Wikibooks:Reading room/Administrative Assistance/Archives/2007/May

Why removing status from inactive accounts is a good idea...
See w:Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2007-04-23/Robdurbar. It took 17 minutes to get action from the stewards on Wikipedia (where there are thousands of people watching at any given moment)... -- SB_Johnny | talk 18:46, 29 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Ya, removing the availability of the tools from inactive people just makes good sense. --dark lama  19:00, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
 * No, it doesn't. This is a perennial suggestion, and it is a bad one.  I won't re-tread ground that has been trod many times before, merely suggest that you read the past discussions across several projects where this idea has been repeatedly mooted and repeatedly rejected.  Knne-jerk reactions to the Robdurbar case are unwise.  There have been, in all the years that I've been involved in the Wikimedia Foundation projects, exactly two cases of administrators (in the English projects) going on a rampage and deleting the main page.  Incidents that are that rare are not sound justifications for any arguments for change. Uncle G 15:17, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
 * The Robdurbar incident is not justification for our administrators policy, but it does confirm a threat that some people had worried about. The possibility of a rogue admin was actually one of the smallest and least-weighty arguments used to justify the de-adminship of inactive admins. I would suggest that you should read the discussions we've had around here where this topic has been repeatedly raised and confirmed. Other projects, while an interesting case study, are not wikibooks and we should not be bound to do things the way other people do. In fact, in many instances it is a benefit for us not to follow the lead of other projects. --Whiteknight (talk) 15:22, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Its not a suggestion, its an opinion, because it happens to be current Wikibooks policy to remove the tools from inactive admins. I believe SB_Johnny mentioned this not in response to the Robdurbar incident, but rather mentioned the Robdurbar incident in response to comments on the RFA page when an admin is nominated for deadminship due to inactivity. --dark lama  22:08, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I have to agree with Uncle G. Robdurbar had indicated on his talk page that he was leaving the project yet nobody desysoped him.  Also he was only inactive for about a month before he went on his rampage so wouldn't be covered by our de-sysop policy anyway - do we seriously want to remove sysop powers from people who haven't used them for a month?  The chances of this kind of thing happening are very slim and changes would be quickly spotted and reverted by our eagle-eyed RC patrollers.  Not worth worrying about. Xania [[Image:Flag_of_Italy.svg|15px]]talk 00:24, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

(reset) It wasn't all that long ago that one of our admins was forcably desysopped on Wikipedia, and ran some sort of rollback bot here afterwards (he's since disappeared again), so I don't see this sort of thing as quite so remote a possibility. We're working on a rather different version of an "inactive admin" policy on commons (discussion), which uses a 6 month window instead, but will likely involve just asking the missing admin whether they still want the tools, instead of making a desysop request on the RFA page. If that gets enacted and works out better than our policy, we might want to think about adopting it. -- SB_Johnny | talk 14:09, 5 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I definitely disagree with just asking the admin if they want the tools or not. If they're really gone they won't respond, but a casual browser yet not really active admin can just as well say "I'd like to keep them" and I think that makes the tools like a trophy and the policy won't be effective. This rogue admin issue shows an interesting yet somewhat irrelevant issue; we de-sysop admins here almost entirely (entirely really since we haven't had this issue before) because we believe the admin won't understand how things work after a year of absence, not because we think they'll want to cause harm to the project. If you're gone for a year, it is almost guaranteed that you are quite out of date on how to enforce policy for one. This is protection from book quality and community interaction issues, not vandalism ones. -within focus 15:06, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

WMF Privacy Policy Resolution
Kat Walsh posted a message to foundation-l that has some impact for some of our users, specifically the checkusers. I dont know yet what the full effects of this will be, but Kat says we can contact User:Bastique with questions. The text of the foundation-l message is:
 * The Wikimedia Foundation has passed a resolution requiring all users with access to non-public data covered by the site's Privacy Policy to provide identification to the Foundation. This includes checkusers, oversights, stewards, and volunteers on OTRS. In addition, all users holding these positions must be 18 or older, and also of the age of majority in whichever jurisdiction they live in.

The link to the text of the resolution is here:
 * http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Access_to_nonpublic_data

Just a heads up, I dont know right now what needs to be done. --Whiteknight (talk) 02:12, 1 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Based on what I'm reading from the Foundation-l discussion (and from the policy), the main thing is that people with checkuser status must provide "identification" in the form of your true legal name and some basic contact information. In other words, you can't be anonymous and have checkuser status (or some of the other positions within the WMF heirarchy that deal with personal information).  I think in this aspect, it isn't a bad policy and something that should have been done earlier.


 * I still think the concerns about what a checkuser actually does is overstated, and there really isn't any real damage that can be done by somebody "abusing" the checkuser privileges, but I've made that argument elsewere. The main gist of the privacy policy is mostly that the WMF can't be held liable for accidental disclosure of private data, even though they (the WMF) agrees that they will try to take reasonable technical steps to make sure it doesn't happen.  --Rob Horning 19:06, 2 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Just so everyone knows: this does not mean that Checkuser operators' personal information will be made public... they just want to have our names on file for office use. I asked, and was answered :). -- SB_Johnny | talk 23:49, 2 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Right, a checkuser can still be anonymous, but the WMF will have a file somewhere, locked away, with your real name on it. --Whiteknight (talk)


 * Also bear in mind that Wikimedia is based in the United States where protection of data laws are less strict than in the European Union and other countries. Xania [[Image:Flag_of_Italy.svg|15px]]talk 20:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Hm, where should I send all this data? To info@wikimedia e-mail or is there any specific address? --Derbeth talk 20:18, 3 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I dont know yet, in fact I dont know exactly yet what information they need. I have to talk to User:Bastique about it, because eventually he is going to be the one collecting the information. --Whiteknight (talk) 23:07, 3 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Bastique specifically asked that no-one send him any mail about this until they work out the details. Keep an eye on checkuser-l for further updates (if you're not on the list, get in touch with Bastique on IRC or via email). -- SB_Johnny | talk 15:55, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Class project maybe
Heads up really - variations on How to make a good book for children?. I deleted two yesterday leaving one and overnight (to me) three more have turned up! Ideas on how to deal with it (different contributors)? -- Herby talk thyme 07:32, 4 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Eh, links? -- SB_Johnny | talk 12:25, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
 * How to Write a Good Book for Children, How to write good books for children? + the one above plus two deleted yesterday del log -- Herby talk thyme 12:44, 4 May 2007 (UTC)


 * You know, we really need a welcome template that queries people on this... I think I'll make one. That 2nd link actually has a few contributors, all with redlink talk pages (hint, hint).-- SB_Johnny | talk 12:53, 4 May 2007 (UTC)


 * OK, done... see Welcome-cp. Use to try and find more information. It needs some finessing, but will do the job for now.-- SB_Johnny  | talk 13:03, 4 May 2007 (UTC)


 * And I was making a DupEffort template at the same time. Usage is . --dark  lama  13:21, 4 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Oh jeez... did you have to make that so scary looking? -- SB_Johnny | talk 13:25, 4 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I changed it, hopefully a lot less scary looking. --dark lama  14:09, 4 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Sounds good... probably use that one too for the 2 contributors who made the dups. The one I made probably needs to be split into two actually, because there were also IP contributors and it would be nice to have the cp message below the joinus template for those cases. -- SB_Johnny | talk 13:24, 4 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Instead of trying to combine it with a welcome message, why not let the message be independent of the welcome message and let people include it when its needed? --dark lama  14:09, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Please pick strong passwords
You may know now that five sysopped accounts at the English-language Wikipedia have been comprimised or gone-rogued in since April 19: w:User:Robdurbar, w:User:AndyZ, w:User:Jiang, w:User:Conscious and w:User:Marine 69-71, the last two within a half-hour of each other. The first four seemed to have weak passwords (the fifth is happening right now, so I have no info): one was "password" (confirmed by an admin who logged in and scrambled the password and e-mail address), another "password!" and another "fuck you!" (confirmed by the blocked user on his or her talk page). Please, everyone, but especially administrators, use a strong password! See password strength, http://www.google.com/search?q=strong+password and anything to give you ideas: use a mnemonic device, use alphanumeric characters, choose a random string, make it eight characters or longer, use non-Latin characters, just make it difficult to brute-force break and make sure it isn't something that would show up on Google. I may seem alarmist, I just hope that this does not come to Wikibooks; if it does, we need to be prepared. It is common sense that many people (including myself) do not think of. --Iamunknown 18:59, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I had been using a password that I thought was "pretty good", but have since upgraded to a password that is nearly 20 characters long of mixed alpha-numeric characters. using the word "password" as your password should really be unacceptable. --Whiteknight (talk) 20:22, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


 * PS I've read on the checkuser-l mailing list that Brion is going to run some kind of a password cracker utility to identify weak passwords. I do not know what the result of that will be, but there could possibly be some consequence for people who have passwords that are easy to crack. I don't know when he will do this, what cracking algorithm he will use, or what the consequences will be. Either way, it would be a good idea to beef up just in case. --Whiteknight (talk) 20:33, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I read that too, but only in the context of the English-language Wikipedia. Maybe we can get him to scan our passwords too?  --Iamunknown 21:28, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


 * What is the point? If you have a weak password chances are you don't know better or just don't care, the only purpose would be to get some statistical info (to know how users go about it), in any case publishing information on that would probably weaken the security of users. --Panic 02:41, 8 May 2007 (UTC)


 * The point is that people who have weak passwords will be disabled until the password improves. If you have a stupid password, such as "password", you are a security risk and should be banned from being an admin. They are talking about de-sysoping people until they make good passwords. --Whiteknight (talk) 02:45, 8 May 2007 (UTC)


 * A better solution would be having a check included into the Wikimedia software that reports the "level" of the password to the users as they sign in (even remembering users to change it from time to time or if a number of failed logins is detected), and blocks users with administrative flags and weak passwords, on the security point a check should also be made to any user with administrative flags (even bots) for the validity and existence of an email.
 * But again what is the point of asking for a test (like the one Brion proposes to do) to be done on Wikibooks? (Does  User:Iamunknown propose an "attack" to each administrator's account (+-36) ?)  --Panic 03:21, 8 May 2007 (UTC)


 * The point is that we would then be aware that our passwords are weak before our accounts are maliciously comprimised. --Iamunknown 07:05, 8 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Brion has proposed that the software will not allow weak passwords. This means that when you create a new password, or when you change your password, the software will not accept a weak password. However, this doesnt do anything for the people who already have weak passwords. The point of asking for a password test from Brion is to identify those accounts with weak passwords and to disable them before they are compromised. This isn't an issue for most users, but it is of supreme importance for people like checkusers (who have access to private information), and bureaucrats (who could create an army of bot-admins to go on a deletion spree). --Whiteknight (talk) 12:47, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Errr - maybe put Stewards in that list!! And yes I've changed mine (tho they were not "weak") on sysop rights wikis -- Herby talk thyme 12:54, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Please keep an eye out...
The Universe Made Simple has recently recieved some work from an IP user, however the "chapters" are just links to wikipedia articles. I left the user a note, but just in case it's a dynamic IP, please monitor WB:RFI for any requests. I'm actually wondering if I shouldn't just import all the pages anyway, but I really don't have time to dewikify them now (real life has me busy). -- SB_Johnny | talk 23:02, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Main Page protected
I switched the protection for the main page from autoconfirmed to sysop only, as (I was shocked to find) it had been blanked and made silly. I realize that some might find it troubling that non-sysops can't edit this page, but I'd urge keeping full protection indefinitely.-- SB_Johnny | talk 17:33, 10 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree, but with the mention that there is plenty of opportunity for non-sysops to propose changes and corrections on the relevant discussion pages. --Whiteknight (talk) 18:00, 10 May 2007 (UTC)


 * It's funny, but I thought we were sort of doing that already (there is at least one "alternate version subpage" floating about. But yes, of course... maybe we can make a nice box at the top of the talk page explaining it.-- SB_Johnny | talk 18:43, 10 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I had a look at what Bfriend did - if there ever was any need for proof that main page need to be protected that's it. --Krischik T 08:34, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry
No time but watch RC - couple of strange new ones around. Block log, upload log & the computer smashing one is on Meta as well I think  -- Herby talk thyme 20:22, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Copyright violation or public domain?
Could other admins please take a look at THE PRIMARY CLASSICAL LANGUAGE OF THE WORLD. The book says it is a copy of a book thats been nationalized, and someone believes it would be better suited for Wikisource. However I'm concerned that nationalized books may still be copyrighted, making this book a copyright violation on Wikibooks and not a public domain book suitable for Wikisource. Someone I queried about it, pointed out to me that Tamils are a breakaway movement and not officially a government, and are unsure whether or not nationalized means public domain in this case. --dark lama  18:00, 27 May 2007 (UTC)


 * It is my opinion on it is that the book should not be marked as a copyright violation but information requested from the editor and information be given that it should be moved to Wikisource if possible. In any case if no information is provided we as a community can be pro active and and mark it for VfD.
 * One may also note that:
 * The book on Wikibooks isn't complete.
 * It seems to be a conversion of this printed book ( should go into Wikisource if license is found valid )
 * Madras is in India, couldn't find any reference to Tamils (besides the topic of the work and as part of Indian culture/society and state).
 * Nationalized in general terms means it belongs to the state not in the public domain.
 * It seems it mentions compensations to the authors and heirs, since we don't know the background of that agreement or what rights were transfered, it falls to the rights holder to provide information or request the pull down of the work.
 * The book was printed in 1966 in India so Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works seems to be applicable, and depending on local copyright laws that extend it, the copyright is valid for 50 years after the authors death (Devaneya Pavanar died in January 15, 1981).
 * --Panic 18:52, 27 May 2007 (UTC)


 * This has nothing to do with the Tamil separatists (from Sri Lanka). Tamil is mentioned because the works were nationalized by the Government of Tamil Nadu which is a region of India.  If this is true then what's the problem?  Unless someone complains or we have significant concerns about commercial copyrights then leave things as they are.  Nobody would ever sue for copyright violation - all they would do is send out a request to remove the material.  Xania [[Image:Flag_of_Italy.svg|15px]]talk 19:28, 27 May 2007 (UTC)


 * The problem is its a copy of a printed book, thats nationalized, making it possibly the property of a government, which means it can't be distributed under the GFDL or considered public domain, unless the government has given permission to do so. I'm concerned that unless permission was given, that it violates Wikibook's copyright policy and as someone has suggested that it be transwikied to Wikisource, may not be appropriate for Wikisource either. Regardless of whether or not anyone would ever sue for copyright violation, I think Wikibooks needs to enforce its own policy of removing books that are in copyright violation, otherwise there is no point in having such a policy. My question here is, what is the status of this book? Is it copyrighted? Is it PD? I think its important to figure it out, before saying that it is a copyright violation or that its PD. --<font color="midnightblue">dark lama  19:55, 27 May 2007 (UTC)


 * The primary editor appears to be User:Acrajan, I left him a message a while ago suggesting wikisource as an alternative since it appears to be a source text, I too however am unsure of the copyright status of government works in India (I know not all governments release their works to PD like the US one does). By age, it definitely wouldn't be PD as Panic said. Mattb112885 (talk) 19:37, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Project+
I'm very tempted to speedy delete this page, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for the next little bit to see just where this page might go. I'm listing it here to bring this to the attention of other admins, just in case this project subsequently gets re-created later. As all of the edits have been done by one throw-away user account and subsequently by a single anon ip user, I think it is a waste of my time to use the user talk pages to try and communicate to this user except perhaps on the talk page.

I marked this page for a speedy delete candidate, but there is a nagging doubt in the back of my mind that this template is going to remain on the module. I do genuinely want to give this user a chance to try a legitimate contribution to Wikibooks, but this doesn't seem to be anything other than some class notes by a student. --Rob Horning 01:04, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not excited about the title, but as it stands it's an good outline for a book on business project management. Such a book would be well within the scope of Wikibooks, so I guess I disagree with the speedy. -- xixtas talk 02:59, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll refrain for now but I noticed it when it arrived and feel like Robert about it. -- Herby talk thyme 08:48, 28 May 2007 (UTC)


 * In case folk miss it Talk:Project+. Helps convince me ... that deletion would be correct, but then it is only my opinion -- Herby  talk thyme 14:48, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I know I'm Feeding the Troll here, but I did respond, and this looks like somebody who may cause problems in the future for Wikibooks. Still, I'm willing to wait and see what he is going to do next.  This individual (with yet another IP address) claims that this is the outline of a book even though I do have my doubts.  I seriously doubt that he is that new to wikis as he claims, although he may be new to Wikimedia projects.  --Rob Horning 23:28, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I think i have to disagree with the speedy nomination here. Project+ is a regular CompTIA certification, and we have other books on other related tests (such as A+ Certification and Network Plus Certification). Just because the book is currently an outline does not mean that it is intended to be an outline. According to the deletion policy a book should not even be nominated for speedy deletion for seven days, and the rationale for that (at least in my mind) is to give a book a "grace period" to reach an acceptable level before we start declaring the book to be hopeless. Timeframes aside, many books start life as a simple outline, and from there they tend to progress to something similar to a macropedia, and then they become more cohesive as a regular book. Especially if the book is young and has a regular contributor working on it, there is no reason to suspect that the book will not attain a higher level of quality as time passes. I agree that there is a certain amount of belligerence from this editor, but I imagine anybody would be a little upset if their new book were nominated for deletion for reasons that they don't understand. If there was an active contributor who disagreed with the nomination, it should have been put on VfD instead of being a speedy anyway. The fact that the user has used multiple IP addresses, or has not signed in for every edit is an inconsequential detail, in my eyes. Without some suspicion of malice (we are assuming good faith here) the decision to use or not use a particular account name, or the use of multiple IP addresses (or a single endpoint with a dynamic address) is simply nothing to worry about. I'm going to remove the speedy tag for now (nominations that are contested should always become VfDs instead) and send a message on that talk page warning everybody to be civil to each other. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:52, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Glossary style
Is there a style for glossary entries in wikibooks (particularly in wikijunior)? I have not been able to find a style citation and it seems to be being handled inconsistently. Is there a reason that gloosary words in context are not generally linked to the glossary entry itself? I am new to wikibooks, so thanks for the pointer if this is already documented somewhere. Kfasimpaur 17:34, 28 May 2007 (UTC)


 * In general there is no consistant style for anything here at wikibooks. It's up to the authors of the book to determine the style of that book. However, Wikijunior generally does have more guidelines as to style then ordinary books do. You can ask at Talk:Wikijunior, for help in general, or you can probably get a response from User:Xixtas who is a bit of an authority at wikijunior. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:20, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Just curious...is the lack of consistent style by design or default? Kfasimpaur 00:30, 30 May 2007 (UTC) Talk

"Keepin' it real"
WB:AN has become a very useful tool for us, but I strongly feel that it should be used only for administrative discussion, rather than policy discussion or technical inquiries. Topics such as the one above this one should be kindly and gently redirected to the appropriate staff lounge page, because if we allow it to become a habit to always just ask the admins (rather than asking the community on the SL), we really will end up with a cabal.

So I propose the following informal guideline:


 * The Administrator's Noticeboard should be used only as a way for users to alert administrators about things that require the use of admin tools, and/or for administrators to alert one another of problems that they have found that might require the use of admin tools. If a user (admin or otherwise) brings something up here that doesn't fall under that description, it chould be redirected to the proper Staff Lounge page.

Remember: administrators are just trusted users who have access to a few extra buttons. We are not --and should never be-- official representatives of the community and/or members of the "executive branch" of a government. WK was only doing what's natural to him by responding to that question (i.e., he was helping someone who asked for help), but as much as we might joke about "the cabal" in private, we really do need to be careful to avoid making "the cabal" into a real entity, because on a project as small as ours it could happen without anyone trying to make it happen. Let's please restrict this noticeboard to discussions about maintenance problems that need admin tools to fix them... allowing this page to be used for other purposes is a very dangerous proposition. -- SB_Johnny | talk 01:49, 29 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree entirely, this isn't the proper place for those kinds of questions. When it came down to it though, it would have taken me twice as much effort to redirect to the staff lounge, explain why i redirected, and then to answer his question. If we have a notice written nice and big at the top of this page, We won't need to do any explanations about it. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 02:39, 29 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with you both (I know this is getting redundant :-P). Leave a notice at the top of the page, but don't necessarily strictly enforce it.  --Iamunknown 05:48, 29 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I would generally agree that this should be either a direct contact page for something that needs to have the attention of an administrator, or something of concern that would require the use of administrator tools in order to resolve the issue at some point. At the same time, I've seen the administrator forum on Wikipedia sometimes go way off topic and get into some policy issues as well, so we aren't alone with this sort of issue.  Rather than trying to get so formal, I would suggest something like this:


 * The Administrator's Noticeboard is a tool for users to alert administrators that may require some special actions not normally used during regular content editing. Also be aware that administrators are usually quite busy with either their own projects or trying to perform general maintenance and cleanup, so posting a message here may not get the attention that it deserves.  For more general questions, you would be better off using Staff Lounge page, or perhaps even the Study Help Desk.


 * I think this gives a more positive tone, and while it doesn't explicitly prohibit such messages it does give the idea that such postings are strongly discouraged, and a place to make such requests. This also implies that you shouldn't feel so hyper motivated as an admin to answer such general questions that do come up on this page...aka if we take some time to respond here as opposed to a similar question on the Staff Lounge, it would also get the message across that they really should be answered in a more general forum rather than here.  We all, as administrators (or you wouldn't be doing this), want to be generally helpful and take care of lost users who can't figure out what is going on.  I'm suggesting we just need to relax a bit and don't take this quite so seriously.


 * Perhaps as a suggestion as well is to not even answer these kind of questions here. Now this is just a stylistic point (and shouldn't be policy) but if you wrote something like This question is answered at WB:SL, perhaps that would also get the point across.  What we don't want this page to become is another version of the Staff Lounge, and likely to get a faster response due to the fact that admins make this a high priority page to resolve issues that are brought up here.  --Rob Horning 12:49, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Unlicensed images
Looking in corners again! Category:Images with unknown copyright status has quite a lot of unlicensed images with many tagged since the beginning of the year - given policy/legality I think this is something that should be tackled. I have made a start. -- Herby talk thyme 09:23, 29 May 2007 (UTC)


 * The images that have been tagged for some time will have been vetted by a few of us (at least me and Iamunknown) for obvious screen shots, own work, etc. so probably safe to delete. If you notice any newly tagged ones, please leave there and we'll check them out in due course. Webaware talk 10:26, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
 * The ones I've done are (mostly) unlinked and April or prior. I'm happy with caution but if we leave it it will take some catching up.  Thanks -- Herby  talk thyme 10:33, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Robots
I see that the robots.txt file previously had: but this seems to have since been commented out. I looked through some archives, and tried searching. Is it wiki-acceptable to exclude pages such as User: and User_talk: from search engines and the internet archiver? If so, how?
 * 1) Don't allow the wayback-maschine to index user-pages
 * 2) User-agent: ia_archiver
 * 3) Disallow: /wiki/User
 * 4) Disallow: /wiki/Benutzer

Thanks. LWan98 16:37, 29 May 2007 (UTC)


 * This is an interesting policy question. I'm not entirely sure if user pages ought to be searched or not.  There are some precious gems that do pop up in user pages (and even user talk pages), and I think that one of the motivations behind "commenting out" something like this on a robots file is that it would allow the "Internet Archive" and a few other archival services to be able to store this information in their files.  And keep in mind that some very important legal information, such as content licensing terms explicitly mentioned on user pages or a person's real name (needed for some copyright legal actions) can also be found on a user page.  From this perspective, the user pages are not only a good thing, but legally required if you are archiving content from Wikimedia projects.


 * Because of the legal aspects (both privacy and copyright issues), I think I would rather have this decided by the Wikimedia legal advisory group (there used to be a Legal-l list, but I can't seem to find it any more). Brad Patrick was running that group, but I don't know what has happened since his resignation.  --Rob Horning 13:06, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Can someone else check this
Talk page note suggested that this pdf doesn't "work" - Image:European History.pdf? It doesn't for me but as it is linked in quite a few places I'd rather someone else checked before any deletion is made. Thanks -- Herby talk thyme 11:34, 30 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Must of been some sort of bug. The 2nd edition wasn't working for me either, when I tried multiple times. I reverted to the 1st edition, since it was working for me. I then checked one more time to see if the 2nd edition would work and it worked this time, so I reverted again and now the 2nd edition is working fine for me now as the main link. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  13:12, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Odd & thanks Darklama, regards -- Herby talk thyme 14:41, 30 May 2007 (UTC)