User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 144

To restore justice

Hello! I from Russia.

I ask to help to unblock my account

Kalash1111 Russian version

It is blocked is termless

I was in Wicca holiday. Having come on the page I found out that I am blocked forever because someone at whom style (allegedly) coincides with me, offended someone from the high-ranking administrators.

I don't bear responsibility for actions of the third parties, and even for actions of the friends who have taken me under protection, I don't bear responsibility. I offended nobody and nobody asked to offend the offenders.

My contribution to Wikipedia is 29 articles and more than 2 and a half thousand editings. I would like to double these numbers and to continue to work in Wicca.

Due to the above I ask: 1 . To unblock my account. 2 . To punish participants made this injustice.

Yours faithfully and gratitude for mutual understanding — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.208.98.7 (talk) 07:02, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

You need to post your unblock request on Обсуждение участника:Kalash1111. Удачи! Writegeist (talk) 14:19, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Comment at m:Forum? An Albanian Wikipedia article stuck in pending reviews since 2012.

Jimbo, I've found a example of an Albanian Wikipedia page stuck in pending reviews since 2012. This seems like it might be a big issue for the Wikimedia platforms site-wide. So I raised this issue at m:Forum. Maybe others here could help out with this issue there as well. Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 10:39, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

FYI, a dustup at Commons:User talk:Jimbo Wales

It appears that an IP editor asked you some questions regarding a Wikipedia editor, but Russavia has taken it upon himself to remove those posts on a claim of "harassment", then semi-protect your talk page. Tarc (talk) 03:22, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

IMO, he was fully correct to remove this posting, as it had no relation at all to Commons, but seemingly contained allegations with a clear potential of defamation or slander, if not true. If the poster is serious about this "case", he should contact WMF-legal instead of forum-shopping. --Túrelio (talk) 06:38, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

"seemingly contained allegations". It didn't actually contain any allegations so I don't think that could be defamation or slander. IRWolfie- (talk) 11:04, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Here I agree with Túrelio; that page seems to be abandoned/neglected by Jimmy. (I wish if he come back to Commons.) If that IP is serious; he can post here. JKadavoor Jee 11:26, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

The same [dis]information (at least the 1st diff is laughable "evidence") has been posted to Jimbo's page at Meta and to Sue Gardner's page on that wiki. In conjunction with the wikipediocracy post on the same topic, it looks like a cross-wiki harassment case, though User:Alison disagrees [1]. Someone not using his real name (talk) 23:29, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

And the IP has posted about it here as well [2], though the thread has been deleted by an admin [3], who also blocked the IP; see User talk:50.174.76.70. Someone not using his real name (talk) 23:54, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

I think Alison rises well above the trolls that typify Wikipediocracy, but she does have a conflict of interest here. And yes, this appears to be simply another round of Wikipediocracy's latest harassment campaign. Resolute 00:30, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Given [4] and [5], the meat- if not sock-puppetry is pretty clear. Which has a fairly hypocritical tone given that Peter Damian is a pseudonym. Someone not using his real name (talk) 01:29, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Also, the 50.174.76.70 user is almost certainly the same person as Special:Contributions/24.19.234.62; they share the same obsession and the same ISP. 50.174.76.70 was evading his prior block all this time. Someone not using his real name (talk) 03:29, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Jimmy, a respected member of the functionary team (checkuser, oversighter and what not) has asked you to handle the situation [6] (though for some reason on someone else's user talk page). Someone not using his real name (talk) 12:42, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Apparently, there are great concerns for my actions among the pedobear-hunter wannabes [7], so it is indeed better if you and User:Sue Gardner manage such allegations raised on your talk pages yourselves, across all wikis. Someone not using his real name (talk) 13:26, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Alfresco rev-delete

Jimbo, could you make a quick comment, please, about this revision-deletion that was enacted on your Talk page? - 2001:558:1400:10:3537:41B9:58A1:6138 (talk) 14:26, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

It looks like it was revision deleted to remove libel. If you'd like to inquire about those allegations, you'd do best to contact me directly rather than publish falsehoods.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:53, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

• One of series of 5 unrelated revdel edits: Those 5 edits, which were hidden, were posted on 19 September 2013, over 150 revisions ago:

• (cur | prev) 20:02, 19 September 2013‎  Wikid77 (talk | contribs)‎ . . (176,830 bytes) (+1,412)‎ . . (→‎RfC to create template editor user right: +note "Protected templates have had a chilling effect on new features")
• (cur | prev) 19:03, 19 September 2013‎  2001:558:1400:10:6cb5:19a4:cf82:8444 (talk)‎ . . (175,418 bytes) (+39)‎ . . (→‎Alternative to Bright Line Rule: coi)
• (cur | prev) 18:27, 19 September 2013‎  FormerIP (talk | contribs)‎ . . (175,379 bytes) (+363)‎ . . (→‎Croatian Wikipedia controversy: cmt)
• (cur | prev) 17:36, 19 September 2013 ‎ Miranche (talk | contribs)‎ m . . (175,016 bytes) (+385)‎ . . (→‎Croatian Wikipedia controversy)
• (cur | prev) 17:27, 19 September 2013‎  2001:558:1400:10:6cb5:19a4:cf82:8444 (talk)‎ . . (174,631 bytes) (+741) . . (‎Alternative to Bright Line Rule)
• (cur | prev) 17:19, 19 September 2013‎  2001:558:1400:10:6cb5:19a4:cf82:8444 (talk)‎ . . (173,890 bytes) (+2,101)‎ . . (→Alternative to Bright Line Rule: new section)

As for my edit (by Wikid77), I cannot remember posting any text in that edit which would require suppression; see text below:

• Protected templates have had a chilling effect on new features: Of course, many unprotected templates have been hacked/vandalized over the past years and must remain protected to deter complex vandalism which has remained for months (or years). However, in several cases, I have noted gaps of about 3 years between updates to protected templates, often with features clearly, fully proposed years earlier, and would have worked years earlier if allowed into articles. Another alternative (beyond a "template-editor user right") might be to adopt-a-template-coder, where admins could agree to work closely with some interested users who are ready to update numerous templates, and just need a dedicated admin to follow them around and install the recommended/tested upgrades to various templates. In recent years, there have only been a few admins who install updates to protected templates, among the current 1,438 admins. I can confirm it is often easier to just install updates, as compared to the work expended for debugging and testing the changes prior to installation. Ironically, while users have noted the WMF might seem sluggish to install real improvements, the local Wikipedia editors have also delayed major improvements, for years, despite the local emphasis to expedite other improvements. -Wikid77 (talk) 20:02, 19 September 2013 (UTC)"

I think my post could have been left visible, without risk of a diff showing hidden text because the adjacent revdel entry would also trigger a suppressed diff. -Wikid77 (talk) 15:58, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

The way Revision Deletion and Oversight work is to delete the content - not the diff. Thus, every diff between the addition (inclusive) and the deletion (exclusive, but is sometimes included for continuance) must be revdeled to completely remove the content from all diffs possible. If they left a revision in the middle visible, someone could diff that revision with the latest non-revdeled or first live edit after the rev-del and see the deleted material, or in fact just click on the datestamp in the history and see the deleted material. ~Charmlet ^-talk- 16:02, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not doing good today - what I was going to say in summary is this: Any revision which includes the data that is being revdeled/osed needs to be deleted, regardless of if the revision changed the questionable data or not. ~Charmlet ^-talk- 16:04, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Languages listed at left side of each page

Thread retitled from "make the presentation of the different languages (left part of all wikipedias) more clear, adding to such languages with special characters e,g. japanese, chinese, indian, arab, etc., etc. (the language referred also in english) .".

Dear Sirs.

Cordial saludo.

To make the presentation of the different languages (left part of all wikipedias) more clear, I suggest, to add to such languages lists (blue ones) with special characters e,g. japanese, chinese, indian, arab, etc., etc. the language referred also in english with brakets. Why?: a lot of people will wonder what for a language with special character is that one: example

aleman (german) jap ...... (japanese) chin nnnnn (chinese).

I take the opportunity, as simple user of wikipedia, to congratulate you and your team, for the enormous fantastic labour done during all the years. Wekipedia is really a big help for hundred of millions of users.

Mario Van Nuffel - mvn@gmx.net — Preceding unsigned comment added by Quiqueriqui (talk • contribs) 01:11, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

I am revising the heading of this section from make the presentation of the different languages (left part of all wikipedias) more clear, adding to such languages with special characters e,g. japanese, chinese, indian, arab, etc., etc. (the language referred also in english) . to Languages listed at left side of each page, in harmony with WP:TPOC, point 13 (Section headings). Please see Microcontent: How to Write Headlines, Page Titles, and Subject Lines. The new heading facilitates recognition of the topic in links and watchlists and tables of contents.

—Wavelength (talk) 01:25, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

See "ISO 639-1 language matrix" and User:Wavelength/About languages/ISO 639-1 language matrix.

—Wavelength (talk) 05:58, 22 September 2013 (UTC) and 06:00, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

See "Language names in their own languages and scripts" and "List of indigenous language names".

—Wavelength (talk) 18:22, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Wavelength, please read Please do not bite the newcomers. And yes, that information exists at the pages you link to, but that doesn't resolve the original poster's suggestion. — Scott • talk 13:33, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I favor an English translation in brackets or parentheses. This would not affect the language names or their scripts at all. Yopienso (talk) 15:16, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Agree with Yopienso. Should we take this to the village pump (technical)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.88.87.68 (talk) 19:00, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

If you are going to, please make a proposal that makes sense. I have my user interface set to Dutch, for example. Why should I see "German" next to "Deutsch" instead of "Duitse"? When I switch to Japanese, shouldn't it show ドイツ?—Kww(talk)

My communication to the newcomer was emotionally neutral.

—Wavelength (talk) 20:11, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

There is a dynamic tension when one assigns to a list element a name that is not only brief but also informative. Hay una tensión dinámica cuando se asigna a un elemento de una lista un nombre que es no sólo breve sino también informativo.

—Wavelength (talk) 16:40, 24 September 2013 (UTC) and 17:33, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

• Note: Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#How can I see the inter-language links in plain English? seems to be where this thread ended up. See answers and ideas, there. –Quiddity (talk) 19:53, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

You've got Email

Hi Jimbo,

Just letting you know that I've sent you an email, just in case it is stuck in your spam filter or something.

Best, Miss Bono ^{[hello, hello!]} 15:12, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I'll keep an eye out for it. What subject line?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 01:31, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

I guess it is a Re:Wikipedia Email, or Wikipedia Email or Hi Jimbo... I sent 4 of them (the original and 3 more) because the servers where I email from were having problems and I didn't know if you received the first one, so... I am so sorry for so many emails, please don't get mad. Thank you very much for your time, and again, sorry for the bothers. Miss Bono ^{[hello, hello!]} 12:18, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Did you find them? Miss Bono ^{[hello, hello!]} 12:02, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

I found one in my spam folder - and sent you a reply. Did you get it?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 05:25, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

I am going to check that later this afternoon with my friend. She is the owner of the email account. I will let you know. Kind regards and thank you very much.

P.S. I am curious whether it was the Re: email the one you found or not. Miss Bono ^{[hello, hello!]} 12:02, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

I have checked and I didn't receive your email. Miss Bono ^{[hello, hello!]} 16:10, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

I received it and replied back. Hope you get it. Check first at your spam folder :D Miss Bono ^{[hello, hello!]} 18:39, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

It says its ok to ignore rules sometimes, but does local consensus actually allow that?

After a discussion on the List of unusual deaths talk page, I decided to start a Request for Comment to get more input. As the founder of Wikipedia, and the guy who has been around here the longest, please tell me your opinion. Does the disclaimer saying you can ignore policy at times and use common sense actually have the ability of ever being done in any possible circumstances? Talk:List_of_unusual_deaths#RfC: Can editors determine on a talk page what qualifies as an "unusual death" and should be in the List of unusual deaths or must the reliable source specifically use the word "unusual" or synonymy in it? Dream Focus 18:17, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

• Consider editorial judgment: I think Jimbo says to use "editorial judgment" as with common sense to determine the wp:acceptability of text; however, if numerous other editors disagree with that judgment, then they outnumber the decision, and the reversal in that case should be understood, even if someone disagrees with the old policy and the rough consensus. I like to say, "People have a right to be wrong" and explaining an alternative decision can be a challenge. In some cases, the "only one" disagreeing with the crowd might be Jimbo, and that can be reassuring to know you are not alone in being opposed by several people. Also, remember ~74% of monthly users do not use talk-pages, as the wp:silent majority who do not discuss issues to seek a consensus each month. -Wikid77 (talk) 19:20, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

It's never okay to ignore rules in opposition to consensus. If the consensus is to follow a rule, then you can't ignore it just because ignoring it seems preferable to you. Regarding the specific issue, my opinion is that Wikipedia editors sometimes fail to realize that all article writing requires some degree of synthesis -- the only alternative to synthesis is plagiarism. The question then becomes how much synthesis to permit -- zero is not an option. Looie496 (talk) 19:46, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

The problem is with cases of "false consensus" such as forcing dashes where hyphens have been used in wp:COMMONNAME titles, for decades (or centuries), and a survey of opinions might reveal, in a few weeks, how 9 people oppose the dash guideline being defended by 7 people as the "consensus". It is really frustrating when "most people" oppose the so-called consensus, and we find severe cases of "consensus thumping" to claim any talk against the current guidelines as being tendentious editing by wp:DE disruption. -Wikid77 (talk) 20:05, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Wikid, as he often is, is correct. There's some aspects of "uniformity" that we want shared across all articles and a local consensus, either at an article or by a wikiproject over a large number of articles, should not be allowed to trump what must be assumed to have been a larger consensus about the encyclopedia as a whole. Unfortunately we cant, and should never, try to list all the policies and guidelines that trump local consensus and which ones could be. Obviously BLP broadly would not be allowed to be overruled by consensus, but BLP subsections may on specific issues or situations might be overruled, I cant think of a situation that would occur, but we should never close the door to that possibility. The minute we start creating hard-fast laws with zero-possibility of an instance where common sense might require bending the rules, we then have a fundamental shift in the very fabric of what Wikipedia stands for. IAR is the most important concept in Wikipedia for that reason. Far more importance than the useless 5P essay.Camelbinky (talk) 21:01, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

• The particular application of IAR that Dream Focus seeks is the ability to include things in a list when he can't locate a source that says the item meets the inclusion criteria for the list. I don't think IAR can apply, because such a thing can't improve the encyclopedia.—Kww(talk) 21:10, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

• I think I was quite clear. When we have sources in reliable sources that the event took place, and was notable enough to get coverage, but when the word "unusual" or a synonymy was not found in the coverage at all, if there is consensus that the death was unusual and should be included in the list, is it then acceptable to have it? Here we have an article that has been viewed 82,269 times in the last 30 days, and was mentioned in Time Magazine. You will always find plenty of people to disagree what improves the encyclopedia, many wishing to delete the article entirely, as well as many other things Wikipedia has on it. So those who don't like an article will never agree that anything that helps it survive or grow longer would improve the encyclopedia, thus making IAR impossible to ever enforce. I am curious if it has ever been used in the past couple of years for anything. Anyone know of any cases? Dream Focus 22:21, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

• I certainly have. I'm aware of a few accounts that are likely to be evading blocks that I imposed: I can tell by their diction and topics of interest that they are the same editor. However, they seem to have learned their lesson and aren't repeating the blockable behaviour. I even provided User:Stephanie J Stone substantial leeway, because even though she was repeating some of the behaviour that led to the block, I could see she was trying. That's the kind of thing IAR is for.—Kww(talk) 23:29, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

• Thousands of users go IAR every day: But those people just ignore all the rules, most of the time. Many people put BLP vios in text, or omit requested sources, or edit-war, etc. It is quite common at wp:ANI to see numerous insults, or claims of misconduct not backed with diff-link evidence, but allowed to stand as begging the question, even in disparaging headers ("Editor refusing to explain closure of MR against consensus"), which sound like, "Man refusing to stop beating woman after robbing her" and wonder why he could not get a fair trial. No unproven allegations there? We even have the old term "wp:Wikilawyering" which is an IAR, BLP insult to all living attorneys (replaced by wp:Wikifinagling). We also have unblock wp:WHEEL-wars where the blocking admin is not respected to allow the block to remain, or reduce it when time permits. Anyway, wp:ANI is a big pool of wp:IAR refusal to be wp:Civil and provide adequate diff-links of evidence to support each outrageous insult. -Wikid77 (talk) 06:42, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

I've been having a similar discussion over at Talk:List of rampage killers#Suggested title change. We currently have no article called rampage killer and the term is not defined anywhere on WP. As far as I am concerned, this list and the several related lists amount to synthesis of sources. I have pretty much given up trying to reason with the editor who WP:OWNS these articles, but I haven't identified an appropriate place to bring this into wider discussion. It is unfortunate that sometimes a post on Jimbo's talk page is the most expedient way to get more input in these types of issues. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 18:31, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

What it really should say is... "Its ok to invoke IAR if your an administrator. If you are an IP or regular editor it is higly frowned upon and will generally be reverted." IAR is no longer an effective policy along with article ownership, POV and several others. 138.162.8.59 (talk) 19:26, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

• That isn't relevant to this discussion. Delicious carbuncle tried to delete the article in question Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of rampage killers and the 11 other people who participated in that discussion said KEEP despite his constant arguing. Various people pointed to reliable sources that use the term "rampage killer" along with "spree killer" or "mass murderer" interchangeably. A rampage killer can be a mass murderer or a spree killer, we having articles for those already. Dream Focus 11:25, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

To register or not to register? That is the question

Given that a recent thread at the village pump (policy) regarding IP's and mandatory registering has gotten a bit out of the realm of that noticeboard, I figured a thread here on the topic might be more appropriate; as this has become an informal place for more esoteric questions such as this, where the question is more to make us think about our positions than it is likely to become policy (which really is the point of posting at the vpp). So my esoteric question of the day is broadly mandatory registering versus our current way (or even more leniency) and I'd love to see well thought out discussions and questions raised and responded instead of everyone just talking past each other, not willing to budge; in a more focused question- does it hurt Wikipedia to continue to allow editors to comment that IPs are second class "citizens" and they have to "learn to live with it" or is that a violation of our policy and we should truly consider that such comments need to stop.Camelbinky (talk) 19:09, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Actually the truth of the matter is IP's are third class citizens, regular editors are 2nd class! Starting with administrators, who are essentially the first class citizens, there are a lot of things on the project that can only be done by admins and that number grows as the numbers of admins dwindles. Regular editors are restricted from doing many things inluding even applying for certain rights (one must be admin to do that!). Then that leaves IP's, not only are they restricted from doing many things and editing many pages, they generally cannot vote in things like RFA's, cannot create articles without going through AFC, etc. So really, IP's are third class citizens when you break it all down. At this point Wikipedia may as well just eliminate the ability of making edits by IP's. If they want to edit they can just create an account. 138.162.8.59 (talk) 15:16, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Commons is broken - the "low quality genitalia" edition

This discussion is better held over at commons. Clearly it is the right thing to do to treat all contributors with respect.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 05:23, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Jimbo, Commons admin Mattbuck has a habit of starting deletion discussions with phrases like "low quality genitalia" rather than "low quality genitalia image". I asked him to be more careful about this in May, but got no response. I asked him again earlier this month, and got no response. When I noticed that he was doing it again, I had no doubt that he was doing this deliberately and I started a discussion on COM:AN/U. You may be surprised to see that some members of the Commons community feel that it is acceptable to insult uploaders, if those uploaders are uploading pictures of their genitals. I am perplexed by this. Although Commons has a ridiculous number of self-shot average-sized white penises, we all agree that Commons should have images of adult genitalia, so why would we insult the very people who are contributing these? Jimbo, is this in keeping with the WMF's statements about treating people with respect? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 23:34, 25 September 2013 (UTC) Hooray. Another edition. --Onorem (talk) 23:39, 25 September 2013 (UTC) And this one's a comedy! Resolute 23:45, 25 September 2013 (UTC) Woah, luckly I have my popcorns. --cyclopiaspeak! 23:47, 25 September 2013 (UTC) Heck, by the time this mess is over, the only picture available will be an icon of 8=D. ZappaOMati 00:50, 26 September 2013 (UTC) I'm sorry, but this is dumb...like, Grade-A scraping-the-bottom-of-the-barrel dumb. Out of all the scum & villainy and the cavalcade of Beta-M cheer-leading yahoos that promote it, Mattbuck is actually cleaning some of the amateur porn glut and you're getting on his case for saying "low-quality genetalia" ? Seriously? I find it kind of amusing actually, IMO it's just a somewhat sarcastic way of saying "your amateur porn skills suck, so GTFO". quite frankly, you degrade and de-legitimize the previous editions of "Commons is broken" with this petty nonsense. Tarc (talk) 23:47, 25 September 2013 (UTC) Sounds to me like you have a good idea of how to handle genitals courteously, DC. Why not just roll up your sleeves and lead by example? Formerip (talk) 23:51, 25 September 2013 (UTC) By posting some "high quality genitalia"? Resolute 23:54, 25 September 2013 (UTC) Tarc, what's "dumb" about treating contributors with respect? If I upload an image of myself to Commons, I do not expect to have my appearance insulted. Why should this be allowed just because the subject matter is genitals? Saying "your amateur porn skills suck, so GTFO" is completely unacceptable, but at least it isn't as bad as saying "your genitals are low quality". Delicious carbuncle (talk) 02:40, 26 September 2013 (UTC) Being mean to newbies is inconsequential compared to the nonsense they usually get up to over there, you know that. Tarc (talk) 02:59, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Jimbo, I tried to discuss the issue on Commons. The discussion got forcibly closed with no action and the surprising comments which prompted me to come here. I have found that trying to discuss Commons issues on Commons is generally fruitless (but at least they were mature enough not to make jokes about it). Perhaps you can bring up the issue of respecting contributors and image subjects at the next WMF Board meeting? I suspect the board may not be aware of how far Commons is from what they envisage. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 15:03, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

The Board is well aware and it is an ongoing topic of discussion. I can't promise what will happen, but I can promise that there is real attention being paid to the problem and I think it highly likely (again I can't promise) that something will be done. How effective that will be, depends on what will be done, etc. But I'm working on it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:10, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Systemic bias

One of the main focuses of my editing recently has been philosophers, specifically women philosophers. I've written a couple dozen articles recently myself, and have been preparing to launch a Wikiproject about it, but have barely touched the surface of what is to be done. One biography that stood out as a particularly egregious omission was that of Alison Jaggar. One of Jaggar's books has been cited by more than 2,000 academic publications, an astounding number, especially given that philosophy is generally an undercited field. She has an h-index in the 90's, which is approaching Einstein's level. She is generally credited with teaching the first class about feminist philosophy ever to have been caught, and she co-founded the first women's studies department in the world. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's article about feminist ethics literally states that "Alison Jaggar's summary of the fourfold function of feminist ethics cannot be improved upon in any significant way." That is a huge claim in any field, and I don't think I've ever seen a single remotely comparable claim in philosophy.

I'm not going to ask why we didn't have an article about Alison Jaggar. I understand that well enough. 90% of Wikipedia editors are men, and most are not philosophers. Philosophy as a field has a significant gender skew itself. It makes a lot of sense that these demographic biases would synergize in a way that would mean we would end up without articles about people like Alison Jaggar. The fact that there's a reasonable explanation for it does not, however, make it okay. Instead of asking why the article was missing, I would like to pose a different question: Given that we're the #1 source of information in the world, how is it morally conscionable that because of our systemic biases we are missing articles about people like Alison Jaggar? Five hundred million people a month look at us as their initial source of information - far more priority needs to be placed on trying to figure out how to address the systemic bias issues that plague Wikipedia. Systemic bias issues are painted as a core aim of the Foundation, but it seems like it's not necessarily being resourced appropriately. Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:44, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

You appear to be extrapolating from an anecdote to a claim of systemic bias. What is the evidence that notable/famous women philosophers are under represented on wikipedia beyond an anecdotes? As a curiosity, why did WikiProject feminism not create this article if the person has such influence within feminism? Why aren't you using works devoted to Alison Jaggar if there is a comparison to Einstein (Einstein's H-index is listed as 167 [8] by google scholar). I checked Jaggar's H index with google scholar and yet I don't see 90 papers with at least 90 citations each, indeed it appears to be significantly lower than that: [9] (looks about H-index 26), where does your H-index claim come from? IRWolfie- (talk) 22:08, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

My google scholar gadget set up to process the names she's published with puts Jaggar's index at 76. Sorry for the double mistake, and an out-and-out comparison to Einstein probably wasn't appropriate, but I would still challenge anyone to find any academic with a citation index that high not represented on Wikipedia. Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:33, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't have your gadget but it may be including others by the name of A Jaggar. I suggest looking at the actual publications, perhaps listing the highest cited and manually counting. Also [10] 107. IRWolfie- (talk) 00:04, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

IRWolfie-, there are several relevant research papers linked at meta:Gender gap. They find, generally, that women are underrepresented unless the women are at the very top of their fields. To give one specific example from memory, you can count on us having an article for all women winning an Oscar for best actress, but when you look at film actors and actresses below that extremely high level, we are more likely to write articles about the males than the females. (Not something from research I've read, but the dynamic is probably reversed for porn stars. Grad students in search of an interesting thesis topic should take note of the opportunity. .) WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:52, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

There is an obvious basis for bias that a mostly-male editing population will have paid little attention to feminist theory. It probably doesn't help that Wikipedia doesn't regard "forums" as part of its normal operation - perhaps we can discuss it momentarily here, and people can ask specific questions at Humanities Refdesk, or discuss it somewhat within the generally remote environs of a WikiProject, but there's no really proper and encouraged place for us to hash over, classify, organize, and archive our reactions and original thought about the ideas in, say, that extraordinary claim you cited (even though it might lead us back to actual references). For example, to quote your source, all feminist approaces to ethics seek to (1) articulate moral critiques of actions and practices that perpetuate women's subordination; (2) prescribe morally justifiable ways of resisting such actions and practices; (3) envision morally desirable alternatives for such actions and practices; and (4) take women's moral experience seriously, though not uncritically (Jaggar, “Feminist Ethics,” 1992). Yet just off the top of my head, I would think that feminism should encompass far more than this - for example, a consideration of the moral decision making surrounding unhealthy behavior that might affect a fetus, with the goal of deciding what women should be expected to do or not do in order to avoid teratogenesis. Much the same with nursing. Also analysis of surrogate parenthood. Of the effects of different levels of parental commitment to gestation on expected behaviors of the sexes, and second-order effects of assumptions made based on this (i.e. if you suppose that women will be less promiscuous due to biology, and your behavior reflects that prejudice) I think that even a largely-male group of editors is perfectly capable of becoming interested in feminist theory and doing more to document the major thinkers, if there is a way to recruit them to become interested - but we don't really provide such a way. Wnt (talk) 07:20, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Just woke up (yes, I sleep a ton,) but for clarity: that claim was explicitly about feminist approaches to ethics, not feminism as a whole. Feminist ethics is more or less a subfield, her claims weren't intended to apply to feminism as a whole. I'll be piping in elsewhere in this thread shortly. And yeah, I agree with you both that it's an expected bias and that a largely-male group of editors would be perfectly capable of documenting the area should they choose to. Jaggar (and feminism in general) is just one area where our bias is evident, although I think it's a pretty good example area. The problem is the bias occurs over and over again in a huge number of areas, and relatively little is being done to try to address it. Kevin Gorman (talk) 20:48, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

That is about the gender gap specifically, not systemic bias, IRWolfie- (talk) 09:17, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

You don't seem to have read the academic research articles listed at the gender gap page. They say things like "Our findings confirm the presence of a...gender-oriented disparity in the content of Wikipedia’s articles.". That's about a systemic bias in the content of articles, not merely about the gender of the editors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:17, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I have addressed that further down, IRWolfie- (talk) 22:40, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I did misspeak; I should've said in the 80's (80's, iirc,) rather than the 90's; Einstein's had been showing up around 100 for me. I realize there's a pretty big difference between the 80's and the 100's, but it does drive home the point that Jaggar was a really, *really* significant missing academic. I'd challenge anyone to find an academic with a comparable citation index who isn't mentioned on Wikipedia. I'll rerun the numbers now, but 26 certainly isn't the case. I'm in the process of compiling a more evidence based demonstration that notable women philosophers are significantly represented, but felt like a conversation about how we prioritize dealing with issues of systemic bias could use a kickstart ahead of time. Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:17, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Before a conversation about how to deal with systemic bias there should be an agreed methodology for detecting systemic bias. That would first involve performing an analysis of the reliable secondary sources to determine if they have a systemic bias and thus to rule out that effect (Correcting for a bias in the literature would require expertise, something wikipedia with its cult of the amateur does not have the ability to help with, it also borders on WP:RGW). Most wikipedia editors are men therefore they write about men is fallacious reasoning and to a certain extent sexist in that it assumes something along the lines of "Men only edit men things, women on edit women things". IRWolfie- (talk) 22:22, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

There's a growing body of empirical peer-reviewed evidence that has demonstrated that we *do* experience significant systemic bias, and there's been but limited criticism of it as far as I know. I'll dig up some studies shortly (I have a feeling this is going to be a rather quickly growing thread), but Joseph Reagle at NYU among many other people have published on the topic. (There are also, FWIW, empirically documented differences in editing patterns between men and women.) Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:26, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

And who do you propose should be interpreting said peer reviewed evidence? No offence, but the thought of a pile of amateurs trying to interpret any body of peer reviewed literature and making judgement calls based on them sounds like it would be doomed to failure. I doubt many editors who would chime in to such a discussion would unduly burden themselves down with the task of reading the literature. Amateur hour is a necessary evil in terms of writing the encyclopedia itself, we assign weight based on the preponderance of coverage a view gets in reliable sources but that would be a disaster for identifying bias in wikipedia itself; it would be tantamount to accepting the literature amongst reliable sources with no critical evaluation whatsoever. IRWolfie- (talk) 22:37, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

There are several options here: ignore a problem that has been documented in multiple peer-reviewed journal articles. Read and evaluate the articles themselves if you have the necessary background to do so (I do.) Trust the peer-review process the articles underwent, and accept their conclusions that we have a problem fairly uncritically. Having read the relevant literature (and witnessed its effects in my day to day editing,) I don't think that ignoring the problem is a terribly good way to move forward. I think that more research, far greater funding of projects aimed at reducing this bias (including evaluating those programs to see what works and what doesn't,) and greater awareness of the problem would be a good set of initial steps forward. BTW: I left my study list on my thumb drive at home, but will throw up a bunch later. To jump to a different realm altogether, take a look at these two images: points from the Geonames database plotted on a map, Geotagged Wikipedia articles plotted on a map - I think they serve as pretty self-evident demonstration of systemic bias in another part of Wikipedia. Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:48, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

I have no idea whether you have the ability to "read and evaluate the articles themselves" at an expert level. I can merely note that you have stated as such, although the age your page indicates and that you don't appear to be an academic in the area does make that somewhat implausible. Back to the main point: editorial decisions by non-experts only get us so far. Once you decide to evaluate the peer reviewed literature and make very large drastic changes based on non-expert consensus when it requires expertise then there are significant problems. The discussions are a free for all where any editor without expertise can chime in in as incompetent a manner as they see fit without having read any of the literature if his rhetoric is sufficiently good. Wikipedia is based around effectiveness at debate, not of the quality of arguments. There is no mechanism to guarantee people have even read any of the text at all before commenting. Expecting a group which largely will consist of non-experts with no onus on them to make informed decision to then actually make good decisions is fanciful. You need experts to notice the nuances, what is missing or the subtle twist. Now, a sufficiently neutral summary of the articles on your thumbdrive could be made by wikipedians. It wouldn't be perfect, far from it, and it would probably make an expert cringe but it would be fine for an encyclopedia to cover it. The issue is when you use that write up to make editorial decisions based on believing that the encyclopedia content to be necessarily true. If you want to detect systemic bias, commission independent experts (no wikipedia editors please) to write a report with recommendations, IRWolfie- (talk) 23:54, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

You seem to be suggesting that, since the average Wikipedian may not be able to have a completely informed view of our systemic bias issues, we should not discuss them. This is rather (okay, really fucking) confusing to me, since it seems to be equivalent to suggesting that the status quo is acceptable. This was intended to be a thread to discuss approaches to the situation; frankly, commissioning independent experts to write a report with recommendations about how to tackle the problem seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable suggestion, and the exact kind of suggestion I was hoping would arise out of this thread, minus all the bollocks. The Wikimedia movement spends what is it now, something like sixty million a year movement wide? And this discussion is occurring on the talk page of a trustee of WMF, and being at least tangentially monitored by at least one additional trustee (since I was in a room with her earlier today.) We are emphatically not doing an okay job handling these issues currently; we need new tactics if we're going to have much luck doing so going forward. I think your suggestion is at least potentially a legitimately good one, and it's certainly something that is within the capabilities of the Wikimedia movement. I would appreciate it if you would stick to making similarly productive points (and seriously, that does seem like an idea worth considering,) and cut the crud. Kevin Gorman (talk) 05:24, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

You saw a gap in coverage, and created the article on the 18th. That's the idea behind a crowd-sourced encyclopedia; whining because someone else didn't do it before you did is pointless. Tarc (talk) 22:14, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Individual missing articles are to be expected; the significant systemic bias that Wikipedia, as an encyclopedia experiences, is a significantly different issue. I'm rerunning the citation indexes currently, but would challenge you to find any academic more prominent than Jaggar who doesn't currently have a page. If you manage to find one, I'd make a bet that the person is either a woman, or from a non-anglophone country. Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:20, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't see initiating discussions about how we can better address gaps in our coverage of certain topic areas to be "whining". Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 22:28, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

• Comment. I own a book by Alison Jaggar (Living With Contradictions). Except it is not really by her, it is edited by her. Looking at the publications mentioned in the article, the same thing might apply to a number of them. I don't know how the index on Google scholar works, but might someone's score be inflated if their books are often cited for someone else's words? I say that without prejudice to the substance of the discussion - Cullen328's comment above is quite right. Formerip (talk) 23:23, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

The original poster has a good point. I wouldn't be surprised if there are weaknesses and biases here, because of our demographic. He got lot of flack, which hopefully he wasn't surprised by, since you can get flack here for most anything (which is not necessarily an entirely bad thing). The original poster probably was over the top a bit with the hyperbole ("how is it morally conscionable that... we are missing articles about people like Alison Jaggar?", bolded) It's arguably a moral failure, but we're not monsters; save that kind of language for denouncing dictators and so forth, I'd advise. We have gaps. I'd bet that engineers aren't horribly underrepresented here, but to my surprise I recently found that we didn't have an article on the National Society of Professional Engineers which has been around since 1934. So I made one, albeit stubby, and that's part of the solution. Sometimes a gap is just a gap. But, the original poster is justified in raising these questions, and if it's a large gap he can't be expected to fix it all himself, and so recruiting help to fix these gaps may well be called for, and I welcome such an erudite editor in such a difficult and (probably) underrepresented area, and so should we all. Herostratus (talk) 02:54, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind words. You are right that the flak wasn't unexpected, although I was expecting a bit more positivity as well. I would like to point out that there is definitely a difference between a morally unconscionable situation and someone themselves being morally unconscionable; morally unconscionable situations occur with some frequency on Wikipedia, but I certainly don't view Wikipedians or the WMF as morally abhorrent. If I did, I probably wouldn't have thousands of edits, have flown across the country three or four times for Wikipedia-related business, or have contracted with the Foundation. Sometimes a gap is just a gap; sometimes it isn't. When gaps occur with significantly more frequency in one area than another, it is telling, and is a problem. I got home late and haven't bothered digging up the full set of studies I have laying around here somewhere, but the map I linked above is pretty solid evidence that these gaps do occur with far greater frequency with some areas and topics than in others. When we're viewed by 500 million people a month, I view that as a *gigantic* problem, and one that the Wikimedia movement as a whole, as well as the WMF and ENWP are taking no where near appropriate action to address. I think that we need to pretty urgently begin to put far more time and resources (which yes, will likely include money) in to this problem before it becomes even worse than it currently is. Kevin Gorman (talk) 05:24, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

• So, what we have here is someone telling us that:
  • Wikipedia does not have an article on every notable subject that would be appropriate under its editorial policies. We already knew that.
  • Wikipedia has articles on whatever its volunteers have to date felt like creating articles on. We knew that, too. Wikipedia is incomplete and will always be incomplete, so long as the world keeps changing, new people keep becoming notable, and the scope of human knowledge keeps expanding.
• So yes, by all means, if you see a gap, fill it. If you see a big gap, then absolutely, enlist the help of others to fill it. This is a collaborative project, after all. But don't call the rest of us morally unconscionable because that's not our area of interest or we didn't notice it beforehand. That'll just get you pushback and not help at all. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 03:24, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

If you think I've called you or Wikipedians as a whole morally unconscionable, please provide a diff. There's a big difference between a morally unconscionable situation, and a morally unconscionable person. We have massive systemic gaps in our content, and as a movement we are doing - bluntly - pretty close to nothing to try to address them. I absolutely view it as a moral duty of one of the most widely used sources of information in the world to take action to address these gaps - far more action than we have so far taken. (And if you doubt the existence of massive systemic bias in Wikipedia, I'd again reiterate my suggestion earlier: find an academic more prominent than Jaggar who is not either a woman or minority who isn't already mentioned on Wikipedia. It's certainly not the only part of Wikipedia effected by systemic bias, but it makes a damn good illustration of it.) Kevin Gorman (talk) 05:29, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

I did actually take up your challenge to find academics more cited than Alison Jaggar (c. H-index 76 per your estimate) who do not have Wikipedia articles, mostly because I suspected it would be quite easy to find, for instance in the natural sciences. So I searched for white male natural scientists without articles on English Wikipedia. The most cited scientist I found via just a couple of spotchecks was Carl-Henrik Heldin with a stellar H-index of 127 in the highly prestigious field of cancer research. In the Anglo sphere, I found Roger Nicoll, a neuroscientist with a H-index of c. 115 (my estimate). The impression I get is that in the natural sciences you can actually be pretty close to Nobel Prize level, and still not have an article on English Wikipedia. On the other side, I believe you should search long and hard to find any established top male soccer player without a Wikipedia article. (I’ll try to expand and improve the Heldin and Nicoll articles a little bit, and would very much appreciate help from editors who understand molecular cell biology and/or neuroscience better than I do). Regards, Iselilja (talk) 11:03, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

That's actually pretty damn impressive; I am legitimately surprised to find anyone with an h-index of 127 without an article. I would point out that citation metrics differ significantly between fields, and an h-index of 76 in philosophy is a lot different than an h-index of 127 in cancer research (more cancer research journals are indexed, cancer papers tend to be cited more often, etc,) but either way, that's quite impressive. I'd also point out that he isn't the founder of a discipline taught in almost every major US university. That's not to denigrate him in the least - an hindex of 127 is ridiculously high to be missing - just to point out that stature wise, there are still differences. Curiously, Heldin's work on TGF is actually directly relevant to my genetic condition as well. I'll try to expand his article within the next few weeks. (I'd also point out that he's not a US based researcher, which may have something to do with it.) I'll poke at Nicoll's as I can as well. Kevin Gorman (talk) 19:53, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Do you have a citation for Jaggar as the founder of women's studies? AFAICT, it's very unlikely because a number of departments seem to have been set up before Jaggar completed her post-grad studies. Formerip (talk) 20:06, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

It's looking like I'd have to head to the library for a book source for this, which I do not have time to do today, but: Jaggar was heavily involved in the organizing of the Women's Studies Department at SUNY Buffalo, which was founded at about the same time as SDSU's department - the first two in the world. I've seen her described as a co-founder in at least one paper source. She also was co-editor of Feminist Frameworks, the first major Women's Studies reader. Women's studies courses had been taught before SUNY Buffalo, but no full departments had existed. She certainly doesn't deserve sole credit, but that's still a pretty freaking big deal. Kevin Gorman (talk) 20:12, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting she is insignificant. San Diego state seems to be the first WS department (in 1970), with SYNY Buffalo following soon after. If Jaggar was involved in it, this would have been as a post-grad, so she unlikely to have been the major driving-force. According to her cv she left 2 terms (probably) prior to the start of the actual programme in 1971 (note also that she is not mentioned on this webpage). So it might be that she was somehow involved in women's studies during its infancy, but it would be quite an exaggeration to say she is its "founder". Formerip (talk) 21:34, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

So she's not the founder and her H index is not near what was originally claimed. That makes me wonder about the other statement which was "She is generally credited with teaching the first class about feminist philosophy ever to have been caught", IRWolfie- (talk) 22:38, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, assuming no lectures of Fourier, JS Mill, Wolstenholme, De Cleyre, the Pankhurts, Beauvoir etc were ever caught, I am willing to assume good faith on this point of fact. Formerip (talk) 01:01, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

• Let's reboot this thread a little. Wikipedia has a massive problem with systemic bias, as is well illustrated by the published research on the issue, as well as anecdotal evidence and fun things like the geonames vs wikipedia geotagged maps I linked earlier. When we're viewed by five hundred million people a month, this is a big problem - in my mind at least, probably one of our biggest. Most of the strategies we've tried to address this so far have not tilted the lever. So, what can we do as a movement to begin to address our bias in a meaningful way? I'm actually a fan of the suggestion made earlier in this thread of commissioning a report from outside experts (though I'd have to think a bit about what an appropriate group of experts would be,) with actionable recommendations. What are your (and by that I mean anyone reading this) thoughts about tactics that we have not yet tried that might have greater impact than what we've done so far? Kevin Gorman (talk) 05:34, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree with you completely and your words have a great impact on me. I am sorry for the push-back that you've gotten here, and invite everyone who pushed back to give this another think-through. It is a morally untenable situation. I think that you've identified one big component of the solution, and engaged in another big component of the solution. One big component is "resourcing" by the Foundation, broadly construed. Exactly how resources (money) can be most' usefully deployed is less clear, but I'd put a big bet on outreach programs. But the other component, one that I think is equally important, is increasing awareness in the community of how hostile responses to people who want to talk about this problem are themselves part of the problem.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 06:54, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply; I initially was hoping this discussion would've gone in a more productive way overall. (Ironically, I was sitting in a room with about a dozen other Wikipedians and some WMF folk at the time, and don't think any of them expected the conversation to be half this hijacked.) Unfortunately, I don't think that this thread can now serve as a productive space for actually discussing potetial solutions. In the relatively near future I will probably try to start a discussion in a different forum with a more structured start so that a more productive conversation can hopefully occur (I may also drop you an email in the interim.) Unless you disagree with me about the likelihood of anything productive coming out of the future of this thread, I'd honestly invite you to hat it. Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:03, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

The initial claims were that wikipedia didn't have an article with someone on par with Einstein in terms of citations, and that therefore there is a "morally unconscionable" systemic bias here about feminist studies. A minor probing at the issue reveals that the individual is not on par with Einstein in terms of citations or notability or anywhere near it, but rather things have been overstated quite a lot (also I think article existence isn't the best criteria to use to judge bias, rather editor attention through edit counts would be). If someone starts by overstating their case that doesn't help the situation. It simply does not follow that an anecdote necessarily reveals a systemic bias. Perhaps if the discussion had centred around a discussion of published research .... IRWolfie- (talk) 09:47, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Please IRWolfie, go read this. I really, sincerely, seriously doubt that your response to *any* conversation regarding systemic bias would have been different, regardless of the tone I had used. Systemic bias in Wikipedia is an incredibly well documented phenomenon, and has drawn enough attention in the past that addressing it made it in to the Foundation's last five year strategic plan. Did I moderately overstate my initial claim? Yes, I certainly did. Is that an adequate reason to hijack an entire conversation about a serious issue that has been documented in peer-reviewed literature, significant anecdotal experience, and has been considered serious enough to make it in to the strategic plan? No, it isn't. Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:03, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

You seem to have misunderstood what I have said. I don't overly care about your tone, I care about the argument you made to back up your case which was poor. Can you stop referring to the Hallowed Literature (which you have done in multiple places), and instead cite it so we know what you are talking about exactly "X says Y" etc. If you want to demonstrate there is a problem you need to link to the empirical studies not bring up an anecdote. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:25, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I assume you accept that Wikipedia and the Wikimedia movement in general has a significant gendergap. If not, then you've really not been paying attention to very much movement news, so I'm not going to dig in to all of the research covering it. Moving to something that isn't exactly a statistically rigorous study (but I also wouldn't brush off as anecdotal,) this Signpost article is quite enlightening. Moving on to more serious literature, this study suggests quite strongly that men and women focus on different content areas in their Wikipedia editing, and that content primarily of interest to women is significantly less covered than content primarily of interest to men. Reagle, Rhue in the IJC in 2011 found that Wikipedia is more likely to be missing articles about women than missing articles about men (though didn't find significant differences where articles did exist) - sorry, don't have a link handy. Halavais and Lackaff, 2008 confirmed that significant systemic bias exists in Wikipedia, where hard sciences tend to be well covered, and social sciences, humanities, medicine, and law don't tend to be. Callahan and Herring, 2011, suggest strongly that ENWP suffers from a strong Americentric bias, wherein topics about American subjects receive not only more and better coverage, but more positive coverage than is warranted. These two maps demonstrate are geographic bias quite well - in the first, each dot of light represents a place in the GeoNames database, in the second, each dot of light represents a geotagged Wikipedia article. Our obvious demographic skew alone should be enough to convince any reasonable person we suffer from significant systemic bias. I could keep going - there's plenty of more where that came from - but if you've somehow missed the point that ENWP has significant systemic bias, I'm not sure I can help you see it. We suffer from significant systemic bias, we're doing little to address it, and it is so significant as to arguably represent a form of erasure. That is not an okay situation. Kevin Gorman (talk) 19:48, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I didn't claim systematic bias doesn't exist, I merely noted that you hadn't demonstrated the particular case you initially set out to highlight. I have no particular issue accepting that there is a US centric bias on wikipedia due to the strong US demographic, although I think geotagged wikipedia articles are a poor way to demonstrate it since most articles are stubs that are created and then abandoned (there are editors that have lists of villages and create an article for every village in the list. There are about 4.3 million articles, most of them utter rubbish except for about 200k of them. On the paper by Lam et al, I'll focus on "F-Coverage-Worse: Coverage of topics with particular interest to females is inferior to topics with particular interest to males". The data for their analysis is from 2008, I don't see why that would be representative of current editing.

A few things I notice anyway: they judge quality by article length. That is, they aren't judging how complete the coverage is in terms of content, and are using length for a proxy of quality. They also assume that those who self identify as female or male are representative of the wikipedia editors who have registered account and IP editors. They also assume that articles in "male" topics (such as science) should be of equal to length to "female" topics (such as articles on people and the arts). They also only look at "high-activity articles where we knew the gender of at least 30 editor" (whether that means those currently identifying and looking back or those that identified at the time when they searched I'm not sure). Interestingly the data set appears to exclude the popular culture/games, films and books articles/US hurricanes/breaking news articles which appears to attract much focus in editing on wikipedia. Interestingly, they identify Biographies as "female" and say they have less coverage, yet there are 1,146,156 of them, and much much fewer science articles; their criteria for coverage is very odd. The coverage could be lower because the topic area is much much larger and editing is more diffuse; I haven't looked at the paper in sufficient detail for that. How does this relate to feminist philosophers? IRWolfie- (talk) 22:10, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Because a discussion about systemic bias started off with an example of a feminist philosopher, it must exclusively discuss feminist philosophy? Wut?~ Kevin Gorman (talk)

Is the discussion you want about geographical systemic bias, claims about system bias against feminists or about systemic bias generally? There already is a wikiproject for countering systemic bias. Wikipedia appears to have a bias against academia generally in favour of pop culture and I have noticed other academic disciplines that receive little attention on wikipedia, so I think focussing on feminism specifically is necessary. Anecdotally, consider how poor our article is on Atomic physics and the articles generally surrounding it. What's also interesting is that fringe theories appear to often receive more attention than mainstream subjects; the astrology article [11] has received twice the number of edits than medicine article: [12], and 2000 more edts than [13]. IRWolfie- (talk) 10:01, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

About systemic bias generally. It's evident in a huge number of areas, one being the anecdote I started with (it's pretty frigging unusual for the founder of a discipline found in almost every university in the US to have no article,) another being well demonstrated by the geonames maps that I'm pretty sure I've already linked in this thread, and a whole 'nother set being documented in the literature. Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:03, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

• Also consider below: "#Systemic omissions and overmerging". -Wikid77 12:29, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

@Kevin G. - I really hate this whole line of argument. One anecdotal omission does not "systemic bias" make. If something is missing, add it! That's what WP is all about. The real "systemic bias" that should be of concern to all of us is the emphasis on pop culture over hard information. Carrite (talk) 23:27, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

One anecdotal omission does not "systemic bias" make, although a high enough number of them certainly point that way. You may have noticed, I did add it... and twenty something other missing women philosophers in the process, with more to come. If you don't accept anecdotal evidence for systemic bias and don't accept... well.. peer-reviewed statistical evidence for systemic bias (see the studies that have been linked in this thread... or go to google scholar,) then what the hell *would* you accept as evidence of systemic bias? I'm going to step back from engaging with people who aggressively fail to see systemic bias despite the mountain of evidence, both anecdotal and peer-reviewed, that points towards it, though, since I doubt it would be productive to continue. Kevin Gorman (talk) 23:49, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

The plural of anecdote is not data, do you expect anecdotes to be accepted (Anecdotes#Qualification_as_evidence)? You find deficiencies in an area of wikipedia in which you are knowledgeable, is that surprising? I would be surprised if anyone with academic interests has not noted major deficiencies in their area. But which areas do you not find deficiencies in? What are you comparing them to? Where are these studies you talk about which you say where linked to in this thread (there was a link to gender gap studies which != systemic bias in terms of topics) and why aren't we discussing them instead (I would think that would be much more fruitful)? IRWolfie- (talk) 09:35, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

• @Gorman, You posted about a deficiency in Feminist philosophers at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Feminism#missing_women_philosophers, but no one there appeared to be overly interested in that specific sub-project (and this doesn't mean I think there is a systemic bias here, I would wager most academic subjects have major deficiencies). Feminist philosophy is a niche academic subject, and like nearly all niche academic subjects on wikipedia, there are going to be few editors who are specifically interested. You are currently filling in the gaps and have made good progress. How is it a systemic problem if you fixing it right now and are about half way through? i.e what further action is necessary if you are fixing the issues? Have you perhaps tried asking for anyone interested from WP:WOMENSCI? IRWolfie- (talk) 09:51, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm halfway through fixing the underrepresentation of women philosophers on Wikipedia? Did I suddenly write another hundred and fifty articles in my sleep or something? It is a significant error to assume that the relatively small list of people I included on my subpage is near comprehensive. I have a larger list I haven't posted yet of around 200 probably notable scholars who I have not yet individually checked, and that's just including living people. Before I started my writing spree, the concatenation of living people with women philosophers led to the conclusion that there were about 115 articles about living women philosophers on ENWP. I couldn't find a way to do a similar category concatenation without crashing toolserver to examine living male philosophers, but examination by hand showed that they were significantly overrepresented, even acknowledging the fact that they are overrepresented in the field itself. More importantly, however, this issue goes way beyond just one field. Wikipedia's systemic biases are legion, and as a project and movement, we are doing very little work (in comparison with what is required) towards fixing them. And yes, I was actually just talking about you with some of the womsci people on facebook about you yesterday, but thanks for the suggestion :P. Also.. I'm a bit confused as to how a field that has a related department at almost every major college or university in the US is a 'niche' subject. Kevin Gorman (talk) 20:02, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

"I was actually just talking about you with some of the womsci people on facebook about you yesterday". It's nice to see I require such clandestine discussions. "... that has a related department at almost every major college or university in the US is ..." I would be very very surprised if most universities in America had a department of feminist philosophy. I would be very surprised if any of them did, but maybe I'm just not familiar with US universities ... over the pond they are less common certainly ... IRWolfie- (talk) 21:10, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Most US universities have Women's Studies programs. Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:19, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

You've shifted the goal posts. First you said departments, now you are talking about programs. You were talking about a deficiency in feminist philosophy. That is most definitely niche. IRWolfie- (talk) 22:33, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

...Seriously dude? Pretty much all US universities, barring some of the religious ones have women's studies departments. Pardon me for saying 'program' rather than 'department.' Jaggar's texts are regularly assigned in almost every university in the country. I wasn't - and have never been - talking exclusively about a deficiency in feminist philosophy. I used an example - who happened to be a feminist philosopher - to point out that we are doing exceedingly little to address our egregious systemic biases. I can't tell if you are intentionally trolling or just unintentionally doing so, but am done engaging with you. Kevin Gorman (talk) 23:49, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

By the way, what's with the "women philosophers"? That's not even proper English. It's female philosophers... or is it? Because feminist philosophy is practiced by feminist philosophers, and feminist philosophers can be of any number of sexes and genders. The OP should recognize that the dragon he is seeking to slay lies hidden in his own first paragraph --- because if we unconsciously assume that feminist philosophy is something that can only be practiced by women, of course men will tend to ignore it. And even if Wikipedia had 50% women, that would mean that feminist philosophers would still be 50% neglected. Wnt (talk) 18:27, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Systemic omissions and overmerging

Beyond a bias which focuses with a slant on various topics, there also seems to be a systemic pattern of omissions of various major terms, among a set of related phrases where some are omitted. The pattern might just be the result of "pot luck" where no one has yet written the related articles where other pages just happened to be the interest of particular Wikipedians. However, I wonder if the rules are thwarting expansion, by "Wikipedia is not a dictionary" and "Wikipedia is a not an indiscriminate collection". Instead, I think Wikipedia is, or should be, an extended dictionary of complex terms, and in many cases, an article is started but then deleted in favor of a blurb created in Wiktionary. Plus, consider the chilling effect of "overmerging" where every major variation of a term seems to be funneled into a few articles. I would not be surprised to find a merge-tag on "Decision tree" to combine with "Forest" because at times, the overmerging can seem that extreme. Recently, I had to create redirects for the database terms "read lock" and "write lock" to help discuss wp:edit-conflicts, when I tried to explain how 2 editors can overwrite each other's revisions, within 1 minute, because there is no read-lock on the prior revision to prevent both editors from attempting to update from the common ancestor revision, and so the fix would be for MediaWiki to read-lock upon edit-Save, and the next edit-Save, of the same page, must wait to read the 1st editor's new revision, before applying more changes (using diff3 merge) to become the 3rd revision (based on the 2nd). Anyway, there might be systemic patterns, of omissions and overmerging, which could be overcome by specific practices to seek completeness of related topics, and prevent overmerging which might deter new small articles about the major related concepts. Wikipedia really should be millions of small articles about various specific topics, rather than merge "chocolate" and "vanilla" and "wild blueberry" into a giant page of "flavors". -Wikid77 12:29, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

• Yet we use merge for a good, simple, reason - it makes certain subjects easier for our readers to understand. That's exactly why read lock and write lock should be covered in an overarching article Lock (database). To do otherwise would expect the user to click between a number of articles. There is also the issue of our policies on notability, which is why we have articles of the type "List of characters in X fictional story", rather than one for each. Black Kite (talk) 18:04, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, the "List of characters in X" is a valid merge, but in some cases, a common term gets buried as a redirect into paragraph #18 of a huge page. Perhaps the notability rules need to be adjusted to avoid overmerging of terms. For example, there is a short article "bowling pin" which describes the term as separate from the various pages about games of "bowling" and we could have a separate page "tap hammer" to describe the tool and explain common applications, rather than merge into a long article about other hammers. I think some tools are overmerged, into large tedious articles, where a major tool might, instead, have a separate page but also appear in a long list of related tools. By comparison, we allow separate notability for a cricket player who attended a few games in 1894, and I think there are over 240,000 footballers who could get articles. -Wikid77 (talk) 22:57, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Call me stupid. Trust me, you wouldn't be the first. ;) But I think that there might, maybe, be a way to fix some of these glaring omissions of major articles topics, which I've seen actually exists in a lot of broad topic areas around here. I just filed a bot request to see if it is possible to generate a bot that can provide either a list of topics given separate articles in some of the pdf encyclopedias at wikimedia commons, and, maybe, provide some sort of indicator of the length of articles as well. I work with a lot of the religion based content, and I am actually kinda stunned to see that some topics which have articles of 20 pages or so in the old Hastings Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics don't even a basic stub here yet. That's just one example, I'm sure others in other fields can provide more as well. With so many old PD reference sources out there, like early Encyclopedia Britannica, Chambers, Americana, and others, if a bot could generate some such lists, that might help a lot. It might help if we could also get some more interest in the Missing encyclopedic articles WikiProject on that basis as well. So, not being technically inclined at all, I don't know if it is possible, but, if it is, particularly for a lot of the foreign encyclopedias, having that information available would help a lot. John Carter (talk) 01:31, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Rough draft solution proposal

The community should submit grant applications to the Foundation to hire independent review professionals skilled and experienced in professional fact checking, who would operate independently of both the Foundation and the editing community to evaluate, list, and prioritize suggested instances of systemic bias. Such instances would include the omissions of ordinary editing and the committed mistakes of conflict-of-interest editing, mathematical errors, misinterpretation and misrepresentation of sources, remnants of vandalism, and other quality and coverage flaws in general. The Wikiproject on systemic bias should undertake a recruiting and organization drive to list, sort, and prioritize the claimed instances of systemic bias, for the purposes of assigning the professional fact checkers once they are vetted and hired. EllenCT (talk) 22:15, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

• I'm not sure that it would be the best idea to priortize basic fact-checking and vandalism removal type stuff, since that kind of stuff *can* be reasonably done by ordinary editors. I think it would be better to have any set of outside people brought in focused on first analyzing both the research that has already been conducted as well as making their own assessment, and second, making concrete recommendations for how to move forward. The bigger issue with this suggestion, though, is that there actually isn't an existing Foundation grant program that would fund this. I guess the FDC could if a chapter wanted to take up the banner, but I am myself unfortunately chapterless. Although I know the Foundation is moving away from programmatic work and pivoting towards technical and grant work, I do think it would also be a decent idea for the Foundation to have a position - not dis-similar to Lori as GLAM coordinator - to coordinate work with outside organizations interested in trying to help address our systemic biases. I've been in discussions about this set of issues with a number of institutions including half a dozen top universities and a number of major professional associations, but a Foundation-based position would both have the advantage of being able to take on such activities full time, and be able to take advantage of the social capital that the Wikimedia Foundation generally enjoys in the outside world in a way that individual volunteers cannot. Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:33, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Do you know about meta:Grants:IEG#ieg-learn? I took the liberty of adding you as the primary contact to meta:Grants:IdeaLab/Independent fact checkers to counter systemic bias. Do you have time to oversee the recruiting, vetting, hiring, and employment of one or more fact checkers over the next half year? If you want to try to get more than one, you should train them to apply for an IEG themselves to do the work as you have set forth. EllenCT (talk) 23:11, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I would eat my right foot if an IEG for such a purpose would be funded at a rate high enough to employ a team of people with the expertise necessary to produce an actually useful report - in most past instances, outside consultants have taken quite a while (and quite a bit of cash) before they were able to produce useful Wikipedia-related reports. Even if such a report were to be produced with the limited budget IEG's offer (30k USD grants may be the theoretical max, but I would be surprised if any grants at that level were approved,) there would still be the issue of actually implementing the recommendations (and many of the recommendations would likely be actionable at a Foundation or movement-wide level, not an individual project level.)

For such a project to be successful, it would likely need a greater than six month time span, a greater amount of money than an IEG would potentially provide, and more Foundation support than is provided to IEG's. From experience, I know that past reports on topics of remotely similar scope commissioned by the Foundation from outside experts have run more $-wise than is available from an IEG. I do like the idea, but for it to be successful, it would have to be driven by the Foundation or a chapter. My first guess at an approach would be adding someone to Asaf or Frank's teams on contract for a year to drive the project, and then working with Bridgespan or another outside group that already has some familiarity with Wikipedia, having the new team member both guide Bridgespan in terms of scope, etc, and then act as a champion for implementing the recommendations once the report was out. (I'm not as familiar with the potential capacity of chapters.) Kevin Gorman (talk) 23:42, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Why don't you try and see what happens instead of pledging to consume your foot if it works? EllenCT (talk) 00:16, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

From my work with WMF and multiple other non-profits, I have a reasonable idea of what a worthwhile study and followup implementation would cost - at least a reasonable enough idea to know that it's quite a bit more than $30k. I don't mind doing things for free, but I do normally prefer doing things that I know have at least a reasonable chance at success. The idea of an outside report really is a good one, but the cost of the report will exceed the theoretical maximum limit of an IEG (which isn't going to be awarded, anyway,) and without someone in at least something of a position of power to act as champion for the recommendations of the report, it would still be of limited utility. Plus I'll be submitting a separate IEG anyway ;) Kevin Gorman (talk) 01:54, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

• Also compare WP coverage to lists of people or terms: We could compare to a "list of 5,000 philosophers" or "glossary of marine technology" or "list of terms in mortgage loan origination" to be sure WP has adequate coverage, even if only with redirects into lists of notable people or terminology. All of the articles from the Catholic Encyclopedia were confirmed in recent years. -Wikid77 (talk) 23:19, 22 September 2013 (UTC)
• Grants and consultants aren't the answer. Then again, Wikipedia ISBUREAUCRACY. Carrite (talk) 23:30, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

  What would you suggest... is the answer? That is what this whole section was intended to be about, after all. Kevin Gorman (talk) 23:43, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

• If you want to have an idea of how much it costs, you might contact the people who paid for Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Google Project, a somewhat similar project to review a few dozen important medicine-related articles.
  That said, I suspect that this might fall into the category of "paying for content", which the WMF will not do. (I wonder if the Google Foundation would.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:42, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

• I'd support that as a solid step in the right direction. The points about the nature of funding durations etc are fine detail and something to be ironed out, IRWolfie- (talk) 09:17, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Given the structure of the grants programs that the Foundation has, points about funding, duration, etc, are not fine details that can be ironed out at a later point; they instead require that the Foundation itself (or a chapter, if one wanted to pick it up) spearhead the project. IEG's have caps too low to provide enough funding for something like this, and are of a fixed duration. The Wikimedia Grants program could theoretically approve a grant large enough, but speaking as someone who reviewed that particular program on contract, I can both say with some certainty that (a) Asaf would never approve such a grant to an individual, and (b) He would be completely right in not doing so. Kevin Gorman (talk) 20:07, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

• I don't like the idea of paying outside professionals at all. This is Wikipedia - people write it for free. It doesn't seem appropriate to pop up a proposal complaining there's one area we haven't attended to, so let's hire those particular people, quite possibly putting the person who made the proposal in the path of the money. Our efforts should focus on rallying existing editors using existing tools, such as the site notice banner, and organizing them effectively to take on the task through usual processes such as RfC. Wnt (talk) 18:48, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
• We don't need professionals. We could offer a donation of $5k to $10K to a journalism school, neutrality should be one of their main subjects of study. We give them a consensus list of articles to report on for neutrality. We won't allow them to edit articles nor accept their reports as etched in stone. If it is successful then we can do it each semester and pay $10 or more per article from new lists.--Canoe1967 (talk) 20:39, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Support offering compensation to established professional journalism schools in return for fact-checking, countering systemic bias, identifying conflict-of-interest quality problems, and identifying coverage problems, on a trial basis for a variety of schools initially. Then the community would have a wider variety of results to evaluate. EllenCT (talk) 01:20, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

How would journalists help in establishing bias? You need topic experts, IRWolfie- (talk) 09:01, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Not necessarily. If the question is "does WP give sufficient coverage and prominence to feminist academics?", the best person to ask might not be a feminist academic. Formerip (talk) 09:48, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

One other option, of course, would be for wikipedia to have somewhere some data on what subjects are presented in what current reference books, which would make it at least theoretically a bit easier for anyone to find at least what those comparatively recent reference sources say. And, of course, if we had enough such lists of articles available, we could probably even be better able to determine what secondary topics are most deserving to be discussed in main articles. As an example, if, for instance, an encyclopedia of philosophy or religion gave a great degree of coverage on, for instance, the philosophical/theological implications of quantum mechanics, that would, I think presumably, be a good indicator that the topic is significant, and, maybe, significant enough for at least a short summary in the main article. We would, I think, want to lay the most emphasis on secondary material relating to the broadest topics, like history, philosophy, social sciences, etc., first, but, particularly if some reference source outside of the strictly (in this example) scientific field discussed them in an article, the sources together would probably be sufficient to indicate that the topic should be at least to some degree summarized in the main article. John Carter (talk) 15:11, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Does that assume that reference works on bias authored in the past are going to be applicable in the future? I believe any evaluation of systemic bias and quality and coverage problems has to be done independently, and has to be done as new work. For example, there are probably very few treatises on bias which complain about Gilbraltar, new pesticides, depleted uranium or the latest politician who decides it would be a good idea to puff up their resume on Wikipedia. 75.98.22.23 (talk) 23:49, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

It is basically a proposal for, more or less, in house examinations of bias, based on reference works. Honestly, as someone who deals with religious content, a simple look at the numerous lengthy articles in the Eliade/Jones Encyclopedia of Religion which don't even have stubs here can see that there is a rather obvious bias toward Europe, Asia, and the "developed world," and apparently against the Pacific islands countries, some of the Caribbean, and other less popular areas. As someone who has been peripherally involved in a lot of the "third world"/"underdeveloped" areas for some time, I can say that there is actually very little doubt on that score. The best way to eliminate such systemic bias would be, I think, to provide editors with indicators of what articles exist elsewhere, and where content for them can be found. If someone wanted to spend the money to get a study to confirm that, honestly, I think the money might be better spent in getting some cheap interns or college students to develop pages indicating what topics in given subjects are notable, and some easily available sources on them, to make it easier for all editors to reduce the extant level of systemic bias many of us who have been around for some time already know exists here. John Carter (talk) 01:22, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia admin violating "Bright Line Rule"

Jimbo, is there an exception for Wikipedia administrators, that they need not follow the Bright Line Rule that you advocate? Here is an example. User:Rockpocket says he is Darren Logan, a faculty member at Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, yet he repeatedly edits Wikipedia's article about his employer, without engaging on the Talk page. Or, would you say that a faculty employee of an establishment is not a "paid advocate", so they are exempt? - DimLineRule (talk) 10:16, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Although there is some WP:COI at play, an employee is typically not considered a "paid advocate", unless their job is to promote the entity. The sole edit you linked to certainly does not violate any promotional guidelines, etc ES&L 11:01, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

By the criteria expressed by User:EatsShootsAndLeaves, even a paid editor of Wikipedia who abides by WP:NPOV, WP:RS, WP:V, and WP:NOTE, who endeavors to write a balanced, non-promotional article about a topic (that a client pays for) should not typically be considered a "paid advocate", then. If someone has the intention of expanding the encyclopedia, on the content principles of Wikipedia, then it would appear they should be exempt from the Bright Line Rule. That's good to know. Paid editors who abide by a "no advocacy"/"no promotion" practice are exempt. Paid advocates are instructed to follow the Bright Line Rule. - DimLineRule (talk) 11:29, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

I think you're adding words to the ones I typed, but as someone who responds to a lot of unblock requests from promo usernames, welcomes a lot of people with {{Welcome-coi}}, and was the original creator of {{coiq}}, there's a big difference between paid advocacy - often based on how the individual presents themself. For example "my boss asked me too ..." is a paid advocate. "I'm an intern at this company..." is a paid advocate. "I've been hired to ensure..." is a paid advocate. Now, as much as the rest of us who work for an organization should "promote" our employer as much as we can, that does not make us a paid advocate. Yes, I have edited the article of an employer - or past employer. Was I doing so as a paid advocate? No. ES&L 11:51, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Any thoughtful discussion of paid editing must deal with different kinds of paid editing differently. If a university asks professors as a part of their duties to engage in various activities as public intellectuals, in service to the broader goal of helping to create a more educated and enlightened society, and accepts work on improving Wikipedia entries as a reasonable means to that end, that's not problematic. But such professors should generally avoid editing about the University itself, as that could easily be construed as promotional. The bright line rule is designed as a best practice which means that it is not something one does to meet some bare minimum ethical standard, but rather something that one should aspire to as the best possible practice.

In that context, I think that Darren Logan should not edit the entry about Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute directly. If there is even a potential conflict of interest, or a potential appearance of impropriety, it is better to ask for corrections at the talk page, even suggesting wording and referencing, but stopping short of doing the actual edits. This is the easiest and most direct way to avoid most problems. (Note that I don't say 'all' problems.)

As ES&L points out, the one edit that our sockpuppet friend pointed to does not itself seem problematic. Nonetheless, it is best practice to avoid such edits.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:17, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

There are a plethora of examples of paid editing being accepted and allowed. For example we have an entire program for allowing college professors and students to edit articles. The students receive grades based on their content work so that is a form of compensated editing even if not paid. Additionally, the professors themselves are paid by the Universities and have been known to encourage the students to do some negative things towards the project. Not to mention the various users who have stated openly that they will help develop articles (even if going by the established rules) for a "bounty". This is compensation, etc. So there are various forms already out there not even counting the ones hiding in the shadows we don't yet know about. 138.162.8.59 (talk) 15:22, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Precisely my point. "Paid editing" - as I have said many times - is not the most interesting term to use if we want deeper understanding of the issues. "Paid advocacy" is better, but avoidance of damage to Wikipedia means something broader - it means avoiding editing which may give rise to the appearance of conflict of interest.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:55, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

• Of course the OP must realize that there is no formal WP rule known as the "Bright Line Rule." Best practice — and what should be required — is self-identification of COI on the article's talk page. This has not been done in this instance. Outside of that, I fail to see the problem that the pretty obviously trolling OP User:DimLineRule sees. Carrite (talk) 16:21, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Carrite, I think that self-identification of COI on the talk page is a very bare minimum, not "best practice". If someone with a COI edits an article and declares their COI on the talk page, they'll likely avoid an immediate block. But that's hardly best practice. Best practice is the bright line rule with escalation through the proper channels if you don't get action.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:07, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

I will yield the semantic point. I think everyone can agree that declaration of COI on the talk page is an essential starting point. What is and is not kosher after that is a matter of some debate. Carrite (talk) 00:41, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

• Agree with Carrite. While Faculty members aren't paid advocates although they should, of their own volition, note their conflict of interest on the talk page, IRWolfie- (talk) 18:48, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
  • I think Professors who edit (not about their institution, but about something they have expertise in) should self-identify as a best practice, but I think it's mistaken to call it a "conflict of interest" in most cases.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:55, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
    • Why should a professor self identify for editing in their field of expertise if it isn't a COI? I certainly think that anyone editing where they have a COI should reveal that, but simply editing a topic in which you have extensive knowledge? I don;t see why it should be required, and I've seen situations where other editors have felt that people who do so are trying to marginalise the inputs of non-experts. - Bilby (talk) 22:51, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
      • Have to agree. If it isn't a COI, then what is the purpose of such self-identification? We can tell people's areas of interest/expertise by their editing habits anyway. Resolute 23:09, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Question Time panelist publicly asserts COI editing is not OK. From the most recent episode of Question Time (TV series) a few moments ago; "You will probably go home and edit your Wiki (sic) page to be in your favour, which is hardly acceptable". --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:20, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Some falafel for you!

Just Because! Beurocraticobama (talk) 02:09, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

VE hidden: now help fix 3 months of nowiki

This is a reminder to find prior pages with garbled "</nowiki>" text and correct them (see: search 100: "nowiki" "the"). With the WMF decision to hide the VE menu option (as "opt-in" feature) on 23 September 2013 (see: dif354 in wp:VPT), then the rate of VE users inserting nowiki tags should drop drastically, and so fixing the prior nowiki tags will solve the problem finally. Some twisted nowiki-tag text is so warped that I do not think a Bot could fix them (in some cases, 4 unrelated nowiki wikilinks have been inserted at each wikilink; see dif559). However, a common warped pattern is:

• [[Thing|<nowiki/>]][[Thing (...)|Thing]]

In rare cases, the fix can be just "[[Thing]]" but it might take a while to see it. The latest nowiki-tag error I have fixed from wp:VisualEditor was garbled into the page on 17 September 2013. However, hundreds of garbled nowiki-tag contortions have been saved for the whole 3 months, July through September, and I think at least 300 more pages need to be fixed. For a while, almost all nowiki problems were being repaired, by thousands of extra edits, but perhaps people burned out and left 300 or more unfixed pages. It has been 3 months of contorted text, in perhaps 40,000 pages (most re-edited to fix). VE usage had dropped to 3% of username edits on enwiki, with only 20% of new usernames, and people who opt-in to use VE are likely to know to avoid the nowiki errors (formerly 600 per day). -Wikid77 (talk) 04:48/13:22, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

These are now tagged with an edit filter, but, curiously, not all edits tagged "nowiki" are also tagged as VE edits, for example, see this diff. Why would a new user like 186.7.95.63 go out of their way to nowiki a bullet list—indeed, how does a new user like this even know about nowiki tags? Wbm1058 (talk) 15:13, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Most edits by IPs are edits by experienced editors that have chosen not to register or chosen not to log in. Don't confuse failing to have an account with being inexperienced.—Kww(talk) 05:28, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

It could be someone who logged in from an internet cafe and spent half an hour editing this single article with VE. Then a couple days later they spent another 30 minutes on it in another cafe session. I wonder if the nowikis were some residue from the VE session two days earlier? It doesn't make sense that they would go to the trouble to nowiki this list. Wbm1058 (talk) 22:08, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm no fan of VE, but no, it can't contaminate machines and make them insert nowikis in subsequent edits.—Kww(talk) 14:16, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

I just fixed a new one tagged both VE and nowiki. Don't know if there is a way to tell for sure whether this is a VE bug or a user error. I think maybe they were just trying to insert a space between "[[Company Bahadur]]" and "(East India Company)" – anyhow, that's the additional fix I made. Wbm1058 (talk) 15:20, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I see. Funny how I learn of such happenings from an off-wiki site. Is that story a fair characterization of events? Hats off to you sir. Now I see that Signpost has covered it as well. I figured some time ago it would take the WMF a while to fix all the bugs, so had tuned out for a while; decided to just check back periodically to see how things were going. Still hoping they get it right eventually. I still don't understand the aversion to [[ ]], after all that is the MediaWiki logo. That's much easier than finding the right button with your mouse or remembering some arcane ctrl-keyboard "shortcut". Wbm1058 (talk) 19:52, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Update on Block Appeal to Founder?

I'll have something for you by Friday.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:56, 28 September 2013 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Jimbo, we had a generally constructive exchange of six emails two weeks ago today, your last stating at the end you'd research it more and get back to me. As the days keep getting checked off the calendar, I begin to worry that my followup emails are lost in your email client's twitchy spam filter (which you've referred to more than once here). Therefore I thought I'd check with you here. Can I give you any more information to help you make your decision? It's also perhaps worth mentioning that, by publicly reposting it I think exactly a month ago, you agreed to hear it. While not wanting to complain, thirty days is a significant amount of time to keep me hanging in what administrator Bwilkins/ESL has referred to as "the hell that is eternal block."[14]. To those new to this, we are testing the clemency granting power of him that holds the "founder bit." This was laid out by Jimbo in 2004[15]. The principle is that once the blocked editor exhausts all other options, he or she may yet appeal to founder, who hears it or ignores it at founder's sole discretion. In my case I was blocked May 2012 for socking but never did it. Socks are multiple accounts that deceive, I was always forthrightly (it's in my very first edit) a single account editor who switched for online privacy reasons (WP:CLEANSTART) and never went back. Despite my solid contributions even in my short time as Kolton Kosm1k (see signature), I was labeled "sock" by the powerful arbitrators Timotheus Canens and Silktork who provided neither diff nor discussion, contrary to their communication duty under WP:ADMIN, which is policy. Along the line a number of WP:AN/ANI personalities lined up behind it, armed with invincible suspicion, block buttons at the ready, and no evidence at all. They took great joy pushing me around at those mob-like chat forums, on several occasions. In strict accordance with WP:APPEAL, and providing research and complete explanation, Nihonjoe unblocked. But that was like cutting off the record player at the neverending ANI block party, so they kidnapped it and reblocked, based on no policy at all. Here's what respected bureaucrat Nihonjoe said, who actually bothered to research my case. "After carefully reviewing everything I could find regarding alleged sockpuppetry (the reason for the initial block), I can find no solid evidence of actual sockpuppetry. Using an IP address and announcing that it is you is not disallowed. As far as I can tell, the main use of the IP addresses has been to try and ask for further review. Since he was prevented from editing his own talk page, and was getting little to no response via email, this seems to be an understandable attempt to get someone to pay attention. Reviewing the definitions given at WP:SOCK: There is no evidence of additional accounts created in order to avoid detection; There is no evidence of using another person's account; There is no evidence of logging out to make problematic edits as an IP address; (emphasis added) There is no evidence of reviving old unused accounts (or "sleepers") and presenting them as different users; and There is no evidence of persuading friends or acquaintances to create accounts for the purpose of supporting one side of a dispute... The editor's contributions prior to the indef block were generally acceptable and certainly not warranting a block of this magnitude. Therefore, I have unblocked the account... I think this punishment has gone on far longer than necessary, given the severe lack of solid evidence of serious wrongdoing." Jimbo, I think there's no conceivable violation of confidence to say here that in our emails you faulted my block evasion, saying I should've researched and applied policy, emailed people for help and so forth. I said I had no choice, nobody was following policy, and Beeblebrox and Spartaz had stealth-blocked (no notification at my talkpage) my talkpage access and email function. Did I really have no choice or did I merely "feel" that way? Well, I would say both are true from my perspective. For those who feel I "copped an attitude," yeah okay, but after my years of productive editing without incident I was righteously ticked off at being blocked as a sock by someone who flicked his twinkle button and never explained a word. Anyone reading this who's interested in this discussion, even though Jimbo agreed to hear it, it'll likely be reverted by one ANI personality or other. I'll not edit war on another's talkpage, but you might consider restoring it on a "let's hear this out basis." This is Kolton Kosm1k (replace "Ks" and "k" and "1" with "Cs" and "c" and "i"). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.254.181.32 (talk) 15:41, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Proposal for intern or volunteer or maybe even (gasp!) paid work-study-type development of sources lists and article lists

There has been on this page some serious discussion about trying to find ways to get more people involved, and to keep them. To my eyes, one of the greatest stumbling blocks we have right now is that a lot of people, including some of the old hands, want to help develop a lot of content, but don't necessarily have the background to make it easy for them to determine what kinds of sources to use, or what topics aren't covered yet. I remember some years ago one of our admins, a self-described Jew, asked on the article talk page about what books would be useful sources to develop the Eastern Orthodox Church article. I thank and applaud him for his willingness to do so and in effect step out of an area of personal knowledge for the purposes of developing the encyclopedia, but do regret to note that he felt the need to ask such a question. And, mind you, that was an admin, not a newbie, who asked that question. It is all to easy to imagine newbies to any area basically throwing their hands up when thinking "I'd like to work on (not-widely-discussed topic x)," where it can be a real effort to even find the sources relevant to the topic, let alone determine what articles or content we need to have.

There are at this point though, a staggering number of reference books of an encyclopedic type out there, and even a journal whose stated purpose is just reviews of research and reference works. There is also Gale's directory of periodicals and electronic sources, which can be used to find good material on news or current event related content.

As I understand it, San Francisco, where the WF is now based, is probably one of the leading areas in the world for libraries, with Stanford and Cal-Berkeley in the immediate area, San Jose and Sacramento in the near area, and, more or less, general access to all the academic libraries of the California state college and university system at request. Also, obviously, there are a lot of students at those schools, many of whom might be interested in some sort of internship or other type activity, and this might even include (I hope) quite a few in the library and information sciences field. Has anyone ever considered maybe contacting some of the local schools to request assistance or offer internships for the WF? Two specific areas come to mind: (1) developing lists of periodicals and electronic media sources directly pertinent to topic areas, like, maybe, for some of the extant WikiProjects and work groups, and (2) lists of reference works, and maybe of articles in encyclopedic reference works, for those groups or similar topical based lists as well. Right now, I do think most of the major topic areas have at least one such group created for them, and they could easily have pages similar to Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/Encyclopedic articles which would provide both basic pointers regarding what related topics we do and don't have yet, and sources which can be used to develop them. Between lists like that, and lists of sources in general, both of which might be able to be linked to in project banners on talk pages, I think we might make it a lot easier for both newer and older editors to develop content in their fields.

Much of this could, I suppose, be done as volunteer intern type work by students, but I think considering the rather minimal pay college work study jobs give, I think it might be possible to get some sort of foundation to offer a grant for development of such. I tend to think that a list of reference sources, like the Gale directory, would probably be more or less a one-time-only requirement, because it could probably be fairly easily updated once the basic starting work is completed. Lists of reference works, and articles in them, would be more of a standing requirement. But, should there not be sufficient new material in a given period, such interns might be able to scan some good PD reference sources, encyclopedic or otherwise, into commons, which would make it even that much easier for some editors to find basic content which could be used to at least start content development in some topic areas. So, even if some of the people were, well, paid to do this, they could be working in areas outside of specific article development, and thus avoid the "pay-per-article" question we really prefer to avoid.

Anyway, any opinions? John Carter (talk) 15:38, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

• Essays which suggest sources: See "wp:Find sources" where several people have written essays which offer advice about the acceptable sources. Some lists include:

WP:Identifying reliable sources (medicine), or

WP:Identifying reliable sources (history), or

WP:Identifying reliable sources (natural sciences), or

"List of newspapers in the United_Kingdom" and similar.

In some cases, listing just a few sources could make a big difference, where editors then found the related publications. -Wikid77 (talk) 06:41, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Email

Hello, Jimbo Wales. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Please, check in your spam folder first. Have a good day! Miss Bono ^{[hello, hello!]} 16:09, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

We might have been trolled by a 14-year-old passing off as a retired lawyer. What shall we now do?

We might have been trolled by a 14-year-old passing off as a 91-year-old retired lawyer. What shall we now do? I suspect that, given his then young age, at least half of what he wrote are (unsourced) expensive copyrighted law books and other legal materials over the USD $100 price-tag, not available to lend or even to read by laymen, and otherwise out of our reach. [16] If you, Sir, were to believe me, can we not just bypass the usual bureaucratic process, and just simply summarily delete his creations? We cannot possibly debate with crackpots, legal or otherwise, nor conspiracy theorists, nor their friends, readers or supporters. 212.50.182.151 (talk) 14:28, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

The diff you have posted doesn't give the slightest clue who this supposed 'troll' is, nor what the problematic material is. So no, 'we' can't 'bypass' anything. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:51, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

What is the basis of your claim that the material is a copyright violation, and that the editor misrepresented their age and expertise? Monty₈₄₅ 14:52, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

• This should be handled at WT:LAW. There's no value in having decisions made by people who don't have any knowledge of the topic. Looie496 (talk) 14:55, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

if something is a copyright violation what does the age or profession have to do without? We don't make exceptions for 81 yr old lawyers to copyvio... As for the books being being out of reach of normal people, that doesn't matter, they are ok to be used as a source. We have real lawyers who can verify what is being sourced from them. YOU do not need to be able to verify, just that someone theoretically can.Camelbinky (talk) 16:34, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Discussion about this on AN/I: [17]. Ansh666 00:46, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

The article "Civil recognition of Jewish divorce" was started by the then a 14-year-old Singaporean school pupil (([18]); ([19])), then in (secondary, or middle) school in England, but pretending to be a "retired "lawyer" " of 91 (([20]); (Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive44#Searching_for_info_on_User:David91); (User:SouthernNights/Archive_5#David91); ([21]); ([22]); ([23]); ([24]); ([25]); ([26]) (see the words "retired" or "memory" on the pages given at the last six links)), who somehow thought that he knew Law by getting hold and reading one of (probably his father's) academic (not legal) titles (the difference between "academic books on law" and "legal books" is that between books about "how the law should be like, and how they should be changed accordingly" and books about "how should you practise the law as it is, as the law currently stands") (by one John Greenwood Collier, who only used to teach (a very specific area of) Law, possibly as a jurist and a legal theorist; there is no available evidence to suggest that Collier is himself ever actually a member of the Law Society as a solicitor or a member of the General Council of the English Bar as a barrister) (([27]); ([28]); ([29]); ([30]); ([31]); ([32]); ([33])) on the subject of Private International Law (Like his book, he even changed the name into "conflict of laws" after the title, and often wrote without even the article.), and started thinking that he had studied Law and could write about Law, when he had in fact neither—nothing, not even GCSE Law, International O-Levels Law, IGCSE Law, A-Level Law, International A-Level Law or IB Law (if the last in fact exists), as I had originally thought and opined accordingly, albeit upon a different page!


It was very unlikely that he was not giving out private legal advice, especially on divorce, perhaps by internal E-mail from his Wikipedia account ([34]); and the whole article was his private "crackpot" theory—like me, as an outsider, not being a Jew—on how to procure a Jewish religious divorce with unreasonable, immoral or unlawful terms (perhaps secured with the help and co-operation of an unethical Rabbi or Rabbis) to the benefit of one of the parties, and how to make such terms somehow "stick" and enforceable as if they were valid in civil and secular courts of law and record without the need to secure a separate civil and secular divorce for the marriage to be lawfully dissolved in the eyes of both Jewish (Orthodox) religious law and secular law, based upon his own private theories on Private International Law. (He believed that even mere academic theories, purely on the drawing board, of Private International Law (that he mistook as actual law), can somehow take precedence, nay override, national and international law without so much as a signed and ratified (and enacted, for some jurisdictions) treaty or convention.)


He certainly could not have been a "lawyer" (When was the English, Northern Ireland, Irish and Scottish distinction between solicitors, barristers, Scottish advocates and notaries public abolished?) in the United Kingdom and Islands or in any of the jurisdictions within any of the most other major Countries within the British Commonwealth of Nations and also retaining the use and application of the English Common law, if he thought that the Law Lords in the House of Lords (He simply described them as "the House of Laws", a layman's term, instead of "the Law Lords".) somehow had appellate jurisdiction over the Isle of Man, Jersey and the Bailiwick of Guernsey—when the House of Lords did not, on almost all things since probably the last 200 to 325/350 years; the Isle of Man and the Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey were treated as autonomous private fiefdoms of the English and British Crown, or, the Kings and Queens of England, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, and the Parliaments of England, Great Britain and the United Kingdom do not usually have jurisdiction over them, and it was long considered (by an extension of the legal principle—from the ruling detailed in the enrolled (with the Master of the Rolls) Memorandum from the Lords of the Privy Council for the King-in-Council, on the 9th. August 1722 ("...Acts of Parliament made in England, without naming the foreign Plantations, will not bind them ...")—to cover the Isle of Man and the Two Bailiwicks) that Acts of the Parliaments of Great Britain and the United Kingdom do not apply or extend to the Isle of Man or to the Two Bailiwicks unless they are specifically named; hence their "Supreme Court" is (a Committee of) the Privy Council (originally a body of advisers to advise the King or the Queen exercising his or her Royal Prerogative independent of Parliament), not a few members (the Law Lords) sitting in a chamber (House of Lords) of the Legislature that is not normally supposed to have jurisdiction over those Islands) (A person who had actually been brought up in a British Colony when it was still a British colony would also highly unlikely to mistaken the Lord Laws/House of Lords with the Privy Council's Committee (JCPC), bearing in mind that Colonial capital cases in the 20th. century were sometimes referred to the Privy Council/JCPC, and were widely reported locally.); or even to think that the Isle of Man, Jersey or the Guernsey were ever a (constituent) part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland—an unforgivable mistake that he would not had made, if he had even watched so much as the FIFA World Cup, or even the Commonwealth Games! (User_talk:Morwen/11#English law)


He lacked competence. He was a charlatan. He was a fraud. He was a pretended "lawyer" who had only read one (wrong) book, and too lazy to decide whether he wanted to be a solicitor, a barrister or a notary public. I have not yet even gone into his amateurish way of mixing American and English cases—something that only academics—but not usually actual practising or retired solicitors and barristers—are allowed to do (because English cases after the year 1776 are not usually considered "persuasive" in American Courts, and American cases have almost never been considered persuasive in English Courts)! And if he were an American attorney and not an English (or a Singaporean) solicitor or barrister, then why was he even giving out commentaries on English law in the first place? An American attorney who comments on post-1776 English law (but without also qualifying as an English solicitor or barrister), in the same way as what "David91" did, based upon his record of edits ([35] ), would definitely fall under the Competence rule!


I do indeed realise with much foreboding that each and every word of what I had written and about to submit can cause your most loyal, humble and obedient servant to be blocked, nay banned, yet I am a faithful believer of "calling it what it is", and I also faithfully, earnestly and sincerely believe that, by "role-playing" on Wikipedia like some kind of a game of Second Life, he MUST be considered to be partly acting in bad faith, and all this has to be said. All his misguided support (([36]); ([37])) did not in any way serve to refute my case, my allegations in any material way—playing the man (me) instead of the ball.


Supposing that I were to believed, if he could lie about his age, his education and what his did as an occupation, what else could he also not lie about? And could a 14/15-year-old really write in the way, manner and style that he did? Can it believed that his works was his, and his alone? I know that I could not, when I was at that age! It would be highly foolhardy and reckless of us to think that none of his words were copyright violations, either from any of the works of this John Greenwood Collier, or from some other source.


The evidence of his other glaring and unforgivable errors, unbecoming of either a solicitor or a barrister in England, include the following: (([38]); ([39]); ([40]); ([41]) ("Northern Island"? "Guerney"? Pull the other one!); ([42]); ([43]); ([44]); ([45]); ([46]); ([47]); ([48])) The fact of the matter is, in England, barristers and solicitors are not—and probably never, unless the trial was supposed to be wholly conducted in Latin—supposed to throw Latin legal terms and phrases about in Court as liberally as our "David91" and also a lot of our cousins in the American sister profession do. There is probably never a tradition in England for it (see the Proceedings in Courts of Justice Act 1730, Chapter 26 (4 Geo. 2.)). — 212.50.182.151 (talk) 09:44, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Gathering information about alleged irregularities on Croatian Wikipedia

Hello Jimbo! A couple of other users & I have, per WP:BOLD, started an effort to gather specific information about alleged irregularities on Croatian Wikipedia. We are hoping this information will make it possible to focus on the specifics and provide data for others to make informed decisions. Administrators on Meta have, reasonably, expressed skepticism about this effort, seeing that the associated RfC has, to put it mildly, veered off course.

This is just FYI, so you or anyone else may take whatever course of action you deem appropriate. Thank you! – Miranche ^T C 00:17, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

This is incredibly valuable, thanks. The ranting discussion that was held here did not give me much confidence in anything. The things that I'm most interested in are allegations of extreme bias and rewriting of history, and of people being blocked for holding opinions different from administrators. Of course, I'm experienced in the way of wiki, and understand that many banned users will allege such things without much real justification. But there seems to be significant and valid concerns about the situation in Croatian Wikipedia, and actual detailed information gathered by calm and reasonable people will be very helpful in the longterm resolution of the problem.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:36, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Great, that's our goal as well. Thank you for the vote of confidence. – Miranche ^T C 22:19, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

VE bad links on 22 September

Just in case anyone thinks the VisualEditor (VE) had been "fixed" in late-September, before it was pulled from the Wikipedia top menu, I want to confirm garbled text from a VE edit of 22 September 2013. While there were many VE bugs which had been fixed, or reduced, VE was still generating null-nowiki links, as in "Brandon Washington" at 00:12, 22 September (dif095), where 2 simple wikilinks were replaced by 3 complex links, 2 of them as external links to "en.wikipedia.org" and the 3rd null-nowiki as "[[National Football League|<nowiki/>]]". So if anyone claims, "Hey, it was a wrong decision to shut out VE from the menu during the week it was fixed", then the reply should be that no, VE was still allowing people to create garbled nowiki links and external weblinks in the top paragraph, when a smart text-editor should have warned users not to insert those links. VE was making the wikitext more complex than the wikitext editor itself. -Wikid77 (talk) 06:18, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

huh, I didn't notice that VE was gone until just now. (unless I just turned it off, which I don't think i'd do)-- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 06:23, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

@Aunva6: this article should get you up to speed on the sudden, quiet disappearance of VE. Wbm1058 (talk) 16:47, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Much as I shared (and expressed) many of the concerns with the VE deployment process ... it remains a stupendously important thing, and now more than ever we need experienced editors kicking the stuffing out of it, beta-testing it and reporting every bug and glitch as best they can. So please, tick the box. As a dancing bear, it does a superlative cha-cha, and only occasionally eats onlookers these days - David Gerard (talk) 07:11, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

on the other hand they have enough unfixed bugs to be going on with. Once those are addressed its time to start recruiting people for further testing.Geni (talk) 14:21, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

No, I think you're wrong. Reason is, I've been beating on it lately and found an interesting new buggy behaviour (on long complex reference-heavy articles, I got a "Error: unknown error" but it saved the edit rather than dropping it). More bug testing is still seriously needed, valuable and valued - David Gerard (talk) 19:55, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

• Reasons VE usage dropped: Perhaps, hypothetically, VE might seem "stupendously important" but in reality, the vast majority of active editors (97%) did not want it, and even among new users in September 2013, only 20% of new usernames were using VE versus 80% of new usernames prefering the wikitext source editor. See: wp:VEDASH for the dashboard which shows the hourly usage levels. From my perspective, as a computer scientist who has developed several text-editors, there are many reasons why users prefer the wikitext editor: it is fast to find the spot to edit; writing wikitext is often easier than point-and-click menus; the syntax format of wikitext is easy to learn; text can be copy-pasted from an offline search-and-replace editor; and the wikitext-source editor is already a "visual-editing tool" for text which wraps in paragraphs (although not for images or templates until edit-preview). Instead, it is more important to expand the wikitext editor with more features, such as a [Check format] button to scan for improper markup format, as a feature for 97% of active editors each month. -Wikid77 (talk) 12:13, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Wikid that the vast majority of editors prefer wikitext over VE. In the corner of Wikipedia I patrol for vandalism and spelling errors I noticed once VE started being used that the majority of vandalism was done by those on VE, and not always intentional harmful vandalism, 40% was often the equivalent of kids doing graffiti, and another 25% really could not be called vandalism it was people in good faith adding material but unsourced, often untrue, and in poor format. The conclusion I was able to draw pretty quickly was that VE was, at least in my little corner of the wikiverse, being used by inexperienced users. No established users were using VE. I quickly started considering an edit with the tag it was done using VE as a red flag to definitely check and make sure it was an edit that deserved to stay. I'd say that I reverted about 90% of all VE edits I saw on articles I have watchlisted.97.88.87.68 (talk) 15:29, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

inexperienced people in good faith adding material but unsourced, often untrue, and in poor format. Is this not the WMF's target market for VE? Don't they want to grow the number of editors, and isn't this the kind of editor you expect and want to attract when you grow the number of editors? And if this is the case, is it really compatible with the old tradition of attempting to categorize, index, organize and perfect a finite source of information? Or, is it more compatible with an "encyclopedia" organized around a big data model, where no subject isn't notable, and you accept the imprecision and errors that come along with the flood of data and information that can no longer be managed by humans, but is dependent on "big data" algorithms like Google search (presumably algorithms that the WMF may be expected to develop and support) to manage the information. Many, perhaps most, new editors I see are single-issue editors who are only interested in writing an article about their pet item of interest. New "gnome"-type editors seem to be rare, and the gnomes are getting overwhelmed. Should we just throw up our hands and let big data algorithms make sense of it all? Clearly, WMF isn't interested in "mucking around" with the actual content. Neither do they seem particularly interested in making the tasks easier for the editors who do volunteer to muck around with the content. For an example of where the gnomes are overwhelmed, look at the state of merging. Maybe we just give up and and accept redundancy as an inevitable part of an open encyclopedia that anyone can (easily) edit, just as the internet itself is filled with redundancy. Hardware has made data cheap, and is making managing it by traditional means impossible. (please don't flame me, just throwing this up here to see what kind of reaction it gets) Wbm1058 (talk) 16:47, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

• I agree that the "gnomes are getting overwhelmed" and they need better, or improved tools. We need some "wiki-format tools" which reduce/unlink redlinks, auto-backlink reftags while auto-moving footnotes into "{Reflist|refs=}", plus auto-format lists of "xx<br>'''yy'''<br>zz" to become non-bolded bullet lists. I think the way forward would be more gadgets, or Lua scripts, which take a mangled article and apply fix-it steps to automate the cleanup. Also, we need "notability wizards" to help cross-check articles, such as counting particular Google hits as a wiki-hint of the potential to find related sources. However, the point emphasized, above, is that the vast ocean of articles has reached super-human size, and "managing it by traditional means [is] impossible". Tools such as wp:WPCleaner or wp:CHECKWIKI need to be better integrated into the copy-editing tasks. It is just not feasible to imagine typical users would want to tediously point-and-click on all text glitches to improve the quality of thousands of pages. The crowd-sourcing of data is called a "blog" but writing an encyclopedia requires much tedious copy-editing, sourcing of text, and analyzing notability plus mirroring the wp:NPOV coverage of subtopics in relation to the preponderance of sources. The data entry of the original "blog" text is the least of worries when writing articles. -Wikid77 (talk) 03:56, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

The idea of VE is to get newbies who recoil at computer guacamole to edit. I'm a Unix sysadmin for a living and I recoil at wikitext computer guacamole. I seriously think we could add so many new editors if VE gets up to scratch, and of course has a good enough reference-adding tool. (I also really really really lots and lots want a usable VE for my intranet wikis at work, but I'm not confident we'll have that by 1.23, the next stable MediaWiki.) This is a seriously important thing we really need. It still sorta sucks at present (it's WAY TOO FAT and glitches under stress), but occasional editors I know have been very pleased with how easy it is compared to wikitext, so I think there is in fact hope - David Gerard (talk) 19:55, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Mmmm, guacamole! Maybe not the best metaphor since it's yummy. :-) Anyway I agree completely with the substance of your remarks. Here's my broad philosophical view on this: the wikitext editor will always exist and should always exist and is likely (though one can't be sure) going to be the preferred choice of power editors. If power editors don't like the wikitext editor for their own use, then they should ethically NOT CARE if other people do prefer it. There is one and only one exception to this: if the visual editor is screwing things up, then wikitext editors are allowed and encouraged to moan loudly about that. The next level of analysis is to then work to maximize the usefulness of the VE for newbies and also, in due course, for power editors as well. As long as it isn't breaking things, and as long as it is similar or even slightly better for noobs, then we should promote it.

Speaking only for myself, then, the ONLY argument against the VE that I have found compelling is that it breaks things. I have been told that the breakage is extremely rare, but obviously people have differing opinions on that. And sadly, although I think opinions on all sides are open to revision in the face of data, we haven't actually seen enough data (from either side).--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:18, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Yet the major argument against VE was: few people wanted to use it, as even 80% of new usernames preferred the wikitext editor. Another major drawback of VE, noted in early feedback, was to present a split-personality of editing, where articles would be modified by VE keystrokes, but the talk-page discussion would involve colon-indent or asterisk bullet points plus wikilinks of the form "[[zzzz]]" not allowed by VE, all checked by "edit-preview" each time. New users were almost certain to be confused by the Jekyll/Hyde interface, of VE for articles, but wikitext mode for talk-pages. -Wikid77 (talk) 03:56, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

We have got a lot of crappy edits through from VE breakage. It really wasn't up to scratch when it was first made default. It's a lot better now. But it still needs serious beatings, which is why I'm actively begging experienced editors to use the thing. My personal most common experience with it is when I'm confronted with a reference-heavy article (hence lots of computer guacamole) so I edit it with the VE ... and on save, it times out after 100 seconds with "Error: Unknown error". Though lately it's actually been saving those edits after all.

I also like the fact that part of its requirements are to be the first bidi editor that doesn't suck, ever in history. Given its utterly impossible requirements, the VE is presently completely amazing. Hopefully it'll get better enough for less amazing requirements soon ... - David Gerard (talk) 20:30, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

One thing I have recently found is that Wikia uses a very good editing interface that is free of most of the problems I have had with the Visual Editor on here. A big benefit is that one can switch between the source editor and visual editor so if there is something I cannot edit with VE I can switch to SE and then right back to VE without having to save my work. I find it odd that Wikipedia can't seem to get this straight when Wikia seems to already have a pretty good handle on it.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 20:42, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

I get the concept of reducing guacamole, to the extent that is possible, but what I don't get is the idea that something like Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Keyboard shortcuts achieves that goal. What I would expect is that when I type [[something]] into VE, that nearly instantly after I type the second "]" the square brackets would disappear and the black text would be replaced by either a blue link or a red link. Furthermore, I would expect that if a blue link, that it would also show the navigation popup. It would then be up to the editor to search out the nowiki button in the unlikely event that a wikilink was not what they intended. Now if they also want to support Ctrl+K or letting editors fumble with their mice to highlight the text they want to link, then locate the link button and click on it, fine. Those just shouldn't be the only ways to accomplish the task. I'll give an example of guacamole that I don't think VE yet addresses. If you patrol category:missing redirects as I do, you quickly notice that many editors put {{redirect}} at the top of an article, thinking that they have actually created a redirect to that article (or maybe they just think they've created a request for someone else to do it). Why not have VE put a little window on the screen that lists all the redirects to the article being edited, and allows editors to create a redirect to that article simply by adding a (redlink) title to the list, when they save the page, they also would simultaneously create a new redirect as well. Wbm1058 (talk) 20:48, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

The issue of listing the known redirects, during a VE edit, is an aspect of a "smart editor" rather than a "visual editor" and auto-analysis of text, during edit, could be provided in the wikitext editor by a [Check format] button which looks for mismatched "[__]]" or bizarre wording such as a sentence which ends with "-. " or such. In general, expect an article to contain over 50 copy-edit glitches which a tool might help report. -Wikid77 (talk) 03:56, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

A you for you!

	A you for you!
	A you for you! OperatorBot (talk) 00:36, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

ARBCOM elections 2013 - Election Commission

Hi Jimbo, there is currently a discussion about the time frame for selection of an Election Commission for this year's ARBCOM elections. We are discussing on the talk page the time frames, specifically how long you'd need to decide from the community comments the editors on the Commission. See this section for more information, and a place to comment. Regards, Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 06:55, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

ArbCom proposal to further delay the Bradley Manning/Chelsea Manning move discussion

Greetings Jimbo. As I recall, you would have preferred a shorter time before allowing a new discussion on the Bradley Manning/Chelsea Manning title dispute. Presently, ArbCom is considering a proposal to extend that time "until October 14 or the closing of this case, whichever occurs first". I think that this would be a bad idea, as the community has already used this thirty-day period to put together the most thorough move request I have yet seen prepared to launch at 03:50 (UTC) Sep 30, 2013. If you continue to prefer that this matter be resolved sooner rather than later, you may wish to relay your preference to ArbCom. Cheers! bd2412 T 01:09, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Note: This is effectively resolved, as it has been overtaken by events. Cheers! bd2412 T 17:15, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

I thought that ArbCom tended to avoid interference with the flow of community decisions, and focused on matters where the community was divided or undecided. Any thoughts? -Wikid77 (talk) 07:17, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

There's something very overreaching and NSA-ish beginning to emanate from the case pages, much of it originating in Arbitrator Kiril Lokshin. If I were to sit here and just point out the ruling that the WMF's non-discrimination policy is applicable to content dispute to ordering that an article title be changed to indefinitely topic-banning a user for a single unseemly edit, one could just dismiss that as sour grapes. But the cherry on top of is voting to oppose sanction for user Josh Gorand. Why? Because he agrees with Gorand's point-of-view on the topic at hand. See this; "While Josh's conduct was not ideal, he was largely justified in his criticism; the discussion was riddled with virulently transphobic comments. A certain amount of excessive zeal can be forgiven in the face of such.". So, I'd like people to really look at the balance of things here; 1 user makes 1 bad comment == topic-ban, while 1 user makes 15-20 bad comments but it's A-OK. Lokshin excuses atrocious behavior if the user was doing it for what he perceives as the right reason. Tarc (talk) 12:43, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

But what is very important is to gauge if there is a valid basis for what people are actually saying. So, one should at first ignore the precise words used and just consider what Josh and others were communicating, looking at if they were communicating in a constructive way, or trying to derail a constructive discussion. And then you can also look if in such a discussion the choice of words may not have been ideal. But you can't only do the latter and ignore the bigger picture. Count Iblis (talk) 14:48, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

The only thing that explains indefinitely topic-banning one editor for a single comment along the lines of "I think Manning's a man regardless of what he claims" while the guy who slurs and denigrates the 150+ editors who voted to move the article back to "Bradley" gets a wink and a nod from Kiril is bias. Pure, unadulterated, disruptive-to-the-project bias. Tarc (talk) 14:56, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

But that only looks like bias because you ignore the actual content of the discussions. The whole point of the discussions on talk pages is to have fruitful conversations, it's not some Kindergarten playground where in case of misbehavior ArbCom will play the role of the Kindergarten nanny. Count Iblis (talk) 15:35, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

But is civility not one of the WP:5P (five pillars) of the project? "Editors should treat each other with respect and civility". If ArbComm is supposed to enforce the rules of the project, then it essentially must be "the Kindergarten nanny" in cases where incivility has been present. It especially should not justify incivility. Letting people get away with insults only encourages them and others to continue abusing the system.--MarshalN20 | ^Talk 15:43, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but it should actually do a lot more than just being the "Kindergarten nanny" and look deeply into the conflict itself. So, someone can behave in a reasonably civil way but still be extremely disruptive in a discussion while someone else may be less civil but who is actually provoked in doing that in order to prevent the discussions from being derailed. In that case the ArnbCom finding must reflect this. It should not justify the incivility, but it cannot consider incivility as the only relevant factor. Count Iblis (talk) 16:04, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

While I agree with you that incivility should not be considered the only relevant factor, in many cases it is a driving factor that worsens problems. I must further point out the incongruence between "provocation" and "justification". Claiming a user was provoked to behave with incivility is a justification. It sounds awfully similar to rape and murder cases where the defendant argues he was provoked by the victim.

This again goes back to Tarc's claim of bias. Justifying incivility as provoked, thereby exonerating it of punishment, reflects a bias. Considering there is always the option to avoid incivility, no plausible justification exists for it.--MarshalN20 | ^Talk 16:27, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

For the sake of discussion, I'd like to add that Tarc's perceived notion of people getting away with rampant insults, and getting their actions justified by ArbComm, can be seen in the Argentine history case. You can look at the evidence page (AH Evidence) for further information. Regards.--MarshalN20 | ^Talk 15:12, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Of course, what's done is done, so let me emphasize that this is solely for the sake of the discussion. For what it's worth, I believe that there is no justification for editors who "slur and denigrate" others under whatever perception of righteousness they might have in mind.--MarshalN20 | ^Talk 15:19, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

I have to agree that Kirill is being extremely biased with regards to this case. Arguing that the statement "One does not become female just by saying one wants to be" is worthy of a topic ban but "it's hard to see any other explanation for someone insisting on calling an individual who self-identifies as female by using their former name with which they no longer identifies, than virulent hatred of transgendered people" can be "forgiven" shows an incredible lack of perspective. I can safely say the latter comment is far more disruptive and offensive than the former.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 16:24, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

AFAICT, the "workshop" page is a tad unwieldy, but YMMV. I posted my own comments/suggestions on the talk page for that page (which I actually read all the way through!) and rather think the opinions of others might help ArbCom in its apparent desire to rush into the netherworld of Dante. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:55, 29 September 2013 (UTC) (on Wikistrike as noted previously)

• I think it will work its way through. Salvio clearly understands where his authority stops, and Newyorkbrad does as well. There are a few comments from Risker that seem to indicate that she sees this problem as well.—Kww(talk) 14:39, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
• In light of the fact that there has been commentary that has been less than civil all around during this saga, the best thing for arbcom to do is simply impliment discretionary sanctions from here forward and refrain from further polarizing the issue by sanctioning only one side of the argument, especially for commentary made a month or more ago. We don't generally block people punitively so the rationale to topic ban people in the same way goes against that norm. Many of those most in favor of seeing sanctions applied seem to have been less than perfect themselves...Wikipedia is not a battleground.--MONGO 16:32, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Is it time for ArbCom reform?

Normally, I support ArbCom and its mission, but there have been a recent number of screw-ups which are getting increasingly hard to ignore. In one case, ArbCom topic-banned an editor for edit-warring for 4 reverts over 5 months.[49] I opened an RfC and not a single member of the community agreed with it and not a single Arb was willing to defend the decision.[50] In another screw-up, ArbCom sanctioned an editor for ignoring a "sound" argument[51] even though the diff provided clearly showed the editor actually agreed with the argument.[52] Now, we have this current train wreck in progress.

My question - which I ask of the entire community - is how we go about solving this problem? Is it simply a question of voting off Arbs who repeatedly make obvious mistakes? Or do we need a separate body, composed of community members, in which ArbCom decisions can be appealed? Or both?

There is clearly something wrong here and ignoring the problem won't make it go away.

A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:15, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

The only way for the community to do this (assuming that Jimbo isn't going to intervene here and implement a different system), is for a group of editors to run for ArbCom collectively based on a platform for reforms. Otherwise, simply taking part in the elections of Arbs is similar to local elections in China to elect a few new members of the Communist Party. I've started the WP:WikiProject ArbCom Reform Party last year. If one such platform gets elected, then you have a big block of new Arbs who can take over control of ArbCom and implement a new system. Count Iblis (talk) 17:33, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

That's certainly an interesting option worthy of consideration.--MarshalN20 | ^Talk 17:51, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

It's always time for Arbcom reform. I run every year.—Kww(talk) 17:34, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

I would have to disagree with the idea that the "only" way to implement change is through revolutionary tactics, and, honestly, unfortunately, given the, um, "success" of such efforts in governments in recent years, have serious questions whether things might, unfortunately, be worse after the revolution than before them. But I do think that having additional people run, and, maybe, although I myself dislike this idea, introducing some degree of "politics" in, if only a "Vote Incompetent Bastard (fill in the blank) Off ArbCom" party and such efforts which deal more with individuals than revolutionary theories or movements might be reasonable. Unlike Kww, I never run for ArbCom, and the world is a better place for it. ;) John Carter (talk) 17:52, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Short of cloning NYB and electing the clones, I don't see how we would vote the problem away one arb at a time. Sure we occasionally elect Arbs that turn out to have been bad choices, but I don't know how I would have identified some of them during the election. Really, what we need to look at is the structure of the committee, the complexity of the cases, and how little attention particular issues the committee decides on end up getting as a result. Take the ongoing Manning dispute, between the evidence and the workshop page, not even counting talk pages, there is over 1,200,000 bytes to review. What if instead of creating an appeals group, we had inferior arbitration panels that would hear evidence, decide cases, and then, editors who felt aggrieved with the decision would appeal to the committee itself on the narrow issues still in dispute? While in theory, the community already serves that purpose at the noticeboards, in practice, the most complex cases, the ones that generate the most questionable arbcom decisions, are largely unresolveable at those noticeboards. Lots of details to be worked out, like who would serve on the panels, but that can be discussed if the idea goes anywhere. Monty₈₄₅ 18:11, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

OK, I guess this makes two members of the "Clone User:Newyorkbrad Party" here. It might be interesting to see if there would be any sort of support for ArbCom to be able to appoint individuals (probably admins in most cases, although a few respected senior non-admins might also qualify) for some ad hoc bodies to deal with disputes before they hit ArbCom, maybe something like mediation as it exists, but possibly with more than one "mediator" in the ad hoc body. Or maybe creation of some sort of unofficial "article probation squad" of such individuals, who might have a bit of a specific task of dealing with topics which have been placed under some sort of "article probation", and thus included in their remit, by ArbCom? John Carter (talk) 18:20, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

I think that for any sort of pre-arbcom step to work would need to differ from mediation in two fundamental ways, first, participation would need to be mandatory, and the person(s) in supervising the process would need to have the authority to set out a binding result. (to be appealed to arbcom) Otherwise, its just mediation 2.0 and wont help when it comes to the really large controversies. Monty₈₄₅ 18:30, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

That might work. Alternately, although, admittedly, I don't know how many people would volunteer for an "article probation squad" idea, if we could, somehow, sic about dozen senior editors who have earned some degree of broad trust on an article or topic on probation, if we could do that, that might be sufficient numbers to establish consensus on its own. Granted, it is a bit of a pipe-dream, and maybe in some ways a bit underhanded, but it might also be really effective in at least some cases. John Carter (talk) 18:38, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

• One issue I find with arbcom is that it is above the community in its decisions. While some private issues like ban appeals should stay private, other things like topic bans should be veto-able by the community (by that, I mean a very strong consensus against the decision).--Jasper Deng (talk) 18:40, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

The problem I see with that is that for every successful appeal to the community resulting in a strong 80%+ consensus, there would probably be dozens that appeal generate tons of heat, and then fail. Monty₈₄₅ 18:44, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

True, but Jasper touches on an important matter: ArbComm's power of "final decision". In my opinion, it is too much and largely goes unchecked except for a few notable cases (such as the Manning dispute).

For example, is it really efficient to have the same people who banned you look at your appeal request? Are we to assume they will truly look at the appeal from a neutral perspective?

There needs to be a balance of powers, and the delegation of tasks (mentioned above) could perhaps be a solution.--MarshalN20 | ^Talk 18:52, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Opinions: ArbCom has sufficient power to destroy Wikipedia. Thus it behooves us to not only know the candidates "editorial history" here, but also some semblance of an actual c.v. so that we can properly gauge their breadth of knowledge of such processes and procedures in the outside world as are applicable to dispute resolution and arbitration here, IIRC, in the past there have been ArbCom members who were not what they represented themselves as (one problem) or who showed a remarkable inability to act as neutral arbiters of behavior disputes, and, in some cases, actually injected themselves into a prosecutorial role rather than being impartial arbiters. Collect (talk) 19:20, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

• We should get rid of Arbcom altogether, IMO, because it aspires to a sort of committee-of-wizened-sages model that just isn't realistic. Short of that, agree with MarshalN20 that one of the main things that could improve the process would be means by which its decisions can be routinely (and meaningfully) scrutinised. What Arbcom is lacking is any driver for good decision-making. Formerip (talk) 19:43, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Arbcom is a part of the dispute resolution system. From what I've seen, the entire system needs a tune up, at the very least.

1. The system needs to maintain its streamlined form due to the need for efficiency related to the demands placed on volunteers time. So while I think some sort of appeals panel would be desirable, the growth of bureaucracy has to be kept in check.
2. Enhance content related policies, and implement measures to ensure for stronger enforcement at the lower levels of the dispute resolution system. As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a ton of bytes--or something like that. In other words, there would seem to be disputes that could (and should) be nipped in the bud before they assume all sort of distorted and contorted proportions. That would not only save everyone's time, but make editing a more predictable and less stressful.
3. There are already provisions in place set forth in the Arbitration Policy that Arbcom is supposed to follow. Obviously there needs to be a mechanism to ensure that Arbcom is following the provisions made in that policy, as that is the Wikipedia policy on the basis of which Arbcom exercises authority in the first place--or so one would assume.
4. As far as I can tell, there is already a process whereby a user can launch a petition to amend the Arbitration Policy by obtaining the signatures of 100 editors in good standing, etc., and holding a vote on the proposed amendments and the like. So there doesn't seem to be a need for anything drastic or radical to remedy these problems, unless more robust enforcement of content policy at the lower level administrative bodies for dispute resolution is deemed radical.
   --Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 20:07, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

I've never heard of the petition thing before. Like I say, I think Arbcom would benefit from routine and meaningful scrutiny. When was the last time a petition was filed? Formerip (talk) 20:37, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Plugging my proposal below, I agree fully that the content related policies and guidelines need some work. Making it easier for more people to find and access more reliable sources on a specific topic seems to me in at least some cases to still be one of our bigger problems here. Granted, lists like those I propose below would not in and of themselves make content better, but they might make it a great deal easier for people to quickly and effectively resolve at least some disputes. John Carter (talk) 20:28, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

In the short term, the crucial reform you want is a right to trial by jury. I've elaborated on this previously. We need to stop having people with grudges against each other dominate the decision making about one another's conduct, with a few Arbitrators thrown into the process at the last minute. Instead, a randomly chosen cross-section of Wikipedia needs to provide a sense of neutrality.

In the long term, the only way to stabilize Wikipedia is to end the system of central control and have the information scattered throughout the web in a decentralized way. There are other software revision control systems and file sharing systems that have done this to a very large extent, and Wikipedia needs to follow this trend. There should be no central administration possible. Wnt (talk) 02:49, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

This is a perennial proposal. Version-control-backed wiki systems, for example, are not hard to find. So you'd need to explain why they haven't achieved popularity already. I think the hard part of forking a wiki is the community fork, not the content - David Gerard (talk) 07:14, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

The goal could be to fork the community, but not too much; to make the integration of the scattered sites seamless. Could you suggest a specific wiki system you have in mind though? I might not have heard of it and find it interesting, and in any case it would be easier to discuss any flaws. Wnt (talk) 20:09, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't have a system in mind, but I'm noting the idea has been discussed since 1993: User:HaeB/Timeline of distributed Wikipedia proposals If it's actually a good idea, you need to set out a proposal that clearly supersedes all those previous proposals such that it explains why they never took - David Gerard (talk) 20:13, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, proposals are not product. Especially here on Jimmy Wales' talk page we should recognize that computer software is not a country of laws (even natural laws) but a country of men. Build something that people can use, and they will use it. Build something where the search isn't actually quite implemented and not so much. We have Wikipedia because a few people with the talent were organized to make it happen. Meanwhile (I think) Usenet went into decline, not because it was any natural law, but just because nobody got together and wrote up a revised NNTP protocol that would allow users to order and control server-side filtering of crossposts and spam without having to download them over their dialup connections.

Personally, I'm not convinced a full versioning system's time has come: people still find it more than daunting to handle the full Wikipedia database. Therefore, I think the first step toward a distributed wiki is to make small single-purpose Mediawiki wikis easier to set up and administer. I've seen too many would-be wikis never get off the ground because of all the setup required, or doused with spam (or with overly restrictive settings because of it) afterward. I want it so that Joe User can go to a web page, go through about four friendly pages with big green arrows, and start his own Wiki with his preferred version of one article he happens to care about. The next step is making it so that these articles can be searched for on any Wiki of this type anywhere, rated by the other siteadmins (and the ratings themselves rated, etc.) as determined by their methods of user voting/scoring etc. to push down the spam. (Note that improving the search is already a deficiency, even on one wiki, but I think it can be done) Wnt (talk) 20:42, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

I think we just need to put Bish, drmies and/or other good sysops into arbcom. several of the present members have been in there since the first years of arbcom. there is such a thing as being in office for too long, I nean, look at the US congress... -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 04:40, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

• I would be honored to take up that position, especially if no scrutiny of my edits is to take place or knowledge of the process is required. In other words, I would be the last person (well, maybe not literally the last...) you'd want in a position like that. I appreciate the sentiment, though. I have not involved myself with any of the actual cases (as pointed out above, the reading load is enormous, such that I find I have better things to do with my time--like reading real books). By the way, I have found myself in disagreement more times than not with AQFK, but the point about Arthur Rubin's edit warring is well taken.

  I am old-fashioned, I suppose, and I do believe that a centralized system is necessary; I am one of the ones who like kicking the ball up. I'd like to think that in individual decisions I am objective and experienced enough to make administrative decisions, but that's a very different playing field than ArbCom. From where I'm sitting, our system is not irredeemably broken: we're still running and churning out FAs and getting the front page up to date and all, but I cannot possibly judge if that is due to ArbCom (or its current make-up) or in spite of it. My AGF instinct says the former, but given my lack of knowledge it is clear that I am no position to judge. Here's one: if being an ArbCom member were a paid position, I might feel very differently about such an investment of time and energy--I wouldn't want to volunteer to eat the shit that is served to them on an almost daily basis (some of it, as AQFK points out, rightly so). Also, pardon my French. Drmies (talk) 05:04, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

• "Bish" stands for Bishzilla, I hope. Bishonen | talk 06:50, 30 September 2013 (UTC).

• @FormerIP The relevant text in the Wikipedia:Arbitration_policy#Ratification_and_amendment section reads as follows

  Amendments to this policy require an identical ratification process. Proposed amendments may be submitted for ratification only after being approved by a majority vote of the Committee, or having been requested by a petition signed by at least one hundred editors in good standing.

  --Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 04:51, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I found that already. But I think it seems more-or-less symbolic, rather than representing actual, routine, meaningful scrutiny. Formerip (talk) 06:07, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure I follow you.

There is nothing symbolic represented in that text. It simply defines a procedural mechanism for amending policy.

I'm not sure where you would situate "meaningful scrutiny", but it would appear that such a petition would point to problems and propose revisions. So there would have been meaningful scrutiny already at that stage.

Presumably, such a petition would be worded in a manner such that if the required number of editors signed it, then a second stage of examining the problems and proposed revisions in a forum such as an RfC or the like would ensue. That would produce a consensus version of the proposed amended policy, which would then be put to a ratification vote.

As you may know, I've already pointed to several issues in the language of the current policy provisions on my Talk page in response to the Tea Party movement case. So that is something along the lines of which I was thinking in terms of amendments that could be implemented to further ensure for due process and equality before policy, so to speak.
--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 08:53, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

• Surely one needs to start by determining what, if anything, has gone wrong, or, whetehr it is deemed to have been wrong from the outset. It has long amused me that Wikipedia has, by the alleged wisdom of crowds, created a huge and unwieldy bureaucracy that it has made itself powerless to change. I've never been able to decide whether this is an encyclopaedia or a great social experiment. Probably it is some of each.

Is ArbCom acting poorly, or are those who fall foul of its decisions simply complaining, either themselves or through colleagues who perceive injustice? I am making no comment by asking that question and I do not know the answer. There will be examples of miscarriage of justice in any bureaucracy. It is how those are corrected that is important, not their existence in the first place.

What I do know is that people fear ArbCom. That, surely, is wrong? Fiddle Faddle 09:34, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

• • In my opinion, part of the problem is that what is currently happening is in response to criticism of ArbCom. That is, in the past, there was criticism that NYB drafted more cases than many other arbs, and there was some criticism of case outcomes where no-one was sanctioned. So, we are seeing cases being drafted by other arbs, which are more inclined to be critical of less than perfect editing. Otherwise, in regard to ArbCom reform, in my experience, there has been very little interest. I wrote a couple of essays (Wikipedia:ArbCom reform and Wikipedia:RfC Committee) while I was an arbitrator, which only generated a couple of comments. It seems that while a large number of editors agree that ArbCom is imperfect, there never seems to be any consensus for change. PhilKnight (talk) 11:02, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Part of that is probably because the core governing principle (perhaps in the absence of office action, the only governing principle) is everyone just doing the "right thing." There is a slight porous back-stop to doing the "wrong thing" and that is arbcom. Sure, we can elect more bodies to make "bad decisions" but that just means more "bad decisions." And the line between "bad" and just "disagreeable" moves with every editor. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:39, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Right now it's a just a "size of posse" or "there are no people with grudges from your proper tough stands and decision" contest except worse. As I understand it a person can get elected with one vote. Prepare a short list of important qualities desired, and have the discussions at election time responding to and structured around those. A few examples:

• Has exhibited fair, impartial decision-making capabilities.
• Has exhibited intelligent decision-making capabilities.
• Has exhibited the ability to analyze and understand large amounts of information and complex situations
• Is experienced in Wikipedia.
• Has shown a thorough understanding of Wikipedia policies and guidelines.
• Is grown up. As a minimum over 25 which is when adulthood has actually arrived for most people.

And change it to "the most votes wins" or something more in that direction. The good news is that 3-4 strong people meeting the above qualifications with reform in mind could fix arbcom. North8000 (talk) 11:54, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Another problem is the level of involvement between ArbComm members and the parties seeking to resolve a conflict. Whether it is because the Arbcomm members were part of the earlier dispute resolution process (in their role as administrators), or had already some sort of interaction with editors in the dispute (which may have cast a bad or good light, depending on he kind of interaction), there needs to be a strong way to prevent skewed perceptions from affecting a fair ArbComm resolution.

I mention this because I have seen plenty of cases (and related complaints) with ArbComm members "involved" in disputes also participating in the ArbComm resolution; and this is without even being aware of what kind of role these "involved" ArbComm members are playing behind the scenes.

Something must be done about these issues. Applying several of the bright ideas presented in this discussion by equally remarkable individuals would be a good start.--MarshalN20 | ^Talk 16:18, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Well the good and bad thing about Wikipedia is that about 4 wiki-savvy people working hard & together can get just about anything done and do just about anything. Add some principles and wisdom to make sure that "anything" is a good thing and....... Well, is there a quartet here? North8000 (talk) 21:25, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Daniel32708 deserves a topic ban

You know, i've been doing my best to stay out of conflicts and just focus on editing for a month now. But I suppose I can't just sit idly by while Tarc purposefully omits information in his comments (lying, in my opinion) in order to try and get people to only listen to him. I also notice that he didn't actually link to the comment in question, because he doesn't want you to actually read it, since it would destroy his whole charade. Here's the comment, by the way. Not only did the user in question compare being transgendered to a person claiming to be a cat or dog, which is bad enough by itself, they also stated "Wikipedia is about FACTS not gay-lobby propaganda".

That alone is reason enough to topic ban. It is clear from that comment that they would be unable whatsoever to edit neutrally in the topic area, so them being topic banned from it makes complete sense. Now, if you're going to bring up the question on whether we should bother and waste our time on a single editor who wasn't involved in the events is another discussion entirely, but trying to act like they didn't say something worthy of a topic ban is being purposefully disingenuous. Silverseren^C 15:44, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

We can discuss this editor and any other issues on the case pages, but please note that Daniel32708 has exactly one edit in the past six months, so I don't really think he is the crux of the case one way or the other. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:53, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Like I said in my last sentence. I would agree he is not really a focus or a big issue at all. I was just responding to attempts by Tarc to downplay the comment made by Daniel. Silverseren^C 15:56, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

I have not discussed that editor's comment anywhere. My statement above is referring to the sanction Kirill proposed against Dirac66 for the single comment that "one does not become female just by saying one wants to be" and how that clashes with his suggestions regarding Josh Gorand.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 19:22, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

My apologies. I misread your statement and have subsequently reworded my statement. Silverseren^C 21:20, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

What fascinating insight you have there, Nostradamus. Unfortunately, (or, fortunately for the rest of us) you don't get to convict other editors of thoughtcrime based on what your crystal ball tells you this user may do in the future, nor declare topic bans based on a single isolated edit. A singularly-bad comment warrants an admonishment; if something like it happens again, then you have a sound basis to boot them from the topic area. Tarc (talk) 15:59, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

PS: yes, I am downplaying the comment; it was somewhat inappropriate but not outlandishly or grossly so. Tarc (talk) 16:01, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Topic bans are warranted when it is clear that a user can't be neutral in a topic area either because of their actions or their position. Based on Daniel's comment, he is incredibly biased against the topic area and should not be editing in it. Again, he doesn't anyways, so I don't necessarily see the topic ban focus to be needed right now, however, I do not believe he should be allowed in the topic area in the future either. Silverseren^C 21:20, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Then please bring it up in the appropriate forum when that future arrives. If this were ANI, or even ANI 2.0, I'd archive and hat this silly thread. Drmies (talk) 02:15, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Link rot fix, and more

Hello, Jimbo Wales. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

An emailing with a proposal which will solve the link rot problem, as well as helping those us struggling to address copyright issues.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 14:10, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

SPhilbrick, why not share it where all can see like that? Please submit it as an idea over there. Then others can join in and help you. There are people with technical knowledge over there and they can find people within the WMF internally. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 14:26, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Because it isn't something that Wikipedia, or even Wikimedia can do. It is a proposal that would be carried out by Google. My interest in contacting Jimbo is because he has the name recognition to get their attention. The benefits accrue to both Google and Wikimedia, so I hope he is interested in supporting it. I do recognize he has a lot on his plate, so he may not have the time, but I've already contacted Google directly (and received no response (not even a thanks but no thanks response), so I am trying other options. That said, it is simple enough to describe, so I will. I propose that Google add a time dimension to the internet, so it can be searchable as of any day. (Some may be familiar with the date range option, but that is not the same thing.) If the internet can be search as of any date, then just like the ability to see any Wikipedia article as it appeared on any given day, and lust like people citing Wikipedia articles are encouraged to cite the Permanent Link, if such a feature existed, we could use Permanent Links to references, and they would never rot.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 14:42, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

The Wayback Machine at http://web.archive.org has a time dimension. For example, see http://web.archive.org/web/*/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October.

—Wavelength (talk) 15:09, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I know. I use Wayback almost every day. Wayback has two serious deficiencies:

1. They are in financial straits, and may go defunct (which is why there are discussions about WMF involvement).
2. They cover only a tiny fraction of the internet. It is a great tool when I get a hit, but I get misses, or missed dates more often than not.

In essence, my proposal can be summarized—do what Wayback envisioned, but do it right. (Completely, and by an entity with enough funding to be secure for the future, hence Google)--SPhilbrick(Talk) 15:40, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

A large part of the reason why Wayback is incomplete is that copyright holders and websites specifically request that their sites not be backed up. That would not be likely to change under Google. Especially since Google has tragically halted data retention programs like scanning newspapers. The truth is, Google is more about Android, hardware and software these days than it is data retention. Ironic for a company whose core focus is supposed to be search and data availability, but it is what it is. Resolute 17:12, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I was sorry to see the newspaper scanning project stopped. I know that part of the limitation of Wayback are due to copyright issues, which is one of the reasons I'm leery about the proposal for WMF to take-over Wayback; it would be quite ironic for n entity professes support for copyright to be ant he position of violating it. My preference to have this handled by Google rather than WMF or Wayback is that Google has the heft to deal with the copyright issues. Plus they have a trump card (which does leave me conflicted). They could tell an entity - OK, you won't let us archive your old material then we won't. Nor will we include your current material in a search. Blinksmanship, but Google wins. However, if you are right that Google is moving away from data retention and on to other shiny things, then all is lost.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 17:55, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

RFC at Talk:Batting (baseball)

Baseball; batting 1887, part of the Animal Locomotion series by Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904)

Any comments at Talk:Batting_(baseball)#RFC:_Should_the_short_film_of_a_naked_man_batting_be_included_in_the_article.3F,

concerning the animation on the right, would be appreciated. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:07, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Hello Jimmy

I wanted to ask you if you received my last email. It has an important question for you there. Miss Bono ^{[hello, hello!]} 20:01, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

archive.is

Do you or some WMF staff have any opinion on this issue? Someone not using his real name (talk) 03:24, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Photos of Stevenson University

Jimmy,

Did you happen to take any photos of Stevenson University where you gave a commencement address? I can't find any photos here or on Commons of Stevenson to illustrate the article, and if you uploaded a picture of a historic building (constructed say, before 1920), it would help me with another minor problem. Any help appreciated. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:04, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

The flag of Spain is banned in ca.wikipedia.org international listings of flags. Why?

(first of all, sorry for my bad english, is not "very good looking" hehe)

There is a BIG problem there:
Amical, (the secessionist association, "owner" of ca.wiki, I guess, with a secessionist president of some catalan ARMY who says FREE CATALONIA SOON !???, with a secretary proud to be a WAR FISH) this WAR-LIKE people (against who? I expect not Spain) that controls ca.wiki, is making the Wikipedia in Catalan languaje fall into a very biased and dangerous nationalism. Only an 8 or 10 percent of catalan speaking people and territories are secessionist, against the rest of catalan speaking people and territories, the Spanish Constitution, the Autonomous Statutes, the European Union, etc... BUT the secessionist government of a little region that speaks Catalan is paying about 9.241 euros to that association and other "gifts" like giving them power (to change history to invent new hatred) in Public Libraries, Museums, Schools, etc...
Source: Secessionist regional governor subsidizes Wikipedia in Catalan, that says: "Catalonia is a State of Europe" SHAMEFUL.

In grey, vast majority territories where Catalan language is spoken

So, please, can you ask ca.wikipedia.org be enciclopaedic and put back the spanish flag in international listings of flags? One example (there are about 10000 more in cawiki): Host nations of Olympic Games (where is Spain there? who is changing history with hate like Goebbels tried to do?

Hilarious (and sad) situations arise as replacing the flag of Spain by the local flag of Catalunya region, suggesting that the Kingdom of Spain did not exist at the 1888 Barcelona International Exposition or that lie: Spain did not participate in the Host nations of Olympic Games of 1992, also censoring Spanish Olympic Committee to shamefully ban the Spanish flag in that list. Examples:

• http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposici%C3%B3_Universal_de_Barcelona_(1888) "Preceeded by Flag:Australia - Flag:Sovereign Catalonian State Succeeded by Flaf:France"
  
• http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jocs_Ol%C3%ADmpics Olympic Games hosts: 1988 Seoul (Korean State Flag) 1992 (Catalonian local region Flag) 1996 Atlanta (USA Flag)
• Hilarious: Barcelona is not in Spain, ¿who says it, FIFA?¿?. WTF is this Flag wars? http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selecci%C3%B3_de_futbol_d'Espanya
• shameful: F.C. Barcelona player, Carles Puyol, played with Spain in year 2000, then he goes out of Spain and from 2001 to 2013 plays in "Sovereign-State-of-Catalonia-FIFA-recognized-Sovereign-Football-National-Team" hahahaha... http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carles_Puyol_i_Saforcada WTF?¿?
• Hilarious situation in F.C. Barcelona: some SPANISH football players are from Spain, some NOT. https://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.C._Barcelona This is a honest encyclopedia or a website of jokes?
• Sad: The region to which we, its population (the Catalan speakers of this region too) have called "Comunitat Valenciana" (Valencian Community) by the Spanish Constitution and the region Statute of Autonomy. They call it "País Valenciá" (Valencian State or Valencian Country) because they please, putting some links to blogs and biased unknown institutes: http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pa%C3%ADs_Valenci%C3%A0
• Frustrating: If someone decides to change "Països Catalans" (or Catalan States or Catalan Countries -imaginary countries-) for "Spain" (Spain), in a list of football club tournaments throughout the Spanish territory (Zaragoza B, Orihuela, etc), suddenly appears a robot that automatically reverses any issue contrary to nationalism. hahaha Try it! diff: http://ca.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Organitzaci%C3%B3_del_futbol_a_Catalunya&diff=11883735&oldid=11883734

It's normal, extreme nationalism is excited using Wikipedia to invent history, that also goes to the extreme right or the extreme left -Why these people do not use their own wiki to invent their own stories they invented?-, but there is something a person can not to invent: the history. Like it or not, the history takes us we can not invent.
We (and the historians) hope you fix solution to this scandal, as this shameful ban of Spanish flags, as well as being full of hatred, goes against all historical encyclopedic accuracy, and goes against what Spanish and American municipalities, institutions, organizations and schools want to give to their children. Spain exists in 1888, in 1992, and Today, and either wikipedia will not change history under dark interests. Sorry for my bad english. But donations have to work with us, not against us. Regards. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.144.90.9 (talk) 01:33, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't think you're leveling with us. I see [53] and pages and pages more of links to the flag of Spain. Pages like [54]. The only complaint I see is that the people on the Catalonian Wikipedia give a Catalan flag for some cases where things happened in Catalonia. That's a touchy POV issue either way, and I certainly don't know the answer, but I would hazard a guess that many Catalonian-language sources would do that, no? Our article Catalonia#Politics gives the impression that Catalonian nationalism is a roughly even split of opinion. No need for people off-project to get involved in their content disputes. Wnt (talk) 01:57, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Though on consideration I should acknowledge that using the Catalan flag and nationality for the 1992 Olympics, which I assume was hosted by the Spanish Olympic Committee, may well be a mistake even by this standard. Wnt (talk) 03:26, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Wnt, I don't think you are being fair pointing out that the Spanish flag is used on Catalan Wikipedia, because that is obviously not what the anon is complaining about. It seems to be more about the exceptional treatment of the Catalan flag, so that it is used as we would expect it to be used if Catalan was a sovereign country. So, for example, you have football players categorised as Spanish or Catalan, rather than just as Spanish (as we would do it on en.wp) or as Catalan, Andalucian, Valencian etc. I don't know whether this is acceptable or unacceptable and I would suppose a key question is what sort of consensus has been developed over the issue. Formerip (talk) 11:00, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

We had a similar discussion not too long ago here on User:Jimbo's page. It did seem Jimbo was personally interested in getting involved and was looking for more information on whether, especially in the specific topic of the Olympic host country issue (eg- Is Catalonia ever mentioned as the host "country" as opposed to Spain?). I hope he is still interested and responds here on if he has gotten anywhere on an opinion.Camelbinky (talk) 18:19, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

In that discussion, it was apparently determined that it was an interesting issue back in 1992 and that in fact both the Spanish and Catalonian flags were used during the Olympics. That strikes me as relevant. If there is a general massive bias then yes we should be concerned. If there is a curious anomaly on this one article and it is arguable one way or the other, then I trust natural wiki processes to help us to arrive at a reasonable compromise. I would love to hear from more people from Catalan Wikipedia.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:57, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

So, I guess posting BLP violations on Jimbo's talk page is kosher as long as the targets don't speak English? Among other things, the above message accuses living persons of being "war-like," members of "dark interests," of being "full of hatred," and comparing them to Joseph Goebbels. Of course there's the distinct possibility that I'm the first person to actually read the whole thing, as opposed to glancing at the huge wall of text and having my eyes glaze over. --108.38.191.162 (talk) 04:06, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

I think you mean civility issues and personal attacks, not BLP, I think you are stretching BLP too far to include anything said about any living persons, this is a talk page, no one in particular was "outed" or singled out for attack. But, yes you probably are the first one that didn't have your eyes glaze over. But yes, on Jimbo's talk page I think it has been customary to give a bit more leeway to ramblings and let them be ignored instead of trying to hard to correct, as often they have a legit complaint buried in the ramblings and we don't want to discourage people from coming to Jimbo's page.97.88.87.68 (talk) 14:13, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

FYI, this (most probably) user (with another IP) has vandalized pages cross-wiki by replacing contents of random pages with this issue. Not just once. --Glaisher [talk] 12:50, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

BLP topic on VPP

I started WP:Village pump (policy)#BLP is the relevant policy for personal attacks? to determine Community consensus on the trend going around for the last couple months of labeling civility issues and personal attacks as BLP violations. As BLP is a topic of interest to both Jimbo and watchers of this page, I thought to bring it to possibly the one place that has a larger viewership than the VPP.Camelbinky (talk) 17:01, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

• Various ways to reduce attacks and discuss diff-link evidence: The concept to treat users as BLP subjects is an interesting viewpoint. Also, perhaps we need more essays to explain how to "disagree without being disagreeable" and remind people of ways to discuss difflink evidence without "begging the question" that a user is "still posting misinformation as the worst person in the universe". Perhaps for an RfA discussion, then the detailed discussion of diff-links (such as from years ago) should be expanded on the related talk-page, WT:RfA/<user>, and that could avoid extensive clutter of the main RfA page. -Wikid77 (talk) 11:57, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	thanks for you im from wiki farsi & mazerooni Aleksandr19 (talk) 20:41, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

BLP topic on VPP

I started WP:Village pump (policy)#BLP is the relevant policy for personal attacks? to determine Community consensus on the trend going around for the last couple months of labeling civility issues and personal attacks as BLP violations. As BLP is a topic of interest to both Jimbo and watchers of this page, I thought to bring it to possibly the one place that has a larger viewership than the VPP.Camelbinky (talk) 17:01, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

• Various ways to reduce attacks and discuss diff-link evidence: The concept to treat users as BLP subjects is an interesting viewpoint. Also, perhaps we need more essays to explain how to "disagree without being disagreeable" and remind people of ways to discuss difflink evidence without "begging the question" that a user is "still posting misinformation as the worst person in the universe". Perhaps for an RfA discussion, then the detailed discussion of diff-links (such as from years ago) should be expanded on the related talk-page, WT:RfA/<user>, and that could avoid extensive clutter of the main RfA page. -Wikid77 (talk) 11:57, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	thanks for you im from wiki farsi & mazerooni Aleksandr19 (talk) 20:41, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

The flag of Spain is banned in ca.wikipedia.org international listings of flags. Why?

(first of all, sorry for my bad english, is not "very good looking" hehe)

There is a BIG problem there:
Amical, (the secessionist association, "owner" of ca.wiki, I guess, with a secessionist president of some catalan ARMY who says FREE CATALONIA SOON !???, with a secretary proud to be a WAR FISH) this WAR-LIKE people (against who? I expect not Spain) that controls ca.wiki, is making the Wikipedia in Catalan languaje fall into a very biased and dangerous nationalism. Only an 8 or 10 percent of catalan speaking people and territories are secessionist, against the rest of catalan speaking people and territories, the Spanish Constitution, the Autonomous Statutes, the European Union, etc... BUT the secessionist government of a little region that speaks Catalan is paying about 9.241 euros to that association and other "gifts" like giving them power (to change history to invent new hatred) in Public Libraries, Museums, Schools, etc...
Source: Secessionist regional governor subsidizes Wikipedia in Catalan, that says: "Catalonia is a State of Europe" SHAMEFUL.

In grey, vast majority territories where Catalan language is spoken

So, please, can you ask ca.wikipedia.org be enciclopaedic and put back the spanish flag in international listings of flags? One example (there are about 10000 more in cawiki): Host nations of Olympic Games (where is Spain there? who is changing history with hate like Goebbels tried to do?

Hilarious (and sad) situations arise as replacing the flag of Spain by the local flag of Catalunya region, suggesting that the Kingdom of Spain did not exist at the 1888 Barcelona International Exposition or that lie: Spain did not participate in the Host nations of Olympic Games of 1992, also censoring Spanish Olympic Committee to shamefully ban the Spanish flag in that list. Examples:

• http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposici%C3%B3_Universal_de_Barcelona_(1888) "Preceeded by Flag:Australia - Flag:Sovereign Catalonian State Succeeded by Flaf:France"
  
• http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jocs_Ol%C3%ADmpics Olympic Games hosts: 1988 Seoul (Korean State Flag) 1992 (Catalonian local region Flag) 1996 Atlanta (USA Flag)
• Hilarious: Barcelona is not in Spain, ¿who says it, FIFA?¿?. WTF is this Flag wars? http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selecci%C3%B3_de_futbol_d'Espanya
• shameful: F.C. Barcelona player, Carles Puyol, played with Spain in year 2000, then he goes out of Spain and from 2001 to 2013 plays in "Sovereign-State-of-Catalonia-FIFA-recognized-Sovereign-Football-National-Team" hahahaha... http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carles_Puyol_i_Saforcada WTF?¿?
• Hilarious situation in F.C. Barcelona: some SPANISH football players are from Spain, some NOT. https://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.C._Barcelona This is a honest encyclopedia or a website of jokes?
• Sad: The region to which we, its population (the Catalan speakers of this region too) have called "Comunitat Valenciana" (Valencian Community) by the Spanish Constitution and the region Statute of Autonomy. They call it "País Valenciá" (Valencian State or Valencian Country) because they please, putting some links to blogs and biased unknown institutes: http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pa%C3%ADs_Valenci%C3%A0
• Frustrating: If someone decides to change "Països Catalans" (or Catalan States or Catalan Countries -imaginary countries-) for "Spain" (Spain), in a list of football club tournaments throughout the Spanish territory (Zaragoza B, Orihuela, etc), suddenly appears a robot that automatically reverses any issue contrary to nationalism. hahaha Try it! diff: http://ca.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Organitzaci%C3%B3_del_futbol_a_Catalunya&diff=11883735&oldid=11883734

It's normal, extreme nationalism is excited using Wikipedia to invent history, that also goes to the extreme right or the extreme left -Why these people do not use their own wiki to invent their own stories they invented?-, but there is something a person can not to invent: the history. Like it or not, the history takes us we can not invent.
We (and the historians) hope you fix solution to this scandal, as this shameful ban of Spanish flags, as well as being full of hatred, goes against all historical encyclopedic accuracy, and goes against what Spanish and American municipalities, institutions, organizations and schools want to give to their children. Spain exists in 1888, in 1992, and Today, and either wikipedia will not change history under dark interests. Sorry for my bad english. But donations have to work with us, not against us. Regards. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.144.90.9 (talk) 01:33, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't think you're leveling with us. I see [55] and pages and pages more of links to the flag of Spain. Pages like [56]. The only complaint I see is that the people on the Catalonian Wikipedia give a Catalan flag for some cases where things happened in Catalonia. That's a touchy POV issue either way, and I certainly don't know the answer, but I would hazard a guess that many Catalonian-language sources would do that, no? Our article Catalonia#Politics gives the impression that Catalonian nationalism is a roughly even split of opinion. No need for people off-project to get involved in their content disputes. Wnt (talk) 01:57, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Though on consideration I should acknowledge that using the Catalan flag and nationality for the 1992 Olympics, which I assume was hosted by the Spanish Olympic Committee, may well be a mistake even by this standard. Wnt (talk) 03:26, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Wnt, I don't think you are being fair pointing out that the Spanish flag is used on Catalan Wikipedia, because that is obviously not what the anon is complaining about. It seems to be more about the exceptional treatment of the Catalan flag, so that it is used as we would expect it to be used if Catalan was a sovereign country. So, for example, you have football players categorised as Spanish or Catalan, rather than just as Spanish (as we would do it on en.wp) or as Catalan, Andalucian, Valencian etc. I don't know whether this is acceptable or unacceptable and I would suppose a key question is what sort of consensus has been developed over the issue. Formerip (talk) 11:00, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

We had a similar discussion not too long ago here on User:Jimbo's page. It did seem Jimbo was personally interested in getting involved and was looking for more information on whether, especially in the specific topic of the Olympic host country issue (eg- Is Catalonia ever mentioned as the host "country" as opposed to Spain?). I hope he is still interested and responds here on if he has gotten anywhere on an opinion.Camelbinky (talk) 18:19, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

In that discussion, it was apparently determined that it was an interesting issue back in 1992 and that in fact both the Spanish and Catalonian flags were used during the Olympics. That strikes me as relevant. If there is a general massive bias then yes we should be concerned. If there is a curious anomaly on this one article and it is arguable one way or the other, then I trust natural wiki processes to help us to arrive at a reasonable compromise. I would love to hear from more people from Catalan Wikipedia.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:57, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

So, I guess posting BLP violations on Jimbo's talk page is kosher as long as the targets don't speak English? Among other things, the above message accuses living persons of being "war-like," members of "dark interests," of being "full of hatred," and comparing them to Joseph Goebbels. Of course there's the distinct possibility that I'm the first person to actually read the whole thing, as opposed to glancing at the huge wall of text and having my eyes glaze over. --108.38.191.162 (talk) 04:06, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

I think you mean civility issues and personal attacks, not BLP, I think you are stretching BLP too far to include anything said about any living persons, this is a talk page, no one in particular was "outed" or singled out for attack. But, yes you probably are the first one that didn't have your eyes glaze over. But yes, on Jimbo's talk page I think it has been customary to give a bit more leeway to ramblings and let them be ignored instead of trying to hard to correct, as often they have a legit complaint buried in the ramblings and we don't want to discourage people from coming to Jimbo's page.97.88.87.68 (talk) 14:13, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

FYI, this (most probably) user (with another IP) has vandalized pages cross-wiki by replacing contents of random pages with this issue. Not just once. --Glaisher [talk] 12:50, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Although the original comment leaves something to be desired, [57] does seem to be a problem. ca.wiki's article on Segunda B is two years out of date, but still, it seems to imply that Orihuela and Zaragoza are part of the Catalan-speaking countries. Sceptre ^(talk) 16:28, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

That looks to me to be a badly-designed bot. I'd be surprised if any human editors over there agreed that it was an appropriate edit. Formerip (talk) 23:54, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Wiki-pr.com

This US PR firm claims to be able to manage their customer's Wikipedia page through "our network of established Wikipedia editors and admins". Philafrenzy (talk) 22:28, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

I realize these kinds of services aren't anything new. They claim to have a team of 45 editors/admins and "engage on Wikipedia's back end." Yikes. Is there really anything to be done? I, JethroBT ^{drop me a line} 09:52, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

As long as they do as they state and respect the rules, then they ought to be welcome. I know that is a painful message, but no rule here states that editing Wikipedia is a right only granted to the unpaid editor. It ought to enhance the project if they are speaking the truth. Fiddle Faddle 10:06, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Do you think these editors and admins have disclosed that they are being paid for their work? Philafrenzy (talk) 10:18, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Do you think that the claims made by Wiki-pr.com are necessarily true? Fram (talk) 10:23, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

No, but they evidently have enough business to support several employees and would presumably quickly lose their clients if they couldn't deliver results. Philafrenzy (talk) 10:30, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

This particular outfit has been discussed before:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive770#Promotional_email_for_.22wiki-pr.com.22

I will add that the nature of the company's business cutely means it can't really identify any satisfied clients...which could either work against Wikipedia, or work against its clients.

In any case, since it is impossible to prevent well-disguised PR editing, the only solution is to carry on editing the encyclopedia meticulously. The efforts of the non-PRs should outweigh the PRs'. Barnabypage (talk) 10:31, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

The most obnoxious part of this is that they are advertising the services of admins. Surely we could do something about that. As for "it is impossible to prevent well-disguised PR editing", I think the problem is that we really haven't tried. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 13:37, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

What could we actually do to prevent an admin, even, working for this or another PR firm? (Rather than merely discourage it.) Barnabypage (talk) 13:52, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

If you want rules that will prevent something happening 100% of the time, you will never have any rules. That is not a serious argument against having rules and other measures that will strongly discourage PR firms from editing Wikipedia. Among other things we could do:

• Make a clear rule that admins who accept pay for editing, commenting or taking admin actions will be banned immediately and forever.
• Inform PR firms through a clearly stated policy that any hidden advertising will be reported to the FTC. You do realize that this is against the law, don't you?
• Inform the FTC whenever a firm openly advertises services that appear to include hidden advertising.

I do believe that those measures would strongly discourage most PR firms from doing this, and make it clear to their potential clients that they would be dealing with disreputable firms. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:37, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree that we can, and should, have rules and policies. They will deter reputable agencies from underhand editing, which is a good thing. The problem as I see it is that the most unwelcome PR editing, that which severely distorts the truth, is likely to be the sneakiest and connections with a PR agency are likely to be impossible to prove. So yes, by all means have rules (which are complicated by the possibility that some PR edits could be quite welcome), but let's not imagine that the problem goes away.

Re the FTC, if you're referring to the rules on social media endorsements, that's another arrow in our quiver but of course very many PR edits would not be endorsements as such. Barnabypage (talk) 15:54, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Some English athlete got in trouble for tweeting about a product without revealing that he was being paid, IIRC. America is probably more lax about this, and anyway the Wikipedia is a carrier and not liable for content; you'd have to after the individual editors. The FCC is not going to be bothered with stuff like that I wouldn't think, so that's probably off the table. Herostratus (talk) 17:29, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Actually the law on hidden advertisements is a very old law that predates the internet and is enforced. You wouldn't accept hidden ads on TV, why should you accept it on Wikipedia? Given that these hidden ads are against the law and hurt Wikipedia's credibility, why are some people so opposed to stopping it? In many cases there is at least one obvious possibility. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:13, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

The problem is not so much enforcement as detection. Having said that, I'm perhaps unclear what you mean by "hidden advertisements". Barnabypage (talk) 19:55, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

To put new rules in place would require the community to have consensus to do that, and that's quite unlikely, because there are a number of Wikipedians who either (for various reasons) don't really agree that this is much of a problem, or else think the problem's intractable and not worth spending energy on. We do need to keep our eyes on and keep discussing this, without becoming scolds. Certainly it's fine and good for the original poster to bring this up, as it should be from time to time and when there's a new development. That's probably all we can do for now.

We do have Bright Line, and that's something. We need to keep that line bright. I think most people would agree that an admin using admin tools -- editing through protection, blocking another editor, and so on -- in return for money would be unacceptable corruption (and also a violation of Bright Line, since I doubt many admins would write on a talk page "Editor X made some edits which are not in the interest of my employer, so I propose to block him. Thoughts?"). Hopefully this is incontrovertible enough to not need codification. Herostratus (talk) 17:29, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

• PR people editing WP is a fact of life. It has been for a long time and it always will be from now on. The choice we face is either playing Whack-a-Mole with one arm tied behind our back (Anonymous editing with "no outing" rules, no Sign-In-To-Edit, IP editing permitted, etc.) or whether we come up with a set of formal rules that both the PR people and Wikipedians can live with. This has been debated at very great length and, as is the case with most controversial matters given WP's supermajority-pseudoconsensus decision-making system, the result has been a draw — status quo wins. Some people continue to try to play one handed Whack-a-Mole, others try to explain the de facto rules for PR people to the more open and honest ones among them, hoping all along that they don't become Whack-a-Mole victims for trying to play fair... Oh, well... Ya make your bed, then you lay in it... We're stuck with a decision-making system that can't make controversial decisions, and it would be a controversial decision to ever get rid of it... Carrite (talk) 17:32, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

You're back to the "we can't prevent it so we have to accept it" line of thinking. I strongly disagree. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:13, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

What's the alternative? "We can't prevent it so we have to be in a permanent state of war fighting a battle that can't be won"??? One thing is positive: we can't prevent it. Carrite (talk) 23:11, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Could we somehow find the "45 editors and admins"? If so, I'd strongly suggest they be desysopped and possibly blocked for undisclosed paid editing and violating WP:COI and WP:PROMOTION. Or is the claim about "admins" just an exaggeration? --Jakob (Scream about the things I've broken) 20:40, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Um, could those that think "hidden advertisements" are illegal please give concrete sources and examples... because other than advertising being illegal to do on a CB radio I am unaware of any other media that bans "hidden" ads... or are you saying Coca Cola and Pepsi are getting away with violating US law everytime they have a product placement in a movie or tv show, or when the tv show's Psych and Pawn Stars have their characters go on and on about their Subway subs DURING the show (not a commercial), and many tv shows now do this about cars and other products, it's a "hidden" advertisement/endorsement by the definition being used here. I'm asking for clarification on US law (don't give a shit about British, Canadian, or Zimbabwean, and neither should Wikipedia !rules)Camelbinky (talk) 22:39, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Undisclosed product placement is most certainly illegal in the US, ever since the Payola scandal of the late 1950s. If only there were some place people could go to look things like this up. Mogism (talk) 22:53, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, could have done without the violation of wikipedia policies about biting and general bitchiness though, but thanks all the same. Sarcasm and assholeness is not needed in building an encyclopedia.Camelbinky (talk) 22:58, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

And you could expand on that on how you think that the law applies to Wikipedia... I see nothing of how that applies to us.Camelbinky (talk) 23:00, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Are you really going to whine about "sarcasm and assholeness" right after you post "don't give a shit about British, Canadian, or Zimbabwean, and neither should Wikipedia !rules"? Resolute 23:03, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) If you make an ill-informed pronouncement on a subject you don't understand, don't be surprised when people treat you like someone who makes ill-informed pronouncements on a subject you don't understand. Even if you'd never once looked at the credits of one of the shows you mention and seen the "paid consideration by Coca-Cola" disclaimer, it would have taken you all of fifteen seconds to type "product placement" into the Wikipedia search bar, and find out the actual situation before you started making untrue claims. Your original post said nothing at all about how the law applies to Wikipedia - you were specifically talking about US television. Mogism (talk) 23:04, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Bringing the law into this is not that helpful here for practical purposes, since the FTC is simply not going to get involved in this, the Wikipedia (being a mere carrier) is not legally liable for anything, and there is zero chance of a successful suit or prosecution for fraud of any individual editors(s). To the extent that the law helps us frame our thinking about ethics, the law can be helpful, though.

In that vein, suppose the Wikipedia was not just a carrier but that the WMF was actually legally responsible for our content -- as is the case with Brittanica, for instance. If we prominently displayed banners to the effect of "All our funds come from donations; we accept no promotional money, have no quid pro quo arrangements with donors, and accept no advertising" but then did in fact accept money for inserting promotional material into articles, we would be committing outright fraud, no question.

But, the actual situation is actually quite a bit like that -- ethically, though not legally. I'm not sure what our various disclaimers say, but I'd guess that if a person were to claim that they were led to believe that "All our funds come from donations; we accept no promotional money, have no quid pro quo arrangements with donors, and accept no advertising" is the operative principle here, many people (and judges, if it came to that) might vouchsafe that that's a reasonable thing to believe, and we'd have a hard time pointing out materials that actively disabuse a reader of that notion.

And yet, money does change hands here for the express purpose and effect of promoting commercial entities. The money doesn't go to the WMF but to private second parties. So legally the Wikipedia is doubly in the clear, because of that and because we're merely an information carrier. The effect is essentially the same, though.

There are always new things, and the law moves slowly. The Wikipedia is a new thing. We're not really just a simple carrier in the same sense that the Postal Service is, or an ISP, or anything else. We're a new thing, and the law hasn't figured out what to do with us yet. For now, we're treated as a mere carrier. For now.

I dunno, though. "I'll keep doing this until they make it actually illegal" is maybe not a good ethical principle to base one's actions on. Something like at least putting a small {Advertisment) disclaimer an articles that have been worked over for promotional purposes would be step in the right direction, I think. Herostratus (talk) 00:14, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It is actually illegal now, and has been for many decades.

The FTC website is the best place to go for this, but unfortunately is is closed due to the budget situation. They are very clear that "undisclosed advertising" is a "deceptive practice" which is illegal under 15 USC § 45. Advertising is broadly defined - it does not just include situations where a company pays a media outlet for space, and I remember one example they gave about "an online encyclopedia" so it definitely applies to Wikipedia where nobody pays the WMF for advertising space. When they first updated their *guidance* on this to include the internet, they emphasized that the same rules apply to the internet as to other media - undisclosed advertising is illegal. So for example, if somebody puts an ad in the NYTimes, it must be clear from the context, typeface, etc. that it is indeed an ad. So you'll see there an occasional full page ad where somebody want to give their opinion on a certain issue - and it will have a special border and something like "paid advertisement" at the top. On TV there are lots of "infomercials" with a special border and "paid advertisement" written on it. All you have to do is disclose it where readers/viewers will see it. If you are paying somebody (with any sort of payment, e.g. free samples) to put something on the internet that promotes your business, you must disclose it, same on the internet as anywhere else.

See e.g. PR firm settles with FTC over alleged App Store astroturfing. (Don't take the "new rules in 2009" section too seriously - it's the same old rule, just with updated *guidance*)

The situation with product placement in movies has been done openly for a long time, and I think that is what allowed it to go on for so long - you see a Mac in a movie, is that really an ad? The FTC has proposed a new rule on this. Note that disclosing product placement will be a new rule, prohibiting undisclosed ads on the internet is not new. As far as your TV examples, I can't say as we obviously watch different programs. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:19, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree with you about the ethics, but from a legal point of view, who does the FTC go after? The article you reference has "[a PR firm] has reached a settlement with the FTC over accusations that company employees posted positive reviews for the games the company was hired to promote". The FTC didn't go after the board where the reviews were posted, and similarly they wouldn't go after the Wikipedia (I think) but rather the PR firm. Legally speaking, that's no concern of ours, really. Herostratus (talk) 00:39, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

From a legal point of view the PR firms are breaking the law. You think "that's no concern of ours" - if they break the law on Wikipedia. It may be no concern of yours, but please allow the rest of us our right to be outraged and demand action. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:55, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Urgh, Wiki pr's showing up again.

Face it, we even if we're not legally responsible for hidden advertising, we still don't want that in our system. We're not responsible for vandalism, but we don't want that either, do we? Even if we take out the legal stuff, we still have hidden advertising, which is an instant no-no.

Ever since that archived ANI incident, I hoped that this company would fade into the background, not to be seen/heard from again, but it seems like they're expanding somewhat (I seriously hope that their claim of 45 editors and admins is a bluff). Not exactly a good idea.

My view on paid editing is this: as long as you disclose it, use a secondary account, and follow the policies, I have no problem. If you don't disclose it, don't use a secondary account, or don't follow the policies, we should throw you out the door and release the hounds of the media (maybe not the media part, but whatever). Thekillerpenguin (talk) 06:37, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

I previously noted on this page (now archived) that The Secretary of Wikimedia UK is to become the Chief Executive of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, the top PR body in the UK. Details here. Is it just me that thinks this is not right? Philafrenzy (talk) 09:20, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

While there can certainly be conflicts of interest in any position, I don't see a particular problem here. The PR business per se is not the enemy. Barnabypage (talk) 09:46, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

No but you can't imagine Jimmy Wales being the head of the PR professional body in the U.S. and occupying his position here at the same time can you? Privy to the inner workings of two bodies that are so often in conflict. Philafrenzy (talk) 09:52, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

We're speculating now, of course, but actually I could - if the step was from Wikimedia to the PR body. If somebody moved in the other direction it would be very questionable.

There are two issues here, perhaps: whether it looks bad, and whether it actually is bad. I'm not at all convinced of the latter. I could be at least half-convinced of the former. Barnabypage (talk) 10:00, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

I am not sure you really could... but it didn't happen quite like that, he ran for both jobs more or less simultaneously and there has to be a worry that the PR body only gave him the job because he had just, weeks before, got the Wikimedia job. The candidate had no previous experience in either PR or our projects. They effectively now have a man on the inside of the Wikimedia movement, though one who has made quite clear he will act ethically. Philafrenzy (talk) 10:13, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

That may be over-estimating our importance to the CIPR. He had previously been chief exec of a couple of other trade bodies in different sectors and worked in policy communications - he looks like a pretty strong candidate for the CIPR job quite without the Wikimedia connection.

In any case, it's not like the CIPR is a PR agency or that he will have direct input into Wikipedia content.

I accept there are potential downsides to the connection, but there are potential upsides too, and I suspect that it won't really make a life-changing difference to either the Wiki project or the PR sector. Barnabypage (talk) 10:29, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

FWIW, of all the PR industry bodies I've dealt with concerning Wikipedia and PR people, CIPR is by far the sanest and most sensible. In this particular individual case, I'd be happy to accept that Alastair has applicable experience in not crossing the streams - David Gerard (talk) 10:47, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

As far as the WMUK situation is concerned, AGF or no AGF, I think that they are setting themselves up for a fall and really do not understand why they would take this risk. Especially given the various kerfuffles of the last year or so. Sure, it may never happen but why put yourselves on the spot? - Sitush (talk) 16:40, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

It would seem conceivable that the WMF could require all admin users to (electronically) sign a notice formally agreeing to turn over all payments they receive for decisions affecting Wikipedia or article content as a condition of continued adminship, so that there is a potential for WMF to sue for that, plus punitive damages, from the offending admins. However, I have no idea to what degree demanding such contractual agreements would compromise WMF's ability to stand aside and say "it's a content decision by the community" if admins incur some kind of liability with their actions... Wnt (talk) 20:39, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

• Just to hit on a few things that have come up on this thread: WikiPR is really big but has no admins on staff. They do not follow our policies regarding disclosing the acconts that they edit from, and there's a pretty big sockpuppet investigation related to them. They frequently write about non-notable subjects, and break most of our other rules as well. Kevin Gorman (talk) 18:44, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

This WikiPR company is on the bad end of the paid editing spectrum. Reputable people like Tony Ahn won't write an article about a client unless they're notable, and he does the articles very well. On the other hand, this company uses a network of socks and will apparently write articles for anyone and everyone. The good news is that at least we can catch the non-notable ones, and they're probably not doing a great job either. I think the best solution for now is to check the new pages feed carefully. If we play whack-a-mole hard enough, by getting rid of non-notable articles, their clients aren't going to be happy, and if their clients aren't happy, that's less business for them, right? I'd think that most notable people would go to paid editors like Ahn first, and the people who aren't notable enough but still want an article will go to WikiPR.

Perhaps we can send a stern notice to this WikiPR website and tell them that they should either switch their methods and go clean, or cease entirely. Thekillerpenguin (talk) 20:53, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Missingno.

I was wondering about the Missingno. Wikipedia page. Pretty much everyone knows that it's available in Yellow, and I was wondering if I could use this as a source. Yes, I know it's Youtube, but, other people have done it, and he shows that there is no cheating device. I was in the #wikipedia-en IRC channel, and general consensus is that it can be trusted about as much as anything else on the internet, as shown in these quotes:

"A well-known glitch being execute in a systematic walkthrough that is repeatable and verifiable with no concerns of forgery is no different than a photograph"

"Basically, if two people take a picture of a building and one published it for free on flickr and one publishes it in Reuters, unless either photo is fake both are valid for their depictions, right?"

Thanks, Scientific Alan 2^{(Click here to talk)(What have I done?)} 22:48, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure Jimbo is a Pokemon expert... but if he is, I would certainly be very interested in hearing about it! --Demiurge1000 (talk) 23:46, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Ultimately the problem has nothing to do with Pokemon specifically, the problem is a hole in Wikipedia's rules. It seems reasonable to say "this glitch can be performed in this game" by linking to a video of someone performing the glitch in the game. However, someone is likely to claim that the video is self-published and created by someone who isn't a recognized expert. That ignores the reality of Internet publication (and how it works for minor facts). It also ignores that there's a grey area between "requires an expert" and "can be done by anyone"--my mother would not be able to find Missingno in Pokemon Yellow, and in that sense doing it does require an expert, but the bar for becoming such an expert is still low enough that tons of average guys on the Internet are enough of an expert to be able to do it.

If it was me deciding I wouldn't even bother trying to justify it by the letter of the rules; I'd just call WP:IAR because the video is manifestly reliable in any reasonable sense regardless of whether it satisfies the requirements of our reliable source policy. That's what IAR is for. But IAR is often useless in a confrontation where one side insists on always following policies to the letter. Ken Arromdee (talk) 23:46, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

• Are you guys really taking a content dispute to Jimbo's talk page? Even ignoring the fact that it's Pokemon. Why do you think Jimbo's opinion should be more valid then any opinion you'd get from talk page discussion? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:51, 6 October 2013 (UTC)