ArbCom Vacancy

Wherefore "justice"?
(as if!) Image via
Wikimedia CommonsI think the little corner of the blogosphere that I (and presumably, many of my readers) hang out in has discussed the departure of Newyorkbrad from the English Wikipedia project, the events leading up to it, the events surrounding it, and so forth, quite a bit, so I'll skip the background.

But the departure leaves a hole in the English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee. Brad was widely regarded as a very good arbitrator.

So now what. As the picture says, wherefore justice? (recall please that I feel that Wikipedia is not a government or experiment in justice or social systems, and that arbcom is designed to solve things, not dispense justice)

Traditionally, Jimbo does sometimes appoint to fill vacancies.

And speculation about who he might or might not appoint is already running at a fever pitch. Some speculate that the next people in order from the 2007 election, Rebecca and Raul654, are the most likely appointees.

Well, while they might be the most likely, and while they might not be "bad" arbitrators (both have experience), I think a better idea is to make a radical pick, one that shows some new thinking.

So obviously, I'm stumping for Giano. (you saw that coming, right? grin!) He is 3rd on the list when sorted by percentage, but first, when sorted by number of supports received. (and he got a LOT!) My reasons given at the time
are just as valid as ever, in my view.

What do you think? Am I crazy? If so, tell me! Am I spot on? If so, tell Jimbo! :)

Stemming the rise of the machines?

The machines are reading
(c) Wikimedia Foundation Sometimes events move faster than we plan.

Another tidbit of my visit to the Wikimedia Foundation office Monday was that I got a preview of this post by Cary Bass, which addresses robots.txt, the bit of magic that controls what is searched and what is not. (more specifically, well behaved robots/spiders honor what it says and do not scan pages it names off... Less well behaved robots/spiders eventually get blocked completely once their bad behaviour is discovered.) Specifically, it makes the case that non articlespace pages ought not to be quite as visible in searches as articles, because unlike articlespace pages, which were designed to be read by the intended audience of the encyclopedia itself, they often contain bickering, name calling, or even worse, "userified" pages that contain clear BLP violations, fringe theories given undue weight or all sorts of other problematic content.

Unbeknownst to Cary, after Cary had written that blog post but before it published (the wonders of delayed publishing) Newyorkbrad posted this to the english wikipedia and foundation mailing lists. In it, he advances a remarkably similar thesis, that we should act to avoid giving undue weight to material that really isn't intended for the readership.

Bugzilla mascot, Image
via Wikimedia Commons
Partially in support of this, I entered an enhancement request in Bugzilla for code changes to make it easier to control what is and isn't in robots.txt... your thoughts or comments on that bug would be appreciated.

See also this mailing list post by Jimmy Wales in which he expresses agreement with the general idea that we should use this as a way to avoid doing unnecessary harm. Bravo!

As it turns out, this topic (among others) has been getting considerable discussion at the dreaded Wikipedia Review, but I believe Brad advanced the idea because it's a good idea, not because of the pressure that some were trying to exert. More on that topic later, but for a taste of it you can review this thread.

Ok, seriously... are you TRYING to make Wikidefender's work easier???

Let me get this straight...

Privatemusings has been having podcasts. He's had Danny Wool, he's had Sue Gardner, Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director, he's had Michael Snow, he's had Featured Article director Raul654. He solicits guests and whoever turns up, turns up. He's not afraid of controversial subjects and the casts (despite his tendency to go on a bit instead of letting his guests talk... hmm... who do I know like that!) have been well received, considered interesting and fun.

Number 6 features some folk not known for their high regard for Wikipedia as it stands.

The podcasts themselves are hosted on Commons.

So NonvocalScream decides that to put the page describing podcast number 6 up for deletion at Miscellany for Deletion. Rationale? "banned users are not permitted to edit" as given here. The fact that the files themselves are hosted on commons, and that this is one of a series, seems lost on some... but aside from a few folk, this is almost a snowball keep. It's got the usual folk saying the usual things but it strikes me as a huge waste of time, sorry...

For those that don't get the title reference, Wikidefender runs a blog that many consider to be a bit of a pastiche of the stuff trotted out by those who think everything with Wikipedia is perfect, and may or may not have been the person behind this funny edit to my talk page. Not that he singled me out, NewYorkBrad got one too...

Is it just me or is this sort of nomination actually playing into the hands of those that say that some editors can't help but do silly things?