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Posted by: Encyclopedist

Let's be clear what we have here; it's ostensibly an opportunist hacker who has managed to obtain a password to the arbcom-en-l mailing list, from however, *or* from a past contributor to that list.

Although "Malice Forethought" is clearly clued-up on past Wikipedia drahmas, which suggests some sort of insider with an agenda, what would interest me here is an indication of the temporal limits of this leak. They seem to go back way beyond current issues, and the most recent is my own desysopping, and the legal consequences that may follow from the leaking here. Although the Arbitrary Committee has protested its vulnerability to this over the years to the WMF, the questions is that if they were aware of this, why did they not take any contentious discussions into their own IRC channel, or on to ArbWiki, which has limited access?

This is pure negligence, and nothing else. However, I remain to be convinced that the horse has been replaced in the stable after the barn door has been closed. Or has it?

Phil Nash/User:Rodhullandemu, and if it matters to anyone, I have nothing to hide, nor care about any more. I used to believe in Wikipedia, but obviously I can no longer sustain that faith I perhaps naively subscribed to almost four years ago. Now looking from outside, I know WP's failures, but then I was quick to do so, and assumed that my small efforts could make a difference. Quite clearly, they could, in a micro-sense, but that is what I could do when able.

I'm not going to take the position that everybody here, such as Greg Kohs, Kelly Martin, Moulton, and others, who have been kicked off Wikipedia, that they are necessarily wrong; I prefer to say that WP isn't for them. However, I now realise that it isn't for me.

I've had death threats and TOV on Wikipedia as an Admin, and have tried to work beyond them; in real-life, they are usually meaningless. But, it does sour the pill somewhat that you make and improve articles, and see vandalism as the most obvious and defensible threat to WP, and deal with it appropriately, and are still kicked into touch by ArbCom without appropriate discussion or appreciation. I'm aware that some here don't like me; tough: I don't like you either, perhaps. But what I would prefer is either WP:AGF or [[Due process]]. My ArbCom, and Jimbo's failure to see through the smoke and mirrors, show that neither seems to apply to me.

TBH, I don't care. The problem is that you should not expect amateurs to behave like professionals, and conversely, you should value your professionals if their professionalism (and that is not predicated upon being paid; it's a value-system, not a money thing) is overall directed to improving the project.

I'll just say this: I don't expect any respect here, because of my previous commitment to Wikipedia: but having said that, I heard about a week ago that an old friend of mine, a guitarist with whom I was in a band in the early 1970s, had died in his sleep of a heart attack. A sad loss, but to be honest, that's how I would choose to go., and if it happens to me, I won't complain; my contributions to WP and Commons remain as some sort of memorial yo my abilities.

That's all.

Posted by: Abd

Welcome to Wikipedia Review, Rodhullandemu. You tried. I get it.

Posted by: tarantino

Lol, http://blogs.archives.gov/online-public-access/?p=5054 is now http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=upload&user=Dominic&page=&year=&month=-1&tagfilter=.

Posted by: The Joy

I don't really understand it. The http://www.nixonlibrary.gov/ or any institution could host PDFs of Nixon's diary. Heck, the NARA could do it if they wanted. What's so special about Wikipedia hosting this material? I don't see how "crowdsourcing" is relevant to hosting primary documents. It's against Wikipedia's No Original Research rule to even analyze or synthesize primary documents so it does Wikipedians little good. You have to analyze and synthesis secondary resources. The NARA doesn't need Wikipedia to act as a middleman between the NARA and the "people." The NARA can make the documents free online and let anyone look at them. Public and private institutions do that all the time.

Oy, if anyone needs me, I'll be in the angry dome!

(I do have http://www.amazon.com/Jockey-Episodes-Porfirian-Mexico-Second/dp/0803262175/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1310108498&sr=8-1 and it was required reading in my Latin American History class. McDevitt is certainly right in praising it. Very entertaining and short book!)

MAJOR EDIT:

Now what a cotton-pickin' minute! The diary Dominic is posting on Commons is already free at the Nixon Library. Look!

http://www.nixonlibrary.gov/virtuallibrary/documents/dailydiary.php

Compare:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Presidential_Daily_Diary,_compiled_12-1969.pdf

to

http://www.nixonlibrary.gov/virtuallibrary/documents/PDD/1969/014%20December%201969.pdf

What on earth is the man trying to accomplish?

Posted by: EricBarbour

Brownie points. Log inflation.

Posted by: The Joy

It's re-inventing the wheel. There's already a free online resource out there with the same information and Wikipedians think it's great to copy that information and put it on their site? That's working harder, not smarter.

I guess what miffs me is that he's acting as a Moses bringing the Ten Commandments down from Mt. Sinai when any person could do the same thing without the credentials. An inebriated person could do what he's doing moving documents from the Nixon Library to Commons.

Posted by: Zoloft

Besides, it's full of bizarre fantasies:

"11:2.1 P The President held an interplanetary conversation with Apollo 11 Astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin on the Moon. P11"

Posted by: The Joy

So, I guess I could take all of http://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/document/diary/ddailydiary.asp and move them to Wikimedia Commons so Wikipedians will praise me as a "Freer of Information" by giving an already online free resource its "freedom" from the evil clutches of the Gerald Ford Presidential Library and bestowing the already public information to the people who rightly deserve it?

Pardon my French, but that's a load of bullocks (and Commons really doesn't need any more bullocks).

(And I'm not touching http://www.clintonlibrary.gov/potusschedules.html.)

Note to Mods: Could someone split this topic off? Thanks.

Posted by: Gruntled

This shows, if I may say so, a surprising lack of knowledge of Wikipsyche. If you have PDFs of a document, it can be transcribed onto Wikisource as a text file, and it can then be "enriched". That is,it can have categories added, and links to other Wikisource pages and indeed Wikipedia pages. This allegedly makes it much more useful to people than just having it on the Nixon site.

Posted by: carbuncle

This probably belongs in a different thread, but one of the problems with Wikipedia and related projects is that there is often an implicit suggestion that there is no difference between "professionals" and "amateurs" except the title and the money. Wikipedia exemplifies the anti-expert culture. The rise of "citizen journalists" has mortally wounded the newspaper industry. When the day comes that those "journalists" realise there are no more newspaper stories for them to link to and comment on, they may have a better understanding of the difference. The Wikipedia "editor" is in general no more than an aggregator of trivia. Editing as a synonym for typing is replacing the old definition which involves exercising critical thinking and judgement.

You are right - we should not expect amateurs to behave like professionals. And we should accept that Wikipedia is an amateur encyclopedia.

Posted by: powercorrupts

I'm sure that no one can disagree with that.

Have you met Abd yet? I'm sure you two will be the best of mates.

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

To be fair, I have seen hosters of public domain content become pay-walled without notice.

Really, he should have put the diary text on some page on wikisource. As far as I know MediaWiki makes no attempt to search the content of PDF uploads, making them relatively useless. Moreover it wouldn't surprise me to learn that duplicate diarystuffs have been posted previously, under different file-names.

Posted by: powercorrupts

The conceit here is that Rod still sees himself as the 'undervalued professional'. Professional what? Air guitarist? Or criminal perhaps? It's still the classic Wikipedian 'one rule for sensible self-controlling ol' me, one rule for everyone else' - even now that Rod has (also classically) disowned and devalued Wikipedia in disgust.

What's so great about professionals, and what is the point of having them in projects like these anyway? Look at Citizendium - the 'professionals' were mostly totally unsuited to the actual job in hand, and mainly pissed off the amateurs that are ultimately what these things are all about (or what is the point of a 'No Original Research' source-based encyclopedia at all?).

The point of Wikipedia was that its '5 pillars' would control content, and that 3RR and admin etc would help it run smoothly. Looking at people like Malleus and the way Wikipedia really works (ie through cabals and favouritism) will warp many people's vision - but I'm sure you were out to push your own personality from the beginning Rod - hence all your endless bullshit. The anonymous online activities attract all the nuts - are nuts are hard for normal people to work with.

One of Wikipedia's biggest problems now is that it is simply massively bloated, even in what many consider to be sound 'articles'. It was supposed to be a 'first stop' for information - ie a place that points to decent sources that the reader could follow. In terms of its original ideals It has become too big to manage, and needs to be seriously hacked down. Millions of its so-called 'articles' are out of its original scope - the titles alone stretch OR. In terms of the insidious Wikimedia empire though - long may Wikipedia stuff its bloated guts. They are living off the lard, and have their eyes forever on future prospects.

Posted by: thekohser

Mods, could you split off this post and all the replies to it?

Posted by: thekohser

What gives you the silly idea that I've been kicked off of Wikipedia? I was editing there just this week! It's definitely a project "for me"!

Posted by: tarantino

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AListUsers&username=Dominic&group=&limit=1 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Dominic&diff=prev&oldid=108127904 in 2007. I haven't found his reason why this happened, though I'm sure there must be a sensible explanation.

Posted by: melloden

Perhaps it's, uh, in the archives?

Posted by: The Joy

Thank you, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GoldenEye.

Posted by: thekohser

I feel your pain, The Joy. But, if I may briefly assume the role of a Wikipediot (or of an Archives or Presidential Library "marketing director"), it's pretty easy to see why copying all of this stuff to Wikimedia servers is seen as a solution to a problem.

Google ranks Wikimedia sites higher than Archives or Presidential Library sites, so more people go browsing through Wikimedia sites. So, if you want to get your content in front of more people, you can either toil away for years, trying to get the Google SERPs to recognize your site as "better" than the WMF's... or... you can copy your stuff over to Wikimedia.

This is the tyranny of a monochromatic search, which 99% of Internet users are perfectly content to utilize.

It also helps explain why there are so many stupid people floating around in this "Age of Information".

Posted by: The Joy

Indeed. Google juice is what everyone wants.

Being trained as a librarian, though, I would never recommend a Wikimedia site as the place for solid official information. If a patron wanted to know more about Richard Nixon, the Nixon Library site would be one of the first places I would recommend. I could understand a patron starting at a Wikimedia site in their search for information, but I would certainly discourage them from ending their search there.

Even after studying library science, I do get frustrated when Google or Wikipedia does not give me exactly what I want when I want it, though I should know better than thinking that finding all information instantaneously can be a fool's errand. We have so much information "out there" that finding it can be an arduous journey. Google and Wikipedia can't solve everyone's information needs. Maybe that's a good thing for librarian job security?

Posted by: EricBarbour

Which is one of the best condemnations of Google imaginable.

Posted by: Milton Roe

Not before going over them with a UV light, anyway....

Posted by: It's the blimp, Frank

I'm not so sure about the "encyclopedia" part.

Posted by: MZMcBride

This thread is a bit mind-boggling. If nothing else, what's the problem with redundancy? These are historical documents and surely nobody wants to see carelessness or ineptitude on the part of a library archive destroy these files (or a hurricane, a fire, a virus, a hacking, etc.).

Commons serves every Wikimedia wiki. I doubt these will add much, if any, value to Wikipedia, but there are other projects such as Wikisource where these documents are... essential.

Having skimmed this thread and some of its arguments, color me confused.

Posted by: Milton Roe

Do you really think any modern library keeps its digital archive on some single server machine in the building basement? Maybe in a closet where some little old librarian dusts it once a week, after she finishes with the nearby bookstacks?

Posted by: MZMcBride

Err, yes, I do. I'm sure some modern libraries have sophisticated servers and backup systems in place, but I imagine a good number of libraries, particularly private libraries, don't. Now that the Nixon library is being run by NARA, I imagine they've seen their systems upgraded, but this is largely irrelevant. You didn't answer the quoted question: if nothing else, what's the problem with redundancy?

This thread tries to create some sort of problem, particularly The Joy's comments, as I read them. "Why would he be doing that when these documents are available already?!" I don't follow this argument at all. If there's a particular problem that's created by uploading these documents to Commons, please feel free to point it out. Otherwise, this whole thread seems idiotic and mean-spirited.

Posted by: Zoloft

Hyperlinks.

Remember the principle the World Wide Web (T-H-L-K-D) was established on?

No longer would you have to create 700 copies of a document for 700 universities. And, if updates or corrections are made, you don't have to update your local copy.

Don't make Tim Berners-Lee (T-H-L-K-D) cry.

Posted by: Michaeldsuarez

Mirrors are important in case the original becomes unavailable or inaccessible (eg. blocked in China). Extra copies are good, not bad. Of course, Commons shouldn't be treated as a hosting site for content irrelevant to its encyclopedic mission.

Posted by: The Joy

Wouldn't it be better if the Wikimedia Foundation just worked out a deal with government institutions to host mirrors of government information and keep copies of their documents on the WMF servers? The government gets a back-up site and Google juice to their material, WMF gets high praise for saving precious government documents to benefit mankind (and get more Google juice), researchers and the public have a place to search for gov't information, and Jimbo gets high praise and a tax break. Everyone would win, right?

Mirrors though may mean loss of control of the material by the donating organization. What if NARA and the WMF have a dispute over what information to include or not include? What about updating and keeping the mirror sites current? What if the WMF refuses to remove or add certain information? What if its suspected that the WMF has altered the information or the data format is wonky? What if the Federal Government asks that NARA and its mirror sites remove certain information? Will the WMF comply? One of the major problems digital archivists have is the degradation of digital information and having to continue to upgrade to the newest data format. How will the WMF deal with that? I can't imagine PDF lasting forever.

Posted by: MZMcBride

(Forgive me for not better inlining this. It's late.)

Yes, more readily available access to this information is always a good thing, I think. Mirrors would be great. Even setting up a mirror repository (so that anyone, not just Wikimedia could use their content) would be awesome.

They're slowly moving toward this, I think. I've started to see some APIs and such. NARA did some kind of dump recently, though they made every record its own file in its own directory branch. Imagine millions of records within folders on your hard drive. Not great. But I think this was the first iteration. Perhaps the second or third will be smarter. One can hope.

Yes, with mirrors, you always run the risk of losing control. You give up the control for the redundancy (and the awesome tools that people can create when given access to free data). I'm not sure how Wikimedia or anyone would deal with it. On an individual basis, I suppose. Though assuming it goes from NARA to Wikimedia, the next step is for it to spread all over the Web (via mirrors of Wikimedia's content). Presumably with a staff of people and processes in place, NARA wouldn't be releasing anything worth taking back.

I don't know why these particular documents are being uploaded right now. There's probably a reason, though it's admittedly probably not a very grand one. I agree that it's silly to upload in this manner. You're not going to drain an ocean one cup at a time. You could argue that it's futile and a waste of time, I suppose. Even then, I don't really understand most of this thread. As I said, it seems mostly mean-spirited. Which is fine and cathartic to some, I guess, but not particularly constructive.

PDF is an open format; it was formalized in an RFC somewhat recently, I think. I'm not sure what format would necessarily be better. Obviously a database (with database dumps) would be neat in addition to records dumps of other kinds.

One area where Wikimedia largely beats out other parts of the Internet is in providing access to data on a large scale (with the exception of digital media such as images or audio files, currently). If you want every revision of a wiki or a list of every page in the database, it's available in high volume, in XML dumps or in SQL dumps. Plus there's the Toolserver. And having this open data has lead to a lot of creativity and some neat tools.

(Incidentally, I deal with PDFs quite a bit at work, though they put a layer of OCR on top, so they're searchable. It's pretty nice. Not perfect, obviously, but for typed documents that are scanned in, it works well.)

Posted by: EricBarbour

That's not such a bad idea. And how would you propose it to the WMF and the "community"?
Very few of them care a bit about arcane government records.
But they damn well seem to care far more about football stats.
And List of My Little Pony characters (T-H-L-K-D).

Posted by: Zoloft

Yeah, they should move all that stuff http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/My_Little_Pony_Friendship_Is_Magic_Wiki.

Posted by: Kelly Martin

I don't know what universe you inhabit, but I was never kicked off Wikipedia. I'm still an "editor in good standing", not blocked anywhere (as far as I know). Simply put, I wasn't kicked out. I left. It's possible that if I had stayed I would have been kicked out, but I fairly well doubt it.

Posted by: jayvdb

The djvu and pdf files are usually uploaded to Wikimedia Commons before the text is "transcribed" onto Wikisource. In this case, the diary PDF files appear to be perfect text already, and the Nixon Library is providing adequate indexing. If someone is motivated enough, a Wikisource project could add a lot of value to these sources, however I doubt that anyone is going to invest the time required to create a better resource than the one already provided by the Nixon Library.

Posted by: mbz1

This is a sad story, but now looking back do you believe you were a fair admin?

Posted by: Encyclopedist

Of course; I would not have gone for RFA if I thought otherwise. My background in law told me that I should only act in blocking/protecting if there was no reasonable alternative. But I'm also fully aware that legal processes are sometimes subverted from outside; as regards Wikipedia, all we have to go on is an editor's edits. On the face of it, admins have to make value judgements on those, and those alone. But it's also open to a blocked editor to set the record straight. Make no mistake, I may have issued 10,000 blocks, but of those, only a handful were appealed, and only a mite successfully- and perhaps to my credit, some by myself given the blockee's response. I went through all the warning levels in most cases unless it was patently obvious from edit 1 that the editor wasn't going to contribute effectively. I tried hard to assume good faith. However, I'd be glad to hear of anything that you have that controverts this. Message me here or at wikimail@blueyonder.co.uk. Cheers.