User talk:Robert Horning

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Contents 1 Welcome 2 Speedy delete; Travels with Charlie 3 response 4 The mention you made of StrategyWiki in the Wikibooks article seems a bit harsh... 5 Huge text inserts on how-to template 6 People to People Student Ambassador Program 7 re: Bear River Expedition and Bear River Massacre 8 People to People 9 Wikipedia talk:Fair use 10 Talk of publishing Wikipedia FAs 11 Wikibooks 12 Thank You 13 Something I Wrote

[edit] Welcome

Welcome! (We can't say that loud/big enough!)

Here are a few links you might find helpful:

• Be Bold!
• Don't let grumpy users scare you off.
• Meet other new users
• Learn from others
• Play nice with others
• Contribute, Contribute, Contribute!
• Tell us about you

If you have any questions or problems, no matter what they are, leave me a message on my talk page.

We're so glad you're here! -- Essjay · Talk 11:49, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

Hey Robert, you're welcome (in the other sense of welcome). That definately sounds like a long and thankless task; I spend most of my time contributing to theology articles (I'm a theology professor), fighting vandals on Recent Changes, or welcoming new users. I'm glad to see you're here and doing good work. If you need any help, just let me know. -- Essjay · Talk 12:04, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Speedy delete; Travels with Charlie

That sounds like a pretty drastic action for something that has involved numerous editors and is not a clear cut case; I'd ask that you give this an opportunity for community input and consensus and explanation; I don't see a discussion or rational page/section for the deletion request. -- Stbalbach 21:18, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] response

I left a response re: wikibooks and Travels with Charley on my talk page. ⇒ SWATJester ^Ready Aim _Fire! 01:08, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The mention you made of StrategyWiki in the Wikibooks article seems a bit harsh...

Hi Robert, I'm the guy who runs the StrategyWiki server. I'm wondering where you got the notion that StrategyWiki was relicensing to Creative Commons; I can attest that we have no intentions of doing that. While we are discussing the possibility of relicensing to a license that grants more freedom of use than the GFDL or Creative Commons, we have not yet done so. (Our reasons for relicensing are many; one instance is that publishing GFDL content is very prohibitive as it requires the full text of the license to be distributed. You can read my thoughts on the matter, as I have researched licensing issues quite thoroughly.)

Nevertheless, as I stated before, all guides on StrategyWiki are currently GFDL-licensed and they are even implicitly marked with GFDL license tags meaning that they are not available under any other alternative license--we are absolutely dedicated to comply with the terms of the GFDL! Even if StrategyWiki is relicensed in the future, we will make it clear that Wikibooks guides and contributions to them are to remain exclusively GFDL licensed.

As for server outages, we are now located on a dedicated server. Though we may have experienced infrequent outages in the past, I can assure you that these will become less and less prevalent as we continue to make the move onward to one or more colocated webservers, which we intend to buy in the future for our open media gaming organization. (You can read more about our plans and goals on StrategyWiki.)

I do not see why you argue that StrategyWiki is an "[un]safe place for the content". We began StrategyWiki long before a decision was ever made to remove strategy guides from Wikibooks, and I must admit that even I was only mildly aware of the existance of strategy guides on Wikibooks until the matter came to me directly when Jimbo wanted them removed. All of the Wikibooks authors I have spoken to thus far are fine with StrategyWiki, and if there are any that have problems, I would love to hear from them so that I can listen to whatever their concerns may be.

Robert, if you yourself have any specific concerns you would like addressed, I invite you to discuss them with us; feel free to ask me whatever you like. Perhaps you can come to an understanding of our mission, which is and will always be providing open content strategy guides to the masses. Cheers! echelon ^talk 04:48, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

this isn't anything personal against Strategy Wiki, which is a fine project of itself. I'll try to address the license issues, but the fact is that if you don't continue to use the GFDL for content from Wikibooks, you are in violation of the terms of the GFDL and instead you simply must delete the content. I'll try to get into specifics on the community issues page, but you are attempting here to second guess some outstanding legal thought by trying to relicense content that you can't prove copyright on.

As far as the reliability issues, you aren't a part of the Wikimedia Foundation and you can't say that you have as stable of an organization including financial support to maintain the servers you are using for that wiki. I'm not saying that the Wikimedia Foundation is rock solid either, but it is an independent wiki that may or may not be available in a few years. Of course I can't say with certainty that the WMF will be around in a few years either. --Robert Horning 16:23, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I think I understand where you're coming from now, so I will try to clarify my position: We are not attempting to relicense Wikibooks content. We at StrategyWiki understand that Wikibooks content is licensed exclusively under the terms of the GFDL, so please understand that we are not trying to change the license of this content in any way. What we are trying to relicense is original StrategyWiki content, because we have created a great deal of material both before and after the migration of Wikibooks content to us. This guide is one example of original StrategyWiki content (that I largely edited myself), and since most of our original submitters are still working at StrategyWiki, we have all agreed that the problems with the GFDL are something we want to phase out. To that end, are trying to relicense only our own guides. Note that all guides are currently tagged with this template (I just updated the category for clarification). If and when we do change to another license, I know that we will require even more verbose text to clarify this issue on the license, copyrights, and submissions pages themselves.

On the issue of server stability, fair enough. :) echelon ^talk 20:57, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm still curious how you are going to pull this one off legally. I can imagine a dozen scenerios about how GFDL content is going to cause all kinds of problems for you if you try to mix a license similar to CC-by-SA (I know it is not exactly what you are using, but it is similar) and the GFDL. Certainly at a minimum it would have to be on seperate name spaces in terms of administration, and you have to make extra sure that people who use GFDL content know that it is going to "eat up" any non-GFDL content if it gets mixed together. The reason why Wikinews was able to pull off a relicensing is because it was originally public domain, and you didn't have the nasty legal issues, as you can take public domain content and "re-license" it to whatever you want. This is a huge issue for people who are starting Wikis and think they can quickly switch licenses part-way down the development path.

This is also going to preclude any future "contributions" from Wikibooks if this change occurs, or you are going to have one huge legal mess to sort out as time goes on here. I understand that your intentions are to make only new and original content on your Wiki to be specifically for the new license, but it isn't going to be as easy as you think. The GFDL was written specifcally so you couldn't "phase out" any problems. I'm just noting that you are in for a mess if you don't simply delete all of the GFDL content.

More to the point, if you can't use the content under the GFDL, you simply can't use it. Period. That is the way the GFDL was written, and that was deliberate when it was written by the Free Software Foundation. Even future contributions to GFDL content must also be released under the GFDL. And generally you can't combine content with licenses other than the GFDL. --Robert Horning 03:47, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

After further consideration, we've decided to keep StrategyWiki under the GFDL. Though our community is still mixed about some of the restrictions the GFDL imposes, we do not see any currently viable way to fix it without restarting the Wiki, and that is not something we want to do; a GFDL wiki with many articles is better than an empty wiki, because in the end it's the content that matters. Your advice was very helpful in making this decision. Thanks! echelon ^talk 23:34, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I find it unfortunate that there have been some problems with relicensing your Wiki, although I have to agree with the results of what you had to deal with here. There are been a number of complaints about the GFDL, and as the Wikimedia Foundation gets more into printed materials (physical printing of GFDL), I think some of these issues will play out more. Electronic copies of documents aren't nearly so difficult of a problem with the GFDL, mainly as distributing the GFDL license itself electronically is trivial. Printed materials it is a huge deal because it is about 5-10 pages (depending on point size and other issues not in the GFDL) adds some substantial real costs, particularly for very small works that are only a few pages long, like a Wikipedia article. BTW, there is a request for comments by the FSF regarding the GFDL, and legitimate complaints are listened to. I hope my #1 issue regarding incompatability between the GFDL and GPL is also dealt with eventually.

[edit] Huge text inserts on how-to template

The how-to template has originally been used on articles that have only such minor how-to sections that transwiki:in has not been really considered. If there really needs to be a template with such great content, this template is most probably inappropriate for that, due to the way that the template has been used historically. I'll remove all references to wikibooks from the template in order to keep it concise.

Really, conciceness has to be considered when editing message boxes. I'm moving most of the text to the talk page, where you can recycle it for any/all other message boxes you might want to create.

I would hope that in the future how-to template would suggest re-editing only, whereas other templates may be created that may suggest alternative courses of action. Santtus 11:48, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I understand your concern about the situation in Wikibooks, which is why I wanted to include some information on Moving in the message box. Maybe we could have included a sentence in the message box, "See also discussion on alternate possibilities" or similar. On that page, moving to wikibooks could be discussed in greater detail. That page would have an introduction on the issue, recommendations and such. Santtus 13:06, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] People to People Student Ambassador Program

Hey Robert, regarding People to People - this isn't a scam - the students do typically have a fantastic time, but in reality - it's not much more than a teen/pre-teen vacation package that was presented as an "academic honor". In fact, there is a high probability that NO ONE "nominated" the student - they use a mailing list of students they get from an external source, and there's a company that is "fronting" People to People that actually coordinates these trips that is a "for profit" company. The trips average about $5,000. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.158.127.245 (talk • contribs).

The more I dig into it, the more it sounds like a scam to me. Not all scams take all of your money without giving you anything in return. The dishonesty in how it becomes an "academic honor" and the lack of being up front about the typical costs of the program are mainly what is disturbing to me, as you are pointing out. I am being told about the costs, but very 3rd hand knowledge, as you have pointed out. I have yet to get anything "official" from the P2P program itself, although I'm sure it will eventually be brought up in the formal sales presentation. At this point I'm not sure if I intend to go to that meeting (which I did sign up for). This is nothing more than a for profit travel agency, even though at one time I believe that Pres. Eisenhower did intend to make it into something more egalitarian and to do some actual good in the world.

If this were a very special and select group of kids going on travel abroad trips to destinations around the world... particularly not English-speaking areas but locations of substantially different cultural background such as the People's Republic of China, Russia, Jordan, or Egypt, I might believe this to be something valid. Of course there is danger in sending students to countries that are potential "enemies" of the USA, just as there are dangers in sending real ambassadors to these parts of the world. That is why they are called "ambassadors", which is a much abused word by the People to People group. These kids are not ambassadors in any way or sense of the word, but merely rowdy citizens that would help push sterotypical views abroad of what Americans are really like.

Travel abroad is a good and worthy thing to do for children in terms of exposing them to other cultures and to let them know what is special and unique to the United States of America, and perhaps to see areas that we need to work on as a people. I just fail to see why this program is any special or unique to any other study abroad program, of which this is merely one more way to seperate money from parents who in many cases can't afford this type of trip. My edits of the program page are to help notify those who want to learn more about the program to learn about it from a more balanced perspective. --Robert Horning 16:00, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

About travel to countries like Russia, China, etc., there actually use to be trips to those countries. In the Cold War, People to People actually sent American students to the USSR. Likewise, I remember People to People sent me a letter to Africa and another for Egypt.

Unfortunately, these trips got cancelled because parents are reluctant to send their children to such countries. When I first started, they had trips to Africa, Japan, Europe, Australia, and a few other places. Because of world conditions and such, now People to People pretty much caters to Australia, NZ, and the UK. It's been a while since I've checked the site. Just saying, People to People did have your idea but most parents aren't too keen about sending their kids to countries like you mentioned. --Champthom 21:02, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Hello, Robert. Here is the latest that I found out about People to People.

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/09/people2people.html

Student Travel Service Still Misleading Parents Students "Recommended" for Study Abroad? Not Quite

September 12, 2006

--Jean 10:20, 14 September 2006 (PST)

I actually wrote this on the talk page of the PTP article, but then I realized I could just look at it here. So here goes:

I did People to People twice - once to Southern Europe, and once to Australia.

It's definately not a scam - they really will take your son on a trip to wherever, and the delegation leaders are teachers who know what they're doing.

To be fair though, it's not quite what the presentation says. The presentations typically will say how your child isn't just a "tourist," they're a "student ambassador" and they get treated as such. Really, they're just another tourst, just with a glitzy name. You don't really get special treatment, it's just being a group of tourists with an important sounding name. Likewise, they do offer high school credit and college credit, but my high school refused to accept the high school credit I got out of the program. Furthermore, they like to say how it'll help get your child into college. Frankly, most colleges have no idea who People to People are. Most colleges were interested in the fact I did stuff like JROTC and that I was an Eagle Scout than I went with People to People. It came up only once in a scholarship interview and the woman asked "Are you the ones who go around singing?"

As for your problem with the cost, it's odd they didn't mention it. I actually went to the presentations to speak for at least 5 years and they usually guide the parents through the booklet they give out on the cost of the program. Remember, too, that you can fundraise for this. As for the $5,000 cost - yes, it is a lot but it's essentially the same as if you went on a 3 week tour with any other group. It's food, lodging, transportation, and activities are paid, not to mention there's a tour guide and at least 2-3 delegation leaders to keep the students in line.

I just want to comment that this article is pretty good. I was not aware of the recent problems over the nomination process (I think it was a year after I went to Australia that they started to tell people that they did get names from national databases). I think it captures a pretty good NPOV.

They're not out to con anyone. I remember my mom thought the same thing when I first got the letter. However, in reality, it's really more of a glorified tour group than it is a program of international goodwill. That's just what this alumni thinks. --Champthom 20:56, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. Most of what you have said fits with what I have read as well, and I want to make it clear that I don't have a specific axe to grind against this program, so far as it is a chance for kids to learn about other countires through a travel experience. To claim that this is anything else is where I believe the fraud comes in, and implications of ties to the U.S. Government and that it is somehow "special" over any other similar type of program. All the rest is merely posturing and marketing.

As for the cost in particular, I don't have a problem with it either. Just that some families of limited means are pressured through high pressure sales tactics to come up with that kind of money because this is some kind of special "honor", which it isn't. When that happens, I put this just marginally above the Nigerian 419 scams in terms of trying to seperate people from their money. But if you are aware of the costs, and your family can afford to pay that kind of money, it sounds like a very reasonable thing for you to do. Just don't get caught up in the sales hype in order to make the decision to go. --Robert Horning 23:02, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Robert - I was looking up the Student Ambassador information and saw that someone had turned the whole page back into an ad for the Spokane company. I began the work of changing it back to balanced and truthful, but would appreciate it if you took a look at it. It was my first Wiki edit, and I didn't realize exactly how things worked.

I have drawn one additional conclusion from the information I have found. If you look at the third page of the download from the Iowa Attorney General's office, the copy of the letter sent to the child who had died as an infant, note that they are using letterhead of the not for profit International company. It really gives the letters a look of importance, but appears to be more scamming.

http://www.state.ia.us/government/ag/latest_news/releases/june_2006/People_to_People_letters_6_06.pdf

Hello, Robert. Here's another recent article from ConsumerAffairs on this subject:

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/09/people2people02.html

People to People "Clarifies" Its Invitation Policy, dated September 20, 2006

~Jean 9:53, 26 September 2006 (PST)

Hello again, Robert. Found this which you may find interesting:

http://www.brendastardom.com/arch.asp?ArchID=273

3-10-2003 - A PEEPHOLE into PEOPLE To PEOPLE

~Jean 12:43, 27 September 2006 (PST)

Hello, Robert. You'll find the links I'm collecting on this subject conveniently in one location here:

http://www.angelfire.com/tv2/jeanster/P2PSAP.html

People to People Student Ambassador Program - Consumer Issues

~Jean 7:50, 28 September 2006 (PST)

Hello, Robert.

I noticed that the External Link on the "Iowa Attorney General's Statement on People to People" leads to the news releases and statements instead of directly to the news release about People to People. Can that be corrected? That way visitors to this site won't have to search through the long list to find it.

~Jean 10:55, 28 September 2006 (PST)

I am not too thrilled about the current direction that the article is going, and in particular with massive reverts of some of my edits (although some of the material seems to be added back in now that I've yelled long enough). I have specifically tried to avoid editing where it might be considered an edit war, and instead am trying to vent my spleen on the talk page arguing with a noted user who is quite beligerant even with other articles. That said, I think we can get a balanced perspective here on Wikipedia, and not have to give in completely to those who would try and sanitize the article from any criticisms. --Robert Horning 19:40, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Look here:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=epax

You can see how much their key executives make. And if you click on "key statistics" it shows their profit margin.

~Jean 14:36, 29 September 2006 (PST)

Found another one:

http://www.azcentral.com/12news/consumer/articles/people-to-people-script09222006-CR.html

~Jean 14:27, 2 October 2006 (PST)

Today my boss received a notice from People to People. Essentially it was a request for $500 to help pay for a librarian's trip to South Africa in early 2007. What would my boss receive for kicking in $500 to pay for someone else's vacation trip to South Africa? Why, she'll get to be called a "Delegate". Whoop-dee-doo! My boss chucked the notice in the trash.

~Jean 14:16, 16 October 2006 (PST)

If you look here: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/travel/people_to_people.html

You will see a letter from Tracie of Niagara Falls NY (10/12/06) states that P2P informed her where they received her son's name: American Student List.

So take a lookie here at what the FTC has to say about American Student List:

http://www.ftc.gov/os/2003/01/aslcmp.htm

American Student List, LLC - Complaint

Docket No. C-4072 United States of America Before Federal Trade Commission

Jean 166.107.77.241 19:43, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/12/p2p_earl.html

Deceased Cat Invited to be Student Ambassador

By Lisa Wade McCormick ConsumerAffairs.Com

166.107.76.18 19:13, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/12/p2p_folo.html

People to People Does It Again Letter Invites Long-Dead Child to be an "Ambassador" for $5,000

By Lisa Wade McCormick ConsumerAffairs.Com

166.107.76.18 21:36, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

What Miss Manners has to say about seeking 'sponsors' for trip:

Check out Miss Manners' column that was posted in newspapers on March 2, 2007. It could very well apply to these trips:

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/local/states/california/16817877.htm

Jean172.191.9.187 19:07, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] re: Bear River Expedition and Bear River Massacre

Pretty much because they had similar names.--Kross^Talk 23:17, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] People to People

Hi!

Since the People to People Student Ambassador Program and the People to People International articles seem to have stood the test of time and are acceptable for content, NPOV, etc., what do you think of having People to People be a disambiguation page for these two? That article is not as comprehensive as either of the other two and it still seems to be a content fork, so let me know what you think. Markovich292 18:50, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

This seems like a reasonable compromise. This is already listed on P2P as disambiguation, so perhaps we need to prepare some other places as well for reasonable redirects? --Robert Horning 17:33, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Hey I noticed ont he People to People page you were confused about the program's authenticity, but if you're still unsure I can vouch for the program as my older sister travelled to Europe as a student ambassador and I've just been invited to Australia. I know a lot of first timers have said they don't believe the letters and just trash them but they are the real deal. I even knew a girl that claimed no one attended those things and everyone knew it was a scam, but it's not. Just in case you were still confused. 216.186.155.167 05:55, 10 November 2006 (UTC)Laura

Hi, Laura. If you really were truly "invited" then People to People would pay for your entire trip instead of asking you and/or your parents to come up with the several thousands of dollars to pay for it. They are trying to sell you a trip to Australia, not "invite" you to go to Australia. Just in case you were still confused. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.200.116.11 (talk • contribs).

I would have to agree on this last point here. Even if it were heavily subsidized and run completely by a non-profit company (P2P is not non-profit... part of my point here) with "scholarships" being offered to join in the tours, I might be quite a bit more sympathetic toward this program.

I'm not suggesting that travel abroad is a bad thing, but on the contrary. It is a wonderful experience. I just wish P2P was very up front about the fact that they are a for-profit foriegn travel tour group, which they are not. There are other companies involved with tour groups that are much more honest about what they do. P2P may even be the best in the "business", but it is a business none the less.

For myself, and a strong recommendation to parents who want to offer opportunities like this, I would strongly suggest that the parents themselves take their children abroad and book through a normal travel agent rather than fork out the money through this program. Especially when dealing with elementary school-aged children (like my child was when invited). Teens might be responsible enough to only need nominal chaporoniage, but 10 year olds certainly would be lost if they had to deal with serious problems in a foriegn country (like a lost passport, mistaken identity, etc.). Being there as a parent you can deal with the problems directly, and also share in the experiences building a bond between parent and child that would last a lifetime. --Robert Horning 14:35, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

People to People: How Selective Is It?

Here is an investigative report by Lisa Wade McCormick, dated November 20, 2006.

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/11/people_to_people_intro.html

166.107.73.189 20:22, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia talk:Fair use

Hi, in a recent post, you included an example of what might happen if another editor was to use Wikipedia material to which you hold the copyright in violation of the GFDL. The way you formulated the example, it can be quite feasibly read as a legal threat. This is probably not what you meant, but please consider stating the example differently anyway. —xyzzy_n 21:17, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

It is a legal threat, but a more general one and I'm not trying to direct it at any one particular person. I'll try to look over it and see if I can reword it slightly, but I'm not really all that thrilled with the behavior of the particular user and his persistant personal attacks against me.

It is also a simple matter of fact: If you misuse and violate copyright, it is a copyright violation. And the copyright holder (myself, for material I've contributed) is entitled to sue for statutory and other damages in court. --Robert Horning 21:34, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Talk of publishing Wikipedia FAs

Robert, I know you are much more familiar with the copyrights and publishing than I. You may want to take a look at Wikipedia_talk:Featured_articles#Should_we_publish_a_compilation_of_featured_articles.3F. Cheers, Iamunknown 22:42, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikibooks

You are most welcome! I'm glad that I've found a fighter, & please, ding me if you need any help. You mentioned, 'There is now a very stodgy viewpoint that a Wikibook has to have a format of so many pages...'; I feel so strongly against that; sometimes, a book CANNOT be a certain number of pages, I mean, do they intend for us to bullshit? Just to get the page requiseit? I agree with you on how Wikibooks is not just '...video game books...'; if it was so be it; There is no place for someone (can you believe it? the founder!) to say that '...nothing really serious that educational professionals would be able to use in a classroom.'. So????!!!!! Noone EVER said it was supposed to be educational! That's censorship! That's NOT FOR THE PEOPLE! Wiki is for the people! Not for some precievedauthority to prescibe what is high culture and what is not! Please, I totally support you with all the blood in my heart. If you can, rv all the deleted material; we cannot lose our culture. And most importantly, if I can help in ANY way, drop me a line.100110100 02:19, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thank You

Please direct me to the discussion; I'll try what I can do to clean this up. Do you know where we could contact inculsionists on Wikipedia, & elsewhere? Thanks.

Thanks again!100110100 02:58, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Something I Wrote

[1]

Thanks for you last reply; I'm your shoulder to cry on:-D. I don't think I have anything to say in reply though, or I'd be asking you to do even more work than you've done, which you've done a TREMENDOUS amount. Thanks. Remeber, I'll try to fight with you; just let me know.100110100 05:17, 17 March 2007 (UTC)