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proposal - need collab

I've invited a number of people to join at this thread, so thank you for looking. I'd like to develop something similar to wp:AWB, except PHP based (frankly, I'm starting this because I'm annoyed that there's no version of AWB that works on Macs). My idea is to create a separate user (much like a bot-account): people can navigate to that user's page, where they will find an assortment of HTML forms where they can perform AWB-like functions straight through wikipedia's servers. My problem is the learning curve - the PHP coding is not beyond me technically, but the project is too large for me to handle on my own, given my current informational deficit. I've contacted you (as a group) because you have worked on or developed PHP bot code, and will probably be much more 'up' on this problem than I am. what I need to know is the following:

• Which of the various available bot frameworks is best suited to this task?
• How difficult do you think this project will actually be?
• What's the best approach (In your view) to achieving this?
• What considerations am I missing? I'm already concerned about keeping this from turning into a vandalism tool, for instance, and about server resources (it would probably be best to have a system of queueing requests, which would help with both problems).

I'd also like to know if any of you are interested in collaborating on this project - that would make things a hell of a lot easier for me, and make development much faster. Please let me know. --Ludwigs2 06:09, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Item numbering in Aparth. mediation

Ludwig: thanks for mediating that apartheid topic. It looks like the numbering of the vote-choices got messed up: The numbers start over again at 1 after a collapsed section. I would fix it but I dont know how. --Noleander (talk) 03:24, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

oops - my bad. I'll fix that now. --Ludwigs2 03:26, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Ref desk headings

I'm sure you meant well, but recent consensus on the ref desk talk page is to not mess with headings just to fix grammar errors. There are two reasons. One is that it's impolite and unnecessary. More importantly, it breaks the links (the little arrows in the edit history) and thus causes problems for other users who rely on those arrows. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 09:51, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Bugs - needless to say, I disagree, but let me answer over at the reference desk talk thread. --Ludwigs2 15:18, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

You disagree with what? That breaking the links is a problem? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 15:30, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

• Whenever you change a section title on a talk page, you should use either {{formerly}}, {{anchor}}, or {{anchord}}, to anchor the old title. –xeno 15:19, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Which means the old heading will remain visible anyway, right? So why mess with it? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 15:30, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
    • {{anchor}} won't leave a visible trace. I guess I should've prefixed my previous statement with "If you must change..." Anchors are a best practice when changing headers for whatever reason, though. (I make no comment as to whether those in the present case should have been changed.) –xeno 15:31, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
      • If that fixes the broken-links problem, that's excellent. So how come no one on the ref desk talk page seems to know about it? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 15:38, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
        • I dunno, poorly advertised I guess. Here's a step in the right direction: –xeno 15:42, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
        • We remain deliberately ignorant of such things, so that we don't accidentally answer a question that belongs on the Misplaced Pages:Help desk. -- Coneslayer (talk) 15:43, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

that's nice to know, but I really don't see the technical link issue as such a huge deal. most people (to my knowledge) use the watchlist far more than they use their contributions page, and the watchlist uses the new link title on subsequent posts. And most people have the brains to figure out what happened if they run across a link that doesn't work quite right.

besides - to be frank about the matter - I've had people change section headings in ANI to make snotty comments about me, and I've never seen a sysop complain about it there even when I wanted them to. why should I worry about a productive change on the Ref Desk? If this is a serious enough problem to worry about, then fix it where people worry about serious problems, first. --Ludwigs2 15:55, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

It is an issue for many, please use an anchor if you are going to change headers (and I use my contributions more than watchlists because my watchlist has grown to an unmaneageable size). And note that it's not only watchlist and history links but static links on other pages. Brains or not, it's an inconvenience to follow a link that has been broken by an inconsequential grammar fix, and a small matter to make an anchor. –xeno 16:02, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

oh, yeah, can do. no problem. I just didn't know about the template till now. --Ludwigs2 16:15, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks... Many people don't know about it... Tell your friends =) –xeno 16:27, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

hope you don't mind my posting here

I thought I would answer you here rather than clutter up the mediation page but please feel free to move it there if you feel it appropriate. I'll say no more about it also if you'd rather. Or you can block me for expressing this opinion and "salt the earth" behind me. I hope not but it is your call. At the very least I should probably not be part of this particular mediation, since I have no faith in it. This is not to say that I do not respect some or all of the participants in it or because I don't believe in your ability to be impartial or fair or idealistic or intellectually honest. I have no doubt that you are all of the above. What I said was my evaluation of my personal experience on Misplaced Pages and which has been reported by RSs on both sides of the fence, not to mention various blogs, facebook pages, forums, and even throughout Misplaced Pages on personal editors' pages, etc.

• Jerusalem Post article May 5, 2010,
• AISH
• Yahoo Answers
• The Prospect
• Terhan Times
• Haaretz
• Honest Reporting
• Jerusalem Post
• UK Telegraph

Honestly, I am of the opinion that: "Editing Misplaced Pages is one of the many stratagems of both sides." Why wouldn't it be? Misplaced Pages is a great teaching tool, the most accessed encyclopedia in the world and accessible in the public school systems of western democracies. The facts need to be there. I think Misplaced Pages is a great concept but one that doesn't seem to work well at the edges, anymore than the peace movement has worked for Israel-Palestine in the last 60+ years. WP depends on consensus, and consensus depends on collaboration, and collaboration is impossible for the ideologically driven.

I appreciate the situation with your Turkish friend. The Turkish situation is not analogous to the Israeli-Palestinian situation, however. Israel has not committed a genocide against the Palestinian people, though that is the primary view of many (if not most) anti-Israel ("anti-Zionist") individuals and editors here who have no problem calling any action against the Palestinians a "massacre," any population shift an "ethnic cleansing" and who reserve to themselves the right eliminate the Jewish state as stated in the Hamas Charter, an article I just started a week or so ago. My own view is that the Jew in the world in the 1930's is analogous to the Jewish State in the 2000's. I hope you do not consider my views to be so egregious that I should be deprived of my right to edit Misplaced Pages. Stellarkid (talk) 16:25, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

a few points:

• I'm not a sysop, I'm just an editor like yourself, so I can't personally block anyone. However, if your main goal on wikipedia is to fight real-world political battles then you will (and ought to) eventually get blocked.
• the analogy to Turkey is a good one. Turkey has not been tried or convicted of any crime, and Turks do not as a rule accept the 'genocide' designation for what happened to the Armenians, and generally consider those who accuse them of it to be 'anti-Turk radicals'. perspective please.
• "Editing Misplaced Pages is one of the many stratagems of both sides" is true in the same sense that humans build houses to give field mice a warmer place to live. Misplaced Pages is supposed to be scholarly. Frankly, the zealots with a cause to fight have the entire blogoshpere to hunt each other trying to spill electronic blood; I don't begrudge them that, and I get a little miffed that they just can't leave this tiny corner of the internet alone. People who cannot respect knowledge for knowledge's sake but have to engage in bitter warfare over 'impression management' are just (excuse my putting it this way) a boil on the butt of wikipedia. We have enough trouble over honest disagreements between editors without having to deal with dishonest disagreements.

what you do with the rest of your time on wikipedia is (currently) none of my business - I'll leave that for others to handle. but in the mediation I expect you to to try to resolve the problem rather than trying to aggravate it. If you can do that, you'll be amazed at how well it progresses; if you can't, then the mediation is just a huge waste of everyone's time. ok? --Ludwigs2 16:56, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Just to expand briefly on your Turkish analogy. The reason that does not really hold up is that Turkey is not under an existential threat from the Armenians, or from her (Turkey's) neighbors on behalf of the Armenians. It is merely matter of her international reputation and possible responsibility for reparations, but not an existential threat. Major difference, IMHO. Stellarkid (talk) 19:11, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

FYI: sockpuppet info

FYI: regarding participants in Apartheid mediation: Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet_investigations/Dajudem --Noleander (talk) 01:31, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Spelling

It is Mahatma Gandhi, not "Ghandi", please  Jon Ascton  (talk) 06:58, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

lol! oops.  :-) --Ludwigs2 07:11, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Mathsci and ArbCom

This has been on my mind for a little while, so I thought I should ask you about it. I remember you saying at least once that Mathsci is friends with several members of ArbCom, and that you suspected this is part of why he feels able to get away with the behavior he’s been engaging in recently. With that in mind, do you think there’s any danger that when ArbCom makes their eventual ruling in the current case, they’ll end up showing favoritism towards him? I’d like to think that the arbitrators are professional enough that they won’t allow their personal feelings towards an editor to influence their decisions, but my experiences with non-aribtrator sysops haven’t given me a good impression about admin neutrality.

If you do think that this is a danger, I’d also like to know if there’s anything you think could be done to minimize the chance of this happening. --Captain Occam (talk) 08:12, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Occam, I think it's safe to assume that one of Misplaced Pages's unwritten directives is to retain as many self-disclosed real-life academic editors as possible. For anyone concerned about the public image of Misplaced Pages as a reliable source of information, keeping editors like Mathsci happy is a priority, even if that means pissing on a dozen or more editors of undisclosed educational and/or professional qualification in the process.

Mathsci isn't going to receive anything more than a gentle reminder to remain civil. Mathsci knows it, ArbCom knows it, even Jimbo Wales knows it. It's less about any particular article than it is about net gain for the project. As an "volunteer expert", Mathsci sounds good on paper, and has disclosed his real-life identity to enough people to ensure he receives good treatment. For those who don't know his real identity, he spices up his comments with inadvertently hilarious self-celebratory references to what he believes are the impressive details of his life. ("I was nibbling on some Lattarulla figs and goat cheese while listening to a delightful rendition of Bach's Partita in E Major in the conservatory this afternoon, when I received a most interesting request from the director of the Grande école near my home...")

Of course, Mathsci unintentionally reveals a great deal about himself when he writes such things, but no one is paying attention to any of that. What matters is that Mathsci is a net gain for the project, regardless of - and, if need be, despite - any damage his actual behaviour may cause. --Aryaman (talk) 14:50, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) As a comedian once said: "The main value of living an honest life is that when bad things happen you have no one to blame except others."

As I've told you before (without much effect), you have to let go, chill out, and remember that you're not such of a big deal that the entire universe is out for your ass. Mathsci may have friends on the arbitration committee (I don't know if that's true or if that's just another elements of Mathsci's preening bluster), but if he does - who cares? You have to trust that they will do the right thing for wikipedia, as best they understand it.

The whole attack paradigm that Mathsci is using (and others on wikipedia use - it's very common) is designed to make you feel isolated and afraid, so that you react unreasonably and make stupid, paranoid statements like the statement you made in this thread. The more stupid statements like this you make, the more likely it is you're going to get blocked or banned. And frankly, if you can't get yourself out of combat mode you might need an enforced wikibreak to get your head together. The thing you and Mathsci have both utterly forgotten is that this is about writing an encyclopedia, it's not a public park for you guys to build a piece of dramatic performance art. I may (and do) nose-snap Mathsci, but at the end of the day I have no problem with Mathsci himself - I object to his behavior, and when and if his behavior stops I'll be perfectly happy working with him.

My advice to you (and pardon me for putting this crudely, but you don't seems to respond to gentle hints), is to grow up and grow some cojones. Stop jumping every time someone barks at you, get back to doing productive stuff, and learn how unproductive it is for you to take everything (or even anything) on wikipedia personally. If you can't manage it you're just going to be a miserable sod, and where's the fun in that? --Ludwigs2 14:54, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

There’s something about myself that I’m tempted to mention here, because it’s relevant to what you’ve said, but I’ve learned from experience that discussing personal details in public is not a good idea here. I’m also not sure if I trust you with this information—I don’t have anything against you, but the only editors I’ve interacted with enough to say that I really trust them are David.Kane and Varoon Arya. If I never explain this in any more detail, though, I guess I’ll just say that the circumstances of my offline life make it inevitable that improving Misplaced Pages articles about topics where I’m knowledgeable will be far more important than it is to most people. It isn’t anything that could be considered a conflict of interest—the only effect that this has is making me have an unusual devotion to making these articles as informative as possible, as well as keeping them in compliance with NPOV and all of the other relevant policies.

The good of the encyclopedia is what I’m concerned about here. When I’ve been upset or worried about anything here, it hasn’t been because Mathsci’s personal attacks against are themselves upsetting to me—over the past six years I’ve been involved in internet drama that would probably make your hair turn white, and nothing that Mathsci has done or said during the time that I’ve been interacting with him comes anywhere close to the degree of what I’ve dealt with in the past. What’s upset me in these situations has been the way Mathsci is essentially given free reign to violate whatever policies he wants on these articles and their talk pages, no matter how many other editors he drives off, and no matter how much the encyclopedia suffers as a result.

I wish I could get you to understand why this matters to me so much, because you seem to be assuming it’s a result of either emotional fragility or POV advocacy, and neither of those is correct. But as I said, I don’t feel safe explaining this, especially not in public. If you can trust David.Kane or Varoon Arya to objectively judge whether my reason for caring about this so much makes sense, though, perhaps I could explain it to one of them and have them confirm it to you. Does having an understanding of my reason for caring about things here matter enough to you for that to be worthwhile? --Captain Occam (talk) 16:52, 12 July 2010 (UTC)