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Comments on Disruptive Editing

(restoring thread that was archived by bot error).

In two threads today (4 September 2014), Jimbo Wales has said: "In the old days some people would have been banned by now for that kind of behavior. It is a shame that we tolerate disruption - it costs us a lot of good editors." and "I'm hoping we can move to an understanding that we don't have to put up with people who have nothing useful to offer other than rancor." Does Jimbo have any suggestions as to what individual editors, the English Wikipedia community, or the WMF can or should do about his concerns? Robert McClenon (talk) 18:08, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

See terms of use linked at the bottom of the page. Section 12 says: In certain (hopefully unlikely) circumstances it may be necessary for either ourselves or the Wikimedia community or its members (as described in Section 10) to terminate part or all of our services, terminate these Terms of Use, block your account or access, or ban you as a user. I didn't realize the Foundation itself could do so, and I assume even if "community" objected. I guess at some point they have to do a profit and loss calculations - dropping how many proudly and chronically uncivil editors who do a lot of editing will loose what, as opposed to enforcing civility for actively and hopefully keeping and bringing in how many editors who may potentially will do how much editing? Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 21:50, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

As I have said elsewhere, disruption is in the eye of the beholder. One should be careful about what they wish for, because they might get it... Carrite (talk) 16:29, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

1. I think the WMF can do little directly. It would be pretty difficult for them to get directly involved in banning uncivil users, and hard for them to do a good job of it. One reason for this is that extreme cases are quite easy and the community does a good job of bans. The difficult cases are people who go around causing disruption and abusing people but who have some kind of support network and produce good content. In these cases, community opinion often ends up divided. It would be hard for the Foundation to know what to do.

2. The Foundation could help us by doing more studies on what causes people to leave the community. I think what is often lacking is the empirical evidence needed to convince some fence-sitters how much damage some people are doing. If you write 3 featured articles but chase away through your incivility 10 potentially great editors who would have written 30 featured articles, then you are a net loss to the project. I think that's often the case with some of these characters, but we have no way at the moment to empirically demonstrate it.

3. The English Wikipedia community can beef up policies in various ways to make it clearer that "producing good content" does not give one a free pass to abuse, insult, or harass others through uncivil behavior.

4. I recommend that people who care about this issue work hard to think about how we might improve our ArbCom processes so that more cases can be handled and in a quicker fashion. Barring that, I would say being careful to elect "civility hawks" to the ArbCom would be useful. When a user who has a long history of uncivil interactions with others comes before ArbCom, it should often be a simple open and shut case. For a variety of reasons (including that policy isn't strong enough in some areas so ArbCom can feel constrained) that sometimes doesn't happen, and this has follow-on repercussions with behavior across the site as uncivil people feel safe to carry on.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:19, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for replying.

1a. I agree that the community does a reasonably good job on "extreme cases", such as trolls, flamers, and completely clueless editors. If you (Jimbo) are saying that the community is systemically unable to deal with editors who have a support network but are a net minus because they drive away editors, I agree.

1b. The combination of the principle that blocks are preventive rather than punitive, and the ability of any admin to reverse a block by any other admin, contributes to the problem of "free pass" editors. Some editors are habitually uncivil, and get blocked for that incivility, but then the block is lifted. Since the re-imposition of a block would be punitive, such editors continue to get a free pass from the community.

2. I agree that it would be very useful for the WMF to study what causes editors to leave the community, in particular for empirical evidence of what many editors think, which is that the culture of incivility is a real problem.

3. I partly agree and partly disagree that the English Wikipedia community "can beef up" policies to make it clear that "producing good content" does not give a free pass to abuse other contributors. I think that you (Jimbo) have used an incorrect auxiliary verb. The English Wikipedia should strengthen those policies. Unfortunately, the current English Wikipedia community has demonstrated that it cannot do that. As long as civility enforcement is handled by "consensus", which is something of a will-o-the-wisp, "the community" can't govern itself effectively. Only the ArbCom can deal with editors who are content creators but net minuses.

4. I agree that the ArbCom needs to be strengthened in at least two ways. First, the community should, as you say, elect arbitrators who are "civility hawks", intolerant of persistent incivility. Second, the WMF needs to look into why the ArbCom only handles a fraction of the number of cases that it did in 2006 and 2007, and what can be done to enable the ArbCom to control disruption better. Does the ArbCom have too many assigned tasks that take away resources from its primary job of enforcement? If so, reassign those other tasks? What has changed that reduces the ArbCom's ability to handle cases?

5. The English Wikipedia community is an interesting laboratory experiment in governance by consensus, and illustrates the limits of governance by consensus. However, the purpose of the English Wikipedia is not to be an experiment, but to maintain an encyclopedia. Due to the size and diversity of the community, it is almost impossible for the community to change or evolve its own policies and guidelines. The ArbCom was not implemented by community consensus, but was given to the English Wikipedia.

Robert McClenon (talk) 03:45, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

A couple of comments. 1. Historically, disruptive editing has been distinguished from incivility. One could argue that incivility is a form of disruption, but disruptive editing goes beyond incivility. 2. The sticking point for stronger civility enforcement has always been the lack of agreement on what constitutes incivility. Just giving my own view, I don't mind swear words directed toward me but am far more offended by someone who is unabashedly two-faced or persists in unctuous and superficially polite dissimulation. Others take the opposite view. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:57, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

I would say that there are at least three types of offenses, disruptive editing, personal attacks, and incivility. I would say that disruptive editing is the most inclusive, and includes personal attacks and incivility. However, as Boris says, there is no agreement as to what is incivility. Unfortunately, the majority opinion appears to be, first, that civility means (only) the avoidance of profanity, and, second, that profanity, in itself, is not usually worth enforcing. Also, recently, there have been cases where comments that previously would have been viewed as personal attacks requiring blocks (e.g., the brainlessness comment) have been seen as mere incivility. I agree that there is consensus that disruptive editing should be sanctioned, but there is no consensus as to what degree of incivility is disruptive and should be sanctioned, and recently, there is not even consensus that low-level personal attacks should be sanctioned. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:38, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

A form of disruptive editing that is not covered by civility is Wikipedia:Ownership of articles. The examples at Wikipedia:Ownership of articles#Statements are mainly civil, but clearly disruptive. I believe that this is a major source of discouragement to new editors, many of whom may be fooled into believing that this is in fact how Wikipedia is supposed to work. Deltahedron (talk) 15:49, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Robert McClenon: I think you are correct that incivility can be a form of disruptive editing. However, note that consensus on incivility (and its form, personal attack) and the proper consequences therefrom occurs in large part after-the-fact and therefore can be unpredictable, so the incivil run a risk (therefore, logically they should avoid the personal comment) -- that's not no-consensus, that's situation dependent consensus, and part of the system. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:09, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately there is a widely held perception that the consequences you refer to do not follow on the incivility in a systematic way. Deltahedron (talk) 16:23, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, it's not systematic, depending on what you mean, it is situational. There is a written standard, there is an written act, then there is application of the standard to the act and decision on the consequences. Since, the only court like process is arbcom, the rest is left to somewhat ad hoc procedure. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:36, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

The situation, then, rather than the system, is that behaviour will be tolerated from certain editors which would not be tolerated from others. To avoid drama, I should say that my personal experiences refer to a long-standing and prolific editor who was is now banned for harassment of a third party, but who had previously been allowed to behave to me in a way which, I venture to say, I would not have been permitted to behave to him; and a member of WMF staff whose behaviour to me would have certainly led to an instant block if I had made the same remarks to him. This is hardly what I would call a "system", although it is undeniably a "situation". Deltahedron (talk) 16:43, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

True. On the other hand, your first interlocutor appears to have repeatedly run the risk and ultimately it did not work in their favor. Your second, if they continue to run the risk, may ultimately end up on the short end too. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:48, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, but they can do a lot of damage before that happens. Deltahedron (talk) 18:44, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Right. I don't argue that it's a great system. My point was that when people talk about "no consensus" in this area, they should unpack that more. There are at least three consensus questions: 1) was that instance uncivil; 2) what is the consequence; and the more meta question of 3) is there a better way to determine the first two. The first two are amenable to present consensus finding process. The third, there has, as far as I am aware, never been a consensus on. There should also be the recognition that the ad hoc process does usually exact some toll on the regular offender, in the form of criticism of their conduct regularly voiced by others. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:07, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

I appreciate this statement: "Producing good content" does not give one a free pass to abuse, insult, or harass others through uncivil behavior. Simple enforcement of that principle, which falls under WP:5, would do much to improve the editing climate.

It is not true that "uncivil" is hard to define; it means rude, or, as the OED defines it, Discourteous; impolite. WP:5 succinctly describes the kind of behavior that should be required of all editors:

Editors should treat each other with respect and civility: Respect your fellow Wikipedians, even when you disagree. Apply Wikipedia etiquette, and don't engage in personal attacks. Seek consensus, avoid edit wars, and never disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point. Act in good faith, and assume good faith on the part of others. Be open and welcoming to newcomers. If a conflict arises, discuss it calmly on the nearest talk pages, follow dispute resolution, and remember that there are 4,598,302 articles on the English Wikipedia to work on and discuss.

Unfortunately, as Deltahedron points out, "behaviour will be tolerated from certain editors which would not be tolerated from others." That would be remedied if the basic principles of Wikipedia were evenly applied. Yopienso (talk) 21:15, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Even if it were hard to define every act that everyone might consider uncivil, it is EASY to identify some. In fact, we already do, though a couple need to be made policy, and they must be be enforced. For example, under Help:Edit summary#How to summarize:

Avoid inappropriate summaries. Editors should explain their edits, but not be overly critical or harsh when editing or reverting others' work. This may be perceived as uncivil, and cause tension or bad feelings, making collaboration more difficult. Explain what you changed, and cite the relevant policies, guidelines or principles of good writing, but try not to target or to single out others in a way that may come across as an attack or an insult.

Also, WP:REVTALK, which says, "Avoid using edit summaries to carry on debates or negotiation over the content or to express opinions of the other users involved."

Both of those link to NPA, which has a succinct section, Avoiding personal attacks (WP:AVOIDYOU), that points out the importance of simply not personalizing edit summaries. Incivility is common in Wikipedia edit summaries, completely uncalled for, and easily identified when you consider the three elements just identified:

1. Avoid inappropriate edit summaries. (Make policy: No inappropriate edit summaries.)
2. Avoid REVTALK. (Make policy: No inappropriate REVTALK.)
3. AVOIDYOU. (Already part of NPA policy.)

These should be enforced as aggressively as 3RR. Lightbreather (talk) 22:07, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

As a follow-up, upon reviewing the above links for the umpteenth time, "Avoid inappropriate edit summaries" is part of the civility policy, so I tweaked that section[1] of the Edit summary help page to make that clearer, using the exact language from the "Edit summary don'ts" on the civility policy page. Lightbreather (talk) 22:35, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Irrelevant material
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Do you believe that editors who engage in dishonesty are inherently engaging in uncivil behavior, or is that a different problem? - 2001:558:1400:10:3182:DB3:5D8E:D2A5 (talk) 15:47, 5 September 2014 (UTC) Your continued ban evasion and trolling is dishonest. It is uncivil and disruptive. When will you stop? JoeSperrazza (talk) 16:53, 5 September 2014 (UTC) To whom are you speaking? I don't know if 2001:558:1400:10:3182:DB3:5D8E:D2A5 is Greg Kohs, and you don't know if 2001:558:1400:10:3182:DB3:5D8E:D2A5 is Greg Kohs. But here is a little quote from WPO that was written by the dreaded Greg Kohs that might provide food for thought: "I believe the first 4 digits do identify the service provider, so if you see 2601, you know it's someone on a Comcast router. That narrows the sockpuppet investigation to perhaps 20 million households and businesses. Oh, wait... public Xfinity WiFi hotspots will also use that 2601 address, and those are open to non-customers of Comcast for two 1-hour sessions per month, so you're probably looking at more like 50 million possible households and businesses who could be "guilty" of editing from a 2601 IPv6. Good luck, Wikipedia!" We have an unworkable system of banning at Wikipedia and it is a product of the decision to allow IP editing and instant establishment of accounts without provision of a verified email address. It's a choice of either rationalizing the registration process and kicking out IP editing or living with unidentifiable socks. It seems a simple call, but I'm in the minority... Carrite (talk) 22:18, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

A Seeming Contradiction and a Tension

For background, I will explain one of the reasons why I chose to ask Jimbo Wales to explain his two comments on disruptive editing. There is an apparent contradiction between the tone of his comment and his role in Wikipedia. He said: "In the old days some people would have been banned by now for that kind of behavior. It is a shame that we tolerate disruption...." From any other editor, that comment would have simply been an opinion, that behavior is now being tolerated that previously would not have been tolerated and should not be tolerated. However, Jimbo is not any other editor. He is the founder of Wikipedia. He says that some people would have been banned in the past for disruptive behavior that is currently seen. I agree, but would add that Jimbo Wales still has the reserved power to ban users. He chooses not to use it. The fact that he chooses not to use that reserved power implies that he has other reasons, such as the desire for the English Wikipedia community to be self-governing.

Jimbo, and probably the WMF, appear to have objectives that, unfortunately, at least for the time being, work against each other. They have editing workplace objectives, such as civility, an electronic workplace that is welcoming rather than intimidating to new editors, and the minimization of systemic bias in the makeup of the editor community. They have content objectives, such as the minimization of systemic bias in article coverage. They also have procedural objectives, including allowing the English Wikipedia to be self-governing, which is currently done by consensus, especially at the noticeboards. Consensus at the noticeboards is noisy, and represents those members of the community who can tolerate the noise at the noticeboards. The procedural objective of governing by consensus at the noticeboards does not appear to be supporting the workplace and content objectives. Jimbo and the WMF have a seeming contradiction that is actually a tension between objectives. How can they achieve their workplace and content objectives if those objectives are not the objectives of the loudest members of "the community"? Which objectives prevail, and how? Robert McClenon (talk) 15:29, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

This is a problem in all human interaction that is less than totally authoritarian. As a believer in consensus-oriented democracy within a certain agreed upon "terms of service" (i.e., contract), this is an issue of great interest to me. (And one of these days I'll work on the relevant article.) And the answer is that the "quiet ones", the ones who have opinions but choose not to speak, those who sort of care but can't be bothered, the decent "silent supermajority" have to speak up or the loud mouthed and the bullying will trample over what they might consider sensible ways of doing things, and before they know it they'll be in an unpleasant environment they will choose to leave. At least one can leave Wikipedia, as opposed to many states where those types take over and one finds one self stuck and defacto (if not actually) imprisoned. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 18:42, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't think these things are necessarily in tension but at the same time, there is no question that Robert is right that they frequently are in tension. And there are no easy answers, although I think there are some clear paths to take (carefully). The Foundation could, for example, in what would be a really bad idea, simply hire a bunch of well-trained community management people (say 100) to be like super-admins and enforce the rules and they would get lots of things wrong, upset a large part of the very best in the community, and probably succeed about as well as that sort of thing has succeeded at places like youtube - i.e. not really at all. So some simple answers just don't seem likely to work.

But there are paths to take (carefully). One is what the Foundation is doing under Lila's direction - invest more in the relationship between the community and the software developers so that real needs (including community management needs) are met, and new ideas are tested and rolled out (and rolled back) in a functional way. I'd like personally to see the Foundation investing as well in helping the community work towards consensus on some important issues - just investing the time to help us manage processes so that we actually have a greater capacity to run through proposals in a way that gives that "silent majority" of drama-free good content editors (who are easy to find but hard to get to know for those of us involved in policy because they are just minding their own business writing the encyclopedia!).--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:49, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Better than hiring admins who of course would be resisted, would be to hire 10 good mediators (who also would train volunteer mediators). Mediation still being voluntary but encouraged more; refusal to mediate an obviously legitimate issue would be frowned on more. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 19:08, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

I mostly agree both with Carol that the conflict of objectives can be a problem in all organizations that are not authoritarian, and with Jimbo both that the tension can be at least partially addressed, and as to his suggestions. He is right that hiring well-trained community management people (let alone inadequately trained community management people) as super-admins would be a really bad idea. However, the tension is exaggerated because the English Wikipedia has a strange form of self-government, in which it manages itself by "community consensus", which is in effect the consensus of those who are the loudest at the noticeboards. In some cases, including those of habitually rude editors, the "community consensus" appears to differ markedly from that of the WMF. The WMF is in favor of greater enforcement of civility, but the "community consensus" does not enforce civility. What we do not know is where the disconnect is. It may be, as some editors have said, that the larger community of editors does support more civility, but is shouted down by noisy editors (some of whom are civil but do not favor reform) who like things the way that they are. On the other hand, it may be that the majority of editors of the English Wikipedia disagree with the idea of the WMF that civility should be enforced more strongly. What the WMF can do is to survey editors more thoroughly than has done, using tools that will allow registered editors to remain anonymous if they wish to remain anonymous, but will actually better determine what the views of editors are on how to improve the electronic workplace (whether by better civility enforcement or by ignoring civility enforcement). If the editorial community as a whole thinks that the current civility situation is all right, then maybe the WMF is fighting the wrong battle. If the larger, more quiet editorial community really does have concerns about noisy editors who bias "community consensus", then the action plan should address that problem. That is one substantial step that the WMF can take. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:39, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

I mostly agree with Carol when she says (agreeing with a previous suggestion by Jimbo) that the hiring of professional mediators, who would also train volunteer mediators, would be helpful. However, I will restate my concern that mediation should be used wisely, and that there are certain situations that should not be mediated, because of the risk of the argument to moderation. For instance, if a habitually uncivil editor uses profane language and engages in personal attacks, mediation to agree to reduce the number of personal attacks by half is the wrong solution. In fact, it then gives official approval to continue the reduced-by-half number of personal attacks. Mediation as to the length of the block would be a better use of the mediation resource. Also, sometimes a difficult situation is the result of poorly stated underlying views, and mediation could, as a preliminary step, identify those differences. The hiring of mediators by the WMF would be extremely useful, but only if mediation is used wisely so that it does not have the unintended consequence of partially undermining policy. Robert McClenon (talk) 14:54, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Another relatively non-controversial thing the Wikimedia Foundation could do would be to advertise or encourage more civil relations through it's ability to advertise at the top of pages. If wikiprojects like taking photos can be advertised, why not the fact that civility is a terms of use and civility is a good thing in it's own right. Do it in a lighthanded way, maybe with some fun GIFs. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:56, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Per Robert McClenon, I think that community-service type cartoons would only strengthen the dominance of those who are least civil and would trivialize the issue. SPECIFICO talk 15:05, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

You don't see any civility/offensiveness problems on Meta-filter. They have hired tech-savvy community management people to act as moderators--I have been able to identify about three. —Neotarf (talk) 03:54, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Disruptive editing revisited

I just wanted to highlight and respond to a comment that has already been archived:

1. I think the WMF can do little directly. It would be pretty difficult for them to get directly involved in banning uncivil users, and hard for them to do a good job of it. One reason for this is that extreme cases are quite easy and the community does a good job of bans. The difficult cases are people who go around causing disruption and abusing people but who have some kind of support network and produce good content. In these cases, community opinion often ends up divided. It would be hard for the Foundation to know what to do.

2. The Foundation could help us by doing more studies on what causes people to leave the community. I think what is often lacking is the empirical evidence needed to convince some fence-sitters how much damage some people are doing. If you write 3 featured articles but chase away through your incivility 10 potentially great editors who would have written 30 featured articles, then you are a net loss to the project. I think that's often the case with some of these characters, but we have no way at the moment to empirically demonstrate it.

3. The English Wikipedia community can beef up policies in various ways to make it clearer that "producing good content" does not give one a free pass to abuse, insult, or harass others through uncivil behavior.

4. I recommend that people who care about this issue work hard to think about how we might improve our ArbCom processes so that more cases can be handled and in a quicker fashion. Barring that, I would say being careful to elect "civility hawks" to the ArbCom would be useful. When a user who has a long history of uncivil interactions with others comes before ArbCom, it should often be a simple open and shut case. For a variety of reasons (including that policy isn't strong enough in some areas so ArbCom can feel constrained) that sometimes doesn't happen, and this has follow-on repercussions with behavior across the site as uncivil people feel safe to carry on.--Jimbo Wales 10:19, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

• The WMF could do plenty if they wanted to. If they can create a superprotect to enforce software choices, they can enforce their terms of service. Taking a lesson from American history, what happened when Al Capone's bootlegging empire was protected by local neighborhood politicians? The federal government stepped in, and found some problems with his federal tax returns. And what happened in the sixties, when individual states failed to protect individuals from discrimination and safeguard their voting rights? Yup, the federal government stepped in again; the result was the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

• Instead of focusing on what makes people leave (think WP:DIVA essay for how that is likely to end), the foundation might focus on how to create new relationships with institutions--museums, universities, student groups. I had a conversation with someone over breakfast the other day, and in the course of asking why they didn't edit Wikipedia, found out they were prohibited from doing so by their university department. They did have edit-a-thons, but the material was submitted to the department head, and put on Wikipedia by one person, in order not to expose any faculty members or the institution to any potentially embarrassing and career-damaging actions. Not a bad idea--can you imagine a salary review that looked like an RFA? Wikipedia is going through a gentrification process. The new professionals are moving in, and the smelly old street corner lurkers will be marginalized. But are the streets safe yet? Everyone wants safe streets.

• The policies we have already are not being enforced, more policies will just produce more of the same.

• There is no point in asking more of ArbCom. They are elected and must respond to the will of the community. But more care can be taken in framing questions. For example, the civility RFAR that was recently declined was spun as being about "swearing". Too late people realized it was about more--the real issue was bigotry and the use of race- and culture-group based slurs. I tried to start a discussion about it on one of the arbitrator's talk pages, but every time I tried to post, I was either reverted or found myself in endless edit conflicts. This is the new tactic against gentrification--suppression of discussion.

• One thing that traffic courts do that Arbcom doesn't do is try to educate people. What if someone who violated the civility policy was required to go to the equivalent of traffic school before they could edit again. There are plenty of HR-type anti-harassment training programs for new employees out there--how hard would it be to modify one for WP?

• Another case in point was the latest round of C-gate on ANI today. There is a group of individuals who have publicly stated their opposition to the gender group, roughly the same group that usually shows up whenever the c-bomb rears its head. But instead of avoiding the gender group, they have chosen to participate in the group, with the result being ongoing disruption that eventually ended up at ANI. The more experienced users are probably ahead of me at this point, but the end result was that as long as the anti-gender people were trying to get the gender group of people thrown to the wolves, the discussion was allowed to proceed. But as soon as the discussion turned to page bans for the anti-gender users, the thread was abruptly closed, twice, by the same admin. [2] Ironically, the final word in the thread, before it closed, was "All this commotion would've been avoided, if all editors had chosen to hide ther RL genders from Wikipedia." There you have it. Wikipedia is not ready for female editors. The streets are not safe. —Neotarf (talk) 05:16, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Like I said before, you should take this case to ArbCom. It's something that's surely within their remit. Repeatedly posting long memoranda here isn't going to solve it (anymore than ANI did). JMP EAX (talk) 23:07, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree. There are a small number of editors who feel that there are egregious and damaging violations at various gender-related pages. A well-formed request should be posted at Arbcom and we can move forward on these important issues. SPECIFICO talk 23:30, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't agree that talk is pointless. The biggest problem I have with the premature closure of the ANI discussion is that it did not allow community consensus process to play out.

What would be the point in bringing this to ArbCom? They always throw the issue back to the community, as they did at the recently have already declined "Civility" case request. In a closing statement there, the OP belatedly recognized that the case should have been framed in terms of "offensive" speech, since "offensive speech is at the more objectionable end of the incivil spectrum" and is easier to define, although in all fairness, in a recent clarification request, the Arbcom has started to come closer to addressing this issue. —Neotarf (talk) 17:02, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

My argument for the requester closing it or ArbCom declining it: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Statement_by_Carolmooredc. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 22:22, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Arbitration

I have opened an arbitration request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Gender Gap Task Force Issues. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:52, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Take care what you post here. I have now been named as a party to this case, and I have no idea who named me or why. A message from a clerk on my talk page tells me it was an anonymous arbitrator. Does anyone else feel a chill? —Neotarf (talk) 02:23, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I suspect the anonymous arbitrator as it were, read the talk page of the project and found your commentary enlightening and/or problematic. Yes I feel a chill in my part of this planet, as Autumn is in the air. You need not fear the arbitration, as it is most certainly going to be declined.Two kinds of pork (talk) 03:59, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

The arbitrator has now responded on my talk page, but I still have no idea what is being said about me on the secret arbitrator mailing list. —Neotarf (talk) 13:12, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Notice of discussion re: edit-summary incivility

I have started a discussion on the "No personal attacks" policy page. Since this is an issue of civility, the subject of much debate here and elsewhere on the project, watchers of this page are invited to weigh in. Proposed addition to "Avoiding personal attacks". Lightbreather (talk) 00:15, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Not sure how ClueBot III works, but it archived this after one day,[3] and considering how much civility is being discussed in this and other forums recently/now, I'd like the notice to stay at least a week. That seems reasonable. Thanks. Lightbreather (talk) 18:56, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

I have it set to aggressively archive threads where no one is commenting. This is normally the right thing but for a notice of a discussion elsewhere it obviously fails. I don't know a good solution but anyone is welcome to add this back regularly for the week requested.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:26, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

I figured it was something like that, but I wanted to explain why I restored the notice. Thanks. Lightbreather (talk) 00:05, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Webreflinks

For those of you who don't know, webreflinks is a tool that automatically fixes up all citations within an article. All you have to do is past the title in a box and click Enter, and when the program completes, copy the output to the article. Simple as.

Since this tool has been blocked, or whatever happened to it, I have seen the level of citations decrease rapidly everywhere on Wikipedia. We desperately need either this tool or another one that does a similar thing.

P.S. Oh and once we do we need to make sure all newbies know what it is and how to use it. I'm working at WP:AFC atm and I can't take the horribly formatted references anymore.--Coin945 (talk) 12:45, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Zhaofeng Li has made a replacement at User:Zhaofeng Li/Reflinks. Try it! KonveyorBelt 16:46, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Yayyy! :) There are two problems with it though. The big one is that if you have two references of the exact same type, the tool doesn't condense them into 1. Secondly, each time you use the tool on an article, you have to return to the previous link to do another, which is frustrating. @Zhaofeng Li:--Coin945 (talk) 17:20, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I posted much the same thing on his talk. There is a toolbox script you could use to use reflinks directly on an article without going to the toolserver page. KonveyorBelt 17:24, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I've been using it to fix up some articles, and have noticed it has issues with things like newspapers. Notice here at least two different links have the same Milwaukee Sentinel citation.--Coin945 (talk) 17:26, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

September 3rd traffic spike

Jimbo, if you check the article traffic stats for just about any article in the English Wikipedia, it appears that September 3rd there was approximately an 80% to 100% spike in page views. The spike only persisted for that one day. Do you (or any of your loyal JimboTalk followers) have any idea if this spike was real, or was it just a quirk of the measurement tool? - 2001:558:1400:10:8165:67BB:738F:E52B (talk) 13:11, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Pardon my ignorance, but where can this data be viewed? Tarc (talk) 13:29, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Click on "View history" tab. Then in External tools (about the third line of text down), to the right, click "Page view statistics". The tool is notoriously buggy, but we seem to depend on it as our best source of information about Wikipedia page views. - 2001:558:1400:10:8165:67BB:738F:E52B (talk) 14:06, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

It has to be a bug. The view stats for the main page show the spike - but they also apparently show no views at all for August 28th. [4]. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:16, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Very interesting. I hit the random article button and came up with an article that showed a spike that went Sept. 2 - 71; Sept. 3 - 174; Sept. 4. - 62. The Sept. 3 number was an anomaly. I suppose another possible explanation might be some sort of concentrated Denial Of Service attack on that date. That article also shows zero hits on Aug. 28. Carrite (talk) 14:27, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Back to school panic? DuncanHill (talk) 14:34, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Over at the WP:TOP25 we noted a few days ago that the grok.se stats had stopped at September 3 and were halted for a few days; maybe its possible when they got it going again there was glitch for that days views (or a double counting).--Milowent • ^hasspoken 15:07, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Per others, it seems unlikely to be valid, but I'm not really the best person to ask. However, if it is site-wide there's pretty much no external factor that could cause that. (For example, if Google suddenly started ranking us more highly? But we are already in the top three for almost everything so it's unlikely that Google could send more traffic uniformly across the entire site!)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:35, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

3rd September was the first full day back at school for a very large percentage of English schools, and I wouldn't be surprised if other countries were the same. Black Kite (talk) 19:55, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Wikiviewstats shows no spike at September 3, all OK. BTW, do use meta:User:Hedonil/XTools, it's a fantastic tool! --Atlasowa (talk) 22:06, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

How is Internet Slowdown Day different from SOPA?

Hi Jimbo. You earned a lot of respect, IMHO, when you brought up the WP:SOPA issue and galvanized the community to take a stand. I am curious why didn't you feel necessary to do the same thing with the Internet Slowdown Day action? Also, do you know why WMF has taken no interest in this (during SOPA they issued several press statements and such...). Thanks, --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:51, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

First, no one asked me about it so I was unaware that it was happening. I think this is the first time it has been mentioned on this page.

Second, the timing for something big from us has to be just right. I'm not sure this is the right time. With SOPA we were able (with others) to stop Congress from voting into law a really bad act. There was a specific task to accomplish and we did so. Asking people to send comments to the FCC is important but doesn't have quite the same feel in terms of a specific urgent mission with a possible "win". I think us doing things like this needs to be reserved for moments when we can be highly impactful otherwise we end up like the boy who cried wolf.

Finally, I'm much more concerned personally about the anti-neutrality that is playing out in a major major way with locked down apps ecosystems. If you are looking for damage to the Internet in terms of not being a level playing field because a small number of players has a chokehold on which new organizations get access to customers - look no further than the iTunes store and Google Play store.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 06:33, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Probably somewhat difficult for Wikimedia Foundation to overtly defend Net Neutrality when it is engaging in non-neutral deals with global mobile telecom providers, via the Wikipedia Zero program. - 2001:558:1400:10:38EC:EC00:9AE4:9FBA (talk) 12:54, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

BBC news request

Unverified request
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Dear Jimmy, I am looking for feedback from Wikipedia editors about the “MediaViewer scandal”. I would be very grateful if you could publicise this message internally throughout Wikipedia so we can get responses from a broad range of editors. From the advice I have been given so far, it seems it would be beneficial to engage in particular editors involved with the MediaViewer “RFC” and “Wikipediocracy”. Yours sincerely, Jane Investigative researcher BBC News http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ Dear Wikipedia editors, BBC News is interested in investigating a story about the “MediaViewer scandal”. We believe that the breakdown between the Wikimedia Foundation and the editors upon which it relies is a fascinating story that is almost unknown to our readers. We would like to invite editors to provide their accounts of this breakdown. Firstly, we would like accounts of what has happened. Secondly, we want to know how this has affected editors. Our readers are mostly very familiar with Wikipedia, but do not have the opportunity to see what happens “behind the scenes”. You should submit your stories on the general submissions page here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10725415 Any personal information can be made anonymous if requested. It is critically important that the line “Wikipedia MediaViewer scandal” is inserted as the first line in the “Comments” box. BBC News receives thousands of comments from readers every day and in order to receive your comments we will filter by this first line. If the line is not included, then your comments might not reach us. We welcome comments from all kinds of Wikipedia editors and encourage as many of you as possible to share your stories. We are also interested in looking at other internal Wikipedia topics for further articles. Ideas that have been suggested so far have included the following: - Harassment of women editors on Wikipedia - Contacting banned editors’ employers - Political correctness and “JZG abuse of process” at Sarah Brown’s (Gordon Brown’s wife) article - Administrators engaging in paid editing for commercial purposes We welcome comments from editors about all of these topics and any other internal Wikipedia topics that our readers might find interesting. We thank all of you for your time and look forward to hearing about your experiences. Yours, Jane Investigative researcher BBC News http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.131.212.16 (talk) 13:43, 11 September 2014 (UTC) That's decently clever social engineering. Get a bunch of Wikipedia editors to specifically discuss "Wikipediocracy", all with the same subject line, in the hope of spamming your site and story into the BBC News. (I assume there is no investigative reporter named "Jane ___?___" who posts under an IP address) What's funny though is that in the age of "web 2.0", where upclicks are everything, never mind why, there really is no difference between spam and legitimate news. Wnt (talk) 14:12, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Real Life Barnstar
	Thank you for completing the interview with me Jimbo. I really appreciate how you took time out of your day to talk with me! Mirror Freak 15:28, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Gender gap task force and RfA proposal

I have made a proposal that I would think would help close the gender gap in WP's administrative corps. I think this is necessary because, speaking from observation and personal experience, WP's RfA process has a lot of serious issues. Cla68 (talk) 06:18, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Now renamed Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship#Proposal_from_Cla68_regarding_women_candidates. Closed and premature. But actions to bring in more women or proposals for things to increase numbers that will be more widely accepted certainly are needed. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 12:37, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

The proposal was not closed as "premature." It was rejected because the discussion found it to be offensive and infeasible. SPECIFICO talk 14:47, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

If you are going to comment on almost everything I write, at least get it right. I wrote "Closed and premature." How's this: "Someone closed it AND I and/or others found it premature to propose it when it wasn't even discussed on the talk page, modified or reject there." In short, it was not a Gender Gap task force proposal, as the original subject line suggested, and it was just one individual's proposal, just to be clear so we don't have to hear a 100 accusations it was. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 19:16, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

It could never be a GGTF proposal. Everyone here is responsible for their own edits. The GGTF cannot propose anything and is as toothless as any other project in that respect. The best that the GGTF can do is discuss initiatives. - Sitush (talk) 23:42, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

• Although actions to address our gendergap - including our administrative gendergap - are sorely needed, especially when taken in the context of the rest of cla's actions this is such obvious trolling that someone should block Cla for a day or two for disruption/WP:POINT. I'd do it myself, but I'm sure people would bring up WP:INVOLVED. Kevin Gorman (talk) 19:26, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Kevin, to threaten someone for proposing an affirmative action-type remedy is an extremely ironic reflection of the actual hostility that women (and men) face in the real world when the patriarchy threatens them for trying to fix real-life gender-related issues. I appreciate that you said that, because now we have an example of the outright hostility towards women and women's issues that is entrenched in WP's administration. Cla68 (talk) 23:33, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

While I did not say that your proposal was trolling I did think it very loudly. I find it hard to believe it was meant to be serious. I can see Kevin's point of view, though I don't see anything actionable. Chillum Need help? Type {{ping|Chillum}} 04:19, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

• • • Kevin Gorman an example of outright hostility towards women and women's issues? Now I've heard it all. I wasn't sure before that Cla68 was trolling, but with that comment it's entirely clear. I won't block anybody for trolling on this page, though. If Jimbo doesn't want to encourage it, he can close the thread. Bishonen | talk 23:48, 10 September 2014 (UTC).
      • Many people aren't aware of their ingrained biases or prejudices until confronted with an actual affirmative action-type proposal that affects something important to them, in this case WP's administrative corps. It's a result of unrecognized, socialized privilege and entitlement. Affirmative action exists for a reason, and people's reactions to such proposals reveals quite a bit about them. If they say, "I disagree", that's one thing. But, when they say, "Burn the witch!", as Kevin is saying here, then that is something else altogether. Cla68 (talk) 23:59, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
        • I think those reactions have centered around your obvious insincerity, rather than the merits of the proposal itself. MastCell ^Talk 00:22, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
          • As Mast said, the issue at stake is your obvious mocking insincerity rather than the proposal itself. I'd never suggest blocking someone for the proposal itself. Describing my actions as an example of the outright hostility towards women that is entrenched in Wikipedia's administration is even more solid evidence that you are trolling if anyon doubted it before. Kevin Gorman (talk) 00:40, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
            • Kevin, you could have said, "I don't agree that an affirmative action measure will work here". Instead, you indicated, "It's a ludicrous idea and I wish I could ban the jackass who proposed it." It's the level of hostility in your reaction that is revealing. Cla68 (talk) 00:47, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
              • Your argument is rather undercut by how much you exaggerated what I actually said. Kevin Gorman (talk) 00:49, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
          • If you can tell the sincerity of an anonymous account holder on WP or anywhere else on the Internet, then you're a lot more perceptive than I am. You have to judge by a person's actions here since their tone and demeanor are usually invisible. I voted for the proposal and will be the first one to vote for it if it is again proposed. And, I was disappointed that you didn't vote in support of it. Cla68 (talk) 00:36, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

It would have worked. Editors running for Admin would all have self-identified themselves as female regardless of their real sex, so the gender gap would have vanished. Count Iblis (talk) 19:45, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Now, now, we all learned from the Private Manning Case that "you are what you say you are, and that's that." Seriously, that's the majority view of the nature of gender at WP... Carrite (talk) 22:32, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I think this was a good idea (after all, I remember proposing such "affirmative action" myself within the past few months) but 15% is a very steep preference. Maybe 5% would have had a chance, but you might have had to start at 2 or 3 percent. I think that "you are what you say you are" very much does apply here - if an admin is willing to walk the walk and deal with a certain risk of bizarre behavior that some women report here, that will make the admin a more experienced and aware candidate regardless of sex or gender.

All that said, the same consideration that can be obtained by a rule could be obtained by a little more awareness of RfA by Gender Gap participants with no formal difference in admission criteria. Wnt (talk) 02:51, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

While Cla68's proposal and way of announcing it may have had some problems, and he may have over-reacted to criticism aboe, I think it was a serious proposal. Unlike this new joke proposal and series of jokes GG Task Force has to suffer through now. Hold Wales & WMF accountable. Now Kevin can really let loose if he likes! Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 03:54, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

That Cla68 is concerned about misogyny I find surprising--from the comments he has made off wiki I would have guessed the opposite. Likewise with the individuals who were previously interested in editing pornography articles and who are now engaging with the Gender Gap project--I can't seem to follow why they are unarchiving threads that were previously archived by the women as off-topic or disruptive. Question for Cla68 about his proposal: can you give an example of a woman's RFA that was unsuccessful, but would have been successful under your proposal? It would help to have a real life example of what you think the problem is. —Neotarf (talk) 05:19, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

This comment is indicative of part of the problems on the GG project, and perhaps the reason you were added to the arbitration. You seem to think this project is run by and owned by "the women". It is for decreasing the GG, no? I'll be the first to agree that women's perspectives are absolutely vital in order to shrinking the gap, but trying to claim a fiefdom isn't going to accomplish much.Two kinds of pork^Makin'_Bacon 14:08, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

There is nothing in WP:Talk page guidelines that prohibits archiving or refactoring by users who are female. I see no evidence of a female conspiracy to "claim a fiefdom". Judging by the number of complaints about off-topic and disruptive threads, if anything, they were being too cautious and conservative about keeping controversial edits. But maybe TKOP, you can explain why you blanked this users comment? Also you might explain your edit summary here: "why don't you dine on the swine?" Are you soliciting me for something? —Neotarf (talk) 03:17, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

No, the issue is not archiving comments, the issue is that you seem to be under the erroneous impression that the GGTF is a women's group, for and run by women. It is not. Dine away.Two kinds of pork^Makin'_Bacon 21:35, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Please do not put words in my mouth, or give the impression I hold views I do not hold. Also, WRT your edit summary here, I would remind you that rudeness, insults, or indecent suggestions can contribute to an uncivil environment. —Neotarf (talk) 07:13, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Put words in your mouth? Why let's examine your words verbatim when you elaborated on who you were addressing when you posted a source. Emphasis added mine. The words are all yours. I posted it here as an FYI for consideration by the women, in the context of their project. [5]. You've made similar statements elsewhere. I'll not waste my time collecting them unless needed.Two kinds of pork^Makin'_Bacon 19:15, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

What? The Anita Sarkeesian links I dropped on the gender gap talk page? Is that what you're upset about? No, I don't think the links should be passed to some RS group for evaluation, where there are likely to be few women. I meant them for the gender gap group, and I'm sure the group is perfectly competent to evaluate the gender implications for themselves.

I can't help but note that although you were just blocked for disruptively archiving the gender gap talk page, the first thing you did when your block expired was to rush right over to the gender gap talk page, start reverting SlimVirgin's archiving, and start ordering her around. I also note that, like the guy who has a swastika sig when he welcomes people at the teahouse, when you go over to the gender gap project, you now have a sig that says "Makin' Bacon". —Neotarf (talk) 01:39, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

I find this whole discussion very disturbing. This is not the place for it, and someone should have told Cla68 that instead of stoking this fire. However, the worst thing about it is the deeply-entrenched sexism that is evident from some of the above comments, not to mention the attempt to "out" Cla68 by referring to off-wiki events. The fact that a majority disagreed with the proposal does not make it insincere and certainly does not make it trolling. These are wild accusations from undisciplined contributors. Deb (talk) 10:44, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

No one is attempting to "out" Cla68, at least that I know of. He uses the same name elsewhere as he does here. —Neotarf (talk) 03:17, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

This all seems rather misguided because of the editors that are attracted to multiple, but orthogonal issues. The "gender gap" is a metric. It is a metric of inclusiveness and also interest. An editor gap task force goal must be to make the experience of being an editor more inclusive. It is not a goal of that task force to create or recruit more viewpoints from different perspectives - that turns WP into a forum, not an encyclopedia. More viewpoints may indeed be a result of being more inconclusive, but that is not the goal of editor gap. It is antithetical to the very nature of WP to presume that recruiting viewpoints that are appealing to subsets of underrepresented editors will improve the encyclopedia in any meaningful way. Rather, the appropriate way is to understand what barriers or enablers are creating variance in participation. This must be done in a very broad sense and not narrowly focused to just increasing numbers by whatever means necessary. The first thing that must happen is to completely delineate content focused issues such as "Countering Systemic Bias" from inclusiveness issues such as "Gender Gap Task Force." The presumption of overlap is very misplaced and blending of these two very separate issues is detrimental to the objectives of each. They are orthogonal to each other. I'd submit for consideration, from an outside perspective, that those who feel strongly there is no systemic bias and therefore there is no need for a gender gap task force do not understand they are different topics and those editors are most likely unsuitable to participate in either. Likewise, I'd submit for consideration, from an outside perspective, that those who feel strongly there is a systemic bias and therefore there is a need for a gender gap task force to counter it are also equally unsuitable to participate. There will be many that strongly agree with one of my statements and strongly disagree with the other - and that is what leads to the agenda driven conflict. There are other issues just as orthogonal to the two I mentioned and editors with strong feelings of overlap (in either direction) are hampering solutions. --DHeyward (talk) 08:00, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Yahoo and your opinion on NSA requests

I was just curious given the newly released documents regarding Yahoo's lawsuit against the US Federal govt's NSA "requests" for user information what your opinion would be, and what possible courses of action are open to you personally, should the Wikimedia Foundation ever receive such a "request" and subsequent threat of a $25,000 daily fine if the WMF declines the request. Secondly I'm curious if you've ever been asked, or if you have asked, to present testimony to any Congressional committee hearings on such topics of internet privacy and such government requests.Camelbinky (talk) 18:28, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

I've never been asked and if I were, I would protest with every fiber of my being.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:39, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

I would like to see you tell Congress what you believe, and hope your passion persuades them to reign in some of these government actions.97.85.208.225 (talk) 01:11, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Wait - I obviously misread something. If I were asked to present testimony to a Congressional committee hearing on topics such as this I would do so proudly and eagerly and I would consult with experts in advance to make sure that my testimony would be accurate and maximally impactful. I misread the above to be a question about what are my personal views of what I would do, or would advise the Foundation to do, in case we got a request of the first type. I apologize for any confusion!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:00, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Controversial current events

Articles about controversial current events seem to attract editors with a bias. I have the impression that Wikipedia's influence on public opinion for these subjects is negligible compared to the influence of the news media, so that the only thing a biased editor could accomplish is to influence readers that Wikipedia is biased. --Bob K31416 (talk) 02:47, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Controversial article attract biased editors on both sides as well as neutral editors. Hopefully all sides work together to form an article that is neutral and unbiased (+/-5%).~Technophant (talk) 13:21, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Hey, Look! A dead seagull flying high! - Nabla (talk) 00:04, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

You know, I've been giving that some thought. Evaluating bias in an article can be difficult. Sometimes a reader with bias regarding an article's subject will think a neutral article is biased. Sometimes an editor might want to believe that Wikipedia articles on controversial subjects are biased or unbiased, and that might affect their objective evaluation. I suppose that leads to the question of whether Wikipedia articles on controversial current events have been evaluated for bias in some objective study, or at least some attempt at one.

Regarding my original comment that compared to news media, Wikipedia has a negligible effect on public opinion regarding current events, I realize that's only while the events are current. As time passes and news reporting of the event goes away, I think Wikipedia may be the most influential written source about the event. --Bob K31416 (talk) 20:58, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Foot voting

Hi Jimbo, you and your WMF win by ignoring more than 800[6] votes. As Lenin said: "They voted with their feet". After some 30.000 Edits in 7 years i quit as WP:supporter So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish --Gruß Tom (talk) 19:19, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

need help.............ebola virus epidemic west africa

hi sorry to bring this to your attention, however I've been trying to give an opinion in regards to the latest ebola outbreak on the talk page for "ebola virus epidemic west Africa", however I keep getting the runaround. At issue is the recent publication,,,,,,, http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/09/09/oxford-study-predicts-15-more-countries-are-at-risk-of-ebola-exposure/ ,,,& ,,,http://elifesciences.org/content/early/2014/09/05/eLife.04395 the latter being a scientific journal which on page 45 (pdf) makes a direct relation between the west Africa and Congo outbreaks on its map. I believe this warrants (1) Congo's inclusion into the "cases-table" for overall case amount and (2) a better written Congo part; more connected to the overall ebola outbreak in Africa.I, aside from noting the above on the respective "talk page" have also brought it up with "Gandydancer" one of the principle editors, on this persons talk page, but have gotten little discussion.I believe everyone should be equal in opinion, without "page ownership". How should I proceed in your opinion?,,thank you

P.S.....W.H.O. itself has used west Africa and Congo together to show total cases (page 4 ) as I requested in article,,, (http://www.afro.who.int/en/downloads/doc_download/9431-who-response-to-the-ebola-virus-disease-evd-outbreak-update-by-the-who-regional-director-for-afric.html... .--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:47, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

This seems like a good discussion to have at the talk page. I'm not fully persuaded by your argument as the two outbreaks seem to be unrelated. If there is sufficient data, then I think a separate cases table for the Congo would be wise. And yes, the Congo part should be better written. I am not sure what you mean about "direct relation" and "more connected to the overall ebola outbreak". What we certainly should not do is go against reliable sources and make it seem to the reader that these two outbreaks are directly related. But - this is probably a discussion better held at the talk page. (As you may have noticed, I'm active there already.)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:26, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

I have not given Ozzie a run-around. I replied to him/her on September 10 suggesting that this can be difficult to understand, and suggested that he read the Ebola disease and the Ebola virus articles. He never responded. As for including a table for the Congo outbreak, I don't agree. The West Africa article is long enough as it is, and the Congo outbreak needs to play out a little bit longer before we increase coverage of it, though definitely in a separate article. Gandydancer (talk) 19:23, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Your reasoning persuades me - almost. I think that a separate article is warranted now, based on significant independent coverage in high quality sources. [7] is an example.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:55, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, of course, opinions differ. IMO, considering that many thousands of Africans die each year from preventable disease, a Congo Ebola article that has killed 35 is not needed considering that an outbreak in that area every few years is not at all out of the norm. In fact, to me, it seems a disgraceful lack of understanding of the level of care available to the underprivileged. But since you consider it notable, certainly create the article and watch over it to be certain that it is updated properly. Note, however, that the current article on the West African outbreak is already using the "significant independent coverage in high quality sources" (WHO) for all but one of its sources, I'm not sure what you think may be missing from the current coverage in the existing West Africa article. Or possibly, since you have said above that the South Africa section on the Congo needs to be rewritten, you could just rewrite the section to improve the Congo coverage. Gandydancer (talk) 19:48, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

"a disgraceful lack of understanding of the level of care available to the underprivileged" - that's just a gratuitous and quite frankly ridiculous insult. When you say "considering many thousands of Africans die each year from preventable diseases" I question why you bothered to come here to insult me. The actual number is in the millions.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:23, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Jimbo, I did not come here to insult you. I came here to defend myself and, as one of the two major editors of the article, to defend the article. While you first said that Ozzie's complaints would be best handled at the article rather than here on your talk page, you then went right ahead and criticized the Congo section saying it needed to be rewritten. Since I wrote the section, it is demoralizing to see my work criticized on a page that is read by thousands. I have spent many hours on that article and the other major editor has spent even more. I think that it's a good article, but upkeep has been difficult and time consuming because the situation in West Africa is changing so rapidly. As the disease spreads there has needed to be a great deal of cutting and rearranging of the article to keep it focused and at a reasonable length. But to come here and find only a criticism is hurtful and insulting. While you seem quite able to note that I insulted you, it would have been nice if you had seen that you were insulting me. Gandydancer (talk) 05:11, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

My Two Cents

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
My two cents, in reply to a section that appears to be currently in an edit war, but on the general subject of paid editing. It is unlikely that any incidence of someone editing a page with a username that resembles the page subject (be it an individual, company or organisation) is a gotcha moment. It means they don't know the policy (if they did, they wouldn't be using such an obvious name). To me, of greater concern, is editing that policy does allow, such as PR reps who declare WP:COI on less traveled talk pages and then go ahead and edit (on the basis of no talk page objection. eg. [8]). I'm against paid editing but I don't think hounding the ones who don't know policy on this talk page really achieves much. AnonNep (talk) 15:34, 15 September 2014 (UTC) I think you've missed some of my point, AnonNep. It's not about a "gotcha", it's about how established Wikipedians selectively respond (aggressively) to some cases of COI editing, while ignoring others, while even jumping to the aid of still others. For example, right now MONGO is trying to make sure that no reader of Wikipedia learns that New York Law School (the host of Wikiconference USA) has had employees writing their Wikipedia article, along with biographies of senior executives at the school. MONGO repeatedly removes a mere "COI tag" from those articles. How do you think that will look, if the media picks up on the selective nature of that editing? While it may look somewhat bad for New York Law School, it looks reprehensible for Wikipedia as a curator of "neutral" knowledge. - 2001:558:1400:10:3975:E755:22C2:7A3A (talk) 15:43, 15 September 2014 (UTC) To re-state my point: you, me, Mongo or Freddy the Goldfish would be unlikely to suspect that someone connected to a person, business or organisation was editing an associated page without an obvious username. If they have an obvious username and they're editing it suggests they don't understand the policy. That isn't a paid editing gotcha moment, its just someone who doesn't know. IP editing, which there's much less of over the last few years, and policy-savvy username with declared COI, which there seems to be much more of over the last few years, are different things. AnonNep (talk) 15:53, 15 September 2014 (UTC) Mr. Kohs needs to get one of his henchman to post these complaints so it's harder to spot his ban evasion. Love....--MONGO the GOOD 16:27, 15 September 2014 (UTC) Henchmen are increasingly expensive, MONGO. Have you seen what fast-food clerks are demanding for wages? Imagine what a burly, imposing henchman commands these days! Now, as an example for AnonNep, User:Ajuncos had a fairly obvious username, so (if we believe her to be Andrea Juncos, former communications director at New York Law School from 2007 to 2013) we might count her as someone who "didn't understand policy" when they edited (exclusively) New York Law School, Anthony Crowell, and Carole Post between 2007 and 2013. However, User:Leonora1805 is not an obvious username, but also edited (exclusively) New York Law School, Anthony Crowell, and Carole Post between 2013 and 2014. Do you feel it is in the best interest of Wikipedia readers to be alerted to the editing history of these three articles by these two particular editors, or do you feel it is better to deliberately remove any notice that would alert the reader, even if that has the possible appearance of a cover-up? It's a simple question. - 2001:558:1400:10:3975:E755:22C2:7A3A (talk) 16:39, 15 September 2014 (UTC) Block evasion. See this "Why are you such a bitch?" post on @DangerousPanda:'s talk page. Dusti*Let's talk!* 16:41, 15 September 2014 (UTC) Those usernames beg the question...too close for comfort or socks of someone trying to make these people look like they edited their own pages.--MONGO likes Candy 16:47, 15 September 2014 (UTC) MONGO, you really think there's been a 7- or 8-year campaign by someone to "joe job" the communications department at New York Law School? I marvel at how a semi-useful encyclopedia gets written around here, considering the deep thinkers overseeing it. - 2001:558:1400:10:3975:E755:22C2:7A3A (talk) 16:56, 15 September 2014 (UTC) Look at it this way....they disinvited you...least they thought about it! If I had signed up they would have cancelled the entire event. It's not like you got stood up on prom night!--MONGO the GOOD 17:37, 15 September 2014 (UTC) The 'simple question' bit was the giveaway. You want 'I don't think it should be tagged' for Gotcha! - there's a cover-up!!! Or 'I do think it should be tagged' for Gotcha! - then all paid COI editing must be okay too!!! Sorry dude, not playing. But wait long enough and someone might fall for it. AnonNep (talk) 17:10, 15 September 2014 (UTC) I am not following your logic on the second Gotcha!. If a user believes that an article with an obvious history of conflict of interest editing should be tagged with a reader notice that contributors have had a conflict of interest, it does not follow that "all paid COI editing must be okay too". Indeed, it would suggest that the user's belief is that other forms of paid COI editing should be tagged, also. I'm sorry if this is confusing to you, but it seems terribly simple to me. - 2001:558:1400:10:3537:62F8:5C22:7441 (talk) 13:09, 16 September 2014 (UTC) Put it this way - if paid editing was an either/or issue then it would be a x + y = z, and performed by a bot. That it isn't performed by a bot, suggests some complexity at times, but not enough to justify an ongoing personal campaign of righteousness, no matter how heartfelt, because if it was that clear cut - or simple - then it would be bot territory. AnonNep (talk) 13:33, 16 September 2014 (UTC) Right, wrong, good, bad....Kohs is site banned and therefore this section should be hatted.--MONGO 13:55, 16 September 2014 (UTC) Not fussed on hatting. While the subject is worth debate (and I, personally enjoy engaging the opposite), rhetorically it appears we have an undeclared agenda pusher, which is unlikely to progress constructively and collaboratively for the best interests of Wikipedia. AnonNep (talk) 14:21, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

NB: Hat edit summaries are more useful when neutral and don't lash out any anyone involved.[9]

A beer for you!

Dear Jim, I am lodging a formal complaint against a page which I view as damaging. The predescribed page is labelled 'Suicide Methods' and provides such content in intricate detail, citing (helpful?) resources. This page is easily accessible via a simple google search( 'suicide') and thus has HIGH potential for misuse. For this reason I am attempting to contact you directly in a bid to remove such pages from existence. Whilst the page entitled 'Suicide' is not explicit or clumsily written enough to warrant deletion, the aforementioned is. I hope this comment isn't lost amongst a sea of those by other users, Yours Sincerely, Al Redzimus (talk) 16:40, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

User:MutterErde

Hi, User:Jimbo Wales, why did you block Mutter Erde? Lotje (talk) 11:28, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Strange to bring up something from 2005, but of course you can just look up the reason at the block log: "persistent copyvios after repeated warnings". Deli nk (talk) 13:05, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, strange to ask about a block from nearly 9 years ago. (Amazing to think how long it has been!) What made you wonder?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:26, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

The edits on the different wikipedia do not seem to "fit". Thank you for your time. Lotje (talk) 14:51, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Shouldn't the old blocks be let to expire after a time limit? Otherwise we'll end up with an enormous number of indefinite blocks by the year 2100... Count Iblis (talk) 17:38, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Possibly but what's the harm?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:36, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

We probably won't be around by 2100. Besides, it's not like they're doing any harm. BethNaught (talk) 18:43, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Hopefully!188.132.226.2 (talk) 22:03, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, looking toward the year 2100 according to this article: "This brings us to what I think may well be the most important task of our time. If there will eventually be an "intelligence explosion," how exactly can we set up the initial conditions so as to achieve an outcome that is survivable and beneficial to existing persons?" If Wikipedia is going to be used as a source about us, then we should be very careful about how we edit here :) . Count Iblis (talk) 22:12, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Throughout Wikipedia, "harm" seems to have become the watchword, and it seems "harm" can only be done by having content, not by not having it. So there's no harm in deleting articles 'just to be safe', based on some guess about what might happen if people read them, even when the rest of the world doesn't see it that way; nor in getting rid of the editors (like MeropeRiddle in the thread deleted above) for expecting, naively, that Wikipedia policy is publicly readable someplace; nor is there harm, as you say, in keeping a database of editors to be blocked for all time, so that the threat of some outing deters them from ever trying to start afresh. But if the people here really believe all that, why don't you just walk down to the server room and empty a couple of clips into them? You could probably avoid hundreds, even thousands of embarrassing incidents, even save a few lives somewhere, though we may not know where, by preventing the wrong people from learning the wrong thing. Sure, some readers lose some knowledge that might have slaked their idle curiosity, but who cares? That's as valueless as the hundreds of thousands of edits so many of the most active editors put in before being banned for some trumped-up issue. Why do so many here act like they really believe that contributions are the problem, information is the problem, and discarding editors and censoring out the facts is the universal answer? Wnt (talk) 20:31, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Nice rant, but not sure how it applies in this context. We are talking about a user banned for "persistent copyvios after repeated warnings".--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:35, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

You don't think we can let someone like that have a fresh start after nine years? True, in many ways it might be better for the person to start a fresh account and never mention the old one, but the way WP works, as long as the old one remains blocked there's a risk that the person admits he used to post under that account or can be traced from some postings on the web, etc. -- and end up with a fresh batch of trouble. We would do better to sweep all this stuff aside. I think past contributors, whether perfect or not, are still a good pool of prospects for future involvement. Wnt (talk) 15:18, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I do think we can let just about anyone have a fresh start after nine years. That's why I said that I don't claim any special privilege with respect to the fact that I happened to be the one who banned him. We should just treat it like any other ban from nine years ago. What I meant in my comment to you is that the rant about having content versus not having content isn't really relevant to this particular case.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:06, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

@ User:Wnt, you are right, information is the problem... too often. Though, I am convinced wiki wizzards and fairies are keeping a vigilant eye and help wherever they can.

@ User:Jimbo Wales, would you consider unblocking User:Mutter Erde. He, might be willing to make a fresh start. Thank you for considering it. Ye'all have a great day today. Lotje (talk) 06:53, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

So really what your are asking for the ban on User:MutterErde to be lifted. The relevant policy page is WP:UNBAN although it is a little unclear how bans imposed by Jimbo can be lifted. I would start by the user making a case for why the ban should be lifted on their talk page: User talk:MutterErde. The appeal should address the two main reasons the ban was imposed WP:COPYVIO and WP:SOCK. Note ban and blocks are different things, bans which MutterErde has are more serious. See the reason for the ban at WP:BANLIST.--Salix alba (talk): 08:00, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Just read the text in the Jimbo Wales section of WP:BANLIST. "They may appeal their ban by emailing him or the Arbitration Committee."--Salix alba (talk): 08:06, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

In this case, I'm happy to say that the fact that I am the one who banned him 9 years ago should play no special role today. If he seeks to be unbanned, he can follow whatever procedure the community thinks appropriate.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:35, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

How generous of you after only 9 years of ban to allow a human being to be thrown to one of your drama boards to satisfy your community! 188.132.226.2 (talk) 22:03, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

About the harm this does, consider the situation on the long run. After a time T, the fraction of editors blocked in a time period spanning t will scale as t/T (this will start to be valid some time after the number of editors has stopped to grow exponentially). So, we'll have a huge list of blocked editors, but that list will be dominated by people who were blocked a long time ago. We keep an eye on new editors to see if they are socks of the blocked editors, so most of that effort is going to be wasted on checking for irrelevant or non-existent threats with the risk of false positives (who cares if an editor blocked at the age of 15 has returned at the age of 30?) The editors who should remain blocked are the editors who were blocked recently (in the last few years or so). It thus makes sense to unblock all editors after, say, 5 years unless there is evidence of recent misbehavior by socks. Count Iblis (talk) 15:50, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

• IMO after 5 years, unless the community has decided that they cannot come back under any means, a banned or blocked editor should be able to make a clean start account, and if someone finds out it will not be held against them. KonveyorBelt 19:09, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

In all honesty, am confused because I noticed there is a User:Mutter Erde and a User:MutterErde. I posted a message on the de.wikiquote userpage because I feel, having said A, I need to say B. The rest is up to everyone concerned I guess. Thank you for your time. Lotje (talk) 15:27, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

I think we need an automated process to randomly delete stuff from Wikipedia. We could start with empty sections. They are so evil [10]. Stubs should be next, particularly those with zero refs etc. Then we could have process by which we automatically delete sourced material too, particularly if admin disagrees with it. Most sources are known to be unreliable from time to time. So DELETE all of them, just as a precaution. JMP EAX (talk) 16:38, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

@ User:Jimbo Wales, sorry to trouble you again with blocked users, but from what I retrieved today, and what has been confirmed in a certain way by Mutter Erde, the Hans Bug case might be, as Mutter Erde calls it: ...die traurigste Leiche im Keller seiner deutschen WP-Filiale (translated: ...the saddest corpse in the basement of the Germand WP-Chapter.) IMHO, some checking at the 'wizzard heaven' would not harm anyone. Thank you for your time. Lotje (talk) 16:17, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

@ Jimbo: This case seems to be a bit strange. As far as I can see MutterErde's "last words" are placed on YOUR talk site - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=next&oldid=23835406#Have_you_seen_this_.3F . They are a complaint or even a request for help, which you didn't answered with a link to the new fair use rules/templates of these days in September 2005, but with a ban of this productive author. Right or wrong? 91.65.74.2 (talk) 09:35, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

btw. How would other admins handle this cases today?

J. reverts a file as File:Aimee2.jpg with a good description as "Aimee Sweet - photographed by Suze Randall for Bomis.com" instead of copy and pasting the new fair use rationale on the Aimee2.jpg page, see [11].

Would you ban the uploader or the vandal or both or nobody? 91.65.51.175 (talk) 16:54, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

• THE MORE THINGS CHANGE DEPT. — I found this comment on the same page of the Jimbotalk archive as the "last words" cited above to be apropos: "It seems like civility is declining on Wikipedia these days, especially on AFD. Yesterday, I found out about an interesting but obscure company and thought I'd help the Wikipedia community out by writing an article about it. After staying up most of last night scouring google for information and compiling the results of my research in an article, the next thing I see is an AFD notice and people referring to it as "Just crap" and "spam"..." 24.54.208.177 8:23 pm, 21 September 2005, Wednesday (8 years, 11 months, 30 days ago) (UTC−7) — Yep, people were complaining about a growing lack of civility nine years ago! ////// Carrite (talk) 17:06, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Surely there are virtually no editors who really need to stay blocked for nine years or more. It's ridiculous that such long-term bans remain in effect long after everyone has forgotten about the situations in question. Everyking (talk) 04:35, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Civility and the WMF again: Where is the Disconnect? - A Survey

I realize that there has been previous discussion of what the WMF can do to foster civility in the English Wikipedia. That discussion here has been archived. I would like to repeat one suggestion in particular. There is a major discrepancy between the stated views of the WMF on civility and the positions defined by "community consensus" at the noticeboards. In particular, civility is a condition of the WMF's Terms of Use that govern all WMF communities, and at least one member of the WMF board, the owner of this talk page, has expressed concerns about the lack of civility enforcement. On the other hand, civility is not enforced at the English Wikipedia noticeboards unless it rises to the level of personal attacks, and not always even then (e.g., the allegation of brainlessness). There is a disconnect between stated overall WMF policy, and its restatement by the owner of this talk page, and its application at the noticeboards. My question is: Where does the disconnect lie? There are at least two explanations. First, the views of the WMF are out of line with those of English Wikipedia editors as a whole. Second, the views of English Wikipedia editors are not properly represented by the editors who take part in discussions at the noticeboards. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:05, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Your two explanations are not mutually exclusive. As we have seen with MediaViewer and the SuperProtect user right, WMF is out of step not only with English Wikipedia but with volunteers in other projects. The hardline Friendly Space/Civility Or Else view, clapping of hands at Wikimania 2014 notwithstanding, does not reflect majority opinion of the volunteer community. There is also something to be said for the idea that acerbic or outspoken people tend to congregate at the noticeboards — and I include you and I and this page in that statement. This is natural, politics attracts a certain "type." I find aggressive language in such places less disturbing than I would in the context of an attack of a good faith editor in mainspace or a mainspace talk page, for example. Civility can not be enforced by the point of a gun — it's an attitude and it takes peacemakers not conflict-escalaters to solve the problem of incivility. Wherever human beings congregate, there will be factionalism and conflict — it is part of human nature. It doesn't need to be mean, however, but reducing meanness isn't gonna happen through establishing a centralized Niceness Police. Carrite (talk) 19:15, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

What the WMF can and should do is to survey the extended English Wikipedia community. A neutrally worded survey should be composed, and posted on project talk pages and sent by email, with mechanisms to prevent stuffing the box. The survey should ask whether editors think that the current level of civility enforcement is appropriate, is too strict, or is too loose. It should also include other questions, such as questions about editor retention. Responses should be stratified as well as possible, such as by gender, by length of time of editing, by frequency of edits, by how frequently they would like to edit, and by other information, some of which can be collected by automation, and some of which can be self-declared (taking into account the uncertainty of self-declaration). If the WMF doesn't have available technical resources to conduct the survey with sufficient detail and stratification, it should consider the reassignment of technical resources from questionable projects such as Flow. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:05, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

What theory are you investigating? It seems you are putting the cart ahead of the horse in assuming that this is a major problem that is somehow impairing the project. As for readers, they don't even see this backstage world. As for volunteers, the big majority don't congregate on the drama pages or work on the drama topics or populate the drama task force. If incivility is really the cause of such great destructive loss of editors, why would you survey the active volunteers at all? Ask former editors why they have left and how to fix Wikipedia's problems — that would teach us something. You're already assuming you know the answer though, so the survey results are apt to be skewed if you frame things the way you indicate here. Questions need to be asked with an open mind. As for needing a detailed survey with careful analysis of answers according to defined subgroups — that I agree with wholeheartedly. Carrite (talk) 19:27, 17 September 2014 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 19:41, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

If the survey finds that the larger community of editors is consistent with the community of the noticeboards, then the WMF should drop or downgrade its emphasis on civility, and recognize that the current civility climate is what the larger editorial community wants. If the survey finds that the "community" of the noticeboards, that largely ignores civility, does not represent the larger community of editors, then some sort of WMF intervention, in the least disruptive possible form, is needed. (Jimbo Wales has recognized, correctly, that introducing "community organizers" as administrators would be disruptive and would make the situation worse, for instance.) The suggestion of the involvement of a small group of mediators has been made, which would be a good idea if care is taken to avoid the fallacy of moderation. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:05, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

(The gender gap is a special case. Even if the larger editorial community thinks that the disproportion of male editors over female editors is not a problem, it is true that the ratio of male editors to female editors is not representative of the technically literate population. Some action on the gender gap is needed in any case, but, at the same time, disruptive action on the gender gap, like on civility, would backfire.) Robert McClenon (talk) 18:05, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Instead of hiring 20 more engineers, WMF needs to hire two or three people to do nothing but construction and analysis of surveys — real live stats people, not "good ol' boys"... Hint: They don't have to live in San Francisco. Carrite (talk) 19:45, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Either the WMF has a handle on the views of the larger editorial community, or it does not. A survey is needed, and either action or inaction. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:05, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

The owner of this talk page has himself been somewhat less than civil on a number of occaisions. Sauce for the goose... DuncanHill (talk) 18:19, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

One of the many problems with civility enforcement is related to the famous Potter Stewart comment. When asked if he could define pornography he responded, "I know it when I see it". While many would agree that they might struggle with a formal defintion of civility, they beleive they have no trouble identifying examples of incivility. I don't doubt this, however what some may miss is that many of these identifications will not overlap from person to person.

That leaves us with a dual problem: it is hard enough to codify a set of rules when one has difficulty defining the terms but add to that the likely fact that different members of the community have very different opinions on what type of responses are considered incivil.

The community claims it wants a civil environment but when it comes to actually enforcing this, it becomes very difficult. If we do draw everyone's map of incivility would be a set of overlapping Venn diagrams with a rather common overlap. That means we have a relatively small number of sanctions for civility in which there is little disagreement. We have a large number of attempted sanctions where a significant portion of the community disagrees.

This leaves an outsider observing that there are relatively few sanctions that stick and quite a few items of perceived incivility that go on challenged leaving an outsider to think that Wikipedia is not particularly interested in enforcing civility.--S Philbrick(Talk) 20:10, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

It's pretty generalization, but what you need is research of ANIs in which civility was and was not enforced, who the editors were, what the issues were,who the closing admins were (if there was a close) and see if there is some discernable pattern that must be dealt with. One of the suggested researches I've read about that I'm compiling on a list to be used some unknown time and unknown place. :-) Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 16:33, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

That phrase 'must be dealt with' could be seen as intimidation, but as long as you stick to ANIs in which you're not involved, and those you may be be seen to have a COI with due to other ANIs or ArbCom decisions, then why not? AnonNep (talk) 17:02, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

[Insert: Sorry. To be clear, I meant compiling a list of suggested research topics (plus policy options, individual initiatives, etc.) not me compiling a list [Later clarification: of hundreds of ANIs] for research. I was thinking of the kind of research the Foundation would fund by academics. It's far more work than I want to do. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 18:48, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

I will help the researcher cut to the chase. The community of volunteers has a consensus as to what constitutes and does not constitute a personal attack. Incivility not rising to the level of a personal attack is generally not sanctioned because it is largely in the eye of the beholder, difficult to define and not the object of consensus in any event. You might think what I have just said is bullshit, but it pretty much summarizes the situation. (And I used the word bullshit pointedly, since there are some who would argue that that was "uncivil." Was it? Was it not? Difficult to say, yes? What if I had said, "I think the idea that there is a growing problem of incivility at Wikipedia and that this is a primary cause of the decline in editor count is bullshit"??? — Compare and contrast to a: "You are..." sort of assertion. Therein lies the "free speech" rub... I don't want a clique of paid bureaucrats arbitrarily deciding what is "civil" or "uncivil" — with the determination ultimately based largely on who the Civility Police want to "get" at the moment... ) Carrite (talk) 17:15, 18 September 2014 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 17:22, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

As for the above, I think you are replying to another proposal by someone else? Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 18:48, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

No. Carrite (talk) 21:22, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Application of WP:CIVIL, must be ironed out among administrators themselves. They do the blocking & unblocking. Conflicting interpretations by them, doesn't help matters. GoodDay (talk) 19:34, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

At this Editor Retention thread there's some discussions of getting admins views on the topic and I have an idea for a scorecard of different civility issues, how they might be weighted in any admin discussion, etc. Haven't had time to put together yet. But got the table matrix finished anyway. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 19:52, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Carol, up above you wrote, "what you need is research of ANIs in which civility was and was not enforced, who the editors were, what the issues were,who the closing admins were (if there was a close) and see if there is some discernible pattern that must be dealt with". I would like to add my support for this ambitious project. Right now, I'm trying to figure out how to data mine the 3RR noticeboards. I want to be able to view how many admins (or users with advanced permissions) have ever been blocked for edit warring in comparison to editors without advanced permissions. At least two users (including myself) have observed admins edit warring with impunity. We really need to have data driven policies and guidelines, and this applies to civility enforcement as well. I've attempted to modify the edit warring policy to address these observations, only to be met by serious distractions and diversions, while supporters of these changes are getting drowned out by admins attempting to change the subject. I feel the same thing has happened to editors who wish to enforce civility. Any attempt to improve the policies and guidelines is met with dozens of distractions and derision. One thing that would help greatly is an organized, structural process for changing and proposing policies and guidelines that would filter out the distractions. The addition of trained mediators as you previously suggested would also benefit constructive discussion, as we are approaching a point where moderation is needed in order to progress as a community. Viriditas (talk) 01:09, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

I think the fasted way would be to look at the block log of every admin who has edited in the last year and then search the 3RR board for reports near the time of the block. Chillum Need help? Type {{ping|Chillum}} 01:23, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Comments

User:Carrite and I may disagree as to whether there is a civility problem in the English Wikipedia, but we agree that a survey would be informative. Either the "community" at the noticeboards is not representative of the larger community of editors, and there is a disconnect between the noticeboard community and the larger community, in which case some sort of action by the WMF is in order, or the larger community does not perceive a problem, in which case inaction by the WMF is in order. I agree with Carrite that hiring at least one person with real experience in surveys and statistics would be a good idea. Carrite refers to "not good ol' boys". I am interested in who he is deprecating. Carrite proposes that the survey also include former editors. I agree. Both current and former editors should be surveyed. I agree with the comments of User:Sphilbrick about the complexity of defining civility, and think that a survey could help to clarify what the varied opinions of editors are. I think that Sphilbrick and I are in agreement that there is very little enforcement of civility except for actual personal attacks. (I would add that, in my opinion, some personal attacks go ignored also.) Robert McClenon (talk) 17:25, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

User:Carolmooredc proposes what appears to be an entirely different type of survey, of WP:ANI threads. I don't understand what she wants well enough to comment one way or the other, but that is an entirely different survey than I was proposing. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:25, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree that the results of the survey are likely to provide value. I haven't jumped on board with strong support mainly for cost-benefit reasons. Proper construction of a survey would not be cheap especially when you accept that a proper survey would include former editors in addition to editors and ideally members of the public who have chosen never to become an editor perhaps because of the environment. That's not cheap. There are lots of things that need to be done and I'm honestly not sure that this falls high enough on the list to justify the expenditure. Now if an outside body such as an academic research center finds it a subject worthy of interest, I'll gladly look at the results.

I agree that Carolmooredc's proposal is different. But I do see value. One important difference is that a proper survey is outside the scope of what the community can do on its own. That sort of survey requires foundation or other external funding. A review of ANI threads at least conceptually could be done by members of the community. There are issues of selection bias and other concerns but if someone does such a study it would be worth looking at.--S Philbrick(Talk) 17:44, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

I partly disagree with Sphilbrick as to the cost issue. It is true that a proper survey is outside the scope of what the community can do, but I was identifying it in the scope of what the WMF can do, which was part of what Jimbo had originally asked. The WMF has developers who are in need of assignments, because otherwise they work on "improvements" such as Visual Editor and Flow that the community does not need. (Media Viewer at least is oriented largely to the readers, but Visual Editor and Flow are "improvements" intended to serve the community of editors that many of the editors do not want.) The WMF thinks that action needs to be taken to improve civility. The WMF can use its own resources to determine whether there is a problem. Jimbo had proposed hiring mediators. Is there a problem for which professional mediators would be an appropriate solution? The WMF can hire one survey person and otherwise reassign its developers to determine whether and what the problem is. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:54, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Notice of re-booted discussion re "Avoiding personal attacks"

I have started a new discussion on the "No personal attacks" policy page. Since this is (still) an issue of civility, and the subject of much debate here and elsewhere on the project, watchers of this page are invited to participate. "Avoiding personal attacks". Sincerely. Lightbreather (talk) 01:20, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia editor being railroaded by Wikipediocracy

[Note from Jimbo: I will be unable to look into this in a timely fashion but it sounds like there would be nothing for me to do at this stage anyway other than the usual: to advice calm, quiet reflection, a reduction of drama, and a serious effort to treat everyone with dignity as human beings.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:03, 13 September 2014 (UTC)]

• UPDATE: An SPI concluded that user:Kaletony is a sock of user:Doxelary II, and, possibly user:Doxelary. Diff. User:Kaletony has been indefinitely blockedMemills (talk) 18:36, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

• UPDATE 2: There is currently a sockpuppet investigation to investigate whether Kaldari created the socks Kaletony, Doxelary II and Doexlary. Memills (talk) 05:03, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Mr Wales, Tutelary was doxxed by members of Wikipediocracy. They also claim that she is not really a transwoman, which is obvious transphobia. Now there is a proposal on ANI to topic ban her from BLPs or even site ban her. Just because she moderates some subreddits about women on Reddit does not mean that she is an MRA. Remember, Wikipediocracy are the same people who claimed that a KKK member shouldn't be editing articles about Jews. That's not how Wikipedia works - anyone can edit anything. I bet Tutelary knows more about feminists than most of the people who edit in that topic area. Please put a stop to this harrassment by Wikipediocracy supporters. Anyone voting to ban Tutelary should be banned for supporting doxxing. Doxelary (talk) 21:26, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

This is my favorite edit. We wouldn't want the readers thinking a fedora was ever anything but the manliest of manly hats. __ E L A Q U E A T E 22:59, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Wow, Elaqueate, that's pretty impressive — 1300 edits your first month at Wikipedia and more than 3500 your second!!! Care to disclose your previous account name??? You don't seem to want to link account names on your user page, I see... (The cult of anonymity sucks.) Carrite (talk) 00:16, 14 September 2014 (UTC) — my bad, read years as months. Still — no linkage of accounts showing. Carrite (talk) 00:34, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

I've never had another Wikipedia account. There's nothing to link. How many accounts do you have? __ E L A Q U E A T E 00:47, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

If you were to take a gander at the page's history, it will be painfully obvious the context of that revert. But yes, in given Doxelary's (is that a play on my name?) observation, I have been doxxed and there is a ANI proposal to site ban me. Oh, and for sheer else other than respect to trans people, a savvy ArbCom member should take a look at the whole darned mess as there are several people still referring to me by male pronouns when I've made clear that I am a woman. Tutelary (talk) 23:07, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't want to make you uncomfortable here Tutelary, but I am sure you understand why people may be confused by your statements about your gender. You have recently said that you are not a man and not trans but a woman (with the implication being that you were born a woman). Yet you identified briefly here as trans. You now say this was by accident, but it seems an awfully strange mistake to make, expecially in light of everything else. Wikipediocracy seems to think that you are a dude pretending to be trans and the comments on that blog post have links to where someone with your username talks about pretending to be a woman online so that you can infect their computer via racy images. So, without meaning any disrepect, would you be willing to clarify what you mean by "I am a woman"? Kaletony (talk) 15:37, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Kaletony (talk), you are apparently brand new to Wikipedia, yet amazingly you have mastered WP policy, jargon and formatting codes -- within 24 hours. Would you be willing to clarify whether you have ever edited WP under another username, or via an IP address? Are you a sock? Memills (talk) 00:33, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

MeMills, you are topic banned from "discussing the topic of men's rights on any page at Wikipedia unless it is in the context of an appeal of the ban itself". This is a discussion about an editor who is at risk of being banned for pushing an anti-feminist or pro-men's rights agenda. While I'm sure Titelary appreciates your support, mind that you don't get yourself banned in the process. Kaletony (talk) 03:14, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

You do sound familiar -- that tone. I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable, but you haven't answered the question. Mind that you do not get a SPI. But, since you have only be editing WP for about 24 hours, I'm sure you have no idea what that refers to. Memills (talk) 04:00, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Start a sockpuppetry investigation if you feel like one is needed. Kaletony (talk) 13:50, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Kaletony, an SPI would not be needed if you simply answered the question: Do you have more than one account? Per WP:Sock: "The general rule is one editor, one account." You state here that 'I believe the preferred term is "alternate account'" which suggests that you have two accounts. If you are using an alternative account, per WP:SOCK#NOTIFY you should have links to each on both your "...main and alternative account user pages, either informally or using the userbox templates made for the purpose." Linking the two accounts would obviate the need for an SPI. Memills (talk) 15:48, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Please stop badgering me. If you think I'm breaking some rule, take it to ANI. Kaletony (talk) 16:16, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

The badgering is over. User:Kaletony has been indefinetly blocked by Drmies for 'obviously using an alternative account.' I don't know what other alternative account(s) Kaletony has used, but it should be interesting if the sockpuppet investigation can find out. Memills (talk) 04:41, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

He's just trolling ANI to keep adolescent boys' views of women on Wikipedia by keeping 4chan/reddit/wikipediocracy in permanent form here. WP shouldn't be the permanent repository of every feud invented by adolescents. He's certainly an undisclosed alt and drama generator. He's edited ANI, here and his own talk page. --DHeyward (talk) 18:59, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Whaaaaat? That's pretty much the opposite of what I said on ANI. People like Tutelary and 123chess456 who hang out in misogynist forums on Reddit should be banned here if they bring those attitudes with them. You really need to work on your reading comprehension. Kaletony (talk) 23:47, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

That may be and there is no problem with sanctioning those users for their actions. Bringing the battles from those places over extremely marginable subjects Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian to WP and trolling WP with those topics is not welcome. The influx of SPA's and disruptors that are seeking to spill this dispute from reddit/tumblr/twitter to 4chan to Wikipediocracy is trolling. Conflating it with any male/female edit conflict, as you did with CMDC/Specifico is trolling. Further conflating that isolated topic with an unrelated theft of private photos is trolling. If you like, I can find the caricature trope role that you are playing but really it's just trolling to merge disjoint and orthogonal issues into one fireball of social injustice on Wikipedia in order to vainly create a WP:POINT about gender's role on Wikipedia. You have made no constructive edits and have sought to broaden what should be a narrow topic. It doesn't help build the encyclopedia but it is divisive. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DHeyward (talk • contribs) 03:46, 16 September 2014

Please don't use the trans community as a shield for your hate of women, your gender isn't the most important thing here, it's the way you edit and what you are using the website for --5.81.51.98 (talk) 15:42, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, how horrible of Tutelary to revert a vandalism-only sockpuppet account. Exactly what level of absurdity is this witch-hunt going to reach?--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 00:39, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Not to mention HJ Mitchell's block was for vague WP:NOTHERE reasoning, not for socking. So their contributions aren't quantifiable for deletion anywho by HJ Mitchell's own block. Tutelary (talk) 00:40, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

User:The Devil's Advocate: defender to the last of Qworty and User:Bonkers The Clown. (Bonkers calls African Americans niggers on article talk pages, calls the US president magic nigga, and wears a swastika in his user name when greeting newbies at the tea house.) Don't go taking his support as any kind of vindication. His name means what it says. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 01:11, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

I know that there is an unfortunate coincidence that you on your travels, Jimmy, and not able to scrutinize things closely, just as you were when the Essjay shit hit the fan, but it is worth considering whether you want to support someone playing the same sort of game as Essjay played of pretending to be what he was not in order to gain an advantage in on-Wiki discussions. Do you again want to let a troll, in this case a misogynist one, be seen to have gulled you?--92.238.57.40 (talk) 00:30, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Administrator and blocker of the IP HJ Mitchell restored the IP's comment, even though in their block heavily implicated they were a sock, yet he doesn't want us to remove the reply. Still, I am a woman and the fact that you only have insults and dragging my name through the mud to back up your accusations is really telling. Tutelary (talk) 01:02, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Whoever you are, the facts are clear. You have been pursuing a misogynistic campaign.KonveyorBelt 01:59, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Doxelary, what exactly do you want from Wales, to block Wikipediocracy? 84.253.75.6 (talk) 16:34, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Tutelary — stop socking. Carrite (talk) 00:28, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

If Tutelary emails you, I recommend you don't click any links or open any attachments. (Per WP:ANI#For your own safety.) --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 01:19, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

For all we know, Tutelary may already have hacked Jimbo's account, the accounts of most ArbCom members and Admins. Wikipedia is doomed :). Count Iblis (talk) 15:59, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Oh please, Tutelary has directly confirmed they have hacked various peoples computers before, its fair to recommend not opening links from private emails sent --5.81.51.98 (talk) 20:24, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

On some forum devoted to hacking. If an editor does that here, that's sufficient grounds for an indefinite ban. It's not all that difficult to check if links or attachments are going to cause problems without opening them, so it would be a rather stupid thing to do. Count Iblis (talk) 20:55, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

What we must be guard against (I made this point on AN/I too) is the following scenario (which may not apply to this case, but if this were to happen it would manifest itself with similar symptoms). In the past we've had Wikipediocracy members complain here about editors with politically incorrect views they would like to see banned without going through the regular processes. It may therefore be tempting to them or to some other group to just invent an editor who has politically incorrect views. They can create an account here and also on some forums where they make politically incorrect postings under the same moniker. After a while they can then claim on Wikipediocracy to have "discovered" this Wikipedia editor who has all these outrageous views that Wikipedia is just tolerating. So, they create an artificial case for intervention on the basis of political incorrectness.

If we were to give in to that, then that would create a precedent. The next time it will be an editor who has less extreme views but those views are still regarded as problematic by some here, and then some Admin may act on the precendent set. The rules for reversing a ban means that unless there is a consensus against the ban, the ban won't be reversed. In practice this means that the ban will stand. The minority of editors who think that BLPs should not be edited by people who have questionable views will then have their way. But just consider the turmoil we've had in the climate change area when there was only the perception in the community that editors here were not giving the climate sceptical editors enough room to edit. So, on the long run this would create a lot of problems for Wikipedia. We should therefore allow everyone to edit all articles unless they are creating problems here. We should not care about postings on some hacker forums or elsewhere. Only if the disruption here is a problem can off Wiki behavior be used as supplementary evidence. Count Iblis (talk) 17:02, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but that's an insane way to run a volunteer organization. If a volunteer at the United Way, or the hospital auxiliary, or the local food bank turns out to spend their free time engaged in odious behavior (fill in the blank; racism, computer crime, sexual harassment, etc), then the organization in question will quickly terminate their relationship with that volunteer. No reputable organization would ignore odious behavior on the part of its volunteers simply because the behavior took place outside some arbitrarily circumscribed workspace. The degree to which our practices here are divorced from reality is disappointing. MastCell ^Talk 18:02, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia has to be as neutral as possible. We should ask if this Wikipedia in the 1950s would have allowed Alan Turing with his politically incorrect views on homosexuality, to edit. Note that some volunteer organisations in the US ban gay people from participating. Count Iblis (talk) 18:30, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Most don't. And sexual harassment, racism, and computer crime are not just "politically incorrect", but rather odious and likely to remain so indefinitely. I think you're presenting hypothetical irrelevancies in lieu of addressing my actual point, which is that that reputable volunteer organizations do not ignore odious behavior solely because it happens outside the scope of direct volunteer activities. MastCell ^Talk 18:40, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

What works for these organizations is not likely to work well for us, and it's not necessary. One can ask why can't we just let the law take care of the bad people while we stick to building the encyclopedia? If a racist here creates problems with his racist behavior here, we should ban this person. But if we start to care what someone does elsewhere (which is not what we are supposed to do here), then it's inevitable that we get tangled up in unnecessary controversies. E.g. many people in the Arab World have problems with the existence of Israel, many will have views that are deeply offensive to Jews. At most we can ask them to keep their private views private here on Wikipedia. But if we go on a fishing expedition to try to find if some Arab editor here also posts on some other forum and then use some controversial remarks made there (e.g. during the Gaza war) to argue that he should be banned, then all bets are off. Count Iblis (talk) 19:00, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

What works for these organizations is not likely to work well for us... really? Why not? It's this sort of arrogance and exceptionalism that infect "the community" and doom any attempt to deal seriously with the real issues confronting Wikipedia. Believe it or not, we can actually learn something from the way other volunteer organizations handle these issues. We're not the first to confront them, and we shouldn't be above learning from others' experiences, although doing so would require at least a nominal degree of humility which seems to be lacking here. MastCell ^Talk 19:46, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

The question is then if the Wikipedia community can best be compared to the members of a volunteer organization, or if the relevant community dynamics mirror more that of a country governed by laws. I think the latter is better model for Wikipedia because we have a very diverse group of editors. The main problem here in Wikipedia is not the racist editor who according to our gut feelings should not edit here, it is actually that very same gut feeling that we get in vicious editing disputes. Giving in to that feeling is the main cause of the many intractable disputes leading to big ArbCom cases. So, going after the few racists here may look like a good thing to do but it is actually only going to lead Wikipedia to go down the drain. It's not really that banning a particular racist will do harm, but the precendent that this will set will lead to other editors being banned or restricted and that will cause big disputes, paralyzing the project. Count Iblis (talk) 02:02, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Mastcell, if you are accusing another editor of "computer crime", then such accusations should go privately to arbcom, along with any evidence that you and others have been able to collect. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:20, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm not accusing anyone of anything. I'm trying to establish the principle that certain off-wiki actions are reprehensible enough to impact our willingness to allow someone to continue editing here. Right now, a significant proportion of "the community" don't seem to ascribe to that principle, which I see as concerning. MastCell ^Talk 23:31, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't know anything about this issue and have no comment about the rest of it, but in regards to an offhand comment by the original poster, I'm stunned that in four days, nobody has challenged this. You're criticizing Wikipediocracy for saying that a KKK member should not be editing articles about Jews? Really? If we can't get nearly unanimous agreement that a KKK member should not be editing articles about Jews, then there is little hope for Wikipedia. --B (talk) 01:20, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

And what if the edits themselves are found to be good? Because in that case, the KKK organization may well decide to kick that person out of their organization. If they are the intolerant organization and we are not, why not use that as an advantage over them? Count Iblis (talk) 02:07, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Umm ... are you suggesting that we should allow professing KKK members to edit articles about Jews because that might cause the KKK to expel the member? I ... umm ... I guess I'm speechless. Go find any sane person out on the street and ask if it makes sense to hire a KKK member as a biographer of a Jewish person. 100% of the time, the answer will be an emphatic no. There's something wrong with egalitarianism at the expense of common sense. --B (talk) 02:15, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

But we're not hiring anyone, people come edit here anonymously as volunteers. If a KKK member were to edit an article about Jews here, then it may be that those edits will be found to be problematic and if the problems on these and perhaps other articles persist, someone here may find out that the editor is an KKK member. That information will in practice lead us to the conclusion that the editor in question is not likely to ever edit the articles in an acceptable way, so a topic ban is then the most likely remedy. But all of this is set in motion by the problematic behavior on the relevant Wiki pages. In contrast, there may well be KKK members who do not agree with what the KKK says about Jews and who edit Wikipedia in a way that doesn't cause any problems. It would not be helpful at all to try to out such editors and kick them out of Wikipedia. Count Iblis (talk) 02:33, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

What matters to me is not the person making the edits, but the edits a person makes.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 03:26, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I get that. What I'm trying to understand is whether people like you and Count Iblis speak for the community, or whether you are (as I believe) extremist outliers. MastCell ^Talk 20:50, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that the community will be divided on this issue and we may not get a majority, let alone a consensus for our views. But such a discussion isn't on the agenda as the rules we have support our views. The situation is similar to the First Amendment. This is not to protect free speech against some hypothetical dictator, because other parts of the constitution deal with the democratic structure of the government. The First Amendement prevents a democratically elected government from passing laws that would limit free speech. The First Amendment is thus primarily about protecting the negative aspects of free speech, some people may have views on issues that are widely regarded as disgusting, insulting etc. Because the majority has the power in a democratic system, they would then be able to crack down on that, were it not for the First Amendment. Count Iblis (talk) 21:49, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Free speech. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:14, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia is indeed not a forum for free speech, and free speech here in Wikiepdia isn't pertiment to this discussion. Free speech in the real world is relevant in the above argument. Banning editors because they are affiliated with groups we don't like without there being any issues editing here, is analogous to countries restricting free speech. Without a constitutional guarantee on free speech, you would have big majorites against certain forms of free speech. Arguably the rise of new authocratic democracies like Russia, Iraq, Egypt and Turkey is (partially) due to this effect. So, I would say that Wikipedia is vulnerable to become more autocratic the more we give in to these populist urges. Count Iblis (talk) 03:01, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Banning editors because they are affiliated with groups we don't like without there being any issues editing here, is analogous to countries restricting free speech. - nonsense, it's nothing of the sort. This is an encyclopedia. Not a "country" or a "forum". If it were a "forum" maybe then it would be analogous. But it's not. We even have a policy which says exactly that: WP:NOTAFORUM. The last three sentences are so stupid that I don't even know how to respond. Volunteer Marek  03:35, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Sure, this is an encyclopedia but when Jimbo started this, he decided to let the community take charge of editing it. So, this is a encyclopedia that is shaped by the community, it generates its own rules via consensus formation within that community. So, there are clear analogies with the way societies work. Then you can say that we are not necessarily subject to any democratic rules that apply to e.g. the US, but this is only true if you take whatever rules there are as a given. If you go one step back and ask where the rules come from in the first place, then the picture is different. So, if you start with a stone age society and watch it evolve over millenia, then eventually you'll end up with countries governed by democratic rules including free speech laws. In countires where there is less freedom you'll have more repression. This outcome does not depend on the details of the initial state, and it is then a universal feature of social dynamics. This means that while here on Wikipedia, you could theoretically imagine all sorts of rules being implemented, but only certain types of rules will yield good results. Some rules that may look better but they require an autocratic system. So, if we don't want KKK members here, the only way to kick them out without violating the privacy of editors would be to let ArbCom doing secret background checks on editors here, and if they find people who hold politically incorrect views tArbCom would ban them without the community having any input (because the evidence cannot be disclosed).

About the autocratic countries, these are new democracies, the population there was susceptible to the type of logic supported by Mastcell and you and there wasn't the constitutional protection of free speech that we have in the West. Count Iblis (talk) 15:39, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Maybe you should not be so haughty about this seeing as if people knew everything about you they would probably consider your actions here cause for just as much concern and it would be much more richly deserved since you use a position of trust to serve your own POV.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 23:51, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

You know, that almost sounds like you're making a thinly veiled threat. Volunteer Marek  03:35, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

TDA: Suffice to say that when it comes to me—as with most subjects—you know a lot less than you think you do. I think you've succeeded in derailing any possible opportunity for serious discussion... so, mission accomplished, I guess. Score another one for the Wikipedia governance model of providing veto power to anyone with a personality disorder and an Internet connection. MastCell ^Talk 21:29, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Half this discussion is one set of socks accusing another set of socks of sock puppeting, with the latter socks retaliating by accusing the former socks of being socks. The other half of this discussion is The Devil's Advocate and Count Iblis either trolling or saying some very very dumb things and a couple editors wasting their time trying to engage them on a serious level. Welcome to what Wikipedia has become. Volunteer Marek  00:23, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, if only more people on Wikipedia were like you.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 01:07, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

WP:DFTT (which I recommend to anyone else considering engaging DA in these little "debates"). Volunteer Marek  03:35, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Of course we judge Wikipedians by their edits here and not by their views or whatever they might do outside Wikipedia. It would be outrageous if someone were to be a good and uncontroversial editor but then be banned because someone discovered that they had a certain view or political affiliation. Clearly, that isn't how we operate. Everyking (talk) 04:52, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Amusing

You know what I find amusing? That the entire discussion above wasted dozens of hours of time, because the argument just had to be maintained; but this little note had to be quickly erased by some mouth-breather, so as not to allow Wikipedia to be disrupted. - 2601:B:BB80:E0:C124:1B41:6BA1:E72B (talk) 12:29, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Earliest stubs

I was wondering if somebody could find some articles which were created in the dark ages of 2001 which are still stubs?♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:55, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

The API would let you iterate through the stub category and request the most recent edits from groups of pages and filter by date. Chillum Need help? Type {{ping|Chillum}} 15:59, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

@Chillum:, where do I do that?♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:21, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

You would start here. You would need to write a program to do it for you or find someone who can. I am currently working on the AIV Helperbot code so I am not available. I may have time in a week or two but I would need to understand the value of such a program. Chillum Need help? Type {{ping|Chillum}} 16:24, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

• I came across September Morn (September 2002, fittingly) a couple days ago, but it's far from a stub now. I think Chillum's idea works well. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:08, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Don't worry, the evil one has found a way of finding them :-) Things like science fiction novels, usernet cabal, mathematical jargon etc were among the first created, male geeks at work... Somebody please close this in a hidden section to avoid the scrutiny of British Intelligence!♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:58, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

• The article count was only about 19,750 as of 1 Jan 2002; a list of what those articles were would be fun to see.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 18:31, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
  • @Milowent: you can see an approximation of that list by going to Special:Allpages on the Nostalgia Wikipedia, a copy of the Wikipedia database from 20 December 2001. Graham87 07:34, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

• Thank you. Quite interesting!--Milowent • ^hasspoken 12:35, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

• British Intelligence? I wonder if Gandhi would have viewed such a possibility as equally desirable to Western Civilisation? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:45, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

I had fun rummaging through some old pages I found and looking at the contributions of some of the very oldest users. I found this Some of the earliest entries were created like FrancE with funny capitals in them. Jimbo might remember that and User:Wojpob. I just expanded Double-hulled tanker which was created on April 3 2001! ♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:36, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

@Dr. Blofeld: The funny capitals are CamelCase. Graham87 07:34, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

@Dr. Blofeld: barging in I expanded Home page for the stub contest, which was created on 9 February 2001 by a certain JimboWales, but it's too long to qualify for any points in the contest. For finding articles, WP:Catscan sorts by page ID (which corresponds to the date) with the default output settings. Here's a query in category:Film, going 2 cats deep, showing about 50 stubs created before 2005 (the first ones). James^x12345 20:54, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

You've been here almost as long as Jimbo haven't you Graham? I spotted your name in page histories back in the wiki jurassic period!♦ Dr. Blofeld 08:23, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Nope, I started editing here in February 2005. It's just that I've developed a fascination with Wikipedia's earliest edits, so I've edited a lot of old pages on the site. Graham87 15:11, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Is it actually true that some articles will always be stubs, no matter what? Seems like a very depressing Hell to be locked into. --k6ka (talk | contribs) 22:52, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Oh I dunno, you can always expand them. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:23, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

If the foundation could raise a very small amount (in proportion) annually to fund a monthly contest with Amazon vouchers of reasonably high value given to the contributors who expand the most stubs, oldest and highest importance/traffic, and who can expand the most to GA quality then wikipedia would come on leaps and bounds. The foundation should be organizing all sorts of things to lure people in to improve content. Disappointing really that they're not more actively involved in trying to introduce measures to improve quality across the site. Imagine the result you could get if you held a monthly competition with a handsome $500-1000 first prize for Amazon vouchers and how many contributors would suddenly be motivated to actually work on articles instead of sitting about moaning :-). Come Christmas time especially, just think how many editors would find Amazon vouchers of great benefit. Why don't the foundation show more of an interest Jimmy in this sort of thing instead of people like Danny running one every year or two out of his own pocket?♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:40, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

How to avoid never ending expansion of policies with [silly] advice?

I WP:AGF that the policy hawks (i.e. editors who seem to spend most of their breathing moments editing Wikipedia policies) only have good intentions. Nevertheless, it's impossible not to note that the same issues that arrise with civil POV pushing in articles are even more prevalent on policy pages. For starters, on articles at least there is an external factor (i.e. sources) that can sometimes limit what can be pushed in. There is no such limitation for policies, so whoever spends most of their time pushing the n-th slightly tweaked version of a failed proposal eventually might win by exhausting the opposition and/or profiting from their [temporary] drop in vigilance. Any ideas for combating this phenomenon? Perhaps a yearly policy review instead of the never-ending tweaks? That seems to work for other important issue like ArbCom elections instead of having them on a rolling basis. JMP EAX (talk) 13:12, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that we have a new policy on policy changes? Carrite (talk) 14:03, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

To paraphrase: 'A Wikipedia Policy is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled'. AnonNep (talk) 14:11, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Sometimes irrational editing behavior leads to attempts to come up with nitpicking policy solutions when the real solution is getting the editors more rational so nitpicky solutions do not seem necessary. Hmmmm.... maybe we can have an Adrian Monk at the shrinks help page. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:44, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Which policy is being "expanded"? Could you supply a link? Lightbreather (talk) 04:39, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm merely guessing, but after looking over their edit history, I might guess they're referring to the several proposals at Wikipedia talk:No personal attacks (where you are apparently already a contributor : ) - jc37 18:50, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Your Wikimania comment and shameful list

Mr. Wales,

On Wikimania you said: "One of the things I've always believed is letting people walk away with dignity. We don't have to shame them and scream at them and make them leave and then they're sad and annoyed and then they make sock puppets and then they come back and harass us for years." Once you even told me a story about a vandal who left wikipedia after he was asked to leave nicely. Remember?

I know Mr. Wales, that you would agree with me that templating user pages of banned content creators, listing their user names (which sometimes are their real names and/or could be easily linked to their real names) in this shameful list means shaming persons, means denying them an option to leave your site with dignity. Besides in some situations listing "the crimes" of named persons is violation of Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. So called community ban discussions violate each and every letter of BLP policy.

Mr. Wales, I know you understand that wikipedia would only benefit, if people are treated with dignity. That list serves no other purpose but bullying and shaming human beings who often made tremendous contributions to your site, and who in many cases have done nothing wrong to deserve the way they were treated.

The shameful listed should be deleted. The shameful practice of so called community bans ought to stop. It is a good time to use your founder flag, Mr. Wales, no, not for the people who are listed in the list, but for wikipedia. 50.150.100.229 (talk) 13:50, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Indeed. Wikipedia is in the real world, and some people there have the usernames as their real names or something that is linked to their user names. This could seriously affect their chances for employment if a prospective employer happened upon this page. KonveyorBelt 15:52, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Then, not to be blunt, they shouldn't have acted in such a way as to have gotten the ban in the first place, and I imagine that any prospective employer who notices a user is banned from Wikipedia will examine the reason they were banned. This all goes back to personal responsibility: If you don't want there to be ramifications in the real world because of your misbehaviour, then either don't use your real name or don't misbehave. I do not sympathise one iota with the ban-evading IP; they should have known the consequences that would result from using one's real name. They're just complaining because now they realise it was a stupid idea - a year or so too late. —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 18:21, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

• See, Mr. Wales, the above post by Jéské Couriano, a typical representative of the so called Wikipedia community (whatever it is). He clearly demonstrates that for him keeping the list has nothing to do with protecting Wikipedia. He uses it to punish a real persons in real life. Do you believe such kind of users should be welcomed at Wikipedia, Mr. Wales? 50.150.100.229 (talk) 19:24, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

• Don't put words in my mouth. I said no such thing; all I said was that there are consequences to misbehaving while using your real name online, and that you're only pushing this angle as hard as you can because you're trying to save face. —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 21:35, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Where do you work, Curano, Burger King? No reputable business is going to care that someone is not allowed to post on a website, especially this one. Tarc (talk) 18:26, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

If the reason for the ban would implicate the job (i.e. harassment, issuing death threats, chronic disrespect of authority) then they would care, Tarc. (also, I don't work at Burger King, but I do work at a restaurant.) —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 21:35, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Oh, of course! Heavens to Betsey!!! Never let us consider how any of this should ever effect anyone who works in Burger King. This is a reputable site, only for people in reputable businesses!!! </END SARCASM TAG> AnonNep (talk) 18:37, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Also, Mr. Wales, would you please be so kind, and define what is the Wikipedia community? A few weeks ago asked Lila this very question. Before Lila had a chance to respond Mr. Beaudette weighed in:

“ [23:42:12] <philippe> Guest38632: nothing like an easy one, huh? That's maybe the hardest question around.... I've been trying for years :) ”

And, if even the Director of Community Advocacy " has been trying for years to figure out what is the Wikipedia community", and apparently still has not figured it out, what the heck are the community bans? Isn't your site is a charitable organization, and isn't this about time to stop shameful, medieval practice of public humiliation and lynching human beings on this charitable site? 50.150.100.229 (talk) 17:59, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Do not insult the vandals. Count Iblis (talk) 19:20, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

• Unfortunately, this is largely my fault. I've recently stirred up a hornet's nest by requesting the page in question be deleted - Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:List of banned users (6th nomination). As you can see, there's a number of banned users (the one who started this thread in particular) who have a vested interest in the deletion and are getting a little upset over the matter. Those users aside, the debate over the list has been civil, even and informative, I'd certainly like to thank the participants there for behaving so well on such an evocative topic. Worm^TT(talk) 10:07, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

• Crazy notion, I know, but did you ever consider the possibility that she has a valid point? Tarc (talk) 11:55, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

I think the list should be deleted, as it serves no legitimate purpose. Many of the keep votes argued the "well they should have thought of that and take responsibility for their past actions" point, and I find that one unconvincing. Others say that the list is "useful" but I haven't seen a clear articulation of what it is useful *for*. Until we get consensus to delete it, we should at a minimum take care to keep it (and archives and subpages) out of search engines. For many of the names, even apparently real names, the page is readily found in a google search for their name. This is a problem in that it doesn't allow people to walk away with dignity and, as I said at Wikimania, tends to cause them to stick around forever trying to clear their name, etc. There's no value in that.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:22, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

At the same time, deleting it would make it somewhat harder to identify any non-LTA banned user that has been community banned. (ArbCom-banned ones are somewhat easier, given ArbCom has a list of active sanctions that can reasonably accommodate a list of users banned by them if the need arises). I note that most (if not all) of the entries on LOBU have links to the community ban discussions; if LOBU is to be deprecated/deleted, then would it be useful to link those discussions on the users' master accounts where practical? —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 17:52, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree, Jimbo. Note, that I was on that list-in-question, for 13-months. Being banned itself, is humiliating. The list is more helpful, then harmful. GoodDay (talk) 20:29, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks to the link I just took a look at the page and found something that has shocked me, about a user's sockpuppet (I knew both users and did not know they were the same person). This fact alone (about a likely living editor) certainly makes me think this page should be got rid of immeditaely, certainly if Jimbo's comments were real and from the heart rather than being a marketing exercise with no bearing on reality this will happen promptly, or unless others of coruse prevent this form happening. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 03:35, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Notice of rebooted discussion

I have started a new discussion on the "No personal attacks" policy page. Since this is (still) an issue of civility, and the subject of much debate here and elsewhere on the project, watchers of this page are invited to participate. "Avoiding personal attacks". Sincerely. Lightbreather (talk) 03:36, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:40, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

I forgot...

About the bot.

--Lightbreather (talk) 17:19, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Was that a poem? Neutron (talk) 18:25, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Note

• Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Banning Policy/Workshop

Since I mentioned your talk page (and the usage thereof), I thought I should drop you a note. - jc37 19:53, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

On-WIki threats of violence

Jimbo, so you are aware, it appears there was a situation today where this comment led to this comment (rev-deleted, but I believe you still have the tools to view? It's, obviously, the 2 hidden comments there), which according to someone who saw it before revision deletion, said this. The user was indefinitely blocked, then unilaterally unblocked less than 24h later; the user never posted an unblock request. Tarc (talk) 01:51, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

How do you know that Jimbo is aware, and what comment is more threatening the one by Demiurge1000 or the one by Sitush? 58.213.19.134 (talk) 03:17, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't believe Tarc ever said he is aware? It says So you are aware...? Moreso, I don't think this needs to be discussed here as it's already being discussed on AN/I, the unblocking admins page, and the blocked users page. I believe Tarc only meant this as to point it out to Jimbo. Dusti^{*Let's talk!*} 03:27, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Yea, the message here was to make Jimbo aware if he was not already. As for "which comment is bad", I have my own rather clear opinion there, but this message was intentionally neutral. Tarc (talk) 03:47, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Without singling anyone in particular at the present time, I see several people in that discussion who should find a different hobby.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:30, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Oh FFS are we the TSA now? Devoid of common sense or reading comprehension, ignorant of the concept of metaphor? Maybe it makes it easier to get people on board with any policy decision when you revdel/suppress/whatever at the drop of a hat, but I am not impressed. What possible benefit is there to the encyclopedia to conceal the evidence (if it were evidence) that an editor is dangerous? If there's some fellow from Syria on here making threats to track down his opponents and chop off their heads, I'd rather we be able to read that in the page history right above the block notice rather than send a Wikipedia email (and reveal our address) because we don't know what happened. Wnt (talk) 11:48, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, and what are we to make of the concept of "On-Wiki violence", anyway? I mean, it's not possible to make an edit that would cause computers to get blown up. Count Iblis (talk) 18:14, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

We are to make of it that it was a threat of violence made on a Wikipedia page, as opposed to e-mail or off-site. Pedantic nitpicking is rather unhelpful. Tarc (talk) 18:17, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Any real threat of violence must be responded to by informing the authorities. Obviously if I threaten to burn your house and from the context it is clear that this may well be a real threat, then it would be irresponsible to not notify the police. But if this is not the case, then there can't have been real threat of violence and all we're taking about is a personal attack, albeit of a very vile nature. That can justify a block, but we should not confuse such personal attacks, however bad they may be, with real threats of violence. The former may get you banned from Wikipedia, the latter may well lead to a prison sentence. Count Iblis (talk) 18:52, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, there are threats (though not of violence) that are not actionable by police but would be actionable by Wikipedia - for example, a threat to embarrass a user to his employer by email, or threatening to report his un-Islamic activities to religious authorities in his backward country and get him beaten up. Not all threats of violence that alarm Wikipedia are truly actionable by authorities - though they seem to get ever more aggressive about such things. And not all threats that are actionable are actually actioned. So we may have a standard for throwing people out over threats of violence - I just don't want it to be absurdly hypersensitive, and I don't want the threats hidden because exactly to the degree they are dangerous we need to know what they said. Wnt (talk) 20:04, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

One would think that if the threat was serious enough to oversight, then it is serious enough to ban the author. If it was deemed to be no big deal, then the unblocking admin should restore the comment. Tarc (talk) 20:11, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

As an outside view: As I read it , it's not intended as an actual threat, and therefore not reason to ban, but it's still not a good idea to keep things in the history that might be so misinterpreted, as this clearly has been. DGG ( talk ) 01:40, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't think that's a reasonable goal. There are all sorts of things in histories, and people usually know better than to bring them up fresh without looking what happened after a given edit. I remember when they came out, supposedly tools like suppression and revdeling were going to be reserved for "really important reasons"; now "why not?" is all the justification required, for those with the power to use them. Wnt (talk) 01:52, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Wnt. Revision-deletion used to be used in rare and extreme cases. It seems to be used more frequently lately. Carrite (talk) 13:11, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

There is no value to continuing this thread. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:16, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, as the subject retracted his statement, this is moot. Tarc (talk) 22:08, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

But that's when discussions typically start here :). In the real World it also works like that, take e.g. the Ray Rice case. Count Iblis (talk) 03:20, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Misconceptions about Wikipedia

According to reliable sources, what are some notable misconceptions about Wikipedia?
—Wavelength (talk) 16:46, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

it's not actually a mmo where the game is to create an encyclopedia? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.137.8.124 (talk) 20:27, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Apparently, you are referring to MMORPG and WP:MMORPG, but without a source.

—Wavelength (talk) 22:18, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

I once did research about this because I believed it to be worthy of its own Wikipedia article. Can't remember my sources, but a quick google search brought these up:--Coin945 (talk) 16:04, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

“One of the big misconceptions about Wikipedia, people imagine that it‘s something like one million people each adding one sentence each and somehow miraculously it becomes something useful. But in fact what actually makes it work is the community. There‘s a really strong community of people behind the site and they are in constant communication by email and IRC chat rooms and things like this. And so they are monitoring every change that goes to the site – there are people who are looking at it and vetting it and trying to see if it‘s good or not.” - Jimbo

http://stuartgeiger.com/wordpress/2008/07/conceptions-and-misconceptions-academics-hold-about-wikipedia/

Greatest misconception about Wikipedia: We aren’t democratic. Our readers edit the entries, but we’re actually quite snobby. The core community appreciates when someone is knowledgeable, and thinks some people are idiots and shouldn’t be writing. - Jimbo

Promotes an "anything goes" mentality

it's hostile to experts.

Collaborative nature of project

Can someone undelete temporarily an article for deletion review

I know this is not the right forum, but several requests for undeletion for the duration of the deletion review have gone unanswered. I know a lot of active administrators look at this page. Please remove this when the request is completed. The article on Susan Lindauer under discussion at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2014 September 18 should be viewable so people can comment on the actual content of the article and not just the chatter at AFD and deletion review. People need to see how extensive and reliable the references are, and how many years that they span to determine whether the subject is notable or if they are a private person subject to BLP1E. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:31, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I looked at it briefly and while I'd normally think it's fine to do so, I would like to wait just a bit to see if there are any really serious BLP reasons to think it has to be completely deleted during the deletion review. My own view, having only briefly looked at it, is that this is a situation of BLP1E in which the event itself may be noteworthy (no strong opinion on that) but that there is not likely to be enough information about her to write an appropriate biography.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:46, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Enough Already

You need to consider locking this whole thing down, then polishing it for a final edition. You once needed an army of anonymous volunteers (all with varying degrees of qualifications and intentions) to build this project... but not it's built. Keep continuing like this, and it will start to erode and deteriorate. - ^theWOLFchild 07:38, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

WP:RFPP is a good point to start. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:45, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Putting on my AGF hat here: Anyone thinking that Wikipedia is already "built" really hasn't probed too deeply. Of course, with no central direction it is hard steering any random person that wants to write on something new to deficiencies as they arise. Have a Mississippi High School: Amanda Elzy High School. Here's another one I just found Charleston Orphan House, the first public orphanage in the USA and the subject of a new monograph by John E. Murray (University of Chicago Press, 2013). And here is one for the gnomes that needs attention: Thomas Wilson Dorr. Carrite (talk) 15:21, 26 September 2014 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 22:05, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

As an aside, I had my friends on Wikipediocracy plugging their ears and singing "LaLaLaLa!!!" over the question of whether Wikipedia is improving or degrading. The trend towards improvement is unmistakable: just hit the random article button 10 times (or 50 times or 300 times...) and compare the current state of the article to the first stable state of that same article in the edit history. Nearly 100% have either improved or stayed more or less the same — which means that there is no inherent dynamic for editable WP articles to "degrade," that they are improving... Carrite (talk) 15:28, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Hello Carrite, I happened to see this on my watch list. I'm not sure whether that's the best test of improvement. By way of analogy. The question is really whether WP is fulfilling and keeping pace with user expectations and whether it's keeping pace with alternative sources of information. I don't have an opinion, but I note that Sears, Barnes and Noble, Best Buy and other retailers are offering much better web and bricks and mortar shopping experiences than 10 years ago while at the same time losing ground to other competitors who are improving at a faster rate. It's a tough subject to evaluate. SPECIFICO talk 15:39, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

While I agree with you in principle, I'm not quite sure how to apply this insight to our situation. I can tease out two separate questions from what you've written. The first is, are we keeping up with our competition? Well, we don't normally think in that way but one reason we don't is that we don't really have "competition" who are doing what we are doing. Britannica? WebMD? Anyway, if that's the question, I guess one answer is that there is no one obviously outpacing us. The second is, are we improving as fast as we could? That's a very valid and very interesting question, but of course doesn't invalidate the point that the original poster (like thousands before him) is mistaken to claim that Wikipedia needs to be locked because it will "start to erode and degrade". There's simply no evidence for that.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:12, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I've noticed all language Wikipedias have their own unique way of doing things, so it might be worth looking into that for comparisons. Obviously English Wikipedia is on top, but if there are things we can learn from them - things we like and think all Wikipedia's should have (be it the cosmetic aspect of sites, Wikiprojects, the way the community is structures etc) - we could streamline some aspects.--Coin945 (talk) 16:31, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Carrite and just to be contrary, your test is a good sign that the quality of individual articles improve over time, thats not the same thing as saying wikipedia is improving over time. For example, if you do that random test now, and that random test again in a year, what to the quality histograms look like compared to each other? If every article improves at 10% per year, but a billion new articles are created at quality 0.1 is that improving or degrading the quality of the encyclopedia as a whole? Or course to be valid, one would need to maybe weigh the articles by which ones are actually read, or important - if one assumes a somewhat stable "core" of articles, those probably are improving steadily (except the ones that are politically/socially controvercial, which I think are engaged in a constant war of the tides ) Gaijin42 (talk) 15:53, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I see the point you are making, but I don't think it invalidates what Carrite is saying other than in some extreme cases that don't appear to be the case. Yes, we should worry not just about whether articles that have existed for N years have improved, but whether new articles are bringing the average quality down. But without any reason to believe that latter (for example if someone tries to create a billion stubs), I am pretty comfortable with looking at random articles to see how they are doing as a reasonable first cut at showing that Wikipedia is continuing to improve. A more sophisticated analysis might try to look at specific areas of Wikipedia. For example, we might have steady progress in technology articles but very weak or no progress in humanities topics. I don't think so, but I'm acknowledging that more in-depth study is likely valuable.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:15, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Think of your example like a sports team: There's the star players (featured articles), the second-stringers (good articles), and the others that don't get a lot of attention. If a bunch of rookies (new articles) get added to the team, what would the coach do? Probably work to make them better players rather than kicking them off the team. Is the team improving overall? Maybe not short-term, but definitely long-term. The difference here is that we're not really competing in a set time frame or having to work within a maximum number of players, so that weakens the short-term badness. Supernerd11 _{Firemind ^_^ Pokedex} 16:30, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

individually, one guy isn't making a billion stubs (Although there are some that seem to be trying). Collectively it might be close ;), Personally I have run into

• An article for every episode of the pink panther animated show, all sourced to one single book about the show that had a synopsis for each episode Prehistoric_Pink
  • Along with almost every other tv show that airs
• Article for pretty much every televised MMA match
• An article for every player of every sport past the school level (Scan any random day of the new page list, and count how many are soccer players or clubs)
  • a random smattering that are on the new page list right now F.C. Haifa Stephanie McCarthy 1902–03 Southampton F.C. seasonBilly Baker (footballer born 1894)
• every election in 1800 wales Aberdare Urban District Council election, 1894
• Every geographical feature of germany Striegis
• Every plant/bacteria/animal Geum coccineum (Dwarf orange avens) Commersonia borealis
• Every individual military (and in some cases commercial) ocean vessel RV Sally Ride (AGOR-28)

And I'm sure others are aware of a great many others in similar situations. Personally I would like to see more content encouraged to be moved to wikia. Game of Thrones deserves an article or two. Does every episode and char require an article? No. Move it to http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/

Also, I think WP:N should be tightened up to say something about "If sources (an encyclopedia, book, etc) collectively cover every individual X, that is a sign that the collection is notable, not each individual item" and likewise "If sources A, B and C WP:ROUTINEly reviews every periodic instance of X, every instance is not notable, only the ones that gain non-routine coverage."

Now, are these articles degrading the quality of the FAs? no. But they are noise, and noise that takes up considerable admin and editor time for very little value. Gaijin42 (talk) 17:00, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Quality never was our strong suit, and quantity always was. Quantity is one of the only advantages we have over traditional encyclopedias. If we get rid of it, then we won't have any advantage over Encyclopedia Britannica or other encyclopedias. So people will go to Britannica. What we need is more articles, not fewer. Under the current notability guidelines, there are tens of millions of topics that can have articles. If anything, we should loosen the notability criteria slightly. I'm not an extreme inclusionist who thinks everything should have an article, but there are many guidelines that are stricter than WP:GNG (for instance WP:NEVENT), and that should be changed. Everyone should help with adding more articles. You say that the articles are not interesting or useful to anyone, but that is patently untrue--they are undoubtedly considered worthy be the experienced, good-faith editors who create them. And the readers too may be interested in these topics, even if you are not. --Jakob (talk) 17:50, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

• Expansion of quantity is an improvement of Wikipedia just like improvement of quality is. The point above that average quality might be falling even though nearly 100% of articles improve over time from first state is valid — although it is not a concern unless one feels that a new, bad article on a topic not previously covered is worse than no article at all. So long as the new, weak article is better than nothing, quantitative expansion implies qualitative improvement. I'm also not concerned about sourced articles on very minor topics — Wikipedia is, in practice, an encyclopedia and a compendium of popular culture. It is something that is valued by our readers. We can be dismissive of the popular culture trivia, sure, but it's an important part of the entity for most people doing a quick query on their smartphones. I especially don't think that such fare should be systematically farmed off to a for-profit Wiki entity. Carrite (talk) 19:33, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

While I too find every episode of Pink Panther a bit excessive for having an individual article, that is a personal preference and I would find myself strongly supporting keeping an article on every animal/bacteria/virus/etc. Ignoring and recognizing our own personal and collective "I don't like it" knee-jerk reactions is more important than ever at this stage in the evolution of Wikipedia, in my opinion. Unlikely, but who knows some day a collection of Wikipedia articles on the parks and structures of Walla Walla, Washington are all that remains for historians to go on as far as knowing where to do an archaeological dig about 21st century life in eastern Washington. I'm sure the Sumerian student writing with his stylus on a clay tablet didn't realize one day his lesson would be studied and important to our understanding of their grammar and life.Camelbinky (talk) 19:53, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

A mass strike and boycott?

There is a discussion over at Eric's page about planning a major boycott of Wikipedia, with many of the core community going on strike. Just thought I'd make you aware of this public information in case you hadn't stumbled across it. (Please note I am just the messenger and am not involved in any of this)--Coin945 (talk) 16:51, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Dr Blofeld: "If you can get 100 core editors of wikipedia to leave the website for a full month with a specific request to the foundation then I think they'd start to notice. The impression I get is that they have a naive outlook on wikipedia development and think that even if we lose contributors there'll be more along to take their place. The impression I've always got is that they consider the ip or newbie who adds some unsourced content in entries and the seasoned editor who writes featured articles as all in one class, "editor". I don't think they truly appreciate the "core community" or if they do they their efforts to interact are very poor.."

Eric: "The boycott is underway, it's no threat."

[Insert diff of above dicussion.

Isn't it traditional to make your demands clear when engaging in a boycott? All I can see here is that you want the foundation to "start to notice", anything more specific? Chillum 17:05, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Ummm... this has nothing to do with me. I'm just the messenger.--Coin945 (talk) 17:09, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I think Chillum was being sarcastic. I don't recommend it in written communication because so much depends on the nonverbal - too easy to misinterpret. Still, as I've done below, I can't resist on occassion. Lightbreather (talk) 17:11, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I was not being sarcastic, I was sincerely wondering what the boycott is all about. What is it trying to accomplish? Chillum 17:21, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

OMG! The encyclopedia will blow up and leave a crater where it used to be! Lightbreather (talk) 17:08, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Um, who is Eric? Nyth83 (talk) 17:17, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

How long have you got? I'll be back in a few with some diffs, otherwise I'll be here all day, and I have some content that I want to work on... No, on second thought, I'm not going to waste my time. In a nutshell, he is a long-time editor whose work is admired by many and whose behavior is defended by mostly the same many. He thinks that having a civility policy is a mistake, and he regularly drops the word "cunt" into discussions.[12] FWIW, he used to edit under the name Malleus Fatuorum. Lightbreather (talk) 17:24, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I was actually just fishing for a link to this supposed strike discussion. Nyth83 (talk) 17:34, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Apologies. Here:--Coin945 (talk) 17:40, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, but I did find it on my own about 8.3 seconds before you replied. Pretty funny reading for people who take themselves to seriously. Nyth83 (talk) 17:52, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

So that thread started 29 days ago and ended 23 days ago. Not much happening drama to stir there... Carrite (talk) 19:39, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

What is a "core community"? Is it Eric, Dr B and a few others? If so, why do they describe themselves as core and by implication others as peripheral? 122.177.153.68 (talk) 17:53, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Presumably they're the highest scorers in Wikipedia:The Core Contest? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:09, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Probably. I'll tell you, you can improve Wikipedia's core, "most important articles" all you want, but if those articles are the handsome face of WP, then its porn articles are that face's big, black eye. If a dozen good editors cleaned up that cesspool of bad sources floating BLP turds... Holy cow! I'm wrapping up my business there in the next day or two as a promise to someone whose advice I try to respect, but WP porn articles make it hard for me to endorse the project. [Drops mic] Lightbreather (talk) 18:35, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, here's your hint: if you wanna get rid of that bilge, the first step is conducting a RFC to have the Special Notability Guideline for Porn actors removed and winning a consensus there. Wikipedia:Notability_(people)#Pornographic_actors_and_models is the relevant link. Putting porn stars to the same test that regular film stars must face, or meeting GNG, would eliminate about 95% of them in one fell swoop. There have been a number of people at AfD who have indicated that an SNG for porn actors is an absurdity and the debate on eliminating that would be very interesting. I'm not sure how that turns out. Carrite (talk) 19:48, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I promised someone that I'd leave the (porn) project, and I just did. Frankly, I think they should spin-off (or whatever it's called) Wikipornia or Pornopedia or something like that, but I'm washing my hands of that WP back-alley for now. (Actually, I'm off for a decontamination shower and then lunch.) Lightbreather (talk) 21:01, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

• Come on now people, if you're going to start a thread on Jimbo's page, shouldn't you think long and hard about whether it is really worthwhile first? This is the most high profile editor talk page on the project (whoops: after Eric's, lol). The "the boycott is underway" comment is from August 30, and from one of the most drama-creating authors on the project. And Blofield's "100 core" comment is September 3. They are blowing off steam. Neither are apparently participating in this alleged event. If anyone is looking for articles to write I can identify loads of topics to take your mind off creating topics here.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 19:26, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Exactly. Carrite (talk) 19:41, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Didn't Malleus get banned? If not, it's a shame. Thought that's why I hadn't seen the annoying (Redacted) in a while.Camelbinky (talk) 19:58, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

• Jimbo, why do you allow personal attacks on editors who are not allowed to respond here? 42.96.191.42 (talk) 14:09, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Camelbinky....Corbett is essentially banned from this usertalk but even if he wasn't, that sort of comment is unhelpful.--MONGO 20:19, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

• That's amazing. I keep saying "there probably are only 100 editors on wikipedia who are chronically insulting and uncivil and get away with it" and that's just the number Eric comes up with. Great minds think alike! Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 20:05, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree that what this "strike" will achieve is somewhat (at best) obscure. I also agree that I can't see any real value in a debate here on JW's talk page - although there's absolutely nothing wrong with one editor notifying another of a discussion. What puzzles me more is this attitude that a strike will cause some kind of harm or damage. Self-evidently the main space contributions of these editors (and many more) have made wikipedia a valuable first line reference.

So, let me post a thought. Lock the database right now, totally. The work already done is valuable for at least 10, probably 30 and maybe 100 years - longer as digital-archaeological research. The "Ah, well I could have made it better but screw you" line is unfortunate. Yes, indeed, we want it better. The argument of these people seems to be it will be made worse. Regretfully for them that's not true. It will just become outdated. So have many things. Pedro :  Chat  20:13, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Why these editors are leaving anything behind is beyond me. It won't even have a noticeable dip in article edits, and if they want change, they should make it. Leaving Wikipedia behind only serves to illustrate the foundation's point. KonveyorBelt 22:33, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't think there's going to be a mass strike & boycott. GoodDay (talk) 22:50, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Not unless WMF tries shoving Flow down our throats. Then all bets are off... Carrite (talk) 02:10, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Flow will be implemented, period. WMF will consider suggestions as to details but implementation of Flow will go ahead. This thread gives a good summary. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:54, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

How much of a fight the community will put up, and how many loopholes we will find, is a different question. But if you don't want Flow, the answer is to protest its crappiness and bugs and not give the WMF any money to spend on it. I don't. BethNaught (talk) 06:23, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Doesn't it seem just a tad unfair to begin threads on Jimbo's talk page when Eric cannot respond? Lets skip over that user as they should be left out of the discussion here...but I will copy paste a partial response from my talk page over what I actually do fear:

My biggest fear is this - if these prolific editors are discouraged from participating in discussions or articles where they have clearly crossed a line and are topic banned or blocked...even by Arb Com....what is to stop an administrator from just saying "screw this" and wheel warring until they, too are blocked...setting off a chain reaction of wheel warring and administrative blocks and unblocks as a consequence of the original decision. I am not worried about the protest retirements. Even if a third of the admin corpse was to up and retire...I doubt it would last. I have watched as at least one admin came back from retirement...asked for the tools back just so they could wheel war...and were actually given that opportunity. No....I could care less if editors decide to retire in mass. There will be others to take their place. The bad part of that would be the suspension of a number of features on Wikipedia with the loss of so many with tools...but we could rebuild from such a loss. The wheel war that resulted from such actions however... would be very disruptive. Why? Because admin is uncontrollable. Not out of control (well...some are but that's a different issue) but simply put....there exists no true mechanism on Wikipedia for admin to be controlled from doing stupid things on purpose. We cannot rely on the admin corpse to take action against another admin. It doesn't seem to work and when and if it does, it is generally a slap on the hand followed by a slap on the back with "don't worry about it" (that is a broad brush stroke...I know but still..).

Wikipedia needs a new system where perhaps someone above admin can hand out temp or indef tool blocks that show up on their own block log. Yes...seriously. If an admin does something that is against our policy, guidelines and/or admin rules etc., there should be a mechanism to take those tools away, allowing for the standard offer to apply. Another thing we really could use is an anonymous way for editors to lodge formal behavioral complaints about administrators so people no longer have to go threw the public humiliation and gauntlet that has to be run threw to be taken seriously. Jimbo mentioned something about where the Foundation could spend money and if having paid monitors would be effective. Maybe what is needed is for the foundation to pay a full time staff of a minimal amount to oversee such an anonymous form of complaints about admin actions that cross a line, and have these monitors "block" the tools when they see fit and/or the admin from editing. I really want admin to have the same marks on them that others do....but with that set of tools comes bigger responsibility and therefore having such a way to show...permanently that they had the tools blocked on said date and returned on said date on their block log would be a way to encourage better behavior from that level of editor. Just a few thoughts.--Mark Miller (talk) 09:59, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Shellshock flaw

The Shellshock flaw—Shellshock (software bug)—is said to be bigger than Heartbleed.

• 'Bigger than Heartbleed' Shellshock flaw leaves OS X, Linux, more open to attack—PCWorld (September 25, 2014)

—Wavelength (talk) 02:05, 27 September 2014 (UTC) and 00:41, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Terminal cancer

Jimbo, if (heaven forbid!) you were diagnosed with terminal cancer and given just two weeks to live, who (if anyone) would you wish to nominate or appoint as your "successor" in the role of spiritual leader and/or constitutional monarch of the Wikimedia movement? - 71.185.46.22 (talk) 20:22, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

All of us. Now stop asking stupid questions and get back to writing the encyclopedia. Gareth E Kegg (talk) 21:47, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Actually, Jimbo wisely provided for such an unfortunate contingency five years ago, as reported here. Neutron (talk) 22:36, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Nuclear option

Hi Jimbo, Re: Your edit summary at Nuclear option, I've gone ahead and fixed the link; I noted how I found a working copy of the article in my edit summary. Graham87 06:25, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Great, thank you! Clever way of finding it. I had only googled on the title and found the results not encouraging.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:47, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

And that's my first reaction when seeing a dead link - look it up on the Wayback Machine! --I am k6ka ^{Talk to me!} _{See what I have done} 02:18, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Request to provide law and order on Wikipedia

Ranting.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:04, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Dear Jimbo, hello! Because Russia - is not any mafia, I ask you ban actions of users, which make rollback in article about the newspaper Guardian: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Guardian&action=history Their journalist says that Russia - is mafia (worse insult does not exist in the nature). This is even not insult and slander, but full stupidity. The Guardian sells this bad book already 7 years. Russia and the UK have bilateral agreements almost on any issue (friendship and cooperation). Book - not article (meanness - to perpetuate such info, including). They do it to get money (sale even in real life). Please, provide the fairness on Wikipedia. If grammatical mistake, English users can make corrections. Thank you! P.S. Example: if I am a journalist and I will create book about: Wikipedia wants kill great number people, using special hidden methods (almost the same situation - full stupidity). Russia - mafia (stupidity in millions times more). Because violation vs the whole state - on very high level. Violation of journalistic ethics also. Facts for the relevant article (Guardian). https://translate.google.com - 95.29.83.230 (talk) 13:31, 28 September 2014 (UTC). This reads very much like a reappearance of blocked sockpuppeteer User:Need1521. Russia related edit warring with claims of "violations" of international law, "insults" , attacks on users' who are accused of supposed "stupidity", poor English (which they admit has been assisted by google translate) and finally, appeals to Jimbo to get involved and ban the users involved. We've been here before, see User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Archive_159#Complaint. Again, this user needs to be blocked, first for sock puppetry and secondly, because they clearly lack the WP:COMPETENCE required to edit here. Valenciano (talk) 13:49, 28 September 2014 (UTC) Indeed. I just now tried to take this seriously and sympathetically. If someone is upset about something but doesn't speak English very well, I think we should bend over backwards to try to help. In this case, though, the complaint is nonsense.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:51, 28 September 2014 (UTC) The Guardian is a respected newspaper with a proud history of more than 150 years. It is considered by the British public to be nearly as reliable as Wikipedia itself. It does not publish "bad books". Law and Order is already on Wikipedia in various guises. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 13:53, 28 September 2014 (UTC) Valenciano, do not write full stupidity. + This newspaper acts even against the UK government and against the US government in the same time. Full anarchy. Different damage for many states from the Guardian: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nick-clegg-backs-david-cameron-as-pm-sends-cabinet-secretary-sir-jeremy-heywood-to-warn-guardian-over-edward-snowden-documents-8777216.html (Demiurge, do not write full stupidity else more). Jimbo, I ask your help. Because other users write full stupidity vs me (and not only by this reason). - 95.27.115.9 (talk) 14:14, 28 September 2014 (UTC). I will not be able to do anything to help you. I recommend you find something else to do.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:24, 28 September 2014 (UTC) Something else: I will restore the text (with corrections), when the article will be unblocked. Their journalist wrote the book with violation of journalistic ethics. Guardian sells this book (facts). I not will write about international law + not insult and slander (but full absurd). I ask users be free of rollback. Russia - Mafia, it is full stupidity (compare). Everybody understands this (it is an axiom that stupidity). Thank you. - 95.27.115.9 (talk) 15:16, 28 September 2014 (UTC). Your edits were violations of NPOV, they were original research and synthesis, and they violate BLP by stating that a real person has promulgated a criminal book without evidence thereof. If you do that, you will be reverted again. BethNaught (talk) 16:17, 28 September 2014 (UTC) Text will be changed (I explained). I want say not for the article about the Guardian (actions of their journalist - crime in reality, simply our state respects freedom of speech). See Russian article about the United Russia (after the such things Russian Wikipedia not was banned, greatest miracle in the world). Use bot translator or ask users of English Wikipedia, which know Russian language on good level). [13] (United Russia in Russian Wikipedia) https://translate.google.com - 95.27.115.9 (talk) 17:08, 28 September 2014 (UTC). This may be in reference to reporting by Luke Harding including his book Mafia State, which describes Russia, with good reason, as a mafia state.[14] Wnt (talk) 17:55, 28 September 2014 (UTC) Some people can find connection with the Embassy. This is in extreme cases. Because you said the stupidity on the page of Jimmy Wales - even in English Wikipedia not will be used slander and stupidity from Russian Wikipedia. I suppose that you can be Need1521 (see his actions against the biography of living people + anyone can use Internet via Russian provider). Crime - when somebody says that Russian state power is mafia (for a large number of people). Guardian - including. And you said the same on the page of Jimmy Wales. - 95.29.128.124 (talk) 19:44, 28 September 2014 (UTC).

When to allow, and when not to allow, the fair representation of minority views

Dear Jimmy,
I, and another Wikipedia editor have recently been having a certain debate about when a minority view should or should not be given fair presentation within a Wikipedia article. We have both been quoting various Wikipedia policies to one another, some of which sometimes almost seem to contradict one another. We are having this debate at: A proposed compromise for the ACIM article. Specifically, we are debating regarding the Wikipedia A Course in Miracles article, and whether or not the philosophy of this NRM ought to be fairly represented in an unbiased fashion in this article. Clearly the philosophy of ACIM is a minority view, and is generally regarded as unacceptable amongst most Christians. If you might be able to help clarify Wikipedia policy on this question for us, it is my sense that the resolution of such a Wikipedia "policy question" could be quite helpful for all concerned.
Thanks,
Scott P. (talk) 00:35, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm afraid that I know little of the subject matter and so any advice I might give would be quite general in nature.

First, if you asked me whether the philosophy of ACIM which is "clearly... a minority view" should be included in, let's say, our article on Miracles or Christianity then I'd say "probably not". The viewpoint hasn't had, as far as I know (I'm on risky ground since I know little of the subject matter, but let's suppose I'm right)... hasn't had as far as I know any material impact on wider views on those matters. But in the article on ACIM itself, then it strikes me as absolutely mandatory that the philosophy of ACIM be stated clearly and prominently without a lot of editorializing. And of course, in the appropriate place in the article, various critical response (including quite harsh critical response if notable) should also be included. I can't think of any reason to fail to state in an unbiased manner what the book and adherents of the book believe.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 03:42, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Bravo; and Flying Spaghetti Monster is a Wikipedia "good article" that well shows the encyclopedic product of following the wisdom of your answer.—John Cline (talk) 04:01, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Fundraising

The WMF has an active, and very successful, fundraising effort that provides ample funds to support WMF operations, staff and grants. It seems that none of it goes directly into content building -- is that correct? (I looked at wmf:Frequently asked questions, but that is now rather out-of-date). How would you feel about a parallel fund-raising drive aimed specifically at supporting content creation, via scholarships, fellowships, and similar grants to academics and subject matter experts? Could that be made compatible with the issues around paid editing, and set up to support rather than compete with existing WMF fundraising? Is that something worth pursuing? Deltahedron (talk) 20:34, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I think it makes more sense to have a unified fundraiser and to discuss, in serious detail, what would be some cost effective means of supporting content creation. I don't think there are any serious obstacles around "paid editing" (which has never been the real issue, as compared to COI/paid advocacy editing).--Jimbo Wales (talk) 02:49, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm glad to hear that paid editing is not seen as an obstacle to this. Here's an example of the sort of thing I had in mind. Next year there will be a large gathering of the UK mathematics community in Cambridge, which graduate students are encouraged to attend, and various organisations and companies support the event by providing bursaries to remit the registration fees or expenses for selected students. It would be great to have an edit-a-thon at or in association with the event to try and clear the backlog of requests at Wikipedia:Requested articles/Mathematics (several hundreds of them at the moment). It would be even greater to ne able to offer a bursary to every graduate student who took part. That would cost money. The possible alternatives -- and I hasten to say that I am not on the organising committee for this event! -- might be (1) raise funds independently and not mention Wikipedia/WMF at all (2) raise funds independently and use Wikipedia/WMF trademarks, logos etc by permission (3) raise funds jointly with WMF as a co-branded exercise under the WMF banner (4) raise money for the existing general WMF pot using this as an example of where it would go (5) not attempt to raise funds but simply apply for a grant from existing WMF funds. Which of these would be preferable/acceptable/objectionable, would you say? Deltahedron (talk) 10:41, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

• As an aside, on this topic, I'd like to see funds raised used to extend the reach of the existing content (and I don't see a decline/crisis in content creation that requires paid contributions). I use the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography as a source quite regularly (via my Library card - its a subscription service) and noticed they had recently started a series of podcasts of their articles. I'd love to see Wikipedia use some of that money to do the same with Featured articles. Not only would it benefit the sight impaired (as an alternative to text readers) but, as a former public Librarian, I've seen what a wide reach 'audio books' (and audio content) can have for a variety of those without a sight impairment (those with literacy challenges and pretty much anyone with time to listen - joggers, walkers, non-TV types, regular commuters/drivers etc), especially as local Libraries are establishing or expanding online collections. AnonNep (talk) 21:03, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I'd like us to host spoken word versions of all reliable Wikipedia articles. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 10:05, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

If only the Wikimedia shop had more to offer, there would be no need for a fundraiser. Count Iblis (talk) 21:59, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

What do you have in mind? I'm very skeptical of the idea that Wikipedia could be funded by (for example) more t-shirt sales. And it is unclear to me why it would be better to (for example) start hawking wares (with a small profit margin) rather than just asking people for support (which works reasonably well). But I'm open to ideas and experiments.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 02:50, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

There were some great novelty condoms I first saw in the 90s that had glow-in-the-dark eyes and antennae at the end. Add the 'citation needed' tag along the length and the shop could promote the safe sex message and have a sales winner ;) AnonNep (talk) 22:17, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Computer accessories, smartphones etc., these are high in demand and cheap to ship. Count Iblis (talk) 20:30, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

That shop sort of previews how a more organized top down management of Wikipedia works. It doesn't listen to any ideas from anyone, doesn't sell many products, doesn't move any volume, doesn't make any real money, but it makes the people in charge feel good about themselves and that's what really matters... Wnt (talk) 01:37, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

If you're going to be nasty and just make up falsehoods out of thin air, please do it elsewhere.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 02:51, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, I didn't see a breakdown of revenue in the recent plan [15] but in 2012 the merchandise was supposed to bring in $0.4 million -- gross so far as I can tell -- [16] compared to $25 million in donations for the same period. Given billing at the top of one of the world's most read websites, why can't they sell more stuff, establish a trendy and popular brand, and make money comparable to the donation stream? I'm suspicious that it has something to do with "Design ideas" going unacted on since that page was started in 2012 (and previous pages with similar intent having had the same fate). The Meta page says that " it is not intended to become a Profit center. The proceeds go back into the shop to keep costs low, subsidize shipping and help provide merch specifically to community members." At this shop, crowdsourcing was never given a chance.

A truly Wikipedia solution would have been to create a virtual shop, with many vendors all over the world looking to get certified to use the Wikimedia trademarks, always free to solicit and offer new ideas, with constant feedback from users purchasing products and visits from community members to keep them in line. Wnt (talk) 16:13, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree in part and disagree in part, but had you simply said this, I would not have called you out on it. What I'm calling you out on is the *nastiness* and *attribution of irrational motives* involved in this line: "...makes the people in charge feel good about themselves and that's what really matters." Such a false and ridiculous claim adds nothing to what could be an interesting and productive discussion about how to increase revenues from the online shop and from trademark licensing generally. Insulting people in the way that you did is disappointing. I know you can do better.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:10, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Alright, I did cross the line there; I've been frustrated with the increasing footprint of central authority in recent months. But I do feel that WMF seems too complacent about the store as it is, even when the Meta page linked above reads like a litany of apologies and promises to do better someday. Wnt (talk) 18:38, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Yay. *hug* All is fine now. Thanks for that.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:39, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Good to hear. :) Still, think of the opportunities being missed: bumper stickers, yard signs, coffee mugs. One idea I suggested a year ago were those little rubber fundraising bracelets; I don't know, but in the U.S. by now I imagine there must be an average of at least one rubber bracelet per capita floating around; if you could capture 10% of that it would be 30 million times a $3 list price minus maybe 50 cents to make them and ship them bulk postage... with a free appeal for fundraising thrown in to plump up the envelope. And everyone who wore one would probably introduce Wikipedia to a dozen people. If the shop were a big thing, you could get more ambitious, like certify a fully open source, competitively bid calculator for classroom use to directly challenge the TI stranglehold on the market... if only. Wnt (talk) 22:21, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Glad to hear harmony prevails. I would still be interested in a response to my followup question of 10:41 on the 27th, which probably got overlooked in the merriment about the novelty condoms. Deltahedron (talk) 15:32, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

" It seems that none of it goes directly into content building -- is that correct?" Yes, this is correct. Sadly "paid editing" has always been seen as a taboo by Jimbo and the foundation to the point that anything which could potentially reward editors for their work, even an article of the month contest which is even above board and organized by them or an admin panel of judges with the prize of Amazon vouchers which they can use to buy books to build further content, they want no part of. I must have approached Jimmy about it half a dozen times, never got a response, even by email. In fairness though it's not just them, the "financial reward for editors is evil" school of thinking is more widely apparent on here. I do have a plan which I think could dramatically improve content each month with a little investment and also has the potential to attract new contributors to the project. I'm thinking of proposing something next month but I certainly won't be approaching Jimbo or the foundation to back it financially as they've made it quite clear they're not willing to directly put money into actual content building. Correct me if I'm wrong. If you want something to go into content building @Deltahedron: your best bet would be to approach one of the chapters.♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:18, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Jimmy Wales just said I don't think there are any serious obstacles around "paid editing". Deltahedron (talk) 20:30, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, but that doesn't mean "I endorse paid editing, I think an article of the month scheme is a great idea and I think it's about time editors were rewarded for their great efforts, here's $10,000 to fund it with monthly prizes". Even if he says he's interested nothing ever comes about. Look at my concise wiki proposal over a year ago, a complete waste of my time. I acknowledge that Jimmy doesn't have the right to make such decisions solely, but I've still never seen anything I've proposed actually discussed by the foundation with any fruitful results. That's why I consider them unapproachable in proposing projects, especially involving content building and finance. It's not good enough, we're an encyclopedia which badly needs an improvement in overall quality of content. One of the top priorities for the foundation should be finding ways to improve the quality and depth of the resource and making it more exciting to edit, finding new and exciting ways to attract new editors and motivate existing ones who might not contribute much into contributing again. Far too much time and resources go into discussing politics and pointless civility issues.♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:40, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

I outlined some possible directions in my followup above. I had been considering Project and Event Grants as a possible source, though I would have to revoke my retirement from Meta to do so. Is there any useful experience of that avenue for content-related work? Otherwise, anyone interested in discussing fundraising offline can email me. Deltahedron (talk) 21:16, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

If you're interested in content building and related funding you're approaching the wrong person Deltahedron. I'll get in contact with you off wiki as I have some ideas on what and who to approach. It is disappointing how unapproachable they are and the lack of interest they have in actual content building, but wikipedia these days is more about being civil and politically correct than an encyclopedia isn't it? If there is any foundation member reading this who does care then I stand corrected, but that's the impression I've always got with approaching them with content-related proposals.♦ Dr. Blofeld 07:57, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Why can't "consensus can change" be used for for undeletion?

Undeletion requires a "procedural error" or "significant new evidence" to open a case to a !vote at wikipedia:deletion review similar to a criminal court. Why can't "consensus can change" be a reason for undeletion. I have seen some articles nominated over 10 times until they were finally, and permanently, deleted The rational for a new AFD was always: "consensus can change". In the criminal court analogy, we do not have the equivalent of double jeopardy, we can keep prosecuting until we get a conviction. Why do we demand a higher threshold for undeletion? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 01:21, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a court of law. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:11, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

It is not (a court of law) but it is a valid question. There is always good reason to review our systems to see whether they have "bugs". In general, most deletions do not involve "salting". So in most cases, starting a new article on some topic (possibly based on the deleted version - except in BLP/legal cases it's usually easy to get a copy if needed) is actually *easier* (lower threshold). So although I think it's a valid question, I'm not convinced that the premise is right.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 03:55, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

That is true, but that doesn't explain why we have the asymmetry. "Wikipedia is not a court of law" is one of our oxymorons we constantly use. We are, however, like a court of law in that we are a system of internal laws and internal regulations. We have the equivalent of an appeals court and a supreme court with clerks, and we mete out punishments in the form of blocks. We don't vote either, just like on Jeopardy! if you don't phrase it properly, you lose the point, even if you are correct. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 04:02, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

It is worth noting that there is another asymmetry involved - where 'no consensus' results in a keep. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:37, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

It is important to consider that using deletion review as the means of content reinstatement directly implies that something was defective with the original manner of deletion. That defect should be stated with the request, it is the main point of the discussion, and the "good reason to review our systems" is thereby intact. The reason things like "consensus can change", or any other way of saying a different outcome is anticipated because of changed or new circumstances, is excluded as reasons for requesting a deletion review is because those are the very reasons for content recreation using Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion instead. This is often successfully done in good faith. By their nature, and wiki-definition, the one process is controversial where the other is not. Sometimes the perception of difficulty regarding content reinstatement surrounds a stubborn determination to use one process when the other is more apt. I've been down each of these paths by the way, and seen them work well.—John Cline (talk) 05:02, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

• In my experience DRV will accept consensus has changed arguments, so perhaps the lede matter on the page is just misleading, have you tried it? Though the argument does need to be persuasive, so merely asserting consensus has changed is not likely to get very far, showing that various similar articles have since been created, taken to xFD and resulted in a consensus to keep is pretty strong. The debate then usually comes down to how similar things actually are. --86.2.216.5 (talk) 08:17, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

There's a logical problem with trying to form a new consensus about an article people can't read. The way around it should be (and often is) to go for "WP:REFUND" and get the article undeleted to draft/userspace; its main deficiencies are in the uncertainty about whether an admin will refuse, and the need for one editor to take charge at first. The biggest problem right now isn't really the policy (except in rare cases where novelty policies try to chip away at GNG) but in the voters. A small number of people vote on a large number of deletions, whose version of the policy has very little to do with what it actually is. Simply getting more eyes on the process would do much to help, but we also need to make better use of the "draft" space, which should accommodate articles that are simply found non-notable. Wnt (talk) 17:34, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Part of what I think is unfair is that AfD's and Prod notices are too easy to miss. If you aren't the type of person who constantly keeps up with your watchlist there's almost no way to know when an article that you've worked on has been nominated. Any talk page notification of AfD (like for page creator) should create an email notification by default. Then there should also be an option to opt-in in preferences to be notified by web and/or email when a page you are watching is nominated. This would really help make the AfD process less "sneaky".~Technophant (talk) 17:49, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

If you're creating so many potentially problematic articles that you lose track of the talk page notifications of which of them are being nominated or proposed for deletion, then you are probably doing something wrong. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:22, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

I suggest that you have misread Technophant's comment. He is clearly talking about how easily a deletion process can get past a page watcher's scrutiny opposed to a page creator's; I second his sentiments. Cheers.—John Cline (talk) 22:01, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

IMO if an editor is interested enough in a page then it is their responsibility to pay attention to their watchlist. The article creator or significant contributor has no special right to participate in the deletion discussion, and much of the time such a person is too close to the subject matter to provide objective commentary anyways. Tarc (talk) 22:38, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

While I don't disagree with your ideals for a responsible editor, I don't see it as a reason not to facilitate improved efficiency, especially a feature this elemental.—John Cline (talk) 04:21, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Whilst AFD is still fairly thinly attended, making provision to automatically notify all those who presumably didn't think it should be deleted sounds like a way to skew results rather than improve them. --86.2.216.5 (talk) 06:44, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

• @RAN - While I understand the thinking behind your argument, in reality it is just a matter of restarting a previously deleted piece by significantly altering the content. Just BE BOLD and relaunch and if there is a problem with the new piece, things can hash out through the normal deletion process again... There is no need for a bureaucratic food fight at Deletion Review — which is really meant to rule on the validity of procedures behind deletion closes, not the merits or lack thereof of the arguments made there. Obviously, your own specific case makes a simple relaunch problematic (and you do need to get that topic ban lifted, by the way), but for most people it would be just a matter of rewriting the lead, prettying up the body, adding a source or two, and relaunching — assuming that there is an underlying change in community standards that resulted in something being deleted before that would not be today. Carrite (talk) 16:29, 29 September 2014 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 16:39, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
• In terms of recovering the old deleted article for restructuring and relaunch, that's a matter of finding a friendly administrator to "userfy" it to you. Obviously, when things are deleted they still exist, they just aren't readable without the tool kit. Carrite (talk) 16:36, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
• I followed up what my fortnightly 'SuggestBot' message put on my talk page last week and looked at Pereira Derwin. I did a minor clean-up, then went through the refs (some of which were out of place), added and deleted as per sources, and so on. Then a few days ago - zip & speedy delete gone - all as per policy as the original, before I put time into it, was created by a sockpuppet. As said, all per policy, so I can't really complain, and I'm not interested enough in the topic to try and recreate. I do wonder about deletion policy sometimes... AnonNep (talk) 16:51, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Hot drinks

Earl Grey black tea

Hi Jimbo: Make a nice cup of tea and stop by the new List of hot beverages to learn more about the many notable hot beverages of the world and their history. NorthAmerica¹⁰⁰⁰ 11:05, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

How delightful. This is just what I needed today. As it will soon be fall in England, I've bookmarked Smoking Bishop and plan to give it a try on some chilly day soon, with a view towards perfecting my recipe by Christmas time.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:07, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Like Also Northamerica1000 I have a ton of new food pics to share on the Food and drink Project!--Mark Miller (talk) 21:06, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

There's no such thing as "fall" in England! ;-) Neatsfoot (talk) 21:28, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

I tried a hot toddy once, but just not my thing at all. A little amaretto in hot chocolate is nice this time of year, though. Tarc (talk) 22:12, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Still waiting for "that time of year" to arrive in California. Oh well. next month perhaps! ;-)--Mark Miller (talk) 03:00, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks to all for checking out the new article; I'm glad that people enjoyed it. NorthAmerica¹⁰⁰⁰ 14:07, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

@Jimbo: I added the {{Image requested}} template to Smoking Bishop's talk page, so if you make up a batch, please consider uploading an image of it to Commons! An image of a contemporary preparation would be a great improvement to the article. NorthAmerica¹⁰⁰⁰ 14:30, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Glad to see hemlock isn't on there. Two kinds of pork^Makin'_Bacon 16:41, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Frangelico is nice too. VanIsaac_WS^cont 08:33, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Has anyone here tried this? Count Iblis (talk) 01:50, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

When to allow, and when not to allow, the fair representation of minority views

Dear Jimmy,
I, and another Wikipedia editor have recently been having a certain debate about when a minority view should or should not be given fair presentation within a Wikipedia article. We have both been quoting various Wikipedia policies to one another, some of which sometimes almost seem to contradict one another. We are having this debate at: A proposed compromise for the ACIM article. Specifically, we are debating regarding the Wikipedia A Course in Miracles article, and whether or not the philosophy of this NRM ought to be fairly represented in an unbiased fashion in this article. Clearly the philosophy of ACIM is a minority view, and is generally regarded as unacceptable amongst most Christians. If you might be able to help clarify Wikipedia policy on this question for us, it is my sense that the resolution of such a Wikipedia "policy question" could be quite helpful for all concerned.
Thanks,
Scott P. (talk) 00:35, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm afraid that I know little of the subject matter and so any advice I might give would be quite general in nature.

First, if you asked me whether the philosophy of ACIM which is "clearly... a minority view" should be included in, let's say, our article on Miracles or Christianity then I'd say "probably not". The viewpoint hasn't had, as far as I know (I'm on risky ground since I know little of the subject matter, but let's suppose I'm right)... hasn't had as far as I know any material impact on wider views on those matters. But in the article on ACIM itself, then it strikes me as absolutely mandatory that the philosophy of ACIM be stated clearly and prominently without a lot of editorializing. And of course, in the appropriate place in the article, various critical response (including quite harsh critical response if notable) should also be included. I can't think of any reason to fail to state in an unbiased manner what the book and adherents of the book believe.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 03:42, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Bravo; and Flying Spaghetti Monster is a Wikipedia "good article" that well shows the encyclopedic product of following the wisdom of your answer.—John Cline (talk) 04:01, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Jimbo,
For some reason, this comment section was selectively deleted from your talk page and placed in an unsequential archive. I have restored it to allow for further discussion on this question as per the New WP: policy proposal discussion section below.

Account access from Dominican Republic

Buenos dias, soy seguidor de Wikipedia y he querido ser colaborador, vivo en Republica Dominicana me loguie con el nombre:ramonsosa pero mi contraseña no entra, cuando usted pueda y tenga tiempo para que me asista con mi cuenta de acceso. Gracias. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.120.115.100 (talk) 12:28, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

I am providing a section heading ("Account access from Dominican Republic") and a translation from Spanish.

• Good day. I am a follower of Wikipedia and I have wanted to be a collaborator. I live in the Dominican Republic. I "log in" (?) with the name "ramonsosa" ["Ramonsosa"?] but my password does not enter. When you can and you have time to help me with my access account, [...]. Thank you.

—Wavelength (talk) 17:07, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Tell him User:Ramonsosa is not registered. He needs to register before he can login. KonveyorBelt 17:26, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Las cuentas de User:Ramonsosa y User:ramonsosa (y es:Usuario:Ramonsosa y es:Usuario:ramonsosa) no están registradas. Usted necesita registrarse antes de poder iniciar sesión.

—Wavelength (talk) 20:30, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

• With it seeming that Ramonsosa would be incapable of contributing to en-wikipedia in English, are we dis-serving him here with "welcoming kindness"? I mean no offense in asking this and do not object to its translation for the original poster's benefit. I ask because it seems we are evading an obvious issue and I hope it is not "taboo" to suggest a Spanish wiki.—John Cline (talk) 20:57, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

[Traducción] Con la apariencia de que Ramonsosa estaría incapaz de contribuir a English Wikipedia en inglés, ¿le estámos haciendo aquí un gesto de falsa ayuda con "bondad acogedora"? No intento ninguna ofensa por esta pregunta, y no objeto a su traducción para el beneficio del autor del mensaje original. Pregunto porque me parece que evadamos un obvio problema y espero que no esté prohibido sugerir un wiki español.

—Wavelength (talk) 22:32, 29 September 2014 (UTC) and 18:04, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Neil deGrasse Tyson

I'm not sure that unprotecting that was a good idea. Since you did there have been "29 intermediate revisions by 16 users" in about 6 hours. Mainly just back and forth with pretty much the same stuff that I protected it for in the first place. There were two separate requests at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection, both from level headed editors, full and semi. CBWeather, Talk, Seal meat for supper? 03:23, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

I forgot to mention that I protected it again based on the two requests. CBWeather, Talk, Seal meat for supper? 03:34, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Fair enough. It was worth a try. I hope that we can get it back to normal editing as soon as possible. Unfortunately due to work today I won't be able to try to help with discussions on the talk page towards a compromise.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:24, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

No problem. Thanks. CBWeather, Talk, Seal meat for supper? 17:59, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Request for Comment asking that Jimmy Wales step down

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Active editors continue to drop on wikipedia Deletionism and inclusionism in Wikipedia#Criticism

I suggest creating a request for comment. This request for comment would argue that the only way to reverse the negative trend of deleting other editors good faith edits would be for Jimmy Wales to step down.

Thoughts?

The singularity is not near: slowing growth of Wikipedia
The rate of reverts-per-edits (or new contributions rejected) and the number of pages protected has kept increasing. The greater resistance towards new content has made it more costly for editors, especially occasional editors, to make contribution. We argue that this may have contributed, with other factors, to the slowdown in the growth of Wikipedia.[17]
The Rise and Decline of an Open Collaboration System: How Wikipedia’s Reaction to Popularity Is Causing Its Decline
University of Minnesota research finds the restrictiveness of the encyclopedia’s primary quality control mechanism against contributions made by newcomers and the algorithmic tools commonly used to reject contributions as key causes of the decrease in newcomer retention. The community’s formal mechanisms to create uniform entries are also shown to have fortified its entries against changes—especially when those changes are proposed by newer editors. As a result, Wikipedia is having greater difficulty in retaining new volunteer editors. "Wikipedia has changed from the encyclopedia that anyone can edit to the encyclopedia that anyone who understands the norms, socializes himself or herself, dodges the impersonal wall of semi-automated rejection, and still wants to voluntarily contribute his or her time and energy can edit"[18]

Walterruss (talk) 08:43, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose - my thoughts are that this is a ridiculous request, and that you, Walterruss, ought never attempt problem solving again.—John Cline (talk) 09:10, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

• Comment. This did make me laugh. So, "the algorithmic tools commonly used to reject contributions" is responsible for the "decline" in WP. Yes, we need root out this systemic bias against vandalism. It's all Cluebot's fault. DeCausa (talk) 09:19, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

• Comment: Is that a huge iceberg on your graph there? Quick, sack the captain!! Martinevans123 (talk) 09:22, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

• Strongly Oppose -Jimbo Wales is to Wikipedia what Steve Jobs was to Apple. Take away the leading light, and Apple begins to falter. The true ranking of Jimbo's success would be in the number of readers, not the number of editors, and our readership continues to grow strongly. I say a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, and a successful leader at the helm of Wikipedia is worth two unproven captains in the wings. Scott P. (talk) 09:58, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose. Sorry Walterruss, but this request would not benefit Wikipedia. After you sent me an email, I asked myself, "just who is this brand new account who feels that removing the figurehead would suddenly make thousands of other editors begin treating WP:IMPERFECT, WP:PRESERVE and WP:BEFORE as policies? Schmidt, ^{Michael Q.} 10:10, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Has anybody checked whether Wikipediocracy has a hand in this? BethNaught (talk) 10:16, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

I would do, but I'm on strike on Tuesdays. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:20, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Does it matter? Anybody could create this, you don't have to be the Great Kohs to randomly do this to kill some time one day.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 12:13, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

"MyWikiBlitzTheBoss"? (but was joking, alas). Martinevans123 (talk) 12:43, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

• Wow, Just wow, the great figurehead must step down? I mean really? Hell in a Bucket (talk) 10:23, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

• Comment The proposal seems to have it backwards. Jimmy Wales supported the principle that we should ignore all rules and generally has a laid-back and informal style. He increasingly has an emeritus position like a constitutional monarch or chairman of the board and so executive power is wielded by others. If Wikipedia is suffering from sclerosis due to excessive bureaucracy and rigidity then perhaps he should step up to do something about it. Andrew (talk) 10:36, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Oh yeah, he should definitely step down as co-founder. Nobody else noticed this is just a silly request? This whole discussion in pointless. Nyth83 (talk) 12:10, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

• Thoughts: this is silly drama-mongering. I propose that Walterruss's "discussion" be closed.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 12:13, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

New WP: policy propsal, review request

In addition to the deletion of the discussion section above, When to allow.... minority views, also deleted was an attempt of mine to create a new WP policy regarding yesterday's discussion on this. My proposed Wikipedia policy is at: WP: Balancing articles about thought systems This link will direct you to an archived non-current file that still shows the proposed WP policy before deletion. I've attempted to add this policy because as currently written, it seems to me that User RPoD probably made a very logical and good faith (but erroneous) interpretation of WP policy. I was wondering if you might be able to review this proposed WP policy and let me know if it might be something you would want? Thanks, Scott P. (talk) 09:32, 30 September 2014 (UTC)