User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 219

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Corey Stewart campaign editing

A CNN article documents editing by the Virginia gubernatorial campaign of Corey Stewart. "Stewart acknowledged" that the edits came from his campaign, which seem to be mostly spinning and removing info, plus a few additions. The context screams "paid editing" by the campaign, though those words aren't in the article. There certainly was meatpuppetting or sockpuppetting. BTW some admin should block User:VirginiaHistorian77 and User:Publius2016 who did not declare their paid editing status.

I've often said that the WMF needs to combat this type of editing by letting the world know that undeclared paid editing is against our rules. This would seem to be a perfect time to make such a statement. Otherwise editors will have to make these statements individually, which would be quite clumsy. I'll suggest that the statement be made directly to the Stewart campaign and to CNN.

I'll copy this to the ED's talk page. Jimmy, would you add your comments (publicly or privately as you wish) and let anybody else at the WMF know who you think should know?

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:21, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Just to add a bit more to this, recently two job ads showed up on Upwork from the same client. The first was posted on the 3rd, and was to hire an editor to move the Corey Stewart (politician) article to Corey Stewart. The second advertisement was posted around the 9th by the same client, and requested a paid editor to add a large list of information about lobbying to the Ed Gillespie article. Not being a follower of US politics, I did not realise that the two people were campaigning against each other, and thus it took a bit longer before I joined the dots and realised that the same person had posted both ads. As far as I am aware, no one was hired for either job, but while I have no reason to believe that the client was anyone in particular, I note that they had previously hired a WP editor for a different article. - Bilby (talk) 16:16, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Well let's see.

Corey Stewart (politician) has an article.
And CNN is highly notable and considered pretty reliable.
The English Wikipedia is one of the most popular and used websites in the world.

So, it makes sense for this info to be in the article. It is both notable, and helpful to readers trying understand the entity Corey Stewart. And indeed it is in the article. If this serves as a cautionary example to others (whether politicians, corporations, or whomever), well... I for one won't shed any tears over that. Herostratus (talk) 19:13, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Herostratus I usually agree with you on COI and paid editing but I have to take issue with your comment concerning the lead (a part of your post I only just noticed; sorry I only skimmed it previously). I don't think it's appropriate to "punish" subjects of articles by going out of our way to put their Wikipedia editing in the lead. Sometimes, perhaps, but it has to be proper weight. I don't think it is in this instance. But yes, it belongs in the article. Coretheapple (talk) 15:08, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

That's one possible way of dealing with it. I'd think that if the WMF contacted Stewart and CNN directly (perhaps in addition to including it in the article) it would be more effective in getting the word out. Not too many people will be reading the Wikipedia article, whereas 10,000s might be reading a CNN article. Putting the info in a neutral tone at the bottom of the article likely is not going to seem like much punishment to the candidate. At worst we might end up defacing the encyclopedia to make a point (e.g. I don't think I would put the paid/sock editors user's names in the article).

But a nicely worded letter to the candidate, copied to CNN, would likely get a lot of attention and wouldn't allow him to claim in the future "I didn't know this was against the rules" (so far he has just ignored the rules if he ever knew about them). So we just need to make sure that he, and others, know the rules. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 19:42, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

I agree with the foregoing and the reference to it in the article, but it's in the lead section, which seems a bit much. Coretheapple (talk) 21:30, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Well, the CNN article might be more popular today, but a Wikipedia article is one of the top results that comes up if you search on many entities, day after day after day. That's a powerful incentive for entities to not want our article to say things like "this entity hired people to try to corrupt the very reference work you are reading now [ref]". Especially not in the lede. I imagine that, as a point of fact, this goes a long long way to protecting the project -- a lot more than any nice letters from Foundation lawyers, or nasty one either -- and scares off 99% of the people who consider it (and 100% of the smart and prudent ones). It's far and away the most powerful incentive for people to leave us alone, I bet. I'm just saying. Herostratus (talk) 00:12, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Herostratus 100% on this, and I thank him for putting it more succinctly than I ever could have. I'm the one who added the info to the lead, for exactly the reason described. Rockypedia (talk) 00:24, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Your actions go against policy. Regardless of whatever scenario Herostratus described. It must be removed per the policies cited in talk. For participating there as an Ip I have been accused of being the article subject and my words have been ignored. Jimbo is this how you agree it should run? 71.203.254.54 (talk) 00:46, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

I sympathize with 71.203... but don't see any obvious BLP problems with the way the article was written. My concerns are: including the paid editor/socks usernames in the article, the length of the mention in the lede of the paid editing/socking, and just now the "cuck" = racism stuff that has just been added. The usernames stuff seen punitive, the lede looks like we're taking ourselves too seriously (i.e. wp:weight), and I still haven't figured out the "cuck" stuff, but figure it might come from the word "cuckold" and might be used by white supremacists, so is obviously something to be very careful about. But Rocky might be right and that's best left to the article talkpage.

My main point is that I think the WMF should use this as an opportunity to spread the word that we have rules about COI editing, sockpuppetting, and especially paid editing. If they send out the word a dozen times per year on obvious problems like these with media like CNN which have large audiences, folks who are ignorant of our rules will get the word, and folks who think they can get by without being noticed will understand that they are noticed. The media like stories like this and we should encourage them to continue. A dozen per year would be very easy to come up with. So my question is: should we wait for the WMF to send out the word? or should individual editors, like myself, start taking action individually? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:52, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

While I did see the ads, it isn't clear to me that what happened was paid editing, nor is it clear that this was sockpuppetry. Given that, it isn't against policy to edit with a COI.

"Cuck" does come from cuckold, and is used by the alt-right and MRA to insinuate that a person is not a real man, an in particular is under the control of women/feminists. - Bilby (talk) 07:51, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Right now one-third of the lead is about the Wikipedia editing, and Rocky has been edit warring with myself and that IP to keep it there. The article really needs more eyes. I notice that the project's response to paid editing and COI editing seems to swing between utter indifference and shaming of the subject, with a bit of outing thrown in. Right now we are struggling with the "shaming of the subject" phase. Coretheapple (talk) 13:29, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

I've opened an RfC at Talk:Corey Stewart (politician) and discussion of this particular case should move there.

On the issue in general, I don't agree that the project's response to paid editing swings between utter indifference and shaming of the subject. Rather, some people are always indifferent (and a few are even supportive) and some people aren't. For those who aren't indifferent, shaming the subject is certainly a powerful tool -- one of the few available anymore.

How much we want to use it is a matter of taste and opinion, but my take is that per the "maintaining Wikipedia" clause of WP:IAR and because our rules are not intended to be a suicide pact, it is reasonable IMO to use this defense. It's not Corey Stewart in particular that I care about. What I want is for people to think "If they did that to Corey Stewart, what might they do to me?" Herostratus (talk) 15:29, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

WP:WEIGHT and WP:NPOV are not subject to IAR. "This policy is non-negotiable, and the principles upon which it is based cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, nor by editor consensus." IAR falls under "other policies". Ken Arromdee (talk) 18:05, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it.

It's my understanding that this was the very first rule (April 2002) and that all other rules are subservient to this rule, in that it defines how we view what rules are. It is not, however, a pass to do anything you like simply because you see some temporary advantage in it. The flip side of this rule is "Don't be a jerk."

Using IAR to humiliate somebody does not improve Wikipedia. It certainly lowers the quality of that particular article. What I think we should do with this kind of stuff is similar to what Harry Truman said when one of his supporters yelled "Give 'em hell, Harry" at a campaign rally. Truman supposedly responded "I don't give 'em hell. I just tell the truth and they think I'm giving 'em hell." Smallbones_(smalltalk) 19:18, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

IAR is a policy. Therefore, when some other policy says "this cannot be superseded by other policies", it can't be superseded by IAR. The fact that IAR came first is irrelevant-- it doesn't limit "can't be superseded" to only those policies that come later.

If you interpret IAR to mean it supersedes everything, you've just got two contradictory policies--IAR says that IAR comes first and NPOV says that NPOV comes first. They can't both come first. Ken Arromdee (talk) 05:15, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Re: Bilby - we are not bound by a level of proof equal to that used in criminal trials. If somebody acknowledges to a reliable source such as CNN that their campaign was making changes to the candidate's article, then if the 2 obvious editors were paid by the campaign then it is paid editing. We can't tell that for sure they were paid, but if the campaign is dictating what they wrote it's pretty close and (with the 2 of them) it's sockpuppeting/meatpuppeting. If the candidate himself was both editors, it's still sockpuppeting. I can't see any scenario that is consistent with the acknowledgement of the facts as reported by CNN that our rules were not broken. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 19:28, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

You are not considering the very likely possibility that two people, both people involved in his campaign, chose to edit the articles. This would make it a COI, but there's no reason to assume sockpuppetry without additional evidence, and you'll need to show that they were paid to indicate that they broke the ToU. No, this is not a court, and I have argued this often. But if the plan is to use a high profile politician as an example as to why people should not break WP policy, I'd like to be very sure that they did. - Bilby (talk) 22:19, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Bilby are you considering the quote from Stewart reported by CNN?

In an interview with CNN's KFile, Stewart said that the campaign was fixing incorrect information.

"We've had problems with people going on there and putting false information on there, so we've had to keep an eye on it," Stewart said. "In fact there's somebody in there who's put, you know, I cracked down on illegal immigration, I led a big crack down on illegal immigration in 2007, and somebody went in there and said I was anti-immigrant, which isn't true. So, things like that have to be corrected."

Under a section on his page about the 2017 governor's race, his campaign added that Stewart is "widely considered to be the most conservative of the potential candidates for Virginia Governor."

The campaign also removed information about his private practice as a trade lawyer and added information about where Stewart attends church.

So Stewart is saying "we've had problems" "we had to". CNN says "his campaign added" and "the campaign also removed". It's all about coordinating these actions by the campaign (i.e. Stewart), not about independent volunteers accidentally editing the same article. ==> sockpuppeting.

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:58, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Coordinating actions is not socking. One person controlling two accounts is. That doesn't say that anyone was paid to edit WP, and it doesn't say that anyone created multiple accounts to make the changes. It makes it very clear that they were editing with a COI, but we permit that. We could probably dig up a case for meat or off-wiki coordination, but it is a bit of a stretch. The clear issue is COI editing. - Bilby (talk) 01:08, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

From WP:Sock

"Sock puppetry can take on several different forms:

.....

Persuading friends or acquaintances to create accounts for the purpose of supporting one side of a dispute (usually called meatpuppetry)"

This looks like the definition of meatpuppetry to me. Perhaps we should just agree to disagree, but I'm satisfied that this is a blatent violation of our rules and people should be warned in a very public manner (preferably by the WMF) not to do it. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 03:27, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

This isn't quite that blatant. If this was about a dispute, maybe. If this was two people helping out on one article, even if they were part of teh same campaign, then no. My issue is that I want to be very careful before publicly calling out someone for breaking our policies, and we need to be very clear as to whether or not they did so. The most we clearly have is COI editing, but we don;t ban that. We could, potentially, get away with a liberal reading of meatpuppetry, but that is going to be something I'm very uncomfortably with using as the basis of a public attack on their actions. Use COI if we must, but just be clear that it is the principle, rather than the rules. - Bilby (talk) 23:58, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

We should remember that all roads lead to Rome here, by which I mean, hypothetically there is an ideal article that fully conveys all of the educational content about this campaign, and our only purpose is to get there. We mustn't make the article 'worse', nor can we tolerate it being 'better', toward the subject than what a fair reporting of all relevant facts from external sources will bear out. One thing that means is that whether there are paid editors and they start a Wikipedia controversy, or if the subject shows up here or on a relevant Wikiproject or help desk and simply asks for a better article, we should end up in the same place -- so a paid editor is really paid for not much except, perhaps, the negative publicity attendant to their own activities.

Which brings me to a point: the subject of an article who pays editors is nonetheless potentially a very powerful ally in their suppression. I don't know exactly what happened in Stewart's case, but suppose that a politician hired an editor on Upwork, who performed paid edits in blatant contradiction to Wikipedia policy. And as a result, the politician gets negative publicity on CNN. I'm not a lawyer, but I'd guess if there is any actionable damage over that loss of reputation, the liability would be on the schmuck who hired himself out as a paid editor, since a reasonable person might think that someone taking on that job would exercise ordinary care to follow the TOS of the site he's paid to edit. (I actually would worry whether such a lawsuit might be too successful; we'd want to be careful the precedent doesn't go too far) And if the plaintiffs were really hungry, they might look at whether Upwork gave sufficient warning and demanded sufficient certification that the Wikipedia paid editors answering its ads would follow that TOS.

A useful hint for politicians is also that our TOS on paid editing only applies to paid editing. Even COI editing is that user's responsibility, and of course, COI doesn't apply when people only have a political interest; that's just POV. A politician can pay editors who dutifully identify their role and employer, but it would be better optics for a politician to ask his unpaid volunteers to look at an article - though they should still identify as WP:COI and make suggestions rather than edits. For example, volunteers can upload lots of photos of campaign events and meetings and rallies to Commons and ask people to put them in the article, or point out errors, and it doesn't seem like an unfair pressure on the site. And volunteers probably have a lot more appreciation for having a round of Wikipedia volunteer work done closely with a major politician on their resume than any Upwork paid-editing person. But even beyond that, a politician can simply put a mention of his Wikipedia pages in a mailing, and encourage supporters to get involved editing, and kind of let nature take its course; this offers the least control over the process and the most opportunity to control the actual output. We may well find objections to that, but they can only go so far. Wikipedia is one of the most read websites on the planet and we should expect politicians of every stripe to try to engage their supporters with us --- we only hope they will do so in the sense of encouraging useful productive editing and with the intent of seeing obscure but useful information come out that can lend credence to their beliefs. Wnt (talk) 20:25, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

That's not Rome, you did not even make it to Ostia :) When secretly someone (or their agents) writes about themselves and presents it in the objective third person, they are being dishonest to the reader. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:39, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Malayalam Encyclopedia

While working the linked-misspelling patrol, I came across an interesting article that was linking to [[Mediawiki]] (of course, the correct spelling is in camel case: MediaWiki). The article is about the Malayalam Encyclopedia, a Malayalam language encyclopedia. That's the language spoken in the southwest Indian state of Kerala. What's interesting about this encyclopedia is that it's sponsored by the Kerala government's State Institute of Encyclopaedic Publications, and is powered by MediaWiki (hence the link). I also soon found a fork of this article titled Sarvavijnanakosam. Of course, this state-sponsored wiki competes with the Wikimedia Foundation's own Malayalam Wikipedia. I'm now curious to know whether there are other such MediaWiki-powered state-sponsored encyclopedias, and between Sarvavijnanakosam and Malayalam Wikipedia, which draws more traffic and contributions, and which tends to list higher in Google searches. – wbm1058 (talk) 19:08, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

These links might be helpful.

Category:Kerala Wikipedians
Category:User ml
Category:Wikipedians who contribute to the Malayalam Wikipedia (User:Cskumaresan, User:Deepakramdaspt, User:Netha Hussain, User:Ranjithsiji, User:Vanischenu, User:Viswaprabha)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Kerala#Participants (more than 80 editors listed)

—Wavelength (talk) 22:18, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Enciclopedia Libre Universal en Español is a fork of the Spanish Wikipedia.

—Wavelength (talk) 20:21, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Interesting. I'd heard of the Spanish fork (it's the reason why "Wikipedia will never have ads"), but never looked at the article about it before. – wbm1058 (talk) 23:01, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

I see there is also an article about Malayalam Wikipedia. Now Malayalam Encyclopedia just needs to have a statistics section so we can compare. We worry about having too few admins, but look at that one: only 19. wbm1058 (talk) 23:09, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

16 years of editing, today

Hey, Jimbo Wales. I'd like to wish you a wonderful First Edit Day on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee!
Have a great day! Chris Troutman (talk) 22:35, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

This is lovely but a bit late. I wonder how many of us are around whose first edit date in Mediawiki differs from their true first edit date (pre-Mediawiki!)...--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:22, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Larry's oldest surviving edit has yours beat by nearly a month! ;) But the WP:OLDEST surviving edit dates to January 16, 2001. No edits survive in the database from 15 January 2001, the day that Wikipedia was founded.

Being first isn't everything though. Based on your 567 + 1774 edits to article-space, I'm afraid you would both be NOTNOWs if you ran for administrator in today's environment! wbm1058 (talk) 13:33, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

@Wbm1058: Both Jimbo and Larry had CamelCase accounts, at JimboWales and LarrySanger, respectively. JimboWales' earliest surviving edit is on 23 January while LarrySanger's is on 9 February. Larry Sanger's early edits are very difficult to access, due to bugs in the current version of MediaWiki; for the CamelcCase version of his username, T36873 is the applicable bug, while T2323 applies to the non-CamelCased version of his username because his early edits were stored under the name "Larry_Sanger". I had to use the January 2003 database dump to find the first LarrySanger edit (I thought using the Nostalgia Wikipedia was cheating in this case), but the Larry_Sanger edits (among others) are listed at User:Nemo bis/Bug 323 revisions. Graham87 15:53, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Graham, thanks for the detailed clarification. It's confirmed here that Jimbo's oldest known surviving edit was the 22:34, 23 January 2001 creation of ThomasEdison. WilliamKennedyLaurieDickson actually invented the motion picture camera at the Edison laboratories. It's interesting to realize that while everyone is familiar with Edison, few recall Dickson. However, I see from the NostalgiaWikipedia history that Larry's earliest surviving edit was at 09:42, 21 January 2001 so Larry's oldest surviving edit, which created PitcairnIsland still has Jimmy's beat by a couple of days. I don't consider it cheating to "bypass a bug". All in good fun; they probably both made what turned out to be "Snapchat edits" on founding day, January 15, 2001. An observation regarding Edison – while many, perhaps most, technology innovators work as a team (Gates & Allen, Jobs & Wozniak, Moore & Noyce, Page & Brin come to mind, among many others) Edison seemed to go out of his way to avoid having a partner. He wouldn't put Nikola Tesla's designs into production, so Tesla took them to Westinghouse Electric, whose alternating current got the upper hand in the market over Edison's direct current. It took some time for Edison's General Electric to catch up. Edison only seemed willing to "partner" with Harvey Firestone and Henry Ford. – wbm1058 (talk) 20:30, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

RfC

Just posting here to publicize: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Rfc:_Remove_description_taken_from_Wikidata_from_mobile_view_of_en-WP -- Jytdog (talk) 00:10, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Graduated editing

I propose a new page, Wikipedia:Graduated editing, listing (1) various kinds of editing and (2) various kinds of pages that might be edited. I envisage perhaps 100 items in the first list, sorted into perhaps 10 sections, not necessarily having equal numbers of kinds of edits. New editors can be encouraged to limit their editing to the most elementary kinds of edits, and the least problematic kinds of pages (in user namespace and draft namespace and article namespace, and their respective talk namespaces). They can be kindly discouraged from editing policy pages and guideline pages. (I have seen many instances of tinkering on Wikipedia:Manual of Style and related pages, not always beneficial tinkering, and discussion of changes in accord with WP:BRD can be time-consuming for editors with more experience—on Wikipedia in general, and on certain policy pages and guideline pages in particular.) I am not prepared to produce the new page at this time, but I would like it to be produced, so I am hoping that this message will motivate one or more other editors to do so.
—Wavelength (talk) 00:24, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

How to make Wikipedia fun RileyBugz (p)^Yell | _Edits 00:28, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Physical exercise can be a source of fun.—Wavelength (talk) 04:50, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

For people who enjoy it... I think that content creation is one of the potential ways we could invigorate newcomers. I mean how many newcomers, besides the nerdy type, immediately start on content creation? A good amount of them, correct? This shows that for them, content creation is a fun way to get in to Wikipedia. I think that, then, we need to focus on promoting content creation and encouraging more of it from newcomers. RileyBugz (p)^Yell | _Edits 14:30, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Whereas shūdankōdō (ja:集団行動; https://forvo.com/word/集団行動/#ja), meaning "collective action" or "group [wikicode corrected] action", requires of each participant exactly one specific action or inaction at any instant, graduated editing is more flexible in allowing a variety of options to a new editor.

Generally, people crawl before they walk, they walk before they run, and they practice the musical scales before they play complex masterpieces. A bus passenger wants the driver to know more than the basics about driving.

I can write an article to fit my own policies and guidelines, but writing an article to fit Wikipedia policies and guidelines requires time for learning them. If an new article does not fit Wikipedia policies and guidelines, then additional time is needed for experienced editors to make corrections or to explain to a new editor what is required. I would like Wikipedia editing to be orderly and harmonious like synchronized walking; I do not want it to resemble a game of bumper cars.

You made a claim about newcomers and content, but you did not provide evidence to support your claim. Even if the claim is correct, your proposal would sacrifice quality for quantity.

—Wavelength (talk) 00:02, 29 March 2017 (UTC) and Wavelength (talk) 01:46, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

You have a point there, so until we have more knowledge, that claim should not really be considered reliable. But, I am in the middle of reading this paper, which so far seems to say that for newcomers to stay, they need early support. It does say that newcomers don't really know too much about how to help, nor do they know about WikiProjects, which, from my experience (confirmation needed, but it seems there is wide agreement for this), can really help get people in to editing Wikipedia. But, the paper also seems to suggest that newcomers find Wikipedias policies extremely confusing, so there is that. Sorry for being a bit condescending earlier. RileyBugz (p)^Yell | _Edits 01:20, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

This paper has some suggestions for retaining editors in the discussions. Overall, it seems that encouraging newcomers to edit past their first day and reaching out to them in their first day is incredibly important. RileyBugz (p)^Yell | _Edits 03:00, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Although I have thought about graduated editing for at least many months, my motivation for starting this discussion at this time came partly from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Editor Retention#By advising editors to "be bold" and that there are "no rules", aren't we encouraging disruptive behavior, which might needlessly cause them to be banned? (version of 14:37, 29 March 2017). (Incidentally, please see my revision of 15:07, 3 April 2014.) When I proposed graduated editing, I made allowance for editors who have difficulty in absorbing many policies and guidelines, or who lack motivation to do so. What I do not want is a large number of errors caused by editors who have not yet acquired competence in Wikipedia policies and guidelines. (WP:COMPETENCE) I view graduated editing as a sign of a well-organized volunteer project, and therefore an encouraging sign.

—Wavelength (talk) 14:59, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

The page should probably not be a single page, to avoid overwhelming newcomers, but instead be short and sweet pages. In general, messages and things that are shorter (and more personalized) are better. (see here) Overall, although, we have to keep in mind the fact that things that rely on idealism or catastrophism usually fail. Personalization, although, giving them page suggestions on their talk page and such, seems to be a better idea, as it is more personalized. And personalization is better. (See paper again, and this one) So, we should really strive for, in this, personalization, conciseness, and quickness. RileyBugz (p)^Yell | _Edits 16:43, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

When I said, in my opening post, that "I envisage perhaps 100 items in the first list", I had in mind briefly worded items such as "corrected spelling" and few if any items longer than one line. Even a list like that does not need to be read all at one time. Although I appreciate personalized messages from various editors, I also recognize that a non-personalized page intended to be read by many editors can be more carefully prepared, because the time spent in its preparation is offset by the benefit of many editors reading it at various times. I appreciate short and sweet messages in discussions, and I generally manage to post such messages. My welcome message at User:Wavelength/About Wikipedia/Welcome lists 18 linked items and two additional links, but I do not intend that someone reading it obligated to spend an entire session by clicking on each link and reading the entire page. I find end-user license agreements to be overwhelming, even when I skip the parts that do not apply to me.

—Wavelength (talk) 19:14, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

[I meant to say "correcting spelling".—Wavelength (talk) 01:41, 30 March 2017 (UTC)]

This study says that "standardized tactics were negatively associated with newcomers’ contributions, whereas personalized tactics were positively associated with it". It seems that no welcome message templates could really be personalized. I think that giving suggestions on what to edit would be better, although this (the original proposal) could work out if it were shortened. RileyBugz (p)^Yell | _Edits 22:04, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Suggested fix

Long-time users habitually cite "Subject fails wp:PROF" even in the face of the fact that the wp:PROF guideline itself is designed merely as an alternative means of establishing notability in cases where a potential academic bio subject doesn't prove notable otherwise, viz., through there being in-sufficient reliable secondary sources per wp:BIO. These users' awareness of this language at these guidelines indicates their lack of candor in promoting their favored work around WP's actual guidelines. This needs to be fixed by rewording the guidelines at wp:BIO and wp:PROF, etc., to indicate that academics and the like are to be held to a higher standard in certain cases than other potential subjects.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 22:06, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Alternatively: Train a cadre of closing admins to discount !votes lacking candor as to their attempt to end-run WP guidelines.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 22:52, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

I do not understand this post. Can you please rephrase it? What exactly is this a suggested fix for?--greenrd (talk) 23:03, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Decade-long editors routinely !vote to delete scholars otherwise notable, eg as bloggers or commentators, if they "don't pass wp:PROF", despite the guideline wp:PROF itself which says,

Academics/professors meeting none of these conditions [Edited: ..as wp:PROF will list below..] may still be notable if they meet the conditions of WP:BIO or other notability criteria, and the merits of an article on the academic/professor will depend largely on the extent to which it is verifiable.

--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 23:12, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying about inclusion standards for university college professors, and I still think that a college professor is more notable than a new player who kicks a ball for money, especially where "publish or perish" causes those professors to write for professional journals or academic conferences. Too bad there are thousands of professors, beyond the 250,000+ footballers on record. I would like to know about 30 professors who taught at Princeton University when Einstein was a professor there, and similar. -Wikid77 (talk) 23:25, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

I assume this is about Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Benjamin E. Park? There were no substantial reliable independent sources in that article, it failed WP:GNG, and WP:PROF is actually a lower bar than we have for most articles. Guy (Help!) 20:11, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Sources should be secondary sources, as those provide the most objective evidence of notability. There is no fixed number of sources required since sources vary in quality and depth of coverage, but multiple sources are generally expected.--wp:GNG

In actual fact there were a lot of independent sourcing even via mention by MSM reporters of either this guy's opinions, w/rgd his subfield, or else with regard his scholarly review articles. Dude also wrote dozens of opinion etc. columns or pieces. An academic controversy even bears his name. (For background see "Shake-Up Hits BYU's Mormon Studies Institute: Longtime Editor is Ousted as Mormon Studies Review Charts New Direction", then "Split Emerges Among Mormon Scholars: Some Argue for Wider Research; Others Keep Focus on Defending the Faith". Then see where the dude has been the topic of back and forth commentary (of sometimes more heat than light, according to the commentator) at "To Whom Shall We Go: From Apologetics to Mormon Studies: The Case of Benjamin Park — with Reference to Dan Peterson, David Holland, and Terryl Givens" and " "Intellect and Affection – How to Be a Faithful Mormon Intellectual" (plus more eg at "Clarification on Park's View" and "Hamblin's misreading", etc.) He was among the inaugural editors of--and contributor of reviews for--the only review journal in this subfield. And was doing this after earning a Cambridge MPhil (itself akin a PhD in the U.S.) and on the way to his receiving a Cambridge DHist.

wp:PROF is to make it easier for academics to receive WP treatment.

It is possible for an academic not to be notable under the provisions of this guideline but to be notable in some other way under one of the other subject-specific notability guidelines. Conversely, if an academic is notable under this guideline, his or her failure to meet either the General Notability Guideline or other subject-specific notability guidelines is irrelevant. ... Some academics may not meet any of these criteria, but may still be notable for their academic work. It is important to note that it is very difficult to make clear requirements in terms of numbers of publications or their quality: the criteria, in practice, vary greatly by field. Also, this proposal sets the bar fairly low, which is natural: to a degree, academics live in the public arena, trying to influence others with their ideas. It is natural that successful ones should be considered notable. -- wp:PROF"

But long-term WPdians routinely reference wp:PROF to make a college-level instructor harder to merit a bio than if s/he were not such. Quasi-credentialism is perfectly legit if it's the WP wants to roll however the guidelines should be adjusted to account for this discrepancy. As it is now editors merely help WP institutionally creep toward wp:PROF's being a harder and not an easier standard for inclusion by way of turning up their noses when someone "isn't a full professor" or is as yet "not published" per institutional publish-or-perish standards.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 21:11, 26 March 2017 (UTC)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 22:32, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Your understanding of what constitutes a reliable source could use some work. As I say, the article did not meet the general or subject notability criteria, and the subject notability criteria are lower. If nobody had even mentioned WP:PROF, this would still have been deleted. Guy (Help!) 23:51, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

reply - Guy, how do you reach such a finding?

With due respect to the wisdom of crowds, the non-argument you offer seems more attuned to...crowd dynamics.

I created the blp, having known of its subject first as a founder of the preeminent Mormon history blog Juvenile Instructor and susequently (See my comment above) as somebody especially noted as having promoted a new kind of Mormon "quasi-apologetic." And--well, despite the non-unfounded belief that Mormonism itself is kinda less than fully pro-intellectual (Um-- See Dawkins, Richard.)--I knew that the very new sub-filed Mormon studies is certainly very intellectually legit (with, eg, there being, domestically U.S. and worldwide, as many LDS adherents as there are of Judaism (Bloom, Harold: "[...Jews form less of a tenth of one percent of the world's population. That is about the proportion of the Mormons..."]; Pew Research Center: "Mormons make up 1.7% of the American adult population, a proportion that is comparable in size to the U.S. Jewish population"). So, not wanting to do something akin to reviewing a book I haven't read, I checked various "find sources" links and quickly was led to the following wp:V sources:

"[Harold] Bloom holds up as the legacy of Joseph Smith 'betrayed' by modern Mormonism is a fantasy glimpse of the moment of the religion’s inception. Mormon historian Ben Park...." Joanna Brooks of Religious Dispatches
" ...such interdenominational alliances, but according to Benjamin Park..." New Humanist, United Kingdom
"Some have aimed their reprimands at the choir for accepting the invitation. Benjamin Park, a history professor at Sam Houston State University and an associate editor for an academic journal called the Mormon Studies Review, wrote a post on his personal blog shortly after the choir’s announcement. 'I am disappointed[... ... ...] To my friends who have been the direct targets of Trump’s attacks: even though the Mormon Tabernacle Choir is a missionary arm for the LDS Church, I hope you know that their appearance at Trump’s inauguration does not reflect my values or interests[...]'" Newsweek
"As Mormon historian Benjamin Park explained to me, 'Mormonism’s attachment to the Republican Party has largely been centered on the conservative values of the religious right.'" Slate
"...Park, a historian of American religion and a Latter-day Saint, offered an apology..." Slate
"In a commentary published in The Washington Post, Sam Houston State University assistant history professor Benjamin E. Park wrote about the church's history of speaking about against religious tyranny." Daily Herald
"Walker was a 'watershed in the LDS Church's historical conscience,' wrote Benjamin E. Park" SLTrib (Note: By premier secular journalist covering Mormon beat, Peggy Stack)
Stack reviews Terryl and Fiona Givens's The God Who Weeps, quoting Park here
"In a blog post, Benjamin Park, an assistant history professor at Sam Houston State University in Texas, tallied a baker's dozen of 'surprising facts' he gleaned from Prince's book...." SLTrib's Peggy Stack
"...some LDS researchers are celebrating the new direction. ... 'By following the example of the LDS Church History Library in Salt Lake City, which engages with broader academic disciplines and communities, the Maxwell Institute will provide a much better service for the average member as well as the academic world' [said Park]" "Shake-up hits BYU's Mormon studies institute," by Peggy Fletcher Stack, The Salt Lake Tribune
"Park said Smith’s vision was for a 'new civilisation destined to expand as God’s people multiplied. Gathering and city building were not incidental parts of sanctification, but the goal.'" The National of Scotland
"...compact settlements that would go on to influence the planning of hundreds of American towns. 'This farm boy ... dreamed to build a metropolis that rivalled the large seaport cities he had only heard about,' writes the academic Benjamin Park, in a 2013 paper. In the 1830s, Smith laid out a detailed plan called the 'plat of Zion'." The Guardian
"Algunas personas piensan que las persecuciones tenían que ver exclusivamente con la práctica de la poligamia entre los miembros de la religión. Pero el historiador Benjamin Park explica que eso no es así. 'La poligamia se convirtió en una controversia nacional recién en 1852', cuando la iglesia anunció públicamente su práctica durante una conferencia en Salt Lake City, Utah. 'Antes fue practicada en secreto por un número limitado de miembros. Muy poca gente lo sabía', según Park." Per Google Translate: "Some people think that the persecutions had to do exclusively with the practice of polygamy among the members of the religion. But historian Benjamin Park explains that this is not so. 'Polygamy became a national controversy only in 1852,' when the church publicly announced its practice during a conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. 'It was once practiced in secret by a limited number of members. Very few people knew,' according to Park" Univision
"'It teaches the lay reader that [Mormon] facts, quotes and issues aren’t set in stone, nor are they easily decipherable,' Park writes in an email." The (San Jose) Mercury News
Daily (Provo, Utah) Herald
Prominent Mormon speculative lay theologian Terryl Givens gives Park thanks in Given's seminal 'Wrestling the Angel' (Oxford University Press) and cites Park: "...see Benjamin E. Park, “Reasonings Sufficient': Joseph Smith, Thomas Dick, and the Context(s) of Early Mormonism'"here.
Givens and Matthew Grow cite Park's "Parley Pratt's Autobiography as Personal Restoration and Redemption" in Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism, Oxford Univ. Press
Non-Mormon Mormon studies luminary John G. Turner references Park's "'Build, Therefore, Your Own World': Ralph Waldo Emerson, Joseph Smith, and American Antebellum Thought," in Turner's 2016 book "The Mormon Jesus," Harvard Univ. Press, link
etc etc etc.

Respectfully, Guy, I inquire of you, if these are not "multiple reliable sources" per the guidelines at wp:GNG, What in the universe ever could be!--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 19:31, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

To make Wikipedia not an April Fools joke either revamp the guidelines and hereinafter make wp:PROF, wp:AUTH, etc., somehow equal to wp:GNG and wp:BIO or else make some kind of mechanism to universally discount would-be !votes which would prioritize any of the former over any of the latter.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 19:39, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

These are not secondary sources about Park. There are approximately 2 million university professors in the world, and arguing with each other in journals is what they do. This generates citations. The consensus at AfD has converged on the h-index, and everybody agrees that articles on people who pass the GNG get kept at AfD. Compare Park with Massimo Pigliucci, whose wedding was covered by the New York Times. Abductive (reasoning) 00:36, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

I have to agree with Abductive that most of this is not actually about Park in any meaningful sense. It's about polygamy or Joseph Smith or the library or other historians. From what I can tell, Park hasn't even been reviewed in the Journal of Mormon History, much less any bigger-name history journals. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 00:59, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

As mentioned, as a blogger alone the subject is well known (see wp:WEB)! And regarding mention the Mormon History Assoc.'s journal: not only has he published there but here is the subject's very influential among Mormon studies scholars annual rundown of notable books in the field, as published on the Assoc.'s website (which assoc. incidentally had given him the J. Talmage Jones Award for a graduate-student paper of his in 2014). Whereas in the LDS subfield Park has mainly written review journal reviews, his non-"review" articles (see his publications list), both those having to do with the LDS area and those about more general American religious and/or intellectual history, as would be expected, are often cited (see here). (Also as he does have a couple of upcoming books he is preparing ((although he is also otherwise quite busy, I'd imagine))--and, from what I understand, these will not be considered about Mormon studies, per se....)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 01:47, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Two million books are published every year in English alone. Abductive (reasoning) 05:41, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

I concur with User:JzG's perspective above. I know it's disappointing to have one of your articles deleted; I've been there, trust me. But continually escalating this with a "fix" to a non-existent problem is not going to create change. If anything, the notability criteria around biography articles need to be considerably tightened to reduce the piles of low-quality articles on marginally notable living people that we are saddled with. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 07:14, 28 March 2017 (UTC).

The above sources at, a glance, fail "substantial coverage" rather than the "multiple independent reliable" parts of the test. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 08:29, 28 March 2017 (UTC).
Comment I think this should have gone to a deletion review. That said, for example Park being one of 19 people that Givens thanks for their help in reading over drafts of his "Wrestling the Angel" is not really a sign of notability. There might be some that come to substantive coverage, but this is an issue that should be brought up in a review of the deletion. However, even in that case I see little argument. For one think, the response seems to be ignoring what is said. The Mormon History Journal has not as far as I can tell reviewed a book by Park. To show that Park is actually a notable blogger, we would need something more than the one article in the Salt Lake Tribune that draws from what Park said on a blog. He may be a notable blogger, but the sources are not showing this, at least not the ones shown so far. I think people would be much better served by trying to restore the article on Grant Hardy, whose article was deleted a few years back, but since then was the subject of much of an edition of the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies in a way that shows that his literary studies of the Book of Mormon have gained a wide audience.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:07, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Just to be clear, this has already been to DRV. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 23:41, 28 March 2017 (UTC).

reiterated thesis - I didn't actually come to Dr. Wale's (honorary) page to vent. I have a grand idea to improve Wikipedia. Currently the system is very complex. Accdg to Nicholson Baker (see Criticism of Wikipedia#Notability of article topics), our notability standards are arbitrary and essentially unsolvable, with there being "quires, reams, bales of controversy over what constitutes notability in Wikipedia: nobody will ever sort it out." This is currently true. But only because vagaries of practice are collated with the actual language of the guidelines. My proposal is unbelievably simple. Simply disconnect any weight given to vagaries of practice and solely rely on written guide of standard operating procedures, as in integrated circuit plant in Silicon Valley. (If they still have any there.) It isn't Wikipedia's job to figure out if some field is mainstream enough. It only need see if the topic is covered in reliable sources. Period. This simple idea of genius is actually the way the guidelines are written and would make the whole process entirely streamlined. Too many submitted biographies of those d*mned Alt-Right activists out there? Instead of engaging in pretzel games of logic in order to find these guys not notable, simply see if they are covered in multiple reliable sources. And end there. If the Community truly believes there simply are too many of them, put whatever criterion to narrow the field of coverage down a bit right into an addendum to the guidelines somewhere. But do so...precisely!
In the current case, an argument is being made that a potential subject would have to have news or feature articles or newspaper profiles written solely about him. Mere passing mention of his opinion don't count. (Maybe Richard Dawkins would pass measure by that standard. What about such respected experts in the subdiscipline as: Daniel C. Peterson? David F. Holland? Terryl Givens? Ralph C. Hancock? William J. Hamblin? Well, maybe not. Indeed in actual point of fact by such a draconian measure enture swaths of Wikipedia would be deleted! Because, of course, the guidelines simply do not contain any such standard for notability. Period. Such a standard's being but certain editors' extremely fringey theory of practice--and not one even they would resort to consistently but only when they might come across a subject they sense somehow unworthy of coverage (...viz., as in the current case: because the scholar hasn't been deemed to have paid his journeyman dues toward some status of true mastery as of the current time...). But relying on such on-again, off-again, nebulous mere "sensings" between relative statuses, within various WPdians' vagaries of practices is what gets us into the very territory that poor Nicholson Baker is talking about. (I mean: What else would coverage of a commenter be about but his opinions? Surely not t/hier upbringing or how t/hey prepare notable cuisines!)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 18:24, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
continued - The argument "Look. Scholars argue with each other. If we have an article for each and every scholar who gets in an argument, we'll have an article for d*mned every scholar" is especially tinged of vagariness, of being of the not-specifically-in-the-guidelines fringe! The guidelines inquire of a deceptively simple dichotomy. Is there coverage of _X_ in reliable sources: Yea? or, Nay? And the business is done! As it is in a matter conveniently at hand for illustrative purposes: Drs. Peterson, Holland, Givens, Hancock, Hamblin, et al, give full attention to coverages to a proposition within their subdiscipline brought to the fore by one Dr. Park (whom I redlink here per...um of course, wp:REDLINK!). This is the very dictionary meaning of someone's being "of note": "People known to be notable publish in reliable sources about your ideas." Is Patheos a reliable source? Well, does it enjoy editorial review? Are its writers vetted for their qualifications to pontificate about religion? Yes on both counts. So the subject, a public intellectual commentator, has multiple, published full-article coverages of his ideas. Boom! Done. Remember it takes but to pass a single criterion at wp:PROF or wp:AUTH to be considered notable. And lo and behold the very first criterion at wp:AUTH happens to be: Has the subject been referenced by peers? Just as in, perhaps, the public policy of tax reform(?) ha ha ha...Let's have Guideline reform(!!!)--by WP's jettisoning all by-the-pants standards not specifically in the guidelines. (Must a historian have written a book to be notable? Well--- As it turns out: Sometimes not! Just look at the sourcing. Done!...hah!) --Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 18:47, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

I was asked on my talk page to contribute here, presumably because I had already contributed to the Park AfD. My opinion: This is neither the place to relitigate the Park AfD (see WP:DRV) nor to suggest adjustments to the guideline on notability for scholars (see Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics)). As such, putting it here smacks of forum shopping, and is not worth responding to beyond that. Take it to a proper channel if you want change. Or vent here, if all you want to do is vent. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:22, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

I have also been canvassed on my talk page and my views are as above. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:30, 28 March 2017 (UTC).

It was brought to DRV, multiple noticeboards, and over 50 user talk pages. I think Hodgdon should recognize that right or wrong, this effort isn't going anywhere. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:21, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

I think Hodgdon should recognize that when your reaction to being on the losing side of an AfD is to take it to DRV, multiple noticeboards, and over 50 user talk pages (rather than merely getting feelings of mild disappointment at your fellow editors) then you probably have too close an attachment to the subject to be an appropriately neutral editor for it. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:32, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Um guys the incidents notice board is over there: wp:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents, not here. I think what emotions as are communicated thru such mild wp:PERSONAL attacks and moreover a complete lack of any response to my arguments does speak volumes, yes. I mean, you're obviously following the discussion and come here to say---well, to say that you're "not gonna say anything?" or to cast aspersions alleging me as not possessing steady enough of mind on this issue... On somebody else's talk page? Geez. My behavior within Jimbo's forum is possessed of more valid of arguments than that, daresay. (More honor, too.) Me? I get emotional about what I'd see as a great improvement to WP and don't personally really care if Dr. Park gets an immediate blp or not; he's just my illustration of what kind of palpable vagaries go on in delete discussions. Nevertheless yeah I'd be yoo-hoo super excited if we'd be able to make progress toward addressing that issue; so yeah I'll agree I'm exhibiting some reasonable amount of emotion here.

In any case: Sometimes contributors--say those who are academics--can become over-influenced by whatever institutional mandates may exist in their day jobs (eg publish or perish) and can be distracted from what may be somewhat differing standards to be practiced at an encyclopedia such as WP, which is more akin to what's practiced in journalism, in some ways. (Not trying to single out eg Professor(?) Eppstein here; I'm sure he is conscientious to remain as neutral as possible in his contributing on WP regardless of whatever competing professional attitudes he may hold or whatever personal feelings he might have toward subjects in in real life.)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 20:12, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

People who promote change get laughed at/scorned by those happy with the status quo; but, guys, are you really? Please consider....)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 00:28, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Except you're not promoting change in a place that can actually enact change. You' re not being laughed at for trying to do something, you're being laughed at because you're trying to do something in the wrong place. Blackmane (talk) 00:36, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I've sort of rephrased my thesis and have re-posted within a request to Mr. Wales... Here: User talk:Jimbo Wales#Jimmy Wales, please offer your opinion. Thanks to all who have participated in the above discussion!--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 23:24, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

It's time to stop (pertaining to above discussion)

Hodgdon's secret garden, I have only skimmed the situation and I know nothing about Dr. Park. However it is clear that the AFD was overwhelming against you, and your Deletion Review was closed with zero support. This did not need to come to Jimbo's page. You have spammed this to at least three Noticeboards (RSN, ANI, BLPN), and you have spammed at least three sections for this at Village Pump (two on the same Pump page?!?). Furthermore you have spammed around fifty user_talk pages. You have received little-to-no support. It's time to recognize that this crusade isn't going anywhere. You have multiple people above telling you that it's not working, and that it's unwanted. If you continue on this course the community may deem it disruptive. I'll spell it out: If you continue on a course of unproductive escalation, I see a significant chance that it could lead to a block or topic-ban.

Don't bother replying to me about Dr. Park's biography or the Notability standards. I don't care about some random article I've never seen, and I'm not getting into a notability debate. Even if you're right, it's not working. I am only addressing your efforts afterwards, the fact that they aren't working, and the possible result if you continue to escalate on this path. Alsee (talk) 21:40, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Note: I've re-factored its header so this discussion is independant rather than attached above.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 23:12, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Agree. See also, WP:DEADHORSE. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:51, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

cmt - Wow. You're really having a vote about what I can post on a user's talkpage?

(Btw: There was never any deletion review. And my pointers to this discussion posted variuos places were friendly and entirely neutral in tone, per wp:CANVASSING.) Thanks.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 22:05, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

They aren't. They are just trying to help you before you get blocked for being disruptive. RileyBugz (p)^Yell | _Edits 22:06, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Regarding There was never any deletion review, you are aware that we can read, right? In case my comments in reply to your blatant canvassing on my talkpage (and I have no idea why I was selected for the honour, since aside from one obscure article a decade ago I've never shown the slightest interest in LDS topics) weren't clear enough, add me to those warning you; you are acting totally inappropriately over this. ‑ Iridescent 22:24, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Talk about more heat than light....

We had a very pleasant and productive chat on your talkpage, though, I thought, User:Iridescent. In any case, maybe that one LDS-themed WP page was the one I'd been glancing at, Which on was it? Oh and with regard to this this diff someone deleted my DVR request moments after I filed it; so, Where in the world is the review of which you speak! ~~(I was going to say, "If that action was the result of some close investigation of all the minute details then so were Inspector Clouseau's" but bit my tongue.)~~--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 23:43, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Legs-it, Daily Mail, and London time zone

This is bound to come up here sooner or later, so I might as well start it with some facts.

The Daily Mail has a very obnoxious front page today, headlining the legs of 2 prime ministers. The Huffington Post has a story about the front page and some vandalism on Wikipedia, Daily Mail Front Page Outrage Sees Editor Paul Dacre’s Wikipedia Hijacked. In the HP article is a tweet dated 2:27 am March 28, 2017 that points out that the Wikipedia article on Paul Dacre (DM editor) has been the subject of "Excellent ... trolling". You can see that the vandalism took place at 4:26 am and was reverted by Cluebot the same minute and then re-reverted by the same anon 8 minutes later. The anon locates to London. The 2nd vandalism stayed in the article for another 2.5 hours (presumably most Londoners were asleep). So my only question is the difference between the time of the tweet 2:27 am and the time of the first vandalism 4:26 am UTC. Is London's time zone 2 hours earlier than UTC?

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:27, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

London is currently on British Summer Time (BST) which is UTC + 1 hour. The change to BST took place at 0200 hors on Sunday 26 March. Brianboulton (talk) 15:39, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

It would strike me as the wise and humane thing to do to semi-protect Mr Dacre's Wikipedia entry for awhile. While it may be their policy to viciously attack people with whom they have some disagreement, it will never be ours.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:44, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

I tend to agree, and have done so (confirmed users only for three days). Should give User:Philip Cross a break too. Yunshui ^雲 _水 15:49, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

The time of the tweet is currently displayed in the HP article as 7:27. The screenshot shows 7:24. The vandalism was removed at 8:09. Twitter tells me it was tweeted at 23:27 the on the 27th, but that it was also 10 hours ago, which would be about 7 in the morning, London time. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 16:04, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

It is a good idea to protect the article. Clearly I'm having trouble with the hours displayed by twitter and perhaps by Wikipedia. The question I'm really interested in is whether this is a type of "fake news" or maybe "self-made news". The following scenario looks possible, but quite confusing and I'd like to make sure: Anon from London vandalizes our article at 4:26 am (Cluebot reverts at 4:26 am) Vandal tweets at 4:27 am. HuffPo publishes article within the hour. A later edit to the HuffPo quotes the 4:34 edit and the tweet reflects the 4:34 edit (not the 4:26 edit even though it was sent at 4:27). Obviously I'm missing something or somebody is pulling the wool over our eyes. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:43, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Going by my London clock, at the time of the tweet at 7:27 the vandalism had been in the article for around two hours. It's no surprise that some random person would pick it up and tweet it. I couldn't say how the HP created an article within half an hour of the tweet - maybe they write really quickly (it's not a long or complex article) or already had some story prepared - but based on the gap between the vandalism and the tweet I wouldn't describe it as obviously being "self-made news". -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 17:46, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. that helps a bit. The X:27 coincidence and twitter/HufPo displaying times in different time zones is confusing. I still haven't figured out how "11:27 PM - 27 Mar 2017" appears on Twitter, but the same post copied to HufPo says "2:27 AM - 28 Mar 2017". But now I see, by hovering on that 2:27, "28 Mar 2017 6:27:07 (UTC)" appears Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:04, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

It's worth noting that the "offensive edit" was a pending change so it never actually went live in the article. This has happened before with media coverage of controversial edits, and it shows why semi-protection is the best option for BLP articles likely to attract vandalism. Personally, I thought that the "Legs-it" headline was silly rather than downright offensive; I've seen tabloid newspapers do a lot worse. The Mail is unapologetic.[1]--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 17:01, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes, so the edit was never "in" Wikipedia. Whatever the merits, the Scots response was amusing: " "Brexit may risk taking Britain back to the early 1970s but there is no need for coverage of events to lead the way." Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:23, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Actually I'm almost 100% sure the edit was "in the article" and not just a pending change. How so? I looked at the whole set of edits (insert, revert, edited re-revert, and the final revert) at least three times and never saw "pending revision" at the top of the page before just now. Perhaps its appearance now is an artifact of the later semi-protection? If it was just a pending edit, however, that would prove that the tweet and likely the HP story was "self-made news". Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:38, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes, the PC wasn't applied until after the semi-protection, so the edit did go live. Even if it was only pending, so many people have accounts (and will also go to old revisions) that it doesn't prove anything. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 20:03, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Had Risker been around she would have quickly got this sorted. Britain has been on British Summer Time since one o'clock Greenwich Mean Time on Sunday morning, when she advanced clocks one hour. Thus we know for a fact that the tweet timestamp of 07:27 28 March is London time because it is recorded as being made at "06:27 UTC". Wikipedia also keeps UTC, so the vandalism appeared at 05:26 London time on 28 March. The screenshot is timed 07:24, obviously London time. Twitter identifies the post being made at 23:27 27 March so they are using Pacific Daylight Time, not surprisingly as they are based in San Francisco. Huffington Post says it was made at 02:27 so they are using Eastern Daylight time, again no surprise as they are New York based. The timeline on the story, 08:09, 28 March will also be New York time, which is 13:09 in London. So, a reasonable six hours between the vandalism being noticed and Huffington publishing the story - no "self - made news" here. 86.169.56.176 (talk) 09:53, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for sorting out the times. It may not be exactly "self-made news" but it still has a smell to it. The vandalism lasted 2.5 hours until 8:09 am London Time. The tweet was made about a half-hour before at 7:24. www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/ published the story at 13:09 London Time (are you sure? It's the uk version). So the vandalism lasted 2.5 hours and (exactly!) 6 hours later HuffPo publishes a story on a tweet about that vandalism (that it seems to approve of). The vandalism at that point was already dead twice as long as it had lived. You'd think they would check to see if it was still there. Maybe it's not fake news, but somebody clearly was pushing real hard for a cheap thrill story that doesn't pass the smell test. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:22, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

This is the fourth time in a decade that an admin has semi protected the article on Paul Dacre. logs. Two, including the latest, were set as short periods of semi-protection and the other two were reversed after as one admin put it "long enough". I added an indefinite pending changes and I hope that sticks. According to our policy "Indefinite PC protection should only be used in cases of severe long-term disruption", I think that applies here. I take the point that in theory we could get criticised for a pending edit that was never accepted. But if that ever happened we would be able to at least say it was an edit that never went live, and because it was pending changes protected the edit wouldn't have been there for long. If we are ever in such a situation it would be interesting to see what those outside our community think of that response. In this case the edit that prompted the semi protection was only up for a couple of hours, I expect that this is a heavily watched page. Some of the pages that I have put pending changes on had previously been in a vandalised condition for far longer than the longest a pending changes edit persists for without being approved or reverted (and I expect that the oldest pending changes edits are much more borderline than such blatant vandalism). Ϣere SpielChequers 06:01, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

1980s

Wikipedia actually can trace its roots back to the 1990s and even late 1980s B — Preceding unsigned comment added by DoubleAMCCool (talk • contribs) 01:59, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Depending on what you mean by "trace its roots back" Wikipedia can be traced back to the 3rd century BC Library of Alexandria. So let's hear your punchline! Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:32, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Thousands of articles still incorporate text from the 1911 version of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Wikipedia:1911_Encyclopedia_topics. That was done about a decade ago and I wonder if the more recent editions are now also in the public domain? Ϣere SpielChequers 10:22, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

And Wikipedia vandals can trace their lineage back to at least the Sack of Rome in 355 AD (or perhaps further back, to the destruction of the Temple of Artemis in 356 BC). Herostratus (talk) 13:00, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

And spammers 17,000 years ago to the Lascaux Caves. I wonder how many archaeologists and others realise that when they circulate those pictures of bison and other prey they are forwarding the adverts of Ug, Ug and Ig, wildlife managers to the cognoscenti, and specialists in sustainable husbandry of Aurochs, Megaloceros and European Rhinoceros? Ϣere SpielChequers 17:05, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia logo animation

Hello Mr. Wales,

Some Wikipedians @ WP:VPMISC ([2]) thought you might enjoy this Wikipedia logo animation User:Slashme and I made. Psiĥedelisto (talk) 05:23, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

I like it, but could you render it again with the mediawiki grey background? If so, I have a script ready to replace the main logo with it. User:TParis/animwikilogo.js.--v/r - T P 00:59, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia acquisition

This page contains material that is kept because it is considered humorous.
Such material is not meant to be taken seriously.

Can I buy Wikipedia for a sum of 7 million USD? I need to rid FAKE NEWS off it! --RealdonaldtrumpWH (talk) 05:40, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

All joking aside, $7M wouldn't be nearly enough to get the deal done. Come back when you've got $1.2B. Carrite (talk) 15:37, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Jimmy Wales, please offer your opinion

Jimmy:

So odd that to add content to articles editors must carefully select and cite sources but to cast votes to delete article editors can simply give a quick up or down without reference to any guideline and this counts the same weight as fellow editors who base their determination solely on the guidelines. Surely a new culture can be encouraged wherein if somebody:

Simply states a naked, "Not notable." - This will account for nothing.
References some not applicable guideline. (Eg, when voting on a prominent author of review articles, to call for deletion when citing wp:TOOSOON--a guideline which says to await until actors, and NOT authors, to some secondary sourcing!) - This will account for nothing. (This, despite the editor's actual agenda, which might be such as t/heir wishing to institutionalize on Wikipedia the publish-or-perish standards of academia through advancing the sentiment, "This reviews author hasn't published a full length book. How can he be a notable 'historian'?"
Alleges the author lacks verifiable secondary sources establishing notability as an opinion maker when patently obvious the author person does. - This will account for nothing. (Or, this one with a twist, adding a "by the way" that contains the editor's original research that "[The author] did not really attend Cambridge after all!!!"...despite ubiquitous published profiles of the person as such an alumnus.

Likewise, should a deletion review be requested, the topic should be allowed to stand rather than be summarily deleted with some comment about how long the editors who voted as above have been editing Wikipedia. I mean, Who cares how long they've been acting in this fashion? I don't care if they are Jimmy Wales (sorry for the 3nd-person reference to you, sir: but you get the gist!) himself! If Wales gives that kind of authority to buttress a call for an article's deletion, such a "vote," if I can generously term it that, should be reviewed!

Mr. Wales, a very common criticism of Wikipedia is that there is no standard for notability. And in practice this surely proves true!

But this can be rectified! Simply require that editors be as persnickety in establishing their deletion !votes as they are for establishing sourcing for their contributions of article content. Isn't anything else below what would be the best for Wikipedia? Should entire articles rise or fall based on the type of reasoning above when all article content itself must be checked with a fine-toothed comb for verifiability? Such a discrepancy makes absolutely no senses at all.

Sincerely yours,

Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 22:40, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

PS

Extended content

1.7% of the American population self-identifying as Mormon makes a lot of readership interested in reading on this topic. The Council of Fifty (formal name: The Kingdom of God etc etc etc) preceded Brigham Young's State of Deseret (which was originally nominally independent of the U.S.). Many LDS know little about this stage of Mormon history, and if they do it is through the lense of those making histories with a devotional purpose. However, recently the LDS Church has been hiring historians with a certain amount of completely secular bonefides to complete more objective histories of the Mormon faith. And last year the LDS Church History Department's Director of Publications Dr. Matthew Grow released an edition of The Council of Fifty, Minutes, March 1844–January 1846, published by The Church Historian's Press, which is an imprint of Deseret Book. Surely Grow merits coverage as an author of multiple full-length books. But the oft-cited reviewer of the release is Benjamin E. Park. And Park's reviews is here:here: "The Mormon Council of Fifty: What Joseph Smith’s Secret Records Reveal", at Religion & Politics, September 9, 2016.

Interested readers will want to know who Park is, too. And it turns out that Park's opinion as to what might be a more nuanced type of Mormon apologetic, one that takes more pains to interact with the secular Academy, has been discussed at length in full-pieces by several renowned LDS scholars who in turn have referenced other such scholars about Park's views--and these pieces have have been published in reliable sources: namely in essays published at Patheos.com, which enjoys editorial oversight and vets its contributors as acknowledged experts in whatever field of religious scholarship. (See discussion User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Suggested_fix"Suggested fix" above.)

--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 22:59, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

It is true that our fundamental standard for notability, WP:GNG, is inconsistent, unreliable, and extremely naive. It deals only with what things get publicity, and not with any actual importance or service to the reader. It creates an immense bias towards those areas where every inconsequential matter is given extensive coverage in what passes for news sources, and prevents covering the important aspects of the world that are a less obviously documented. Fortunately, we to some degree realize this, because in practice AfD disputes usually focus on the question of whether the sources are truly reliable, independent and substantial, and anyone experienced with the manner of arguing here can in most cases argue for these in either direction. And when we argue in AfD discussions, each of us normally argues these in such a way as to come to the conclusion we individually desire, to include only those things we think should be included in an encyclopedia. So in effect, the contents of the encyclopedia depends upon a rough general consensus of what ought to be included , much more than it does on the literal interpretation of guidelines. The net result is surely not what any individual one of us thinks the coverage of WP ought to be, but rests on a compromise by which each of us lets those interested in the various areas get them included to a reasonable extent, in exchange for their letting us include to some extent what we think important. This sort of mutual tolerance is the true meaning of consensus--something which nobody might would prefer if they were the dictator of our coverage, but which most of those active here can live with.

There are a few areas where we actually do have rational standards, though ewe sometimes call them only "presumed" notability . The most distinct one, and established as not presumed but definitive, is WP:PROF, which is based upon the actual criteria which those in the subject field being covered use themselves to determine significance. It's the soundest and most rational of our guidelines; it does have its limits--the decisions people make sometimes do show prejudices against areas that some people here have considered unimportant or of lower quality (the most notorious one is the bias against academic areas where women have traditionally particularly numerous, such as education or nursing or home economics.) You are arguing above in effect that Mormon Studies is one such affected area, and I have indeed detected some bias against the academic field of religion. But it is still a more rational guideline than the GNG, and we need to establish other similar guidelines (In practice we already interpret "presumed" to be definitive in some cases, as for Olympic athletics, or populated places.)

However, it is unreasonable for those who dislike the result in a particular individual case to try to change the general rule to favor the particular person or other subject that they want to include. Bias here is best fought by making people aware of it, with the assumption that most of us here -- to some extent more than in the world in general-- have a predisposition to correct it when pointed out to us.) It is furthermore unnecessary to change the general rules to accommodate particular cases, for we do apply the fundamental rule of WP:IAR in determining notability. Whether we apply it depends upon whether people are convinced by the argument, and under our general system for making decisions, there's no other possible basis. (Whether the result is one I would agree with in the particular instance being complained of is totally irrelevant. It is better to have a fair & definitive manner of decision even though the result in any one particular case may be wrong, than to try to manipulate the system to get what one personally wants in a particular instance.) DGG ( talk ) 04:15, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

The premise that "a quick up or down without reference to any guideline...counts the same weight" in deletion discussions is not an accurate representation of the process. Admins closing these discussions are instructed to weigh the quality of arguments presented, not to merely count noses.

And demanding that we "require that editors be as persnickety in establishing their deletion !votes as they are for establishing sourcing for their contributions of article content" would actually be inconsistent with Wikipedia's approach to content. As Hodgdon's secret garden has observed, when dealing with individual claims within articles we recognize that the onus is on the editors arguing for inclusion to make their case; in contentious cases we err on the side of excluding content. Deletion discussions are already far less strict in their requirements. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 12:58, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Comment-Well,I believe the time has come to drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass--as so many editors have told.And, stop taking the high- ground, that you are alone the sole practitioner of the WP notability policies and all those who voted at that AFD or commented in the previous thread--are fools en masse.This is the place to neither decide the merits of the Park AfD (that too after you lost a WP:DRV) nor to suggest adjustments to the guideline on notability for scholars/DReview in general.And given the way WP works, I hardly think an utterance from Jimbo, irrespective of his opinions, will suddenly alter the views of the community or bring back your article.If anything, the notability criteria concerned with academic biography articles need to be considerably tightened to reduce the piles of low-quality articles on marginally notable living people/profs that we are saddled with.Further, if you're not exactly aware, admins/closers closing these discussions are instructed to weigh the quality of arguments presented and not to merely count ballots.Also, WP is not a city-side-walk where you throw anything and expect us to go bonkers over making it encyclopaedic. The onus is(and shall be) on the editors arguing for inclusion to make their case.And your replies in the prev. thread (along with the 6th law at WP:CGTW) speaks volumes about the true motives of all these pleas and so!Cheers!Winged Blades^Godric 17:35, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

note - I really appreciate GNG, et al's, thoughtful consideration to my questions here. (Although please note that whereas I can't reasonably expect everybody always to assume my good faith, I did endeavor in framing my argument above to make it clear (_i._) I don't care a rat's a** about whether Park gets coverage; but (_ii._) I care about consistency in applications of notability standards throughout the encyclopedia.)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 22:41, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

If you expect consistency on Wikipedia, you are in for a rude awakening, but the standard for Park was correct and the problem is not that Park was deleted but that a large number of abysmally sourced biographies have not been. If we're writing articles on students of the book of Mormon, my vote goes to Noah Lugeons, Heath Enwright and Eli Bosnick. Guy (Help!) 09:50, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

GNG is just fine. It's the rest of the politicking over notability that is the problem. You need a minimum of two reliable sources that are designed to cover the topic. If you have multiple people looking at a topic and writing about it, then Wikipedia can make an article; otherwise it would be very incomplete. And Wikipedia should make an article whenever it can make an article - provided someone is willing to do the work, of course. Do note that the sources do have to actually cover the topic, not just mention it - in the case of a professor, we can't just have two notable books he wrote; they ought to be things that make a fair effort to describe him biographically. Still, the process should generally favor letting editors cover topics when they want to. We have very much the wrong line of defense here, where nobody seems willing to question Square Enix's God-given right to have a featured ad on the front page every 180 days for over a decade, yet everyone is eager to beat up on a company they say doesn't deserve the publicity of having an unread entry in the back pages of Wikipedia -- despite adequate sourcing! I would think not everybody can be front-page material, so that's not a right we should respect, but the ability of an editor to write decently sourced articles and have them retained without having to defend how "important" they are should be. Maybe this has something to do with how the Orangemoody operation was able to shake down companies for cash to avoid having their articles deleted over some technicality! Wnt (talk) 19:19, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

I could not agree more. I do not think Wikipedia should ever be the first place to write an independent biography of someone. Oh, and PR bios don't count for establishing notability. Guy (Help!) 09:45, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

crystal ball - I'm all for the status quo, with regard WP's coverage to be granted scholars, of the consensus that they must pass wp:PROF, wp:GNG be damned. But it doesn't speak well for Wikipedia to have the actual guidelines at both GNG and PROF say that PROF is merely an alternate means of granting coverage when there is otherwise not enough sourcing. WP is past its adolescence and is ready to mature into something more rigorous in its practices with regard determining notability. This will happen eventually happen and what is at present essentially an wp:IAR-ist seat-of-the-pants-ism (whether editors are self-aware enough to realize this is the case or not) will be over. I just want to go on record as someone who read the tealeaves (Although whether I have done so during anywhere near the right Zeitgeist remains to be determined.) Eventually there will be a wp:GNG that takes into account the general practices within various quarters of the encylopedia as well as WP's coming to have a sort of bar exam that admins closing AfD discussions will have had to have passed and procedures will be normalized. Mark my words.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 22:55, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

This sounds like a bar exam that depends on systematically ignoring all the agreed-upon policies of Wikipedia in favor of the right of some little cabal of deletionists to keep using whatever acronym is handiest at the moment to vote for the deletion of perfectly good articles that "just won't do" because they might publicize the wrong people. Because possession (of AFD) is nine tenths of the law, and that's what's on the exam. How quaint. Inclusionists should know to hire a few folks to program a lot of bots to ignore them and put equally bogus Keep votes; then they will have 9/10 of the law on their side. Wnt (talk) 01:05, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Welp, it is past time for Wikipedia to become a peer-reviewed site that will never ever fail, just like Nupedia! RileyBugz ^{Yell at me} | _Edits 01:07, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Should we be more diligent with articles about trademarked items?

Hello Mr. Wales, and page stalkers. I came across a thing that I believe deserves our attention. It came as an uncontroversial technical request to facilitate a page move[3] that involved the rewriting of the article about the Hacky Sack, a trademarked item owned by Wham-O, to transform it into an article about the trade-name as a generic trademark. No reference was given to show the trademark had lost its protection and I could not find a source that referenced such a claim. I don't know how prevalent these types of rewrites are, but Wham-O has also had Frisbee, Hula Hoop, Magic Sand, and Trac Ball rewritten as well. AFAICT, none of the rewrites have a reference showing the trademark had become free for such oft and common use. Consider this source, titled "Losing Grip on the FRISBEE" where it says:

Wham-O is facing an uphill battle in seeking to keep its trademark alive. ... The opening sentence in a Wikipedia article about "Flying Disks" states: "Flying disks (commonly called Frisbees) are disk-shaped objects ..." This sentence alone exemplifies that the FRISBEE mark is in a lot of trouble. The word "commonly" and the term "Frisbees"—a trademark used in a plural form with no ® sign next to it or even a single mention of Wham-O—sound like a public verdict of genericness.

The block-quote is from a 2010 article about Wham-O's litigation to defend their Frisbee trademark while Wikipedia had already began describing it as a generic trademark. Our policy is not robust in this regard and I think we can be better stewards of these trademark tales than the examples I have seen. I am curious to know how others feel about this posting, in particular, the thoughts of Mr. Wales Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 00:55, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

I see nothing wrong with adding to policy what types of trademark representations should be made and that specifies the kind of sourcing required. (As an aside, with respect to the blockquote's point, its hard to say that should have any impact, because 1) it could have been in fact true that frisbee is used in that way, and 2) the blog's point could have just been a way of saying it's common knowledge.) -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:06, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm skeptical.

First, we have Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Trademarks tht covers much of this ground already.
2nd, from the source quoted by the OP, the trademark owner has a responsibility to properly inform the public about the trademark's use, e.g. "If a mark is improperly used in third party materials (such as media articles), promptly ask the author to correct the improper use."
3rd, the essence of this intellectual property right is to distinguish the owner's products from competing products. Wikipedia doesn't have a competing product in almost all cases. It is simply providing information.
4th, a Wikipedia article will in general only reflect the common use of the potentially trademarked term. Thus it is just a symptom, not a cause, of the potential trademark owner's problem.

However, I can see a case where paid editors, working for the trademark owner, might not be able according to their contract to use the generic version. In that case they should simply declare their paid status, and put their comments on the talk page of the article. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:29, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Well, what about those who have a vested interest in using someone else's trademark (or defending against a trademark claim)? I don't think we can assume shenanigans go one way. Also, MOS would be a pretty senseless place to have a content rule. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:47, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Not our problem. My son is a national champion in Ultimate, it's widely known as ultimate frisbee, even though the WFDF are at pains to point out that it's a trademark. Hoover no doubt feel the same way. Trademarks become genericised, we describe it, we don't make it so and we have no role in either making it happen or stopping it from happening. That said, if you can point out examples of users paid to protect trademarks against sourced genericisation, then feel free to do so. Guy (Help!) 21:52, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Frisbee, sure; but can he swirl a nice design in my mocaccino? - 172.56.29.92 (talk) 12:42, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

I appreciate your, and the above replies. To be clear, this posting meant only to discuss genercising a trade-name, and concepts of best practice in so doing. I have no specific knowledge or information involving conflict editing or agenda driven motivations; and so: can not comment on these beyond general terms. In general, therefore, while I have not seen examples resisting trademark genericisation against verifiable sourcing, I have seen examples effecting trademark genericisation in lieu of the same.

In my opinion, any best practice in genercising these type terms would intuitively be underpinned in consideration of COI editing, and preclude both extremes, in policy, by the inclusion of a sourcing standard. While unambiguous policy language describing this sort of change as requiring reliable source verification upon any edit effecting such change would satisfy the best of my hopeful outcomes, I am becoming more convinced, by sentiments so far replied, that some-such policy language would, in fact, be useful.--John Cline (talk) 03:41, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes, probably. We had this come up at Talk:AR-15 variant (the question was whether it would be OK to move the article to just "AR-15", even though the article is about this kind of weapon in general and "AR-15" is a brand trademark, since everybody talks and writes about this general weapon type as "AR-15s". I asked about it at the village pump and was told:

Trademark violation only occurs if you seek to trade by using a trademark. Thus, if (for some bizarre reason) the WMF decided to sell facial tissues as a fund-raiser, we could call them "Wikipedia facial tissues" but not "Wikipedia kleenex". However, we are free to move our article facial tissue to "kleenex" if we wanted to. (We could expect a lot of harumphing and cease-and-desist letters, and of course anybody can sue you, but apparently we'd win the suit.) According to the erudite-seeming editor User:Someguy1221, "Actual case law, as well as legal theory, takes a very dim view of litigants who have tried to use trademark law to stop people from talking about their marks, even incorrectly". This editor also said "At OTRS, at least when I was a regular, we would get these complaints all the time. It was treated as a non-issue..."

To my mind there is the question... does it make our material less suitable for downstream use if, in using it, one is subject to possible cease-and-desist letters, even of they're actually pretty toothless and don't actually have the law behind them? I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. Certainly even including "Brand X was sued for dumping pollutants" in an article could lead to a cease-and-desist letter to a downstream user, so... where do you draw the line? Herostratus (talk) 15:44, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you Herostratus; your regards are well placed and well spoken! I look forward to the replies they ought elicit. I will reserve my own, at this time; they would only echo the validity of yours, anyway. Thanks again.--John Cline (talk) 07:39, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Herostratus, nice example. I'll remember that. Guy (Help!) 09:56, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

So, lets unpack some issues:

1) When writing of a trademark, how and when do we express and source that the term is trademarked?

1a) Conversely, what is required in terms of sourcing to for us to write that a trademark is now genericized?

2) When writing of 'general usage', how and when do we express and source general usage?

3) How and when is it best practice to present both "views" (1 and 2), NPOV fashion, of the trademarked term at the same time or in close relation to each other?

4) The above questions go to article content but then there is the separate issue of: Is there any guidance to be given with respect to article titles?

5) Placeholder: for downstream but really until we answer the above, does it matter? -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:29, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Administrators and higher roles need to meet more stringent qualifications for their positions

Jimbo, two enlightenments have emerged from recent discussions here, primarily the contributions from Jytdog and Coretheapple identified below:

The 2 enlightenments are: 1: From Jytdog's edits: The majority of Administrators are unable or unwilling to allow the aggressive usage of administrative tools to shut down paid and unpaid advocate editing and 2: From CoretheappleRe: Conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia, including paid editing, Jimbo and the Foundation have taken inadequate action and are not likely to take adequate action in the future

Jimbo, in order to address these and many other recurring issues on Wikipedia, I feel that a solution will not result from your suggestion that we "make more administrators". Our problem is not the quantity of admins, its the quality of admins. I suggest that with more admins with the mindset of Jytdog and Coretheapple, we will have no COI problem, so I think you or we should strike a committee of respected Wikipedians to draft up a test of 50 questions or less to present to all existing admins (1 question at a time, at the same moment to all admins, with 10 seconds to answer, thus avoiding cheating or collaboration on the answers) The questions would be designed to determine the intellect, education, common sense and wiki knowledge of the candidates.

Below are the comments referred to above: "......I want to emphasize that I am seeing a possible solution opportunity in the content ofUser:Jytdog's sentence: "It is pretty easy to tell by reading an article with WP's policies and guidelines in mind, if an advocate has had a big influence on it.". An opportunity to completely bypass the "paid,unpaid,privacy and self-declaration" contortions by simply encouraging our Admins. to use their own experience, observations and judgment to quickly, using their existing authority, bring advocates of all type to heel by way of warnings, blocks and reverting edits made by advocates of any kind. Nocturnalnow (talk) 19:20, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

NocturnalNow admins who go rogue (different from WP:Rogue admin) eventually get their bit yanked. Things have to follow processes established by the community. But sure any editor can bring an edit warring case, supported by diffs; anybody can be brought to ANI for showing a sustained pattern of POV/TENDENTIOUS editing or behavior. Sometimes that is difficult to show especially on issues involving complex content. I have brought a few long term POV-pushing cases at ANI and had them go nowhere, as it takes a lot of work and time sometimes for others to dig in and see the pattern in order to even start judging, and on top of that wiki-politics too often get in the way. Sometimes it is pretty easy to show. And mind you, such cases can be brought against somebody who is overzealous about COI/paid editing as well, and this is very likely going to happen to Inlinetext soon. Jytdog (talk) 19:45, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Nobody is talking about going rogue, just more aggressively using existing Admin authority to deal with advocates. If an innocent editor is mistakenly identified as an advocate, he/she has an appeal process or can go to ANI themselves. At the least, you can shut down the advocates who, as you say, are the most obvious about it. I am sure the community would much rather have aggressive anti-advocate administration rather than getting stuck in this unsolvable COI/paid editing/unpaid advocacy/privacy/ conundrum. I would also note that this may have become, intentionally or not, a victim of "constructive confusion"....a situation which has become much more complicated and confusing than need be which tends to favour the status quo or whomsoever has the most staying power in the debate. Nocturnalnow (talk) 15:11, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

I am exactly talking about "aggressive use" of the tools when I talk about going rogue. The community worries about this, specifically on this issue. For an example, please carefully read Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Brianhe, which was hard to watch. Jytdog (talk) 21:58, 18 March 2017 (UTC)"

"Nocturnalnow Well certainly, Same here. But there are limits. Over a period of years I've become weary of the lack of interest in the subject from the so-called "community," the opposition from many, and inadequate action by Jimbo and the Foundation, who are the affected parties here. Yes there are occasional legal actions by the Foundation. There is that TOU. There is occasional jawboning by Jimbo. That's it. That's all it ever is. I "Joe Coretheapple," anonymous, brilliant Wikipedia editor, stand to lose nothing if Wikipedia goes to the dogs due to COI editing. That's not even my name. Even if it was, so what? I don't own this site. I have nothing at stake. They do. Coretheapple (talk) 22:22, 19 March 2017 (UTC)"

Above proposal by Nocturnalnow (talk) 19:41, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Hard cases make bad law. For the most part, we can deal with crap just fine. Every now and then we get an outbreak of paid editing that exposes a significant and vocal good-faith minority view which is permissive of this. I cannot think of anything more dangeorus to Wikipedia than a culture in which admins do not get challenged at all when they identify abuse. However much those challenges might frustrate the hell out of me sometimes. Guy (Help!) 19:47, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

I certainly appreciate the compliment (everyone, not just adminsitrators, should be more like me). But I should point out that making the admin corps stronger, weeding out the many many bad apples and halfwits, and generally improving life for the commonweal is next to impossible at Wikipedia. Still, it's good to keep on thinking. Much appreciated, Coretheapple (talk) 19:50, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

There is no proposal here, and things are not as simple as you make them out to be. I perhaps mislead you with my "it is pretty easy tell" thing but some is based on a misunderstanding of WP:ADMIN.

Probably most importantly, admins work on what interests them and they can't be compelled to work on any specific admin task or aspect of problematic behavior.

Admins do have the authority to block in certain circumstances (see WP:WHYBLOCK) and to protect pages under certain circumstances (see Wikipedia:Protection policy). As Guy says, somebody has to be really clearly disruptive or NOTHERE to get an admin block without some prior community action; most cases of COI and PAID editing fall below that threshold, which is why we have to do the painstaking work on the ground. Jytdog (talk) 19:57, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

ok, I finally get it. Jytdog,Guy, and Coretheapple , thank you for taking the time to explain everything. The issue is sort of like dealing with an increasing infestation of mosquitoes and the more effective weapons, like DDT have extreme negative effects which prohibit their usage. So, it looks like Jimbo, after all, has come up with the best way to cope with a problem which we can never really completely eliminate, which is to "make a lot more Administrators" i.e. mosquito swatters. So, I think we should all get behind Jimbo's idea of making many more Administrators, and, hopefully, if possible (maybe its not), tasking some of them with focusing on advocate/COI/paid editing abuses. I am very concerned about the possibility of the number of paid editors dramatically increasing because there are lots of locations where $2,000. per year is a lot of money, not to mention that there are lots of students...even pre-teens...who might be recruited by the COI profiteers. But I will say no more about it as, because of your help, I have finally come to understand the complexities of the problem. Also, I do already know that there really are some problems which have no solution and all that can be done is to mitigate the damage, so I'm putting this problem in that category. Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:12, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Your concern and alarm are understandable, but keep in mind that it has been discussed forever and it is wearying. There is for example an entire class of options brokers that is riddled with COI and paid editing, creating and sustaining articles. Jimbo and the Foundation take limited steps, and Jimbo speaks out against the issue, but do little and ultimately want volunteers to sacrifice their time to aid their personal and corporate reputations by curbing such abuses. The rewards inherent in such activity are limited, and it is not entirely risk free. Coretheapple (talk) 14:21, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

"Making more administrators" will not help as they still have to follow blocking policy. If you somehow manage to change policy to prohibit paid editing then you'd see a difference in how the existing admin corps acts. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 14:27, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

It's not beyond the realm of possibility for a good, volunteer editor to respond to one of those ads and do paid work. That is the kind of thing that makes paid editing enforcement especially hazardous. They're not necessarily socks and SPIs. But again, it's been talked to death, especially here. Offhand I can't think of a single discussion on this page on this subject that has led to literally anything. Coretheapple (talk) 14:32, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Making more admins would probably help the issue or at least contribute to stabilising it. Obviously as volunteers they can't be assigned tasks, but if we can stabilise the numbers we might avoid admins being persuaded away to other urgent tasks. Otherwise as admin numbers fall so the site will become more vulnerable to spammers and other badfaith editors. Our biggest victories over vandalism came in part from ever improving anti vandalism tools. I'm not entirely sure what anti spam software would look like, but I suspect that a more aggressive policy on checkuser software and range blocking or institution blocking would be useful. Designing such tools to be more effective whilst still privacy compliant will not be easy, but I think that is the area we should be focusing on. Ϣere SpielChequers 10:41, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Almost nothing gets fixed from here, unless you wp:SOFIXIT yourself: In many cases, the solution is to create a wp:RfC to get consensus to wp:SOFIXIT in some way, perhaps small improvements each time. It's not just advocacy-edit problems, but many other issues do not get fixed by just "800 viewers" of Jimbo's talk-page. Look back through talk-page archives and count the lost suggestions. Even count the suggested redlink articles that are still redlinks years later. You can ask Jimbo for advice, but few of the readers here will give extra priority to suggestions made. There are too many other issues underway. The Jimbo talk-page even has the top wp:edit-notice advising users to seek solutions elsewhere. Otherwise, try to solve 20 suggestions other users have posted first, before asking here for further help. -Wikid77 (talk) 15:24, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

The zeal, however, is commendable. Over time it fades. Coretheapple (talk) 21:35, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Why don't you add to the discussion over at m:Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2017/Cycle 1 and tell them that the single most important thing we can do together over the next 15 years is reduce advocacy editing? The Foundation won't want to hear it though, as increasing "community engagement" is more important to them. Putting serious dampers on advocates will seriously reduce "community engagement" because advocates are a significant portion of the "community". The admins you are looking for are outnumbered and overwhelmed with the flood of personal and corporate "biographical" content. If you make it too easy to become an administrator, you will get advocates becoming administrators and have regulatory capture. wbm1058 (talk) 00:11, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Like most of Wikipedia, there are underlying structural problems which the system won't allow fixing,and then there is a fuzzy system to sort of makes it work anyway. The idea of "once you have the tool belt you are automatically qualified to do even the most high powered and difficult tasks (close RFC's, disclipine even experience editors)" is ridiculous. Second, there is a wide disparity in the admin pool. For most of it the criteria to be an admin is "got in back when it was easy" and, for the few newer ones, in additoin to valid criteria, it's "never got involved in any difficult area". Solution:

For current new admins, establish the criteria and have the responders discuss those particular criteria, not the vague political mess that we have now. .
Set up additional special skills certifications required for more difficult / higher level admin areas such as: 1. Disclipining established editors. 2. Closing complex RFC's,AFD's etc.

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 00:46, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

That seems like 2 great ideas, North8000 (talk). Nocturnalnow (talk) 03:04, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

North8000 (talk), what's the next step for implementing your 2 suggestions? Nocturnalnow (talk) 15:20, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Getting community consensus for them. Which is highly unlikely. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 15:23, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

I fear Neil is right. I have been getting crap almost from the moment I was trusted with the Mop-and-Bucket for being too mean to COI editors (paid and otherwise). Unless the consensus finally concedes that they do far, far more harm than good, we will accomplish only the most microscopic of improvements. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:47, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Yep. Example A. "I care about new users", indeed. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 16:57, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

The heck?! We need more stringent rules for admins? I don't think that we actually want the community to basically require admins to have like a 10 year tenure (as opposed to the usual tenure that is generally required by some editors of say 2, 3, or 4), which I feel that we are on the path to. Also, I think that the admins that we do have are of excellent quality, but they can't do everything. Also, if we had more admins, then we should be able to have admins occasionally double check the others' work. This proposal would just be the nail in the coffin of new RfA's, which are stopping. Honestly, I think that this proposal isn't paying any attention whatsoever to one of Wikipedia's biggest problems—editor retention. Bad idea. RileyBugz ^{Yell at me} | _Edits 16:53, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

I also just wanted to add this, we are all volunteers. This goes hand-in-hand with my argument about editor retention, and I just wanted to point this out. RileyBugz ^{Yell at me} | _Edits 16:54, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

No we don't need more stringent rules for admins, and the de facto criteria are high, but lower than many think; Hence the phenomenon of many fearing to run but most new admins having passed by high margins. The "never got involved in any difficult area" theory is interesting, but I'm not convinced, if anything the opposite is true. Recently mucking up in a difficult area is a disqualification for adminship, but those who never get involved in a difficult area will get turned down for "no need for the tools". Upbundling the blocking of regulars is something I've supported in the past, but it failed to get consensus mainly because of the unfairness of having admins being able to discipline the newbies in a dispute but having to escalate the disciplining of the other side of the dispute to the crats or whoever takes over blocking the regulars. Find a solution for that, and yes potentially we could restrict blocking of accounts that have over 500 edits to a smaller group of people. Ϣere SpielChequers 17:48, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Hmm, restricting the blocking of regulars to certain people might be a good idea, but I think that we would have to expand on this idea. First off, if this does become a thing, I think that the perm should automatically be given to crats, and the crats should also be allowed to grant the perm to admins that they think display exceptional judgement. Also, regulars would have to be redefined. I think that we could probably define regulars as people with above, say, 1000 edits and 6 months tenure. This would just be for protection against sneaky socks. But, before we actually try and make this a thing, I think that we need to see some statistics to see what percentage of blocks are regulars being blocked (as I have defined regulars) and what percentages of blocks to regulars are overturned (or possibly highly disputed). This will give us an idea of if this is actually a problem or not. RileyBugz ^{Yell at me} | _Edits 18:14, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Yesterday, I reviewed a cafe on Google Maps after I ate there. Google then gave me a pleasant surprise; telling me that I qualified to be a level 3 Local Guide and asking whether I wanted to join up. It was interesting that the bundle of powers at this level included the ability to moderate discussions; the sort of thing that our admins do. I had slackened off on my reviews but their programmme encourages me to do more. It's quite different from what happens on Wikipedia where content creators are commonly treated with suspicion and actively persecuted. Consider User:Cwmhiraeth, for example – someone who has created so much content that they have won the Wikicup twice. They are currently wondering whether to try RfA but the feedback there doesn't rate her chances. Andrew D. (talk) 18:09, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
Administration is not purely about content creation, it's about the ability to handle oneself in difficult situations, about the ability to not bear a grudge, about the ability to be told to fuck off regularly and not react, or to be called a prick by fellow admins, or to be claimed as being anti-Semitic without any recourse. In particular, editors who have been around a while, as you have Colonel, will naturally divide the community into groups. The longer they've been around, the bigger the groups are, and it only takes a handful of dissenting voices to scuttle an RfA. And frankly, who needs the stress of RfA's when some of the opposition voting is patently absurd and doesn't reflect the need to maintain the integrity of Wikipedia as a core project. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:19, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

A successful RfA normally demands sufficient edits to prove you know what you're doing, but not so many that you've butted heads with many ideology blocs, POV-pushers or trolls, especially those with off-site discussion groups (e.g. GamerGaters). Call me cynical. Guy (Help!) 20:15, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

I'd be interested to see how many editors with say eight years experience here have gone for RFA successfully. Butting heads with the pricks, anti-Semites, fuck-offers, etc is an inevitability, the longer you leave it, the less successful it's going to be. Like getting pregnant I suppose. The older/wiser mothers are less likely to succeed than the younger/naive mothers. Fact of life, force of nature. No point in fighting it. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:20, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Answering question above on my ideas, these two could probably be started by baby steps.

On the new admin process start an outline of the key qualities needed, and start promoting pasting it in and responding on the points on reviews for new admins. Sort of like the criteria and outline provided for Good Article criteria / reviews.

On the extra qualifications, we could start with the extra qualities needed for someone who would be disciplining / using tools against established editors. Make up a name for it. Start as an essay, then elevate it to a guideline, in th e beginning only to nail down the process for obtaining that moniker, not (yet) to require it for those situations.

Sincerely, North8000 (talk)

How did this change from a conversation about not having enough admins to tackle COI-editing to a conversation about making it potentially harder for admins to tackle established COI editors? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 23:17, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Ok, now that you brought that up, it becomes clear to me that the proposal to not allow admins to block regulars would just further us from our goals. RileyBugz ^{Yell at me} | _Edits 23:36, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Not that I plan to carry it further here, but I think that the overgeneralization issue is fundamental to the topic as defined by the section header. North8000 (talk) 11:43, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

To NeilN, Its a group creativity technique by which efforts are made to find a conclusion for a specific problem by gathering a list of ideas spontaneously contributed by its members., otherwise known as Brainstorming. Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:57, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Derailment seems apt. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 15:01, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes I'm having trouble following this conversation. Personally I see COI as less of an administrative issue as it is a Foundation issue, for reasons I've explained previously. And since the Foundation wants the "community" to in effect protect its reputation, these discussions tend not to be productive as the "community" is riddled with COI, advocacy and pro-COI editors. Coretheapple (talk) 16:55, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

North8000 (talk) 's 2 specific suggestions above are a good start. Let's focus on moving forward on those ideas unless someone has any better ideas. Nocturnalnow (talk) 18:45, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

A good start for what? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 19:33, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, I'll rephrase. I'm just suggesting we focus on North800s suggestions in order to give them a fair hearing. Perhaps "start" was an unnecessary word. Nocturnalnow (talk) 23:14, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

North8000 (talk) 's 2 specific suggestions above are good, imo. Let's focus on moving forward on those ideas unless someone has any better ideas. Nocturnalnow (talk) 23:14, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Wanna test a theory of mine? In the normal scheme of things, the correct common wisdom is that it's near-impossible to get any significant changes done in Wikipedia. My theory is that a small group of 3-8 of the right editors can get all of the needed changes done. Each needs to:

Thoroughly understand how Wikipedia really works, including the underlying structure and structural issues (or trust / support someone who does)
Most important: Pick changes that are really really good and needed ideas, and be able to explain why they are that. If an idea is fundamentally good, the more you explain it and its rationale, the more people will support it.
Understand that in Wikipedia, incremental progress is usually the only available way.
Ready to compromise to pull together...perfection is the enemy of progress.

Those 2 ideas could be a catalyst and an indicator for such things. If a few people sign on below, I'll try to start something. :-) Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 23:38, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

As one of those newer admins who feels that disciplining established users and closing difficult RfCs is above my pay grade (for now at least, my plate remains filled with relatively easier tasks that few if any others do, and technical work for which there is an even greater shortage of qualified people), I agree that this is worth pursuing. I believe that this is the main reason for the trickle of new admins... some feel burned by unqualified disciplinarians abusing their powers, and that it took the arbitration committee too long to remove their sysop privileges. I fear that whatever software solutions the Foundation provides us will turn out to be less than satisfying, if those tools can't be put into the hands of admins who are qualified to use them. I'm a big fan of incremental progress. Occasionally disruptive innovations happen, but a lot of effort is wasted on constantly trying to make such innovations, at the expense of trying incremental innovations that are much more likely to succeed. Many disruptive innovations just kind of strike you like lightening anyway, you may not even recognize how disruptive they'll turn out to be when you first see them. Wikipedia itself may be an example of that. Wales & Sanger weren't trying to implement a disruptive new model for encyclopedias, they were just trying to find a way to make Nupedia work. wbm1058 (talk) 00:08, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

This slide show (see right margin) from Wikimania 2016 makes a good presentation of the current state of affairs, and suggests that to counter imbalance, projects should spring from ideas inside the community. More measures to combat non-neutral editing and harassment should be put in place. North8000, does your experience here have any relevance to this? (I haven't read it all, and realize it's four years old so the issues there may be stale). Determining neutrality and balance in contentious topics is probably the hardest issue that administrators have to deal with. There isn't really any "court of appeals" for this, as content is outside of scope for the Arbitration Committee whose charter is to handle behavior issues. Perhaps eliminating imbalance is impossible, but if we had an elected editorial board as the final arbiter of neutrality, then we would at least have a democratically-determined balance, and maybe that's the best we can do? – wbm1058 (talk) 01:47, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

On your question, that particular item was minor and resolved the way I chose, and so not of particular concern here. Collectively it and zillions of other things over 43k edits have informed me on a wide range of other topics. E.G in that case unreliable "WP:RS's" being used to use Wikipedia to establish a neologism. My 30,000' view is that just a handful of the right policy and structural changes would 80% fix the problems in Wikipedia. North8000 (talk) 11:02, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

North8000 (talk, just to clarify, you are inviting editors to consider and indicate here if they are interested in being part of "a small group of 3-8 of the right editors (who) can get all of the needed changes done." Is that correct? Nocturnalnow (talk) 22:14, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

That is a meritocracy, and the problem with a meritocracy is that it requires idealism, and policies requiring idealism or catastrophism are almost always bad ideas. Of course, this could be an exception to this rule. Also, how we will we pick these editors? And what authority would they have? If they have too much authority then idealism comes up again. Overall, I think that since there seems to be a higher concentration of people on Wikipedia open to changing their minds, that community consensus is the best way to go. RileyBugz (p)^Yell | _Edits 22:40, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Give up plan?

I hesitate to mention this idea that was mentioned to me by a non-Wikipedian, because it would mean giving up on stopping paid editing. However, if the community and the WMF are truly impotent in dealing with paid editing and other COI, this might be better than the status quo. The idea is to have the volunteer,non-advocate editors self declare on our User pages and everyone else can be assumed to possibly be paid or advocates of one sort or another. Nocturnalnow (talk) 23:26, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

To be honest, it seems that before we can even start making changes, we will have to try and agree on what we want Wikipedia to be. Do we want it to be the place one goes when they need information on an obscure topic, or a reliable and curated encyclopedia? After we have decided that, I think that we need to try and consider the consequences of proposals outside of the subject being discussed. Then, we will be able to make the most logical choice in this scenario. RileyBugz (p)^Yell | _Edits 00:26, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Why can't we be a reliable and curated encyclopedia covering both the obscure and the popular? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 03:04, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Not following the argument here, as obscurity or fame has no bearing on COI. Also I disagree that the Foundation and community are impotent. They are unwilling, not impotent. Coretheapple (talk) 16:56, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Ok, so we want to try and be as reliable as possibly, but covering both the popular and obscure. If we want the obscure (which I most certainly do) then we will have to stray away from upping the notability requirements. Being reliable and curated means that we will have to (likely) have a bit of a wider pending-changes like thing. Maybe have some sort of pending changes (or just use pending changes) for medical articles with a lot of viewers, or maybe have a system for those that are high view pages and have had fictitious information added in the past. To get to the issue on COI, I think that we may need to better establish our goals in subjects a bit more related to that, although we have just established that upping notability is the wrong way to go. RileyBugz (p)^Yell | _Edits 17:46, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

"If we want the obscure (which I most certainly do) then we will have to stray away from upping the notability requirements." Only if you define obscure as along the lines of trivial fancruft and/or commercial spam dressed up as encyclopedic. I don't and I don't want those articles. But 99.9999% of the population hasn't heard of William Gell and he's still a notable figure in classical archeology. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 19:42, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Well, if it passes the notability requirements (which most fancruft doesn't and thus should be deleted), it still could be deleted for other reasons. I do feel like fancruft is ok if it can satisfy our notability requirements, with coverage that is not just in a specific community. I'm ok with patching up little holes in our notability requirements, but I don't want any significant upping of notability, even in a specific subject area, as otherwise it could impact our coverage. What I am trying to do is to set up some basic axioms that we can follow to their logical conclusion. Of course, we will likely have to establish more agreed-upon axioms in a bit more specific policy areas. In general, I just want to find good solutions for problems facing Wikipedia. Anyways, I think that these axioms should be a leaping point to figure out new solutions. RileyBugz (p)^Yell | _Edits 20:45, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

@Nocturnalnow - You are aware that neither Jytdog nor Coretheapple are Administrators, are you not? I wouldn't bet too heavily on either of them running the gauntlet successfully either given their outspoken dissent about our paid editing consensus. Carrite (talk) 00:30, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Carrite, that's likely a moot point as my opinion is that the community and the WMF are impotent in dealing with paid editing and other COI, or else flaccid. Nocturnalnow (talk) 15:11, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Actually, it's not impotence at all. It is a conscious decision that privacy protection trumps ferreting out paid actors, given the virtual impossibility of identifying the latter without weakening of the former. Consensus is: "The Edits are what matters, not the Editors." If anyone systematically violates NPOV, see that their block is knocked off. If a new article fails to meet GNG, then stick it with a PROD tag or haul it to AFD whichever is appropriate. If a paid editor can do their job without violating NPOV or our Notability rules, hurray for them for improving the encyclopedia. Don't overthink this or make it into an unwinnable war... Carrite (talk) 15:21, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Right. And there is no consensus to require all editors to register and state their occupation, either. What's flaccid is the general speed of the response of volunteers at new pages patrol, articles for creation, and watchlisting articles at risk for promotional editing in general. Perhaps because there's an imbalance in editor motivation. Generally, in the real world, if you cannot find enough workers to adequately perform necessary or desired tasks, you might first try broadening your scope in advertising open positions, or bring in workers from far-far away, but failing that, the next strategic response might be to try raising the minimum wages you're offering. Some creativity may be needed to design promising potential responses for Wikipedia. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:54, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Carrite, well, what I am hearing from you is that the situation presents a binary choice to the community and the Binary decision was made to allow paid editing as being the lesser of two evils. If that is a fact, imo, then an existential threat to the essence and neutrality of the encyclopedia has been allowed in the door. I prefer to think that the binary choice conclusion was a false conclusion and that there has to be a better way to deal with this issue than to accept something which will ultimately kill the patient (Wikipedia), once again, in my opinion. But, I am sticking to that opinion. For me, its obviously a Death knell for any paid editing to be allowed. Nocturnalnow (talk) 16:59, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

It's a tragedy of the commons problem. On a more serious scale, will the Citizens United decision to allow unlimited campaign spending ultimately kill the patient (Democracy?) With Trump on the verge of selling off public assets to his friends, under the guise of paying down the national debt, it seems that we need to put democracy on life support, in the U.S. – wbm1058 (talk) 17:12, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Wow, I'm trying to ignore the obvious deflection attempt by wbm1058 who is trivializing the issue ("on a more serious scale") and trying to push the discussion into U.S. politics which he may know I can not talk about. This makes me wonder if there is some serious money behind this push into paid editing. Back to the topic, 18 years ago, Scott McNealy said "You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it." and that is part of my fresh opinion that in 2017, in reality, there is no such thing as anonymous editing on Wikipedia in 2017. So, if there is a binary choice between retaining an imagined anonymity and preventing paid editing, then the choice is obvious, at least in my opinion, so I support Jimbo's choice. Let's shut down paid editing, period. Nocturnalnow (talk) 20:33, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Sorry about that, I was unaware of any topic bans imposed on you, and it was certainly not my intent to tempt you into violating any restrictions imposed on you. Neither was my intent to deflect the discussion to a different topic. I always edit with the idea that I will someday be outed (perhaps I'll do it voluntarily sometime) so I try never to post anything that will reflect negatively back on myself. "Let's shut down paid editing, period" is an admirable goal, but it's like saying, let's shut down alcohol consumption, period. Not trying to change the subject, just make what I feel is an apt analogy. I'm open-minded about the idea of requiring editors to register and state their occupation, actually. wbm1058 (talk) 20:47, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

That's ok. You may be right about it being impossible to shut down, I do not know enough about the technical possibilities or the Administrative tools or other options. Usually Where there's a will there's a way., but not always. Nocturnalnow (talk) 21:53, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Re the proposal at the start of this thread "everyone else can be assumed to possibly be paid or advocates" I can't see that coming close to consensus if someone actually made such a proposal at the village pump rather than floated the idea here. It would be a complete reversal of assume goodfaith, and I wouldn't trust those who did publicly declare that they weren't paid advocates - the worst would claim they weren't. We have a complex set of procedures for dealing with advocacy and spam. We already delete over a hundred pages a day, tens of thousands a year and block many accounts. Any proposal to change things needs to acknowledge what is already going on. That doesn't mean we can't alter the various checks and balance in our systems. But changing existing policy is complex and proposals to alter policy need to take cognisance of existing policy. So for example someone could go to the village pump and propose that since our anti vandalism work is pretty good nowadays and we want to further tip the scales against paid editors we should reverse current practice and policy and say "if you have a conflict of interest re an article you shouldn't edit it even to revert blatant vandalism". I wouldn't support you, and I don't think you'd come close to getting consensus for such a change. But if you move from the aspiration of wanting to "shut down paid editing, period" into proposing policy changes, that would be one of the policy changes to make. But I might back a sticky prod for articles on commercial organisations that aren't referenced to independent reliable sources. Ϣere SpielChequers 09:46, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Ϣere, thanks very much, and I really appreciate your point about AGF, a policy which I embrace fully. I have never been on village pump so I will want to read it for awhile and then I will likely propose "if you have a conflict of interest re an article you shouldn't edit it even to revert blatant vandalism". if anything at all. I am also starting to appreciate the effective aspects of the status quo as you outline. I think I will just pull out of the discussions and learn, think more about the issues, e.g. the AGF aspect is something I had not even recognised before you mentioned it. Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:44, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

@Nocturnalnow: Just to chime in belatedly on the points above, as I just saw my name mentioned and my views characterized by a third party, as I prefer to speak for myself. I notice you say more than once that the community and Foundation are "impotent" on COI and paid editing. That's just not true. They are not impotent. There is no will on the part of either party, and as I have said umpteen times in recent months I have come around to the view that both COI and paid editing are Foundation and Jimbo issues when it comes to dealing with such things on a macro basis. Remember too that there is no such thing as a "community" in the commonly accepted meaning of the term. The twisted, Wikipedia meaning is that the "community" consists of "people interested in discussing any given subject at any point in time." When this subject of paid editing comes up, the discussion comes down between people who dislike paid/COI editing and those who either engage in it or have an ideological stake in favoring it or turning a blind eye toward it. Some are "hasten the end" types who enjoy the idea of paid editing killing Wikipedia's credibility. In the real world we wouldn't be having this discussion, and there would be COI rules, not a "guideline," but this is not the real world. Coretheapple (talk) 21:18, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Elon Musk and "Cortex Engineering"

Jimbo, I found this show fascinating and wonder how, when, if this brain/computer linkage can be useful for Wikipedia and whether WMF might want to be involved?

Just to summarize, the show features a Venture Capital guy in Vancouver. The show shows a completely paralyzed man with a computer plug in his head, into his cortex, with a cable going out into an arm brace. His mind uses the brace to move his arm and feed himself. THAT is not what shocked me the most.... what shocked me the most was being informed, in a matter of fact way, how: 1: A.I. (artificiall intelligence) is advancing so quick that computers are absolutely certain to become better at developing new ideas....i.e. become smarter... than humans. 2: The big 5 in growth companies like google, facebook, Amazon, Tesla no longer see themselves as social media or product companies but rather as "advanced technology" companies. 3: Elon Musk is leading the pack in developing brain to computer communications in order to ...now get this...allow humans to keep up with A.I. computers !!!! 4: One of the hottest new skillsets ( jobs ) on the west coast is "Cortex Engineer". Nocturnalnow (talk) 15:08, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Here are some relevant links: Leonard Brody and Elon Musk and Neuralink and Human–computer interaction and Three Laws of Robotics.

—Wavelength (talk) 15:42, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Nocturnalnow, you might want to post your message at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Robotics.

—Wavelength (talk) 21:53, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

I find it fascinating too albeit I couldn't yet discern (some view on) the probability of this getting adopted in an influential way in the near future.

When directing R&D energy towards the achievement of this, and thereby increasing the near-term future realization (/depth of realization/of change-catalysers) etc probability, I think it would be important to (make sure that it is) accompany it with any needed complex-system intervention / codevelopment (social,political,economical,cultural,mental) needed to make sure that this technological achievement is beneficial. Such could be forms of technology-governance and changes to the structure (social,political,economical,cultural,mental) the technology finds itself developed/adopted in.

So I won't speculate about the potential uses of this but I think the current context of surveillance capitalism and also the (main) use-context of attempting to at last generate profit in general could potentially, imo likely even, turn out to be problematic.

So when making more extensive use and open ourselves to greater influence of artificial intelligence and computation systems in general we should probably make sure with what kind of AI and computation systems. Is Google helping us in our tasks, increasing our cognitive and informative abilities or is it also capturing and actively accompanying/influencing our thoughts and behaviour and time to pervasively gather input for (/allow for) autonomous economically beneficial (profitable) (not even to speak of politically) processes? Is Facebook?

Are our computation systems (socio-technically) designed so that they compute behalf on us and not upon the behalf of others / problematic processes? Are they tools or do they introduce new vulnerabilities and control-potential?

I think one should also consider how Elon with OpenAI made some approach to artificial intelligence by which the open source model and by empowering "as many people as possible to have AI" for "if everyone has AI powers, then there's not any one person or a small set of individuals who can have AI superpower" that also references some concerns about the technology and how this concern/approach doesn't really take into account the incentives, reach, impacts and contexts of usecases of that technology but only its distribution / access /...

While, let's say "everyone", is empowered to theoretically make "use of" AI (in development and problem-solving & life in general) what is/will it actually be used for (most)?

I do think that this tech might be important for mitigating existential risk from artificial general intelligence in the longer term but that's a long way / ascent from the near-to-mid future actual issues faced by this.

When he says that "it's mostly about the bandwidth, the speed of the connection between your brain and the digital version of yourself, particularly output" I would like to make a more concrete example that would fall under this description: the prevalence/influence of AI systems − pls note that those systems rarely if ever operate on intrinsic values/incentives but upon others' or autonomous processes / logic − in social media such as social bots, recommendation systems and the (which) media content we perceive where digital output could be considered or fall under some sort of "human prevalence/influence" (relevant: meme, noosphere, filter bubble, collective intelligence). Digital output can be made profitable by feeding / making possible AI systems (/algorithms), analysis / inspection of our minds and economically utilizing user generated content and user spent attention and time. But is "making digital output profitable" an unproblematic context and motive for such? When increasing the speed of development of digital extensions of ourselves in general one needs to consider its context and designs of implementations.

Musk may have good intentions, may even make some sociopolitical (and not really profit oriented) decisions to help guide it and I'd subscribe to much of the (at the least referenced) philosophy behind the development of such technology but I think it's an issue that requires contextual approaches and changes which shouldn't be lost sight of in eager, focused attempts to make the technology, the technology itself and nothing more, less or related, a reality.

To Wikipedia it would be more directly be relevant in contributions to it and related efforts of collective intelligence and collaborative knowledge production and organization etc as well as for the usage of it, among other things, for better understanding, conceptional organization & contextualization and interaction with objects, ideas and processes. Also people increasingly become wired as interfacing bidirectionally mediating nodes between the collective and software/algorithm+AI driven net and computation systems and reality (with its contemporary peculiarity and socioeconomic structures) and increasingly extend themselves into the digital (e.g. exomemory).

--Fixuture (talk) 01:21, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Or we could just plug Watson into Jimbo's brain and see what happens.

More seriously, we've got an article on Neuralink which probably needs some work. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:55, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

ok, I'll work on that article even though I am likely in the bottom 1 percentile re: tech notability understanding. Nocturnalnow (talk) 16:57, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

See "Neil Harbisson" and and other articles in Category:Cyborgs.—Wavelength (talk) 19:27, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

International Fact-Checking Day

"While April 1 celebrates jokes and white lies, April 2 has become a day of sobering up and fact-checking. As of this year, truth-seekers around the world introduced their own holiday—International Fact-Checking Day."

International Fact-Checking Day Celebrated Worldwide: #FactCheckIt!—Global Voices (April 2, 2017)

Facts are true. Myths are false. Some data are true. Some data are false.
—Wavelength (talk) 15:16, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

At http://factcheckingday.com, there is http://factcheckingday.com/blog/3/how-to-fact-check-wikipedia-entries-in-5-steps.
—Wavelength (talk) 23:21, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

National Post: 'corrections' from can.gov

This is an interesting read. I rather like some of the pedantry, but what I find really interesting is it is a somewhat comprehensive one year overview of edits from a particular population of people covering a wide variety of editing. Perhaps there is something to learn, here. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:21, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia seems to be starting to stagnate

So, recently, it seems that Wikipedia has begun to slow down. For example, nothing has been promoted (as of this post) at WP:FAC for eight days. There hasn't been an RfA 17 days. In general, not much is getting done. I think that one of the main causes of this is the fact that now, processes like WP:FAC and WP:RfA are scary places, and many have been driven away from Wikipedia, for whatever reason. It also seems that Wikipedia is now a gathering place for all of the nerds and such, and we aren't getting many people that diverge from that category. Overall, I think that Wikipedia, somehow, needs to be better at retaining editors that aren't really nerds and that don't want to be inundated with pages upon pages of policy when they join. Any thoughts? RileyBugz ^{Yell at me} | _Edits 19:51, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

We've had ten RFAs succeed so far this year, that's pretty bad, but this time last year we'd only had two. I'd agree that RFA is a scary place, I'd even say dysfunctional, but I don't see it as being worse than two or three years ago. Other indicators such as Wikipedia:Time_Between_Edits show we are significantly busier than when things bottomed out in 2014. I'd agree that it isn't good to inundate people with pages of policy when they join. In fact I've been testing a welcome that avoids policy completely. Ϣere SpielChequers 21:31, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

See Wikimedia projects edits counter.—Wavelength (talk) 22:21, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Probably my bias of being a not-really-but-kinda new editor is affecting my view of activity. Anyways, I took a look at your welcome template, but I don't know about that either. It is still a bit overwhelming. I think that probably the best way to introduce newcomers is to slowly give them advice and such, and telling them about mistakes without writing a whole paragraph as they go on. I also feel that it might be a good idea to, at the start at least, not point out all of their mistakes, as that would overwhelm them. Of course, if they make the mistake again or the mistake is a huge thing, it would be best to point it out. In addition to this, it might be good to not really mention having a COI to editors that otherwise are basically fulfilling our policies (like neutrality, notability, etc.), as that might scare away these so-called "good" COI editors. That, although, is a whole other thing. RileyBugz ^{Yell at me} | _Edits 22:23, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Actually, I just checked the time between edits, and it seems that ever since May 2007, the average time between each millionth edit is slowly climbing up. Maybe the number of retired editors (which I suspect somehow correlates with the average number of FACs per month because most people at FAC are "older" (not in actual age, but whatever), and "older" editors are the ones who we usually consider to be retired if they leave WP) is like a habitat indicator, showing when Wikipedia is starting to slow down. RileyBugz ^{Yell at me} | _Edits 22:30, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

It rose from 2007 to 2014 when we had two consecutive 10Ms that took 73 days. The last two are below 60, that's quite a significant rally, and that's despite the rise of the edit filters and the switch of intrawikis to Wikidata. Ϣere SpielChequers 22:58, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

@RileyBugz:

It also seems that Wikipedia is now a gathering place for all of the nerds and such, and we aren't getting many people that diverge from that category. Overall, I think that Wikipedia, somehow, needs to be better at retaining editors that aren't really nerds and that don't want to be inundated with pages upon pages of policy when they join.

Agree. I think a good way for that would be to streamline and modernize the WikiProject-system and use it to (make it so that it) both attract and engage new editors. WikiProjects basically equal interest-domains and new users as well as unregistered users could be connected with their respective relevant ones. For this I made this suggestion for the community wishlist 2016: " Suggestions for WikiProjects to join" (some more details and suggestions can be found in the WP X page post linked there).

I think that probably the best way to introduce newcomers is to slowly give them advice and such, and telling them about mistakes without writing a whole paragraph as they go on.

Good point - maybe there could be a newcomer mode (which could get disabled after a few months or via a setting) which displays relevant tips and tutorials at the right places and the right times or highlights parts of pages (with hints) etc. One should recognize though that it's not just about getting newcomers to learn Wikipedia's syntax and other internals but to get them started (which currently often requires such of course).

@WereSpielChequers:

In fact I've been testing a welcome that avoids policy completely.

Nice template. It has many good aspects that are pretty useful for getting newcomers involved: not too much information but simple, basic one, concrete easy starting points, info on WikiProjects, etc. However imo its format (meaning a text talk page entry added at some point for a minor fraction of newcomers) is not adequate for it to be very effective and I agree with RileyBugz in that newcomers would benefit more from continous help as they participate.

For instance I would suggest building a proper location (and object) linked photo request system and then display missing photos in the app's nearby map. As of right now there's Category:Wikipedia requested photographs by location.

Also I'd suggest central pages that display simple tasks to get started, along with the tools and methods to execute them most conveniently (those could be built in). Those central pages could be WikiProject-pages and the tasks could all be in relevance to that WikiProject / domain of interest. So for instance info on how to add pictures could be displayed under the task of "add images to cooking pages" along with categories that can be used to find pages in need of images and the images themselves etc. This would be information at the time users need it, builds upon and stregthens motivation, makes the existing tools and pages most useful, allows for various enhancemens/modifications relevant to the domain of interest (e.g. useful external links or embedded irc chats with users executing the same task at the same time), most importantly gets users started etc etc.

@Wikid77:

I'd agree that software-related improvements and WikiProjects would be most effective here and I also think that making users' contributions more visible, comparable and feedback-generative would improve participation tremedously. For these points I think that Wikipedia needs more development-efforts (for which rethinking salaries, hiring volunteers who already contribute and actively contacting relevant potential volunteers would be help), an improved streamlined WikiProject system and ways to analyze/categorize contributions. For the latter I made some suggestion here and created Category:Wikipedia contribution leaderboards.

Imo a main issue with FAC in this context is that it doesn't really motivate editors as in most cases it's near-impossible to (co)create such an article in a timespan of relevance. Maybe there could be nominations for the most constructive improvement drive (or WikiProject; note that such drives could be built into a streamlined WP system as well) and most useful new articles or alike. Imo FAC etc are more a certificate of article quality than some sort of motivation or feedback for individual editors.

--Fixuture (talk) 19:14, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

@Fixuture: Streamlining and trying to revive dead Wikiprojects is a very good idea. Using Wikiprojects to revive (at least temporarily) content creation works very well, at least in my experience. I think that one of the problems with Wikiprojects, although, is that some topics are pretty niche, don't have a "fanbase" crazy for the subject, or both. I suspect, although, that the fanbase thing is what most influences Wikiprojects. For example, WP:MILHIST, although sorta-kinda a niche subject, has a fanbase absolutely crazy for it. So, it seems that we should focus on Wikiprojects that aren't niche, but aren't relatively broad either.

Your suggestion that people could take photos of things that need photos sounds like a good idea, but I just want to make sure that we agree that the people that we want to attract with this, non-nerdy types, would probably not be happy doing gnomish tasks. I think that the best way to retain them is to have them do more "worthwhile" things, like helping to expand a page a bit.

I agree and disagree with your thought that we should have a newcomer mode. What I mean by this is that I think that a newcomer mode should not be automatic, I think that the best way to do it is to, when they log on for the first time, there would be some notification box with a link that would take them to a simple page (no more than five setting things) that would allow them to turn on newcomer mode (although if we ever decide to implement this, newcomer mode would be a terrible name. I suggest tips mode) and allow them to change a small number of other settings. Tips mode would then notify them of small errors and highlight them, say if they use a level one header or don't have an equal number of equal signs. I surmise that if we made tips mode turn on automatically, new nerdy people, the people that this project would be hard-pressed without, could be pushed away. Anyways, thanks for your in depth reply. Thoughts on these things? RileyBugz (p)^Yell | _Edits 20:38, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

@RileyBugz (p):

Good point with the niche WikiProjects without much of a "fanbase" - I guess the streamlined WikiProject system could also have some hierarchical project structures built into it. As of right now there are WikiProjects and taskforces (that's 2 levels) - there could be additional levels and better organization via various changes and e.g. subgroups. The "fanbase" refers to potential contributors who are interested and/or knowledgable in the WikiProject's topic. I suggest that WikiProjects for all missing broad topics are created and that less broad and popular WikiProjects can simply be created by editors (which implies that some "fanbase" exists) and are typically one level below the broader WikiProjects. It would be very good to make it very easy for people to create and participate in such WikiProjects and set up subgroups etc.

WP:MILHIST could for instance have the WikiProjects "Military" (as of right now that seems the most correct title for the WP; it doesn't yet exist and would need to be created) and "History" as parents.

Also I'd like to note that these WikiProjects can also be useful for recruiting new editors of fanbase however small, including doing outreach.

but I just want to make sure that we agree that the people that we want to attract with this, non-nerdy types, would probably not be happy doing gnomish tasks

Well these would be to get them started. The various tasks that WikiProjects could feature wouldn't be constrained to gnomish tasks but also creating new articles and various other things. (I wouldn't consider taking & uploading photos to be gnomish though.)

I think that the best way to retain them is to have them do more "worthwhile" things, like helping to expand a page a bit.

For this things like {{Expand section}} could be used. Some WikiProject members would add this tag to sections that are too short and maybe also leave some suggestions for expansions and refideas and some would work out the expansions etc.

--Fixuture (talk) 22:29, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

@Fixuture: The photos suggestion is a great idea—exactly the reason I didn't mention it. It seems that I kinda misinterpreted your suggestion of creating something that suggests where newcomers can help.

On the niche and fan base thing again, it seems that if a project has a relatively nerdy and dedicated fanbase, then a Wikiproject would be successful. Thinking on this, it has come to me that whether a project is niche doesn't seem to matter too much, it might actually help. This reasoning comes from the fact that most fanbases are pretty specific. Also, the jargon and structure, even of topics seemingly similar to each other, can vary widely. And new jargon usually makes people shy away from a subject. So, it seems that we need to revive projects that are wide ranging, but not too wide ranging. For example, mammals over life and short stories over literature. We really need to find, also, more subjects that have a dedicated fanbase.

Having a more visible section on projects detailing (without details, as I have discussed before) what people can do to contribute seems to be good. New articles requested—with sources. People would remove things that have been done or non-notable things. This would, I stress, need to be highly visible on the project page. Not some box to the side with a link to pages requested.

It seems that we are starting to come a tiny bit closer to some solution. The first order of business, judging by this discussion, seems to be to start to try and modernize and clean up WikiProjects, mostly those that aren't really active (judging by the talk page). After that, it seems that we should see what projects that aren't active or don't exist that have a dedicated fanbase that we could utilize. RileyBugz (p)^Yell | _Edits 23:18, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Some way to give editors tangible rewards would help. After 7+ years I'm finding it increasingly difficult to get my heart into something which doesn't forward my life in any meaningful way; yes, I have the satisfaction of knowing that people read some of my work and that I've helped sustain some nebulous movement, but it's been at the steep expense (I'm coming to understand it's been far more than I ever realized) of a lot of other things in my life. For all my work I've gotten a very nice T-shirt and some praise, which I appreciate (not sarcastic) but know that there are many other things I could do that would bring me a lot more. I have no idea what solution there is, if any, but I figure it might help to see the vantage point of an admin with severe burnout who simultaneously doesn't want to completely leave. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 02:28, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

+1 – I've only been around for only 6 years (and I'm one of the newer admins) so I'm not burned out... yet. But I do realize the extent to which Wikipedia has "taken over" my life. wbm1058 (talk) 02:41, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Just a small note, none of what I said above is meant to actively discourage people from becoming involved. To the extent Wikipedia drained other parts of my life, it was a manifestation of a much larger issue; if it wasn't here, it would have been something else (about which I'd feel equally disconsolate); what I describe above is very much personal. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:47, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Need more improvements and wikiprojects

We need more obvious improvements, such as new simple "Publish-Changes" button (already on Wikimedia Commons), to increase enthusiasm, where editors can see other people actively improving Wikipedia, beyond just talk about future. German WP has also been slowing down in recent months, but that might be a seasonal or special event with immigrant issues. Remember Swedish WP survived for years on just "23" core editors, so we know not to worry if 1,000 core editors go on Wikibreak; otherwise users such as myself have left for 2 years but returned later. Hence, the future seems excellent, and we can promote more WikiProjects to improve detailed contents. There is much more to add, about many topics. -Wikid77 (talk) 23:47, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for the perspective on this so that we don't go crazy. Anyhow, I do agree that WikiProjects will (and are) help. RileyBugz ^{Yell at me} | _Edits 00:04, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Solutions

So, it seems like a step that we can take to help this situation is to encourage more editors to help welcome users, and to personalize messages, hopefully suggesting a WikiProject to join. Welcoming new users has to be done fast, within 24 hours, and the messages, as mentioned before, have to be personalized and short. Another step we can take is to publicize WikiProjects more. Maybe after making 1 or 2 edits, a program can judge what interests a potential editor may have, and then display a window suggesting a WikiProject. Maybe not a window though, maybe something less obstructive. Anyhow, we need to get some concrete proposals or agreed solutions. RileyBugz (p)^Yell | _Edits 21:21, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Don't we still already "welcome" most users? There are a boatload of templates in Category:Welcome templates. The problem is that most "new users" are "not here to build an encyclopedia". They are just here to add "biographical" information about one person or organization, and then leave (if they're not vandals). Or they are students whose assignment is to edit. Their teachers who are making the assignments should teach and mentor them. We could use a tool for sorting through the masses of "new users" to find the few needles in that haystack that are really worth our time. We have limited resources for mentoring, if we still put in the time maintaining the tasks that are backlogged so they still get done. wbm1058 (talk) 21:55, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Research on Wikipedia (I have read some papers here...) shows that personalized messages are better at retaining editors than non-personalized templates. Shorter messages are also better. In WikiProjects, contributions generally increase with constructive criticism. This suggests that we need to have shorter and actually typed out messages that point to newcomers contributions and suggest one or two things for them to fix or do. RileyBugz (p)^Yell | _Edits 22:17, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

I agree, I'm not a big fan of "welcoming by template", so I don't do that. Still, it takes more time to write the personalized message. So, some judgement about when it's a good use of time. wbm1058 (talk) 22:24, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

So I decided to help a new user, who appears to be a woman (we need more of those!) named Bonnie who is at least promoting a good cause, rather than a startup biz trying to make some money. Her talk page shows the typical template-welcome messages, and below that you'll see my personalized attempt to save her article on the Alano Club. You'll note that her first edit was tagged: "Possible self promotion in userspace") and another edit tag (Tag: Visual edit: Switched) indicates she was using the VisualEditor. That didn't seem to give her much help with the issues she was having, though. I'll watch the page to see whether my effort to help turns out to be worthwhile, and I have the satisfaction of knowing that I mentored a productive new editor. wbm1058 (talk) 20:34, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Now talk page has been "templated" a third time, so the template-welcome-party's messages totally dominate the page, surrounding my short personalized message. Her page is up for deletion: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Alano Club and she has yet to come back and edit again. This is all typical. wbm1058 (talk) 16:41, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Also, this paper would likely help us in figuring this out. RileyBugz (p)^Yell | _Edits 21:51, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

How about trying a CrowdFlower-like solution? I've been procrastinating about signing up for that to check it out, and I suspect that the Foundation is happy about that, because there is some risk that I might actually enjoy that and prefer working for them (I won't know until I try it)... isn't that something Wikipedia needs more of – an online workforce to clean, label and enrich data (the encyclopedia)? AKA "gnomes". wbm1058 (talk) 22:07, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

What exactly do you mean by that? RileyBugz (p)^Yell | _Edits 00:28, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

I don't mean anything exactly. But generally, along the lines of "solutions to encourage more editors", I'm suggesting that crowdsourcing by offering PayPal deposits in return for certain specified editng activities is something that should be considered. Of course, there are limitations and controversies with that model. For example, it wouldn't be helpful to offer money for spelling corrections, if a side effect of that was that the number of new contributions with misspellings in them increased tenfold, because editors were intentionally creating work that could be rewarded financially. This would need to be implemented in a manner that resulted in a net improvement in the overall quality of the encyclopedia. We wouldn't want quality to tread water, while letting money bleed out with no tangible benefit. wbm1058 (talk) 17:30, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Interesting thought, but something like that seems to be riddled with potential problems. I think that a solution to many of these problems is to organize it into a competition-like thing. Have it be something only applicable to newcomers, say people that have only been in the project for less than a month before the competition. I would suggest a competition for creating the most non-deleted articles, as maintenance-related competitions would likely be hard to judge. Alternate accounts would be ruled out from this competition. Thoughts? RileyBugz (p)^Yell | _Edits 20:46, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

An analogy comparing Wikipedia gnomes and vandal fighters to firefighters comes to mind. Lots of small towns do fine with volunteer fire departments. But big cities generally find they need to hire paid professionals. This seems to work, as you don't hear of more fires being intentionally started in order to increase the work the pros need to do (and thus the need to hire more of them). I suppose because the presence of adequate police and arson investigators as a deterrent. How can Wikipedia implement better deterrents to vandalism, if we take outing people off the table as a possible deterrent? wbm1058 (talk) 18:38, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

I am convinced that there is a ton of apathy and zero energy within many members of the Millennial Generation...about everything productive. They can talk on the phone for 15 minutes about absolutely nothing...almost like only teenage girls did 55 years ago. Many have no interest at all in their work or even starting a business. Their movies are little more than sensory hooks. Most will not qualify as a "nerd" because a nerd usually has an individual identity, and that takes constructive energy to create. So, I expect that there is a millennial apathy bump working its way through society and Wikipedia and I doubt the next generation will be much better. The good news is that I imagine that some of the 20% or whatever who get excited about things like an encyclopedia will find their way here, appreciate being here, and contribute great quality edits. So, less quantity, better quality is my guess for the future. Nocturnalnow (talk) 04:06, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

We aren't a crystal ball here, we are looking for actual solutions. RileyBugz (p)^Yell | _Edits 07:34, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

A "Volunteer Editors Needed" ad campaign in University newspapers might bring in new editors. Nocturnalnow (talk) 15:12, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Interesting, but would the WMF be willing to do that? I think not. Maybe convincing editors to spread the message would work. I could, of course, be wrong about the WMF. RileyBugz (p)^Yell | _Edits 16:16, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

The WMF and the chapters are funding a variety of outreach campaigns including many targeted at university students. I spent a day helping train at one recently. My concern about the millennial generation isn't apathy or lack of energy - you can't really stereotype a whole generation that way. My concern is that a high proportion access the internet via tablets or worse smartphones rather than PCs or laptops. I know there are some editors who use such devices, but they are rare in our community, I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of editing is done on PCs and laptops. So either we need a version of the mobile viewer that works better for editors, or we need outreach at retirement fairs etc. Or we relax about editor recruitment now that the community is growing again and we try to fix some other problems. Ϣere SpielChequers 17:24, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Good point about device aspect. If I was WMF I'd throw out a few short ads in the classified sections of Liberal Arts Universities as Literature students, foreign students etc. might want the experience and, not kidding, something extra and interesting for their resume. Nothing much to lose for WMF, maybe an ad budget of $500. max just to see what happens. "Volunteer Wikipedia Editors needed; free online training available"...heck, I would've signed up when I was in school, I think. Nocturnalnow (talk) 20:03, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

I agree with WereSpielChequers about the millennial thing. Although this is true, I think that the mobile problem isn't a huge problem, although certainly something needs to be done to help. I use the desktop view on mobile, and I would like to see a view that has all the aspects of the desktop view, but that works a bit better with mobile. RileyBugz ^{Yell at me} | _Edits 20:09, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

It may be a small thing to fix, or it may be a big one. I don't know enough about development on mobile devices to know. I'm fairly sure that the mobile team were tasked with making the mobile site work for readers on mobile devices, and in that they have succeeded, hence the fear a few years ago that we'd lose our readership to other people's mobile platforms has receded. I've run or helped at many training sessions, we have had people struggle with tablets but in at least one case we've lent them a PC. I'm fairly relaxed about the problem of editing on smartphones and tablets, I figure that we aren't the only people who want more functionality on smaller or more portable devices. In a few years time either some manufacturer will have come up with a solution; or the smartphone native generation will have mastered their devices to the point where they can do things with smartphones that I can barely imagine; or Wikimedia's mobile interface will have become more editor friendly. In any event I don't see us facing an existential threat from the hardware. The worst that will happen is that we will suffer various skews in our editorship because PC and laptop users are an unrepresentative minority on the internet. Ϣere SpielChequers 17:38, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

I think that the real problem would likely be getting new editors. RileyBugz ^{Yell at me} | _Edits 21:04, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Presenting Wikipedia as a place where you might actually get something for 37K edits and thousands of hours of your time will handle that. Wikipedia as it is now does nothing of the sort, and it hurts me to understand how little all my effort means; I know I'm not the only one feeling this way, and I won't be the last. While I quite rarely disagree with Neil Peart, I paid the price and am, in fact, counting the cost. That cost is far too high for me to have ever justified what I've put in, given that Wikipedia does nothing for me. (If you detect some bitterness there is plenty, and I also understand there's nothing I can do about it now) The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:46, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

The Blade of the Northern Lights, you can never know what the cost would be if you had never made those edits or spent that time. Mental exercise, like physical exercise, is always productive. What else could/would you have been doing? Nocturnalnow (talk) 04:22, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Oops, I now see from above that you've really thought this through, so be it. Nocturnalnow (talk) 04:35, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Don't feel bad at all. Whatever my regrets, my contributions are here for all to see and anyone can make of them what they will. A few years ago your response would have been my reaction to a tee. My life is mine alone, and I don't want my experience to speak for anyone else's; if you (generic you) find Wikipedia a rewarding place, I strongly encourage you to pursue it because your (again, generic your) work will benefit a lot of people. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:56, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

BNL, I feel your pain. wbm1058 (talk) 14:15, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

The Blade of the Northern Lights, I was thinking and realized that the something for a lot of people, like Ghandi, has been "only" recognition. Recognition among peers is important to some people and recognition among the public is important to many, many people. One thing you may want to think about is something I am now doing with my signature and on my User and talk pages. Nocturnalnowvolunteer,unpaid,over 4,000 edits(talk).

Wikipedia editors are born, not made. I'm really convinced of that — it is a certain personality type, with a certain passion about something, and a public education-oriented worldview. While they can't be made by any amount of wasted WMF spending on edit-a-thons or newspaper ads, they can be destroyed by parochialism, edit-warring, newbie-biting, and other forms of antisocial, non-cooperative behavior. The focus, I am personally sure, should be on the retention of people who are already here and as well as those who briefly buzz by to edit constructively, not trying to create new editors from whole cloth (particularly if the goal of the exercise is to create new editors from whole cloth because they check one or more boxes on some touchie-feelie identity politics questionnaire...) As Mark Twain famously declared upon reading erroneous news reports of his demise, "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." So, too, with WP. Our personal energy levels may ebb and flow, we may burn out and leave, but the train continues to head down the tracks, and the very active user numbers are holding steady. Watch out that you do not project your personal feelings upon the project — I don't think there is much evidence of a fatal death spiral. Not to say there aren't problems... Carrite (talk) 11:41, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

I think the process involves at least an intersection of two emotions. The first is an emotion I've dubbed "rathe" for the lack of a clear word - it's the desire for a person to explain what he or she believes in some sense. By itself this is very general, an emotion of proselytizers and POV-pushers, vandals and comedians. Wikipedia can narrow it down, "sublimate" it in a way when people decide that since their ideas are correct, a fair presentation of all the data inevitably brings people to adopt their point of view. Even the comedians eventually see that humor is driven by truth, and the truth is pretty funny in its own right. The other is what some proponents of the "Learning Combination Inventory" call "precision" ([4] for example); people have to be annoyed when they don't have the true facts or the full story. An extension of that is the desire to get the first-hand source and document things as directly as possible. I am by no means sure that all people get the same set of emotions to work with, since there are a few I feel that others don't seem to express, yet the contrary position seems remarkable. Wnt (talk) 13:06, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

It is as much skill as any inchoate emotion, and before it makes sense to go to inchoate emotion, probably best to start more simply with direct emotions: 1) Not really liking to write will cut down the pool of potentials drastically, writing is a learned skill, a talent,and something to like or not like doing; 2) Cutting down the pool even more, liking to write non-fiction - of writers, many (most) prefer writing fiction. 3) And even for non-fiction writers, writing tertiary encyclopedia articles will be a minority acquired taste (many people barely like to read encyclopedias, let alone write them). And, we could go on before getting to obscure psychology. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:41, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes, and to try to follow Alanscottwalker's points, what we produce are reported facts...even if its someone's opinion, the facts is that it has been expressed. They may be selected facts, by RSs, but are pureand without context. Context, imo, is very vulnerable to subjectivity. For example, back around 2004, a local reporter, Rosie Di Manno, went to Afghanistan and in her column reported that during a helicopter ride with a U.S. Commander she commented on the fields and fields of opium poppies as far as the eye could see. The context for her was that she knew that opium had been identified as the primary source of funding for bin Laden and thus the opium should be destroyed. But the context for the U.S. commander was different. He simply said to Rosie; "That's Realpolitik". Although it is unintentional, I think Wikipedia largely avoids the subjectivity which comes with context and that is what attracts me, and maybe some others, to Wikipedia, the absence of context. Nocturnalnow (talk) 15:40, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

What contributing to Wikipedia feels like

Start
Middle of the road
End

Edelseider (talk) 18:08, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

A brownie for you!

<3 Emosy (talk) 05:17, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

DailyMailTV to launch this fall in over 100 markets across the US with executive producer Dr. Phil McGraw

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4375656/DailyMailTV-launch-fall-100-markets.html

"The show will combine all of the best elements of the website that will both engage and entertain TV audiences," said Dr. Phil McGraw.

"The series will be a fantastic showcase for all DailyMail.com’s brilliant and exclusive news, showbiz and video content," said DailyMail.com publisher Martin Clarke.

--Guy Macon (talk) 11:16, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Well, if it matters someone will no doubt write an article on it, see National Enquirer TV. No doubt, they appreciate the plug, here, though. Entertainers usually like that. --`Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:35, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

The DM decision is indicative of the relatively unique way in which Wikipedia operates. I would not be surprised to see it reversed at some point, but in the meantime, I think our decision is a good slap in the face to all media which fail to consistently publish reliable stories.....they might be next. So, the end might justify the means in this matter. Nocturnalnow (talk) 16:28, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

First reaction seems to be from City A.M. yesterday:

The show will also feature "exclusive stories" from DailyMail.com so the Americans will likely learn more about scantily clad women and how "candlelit dinners can you [sic] give you cancer". ...

The Capitalist looks forward to US President Donald Trump's appearance on the show.

Incidentally, Trump is reported to have an IQ of 156 [5]. 51.140.123.26 (talk) 09:18, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Your Mark Dice edit

I'm curious as to what prompted you to make it as there was offwiki recruitment to demand that change and at least one legal threat made on the talk page resulting from that demand. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 00:34, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm not really sure why that would be relevant. Our policy is to make good edits to improve biographies regardless of any inappropriate behavior on the part of a subject, and regardless of whether we dislike the subject. Wikipedia is not a battleground.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:18, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Did you bother to read Jimbo's edit summary? 86.147.208.100 (talk) 10:21, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, NeilN ^{talk to me}, I mean, wtf? What prompted you to make your irrelevant edit here??? Nocturnalnow (talk) 20:48, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I do not think you are in any position to complain about anyone making irrelevant edits here. But to answer, given that Jimbo rarely edits articles (his last fifty edits stretch back to July 2015), and the last time he showed up on a BLP on my watchlist he exercised questionable judgement, I thought it was a valid question. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 22:19, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Especially as the Amazon reference doesn't actually source the sentence that it claims to. Yes, it points out that he's written a book (note: not "books") about some of the things in that paragraph. Still, User:Binksternet seems to have fixed the problem. Black Kite (talk) 23:41, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I believe User:Binksternet made a good faith error as the book itself was not commented on, as his edit summary seems to infer. So, I reverted User:Binksternet's revert until there is consensus on Jimbo's edit.Nocturnalnow (talk) 17:03, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

NeilN, please advise what you mean by "offwiki recruitment to demand that change"? Nocturnalnow (talk) 17:02, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

@Nocturnalnow: Um, read the talk page? It's all right there. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 17:07, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

ok, I already saw the talk page topic about his twitter tweet asking his fans to edit the Blp? I assume that's what you mean...I was wondering if there was something else. Thanks. You know, this is really not worth any commotion at all, the sentence about him writing books absolutely does no harm and absolutely is notable. We should not let what Dice says or does influence the content either by inclusion or omission. Nocturnalnow (talk) 17:30, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Verifiability

Hi Jimbo. I notice that verifiability is not required for the "facts" which inform this encyclopedia's decisions. That sounds really well-thought-through. Siuenti (talk) 07:32, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Can you verify your claim? (This guy is fresh off a block ~~and is messing with the articles~~). 51.140.123.26 (talk) 08:52, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

The bit which says "All material in Wikipedia mainspace, including everything in articles, lists and captions, must be verifiable" (my emphasis) Siuenti (talk) 09:00, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

This is one of the five pillars. Why do you think it's wrong? 51.140.123.26 (talk) 09:04, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I was thinking that the principle might usefully be applied to disputed statements in other namespaces too. Siuenti (talk) 09:22, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes, all discussions about what we as a community should do should be grounded in verifiable facts. In my long experience, though, when someone proposes something that is obviously true, it is often the case that they are presenting only one side of a specific argument.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:07, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Yeah I believe the word for that would be cherry picking :) Thanks for the input. Sienti (씨유엔티) 14:12, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

All this derives from an RfC in which it is being argued that the test to be applied is one of "cromulence". If people could restrict themselves to the terms which appear in policy and guidelines the issues might become clearer. 86.147.208.100 (talk) 15:15, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Basically the issue relates to talk pages. I have seen many cases where an editor makes an assertion on a talk page, as part of a discussion, and then another editor calls for it to be removed from the talk page on the grounds that it is not verifiable. Unless the assertion is a clear BLP violation, this sort of behavior is generally not conducive to a productive discussion. It is best to allow a lot more latitude on talk pages than in mainspace. At the very least editors need to be able to argue about whether an assertion is verifiable without worrying about the assertion being removed from the talk page while the discussion is taking place. Looie496 (talk) 15:58, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
Yeah I think a controversial statement can stay there but people can also expect verification. Maybe WP:V can be clarified - do you want to make a thread over there? <s Sienti (씨유엔티) 16:49, 6 April 2017 (UTC) User:Siuenti with broken signature

You want footnotes for every comment on Talk? I mean, it would shut the fuckwit antivaxers, creationists and homeopaths up, but srsly? It would be fundamentally incompatible with WP:BITE. Guy (Help!) 22:11, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Apologies for textwall; only my 2nd time posting here in nearly 10 years. I can't speak to what OP actually had in mind, but his comments called to mind a problem that I think I see on a regular basis. That's the situation where an editor asserts something on his own judgment or authority, not as a direct basis for article prose, but as a basis for determining what to include or exclude. In this scenario, the article prose itself is sourced, but the decisions on how/whether to reflect it were based on editor claims that can't be traced to any source, policy guideline, or essay.

A reasonably square example is provided by a content dispute I'm involved in, regarding Jeremy Corbyn. The question is whether, in mentioning Corbyn's activism related to the governments of Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Nicolas Maduro, we should mention that his statements and associations in this area have drawn pretty substantial criticism from both inside and outside his own party, particularly after he made remarks about Castro after Castro's death.

It has been argued (to me) that these criticisms are not important or germane to Corbyn's life, but that the positive aspects of his activism ("solidarity") are. In an effort to demonstrate that sources show it to be more important than other material that is already discussed extensively in the WP article, I pointed to the section on Corbyn's parliamentary expenses budget. But in reply, it is argued that, because of the United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal of 2009, every British MP must have a substantial section related to that scandal, even if their connection was tangential and went largely undiscussed.

Now, normally we use breadth and depth of RS publication as the basic guide of what topics are important enough to include in an article, but in this case very little has been said about Corbyn's connection to the scandal (to wit: he wasn't embroiled in it, and he provides a favorable contrast because he is so frugal). Corbyn received attention generally for having perennially low expense claims, and specifically it was mentioned in passing in a few sources that during one period his only claimed expense was a printer cartridge costing nine pounds. Fine, all well and good, this sort of stuff doesn't bother me. We're not running out of electrons, so let's have long, informative articles.

But here, the actual RS discussion of this topic in connection with Corbyn was so flimsy that WP editors found it necessary to go digging through multiple primary sources to illustrate that his spending has been both minimal and socially responsible. More egregiously, this thinly sourced bit of fluff is being held up as an example of what should be discussed at length in the article, whereas the significance of Corbyn's Cuba/Venezuela activism—which has actually drawn quite a bit of published commentary, including both eds/opeds and news reporting of parliamentary reaction quotes—is actually "irrelevant" to the article, in part because it's predictable he would be criticized for taking these controversial stances. It has even been vaguely argued exclusion is warranted because significance to domestic UK politics is the only sound basis for inclusion into an article about a UK MP—yet the sourcing shows that his stances are quite controversial even within the UK, and have caused members of his own party to openly question his leadership. Nor is there much doubt (in my mind, anyway) that his views on this matter have at least as much lasting significance as his frugality and decision to go with generic toner—these are matters that implicate the subject's judgment and political views, and the substantial sourcing very clearly bears this out. So far as actual policy goals go, I just don't see why we would exclude entirely, although reasonable people could disagree on the ideal word count.

In a nutshell, in my view it is being insisted that the article content must be guided by considerations that are not evident from RS material, and not evident from WP policy. If I'm correct, this is a policy black hole that, at best, engenders confusion, and at worst, invites abuse. Factchecker_atyourservice 20:30, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Right, so one this one, I have to say that 'editorial judgment' is a real and valid thing - we can't write down exact rules for every possible thing like "should the parliamentary expenses scandal stuff be included". My own view is that we are often quite silly with it - especially as nearly a decade has passed. For some MPs, the scandal was very real and meaningful. For others, such as Jeremy Corbyn, it makes little sense to even mention the scandal. Establishing that he has a reputation for being frugal as an MP (his expenses in the lower half) seems fine to me.

Regarding his controversial defenses of Castro, Chavez, and Maduro, these seem virtually mandatory to include, as they are central to his political identity and to any understanding of his position in UK politics.

But notice that for all these things, there are arguments for and against but no clean or magical way to have policy decide them. One fears that these things will be decided to some degree based on whether some subset of editors is trying to burnish (or tarnish) his reputation - but that is not the way Wikipedia is supposed to be written... battleground mentality is bad.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:01, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Update - I just read as much of the talk page of the article Jeremy Corbyn and I want to double down on my remarks here - that whole discussion is in part, Wikipedia working as it should, with editors working to find some consensus about what should be included, but in larger part, it's just a flame war with far too many personal jabs and insults - you are among the guilty, Factchecker_atyourservice, but so are people on all sides. I personally recommend a calm reboot of the discussion, mutual apologies all around for letting it get so heated, and a return to first principles including 'assume good faith'.

It seems clear to me that the question of Corbyn's support for Castro, Chavez, and Maduro is absolutely necessary to cover at length in the article for the reason I said before: it is central to his political identity, and importantly, a very frequent topic of commentary in the press - and it is not just the right wing press using it to attack him.

At the same time, it's very important to work hard to make sure that the coverage of these matters is factual, balanced, careful, and proportional. It won't be easy but that's why we have talk pages.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:12, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughtful reply, Mr. Wales. You are undoubtedly correct that I should examine my own conduct. Factchecker_atyourservice 15:14, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Trump missiles airfield

The wikisearch "Trump missiles airfield" should match page "Al Shayrat airbase" or airfield, and related pages, where editors have added coverage. The search seems ok. -Wikid77 (talk) 19:46, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Google fights fake news

"Google is bringing tools to fight fake news to its most important and iconic product: search."

Google fights fake news in search with 'fact check' tags—Richard Nieva for CNET (April 7, 2017)

—Wavelength (talk) 02:09, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Authoritarianism in the world

"For the first time since the end of the Cold War, the world is losing faith in democracy."

The World Is Getting a Lot More Authoritarian—Brian Klaas for AlterNet (April 7, 2017)

—Wavelength (talk) 02:21, 9 April 2017 (UTC) and 02:30, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

An oppressed Voice from Africa

Mr. Wales,

What do you think about this voice from Africa continually being oppressed on the Wikipedia talk page of the article called "Africa"

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Africa&diff=next&oldid=771736570

"Rmv polite rant (polite, but still a rant, containing no concrete suggestions for article improvement"

Original message:

The Wiki definition and description of Africa is from an European worldview and does not reflect any input from those who best reflect the continent; meaning what we know or refer to in modern times as Black people i.e. those that reflect the descendents of Africans, part of the Atlantic slave trade. It is a travesty how Africa (named by a European) has been raped and abused; a common and popular M.O. of the European (nomadic/white man) as reflected in their inhumane and barbaric behavior and treatment of African slaves bought to the Americas. Shameful. Truthis2020 (talk)

Posted on 23rd of March 2017 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.230.31.126 (talk) 22:02, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Provide concrete suggestions for article improvement and you'll get a completely differently reaction. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 22:10, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

It wasn't me who posted the original message - as I am not from Africa. Fact of the matter is that User Truthis2020 is voicing an opinion which is oppressed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.230.31.126 (talk) 22:42, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

For my part (I'm not Jimbo), I'd say that both of these things are true: 1) It's not a particularly helpful message, and I bet it's not going to lead anywhere useful (although you never know). 2) It's not vandalism or trollery or rank nonsense, so therefore it probably shouldn't be erased. We don't erase other people's talk page contributions (unless vandalism or trollery or rank nonsense or BLP vio, stuff like that) as a general rule. It is insulting. If you don't think what the person said is useful, just ignore it.

It's not impossible that a dialogue opened in this way could bear some fruit, ending, after some back-and-forth, with concrete ideas for improving the article. But I guess we'll never know now, will we? Herostratus (talk) 06:24, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

The Knowledge Illusion (book)

Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach are the authors of the book The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone (ISBN 978-0-399-18435-2), published by Riverhead Books.

"[M]uch of our thinking relies on the thinking of others—and, increasingly, on machine others."—THE KNOWLEDGE ILLUSION by Steven Sloman, Philip Fernbach—Kirkus Reviews

—Wavelength (talk) 01:41, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

External company dominating the 2017 Wikimedia movement strategy process

Dear Jimbo, where can I find information about the evaluation and hiring process that led to the contracting of the consulting firm "williamsworks" as the dominating part in the 2017 Wikimedia movement strategy process? Was it a decision of the WMF Board? How much money do we pay them? --S I 07:47, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

I have opened a discussion on the Talk page of the page you have linked, where I have asked a few initial questions. I too am curious to know more from Jimmy and other parties. Jus da fax 08:32, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

I am already pissed off at seeing these multigenerational politicians/do-gooders never doing a lick of work and living high off the hog off of hard working people's taxes....I sure as hell don't want to see any of these silver spoon bull shitters getting any Wikimedia donations.....not 1 ~~fuckin'~~ penny! Nocturnalnow (talk) 20:35, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, Schmarrnintelligenz for noticing this and Jusdafax for asking important questions that need to be answered. --David Tornheim (talk) 18:27, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

I too have major concerns about a private non-profit having controlling interest of 2017 Wikimedia strategy and in particular that the head of the NGO non-profit is a member of the Council on foreign relations, which if I remember correctly has a significant influence on American foreign policy and the promoting American interests. Is that going to be the new "strategy" for Wikipedia under this non-profit's "guidance"? The founder and CEO's (Whitney Williams,[6] ) connection to Hillary Clinton, Gates foundation and Nike foundation also smacks of further potential COI. Who made the decision to put these three as having controlling interest and why were we not consulted? --David Tornheim (talk) 18:34, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

David, I believe williamsworks is a for-profit corporation. You and others here might be interested in this article on Williams posted on the williamsworks website. The opening paragraphs in particular are notable. I make no judgement here on Hillary Clinton, but I do ask if there was any discussion regarding the wisdom of choosing someone (Williams) so closely identified with a partisan political figure in U.S. politics, and if that discussion is available. Also germane to this point is that at a Director at williamsworks is also identified on the corporate website as working with Clinton. Jus da fax 20:00, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

i am pretty surprised to see folks trotting out the zombie hypothesis here. (once someone associates with X, someone is X's zombie. (pull the strings!) competent people get involved in politics sometimes. Thank goodness for that. What is the big deal here? Jytdog (talk) 11:37, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

No one is claiming that Williams is Clinton's zombie. I think it is perfectly reasonable to question the wisdom of having someone active in partisan politics leading the Wikimedia movement strategy when Wikimedia is non-partisan (and strives to be perceived as non-partisan). Deli nk (talk) 12:43, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Wikimedia is non-partisan (and strives to be perceived as non-partisan)? Really? Anyone following the Executive Director's twitter, where she wears her politics on her sleeve should be forgiven for coming to the (mis)impression that Wikimedia is non-partisan. wbm1058 (talk) 14:25, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

An individual's personal Twitter feed shouldn't be conflated with the stance of the organization. But point taken nonetheless. Deli nk (talk) 14:31, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Right. Of course Donald Trump's twitter shouldn't be conflated with the stance of the US government. wbm1058 (talk) 14:37, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

It is reasonable to assume that the personal opinions of an employee of Wikimedia has at least some influence on the direction of the organization, but you are an absolute fool if you conflate a personal tweet from an employee of Wikimedia with the official stance of Wikimedia. Deli nk (talk) 15:53, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

:::::::Deli nk, well, executive director is a pretty important role, perhaps to be distinguished from any average employee, however, that is a deflection from your original point about "the wisdom of having someone active in partisan politics leading the Wikimedia movement strategy". Also, we have policy about "what about x" being a sophomoric and invalid argument,(no offence meant wbm1058) so whatever Maher is or does has zero effect upon your argument about Williams, which is exceptionally vaid imo. Nocturnalnow (talk) 18:44, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

You're referring to WP:OTHERSTUFF? Not my favorite essay (it's not a policy, and the idea kind of flies in the face of respecting precedents). You would be surprised if an executive director active in partisan politics hired a like-minded consultant who was also active in partisan politics? But that's just on their own time, not what they do while "on-the-job", right? While Wikipedia editors may, as a whole, strive to be perceived as non-partisan, it seems clear to me that the Foundation does not share that goal. It is looking to set a long-term agenda for improving the world, which is a lot more than simply documenting the world from a neutral point-of-view. wbm1058 (talk) 21:40, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

I just spent some valuable time reading our executive director's twitter and am impressed with her wit and knowledge...especially about the scam known as diamonds. I see zero similarity between Maher and Williams. Maher seems exceptionally real and non-phony, at least from her twitter, to me. Nocturnalnow (talk) 23:43, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Given that almost every organisation of size has policies that state you can be let go if your public non-work related actions can be seen as bringing the company into disrepute.. once you get to a certain level it is entirely relevant what your political positions are. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:26, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

As a participant in this year's movement strategy process, I was very disturbed by what I saw on display. All participants were forced to provide proof that they had either voted for or donated money to Hillary Clinton's campaign, which needless to say was a bit difficult for participants from some parts of the world. We then swore a blood oath to Clinton and sacrificed a new editor to Moloch. Their account wasn't even autoconfirmed yet so it wasn't a big loss. Just wait until those pictures make it onto Commons, they are pretty graphic. Then we collectively planned to get Clinton elected in 2020, 2024, and 2271.

Or we discussed worldwide movement strategy and the future of Wikimedia projects with zero reference to the partisan politics of a single country. And took pictures and ate candy. Gamaliel (talk) 15:27, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm going to have to side 100% with Gamaliel here. This is really a very very unpersuasive objection. There is absolutely no sense whatsoever in which the outside consultants have a "controlling interest" or "dominating part" in the movement strategy process. They were hired because they are experts at helping us - you, me, the board, the community, the affiliates - work through processes of change. From their "about us" page: "williamsworks draws on over a decade of experience working with the world’s most influential philanthropists, corporations and social innovators to tackle problems both global and local. Our team is comprised of fiercely committed individuals who bring expertise in public policy, politics, philanthropy, communications and global development. We know what it takes to accomplish great things because we have already helped so many of our partners create real, lasting change."

I don't see anything - not one thing - in any of the above discussion that gives me any pause whatsoever. I see insults - Nocturnalnow calling them "phony", "never doing a lick of work and living high off the hog off of hard working people's taxes", etc. That objection doesn't make any sense whatsoever, none. It's an insult to good people and should be retracted.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:35, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales As you can readily see by my use of the word "already" in the phrase "I am already pissed off...", I was not in that edit speaking about the organisation you refer to, and I doubt they would describe themselves as "silver spoon bull shitters" which is the group I referenced in terms of getting Wikimedia donations. I was speaking about do-gooder operations in general; i.e. those who take money paid in taxes. For example, the biggest do-gooder of them all, the United Nations, brought cholera into Haiti with one of its do-gooder operations; "The peacekeepers lived on a base that often leaked waste into a river, and the first cholera cases in the country appeared in Haitians who lived nearby." However, since you bring up an "about us" text, that text is a very good example of bragging about achievements yet providing no specific references at all to those achievements. Phraseology like "world's most influential philanthropists..." and "fiercely committed..." are pretty hard to verify, I'm sure you will agree. Nevertheless, out of respect for you, I will retract that text as I do not want to be seen as using any inappropriate language, especially on your talk page. Nocturnalnow (talk) 21:36, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Call for proposals for consultants: December 6, 2016
Update by Executive Director: December 15, 2016
Consultant proposal evaluation description: December 15, 2016
Update by Executive Director: December 23, 2016
Update by Executive Director: January 8, 2017
Update by Executive Director: January 11, 2017 This is not the last update but it is the one that announces that Williams was chosen as a result of the public call for proposals.

-- Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:43, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Also Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-02-06/In focus.
"We think it is time we all step back and think together about where the world is headed over the next 15 years" ... Not just Internet encyclopedias, the world. wbm1058 (talk) 01:47, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

wbm1058, profound observation. We have already seen where some of us see Wikipedia as part of an "age of enlightenment", code for Liberal internationalism and Liberal international economic order, so it is what it is. This social movement seems to fly in the face of what Wikipedia is not, but when our donors are paying 2.5 million for something they could get for free, imo, then "follow the money" is a good indiucator of where we are heading, I think. Nocturnalnow/Alzheimer's victim

WMF board member qualifications

Does it seem strange that, in an environment where RfA candidates are routinely rejected because they haven't created enough GAs and/or FAs, a WMF board member appears to have never edited Wikipedia, has no user account, and cannot be reached by email?[7] --Guy Macon (talk) 22:56, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation Board Handbook --Moxy (talk) 23:38, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Key quote: "Following a candidate's selection to the Board, the following steps should be carried out: [...] Emails and wiki accounts activated. At the direction of the Secretary, WMF's IT staff creates email and wiki accounts for the new Board member and arranges for systems access according to the Onboarding Permissions Protocol."

Also, it appears that only two current board members (not including Jimbo) actually read the Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard. See m:Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard#Hello? Is anyone home?. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:30, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

~~Shameful, and I perceive an unacceptable level of arrogance from the responses~~. Maybe we need a much more enhanced level of oversight by the editing community.

I have the feeling we may be seen as rotating bots by some of the WMF board.....I mean, not to even check this board at least once per week is dereliction of work responsibility by the WMF board members and insulting to the community, imo.Something has to change! Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:34, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Its beyond strange, Guy. Perhaps just a rookie mistake going back for years. All WMF Board nominees should have to meet the same benchmarks that our Administrators have to meet as well as having the qualifications needed to be a trustee of Wikimedia; that's a no-brainer.Nocturnalnow (talk) 15:11, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

I can't think of a worse idea. One of the best ways to avoid "group think" and a failure to see new ideas is to fail to recruit from the outside to the board. Asking every board member be an expert at editing Wikipedia - something which is totally irrelevant for most board work - would be a huge mistake. We are very careful to always have deep deep editorial and community representation on the board - this is absolutely crucial. But not every board member needs to have that skill set to be effective, and indeed, coming from outside can be a huge benefit in terms of seeing things in a way that is useful and different from our usual thoughts.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:37, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Nice Straw man you have built there, and I admire your skill in knocking it down. Getting back to what I actually wrote, I am not asking that board members be experts at editing Wikipedia. I am merely asking that they have a user account with a user talk page. and/or that they can be reached by email as clearly specified in the Wikimedia Foundation Board Handbook. Making one or two small edits to Wikipedia (in any language) and actually reading the Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard (I am looking at you Jimbo) would be a nice plus, but I am not asking for that. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:17, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales, ok, maybe its a matter of the ratio of deep editorial and community representation. Perhaps it should be something like 50/50 whereas now the board appears to be lopsided toward the "never edited..much" board members. Also, I would argue that Wikipedia etc. are substantively unique in their/our processes and dependence on an ever changing stable of volunteer contributors....so different that there should be a much larger ratio of experienced participants on the board than in typical corporations or even non-profits, which operate largely on hierarchal and employee based models. I suggest that rather than having the deep editorial and community representation in the minority, that those coming from outside with fresh sets of eyes be in the minority. Furthermore I do not see group think as being a real hazard among experienced Wikipedia editors...just the opposite...consensus building is more of a challenge here. On the other hand, when WMF board members are coming from NGOs, non-profits and/or politically affiliated enterprises, that is where you really run into epidemic and dogmatic group think. Nocturnalnow (talk) 20:36, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

the board sometimes doesn't always mix well with people representing the editing community. see this. There are some issues with appointing too many people who are immersed in the values and methods of big tech companies and their board-level operations; the WMF board and jimbo have never addressed them. Jytdog (talk) 21:33, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Guy Macon, yeah, you are correct about the Straw man, but it could be unintentional. Nocturnalnow/Alzheimer's victim

Recognition for unpaid editors

Jimbo I am floating this idea to see if there is enough interest to suggest it on Village Pump. I have 2 ideas; 1:creating a "barnstar" for unpaid, non-advocate editors and 2:WMF doing a random draw each year from a list of all self declared unpaid editors with more than 1,000 edits that year with the editor selected getting some kind of really cool prize...like $10,000. check, and/or some really expensive computer gear perhaps. What do you think? Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:12, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia editors do not control the purse strings, so nobody at the Village Pump has the power to implement this. You should try to get consensus at the m:Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard. Oh, right. Nevermind. wbm1058 (talk) 15:12, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

I wonder if you could explain what your 'Nevermind' means?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:38, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

wbm1058 is pointing out that hardly any of the board appear to actually read their noticeboard (section above) so trying to get consensus there would be pointless. Black Kite (talk) 17:54, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Two bob and a pickled egg and it's all yours guv'nor. — O Fortuna^{velut luna} 17:59, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Am I the only one to see the humor in this proposal? Paying somebody who is an unpaid editor? It would be more appropriate to have the WMF send a barnstar to everybody who has the "No Money Handshake" pic on their user page. And the cost is about $10,000 less. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:46, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

I also perceived the irony. On the other hand, my other concerns with the proposal are that most editors are unpaid already (to edit Wikipedia), and this would be incompatible with that many editors prefer to remain anonymous (often with valid reasons), which would make this impractical, unless they expected bitcoin prizes or similar... —░]PaleoNeonate█ ⏎ ?ERROR░ 00:57, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

IMHO Wikimedia Foundation's budget is not something that should be wasted on lotteries. Though, if you are looking for some 'recognition', try applying for a scholarship to Wikimania. Also, there is Wikipedian of the Year award. --Lingveno (talk) 01:39, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Yea, let's stop paying editors US$2.5 million for editing the strategic planning process. I'd be quite happy to help with strategic planning for free. I'm less excited about indefinitely patrolling {{error}}s, making spelling corrections and and reverting vandalism for free. Where else in the world do you find volunteer janitors?

reduce mean time of vandalism reversions...
reduce mean time of reversions of promotional edits...
reduce mean time of reversions of copyright violations... to less than 30 seconds
reduce mean time to close Phabricator bugs to less than one month

There ya go. My free strategy. wbm1058 (talk) 02:24, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

You should have charged $146,000 for your strategy, WMF has more money to burn than they have matches. Carrite (talk) 14:40, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

wp:articleprobem

have you heard of WP:ARTICLEPROBLEM — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zdnf (talk • contribs) 12:23, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia:Featured articles may have problems is an essay that was first written in 2009, with updates in 2011 and 2013. Are you referring to any article in particular? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:49, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Child sex ring allegations against U.N. peacekeepers; WMF response?

Jimbo, I'm sure you know the Associated Press and the Toronto Star are reliable sources. Please read this article...it is not easy to read. In light of this latest reporting and the U.N.'s already admitted to role in Haiti's cholera outbreak, is there anything you can do either alone or in concert with the WMF to impress upon the U.N. the need for them to improve their operations so that this sort of horror does not happen again? Can you think of anyway the WMF can apply pressure to bring the alleged child molesters to trial?Nocturnalnow/Alzheimer's victim

Well all UN topics aside, I think WP has a very good page about "Biochemistry of Alzheimer's disease" in time with the rapid race for the cure (next 2 years?). -Wikid77 (talk) 06:45, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Wikid77that's a very personal and inappropriate response here, perhaps on my talk page. Maybe you want to deflect away from this discussion point for some reason, but I can not imagine why. Nocturnalnow/Alzheimer's victim

Wait! Wikid77, I think I see your point. When you say "all U.N. topics aside" you are saying this U.N. event has nothing whatsoever to do with Wikipedia? ok, I understand now. We must first determine whether Wikipedia has any responsibilities or role in this U.N. event...I was thinking the connection is obvious, but now I see that for your benefit and likely others, I'll have to spell it out, which will require a rewording of the section title. Thanks for bring this to my attention, Wikid77, albeit in a roundabout way and couched in an inappropriately ad hominem comment.Nocturnalnow/Alzheimer's victim

Can you please find something else to do with your time? --JBL (talk) 16:19, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm trying to improve the article right now. Maybe you could pitch in?Nocturnalnow/Alzheimer's victim

What, if any, responsibility does Wikipedia have for addressing the sex molestation of children by U.N. peacekeepers?

Jimbo, this article requires some deep and focused thought, but please hear me out and think about my belief that Wikipedia does have some, if tiny, levels of responsibility for dealing with these atrocious crimes against children. Here is my reasoning;

User:Herostratus made an honest and clear description of where Wikipedia sits in relation to the United Nations and other international entities.here. His words are so educational, regarding Wikipedia, and eye opening that I think I should repeat some of them here, with some emphasis being mine:

"The Wikipedia is an Age of Enlightenment institution (which is why our references typically are to peer-reviewed or fact-checked sources, rather than consisting mostly of "The Pope himself has said that this is true" or "The leader of our country himself has said that this is true" and so forth, as would have been done in former days -- and still is, in many places.) "Internationalization goes hand in hand with Enlightenment ideals to some degree. The modern system of international treaties and relations is to some extent an Enlightenment institution. The United Nations is, in my opinion, an institution consistent with how Enlightenment ideals would be expected to develop. And you can't easily separate these things out." ...Herostratus (talk) 21:13, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Since neither you,Jimbo, nor anyone else challenged Herostratus's description of Wikipedia, I conclude that description is largely accurate,

Here we find the corroborating mission description noticed by User:wbm1058 within the "call for proposals" "We think it is time we all step back and think together about where the world is headed over the next 15 years"

So, Jimbo, let's just admit that Wikipedia has become, for whatever reasons, a part of what User:Herostratus, and I, call internationalism.

Now here is where I may lose you; any member of any club....e.g. NATO or the EU..or in our case, the group of international institution creators and promoters...must take some responsibility for how other members, in this case the U.N., are operating. Especially when they are operating in such a way that "hundreds" of children were systematically sexually molested/raped within one of their operations and none of the criminals has been brought to trial.

So, I'm making the case that; ok, Wikipedia contributors are adding value to the Wikimedia movement. The executive leaders of this movement, including you, have decided to put our efforts and the donations generated by our efforts into a global project consisting of global institutions which include the United Nations. Therefore, we have some, albeit small, responsibility for any horrific results occurring from the activities of the United Nations.

This may seem too esoteric of a connection for some, but may I remind you that WW1 was quickly ramped up from a small event to a huge event because of alliances....and I contend that, as Herostratus eloquently said, there is an institutional connection between Wikipedia and the United Nations.

You can't be part of a group and then turn your head and say "oh, those children being molested (by the agents of another member of the same group) have nothing to do with us. We have no responsibility for what member X of our group is doing."

So,Jimbo, I repeat, what can and will you do about what happened with the U.N. operation in Haiti? Nocturnalnow/Alzheimer's victim

Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation are completely independent of the UN, and Wikipedia itself takes no stand on the UN. There is a certain sense, of course, in which Wikipedia can be regarded as "internationalist" or "globalist" but not in the sense of "advocating for more power for the UN" nor "reducing the sovereignty of independent nations" or anything political like that at all. I think it safe to say that a fundamental assumption of the Wikipedia project is that it is desirable "every single person on the planet" to have a free encyclopedia in their own language, and that our chosen task as volunteers is to help make that happen.

Second, I object in the strongest possible terms to anything resembling "an active Wikipedian who has been around for a long time said X, and Jimbo was silent on the matter, therefore Jimbo agrees with X". Fill in 'X' with anything at all, and I reject utterly the very concept that this is a coherent thing to say. Similarly, all organizations, big and small, in planning their future, should take into account "where the world is heading" - so going from Katherine's perfectly reasonable statement about that to a bizarre conclusion that we are in a "club" of organizations such that we should take responsibility for what the UN is doing is... nonsense.

Third, to answer your specific question at the end: "what can and will you do about what happened with the U.N. operation in Haiti?". I don't think there is much I can do that is specific to this. I suppose I could tweet a disapproval, although this is not the type of topic where I would expect my statement to carry much weight. Jimmy Wales opposes child abuse is hardly surprising enough to be that interesting to anyone. But I think the main thing that I can do - that we can do - is be good Wikipedians... document what reliable sources have said so that anyone who is interested in this topic can be well-informed in a well-rounded way, rather than just reading some hyperbolic claptrap.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:52, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Well, you may notice that the title of this section is a question. And your answer is "none"; no responsibility for even addressing the problem. I was just expecting that with all the time, and effort, and now enormous donations that WMF might could do something to help these kids. Nowhere have I mentioned the idea of advocating for more power for the U.N., so you must have picked that up from some other topic. I had hoped that if, as you say, Wikipedia can be seen as internationalist or globalist that would maybe provide a stakeholder status for addressing a problem created and perpetuated by another internationalist organization; but if you say that Wikipedia does not have any influence in such an obscene tragedy, then I fail to see how we would ever even want to be internationalist or globalist or even want to figure out where the world is heading if we can't have any input into where its heading. Is it just a matter of seeing where we fit in? Into an internationalist system where the biggest players like the U.N. can cause such horror with no consequence? So, then let's fall back to "its just an encyclopedia". Well maybe that should be the one and only focus of the 2.5 million dollar strategy guidance, because our article on this subject, especially after this child abuse has been going on for 10 years, is absolutely a Child sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers stub and a failure. Nocturnalnow/Alzheimer's victim

So, Jimbo, I'm going to work on the article now...I get very upset when kids are abused. Nocturnalnow/Alzheimer's victim

Ehm, is this serious ? I'm all for fixing the entire world, but this seems somewhat extreme. Too vague, not within scope, not an effective use of our attention. You have a habit of going onto wild tangents on this Talk page, distracting people etc. It's seriously annoying me whenever I visit Jimbo's talk page. I'm all for AGF, but you're behavior has you ranked rather high up on my 'troll' list. And the fact that you boast about 4000 unpaid edits, of which in reality only 480 are in main namespace, and a large portion of those are regarding Knowledge Engine (Wikimedia Foundation) and related topics, isn't helping to reassure me otherwise. I don't need to hear you defend yourself, just move that needle on my bullshit meter. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:55, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

(@Nocturnalnow) Let me be brief and to the point, because I refuse to be mired in the specifics. Wikipedia is not the U.N., is not directly associated with the U.N., is not morally responsible for the U.N., and has no responsibility to right great wrongs beyond the ones affected by its encyclopedic mission. If you want to write an article about some "great wrong", then you're already invited to do so, within the bounds of neutral point of view and Wikipedia's other rules. {{Nihiltres |talk |edits}} 15:56, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

TheDJ, your insult is blatantly Ad hominem, "an argument is rebutted by attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument,.." Don't embarrass yourself further by using that argument on others.

Quacks like a duck, probably is a duck. I've been silently observing this for months now it was time to call out the obvious. This kind of non-sense doesn't deserve serious arguments. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:25, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

User:Nihiltres, please think logically, we can not claim, as User:Herostratus did above, to be connected with the U.N. as part of an "age of enlightenment" group of institutions, again quoting him because he is so correct and honest about this connection; "The United Nations is, in my opinion, an institution consistent with how Enlightenment ideals would be expected to develop. And you can't easily separate these things out.", and then when something bad happens run away from that connection and condense ourselves back down to what you call our "encyclopedic mission". A country can't say they are part of NATO and then ignore it if another NATO country's soldiers are committing war crimes against children. We can't have it both ways. You can't have your cake and eat it too.Nocturnalnow/Alzheimer's victim

One editor compares Wikipedia to the U.N. in some aspects and suddenly the WMF has some responsibility to hold the U.N. accountable? Hey, the WMF is a non-profit organization. Now it has to hold all other non-profits in the world accountable! Utterly idiotic. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 20:02, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm having trouble following this argument. There is an article called Child sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers. Is there a problem with it? Coretheapple (talk) 20:50, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

@Coretheapple: You're having trouble following the argument because the argument is ridiculous. Supposedly the U.N. and the WMF are part of the same "club" because one editor made a comparision between the two and that means the WMF bears some responsibility for U.N. actions. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 20:58, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Oh. Well there is an article on the subject, so if this person has any remaining energy he or she can wander over there and dive in. Coretheapple (talk) 21:01, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Coretheapple, NeilN, I apologise for not explaining this well. Its not a matter of one editor; its a matter that actually a different editor pointed out in relation to our Executive Director's call for proposals regarding the overall strategy of our movement going forward 15 years, i.e. "We think it is time we all step back and think together about where the world is headed over the next 15 years" ... Not just Internet encyclopedias, the world. wbm1058 (talk) 01:47, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

You see, this statement by our Executive Director...not just some single editor...just as User:wbm1058 emphasized...puts Wikipedia squarely in the club of global institutions rather than being simply an encyclopedia. So its ludicrous to ignore this reality and now fall back into the posture of "oh, we're just an encyclopedia with no responsibility for what our brother and sister global institutions are doing." Can you really deny with a straight face that Wikimedia is settling into the path that Herostratus describes so well? When we read words like these from the A.P. article; " More than a decade ago, the United Nations commissioned a report that promised to do much the same thing, yet most of the reforms never materialized. For a full two years after those promises were made, the children in Haiti were passed around from soldier to soldier. And in the years since, peacekeepers have been accused of sexual abuse the world over. In response to the AP’s investigation, the UN’s head of field support said Wednesday the international body was aware of shortcomings in the system." and we juxtapose that with the view expressed by Herostratus..which has been confirmed by Jimbo in his silence, as well as the statement by our E.D. that Wikimedia's focus is on "where the world is headed" over the next 15 years, then as much as we'd like to stick with our article and shirk any responsibility for how the global institutions are behaving, our Executive Director, and I suspect Jimbo and most of the directors as well have squarely put us all and all of our contributions into the club of international institutions. I realize this argument may be hard to grasp but I urge you to try, Its really important, I think. And I think that the WMF and Jimbo may actually be able to have some influence over the U.N. in this matter. The status quo in this child abuse matter is not acceptable, I'm sure you will agree. Nocturnalnow/Alzheimer's victim

I wouldn't say that the WMF could be held responsible for the UN's actions. Clear this up for me – has the WMF given money to the UN, or do they have some sort of working relationship with the UN? Or are you just saying that the WMF and UN are simply two of the many organizations working to better the world, in their own unique and different ways? wbm1058 (talk) 23:15, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

I think you're just asking the WMF to speak out to express their displeasure with this UN-related issue, just as they spoke out to express their position on Stop Online Piracy Act. Given the apparent broadening of the scope of their mission, it seems like it might be a reasonable request to make. Of course, it would also be reasonable for the WMF to decline to comment on this particular issue, as the extent of their broadened mission may still be in flux, pending the result of the ongoing strategy discussions. wbm1058 (talk) 23:27, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

My personal interpretation of the statement you quoted would be marketting speech for: Wikipedia must continue to strive and adapt (technologically, and perhaps in other ways) within a moving, evolving or turbulent world. —░]PaleoNeonate█ ⏎ ?ERROR░ 00:07, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Indeed, but the context is not Wikipedia -- it is, as the document describes, the organization of multiple organizations around the world, WMF comprises. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:08, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes, wbm1058 phrases it exactly; I'm just asking the WMF to speak out to express their displeasure with this UN-related issue, given the apparent broadening of the scope of their missionNocturnalnow/Alzheimer's victim

The fact that Wikimedia is an organization of organizations around the world is not a broadening, it has been an organization of organizations around the world for a long time. Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:18, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Alanscottwalker, that is the nut of a possible difference of opinion; i.e. whether the scope of WMF's mission is broadening. Our Executive Director's recent statement, in bold above, as noted by Wbm1058, is instructive to some of us in the sense that her focus is "where the world is headed over the next 15 years", not where the encyclopedia is heading. Those are her words, and they are very clear to me. Its really a bit of attempted mind reading by PaleoNeonate to interpret that sentence as a marketing speech. I know something about marketing and this sentence has nothing to do with marketing, rather, it is a suggested first step going forward for defining a mission strategy...a mission strategy defined in a global context.

Have you read the beautifully clear description by Herostratus of how connected Wikipedia is with other "age of enlightenment" institutions? wbm1058 uses the words "Given the apparent broadening of the scope of their mission", so I guess I could accept the qualifier "apparent"...although in this case, imo, the broadening is obvious. Now, there is one other possibility which would involve speculation on my part, which is that perhaps WMF has for a long time, perhaps always, had a much broader scope of mission than many of the contributors here have realized.Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:56, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Please find something else to do with your time. --JBL (talk) 16:22, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

It's not a mission statement, it is an inquiry statement in the context of an international organization of organizations. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:31, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

I've attempted to read as much as my weak eyes permit concerning what is bothering this editor, so as to understand him or her, and I am still failing. At the most, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. If it is failing to reflect one issue or another, then the remedy is to fix it. Coretheapple (talk) 20:20, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm going to start work on the article now. Nocturnalnow/Alzheimer's victim

I could use some help with this; its tough for me to edit.Nocturnalnow/Alzheimer's victim

That guitar-breaking airline and our old friend Mr. Dacre

Daily Mail Libels United Passenger. The Daily Heil misidentified the doctor dragged off the United plane, falsely pinning a conviction for sexual assault on him, due to precisely the deficient fact-checking that led to the Mail being deprecated as a source here. Guy (Help!) 14:53, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

I believe that TMZ broke that story first[8] and the Daily Mail was just doing it's usual "steal a story, mangle it a bit, and act as if they wrote it themselves" song and dance. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:22, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

So, we're using a blog and a gossip site to pin blame on the Daily Mail? Doesn't seem like much progress to me. - 2001:558:1400:4:3C24:755D:807A:B2F7 (talk) 20:56, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

First, TMZ has not blamed The Daily Mail for anything. They are just a victim of plagiarism here. Second, despite the tone and choice of material, TMZ has a good reputation for accuracy and fact checking. Unlike TDM; see WP:DAILYMAILRFC for full details. I am still waiting for a reliable source that supports the claim that the doctor was misidentified. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:17, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Mr. Chapman and Mr. Macon, I rest my case. Another example of JzG being unfit for adminship on a knowledge project. - 2601:42:C100:81D8:203E:90A0:16FF:3B79 (talk) 10:51, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

So now a minor error in documenting part of a long string of Daily Mail bullshit-slinging makes one "unfit for adminship"? I refer you to the answer given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram. --Guy Macon (talk) 09:15, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Update the related page: With the airplane video getting a half-billion[!] views in China, check the WP article "United Express Flight 3411 incident" and perhaps see if the Chinese interwiki (zh:中文) has sources about which "Dr. David Dao" was on that airplane. Meanwhile, WP coverage of Syria poison gas is well-sourced in "Khan Shaykhun chemical attack" (re Shayrat Airbase), and so perhaps both topics can be kept accurate in rapid wiki mode. -Wikid77 (talk) 04:24, 13 April +Chinese. Wikid77 (talk) 06:15, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Your constant blathering about the "Heil" tends to Godwin your argument. Everything you write about them seems childish and petty. As for the substance of the airplane incidents, the passengers history is in the news and doesn't require it to be repeated. --68.228.239.7 (talk) 08:54, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

You "forgot" to log in. The nickname "Daily Heil" has been in common use since my childhood, I think I first saw it in Private Eye but some sources say it's been used since the 1930s. And it's not a Godwin fail because it references an actual event in the company's history (its blackshirt cover), it doesn't imply or invoke an analogy to the Nazis. Unlike Spicer Man's comments on Syria. Guy (Help!) 09:44, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Are they serving humble pie in the DM canteen today after this shocker? Anyone still willing to defend the DM as a reliable news source? - The Bounder (talk) 11:10, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Re-read your source (there is a nice UPDATE: at the bottom). The Daily Mail got it correct. The internet found another Dr. David Dao that was not convicted of trading sex for prescriptions but that wasn't the one on the plane. The David Dao that was removed from the flight is the one the Daily Mail reported on. The bad information apparently came from Everipedia and dutifully regurgitated by dupes. --DHeyward (talk) 19:36, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

JzG you may wish to refactor your accusation that the DM libeled the United Airlines doctor as well as the statement that they misidentified him. They didn't. --DHeyward (talk) 01:15, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

So they accidentally included actual facts when smearing the non-white victim of an egregious assault. That makes all the difference. Guy (Help!) 07:16, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

You said the Daily Mail libeled him and misidentified him. They did neither. It just makes you wrong and their fact checking was better than your own. And you doubled down on truthiness by characterizing police enforcing what amounts to a trespass complaint by the airline as an "egregious assault." --DHeyward (talk) 10:17, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Sure. The despicable thing they did was not the despicable thing of which I and others accused them, but instead a different despicable thing. And no doubt that makes the Mail a paragon of journalistic virtue now. Guy (Help!) 11:13, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

It does nothing for the DM. But being obstinate in the face of being wrong does nothing for your credibility. It's difficult to treat your criticism as legitimate when you are not willing to correct mistakes. DM Pot, meet Guy Kettle. --DHeyward (talk) 17:32, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

It sounds like the charge is switched from lying without cause to telling the truth without permission, which is generally taken as a far more serious infraction! Yet it is just that which gives me a soft spot for the DM, despite overall differences in political opinion. It may be irrelevant, but that's the reader's call. In the meanwhile ... the guy lost two front teeth. I do count that as an "egregious assault". No matter how openly the airlines collude to jack up your ticket prices, you're not allowed to go down with a gun to negotiate -- but if they short-sell one, they expect to buy it back for no more than $800 or they bash your head into an armrest until you change your mind! Wnt (talk) 22:19, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

There are also reports, e.g. The Telegraph, that he suffered a broken nose. DrChrissy ^(talk) 23:07, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

"Assault" isn't defined by the injury. I thought he was injured when the police sought to remove him which would have nothing to do with remuneration or the contract of carriage. The police don't have a choice when the airline calls police to remove a passenger. Police don't get to decide if the removal request was warranted by the contract, that's a civil matter, not criminal. I am surprised they didn't arrest him as that would be where they justified use of force much like they do when arresting protesters that block traffic. The issue United faces is deciding when a civil matter becomes criminal. The crew won't physically restrain anyone on the ground but this event will also give them pause to think about the consequences of making a boarding issue a criminal matter. --DHeyward (talk) 22:57, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Re "Police don't get to decide if the removal request was warranted", three cops are now on administrative leave for doing that. [9]

Read the article. The CEO said police won't be called again. He's essentially saying they misreported a trespassing. The suspensions are internal use of force. Removing him from the flight at United's request is something they don't have discretion over. Same thing as you calling police if an unwanted visitor camps out in your backyard. As long as you want them removed and are willing to sign a trespass complaint, they will remove him. This happens in stores, stadiums, restaurants and bars every single day. Use of force is spelled out in policy. --DHeyward (talk) 04:31, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

The Elephant In The Room

"It has become a common practice that when a citizen has a very public, highly publicized encounter with law enforcement, his or her criminal background very quickly ends up in the hands of local media outlets..."[10]

To our credit, United Express Flight 3411 incident is not one of the places where one can find this irrelevant (even if true) Dao hit piece. :) --Guy Macon (talk) 19:17, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

What's interesting is Reason article makes the case that if the person were shot or killed, then their previous encounters with law enforcement are relevant. It then ignores that standard here. The reality is that the vast majority of adults will leave a place when the property owner asks them to leave. An even larger majority will peacefully leave if the owners called police and the police ask them to leave after a trespass warning. Trying to understand why a 69 year old will forcibly resist the police is a relevant question and criminal history, as Reason points out, is a legitimate inquiry. The police are not the source for this information as they are tracked when they access it, rather its FOIA material. Dao's criminal history doesn't explain his behavior and is therefore irrelevant but inquiring about it to try and understand why he acted that way is a legitimate activity for the press. --DHeyward (talk) 22:17, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

That's suspiciously quick for a FOIA request. I will be very surprised if the cops didn't reveal to a friendly reporter the criminal history of the person who they dragged off of the plane, just as I would be very surprised if the cops released any records of previous complaints against the officers -- or even their names -- without having that information pried from them with a crowbar. That's the way these things work. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:17, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Oh please. Court records are publicly available. The press looked him up like everyone else. And your suspicion should be that they have contacts in the various FOIA agencies and can expedite requests. Police access to criminal databases are tracked and it's a crime to access. Police are routinely disciplined and fired for accessing the databases for personal reasons. How likely is it they would access it for PR reasons of a suspended officer? (hint: zero chance). Once the officers are named, the press will have their personnel file (probably the same day) and it's coordination with the PDs FOIA group. --DHeyward (talk) 04:31, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

This week in Daily Mail making shit up news

[11]

"Meanwhile, at the Daily Mail: in a superb volte-face of reactionary evil-genius narrativising, the resulting article was headlined “Student equality campaigners slam all-male University Challenge final blaming ‘hostile’ world of quiz societies”. Forced to change tack when unable to find any contestants willing to be quoted in the paper, the article became about how the kind of University quiz tournaments of which the finalists were part are “very hostile to women”. Inevitably, the Balliol team was quoted as having refused to answer questions they had not yet been asked."

Bit of hyperbole from the Staggers there, and disappointing to note that the Daily Hellograph joined the fray as well.

The problem here is the same deadline-drive culture that makes Mail Online such a cesspit. This story should have been spiked as a non-starter, instead they had to plough on and get column inches out of the nugatory amount of effort they had put in. People won't help? Then attack them. Collaborate or face the consequences. I think Mr. Dacre is not a terribly nice man, and that is a view shared by many who have worked for him.

Incidentally, the Northcliffe House of the Mail's heyday is now full of corporate lawyers. It's about 30 seconds' walk from the Witness Box pub on Tudor Street where we met some years back. There are murals of printing presses on the outside walls, some of them are rather good, worth a diversion if you're ever ambling along Fleet Street. Guy (Help!) 07:40, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

So I missed the part where the roster of all male quiz teams explained why they didn't choose any female students to represent the university in these contests. I don't think the tabloids choose the teams. The privilege oozing from an all male Oxford University quiz team is hard to match. "We're woke male feminists and hate the daily mail" followed by high fives and a retreat to be with other privileged university men competing in a quiz show - doesn't really feel warm and fuzzy...unless you're a privileged male university student or graduate and feel the need to blame the Daily Mail for your privilege. --DHeyward (talk) 10:17, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

I get it: you won't hear a word against the Daily Mail. You already made that clear. Some of us think tabloids are crap and getting worse. Check out Michael Marshall's Bad PR site. Guy (Help!) 11:11, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

They've always been crap and the number that are tabloidish are growing. The DM may have a longer history but the other media outlets are following their lead. DM is neither unique or special. --DHeyward (talk) 17:41, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

The point wasn't that the men didn't pick women to join their teams - it was women not wanting to audition because of the media treatment they received. I don't blame them one bit. (The Daily Mail isn't the only guilty party there) Panyd^{The muffin is not subtle} 13:21, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

If you're going to rag on the Mail for an article you should at least cite it. Regardless of what leads or potential articles they gave up, I don't see anything extraordinarily awful about this article -- it is a damn sight better than the average Oscar-awards-are-racist article from last year, and those things practically took over American news for half a week. They tried to get an inside view, and gave up because of this politically correct boycott against journalists asking why a game with eight players has zero men for the third time in five years. I say agree with them, disagree with them, whatever, but if you expect me to dismiss everything their paper does from now on based on this story, you'll get entirely the wrong reaction about what source of sexed-up news here I'm likely to dismiss next time. Wnt (talk) 19:51, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

MfD of interest

Please note that Wikipedia:Statement on Wikipedia from participating communications firms has been listed for deletion. The discussion is here. Coretheapple (talk) 21:56, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Use vandals to attack paid editors? Follow up to the Burger King event

Jumbo, here is a Thinking outside the box idea. High Status Admins could set up a special "likely paid editor alert" page which vandals could watch and take the same action they took in the Burget King event. This occurred to me while reading $ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it.$ 's suggestion. In effect, we could turn the ever present useless vandals into Wikipedia's own Special Ops. Obviously any wrongfully suspected editors would have mechanisms for removing themselves from the list, but drastic issues...i.e. the existing paid editing situation...may require drastic measures. Its just an idea and I have not seen, as yet a better one. Hopefully there will be no strawman or ethical outrage responses, I'm hoping for some practical discussion here. Nocturnalnow/Alzheimer's victim —Preceding undated comment added 20:42, 17 April 2017 (UC)

Just so I understand, you're suggesting we encourage editors to break policies in response to editors breaking policies? Mr Ernie (talk) 21:30, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Concur with Mr Ernie. We're supposed to be the good guys here, right? The mission of Wikipedia is to produce an encyclopedia, not attack someone/thing, even passively, because they abuse our goodwill. There are far better ways to handle this. Ravensfire (talk) 22:00, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

I see what you mean Ravensfire, its a bad idea ethically. I'm just grasping at straws I guess when it comes to trying to help figure out how to deal with paid editing, COI etc. Nocturnalnow (talk) 04:14, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

It is worth remembering that we've never agreed as a community to ban paid editing or COI. The most we've done is put restrictions requiring disclosure, and that was through Meta, not here. While there are certainly problems with what happened with Burger King, it isn't paid editing per se which was the issue. - Bilby (talk) 04:49, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

"For anyone with a Google Home near their TV, that strangely phrased request will prompt the speaker to begin reading the Wikipedia entry for the Whopper."

"...And all evidence suggests Burger King is behind the edit. The line was first added by someone with the username “[username redacted]” which appears to be the username of Burger King’s [position redacted], [name redacted]. He uses the same name on Instagram and an almost identical name on Twitter.

A press representative for the company stopped responding when asked about the edit. Wikipedia specifically asks that editors “avoid shameless self-promotion” while making changes, and this very much seems to break the rule.

Relying on Wikipedia also opens up one other problem: anyone can edit it. The Verge modified the Whopper entry briefly, and Google Home began speaking the updated text only minutes later."

"Google appears to have intervened and stopped the Home from responding to Burger King’s commercial. The Whopper’s Wikipedia page has also been reverted to its pre-ad state, and the page has been locked amid an editing war." -- Source: https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/12/15259400/burger-king-google-home-ad-wikipedia

--Guy Macon (talk) 05:39, 13 April 2017 (UTC), Edited to redact personal information --Guy Macon (talk) 00:18, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

So I see the TV ad would say, “OK Google, what is the Whopper burger?" and that caused Google Home to read from Wikipedia. Is anyone left who doesn't think WP is slanted by promotional, advocacy edits? -Wikid77 (talk) 06:33, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

No, there should be nobody left who doesn't think that businesses often insert promotional material (aka advertising) into Wikipedia, particularly since Fermachado123 (who is not yet blocked) wrote clear ad copy for the lede a couple of days ago, as well as User:Burger King Corporation (who is blocked) who contributed. Also Burger King’s Sneaky New TV Ad Tricks Your Google Home Into Talking About the Whopper 'OK, Google, what is the Whopper burger?' appeared in AdWeek *before* the ad aired and was clearly written with input from Burger King (they tested the ad in advance).

I do think that there are some people who don't care about it - and I have to wonder why? For example, I believe that there are arbs who would interpret WP:Outing as being enough reason to block @Guy Macon: for his edit above (linking to a site that gives the employer of an editor), and perhaps enough to block me for this edit ("outing" User:Burger King Corporation).

How should Wikipedians respond? First we should ban the whole company (excluding the burger flippers and minimum wage folks) from editing. In particular, all directors and officers ranked VP and above, and all employees of the advertising, marketing, and PR departments, their regular advertising and PR firms, as well as the ad firm known as "David in Miami" who conceived of the ad. (He is also know for this work of genius [12])

Of course they should be let back as editors if they declare all their previous paid editing adventures. These are likely to be extensive since there are 71 articles linked to the Burger King navigation template (just over half of these are exclusively about Burger King).

More later. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:20, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

It certainly is interesting how many people suddenly think I should be blocked without any prior warning for various transgressions right after I decided to get more serious about Wikipedia governance.[13][14][15][16] It makes me wonder how I have managed to spend ten years making 30,000 edits with a clean block log. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:44, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

I don't want to block you; I'm hoping to see you join the list here. wbm1058 (talk) 17:58, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! wbm1058, serious question: I am broadly supportive of the sort of changes James Heilman proposes[17] along with my own agenda (spend less, make an airtight endowment designed so that the WMF cannot raid the principle, run the servers forever off the interest from the endowment). If I were to run, would it be more likely that I ended up reducing the number of votes for Doc James, or would it be more likely that I ended up elected thus giving him two votes on many issues?

Sometimes I think we need to start shaming brands by adding "This manipulative brand is trying to skew your opinion by editing their own Wikipedia-article" to their lead for a year.. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:12, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Kudos to User:Julietdeltalima for playing it straight at User talk:Fermachado123. @Smallbones: My position on outing, as expressed about the previous Daily Mail article controversy here, is that material openly available from a major news source is not secret, and should not be treated as secret. It should not be brought up as "opposition research" in any Wikipedia argument ... except COI/paid editing issues in which the information is germane. That condition is met here. Wnt (talk) 15:59, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

I suspect an hour of having your product described as containing cyanide and children at the peak of publicity might be enough to impart the lesson. I'd love to know the sequence of events which led to Google disabling their results. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 16:23, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

@TheDJ:, would this shaming include those brands that are substantial donors to the annual Wikimedia Foundation fundraising drive, who are simultaneously manipulating their Wikipedia articles to read more favorably? Extensive research was done on this matter (on a Wikipedia-related but not-affiliated site that is generally critical of the Wikimedia Foundation), but when it was brought to the co-founder's attention, he mostly pooh-poohed the whole issue. (Interested parties can find out more about the multi-part investigation by performing a web search for "thin bright line" and "Wikimedia".) - 2001:558:1400:4:4D0F:38FF:2E09:A9DF (talk) 18:15, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Repeating what I said at ANI, I think the best response would be to let vandalism like this stand until the ad finishes running (note that I'm aware google has stopped the ad from working as intended, but still). I'm only half-joking: WP was essentially trolled and, in this day and age, trolling BK right back has the potential to garner a lot of positive press. $ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it.$ 17:00, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Bones, nobody seriously disputes that advertising isn't inserted into Wikipedia. So the idea that "Wikipedia will never have ads" is a joke. You want to ban Fermachado. Outing him isn't necessary. Just ban him. You can ban anonymous people without identifying them. Think of promotional editing as illegal immigration. You can't stop illegal immigration by just declaring that you banned it. Take a lesson from how the East Germans did it. You build a tall wall (costs money, you need to pay construction workers) then guard the wall 24×7 with guards wielding automatic weapons (more people you have to pay). The guards did not need to identify and out persons they observed climbing the wall. Perhaps eventually, as the singularity approaches it won't be necessary to pay people any more (think Clue Bot on steroids), but for the moment since you aren't willing to pay anybody, you can "ban" paid editing, but stopping it, under your self-imposed rules, is impossible. – wbm1058 (talk) 17:08, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Note the ani discussion is here Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Whopper_fiasco

Also, I did not out Fernando Machado.

I am just sick of the jerks who preach that we just have to accept paid editing. Why would anybody say that it is alright to lie to our readers via hidden ads? Nothing we can do about it? Just watch. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:24, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

You want to out Fernando Machado, don't you? You want to name and shame him, correct? You believe that naming and shaming a few companies like this will be an effective deterrent, and that this will stop all paid editing, correct? Who said it was alright to lie to our readers via hidden ads? Certainly not me. I just told you what we can do about it, but you aren't listening. wbm1058 (talk) 17:37, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

No, I don't want to out Machado - he did it himself - he doesn't care if he openly violates our rules. Nope. Not really needed - just a clear statement from the Wikipedia community that it is not ok to violate our rules. Nope. Forgive me if I misunderstood you - but you did say that the only thing we can do about paid editors is to build a wall and shoot them (2 comments up)? Correct me if I'm wrong. I took that to mean that you think there is nothing we can do about it. Isn't that what your saying? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:24, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

OK, let me try to make a less deadly analogy. Compare promotional editing with littering. We could "make a clear statement from the Wikipedia community that it is not ok to violate our rules" by posting a sign on the left margin of every page, right below the globe logo and above the link to the main page. Vandalizing Wikipedia and promotional editing are prohibited What should we set the fine at? Despite this clear statement to travelers, the problem has not been stopped (look at the ground). Hint: if you want to stop promotional editing, set up some speed traps, manned by editors with radar guns and checkuser privileges, lurking on the other side of Pending Changes Hill. But you don't want to pay them. As there will never be enough sufficiently motivated volunteers watching the sides of every road, there will always be littering and speeding. Sure volunteers can help (next 2 miles, <your organization name here> picks up litter three times per year) but that won't stop the practice entirely. wbm1058 (talk) 21:45, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

So I've got exactly what you're saying. You can't stop all litterers, so when somebody pulls up to City Hall in their SUV and drops a full load of garbage on the steps and are caught on video by 5 CCTVs, plus the driver drops his driver's license on the sidewalk and admits to the police that he was at City Hall at that time, then you shouldn't impose the $100 fine because that would be unequal treatment. Ha, ha. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:15, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Assuming that we're still talking about the Burger King thing, I wasn't aware that any Burger King employee admitted to all of that, but, if they had, and that explicitly violated the terms that they agreed to when they clicked "publish changes" then the Wikimedia Foundation should do whatever it takes, including starting a case in the appropriate court of law, to recover damages. This might not actually hurt BK at all under the theory that any publicity is good publicity. wbm1058 (talk) 23:02, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Smallbones, you may not have noticed, but Machado has been indeffed already.

ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it.

01:25, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

I wonder about the risk of surveillance here. I've been concerned in the past about reader IP numbers being recorded; in this case that seems moderately valuable. For example... let's suppose, only hypothetically, that BK has no access to GH tracking data. (I imagine GH might know all kinds of stuff, if it's always listening...) But BK can "hack" the system with the ad. Now every TV network that airs the ad sends the GH customers to Wikipedia, and GH has that data. But Wikipedia also has that data, right now. As I recall the Wikipedia "privacy policy" allows that the software has a record for 90 days of who accessed the encyclopedia at the exact moment that a particular network played the ad, each time it played the ad. So what does that tell you? Well, it gives you an index of IPs that are Google Home customers. It gives you an index of IPs that are watchers of particular TV stations at particular times when particular shows were running. And it gives you all this no matter whether you're related to BK or GH or the TV station or shows, if only you can arrange some back door deal to get the data. Now none of those lists would be complete (if the TV was off), but they should be accurate, and that might be worth some of money to somebody. So I wonder if there's any way that Wikipedia can spot those lists making their way out of the building... Wnt (talk) 02:18, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

I think BK got exactly what they deserved, and we all got a good laugh out of it. And... that's about it. Guy (Help!) 11:09, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

I see this BK event as one of the natural evolutions of paid editing. Better get tough...real tough...on paid editing, or expect lots more predators. When money sharks smell blood...any blood...they come. Nocturnalnow/Alzheimer's victim

The only thing new here is the use of the Google Home device to make Wikipedia part of a "home invasion". It is more blatant than usual, but there are probably other examples just as blatant. The reason to let companies know that we have rules against this is clear, if they think that we don't have rules against undeclared paid editing, or if they think we don't enforce our rules, putting ads into our articles on companies will become the rule (we're close to that situation now) and soon everybody will be doing it (I estimate that there now are about 150,000 articles on companies (and more on their products), about 2/3rds of these are really just ads for IMHO non-notable companies).

There is something especially strange about this incident though. The story that comes through in the multiple media accounts is that Burger King's marketing people re-wrote the lede of the Whopper article, had TV ads on Wednesday April 12. The ads then set off people's Google Home, which read the first sentence of the adspeak inserted by BK in the Whopper article. Wikipedians then vandalized the article, having words like "medium-size child" and "cyanide" come through to people's homes. BK was powerless to stop this, but Google shut off the GH-Ad connection. And then BK figured a way around the Google shut-off. There are variants in the news reports, but that's the main story that comes through.

It's clearly not that simple, and I believe that BK engaged in media manipulation (aka PR) to present this story. Some facts:

2 BK employees inserted the ingredient list intended to be read by Google Home on April 4, 8 days before the ad ran. The edits were revised but not removed.
On April 11, the day before the ad was supposed to run, a "medium-sized child" and later "cyanide" were added to the ingredient list and lasted for about an hour and 20 minutes.
From 16:12-16:35 UTC ((2:12-2:35 pm EDT) on April 12, the main edit war occurred. At 16:12 "cow" replaced "beef" in the ingredient list for 2 minutes. At 16:18 the ingredient list was removed from the lede. Over the next 17 minutes some nasty things were added, but most of them lasted in the article for less than a minute, 1 lasted for 2 minutes. These include "malted milk balls", "worst", "inferior to Big Mac". “Cancer-causing” was added twice, lasting less than a minute each time. [{adding the following) "rat meat and toenail clipping" was added 3 times and removed almost immediately each time.] (Somebody should check, but I think thats all the nasty stuff added in that period. Overall it looks like we did a pretty good job of removing that garbage) The ingredient list was re-added to the lede 3 times (once looks like a mistake by an admin), but I'd guess it was re-added twice by BK. (different user names, but who else would want to start an article with an ingredient list?) Then the article was protected at 16:35.

So the idea that an adulterated ingredient list was read by Google Home on the 12th and TV watchers actually heard it, looks pretty unlikely. Perhaps that was added to BKs PR presentation to distract from their admission that they put advertising into Wikipedia, and their failure to get actual TV watchers to hear their ingredient list. In any case, the story presented by the media is a bit off. (More eyes on this time-line would help to see if I missed anything) Smallbones_(smalltalk) 04:19, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Some of the nasty stuff was probably these guys: "The Verge modified the Whopper entry briefly, and Google Home began speaking the updated text only minutes later."[18] Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:23, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for picking that up. But even that is not straightfoward. The Verge's article is dated 12:00 pm EDT (noon), the earliest time the ad would have run and before the edit war. BK did release the ad to the media before that time (e.g. to Verge and AdWeek). If Verge dated it's article correctly, their modification would have had to be the "medium-sized child" or "cyanide" (or both) vandalism from the day before. Perhaps they just misdated the article by a few minutes a put in "cow" at 12:12 (lasting 2 minutes). Note that "cow" was the start of the edit war, and the previous day vandalism was the only one that lasted any time (over an hour). In either case, the vandalism was a story created by the media, with PR help from BK. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 11:28, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

As an example of the terrible news coverage of the event a SF TV evening news [19] on the 12th included a clip of google home playing the Wikipedia ingredients list from the 11th (including "medium-sized child") and Business Insiders video clip from the 12th included both "medium-sized child" and "cyanide" [20]. Somebody must have been feeding the media that footage. It amounts to a real whopper of a lie. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 13:04, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, Smallbones, that is a great summary of the editing war aspect which I knew nothing about.Nocturnalnow/Alzheimer's victim

Now that´s good journalism. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 05:57, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Open letter to Burger King et al

I've posted an open letter at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard open letter for discussion and editing. This is time sensitive material, I intend to send it tomorrow about noon. Any help appreciated. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 19:04, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

I urge you to reconsider sending such a letter. It could have the appearance to those unfamiliar with our site that you are officially acting on behalf of Wikipedia. Additionally the list of demands you seek from Burger King are quite unreasonable, and the responses would need to probably come from a company's legal department. For example, Burger King really has no obligation to "fulfill its responsibilities" to Wikipedia. These responsibilities are not listed. Mr Ernie (talk) 02:54, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Old blocked accounts should be unblocked or deleted

I bumped into an old WP contributor here, the fact that his account is still blocked doesn't make sense as it starts to become prehistoric. In many such case people start to contribute anyway, they are no longer going to cause problems, so it may be better to just delete the old account or unblock the old account. Otherwise we end up with a huge clutter of old banned users who de-facto died a long time ago. Count Iblis (talk) 20:15, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

I noticed you did put a qualification on your response "except for certain exceptional cases". enuf said. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 20:39, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes, but exceptional in this context would mean continued disruption, which is almost never the case with long term banned users. Count Iblis (talk) 21:19, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

I agree with the "it was all a long time ago" argument in the example given, because it was back in 2007. However, pretty much any block or ban can be appealed to ArbCom after twelve months. Wikipedia is not like Milton's Paradise Lost, where Satan falls out of Heaven and stays out. Some users need long term bans, but there should always be an appeal process. God might be understandably reluctant to have Satan back in Heaven, but Wikipedia is a forgiving place.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 05:53, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

god, of course, doesn't WP:AGF... — O Fortuna^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 07:49, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Part of the problem is Satan's persistent belief that it is "Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven." This is similar to various long term bans on Wikipedia. If a person refuses to admit to doing anything wrong, the ban will not be lifted.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 08:11, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

I am curious about this notion of "clutter". Where, exactly, is this clutter, and how is it that it affects Wikipedia such that a time-consuming and/or error-prone cleanup is required? Do readers of Wikipedia turn away because they can't stand the piles of decrepit accounts rusting on cinder blocks in our front yard? Do new editors have nowhere to store their coats because all of Wikipedia's closets are full of dusty and moth-eaten usernames?

(Incidentally, we can't just delete dormant or long-blocked accounts. We are obliged to preserve the records of their edits in order to remain in compliance with the GFDL and respect their copyrights.)

In practice, an editor who asks to come back after a decade-long block would get a fair hearing from the community or ArbCom and would likely be unblocked. (And to be entirely pragmatic, an individual who has matured, who creates a new account after a decade away, and who behaves responsibly is likely to go undetected and unremarked.)

In other words, it's not clear what's broken now and what would be fixed by this proposal. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:27, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

I was wondering the same things. There are how many, a million accounts? Do the existing accounts clutter anything? These old accounts, by definition, exist only for historical purposes. Coretheapple (talk) 18:22, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

I tend to agree with TenOfAllTrades. Quite realistically, if someone got indeffed for vandalism in 2006, has grown up since then, creates a new account, and behaves well, no one is ever even going to know or suspect that the vandal account "LulzAtUAll!" was once operated by them. The checkuser data for that account would be long gone, and of course in the intervening decade they've probably switched ISPs at some point anyway. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 18:31, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

A typical case of a "solution in search of a problem". Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 18:37, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

There is also the problem that many blocks are for bad usernames, including ones that are personal attacks or otherwise highly offensive. We do not want to clutter the logs with hundreds of unblocks of those, or promote any possible perception that it's okay to edit under those usernames, nor do we want our admins to spend the time going through a listing of thousands of blocked accounts to screen those out from the others. I do understand the spirit behind the OP's suggestion but for all the reasons given it is administratively unfeasible. Newyorkbrad (talk) 18:39, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Free advertising

Trolling by LTA --NeilN ^{talk to me} 01:06, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

The current issue of the Daily Telegraph includes the following advertisement:

BECOME A WIKIPEDIA EDITOR

Kill two birds with one stone here. Many Britons use Wikipedia to research statistics and facts, but who keeps on top of it? No longer the random website it once was, a lot more effort is now put into ensuring their features are well written and flagging up those that are not. So, if you love grammmar and fact-checking, sign up to edit Wikipedeia and get started.

My only quibble would be that this might give the impression that you have to register to edit Wikipedia, when of course you don't. 79.73.128.211 (talk) 20:19, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

One of the biggest flaws of our metrics programs is that they divert outreach programs into getting people into creating accounts before actually doing an edit. A more natural progression is to do some edits and then create an account if you decide you want attribution a watchlist or to start new pages. But metrics are so much easier if people create accounts...... Ϣere SpielChequers 09:51, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Can you explain further what this is? Is it really an "advertisement" (if so, I can assure you we didn't pay for it!) or is it part of an article suggesting cool ways to volunteer or something of that nature?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:00, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

I had a look for this earlier and couldn't find it. Please could you give a direct link to the URL, or a photocopy if it is only in the print edition? Thanks.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 17:16, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Not to mention that 23 April was a Sunday, when the Daily Telegraph isn't even published… ‑ Iridescent 17:20, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

I can't find it either. Nocturnalnow (talk) 17:51, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

...sure it wasn't Viz...?! :p — O Fortuna^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 18:01, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Iridescent says "Not to mention that 23 April was a Sunday, when the Daily Telegraph isn't even published...". So why did he mention it? Many libraries keep this newspaper on file. Next time you're passing one you could ask for Saturday's paper and look in the "Saturday" supplement (retitled from "Weekend" in January). There's a feature headed "Advertisement on behalf of BT" [British Telecommunications plc]. It's extolling the benefits of their superfast broadband and how people can make use of it. On the subject of London libraries, many people would like to get their first experience of editing there but cannot because large parts of the system are blocked. This was reported here and you said on 17 August 2015 that you would look into the matter if details were provided. It appears that it was not followed up because Chillum suggested making an unblock request. One was submitted, the reason given being "This is a public computer in a library. Thousands of people use it." The response from Jpgordon (2 June 2015) was "All the more reason to keep the IP blocked". The present situation (excluding libraries which are a long way away) is:

British Library - blocked till 22 July 2017
Camden - Some areas are open, others are blocked till 15 June 2017
Hackney - Blocked till 22 February 2018
Haringey - Blocked till 15 September 2018
Islington - Blocked till 5 July 2017
Redbridge - Blocked till 18 March 2018
Tower Hamlets - Some areas blocked till 12 March 2018, others till 15 September 2018
Walthamstow - Blocked till 5 July 2017

I'm editing from the City of London, where the block ran off a few hours ago. 51.140.123.26 (talk) 13:47, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Any chance that you could link to the advert? Yes, it is very easy to get an ad on a news website, but not to the ad you want to see! Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:10, 25 April 2017 (UTC)