Wikimedia Forum/Archives/2011-03

Si Gam Aceh

Hi! I found this at the Indonesian Wikipedia: id:Wikipedia:Surat pernyataan permintaan penghapusan gambar-gambar penghinaan terhadap Nabi Muhammad saw.. I'm not exactly sure what it is (I don't know Indonesian, so I am not sure if this is a userbox or an essay or something) - But it seems like Si Gam Aceh is editing again. Is his block expired? WhisperToMe 01:41, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Looks like a petition:

"Wikipedia: The statement requests the elimination of the drawings insulting the Prophet Muhammad.

Bismillaahirrahmaanirraahiim ...

In the spirit of welcoming the birthday of Prophet Muhammad., we are the Wikipedians from Wikipedia Bahasa Indonesian, demanding abolition of all the drawings insulting the Prophet Muhammad. contained in the various Wikimedia projects particularly in Simple English."

Seb az86556 02:41, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

So, the question is, is the petition in the correct space? (Maybe user space, like the German userbox solution?) What are the Bahasa Indonesia Wikipedia's rules on this? WhisperToMe 02:59, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

No idea; it's labeled a project. What they don't seem to get is that it's pointless — so let them. No one on any other wiki is gonna give a rat's ass what they do or rant about. Once they start vandalizing, it's block time again. FWIW, I'm gonna notify en.wiki, since their articles are linked to from there. Seb az86556 04:29, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Oh, btw, the account is a sock, started today Seb az86556 04:44, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Alrighty. About the petition, I personally don't mind as long as the petition is in the correct userspace/project space on ID. I fully understand that its goals are not attainable. About the user, I will let the stewards decide what to do, depending on the user's actions. WhisperToMe 04:52, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

As a side note, I made a userbox image for people who disagree with hosting Muhammad images en:User:WhisperToMe/Userboxes/NoMo - Maybe a good way to deal with this is to promote the usage of this userbox and any translations of them WhisperToMe 05:37, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I really don't think that it is appropriate for this sort of thing to be hosted on Wikimedia Foundation projects. If someone wants to start a petition against a Wikimedia project, they should do so on an external site. The creator of the petition, Si Gam Aceh (talk • contribs • block • xwiki-contribs • xwiki-date ^(alt) • CA • gblock • ST • lwcheckuser), is a blatantly obvious sock, main account: Si Gam Acèh (talk • contribs • block • xwiki-contribs • xwiki-date ^(alt) • CA • gblock • ST • lwcheckuser) (see [1]). See also [2]. That is me removing the almost exact same template from the main page of w:ace about 6 months ago, after he put it there. See [3]. Finally, note the massive amount of canvassing he has done for his petition, more than 100 pages. Machine translation of his messages:

Celebrate the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad saw, I had an idea to Wikipedia Bahasa Indonesia to send a letter of request removal of images of an insult to the Prophet Muhammad. published in various Wikimedia projects, especially in the Simple English. When WBI is not ready, we can raise the voices wikipediawan Indonesia especially the Muslim to sign a letter requesting removal of the pictures are an insult. How do you agree? - Aceh Gam Si ( talk) 08:19, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Please signatures here:Wikipedia: statement letter request removal of images of an insult to the Prophet.. - Aceh Gam Si (talk) 08:19, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

So, we have socking, canvassing, and using WMF projects to attack other projects. The way I see it, this user is not doing anything productive at all, only attempting to mount a campaign against other WMF projects. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 17:21, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

• Comment: Indonesian Wikipedia discussion started at id:Wikipedia:Permintaan_perhatian_pengurus#Si_Gam_Aceh - English Wikipedia discussion at en:Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#just_a_heads-up - J. Delanoy notified him about the meta thread, while I notified him about this one and the English Wikipedia thread. WhisperToMe 18:16, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
  • An Indonesian Wikipedian is developing a Bahasa Indonesia version of the userbox that I posted: id:Pengguna:Wagino 20100516/Bak pasir - Hopefully this will help give a healthy way for people who disagree with the Muhammad images to express their beliefs WhisperToMe 16:36, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Hey, at Wikipedia:Surat_pernyataan_permintaan_penghapusan_gambar-gambar_penghinaan_terhadap_Nabi_Muhammad_saw.#Comments it looks like Si Giam Aceh is starting to make several loud statements with allcaps. I think we need to look at them. One statement was "I attack you all because you attack us first. Wikimedia NEVER respect us as muslim! " WhisperToMe 20:50, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Let him rant. And don't feed the trolls. It's tedious. Seb az86556 21:38, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

I have no plans to talk to him (and therefore he can't be fed if you don't engage him). I do not feel that he has contributed to things, so therefore I'm letting other people deal with him. At this rate I feel that it's not possible to reason with him. WhisperToMe 04:37, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Agree. Seb az86556 04:46, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

And the petition that SGA started was nominated for deletion, for "Against Foundation policy of NPOV" : -id:Pembicaraan Wikipedia:Surat pernyataan permintaan penghapusan gambar-gambar penghinaan terhadap Nabi Muhammad saw. - I am not surprised. Also I honestly think the angry "DELETE IMAGES INSULTING PROPHET MUHAMMAD PBUH FROM WIKIPEDIA" template should now be given a swift retirement. WhisperToMe 01:28, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

And at id:Pembicaraan Pengguna:Si Gam Acèh/Hapus Gambar Penghinaan Nabi Muhammad saw someone nominated the "DELETE IMAGES INSULTING PROPHET MUHAMMAD PBUH FROM WIKIPEDIA" template for deletion too - I'm not sure how much of this is on ID, but En's en:Wikipedia:Userboxes#Content_restrictions policy says "Userboxes must not be inflammatory or divisive" and "Wikipedia is not an appropriate place for propaganda, advocacy, or recruitment of any kind, commercial, political, religious, or otherwise, opinion pieces on current affairs or politics, self-promotion, or advertising." WhisperToMe 01:56, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

To be fair, if you wanted to take that one literally, you can go ahead and delete all useboxes, short of "I am male" and "I live in Timbuktu". There's a host of userboxes that cheer for conservative parties, against conservative parties, for Israel, against Israel, probably even for planting bananas in the Arctic. Seb az86556 02:45, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

I think the idea is that a userbox can state a political opinion and/or viewpoint as long as it does so in a non-threatening, non-insulting, or non-demanding manner. The German userbox solution was made to accommodate userboxes that stated political and viewpoint opinions. WhisperToMe 03:24, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

On ID, id:Pengguna:Si Gam Acèh/Hapus Gambar Penghinaan Nabi Muhammad saw has been retired. WhisperToMe 23:01, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

On ACE I found: ace:Wikipedia:Bèk peuhina Islam - It seems to be an old page. It claims "Note that only acehnese Wikipedia contributors who can vote" WhisperToMe 23:47, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Merge the be.wikipedia.org and be-x-old.wikipedia.org

How can we do it? Alma mater 17:27, 26 February 2011 (UTC) moved from here

Do you simply want be-x-old to go away, or are there pages that are missing? –SJ · talk | translate 12:57, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Both projects are actively developing and growing. Many article subjects appear in both of them; sometimes it's mostly the same text with different orthography and sometimes the text is significantly different. Some articles appear in only one project. Some people participate in both projects, others stick to only one, for various reasons.

Merging the two projects is very desirable, but it will require a lot of work, both social and technical. It's important to understand that it will be best done by the community members of both projects working together, and not by the WMF forcing it. --Amir E. Aharoni 15:45, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Meta-facilitators list?

I was thinking some more about a dispute resolution committee and was reminded of the old idea of having a low-traffic list for people involved in cross-wiki facilitation, like current & past ombudsmen & stewards. It could be a publicly-readable list; perhaps 1-2 email threads a week.

The list could be used to share requests for help in rare circumstances, say in an under-represented language. I was thinking of it as a place to discuss moving forward with a DRC -- it's not something that needs private discussion, but it could use more back-and-forth discussion than on a Meta talkpage. Does this sound like something that might be useful? –SJ · talk | translate 12:57, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

So, let's start with it. To make things faster, let Board nominate a couple of persons for this group initially and if it becomes alive, elections would be held yearly. --Millosh 08:28, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Campaign on pt.wiki

In portuguese wikipedia, we are planning a colabotation campaign. How do I create the campaign with CentralNotice? Danilo.mac talk 13:43, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

In this case, using the Sitenotice in pt.wiki, since this campaign is only for one wiki. Béria Lima ^msg 14:18, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I would use the SiteNotice and AnonNotice, but the cache prevent the random content generation and the developers didn't allow a extension to prevent caching, if I use JavaScript as the developer has suggested the banner will not be seen by those who don't refresh the browser cache, so the unique solution is the CentralNotice. I've readed the help:CentralNotice, but my english is not pretty good and I did not understand how do I create a new campaign. Danilo.mac talk 15:32, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Does anyone know how I create a campaign with CentralNotice? Danilo.mac talk 21:58, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

StringFunctions

What is the way to follow for having "$wgPFEnableStringFunctions = true;" in LocalSettings.php as explained in mw:Extension:StringFunctions. Who could do that ? To who should we ask ? Thanks. Please answer on my Esperanto talk page --Arno Lagrange ✉ 09:18, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

It would be a Bugzilla: request on the agreement of the community. From my limited understanding of the issues, I don't fancy your chances of success, however, you never know. About the only allowed functions are those through mw:Help:Magic words and mw:Help:Extension:ParserFunctions billinghurst sDrewth 12:29, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Please block

User:ЛеонидовЕВ, mass removing content from pages. It's personal data removed. vvv^t 15:11, 11 March 2011 (UTC), vandal from ru.wiki, from Duke University.--Bunker by ruwiki 23:08, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Dferg caught them. Killiondude 01:04, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Watchlist Bug Introduced

Resolved.

About 2 weeks ago a problem appeared with the Watchlist display for Users of WikiSpecies. It affects many, if not all, browsers, and may have coincided with a Wiki software update. Can someone with the knowledge please look into the discussion on WikiSpecies Village Pumpand see if the problem can be sorted? It sounds very similar to the "script" issue mentioned two sections above on this page. Thanks. Accassidy 22:49, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Issue resolved. Thanks folks. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 22:35, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

400 free Credo Reference accounts available

Another 400 free Credo Reference accounts have been made available for Wikipedians, kindly donated by the company and arranged by Erik Möller of the Wikimedia Foundation. We've drawn up some eligibility criteria to direct the accounts to content contributors, and after that it's first-come, first-served. The list will open on Wednesday, March 23 at 22:00 UTC, and will remain open for seven days. See Wikipedia:Credo accounts.

Feel free to add your name even if you're lower on the list than the 400th, in case people ahead of you aren't eligible, and good luck! SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 04:54, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Who's Manning the Ship at Commons?

A couple ago, an image was removed from the en:Frank Buckles article per this discussion. Short version, they said the image removed wasn't military. A VERY quick search of Google Images came up with this image, the very same image deleted at Commons. The source for that image...army.mil. About as military as one photo can get. This isn't the first time this has happened. It happened a couple weeks ago, then it was called a "copyright violation" and "there's no evidence that this is a federal work". Well, back to the ol' Google and via WLS Radio's website, there is the image, credit going to the Library of Congress, which as you know is at loc.gov (I looked for the file, but gave up after 10 pages).

So, this is two seperate images that "aren't military" or "federal work" that turn out to be found on government and military websites. Did anyone at Commons even bother to look at Google? Check the sources of the images?

So, it brings me back to the question in the header, "Who's Manning the Ship at Commons?" I think we need to take a good look at Commons, if all they are doing is blindly deleting images because someone thinks they are a violation or aren't military, when a 30 second Google Images search finds they are.

(BTW: I raised this on AN on en.Wiki and was told to come here. I know this should go to Commons for discussion, but I am actually have an arguement with a Commons admin over whether an image of an Army soldier in an Army uniform is an Army image, so I don't think they will be open to ideas for change.) - Neutralhomer 13:33, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

You're right. That is obvious military image. Almost no need to browse the web.
Library of Congress is "the research library of the United States Congress"; US Congress is "is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the USA". 2 clicks on Wikipedia..
Admins must be careful when they use words like "copyright violation".
Are they lazy to search/browse (do they know that?)? Too superficial? Clumsy? Too busy/tired to browse/search? Do they know what is (not) copyright violation? Are they uncapable for adminship? Are they playing Wild West gunmen/sheriffs over there?
Maybe Commons has the problem with these two groups of admins (en.wiki has the problem with both):
- the "collectors": users that "collect" functions (mostly: adminship) as if these are medals and awards of merit; they are uncapable for adminship, but capable in making wiki as social network, so sweettalkers get sufficient votes.
- the "quick thinkers", group with(out) the experience from the forums before the Age of Wikipedia. These knew (or quickly recognized) how to game the system. These became the admins when the wiki was young, communities much smaller, when "10 votes" in total was enough for adminship, when big majority of users wasn't aware of possibilities and dangers of sockpuppeteering, so noone suspected what was going on.
Their destructiveness usually manifests in this way(s) (one or more of these): 1) no admin actions ("peacock admins") 2) redirecting of every unpopular and tiresome work 3) daring or refined trolling 4) usurpating the topic for the imposing of their personal POV, making it their ownership, so no other admin engages or questions what's going on on that topic 5) elimination of all opponents in unallowed way.
Do you think that you have problems with "the collectors" or with "the quick thinkers"?
Has it ever occured to you that you've been "pulled by the nose" by a sockpuppet? Is there a possibility of that? Have you recognised someone's edit pattern, typical words/sentence pattern or similar? Kubura 06:14, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

How can I ask Danese Cooper?

To my request Wikimedia Forum/Archives/2010-11#Power supply of Wikimedia servers here, no one has answered except Nemo. Refering to the power supply of the new datacentre in Virginia, Nemo proposed that I should "ask Danese Cooper". Unfortunately, in November 2010 no one reacted on my sequel questions. There is no account User:Danese Cooper, so I have to ask again here how to ask her about the Virginia datacentre.

--Rosenkohl 10:37, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

The account is User:Danese, but she might not follow her talk page that regularly. You'll probably get a better response time by email. Jafeluv 10:45, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually, wikitech-l is probably better than emailing Danese directly about specific ops-related questions. She's crazy busy, and there will be a whole host of people who might know on the public list. Steven Walling at work 22:16, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

What is this?

One minute I was discussing a topic on Wikipedia and the next minute I become connected to this page. What is this place, why was I sent here?

Please, provide a link to the Wikipedia discussion (English one I suppose?). Ruslik 20:53, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

There were 2 links where discussions were being held:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:External_links#137_Links_to_BeatlesBible.com 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Fiatlux5762

So what is this and why was I sent here??

Did you have opened two windows, one en.wiki and one Meta? Have you saved into the wrong window?
If this is not the case, than you probably have something for bugzilla. Or some other page for software developers. Kubura 05:09, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

???

from the log:

16:14, 11 March 2011 VasilievVV (talk | contribs) changed revision visibility of "Wikimedia Forum": hid content for 72 revisions (Inappropriate personal information)

??? -jkb- 16:22, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

If the question is regarding the number of revisions, it's due to the personal information being removed having been in each of those revisions, otherwise, please rephrase with a more specific query. Kylu 16:42, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Yep, that is, 72 revisions since Feb 20th, a little surprise... OK, thanks. -jkb- 16:44, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

I actually do not do understand why the removed information was considered so private. Ruslik 20:40, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Someone's real name, if they chose to not disclose it on-wiki, is typically considered private information here. If I say, "Ruslik0, also known as April Sanchez, has been pestering me about..." where you hadn't disclosed your information previously, you'd be rightfully upset that I posted your name purposely to out information on you. (Note to readers: "April" is picked out of the air, and if that's actually Ruslik0's name, I'll be mighty impressed...)

Not everyone wants their real name posted in conjunction with their editing. For some (think some of the Chinese Wikipedians), such information could actually reduce their chances of continuing to live. Kylu 20:56, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

I, of course, noticed the name. However, there is something fishy about it—the account in question is blocked as a sock of a banned user, and I am not even sure that the name is a real one. Anyway, is not it an open secret now? Ruslik 09:44, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

So, it's okay to out users publicly as long as we don't like them? Maybe instead the revisions on that page should be corrected. I'll mention it to vvv. Kylu 19:33, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I did not mean that we should purposefully out anybody, but users who abuse their editing privileges have lower expectation of privacy. Ruslik 19:46, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

As far as I am aware, this user never contested releasing their user name into the public. I believed this is enough to remove his real name which was inserted into the pages by another trolls. vvv^t 09:46, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

contested"? Do you mean "consented" instead maybe? Kylu 12:58, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, this was a typo. vvv^t 19:54, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

If those revisions indeed contains personal info they should be oversighted rather than only admin-level deleted. Just my 0.02. Regards, -- Dferg ^{☎ talk} 20:47, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

建议修改授予全局权限的流程

饭桶觉得元维基授予任何全局权限以前，最好事先知会一下申请人Home Wiki的社群。因为申请人Home Wiki的社群最了解申请人的情况。--爱学习的饭桶 16:28, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Attribution being infringed by wikimedia due to SUL

Hello, I am not sure if this is the correct place to discuss this, so if I am in the wrong place by all means point me elsewhere. I am the holder of the un-unified SUL of User:Woody with the main account being en:User:Woody where I am a sysop. There are 4 wikipedias where I could not unify my account due to existing editors having edits there. Now for the problem: some of the edits that I have made on the English Wikipedia have been transwikied across to different wikipedias under the username Woody, mainly to the German language Wikipedia, and these are now attributed to the German Woody and not back to myself. This breaks the link of attribution of edits. Take this edit for example, which was transwikied from this edit on the English Wikipedia. There are various examples of this in de:Spezial:Beiträge/Woody. Does the foundation have a way of rectifying these issues and the issue of non-usurpable accounts across wikimedia projects? Why are edits being transwikied if this fundamental issue with SUL has still not been resolved? Woody 14:20, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

nice example for transwikiing user accounts, indeed. -jkb- 18:14, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

There's a related Bugzilla request here. Jafeluv 18:37, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Wrongly attributed edits after transwiki are an issue I have repeatedly brought to attention over at the German Wikipedia, where transwiki imports are standard procedure when translating articles from other Wikipedias. The intention of this procedure is, of course, to adhere to the license and to guarantee proper attribution (many admins at the German Wikipedia think that the translation procedure in the English Wikipedia with the "translated article" template isn't enough) - but, as in your example, it can have quite the opposite effect when non-SUL accounts are involved. Still, I have not managed to convince them to stop transwiki imports, many think "no import? license violation! transwiki is mandatory!" So, as an admin at the German Wikipedia, I'm now following this standard procedure too when translating articles, despite my misgivings. However, some time ago I have at least added a "precautions" passage on the import help page, see there ("Vorsichtsmaßregeln"). This describes the issue and advsises admins to take extra care when importing articles about sensitive topics (like religious issues, sexuality) so that users don't get embarrassing edits made by others with the same name from a different Wikipedia in their edit logs, i.e. refraining from transwiki at least in such cases. Gestumblindi 15:41, 20 March 2011 (UTC) P.S. For those who read German, another conversation regarding this issue (archived), with example.

This breaks the link of attribution of edits. – Not exactly. The license requires to attribute the author by the name he has chosen. If you are w:en:User:John Doe the attribution is John Doe. It doesn’t matter wether there is a different w:de:John Doe or not. The real infrigement would be not to mention the author’s name at all. --32X 23:35, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

The licence requires you to attribute the author in their original location so Woody on English Wikipedia, not Woody on German Wikipedia. The edits currently show up in the edit contribution history of an author who is not me. The purpose of wikilinks in the edit history of an article is to point you to the page of the author not to point you to any author with a similar name. To suggest otherwise is pretty shocking. Woody 19:26, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

The way importing is set up, the attribution in the target wiki is expressly made to the John Doe there, with a link to his user page... and, which I think is even more problematic, showing up in the edit history of the "target John Doe". See the mentioned conversation with DerHexer for a good example (the edit history of an editor in the German Wikipedia consisting mainly of imported edits by a different editor of the same name in the Danish WP). Gestumblindi 00:19, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

The bugzilla note is interesting is that the issue is not exactly a hidden issue. Why has this issue not been dealt with? What is going to be done about it? Woody 19:26, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I have no idea... many people are aware of it, but I don't know how to make those who could do something about it more aware... Gestumblindi 21:01, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

If de.wikipedia's interpretation really is that all authors must be imported into the edit history even if the text was written on a different page, I'd be interested in knowing how they handle article merging. Surely not by importing the original article's edit history to the target article? Jafeluv 16:41, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

They merge by importing the edit history if there's no overlap, see de:Hilfe:Artikel zusammenführen. The page also describes the rather complicated approach of trying to adhere to the license if importing isn't an option. Gestumblindi 20:43, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Monuments logo contest opens

Hey all, the Wiki Loves Monuments 2011 logo contest has opened. Post your submissions! Cbrown1023 talk 19:51, 30 March 2011 (UTC)