Those in the area may be interested in attending the 1st Wiki-Conference New York which will be held this weekend at New York University. Jimmy and Ira will be giving keynote speeches and Kat Walsh, Risker and many others will be giving lightning talks.

Thanks for the heads up. I live on Long Island and might consider coming.

I'm helping somebody move this weekend.

But you could both go... and then just move all the stuff.... later...

I have to wash my hair.

I thought about going, since I'm going to be staying at a hotel about a block away from NYU on those days, and I don't have any appointments or meetings scheduled or anything. But there's a pretty good schedule of dirty pay-per-view movies at the hotel, so I'll probably just order room service and watch a few of those instead.

I'll have to see if they have an indoor pool, too...

Who needs a pool and porn, when you've got a stellar lineup to go and laugh at:

"Neutrality". Ed Poor and Shankbone are gonna lecture us about "neutrality".


Plus! You get to see this.


And oh, pooh, Meetare Shappy canceled.

I'm mowing the lawn.

In London.

Bet it will rain

I'm trying to imagine what would happen if WE chartered a plane, got all of us there and then all sat in the front row...

But I have to clip my toenails, unfortunately...

I think we are having free food at some point (I really ought to know these things). Anyway, I'll keep a eye out for a sinister looking man in a trench coat and then look for the person taking a picture of him to document for WR how evil looking Wikipedians are.

Not really, but if you could get us some new pics of NYB hanging attentively on the words of some twelve year old that would be nice. Not that Brad would engage in anything untoward, mind you. Its just that I can't understand why he isn't more concerned about appearances. If a pic is not possible then maybe he is actually listening to my advice on this matter.

You're referring to the video in which Brad was listening politely to a 12 year old (who was, if I recall correctly, present with the full knowledge and consent of his parents) in a public place in the presence of plenty of other adults, while being videotaped, with the apparent intention being to post said videotape online?

Yeah, that's prima facie child molestor territory right there.

Do you even know what the words "Not that Brad would engage in anything untoward, mind you" mean? This is about appearance. Showing NYB interacting in that fashion sends every bad message and provides cover to people who might not have Brad's goodwill.

Yes, thinking back over the past few years of on-line activity, I'm not sure if I have ever read anything that combines more idiocy and malice than that post. It certainly seems to confirm the worst rumors I've heard about this place. Probably time to scramble my password.

Moron.

I don't think the problem with the image is that it makes Mr. Brad look like some sort of sicko. I mean, middle-aged men (such as teachers, politicians, and yes, lawyers) are often put in the position of having to listen somewhat respectfully to a 12-year-old read some paper or speech or whatever. It would actually look much worse if Shappy had been a really cute 16-year-old girl wearing a tank-top, IMO.

No, the problem is that the image simply reinforces the idea that Wikipedia is run by a bunch of kids, and that older, more experienced (etc.) people have to defer to them as a result. It really has very little to do with all that... other stuff.

My plan is to give my talk on BLP and privacy issues, which has now been slated as one of the keynote speeches, and to listen to what the other participants in the conference have to say. I hope that the presentations will be taped, at least mine, but I don't have any control over that, nor over the age range of the attendees.

Beyond that, I'm not sure whether I should respond to this thread at all, other than to say that it strikes me as inconsistent for you to express concern about the "appearance" of something, because it might somehow create some misimpression, while then asking for publicity of further instances, which by your logic would compound the misimpression.


Actually, his father was sitting next to him the whole time. Can we tarpit this, please?

And, Tim, so that you know, that "other stuff" that Somey refers to would include the fact that the founder of the Wikimedia Foundation has a privately-held company that hosted online a web menagerie of freely-licensed images of innocent children juxtaposed with depraved images of children being mercilessly spanked until purple, along with photos of various sexual-enhancement toys. When challenged about this hosted wiki, the founder of the WMF became quite ruffled under the collar, suggesting that we had not "made a complaint through the proper channels".

The "other stuff" would also refer to the fact that the Deputy Director of the Wikimedia Foundation once delivered a public lecture that purported "non-violent child pornography does no harm".

That's the "other stuff".

Oh, I am sure Brad will love that! Of course, if SirFozzie shows up, then you'll need to get some rodeo clowns to distract that tubby pair away from the buffet table so the other poor Wikipediots can grab something to eat.



Is Risker hot? Surely there has to be a hot gal in the bunch -- otherwise Horsey is not interested.

Ed Poor is still alive? Wow, learn something new every day.

And Shankbone is coming (no pun). What, they couldn't get RuPaul?

Compared to these grotesques, Shappy is a 13-year-old breath of fresh air.

Of course, "moron" explains your sick mind fairly adequately.

I know you weren't accusing Brad of engaging in anything untoward. You were asccusing Brad of engaging in activity that might make an observer *think* he was engaged in something untoward. And even that accusation is laughably baseless.

But yeah, we should tarpit this.

It is irresponsible for you to provide highly visible displays of collaborative activities with very young people in a project that lacks the most basic safeguards for child protection and is the worlds largest collaborative project between adults and children. That referenced video was one of the creepiest things I ever saw on internet. Parent present or not. The problem is not what is said here but that it was seen by very young Wikipedians who received the message from a prominent leader that it is fine to go and "meet-up" with adults. This not about your own trustworthiness which I do not doubt. It is about being an example.

and please note above: "If a pic is not possible then maybe he is actually listening to my advice on this matter." so your inconsistency argument seems a little disingenuous.

This thread reminds me of Rita Skeeter angling for any way to scandalize any subject whom she wrote about.

That WR is now playing the role of Rita Skeeter is a step up from the bad old days of the BADSITES Wars, where WR (along with other so-called "attack sites") was in the role of The One Who Must Not Be Named.

Alleged "child abuse", consisting of anything connected with Wikipedia allowing any underage person to do anything whatsoever, or allowing any overage person to say or do anything that's not entirely G-rated because an underage person might possibly happen along, is a popular WR trope that's unlikely to be abandoned here any time soon.

Have to admit, this thread is pretty full of stupid, at a level that is unusual even for WR.

I would like to respectfully ask, are we including my post within this thread as part of the "stupid / trope" aspects described by K. Martin and D. Tobias, respectively?

Oh I'm certain that it is directed at me not you. So consider yourself excused and in good stead with the "we don't need no fucking rules on the internet" crowd. But you know Greg, I'm not so sure I'd want you to have my back in any fight.

For the record, I do not consider your post to have significantly contributed to the level of stupid in this thread.

Well, he was contributing to the continuing exposition of the "child-abuse" trope in this thread, but at least he was doing so by citing actual questionable examples of the past rather than by taking more innocent stuff in exaggeratedly distorted ways such as a tabloid reporter might do.

I'll be there. Last time I got to a wiki event was Wikimania '06. For some reason, they feel holding an event in a different continent each time is a great idea.

Watch for me opening the session on WikiProjects (we've got an expert on love darts on in the panel), and my lightning talk on how to make your wiki not run like crap, performance-wise.

Wish I could get you to come work for Wikipedia Review.

My head spins when I see stuff like:

That's actually new as of today. I just added the latest DPL to the Russian WikiFur. They use DPL extensively on the front page, and the new dplcache option made a noticeable improvement (page generation time went down about 15-20%).

So I was pulled in at the last moment to do a bit on the history of Wiki Governance. I have some basic ideas at User:MBisanz/Presentation, but I would be interested in some help filling in blanks, ideas, etc.

I think you should give everybody a slip of paper with a secret objective written on it and then tell them to pursue these objectives. May of these objectives would be conflicting, obviously - for example, one could read "keep the door to this room open", while another read "keep the door to this room closed". After twenty minutes of that, you could conclude with "And that's Wiki governance. Any questions?"

Additional suggestions: make sure one of those objectives is "maintain harmony between all present" and another is "scribble nonsense on any blank paper you can find". Tell everyone that they have to obtain "consensus" for anything they want to do, and tell them that they can only communicate by writing notes to one another on any of several poster boards you've set up throughout the room.

i didn't read it, but i'm sure what he said or will say was or is "dishonest social-enterprise".


well... like is said i didn't read it, so I suppose I cannot technically "be sure", but i think we can all (or at least some of us) agree that that is at least probably the reality of the situation, unfortunately.







how do you like that?



OH!!!!

and this should go in the Daily Selection!!!:
"Whole mice created from skin cells: Chinese researchers report major advance in cell reprogramming"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32110476/ns/te...cience-science/

m:Wikipedia_Governance is a rather interesting essay on governance issues. It really ought to be linked more of Wikipedia to give context to some of the current practices (like why the knee-jerk reaction is to say FORK when people want to do a big change). Then again I've always groused about our archiving practices

Yes, it's "interesting" in the sense that it illuminates how misguided Wikipedia governance is and always has been.

Hey, who needs Ambien when you have that kind of stuff being dumped on you?

I'm sure your motivations are quite noble and all that, but in the National Football League, it's said that if a team gets blown out and loses by a score of, say, 48-3, what the coaches usually do in those cases is throw all the game film in the trash and pretend the whole thing never happened.

The history of Wiki Governance is like the history of tribal warfare before humans invented such concepts as the Constitutional Law, Civil Rights, Due Process, etc.

If we were going to compare the current governance structure of The BiG WIki to the current governance structure of a real country, which real country would the current governance structure of The Big Wiki most resemble?

Somalia.

That's an easy one -- Ancient Athens. The work was done by an underclass of slaves and other conquered peoples. The citizens met regularly and "ostracized" anyone they didn't like -- that is, sent them into permanent exile. Meanwhile real power lay in the hands of the Oligarchs.

I'm not sure that the bolded part of emesee's post means what you think it means, Grep.

Ancient Athens is a real country. And its governance structure is still current: on WP for example.

Libya. And that's not meant as either a compliment or an insult. Tell me you can't see the parallels.

Additional suggestion: Take the most popular social people/ manipulators and give them leadership positions. Instruct them to go and pick on the best FA writers.

It's pirateriffic!