User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 70

Urgent appeals

I've been seeing these popups with your name on them. I can't speak for anyone else, but until you get rid of this "anyone can edit" business and require registration like most every other website, I see no reason why I should contribute a dime to the foundation. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:01, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Disagree! The concept goes against the fundementally open nature of wikipedia. Everybody has something to offer. Even IPs.....

I just donated $20 to make up for Bugs not donating! NickCT (talk) 16:27, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Could you please donate $20 for me too. Thanks.--Cube lurker (talk) 16:32, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I can't speak for anyone else, but if you get rid of this "anyone can edit" business and require registration like most every other website, I see no reason why I should contribute a dime to the foundation. --Onorem♠Dil 16:35, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

You guys have obviously never dealt with IP trolling and vandalism. If you want to give money to support their ability to continue to abuse wikipedia, that's your business. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:38, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Please feel free to check my editing history. Just about everything I deal with is vandalism and trolling. Forcing people to log into random named accounts won't stop that. --Onorem♠Dil 16:42, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

NickCT: I wish to demonstrate that my commitment to Wikipedia is twice as great as Baseball Bugs'. Can you please donate $40 in my name? Thanks! A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:44, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

@Bugs - Check my contribs. I've spent some time combating vandalism.

Look Bugs, no one is going to argue that the open nature of Wikipedia isn't going to be abused by unregistered users. The real question is, does the open nature of Wikipedia benefit the project more than it detriments it?

My answer is yes. Its benefits outweigh its costs both in a philosophical sense and in a purely practical sense.

I'd continue with that thought, but perhaps this discussion would be best had in some other forum.

@QFK - I was actually donating to counter Bug's lack of financially commitment..... If you lack commitment twice as much as Bugs, let me know and I'll recommended some self-help books on how to become a committed individual. NickCT (talk) 16:49, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

The answer is, no; allowing IP's to edit freely is a net negative, which hurts wikipedia's credibility. If you all want to donate to vandals, it's your money. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:51, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Well.... Let me ask you this, what do think the ratio is of useful IP contribs to IP trolling/vandalism contribs which survive the bots and recent changes patrollers? 10 to 1? 100 to 1? I'd guess it's more like 1,000 to one.... NickCT (talk) 16:58, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I would guess about 1:4. But that number alone doesn't tell the whole story either. A committed, if anonymous, identity could be useful. I've already donated btw. - Wikidemon (talk) 15:53, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

• All right - Check into my history while you are at it. I worked very hard for a long time on vandalism, using Huggle many hours a day, and now I'm with Bugs; I estimate a huge chunk of vandalism, at least 50% and perhaps a lot more, would be eliminated at once by requiring registration. Most of the vandals are school kids on school computers who will think twice before they vandalize if they have to register. That's a lot of human time saved. Jimmy, I met you earlier this year at a memorable (for me) lunch - I interned at the WMF with Cary Bass for seven great months, if you want to know how much I love Wikipedia, but this is one of the things that absolutely must change, in my view, if we are to move forward. It's nice to be idealistic, but being realistic is even more important. Too many people are wasting too much time being vandal cops. By the way - Best Wishes, Jimmy - may your Holidays be Happy! Jusdafax 17:02, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes. IPs vandalize a lot. 50% is probably low. They also contribute constructively a lot. How tough is it to register? Oh no...30 seconds of registering a throwaway username...that's way too much work. What change do you expect by requiring registration? Unless you're talking about Citizendium verified identity type registration... --Onorem♠Dil 17:08, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Hmmmm... I think 50% is pessimistic. Someone really ought to make a study of IP contribs. Get a more scientific estimate of how many constitute vandalism/useful edits/useless edits. NickCT (talk) 17:16, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Being a huggle user doesn't necessarily validate your point or improve your status in this discussion (says a huggle user). Sure forcing registration would reduced vandalism, just as surely as it would reduce useful IP input. The wiki is coping with vandalism, if you don't want to help in that area then don't Jebus989^✰ 17:20, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

↑ This. If you don't want to patrol vandalism, don't. Withholding donations because people aren't required to register is simply punishing the Foundation and other regular users for no real gain. There's no upswell of people refusing to donate because of this, and I don't see one forming. It just seems like tilting at windmills. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:34, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

These pages may be interesting.

• Wikipediavision
• Wikipediavision
  • WikipediaVision (beta) :: FAQ11111
  • WikipediaVision (beta) :: chart
  • WikipediaVision (beta) :: snapshot

Wikipediavision was partly inspired by similar visualizations:

• FlickrVision
• TwitterVision

—Wavelength (talk) 23:08, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Also see Wikipedia:WikiProject Vandalism studies/Study1. Graham87 02:08, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Pardon me for a moment of the hard-core egalitarianism for which I am so desperately loved on-project. Forcing registration will have very little effect on salient vandalism - it will put a stop to the kind of vandalistic larks perpetrated by bored 13 year olds, and those edits that seem so terribly, importantly funny to people before they manage to sober up, but it won't even phase the really annoying, troll-like vandals (who will just see the registration requirement as yet another game to play with stuffy wikipedians). More importantly, though, it's an anti-egalitarian move that works entirely against (what I see as) the fundamental principles of the project. The ideal here is to create articles which approach neutrality by getting editors with different points of view to balance each other's biases through sourcing and discussion. Any overt efforts to inhibit a particular 'kind' of editor (even for such stolidly pragmatic reasons as this), ends up inhibiting the encyclopedia as a whole. Wikipedia is the million-monkey encyclopedia, and works astonishingly well given that absurd premise. Let's not muck up the long-term ideal because we're annoyed at a handful of chandelier-swingers. --Ludwigs2 04:39, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

In my view, the answer to this and related questions is an empirical one, not one for tradition, faith, or ideology. If, on net, ip users contribute more than they harm, we should stay as we are. If, on net, ip users harm more than they contribute, we should change.

It's worth noting that precise definitions are needed, because there are second-order effects in addition to the primary effects. Does allowing ip editors generate a larger community in the long run as making it easy to join the community without even registering at first, giving people that first joyful feel of making a small improvement? Would disallowing ip editors generate a larger community in the long run, as registration can be used for followup with people. Does the existence of "power tools" like huggle mean that cleaning up the simplest vandalism is low enough cost to the community that a raw look at what vandals are doing will overstate the problem? Or, to the contrary, is the process so expensive to the community that it distracts from the rest of the work.

All of those complex questions are complex. But I think they are easily answered by simply taking a look at what ip numbers are actually doing. Every time I took a close look in the past (and I'm about to take a sample now) I found that while ip contributions were lower in quality on average than logged in contributions, they are on net positive, even before semi-automated and automated reversions.

Go to Recent changes. Scroll down the page and look at the diffs for the most recent 10 edits by ip numbers. What percentage are vandalism? What percentage are improvements? What percentage are good faith efforts, even if not totally awesome? (For example, I just saw this diff: [1] which looks like a good faith effort to switch to a different picture, but an effort which failed.)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:45, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the thoughtful reply, Jimmy. As someone who has Huggled around the clock, let me assure you that a key factor in monitoring vandalistic IP changes is the times school is in session. I'm sure a vast majority of Hugglers/Twinklers will tell you that a high vandalism day is a school day, and starts on Wikipedia-en just after the sun rises in India. The next surge is sunrise in Europe, notably the UK, and shifts into high gear as schools in North America go into session. By about 9AM on Pacific timezone it reaches a peak for the next few hours. Like I say, bored school kids. You take the school computers out of the mix, it's a different ball game. Observing the vandalism repeatedly has colored my viewpoint, no doubt, but the tide of it surging around the world is easily confirmed. Being on an IRC anti-vandal channel is also helpful, as you can compare notes with dedicated vandal-fighters as the tide moves. Required registration would improve Wikipedia's credibility and free up Wikipedian effort from this mindlesss time sink. Again, Happy Holidays, and thanks for looking into this. Jusdafax 13:11, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

The solution to that problem is to block vandalistic school IPs for a year or two. We even have a template for this, {{schoolblock}}. I would guess that a high percentage of vandalism emanates from a relatively small proportion of the IPs. When I see IP vandalism, I often take a look at the IPs history. If there's a long term problem of vandalism, I place a long term block. Perhaps Huggle can be modified to make long term patterns of vandalism more obvious, and then automatically file a request for an appropriate length block. Jehochman ^Talk 14:33, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

(ec) I realise that it's often easy to establish that a vandalising IP is at a school or university. However, if you are making judgements based purely or largely on time-of-day and day-of-week, then it's worth remembering that 9am on a school day is also 9am on a working adult's day. And an increasing proportion of the working population have access to the internet as part of their job. Working-hours vandalism drops dramatically during the summer? Well, working adults take summer holidays too, even if not such long ones. I think there are lots of different groups of people involved, even if some stand out more than others. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 14:39, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Interesting discussion. I think the main conclusion here is that the issue of requiring registration should be based on a scientific examination of the net value of IP edits. I was most interested by the link offered by Graham. Someone really ought to do a similar study that randomly gathers and categorizes something like 1,000 IP edits. The edits should be categorized asking the questions, "Is it obvious or subtle vandalism?", "Is it a positive/negative/neutral edit?", "If it was vandalism, was it reverted? And how soon?" and perhaps "Was it done by a school IP?".

A study like this would better help to answer whether IP edits were a net positive or negative. Anyone think I'm on the right track here? Would anyone want to perhaps work with me to do such a study? NickCT (talk) 16:36, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

There's no real need for a sophisticated study - since wikipedia stores all edits (barring those subject to oversight) you'd just need to write a quick bot to take a sampling of IP edits over a specific time interval. I'd have to look at the database structure to figure out the best way to do that kind of sampling, but... The more problematic issue would be evaluating the quality of the edit itself - that would take a human eye and human attention, which could get quite problematic. a 1000 edit sample would be too small in my estimation - that would be more than fine for a simple random binary process, but if we want to analyze things like time-X-region dependencies we can't model it as a simple random process, and I don't see any way to reduce this to a binary choice in any case (good/bad edit is much too simplistic, unless we're focusing solely on pure unsophisticated vandalism). Plus we'd have to account for problem users - I personally suspect that a majority of all vandalisms are the product of a smallish number of repeat offenders - we don't want to count one doofus who has made a few hundred vandalisms as though he were a few hundred doofuses (doofi?) making individual vandalisms. --Ludwigs2 17:03, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Re "you'd just need to write a quick bot to take a sampling of IP edits over a specific time interval" - Ok. That sounds like a good way to sample the edits. I was talking about the analysis as being "scientific", not necessarily the sampling.

Re "1000 edit sample would be too small in my estimation" - Problem is, as you said, this study will "require the human eye". We need a sample size which can feasibly be reviewed by a single person. 1,000 struck me as a good number.

Re "time-X-region dependencies" - This would seem like a more trivial result of such a study. The major question here is "Are IP edits in general good or bad". Whether IP edits from India are good but from Australia are bad seems like a lesser point.

Re "Plus we'd have to account for problem users" - Why account for them? An edit from an IP address is an edit from IP address. Whether its a "repeat vandal" behind the IP seems moot to the question of "Are IP edits in general good or bad".

Ludwigs, if we're interested in pursuing this conversation, I'd propose moving to a location on Wikipedia:WikiProject Vandalism studies. NickCT (talk) 18:11, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I think Bugs is dead wrong here. Vandalism is an annoyance, yes, but "test edits" from schools really are a learning experience. Maybe what is being learned is more a matter of maturity than Wiki markup, but I don't see why Wikipedia should run and hide from vandals now. I mean, when I edit articles it seems like I scarcely see vandalism in the edit history any more, compared to how it used to be. Wnt (talk) 18:48, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I think Baseball Bugs is trolling here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.25.109.195 (talk) 19:12, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Following on what Jimbo said about the net effect on the community, I'd like to point out that some casual editors like myself only stay on here because there are recent changes to patrol and revert. It gives us something to do during our boring school days. LWG ^{I done wrong? Let me know!} 00:33, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that it would be fair that encyclopedia which become so large and generated so much content because of its openness converts to a closed encyclopedia. Like the GPL license that encourages contributions, in my case it is this promise and fundamental principle of anyone can edit that motivates me to contribute. I would feel betrayed if the registration become necessary, in the same way that I would feel betrayed if its GPL license could be changed. Like the quote from the movie Witness, to paraphrase, "there is always a choice, or there is always more than one option", the technical or policy solution for dealing with vandal IPs should always be looked for instead of thinking of preventing those who want to contribute. 89.216.196.129 (talk) 14:04, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

RfA thoughts

Hi Jimbo. I'm not fantastically active these days, but as a Crat I'm always interested in RfA. I just caught up with some of the jumble of responses at User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Archive_67#Adminship_and_RfA. Do you have any thoughts on how you might drive this forward?

It's long been my contention that the best way to "fix" RfA is to get more old-timers to participate in RfA. I appreciate that not everyone agrees with me on this, but I have found that us longer-standing editors tend to apply different criteria - one significant example being editcount standards. However, unlike content editing, where WP:POLE applies, because of the % nature of RfA, it's quite hard to counter-balance the input of 30-40 newer editors.

No idea how to drive us longbeards back to RfA, especially without falling foul of WP:CANVASS, but hey, you're the creative genius round here. --Dweller (talk) 11:26, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I am going to try to do an NPOV summary of the views expressed in that thread soon. That might give me some ideas of where there could be consensus to move things forward usefully.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 06:58, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

As a crat, I now shy away from opining at RfA, as I want to remain available to implement the consensus once the discussion closes. Although, I did recently suggest a candidate who was found acceptable :) - Avi (talk) 07:47, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

*goes to RFA to opinate in some RfA* "There are no current nominations." :-( --Enric Naval (talk) 08:43, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

The stringent standards applied at RfA these days are no doubt deterring candidates. --Dweller (talk) 09:12, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I think one issue is that any editor who has been prepared to deal with controversial articles knows that an RfA will result in their being mobbed in all the wrong senses of that word. I think if there was a arbcom or similar committee that screened and/or produced an objective report in a standard form before the whole thing was opened up more would be encouraged to take part. I know I thought about it a year ago and was being encouraged to do so by an Arbcom member and a few admins, but decided it just wasn't worth the grief. it may also be worth thinking about some different criteria than pure content contribution. As wikipedia has grown there is an increasing role for editors with good general knowledge and research capability able to monitor a broad range of articles and intervene to structure debate to move things forward. This is generally a very different skill from creating articles and requires both a resilient personality and a lot of patience. I've seen good content admins loose patience with long running disputes in some areas and simply withdraw. --Snowded ^TALK 09:56, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Supplement - structuring debate is a different thing from mediation in the WIkipedia sense by the way, but more akin to conflict resolution in the outside world. I think its a missing stage in wikipedia process where mediation is often not accepted by all parties. Its something that could be imposed on an article as an option from an ANI report with a pool of admins able to administer the process. Its something where there is a body of practice and experience that could be brought across and adapted. --Snowded ^TALK 10:52, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I have to agree with that (not necessarily the precise implementation, but certainly the principle). There are some disputes - even at the ArbCom evidence stage, which in my experience is a total shambles, but we should be catching them before that - that cry out for some forcible steering in the right (i.e. constructive) direction. --Kotniski (talk) 11:00, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Aren't we told that in the old days people were simply handed the admin mop when they'd been around for a while without appearing to be total goons? Couldn't we go back to a system more like that? (With similarly unceremonious removal of the mop from people who've been misusing it?) --Kotniski (talk) 10:42, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't be opposed to something like that, although I am always cautious about possible unintended consequences of changes. You, Kotniski, are a great example of someone who I think should be an admin but who isn't. (I say this having not really studied your full edit history, but just from knowing you from routine editing.)

Most people reading this aren't likely to know that Kotniski and I both putter a bit in the area of peerages, and have taken opposing views on one of the major puzzles in that area having to do with naming conventions of articles about life peers. We don't agree and have a sort of ongoing slow hobby of debating about it, but it's always been slow - no one is doing anything drastic, and we're all in the usual long term Wikipedia process of chewing on it.

The point is that I'm sure there are hundreds of editors like Kotniski, known to be sensible even by people who may disagree with them on various matters, and who wouldn't be admins right now for no good reason other than the brokenness of the process.

Well, I didn't mean to get into a new discussion before I do my NPOV summary of the old one.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:26, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Per threads being archived or else about to be

Thought numba 1: First there was anonymous (mostly) social media sites. Then there was Facebook. Wikipedia is mostly anonymous. Would it be a step toward creeping credentialism to have a opt-in where users are required to identify themselves? a la, not only registering, but using their real names? (perhaps even showing they have a credit cards, or whatever?)

2nd topic: Check out this thought (hat tip: The Daily Dish):

magine an objective standard for deciding who is entitled to have an opinion on a topic. All we need is some sort of wiki (user created website) where the basic facts on any debate can be assembled in the form of an ever-evolving multiple choice test. When you find yourself in a debate with someone who hasn't yet passed the test on that topic with a score of 100%, you declare yourself the winner by virtue of being better informed, assuming you scored 100%. If both of you have taken the test and scored less than 100%, you declare yourselves "not entitled to your opinions" and walk away. If each of you scored 100% then you are, by my definition, entitled to your opinion.

#3 - I predict someday, computer programs will do a lot of the editing busy work on WP (such as fancy algorithms pinging on possible vandalisms, etc.) And, eventually, such programs may well give a test about WP's editing guidelines that a user will have to answer correctly in order for his !vote to be given full weight.--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 16:22, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

User:ClueBot NG already uses machine learning to revert vandalism. And bots already create stubs. You're predicting the current state of affairs. Fences&Windows 22:12, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Bzuk (talk) 15:39, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

And, last, but certainly not least, Merry Christmas!

“ And behold, he shall be born of Mary, at Jerusalem which is the land of our forefathers, she being a virgin, a precious and chosen vessel, who shall be overshadowed and conceive by the power of the Holy Ghost, and bring forth a son, yea, even the Son of God. ” — (Alma 7:10)

The Thing ^T/_C is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!

Spread the cheer by adding {{subst:User:TTTSNB/Merry_Christmas}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

The Thing ^T/_C 00:15, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Merry Christmas

MERRY CHRISTMAS! Your friend, Jimmy 63.3.15.1 (talk) 08:45, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

gross essay redirects

[2] represents what I consider an unfortunate sort of suggestion to use a redirect. I commented out that redirect, and trust that you agree. Collect (talk) 21:34, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, and I note that it had been around for quite some time. This might be a nice "test case" for the idea of collecting empirical data. During the just over 3 years when this redirect existed, how many times was it used, and how many of those were inappropriate behavior?

I see 3 basic possibilities: first, that it was largely unknown and unnoticed, and therefore largely irrelevant (which is no argument for keeping it, just an illustration that obscure redirects don't cause a lot of trouble); second, that it was used primarily for completely valid purposes, although what those may be would surely require some discovery as there are none that readily come to mind; and finally, that it was used primarily as a snarky in-group way to insult people.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:19, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

WhatLinksHere I only see one instance in which it's been used directly (as opposed to just being referred to): [3].   Will Beback  talk  22:34, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

WhatLinksHere is an easy tool, and indeed this preliminary look suggests that this has been too obscure to cause much harm. But wouldn't WhatLinksHere miss many instances of abuse, which would have been blanked?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:37, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it only shows current links. I'm not aware of any tool that searches through histories to find past usages across multiple pages. As the redirect indicates, it comes back to WP:DICK, which is perhaps the starting point for the idea that "gross redirects" are acceptable.   Will Beback  talk  22:45, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

There have been quite a few discussions about this term. It has a coarser connotation in the US than in the UK, so some editors use it casually while others are shocked which leads to civility complaints. Relevant to the redirect issue, see Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2009_March_31#Wikipedia:Don.27t_be_a_bitch_.E2.86.92_meta:Don.27t_be_a_dick.   Will Beback  talk  22:57, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Pursuant apparently to BRD, all the eliminations of the redirect have been reverted. I would ask Jimbo his forthright opinion on the existence of scatalogical "essays" in general, as this 'redirect" is a fairly clear-cut case in the US. Collect (talk) 00:21, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

• It's wrong anyway. Acting like a dick and acting like a twat are not even the same thing, whether it's "gross" or not. I'm kind of wondering why we are doing this here, is Jimbo's page considered a substitute for WP:RFD now, or are we just trying to find an audience? Beeblebrox (talk) 00:38, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
  • The topic was previously discussed here at length - so the "audience" was already here. See the top of this page for Nightscream's post, and several hundred lines of comments. Did you miss all that above? Collect (talk) 12:09, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
    • Several hundred, yes; 90% of which are Nightscream himself. Don't act like this issue has exactly caught fire with the masses. Tarc (talk) 14:12, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
      • About two hundred are not from NS, so I think you may underestimate the interest on this page. And I think the interest on this page may well underestimate the interest which outsiders might have. Collect (talk) 15:29, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh, how droll! It's nice to see the scrambling to get the house in order. In other news, people have been blocked for calling others WP:DICKs. But there is no scandal in keeping that around, is there? Yes, let's make sure we maintain a connection to that obvious piece of incivility because consensus says so! That soft-redirect is so historical and useful. Besides, I'm sure someone will say something brilliant like, "Acting like a dick and acting like a twat are not even the same thing, whether it's "gross" or not." without slapping a tag on it. Right? Right? jps (talk) 18:55, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

I think it's important to take some kind of actions to eliminate this kind of stuff from Wikipedia's internal pages - we're trying to attract editors (the right sort of editors, that is), and a lot of the more desirable, serious-minded potential contributors are going to be put off if they are given the impression that calling people dicks etc. is part of the institutionalized culture around here. There's no need for it - just because someone a long time ago thought it funny, and it's somehow survived these years, doesn't mean it serves any purpose now.--Kotniski (talk) 19:57, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Precisely. The fact that WP editors once were a bunch of Animal House characters may end up preventing real growth on WP. And this is certainly as good a place as any to point this out. And far better here than in the public eye, I am fairly sure. Collect (talk) 20:08, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

The tactics of admins and other experienced users is to write "you're such a WP:DICK" on someone's user page, knowing that they will get away with it. When they take the bait and respond in kind, it is called incivility, personal attack, harassment, etcetera. My translation to Dutch is what got me blocked on Commons for a month right now. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 20:11, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

I have no problem with discussing the relative merits of this redirect, but what is this about "better here than in the public eye?" You could hardly have picked a wider forum on-wiki, RFD is certainly more low-key. Anyhoo, it's just a soft redirect, the actual page is at Meta. There's really no way to stop anyone linking to it unless it is deleted there. The redirect can alway be bypassed and they could still use it, i.e.: don't be a dick. In my opinion, the absolute worst result would be adding some wishy-washy warning to it as has now been attempted and reverted twice. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:36, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Can you (or anyone else who is so keen to revert this "warning") say what it is they object to? Surely pointing out to people (especially - though not only - newcomers) that we shouldn't be calling each other dicks on Wikipedia (and that if someone calls you a dick, you shouldn't escalate things by calling them names back) can only be a good thing? The link to the meta essay is still there if anyone wants to follow it, so nothing is lost relative to the soft redirect (a rather foolish concept anyway) that you seem to want to retain there.--Kotniski (talk) 10:29, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Create alternative essays: Several people were offended by the term "wikilawyering" when that essay clearly stated the word meant acting as a bad (corrupt), devious lawyer. I tried to rename that essay, but was opposed by many. So, I just created some broader, professional alternatives:

• WP:Wikifinagling - refers to the perception of finagling to dodge the rules, not just courtroom tactics, and is not a personal attack just an impression.
• WP:Wikifogging (WP:FOG) - refers to activities to cloud, muddy, fog or obscure WP efforts, such as deleting details from a crime article to give the impression there was no specific evidence to the contrary.

By creating better essays (perhaps WP:BULLY or WP:BAITER or WP:LEGALIST?), then there would be incentive for others to use those less-vulgar terms, and expand the new essays to include more cases. For example, WP:FINAGLE warns of people issuing a WP:AfD (or WP:TfD) when the author is on wikibreak (or blocked), as unfairly pushing for deletion when the author is unlikely to defend the page. The obsession with insulting a lawyer had limited what that old, obsolete essay would cover. Hence, create better, specific essays to explain what behavior seems excessive in each case, and broaden the future, not dwell on a few outdated essays used in the primitive days of Wikipedia. To avoid the impression of being personal essays, ask others to help expand an essay: we have changed WP:CANVAS so that it is no longer "improper canvasing" to tell other users a new article or essay exists (typical wiki-collaboration is allowed again!). -Wikid77 (talk) 01:27, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

banner

hi there,

these guys do make a point. the banner is kind of intrusive, and you are not that handsome. maybe you should make it smaller, or place some landscape photo, or a pretty girl :) 188.2.164.83 (talk) 15:51, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

ps. i am serious about changing photo - donations may go up, it is easy to test...188.2.164.83 (talk) 15:52, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, they've done a lot of testing. Fascinating reading. In the meantime, click the x to get rid of my ugly mug. :)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:58, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Indeed a good read! Thanks :) 188.2.164.83 (talk) 16:26, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Merry (IP) Christmas

Wiki-IP-Santa says, Merry Christmas!

A longterm IP editor says Merry Christmas Jimbo! - 220.101 talk^\Contribs 23:51, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

German

Hello, I see you are learning German! Du ist lernen Deutsch! I can speak German pretty well, so if you want to know what something means, just leave me a message on my Talk page. Orashmatash (talk) 21:46, 27 December 2010 (UTC) 27/12/10

Donating

you really got an ugly mug, Mr. Wales. Must you go on thus?--117.201.240.69 (talk) 17:44, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

If you donate it will be gone sooner. Mr R00t ^{Talk 'tribs} 18:06, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Or if you refuse to donate to the Jimmy banners, and lots of other people do likewise, they'll have a different advertising strategy next year. It appears, though, that enough people respond to the Wales banners to keep them around. Buddy431 (talk) 20:37, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

OTRS/Volunteering

Hello Mr. Wales I have tried to volunteer for OTRS but hotmail is not reconizing volunteers-otrswikimedia.org as a valid email address. is there an alternitive.? Pleaase reply on my talk thanks.TucsonDavidGOD BLESS THE U.S.A. 22:19, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I think you need to add an @ character ("at") in it, after "otrs" and before "wikimedia". I suppose I'll copy this to your talk page as well, although I'm not quite sure why you regard Jimbo's talk page as a write-only medium. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 23:06, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

meta RfC on WP:DICK

So far, essentially zero response to the meta RfC on [4]. I had presented a possible edit, reverted by a sysop at [5]. Thanks (posted here per your UT talk page message at Meta). Collect (talk) 14:16, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Bots causing edit-wars and restoring vandalism

I like the new system for verified edits to avoid live articles from being botched by hacked editing. However, I am concerned that wiki-bots are seriously "botching" articles as well. There was a recent WP:PUMP topic about Bot sessions edit-warring over the same articles, due to conflicting automated styles. Now I discovered that, back in February 2009, the article "Joe Cain" (of Mardi Gras in Mobile) had been re-vandalized by a bot(!), XLinkBot, obsessed with reverting a correction that contained a new Facebook.com link. The prior user, while undoing a large vandalism hack-edit, had decided to also add an external link with Facebook.com. That triggered XLinkBot to revert the whole edit, restoring the massive vandalism hack, rather than simply removing the small link to Facebook.com. Today, I restored that whole text about Civil War veteran Joe Cain returning to Mobile (from New Orleans) during the Union occupation, as he re-started parades after the Boeuf Gras Society (the old Mobile mystic society) had disappeared in 1861 during the war. I never would have imagined how a Bot edit-program would have been responsible for upholding the vandalism that removed such important text from Wikipedia's extensive Mardi Gras articles, for 22 months. As you might know, the U.S. State of "Alabama" is a highly popular international topic, after NY, TX, and California. I mention this Bot problem here just to note the real danger caused by bots reverting edits, unaware the prior edit was even worse, or done by another Bot. Hence, this shows the need to verify what Bots are editing, or to close these loopholes in automated edits. Editors cannot compete with the speed of bots. Wikipedia editors are still working as skeleton crews, because we could not harness the userbase to re-verify the contents of formerly good articles. Hopefully, the new verified-revision system will improve things. That 22-month Joe-Cain problem could have been detected if the Bot edit had been flagged as subject to verification, rather than let the next editor add text without checking the prior. Otherwise, I think people have assumed that Bot edits are not serious vandalism (or re-vandalism), so few people check Bot edits. -Wikid77 (talk) 18:12, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

• I also reported this at User_talk:XLinkBot#XLinkBot reverting to a vandalized revision. -Wikid77 00:34, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

It's bad enough when human deletionists do this - they have to remove your whole edit because they don't like one source (or one fact) which you want to include. But at least the humans evaluate policy (or POV) before each individual edit. This bot is based on some arbitrary, unwritten policy that an article about Joe Cain can't link to Joe Cain's Facebook page. Why not? Wnt (talk) 05:22, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Erm... WP:ELNO would be the policy saying that MySpace and Facebook are invalid links. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 08:34, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I just read WP:ELNO and it says "Except for a link to an official page of the article's subject", right up at the beginning in bold face. Wnt (talk) 16:23, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Although I agree that it should have just deleted the Facebook page rather than revert the entire edit and I have seen this bot do this a number of times just in the last month, I don't think this is the right place to address it. --Kumioko (talk) 12:43, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

See also: User:XLinkBot/FAQ, where the full content revert is discussed.

After reverting an edit, the bot also posts to the talk page of the user who made the edit with information on how to restore the attempted edit. If the user reverts the bot (and there are no intermediate edits) the bot will not re-revert. Although, that point could likely be made clearer in the bot's user-page post. --- Barek (talk) - 20:57, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Stephanie Abrams

Weather Channel meteorologist Stephanie Abrams is a Jew, according to Wikipedia, but (as far as I can tell) not according to any reliable source in the world.

Her Jewish roots were hinted at by this IP editor, who also made her a year older. But, attending a Jewish youth camp doesn't make you a full-on Jew until this IP editor makes you an "American Jew". You get a bit more specific when this IP editor declares that you're a "Jewish American scientist".

Now, I'm not saying Ms. Abrams isn't Jewish. But, I am saying it is extremely unlikely that her religious/ethnic background has ever been given serious attention by the news media.

Do you feel that Wikipedia IP editors (in this case) are carefully following the BLP policy? I've tagged it for references until further reply. ~jcm 17:38, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I think it should be removed and the biography either semi-protected or placed under Pending Changes.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:45, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. Also, I want to let you know that the query was originally published by Gregory Kohs, a user you may know as now banned, who asked that I post it here. I honestly wasn't aware of any reputation he had, nor that people watched your talk page. Do you object to my activity by his solicitation, or are you fine with it as it led to the improvement of the biography? Just want to see if I did anything wrong. Please respond, ~jcm 04:22, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

That's rather an unfair question because editors must not proxy for a banned user, so the only "correct" answer is yes. My assumption would be that someone will let you know if they object, and it is not reasonable to ask for more than that. Johnuniq (talk) 06:29, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but editors must also use common sense as well. If there is material in an article that violates WP:BLP, then it should be removed, regardless of which wiki-boogeyman under the bed may have been the one to point it out in the first place. Tarc (talk) 14:49, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

A growing problem: Wikipedia "guidelines" affecting/overriding real-world usages

I know there's various widely-spread places for this issue to be raised, but because of its importance I feel obliged to alert you to it; advocates of "typographical improvements" to Wikipedia's interface have been applying endashes and emdashes willy-nilly to articles and categories previously using hyphens, with no regard for, and often dismissal of, legal names and long-standing common usages/accepted usages and adjudging that all uses of hyphens are linkages of separate concepts, which they are not (always). By doing so, Wikipedia is creating new names and new conventions in complete apposition to real-world usages, and in effect is promoting/advancing these uses, partly because of Wikipedia's growing influence on language. Similar problems exist with over-application of the lower-case rule onto proper names. Wikipedia, as an encyclopedia, should reflect reality, not seek to order or dictate it or re-create it in its own image. Call the Heisenberg issue, perhaps, and while it may seem trivial it's not at all; see my most recent rebuttal to a reqmove on Talk:Alberni–Clayoquot_Regional_District#Requested_move pls. Add on that the use of endashes sand emdashes in category and article names is also cumbersome for actual contributing editors to use; and I'm of the opinion that a lot of these "improvement" guidelines/"policies' are being arrived at by people who are more involved in Wikipedia as admins and coders, and whose primary role is not in enriching encyclopedia content, but rather in managing it only, i.e. who are not familiar with the material affected and are in no position to establish valid guidelines for it in the first place. Cited names/uses and legally-established usages should override ANY deliberation reached at by Wikipedia consensus/guideline-wrangling.Skookum1 (talk) 22:56, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Can I ask why you don't take this up at WT:Naming conventions? The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 23:19, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Because I didn't know before that it existed....bulletin boards for various issues are a maze and it's not clear often which one to go to. But this is a core issue, deeper than simply naming conventions as such. This is about Wikipedia conventions/guidelines directing reality, rather than reflecting it; about standardizing language and punctuation when no such standards existed in the real world. It's about Wikipedia ordaining reality, without real qualification to do so and contrary to the principles of NOR (one justification, for example, for the dashes instead of hyphens went to the effect that the source/citation websites were lazy and hadn't taken time to use dashes instead of hyphens....in other words, that Wikipedians know best). This is about wiki-arrogance; and how much satisfaction I'd get from a debate at WP:Naming conventions; probably not much more than the frustrating "consensus" decisions in AfD and CfDs and ReqMoves that don't make any sense, and are full of ILIKEIT, and also of citing Wikipedia guidelines (arbitrary and consensually warred-over as they are) not just as if they were hard POLICY, but somehow FACTS. This is also about the overweening nature of the behind-the-scenes Wikipedia machine; too many people re-arranging deck chairs (and doing nothing else) while making it difficult for people actually building them. That's why it's here, and not just shuffled into yet-another-noticeboard where the pionts can be argued/ignored into irrelevance and inaction.Skookum1 (talk) 19:03, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I started Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#hyphen_and_emdash_in_proper_nouns. --Enric Naval (talk) 19:35, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Run a trial with $1 in new banner

It's very nice to see that a banner was designed similar to my suggestion on meta. I still think that asking just $1, referring to readers of Wikipedia rather than of the banner, and noting it will be over within hours will be more effective. However, with the banner that is running now, it may be worthwhile to run a trial with $1 and similarly small amounts in other currencies. And if that generates clicks, a trial may be run with the banner referring to "every reader", "every reader of Wikipedia" in Wikipedia's case. Another point to consider is as I suggested, a direct "Donate now" button. -- λόγος Idea → ✉ 03:15, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi, as I am not directly involved at all in deciding which banners to run, it'll be good to share your ideas again over there! Much appreciated! :)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:34, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Proposal

I was thinking of making a seperate wiki-like "pedia" for elections to focus specifically on the matter. but i dont want it to be a competitive one like the various conservapedia-type sites. would it be possible then to start something seperate as part of the wikimedia group to focus on the issue? i think its better served with a focus as such apart from just wikiprojects.

Awaiting your input, regards, (Lihaas (talk) 04:56, 29 December 2010 (UTC)).

Elections where? AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:10, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Global elections. like a psephology collection.

the main point being that it would have more oversight. particularly for the bigger elections (the smaller ones seems to work somewhat better here)(Lihaas (talk) 05:22, 29 December 2010 (UTC)).

I'm not sure this will work. A specialist 'ElectorialWiki' is unlikely to attract the broad range of knowledge that one can find on a generalised one (particularly in a global context), and is potentially more vulnerable to small pressure-groups pushing agendas (not the least of which is the assumption that the Western model of democracy is necessarily an ideal: something that is by no means self-evident). I'd say that if there is a problem with Wikipedia coverage of electoral issues, it makes more sense to try to correct it here. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:46, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I think doing it on Meta works fine. Tofutwitch11 ^(TALK) 14:51, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Unsourced articles

I come to you, to bring to your attention the galactically large problem with unsourced articles. I've worked this project off and on for a number of years. It is absolutely mindboggling, to say the least. It could be the largest project on WP. The sheer number of articles doesn't even illustrate the magnitude of the effort required to locate suitable references for these articles. Many articles even defy referencing and thus have sat untouched for 4 years. Frankly I think a new policy needs to be implimented at the highest level of WP, to stop the writing of articles without at least one reference. I think the 'Save Page' button should remained grayed out until at least one inline citation is included. Unreferenced new articles can be put in a sandbox. The quantity of unsourced articles is so large it would likely take a team of hundreds of editors working 8 hour days to whittle it down. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE 16:03, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

We could and perhaps should cease allowing the addition of any new articles until the content we have is either brought up to a minimum standard of verifiability or deleted, a wikipedia content spring clean - Off2riorob (talk) 16:14, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

<insert Joker "not sure if serious" pic here> Resolute 16:22, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

First, please avoid hyperbole. That never helps anything (though I imagine it's viscerally satisfying).

Second, can you provide a few choice examples of articles you deem problematic? To my mind, a well-written, informative article that could be verified (but isn't) is better than one of those POV-ridden articles that cram in a million biased sources to drive a particular point home. best to keep perspective... --Ludwigs2 16:23, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Examples are quite abundant and you may find them on the respective project page. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE 16:49, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aware that examples of unsourced pages are abundant. However, I asked you to provide problematic examples, because I'm not sure that you and I agree on what the problem is. Three or four good examples of articles that you are worried about will give us a good starting place for a conversation. If you leave it in the abstract, this conversation will be ultimately useless since - in the abstract - anything is just as wonderful or as horrid as one cares to imagine it; that's a complete non-starter for productive conversation on an issue like this. --Ludwigs2 17:45, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Ludwigs2. Unsourced articles are not nice but they're not a problem per se. If you find an unsourced article and it bothers you, you are welcome to fix it. That said, this is not the place to plea for such things: go at the village pump, or write a request for comment and seek consensus. --Cyclopia^talk 01:00, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Never mind. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE 01:22, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Don't give up so easily, please! I am pretty sure that I agree with you, but I also agree with Ludwigs2 that it would be useful to have a few examples as starting points for a longer conversation.

This has been a consistent theme for me lately - there are problems that people should know about and which they haven't noticed and which they don't believe are problems at first (quite reasonably) until someone can produce actual evidence. The evidence is usually not hard to find, but it if is hard to find, then we have to re-evaluate whether or not the problem is as serious as formerly thought.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:58, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

The bigger issues is unsourced BLPs, which is being dealt with quite handily over at WP:URBLP. 5000 down in a month! We'll be done with them in no time. ^_^ Silverseren^C 01:04, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Question regarding location of servers and applicability of national laws

Hi Jimbo, perhaps this has been addressed elsewhere, but if so I haven't seen it and perhaps other haven't. According to this conversation, Wikipedia servers are now functioning at EvoSwitch and KennisNet in the Netherlands. What are the legal implications of this? Currently the policy at WP:NOTCENSORED states that the Wikipedia is subject to the laws of the United States, where the servers are located. Is this obsolete and should be changed to "....subject to the laws of the United States and the Netherlands, where the servers are located", or what?

If we are subject to Dutch law and are beholden to obey to a cease-and-desist order from a Dutch judge or to libel action in Dutch courts, this would be rather chilling in my opinion, given the Gert Wilders case and and the lack of First Amendment protections in the Netherlands and so forth. (Not saying that Wilders isn't a _____ _____, but still.)

So what's the deal? Herostratus (talk) 17:11, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

We've had servers at Kinnisnet for many years with no consequences of which I am aware. One element to understand, and I am speaking globally as opposed to the specific situation in the Netherlands, is that having assets in a particular jurisdiction may put those assets at risk in some way due to peculiarities of local law, it does not make judgments which would be offensive to the 1st Amendment enforceable against assets in the United States.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:25, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Thank you for taking the time to reply. Hmmm, so in one sense we are vulnerable to the laws of any location where we have seizable assets. In another sense, we are not entirely vulnerable to any government entity, in that we could continue to operate even if any one government forced us to shut down our servers in that one country. However, I think it likely that our main server assets are still in the United States, and since United States content laws (including libel laws) are - at least at this point in history - pretty esasygoing (thanks in large part to the First Amendment, I think), it is probably a good idea to consider ourselves bound by the laws of the United States. And I will edit WP:NOTCENSORED to say "....laws of the United States, where our main servers are located". Thanks again. Herostratus (talk) 17:38, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Do you know this person?

Science&HiTechReviewer (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Please see:

WP:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Editor_Science.26HiTechReviewer

I'm pretty uncomfortable with what that editor is doing, and I think s/he is claiming to have had discussions with you about his/her current activities.[6][7] Could you comment at ANI? Thanks. 67.122.209.190 (talk) 07:49, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

GOCE Year-end Report

Season's Greetings from the Guild of Copy Editors We have reached the end of the year, and what a year it has been! The Guild of Copy Editors was full of activity, and we achieved numerous important milestones in 2010. Read all about these in the Guild's 2010 Year-End Report. Highlights Membership grows to 503 editors 2,589 articles removed through four Backlog elimination drives Our encounter with Jimbo Wales Guild home pages reorganized and redesigned Report on our inaugural elections Guild Plans for 2011 New barnstars introduced Requests page improved Sign up for the January 2011 Backlog elimination drive! Get your copy of the Guild's 2010 Year-End Report here On behalf of the Guild, we take this opportunity to wish you Season's Greetings and Happy New Year. See you in 2011! – Your Coordinators: S Masters (lead), Diannaa, The Utahraptor, and Tea with toast.

Sent on behalf of the Guild of Copy Editors using AWB on 06:25, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Proposal

I was thinking of making a seperate wiki-like "pedia" for elections to focus specifically on the matter. but i dont want it to be a competitive one like the various conservapedia-type sites. would it be possible then to start something seperate as part of the wikimedia group to focus on the issue? i think its better served with a focus as such apart from just wikiprojects.

Awaiting your input, regards, (Lihaas (talk) 04:56, 29 December 2010 (UTC)).

Elections where? AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:10, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Global elections. like a psephology collection.

the main point being that it would have more oversight. particularly for the bigger elections (the smaller ones seems to work somewhat better here)(Lihaas (talk) 05:22, 29 December 2010 (UTC)).

I'm not sure this will work. A specialist 'ElectorialWiki' is unlikely to attract the broad range of knowledge that one can find on a generalised one (particularly in a global context), and is potentially more vulnerable to small pressure-groups pushing agendas (not the least of which is the assumption that the Western model of democracy is necessarily an ideal: something that is by no means self-evident). I'd say that if there is a problem with Wikipedia coverage of electoral issues, it makes more sense to try to correct it here. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:46, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I think doing it on Meta works fine. Tofutwitch11 ^(TALK) 14:51, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

It would be in a sense like Wikiversity, which on the surface has overlap with this but with a greater focus.(Lihaas (talk) 16:22, 30 December 2010 (UTC)).

What about Ballotpedia? It's a quality effort. Wnt (talk) 02:48, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

See http://www.rulers.org/. -- Wavelength (talk) 06:58, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

See http://wikiindex.org/Welcome. -- Wavelength (talk) 16:34, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

email

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

TucsonDavid GOD BLESS THE U.S.A. 13:45, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Brick Wall at Meta

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
[8] indicates a severe problem at Meta. Single "objections" to any alteration of what we consider a problematic "essay" which has definitely been abused in the past. Perhaos you have a suggestion on how to proceed? The RfC did not show such an objection to be generally held, but Meta does not appear to be a place where one editor can make a difference when entrenched "no change at all"ism dominates (sigh). Thanks. Collect (talk) 07:15, 31 December 2010 (UTC) If the meta page is being owned by a small group (and the user who made the change you linked to seems to have very idiosyncratic views about on-wiki civility), then we should at least stop linking to it from Wikipedia (especially via an explanation-less soft redirect).--Kotniski (talk) 10:01, 31 December 2010 (UTC) I don't think the edit you reference, Collect, is evidence of a "severe problem at Meta" but rather an ordinary content disagrement which can surely be worked out. I agree with Kotniski that Tarc's views on civility are in the minority, but I think the best way forward will be to maintain a fair amount of the text that is there, but with the addition of sufficient caveats that anyone who reads the essay will understand that the behavior represented by some earlier versions of the essay itself (snarky mocking) is itself not ok. One important line I have just added is one cautioning against people linking to it in disputes. That should help slow or reverse the viral spread of the meme, at least to some degree. I would still very much enjoy seeing a nice catalog of examples of abusive usage - I believe that many people (including me) are quite rightly on the fence about how bad this essay is, based on not having sufficient information about how it has been used.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:28, 31 December 2010 (UTC) There were apparently discussions on a mailing list in 2006 and 2007 about this "essay". More recent uses on editor user pages include [9] , [10]. Article talk pages include [11]. [12] shows use over seven hundred times as a phrase "don't be a dick." [13] shows use in enwikispace linked directly to metaspace. [14] shows it being called a policy by an admin (PMC), and used as a reason for a block. (As some userpages have been deleted, all we have here is the template made by an admin). [15] shows reaction to the inherent incivility of the essay with another incivil essay. [16] yet another example. [17] shows the general tenor of many of the references to the essay. [18] also links to the releated essay WP:Please be a giant dick, so we can ban you. Quod erat demonstrandum: It has been abused, missapplied as "policy", been used to call people names, and served as a rationale for other grossly incivil essay uses. WP should have long ceased being a haven for sophomores. And this does not even include discussions about the essay on other wikis at all. Might someone see whether any concerns have been expressed elsewhere, and whether the term used is translated with the same connotation as in English? Thanks. Collect (talk) 13:23, 31 December 2010 (UTC) I have restored it to your version, Collect (talk · contribs) as of 23:11, 29 December 2010, and have added Jimbo's comments back to it. I'm not sure why the huge change was made, but I did not see a discussion on it's talk page regarding that. Tofutwitch11 (TALK) 14:35, 31 December 2010 (UTC) Would it help to rename the essay (and change all the internal wording) from "dick" to "jerk"? "Jerk" is a lot more common, isn't as crude, and means the same thing. Herostratus (talk) 15:30, 31 December 2010 (UTC) Frankly, I think we should just remove the essay completely, It does not do anything for anyone at all, it is just another way to call names when someone makes you mad. But, thats just my opinion. Tofutwitch11 (TALK) 15:46, 31 December 2010 (UTC) These "dick" essays, whether Wikipedia hosts the essay itself or a redirect to Meta (as in WP:DICK), just make Wikipedia look amateurish and make its contributors (collectively) look like Beavis and Butt-head. Elimination of these would be a sign that Wikipedia aspires to an image of professionalism. Neutron (talk) 20:37, 31 December 2010 (UTC) Obviously there are differing ideas as to what constitutes "professionalism". Tarc (talk) 20:49, 31 December 2010 (UTC) I think it's not so much a question of how one defines it, as a question of how much one values it. Just my opinion, of course. Neutron (talk) 21:15, 31 December 2010 (UTC) One editor has declined to compromise (not opining on the reversion on the talk page) at [19] by reverting the gist of the edits made. I suggest that a stronger edit ought to be made at that point, any takers? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Collect (talk • contribs) 00:54, 1 January 2011 (UTC) I have removed it again, as seen here. I am not sure what this persons issue is. Tofutwitch11 (TALK) 15:54, 1 January 2011 (UTC) Barras has protected the page, with my standing revision. So for now, we are okay. Tofutwitch11 (TALK) 16:32, 1 January 2011 (UTC) protection is not an endorsement. The thing you are all forgetting is that this is the internet, and for well-discussed psychological reasons (anonymity, loss of non-verbal communication cues, emotional projection, small-group extremism, etc.) it is a world filled with people who (intentionally or not) act like dicks. Even in this thread, we have a handful of editors doing a minor-scale edit war over the phrasing of an essay about being a dick, and the whole reason the discussion is here on Jimbo's page is that people are more interested in gaining a perception of political leverage than in communicating well about the problem, which is... gee, what's the best word for that kind of behavior...???. Please see wikt:irony. as an aside, I think this is all doubly ironic, since I have been recently involved with the OP (user:Collect) on a page where he was acting (from my perspective) in a truly dickish fashion (refusing to listen to reason or to provide sourcing when asked, blathering on endlessly about policy violations while refusing to discuss productive changes to the article, and generally arguing in a frustratingly bureaucratic, circularly POV-centered manner). I am not remotely surprised that he's complaining about how the essay is used, since I have been sorely tempted to use it on him myself and I suspect others have not shown my restraint. But let's not get into that here. We can discuss what this essay should say and how it should be used (obviously). I lean towards 'jerk' myself, since it's less overtly sexual (though, of course, 'jerk' is short for 'jerk-off', a masturbation reference). I'm sure we can make the essay that's more palatable than the one we currently have, but I believe there is a need for an essay like this that can be used to remind people to get out of their own heads (or maybe get their heads out of whatever they have them stuck in) and start focusing on what the encyclopedia needs. Anything that helps keep Wikipedia from becoming just another usenet forum is good in my book. --Ludwigs2 17:15, 1 January 2011 (UTC) Please consider that many people regard an essay like this as precisely what helps Wikipedia be more like "just another usenet forum". Do we need an essay explaining why civility is important and encouraging people to think in very basic terms about thoughtfulness and kindness as values? Yes. Clearly we do. For example, to make it clear to people why it is not ok to have and refer people to a juvenile and insulting essay like this. What I am saying is that the cure for the disease surely can't be more of the disease. A mature and thoughtful explanation of civility is going to be significantly better.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:14, 1 January 2011 (UTC) I usually see WP:DICK used by people in the course of being rather uncivil themselves. Derogatory references to sex organs are somewhat indecorous... and those well-known tendencies of people to act like goofballs (ah, a drug reference) only get worse when people are flinging crude insults at one another. "Jerk" is not necessarily a sex reference, it may come from "jerking around", as in jerking someone's chain. And it is reminiscent of a delicious food dish, jerk chicken, which is always a good thing. WP:TROUT is one of the few behavior essays that seems to lighten the mood. If we could make a cute mascot of a jerk chicken, people might actually lighten up when referred to that. And to address Jimbo's concern above, some of these Wikipedia traditions do encourage a shared culture. We could also link it to a more sober essay on civility. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:22, 1 January 2011 (UTC) (EC with discussion close) Incidentally, here is an archive search for the use of WP:DICK on WP:AN and WP:AN/I. I don't have the fortitude to wade through all of these disputes, but it's clear that people calling each other dicks is a regular subject of conversation there. The causal connection is less clear. If we didn't have the essay would they just call each other something else? I know there's some grumbling over twattery, bollocks, and other terms that seem a lot harsher on the left side of the ocean than the right. Certainly, people calling each other dicks on the noticeboards is unhelpful, as would be the use of the link to scold someone in the context of an administrative warning or sanction. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:32, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm closing the discussion here, although I was finding it perfectly productive, but in the interest of moving the discussion over to the talk page on Meta.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:30, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Happy, happy

Happy New Year, and all the best to you and yours! (from the beachfront in warm Cuba) Bzuk (talk) 22:50, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Puzzle globe logo

Hi Jimbo. I have a question about Wikipedia's tenth anniversary merchandise. On the "thanks" banner, someone is depicted holding a 3D Wikipedia globe puzzle in his/her cupped hands. Have you ever considered having such a globe mass produced in order to be sold to raise funds for the foundation? I would enjoy having one as a paper weight. Regards, and happy New Year.-RHM22 (talk) 03:57, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Remuneration and fiscal report to Staff in WCJ2009･2010 and KOF2010

The conference was held by Wikimedia Foundation in Japan. (Wikimedia Conference Japan 2009,Wikimedia Conference Japan 2010,Kansai Open Source 2010)These conferences succeeded. However, the earnings call is not yet done. A fee, a donation, the money of which we paid support are unidentified.The reward paid to you and the staff is unidentified.The disposal of remaining assets, the cancellation of a contract procedure of the bank account are unknown.I demand accountability as the sponsor of the meeting from you.--山吹色の御菓子 (talk) 06:45, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't know anything about this. I do know that no "reward" was paid to me or Wikimedia Foundation staff. I didn't even attend these events, nor do I know precisely who was involved with organizing them. Why don't you ask the organizers or perhaps the Wikimedia Foundation?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:22, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

You were a poster[20] and a video message[21][22], and, in WCJ2009, it was attended.--山吹色の御菓子 (talk) 04:12, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for creating Wikipedia!

It's so helpful for school reports and my collecting hobbies. It's fun and educational, so I'm always spending time learning new things.

You should be person of the century.

76.200.114.235 (talk) 20:41, 2 January 2011 (UTC) Bobby Powell

Christmas Card

File:Wikisanta-no motto.png

Merry Christmas At this festive time, I would like to say a very special thank you to my fellow editors, and take the time to wish you and your loved ones a very Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year. And, in case you can't wait until the big day, I've left you each three special presents, click to unwrap :) Acather96 (talk) 10:10, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

File:Green and Yellow Present.gif

File:Yellow and Red present.gif

File:Blue and Red Present.gif

You like good ideas, right?

Hey, I don't post on Wikipedia very much, so maybe you'll just disregard this, but a friend of mine had an awesome idea. And you like to hear good ideas, right? Here's an idea that will both increase the public's usage of Wikipedia and raise funds much more efficiently than trying to start a Stalin-esque cult of personality via banner ads.

Some background... When friends and I are arguing, we always have to settle the debate by going to Wikipedia. That might make you cringe, but a lot of people do it. And it can be tedious... If there's no internet available, no laptop, etc.. We always say, "Oh I'll check Wikipedia tomorrow" and a lot of times we forget.

I was talking about how awesome it would be if we had real-life "tac-pads" like Master Chief in Halo (don't know if somebody as smart and successful as you plays videogames but w\e -- basically it's like an iPad on your wrist).

Well, a while back I remember you invested in those mini-computers for African children or something, with Wikipedia on them... Why not use that same type of technology to sell pocket-sized versions of Wikipedia? Maybe even with a wrist-strap. Or not, it could be like a pocket dictionary.

And if the anti-Wikipedia freaks start crying, "omg wikipedia's gone commercialized," you can tell them an anonymous Zen Buddhist who rarely edits Wikipedia came up with the idea.

Also, if this is TL;DR maybe one of your underlings at least can tell me why this is a bad idea. Like maybe it's already been done, maybe iPhone apps are just as good, etc.. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 03:32, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

This. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 03:53, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Zenwhat, I wonder what positive outcome you think comes out of sharing a good idea laced with insults. "Stalin-esque cult of personality"? "Underlings"?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:27, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

A smile, hopefully? :)

See the folktale The Gift of Insults.

Also, thanks Delicious Carbuncle. Definitely gonna have to get one. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 21:18, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Appearance on The Daily Show

Good luck with your coming appearance on The Daily Show! It's my favorite show and I'm looking forward to it. I remember your great appearance on the Colbert Report a couple years ago. Jrobinjapan (talk) 03:43, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thank you for creating this wonderful resource! Whowhen (talk) 07:51, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

History problems

• (Rus) Наука история сейчас переживает глубокий раскол. Может лучше временно убрать всё, что касается древней истории? (до XVI века). Особенно Россию, мою страну. Простите я совсем незнаю английский.
• (English translation)Science history is now a deep schism. May be better to temporarily remove everything to do with ancient history? (Until the XVI century). Especially Russia, to my country. I'm sorry, I just don `t know English.Александр Русский (talk) 16:09, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Census data

Census data: [23]; to get fellow Wikipedians' attention, WP:2010 US Census, and 2010 United States Census. People, please update the pages. Thanks. Perseus (t • c) 17:58, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

IRC logs

Any idea how I could get a copy of the logs referred to here [24]. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.164.187.54 (talk) 19:59, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

A private IRC chat between two people? I have no access to that nor do I have any suggestions for you as to how you might obtain them.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:27, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Paid Editing

How does the prohibition on paid editing that you set via WP:JIMBO reconcile with the Wikipedia:Reward board? Could Kohs and everyone else have avoided getting banned if they told their clients to post the article requests on the board? 174.252.107.95 (talk) 07:01, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

No, I don't think so. The key is an understanding of a conflict of interest, of acting on Wikipedia as a paid advocate. Having just now reviewed the Reward board, I see only two requests out of the many there which raise some concerns for me in this area - an absolutely inappropriate one with respect to dANN, and one that I'm not so sure about with respect to Firefly/Serenity.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:00, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

How much of your statement in the paid editing RFC is still in force? Theoretically, any admin could have blocked User:SqueakBox back when his paid editing first came to light in July, without waiting for the months and kilobytes of discussion that followed. 174.252.112.25 (talk) 22:32, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

He's blocked now. Civility is a policy too but editors get away with incivility for extended periods. Just because behaviors aren't immediately sanctioned doesn't mean they're beneficial either. This is an imperfect system.   Will Beback  talk  05:25, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Civility is never cut-and-dry. SB's paid editing was. Is the prolific editor who occasionally vandalizes allowed to stay here for very long? 174.252.112.25 (talk) 05:28, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Sock puppetry isn't always cut-and-dry either. Do you have a regular account?

Wikipedia isn't perfect, and it never will be. We're improving it as we go. One reason that paid editing isn't explicitly against policy is that some now-banned paid editors argued very strongly against forbidding it. I expect that a new RfC would get a different result.   Will Beback  talk  05:39, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Why don't you start a new one? User:Benjiboi isn't getting unblocked anytime soon. As I see it, Jimbo's statements and WP:PAID are in direct contradiction with each other, and if Jimbo can still set policy (or could in July 2009) then the paid editing proposed policy is pretty much real policy already. A new RfC could establish that. Or maybe it'll overrule Jimbo's statement. Or maybe there'll just be a lot of hot air and no conclusion.

And as far as socking goes, you'll notice that you, I, and Jimbo are the only people in this thread. 174.252.112.25 (talk) 06:06, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

From now on, it's just you and Jimbo.   Will Beback  talk  06:08, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

I have proposed that the International Association for the Study of Pain pay an expert to review and edit Pain. Is there some uncertainty about the appropriateness of that proposal? Anthony (talk) 16:07, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it is inappropriate in the sense of conflict of interest, no. I also don't think it's really the right way forward. A better approach would be to ask professional associations like this to contact their entire membership body with the message that Wikipedia would welcome expert contributions in this area. Paying people to do things isn't always the best way to motivate the best work.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:36, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree. That would be preferable. Are you doing any outreach in that direction? Pitching to international professional conferences, gatherings of vice chancellors, etc.? Anthony (talk) 19:48, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I am. But it is not just me personally (I'm just one person): this sort of thing is core to what many of the Wikimedia Foundation chapters do. You might also want to take a look at Liam Wyatt's amazing GLAM work and the relationship he has built with people at the British Museum.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:17, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I will. Anthonyhcole (talk) 02:11, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

How about a murder/suicide accusation?

You wanted evidence from me that some of your users in this website are out of control? How about this one [25]? A murder/suicide accusation that is not true at all is called libel and slander, and It's not going to be tolerated. Karajou —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.87.57.179 (talk) 10:00, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

This ip went and reverted the delete of this so they could then go writing their own personal attacks and accusations after it. I will now go and remove both. Dmcq (talk) 10:49, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

My condolences to the family if this is true. But please, don't bring such stuff here. People harass celebrities all the time and their families blame the celebrity when something goes wrong because they have an unnecessary desire to place blame and they don't want to assign blame to themselves or their lost one (and they shouldn't!) but then they shouldn't assign blame with others here. Blame won't bring the man back or make anyone feel better about what happened, or prevent people from killing themselves like that in the future. The same goes for Jimbo, if he feels pity or remorse for something he wasn't responsible for.

As I see it, saying, "I commit suicide because I edited Wikipedia," sounds very much like, "I killed that man because I ate a twinkie." He was responsible for his own life. And it's none of your damn business anyway. You are just a trouble-maker. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 14:38, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

It's worth noting, though, that this has nothing to do with Wikipedia at all. It's a fight between Conservapedia and RationalWiki as far as I can tell.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:39, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Kind of a late question, but may I ask, Jimbo: What led you to the conclusion that RationalWiki had anything to do with this? ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 20:44, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, Jimbo. There is a long history of Rationalwiki editors (many of which are also WP admins) using Wikipedia discussion pages to air grievances about Conservapedia. Can we get someone remove the allegation that CP sysops are "power-hungry lying murderers"? it's been there at least 24 hours now. nobs (talk) 20:58, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

More information is here: User talk:98.87.57.179. I am not accusing CP of murder, only of totalitarian admin behavior that did eventually drive my mentally unstable son to suicide. - Sean —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.92.159.213 (talk) 21:04, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Nobody can talk about Wikipedia totalitarianism when nobody is forced to register and use it. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 22:53, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm forced to come here real talk. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.44.137.48 (talk) 00:32, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Nobody can talk about life totalitarianism when nobody is forced to live. I don't really need Wikipedia, but I wouldn't hate to see it shift out of the totalitarianism state. Knowing suicide, in my opinion, is indeed always the person him/her-self's problem, but if you cause 10 000 people to suicide, you NOT a good person even though your not responsible. I definitely would never support Conservapedia. Also, even if the suicide can't be blamed on anyone else, PEOPLE HAVE TO RIGHT TO KNOW someone died if the writer wants people to. Don't smash graves down. If you died because of a problem you wouldn't want people to hide your death to protect whats related to the problem. Although the right to free speech doesn't exist on Wikipedia, deleting someone's say in the talk page is disruptive vandalism. Talk pages should not require NPOV.173.180.214.13 (talk) 03:33, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Jimbo, this anonymous IP has a point. You could be more humble and less possessive. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 12:49, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Though I love Wikipedia

Dear Jimbo, in response to your recent call for donations I want to tell you about the issue that is impairing Wikipedia substancially, which is the reason why I did not donate again at this time. I know, deletions are a hot topic in every Wikipedia. But I personally have seen articles vanishing in the German Wikipedia which were interesting, well written and fairly well referenced. The reason always is: Irrelevant, not "encyclopedish", not important. And I really can not understand:

This is an ongoing annihilation of knowledge, but I always thought Wikipedia is about sharing knowledge!

Often when I read or take part in deletion discussions, it is obvious to me the some admins are really quick with deleting all articles about things they just have never heard of. At the end, the decision is rather personal. "In dubio pro reo" does not translate here, it is more like "In dubio pro deletion".

But I am not just complaining, I have a proposal too: Allow users to find and read deleted articles.

More detailed, introduce a two-step deletion scheme: Full deletions will only be allowed for articles that violate the universal netiquette (like vandalism, slander, obvious promotion). Soft deletions are for articles that are disputed. When a user searches for an article of a deleted topic, the search result will show like: "No article found in main Wikipedia, but there is a disputed article here: (click)"

Or something like this. Maybe it would be better to change the pro-deletion-people's minds, but I do not know if that is possible. Until there is a real solution for the deletions topic, I will rather donate to those projects that save deleted articles. --W-sky (talk) 15:00, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I like the idea of hard/soft deletions. Though I imagine this would lead to a few technical issues.

It's funny that all the critics come out of the woodwork whenever Jimbo's face pops up at the top of the page asking for cash. NickCT (talk) 15:07, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I like the idea, too.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:50, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I really like it too. The beauty is that I thought about it before and requested it at the Village Pump about 2 or 3 years ago. I wasn't turned down per se, I was just ignored. I guess I should have just come here instead. Feedback ^☎ 15:54, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Ah, well, I'm not sure this is any more effective. :)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:56, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps, like Conservapedia, we could also "reach out" to Deletionpedia? In a quid pro quo, we could negotiate to ensure inappropriate material never sees the light of day again. --Dweller (talk) 16:01, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree as well and I thought I would throw my 2 cents in too if thats alright. I see a lot of articles get deleted due to a lack of notability. The problem is though, how to define notability, what is notable to one person isn't notable to another. For example, I have no interest in international soccer players so to me they aren't notable, my interest is in American Medal of Honor recipients which would be non-notable to others. My point is its all subjective. So personally I like the idea of being able to see them. Another possibility would be to allow the last version of certain deleted articles to be viewable after they have been deleted. That way if someone wanted to see it they could. --Kumioko (talk) 18:30, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Totally agree with the soft deletion thing. Deletionpedia is unfortunately inactive as far as I knew, so it can't be used I suspect (I personally wanted to build a similar project but unfortunately my work is taking me a lot of time, so I never fully implemented it). I don't think that technical issues are a problem; moving to a different namespace is probably enough. --Cyclopia^talk 18:40, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I guess the question here is who could we talk to, to actually get this hard/soft deletion idea implemented? It seems as though this would involve a change to the software that actually supports Wikipedia. Would we have to discuss it with someone at Wikimedia? NickCT (talk) 19:16, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

No change in software is needed. You need only have a simple template that says "this article was deleted due to ____ (whatever: lack of notability, only covered in the international press for a few weeks, somebody doesn't like what it's about ... some typical reason, phrased in policy speak). But then, instead of a deleted article, you just have the ordinary text. If someone insists you could have it all inside a show/hide box, or moved to "Deleted/ArticleName". But certainly no new software is involved. The problem of course is that those seeking to delete articles, despite the policies they quote, are not usually putting up random short stubs or articles from the unsourced list - they want articles deleted because they're in the news, because there are many reliable sources, because they don't like the information they provide. And no "soft deletion" could ever satisfy that driving need in their psyche to prove their social dominance by making information unavailable to others. Wnt (talk) 19:52, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think this is even remotely close to an accurate and kind statement of the facts about deletions on Wikipedia. I'm unaware of even one case that would match this rhetoric. Wnt, it is incredibly rude - and may cause you to be unable to hear the thoughtful voices of others - to attribute motives to people like a "need in their psyche to prove their social dominance". When we think of other people in those terms, we are too often prevented from listening to their genuine arguments and concerns. I hope that you will reconsider the issue.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:43, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Honestly from what I've seen at AfD even if editors did have the urge to delete articles "because they don't like them", they wouldn't be able to simply by the way the process is organized. Obviously this isn't a problem, either, because that's not how WP admins function in the first place. They're just deleted based on whether they should. The^FSAviator ( T • C ) 23:46, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but who is to decide whether they should - and on what criteria? When it comes to lack of notability, importance or validity, the opinions are often completely different (yet both reasoned), and the process to find a decision is neither fair to both sides, nor democratic.

I am really glad to see that some of you like the idea of soft and hard deletions and just thought of another term too: Maybe it would be nicer to call it "shadowed". --W-sky (talk) 02:23, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

It seems that this idea of soft and hard deletions (whatever they will be called) could be a good one. But the discussion here came to an end - now, what could be the way to make it implemented into Wikipedia? For a start, should it be tested in one language only, or...? --W-sky (talk) 16:02, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

G11 User pages

I think it`s time to clean Wikipedia from advertizing user pages.:Something like [26] could be a good method.--Löschwahn (talk) 00:45, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Interesting! My talk page isn't really the best place to put this forward; I am not sure where the very best place is. But I found your search results fascinating.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:05, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Many of those are user pages/subpages for editors that have already been blocked for spamming and/or username violations. Maybe there is a way a bot could identify and list all pages of indefinitely blocked users so they could be examined and deleted if they are inappropriate. Peacock (talk) 14:59, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I looked at some of the first few pages on this list and some of them are in-progress articles that are (or were) being worked on in user space, which is legitimate, although maybe there should be some limitation on how long you can have an in-progress article in user space before it has to be moved to article space or deleted. (One where I checked the history was last worked on more than a year ago.) This would be an especially good idea for in-progress articles about businesses, as I don't think we really care if someone keeps notes or in-progress articles about, say, historical figures or scientific subjects in their user space indefinitely. I did not check to see whether any of these pages have become actual articles. Neutron (talk) 19:38, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Copyright question

Hi Jimbo. I'm hoping you or a knowledgeable TPS can point me in the right direction. Does WP or WMF have a definitive copyright policy on lists of the type discussed in this AfD? I've been looking around WP:COPYRIGHT and similar and I can't seem to find anything definitive. I'm not comfortable with random AfD passersby such as myself trying to make or interpret WP copyright policy on the fly in an AfD; I'd really like to understand the existing policy (if any) on lists of this nature before !voting keep or delete based on the copyright concerns mentioned. Thanks, 28bytes (talk) 20:41, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi, I'm not sure where an existing discussion of that particular point might be. I also don't know what a 'TPS' is, so I am not sure if there are any knowledgeable ones around. :-) But someone who knows more than I do will likely have a better answer.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:05, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

"Talk Page Stalker" HalfShadow 21:07, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Also known as a WikiJaguar. (As for the question, I have no idea. You would be better off talking to an editor that is more heavily involved in copyright issues, such as Moonriddengirl. She should be able to help you or point you in the right direction to finding an answer.) Silverseren^C 22:50, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Silver seren, I will ask her. (Sign #137 that you may be spending too much time on Wikipedia: tossing around acronyms that even Jimbo doesn't know.) 28bytes (talk) 22:54, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Need help welcoming newbies

Hi, Jimbo. I hope that you don't mind me posting this here, but our List of common misconceptions has been mentioned on XKCD,[27] a high-traffic web site. The number of edits to this article have increased by orders of magnitude. If anyone has the time (and patience!) to welcome the newbies and explain our policies and guidelines to them, their assistance is appreciated. Thanks. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:08, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

We/I have found your most favorite restaurant in Beijing.

In the XiDan Shopping Centre is a restaurant that serves this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lantrix/5245203240/

You've been in Beijing before; have you stopped by? If not, will you the next time you're there? The restauranteur of that establishment must love our project in order to serve a dish named after your greatest creation! --68.95.116.192 (talk) 18:55, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

There's been a couple of these. I used to have a list, but I've misplaced it .... there's still User:Soap/Termitomyces albuminosus, but that seems to be the same dish (even if not the same menu). —Soap— 23:17, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

can automated bots editing wikipedia be based on quasi openness?

or should all bots be compatible with wikipedia licenses? you can see more info here 188.2.168.166 (talk) 23:19, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

While I prefer that bots be freely licensed, I don't have a strong opinion about it. In general we don't require people to use free software in order to be able to edit Wikipedia, whether that software is an ordinary browser or an automated or semi-automated helper application.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:00, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Is it allowed to overlook WP:BLP#Remove unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material and to desestimate your concerns about this issue?

• There is unsourced contentious, defamatory and harmful material against the living people from the Colectivo Socialista de Pacientes here: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colectivo_Socialista_de_Pacientes
• Based on Wikipedia:BLP#Summary_deletion.2C_salting.2C_and_courtesy_blanking (Spanish_WP:BPV) I requested for a summary deletion[28] of this article, because it contained only unsourced contentious material against those living people, so it was substantially of poor quality and primarily containing contentious material that was unsourced. My request was rejected by admin-user Cratón, who said that instead of deleting, it should be improved and I was accused of disruption[29] by admin-user Sabbut. My published warning that it was unsourced contentious material which even could lead to difamation trials, was assumed as a legal threat and I was even accused of defamation (!?), although my words were taken from Wikipedia:BLP article in spanish-wikipedia:

El material sobre personas vivas debe verificar cuidadosamente las fuentes de su información. Sin fuentes terciarias confiables, una biografía podría violar las políticas de Verificabilidad y de que Wikipedia no es una fuente primaria, y podría motivar juicios por difamación.

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:BPV#Fuentes_confiables

• The user Aleuze pretended to resolve the thing putting a "cita requerida" ("citation needed") tag[30], which of course, as you also explicity warned[31][32], is a wrong non acceptable procedure for BLP and that is explicity forbidden in the Spanish_WP:BLP. I warned so and I emphasized that it is not an acceptable solution because meanwhile that contentious material would remain published harming those living people. But my warning was answered with rudeness and desestimated again.
• Although I think is better to delete all the aticle, I've still strongly tried to delete unsourced defamatory and contentious material from the article: [33][34][35]
• But that unsourced defamatory and contentious material was strongly restored, specially by the same admin-user Sabutt: [36][37][38]
• I tried again to dissuade the users of restoring that material, by opening a discussion thread in the talk page. The admin-user Sabutt wrote that I was coming to "enmierdar"[39] which means I was coming "to crap bullshit". The discussion thread was deleted by admin-user Alhen and by admin-user Taichi, who said that the talk-page of the article was not the appropiate place for my complaints[40](!).
• The article was blocked[41] by admin-user Laura_Fiorucci and I was blocked[42] for a week by admin-user Taichi.
• Some minutes before I was blocked, I denounced the rudeness ("...crapping bullshit...") from admin-user Sabbut, but my complaint was desestimated by the admin-user 3coma14 who said to me: it was rudely said, but your comments are truly shitting the discussion[43]
• One week later, when "my" block expired, I copy-pasted some parts taken from spanish WP:BLP into the talk_page of the article[44], thus trying again to encourage those users to delete that unsourced contentious and defamatory material; but this thread, with warnings taken from spanish WP:BLP, was also deleted[45] by the admin-user Ezarate. Meanwhile I also denounced admin-user Sabutt due disruption, as he repeatedly restored the unsourced contentious and defamatory material, but again my denounce was desestimated, although my denounce was based explicity on Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Semi-protection.2C_protection.2C_and_blocking (spanish_WP:BPV#Bloqueos). Firstly my denounce was closed arguing that I was being rude, disrupting and harrassing. As you recommended[46] I firmly insisted again on the deletion of that unsourced contentious material, therefore I was finally expulsed from es.wikipedia forever by admin-user Taichi, accused of sock pupperty[47].
• Meanwhile the admin-user Laura_Fiorucci had partially deleted the unsourced defamatory and contentious material[48][49].
• But after my expulsion, the unsourced contentious and defamatory material was restored again[50] by the admin-user Taichi, the one who blocked me for a week, the one who finally expulsed me and the one who some days before had deleted from the talk-page my attempts to dissuade users from restoring the unsourced contentious material.
  • Notice that: even if deletion of unsourced defamatory and contentious material had been made by a true sock-puppet, this can not be used as an excuse for restoring that unsourced contentious material. It was demonstrated that it is unsourced contentious material. It has been sourced merely with the mentioned "citation needed"-tag during the last six weeks[51] and previous versions were not better.
• Therefore, those authors are responsible for publishing that material, more over as it is a very harmful material against those living people as they explicity warned.
• The unsourced contentious and defamatory material against the living people from the Colectivo Socialista de Pacientes remains published in spanish-wikipedia here: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colectivo_Socialista_de_Pacientes

-- ClaudioSantos (talk) 13:36, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

To the other users: I'm asking Jimbo Wales, so please let Jimbo Wales answer first, before adding your comments to this section.

Falls into the "way too much information" category of posts here. You might note [52] among many English language sources which deal with the group. Collect (talk) 16:20, 6 January 2011 (UTC) Then you should read also this, and there are more texts about it: " ... Vermont's media saw perception management at work in 1978, when a young woman named Kristina Berster was caught crossing the border illegally from Canada into Vermont. The FBI knew only that she was a West German citizen and was wanted for something called criminal association a crime that didn't exist in the United States ... The verdict, delivered on Oct. 27, 1978 after more than five days of deliberations, was a felony and misdemeanor conviction for lying to a customs official, but acquittal on the crucial conspiracy charge ... When Berster returned home to Germany, the old charges against her were dropped. But it also demonstrates how perception management works. Manipulating the press and exploiting fear are powerful tools, and too often used to justify bigger budgets or intrusive security measures ... " Greg Guma, "Anything but the Truth: The Art of Managing Perceptions," Propaganda And The Global War On Terrorism(GWOT), Year 4 – 2005, The Institute of Communications Studies, University of Leeds, UK (17 August 2005). But, may I ask you to let Jimbo Wales answer my questions first -before you add anything else- as I am asking him?. Thank you.

This was a really long post and I'm afraid I don't know what to make of it. My views on biographies are well known. They should be high quality, based on reliable sources, not about tabloid matters and should take into account human dignity. Beyond that, because I am unable to read Spanish, I am not really able to help you very much with Spanish Wikipedia issues.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:04, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. I could translate everything you need from spanish to english, and for sure you have some friends who speak spanish and could do the same for you. But perhaps by now you don't need to worry about translations because it could be partially but quickly resolved. As "citation needed" tag is forbidden by WP:BLP because it is obviously a non-sourced material, therefore that material should be deleted summarily. Well, the current version of the article have a lot of paragraphs sourced with the tag "cita requerida" ("citation needed")[53], but the last edition of Laura_Fiorucci does not have none of those paragraphs, as they were hidden by her. As I am really unable to edit anymore in spanish wikipedia, then you may restore this version: [54] made by admin-user Laura_Fiorucci (Edit Summary: per WP:BPV). -- ClaudioSantos (talk) 20:58, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't read Spanish either, but the English version Patients' Collective has sufficient BLP issues to validate the concerns.--Scott Mac 23:08, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

[55] --JN466 00:52, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

This chap, http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usuario:Sabbut, restores content accusing people of wanting to bomb a train station with a "citation needed" tag (edit summary: "undoing, will look for sources"). So does http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usuario:Tirithel (edit summary: what is this? meatpuppetry?), before protecting the article. They are both es:WP bureaucrats, and one is a OTRS volunteer as well. Strikes me as most odd. They both speak English, by the way. Either we have a BLP policy, or we don't. --JN466 01:37, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't Spanish Wikipedia run separate and differently from us here at English Wikipedia? I didn't think we had any jurisdiction over what is done at other Wikipedias. Silverseren^C 02:01, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

So I've been told; see [56]. Basically says that Claudio Santos is a sockpuppet and troll who keeps criticising es:WP admins. But frankly, with that type of editing, I am not entirely unsympathetic to such criticism. --JN466 02:03, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Their BLP policy appears to be different than ours and a bit looser (in comparison to, say, Japanese Wikipedia, which is way more strict than us) in how they deal with such things. Considering that admins from Spanish Wikipedia are involved, I don't believe we have enough information to make any informed decision. The fact that the OP of this section is trying to get Jimbo behind him doesn't bode well for what s/he is attempting to do, so I think we should just let Spanish Wikipedia sort it out themselves. Silverseren^C 02:13, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Their BLP policy being different is nonsense. http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:BPV#Retirar_material_ofensivo_sin_buenas_fuentes is a word-for-word translation of Wikipedia:Blp#Remove_unsourced_or_poorly_sourced_contentious_material, complete with quote from Jimbo ("I cannot emphasise this enough ...", etc.) --JN466 02:16, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Then, what? Do you think those two you mentioned are a rogue admin and bureaucrat? Silverseren^C 02:33, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Obviously I don't know the entire background here, but on the face of it the actions of Sabbut, Tirithel and Taichi are entirely incompatible with the letter and spirit of the Spanish BLP policy (and I read Spanish). To then go on to protect the article in the non-compliant version and block people who sought to remove unsourced contentious material really takes the biscuit. Why do that? Surely it is better to research the sources first and then insert the material, especially if we are talking about accusing people of having planned bombings, and other things besides. --JN466 02:52, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Two facts: ClaudioSantos y a sockpuppet of a banned user due to edit warring.

Second, SPK (is well known back from 2005) from using terrorist-like tactics to force their POV into the wiki. Example: [57] where down you get a ver y nasty threats towards two sysops:

Aquí mi respuesta basada en la realidad del sistema iatrocapitalista. Eso porque actualmente estamos en la lucha electrónica, el venezolano Ascánder*, pseudo-científico y wikipulpo como el chileno "JorgeGG"* alucinante, los dos perteneciendo a la clase médica, nosotros y yo a la clase neo-revolucionaria: Disponemos sobre los nombres, empleos y direcciones completas. Si alguien tiene interés en eso, podemos enviarle los datos mencionados.

Quick translation: we are in an electronic fight and we have names, jobs and full addresses of those two sysops, and we are willing to provide them to anyone asking.

My full support to the sysops involved dealing with these trolls: instead of blindingly revert, you should've engaged in talk there. Jimbo's talk is not an editorial control center over all wikis.

When you're right, discussion and explanation is the way to go, not crosswiki revert. Magister Mathematicae (talk) 05:09, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I've dropped some sources on the article's talk page, and the admins were kind enough in the end to comment out the unsourced content again. Some of the IP editors' points were quite justified on content grounds. I have no idea if any of the IPs are related to the page you link to (which is from 2005 and obviously not about this Wikipedia dispute). But the best way to get sockpuppets and personal threats is to use admin powers to defend the indefensible and block people who complain about poorly sourced or unsourced content. And bearing in mind Taner Akcam we really have no business accusing living people, by name, of terrorist activity with a "citation needed". (Note that in this case the most worrying claim, about the intended (but not carried out) bombing, did prove sourceable, so it wasn't out-and-out libel, just poor editing. Yet some of the more minor unsourced details were wrong.) --JN466 14:29, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Off topic: when Magister Mathematicae says that people from SPK is using "terrorist-like tactics", is it a legal threat or a criminal complaint or calumny or what? What do you suggest to do with it Mr. Jimmy Wales? -- ClaudioSantos (talk) 21:43, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Having received completely deranged threats of violence some years ago from someone claiming to be from SPK, I see no particular reason to doubt it. However, I urge all Wikipedians who on the receiving end of "terrorist-like tactics" like that not to take matters into their own hands on-wiki, but to contact the Wikimedia Foundation and local authorities to report it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:02, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

what "threats of violence" and "terrorist like tactic" have you received? that is a serious affirmation. -- ClaudioSantos (talk) 22:17, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Last reply for I won't keep watching this: I'm not making up anything. That's what's openly posted on the SPK page I linked to: http://www.spkpfh.de/Lucha_electronica_de_clases.htm

Context: JorgeGG is an eswiki sysop and Ascander is a sysop and ofrmer steward. And SPK is admitting a fighting stance threatening to divulge personal and employing data of users. (It is amusing after seeing BLP being mentioned all over, how different standards are used when it's convenient for their purposes) Magister Mathematicae (talk) 22:36, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that violating WP:BLP and publishing names and adresses is a "terrorist-like tactic"? Are those your standars? Are these:[58][59][60] examples of those standars? -- ClaudioSantos (talk) 07:34, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Complaint about site.

Hello, Mr. Wales. How are you? Me, I'm fine.

However, I have a big complaint about Wikipedia. It seems nobody is putting their commas in articles. And, on occasion, I catch an article that is riddled with so many missing commas.

Could you maybe put a grammar policy, where users should check punctuation, please? I feel this is going to be benefitial.

Here's an example of what I mean (Though this is only an example. I never saw it in an article):

1. Before they could eat Jim had to call his friend Ellie to confirm a meeting with her. 2. Before they could eat, Jim had to call his friend Ellie to confirm a meeting with her.

Now, from the comparison, Number 2 sounds much better, as it does not sound like they're eating Jim.

But, commonly, I will find something like "In (Insert Show Name) the character Bob (Random name chosen) wished to keep the fact of missing his meeting a secret." .

I hope I don't sound too annoying, but, um, yeah.... if you could make a grammar policy for punctuation, that would be great. Thank you.

And, Happy New Year, eh, Mr. Wales.

--208.96.121.65 (talk) 05:03, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

You may be interested to see WP:COMMA. You could also join the WP:Guild of Copyeditors. LadyofShalott 05:11, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Please, hide the annoying banner on top of millin of pages

Please, hide the annoying banner on top of millin of pages. It is really annoying to see the ... Banner tens a day? week by week. It is very big, it uses a big font, images. With this banner I must to scroll down a lot on my netbook. I do scroll on every page I want to open in wiki. I ever dont want to edit something, because the banner will be showed to me 3-4 times more while I will do editing. `a5b (talk) 22:33, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

You can use an option in your preferences to block it out: Gadgets, heading Browser Gadgets, the final option labeled Suppress display of the fundraiser banner. That should take care of it. Jarkeld (talk) 22:36, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

See here. HalfShadow 22:40, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I do. With every restart of browser (relogin) I will see the banner again. Millions of people a forced to see the banner, EVEN after they do click on it and read the text. `a5b (talk) 09:05, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

A5b, when you click the little 'x' it is supposed to go away - even if you restart your browser. That's how it works for me. What browser are you using?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:44, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

That "little x" works inconsistently for me as well, on IE8, though it doesn't really bother me. LWG ^{I done wrong? Let me know!} 15:52, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Jimbo, thanks! It works. Have a good fundraising next time! `a5b (talk) 22:35, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Isn't there always a "Donate to Wikipedia" link on the left of the page? And didn't you meet your fund raising needs in record time? Does anyone think that thanking us by bothering us even more is really appropriate? Maybe a few do, but most should understand that you're grateful ... enough already. If you must bannerize us, leave it on the main page out of season. Season's over. 70.15.11.44 (talk) 13:18, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

As an aside to all of this, the banner can lead to...questionable situations, such as that one on Failblog. CycloneGU (talk) 03:34, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Announcement regarding traditional role

I was planning to announce today a relinquishment of some of my traditional powers, as I have been doing over a long period of time, however writing that up in a precise manner is proving to be more difficult than I thought, despite my having thought quite a bit about what steps to take next. I will make a further announcement about that soon.

— Jimbo Wales, 19:43, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Now that 2011 is in full swing, may I gently remind you of the above? While it may not be urgent, it would be unfortunate to let discussion lapse indefinitely, so if you can estimate when you might be able to make further comment on your position, that would be most helpful.

Thanks, Geometry guy 21:38, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

swamped with tenth anniversary activities until at least the fifteenth... --Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:57, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Presumably the fifteenth day of January, not the fifteenth anniversary :) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 23:08, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I know what such pressures are like, but find upper bounds more helpful that lower bounds: "by the end of January", perhaps? Geometry guy 23:25, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Jimbo announced on the internationally famous show hosted by Jon Stewart that he was, as of now, only a volunteer; and is willing to forego status as founder or co-founder. Isn't that enough? Must this be printed in triplicate and notarized? ("the rabblement hooted and clapped their chapped hands and threw up their sweaty night-caps and uttered such a deal of stinking breath because Caesar refused the crown that it had almost choked Caesar" http://nfs.sparknotes.com/juliuscaesar/page_26.html) Jimbo knows how to play his role. - WAS 4.250 (talk) 22:56, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Don't get too excited my friend. I have always been a volunteer.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 06:03, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes sir. ;) WAS 4.250 (talk) 00:10, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Cyberbullying

Does Wikipedia have a cyberbullying policy, in relation to interactions between editors, administrators, stewards etc? If so, could I be directed to it, please? if not, why not? Thanks. Time Will Say Nothing (talk) 04:18, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I think that WP:CIVIL would be what you are looking for. ~~ Hi878 ^{(Come shout at me!)} 04:21, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

(Jimbo, this one's epic; if you really wanna read through the drama this stems from, get some coffee first... Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 04:25, 7 January 2011 (UTC))

You would think that the OP would be well versed in WP:CIVIL given Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts#User:Time_Will_Say_Nothing. --Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 04:31, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

That was some interesting reading, I must say. I think I managed to find every snippet of that debacle. ~~ Hi878 ^{(Come shout at me!)} 05:09, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't call this whole situation cyberbullying at all. Rather, several users have tried to be helpful to TWSN and educate him on policy; in response he's flipped a penny at us each time and told us to buy a clue. His speech has been rather harsh as of late, and he's largely been ignoring every ounce of advice given him. —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Hyper Combo K.O.!)} 05:34, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Those who are in the frame, esp Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556, should not act as judge and jury in this. He or she is now seeking to have me blocked so i cannot pursue this justified allegation. Cyberbullying is a criminal offence. Seeking to silence the person making the allegation could be construed as obstructing the course of justice, Perhaps Wikipedia wants Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 to take them down that road? otherwise, i'd like to suggest a proper independent review of all this, not just a bland, self-intersted "oh, I've read it and there's nothing in it".

To Hi878, no you didn't read every snippet of that because a lot of it was on talkpages of pages I created that were then speedily deleted without warning to me. There are rogue editors and admins at work here. How much further will this be allowed to go? Time Will Say Nothing (talk) 06:20, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I've raised your behaviour at WP:ANI. Dougweller (talk) 06:34, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Time, I would like to tell you something. I am not saying anything about the content dispute, nor am I giving an opinion about the validity of what you have said people are doing, I am purely saying this: Regardless of whether or not the things you say are true, you are going about it in the wrong way. Responding to these attacks (whether they are real or not) with rudeness does not help anything at all. While not saying whether I think they are attacks or not, I think that either way, you should try to be polite; if people are polite to each other while having disputes, it can be resolved in a civil manner. Even if only one side is civil, it can still be resolved more quickly. Your responses have been anything but polite; trying to keep them civil will help you greatly. This is as far as I shall go with this matter. ~~ Hi878 ^{(Come shout at me!)} 06:44, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

In any case, he's blocked now for legal threats. Dougweller (talk) 07:46, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Regardless of this person's individual situation, the question is a valid question. Is there a harassment /bullying policy?--scuro (talk) 17:14, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

There's a userspace draft at User:Timtrent/Cyberbullying with some questions raised about it on its talk page. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 17:17, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

There are a few policies that cover some related issues: WP:HARASS, WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA. --- Barek (talk) - 17:22, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

The Simple English Wikipedia has a proposed policy/guideline at simple:Wikipedia:Cyberbullying. Albacore (talk) 21:59, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I like the Timtrent one, especially the contact the school part. The^FSAviator ( T • C ) 22:54, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

The issue needs work, posting on ANI is not always the best solution. For instance I have had a topic ban. ANI can be a free for all, and say for instance I posted that I had been bullied, there is the possibility that such a claim wouldn't be taken seriously and the focus would be on my past. The claim of longstanding harassment or cyberbulling should be examined regardless of extraneous details. Facts are easy to check, if an administrator has been told that such behaviour has occurred, someone should check up on it.--scuro (talk) 14:43, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that even if harrassment is investigated and the accused are cleared of wrongdoing, the accuser generally isnt satisfied. As I've seen, unless the accuser gets their way, they feel everyone else involved is participating in the harrassment and bulleying as Time Will Say Nothing (talk · contribs) is a good example of. By the way, my first time on Jimbo's talk page so *WAVE* @ Mr. Wales!--v/r - TP 01:18, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, I believe that WP:OUT may also apply to cyberbullying. Mr R00t ^{Talk 'tribs} 02:29, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

ideas from u

how did u get the idea of putting the wikipedia image for a typing globe (or whatever that is)?

69.236.166.22 (talk) 23:07, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

P.S. if u reply, please leave a talkback template on my talk page.

There was a community contest to choose the logo. The contest went through a few different stages. The result was amazing and wonderful. I'm sure someone can find the link to the history of that.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:14, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia logos provides some nice history of the logo (and I assume that it is the link that Jimbo is referring to). ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 23:18, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

At Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 October 21#Symbols on Wiki globe, someone mentioned the album design for Do It Yourself (The Seahorses album).

—Wavelength (talk) 3:34, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

more legal threats

Please check Talk:Giovanni_Di_Stefano_(businessman)#Sources. You already replied to a recent thread here, but there are new developments. --Enric Naval (talk) 18:58, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to just walk away from that article entirely. If you hear anything from the authorities in Spain, please do let me and the Wikimedia Foundation know immediately. However, without knowing for sure of course, I think the actual odds of that are so close to zero as to not even be worth giving a second thought. Time will tell.

I will add, not from a legal point of view but from a quality and BLP policy point of view, that I wouldn't personally consider the Sunday Mail to be a valid source for the allegation regarding Serbia. I think that for a claim that someone may have "funded genocide hit squads" we would ask for better than a tabloid newspaper quoting an allegation put forward by an unnamed witness buried in thousands of pages of testimony. Did other papers pick up the story?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:41, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I guess that someone has to do it. If I get any legal notification, I'll immediately send notice to you and the WMF. --Enric Naval (talk) 14:57, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that any other papers have picked that claim. I posted in the talk page that I would remove that claim, and another claim with similar problems, if nobody could provide good sources. --Enric Naval (talk) 14:46, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Undo feature

Why was the link of the word Undid removed when you press the undo button such as this compared to what it used to be for example? WAYNESLAM 19:22, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

I think that's because linking the word "undid" is unnecessary; most people understand what "undid" means – that you make a previous edit undone. HeyMid (contribs) 19:24, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

When will it be linked again? The newbies may not know what undo means. WAYNESLAM 19:27, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the word "undo" is pretty descriptive in itself. If a newbie saw the word "undo", he/she would know that that particular edit had been undone. The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 19:34, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes. You can still manually add the link. WAYNESLAM 19:36, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

...though it would be a pain to do so every time you hit "undo". HeyMid (contribs) 19:46, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

I did do it for a certain number of undos and it would be a waste of time to manually add it. WAYNESLAM 20:50, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Examples? BTW, I don't know what controls the default revert summary. HeyMid (contribs) 21:05, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

The link was removed per this Village pump proposal discussion. HeyMid (contribs) 21:19, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

It might be a good idea not to bother one editor with pretty much everything out there in Wiki's "Disneyworld".

I myself think it's embarrassing to turn to "papa-bear" whenever one might feel their point of view doesn't get enough weight and/or attention at the appropriate talkpage (or even before it's perceived that way). "Papa-bear" can't solve "individual's problems"and shouldn't constantly be ask for his opinion in matters that are meant to be discussed and solved by the community. "Papa-bear" is surely pretty much hooked up with more important things in real live (just like everyone else here?) and will sure voice his opinion in regards of issues he really has an interest in. He shouldn't be bothered [basically forced as this bear is a public figure] with everyday's Wiki-trivia . Maybe "Papa-bear" enjoys having his talkpage used like an internet-forum [Uh, that would be against policy and a potential speedy delete candidate] but one should be aware that he's not here to remove everyone's splinters. He most likely (and understandable to the open minded) has a hard time to voice his opinion openly and I took a blunt and wild? guess.TMCk (talk) 22:44, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

NPR

Listened to you on NPR today. Just wanted to say nice job. Funny thing is, I had just started talking to my mom about Wikipedia when we turned the radio to find you just about to start the interview. Funny how life can turn out that way. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 00:04, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Sarah Palin is responsible for Gabrielle Giffords' shooting

...or so Wikipedia says. Aren't you embarrassed, Jimbo, that Wikipedia is used in this way? The current article on the shooting is written to give the reader the clear impression that law enforcement believes Sarah Palin inspired the deranged shooter to target Giffords . I'm no fan of Palin, but this is shameful. TimBuck2 (talk) 15:50, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

I just read the article a little while ago (maybe two hours ago) and didn't get that impression at all. I will look at it again now, but it could be helpful if you would point me to a particular revision which makes that claim.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:58, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Addendum: I just took another look, and I don't see a single word in the article that suggests in any way that law enforcement believes that. I do see a brief and tasteful discussion of the fact that Giffords had criticized Palin's "target" website, and we even have Geraldo Rivera saying that the link to Palin is unfair, but that it is likely to affect Palin politically in the short term. None of that seems untoward to me.

Am I overlooking some sentence which in any way suggests that "law enforcement believes Sarah Palin inspired the deranged shooter"?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:03, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Tim, you are welcome to join in the discussion - there are media reports raising and opining about this. Currently the content is not in the Sarah Palin BLP discussion or the Gabrielle Gifford BLP discussion its addition has been resisted on those articles as we have an extremely high level of attention of the articles of living people - it has been added to the Tuscon shooting article as I have heard, but the wording may need tweaking, which you can discuss on the talkpage there and there are lengthy discussions on those talkpages and an even lengthier one on the WP:BLPN discussion Off2riorob (talk) 16:02, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Firstly, as far as the latest reports go, Gabrielle Giffords is still alive. Secondly, it would help if you made clear which article you are referring to. I think the only direct reference to Palin is currently in the 2011 Tucson shooting article, witch currently includes the following:

"The New York Times reported that the shooting raised concerns that American politics had become too heated. Giffords had previously criticized a website created by the Sarah Palin Action Committee that used the image of a cross hair on a US map to note targeted congressional seats for the 2010 midterm elections, of which Giffords' was one. The website was taken down soon after the shooting. Toby Harnden of The Daily Telegraph claimed that the left was quick to attack Palin, the Tea Party and Republicans despite the suspect's enigmatic political views. Geraldo Rivera of Fox News Channel remarked, "However unfair the link is, I think that this event affects Sarah Palin's at least short term political future."

All this is reporting is that the media (worldwide, incidentally) have commented on the link being made - they are not suggesting there is any connection, and neither are we - we are merely noting that the issue has been raised. Given the significant commentary that the 'map' has led to, to omit any mention at all would seem perverse. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:07, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

The article is rapidly changing. The version I saw doesn't actually say that Sarah Palin is responsible but is not written in compliance to Wikipedia's core policies. It's in a section titled "Apparent Target" but the cited source doesn't say anything about Giffords being targeted in the shooting because of Palin's map. Nor does it include Palin's condemnation of the shooting which is an apparent NPOV violation. Anyway, for now, it's been removed.[61] A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:09, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

2011 Tucson shooting contained the following content under the heading Apparent target: During the campaign Gifford and several other Democratic representatives were targeted for defeat by the Sarah Palin Action Committee, headed by Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska and 2008 Republican Vice Presidential candidate. On the committee's website an image of a gun's cross hair was placed on a map over the districts of targeted Democratic seats, including Giffords' district.[14] Giffords criticized the advertisement, noting that, “We’re on Sarah Palin’s targeted list. But the thing is the way that she has it depicted has the cross hairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they’ve got to realize there’s consequences to that.”[14] It was removed in this edit. TimBuck2 (talk) 16:11, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

That discussion seems perfectly fine to me. TimBuck2, I don't mean to be too firm, but you made some pretty bold claims up above. Again I ask, am I overlooking some sentence which in any way suggests that "law enforcement believes Sarah Palin inspired the deranged shooter"?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:21, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

The section in question started of with the statement "Gabrielle Giffords was reported to be the target of the attack" which is attributed to authorities in the reference, and then immediately goes into a discussion of how Sarah Palin "targeted" Giffords and put a gun sight on her. If you don't believe that there is a clear implication there, I will respectfully suggest that you are being naive. TimBuck2 (talk) 16:31, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

In reply to Off2riorob, the last person who brought this up on the talk page was called "desperate tea bagger", so I didn't feel welcome to bring it up again there. TimBuck2 (talk) 16:13, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

A definite WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL violation, IMO.[62] A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:19, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) That was a pair of edits by an anon from Australia. People who are new to Wikipedia often bring their internet-forum-honed civility habits with them when they start editing; it happens all the time. I'd suggest raising the issue anyway if the current version seems to tilt too far towards blaming Palin (last time I looked, I didn't think it did either). Antandrus (talk) 16:21, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm rather lost as to what anyone has to be "embarrassed" by, really. That someone added something that probably wasn't NPOV, which was subsequently removed? That will always happen under the model Wikipedia uses. Wasn't the first time, won't be the last. Resolute 16:38, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

I think we should be embarrassed by the way 2011_Tucson_shooting originally tied Palin to the shooting, even though it was eventually corrected, because it lasted quite awhile with so many eyes on it. And I think we should be embarrassed that it took an appeal (though a bit overdramatized) on this page to bring a mature, rational approach to it that couldn't be found through discussion on the article's talk page. Deli nk (talk) 17:45, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

The statement about the cross-hairs should be included - provided, that is, it is cited to a secondary source which discusses this in connection with the shooting (and there are many such sources). "NPOV" does not mean that you take out what one side has to say because you don't think that the other side has had "equal time". It means you fairly and comprehensively cover the information that is out there. I think that the deletion linked above is a perfect example of a very widespread and destructive pattern of editing at political articles on Wikipedia - so much so that if talking about them to a third party I would have to use terms like "biased" and "censored". Giffords complained about this apparent targeting for assassination in advance, and most of us (myself included) brushed it off as rhetoric - she doesn't deserve to have some Wikipedia star chamber deciding that even now, when they're reprinted all over the news (again), that her comments are still not worthy to be mentioned. Wnt (talk) 19:43, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

We could also just delete the Sarah Palin article per Wikipedia:Notability. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 07:42, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Education of Wikipedia editors

Wikipedia is terrible at teaching it's editors--no matter what we do. We make welcome notices, but they don't seem to help. We try to cooperate with newer users and vandals, but in some cases, they just don't get policy. I think we might need to redesign Wikipedia's "education" system, because whatever we have now, it isn't enough. --173.49.140.141 (talk) 17:51, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Now that I'm signed in, I'll continue. Simply, the best form of WikiEducation is our adoption program and self-WikiEducation. A welcome notice sometimes contains too many links--like mine, so I tl;dr'ed it. A short one doesn't work either--it doesn't have enough details. To simply put it, Wikipedia's "welcome" templates don't work. We welcome vandals, trolls, even future administrators--but many of them don't bother to read through the links. Shouldn't we make our welcome notices more detailed? But we need a lot more than that to improve our editor's WikiEducation. --Perseus, Son of Zeus 17:56, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

What if there were a software designed so that on your first edit you were automatically taken through a quick tutorial, with the option to skip? As for the vandals, there's nothing that's going to convince them to not do it, but honestly those are all well under-control and easy to deal with nowadays. The^FSAviator ( T • C ) 18:47, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

You're assuming a problem exists with no evidence? I see many 'educated wikipedians'. If your argument is that vandals exist, we're all aware of that, but to blame disruptive editing on the lack of some kind of initiation training... there's a logic gap there Jebus989^✰ 18:55, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

While I do agree that evidence is needed, I also think that anecdotal evidence does suggest that there is a need for better educational tools. Of course not all disruptive editing would be helped through better training tools, but easing entry for sincere and thoughtful and kind new editors would be a good thing for sure.

Good training has to avoid both being too simplistic *and* being tl;dr.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:30, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Expectations and norms of the Wikipedia community is attempting to address this. I understand your frustation I have particpating in the Wiki-community for almost a year now. I got the basics down fast but I am still learning the nuances of those basics. I am sad to say there is no good solution but I think more Wiki-for-Dummies type essays are good attempts and should be encouraged just because there is so much. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 23:04, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

I'll request that a brief tutorial be required before anyone can edit. I think IP editors should be allowed a low maximum number of edits. Then they should be required to register. I've just discovered I've been making a mess of links and footnotes without realizing it, and I still have no idea what these computer programmer types are talking about. (I'm not actually convinced I'm making such a terrible mess, ttytt.) Also, when I was new I did not understand the pillars or what is meant by "mainstream" or "original research." Some kind editors have helped me. Then there's the problem of enforcement. . . If there's a problem with that link, please notify me and instruct at my talk page. Nuff said. Yopienso (talk) 00:25, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Slightly off topic, but generally speaking, the project's entire user documentation is awful. Basically there's far too much of it, much of it is incomprehensible, and much of it is fudge resulting from various disputes (or attempts at law-making) that doesn't describe clearly - or even accurately - how we do things around here. (But try to reduce or clarify it and you'll soon come up against protests that you're committing the terrible sin of changing "long-standing" guidance.) We need a concerted effort to redesign the whole thing with a focus on making things clear, and not trying (unsuccessfully anyway) to legislate.--Kotniski (talk) 08:41, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

My IP address has made over 1,000 edits, and I'm eager to make more. What do you say to that? --Perseus, Son of Zeus 16:19, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I suggest a much longer tutorial for Wikipedians who already have been on here for a while (say, three months) be created--and for Wikipedians who have been here longer, for six months, for a year, for two years--there's just too many ways to help out, and the rule of IAR and all the policies--do you think a single Wikipedian could hold all that information in his/her head? Seriously? --Perseus, Son of Zeus 16:21, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Think this currently is only okay, in quality. --Perseus, Son of Zeus 21:15, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

People can only teach themselves. If they don't listen, you can't force them. Getting frustrated and becoming imposing doesn't improve the situation. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 07:44, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

First user on WIkipedia (besides you)

Who was the first user on WIkipedia (besides you), Mr. Wales, if you remember? I found RoseParks on January 21, 2001. --Perseus, Son of Zeus 18:06, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I did a post about early edits here: Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia's_oldest_articles#Logs, although it doesn't answer that particular question. It does tell you who had the first userpage, though. --FormerIP (talk) 20:31, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Jimbo, if you read this: One thing I did notice from reading the logs is that there are only 33 edits by the time of this edit [63] which is stamped at 20:08 on 16th Jan. Is it possible that, in UTC, Wikipedia actually began on 16th and not 15th? Just a thought. --FormerIP (talk) 20:46, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

No, it was absolutely the 15th. The first edit was mine, and it was "Hello, World!" on the home page. There is no reason to think that all the early edits were kept - the software back then only kept a few revisions rather than the entire history. Also, interestingly enough, usernames and passwords meant nothing - anyone could sign in as anyone.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:45, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

"...sign in as anyone."? So maybe someone else than you made that first edit? :)) TMCk (talk) 00:52, 12 January 2011 (UTC)Just kidding of course... TMCk (talk) 00:55, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I was likely an anon. :) I had just installed the software, after all.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:50, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Peregrine Cavendish

Answer to your comment on my user talk site.

How reliable should that source be? There is a family tree of the Dukes of Devonshire that can be found at the Cavendish Pavilion at Bolton Abbey, Yorkshire (the lower half of it http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v289/IrishCent/PeerageNews/IMG_1314.jpg).

And another one that was on display at the exhibition celebrating the 90th birthday of Her Grace the Dowager Duchess at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v289/IrishCent/PeerageNews/IMG_1997.jpg)

I took the pictures last spring during my visit there. IrishCent 09:54, 12 January 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Irishcent (talk • contribs)

Ok, I'm satisfied by these. Thanks. :)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:49, 12 January 2011 (UTC)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:49, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Dear Jimbo

Hi, this is user:Pudmaker, journalist of Kyungkyang Daily Newspaper of South Korea.

First of all, I'm very sorry for bothering you. I know you must be fully occupied with your job.

I sent a mail to you, but you still don't read it. I wonder if you are too busy to read it or just forget it.

Please read my e-mail and send me a reply mail. Then I can draw up an article about it, and also introduce your message to Korean Wikipedia community.

Again, sorry for demanding on you.

I think that your e-mail will be a good chance to bring up a mass attention on Wikipedia, and will be an encouragement to ko-wp users.

Hope you to write back to me soon.. Best regards. adidas (talk) 09:55, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Collaboration and dissent

At Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2011-01-10/News and notes#In brief, the second item is the following.

• "Four essays every Wikimedian should read!": On her personal blog, the Wikimedia Foundation's Executive Director Sue Gardner recommended Four essays every Wikimedian should read! from Less Wrong (a rationalist community blog co-founded by Eliezer Yudkowsky, see also the entry LessWrong on RationalWiki). As described by Gardner, the four postings are about "collaboration, dissent, how groups can work together productively". In another posting, she described her recent travels in India.
  

—Wavelength (talk) 22:02, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Invitation to edit trial: Update

Hi Jimbo. The invitation, with a medical mini-tutorial, has now been placed at the top of 20 medical articles. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 01:59, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia too complicated for many - my ugly mug

• - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12171977

Interesting comments from Jimmy - Interview with the BBC 14 Jan. - Off2riorob (talk) 12:18, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Style over substance: dashes vs. hyphens

FYI Talk:Poland–Lithuania#Requested_move; Wikipedia should seek to represent reality, not redefine and redesign it, as the case is being presented that "Wikipedians decided" a long time ago that dashes would be applied willy-nilly where hyphens are normally used; when it comes to country names like the ones under discussion, or hyphenated place names in the UK, France, Germany and countless elsewheres, this creates a "new standard" which was never seen before Wikipedia came into existence. The attitude that "Wikipedia knows better" when those speaking are claiming the entire encyclopedia's authority for their own opinion, is very very disturbing. Those advocating that Wikipedia impose its "style" no matter what hundreds, even thousands, of sources adn standard usages are, is just nonsense; it also, as I point out, creates a further load on servers because of all the redirects that will be required to satisfy this very vain demand that we all conform to what "Wikipedia" says. I don't think this was your purpose in creating this encyclopedia, was it? Wikipedia guidelines should not be cited as biblical edict and should certainly not be carved in stone, which is how such people are insisting we regard them.Skookum1 (talk) 22:21, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I must say that of all the issues that have been brought to me in the last 2 years, this is the one about which I know and care the least. :-) I hope people will try to relax about it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:17, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Editing wars fueled by WP:SOC and WP:MEAT

A well-respected administrator pointed this out to me. I soon realized that the eradication of these individuals is very difficult especially if one of the WP:SOC is an administrator. They are individuals who seemingly missed the imaginary boat in their life and they use Wikipedia to compensate for their perceived insignificance. They try to use Wikipedia to rewrite the part of history that wasn’t sufficiently rewarding to them. These people are far from being newbees. They appear to be knowledgeable and definite in their opinion. They use references that are mediocre at best. It is impossible to argue with them about highly reliable sources. Since they are WP:SOC and WP:MEAT , they act in concert. If you try to reason they will immediately declare edit war, which you can only lose on the basis of number of WP:SOC and WP:MEAT against you. You can get out of their grip by using highly reliable sources. The idea of Wikipedia as self-purification is an important one but unfortunately it may need some extra impetus. The question is how to go about eradicating WP:SOC and WP:MEAT efficiently while least disturbing the editors at large. Insistence on highly reliable sourced references is the issue rather then gender or identity. I hope that Jimbo can give some advice and encouragement. (Salmon1 (talk) 01:38, 15 January 2011 (UTC))

I'm afraid I can't give any advice until you tell me specifically who and what you are talking about. In general, I think people should not sockpuppet, and that highly reliable sourced references are really important. But you knew that already. :) So please give me more details of what you're going on about.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:14, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

AN/I notification

This is the required official notification that your work is being discussed WP:AN/I. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:05, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

A very happy tenth anniversary of Wikipedia!

HeyMid (contribs) has bought you a pint! Sharing a pint is a great way to bond with other editors after a day of hard work. Spread the WikiLove by buying someone else a pint, whether it be someone with whom you have collaborated or had disagreements. Cheers!

Spread the good cheer and camaraderie by adding {{subst:WikiPint}} to their talk page with a friendly message. Message received at 11:42, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Remuneration and fiscal report to Staff in WCJ2009・2010 and KOF2010 ２

I sent an email to WikiMedia Foundation by your guidance, but an answer does not come.

The event of wikipedia10 is done in Kyoto. Are the foundation or you doing the sponsorship to this?　The budget accounting is vague though it costs the fee of ￥5,500.This meeting place charter expense is ￥3,500 - ￥6,000 per one.Calculation grounds are unknown. --山吹色の御菓子 (talk) 13:07, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I have no information about this at all. Keep in mind - I don't work at the Foundation, I'm a volunteer like everyone else here, so I don't know every detail of what money is spent on. ￥6,000 is just around 72 US dollars, so honestly, I don't see what you're asking about.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:45, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

An income of WCJ2009 is 2,000yen×300=600000yen. In addition, put the miscellaneous income such as donations; and about a total of 700000yen.An income of wikipedia10 in Kyoto is 5500yen×50=275000yen.It is supposed that there are about around 1,000,000 yen business gross earnings of then.You participated in WCJ2009 and, by a former argument, approved a power of attorney grant to them.Therefore, you have the business responsibility. --山吹色の御菓子 (talk) 04:06, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Happy Anniversary!

Congratulations on ten outstanding years of Wikipedia! It's a truly amazing achievement, and the encyclopedia has come such a long way from those first basic edits. Here's to the next ten years, and beyond! --Dorsal Axe 00:00, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Hear, hear! --FormerIP (talk) 00:01, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Yay! - StillanIP ;) - 220.101 talk^\Contribs 03:53, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Lol. I guess Wikipedia's birthday is as good a day as any to have my username parodied. --FormerIP (talk) 03:56, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Congratulations from me as well. Cheers. --Meno25 (talk) 04:18, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

:D Congrats. --Perseus, Son of Zeus 17:26, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Congrats from me! Drinks all around! ^Jguy_Talk^Done 17:26, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

&&&&&

So, does the ampersand character work now? :) — Rickyrab | Talk 03:37, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Happy Birthday Wikipedia!

Thank you for creating Wikipedia. It isn't an ordinary person who can create something that will change the lives of millions if not billions of people, yet you have managed to do that. Wikipedia has become an important part of everyday life (including mine), probably only competing with Google. Its contribution to the distribution of knowledge throughout the world is unparalleled, and it continues to serve as a light for the masses whenever they are lost on a subject. May Wikipedia last forever! Happy birthday Wikipedia, and thank you Jimmy Wales. --Slon02 (talk) 16:15, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Stock market

Congratulations on 10 years of wikipedia. I bet its developed beyond your wildest dreams, but there is still an enormous amount of work in regards to improving content,research and quality and of course missing articles. I read an article in the Guardian today though Wikipedia unplanned miracle 10 years. Whilst the article was very encouraging I must say I was very disappointed to see somebody's claim that you didn't deny involving wikipedia with the stock market in the future and becoming "a billionaire". Here is the post that concerned me:

"Economist, Guardian and other mainstream neocon imperialist media outlets continue to heap underesved praise for Mr Jimmy Wales's ponzi scheme. Something is fishy in the ongoing media PR campaign.

Wikipedia have been begging for contrubutions however these contributions have become private property of Wikipedia, creators for example cannot remove their articles. Once you wrote it will be there bringing profits for Mr Wales and his ilk.

Presently Wikipedia is officially non-profit organization with lack of transparency regarding donations. It was said to collect 10 times more funds than it's necessary to run Wiki. Nobody knows where 9 parts out of 10 going, in whose pockets.

However Mr Jimmy Wales did not deny in recent interview that in future the encyclopedia will go public issuing shares and listing on stock exchange. Then dear contributors of Wiki you will know how your "free" labour will make Mr Jimmy Wales & Co billionaires."

Is there any truth to this Jimmy?♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:30, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Let me be perfectly clear: there is no truth to this whatsoever, top to bottom. What you have quoted is, let me be clear, insane ranting. (Just as insane as another comment I see there which proclaims me to be an "ex-CIA asset".)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:53, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

P.S. Here are our financial reports - the idea that we don't have transparency is false. The idea that we take in 10 times more than we need is also absolute nonsense. And finally, the Wikimedia Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. I don't own it. No one "owns" it - that isn't how nonprofit corporations work. Even if I wanted to do so - and I don't - I couldn't "go public" and make billions.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:58, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm very glad to hear it. But you know just how many would read the comments by trolls like that and be put off contributing to wikipedia because of it. Its a wonderful project with massive future potential for improvement and growth, but if it gets into the wrong hands I really fear for its future. As long as donations keep coming in, we develop the site to the best of our ability in nurturing it to its maximum potential as a resource and nobody gets too greedy then it should continue to flourish..♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:30, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm having a hard time imagining that the comment cited was anything but pure trolling. --Conti|✉ 14:37, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

I was checking the calendar, but it's not yet April 1st. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:38, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Congratulations...

Congratulations... on finally appearing on the Main Page. Oh, and on the tenth anniversary of Wikipedia. It's looking less like Nupedia and more like Oldpedia. But seriously, here's to ten years of a remarkable enterprise on which I am among the proud millions and millions to work. Congrats. Valley2city^‽ 16:07, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

WikiExperts.us selling editing to corporations

WikiExperts.us Capitalizes on Pent-up Demand for Wikipedia by www.thehostingnews.com
—Wavelength (talk) 16:56, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Happy tenth!

Perseus, Son of Zeus has bought you a pint! Sharing a pint is a great way to bond with other editors after a day of hard work. Spread the WikiLove by buying someone else a pint, whether it be someone with whom you have collaborated or had disagreements. Cheers!

Spread the good cheer and camaraderie by adding {{subst:WikiPint}} to their talk page with a friendly message. Message received at 18:46, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

--Perseus, Son of Zeus 18:46, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Happy Wiki Birthday

Happy Wiki Birthday Jimbo! Thanks for creating such a great site 10 years ago today. Did you have a good Wiki Birthday? Thomas888b (talk) 20:35, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Happy 10th Jimbo  :)

File:Verre de whisky.jpg

Happy 10th anniversary of Wikipedia!

Baseball Watcher ^{Lets Chat} has bought you a whisky! Sharing a whisky is a great way to bond with other editors after a day of hard work. Spread the WikiLove by buying someone else a whisky, whether it be someone with whom you have collaborated or had disagreements. Enjoy!

Spread the good cheer and camaraderie by adding {{subst:User:HJ Mitchell/WikiScotch}} to their talk page with a friendly message. Message received at 23:27, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Given the contents of this page, it will be a miracle if Jimmy is still standing by the end of this evening. Risker (talk) 01:21, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

File:Pie.jpeg

Slon02 (talk) has given you a fresh pie! Pies promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by giving someone else a piping hot pie, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Bon appetit!

Spread the tastiness of pies by adding {{subst:GivePie}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

It'll be better if you eat something to go along with all of those drinks. ;) Once again, thank you. --Slon02 (talk) 02:57, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Attracting more female editors

Jimbo, I heard you say in a recent interview that something like 85% of Wikipedians are male, possibly because of the tech-geek aspect. I have a few suggestions:

• Enable WYSIWYG editing, similar to what they have on Wikia. Code of any kind (even wikitext) may scare some away.
• Make wikitables easier to edit.
• Encourage more women to become administrators. I assume that about 90% of administrators are male, possibly creating an unintended patriarchy.

Let me know what you think. Sincerely, --Confession0791 ^talk 23:12, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Have an intuitive, easy to use interface on Wikipedia that doesn't look like it came straight from the 1980s? Ha! In all seriousness, there is mw:mw:WYSIWYG editor, which basically says it's not happening any time soon. Buddy431 (talk) 04:22, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

This has also come up numerous times at the help desk. There was an interesting discussion just a few days ago on the editing interface issue. Buddy431 (talk) 04:26, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

If Wikia, which is only a step above Facebook, can develop a compatible WYSIWYG program, there's no reason in the world MediaWiki can't develop a good WYSIWYG editor. --Confession0791 ^talk 04:48, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

• Isn't the gist of this..."we have to make editing easier so girls won't be scared away!"...a little insulting? Tarc (talk) 04:55, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

• That's what I thought when I first read that. ~~ Hi878 ^{(Come shout at me!)} 05:11, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm only going by what Jimbo said. I'm not implying that women aren't technically inclined, I'm saying they usually don't get into the technical aspects if they don't have to for one reason or another. --Confession0791 ^talk 05:24, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

• • Or, perhaps "How can we make the atmosphere less toxic so more women don't leave in disgust when they first try and join in?" I think that's a bit less offensive, and perhaps a bit truer to reality. Jclemens (talk) 06:21, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

What examples can you cite that makes Wikipedia atmosphere "toxic to women that makes them leave in 'disgust'?" If you can effectively cite these examples, what do you propose to remedy these? --Confession0791 ^talk 06:29, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Will N=1 suffice? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:31, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Huh? Please clarify. --Confession0791 ^talk 06:45, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

It refers to a statistical sample size of 1, that is, moi. However, the "toxic to women" is also wrong-- Wiki is toxic to both genders, just a bit more dangerous for women. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:15, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Ugh, Confession, the premise of your post seems to be that we need to dumb things down for women. I think Jclemens is more on track; when I came to Wiki, I quite deliberately chose a username that could equally be male or female, and didn't divulge my gender for years. And that wasn't because I'm dumb (although I may be :). Um, I wrote some code in my day, and managed a graduate degree in engineering. But I also don't think it's possible to attract a higher proportion of women than men to an environment like Wiki; a disproportionate number of Wikipedians evidence neurobiological or psychological diagnoses, and almost all of those have a higher prevalence among males. And women are usually busy IRL. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:28, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

[edit conflict] As I've stated, I'm only replying to what Jimbo said in the interview. My goal is to provide suggestions on expanding the base editors of the site. Maybe I should have approached this from a different angle. WYSIWYG editing may make wikipedia editing more accessable to more people, female and male, who would be otherwise be put off by code of any type. --Confession0791 ^talk 06:40, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

While a bit less jaded than those posting above me (something I hope doesn't change too much!), I would agree that the wikicode is not the primary issue driving away female editors—however, I've found the complex maze of help pages to be rather intimidating as a new user, and improving that would be a good way to attract more "serious" editors of whatever gender without the influx of spam that a WYSIWYG interface would no doubt induce as a side-effect. The final suggestion re admins is perhaps more relevant to females as a group, though; I've observed that (in the IRC help channel or otherwise) female newbies often tend to prefer interacting with me because of my clearly female pseudonym. Speaking of IRC, its nature as a more social form of interaction would make it an attractive aid to assimilation for female editors if not for two things: the intimidating interface and the rather crude nature of a lot of the conversation that goes on there. The lack of gender balance here is self-reinforcing in that aspect; like it or not, the core of our community often functions in a way that is initially incomprehensible or even offensive to many females. sonia♫ 06:37, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

That's why it is unacceptable that our administrators are almost entirely male. I'm not misogynist for saying that. --Confession0791 ^talk 06:43, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Adminship and gender

The gender of those admins listed at Wikipedia:List of administrators/Active (note that this list includes a couple of bots) - Kingpin¹³ (talk)

Since we're talking a lot about admins here, I did a bit of research and made the pie chart (to the right) based on Wikipedia:List of administrators/Active and which option those users have picked at Special:Preferences. In reply to Confession0791, that seems a slightly circular argument, you're saying that to get more female editors, we need more female editors/admins. So therefore we need more female editors/admins? No. I think the main point which has been ignored here thus far, is why do we need more female editors? Once that's answered then it's easier to discuss what course of action to take.
Personally I feel the main reason for it is to achieve a diversified userbase, to in turn cover a broader range of content (furthering Wikipedia's main goal). I believe Jimbo has mentioned something along these lines before in some talk: that due to Wikipedia's users being mainly tech-savvy males, Wikipedia's technology related content is very good, but other areas are neglected. So, let's try and focus this conversation a little bit more on content.
I feel that part of the reason Wikipedia retains tech-savvy males more is because at the moment, the content (being written mostly by tech-savvy men) is about stuff they are interested in. So there's plenty for them to do in areas they actually find interesting. But it's a less exciting editing experience for women who are more interested in... say, uhh, cooking (just using this topic as an example {{=)|wink}}). If Wikipedia's content was more focused on cooking, I dare say that the userbase would be drastically different, despite it running on exactly the same software. This is more apparent over at Wikia, where they do have a cooking project and many wikis for certain topics. The recipes.wikia has 6 admins out of which 1 is male, 1 female, and the rest unknown. So basically the point I'm trying to make is, it's not just the software we should be concentrating on here. As to actually changing the content to better suit more women (and I know I'm stereotyping a lot in my comment here) this is more complex. Women will only come to edit here if they like the site (i.e. if they like the content here), and they will only get content they like if they start to edit (since not many of our current users are going to want to write about Barbies.. or whatever). So it's again a slightly circular situation.
Another point to consider, Wikipedia is on the internet. That Wikipedia's userbase is mainly tech-savvy males makes sense, since it's a website. It's a fairly typical userbase for any website of this type. Using Wikia as an example again. There are undoubtedly more of these "men geeks" interested in editing then women, as evidenced by the bigger wikis being on topics like Runescape, Star Wars, and Star Trek. Some sites of course (I'm thinking Facebook, although I'm not actually sure what their male:female ratio is like) manage to get around this, so there's some slight chance Wikipedia may be able to do so too (I'm thinking this would also require further interface changes, not just content change (as even though content changes improve the ratio (see earlier talking about recipes.wikia and Cooking etc.), they do not help improve the actual volume of female/male editors (as shown by the geek-wikia-wikis being much more popular)). However, so far the approach to making interfaces more "friendly" by both Wikia and Wikimedia (to a lesser extent), seems to be to turn any plaintext or "old" looking links in sight into obtrusive gradient buttons and hope more users turn up. Wikia's interface is now very, very horrible, slow and difficult to navigate (from what I've seen of it, and what their users say), and following them down the path of WYSIWYG editing as suggested (or following them down any path for that matter) is not the way to go (however, I think some users may be surprised to know that some programs such as OpenOffice allow you to export documents into wikimarup). - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 10:12, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

P.S. Ratio of active male admins to active female admins is 155 : 14, meaning your assumption of 90% of admins being male isn't far out (it's 91.7% according to the ratio). However, I wouldn't be surprised if a higher proportion of females didn't reveal their gender than males, in which case the actual percentage is lower. I'm interested how the 85% figure came about, and if this was taken into account then, have to say I've lost faith in these "official" statistics after the whole pending changes nonsense (question for Jimbo to answer I suppose). - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 10:36, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think you'll ever get the ratio to 50-50 as long as we aren't required to use our real name, post our pictures, and give a short bio of ourselves. That might just be my take, though. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 11:27, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

A significant number of women are concerned about cyber-stalking, hence are loathe to reveal identities. The percentage online is, however, vastly greater than the old 10% from the 1980s. I suspect that nearly 50% of users are female now for this project, and about 30% of editors are female. The claim that 15% of sysops are female sounds likely correct. I sincerely doubt that the interface has anything at all to do with these demographics. And with bots chasing down errors in coding, just let folks edit and let bots fix the problems, as they now do for ref tags and the like. Collect (talk) 13:29, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I suspect you're right, but it would be good to have data. If someone associated with Wikipedia e-mailed 100 randomly chosen admins identifying as "unknown" in the pie chart above, and asked them with assurance of confidentiality whether they were male or female, you might get a better idea of the overall rate of female admins. Wnt (talk) 14:10, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Those stats would not be necessarily accurate either. Standard deviations eat you up alive :). For admins, I suspect they already have some better data than is shared. For general editors -- IP editors are a big problem for such a survey - the best we could hope for is some level of confidence for registered editors with a sampe of, say, 400 or more. Collect (talk) 14:22, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

It would surely help attract and keep more of all of the right sorts of editors, male and female and anywhere in between, if we (a) made the interface better (but we know developers are too busy to make even the most basic improvements, so that probably isn't going to happen unless the board's got some money to throw at the problem); (b) kept the atmosphere pleasant; (c) wrote the guidance for editors in a compact and user-friendly way; (d) found a way of making good, serious editors feel that the system would protect their work against the ignorant or biased ones (I'm not saying I have such a system, but it's something worth thinking intensely about).--Kotniski (talk) 13:44, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Maybe Jimbo can clarify exactly what was said in the interview, what his answer implied, and weigh in on possible solutions. --Confession0791 ^talk 14:56, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

The interview is here, but it's quite short and doesn't really say much more than has already been covered above. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 15:07, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Adding to Kingpin's comments. First, "Wikipedia's technology related content is very good": it is? I don't think so :) Relative to other areas, maybe, but have a look, for example, at Computing and Engineering and technology at Wikipedia talk:Featured article statistics#Sep 16 2010. Second, the issue of stalking is a problem for all editors, and just a bigger problem for female admins or editors; becoming an admin (or a higher profile editor) increases the likelihood of harassment or stalking, and is something that keeps many editors from RFA-- not just females. BTDT. Third, why on earth would we want to further the problems in the admin corp by seeking to promote more females? We should promote admins based on qualifications and experience, not gender. And finally, why on earth are we focusing on gender when we have so much sociodemographic underrepresentation on Wiki, and we have several female arbs? We have much bigger problems to address, unrelated to gender and that affect the neutrality of our articles-- take a look at the entire suite of Venezuelan POV articles, as an example. I believe I'm the only female working in that area, but gender is not the problem there. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:23, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, thanks for those stats, very interesting. As I said I was sterotyping a lot, and just repeating what I'd heard about the technology content being "good". Also, "good" is the wrong word really. Better to describe it as being broad in coverage, and more importantly there being many active users who edit in those areas (editing in a topic-area all on one's own-some can be unrewarding). Interesting to see that Warfare is so high on that list. I agree with you that we shouldn't be trying to influence RfA to promote more female candidates... I suspect that happens enough already (we're fickle like that ;D). But I do think it's important to note that the percentage of male admins seems to be higher than the percentage of male editors. As to focusing too much on gender, again I agree with you somewhat. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 15:24, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Adding another point, we shouldn't assume gender is a factor in content contributions-- most of the cooking editors I've encountered have been male, and Saffron, our first Featured topic, was written by a male editor (I think). And, surprisingly, many of our MilHist editors are female. (Your cooking generalization didn't bother me-- understood it was an example :) I haven't watched the interview linked above, but the premise that we need more female editors is all wrong; we need more good editors from a broader sociodemographic base. Just as we need more good admins, and less bad ones. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:39, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Female editors and why editors leave Wiki

Wikipedia:Missing Wikipedians has explanations for the departures of some Wikipedians.

—Wavelength (talk) 15:53, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

The vast majority of Wikipedians I know who have left did so because Wiki does next to nothing to rein in POV pushers and tendentious editors, and they simply tire of it. One comes here, enthusiastic to build content, and quickly finds that most of their time is spent in dispute resolution, dealing with editors who should have been shown the door long ago. Yet, most often, those editors aren't shown the door, while good editors are. Nothing whatsoever to do with gender. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:00, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Amen sister! That is the overwhelming reason I stopped (in fact never really started except for an edit here or there) editing Wikipedia, although I keep hanging around and watching in hope that Wikipedia will get a clue and do something about the problem. But in the three years I've been watching, it's gotten worse, in fact much worse, rather than better. As a retired statistician (female) I find the premise of this thread insulting; several times last night I started to respond but decided I was too annoyed to respond calmly. I'm glad to see now that the thread has taken a somewhat better direction than the we need to make it easier for their inferior brains to grasp assumption it seemed to be based on initially. That attitude right there would be a secondary reason for an intelligent educated woman not to want to bother sticking around here. (BTW, I'm surprised no one seems to know where that 15% came from; if I'm not mistaken it came from that big anonymous survey of Wikipedia editors and readers that was done a year or two ago, with something over 100,000 Wikipedia editors responding, and if so, it's probably the most valid estimate available of participation by gender.) But no, believe me, it's not that it's too mentally challenging to edit Wikipedia that inhibits me. It's the toxic environment, the way editors with an agenda not only attempt to inject their particular ideology or theory or whatever into the content, but the way they go after anyone who is just trying to get the encyclopedia to neutrally reflect the consensus of reliable sources that I find most distressing and offputting. The disrespect shown to women here is a secondary concern. And yes, I did find that once I inadvertently let slip that I'm a woman, I started being treated with less respect and more contempt. Not by everyone, but by some. Woonpton (talk) 16:42, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I think many of us would echo those sentiments - but are there any specific ideas as to what steps could be taken to detoxify the environment? --Kotniski (talk) 16:57, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

"Amen, sister" is right !!! The only thing I might take issue with is whether there was sampling bias in that 15%-- I, for one, never respond to those kinds of surveys, partly out of privacy concerns, which may affect women more than men). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:59, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Bullying is a problem in certain areas of Wikipedia. I prefer that people are nice and use constructive criticism, but sometimes an editor just has to have his (and I think it's usually "his") way (as of yet, I haven't come across an obviously female bully on Wikipedia, and hardly any obviously male ones, either). So what to do? Vigorously enforce WP:CIVIL and WP:3RR, I guess. — Rickyrab | Talk 18:19, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

I very much agree that bullying is a significant problem (as it is in real life). However, I have had experience with female editors who are bullies, for what that's worth (and no, I'm not naming names). --Tryptofish (talk) 00:26, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

If you haven't come across "bullying" (a curious term) on Wiki by female editors, you should get around more. Some of them frequent "bullying" forums off-Wiki; in fact, it is one of their main issues, and they know how to do it well. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:26, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Sexually explicit harassment of female editors

One of the things that I have find most difficult to deal with as someone who has publicly revealed that I am female, is the sexually explicit harassment. (For those who are able, take a look at the deleted edits of my user page to see a small example of what I mean.) I'm not afraid to say that women can be sensitive to this kind of thing, and are less likely to stick around after being repeatedly called a "whore" (or whatever), than if a guy is repeatedly called a "homo" (or whatever). On any online forum where people can contribute anonymously, women are frequent targets of this type of behavior, but I think Wikipedia could do better to control it. Too often these harassers have to be given three or four polite little warnings to stop before an admin will consider blocking them. Deli nk (talk) 16:59, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Although it comes under WP:CIVIL, perhaps there should be a tougher rule about that particular type of thing (directed at women or men, I mean, not a special rule for the ladies). --FormerIP (talk) 17:03, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Just as an aside, there has been a whole lot of psychological research done on the differences between male and female communication styles: Men tend to make strong, didactic assertions, treat conversational turn-taking as a matter of status, and tend to escalate verbal conflicts; women tend to suggest or ask rather than assert, use turn-taking as a way of eliciting cooperation, and generally monitor the emotional states of the people they are talking to far more than men do. Unfortunately, internet fora such as this tend to privilege male communication styles: it's easy to make didactic assertions, hard to monitor the emotions of others, and conversational balancing tools (like turn-taking signals, tone of voice, and non-verbal cues) are more or less entirely absent. creating a gender-balanced internet forum would be an interesting but difficult task; I'm not sure how I'd begin on it, and I'm no slouch on these issues. --Ludwigs2 17:26, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Hmmmm ... yes ... Several female editors frequently work to defuse conflicts between male editors on my talk page, and we do tend to fall into the gender generalities you mention above, and approach the issues differently. Sometimes we're even effective :) But another factor is that many of us have already raised our children, and would show the immature disruptive editors the door much quicker when discussion fails, knowing a thing or two about discipline. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:36, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Deborah Tannen has, by means of lectures and books, discussed cultural and gender differences in conversational styles.

—Wavelength (talk) 01:42, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually, that factor doesn't bother me at all; I'd much rather people think I'm a "fat whore" than know what I look like and stalk me for that :) That problem is much more dangerous. And men get called equally bad things here. No, I think the bigger harassment problem is the one mentioned by Woonpton, and it affects the neutrality of our content and the willingness of educated and intelligent editors to contribute. And I strongly believe that ArbCom has not done enough to rein in the POV pushers and tendentious editors-- I park that buck on their doorstep. And the undue focus on civility is absurd, considering the extent to which our content is affected by POV pushers and tendentious, disruptive editors. No, Wiki's problems are much bigger than gender, and the toxic environment is furthered by the failure to show bad editors the door quickly, while good editors are hounded by admins over relatively minor issues. The focus on CIVIL is already ridiculous, considering bigger problems from TEND and DISRUPT. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:07, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

You think there's an excessive focus on civility? It doesn't seem to have had much effect in some of the areas I've observed. But I don't think there needs to be any conflict between the priorities - offensiveness no doubt deters many editors (if not you and me personally), POV pushing no doubt deters many editors. We can tackle both problems at the same time, and probably using some of the same mechanisms - but first we need some concrete ideas as to what those mechanisms should be, in one or both case(s).--Kotniski (talk) 17:17, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I was visiting my sister in Kentucky and I'd left my talk page open. She read it and expressed interest in getting involved in Wikipedia. When I thought of what people would do to her and her first well-intentioned edits, I shuddered. Literally. There are a lot of Uriah Heeps in Wikipedia, and I couldn't in good conscience throw my sister to the wolves. Wikipedia is too tolerant of malignant editors, and when those editors also make worthwhile contributions, they're practically untouchable. We need to focus more on reining in the cowboys and building the community. --JaGa^talk 17:20, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

What's an Uriah Heep? — Rickyrab | Talk 18:25, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

see Uriah Heep! Regards, Lynbarn (talk) 18:37, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

I think many of our admins are so unversed in content building, that they are literally not capable of dealing with TEND and DISRUPT and content disputes, so they focus instead on civility. If would be wonderful if we tackled both problems at the same time, but the trend at RFA is in the direction now of promoting even more admins who aren't equipped to deal with those issues, and are more likely to hand out civility blocks, while every significant content issue I've brought to AN/I gets absolutely no feedback. I think if we give tools to those who have not demonstrated competence in the areas where we most need them, they'll use those tools ineffectively. And I think we could fix that by having some criteria for adminship, so RFA would work more like WP:FAC with WP:WIAFA, with 'crats having some discretion to decide if criteria are met, so it will be less of a popularity vote and editors aspiring to adminship would have to either build content to learn about real conflict, or demonstrate real proficiency in other specialized areas where they need the tools. Solutions: fix RFA (it will never happen), and get the arbs to take a harder line on disruptive editors, where TEND and DISRUPT are more urgent than CIVIL (it could happen) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:29, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I suspect ArbCom is almost entirely irrelevant to these matters - we need hands-on, real-time problem solving, not the retrospective retribution that ArbCom tends to deal in. But I certainly think that we should be encouraging good and experienced content-builders to become admins, and also giving them effective powers to sort out disputes in an orderly manner. --Kotniski (talk) 17:43, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I disagree. ArbCom frequently gives quarter to disruptive editors, and pushes the problem back on the community via Arb Enforcement, and the community can't deal with it. Even editors who are supportive of certain points of view felt that the sanctions in the Climate Change case weren't strong enough; I could give many such examples, but won't open that can of worms. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:46, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, so I see "the community can't deal with it" as a (solvable) problem with the community, not with ArbCom. The disruptive editors that we think drive people away will have done that damage long before ArbCom get round to dealing with them.--Kotniski (talk) 17:53, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

The community can't deal with it as long as we continue to promote admins who don't know policy, haven't build content, and haven't dealt with the conflict that comes from building content-- they will instead hand out blocks to the wrong editors for the wrong reasons, while ignoring the bigger problems. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:00, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Since the declaration of gender is not required there is no direct way to know i.e. the real gender of SandyGeorgia. In his words: "I'd much rather people think I'm a "fat whore" than know what I look like and stalk me for that." If the real name is irrelevant the gender will have to follow suit. It is important to pay attention to the rules of Wikipedia, which in my experience protects correct editors against disruptive once. The beauty of Wikipedia is its self-purification process. (Salmon1 (talk) 17:37, 13 January 2011 (UTC))

SandyGeorgia self-identifies as a female, what more do you need? Also, please refer to her as one or it looks like you're calling her a liar, especially in the context that you quote "him". As to real names, real names are not going to realistically represent a bias (people with the name "James" aren't any more likely to be more interested in books for example), but real names do give a means of identification which gender does not. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 17:54, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I disagree Kingpin :) As I've said before, for all you know, I'm the Queen of Sheba :) Remember the Essjay factor; even when we self-identify, the truth is, we have limited means of knowing if anyone here is who they say they are, so I'm not troubled at all when a good-faith editor refers to me as "he". SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:58, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think enforcing civility is a bad idea at all; the problem is many admins enforce it in a superficial and edit-count biased way. TEND and DISRUPT are both civility issues, they are just more subtle and pervasive civility issues. They are easy to miss when the people on the other side are angry newbs.

If you ask me, the real problem on wikipedia lies in social training. just from personal experience, when I first started editing I came in with the assumption that discussions here would be polite and reasonable. Unfortunately, one of the early articles I started on was a pseudoscience article, and I ran afoul of a couple of very experienced editors with very distinct attitude problems (one of them has reformed, mostly, and the other has either left the project or changed names, so no sense calling them into it). Round about the third time they got me blocked I learned that civil discourse has no value on wikipedia unless you're capable of being a big enough bastard to make civil discourse seem like the easier option. it's sad, but now take the TR "walk softly and carry a big stick" paradigm to heart, and I am not at all loathe to use that stick when I need to. I never would have gotten to be the hard-nosed jerk I can most assuredly be on project if I hadn't had such dedicatedly bad teachers. --Ludwigs2 17:50, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't agree that TEND and DISRUPT are civility issues (although those editors sometimes also have civility issues); have you heard of civil pov-pushing? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:54, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

ArbCom and the free editing process with demands of references from highly reliable sources are the ultimate success of Wikipedia. Forceful editors with protection of Wikipedia:Sock puppetry can be very harmful. Women are as capable as men. There are no “fat whores” but caring and feeling human beings with high capacity for empathy. We need to treasure that capacity for empathy yet still stand up against destructive activities. (Salmon1 (talk) 18:24, 13 January 2011 (UTC))

@ Sandy: I tend to draw the civility line at the point where editors stop responding to reason and common sense and start trying to use force of some sort to get their way. Civil POV-pushers are annoying, but I tend to respect the right of an editor to have a POV. so long as they are discussing the issue, using sources, and showing at least some ability to listen to others and work towards a common goal, I don't mind if they push their views a little. I start to get annoyed when editors start doing things I consider rude: repeating the same point over and over, refusing to acknowledge or compromise with a different opinion, running policy gambits, getting personal and/or insulting. all of those are uncivil in my book, and that covers most of TEND and DISRUPT. Really, there are just certain rules of conversation that need to be respected first, before you can have anything like a consensus discussion; If even one person isn't respecting those rules, the whole thing falls apart. --Ludwigs2 19:54, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

You know, just as an odd thought, maybe what we need on project is some equivalent of Big Brothers/Big Sisters - not so much mentorship for newbies, but just experienced users who are willing to give a sympathetic ear, moral support, and maybe (occasionally) a small scale intervention while people are learning the ropes. nothing quite like a friend on project to buck up the spirits in a dark moment, yah? --Ludwigs2 02:47, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I apologize for my implications at the beginning of this thread. I never meant to imply that women were incapable of editing wikitext. That's the way it came across, and I'm sorry. Maybe I need to reassess my thinking. Forgive me for being a dolt. --Confession0791 ^talk 09:12, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Btw, we should crack down on personal attacks, harassment, stalking, etc. If they do it four times before they get blocked, they still cause irrepairable damage. --Confession0791 ^talk 09:21, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I've always found Wikipedia's approach to blocking to be rather perverse. It's used as a weapon against established editors who are perceived to have committed some (possibly quite small) sin, but it is not used (as least, not without fuss beforehand) in the case where it's crying out to be used - against users who have patently come here purely to be disruptive. We should be blocking vandals and the grossly offensive on sight (I don't mean if they've just made one or two edits and gone away, because it's not worth anyone's time bothering about them, but if it looks like they might be going to do more damage, then we certainly shouldn't worry about their feelings if thinking about blocking them). However established editors probably almost never need to be blocked - if their behaviour is inappropriate, it needs to be pointed out to them (with increasing levels of forcefulness) what they're doing wrong, then (if they keep doing it) be expressly forbidden from certain actions, with blocks only being necessary if they can't obey those restrictions. We also need to remember that blocks are not the only remedial action - all edits can be reversed, and the removal of offensive posts should become more routine and acceptable (and restoring them unacceptable), since that not only sends a sharp message to the offensive poster, but also removes the temptation to others to respond in kind (and the poisoning of the atmosphere for bystanders).--Kotniski (talk) 11:25, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

When I'm active about tackling the vandals and the grossly offensive, I'm sometimes chided for biting the noob. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:42, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

If a new user immediately starts harassing another editor, then in my view it should be assumed that WP:BITE does not prevent you from taking action. Same with a vandal, so long as we are talking about blatant vandalism as opposed to inappropriate editing. --FormerIP (talk) 19:11, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes. "New users" shouldn't be taken to include abusers.--Kotniski (talk) 19:14, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Female vs male editors

The reason why Wikipedia has less female than male editors is because editing it is a technical hobby. Even today, women are still less interested in technical hobbies than men. This is a purely cultural and sociological problem -- it has nothing to do with how Wikipedia works. I would especially oppose any kind of "dumbing down" of WP to attract more female editors. Let's fix society instead. Wikipedia isn't faulty in this respect. Nanobear (talk) 18:09, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

This whole discussion shows a major flaw: the question "how do we get more XYZ?" is one of those quantity-assumptions (just like people cheered when the 3-million-mark was hit). The question should be "how do we get more good XYZ and get rid of the bad XYZ?"^{[Sandy is right]} Just saying... Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 18:11, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

• How Women and Men Use the Internet, Pew Research Center. Some of that may help explain why some female

editors are more apt to engage in on-Wiki off-topic banter; we think it helps build community and retain editors. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:22, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Nanobear: I agree that the geeky nature of WP is probably a factor in it attracting more male than female editors. At the same time, though, it is probably not the case that any one factor explains this on its own. Anything about WP that is a put-off for women ought to be addressed if it can be, even if it is only responsible for 2% of the problem.

I also don't think the suggestions about making the interface more user-friendly and discouraging combative editing constitute "dumbing down". --FormerIP (talk) 18:43, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I think we should not try to "attract more females". We should simply aim to create the best possible encyclopedia. Giving special treatment or consideration to either of the two sexes is the cause of the problem, not the solution. If everyone would treat the two sexes in exactly the same way, all aspects of society would be completely gender equalitarian. Nanobear (talk) 18:55, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

IMHO, Female "techno-geeks" have the worst time of anyone here, I think! Competence combined with female character that asks instead of shoves seems to attract the harshest form of attack, even if we try to keep our gender unknown -- the style still comes through. Personally, "POV pushers and tendentious editors" are my number one problem, and WP is a place that tends to run off anyone who isn't able to dig in their heels and fight being bullied by a bunch of disgruntled people with poor social skills, of whatever gender. The bottom line is that there DOES have to be a cultural shift overall, but part of it is to recognize that to build an encyclopedia requires discussion and consensus, which are ideals of wikipedia and well-suited to people socialized as female, but the problem is that the ideal is not enforced. The tendentious editor goes on making completely frivolous arguments without being called on their crap, and then when the legitimate content editor finally blows his or her lid, then THEY are the one slapped. That makes no sense whatsoever. As for the "dumbing down," the technical stuff is not that challenging to learn (no more difficult than figuring out the changes Microsoft did to Word this week... we deal with markup commands all the time) but the help pages are pretty daunting to anyone trying to figure things out initially and the wizard is even worse. More user-friendly "how to get started" pages would be a help, I think. I also think a handy-to find, dedicated mentor core for newbies would be nice. As far as female-friendly stuff goes, to be able to touch bases with a live person quickly and easily would be useful as long as it was public, short term and not creepy. IRC probably not suitable, but just having help more accessible would be good. Montanabw^(talk) 00:11, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Many differences between male and females are due to testosterone. Taking testosterone makes females almost as strong as men, as East Germany's sporting achievements demonstrate. Count Iblis (talk) 23:59, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I think it's condescending to try to "attract more females" by making vague assumptions about how women are supposed to be different, but it would be practical to survey editors who have self-identified as women and ask them what the main problems are with Wikipedia, and what they like best about it. Then see if the problems (especially) can be given a higher priority. Someone did that above, pointing out the sexual harassment - I suspected as much; that's why I suggested a private survey of the unknown editors just to see if the sex difference isn't as bad as we think - but now we should ask whether there's a way to fast-track solutions to this particular issue of making women unwelcome. I'm not suggesting any new policy, just a manned "hotline" someone on the Wiki that gets the right action done fast and sympathetically. But of course the views of a few hundred women would give us a better range of issues to focus on than one. Wnt (talk) 00:10, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

That's kinda dumb. Why create a special ghetto for females? Will people be dismissed with "oh, you're not female, suck it up"? The problem of disruption which have been described confront everyone. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 02:27, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

There's so many sections now but I'll just put this here. This is what I have observed in editing toy related articles. Toys are an interesting section because the gender bias is often inherent (toy cars vs dolls.) Doll articles are much more often questioned: tagged with multiple maintenance tags, PRODed, merged or deleted, while articles on toys aimed at boys (vehicles, robots, construction toys) are allowed to sprawl more freely, both in number of articles and the contents within the articles, which is often fancrufty but goes unchecked. The interesting thing is that the end result is that the questioned areas come out better in the end (more focused, higher quality articles that are accessible to general audiences and not just to those already familiar with the material) while many of the editors are chased off due to the brusque welcome. From what I've seen the (mostly female) editors had no apparent issues with the interface and quickly picked up the syntax. Many had access to high quality offline sources and appeared familiar with academic referencing, and would likely had made excellent editors if they had stuck around. Siawase (talk) 11:19, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

True - and I can speak from actual experience. Sysops working on the Dolls Forum were about 90+% female (accurate since I had actual names and contact info for them). Sysops for "boy toys" were 100% male. Other areas were about 80% male. Political forums were 95+% male. Religious forums were about 70% male. Sex forums used "fake names" making it hard to figure out any ratios there at all. The "CB simulator" sysops appeared to be about evenly split - at a time when the service was about 85% male or so. Collect (talk) 11:39, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

That's interesting. So we guys are slouching off and being casual while the dames are well-focused and engaged in nitpicking and constructive criticism? — Rickyrab | Talk 18:31, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Congrats, you inspired me to have a go at G.I. Joe... — Rickyrab | Talk 18:45, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

That's great! Male oriented toys are sorely in need of attention from experienced editors. Though I don't think it's female editors nitpicking on doll articles, but rather established (mostly male) editors doing drive-by taggings and because they are not familiar with the subject matter end up tagging things for notability etc, which forces the (mostly female) article creators to make the articles conform better to wikipedia standards. A comparison: G.I. Joe is likely written by collectors, and almost all of it is information on the action figures themselves and a little bit on related media. Barbie on the other hand appears written almost entirely by "outsiders" and has very little information on the dolls themselves and the bulk of material is on related "controversy". In my opinion both these articles are unbalanced, in almost diametrically opposite ways. Siawase (talk) 17:31, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

In regard to the interface issue, there is no question that women are just as capable of men at using the interface. This reflects a similar issue in IT - there is no question that women are just as capable as men in IT. Thus raising issues about the interface isn't about competence. However, I keep thinking there is a second parallel with IT. Back when I used to be (loosely) involved in research on gender issues in IT, it seemed clear that women were heavily involved in content creation with IT, but not necessarily interested in IT development. While there were a lot of reasons for this, (which it wouldn't be worth gong into now, as they aren't necessarily things WP can address), I'm wondering if the interface we use might be a factor in leading people to connect WP with development instead of with content creation. If there is a tendency to equate WP with IT development, then it would be expected that we would get a similar uneven gender distribution as found in other areas of IT development.

As always with this sort of issue, there are two questions: what factors prevent people from getting involved, and what factors prevent them from staying. The latter might come down to issues raised really well in the above discussion (how people are treated, the style of the debate, etc). The former, however, relates to how WP is perceived. Perhaps the interface issues sit on the perception side of the equation. - Bilby (talk) 12:22, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Conversation at a 10th anniversary meeting in Poland yesterday (attended by 23 male and 2 female editors) seemed to confirm the thesis that women - both those who do edit and those people know who might but don't - are indeed deterred by the interface. (I'm sure many men are too.)--Kotniski (talk) 11:36, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

To make Wikipedia more friendly to new contributors

In a discussion with another user, I was reminded of the fact that one of the reasons why new users get put off by Wikipedia is because they try to make an article and it gets deleted within moments. I know that this is a subject that has been discussed time and time again, but i'm not sure if there's ever been any firm rules put in place. I know that there is a loose consensus that it is bad for articles to be deleted just after they are created and it is something that is generally frowned upon, but I feel that things would work better if we actually made some rules.

So, I propose that we put in place rules that state that a new article cannot be AfD'ed, PRODed, or CSD'ed within a certain amount of time after its creation. Thirty minutes, perhaps? The exact amount of time is obviously something that can be discussed, but I feel that making rules for this sort of thing will fix one of the issues that drives away new contributors. Silverseren^C 18:49, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that the vast majority of newbie new articles are either COI/company advertising or just non notable people/bands. The proportion of actual encyclopedic content created by new editors is low from what I've seen. I must admit though I've rejected speedy tags many times on articles which do meet requirements but weren't formatted/sourced properly.♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:52, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

The articles that are considered non-notable can still be dealt with after the length of time has passed, but that interim time frame allows new contributors to finish making their articles, potentially add more sources, and express the full notability of the article subject. This is something that is not always done in the creation edit of the article, because the user is unfamiliar with how Wikipedia works and needs time to add to the article. Silverseren^C 19:00, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

And within userspace (which is not actually required to only have encyclopedia articles, to be sure) I would suggest that a six month period be used as a minimum to invoke "indefinite storage" or "fakearticle" as a reason for deletion. Amazigly enough, many new editor do not camp out on WP pages. Collect (talk) 19:13, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Absolutely agree with Collect and Silver Seren, but why are we here instead than at WP:VP or WT:DEL or at a RfC? --Cyclopia^talk 19:15, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

I just wanted to get a more generalized feel on the proposal from a wider group of people first. I wouldn't get as many responses at those two places as I would here. Silverseren^C 19:16, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

I think it would far more effective to just revise the article creation interface. We should change it so that it actually informs the user about the process of creating articles, what is required for an article, what is and is not a good idea to create and what the various policies surrounding it are (obviously this would be simplified). This would be a much better approach than simply imposing restrictions on the rest of us, which doesn't really sit well with me given that the majority of articles that are created are not suitable. I believe the number one problem is that people don't understand what they are doing "wrong", and why it is considered "wrong". All a time-limit will achieve is delay the inevitable and confuse the user even more, IMO. --Dorsal Axe 19:20, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

In order to address Silver seren's concern, and keeping in mind problems of COI and lack of notability that Dr. Blofeld mentioned, the problem of having few users create new articles can be easily surpassed through an extension of the use of WP:LIMBO. Right now incubation is rarely used, but speedy is much more present. An incubation to take out of the main space for, say 72 hours, can provide the article creator sufficient time to fix the problems. Basically, I suggest that a new article be sent to speedy deletions right after an incubation process. If there is no change in the Limbo state for the above mentioned 72 hours, then speedy could procede. --Sepastaj (talk) 19:26, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Silver seren, legitimate articles that aren't yet finished should be given some time, yes. But if a new editor vandalizes or adds spam (whether corporate or vanity spam) to an existing article, we don't leave it for thirty minutes — why should it be any different for a new article? Many new articles are spam and vandalism. Dorsal Axe's suggestion has been needed for a long time—it would help new editors avoid wasting a lot of time on an article that has no chance of ever being kept. It would save thirty minutes or more of their wasted effort, which must be more discouraging than having their unencyclopedic article deleted after only a minute or two of effort. First Light (talk) 01:21, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

If we did that, NPP would have a tough time because newly created bad articles have to hang around for 30 min before they can be CSD'd, I think that would leave alot of bad articles around because NPP just forgot. Tofutwitch11 ^(TALK) 01:23, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

peeking graphic

I know your user page said anyone can edit but I am being cautious anyways. I think this graphic {{[[User:Fran Rogers/peek]]}} would be good on your userpage or userpage edit notice. What do you think? Jhenderson ⁷⁷⁷ 19:53, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

He means this, and it scares the crap out of me:

<span style="position:fixed;z-index:-1000;left:0px;top:50px;"><imagemap> Image:Jimbo Peeking.gif rect 0 0 0 0 [[Main Page]] desc none </imagemap></span> --Confession0791 ^talk 08:48, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Disabled the graphic (see "Please remove" thread below).--Kotniski (talk) 09:12, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

And that's the reason why I asked first. Jhenderson ⁷⁷⁷