Misplaced Pages

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Trigger Happy

Dear Wikipedians: I, like you, am an editor; I create articles and make edits. But, many, I am sure many other people out there, are tired, frustrated and angry with the behavior of many Administrators. I am certain that it is appallingly easy to revert an article that someone has undoubtedly spent a lot of time and effort writing. I have, in the past, spent hours researching, planning, writing, checking and revising an addition to an article only to have the whole lot deleted forever three minutes afterwards.

I know that deletion of material is essential in a free-to-edit encyclopedia, but if you see an article that someone has anonymously devoted their time to writing, why could you not revise it, change it or give a reason for your action? They deserve one.

I know all Administrators are not all Drunk-With-Power-Trigger-Happy-Nazis, many of you do an excellent job and you know who you are.

In closing: Create, don’t Destroy. Make a distinction between “what is right, and what is easy”. Be enriched and enrich others with the knowledge of other people.

And keep that finger off the trigger.

(If I don't cop flack for this one, I will climb the Reichtag Bulding in a Spiderman outfit).

Dfrg.msc 07:20, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

• See also Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy)#Trigger Happy, begun 6 June. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:33, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

You said it brother!!!! :This is becoming a very serious problem. I ask everyone to think that for each article that is simply deleted out of hand there is one person who leaves with a negative opinion of Misplaced Pages, perhaps even more than one. Recently I had to spend hours to save a entry for an established artist collective in Chicago. An editor decided that an artist collective of 3 core members was not worth Wikipedias time. Days later, after hours of research on my part it turned out that the editor had been to one of their shows and was a big fan of their work. He rudely stated that it was my fault for not including everything they had ever done without showing any sign of almost having deleted something without following up on it himself.:I think it is important that editors remember that most people are rather busy, and don't have hundreds of hours to make everything entirely wikied. Also Misplaced Pages in its current structure is highly biased towards science, sci fi, popular culutre and pornography and lacks enough in public service, education, arts, and culture. Contributions in this area are going to come from people who will take longer to understand the conventions and tags used in Misplaced Pages. Deleting for poor tagging will only insure that most people go away with a sense that Misplaced Pages is just an encyclopedia for comic book guy.--Rhooker1236 21:36, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Seconded! Dfrg.msc 10:42, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Can you give an example? Graham 19:58, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Just go to the to delete page for a few days and watch the flow of NON, NOPV, Sockpuppet and insults that more and more is becoming the public face of the inner working of Misplaced Pages.

Misplaced Pages has gotten big enough and serious enough that it is time to start thinking about governance.

I propose some form of Statement of Rights for Users, and Statement of Rights for Editors. The idea is that a meaningful statement of the Rights of Users based upon the interests of Users be the governing policy. An article should only be deleted if it violates the Rights of Users, and no other reason. Editors rights should be respected and only over-ruled if they violate the rights of Users.

This model, I feel, will stop much of the abuse of people giving each other medals for making DeleteBots that recieve so many complaints that they are clearly buggy, or academic departments being deleted followed by a long line of insults to the people in the department. Pretty dumb if Misplaced Pages is going to contain all human knowledge.

The most important result of a change of focus from the will of admins to the rights of users would be, I would hope, and end to this idiotic jargon that admins banter about. Most people find it very difficult to understand why an article is being deleted, many deletes are full of jargon with some insults here and there. When a typical user tries to respond to defend what they, in good faith, believe to be significant starting point for future knowledge strucutures they also find themselves being corrected for endless ettiguete violations in the pointless Miss Manners that Wikipeida administrative discourse often collapses in to. --Rhooker1236 11:29, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages Bill of Rights

I make a suggestion, a Misplaced Pages Bill of Rights to protect the rights of people making a good faith effort to expand Misplaced Pages.

1. No one under 21 years of age shall delete content (age restrictions are common, younger people can post content but not destroy it. I find teens are better at making than destroying).

2. No one shall delete more content in any month than they create, no member shall make the collective information smaller.

3. Deleting bots can only be used by a governing board elected.

4. Each year there shall be an election of all registered individuals who have been active editors to elect a government of Misplaced Pages who will have the responsiblity to deal with abuse, they will monitor the size of Misplaced Pages and will have the power to restrict deletions or increase them, only they can exercise the power to run bots.

5. Any deletion can be over ruled by a vote of 3 active editors, and as long as they are active no deletion against a site can take place, though edits are allowed. To edit shall be the means of dealing with questions.

6. Because Google each payment for every search entered, constituting a tax on the Internet, Misplaced Pages understands the value to linking content to external web sites, including does that conduct economic activity via the Internet. These links shall be clearly marketed as FOR PROFIT sites.

--Rhooker1236 21:36, 2 July 2006 (UTC) Robert Hooker July 2 2006. Support Good Wiki Government. Email removed because it attracted nothing but African based get rich Spam.

1. Some of our best admins are under 21.
2. I do like creating better, but some material has to be removed. If people are good at that, why stop them?
3. Do we have those?
4. Misplaced Pages is not a democracy (and IMO shouldn't be either), We do have WP:RFA.
5. Three active editors can still be 100 percent wrong. Garion96 21:58, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

1)uniforcable.

2)I often kill over 100 copyvios a month. I could never create that much content.

3)Deltion bots could only be created by community aproval. Judging by current atitudes that will happen some time after the heat death of the universe.

4)Past experence suggests that the community disslikes giving that much power over policy to anyone. Arcom elections happen once a year but their powers are limited. The board generaly avoids that level of involvement in policy.

5)forget it. At any given time we have more than three active troll

6)google is nothing to do with us.

All in all you have less than 50 edits and appear to want to start a revolution. I sugest you are on the wrong project.Geni 22:15, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

"All in all you have less than 50 edits and appear to want to start a revolution. I sugest you are on the wrong project." I am just suggesting what I think would be good ideas for governance and opening them up to considered responses. Yes I want to start a revolution, perhaps you could link the number of edits one needs to make before they can come up with suggestions for governance. If editors decide to look at my edits rather than the content well that is not very surprising. .--Rhooker1236

Hi RH, I'm still largely a wiki-newbie too, with only 100 Mainspace edits, but I'd like to share my views on the points you've raised. You seem to have a major concern about deletions, which can certainly be a touchy topic, especially for the authors of articles that get nom'd for AfD. There are a couple of things you can do to try and avoid AfD, and the single most effective is this: add content, maintain NPOV, and cite your sources. If you work slowly, like I do, it can help to create a temp page in your Userspace and work on the article there first. When an article does get nom'd for AfD, then it becomes important to participate in the process. Make your own points as clearly and concisely as you can, and be sure to read (and think about) the points that other editors are making. Be prepared to change your mind. If you find that consensus is against you, there might be a valid reason for it. More than once I've changed my 'vote' in AfD after being presented with sound reasons; I've also deleted content that I put up when I came to realize that other editors made valid points against its suitability. Regarding your comments about 'underage' contributors and more governance on WP...well, it might sound like a good idea to you, but these kinds of proposals have a history of being soundly defeated; most wikipedians seem to be reasonably content with the structure we've got. It works for me :) --Doc Tropics 15:34, 3 July 2006 (UTC)#

I have never found myself against a group. Generally how smaller area articles are deleted is someone comes along and determines to delete it. I will do all the things posted above but the outcome is utterly unpredictable. The bias element is the most troubling since any text can be seen as having some bias, even a bias of objectivity. Again I am concerned by the level of corporal speak here, how is the opinion of most of the million or so wikipedians determined? Where can I find what Wikipedians think? It seems 1 person is often willing to speak for the entire encyclopedia. If we are going to govern by mass consent we should have some governance for obtaining it..--Rhooker1236

In general no one person speaks for WP except --flourish of trumpets -- Jimbo Wales. We all speak for ourselves however, on whatever topic interests us at the moment, often at great length with amazingly imaginative vocabularies. The idea of "mass consent" may be a bit of a misconception. For example, even the most popular RfA rarely draws more than 100 comments, and an RfD can be closed if just a dozen people (or even less) express their opinions. Of course mistakes can be made this way, but there are mechanisms in place for that too. Maybe, if you find yourself "against a group", they actually have valid reasons for their positions...so talk to them; try to understand their reasons even if you don't agree with them. Aside from vandals and trolls, there are very few problems on WP which can't be solved by talking to people. --Doc Tropics 05:06, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

1. I have never had a delete discussion in the context of a group, it has always been one admin making quesses about my motivations.

2. Discussion with many WikiAdmins is rather difficult since they revert to constent demands to follow set ettiquete (which is never consistent), requirements for signing, and other formatting demands. This is always very tiresome.

3. Once you get beyond the endless demands that you follow Wikipedias rules for format, you have to deal with the endless jargon. Things are never said clearly. And frankly some things are just idiotic, like Objective Point of View. Any first year university student in Philosophy knows how difficult that is, but an editor can come along and say NOPV and zap you and you can't do anything about it.

4. Most experts are busy people who see Misplaced Pages as nothing more than an experement, many admins put Misplaced Pages at the centre of their lives. In discourse between these groups supposedly held on equal terms the admin will always win, and most people are not as nerdy as I and will not conduct an extensive study of Misplaced Pages culture for a graduate paper.

5. For everyone like me who complains thousands just stop using the service.

6. No encyclopedia is remembered for what artciles it deleted.

7. Users see articles after entering search strips of links from the top page. Your obsession with removing NONs and NOPVs for obscure entries ignores the USER perspective. If something is NON then no user will search on it, then it does not matter if it is in Misplaced Pages or not.

As Mr Wales told the court, your an ISP not a publisher!!!!--Rhooker1236 11:36, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry your vanity page got deleted. I'm very, very sorry. JChap (talk • contribs) 04:44, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Jarod Lanier thinks his WP article is misleading

Jarod Lanier uses his dissatisfaction with his WP article as a springboard for discussing what's wrong with WP. His suggestion: put WP through a low-pass filter. Zora 00:19, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Every time someone sees the slightest thing they don't like in their own bio on wikipedia, they suddenly decide that there is a systemic problem with wikipedia. --Bachrach44 13:16, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Not necessarily. Cory Doctorow, for instance, is quite supportive of Misplaced Pages because he found a mistake in his article.--Sean Black 20:40, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

And, frankly, it's not so unreasonable that if you find strangers have created erroneous information about you which shows up high on Google searches - potentially swamping your own online reality with their mistakes - that you react rather strongly. We shouldn't get huffy when they do. - DavidWBrooks 21:23, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

What a muddled essay. "...the lack of a coherent voice or design sensibility in an esthetic sense is one negative quality of both open source software and the Misplaced Pages." Eh? In one paragraph, he castigates WP for blandness and for erasing contributors' identities, then complains that there is no coherent single voice? And the graphic design of WP is actually very pretty, thank you very much. He goes on "The New York Times, of all places, has recently published op-ed pieces supporting the pseudo-idea of intelligent design." So has Tech Central Station -- the home of Robert McHenry, the self-appointed guardian of meritocracy (see below). Practically everything Lanier complains about is just as big a problem in the compilation of standard encyclopedias, the difference being that the controversies are carefully hidden. Xanthoxyl 23:31, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

The title of this section is misleading. The essay in question is overlong and not terribly to the point but it does raise important issues and make valid criticism. I suggest editors read at least half and skim it all. John  Reid 05:28, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I especially enjoyed the statement that WP is an "...online fetish site for foolish collectivism". I thought I had been helping edit an encyclopedia, now I find out it's a fetsih site...oh, I'm so ashamed. I'll probably be driven to commit ritual suicide, just as soon as I'm done laughing :) Doc Tropics 17:12, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I find it satisfyingly ironic that his name is actually "Jaron Lanier" and not "Jarod Lanier". Vmand 23:50, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Theres now a podcast of an interview with Lanier at the Philosopher's Zone. Whilst I don't agree with all his points I think its one of the best though through critiques of wikipedia I've read, a level above the typical NYT article. --Salix alba (talk) 07:36, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Angela Beesley has resigned from the Wikimedia board

Letter here: The only other community-drawn board member Anthere recently posted a harsh essay against the policy direction of the Wikimedia board and its effective control by Wales and his Bomis friends. If this crisis does not lead to greater user-input into organizational policy, Misplaced Pages's future is clearly in doubt. Tfine80 01:47, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't have a great understanding of these issues, but your characterization of Anthere's letter seems debateable to me. She never mentions Bomis, for example. And though she personally prefers the "Community Foundation" model to the "Business Foundation" model, she says more than once that she isn't sure which would actually be best for the Foundation's goals. --Allen 02:47, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

She was upset there was no mechanism to ensure community support for future board members and stated that the apparent direction was toward even less community participation. Anthere wrote: "Our current bylaws describe a very mixed model, which has been much complained about in the past 2 years (I criticized it myself when it was originally proposed). It has 2 members elected by the community, for a limited time And 3 members, appointed by Jimbo, and permanent till they die or resign And does not limit members to 5.... but makes no mention of how increase would be done." .... "Now, imagine we add 2 famous guys. We'll have a board of 7 with 2 from the community only. Then, imagine we add 2 other big guys. The community part will be 2/9. Of course, the addition could be of 2 guys from the community. In such case, they would be appointed. What I mean to say is that in this model, the community existence would really be recognised up to 2 people, which would be elected by the community. The rest of the members would come from an internal decision. Self-appointing board... with no terms limit." To me, this seems like a fairly harsh, open criticism coming from a board member. Soon followed by the resignation of the other community board member, who expressed frustration with the organization's direction in her resignation letter, I think there is a serious problem here. Tfine80 03:56, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes and no. Historicaly the community has treat board involvement as (Heh) damage and routed around it. As long as the servers keep functioning we can survive.Geni 21:52, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

My email was certainly an open criticism, but it was meant to be constructive and to inform the community of one of the many challenges the organisation is right now facing. However, your caracterization of "Bomis friends" is definitly debateable. Only one board member is a Bomis person (Tim Shell). He is imho a kind person and I look forward seeing him again at Wikimania this summer. This said, he is not really active on the board and would qualify as a "friend". He will resign from the board in the next few months. Michael has never worked for Bomis (he is involved in Wikia), he is definitly involved in all financial issues and is a great help in running the project from an administrative point of view. I certify that he is a free mind, and vote/participate as an independant human. Angela is not on Bomis, but working for Wikia.

Whatever the direction the Foundation takes (Business-like or Community-like), I do not think Misplaced Pages's future is at stake. What is more at stake from my perspective is whether we'll become a global organisation or a local US-based, US-driven organisation. And whether we'll focus in becoming more a political strength (with lawyers on the board to work on free licences in our rich-world) or a charitable one (trying to disseminate knowledge everywhere). And whether we'll just become a Foundation supporting financially and technically our projects, or something so much more exciting, with multiple projects and dreams we could hope to become true.

This is, imho, what is JUST at stake now.

Anthere 18:15, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Your mention of Wikimania, Anthere, raises a question: will the matter of the Foundation's direction be discussed at Wikimania -- or any Foundation matters? I looked over the schedule, but didn't see any mention of this. -- llywrch 17:05, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

There's a Board panel planned, but that'll probably be more of a general Q&A session rather than a serious discussion of the future of the Foundation. Rumor has it some meetings are planned for August 7th after Wikimania, but there's no agenda for that as yet. Angela . 13:19, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm happy to see some interest in Foundation matters here on Misplaced Pages. The main place to discuss these issues is foundation-l. I would like to encourage everyone here to make their voices heard in the debates about openness and participation that are going to happen in the coming months. I personally believe in a model where the Board is community-elected (my favorite idea is that of a "Magnificent Seven", with 4 community-elected people, Jimmy, and 2 appointed experts), and that there should be an additional Advisory Board of experts who have no legal authority, but who are consulted frequently. However, if the community wants to see that happen, it needs to get involved!

Those who care about the organizational side of things should start by reading the article about the Wikimedia Foundation and closely studying and watching the Foundation Website. Board Resolutions (such as the decision to hire Brad Patrick as Interim Executive Director and Legal Counsel) are published there. Also study the Foundation bylaws, and read past debates in the foundation-l archives, such as the important debate started by Anthere, linked to above. If you need more pointers to reading material, leave a note on my talk page and I'll be happy to give you a few links.

If you would like to get involved in actual Foundation work, apply for membership in the Wikimedia committees. It is my personal belief that this structure in particular needs some reform to guarantee transparency and participation. I've been pushing for this in the past, however, my experience has been very disheartening -- there is very little interest from the community in those matters, and the debates tend to be dominated by those who have shaped the structures as they exist today. One recently formed committee which is fairly open is the Fundraising committee -- we need volunteers, so please do sign up on the page if you think you can make a meaningful contribution to this topic.

Angela has been a voice for the community for two years. Her departure in particular makes it important that more people join the activities of the organization. Why is it important? Because Wikimedia is more than just a hosting service for the projects. We have the potential to build hundreds or even thousands of partnerships with educational institutions, with charitable organizations, and (within reasonable limits), with for-profits -- especially to bootstrap our existing projects like Wikinews and Wikibooks. For instance, there are thousands of local "citizen radio" projects around the world which are now starting to take notice of the Internet. If we play our cards right, we can position Wikinews so that it becomes part of a global movement to create local "media centers" -- not institutions of propaganda, but of free content news and original reporting. There is huge interest in Wikibooks, and we need to get academia involved in order to provide free educational resources to poor people. We need a nice DVD version of the English Misplaced Pages, we need evolution of our software such as Multilingual MediaWiki or m:InstantCommons or WiktionaryZ, we need better methods to distinguish trusted users from untrusted ones, and, and, and ... And as Anthere writes above, we need an international organization that truly promotes the ideals of Wikimedia on a global scale. In matters which are fairly clearly in our interest, Wikimedia can also join political initiatives, such as a reduction of international copyright terms (currently life of the author + 70 years).

All of this requires an organization with strong community leadership in order to get off the ground. If the Wikimedia Foundation continues to operate as it does today, it will be succesful at keeping things running, which is good. But in order to move things forward, we need far more involvement from the level of the Wikimedia projects and languages.--Eloquence * 23:30, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Users will have no ability to guess what the future might bring if they cannot write biographies of the remaining Board memebers. All attempts to do so, especially that of Brad Patrick, have been stifled. All attempts to even maintain a business-like non-promotional (and fact-based) message on W and Foundation and Wikia, Inc. articles have been suppressed. Repeat: all such efforts have been suppressed. Even trying to get Jimmy to remind us of the correct date of his birth proved futile (NNDB was off by one day). It seems that the future is already here. Jimmy's granting of the sysops bit only to loyal friends is anarchy so he gets away with any authoritaian measures he wishes to as Foundation monarch. -- 75.24.104.203 11:47, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Another slow news day at Reuters apparently...

Reuters has an article concerning recent activity on the Ken Lay article: Ken Lay's death prompts confusion on Misplaced Pages. The article goes over the large number of changes the Ken Lay article underwent as news of his death came in. To quote the article:

The death of former Enron Corp. chief Ken Lay on Wednesday underscored the challenges facing online encyclopaedia Misplaced Pages (http://www.wikipedia.org/), which as the news was breaking offered a variety of causes for his death... Officials at Misplaced Pages did not immediately return phone and e-mail requests for comment. Its Web site warns users that "newer articles may still contain significant misinformation, unencyclopedic content, or vandalism.

In other news, the Sun rose in the east today... -Loren 22:35, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

And Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead. Tito xd 23:54, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

This from a press group whos stories show up on google news as "UPDATE 27 Katrina.........."--mitrebox 23:17, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

This story itself got a correction from Reuters, irony apparently unintended. Ashibaka tock 01:35, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Followup from the Washington Post: Death by Misplaced Pages: The Kenneth Lay Chronicles. -Loren 08:22, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Image namespace survey

Of images which are uploaded under fair use claims, I have found that roughly 93% of them do not comply with the simple requirements of a rationale and a source; it may be necessary to more aggressively scour the namespace. Full results at User:ESkog/ImageSurvey. (ESkog) 06:12, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the link, interesting reading. It is to be expected though and the longer we allow it to continue the more danger we put ourselves in. Perhaps we should conduct a survey asking users whether they believe fair use should remain acceptable. --Oldak Quill 08:07, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Calling all Fans of Ice Cream!

Check out the new Wikiproject Ice Cream. Tasty! --Blackjack48 18:06, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

INTA asks USPTO to ban citation to Misplaced Pages

The TTABLOG reports that the Commissioner of the International Trademark Association has sent a letter to the United States Patent and Trademark Office to formally request that trademark examiners be prohibited from citing Misplaced Pages as a source. bd2412 T 16:03, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I suppose those applying for a trademark could edit Misplaced Pages to their own ends. Stable versions should prevent this kind of rejection from having to happen. --Oldak Quill 07:59, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

No need. Misplaced Pages isn't intended to be a primary source of information. Alan Pascoe 18:48, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Can History Be Open Source? Misplaced Pages and the Future of the Past

Newest in the line of peer-reviewed articles about Misplaced Pages and one of very few not from the field of computer sciences, this recent (June'06) publication in Journal of American history is nicely written (no dense 'sholarese') and rather positive of Wiki. Enjoy! --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 17:27, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Indeed it is. Made its way into the Signpost last week. (Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages Signpost/2006-06-26/In the news). Cheers ;) -- Chris 73 | Talk 18:04, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I have missed it, but it wasn't mentioned in 'Misplaced Pages in academic studies' yet, and seems to have slipped the 'attention' of most community, which is a shame. This is as good stuff as the famous Nature article. I am only in the middle of it, but there was already a good description of Misplaced Pages 'what/who/hows' that many (like some NYT journalists...) should read, a brief but useful external review review of some American history articles (I left a note on WP:EPR and criticized articles') and just now I am reading a comparison between Misplaced Pages, Encarta and American National Biography Online... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 18:13, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

It is probably the most important publication yet in terms of reaching academics; a WP discussion recently started (and continues still) on a history of science, technology and medicine listserv , and several different participants recommended the article to the nay-sayers.--ragesoss 19:51, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree. The Nature: Misplaced Pages-Britannica comparison was more towards mainstream news, but this article is directed more towards academia. Makes me feel good to be part of Misplaced Pages. -- Chris 73 | Talk 22:32, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

The article also, alas, accurately pinpoints our biggest weakness, and the reason that professional historians (it examines only history, but this applies in other fields) can continue to exist in a wikipedia world, if I may quote a chunk:

"Good historical writing requires not just factual accuracy but also a command of the scholarly literature, persuasive analysis and interpretations, and clear and engaging prose. By those measures, American National Biography Online easily outdistances Misplaced Pages.

"Compare, for example, Misplaced Pages’s 7,650-word portrait of Abraham Lincoln with the 11,000-word article in American National Biography Online. ... Surely any reader of this journal would prefer the American National Biography Online sketch by the prominent Civil War historian James McPherson. Part of the difference lies in McPherson’s richer contextualization .... But McPherson’s profile is distinguished even more by his artful use of quotations to capture Lincoln’s voice, by his evocative word portraits ... and by his ability to convey a profound message in a handful of words ... By contrast, Misplaced Pages’s assessment is both verbose and dull."

- DavidWBrooks 23:13, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

The same could be said for science writing. Science writing, however, is less about big names and more about factual validity. --Oldak Quill 07:57, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Right, but he also points out later that some ouf our entries are better then those in ANBO, and he notes that ANBO being non-free is much less known and has much less impact. I can't but think that 1) we are slowly but surely approaching ANBO quality and will eventually surpass it and 2) ANBO, which is supported by taxpayers, should be free, and preferably copylefted so it can be incorporate into Misplaced Pages :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 00:37, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I can't find any evidence that ANBO is taxpayer supported. It was done by the American Council of Learned Societies which is a private non-profit. Rmhermen 01:00, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Whether Misplaced Pages really will continue improve over time, and so "eventually surpass" various levels of quality, or wether it will regress to the mean and stagnate, is perhaps the most interesting question about this whole experiment. - DavidWBrooks 01:16, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

True, but I see no signs to indicate the project may fail.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 01:38, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

My mistake. To quote from the article: "What about American National Biography Online — written by professional historians, sponsored by our scholarly societies, and supported by millions of dollars in foundation and government grants?"--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 01:38, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages mention on Colbert Report

Did anyone else notice a Misplaced Pages mention by Stephen Colbert a few weeks ago on his show? I can't find any reference to it in the Signpost, and I can't remember exactly when it was. Or maybe it was just a dream...? It was a satirical comment about the factuality of Misplaced Pages content. Nathan Beach 21:59, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

See The Colbert Report#Trivia. Margana 22:09, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know how I missed that the two times I read through the list, and even used 'Find'. Wow. Thanks! Nathan Beach 00:41, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Sad that we're using the trivia sections of articles to include self-referential information. I wouldn't say the mention of Misplaced Pages is objectively any more important than the mention of anything else (such as the latest popstar). --Oldak Quill 08:01, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I would guess out of modesty. SAMAS 02:13, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I just watched the 13 July episode of Colbert Report and his opening dialogue ends with "Spoiler Alert! This is the Colbert Report..." Pretty funny. May not be a direct reference to wikipedia, though (we say "Spoiler Warning..."). Cheers all. Nathan Beach 20:55, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Counterfeit Wikimedia projects

An anonymous person, using the infamous 1&1 web hosting service, has created onlinereference.info, a domain which contains complete (albeit old) copies of en:Misplaced Pages, en:Wiktionary, and en:Wikiquote, even including user pages. These copies do not give attribution to the projects; they claim to be the projects. According to m:Talk:Wikimedia trademarks, there seems to be some disagreement over whether Wikimedia should attempt to enforce or even register its trademarks. From my own point of view, I have enough problem fighting identity theft without allowing someone to copy my user pages to a mock-Wikimedia project and allowing strangers to register my username there, pretending to be the person who wrote all my comments. I've registered my username on this counterfeit on all three subprojects. (Thanks to q:User:Rumour for bringing this to en:Wikiquote's attention.) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 12:55, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

How... odd. Look at their Misplaced Pages version. Two users, one of them you . The other appears to have selectively usurped the contributions of User:Damian Yerrick... there, here. Hrm. Shimgray | talk | 13:13, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I only registered there to keep someone from pretending to be me, after Rumour warned us at Wikiquote about this "farce". Some Wikiquotians (and Wikipedians) like Rumour, Kalki, and myself, have registered our existing Wikimedia usernames on its Wikiquote to prevent identity cybersquatting. I don't think anyone at WQ has noticed yet that there are 3 projects. (I'll notify them in a moment.) "WikiSysop", the user who apparently copied Damian Yerrick's edits, seems to be the original user, presumably the person who created these three projects. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 13:36, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah... I'm just wondering, why him? why those few edits? it's all v. odd. (Plus, their mediawiki installation seems to be broken) Shimgray | talk | 13:42, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I have no idea of why the Damian edits, but I think all the rest is simply because this person just slapped up mass copies without much (successful) effort to customize the wiki to represent itself properly and have all its non-article pages and links work correctly. Most Wikimedia copies don't have this problem because they only copy the articles themselves, which aren't allow to reference project or user namespace. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 15:14, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

It seems to be a January 2005 dump, nothing more recent except what people have specifically edited there. I also created my account there and deleted all of the content on the Zoe user and talk pages. But be careful, people, if you created an account under your user name there, that you didn't use the password that you use to log in here, because somebody as unethical as the person who runs that site wouldn't hesitate to take your password and log in here with it. User:Zoe| 03:01, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

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