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Wikioogle?

The above thread concerning Google's new approach towards "truthiness" got me thinking... yea, I know, that's dangerous. But what I'm curious about is this- could the WMF form some sort of search engine that would help those that have questions but are not sure where to start? Right now to go to Wikipedia to look up some thing that you aren't sure of, you almost have to by default go to a search engine of your choice to find what you really want to look up on Wikipedia. How many time's I've not known an actor's name and had to first google (generic for check a search engine) something like "actor in Lincoln car commercial" to figure out oh yea it's Matthew McConahoweveryouspellit. Then of course I come to Wikipedia, read up on him, go to Netflix and put on a movie with him that I saw on his bio. I think out of Bing, Ask, Yahoo, et al that a Wikipedia based search engine would actually give Google a run for its money. A couple snazzy commercials touting "ad free" and "we respect your privacy" and "no data mining", some humorous, some with Mr. Wales talking to the camera being all sensitive to modern concerns about privacy; some with pointed jabs directly at Google. Then, all the free press of David up against Goliath. It's doable. I'd be the first to donate to the specific cause of setting it up. Pledge $2,000 right now. Save the diff.Camelbinky (talk) 20:18, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

I'd be happy enough if WMF could just give us a WYSIWYG article editor that works well. Carrite (talk) 21:57, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

• Wikipedia doesn't auto-search synonyms as well: A major reason why Google or Bing (etc.) can better match searches is due to the matching of synonym words among a broader selection of related webpages. Currently, WP can somewhat find that "actor in Lincoln car commercial" but the word "commercial" should be replaced with synonym "spots" as being: wikisearch "actor in Lincoln car spots". It is very difficult for wikisearch to auto-search for synonym words, among many thousands of common terms and related words. Note that Google is running evermore "autofixing" of searches to match the more-likely, more-common topics, rather than search literally for text as typed by a user. It appears that Google is improving the underlying aspects of "associative retrieval" for the related data. The Google empire has gone beyond text-searches to run info-searches in a vast knowledge base of human-oriented data. -Wikid77 (talk) 23:18, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Google's synonyms can be a hindrance as often as a help, and I remember times when efforts to rein in their machines seemed fruitless (like putting + first or using quotes). When search engines start assuming you're looking up the same thing as everybody else, you wonder who has access to the real search engine made for creative people to find new things. I would much more highly value the ability to exactly match search terms, including capitalization, punctuation, and all special characters! Wnt (talk) 01:17, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

You want "Search tools/All Results/Verbatim". Happy to help. EllenCT (talk) 05:45, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Wnt, are you serious? Google fixed that problem like five years ago. Camelbinky, I support your idea 100%. I think it was Wnt or someone else who recommended using the REFDESK answers database to start. But what we really need is a different approach to searching altogether, that allows the search process itself to fall into the background as both visual, touch, and natural language queries dominate the interface to become more of an assisted learning engine for sharing and communicating knowledge, allowing users to create new knowledge by joining separate queries. For example, you should be able to view different layouts depending on what kind of information you want. If all you want is a cast list for a specific film, you shouldn't have to wade through an article or an infobox. And if you want to learn about the recently destroyed archaeological structures in Iraq, you should be able to pull that up easily without having to read extraneous information. On a scale between one and ten, the presentation of information on Wikipedia is a 1. There's a shitload of things to do but nobody is doing it. Viriditas (talk) 06:11, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Such as giving a hoot about WP:NPOV instead of aiding and abetting it? The presentation of information on Wikipedia is NOT a "1" so long as senior editors seem to care more about surface/format/appearance than actual substance and the neutrality-of-content policy and attacking those who raise NPOV as a concern with quasi-psychiatric statements about "behavioural problems". Re that comment of yours, I'm not "unwell" and am doing the work on correcting NPOV that you have shrugged off and demanded that I only address conflated claims about page-cites first before any discussions about applying policy.

Point taken - I was thinking historically in expectation Wikipedia might make the same mistakes, but yes, things have much improved with the Google searches since then. Wnt (talk) 14:46, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm not the only one who has made such observations i.e. about rank NPA against editors who wants NPOV and other serious matters about the integrity and neutrality of the encyclopedia, e.g. making psychiatric put-downs like yours, or attacking their writing style while refusing to actually read anything they say, and threatening them with public stonings at ANI if they persist in not submitting to the Nurse Ratchet routine, i.e. not doing as they are told by so-called "informal mediators", as you style yourself.

Accusing/insinuating "personal problems" and associating complaints on content with "conspiracy theories" are hallmarks of propaganda institutions against dissidents in China, Soviet Russia, Thailand and others...including the US security establishment, as per various recent news reports on "information war" in social media, which it is disingenuous to pretend that Wikipedia is immune from; in fact such problems/conduct are rife in Wikipedia, including from editors/admins who have presumed authority and regularly abuse and ignore guidelines and policy.

Until Wikipedia's so-called "community" makes more serious efforts to deal with NPOV and related COI problems, it isn't credible as the source it pretends to be; and WMF resources are already plenty over-drawn and in need of funding; the idea that Wikipedia would be better than google when it can't even control its policies about content is ludicrous.Skookum1 (talk) 06:48, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Most of WP's accuracy problems tend to be self-correcting in accordance with readership popularity. Hence, much of the slanting or misinformation in articles tends to be corrected when more people read and edit those pages. What we have found over the past 10 years is that heavily-read pages tend to be heavily-corrected (by the pool of numerous editors) in rapid fashion. The worst mistakes tend to linger in rarely-read pages, and that is exemplified by rare hoax pages that have existed for months or years, with relatively few people reading those pages. -Wikid77 (talk) 20:45, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

A lot of search problems are fixable: for example Cast of Aliens. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:24, 8 March 2015 (UTC).

Musical preferences of Jimbo Wales we will know soon

Hello Jimbo! Stupid bot sent this topic to the archive by mistake. Again: What are your musical preferences? Article about you does not contain such information. Thank you! - 95.29.140.223 (talk) 02:36, 8 March 2015 (UTC).

I think there are not really any reliable sources for such. I will soon appear on Desert Island Discs in the UK, though, so you'll get a few clues from that. In a word: diverse.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:18, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Here's an answer from someone who went to high school with Mr. Wales: [4] Everymorning talk 22:07, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

And this. - 2601:B:BB80:61D:41DB:8BD:94C7:BEFE (talk) 02:28, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Jimbo, do you know when you will be appearing on Desert Island Discs?--5 albert square (talk) 02:44, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia Corpus

Wikipedia Corpus is a new text corpus among the corpora at http://corpus.byu.edu, hosted by Brigham Young University.
—Wavelength (talk) 15:53, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

As I understand it, a corpus allows statistical evaluation of the frequency of words or phrases. Can you give us an example of how we might use this? What type of statistical hypotheses are usually tested? Can non-BYU folks use it? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:41, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

You can create an account,and use these corpora.

Corpora have their application in statistical natural language processing. For example one can see the relative frequency of word groups, and predict that certain combinations might be rare enough to warrant inspection.

For people interested in improving Wikipedia, there are some nice features here, and some dis-features in general in using Wikipedia based corpora.

1. They are snap-shots: this means
   1. if someone has recently fixed all mis-spellings of Cambidge to Cambridge it mis-represents the frequency of that mis-spelling
   2. conversely if a usage hasn't been corrected, it can show up in the n-grams list with a frequency that indicates that it is acceptable usage
2. The nice feature is virtual corpora. Things such as @WereSpielChequers:' long-standing query of how to automatically fix only the wrong uses of "posses" (more than one posse) to possess (to own) might be assisted by this sort of thing: posses should have a higher than usual frequency in Rap virtual corpora or Wild West corpora, indicating that "posses" is more likely to be legitimate in these contexts. There are other ways of dealing with this, though like looking for nearby uses of the words "formed" "escaped" "trailed" "rival", as well as parts of speech analysis (thus pronouns should rarely if ever be followed by "possess" in a clause, for example).

This system also has concordance generation and other nice features.

It's claims that it is useful for creating virtual corpora for external purposes needs a few caveats. For example our stubs on the polar regions will produce a very skewed distribution of bigrams compared with, say, 10 books on the subject. And certain infelicities, even in Ram-bot articles that I did not fix, notably "the population is spread out".

I have previously used bigrams from an article space dump in the past, I forgot the purpose, but they are quickly derived and moderately useful.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 17:33, 8 March 2015 (UTC).

Thanks Rich, It won't help for words like posses, staring, planing and preform where when the poop patrol bot runs I can check all uses of the word. But it might help for ones where the word is too common or the error too rare to be worth checking for. I secularised our football mangers a while back, but it would be nice to be able to pull mangers outside the christmas and religion corporas. Better still I have never fully patrolled for calvary cavalry confusions, I have corrected loads where I have searched for phrases such as "calvary regiment" and "calvary charge". I would certainly like to see Calvary in a Military virtual corpora or cavalry in a religious virtual corpora. ϢereSpielChequers 20:51, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

We are curious if you are aware

…of any research, internal or external, that may have been done on the relationship between Wikipedia production and its communication structures, in relation to other research on Conway's Law, see that article and cf. refs. MacCormack et al. 2012, Nagappan et al. 2008, and Hvatum & Kelly 2006.. Please feel fee to delegate, indicating which other Talk page this discussion might continue.

With regard, Le Prof. Leprof 7272 (talk) 03:16, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Misuse of Admin Powers for Personal Revenge

WP:RBI
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Hello, I would request you to invest only 5 minutes for this, definitely not more that. I am facing a serious issue on editing an article on English Wikipedia. Few selected admins such as Primefac, Kikichugirl, Kelapstick have taken up as personal attack against me. Now, I have blocked for editing and moreover the article created which was even approved on 5th March 2015, has been listed for deletion and I am totally unable to present my clarification on the same. The article for deletion and the block both has been carried forward by Primefac, Kelapstick. Why So? It all begin when I started creating an article on Shekhar Chatterjee on July 2014. I was newbie to Wikipedia so I was unaware of way of writing an article using references and tags on Wikipedia so I took the help of IRC where I came across Primefac on IRC and requested him to write an article on the same but he refused to do I so. I felt bad, but somehow I managed on my own. I was not a professional article writer so the article was declined several times, but I learnt the procedure to make the article follow Wikipedia Guidelines. Finally the article was created by Shirik, and the article was moved to article space. Current Scenario Within two days of article getting approved, with any discussion regarding the article on its Talk-Page the article was straight away listed for Deletion and that too by Primefac. The only thing that was unacceptable by Primefac was that I was Shekhar Chatterjee's father Sanjoy Chatterjee. Yes I am a honest person, I could have created an account with different username but I didn't because I believe being a father does not make a notable article non-notable. Each and every single point on the article has been given a citation and the article has been covered in the 3 most prestigious newspapers of the countr Times of India, Dainik Bhaskar, Divya Bhaskar. Few Fake Articles on Wikipedia On the other hand, another article came to my notice of Sindhuja Rajamaran. This girl claims to have a Guinness_World_Records for becoming the Youngest CEO. Seriously? Did any admin made an effort to validate this title before getting it published. Note: Sindhuja Rajamaran does not have any Guinness World Record in her name which can be verified directly on [Guinness World Records Official Websites] and they fake claim still exist on Wikipedia!! It was very unfortunate when I removed the false claim of holds a Guinness World Record for becoming which can be seen here [History] and also giving the complete description on it's [Page]. But I never expected that I would be blocked for disruptive editing and vandalism that too by Primefac. Really? Are you kidding me? Aren't there any other admin to validate? Are you taking a personal revenge? Did you validate the claim of Guinness_World_Records? Why Unfair? Most importantly, the article has only two references and that too with no such thing specified World Youngest CEO in it. And on the other hand, article of Shekhar Chatterjee has been covered by India's most reputed 5 National Newspapers and 3 National News Channels and you still question it's notability and list for deletion? I suppose Wikipedia is place for existing notable people and not for making people notable. Please correct if I am wrong anywhere. This article is notable enough for it's references in media and also completely acceptable by 2 very old admins User:Shirik and User:ThaddeusB. It's only 1 admin User:Kelapstick and a user User:Primefac and a review user Kikichugirl that have problem with the article. The article being covered in 5 independent media in itself enough to prove it's notability. The only thing that is acceptable is rewrite of the article using a more better language. So what if I am his dad? I do object anything is wrong as in case of Sindhuja Rajamaran. I do accept if my point is right. But now I suppose Primefac and Kikichugirl have decided to block me, so that I can't edit the article. I am definitely not complaining that they are wrong people but I would definitely abide them if they stop misusing their admin powers for personal revenge and take up this article on a neutral point of view as done by User:Shirik and User:ThaddeusB. My Request Your help would be highly appreciated. Please go through the article Shekhar Chatterjee once and let me know on my talk page if the article with so many references is notable or the one with only 1 valid references is considered notable. Sindhuja Rajamaran Awaiting for your reply. Please do respond. 118.103.138.77 (talk) 07:29, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Google deciding truth

"A team of computer scientists at Google has proposed a way to rank search results not by how popular Web pages are, but by their factual accuracy."

• Google has developed a technology to tell whether ‘facts’ on the Internet are true—The Washington Post (March 2, 2015)

Facts are true, and myths are fiction. A datum can be either true or false.
—Wavelength (talk) 00:37, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I wonder if we'd be better off comparing the rest of the Internet to Wikipedia, or Wikipedia to the rest of the Internet. Of course, Wikipedia's score will be artificially inflated in any event by all the mirror sites that reprint everything we publish, including all of the good encyclopedic content, but also all of the BLP violations and the nonsense and the hoaxes. (I just deleted a self-evident hoax this morning that had lingered for nine and one-half years, for God's sake.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:54, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, indeed you did. More on that story a bit later.→StaniStani 01:10, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Doesn't that depend on whether you're the sort of person who wants to set the bar high for the "encyclopedia that anyone can edit" or set it low? Should it really matter for us that the rest of the internet is crap? Let me rephrase you. I wonder if we'd be better off (actually not sure what that means - better of how and for whom?) comparing academic Encyclopedias and scholarly work to Wikipedia, or Wikipedia to the the rest of the Internet? Do we want to be the best of online "collection of facts and rumors" sites or do we actually have an aspiration to be ... an encyclopedia? Short term, given our advantages, we can compete with similar sites on the Internet. Long term we'll lose, editor decline and all. Short term, we are a bit of an embarrassment (at least in some areas) compared to professional publications. Long term the only viable strategy might be to move that way.Volunteer Marek (talk) 01:30, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) WP is arguably the most successful puff piece ever. That what we say here might be taken as some sort of "truth" is a big problem for me because it becomes self-perpetuating despite WP:VNT and, obviously, has long been evident through mirrors etc. We might proclaim VNT but the mirrors etc do not repeat that in any obvious manner. Most of our content is at best ill-informed and is not infrequently, plain crap. I live in hope but, alas, a declining hope. That said, what Google choose to do is their business. I'd like to think that they would have more sense but, hey, since when has that been a feature of big business and personal aggrandisement? We could at least change the trend by binning 90 per cent or so of the content: it is, really, not so much encyclopaedic as fancruft in its many variant forms. - Sitush (talk) 02:47, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Just to spell out what I think I'm reading - is the following true?

• "Basically, to evaluate a stated fact, you only need two things: the fact and a reference work to compare it to. Google already has the beginnings of that reference work, in the form of its Knowledge Graph"
• "Google culls those details largely from services like Freebase, Wikipedia and the CIA World Factbook;" and maybe a few others
• So Wikipedia and the CIA are the sources of the ultimate reference? We're writing the ultimate "book of truth"??
• That's pretty scary if I'm reading this correctly.

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:43, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

According to the article in The Washington Post, (1) your first point is true, but (2) your second point is misleading, because the preposition like introduces examples and is similar to e.g. (sometimes confused with i.e.). The addendum and maybe a few others confuses a selected subset of examples from a set with the complete set. (Compare MOS:SUBSET.) (3) To each one of the two parts of your third point, I answer "No". (4) I have no comment (except this one) about your fourth point.

—Wavelength (talk) 03:48, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

For a long time Wikipedia and Google have been both collaborators and competitors. Wikipedia is essentially a human-optimized search engine that should be meant to link you rapidly and easily to the most relevant primary and secondary sources about something you're interested in. Google does most of Wikipedia's promotion because Wikipedia is so dang useful. Things like Knowledge Graph are useful innovations, but they could be rivalled by more work at our end (for example, someday someone ought to make a proper Q-and-A index of all the Refdesk archives). What's disturbing though is that if Google and its customers become satisfied enough with its AI toy, then they'll be asking "Google" on their phone what the mass of Mars is rather than going to Wikipedia and reading Mars and possibly becoming editors if they dig deep for the most up to date figures, which could impact us long-term. The possible harm from Google acting as monopoly is unrestricted: yes, they may promote wrong "facts", but the more obvious risk is that someday, after they finish merging with a few dozen more companies, you simply wake up and they're charging $30 a month to use ... just about anything you use on the Internet. Or, more likely, they start charging in privacy, by only handing out their information to identified users of Google Wallet or something, and get paid by the back door by the NSA and its fellow agencies around the world. To the degree that Wikipedia acts as a genuine competitor we help to reduce the risk of such scenarios. Wnt (talk) 13:42, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

User:Wnt I love you buddy, but you should have stopped about a sentence or two earlier. :) Camelbinky (talk) 15:06, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Dagnabbit! I just knew the NSA would be to blame for all this nonsense. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:15, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

They are...the five hundred dollar hammers and seven hundred dollar toilet seats is how they laundry money which goes to Google and others to erect multibillion dollar data centers...and everyone thought those data centers were paid by advertising revenue....lol.--MONGO 15:25, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

With ready access to inside information from every company, industry, and central bank board in the world, the only thing limiting NSA's revenue is its ethics. Wnt (talk) 15:55, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, you had me cheering until the penultimate sentence. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 15:30, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Doesn't anybody read the news at all? Admittedly, even three different programs paying several hundred million yearly apiece wouldn't equal the revenue of a significant monthly fee... but that's only what's been leaked! And if Google had hard identity data on all its streams obviously they could expect a bigger cut. Wnt (talk) 15:53, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I could easily come up with plenty of articles that would fail a truth test. But, I know better then to do so. GoodDay (talk) 17:10, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

• I came across this article and I was glad it was written by a high school student. People are not idiots about the internet (including Wikipedia) nor are they idiots about news. "How can journalists and bloggers avoid falling into these traps? The answer seems easy enough: Do more research (or at least run a few Google searches) before publishing a post." [[5]. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:02, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

• I think some people are overestimating a bit how much Wikipedia is in use by the knowledge graph, it's a source, and for a very long time it used to be the biggest and most important source that was the most visible. But, over the past 4 years or so, google has been adding and scraping hundreds if not thousands of such source databases. If anything, I think they are becoming less and less reliant on Wikipedia, which is a good thing (for them). Latest example of their work: Google measles, and you get a fresh new information box about the disease, with a cartoon, symptoms, diagnostic and treatment information. Sourced from reputable medical sources. We are becoming less relevant by the day. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:53, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

For those geolocated outside the US this Google search shows you what the DJ is describing. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 09:04, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

@TheDJ, I think WP will always be extremely relevant in searches because of what User:Wnt noted above, "Wikipedia is essentially a human-optimized search engine". Although many simple, or direct, questions could be answered by Google medical facts or similar, a major advantage of WP is the abundance of optimized disambiguation pages, as related terms "in a nutshell". Consider how the page "The Sound of Music (disambiguation)" quickly includes the company formerly named "Sound of Music" now named "Best Buy" among many facts related to the term. A Google Search rarely includes that level of condensed, cross-related data. -Wikid77 (talk) 23:54, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

My understanding is that Google has decided to penalize their search listing rank of sites which are known to be spreading disinformation, and increase the ranking of sites which have a reputation for reliability. I wholeheartedly endorse this and I hope they start with politically biased news sites. EllenCT (talk) 17:28, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

"When Gauss, Bolyai and Lobatchevsky 'discovered' hyperbolic geometry, what they did was to explore the consequences of this axiom. They found that, far from leading to a quick contradiction, it led to a beautiful body of theorems, different from those of Euclidean geometry and somewhat counterintuitive, but consistent with each other." (paragraph 3) If there were to be a huge increase in public interest in non-Euclidean geometry and consequently a huge increase in the number of websites discussing it, there could be a situation where it validates itself and invalidates Euclidean geometry.

—Wavelength (talk) 19:10, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't know whether you intended to reply to me or someone else, but Euclidian and non-Euclidean geometry don't contradict each other, they're just alternatives with their own legitimacy, just like color and black and white photography. If you are suggesting that automating search rank adjustments by reputation might penalize them, I think you're mistaken, but I suppose only time will tell. From what I've read about Google's approach, they are targeting specific topics where misinformation causes harm, disruption, mob action, prejudice, or economic disadvantage, and on each such topics trying to identify sites which should either be more visible or less visible in results for searches on those topics. Geometry is unlikely to show up in that list. Vaccination already does. I hope supply-side trickle-down austerity advocacy gets the axe. EllenCT (talk) 23:13, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

I did intend to reply to you, and I indented my reply with two colons in response to your reply (which should have been indented with one colon, if it was intended as a reply to my original post). (Please see WP:INDENT and WP:THREAD.) If an algorithm used by Google considers online text at face value and out of context, then it would probably find the two types of geometry to be mutually contradictory. (Euclidean and Non-Euclidean Geometry)

—Wavelength (talk) 23:55, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

If the Google KBT algorithm finds that one of two valid but contradictory (because of different premises) statements is in error, that indicates a problem with extractors, not the statements themselves. See section 3.3.1 on page 5 here. This reflects the difference between first- and second order predicate calculus. If the easter bunny is white in one story but brown in another, that does not mean that one of the two stories is flawed. The lack of gold standards of truthfulness results in "semi-supervised learning," (i.e., a human being has to resolve some fraction of conflicts which confuse the system) even though the algorithm is sufficient to independently and conclusively determine that gossip and forum websites with high PageRank scores, such as Yahoo Answers, are inferior to Wikipedia (section 5.4.1 on page 11.) What do you do when a computer asks you to choose between the pessimism of existential angst or the optimism of logical positivist thought? EllenCT (talk) 05:38, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Isn't any story about the Easter bunny technically flawed relative to truth? 184.96.26.54 (talk) 02:55, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Fine. If Socrates has dark hair in one account but grey hair in another, both can be completely true. Not just time but circumstance and context can change the truth value of first-order propositions. EllenCT (talk) 14:27, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

I have pondered the question at the end of your post, and in reply I refer you to the Apocalypse of John, also known as the Book of Revelation (see "apocalypse" and its etymology, and "relevation" and its etymology). The interpretation of the Apocalypse has been obscured (2 Corinthians 4:4) by the entertainment industry and by news organizations. I have doubts about Google being able to make correct decisions about such matters. (Matthew 11:25)

—Wavelength (talk) 15:52, 7 March 2015 (UTC) and 04:00, 8 March 2015 (UTC) (only to revise the separation of chapter and verse numbers)

The point is, on most such questions, the Google KBT algorithm is going to have to ask a human. But in some of those cases, the best humans in aggregate can possibly do in response would be the equivalent of adding a POV tag and walking away. Suppose you are working at Google, and the KBT algorithm asks you whether sites claiming Christian salvation is by acceptance alone should be ranked above or below sites claiming salvation depends on deeds? EllenCT (talk) 16:04, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

In the second and third chapters of the Book of Revelation, the messages to the seven churches of Asia (seven congregations in a portion of what is now Turkey) seem to indicate that salvation depends on deeds. However, Revelation 22:17 seems to indicate that acceptance based on faith is sufficient. Those two concepts appear to be mutually contradictory, but they can be reconciled with each other by means of another concept (or two): Works of obedience do not earn salvation, but they are evidence of genuine faith.

If the Google KBT (Knowledge-Based Trust) algorithm asks me to decide this matter, then I need to consider any applicable policies (such as "Neutral Presentation of Views"). Then, if there is no such restriction, I might choose an option according to my own view of the matter. If I believe that my own view might be challenged, then I might prepare a brief informative explanation. However, if I adopt a more holistic view of the situation, then I might sense that other Google employees in similar situations might choose options with which I disagree. Therefore, I might seek to find what I consider to be the optimal overall arrangement, and propose it to other Google employees. I do not know what I would do as a Google employee, if the Google KBT algorithm asked me to decide this particular matter. Fortunately, I am not a Google employee, and I do not need to deal with this dilemma. Perhaps Google is on the verge of experiencing its own challenges in relation to a neutral presentation of views.

—Wavelength (talk) 19:44, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Exactly! When anything can be proven from a single contradiction and humans' most sacred texts are full of them, the chances that computers will by themselves be able to understand most humans in any meaningful sense are profoundly constrained. EllenCT (talk) 20:23, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

At 17:28, 5 March 2015 (UTC), you said that you wholeheartedly endorse this proposal by Google to rank search results by their factual accuracy. At 14:27, 7 March 2015 (UTC), you said "Not just time but circumstance and context can change the truth value of first-order propositions."

—Wavelength (talk) 23:00, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Because the extractors described in section 3.3 of the KBT paper are a form of second-order logic. EllenCT (talk) 15:46, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

But if google has worked out how to derive the truthiness of a statement, how is the red horseman going to keep his pet article astroturfed and all of those dreadful ip editors at bay? Les drat! Sacre bleu! Abandon the internet! 62.254.196.200 (talk) 17:35, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Silly Google thinking they have solved epistemology. This reminds me of scientists in the 1800s who thought they had figured out science. Chillum 17:39, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Poor Planck he just couldn't learn to love special relativity. 62.254.196.200 (talk) 17:45, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Oh

Hey, Jimbo, what do you think about admins sending emails to people they sanctioned, unsolicited, that start with "Oh you motherfucker..." Just wondering! Hipocrite (talk) 17:54, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

I obviously can't speak for Jimbo but I would find that very uncivil.--5 albert square (talk) 20:55, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

I cant speak for Jimbo either but Id open an admin review, I cant think of anything that would justify that. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 20:58, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

The trouble is @Knowledgekid87:, speaking as an administrator, what *could* we do about it? What power do we have to stop editors randomly emailing other editors?--5 albert square (talk) 21:47, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Nothing, but it could count as off-wiki harassment. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 21:57, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

It's probably a TOS (Terms Of Service) violation for the source email. If it's a reputable email provider you can complain to them and they'll contact the sender. As to the OP's question, doesn't sound too good, but truth is a defense and you'd want the whole story, so it matters what, if anything, went before the missive. It's difficult to answer leading questions fairly. Herostratus (talk) 22:45, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Question. Would it be as bad if the sanction editor accused the admin of supporting rape on the editor's talk page? Also what if the editor had accused another admin of doing so in the past?128.4.61.141 (talk) 01:02, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

@128.4.61.141: Regardless, it's a matter of not 'dropping to their level'.. it would blatantly be unacceptable... still, a very leading question, with no context. Revent^talk 06:55, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Well here's the context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:MarkBernstein#Topic_ban_2 . I can see why admins would be held to a higher standard, but when it's a user who is continuously sanctioned for his comments towards other users decides to make someone their next target, I can understand the frustration. Also the email wasn't unsolicited, as seen here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AMarkBernstein&diff=650524400&oldid=650521524. 128.4.61.141 (talk) 07:17, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Now at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents AN/I. MarkBernstein (talk) 15:48, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Two faces?

"Privacy is an essential right. It makes freedom of expression possible, and sustains freedom of inquiry and association." - Yes! This is so true. It is sad, that you forget this for example if you talk about europes "Right to be forgotten" and such things. Sorry, Mr Wales, but out of your mouth, such words really sound simply funny. Ever heard about the "Deep User Inspector"? A tool, where you can follow he work of us authors very, very far and you come us really near. Why the WMF allow such things? The NSA only need to use such tools, openly runned by the WMF! We are spied oficcially in a mannor, that the NSA is at the end not that much worse. Maybe, you should think about that, than only to think about, how making more and more and more money, in the board of trustees. Marcus Cyron (talk) 13:48, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't think the board members are paid - aside from basic expenses. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:52, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Censorship is not equivalent to privacy. Europe's "right to be forgotten" is an example of the former, not the latter. Resolute 13:53, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Precisely.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:18, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Can you imagine a politician standing up in a legislative chamber and saying "Hey folks, I've had a great idea for a new piece of legislation. We'll give faceless bureaucrats unchallengeable power to remove material from the web, and if anyone asks what the problem was, we won't tell them." This is how the right to be forgotten works, and it is the situation currently affecting the Wikipedia article Gerry Hutch.[6] This is an absurd situation which could have been devised by Franz Kafka.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 14:33, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

That's right. One problem I frequently see is "along a spectrum" thinking, which looks something like this: We have privacy on the one end, free speech on the other, and our only policy choice is where along that spectrum we want to be. Therefore, the wrong thinking goes, if someone is in favor of privacy, but against a particular piece of legislation that arguably enhances privacy, they are of "two faces". But this is wrong.

Freedom of expression is important, and privacy is important, and they are sometimes *but not usually* in tension with each other. And particular laws impacting freedom of expression and privacy can be good or bad.

The core consistency in my personal position on both the European right to be forgotten situation and the NSA mass surveillance situation is that if and when there are cases where fundamental rights have to be limited, it is incredibly important that there be particularized suspicion, probable cause, and so on. Decisions need to go before an independent judiciary, and have to be about specific cases.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:47, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Gerry Hutch was checked with a fine toothcomb for anything that could have legal or WP:BLP issues, and there do not appear to be any. If there were, there are ample options in WP:AUTOPROB. It should be stressed that it was probably not Gerry Hutch who made this request, and it was possibly someone else mentioned in the article, who will not be named here. Also worth a mention is this article by Tom Cheshire, which confirms how lightweight some of the removal criteria appear to be.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 15:17, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

That article suggest, quite plausibly, that the censor is not the law, or the courts, or EU, but Google. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:21, 11 March 2015 (UTC).

I think that first and for all we should be aware that the kind of privacy that is called upon in this lawsuit is a privacy U.S.-style, not what we understand by privacy in Europe. This lawsuit looks more like a public relations project than a serious action for civil rights. The Foundation has shown disregard for net neutrality and for the right to be forgotten lately and completely fails to understand what really matters in net politics. As long as the WMF allows for the XTools to be run on its servers providing profiles of every editor and as long as IP addresses are saved in MediaWiki, both breaching European privacy standards, you are not acting in my name.--Aschmidt (talk) 15:26, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

It is not a public relations project at all. It's a real lawsuit in real courts on a real issue. I find it hard to really seriously believe that your disagreements with the Foundation on unrelated issues means that you can't support this lawsuit.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:17, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I beg your pardon? I have referred to issues related to privacy, and I have passed on my impression which is rather common in our community. You might like to have yourself briefed on what's going on outside enwiki.--Aschmidt (talk) 16:28, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I understand that. Are you seriously telling me that you think it's ok what the NSA is doing? No, I didn't think so. What you think is that the Wikimedia Foundation should go even further, and tackle some other privacy issues. That's fine, I actually may agree with you on some of them. But that doesn't mean we should not pursue this lawsuit.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:26, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, I think we don't have to discuss whether what the intelligence services are doing is right or not. I would like to dwell on a different point: When I was doing business today in Frankfurt, a projector on a subway track showing the headlines of a privately-owned German news channel displayed the line: Wikipedia sues the American government. Period. What has happened here is simply that as a result you exploit the community by using its reputation—for whatever reason, or goals—without seeking prior consent. And I think you do not have the right to do so. Remember the SOPA/TIPA protests when Wikipedia did not go black without prior discussion and RfC. After this Sue Gardner published her theses on Narrowing focus saying that Wikipedia and Wikimedia are not apt to run political campaigns. The most radical version of hers was that Wikipedia after all was just a really huge website and nothing more. (At the time I thought it also was a project driven by values. I doubt this in the meanwhile, considering the WMF's stance on paid eding, but this is yet another different matter.) When you stood up against the European right to be forgotten just before the London Wikimania, it was the first political action after SOPA/TIPA and the narrowing focus policy, so this already was an indicator for a change in WMF policy. However, you don't have a general mandate for that. Wikipedia is not the WMF. Wikipedia is its editors and nothing more. We have made Wikipedia what is is today. It is our work that people cherish and value. So it goes without saying that before you stand up in our name you should feel obliged to ask for our critical advice in the first place, as you are exploiting our reputation for your goals.--Aschmidt (talk) 23:25, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

A while ago, I asked on meta:Talk:Data_retention_guidelines#Data_of_logged-out_visitors if the foundation stores the page impressions of anonymous users for an extended time. Turns out it does for up to 90 days, which is quite a long time span that seems completely unneccessary to me. If I was the NSA and needed that kind of data, I would just take it from the databases of the foundation (I am sure that there are ways, with and without the knowledge of the foundation) instead of bothering to take it from some fiber cables. I believe that if the foundation did not save this data for more than very few days or aggregated/anonymized it on the spot, this would be very helpful. --Tinz (talk) 17:39, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

What's more, back in 2012 we discussed privacy-related problems of the watchlist features introduced at the time you cannot disable. The WMF saves which pages I do or do not visit and when, even if I do not want this to. To no avail. What a nice and handy feature. It has turned our watchlists into Big Brother lists. See the discussion for the official answer we got at the time. Nothing's changed ever since.--Aschmidt (talk) 17:51, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

The European "Right to be Forgotten" legislation applies to very narrowly defined categories of information. It is not, as some would have us believe, a memory hole. These categories relate to personal information that is:

1. Inaccurate
2. Outdated
3. Irrelevant

I would be interested in which of these categories are "deeply immoral" to have removed from search engines. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:23, 10 March 2015 (UTC).

You quote the words "deeply immoral" as if you are quoting me, which is of course entirely possible, but without supplying the full context of the quote, I can't be sure that I'm responding correctly.

Currently, European law offers huge legal penalties to Google if they do not censor links to some publications in some circumstances. They are forced to make the decision of what to censor or not. They have every incentive to be very liberal with their censorship because there is no material upside to refusing individual requests. Publishers who are so censored have no appeals mechanism. There is no judicial or regulatory oversight of this censorship regime at all.

Even if you believe (and I do not) that it is appropriate to have legal censorship of information on such flimsy and vague grounds as "outdated" or "irrelevant", it is very far from an appropriate regulatory regime to task a private company with doing this, with no oversight of any kind.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:31, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Google is your friend - in the sense the the top Google hit for "Deeply immoral" is this article: Wikipedia founder: EU's Right to be Forgotten is 'deeply immoral Daily Telegraph, written some months before you tweeted that you were having trouble reading the directive in question.

As I understand it, Google is not "tasked" with making these decisions in that it is possible for them to request rulings from the regulators.

Moreover any sympathy I might have had for Google in this matter evaporated when they promulgated, through various mouthpieces, examples which they knew to fall outside the restrictions as if they would be "forced to censor" them. Worse, they now trumpet those very examples to show what a good job they are doing!

Moreover "vague" and "flimsy" are the bread and butter of lawyers, and I'm sure Google can afford (and indeed has on its staff) lawyers that make more in a day than most people do in a year, and certainly coders that can match their skills.

Certainly there are issues to be addressed, and maybe, like most laws, there will need to be refinement, case law and so forth. But there is nothing inherently unworkable (as Google have demonstrated, contrary tot their original claims) or immoral about this one.

Indeed it compares favourably with WP:BLP, which, I hope we all (still) support.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:14, 11 March 2015 (UTC).

Like many concepts in European law, the right to be forgotten starts out with a good idea and then spoils it. If a man was fined for peeing up against a wall at the age of 18, it is not something that should be dragged up years later or appear as the first result in a web search on his name. The problem is how to tackle this issue without pandering to the wishes of people who believe that the entire Internet should be written like their Facebook profile. In its current form, the right to be forgotten is unfair and unworkable. We don't know what is wrong with Gerry Hutch other than that someone has such a problem with it that they had it removed from Google search results. Now that's deeply immoral.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 21:03, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I see you using the c-word quite a lot there Jimmy (six letter variety, not the four letter taboo one which the whole world and their pet cats, possibly deceased, by now know is OK at Wikipedia so long as it's used in a culturally sensitive way i.e. by people living a bit up and to the left in the UK with IQs the level of a nice dish of tripe and onions). I did rather think that a big Wikipedia no-no. 81.151.160.157 (talk) 23:13, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

How very dare you! You're looking at the world through rose "tinted" glasses, m'lad! Martinevans123 (talk) 23:25, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Just winding up the old goat. I do love him, honest. 81.151.160.157 (talk) 09:10, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

What if Gerry had only peed up against a wall when he was 18? Please see Blackstone's formulation. EllenCT (talk) 21:14, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

He probably didn't make the request, as his name still shows up as the first result in Google UK/Ireland search results with no warning of results being removed. There is one person named in the article who does, and it has nothing to do with urination or walls. If correct, this was a poor decision by whoever made it.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 21:19, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Is all this kerfuffle about truth, or law, or accountability, or morality? ... or is it just about the perceived imbalance in locus of control? Martinevans123 (talk) 21:38, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks

Firstly, I'd like to thank for this. Secondly, I think more needs to be done. I think you underestimate the power you have. You are the spokesperson of the people Jimbo. Don't you ever forget it. We are counting on you to help entrench our liberty and justice. You could start by being more assertive. Kuwii hinugu yiri (talk) 17:54, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Thank you from me too. Well done. --Amble (talk) 16:24, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

About the lawsuit

Jimmy,

I suspect I'm in the extreme minority, but I strongly wish that you and the Wikimedia Foundation had not filed that lawsuit against the NSA. I generally don't oppose what the NSA does, but that isn't why I'm against this lawsuit. It makes me rather uncomfortable to see the Wikimedia Foundation, which is supposed to be building neutral free knowledge projects, getting involved in political advocacy. I opposed The Day We Fight Back and I would have likely opposed the SOPA blackout had I been editing back then. It's even more unsettling to see the news media saying that Wikipedia is filing the lawsuit, which implies that the community—whose neutrality is even more important than the Foundation's, since they write the content—is backing this, though I recognize that this mistake is probably not your fault.

I've seen people claiming that this is about anti-censorship or whatnot, but I don't see it that way. I've been editing for nearly three years and have not seen any attempts by the NSA to censor any content here. The community by and large seems to be very good at avoiding censorship cf. WP:Articles for deletion/Gerry Hutch. There's the incident with that French military radio station two years ago, but I don't see removing classified or illegal material as censorship, but rather common sense. So I can only conclude that people think that the NSA tracking readers and doing nothing with that data is somehow skewing the wiki. I say it isn't. The activities that people generally do when building a neutral encyclopedia are not the sort of activities that the NSA would take interest ipn. Thus, the data is simply...data. As an xkcd character says: "Data is imaginary. This burrito is real.". --Jakob (talk) 18:25, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

This is a fundraising stunt. Waste money on a doomed from the start lawsuit, and hope to recoup multiple back in donations.Two kinds of pork^Makin'_Bacon 18:31, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Maybe I can start a new game. Every time someone says that they shouldn't have filed the lawsuit, I'll donate 5$ to the WMF. If only I had enough money... --AmaryllisGardener ^talk 18:37, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

You're up to $15. Seems to me Wikipedia should get its own house in order regarding poorly-sourced trivia in BLPs before it goes after the NSA for its effect on individuals' lives. Townlake (talk) 20:05, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

@Townlake: Like I said, if only I won the lottery. If you're concerned about the WMF making wrong decisions, then complain about the superprotect nonsense, that's a real issue. Of course nobody here cares about that, because you don't hear about it in the news, and the only people that seem to care about it are small wiki admins like me. --AmaryllisGardener ^talk 20:22, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Wasn't there a huge uproar over superprotect that resulted in the WMF removing it? That seems to me to a bit different from "nobody here cares". And yes, I know the German Wikipedia was largely the center of the controversy, but it got plenty of discussion here on en, including some on this very page. --71.104.75.148 (talk) 23:37, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Hmm, so what do you think the WMF, as opposed to the community, should do about poorly-sourced trivia in BLPs? If only there was a software feature that the WMF could use to enforce their approved version of an article... The WMF can call all it wants for changes to BLPs, but it's up to the community to buy into those ideas and actually implement them, unless you want the WMF to start taking an editorial role. And anyway, "problem X exists, therefore do nothing about problem Y until problem X is fixed" is a form of the perfect solution fallacy. One might as well say, slavery still exists in the world (including the U.S.), so why are you wasting time talking about problems with some website? --71.104.75.148 (talk) 23:37, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

It is the WMF's responsibility to do something about Wikipedia's BLP issues, because the community has proven incapable of doing so. At some point the WMF will need to install adult leadership, and acknowledge that its administrators, who in fact have the most important police powers here, can't pretend they're simply janitors. As for your "perfect solution fallacy," what I was pointing out is that it's rather silly for Jimbo to cry "NSA is unfair to living people!" while he continues to revel in his role as a founder of a site that hosts thousands of inaccurate BLPs about living people. Call that whatever fallacy you like, I guess. Townlake (talk) 02:02, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

(And now my third indentation level...) Isn't the whole idea behind the NPOV policy that no person is free from bias, but when writing articles people should strive to consciously avoid that bias? To me this idea that "Wikipedia is neutral and therefore the community should not advocate for anything" is stretching the policy into something it was never meant to mean. All it means is that Wikipedia's editorial content should be neutral. Revising the warrantless wiretapping article to say "it is bad and should be stopped" would be violating the NPOV policy. I see no problem with the Foundation, or community members, saying "we personally oppose this"—we even have a community newspaper that regularly publishes opinion pieces. To take an extreme example, if a government were to consider banning Wikipedia, I would hope that the WMF and the community would publicly oppose that, not say "we must be neutral, and thus we have no opinion". And indeed, the WMF has taken some steps, such as improving HTTPS access, to make it easier for people to access its projects in places where the government censors them.

Next, the concern that I think many people have is that the U.S. government's surveillance of the Internet can have a chilling effect on the project as well as its users. If reading or editing certain articles is likely to invite government scrutiny, that is going to influence behavior. Just because the government is not telling the WMF that it must censor certain content does not mean that nothing it does can have an effect on the project. It is also of note that the NSA shares its information with many other countries' intelligence agencies. To put it bluntly, I feel you are thinking, "I live in a developed nation with a tradition of civil liberties, and I'm not a bad guy, so I don't expect the NSA's surveillance to affect me." If you were living in a country like Egypt (whose government has intelligence ties to the U.S.) I think you might feel a little differently. And now I have some bad news for you: the projects host a fair amount of information that is classified. The details of the NSA (and other intelligence agencies') programs are classified, and we would not know most of them had Snowden not leaked the information. Leaking something does not un-classify it, so if you think all classified information should be removed from the projects, there are quite a few deletion requests that need filing. --71.104.75.148 (talk) 23:37, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

You're on the money about en.wp's fetishisation of the notion of "neutrality". It's bonkers. For instance, we recently decided against including photos from the Charlie Hebdo marches on the front page because it might have been perceived as taking sides, and instead ran the ITN box for that period without images. You couldn't make it up. What's more, your analysis of why NSA surveillance may be a risk to the project seems at least reasonable to me.

I think it's an issue, though, that WMF seems to be pursuing a quite specific political agenda with regard to Internet freedoms, which is not an area that lends itself easily to black and white thinking, and appears to be doing so without much regard to whether or not they have the support of the projects in their various positions. This is problematic as a question of accountability, because this lawsuit will presumably cost money, and WMF didn't earn that money, we did. Formerip (talk) 00:16, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Quick note about my comment on classified material. If reputable sources have already been discussing classified material, that's one thing. I meant that we shouldn't be like Wikileaks, posting classified material just because we can. --Jakob (talk) 16:43, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Some more thoughts: I fully expect that one of the government's arguments in this case will be that the specific details of the surveillance programs in question are classified, and thus should be suppressed as evidence. Then, they will argue, once that evidence is removed, there is no evidence of any harm to the defendants, so the case should be dismissed. Joseph Heller would approve.

And it's not necessarily true that NSA surveillance won't affect you. U.S. government officials have previously lied to cover up the fact that they were motivated to investigate a suspect by information provided by the NSA, using a tactic called parallel construction. The known cases appear to involve phone records, not Internet activity, but the precedent is there.

Other point: the idea some have that the WMF has historically not taken any political stances is wrong. There is one political issue in which the WMF and community has long been involved: copyright. The very requirement that all content on WMF projects be free content (outside of narrowly-defined fair use exceptions) is, I think, much more political an idea than many contributors realize. This may be because many come from the technolibertarian set and have already bought into the idea. It effectively ties the projects into the whole copyleft/free software memeplex, which is basically opposed to copyright as it currently exists. Go read the GNU Manifesto if you doubt the radicalism inherent in the idea; Stallman, the author, popularized the idea of copyleft, and it's not an accident that Wikipedia started out using the GNU Free Documentation License. And the WMF has taken actions in the arena of copyright, joining an amicus brief in Golan v. Holder, endorsing lobbying efforts to reform European copyright laws, and hosting content that in many ways pushes at the boundaries of copyright law in areas such as the whole monkey selfie thing, freedom of panorama, and reproductions of 2-D art in the public domain (the Foundation officially endorsed this, even). The last two things are notable, because they are particularly controversial: ask anyone in the museum field. Many museums hate this since it cuts into their revenues—have you noticed that a lot of museums prohibit photography? The reason none of them have sued the WMF over it is most likely because it would be a public relations disaster for them, given the good press the WMF enjoys. So this stuff exists; most people just aren't aware, because it doesn't generate front-page headlines like "Wikipedia sues NSA" does. And the free content requirement has effects on the project's editorial slant. There are plenty of things we can't include because they're not freely licensed; this contributes to systemic bias. For instance if you look at articles on computing, images outside of articles on specific non-free software (like Microsoft Office) will likely be of free software like the GNOME desktop, even though that's not representative of the software that most people use. If you wanted to place neutrality above all else, one of the first things you would do would be to throw out the free content requirement. --71.104.75.148 (talk) 01:16, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

There is a difference between neutrality and the neutral point of view. We oppose fringe views, quackery, pseudoscience, superstition, and popular misinformation contrary to the secondary reliable sources, strongly in favor of (possibly opposing multiple) mainstream views. To the extent that government eavesdropping actively prevents editors from being able to compose an accurate encyclopedia, as Wales and Tretikov clearly explained in their NYT op-ed, that eavesdropping precludes the neutral point of view. The idea that Wikipedia has to be some kind of Switzerland, as friendly to homeopathy as addition, and as open to government eavesdropping and censorship as government documents, is just plain wrong. There's no way to sugarcoat it. EllenCT (talk) 04:41, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

I completely agree. NPOV is not a suicide pact, and I do not believe that we should just sit back and allow programs like SOPA or NSA mass surveillance to effectively shut down Wikipedia or scare away our readers and editors. Furthermore, if we are going to blindly enforce NPOV in everything we do regardless of the consequences, then we should probably take down all of our firewalls and security programs. After all, these programs are really biased against hackers. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 05:42, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Articles treat fringe theories as false because the majority of reliable sources regard them as false. That isn't taking a side; it's just summarizing what reliable sources say. Hackers could destroy this site, so obviously there are defenses against them. If the NSA wanted to destroy Wikipedia, they likely would have done so by now. Mass surveillance has been going on for years and Wikipedia has not shut down. I also have a hard time thinking of an innocent explanation for any Wikipedian ending up on an NSA watchlist.--Jakob (talk) 16:43, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Firstly, it most certainly is taking a side, of the reliable sources against the side of the fringe sources. Secondly, I have a hard time believing that anyone who regularly edits Wikipedia isn't already on an NSA watchlist. Consider the facts: there are 875,000 suspected terrorists, and the NSA uses a "three hop" analysis from them, their associates' associates, and their associates' associates' associates to collect data. By communicating with Jimmy Wales, for example, how are you not within three hops of multiple terror suspects? This calculation suggests that 94% of all Americans are within three hops of a terror suspect. US spy targets include NGOs involved with environmental issues including climate change, a perennial topic of techncial dispute and general controversy on Wikipedia. (Leaks on which, by the way, have told us, "UK, Germany and now the US have established long-term energy strategies requiring 80% dependence on renewable and clean energy by the 2035-2050 period." So at least there's that.) EllenCT (talk) 19:09, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

I disagree with your assessment Jakob. I normally oppose getting involved in offsite political disputes. However, if the political issue would "prevent [us] from ... maintaining Wikipedia", then we should get involved. The NSA surveillance is almost certainly having a chilling impact on Wikipedia, and I imagine a lot of people are refraining from editing, especially on more controversial or non-socially acceptable topics. This isn't destroying Wikipedia, but it is causing real and legitimate harm. We should work to prevent this harm; this isn't advocacy but self-defense. Also, I'm curious why you were so opposed to the SOPA blackout, since that bill would have inevitably destroyed Wikipedia and the blackout was in fact a defense against Wikipedia's destruction. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 20:01, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

By filing the lawsuit the Wikimedia foundation is forced to stick to only legally valid arguments. So, this is precisely the right to thing to do when there are issues that one the one hand need to be addressed, but on the other hand would risk compromising the political neutrality of Wikimedia when the issues are raised in any arbitrary forum. Count Iblis (talk) 16:36, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 11 March 2015

• Special report: An advance look at the WMF's fundraising survey

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• In the media: Gamergate; a Wiki hoax; Kanye West

• In focus: WMF to NSA: "stop spying on Wikipedia users"

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• MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:31, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Hello Jimmy

I was trying to reach to but apparently my emails are not getting to you. I have an issue that I would like to talk to you about. It is just a question. Not a big deal. Kind regards. Thanks for reading. Miss Bono ^{[hello, hello!]} 13:27, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Ah, I will look for it!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:46, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Can I send you another email? I have been looking for the spam-free account but I cannot find it anywhere. I will try to email soon. Thanks very much. Miss Bono ^{[hello, hello!]} 14:51, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

I re-sent the email one more time. Maybe os in you Spam box. Miss Bono ^{[hello, hello!]} 21:00, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Spying and such like

I read the piece on nytimes.com here. It strikes me that on a routine basis, for the average, run-of-the-mill tin pot little African dictator not gifted with access to the NSA data (or even if given such access), it is far simpler just to pull the history page and track down the IPs of editors who do not have accounts, assuming said IPs geolocate to their country. Do you not think this is a far greater danger to the brave souls who you say "discuss their work on everything from Tiananmen Square to gay rights in Uganda" (leaving aside the OR and COI issues) and who "prefer to work anonymously"? If we can get a good idea of who someone is from an SPI investigation, possibly the Chinese government may do better?--Wehwalt (talk) 11:14, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I just want to say thank you for the birthday present. @Wehwalt: I think the issue Jimmy and Lila are talking about is not who's been editing but who's been reading. The former is by design easy for anyone to tell; the latter is data that, I'm sure, a lot of advertisers would love to have, much less government security services, and that we ourselves do not make easy to get. Daniel Case (talk) 13:15, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

While that is mentioned, of course, much attention is given to those who contribute, as in the quotes I mention above. Surely editing is an aggravated offense in the eyes of an oppressor?--Wehwalt (talk) 13:41, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Wehwalt. I've thought for a long time that we should replace each IP address with a consistent string of random numbers. It's a bit intrusive just publishing the IP address like that. Though it won't stop the NSA from collecting the IP address behind an edit and using it or passing it to a foreign government - which is Lila's and Jimmy's valid concern - anonymising IP addresses on Wikipedia sites would be relatively easy, and if we're paying any more than lip service to privacy concerns, we'd at least do that. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:17, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Of course, that would only protect anonymous editors from entities that don't want to look very hard. One that does can always find the space between the device used for doing the editing and the server where the IP address is encrypted, and look at traffic between those two points for the desired info (And there are a myriad ways to do this, not all of them technological—I wouldn't be surprised if, some years from now, we are once again shocked, shocked, shocked that a government agency we charged with clandestinely gaining access to foreign telecommunications has, after being spanked for ... doing exactly that, placed its own moles in perfect man-in-the-middle positions at major telecommunications providers.

But anyway—the best way to secure the privacy of editors under such regimes where they may not want it broadly known that they're editing Wikipedia is not so much to anonymize their IPs as to grant them IPBE and let them edit through Tor or whatever chain of proxies work for them. I have been involved with editors in places like Iran and China where we have done this. Daniel Case (talk) 15:16, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

You're framing this as either/or. Regardless of whatever else we do, we should anonymise IP addresses - not publish them for all the world to see. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 15:37, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I totally disagree with that. Let's get rid of IP editing altogether, not make it easier to sock and engage in POV editing with impunity through an anonymized IP. Carrite (talk) 16:35, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, yes Tim. Let's make every editor identify to the Foundation, too. What the heck; let's pay named experts to write the encyclopedia. Still, while we're waiting for that to happen, let's at least not advertise the IP address of every unregistered editor. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 04:02, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Do you contend that editors using an IP are more anonymous or less accountable than those who take a few seconds to create a user id? EllenCT (talk) 18:05, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

In many ways, IP editing allows more opportunities for unaccountable abusive editing compared to editing as a registered user. For example, if I made consistent inappropriate POV-pushing edits across many articles using my account, other editors would quickly take note and begin to address that behavior in order to put an end to it. However, my home IP address changes every few days, so if I did the same without logging in it would be much less likely that anyone would catch on. My IP address would provide significant anonymity (a Wikipedian couldn't do anything more than determine my rough geographic location within a large urban center). In contrast, someone looking at my account's years of editing history could probably determine (or at least guess at) quite a bit more of my personal information. Deli nk (talk) 18:20, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

+1 Daniel Case (talk) 18:25, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

If we anonymized IP's by some sort of one-way salted hash function, this would not completely solve the problem of making edits private,and would lead to additional issues

1. There are only 4 billion addresses in IPV4, scarcely more than the number of edits on WMF projects (a factor of 4 or 5 at most). [2.3 bn edits according to the latest data]
   1. It would be easy if you control your country's infrastructure to make an edit with every IP address assigned to the country, and have a complete map. There might be other less obvious methods, like fetching the talk page for each IP address.
   2. Failing that the hashes for a given company, university or state department would be trivial
   3. Even lacking this, the Birthday Paradox would quickly provide a stream of candidates for Room 101.
   4. Given the above we would have to consider if providing a false sense of security outweighs the benefits.
2. We would loose the ability to make range blocks
3. It would become much harder to do sock-puppet investigations
4. School blocks would become harder to work with
5. COI edits from political, commercial and advocacy organisations would be harder to spot

Note that we could not ameliorate these issues by having a class of volunteer users empowered to "see around" the obfuscation, because they would then become a pressure point for the whole system.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:46, 10 March 2015 (UTC).

No one thinks this would "completely solve the problem of making edits private".

• Regarding your point 1.1, "It would be easy if you control your country's infrastructure to make an edit with every IP address assigned to the country, and have a complete map. There might be other less obvious methods, like fetching the talk page for each IP address." Does Malawi or Somalia have that capability and competence? What about actors who don't have that control but who are capable of coercing an ISP or its employees, or capable of performing a non-CU sock-puppet or COI investigation (those Wehwalt mentions above)?
• Regarding your point 1.2, "Failing that the hashes for a given company ... would be trivial", how so?
• Regarding your point 1.3, "Even lacking this, the Birthday Paradox would quickly provide a stream of candidates for Room 101" Really? How?
• Regarding your points 2, 3, 4 and 5, these objections could be resolved by adding a new user right to the admin kit that enables an admin to "see around" the hash to the IP address. I don't understand your objection, "...because they [those who can see round the hash] would then become a pressure point for the whole system." Can you explain the last clause? What does it mean?

It's reasonable to weigh up the privacy and safety of our contributors against the comfort of this site's admins, but I see no real inconvenience to the admins here. Your initial point - it's not the complete solution to all privacy concerns - is valid, but it's no reason not to do it. It's akin to Wikipedia moving from http to https. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 05:37, 11 March 2015 (Add https comment 06:40, 13 March 2015 (UTC))

I have no idea if Malawi or Somalia have that capability, but I strongly suspect they could buy it, or find someone else to do it for them for ideological reasons.

A typical company might only have a few dozen IP addresses.

Suppose I am despot of a country with 1 million IP addresses. If I get the hashes from 1% of them and I have 10,000 subversives, I would expect to catch 100 subversives.

An admin with the ability to resolve hashes would be open to temptation, seduction, litigation, espionage, blackmail, trickery, bribery and coercion. I would not want to be placed in that position, especially if I lived in certain countries.

I would suggest you gauge the reactions of people who do a lot of SPI, range blocks and so forth, to measure how much of an inconvenience this might be.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 15:29, 14 March 2015 (UTC).

Rich is generally correct here - any organization, regardless of size, can easily crack a fixed hash insofar as it is concerned. A mother can individually write down the hashes of all the IPs her computer gets from her local network, a company can make a database of all the IPs in its block, and the NSA will trivially make a dictionary of the world. It would be possible to make a trackless hash if it is cryptographically secure and incorporates the millisecond of the edit; but then a user can't tell one IP from another at all, so you might as well not show any data about who made it. I have the suspicion that WMF doesn't do that (have simply "Anonymous" as the user credit) because they are trying to cut down on the endless stream of IP tracking requests they must get from miscellaneous bureaucrats all over the U.S.

If there's any 'moral' to be taken from the leaks we've seen, it's that if somebody has really been protecting your privacy, either they're hacked and deluded, or they've had to shut down, or they've been thrown in jail. WMF, on the other hand, has moved its servers to Northern Virginia, next to one of the proposed sites for the new FBI headquarters. I commend the WMF for suing; but I would not be at all surprised if they can't tell us why. (Not that everyone in WMF would know, of course)

I should add that I don't recall ever hearing a solid, you can count on it limit to the information being recorded. As we know, it turned out that IPs of people reading articles were being recorded after all, even though we know the potential abuses of that. And the 90 day limit as I recall was a vague aspiration, not a genuine guarantee. So far I've heard no clear, unambiguous statement that those records have ever actually been destroyed, really don't exist, from any time period whatsoever. (cf. [7], [8]: "we keep it for the shortest possible time that is consistent with the maintenance, understanding, and improvement of the Wikimedia Sites, and our obligations under applicable U.S. law. Non-personal information may be retained indefinitely."; in the universal language of privacy policies, IP addresses are non-personal information. Just because it can send you to jail doesn't mean it's personal!) Wnt (talk) 01:32, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

I think the reason that the 90 days is "weaseled" is because of backups, decommissioned servers, data in use for a piece of statistical work, and so forth. Provided it is treated like fruit, almost all is thrown out when it gets old, and anything that turns up a little mouldy from being missed is deleted, I don't see that as a major problem. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:45, 11 March 2015 (UTC).

This discussion and others here seem to only focus on privacy concerns and spying; but what about info-war on social media. Military’s ‘persona’ software cost millions, used for ‘classified social media activities’, RawStory, 2011 and more are out there; that's just about the US security forces, there's others to do with the Canadian Conservative Party and police/p.r. company meddling/trolling in Canadian news forums, and lots on Epoch Times about China's similar info-war campaigns. It's disingenuous to presume that Wikipedia is immune from that; in fact aas one of the easiest sites to manipulate and get away with massively distorted content and POV editing, it's thoroughly infected and there's plenty of circumstantial evidence in numerous topic areas that many governments and corporations infiltrated Wikipedia long ago.

And I've learned the hard way lately that there's nobody at WMF whose job it is to control policy violations such as NPOV (in particular) but there's not a few staffers whose job it is to conduct "behavioural controls" who will refuse t to discuss NPOV matters as "not their job" and they "must" keep editorial content separate from behaviourally-defined claims against editors who do try to take on teh sea of POV and SYNTH/OR horsecrap that's flooding Wikipedia; "behavioural problems" and POV campaigns are intrinsically linked, and while it does say in NPOV and the POV fork subpage that such tactics are recognizable as a means to "push POV" i.e. to push disinformation; all I'm getting is a mix of shrugs and sloughing-off any responsibility for NPOV from those who attack me instead for "not playing nice" while never looking at the core POV issues that provoked personal attacks against me from admins who are apparently immune from having to abide by "behavioural guidelines" themselves.....shooting the messenger, and blaming the victim, are the oldest propaganda techniques in the book; as is newspeak, which more and more avbuse of guidelines and policies sounds like, along with numerous NPA-oriented essays like WP:TRUTH, WP:DIVA, WP:TLDR and more; ways to shut people down and to pervert words to mean something other than what they do. Hard-wired into Wikipedia and more and m ore instruction creep and editorial harrassment rather than informed discussion/examination of the POV/SYNTH content that nobody in the higher-ups and those others who have gathered fake authority around them wantz to deal with; and will condemn anyone who raises the issue as "paranoid delusions".....another line from the manual of infowar perversion, as it conspiracy theories. The conspiracy is in-your-face, especially when any mention of such activity results in condemnations come straight out of the 'how to manipulate social media' manuals that are known to be around.Skookum1 (talk) 06:28, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Thank you

Jimmy, please allow me to simply thank you for your lawsuit against NSA spying. Dude, you rock! Jusdafax 16:59, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks are due to a lot of people, of course. This was led by the legal team at the Foundation, fully supported by the board, and only ultimately made possible by the community that built the encyclopedia in the first place. :-)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:14, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is a good idea, while I am all for privacy (see above section) I am very much against WMF advocacy in areas that do not directly affect the WMF supported projects. It is absolutely a matter for EFF and the ACLU, and, arguably Amnesty. But the bringing of the WMF into this suit, and especially in the name of the community, seems of limited value to the project, and quite possibly harmful to the standing of the project and the WMF.

I certainly do not recall any consensus building process.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:32, 10 March 2015 (UTC).

Please see Pierre-sur-Haute military radio station#Controversy over French language version of Wikipedia article and the related discussions (mostly in French) at fr:Wikipédia:Bulletin des administrateurs/2013/Semaine 14. If anything similar has been going with the NSA or FBI, the Foundation is most likely completely unable to describe it, let alone consult with the community on the way to proceed. Your tax dollars at work! EllenCT (talk) 21:02, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Not my tax dollars! (Though there was sales tax on the mains adapter I bought in Washington, so maybe my tax dollar singular.) ACLU and others v. NSA seems completely different. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:55, 11 March 2015 (UTC).

Yes, thank you Jimmy. The stranglehold that the N.S.A. seem to have is absolutely ludicrous, good grief we should be able to edit without fear of persecution. The stranglehold they have at the moment is doing not only Wikipedia but the whole internet a great disservice, it's stopping freedom of expression for one. It would be a great victory if we won this!--5 albert square (talk) 01:13, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

The French example reminds one of Holmes' comment about the Scotland Yard "Brightest thing about them is their buttons." All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:39, 11 March 2015 (UTC).

Jimbo, I would like to thank you for the lawsuit. Thank you and the foundation for this, I respect all of you guys for being a voice for freedom in the internet. And for the record, the program does affect Wikipedia. --AmaryllisGardener ^talk 01:55, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Wow, let's step back a bit... "stranglehold that the NSA seem to have"... oh yes, I forgot that the NSA has been banging down Wikipedian's door and dragged them away to a concentration camp and gassed them. When they do that to a single person then yes, I'll agree the NSA has affected someone's life. Please, oh please, anyone on Wikipedia tell me how the NSA (or any govt "spying") on an American's lives has impacted anyone's life, and please limit it to first hand experiences not "in the news" or "my friend". This idea that some how it is in the US Constitution that the NSA or FBI or anyone (other than the CIA) can not spy on Americans is ludicrous, spying is constitutional as long as the correct legal procedures are followed, which is described and limited by statute, as far as the Constitution is concerned it is open-ended. (The CIA is banned by US law from operating within the US thanks to a holdover of J. Edgar Hoover's protecting his FBI turf, so yes, if they are spying on you, there is a legal problem). Personally, I think Americans are overboard on their belief in their right to privacy and limiting government. A government, as long as it isn't killing people, should be absolute in its authority, the government IS the state. But I'm an old school autocrat. And actually I'm a registered Democrat and EXTREMELY liberal before I start getting hate messages of being Republican or such.97.85.247.26 (talk) 03:09, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

While I don't agree with the WMF being involved in the suit (except as an amicus curae, perhaps) there are significant issues concerning the first and fourth amendments. NSA are also apparently allowed to pass information to other agencies, effectively breaching the "general warrant" protections. Also it is clear that the NSA is not squeaky clean, their log of internal infractions is extensive to say the least. I believe that there was recently some issue over their failure to keep their data secure too...

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 03:37, 11 March 2015 (UTC).

Hmm, I didn't know that people had to die before a lawsuit can be filed. And we know that when concentration camps for the people targeted by the NSA start popping up that a lawsuit will fix everything then, right? No, filing lawsuits before people are actually affected is making use of a strategy called "nip it in the bud". --AmaryllisGardener ^talk 05:03, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Anybody can register as a member of the Democratic Party. If you are an "old school autocrat," you are not a democrat, plain and simple — it is a contradiction of terms — nor do you reflect the values of the modern Democratic Party (as opposed to the conservative ruling party of the Deep South before Republican realignment). Go ahead and love and trust Big Brother, that's your right, just don't do it in my name. Carrite (talk) 12:26, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm more concerned about how much foundation resources will be poured into this endeavor. To the extent the NSA is an impediment to growing the encyclopedia vs. other impediments, it seems rather small and American-centric. The argument in the Op-Ed that the Egyptian author who is afraid the NSA will give information to her government begs the question of which government she fears. Wouldn't WMFs effort be better spent challenging Egyptian law in Egypt so that it's no longer a crime rather than worry that it may find its way through the NSA? The other issue is that a FISA challenge has already failed at the Supreme Court regarding U.S. citizens abroad, let alone non-U.S. citizens. While it might be a noble principle, it doesn't seem to be a practical legal strategy if the Supreme Court considers it settled law. The recent decision to regulate the internet as a Title II utility may even make it more difficult if the government can mandate hardware/software interfaces like they did for pen register/tap and trace. I'd expect that law enforcement and NSA will seek regulatory standardization and compliance through the FCC now that it is a utility and the fight would be better saved for another day. --DHeyward (talk) 06:49, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Jimbo, sorry if this has been covered elsewhere, but who is paying for the lawsuit? Is this being paid for by the WMF in whole or part? Mr Muffler (talk) 19:54, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

My understanding is that the ACLU has taken the case on pro bono, so the bulk of the costs will be with them. There are of course some staff costs on our end, in terms of our legal team, communications team, etc., but I don't have an estimate of those numbers at the present time. I can say that this is not going to be a major deviation from our budget. (I'm not even sure it is a deviation at all; I'm just being cautious.)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:09, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

This is the first good thing the ACLU has done in a long time. --AmaryllisGardener ^talk 14:31, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Really? I guess the ACLU bringing earlier cases challenging government spying was not a good thing then? Or, y'know, its decades upon decades of support for things like voting rights for minorities, freedom of speech protections, opposition to discrimination...heck, just go read their article; they've been involved in practically every major civil liberties issue in the U.S. for over fifty years. For anyone reading this, if you want to support the ACLU's actions, go donate. As stated above, the ACLU is the primary party paying for this case. --71.104.75.148 (talk) 22:15, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

I never heard anything about that lawsuit. --AmaryllisGardener ^talk 22:20, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

I'd also like to thank you and the WMF for filing this lawsuit. I contribute to Wikipedia because I believe in making the net sum of humanity's knowledge available to all, and it infuriates me to no end that the NSA is spying on and scaring away people who looks up or contributes information to Wikipedia. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 05:03, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Rich has asked for "FIRST HAND examples" of (government) spying. It's the ABUSE of authority that is the danger. Otherwise, there is nothing to hide. Agree totally with Rich regarding his amicus curiae idea. My 2 cents! SSZ (talk)

Nitpick, it's curiae, genitive of curia.--ukexpat (talk) 13:06, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

I made the correction:) Any more correction in those docs here? Are you an alumnus or alumna of NSA? (joking) but feel free to use them in Court in support of your case. it is all STATISTICALLY PROVEN (and has not been disputed by the FBI who has received them)..

My laptop has a life of its own now with the cursor moving in all directions. The computer works fine including the antivirus! Very strange.... a coded message from NSA anyone? lol SSZ (talk)

If the case were lost, would the Foundation be liable for the Government's costs? Would there be risks of a counter-suit? All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:44, 14 March 2015 (UTC).

Tracking of readership

I'm starting a new section for clarity. Jimmy Wales (or a technical person from the WMF), would you please explain precisely what data the WMF collects about which pages a) unregistered users and b) registered users visit, at what times they do so etc. Thanks, BethNaught (talk) 08:03, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Every page has a link to the "Privacy Policy" at the bottom, and it has a vague statement on the matter. That's the best that is possible because organizations don't want to commit to precise details then find that some internal problem meant IP logs were kept for a week longer than advertized, or similar. However, that is not relevant to the discussion above which concerns the fact that government-level snooping can easily track which IPs access which URLs at what times. That data would be retained indefinitely and is completely out of the control of whoever runs a website. Johnuniq (talk) 10:11, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, using HTTPS with variable length padding supposedly would make it more difficult for governments to do it that way, though I have my doubts. In any case, privately collected data is much, much easier to use in proceedings - when Texas is prosecuting some unfortunate victim after the precedent of Justin Carter for so-called 'threats' during a gaming session, it's a lot easier to present a list of every time he or she looked up something about guns or explosives if the data was (supposedly) released from a Wikipedia database by a hacker, unnamed police infiltrator with admin powers, or by "accidental posting to a public server". Saying "we were cc'd this from the NSA's secret database" is bureaucratically embarrassing. This is even more the case for prosecutions outside the U.S.

Incidentally, a fun application of IP address release, whether from reading or posting, comes in the context of ISIL. Apparently they have started to take an interest in what citizen journalists post from Raqqa, and have used a malware approach to track down and kill people by their IP addresses.^[9] It should be within Wikipedia's technical capacity to kill some Iraqis, or even start a minor civil war within ISIS, by falsely crediting some IPs with "insider" statements about conditions in the Islamic State, or perhaps as readers of "pornographic" material etc. if that information were to become public, perhaps first getting some expert military advice to choose beloved relatives of relatively powerful people within the city. Wnt (talk) 13:03, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

My question stands. In any case, the reply could be given as to what the WMF intends to do, notwithstanding errors. Please don't derail the thread - this is not supposed to be part of the above discussion but tangential. I am perfectly aware that intelligence agencies can monitor visited URLs (possibly limited by HTTPS) and that is not what I was asking. BethNaught (talk) 13:07, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

I am not personally at the present time close enough to the technology to be able to answer this question with the full accuracy and comprehensiveness that it deserves. My understanding, which should be checked against better sources of information, is that the privacy policy allows keeping access logs for up to 90 days, but that in practice retention time is much shorter. The data which would be collected in this context would be stuff like: time stamp, ip address, browser string, url. As John points out, the length of time specified in the privacy policy is longer so as to guard against accidentally breaking the privacy policy with a failed batch job, etc. But I don't know all the current details. Like you, I'm curious, and so hopefully someone from the Foundation can point us to more complete information!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:06, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

As discussed elsewhere on this page, webserver visitor logs are supposed to be kept for 90 days. As far as I know these logs are standard, which means that in most cases they do not record sufficient information (over and above IP address) to identify a user. However the total information may well be enough.

Additional information is usually available to the server (but not generally logged) which may be enough to uniquely identify a user, or at least a machine, provided the machine can be located and tested. And the situation with IPV6 is different.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:34, 14 March 2015 (UTC).

Arbitration topic ban appeal — is sexual assault a "gender-related controversy"?

Jimmy,

I write to formally appeal to you the absurdly overbroad nature of the topic ban imposed upon me by the Arbitration Committee. The Committee has now apparently decided that sexual assault and campus rape are "gender-related controversies" and thus I am indefinitely topic-banned from editing anything related to it — any person who has been sexually assaulted, who has discussed sexual assault, who has written about sexual assault, who has prosecuted a sexual assault, who has portrayed a sexual assault victim on stage or screen, who has studied sexual assault... and this would seem, by extension, to extend to any creative work about sexual assault. ArbCom has effectively declared that victims of sexual assault have become involved in a "gender-related controversy." Is that your intent for this project?

This strikes me, and a number of others, as both a ludicrously overbroad remedy which is unnecessary and entirely unrelated to the Gamergate controversy, and as an extraordinarily-punitive remedy which imposes upon me the burden of examining every single article I edit to be sure that person or topic cannot be connected to sexual assault. Does the ban extend to The Vagina Monologues, Oprah Winfrey, A Time to Kill (1996 film), Lady Gaga, Teri Hatcher, Tyler Perry, Nevada Barr, the University of Idaho, the National Organization for Women or Maya Angelou? Am I required to file a request for clarification before editing each one?

Moreover, what relationship do these articles in any way bear to my alleged "transgressions" relating to Gamergate, and what encyclopedic purpose is served by this ban? What message are you and the Committee sending by banning me from editing articles about people, and women in particular, who have been the subject of repeated and vicious attacks or attempts at overtly-negative and hostile portrayals on the encyclopedia, when everything I have done has been in defense of the encyclopedia's basic policies relating to depicting these people fairly and in a manner that respects their humanity. I await your response. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 04:44, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Is Jimbo a current member of ArbCom? I did not know that. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:30, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

I have been denied the right to appeal to the Arbitration Committee for a period of one year. It is up to this project's founder now. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 05:43, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Why not wait out the year, which is now ten months? Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:02, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Construing the Gamergate topic ban so broadly as to cover anything from Elizabeth Smart to Lena Dunham to I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (three articles which have literally not the slightest thing to do with Gamergate) is patently ludicrous, that's why. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 06:08, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

@Cullen328: Wait, so he was explicitly told by a member of the Arbitration Comittee that he could appeal to Jimbo at any time, and now when he is doing so you are complaining about it? That's...inane. Revent^talk 09:09, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

I was commenting, not complaining, Revent. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 15:11, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Rape is not about gender, it's about power. Yet another idiotic decision by Arbtwits. 80.62.197.89 (talk) 06:36, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Call them "Arbtwits" if you so choose, IP editor 80 and so on and on. But those "twits" stood before the community, with all their edit histories under scrutiny, with lots of competing candidates, and the community elected them. I, for one, followed those recent elections very closely, and am of the opinion that the community made generally good decisions. How often has the community endorsed your ability to judge others as "idiotic"? Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 07:21, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

I think you are right to request clarification of where the limits of your topic ban lie, but I think it obvious that the two articles you mention first, sexual assault and campus rape are squarely within the topic ban. The first is in the category 'Gender studies' and the second is in the category 'Rape' which is in the category 'Gender-based violence'.

Applying the same sort of test to some of your hypotheticals might be a very useful guide for you. Most of them are not in categories relating to gender. This guideline may not be perfect, but should help you steer clear of trouble.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:22, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

And here is the crux of the issue. I have edited neither article you refer to. Rather, I have edited a biography of Lena Dunham, someone who has incidentally written about being a victim of sexual assault, with my edits being principally to remove unfair and slanted depictions of that subject, including edits from an editor who declared that the article subject was "vile and repugnant" and who declared their intent and purpose in editing the article to ensure it depicted the subject's purported "misdeeds, tawdriness and lies". Am I prohibited from editing the biography of any person who has ever been the victim of a sexual assault? Is the fact that a person suffered a sexual assault and discussed it to be considered a "gender-related controversy"? If so, then yes, all of the above articles mentioned might at some point be construed by someone to involve a "gender-related controversy," because all of the above articles involve discussions of sexual assault or might do so at some future point (writers who have written about sexual assault, for example).

Contra your statement, Jimmy, the only "gender-related" categories which Lena Dunham is in are "American feminists" and "Jewish feminists." Are you saying that the mere act of being a self-identified feminist makes that person part of a "gender-related controversy"? Am I prohibited from editing the article of literally any person who declares themselves to be a feminist? NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 10:41, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, as I indicated, my guideline may not be perfect. It is abundantly obvious that Lena Dunham is precisely the sort of article that you must not edit, surely you can see that.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:53, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

No, actually, I don't "see that." Lena Dunham's life is not a "gender-related controversy." Her good name is not a "gender-related controversy." Rather, she is a person worthy of respect and fair treatment on the encyclopedia. Your project failed her — it permitted an editor with a demonstrated agenda of personal vilification to slant her Wikipedia biography in a highly-negative manner using dubious sources, out-of-context quotes and undue weight on minor controversies. The fact that half of this project's biography of the creator of Girls is taken up by two minor "controversies" fanned by partisan media is demonstrable proof that we have failed her. Rather than address that issue, you choose to target and punish a user who is trying to change the tone and create a more balanced, fair and complete biography of a notable woman. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 18:06, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

The above comment sums up everything wrong here. Per Carrite's comment below, Your project failed her clearly show an agenda to "heroically right great wrongs and fight the good fight against legions of infidel invaders". Please, for your own sake, step away from the area and find something else to edit, because you are only digging yourself deeper. KonveyorBelt 18:24, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

If I am "digging myself deeper" by stating my intent to improve and bring into alignment with policy the biography of a woman which has been intentionally negatively slanted by an editor driven by their personal agenda of vilification and hatred, then you have precisely indicated what this project's true priority is. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 18:33, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

I do not see how do make that assertion -- "feminism" per se is "gender related" beyond a doubt. Writing about a person where "feminism" is not involved is not, however, gender related. In the case of Dunham - yes -- a person barred from gender topics may not edit any claim related to gender issues. Collect (talk) 11:47, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Actually, gender involves both female and male identity. So, this would make any controversies about men or women covered by such an overly broad topic ban. Also, campus rape occurs to men as well, if that needs to be mentioned. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:22, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

• NorthBySouthBaranof - Here is how that topic ban should be interpreted, I think. Are you capable of editing about a subject tangential to your banned topic impartially and calmly, while maintaining NPOV or are you intending to heroically right great wrongs and fight the good fight against legions of infidel invaders? It is the warriorism that is objectionable, with the clear belief of Arbcom that you need to stay away from certain topics because you slip into heroic-protector-defender-warrior mode. Is this article one of those topics? Is your editing content-related or reversion-of-enemies driven? Ask yourself. Carrite (talk) 13:25, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
  • well of course, because defending living people and their reputations and presentation on Wikipedia is not something Wikipedians should be doing. Or should they? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 17:19, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
  • I'm happy to discuss the edits in question, Carrite. Can you demonstrate how they violate NPOV, or that they were not impartial? NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 18:06, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm not saying one way or the other and I actually didn't even look at the article until after I typed the above and still have not looked at the substance of your edits even now, nor will I. I asked you to ask yourself... Red Pen riding his horse in here to join in the fun is pretty much all I need to see to know which way the wind blows... Carrite (talk) 18:21, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

• This is an interesting discussion. I don't pretend to be an expert or even mildly knowledgeable on this stuff, but I thought a key concept in today's sex and gender literature is that "sex" and "gender" are fundamentally distinct concepts. With that as context, the link between sexual assault (which can be homosexual or heterosexual) and gender seems awfully subjective. Am I missing something? Townlake (talk) 15:22, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Gamergaters were ultimately unable to use Wikipedia to assert their views as if they were objective reality. Still, Wikipedia lost the very people who were trying to guard the gates in the first place. What happens to the next victim of a Wikipedia harassment campaign if the defenders are getting squeezed out through this pox-on-both-your-houses system?" -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 15:32, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Don't flatter yourself, this project and the ideas of NPOV and BLP are bigger than a handful of content warriors. Carrite (talk) 18:28, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Given that nobody else stepped in to deal with this issue until I did, don't flatter the project to think that other editors can be bothered. Your argument, in so many words: "Someone else would have dealt with this eventually, maybe, honest, sure they would have, trust me, I promise." There would have been no drama associated with these fixes had a now-blocked single-purpose throwaway account not wiki-stalked me and dragged the issue into Arbitration Enforcement. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 18:33, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't see anything too bad about taking some of the more specialized debate about the book and putting it into article specifically about the book (being careful that nothing useful gets lost in the process). And cherry-picking part of a quote is almost always bad. In general the article seems better in this form than how it was. I never was one of the people who think that BLP should "trump everything", but I do believe that BLP should trump ... Arbcom drama. Provided that the effect of NBSB's edits are agreed to be positive, I'd say he or she should get a pass on this - not saying the ban is changed, just that this shouldn't count toward it, or negatively impact its appeal or expiration, and if a similar situation happens again, then again there should be a chance of getting a pass if it really was a bad BLP needing fixing. That would just be a way for Wikipedia to show that BLP matters. Wnt (talk) 22:11, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

NYPD caught editing articles which present them in an unfavourable light

Jimmy, last year you took to Facebook with this message in which you basically taunt Vladimir Putin for what were largely innocuous edits from Russian government IPs. It now turns out that the NYPD has been caught sanitizing articles relating to innocent people who have been killed by the NYPD. Do you have any message for the NYPD along the same lines as your message to Putin? 83.99.62.203 (talk) 19:52, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Sure - I condem such editing and I'm happy when people get caught doing it. In this case, as far as I've seen so far, they were reverted very quickly anyway. It seems unlikely that this would have been an officially ordered act - probably just some employee doing something silly.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:48, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Were you happy when this IP editor's organization was caught doing it? - WilmingMa (talk) 12:44, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

That is disappointing. I assumed that the Foundation would hire a far better class of vandal than that. Gamaliel (talk) 13:42, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

First thing to do is to compile the data. I traced this back (via [10]) to an apparent first publication [11] by Capital New York which cites "one of" its sources for the NYPD IP addresses as [12] and links the "range of IP addresses" as [13]. It highlights edits [14], [15] , [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21]. It also credits [22] to NYPD. It says the complete list is here; looks like it. (I should note that BLP doesn't apply to this data, since, as company privacy policies and the ensuing police raids will assure you, IPs are not 'personally identifiable information'...) Wnt (talk) 22:26, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Incidentally, on a first few pokes it appears that there are many untapped lulz in this dataset. Little things like [23] get a laugh; then also some of the 206.212 people were playing in some very shallow pools, like this, where you can start looking at all the editors and try to... well, violate outing policy, so I'll stop there for now. Wnt (talk) 23:01, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

• I guess the main difference between NYPD and Putin government is that NYPD is trying (or at least pretend to try) to do something about it. According to the sputniknews article cited by User:83.99.62.203. "The matter is under internal review," NYPD spokeswoman Det. Cheryl Crispin told .... Putin's government is known to finance and actively support internet trolls like stationed in Olgino spreading disinformation and all sorts of personal attacks. The day Putin will do something about it, Mr. Wales might publish an apology Alex Bakharev (talk) 03:11, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

That Olgino article is pretty interesting (and fairly new). Do you know if they had a branch in the aviation industry? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 21:17, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

I do not have reliable sources on their organization, but I guess they do not have a special aviation industry department as it is not a perennial theme of the attacks. It just emerged in relation to PR support for an obviously improbable version of downing Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. AFAIK those people just receive an outside order for a theme and arguments they should promote in blogosphere and they start to promote it (often just cutting and paste the text they are suppose to promote). The favourite pastime of Russian bloggers is to google hundreds or even thousands of identical comments from apparently unrelated pro-government bloggers. This way they can today promote a leaked pornographic video of an oppositioner and the next day the flight characteristics of SU-25. BTW I am not aware of their significant presence on en-wiki yet. But I guess we are well equipped to resist possible attacks Alex Bakharev (talk) 05:00, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

• 

  We're ready to defend ourselves :). Count Iblis (talk) 03:20, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

  

  If anyone can understand the logic here, please do not explain it to me Herostratus (talk) 11:50, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

The New Republic has picked this up... Herostratus (talk) 12:50, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

• Considering how much the NYPD brand is worth (I mean, the airport in Newark was selling NYPD CSI shirts), we should definitely apply the standard COI considerations. The NYPD is no longer just a police force. It's a business. As such, it should be treated as one. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:58, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

I think it's easy to get carried away with this sort of thing, because people are so used to being surveilled and judged on every picayune detail, so unaccustomed to being allowed to know anything about a cop. Things shouldn't be that way but we shouldn't let ourselves be lowered completely to our surroundings. So far the edits we've seen don't rise to the level of trying to wipe out black history, or the people's history, or any grand conspiracy. They seem like disconnected efforts by cops to do some editing, as influenced by their POV, about something they know. Of course, there is a big question of whether some cops know better than to use IP addresses, and are marshalled to accomplish more specific ends; as far as I know they still have a Red Squad of some sort, no matter what they call it, and there must be a thousand flavors of agents from around the world hoping to get control over any popular movement nowadays, including Wikipedia. But this data provides at best a faint hope of trying to penetrate to that reality; at face value it tells us only what any sensible person would already have guessed, namely there are some NYPD cops who edit Wikipedia. I don't really want somebody punished for trying to explain the structure of the NYPD in a Wikipedia article (though a COI tag might be justifiable) - it's a lead, not a crime. Wnt (talk) 13:29, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

I can't breath.... Law enforcement is always corrupt. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 17:11, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

When it comes to conflict of interest edits, it simply does not get more egregious than this: [24]. It buries the needle. Rhoark (talk) 21:09, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Actually that deletion was a pretty good start for an awful section that could use a major rewrite. For a section that has a forked off main article, it has some serious bloat (as well as pov and synth issues). NYPD has 22,000+ police officers and thousands of others on staff and a few IP edits are likely vandalism or frustration. I dare say that the demographics of WP are likely to be aligned with the Occupy movement as well as Eric Garner (and other high profile police incidents) and I suspect frustration is high in the NYPD when they either know more about a case or feel strongly about it. The fact of the matter is, though, a grand jury heard a lot more about Garner than anything in Wikipedia and refused to indict the officer. Same with Mike Brown regarding both the Grand Jury as well as the DoJ investigation. Yes, it's a COI but let's also not forget that it wasn't to long ago that a WMF employee was editing for pay and not disclosing it. We shine the light on it, but we still allow them to contribute. Depending on whether this was NYPD wifi that connects personal phones/computers to the internet or whether it was government computers will determine discipline. If they have public wifi, like they do at my local courthouse/police department, it may not even be possible to tell if the editors are even associated. I've edited WP while wating for jury duty and my IP would have resolved to the government office. --DHeyward (talk) 09:30, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Media like to demonstrate COI edits from IPs but actually COI editors who know how to register are significantly more harmful Alex Bakharev (talk) 05:07, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

One minute after I create an article - it is put up for speedy deletion

Noank Media. Go ahead Jimmy sit on your hands again and say you can't do a damn thing. Editingstrong (talk) 03:24, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Here is the article:

[spam article redacted by -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 03:42, 15 March 2015 (UTC)]

One minute after I create this article, it is put up for speedy deletion. Editingstrong (talk) 03:39, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Looks like very thin stuff to me. Since this has become an issue, were you paid to create it, or involved in the company in some way?--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 06:19, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

That isn't an article. It is however a copyright violation. AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:23, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm also puzzled why http://www.noankmedia.com/ is in Japanese, and had to use Google Translate. It is just as spammy and unencylopedic in Japanese as it is in English.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 06:32, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

From what I can tell, Editingstrong had plenty more to add to the article before being blocked - I noted this in contesting the speedy deletion, and copied a draft to my talk page (I would appreciate if a registered editor is willing to sandbox it properly). The allegation of "paid advocacy" for a company defunct as of 2010 strikes me as absurd. As for copyright violation, that's not a reason not to have a page on a topic - it's a reason to fix the violation. 76.69.72.50 (talk) 06:30, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

There is a copy of a fuller version of the article at User talk:76.69.72.50 and it fails WP:GNG by a mile.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 06:39, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Feel free to take it to the article talk page, then. 76.69.72.50 (talk) 07:00, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

If this article gets speedily deleted - which it probably will - please recreate it in a sandbox and ask other users what they think before going live. Blather about companies and organizations is invariably tagged for speedy deletion.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 07:10, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

but i do think this is a good example of why new accounts shouldnt be allowed to create new articles in live space. New Account, you want to create an article about a new topic? Great! Go through this guided process off live space to get help creating something vaguely acceptable before you present it to the wide world. Besides being a gentler welcome to potential new contributors, it would also help with the BLP issue (not to mention the spamvertisement issue) -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:34, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

The problem with WP:SCRUTINY

Is that it allows corrupt admins to suppress their critics, as shown for example here. The idea that people should be forced to risk an established identity in order to challenge the actions of others (the IP editor even explicitly notes that I have no fear of scrutiny, I'm afraid of being treated harshly and unfairly).

Many administrators seem to be under the impression that IP editors have no influence here, and are delusional to imagine that they do. Utter absurdity. We are WP:HUMAN, and we make the majority of the edits. Cut off my head, and millions will grow in its place if necessary.

We will not be silenced. We are globally located, we are in the right, and we are essential to the very concept of a "free encyclopedia that anyone can edit". And we will defend editors who log out, for the same reasons that we have never logged in. 76.69.72.50 (talk) 06:12, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

"Forced to risk an established identity" is exactly backwards. There is risk in editing as an ip number - because your ip number is published. There is less risk in getting an account.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:16, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Either way, the primary risk is being hassled by admins for pointing out when they've done something wrong, including breaking policy and guidelines. And without any redress system other than rigorously rigid procedures where "anyone can't edit" and which have more of those admins-who-will-admit-no-wrong and then go after the person they got nasty towards by doing things like taking up wiki-energy by re-reverting incorrect moves without knowing anything about the subject; so many examples it's futile to quote them all; the ANI board and also this talkpage are full of stories of people who try to address serious content policy (NPOV hugely among those policies) and getting no end of no-COMMONSENSE responses and harassment from people flouting and flaunting guidelines, and using NPAs while denouncing others for personal attacks for criticisms of rationales for a given move or change or content violation.

Wikipedia's many problems come from the supposed "anyone can edit" dictum (though code complexity on templates and webcites is more and more of a barrier to easy editing for those not editing, both in terms of time-wastage but also in being able to view the edit pages without reams of code-clutter...add in sometimes nasty meddling from those armed with admin badges feeling the need to use them, on subjects and language standards they really don't know anything about. But they sure are good at cherry-picking guidelines (though it seems never fully reading them, likewise re NPOV being set aside by people with no concept of the POV issues, and more of that kind of thing; those native endonym RMs that cause so much fuss and hostility towards me last year by those who don't even know the subject matter and engaged in no end of obstructionist behaviour including launching two - no, three - ANIs (four) against me, none of which had consensus to block but I was blocked anyway on a "I don't care about consensus" basis; by an admin who then "went after" the remaining RMs I'd fielded and hostile-closed them.....

The problem is "anyone can be an admin" - and I'm often shocked to find someone misbehaving or a POVite has admin status; likewise people who use WoT/TLDR all the time to refuse to listen to reason/arguments or think, which tells me that guidelines and policy like NPOV are "too long don't want to read" also.

There should be a comprehension/literacy/logic test, and also a knowledge test for tiers or admins; and the underscoring of the bit in TITLE and MOS abnout "if you don't know the subject of a discussion then stay out of the discussion and don't vote on it - that's not the exact wording but it's in there somewhere; and makes COMMONSENSE, which Wikipedia could use a whole lot more than than more "bullies with badges" i.e. admin status.Skookum1 (talk) 08:56, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

From the IP users linked deletion of his posts by Future Perfect:

• "I have no fear of scrutiny, I'm afraid of being treated harshly and unfairly, and therefore being unable to edit articles that have nothing to do with the controversy at hand."

Indeed, and it's not just IP users who have to fear that. And when it does have to do with a controversy at hand, admins weigh in about behaviour or technical guidelines who have no idea of the topic and its issues; this is particularly a problem re NPOV violations and more; all Wikipedians are not equal and some are more unequal than others.

trying to encourage more contributions of content from the public-at-large re local history and general history when there's all kinds of uninformed people running around throwing around abuses of guidelines and defending abuses of policy, with the power to "punish" and/or block people who are informed about a subject is not a very welcoming place to invite people into; but I'm trying as I'm currently faced with foreign revisionism of Canadian/BC history and meddling by admins who engage in personal attacks and refuse to discuss the NPOV policy, and damn me for writing about it, when not refusing or dissing my explanations of what the problem is; by people not from the country, who don't know the subject or the sources, and think if an article looks OK visually what's in the content doesn't need looking at...especially if someone who they know does know the material and sources objects, they wash their hands of policy and are just not interested in talking about it or enforcing it (NPOV that is). And not in taking the time to read about it, but instead passing judgment and threatening ANI/blocks on me for daring to raise and apply it.

You did say NPOV is not negotiable..... tell them that. Admins who support policy violations so blithely should have their status revoked; and in one case the excuse that her duties prevent her from discussing editorial content matters and only police behavioural matters (as if the two could be separated, but that's very weirdly in her terms of reference).Skookum1 (talk) 09:06, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

To get back on topic, it would still be interesting to know why 76.69.72.50 was so determined to create an article about little-known Noank Media, even at the expense of risking a block.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 09:32, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

the issue raised by the IP user and quote by me is the topic; the quality of the article is not the topic, but the way people are treated by the adminship IS the topic.Skookum1 (talk) 09:38, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, but why was 76.69.72.50 so keen to create the article? He/she denied being paid to do it, but dodged the question of whether he/she was involved in some way.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 09:41, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

User:Skookum1, a more collegial approach would be to not only name but notify me that you are talking about me somewhere else, especially if you are tacitly requesting that my adminship be revoked. For context, the concept that is proving difficult here is Wikipedia:UNINVOLVED. Skookum1 does not believe that behavioral questions can be addressed independently of content issues, while that policy makes clear that admins cannot be involved editorially and administratively in the same disputes. I've been encouraging him to pursue dispute resolution, but evidently he doesn't trust it. The conversation at my talk page speaks for itself, at great length. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:23, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

I think the real irony here is that in looking at the rest of that proceeding that is linked, the worry about having an account blocked for bringing something up is validated. The individual that initiated proceedings in that enforcement request was logged in, and blocked basically for bringing those proceedings [25]? Yet the preceding is closed with a note that "those edits are very much within the scope of the topic ban". (And I think I recognize the offender's name from somewhere else... looks up the page a bit... See's Jimbo's response to that... hmm...) Seems like a valid thing to have brought up, even if the result is just a warning to the offending editor. (That said, the logged out thing that the initial linked post at the start of this thread did does look to be against the rules... I think. The socks page has a clause that says: "Editing project space: Undisclosed alternative accounts are not to be used in discussions internal to the project." I'd think the enforcement pages would be considered internal discussions. I dunno.) --DsareArde (talk) 00:38, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Meaningful awards for the collection... Carrite (talk) 17:37, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Some baklava for you! I like food. Armin Siddiky Romin (talk) 14:17, 15 March 2015 (UTC) A barnstar for you! The Original Barnstar can i get this ??? Armin Siddiky Romin (talk) 14:47, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

List of Members of the Administration of George W. Bush who are strongly associated with Project for the New American Century

Now renamed to List of PNAC Members associated with the Administration of George W. Bush making claims that anyone who signs a letter is now a "member" of such a group -- so anyone who signed a CPUSA ad in the 30s is now, by Wikipedia definition, a member of the CPUSA!

Asserts through SYNTH that anyone who signs a single letter supported by a group is automatically "strongly associated" with the group. This is all too reminiscent of a practice where people who signed letters for "Communist fronts" were then labelled as "Communists" which I regard as not in keeping with Wikipedia policies and principles. In fact, I consider the compiling of such a list to be contrary to WP:BLP and WP:NPOV off the bat. To be "associated" with any group should require an active desire to be so labelled, not merely signing a single letter. And, in my opinion, this applies to any group, religion, etc. whatsoever - we do have "freedom of association" and having Wikipedia define a person to be "associated" is hubris on the part of Wikipedia. In fact, it was what was done with Americans of Japanese descent who belonged to any "Japanese-related society" in WW II, or to Germans who attended meeting of the Liedertafel societies - this is likely less of a "bad group" but we should not allow Wikipedia to define membership or association in any group. Collect (talk) 11:43, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Articles for Deletion is thattaway -------> ///// Carrite (talk) 13:16, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Kind of a pointless list as PNAC Ceased to exist in 2006 anyway. Who cares? Nyth63 15:08, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Apparently some feel compelled to point out its evility. [26] shows a similar POV at Neoconservatism "Of these, many were from the Jewish intellectual milieu of New York City. and [27] on Dual loyalty: In the run up to the invasion of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, charges of dual loyalty were levelled against the neoconservatives from various sectors. The debate was heated, with charges of Antisemitism and counter charges being leveled. The controversy continues into the present due to concerns over neoconservatives disposition toward Iran. being used as an edit. Cheers. Collect (talk) 16:29, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

References

Submit it at WP:AFD. I would support deletion. JoeSperrazza (talk) 18:45, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

I dare not -- the group pushing this has brought me to a bunch of drama-boards for being "obstinate". I got a block for standing on this. I add my post below:

Am I obstinate about "guilt by association"? Damn straight. And when it comes to opposing McCarthy - my family had the same opinion in the 50s when a neighbor of my aunt was caught up. To say a person is "associated with" or a "member of" any group requires strong direct sourcing - not polemics, articles by 9/11 conspiracy theorists, posts on lewrockwell.com, posts asserting "neocon conspiracies" etc. Genuine unquestionable reliable sources as solid as a genuine rock. If you find lewrockwell.com to be a reliable source for claims about living persons being involved in conspiracies, I damn straight will be obstinate. Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:30, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

"So here I stand. I can do no other." Collect (talk) 13:36, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Your zeal is commendable ;-) -- but this whole list is so marvelously stupid that it can fall on on its own merits. Whose idea was it, anyway? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 14:24, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Ubikwit, Jbhunley, Fyddlestix, MrX mainly. A few others join in from point to point. Check out [28] to see their apparent "preferred content" which I suggested violated a few policies. Cheers! Collect (talk) 14:46, 14 March 2015 (UTC) (MrX demurs on supporting the list, so I struck his name - though it sure looked like he had supported it here - sigh)Collect (talk) 13:21, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't appreciate my reputation being sullied in this particular forum shopping. I never created the article, edited the article, nor was it my idea. The above post is a blatant lie. I responded to this request at BLP/N, providing comments and evidence that at least some of the list content is WP:BLP-compliant. My posts to the article talk page pertained solely to improving the article citations so that content could be more easily verified.- MrX 21:13, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

If you were not in favour of this list, that I shall stand corrected. Collect (talk) 13:21, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Don't try to revise history in this classic non-apology. You implied that it was (partly) my idea to create the article, not that I supported it. You did this in the same context in which you compared the creation of the article to McCarthyism. That was shamefully dishonest. You have no idea whether I support the article or not.- MrX 13:39, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

What history have I altered? I was asked who the proponents were, and I sought to answer as accurately as I could. You demurred on being in that list, and so I struck your name. As for accusations that I "compared the creation of the article to McCarthyism" that is a huge leap from what I have ever posted, and is an accusation which is risible here. I suggest you emend your accusations lest anyone note the distinction between my posted words and you posted accusations. Collect (talk) 14:41, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

You were not asked "who the proponents were"; you were asked "Whose idea was it, anyway?" I don't know why you think it's acceptable to compound one lie with another when anyone reading this page can simply glance up to see the actual words for themselves. But you go ahead and keep playing "who me?" because I'm sure none of us idiots can possibly see through your attempt to walk back your personal attacks with lies and semantic legerdemain.- MrX 16:42, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

How would you have interpreted the question other than who "appeared in favour of", or "was a proponent of", etc.? Meanwhile I suggest your claim that I use "lies and semantic legerdemain" (I can not balance words on my hands, though) appears directed at me personally, although I trust you understand that one ought not do that. Cheers and Happy Saint Patrick's Day! Collect (talk) 16:51, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Latest complaint follows:

And... I see there is no engaging with you rationally on this topic. I said there was no need for the lewrockwell source so obviously you can not differentiate between those you disagree with. There are overwhelming peer-reviewed sources that use the term "members" to describe the people in question, you have addressed the WEIGHT of none of those. I see no "polemics" or "9/11 conspiracy theorists" used in this article, again you seem unable to separate issues. Added rest of quote and Link to conversation for the context Collect failed to provide. Jbh (talk) 02:28, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

I genuinely do not know if you are purposely 'misunderstanding' sources and rehashing arguments simply to keep the debate going long past its sell by date or not. In my opinion that is the case, if you thought this article would be deleted at AfD you would have sent it there and this would be settled. Yes, I do know you have avoided AfD because if the Community said Merge or Keep you must accept that rather than moving from discussion to discussion. I also do not believe you could write an acceptable AfD since you would need to actually address all the questions put to you earlier. If you really thought the editors here were obstinately maintaining obvious BLP violations you would be asking for DS at AE.Again, you can not write such a complaint because the issues are not obvious violations of BLP. My firm belief is that you figure we will get fed up with the argument and you will then get your way. That, in my mind, is the very definition of Tendentious editing. As I said, yours is not the only opinion that counts. Jbh (talk) 14:23, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Which says that by not going to the AfD I am somehow admitting the list is proper and useful and not violating any policies at all! He also appears to make what most editors would consider a personal attack, alas. See [29] to see the apparent "preferred state" of the article. Collect (talk) 14:46, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

As opposed to these personal attacks you made?

• The purpose of this article is not to simply list people which is already done in the parent article, it is to connect them to the Bush administration per se, and to link them to a purported conspiracy to cause the Iraq War. - Imputing bad motive for creating article.
• After telling Collect that personal anecdotes are not a useful argument in AfDIs your argument actually serious- or just meant to demean those who actually seek to avoid the errors of the past? Implying support for McCarthyism.
• Directly above where Collect out right says I prefer an article state long before I ever edited the article. When my very first engagement on the PNAC article was March 2 2015. Jbh (talk) 03:02, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

I have created an AFD nomination. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of PNAC Members associated with the Administration of George W. Bush. GabrielF (talk) 14:40, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. Let's see how the editors apparently desirous of the old status of the PNAC article react. Collect (talk) 14:46, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Blatant forum shopping. Why would you bring this here?

The list existed on the main article for years, apparently until recently. Any of you that don't appreciate why it might still be relevant are obviously are not historians, and apparently lack an interest in international politics and international relations. It was only Collect's refusal to heed the sources that resulted in the List article being created in the first place. The discussion has been going on for about a month now across several forums, with Collect's disposition being questioned by uninvolved editors on a couple.--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 21:29, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

First -- acquaint yourself with Jimbo's official position that this is an open page, and posts here are not "forum shopping."

Second, become aware that any violation of policy does not become a "non-violation" by simple existence at any point.

Third, note that Jimbo generally does not approve of making personal attacks on anyone here.

Fourth, anyone here may look at the AfD discussion - where it is astounding (since no one supports me <g>), that the overwhelming number of !votes are for "delete." I would have thunk if no one agreed with me that you would have a plurality there - but, mirabile dictu, it rather looks like you might actually in the minority there. Cheers of course. Collect (talk) 22:43, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Wow! Not only mentioning me on Jimbo Wales talk page without a ping but quoting me twice at length and out of context without notifying me. I can not even begin to communicate my contempt for that without crossing well over WP:CIVIL. No wonder so many people have been doing drive by's at AfD. Did you point out where you have refused or been unable to point out an actual/recognizable piece of SYNTH/OR in this article and failed to make a convincing/intelligible case for this table being SYNTH or OR here, here, here and here. And you failed to mention that you have been bringing up the same unsupported issues for 30 days.

Now I will ping the other editors since you had the contemptible lack of common courtesy to do so yourself. @Ubikwit:, @Fyddlestix:. I guess I should take it as a backhanded sort of compliment that you felt you had to come here on the sly... but I do not. I would rather you be forthright. Jbh (talk) 00:44, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

@Collect: Above I just saw you said "the group pushing this has brought me to a bunch of drama-boards for being "obstinate" " That was a bare faced lie. I had some respect for you just minutes ago but that is gone now. There were only two "drama board" discussions that I know of The first BLPN thread YOU opened on 7 Feb and the most recent BLPN thread YOU opened on 13 March. It seems that you are not capable of making honest comment. I can deal with your pedantic sophistry, that is just the what one expects but this, here on this board is nothing but deceptive, dishonest and beneath the absolute lowest amount of courtesy one editor should expect from another. I will take the civility block at ANI but I simply must communicate to you my disgust at your behavior. Jbh (talk) 01:09, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping, I also had no idea that a dispute I am involved in (and my actions/edits) were being discussed (and grossly misrepresented) here. Fyddlestix (talk) 01:30, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

So, @Collect:, I've already warned you twice over the last day or two that it looks like you've kind of lost perspective here. I'm not the only one to suggest that - so has Mr X and Stephan_Schulz has also commented that you're not making a lot of sense debating Dick Cheney over at BLPN (here and here). But after seeing your comments above I am certain of that your behavior has crossed the line into unacceptable territory. A couple things:

• We are not "the group pushing this" - have you not noticed that JBH and I disagree with Ubikwit on a lot of his edits, or that I was actually never in favor of creating the article under discussion?
• As JBH has pointed out, YOU are the one who created the "drama board" discussions about the current dispute. I made one "drama board" post shortly after my entry into this dispute, after I had stumbled upon your WP:POINTy edit here and here and tried to broker a compromise between you and Ubikwit.
• Now that I've copped to making a single post at NPOV/N, let's have a look at the "drama board" posts you've made on this one article over the past little while, shall we"? There's this one, this one, this one, this one, and this one, not to mention the report for edit warring you made that got both Ubikiwit and you blocked for a week.
• I also see that you've gone Canvassing and Forumshopping to try to get an edge in this dispute (again, without notifying the involved parties), here, here, here, and, well, here. Oh and here is another case of complaining-about-someone-to-a-higher-authority without notifying the affected party on Swarm's talk page.
• Oh, and I just saw this edit and this one (above), where you suggest that this version of the content is my "preferred" version, when you know very well that my first edit to the PNAC article characterized it as "a bit of a mess," and that I have done more to improve the article than pretty much anyone else in recent weeks. I removed much of the very same content that you objected to, which you've now suggested I would put back in the article? Ridiculous. Hell, you even thanked me for my edits, as did JBH and Ubikwit. Yet now you're slandering me and MrX, Ubikwit, Jbhunley, and pretty much anyone else who dares disagree with you by suggesting that we want that content in the article. That is a bare-faced lie, and you know it.
• I also see that your zeal for "protecting" the people mentioned in the PNAC article has now extended so far as to making factually inaccurate edits such as this one, removing all references to someone's involvement in PNAC when in reality they were a director for the organization! (First sentence of this article for those who doubt). Since you seem to watch the PNAC article talk page like a hawk, I'm pretty sure that you should have known that.
• Finally, there's your thinly veiled, but incredibly vague and non-specific implications that your (un-named) opponents in this debate are taking a position that is somehow comparable to (or promoting) anti-semitism, conspiracy theories, and McCarthy-like tactics. Now, I can read between the lines and I can see that you're directing those comments at Ubikwit, as part of the epic, never-ending dispute that you two seem to have had going on for months. But as someone who happens to be involved in this debate with you currently, I seriously resent you constantly making those implications in the vague way that you do, because it casts aspersions on people like me, JBH, and anyone else who disagrees with you in the current debate.

Sorry for the rant, but I will not allow Collect to misrepresent me and my position as he has done above without saying my piece. And I'm firmly convinced that he's exhibiting completely unacceptable behavior here. Fyddlestix (talk) 04:39, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Also, this is just petty. Your refusal to accept RS as RS is the reason why that article is over-cited. Fyddlestix (talk) 05:01, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

The !votes at the AfD belie your personal attack here. I do not "refuse to accept RS as RS" - I do refuse to accept "guilt by association" SYNTH claims. Which appears to be what a lot of others agree with. Cheers - and please avoid those persistent ad hominem attacks. Collect (talk) 12:00, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

@Collect:, this is not about the article or the AFD. It's about your behavior. You knowingly made false statements about me, Ubikwit, JBH, and Mr X's position on this issue above, behind our backs, without notifying us. When I recently got confused and thought Vertrag was your sock, I apologized profusely and fully retracted the allegation, in the politest terms possible. You owe all three of us the same courtesy: an apology and a full retraction of your statement above. Fyddlestix (talk) 12:51, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

OK -- you only apologized for your SPI bit by saying the people there "apparently" cleared me. Great level of apology for making attacks on me when I was unable to respond except on my own talk page! Sort of like taking a punch at a person whose ars are tied behind his back, I suppose, but scarcely something which your apology covered. An editor accused me of CANVASSing here for the AfD - which did not exist when I posted here, and which I did not write. ( This topic has been the subject of canvassing at Jimbo's talk page by Collect. He did not notify the editors whose edits and behavior he was discussing and misrepresenting. This AfD is the direct result of that discussion). The current !vote count there is 15 (now 16 Collect (talk) 14:44, 16 March 2015 (UTC)) for Delete, 4 for Merge/Keep, two Merge and one which states outright " without the Bush footnotes. Its nothing but a tar and feather by association conspiracy theory" which I do quite not consider to be a "Keep" vote <g>. I also note repeated ad hominems here accusing me of making personal attacks, which I damn sure avoided making. I was asked who the main proponents of the list were, and I responded as best as I was able sans "attacking" at all, but answering a direct query. Best wishes to all. Collect (talk) 13:18, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

@Collect: No, that's not correct, and you are once more misrepresenting my comments. I said: "I am posting an unreserved apology for the SPI report - mea culpa. I humbly retract any and all accusations I made against you." That's a direct quote. I also offered twice to post your response on your behalf. It's also really not my fault that you were blocked for edit warring when I happened to report you. That's what happens when you edit war so I'm not really sure what you expected. And again, the AFD has no bearing on the discussion that we're having now - we passed that point when you false accused different editors of endorsing this nonsense, when you know perfectly well that all 4 of us have worked to improve the article and had huge problems with the version you linked. You also grossly misrepresented the "drama board" postings (they were almost all by you). The AFD could land on delete right now and I'd happily accept that - what I cannot accept is your refusal to take responsibility for your own lies, misrepresentations, and insults. misrepresentations. Fyddlestix (talk) 13:52, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Actually you started the SPI in reasonable knowledge that I was unable to reply to the charges at that page at that time. Your "apology" states: "Hi Collect, since the SPI folk apparently have evidence that the people I though were sock(s) are not you, and as promised, I am posting an unreserved apology for the SPI report - mea culpa." Note the great word "apparently" - no guilt for the accusation - only "guilt" that the SPI folks "apparently" could not prove I ran a sock. Your "unreserved apology" was very "reserved" indeed. "Retracting" accusations which were absolutely shown to be baseless is not a hell of an apology, but you seem to insist it is. Clearly your definition of "unreserved apology" differs from Noah Webster's. I also note that the edit for which I was blocked was essentially what the "new list" is, which a number of other editor clearly opine is in violation of Wikipedia policies (which is the strongest type of Deletion argument known). I would also suggest that " lies, misrepresentations, and insults" would generally be regarded as a personal attack in direct violation of Wikipedia policies and guidelines per se. Collect (talk) 14:11, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

@Collect: OK Collect, I will cheerfully withdraw "lies and insults." And I'll apologize: sorry for impugning your motives. But the fact of your misrepresentations remains. More to the point, though, what's your argument here, that your blantant, dishonest mischaracterization of multiple edits and editors above is ok because my apology to you for a mistaken SPI reprot wasn't groveling enough for you? I made an error, I apologized. You should do the same. Fyddlestix (talk) 14:27, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

@Collect: And yet again you directly and purposly misquote me. Quote me in context or not at all. The full post reads:

Note This topic has been the subject of canvassing or whatever you want to call it at Jimbo's talk page by Collect. He did not notify the editors whose edits and behavior he was discussing and misrepresenting. This AfD is the direct result of that discussion.

Possibly you do this because you know it angers me. I do not know but stop it. These are personal attacks of the most odius kind. Editing and misrepresenting another's words and position is far beyond name calling. Jbh (talk) 14:43, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

And unsigned comments are all by you then? I note above (from various persons) also see that you've gone Canvassing and Forumshopping to try to get an edge in this dispute (again, without notifying the involved parties which quite appears to accusing me of CANVASSing, indeed. I can not easily ascribe unsigned allegations to any particular editor, but now you assert you made the specific edit "Note This topic has been the subject of canvassing or whatever you want to call it at Jimbo's talk page by Collect. He did not notify the editors whose edits and behavior he was discussing and misrepresenting. Which, alas, appears to be a personal attack and a claim that I "misrepresent" your views, which, frankly, you so eloquently and iteratively express. Once you specifically use "canvass" as your charge about any other editor, you assume all the baggage of making such a charge. Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:58, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Nope but this signed edit, which you are quoting from, is from me. See, if you use diffs like you should these problems would be minimized. BTW, I struck canvasing here a little over two hours after I made the initial post yet you quoted it as if it were not struck. Saying you are misrepresenting me is only a personal attack if the accusation is false. As it is a true and I have documented that truth it is not a personal attack. Your continued misrepresentation on the other hand... Jbh (talk) 15:29, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Above you say " I got a block for standing on this."That would be the block you got when YOU reported at ANEW, Ubikwit. I guess that was another "drama board" "the group pushing this has brought" you to. Wow! Are we going to make you bring yourself to ANI next? The mind simply boggles Jbh (talk) 03:20, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

I stand, and shall continue to stand, against using "guilt by association" arguments against any person or group. And your multiple posts making personal attacks on me when I make none on you are an interesting sort of position to take. Cheers, and Happy Saint Patrick's Day! Collect (talk) 12:00, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

@Collect: Stand all you like but until you make specific policy based arguments all you have is obstinate opinion. Here is the quote from you which lead to the text where you quoted me above (without notifying me you were discussing me and my edits)

Am I obstinate about "guilt by association"? Damn straight. And when it comes to opposing McCarthy - my family had the same opinion in the 50s when a neighbor of my aunt was caught up. To say a person is "associated with" or a "member of" any group requires strong sourcing - not polemics, articles by 9/11 conspiracy theorists, posts on lewrockwell.com, posts asserting "neocon conspiracies" etc. Genuine unquestionable reliable sources. If you find lewrockwell.com to be a reliable source for claims about living persons being involved in conspiracies, I damn straight will be obstinate. Cheers. Collect (talk) 9:30 am, 14 March 2015, last Saturday (2 days ago) (UTC−4) emp. mine -Jbh

But you ignore sources from publishers like: Cambridge University Press, State University of New York Press, Routledge (x3), Sage, and Texas A&M University Press that all make the claim of association and say it is an important and notable relation. Those same sources negate your claims of BLP and SYNTH as well. You have also been asked what sourcing do you want to see to support the claims? You never answer that because, in my opinion, you will not accept any source.

As to what I had to say about you earlier. Every claim I made about your actions is true and backed up with diffs. My characterization of those actions may have been intemperate but they were heartfelt and remain my opinions. If you want, take me to ANI. While the drama would be annoying I would welcome the chance to have your actions and comments examined as the case is presented. You say you have made no personal attacks against me but the multiple times you conflate my support of this article with McCarthyism, as above, as well as worse things in other places are personal attacks. Not to mention the three others I linked to above.

Now, I suggest we take this conversation back to a talk page and leave Jimbo's talk page in peace. Rehashing old arguments is pointless unless you particularly want this super-public forum. Jbh (talk) 13:06, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Noting that "guilt by association" is improper, was improper, and shall remain improper, does not mean I personally attacked anyone here at all, and certainly does not mean I called anyone at all a McCarthy supporter or adherent as I most assuredly have not made any such charges at all. My only "attack" is on the use of the fallacious "guilt by association" in any article on Wikipedia which has a fairly strong policy called WP:BLP. I also note that I seems to face the same iterated charges from the same iterated editors here, and on multiple projectspace pages. Cheers to all! Collect (talk) 13:41, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Bull. I have linked to three things above which are personal attacks. I can find others where you make 'implications' of antisemitism, promotion of conspiracy theories, more McCarthyism as well as several lesser ones. Saying you did not do something does not make it so and 'nah.. I didn't really mean you' only works once. You are a smart and careful editor. You say what you mean. Pushing up to the edge of personal attacks does not mean you did not intend to make those attacks only that you want to make sure there is a way out if challenged on it. Leaving room for apology is good if used infrequently to communicate frustration. When used repeatedly it is something else altogether. What I have said about you, while uncivil, I can back up with your own words. I may be sanctioned for it. There are a couple words I regret actually saying here but I said them.

Also if you quote me ever again use diffs. Your quotes of me here were edited to remove parts of them and to remove context, even worse with out providing notice or in one case even attribution, there is no way to assume good faith with that. Considering some things considered personal attacks here you can add those to the list of your personal attacks as well. Jbh (talk) 15:11, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Considering that not a single source presented makes any claim about "guilt by association", the "example" is an off-topic analogy that is obviously being made so as to be indirectly leveled against Wikipedia editors, and that and assertion by analogy in combination with claim of making "fallacious guilt by association" not only fails WP:AGF, but comprises both casting aspersions and personal attacks against all corresponding editors.--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 15:38, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

An interesting claim indeed. The issue is not whether sources use or refer to "guilt by association" but whether this interesting list does so. All by itself. And any aspersions are upon this list alone, as I make no accusations about any editors here at all.

The logic is apparently "xxx signed a letter to someone" or "sent material to, but even if they disagree with everything the connection is now here" and "The letter or document or opinion was connected in any way with PNAC (if a member of PNAC signs a letter, all who sign it are then ipso facto connected to PNAC)" --> "xxx is now connected to PNAC". AND "xxx held a number of jobs - one of which was as an official advisor, unofficial advisor, friend, acquaintance, appointee, elected official of any sort, military officer of any sort" AND such office was held "at any point in the administration of Bush" allowing us to nicely catenate the Venn Diagram to --> "xxx was a member or associate of neighbor of anyone connected to PNAC or any letter or document or meeting related in any way to PNAC and also in any way connected to Bush." This is pretty much a definition of "guilt by association". Cheers. And please do not take any comment regarding the list as a personal attack on yourself at all. Collect (talk) 16:11, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

@Collect: There are two requirements for that. 1.Do not make any comments that can be seen as a personal attack or accusation of supporting reprehensible things. Period. You have been told others see these as personal attacks and some blanket disclaimer is not going to cut it Of course if you will accept my statement of 'do not take all these nasty names I am calling you as personal attacks. nah... that would be wrong too - and 2. Go back to each and every section you have done so, whether you feel you are 'right' or not, strike the comments and apologize. This is way beyond a simple 'I did not really mean that' or some statement that 'of course I did not mean to imply...' Do that and I will strike my accusations and apologize for being 'hot headed'. Jbh (talk) 16:40, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Sanity break

• Does any (uninvolved) editor object to closing this thread, which has evidently gone well off the rails? The article in question is at AfD, where it seems very likely to be deleted. That seems entirely reasonable to me, not because it violates WP:BLP or WP:SYNTH (it doesn't), but because these sorts of lists are inherently non-neutral by virtue of their framing. (Compare, for instance, American fatalities and injuries of the 2012 Benghazi attack, or a hypothetical List of Republican politicians who have signed up to receive Obamacare subsidies. While such lists may be well-sourced and compliant with BLP and SYNTH, they nonetheless make poor encyclopedia articles because their framing is inherently designed to make an ideological point).

  The take-home point is that repeatedly comparing other editors to Joseph McCarthy is a poor rhetorical tactic, and one which results in a disproportionate volume of unconstructive dialog (cf. this entire thread) obscuring a valid underlying point about the utility of this list. At a minimum, Collect has invoked McCarthy here, here, here, here, here, and here (with a bonus implication of anti-Semitism), and that's just in the last couple of days. Collect then professed surprise that other editors should "take umbrage" at having their work compared to that of McCarthy. One is left with the conclusion that the discussion surrounding this article would have been far healthier without such participation. MastCell ^Talk 17:48, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

  • I'm involved, but I'm commenting anyway. Yeah, close it—it serve no purpose. Irrespective of the merits of the article in question, which I have no interest in defending, Collect has reached new summits of BATTLEGROUND behavior recently and I think it's high time that the community examines his conduct in the proper forum. I have never seen an editor who is more visible and less collaborative than this one. In my opinion, his conduct is a catalyst for exactly the type of environment where the goal of building an encyclopedia takes a distant second to the real goal of winning for the sake of winning.- MrX 18:32, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

I at no time have called any editor "anti-Semitic" nor called any editor "McCarthyite" and I do not appreciate your apparent claim that I did so. I do, moreover, feel that "guilt by association" is something which should not be found in any Wikipedia articles, and I stand by that position. Nor do I feel that this particular talk page is the proper place for you to cast such aspersions on me as one might possibly infer from your post above. Cheers and Happy Saint Patrick's Day! Collect (talk) 18:25, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Nor did anyone say that you called another editor "McCarthyite" -- so the denial is apropos of nothing. There is however plenty of invoking McCarthy and McCarthyism... Nomoskedasticity (talk) 18:48, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Nor have I "invoked" McCarthy and McCarthyism with regard to any editor in any way at all. Cheers -- always glad to clear up a misapprehension. Collect (talk) 19:08, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Since it is the RS that provide the initial lists of PNAC members in association with their being hired to work in the Bush administration, you would appear to also be be calling those professors McCarthyite.--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 07:46, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Involuntary celibacy

I've notice a growing trend on Wikipedia where editors only accept mainstream views which is contradictory to the NPOV we have all long sought to establish. The sources provided are not only academic, but also highly notable. I believe you may be interested in participating. I have an RFC regarding this subject, comments would be appreciated. :) Valoem ^{talk contrib} 20:10, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

As anyone who studies the history of the article will quickly notice, it has seen relentless POV-pushing to be recreated for a long time now. At the end of the day, it's still a fringe theory with few reliable sources and zero academic studies mentioning it. Previous AfD and request for comments ended either in merge, delete or without consensus. The term "incel" is primarily known on the internet and used by certain websites, including the "Loveshy forums", dedicated to bitter single men. It is, in more ways then one, problematic, and the sourcing is below the bar. Mythic Writerlord (talk) 20:17, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

The sources in the article clearly show that is not the case. It has been covered extensively in multiple sources and academia prior to this century. We cover the unusual, the claim that this is not real is just plain false. Valoem ^{talk contrib} 20:25, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

The name itself, it has already been established, is an oxymoron as the definition of celibacy is "the state of being voluntarily unmarried and\or sexually abstinent", with voluntary being a vital part of the very definition. As previously mentioned on several prior discussions, the subject would be more fitting to be added to an article such as sexual frustration, which ticks all the boxes for this phenomenon. I also noticed you only notified editors who voted either neutral or in favor of keeping the article of this new request for comment. ;) Mythic Writerlord (talk) 20:30, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

I am not following you. Anything can be term Dune buggy, Dark light, etc. It is two words combined to describe a condition as all thing are. Sexual frustration and involuntary celibacy are two completely different things. One can be sexually active and still sexually frustration. That is not so the case of involuntary celibates as sources state. Valoem ^{talk contrib} 01:29, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

• Incel or Involuntary celibacy is a blogg. It is not a scientifically accepted notion. User above was pushing for this issue latest in December 2014, when quite a lot of editors agreed that it is no keep. We are now back there again. I find this disruptive. Hafspajen (talk) 21:55, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

"primarily known on the internet" is not equal to "non-notable." Nor does fringe even imply the likelihood of non-notability. (not that I think this fringe--applying the concept of fringe to many psychological or social topics is very risky, as there are not the same objective standards, & what is accepted as reasonably mainstream is subject to rapid change -- & can often merely represents opinion, and sometimes prejudice. ) DGG ( talk ) 22:23, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

• ? Hafspajen (talk) 00:46, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

• Involuntary celibacy is this. Hafspajen (talk) 18:49, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

• Involuntary celibacy this is the version being discussed. Valoem ^{talk contrib} 20:13, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

@Jimbo Wales:, Sorry to ping you again, but I think we have a glaring issue at hand similar to the deletion of Mzoli's and the nomination of Wedding dress of Kate Middleton. What we have is an academic well-cited article that has been worked on extensively since 2004. This article passes every established guideline with solid reliable sources including academic studies, but a small group of very vocal opponents are pushing an agenda to have this deleted without any policy based rational. I think this is a dangerous precedence if anyone can delete articles by bypassing established guidelines with a small group of supporters. It removes the protection every editor has when creating an article. I was hoping to get your opinion on the subject on this talk page and hopeful if possible at the RFC. DGG has posted some relevant information on his talk page regarding the issues of how we deal with subjects not accepted by mainstream views. Valoem ^{talk contrib} 18:42, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

As User:King of Hearts said, "This case is very, very confusing to the unfamiliar eye and involves deletes, restores, moves, sockpuppetry, unusual AfD proceedings, etc" If I were voting, I would likely vote to keep, but that's not really relevant. There's a confusion I sense here when people discuss WP:MEDRS in this context - it's not a medical term, and not notable for being a medical term, it's a popular term. If the term is notable at all (I don't know for sure but there are some strong initial indicators that it likely is) then it doesn't matter if it is covered in medical journals or academic articles at all. It's something people will want to know about (including, likely, that it is not a term from professional medicine). I see a huge number of uses of the term in perfectly normal mainstream media. It is therefore a term that people are likely to Google. It's our job to answer whatever questions they may have about the term.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:29, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the input, unfortunately the discussion has revolved into a tag team against the subject without any plicy based rational. I think to have such a highly notable term be deleted is counter-intuitive to the NPOV we have long sought to establish. If this article can get deleted than anything can. Valoem ^{talk contrib} 20:51, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

What you mean articles like Chemistry, Science, Psychology or Sigmund Freud are now under threat? Er perhaps you might like to review the sources in those articles and dial down the level of emotion you are pumping out. Spartaz ^Humbug! 21:12, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

No article like haunted house, Ghosts, UFOs, and anything whose mainstream acceptance is dubious is under threat. This is what happens when we cannot use sources to establish notability. Valoem ^{talk contrib} 21:30, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

So you accept your comment at 20:51 UTC above wasn't actually correct then? Um.. You did check the sources on the articles you selected didn't you? There has been a recorded history of reliable sourcing about human belief around ghosts and haunted houses for many hundreds of years and thousands of books written about UFOology? Hyperbole? Surely not? Spartaz ^Humbug! 21:35, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

You understand these are not the requirements set by WP:GNG correct? Things less notable have a place on this encyclopedia we look for significant coverage, since you refused to state your opinion I do not understand where this comes from. Valoem ^{talk contrib} 21:43, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

The key is the article is an artificial cobbling together of one researcher, some people who have seized upon the term, and some references which broadly discuss related material without mentioning involunary celibacy per se. Hence it is misleadingly giving the concept validity. We have an article on sexual frustration and otrher areas that cover relationship deficits. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:02, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Question for those who wish to delete, so that I understand the position better, please- What if, say tomorrow, Facebook gives the "relationship status" option of "Involuntarily celibate" as a bit of humor for men (or women as well, though less likely) who wish to let people know they aren't having sex, but they are looking (for a desperate woman?). Would this "endorsement" of the term by Facebook qualify as making the term notable in your eyes, would the objections drop? Or as, Mr. Wales hinted at, is your objection that it is not a medical term and talked about in academia the crux of your argument? As Jimbo pointed out, that's not a valid reason for deletion. And since this isn't a straight up and down vote, every vote has to be weighed per it's reliance on policy... your !votes based on lack of academia mentions would have to be thrown out when an admin considers his/her closing decision.Camelbinky (talk) 15:59, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

The topic was deemed unfit to have it's own standalone article, so the result was merge and keep as a section of the celibacy article. Editors of the celibacy article overwhelmingly agreed the content did not fit in the page, discussed the matter extensively, got moderators involved and asked for other people's opinions. It was then decided to remove the information from the celibacy article, making the initial result of "merge" a de facto deletion. Then someone created an article for Denise Donnelly, as a (desperate?) way of keeping a mention of "incel" on Wikipedia. The article was marked for deletion, and consensus was it should be deleted, which it then was. A subsequent deletion review also ended without a majority supporting recreation, this was as recent as December. The previous deletions were not deemed improper. Making this attempt number four. As I said back in December, I would not oppose to a compromise, provided it is a reasonable and workable compromise that both the supporters and opposing views can agree on. Call me optimistic if you will, but I think a lot of the problems people have with the article is based on its name. An article titled sexual inactivity (covering both voluntary and involuntary sexual inactivity), or perhaps a mention at sexual frustration (which is exactly the same thing as "incel") would also suffice. A lot of the sources used to justify an "involuntary celibacy" article do not specifically mention the term involuntary celibacy, and the same can be said for many potential sources mentioning the phenomenon of not having sex (while wanting to). I'm sure this gives us some leeway with how to name the article. Once we can agree on a reasonable title, I think that would really smoothe out the process for @Valoem. If we can agree on a title, that would be a major step in the direction of solving the issue at hand. The tone of the article, stating it as fact rather then reporting a cultural phenomenon\theory\trope, might also have to be revised. If the editor so invested in restoring the content cares about consensus and opposing views, and wishes to find a broadly supported solution, we all have to make compromises. I think it can be done. Mythic Writerlord (talk) 16:23, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for that history and well-thought out response and explanation, I appreciate it. However, I'd like to point out that the first and primary point you make in your post for deletion is- it's been deleted through numerous !votes. That's not an acceptable argument to make and frankly should be deleted from any post that mentions it, it is irrelevant and puts the rest of your argument on less than solid ground because it taints that around it. I do agree compromise is crucial to a good working environment, however as one editor once stated in an argument about climate change "any compromise between science and not science, is not science". Some times there IS a right and a wrong, and there is no reason to compromise because compromise means it is no longer right. I'm 5'6, if you say I'm 5'8 and we compromise on 5'7 it changes from you being wrong and me being right to us both being wrong. I'm not saying that's the case in this situation, but I'm pointing out that perhaps that's what some on both sides feel.97.85.247.26 (talk) 00:46, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Changing main SUL account

Hi Jimbo (and others),

I'm wondering if it's possible to change my account creation details to Meta-Wiki (or the home wiki at least)? With the global userpages in effect for awhile now, it feels strange [to me] it's not my original signup (it was the second automatically created, from the original)... it's closer to more of a centralized wiki. DivineAlpha (talk) 23:17, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

I actually have no idea, but many helpful people visit this page and may be able to help.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:05, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Maybe Acalamari would know how to set my default account creation/main home wiki account to Meta, even though it was automatically created six days later? DivineAlpha (talk) 16:08, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

@DivineAlpha: Hi there, there is not a way to change your "home" wiki in CentralAuth at this time. However, do note that "home" wiki carries no special meaning outside of the function that CentralAuth provides stewards when they use the interface. To you and me "home" carries no significance, though it looks like it should. Related discussion is on Phabricator. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 21:49, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, @Keegan (WMF):. Looking at that discussion though, it would have been more reasonable to have the "home" switching to only those that are trusted, such as rollbackers, reviewers and users higher up (or perhaps those even with the active global rollback / global sysop right(s)). DivineAlpha (talk) 02:50, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Defending the WMF servers against large-scale DDOS-type attacks?

I have seen on social media (eg [30]) a number of threats (or implied threats) of cyber attacks against Wikipedia. Is anything being done to defend the WMF servers against large-scale DDOS-type attacks? ConcernedTeacher (talk) 15:42, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Such threats are probably hollow because it costs good money to launch a DDOS attack. Botnets are rented out at market rate. Secondly, Wikipedia could use a CDN like CloudFlare to completely deflect such an attack. It's not a serious worry. If a state actor decided to launch such an attack, the sympathy and contributions would flow to Wikipedia, and unwanted scrutiny would flow to the attackers. It would be counter-productive. Jehochman ^Talk 15:48, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Jehochman is correct that Wikipedia could use CloudFlare or similar to mitigate a sustained DDOS attack. I believe that he is also correct in that this would not benefit the attackers but would benefit Wikipedia. There is, however, a real risk that attackers would not attempt to DDOS Wikipedia but would simply attack one of the vulnerable points in its current load-balancing scheme in order to disrupt editing of Wikipedia while leaving it available to most or all readers. It is hard to know how the public would respond to such an attack if they were still able to use Wikipedia as normal. Mr Muffler (talk) 17:57, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

We shouldn't assume incompetence. Wikipedia's infrastructure probably has pretty good protection already, as the fifth or sixth most popular website, we aren't the first, second, or two hundred fifty seventh people to think of this problem. And if the current protection isn't good enough, it can be upgraded should that ever prove necessary. Jehochman ^Talk 18:27, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm not assuming anything. I am stating that there are points of weakness in the current set-up that could be exploited by an attacker to cripple editing. You are suggesting that wait until the horse has bolted before closing the barn door. One of us is talking out of their ass. Mr Muffler (talk) 02:02, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm not really the right person to ask about this as I'm very far from the tech these days. But I do know that our engineers do think about such things and deal with small scale efforts on a regular basis. No one should be arrogant enough to imagine that such an attack is impossible.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:16, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

@Jehochman: I'm sorry I don't know much about the particular types of attacks organizations and gov'ts might use, but there are other types of attacks than DDOS. Jehochman's "It's not a serious worry. If a state actor decided to launch such an attack, the sympathy and contributions would flow to Wikipedia, and unwanted scrutiny would flow to the attackers. It would be counter-productive," doesn't calm my fears much. It's never easy to pinpoint the attackers, e.g. North Korea was accused of hacking into Sony's accounts recently (by the US gov't among others), but that analysis wasn't universally accepted. The US govt also accused China's PLA of hacking numerous US businesses, but some of the reactions I saw were like "They would say that, wouldn't they". Or you can go way back to when the Estonian internet was nearly shut down, with an obvious gov't to blame, but much of the reaction seemed to be "it's just the people on the other side of the border who are outraged," or maybe "well the gov't likely tried to encourage people's outrage, but it was still the people not the gov't". So, in short, while there might be technological preventative measures to take, how could we react to a successful effort to shut dow or slow down Wikipedia? I'm not asking for a specific answer, but folks should think about what the result would be. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 21:34, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't think the engineers need "help" from people who don't understand the problem. The methods for defending a popular server are well known. There is nothing different about today from yesterday or last month, so don't panic. If you are curious we could try to do a Q and A session with the Wikipedia webmaster(s) to learn about the problem and what the strategies are for defending it. Education is good. Jehochman ^Talk 00:49, 17 March 2015 (UTC).

That sounds like an interesting idea. Let's do that. Mr Muffler (talk) 02:04, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Potential WMF collaborations?

Just wondering something here. The old CD program with the UN is now so far as I can tell pretty much finished, although it does seem to have produced something which is perhaps of broad use in a number of areas. (I haven't followed up on it myself.) Now that we have that, are there any other forms of collaborative efforts we could engage in to make information and material available worldwide?

One comes to my mind almost immediately. There is, so far as I can tell, nowhere in the English language a really "complete" version of the Bible available. I say this on the basis that there are, as our article Biblical canon indicates, several books which are considered canonical by at least one of the (comparatively) major extant Christian denominations which are not included in the Catholic/Protestant Bible best known to us in the West. And, yes, at least three of the books of the Ethiopian Bible, the Meqabyan, are, so far as I can tell, only available in English in one vanity press publication of the last decade. Really. And that is, of course, referring to the book which is purportedly the best selling work in world history. There are any number of other works, equally important to the relevant cultures, like the various national epics and masterpieces of literature, which are at best less than readily available in English.

It might, I think, be possible to perhaps start some sort of partnerships with some other foundations to give some academics, primarily I guess linguists, a grant to develop translations of these works which, perhaps with some notes of an introductory or overview nature, which could then be released to the WMF for free availability worldwide. Theoretically, I suppose, a grant for the Meqabyan and maybe other canonical Biblical books could go to the Society of Biblical Literature and/or be publicized to their membership, with perhaps the other foundation which might be granting the funds to review the applications and select the recipient. And, obviously, given the wide number of epics worldwide, and other significant sources of limited availability, like the notes of the missionary which constitute pretty much our sole good contemporary source on the now pretty much exterminated Abipón people, there are a lot of other works of all kinds which would provide useful cultural background to people who can access wikipedia in any of its langauges.

I personally think it would be a great feather in the cap of the WMF if it could say, honestly, that it has arranged the availability of the entire Bible, in all its variations, for the first time anywhere. If such an effort along these lines were to be started, I think that would, for publicity reasons, probably be the most productive and effective way to start. Even if it goes no further than that, that achievement in itself would be remarkable.

Any opinions? John Carter (talk) 16:30, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

• Wikipedia is limited by some extremely long copyright restrictions for various translations of the Holy Bible, and the whole topic of the extra books of the Bible is quite complex, also accounting for recent messages made by divine revelation to various people (Joseph Smith?) in modern times. In a sense, a written Bible is not complete, except as interpreted through inspiration of the "Holy Spirit" in guiding each reader (baptized in the Spirit) to a fuller understanding of the written texts, whether in Koine Greek or some other languages. A person not baptized in the Spirit would likely read the texts in a different light, and hence the immense difficulties: "In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (Christ the Logos).... -Wikid77 (talk) 16:57, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

• While I don't dispute any of the above, I do note that there are several PD versions of most of the Western Bible available, and that it would be possible, I think, for grants to be made to academics to translate some of the others, with the caveat that the translations be made available through the WMF. And, yes, obviously, the Book of Mormon, or the Aquarian Gospel, can also be counted by some as "biblical," I think some of them are already available on wikisource or could be made such. Also, like I said, I do think that maybe being the first place to have the complete "broadly recognized" Biblical canon available would be something of a significant achievement and maybe an indicator of the WMF's intention to be able to bring all the world's knowledge (that is at least available in the PD) to everyone. John Carter (talk) 17:05, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

• think John Carter's idea is a fantastic one. I'd be thrilled to participate. I suspect you'd get new editors signing up as well. Thank you. JoeSperrazza (talk) 20:34, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Just a few random thoughts off the top of my head:

• I'm very glad you mentioned Wikitext, because I was wondering how close this is to our goal of "building an encyclopedia". Close, but not that close.
• Limiting this to English language Christian/Jewish texts might open us up to claims of cultural/linguistic imperialism, but would we want to increase the scope, e.g. to all major Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindi, Buddhist, Shinto texts, in English, Spanish, German, French, Arabic, Hindi, Chinese, etc. Depends how much money we have (right now it's $0).
• So once the scope has been outlined, how much time and money is it going to take? How much of that do you hope to get from the WMF? How much from outside billionaires? from outside small donors? Why do the billionaires want to publish through Wikipedia? What does Wikipedia add other than $?
• I'm sorry if this is just a generic "Why does the WMF want to fund this good project?" but those are my 1st thoughts. Any more thorough questions would likely depend on the answers to the above. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:06, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

• • I think you meant "wikisource." And while it isn't necessarily related to the "encyclopedia" as directly, Jimbo doesn't have that many talk pages in the WMF entities, and this is the most watched. I also thought I specifically mentioned national epics and other significant cultural documents of cultures. I only started with mentioning the Bible because it is the most widely recognized one. And I also I thought specifically mentioned that it would be best to try to maybe get other foundations to actually produce the money and determine the recipients. At this point anyway the WMF doesn't have any particular history of doing that sort of thing, and it might not be the easiest way to start. Regarding the time and money, well, the money would be whatever the foundations donating the money would want, and the amount of time would be however long the funding recipients would presumably need. I am going to assume that in some cases, like the really long epics, they would take longer than others. Others, like most of the Biblical books, are shorter, and could probably get done more quickly. And, of course, if foundations wished to fund translating for instance an African epic of some sort into French, if that were the most prominent language in that area, that would be just as useful, maybe even more, than translating it into English. It would certainly be possible for some groups or foundations to provide the funding to translate some of these new texts from one language to another. In fact, I would personally love to see as many translated into whichever languages can get funding for the translations. I only really started with English because (1) I know the Meqabyan aren't available in English except in the vanity press work I mentioned, (2) the English WMF seems to be the biggest WMF entity, and (3) I speak English better than anything else. But I actually thought I indicated that I wasn't thinking of the WMF funding the project, just providing the venue where other foundations might be able to make translations they fund available. John Carter (talk) 22:32, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
    • Ok, as long as the WMF doesn't have to fund anything except provide space on Wikisource, I'd guess they jump in with both feet.
    • It would be nice if Wikieditors did something. It's not strictly necessary, but would Wikimedians have anything to do with the project?
    • Why would the translating organizations want to publish on Wikisource? Hosting is cheap and the translating organization might want to have their own website, e.g. as a place to fund-raise or raise their own profile or prestige.
    • Everything else is up to you and those you convince to join you. Finding the translators, finding the funds - those are the big 2 hurdles.
    • Actually, I'd guess the WMF could be convinced to help in some other ways, but on this type of thing it is always making the first step to convince the next group in line that you are serious and can accomplish the goal. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:21, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

• I see little chance or merit in WMF paying academics to translate historical/religious texts, given that this is pretty far from wiki(m/p)edia's strengths or remit, and is an area already covered by established publishers, eg Loeb Classical Library, Murty Classical Library of India etc, at least as far as the "standard" cannon goes. There is no reason to believe that WMF can do better by throwing money around, which would be akin to WMF competing with Britannica (15 years back) by paying academics to write a competing CC-licensed encyclopedia. On the other hand, I can see some merit in WMF setting up (say) a "wikitranslate" project in which unpaid volunteers help translate PD works into various languages. May not work in practice, but then again a priori predictions of failure have proven to be wrong in at least one instance. :) Abecedare (talk) 01:11, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Once again, I think it worth noting that at no point did I propose that the WMF would pay editors. However, it has worked successfully in collaboration with other entities in the past to produce works produced in collaboration. The collaboration with SOS Children's Villages UK to produce a CD of the most essential articles comes to mind. Several of the major cultural philanthropies deal with multicultural content, and it might well be rather easy to persuade, for instance, some charity that looks favorably on the Ethiopian Orthodox Church to provide funding to generate a translation available to the masses worldwide, including all their overseas adherents. Some of the various Endowments for the Humanities and similar groups might also be willing and/or able to provide funding for a translation of a given work in their fields. The one advantage we would have as an online publisher is name recognition and the fact that being on our site would probably make it appear higher on search engines. It would, of course, also be possible to, when the books are translated, generate the relevant articles on related topics. In fact, I think that would almost certainly happen comparatively quickly were such to be done. John Carter (talk) 01:23, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Sorry that I misunderstood "start some sort of partnerships with some other foundations to give some academics...a grant" to mean that wikimedia will be soliciting funds that will in turn be passed on to professional translators. Your proposal, if I am understanding it correctly now, is for wikimedia to

1. persuade (say) Ethiopian Orthodox Church to sponsor CC-licensed professional translations of certain texts, and
2. host the resultant translation

If that is the correct interpretation, I of course have no objections to it, although I am wary of the feasibility of step (1). But if works, great! Abecedare (talk) 01:36, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Either the EOC or any other entity which would provide such funding. I'm thinking of that one in particular because the Ethiopian Jews and Ethiopian Christians have several books in their canons which are not included in any other Bibles, and at least some of which have not yet been translated. I think most of the other books included in biblical canons are available already in PD through the various editions of apocryphal works. But, particularly if we were to receive not only a translation but a translation guide, such as have been produced for the various books of the Bible, we would have not only a preliminary translation into a modern language, but also a translation guide which itself could be used in any additional translations, either by school projects or other editors. If we were to be successful in a few early efforts in this regard, and establish some sort of standard procedure for them, at least theoretically, we might, perhaps, in a few years, also have the basis for multiple other PD translations of those works into the other modern major world languages. Particularly for the traditions of some of the numerically challenged culture groups, like maybe some of the traditions of the indigenous peoples of the Americas and Africa and other smaller ethnic groups, such efforts might be among the best ways to both preserve their traditions and one of the more visible ways to call attention to the fact that those traditions might be disappearing. John Carter (talk) 16:32, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

FWIW, I think, maybe, somehow, it might be possible to work with Every Tribe, Every Nation here regarding some of the translations, maybe. They might be willing to assist, or, alternately, know of some other foundation which might be interested. I unfortunately as an individual have never attempted to contact nonprofits for collaboration in such a way, and would probably be less than useless were I to try to do so myself.

Copmplaint

Thesara jayawardana was born 24/04/1984.But some fake users don't allow to change the birthday can provide you proofs if you want.please keep her proper birthday without delete it.

Thank You — Preceding unsigned comment added by Niroshaka (talk • contribs) 02:51, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

@Niroshaka:: Per WP:BLP, it needs to have a reliable source attached. DivineAlpha (talk) 02:56, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Email

Hi Jimmy,

I finally sent the email to the address you give on your User page. But I am afraid it went directly to the Spam folder. Can you please check that out when you have a moment. Thank you very much. Sorry for the bothers. Miss Bono ^{[hello, hello!]} 15:15, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Word clouds

Word clouds generated from past 2-3 months of data

Most common words on WP:AN/I

Most common words on User talk:Jimbo Wales

To the right are tag clouds generated from WP:AN/I (top) and from this talkpage (bottom), using the current revision and the last 3 or 4 archives (basically, I went back through the archives until I got tired or fed up). I created these because I was curious. Presented without comment. MastCell ^Talk 18:06, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

OK, whar ma name in the ANI cloud? John Carter (talk) 18:47, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

That's neat. I think for something like this, you'd need to remove words like "also" and maybe even the obvious stuff like "page" and "edit". The first being a common word anywhere and the second two being common to anywhere on Wikipedia. CorporateM (Talk) 02:33, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

MastCell, did you remove usernames? I thought I'd see one or two in there for ANI. As for this talk page, I had no idea that the topic of Marxism came up so much, at least in recent months. It's a subject that I've only encountered in graduate school courses, not in public conversations. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:28, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

← @Liz: There are one or two usernames which appear in the AN/I and Jimbo clouds (I avoided calling them out in my comment, but you can find them if you squint). In general, though, specific usernames weren't common enough in my sample to appear with any regularity. I think that if I'd had the patience to include a more extensive corpus (say, all of AN/I going back 1-2 years), then certain usernames would appear much larger than they do at right. The only words I excluded were "february", "march", "talk", "user", and "utc", since these routinely appear in sigs and are pretty meaningless. It's actually quite easy to modify the word cloud to exclude any set of "common" words that you choose. The source code that I used to generate the word cloud (in R) is as follows:

library(wordcloud)
library(tm)

ani = Corpus(DirSource("PATH"))

# Pre-processing
ani = tm_map(ani, stripWhitespace)
ani = tm_map(ani, tolower)
ani = tm_map(ani, removeWords, stopwords("english"))
ani = tm_map(ani, stemDocument)
ani = tm_map(ani, removeNumbers)
ani = tm_map(ani, removePunctuation)
ani = tm_map(ani, PlainTextDocument)

# Remove over-represented and meaningless words
rm_words = c("march", "talk", "utc", "february", "user")
ani = tm_map(ani, removeWords, rm_words)

wordcloud(ani, scale=c(5,0.5), max.words=100, random.order=FALSE,
          rot.per=0.35, use.r.layout=FALSE, colors=brewer.pal(8, "Dark2"))

To use the script, all you have to do (assuming you have an R interpreter on your computer) is to replace the word PATH with the path to a directory containing a plaintext file (of AN/I, or Jimbotalk, or whatever). To modify the list of excluded words, go to the line which defines the rm_words variable, and add to the comma-separated list of words in double-quotes to exclude additional words. That's it.

Oh, and the presence of "marxism" is probably an artifact - it happens that there was an extensive and tiresome discussion on Jimbo's talkpage about our article on cultural Marxism over the past month or two, which is where my sample is drawn from. I think these would disappear if I used a larger and more representative corpus of Jimbo's talkpage archives, but I didn't have the patience. Cheers. MastCell ^Talk 19:34, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, my knowledge of "R" is limited to knowing that it exists. I know of an online course on R I've been meaning to take. Thanks for providing the code. I find these word patterns interesting, particularly comparisons over time. It would be interesting to compare ANI in 2014 vs. 2010 vs. 2006 and see if the same issues were a concern. But I'm also someone who reads admin noticeboards, RfAs and arbitration case archives for fun but who knows! I bet the Signpost would be interested. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:43, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't think you need to know anything about R to play around with the word clouds. Literally, you should be able to cut and paste the code into an R interpreter (or IDE like RStudio) and run it. (Correction: you also need to install the relevant packages like tm and wordcloud, so maybe slightly more complex than I'm making it sound). As long as you replace the PATH placehold with the path to a valid directory containing the text of interest, it should work without any tweaking. The only real limitation is coming up with the text files to parse. MastCell ^Talk 20:35, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

First you should probably update.packages(), then

install.packages("wordcloud")

install.packages("tm")

And last and least, it appears you need to

install.packages("snowballC")

to get the line about "stemdocument" to work, even though it doesn't seem flagged as a requirement. (I have no idea what this is. At some point I probably ought to read up on how much work virus/worm writers have done with R packages...). I suggest you type dir() in R for windows to figure out what your working directory is from the files in it, then create a new folder in it for your text files with a unique name, and quote the name of the folder, rather than trying to figure out the ever-confusing semantics of Windows path names. Note that "PATH" does not care what the name of the actual text file(s) are. After this, it worked, though somehow in my example I found myself with a lot of words missing their last letter or two, not sure if that's a bug or a feature as of yet. Wnt (talk) 00:32, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

That said, I still have no idea what the relative positions of the words indicate; our tag cloud article suggest a number of schemes are possible, and the documentation just suggests they're plotted in order of decreasing use. I assume the bigger words are used more often; beyond that is it just a random mixture...? Wnt (talk) 00:39, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Jimmy, please get word trees for Wikia and Wikimedia

Dear Jimbo, is Georgia Tech's WordTree View less expensive than IBM's Word Tree? I for one, would find that far more useful than word clouds. Maybe we can have word houses and word cars with a word sun in the sky and word dogs and word cats on the word grass some day. EllenCT (talk) 06:02, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

With apologies to Richard Brautigan

I like to think (and the sooner the better!) of a linguistic meadow where editors and dictionaries live together in mutually discoursing harmony like pure water touching clear sky. I like to think (right now, please!) of a linguistic forest filled with pines and graphemes where deer stroll peacefully past thesauruses as if they were flowers with spinning blossoms. I like to think (it has to be!) of a linguistic ecology where we are free of our labors and joined back to nature, returned to our mammal brothers and sisters, and all watched over by word trees of loving grace. --71.104.75.148 (talk) 10:41, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Quora

I'm not sure where or how to add this but I think his userpage would benefit by having something about his participation on Quora. He has answered 654 questions there to date (on a verified account) and the vast majority of them are people asking him questions like 'What does Jimmy Wales think about X' - many having to do with Wikipedia. Here are his answers and here are some example answers that may be of interest to Wikipedians:

• Why does Wikipedia ask for donations even though it has a huge reserve ($60M) of value (cash, investments, etc.)?
• Does Jimmy Wales donate to Wikipedia?
• What is likely to come of Wikimedia's suit against the NSA?
• Is Jimmy Wales ashamed of having been a founder of Bomis? Handpolk (talk) 06:24, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

The activity on both sites is interesting, with roughly the same number of contributions to both.--Salix alba (talk): 17:59, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Are you agreeing it should be included or disagreeing? I'm not saying his Quora activity is more important than his Wikipedia activity. Just that he gives some thoughtful answers to a lot of questions Wikipedians may be interested in reading. Handpolk (talk) 23:46, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Naveen Jain

I see you are back. As always, I'm happy to work with others interested in improving the article. How about we do that? --Ronz (talk) 19:34, 18 March 2015 (UTC)