User talk:Geo Swan

Welcome to Wikispooks!

We're glad you came. There's lots to do.
The Community portal is probably the best place to start for new users.
If you've got a topic you're itching to write about, just dive in. If you're not sure where to start, you can introduce yourself by editing either this page or your user page. Peter P (talk) 18:43, 12 February 2014 (GMT)

The Guantanamo stuff is welcome here. I look forward to seeing it --Peter P (talk) 18:48, 12 February 2014 (GMT)

• Can I ask a couple of questions first?

First off; Until Robin arrived and apart from odd agenda-driven one-off contributions, the entire content of the site was constructed - some of it authored by me.

1. How are the bills paid?
   1. Out of my pocket. There is the occasional donation - usually anonymous but donations do not (currently) cover costs
2. How would other contributors challenge material I contributed? Do contributors have {{afd}} like discussions over deletion?
   1. Currently I would be the final arbiter - autocratic IOW. That said I am beyond ambition and keep a tight rein on my ego. ANYTHING that challenges the official narratives of power will get a fair hearing here - in fact the presumption - in the absence of concrete evidence - will ALWAYS be against official narratives.
3. How are wikistalker dealt with? I didn't have any of my wikipedia wikistalkers follow me to http://en.wikialpha.org, or http://complexoperations.org -- but who knows? My most persistent wikistalker made over 15,000 edits, that were either to material I originally contributed, or were about material I originally contributed. That wiki-id was eventually blocked for edit-warring, but it took 28 months.
   1. We haven't had any - yet.
4. Complexoperations.org used semantic wiki extension. I wonder if they are the same extension as you use here. Oddly, they did not support the {{cite}} templates. I tailed off my contributions there, because they were/are DARPA funded, and thus could not allow references to material published by WikiLeaks.
   1. Don't know the site. I'll have a look. We started using SemanticMediaWiki recently and Robin has lead on some major develpoments based on it. They are ongoing.
5. Wikialpha's owners make porting about to be deleted material from the wikipedia to their site. They hope to make a profit. They support the {{cite}} templates. They will accept all kinds of material that wasn't acceptable on the wikipedia -- including "original research". About a year ago I suggested they do as you have done, post regular archives. Contributing there is a risk, as, although the management agreed publishing archives was a good idea, they haven't done so, and all my contributions there could evaporate at a moment's notice.
   1. We are currently experiencing issues with Scribunto which is needed to run the latest iterations of the major Wikimedia templates - especially . I will try to make sure WS remains compatible with {{cite}}
6. I'd like to be fickle, and port material I wrote to multiple wikis where it is welcome.
   1. No problem whatever with that. WS mission is to make suppressed information available as widely as possible, NOT to be proprietorial or in any other way 'precious' about it.
7. What is the policy towards "fair use" images?
   1. We've hit copyright claims issues only a couple of times. In each case they were quickly resolved. There is no definitive polcy guide other than to credit where credit is due and to respect copyright but not to the point of declining 'Fair-use' as commonly understood. Having absolutely no pecuniary interest in the replication of possibly copyrighted material makes it relatively easy to demonstrate and insist on 'fair-use' relaxation of copyright.

Thanks! Geo Swan (talk) 23:35, 13 February 2014 (GMT)

Hope that's a start --Peter P (talk) 08:14, 14 February 2014 (GMT)

• OK, I ported military ranks and naval ranks, and my use of the {{cite}} template generates a "script error"... Geo Swan (talk) 00:10, 14 February 2014 (GMT)`

Assume the cite error it will be fixed for now - I'll have a root around asap --Peter P (talk) 08:14, 14 February 2014 (GMT)

Welcome

I was interested to read your observations about how Wikipedia's departure from S.O.P. in the area of Guantanamo. As Peter says, your Guantanamo material looks like it would be a welcome addition here - we have a huge gap in that area - as would be any suggestions on Problems with Wikipedia, for which I'm largely responsible. Robin (talk) 00:21, 13 February 2014 (GMT)