file]]" list.


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On 9/29/06, David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com> wrote:
> It'd be quite a major move to have to close off new articles to that
> extent just because of marketers.

We shut off article creation for anons because of one media circus. If
you recall the prevent orphan creation was the alturnative I sugested
at that point. It has a lot of benifits. Afd, prod, speedy, all filled
with orphans. It also means we are more likely to get a robust index.
Articles that are orphans are not part of the community of articles.

>
> I spent 1.5 hours this afternoon talking to a journalist. About 20
> mins of that was him complaining at length that the bureaucracy is too
> damned intimidating for newcomers as it is. (I proceeded to more or
> less reiterate [[:en:Wikipedia:Process is important]], which I'm sure
> those of you who consider me a hack'n'slash enemy of process would
> find most amusing.)

Not really. It's because it is important that process and policy and
guidelines should not exist lightly. If process doesn't matter and IAR
is to be the order of the day it matters little how much we have.

>
> I'd suggest that if we want better behaviour from newbies, we need to
> make things suck less for the good ones (like this guy) - the crap
> newbies will not be stoppable by any force of clue. You watch.
>

My proposal would effect everyone. Newbies less so because with luck
they would not even thing of doing what they are being prevented from
doing.

> And remember: most text appears to be written by newcomers and
> occasional editors, not the regulars. (Numbers not firm on this one
> per AaronSw, but I understand others are checking his work.)
>

But how much of this text is added in the form of new articles and how
much is added to existing articles.

> See, that's the sort of thing we're good at. Be open to input from
> all, even if a tweaked vandal-checking bot puts it in a patrolling
> admin's "#redirect [[round file]]" list.


Problem is that there isn't much else you can do. Unwikified, linking
to a site that contains the article title in the url and created by a
one off user (and not linking to myspace). But that could apply to so
many things.

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On 29/09/06, geni <geniice@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/29/06, David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com> wrote:

> > It'd be quite a major move to have to close off new articles to that
> > extent just because of marketers.

> We shut off article creation for anons because of one media circus. If
> you recall the prevent orphan creation was the alturnative I sugested
> at that point. It has a lot of benifits. Afd, prod, speedy, all filled
> with orphans. It also means we are more likely to get a robust index.
> Articles that are orphans are not part of the community of articles.


True. It would still be a drastic move.


> > I spent 1.5 hours this afternoon talking to a journalist. About 20
> > mins of that was him complaining at length that the bureaucracy is too
> > damned intimidating for newcomers as it is. (I proceeded to more or
> > less reiterate [[:en:Wikipedia:Process is important]], which I'm sure
> > those of you who consider me a hack'n'slash enemy of process would
> > find most amusing.)

> Not really. It's because it is important that process and policy and
> guidelines should not exist lightly. If process doesn't matter and IAR
> is to be the order of the day it matters little how much we have.


IAR doesn't mean "do whatever damn fool idea pops into your head" any
more than "Anyone can edit!" is an invitation to marketers to spam us.


> > I'd suggest that if we want better behaviour from newbies, we need to
> > make things suck less for the good ones (like this guy) - the crap
> > newbies will not be stoppable by any force of clue. You watch.

> My proposal would effect everyone. Newbies less so because with luck
> they would not even thing of doing what they are being prevented from
> doing.


With luck?


> > And remember: most text appears to be written by newcomers and
> > occasional editors, not the regulars. (Numbers not firm on this one
> > per AaronSw, but I understand others are checking his work.)

> But how much of this text is added in the form of new articles and how
> much is added to existing articles.


I can tell you, I'm eagerly awaiting the


> > See, that's the sort of thing we're good at. Be open to input from
> > all, even if a tweaked vandal-checking bot puts it in a patrolling
> > admin's "#redirect [[round file]]" list.

> Problem is that there isn't much else you can do. Unwikified, linking
> to a site that contains the article title in the url and created by a
> one off user (and not linking to myspace). But that could apply to so
> many things.


So? Linkless articles and orphans are easily added to a round-file
list. It's not quite like they hit 'save', think it saved and it
disappeared, but it's that with a delay.


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geni wrote:
> On 9/29/06, David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 29/09/06, geni <geniice@gmail.com> wrote:
>> "Sorry, you can't have your article unless you apply *this* magic
>> trick we mention on a page you didn't read, did you."
>>
>
> you don't get that becuase the only way to get to a page that allows
> you to create a new page is to click a redlink.
>
>> Bites the newbies badly, and doesn't stop editors of bad faith for a
>> second. Rules can't cure malice.
>
> You can't create an article that no one else wants without editing an
> existing article that someone might care about.
>

Wouldn't it be better to apply the filter retroactively, i.e. to delete
orphan articles with human confirmation some time after they are created? If
we put in profanity filters to prevent bad page saves, Wikipedia would
suddenly be overwhelmed with 5H1t, if you understand my meaning. But the
current system of IRC notification and semi-automated reversion is strangely
effective.

Let's say for argument's sake that maybe there is a way to automatically
recognise PR fluff, even if the best method is not by orphan status as geni
has suggested. Then you can automate the process of deleting it. Display a
big list of articles with a column of checkboxes, click "select all", select
"CSD a7" from a drop-down list, click "delete". Wham, all gone. Keep the
filters covert as much as possible, e.g. on the client side.

These kinds of features are the things we're trying to encourage with what
I've been calling "hybrid" development, i.e. simultaneous development on the
client and server. Get the client-side developers interested, ask them what
they need on the server side in support, and we server-side developers will
see if we can incorporate it into an API or extension.

-- Tim Starling

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