User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 195

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Potential for growth

If 100,000,000 speakers of the English language are competent enough to contribute content to the English Wikipedia, and if each one of them will contribute one article of acceptable quality, then Wikipedia will gain 100,000,000 articles. (According to User:Emijrp/All human knowledge, there are enough available topics to accommodate that number of new articles.)
—Wavelength (talk) 01:46, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

The glib answer is that most of those articles would be deleted within 24 hours, not least because however good the quality, just because a new band exists and the author asserts it is the most exciting new thing on the Chipping Campden grunge scene, the fact that they haven't yet signed a drummer or played their first gig means that it will be deleted {{A7}}. More broadly, this is a crowdsourced site, and we achieve quality not by individuals each contributing one article, but by multiple individuals improving articles between them. As for the 100 million people with the competence to contribute, that figure may or may not be true, but competence is not the only requirement, we also need people to be sufficiently altruistic to donate their time here for free. ϢereSpielChequers 15:27, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
Whatever. What we really need is not new articles, but improvements to all the poor articles that have sat virtually untouched for years, many receiving high views. Johnbod (talk) 15:54, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
Editors can improve articles found via WP:BACKLOG and WP:DUSTY and WP:SPVA. —Wavelength (talk) 18:40, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
Only the 3rd of those is much use really. Johnbod (talk) 04:09, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Who do you believe, me or your reliable source?

Talk:Greta_Scacchi

Summary. Person claims to have never been married. Wikipedia editors refuse to believe her and instead go to the "reliable sources". Also, the person talking about her own marriage has a conflict of interest. It's hard to figure out exactly what these sources are but checking the related talk pages suggests that these are references made in passing of the "her and her husband are doing this" type that are easily explainable by the "reliable source" not bothering to research things they say in passing.

(I accidentally posted this in BLPN which is where I got the information from....) Ken Arromdee (talk) 20:17, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Not that clear. "A graduate of the Lee Strasberg method acting school in New York, 22-year-old Leila George is Scacchi's daughter with American actor and Law & Order star Vincent D'Onofrio. Scacchi had been in a five-year relationship with the musician Tim Finn ("A very nice and civilised partner") when she met D'Onofrio on the set of the Gillian Armstrong film Fires Within and fell - plummeted - in love. Their relationship was tempestuous; Scacchi left D'Onofrio twice before their wedding, and turned down the role in Basic Instinct that was later offered to Sharon Stone partly to appease him." [1] Can you find any retraction? --NeilN talk to me 20:50, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
That source doesn't seem to imply that they actually were married, right? It says Scacchi left D'Onofrio twice before their wedding - usually when you do that, the wedding is called off. The way I read it is that a wedding was scheduled twice, and a breakup happened twice before the wedding could take place. If there are wedding photos, or news coverage of the wedding, or a wedding record in an official document, then sure. But if this is the evidence that people are putting forward to claim there was a wedding - against the insistence of the subject of the article, that's super lame.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:38, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
Addendum: With a bit of reading and googling it seems that some reliable sources say that she married him, but there are no quotes from her or him saying that (that I have found), and there is a very clear denial of it by her, in a reliable source. And a denial by him (via a cryptic tweet, admittedly). I think it's pretty clear that in these circumstances there is not enough information to include it - no reports of the actual wedding, etc., a clear denial that there was a wedding, and reporters casually saying they were married without actually offering any reason why they are saying that (like, a quote). We also don't have enough evidence to say definitely anything as strong as "Despite media reports years later saying that they were married, they weren't." But the NPOV approach here has to be to not make any claim at all - the evidence is confused.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:12, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
The problem is that the reporters saying that she married him are "reliable sources", but the subject saying the opposite is just a self-published source with a COI. And having the subject say it once in a reliable source doesn't really help, since you just have one reliable source contradicting lots of reliable sources and if you weigh those the lots of reliable sources should win. We need to have a way to weigh direct statements by the subject as more important because she is the subject and should know better, not less important because she has a COI and most of the times she says it are self-published. Ken Arromdee (talk) 20:32, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
I don't think it's all that difficult. First, "one reliable source contradicting lots of reliable sources" isn't a very useful way of looking at things. We don't weigh such matters by mere counting. And it is not really clear what the COI consists of here, other than in the broadest sense that all subjects have a COI about themselves. But that doesn't seem particularly relevant here. I can't think of any reason why she might be lying about this, but I can think of lots of reasons why something in the press might go uncorrected and might get repeated several times. But finally - whenever we have a situation like this where the available evidence points in different directions and we just aren't sure, we have the clear option of simply not including it until we learn more. We don't have to say they were married, we don't have to say they weren't. There are words like "partner" which cover both cases.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:31, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
Although it doesn't seem applicable here in this specific situation, I can think of a bunch of examples where formally (aka legally) being married could definitely result in COI for the person saying there was never a legally-binding marriage: probate/inheritance (avoiding debt or retaining sole ownership of assets), children/custody (several variations on this theme), and in some cases questions of royal succession. To be clear, I don't think any of these apply to the specific article-talkpage being discussed here, but I do think we should be careful to imagine the corner-cases here. Sometimes common sense is not quite sturdy enough ground to walk on, especially if a billion-dollar inheritance or control of a large emirate (or just custody of the six-year-old) are at stake. As for language, the use of ambiguous partner is a possibility, as is the phrase 'together' -- but those uses ought to be footnoted with a sentence or so explaining what the WP:SOURCE *actually* said ("married"/"husband"/whatever) and explaining that although 'together' at the time no formal wedding-ceremony may have actually occurred. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 03:55, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
From WP:BLP - Living persons may publish material about themselves, such as through press releases or personal websites. Such material may be used as a source only if:

it is not unduly self-serving; it does not involve claims about third parties; it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject; there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity; the article is not based primarily on such sources. MOMENTO (talk) 09:05, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

I suggest looking at the updated discussion at Talk:Greta_Scacchi#Never_Married and Talk:Vincent_D'Onofrio#Protected_edit_request_on_1_September_2015. Abecedare seems to be handling the situation well. --Bob K31416 (talk) 00:00, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
I think we should have some kind of WP:Fix my article FAQ to deal with this sort of stuff, so I took a first stab at it, but it needs work. I just want to tell people - you're famous, so publish the truth somewhere more reliable than a brand-new Wikipedia account! Wnt (talk) 20:49, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Momento: Claiming you have not been married to person X is a claim about a third party. And even if you IAR that away, you still have one self-published reliable source versus lots of non-self-published reliable sources. (Jimbo: wouldn't undue weight say that you have to accept lots of reliable sources that say X over one reliable source that contradicts it?) Ken Arromdee (talk) 03:53, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

My comment above was in reference to your comment that "the subject saying the opposite is just a self-published source with a COI". Firstly, BLP allows for self published material to be used as a source. And secondly, you have provided no evidence of a COI. Editor 75.108.94.227 has given examples of possible COI but says "I don't think any of these apply to the specific article-talkpage being discussed here" and nor do I. Unless someone comes up with a reliable source that provides a COI, it's irrelevant and can't be used as an argument to dismiss Ms Scacchi's self published comments.MOMENTO (talk) 09:27, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
For "is", read "is, according to the people editing this". I don't think it's a COI, but it's been called one as an excuse for not using it. Ken Arromdee (talk) 13:41, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
"Claiming you have not been married to person X is a claim about a third party." No, it is not. The claim that they were is. They say that claim is false.--Mark Miller (talk) 10:16, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Maafushi Prison

This prison is currently involved in a case between Cherie Blair (friend of yours Jimbo?) and Amal Clooney through Mohamed Nasheed. It's a politically sensitive area and could probably use an expert in law/human rights to further expand it but it needed to be started all the same. I suspect though that many of the existing sources will be biased against it as it's become a sort of staple for human rights abuse reports which form a lot of the sources documenting it. I think we need to be careful with what is said and avoid discussing torture and barbarism too much!♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:34, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

The only actual personal friend of mine mentioned in that article is Jared Genser. Cherie is an acquaintance, but it would be presumptuous of me to claim more.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:07, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
Well, I'm glad you're honest on that one! ♦ Dr. Blofeld 09:23, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

"Quote="

You once wrote: It should be noted though that extended quotes, properly sourced, are not generally a violation of copyright. ... We have never, to my recollection and knowledge, had a legal complaint or threat of any kind about a properly sourced quote. Does that extend to using the quote= parameter in the citation templates? Does a properly sourced quote of a sentence or two, of the exact wording used by the original author represent, a copyright violation to you and the Wikimedia Foundation? There is a strong opinion that this represents a copyright violation putting Wikipedia at legal risk, with talk of stripping them all from Wikipedia. We do not know what source material will be available in 100 or 1,000 years, and the original source material anchors the meaning, and prevents semantic drift as people reword articles. The original source may say that the person "lived near Fooville" the next editor may add "place_of_birth=Fooville" to the infobox, and the next editor may reword the text "born near Fooville" then "born in Fooville" then "born in Fooville, New Jersey". We make incremental edits all the time, thinking we are making the text more accurate, but we may be adding certitude, when there was none in the original text. For obscure, but notable, people from the 1800s and 1900s we may only have one or two original texts to garner information from, an obituary and a short entry in a biographical dictionary. See, for example, George Fletcher Chandler and Basil Macdonald Hastings. I have just been banned from using quote= because of a fear of copyright violation. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:08, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Can you show me specific real world examples that concern people? I think this concern is ludicrous, and if your reporting is accurate (sometimes, there is another side to the story!) our policy should be strongly pushed in exactly the other direction.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:21, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
Of course, there is another side to the story. This editor has a very long history of editing against consensus regarding copyvios. Arbcom found on March 13, 2013 that "Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) has been responsible for adding or linking to copyrighted content, including both text and images in various forms, to Wikipedia since 2005 (Fram's evidence, Carrite's evidence). A substantial number of these additions have been found to be in violation of applicable policies, and have resulted in a block in 2006, two Contributor Copyright Investigations (CCIs) (one for images and another for text), and a community-issued topic ban from creating new articles." The envelope pushing behavior, which goes back 10 years, continued and resulted in clear consensus in favor of this additional editing restriction at ANI. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 19:00, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
Ok. So this restriction is more about this particular editor's particular behavior than a general policy direction against "a properly sourced quote of a sentence or two, of the exact wording used by the original author"? I won't comment on this particular editor's restriction without more information, as that would be presumptuous of me. But I will say that if we think we can't quote a sentence or two in a footnote, to make crystal clear why we say what we say about something, out of a fear that such a quote in a footnote (citation template) might be a copyright violation, I think we've gone down a very strange path not supported by evidence.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:06, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
Been here a long time and looked at tens of thousands of articles. Can't ever recall a quoted sentence being taken out of a footnote because of copyright concerns only. --NeilN talk to me 20:10, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
Me too, which is why I'm puzzled a bit about the current discussion and sanctions.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:39, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
Long story short: 1. There are Wikipedians who are anti-"Fair Use" fanatics and the "quote=" parameter is based upon the American copyright law exemption for fair use. It is, however, ill defined — how many words out of how big of an article is okay? During Richard A. Norton's CCI case there were in fact "copyright violations" rung up against him for nothing more than excessively long "quote=" quotes in his footnotes. That is a true fact. 2. There are legitimate copyright concerns with some of RAN's early editing and any future copyright violations whatsoever are going to get him indeffed from WP. In light of (1.) above, he needs to steer far, far away from anything remotely smacking of copyvio. It's in his long-term best interests as a Wikipedian to get rid of the unnecessary "quote=" glosses from his footnotes, which are nothing but trouble in the making. Carrite (talk) 05:59, 21 September 2015 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 15:00, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
I am one of the top 100 creator of new entries, each week I devoutly write short biographies based on the Library of Congress images from the public domain Bain collection. You can see my last 300 new entries on my user page: User:Richard_Arthur_Norton_(1958-_)#2015. I have two years of backlogged material. The current ANI was an attempt by one of my colleagues to prevent me from accumulating biographies in my user space. I am blocked from adding the content to mainspace until I certify that every one of my previous 10 years, of more than 100,000 edits, or so, are free from copyright problems. It has since been reduced to "making significant progress" on the certification, I am assuming the means 51% of my previous edits before the restriction is lifted. Some of my earliest edits used large chunks of copyrighted text and minimal referencing, compared to the current Wikipedia standard. I have since rewritten them, or others have long ago written over those earliest entries. By 2006 or so my current minimalist biographic style developed: lede, birth, education, marriage, death, and legacy. I don't see it as a wise use of time to spend the next 10 years certifying the previous 10 years of edits, when the egregious early material has already been rewritten by myself and others. My use of the quote parameter has been found to be contentious, and today it was banned as a copyright violation. In the previous ANI using the quote from a 1910 New York Times was used as an example of my continuing copyright violations. The use of properly sourced snippets of text has been upheld by United States case law and does not appear to violate any current Wikipedia rule, other than the current ANI ruling. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 23:51, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
As I said previously, and as you confirm with your recent remarks here and elsewhere, you persist in editing against consensus, despite massive but unsuccessful efforts by countless editors to persuade you to comply with consensus. You insist on your right to quote extensively from copyrighted material despite clear consensus that your quoting is excessive and contrary to policy. I happen to be an editor who uses attributed quotes slightly more than average, especially to impart "local color" or to convey the flavor of strong emotions. I might be expected to be your ally here. But when other editors object to my use of quotes, I am quick to trim back and paraphrase, preserving only the most useful and evocative quotes. On the other hand, you are stubborn, unrelenting, argumentative, persistent and shockingly unwilling to accept clear consensus. You use direct quotes compulsively when paraphrasing serves just as well. That is why you have onerous editing restrictions and why I don't. It is on you. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 04:43, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
I think you've kind of missed the ball here, Jim. Richard's description of his errors is essentially on the mark: during the middle years of the last decade (2005-2007 or 2008) he would sometimes copy-paste from websites without paraphrasing or correctly footnoting. A Contributor Copyright Investigation takes only three five instances to initiate and instead of sampling to isolate the problematic aspects of editing and addressing those, the entire editing history of the involved editor is made part of the case, to be investigated one article at a time. RAN, being one of the most prolific editors at WP, inevitably made for a gargantuan case for the already overworked and deeply backlogged handful of CCI volunteers, some of whom wanted to take him for a long walk on a short pier even though his truly problematic editing methods of the early years were already recognized and henceforth avoided. A truly short-sighted ArbCom decision requiring him to self-police his own old massive editing history before making new starts in mainspace (since there is no way in this or any other universe that the half dozen or whatever hardcore CCI volunteers are ever going to finish his now-four-year-old case) has placed RAN in a Kafkaesque position of bureaucratic limbo. As soon as he cuts down the tallest tree in the forest with a herring the Knights of Ni may (or may not) allow him to start WP articles again — all he has to do is police his first 150,000 or whatever edits, calling copyright fouls on himself. It's an idiotic expectation. RAN is good folks and remains a prolific content creator for the encyclopedia. Carrite (talk) 05:47, 21 September 2015 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 06:13, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
Tim, I did not endorse any overly stringent requirement that RAN ought to police every single one of his past articles. But he could do a far better job making a good faith effort of it, to show that he gets the message. What I endorsed was the recent restriction at ANI, which you are the one who proposed. Now, we have RAN making an extreme pendulum swing, arguing insincerely that citing the complete title of a newspaper article ought to be considered a copyright violation. That is tendentious hogwash, which indicates to me that he remains a problematic editor in 2015, not just in the 2005-2008 period. He is simply unwilling to recognize consensus and comply with it. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 06:34, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
  • And as I have argued, make an objective rule rather a subjective one. Restrict all quotes to a single sentence, or even just three words. Restrict all New York Times article titles to the first sentence. While "short phrase" article titles cannot be copyrighted, the New York Times ones such as: "Gen. E. A. M'Alpin Dies At Ossining. Former Adjutant General of New York Stricken at His Country Home in His 69th Year. Long in National Guard. Tobacco Merchant and Republican Leader Owned Land on Which Hotel McAlpin Stands." It would not constitute a "short phrase" because it may contain original expression. "General E. A. McAlpin Dies At Ossining" would not be copyrightable as a headline since it states non-copyrightable facts under the "short phrase" rule. By the constraints being imposed, I am not sure if even New York Times full article title can be used in Wikipedia. Codify the rules so they are enforced objectively. All of these rules should be codified by the Wikimedia Foundation if we want something stricter than the current Google snippet ruling at Authors Guild, Inc. v. Google, Inc. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 05:57, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
While formal codification would make better sense than leaving things open to interpretation, the best solution would be to eliminate the "quote=" parameter altogether from the citation template. It is unnecessary and it results in cumbersome, clogged, overlong, unreadable masses of text in lieu of proper footnotes. Carrite (talk) 06:06, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
Guns don't kill people, people kill people. Likewise, the "|quote=" cite parameter doesn't cause copyvios, only people (possibly) misusing that feature cause copyvios. Sorry to sound like the NRA, but your arguments for eliminating the "|quote=" feature are totally misplaced and clearly a case of personal agenda-pushing. Your conclusions appear to be based mostly on one person's (RAN's) earlier editing from a number of years ago for which he has already been sanctioned. Crying that the sky is falling based on fallacious inductive reasoning is not a sound reason for tinkering with the current consensus-defined "cite" template. If you don't personally like that parameter then take your personal dislike of it to TfD and argue your case there. The arguments you have offered here in RAN's defense are merely a poisoned chalice. — not really here discuss 06:55, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
Or, alternately, RAN could just understand that Wikipedia is a collaborative environment with rules based on the consensus of the community and comply with that consensus - just as everyone who wants to edit here must. The community has made a point to make only extremely limited use of non-free content. The reason given is that while it may be fair-use for a non-profit educational institution like Wikipedia it may not be for others who might want to mirror our content. Obstinate refusal to comply with community consensus on the minimum use of non-free content is a much greater issue here than quote=.

Some of the biographies RAN has written have more text in quote= than in the body of the article cf. User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/Edoardo Ferrari-Fontana, User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/Edward Hinkley Plummer, User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/Edward Sims Van Zile and User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/Elaine Virginia Rosenthal and that is just four of the first six I opened in the E's. Those articles look more like they are just vehicles for the quotes. JbhTalk 07:07, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

  • An excellent example: "Edoardo Ferrari-Fontana, Italian-born opera singer, died at his home here Saturday night. He was 58 [sic] years old. ..." The source has an error in stating the person's age. The next person to edit may change the age to what the New York Times, thinking that is the correct one. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:16, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
  • You do know that the biography of Edward Hinkley Plummer was published in 1920 in the Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the U.S. Military. Material published in the year 1920 is in the public domain in the United States, where our servers are located, and is not under copyright. It is not a copyright violation under United States copyright law or Wikipedia copyright !law. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 22:24, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for the practical illustration of why even though Richard may well be 100% within American copyright law in using the "quote=" parameter, there's gonna be chirping about it from the Anti-Fair Use Krew and that he needs to be far, far, far away from that controversy. (By the way, your html has a defect that has caused everything to go italic...) Carrite (talk) 10:06, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
Fair use is notoriously tough to discern as there are no metrics or limits written into law. In practice we experience its boundaries through case law and precedents. Instead, we have a patchwork of best practices and guidelines. However, we have come a long way in recent years for documentary makers and libraries through group efforts by academics and lawyers, such as the CMSI fair use best practices). We may want to explore this at some point so that Wikipedia/Wikimedia is not working alone in isolation, but instead draws a line in the sand with our interpretation, and not have uncertainty hanging over our fair use stance. I know for a fact that the fair use best practices for documentary makers has been a real breakthrough for independent film makers who were previously afraid to dip their toe into using even a small part of commercial footage in their work. -- Fuzheado | Talk 10:32, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
(@Carrite: I only see italics in the NFCC blue link. If something in my post is messing with your display please feel free to remove any <em> tags or whatever is causing you problems. Same for anyone else having display problems.) JbhTalk 13:00, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
I think there is a good argument to be made that, in some cases like in the four articles I linked above, the material in the quote- parameter is not fair use. Because it duplicates and expands on the paraphrasing in the body and the material often comes from obituaries there is no transformative use - obituaries are biographies. Since large portions of text are extracted in relation to the obituary it harms the potential market of the original. For instance why but the NYT archive of the obituary if the substantive material in it has been copied verbatim into the Wikipedia biography. This is a greater problem when the quoted text exceeds the prose text of the article. These issues seem to fail the fair use or at least call the material into question. JbhTalk 13:52, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
Clearly there is an argument to be made about whether "quote=" glosses in those specific articles are copyright clear or not — I don't find it particularly compelling but that's neither here nor there. In practical terms, the fact that there is an argument is sufficient to prohibit RAN from going down that path. The AN/I involving him which recently closed forbids him from using that parameter in the future. So as long as he adheres to that (and I've got no reason to think he won't) we should be done with the matter. An RFC to eliminate that parameter for everybody would be fine with me, I despise it from the standpoint of aesthetics and functionality. Carrite (talk) 15:16, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
I do not think it is a good idea to get rid of quote= for everyone. I have not seen any indication it is generally misused. I agree that if RAN abides by his restriction the issue is done. I am concerned that immediately after he was notified of the restriction he started this thread and he has also has not commented at the ARCA thread. I really want him to comply it would be a loss to the encyclopedia if he were banned but I can sadly see it going that way. JbhTalk 16:21, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
"It is never forum shopping to let me know about things. Could we please stop dehumanizing people by making that claim?" — J Wales. Writegeist (talk) 15:41, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
  • The purge has started (rm copyvio) "|quote=Basil Macdonald Hastings, author and playwright, died here today after a lengthy illness. ..." Again I have to ask, does the Wikimedia Foundation consider this to be an illegal copyright violation putting Wikipedia in legal jeopardy? Or is it an example of an option used in a small number of articles for creating a robust referencing system that can be used after the the original source material is no longer available. We always assume that source material will always be around, The New York Times archive was originally hosted by ProQuest behind paywall, then it was fully available at the NYTimes.com site, then it was behind a partial paywall again. That was in a 10 year period, we have to think of what will be available in 100 and even 1,000 years. If the source material is no longer available there is no need to delete the reference as a dead link because the snippet is preserved in the citation template. Imagine if Google lost the snippet case and was ordered to delete all that they had scanned. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 17:58, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
@Jbhunley: Your "good argument" sounds suspiciously similar to that being made by some European publishers against Google News (and by extension news aggregators in general, of which Wikipedia is an atypical example) for its inclusion of snippets in news search results. However, those publishers are very aware of the fact that they would need to introduce new legislation with unprecedented limitations on what people can write and talk about in order to get their way - even in Europe, which doesn't have a Fair Use doctrine quite as expansive as that of the U.S. This anti-quote crusade is utterly contradictory to Wikipedia tradition and practice, and has the smell of somebody else's flanking action about it. And it is oddly counterproductive - as when France cracked down against Google's snippets, the effect of cutting quotes out of little-known obituaries (or indeed, even running titles!) will only be to reduce readership of the products supposedly being protected. Wnt (talk) 19:04, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
@Wnt: I do not think my "good argument" is the way things should be, I am pointing out that these snippits are not 100% definite fair use as some have claimed. Personally I think the entire copyright regime has gone way into absurdity in the last decades. I, however, do not edit Wikipedia based on my beliefs. I edit based on the norms established here through consensus. Right now WP:NFCC is consensus here as is that the way RAN is making articles is wrong. If that consensus changes I will happily go back and revert or re-introduce the material I am now working to remove from RAN's backlog of articles.

Right now I see RAN's continuing refusal to comply with, a community ban, taken over by ArbCom, confirmed in 2 going on 3 ARCAs and a separate community sanction just imposed in exactly the same light as some editor who disrupts the project to RIGHTGREATWRONGS. I would love to see some free knowledge, copyright protest civil disobedience site with a huge worldwide platform. It would be great and would hopefully spark a needed worldwide debate on copyright. Wikipedia is not that site. JbhTalk 19:20, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

  • @Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): Are you saying that you have stopped using the quote= to add material to the articles you are creating and you are working to clean up the articles in your user space? If so then I abjectly apologize. A statement to that effect would definitely clear up a lot of the misunderstanding here and would clear up the current ARCA request. Would you consider making such a statement at WP:ARCA? It would clear up this mess and we could then all work to get your tremendous efforts moved into the encyclopedia. JbhTalk 22:35, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
@Jbhunley: WP:NFCC points us to a guideline, which in turn says, "Brief quotations of copyrighted text may be used to illustrate a point, establish context, or attribute a point of view or idea. In all cases, an inline citation following the quote or the sentence where it is used is required. Copyrighted text that is used verbatim must be attributed with quotation marks or other standard notation, such as block quotes. Any alterations must be clearly marked, i.e., [brackets] for added text, an ellipsis (...) for removed text, and emphasis noted after the quotation as "(emphasis added)" or "(emphasis in the original)". Extensive quotation of copyrighted text is prohibited." This guideline clearly permits the not particularly extensive quotations that RAN was making; 'extensive' may be a vague word to interpret but 'one sentence' is right out. Wnt (talk) 19:31, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
@Wnt: ...and the community and ArbCom have said that what RAN is doing violates that. They said so over and over and over again. Your view, my view, RAN's view are each our own personal view and none of us are the arbiter of Wikipedia policy. The general community consensus expressed through RAN's bans and ArbCom expressed through its taking over of the ban and the various amendment requests are the final arbiters of Wikipedia policy and every single editor here must conform to that policy. If you want to change the existing policy/consensus the current WP:ARCA discussion is thisaway. Please comment if they can be shown there is no violation, as you argue here, then there is no need for the ban so your view would be important there. That is where consensus can start to change. ARCA, AN, ANI all the myriad noticeboards, those discussions change consensus. Jimbo's talk page, not so much, it is more like the office water cooler. The discussions can be interesting and are a great way to canvass without canvassing but ultimately this is not where policy changes. JbhTalk 22:23, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
@Jbhunley: Actually the whole quote= issue looks pretty irrelevant to the clarification of his ban that is the nominal subject of that Arbitration proceeding. Some other ANI conversation is mentioned for it. In any case, I did not make the argument above specifically for RAN's case. It is what people say is a violation of Wikipedia policy in general that affects the rest of us, and the one-line examples I've seen above seem like nothing I want to see being called improper. Wnt (talk) 22:49, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
@Wnt: The way I understand things RAN was banned several years ago from creating articles because of excessive copyright violations, particularly excessive use of quote=. He was, as part of the ban, supposed to go through his old articles and help clean them up. Instead he has created hundreds of articles in his user space [2] using quote= in the same manner which was found to be problematic by the earlier copyright investigation. This is not about the use of quote= by others, it is specifically about RAN's behavior which has already been shown to be problematic by community process and ArbCom. The question is now what to do with all of those articles he has in his user space. He can not move them into article space and hundreds of potential copyvios can not be left there indefinitely. Both ArbCom (at the most recent ARCA) and the community (when he was banned from using quote=) have said that any other user can move the his user space articles into main space but they must take full responsibility for any WP:COPYVIO in the articles and have indicated that the extensive use of snippets from copyrighted sources is a problem.

That is how the field looks at this time, all of that is. The question is what to do now about the articles. The general consensus in the prior discussions I am aware of is - strip out any non-free quotes that do not comply with a strict interpretation of our NFCC policy, check the article for other copyvios and move it into main space while accepting that if you move it any copyvio is on your head. Now that RAN has objected to moving articles - which he had not previously done, to my knowledge, in the prior discussions - I am not sure, maybe just clean them as before and leave them in place. The discussion here has gone from how to handle an editor banned from creating articles due to a history of extensive copyvio and who has nonetheless created hundreds in his user space to a general - at least among those who did not catch the other parallel discussions - into a general discussion of copyright, fair use and Wikipedia NFCC policy and took the focus from an editor who has been prolifically violating the intent if not the letter (That is what the current ARCA is about) of his ban for years. JbhTalk 23:14, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

  • Should people be moving my incomplete articles from my user space, as they are doing now? I think I should be making the decision of what gets moved from user space into article space, since I am responsible for the content. I am not claiming I own the user space, but I should decide when they are ready to be moved. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 22:13, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
    You are not competent to make that decision. Only in death does duty end (talk) 22:17, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
Of course he is competent to make that decision. Richard, you need to have a staging area: "Work in Progress (do not move)" and "Work Ready to Go." Of course, once things are launched into mainspace you can continue to work on stuff there without trouble, so it's really not too big an issue if things are "prematurely" launched, isn't it? Carrite (talk) 00:32, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
  • @Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): If you would create a page which lists the ones you think are ready I will stick to those until a consensus of what should be done about your user space drafts. I believe there is a concern that there are hundreds of articles just sitting there which have been determined to be NFCC violations and that they should be cleaned or deleted.

    Would you object to the non-PD quotations being cleaned out and the articles not moved into main space? I think that would fairly address both your wishes about what you thing is ready for main space and the community's desire to clean up the excessive quotations. JbhTalk 22:43, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Just clean out the quotes and move the stuff to mainspace. Those quotes are gonna do nothing but get him in trouble with his enemies, who are numerous and powerful. Carrite (talk) 00:33, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
I have it on good authority it would take 5 mins to write a bot task to strip all uses of the quote= parameter from the citations (and leave the citation). Given the arguments around this, it would cut down the need to go through his userspace with such a fine-tooth comb. Only in death does duty end (talk) 07:59, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

"WikiGate"?

I wanted to bring this to your attention, Jimbo, in case you hadn't already seen it or the tweets by Michael Eisen discussed therein. It seems his issue is that as a result of WP:TWL, people will add links to paywalled articles in Elsevier journals that not every reader of Wikipedia will be able to read. Everymorning (talk) 16:58, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

So just like JSTOR etc then, or dead-tree books "that not every reader of Wikipedia will be able to read". There has never been a suggestion that WP should be exclusively sourced from the open access internet, and the many articles that actually are tend not to be our best. Johnbod (talk) 18:18, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
That. Where have you got the idea that we shouldn't be sourcing from sources that one has to pay to read (or "books", as we used to call them)? ‑ iridescent 18:22, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
I agree. I think "WikiGate" is a pretty inflammatory thing to say. And the argument really just doesn't hold much weight once you examine it in depth. There is a kernel here that I do think matters - when there is a choice between equally valid sources, we should tend to favor the more free ("open") ones.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:31, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
As much as I would like to wage war on the corporations that force scientific authors to put their articles behind paywalls as a condition of being published, Wikipedia isn't the place to do that. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:25, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
I respect Eisen, but Wikipedia needs to cover unique content that is locked behind paywalls. We should always add accessible sources where possible, and if there is a surfeit of sources we should reach for the open ones. But kicking at publishers to try to punish them for making it easier for editors to get some of their data to the public is not what I want. Wnt (talk) 21:33, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
What on earth is wrong with allowing us to verify sources? The inability to access academic full text is a major issue in several areas of medicine on Wikipedia. Guy (Help!) 21:43, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
There is a difference between being able to verify a source and being able to verify it quickly, online, and free of charge. Wikipedia:Verifiability#Access to sources clearly indicates that some sources may not be easy or free to access, but that does not disqualify those sources from use by Wikipedia. As Jimbo stated above, we should favor open access sources when available, but for many subjects good quality open access sources do not exist. Trying to impose an open access variation of FUTON bias will not help Wikipedia in its goal of building the encyclopedia. --Allen3 talk 21:56, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
There are still libraries full of printed books which aren't available full-text on Googlebooks or elsewhere, and bound volumes of older journals which aren't available online, and access to these materials has always been difficult for many readers of the encyclopedia, through geography or access restrictions. But this material is all perfectly valid as references for WP articles. Not every source has to be online, open-access or not. PamD 22:01, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
Yes, there is a difference between being able to access it and being able to do so readily. Initiatives like this allow our editors to verify claims made based on cited sources, which claims are, historically, not always a fair or accurate reflection of the actual study. Most public libraries do not stock specialist scientific journals, that tends to be restricted to academic libraries. I think it unlikely that editors will go mining these resources to find papers to cite, it's vastly more likely that they will be used for verification of content already based on them. And that, to my mind, is unambiguously positive. Guy (Help!) 23:26, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Far be it from me to defend Elsevier, but this is at most a marginal issue. People with the expertise to skilfully interpret academic literature are likely to have access through their institutions or other sources. A token number of free subscriptions isn't going to have a big effect on Wikipedia's coverage. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:43, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

I think a lot of people with access to the service have it via their work position, which may mean that many of the people using it to edit Wikipedia with academic sources may be slacking off at their dayjobs. Cla68 (talk) 01:51, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
At least they're not playing Candy Crush. Everyking (talk) 06:15, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
Public outreach and education is a significant facet of many academic jobs, so we're actually hard at work, not slacking off. WilyD 06:42, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
"People are likely to have access through their institutions". Well, maybe not in the long run. Also, Eisen is not saying that we should disregard Elsevier articles, but that we should not provide links to their paywall. Cheers, Stefan64 (talk) 07:34, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
I think it's likely mostly uni students with journal access, who I can only assume outnumber academics on Wikipedia, and (for some courses at least) have absurdly large amounts of free time that can be spent editing Wikipedia.Brustopher (talk) 14:20, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
Well I used to sign up to Open University courses in part so I could use the library in support of WP editing. QuiteUnusual (talk) 07:34, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

I have a very hard time taking anything seriously that uses the "gate" suffix. Chillum 14:08, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

  • Much ado about nothing. We're doing a summary of human knowledge, not a summary of open source and public domain knowledge. Whether there are links in footnotes or not is minor, so long as the information documented by the footnotes is accurate. Those swashbuckling sorts who deeply care about this matter might might consider going Aaron Swartz with single pages of copyright documents posted to Archive.org with an attached claim of fair use as a stopgap. Carrite (talk) 14:35, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
Hmm, we could encourage editors who linked to paywalled resources to be more liberal with quoting the relevant passage as a service to readers. That sounds reasonable in any event.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:40, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
Agree - as a service to readers, but also as a courtesy to other editors and anyone reviewing the article for WP:DYK, WP:GA or WP:FA. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 16:00, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
It should be noted though that extended quotes are generally a violation of copyright. I have many times had to delete quotes that were too long. Looie496 (talk) 16:17, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
It should be noted though that extended quotes, properly sourced, are not generally a violation of copyright. I'd like to see a few examples. We have never, to my recollection and knowledge, had a legal complaint or threat of any kind about a properly sourced quote. There could be exceptions such as quoting the entire lyrics of a poem or song in a single block quote, but that isn't what we are talking about here. We're talking about a block quote of a passage from an academic paper published behind a paywall by Elsevier. I find it very hard to imagine a serious legal issue with that.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:28, 15 September 2015 (UTC) Addendum: Just wanted to be clear, my request for a few examples is sincere and simple. I'd like to study this issue more before I go around making blanket recommendations. Could you start a new section here so we can discuss block quoting more extensively from paywalled sources? Some examples that you removed on the grounds of copyright violation would be a great starting point.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:31, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
Just Elsevier? Sometimes I quote non-public stuff behind the NY Times paywall. Also the New York Public Library has generous online access to all kinds of proprietary databases. Coretheapple (talk) 17:38, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
This seems like rather a silly suggestion, as anyone unable to check the source would equally be unable to verify the accuracy of the quotation. Eric Corbett 17:44, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
If we are limited to click-and-see sites, we can pretty much forget about any serious work on scholarly subjects. But block quoting (I hope you mean commented out) is a considerable burden. Not all these sites can be copied and pasted. To say nothing of if I'm summarizing four or five pages of online source for summary style, I can't very well reproduce four or five pages! Even if commented out, that probably goes beyond fair use. What I generally do when the (rare) question comes up is offer to send a copy of the document, if it's online and emailable, or at the least a screenshot. Really, alleged offline sources are much more difficult to verify than online sources behind a paywall, and we use offline sources routinely. If necessary, you can use the Resource Exchange to find someone with access, who can check for you, with these online sources. You're much better off than if it's a print source and Worldcat tells you the nearest copy is in the municipal library on Bora Bora.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:23, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
Eh there is a fair bit about. Running searches on say doaj can throw up some interesting results from time to time.©Geni (talk) 00:33, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
Jimbo, you might be interested in an ongoing Arbcom clarification request and AN/I thread relating to this question. Current consensus seems to be against including such quotes as a general practice, but as always, consensus can change. --Amble (talk) 20:50, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
Michael Eisen really ought to be tending his own orchard right now. I'm all for open access, but as being implemented by some it has a clear flaw: the lack of distinction between the archivist and the publisher means that there is a gigantic conflict of interest. A few weeks ago we were talking about a PLOS ONE paper about Wikipedia articles that was basically undergrad-level research, and they were supposed to be the 'flagship' of the open access movement. And at the other end of the scale, we have things like this. The result is that it actually is not very safe for us to cite open access journals right now, because we could be citing some spam paper that was robo-published. What we actually need is to have 1) archivists: standardized platforms where anyone can publish and be reliably guaranteed permanent availability of their work online, that are open to everyone, and 2) publishers: independent academics who review and publish lists of the best recently archived work because it is the best work, without receiving fees from any interested party. Until we learn to set up that kind of 'kosher kitchen' for academic publishing, we won't be in any position at all to wipe out the copyright disease. Wnt (talk) 21:54, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

These free subscriptions have been invaluable to editors who patrol recent changes to our medical articles. Nothing will stop people using paywalled information because, less often lately but still too often, that's where the best material is, and it's important that the patrollers can actually verify those contributions. Committing to use only free and open publications would work diametrically against our intention to provide the reader with the highest quality information. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 04:30, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

WRT examples of some long quotes, we have some here Amphetamine#References. Agree quotes are nice. They take time to add and we must make sure they are not too long. We did have the American Psychiatric Association complain about use having their definitions of mental illnesses in our articles. We have since paraphrased them and I bet they would complain if we had them as quotes in our refs. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:28, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Not totally responsive but anyone who wants access and went to a university should contact their university library and alumni association - as they often provide this benefit or can arrange it. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:57, 22 September 2015 (UTC)


Another "open" question

And a blind ideological commitment to open software here would work diametrically against our core mission, too. Where good proprietary solutions are available off-the-shelf I hope WMF is leasing or buying them rather than building them from scratch. What is the WMF's position on this? There appears to be a bit more wheel-reinventing going on than is strictly necessary, but I wouldn't really know. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 04:30, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Not an option. To be a free encyclopedia, Wikipedia has to be designed so that anyone can mirror it, for free. Any reliance on a proprietary 'solution' means giving the proprietor control over who can run Wikipedia where and when. Wnt (talk) 11:06, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
This doesn't sound right to me. Or perhaps I'm missing something. Couldn't I fork Britannica (disregarding the copyright for now) by copying the articles and media across to another site that uses free software? Why would the source site have to be free software before I can suck it onto my site? -- 16:56, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
Ah. I'm conflating "mirror" and "fork". I guess by mirror you mean take our software as well as our content. Well that's not exactly important, is it? We're (at least I'm) here to provide free knowledge, not awesome free handmade software. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 11:56, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
I am not familiar with their product, but it is entirely possible that Britannica uses a proprietary video delivery mechanism that would be difficult to replicate on an open-source mirror. Certainly one can imagine that if the Template: mechanism were copyrighted and could not be directly copied, any ripped-off Wikipedia articles would be full of impenetrable computer jargon, spiced with parameters that readers wouldn't be able to interpret with certainty. This might also be true if the manufacturer simply went out of business and stopped updating their software to run on the newest servers. The medium is the message - proprietary medium, proprietary message. Wnt (talk) 19:55, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Global Citizen Festival

Jimmy, could you comment on the Global Citizen Festival 2015? I.e., is it more of a party, or more of a policy-shifting project? Also, why are you described in the press release as "Wikipedia Founder and Wikia Co-Founder, Jimmy Wales"? How is it that you are founder of Wikipedia (with Larry Sanger), but co-founder of Wikia (with Angela Beesley)? Why did they choose different nomenclature for each project? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:42:C100:9D83:80E1:8443:B637:DF56 (talk) 10:18, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

You can learn more about the Global Citizen Festival here. It's a concert in Central Park. Why did they choose different nomenclature for each project? Just to single you personally out, of all the billions of people in the world, to annoy, Mr. 2601. Mission accomplished!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:07, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Quality of Wikipedia, some more thoughts

Recently some topics regarding the quality of Wikipedia passed this talk page, let me add some thoughts. A quality assessment can serve two goals:

  1. External, a.k.a. PR, show the world how Wikipedia is doing;
  2. Internal, show Wikipedia editors how they are doing, with the underlying goal of improving the quality of future editing.

Both somewhat have their own dynamics:

  1. The external goal is best served by independent assemessment. An example that comes to mind is some ten years ago where 10 or 20 EB articles were compared with their WP counterparts, by independent scholars competent in the field of these articles. What I remember is that Wikipedia came out more or less victorious, and that made some splash in the press. I dont see "Wikipedia says they have improved 0.15%[1] over the last five years" (or whatever the percentage is) hitting any headlines... Some of WikiMedia's budget could be spent to hire an external firm to do an assessment on whatever criteria they think useful to the general public (meaning: we're not the professionals that could make such an external assessment). Although yeah, wouldn't want to see the hullabaloo it may generate in the editor community why one would spend foundation money to that...
  2. For the internal goal we have some processes working like GA/FA. These are criticised and could be improved or overhauled. At least these are the processes we know.

So, a simple question, is it possible to bring both dynamics together? The recent discussions kind of treated them as if they were the same, but failing to make the distinction between internal and external goals gives some nicely colored pie-charts, but little that follows after that afaics.

Of course, we're not the first ones to think about bringing the internal goal of product improvement together with the external goal of showing the world an independent assessment of that quality improvement – for example the ISO 9000 family of quality management standards more or less thrives on that idea. In short (too short probably), quality management processes are designed internally, and verified by an external agency. And you get to carry the ISO label on your products (which is part of the PR). Wouldn't it be nice to see Wikipedia accredited "ISO 9000" or something similar? ...or rather, not something to put editor effort and foundation money into? The idea that an external orgnization (co-)decides what are the paths to improvement could after all be more stifling than stimulating, and that after a lot of money would have been paid. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:36, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ relative increasement of GA-rated articles per User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 194#Making the Wales method work
There are many types and methods of quality assessment and I encourage anybody to come up with ideas on how we can best do it. Assessment for PR purposes, however, doesn't strike me as being needed in general. Most adults in the developed world likely have a pretty good general idea of Wikipedia quality simply because they use it so often. Most likely realize that Wikipedia is not an academic encyclopedia, but may be the best source on the internet for a quick overview across a broad range of topics. Perhaps we need "PR assessments" for 2 different groups: 1) high school students - who should be informed about the limitations of Wikipedia, that anybody can edit and that if they are doing research on a serious question, that it is a good place to start, but not a place to end that research; and 2) academics who might use Wikipedia as part of classwork (it's going to happen anyway as their students consult us). They very likely have questions on accuracy and giving them an idea of the overall quality (pluses and minuses) can only help.
There is a lot of academic research on Wikipedia and we definitely need to encourage that, but I'd say that the WMF paying researchers to assess quality would very naturally bring up questions of COI, unless these payments were handled very carefully, e.g. through a 3rd party academic organization. One quibble I have about academic research is that it takes so long. Between the conception of a research question and a final published paper can take anywhere from 1-3 years. This limits the usefulness for our internal use. It would be nice to have quality research that could address questions related to policy or programs (e.g. quality of paid editing or of articles on women) so that the policy or programs could be modified as we go along.
There is some internal quality research by the WMF that I've only recently become aware of. I'll ping Kaldari and NiharikaKohli regarding User:Community Tech bot which puts out lists such as Wikipedia:Database reports/Forgotten articles to see if they have anything to add here. I'll also contact Halfak (WMF)
Finally, Wikipedia editors have to be the best folks for doing internal quality assessments (more on this later). Smallbones(smalltalk) 14:59, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
The most comprehensive assessment we have of Wikipedia quality is Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team#Statistics. There are people working on tools for automatic article assessment, however, which might be able to give more objective and real-time analysis. I'll see if I can dig up some more info for you... Kaldari (talk) 15:24, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Talk-pages

Of cource the primary use of these pages must deal with the article in question. But having said that, I also feel that we must not build a "Berlin Wall" against for instance general questions regarding the topic which the article covers. Sometimes questions or general explinations are of benefit for Wikipedia as a whole, I think. Thanks Boeing720 (talk) 11:58, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Re "Sometimes questions or general explinations are of benefit for Wikipedia as a whole" – How about an example? --Bob K31416 (talk) 17:40, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
A basic question about a topic should always be welcome on the talk page, if the article doesn't say. The Refdesks are useful to gain a wider audience, or when a question is so specialized that you know that the answer shouldn't go back in the article even if you have it in hand. But people who try to claim that Wikipedia is "not a forum" so you shouldn't ask how tall it is, how many people died that day, what the yearly budget figures are, etc... they are definitely doing something worse than useless. Wnt (talk) 20:56, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
No, we have enough trolling on the ref desks, let's not encourage that to spread to article talk pages in any way. You may not like it, but WP:NOTFORUM is policy. --NeilN talk to me 21:02, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
But what's a "forum"? The answer is incredibly subjective. I don't see why we should discourage editors from saying "How tall is this building?" when they can make the article-improvement comment "we should say how tall this building is." I think it is truly odious that Wikipedia will host endless reams of editors Wikilawyering and accusing one another in some kind of passive-aggressive sumo policymaking contest, but what people say we need to get rid of is a question about the actual topic of the article! Wnt (talk) 21:10, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
Because we'll get questions like, "How do I contact celebrity X?", "How do I get out of ticket I get because of an illegal speed trap in Podunk, Nebraska?", "Will director Y read my script?", "I think Z has disease N because of symptoms a, b, c. What do others think?", "Why are people stupid enough to vote for X?". All these are real (paraphrased) questions I've encountered. The data generated by the ripped-out Article Feedback Tool will also give you an indication of what will happen if NOTFORUM is relaxed. People participate here because they want to write/maintain encyclopedia articles, not act as a trivia answer desk. --NeilN talk to me 21:41, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
You can say those questions aren't related to improving the article and need to go somewhere else. Except... well, the first one actually is valid; the article can include some types of contact information, or you can explain why certain other types may be outside of Wikipedia's purview; either way, the degree of contact data that the article has can be rechecked. The last can be rephrased with some reference to WP:N, but then we can indeed ask why analysts said people voted for the candidate. Yes, such questions impose some ballast, but it is much easier ballast to carry than the policy Furies. Wnt (talk) 23:16, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
Um, WP:PHONEBOOK?  :-)     (That's also implicit in pillar one, methinks.) Plus maybe WP:DOX applies, depending on who they are asking about contacting, and how exactly. I think that article-talkpages should be, 99.4% of the time, conversations about improving the article (prose and sourcing). *Sometimes* questions are an implicit indicator that the article needs to be improved, such as questions about what-does-this-convoluted-paragraph-mean, for instance. The correct response is to try and rewrite the prose in question, to make it easier to understand, clarify the ambiguity, or whatever prompted the question. Sometimes questions about sources are helpful, too, such as does-anyone-know-an-archive-URL-because-this-ref-is-a-deadlink.
  But generic questions, should be politely moved over to WP:Q (or to the most appropriate sub-venue thereof), rather than answering directly on the talkpage. If the question has a brief answer, giving the answer and *then* saying "but next time please use WP:Q if you don't have a specific suggestion about improving Elvis which is what Talk:Elvis is typically used for", or something along those lines, is prolly optimal. p.s. Although I used to think there ought to be a namespace something like Forum:Elvis or maybe FreeForAll:Elvis where random questions/comments/chitchat could occur, more recently concerns about policing copyvio and BLP in such a namespace (not to mention WP:NICE enforcement) began to give me heartburn, so I no longer believe that WP:NOTFORUM is that problematic for the 'pedia. There are plenty of social networking websites, after all, and there are usertalk pages where broad latitude is permitted. p.p.s. Does this mean I get to be a policy-Furies-member-in-good-standing?  ;-)    75.108.94.227 (talk) 03:39, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
Someone wanted an example, and a bit off-topic information about a certain religion later helped me in a different article. And when questions appeare on talk-pages, then I think it may be a call for better explinations. I don't think it's that hard to imagine. Boeing720 (talk) 13:57, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
Forgot - the talk-page rules are very differently controlled. If the talk-pages must be 100% impovement suggestions (and formulated as such), then all article small talk ought to be removed. I just don't see that would generate a general improvement. But in an article about for instance a Spanish robbery in 1930, if someone then asks "How much was a Spanish Pesteta worth in US Dollar at that time ?" - is to me a kind of signal, that a smaller improvement is called for regarding the currencies. Boeing720 (talk) 14:21, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
Re "a bit off-topic information about a certain religion" – What was the information and religion? --Bob K31416 (talk) 00:10, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
Is this really that difficult to imagine without specific details ? But OK, It was about Jews and Judaism. My knowledge about the Jewish people was poor, in the context of Judaism. Do You need further details ? But by learning what I did can see some matters in a different light now. An other example, I once noticed our Second World War article lacked an exchanging article. Just a list of all war outbreakes during the larger overall war. Since I had a decent source, I made such a list. But then I suddenly became aware of the fact that a such list already existed. And according to our rules, in such cases - shall the first article be improved instead of making a new one. I just didn't kno since the list wasn't linked to the WWII article. See Declarations of war during World War II. When I first saw it, I found it to be of very poor quality, as USSR vs Poland, USSR vs Finland, Japan vs USA lacked. Now it's become a rather good list. My point is that I could have used my own time better , by asking whether this list really didn't exist. In that case would I have asked a bit off-topic question. But that isn't the same as asking how much flour that goes with each egg, when making pancakes. I just think that we must not judge every minor off-topic matters at the talk-pages. Boeing720 (talk) 21:55, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Ahmed Mohamed (student)

Jimbo, I would really appreciate it if you could follow on Mark Zuckerberg's footsteps and invite Ahmed Mohamed to the Wikimedia Foundations headquarters in SF. It would be a nice gesture in support of bright students and educational attainment and aspiration for other young people who may feel discouraged. Thank you. Kleinebeesjes (talk) 14:46, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Wikimedia doesn't make a general policy of inviting such students to its headquarters. For instance, Wikimedia didn't invite the kid who was arrested and suspended for writing a story where he shoots a dinosaur with a gun, even though creative writing is a mark of "bright students and educational attainment".
Inviting him sends a message, therefore, that Wikipedia believes that this case is different from all the other cases of kids who've had school administrators overreact to them. This is a message that Wikimedia has no business sending. Ken Arromdee (talk) 16:48, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
Please note that this writer claims the clock can be purchased from Radio Shack. I don't know whether the claim will stand up but it would certainly be wise to let the dust settle a bit before extending any invitation.--S Philbrick(Talk) 17:37, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
His treatment was outrageous but it's not actually connected with Wikipedia. Facebook and other IT companies have an interest in keeping their workers' wages down, and the supply of H-1B visa applicants from countries like Pakistan up, so denouncing his arrest is of more direct relevance to them. Wnt (talk) 21:03, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
Aside from anything else the WMF doesn't really have the type of exciting HQ that the other major websites have.©Geni (talk) 02:15, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
Oh please. The Whitehouse would be on lockdown with a clock in a briefcase like that. No Courthouse would let it in and it is not something he could take on an airplane. His lack of forthrightness is what lead to his legal problems. The Boston marathon bomber had a standard pressure cooker so there is not a lot of tolerance. If he drew a picture of a gun, no one would have blinked an eye at an arrest. "See something, say something" shouldn't be undermined by this nonsense. He's a kid that made a mistake. --DHeyward (talk) 02:24, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
(late comment) President Obama has invited him to the White House. I'm sure the president fully expects to see the clock when Ahmed visits. It's a tiny little circuit board -- not attached to anything that could go "boom" -- the school's reaction had nothing to do with what it was that he made, but was a kneejerk reaction likely fueled by knowledge of his heritage. Etamni | ✉ | ✓  09:38, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
I will paraphrase a comment I saw on Facebook. It's clear that they did not think this was a bomb. They knew full well that it wasn't a bomb. If they thought it was a bomb, they would have evacuated the building. They would have stayed far away from it. They would have called the bomb squad to defuse it. They did none of those things. They put him in an office. They called the police. The police put the clock into their squad car and drove with it, and the boy, to headquarters. They wouldn't have done that if they thought it was a bomb. Everyone involved knew full well that this was not a bomb.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:19, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
Yes, it is clear that they didn't think it was a bomb – but they seemed to believe the kid wanted them to think it was a bomb, and they kept claiming that even after questioning, arresting, and releasing him, and they suspended him from the school. —BarrelProof (talk) 11:03, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
Of course not. There was no explosive. The question was why he disassembled a clock and arranged it in a briefcase in such a fashion which he he refused to answer. If he drew a picture of a gun shooting his teacher, no one would think the picture was actually a gun. This is what the clock represented and he didn't provide answers to why he did it. There was no class assignment for briefcase clocks. The Columbine kids set the tone of zero tolerance and the truth is, he's getting a pass because of his name. If you don't think so, build a clock like that and try getting into a Courthouse, the Whitehouse or a plane with it. --DHeyward (talk) 14:48, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
Pencil case. Not brief case. Small box -- the picture being distributed misrepresents the size (to try and make it look more threatening than it was, no doubt.) Also, it did not have visible wires -- it was just a small box with a digital display, which is to say, a CLOCK. The cops opened it up to make it look more threatening, again. Of course to anyone with half a clue it looks obviously harmless when opened because it's a circuit board and some wires which only says "bomb" if you are utterly clueless and have never bothered to open up a single home electronic. The kid was on the robotics team throughout middle school and no doubt brought electronic bits to school with him all the time (because robotics club, DUH) and he was just starting high school. He brought it in to show to the science teacher, which he did, and it wasn't his idea to show it to the English teacher -- she just wanted to know what was making noise in his backpack. He was asked why he did it and he told the truth -- "I did this, I thought it was cool, I wanted to show it off, it's a CLOCK." And you could definitely get on a plane with this -- you can get on the plane with a laptop if you open it up and plug it in to show it's a laptop. Ahmed would have been asked to plug the box in, it would have worked as advertised (counting UP not DOWN!) and it would have been passed through. Nothing in it looks remotely like an explosive on a scanner, so it would have been fine. Of course you're a Gamergater, so facts, logic, and common sense mean nothing to you, but thanks for continually providing proof of that! PuceGoose (talk) 17:22, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
What this guy just said. People like DH really show their biases with comments like the above. It's as if someone opened up their alarm clock or PC and shat their pants. If you're that uneducated/ignorant and paranoid, you've no business educating children. Dave Dial (talk) 17:38, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
@DD2K: I know your not the braintrust, but I'll try to clue you in anyway: Why do you think his robotics teacher told him not to show it to other teachers and keep it hidden? Bill Maher said it best: "Because it looks like a bomb!" In reality no one overreacted. Just like kids that bring a harmless AirSoft gun to school and a teacher knows it's a toy. The only thing police want to know is intent. Are they just showing off a new cool toy or trying to intimidate someone? That's all they wanted to know. I've lived in places where they don't even bother asking questions, the bomb disposal unit just blows unattended bags up. Doesn't even have to look like a bomb and virtually none of them are bombs but there is enough bombing that it really teaches that leaving unattended bags is a bad (and expensive) idea. It alarms people. A friend lost his beach volleyball set and returned from lunch just as they blew it up. The real person that failed Ahmed is his teacher that told him to keep it hidden instead of taking it until the end of the day. That teacher foresaw problems and failed to eliminate an obvious mistake. When you realize that the teacher who praised it as "nice" told him to keep it hidden, he really meant "it's nice, but it looks like a bomb!" If I were the principal at the school, that teacher would be disciplined because he observed something that he knew could be mistaken for something more nefarious than a clock. --DHeyward (talk) 09:14, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

On the initial inquiry - I live in London, so it wouldn't be my place to invite a stir into the offices of the Wikimedia Foundation. I agree with other comments that however we might feel about the case, it isn't really within the scope of our usual work to do this. I would say that as the months roll on, if Ahmed writes something interesting about the experience, he'd make a very interesting speaker on a panel at a conference. But since this has nothing to do with Wikipedia, and indeed, nothing to do with the Internet really, I'm not sure there's a good fit for Wikimania.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:19, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

And one more comment: this is so clearly a case of BLP1E that it is obvious to me that the article will be deleted. We may as well get started on that process now, eh? (Oh, duh, I just went to do that and saw that it's already nominated, yay!)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:26, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

If you really think that the page will obviously be deleted, you haven't been around AFD much. Many articles about passing news events that will be forgotten in a year easily survive AFD these days, especially when there is an opportunity to make a political point or confirm our prejudices (particularly about Southerners). Gnome de plume (talk) 10:36, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
BLP1E might be a good argument for saying the title of the article should be changed so that the article is presented as being about the incident and its aftermath rather than about the student. But it's not a good argument for deleting information about the incident from Wikipedia. I believe there is currently no separate article about the incident. —BarrelProof (talk) 10:42, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
Yes, I don't disagree with that. The point is that the *incident* is notable. But about this boy, we have no way to write a quality *biography*. Virtually nothing is known about him (partly because he's just a kid about whom there isn't a lot *to* know) as a person. The main thing we know is this one incident.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:09, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Aww, thanks Jimbo for suggesting that he'd make a very interesting speaker on a panel at a conference. But arguably, one could say that Ahmed has more to do with wikipedia than any of the other internet giants that invited him, since the others are not primarily about the acquisition of info whereas wikipedia is. This is because Ahmed's primary passion is invention and the sharing of his technological knowldedge, which sounds very similar to the founding principles of wikipedia. Kleinebeesjes (talk) 10:56, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
Re "This is because Ahmed's primary passion is invention and the sharing of his technological knowldedge, which sounds very similar to the founding principles of wikipedia." – Wouldn't that be OR? In Wikipedia, we present other people's published technological knowledge. --Bob K31416 (talk) 20:44, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
All he did was take apart an alarm clock and put it in a case that can easily to be wired to a bomb, he didn't invent anything. Raquel Baranow (talk) 21:14, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
What amazes me is that the Republican position seems to be, clearly and unapologetically, that people of Arab descent should realize that anything they do is likely to be viewed as an act of terrorism - therefore they should be put in jail for criminal threats unless they realize that because of their racial appearance they are not allowed to do anything unusual that might potentially be misconstrued. There is something very Jim Crow era about that. Wnt (talk) 03:17, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
I didn't realize he was of Arab descent. Does he know this? What amazes me is how vitriolic the left becomes when they can inject "-isms" into any event. This American high school student assembled a device that looked like a threat. Google "student gun school" and you'll see any number of zero-tolerance stances including a second-grader that nibbled his pop-tart into a gun shape (suspended) or high schoolers that took prom pictures off-campus with fake guns (suspended). The truth is that religion, ethnic background and gender had nothing to do with it but because it's silly season, politicians are making hay of it. Any high schooler that did that would have faced the same scrutiny and many have faced punishment for far less. --DHeyward (talk) 03:38, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
Ah, now I understand your other comments [3]. - Cwobeel (talk) 23:56, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Do we know whether Ahmed is an editor? MarkBernstein (talk) 18:53, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

I think that there are enough caution flags regarding this incident to suggest that the Wikimedia Foundation should keep its distance. --Bob K31416 (talk) 13:05, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

There's nothing suggesting caution flags when universities, politicians, scientists and other big names are lining up to give their props to this student. Jimbo Wales seems to be incorrect above since the articles seems destined to be kept if votes are anything to go by.Kleinebeesjes (talk) 23:20, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Article about the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Zalta's Wikimania presentation goes into more detail about the model, including funding. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 02:12, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Article is here. Select quotes that caught my eye: "Though it [Wikipedia] has nearly 5 million articles in the English-language version alone, seemingly in every sphere of knowledge, fewer than 10,000 are “A-class” or better, the status awarded to articles considered “essentially complete.”" Also: "[On SEP,] Any errors reflect poorly on the contributors, and someone who spots a slip-up can talk to a real person about it—neither of which is true with Wikipedia." Interested to hear Jimbo's and others' thoughts on this. Everymorning (talk) 01:59, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

They have a very good model. It could work for medicine - on a much larger scale.
From the video:
Structure
  • Advisory board (Stanford philosophy faculty) appoints
  • Two paid full-time administrative editors (a "senior editor" and Zalta as "principle editor") who plan, budget, manage paid part-time staff (one "associate editor", five "assistant editors"), manage the technical infrastructure, and make the final editorial decisions based on the advice of
  • The editorial board - 140 volunteer "subject editors" (topic experts) who review the work of
  • 1800 volunteer authors
  • The subject editors may recruit volunteer outside reviewers if the topic is beyond the expertise of the subject editors
  • Post-publication reader feedback
Process
  • A subject editor recommends a topic (sometimes an unsolicited proposal is made by a member of the profession)
  • If the administrative editors (Zalta and colleague) approve, an "entry" is created
  • Subject editor suggests an author
  • Zalta invites the author
  • The entry is written,
  • Zalta checks the form of the article
  • The article is refereed, revised, refereed, revised, etc.
  • A subject editor recommends acceptance
  • Published
  • Kept up to date by the original author
  • When that author leaves the process, if a suitable new maintainer cannot be found, the subject editors may commission a new article
  • Articles may be re-titled, re-scoped, split into finer topics or merged into larger ones, or they may be retired to the archive
That's a summary of the first quarter of the presentation. The whole thing is fascinating, though, if you like this kind of thing. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 02:12, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
  • That's all very well, but after 20 years they have only 1,500 articles, which may represent good coverage of philosophy, but would not get us very far overall. Johnbod (talk) 04:06, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
An Encyclopedia of Philosophy that only has good coverage of Philosophy! They do not have nearly the coverage of Family Guy that we do. What a scandal! -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 15:31, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
Nupedia had 21 approved articles, and a bunch more articles in progress, in its first year. If we take that the SEP has ~1,500 articles after 20 years, simple math gives us 1,500 ÷ 20 = 75, so we're looking at a similar (same order of magnitude) rate of progress (updates to existing articles notwithstanding) in the SEP as with Nupedia. It's a given that Nupedia was impractically slow. A slow speed isn't practical for Wikipedia (a general encyclopedia), despite how well it can work for the SEP, a specialized encyclopedia covering the slow-moving field of philosophy. {{Nihiltres |talk |edits}} 18:48, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
A "slower" Wikipedia would not necessarily be a bad thing. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ahmed Mohamed (student), Talk:Kim_Davis_(county_clerk)#RfC:_Two_articles_or_one.3F_.28Or_three.3F.29 etc etc etc. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:07, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Nah, just place the above structure within each WikiProject and that will take care of most of the topic areas in Wikipedia. The thing is, however, that Jimbo and the WMF have made it clear that their goal with Wikipedia is not what Stanford has achieved with their encyclopedia. Cla68 (talk) 04:43, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
Johnbod, Cla68, the only thing stopping medicine (a much better-funded domain than philosophy, with a much broader body of scholarship) from doing something like this is the absence of leadership. Wikipedia could take that leadership and catalyse this by fitting Zalta's model, or the appropriate bits of it, onto ours. Most of the heavy lifting would be done by the academy and the professions.
I'm talking here about us cannibalising his work structure and possibly even his funding model. We'd have to allow anyone to edit, still, and Wikipedia would have total editorial control, but periodic reviews by the world's top scholars would throw up "canonical" versions of our best articles that have a doi and are (in the case of medicine) PubMed indexed - and citable WP:RSs. SEP has proven that scholars are willing to donate their time to this kind of enterprise when the model suits them.
As for WMF's position, Cla68, Lila is deeply committed to the idea that we should be offering knowledge to the world, rather than the untrustworthy assertions we presently offer, and the WMF will do all it can to facilitate sensible ventures aimed at that goal. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 07:19, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
Well, I hope that's true - let's see. Johnbod (talk) 12:44, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
Maybe medicine has already done it with the encyclopedic info at Medscape, for example these articles on anatomy. --Bob K31416 (talk) 08:10, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
There is no other general purpose free encyclopedia that has accomplished anything comparable to what Wikipedia has. Not by a long shot. Not by a country mile. Not by orders of magnitude. If specialized freely licensed encyclopedias succeed, then we should import their content into Wikipedia, with attribution. If they are not freely licensed, we should wish them well and link to them, if they meet our standards as reliable sources. In all cases, we should wish other encyclopedia projects well, even if they fail. They are noble efforts. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 08:30, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
I'm not really convinced. If you turn 140 experts loose on Wikipedia, there *will* be good articles written. I don't know if all their structure (or ours!) would contribute or hinder that - probably depends on the relative skill of the volunteers and of the administrators. I congratulate them on having an article on Holes. (it seems pretty vapid, since in general holes are simply a second-order elaboration on a first-order model and not nearly so mysterious as all that, but that can be blamed on the RSes) But given that article, there are two possibilities: either the article is freely redistributable, in which case we can steal it without apology and henceforth outdo their efforts, or it isn't, in which case it is worthless to our goal. And so those creating it are essentially a private WikiProject, or else simply another copyrighted source for us to cite and summarize. Don't mess with the Borg Collective; you will be assimilated. :) Wnt (talk) 12:57, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
Yes it is an interesting model. Unfortunately there content does not appear to be under an open license. There are multiple other sites using similar models including Medscape, Uptodate, and Dynamed but none are open access. We are looking at a similar but open model in collaboration with a number of publishers including PLOS medicine per [4]
Could we get 1,500 articles in 20 years? I do not know but hope so. The plan would be to have them within a stand alone site and integrate / build upon WP. Our article on dengue fever for example has been formally peer reviewed and published. A bunch of similar high quality interlinked articles for those who require greater assurances of accuracy would be useful for professionals. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:43, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
(The link James points to is required reading for anyone with an interest in this topic. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 02:27, 23 September 2015)
James, it's not just professionals who require greater assurances of accuracy. According to the results of the recent community consultation, the general reader demands that too. While your "open-access point-of-care summaries" proposal in the linked article is excellent, it doesn't address the unreliability of Wikipedia's offering - except that, if your laudible proposal succeeds while Wikipedia does nothing to address its unreliability problem, we'll be rightly displaced in search engine results by yet another site: yours. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 07:45, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
What I am proposing is a collection of review type articles within a specific topic area. The articles would not be free for anyone to edit and thus could not be within a Wikimedia site exclusively. They would also be published and hosted in pubmed commons. There is no plans to have the same massive scope as WP. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:01, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
What you're proposing is perfect. Well managed, this is the answer to a great many prayers. Consider quitting your day (night?) job and focissing on this exclusively until it's done. A non-profit with this as its mission should be well-supported by foundations like Gates and Wellcome. I'm just making the point that, meanwhile, there's the Wikipedia reliability problem. As you know, that's my focus. If the BMJ project goes where it might, hopefully Wikipedia will be able to feed some articles into your project. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 10:32, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
The journal that published Dengue fever[5] was closed in 2014, apparently because it was unable to attract enough experts.[6]
"While inspiring, the process was also chronically frustrating. Despite everyone’s best intentions, it was challenging for a small team to keep stoking the interest and engagement of the general academic community, and it was difficult to recruit members to our editorial board and board of directors who could provide the kind of hands-on involvement that our small but ambitious operation required. Academic medicine has been slow to recognize the importance of stepping out of the comfort zone of traditional publishing: unfortunately, the benefits of disseminating information freely still takes second place to the allure of publishing in a prestigious forum, however difficult that forum may be for readers to access. By the end, despite continual efforts to deepen our bench strength, there were few stalwart supporters. Perhaps our mistake was to focus our recruitment efforts too much on those who were well established in their careers, rather than on up-and-coming authors and editors, who might have been more likely to embrace new possibilities."
--Bob K31416 (talk) 18:38, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
  • The success of an endeavor such as SEP depends crucially on the quality of top-down leadership. For comparison consider Scholarpedia, an online encyclopedia with similar rationale and structure, but much less successful because the top-down leadership has not been as strong. Scholarpedia has a number of good articles, but in many cases the corresponding Wikipedia articles are actually better -- sometimes a lot better. Looie496 (talk) 14:22, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
  • I couldn't agree more. But don't underestimate the importance of the quality of the review process, and the reputation of the body doing the reviews. Anybody can set up a review process. Not many can do it with rigor. SEP has a strong reputation for quality.
  • If Wikipedia is going down this road, we need to be very cautious about just who is doing the reviewing and whose reviewed versions we point our readers to. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 08:03, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Just to be clear here, anyone who wants to discuss an article with me will be talking to a real person. Jimmy can vouch for that. Guy (Help!) 19:31, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has "The Meaning of Life" and Wikipedia has "Meaning of life". Perhaps each article is better than the other in some respects.
—Wavelength (talk) 19:08, 24 September 2015 (UTC) and 22:56, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Coca-Cola registered trademark placed in the public domain on Commons

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Coca-Cola_logo.svg

Free media for a Free people, maaaaaan! This registered trademark (in a high resolution file) was moved into the "public domain" on Commons in Sept. 2012. What could possibly go wrong? Anyway, one of you who still visit William Golding Island might want to fix the licensing on that and add a ®™ to the file itself before Coke gets unhappy... Carrite (talk) 15:07, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

WP:SOFIXIT, no use in just complaining. Smallbones(smalltalk) 15:26, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
Are you contesting that it is public domain, as implied by your scare quotes? Actually if you look at the file history it has been on Commons since 2007 and have there been any problems? BethNaught (talk) 15:38, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
Is this sarcasm? The Coca-Cola logo is literally a textbook example of a trademark that is in the public domain under copyright law (in this case due to both age and simplicity). We've had it on Commons for ages labeled correctly as both public domain under copyright law and rights reserved under trademark law (which is a much narrower set of restrictions on reuse than copyright). Dragons flight (talk) 16:05, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
  • For background on this topic, see the OP's contribution at Monkey selfie & Commons "We all know what hardline Free Media Maaaaaaaan asswipes they are at Commons...". JoeSperrazza (talk) 02:56, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
What's it doing on Commons if it's not freeeeeeeeee??? Carrite (talk) 02:43, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
The William Golding Island part might also be a commentary on the setup of the Wikipedia subculture. Another way of looking at it is that we are here voluntarily. --Bob K31416 (talk) 17:04, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
Personally, I think Jimbo looks great in a white uniform. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:26, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
An image can be both in the public domain and be trademarked. Our logos for example are in both the CC and trademarked. They are two seperate issues. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:04, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
Ah yeah, "separate issues". Martinevans123 (talk) 22:31, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
No, but see, it is a well-known fact that Commons is "broken", so anything Commons does must be wrong, by definition. --71.119.131.184 (talk) 20:07, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
You are very brave smirking in anonymity, Mr. Commons IP account. Wanna step up with your actual WP account name??? Carrite (talk) 02:44, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
I have one account that I haven't logged into in about six years. Does that count? And no, there are no bans, blocks, or any other sanctions on it. But why do you care anyway? --04:01, 24 September 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.119.131.184 (talk)
On a slightly different note, "Happy Birthday to You" can now go on Wikimedia Commons after a judge ruled this week that it is not copyrighted. Well done to the judge.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 05:10, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
Could we have it automatically played when we log on, exactly a year after we first created our Wikipedia User account? Martinevans123 (talk) 23:12, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Article quality - first pass on the "Wales method"

About 10 days ago there was a discussion on article quality "Is Wikipedia getting better"- which has continued on and off since then. Frankly, I got pretty tired of reading arguments about what were clearly questions that could be mostly answered with statistics, but just seeing a couple of statistics cited. In any case, I took a first pass through some data I collected by hand and came up with some "suggestive answers". This is only an exploratory data analysis and the words "conclusive" or "significant" should not be used at all in reference to it.

Please see User:Smallbones/Article quality prelim, and feel free to make any comments on methods or stats on the talk page there.

TLDR;
Wikipedia needs a method to answer questions such as “Is Wikipedia getting better?” or “Is any increase in average article quality due to better new articles, or to old articles getting better?” This exploratory data analysis expands upon a method proposed by Jimmy Wales - selecting random articles and comparing their quality now to earlier versions. 100 pairs of a current article and its 2 year old version are examined, along with 13 articles less than 2 years old, The stub-FA class ratings do not appear to be useful for this analysis. A proposed rating system was flawed, but may be adjusted for future use. The small increase in average article quality appears to be driven by both a higher quality for new articles and an increase in the quality of old articles. Article quality, as well as page views, vary across subject topics, but changes in the composition of Wikipedia by subject topics appears to be minimal. Improvements to the method used are discussed along with a potential use of the method.

I'm certain that there will be folks who will suggest a better quality metric, another variable that should have been considered, or a different method of analysis. Feel free to copy my data from User:Smallbones/Wales_method#Data to your own user page and give it a try. I'd love to see your results.

(EC) I'd like to stress that, while stats do not decide most questions themselves, they should be used to help decide policy questions. The example here might help decide not so much "Is Wikipedia getting better?" but "What actions can we take to increase article quality?" One particular possible solution that pops out of this analysis would be to consider merging, improving, or deleting the lowest quality articles which are in the lowest 20% of articles by page view rank. If we just deleted these articles, page views would go down by less than 1% and average article quality would jump. Just a suggestion - and it would need more study - but I just wanted to point out that if we are going to make policy suggestions on this page, a few numbers would certainly help. Smallbones(smalltalk) 02:28/02:44, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

I wish we had an easy way to insert emojis. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 for this start.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 02:40, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
You could just use ♥♥♥♥ etc. (Special characters→Symbols in the edit window. Am I now giving tips to the founder of Wikipedia on how to use Wikipedia? Wow... surreal). Yunshui 雲水 07:09, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
I made a Template:Emote before (though no one really uses it), and just added ❤ to it now. It's still missing a lot of emoticons but it's a very simple template to update. Wnt (talk) 13:10, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
From the section Is the data representative? of your page, selecting articles at random from all of Wikipedia articles does not appear to be useful, unless one is interested in mainly analyzing articles with ratings of Start, Stub, and unassessed, which are 95% of your sample. --Bob K31416 (talk) 13:34, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
(EC)Unfortunately, you are correct simply because only about 7% of articles are rated above Start (wow, I'd better check that). In the sample I did manage to get 5.4% above start. I've been considering how to get random samples for smaller subsets, e.g. articles in project WP:NRHP or articles that started with a blurb at DYK. For some projects, I think I've almost found a way to almost get a random sample, while assuring that a minimum number are from each quality class, but I better check it out first. Smallbones(smalltalk) 13:52, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
Yes, the approx. 7% number checks out. See your table at [7] which gives 6.76% while including lists and FL (which I removed for my work). I think it's quite an important point that many people are forgetting about or disregarding the 93% below "C" (or the 54% stubs if you want a different cutoff) when we consider article quality. Smallbones(smalltalk) 14:07, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
OK, here is a description of how you might get a stratified random sample for certain projects, e.g. WP:NRHP, which would allow you to say a lot more about the 7% of articles rated above Start. If your project has a table like this from Wikipedia Version 1.0 (complete list of these projects at User:WP 1.0 bot/Tables/Project) you'll have categories like this which break down the projects articles by quality class. I put the {{random in category}} template at the top of each of the NRHP quality categories. Clicking the "random in category" link should give you a random article with that quality class. How many random articles should you choose? As many as you want, usually a minimum number so that you can say something about the class - maybe 20? The trick is that if you want to bring all the classes together to represent the full results then you have to weigh each class by the actual number of articles in the population, i.e. the 7% above Start still only get 7% of the weight in the overall results. Smallbones(smalltalk) 16:05, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Suggested mode of investigation:

1. Make a list of 20 random articles substantially unrelated to each other from a date certain (say, 01/01/2010) in each of several categories where the length at the time was over 25,000 characters and where the current version of such articles is still over 25,000 characters). I suggest the categories should include one set in "pop culture" (to see if there is a disparity for such articles on Wikipedia), one in "world history" (as a "neutral area" I would think), one in "famous women" (to see if any gender disparity exists), and one in "long running ideological disputes" (to see if POV editing is evinced for either period) for 80 articles total.
2. Without furnishing dates as to which version of each article is being shown to reviewers, present both versions of each article chosen to a panel of outside people generally knowledgeable in evaluating articles for their ratings of each article version (in short, not Wikipedia editors at all).
3. Present those ratings of each article to a panel of persons skilled in statistical analysis to determine if any patterns seem reasonable to investigate further. Collect (talk) 14:10, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
I'll just say that if you can organize this please go ahead, with some quibbles. You're not really talking about random samples here, so it would be hard to say how representative the sample would be (and representative of what?) For comparisons across categories, I'd suggest a minimum sample of 50 in each category (s.e. about 7%). Getting all this type of sample would require a large amount of work. Finding the outside experts to donate(?) their time would be difficult. Perhaps a university or think ank might be able to organize this. Smallbones(smalltalk) 14:38, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
The small size for each of four categories was suggested as a preliminary study only - and the randomness is, of course, limited here - I was using that term to stipulate that the choice of articles would try to be disparate within the category, rather than using multiple related articles. I also suggest that we compare articles which were basically "fleshed out" in the past, as comparing old stubs with current non-stubs is not of particular interest to anyone. Emended above. If and only if the first results showed that a given category might have statistically interesting results at variance from the other categories would a larger sample make much sense. As I understand it, the WMF would be the ones who would contact any outside research group, and, indeed, might undertake such a study itself. And, of course, any researcher reading this page might also think it possible that it might be an interesting project. The main addition I made to your proposal really is that we examine not just "average articles" but that we specifically seek information about groups of articles - and that I suggested 80 initial articles in the study instead of 100. I could easily posit that some of the individual categories I suggested might end up with many more articles studied if the statistics initially are "interesting." Jimbo Wales might possibly forward such proposals to WMF - I think the results would be of more than internal interest, however. Collect (talk) 17:19, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

This year fundraising in Russia

I dared to write here not like to a place "where all can be solved and answered" :-), I know it is not. Mostly I recalled your interviews for TPO launching about the fundraising overall and that "On the Internet, something went wrong". So I thought of some extra comments if any about the situation that Russian Federation (7th in top-10 of 2012) 10 months in the row exempted from the fundraising program: with the only reason given that it is "not a decision motivated by politics" and that no further details can be provided.
Actually the question arose from the discussion (Russian) about the 15th Wikipedia birthday and different ideas to celebrate the event in Russia. This is when I personally discovered that that Fund action of November 2014 is still in effect. So I made a separate topic on it (Russian, but original quotes in English). So anything else we need/allowed to know while missing another Christmas donations rally besides that it is nothing about politics? Sorry if a wrong place or if I was/am too direly speaking on the matter. --Neolexx (talk) 22:10, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Online

Hey Jimbo, would it be possible to make wikipedia show when a user is online or not? — Preceding unsigned comment added by I am. furhan. (talk • contribs) 01:40, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

You can do something sort of like that by going to their user page and hitting "contributions" on the sidebar, getting a link like Special:Contributions/Wnt. I think it is possible to write up some custom Javascript for your account to see the time since last contribution for a user in some easier way (it can't be done with Scribunto). What you can't do is see whether the user has closed all their windows since making the last edit - that kind of Javascript-dependent "social reading" provides companies with potentially useful marketing/surveillance data, but for Wikipedia it would only be wasted bandwidth for the "I'm still here" or "I went away" signals, and at a very major cost in editors' privacy. Wnt (talk) 13:26, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Increase in the number of Wikipedia articles with GA rating and above

The results in the following table were calculated using data from pages in the history of User:WP 1.0 bot/Tables/OverallArticles.

Average increase per day of
number of articles with Good Article rating and above
year 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
ave increase per day 10.2 11.6 10.2 10.6 8.9 8.7

--Bob K31416 (talk) 18:37, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 23 September 2015

What should I do if an administrator scares and intimidates me?

Any ideas? I am trying a RFC of an article but he may see this as a flimsy reason to punish me. Wikipedia is not very fun. Sandra opposed to terrorism (talk) 23:41, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

I see that this user has only been editing for a month. This appears to me to be a perfect example of a situation where mentoring would be useful, with somewhat more verbose explanations to the user about good editing. I do agree that Drmies comment on her talk page was rather harsh bordering on intimidation. This is also a good example of seeing someone who starts out with some apparent enthusiasm about editing here and getting lost in the labyrinthine maze of policy and style guidelines and then becoming more frustrated to the point of eventually quitting. If I did not have a 35+ year background in computer science, and the related self-learning/research skill set acquired along the way, I don't think I would have survived here myself. Nyth63 00:43, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
  • User:Nyth83, perhaps you are interested in the opinion of other editors, such as Versus001, Pincrete, Mathglot, some of whom have been dealing with this user's difficult editing behavior and refusal to listen for weeks now. There is no "maze of policy" here--there's clear obstruction and editing with an agenda. The editor has an undue interest, for instance, in the alleged (alleged! and then refuted) behavior of some of the train crew during the attack, which is seriously bothersome. And if you look at Talk:2015 Thalys train attack (I'm not sure that you did), which is over 200k, you will see that there was plenty of mentoring offered there--to no avail. Or you could look at the current ANI thread. But thank you for offering your opinion. Drmies (talk) 01:05, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Hi, Sandra. I'm sorry that you feel scared and aren't having fun. No one wants that. When you are having a conflict with someone it is often helpful to talk about it informally with other people. Doing so may help to clarify any underlying confusion or misconceptions, and give one the confidence to figure out how to approach further dispute resolution, if necessary. Often one can use article discussion pages to discuss issues. Or if you have met others that you feel more comfortable with, maybe talk to one of them on their user talk page. If you are new, the help desk may be more useful for basic inquiries. Lastly, let me suggest that the teahouse is often a good place to find friendly third parties. So, perhaps the best option might be go have a metaphorical cup of tea, talk about what is causing your anxiety, and maybe people will be able suggest a productive way forward. Hope that helps, at least a little. Dragons flight (talk) 00:59, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
After reviewing this user's history here a little more, I may have to reconsider my assertion that mentoring would be useful. Nyth63 01:04, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
Sandra is nothing if not tenacious in editing. I think she could become a good editor if she could just somehow empathize and listen to other editors' differing points of view (like we all have to) without assuming there's a gang of thieves arrayed against her with some hidden (or manifest) and nefarious agenda. I'm not familiar with mentoring (in WP context) and while I think I'm too involved to be one for her, I'd support lots of WP:3O for her in the right venue, and mentoring, too, if that makes sense. I will just add that I'm a little intimidated being here on Jimbo's page (first time for me) and wondering if it's appropriate to even be here on a topic so unrelated to him. If there's a more appropriate place to hold this discussion, and if Sandra or anyone wishes my input on the topic, I'd be glad to join in. Mathglot (talk) 02:16, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
I concur. I too think the environment would be less tense if she changed her attitude and became more civil and understanding of the discussions (as well as more aware of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines). Unfortunately, things have escalated to a point where I cannot be a mentor for her due to our strained online relationship, so you will have to vote me out as a candidate for that slot. Versus001 (talk) 04:36, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
Of course Versus (I concur) concurs with Mathglot. Both of them are ganging up on me. My ideas, particularly the very recent ones are very sound ideas and good writing. Sandra opposed to terrorism (talk) 14:44, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
Sandra, nobody but you thinks these are 'good ideas', not the other editors, not the admin that became involved (Drmies), and often neither the facts nor explicit policies. Neither do you make any serious attempt to persuade others as to why you think these are good ideas. You are very mindful of a sense of 'victimhood', less mindful of how much of the time and goodwill of others you have chosen to waste. Pincrete (talk) 16:47, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
No, they are NOT, Sandra. And this is not ganging up. None of this would be happening if you at least were more aware of Wikipedia's policies, were more respectful and mindful of the happenings in the article, and most of all, had LISTENED to what everyone else was saying in the matter, both in support and disapproval of your ideas. Versus001 (talk) 17:53, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Sandra opposed to terrorism appears to be a determined editor who can't be scared or intimidated. This section seems to be part of a strategy of advocacy for the editor's position. --Bob K31416 (talk) 12:47, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia sometimes has enthusiastic inexperienced editors who don't fully understand the give-and-take process of article improvement. Sometimes these editors complain that Wikipedia is a hostile place, or that they are being intimidated or bullied or ganged up on. Sometimes these editors are very sensitive to criticism, and even to advice, but willing to criticize other editors. Unfortunately, Sandra appears to be one of those editors. Mentorship is dependent on the willingness of the new editor to accept the advice of the mentor without being too quick to get defensive or to see tag-teams or gangs. Sometimes if an editor sees Wikipedia as hostile, it is because they are in the habit of treating polite disagreement as hostility. Sandra: A lot of editors have tried to advise you to be more flexible. That doesn't mean that they are ganging up on you or intimidating you. Pause and reconsider. Maybe you need to listen as well as complain. Robert McClenon (talk) 13:59, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
Sandra: The two RFCs that you have most recently filed are both extremely non-neutral, and that isn't likely to prevail. The suggestion has been made of mentorship, and other editors have said that you need it but don't want it. Perhaps you could at least use some mentorship in how to write neutral RFCs. The second and more recent one, in particular, refers to the owners of the article, which in itself is an implied personal attack, because it implies the conduct issue of article ownership. RFCs should be worded in a way that requests community opinion, not that states the opinion of the filer. Maybe you could use mentorship in how to word RFCs neutrally. Robert McClenon (talk) 13:59, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
I agree with the comment above that Sandra is a "determined editor who can't be scared or intimidated", but is willing to claim intimidation. The comment by User:Drmies was harsh, but may have been necessary because it does appear that Sandra was edit-warring against consensus, and when gentle admonitions to determined editors are not heeded, stronger admonitions are needed. Sandra: Pause and reconsider. Robert McClenon (talk) 13:59, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Google's ownership of online knowledge

Do you have any thoughts on it in relation to Wikimedia? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 11:14, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

I used to have a few thoughts. But fortunately, I've reached the "John Carter 55 threshold", so I need no longer worry. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:58, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
Um, thoughts on what? Etamni | ✉ | ✓  17:38, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia's Lawsuit Against NSA Has First Day in Court

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/09/25/wikipedias-lawsuit-against-nsa-internet-vacuum-has-first-day-in-court

Key quote:

"A lawsuit against the National Security Agency’s dragnet interception of Internet communications had its first day in federal court Friday ... The case was filed in March by the Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, along with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Amnesty International USA, PEN American Center, Human Rights Watch, The Nation magazine and other human rights and advocacy groups. The groups are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and say the NSA’s 'upstream' collection of Internet communications from the cables, routers and switches that make up the Internet’s backbone is unconstitutional."

--Guy Macon (talk) 06:50, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Disappearing documents

trolling by banned user. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 17:42, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Jimmy, the 4 Dec 2014 preliminary filing for The People's Operator says: "The Company's Admission Document can be found at https://www.thepeoplesoperator.com/InvestorRelations ". However, that link now seems to be dead. In fact, TPO.com seems to have removed all documents related to investor relations. Do you know why? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.153.74.10 (talk) 03:45, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Not a dead link for me, perhaps the site was having some problems. --♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 05:28, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
50.153 is correct. The Admission Document has been spirited away from the page linked (if indeed it was ever there). Also of interest: at the bottom of the page this question is asked: “How does it [TPO] work?” The answer that's helpfully provided (at the time of writing this) is: TPO will “Keep doing you while you’re doing good.” Quite. Writegeist (talk) 05:48, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
There is a separate page called TPO Document Centre which is linked from the Investor Relations page. The AIM Admission Document is there, the exact link to the PDF is here.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 05:55, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
Maybe for you (perhaps you're in the UK and TPO treats visitors differently there?), but for me, going to those links you just gave, both are instantly redirected to store.tpo.com . It would be interesting to know if that's happening to anyone else? Ian, in the version of the AIM Admission Document that you're able to bring up, does it contain the text, "that Jimmy Wales was appointed as the Head of Strategy and Digital Community of the Company on a salary of £250,000 per annum", or do you have an abbreviated version of the PDF?


In general, this isn't really the place to ask me about TPO. Better to just email me - or the company.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:33, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't think they are really interested in hearing from you or the company, but it is instead a weak attempt to embarrass you (in their mind) by bringing it up here where Wikipedians can read about the latest Jimbo scandal, tpolostdocumentgate. Deli nk (talk) 12:23, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
Correct. The IP is banned user User:Thekohser, who has been doing a slow edit-war since this edit to insert this 'question', and then reinsert once reverted. It is off-topic for this page. JoeSperrazza (talk) 14:35, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
I issued a request to the company for info about the missing AIM Admission Document, but they have not replied. I had hoped that the TPO Executive Chairman's Wikipedia Talk page would be an appropriate place to ask about TPO, because Wales distinctly discusses both entities in this interview and several others. Why would it be "off limits" here, if there is no easy way to reach Mr. Wales via the TPO site?

Bug reported in 2007, still no action

https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T11790

Given the huge surpluses that the WMF runs every year, could we please hire some developers and give them the task of fixing bugs before they celebrate their 7th birthday? I don't want to be buying these bugs drinks when they turn 21... --Guy Macon (talk) 13:39, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Well in pure numbers there are plenty of developers. What they have lacked until recently is competent leadership, direction, quality control and oversight. No comment on the current situation as its a work in progress with the current jetpacking of certain upper level staff who have contributed to the previous problems. Personally I'm going to give it another 3-6 months before I start sharpening the pitchfork again... Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:51, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
There are still some developers who "know" what the user community needs better than the user community itself. I have no idea how the dev portion of the WMF is structured so that these developers can be held accountable for their decisions. Other bugs (example from 2006) seem to suffer from cowboy coding. Again, lack of accountability seems to be an issue. --NeilN talk to me 13:50, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
As the Visual Editor fiasco showed, there have definitely been serious problems in the development process. But there is also another kind of problem: the developers don't have any good structured way of getting input about which bugs are important to the broad editor community. Unfortunately the fact that one or two editors pester them about a bug doesn't automatically mean that it is important to large numbers of people. In this case I agree that the problem is important, but I don't think that message has gotten across. In fact I doubt that the developers are fully convinced that this is really a bug at all. (In "dev-speak" this is really more of an "enhancement request" than a "bug report".) Looie496 (talk) 14:16, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
Looie496, I don't think getting structured input is the problem. Have a look at this and (especially) the talk page. The WMF (poorly) designed a survey, solicited input for it, and then...? This reinforces my belief that the WMF is more interested in gathering (fairly useless) stats and happily chirping out "we need more feedback!" for a couple years rather than execution. --NeilN talk to me 14:34, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
At least they could have warned users, on the preference list, that enabling "Hide bot edits from the watchlist" would have this effect. I have had this in place for years, but just noticed now. Yeah, I had noted that others in my "area" (Israel/Palestine) fixed vandalism which I had not noticed; I thought that was just because of me having too many articles to watch. Now I understand that I never saw it, as typically the vandal made a "wrong" edit which was fixed by a bot. This bug must be the dream for any vandal! Huldra (talk) 17:10, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
The MediaWiki core experience is absurdly bad. In most respects, it's a good fifteen years behind the state of the art in web applications. Even the most simplistic of UI improvements are left unimplemented for years on end while time is wasted on huge, largely pointless projects (I saw a count yesterday of VE-tagged edits: 23 out of the most recent 1,000. That's not a good result for years of work). What is urgently needed is a one-year moratorium on all new projects while the developers grind their way through the bug list, dragging MediaWiki into at least the 2010s. No fun experiments or grand designs: just a lot of old-fashioned toiling away. Which is about as likely to happen as an ice sculpting contest in Hell. It's depressing.  — Scott • talk 08:59, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
Or they could spend some of the warchest they are sitting on hire ten competent engineers on a year's contract at above market-rate, give them a team leader with actual project delivery skills.... set them loose on the bug list and it would soon get reduced. There are some things where money really will buy results. Its not like there would even be any outcry, there is more negative comments from the community about the dishonest fundraising (given the funds the WMF is sitting on), that actually spending it on a task that is easily monitored would probably get some goodwill. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:38, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Good Job Leading Wikipedia for Years!

The Olden Golden Bolden Blueberry Award!
Hai there, and I would like to say that you are my favorite Wikipedia editor(?) of all time. So, keep it up with the ad-free amazing free knowledge! OmegaBuddy13 (talk) 23:12, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

How much was fund-raised from every country?

Please have a look at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Forum#How_much_was_fund-raised_from_every_country.3F

--Perohanych (talk) 15:08, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

How to get,um, past-their-peak editors to retire gracefully, as opposed to by sanctions

Any ideas out there? John Carter (talk) 14:58, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Whar on earth are you asking about? What does past-their-peak mean? Nyth63 16:00, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
I saw it as a more polite way to refer to editors who may be experience some form of progressive loss of competence, most often through some form of dementia or, maybe, development of some perhaps symptomatic behavior since first becoming editors. We will be experiencing a lot of editors who are retirees who may find their capacity diminishing progressively over the years, and some whose editing may be negatively affected by traumatic experiences or other problems after becoming editors. John Carter (talk) 16:07, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
You must be kidding.--MONGO 16:14, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
Back to the day room, Mongo. Nurse will be along shortly. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:23, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
I wish I didn't know of at least a few cases where I saw this situation to possibly have arisen alreaady. Obviously, I do not include all older people (I'm in my 50s) but it would be nice if we could develop a way to get individuals whose behavior is becoming disruptive when earlier it wasn't to stop editing or reduce editing with honor, as opposed to with some sort of sanctions. John Carter (talk) 16:25, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
Based on what I see on the internet in an average day, I have no idea how we would distinguish between a typical netizen and a retiree with dementia. Gamaliel (talk) 16:26, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
Like (Peter Damian (talk) 12:59, 28 September 2015 (UTC))
@Gamaliel:, it's probably safe to say that anyone that has been on this website as long as either of us is likely nuts.--MONGO 17:09, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
@MONGO: I am of course offended that you didn't even mention me in the above. I think I've more than earned consideration as an alternatively-rational person myself. So, not for the moment dealing with the matter of more or less functional disabilities, like some of the less disabling autism spectrum disorders, in those instances when there has been what might be seen as a clear decline in the level of competency of an editor, can anyone think of any way to persuade them to retire with grace and, to an extent, their reputation intact, rather than having them forced to retire through blocks or bans? John Carter (talk) 17:27, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
You want to take away the keys to the car without anyone noticing you have taken the keys. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:53, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
I want to know if there is a way to allow editors who may well have been very good and productive editors earlier to, basically, have the car keys taken from them without having it visible to everybody,like through a block or ban message on their user talk page, that the car keys were taken from them. So, more or less, yeah. John Carter (talk) 18:57, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
  • John Carter, I resemble that remark, but next time please ping me if you're going to talk bad about me. I'd give you my damn car keys if I could find them--last them I drove it was to get a trunk full of Depend underwear from Costco. So maybe I put them in the trash? Drmies (talk) 14:47, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
Well that's easy. Senile people fall for any internet scam so send an e-mail saying you are a Nigerian Prince and need them to give you their Wikipedia password. Then just lock the account with a new password. Slick, clean, no visible traces or accountability. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 01:08, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
[8]. Drmies (talk) 14:49, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
Do you see this as a significant problem? Your suggestion rather seems to me to be an attempt to legitimise the removal of unpopular editors "for their own good". Eric Corbett 19:06, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
Define "significant". Like I said, I know of one or two editors whom I think were forcibly retired by blocks or bans, and, well, with the greying of the population, particularly in the west, the number of editors who lose the required mental elasticity, which is supposed to happen around 55 in some cases (putting it 3 years off for me), is probably going to increase. To what degree, obviously, we can't know, but I would prefer, if possible, to have some sort of unofficial procedure of urging the few editors who seem to become pretty much inherently problematic over the years to retire with grace than to leave a block or ban notice on their user talk page as their most visible and immediately obvious legacy. And, yeah, in some cases, it might even be only temporary. I don't know how many veterans might return from active service with some serious PTSD which might really impact them negatively in the short term, and, maybe, their having a block or ban notice here make it harder for them to find work. I have no idea how often that sort of thing might happen, of course. John Carter (talk) 19:15, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
But there you put your finger on the nub of the problem, which is that the vast majority of editors are pseudonymous, so you can't possibly know or infer anything about their mental state, their age, or the effect of a block/ban. And dementia can set in well before the age of 55; I've seen people in their 40s completely incapacitated by it. Eric Corbett 19:20, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
Yes, but with some of our more prominent named editors, the age and mental state can be all too obvious. .micro.dot.cotton (talk) 19:41, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
I agree with Eric that age alone predicts little. I have long had a habit of striking up conversations with World War II veterans when I meet them. There are many people in their 80s and 90s who are perfectly capable of contributing to this encyclopedia if so inclined. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 19:36, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
I think it worth noting that I indicated at least one other non-age-related factor specifically, war-related PTSD, and thought I had made a comment to the effect that age isn't the only factor in dementia, although I evidently edited it out before posting. And, obviously, age-related dementia doesn't happen to all people, but, unfortunately, most of the people it does happen to don't recognize it quickly or easily. And, clearly, it would probably be easiest and most effective if someone they had interacted with here told them privately to maybe start doing other things, but in some less active fields I'm not sure how many people that would include. John Carter (talk) 19:44, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Retiring with grace before ending up alienating the community is not something we can enforce from the outside. This is something only the person involved can decide. HighInBC (was Chillum) 19:08, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

I think this is premature -- I'm sure Jimbo has many good years left in him before we have to worry about this. NE Ent 19:12, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Given the comparatively tender years of so many Wikipedia editors, I think that it would make a lot of sense to encourage retirees to edit. We can use more people with life experience. But I agree that, yes, at times one finds editors with mental disorders. I know one who quite proudly discloses his alleged neurological handicap, using that to curry favor with administrators and excuse his misconduct. It's quite an effective strategy. Coretheapple (talk) 19:54, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

I think on the whole the project has many more problems caused by ideological warriors who from Day 1 have been here to revise articles to support their viewpoint. I think developing some way to identify such editors and show them the door more quickly would have a greater net benefit. --71.119.131.184 (talk) 20:29, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree that POV warriors are a far, far worse problem than mentally deficient or senile editors, but much harder to identify and deal with. Also, once you remove one set of POV warriors they will be replaced by others, if it is a cause with many adherents. Coretheapple (talk) 20:59, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
And, simply speaking from the one report I remember having heard years ago about how males who have not exercised their mind in a lot of ways become less open to new ideas at or around 55, as I indicated somewhere else before, the point of intersection of POV pushing and perhaps reduced mental function might be more prominent in people who may perceive some internal problems, but not necessarily recognize them for what they are. Also, honestly, even though a lot of people in the West are getting to live longer and be more productive for longer, they will also be, naturally, among those most interested in some fields of the social sciences relating to philosophical cosmology. Bluntly, they'll be a lot more interested in the "purpose of life" and what, if any, reward there might be thereafter. This will be particularly true for those seeking to curry favor for their actions from God or whatever, or, alternately, to oppose a certain view of the afterlife if they believe their own actions in life aren't likely to get the kind of results they would hope for. Those, like I said generally male, people will probably be among the most adamant editors on those topics, and might have some of the best sourcing imaginable, having checked everything under the sun they can find to support their position, but still, ultimately, be POV pushers. And depending on their level of dedication, they might be the hardest to find out and among those whose POV pushing is among the hardest things to convince editors without much knowledge of the subject about. Someone who sees their life or soul on the line, unfortunately, in a certain matter is going to fight till the end, and probably devote a lot more time to the topic as well. John Carter (talk) 21:13, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
I find that to be the most astonishing extrapolation from a pretty dodgy paper you once read that you can't now remember. Let me remind you that many people have no belief or interest in God. Does that make them demented in your eyes? Eric Corbett 21:26, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
I'm not sure if you read it all. Also, without meaning any disrespect to you, I think I may have encountered more arguments around here about things related to the afterlife and what, if anything, it is, and what might and might not qualify someone for the better or worse aspects, than a lot of others. The second group of people seeking to improve their lot in heaven, or, perhaps, deny that there is a heaven or hell that they might not like, have been rather numerous over the years from what I've seen. The intersection of that group, with the less transigent older editors who, in some cases, may or may not feel the need to either polish up their souls or deny their existence of something along those lines, or affirm or deny beliefs which they have held which might not be as popular, isn't really well studied, admittedly, but from doing up a bit of reading on new religious movements over the years they seem to be a loud and very vocal group in discussions on that topic from all sides. John Carter (talk) 21:37, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
Your argument seems to be disintegrating. Are you simply talking about yourself? Eric Corbett 21:46, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
No, Eric, I personally think your argument and perhaps unusual interest in this topic might relate to the question of whether I was talking about you, and, honestly, you weren't one of the people I was thinking of. You seem to be focusing on one point to the exclusion of all others. If you are asking me for an immediate response to the question which of the several dozen, or hundred, I forget, books and journal articles I have read since I became an editor about the broad topic of NRMs while working to address concerns regarding that topic area here, which has been and is one of my central focuses, sorry, after awhile, even for people who aren't necessarily impaired yet, they begin to run together after a while and, well, asking someone to remember who specifically said what in a rather large field of personal study is not especially realistic. John Carter (talk) 21:59, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
I have no "unusual interest" in the topic, that would be you. Eric Corbett 22:19, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
You have been very much involved in this thread, particularly indicating that you thought it would be bad, and raised at least a few arguments which to me look like logically flawed arguments, and that qualifies as an "unusual interest" in and of itself. John Carter (talk) 22:35, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
Yes, John, many of us wonder if there really is "life after Wikipedia". I hope you find some willing volunteers who can report back to us. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:54, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Back to those supposed ancient editors with dementia: I doubt that this will be a serious problem. Most in their 80s and 90s today didn't make use of computers in their daily lives until after middle age. It seems that as dementia progresses, older memories are kept longer than recent ones, so the memory of how to operate a computer and browser will likely go first, before the person forgets how to read, write and edit. Secondly, although some people's opinions solidify as they grow older, this doesn't mean that their ideas and opinions are less valid than those of younger, less experienced people.—Anne Delong (talk) 22:08, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
  • This (original post) is one of the most offensive things I've ever seen on Wiki. — Ched :  ?  22:43, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
    I agree. The argument is that anyone known to be older than 55 is to be banned in some way, because dementia is setting in. Eric Corbett 22:50, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
    Let me slip off my bifocals and raise a glass of Geritol to that sentiment. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:58, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
  • I work with an editor in his mid-80's. He's still learning, still going strong, still a valuable contributor. Yes, he does have some problems with computers - that's why he needs me. He does not have any problems with other aspects of the job - that's why he is a valuable contributor. If there is a solution to this "problem," I'll suggest volunteer helpers. There might be a half-dozen people doing this that I've seen 108.52.41.208 (talk) 23:23, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
  • of all the things Wikipedia needs to be concerned about, Alzheimer's dementia editing is probably not in the top 1000.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 01:02, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
  • I'd agree that Wikipedia's reaction when there is evidence an editor is having personal difficulties is about as thoughtful and sensitive as a brick to the head, but this stuff about demented elderly people trying to use the wiki to get right with God (or something??) doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense. Graying of the population or not, demographically speaking you're much much much more likely to come across garden-variety depression and anxiety problems. Opabinia regalis (talk) 03:36, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Um, John? Is there any chance that we should be asking you to retire? Methinks this is not your best work, and perhaps, you would prefer to retire with dignity than endure the shame of repeated rollbacks, blocks, sanctions, etc. OK, that was a little pointy, but hopefully you get the idea. Perhaps a humorous essay about the dangers of editing when you aren't at your peak might be useful, but even if a process existed for this, I would never be comfortable making this suggestion to anyone I didn't know in person. Wouldn't it be embarrassing to make this suggestion to someone only to find out that their weird edits over a couple of days or a week were due to prescription painkillers they were taking for a toothache? Etamni | ✉ | ✓  04:11, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
In light of this discussion, I may has to revise my opinion of this edit. I assumed it was a twelve year old male, but perhaps it was an 80 year-old with Alzheimer's. Nyth63 09:11, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
Ah yes, the joy of that first car, eh? Martinevans123 (talk) 09:48, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
  • I wonder who is the oldest user reading this rather peculiar thread. Any advance on 78 for the "Furthest-past-the-peak" award? JohnCD (talk) 17:12, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

When you guys have figured out how to do this, I have a list. -Roxy the Ninja™ (Resonate) 17:48, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

"um"

What do editors think about using "um" as it was used in the heading of this section? --Bob K31416 (talk) 12:11, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Also, I think many of us need to be careful when editing Wikipedia in our anonymous way, not to develop or add to in ourselves a personality disorder characterized by self-preoccupation, need for admiration, lack of empathy, and unconscious deficits in self-esteem.[9] --Bob K31416 (talk) 12:26, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

FWIW, while I think the initial comment it reprehensible and the fact that people are taking it seriously enough to dignify with replies—even though every reply is strongly opposed—says nothing good, I see nothing wrong with the title in a talkpage context. "Um" is fairly standard verbal shorthand for "I probably haven't phrased this as well as I hoped, but it conveys the correct meaning". ‑ iridescent 12:31, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
Well, looks like a classic sign of forgetfulness to me. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:16, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
Um, yeah. Etamni | ✉ | ✓  17:31, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
If you're talking about someone's umm-friend then it's okay to use it. Mathglot (talk) 02:40, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

A practical response on avoiding age discrimination and working with older people

The way to avoid age discrimination, and maintain quality work, is to ensure that everyone works to specifications, and apply sanctions evenly to all participants, regardless of their age.

I am probably the only person reading this thread who has spent over a decade in the company of people over 50 doing intellectually demanding (and paid) metadata work on the computer that demands strict attention to detail. I have also spent quite a bit of time around someone suffering mild dementia/mild cognitive impairment.

The first thing I do when my colleagues have difficulty is suggest an eye check. Because we are paid well enough to afford glasses from an optician, new glasses usually clear up the problem of a gradual increase in typos and errors. Drug store reading glasses don't work for everyone, so a scholarship/grant/Kickstarter for editors who can't afford prescription glasses might help solve this problem.

Beyond that, the problem is very rarely dementia. It is usually lack of sleep, stress, or a problem related to prescription medications. (In non-work settings, it might be related to attempts at self-medication with substances or alcohol.) Even when life circumstances or medical conditions put my colleagues at Level 7/8 of the Rancho Los Amigos cognitive scale, if pain is properly addressed, I have seen many people of good character who are successful in working on their attitude and remain valuable colleagues and collaborators. Attitude isn't just a problem for teenagers!

A technical solution that could help with really grouchy editors would be turning off editing access for 9 hours a day, at their preferred time, to ensure that they have an opportunity to get enough sleep. In an ideal world, a medical plan/health insurance option for prolific volunteers, to ensure that they have good glasses and appropriate medication, would also help fix these problems.

With mild cognitive impairment, it becomes more difficult to plan and initiate activity. As cognitive impairment increases, text-based computing becomes "boring", and isn't as attractive an activity.

Regarding mental flexibility, this is something that varies greatly between individuals. But like attitude, you need to work on it throughout your entire life, and not just as a teenager. Mental flexibility doesn't simply disappear overnight at 55; most likely, if you never made it a priority, that's when you gave up. Running a few short sprints now and then like a little kid (if you can do it) is a great way to keep things in perspective.

Retirement happens when you are either more interested in something else, or not working up to specifications. A gentle conversation reminding people that they don't have to spend their entire life struggling like a work horse on a trail that is getting too steep is usually what happens, with the reminder that their service is appreciated, and that there are other tasks in life which are also worth doing with their talents and skills. If we were polite and kind enough here that we trusted each other enough to share phone numbers, these conversations would happen naturally.

Hope Wikipedians-- even those who are still young, immortal, and never going to get old-- can take something useful from this perspective! --Djembayz (talk) 12:09, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Just to change the subject entirely...

As I said above, I disagree that we have a problem with encroaching senility among editors, and that if anything we should encourage more seniors to edit. I also agree that POV warriors are a far worse and more immediate problem. So here's what I'm wondering: we have WP:AE, which is a cumbersome and legalistic process by which editors can pursue sanctions against specific editors who have violated arbitration edicts. But shouldn't there be a more informal process for dealing with long-term battlefields that have been subject of arbcom rulings in the past? I'm thinking specifically of the nonsense going on in the Israel-Palestine area. Hell I notice that the people involved don't even bother to put the arbcom notices on the article talk pages. Arbitrator supervision and possible sanctions is that irrelevant to them. Coretheapple (talk) 12:54, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Of course, it's possible that there is such a process but, being close to senility, I have overlooked it. Coretheapple (talk) 15:02, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Well... it's a canard that one's brain is fully developed at 18, or 21 (those are just ages when one's brain is (typically) developed enough that one can just barely function, if imperfectly, in in the world of regular adults). In fact that brain is not fully developed until around age 27 to 29 -- look it up. The last thing to develop is subtlety of mind -- the ability to grasp a synthesis where competing concepts have truth, to see deeply into complicated questions, to tolerate cognitive dissonance, and so forth. It is this lack which gives us the black-and-white thinking of the archetypical idealistic youth -- which can be very useful for social movements, but not so much when writing an encyclopedia, cos black-and-white thinking's the main source of you POV warriors, I guess. So if we're going to go down this path, may I offer a Modest Proposal that we restrict editing to persons aged 29 or above, so that we may be ensured that our fellow editors are amenable to reason... --Herostratus (talk) 04:02, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
The suspicion I have is that the most vociferous POV warriors are not particularly young, except in the pop culture area. I doubt that age is a significant modifier. What I'm seeing in the Israel-Palestine area is that both sides seem to be deploy editors who are adept at overcoming arbcom restrictions and gaming the system. Only very crude POV warriors seem to get topic bans. Hence an early warning system would be desirable. Coretheapple (talk) 17:58, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
Yeah maybe not young, but young at heart, so to speak. Or young of mind, by which I mean unsubtle and essentially simple-minded. My main purpose for speaking was to troll this ridiculous and highly offensive thread with the notion that if we were to address age-related deficiencies in some manner we would be better off looking at the other end of the range. And FWIW for good and proper human-development-science reasons this is actually true IMO... if we were going to entertain ridiculous and offensive notions, that is.Herostratus (talk) 18:59, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Jimmy, nice pictures of you with Ahmed Mohamed

Jimmy, nice pictures of you with Ahmed Mohamed at Brunch and Clock Boy Ahmed Mohamed !

Any chance you'd know who the photographer was and if we could get those licensed by a free-use license?

Thank you,

— Cirt (talk) 16:51, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

And did you, perhaps, ask him how he feels about the coverage of the incident on Wikipedia? Etamni | ✉ | ✓  20:03, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

You may be interested in WP:FT/N#Ahmed Mohamed clock incident - Cwobeel (talk) 03:04, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't know who snapped the photo. I will try to get a photo from Social Good Summit, where Ahmed appeared on stage on Sunday.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:27, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
Okay, sounds good, thank you very much! Keep us posted, — Cirt (talk) 19:17, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
Jimbo Wales, any updates on this yet? — Cirt (talk) 03:24, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
Would look good in place of the pic of the Hoax Bomb, which is pending deletion. Raquel Baranow (talk) 03:41, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
That other picture will very likely be kept under fair use. But we could use some free-use images of the individual, particularly at noted events where he has received secondary source coverage and discussion for attending. — Cirt (talk) 03:46, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

What do you think about this idea?

I won't waste your time with a long explanation; here is a screenshot. What do you think about this idea? I am trying to turn this into an opensource AWB plugin. The Quixotic Potato (talk) 18:06, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Looks cool.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:17, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Allow Wikipedians to have two-factor authentication

Imagine if a hacker succesfully cracked a password of a template editor or administrator.

In the former case, a hacker could go to a very highly used template with just template protection, such as Template:Stub, that is used in millions of pages, login with the cracked account and edit the template, therefore affecting that giant group of pages.

In the latter case, the hacker could also do all the above, but also promote vandalism severely by unprotecting very important pages.

For the reasons above and much more, Wikipedia should have two-factor authentication such as in GitHub.

What I'm saying is that a user can decide if 2FA is active in his/her account.

Luis150902 (talk) 14:43, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:18, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
Just to nitpick, but {{stub}} is used on a grand total of 598 pages, not "millions". Those templates which are genuinely used on large numbers of pages, such as {{Infobox person}}, are already both fully protected, and heavily watched, and any changes would be spotted instantly. While admin accounts have been hacked in the past, the number of successful vandal rampages by hacked admin accounts in Wikipedia's history is zero (it would be spotted within seconds if anyone tried); the problem has historically been admins flipping out and going on sprees as a parting shot, an issue which two-factor authentication would do nothing to address. ‑ iridescent 07:42, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
Maybe double-check that 598 number, Iridescent, my friend. - 2001:558:1400:10:81CE:3DD2:5FFD:5B7C (talk) 16:35, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
That's "What links here", not the transclusion count (which is now down to 583). The "What links here" figure looks so high because there's a link to the template on the documentation for every stub template, not because the template is actually being used. ‑ iridescent 16:41, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
Two-factor authentication protects against some scenarios like when someone looks over your shoulder and sees your password. But I'd want to know the "second factor" also applies at the point where passwords are usually divulged nowadays: if hackers download the hashed passwords from the back end, can they access all the right answers for the second factor at the same time? The whole thing seems like security theater unless there is as much effort to compartmentalize that data behind the scenes as there is from the people who diligently pull out their little devices each time they log in. Wnt (talk) 08:08, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

An optional feature like this would be useful for privileged accounts. It is 2015, these things are pretty easy to do now. HighInBC 08:12, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Depends what you call 'pretty easy' :) Here you see the ticket for some of the rework that would be needed to accomplish that goal for Wikimedia sites: T89459 —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:27, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
I was just reading something about cGAMP that made me wonder... what if you set up some sting accounts? Maybe 5% of the total user base, but no new software required. Don't give them desirable usernames, do give them crackable passwords. Some might be set to instantly alert on login (of course, a hacker might find that); others aren't, but an offsite bot, not subject to the same hack, can scan to see if they ever edit. (Admittedly, I don't know what to do about editing history, which could sink the scheme) We might even round up some big Internet companies and agree to trade some additional sting accounts - we alert them if we get any logins with their user/password pairs (assuming the hackers look for reused passwords on other sites), they do the same for us. Only someone who hacked all the sites could know all the stings in advance, and we'd best leave hizzoner alone anyway. Wnt (talk) 15:42, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 30 September 2015

The Times of India's Wikipedia portal

Is this (on The Times of India's website) unusual? I've never heard of a news outlet having a portal on Wikipedia–related topics before. --Rubbish computer 12:46, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

It just looks like a search on the ToI of all their articles that mention "Wikipedia". For something similar on Google, try searching "Wikipedia" on their news site, e.g. [10].
Smallbones(smalltalk) 13:25, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
@Smallbones:Oh, okay, never mind then. --Rubbish computer 14:06, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Wikimedia project index pages

At https://www.wikimedia.org, there are links to various Wikimedia projects, whose versions in various languages are displayed at Special:SiteMatrix.

  • At https://www.wikipedia.org, the Wikipedia logo is ringed by 10 (of the) leading languages.
    • English (4 974 000+), German (1 858 000+), French (1 665 000+), Russian (1 256 000+), Italian (1 225 000+), Spanish (1 203 000+), Polish (1 135 000+), Japanese (984 000+), Portuguese (889 000+), Chinese (842 000+)
  • At https://www.wiktionary.org, the Wiktionary logo is ringed by 10 leading languages.
    • English (4 168 000+), Malagasy (3 835 000+), French (2 808 000+), Serbian (849 000+), Spanish (835 000+) Chinese (831 000+), Russian (665 000+), Lithuanian (613 000+), Polish (479 000+), Swedish (473 000+)
  • At https://www.wikiquote.org, the Wikiquote logo is ringed by 10 leading languages.
    • English (25 000+), Italian (21 000+), Polish (21 000+), Russian (10 000+), German (7 000+), Czech (7 000+), Spanish (6 000+), Portuguese (6 000+), French (4 000+), Turkish (3 000+)
  • At https://www.wikibooks.org, the Wikibooks logo is ringed by 10 leading languages.
    • English (52 000+), German (23 000+), French (16 000+), Japanese (10 000+), Spanish (7 000+), Portuguese (7 000+), Polish (6 000+), Hebrew (5 000+), Indonesia (3 000+), Russian (1 000+)
  • At https://wikisource.org/wiki/Main_Page, the Wikisource logo is ringed by 10 leading languages.
    • French (1,209,000+), English (765,000+), German (349,000+), Russian (293,000+), Hebrew (141,000+), Polish (113,000+),Italian (106,000+), Spanish (102,000+), Arabic (78,000+), Portuguese (28,000+)
  • At https://www.wikivoyage.org, the Wikivoyage logo is ringed by 10 leading languages.
    • English, German, French, Russian, Portuguese, Hebrew, Polish, Dutch, Italian, Persian

For each of those six projects, is there a process (human-directed or automated) whereby the 10 selected languages are consistently the 10 leading languages? For each of the first five of those six projects, is there a process whereby the associated numbers are kept up to date?
—Wavelength (talk) 20:59, 27 September 2015 (UTC) and 22:35, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Without wanting to cause embarrassment to anyone, I wish to point out that the 10 selected languages for Wikipedia do not include Swedish, with more than 2,000,000 articles. (Please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-09-09/News and notes.) I acknowledge that the developers have to deal with many challenges, so it is understandable that this could have slipped past their attention. Also, I recognize that there is no explicit claim that the 10 selected languages are the 10 leading languages.
—Wavelength (talk) 15:54, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

@Wavelength: There is no formal process for these pages right now. The HTML and other assets for them exist on Meta, and there's a script that runs to package it all together. For example, m:www.wikipedia.org template is where the HTML for www.wikipedia.org lives. It's not a particularly sane way to run a website, but it's had the advantages of having a low barrier to entry for Wikimedians to maintain them. Right now they're maintained mostly by Mxn, although any Meta admin can edit those pages. My team has been working in consultation with Mxn to get those pages moved over to a more standard code review system so that we could do things like automate the updating of the statistics more easily and run some A/B tests to improve the page. If you have any further questions, feel free to ask me; I'd suggest not doing that here, as I think it's a bit off-topic for Jimmy's talk page. --Dan Garry, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 20:04, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
Dan Garry, Wikimedia Foundation, thank you for your reply. (I chose this talk page, because of a higher likelihood that someone reading my post would be able to answer it. Maybe a more appropriate page would be Wikipedia:Village pump (technical), but I am not certain that respondents there would be able to discuss other Wikimedia projects. At this time, I am generally refraining from posting comments to Wikimedia projects outside English Wikipedia, because of watchlist limitations.)
—Wavelength (talk) 20:30, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
@Wavelength: I know it isn't obvious, but the Wikipedia, Wikiquote, Wikibooks, and Wikivoyage portals' top 10 rings display the top 10 language editions by page views (the views per hour here), not by article count. The current policy is the result of a poll that the Meta-Wiki community held back in 2008 (with participation from the Wikipedia community, of course). The poll was motivated in part by concerns that small Wikipedias were gaming the system, inflating their article counts with bot-generated stubs. Volapük was perhaps the most egregious offender, but the same charge was levied against the Swedish Wikipedia at the time.
The current, longstanding situation is unfortunate, because the portals also display article counts, so it looks like that's what the wikis are selected and ranked by. Dutch Wikipedians have frequently asked about the criteria ever since the Chinese Wikipedia overtook them in page views, bumping them out of the top 10. It could very well be time to revisit the 2008 decision. I would encourage you to begin a new discussion at m:Meta:Babel, since the discussion would ultimately take place at Meta rather than an individual Wikipedia.
To be clear, I'm not a great fan of the way we sort by page views but list the article counts. My mandate as a Meta administrator is to keep the portals up-to-date – manually – but not to make major design changes without first consulting the wider community. (I don't normally watch this page, so please ping me with the {{ping}} template when responding.)
 – Minh Nguyễn 💬 04:32, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
@Mxn: Thank you for your reply. I appreciate your explanation of the selection of languages for the top-10 rings on the portals. Even bot-generated stubs can be informative. Probably they can be generated for any language (preferably not from an attitude of competition). I prefer that the top 10 languages on a portal be selected according to article count, entry count, page count, or a similar count.
—Wavelength (talk) 18:35, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
@Mxn: There is the possibility that even English will slip from the top 10 language versions of a Wikimedia project by every criterion except the age of the language version.
—Wavelength (talk) 22:01, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
@Wavelength: It's up to each language community to decide whether bot-generated stubs are desirable for their wiki. Some wikis have been enthusiastic about them, while others have been more skeptical. In the 2008 poll, participants noted that a few wikis had made a mockery of the article count metric with countless stubs that had little encyclopedic or linguistic value. Other metrics like edits or depth can similarly be gamed; page views per hour was viewed as a much more stable criterion. If you'd like to propose an alternative, please do so at m:Meta:Babel. – Minh Nguyễn 💬 07:17, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
@Mxn: Thank you for your reply. I hope to examine the degree of usefulness of (some) bot-generated stub articles, but I have not found a subcategory for them in Category:Stubs.
—Wavelength (talk) 20:30, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
@Dr. Blofeld: If you are able to do so, please provide a link to a list or category of bot-generated article stubs, or even several such links.
—Wavelength (talk) 17:59, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Bot-generated article stubs, which have been programmed to read existing data from numerous sources and convey a number of facts aren't the problematic ones. It's the manually created sub stubs which resemble bot generated articles which were done simply as a {subst:PAGENAME} and devoid of any factual content which are the problematic ones. Not problematic if somebody immediately expands them but the reality is most people are lazy and don't expand them. I've long had little to do mass stub creation. I don't regret the starting of the article subjects, I believe most articles I've ever started are notable, but I do wish the more generic ones had been done with a bot which could have been programmed to give actual information from the outset. A bot is OK for things like settlement stubs which have generic data, but for most things I agree that they should be written properly from the outset, a decent stub which is of some value to the reader at minimum. Most of those placeholder stubs in all honesty should probably be incubated until somebody can bother to write them properly. I don't have the time to research articles on villages in deepest Yemen or Mongolia. I just did what I thought was right towards making wikipedia broader in scope globally. as I said a few weeks ago, the article count, even my own article creation count is wildly inflated with such stubs. If you really look at what wikipedia has really produced of quality since 2001 it's under 100,000.♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:53, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Dr. Blofeld, I thank you (belatedly) for this information.—Wavelength (talk) 03:56, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
Dr. Blofeld, just out of interest, are there any statistics showing how many users have created an article on Wikipedia? I imagine a very large number to have made one and then left; after all, there are over 1.1 million autoconfirmed users (WP:AUTOCONFIRMED), compared to about 125,000 users who have made an edit in the past 30 days (see Special:Statistics.) This could result in a large number of articles of unpredictable, often poor quality being created. Thanks, --Rubbish computer 11:38, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

There's Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by article count, seems to have been updated too.♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:00, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

@Dr. Blofeld:Wow, I'm in place 100: I dodn't even know I was on it. --Rubbish computer 14:09, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
Nominally that list is being daily updated by BernsteinBot. In reality, the data (which the bot uses) have not been updated for several months. Materialscientist (talk) 05:50, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
Yes, but at least it was updated a few months ago, Before that it was about 4 years out of date.♦ Dr. Blofeld 07:05, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Video file of Jimmy Wales Speaks at Closing Ceremony of Wikimania 2014

Jimmy Wales Speaks at Closing Ceremony of Wikimania 2014

Jimmy, I was able to contact the YouTube user of this file File:Jimmy Wales Speaks at Closing Ceremony of Wikimania 2014.webm and successfully got him to modify his license to a suitable free-use license so we can now have that file on Wikimedia Commons. :)

Perhaps this file would be useful on a few Wikipedia articles.

On another media note, regarding my prior query about photos of Ahmed Mohamed -- were you able to get a photo from Social Good Summit, where Ahmed appeared on stage ?

Thank you,

— Cirt (talk) 19:09, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

I passed along the request. Haven't heard back yet.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:18, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
Thank you! Keep us posted, — Cirt (talk) 19:21, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Some editors are more than others.

I made the mistake of addressing what I saw as a BLP violation in a Russia related topic. Apparantly, when you discuss something on the talk page and don't reach concensus, you're not allowed to raise the issue on one single noticeboard, because that is considered WP:FORUMSHOPPING. Seems to me that the rules say differently, but maybe they don't apply when some editors are involved.

I have learned my lesson and will stay far away from articles controlled by POV pushers. Probably get a warning or ban for posting here, but wikipedia lost most of its charm anyway... Ssscienccce (talk) 23:04, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Editing Wikipedia should be fun. I read the BLP you were involved in and am puzzled as to how you can "admire someone but not as a human being", which was the subject of the BLP. Raquel Baranow (talk) 00:02, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
What? Someone disagreed with you on Wikipedia? That must mean they are in the pay of Mossad, the KGB, Big Pharma, Monsanto and the Illuminati. Or, you know, maybe it can be fixed with a bit of calm discussion and not overreacting by posting a really rather trivial dispute on every single drama board on the project. Guy (Help!) 18:46, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
Overreacting snark to an overreaction doesn't actually improve anything. NE Ent
On the contrary: sarcas always helps. The OP is guilty of an almost hysterical over-reaction. Guy (Help!). Warning: comments may contain traces of sarcasm. 07:12, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
A good faith post on a noticeboard is not forum shopping, don't worry about it. But do accept the consensus there and on the talk page. NE Ent 19:16, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
As always, it's more helpful for original posters to link to the actual example so that people can quickly study the situation.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:20, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
Ssscienccce, when you encounter a small group of editors who appear to be owning an article, a common tactic they use when someone comes along and threatens to undermine their version of the text is bullying. They will talk to you with condescending and patronizing language, accuse you of violating myriad WP policies and guidelines and direct you, with snarky language, to go read them again, accuse you of forum shopping if you try to get outsiders' input, and imply, all along, that you're an idiot. This kind of thing goes on all over WP and WP's admins rarely do anything about it. Happy editing. Cla68 (talk) 06:45, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Had to share..

Thought you might like this. This is what my instructor wrote on a recent microbiology assignment:

This was a comment in the instructions for a homework assignment by my college microbiology instructor-I didn't do what he said since I edit some of these articles myself and so know that they are reliable! 9/2015
This was a comment in the instructions for a homework assignment by my college microbiology instructor-I didn't do what he said since I edit some of these articles myself and so know that they are reliable! 9/2015

I didn't follow his instructions because I edit microbiology articles and know they are typically pretty reliable. Best Regards,

Barbara (WVS) (talk) 20:35, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
@Barbara (WVS): This can be tricky. There's a difference between using a source, citing it, and relying on it for literature research. Outside of Wikipedia, sourcing is usually considered best when it is most direct: a cite to a key primary research paper is often better than a cite to a specialized review, which is better than a textbook, which is better than an encyclopedia. (there are some exceptions for meta-analyses and certain high-grade reviews) And because a fact from Wikipedia should always cite its source - or not be trusted - there is never a good reason to cite Wikipedia directly. Besides, versions can change at any time, and the citations can become useless. So seeing "Wikipedia" listed on a student paper is always going to raise hackles - that's not a matter of quality, but of how you do things. Additionally, professors want to see that students are skilled in multiple methods of research. Wikipedia is a neat tool, but it's a crapshoot, so they'd like to see that you can use more thorough search methods. Wnt (talk) 10:33, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
I completely understand your response and I could probably quote it myself. But what is quite humorous is that the instructor knows that I write for the encyclopedia and never quote it directly in any of my class assignments. As a Visiting Scholar, not quite an Ambassador, I am promoting the encyclopedia-so it is even funnier. No, of course not, no one should quote Wikipedia word for word-plagarism still applies to the writing of college reports, wikipedia or not. I'll probably end up giving a presentation at the University of Pittsburgh at some point and will use this photo as a visual aid. Best Regards,
Barbara (WVS) (talk) 10:42, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
If you know so much about editing Wikipedia, why do you use an additional line and an additional indentation, just to sign your Talk posts? That seems like a non-standard practice, to put it kindly. - 17:44, 5 October 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:558:1400:10:B008:1D04:A6A:5216 (talk)
Wikipedia is a good starting point for research into any subject, including medicine. However, the instructor would have been rightly annoyed to read a series of essays which had been copypasted from Wikipedia.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 06:10, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
But the articles usually include a list of sources you can go to and read for your sources. Nothing wrong with finding the sources through Wikipedia, just don't us the Wikipedia article itself as a source. Nyth63 13:11, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
Well, for educational purposes there actually is something wrong with finding the sources this way, which is that you're potentially eating someone's bias. After all, we do have POV-pushers who manipulate articles, and for more esoteric topics we may omit a whole perspective simply by negligence. You'd often like to see the student be able to say that he researched his paper like a Cochrane review, with comprehensive evaluation of everything in PubMed or the like. Of course, sometimes a Wikipedia article will catch some idea that your "complete" search missed because you used the wrong keywords... I would be fond of the notion of prospecting quickly on Wikipedia, then following through with systematic searches when you know they find everything interesting you've found that way. Wnt (talk) 17:16, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
As valuable as the above information appears, I just want to point out that my original post was intended to be humorous, especially because my instructor has read my work on and told me he was impressed with the bacterial articles I created. Also, I thought the founder might like the photo. Thanks for the serious replies...but didn't anyone smile? Barbara (WVS) (talk) 10:26, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
"Do not use Wikipedia as a source" is a standard instruction in academic courses; Jimbo himself has been issuing the same advice for the past decade. Wikipedia is great as a starting point for finding sources, and when you get up to the GA/FA end its articles can be useful in giving students an idea on how to structure essays, but that's as far as it goes. If I saw any course which did allow Wikipedia as a source (other than courses on web design, online social interaction etc in which Wikipedia is itself the subject) I'd treat it with extreme suspicion. ‑ iridescent 08:19, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
There's a difference between "Do not use WP" and "Do not use WP as a source". We need to communicate the distinction better, and the whole notion of "how to read Wikipedia". Andy Dingley (talk) 11:23, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
I second Andy Dingley's point. --Rubbish computer 20:01, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

Perpetual punishments

Do we really need perpetual punishments? I am now blocked from even contributing articles in draftspace. I add about 300 new biographies a year to my draftspace, since being blocked from writing mainspace articles. Read some of them ... don't these people deserve to have their stories told? No one else is writing them, they will be ignored by history. I am still in the top 100 for article creation, probably in the top 10 for biographies. Why have we become so doctrinaire? The people being punished are the one's whose history will not be told. They deserve better. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 07:13, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

I note that "Statement by Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )" is conspicuously empty in the Arbcom discussion. Why didn't you say anything in your defense there? That discussion has been going on for weeks. This post here amounts to "I'm too awesome to be banned" and is not going to do you any favors.--Atlan (talk) 08:31, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
Probably because he wasn't notified of the motion until today(and didn't expect anything negative out of the case).--Müdigkeit (talk) 08:42, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
Really? Pretty much every single time RAN has gone/been taken to a noticeboard he has ended up with harsher and more restrictive sanctions. He was notified he was before arbcom and he should have expected negativity since he has been completely unrepentant in his blatant disregard for the community consensus on his editing. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:58, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
He was notified of the amendment request on 14 September. The motion comes after the discussion, so that he was only notified of it today is no excuse for completely ignoring the discussion.--Atlan (talk) 09:19, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
Sorry, Richard, but looking at this as an outsider it seems to me very much as if the problem here is that you have failed to respond to thoughtful feedback and people trying to help. You keep writing problematic articles until eventually you're stopped altogether, and now you say these articles won't be written, but, well, that is pretty much the point. Guy (Help!). Warning: comments may contain traces of sarcasm. 09:27, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
(edit conflict) As someone who AFAIK has never interacted with you, looking at this case it seems that you're missing the point of the restriction. You complain that the motion is going to prevent you creating articles, but that appears entirely to be the purpose of the restriction, since too many of the articles you create are considered potentially problematic. You were notified on 14 September and didn't make any attempt to defend or explain your actions, so you can hardly blame the arbs for assuming that that the reason you're not defending your actions is that you can't. ‑ iridescent 09:32, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
When they take action it is a fait accompli, my arguments would have been as welcome as they are here. Going through 10 years of edits to show they are copyright free is designed to be a 10 year prison sentence, more now that I have less time to contribute. As pointed out multiple times, my earliest edits from 2006, where the problem existed, have long ago been corrected by me and others. If copyright problems still exist in Wikipedia, if quotes need to be trimmed to a single sentence, we need a bot to flag them or auto-trim them. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 13:07, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
At least there, your argument would have been timely, rather than after the fact. Part of the problem is that you don't acknowledge that there is a problem. You have, for 4 years now, persistently denied any wrongdoing and a refusal to cooperate with editors trying to clear your CCI backlog. Do you have any idea how this thread alone reflects on you? You basically state that: this topic ban is stifling your genius; the real victims are the people you write about; everyone else is wrong and there isn't actually a problem; and if there is a problem, build a bot to auto-solve it. It comes off as arrogant and disdainful.--Atlan (talk) 14:00, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
Huh? "As pointed out multiple times, my earliest edits from 2006, where the problem existed, have long ago been corrected by me and others." This has been pointed out by me, and others, at the original ANI, at the clarification, and above, and here again now. How is that "arrogant and disdainful"? Putting a green check mark next to 167,573 edits (since reduced to substantial, I am assuming 51% of the edits) one by one over the next 10 years serves no purpose. Addendum: As Carrite points out the original CCI requires me to put green check marks next to 60,000 edits now reduced to 30,001 (substantial, I am assuming > 50% by at least 1). The futility is that those edits have long ago been written over with 10 years of emendations and additions. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 15:26, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

There is an open case at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment#Clarification request: Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) that is still under discussion. R.A. Norton, might I suggest that you join that discussion? --Guy Macon (talk)

The real story

A Sept. 2015 ANI decision actually solved the last remaining potential problem with Richard's editing, his use of quote excerpts as part of the "quote=" parameter of our citation templates. The Nov. 2013 amendment to his ArbCom case was clarified with a new flag and the procedure for moving his new starts in his user space clarified. And then Beyond My Ken ran to ArbCom with a clarification request there and they responded by doubling down their restrictions upon him, effectively ending his ability to make user space starts. Why? Wikipedia's Contributor Copyright Investigations process does not scale and there are insufficient volunteers to parse RAN's first 60,000 edits one by one for copyright violation — during the wild west days of WP (2005-2008), RAN did some copy-pasting from websites, pasted in blocks of copyrighted text hidden behind <! --- flags for paraphrase while he was writing, and used what some deemed to be excessively long "quote=" glosses in his footnotes. These are his sins for which he is being eternally punished...

ArbCom, understanding that CCI is woefully short of volunteers and time, has mandated that Richard himself police his old editing for copyvio before they deign him able to make new starts again. This is a low value, idiotic mission that would gobble up a minimum of one year of his volunteer time to do properly. They don't care that it is an unreasonable requirement, they demand him to obey on bended knee with hat in hand — a satisfaction which he has not given them. So, encyclopedia be damned, rational solution of his editing shortcomings be damned, they're shutting down his new starts and doody doo on him. (gavel slams) "Next case!"

This is a prime example of an encyclopedia builder being run through the shredder by Kafkaesque bureaucrats. And nobody cares because, well, he churns out stubs of arcane individuals from the 1910s and 1920s rather than FEATURED ARTICLES.™® Richard, I'm sorry that people are so stupid about this. Carrite (talk) 15:26, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Rather than just complain, why don't you help him go through the old articles and remove the copyvios. Some people just complain, others actually do things. Smallbones(smalltalk) 15:32, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
Rather than make snippy comments, you might check the edit history of RAN's user page and RAN's talk page, where you will see that I have been doing just that with the current material. Some people just make flippant and ignorant comments, some people actually do things. Carrite (talk) 15:33, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
As for the ancient stuff, I've made my views on that clear in the current Amendment hearing: "...an abject waste of time..." that will never be fixed by anyone ever, nor should it because it is small potatoes as copyvio in the first place and buried under years and years and years of revision and editing by others in the second place... Carrite (talk) 15:36, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
'Copyright violations' is used, as it has *always* been used in relation to you, in reference to your willing disregard for wikipedias copyright policies. So no, it is unlikely that the phrase 'copyright violations' will stop being used in relation to you, until you clean them all up. If you dont like it, you know where the door is. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:52, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
Huh? This is Wikipedia copyright policy from the founder, Jimmy Wales: "It should be noted though that extended quotes, properly sourced, are not generally a violation of copyright. ... We have never, to my recollection and knowledge, had a legal complaint or threat of any kind about a properly sourced quote." He has never retracted the statement. I think you are just trolling at this point. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:02, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
RAN doesn't "willingly disregard" copyright law. He has a fairly excellent understanding of it. He was a sinner during his earliest years at WP (coming here in 2005) and has been a bullying victim for a long time ever since, as you are illustrating with your really unfair characterization of his work. Carrite (talk) 16:18, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
Not really, I took a look through his userspace earlier today in order to comment at Arbcom. Picked 5 articles from the 500 drafts there, the same issues go from 2006-2015 (in fact drafts in his userspace edited *today*). If I have time on the weekend I can always go through and cull all non-free content and remove all quote= - but I suspect he would scream blue murder. But ultimately, I (nor anyone else) should have to do that. He should be doing it himself. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:23, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
Another big "huh?". --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:32, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
Well, OID, you're blowing smoke on the need for "quote=" removal, as a 15 second glance at the material above the line should indicate — I've been systematically removing all such material and am continuing to work to get the rest of the 2014 starts compliant with the September 2015 ANI decision. As for use of "non-free content," I've run into maybe two or three block quotes, one of which wasn't properly set up with a segue, which I fixed. But in general: that's a bunch more smoke that you are blowing. Of course, you may feel that your sample of 5 is somehow more reflective of the population than the 300+ of his pieces that I have touched so far. Power to you if that's the case, figure out how to replicate that and you will be able to make a lot of money for having revolutionized the science of statistics. Carrite (talk) 16:44, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
I was curious about the claim of there being the makings of 500 new starts showing on RAN's user page and counted. So far this year he has made at least minimal starts showing on that page for 254 Wikipedia articles; the number showing for 2014 was 201. Now, not all of these are going to be able to meet GNG — what Richard has been doing is starting with the Bain Collection of public domain photographs at Library of Congress, selecting arcane news photos, and doing very, very basic investigation via old articles in the New York Times, for the most part. Raw skeletons of articles are thus built. One of his starts I recently took to mainspace and fleshed out is Timothy Healy (trade unionist) — just showing that as an example of how RAN's very basic starts can potentially be fleshed out by content writers. For the record, I now have 345 of his starts compliant with the (late) September 2015 ANI decision in his case and am picking away at the rest at the rate of about 20 a day, as time allows. Carrite (talk) 18:28, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Jimmy Wales: "It should be noted though that extended quotes, properly sourced, are not generally a violation of copyright. ... We have never, to my recollection and knowledge, had a legal complaint or threat of any kind about a properly sourced quote." So please do not use the legal term "copyright violations", they are properly sourced quotations, that some people feel should never be used in Wikipedia, including Carrite, who is vigorously opposed to them. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 15:39, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
Yep, Richard, I hate them — aesthetically and functionally. I don't think they are examples of copyvio, but the fact that some people do (as you know from some of the so-called "violations" rung up against you at CCI by Anti-Fair Use Fanatics) should have steered you far, far away from "quote=" glosses... You've gotta stay out of every grey area with respect to copyvio and WP's even-more-stringent treatment of copyrighted works and this is one of them. Aesthetics has nothing to do with it; saving you from yourself for The Project has everything to do with it. best, —Tim /// Carrite (talk) 16:13, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
I don't get it. If RAN's edits from a certain era around 2006 have copyright problems, there's a simple way forward. RAN declares a date after which he says he made no significant copyvios; his adversaries get a few weeks to search for any one counterexample. If they fail, we then accept the edits after that date are issue-free --- at least, they're surely at least as issue-free as edits from any new IP who signs up! Now to do this we must recognize, as I was saying in the last discussion along this line, that in general there's no copyright issue with having a few sentences in a quote parameter - that nonsense has to be nipped in the bud, because Wikipedia needs extended quotes for its scholarly functions. In other words, RAN's edits from after some cutoff date, whatever that may be, have to be compared to the same standard as anyone else's; otherwise people argue his case by playing tug of war with the goalposts. Now once we've found a way to save what material we think is good, the unpleasant part is that all the earlier edits either have to get hand checked or be sacrificed en masse, within a fairly short term, because we actually want our articles free of copyright issues. But there's no reason why this whole process has to degrade into ever more adversarial positions if the underlying problem behavior has been brought within community standards. I should add that that is one of Wikipedia's long term problems - people are always putting extra rules on problem editors, knowing that these untested rules may be impossible to follow, and that merely arguing over them will poison the admins against the person so affected. It is a very deliberate plan to fail that keeps getting implemented over and over again. Wnt (talk) 17:39, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
Here's my suggestion, which I first made during the November 2013 Arbcom clarification proceeding: The requirement that RAN should be expected to self police his first 60,000 edits for potential copyvio should be set aside. His prohibition on new starts should be amended as follows: for a 12 month period RAN should be allowed to make a reasonable and limited number of new starts in mainspace, say 5 per month. These will be carefully scrutinized by his enemies for copyvio, most assuredly, and any instance will be met with wailing and crisis. If RAN commits copyvio in these pieces, he should be banned to Antarctica as a net negative to the project. If he is able to create these pieces without problems, he should be allowed to resume his work as a fully productive Wikipedian. As for CCI, his now nearly 4 year old case should be closed, unresolved and unresolvable (CCI does not scale to somebody with more than 600 starts and 60,000 edits — and RAN is way, way beyond that now...). CCI has more important cases to work upon now than picking through the lame editing of 2006... I additionally add: I fully support the Sept. 2015 ANI restriction, which mandated informational flagging of his user page starts, for a regularized system of transfer of those pieces to mainspace, and for a prohibition of RAN using the ^%^*^%*^$#$ "quote=" parameter, which is the source of much of the latest grief. Carrite (talk) 18:42, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
The number of foundational copyright violations discovered at ANI CCI, which would be subject to speedy deletion, can probably be counted on two hands. Of these, there is the example Tadahiro Sekimoto, which has subsequently been completely rewritten. The problem is minor, the solution you propose is draconian and grossly excessive and would impact the work of literally thousands of subsequent editors. Carrite (talk) 18:54, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
@Carrite: I don't really understand your proposal. If we accept a significant number of post 2006 edits without scrutiny, why should we be specially scrutinizing or limiting editing he's doing now? If he actually cleaned up his act some time ago (apart from any violations of special rules that only applied to him), there's no real reason to have him under special restrictions now.
However, if it's true that if the problematic edits really were a very small proportion, we really should put the case aside entirely. Wikipedia is always open to a mixed bag of IP and new editors who really don't follow copyright or other policies very well. The threshold for an established editor shouldn't be perfection, just to be better than that. Wnt (talk) 02:51, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
It's straight out of Kafka. It takes 5 demonstrable copyvios to open a CCI case; once opened the methodology they use is to place entire edit histories under review and to work through these "cases" article by article, flagging or fixing content. This works for an editor with a dozen articles and few hundred edits; not so much with 650 starts and 50,000 edits. With probably a dozen or fewer CCI volunteers who work at it with any regularity and a case backlog that goes back 5 years (and counting), the "Norton Case" is clearly an unsolvable problem using standard CCI methodology. The (terrible) solution that ArbCom decided upon was this: as soon as RAN reviewed his edit history, calling copyright fouls upon himself and fixing things as he went, he could start articles again. Until then, he could edit other people's material in mainspace but could not make new starts.
Of course, for a content person, the starts are a very, very important part of the process, so the restriction severely attenuated RAN's usefulness to the project. The job of reviewing his old edits one by one is too big for a dozen people to get done in six months. Working fast and sloppy, maybe RAN could make a significant dent in a year. But basically, all these so-called big violations were small potatoes. I remember one example in which he copy-pasted a local church's history page from their website without proper attribution/paraphrase. Another big example was when he hid a huge chunk of copyrighted text behind <! --- tags so that he would have it in front of him as he paraphrased. Well, you click SAVE and that becomes part of the viewable history of the piece — copyvio!!! He was getting reemed for his "quote=" footnotes, being too long, being excessive in number, being relatively too long for the amount of original text on the page. All completely subjective calls, zero percent chance of exposing WMF to liability, well within American copyright law — but called copyvio! Another thing he did from time to time was copy pasting of old, out of copyright texts with inadequate footnoting. Tons and tons of this sort of low grade ticky-tack shit. (If anyone thinks I'm making this stuff up, go back and look at his edit history yourself in his CCI case — Wikipedia:Contributor_copyright_investigations/20111108.
Well, guess what? Richard can be a grump. He doesn't like being pushed around. He fucked up, he knows he fucked up, he made a half-assed effort to help clean up some of the early stuff, but he's not gonna spend a year or two of his life hunting for narwhals with a flashlight and a fireplace poker. His bad edits are part of the sheetrock which has subsequently been spackled and textured and painted over three times by wave after wave of subsequent editors. It's a slow and extremely low value process finding bad edits from 8 or 10 years ago. He's not gonna do it. CCI is not gonna do it. Nobody is gonna do it. But ArbCom and CCI are gonna have their pound of flesh from him — no new starts until he cuts down the tallest tree in the forest with a herring...
It's a completely stupid situation. Carrite (talk) 06:38, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
  • It was instigated as a punitive audit. It started when I opposed another editor at an Article for Deletion debate. It led to a heated debate and it was followed by a punitive audit at both Wikimedia Commons and at the English Wikipedia. It was a classic Nixonian maneuver, very clever. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:44, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Henry DeWitt Hamilton (February 26, 1863 - August 18, 1942) was the Adjutant General of New York starting in 1912.

Maybe someone could add a picture describing what was the job, in 1912, of the Adjutant General of New York (apart from sometimes sitting on a chair)? Does that person was more or less influential than the Head of any other branch of the New York's administration ? Do we have a picture of the Head Plumber of New York sitting on a chair (or even plumbing in any way) ? Pldx1 (talk) 08:57, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

WP:GNG "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list." If you want to emend the GNG so that chairs become a part of the requirements, start on the talk page of WP:GNG and work toward consensus. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:42, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
Your definition of "significant" could use a little work. Ditto your definition of "independent" in some cases. But you have already been told this many times. Guy (Help!) 10:23, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
Are you suggesting that he owns the New York Times so it is not an independent source from him? You do not find that having an obituary in the New York Times and his appointment as Adjutant General covered by the New York Times as being "significant coverage"? And who has told me this many times? ... links please. Or are you just trolling? You are an administrator, you should know better. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 01:32, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
It would appear from the reference and context that his job was head of the NY State Militia, while his rank within that paramilitary body was Adjutant General.--Noren (talk) 15:44, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
Dear Noren. Anybody knows that the job of a bishop is to be a bishop, implying to sit, on a regular basis, on a kathedra (καθέδρα), This is so important that a special building is devoted to this, they call it a cathedral. But, for the moment, the article says that the New York Times hasn't recorded any remarquable action that would be specific to this person. Dying is so common ! Pldx1 (talk) 08:02, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
The thing that people need to keep in mind about the 450 or so stub and start articles showing on Richard's page is that not all of them are going to pass GNG and make their way to mainspace. His methodology for the overwhelming majority of these has been to work backwards, starting with a news photo from the George Grantham Bain collection at the Library of Congress (public domain) and to then scrape up a minimal biography about the subjects of these photos. MOST of them could be fleshed out to pass GNG, since they are the subject of news photos and thus apt to be the subject of news stories, but there are exceptions. Some of his stubs are very, very basic indeed — needing more work before being moved to mainspace. Remember that these are the seeds of more fully developed articles, initial stopgaps that will suffice until the next editor comes along who is willing to spend time on research and writing. Carrite (talk) 10:40, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
It's frustrating when people have to argue for the "ought-to-be" notability of an article versus trivial ignorance. I mean, people say never mind the GNG, the head of a state "paramilitary" just isn't that important. Without considering that 1863 was before the Civil War, and 1912 was before the Sixteenth Amendment (income tax). In those days, the state militias were the Army, and one from a populous state would be particularly important. In the Civil War they fought each other; by the time he was appointed they were beginning to become a unified United States National Guard but they were still not very far along that path. Even today, governors have threatened not to release their state troops to the foolhardy wars the federal government gets into.
Whenever people substitute their notion of whether an article ought to be notable for whether it simply is notable per our criteria, they rewrite history to match their misunderstandings - and as such, Wikipedia takes on the role of preserving ignorance rather than preserving knowledge. Wnt (talk) 15:30, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
Without considering that 1863 was before the Civil War (1861-1865). Citation needed ? Pldx1 (talk) 17:29, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
Maybe I should have said "ended", but overall I was thinking: George B. McClellan was better known for parades than battles. The draft in New York didn't get started until 1863. Though it didn't take long to spend those poor folks - the bloody Battle of Gettysburg was also in 1863. So maybe I cut it a bit too close. Wnt (talk) 22:57, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

VisualEditor update

This note is only delivered to English Wikipedia subscribers of the visual editor's newsletter.

The location of the visual editor's preference has been changed from the "Beta" tab to the "Editing" section of your preferences on this wiki. The setting now says Temporarily disable the visual editor while it is in beta. This aligns en.wiki with almost all the other WMF wikis; it doesn’t mean the visual editor is complete, or that it is no longer “in beta phase” though.

This action has not changed anything else for editors: it still honours editors’ previous choices about having it on or off; logged-out users continue to only have access to wikitext; the “Edit” tab is still after the “Edit source” one. You can learn more at the visual editor’s talk page.

We don’t expect this to cause any glitches, but in case your account no longer has the settings that you want, please accept our apologies and correct it in the Editing tab of Special:Preferences. Thank you for your attention, Elitre (WMF) -16:32, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

@Elitre (WMF): Why is it worded like this? Why can't it just be "disable Visual Editor"? Temporarily disable the visual editor while it is in beta implies that you intend to make it un-disablable once it is out of beta. I find that difficult to believe but it still doesn't look friendly. BethNaught (talk) 17:18, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
Hey, thanks for the question. AFAICT that’s the same message which is already used elsewhere - it has basically stayed the same since 2013, when the idea of "Beta Features" preferences didn't exist yet. It's not talking about the recent change on this wiki, or anything about "Beta Features". There are still lots of improvements yet to make, not least integrating wikitext and visual editing together properly and removing the hack of having a second edit tab that jumbles up the interface. The 'end' of the beta phase is probably 2–5 years away at this point, so the message will likely be changed as things around editing change, to better reflect what will happen. And I’ll make sure in the future the sentence is clear enough before I MassMessage hundreds of users with the exact wording ;) Best, -Elitre (WMF) (talk) 20:59, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply. But "removing the hack of having a second edit tab"? There will be plenty of unhappy people if the wikitext editor does not remain readily accessible. BethNaught (talk) 21:08, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
I disagree. I think it fairly obvious that the inferior experience of the wikitext editor will be strongly opposed by virtually everyone once the visual editor is good enough (and it isn't yet).--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:11, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
I would not be so sure. There is a sizeable number of editors who will always prefer precise markup based editors to WYSWIG editors. These are the people who would write in LaTeX in preference to Word and favour editors like EMAC and Vim. We are not seeing any increase in existing editors using VE which is still less than 1%.[11] --Salix alba (talk): 23:37, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
Well, there is a precedent...[12][13][14][15] --Guy Macon (talk) 18:10, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
Unless, of course, when switching to production, they intend to enable it for everyone and then allow opt-out, or releasing may somehow stop this preference from working? Without knowing fully what this pref does to disable it, it's hard to say why, but there may be perfectly sound technical reasons for this too. Mdann52 (talk) 18:27, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
There are all sorts of options they can choose, such as making it opt-in for existing editors and opt-out for new editors. From a software development perspective, it is far easier to just create a shiny new editing system that stores text and images in a new way isn't compatible with the old wikitext, until you think about the fact that as of Sunday, 05 May 2024, 04:33 (UTC), The English Wikipedia has 60,597,986 pages of all kinds and 6,820,384 articles. Plus you have to deal with all sorts of features, such as the feature I am using in this comment; refresh the page and you get the latest article counts. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:24, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
We should always keep both the raw text editor and the fancy new editor close at hand. Raw text mode would be well worth keeping for debugging purposes alone -- you know how easy it is to find in some word processor that you have dozens of italics-unitalics or mysterious line breaks that only turn up when you try to copy the text to some other format. Good software never breaks backward compatibility, for copying text from page to page and site to site in a controllable way. We also must not break compatibility for Javascript-free browsing, which is and remains the fastest way to read and edit Wikipedia. Also note that if raw text editing is made difficult, it is always possible that people will offer third party tools that allow the text to be edited on other websites, or using custom programs. Those things would be useful, and get around such problems (since the page has to be in raw mode sometime before it's posted) - but they also would create huge opportunities for spam advertising, unauthorized bot editing and so forth with much less effort than currently, because the work making them possible would be done for a much larger set of users. If you disable raw text editing even momentarily, you'll let a genie of abuse out of the bottle that you may never stuff back in again. Wnt (talk) 01:14, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
Definitely should always have an easy way of editing the raw text. One of the things I loved about Word Perfect was the code page view. I hated MS Word for all the untraceable formatting glitches that turn up. As an experiment I once created a new blank Word document with only the text Hello world! and then saved as an html file. Then opened the file in a text editor and saw three pages of bloated formatting garbage. Ridiculous. Code bloat is a serious problem for debugging. I have not played with it much yet, but I really hope that the Visual editor does not suffer from this type of problem. Nyth63 14:51, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

And now for something completely different

I came across this offbeat edit summary [16]. (The editor's wish came true, but not for vandalism. Reminds me of this plot from the cartoon Life with Feathers, "The film centers on a heartbroken lovebird's decision to commit suicide after his marriage goes sour. He recruits a black cat (Sylvester) to eat him, but the suspicious cat thinks the bird is poison and refuses." Although I can see that the admin may have been thinking of a bigger catch.) --Bob K31416 (talk) 17:23, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Teahnically the account was blocked for vandalism (see here) but was later found to be a sockpuppet. --Rubbish computer 11:19, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
That was interesting. Here's a thank you gift [17].
I noticed the following comments in the admin edit summaries.
"account apparently compromised; vandalism after long history of positive contributions"
and then
"Appears not to have been compromised".
--Bob K31416 (talk) 14:08, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
Archive 190 ← Archive 193 Archive 194 Archive 195 Archive 196 Archive 197 → Archive 200

Query2

See Murder of Anni Dewani. Her husband had zero notability outside the single event (a charge that he paid for her murder). He has been specifically and totally exonerated. How much should his name be mentioned in the article about the murder - or is using the term "husband" sufficient? An edit summary re-inserting the husband's name in many places in the single article states "Reverted staggeringly outrageous removal of cleared suspects name. Seriously, do you want to make Wikipedia a global laughing stock?)" and the talk page comments aver " For almost 5 years the Article mentioned Shrien Dewani by name and for those 5 years positive consensus existed for his name to be in the article. Who made you God to suddenly decry the inclusion of Shrien Dewani's name? There is no consensus to support your spurious assertion that inclusion of his name is a WP:BLP violation and thus no justification for having expunged his name from the article" and " Although I have encountered's Collect over-zealous application (some would say gaming) of BLP in the past, I am absolutely staggered at his wholesale removal of Shrien Dewani's name from this article. Given that virtually the entire reporting focus on this case was on Shrien, and his fight to prove his innocence, to remove his name from this page on some distorted interpretation of a technicality will make Wikipedia a global laughing stock. I have therefore reverted Collect's bizarre and destructive edits, and fully intend to revert any attempt to reinstate them." (bolding what might be an improper attack)

Shrien Dewani was not merely "acquitted" - a judge found that there should never have been any prosecution of him at all, an he has had zero "notability" other than from the apparent gross miscarriage of justice. The name is now replaces more than three dozen times in this single article - bludgeoning Wikipedia readers with an implication that "Shrien Dewani was likely guilty of murder" when the fact is that such an mplication in my opinion is precisely what WP:BLP is intended to prevent. Ought Shrien Dewani's name be given more than three dozen times in an article about a murder where he was actually officially exonerated? And was it a "bziarre and destructive edit" to act on that position? Collect (talk) 12:55, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Note: Prior to the above message, there was already an RfC open regarding this isssue on the relevant talk page. Samsara 15:15, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
Note: The strangely worded RfC asks
"We require clarification regarding the applicability of WP:BLP to this article. Does WP:BLP prescribe that an exonerated person's name should be excluded from an article pertaining to a criminal case in which they were once considered a suspect? Dewanifacts (talk) 15:02, 23 October 2015 (UTC)" w
here my position has always been that contentious claims about living persons which have been deleted, require "positive consensus" for inclusion per WP:BLP and not that "no contentious claims are permitted at all" which is the apparent position imputed for me. Inclusion of deleted material requires "positive consensus" per policy, and the RfC is basically meaningless alas. Collect (talk) 15:28, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
I agree with your interpretation of BLP. However I think the BLP noticeboard might be a better venue to discuss. Coretheapple (talk) 15:35, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
Just to clarify my comment above, I was referring to consensus. I'm not saying I agree that the name of the person needs to be minimized in this particular article. Looking cursorily at the article I'd say that he seems central to the article, given his "wrong man" situation and the fact that it is clearly pointed out. We don't want to remove his name or minimize it any more than we would if this was an article about Christopher Emanuel Balestrero. Coretheapple (talk) 15:40, 25 October 2015 (UTC)Struck out that it was clearly pointed out. Not so clear. Coretheapple (talk) 22:50, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
One thought, as a very strong proponent of BLP: My view is that our purpose in such cases should be to do the right thing in terms of human dignity. In some cases, that may very well be to omit a name. However, Shrein Dewani is a very famous name for a long time now (at least in the UK) as this case received a great deal of very sensationalized press. Her name is likely even more well known (and easier to spell). Google trends show that while her name is searched on more often, his name is searched on as well.
I think the article should therefore use his name, but should say in the first paragraph - with an exact quote from the judge if supported as notable remarks by a secondary source - something like "a judge found that there should never have been any prosecution of him at all" (Collect's words).--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:27, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
Its a terribly written article, abandoning summary style, hard to follow, poorly organized. I was reading it and I got lost. That doesn't help at all when you have an innocent man's name bandied about. As for the judge, yes he more or less said what Collect paraphrased, but it would have to be either reported in an RS source somewhere, as I don't think it can be teased out of the decision linked at the top. I agree it should be made clear at the outset. Coretheapple (talk) 22:49, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
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