Google Wave and Wikimedia projects

Probably, some of you already saw that Google made something for which I think that it will be the new form of the mainstream Internet perception. You may read Slashdot article [1], a good description at the blog “Google Operating System” [2] (not officially connected with Google) and, of course, you may see the official site with more than one hour of presentation [3].

I expected such kind of tool (a client connected with others via P2P XML-based protocol; with servers for identification). However, I didn’t expect that it will come so soon, that it will be done by one large corporation and that it will be done at the right way: open protocol, free software referent implementation.

At the official site they said that it will start to work during this year. As one large corporation is behind the project, as well as free and open source community is able to participate, I have no doubts that it will be implemented all over the Internet (and not just Internet) very quickly. Probably, in two years the basic component of one modern operating system will not be a Web browser, but a Wave client. Probably, Web will become a storage system, while all of the interaction will be done via Waves.

This development of Internet is very strongly related to the Wikimedia projects:

• I want to be able to edit Wikipedia through the Wave client.
• I want to add my own notes to articles, history of articles etc.
• I want to have collection of my knowledge at one place, including Wikipedia articles and my notes.
• I want to be able to make a program which would analyze articles on Wikipedia and to give program and/or analysis to my friends.
• I want many more things to be browsable or editable or whatever from a Wave client…

All of those my (but, in one year, not just my) wishes may be fulfilled just through work on MediaWiki and Pywikipediabot. So, I am calling all of you who are willing to think about it or who are at the position to think about it — to start with thinking

[1] – http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/05/28/1912226/Googles-Wave-Blurs-Chat-Email-Collaboration-Software
[2] – http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/05/google-wave.html
[3] – http://wave.google.com/

PR agencies, Wikipedia and liberals

Yesterday, I was listening a lecture of my friend, a liberal. He is a PhD student in psychology and his field of interest is decision making processes; and he is very good in that field. After that I was drinking beer with him and his friends in [something similar to] pub. One of them is working for one small PR agency from Belgrade, which has important enough clients.

First about liberals… There is a completely different meaning of the word “liberal” in Europe. Primary meaning of “liberal” in Europe is “economic right”, which is connected with social-darvinist ideologies. Of course, there is “American meaning” of “liberal” here, too. However, a person which is using “liberal” in the sense of “progressive” is very uneducated… I mean, very well educated just on Hollywood movies and EU propaganda machinery. So, usually, when you mark someone as “liberal”, you told to her that she is against universal healthcare, that she treats differently poor and rich people and the her ideology smells on Nazism.

Actually, according to the Political Compass test, my friend is a relatively strong leftist. But, he is a fan of Zbigniev Brezhinsky and if you are not Nixon, Obama nor a person which personal interests are closely connected to Brezhinsky’s strategic doctrines, you are suffering of some kind of psycho-pathology; like liberals (in “European sense”) do.

Another interesting moment was related to the science of decision making processes. Holly Thing, I am so happy because that science is so stupid! The only two persons who asked questions related to the basic methods were one physicist and I. Psychologists were asking ethics- and motivation-related questions. So, the good news are that financial, state and military structures will stay stupid.

And now about Wikipedia… There are just good news, too. In brief, we are [still] fancy and PR agencies are willing to follow our rules.

Even I had known rationally that this kind of things are happening on Wikipedia, this was the first time for me to talk with a person from one PR agency who is actually doing that. So, yes, PR agencies are actively working on Wikipedia. And they have problems because they are not introduced well in our rules. But, when I explained that they may read the rules, follow them and do their job, I didn’t find any kind of confrontation. Actually, “following the rules” is something which they like. And I suppose that I am not the first Wikipedian who were talking with a person from one PR agency.

The other issue is related to their trainings. Importance of collaborative communities and networks became the top issue in PR personel training. So, yes, this PR agency is interested to take PR of WM Serbia for free, which is a very good opportunity for WM RS.

On resources for the earliest operating systems

Two years ago I couldn’t believe that there is no relevant article about the earliest operating systems. So, I wrote one short post about GM-NAA I/O so Wikipedia would be able to cite this post as a source for writing an article. Seven months later Steve Holland from General Motors Research Laboratories sent to me the citation from IEEE Annals of the History of Computing about GM OS and GM-NAA I/O.

Today Robert L. Patrick, the architect of GM-NAA I/O, sent to me his document about development of that operating system. As someone who has passion toward the history of technology, I am really excited with that. If you ever discovered something important in your field of interest, you will know how do I feel.

But, there is one sad fact. It seems that computer generation isn’t mature enough to take care about their history. Yes, present and future are more important than history, but history is very important for understanding our present and our future. Besides that, proponents of historical events related to computers are mostly alive. Unlike historians of other fields, we are able to document our history well. But, we are not doing that.

For the list of the list of relevant informations related to the earliest operating systems, see this article.

Robert L. Patrick: Operating Systems at Conception

(I am honoured to publish here a document made by Robert L. Patrick, the architect of the first operating system in the world, GM-NAA I/O. A few of my words around this text are here. General page about the earliest operating systems is here. Milos.)

Operating Systems at Conception

On the early 1950s computers were delivered as kits: hardware and a set of manuals.  This was a tradition from the punched card days carried over into early mainframe computing.  Programmers, both manufacturing and customer, immediately started informally exchanging tested subroutines for popular functions, in punched card form.

In 1954, the mode of operation was: programmer present and (personally) operating the control console.  Some programmers were good operators, and some were barely competent.  Programmers were in short supply and when they were operating, they were not programming.

Computer sessions were scheduled as blocks of time, were seldom used efficiently, and there was always unused idle time between scheduled sessions. There were backlogs of work to be programmed and tested, competing with backlogs of production runs to be made.  There was a shortage of computer time.  There were only about two-dozen commercial mainframes in the entire country.

Convair, in Ft. Worth, Texas, installed IBM 701 #7 (out of the 17 that were built).  While there, I studied the industrial engineering work of pioneer Henry L. Gantt (1), ran some throughput experiments, and had some ideas about more efficient computer operations.  After I moved to General Motors Research (they installed 701 #17), I produced the conceptual design (2) for a non-stop  multi-user operating system as part of GMR’s plan for the installation of an IBM 704 supported by standalone card-to-tape and tape-to-print peripheral subsystems to handle basic input-output.

My design was presented at SHARE (3), and resulted in a joint operating system development project between GMR and North American Aviation.  The planned system was tape based and had three phases: Input Translation, Compute, and Output Translation.  George Ryckman led the GM effort.  Jim Fishman, Don Harroff, and Floyd Livermore did the programming.  The NAA effort was led by Owen Mock who had participated in the Los Angeles PACT effort for the 701.  (I do not remember the names of the other talented NAA programmers.)

There were two versions of the original OS package because Mock and I could not agree on how debugging during the Compute phase was to be handled.  The GM system contained a core map in memory which the programmer was obligated to maintain during execution.  If a program failed to run to completion, the operator restarted the computer and manually transferred control to a standard fixed location that would use the core map to selectively dump memory in a meaningful format for return to the programmer.  (Online traces were so inefficient they were seldom used and there was no attached terminal hardware available.)  After a memory dump, the OS proceeded to the next job in the queue without stopping.

Card decks through the peripheral card reader contained job ID, accounting information, control cards (nee JCL), programs, and data.  The form of the programs could be binary cards (from a previous run) or new programs ready for assembly.  The initial system processed a sequence of decks from various programmers as a single non-stop batch.

The Input translator converted the whole batch to binary and then called in the Compute phase monitor.  As each job in the entire batch was executed, accounting numbers were generated, and all output was recorded in binary.  The Output phase then converted all output to decimal and the resulting tape was hand-carried to the peripheral machines in an adjacent room.

George Ryckman, an electrical engineer by training, designed and built a time-of-day clock which the system sampled to provide accounting data.  We billed for time used and lines printed.  A machine produced accounting sheet accompanied each job back to the submitter.  The computer center had a courier who made his rounds every hour to give desk-to-desk pickup and delivery service to each programmer.

Later when Fortran-I was available, the compiler was added as just another input translator.  Programs in the input stream could be intermixed binary, SAP assembly language, or Fortran in a single run.

After I laid down the preliminary design, (we’d call it architecture today) I was reassigned to lead the development of a high priority military application and became a user of the system Ryckman et al. produced.  When programmers were present and operating, we scheduled six-minute blocks for checkout.  With the GM I-O system in full operation, 60 test jobs an hour were possible (depending on the length of the tests).  Twenty copies were distributed to other 704 installations.

The input tape allowed intermixed test and production jobs in one batch.  On one occasion, late in the development cycle of our military trajectory program, I made up eight copies of our program deck and loaded a different set of case data behind each one on a single input tape.

The system provided the following benefits:

• It was simpler and less work to program.
• Professional operators ran the system.
• Programmers stayed at their desks and programmed.
• It gave better service for both test and production runs.
• The number of jobs per hour increased tenfold.
• There was no idle machine time if there was work to run.
• There was no custom hardware involved (except the time clock).
• There were no extra hardware rental dollars required.

Postscript 1: I spent most of my career either developing applications or improving machine room operations.  However, I did participate in several other noteworthy software developments, namely: as team leader on a business compiler for the H-800 at Computer Sciences, as an architect on the Direct Couple operating system extension to IBSYS for the IBM 7040-7090 at Aerospace, as an architect on the IMS/360 data base management system at Space, and as an architect on a custom data base system to support a research project at RAND.

Postscript 2: It should be noted that early operating systems up through the SHARE Operating System (SOS) were designed and implemented by the user community to meet pressing needs as bulleted above.  Starting with IBSYS the systems were designed and implemented by the manufacturer to make the augmented machines more appealing in the marketplace.  Various features have crept into the designs until today’s systems are big and function rich.

Postscript 3: For further information about the GM-NAA I-O System see:

• Robert L. Patrick Oral History, Smithsonian Institution, 1973.
• Time-Life Books, “Understanding Computers Series – The Computerized Society”, 1987, Pg 14.
• RAND Paper: “General Motors/North American Monitor for the IBM 704 Computer”, January 1987 for the National Computer Conference (Chicago), Old-Timers Session, June 1987.
• Robert L. Patrick Oral History, Computer History Museum, 2006, Pg 56.

Robert L. Patrick
Atascadero, CA
12-08

References:

1. Henry Lawrence Gantt, “Work, Wages and Profit”, The Engineering Magazine, NY, 1910.
2. (original) GM I-O System Time Phasing Charts (architectural design), artifact collection, Computer History Museum.
3. SHARE, Boston, November 1955

Encyclopedias and censroship

No, I don’t want to talk about Virgin Killer; at least, I don’t want to talk about it directly. A lot of blogs were written about it and I don’t have anything to add.

I want just to say why Wikimedian community should be thankful to Jimmy. Because he is not such purist. If I need to choose between being with one open minded former (or even present) owner of one soft (or even hard) porn site (with some other [more or less] acceptable blemishes) and one purist and paternalistic academician, I prefer the first one.

Knowledge shouldn’t be censored. This is one of the significant achievements of our civilization. Naked young girl is taboo in the Western civilization, Mohamed images are taboo in (Sunni) Muslim world, some sacral places shouldn’t be seen by women at some parts of the world. There are ways for one encyclopedia to respect taboos, but censorship is not the option.

A professor who is taking cheap PR points on one censorship issue should learn something about social responsibility. Jimmy is an objectivist (usually, objectivists deny social responsibility as a concept), but he doesn’t have problems with his social responsibilites at that level.

Radio Belgrade 2, talk show “Club 2″

It was the second time that I was talking at talk show “Club 2″; while I was a number of times at Radio Belgrade. Without any connection with our current events, Sava Ristovic, author of the talk show, called me yesterday. It is 45 minutes long talk show with only one guest, usually.

So, here is the list of the topics about which I was talking, with my comments:

• In the middle of the show I realized that it is not so easy to explain license switch to the ordinary public. In short, if you are in the position to say a couple of words about that in some media, I suggest two short points: From the perspective of users, it would be the same, while authors of derivative works will be able to use Wikipedia more easy.
• For the first time, I realized that there is a sense to call people from Serbia to donate (small) amounts of money to Wikimedia. While this is good for Wikimedia, this is much more important for inhabitants of Serbia: For three years salaries raised from ~150 EUR/month to ~300 EUR/month.
• We were talking about free software, “piracy” and alternatives to proprietary software and art and so on.

Radio Belgrade 2 is a fairly popular radio station all over Serbia because it is maybe the only radio station in Serbia which strictly covers culture.

Google Knol and the future of Wikipedia and Wikimedia

Google Knol is finally available for the public. I tested some basic features and the concept is a good one, as well as it is obvious that it will be developed more: it may include the most of useful wiki features in the future, like, for example, templates are.

There are two main differences between Wikipedia and Knol, introduced by Knol:

• Author is the owner of the article. Of course, in the sense of having control over the content and if they choose so.
• Author may make money from writing the articles.

I am fully aware about differences of two approaches: Orthodox wiki approach and the commercial one. Basically, those differences are in a long term the most important, while in a short term we may see that other characteristics of two projects are more important.

Orthodox wiki approach is saying that no one is the owner of the article. Formally, I am, as well as anyone else is, the “owner” of one Wikipedia article, like the authors of the article are. The consequence of this approach is collectivization of the knowledge, as well as more knowledge at one place.

Commercial wiki approach, which Google Knol introduced at the wider scale (while I am sure that similar projects existed or aimed to exist), individualize the knowledge output and motivates authors to work there by giving them a possibility to make some money.

I may see a perfect coexistence between those two concepts. If you want just to be introduced into some matter (no matter how deep!), you will go to Wikipedia. But, if you want to see some specific information from some field, you will go to the Knol and search for reliable authors. Of course, I may imagine a lot of cross-linking between Wikipedia and Knol.

But, this is about a perfect world from the not so certain future. In the sense of “now and here”, Wikipedia and Knol are rivals in the battle which Wikipedia will loose in any case, but it matters how much. Simply, Wikipedia is at the top and any serious competitor will get a part of the time which people are spending in reading and writing articles. And Knol is a serious competitor.

Wikipedia has a couple of main advantages over Knol:

1) It is not so easy to find a person who is using Internet and who doesn’t know for Wikipedia, while Knol has to make its own place under the Sun — even it is one more Google application and Google is known as well as Wikipedia is (somewhat better, but it is not so important in this case).

2) Wikipedia has well known software, MediaWiki (as well as well developed user-side Pywikipediabot), and, from the technical side, it is much better known than Google’s API, as well as it is possible to add hundreds of thousands of (good small) articles into Wikipedia automatically, while it is (still) not possible with Knol.

3) Wikipedia is “collectively owned” and, as such, it has significant economical advantage: One person is able to care about small set of articles, but even two persons are able to take care about bigger set of articles than two persons separately. Besides the fact that in the current stage people will mostly create “their own” articles at Knol, as well as it is not so expectable that a lot of volunteers will work on others’ articles without being payed. But, I am sure that Google is analyzing the concept of creating payed role of “administrators”.

4) Wikipedia is a multilingual project. It has more than 280 language editions. Making a commercially machinery for supporting such number of languages may be possible, but not in the near future. Because of that, while Knol may become popular soon as a source of knowledge in English, maybe a decade will pass until I would be able to suggest to some high school student from Belgrade to search for knowledge there, too. Until that, Wikipedia will be the most important non-English knowledge base.

But, Knol has some significant advantages over Wikipedia, too:

1) You may share your knowledge, for money or without it, in a much less hostile environment than Wikipedia is. Eh, “Imagine a world where every human being is able to contribute to the sum of human knowledge without being frustrated!”

2) I am still thinking about usage of Knol in my work: I have some wikis out of Wikipedia for organizing group works of students, but I am really thinking about a possibility that one student may be stimulated with money for sharing their knowledge. Of course, it applies not only for students. And this may be the biggest Google’s contribution to the human knowledge. What Wikipedia didn’t do, Google did.

3) Knol is, at last, a Google product, so Wikipedia articles will get significant competitors in Google search results.

4) Again, Knol is a Google product. Technical infrastructure of Wikimedia is a silly one in comparison with Google’s one.

So, what should we do?

As I said, it is very predictable that a number of Wikipedia contributors will start to decline. Or, at least, number of edits will start do decline. And it will not be a seasonal fluctuation, but a permanent one. A good fraction of, which is the worst, good editors will fly to Knol; or, at least, a good fraction of good editors will start to spend significant amount of their time at Knol, instead at Wikipedia. In other words, the question is not would we loose some editors, but how much editors we will loose? The question is not anymore what should we do to make Wikipedia better, but what should we do to keep Wikipedia alive until the better times.

I may list a good amount of mistakes made in past. But, it seems to me as something without a lot of sense. Instead of that, I will try to list a number of possible solutions for making Wikipedia more competitive:

• First of all, WMF Board and staff have to talk with Google and make a common PR: Wikipedia is about a general knowledge, Knol is about specific; original research is not acceptable at Wikipedia, while it may be very useful at Knol; authors should keep their own articles at Knol, but they should be encouraged to participate in common knowledge repository at Wikipedia; and so on.
• Flagged Revisions should be carefully, but as soon as possible, turned on: Only highly reliable contributors, as well as contributors with scholar background should get that tool. It doesn’t have a lot in common with being an admin or a bureaucrat at some project.
• WMF should make extensive contacts with universities and it has to find a way how to deal with contacts which it gets from the volunteers. Public manual which describes how to handle university contacts and what are the benefits for one student, one professor and one educational institution — has to be made. Note that institutions like to communicate with other institutions and that at some point WMF (or chapters) has to be that institution for communication.
• Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects have to become social networking place, too. Keeping volunteers around one passion, passion to collaborate in creation of the sum of human knowledge, may work up to the some point. But, relying on past time communication systems, like mailing lists or IRC are, is a good way how to loose a strong initial advantage. From looking into friends’ interests (but, not through always disputable and not so user friendly user templates), via integrated XMPP/Jabber client into MediaWiki interface, up to making an API for making free software games connected to MediaWiki interface. Yes, it is a non-encyclopedic content, but it is still impossible to build human knowledge without humans and humans have some more needs than writing the articles.
• Build one community. The strongest side of Wikipedia is its diverse community. However, one thing is a diverse community, the other is a lot of different communities which don’t have a lot in common. Having a number of communities which treat Wikipedia as a hosting provider is a good way for educating contributors for others. If contributors treat Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects as hosting providers, they will fly to the better one when better one starts to exist. And, in some aspects, Knol is the better provider.
• Brianna wrote a couple of days ago about a problem with deletionism. If you didn’t, read it.
• Make Wikipedia not so hostile environment. How? I don’t know. Maybe someone else has some idea…
• And, the most important: This is maybe the last chance to start to think realistically; especially, to start to think. Stories about “the sum of human knowledge”, “being a part of free culture movement”, about “changing the world” and so on — are very nice. But, we are living here and now. And we have some problems here and now.

Finally, FCKeditor as a pure extension for MediaWiki!

At the most visited post of my blog (of course, it is about FCKeditor ), I’ve got the next message from one of the FCKeditor developers:

FCKeditor is now a pure extension, no patches required.
The latest version can be downloaded here: http://mediawiki.fckeditor.net/.
Compatible with 1.10+ (up to 1.12 currently).
A couple of important bugs has been fixed recently so I strongly encourage you to download the latest release

Have fun using FCKeditor!

BTW. If you find some free time and will be willing to improve the extension, feel free to join the project

The most important notes about FCKeditor extension for MediaWiki are:

• It produces wikitext, not HTML!
• Don’t use it at large sites yet, but as a couple of important bugs are fixed, it may be used in controlled conditions (smaller sites with an admin-enthusiast should be OK).

Note, also, that I didn’t test it. However, I trust more to PHP programmers from FCKeditor team than to myself (while I know to program in PHP, I am not a PHP programmer).

Here are my few notes about what FCKeditor needs (according to my last test from a few months ago):

• Paste HTML (copy is working), like I may do, for example, here, at WordPress.
• Paste images (copy is working; of course, with possibility to define [and change] a default upload site, like Wikimedia Commons is).
• Supporting Subversion version of MediaWiki (currently 1.13), so it may be used on Wikimedia projects and other projects which are keeping MediaWiki up to date.
• (I know that I wanted to say here one more important thing, but I forgot it… I’ll update this post when I remember.)

Stewards and Vogons

This is not another story, but an analysis of some of Wikimedian problems. If you didn’t read a satire “A not so ordinary night of one Steward“, you may read it firstly, and then to continue to read this analysis. However, it is not necessary for understanding of this post.

The day before yesterday I really felt like a Vogon. Maybe, it was a feeling between a being a Vogon and being a British lord-lawyer with a good will, but, let’s approximate it to Vogons. Because, unlike Vogons, British lord-lawyers don’t have real weapons. But, it is true that both species are horrible.

Yesterday I started to write this post, but I realized that I may make a satire. Satire is the next level of describing problems in a community, after a reasonable talk. Of course, while satires are not forbidden or satirists don’t suffer heavy consequences, the situation is still under the borders of regular. However, it is true that satire had to be used because reasonable talk didn’t succeed.

I used a real situation to make a satire, so if people from Turkish and Azerbaijani Wikipedias have bad feelings, I have to say sorry. The main targets are stewards and regulations around stewards and checkusers.

* * *

From time to time I start to feel a light form of panic when I realize that rules are directly opposite to the projects’ needs. The same was happen the day before yesterday.

An admin from Turkish Wikipedia called stewards at #wikimedia-stewards channel by typing “@stewards”. This is a keyword for calling stewards for non-urgent asks, unlike “!stewards” — which is a keyword for calling stewards for urgent asks.

* * *

Before I continue to talk about his reasons why he used non-urgent keyword, I want to explain differences between those two keywords.

Before a couple of weeks the topic on the #wikimedia-stewards channel was like: Type !steward in case of emergency | Non-urgent requests here: <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/RFP> | Send en.wikipedia oversight requests to oversight-l@lists.wikimedia.org

I think that demanding from contributors to call stewards only in a case of emergency is very very arrogant. Actually, when I realized that the topic is working, I started to think twice before I say anything to a contributor who asked for help. I don’t want to frustrate them more than the topic is frustrating them. Such topic repulsed people from talking with stewards. Such topic explains that “stewards are very important persons who shouldn’t be disturbed while working on much more important tasks”. Yes, I may work on some important task (privately, professionally or for Wikimedia), but I decided to be a steward not because of my vanity, but because those privileges are giving to me a possibility to help to Wikimedians. If someone has “much more important tasks”, then they should give back their steward rights.

So, a couple of weeks ago I started a discussion about the channel’s topic at the steward’s list. I thought that the solution is to make two channels, but Lodewijk gave a more reasonable solution: to make two keywords, one for urgent requests, one for non-urgent requests.

I was positively surprised when I realized that not only I when I got a general support for that, but when I saw that Dungodung made a technical solution very quickly. However, it was the end of the positive tendencies.

Today, the topic of the channel is: Type !steward in case of emergency; type @steward to discuss non-urgent matters | Non-urgent requests here: <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/RFP> | Send en.wikipedia oversight requests to oversight-l@lists.wikimedia.org

If you type “!steward” (for emergency cases), bot will call around 40 names. But, if you type “@steward”, bot will call only three of us: Lar, DerHexer and me. Adding people to the second list is opt-in and, after the initial configuration (DerHexer and I were present on the channel and we explicitly opted-in, while Lar said earlier on the list that he wants to talk with contributors) nobody else opted-in. This was happened something like between two and four weeks ago.

But, this kind of arrogance is not only a stewards’ characteristics. Wikipedia became known not only because it is the biggest encyclopedia ever, but also because it has a lot of arrogant admins. And I am sure that all stewards was/are admins on some of the projects. I don’t want to say that stewards are a product of a negative selection (because, in that case, I would be a product of a negative selection, too ), but I want to say that it isn’t complex to trace the roots of that arrogance.

Yes, I know that we are humans, even we are stewards…

* * *

One contributor called us by typing “@steward”. So, his opinion was that it was not an emergency situation, but he wanted a help from stewards. Unfortunately, I was in the office and I had to go home. I asked him was it urgent or it have might to wait for an hour.

* * *

There is a good reason why I don’t want to refuse to help to contributors, or at least to talk with them. After Florence and Angela stopped to be active stewards, I remember that it was a really frustrating task to ask stewards for anything.

As time was passing, Wikimedian bureaucracy were started to be more and more Kafkian. While it is obvious that no one is willing to be marked as a bureaucrat, it is obvious that accessibility of Wikimedian community managers is lower and lower as time is passing. And it is dangerously closely to the point when a management is becoming a bureaucracy. A number of “no one’s business” is one of the key factors in establishing if something is a management or a bureaucracy. And stewards are here to handle “no one’s business” (of course, in a reasonable amount). If stewards say that something is not their business, then we have a problem: it is definitely no one’s business.

* * *

One hour later. When I was at home and turned on IRC client, he started to talk with me again. And, of course, if someone remembered that for an hour, it is important to them.

He is an admin from Turkish Wikipedia and he asked me for cross-wiki checkuser action on Turkish and Azerbaijani Wikipedia. But then my bureaucratic coprocessor started to scream… While I was sure that Azerbaijani Wikipedia didn’t have checkusers, I was not sure if the Turkish one had them or not.

And when I realized that they have checkusers, I started my bureaucratic talk: May he connect me with their checkuser? I may do checkuser only for Azerbaijani Wikipedia. Only if it is urgent or he had a really good reason, I am able to use my privileges…

I think that it is more than obvious that we had a couple of misunderstandings. He didn’t think that it is urgent, while it was urgent according to the checkuser procedure on Turkish Wikipedia: Possible sockpuppet was a candidate for adminship. If they started a checkuser procedure, it would have taken much more time than it is needed for one person to become an admin.

A lot of our talk was spent in my tries to understand what was the problem. Obviously, he is not a native speaker of English, as well as I am not. But, he is not a steward, too. He doesn’t know our bureaucratic jargon and it is not his job to know that. However, I am a steward and I know that I have to get formally expressed statements before I do any of the steward actions.

I asked for another checkuser, too. But, the other checkuser is not active. My next bureaucratic statement had to be: “Less than two active checkusers — no checkusers at all!” — Of course, this is highly unreasonable. One admin came to me for help and instead of help, I would have punish his project because it didn’t fit to our standards.

* * *

The other question is about standards. I am sure that the most of meta-involved Wikimedians know how painful is to choose a checkuser. And I’ll give to you a little comparison: Imagine two projects: one with 5000 very active contributors and one with 500 very active contributors. I am not sure that English Wikipedia (a project with 5000 very active contributors) has more than 50 persons which are able to pass voting for checkuser rights. Consequently, a project with 500 very active contributors may have maybe 5 persons who are able to pass voting for checkuser rights. Turkish Wikipedia had 86 very active contributors in January 2008. They should be happy if two users are able to pass voting for checkuser.

And one of them is inactive, which, according to The Rules, means that they shouldn’t have checkuser at all. I think that this is one of a number of unreasonable rules. Instead of allowing situations when a trusting contributor may ask a steward for a checkuser action (if the procedure is too long, if a contributor doesn’t trust to one of checkusers, if…) and allowing projects to have a natural development — rules are forcing them to shrink from asking stewards for help.

* * *

When I saw that we are going nowhere, I decided to call another steward, Thogo, to be a witness of my action.

For two and half months of my stewardship, I already made a couple of “non-orthodox” actions. This time I decided to make one more, but I really wanted to have a witness.

After another set of talk and my final understanding of possible duration of the formal checkuser process on Turkish Wikipedia and possibility that suspected sockpuppet may be elected as admin, Thogo did the right thing: He checked public logs and realized that there is enough supporting material for checkuser action.

That was enough for me. I asked Thogo is he against the action. As he said that “he may not decide”, I understood that, at least, he is not against the action. Decision was mine and I did it. As I said there, helping to the projects is above any of the prescribed rules; at least for me.

* * *

If anyone would make an in depth manual for stewards, this may be a classic example of sockpuppetry: In two days three examples of editing from two accounts and the same IP address in intervals of 1 hour, 2 minutes and 4 minutes.

I have to tell that this is not even a question of reaction. In coordination with a checkuser from Turkish Wikipedia, we would need a lot of talk while looking separately in different logs. It is a technical question, too. There are two options: to give to a local checkuser right to check the other project, too — or to give such permission to a steward.

* * *

I have to say that it is a really good feeling when you realize that you helped to some project.

* * *

And after all those things, there is one very important question: What is the purpose of our rules when they are not so rarely directly against the purpose of stewardship, adminship, checkusership…? I understand that rules shouldn’t be followed only in extraordinary circumstances. But, if I count “ordinary” and “extraordinary” moments in my stewardship, I would conclude that they are far from statistical error: maybe 10%, maybe 20%.

So, do we want to change something?

For the end, one nice quote from Wikipedia:

“…far back in prehistory, when the first primeval Vogons crawled out of the sea, the forces of evolution were so disgusted with them that they never allowed them to evolve again.” (Wikipedia contributors, “Races and species in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy“, Wikipedia, free encyclopedia, retrived at March 20th, 2008)

A not so ordinary night of one Steward

This is the story. For reasons why did I write it, look at my analysis of some problems related to stewards.

Let me explain a couple of things: The Stewards are a species which is dedicated to the holly goal of The Rules of The Stewardship. All other things and species are subordinate to The Stewards. I am one of The Stewards!

Some species think that there are no The Rules of Stewardship and that The Stewards should serve to them. There is no sense to explain anything to those mortals because they are not able to understand all things written in The Rules. They are maybe able to read, to understand some parts of The Rules, but their genetic system is not allowing to them to understand The Core written in The Rules.

Wikipedians are especially arrogant species. They think that everything is wandering around their confederation of civilizations, Wikipedia. Very often they are coming for our help. Hey, they are not only coming, but they are asking for help! What an impudence! They are trying to use our feelings… And we are humans, even we are The Stewards. So, very often we are taken in the cobweb of those emotions and because of that we are helping them.

Hard times came for us, The Stewards. Small number of the species understand The Rules of The Stewardship. Actually, only The Stewards understand The Rules. I remember better times, when all of the species lived in harmony with us and The Rules. But, those times are now a very distant past.

And, yesterday around 22:03:58 one Wikipedian called me. He was asking for help. Eh, how impudent he was… He thought that I would have helped him immediately. If I didn’t say “Please, contact me for one hour.” — almost for sure a mob of Wikipedians would have been gathered and started to ask me for help.

One hour later. Of course, he didn’t forget to ask me for help, AGAIN! OK, OK… Wikipedians are really a special species. If you don’t help them, they will ask again and again.

- So, how can I help you? Be aware that you may get Our Help only if the situation is urgent! In all other cases you should fill the right form and submit it at the appropriate place.

- May you do a simultaneous CheckUser action on Turkish and Azerbaijani Wikipedias? — What are the limits of Wikipedian arrogance? He didn’t even make an excuse for interrupting me in much more important jobs of The Implementation of The Rules of The Stewardship! He didn’t even consider usage of the right form at the right place! Those Wikipedians…

- Of course, not! I don’t have a possibility for parallel processing! I may do that only subsequently.

So, he asked me to do that subsequently. This is one of The Steward’s rights and I definitely have that right. It is written in The Rules and The Software supports The Rules.

But, at that moment my bureaucratic coprocessor started to scream: “ATTENTION! ATTENTION! DO THAY HAVE CHECKUSER? DO THEY HAVE CHECKUSER? ATTENTION! ATTENTION! …”. According to The Rules I am not able to do a CheckUser action if someone of the CheckUser species exists on that Wikipedia.

Eh, my hart is always at the side of the CheckUser species. It is a relatively young species and, with Oversight species they are the most advanced of all other species. Of course, except The Stewards. Maybe, they will even evolve into The Stewards some day! They almost understand The Rules! But, it is too early for them now…

I am sure that Azerbaijani Wikipedia doesn’t have a CheckUser. This is written in the supporting documents of The Rules and I know well those documents.

But, Turkish Wikipedia… I don’t know for that civilization. Maybe they have, maybe they don’t have.

- Do you have someone of the CheckUser species in your civilization?

- Yes.

- And you are a CheckUser? — I have to say that I was very positively surprised. If he is a CheckUser, then everything is much different! Maybe I would be the first person who helped to one CheckUser to evolve into a Steward? Who knows…

- No, I am just an admin. — How arrogant is this greeny?! He gave me a hope to think that he is a CheckUser!!! But, he is only an admin. Admin? Bwahahahaha! This species is derived from a genetically degraded CheckUser species. They may become CheckUsers only with a lot of genetic engineering.

- May you connect me with your CheckUser? — I really didn’t want to spend more time with such arrogant species anymore.

Silence.

- We may start The Process, but it may take a lot of time… — Finally, he started to talk much more reasonable. The Process is the right thing. And all things which take a lot of time are good things. Nothing was built quickly!

- According to The Rules of Stewardship I may help you, but you have to state that this is urgent or that you have some other good reason. — I tried to be a little bit softer because he started to think reasonably. Also, being softer is a good marketing for our species and good marketing may give to us more power to achieve our ultimate goal: Living Accroding to The Rules of The Stewardship.

Silence, again.

- So, you told me that your civilization has members of the CheckUser species. According to The Rules, there must be at least two of them. May you connect me with the second one?

- The second one is not active. — So, here we are! One CheckUser killed the other! It is relatively often event between CheckUsers. Not all of them may become The Stewards and from time to time one CheckUser kills another to make a space for their own development. However, this is strictly forbidden by The Rules and a CheckUser which survived will have to be genetically degraded to a poor admin.

As I realized that we have a violation of The Rules, I called another Steward to consult him about steps which we will have to make.

Eh, from time to time, it is really useful to offer a help to Wikipedians. From time to time we may find that The Rules of The Stewardship are violated. What a nice end of a day! Only a couple of hours ago, I thought that I will really have to help to one Wikipedian!