Thursday, March 18, 2010

episode 2 - wikiversity strikes back

really I'm just seeing if I can still remember how to work this blog!

I've been blocked by Jimbo on Wikiversity, and it's kicked off a bit.

Jimbo discussed closing wikiversity with the board, and deleted the project 'the ethics of breaching experiment' as 'beyond scope' for wikiversity. It's coming slowly out in the wash this one - we'll see what happens...

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

bored 'n busy

but then, aren't we all?

flick me an email at thepmaccount@gmail.com if you want to rattle my cage about anything - otherwise, I'll head back to commenting on wiki world stuff anon... :-)

Thursday, April 9, 2009

who found wikipedia?

and where?

Further to the Jimbo theme of my last post, there's a continuing broo ha ha about the status of the founders of wikipedia, Jimbo Wales and Larry Sanger. Turns out Jimbo has been a bit 'economic with the actualite' since his change of heart a while back over Larry's role - and Larry is now sick of it to the point of making a bit of a fuss.

Larry's caught somewhat between a rock and a hard place in trying to confront Jimbo on this one, and the tension between the 'nobody cares' defense and the 'I'm definitely the founder' position is difficult to communicate.

It's a little unedifying, I reckon, but amusing to see chaps like dear old Shankers coming out of the woodwork... my tuppence on the best way forward would be for Jimbo to acknowledge that both he and Larry have played a role significant enough in the creation of Wikipedia to warrant the title 'founder' - I reckon that's a win-win for him.......

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Someone is squatting on JimmyWales.net

now 'ain't that a pretty image ;-)

Apparently 'Wayne Smith' (I'm only using the inverted commas because I have no idea if that's a real name, or not), a chap previously famous / notorious for registering bindiirwin.com shortly after her dad, Steve's, death - either altruistically or cynically depending on which network you get your news from..... anywhoo he's registed 'JimmyWales.net' and 'JimmyWales.org'.

Looks to me like the same chap also edited Jimmy's user page to say 'Heil Hitler' in the revision now displayed as the .org homepage. This sort of makes the jape a bit dull in my book - because otherwise the concept of using a public diff from Wikipedia as a potentially libellous homepage on an alternate domain seems sort of interesting legally / ethically etc.

Seems like Wayne's probably after some attention to me, and who am I not to provide it! - perhaps we'll see this pushed into the media somewhere somehow before too long... I don't think this under-distributed blog is the summit of Wayne's ambitions!

For much smarter comment (no doubt) - head over to Wikipedia Review, or check out Jimbo's talk page where someone (probably Wayne?) pointed it out....

Saturday, February 7, 2009

arb elections + arb list 'leaks'

well the elections came and went - it was fun to be involved on the periphery, but other stuff has largely distracted me since....

now the news of the day is that kelly martin, an ex-arb, and now wiki apostate, is in the process of setting up a project publishing emails from the arb list from a period a few years ago - citing public interest / general public good as the rationale for breaching the expectation of privacy..... it's an interesting one for sure.. maybe interesting enough to warrant further comment, who knows......

Monday, November 24, 2008

arbcom elections

so I'm standing... really in the hope to try and get some attention for some ideas. In some ways it's hard to see wiki actually improving at the mo..... :-(

Anywhoo... I just published today my '5 big ideas' as the central planks of my campaign! I have zero chance of success in the election, but hope someone will notice what I hope are good ideas......

In other news Lar and I have a 10 buck bet on the outcome of the election - $140 for me if I'm on the money.... I think the old 'red, black, black, red' combo probably is a more reliable way to get 16 to 1 (well Lar's offered me 14....) but we'll see how it goes :-)

Vote for me, and if you don't vote for me - vote for the folk on my list!

Thursday, October 30, 2008

things that go 'bump' in the night....


how cool is this pic? Happy Halloween folks,

I'm hoping to be able to add a thousand or so others to Commons before too long, and am enjoying learning how.....

at some point I may write up something about recent wiki times - what I've been up to, and why I'm considering running for the arbitration committee....