All the words appear to be in English.

[reddragdiva]

I wrote a couple of Wikipedia-related arrogant pontifications. They were written entirely for the purpose of wikipolitics and may be confusing to brains not utterly curdled by jargon. I tried translating them to human but gave up. Have at 'em.

Cleaning up your crap.

OTRS future burnouts habitués frequently declare that the sky is falling, particularly with regard to biographies of living people — they see nothing but the complaints. (The actual problem is likely not nearly as bad, though it still needs urgent attention.) To help, Messedrocker has compiled a list of ill-referenced living bios — you are heartily invited to dive in, reference or gut and cross another name off the list. (The list is in order of article creation — start at the end.) Then you can make a smug post with the title "Sourced, bitch." and the content being just a list of diffs. Or just wreak havoc on a string of deserving deletables.

I've been doing lots of admin stuff this weekend. As a staunch defender of the value of fair use — to discuss something, quoting images is as necessary as quoting text — I've been having lots of fun lately going the hack on abuse of the excuse in contravention of policy and indeed copyright. The kids want their candy, and it's my job and pleasure to take it away from them. And, don't forget: you can replace any fair-use picture of a living person on English Wikipedia with Image:Replace this image1.svg and it'll turn into a direct invitation to upload a genuine free content image they actually own themselves.

(I've also just unpacked twenty years' photos and have been scanning and uploading my own replacement free images. If I can, you can.)

A modest proposal.

Just posted to foundation-l:

How about using the old domain, wikipedia.com, as a site for stable Wikipedia versions, with ads on? The ad money, as well as paying our comparatively small hosting and staff costs, could go toward educational programmes for those people who could benefit from our hard work but aren't comfortable, well-fed first-world citizens.

(As far as I can tell, pretty much all opposition to ads on Wikimedia comes from people who are in fact comfortable, well-fed first-world citizens who have no problem accessing this material at all. Including opposition on the new thread. I have asked for demographics otherwise and eagerly await any.)

The thread is ticking along nicely, with ideas on how to, why not to, alternatives and of course a ton of ideas on what we could actually do with BUCKETS OF CASH.

In other news, I'm somewhat less ill than I have been all weekend and Freda is still not born. HURRY UP, WILL YA.

Comments

[secretlondon.livejournal.com]

OI FREDA! Honestly.., and I say that as the Queen of Tardiness.

My LJ reload button is wearing out with the need for news..

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

The second idea is so blindingly brilliant i expect it will be shot down with much prejudice.

[reddragdiva]

Hasn't been shot down as such yet. I expect it'll die in layers of fuzzy fluff as usual. Never mind, one more.