User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 35

advice on this...

Mr. Walles, what should you do about this... this edit. Should you call the cops or just the school , or both. This is very serious sir. Rio de oro (talk) 23:43, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

This isn't the place to post this. Its being discussed at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive757#Threat or vandalism to Plano Senior High School? Thanks, SqueakBox 23:52, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

It is most likely going to be a joke. If it was real, then I doubt they'd announce it beforehand. ;-) But no, this is not something Jimbo can sort out. Lradrama 14:48, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

User:WebHamster

It needs to be brought to your attention that User:WebHamster is using his userpage to host what appears to be child pornography. Despite admins removing the pictures he seems determined to edit war them back in as per here, here, and here. His original image was removed via this AN/I discussion and he has since updated his page with yet another child porn image, the one which is now currently being hosted by wikipedia. Please note that like the previous picture, the current image being hosted has no information declaring that the subject is over 18 years of age, and is found in no other part of the encyclopedia. Given that this user is immune to admin decisions or removals, and in his defense uses comments like this this this, I believe User:WebHamster must be removed from the project immediately, for the integrity of the encyclopedia. Prester John (talk) 17:41, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

What proof do you have that this is child pornography? Metros (talk) 17:45, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I said it "appears" to be child pornography. There is no information on the image that declares that the "nude" is over 18 years of age. I think that wikipedia should err on the side of caution here. Prester John (talk) 17:47, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

So nominate the image for deletion on commons. —Random832 17:51, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't look like child pornography to me, the stomach has too many wrinkles and it is a page on the commons. Shaved genatilia in adults and child porn having nothing whatsoever to do with each other. It may be inappropriate for a user page but not for being Child porn, Image:Waxed pudenda.jpg is the image. Thanks, SqueakBox 17:54, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Which is a cropped version of the image at http://www.pixelio.de/details.php?image_id=163978 - it is definitely not child porn. WAS 4.250 (talk) 19:24, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, none of the photos at User:Markaci/Nudity (which is a pretty good listing of nudes on Wikipedia) have a notation anywhere saying that they're 18+ or whatever you think is required. Metros (talk) 17:59, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

One simple reason that these images don't need a notation saying that they're of people 18 & over is that they're not pornographic. Nudity ≠ pornography. For example, the U.S. age documentation requirement (18 USC 2257) only applies to works meeting the definition of pornography, not to all nudes. To phrase it logically, an image that isn't pornography can never be child pornography. Q.E.D.. --SSBohio 22:56, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

• Two things:

1. I don't believe the image is illegal in any way.
2. I still think WebHamster should remove it from his page. It's a bit of a shock to be using WP during downtime at the school I teach at, click on a userpage link, and see that pop up. In the spirit of community, I'd ask that WH remove the image. I could have gotten in some serious trouble if even one of my students had been present when that image came up on my screen.

• Bellwether ^B_C 18:17, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Is the issue I raise above not an issue at all? I mean, I could have gotten in some serious trouble when I clicked on WH's username. Fortunately I didn't, but doesn't that carry any weight at all? Bellwether ^B_C 10:59, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Prester John's inflammatory comment and forum shopping

I think Prester John should get a block unless he agrees to drop the unsubstantiated and purposefully inflaming "child-porn" rhetoric. This posting makes twice (that I know of, the other was at ANI, where he inititally stirred the pot, but ultimately did not get his way link to archive). Should this go to ANI again? Personally, I'm getting tired of PJ's Prester John's misleading characterizations and efforts to kick up a #%^& storm. R. Baley (talk) 19:43, 10 March 2008 (UTC) edited for clarity per comment below. R. Baley (talk) 02:21, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

This is not exactly an accurate description. After the AN/I mentioned above the original image was removed. This is what I wanted. User:WebHamster has now seen fit to display yet another picture on his user page. What ever the personal opinion of the age of the subject, there is no disclaimer that the "model" is over 18, and there is a fair case that she is under 18. The right to host pornographic images of "potentially" underage minors in userspace is not something wikipedia needs to be involved in. Prester John (talk) 20:12, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

If your issue is with the existence of the image, you should nominate it for deletion - its presence on a particular page, userspace or otherwise, does not change the issues you are claiming the image has. —Random832 20:14, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not finding a good reason why this is even here at Jimbo's page to begin with. Forum shopping? seicer | talk | contribs 19:45, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Authorities take a very dim view of websites hosting child porn. Given that the buck ultimately stops with Jimbo I think it is necessary to advise him on important matters concerning his responsibilities. This goes way beyond AN/I which has proven not to work in this case. Sure I cross posted to other parties who may have a vested interest in this issue, however I am astounded at the level of resistance to what ultimately is a non-issue. Prester John (talk) 20:30, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, especially when you see that he also posted this to Larry Sanger and Mike Godwin's user talks as well. Metros (talk) 19:52, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

comment- diffs for the above: LS's talk page diff and MG's talk page diff. note -no further discussion was on those talk pages at this time. R. Baley (talk) 20:17, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

It appears that PJ thinks that with the trouble Jimbo has had lately that he thinks he can get what he wants by introducing a little "child porn" accusation in the mix. Of course, I don't really know what motivates people, but I have learned today that I can type anything, as long as I put "appears" in front of it (not really). Oh, and agreed on the forum shopping. R. Baley (talk) 19:58, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

So what course of action do we have? This is becoming pretty irritating and is driving off a respected user. seicer | talk | contribs 20:01, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I would take it to ANI, but I assume that dozens of admins watch this page, so except for recommending a block, and then a delete or archive of this (and the other postings) I'm not sure. R. Baley (talk) 20:23, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Authorities certainly do take a dim view of child porn but this is not child porn, this is obviously post-pubescent adults with shaved genitalia and if you think shaved genitalia has anything to do with child porn in any way indicates depiction of a child that is your problem not wikipedia's. I think your accusing Hamster of posting child porn on his user page is the only issue at hand at hand here, and it is a terrible and clearly false accusation. Authorities also take a dim view of obvious false accusations, see Wasting police time. Thanks, SqueakBox 20:35, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Like I said above, just because you say it is not child porn does not make it so. Is there any indication on the image license that the subject is over 18 years old? Prester John (talk) 20:46, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Well equally you saying it is child porn does not make it so in any way, shape or form, all these questions have been dealt with thoroughly here in this thread. Personally I am commenting on this thread because child porn on wikipedia is something I am extremely vigilant of, and my own record in keeping pedophilia off wikipedia is possibly second to none. I agree you going on and on does look like trolling given that these images are clearly not child porn, and you should not have accused Hamster of putting child porn on his user page without a scrap of evvidence, such an accusation is disruptive. Thanks, SqueakBox 21:04, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Given this communities attitude toward paedophilia advocacy and advocates, I suggest that this appears to be a matter of litigating for a block of the user displaying the image - thus justifying the removal of like images as setting a precedent. I also give kudos to Squeakbox for his unbiased appraisal of the matter. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:06, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Squeak, my hat's off to you. Your description of your activities and of this situation is spot on. You even linked in an article we've both worked on. As a practical matter, the nude photo on User:WebHamster is a non-issue. It harms no one, and it's clear that it isn't pornography, much less child pornography. In the timeless tradition of the Met: "There's nothing to see here; Go about your business." --SSBohio 22:56, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I thought the fact that the image was cropped from this made it already extremely obvious that it isn't child porn. Prester John's complaint here is rather ridiculous as well. Sephiroth BCR ^(Converse) 23:12, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Squeak and SSB are right. This is nothing more than (falsely) using the "pedophilia" panic-reaction to be disruptive. The image is a non-issue and who cares what's on his userpage? I also noticed Baley's comment above "I'm getting tired of PJ's misleading characterizations and efforts to kick up a #%^& storm" which made me think if "PJ" was "PJ". I would hope not, as this sort of firestarting on Wikipedia is bad for credibility of users. Anyhoo... this is a total non-issue. The IMAGE page would be the place to take the potential of an illegal image. And Porn? The one that's been linked is hardly porn. Chill. • VigilancePrime • • • 02:02 (UTC) 11 Mar '08

Clarified my comment. . .if there was any confusion, sorry 'bout that. I picked up using initials a while back (and I thought at the time my ref was clear because I spelled out the user account first). Anyway, I think it's crystal at this point, and thanks for bringing it to my attention. R. Baley (talk) 09:05, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

No prob. And to be clear (cause I also wasn't), I'm not saying or thinking that you were saying that P.J. was PJ, but it made me wonder if perhaps P.J. really was PJ... as I understand, Xavier was banned from Wikipedia, right? Anyway, I am NOT saying that this is the case, but it made me think/wonder about the possibility of more. If nothing else, there was some irony in that the initials matched! :-) • VigilancePrime • • • 17:54 (UTC) 11 Mar '08

I think the people in this image might be underage, someone should check into that. Equazcion •✗/C • 11:06, 12 Mar 2008 (UTC)

nice userpage

you have a nice userpage and give people to privilage to edit, and so I did by adding a ♥. Thats cool. i saw the list of places you've gone to, but why haven't you come to Asia? You always go to 'white skin countries' (no offence). Just come to Asia once and you'll see an array of different people, culture, ways of life and landscapes you can never dream of seeing in europe or australia. its fantastic. i've never seen a single american or european who has said he didn't enjoy asia (countries like india, japan, korea, ceylon, malaysia etc.). Come to see. --60.50.70.71 (talk) 18:05, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

If this is any indication, he was in Korea just recently. Bramlet Abercrombie (talk) 18:18, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Why, can't he answer that question himself? Must you even do that for him? Or are you his sockpuppet? --60.50.70.71 (talk) 18:34, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Lol, that is the funniest and most ridiculous sock accusation I have ever heard, and no i don't think Bramlet is Jimbo's sock. Thanks, SqueakBox 20:09, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm helping him out, he has a hard time answering questions. There are some he has been asked repeatedly for years and still not answered. Bramlet Abercrombie (talk) 18:42, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Bramlet, what do you mean? Why don't you email me to clarify and I will see what I can do to help you.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:13, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Do you answer your emails more thoroughly than questions here? I think it is of public interest, so I repeat here what I asked you further up on this page. This has been an obvious unanswered question ever since you claimed to be "sole founder" in 2004: have you not read any of the Wikipedia press releases describing you as co-founder until 2004, nor any of the media coverage (such as the major 2001 New York Times story) doing likewise, or if you did, why didn't you say or do anything about it before 2004? Bramlet Abercrombie (talk) 00:58, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I had not paid attention to the issue much before that time, and I pay little attention to it now. I think Larry's contribution to Wikipedia in the early days is significantly under-appreciated and should be much more widely understood. As is well known, I do not agree that "co-founder" is the right description of that role. I regret not paying attention to it and responding earlier, but there you go.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:37, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

You pay little attention to it now? You mean, like when you called people on IRC to help you "by cleaning this up all over the site"? Or when you told the Boston Globe "it's preposterous" to call Sanger co-founder, or when you told the AP not to "repeat Sanger's absurd claim to be the co-founder of Wikipedia"? That is a strange contrast to your silence before 2004. By saying "you had not paid attention to the issue" you are obviously not denying that you were aware of the generally-accepted co-founder view, as you must have been. So either you thought it was the right description (and thus deliberately tried to rewrite history in 2004), or you thought it wasn't, but for some reason couldn't care less about being falsely described - perhaps because Wikipedia wasn't as big yet and you yourself didn't believe in its growth and only in 2004 you considered this an important matter because of the fact that being "the founder" of a huge website can be nicely monetized (speaking fees etc.) in a much better way than by being a mere "co-founder". The question remains. Bramlet Abercrombie (talk) 15:14, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Bram, your talk of money also brings up the fact that Sanger may have financial reasons himself for wanting to be called co-founder, especially now the site has grown, and especially as actually wales is far better known as wikipedia founder and generally than is Sanger. Whioch makes me question your own reasons for so stubbornly insisting on calling Wales co-founder pretty much wherever he is mentioned on wikipedia. Thanks, SqueakBox 15:18, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Sure Sanger may have such reasons for wanting to be called co-founder - but it also happens to be the truth, verifiable by sources dating from 2001. Wales wants to be called by a description that he made up in 2004 and which is contradicted by the objective sources. Bramlet Abercrombie (talk) 15:32, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh and by the way Jimbo, remember this little exchange we had in December? Seems I was spot on, as Danny has now revealed that Carolyn Doran had temporarily embezzled $5,000 of foundation money and was fired for that. You couldn't possibly have admitted that you made a monumental blunder (which could easily have resulted in a serious loss of money) by appointing an unchecked temp worker as chief operating officer, could you? Bramlet Abercrombie (talk) 13:24, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the board (which included me as one member) made a bad decision when we chose to hire Carolyn Doran. In retrospect, that is pretty clear, is it not? I do not, however, think it is a bad idea to follow the advice of one's attorney in such matters, and I am glad that the Board did.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:37, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, in retrospect it is. But if it weren't for the revelations by The Register and now Danny, no one would ever have known anything about it. I think the fact that such bad decisions are hidden is worse than the fact that they are made. And don't hide behind the attorney - there was no legal reason for covering this up. His advice would have been based on PR considerations. Bramlet Abercrombie (talk) 15:14, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

In reference to an earlier thread here, Bramlet could possibly (apparently) be some sort of itchy, woolen sock for Jimbo.  ;·) --SSBohio 23:10, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Google him and you will find he has been in India, China, South Africa, and other nonwhite countries. I'm sure he will be in Egypt this summer. WAS 4.250 (talk) 19:19, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

America isn't really a white skin country either nor should skin colour really make any difference to anything. Thanks, SqueakBox 20:10, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Demographically, the United States is projected to become a nation with no single ethnic majority some time in the next 20-30 years. --SSBohio 02:19, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I travel all over the world. My favorite place to travel is in India.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:13, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

May I recommend Varkala? It's gorgeous little town in India Whitstable 02:50, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh sorry, I googled and saw you have been to an array of asian countries. But perhaps you should add all the places you've been to in your My travel itinerary area in the user page. But over there, you've only added those 1st world cities in north america, europe and australia. If you like india so much why dont you add it in together with korea, china, africa, and the other places you've been. no offence. (i'm the same guy who started this topic but now my ip has changed??!!) --60.50.74.14 (talk) 10:15, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

If you and perhaps a collaborator had the time you could perhaps pin the flags of places lived in, visited and hope to go one day on your user page, something various users have done at times, and which would be particularly interesting in your case. Thanks, SqueakBox 14:20, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Maybe you should come to Singapore. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.189.62.67 (talk) 14:54, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Request for Adminship

Hi Jimbo, hope you are well, and not letting the crap in the press get you down! Quick question: PLEASE MAKE ME AN ADMIN?!!!

No seriously, What's the process for adminship? Thinking of applying myself and want to nominate someone.

Cheers

Randomjack Random Jack (talk) 11:08, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Answered on Randomjack's talk page. Pedro :  Chat  11:26, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh noes!

Hi Jimmy, did you know in the real world, many people believe things based on evidence, not by "checking their source" for WP:V or WP:RS thestick (talk) 13:00, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh my God, Oh my God

You created Wikipedia! WOW! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Oh wiki your so fine your so fine you blow my mind (talk • contribs) 05:58, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh wiki your so fine your so fine you blow my mind (talk) has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Cheers, and Happy editing!
Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Do you have any intentions of contributing to Wikipedia? If not, I can request you to be blocked. Joshuarooney2008 (talk) 07:57, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Give the guy a chance, ok? thanks. gosh. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 13:54, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi there, Jimbo Wales is the founder of Wikipedia. You cannot get him blocked for 'not editing'. Many users have not edited for some time, that doesn't mean that get blocked. Jimbo Wales, and other users may actually be busy in Real life - so they can edit Wikipedia. We are all volunteers here, nobody is 'forced' to edit! --The Helpful One ^(Review) 13:59, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that Joshuarooney was referring to one of the correspondees above, rather than the subject of their posts. LessHeard vanU (talk) 14:08, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Yep, I made a mistake there! --The Helpful One ^(Review) 19:18, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Goodness me that is one long username. And BTW, Joshuarooney, I do think that it was a rather harsh comment to make. He was after all, only trying to be nice. Lradrama 14:46, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, agreed. Basketball110 03:16, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

If you look at said users contributions, all of them are on Talk pages, also, the user has now been blocked because of this username, and I think the message was highly immature. Joshuarooney2008 (talk) 14:34, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion

I wanted to edit your Page: old: "... I trust you. Yes, I really do."
new: "... I trust you. Yes, I really do. And if I can't trust you I can trust the next Wikipedian to come along and fix it. ..." --193.254.155.48 (talk) 08:54, 13 March 2008 (UTC) (in fact de:Benutzer:Arcudaki)

I always wanted to give you the finger ...

Thumbs up, they look good on your user talk page (:

... or at least a thumb up! --EivindJohnsen (talk) 11:03, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

threats of violence

Dear Jimbo, how should editors and admins on this project interpret a threat of violence against a school, person or oneself? Should they pass it off as a cheap hoax or take it at face value and entirely serious? Recently there was an explicit threat against Plano Senior High School which mentioned a day, time and device. The local police stated their desire to know every detail and said any such threats, no matter how vague in the future, should be reported. I am curious to know how you view- should threats be passed off as jokes/hoaxes or taken seriously? Bstone (talk) 15:34, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

It is being discussed at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive757#Threat or vandalism to Plano Senior High School?. For future incidents, bring it up at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. Kingturtle (talk) 15:42, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I know. I was the one who phoned the Plano police to report the threat. I am just curious as to Jimbo opinion in how to interpret such threats- do we judge them as hoaxes and ignore them (possibly ignoring an early warning), or take them at face value. Bstone (talk) 15:48, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I seem to recall that he's made statements in the past, either on wiki or on the mailing lists, that these threats should always be reported since it's the police's job, not ours, to decide whether to take it seriously. —Random832 17:06, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I have heard such. I'm kind of looking for a quote since I cannot find one. Can you point me in the right direction or perhaps I'll wait until Jimbo replies. Bstone (talk) 17:53, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Might be worth taking a look at WP:TOV as well, and seeing if you disagree with anything therein, Jimbo... thanks! - Privatemusings (talk) 19:18, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I would observe, though, that except to the extent that Jimbo acts in his capacity as a member of the Board of the WMF or pursuant to some designation of the Board (one supposes the Foundation might have, or might sometime take, a meta-position), he offers his views as a "regular" editor (of course, that is always the case with respect to proposed changes to policy—although the community do, to be sure, usually accord certain special considerations to Jimbo's views—but I note it here only because this may be one particular issue about which his views of what ought to be done might differ from those of the community [which, AFAICT, on the whole wish to take a hands-off, dispassionate approach to threats, an approach different from that of the proposed ToV] and so about which his expressions should not be understood as particularly dispositive). Joe 06:07, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Arbitration committee - This three-year harassment case needs a closer look

There is yet again a very serious disconnect between the evidence presented and comments by arbitrators. You may recall the lengthy thread here. Since then, there was one more arbitration case on Davenbelle (aka Moby Dick). User was eventually banned indefinitely. There is evidence that this indef banned user may have returned editing wikipedia continuing his harassment campaign.

I was wondering if you would take a look at this case: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Jack Merridew.

Particularly Kirill Lokshin's comment stated that "I see no evidence that any prior steps in either the dispute resolution process or the sockpuppet identification process have ocurred with regard to Jack" which is in contradiction with checkuser report is of concern.

I know from experience that you stay away from such disputes as much as you can, which is fine. But perhaps you can encourage arbitrators to look into this issue more closely.

-- Cat ^chi? 14:39, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

On an unrelated note I emailed you the matter you asked from me in person in Istanbul. Have you had a chance to review it? -- Cat ^chi? 14:41, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Question from Nothing444

Where can I find Jimbo Wale's Signature? Nothing444 15:03, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I've trimmed the grotesquely large 'complaint' box from your request; please don't use it again. Jimbo's signature is easily found further up this page. It appears as

--Jimbo Wales (talk)

in edits such as [1]. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Jossi Fresco still 'A Great Wikipedian'?

If this guy is the great Wikipedian you claim how come he keeps archiving my discussions about his Master 'Prem Rawat'? [[2]]] NB. discussions which other more neutral editors than he deem quite germane to the article. Seems like he just can't stop asserting that pesky COI.PatW (talk) 23:49, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:AN/I#User:PatW ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 01:22, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Of course Jossi is. I haven't seen him do anything wrong myself. Will ^(talk) 01:24, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Jossi: Did you notice? You archive PatW's comments, and PatW instantly Expands Scope. Without comment on the merit of the case; perhaps it's wiser to limit scope by answering questions and comments in-place (no matter how evil, if evil), even if only briefly (or by linking to previous discussion or etc). :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 01:35, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed, Kim. But you miss the fact that his is a pervasive behavior regardless of what I do or don't do. I have attempted to stop a ConflictCycle; I have allowed others to warn him; but it does not work. Some people do not seem to get clued no matter what you do. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 01:50, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Urk. Tricky. ^^;; PatW: What would Jossi have to do, according to you? --Kim Bruning (talk) 02:15, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I would (now more politely) urge Jossi to take a less aggressive approach to policing talk:Prem Rawat, exactly as Will has also suggested. [[3]] Since Jossi has a declared COI his 'aggressive approach' towards critics easily comes across as thinly disguised baiting. This is evidenced by the tension on that page and some considerable resentment (even public) to his constant watch over that article and almost all articles connected to the subject. This is also considering that newly arrived neutral editors have recently observed (as I have complained) that he does not extend the same 'aggressive approach' towards editors who are sympathetic towards the subject.PatW (talk) 15:28, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

There is no need to pursue this here, as this is a user's talk page. The discussion is being held at WP:AN/I where it belongs. And before you continue casting aspersions on my behavior, note that in Wikipedia we have Diffs, and unless you provide diffs, your comments are nothing but ungrounded opinions. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:07, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Just play the ball where it lies. We can move over later. :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 19:57, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

So you would just like Jossi to police talk:Prem Rawat less aggressively? If that's all, that seems easy enough. :-) What can he do to be less aggressive? Also, if that doesn't work out, perhaps you could both agree on a 3rd party to police the talk page instead or as well? --Kim Bruning (talk) 19:55, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure that I like the framing of this conversation ... as if personal attacks are permissible when there is "aggressive policing", or that the personal attacks are related to such actions. This is not a symmetrical issue and should not be framed as such. Pat needs to make a public commitment that he will not engage in such behavior, as a pre-condition to any further discussion about other editor's behaviors. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk)

Jossi, that your aggressive policing includes personal attacks has been established before, for instance, you wrote:

[...] And do not give me any BS about good intentions, because I see none, Francis. [...] (ref & context: Talk:Prem Rawat/Archive 31#Biographies of Living Persons)

I asked you several times to remove that personal attack, allowing for occasional slips of the tongue if you're prepared to correct afterwards. You didn't. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:14, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I absolutely welcome the idea of a 3rd party to police the Talk Page instead. That is what many people think would be best. I am a critic of Prem Rawat and also well-informed ex-follower. It is therefore most unpalatable to have Jossi exercising 'aggressive authority' over not only myself, but other critics of this Prem Rawat article. It actually turns my stomach as a fifty two year old adult to have Prem Rawat's former personal webmaster (and apparently now) PR guy here, apparently salivating over an opportunity to demand a humiliating public apology and pledge from me. I thought I'd got away from Rawat and his bullying subordinates who I was mentally abused by as a teenager. I consider myself an even-handed person and a I am proud to resist the lies that have crept into that article. Also I have young children who read Wikipedia at school. Jossi expects me to make puerile public pledges at his behest (what could be more cultic than that?) and yet he won't even answer my questions in a discussion about the article. Neither will he do so with other so-called 'apostates' whom he has said he will not engage with and frequently scorns. This is not fair and I shall'nt be giving him the pleasure as a matter of principal.PatW (talk) 00:11, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

How is it possible that Jossi can even participate on the talk page given his COI? Sethie (talk) 03:17, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Sethie: Because that's the actual location we use for people with (potential) COI, so that they can participate too. :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 03:58, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Kim, this usefully brings an issue in to focus; allowing someone to contribute to discussions about an article for which they have a COI is one thing, but a difficulty arises when that conflicted individual acts as an administrator for the talk page and article. PatW may have been at fault, but by the standards seen on many WP talk pages, PatW is a mild mannered contributor whose frustrations have been exacerbated by the somewhat (IMO)harrassing approach of an administrator who has a COI over the article at issue. PatW could be accused of being verbose, but the talk page concerned is full of verbosity, and it is difficult not to see Jossi as behaving partially in this case. To avoid any such concern in future a clear separation of 'policing' responsibility for the Prem Rawat articles is desirable. --Nik Wright2 (talk) 17:10, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I thought the whole purpose of COI was keeping people who had a COI from interfering with articles! Now you are saying talk pages exist so that people with COI's can participate? huh?

Jossi's activities are getting a lot of blog coverage. All it takes is one newspaper or one respectable academic to comment- and then wikipedia has another scandal, and for what? How does wikipidia as a whole benefit from his continued participation on those pages? Certainly there are better suited admins to the task? Sethie (talk) 17:49, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

PatW: Alright. Well, what you're asking isn't hard, and what Jossi is asking isn't really much in return. Will you be following the wikipedia policy on no personal attacks? If he didn't say anything, possibly someone else would, because it is the rule, right? :-)

It's quite possible to stand your ground in a civil fashion, after all. Would you be able to manage that? --Kim Bruning (talk) 03:58, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely yes of course; but I don't think 'pledges' are the way forward since Jossi apparently has the inclination to use such things against opponents and also for the more emotive reasons above. My main assertion is, and always has been, that in order for civil, constructive debate to occur around that article there need to be truly neutral people there both in an administrative capacity and as editors. I don't believe that a healthy atmosphere can develop until Jossi restricts his participation to non-administrative tasks and abandons 'policing'. That is too much to reasonably expect given the accusations (even from neutral arrivees) that he has established some kind of (quote) 'tag-team' with champion editor 'Momento' and is over aggressive and influential. You have only to glance at the history of this article to see that he and Jossi have controlled it in a highly aggressive manner for years. Jossi and Momento have also cultivated an icy patience about wearing down critics (who don't care to reciprocate such zealous commitment and who have almost entirely fled in exasperation long ago). Some, as we have seen, have resorted to more guerrilla tactics such as supplying newspapers and journalists with information that paints a corruptive picture of Wikipedia for permitting this (ie. Cade Metz article). Given that Jossi and Momento apparently are there almost 24/7 nobody else really stands a chance. Especially people like myself who are trying to hold down a day job. You may notice that Jossi is still trying to get me blocked on the AN page using my latest comments as further evidence of 'illegal' attacks on him. Believe me it is rather hard to remain civil in the face of this constant callous admonishment and frankly, hypocrisy. Here is a fellow who is, even here, demanding 'diffs' and other time-consuming answers whilst he won't even answer simple questions to 'apostates' on the Talk Page which pertain to the article, apparently mostly due to his antiseptic scorn of them. I understand Jossi has been involved in court cases in the US (whilst working on this article) with ex-follower(s) of Rawat. I do not know the details but I would have thought that might partially account for his 'over-aggressive' attitude towards critics of Prem Rawat. I have no stomach or time to engage in some kind of 'legal war' with Jossi here either. He will always win as he is a champion on these matters and has apparently even written the rules on some matters of COI. That is why I, as you say, kicked the ball in here. After all Mr Wales apparently has given Jossi some sort of wave of approval which I feel perfectly justifies my calling him on the fairness of that.PatW (talk) 10:29, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

On the other hand I am coming to realise that I have violated a number of rules here - eg 'soapboxing' which I only recently even heard of, and of course being occasionally horribly rude to Jossi and Momento. I would actually quite like to be given the chance to demonstrate that I can work civilly within the framework here but the message I am getting is that it is too late for that and that I am well on the way to being unceremoniously booted out. I have been (probably) well-advised to rescind of my own accord from here altogether for several months and to delete my talk page which apparently is not the 'honest declaration of intent' that I originally intended but something more sinister. I will sleep on it and if I haven't been forcibly ejected I may simply follow this recent advice. In any case I certainly see the merit in offering some kind of 'olive branch' towards Jossi and the Wikipedia community with regard to a commitment towards civility if I am permitted to remain.PatW (talk) 11:06, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Sure, thanks PatW. Anyone is welcome to participate, if we can do that within the simple (and very human) constrains of civility and mutual respect. I have seen many people that never managed to do that and eventually get "unceremoniously booted out" , and I have seen people that have managed to overcome previous animosity and become excellent contributors. Hope you are in the latter group. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:41, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Kim, as per your suggestion above, I have asked Jossi (on the ANI page) if he would agree to someone (you maybe?) choosing a 3rd party to police the article instead or as well as he. How would you feel about that? I have also decided it's best if I personally take some time out there, however I think your suggestion would help enormously to calm tensions there even in my absence :-) PatW (talk) 16:52, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I've left this a while now. Should I interpret the lack of response from everyone as a "No, we actually endorse Jossi's continuing to police the article on his own"? In which case how sincere was that suggestion I wonder? I see Jossi has not indicated any intention of agreeing to such an arrangement but proposes to continue, whilst my offer to take a long break seems to have been received with an almost palpable sigh of relief. PatW (talk) 10:22, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, the suggestion to drag in a 3rd party takes actual work (especially since no-one has volunteered as yet ^^;;). Let's try this: possibly if both of you just each other with a bit more respect (as promised), the issue will trend towards resolving itself. If it doesn't in ...say... a couple of days, we can take further steps, as needed. Fair? --Kim Bruning (talk) 18:55, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

There are active editors there that can help, (a good example just happened yesterday, in which a more neutral editor archived a commented that was unsuitable for talk page). Article talk pages do not need babysitters, as in most cases people can work out things on their own. Of course, there is always AN/I for reporting disruption, and if all fails there is ultimately ArbCom. (BTW, I have already committed not to archive comments from talk) ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 20:02, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

OK thanks. We'll see how things go.PatW (talk) 22:12, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry Kim, but with all the good faith in the world, this is not going to work. I have voluntarily withdrawn from the article (as have many in protest over the last few years) and from afar, I observe Jossi still aggressively policing the Prem Rawat article even straight after hinting that he would not do so. I am simply reading this whilst not getting into the fray. The Prem Rawat article remains nothing more than a biased and heavily defended public advert for Prem Rawat as it has been for years. To anyone involved this is plainly the result of a weakness in Wikipedia's ability to prevent partial administrators from gaming the system. Sethie is quite right, if nothing is done the inevitable result is more public criticism. It is simply wrong that a man with such COI is allowed to police the article. As long as Jossi is policing there will be no progress and it is a conspicuous ethical failing of Wikipedia itself not to address this concern. Jimmy Wales' comment is unfortunate in that it is becoming increasingly obvious that he is not seeing the whole picture in this case. PatW (talk) 10:36, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, Pat, what should I say... thanks for your vote of non-confidence in those who are putting their best energy in this to get it right? You could be of much more value for Wikipedia if you didn't interlace your discourse with self-fulfilling prophecy, which is bound to be offensive for someone some time. Sorry for the harsh words.

Which Jimbo Wales comment are you referring to? --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:28, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

After the 'Cade Metz' criticism of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales defended Jossi saying that could find no evidence of improper behaviour and considered him 'A great Wikipedian'. I have every confidence in your patient approach being helpful but it pains me to see that as fast as you balance the article, Jossi and Momento take greater steps in the opposite direction. That is a pattern I have observed over several years which prompts me to, with good intentions, warn you that your work will most likely be wasted as mine and others has been. What I question is that in this system, people like you who are really are giving it your "best energy", are essentially having your time wasted when that could be easily avoided by there being a simple rule that administrators with COI simply cannot police articles that they are affiliated to. I fail to see what would be unfair about that and why it is not blatantly unfair for that not to be the rule.PatW (talk) 15:47, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I thought so. I know only about two comments Jimbo made about the issue. Both were addressed at me. You're referring to the one that is still included in User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 33#break 0. The other one I know about is of no relevance here, it was in a private mail to me.

I don't see how the comment you refer to could be used here as a proof for something it doesn't prove. My reply to Jimbo is still recorded in the archive linked to above. It contained: "A topical editing restriction might be in order [...]. And maybe Jossi would be better to impose that on himself, than that anyone else imposed it on him." - that's what happened shortly thereafter. Maybe it is time to take such topical editing restriction a step further, which already happened in fact. Maybe still further, yes, maybe it's time to discuss that.

See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#1RR article probation violation by User:Francis Schonken, where I opened the discussion. --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:51, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Note that Cade Metz had also written about Jimbo, multiple times, and that Jimbo always said he couldn't find anything reliable in what Metz had written about him. So how would you imagine he would pre-emptively agree with what Metz wrote on others?

Yes, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#1RR_on_Prem_Rawat is currently (again) not such a nice spectacle. I just asked another uninvolved admin would look into it (while the last one was asking me to go through 750-odd edits for something not really needed imho to base an assessment upon). Jimbo would be neutral enough to take the task upon him, as far as I'm concerned. --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:49, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

"Policing" is not a term used in this project. If you refer to asking people to stop making personal attacks, asking editors to stop edit-warring, asking editors to work in finding common ground, asking editors to stop mis-using the talk pages for soapboxing, working with other admins to negotiate article probation, so some basic discipline can be attained while improving the article, then yes: that is what I have done, and I am proud of it. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:12, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

And if you missed it, there are other editors that are working quite nicely there. I am not editing the article. Check the article's history and you will see five or six editors collaborating quite nicely. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:14, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Jossi, please don't overblow the nit regarding "policing" you have picked. --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:49, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Overblow the nit ? What do you mean? Not familiar with the term. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 01:40, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

You're nitpicking, and you overblow it. I tend to dismiss things that might be perceived as personal attacks with slightly out of place expressions (as I said at User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 33#Importing an outside conflict) --Francis Schonken (talk) 04:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Umm, why is Jossi still allowed to have anything to do with the Prem Rawat articles? This is past ridiculous, please tell him to stay away from them. Cla68 (talk) 10:45, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

See above, I opened that discussion at WP:ANI now. --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:51, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

The Sun Myung Moon article [4]has a clear warning that "The creator of this article, or someone who has substantially contributed to it, may have a conflict of interest regarding its subject matter". Why on earth doesn't the Prem Rawat article [5]have the same? Can someone who knows about this provide a clear answer for once? What kind of protection is Jossi Fresco getting here? This is getting to be a very serious matter. PatW (talk) 17:54, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree that Jossi should not be involved in the Prem Rawat articles anymore, including the talk pages. Over the past month or so I've observed Francis Schonken, Msalt, and Jayen466 make a great effort to bring civility to the talk pages as well as a sense of fairness and NPOV to the Prem Rawat articles. They seem to work together well and have been doing a fine job to shape the article into something less of an advertorial and more of an encyclopedic biography. Allowing Jossi to continue to direct the content on the talk pages is tantamount to giving him carte blanche to control the content of the article, even though Jossi doesn't actually edit the article itself anymore. Jossi disclosed his COI as an employee of a Prem Rawat related organization a long time ago. His presence there disrupts the concensus-making progress that the above-mentioned neutral editors have tried to establish. Sylviecyn (talk) 19:38, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I have started looking at the page as well. Whether or not he is editing the page in actuality.... he is editing it!

For example: Having said that, I have no problems in using "Rawat continues to tour regularly", as "extensively" is a value judgment (some may see that as extensive, some not.) ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:12, 15 March 2008 (UTC)"

He is fully intermeshed in every change that happens there.... COI is, apparently, a joke. Hohohahaha (talk) 19:43, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Continued here: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Prem Rawat --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:13, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

No one is talking about PatW's COI. He said, "I am a critic of Prem Rawat and also well-informed ex-follower..." He declares himself an "apostate." (see above posts). WP:COI says: When editors write to promote their own interests, their contributions often show a characteristic lack of connection to anything the general reader might want to consult as a reference.

I think Wikipedians should be aware that COI is two-sided and that neutrality is the middle. PatW has a clear COI with the Prem Rawat article.Renee (talk) 22:30, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

POV is not conflict of interest. Yes my interest is indeed to correct the imbalance in that article, but my interest is counter-balanced by others with opposite POVs. That is a workable and fair principle. People who disagree are also welcome to edit and argue their case. I fully admit that I should certainly not be in an administrative position there though. Neither should Jossi by the same token. Even truly neutral participants have objected to his involvement on these grounds. Put simply because the article is so contentious, the last thing it needs is Rawat's own man wielding power there. Do you understand why his is a COI too far, that unbalances the status quo between opposing POV's and creates an atmosphere of mistrust? PatW (talk) 00:15, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Furthermore I did NOT declare myself an 'apostate'. I implied that this is the way critical former followers are condescendingly regarded. This is the sort of insulting word-twisting I have come to expect from Rawat's followers who show extraordinary intolerance and scorn towards 'ex-involvees'. (I have no idea if you are one). Their favourite term for 'apostates' is 'hate group' by the way. And no, I would never declare myself a member of a hate group. An amorphous 'hurt' group maybe.PatW (talk) 01:08, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Well this thing has gone to 'Arbcom' now (which I gather is the ultimate Wikipedia 'court') so I guess anyone who's interested in seeing Wikipedia cast judgement upon Jossi's COI can turn their eyes to this debate [6] over the coming week. I gather I am highly likely to be booted out even just for calling Jossi and Momento 'horrible liars' (in my only truly evil lapse of self control after 3 years of biting my lip arguing with them ad nauseam). All I can say is that if Jossi were in British parliament and exposed as having the kind of COI he does, he would have to get used to a lot worse language than that!PatW (talk) 01:58, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Notification

I mentioned you in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Prem Rawat/Evidence#Jimbo Wales' comment. With all due respect (which I have), please don't use straw man arguments against me again. It made me appear as if siding with some murky journalism, which I don't. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:16, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi Jimbo

I'm quite new on Wikipedia although I have created an article and a category. However I appear to have lost the ability to create articles. When I want to create one I just type it into the search engine and it says "No page with this title exists" and then provides me with the option to create it however now all it does is bring up a list of articles with similar names. I'm not entirely sure if I'm important enough to speak to you but I couldn't think of anybody else to ask and seeing as you're "the Boss" so to speak I figured you'd know how to get round this. Thank you for your time. --Jupiter Optimus Maximus (talk) 20:16, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Type it into the search box and then click "Go". WAS 4.250 (talk) 21:50, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Are you mocking me? --Jupiter Optimus Maximus (talk) 16:58, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

No he isn't, he is being helpful, as ever on this page. Thanks, SqueakBox 17:02, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Anyway try this Wikipedia:Help desk. Thanks, SqueakBox 17:04, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Very well. --Jupiter Optimus Maximus (talk) 15:02, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Mr. Wales

Hi, Im new here Wales and I like what you've done with the place. You also need a shave ;)Moosester out. --Moosester ж 22:36, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

No, I think it suits him, Joshuarooney2008 (talk) 10:47, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I've linked to the Beard Liberation Front here before and if necessary I will do so again. Way to go. Thanks, SqueakBox 14:18, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Jimmy Wales actually has no chin - under his beard there is only another fist. ...wait, was that someone else? I don't remember —Random832 18:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Larry Sanger "founding issue" Compromise

I have seen evidence to show Sanger did have an important role in Wikipedia's "founding (although I still won't call him the Founder of Wikipedia Jimbo);" however I still think you have a good point about Sanger being merely your employee; so as a compromise between the two sides of the debate why don't call Larry "The Assistant Founder of Wikipedia," it sounds like a good NPOV term right? I hope you like it :)

This way we don't take away from the fact that you were the Founder of Wikipedia and it doesn't negate from Larry's key role in "found" wikipedia.--Trulexicon (talk) 04:05, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

At Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg is known as Founder, and several others known as co-Founders. But I don't think this sort of option is available in this case.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:38, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

SlimVirgin

I made a few reasonable edits and this user came and reverted them, without comment. So I searched on Google for her name. I found a whole host of information about her controversial tenure as administrator on this site... she has apparently used sock-puppets and the like. And yet she is still here, as an administrator no less. As well, none of the facts of her controverial administration are present here... in many cases, they have been expunged.

Why is this user still an administrator? Surely her aggressive POV-pushing and belligerent manner is a disservice to this site? And given the explosion of non-wikipedia commentary about her, shouldn't there be an objective page HERE about her controverial role on this site?

I apologize for posting this here, but the complicated and overwrought beurocractic system you have in place for filing motions and what not is, ahem, a little bit too daunting. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Oregondesert (talk • contribs) 04:54, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

SlimVirgin is a lot like Wikipedia itself: useful and better now than in the past. WAS 4.250 (talk) 21:09, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Hopefully we are all improving all the time, as editors who have been here a while. Otherwise there wouldn't be much point. Thanks, SqueakBox 14:31, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Good questions Oregondesert. I've asked some of the same questions myelf and, like you, haven't received any straight answers. For the time being, if she keeps reverting your edits without comment, leave a note on her talk page asking her to stop that behavior and try to open a discussion about your edits on the article's talk page. Cla68 (talk) 10:50, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I have decided to stop all my Wikipedia editing in the coming day or so due to SlimVirgin. It is my opinion that she is an "energy beast" that sucks energy from others with no reason other than to harass and push her point of view. The odd thing is that I am pro-environment, yet weirdly found myself "on the other side" trying to restore some balance to animal/environment topics that she edited with a totally non-objective viewpoint. If you review her edits, they are 50% total crap -- she pushes her POV relentlessly and at the expense of new editors.

But I suppose the Wikipedia cabal (which decidedly exists) doesn't want to alienate one if its "top" editors. The content that she vomits out does a disservice to the Wikipedia brand. Do a search on "SlimVirgin" on Google and see the controversy she has generated! (You won't find that information on Wikipedia... it has been expunged!)

Oh, and I left a comment on her page. No answer. In fact, she simply "archived" it a few days after it was left.

The aforementioned comments are my personal opinions.

Oregondesert (talk) 09:35, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

This is a rather creative manner to resolve a content dispute, but its highly inappropiate, time has a funny way of changing us all, you can rest assured that what you found on Google was extensively discussed here and a consensus was reached by the community, but its irrelevant to your confict with her and showldn't be used as an excuse to waste the time of others, there are several noticeboards where the content dispute could have been attended, but this certainly isn't one of them. - Caribbean~H.Q. 10:00, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

[The following comments are my personal opinions.]

The end-result is that someone who apparently used sock-puppets purposely is still around as an Administrator. Wikipedia has gone down several notches in worldwide opinion over the past several months, not least because of incidents like this. Editors who violate the tenets of this site should presumably be barred. The standard for Administrators should obviously be far higher.

The fact that others from Slimvirgin's coterie decided that this issue was "extensively discussed here and a consensus was reached" doesn't somehow excuse, say, actual facts; perhaps, though, it does point to a flaw in a system whereby those with the bigger social network herein can somehow outmaneuver and outrank those who are new.

Slimvirgin is still here. She is still editing articles with little regard for facts and, in my opinion, only a desire to weaken things she doesn't like, and strengthen those she does. She is still an administrator. She is still openly hostile to new users. She still users her powers to rule over others.

And such apparent misbehavior by User:Slimvirgin, an administrator, and User:Jayjg, an administrator and part of an unelected cabal (quite literally), should have almost certainly removed their ability to edit entirely from this site, let alone removed any executive powers they may have. That both Jayjg and Slimvirgin apparently took "sabbaticals" from this site (yet at least in one case, apparently, returned via Sockpuppet) and are now back and apparently editing and acting in the same manner as before should lead the true "powers that be" on this site to question the rules and mores that govern this place.

You can point me to all sorts of silly bureaucratic means and "noticeboards" to "solve" problems on this site. But the fact is that those don't work. This site is ruled by people like Jayjg and Slimvirgin and their extensive coteries. They are the ones that occupy those places and know the little rules and pitterpat like Qing Dynasty paper-pushers.

Jimbo Wales: this site is obviously not a democracy. You and your oligarchy rule supreme. And much like a crippled serf beaten down by a minister's lictor, I come to you on broken knees and ask that you review the crushing weight of the powers you have, directly or indirectly, granted to people like Slimvirgin and Jayjg. By mere fact of their over-abundent presence, they have been granted extraordinary ability. And, in my opinion, they have degraded this place, and continue to do so, with open hostility to new editors, opposing viewpoints, and those who can't finagle through the overwrought bureaucratic maze to "solve" problems.

Oregondesert (talk) 05:46, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Site is not a democracy, that much is true. Jimbo only occasionally drops by anymore. And Slimvirgin and Jayjg are not in charge.

Please link to the location where you have issues? --Kim Bruning (talk) 06:04, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

1 billion words

I don't know if you are aware or even care less, but English wikipedia currently has around 991,000,000 words as of March 13 2008. I thought it would be nice if somebody takes note when we pass the 1 billion word mark as I feel this is a monumental milestone in wikipedia's history. Let me know , the many people who watch this page what you think and whether this should be brought up in the announcements ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 20:00, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd be interested to know what propcedure you used to calculate thios, and how you would intend to measure when exactly a billion words will occur. Thanks, SqueakBox 14:19, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

You could presumably work the number of words out from analysing a database dump, but as those are only produced every few months it would be impossible to find exactly when it passed the 1 billion mark. Maybe the Signpost would like to include it in their "news and notes" section. Hut 8.5 20:04, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

2.96553942×10^⁹ . Well of course I didn't expect anybody to know exactly what the billionth word is. I just thought people should know as I see it as a benchmark. It should be brought up in the announcements I think ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 20:29, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

If you don't know what the count is, forget it. The media would crucify you. You'd have to compare a regular series of data dumps, I imagine checking the number of blank spaces between all strings of consecutive characters. But I also think the developers have better things to do with their time than such a hugely resource draining analysis. Thanks, SqueakBox 21:30, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

As you noted, Wikimedia doesn't currently have the resources to provide adequate data dumps, without any real excuse for this. It's possible they're working on this behind-the-scenes, but generally, they seem to spend more time making up excuses and covering up mistakes than being open and honest with the public. And then following up by saying, "Well, our lawyer told us to say these things!"

Most importantly of all: It isn't the quantity that counts. It's the quality. Let's see Wikipedia have featured articles on every subject contained within Britannica (that is, the core encyclopedic subjects) and then we have a reason to justify self-congratulatory remarks and throw big parties abroad. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 00:18, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Zenwhat, Wikipedia was born an experiment to generate content that could be improved enough to be part of the online encyclopedia "Nupedia". It has always been an encyclopedia-in-the-making. That many people find our encyclopedia-in-the-making good enough to use right now instead of waiting until we have a finished version is wonderful. That others choose to misunderstand and condemn what they do not understand is less wonderful. Gathering facts before making claims is a good thing. WAS 4.250 (talk) 04:26, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Zenwhat, what the hell are you talking about? A full edit history dump for enwiki was just completed a month ago and another is in progress (the current versions only dump is already done). Please get your facts straight before trolling. Mr.Z-man 02:25, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Is this _really_ what that is? I haven't looked at the dumps myself, but the "meta-history" designation sounds like it implies that the _full text_ of historical versions is not included, only the metadata. —Random832 18:33, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes. pages-meta-history is the full text and revision data for every non-deleted page (~2 TB uncompressed in the last dump) stub-meta-history is revision data only. Mr.Z-man 03:40, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Might be more interesting and feasible to find the 1000000th, 5000000th, 1000000000th and so on edits themselves. Lawrence § t/e 18:07, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I think you can do that just by typing in the URL - the 100000000th edit seems to be this. Hut 8.5 18:26, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

And the 100000000th edit was vandalism. Oh dear, perhaps not such a good idea. Thanks, SqueakBox 18:59, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

The edit ID number is wrong anyway - it doesn't include edits that were deleted before Wikipedia upgraded to MediaWiki 1.5, and other old edits that aren't even in the database anymore. In fact the difference between the number of edits reported at Special:Statistics and the most recent edit ID number is just over ten million. Graham87 01:28, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Well the developers would be much better fixing that kind of issue than trying to figure out the billion word conundrum, though because many edits are vandalsim it wouldn't be a good idea to mark such an edit that was due to happen, Thanks. SqueakBox 22:37, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

FYI

Someone's calling for your head over at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Jimbo_Wales_should_be_admonished_and_officially_requested_to_step_down.. Not anything that would stick like diffs of you threatening to assasinate the president of guatamala, but figured you should be aware of it. MBisanz ^talk 05:30, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah, it's User:Zenwhat again. He and Jimbo have definitely been at odds in the past. --jonny-mt 17:00, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

WP:CONEXCEPT

Jim, there is a statement at WP:CONEXCEPT "There are a few exceptions that supersede consensus decisions on a page. (indent) Declarations from Jimmy Wales...." Is this still a valid statement in your mind. I don't object either way, but just want to clarify. Thanks! --Kevin Murray (talk) 05:46, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

It is a convention that we have so far kept around for historical reasons, and it seems (to the ArbCom, for example) to still serve some valid purposes. It is rarely used, and will be used ever more rarely in the future. I have no interest in disrupting consensus, and there are times (sysop wheel wars, for example) where a big "knock it off and chill out for a day or two" which is universally accepted, seems useful. Increasingly, I act in my formal traditional capacity only under the direct advice and consent of the ArbCom, and I have stated my willingness to submit to their decisions in specific cases.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:48, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Craig Crossman

I have nominated Craig Crossman, an article you created, for deletion. I do not feel that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Craig Crossman. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time. Justin^(Gmail?)_(u) 17:09, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind, I should have googled him first. Results clearly show he's notable. I'll delete the AfD. Justin^(Gmail?)_(u) 17:13, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Mutter Erde@commonswiki

I blocked him for three days because of this edit. But I also told him, I will make the block shorter if he asks all the three users (means also you) for excusion. Regards, abf /talk to me/ 10:08, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Only 3 days? I think he is indef banned from de.wikipedia and en.wikipedia. I have no particular recommendations for you about how to deal with him at commons, other than to say that he has been around a long time and most people have not found him to be particularly helpful with our charitable goals.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:44, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Any problems if i set the block up to indef and link this page? He also continued trolling on his talk-page, so it wont be an as bad idea. Regards, abf /talk to me/ 19:26, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

abf: At least you'll have a major problem with me if you do. --Janneman (talk) 20:57, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Janneman: I wont, because another admin did yet. abf /talk to me/ 21:33, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

a confederacy of dunces if ever I saw one. --Janneman (talk) 22:51, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

A fitting tribute, don't you think?

An editor at Commons contributed this delightful caricature of you to use in a discussion at COMMONS:Image talk:Maome.jpg. What do you think? -Nard 02:12, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

It reminds me of an old Buddhist, American (settled in England), teacher of mine, not of Jimbo. But its a great drawing, anyway. Thanks, SqueakBox 00:26, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

userboxes/frames/whatnot

could somone help me set up my userpage with frames and stuff so i can have userboxes over to the left and an have it more organized. thanks for any help! LukeTheSpook (talk) 19:44, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

A New Award, Especially For You

I would like to present to you the I Edited Jimbo Wales' Userpage Barnstar! — ComputerGuy890100^{Talk to me}_{What I've done to help Wikipedia} 23:10, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Please, I need help!

On an article I created about my father (who is a famus person), someone added information a while back that they could have had no way of knowing. Information about our family. I am worried about this and would like a block placed on this individual, the article is Mark Patterson, Racing Analyst and the contributer was named SJ something. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ray-Ginsay (talk • contribs) 04:24, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

The article in question--Mark Patterson (Racing Analyst)--is currently up for deletion. I saw the edits you mentioned by Sjsthree (talk · contribs), but it doesn't seem that they've done anything to deserve a block. If you are concerned about the availability of personal information, you might try filing a request for oversight in the event that the article is not deleted. If you are simply curious about who this person is, you might try leaving them a note on their talk page, although to be honest they don't seem to be active and so I don't know if you would get a response. --jonny-mt 09:10, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

help on hi.wikipedia

Greetings friends of wikipedia.

I have poor knowledge of English and Hindi Langauge and I write with poor knowledge.

Administrators of Hindi Wikipedia have grossly misused tools of Administratators. Namely one Rajiv Mass, Purnima Varman and Manish Vashishtha. One Rajiv Mass has created dammy Account of Ravi jain to harass and misuse.

I request here to translet what I have written in Hindi and same to be informed to all what these Administrators have done. I know that Administratator Rajiv Mass was doing this type of activites for last 3-4 months.

I signed as vkvora. vkvora2001 (talk) 22:18, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Miss Use on Hindi Wikipedia

Category:Wikipedians in India http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Noticeboard_for_India-related_topics

All most all and at least three confirmed have grossly missused their Administratators Tools on Hindi Wikipedia. Their Names are Rajiv Mass, Purnima Varman and Manish Vashishtha. Not only that Administratator Rajiv Mass has opened dummy account in name of Ravi Jain and miss used to harass other members of Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, English wikipedia. I have complained in poor English to English Wikipedia Administratators and one has advised me to write here. Those who know Hindi very well should visit Hindi wikipedia to solve the problem and this fact should be brought to all Administratators of world. I signed as vkvora. vkvora2001 (talk) 02:44, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Abuse on Hindi Wikipedia

www.hi.wikipedia.org

All Administrators of Hindi Wikipedia are involved and particularly (1) Rajiv Mass (2) Purnima Varman and (3) Manish Vashistha confirmed. Other three are in line of confirmation.

Rajiv Mass has opend dummy account in name of Ravi Jain on Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, English and many languages with IP 124.124.36.4 of Rajiv Mass and harassing other members on many languages.

hi.wikipedia gu.wikipedia mr.wikipedia en.wikipedia

Everything with fact is given on Hindi Wikipedia and all Admn. know.

In case all Admn. on Hindi wikipedia are involved, please, bring this fact to entire world.

I am from India and feel very ashmed that my brothers are involved in Vandals activities on wikipedia.

For this notice board fact can be seen by nacked eye on :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Vkvora2001

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jainjain

copy of this is pasted on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Noticeboard_for_India-related_topics

I signed as vkvora. vkvora2001 (talk) 05:30, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

User:RickK

Hello, founder of Wikipedia, whom I have to say, I'm excited to be discussing with! I'd just like to ask that if User:RickK is retired, then why does it say that he's still an administrator in the Special:Listusers page? Other users who were formerly administrators are not listed as admins there; so if he's no longer active, then shouldn't he have been desysopped? Thanks! SchfiftyThree 00:10, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi there, AFAIK retired administrators are not desysopped. Although I maybe wrong! --The Helpful One ^(Review) 00:28, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

You are right, administrators are not desysoped because of inactivity or retirement.— Ѕandahl 00:48, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, Essjay formerly was an admin, but then had to retire because of the controversy. The reason why RickK was not desysopped kind of confuses me, and it's kind of interesting to see that retired administrators who haven't made edits for over two years are still considered admins. To me, that's kind of unusual. SchfiftyThree 01:20, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Essjay requested in his last edit that he be desysopped, which is why he's no longer an admin (though he might have been desysopped through arbitration if he hadn't made that request because of the circumstances in which he left). There's nothing wrong with having inactive accounts with admin tools, as that person is still trusted to have that access by the community and the risk of the account being compromised is very low. Hut 8.5 11:20, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

If ever RickK decided to come out of retirement for some reason (and that goes for any retired admin), he has done nothing to deserve the taking away of is tools. Lradrama 11:23, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies and answering my question. I guess it's true that he doesn't need to be desysopped. SchfiftyThree 16:49, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Sir, I'm Requesting administrator Removal For Theresa Knott

This administrator has been very bias towards me, and has wrongfully accussed my of stalking. She has also wrongfully accused me of stirring up trouble against a user known as Thegingerone. This user has continously violated the NPOV policies, and Ms. Knott. I also never wanted to post any "nasty messages" to the user, and I have never called the user any bad names. I fell like Knott's actions against me are the equivilnet of when a [refactor personal attack against another user]. I'm not making racist accusations, but I do think her treatment of me is bias and equivilent to discrimination. I'm deeply offended by her accusations, and I fell she needs to be dealt with soon. Also, OhnoIt'sJamie did the same think in a message he sent me, by saying the message I am sending is accussing Ms. Knott of racis,. Let me make it clear to anybody else who reads this and makes these bias assumptions I AM NOT ACCUSSING ANYBODY WITH ALLEGATIONS OF RACISM, but I do think that there is some prejudice going on. Hey, it's just my opinion from observation. Kevin j (talk) 17:21, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I am deeply offended by your racist allegations against Theresa Knott, please remove them as you have no evidence that she is a white supremacist. Thanks, SqueakBox 17:36, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

SqueakBox, NO, I AM NOT MAKING RACIST ALLEGATIONS OR ACCUSSING ANYBODY OF BEING A WHITE SUPREMACIST. Get it through your head.Kevin j (talk) 17:38, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

From TKnotts's talk page: your edit at 17:08, 21 March 2008 "David Duke" diff and subsequent blanking of a thread on her talk page (diff). This complaint is without merit. I suggest you heed Theresa Knott's advice. Bogus complaint and Kevin j needs to knock it off, R. Baley (talk) 17:45, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Instead of calling her a whiote supremacist. Thanks, SqueakBox 17:52, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Once again, I AM NOT CALLING ANYBODY A WHITE SUPREMACIST. I even erased the content from the talk page, though I still feel she is acting prejudice against me, by labelling me as a "stalker." I WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS FILTH, and I do think she is being childish and prejudice against me. Also, I NEVER SLANDERED her to other editors. I love to edit film content, and I have been doing this long before these people knew who I even was. Sir you do think administrators should get special privileges? Because I don't.Kevin j (talk) 18:09, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I have blocked the user for 24 hours for disruption. At this point, he is going to any user talk page he can think of and SCREAMING nonsense at people. Clearly, nothing productive is going to come out of his current state of mind. Marskell (talk) 18:27, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Admin meddling

Mr. Wales, please review the recent history of Unholy Alliance and determined efforts by two Admins to bury historical references to Teddy Roosevelt's uses of the term. -MBHiii (talk) 21:13, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Personal advice

Hi Jimbo. Sometimes I am afraid I am over-sensitive. The Race and Intelligence article is obviously controversial and I have been highly critical of User:Jayjg user:Jagz who I believe has been pushing for inclusion of a fringe, racialist (if not racist) POV in the article - this is just context, not the issue. The issue is, today he made this edit, creating a new section and providing no explanation or context: [7]. If it is directed at me, I wonder if it is anti-Semitic.

I may be overreacting - it may just be one of several disruptive edits he has made, which I should not take personally, and I have left a note at AN/I concerning disruptive edits. But the possible anti-Semitism nags at me. I know that in general you take these matters seriously and that in this particular case you have objectivity I lack and if you think I am overreacting, well, I would respect and value your judgement. Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 22:51, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

The first thing that I noticed is that the edit in question is not by User:Jayjg at all.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:54, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Yikes! I am an idiot! It was a complete slip. I meant user Jagz (Jayjg has not edited that page or the article for a very very long time, if he even ever did ... I guess i just work on so many more articles with jayjg that it is more of a reflex writing hisname. Anyway, it was a mistake). Everything I have written here applies to Jagz; Jayjg is utterly uninvolved in this, it was just a slip on my part. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:25, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

BLP discussion on proposed change to make BLP apply "everywhere"

Jimmy, I'd like to ask you to read this section on the BLP talk page and weigh in there, as BLP was originally one of your babies: Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons#BLP applies everywhere. Lawrence § t/e 18:27, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Interestingly I have been watching my nieces and nephews schools in the UK, and what a minefield of BLP issues so yesterday I tagged their school's talk page with BLP here. Today I did the same to my old school here, but also to the person whose BLP issues are mentioned there. I have had no contact with Lawrence re this issue but appear to have been practicing it anyway. Great minds think alike I guess?!? My own thinking is we need to apply BLP to all articles that mention living people, I'll go and post this at the BLP page. Thanks, SqueakBox 18:41, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I've been thinking BLP just by default applies to any edit or action that generates anything that can be "seen" on Wikipedia, about a living person. The article about Some fish species from the Marianas trench may have nothing living people in it, but if I add a sentence to the article that "Prince Gaston of the Kingdom of France enjoys beating children with this fish species in private", and Prince Gaston is a real person, then BLP obviously applies. That was my contention--if you can see it on http://en.wikipedia.org, BLP applies. Lawrence § t/e 18:45, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I guess we should be applying it to all articles where BLP is contentious, also IMO to all redirects of living people, just a general extension out of purely biography space into living people affected by what wikipedia says, the headmaster of my old school is a good example but really there are lotsd of articles. I think CV is always an important consideration, if I were a specialist in some Box jellyfish and mentioned in the article then the article should be tagged for BLP, I guess this is my contention, and one I intend to practice in the tiny area of wikipedia I edit. And what I heard you say Lawrence is that we should be free as responsible editors to aply BLP to any article of given consideration on en.wikipedia.org. Thanks, SqueakBox 18:51, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I think BLP does apply everywhere, but that we have to be sensible in how we apply it in different places. It has to be ok to discuss something on a talk page that has no business being in an article. At the same time, it is not ok to imagine that "anything goes" on even a talk page. As others have said, it has to be ok to ask a legitimate question about a source that might or might not be reliable. "A UK tabloid is reporting X negative claim about Y famous person... clearly not a WP:RS, but has it been reported elsewhere?" can of course be a legitimate question to ask. On the other hand, a long rant against Y based on the UK tabloid reporting, a rant not concerned with editing the article, is probably not ok. And in either case, it can make sense to archive or courtesy blank any discussion which gets out of hand. A statement like "Y is a scumbag, everyone knows it, why can't we say it?" should be deleted right off the bat.

If anything I just said seems surprising or new, please no one start a big war about it anywhere, and please do not cite these opinions as "policy". I am just opining on what I see as being consistent with longstanding traditions.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:53, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I quite agree. Common sense and courtesy, while discussing relevant facts without being gratuitiously derogatory. Ty 16:43, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

What if I post, "X is a scumbag — read all about it in my blog here"? Crum375 (talk) 16:53, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

The violation is in the "X is a scumbag" part, and we all know that blogs are rarely acceptable sources. On the other hand, a question about whether a specific link is an acceptable source (with link to the source) should usually be answered straight out. Risker (talk) 16:58, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I am on a talk page, discussing Mr. X, a living person. Let's say I post, "Hey everyone, you really need to know the truth about X, read it here in my blog." Assuming my blog entry contains dirt about X, improperly sourced or unsourced, is this OK? Crum375 (talk) 17:06, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

It's fine, apart from violating every policy in the book. Ty 17:26, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

So what should I do if I see such a statement? Crum375 (talk) 17:28, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I would recommend refactoring the page, removing the statement and the link, and asking the user nicely not to do it again. There is a pretty clear difference between going onto a talk page and attacking someone by using an external link, and a legitimate question about a possible source.

Let's imagine that instead someone said "Hey, I see here on dirtblog.com that allegations have been raised. Would it be ok to include that in the article?" And then everyone says, no, actually, that's just unsourced garbage not meeting our standards for reliable sources. After a little while (to allow whatever legitimate discussion to die down) I think it makes sense to refactor that page to remove even this, so it is not there for every person coming along in the future. No hurry to do that (because hurrying is likely to cause drama if the discussion is legit). But it should be done in due course, I think.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:56, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Often, discussions around these issues occur between users who have strong but opposite viewpoints. WP:3O and WP:BLP/N are good ways to bring previously uninvolved, fresh eyes to a situation, and allow both parties to "stand down" a bit. Personal blogs are pretty clearly not reliable sources, with very, very rare exceptions, regardless of whether or not they are sourced. Some of those rare exceptions might be posts to AN/I or Arbcom pages, where there may be reason to include this information; those pages are widely viewed by trusted users, and such postings can be reasonably discussed amongst the assembled. Risker (talk) 17:51, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

BLP states that we remove first, then discuss. This is because real live persons can be irreparably damaged while issues are being "discussed". Crum375 (talk) 17:57, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

<<<<<< Crum375, there are some important nuances involved that you are omitting. Please read the section of BLP that discusses non-article space. It details common sense limitations on your scorched earth approach. The non-article spaces have specific reasons for existing to help us write this encyclopedia and BLP is not to be used as a tool to prevent those spaces from being used appropriately for those purposes. Repeatedly deleting key evidence from an arbcom evidence space is not appropriate. Your judgement was flawed in that incident. Extreme behavior is usually wrong. Balanced thoughtful restrained behavior is more often the correct behavior. WAS 4.250 (talk) 22:23, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

WAS, there is no provision that I can see in BLP or elsewhere that allows us to post unsourced or poorly sourced derogatory or defamatory material about living persons anywhere on WP space. Once it is posted, it can be picked up by a Google cache, and remain in cyberspace for a long time, enough to cause real world harm to real individuals. This is why we remove derogatory material first, and discuss it later, not the other way around. Balance is required for NPOV, for BLP we remove first, and ask questions later, erring on the side of caution. Crum375 (talk) 22:39, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Crum375, the world is not black and white. Edits don't come with a neat label of "properly sourced" or "poorly sourced". We must all use our best judgements. It was ok for you to remove what in your opinion was a poorly sourced contented claim (it does not have to be negative) from that arbcom evidence page. It was not ok for you to repeatedly do that - in essence saying that your judgement trumped everyone else's judgement on the issue of whether the claim was well or poorly sourced. Note that a claim of "John believes Bob is a murderer" needs different sourcing than the claim "Bob is a murderer." WAS 4.250 (talk) 22:59, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

WAS, saying that someone is psychopath (for example), and linking to it, is unacceptable, unless extremely well sourced. Anyone can remove such a BLP violation, any time. There is no 3RR limit. If editors can then find appropriate sources to support that statement, it can be carefully re-inserted. Otherwise, it goes out. This is not an infantile game — posting such defamatory material on a top 10 website can harm real people, irreversibly. We err on the side of caution in such cases. Crum375 (talk) 23:10, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

A bigger problem is why we even allow search engines to index WP space, user space, and the like. Since our mission is not commercial in nature we should specifically modify WP's robots.txt to only allow indexing of "Article" space. If our own internal search tools are deficit--or frankly, they're shitty--then we can fix that. Aside from sucking at Google's teat, I can't see any valid WP mission-specific reason to allow search engines to touch anything but "actual articles". This must change. Lawrence § t/e 07:24, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

And yes: I realize the unspoken reason we don't DON'T do that is because we would screw over WP's "Page Rank" and status on Google. Well, you know what? Living people > Google. Fuck page rank. Our mission is more important than silly games that raise WP or Wikia's stature. We're not here to make money. Those who are can leave. Lawrence § t/e 07:25, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Lawrence, our mission isn't commercial but it is to get our encyclopedia out there read by the hungry for information masses (that's me) and while I don't disagree re non article space IMO hiding our article space from the web crawlers would be a form of suicide and deeply to be discouraged. Thanks, SqueakBox 22:20, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Happy First Day of Spring!

Happy First Day of Spring!

A Beautiful Cherry Tree in Spring Bloom

Theres nothing like seeing a field full of spring flowers.

Just wishing you a wonderful First Day of Spring {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}! ~~~~

If you live in the Southern Hemisphere and are entering the season of Autumn not Spring then I wish you a happy First Day of Autumn {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}!
To spread this message to others, add {{subst:First Day Of Spring}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

The same from me too, to Jimbo and everybody who edits Wikipedia. :-) Lradrama 11:25, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

And a happy Autumn to all those deep in the southern hemisphere and a happy yet more of the same to those in the tropics from a hot SqueakBox. Thanks, SqueakBox 22:18, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Calhan, Colorado

Hey Jim - I'm going out to a rural high school today in Calhan, Colorado to talk to the kids about Wikipedia, how they can get involved, etc. I will be re-hashing, to a degree, the talk I gave at the New York meet-up. --David Shankbone 16:15, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Jim, the talk went really well. I stood in front of the class and I discussed why Wikipedia exists, why people edit it, how to edit the site, and how to avoid vandalism. There was a *really* funny moment in front of the class. I told the kids about the "...is gay" vandalism, and they all suddenly looked uncomfortable. I told them that it's very common, and that if they write "Fred...is gay" "Drew Barrymore...is gay" "Your Mom...is gay" or anything else, that they are thoroughly unoriginal, and that you and fifty million other kids in Dubuque all write the same thing. They laughed uncomfortably. Then they asked how we can tell when things changed, so I looked at the IP address I was using for their high school, and it was full of vandalism (including "is gay)! It was really funny - I started to look at the diffs, and for their IP there were a bunch of edits to Immanuel Kant - their English teacher had given the class an assignment about him. And it turns out...on one of the vandalism edits one of the kids actually signed his name! I was also told--no lie--that the kid was not in school because he had recently pierced his tongue with a nail and his face had swollen up. But I have to tell you: I have some great photos of "American High School students" for those articles, and they school even had them sign releases. Once I'm back in New York, I'll upload. --David Shankbone 14:05, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Advice Please

How many edits and how long do you think a user should have before nominating for administration?--RyRy5 (talk) 06:21, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

It varies. :) --Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:52, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

3 months of regular editing is generally considered a minimum requirement and is probably a better indicator than pure number counting. Thanks, SqueakBox 22:17, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you guys!--RyRy5 talk 04:29, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

1,000,000,000 words

Frohe Ostern!

We are about to pass the 1 billion mark. I think it is a cause for celebration even if an enormous amount needs doing to improve quality. It would just take about 500 years to read it -(that's all) ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 22:07, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Well perhaps 10,000 FAs would be a better cause for celebration ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 13:04, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Er, what? can you please provide a diff for your assertion. I thought we had agreed the developers couldn't figure out how to do it even if they had the time and if we are going to celebrate a landmark 2,500,000 articles is the way to go. The real problem, as I saiod before, is if we make false allegations to the media re 1 billion words it will not go well for us. But I'd like to see yopur calculating procedures anyway. As a volunteer here I certainly have some developer skills. Your assertion claims a mean average of slightly less than 250 words per article, which may not be that far out as i have read somewhere ages ago that the average article was 2 lines, which is about 50 words but without the computing processes it would be pure guesswork. Thanks, SqueakBox 22:11, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Did you hear the other day somebody deleted the sandbox, and mid-afternoon US time when Western Europe was still awake, ie at the worst time, and the servers crashed for a couple of hours as you can't do that kind of thing, an admin either not thinking or simply didn't realise that you can't edit 4 years of history on a page which had I have no idea how many edit revisions but clearly enough to crash the servers. Thanks, SqueakBox 23:58, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Does that have something to do with anything? Equazcion •✗/C • 00:03, 23 Mar 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely. Don't mess with the servers analysing data dumps. Thanks, SqueakBox 00:05, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) Wow. I rarely post to here unless truly necessary, but some of what's being said is simply jaw-droppingly stupid. An administrator tried to do a selective deletion on the Sandbox a few weeks ago and it prevented editing for about an hour, probably a little less. No servers crashed, and in fact the site was still fully functional, i.e., you could visit and read any page. And what any of this has to do with "servers analysing data dumps" is truly beyond me. Unless you have something accurate to say, or at least something that can meaningfully contribute to the conversation, please don't post. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:53, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Er you what, MZMcBride. Please remain civil and don't attack other editors for whatever reasons you may think you have. The site was not visible to anybody for well over an hour and the servers did crash, at least according to the mailing list they did, your denying this seems a bit odd. And the point is not to do silly things that will affect the site such as trying to find the billionth word. If you think that is "jaw-droppingly stupid" I hope you don't get a job as a webmaster. Thanks, SqueakBox 22:23, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

And I don't know what number of revisions has anything to do with word count either, unless you are counting 2 revisions to the same page, both with a total of 100 words as 200 words. To estimate the number of words, you'd either have to get the full rendered text of each page and count all the words or do a database query to add up the raw text length (in bytes) of each page. 1 byte ~ 1 letter, so dividing by the average word size, adjusted to compensate for templates, piped links and various bits of wiki-syntax would give you an estimate. The former method would probably be more accurate (and probably doable once the HTML dumps start again) but the latter method would be easier. Mr.Z-man 21:30, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Adminisration

I plan to become an admin when I have 5000+ edits and when I have been at wikipedia for 4 months. Do you think this is a good idea? I would also like your opinion on this. --RyRy5 talk 04:33, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

David Shankbone's New York Meet-up Presentation on his Wikinews and Wikipedia work

Jim, if you are interested in me explaining my work and how I see its implications for Wikipedia, here's a video presentation. --David Shankbone 06:02, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

What to say to those who question Wikipedia's reliability?

Jimbo, I've thought for a while about asking you, and I decided I should. A lot of the time, I get people, when I talk to them about Wikipedia, they say things like "It's not reliable" or "Why do you edit it, it's a waste of time". This is something I strongly disagree with. I feel Wikipedia is not a waste of time, I believe in it's cause (free information for the whole world) and I try to dedicate my time, as much of it as possible, to improving wikipedia, whether it is through reverting vandalism, or by writing articles. But, I find people who make these remarks about Wikipedia, rather discouraging. My question to you Jimbo is, what do you suggest I say to these people? I know you're a busy man, but if you could reply to me at some time, I'd really appreciate it. Regards, Steve Crossin (talk to me) 16:50, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

It is objectively demonstrable that many people find Wikipedia to be useful and that it is better every year. Nothing is perfect. In my opinion the claims on an average article on the English language Wikipedia are already more reliable than the claims on an average newspaper article. WAS 4.250 (talk) 17:34, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

People should question the reliability of Wikipedia. They should also question the reliability and POV of World Book, Encarta, and all the others. A lazy reader doesn't question. Kingturtle (talk) 17:41, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

• I appreciate your comments, but I would like an answer from Jimbo. If thats not too much to ask. Steve Crossin (talk to me) 17:46, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I think it is important to never overstate the reliability of Wikipedia. It's pretty good in parts, and still needs a lot of work in parts. You could cite various research comparing Wikipedia to traditional encyclopedias... the most recent I am aware of was the comparison of the German Wikipedia to Brockhaus (the cultural equivalent of Britannica in the German language) by the magazine Stern. (Wikipedia performed very well.)

Most people who actually use Wikipedia begin to recognize the strengths (there are many) and the weaknesses (there are also many). It is freely licensed, a charitable project to help the world, and so people who are skeptical can often be invited to join in and help us make it better.

My own feeling is that some major policy changes are probably needed in order to deal with various issues, but also that those policy changes require some software updates, most importantly "stable versions". I hope that those are made available as quickly as possible.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:59, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Why don't we have stable versions now? I thought the Germans have had it for two years. If there is political resistance to it, we need to shove aside the resistance, because it's frankly stupid and idiotic to not have stable versions (if it exists--does it for the Germans?). We need it especially for BLPs. Lawrence § t/e 18:11, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

In fact, we should have stable versions, and that is the only bit of Wikipedia we should allow search engines to crawl. Lawrence § t/e 18:12, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Sure, the reliability of anything needs to be taken with a grain of salt. I just find it hard to deal with people who discredit Wikipedia so much, when I see all the effort that goes into it. My personal feeling is that measures do need to be taken to protect the site from the harm it receives, recent changes have been made, such as disabling the ability to delete the main page, but more things need to be done. Well, all I can do is continue cleaning up places that need cleaning. Is there any advice you could give when asked by someone about Wikipedia, and its reliability? Steve Crossin (talk to me) 18:42, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Some sources are more reliable than others. Acknowledge what they're saying is largely true, without ego, and stop grasping for apologetic talking points from Jimmy. Large amounts of effort towards a particular goal may lead to absurd rationalization as to the consequence, when it is discovered that such effort has largely been wasted. I.E., imagine a meteorologist telling ancient Mayan indians, "The weather isn't caused by gods or human sacrifices to the gods, but by meteorological patterns!" Most likely, they would've ritually sacrificed him for being a heretic.

Similarly, such "personal feeling" clouds a person's judgment and we should feel perfectly okay with the reality that virtually all of our effort on Wikipedia (and in life, period) may ultimately be futile. Why convince ourselves otherwise?

Looking strictly at the facts, there have not been very many studies on Wikipedia and the statistics are scant, so absolute judgments on its reliability are questionable. On the other hand, most studies thus far have been negative and there are a number of theoretical problems with the wiki model of social engineering, as Wikipedia is currently.

Of the variety of problems, there is one important problem off-hand: Information asymmetry. Wikipedia assumes an economic framework of either perfect competition or perfect cooperation towards building an encyclopedia, or at least something relatively close to it. Asymmetry of information means different people have different degrees of knowledge about particular subjects and not just subjects, but whether a particular source is even used properly. So, there develop "clusters" of like-minded editors around particular article topics and they can get away with misusing particular sources, all because of an unequal distribution in information. Then, on the other hand, an expert editor themselves might not be able to add material from their own source material because the majority will dispute them for using sources which are unverifiable strictly through using Google. And then, worse, there are some users who can even falsely claim to have credentials. On that last one, Jimmy proposed a sensible reform for credential verification, but the community rejected it because they are anti-intellectual zombies which are collectively hostile to legitimate academic peer review of their combined trolling. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 02:19, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Question about "First Amendment and the Internet" confernce

This conferences that you are participating in sounds interesting. Do you know if there will be video or transcripts of it available online? Jon513 (talk) 23:15, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Advertisements

The last fund raising campaign did not give the desired result. Neither the unified login nor approved versions are in production use yet. Let alone the WYSIWYG feature or other MediaWiki improvements that could make the life of Wikipedians so much easier. It seems to me that Wikipedia is stuck in a stalemate. On the other hand, if advertisements were radically introduced, Wikipedia would lose many editors; the little advertisement in one of the earlier fund raising campaigns was not received well. But what about a less radical attempt? Perhaps Wikipedia could start with an advertisement only on the main page and gain some experience with that. Such a conservative attempt would not face the NPOV issues that have been put forward as the main argument against ads, at least not in the same way. I know that I am certainly not the first user to suggest this, but given the stagnating state of the project, I think that things need to be reconsidered. I find it strange that the Wikipedia:Advertisements article does not mention such a moderate, tentative solution but only radical attempts to introduce advertisements in all articles (be it optional or not). Also, it doesn't give crucial arguments such as the possibility to use parts of the money to buy copyrights and put the associated works into the public domain. If people see that they get something back for the advertisements, tolerance would perhaps increase even for putting them into regular articles. --rtc (talk) 08:41, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

While I continue to oppose the introduction of any advertising in Wikipedia, I also continue to agree that the discussion should evolve beyond a simple binary. I believe that if we looked at putting ads into the search results page (only), with the money earmarked for specific purposes (with strong community input into what those would be, either liberation of copyrights or support for the languages of the developing world or...). As the Foundation continues to evolve into a more professional organization capable of taking on and executing tasks (yay Sue and the growing staff!), it begins to be possible to imagine many uses of money that would benefit our core charitable goals.

Lest I be misunderstood: I am not saying anything new, but saying exactly what I have said for many years.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:20, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

RE: Wikipedia's tin-cup approach wears thin http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-wikipedia10mar10,1,6437552.story. I fail to see what would be the *problem* for allowing, for example, a couple of text Google adwords, as a subsection of the external links sections on articles. With the number of page views Wikipedia has today, allowing such ads for a couple of months a year, will generate enough income to support the project for that year, and expand and explore new uses of Wikipedia that cannot be considered today for lack of funding. Why would such activity be considered "commercialization of Wikipedia"? Unless there is an issue with the 501(c)(3) status , which I doubt, why not to openly explore this? A vigorous debate may be needed about this, but I think it is time. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:52, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

In addition to the search results page, another place to consider the placement of text ads would be anything marked as a stub. We're already admitting that these are pages where we don't have as much information about the topic as we should, and that further information is (supposedly) easy to find. When we consider all that could be done with the project if there were even a small amount of cash infused (paying more coders, getting graphic designers involved, commissioning articles on topics that are embarrassingly sparse (e.g., dance history)), we need to find a compromise between the all or nothing approach. Adding stub articles to the list of ad-supported pages would greatly increase the number of funding sources without greatly altering the feel of Wikipedia. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 00:40, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

This user supports search-related ads on a nonprofit Wikipedia.ads

Please see: Wikipedia:Advertisements#Income from search tools on wikipedia pages. Concerning the search box (for Special:Search) on nearly all wikipedia pages, it has been estimated that millions of dollars a year could be raised solely from ads on search result pages. See: [8]. To the right is a userbox I created in support of this.

Another option is to add a search toolbar with a dropdown menu for search engines from Google, Yahoo, Ebay, Amazon.com, etc, and to charge them for searches sent their way. The Mozilla Foundation raises millions of dollars a year this way through the search toolbar at the top of the Firefox browser. See Mozilla Foundation#Financing. The Firefox browser comes with a search toolbar with several search engines set up in its dropdown menu. The user can add more search engines easily by clicking "Manage Search Engines" in the dropdown menu. Any, or all, of the search engines can be removed by the user. In 2006 the Mozilla Foundation received US$66.8 million in revenues, of which 61.5 million is attributed to "search royalties". See: Independent Auditor's Report and Consolidated Financial Statements. The foundation has an ongoing deal with Google to make Google search the default in the Firefox browser search bar and hence send it search referrals; a Firefox themed Google search site has also been made the default home page of Firefox. A footnote in Mozilla's 2006 financial report states "Mozilla has a contract with a search engine provider for royalties. The contract originally expired in November 2006 but was renewed for two years and expires in November 2008. Approximately 85% of Mozilla’s revenue for 2006 was derived from this contract.", this equates to approximately US$56.8 million.--Timeshifter (talk) 14:07, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

And here's another option..

no adsThis user is against advertisements on Wikipedia.

Because most of us don't want our Wikipedia cluttered with Viagra ads, even if it is on Viagra. - ✰ALLSTAR✰ ^echo 10:00, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I support on/off buttons for opt-in ads on a nonprofit Wikipedia for all readers (via cookies).

None of the ads on search result pages would be on wikipedia pages themselves. And there is no reason these ads could not be user-optional on wikipedia's search pages. Most of us wouldn't mind ads on search result pages. Also, there is money to be made by allowing Google to put a searchbar on wikipedia pages. You already use Google to search for stuff, and usually a wikipedia page is near the top. So, I doubt that most people get apoplectic (look it up) over the viagra ads on Google result pages. :) --Timeshifter (talk) 14:21, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

The userbox is quite ambiguous, do you mean optional with the default being that users see the ads, or do you mean users would have to open their preferences and check some option before they can see ads? I think that the latter would not be successful and few people would do it. Can we move this discussion to some place where more people can get involved? I think merely stating positions is not enough, we need to debate them, collect the ideas and arguments, and, if possible, come to a conclusion or a compromise or something that a large part of the community can support. This could then be sent to the foundation as a petition. That is how I understand Jimbo's message – that the community has to actively find consensus on ads and request them from the foundation. --rtc (talk) 21:55, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

The default setting would be no ads. Click the link in the userbox for more info and discussion. I think a lot of people would allow ads. Even if only a small percentage of people allowed ads a lot of money would be raised yearly. A button on the search page, or on wikipedia pages, would turn ads on and off. --Timeshifter (talk) 13:22, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that this approach would not raise a lot of money, contrary to what you you predict. But I'd certainly support an experiment and be happy if it shows that I was wrong here. What about moving this discussion? --rtc (talk) 21:37, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Discussion is good here. We can maybe copy it to Wikipedia talk:Advertisements when it is archived. As for how much money could be raised I think it depends on what kind of deal wikipedia makes with the various search providers. If a dropdown searchbar with multiple search providers were added to the top left of all wikipedia pages (above the wikipedia logo), and wikipedia charged the search providers for every search we sent their way it could raise a lot of money. Millions of dollars. I would use the searchbar frequently. Especially if there were a Google search of Wikipedia as one of the options. Currently, I have to go to a new browser tab and open this bookmark:

http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awikipedia.org

It would be so convenient to use a Google searchbar. Google is so much better and faster than any other search of wikipedia. With many more options. --Timeshifter (talk) 23:50, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree, except that I don't think that putting it above the wikipedia logo would really be the right thing. Why not put it into the search box on the left, below the current search form? --rtc (talk) 10:38, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Maybe we could start there. It would need to be announced though, so that people know there is a Google searchbar available for web or wikipedia searches. Otherwise it may not be noticed by most people. I gave up on wikipedia's search tool long ago. I always use http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awikipedia.org and then add search terms. --Timeshifter (talk) 19:40, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think ads are bad anywhere, relying that they raise money that is then used to improve wikipedia, they are not intrusive and have a message saying something like "The ads are not part of wikipedia, nor do they neccessarily conform to the wikipedia standards of of being unbiased etc" Ultra two (talk) 16:03, 26 March 2008 (UTC)\

This is where the real money is. But I think it should be user-optional with the default being no ads. I think ads on search results should be tried first, so people see that the sky will not fall due to ads. I have websites on free web hosts. Their ads do not bother me, nor most of my site readers. I have never been pressured by the web host, nor by advertisers to change anything on my sites. --Timeshifter (talk) 19:35, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I just thought about it and found that there is not really much to discuss about user-optional advertisement, search bars or whatever. Every user can actually already add advertisements or a search bar at any place and in any context he likes at his option — via a monobook javascript. The necessary javascript code would be trivial. What is missing is a contract between the Wikimedia Foundation and google or other companies, so that it actually gets money for this. --rtc (talk) 20:03, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

People just need to look at the Google-funded Firefox browser that many are using right now to read this, and then realize that Google ads are already paying for their access to Wikipedia. The ads are not on the browser itself, nor would Google ads be on wikipedia pages if wikipedians added the Google search toolbar to wikipedia pages via monobook javascript. Also, imagine the number of spelling errors on wikipedia if people did not have the Firefox browser and its spelling checker. --Timeshifter (talk) 20:36, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

The problem is not people using the javascript, but it is the fact that there is no contract between the Wikimedia Foundation and google and ad providers. Wikipedia users cannot do anything about that; only the Wikimedia Foundation can. All the community can do is a petition, but we need many people to do that. How could such a petition look like and how do we set one off? --rtc (talk) 23:10, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Interesting idea. I don't know offhand how to start a petition. People can add the userboxes to their user pages. I can make different userboxes if necessary, too. The contract would be between the Wikimedia Foundation and Google and the other search providers in the searchbar. There would be no contract with advertisers. Google handles that end of it. Wikimedia would not have to deal with advertisers at all. --Timeshifter (talk) 23:17, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I meant contracts with ad providers, not with advertisers. We should give users who want to watch ads as many choices as possible (or at least more than one), including ad banners above articles. I don't see why users should be forced not to watch aggressive ads if they want to. Making ads optional does not mean a yes-or-no-choice for some predetermined style of advertisement. Perhaps some people even enjoy content-related ads at the top of each article. Just because many people object that does not mean that there is no significant amount who would love it. Userboxes are frowned upon; they never changed anything and the Foundation won't care about them at all. Except for babel boxes, there is not a single userbox that has improved Wikipedia. We need a real petition, something like a list titled "I support that the Wikimedia Foundation makes contracts with ad providers and google such that users have the choice to support Wikipedia by including such paid ads, search bars, whatever using javascript. We emphasize the many charitable things that could be done with the money, including buying copyrights and releasing them, paying more programmers, holding conferences, paying professional authors to revise and write articles, etc." under which people can put their signature and that will be made widely known, for example with a message on WP:VP. After one month or so, we can notify the Wikimeda Foundation about the petition and perhaps it would consider it as a first step towards a Wikipedia that is at least partly supported by ads. --rtc (talk) 23:40, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with everything except the userboxes part. They are useful for getting the word out. Ad providers are also called ad servers. See ad serving and Google AdSense. I think the petition should be broken down into parts. People should be able to sign up for the parts they agree with. For example; many people might agree with adding a Google searchbar, but not with having ads directly on Wikipedia pages (not even user-optional ones). --Timeshifter (talk) 03:02, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

That would be outside of the scope of the petition, which is to ask the Foundation merely to make the necessary contracts. It is not up to the community to prescribe users which ads they want to see and how they want to see them. That's a private matter. Also, such a broken down petition would be complicated. A petition needs to be easy to understand and unequivocal in its message. --rtc (talk) 07:35, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, then start with a simple petition asking the Wikimedia Foundation to make the necessary contracts for remuneration from Google and other search providers when a searchbar is added to a wikipedia page. This is the petition that would be most likely to get popular support, and the least opposition. --Timeshifter (talk) 07:26, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Friendly heads up

Wikipedia, according to Valleywag. And in a fine twist of irony, Valleywag fails to see the joke's on them. Please, do some real journalism for a change.

Just so there's no question about this, I ought to explain something. A few days ago Sue Gardner joined a Not the Wikipedia Weekly skypecast and among other things she denied a recent Valleywag rumor. I don't usually pay much attention to Valleywag, but afterward I decided to check out one of her comments and she was exactly right: nearly all of the Valleywag stories that mention women discuss what they suppose is that woman's sex life. Now there's a site that has issues, I thought. And for a bit, I left it at that.

Then in a bit of serendipity I segued from work on the triple crown awards to reading up on classical Greek mythology to the paintings of William-Adolphe Bouguereau. I've had my eye on his work for a while as potential restorations for featured picture candidacy. Then a really impish inspiration struck, and I've heard you're very good at taking a joke so I went ahead with it. The thing was an ironic barb at Valleywag's tabloid reporting.[9]

Much to my surprise, two days later Valleywag has actually run the silly image to accompany a story about you--completely failing to see that the actual joke is on them. I've written a comment to that effect; am waiting to see whether they have the integrity to publish it. Also made a similar comment at p2pnet news.[10] So for the record, this image is a gesture of respect to Sue Gardner and the other hardworking women of the tech industry who really deserve to get into the news for their brains. Durova^Charge! 21:48, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

So finally the truth comes out! Jimbo, are you looking for any interns at the moment? I'd be happy to join the team and keep all those distractions away from you :) Franamax (talk) 22:03, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

It's not "issues", it's pageviews (and they've gotten really blatant about it with the "sex trade" series). I thought the picture was hilarious in terms of mocking the (umm, alleged) wikihorndogging, not parodying Valleywag. You've got to be careful when wielding irony, it can cut back at you. Consider it the difference between the art and the artist's intent (i.e. what the reader gets from the art is not necessarily the same as what the artist was trying to say). -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 12:30, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

So for the record, this image is a gesture of respect to Sue Gardner and the other hardworking women of the tech industry who really deserve to get into the news for their brains. I think I understand. The bathing nymphs - representing "The Foundation" are trying to dampen the ardor of the lascivious satyr - representing Jimbo by dunking him in the pond - which represents the brains of the hard working women of the tech industry. Uncle uncle uncle (talk) 13:03, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

One of the cool things about Wikipedia is how often it turns up a really well composed explanation of a complex point. From satire: A very common, almost defining feature of satire is its strong vein of irony or sarcasm, but parody, burlesque, exaggeration, juxtaposition, comparison, analogy, and double entendre are all frequently used in satirical speech and writing. The essential point, however, is that "in satire, irony is militant". This "militant irony" (or sarcasm) often professes to approve the very things the satirist actually wishes to attack. This was also meant as hyperbole, but seeing how quickly Valleywag actually used it, I obviously failed at estimating their lowest common denominator. Here's hoping the little joke made everybody smile and didn't give offense. Durova^Charge! 20:56, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

One of the cool things about Wikipedia is how often it turns up a really well composed explanation of a complex point. Thank you for the nice compliment on my explanation. One thing that I could't figure out though: Do the white buttocks in the portrait represent TCP/IP or HTTP? Uncle uncle uncle (talk) 23:02, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd say it represents "mooning" - who is doing it to whom then depends on the school of interpretation you're following :-) -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 21:59, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I simply thought that someone got confused between satire and satyr. I know I do... LessHeard vanU (talk) 10:01, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

stable versions is ready for testing

Erik Moeller says:

Please translate this announcement into other languages and forward it to other mailing lists and village pumps. (The translators list has already been notified and will help with this process.)

The Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Germany have collaborated, with financial support from Wikimedia France, to support development of a new extension to our software which makes it possible to flag versions of wiki articles as having reached a certain quality. This new toolset could mark the beginning of a new era for Wikipedia and its sister projects, giving readers more transparency than ever about the quality of a given article. A special note of thanks to Aaron Schulz, who has developed much of the functionality as a volunteer -- we would not be where we are today without him. The ongoing support and patience of Philipp Birken from the German chapter was also critical.

Before this functionality will be enabled on any Wikimedia project, it needs to be tested thoroughly for usability, bugs, security and performance. Test wikis have been set up in English and German (because the German Wikimedia community has been driving the development of this functionality from the beginning).

http://en.labs.wikimedia.org/

http://de.labs.wikimedia.org/

These wikis contain a copy of the Wikibooks database. This copy is completely separate from the "real" Wikibooks, so do not worry about destroying anything of value. Please follow the instructions on the Main Pages to participate. If you do not speak English or German, we encourage you right now to

- set up test wikis independently using the open source extension available from http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:FlaggedRevs , or

- change the user interface preference, and create pages in the English test wiki in your language.

This is due to our limited capacity to set up additional wikis. If you feel you really, absolutely, strongly need a test wiki in your language, please file a request through:

https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/

Wikimedia communities will also have to decide what kind of configuration to use for their project. Key questions to answer include:

- What quality attributes should there be?

- Who should be permitted to flag changes as having been reviewed for vandalism, or for other quality attributes?

- Should the default view for unregistered users change to the "stable version" on all pages, some pages, or no pages?

The German Wikimedia community has implemented a particular long-standing community proposal and will probably go live the soonest with this configuration; other communities will still have to develop consensus.

What's next?

The test will run at least until April 10, 2008 before the extension is implemented live on any wiki. This is to allow any serious problems to be surfaced by the community. If there are no critical open issues as of April 10, any language/project community will be permitted to file a request through https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/ to activate the extension. This request will have to point to pages in the project indicating a consensus to move forward. Detailed instructions to do so will be posted on the test wikis.

WAS 4.250 (talk) 18:43, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Six Seven hours and not a single comment! Now that astounds me. ៛ Bielle (talk) 03:45, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Everyone is too busy playing on the test wiki to make a comment here. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 08:26, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Do you have any idea how long it takes to consume a large quantity of chocolate Easter Eggs (without leaving the pc's keyboard feeling like an experiment in luxury velour tactile material gone wrong...?) Priorities, dude! LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:45, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Several Easters ago we found ourselves visiting a couple that celebrates the holiday for a nice dinner and to be social. Their kids had bags by the bushel of chocolate eggs that were basically Reese's Peanut Butter Cups in egg form. I didn't even realize how many I'd eaten until the nice dinner they'd made began to work it's way up (not that several extra glasses of wine weren't at fault, but we are all slaves to wine and chocolate). Lawrence § t/e 22:49, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Excellent. I'm glad to see the Foundation actively working towards ways to innovatively improve Wikipedia's quality and not just boast about its size.

Most likely, the TINC will probably oppose the establishment of this extention? ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 01:58, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

What? Mr.Z-man 02:20, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:List of cabals#"There is no cabal." cabal. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 05:09, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Er What? (again) Theresa Knott | The otter sank 14:18, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

The "core group" of editors which enforce Wikipedian norms, which seems to include hostility to proposals to improve quality, and encourages groupthink. You're both long-standing editors, so I'm sure you've heard of this claim before, but you'd prefer to feign ignorance, followed by chortling at me for being a conspiracy theorist.

This isn't true, of course, because the word "cabal," is definitely ridiculously grandiose. The term "social cluster," is more fitting, since many of these people don't seem to realize what they're actually doing and aren't actively colluding, persay (as Cade Metz claims), anymore than a group of rioters randomly get together to set cars on fire. As a result, there is "THE" cabal (which could alternatively simply be referred to as "the community," which, believe it or not, doesn't actually include everyone), but it's not a conspiracy, merely the natural consequence of human interaction: social norms and a social hierarchy which enforces such norms. You see the same behavior with other apes.

Just as these people were opposed to Jimbo's proposal for credential verification and similar proposals to improve quality, like some kind of academic peer review, it's not likely they'll support this widget. It's too quality-oriented. Or worse, somebody out there will create an annoying bot to abuse this widget by labeling every article "high quality." ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 21:36, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Uh? ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:50, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

So because some members of a group that doesn't actually exist opposed one particular proposal that you felt would improve the reliability or quality of the encyclopedia, you think it's likely that "they" will oppose all such proposals? Powers ^T 02:09, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

What? ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 02:54, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm asking if you think that opposition to one particular proposal is necessarily indicative of opposition to all efforts to improve Wikipedia's quality. Powers ^T 13:05, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

(undent)Yes, its one thing to believe in some sort of cabal, but that people are actively trying to keep Wikipedia's quality down just for the hell of it? That doesn't even make any sense. Why would they want to do that? Mr.Z-man 15:40, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I've been skipping the meetings due to illness, but I thought this was the kind of thing we just did riding roughshod over opposition. Is there an email list? WilyD 19:01, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, there definitely is a list, but it's secret so don't tell anyone! ;) Franamax (talk) 19:38, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

No, the list is "private", not "secret". Of course the functional difference between the two in this case is secret! WAS 4.250 (talk) 20:22, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Geez, I'm not sure if you wrecked my joke or not... Every email I send to more than one recipient becomes a "private list". It's also a "secret list" for everyone who doesn't get the email. The functional difference is the people who find out about it and say "Why wasn't I on the list? You're keeping secrets!". And the answer is "No, I just didn't put you on the list". Franamax (talk) 20:56, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Dear God-like Entity...

Could you explain what your stance is on user's secret pages? And if you don't mind them, could you have a go at finding mine?

Yours,

Mⁱc_rochip ⁰⁸ 13:26, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't have a stance since I never heard of a thing until just now. Mostly I view silly stuff in people's own user space not really upsetting although I question the value myself. I just prefer that people not fight about such stuff, and that people remember that wikipedia is not myspace or a free homepage provider. Everything should be subservient to our goal of a freely licensed high quality encyclopedia. A little fun now and then is helpful to that goal! But simply using wikipedia pages for goofing around seems a bit not very helpful. So, as in all things, moderation is warranted, and calm is good. --Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:09, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

On top of that, may I also point out that with the existence of Special:Prefixindex this exercise is also completely pointless? Especially if you give a clue that you have a "secret" page - it ain't secret if it's on your list of stuff (not to mention contributions). Миша13 16:45, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but that is cheating. Mⁱc_rochip ⁰⁸ 20:41, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but this is an encyclopedia, not a "find my page" game. Mønobi 02:01, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Well I have one that's silly: User:Michael Hardy/certain stereotypes. Will it serve the goal of improving the encyclopedia? I can't really say that it won't. If pressed, I could probably think of ways that it eventually could. Being intellectually playful and then only later discovering the prectical utility of one's playfulness sometimes actually pays off in many fields, including science and art. Michael Hardy (talk) 18:03, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

How can you have a secret page on wikipedia? With everyone's user space contribs open to public perusal such a "secret" concept appears impossible. Thanks, SqueakBox 18:08, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, of course it's not actually secret. It's just that there are no actual links to it, and it's not in the article space, so people are unlikely to find it. But if copyright problems come up in regard to one of the images, then someone might decide to look at the list of all pages displaying that image, and then of course they'd find it. Michael Hardy (talk) 23:43, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Best German course ever

Just in case you've never seen it before, here it is; it's called "Deutsch - warum nicht?". It's based on the adventures of a student named Andreas and his invisible sprite friend Ex, by Deutsche Welle. It's a million times more interesting than their recent effort called Radio D, which should be avoided. Mithridates (talk) 17:50, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Note

I've moved the thread unrelated to Jimbo to RyRy's talk page, to those participants who are confused about where it went. Nousernamesleft^{copper, not wood} 00:42, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Avoid a press blowup

If you would like to avoid (yet another) blowup in the media concerning Wikipedia, you will move to unlock Jeremiah Wright, which one of your admins in an apparently very partisan manner has locked for four months on a version that many people have a serious problem with. I'm not giving any threat here, just stating what is very likely to otherwise occur. CyberAnth (talk) 21:17, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried taking it to WP:ANI? Jimbo is, I would suggest, far more likely to risk press fall-out if he acts himself rather than the community acting. George The Dragon (talk) 21:34, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

This press blow up seems highly unlikely to me. Thanks, SqueakBox 21:38, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with SqueakBox. Further, Wikipedia is a big place. And expandable. Why not write Sermons by Jeremiah Wright or Jeremiah Wright campaign controversy. The incident should not be blown out of proportion on a WP:BLP. The incident does not define his life. WAS 4.250 (talk) 21:57, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

It's not locked for four months. It's fully protected (at my request; people were edit warring rather than discussing) for three days; the blocking admin reminded us that it had been semi-protected previously, and that the semi-protection should be restored once the full protection expires. Oh, and, the wrong version was protected. (I haven't even looked to see which one it is; I'm just sure it's the wrong version.) --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 22:01, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Definitely the wrong version, we expect nothing else from our admins. Thanks, SqueakBox 22:02, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Protection is not an endorsement of the current version. Tiptoety ^talk 00:50, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Precisely, see m:The wrong version. To quote "Another excellent idea is to contact Jimbo on his talk page and ask him to fix it." Thanks, SqueakBox 02:20, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

My bad, I apologise, was reading too fast. On the other hand, if it had been locked from all editing for four months - my original point stands, I think most would agree. CyberAnth (talk) 03:57, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Try WP:RPP. Thanks, SqueakBox 03:59, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Blocked

Wow. Its blocked from editing even though he said that we could do anything to it. Anyways, in the Press Inquiry section near the top, it says, "...and speak to our communications person Sandra, at +1 727 231 0101." Shouldn't there be a comma not only after Sandra, but before, as well? --haha169 (talk) 23:40, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Err, don't you mean locked not blocked, blocked is something else, and it has been locked because it was being vandalized. Thanks, SqueakBox 23:48, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Out of date, too. Jay Walsh is now the right person, and I am not sure what the best number is for him. (I use his cell number, but probably there is a better one for the web.)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 01:29, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I've updated the information with the number listed here. —David Levy 01:35, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I unprotected it. It's been a few days, and This page is currently protected, and can be edited only by administrators does sort of contradict You may edit this page! Really, you can! Please feel free to do so. Make an edit! Make several! WODUP 02:11, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Good call, it can always be locked again if necessary. Thanks, SqueakBox 02:19, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. That quote really does make one think. Especially those new to Wikipedia...I wonder how they think of us. And I meant locked, but blocked worked better in my context.

Anyways, since You may edit this page! Really, you can! Please feel free to do so. Make an edit! Make several! is there, and "This page is watched by many, many editors!" 'is also on the top of the page, doesn't that make vandalism completely useless, regardless of protection? --haha169 (talk) 05:02, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikimedia press release

Sorry I'm a couple of days late on this, but I'm a bit concerned about the latest WMF press release, on the 10 million article milestone.

First of all, fine; you made another announcement about quantity of content. I guess it's kind of a big milestone, so I'm at peace with that.

However, this press release lacked the moderation and spirit of past press releases on two counts. First and foremost, while it trumpets recent successes in accuracy, there is no more mention of the fact that Wikipedia is a work in progress. This is especially poignant since this announcement is about all the languages of Wikipedia, not just the English and German languages. You and I both know that the errors in even the English version alone probably number more than 10 million.

Taking this stance leaves you prone to any attack or controversy that detractors care to fling. It also attracts more readers without encouraging them to correct things that they find wrong with what they read, and doesn't inspire regular contribution to the encyclopedia at all. Surely this not appropriate in a climate in which the WMF, whose regular donors surely have a tendency to be those more directly involved in the community, is struggling to finance the pages that it serves fast enough.

Secondly, according to this press release unlike previous ones, this milestone belongs to the Foundation, not Wikipedia. Wikipedia editors are now "our volunteers". It is a faint difference, since the Foundation and Wikipedians fundamentally share the same goals. However, Wikpedia's success has come from being the work of the community, practically and financially made possible by the Foundation, not the other way round. Unless this is the result of some new thinking, the emphasis should still be on Wikipedians. The notion of a faceless central organisation is not the one which inspires people to support Wikipedia. I used to laugh when people talked about "Wikipedia says" or "Wikipedia has decided/announced" when referring to decisions like policy which were simply down to common consensus. Please try to make the WMF retain that fluidity, not try to take charge over it. BigBlueFish (talk) 08:43, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't see Jimbo's name here. WAS 4.250 (talk) 09:11, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you see it here. This does not just apply to you, but consider that terse dismissals might not be what Jimbo has in mind in response to things to which he may or may not be interested in responding. I think anything to do with the foundation of which he is Chair Emeritus is relevant here; and in my own view at least, it's quite important vis-à-vis the way the progress of this project is approached. There is also an apparent lack of any on-wiki channel by which to contact and discuss with the Foundation as a whole. BigBlueFish (talk) 09:31, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/ WAS 4.250 (talk) 09:58, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Hence I said "on-wiki". That was "also" only one reason Jimbo is an appropriate person to talk to about it. BigBlueFish (talk) 10:21, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

BigBlueFish, thanks for bringing this to my attention: I think you have valid points. I think the main reason for this is that Jay is new, and so some of these subtle points of internal style have likely eluded him. I will mention it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:30, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Use of sites such as rickross.com as external/convenience links

Hi Jim, I would appreciate if you could find a mo to have a look at this discussion here on WP:RSN. It concerns the question whether or not it is appropriate for Wikipedia to place links to advocacy sites like rickross.com that host selected news articles in their area of interest without licensing or seeking prior permission from the publishers. The discussion has gone on for several days, and so far has been unable to establish consensus, with opinions split about 50/50. Thanks, Jayen466 21:38, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

The FreeRepublic.com blog is a similar case currently being discussed at WP:RSN, here. Jayen466 08:35, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Happy April Fools' Day

I would like to inform you that the pseudonym QuackGuru is an alternative account for Larry Sanger. Have a nice day! QuackGuru (talk) 01:25, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Bad faith editor?

Dear Sir,

I am reporting you what this vandal did to your page.

At first, this sounds a good one, but reading down further, he made a personal attack against you. What should I do? Give him a 4im immediately? Alexius08 is welcome to talk about his contributions. 05:41, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

A message from the trenches

Everyday I used to dedicate a few hours to vandal flaying  RC patrolling (and get my pages vandalized as a result [11], [12], [13] ) but since Wikipedia's actions against reported vandals are wimpy and totally inadequate I'm stopping doing that. Vandals get away far too easily (and consequently return the next day or week). Fighting them with the "weapons" we've got now is pointless and utterly frustrating. I'm hitting a tank with a rolled up newspaper. Maybe if "Those Who Decide" will come up with a set of rules that actually gives the RC Patrollers and admins teeth, I'll continue.

It would be a shame if Wikipedia drowned in vandalism but with anti-vandal rules like the current, it would be its own fault. Even the smallest online forums know there will always be vandals, and so they require a login and will e-mail you a password. Wikipedia refuses to use similar protection. That's beyond naive in my opinion. I was trying to protect a site that plainly refuses to protect itself. That feels utterly pointless to me. I'm not looking for work. So I'm sorry, and good luck with further developments, but I quit. Take care,  Channel ®    11:28, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Do you really think that emailing a password will stop vandals? All it will achieve is making the registration process for a vandal 30 seconds slower (The time it takes to enter vandal@mailinator.com and click a link on the Mailinator site). The majority of anon IP contributions are constructive. It is better to fight the vandals (even if it is tedious work) than to shut out a large number of constructive contributions. As for "wimpy", what do you suggest shuoud be done apart from blocking an IP? Lawsuits? DoS attacks? Cambrasa (talk) 14:06, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Channel R, would you like me to sprotect your userpage? I don't mind, if you'd like me to, it'd keep new accounts from vandalizing it. If I can help lemme know :) SQL^{Query me!} 15:15, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Cambrassa: I think applying the usual e-mail/passsword protection that's used on forums would decrease the amount of vandalism considerably. (By the way, most forums won't allow Hotmail/Mailinator and similar e-mail accounts for the very reason you mentioned.) Of course there's always a way around that too, but right now Wikipedia's doors are wide open. Closing the most obvious ones makes sense to me. As far as IP blocking goes, nothing wrong with that as such. But 24 hours? Two days? That's a joke. I've seen the same vandals return time after time, block after block. I think if accounts required proper registration and vandals would be blocked for at least a month at the time, Wikipedia(ns) would spend a lot less time and bandwidth on fighting this self-inflicted problem. I'm aware that anonymous IP editors can make valuable contributions. I used to be one for a while. But is registering really such a big deal? It didn't hurt me or anything. Anyway, that's just my opinion and Wikipedia obviously has another view. Fine with me, I don't run this place. I just don't want to spend more time and money on trying to keep an idea I can't believe in afloat.  Channel ®    15:20, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

SQL: If you could lock it for a week or so, that would be fine. Thanks.  Channel ®    15:22, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

 Done, no problem! SQL^{Query me!} 15:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

My own view, based on personal experience, is that vandalism is less of a problem than it has ever been. I don't know if anyone has compiled any statistics though. It would be interesting to see if anyone had, but certainly there is no obvious vandalism problem that can't be solved by our usual methods. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 17:44, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree, and almost all vandals get bored very quickly. IMO the vandalism problem that isn't being tackled enough is re move (willy on wheels) type vandalism. I regularly have to remove the most disgusting BLP violations from my watchlist. Thanks, SqueakBox 17:47, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

If I may, I would like to offer my view here. Before I started, I was the usual vandal, terrozing Wikipedia. Quickly though, I relized the potential if I could become constructive and instead of vandalizing, help Wikipedia. Now, I have +2,500 edits, all of which are constructive. If we deter vandals by making it harder for them to come here, we are also detering those who may be helpful. Why not create more tools or allow users to protect pages as well, after say 4 or 5 months of editing. Right now its hard for a user to be as constructive as possible on Wikipeda because the only tools avaliable to them are some vandal fighting tools. The tools that are needed to effectivley fight vandals are in the hands of Admin's and 'Crats. What's the use in staying on for a long time to fight vandalism if you have to go through AIV and wait for an Admin to eventually get there to block a vandal? What's the use in tagging an article for deletion when you have to wait for an admin to get there and judge wheter or not its tagged correctly and then delete it. It takes too much time and too much energy for those who aren't admins or 'crats to attempt to fight vandalism. I'm suggesting that those who are established users and know what they are doing to have more tools avaliable for them to use to fight vandalism. Dusti^{talk to me} 18:18, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more. That's what I meant with "giving patrollers teeth".  Channel ®    18:23, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

The reason you have to wait for an admin to decide whether the article should be speedy deleted is because the community has decided that that admin is capable of making the judgement as to whether the article meets the criteria. When you actually start working through the backlog of speedy deletions you find that non-admins can be appallingly bad at tagging articles - I have seen articles on Harvard professors, ministers in national governments and New York Times bestselling writers tagged as "lacking an assertion of notability" (and the editors who tagged them were certainly not newbies). The same can be said for blocks and protections. No doubt you will respond that the editor who does that can have their admin buttons taken away from them, but it's not that simple - you have to find an m:Steward to remove adminship. Oh, and bureaucrat tools are all but useless for fighting vandalism, page protection and deletion. Hut 8.5 18:46, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I would guess at least 90% of vandals are schoolkids and we should certainly encourage them to contribute constructivelty though i ma not convinced page protection rights should be given to other than admins. Thanks, SqueakBox 18:21, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Why not? If someone protects a page, then he/she can deter vandalism more quickly than contacting an admin and going through the wait process. I'm not saying that anyone should have this, I'm saying that established Admin's like myself who have +1,000 contribs or whatever criteria be given it. If a page is protected incorrectly, then that page can be unprotected and the user blocked if he/she becomes a vandal or problem. Dusti^{talk to me} 18:28, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Page protection is always controversial, much more so than roll-back, whose extension to non-admins has created enormous controversy (and I am not an admin). Thanks, SqueakBox 18:44, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Think maybe a RFC should be done? Dusti^{talk to me} 18:45, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Rfc? I think a wikipedia essay would be better, or whatever processes it takes to make this kind of change, eg Wikipedia:Village Pump (proposals). Thanks, SqueakBox 18:51, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

 Done. Its in Wikipedia:Village Pump (proposals). Dusti^{talk to me} 18:58, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Insurrection is a-brewin'

Barneca is promising a more enlightened, or at least a more entertaining, leadership than we have at present. Thought you might like to take a look. Ronnotel (talk) 15:50, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Hardly likely. Thanks, SqueakBox 15:54, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Never fear, Jimmy! Your patronage (you got the bank routing number correct on the second try) has led to a vigorous defense: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Barneca/Requests for Jimboship/Barneca. Lawrence § t/e 19:05, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

You There!

This is the only warning you will receive for your disruptive edits and behavior.
If you perform any of the following things, including

• Creating highly useful projects such as Wikipedia
• Being a role model for other editors
• Acting kind and being civil
• Having good humor
• Taking vanity pictures of yourself and putting them on your userpage

on Wikipedia or any wikimeida project again, you will be blocked from editing. Thank you, ;) CWii_{(Talk|Contribs)} 23:40, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Prison Planet 1, Wikipedia 0

For tellin' it like it is... (in accordance with the laws of physics in the known universe)

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/april2008/040108_aol_bans.htm

But all is not lost! When it comes to intolerance for dissent (such as blanking out "heretical" discussions), Wikipedia wins hands down!

What a joke! Jethro Walrusditty (talk) 18:29, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Important RFC

Your input would be helpful here. Perhaps you could settle this dispute over cabals. Thank you.--Uga Man (talk) UGA MAN FOR PRESIDENT 2008 02:58, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Offtopic, but...

Looking at who's asking questions about Wikipedia in the UK Parliament is quite interesting. Conservative MP Stephen O'Brien seems to be going around every government department asking about what they've edited. --h2g2bob (talk) 22:58, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

And the answers range from too expensive to find out to a complete log with diffs. BTW there is a little button on each page were you can vote if the answer was satisfactory. Agathoclea (talk) 08:31, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Re: Thank you

Hi Jimbo,

It's been about four weeks since you thanked those of us who honestly questioned you.[14] Can you give us an indication on when you might be responding to the questions? These things do need to be sorted out. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 06:01, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Why don't you email me with a specific question or set of questions, and if the questions are reasonable I can answer them either privately or publicly depending on what is most appropriate.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:36, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Jimbo. Yes, that works for me, and I have emailed you. I hope you will answer as much as possible on-wiki regarding your role in shaping Wikipedia article content. I fully appreciate that there is a need for privacy as well. You could have emailed me. Take care, Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 16:26, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Uncyclopedia

Do you like Uncyclopedia? Reply here, or there. Ugh, it's the same. --RoryReloaded (talk) 08:23, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I like Uncyclopedia very much.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:37, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Right... Well, I want to tell you about Scarian. Enigma and I have proved that he has been abusing his admin tools AND using sockpuppets. Oh, and he's been blocking people just because he doesn't like them. I've reported it on ANI. See for yourself. On his talk page. RoryReloaded (talk) 21:14, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Menudo problems again Jim...

Hi Jim,

As I'm not all that well versed on Wiki etiquette, my first entry into this particular incident will be made directly to you. Unfortunately, someone has begun vandalizing the Menudo page again. Before I try to undo any of the damage, I wanted to make contact with you prior to see how best to go about it. There is a lot of small changes that I can live with however, saying that our boy Emmannuel is, and I quote "An out and proud homosexual" is a complete fabrication. This kid is 16 years old and does not need this negativity in his life as he is just starting his career and following his dream.

This new addition needs to be removed ASAP:

"Another thing separating Emmanuel from his groupmates is that he's an out and proud Homosexual. Even still, he occasionally deals with the setbacks of being both Gay and Latin. "I don't discuss my love life too often, because it is kinda shunned in the Latino community. Don't mistake, I'm very proud of whom I am in all aspects, but I'd be lying to say that I sometimes play it safe to protect what privacy I have.

It was reported that Emmanuel may have been involved with a fellow cast member of the "Making Menudo" series. No word on the same of the other man, but it's almost certain it's what lead to the other contestant being cut."

Please advise me how to best fix this situation.

Thanks Christopher_R (talk) 18:44, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I removed the section mentioned above, which was added by an anon; there was a source provided, but a number of search permutations turned up nothing at all to back up the claim. Tony Fox (arf!) 18:56, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank so much! Christopher_R (talk) 20:07, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

MfD of disclaimer at Modernista!

Jimbo,

I assume you're aware, but just in case: the template you proposed be added to the Modernista! article is at MfD: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Modernista!/Notice. You may wish to participate. --barneca (talk) 20:02, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

There appears to be deep confusion about the purpose and status of the template. NPOV is not the issue some people seem to think it is, and indeed, I can hardly understand what they are claiming. And this has nothing to do with the Foundation at this point. This has to do with maintaining the integrity of our work.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 02:11, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I think that I could make it only show up when the page is actually called from Modernista's frame, as a compromise that might be more palatable to everyone... would this be acceptable to you? I think one of the issues that people have is the fact that there's a big ugly notice on the article even when the reader is NOT seeing it via modernista's homepage. --Random832 (contribs) 02:32, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I think that would make perfect sense. A better solution would be framebreaking, because then there is no need for a notice at all.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:34, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Why not just implement something globally across *.wikipedia.org to break frames? NPOV would be perfectly safe then, and it would be handled on a corporate level. It seems like the community will overrule any attempts at a templated solution. Lawrence § t/e 14:43, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

By "NPOV", I think people mean roughly "Using the encyclopedia article as a weapon in a dispute with the company is not allowed". Hard to argue with that. I see the point about the hotlinking, but in my view, the trademarkish claims (my wording) are on much weaker ground. I'm not a lawyer, but I suggest with the appropriate disclaimers they'd have a decent fair-use defense there (n.b. this comment is not in my capacity as a journalist, but just from my interest in net issues ). -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 07:42, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Jimbo, as a strong supporter of copyleft, this is frankly disturbing. "Modernista!" is in no way violating copyright law or attempting to sponge off of Wikipedia's success, because their script indiscriminately displays the page it was linked from and at the top, it contains the message, "You are viewing Modernista! through the eyes of the Web. The menu on the left is our homepage. Everything behind it is beyond our control." (bold added for emphasis)

If some Wikipedia administrators aren't capable of reading that, we aren't obligated to clarify it for them in big, bold letters on Wikipedia.

A short disclaimer next to the link would be enough to clarify things, though. Threatening Modernista seems to be abuse of copyright law and the disclaimer is ugly. If you think you have a case, though, I suggest issuing a DMCA for the lulz, because this is really quite silly. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 17:45, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

The notice has been deleted... Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Modernista!/Notice. Lawrence § t/e 23:45, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Modernista needs our best editors on board (not necessarily our best admins). As someone who follows your edit contributions, keep up the good work. Your talk page edits were far more valuable than any notice. Thanks, SqueakBox 00:48, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

For clarity

Jimbo, you were mentioned by Sylviecyn, Jossi and myself in this ArbCom talk page discussion: Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Prem Rawat/Proposed decision#My conclusions about this Wikipedia arbitration. --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:22, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

An invitation...

Hi, I've seen you frequently around the article Green Day and other related articles. Please consider joining the Green Day WikiProject, an effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage and detail regarding Green Day. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks that you can help with. Thank you for your time.

(empty comment for archiving purposes Fram (talk) 10:43, 7 April 2008 (UTC))

German Wikipedia is wicked

As I'm 100% sure you are fully aware of the malbehaviour of many German Admins and some regular user that are heavily associated with these Admins.

The last issue I encountered: I looked up some German female cook on de.wikipedia and added on the discussion-page one comment to a topic with 2 many months old comments. The first comment pointed out, that unlike as mentioned in the article this cook not only has joined a campaign for animal protection and right upbringing, but at the same time in one episide of a TV-series she was responsible for visited and presented a farm where geese were breeded for later use for Foie Gras: This clearly is in stark contrast to pretend to act for animal protection.

The first commenter unsurprisingly asked that either the article should be enhanced with more information, or that the part with her said action for animal protection should be removed. The second comment was a very unfriendly answer to the first comment.

The discussion page was last changed at the start of January 2008 when I encountered that page. I basically wrote that I support the first commenter, and why I support him from point of a general view.

Not even a day later some USER removed the whole 3 comments about this topic from the discussion page, saying that the discussion page would be no forum.

After I put the comments back, he again removed it. I put the comments back. THEN my IP was blocked under false explanations: Beside others reasons the admin said that I would have started an EDIT-WAR. Edit wars per definition page on the de.wikipedia are only in regard for articles, not for discussion pages. And the admin also brought forward, that I would have used the discussion page as forum.

Some minutes later the USER removed the comments again.

There are some obvious conclusions from that. And these conclusion are for sure not new for you, Mr. Wales:

In the German wikipedia-section it's common usage from admins and user who are craving for recognition to break rules. They block other people on ground of false pretendings. They start insulting and when being answered in the same way pretend that the insulted other Wikipedia user is breaking rules. They change the contents of articles and discussion sites though it's impossible they could have read the text, as it is obvious when a formerly not involed user deletes some NEW text from another user where the text is only SECONDS old!

And beside many more bad things the occur on the German wikipedia-section, the by far worst, and for US citizens for sure most unthinkable breaking of any wikipedia-rule: THEY REGULARLY ALTER AND DELETE OTHER PEOPLE'S COMMENTS ON DISCUSSION-PAGES!

It's hard to believe, that any US citizen, you being one, could stand by and allow the world to bring into relation your name and personality with what happens over in the German wikipedia.

But maybe you only care about the buck be to made anymore.

P.S. There are many mistakes I tried to correct in articles on the German wikipedia. And always the same as described above happened. Coincidene? Surely not! For anyone with 2 gramm brain or more it's obvious that more likely the wikipedia is heavily manipulated. Do you really think that only in politics and economy there are people who manipulte to gain personal advantaged? Do you really think it's not the same in sport, the "highest ethical thing on this world"? Do you really think, that the real amount of manipulation is not much higher on wikipedia in fact, with everyone being able to act anonymously?

Or do you just don't want to think about it in general?

One of the things I tried to correct was even admitted to rely on publications from 1 (one) single source from a lobby website. (The website itself said very very clearly, that it only wants to work for it's members, and that most costefficient in regards to the members' fees.)

It's a very sad place, the German wikipedia nowadays. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.113.106.16 (talk) 17:49, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Now my IP was blocked, but the one who called me "Idiot" isn't blocked. Obvious that IP is either an Admin who uses anonymity to insult other people, or at least someone who is in the same IRC-channel with some admins. The reason for the block was not given.

One Admin blocked the discussion page from changes, then changed the discussion page himself.

(I) http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Diskussion:Sarah_Wiener&action=history

Oh Jimbo. They work in your name in the end. 82.113.106.16 (talk) 20:42, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

The admin who blocked my IP ignored to block the IP 80.139.112.170 that used insults. Well. It's running on your servers, isn't it? If you are responsible, I hereby ask you to remove the insult on the page(I) above.

Add: A reasonable timeframe for removing that seems to me the time until you again write on this page here plus 2 hours. Greetings 82.113.106.16 (talk) 20:50, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Last Add for today: I hope you take my demand to remove the insult as serious as one with the constant need for money to fund a website could be expected to take it. 82.113.106.16 (talk) 20:54, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, if you are at it, you might check if the above mentioned abusing IP is the same as the IP from the user Julias1990 - http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:Beitr%C3%A4ge/Julius1990

The given times of the user contributions of the IP and that user are a prove, that they are related, if not the same person. 82.113.106.16 (talk) 21:38, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

knight of Wikipedia

I hereby dub thee a knight of Wikipedia, with all the privileges and responsibilities given therein. --69.86.173.19 (talk) 19:49, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

pedophile activism on Wikipedia

I noticed on AfD that there was an article called "List of films portraying sexual attraction to children or adolescents." Then I noticed that there was an article called "List of *books* portaying sexual attraction to children or adolescents." The problem with the titles of these lists is that they are calling child sexual abuse "sexual attraction to children or adolescents." (Look at the lists, they clearly list sexual abuse.) Calling sexual abuse of children "sexual attraction to children" is clearly an extreme fringe definition of child sexual abuse from the pedophile point of view. It appears that there are five of these disturbingly titled lists, and that they used to all be titled "Pedophilia and child sexual abuse in <fill in the blank>." When and why then titles were all changed to reflect an extreme fringe pedophile activist point of view is not clear to me. I am also disturbed that the stated purpose of the Wiki Pedophile Article Watch Project is "Some Wikipedians have formed a project to better organize and ensure veracity and freedom from bias of information in articles involving pedophilia, child sexuality, and related issues," but that no one on this project has noted the extreme POV problem in the renaming/redefining of these articles to an extreme pro-pedophile fringe stance. I also do not understand why "pro-pedophile activism" is included in "Other resources" on the Project: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Pedophilia_Article_Watch#Other_resources I thought this was not the place for activism.

former titles of lists, currently how they are titled on Pedophilia Article Watch:

Pedophilia and child sexual abuse in fiction (boys) Pedophilia and child sexual abuse in fiction (girls) Pedophilia and child sexual abuse in films Pedophilia and child sexual abuse in songs Pedophilia and child sexual abuse in the theatre

Active link to one of the articles from the project site, so you can see that it goes to "List of songs portraying sexual attraction to children or adolescents":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedophilia_and_child_sexual_abuse_in_songs

Link to Project: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Pedophilia_Article_Watch

-PetraSchelm (talk) 19:56, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I thank you for monitoring these and similar articles for inappropriate activism. I hesitate to comment on the detailed issues you raise, because I don't have time at the moment to look through it all, but in general I would say that we should be very firm in this area, because there has been a long history of POV pushing in these areas by people with an agenda.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:19, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Of course, that cuts both ways. This being not the place for activism, things like "Calling sexual abuse of children "sexual attraction to children" is clearly an extreme fringe definition of child sexual abuse from the pedophile point of view", which basically takes the view point that attraction to children is equal to sexual abuse (a criminal act), are not OK either. There has been a long history of POV pushing from the anti-pedophilia side as well, certainly more aggressive and vitriolic. I'm not defending pedophilia; I think it's vile and disgusting, but that does not mean it deserves a non-neutral presentation.⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 20:29, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Maybe an example makes things clearer--this is from the "Songs portraying sexual attraction to children or adolescents." These songs area about child sexual abuse. The only perspective from which they are about "sexual attraction" is the perpsective of whomever is sexually attracted, i.e., pedophiles. That is a pro-pedophile attempt to redefine the subject of child sexual abuse as merely "sexual attraction to children.":

• "Alive" by Pearl Jam, from Ten

A song about a boy who looks like his real father and is raped by his mother

• "Ambitious Outsiders" by Morrissey, from Maladjusted

A song about child murderers scavenging suburban neighborhoods for potential victims, probably inspired by the Moors murders.

• "Amelia" by The Mission, from Carved in Sand

A song about a girl who is molested by her father and he threatens to hit her if she tells.

• "Amy in the White Coat" by Bright Eyes, from There Is No Beginning to the Story

A song about a father who abuses one of his three daughters.

-PetraSchelm (talk) 20:39, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Petra, we at PAW do monitor the pedophile articles and they are in considerably better (ie more NPOV) state than they were a year ago. I fully agree with your point re these 5 articles whose names were changed but I don't believe this is the place to address that which shopuld eb the article talk pages and possibly the PAW page itself. I will take a look at these articles again anyway over the next week. Thanks, SqueakBox 20:59, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Not all of the books, songs, and films listed portray more than sexual attraction to children (Death in Venice, for instance). However, I agree that the articles should be retitled, since most research indicates sexual attraction to children is not a common thread among child molesters. Vile and disgusting, etc. etc. --AnotherSolipsist (talk) 21:03, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

If I can bud in here; not all of the items listed in the article are sexual abuse or rape or molestation etc., there has been some strange crap written, recorded, filmed etc., perhaps something along the lines of "List of X portraying child sexuality"? The Dominator (talk) 01:49, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I suggest you propose this at the relevant talk page rather than here. Thanks, SqueakBox 01:50, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

It is important to remember that making editorial encyclopedia choices based on either promoting or condemning a POV is against policy (NPOV). What disgusts you or turns you on should not affect your editorial choices. Be thoughtful careful and caring rather than quick and shoot-on-sight. WAS 4.250 (talk) 09:33, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Mahatma Gandhi ...

... had strong and frequently expressed views on Zionism [15] [16], [17], and these are summarized at Anti-Zionism. The way I read WP:NPOV and WP:CFORK, we have a duty to summarize all major Points of View concerning Zionism that appear in Anti-Zionism when we summarize that article in Zionism, and Gandhi's would seem to be a notable voice. Not a syllable about him is being allowed into the article, however, despite days of discussion. There are other issues I've raised at Talk:Zionism, but this seems to me the most pressing. Could I ask you to comment? Many thanks. BYT (talk) 10:22, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Including Gandhi's views there would violate NPOV, in the same sense as including Hitler's views on everything, throughout Wikipedia, except that Gandhi is revered rather than despised. Also, Jimmy is never going to get involved in political issues like that. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 04:51, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Zenwhat is right. I try to avoid such detailed editing question. I have no opinion on the specific point. I would in general agree with the idea that notable view should be included, and that just because someone notable at some point expressed an opinion about something, that does not make their view notable necessarily. Individual editors should assess each case thoughtfully and with an eye toward accomodation and peaceful editing.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 05:59, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

500,000 ips blocked by Thatcher

User_talk:Thatcher blocked more 500,000 IP addresses from editing wikipedia.S\he was told not to do so by Stevo Crossin twice....
Note: A WHOIS shows the IP is from a rather large range, an IP range block here may be impractical. Just my opinion here, its up to an admin here, but seems a large range to block. Steve Crossin (talk to me) 17:07, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Note: A range block here would not be permissible, CIDR suffix of 70.104.0.0/13, rangeblocking would whack out 524,288 addresses. Steve Crossin (talk to me) 17:12, 1 April 2008 (UTC).
...but did so anyways:
So far I've blocked 70.108.128.0/18 and 70.108.64.0/18 anon only. If he creates an account presumably he will be recognizable. There are a very few good editors on that range. Thatcher 18:57, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
The block needs to be lifted and Thatcher needs to stop being overzealous. One cannot punish the masses for the actions of one. CassieSOUBRETTE (talk) 12:53, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

• Feh. An /18 range is 16,000 addresses, so I blocked 32000 addresses for a week, not 500,000. And I only blocked anonymous editing, you certainly were able to create an account (from somewhere else) and then edit from that range. And of course, as you've been blocked repeatedly (such as [18]) for disruptive anonymous edits from that range, the goal of the range block was to enforce the block on you. If you are so terribly concerned about the editing ability of others, respect your block and learn to edit responsibly so you don't get blocked again. Thatcher 13:14, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

• I'd also like to note that I never told anyone what or what not to do, I was merely pointing out the information I saw on the WHOIS, regarding the concern raised that the IP may have been an IP hopper, and that a range block of /13 would have been most impractical, if not against Wikimedia policy for rangeblocking. Steve Crossin (talk) (anon talk) 13:19, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

This has been discussed on ANI and fully resolved. Cross-posting to Jimbo's page is not necessary or helpful. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:46, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship

Could you please add your opinion to this discussion? I would, as well as the others, greatly appreciate your view. Dusti^{talk to me} 18:43, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Admin

I'm hoping you are one user hwo wont give me back a sarcstic comment but ive added an info box to the page: buckingham palace as obivously it is better as all historuc buildings have them such as the white house etc but one certain user Giano II keeps undoing this. Once I revert this i get sarcastic comments etc and this is not on as im new to wikipedia(editinf) and not sure of the rules (although I will get to know them) and this is not helpful. I just wanted to help wikipedia expand etc but unfornatley that is hard when you have people like this.

By the way. . as one of the founders I just want to thankyou for this great invention as I use it (view) so much daily and has helped me with numerous tasks etc. well done! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.77.19.104 (talk) 19:13, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Hey

Hey Jimbo,

I read something on WP so it must be true! "Through 2007, the [Wikimedia] Foundation was owed $6,000USD by Wikia. Can you explain this assuming that it is true? Why would a commercial opperation owe a non-profit org money? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.69.199.112 (talk) 19:56, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I think the statement is inaccurate, but I have not researched it. I believe the figure is an end-of-the-year balance, not a statement about something ongoing. There was a time when Wikia purchased bandwidth and rackspace from the Wikimedia Foundation, and there was a time when Wikia and Wikimedia were sharing the rent on office space in St. Petersburg. Most likely the year end balance had something to do with that. There are of course many reasons why commercial companies have bills and owe people money. :-) --Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:46, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

At http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2008-February/089925.html brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org) says:

Since the audit covers a period of time that's in the past, a few last vestiges of the Olden Days were still in effect during the audit period and are naturally covered.

Today,

• Wikia and Wikimedia don't share any data hosting.
• We don't currently share any office space.
• We don't currently share any employees.

So what is the current relationship?

• We do currently share one board member, Jimmy Wales.
• Wikia sometimes sponsors Wikimedia events or makes other donations to Wikimedia.
• Wikia uses our open-source software, and sometimes contributes back patches or plugins.
• Various people are involved in the communities of sites operated by both companies. (Eg, our target audiences overlap.)

And what was the past relationship? Here's a quick historical summary:

2001-2002:

• Wikipedia is created as a side project that Jimmy Wales kindly operates on servers belonging to his company, Bomis.
• Wikipedia gets dedicated servers, kindly donated and hosted by Jimmy/Bomis.

2003-2005:

• Jimmy moves from Southern California to Florida, taking both Bomis and Wikipedia with him.
• Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is founded to start taking over Wikipedia's resources so it can be operated independently as a not-for-profit.
• For convenience, Jimmy and Michael (pretty much the entire company at the time) share a tiny office in Saint Petersburg, and a hosting center in Tampa, between the two companies. The hosting costs of the two companies are accounted separately.
• WikiCities/Wikia is founded; Bomis "fades away".

[audit period starts here]

2006-2007

• Wikia gets private funding, moves offices and most of their hosting from Florida to Northern California.
• The Florida hosting account and office space are taken over fully by Wikimedia. (That's the one-time donation of office space you see in the audit.)
• A whopping 3 Wikia servers remain in Florida; Wikia pays Wikimedia monthly rent to cover hosting of those servers. (That's the shared hosting costs you see above in the audit.)
• Wikimedia expands its own staff to better handle its growing requirements: tech staff, finance, fundraising, legal, office staff, public relations.

[audit period ends here]

2007-2008

• The last remaining non-Jimmy, Wikia-related Wikimedia board member resigns. (That's the end of 50% of the board overlap you see above in the audit.)
• Wikimedia moves offices to elsewhere in Northern California (*not* sharing office space with Wikia, which is miles away in a different city).
• The last three Wikia servers in Florida are shut off. (That's the end of the shared hosting costs you see above in the audit.)

(There may be minor details off, this is from memory.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)

WAS 4.250 (talk) 13:51, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Modern National Memorials on commons

Hi, please have a look on this deletion request: Actually, if a consensus is achieved here, they can be deleted straight away, without further ado.... I have no particular recommendations for you about how to deal with that at commons, but as a non US citizen I can imagine, that these case(es) will be a big thing, when the voters for deletion will get a majority. Regards 78.48.125.87 (talk) 09:31, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

The ultimate triple crown

Saturn Devouring His Son

Saturn devouring a Philadelphia cheese steak with Jimbo Wales's head on a bed of lettuce.

I hope you'll take this in good humor. The triple crown awards already have recipients for the Napoleonic and Alexander the Great editions, and a few weeks back I created a Genghis Khan edition. The only place to go from there is mythology. So if an editor ever creates 100 Did you know entries, 100 good articles, and 100 pieces of featured content they symbolically eat you for lunch and take over Wikipedia. In case that happens, you may regain Grand Poobah status at any time by winning a thumb wrestling match against that editor (videotape footage, please). Cheers, Durova^Charge! 21:39, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Caption contest! :-) (we've got another artistic intent vs. audience interpretation matter here ...) -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 22:06, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Request

Hello, Jimbo Wales. Could you please put a block on my user page to prevent any anons from vandalizing it? Thanks, and please leave me a message on my talk page.--Jedi Kasra (talk) 01:15, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I've done the protection request. Hut 8.5 12:39, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Arbcom initiated by Jossi is unbelievable. How Kafkaesque can this get?

jpgordon even removes my criticisms about the failings of the proceedings to address Jossi's POV pushing.[19] Why is this subject so sensitive that no-one seems able to take a sensible look at the situation? Jossi influences every single edit to the Prem Rawat article, works for a Prem Rawat related organisation and has made it quite clear he will resume editing at any time he likes (he voluntarily limited his activities to policing every proposed edit on the Talk Page instead). Yet Arbcom can't see how that amounts to POV pushing while the world looks on with dropped jaws. [20]What's up? Since the buck apparently stops with you I appeal to you to intervene.PatW (talk) 10:14, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Bangalore or Bengaluru

Dear Jimbo,

This is about Bangalore article. The city name has been officially renamed to Bengaluru since November 1, 2006 onwards. However, a lot of Indian chic lovers still prefer it to be Bangalore and they are editing/reverting against consensus. Coz, Bangalore sounds more chic and Bengaluru is a local name. The consensus should be clear that it should be renamed since it is a Government order. Since WP stands for WP:TRUTH, I feel it looks awkward seeing in the old name. The page should definitely be moved to Bengaluru. I'd moved it once, but it has been reverted by a minority. Do you have any opinion on this issue? Which name do you prefer? Please comment.
--Tomb of the Unknown Warrior tomb 09:29, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Jimbo has no special authority in content matters, so I fail to see why you appeal to him. I also fail to see where the consensus for Bengaluru was established. Opinions are quite equally divided, as far as I can tell. And the Government of India (or any other country or organisation) has no authority over what Wikipedia should use, not has it any authority over what English speaking persons outside India may or should use. Looking at Google News hits for only the past month, there are only 186 hits for Bengaluru[21], and some 12,000 for Bangalore[22], many from Indian sources. The official name is mentioned as such in the first line of the article, so I don't see how Wikipedia is not showing the truth. Fram (talk) 11:53, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

In general, I think we should use the most common contemporary English names of places and take appropriate note of other names. Redirects can be used to help people find the right article. There will be many difficult borderline cases, and in such cases, I advise people to try to relax as much as possible: that is, I should acknowledge most probably the people who have a different view from me are not doing so out of malice or stupidity, and will eventually be persuaded of the right answer.

In your case, with the official renaming by the government, I can assume that Indian sources and then eventually other English speaking sources will start using the new name in due course. Or, if people do not come to like the new name, the old one will persist for a long time. But it is not up to Wikipedia to decide such things, I think: we are descriptivists, not prescriptivists.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:58, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestion. So I think it is time for me to 'take relax' as you suggested. Let it ‘being bangalored’ in due course. Btw, I imply you to read Indian renaming controversy to get some POV’s on the issue. --Tomb of the Unknown Warrior tomb 05:48, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Jimbo, thank you for your succinct thoughts on the issue. As an editor who's in the opposing camp as "Tomb of the Unknown Warrior" a. k. a. User:Harjk, I just wanted to rebut his childish trivialization of the stand of editors (the "chic lovers") who oppose "Bengaluru". The reasons for opposition are certainly not as frivolous as "Bangalore sounds chic" or anything of the sort. There are well thought out and well laid out reasons (with quantitative proof) that Bangalore is still indeed the name that most of the English-speaking world recognizes. Also, User:Harjk claimed consensus when there is none (and Fram was wise enough to see through the misrepresentation, thanks Fram). I do not have any axe to grind against this user, but I was compelled to clarify the counter view in light of these statements made by him.

PS: It is endearing to see him say "WP stands for the WP:TRUTH" in all seriousness, without taking a look at what that tongue-in-cheek essay contains :-) - Max ^{- You were saying?} 18:25, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

User: Paul20070

Dear Mr Wales

I am the above user, and have been trying to disappear from Wikipedia, but unfortunately, I am unable to do this because I have salted my password, and right to vsnish appears to require that the request be made from the user account.

I wish disappear because it was recently brought to my attention that sock puppeting activities had been taking place from my PC. I initially thought this might be down to someone having piggybacked my wireless, but later discovered the work to have been the responsibility of two individuals who I had allowed to use my system under the pretence of other purposes - but who then seemed to have been editing Wikipedia under a selection of different usernames.

These appear to have started as good faith edits, but have later degenerated into some limited abuse of editing priveleges. I was recently reported to Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/IP check following an exchange between an anonymous IP and a user who I had clashed with in December 2007. This prompted me to wonder why I'd been reported, and to do some investigation. I then discovered the sock puppetry activities, so I made a note of them. I was then reported to Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Paul20070 for my troubles.

In the light of this, I decided it would probably be best if I retired, and made a note of this in my userspace, and salted my password. I have since decided that I'd like to completely vanish. However, I appear anable to do this.

I reported the sock puppetry in good faith because I think that sockpuppet editing damages Wikipedia's reputation. I decided to approach you because you're the boss, and I know you will make a fair and honest decision.

I would very much appreciate your help and advice.

Thanks. Paul20070 81.152.149.124 (talk) 11:30, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

If you assigned an email address to your account, you can request a new password.

Alas Special:EmailUser/Paul20070 confirms no-email attached. (well he may have opted out, but I doubt it - hence why I didn't suggest this earlier) Pedro :  Chat  15:18, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

My email was enabled at one time, but I opted out after receiving a legal threat in August last year [23]. I can provide an email address if there's any way of it not appearing publicly. Paul20070 81.152.149.124 (talk) 16:34, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Now moot. I have deleted the pages. I have left a note that I will restore on demand if this IP is not the user, and posted to various forums to minimise drama. On the face of it we seem to have lost another editor. This is disapointing. However we don't need a multi forum/talk page debate over it. No harm to Wikipedia has occured. Let's move on. Pedro :  Chat  20:09, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Wow!

Hey, Don't you find it weird, how a user like me edits more fequently in the mainspace then the creator? Then again your might be working on MediaWiki: or Wikipedia: or other stuff a lot. – ThatWikiGuy (talk) 13:09, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Not even slightly strange. Thanks, SqueakBox 15:55, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Jimbo does far more good for Wikipedia in the real world than he could possibly do by writing in the mainspace. Hut 8.5 16:09, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it is sort of funny. :) But I try to mostly stay out of mainspace editing.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:58, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I can understand. :) It's a battleground out there that I even enter only reluctantly. —  $PЯINGεrαgђ  19:48 12 April, 2008 (UTC)

The purpose of wikipedia is a 'free online encyclopedia', so maybe we should write one instead of writing 500000000 rules and write more then 2 articles. There's more Wikipedia:, Project:, Help: and Category: pages then articles. – ThatWikiGuy (talk) 13:06, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

There aren't 2 articles, there's 2 and a half million, and the rules are essential to making this encyclopedia. That's like saying "the purpose of having a country is to give people a place to live, so let's do that instead of making laws", you are making very little sense good sir. You criticize the founder for not making many mainspace edits? Are you surprised? I'm sure he's a very busy man, and I'm sure that if he wasn't, he'd want to stay out of trouble with the media as much as possible. It's one thing when somebody complains about Wikipedia's content, it's another when it's the founder who put the undesirable info in the article. The Dominator^Talk_Edits 13:47, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Certain editors reaction to the creation of Mzoli's is a point in hand as to why Jimbo appears not to have the same freedom to edit as your average unknown editor, that would have been enough to put nayone off editing. Thanks, SqueakBox 13:55, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Copy

Can I copy a few things?

1. The style on your user page, i like it.
2. Your monobook.js

Thanks. – ThatWikiGuy (talk) 13:56, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Agh, hell with it, i'll use them anyway. – ThatWikiGuy (talk) 17:38, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

:-) --Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:31, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Google's "knol" encyclopedia

I've recently come across the news here that google aims to launch a rival encyclopedia to wikipedia. Could you fill me more in on it Jimbo or anybody who knows of it (or email me if you don't want to talk about it in plain view here). I doubt we should be quivering in our boots just yet but the idea seems a daft one to build a different encyclopedia other than wikipedia; obviously they are after more money. Can anybody see it becoming successful and a threat to wikipedia in the future? ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 11:38, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

No freat. Google can't do anything right. – ThatWikiGuy (talk) 13:09, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't see it as a big threat, launching competition against anything as successful as Wikipedia has little chance of succeeding at this point, especially if it's a for-profit against a not for profit. The Dominator^Talk_Edits 14:03, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

How would the existence of another encyclopedia have any effect, good or bad, on Wikipedia, much less be a threat to it? 71.246.31.82 (talk) 14:17, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, for one it could become more popular than Wikipedia and deemed more reliable therefore making Wikipedia look worse, but in my opinion this is unlikely. The Dominator^Talk_Edits 15:47, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

They wont get many volunteers for an encyclopedia whose primary aim is to make money for google and its the volunteer labor that makes wikipedia so effective. Thanks, SqueakBox 15:55, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree SqueakBox, not many people are going to volunteer to make Google money, but there could be a few, mostly opposers of Wikipedia and Google employees, I mean what makes people volunteer for Wikipedia? To build knowledge, their encyclopedia would do the same except it would also make money for Google, and if you think about it, they would have a multi-million dollar company backing them. The Dominator^Talk_Edits 16:49, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand why the presence of another Wiki-ish encyclopedia is assumed by so many to be somehow bad for Wikipedia. Competition is good. For all concerned. —Chowbok ☠ 04:25, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Well it seems a bit pointless to me to even consider building a different world encyclopedia from scratch. Unless they plan to pay their contributors it will never beat the wiki. Me thinks the googlers are wishing they had started wikipedia now to get their greedy hands on more money through advertising. As if they aren't rich enough huh? Power to the Wales for starting a free encyclopedia I say. I and the white cat salute you sir ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 09:39, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

If they launch it and advertise it a lot, then it fails miserably, it'll make us look really good! The Dominator^Talk_Edits 13:17, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me that the press made this into a Wikipedia competitor. As far as I have been able to determine, Google does not think of it in that way. It's more of a blogging platform, or something like about.com. And it also doesn't even exist yet.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:33, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

"doesn't even exist yet": that's a good point :) The Dominator^Talk_Edits 04:44, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi!

Hi and nice to meet you. I'm Barkjon. I'm really glad that you made Wikipedia, like all the other editors. I have one question: Can bureacrats demote other user's sysop status? I'm wondering that because I'm a bureacrat and webmaster of the Club Penguin Wiki. Please reply on my talk page if you have an answer.-- Barkjon  16:41, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I believe the answer is that yes they can, though normally only with community consensus. Thanks, SqueakBox 16:50, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

The answer is actually no. Bureaucrats cannot, on Wikipedia or Wikia, demote sysops or other bureaucrats. Only staff (on Wikia) or stewards (on Wikimedia projects) can demote users, and only with a good reason to and community consensus, with some exceptions (for example, an admin requests to be desysoped before retirement). --FastLizard4 (Talk•Index•Sign) 18:20, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Generally Wikia questions should be asked at Wikia. :) Ask Angela to help you there?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:44, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Filll's Assume Good Faith challenge

User:Filll has been listing some anonymised situations admins might find themselves in, and is asking everyone how they would respond. In part this is an exercise to allow people to learn for themselves how they would respond to tough situations, and in part he also wants to use the answers in scientific research. I like the questions a lot, so I've used some of them in a recent lecture (Wikipedia:Lectures, lecture 2)

I'm actually rather curious how you would answer the questions. They're quite fun to do!

--Kim Bruning (talk) 20:47, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Here we go again...

I know that this proposal is old and currently out of favor, but as I've gone through the trouble of creating two essays (1,2), two userboxes (1,2), and two user categories (1,2) regarding the opposing views and their rationale, I thought I'd revive discussion of this topic, so here I go "gulp": What if Wikipedia were to require account creation for all users? Even though I edited anonymously myself before creating this account, I've begun to see things differently and now I believe that Wikipedia will benefit as a whole from requiring users to register an account (read the second of the above essays for my rationale). I know that many view just the opposite, and to try to be objective, I've also created an essay, userbox, and category documenting the opposite view. And, just for the record, could you please state your view on this, regardless of what it is?--Urban Rose 22:32, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I think Jimbo made his view pretty clear in the past, he created Wikipedia so that anyone can edit, if he wanted only registered users to edit, he would've only enabled registered users to edit. I think we might benefit from it, but there are a lot of IP users that would be scared away and we'd loose any chances of getting drive-by typo-fixing as often happens. This is never going to happen, possibly stricter IP control, but requiring registration, not gonna happen. The Dominator^Talk_Edits 23:15, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

See also my my post on the village pump. I know that Wikipedia is supposed to be the free encyclopedia that "anyone can edit", but does that mean then that page protection and not allowing anons to create pages go against that principle. Apparently not, whearas somehow requiring account creation does. I just don't get it. Basically I want to hear Jimmy Wales say either "anons should" or "anon's shouldn't" be allowed to edit, not more of this "it's the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" stuff again. Then we can link to his post any time this debate comes up again and the issue will be resolved.--Urban Rose 00:29, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, but I think I can predict his answer, if he's going to answer. The Dominator^Talk_Edits 00:30, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I sure hope he does.--Urban Rose 00:39, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I asked that question before reading m:Foundation issues. Based on that page, the question is answered, so I have a better question. It's cleat that, while requiring account creation in order to edit all pages is a violation of one of Wikipedia's core principles, restricting the ability of anons to edit some pages is not (per page protection and the inability of IPs to create new pages). What I want to know is where do we draw the line between restricting and allowing anon page editing in order to be in harmony with Wikipedia's core principle. Would semi-protecting all articles about living people be a violation of this principle; would only allowing anons to edit the sandbox be a violation of this principle? As the creator of the site, it's up to you to draw this line.--Urban Rose 15:54, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Urban Rose, you misunderstand. Being free is the core. Everything else is about making that a reality. Therefore when copyright laws began restricting information and creation of culture, copy left was born. When the internet was created, it became possible for free culture communities to be born. Jimbo Wales then tried to become a part of this with his Nupedia, which failed. He tried again, only this time "allowing anyone to edit". This was Wikipedia and has succeeded beyond everyone's dreams. "Anyone can edit" is not a core value; it is one of the magic ingredients that helped make Wikipedia a success. We tamper as little as possible with it for practical reasons, not core value reasons. When we have practical reasons to limit people's ability to edit, then we do so. WAS 4.250 (talk) 09:27, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Speaking of which... Someone please remove the protection from User:Jimbo Wales, which says "See that link up there that says 'edit this page'? Go for it. It's a "wiki world"! — Jimbo" - NOT. In my opinion there are two pages that should never be protected - Wikipedia and User:Jimbo Wales. And a few others, but it would be too hard to come up with a list. 199.125.109.64 (talk) 21:04, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I've removed the protection. It was originally protected on April Fools' Day because of a spate of vandalism, but two weeks is far to long given that Jimbo invites edits to this page. Hut 8.5 21:19, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I noticed that there was also an edit war going on about what level of protection to use. I'm like, does anyone really care? Doesn't anyone have anything better to do? 199.125.109.64 (talk) 21:26, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Opinion on legal issue

To Mr. Wales,

I haven't been long with Wikipedia. But in the few weeks I have been here officially, I am at odds with some of the policies of Wikipedia. I am lead to believe based on my study of the laws of my home state (It's New York, horse racing central in late summer) that some policies may be contrary to free speech and civil rights laws and the constitution of New York State. Some of the reasons I've seen people blocked seem either unlawful or just unfair. I don't mean disrespect, to you or anyone else. Too bad you don't visit where I live, we'd be able to meet at the race track and watch a few races even though I don't gamble. Just in closing, don't worry about me staying, I've decided to retire. Good fortune be with you sir. ESCStudent774441 (talk) 03:24, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

The laws of free speech do not apply to Wikipedia in the way you believe it does. Metros (talk) 03:29, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Hello Metros, good to meet you. Hope to see you soon. ESCStudent774441 (talk) 03:29, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

People do not have a right to edit wikipedia, it is a privilege that can be revoked. Wikipeida is not a vehicle of Free speech, nor are we required by law to provide you with a forum to do so. Free speech applies only to government censorship, if wikipedia does not allow you to post what you want, you _do_ have the right to post it elsewhere. However, if someone has been blocked in error, you can request for the block to be reviewed in #wikipedia-en-unblocks or on the unblock mailing list. ffm 17:07, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

What a great idea - create a Washiwiki that would be the laws of the States of United - anyone can edit! Now wouldn't that be fun. No need for congress when Washiwiki could be used for everything. And if you couldn't be barred from editing because of free speech. Along with the lines of "right to bear arms means that every convict has a right to a bazooka and a machine gun in their cell with them". 199.125.109.64 (talk) 22:59, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Jimbo, do you know about WP:FRINGE"?

Hi Jimbo, I just wanted to write you a personal note to see what you think of the Wiki Project known as "WP:FRINGE"? I feel it is the single most dangerous aspect of Wikipedia with the greatest potential to get really out of hand. Its entire purpose seems to be to game the explicit wording of the NPOV policy. Mainly the brainchild of a sysop called DBachmann, the "Fringe noticeboard" attracts the most intolerant sort of editors who like to appoint themselves to decide what everyone else should not be hearing about or accepting - just because their have decided these are wrong ideas in their opinion. This is precisely equivalent to the Spanish inquisition deciding what beliefs held by the populace are to be proclaimed Heresy, and going after them torches in hand, proceeding to expunge every trace from the record. In fact, when an anonymous newcomer recently questioned why the "Kurgan hypothesis" should receive such a favored endorsement over all other hypotheses which are openly ridiculed, and then when he sarcastically suggested that a better name for the project might be WP:HERESY, he was reverted and immediately blocked without even a single warning. If you are not aware of the type of tactics these sysops routinely employ, that is one thing, but if you are aware, that is something else. 70.105.27.58 (talk) 13:12, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I think this is one of the most valuable projects within Wikipedia and I fully support the concept. As with any area of Wikipedia it is of course possible that an admin will block someone more quickly than necesssary (although I don't know if this happened in this particular case). It is very important that we carefully monitor to make sure that all hypotheses are given appropriate weight (including, at times, a labeling as a minority or unscientific hypothesis), NPOV demands it. I know nothing about the "Kurgan hypothesis" so I am speaking here only of general principles.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:31, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, then the next question becomes: -Who- is it here who gets to decide, what authors' conjectures are to be treated as "fringe", and what authors' conjectures are to be pushed? Is it really "a consensus among editors", who gets to decide this? No -- it is a "consensus" among only those editors who have not been banned for dissenting from the favored conjecture. 70.105.27.58 (talk) 14:57, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I know of no evidence that people cannot engage in civil discourse about where to draw that line without being banned. Yes, it is true that editors who have been banned do not get to participate but merely "dissenting from the favored conjecture" has never been grounds for banning. Continuous ongoing POV pushing through bad behaviors is a bannable offense, and should remain so.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:00, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

As I'm sure everyone has worked out, the IP making this post is the same IP that was blocked for disrupting the noticeboard with severe personal attacks. He started off OK, I commented that his logic didn't quite seem to cohere in the arguments he was making - and then he completely lost it.

As regards the Kurgan hypothesis, there are respectable alternative theories (as well as very fringy alternative theories) but the Kurgan hypothesis remains the mainstream theory regarding the location of the Indo-European homeland (assuming there ever was such a place). Wikipedia, naturally, is supposed to reflect academic consensus. Moreschi2 (talk) 14:29, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Great User Award

Jimbo Wales,
A user has nominated you for a Great User Award and it was passed by SimpsonsFan08. You can now place either one of the awards below in your user page.

File:GUA.gifThis User has been identified as a Great User.	{{GoodUserAward}}
File:GUA.gif Great User Award This User has been identified by the Board of WGUA as a Great User. The member of WGUA who has given this award was {{{1}}}. Well Done!	{{GoodUserAwardBig}}

Congratulations, SimpsonsFan08 ^{talk contribs} 14:42, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

A star for you!

		The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
		You get so much shit, crap, and flak hurled at you by vandals, et al. that I want to give you something to balance it out. You deserve a lot more of these. :) —  $PЯINGεrαgђ  18:40 8 April, 2008 (UTC)

{{empty comment for archiving purposes Fram (talk) 07:43, 18 April 2008 (UTC))

Guestbook

Hello Mr Wales could you please sign my guestbook? Thanks alot for your time, wwesocks^sign 07:18, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia Takes Manhattan photo contest results

Photographers on scavenger hunt for the 'pedia.

Hi Jimbo. We briefly talked about this at the event the other night, so I thought I should give you the link to the results of Wikipedia Takes Manhattan. This was a collaboration between Free Culture @ Columbia, Free Culture @ NYU, the working-to-be-recognized Wikimedia New York City and Wikipedia volunteers. It was the first event of its kind anywhere, as far as I know.

We got photos for 92 specifically requested sites (90 separate articles), nearly half of the 188 on our list.

Check out Commons:Wikipedia Takes Manhattan/Gallery (which is really cool). Thanks.--Pharos (talk) 19:27, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Updating the server

Perhaps its time you updated the server, at least 30 times today something has prevented me from saving my work or editing a page with the lock "Wikipedia database is temporarily in read-only mode". Its not a good look for the site -it makes it look like it can't handle the strain and it is quite frustrating to keep losing work which won't save first time. Am I the only one experiencing this? ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 20:48, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

No, Blofeld, you are not the only one suffering from this, though perhaps not as many times as you. Thanks, SqueakBox 16:55, 18 April 2008 (UTC)